cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Demonstration and characterization of dipeptide transport system activity in sheep omasal epithelium by expression of mRNA in Xenopus laevis oocytes

Research from this laboratory has recently demonstrated that the omasal epithelium of sheep is capable of absorbing dipeptides. In order to express proteins potentially responsible for the mediated absorption of small peptides, size-fractionated poly(A) + RNA (RNA) isolated from omasal epithelial tissue of sheep (average BW 67.5 kg) were injected into defolliculated Xenopus laevis oocytes. The ability of oocytes injected with RNA or water to absorb [ 14 C]glycyl-L-sarcosine (Gly-Sar) from media (usually pH 5.5) was compared. After 4 d ( P <.02) of culture, specific RNA fractions induced an increased ( P <.02) rate of Gly-Sar absorption, as compared with water-injected oocytes. The dependency of Gly-Sar uptake on the presence of a pH gradient was evaluated at pH 5.0, 5.5, 6.0, 6.5, and 7.5. Inducible uptake increased (P <.001) in the presence of increasing proton concentrations, whereas endogenous uptake of Gly-Sar decreased (P <.001). At pH 5.5, induced Gly-Sar uptake was saturable (K t =.4 mM), but endogenous uptake was not. The specificity of Gly-Sar absorption was studied by the co-incubation of.1 mM Gly-Sar with 5 mM levels of competing substrates (pH 5.5). Induced uptake was inhibited ( P <.05) 44% by carnosine, 94% by methionylglycine, and 91% by glycylleucine, but not by glycine. Incubation of RNA with DNA oligomers that were complementary to the rabbit intestinal transporter completely inhibited ( P < .05) induced Gly-Sar uptake. These results indicate that sheep omasal epithelial cells express messenger RNA that encode for proteins that are capable of H + -dependent dipeptide transport activity.
Metabolic abnormalities in an adult survivor of pediatric craniopharyngioma.

Adult survivors of childhood craniopharyngiomas, the second most common type of childhood brain tumor, face many challenges, including multiple life-threatening metabolic abnormalities. Serious metabolic deficits can result from injury to the pituitary gland or hypothalamus.
Abstract A136: Deconstructing stemness from the fetal mammary perspective

Somatic stem cells govern the development, maintenance and regeneration of tissues, and their dysregulation is associated with diverse pathologies including cancer. Given the significance of these cells both biologically and therapeutically, it is critical to elucidate the signaling mechanisms that dictate their behavior. Our recent work on the fetal mammary gland has dissected complementary roles for the stem cell compartment and stromal cues in fetal mammary stem cell function. We also identified significant similarities between the gene expression profiles of some of the most aggressive and untreatable forms of human breast cancer and those of the mouse fetal stem cell enriched mammary epithelial and stromal fractions. These similarities suggest that stem cell regulatory mechanisms operative during organogenesis, including those specified by the stromal niche, may serve as novel therapeutic targets in these cancers. We also discovered significant gene expression heterogeneity within the fetal stem cell compartment when analyzed at single cell resolution. While such heterogeneity likely reflects the natural diversity of stem and non-stem cell states comprising the system, it confounds the interpretation of expression profiles from mixed populations and the delineation of stem cell specific and niche specific molecular components. Our current objective is to utilize genome wide single cell RNA-Sequencing to hasten the identification of functionally relevant, stem cell specific regulators and markers in the context of this multi-cellular/multi-signal system. Among other candidates, we have identified the Cripto/GRP78 signaling axis as a critical regulator of mammary stem cell activity, and have developed novel molecular genetic tools to temporally control the activity of candidate stem cell regulators in vivo in normal and neoplastic contexts. Integration of these tools promises to deliver a new molecular understanding of stem cell biology in the mammary gland and other systems and of stem cell-like cancer cells. Citation Format: Benjamin T. Spike, Danielle D. Engle, Jennifer C. Lin, Jonathan A. Kelber, Justin La, Samantha K. Cheung, Evan Booker, Rose Rodewald, Christopher Dravis, Peter C. Gray, Geoffrey M. Wahl. Deconstructing stemness from the fetal mammary perspective. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Special Conference on Advances in Breast Cancer Research: Genetics, Biology, and Clinical Applications; Oct 3-6, 2013; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Mol Cancer Res 2013;11(10 Suppl):Abstract nr A136.
Tourism and the Growth of Urban Ethnic Islands

Following World War II, many coastal resort areas in southern Europe and the United States, some of which had already gained considerable popularity before the war, experienced a rapid growth in tourist arrivals. Several locations became associated with particular ethnic groups, who migrated to the areas on a temporary basis for a reprieve from northern American and European winters. Before long, however, masses of people, having visited the South on earlier vacations, migrated there on a permanent basis. Some resort communities developed rapidly and began to conform physically and socio-culturally to the dominant immigrant groups. Today, several examples of these tourism-induced urban ethnic islands exist in southern Europe and North America.
Antiepileptic Skin Reactions and Brain Tumors

The frequency of both severe and mild skin reactions in 289 adult patients with brain tumors treated consecutively (1988-93) with cranial radiation and AEDs was studied retrospectively by review of records at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA.
Proton pump inhibitors are associated with a reduced likelihood for sexually transmitted diseases in women in the emergency department.

