cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The power of immune profiling: quantitative flow cytometry and informatics approaches to generate pooled biomarkers for therapeutic responsiveness to immune and cellular therapies

Background & Aim Enumerating circulating white blood cells in peripheral blood using flow cytometry is a popular method for tracking changes in the immune system. We have developed a methodology using quantitative flow cytometry to study 100+ phenotypes in combination with bioinformatic approaches to identify characteristic immune profiles or combinations of similarly expressed leukocytes among patient groups. Currently, aside from survival and degree of disease progression or treatment benefit there is a lack of methods for identifying active changes to the immune system and good markers for identify cause of adverse events, all problems which could be solved with the use of immune monitoring. Currently, the Mayo clinic has utilized this method in over 30% of their MSC, DC, and CAR-T clinical trials with the intent of monitoring all trials using this methodology. Thus far we have applied this analysis to disease patient groups such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, thyroid cancer, liver cancer, glioblastoma multiforme, and chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Methods, Results & Conclusion These analyses uncovered previously unidentified subgroups of ALS patients that predicted survival, biomarkers in diseased patients, and changes in the immune systems of those in clinical trials. When clustered with healthy volunteers, we found two distinct profiles of ALS patients, one that more closely resembled a healthy immune system and one that did not. Patients that profiled separately from healthy volunteers had unique phenotypic characteristics such as increased absolute counts of CD3+CD56+ (p>0.001), CD3+CD8+CD28+ (p>0.001), CD3+CD4+PD-1+ T cells, increased survival (p=0.012), and were more likely to have familial ALS rather than sporadic (p=0.011). Additionally, we have tested our system on a cohort of 130 healthy volunteers to see which immune parameters contribute most to clustering of non-diseased individuals. Thus, we believe that profiling patients based on their immune systems can aid in predicting which immune modulating therapies will be most effective and in the future help in tailoring immune therapies specific to the patient. Based on our work we have confidence that immune monitoring it is key in unlocking complex mechanisms between the various components of the immune system that are critical to wound repair, healing and regenerative medicine as well as an essential tool for clinical trials.
Diversifying Undergraduate Chemistry Course Pathways to Improve Outcomes for At-Risk Students

A lack of preparedness for college-level coursework has been shown to negatively impact student success rates in STEM. Remedial instruction has been the most widespread approach to helping at-risk ...
US Clean Energy Transition and Implications for Geopolitics

As the world’s second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases (GHGs), the United States is a vital part of any effective global response to climate change. U.S. efforts on climate and clean energy will likewise have important implications for the country’s geopolitical interests. At present, the United States is struggling to develop and implement national policies that provide climate solutions with sufficient speed, scale, and durability. The U.S. Administration of President Donald Trump has shown skepticism about, and even hostility toward, the need for a clean energy transition. Many of the 50 U.S. states and even more municipalities, meanwhile, have continued to focus on reducing their energy-related emissions through a variety of policies and measures. Whether and when the current national political divisions over climate can be overcome is not yet clear. In a time of complicated geopolitics, the country’s global standing will be materially affected by the answer to that question, as will its ability to work with international partners on other global challenges.
“Ladies’ Coats and Beach Cabanas in Light of the History of Religion:” Cosmology, Gershom Scholem, and Walter Benjamin

This chapter looks at Robert Eisler’s first work in the history of religions, 1910’s World Cloak and Sky Canopy: Religious-Historical Investigations on the Prehistory of the Ancient Worldview, a two-volume history of cosmology, that argues that two distinct and incompatible cosmological systems spread from the Near East, one that pictured the vault of heaven held up over the flat earth by a tree or pillar, and another that pictured the cosmos as spherical. The chapter also examines Eisler’s difficult relationships as a Baptized Jew with his fellow Jewish intellectuals, especially Gershom Scholem, the scholar of Jewish mysticism whose early work on Kabbalah was published by Eisler, and Walter Benjamin, who visited Eisler with Scholem in Paris when he was working with the League of Nations.
Density Sketches for Sampling and Estimation.

We introduce Density sketches (DS): a succinct online summary of the data distribution. DS can accurately estimate point wise probability density. Interestingly, DS also provides a capability to sample unseen novel data from the underlying data distribution. Thus, analogous to popular generative models, DS allows us to succinctly replace the real-data in almost all machine learning pipelines with synthetic examples drawn from the same distribution as the original data. However, unlike generative models, which do not have any statistical guarantees, DS leads to theoretically sound asymptotically converging consistent estimators of the underlying density function. Density sketches also have many appealing properties making them ideal for large-scale distributed applications. DS construction is an online algorithm. The sketches are additive, i.e., the sum of two sketches is the sketch of the combined data. These properties allow data to be collected from distributed sources, compressed into a density sketch, efficiently transmitted in the sketch form to a central server, merged, and re-sampled into a synthetic database for modeling applications. Thus, density sketches can potentially revolutionize how we store, communicate, and distribute data.
A solvent-free solid catalyst for the selective and color-indicating ambient-air removal of sulfur mustard

