cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
D1 and D2 receptor modulation in rat striatum and nucleus accumbens after subchronic and chronic haloperidol treatment

The antipsychotic effects of neuroleptic drugs are believed to be achieved by chronic blockade of dopaminergic transmission in the limbic system. Nevertheless, the effects of chronic (3–12 months) haloperidol administration on the dopaminergic transmission in the nucleus accumbens of rodents remains poorly understood. Studies of spontaneous locomotor activity (SLA), a behavioral measure related to limbic dopamine transmission, and of dopamine D2 receptor density in the nucleus accumbens after chronic oral haloperidol treatment have yielded conflicting results. We evaluated these indices after 8 months of parenteral administration of haloperidol decanoate. We report here that, after 8 months of parenteral treatment, SLA stays significantly decreased and D2 receptors in the nucleus accumbens exhibit the same upregulation as in the striatum (about 50%). These results fail to support the notion of a different pattern of D2 receptor adaptation to neuroleptic treatment between the nucleus accumbens and the striatum. In contrast, dopamine D1 receptors were found to be unaffected in the nucleus accumbens but decreased in the striatum by 22% after 8 months of treatment. This observation could be relevant to the pathogenesis of tardive dyskinesia.
Excretion of orotic acid and orotidine in heterozygotes of congenital orotic aciduria.

A NUMBER of purine and pyrimidine bases have been demonstrated in human urine in health or in disease1–3. Urinary excretion of orotic acid was found in studies of the propositus and so far only described case of congenital orotic aciduria4. Both orotic acid and orotidine (formed by the irreversible dephosphorylation of orotidine-5′-phosphate) are excreted in large amounts during therapy with 6-azauracil or 6-azauridine, compounds which on conversion to 6-azauridylic acid competitively inhibit the decarboxylation of orotidine-5′-phosphate to form uridine-5′-phosphate5. In work reported here evidence is presented for urinary excretion of orotic acid and orotidine by normal subjects, and for an abnormal pattern in presumed heterozygotes of congenital orotic aciduria.
Second hand smoke: ambient racial harassment at work

– Like “second hand smoke,” the harmful repercussions of racial harassment may extend well beyond the target to impact others at work. This study seeks to examine the “second hand smoke effect”, or ambient racial harassment, which involves exposure to racial harassment aimed at others. The paper examines race differences in awareness of racial harassment and explored work and health‐related outcomes associated with exposure to racial harassment. It also examines organizational tolerance for harassment as a moderator of these relationships., – A diverse sample of 245 employees from three data sources were surveyed. One data source involved White and Black employees in the same organization; the others worked in a variety of organizations across the USA., – Whites were less likely than Blacks to be aware of racial harassment, even when employed in the same workplace. However, awareness of racial harassment predicted negative job attitudes and psychological strain for both Whites and Blacks. These relationships were amplified by perceptions of organizational tolerance for racial harassment., – The study documents ramifications of ambient racial harassment and illuminates a racial divide in awareness of harassment at work that may exacerbate racial conflict and prevent needed organizational change., – The paper extends the construct of ambient racial harassment by measuring a range of overt and subtle forms that vary in type and intensity, and by examining the role of organizational tolerance for racial harassment as a moderator of the relationship between ambient racial harassment and work and health‐related outcomes.
Radiation self-decomposition of labeled compounds.

In order to discuss self-decomposition effects in labeled compounds, it is desirable first to review radiation chemistry of organic compounds. Under the influence of ionizing radiation (alpha, beta, and gamma rays), organic compounds undergo chemical changes resulting in fragmentation, polymerization, and isomerization. Synthetic processes are as important as degradative processes in these changes. In the radiation chemistry of a given compound a few chemical products usually predominate. In addition, a great variety of other chemical products may be produced from a single pure substance [1–4].
Units of modulus 1

Abstract If k is an algebraic number field which is normal over the field of rational numbers then it is shown that k has nontrivial units of modulus 1 if and only if the maximal real subfield of k is also a normal extension of the rationals. A characterization of the units is given for fields which satisfy the above conditions. A new proof of Kummer's Theorem on the units of cyclotomic fields is also obtained.
Progress and concerns in the World Health Organization onchocerciasis control program in West Africa

Abstract Onchocerciasis or river blindness is a filarial disease that leads to skin atrophy, impaired lymphatics, eye lesions and blindness. In hyperendemic zones it produces the highest known community rates of blindness in the world, collapse of settlement and desertion of the valleys. At the request of seven West African Governments, the World Health Organization in 1975 commenced a 20-year larviciding program to control the disease and permit economic rehabilitation of the abandoned lowlands. This has so far met with substantial success but further progress is thwarted by annual invasions of infective flies on the WSW monsoon from source regions beyond the perimeter of the control area. This phenomenon, together with questions of possible insecticide resistance, the survival of non-target life forms, inflation and financial support, polyparasitism, appropriate technology, training and national and international program structures, calls for a reconsideration of purpose and strategy.
A design upgrade of the RF cavity and its power window for high current operation of the NSLS X-ray storage ring