Background: Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) have been shown in cell culture to kill Trichomonas vaginalis (TV) at lower half maximal inhibitory concentration values than metronidazole (Flagyl), the most common medication used to treat the infection. However, there have been no previous clinical investigations to determine if PPIs are associated with reduced risk for TV. Materials and Methods: We examined the records of female patients who received testing in the emergency department for TV, Neisseria gonorrhoea (GC), and Chlamydia trachomatis (CT) between 2010 and 2014 at two academic medical centers to determine if PPI and histamine type 2 receptor antagonist (H2RA) drugs were associated with TV and GC/CT infections. Results: We found that H2RAs were associated with an increased likelihood for TV (odds ratio [OR]: 2.0, P< 0.0001) and GC and/or CT infections (OR: 1.49, P< 0.0001). PPIs were associated with a reduced likelihood for TV (OR: 0.75, P< 0.0001) and GC and/or CT infections (OR: 0.57, P< 0.0001). In patients infected with GC and/or CT, the likelihood of coinfection with TV was reduced in those taking a PPI (OR: 0.64, P = 0.054) and increased in those taking an H2RA (OR: 1.62, P = 0.003). Conclusions: PPIs are associated with a reduced risk for TV and GC/CT infection.
Interpretation of impedance spectroscopy of cement paste via computer modelling - Part I Bulk conductivity and offset resistance

Computer simulation of impedance spectroscopy (IS) of hydrating cement paste, using a three-dimensional, four-phase model, is described. Two puzzling features of experimental IS results, the possible offset resistance in the Nyquist plot and the sharp decrease in normalized conductivity within the first 50 h of reaction, have been studied using the computer simulation model. Insight is provided into these features using the ability of the model to compare quantitatively microstructure and properties. It is concluded that the offset resistance is an experimental artefact, and does not directly relate to microstructure. The drop in conductivity during the first 50 h is shown to be a consequence of a gradual shift from parallel-dominated to series-dominated behaviour of the electrical conductivity, as microstructural modifications take place during hydration, causing the capillary pore structure to become more tortuous. This tortuousity can also explain the high-frequency impedance behaviour in terms of a two-arc response.
Methodological Caveats in the Detection of Coordinated Replay between Place Cells and Grid Cells

At rest, hippocampal “place cells,” neurons with receptive fields corresponding to specific spatial locations, reactivate in a manner that reflects recently travelled trajectories. These “replay” events have been proposed as a mechanism underlying memory consolidation, or the transfer of a memory representation from the hippocampus to neocortical regions associated with the original sensory experience. Accordingly, it has been hypothesized that hippocampal replay of a particular experience should be accompanied by simultaneous reactivation of corresponding representations in the neocortex and in the entorhinal cortex, the primary interface between the hippocampus and the neocortex. Recent studies have reported that coordinated replay may occur between hippocampal place cells and medial entorhinal cortex (MEC) grid cells, cells with multiple spatial receptive fields. Assessing replay in grid cells is problematic, however, as the cells exhibit regularly spaced spatial receptive fields in all environments and, therefore, coordinated replay between place cells and grid cells may be detected by chance. In the present report, we adapted analytical approaches utilized in recent studies of grid cell and place cell replay to determine the extent to which coordinated replay is spuriously detected between grid cells and place cells recorded from separate rats. For a subset of the employed analytical methods, coordinated replay was detected spuriously in a significant proportion of cases in which place cell replay events were randomly matched with grid cell firing epochs of equal duration. More rigorous replay evaluation procedures and minimum spike count requirements greatly reduced the percent of spurious findings. These results provide insights into aspects of place cell and grid cell activity during rest that contribute to false detection of coordinated replay. The results further emphasize the need for careful controls and rigorous methods when testing the hypothesis that place cells and grid cells exhibit coordinated replay.
Introduction to Experimental Design

Experimentation is part of everyday life. Will leaving 30 minutes earlier than usual in the morning make it easier to find a legal parking space at work? How about 20 minutes earlier? Or only 10 minutes earlier? Can I increase my gas mileage by using synthetic oil? Will my problem employees make more of an effort to be on time if I make it a practice to stop by their office to chat at the start of the day? Will a chemical reaction be faster if the amount of a specific reagent is increased threefold? How about if the temperature is increased by 10 °C? Will the yield increase if an extraction is carried for 40 minutes instead of 20 minutes?
A preliminary study of an intent-recognition-based traded control architecture for high latency telemanipulation

