cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Advances in thermal strain imaging: 3D motion and tumor validation studies

Targeted drug delivery therapies involving temperature sensitive vehicles and localized mild hyperthermia are emerging as an efficient way to non-invasively treat cancer [1]. To this end, control of hyperthermia is essential to efficiently release drugs while avoiding thermal damage to healthy tissue. Toward this end, thermal strain imaging (TSI) may be of great interest when combined with therapeutic ultrasound systems and has promise to non-invasively control hyperthermia in vivo. In this work, real time TSI with motion compensation was validated for 3D translational motion in a tissue mimicking phantom. The algorithm tracked temperature changes in the presence of 3-D motion spanning 8.7 mm, including oscillations resulting from out-of-plane displacement of the imaging array. A good agreement was found between the real-time temperature estimates at the motion extremes and the temperatures estimated when the array was placed at the two ends of the motion path. The RMSE in the temperature estimate was estimated as 0.11°C. The method was then tested in vivo on tumor bearing mice undergoing hyperthermia treatment. A custom therapeutic and imaging array designed for pre-clinical drug delivery studies facilitated temperature control while providing real-time mapping of the temperature change. Acquired temperature data were consistent with subcutaneous thermocouple measurements.
Phase II trial of bryostatin-1 in combination with cisplatin in patients with recurrent or persistent epithelial ovarian cancer: a California cancer consortium study

Background The California Cancer Consortium has performed a Phase II trial of infusional bryostatin, a protein kinase C inhibitor isolated from the marine invertebrate bryozoan, Bugula Neritina, a member of the phylum Ectoprocta, in combination with cisplatin, in patients (pts) with recurrent platinum-sensitive or resistant ovarian cancer (OC). Methods Pts received bryostatin 45 mcg/m2 as a 72 h continuous infusion followed by cisplatin 50 mg/m2. Cycles were repeated every 3 weeks. Dosages were chosen based on phase I data obtained by the CCC in a population of pts with mixed tumor types. Results Eight pts with recurrent or persistent epithelial OC received 23 cycles of treatment. All pts had received previous platinum-based chemotherapy; two pts had received one prior course, five had received two prior courses, and one had received three prior courses of chemotherapy. The median age was 64 (range 32–72), and Karnofsky performance status 90 (range 80–100). A median of 3 cycles of chemotherapy were delivered (range: 1–5). The median progression-free and overall survivals were 3 and 8.2 months respectively. Best responses included two partial responses (one in a platinum-resistant pt), three pts with stable disease, and three progressions. All pts experienced Grade 3 or 4 toxicities including severe myalgias/pain/fatigue/asthenia in six pts, and severe nausea/vomiting/constipation in two other pts. One pt experienced a seizure and liver function tests were elevated in one other. Conclusions A modest response rate is observed in pts with recurrent or persistent ovarian cancer treated with the combination of bryostatin and cisplatin. The toxicity profile, however, observed in this pt population (primarily severe myalgias), precludes tolerability and prevents this combination from further investigation at this dose and schedule. It is possible that platinum pre-exposure in OC patients exacerbates observed toxicity. Phase II dosages of investigational agents in OC pts that are determined by phase I trials in pts with other tumor types should be chosen cautiously.
Modular fixture design for generalized polyhedra

The term fixturing refers to the task of immobilizing a workpiece for the purpose of performing operations such as assembly and machining. As such, fixturing is of fundamental importance to industrial manufacturing. Fixtures can either be fabricated from scratch, or assembled from a toolkit of modular components, the latter approach is termed modular fixturing. In this paper, we present a complete algorithm to automatically design fixtures for the fixture vice toolkit. The algorithm enumerates fixture configurations, consisting of peg positions, workpiece pose, and jaw separation, for a given generalized polyhedral workpiece. A generalized polyhedral prismatic workpiece is defined to have a generalized polygonal silhouette, with a boundary composed of linear edges and circular area.
Utilization and Methodology of Applied Social Research: Four Complementary Models

In applied social research, variations in the utilization of results are more closely interrelated with methodological variations than in the so-called "pure" social sciences. In the following typo...
An experimental study and model validation of a membrane humidifier for PEM fuel cell humidification control

This paper presents an experimental study and model validation of an external membrane humidifier for PEM fuel cell humidification control. Membrane humidification behavior was investigated with steady-state and dynamic tests. Steady-state test results show that the membrane vapor transfer rate increases significantly with water channel temperature, air channel temperature, and air flow rate. Water channel pressure has little effect on the vapor transfer rate and thus can be neglected in the system modeling. Dynamic test results reveal that the membrane humidifier has a non-minimum phase (NMP) behavior, which presents extra challenges for control system design. Based on the test data, a new water vapor transfer coefficient for Nafion membrane was obtained. This coefficient increases exponentially with the membrane temperature. The test results were also used to validate a thermodynamic model for membrane humidification. It is shown that the model prediction agrees well with the experimental results. The validated model provides an important tool for external humidifier design and fuel cell humidification control.
Free Magnetic Energy Changes in AR 8210

