cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Carbon Monoxide Exposure in Youth Ice Hockey.

OBJECTIVE To examine the effect of ice resurfacer type on carboxyhemoglobin levels in youth hockey players. We hypothesized that players in arenas with electric resurfacers would have normal, stable carboxyhemoglobin levels during games, whereas those in arenas with internal combustion engine (IC) resurfacers would have an increase in carboxyhemoglobin levels. DESIGN Prospective cohort study. SETTING Enclosed ice arenas in the northeastern United States. PARTICIPANTS Convenience sample of players aged 8 to 18 years old in 16 games at different arenas. Eight arenas (37 players) used an IC ice resurfacer and 8 arenas (36 players) an electric resurfacer. INTERVENTIONS Carboxyhemoglobin levels (SpCO) were measured using a pulse CO-oximeter before and after the game. Arena air was tested for carbon monoxide (CO) using a metered gas detector. Players completed symptom questionnaires. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES The change in SpCO from pregame to postgame was compared between players at arenas with electric versus IC resurfacers. RESULTS Carbon monoxide was present at 6 of 8 arenas using IC resurfacers, levels ranged from 4 to 42 parts per million. Carbon monoxide was not found at arenas with electric resurfacers. Players at arenas with IC resurfacers had higher median pregame SpCO levels compared with those at electric arenas (4.3% vs 1%, P < 0.01). Players in the IC group also had a significant increase in their SpCO level during a hockey game compared with those in the electric group (2.8% vs 1%, P = 0.01). There were no significant differences in symptom scores. CONCLUSIONS Players at arenas operating IC resurfacers had significantly higher SpCO levels. CLINICAL RELEVANCE Youth hockey players in arenas with IC resurfacers have an increase in carboxyhemoglobin during games and have elevated baseline carboxyhemoglobin levels compared with players at arenas with electric resurfacers. Electric resurfacers decrease the risk of CO exposure.
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: from disease mechanisms to therapies.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or Lou Gehrig’s disease is the most common motor neuron disease in human adults, described as early as 1869 by a French neurobiologist and physician, Jean-Martin Charcot. Although advances in genetics have accelerated the pace of ALS research in the past decade, there is currently only one FDA-approved compound (Riluzole) to treat the disease, a compound that shows very modest effects in patients with ALS. Since ALS affects only 60 000 individuals worldwide at a given time, it is not as attractive a disorder for pharmaceutical investment as are atherosclerosis, depression, or cancer. The complexities of drug discovery, development, and registration require the resources of a large company to develop new therapies. An increased understanding of disease mechanism in neurodegenerative disorders and identification of drug targets through academic efforts will help to drive drug development in the pharmaceutical industry forward and necessitates collaborative efforts between the two sectors. This column will illustrate that ALS is potentially a useful model for more common neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease and may indeed be more amenable for drug development. Lessons learned in the treatment of ALS may provide information useful in other neurodegenerative disorders in which similar cell death pathways may be afflicted.
Vector control systems with unpredictable actuation

Vector systems are fundamentally different from scalar systems since the dynamics of a vector system can both spin and stretch the system state. The magnitude and direction of control actions for multi-dimensional systems can need to be coordinated across time to achieve the desired behavior. Hence, planning for future actions is important. Consequently, system predictability, and the related ability to plan, can affect system stabilizability. This paper considers a simple d-dimensional state-space model for an unpredictable “spinning” control system. The spinning controller has a particular restriction: it may only apply a scalar control in a direction that is randomly chosen by nature at each time. This model is related to the classically studied models for intermittent Kalman filtering and intermittent control problems, but is simpler to analyze. The simplicity of the spinning model lets us use dynamic programming to characterize the decay rate of the system and thus understand the fundamental limitations imposed by the fact that future control directions are unpredictable. We can reduce the unpredictability of the model by providing non-causal side information about the future control directions, and further calculate how this affects the decay rate of the system. With k-steps of lookahead on the random control direction, the d-dimensional system decays as fast as a d-k dimensional system with no lookahead on the control action. This model is a first step to understand unpredictability in more general networked control systems.
Rigged Results? Antitrust Lessons from Keyword Auctions