Despite the availability of increasingly more robust machine perception and control algorithms, human operators are still needed to directly control robotic systems in extreme environments where there is a high cost of failure. This paper reports a novel architecture for semi-autonomous teleoperation over high-latency telemetry and the results of a 15-subject user study used to evaluate that architecture. The intent-recognition-based traded control (IRTC) architecture recognizes operator intent based on remote scene and task modeling, and automatically trades control to an autonomous reactive subsystem. Each subject participated in one two-hour session during which they controlled a single simulated redundant robotic manipulator with 4000ms of closed-loop latency. Subjects continuously assemble and disassemble a 3D lattice structure with or without IRTC-based assistance. The user study showed that the IRTC system improved operator performance in the simulated multi-object assembly task. All source code for conducting the experiment including the simulation and data processing is available online under a permissive open-source license.
Locating the Global: Schooling in an Interconnected World:

BackgroundEducators in the United States and internationally have become increasingly interested in incorporating international perspectives into curricula, programs, and policy. Rooted in a long h...
Positive Pneumocystis jirovecii Sputum PCR Results with Negative Bronchoscopic PCR Results in Suspected Pneumocystis Pneumonia.

Introduction. The diagnostic standard for Pneumocystis jirovecii pneumonia (PCP) is direct microscopic identification; however, in recent years, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) from bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) samples to detect Pneumocystis nucleic acids has proven to be more sensitive and specific. Sputum samples have been presumed inferior to bronchoscopic samples secondary to variability and adequacy of sample collection. We observed several cases of positive sputum PCP-PCR results with negative PCP-PCR BAL results. The aim of the current study was to further characterize the clinical setting and outcomes in patients with positive sputum PCP-PCR samples and negative BAL PCP-PCR samples. Methods. We identified all patients who underwent P. jirovecii-PCR testing at Mayo Clinic between 2011 and 2016. Patients with a positive sputum and negative BAL sample collected within a 14-day time frame were identified and underwent further chart review for demographics, immunocompromised state, and clinical outcome. Results. From 2011 to 2016, 4431 respiratory samples from 3021 unique patients were tested for the presence of P. jirovecii by PCR. Fifty-five samples (1.2% of all samples collected) belonging to 24 unique patients (0.79% of patients tested) were identified as having a positive and negative sample collected within 14 days. Of these 24 patients, 10 (46%) patients had a positive sputum or tracheal secretion sample with negative BAL or bronchial washings. Out of these 10 patients, 8 were immunocompromised and 9 underwent treatment for PCP with 6 patients improving. Conclusion. Our results suggest that discordant P. jirovecii-PCR testing results from sputum and bronchoscopic specimens are an infrequent occurrence. Patients with positive P. jirovecii-PCR sputum/tracheal secretion samples and negative bronchoscopic samples appear to be clinically infected and respond to PCP treatment. Sputum P. jirovecii-PCR testing may be a viable alternative to invasive testing.
Lithiation of Copper Selenide Nanocrystals

The search for ion-conductive solid electrolytes for Li+ batteries is an important scientific and technological challenge with economic and sustainable energy implications. In this study, nanocrystals (NCs) of the ion conductor copper selenide (Cu2-y Se) were doped with Li by the process of cation exchange. Li2x Cu2-2x Se alloy NCs were formed at intermediate stages of the reaction, which was followed by phase segregation into Li2 Se and Cu2 Se domains. Li-doped Cu2-y Se NCs and Li2 Se NCs exhibit a possible SI phase at moderately elevated temperatures and warrant further ion-conductance tests. These findings may guide the design of nanostructured super-ionic electrolytes for Li+ transport.
Identification of States Excited by Collision: Current State of Theory

Circumstances that have hindered the theoretical analysis of collision experiments are illustrated, with reference to the sorting out of geometrical and dynamical aspects of each process. It is pointed out how stationary states of a target are superposed coherently immediately following a collision but become progressively incoherent as the partition of total energy between target and scattered particle becomes increasingly precise. Recent progress in the geometrical characterization of target states is outlined with reference to still unpublished work of G. Gabrielse and T. Baer.
Ion Channels of Microbes

Electrophysiology and the study of ion channels has generally been the province of neurobiologists. However, since the application of patch clamp techniques to microbial membranes, it is evident that microbes possess a variety of ion channel activities. Microbial genome sequencing projects have revealed that, in fact, nearly all microbes that have been surveyed possess ion channel homologues. For some of these microbial ion channel genes, the corresponding ion channel activity has been identified, notably the mechanosensitive ion channel from Escherichia coli (MscL), the K+ ion channel homologue from Streptomyces lividans (KscA) and the dual-pore K+ channel from Saccharomyces cerevisiae (Tok1). This has allowed a more detailed examination of the structure/function of these ion channels. More remarkably, due to the greater ease of purification and crystallization of microbial ion channels than mammalian ion channels, the crystal structures of both MscL and KscA have been determined. For KscA, this has given great insights into the structure of the potassium ion filter in all K+ channels. An often-neglected question concerns the function of ion channels in microbes. For MscL, this question has begun to be answered with the discovery of MscS, which functions in parallel with MscL to protect cells from osmotic stress. However, the function of KscA and Tokl and many other ion channel homologues has as yet to be discovered. It is fascinating that the evolution of human sentience is based upon a molecule that is present in even simple forms of life.
Experiments with WRF on intel® many integrated core (intel MIC) architecture

