cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Delayed Planting Opportunities with Winter Wheat in the Central Great Plains

Winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) in the Great Plains is not always planted at the optimum time for a variety of reasons. In order to identify wheat yield and related responses to delayed establishment, sequential monthly plantings from 1 October to 1 April were undertaken during 7 yr, 1985 to 1991, at Garden City, KS. 'TAM 107' was seeded at a constant heavy rate in bordered drill-strip plots in a randomized complete block design. Although considerable variability occurred among years, relative grain yield declined with progressive planting dates as follows : 1 October = 100%, 1 November = 77%, 1 December-59%, 1 January = 57%, 1 February = 41%, 1 March = 16%, 1 April = 0%. Wheat planted on 1 April did not joint or form heads due to lack of a 6 wk period with temperatures below St °F as required for vernalization. Relative to the optimum planting date on 1 October, the wheat planted on 1 March was the last to produce heads and grain and the lowest yielding ; had the most delay in heading (26 d later) ; was the latest to ripen (17 d later) and the shortest statured (5 in. less) ; produced the smallest seed weight (43% less) and the lowest test weight (21% less) ; produced the fewest heads per plant (58% fewer), the fewest kernels per head (33 it fewer), and the fewest kernels per plant (73% fewer) ; and had the shortest grain-filling period (9 fewer d). Little variation in stand emergence or number of spikelets per head occurred through the range of planting-opportunity dates. These results provide quantitative criteria to help make cropping decisions relative to delayed planting situations for winter wheat in the Central Great Plains.
Exact reconstruction of volumetric images in reverse helical cone-beam CT

Helical scanning configuration has been used widely in diagnostic cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) for acquiring data sufficient for exact image reconstruction over an extended volume. In image-guided radiation therapy (IGRT) and other applications of CBCT, it can be difficult, if not impossible, to implement mechanically a multiple-turn helical trajectory on the imaging systems due to hardware constraints. However, imaging systems in these applications often allow for the implementation of a reverse helical trajectory in which the rotation direction changes between two consecutive turns. Because the reverse helical trajectory satisfies Tuy’s condition, when projections of the imaged object are nontruncated, it yields data sufficient for exact image reconstruction within the reverse helix volume. The recently developed chord-based algorithms such as the backprojection filtration (BPF) algorithm can readily be applied to reconstructing images on chords of a reverse helical trajectory, and they can thus reconstruct an image within a volume covered by the chords. Conversely, the chord-based algorithms cannot reconstruct images within regions that are not intersected by chords. In a reverse helix volume, as shown below, chordless regions exist in which no images can thus be reconstructed by use of the chord-based algorithms. In this work, based upon Pack–Noo’s formula, a shift-invariant filtered backprojection (FBP) algorithm is derived for exact image reconstruction within the reverse helix volume, including the chordless region. Numerical studies have also been conducted to demonstrate the chordless region in a reverse helix volume and to validate the FBP algorithm for image reconstruction within the chordless region. Results of the numerical studies confirm that the FBP algorithm can exactly reconstruct an image within the entire reverse helix volume, including the chordless region. It is relatively straightforward to extend the FBP algorithm to reconstruct images for general trajectories, including reverse helical trajectories with variable pitch, tilted axis, and∕or additional segments between turns.
The significance of the erosion parameter and the mechanisms of erosion in single-particle impacts

Abstract Single-particle impact studies were performed on 70−30 brass (70%Cu−30%Zn) specimens using a gas gun designed to impact steel balls 3 mm in diameter repeatedly at the same location at a fixed velocity of usually 120 m s −1 and at angles of 25° and 90° to the target surfaces. Specimens were initially cold worked to varying degrees and the effect of the specimen hardness on the erosion parameter was determined. A factorial experiment was designed to evaluate the statistical significance of the variables involved in the determination of the erosion parameter. It was concluded that the initial level of cold work in the specimen and the kinetic energy of the impacting ball have a significant effect on the erosion parameter. Scanning electron microscopy of the impacted specimens and the erosion debris revealed contributions to erosion from two mechanisms, i.e . flake formation and lip fragmentation. Flake formation is the dominant mode of erosion in normal impact conditions while lip fragmenta
Histochemical Evidence on Localisation of Succinic Dehydrogenase in the Synapse of the Central Nervous System of Rabbit, Rat, and Guinea-pig

SUCCINIC dehydrogenase activity of the normal spinal motor neurone was demonstrated as spotted in type at the cell membrane of the motor neurone in the spinal cord1 of the guinea-pig.
Evolutionary changes in cis and trans gene regulation