Bid rigging is quintessential criminal antitrust conduct. Yet search-engine optimization experts publicly advise firms to agree with competitors not to bid on each other’s trademarks in search-engine keyword auctions and evidence indicates that companies enter such agreements. Why would these experts feel confident counseling firms to suppress bids in these auctions? The answer might be a belief that bid suppression (or other anticompetitive conduct) is lawful if it involves a putative intellectual property (“IP”) right, in this case a trademark or brand-related term. Under this logic, an agreement not to bid on another firm’s trademarked terms in search-engine keyword auctions is efficient because it amounts to a commitment not to perpetrate an unlawful act ― infringing a trademark. Firms and their advisers might even believe that such agreements are procompetitive because they conserve party and judicial resources and diminish potential consumer confusion. This reasoning assumes that bidding on a competitor’s trademark for use as a keyword constitutes infringement. However, no court has found trademark liability solely based on auctioning, bidding on, or purchasing a trademarked keyword. Parties have litigated this issue repeatedly and the law is in flux. This legal uncertainty puts firms contemplating such bid-suppression agreements and courts evaluating them in a difficult position, one that requires navigating the borders between antitrust law and IP rights. Indeed, these agreements raise the broader question of how to analyze potentially anticompetitive IP settlements when it is unclear if the rights involved are valid and infringed. This is an important issue: IP settlements are common and affect billions of dollars of commerce. Achieving an appropriate balance between the exercise of IP rights, which are crucial to many forms of innovation and help spur economic expansion, and the antitrust laws, which protect competitive markets, is critical. This Article proposes a novel framework for analyzing search-engine keyword bid-suppression agreements and other forms of settlements involving uncertain IP rights. Drawing from settlement theory, this framework takes into account the value of decisional law in promoting competition and challenges the assumption many courts rely upon that settlement is necessarily procompetitive. The Article argues that courts should apply the antitrust laws to keyword bid-suppression agreements and other potentially unlawful IP settlements where the validity or infringement of the underlying IP right is in question and that uncertainty affects a class of cases. It details the factors courts should take into account in undertaking this antitrust analysis. This new framework is more administrable than current approaches to IP settlements and provides increased clarity to marketplace actors. It also better balances the policy preferences inherent in the IP and antitrust laws.
High-Power and High-Efficiency Millimeter-Wave Harmonic Oscillator Design, Exploiting Harmonic Positive Feedback in CMOS

Based on time-variant behavior of metal-oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistors in large-signal operations, harmonic translations and their mutual effects are analyzed. Large amplitudes at terminal voltages of these transistors push them into different regions of operation. In this paper, harmonic translations are derived as a result of such changes in operation region of transistors. Operation in triode region for a portion of oscillation cycle results in iterative harmonic translations between fundamental frequency and second harmonic. They boost each other constructively for significantly stronger oscillation, more second harmonic output power, and enhanced dc-to-RF efficiency. Based on this analysis, a 215-GHz signal source, implemented in a TSMC 65-nm CMOS LP is presented. The proposed oscillator achieves a maximum output power of 5.6 dBm and a dc-to-RF efficiency of 4.6%. The measured phase noise is −94.6 dBc/Hz at 1-MHz offset. The proposed oscillator occupies only 0.08 mm2 of chip area.
Contribution of mitochondria-derived free radicals to endothelial dysfunction in human skeletal muscle feed arteries: another hazard of the ageing process.

Earlier studies by a number of laboratories 1-3 have demonstrated impaired endothelium-dependent vasodilation in arterioles of aged animals and humans; and older humans exhibit significantly attenuated hyperemic responses to moderate exercise1 and endothelium-dependent vasodilator stimuli 3 compared to younger controls, emphasizing the need for carefully targeted research to understand the mechanisms underlying compromised blood flow with age and its consequences. The current paper by Park and coworkers4 is a follow-up to an earlier study by this group,3 in which they demonstrated a significant attenuation of endothelium-dependent dilation in older subjects, compared to young subjects, which was accompanied by reductions in phospho-eNOS/eNOS (p-eNOS/eNOS) ratio and elevations in vascular superoxide (O2-) levels. The current study extends the authors’ earlier findings by investigating an important question, namely, whether mitochondria-derived free radicals are the mechanism responsible for the impaired endothelium-dependent vasodilator responses in the older individuals. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Episode-based Payment Variation for Urologic Cancer Surgery.

Objective To investigate payment variation for 3 common urologic cancer surgeries and evaluate the potential for applying bundled payment programs to these procedures. Methods Using 2008-2011 Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results-Medicare linked data, we identified all beneficiaries aged greater than 65 years who underwent cystectomy, prostatectomy, or nephrectomy for cancer. Total episode payments were determined by aggregating hospital, professional, and post-acute care claims from the index surgical hospitalization through 90 days post discharge. Total episode payments were then compared to examine hospital level-variation within each procedure type and the specific payment components (ie, index hospitalization, professional, readmission, and post-acute care) driving spending variation. Results Ninety-day episodes of care were identified for 1849 cystectomies, 8770 prostatectomies, and 4304 nephrectomies. We observed wide variation in mean episode payments for all 3 conditions (cystectomy mean $35,102: range $24,112-$57,238, prostatectomy mean $10,803: range $8,816-$17,877, nephrectomy mean $17,475: range $11,681-$26,711). Majority of payment variation was attributable to index hospitalization and post-acute care for cystectomy and nephrectomy and professional payments for prostatectomy. The most expensive hospitals by procedure each demonstrated a unique opportunity for spending reduction due to individual differences in component payment patterns between hospitals. Conclusion Ninety-day episode payments for urologic cancer surgery vary widely across hospitals in the United States. The key drivers of this payment variation differ for individual procedures and hospitals. Accordingly, hospitals will need individualized data and clinical re-design strategies to succeed with implementation of episode-based payment models for urologic cancer care.
Step-Up at Death but Not for Income

The article argues that the definition of property for the purposes of the Internal Revenue Code, section 1014 (step-up in basis at death) should include only capital interests and that ordinary income items – including compensation, things made or improved by the decedent, and inventory – should not get a step-up in basis at death. This proposal is the second of three Shelf Projects designed to prune back the basis step-up under section 1014.
Outcomes comparison of long-acting injectable antipsychotic initiation in treatment-naïve veterans in the inpatient versus outpatient setting.