Fourier local correlation tracking (FLCT) was applied to time series of the normal magnetic field in vector magnetograms of NOAA AR 8210, from 17:13–21:29 UT on 1998 May 1, to derive photospheric flows. These flows, combined with both the observed horizontal magnetic field and an inferred horizontal potential magnetic field, can be used to derive the flux of free magnetic energy across the photosphere. Here, we present the formalism used, as well as a map of the time-averaged free energy flux. Over the time interval covered by the magnetograms, erg of free magnetic energy flowed upward across the photosphere, a significant fraction of the energy typically released in large flares coronal mass ejections (CMEs). A flare and coronal mass ejection began at 22:30 UT. We acknowledge the kind support of AFOSR's MURI program.
The dependence of Jupiter's decametric emissions on the Jovian magnetic latitude of Io

Abstract The present analysis confirms the contention that the majority of Jupiter's decametric radio emissions occur when Io is above the northern magnetic hemisphere of Jupiter. However, a substantial portion of the non-Io-related component of source A was found to occur when Io was above southern magnetic latitudes of Jupiter.
Think fast! The relationship between goal prediction speed and social competence in infants.

Skilled social interactions require knowledge about others’ intentions and the ability to implement this knowledge in real-time to generate appropriate responses to one’s partner. Young infants demonstrate an understanding of other people’s intentions (e.g. Woodward, Sommerville, Gerson, Henderson & Buresh, 2009), yet it is not until the second year that infants seem to master the real-time implementation of their knowledge during social interactions (e.g. Warneken & Tomasello, 2007). The current study investigates the possibility that developments in social competence during the second year are related to increases in the speed with which infants can employ their understanding of others’ intentions. Twenty- to 22-month-old infants (N = 23) viewed videos of goal-directed actions on a Tobii eye-tracker and then engaged in an interactive perspective-taking task. Infants who quickly and accurately anticipated another person’s future behavior in the eye-tracking task were more successful at taking their partner’s perspective in the social interaction. Success on the perspective-taking task was specifically related to the ability to correctly predict another person’s intentions. These findings highlight the importance of not only being a ‘smart’ social partner but also a ‘fast’ social thinker.
The Dynamic Nature of Genomes across the Tree of Life

Genomes are dynamic in lineages across the tree of life. Among bacteria and archaea, for example, DNA content varies throughout life cycles, and nonbinary cell division in diverse lineages indicates the need for coordination of the inheritance of genomes. These observations contrast with the textbook view that bacterial and archaeal genomes are monoploid (i.e., single copied) and fixed both within species and throughout an individual’s lifetime. Here, we synthesize information on three aspects of dynamic genomes from exemplars representing a diverse array of bacterial and archaeal lineages: 1) ploidy level variation, 2) epigenetic mechanisms, and 3) life cycle variation. For example, the Euryarchaeota analyzed to date are all polyploid, as is the bacterium Epulopiscium that contains up to tens of thousands of copies of its genome and reproduces by viviparity. The bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans and the archaeon Halobacterium sp. NRC-1 can repair a highly fragmented genome within a few hours. Moreover, bacterial genera such as Dermocarpella and Planctomyces reproduce by fission (i.e., generating many cells from one cell) and budding, respectively, highlighting the need for regulation of genome inheritance in these lineages. Combining these data with our previous work on widespread genome dynamics among eukaryotes, we hypothesize that dynamic genomes are a rule rather than the exception across the tree of life. Further, we speculate that all domains may have the ability to distinguish germline from somatic DNA and that this ability may have been present the last universal common ancestor.
Effect of experimental influenza A infection on systemic immune and inflammatory parameters in allergic and nonallergic adult subjects

Background The economic impact and medical complication rate of viral upper respiratory infections are well documented, but many of the physiologic, inflammatory, and immune responses to respiratory viruses have only recently been investigated. A previous study demonstrated differential systemic immune and inflammatory responses in allergic rhinitis (AR) and nonallergic rhinitis (NAR) subjects during experimental infection with rhinovirus-39. Objective The purpose of this study was to compare selected systemic immune and inflammatory responses to experimental influenza A virus (FLU) challenge in seronegative AR and NAR subjects. Methods Peripheral blood was obtained at baseline (study day 0) and 3, 6, 18, and 31 days after intranasal FLU challenge and assayed for leukocyte histamine release, serum immunoglobulins, and plasma histamine. Results All subjects were infected, as manifested by viral shedding in nasal secretions and/or seroconversion. FLU infection induced decreases in spontaneous leukocyte histamine release and increases in anti-immunoglobulin E–induced leukocyte histamine release, which were evident at least 1 month after infection, but caused no significant changes in serum immunoglobulins or plasma histamine. There were no differences between AR and NAR subjects for any of the study parameters. Conclusions The results show that intranasal challenge with FLU induces changes in leukocyte histamine release, but not other systemic immune and inflammatory responses.
Further Thoughts on Consensus and Conversion: A Reply to Professor Goldman