Differences in gene expression are central to evolution. Such differences can arise from cis-regulatory changes that affect transcription initiation, transcription rate and/or transcript stability in an allele-specific manner, or from trans-regulatory changes that modify the activity or expression of factors that interact with cis-regulatory sequences1,2. Both cis- and trans-regulatory changes contribute to divergent gene expression, but their respective contributions remain largely unknown3. Here we examine the distribution of cis- and trans-regulatory changes underlying expression differences between closely related Drosophila species, D. melanogaster and D. simulans, and show functional cis-regulatory differences by comparing the relative abundance of species-specific transcripts in F1 hybrids4,5. Differences in trans-regulatory activity were inferred by comparing the ratio of allelic expression in hybrids with the ratio of gene expression between species. Of 29 genes with interspecific expression differences, 28 had differences in cis-regulation, and these changes were sufficient to explain expression divergence for about half of the genes. Trans-regulatory differences affected 55% (16 of 29) of genes, and were always accompanied by cis-regulatory changes. These data indicate that interspecific expression differences are not caused by select trans-regulatory changes with widespread effects, but rather by many cis-acting changes spread throughout the genome.
IgM Autoantibodies Specific for Xanthine Oxidase Are Not 0Increased in Preeclampsia

Objectives: The oxidase form of xanthine dehydrogenase/oxidase produces uric acid and free radicals. We hypothesized that increased xanthine oxidase is involved in the pathogenesis of preeclampsia and in the hyperuricemia which accompanies the disease. We assayed serum of normal and preeclamptic women for presence of IgM specific for xanthine oxidase, which has been used as a marker for xanthine oxidase released from ischemic tissue.Methods: Specific IgM antibodies were assayed by ELISA. A reference serum, high in concentration of antibody against xanthine oxidase, was used to standardize the assay.Results: Specific IgM antibody and total IgM were measured in 10 preeclamptic and 10 normal pregnant women. No significant difference was found in the concentration of IgM specific to xanthine oxidase or in the relative amount of the specific IgM to total IgM. There was a significant correlation between the IgM specific for xanthine oxidase and uric acid concentration in preeclamptic women (P = 0.02, r2 = 0.5),...
Neurogenic potential of progenitor cells isolated from postmortem human Parkinsonian brains.

The success of cellular therapies for Parkinson's disease (PD) will depend not only on a conducive growth environment in vivo, but also on the ex vivo amplification and targeted neural differentiation of stem/progenitor cells. Here, we demonstrate the in vitroproliferative and differentiation potential of stem/progenitor cells, adult human neural progenitor cells (“AHNPs”) isolated from idiopathic PD postmortem tissue samples and, to a lesser extent, discarded deep brain stimulation electrodes. We demonstrate that these AHNPs can be isolated from numerous structures (e.g.substantia nigra, “SN”) and are able to differentiate into both glia and neurons, but only under particular growth conditions including co-culturing with embryonic stem cell-derived neural precursors (“ESNPs”); this suggests that PD multipotent neural stem/progenitor cells do reside within the SN and other areas, but by themselves appear to lack key factors required for neuronal differentiation. AHNPs engraft following ex vivoexpansion and transplantation into the rodent brain, demonstrating their regenerative potential. Our data demonstrate the presence and capacity of endogenous stem/progenitor cells in the PD brain.
A subset of gestational trophoblastic disease characterized by abnormal chromosome 8 copy number detected by fluorescence in situ hybridization

Abstract The present paper describes the results of research conducted to ascertain whether the report by Mark et al. [1], describing the concurrence of congenital trisomy 8 mosaicism and gestational trophoblastic disease (GTD) in a 42 year-old Gravida IV, Para IV patient was an isolated event. In contrast to other cases described in the literature, the patient described in Mark et al. [1] had no additional confounding chromosomal abnormalities other than trisomy 8. To the best of our knowledge, ours was the only reported case of constitutional trisomy 8 mosaicism associated with gestational trophoblastic disease, a rare gynecological disease entity. The question arises whether there exists a subset of patients with GTD characterized by an abnormal chromosome 8 copy number. The implicit hypothesis is that an abnormal number of chromosome 8 somehow predisposes to cancer. A pilot study of 10 cases of GTD was conducted using fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) and a commercial chromosome 8-specific α-satellite probe on formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded patient tissues. Among eight informative cases successfully completed, two cases (25%) were found to be trisomic, when a cut-off point of 10% trisomic cells is adopted. Another two cases (25%) were found to be triploid. The results of our FISH study indicated that an abnormal chromosome 8 copy number found in Mark et al. [1] is unlikely to be an isolated event. Our data are consistent with the hypothesis that a subset of GTD indeed may exist which is characterized by more than two copies of chromosome 8. The present findings corroborate those recently found in breast, prostate, and other cancers.
Structure-Assigned Optical Spectra of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes

Spectrofluorimetric measurements on single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) isolated in aqueous surfactant suspensions have revealed distinct electronic absorption and emission transitions for more than 30 different semiconducting nanotube species. By combining these fluorimetric results with resonance Raman data, each optical transition has been mapped to a specific (n,m) nanotube structure. Optical spectroscopy can thereby be used to rapidly determine the detailed composition of bulk SWNT samples, providing distributions in both tube diameter and chiral angle. The measured transition frequencies differ substantially from simple theoretical predictions. These deviations may reflect combinations of trigonal warping and excitonic effects.
Studies of androgens in patients with congenital adrenal hyperplasia.