Abstract Introduction: Long-acting injectable (LAI) antipsychotics have become an integral component in the treatment of schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders. Long-acting injectables may be ...
Correction of Forcing-Related Spatial Artifacts in a Land Surface Model by Satellite Soil Moisture Data Assimilation

Retrieved soil moisture estimates from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) radiometer are assimilated into the Noah land surface model (LSM) within the NASA Land Information System. The experimental testbed is based on a real-time LSM system produced by the NASA Short-Term Prediction Research and Transition Center. A nonlocalized cumulative distribution function-matching bias correction (BC) is applied to the SMAP retrievals, with separate correction curves calculated based on soil texture categories. We show that the assimilation of SMAP soil moisture retrievals with nonlocalized BC can mitigate two types of artifacts due to spatially varying errors in the forcing data from: 1) bad point (rain gauge) data and 2) strong gradients along the eastern U.S.–Canada border, resulting from blending different observing systems.
Mechanisms of Inflammatory Liver Injury and Drug-Induced Hepatotoxicity.

This article provides a brief overview of mechanisms of inflammatory liver injury and how this applies to drug hepatotoxicity with a particular emphasis on the role of inflammation in acetaminophen-induced liver injury. Significant progress has been made in the last decade in our understanding of the initiation of sterile inflammation after necrotic cell death by the release of damage-associated molecular patterns and their recognition by toll-like receptors and others on macrophages. These events trigger the formation of cytokines and chemokines directly or with assistance of inflammasome activation thereby activating and recruiting leukocytes including neutrophils and monocyte-derived macrophages into the necrotic areas. Although this sterile inflammatory response is mainly geared towards the removal of necrotic cell debris and preparation of regeneration, there are conditions where these innate immune cells can aggravate the initial injury. The mechanisms and controversial findings of the innate immunity are being discussed in detail. In contrast, drug metabolism and formation of a reactive metabolite that binds to proteins in the absence of extensive cell death can induce an adaptive immune response, which eventually also results in severe liver injury. However, the initiating event appears to be the formation of protein adducts, which act as haptens to activate an adaptive immune response. Overall, these mechanisms are less well understood. The past decade has revolutionized our understanding of the mechanisms that control the interplay between cell death and innate or adaptive immune responses. This report provides an update on these mechanisms.
Cytokine-like factor 1 gene expression is enriched in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and drives the accumulation of CD4+ T cells in murine lungs: evidence for an antifibrotic role in bleomycin injury.

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a progressive and typically fatal lung disease. To gain insight into the pathogenesis of IPF, we reanalyzed our previously published gene expression data profiling IPF lungs. Cytokine receptor-like factor 1 (CRLF1) was among the most highly up-regulated genes in IPF lungs, compared with normal controls. The protein product (CLF-1) and its partner, cardiotrophin-like cytokine (CLC), function as members of the interleukin 6 (IL-6) family of cytokines. Because of earlier work implicating IL-6 family members in IPF pathogenesis, we tested whether CLF-1 expression contributes to inflammation in experimental pulmonary fibrosis. In IPF, we detected CLF-1 expression in both type II alveolar epithelial cells and macrophages. We found that the receptor for CLF-1/CLC signaling, ciliary neurotrophic factor receptor (CNTFR), was expressed only in type II alveolar epithelial cells. Administration of CLF-1/CLC to both uninjured and bleomycin-injured mice led to the pulmonary accumulation of CD4+ T cells. We also found that CLF-1/CLC administration increased inflammation but decreased pulmonary fibrosis. CLF-1/CLC leads to significantly enriched expression of T-cell-derived chemokines and cytokines, including the antifibrotic cytokine interferon-γ. We propose that, in IPF, CLF-1 is a selective stimulus of type II alveolar epithelial cells and may potentially drive an antifibrotic response by augmenting both T-helper-1-driven and T-regulatory-cell-driven inflammatory responses in the lung.
Reference, Sign, and Language: Being and Time , Section 17