I AM MOTIVATED to reply to Professor Goldman's critique of my recent article in this journal because it affords both of us an opportunity openly to exchange ideas on a subject of importance in the field of judicial research. His critique i's a model of fair and objective criticism, and I intend my reply to be in the same spirit of intellectual exchange. I know it is true of myself, and I thi'nk it fair to say of Professor Goldman as well, that we have both progressed beyond the original documents in this discussion-his doctoral dissertation study of decision-making on the United States Courts of Appeals,1 and my series of reflective and synoptic articles on social backgrounds research.2 His more recent article on conflict and consensus in the Courts of Appeals probes the determinants of judicial decisionmaking in more advanced fashion than in his dissertati'on.3 Likewise, my own thinking on the subject has progressed to the point where I too have endeavored to construct a model of judicial policymaking and to examine some of the variables which I first li'sted in the article which Goldman has critiqued.4 As a result of efforts to construct a viable model I concede that it is extremely difficult-at least for someone of my own inartistic nature-to portray in a diagram all the subtleties and nuances of judicial decision-making. Nevertheless it stiU seems to me that the point I was trying to make in the article was valid then and is, un-
Attracting engineering faculty to new frontiers in education using competition and collaboration in the classroom

Some engineering faculties advocate cooperative learning, while others embrace more traditional learning methods. Members of each educational camp contribute significantly to engineering education. Though many believe they are at opposite ends of the educational spectrum, this paper shows the value of merging competition and collaboration in the engineering classroom. The traditional dichotomy that exists combining between both camps does not have to continue. Both classroom perspectives have value and an important place in the future of designing new frontiers in engineering education.
Acyl-Homoserine Lactone Binding to and Stability of the Orphan Pseudomonas aeruginosa Quorum-Sensing Signal Receptor QscR

The Pseudomonas aeruginosa transcription factor QscR responds to a variety of fatty acyl-homoserine lactones (HSLs), including N-3-oxododecanoyl-HSL (3OC12-HSL), which is produced and detected by the P. aeruginosa quorum-sensing circuit LasI and LasR. As is true for LasR and many other acyl-HSL-dependent transcription factors, production of soluble QscR in sufficient amounts for purification requires growth of recombinant bacteria in the presence of an appropriate acyl-HSL. QscR is thought to bind 3OC12-HSL relatively weakly compared to LasR, and unlike LasR, binding of purified QscR to target DNA was shown to strongly depend on exogenously added 3OC12-HSL. We show that purified QscR is dimeric at sufficiently high concentrations and monomeric at lower concentrations. Furthermore, QscR bound 3OC12-HSL more tightly than previously believed. Purified QscR retained 3OC12-HSL, and at sufficiently high concentrations, it bound target DNA in the absence of added 3OC12-HSL. We also obtained soluble QscR from recombinant Escherichia coli grown in the presence of N-3-oxohexanoyl-HSL (3OC6-HSL) instead of 3OC12-HSL, and because 3OC6-HSL bound much more loosely to QscR than other acyl-HSLs tested, we were able to exchange 3OC6-HSL with other acyl-HSLs in vitro and then estimate binding affinities of QscR for different acyl-HSLs and for target DNA. Our data support a model whereby QscR polypeptides fold properly in the absence of an acyl-HSL, but soluble, acyl-HSL-free QscR does not accumulate because it is subject to rapid aggregation or proteolysis.
Biomarkers That Predict Diabetic Nephropathy: The Long Road From Finding Targets to Clinical Use

Diabetic kidney disease is the leading cause of renal failure in the U.S. and Western industrialized countries, affecting 20–30% of type 1 and type 2 diabetic patients. With the expansion of the obesity and type 2 diabetes epidemic worldwide and particularly in Asia, we can only anticipate an increase in the worldwide incidence of diabetic renal disease (1). It is difficult to overstate the physical, social, economic, and personal burdens created by diabetic nephropathy. And yet, caregivers are in many ways adrift in their efforts to predict which diabetic patients will develop progressive renal dysfunction. Those who wish to develop new pharmaceuticals to prevent or reverse diabetic nephropathy are also at a loss to accurately identify the subpopulation of patients with diabetes that will develop nephropathy and potentially benefit from new treatments. The judgment of clinicians as to who will develop diabetic nephropathy has come unmoored as a result of the loss of microalbuminuria as a biomarker of progressive renal dysfunction in patients with diabetes. In type 1 diabetic patients, confidence in the predictive value of microalbuminuria has declined as a result of observations that a large proportion of patients with microalbuminuria revert to normoalbuminuria and, in a significant percentage of patients, renal function has declined before the onset of microalbuminuria (2,3). In …
An Improved Fine Needle Catheter Introducing Set for Safer Central Vein Cannulation

The serious clinical complications of central venous catheterization are mostly due to laceration of vital thoracocervical structures by large caliber introducing needles. A new percutaneous sheath catheter introducing kit requiring only a 21-gauge needle for its introduction has been devised for the purpose of significantly reducing the incidence of life-threatening pneumothoraces and arterial injuries.
Atmospheric Nitrogen. Chemistry, Nitrification, Denitrification, and their Interrelationships

