cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Comment on: The effects of fall-risk-increasing drugs on postural control: A literature review

de Groot et al. [1] reported that an increased fall risk from the use of psychotropic drugs was associated with impairments in postural control, which these drugs could induce [1]. The effects seem to be more pronounced when the half-life is longer [1]. Hangover effects on postural control (after 8 h of administration) were found mainly for benzodiazepines with an intermittent or long half-life [1]. However, some factors, except for hangover effects and nightly effects, such as the strength of the preparation and muscle-relaxant effects, affect fall risk. Psychotropic drugs with a short half-life may be likely to confuse patients, increasing fall risk. In fact, one meta-analysis showed that the pooled odds ratio for one or more falls in older people was 1.44 (95 % confidence interval [CI] 1.09–1.90) for short-acting benzodiazepines and 1.32 (95 % CI 0.98–1.77) for long-acting benzodiazepines [2]. The American Geriatrics Society 2012 Beers Criteria Update Expert Panel reported that shorter-acting benzodiazepines were not safer than long-acting ones [3]. Are psychotropic drugs with longer half-lives more likely to increase fall risk than psychotropic drugs with shorter half-lives?
Resistance of eight cultivars of citrus rootstock to a larval root weevil, Diaprepes abbreviatus L. (Coleoptera: Curculionidae)

To determine the potential for resistance (tolerance or antibiosis) to root weevil attack on citrus rootstocks, seedlings of eight citrus rootstock cultivars were challenged with young larvae of a root weevil, Diaprepes abbreviatus L. After 6 wk of feeding and development on root systems of potted plants in a greenhouse, soil and larvae were separated from roots. Larval survival and weight, and the weight and volume of root systems, were measured and compared between infested and uninfested plants and among cultivars. For morphometric comparison of root damage, photographs of root systems were digitally imaged and integrated, and relative imaged are'as were compared. Imaging by subsoil stratum indicated that most damage occurred 4-12 cm below the surface. Larvae survived equally well on all cultivars, but larval weight showed significant variation among cultivars. Nonetheless, mean weight gain ranged from 7-fold (on Cleopatra rootstock) to 13-fold (on sour orange). Damage indexes and statistical comparison of damage indicated a wide range of tolerance among rootstock cultivars to larval feeding. Cleopatra, Carrizo, Citrus macrophylla, and a Flying Dragon × Nakon hybrid showed significant damage by larvae. Sour orange, Pummelo × Pooncirus trifoliata (2N and 4N), -and Swingle had insignificant damage. At least in reference to young ungrafted rootstocks, results indicated little antibiosis in seven of the eight rootstock cultivars studied. The exception was Swingle rootstock, on which larvae gained significantly less weight than on sour orange or Pummelo × P. trifoliata (4N). Because the damage index of Swingle was very low and differences between infested and uninfested seedlings were insignificant regarding root mass, volume, and area, a degree of both antibiosis and tolerance was indicated. Tolerance alone was indicated in rootstocks showing insignificant differences between infested and uninfested seedlings, although lack of significance was also the result of variability within cultivars
FIBEROPTIC BRONCHOSCOPY WITHOUT PREMEDICATION : A RETROSPECTIVE STUDY

The objective of this study was to determine if flexible FOB could be performed safely without premedication other than topical anesthesia. A total of 281 procedures performed during a 12-month period at a VA medical center were reviewed. Ninety-one procedures performed without premedication were compared with 190 procedures performed with premedication. Complications occurred in 5 percent of patients in each group. Statistical analysis revealed no significant differences in age, spirometry, P(A-a)O2 or SaO2 between both groups. Despite the proven safety of outpatient FOB without sedation, many bronchoscopists administer complicated premedication regimens and employ ambulatory surgery beds or recovery rooms to monitor patients before and after procedures. These results support a simplified approach to routine FOB which would include no premedications and greater use of outpatient facilities resulting in decreased expenditures without compromising patient care, safety or comfort.
Genetic variability in bloodworm (Glycera dibranchiata) populations in the Gulf of Maine

Genetic structure of eight Northwest Atlantic populations of the marine polychaeteGlycera dibranchiata Ehlers was examined with starch gel electrophoresis. Samples were collected during summer and fall 1981, and seven polymorphic and four monomorphic loci were consistently scored. Average heterozygosity (0.126) and percent polymorphic loci (59.3) were comparable to the averages reported for marine invertebrates. Minimum genetic distances between populations ranged from 0.003 to 0.093, levels typically associated with local populations of the same species in other taxa. Based on these data, inter- and intra-estuarine migration and gene flow appear to be low. Only two populations, separated by 13 km along the same river in New Brunswick, Canada, were not genetically different from each other. These findings may have relevance for management strategies in bloodworms.
A recursive interpreter for the Icon programming language