The beginning of the unfolding of the Preparatory Fundamental Analysis of Dasein is marked by the effort to unroll the discussion of the familiar but as yet uncomprehended phenomenon of the world. The issue which sustains this discussion throughout, and distinguishes it from philosophy’s concern with the world is called reference (Verweisung). Although this issue is specifically dealt with in section 17 of Being and Time, reference so pervades the entire discussion of the world as to extend its influence far beyond this section. Without the involvement of reference overall in the discussion, Preparatory Fundamental Analysis could not de facto demonstrate that the dominion of ‘relation’ and ‘object’ is brought to an end and a new understanding of the world is attained. Henceforth it makes no sense to talk about being related to the world. The phenomenon of reference provides the primary indication that we are in the world. Composed of references of all kinds, referential contexts are indicators of our being in the world. Subsequent to the discovery of the world in Being and Time, ‘object’ too loses its primacy along with ‘relation.’ Now we realize that the confrontation with objects happens only when we do not heed the flexible referential contexts which give rise to something entirely different from an object. This is so because referential contexts do not have the constancy which supports something as immutable as an object.
An Improved Colorimetric Assay for Pyridoxal Phosphate Using Highly Purified Apotryptophanase

Methods for the analysis of pyridoxal phosphate, the principal cofactor form of vitamin B-6, have achieved new importance with the demonstration that levels of the coenzyme in serum constitute a useful test of vitamin B-6 nutritional status (1). Enzymic assays are among the most satisfactory for measuring pyridoxal phosphate in biological samples for several reasons: 1) they are highly specific, 2) they permit quantification of pyridoxal phosphate at the level of 10−11 moles, and 3) the analyses work well in crude biological extracts without prior isolation or purification.
Generalized Linear Models and Its Extensions

This chapter introduces how to analyze nonstandard data types, like binary, categorical, ordinal, and time to event data through generalized linear models (GLMs) and their extension. Logistic regression of binary or ordinal data, Poisson regression of count data, beta regression of proportions, and parametric modeling of survival data are discussed, as are generalized estimating equations. GLMs are then extended to nonlinear GLMs. Three case studies are presented: analysis of adverse event data from a clinical trial, analysis of the frequency of seizure data, and ordinal regression analysis of neutropenia and time to event data from a clinical study with a new anticancer drug.
Risk assessment analysis of potato genotype susceptibility to water rot-causing oomycetes.

Abstract Water rots are a group of important potato tuber rot diseases such as pink rot, Phytophthora tuber rot, and leak caused by the oomycete pathogens Phytophthora erythroseptica, P. nicotianae, and Pythium ultimum, respectively. If not managed, these diseases either alone or in combination, can cause severe yield loss and substantial reductions in quality. Growers continue to rely on fungicides for water rot management in the field and during post-harvest storage. Previous and ongoing breeding attempts have failed to identify and develop commercially acceptable potato cultivars resistant to all three diseases. This is mainly due to the complex, expensive, and time-consuming methodologies required to screen for susceptibility to water rot pathogens. Currently, potato genotypes are assessed for susceptibility to individual water rot pathogens which is labor intensive. Considerable savings in time and effort would be realized if potato genotypes could be evaluated for susceptibility to one water rot pathogen and then statistical analysis applied to determine the probability of the reaction of a genotype to the other rot pathogens. A proportional odds model was fitted to examine the risk of genotype screening outcome (ordinal) to understand the relationships among water rot causing oomycetes in potato. Compared to P. erythroseptica, P. ultimum infected genotypes having susceptibility risk was high (2.6) versus other cultivar susceptibility categories. Potato genotypes screened for P. nicotianae have a significant susceptibility risk decreased by 38% when compared to P. erythroseptica.
Ghana: Stalled Patterns of Women’s Parliamentary Representation

In 1960, Ghana adopted one of the first electoral gender quotas for parliament in Africa. Within a few years, however, no elections were being held and during decades of military rule, women were encouraged to organize through a state-sanctioned First Lady-led women’s movement. In seven elections since the 1992 political transition, women’s representation in parliament has remained remarkably low, barely climbing above 10%. With a first-past-the-post electoral system, the critical moment for potential women candidates for parliament is party primaries which, however, remain inconsistent and subject to manipulation. While general election voters do not discriminate against women candidates, women struggle to win party primaries or do not stand at all. The few women who are elected to parliament face many challenges though they occasionally focus legislative priorities around issues of concern to women or work with civil society to pass legislation such as the 2007 Domestic Violence Act.
Preparing Health and Physical Education Students for a Job Interview

This article describes a project that is being used in a teacher education program to prepare student-teachers for the interview process. The project begins with the formation of a cover letter, followed by the creation of a guided resume, and culminates with a mock interview.
Anticipating the Big Picture: Some Clues

This book is about chemical reaction networks and the differential equations they induce. As such, it is primarily a work of mathematics. This opening chapter, however, contains no equations, nor does it contain any mathematical symbols. Instead, it contains several observations that, when taken together, tell us something about reaction network behavior viewed broadly.
Multicover Ucycles

A Universal Cycle, or Ucycle, for k-subsets of n]=1, 2, ?, n is a cyclic sequence of (kn) integers with the property that every k subset of n] appears exactly once consecutively in the sequence. A t-cover Ucycle for k-subsets of n] is a cyclic sequence of t(kn) integers with the property that every k-subset of n] appears exactly t times consecutively in the sequence. Here we investigate the minimal number t=U(n, k) for which there is a t-cover Ucycle.
Lightweight Identity-based Cryptographic Framework for Smart Vehicles: Cryptographic Proof