Nitrogen compounds are produced from atmospheric dinitrogen (N2) by the following processes: (1) naturally occurring biochemical reactions (biological dinitrogen fixation); (2) naturally occurring abiological reactions (ozonation and combustion, e. g., via fire, lightning, and coronal discharges); and (3) anthropogenic abiological reactions (combustion and industrial synthesis).
ENVIRONMENTAL CONSTRAINTS ON EARLY ESTABLISHMENT OF PHRAGMITES AUSTRALIS IN SALT MARSHES

Finding environmental constraints on the establishment in salt marshes of Phragmites australis may help elucidate human activities that facilitated its invasion. We tested the effects of rhizome burial, salinity, anoxia, and sulfides on emergence, survival, growth, biomass production, and spread. In greenhouse and field experiments, rhizome burial facilitated initial emergence in well-drained soils. Rhizome emergence was prohibited in poorly drained treatments, regardless of salinity or sulfide concentrations. Emergence in well-drained treatments was not affected by salinity or sulfides, but survival, growth, and biomass storage of the culms and rhizomes were diminished in salt treatments. Combined with other studies, these results indicate that Phragmites invasion is a multi-stage process, with emergence constrained by poor drainage and survival constrained by lack of burial opportunities and salinity. These conditions constrain early stages of the invasion only, as later stages of the invasion can spread into anoxic and high salinity areas. These results also suggest that the process of invasion is facilitated by different human activities at different stages. Emergence is facilitated by soil disturbance, rhizome burial, and altered drainage. Survival through the first season can be facilitated through activities that lower porewater salinity.
Novel MQW structure for extremely reliable 1480-nm pump lasers

Reliable high-powered 1480-nm pump lasers are an essential requirement as the pumping sources for Er3,4 fiber amplifiers, especially in long-haul transmission systems. This paper reports on work undertaken to optimize multiple-quantum-well (MQW) device structures for exceptional reliability while considering design practicality for high-volume manufacture.
Encouraging leisure-time physical activity (LTPA) participation in children and youth: The use of strength training programmes to improve health

Often perceived as an adult exercise activity, strength training can be used to effectively improve the health of children and youth. Implementing strength training that includes resistance training and plyometric programmes for children and youth may help to: increase bone mineral density, improve body composition, decrease adiposity, increase muscle mass, improve self-confidence, decrease sedentary behaviour, and decrease risk of becoming overweight or obese adult. Through organized strength training programmes, children and youth have the opportunity to make short-term gains in health and establish life long positive health outcomes. Although risks generally occur in child and youth physical activity participation, no reports have been made linking strength training programmes to direct injuries in children. When implementing child and youth strength training programmes, safety guidelines must be considered along with supervision. Basic programme criteria should include: 2-3 non-consecutive days of strength training per week, training sessions 30-40 minutes in length, exercises emphasizing posterior and anterior muscle groups, and performing exercises with high-repetitions/moderate loads. With these basic criteria, children may begin to experience improvements in health. As the health of children and youth continues to deteriorate worldwide, professionals in the field of leisure and recreation must take into consideration the use of strength training programmes. With age appropriate and modified strength training exercises, communities may begin to develop group strength training programmes for all ages. More specifically, strength training programmes for children provide additional leisure-time physical activity opportunities to reduce sedentary behaviour and encourage healthy, active lifestyles. Keywords : Strength training, leisure-time physical activity, health, children and youth.
Toward a Model of Creativity Based upon Problem Solving in the Social Sciences

Although creativity manifests itself in all areas of inquiry, most of the cited examples of creative thought involve the thinking of mathematicians, physical and biological scientists, writers, composers, and artists. In typical circumstances, few examples are cited in reference to social scientists. Yet creative acts may be found in virtually any domain, as, for example, in sports, when the forward pass was first used as an offensive weapon in football, or in business, when Henry Ford saw the implications of an assembly line and also realized that mass production would require mass consumption. Similarly, the work of March and Simon (1958) on organizational theory and the theoretical developments of Freud embrace creative work.
A Case for Non-blocking Collectives in OpenSHMEM: Design, Implementation, and Performance Evaluation using MVAPICH2-X

An ever increased push for performance in the HPC arena has led to a multitude of hybrid architectures in both software and hardware for HPC systems. Partitioned Global Address Space PGAS programming model has gained a lot of attention over the last couple of years. The main advantage of PGAS model is the ease of programming provided by the abstraction of a single memory across nodes of a cluster. OpenSHMEM implementations currently implement the OpenSHMEM 1.2 specification that provides interface for one-sided, atomic, and collective operations. However, the recent trend in HPC arena in general, and Message Passing Interface MPI community in specific, is to use Non-Blocking Collective NBC communication to efficiently overlap computation with communication to save precious CPU cycles. This work is inspired by encouraging performance numbers for NBC implementations of various MPI libraries. As the OpenSHMEM community has been discussing the use of non-blocking communication, in this paper, we propose an NBC interface for OpenSHMEM, present its design, implementation, and performance evaluation. We discuss the NBC interface that has been modeled along the lines of MPI NBC interface and requires minimal changes to the function signatures. We have designed and implemented this interface using the Unified Communication Runtime in MVAPICH2-X. In addition, we propose OpenSHMEM NBC benchmarks as an extension to the OpenSHMEM benchmarks available in the widely used OMB suite. Our performance evaluation shows that the proposed NBC implementation provides upi¾?to 96 percent overlap for different collectives with little NBC overhead.
Yüan Hung-tao and the Kung-an School: The literary theories of the three Yüan brothers

