cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Abstract 197: Selective Destruction of Adrenergic Cells in Mice Leads to Severe Left-ventricular Dysfunction at Rest With Apparent Stress-induced Recovery

The catecholamines epinephrine and norepinephrine play critical roles in the maintenance of cardiovascular function. Phenylethanolamine-N-methyltransferase (Pnmt) catalyzes the conversion of norepinephrine to epinephrine and serves as a marker for adrenergic cells. We have previously shown that the selective destruction of Pnmt+ cells in the mouse produces severe left-ventricular dysfunction under anesthesia and that epinephrine deficiency alone does not recapitulate the phenotype. Here, we test the hypothesis that Pnmt+ cells are key modulators of the stress response to immobilization. Using a suicide reporter mouse model to ablate Pnmt+ cells (Pnmt-Cre/DTA), we achieve greater than 50% Pnmt+ cell reduction in the adrenal medulla and 97% reduction in Pnmt transcript. Remarkably, Pnmt+ cell destruction does not markedly diminish the cardiovascular response to restraint stress. At one hour of immobilization, heart rate and ejection fraction showed a similar increase in response to restraint in both groups, despite apparent heart failure in Pnmt-Cre/DTA mice at rest (Figure 1). Here, we show that, while Pnmt+ cells are required for the maintenance of basal cardiovascular function, loss of these cells does not diminish the cardiovascular response to restraint stress. These results suggest that left ventricular cardiac muscle has the capacity to respond to stress despite hypokinetic and poor ventricular function at baseline. ![][1] [1]: /embed/graphic-1.gif
Abyssal Community Structure of the Benthic Infauna of the Eastern Equatorial Pacific: DOMES Sites A, B, and C

Eighty 0.25m2 box cores were collected and analyzed to determine the faunal composition, species diversity and sample similarity of the benthic communities of three sites in the eastern Equatorial Pacific. (The results are part of a baseline survey of the fauna of the manganese nodule province of the Pacific.) The bottom topography of this region is characterized by abyssal hills, with a relief of 50 to 300 meters, at a depth of 4350 to 5150 meters.
Controlled Dynamic Fair Division

In the single-resource dynamic fair division framework there is a homogeneous resource that is shared between agents dynamically arriving and departing over time. When n agents are present, there is only one truly ``fair'' allocation: each agent receives 1/n of the resource. Implementing this static solution in the dynamic world is notoriously impractical; there are too many disruptions to existing allocations: for a new agent to get her fair share, all other agents must give up a small piece. A natural remedy is simply to restrict the number of allowed disruptions when a new agent arrives. [16] considered this setting, and introduced a natural benchmark - the fairness ratio - the ratio of the minimal share to the ideal share (1/k when there are k agents in the system). They described an algorithm that obtains the optimal fairness ratio when d ≥ 1 disruptions are allowed per arriving agent. However, in systems with high arrival rates even one disruption per arrival can be too costly. We consider the scenario when fewer than one disruption per arrival is allowed. We show that we can maintain high levels of fairness even with significantly fewer than one disruption per arrival. In particular, we present an instance-optimal algorithm (the input to the algorithm is a vector of allowed disruptions) and show that the fairness ratio of this algorithm decays logarithmically with c, where c is the longest number of consecutive time steps in which we are not allowed any disruptions. We then consider dynamic fair division with multiple, heterogeneous resources. In this model, agents demand the resources in fixed proportions, known in economics as Leontief preferences. We show that the general problem is NP-hard, even if the resource demands are binary and known in advance. We study the case where the fairness criterion is Dominant Resource Fairness (DRF), and the demand vectors are binary. We design a generic algorithm for this setting using a reduction to the single-resource case. To prove an impossibility result, we take an integer program for the problem and analyze an algorithm for constructing dual solutions to a ``residual'' linear program; this approach may be of independent interest.
Redressing the Actor’s Presence: The Cinema/Theatre Debate in Italian Journals

Early writings on nascent cinematography often compared theatre and cinema, treating them as rival media striving to define their own boundaries and fields of expertise.1 If early film scholarship2...
Signals, Systems, and Design [Book review]

This book differentiates itself through a number of seemingly small design decisions that are powerful and go a long way in realizing an effective and instructive textbook for a first course in the subject. Students in the second year of an engineering program, especially those who have gone through the standard mathematics core courses, will also find themselves comfortable in studying and learning from this book. The book’s organization is straightforward but effective. After two introductory chapters dedicated to signals, systems,and the mathematical background required to study them, the text continues with two sets of chapters focusing, respectively, on analog and digital signals and systems. The two sets are organized very similarly, sequentially dedicating one chapter each to signals in the time domain, systems in the time domain, signals in the frequency domain, and systems in the frequency domain. The time domain chapters mostly examine classification, with the addition of sampling operation when discussing digital signals. The frequency domain chapters consider the different fundamental transforms (such as the continuous- and discrete-time Fourier transform, the Laplace transform for analog signals and systems, and the Z-transform for digital signals and systems) and the techniques for studying system response to different input signals. The last two chapters are dedicated to the discrete Fourier transform, including its relation to the discrete-time Fourier transform and the fast Fourier transform algorithm itself. The book distinguishes itself from others in the same category through several design decisions that go a long way in helping the reader learn.
Inferred pseudo-cryptic speciation in the coccolithophore species Braarudosphaera bigelowii (Gran and Braarud) during the Early Paleocene (Danian)