Existing vehicular standards adopt a heavyweight authentication framework to achieve the needed security requirements. However, the embraced framework has high computation and communication overhead because of its certificates and digital signatures; therefore, Identity Based cryptographic (IBC) authentications have been considered as better alternatives with less overhead. Most IBCs rely on pairing operation on elliptic curves in their underlined calculations, but pairing is a time-consuming operation. Hence, building pairingless IBC authentication schemes become a must. In this paper, we build a new pairingless IBC authentication scheme by fine-tuning a mixture of three available IBC frameworks. We rigorously prove the security of the scheme and show its effectiveness in comparison with the available approaches in terms of computation complexity and communication overhead.
Patterns of Dating Aggression and Victimization in Relation to School Environment Factors among Middle School Students.

This study examined relations between patterns of dating aggression and victimization and school environment factors among 4,114 early adolescents attending 37 middle schools in four sites in the U...
DNA Damage Meets Neurotrophin Signaling: A Delicate Balancing AKT to Maintain Virus Latency

In this issue of Molecular Cell, Hu et al. (2019) discover that coordinated regulation of AKT activity emanating from neurotrophic-factor stimulation and endogenous DNA damage maintains HSV latency. These studies provide novel insights into the role of AKT in integrating multiple signals to maintain neuronal homeostasis.
Fano resonance principles in photonic crystal slabs

Abstract In contrast to a conventional symmetric Lorentzian resonance, Fano resonance is predominantly used to describe asymmetric-shaped resonances, which arise from the constructive and destructive interference of discrete resonance states with broadband continuum states. This phenomenon and the underlying mechanisms, being common and ubiquitous in many realms of physical sciences, can be found in a wide variety of nanophotonic structures and quantum systems, such as quantum dots, photonic crystals, plasmonics, and metamaterials. The asymmetric and steep dispersion of the Fano resonance profile promises applications for a wide range of photonic devices, such as optical filters, switches, sensors, broadband reflectors, lasers, detectors, slow-light, and nonlinear devices. With advances in nanotechnology, impressive progress has been made in the emerging field of nanophotonic structures. One of the most attractive nanophotonic structures for integrated photonics is the two-dimensional photonic crystal slab (2D PCS), which can be integrated into a wide range of photonic devices. In this chapter, we will provide a brief theoretical introduction to Fano resonances in 2D PCSs.
Marriage and Family Law in the Ancient Church Order Literature

Numerous ancient texts present prescriptions on Christianity’s ethic, liturgy, leadership, and other institutions. Scholars call ‘church order literature’ a few of them composed in Greek, because o...
Racism is structured as a language: Sexual difference and the 1943 Detroit race riot

Shortly after the 1943 Detroit race riot, white men in analysis with the Viennese-American psychoanalyst Richard Sterba began to report dreams about beheading, hunting, and aborting black people. Sterba interpreted their dreams as symptomatic expressions of repressed fratricidal and patricidal wishes that animated the Jim Crow system of racial segregation and fueled antiblack violence. This paper reconsiders Sterba’s interpretations by tracking how the dreams’ metaphoric and metonymic constructions disrupt the cultural meanings of race, gender, and sexuality. Read in the broader political context of the 1940s, racism emerges as a volatile signifier for the impossibility of liberal democracy and the irreducibility of sexual difference.
Community consensus-building and preservation effort on WWII-related caves in Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands

This paper summarizes a project that involved a community consensus-building and preservation effort focused on the protection of WWII-related caves on private property in Saipan, Commonwealth of t...
BRAFV600E expression in neural progenitors results in a hyperexcitable phenotype in neocortical pyramidal neurons

