cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Butyrate-induced apoptosis and cell cycle arrest in bovine kidney epithelial cells: involvement of caspase and proteasome pathways.

Beyond their nutritional effect, short-chain fatty acids, especially butyrate, modulate cell differentiation, proliferation, motility, and in particular, they induce cell cycle arrest and apoptosis. A bovine kidney epithelial cell line (Madin-Darby bovine kidney; MDBK) was used to investigate the cell cycle regulatory and apoptotic effects of butyrate. Butyrate not only induced apoptosis but also induced cell cycle arrest at the Gl/S boundary and M/G2 in MDBK cells (P < 0.01). The cell responses were concentration-dependent (r 2 = 0.9482, P <0.001). In examining possible mechanisms for the apoptosis and cell cycle arrest induced by butyrate, the results showed that butyrate treatment activates caspase-3 activities and induces accumulation of acetylated histone. At least two proteins, cdc6 and cdkl, become targeted for destruction on butyrate treatment. These two proteins are downregulated (P < 0.01 and P < 0.05, respectively) by proteolytic pathways. Moreover, the proteasome inhibitor MG-132 (carbobenzoxy-L-leu-cyl-L-leucyl-L-leucinal) reverses the cell cycle arrest induced by butyrate, indicating a multiprotein crosstalk wherein the ubiquitination/ proteasome pathway interacted with the caspase-signaling pathway. Because the proteasome inhibitor MG-132 blocked activation of caspase-3, these results functionally locate the proteasome pathway upstream of the caspase pathway. All these results indicate that butyrate functions as both a nutrient and signaling molecule regulating cell growth and proliferation.
New Light on Auer/Seminole Rock

We have been engaged in an extended exploration of doctrines under which courts may defer to positions and interpretations by state and local tax agencies. The immediately prior installment of this column discusses such deference under state equivalents of what is known as the Auer or Seminole Rock principle, under which courts usually defer to agency interpretations of the agencies' own ambiguous regulations.
Changes in market structure in the internet era: banking and yellow pages advertising

The rapid expansion of Internet use at the turn of the 21st century brought with it a new medium of commerce. As the Internet started to act as a substitute for traditional retail and service sectors, an important economic question has been the impact of this change on market structure in different industries. This dissertation examines the changing structure of two particular industries in this new era of the Internet: the banking industry and Yellow Pages advertising. Chapter I examines whether bank branches are still important in attracting deposits from consumers. Despite their historic role in helping commercial banks to grow, branches may be decreasing in importance today due to the widespread use of Internet banking. The paper develops a structural dynamic model of consumer demand for bank deposits. The model is estimated using yearly bank level data for all commercial banks in Massachusetts from 2001 to 2009. Results show that branching still affects market shares significantly, however, the impact is declining over the sample period. Chapter II analyzes consumer welfare in the banking industry. The purpose of the paper is to measure the impact of recent changes in bank characteristics on consumer welfare. Specifically, the goal is to examine how the increase in the number of branches and the decrease in the average distance of these branches to consumers have impacted consumer welfare. Average consumer welfare is found to be 4.2% higher in 2009 compared to 2001. Estimation of two counterfactuals reveals that both of the changes in bank characteristics have been beneficial to consumers. Chapter III focuses on the Yellow Pages advertising market. The goal of the study is to estimate how the extensive use of Internet has affected prices and market structure in the Yellow Pages advertising market. In contrast to most of the recent empirical literature, this paper considers the impact of Internet use on prices in addition to market structure. The main finding is that an increase in Internet use in a given directory's coverage area is associated with an increase in printed advertising prices and a decrease in the number of publishers.
An Elementary Model of Human Performance on Paced Visual Inspection Tasks

Abstract An analysis of type one and type two error committed by human inspectors on a paced visual inspection task was conducted. The analysis was accomplished by development of a two-phase quantitative model describing the inspector's behavior when performing such inspection tasks: (1) the observe-not observe decision model described the inspector's decision to attend or not attend his task at any particular time; (2) the accept-reject decision model, which was based on signal detection theory, described the inspector's decision to classify a product unit as good or defective, given that he has made the decision to observe. Experimental evaluation supported the model, but did not provide complete validation.
Caregiver Needs: A Qualitative Exploration

Alzheimer's Disease is a complicated illness that has atre-mendous impact on all areas of life for both the patient and primary care-giver. This qualitative study is based on in-depth interviews with 45 primary caregivers of Alzheimer's patients with mild to severe mental and physical symptoms. Caregivers offered narratives of their experience and how the disease and their interaction with multiple practitioners have impacted their lives. Spiritual, legal, financial, housing, medical, and emotional needs, concerns, and strengths were discussed. Results from this study include: (1) how the Alzheimer's diagnosis and disease biopsychosocially and spiritually impacts primary caregivers, (2) how practitioners from diverse fields, family, and friends impact the caregiving experience, and (3) recommendations for mental health practitioners who wish to include a biopsychosocial approach in their system of care.
Joshua’s Jihad? A Reexamination of Religious Violence in the Christian and Islamic Traditions