ABSTRACT Six patients with the simple vitalizing form of congenital adrenal hyperplasia, 4 patients with the salt-losing form of the disease, and 1 patient with a partial 3β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase defect have been studied. In all patients with the simple and salt-losing form of the disease, peripheral plasma concentrations of testosterone (T) and particularly of androstenedione (Δ) were elevated. Plasma concentrations of dehydroepiandrosterone (D) and its sulfate (DS) were elevated in some of these patients. In 2 non-salt-losing patients, blood production of T and Δ was determined by the constant infusion technique. The blood production rate of Δ was very high. The blood production of T was also elevated for the age and sex of the 2 patients and approximately 50% of it arose from peripheral interconversion of Δ to T. There was a marked disagreement between blood and urinary production of T. The discrepancy could be accounted for by the contribution of the blood production of Δ to urinary T glucuroni...
Paranuclear E-Cadherin in Gastric Adenocarcinoma

Decreased E-cadherin expression permits dissociation and widespread dissemination of gastric adenocarcinoma cells. We studied the relationship between paranuclear E-cadherin distribution and the histopathologic characteristics of gastric adenocarcinomas. E-cadherin immunostains of 173 gastric adenocarcinoma sections revealed paranuclear; punctate to vesicular staining in 18% (16/87) of the intestinal-type adenocarcinomas, 30% (17/56) of the diffuse-type adenocarcinomas, and 30% (9/30) of the mired adenocarcinomas. These data suggest that in some gastric adenocarcinomas, there is a defect in transport of E-cadherin to the cell surface, which may prevent intercellular adhesion and encourage dissemination. Of 34 cancers with paranuclear E-cadherin staining, 20 (59%) had paranuclear staining within the nonneoplastic epithelium, but only 22.0% of 100 carcinomas with absent or membranous E-cadherin staining were accompanied by morphologically benign epithelium with paranuclear E-cadherin. In surface epithelium, paranuclear E-cadherin staining colocalized with Griffonia simplicifolia lectin II in the Golgi apparatus. The presence of paranuclear E-cadherin in cancer-associated benign epithelium suggests that the alteration in the E-cadherin molecule responsible for the paranuclear distribution may be an early change in gastric adenocarcinoma progression.
SAFEGUI: resampling-based tests of categorical significance in gene expression data made easy.

Summary: A large number of websites and applications perform significance testing for gene categories/pathways in microarray data. Many of these packages fail to account for expression correlation between transcripts, with a resultant inflation in Type I error. Array permutation and other resampling-based approaches have been proposed as solutions to this problem. SAFEGUI provides a user-friendly graphical interface for the assessment of categorical significance in microarray studies, while properly accounting for the effects of correlations among genes. SAFEGUI incorporates both permutation and more recently proposed bootstrap algorithms that are demonstrated to be more powerful in detecting differential expression across categories of genes. Availability: http://cebc.unc.edu/software/ Contact: ude.cnu.soib@thgirwf; ude.cnu.liame@ittagmd
Competencies Critical to Teachers of Students with Hearing Impairments

it is essential that the knowledge and skills acquired during the preparation program be those needed by future teachers once they are delivering services to students with hearing impairments. A na...
Cyclic arginine-glycine-aspartate attenuates acute lung injury in mice after intestinal ischemia/reperfusion

Introduction Intestinal ischemia is a critical problem resulting in multiple organ failure and high mortality of 60 to 80%. Acute lung injury (ALI) is a common complication after intestinal ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injuries and contributes to the high mortality rate. Moreover, activated neutrophil infiltration into the lungs is known to play a significant role in the progression of ALI. Integrin-mediated interaction is involved in neutrophil transmigration. Synthetic peptides containing an arginine-glycine-aspartate sequence compete with adhesive proteins and inhibit integrin-mediated interaction and signaling. Thus, we hypothesized that the administration of a cyclic arginine-glycine-aspartate peptide (cRGD) inhibited neutrophil infiltration and provided protection against ALI induced by intestinal I/R.
Evaluation of DFT methods for computing the interaction energies of homomolecular and heteromolecular dimers of monosubstituted benzene

We present density functional theory (DFT) interaction energies for the sandwich and T-shaped conformers of substituted benzene dimers. The DFT functionals studied include TPSS, HCTH407, B3LYP, and X3LYP. We also include Hartree–Fock (HF) and second-order Moller–Plesset perturbation theory calculations (MP2), as well as calculations using a new functional, P3LYP, which includes PBE and HF exchange and LYP correlation. Although DFT methods do not explicitly account for the dispersion interactions important in the benzene–dimer interactions, we find that our new method, P3LYP, as well as HCTH407 and TPSS, match MP2 and CCSD(T) calculations much better than the hybrid methods B3LYP and X3LYP methods do. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Quantum Chem, 2006
A particle image velocimetry system for microfluidics