Abstract Pseudo-cryptic speciation occurs commonly in living oceanic plankton. In the coccolithophores, recent genetic studies have revealed that Braarudosphaera bigelowii has a number of unique genotypes that correlate well with pentalith size, indicating that this coccolithophore “species” actually contains multiple pseudo-cryptic taxa. In order to look for evidence of pseudo-cryptic speciation in the past, we measured the radii of 2800 B. bigelowii pentaliths from the Braarudosphaera-rich limestones that contain the GSSP for the Lower/Middle Paleocene (Danian/Selandian) boundary at Zumaia, Spain. Analysis of the radius measurements using the Expectation-Maximization algorithm yielded two size groups, herein termed form X (
Spinal Procedures in the Lateral Position

The lateral surgical approach to the spine can offer advantageous as well as necessary visualization and direct surgical corridors in degenerative as well as traumatic disease of the thoracolumbar spine. The lateral position poses several specific challenges in positioning, surgical approach morbidity, as well as complication avoidance. Risks can be mitigated throughout the procedure with attentive preoperative planning and conscientious positioning of the patient. We present a methodical sequence of preoperative consideration, positioning, and complication avoidance for both degenerative and traumatic surgical spine cases.
Undergraduate Research and Affective Learning: Examining a Contemporary Music Research Project

In this article, I describe and discuss a specific research project that I have assigned in my Music History III (1900-present) class for the past three years. The project pairs each student with a composer and assigns a work by that composer for the student to study and analyze. The primary resource for the project is the composer herself, who completes an interview with the student. In assessing the success of the project, I have chosen to investigate its impact on my students’ affective engagement with contemporary music. To accomplish this I administered surveys containing Likert-type items and open-ended questions to students in my 2015 and 2016 classes. I have also observed a variety of additional benefits to the project, including improved writing and presentation skills, increased understanding of career paths in music, and heightened awareness of contributions by female and non-white composers.
Statistically-constrained robust diffeomorphic registration

Accurate subject-to-template alignment requires deformation models with high degrees of freedom to account for the high anatomical variability. Without proper regularization, such models tend to match the images aggressively, often producing unrealistic transformations, especially in the presence of noise, or pathologies such as various types of lesions. To improve the robustness of deformable registration, we propose a novel framework, which makes use of statistical deformation models (SDMs) for diffeomorphisms. We present a general approach to constructing such SDMs, and detail how to use them for regularizing a given transformation. To preserve the diffeomorphic property, while making use of linear statistical models, we convert the deformation field into a stationary velocity field through the logarithm operator. To account for learning in a high-dimensional, low-sample size setting, we model the high-dimensional velocity field as a collection of mutually constrained local velocity fields. For each local field, a low-dimensional representation is learned using principal component analysis. To capture possible dependencies across local transformations, canonical correlation analysis is performed on each pair of local velocities in the learned low-dimensional space. Experiments on healthy brain images show that the model can capture the normative variation of subject-to-template deformation fields with sub-millimeter accuracy. The method is validated on simulated brain lesion images and is tested on real brain images with pathologies, producing significantly smoother and more robust results than its non-statistical counterpart.
Sensitivity of different machine learning algorithms to noise

Noise in data is an effective cause of concern for many machine learning techniques that are used in modeling data. Researchers have studied the impact of noise only on some particular learning algorithm, but only very few attempted to analyze the effect of noise on different ones. In this work, we study the noise sensitivity of four different learning algorithms under different intensities of noise. Particularly, we compare the noise sensitivity of decision tree, naive bayes, support vector machine, and logistic regression. The algorithms are tested on different datasets that are artificially injected with different degrees of noise. The study helps us understand the impact of different levels of noise on the learning algorithms mentioned above. Furthermore, it also guides of choosing the learning algorithms. In general, naive bayes is the most resistant to noise. However, it performs also the worst. The other algorithms perform much better than naive bayes especially after the noisy level is lower than 40%. When we have approaches to improve the data quality (reduce the noise level), decision tree is the most preferred one, followed by support vector machine and logistic regression, not naive bayes.
Femoral perforation complicated by pedestal formation in revision hip arthroplasty

We present a case report of a patient in whom intra-operative penetration of the femoral cortex occurred during revision hip surgery. We report this to highlight that femoral perforation can occur at the pedestal while reaming the femoral canal during revision arthroplasty. Distal pedestal, the thick endosteal bone bridge at the tip of the previous stem is often difficult to ream during revision and forcible reaming may perforate the femur. Adequate two view plain radiographs should be taken intra-operatively and the use of guide wires with flexible reamers is advised to avoid perforation.
"ILIMITAR AS LINGUAGENS": TEATRALIDADE & VIDA ARTIFICIAL