Examples of scriptural and historic militancy in Christianity and Islam are frequently compared today without sufficient attention to the complexity of the subject within each tradition. Through an...
Commercial intermediate pressure MALDI ion mobility spectrometry mass spectrometer capable of producing highly charged laserspray ionization ions

The first examples of highly charged ions observed under intermediate pressure (IP) vacuum conditions are reported using laser ablation of matrix/analyte mixtures. The method and results are similar to those obtained at atmospheric pressure (AP) using laserspray ionization (LSI) and/or matrix assisted inlet ionization (MAII). Electrospray ionization (ESI), LSI, and MAII are methods operating at AP and have been shown, with or without the use of a voltage or a laser, to produce highly charged ions with very similar ion abundance and charge states. A commercial matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) mass spectrometry (MS) instrument (SYNAPT G2) was used for the IP developments. The necessary conditions for producing highly charged ions of peptides and small proteins at IP appear to be a pressure drop region and the use of suitable matrixes and laser fluence. Ionization to produce these highly charged ions under the low pressure conditions of IP does not require specific heating or a special inlet ion transfer region. However, under the current setup, ubiquitin is the highest molecular weight protein observed. These findings are in accord with the need to provide thermal energy in the pressure drop region, similar to LSI and MAII, to improve sensitivity and extend the types of compounds that produce highly charged ions. The practical utility of IP-LSI in combination with IMS-MS is demonstrated for the analysis of model mixtures composed of a lipid, peptides, and a protein. Further, endogenous multiply charged peptides are observed directly from delipified mouse brain tissue with drift time distributions that are nearly identical in appearance to those obtained from a synthesized neuropeptide standard analyzed by either LSI- or ESI-IMS-MS at AP. Efficient solvent-free gas-phase separation enabled by the IMS dimension separates the multiply charged peptides from lipids that remained on the delipified tissue. Lipid and peptide families are exceptionally well separated because of the ability of IP-LSI to produce multiple charging.
The Safety and Feasibility of Admitting Patients With Intracerebral Hemorrhage to the Step-Down Unit.

Background:Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) is a devastating and costly condition. Although the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association recommends admitting patients with ICH to a neurocritical care unit (NCCU), this strategy may accrue unnecessary cost for patients with relatively milder presentation. We conducted a prospective observational study to determine the safety and feasibility of admitting patients with mild ICH directly to a step-down unit (SDU) instead of an NCCU.Methods:Consecutive patients with “mild presentation,” defined as a combination of ICH score ≤2, National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) ≤ 15, and Graeb score ≤2 (if intraventricular hemorrhage was present), were admitted to the SDU. Data were collected on age, gender as well as the initial NIHSS, Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS), ICH, and Graeb scores. Primary end point was any complication or death during hospital stay.Results:Twenty patients were admitted to the SDU. No patient was transferred to the NCCU from the ...
Models of disequilibrium and shortage in centrally planned economies Christopher Davis and Wojciech Charemza, editors Chapman and Hall, London and New York, 1989, 501 pp.

Portes applied the econometric disequilibrium model of market economies to Centrally Planned Economies (CPEs) to show that the consumer goods sector was in equilibrium. Kornai considered these models inapplicable to CPEs and regarded CPEs as chronic shortage economies. Arguments on both sides of the debate are presented in this book. The conflict between Portes and Kornai lies in their microeconomic view of CPEs. While Portes acknowledges the welfare loss from shortages, Kornai analyzes and emphasizes it. Portes' view implies that changes in relative prices can reestablish equilibrium in CPEs. Kornai disagrees because CPEs do not respond to price changes like market economies. Only total reform, now attempted in many transition economies, can eliminate the imbalances.
Reduction Characteristics of Ceria under Ethanol Steam Reforming Conditions: Effect of the Particle Size

Reducibility of ceria under steam reforming conditions and the effect of particle size on its reducibility was examined using two ceria samples with distinctly different mean particle sizes (3.5 nm versus 120 nm), but with similar polyhedral morphologies. The degree of reduction from Ce4+ to Ce3+ was characterized by temperature programmed reduction (TPR) and in situ X-ray absorption near edge structure spectroscopy (XANES) where the nanopolyhedra were observed to reduce much more readily compared to the larger particle-size sample. There was also significant reduction of the nanopolyhedra under ethanol steam reforming conditions. Ceria nanopolyhedra exhibited significantly more Ce3+ sites which contributed to a lower occurrence of surface acidic sites. The acidic/basic sites were probed by probe molecules such as pyridine and CO2 through in situ diffuse reflectance infrared spectroscopy (DRIFTS). The particle size also showed major differences in the steam reforming activity of ceria, with nanopolyhedra ...
Medical Devices Pyrogen Test Methods and Some Attention