The implementation of the Icon programming language is more interesting and difficult than the implementation of many other programming languages because an expression in Icon can generate a sequence of results. The implementation therefore must support control backtracking in expression evaluation. There also are several novel control structures related to generators. Because expression evaluation is limited lexically, a full coroutine mechanism is not needed and expression evaluation can be handled in a stack-like fashion.The implementation of Icon consists of a virtual machine with a stack-based architecture and an interpreter that executes the virtual machine instructions. There have been several different interpreters for Icon's virtual machine. This paper describes a new approach in which the interpreter is called recursively whenever the context for expression evaluation changes. This recursive interpreter has the advantage of being conceptually clear and flexible without sacrificing efficiency.
On some variational acceleration techniques and related methods for local refinement

SUMMARY This paper shows that the well-known variational acceleration method described by Wachspress (E. Wachspress, Iterati6e Solution of Elliptic Systems and Applications to the Neutron Diffusion Equations of Reactor Physics, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1966) and later generalized to multilevels (known as the additive correction multigrid method (B.R Huthchinson and G.D. Raithby, Numer. Heat Transf., 9, 511‐537 (1986))) is similar to the FAC method of McCormick and Thomas (S.F McCormick and J.W. Thomas, Math. Comput., 46, 439‐456 (1986)) and related multilevel methods. The performance of the method is demonstrated for some simple model problems using local refinement and suggestions for improving the performance of the method are given. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Osmotic characteristics of isolated human and canine pancreatic islets.

Cryopreservation protocols for pancreatic islets may be optimized by modeling the changes in volume that occur during cryoprotectant addition/dilution and cooling/warming. Modeling may be facilitated if it can be demonstrated that isolated islets behave as ideal osmometers where the equilibrium volume is a linear function of the reciprocal of the osmolality of the extracellular medium (the Boyle van't Hoff relationship). The present study was performed to test the hypotheses that: (i) human and canine islets exhibit a linear osmotic response during exposure to hypo-, iso-, and hyperosmotic solutions and to determine the human and canine islets osmotically inactive fraction (Vbp); (ii) to determine if the ionic properties of a concentrated electrolyte solution have an effect on the osmotic response; and (iii) to determine if the osmotic response of pancreatic islets varies between species (human and canine). Islets were isolated from four human and four canine pancreases using standard collagenase digestion and EuroFicoll purification. After 12 h incubation at 37 degrees C, islets (n = 4 from each isolation) were exposed to varying salt or sucrose concentrations (75-1200 mOsm/kg). Islets were held by a micropipette system attached to an inverted microscope, and solutions were exchanged while videotaping. An imaging system was used to determine the cross-sectional area of the islet which was then used to estimate the spherical volume. The results of linear regression analysis indicated that both human and canine islets respond ideally to osmotic conditions within a range of 150-1200 mOsm/kg in both the electrolyte (salt) and the nonelectrolyte (sucrose) solutions. The Vbp value (mean +/- SD) of the four donors was 0.513 +/- 0.068 for canine islets in sucrose solutions, 0.474 +/- 0.068 for canine islets in salt solutions, 0. 425 +/- 0.073 for human islets in sucrose solutions, and 0.39 +/- 0. 073 for human islets in salt solutions. There was a significant difference between human and canine islets (P < 0.05) but not between experimental solutes (NaCl or sucrose) (P < 0.05). These data may be used in conjunction with osmotic tolerance data to develop improved methods for the cryopreservation of isolated islets.
Atmospheric losses of radiation belt electrons

A numerical model of the low-altitude energetic electron radiation belt, including the effects of pitch angle diffusion into the atmosphere and azimuthal drift, predicts lifetimes and longitude-dependent loss rates as a function of electron energy and diffusion coefficient. It is constrained by high-altitude (�20,000 km) satellite measurements of the energy spectra and pitch angle distributions and then fit to low-altitude (�600 km) data that are sensitive to the longitude dependence of the electron losses. The fits provide estimates of the parameterized diffusion coefficient. The results show that the simple driftdiffusion model can account for the main features of the low-altitude radiation belt inside the plasmasphere during periods of steady decay. The rate of pitch angle diffusion is usually stronger on the dayside than on the nightside, frequently by a factor �10. The average derived lifetimes for loss into the atmosphere of �10 days are comparable to the observed trapped electron decay rates. Considerable variability in the loss rates is positively correlated with geomagnetic activity. The results are generally consistent with electron scattering by plasmaspheric hiss as the primary mechanism for pitch angle diffusion.
International investment motivations of U.S. wineries

Abstract This study used personal and telephone interviews of wine industry executives and observers to examine the foreign direct investment motivations of U.S. wineries. Underlying most winery motivations was the recognition that U.S. wineries sense increasing pressure to offer a competitive range of wines that meet the price/quality needs of consumers and retailers in important markets and market segments. Wineries’ marketing plans are often constrained by their ability to obtain adequate grape and juice supplies that meet important price and quality criteria, especially when domestic grape production drops. The importance of product portfolios and the industry’s resource dependence have placed tremendous pressures on U.S. wineries to coordinate winegrape and juice acquisitions, especially as retailers consolidate their supply chains. Some U.S. wineries have invested abroad in response to these pressures while others have not. Interview results suggest that foreign investments by U.S. wineries were primarily motivated by the need for greater access to stable or adequate winegrape/juice supplies, the need for more control over the winegrape costs within given quality levels, and the desire to expand wine portfolios.
Development and application of a biorelevant dissolution method using USP apparatus 4 in early phase formulation development.