A micron-resolution particle image velocimetry (micro-PIV) system has been developed to measure instantaneous and ensemble-averaged flow fields in micron-scale fluidic devices. The system utilizes an epifluorescent microscope, 100–300 nm diameter seed particles, and an intensified CCD camera to record high-resolution particle-image fields. Velocity vector fields can be measured with spatial resolutions down to 6.9×6.9×1.5 μm. The vector fields are analyzed using a double-frame cross-correlation algorithm. In this technique, the spatial resolution and the accuracy of the velocity measurements is limited by the diffraction limit of the recording optics, noise in the particle image field, and the interaction of the fluid with the finite-sized seed particles. The stochastic influence of Brownian motion plays a significant role in the accuracy of instantaneous velocity measurements. The micro-PIV technique is applied to measure velocities in a Hele–Shaw flow around a 30 μm (major diameter) elliptical cylinder, with a bulk velocity of approximately 50 μm s-1.
The finite anti-plane shear field near the tip of a crack for a class of incompressible elastic solids

The present paper is concerned with an infinite slab containing a crack and deformed at infinity to a state of finite simple shear. The material of the slab is taken to be homogeneous, isotropic, elastic, and incompressible, and is further assumed to belong to a class of materials which admit nontrivial states of anti-plane shear. The analysis is carried out for the fully nonlinear equilibrium theory of finite elasticity. The stress field near the crack-tips is studied in detail; one of the special materials considered is such that the shear stresses near a crack tip remain bounded, despite the presence of unbounded displacement gradients. An analogy between the crack problem in finite anti-plane shear and the problem of transonic flow of a gas past a flat plate is pointed out and discussed.
INPUT RATES AND USER PREFERENCE FOR THREE SMALL-SCREEN INPUT METHODS: STANDARD KEYBOARD, PREDICTIVE KEYBOARD, AND HANDWRITING

The purpose of this study was to compare three input methods (standard keyboard, predictive keyboard, and perfect handwriting recognition) considering user input rates and preferences. Six particip...
Angiosarcoma of the bladder following prostate radiotherapy.

To the Editor:Prostate cancer, the most common malignancy in men,is often managed with radiotherapy. Treatment is generallywell-tolerated; patients have a minimum to moderate inci-dence of urinary irritation, bowel frequency, and erectiledysfunction. A much rarer but real concern is radiation-induced secondary malignancies. We present the case ofan unusual bladder cancer arising after prostate radio-therapy. Primary care physicians, urologists, and oncolo-gists who follow prostate cancer survivors should be awareof the risk of secondary tumors.
Tension, free space, and cell damage in a microfluidic wound healing assay.

We use a novel, microfluidics-based technique to deconstruct the classical wound healing scratch assay, decoupling the contribution of free space and cell damage on the migratory dynamics of an epithelial sheet. This method utilizes multiple laminar flows to selectively cleave cells enzymatically, and allows us to present a ‘damage free’ denudation. We therefore isolate the influence of free space on the onset of sheet migration. First, we observe denudation directly to measure the retraction in the cell sheet that occurs after cell-cell contact is broken, providing direct and quantitative evidence of strong tension within the sheet. We further probe the mechanical integrity of the sheet without denudation, instead using laminar flows to selectively inactivate actomyosin contractility. In both cases, retraction is observed over many cell diameters. We then extend this method and complement the enzymatic denudation with analogies to wounding, including gradients in signals associated with cell damage, such as reactive oxygen species, suspected to play a role in the induction of movement after wounding. These chemical factors are evaluated in combination with the enzymatic cleavage of cells, and are assessed for their influence on the collective migration of a non-abrasively denuded epithelial sheet. We conclude that free space alone is sufficient to induce movement, but this movement is predominantly limited to the leading edge, leaving cells further from the edge less able to move towards the wound. Surprisingly, when coupled with a gradient in ROS to simulate the chemical effects of abrasion however, motility was not restored, but further inhibited.
High resolution Raman spectroscopy of gases with laser sources. XIII—the pure rotational spectra of 1,3,5,7-cyclooctatetraene and 1,5-cyclooctadiene†‡

The pure rotational Raman spectra of 1,3,5,7-cyclooctatetraene (C8H8) and 1,5-cyclooctadiene (C8H12) vapor at pressures of 4 and 2 torr, respectively were photographed under high resolution. The 4765 A, 4880 A and 5145 A radiations of a single mode argon ion laser were used to generate the spectra. The molecular constants found from the analysis of the spectra are, for C8H8: B = 0.090392(15) cm−1, DJ = 1.34(10) × 10−8 cm−1 and, for C8H12: B = ½(A + B) = 0.090345(110) cm−1, DJ = 7.12(1.80) × 10−10, cm−1, where the errors are five standard deviations. These constants are averages over the ground state, the low-lying vibrational states which are sufficiently populated at room temperature, as well as over the possible conformers concurrently present in the sample.
Why cancer patients request disposal of cryopreserved semen specimens posttherapy: a retrospective study.