The Kung-an school of the late Ming derived its name from Kung-an hsien in Hupeh province, where the three Yuan brothers came from. The most active period of this school only lasted for about six years, from 1595 – when Yuan Hung-tao was appointed magistrate of Wu-hsien, Kiangsu province – until the death of Yuan Tsung-tao in 1600. Wu-hsien, at the heart of Soochow Prefecture, was the cultural center of the Yangtze valley. After serving as the magistrate of Wu-hsien for two years, during which time he resided in Soochow city, Yuan Hung-tao became disillusioned with bureaucratic life. Yet his tenure in office gave him a unique opportunity to share his ideas on literature with his friends in this area. Among them, Chiang Ying-k'o (1556–1605) and T'ao Wang-ling (1562–1609) were his two most enthusiastic supporters. In 1598 Yuan Hung-tao joined his two brothers in Peking to accept a new appointment as an instructor in the Metropolitan Prefectural School ( Ching-chao chiao-kuan ). In the same year the Grape Society ( P'u-t'ao she ), a literary group led by the three Yuan brothers, was established at Ch'ung-kuo temple in the western suburbs of Peking. Its members included high officials and well-known scholars in the area around the capital. In addition to T'ao Wang-ling and Chiang Ying-k'o, Huang Hui (1554–1612), Hsieh Chao-che (1567–1624) and P'an Shih-tsao ( chin-shih , 1583) comprised the central figures in this society. After the establishment of the Grape Society, the activities of the Kung-an school expanded until 1600, the year of Yuan Tsung-tao's death, and even though the active period of the Kung-an school was quite short, it nonetheless exerted a great influence on the development of late Ming literary criticism.
Numerical Simulation of Radiative Heat Transfer

Radiative heat transfer is an important physical phenomenon especially in the high speed and high temperature flow regime making its application important in space exploration vehicles. This paper presents the development and validation of computational tools for modeling the radiative heat transfer with an aim that the developed numerical module can be either employed by itself or coupled with a computational fluid dynamics solver to analyze aerothermodynamics environment of space exploration vehicles. A generalized grid based finite volume method is used for solving the radiative heat transfer equation. Solution of the radiative heat transfer equations in angular domain is carried out in a parallel environment. This numerical approach is validated with different benchmark test cases for gray gas radiation in irregular geometries. To enable the simulation of non-gray gas radiation, the full spectrum correlated-k model is implemented. A grid sensitivity study is conducted to analyze the dependency of mesh resolution on solution accuracy. The results of the validation studies, grid sensitivity studies, and parallel performance of the implementation are presented in this paper.
Influence of fasting and hormone deficiency on myocardial glycogen levels in rats.

SummaryThis study was undertaken because of uncertainties regarding the influence of hormones on myocardial glycogen metabolism of fed and fasted rats. The results indicate that adrenal hormones exert a stabilizing effect on myocardial glycogen levels in fed animals but are not necessary for synthesis to occur. Hypophysectomy eliminates the glycogen increase that occurs from fasting in normal animals while insulin deficiency leads to elevated glycogen stores in both fed and fasted conditions. These findings suggest that changes in myocardial glycogen metabolism are the result of a synergetic relationship between a variety of hormonal and nutritional factors.
Abstract 1552: Cigarette smoke induces TNF-α secretion from macrophages through a pathway consisting of PPARγ, MUC1, ERK and JNK.