Dissolution testing is frequently used to determine the rate and extent at which a drug is released from a dosage form, and it plays many important roles throughout drug product development. However, the traditional dissolution approach often emphasizes its application in quality control testing and usually strives to obtain 100% drug release. As a result, dissolution methods are not necessarily biorelevant and meaningful application of traditional dissolution methods in the early phases of drug product development can be very limited. This article will describe the development of a biorelevant in vitro dissolution method using USP apparatus 4, biorelevant media, and real-time online UV analysis. Several case studies in the areas of formulation selection, lot-to-lot variability, and food effect will be presented to demonstrate the application of this method in early phase formulation development. This biorelevant dissolution method using USP apparatus 4 provides a valuable tool to predict certain aspects ...
Combining a dynamic battery model with high-resolution smart grid data to assess microgrid islanding lifetime

Abstract In this paper, we use experimental data collected from an Austin, Texas smart grid test bed with a system-level battery energy storage model to assess the lifetime of batteries in a microgrid operating in islanded mode during a distribution-level outage. We consider a hypothetical microgrid consisting of 21 single-family detached homes and three transformer-level community energy storage (CES) battery units ranging in size from 25 kW h to 75 kW h. To describe the performance of CES batteries, we implement a dynamic behavioral circuit model capable of describing voltage transients and rate-capacity effects. We use one-minute electricity production and consumption data collected from the smart grid test bed in 2012 to assess how the timing of an electric outage affects the islanding lifetime of a residential microgrid. We contrast our results with the average outage duration reported by U.S. electric utilities to quantify how often a residential microgrid could withstand a typical outage. Our results show that increasing the amount of rooftop PV in a residential microgrid does not significantly increase how often it can withstand an average-duration outage. However, combining PV with CES extends the median islanding lifetime by up to 11.6 h during morning outages. Based on our results, 50 kW h CES provides the best tradeoff between the cost of a CES system and its reliability benefit, allowing downstream loads to withstand an average-duration outage approximately 93% of the time.
Meal-induced decreases in serum corticosterone in the lateral hypothalamic syndrome

Abstract Decreases in serum corticosterone levels were used to quantify positive emotional responses to meals in rats that survived bilateral lateral hypothalamic lesions (n=9), intraventricular 6-hydroxydopamine injections with pargyline pretreatment (n=3), or without it (n=8) and operated controls that were fed either ad lib (n=19) or were pair-fed with brain-damaged rats throughout the study (n=11). Meals of dry powdered chow and tap water, offered in the evening after 8 hr of food and water deprivation, did not reliably reduce corticosterone levels within 30 min. When the rats were forced to eat their entire daily food ration during a 1-hr morning period for over 2 weeks, corticosterone levels were lower within 10 min of meal onset than they were prior to feeding. Placement of the rats into chambers in which they had received their daily meals was also effective in reducing corticosterone levels. Lateral hypothalamic or 6-hydroxydopamine lesions did not affect the magnitude of the corticosterone decreases, but did affect changes in glucose levels associated with meals. The data were discussed in terms of mechanisms involved in the permanent hypophagia of the lateral hypothalamic syndrome.
SU-FF-I-134: Mechanical Activation of the Brain for MR Elastography

MR elastography (MRE) has three essential elements: mechanical activation, MR motion estimation and shear modulus reconstruction. Mechanical activation of the brain is extremely difficult. Indeed it is much more difficult than actuation of other body parts because the skull and meninges form an excellent mechanical isolation system. Vibrations and impacts are heavily damped to protect the brain. Several methods have been used previously including whole head shaking using bite bar, a band around the head or actuators behind the head. We have found significant discomfort with all the methods we tried and that discomfort diminishes the utility dramatically because, when uncomfortable, patients do not complete examinations or introduce motion artifacts. All methods produce very small vibrations that are far below regulatory limits on vibration in the brain. We present evidence that the best way to couple shear waves to the brain is through the spinal cord. In a series of feline MRE examinations the largest shear motion occurred when the cerebellar motion was largest. The cerebellar motion was large where the spinal cord connects to the brain on every study that produced the most coherent, convergent solutions. Increased motion in the cerebellum occurred in 17 of 25 (68%) studies on seven animals. We postulate that one way to produce shear waves within the brain is through the spinal cord; i.e., that mechanical waves are transmitted along the cord and into the brain much more effectively than they are transmitted through the skull and meninges.
Flow Models in Boundary-Layer Stall Inception