Este artigo e uma reflexao sobre a erupcao da vida e da inteligencia artificiais no campo particular da performance, no contexto das artes cenicas e da instalacao em geral. Este e um espaco de reflexao que nos coloca diretamente na intersecao do teatro, da ciencia e da tecnologia. Por "vida artificial", referimos essencialmente as praticas tecnocientificas que contribuem para a criacao de uma vida "a-natural", conforme entendimento de Alain Prochiantz, "sintetica", tambem dita "artificial". Biologia sintetica e inteligencia artificial constituem, de certa maneira, dois lados de uma mesma moeda, chamada de vida artificial. O questionamento se faz entorno da teatralidade dessa vida, dessas formas de vida, de forma a demonstrar que os materiais oferecidos pela ciencia e tecnologia sao dramaturgicamente e cenograficamente propicios para uma reformulacao da ideia de teatro enquanto "arte viva". Iniciamos apresentando as bases de uma definicao de vida artificial, levando em consideracao as artes biotecnologicas como formas de expressao da vida tal qual ela pode se expressar ou se manifestar. Em seguida, propomos uma extensao dos dominios da performance e da instalacao para as artes transgenicas e roboticas. Encerramos a reflexao pela observacao da emergencia de novas teatralidades atraves da encenacao do ser vivo que ilustram bem a ideia, segundo a qual essa tem relacao com os artificios da linguagem e da tecnica.
Smart city real-time data-driven transportation simulation

This study assesses feasibility aspects of using a real-time data-driven transportation simulation model to evaluate and visualize network performance indices to provide dynamic operational feedback in a real world environment, in a big data context. A hybrid traffic simulation model, consisting of a mix of preset and real-time data-driven intersections, is developed. The hybrid model represents a traffic corridor partially equipped with smart devices generating high velocity, high volume datasets with limited shelf-life. The model used in this study emulates seventeen consecutive intersections on a corridor. Signal controls and vehicle volumes at two of the intersections are driven by real-time data while the remaining intersections are driven by preset data. An optimized architecture is developed to enable control of the signals and the vehicle volumes using real-time data from in-field detectors, and real-time processing of the vehicle trajectories from the simulation output to generate travel-time, energy, and emissions performance indices.
Ankle fusion in patients with chronic hepatitis C.

Abstract Background It appears that both the incidence and survival of patients infected with hepatitis C have recently demonstrated a significant increase. The goal of this investigation was to determine the associated perioperative risks associated with ankle arthrodesis in this growing population. Methods The Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project State Inpatient Databases identified patients with chronic hepatitis C infection who underwent ankle arthrodesis between January 2009 and December 2013. International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, codes were used to define the primary composite outcome of death or postoperative complication. Logistic models with frequency weights were used to compare propensity matched groups. Results 7339 patients met inclusion criteria. Of these, 157 patients had a history of chronic Hepatitis C infection. After performing a propensity score match, the final analytic cohort was 157 in the Hepatitis C group and 386 in the non-Hepatitis C group. There was no statistically significant differences in complications between patients with chronic Hepatitis C undergoing ankle fusion and those without Hepatitis C at any post-operative time point (inpatient, 30 days, or 90 days). Discussion Patients with chronic hepatitis C infection undergoing ankle arthrodesis are not at an elevated risk of inpatient, thirty, and ninety day postoperative complications compared to patients without chronic HCV infections. Patients with chronic hepatitis C did not have an increased risk of surgical site infection or mortality at any time point. Level of evidence Prognostic Level III.
Decentering constructs predict experience and tolerance of pain: evidence from a cold pressor study / Constructos relacionados con el descentramiento predicen la experiencia y la tolerancia al dolor: evidencia obtenida mediante la prueba del frío

Decentering is a detached, observer perspective on one's current mental contents. Recent work has identified two potential aspects of decentering, Observer Perspective (OP) and Reduced Struggle (RS), that independently predict the effects of decentering. Specifically, both OP and RS predict reduced psychological distress in response to negative affect, with some variability in predictive utility across outcomes. In this study, we sought to extend previous work by examining OP and RS as predictors of responses to an external source of distress, a painful stimulus. Participants completed measures of decentering, followed by a cold pressor task for up to 4 minutes. We recorded time that participants were able to withstand the cold water bath and the intensity of the pain experienced. We found that both OP and RS predicted participants' pain tolerance and pain intensity, but that only RS did so uniquely. Results are discussed with respect to theory on decentering.
Pediatric Allergic Contact Dermatitis—quality Improvement via a Registry Model