Somatic mutations have emerged as the likely cause of focal epilepsies associated with developmental malformations and epilepsy-associated glioneuronal tumors (GNT). Somatic BRAFV600E mutations in particular have been detected in the majority of low-grade neuroepithelial tumors (LNETS) and in neurons in focal cortical dysplasias adjacent to epilepsy-associated tumors. Furthermore, conditional expression of an activating BRAF mutation in neocortex causes seizures in mice. In this study we characterized the cellular electrophysiology of layer 2/3 neocortical pyramidal neurons induced to express BRAFV600E from neural progenitor stages. In utero electroporation of a piggyBac transposase plasmid system was used to introduce transgenes expressing BRAF wild type (BRAFwt), BRAFV600E, and/or enhanced green fluorescent protein (eGFP) and monomeric red fluorescent protein (mRFP) into radial glia progenitors in mouse embryonic cortex. Whole cell patch-clamp recordings of pyramidal neurons in slices prepared from both juvenile and adult mice showed that BRAFV600E resulted in neurons with a distinct hyperexcitable phenotype characterized by depolarized resting membrane potentials, increased input resistances, lowered action potential (AP) thresholds, and increased AP firing frequencies. Some of the BRAFV600E-expressing neurons normally destined for upper cortical layers by their birthdate were stalled in their migration and occupied lower cortical layers. BRAFV600E-expressing neurons also displayed increased hyperpolarization-induced inward currents (Ih) and decreased sustained potassium currents. Neurons adjacent to BRAFV600E transgene-expressing neurons, and neurons with TSC1 genetically deleted by CRISPR or those induced to carry PIK3CAE545K transgenes, did not show an excitability phenotype similar to that of BRAFV600E-expressing neurons. Together, these results indicate that BRAFV600E leads to a distinct hyperexcitable neuronal phenotype.NEW & NOTEWORTHY This study is the first to report the cell autonomous effects of BRAFV600E mutations on the intrinsic neuronal excitability. We show that BRAFV600E alters multiple electrophysiological parameters in neocortical neurons. Similar excitability changes did not occur in cells neighboring BRAFV600E-expressing neurons, after overexpression of wild-type BRAF transgenes, or after introduction of mutations affecting the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) or the catalytic subunit of phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PIK3CA). We conclude that BRAFV600E causes a distinct, cell autonomous, highly excitable neuronal phenotype when introduced somatically into neocortical neuronal progenitors.
Human Immunodeficiency Virus

As of 2015, HIV ranked third globally among the top causes of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) lost in children and teens aged 10–14 years and tenth among adolescents aged 15–19. Pediatricians and other primary care providers play a crucial role in the detection, treatment, and prevention of HIV. Early diagnosis can reduce secondary HIV transmission and facilitate improved clinical outcomes through early initiation of antiretroviral therapy (ART). Testing should begin with the latest generation of FDA-approved antigen/antibody immunoassays. HIV-infected individuals should receive timely ART following a thorough baseline evaluation, laboratory testing, and social history. A number of evidence-based interventions exist to prevent the transmission of HIV including condom use and preexposure prophylaxis. Providers should be mindful of the many contextual barriers that disproportionately impact HIV-infected individuals, such as housing instability and food insecurity. Individuals with low socioeconomic standing, racial minorities, and sexual minorities are particularly vulnerable.
Student Teachers’ Approaches to Teaching Biological Evolution

Evolution is fundamental to biology and scientific literacy, but teaching high school evolution is often difficult. Evolution teachers face several challenges including limited content knowledge, personal conflicts with evolution, expectations of resistance, concerns about students’ conflicts with religion, and curricular constraints. Evolution teaching can be particularly challenging for student teachers who are just beginning to gain pedagogical knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge related to evolution teaching and who seek approval from university supervisors and cooperating teachers. Science teacher educators need to know how to best support student teachers as they broach the sometimes daunting task of teaching evolution within student teaching placements. This multiple case study report documents how three student teachers approached evolution instruction and what influenced their approaches. Data sources included student teacher interviews, field note observations for 4–5 days of evolution instruction, and evolution instructional artifacts. Data were analyzed using grounded theory approaches to develop individual cases and a cross-case analysis. Seven influences (state exams and standards, cooperating teacher, ideas about teaching and learning, concerns about evolution controversy, personal commitment to evolution, knowledge and preparation for teaching evolution, and own evolution learning experiences) were identified and compared across cases. Implications for science teacher preparation and future research are provided.
Allostery in the nitric-oxide dioxygenase mechanism of flavohemoglobin

The substrates O2 and NO cooperatively activate the NO dioxygenase function of Escherichia coli flavohemoglobin. Steady-state and transient kinetic measurements support a structure-based mechanistic model in which O2 and NO movements and conserved amino acids at the E11, G8, E2, E7, B10, and F7 positions within the globin domain control activation. In the cooperative and allosteric mechanism, O2 migrates to the catalytic heme site via a long hydrophobic tunnel and displaces LeuE11 away from the ferric iron, which forces open a short tunnel to the catalytic site gated by the ValG8/IleE15 pair and LeuE11. NO permeates this tunnel and leverages upon the gating side chains triggering the CD loop to furl, which moves the E and F-helices and switches an electron transfer gate formed by LysF7, GlnE7, and water. This allows FADH2 to reduce the ferric iron, which forms the stable ferric–superoxide–TyrB10/GlnE7 complex. This complex reacts with internalized NO with a bimolecular rate constant of 1010 M−1 s−1 forming nitrate, which migrates to the CD loop and unfurls the spring-like structure. To restart the cycle, LeuE11 toggles back to the ferric iron. Actuating electron transfer with O2 and NO movements averts irreversible NO poisoning and reductive inactivation of the enzyme. Together, structure snapshots and kinetic constants provide glimpses of intermediate conformational states, time scales for motion, and associated energies.
Is It OK If Mommy Dates? The Influence of Mother’s Post-Divorce Dating Transitions for Children’s Behaviors