Physical evidence on stall inception from visual studies, mean-velocity- profile correlations, shear measurements, and fluctuations in separating boundary layers in the neighborhood of stall are discussed. Direct visual studies suggest that stall inception in the laminar boundary layer follows the classical model, but does not necessarily do so in the turbulent shear layer. It is useful to describe stall as a certain type of transition region, which can be long or short. Adoption of these ideas is shown to lead to better correlation of stall data and more complete understanding of available physical evidence. However, physical data on the relation between the various types of evidence in the turbulent case and their respective connections with the events in the transition region leading to stall are not presently complete.
Stubborn traditionalism in HRM: Causes and consequences

Abstract We examine the widely-held view that “stubborn traditionalism” exists in HR, meaning that while the HR profession has progressed, its progress remains slow, and may not be sufficient to maintain effectiveness and relevance. The data on which the present study is based also showed little change in HR activities, skill satisfaction, strategic role and other features of HR over two decades (Lawler & Boudreau, 2012). This article examines two questions using cross-sectional analysis of our most recent survey of HR leaders. First we find that slow progress matters, because progress on HR functional features is related to important outcomes, including HR's role in strategy, effectiveness as a function, and organizational performance. Second, we explore one explanation for HR's stubborn traditionalism, in the organization's management approach. Our results suggest that the organization's management approach may indeed partially explain a lack of HR progress. The more organizations pursue a bureaucratic and low-cost-operator approach to management, the less their HR organization engages in advanced strategic activities, is satisfied with its HR skills, plays a strong strategic role, implements an HR decision science, and adds value to the organization. In contrast, the more organizations pursue high-involvement and sustainable approaches to management, the greater are these HR features.
Visual Response to Gradients of Varying Colour and Equal Luminance

ARE human visual responses to scenes of constant luminance paralleled by those to scenes of constant chromaticity? This question is of particular interest since MacNichol and Svaetichin have shown1 that the responses to luminance and chromaticity are separated at the retinal level in the goldfish, and De Valois has shown that they are partly separated in the lateral geniculate body of the monkey2.
Ion separation effects in mixed-species ablators for inertial-confinement-fusion implosions.

Recent efforts to demonstrate significant self-heating of the fuel and eventual ignition at the National Ignition Facility make use of plastic (CH) ablators [O. A. Hurricane et al., Phys. Plasmas 21, 056314 (2014)]. Mainline simulation techniques for modeling CH capsule implosions treat the ablator as an average-atom fluid and neglect potential species separation phenomena. The mass-ablation process for a mixture is shown to lead to the potential for species separation, parasitic energy loss according to thermodynamic arguments, and reduced rocket efficiency. A generalized plasma barometric formula for a multispecies concentration gradient that includes collisionality and steady flows in spherical geometry is presented. A model based on plasma expansion into a vacuum is used to interpret reported experimental evidence for ablator species separation in an inertial-confinement-fusion target [J. S. Ross et al., Rev. Sci. Instrum. 83, 10E323 (2012)]. The possibility of ``runaway'' hydrogen ions in the thermoelectric field of the ablation front is conjectured.
A pharmacodynamic model for cell-cycle-specific chemotherapeutic agents

A pharmacodynamic model is proposed and equations are developed for the quantitative analysis of dose-time-cell-survival curves produced by the administration of cell-cycle-specific chemo-therapeutic agents. The essential feature of the model is an irreversible, bimolecular mechanism of drug-receptor interaction which serves as the interface between the pharmacokinetics of the drug and the cell-cycle-cell-proliferation kinetics of the normal and neoplastic cells. A preliminary cell system which allows adequate characterization of the experimental data is a two-compartment model where cells are assumed to exist in their proliferative and nonproliferative phases. The chemotherapeutic model was used to analyze dose-time-cell-survival curves found in the literature for the effects of vincristine, vinblastine, arabinosylcytosine, and cyclophosphamide on lymphoma and hematopoietic cells in the mouse femur. Similarity in the values of the “cell-kill” constants for these drugs on the two cell types indicates that, in the cell systems studied, the proliferative state of the cells is the primary in vivodeterminant of selective chemotherapy.
Automatic inference of models for statistical code compression

This paper describes experiments that apply machine learning to compress computer programs, formalizing and automating decisions about instruction encoding that have traditionally been made by humans in a more ad hoc manner. A program accepts a large training set of program material in a conventional compiler intermediate representation (IR) and automatically infers a decision tree that separates IR code into streams that compress much better than the undifferentiated whole. Driving a conventional arithmetic compressor with this model yields code 30% smaller than the previous record for IR code compression, and 24% smaller than an ambitious optimizing compiler feeding an ambitious general-purpose data compressor.
Atmospheric effects on the remote determination of thermal inertia on mars