Introduction: Allergic Contact Dermatitis (ACD) is inadequately studied in pediatrics. Contact dermatitis is estimated to be one of the most prevalent skin conditions in the U.S., affecting over 72 million patients and costing $1.6 billion dollars in direct medical costs each year. An estimated 20% of healthy children are sensitized to at least one allergen, which equates to over 14 million affected children. There is ongoing debate over the incidence and significance of pediatric ACD, given the limitations in current literature. Data examined from three major U.S. pediatric ACD studies reveal conclusions drawn from a limited panel of children …
The Pten-Gene Expression Level is a Novel Indicator For Poor Prognosis in Invasive Ductal Carcinoma

prepared by emulsion solvent diffusion technique. To achieve extended retention in the upper GIT, this may result in enhanced absorption and thereby improved bioavailability. Roxatidine acetate HCl is a competitive H2 receptor antagonist used to treat gastric ulcers. Floating microspheres systems have a density less than gastric fluids, and so these systems remain buoyant in the stomach without affecting the gastric emptying rate for a prolonged period. Floating microspheres were prepared by using hydroxy propyl methyl cellulose (HPMC K4M and HPMC K15M) and ethyl cellulose. The microspheres were evaluated for parameters like particle size, entrapment efficiency, shape and surface morphology, drug content, in-vitro drug release study and drug release kinetic study. The floating microspheres were found to be spherical, and the FTIR study confirmed the drug-polymer compatibility. All floating microspheres formulations showed good flow properties, and buoyancy was found to be 71-87%. Among all formulations, F2 showed an appropriate balance between buoyancy and drug release rate (90% in 12 h); hence it is considered as the best formulation. The data obtained in this study thus suggests that the floating microspheres of roxatidine acetate HCl are promising for sustained drug delivery, which can be used for reducing dosing frequency.
Allosteric Antagonism of the A 2A Adenosine Receptor by a Series of Bitopic Ligands.

Allosteric antagonism by bitopic ligands, as reported for many receptors, is a distinct modulatory mechanism. Although several bitopic A2A adenosine receptor (A2AAR) ligand classes were reported as pharmacological tools, their receptor binding and functional antagonism patterns, i.e., allosteric or competitive, were not well characterized. Therefore, here we systematically characterized A2AAR binding and functional antagonism of two distinct antagonist chemical classes. i.e., fluorescent conjugates of xanthine amine congener (XAC) and SCH442416. Bitopic ligands were potent, weak, competitive or allosteric, based on the combination of pharmacophore, linker and fluorophore. Among antagonists tested, XAC, XAC245, XAC488, SCH442416, MRS7352 showed Ki binding values consistent with KB values from functional antagonism. Interestingly, MRS7396, XAC-X-BY630 (XAC630) and 5-(N,N-hexamethylene)amiloride (HMA) were 9–100 times weaker in displacing fluorescent MRS7416 binding than radioligand binding. XAC245, XAC630, MRS7396, MRS7416 and MRS7322 behaved as allosteric A2AAR antagonists, whereas XAC488 and MRS7395 antagonized competitively. Schild analysis showed antagonism slopes of 0.42 and 0.47 for MRS7396 and XAC630, respectively. Allosteric antagonists HMA and MRS7396 were more potent in displacing [3H]ZM241385 binding than MRS7416 binding. Sodium site D52N mutation increased and decreased affinity of HMA and MRS7396, respectively, suggesting possible preference for different A2AAR conformations. The allosteric binding properties of some bitopic ligands were rationalized and analyzed using the Hall two-state allosteric model. Thus, fluorophore tethering to an orthosteric ligand is not neutral pharmacologically and may confer unexpected properties to the conjugate.
The Lyme Disease Spirochete, Borrelia Burgdorferi, Forms Spheroplasts In the Presence of Spingolipid Analogue Ppmp

Lyme disease is the most common arthropod-borne infection in the United States. Over 100,000 cases have been reported to date. The disease is a multisystem disorder with dermatologic, neurologic and rheumatologic manifestations. The causative agent, Borrelia burgdorferi1has been isolated from ticks, animals and humans from around the world and can generally be cultured in the laboratory using BSK-II medium.While biologically significant concentrations of eukaryotic cell inhibitors such as aphidicolin, ara C, cis platinum, CPX, hydroxyurea, mimosine, nalidixic acid, trioxsalen and boromethyglycine showed little effect on the growth of Borrelia burgdorferiwhen added to BSK-II cultures, PPMP, a spingolipid analogue, showed immediate and profound inhibitory effects when monitored by dark-field microscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), field emission scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and by optical density measurements at 600 mμ. PPMP (dl-thzreo-l-phenyl-2-palmitoylamino-3-morpholino-l-propanol) is known to inhibit the synthesis of spingomyelin in Chinese hamster ovary cells and to inhibit the synthesis of glucosylceramides in a large variety of mammalian cells.
A COMPREHENSIVE STUDY ON DIFFERENT METHODS FOR AIR EXCHANGE RATES MEASUREMENT IN A NATURALLY VENTILATED DAIRY HOUSE