The existing RF cavities and their auxiliary equipment have been operating since the onset of the National Synchrotron Light Source project. Although most power supply components have since been upgraded, the RF cavities have remained unchanged. The continuous improvements of the two storage rings, notably the combined increase in energy and current level as well as their reliability, necessitated a new design. A complete description of the newly designed cavity and its input power window is described in this paper. Selection of material, vacuum seal mechanism and thermal conductive ceramics are discussed. A comparison between the two designs and expected improvements is also be presented.
The Hydrogen Ion Concentration in Avian Digestive Tracts

Abstract A NUMBER of investigations have been made concerning the hydrogen ion concentration in the digestive tracts of chickens. McLaughlin (1931) using electrometric methods determined the hydrogen ion concentration in the proventriculus, gizzard, duodenum, ileum, and caecum. Ashcraft (1932) with a quinhydrone electrode studied the pH of the caecal contents under the influence of several diets. Mussehl, Blish, and Ackerson (1935), also using a quinhydrone electrode, showed in an extensive investigation that various diets produced little change in the hydrogen ion concentration of the proventriculus and gizzard and practically no change in the intestine and caecum. These observations were confirmed by Heller and Penquite (1936). Their data showed that while basic salts may raise the pH in the gizzard and crop, the intestine and caeca are unaffected. Mayhew (1935) using colorimetric meth1ods investigated the digestive tracts of young and adult chickens and found no significant age or sex differences. Leasure and . . .
Reflection and its application to mechanized metareasoning about programming languages

It is well known that adding reflective reasoning can tremendously increase the power of a proof assistant. In order for this theoretical increase of power to become accessible to users in practice, the proof assistant needs to provide a great deal of infrastructure to support reflective reasoning. In this thesis we explore the problem of creating a practical implementation of such a support layer. Our implementation takes a specification of a logical theory (which is identical to how it would be specified if we simply intended to reason within this logical theory, instead of reflecting it) and automatically generates the necessary definitions, lemmas, and proofs that are needed to enable the reflected metareasoning in the provided theory. One of the key features of our approach is that the structure of a logic is preserved when it is reflected, including variables, meta variables, and binding structure. This allows the structure of proofs to be preserved as well, and there is a one-to-one map from proof steps in the original logic to proof steps in the reflected logic. The act of reflecting a language is automated; all definitions, theorems, and proofs are preserved by the transformation and all the key lemmas (such as proof and structural induction) are automatically derived. The principal representation used by the reflected logic is higher-order abstract syntax (HOAS). However, reasoning about terms in HOAS can be awkward in some cases, especially for variables. For this reason, we define a computationally equivalent variable-free de Bruijn representation that is interchangeable with the HOAS in all contexts. The de Bruijn representation inherits the properties of substitution and alpha-equality from the logical framework, and it is not complicated by administrative issues like variable renumbering. We further develop the concepts and principles of proofs, provability, and structural and proof induction. This work is fully implemented in the MetaPRL theorem prover. We illustrate with an application to F<: as defined in the POPLmark challenge.
The esophagus ... not just for food anymore

Background Survival of patients with acute lung injury or the acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) has been improved by ventilation with small tidal volumes and the use of positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP); the optimal level of PEEP has been difficult to determine. In this pilot study, we estimated transpulmonary pressure with the use of esophageal balloon catheters. We reasoned that the use of pleural-pressure measurements, despite the technical limitations to the accuracy of such measurements, would enable us to find a PEEP value that could maintain oxygenation while preventing lung injury due to repeated alveolar collapse or overdistention. Methods Objective To evaluate the effectiveness of using an esophageal balloon catheter to measure pleural pressure and guide PEEP titration to achieve normal physiologic parameters in individual patients. Design Single center, randomized-controlled pilot trial. Setting: Medical and surgical ICUs at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Subjects 61 patients with acute lung injury or ARDS as defined by the American-European Consensus Conference definition. Intervention Patients with acute lung injury or ARDS were randomly assigned to undergo mechanical ventilation with PEEP adjusted according to measurements of esophageal pressure (the esophageal-pressure-guided group) or according to the Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome Network standard-of-care recommendations (the control group). Outcomes The primary end point was improvement in oxygenation at 72 hours after randomization. Secondary end points included indexes of lung mechanics and gas exchange, number of ventilator free days, length of ICU stay, and death at 28 days and 180 days. Results The study reached its stopping criterion and was terminated after 61 patients had been enrolled. The ratio of the partial pressure of arterial oxygen to the fraction of inspired oxygen at 72 hours was 88 mmHg higher in the esophageal-pressure-guided group than in the control group (95% confidence interval, 78.1 to 98.3; P = 0.002). This effect was persistent over the entire follow-up time (at 24, 48, and 72 hours; P = 0.001 by repeated-measures analysis of variance). Respiratory-system compliance was also significantly better at 24, 48, and 72 hours in the esophageal-pressure-guided group (P = 0.01 by repeated-measures analysis of variance). Conclusions As compared with the current standard of care, a ventilator strategy using esophageal pressures to estimate the transpulmonary pressure significantly improves oxygenation and compliance. Multicenter clinical trials are needed to determine whether this approach should be widely adopted. (ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00127491.)
Diet and acne: A review of the evidence