Measurements of the IR brightness temperature at the Martian surface at many different times of day are presently compared with temperatures predicted by thermal models which allow sunlight to reach the surface unattenuated, in order to determine the thermal inertia of the uppermost 1-10 cm of the Martian surface. The consequences of the assumptions made are assessed in view of results from a different thermal model which invokes radiation-transfer through a dusty CO2 atmosphere, as well as sensible heat-exchange with the surface. Smaller thermal inertias imply smaller particle sizes; the results obtained suggest that low thermal-inertia regions consist of 5-micron, rather than 50-micron, particle sizes.
A contribution to the wind conditions over the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico

The wind conditions over the Central American Seas are discussed on the basis of 9-year mean charts for selected pressure levels and meridional cross-sections along 80° W. The field of large-scale vertical motion is computed for all months of one year. Over the Caribbean Sea, a vigorous downward motion is found during the second part of the winter half-year, which is fed by convergence in the upper-tropospheric southwesterly current. During the greater part of the year, however, upward motion prevails, with a weak tendency to subsidence in midsummer. Over the Gulf of Mexico, subsidence is indicated during great part of the year, changing to ascending motion in midsummer. Implications of the vertical circulation for certain climatic characteristics in the region of the Central American Seas are discussed. DOI: 10.1111/j.2153-3490.1968.tb00360.x
Framing Support for the Supreme Court in the Aftermath of Bush v. Gore

Public support for political actors and institutions depends on the frames emphasized in elite debate, especially following a political controversy. In the aftermath of Bush v. Gore, the Supreme Court made itself the object of political controversy because it effectively ended the 2000 presidential election. Opponents of the decision framed the Supreme Court ruling as partisan and “stealing the election,” while supporters framed it as a principled vote based on legal considerations. Using survey data, we examine how framing the controversy in these terms shaped the Court's public support. In so doing, we examine the distinction between specific support (e.g., confidence in officeholders) and diffuse support (e.g., institutional legitimacy). We find that framing the decision in terms of partisan decision making influences specific support, but it does not affect diffuse support. However, framing the justices' motives in terms of ending the election, a specific consequence of the decision, reduces diffuse s...
Discordant regulation of hepatic IGF-I mRNA and circulating IGF-I during compensatory growth in a teleost, the hybrid striped bass (Morone chrysops£Morone saxatilis)

Abstract Compensatory growth (CG) is a period of growth that exceeds normal rates after animals are alleviated of certain growth-stunting conditions. Little is known, however, about the endocrine control of CG in teleosts. So, our aim was to induce CG in juvenile hybrid striped bass (HSB, Morone chrysops × Morone saxatilis ) through manipulations in feeding regimen, and then determine whether changes in circulating insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) and hepatic IGF-I gene expression accompany the CG response. A considerable catabolic state was induced in HSB fed a total of two times over 4 weeks (once each in the 2nd and 3rd week). Negative energy balance was evidenced through weight loss (−3.4% BW) and a significant drop in hepatosomatic index (HSI) from a value of 3.71 to 1.46. Upon realimentation, in which HSB were fed ad libitum 2×/day, a significant CG response was observed over a 4-week period. The CG response was characterized by an elevated specific growth rate, hyperphagia, restoration of the HSI and an improvement in feed conversion, all relative to controls that were fed ad libitum 2×/day throughout the experiment. Moreover, the CG response and catabolic state preceding it were marked by a discordant regulation in the expression of hepatic IGF-I mRNA and plasma IGF-I levels, the latter parameter paralleling changes in growth ( r 2 = 0.56, P
Connective Leadership: Female Leadership Styles in the 21st-Century Workplace:

This paper describes an integrative leadership model, “connective leadership,” which combines the traditional masculine American ego-ideal with additional female role behaviors more appropriate for an interdependent world. Based on the L-BL Achieving Styles Model, connective leadership emphasizes connecting individuals to their own, as well as others‘, tasks and ego drives. Achieving styles are defined as the characteristic behaviors individuals use to achieve their goals. The Achieving Styles Model includes three sets of achieving styles (direct, instrumental, and relational), each subsuming three individual styles, resulting in a full complement of nine distinct achieving styles. Gender differences in achieving styles are reported and related to the connective leadership paradigm.
Axonal conduction velocities of functionally characterized retinal ganglion cells in goldfish

1Visual response properties and conduction velocities of retinal ganglion cells were studied by extracellular recordings in the intact goldfish eye. Visually responsive single units were confirmed as ganglion cells by collision testing, and their receptive fields were mapped. 2From compound action potentials, we identified groups I-V in the optic nerve, with overall conduction velocities of 11.5 ± 1.17, 7.1 ± 0.79, 4.4 ± 0.56, 3.1 ± 0.31 and 2.3 ± 0.18 m s−1 (mean ± s.d.) at 23 °C. 3Ganglion cells were classified by their receptive fields as off-, on-off- or on-centre. Nearly all confirmed ganglion cells had axonal conduction velocities in groups II, III and IV; none fell in the fastest group, I. 4Off-centre ganglion cells had conduction velocities only in the fast group, II. On-off-centre cells fell mainly in group III, with some in group II. On-centre cells fell in groups II-V, but mainly in groups III and IV. 5Receptive field centre diameters were 5-30 deg measured with a photopic background. The mean diameters for off-, on-off- and on-centres were 24, 15 and 18 deg, respectively. The relatively larger diameter and higher rate of spontaneous firing of the off-centre cells were maintained under different adaptation conditions. 6The off-centre cells can be identified with an anatomical class of large, α-like ganglion cells in the goldfish retina.
Ten measurement commandments that often should be broken