According to the different types of pyrogens,this paper introduced medical devices pyrogen test methods,and discussed some of the considerations in the pyrogen test for rabbit.
Analysis of rat density surveillance results in Baoji from 2005-2008

Objective To grasp the dynamic change of rat population constitution and its seasonal fluctuation in Baoji district,and provide scientific evidence for rat elimination.Methods Night trap method was used for surveillance every three months.Surveillance data of rat density among 2005-2008 was collected and analyzed. Results 117 rats were captured,belonging to 5 species.Apodemus agrarius occupied 59.83% and it was the dominant species;the common species were Mus musculus and Rattus norvegicus,occupied 23.93% and 17.95% respectively.The density had two peaks during March to April and September to October in the year.Conclusion Apodemus agrarius was the dominant species in Baoji city.The campaign of elimination rat was carried out in spring and autumn each year,the poison bait and its application could be chosen depending on the target species and its habits.
The analysis about the results of bone density in elderly patients on maintenance hemodialysis

Objective To explored bone mineral loss and osteoporosis in elderly patients on maintenance hemodialysis (MHD). Methods We recruited 56 aged patients on MHD treated in the Blood Purification Center of Nephrology Department,Beijing Xuanwu Hospital,Capital Medical University,as the test group. We also recruited 52 young patients on MHD and 43 elderly patients with end stage renal disease (ESRD) but without dialysis as the control groups. Their age,sex,height,body weight and bone fracture events were recorded. Mineral density of spinal bones (L1～L4) and femoral bones were measured by dual energy X ray absorptiometry. SPSS software was used for statistical analysis. Results The frequency of femoral osteoporosis was higher in test group than in the elderly ESRD patients without dialysis group and the young patients on dialysis group (P0.05). The frequency of lumbar osteoporosis showed no difference among the 3 groups (P 0.05),but was higher in females than in males in test group (P0.05). Conclusion Elderly patients on MHD are more likely to have femoral osteoporosis.
Feature Selection for RF Fingerprinting With Multiple Discriminant Analysis and Using ZigBee Device Emissions

The proliferation of low-cost IEEE 802.15.4 ZigBee wireless devices in critical infrastructure applications presents security challenges. Network security commonly relies on bit-level credentials that are easily replicated and exploited by hackers. Unauthorized access can be mitigated by physical layer (PHY) security measures that exploit device-dependent emission characteristics that are sufficiently unique to discriminate devices. RF distinct native attribute (RF-DNA) fingerprinting is a PHY-based security measure, which computes statistical features extracted from such device emissions. However, the RF-DNA fingerprints can be numerous, correlated, and noisy, therefore, a dimensional reduction analysis (DRA) via feature selection is, therefore, of interest. Device classification with DRA feature subsets is evaluated using a multiple discriminant analysis (MDA) classifier. Determining feature relevance from MDA was generally dismissed in prior RF fingerprinting work and is seldom considered in other applications. Here, the MDA feature relevance is revisited using a proposed eigen-based MDA loadings fusion (MLF) methodology. The MDA classification models are adopted and used to assess device identification (ID) classification and verification performance for both the authorized and unauthorized (rogue) devices using a claimed versus actual biometric methodology. Performance is compared for six DRA methods using: 1) a two-sample Kolmogorov–Smirnov test; 2) one-way analysis of variance F-test statistics; 3) a Wilk’s lambda ratio; 4) generalized relevance learning vector quantized-improved relevance; 5) randomly selected; and 6) the proposed MLF method. Quantitative and qualitative dimensionality assessment methods are compared and contrasted to establish upper bounds on the number of retained features. Experimentally collected ZigBee emissions are considered and ZigBee device classification and ID verification performance using DRA subsets are compared with a full-dimensional feature set. Results show that DRA via the proposed MLF method is superior and more robust than competing methods.
A COMPARISON OF THE INITIAL ACTIONS OF SPLEEN DEOXYRIBONUCLEASE AND PANCREATIC DEOXYRIBONUCLEASE.