Abstract Objective: To determine why patients with cancer stop storing semen in a sperm bank program. Design: Retrospective study. Setting: Hospital andrology laboratory. Patient(s): Cancer patients (n = 56) who discontinued sperm storage. Intervention(s): A database of 342 patients with cryopreserved sperm was searched for disease diagnosis, marital status before and after diagnosis, type of therapy, number of specimens banked, interval between diagnosis and sperm banking, and postthaw semen characteristics. Patients discontinuing storage were surveyed. Main Outcome Measurement(s): Reasons for discontinuing storage and clinical correlation of the decision. Result(s): Reasons included patient death (n = 21); fertility but no plans for more children (n = 23); good sperm quality (n = 8); and no plans to have children (n = 4). Patients were similar in age, number of specimens, and interval between diagnosis and treatment, but they showed significant differences in type of treatment and time in the program. Cost of cryopreservation and specimen storage was not cited. Conclusion(s): Most patients decided to discontinue sperm banking because either they regained fertility or had improved semen quality. Sperm banking should be strongly recommended for all patients with malignant diseases who may wish to have children, even if they eventually decide that the specimens are not needed.
Factors other than sex steroids modulate GHRH and GHRP-2 efficacies in men: Evaluation using a GnRH agonist/testosterone clamp

Background: Sex steroids are prominent regulators of pulsatile GH secretion. Hypothesis: An experimentally controlled sex-steroid milieu will permit detection of nonsteroidal factors that determine GH secretion. Subjects: Eleven young (age, 24 ± 0.99 yr) and 11 older (64 ± 2.4 yr) men participated in the study. Location: The study was conducted at a tertiary medical center. Methods: The study consisted of GnRH-agonist down-regulation of the gonadal axis followed by fixed-dose testosterone (T) replacement (leuprolide/T clamp) and consecutive infusion of l-arginine and GHRH or GH-releasing peptide-2 (GHRP-2) to quantify peptide-secretagogue efficacies. Outcomes: The experimental leuprolide/T clamp yielded statistically age-comparable total, bioavailable, and free T and estradiol (E2) concentrations. In this controlled milieu, sequential l-arginine/GHRH infusion stimulated 1.4-fold more (P = 0.021) and l-arginine/GHRP-2 1.3-fold more (P = 0.045) GH release in young than older men. Abdominal visceral fat (AVF) correlated negatively with both GHRH (P = 0.0006; R2 = 0.39) and GHRP-2 (R2 = 0.29) efficacy, whereas IGF-I positively predicted the same endpoints (R2 = 0.25 to 0.30). In multivariate analysis, AVF emerged as a dominant negative determinant of GHRH efficacy (P = 0.002; R2 = 0.41) and IGF-I as a primary positive determinant of GHRP-2 efficacy (P = 0.007; R2 = 0.31). Conclusion: During fixed T/E2 availability, AVF contributes 41% of the GH-response variability to maximal GHRH drive, whereas IGF-I accounts for 31% of that for GHRP-2. Accordingly, a statistically equalized sex-steroid milieu permits dissection of age-independent and T/E2-independent modulators of GHRH and GHRP efficacy in men.
73.1: Invited Paper: Modeling the Effect of Image Noise on Perceptual Decisions

Image noise arising from acquisition or display can limit the utility of images acquired for medical or scientific purposes. for several years, investigators in the medical image perception community have been building models of how human observers perform basic visual tasks in the presence of image noise. We review these models along with some experimental validations of them.
Active Ingredients in Cade Oil That Synergize Attractiveness of α-Ionol to Male Bactrocera latifrons (Diptera: Tephritidae)

Abstract Cade oil, a commercially available essential oil produced by destructive distillation of juniper, Juniperus oxycedrus L., twigs, is known to synergize the attractancy of α-ionol to male Bactrocera latifrons (Hendel). Through chemical fractionation and outdoor olfactometer-based bioassays, seven compounds in cade oil were identified that potentially could provide some level of synergism. Tests with sterile laboratory flies showed that four of the seven compounds (eugenol, isoeugenol, 2-methoxy-4-ethylphenol, and 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol), together with a closely related compound not found in cade oil, 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol, are capable of synergizing the attractiveness of α-ionol to male B. latifrons under field conditions. The similarity in structures of these five synergistic compounds shows that there is a response to a core 2-methoxyphenol structure, with fly response little affected by some variation in the composition of the side chain on the number 4 carbon. Because identified synergists...
Bad Brains: Crime and Drug Abuse from a Neurocriminological Perspective

Research into the biosocial correlates of antisocial behavior has revealed the importance of integrating sociological findings with evidence flowing from genetics and neuroscience. The present study represents a step toward such integration by offering an in-depth overview of neurocriminology, which is the study of the brain and how it affects antisocial behavior. We consider the role of the brain in both antisocial/criminal behavior as well as in drug use/abuse. We highlight various regions/systems in the brain that have been identified as targets for intervention and as areas in need of more study. This knowledge equips us with the foundation to think translationally about how to promote mental health, adaptive behavior, and well-being among drug using criminal offenders.
NON-SUSTAINED MICROVOLT LEVEL T-WAVE ALTERNANS IN CONGENITAL LONG QT SYNDROME TYPES 1 AND 2

Congenital long QT syndrome (LQTS) is a group of inherited disorders with predisposition to torsades de pointes ventricular tachycardia during adrenergic stimulation, with subtypes LQT1 and LQT2 being most common. Microvolt T-wave alternans (MTWA), a beat-to-beat fluctuation in T-wave amplitude and
Impacts of Microtubule Structural Defects on Kinesin-Based Transport