Many of the measurement aspects of nursing research have been governed by rules regarding the minimum values of certain summary indexes (such as Cronbach's coefficient alpha and Cohen's kappa), the required numbers of subjects per item for factor analyses, and the like. In this article a case is made for violating these rules whenever the circumstances warrant such violations.
Flow cytometric analysis of dna ploidy, percent S-phase fraction, and total proliferative fraction as prognostic indicators of local control and survival following radiation therapy for prostate carcinoma

Abstract Purpose: Treatment recommendations for localized prostate cancer may be improved by the identification of tumor factors prognostic for local control and survival. In this retrospective study, flow cytometric deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) ploidy analysis and cell cycle analysis were performed on paraffin-embedded biopsy material to determine if additional prognostic factors could be identified in patients treated with radiation therapy. Methods and Materials: Seventy patients with T1-4NxM0 tumors were identified in whom the primary treatment had been radical radiation therapy with no prior or concurrent endocrine therapy and in whom sufficient prostatic tissue was available for flow cytometric analysis. There were 40 diploid, 26 aneuploid, and 4 multiploid cases. Aneuploid and multiploid cases were combined for analysis. Cell cycle data were obtained on all diploid and 10 aneuploid cases. Results: The histologic differentiation of the tumor (well or moderate vs. poor) was an independent predictor of overall survival and disease-free survival ( p = 0.05 and 0.01, respectively). Local control was worse in the poorly differentiated patients, although this was not statistically significant in a multivariate analysis ( p = 0.08). Neither T-stage, deoxyribonucleic acid ploidy (diploid vs. nondiploid), percent S-phase fraction, nor total proliferative fraction (S-phase fraction + G 2 M) significantly predicted for any of these endpoints. Within the diploid and well or moderately differentiated subgroup ( n = 25), S-phase ( p = 0.03). A comparable distinction could be made using total proliferative fraction ( Conclusions: This retrospective and multivariate analysis identifies both histology and percent S-phase or total proliferative fraction as predictors of local control following irradiation, and confirms that histology, but not DNA ploidy, is significant for overall survival. If these previously unreported findings are confirmed by prospective studies, S-phase should be added to histology as a parameter in the evaluation of clinical trials.
Extreme chirped pulse amplification (X-CPA) using semiconductor gain media

In this paper, the extreme pulse stretching and compression using chirped FBG is characterized with a novel modelocked semiconductor oscillator. In addition, the concept of XCPA is verified by studying the gain saturation behavior with and without the stretching of an optical pulse, and is compared experimentally and theoretically using the gain flattened mode-locked and semiconductor optical amplifiers as the gain elements.
The Saint with Indra's Sword: Khruubaa Srivichai and Buddhist Millenarianism in Northern Thailand

Despite a growing literature revealing the presence of millenarian movements in both Theravada and Mahayana Buddhist societies, scholars have been remarkably reluctant to consider the role of messianic beliefs in Buddhist societies. Khruubaa Srivichai (1878–1938) is the most famous monk of northern Thailand and is widely revered as a tonbun, or saint. Although tonbun has been depoliticized in the modern context, the term also refers to a savior who is an incarnation of the coming Maitreya Buddha. In 1920 Srivichai was sent under arrest to the capital city of Bangkok to face eight charges. This essay focuses on the charge that he claimed to possess the god Indra's sword. Although this charge has been widely ignored, it was in fact a charge of treason. In this essay, I argue that the treason charge should be understood within the context of Buddhist millenarianism. I note the saint/savior tropes in Srivichai's mytho-biography, describe the prevalence of millenarianism in the region, and detail the political economy of the decade of the 1910s prior to Srivichai's detention. I present evidence to show that the decade was characterized by famine, dislocation, disease, and other disasters of both natural and social causes. Such hardships would have been consistent with apocalyptic omens in the Buddhist repertoire portending the advent of Maitreya. Understanding Srivichai in this millenarian context helps to explain both the hopes of the populace and the fears of the state during that tumultuous decade.
Die räumlichen Gesichtswahrnehmungen

Wenn wir im vorhergehenden Kapitel die Helligkeits- und Farbenempfindungen fur sich erortert haben, so haben wir von etwas gesprochen, was in Wirklichkeit fur sich gar nicht existiert; denn alle Helligkeiten oder Farbigkeiten sehen wir zugleich in bestimmter Ausdehnung und in bestimmter Form, wir sehen sie ferner an einem bestimmten Ort, in bestimmter Richtung und in einem bestimmten Abstand; jeder Helligkeit oder Farbigkeit haftet also etwas Raumliches an. Diese Komplexe nennen wir Gesichtswahrnehmungen.
An investigation into fault recovery in guaranteed performance service connections