Pharmaceutical acne treatments are costly and have potentially severe side-effects. Adolescent acne is typically the result of clogged, infected, pilosebaceous follicles. Adults may experience fewer comedones and more inflammatory lesions. 1 Normally, sebum travels up the follicle to the skin surface. Hormones may increase sebum production and cause follicular cells to hyperproliferate and block the follicular opening, forming a comedo. 4 Complete follicle blockage results in closed comedones (i.e. “whiteheads”), whereas incomplete blockage results in open comedones (“blackheads”). Comedo formation typically occurs over the course of 2–3 weeks. Acne may manifest in the form of noninflammatory comedones, superficial inflammatory lesions (papules, pustules), and/or deeper inflammatory lesions (nodules, cysts). Inflammatory lesion formation occurs most commonly when Propionibacterium acnes colonizes the pilosebaceous unit, triggering follicular rupture and a neutrophil cascade. 5
Vitamin C Deficiency in an Anticoagulated Patient

A 64-year-old woman presented with a hemorrhagic perifollicular rash on her legs while taking warfarin. After biopsy, vitamin C deficiency was suggested as the diagnosis, which ascorbic acid assays later confirmed. Clinical resolution of the rash followed supplementation with vitamin C. Patients on a vitamin K limited diet may also be limiting their intake of vitamin C. Physicians should be aware of this possible correlation, and consider checking vitamin C levels in patients with a perifollicular hemorrhagic rash or other signs of vitamin C deficiency while on warfarin.
Proteomic investigation of human burn wounds by 2D-difference gel electrophoresis and mass spectrometry

Background In humans, thermal cutaneous injury represents a serious traumatic event that induces a host of dynamic alterations. Unfortunately the molecular mechanisms that underlie these serious perturbations remain poorly understood. We applied a global analysis method to identify dynamically changing proteins within the burn environment, which could eventually become biomarkers or targets for treatment. Materials and methods Protein extracts of normal/unwounded skin and burn wounds were assayed by 2D-difference gel electrophoresis (DIGE), a proteomic technology by which abundance levels of intact proteins (including isoforms) were simultaneously quantified from multiple samples with statistical confidence. Through unsupervised multivariate principal component analysis, protein expression patterns from individual samples were appropriately clustered into their correct temporal healing periods grouped into postburn periods of 1–3 days, 4–6 days, or 7–10 days after injury. Forty-six proteins were subsequently selected for identification by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry. Results Proteins identified with differential temporal patterns of expression included predictable cytoskeletal proteins such as vimentin, and keratins 1, 5, 6, 16, and 17. Other candidate proteins with potential involvement in healing included heat shock protein 90, members of the serpin family (Serpin B1, SCCA1 and -2), haptoglobin, gelsolin, eIF4A1, IQGAP1, and translationally controlled tumor protein. Conclusions We have used the combined technique, DIGE/mass spectrometry, to capture new insights into cutaneous responses to burn trauma and subsequent processes of early wound healing in humans. This pilot study provides a proteomic snapshot of temporal events that can be used to weave together the interconnected processes that define the response to serious cutaneous injury.
Studies of Secondary Flow at Endwall of a Supersonic Compressor Cascade

A combined experimental and numerical study was conducted to investigate the endwall secondary flow in a linear supersonic compressor cascade. The experiment was carried out in a supersonic wind tunnel, with Mach and Reynolds numbers (based on the blade chord) of 2.36 and 4.8 X 106, respectively. A three-dimensional viscous computational fluid dynamics (CFD) calculation was performed to simulate the endwall boundary layer and the three-dimensional secondary flows. The experimental and computational analyses presented are all at the design incidence angle. Experimental measurements include multiple-color surface oil flow visualization applied to the endwall and blade surfaces, blade-to-blade pitot pressure contours at the 90% chordwise position, and upstream and downstream static pressures at the endwall. All of these measurements compare favorably with the CFD calculation. Results from the CFD analysis show that endwall total-pressure losses in this supersonic compressor cascade are a significant contributor to the overall losses and can account for one-third of the overall flowfield loss.
Echocardiographic findings in right coronary arterial-right ventricular fistula. Report of a neonate with fatal congestive heart failure.