The glycoprotein Mucin 1 (MUC1 in human and Muc1 in animals) is expressed in the lung and has been shown to be associated with lung carcinogenesis. Recently we have found that cigarette smoke (CS) significantly increased MUC1 expression in mouse lung macrophages and that MUC1 is required for CS-induced tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) secretion from macrophages. Because CS potently elicits chronic pulmonary inflammation that is important for the development of lung cancer, we investigated the cell signaling pathways for CS-induced MUC1 expression and MUC1-mediated TNF-α secretion in macrophages using an in vitro model. The results showed that: CS extract (CSE) strongly induced MUC1 expression at both the mRNA and protein levels; Suppression of PPARγ effectively blocked CSE-induced MUC1 expression in THP1 cells, suggesting CSE induces MUC1 expression through PPARγ-mediated transcription; The induction of TNF-α expression was effectively blocked when ERK and JNK were blocked, suggesting these pathways are involved in CSE-induced TNF-α expression in macrophages; Knockdown of MUC1 significantly suppressed CSE-induced ERK and JNK activation; and Suppression of PPARγ that effectively blocked CSE-induced MUC1 expression also inhibited CSE-induced TNF-α secretion from macrophages. Thus, our results suggest a possible involvement of a signaling pathway consisting of PPARγ, MUC1 and ERK/JNK for CSE-induced TNF-α secretion from macrophages that may contribute to inflammation-associated lung cancer development. Note: This work is supported by the NIH/NIEHS grant 1R01ES017328. Citation Format: Xiuling Xu, Mabel T. Padilla, Alexandria Wells, Kwang Chul Kim, yong Lin. Cigarette smoke induces TNF-α secretion from macrophages through a pathway consisting of PPARγ, MUC1, ERK and JNK. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 104th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2013 Apr 6-10; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2013;73(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 1552. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2013-1552
Preserving the child as a respondent: initiating patient-centered interviews in a US outpatient tertiary care pediatric pain clinic.

This article identifies some of the challenges of implementing patient-centeredness in multiparty clinical visits. Specifically, it describes four interview practices with which clinicians address these challenges in a US outpatient tertiary care pediatric pain clinic. Using the qualitative method of conversation analysis, we analyze clinicians’ child-directed (ages 10–18) interviewing during the initial stage of 51 intake visits. In particular, we analyze the challenges involved in open-ended questioning, a form of interviewing associated with patient-centeredness. Open-ended questioning presents participants with competing demands: although it gives children an opportunity to talk about their illness in their own terms, it also asks them to be responsible for a larger part of the communication work. Moreover, the presence of a parent as an alternative informant can lead to the loss of the child as an informant if clinicians fail to give the child, particularly younger ones, enough guidance in answering. We argue that a flexible range of interviewing practices may be a step towards offsetting children’s and parents’ past negative experiences with clinicians, improving patient outcomes and implementing child/patient-centeredness.
The Political Relevance of Behavioral and Existential Psychology

Over the last few decades political scientists have shown an understandable interest in material brought into relief by neighboring disciplines. A concern with enriching the field of political science by drawing on sociological, economic, and psychological data has led to efforts to accommodate findings derived from study in areas in which men are subjected to non-political pressures—the constraints of society, the economy, and ultimately their own physical and psychological nature. As the conventional academic boundaries are crossed, knowledge of distinctively political matters, it has been hoped, will become richer as well as more precise. This essay seeks to clarify the promise and limits of two non-political approaches to an understanding of politics, namely those which are represented by two types of psychology, and to take account of their bearings on normative political thought. Traditionally, normative political thought has been concerned with the analysis and understanding of the ends of political action: it has been an attempt to present and elucidate them. Setting specific points of view in a larger context, it has tended to be discursive and Utopian, speculatively enlarging the realm of public possibilities and common choices. More recently, it has been concerned with presenting models designed to assimilate empirically validated propositions about political behavior. To these concerns, various forms of non-political thought have always made their distinctive contributions.
Effects of asphalt rejuvenator on thermal and mechanical properties on oxidized hot mixed asphalt pavements

The utilization of asphalt rejuvenator, and its effectiveness for restoring thermal and mechanical properties was investigated via Disk-shaped Compact Tension (DC(T)) and acoustic emission (AE) testing for determining mechanical properties and embrittlement temperatures of the mixtures. During the DC(T) testing the fracture energies and peak loads were used to measure the resistance of the rejuvenated asphalt to low temperature cracking. The AE testing monitored the acoustic emission activity while the specimens were cooled from room temperature to -40 °C to estimate the temperature at which thermal cracking began (i.e. the embrittlement temperature). First, a baseline response was obtained by obtaining the mechanical and thermal response of virgin HMA samples and HMA samples that had been exposed to oxidative aging for 36 hours at 135°C. The results showed the virgin samples had much higher peak loads and fracture energies than the 36 hours aged samples. Acoustic Emission showed similar results with the virgin samples having embrittlement temperatures 10 °C cooler than the 36 hours aged specimens. Then, overaged for 36 hours specimens were treated different amounts of rejuvenator (10%, 15%, and 20% by weight of binder content) and left to dwell for increased amount of time periods varying from one to eight weeks. It was observed that the AE results showed an improvement of embrittlement temperature with increasing with the dwell times. The 8 weeks specimens had cooler embrittlement temperatures than the virgin specimens. Finally, the low temperature effects on fracture energy and peak load of the rejuvenated asphalt was investigated. Rejuvenator was applied (10% by weight of binder) to specimens aged 36 hours at 135 °C, and the dwell time was varied from 1 to 4 weeks. The results showed that the peak loads were restored to levels of the virgin specimens, and the fracture energies improved to levels beyond that of the virgin specimens. The results also showed a general trend of improvement for the AE testing of the embrittlement temperature.
Clubbing and hypertrophic osteoarthropathy