As high speed networks are starting to provide guaranteed performance services, it is imperative that fault recovery techniques be revised to support these new services. The authors investigate one aspect of fault recovery, in this context, the rerouting of guaranteed performance connections affected by link faults in the network. Recovery is achieved by rerouting the affected connection so as to avoid the failed link while ensuring that the traffic and performance guarantees made along the previous route are satisfied along the new route. The goal of the rerouting schemes is to reroute as much of the affected traffic as quickly and efficiently as possible. The authors investigate rerouting along the lines of two orthogonal components: the locus of reroute, which determines the node that does route selection and the new route selected; and the timing component, which determines when the individual reroute attempts are initiated. Within each of these two components they examine approaches that span the spectrum of that component. They compare all possible combinations of these approaches under a cross-section of network workloads, using in their comparisons a novel metric, the queueing delay load index, that captures both the bandwidth and delay resources required by a connection. Extensive simulation experiments were conducted on the various combinations and some of their results and analyses are presented in the paper. >
Performance of a flux locked series SQUID array

The operation of a SQUID array with 100 DC SQUIDs has been demonstrated using a single flux-locked loop. The SQUID array had a maximum dynamic range of +or-1.3*10/sup 8// square root (Hz) in the low frequency region, a high slewing rate over a wide frequency range, and an extrinsic white noise energy sensitivity of 6*10/sup -31/J/Hz. These data were obtained with a very simple feedback circuit made from three inexpensive operational amplifiers that operated in the DC-feedback mode. The feedback loop did not have any impedance matching circuit between the SQUID array and the room temperature electronics. Our results show that a SQUID array can have a significant impact on those applications that demand good noise performance and a very high dynamic range. >
Challenges faced today by computer security practitioners

Summary form only given. It is noted that computer security practitioners still experience difficulty in: educating management and users at all levels; securing cooperation from other security professionals and auditors; making proper use of available security technology; accurately assessing the threats, vulnerabilities, and adequacy of safeguards; and persuading management of the importance of this. It is concluded that getting management's approval is the most critical element in computer security, since it is management that must make budget decisions that finance better computer security. Once management has a greater appreciation for computer security, the other factors should fall into place. >
USING ENERGY EFFICIENT TEMPERATURE SENSOR FOR AUTOMATIC CONTROL OF THE HEATING AND COOLING SYSTEM IN THE HOME

With the development of modern technology, Smart Living is gradually changing people’s life and thus providing a necessary technology to create convenience, intelligence and controllability. In this paper, a new Smart Living system is introduced for the Automatic Control of Heating and Cooling System in the Home. The system is designed to assist and provide support in order to fulfill some of the needs of elderly and disabled in the home as the elderly and the disabled are often in dire need of controlling their home environment. The main control system employed is a temperature sensor LM35 which serves as input signal to the central processing unit, which is the microcontroller whose function is for the overall control of the system. The output unit which consists of the relays which power on and off the 60 Watts bulbs (Heating system) and the fan (Cooling system) , and an LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) which help to make the results of the test visible. The results of the test showed that the system automatically switched on and off two 60watt light bulbs and a 0.14 Amps fan at the preset temperature value (below 25 o C and above 30 o C) through the LM35 temperature sensor. http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/njt.v34i4.22
Curve and surface interpolation and approximation: knowledge unit and software tool

This paper describes a knowledge unit and the use of a software tool, DesignMentor, for teaching a very challenging topic in computer graphics and visualization, namely: curve and surface interpolation and approximation. Topics include global and local interpolation, global approximation, and curve network interpolation. For the past six years, a junior-level course has successfully used this approach.
New Guidelines on Diet and Blood Pressure

The publication of a new American Heart Association (AHA) scientific statement on dietary influences on blood pressure is very timely.1 “You are what you eat” may be a cliche, but the importance of diet in our lives cannot be underestimated, and hardly a week goes by without some new fad diet appearing on the scene. There is agreement that of all the modifiable environmental factors that influence blood pressure, diet is the most important. But one of the ongoing debates is the extent to which hypertension should be treated by lifestyle changes or by drugs. Although these are not necessarily mutually exclusive, the issue is relevant because physicians’ time and resources are limited. According to the Seventh Report of the Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure (JNC 7) classification,2 more than half of American adults are either hypertensive or prehypertensive, and most of the latter are destined to become hypertensive if they live long enough. The AHA statement lists 4 specific dietary components as having very strong scientific support for their effects on blood pressure: 2 (salt and alcohol intake) raise the pressure, whereas 2 others (potassium and omega-3 fatty acids) lower it. In addition, body weight is strongly related to blood pressure, and 2 composite diets—Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) and a vegetarian diet—are considered to lower the pressure. Although all hypertensive patients should be counseled about the influence of diet on blood pressure, we should remember that people can only eat one diet at any one point in time and that the emphasis should be on general health rather than focusing just on blood pressure. Salt restriction was one of the earliest dietary interventions used to control hypertension, and although the …
Effect of alkyltins on rabbit articular and growth‐plate chondrocytes in monolayer culture