Coronary arteriovenous fistula is a rare cause of congestive heart failure in the newborn. We describe a 2 day old infant with a large fistula between the right coronary artery and right ventricle that caused fatal congestive heart failure. An echocardiographic study revealed a large right ventricle, paradoxical motion of the interventricular septum and an enlarged aorta, suggesting an unusual location of a left to right shunt. The diagnosis was established at cardiac catheterization when a large left to right shunt was found at the ventricular level; the fistula was visualized by angiography.
The Practice of Pediatric Sleep Medicine: Results of a Community Survey

Objective. To assess knowledge, screening, evaluation, treatment practices, and attitudes regarding sleep disorders in children and adolescents in a large sample of community-based and academic pediatricians. Design. Cross-sectional survey. Participants. Six hundred twenty-six pediatricians in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. Instrument. The Pediatric Sleep Survey, a 42-item questionnaire assessing general and specific sleep knowledge categories; clinical screening, diagnostic, and treatment practices for common pediatric sleep disorders; and practitioner attitudes regarding the impact of sleep disorders in the clinical setting and as a public health issue. Results. On the knowledge section, the mean Total Knowledge score for the respondents was 18.1 ± 3.5 out of 30 items, with 23.5% of the sample responding correctly on half or less of the items. Pediatricians scored highest on items relating to developmental and behavioral aspects of sleep and parasomnias, whereas the mean percentage of correct responses was Conclusions. The results of this survey suggest that there are still significant gaps among practicing pediatricians both in basic knowledge about pediatric sleep disorders, and in the translation of that knowledge into clinical practice. Despite their acknowledgment of the importance of sleep problems, many pediatricians fail to screen adequately for them, especially in older children and adolescents. Additional educational efforts regarding pediatric sleep issues are warranted, and should be targeted at the medical school, postgraduate training, and continuing medical education levels.
Transesophageal echocardiographic findings in stroke subtypes

Transesophageal echocardiography has a high yield for detecting potential cardiac sources of embolism in patients with clinical risk factors for cardioembolism or unexplained stroke. The yield in other stroke subtypes is unknown.We classified 145 consecutively admitted patients into stroke subtypes based on clinical findings, brain imaging, and carotid ultrasound. Both transesophageal and transthoracic echocardiography were performed to detect left atrial thrombi, spontaneous echo contrast, atrial septal aneurysm, interatrial shunts, ventricular thrombus or aneurysm, and myxomatous mitral valve.Transesophageal echocardiography documented at least one of these findings in 46% of the patients compared with an 8% yield on the transthoracic study (P = .002). The yield of transesophageal echocardiography was substantial in all stroke subgroups. Patients with clinical risk factors for cardiac embolism had the highest frequency of spontaneous echo contrast (P = .001). Atrial septal aneurysms were most frequent i...
Financial modeling on the cell broadband engine

High performance computing is critical for financial markets where analysts seek to accelerate complex optimizations such as pricing engines to maintain a competitive edge. In this paper we investigate the performance of financial workloads on the Sony-Toshiba- IBM Cell Broadband Engine, a heterogeneous multicore chip architected for intensive gaming applications and high performance computing. We analyze the use of Monte Carlo techniques for financial workloads and design efficient parallel implementations of different high performance pseudo and quasi random number generators as well as normalization techniques. Our implementation of the Mersenne Twister pseudo random number generator outperforms current Intel and AMD architectures by over an order of magnitude. Using these new routines, we optimize European option (EO) and collateralized debt obligation (CDO) pricing algorithms. Our Cell-optimized EO pricing achieves a speedup of over 2 in comparison with using RapidMind SDK for Cell, and comparing with GPU, a speedup of 1.26 as compared with using RapidMind SDK for GPU (NVIDIA GeForce 8800), and a speedup of 1.51 over NVIDIA GeForce 8800 (using CUDA). Our detailed analyses and performance results demonstrate that the Cell/B.E. processor is well suited for financial workloads and Monte Carlo simulation.
Observer-based distributed control design to coordinate wind generation and energy storage

Higher percentages of wind generation are anticipated to reduce effective inertia on the electric power grid, presenting challenges to electromechanical stability. Two technologies will help mitigate these stability problems: (i) advanced control systems on wind turbines, exploiting Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs), and (ii) deployment of controllable energy storage. This paper extends state feedback-based, centrally-coordinated control design for energy storage and wind generation to consider distributed, observer-based implementations. Establishing that a local bus PMU measurement at each controller is inappropriate, we demonstrate the feasibility of limiting each local controller to a very small set of remote PMU measurements. An approach is developed that characterizes the practical degree of observability achieved on a subspace of lightly damped electromechanical modes of interest. In a representative power system model, the measurement selection methodology and local observer design is shown to yield control performance very closely approximating that obtained in the centralized, full state feedback case.
Homotypic Synaptic Coupling and the Cellular Bases of Gamma Oscillatory Activity

Although the importance of gamma oscillatory activity in brain function is well established, the exact contributions of neuron and synapse type remains unclear. In their study, Hu and Agmon (J Neur...
Cinema Advertising: A Unique Advertising Medium in a Highly Competitive Environment