The modes of action of several deoxyribonucleases have been studied in varying detail. The manner in which pancreatic deoxyribonuclease degrades deoxyribonucleic acid has been thoroughly analyzed both with regard to the breakdown of secondary structure and to the products formed. The activities of several other deoxyribonucleases have been characterized, especially those from Escherichia coli. A variety of specificities has been observed in which the preference seems to be most directly related to the secondary structure of the substrate and not rigorously to the internucleotide linkage.
Collective Resistance to Injustice: The Special Power of People Working Together

Courageous resistance is not solely the province of individuals. The focus of this chapter is collective resistance. Collective resistance occurs when people choose to challenge injustice together. Like the decision of the individual courageous resister, collective resisters’ decisions to participate are influenced by the dynamic interaction of their preconditions, networks, and contextual factors. In other words, the choice to respond to injustice as part of a linked, sometimes coordinated, effort depends not only on who the resisters are, but who they know and the nature of the environment. Cooperation with others also uniquely influences both the risks and the available resources of a courageous resister.
Impacts of airline mergers on passenger welfare

Abstract Since 2005, the US airline industry has undergone a series of consolidations. We provide a comprehensive assessment of the overall effects of five major recent mergers on passengers’ welfare. We compute consumer surplus changes using passenger discrete choice models based on the attributes of airlines and routes. We then evaluate these changes, as well as changes in frequency and fare, using a difference-in-differences approach. Our major findings include large consumer welfare gains following the DL-NW and UA-CO mergers, welfare gains in regions dominated by the larger carrier in the merger, and welfare losses in highly concentrated markets following legacy mergers.
Gastroschisis Simulation Model: Pre-surgical Management Technical Report

This technical report describes the creation of a gastroschisis model for a newborn. This is a simple, low-cost task trainer that provides the opportunity for Neonatology providers, including fellows, residents, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and nurses, to practice the management of a baby with gastroschisis after birth and prior to surgery. Included is a suggested checklist with which the model can be employed. The details can be modified to suit different learning objectives.
Yeast chemotropism: A paradigm shift in chemical gradient sensing.

The ability of cells to direct their movement and growth in response to shallow chemical gradients is essential in the life cycles of all eukaryotic organisms. The signaling mechanisms underlying d...
Development of the necrotizing enterocolitis society registry and biorepository

Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) is a devastating disease affecting premature infants. New advances in diagnostic and treatment options are desperately needed. Accordingly, the NEC Society initiated a research collaborative with a group of investigators dedicated to advancing the state of NEC-associated knowledge. Recent advances in high-content molecular interrogation and bio-computation (e.g., genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics) can provide new insights from afflicted infants with NEC, however, individual centers do not have sufficient cases to conduct these studies independently. The development of a NEC Society Biorepository (NSB) has emerged to advance collaboration among institutions through the shared use of biologic samples in the dedicated pursuit of molecular indicators of disease and to gain greater pathophysiologic insights through research. The NSB will provide key infrastructure across several centers to harness the potential for new discoveries, while ensuring specimens are processed consistently, appropriate clinical data is collected, and privacy is maintained. The NSB will provide a comprehensive framework for sharing biological samples and clinical data through a robust and secure system that supports the investigation of research studies on NEC.
Risk of Neoplastic Progression in Individuals at High Risk for Pancreatic Cancer Undergoing Long-term Surveillance

Background & Aims Screening of individuals who have a high risk of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), because of genetic factors, frequently leads to identification of pancreatic lesions. We investigated the incidence of PDAC and risk factors for neoplastic progression in individuals at high risk for PDAC enrolled in a long-term screening study. Methods We analyzed data from 354 individuals at high risk for PDAC (based on genetic factors of family history), enrolled in Cancer of the Pancreas Screening cohort studies at tertiary care academic centers from 1998 through 2014 (median follow-up time, 5.6 years). All subjects were evaluated at study entry (baseline) by endoscopic ultrasonography and underwent surveillance with endoscopic ultrasonography, magnetic resonance imaging, and/or computed tomography. The primary endpoint was the cumulative incidence of PDAC, pancreatic intraepithelial neoplasia grade 3, or intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm with high-grade dysplasia (HGD) after baseline. We performed multivariate Cox regression and Kaplan-Meier analyses. Results During the follow-up period, pancreatic lesions with worrisome features (solid mass, multiple cysts, cyst size > 3 cm, thickened/enhancing walls, mural nodule, dilated main pancreatic duct > 5 mm, or abrupt change in duct caliber) or rapid cyst growth (>4 mm/year) were detected in 68 patients (19%). Overall, 24 of 354 patients (7%) had neoplastic progression (14 PDACs and 10 HGDs) over a 16-year period; the rate of progression was 1.6%/year, and 93% had detectable lesions with worrisome features before diagnosis of the PDAC or HGD. Nine of the 10 PDACs detected during routine surveillance were resectable; a significantly higher proportion of patients with resectable PDACs survived 3 years (85%) compared with the 4 subjects with symptomatic, unresectable PDACs (25%), which developed outside surveillance (log rank P Conclusions In a long-term (16-year) follow-up study of individuals at high-risk for PDAC, we found most PDACs detected during surveillance (9/10) to be resectable, and 85% of these patients survived for 3 years. We identified radiologic features associated with neoplastic progression.
Balloon dilation for recurrent stenosis after pediatric laryngotracheoplasty.