The major problem of natural ventilation is the lack of accurate, continuous and online measuring and controlling techniques for air exchange rates (AER) which is crucial for the quantification of gaseous emissions. Therefore, this papers aims at comparing four measurement methods and to recommend thereof one method for further developments. Thirty six experiments were performed to study the AERs in a naturally ventilated dairy barn through four summer seasons and three winter seasons. The AERs were determined using moisture (H2O) balance, heat balance (HB), CO2-balance and tracer gas technique (TGT). The statistical analyses were correlation analysis, regression model, ANOVA model and t-test. Continuous measurements of CO2 concentrations, temperature and relative humidity inside and outside the building were performed. The H2O-balance showed reliable results through winter seasons and slightly acceptable results through summer seasons. The error sources of H2O-balance are: the difference between the internal and external humidity levels which depend in turn on the accuracy of the used temperature-humidity sensors and their locations, the correctness of the used factors (e.g. the moisture produced by one cow and per mass unit), and the accuracy of the calculations of the humidity ratios. The HB showed acceptable results to some extent through summer seasons and unsatisfactory results through winter seasons. The error sources of HB are: the calculations accuracy of the net area of the different building components and the determination of the relevant overall heat transfer coefficients, the temperature difference which depends in turn on the accuracy of the used temperature-humidity sensors and their locations, and the sensible heat produced by the animals which depends on the physiological changes of the animals. The CO2-balance showed unexpected high differences to the other methods in some cases. The error sources of CO2-balance are: the use of calculation models for metabolic energy, the amount of CO2 produced per energy unit, the quantity of CO2 produced emitted from manure, variations of ambient temperatures and the location of CO2 measuring points. The TGT showed reliable results compared to HB, H2O-balance and CO2-balance. Therefore, the TGT should be further developed, where it delivers comparable results and is independent on the physiological parameters. The airflow rates (AFRs), subject to TGT, were 0.12 m3 s-1 m-2, 1.15 m3 s-1 cow-1, 0.88 m3 s-1 LU-1 (LU is livestock unit of 500 kg), 395 m3 s-1 and 470 kg air s-1 through summer seasons, and 0.08 m3 s-1 m-2, 0.83 m3 s-1 cow-1, 0.64 m3 s-1 LU-1, 275 m3 s-1 and 328 kg air s-1 through winter seasons. The AERs were 37, 81, 63 and 62 h-1 through summer seasons, and 40, 143, 61 and 39 h-1 through winter seasons subject to H2O-balance, HB, CO2-balance and TGT, respectively.
Static v. Dynamic Antitrust: A Reply

Sanjukta Paul and Hal Singer (P&S) responded to my recent CPI Comment, “News Media Cartels are Bad News for Consumers,” which addressed the likely harm that would arise from the proposed Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, if passed. P&S criticize my conclusion that the legislation would likely harm competition and consumers on a variety of grounds. In this short reply, I address their central points and demonstrate that our disagreement largely, but not completely, arises from P&S restricting their analysis to a static view of markets and antitrust.
Joltik: enabling energy-efficient "future-proof" analytics on low-power wide-area networks

Wireless sensors have enabled a number of key applications. Due to their energy constraints, wireless sensors today communicate occasional short samples or pre-determined summary statistics of the data they collect. This means that computing every additional statistic at high fidelity incurs additional communication and energy overhead. This paper presents Joltik, a framework enabling general, future-proof, and energy-efficient analytics for low power wireless sensors. Joltik is general in that it summarizes sensed data from low-power devices without making assumptions on which specific statistical metric(s) are desired at the cloud and is future-proof, meaning it supports new, unforeseen metrics. Joltik is built upon recent theoretical advances in universal sketching, which can enable a Joltik sensor node to report a compact summary of observed data to enable a large class of statistical summaries. We address key system design and implementation challenges with respect to communication, memory, and computation bottlenecks that arise in practically realizing the potential benefits of universal sketching in the low-power regime. We present a proof-of-concept testbed evaluation of Joltik in LoRaWAN NUCLEO-L476RG boards and sensors. Across a range of realistic datasets, Joltik provides up to a 24.6× reduction in energy cost compared to transmitting raw data and outperforms many natural alternatives (e.g., sub-sampling, custom sketches, compressed sensing, and lossy compression) in terms of energy-accuracy trade-offs.
Comparing Open Access Search Tools to Improve Interlibrary Loan Fulfillment Efficiency

Open access (OA) search tools can expedite the turnaround of interlibrary loan (ILL) fulfillment by locating openly available articles not found by library harvesting tools. Several search tools ar...
On the excitation energy dependence of semiconductor nanocrystals emission quantum yields

Semiconductor nanocrystals (NCs) are potential materials for verifiable demonstrations of semiconductor-based laser cooling. The key feature that makes NCs appealing for laser cooling is their near unity emission quantum yields (QYs). An unresolved issue regarding NC QYs, however, centers on the existence of an excitation energy dependent (EED) QY. Here, we study EED QYs on three NC systems, aimed at demonstrating NC-based laser cooling (CsPbBr3, CsPbI3, and CdSe/CdS core/shell NCs). We evaluate the impact of EED QYs using two approaches. The first involves direct QY measurements using an integrating sphere. The second entails photoluminescence excitation spectroscopy where changes to NC QYs with excitation energy can be assessed qualitatively.
Therapeutic targeting of FOS in mutant TERT cancers through removing TERT suppression of apoptosis via regulating survivin and TRAIL-R2

The telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) has long been pursued as a direct therapeutic target in human cancer, which is currently hindered by the lack of effective specific inhibitors of TERT. The FOS/GABPB/(mutant) TERT cascade plays a critical role in the regulation of mutant TERT, in which FOS acts as a transcriptional factor for GABPB to up-regulate the expression of GABPB, which in turn activates mutant but not wild-type TERT promoter, driving TERT-promoted oncogenesis. In the present study, we demonstrated that inhibiting this cascade by targeting FOS using FOS inhibitor T-5224 suppressed mutant TERT cancer cells and tumors by inducing robust cell apoptosis; these did not occur in wild-type TERT cells and tumors. Mechanistically, among 35 apoptotic cascade-related proteins tested, the apoptosis induced in this process specifically involved the transcriptional activation of tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand receptor 2 (TRAIL-R2) and inactivation of survivin, two key players in the apoptotic cascade, which normally initiate and suppress the apoptotic cascade, respectively. These findings with suppression of FOS were reproduced by direct knockdown of TERT and prevented by prior knockdown of TRAIL-R2. Further experiments demonstrated that TERT acted as a direct transcriptional factor of survivin, up-regulating its expression. Thus, this study identifies a therapeutic strategy for TERT promoter mutation-driven cancers by targeting FOS in the FOS/GABPB/(mutant) TERT cascade, circumventing the current challenge in pharmacologically directly targeting TERT itself. This study also uncovers a mechanism through which TERT controls cell apoptosis by transcriptionally regulating two key players in the apoptotic cascade.
Analysis of the indium insertions in non-stoichiometric copper sulfide roxbyte, and their effect on the localized surface plasmon resonance of the nanocrystals

After operating what is thought to be an incomplete catalyst-assisted growth of copper indium sulfides, we obtain roxbyite (indium hole-filled non-stoichiometric copper sulfide, Cu $$_7$$ S $$_4$$ , Cu $$_x$$ S, x = $$1.75 -1.78$$ ) with a higher Cu:S ratio in view of its carrier density. This apparent increase of Cu:S ratio and decrease of carrier density is due to the “counterdoping” of the non-stoichiometric copper sulfides by indium atoms. Here, we propose a relatively easy way to synthesize copper sulfides quantum dots with low carrier densities. We rely on the well-known indium as way to decrease the carrier density of the copper sulfide Cu $$_7$$ S $$_4$$ , making the semiconductor suitable for multiple applications (reducing the indium and easily preventing the secondary phase formation). Moreover, we provide an original and practical way to estimate the carrier density of our particles using their localized plasmon resonance. In this paper, we conduct comparative quantitative analyses of the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) of “counterdoped” roxbyite and doped roxbyite synthesized in similar conditions to gauge the effectiveness of the “counterdoping.” Finally, we hope to propose a picture of and focus on a phenomenon that is overlooked in the growth of copper indium sulfide and to offer a pathway for the proposed doping (“counterdoping”) of the copper sulfides.
Association between Financial Conflicts of Interest and International Labor Office Classifications for Black Lung Disease.

Rationale: The U.S. Department of Labor administers the Federal Black Lung Program (FBLP), an administrative system charged with managing claims by coal miners for workers’ compensation for totally...
Taking the Rural International

In March 2020, Southern Illinois University in Carbondale (SIU) went into lockdown. With the annual Big Muddy New Play Festival about to kick off—two productions entering tech and four full-length staged readings rehearsing—SIU's M.F.A. Playwriting Program had been left in the lurch. COVID-19 and the scramble to move courses online and to graduate our M.F.A.'s canceled the entire festival. A year later, still online, the SIU M.F.A. Playwriting new play festival did not meet this same fate. Based on twelve months of experimentation, the program was able to develop a streaming festival. Our 2021 new play festival on YouTube brought together more than forty artists across eight time zones to collaborate with our five graduate student playwrights. The international ensemble, represented in an interactive map (Fig. 1), showed how open-access software and streaming platforms could help students at our rural university transcend our limited geography.
Bullied About? Lawyer Up! When Workplace Bullying Evolves into Legal Complaints

Often, administrators believe that workplace bullying can be ignored because it is not prohibited legally. This paper examines the likelihood that workplace bullying leads to expensive lawsuits. A chi square analysis confirms the association on a statistically significant level.
6 – LEAST SQUARES REGRESSION AND PEARSON'S CORRELATION

This chapter focuses on the least squares principle and Pearson's correlation. The standard least squares model is important to understand for at least two general reasons. First, it describes conditions under which the least squares estimate of the slope and intercept have the smallest standard error among a large class of estimators. Understanding this model is important when trying to understand when and why the least squares estimate of the slope and intercept can be unsatisfactory. Second, a special case of this model is used when computing confidence intervals and testing hypotheses, and understanding the standard model helps explain some of the reasons conventional hypothesis-testing methods can be highly inaccurate. Pearson's correlation methods are satisfactory for some purposes, but they are completely inadequate for others. This method takes up the problem of estimating ρ based on available data, plus the issue of interpreting what this estimate tells the user about the association between the two measures.
A privacy-enhancing content-based publish/subscribe system using scalar product preserving transformations