Despite many mothers’ interest in establishing romantic relationships following divorce, some worry about the impacts of dating transitions, such as starting or ending a dating relationship, for their children’s adjustment. The literature illustrates that transitions in and out of relationships could hinder children’s post-divorce adjustment, but a supportive relationship between children and mothers could buffer the damaging effects. Prior research mostly focused on repartnering (i.e., cohabitation and remarriage) whereas a comparative form of romantic experience, post-divorce dating, is understudied. Post-divorce dating, a critical precondition for cohabitation and remarriage, is assumed to have the power to shape family stability and functioning. The goal of this study is to examine the impact of mothers’ post-divorce dating transitions for children’s adjustment. Additionally, we test child-mother rapport as a moderator for the relationship between dating transitions and children’s adjustment. Longitudinal data for this study comes from mothers of elementary-aged children who were within three months of filing for divorce (N = 316). Results from hierarchical linear models show that mothers’ dating transitions exert little direct effect on children’s adjustment. However, child-mother rapport moderated the relationships between the time in mothers’ dating relationships and children’s prosocial behaviors, and between mothers’ romantic breakups and children’s externalizing behaviors. This adds further support that high child-mother rapport benefits children’s adjustment within the context of divorce. Overall, the results suggest that the post-divorce dating relationship transitions may influence children’s well-being via indirect pathways and the moderation effect of child-mother rapport on children’s behavior are inconsistent across dating transitions. Implications for family adjustment and future research are discussed.
Board Composition and Corporate Fraud

The study reported here examined how various characteristics of the board of directors and other governance features affected the occurrence of U.S. corporate fraud in the 1978-2001 period. The findings suggest that board composition and the structure of a board's oversight committees are significantly correlated with the incidence of corporate fraud. In the sample, as the number of independent outside directors increased on a board and in the board's audit and compensation committees, the likelihood of corporate wrongdoing decreased.
QoS provisioning in wireless networks: Research Articles

The next-generation wireless networks such as the fourth generation (4G) cellular systems are targeted at supporting various applications such as voice, data, and multimedia over packet-switched networks. Providing quality of service (QoS) guarantees for these applications is an important objective in the design of the next-generation wireless networks. In this paper, we overview the issues and techniques in QoS provisioning for wireless networks, and present some of our recent results in this area. Specifically, we survey the results in five sub-areas, namely, network services models, traffic specification, packet scheduling for wireless transmission, call admission control in wireless networks, and wireless channel characterization. For each sub-area, we address the particular issues, review major approaches and mechanisms, and discuss the trade-offs of the approaches. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Finite Impulse Response (FIR) Filters

This chapter explores the criticality of the finite infinite response filter of the workhorse of DSP. It starts with the structure of FIR filter, the methods to build it, and the properties. The frequency of the response of the filter coefficients by computing the related responses reveal method to perform the procedure. The chapter reveals the number and value of the filter coefficients which are requirements of the frequency response of an application. This is tested and designed by software which helps to understand the interaction. FIR filter design—a process highlighted in this chapter—distinguishes where compromise is necessary and where to draw the line. The characteristic of FIR filters is discussed in detail with emphasis so as to why it is preferred over other type of digital filters.
Galactothermin, a reversibly heat-precipitable protein of human milk at neutral pH.

1. A protein, aggregating at body temperature and solubilizing when cooled, was isolated from fresh human milk at neutral pH and studied for some of its physical, chemical and immunological properties. The name ;galactothermin' is proposed for this protein. 2. Isolation and purification of galactothermin involved casein removal from skim milk at pH4.64 followed by centrifugal fractionation of residual protein-containing solutions repeatedly heated and cooled between 40 degrees C and 0 degrees C at pH7.3. 3. The molecular weight by ultracentrifugal analysis and the minimum molecular weight by sum of amino acid residues were 11400 and 14000 respectively. The sedimentation coefficient s(25,w) was 1.05S and the diffusion coefficient was 7.15x10(-7). Reversible aggregation is favoured by increase in protein concentration, ionic strength, temperature, time and approach to the isoionic point of 7.27 from either acidic or alkaline conditions. 4. Among the amino acid residues, proline predominates and non-polar species account for two-thirds of the total. Cysteine and cystine are absent. Analysis of galactothermin showed it to be essentially free of hexose, sialic acid, calcium and phosphate. 5. Galactothermin is antigenic in the rabbit as evidenced by the passive cutaneous anaphylaxis test. Single precipitin lines are produced in immunodiffusion tests. 6. By electrophoresis in polyacrylamide gel at pH4.0 only one sharp band is produced.
Rods and cones contain antigenically distinctive S-antigens.