Over the last five years, the increased popularity of attending films has given advertisers a unique opportunity to reach consumers with their advertisements. Going to the movies is the number one adult leisure activity and cinema ads are a vehicle to capitalize on this form of recreation (Screenvision 2007). Cinema advertisements are shown prior to the start of a movie as part of a pre-show, and advertisers have an engaged captive audience; therefore, advertisers are provided with the potential to make an excellent return on their investment by using cinema ads. To date, little research has been conducted which examines the reach and effectiveness of cinema ads as determined by viewer retention. Utilizing a survey of 250 randomly selected movie attendees at a movie theater in the Northeastern region of the United States this study examines the percentage of movie-goers who remember advertisements viewed prior to the movie in relation to several correlational factors. Implications and suggestions for marketing decisions are included.
Hole-Assisted Lightguide Fiber - A Practical Derivative of Photonic Crystal Fiber

Usage of air holes in optical fibers has become a hot subject in fiber optics because of the possibilities for novel transmission properties. Although photonic crystal fibers based on photonic bandgap guidance are the most drastic innovation in this subject, optical fibers containing air holes but not having photonic crystal structures are also being intensively studied. Such air-silica microstructured fibers are more practical than the photonic bandgap fibers because the lack of photonic crystal structure makes the fabrication far easier. Even without the photonic bandgap, the microstructured fibers can exhibit valuable properties in terms of group velocity dispersion and nonlinearity, because the index contrast between air and silica is 10 or more times as large as that of the conventional optical fibers based on doped silica glasses. However, one of the major challenges for practical applications of the air-silica microstructured fibers has been their high transmission losses, which have been several tens to hundreds times higher than those of the conventional fibers. As a solution to this problem, we have proposed a more practical structure called hole-assisted lightguide fiber (HALF). In addition to the air holes for realizing novel optical properties, this structure has a material index profile for waveguiding, and hence is closer to the conventional fibers than the other microstructured fibers are. As a result, novel optical properties can be realized without severe degradation in transmission loss. In experiments, an anomalous group velocity dispersion as large as +35 ps/nm/km at 1550 nm wavelength, which would be unattainable in the conventional fibers, has been realized with a loss of 0.41 dB/km, which is comparable to those of the conventional fibers. Analyses of the losses of the fabricated HALFs suggest that the loss should be lowered by mitigating the effect of the drawing tension and minimizing the power fraction in the holes. It is also shown that the full-vector finite element method realizes accurate modeling of the properties such as dispersion and macrobend loss.
A Harder Look

This chapter introduces numerous features of REDUCE which are not as elementary as those presented in the previous chapter. Not every REDUCE user will require these additional features, which is fortunate because some of them — such as the concept of the “substitution environment” — involve logical intricacies.
Hi-Tech Technology and Defense-Indian Context

One aspect of the nation's defense often overlooked by the strategic affairs and the international politics experts is the role played by the Electrical Engineering (EE) and Computer Science (CS) scientists in moulding it. A careful perusal of the major inventions in these two critical fields in the last half a century show the extent to which US defence needs have influenced them. DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) and DoD (Department of Defense) have been major funders and initiators of many, if not most, of the critical developments in these avenues of research.
A CASE OF SUCCESSFUL RIGHT COMMON ILIAC-SUPERIOR MESENTERIC ARTERY BYPASS IN ACUTE TYPE B DISSECTION WITH MESENTERIC ISCHEMIA

腹部臓器虚血を合併したStanford B型急性大動脈解離に対し,右総腸骨動脈-上腸間膜動脈 (SMA) バイパス術を行い,良好な経過を得た症例を経験した.症例は59歳,男性.腹痛と左下肢痛を主訴に救急搬送され, Stanford B型の大動脈解離,左外腸骨動脈閉塞と診断し,緊急に左大腿動脈へのバイパス術を施行した.下肢の虚血は改善したが,術翌日に血中肝酵素の著明な上昇を認め,造影CTにて腹腔動脈の閉塞と診断,緊急手術を行った.開腹時,肝全域の虚血を認め,解離は腹腔動脈から総肝動脈にまで及んでいた.大伏在静脈グラフトを用いて右総腸骨動脈-SMAバイパス術を施行し,肝血流は速やかに改善した.術後経過中,急性腎不全および十二指腸潰瘍の穿孔を併発したが,発症4カ月後に自宅退院となった.急性大動脈解離に伴う腹部臓器虚血に対して,本術式は有効な術式であると考えられた.
Vitamin A Status: Relationship to Immunity and the Antibody Response:

Vitamin A (retinol and its derivatives) is essential for a variety of biologic processes, many of which are related to growth, cellular differentiation, and cell-cell or cell-substrate interactions. Within the last 5 years, there has been a renaissance of interest in vitamin A and immunity that is based largely on three important advances. First, a number of controlled, field-based or hospital-based, studies have demonstrated that vitamin A supplementation can decrease mortality in preschool children in populations at high risk for vitamin A deficiency. Although a mechanistic link between child survival and improved immunity has yet to be established, it seems quite probable that at least some of the benefit of vitamin A is due to restoration of epithelial barriers and improved resistance to respiratory and gastrointestinal infections. Second, vitamin A, either in the form of retinol or its metabolite, retinoic acid, has been shown to stimulate the rejection of certain immunogenic tumors; this effect may ...
The Polymicrobial Origin of Intestinal Infections in Homosexual Men