Microtubules are protein polymers that form “molecular highways” for long-range transport within living cells. Molecular motors actively step along microtubules to shuttle cellular materials between the nucleus and the cell periphery; this transport is critical for the survival and health of all eukaryotic cells. Structural defects in microtubules exist, but whether these structural defects impact molecular-motor based transport remains unknown. Here we report a new approach that allowed us to directly investigate the impact of such structural defects. Using a modified optical-trapping method, we examined the group function of a major molecular motor, conventional kinesin, when transporting cargoes along individual microtubules in vitro. We found that structural defects in microtubules are a determining factor in kinesin-based transport. This impact depends on motor number: cargoes driven by two motors tended to dissociate prematurely from the microtubule, whereas cargoes driven by more motors tended to pause. Our study provides the first direct link between structural defects in microtubules and kinesin function, and suggests how alterations in cargo-motor number nontrivially tune this effect. Our study highlights the potential of kinesins as non-invasive biomarkers of structural defects in microtubules, and raises the possibility of microtubule defects as a previously unexplored mechanism for regulating kinesin-based transport in cells.
Bicuspid aortic valve hemodynamics does not promote remodeling in porcine aortic wall concavity.

Bicuspid aortic valve hemodynamics does not promote remodeling in porcine aortic wall concavity
Scaling Up Nature: Large Area Flexible Biomimetic Surfaces.

The fabrication and advanced function of large area biomimetic superhydrophobic surfaces (SHS) and slippery lubricant-infused porous surfaces (SLIPS) are reported. The use of roll-to-roll nanoimprinting techniques enabled the continuous fabrication of SHS and SLIPS based on hierarchically wrinkled surfaces. Perfluoropolyether hybrid molds were used as flexible molds for roll-to-roll imprinting into a newly designed thiol–ene based photopolymer resin coated on flexible polyethylene terephthalate films. The patterned surfaces exhibit feasible superhydrophobicity with a water contact angle around 160° without any further surface modification. The SHS can be easily converted into SLIPS by roll-to-roll coating of a fluorinated lubricant, and these surfaces have outstanding repellence to a variety of liquids. Furthermore, both SHS and SLIPS display antibiofouling properties when challenged with Escherichia coli K12 MG1655. The current article describes the transformation of artificial biomimetic structures from...
Desplazamientos e inversiones en La Habana para un infante difunto de Guillermo Cabrera Infante

Este trabajo analiza La Habana para un infante difunto (1979) de Guillermo Cabrera Infante (1929-2005) desde la perspectiva del genero sexual. Se presta atencion a la operacion parodica y desestabilizadora en la conformacion autorreflexiva del narrador, picaro intelectual que se desenvuelve en un ambiente marcado por la homosociabilidad y la compulsion heterosexual. Valiendose de los planteamientos teoricos de genero de Rafael Ramirez, Luce Irigaray y Teresa de Lauretis, en un primer momento se consideran los desplazamientos e inversiones que se dan en la construccion de la masculinidad. En un segundo momento se estudia la representacion misogina de los personajes femeninos y la dinamica entre el protagonista y sus amantes.
Rapid measurement of meat spoilage using fluorescence spectroscopy

Food spoilage is mainly caused by microorganisms, such as bacteria. In this study, we measure the autofluorescence in meat samples longitudinally over a week in an attempt to develop a method to rapidly detect meat spoilage using fluorescence spectroscopy. Meat food is a biological tissue, which contains intrinsic fluorophores, such as tryptophan, collagen, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH) and flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD) etc. As meat spoils, it undergoes various morphological and chemical changes. The concentrations of the native fluorophores present in a sample may change. In particular, the changes in NADH and FAD are associated with microbial metabolism, which is the most important process of the bacteria in food spoilage. Such changes may be revealed by fluorescence spectroscopy and used to indicate the status of meat spoilage. Therefore, such native fluorophores may be unique, reliable and nonsubjective indicators for detection of spoiled meat. The results of the study show that the relative concentrations of all above fluorophores change as the meat samples kept in room temperature (~19° C) spoil. The changes become more rapidly after about two days. For the meat samples kept in a freezer (~-12° C), the changes are much less or even unnoticeable over a-week-long storage.
PPG-based Finger-level Gesture Recognition Leveraging Wearables