Objectives: We assessed the safety and efficacy of balloon dilation as treatment for recurrent stenosis after pediatric laryngotracheoplasty. Methods: We studied a retrospective case series at an academic tertiary care children's hospital. We included all patients under the age of 18 years with subglottic or tracheal stenosis treated at our institution with balloon dilation between June 2007 and April 2009. The records were analyzed for patient demographics, presenting symptoms, surgical technique, and airway description. The outcome measures were airway diameter, postoperative symptoms, tracheotomy status, and complications. Results: Ten patients (9 with subglottic stenosis and 1 with tracheal stenosis) underwent 20 balloon dilation procedures without complication. The average age at the time of the procedure was 17 months (range, 3 months to 9 years). The patient presenting symptoms were stridor in 7 cases and tracheotomy in 3 cases. Vascular balloons (diameter range, 6 to 12 mm; length, 20 mm) were inflated to 10 to 12 cm H 2 O pressure for an average of 40 seconds (range, 10 to 120 seconds). Each procedure consisted of 1 to 3 dilation cycles. The immediate postdilation airway area increased by an average factor of 4.9 (range, 1.9 to 9). Six patients had repeat procedures with an average interval between dilations of 67 days (range, 6 to 337 days). Stridor was eliminated or greatly improved in all patients on the first postoperative day; 7 patients sustained this benefit, with an average follow-up time of 10 months (range, 4 to 23 months). Six of the 10 patients had undergone previous laryngeal reconstruction (age range, 3 months to 4 years). Of these 6, 3 have no tracheotomy, with a mean follow-up of 12.5 months. The 3 children who benefited the least from dilation were noted to have more diffuse and chronic inflammation of the larynx in comparison to the responders. Conclusions: This case series suggests that balloon dilation is a relatively safe and effective procedure. It may be particularly well suited to recent stenosis after laryngotracheal reconstruction.
A Multidimensional View of Continuity in Intergenerational Transmission of Child Maltreatment

While the past several decades of research have established a broad frame for understanding the intergenerational transmission of maltreatment (IGTM), published rates and mechanisms of transmission remain variable. In this chapter, we apply key concepts from the integrative paradigm of developmental psychopathology to inform a new approach to IGTM research that will simultaneously facilitate greater sensitivity and specificity in our understanding of patterns of maltreatment continuity and discontinuity across generations. In particular, we discuss the meaning of heterogeneity in patterns of development over time, as well as in the features of maltreatment. We encourage explicit consideration of specific types of maltreatment, and review extant evidence for IGTM with respect to distinct maltreatment subtypes (i.e., child physical abuse, child sexual abuse, child emotional abuse, child neglect). We highlight the implications of this heightened specificity for clarifying the phenomenology of IGTM and elucidating its etiology. Finally, we present recommendations to refine our terminology, empirical methodology, and clinical practice.
TILES audio recorder: an unobtrusive wearable solution to track audio activity

Most existing speech activity trackers used in human subject studies are bulky, record raw audio content which invades participant privacy, have complicated hardware and non-customizable software, and are too expensive for large-scale deployment. The present effort seeks to overcome these challenges by proposing the TILES Audio Recorder (TAR) - an unobtrusive and scalable solution to track audio activity using an affordable miniature mobile device with an open-source app. For this recorder, we make use of Jelly Pro Mobile, a pocket-sized Android smartphone, and employ two open-source toolkits: openSMILE and Tarsos-DSP. Tarsos-DSP provides a Voice Activity Detection capability that triggers openSMILE to extract and save audio features only when the subject is speaking. Experiments show that performing feature extraction only during speech segments greatly increases battery life, enabling the subject to wear the recorder up to 10 hours at time. Furthermore, recording experiments with ground-truth clean speech show minimal distortion of the recorded features, as measured by root mean-square error and cosine distance. The TAR app further provides subjects with a simple user interface that allows them to both pause feature extraction at any time and also easily upload data to a remote server.
Characterization and correlation of signal drift in diffusion weighted MRI.

Abstract Diffusion weighted MRI (DWMRI) and the myriad of analysis approaches (from tensors to spherical harmonics and brain tractography to body multi-compartment models) depend on accurate quantification of the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC). Signal drift during imaging (e.g., due to b0 drift associated with heating) can cause systematic non-linearities that manifest as ADC changes if not corrected. Herein, we present a case study on two phantoms on one scanner. Different scan protocols exhibit different degrees of drift during similar scans and may be sensitive to the order of scans within an exam. Vos et al. recently reviewed the effects of signal drift in DWMRI acquisitions and proposed a temporal model for correction. We propose a novel spatial-temporal model to correct for higher order aspects of the signal drift and derive a statistically robust variant. We evaluate the Vos model and propose a method using two phantoms that mimic the ADC of the relevant brain tissue (0.36–2.2 × 10–3 mm2/s) on a single 3 T scanner. The phantoms are (1) a spherical isotropic sphere consisting of a single concentration of polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) and (2) an ice-water phantom with 13 vials of varying PVP concentrations. To characterize the impact of interspersed minimally weighted volumes (“b0's”), image volumes with b-value equal to 0.1 s/mm2 are interspersed every 8, 16, 32, 48, and 96 diffusion weighted volumes in different trials. Signal drift is found to have spatially varying effects that are not accounted for with temporal-only models. The novel model captures drift more accurately (i.e., reduces the overall change per-voxel over the course of a scan) and results in more consistent ADC metrics.
PI3K/Akt signaling pathway regulates c-Myc via NFkB and GSK3b in mouse iMyc-Em B lymphoma cells