Users of content-based publish/subscribe systems (CBPS) are interested in receiving data items with values that satisfy certain conditions. Each user submits a list of subscription specifications to a broker, which routes data items from publishers to users. When a broker receives a notification that contains a value from a publisher, it forwards it only to the subscribers whose requests match the value. However, in many applications, the data published are confidential, and their contents must not be revealed to brokers. Furthermore, a user's subscription may contain sensitive information that must be protected from brokers. Therefore, a difficult challenge arises: how to route publisher data to the appropriate subscribers without the intermediate brokers learning the plain text values of the notifications and subscriptions. To that extent, brokers must be able to perform operations on top of the encrypted contents of subscriptions and notifications. Such operations may be as simple as equality match, but often require more complex operations such as determining inclusion of data in a value interval. Previous work attempted to solve this problem by using one-way data mappings or specialized encryption functions that allow evaluation of conditions on ciphertexts. However, such operations are computationally expensive, and the resulting CBPS lack scalability. As fast dissemination is an important requirement in many applications, we focus on a new data transformation method called Asymmetric Scalar-product Preserving Encryption (ASPE) [1]. We devise methods that build upon ASPE to support private evaluation of several types of conditions. We also suggest techniques for secure aggregation of notifications, supporting functions such as sum, minimum, maximum and count. Our experimental evaluation shows that ASPE-based CBPS incurs 65% less overhead for exact-match filtering and 50% less overhead for range filtering compared to the state-of-the-art.
Vitamin B12 Biosynthesis EVIDENCE FOR A NEW PRECURSOR, VITAMIN B12 5'-PHOSPHATE

Abstract A new vitamin B12 compound has been recognized ionophoretically and isolated in small amounts from Propionibacterium shermanii. Its properties suggest that it is B12 5'-phosphate. The new compound is converted, presumably by a phosphatase, to B12. Mild heating of the bacteria appears to inactivate the phosphatase, and increases the yield of the precursor. A biosynthetic route is proposed, involving condensation of guanosine diphosphate cobinamide with α-ribazole 5'-phosphate. Two new compounds, α-ribazole 3',5'-diphosphate and a corrinoid containing a total of three phosphate groups, have been obtained by chemical synthesis.
Stability and efficiency enhancement of cyclotron auto resonance Maser amplifiers

In CARM amplifiers, the issues of avoiding low frequency gyrotron and lower order waveguide mods will be addressed through computer simulations. Efficiency enhancement using taper magnetic field or weak wiggler field will also be described.
Trade and Financial Regionalisms in East Asia: Structures, Sequencing, and Linkages

I argue, first, that the state interaction within East Asia is constrained by domestic politics in each of those major countries. Even bilaterally, trade cooperation between Japan and Korea is hindered by agricultural opposition, a powerful source that influences policy making in both countries, while the Chinese government enjoys relative policy-making freedom due to recent liberalization efforts in the face of WTO accession. In monetary policymaking, the state autonomy is much higher than trade for all the three countries. The second issue is the positions of and dynamics among these major states in the context of regional and global economic environments. In trade, all three countries are exporters (mostly to the United States, but also within and outside of the region) and have still some ways to go before any country in the region can replace the United States as the “buyer of the last resort.” In other words, East Asia as a region overall is profoundly permeated (Katada and Solis, 2008b) or porous (Katzenstein, 2005). On the other hand, despite massive dependence of the US dollars (Katada, 2008), the three Northeast Asian powers, particularly Japan and China, are in the position that could make them “lender of the last resort” at the time of regional currency and financial crises. Massive dollar accumulation in their foreign exchange coffers, continuing current account surplus and with relatively high savings, all make those countries a reliable source of financial resources both short-term and long. Although permeation of the regional finance by the outside forces are quite evident, regional effort to insulate itself against the recurrence of AFC-type crisis is not so distant a dream.
Galactosidase Activity of Lactose-positive Neisseria

The chromogenic substrate o-nitrophenyl-beta-d-galactopyranoside (ONPG) was hydrolyzed by lactose-positive Neisseria. Eight strains of pharyngeal origin were examined. In culture reactions, seven strains resembled Neisseria meningitidis with the exception that they produced acid from 1% (w/v) lactose. An eighth strain (V8) differed in that it did not form acid from maltose or from 1% lactose. However, acid formation was observed in 10% lactose cultures of strain V8, suggesting that entry of lactose occurred by passive diffusion, rather than as a result of permease activity. The enzymes which hydrolyzed ONPG were produced constitutively by the cells of all eight strains. Thus, specific activity in these strains was not increased by prior exposure to lactose, or to two other possible inducers, isopropyl-beta-d-thiogalactoside or methyl-beta-d-thiogalactoside. Study of cell-free extracts of one strain showed that the enzyme was heat-labile, having a half-life of 10 min at 45 C. The enzyme was unstable at low protein concentrations, but it was protected completely or partially when albumin or manganous ions were added. The enzyme appeared to be a typical beta-galactosidase: alpha-galactosides (melibiose and p-nitrophenyl-alpha-d-galactopyranoside) were not hydrolyzed, activity against ONPG was not dependent upon inorganic phosphate, and galactose was released by cleavage of ONPG. ONPG hydrolysis provided a simple and rapid method for detecting lactose-positive Neisseria.
Inhibition of protein synthesis by vaccinia virus. IV. The role of low-molecular-weight viral RNA in the inhibition of protein synthesis.