Acquired clubbing of the digits and hypertrophic osteoarthropathy are closely related disorders of unknown etiology that derive special significance from their frequent association with serious underlying diseases of the thorax or abdomen. Most importantly, clubbing or HOA may provide the first clinical indication of a chronic infection or an intrathoracic neoplasm. However, clubbing is easily overlooked on physical examination, and hypertrophic osteoarthropathy is often mistaken for some other disorder. The diagnosis of clubbing is based on the finding of an increase in the soft tissue at the base of the finger or toenails. Of the several objective criteria that have been proposed for the diagnosis of digital clubbing, the best documented and most practical is an increase in the ratio of the distal phalangeal depth (DPD) to the interphalangeal depth (IDP) of the index finger to 1.0 or greater. Hypertrophic osteoarthropathy is characterized in advance cases by the combination of digital clubbing, periostitis of the long bones, arthritis-like changes in the knees, elbows, ankles, and wrists, and swelling of the soft tissues in the distal extremities. Bone scintigraphy has emerged as the most sensitive test for HOA; in fact, a bone scan may show evidence of periostitis in patients with no other signs, symptoms, or radiographic abnormalities of the disorder. The symptoms of HOA respond to anti-inflammatory agents, and to ablation or cure of the underlying disorder.
Acetabular cages: a ladder across a melting pond.

implanting anti-protrusio devices was based on an attempt to provide increased contact area between the implant and remaining pelvic bone to dissipate forces within the cement and decrease the likelihood of implant migration. Early devices relied on cement as the sole source of fixation and these implants were associated with a high failure rate at short-term follow-up. Although the use of these devices was quickly abandoned, new devices based on mechanical screw fixation were designed and the use of these devices became popular in the early 1990s.1 These so-called “acetabular cages” should be classified into the two categories: 1) roof rings and 2) anti-protrusio devices.2,3 This distinction is important as significant differences exist between these two device categories and they should be used to treat different conditions. This article reports on the anti-protrusio devices that are used to bridge across from the ischium to the ilium to dissipate the forces in poor or absent bone.
Ion Exchange Method for Determining Mephentermine Sulfate in Drug Formulations: Collaborative Study

Ion exchange chromatography is used to separate mephentermine sulfate from drug formulations. The drug is subsequently measured by ultraviolet spectrophotometry. Assays on 4 commercial samples of tablets and injectables gave recoveries from 97.6 to 104% of declared. A collaborative study involving 2 tablet and 2 liquid formulations gave mean recoveries ranging from 94.7 to 99.3% and coefficients of variation from 1.39 to 2.00%.
Truncal vagotomy with antrectomy -- 1976

Vagotomy-antrectomy, preferably with a Billroth I reconstruction, is the most effective operation in current use to control recurrent ulceration. Truncal vagotomy-pyloroplasty is not an ideal operation to use for the complications of ulcer. Its use should be restricted to the high-risk patient who undergoes either an elective or emergency operation in which the immediate salvage of life is of main concern.
Accessing chemosensitivity and ventilatory stability from transient stimuli

The degree of ventilatory stability of human subjects is inferred from the presence or absence of oscillations in ventilation in response to a brief CO 2 disturbance using the method of pseudorandom stimulation. Simultaneously, chemosensitivity is measured. Stability and chemosensitivity are compared in hyperoxia between wakefulness and stage 2 non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep and between normoxia and hyperoxia awake. Stability is unchanged between wakefulness and sleep but chemosensitivity decreases in sleep. In contrast, stability is reduced in normoxia whereas chemosensitivity is larger than in hyperoxia. It is concluded that chemosensitivity and ventilatory stability may change independently, implying that chemosensitivity alone is not an adequate indicator of the likelihood of a subject to exhibit periodic breathing.
Special Investigations in the Workup of Unexpected Antibodies and Blood Group Incompatibilities

Publisher Summary Fundamental immunologic principles underlie various serologic techniques that are applied by blood banks. The interaction of antibodies from the patient or as special reagents with antigen from donor red blood cell (RBC) either in a tube or in a matrix setting serves as the basic process through which clinically important antibodies are identified. The chapter presents several strategies that are used in the evaluation of clinically significant alloantibodies. Patients with positive antibody screens and a history of clinically significant alloantibodies can be evaluated by using abbreviated cell panels lacking the appropriate antigen. For individuals with positive antibody screens and no history of clinically significant antibodies, identification of the antibody requires testing the specimen against a panel of selected RBC specimens arrayed such that all major clinical antigen systems are accounted for. When the blood bank confronts warm-reactive autoantibodies, serological investigations are aimed not at an assessment of their pathogenicity but at the critical question of whether obscured clinically significant alloantibodies are present in the panagglutination reactivity typically associated with these antibodies. Before addressing this, however, mention must be made of the significance and evaluation of results from direct antiglobulin testing, which is typically performed in tandem or parallel investigations.
The Application of Historical Military Strategy Concepts to Marketing Strategy