WRF is a well-known weather code with a hybrid OpenMP and MPI implementation. This paper investigates the performance of WRF on heterogeneous hardware consisting of Intel® Xeon® processors and Intel MIC Architecture co-processors, using offload, OpenMP, and MPI.
Impact of Practice Facilitation in Primary Care on Chronic Disease Care Processes and Outcomes: a Systematic Review

More than 100 million individuals in the USA have been diagnosed with a chronic disease, yet chronic disease care has remained fragmented and of inconsistent quality. Improving chronic disease management has been challenging for primary care and internal medicine practitioners. Practice facilitation provides a comprehensive approach to chronic disease care. The objective is to evaluate the impact of practice facilitation on chronic disease outcomes in the primary care setting. This systematic review examined North American studies from PubMed, EMBASE, and Web of Science (database inception to August 2017). Investigators independently extracted and assessed the quality of the data on chronic disease process and clinical outcome measures. Studies implemented practice facilitation and reported quantifiable care processes and patient outcomes for chronic disease. Each study and their evidence were assessed for risk of bias and quality according to the Cochrane Collaboration and the Grade Collaboration tool. This systematic review included 25 studies: 12 randomized control trials and 13 prospective cohort studies. Across all studies, practices and their clinicians were aware of the implementation of practice facilitation. Improvements were observed in most studies for chronic diseases including asthma, cancer (breast, cervical, and colorectal), cardiovascular disease (cerebrovascular disease, coronary artery disease, dyslipidemia, hypertension, myocardial infarction, and peripheral vascular disease), and type 2 diabetes. Mixed results were observed for chronic kidney disease and chronic illness care. Overall, the results suggest that practice facilitation may improve chronic disease care measures. Across all studies, practices were aware of practice facilitation. These findings lend support for the potential expansion of practice facilitation in primary care. Future work will need to investigate potential opportunities for practice facilitation to improve chronic disease outcomes in other health care settings (e.g., specialty and multi-specialty practices) with standardized measures.
MIXING OF MILK IN WEIGH TANKS1

A mixing device suspended in weigh tanks of dairy plants significantly improved the mixing of the milk and aided greatly in the securing of a “representative” sample of the daily delivery for compositing. All weigh tanks from which the samples were secured were found to need some aid for mixing the milk. The mixing device tested was better than mechanical and air agitators in this respect. The method of mixing the milk did influence the butterfat value of the composite sample under commercial conditions.
Rifampicin resistant DNA synthesis in phage T4 infected Escherichia coli.

Abstract We have found that net DNA synthesis in T4 infected cells is rifampicin resistant. This finding implies that both the initiation of each T4 genome and its elongation are rifampicin resistant processes.
Outcomes of patients with light chain amyloidosis who had autologous stem cell transplantation with three or more organs involved.

8011Background: Literature suggests that three or more organ involvement is a contraindication for autologous stem cell transplant (ASCT) in light chain amyloidosis (AL). Most centers limit transpl...
Improved survival rate in T-cell depleted haploidentical hematopoietic cell transplantation over the last 15 years at a single institution.

T-cell depletion of an HLA-haploidentical (haplo) graft is often used to reduce the risk of graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), but the lack of donor T cells in the infused product may lead to graft failure, slow T-cell reconstitution, infections, and relapse. More selective T-cell depletion targeting CD45RA can effectively deplete naive T cells but preserve large numbers of memory T cells leading to robust engraftment of diverse T-cell populations and reduction of viremia in the early posttransplant period. Herein, we report the outcome of 143 pediatric and young adult hematologic malignancy patients receiving a first allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) on six consecutive ex vivo T-cell depleted haploHCT protocols over the past 15 years at a single institution—including the first 50 patients on an active CD45RA-depleted haploHCT study in which patients also received NK-cells and pharmacological GvHD prophylaxis post transplant. Our data demonstrated an increase in the 3-year overall survival and event-free survival in nonchemorefractory recipients receiving CD45RA-depleted grafts (78.9% and 77.7%, respectively) compared with historic T-cell depleted haploHCT cohorts (46.7% and 42.7%, respectively, p = 0.004, and 0.003). This improvement was primarily due to a reduction in transplant related mortality without significant increase in the rates of GVHD.
Interferon-Gamma Stimulated Murine Macrophages In Vitro: Impact of Ionic Composition and Osmolarity and Therapeutic Implications.

Background: Injections of osmolytes are promising immunomodulatory treatments for medical benefit, although the rationale and underlying mechanisms are often lacking. The goals of the present study...
Machine Learning Based Framework for Estimation of Data Center Power Using Acoustic Side Channel.