Abstract To determine the microbial cause and the clinical and pathologic correlates of anorectal and intestinal symptoms in homosexually active men, we performed comprehensive microbiologic studies, anoscopy, sigmoidoscopy, and rectal biopsy in men examined in a clinic for sexually transmitted diseases. Enteric pathogens were found in 95 of 119 consecutive homosexual men with anorectal or intestinal symptoms and in 29 of 75 randomly selected homosexual men without such symptoms (P<0.001). The syndromes of proctitis, proctocolitis, and enteritis were differentiated on the basis of predominant symptoms and findings on anoscopy and sigmoidoscopy. Neisseria gonorrhoeae, herpes simplex virus, Chlamydia trachomatis (non–lymphogranuloma venereum serotypes), and Treponema pallidum were associated with 80 per cent of cases with symptomatic proctitis. Known causes of colitis, including Campylobacter jejuni, Campylobacter fetus fetus, Shigella flexneri, Chl. trachomatis (lymphogranuloma venereum serotypes), Entamoe...
Midurethral slings: evidence-based medicine vs the medicolegal system.

Midurethral sling procedures are minimally invasive surgeries for stress urinary incontinence that use a trocar system to place a narrow ribbon of polypropylene mesh under the midurethra. The peer-reviewed scientific literature on these procedures is abundant and midurethral slings are the most well-studied incontinence procedure ever. Systematic reviews of the literature demonstrate that midurethral slings are safer and more (or equally) effective as traditional procedures. The midurethral sling is the worldwide standard for the treatment of female stress urinary incontinence and >3 million procedures have been performed. The Food and Drug Administration and international scientific review agencies have consistently differentiated transvaginal mesh for stress urinary incontinence from transvaginal mesh for prolapse. In the recruitment of patients to participate in transvaginal mesh litigation, plaintiff lawyers have not made the distinction between stress urinary incontinence and prolapse procedures because more women have received midurethral slings than transvaginal mesh for prolapse by an order of magnitude. The litigation costs of defending their products have forced several companies that manufactured midurethral slings to leave the marketplace. It is not inconceivable that midurethral slings could become absent from the US market. If that happens, then US women with stress urinary incontinence will be harmed because they will not have access in this country to the best and safest stress urinary incontinence surgical procedure ever developed. It may be time for the Institute of Medicine or another comparable national agency to provide evidence-based recommendations on the midurethral sling.
Effect of micro-computed tomography voxel size and segmentation method on trabecular bone microstructure measures in mice

Micro-computed tomography (μCT) is currently the gold standard for determining trabecular bone microstructure in small animal models. Numerous parameters associated with scanning and evaluation of μCT scans can strongly affect morphologic results obtained from bone samples. However, the effect of these parameters on specific trabecular bone outcomes is not well understood. This study investigated the effect of μCT scanning with nominal voxel sizes between 6-30 μm on trabecular bone outcomes quantified in mouse vertebral body trabecular bone. Additionally, two methods for determining a global segmentation threshold were compared: based on qualitative assessment of 2D images, or based on quantitative assessment of image histograms. It was found that nominal voxel size had a strong effect on several commonly reported trabecular bone parameters, in particular connectivity density, trabecular thickness, and bone tissue mineral density. Additionally, the two segmentation methods provided similar trabecular bone outcomes for scans with small nominal voxel sizes, but considerably different outcomes for scans with larger voxel sizes. The Qualitatively Selected segmentation method more consistently estimated trabecular bone volume fraction (BV/TV) and trabecular thickness across different voxel sizes, but the Histogram segmentation method more consistently estimated trabecular number, trabecular separation, and structure model index. Altogether, these results suggest that high-resolution scans be used whenever possible to provide the most accurate estimation of trabecular bone microstructure, and that the limitations of accurately determining trabecular bone outcomes should be considered when selecting scan parameters and making conclusions about inter-group variance or between-group differences in studies of trabecular bone microstructure in small animals.
Music Education for All through Participatory Ensembles

This article explores how the participatory field can complement and enhance even successful music education programs. The participatory field, part of Thomas Turino’s four-field framework, concept...
Preparation and properties of rapidly quenched glasses in the V2O5-CdO system

Rapidly quenched glassy films in the V2O5-PbO system were prepared using a twin-roller type apparatus. The glass formation region was 0–60 mol% PbO. The first crystallization temperature increased from 210 ‡C for the V2O5 glass to 292 ‡C for the glass of 60 mol% PbO. The metastable unknown phase was first crystallized in the glasses around 50 mol% PbO. Infrared absorption spectra of the glasses were measured. Electrical conductivity of the glasses decreased with increasing of PbO content. The electrical behaviour of the glasses is discussed based on the glass structure estimated from the infrared spectral data.
Net Neutrality| The Debate Nobody Knows: Network Neutrality’s Neoliberal Roots and a Conundrum for Media Reform