This paper subverts the traditional understanding of Photoplethysmography (PPG) and opens up a new direction of the utility of PPG in commodity wearable devices, especially in the domain of human computer interaction of fine-grained gesture recognition. We demonstrate that it is possible to leverage the widely deployed PPG sensors in wrist-worn wearable devices to enable finger-level gesture recognition, which could facilitate many emerging human-computer interactions (e.g., sign-language interpretation and virtual reality). While prior solutions in gesture recognition require dedicated devices (e.g., video cameras or IR sensors) or leverage various signals in the environments (e.g., sound, RF or ambient light), this paper introduces the first PPG-based gesture recognition system that can differentiate fine-grained hand gestures at finger level using commodity wearables. Our innovative system harnesses the unique blood flow changes in a user's wrist area to distinguish the user's finger and hand movements. The insight is that hand gestures involve a series of muscle and tendon movements that compress the arterial geometry with different degrees, resulting in significant motion artifacts to the blood flow with different intensity and time duration. By leveraging the unique characteristics of the motion artifacts to PPG, our system can accurately extract the gesture-related signals from the significant background noise (i.e., pulses), and identify different minute finger-level gestures. Extensive experiments are conducted with over 3600 gestures collected from 10 adults. Our prototype study using two commodity PPG sensors can differentiate nine finger-level gestures from American Sign Language with an average recognition accuracy over 88%, suggesting that our PPG-based finger-level gesture recognition system is promising to be one of the most critical components in sign language translation using wearables.
Thirteen-Year Follow-Up Reverse Sural Artery Flap for Plantar Calcaneal Wound: A Case Report.

Abstract Reconstruction of soft tissue defects in the lower leg and foot after traumatic injury is a challenging problem owing to lack of locally reliable flaps. The traditional options for wound coverage often do not provide feasible or adequate treatment for many of these wounds. The lack of skin laxity in the lower leg and foot often make local flaps unavailable. Split-thickness skin grafts will not be robust enough. Free tissue flaps have a litany of potential complications and guaranteed comorbidities. The present case reinforces that appropriately selected patients with significant open bony and soft tissue trauma to the foot and ankle can be treated with a reverse sural artery fasciocutaneous flap. The reverse sural artery flap allows for full-thickness skin coverage with its own blood supply, maximizing the healing potential and should be considered a viable first option for soft tissue coverage.
Blockchain Technology Use Cases in Healthcare

Abstract Blockchain technology alleviates the reliance on a centralized authority to certify information integrity and ownership, as well as mediate transactions and exchange of digital assets, while enabling secure and pseudoanonymous transactions along with agreements directly between interacting parties. It possesses key properties, such as immutability, decentralization, and transparency, which potentially address pressing issues in healthcare, such as incomplete records at point of care and difficult access to patients’ own health information. An efficient and effective healthcare system requires interoperability, which allows software apps and technology platforms to communicate securely and seamlessly, exchange data, and use the exchanged data across health organizations and app vendors. Unfortunately, healthcare today suffers from siloed and fragmented data, delayed communications, and disparate workflow tools caused by the lack of interoperability. Blockchain offers the opportunity to enable access to longitudinal, complete, and tamper-aware medical records that are stored in fragmented systems in a secure and pseudoanonymous fashion. This chapter focuses on the applicability of Blockchain technology in healthcare by (1) identifying potential Blockchain use cases in healthcare, (2) providing a case study that implements Blockchain technology, and (3) evaluating design considerations when applying this technology in healthcare.
Behavioral activation therapy during transcranial magnetic stimulation for major depressive disorder.

Abstract Background Behavioral Activation (BA) Therapy and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) have each been shown to be effective in the treatment of adult outpatients with major depressive disorder (MDD). Combining both treatments may produce synergistic antidepressant outcomes. Methods We developed a new protocol for incorporating a simplified version of BA during a standard 6-week course of TMS and it was pilot tested in 11 consecutively treated outpatients with treatment resistant depression (TRD). BA was delivered in a 5–10 min interval daily prior to the start of TMS. Engagement in BA was measured by tracking the setting and attainment of between session “goals” during the course of TMS treatment. The Inventory of Depressive Symptoms (IDS-SR), the 9-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), and the Snaith–Hamilton Pleasure Scale (SHAPS) were used to measure overall symptom improvement. Results Patients who underwent a combined BA + TMS protocol demonstrated an average goal completion rate of 77% along with overall symptom improvement as demonstrated by an average decrease of 47%, 55%, and 39% in IDS-SR, PHQ-9, and SHAPS scores respectively. BA was easily incorporated into the daily routine of administering TMS procedures. Limitations There is inadequate power in this current investigation to compare treatment efficacy of BA + TMS to TMS alone. Conclusion Incorporation of a modified version of BA therapy into a standard acute course of TMS therapy is feasible, well tolerated, and holds potential for augmenting the efficacy of TMS treatment for patients with TRD.
Topical crawling on the web through local site-searches

In this paper, we investigate the feasibility of discovering topical resources by combining Web searches and local site-searches. Existing techniques of topical resource discovery consist of crawling the Web and searching the Web. The former typically analyses linkage among Web pages to estimate the relevance of an unseen document to a topic. The latter exploits the indices of generic search engines to discover documents relevant to a topic. Although the local site-search has been a simple and convenient feature of a Web site for human users to quickly locate desired information within the site that hosts tremendous number of documents, this feature has been ignored by the techniques of automatic topical resource discovery. A typical local site-search returns a list of titles, hyperlinks, and snippets of relevant documents that can be used to estimate the relevance of the documents to the topic before actually fetching the documents. We propose an operational model to make use of this simple feature, and address how this model can be realized. Experiments have shown that this simple but efficient approach can provide much more precise estimations than a sophisticated intelligent topical crawler.
Managing Chronic Pain Through Collaborative Care: Two Patients, Two Programs, Two Dramatically Different Outcomes