Data centers are high power consumers and the energy consumption of data centers keeps on rising in spite of all the efforts for increasing the energy efficiency. The need for energy-awareness in data centers makes the use of power modeling and estimation to be still a big challenge due to huge amount of uncertainty in this area. In this paper, a machine learning based method is proposed to approximately estimate the amount of power consumption by using acoustic side channel caused by fan in the fan-based cooling system in the server room. For doing so, frequency components of the acoustic signal, recorded by a microphone in the server room, is extracted, pre-processed, and fed to a Multi-Layer Neural-Network as an estimator. The proposed method performed well to estimate the power consumption, having more than 85 percent accuracy.
Book Review: by Aram Goudsouzian, Chapel Hill, NC, University of North Carolina Press, 2019, xiv, 220 pp., $25.00

This book has much to offer the general reader. It is well-written, and it tersely and effectively profiles LBJ, RFK, Reagan, Wallace, Humphrey, McCarthy, and Rockefeller. None of the takes is unus...
A Magic Bullet? The Potential Impact of E-Cigarettes on the Toll of Cigarette Smoking

Introduction We examine the proportion of U.S. smoking-produced mortality that e-cigarettes might eliminate under assumptions regarding vaping's ability to increase smoking cessation, vaping's health risks, and the possibility that vaping will increase smoking among young people. Methods We employ a dynamic population simulation model that tracks individuals from ages 0-110, differentiated by gender and smoking status. Using data from the U.S. Census, the National Vital Statistics Reports, Cancer Prevention Study II, and the National Health Interview Survey, we estimate the number of smoking-related life-years lost (LYL) from 2018-2100 in a no-vaping scenario. We then compare results for model runs that assess the impact of vaping under a variety of assumptions. Results The combination of assumptions produces 360 possible scenarios. 357 (99%) yield positive estimates of life-years saved (LYS) due to vaping by 2100, from 143,000 to 65 million. Most scenarios result in millions of individuals quitting smoking due to vaping. On average, vaping-induced quitters gain an extra 1.2-2.0 years of life compared to smokers who quit without vaping. The impact of vaping is greatest when it most helps smokers who otherwise have the greatest difficulty quitting smoking. While the numbers of LYS are generally large across all scenarios, they often represent a small fraction of the toll of smoking. Conclusions Vaping is highly likely to reduce smoking-produced mortality. Still, vaping is not "the" answer to the public health crisis created by smoking. Rather, it may well be a tool to add to the armamentarium of effective tobacco control measures. Implications E-cigarettes hold the potential to reduce cigarette smoking's enormous toll. By itself, however, tobacco harm reduction, as embodied in vaping, is no magic bullet. Going forward, tobacco control will require vigilant application of the evidence-based measures that have brought us so much success in combatting smoking. It will require, as well, the search for and adoption of novel means of attacking the remaining problem. Harm reduction can, and many would say should, be a part of the complex formula that will eventually bring about the demise of smoking.
Lower cardiac output is associated with neurodegeneration among older adults with normal cognition but not mild cognitive impairment

Subclinical cardiac dysfunction is associated with smaller total brain volume on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). To study whether cardiac output relates to regional measurements of grey and white matter structure, older adults (n = 326) underwent echocardiogram to quantify cardiac output (L/min) and brain MRI. Linear regressions related cardiac output to grey matter volumes measured on T1 and white matter hyperintensities assessed on T2-FLAIR. Voxelwise analyses related cardiac output to diffusion tensor imaging adjusting for demographic, genetic, and vascular risk factors. Follow-up models assessed a cardiac output x diagnosis interaction with stratification (normal cognition, mild cognitive impairment). Cardiac output interacted with diagnosis, such that lower cardiac output related to smaller total grey matter (p = 0.01), frontal lobe (p = 0.01), and occipital lobe volumes (p = 0.01) among participants with normal cognition. When excluding participants with cardiovascular disease and atrial fibrillation, associations emerged with smaller parietal lobe (p = 0.005) and hippocampal volume (p = 0.05). Subtle age-related cardiac changes may disrupt neuronal homeostasis and impact grey matter integrity prior to cognitive impairment.
Placental Vascular Abnormalities in Association With Prenatal and Long-Term Health Characteristics Among HIV-Exposed Uninfected Adolescents and Young Adults.

BACKGROUND HIV-exposed uninfected (HEU) individuals are predisposed to adverse health outcomes, which in part may stem from the influence of an altered intrauterine milieu on fetal programming. The placenta serves as a readout for the effects of the maternal environment on the developing fetus and may itself contribute to the pathogenesis of disease. SETTING US academic health system. METHODS We leveraged a previously established registry-based cohort of HEU adolescents and young adults to identify 26 subjects for whom placental histopathology was available. We further obtained placental tissue from 29 HIV-unexposed pregnancies for comparison. We examined differences in placental histopathology between the groups and related villous vascularity in the HEU group to prenatal maternal characteristics and long-term health outcomes. RESULTS Placentas from HEU pregnancies demonstrated a higher blood vessel count per villus as compared with controls (5.9 ± 1.0 vs. 5.4 ± 0.8; P = 0.05), which was independent of maternal prenatal age, race, body mass index, smoking status, hemoglobin, and gestational age. Furthermore, within the HEU group, lower CD4+ T-cell count during pregnancy was associated with greater placental vascularity (r = -0.44; P = 0.03). No significant relationships were observed between placental blood vessel count per villus and body mass index z-score or reactive airway disease among HEU individuals later in life. CONCLUSIONS Placentas from HEU pregnancies demonstrated increased villous vascularity compared with HIV-unexposed controls in proportion to the severity of maternal immune dysfunction. Further studies are needed to examine intrauterine exposure to hypoxia as a potential mechanism of fetal programming in HIV.
The impact of demographics and Medicare payments on quality of external beam radiotherapy for bone metastases in U.S. hospitals.