Purpose. S-antigen (48 kDa protei orn arrestin ) is known to be present in rod photoreceptors.Its localizatio in conen s i s less clear with several conflicting reports among various speciesexamined.Methods. This study employed three different anti-S-antige an polyclona antibodiel s (a48K,antiserum and two monoclonal antibodies, MAb A9-C an6d MAb 5c6.47) and examined theirlocalization in rods and cones of human and cat retinas. To identify the respective cone types,an enzyme histochemical techniqu foer carbonic anhydrase (CA) was employe tod distinguishblue cones (CA-negative re) frod om greer n cones (CA-positive). S-antigen localizatio was nthen examined by immunocytochemical stainin of adjaceng t sections.Results. In human retinas, a similar labeling pattern was seen with both a48K and MAb A9-C6,i.e., the rods and blue-sensitive cones were strongly positive, wherea thse red- or green-sensi-tive cones showed little immunoreactivity Al humal n photoreceptor. s showe tdo reactivityMAb 5c6.47. In the cat retina, only CA-positive cones could be found. As in the human retina,both rods an d cones of the cat were positiv foe r MAb 5c6.47. A difference from th e iabelingpattern in human retina was note fod r the other S-antigen antibodies; a48K labele and rodd sall of the cones , whereas MAb A9-C6 reacted strongl the rody wits buht showed no conestaining.Conclusions. These results suggest that both rods and cones contain S-antigen but that they areantigenically distinctive. Invest Ophthalmol Vi 1993s Sc 34:2918-2925;i .O-antigen is a retinal protein that, when injected intoanimals, produces experimental autoimmune uveitis.
Nodal to Nodeless Superconducting Energy-Gap Structure Change Concomitant with Fermi-Surface Reconstruction in the Heavy-Fermion Compound CeCoIn 5

The London penetration depth $\ensuremath{\lambda}(T)$ was measured in single crystals of ${\mathrm{Ce}}_{1\ensuremath{-}x}{R}_{x}{\mathrm{CoIn}}_{5}$, $R=\mathrm{La}$, Nd, and Yb down to ${T}_{\mathrm{min}}\ensuremath{\approx}50\text{ }\mathrm{mK}$ (${T}_{c}/{T}_{\mathrm{min}}\ensuremath{\sim}50$) using a tunnel-diode resonator. In the cleanest samples $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}\ensuremath{\lambda}(T)$ is best described by the power law $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}\ensuremath{\lambda}(T)\ensuremath{\propto}{T}^{n}$, with $n\ensuremath{\sim}1$, consistent with the existence of line nodes in the superconducting gap. Substitutions of Ce with La, Nd, and Yb lead to similar monotonic suppressions of ${T}_{c}$; however, the effects on $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}\ensuremath{\lambda}(T)$ differ. While La and Nd substitution leads to an increase in the exponent $n$ and saturation at $n\ensuremath{\sim}2$, as expected for a dirty nodal superconductor, Yb substitution leads to $ng3$, suggesting a change from nodal to nodeless superconductivity. This superconducting gap structure change happens in the same doping range where changes of the Fermi-surface topology were reported, implying that the nodal structure and Fermi-surface topology are closely linked.
Membrane potential and mechanical responses of the opossum esophagus to vagal stimulation and swallowing

Abstract Studies were performed in anesthetized opossums. The electrical changes, recorded using a suction electrode applied to the outside of the esophagus, and mechanical activity, recorded by an intraluminal catheter, were monitored from 5 cm above the lower esophageal sphincter. Swallowing was associated with membrane hyperpolarization followed by depolarization and spike burst. Electrical stimulation of the decentralized vagus also caused a prompt hyperpolarization followed by an overshoot depolarization. Single pulses of stimulation caused primarily hyperpolarization. The amplitude and duration of hyperpolarization increased with increasing frequencies of vagal stimulation. Spike burst occurred as the membrane potential was recovering from the peak hyperpolarization and moving toward peak depolarization. The latency of onset of spike burst decreased with increasing frequency of vagal stimulation. The muscle contraction occurred after a latency. The latency of contractions, like the latency of spike burst, decreased with increased frequency of vagal stimulation. These studies show that (a) membrane hyperpolarization is present during the latent period of contraction associated with swallowing, suggesting that swallow-induced esophageal response may be mediated by vagal inhibitory pathway to the esophagus and (b) spike bursts can be temporally dissociated from depolarization by changing the vagal stimulation frequency, suggesting that spike burst and depolarization may be mediated by different excitatory mechanisms.
Efficient Symbolic Model Checking of Software Using Partial Disjunctive Partitioning

This paper presents a method for taking advantage of the efficiency of symbolic model checking using disjunctive partitions, while keeping the number and the size of the partitions small. We define a restricted form of a Kripke structure, called an or-structure, for which it is possible to generate small disjunctive partitions. By changing the image and pre-image procedures, we keep even smaller partial disjunctive partitions in memory. In addition, we show how to translate a (software) program to an or-structure, in order to enable efficient symbolic model checking of the program using its disjunctive partitions. We build one disjunctive partition for each state variable in the model directly from the conjunctive partition of the same variable and independently of all other partitions. This method can be integrated easily into existing model checkers, without changing their input language, and while still taking advantage of reduction algorithms which prefer conjunctive partitions.