Discussions about network neutrality largely have been divorced from network neutrality’s connections to neoliberalism. This article seeks to rectify this, performing three tasks. First, it resituates the history of network neutrality as a concept within the development of what economic historians as Philip Mirowski have termed a neoliberal thought collective . Second, it speaks to the particularly neoliberal form of activist organization that was required to secure the Federal Communications Commission’s reversal of a decade-plus of policy. Last, I offer a brief outline of the cultural labor the network neutrality debate performed as a consequence of the way it was historically justified. Network neutrality is, perversely, a site of neoliberalism’s construction. Media activism going forward must deal with the ambivalences this produces.
Literary Meanderings: A Quantum Leap in Space Travel

Walter Benjamin thought of Baudelaire's literary flaneur as an object of scopic transaction in a sightplay - to see and be seen, voyeur and exhibitionist, the city as stage. Guy Debord took the practice a step further: to walk without aim was now an artistic practice to be labeled Situationism and mapped according to "psychogeographical" coordinates. If we take a further leap, we find ourselves on a bus with Robert Smithson, on a September morning in 1967, destination: El Passaic, New Jersey. After Smithson's scrutiny, that industrial landscape, converted into a great display of monuments, would never be the same again. Finally, Agustin Fernandez Mallo, 2011, Spain, visually and literally recreates Smithson's steps in his narrative El Hacedor (de Borges), Remake, where he incorporates geospatial technologies. In this paper, I trace the artistic practices that revolve around the praxis of derive throughout these differentiated cultural paradigms. We will see how walking aimlessly, having begun as a metaphor for the journey of the political gaze, has finally transcended man's gravitational state in order to become the panopticon eye that Google Earth has created with the magic wand of a click.
A Dual Action Framework on Opportunity Identification: The Influence of Trait Affect

We develop a dual action framework explaining how dispositional affect influences identification of different types of entrepreneurial opportunities. We first depict how different combinations of d...
Leonard Lowe’s Final Flight to Life, Our Anniversary

Leonard Lowe’s Final Flight to Life and Our Anniversary are the poems written by Patrick Wilson.
Language Samples From Children Who Use Speech-Generating Devices: Making Sense of Small Samples and Utterance Length.

Purpose Mean length of utterance in morphemes (MLUm) is underreported in people who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). MLUm is difficult to measure in people who use AAC because ...
Current perspectives on the optimal management of infantile hemangioma

Infantile hemangiomas (IHs) are the most common benign tumor of infancy. As our understanding of their pathobiology has evolved, treatment has become more focused and tailored to specifically treat IH while minimizing adverse effects. Propranolol has gained FDA approval as the first medical therapy for a traditionally surgical disease. This review provides readers with an overview of IH, treatment modalities, and addresses specific considerations in IH disease management.
Lincoln, Presidential Power, and the Rule of Law

Author(s): Farber, DA | Abstract: Every era has its unique challenges, but history may still offer lessons on how law empowers and restrains presidents. This Essay examines how President Lincoln negotiated the tension between crisis authority and the rule of law. This analysis requires an appreciation of the wartime imperatives, institutions, and political forces confronting Lincoln, as well as the legal framework in which he acted. Similar issues unexpectedly arose in our times in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, providing a new point of comparison with Lincoln’s era. We need to better understand how political actors and institutions, the media, and public opinion can provide support for legal norms, lest we place all of our trust in presidential self-restraint and good judgment.
A personalized virtual environment as a testbed for assistive technologies

The design of successful assistive technologies requires careful personalization for individual users, as well as rapid, low cost cycles for product development and testing. My research brings two modern software engineering models to meet these challenges: Personal and Contextual Requirements Engineering (PC-RE) and Agile Software Development. We adapt these models to the assistive mobile navigation domain for the blind. This dissertation demonstrates that a Virtual Environment testing can significantly reduce testing time, yield meaningful testing results by fully controlling environmental variables, alleviate logistical and safety problems, and serve as an ideal platform for deep personalization. We developed a narrative NAvigation Virtual Environment (NAVE) and compared blind subjects’ performance and behavior in wayfinding tasks with tactile maps under field testing versus testing in NAVE. Our experiments showed positive results to support our hypothesis that virtual environments can be useful in replacing field testing for personalized assistive technologies in agile development.
Computer Applications in Coastal Geomorphology

Over the past ten years computer assisted quantitative research has become a necessity for the coastal geomorphologist. This trend has not eliminated the importance of fundamental field observation and sound data collection procedures. But interrelationships among variables and interpretation of the various processes involved within coastal systems require that the data be analyzed through some type of computer assisted quantitative method.
Multi-fidelity models for model predictive control

Abstract Model predictive control (MPC) is based on repeated solution of finite horizon dynamic optimization problems, where only the control decisions close to the start of the time horizon are of interest. This observation suggests the potential use of multi-fidelity models with models of reduced complexity and fidelity being used for predictions away from the current time instant. We explore this idea through theoretical analysis and simulations. We attempt to quantify the effect of (bounded) error in computing future states and controls on current control actions. The assumption of bounded error covers a number of potential approaches based on model and solution approximation techniques. One of these approaches, using reduced order models, is illustrated using a simulated process. We provide comparisons with conventional MPC in terms of the overall quality of the control as well as the computational complexity and demonstrate that MPC based on multi-fidelity models performs better than MPC based only on reduced order models.
Hodgkin's disease of the small intestine; report of six cases.