e18504Background: External Beam Radiotherapy (EBRT) has a well-established role in palliation of metastatic bone disease, yet the adherence to evidence based palliative EBRT doses and fractionation...
Photolysis and excitation in vertebrate photoreceptors

The proposal (Leibovic and Kurtz, 1975; Leibovic, 1975) that the physiological response of a vertebrate photoreceptor can be analyzed in terms of three stages of pigment photolysis is examined in relation to a possible transmitter acting on sodium channels in the outer segment membrane. One of the three stages is proposed to be a precursor for the transmitter. The functional significance of the three stages is considered in terms of visual adaption and the different needs of responding to light at low and at high levels of illumination.
Stability of colon stem cell methylation after neo-adjuvant therapy in a patient with attenuated familial adenomatous polyposis

Methylation at certain human CpG rich sequences increases with age. The mechanisms underlying such age-related changes are unclear, but methylation may accumulate slowly in a clock-like manner from birth and record lifetime numbers of stem cell divisions. Alternatively, methylation may fluctuate in response to environmental stimuli. The relative stability of methylation patterns may be inferred through serial observations of the same colon. A 22 year-old male with attenuated familial adenomatous polyposis received neo-adjuvant chemotherapy and radiation prior to surgery for rectal adenocarcinoma. Colon crypt methylation patterns before and after neo-adjuvant therapy (62 days apart) were essentially identical with respect to percent methylation and diversity. Consistent with previous studies, methylation patterns recorded no evidence for enhanced colon crypt stem cell survival with a germline mutation (codon 215) proximal to the mutation cluster region of APC. The inability of neo-adjuvant therapy to significantly alter crypt methylation patterns suggests stem cells are relatively protected from transient environmental changes. Age-related methylation appears to primarily reflect epigenetic errors in stem cells that slowly accumulate in a clock-like manner from birth. Therefore, life-long human stem cell histories are potentially written within and may be read from somatic cell epigenomes.
Civic Engagement in Higher Education: Concepts and Practices

As the new millennium dawned, it became clear that American higher education had done some serious soul-searching in light of concerns that it was losing distinctiveness in pursuit of prestige. Moreover, many institutions began returning to their roots in response to exhortations to take a new leadership role in preparing students for active, responsible citizenship. Ernest Boyer struck a responsive chord when he proposed the scholarship of engagement as a means whereby the academy would employ its considerable resources to tackle the social, civic, and ethical problems that beset our communities (Boyer, 1996). In 1999, higher education leaders across the country articulated their commitment to the civic purposes of their institutions as vital agents and architects of a flourishing democracy (Campus Compact, 2000). The present decade has witnessed a widespread renewal of higher education’s historical commitment to public engagement and the growth of service-learning as a pedagogical approach to developing civic knowledge and skills. However, much work remains to be done. Social problems persist, locally and globally; today’s youth view political involvement with skepticism; civic learning is lacking, or lagging. That is the basis of Civic Engagement in Higher Education: Concepts and Practices.
Hole mobility enhancements in strained Si/Si1-yGey p-type metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors grown on relaxed Si1-xGex (x<y) virtual substrates

We have achieved peak hole mobility enhancement factors of 5.15 over bulk Si in metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) by combining tensile strained Si surface channels and compressively strained 80% Ge buried channels grown on relaxed 50% Ge virtual substrates. To further investigate hole transport in these dual channel structures, we study the effects of strain, alloy scattering, and layer thickness on hole mobility enhancements in MOSFETs based upon these layers. We show that significant performance boosts can be obtained despite the effects of alloy scattering and that the best hole mobility enhancements are obtained for structures with thin Si surface layers.
Cross-Hemispheric Collaboration and Segregation Associated with Task Difficulty as Revealed by Structural and Functional Connectivity