This paper discusses the application of historical military strategy concepts to marketing strategy. The basic military strategy concepts are stated and analyzed. A listing of twelve recommended "principles of strategy" for business are developed from military strategy principles and defined. Three potential cases of the principles of strategy for business situations are suggested.
Evergreen and Deciduous Ferns of the Coast Redwood Forest

Abstract The understory of California's coast redwood forests boasts an abundance of ferns, half of which are drought deciduous. Despite their ecological importance, little is known about the functional differences between deciduous and perennial ferns. This study explored morphological and physiological leaf traits of an assortment of coast redwood forest fern species sampled from the southern, drier extent of the ecosystem, to determine if deciduous species are less drought tolerant than co-occurring evergreen species because of their shorter leaf lifespan. In mid-summer, all ferns were well hydrated with water potentials above −1 MPa. Although the deciduous ferns were more vulnerable to hydraulic dysfunction by embolism, it is likely that all species experienced similarly low degrees of embolism in situ, as inferred from mid-day water potential measurements. Despite their similar water relations when water was not limiting, we observed that deciduous ferns had thinner pinnae because they avoid the late...
Signaling by two-component system noncognate partners promotes intrinsic tolerance to polymyxin B in uropathogenic Escherichia coli

Bacteria use two-component systems (TCSs) to react appropriately to environmental stimuli. Typical TCSs comprise a sensor histidine kinase that acts as a receptor coupled to a partner response regulator that coordinates changes in bacterial behavior, often through its activity as a transcriptional regulator. TCS interactions are typically confined to cognate pairs of histidine kinases and response regulators. We describe two distinct TCSs in uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC) that interact to mediate a response to ferric iron. The PmrAB and QseBC TCSs were both required for proper transcriptional response to ferric iron. Ferric iron induced the histidine kinase PmrB to phosphotransfer to both its cognate response regulator PmrA and the noncognate response regulator QseB, leading to transcriptional responses coordinated by both regulators. Pretreatment of the UPEC strain UTI89 with ferric iron led to increased resistance to polymyxin B that required both PmrA and QseB. Similarly, pretreatment of several UPEC isolates with ferric iron increased tolerance to polymyxin B. This study defines physiologically relevant cross talk between TCSs in a bacterial pathogen and provides a potential mechanism for antibiotic resistance of some strains of UPEC.
The Children First Program: The Effectiveness of a Parent Education Program for Divorcing Parents

ABSTRACTThis study evaluated the effectiveness of the 2nd and 3rd editions of the Children First parent education programs for parents experiencing divorce or separation. Participants were 678 parents experiencing separation or divorce in 2 Midwestern counties. Changes from pretest to posttest on participants’ knowledge, attitudes, and likelihood of adaptive coparenting were assessed. Both editions of the program had a significant positive effect on all 3 measures of adaptive coparenting. The effect sizes from pretest to posttest for the 2nd edition were small, whereas the effect sizes for the 3rd edition of the program were nearly twice as large. Superiority of the 3rd edition might be due to an increased focus on explicit training on adaptive coparenting behaviors.
Locality-Adaptive Parallel Hash Joins Using Hardware Transactional Memory

Previous work [1] has claimed that the best performing implementation of in-memory hash joins is based on (radix-)partitioning of the build-side input. Indeed, despite the overhead of partitioning, the benefits from increased cache-locality and synchronization free parallelism in the build-phase outweigh the costs when the input data is randomly ordered. However, many datasets already exhibit significant spatial locality (i.e., non-randomness) due to the way data items enter the database: through periodic ETL or trickle loaded in the form of transactions. In such cases, the first benefit of partitioning — increased locality — is largely irrelevant. In this paper, we demonstrate how hardware transactional memory (HTM) can render the other benefit, freedom from synchronization, irrelevant as well.
Promoting Physical Exercise Through Embodied Trainers: A Systematic Literature Review

Guided physical training at home brings benefits to people aiming to improve their health. Survivors from a stroke or spinal cord injury may present specific needs and decreased motivation for rehabilitation. The quality and effectiveness of the physical training for rehabilitation have a direct impact on the probability of success in recovering motor skills. The present chapter reviews preceding research on embodied virtual agents designed to support individuals who need guidance and encouragement to conduct physical training. Embodied trainers’ capabilities for this goal have been demonstrated in several training activities collected in the present review, such as cycling, running, and walking. This review also recognizes specific strategies with positive effects on trainees’ guidance and motivation. Moreover, technical limitations and future opportunities are presented for discussion.
Revisiting the Relationship Between Data, Models, and Decision-Making

We hydrologists can do a better job of supporting water-resources decision-making. I will argue that we can do this by recognizing that decision makers use qualitative, multiple-narrative approaches. So, rather than providing single-model predictions with quantitative uncertainties, we should develop teams of rival models that inform decision makers about what is known, what is possible, and what is unknown. This requires that we build ensembles of models that include biased, advocacy models that directly represent stakeholders' interests or concerns. From this inclusive platform, we can speak objectively and clearly about the risks that drive stakeholders' decisions. Furthermore, we will be promoting more appropriate use of the scientific method in making informed water-resources decisions.