1. Six cases of Hodgkin's disease apparently originating in the small intestine have been reported together with a review of the literature.
Disagreement or denialism? “Invasive species denialism” and ethical disagreement in science

Recently, invasion biologists have argued that some of the skepticism expressed in the scientific and lay literatures about the risks of invasive species and other aspects of the consensus within invasion biology is a kind of science denialism. This paper presents an argument that, while some claims made by skeptics of invasion biology share important features with paradigm cases of science denialism, others express legitimate ethical concerns that, even if one disagrees, should not be dismissed as denialist. Further, this case illustrates a more general point about ethical disagreement within sciences like invasion biology that constitutively pursue non-epistemic goals and values. While philosophers of science have argued that epistemic disagreement within science can be productive as heterogeneous epistemic communities “hedge their bets,” the case of invasion biology shows how non-epistemic or ethical disagreement within sciences, while carrying significant risks, can also be epistemically and non-epistemically valuable.
Collision-Induced Effects in Planetary Atmospheres

The manifestations of collision-induced effects in planetary atmospheres will be surveyed from both the experimental and theoretical perspectives. By considering the composition, pressure, and temperature profiles for the atmospheres of the Earth, Titan, Venus, and the Giant Planets, one can infer the major sources of collision-induced opacities. The status of the laboratory-based studies for the relevant collision induced absorption are reviewed and several desirable experiments are proposed. Recent theoretical refinements (e. g., higher multipolar induction mechanisms, line shapes, interference effects, etc.) that are important for the analysis of the laboratory data and for the generation of synthetic spectra will be discussed. Finally, a few examples of the effects of collision-induced absorption as calculated through simple atmospheric models will be presented.
SV40 and human mesothelioma

Simian virus 40 (SV40) is a DNA tumor virus capable of infecting and transforming human mesothelial (HM) cells in vitro. Hamsters injected intracardially to expose most tissue types to SV40 preferentially develop mesotheliomas. In humans, asbestos is the main cause of mesothelioma, and asbestos and SV40 are co-carcinogens in transforming HM cells in tissue culture and in causing mesothelioma in hamsters. Laser microdissection experiments conducted in the laboratory of Adi Gazdar demonstrated that SV40 was present specifically in the malignant mesothelioma cells and not in nearby stromal cells. Further experiments demonstrated that SV40 remains episomal in HM cells and astrocytes because of the production of a long antisense RNA that represses viral capsid protein production. Thus, the potent SV40 oncoprotein, T-antigen (Tag), is expressed, but because the capsid proteins are not produced, the cells are not lysed and, instead, become transformed. Together this evidence suggests that SV40 may contribute to the development of mesotheliomas in humans. However, epidemiological evidence to support this hypothesis is lacking. This chapter also summarizes the introduction of SV40, a monkey virus, into the human population as an unrecognized contaminant of early poliovaccines. In addition to mesotheliomas, SV40 now is linked with brain cancers, osteosarcomas, and lymphomas in humans. Explanations are provided for the apparent geographic variations in SV40 prevalence and for controversies about the role of SV40 in human cancer.
Electronic Immunoaffinity Assay for Differential Leukocyte Counts

Leukocytes are blood cells involved in the immune response. Leukocytes can be classified into three main groups (granulocytes, lymphocytes, and monocytes), and the measurement of the relative prevalence of each subgroup, termed differential leukocyte count, is an important clinical parameter in the diagnosis and prognosis of various health anomalies. Currently, differential leukocyte counts are obtained either manually through labor-intensive blood smears or by employing bulky hematology analyzers. Both of these measurements require a laboratory setup and hence are not amenable for decentralized and point-of-care settings. In this paper, we introduce a microfluidic assay with an electronic readout for differential leukocyte count assays. Our device classifies leukocyte subgroups based on the differential CD33 expression on cell membranes. In the device, each subgroup is differentially immunocaptured in different microfluidic chambers, while the cell capture rates are quantified by an integrated electronic sensor network. When benchmarked against a commercial hematology analyzer, our device could identify leukocyte subpopulations with differences of <6% for granulocytes and lymphocytes, and a <3% for monocytes. These results demonstrate the potential of our technique as an accurate method to perform the widely-employed hematology assay for point-of-care applications without the need for sample labeling. [2020-0197]