Although it is known that brain regions in one hemisphere may interact very closely with their corresponding contralateral regions (collaboration) or operate relatively independent of them (segregation), the specific brain regions (where) and conditions (how) associated with collaboration or segregation are largely unknown. We investigated these issues using a split field-matching task in which participants matched the meaning of words or the visual features of faces presented to the same (unilateral) or to different (bilateral) visual fields. Matching difficulty was manipulated by varying the semantic similarity of words or the visual similarity of faces. We assessed the white matter using the fractional anisotropy (FA) measure provided by diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and cross-hemispheric communication in terms of fMRI-based connectivity between homotopic pairs of cortical regions. For both perceptual and semantic matching, bilateral trials became faster than unilateral trials as difficulty increased (bilateral processing advantage, BPA). The study yielded three novel findings. First, whereas FA in anterior corpus callosum (genu) correlated with word-matching BPA, FA in posterior corpus callosum (splenium-occipital) correlated with face-matching BPA. Second, as matching difficulty intensified, cross-hemispheric functional connectivity (CFC) increased in domain-general frontopolar cortex (for both word and face matching) but decreased in domain-specific ventral temporal lobe regions (temporal pole for word matching and fusiform gyrus for face matching). Last, a mediation analysis linking DTI and fMRI data showed that CFC mediated the effect of callosal FA on BPA. These findings clarify the mechanisms by which the hemispheres interact to perform complex cognitive tasks.
Phase relations in fluoroborate systems—III: The system RbF-RbBF4

Abstract Differential thermal analysis and quenching techniques were used to demonstrate that the compounds RbF and RbBF 4 form a simple eutectic system. The eutectic composition contains 68·5 mole % RbBF 4 and melts at 442° ± 2°C.
Introduction-how status epilepticus is caused

This chapter presents the definition, epidemiology, pathology, physiology, clinical features, diagnostic tests and principles of management for Rasmussen encephalitis (RE). The histopathological properties of RE are non-specific and are suggestive of chronic multifocal encephalitis. Rasmussen hypothesized a viral etiology, based on the constituents of the immune reaction in the brain such as lymphocyte infiltration and microglial nodules. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain shows progressive hemiatrophy of variable degree in the involved cerebral hemisphere. Fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (PET) studies showed large areas of hypometabolism which were confined to the affected hemisphere. An early surgery seems to be favored in view of the progressive neurologic devastation and dementia that may directly result from the catastrophic epilepsy. The late complications of the early surgical techniques, including superficial hemosiderosis and hydrocephalus, have been largely overcome by the introduction of disconnective procedures such as functional hemispherectomy and hemispherotomy.
Mercury: Thermal emission at radio wavelengths: I. 3.3- and 28-mm observed brightness temperatures and periodicities therein

The thermal radio emission from Mercury at 3.3 mm and 28 mm was measured over a period of several years, and the results of a statistical analysis of the data are reported. The disk-average brightness temperature is reported as a function of longitude, and other periodicities are reported. The range of values of the thermophysical parameters is constrained by comparing the data with models.
Molecular Pathogenesis of myc-initiated B-cell Lymphomas in the Bursa of Fabricius

Constitutive over-expression of myc oncogenes in the stem cell compartment of the bursa-of Fabricius of chickens provides an in-vivo model system for analysis of the mechanisms of myc-induced, multi-staged neoplastic change. The biology, molecular biology and genetics of this system has recently been reviewed (Neiman 1994a). Briefly, the lymphoid population of embryonic follicles of the bursa is composed of large cycling lymphoblasts expressing surface IgM (Thompson et al. 1987a) This population includes a compartment of stem cells that can clonally reconstitute ablated bursal follicles in transplantation experiments (Pink et al. 1985). Deregulated expression of a myc oncogene within this stem cell compartment, either due to integration of an avian leukosis virus (ALV) near c-myc (Hayward et al. 1981) or due to ex-vivo infection of embryonic bursal lymphoblasts with a v-myc transducing myelocytomatosis virus (HB1)(Neiman et al. 1985; Thompson et al. 1987a), initiates neoplastic change in bursal follicles. This change is signaled by the replacement of the lymphoid cells of the follicle with a monomorphic population of pyroninophilic lymphoblasts producing a histologically distinctive lesion called a transformed follicle (TF)(Cooper et al. 1960; Neiman et al. 1980a, b; Baba and Humphries 1985).
Studies of Weakly Coordinating Anions Paired with Iodonium Cations1

Several new iodonium salts containing weakly coordinating anions were synthesized and characterized. Upon UV irradiation, the rates of photoacid generation in acetonitrile and their preliminary activity in the photopolymerization of epoxy silicones were compared. Studies showed these salts to be excellent photoacid generators. The anions [(C6F5)3B−C3H3N2−B(C6F5)3]-, B(C6F5)4-, and Ga(C6F5)4- were more active and the compounds made from them more soluble in most solvents. The [(C6F5)3B−C6F4−B(C6F5)3]2- anion was less active, and the compounds made from them were less soluble than compounds made from the three aforementioned anions. Compounds containing hexabromocarborane anion were quite similar to compounds containing SbF6- in both photoactivity and solubility.
Pulmonary alveolar proteinosis with myeloproliferative syndrome with myelodysplasia: Bronchoalveolar lavage reduces white blood cell count