3879 MYC-activating chromosomal t(8;14)(q24;q32) translocations are widely believed to be the initiating oncogenic events in the pathogenesis of the human post-germinal center non-Hodgkin lymphoma, Burkitt lymphoma. To mimic these translocations in transgenic mice, we recently generated three different “iMyc” gene-insertion strains, including iMycEμ, that contain mouse Myc in three different sites of the immunoglobulin heavy-chain gene cluster. Using the B cell lymphoma-derived cell line iMycEμ-1 as a model system, we demonstrated here that inhibition of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) by the small drug LY294002, or by a dominant negative form of p85, resulted in apoptosis of the lymphoma cells. LY294002 abolished I kappa B alpha (IkBα) kinase activation following hypophosphorylation of the NF-kappaB component, p65. This change coincided with a drop of Myc, which is degraded in the proteasome in a PI3K/Akt-dependent manner via phosphorylation of glycogen synthase kinase (GSK)-3β. Our results suggest that the PI3K/Akt pathway plays an important role in Myc regulation, either through Rel/NFkB-dependent transcription of the inserted iMycEμ gene or the post-transcriptional regulation of Myc protein levels. The iMycEμ mice may provide a good tool for the design and testing of new approaches to treat and prevent MYC-dependent B cell and plasma cell neoplasms in human beings.
Comparison of Levothyroxine Dosing in Patients with and without Heart Failure

ABSTRACTBackground: Evidence has shown that low thyroid hormone levels may lead to worse prognosis including a higher mortality rate in patients with heart failure (HF). Thyroid replacement increas...
Content Tsunami and the Attention Deficit

The story then moves to aggregation of user-generated content, media content and branded content unleashed as content tsunami. Associated with the increase in content is a dispersion of quality or noisy content, including false and misleading information. Consumption of content then requires careful filtering, sorting through enlightening content and trivia, which usurps scarce cognitive bandwidth. Juxtaposing the demands of a content tsunami with the supply of available hours of attention reveals a deficit, the attention deficit. Much like a budget deficit, shrinking cognitive bandwidth is equivalent to the revenue shortfall and the content tsunami is like the list of appropriations.
Toward an Aspirational Learning Model Gleaned from Large-Scale Assessment.

The aspirational model resulted from the authors’ secondary analysis of the Mother/Child (M/C) test block from the 2008 National Assessment of Educational Progress restricted data that examined the...
Novel method to detect, isolate, and culture prostate culturing circulating tumor cells

Background: Effectively detecting and culturing circulating tumor cells (CTCs), is critical for diagnosis of early metastasis, monitoring anti-cancer therapeutic efficacy, and drug screening. However, most current FDA approved CTC detection methods are based on antibody binding, which has limitations due to the nature of variations in antibody preparation and antibody-CTC size mismatches. Thus, searching for alternative and advanced methods is urgent and necessary. Methods: Prostate cancer tissue was digested by collagenase and cultured. Cancer stromal cells were identified and labelled with 4',6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI) before incubation with whole blood of cancer mice (bearing a later stage of prostate cancer). The attached blood CTCs on the DAPI-labeled cancer stromal cells were detected, isolated, cultured and produced into individual cancer cell lines. Results: Five clones of prostate cancer cells isolated from cancer tissue were successfully cultured. One (Clone-1) of the five clones showed positive staining for all three cancer stromal cell markers (CD133, α2β1 integrin and CD44). Clone-1 cells rich with epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EpCAM) on the cell surface were further identified. The Clone-1 stromal cells labeled as “bait” attracted and caught a trace number of CTCs from the whole blood of mice with advanced stage cancer. Efficient culturing of the caught CTCs from single cell to forming of individual cancer cell line(s) were established. Conclusions: We present a fundamental advancement of CTC detection and culturing using a different mechanism (cell-cell interaction) rather than the traditional antibody-based immune-binding, such as CellSearchTM system. This study has potential to be fully developed into a novel approach for early cancer metastasis detection, and chemotherapy efficacy monitoring. The efficiently cultured CTCs could be used for single-clone CTC analysis and anti-cancer drug screening to further advance the development of individualized medicine.
Promoting Computer Science Learning with Block-Based Programming and Narrative-Centered Gameplay