Over 48 million Americans suffer from chronic pain each year, resulting in estimated losses of $70 billion to $120 billion dollars annually. Even more importantly, pain kills. In a recent systematic review, Tang and Crane found that the risk of death by suicide among chronic pain patients is double that of control subjects. The prevalence of suicidal ideation among chronic pain patients is 20%, and the lifetime prevalence of suicide attempts is between 5 and 14%. A survey done by the American Pain Society found that only one in four people who experience chronic pain receive appropriate treatment, and that even when chronic pain is treated, treatment is often ineffective and/or underutilized. These findings emphasize the importance of developing and implementing models for treating chronic pain that are clinically effective, efficient, and financially viable. Because chronic pain has such a profound impact on all areas of an individual’s life, those who treat patients with chronic pain must be able to integrate information across biological, psychological, and social domains. As such, it has become increasingly important to develop models of collaborative care that address the biopsychosocial needs of patients with chronic pain. In this chapter, we review empirical evidence demonstrating the clinical and cost-effectiveness of collaborative pain programs and present the case studies of two similar patients who were treated in two different chronic pain programs. We then discuss the differences in outcomes, analyze these outcomes within the broader context of Peek’s Three World model, and highlight some important lessons learned from working as behavioral health providers within multidisciplinary pain programs.
The Biosynthesis of Virginiamycins M1 and M2

The antibiotic virginiamycin M1 (VM1, 1) is a member of the virginiamycin family of antibiotics. This family consists of antibiotics that are usually isolated as mixtures of synergistic compounds (Vazquez, 1967; Crooy and de Neys, 1972; Tanaka, 1975; Cocito, 1979). The nomenclature in this area is confused, since similar or identical antibiotics were isolated from different organisms and were named for the organism before their structures (and thus their relationship to similar antibiotics) were known. The antibiotics have thus been named as mikamycins, vernamycins, pristinamycins, streptogramins, ostreogrycins, and virginiamycins; virginiamycin M1, for example, is identical with ostreogrycin A, pristinamycin IIA, streptogramin A, PA 114A1, vemamycin A, and mikamycin A (Crooy and de Neys, 1972). The name virginiamycin has been assigned to the class by an authoritative review (Cocito, 1979) and by Chemical Abstracts, and is thus the name of choice, although the other names indicated above are still used.
Introduction: Perspectives on the Restoration of the Mississippi Delta

The purpose of this book is to show how the neglected and degraded landscape of the Mississippi River Delta might be brought back to life. It consists of a collection of scientific essays that focus on applying the results of a new era of scientific discovery to the prospect of large-scale delta restoration. These essays were written by members of the Science and Engineering Special Team (SEST), a group of experts chaired by Dr. John W. Day, Jr., that began to meet in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon disaster of 2010. While this new disaster focused attention on the iconic Birdsfoot Delta, it became clear that few were aware of the way it and the rest of the Mississippi River Delta is being managed into oblivion, largely with public tax dollars and the activities of resource users. The authors seek not only to provide information on ways to halt the ongoing loss of coastal wetlands, but also on how to restore the delta as a fully functional geological and ecological system. The eleven essays contained in this book address some of the challenges facing this process, and we hope it will make a positive contribution to present and future delta restoration efforts.
Performance Standards for Quality Control Systems

Standard statistical QC has been around since its introduction in 1950 by Levey and Jennings. Today, while most laboratories use standard statistical QC processes, with or without Westgard multi-rules to evaluate quality, few incorporate performance standards in their QC systems. With performance standards, the quality level of each test is determined on a sigma scale. This guides the selection of optimal QC frequency and rules to monitor the analytical system. QC rules are selected based on the sigma score and are specific to each test. While a single rule (13s) is sufficient to efficiently monitor tests with sigma quality at or above 6, a more stringent rule (13s/22s/R4s/41s) is required for those performing at four sigma. The comparison of analytical total error (TE) to the total error allowable (TEa) helps ensure that the system is operating within the defined quality specifications; therefore accurate patient results are produced.
La guerra digital por la información en África: capitalismo internacional de la mano de Google, Facebook, IBM y Microsoft

The climate of privatization and liberalization of the eighties and nineties in Africa paved the way for some of the most important conglomerates of African media to plant the first seeds of the transnational corporate plan. At the same time, the liberalizing tsunami of this time favored the current scenario in which multinationals move without regulatory frameworks in the continent. This is the case of the giants of telecommunications who have been installed for years in Africa foreseeing that exponential and vaunted aphorism from the liberal sectors: “Africa grows. And the future is there”. A growth, however, without development. The dominant narrative of companies like Microsoft, IBM, Google or Facebook is that they intend to connect millions of people, however, with this article we will try to draw other links, especially after the scandals of Facebook and Cambridge Analytica in electoral processes, which will help to understand this dynamic that would be inserted in a war for the control of international and global information. A “warlike conflict” that has one of its main scenarios and laboratories in the African continent.