Pulmonary alveolar proteinosis (PAP) is a rare disorder characterized by surfactant component accumulation in the alveolar space. Primary PAP is likely an autoimmune disorder caused by antibodies to granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF). When an underlying disease causes PAP, this is called secondary PAP. Hematologic malignancies are an important cause of secondary PAP. As the pathogenesis of primary PAP has become more fully understood, improvements in diagnostic and therapeutic approaches have followed. However, when PAP is secondary to an underlying hematologic malignancy, much remains unclear. Here we describe for the first time a patient with hybrid myelodysplastic syndrome/myeloproliferative syndrome and PAP who had a marked decrease in her white blood cell count following a transbronchial biopsy accompanied by bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL). Similar significant decreases in WBC count accompanied clinical improvement following two unilateral BALs. Given that patients with pulmonary alveolar proteinosis frequently have elevated GM-CSF in bronchoalveolar fluid, this observation provides a unique vantage point to understand the pathophysiology of secondary PAP.
Electrostatic Interaction Effects on the Binding of Spliceosomal U1A Protein-SL2 RNA Hairpin

The U1A protein is a component of the U1 small nuclear ribonucleoprotein particle, which forms part of the spliceosome. Since U1A protein is highly charged, electrostatic interactions have been suggested to be of importance in the association of the protein with RNA and the stability of the complex. To understand this effect, positively charged residues of the protein have been mutated in three positions (K20, K22 and K50) that do not have direct interactions with the SL2 RNA.We performed extensive molecule dynamics simulations on the mutant complexes and characterized the changes in the networks of interactions.To reveal more global variations within the mutant complexes, we also determined the changes on the subsections of the proteins-RNA (called communities) that move in concert together. These communities have been calculated based on generalized correlations to account for the collective atomic fluctuations within the protein-RNA complexes. These results are in agreement with the experimental complex dissociation binding studies.We then determined a measure based on the collective atomic fluctuations of different mutant complexes that have a linear correlation with the experimentally measured dissociation constants. This correlation can be used to further predict the effect of a mutation on the dissociation constant of the U1A-SL2 RNA complexes.
Discrete Topology Optimization of Structures Without Uncertainty

The topology of a structure is defined by its genus or number of handles. When the topology of a structure is optimized, its topology might be changed if the material state of a design cell is switched from solid to void or vice versa. In discrete topology optimization, each design cell is either solid or void and there is no topology uncertainty from any grey design cell. Point connection might cause topology uncertainty and is eradicated when hybrid discretization model is used for discrete topology optimization. However, the topology solution of an optimized structure might be uncertain when its design domain is discretized differently, which is commonly called mesh dependence problem. In this paper, the degree of genus based topology optimization strategy is introduced to circumvent this topology uncertainty. With this strategy, the genus of an optimized structure is constrained during its topology optimization process. There is no topology uncertainty even if different design domain discretizations are used. The introduced strategy is used for discrete topology optimization of structures that have multiple loading points in this paper. The presented discrete topology optimization procedure is demonstrated by examples with different degrees of genus and loading conditions.Copyright © 2013 by ASME
Grooming Behavior and Associated Structures of the Mysid Mysidopsis Bahia

ABSTRACT Grooming behavior as an antifouling mechanism is documented for the first time in a mysid crustacean. Behavioral observations and a scanning electron microscope (SEM) survey of the setae reveal that Mysidopsis bahia uses specialized setae to remove fouling epizoites and particulates from vital areas of the body. Various combinations of appendages are used in different grooming activities. The mandibular palps are highly modified for brushing the antennae. The second thoracic endopod is the most active appendage functioning in grooming the antennae, setae of the marsupium, and other thoracic appendages. The third through eighth thoracic endopods are slender, flexible, and have long comblike setae that are used to clean the natatory exopods and other structures. Quantitative observations show that more grooming activity is focused on the antennules than on the antennae. Cleaning of the telson and outer marsupial walls was also observed. Although young mysids possess all appendages when released from the marsupium, the appendages of newly emerged M. bahia lack important setal types and numbers necessary for effective grooming. The juveniles appear to be dependent on ecdysis associated with growth to counter fouling. A comparison of fouling between adults and juveniles held in turbid water confirms the effectiveness of grooming behavior and associated structures.
A new genus of dimorphic soft coral from the south‐western fringe of the Indo‐Pacific (Octocorallia: Alcyoniidae)

A new genus of dimorphic soft coral is named to accommodate Sarcophyton trochiforme Hickson, 1900. This species is found to differ markedly from members of the genus Sarcophyton as well as Anthomastus(to which it was later assigned), and thus becomes the type species of a new genus. A redescription of the species based on some of Hickson's original material is provided. Also, a new species assignable to the new genus is described from recently collected material. Both species are distributed along the south-eastern coast of Africa, where the south-western fringe of the Indo-Pacific Province overlaps with the Cape Endemic Province of southern Africa. The new genus differs from other dimorphic alcyonacean genera by the possession of coenenchymal sclerites that are predominantly eight radiates or double stars or barrels and tuberculate spheroids, relatively small autozooids, and a slender capitate growth form. A key to the world genera of dimorphic alcyonaceans is included.