Recent years have seen increasing awareness of the need for all students in primary and secondary education to learn computer science (CS) concepts and skills. Educational games hold significant potential to serve as a platform for CS education because they integrate engaging problem solving with effective pedagogical strategies. This potential is especially high for narrative-centered educational games that embed learning activities within rich interactive stories. In this paper, we present an educational game featuring block-based programming challenges contextualized within an engaging narrative, designed to promote CS learning for middle school students (ages 11 to 13). In the game, students undertake problem-solving challenges that are aligned with the K-12 Computer Science Framework. Results from a classroom implementation of the game with middle grade students suggest that their perceived game control ratings are positively correlated with their progress in the game, which suggests the need for adaptively supporting students' game-based learning activities. Building on these findings, we discuss design implications for creating student-adaptive CS learning experiences in educational games that incorporate block-based programming enriched narrative-centered gameplay.
Compensating for a shifting world: A quantitative comparison of the reference frame of visual and auditory signals across three multimodal brain areas

Stimulus locations are detected differently by different sensory systems, but ultimately they yield similar percepts and behavioral responses. How the brain transcends initial differences to compute similar codes is unclear. We quantitatively compared the reference frames of two sensory modalities, vision and audition, across three interconnected brain areas involved in generating saccades, namely the frontal eye fields (FEF), lateral and medial parietal cortex (LIP/MIP), and superior colliculus (SC). We recorded from single neurons in head-restrained monkeys performing auditory- and visually-guided saccades from variable initial fixation locations, and evaluated whether their receptive fields were better described as eye-centered, head-centered, or hybrid (i.e. not anchored uniquely to head- or eye-orientation). We found a progression of reference frames across areas and across time, with considerable hybrid-ness and persistent differences between modalities during most epochs/brain regions. For both modalities, the SC was more eye-centered than the FEF, which in turn was more eye-centered than the predominantly hybrid LIP/MIP. In all three areas and temporal epochs from stimulus onset to movement, visual signals were more eye-centered than auditory signals. In the SC and FEF, auditory signals became more eye-centered at the time of the saccade than they were initially after stimulus onset, but only in the SC at the time of the saccade did the auditory signals become predominantly eye-centered. The results indicate that visual and auditory signals both undergo transformations, ultimately reaching the same final reference frame but via different dynamics across brain regions and time.
Feature Map Retargeting to Classify Biomedical Journal Figures.

In this work, we propose a layer to retarget feature maps in Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs). Our “Retarget” layer densely samples values for each feature map channel at locations inferred by our proposed spatial attention regressor. Our layer increments an existing saliency-based distortion layer by replacing its convolutional components with depthwise convolutions. This reformulation with the tuning of its hyper-parameters makes the Retarget layer applicable at any depth of feed-forward CNNs. Keeping in spirit with Content-Aware Image Resizing retargeting methods, we introduce our layers at the bottlenecks of three pre-trained CNNs. We validate our approach on the ImageCLEF2013, ImageCLEF2015, and ImageCLEF2016 document subfigure classification task. Our redesigned DenseNet121 model with the Retarget layer achieved state-of-the-art results under the visual category when no data augmentations were performed. Performing spatial sampling for each channel of the feature maps at deeper layers exponentially increases computational cost and memory requirements. To address this, we experiment with an approximation of the nearest neighbor interpolation and show consistent improvement over the baseline models and other state-of-the-art attention models. The code is available at https://github.com/VimsLab/CNN-Retarget.
Multiphase phase-field approach for solid–solid phase transformations via propagating interfacial phase in HMX

In this study, a thermodynamically consistent multiphase phase-field theory has been formulated to describe temperature-induced solid–solid phase transformations via an interfacial phase. This theory satisfies all thermodynamic equilibrium and stability conditions. It allows us to formulate the analytical solutions of the interface profile, energy, width, and velocity for each of the propagating solid–melt and solid–solid interfaces. The formation of the intermediate melt during solid–solid phase transformation has been studied hundreds of degrees below melting temperature in the HMX energetic crystal. The effect of the penalizing term in the phase-field model and two nanoscale material parameters on the appearance and degree of disordering of intermediate melt has been analyzed for the non-equilibrium interface. The developed approach is applicable to phase transitions in geological, pharmaceutical, ferroelectric, colloidal, and superhard materials where phase transformations occur via the intermediate phase.
Reaction intensity partitioning: a new perspective of the National Fire Danger Rating System Energy Release Component