Abstract The role of viral RNA in the inhibition of protein synthesis (shutoff) was studied in HeLa cells infected with uv-irradiated vaccinia virus. Increasing doses of uv irradiation inactivate the transcriptional activity of vaccinia virus with single-hit kinetics, as analyzed in vitro with activated viral cores and in vivo , with rapidly labeled cytoplasmic RNA. The size of the RNA synthesized in vitro and in vivo is found to decrease with increasing doses of uv irradiation. Under conditions where protein synthesis is still inhibited, a size of 50–100 nucleotides is observed in the cytoplasm of cells infected with virus which had been uv irradiated to 9600 ergs/mm 2 . Southern hybridization of 32 P-labeled cytoplasmic RNA to Eco RI restriction fragments of vaccinia DNA show that virus-specific sequences are transcribed when cells are infected with various preparations of virus uv irradiated up to 9600 ergs/mm 2 . No hybridization to Eco RI DNA restriction fragments is detected with RNA obtained from cells infected with higher doses of uv irradiation (17,280 and 28,800 ergs/mm 2 ). When cells infected with uv-irradiated virus capable of causing shutoff are treated with high doses of actinomycin D (20 and 30 μg/ml) inhibition of protein synthesis is prevented. Lower doses of actinomycin D (2, 5, and 10 μg/ml) only partially prevent this inhibition. Actinomycin D at 30 μg/ml has no effect on primary uncoating of uv-irradiated virus (9600 ergs/mm 2 ). These results suggest that low-molecular-weight viral RNA (50–100 nucleotides) is associated with shutoff.
Aquatic ecology. A lake's life is not its own.

Little is known about how lakes change as they get older. Research on a 12,000-year sequence of natural laboratories at Glacier Bay, Alaska, shows how the terrestrial surroundings can influence lake evolution.
A dynamic lab approach to reinforcing computing concepts

The cost of providing hands-on environments for reinforcing Computer Science concepts forces many educational institutions to prioritize the courses and topics that get specialized computer lab support in light of funding and facility constraints. A modular solution to this problem provides a dynamic environment that can be used for a multitude of purposes and evolves over time, as funding is made available.
Stress Distribution in Sandwich Beams in Uniform Bending

The three-dimensional elastic stress state in a sandwich beam in uniform bending is given. The analysis is carried out numerically through use of a finite-difference formulation of the exact equations of elasticity. The beam is proportioned similar to one used in the characterization of composite materials and composed of [′45] s composite face sheets laminated to a typical honeycomb core. It is shown that interlaminar stresses are confined to boundary regions near the free edges and that the in-plane stresses converge to the laminate theory solutions in the interior of the beam despite the fact that the beam is deeper than it is wide. Importantly, the core/face sheet tractions are found to be insignificant.
Evaluation of spatial resolution and linearity QC tests for modern gamma cameras imaging systems

2131 Objectives The purpose of the study was to evaluate alternative methods and frequencies for assessment of spatial resolution and spatial linearity. Methods Manufacturer’s service reports from 8 Siemens ECAM and one Siemens Symbia SPECT/CT imaging systems were reviewed from June 2003 through December 2009. Specific issues that would cause spatial non-linearities such as system electronic functions were cataloged. The weekly four-quadrant bar phantom (4-QBP) tests were qualitatively evaluated and deviations were cataloged. Spatial resolution was quantified using data acquired from monthly center of rotation acquisitions. For each detector, a line profile was drawn on the image of the center point source located 20 cm from the low energy high resolution collimator. Spatial resolution for each system was evaluated for consistency. Results From June 2003 through December 2009, 44 events that may have caused spatial non-linearity were found. Of these events, 72.7% involved changes in the image quality and 27.3% were found by the manufacturer’s computer system checks. None of the potential non-linearity changes were found using the weekly 4-QBP test. Qualitative resolution of all systems was 2.5 mm resolved bars. Assuming the point sources was 20 cm from the collimator, the average resolution of all systems for the year 2009, was 15.8 +/- 1.9 mm. As expected, the measured system resolution of the oldest camera compared to the newest camera system were different, but only borderline statistically significant (p= 0.06). Similarly, imaging systems with the same manufacturing dates had similar spatial resolution measurements (p= 0.94). Conclusions This study has shown that spatial resolution and spatial non-linearity issues can more accurately be monitored through manufacturer system controls, daily imaging uniformity evaluations, and monthly resolution evaluations
Is There a Difference in Total Knee Arthroplasty Risk of Revision in Highly Crosslinked versus Conventional Polyethylene

Background Highly crosslinked polyethylene (HXLPE) was introduced to reduce wear and associated osteolysis in total knee arthroplasty (TKA). However, there is limited clinical evidence that HXLPE is more effective than conventional polyethylene (CPE) in TKA.