The effect of four different alkyltins (trimelhyltin, triethyltin, dibutyltin, and dioctyltin) on the metabolism of rabbit articular and growth‐plate chondrocytes was investigated using a monolayer cell‐culture system. In most Instances the compounds tested exhibited a general cytotoxic effect on these cells, Inhibiting the synthesis of both DNA and sulfated proteoglycans. The effect of these compounds on proteoglycan synthesis was both quantitative and qualitative, as demonstrated by CsCI isopycnic density gradient centrifugation and gel exclusion Chromatographic techniques. However, certain tin compounds tested, at specific concentrations, exerted a stimulatory effect on chondrocyte proliferation. Regarding DNA synthesis, growth‐plate chondrocytes were more sensitive to the effect of the triethyltin, dibutyltin, and dioctyltin than were articular chondrocytes. The data are discussed in relation to the possible effects of the alkyltins on skeletal growth and development as well as the mechanism of action...
Comparability of Projections

Let A be a Baer ∗-ring, let (ei)i∈I and (fi)i∈I be orthogonal families of projections indexed by the same set I, let e=supei, f=supfi and suppose that ei∼fi, for all i∈I. Does it follow that e∼f?
Chiral SU(3) Symmetry Breaking for the Pseudoscalar Mesons

In the framework of the quark-vector-gluon model, with chiral symmetry broken by a quark mass term, careful use of the algebraic properties of the Hamiltonian and of the divergences of axial-vector currents leads to a consistent picture of symmetry breaking in the pseudoscalar nonet. The ${\ensuremath{\eta}}^{\ensuremath{'}}(960)$ emerges with a large gluon component.
Higgsing gauge symmetries with reduced staggered fermions

We show how a strongly coupled lattice theory consisting of just fermions and gauge fields can exhibit a dynamical Higgs mechanism through the formation of a gauge invariant four fermion condensate. Furthermore, we argue that the resultant lattice Higgs phase may survive into the continuum limit.
A high-performance framework for analyzing massive complex networks

Graphs are a fundamental and widely-used abstraction for representing data. We can analytically study interesting aspects of real-world complex systems such as the Internet, social systems, transportation networks, and biological interaction data by modeling them as graphs. Graph-theoretic and combinatorial problems are also pervasive in scientific computing and engineering applications. In this dissertation, we address the problem of analyzing large-scale complex networks that represent interactions between hundreds of thousands to billions of entities. We present SNAP, a new high-performance computational framework for efficiently processing graph-theoretic queries on massive datasets. Graph analysis is computationally very different from traditional scientific computing, and solving massive graph-theoretic problems on current high performance computing systems is challenging due to several reasons. First, real-world graphs are often characterized by a low diameter and unbalanced degree distributions, and are difficult to partition on parallel systems. Second, parallel algorithms for solving graph-theoretic problems are typically memory intensive, and the memory accesses are fine-grained and highly irregular. The primary contributions of this dissertation are the design and implementation of novel parallel graph algorithms for traversal, shortest paths, and centrality computations, optimized for the small-world network topology, and high-performance multithreaded architectures and multicore servers. SNAP (Small-world Network Analysis and Partitioning) is a modular, open-source framework for the exploratory analysis and partitioning of large-scale networks. With SNAP, we demonstrate the capability to process massive graphs with billions of vertices and edges, and achieve up to two orders of magnitude speedup over state-of-the-art network analysis approaches. We also design a new parallel computing benchmark for characterizing the performance of graph-theoretic problems on high-end systems; study data representations for dynamic graph problems on parallel systems; and apply algorithms in SNAP to solve real-world problems in social network analysis and systems biology.
Self-Perceived Health Improvements Among Prison Inmates:

Despite the extensive resources expended on providing medical care to inmates, inmates’ health perception is an understudied topic. The current study investigates inmates’ perception of health status while incarcerated using a sample of 136 soon-to-be released prisoners. Prisoners with poor health perception prior to their current incarceration were most likely to perceive health improvement. Sociodemographic characteristics were generally not associated with the perceived health improvement during incarceration. Analysis results suggest correctional institutions may play a vital role in delivering much-needed medical care to a segment of the prisoner population, including determining how they feel about their health. It is important to explore the policies and practices to increase continuity of health care following release to maintain perceived health improvement.
Infrared flame spectra

This paper presents a summary of recent work on the emission spectra of hydrocarbon flames in the region from 1 to 5.5 microns. The temperature of flames as determined by intensities of the infrared rotational and vibrational bands is found to be about 2600° K. Further temperature measurements on the incandescent particles in an oxyacetylene flame have been made and it was found that the values determined agree with those obtained from the spectral measurements.