The Rothermel fire spread model provides the scientific basis for the US National Fire Danger Rating System (NFDRS) and several other important fire management applications. This study proposes a new perspective of the model that partitions the reaction intensity function and Energy Release Component (ERC) equations as an alternative that simplifies calculations while providing more insight into the temporal variability of the energy release component of fire danger. We compare the theoretical maximum reaction intensities and corresponding ERCs across 1978, 1988 and 2016 NFDRS fuel models as they are currently computed and as they would be computed under the proposed scheme. The advantages and disadvantages of the new approach are discussed. More study is required to determine its operational implications.
Libpanda: A High Performance Library for Vehicle Data Collection

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) generally involve time-critical components due to physical dynamics, therefore necessitating high-performance subsystems. This is also true in data collection scenarios to infer physical phenomena. This paper covers Libpanda as an example of a component that has been designed to address performance issues in CPS implementations. Libpanda is a C++ library that interfaces software with a Comma.ai Panda device. Pandas are used for installation in modern vehicles to read the vehicle CAN bus, providing rich sensor data and limited vehicle control through message injection. The motivation to design lib-panda stems from the lack of performance in Python-based code that runs on inexpensive hardware like a Raspberry Pi. In such situations, Python code would result in utilizing 92% CPU while also dropping around 40% of the CAN packet due to bottlenecks. Without using different tools, inconsistent data collection means a loss of time-based vehicle state interpretation. Libpanda addresses these issues through implementation in a different language and implementation of different design paradigms involving asynchronous calls and multithreading. The Panda also features a GPS module that allows multiple instances to synchronize clocks for large-scale data collection scenarios. Libpanda has been designed with time-synchronization in mind to aid in the measurement of inter-vehicle dynamics. The performance improvements of libpanda have resulted in it becoming an important component in automotive dynamics research that requires a higher technical performance in large-scale experiments.
Line-by-line visual acuity scoring equivalence with letter-by-letter visual acuity scoring.

Clinical relevance: A scoring criterion of three-or-more letters correct on a line results in the most equivalent visual acuity score to letter-by-letter scoring.Background: Using the criterion of three-or-more letters correct on a line of five letters to measure a line visual acuity is common. In this study, different line acuity criteria are compared to letter-by-letter visual acuity scoring to determine which criterion is the most accurate as well as least variable.Methods: One eye each of 32 subjects was tested with high-contrast visual acuity charts at 4.88 m. Subjects had 16 acuities measured: 8 under normal conditions and 8 under a + 1.50D blur condition. For each set of 8, logMAR visual acuity results were obtained by retrospectively applying each of four scoring criteria twice: letter-by-letter acuity and three line acuities (three-or-more, four-or-more, or five correct on a line). Differences in means were analysed using repeated measures ANOVA with post-hoc Tukey testing. Test-retest variability was analysed via Bland-Altman analysisResults: The mean visual acuities (in logMAR) were -0.10, -0.11, -0.07, and -0.01 for letter-by-letter, three-or-more correct, four-or-more correct, and all five correct, respectively. With blur, the mean visual acuities were 0.41, 0.39, 0.45, and 0.53 for the respective criteria. Under both normal and blur conditions, the different acuity scoring criteria resulted in significant differences (p < 0.001), except for the letter-by-letter and three-or-more criteria (p ≥ 0.18). Whereas the criteria resulted in similar test-retest variability under blur, the line acuity using a criterion of three-or-more letters correct resulted in the lowest test-retest variability under best-corrected conditions.Conclusion: A line visual acuity scoring criterion of three-or-more letters correct on a line, whether with good visual acuity or poorer visual acuity due to defocus, provides the most similar acuity and test-retest variability compared to letter-by-letter visual acuity.
Digital Governance: Applying Advanced Technologies to Improve Public Service

The application of digital information and communication technologies (ICTs) to reform governmental structures and public service is widely and perhaps naively viewed as the 21st century "savior", the enlightened way to reinvigorate democracy, reduce costs, and improve the quality of public services. This book examines the transition from e-government to digital governance in light of the financial exigencies and political controversies facing many governments. The chapters concentrate on strategies for public sector organizational transformation and policies for improved and measurable government performance in the current contentious political environment. This fully updated second edition of Digital Governance provides strategies for public officials to apply advanced technologies, manage remote workforces, measure performance, and improve service delivery in current crisis-driven administrative and political environments. The full implementation of advanced digital governance requires fundamental changes in the relationship between citizens and their governments, using ICTs as catalysts for political as well as administrative communication. This entails attitudinal and behavioral changes, secure networks, and less dependence on formal bureaucratic structures (covered in Part I of this book); transformation of administrative, educational, and security systems to manage public services in a more citizen-centric way (covered in Part II); the integration of advanced digital technologies with remote broadband wireless internet services (Part III); and the creation of new forms of global interactive citizenship and self-governance (covered in Part IV). Author Michael E. Milakovich offers recommendations for further improvement and civic actions to stimulate important instruments of governance and public administration. This book is required reading for political science, public administration, and public policy courses, as well as federal, state, and local government officials.