Bis(2-chloroethyl) sulfide or sulfur mustard (HD) is one of the highest-tonnage chemical warfare agents and one that is highly persistent in the environment. For decontamination, selective oxidation of HD to the substantially less toxic sulfoxide is crucial. We report here a solvent-free, solid, robust catalyst comprising hydrophobic salts of tribromide and nitrate, copper(II) nitrate hydrate, and a solid acid (NafionTM) for selective sulfoxidation using only ambient air at room temperature. This system rapidly removes HD as a neat liquid or a vapor. The mechanisms of these aerobic decontamination reactions are complex, and studies confirm reversible formation of a key intermediate, the bromosulfonium ion, and the role of Cu(II). The latter increases the rate four-fold by increasing the equilibrium concentration of bromosulfonium during turnover. Cu(II) also provides a colorimetric detection capability. Without HD, the solid is green, and with HD, it is brown. Bromine K-edge XANES and EXAFS studies confirm regeneration of tribromide under catalytic conditions. Diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy shows absorption of HD vapor and selective conversion to the desired sulfoxide, HDO, at the gas–solid interface. Decontamination of sulfur-containing chemical warfare agents can be achieved through selective, air-based oxidation. Here a solid, solvent-free catalyst for aerobic oxidative decontamination of sulfur mustard is reported.
Law and Order

Over the last several months, the Republican party and its current leader have consistently trumpeted their strong commitment to law and order. Especially during this summer’s Black Lives Matter protests (and riots), as well as in response to calls for greater oversight of and a more limited role for police forces, many Republicans, political conservatives, and the President have loudly declared their commitment to a law and order society deferential to law enforcement officers and opposed to unlawful means of protest and expressions of collective dissatisfaction with the societal status quo. Yet it is undeniable that these same politicians and pundits have displayed a somewhat flexible interpretation of what law and order means and to whom it applies. After the events of the past week, the supporters of Donald Trump confirmed what many observers already knew: the party of law and order has very little respect for either.
Synthesis, Characterization, and Reactivity of N-Alkyl Phenoxazines in Organocatalyzed Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization

Core-modified N-alkyl phenoxazines were synthesized and evaluated as photoredox catalysts (PCs) in organocatalyzed atom transfer radical polymerization (O-ATRP). Each PC was characterized and found to strongly absorb UVA and visible light, undergo reversible oxidation to radical cation species, and exhibit high quantum yields of fluorescence (Φf > 77%). PCs found to exhibit intramolecular charge transfer in their excited state were capable of the controlled synthesis of poly(methyl methacrylate) with good molecular weight control (I* ~ 100%) and moderately low dispersity (Đ < 1.30).
Pleiotropic Variability Score: A Genome Interpretation Metric to Quantify Phenomic Associations of Genomic Variants

A more complete understanding of phenomic space is critical for elucidating genome-phenome relationships and for assessing disease risk from genome sequencing. To incorporate knowledge of phenomic variability into variant interpretation, we developed a new genome interpretation metric called, Pleiotropic Variability Score (PVS). PVS uses ontologies of human diseases and medical phenotypes, namely human phenotype ontology (HPO) and disease ontology (DO), to compute the similarities of disease and clinical phenotypes associated with a genetic variant based on semantic reasoning algorithms. We tested 78 unique semantic similarity methods and integrated six robust metrics to define the pleiotropy score of SNPs. We computed PVS for 12, 541 SNPs (10, 021 SNPs mapped to DO phenotype and 8, 569 SNPs mapped to HPO phenotypes) using a repertoire of 382 HPO and 317 DO unique phenotype terms compiled from genotype-phenotype catalog. We validated the utility of PVS by computing pleiotropy using an electronic health record linked genomic database (BioME, n=11,210) and generated "allele-specific pleiotropy". Further we demonstrate the application of PVS in personalized medicine using "personalized pleiotropy score" reports for individuals with genomic data that could potentially aid in variant interpretation. We further developed a software framework to incorporate PVS into VCF files and to consolidate pleiotropy assessment as part of genome interpretation pipelines. As the genome-phenome catalogs are growing, PVS will be a useful metric to assess genetic variation to find SNPs with highly pleiotropic effects. Additionally, variants with varying degree of pleiotropy can be prioritized for explorative studies to understand specific roles of SNPs and pleiotropic hubs in mediating novel phenotypes and drug development.
Covalent organic frameworks as multifunctional materials for chemical detection.

Sensitive and selective detection of chemical and biological analytes is critical in various scientific and technological fields. As an emerging class of multifunctional materials, covalent organic frameworks (COFs) with their unique properties of chemical modularity, large surface area, high stability, low density, and tunable pore sizes and functionalities, which together define their programmable properties, show promise in advancing chemical detection. This review demonstrates the recent progress in chemical detection where COFs constitute an integral component of the achieved function. This review highlights how the unique properties of COFs can be harnessed to develop different types of chemical detection systems based on the principles of chromism, luminescence, electrical transduction, chromatography, spectrometry, and others to achieve highly sensitive and selective detection of various analytes, ranging from gases, volatiles, ions, to biomolecules. The key parameters of detection performance for target analytes are summarized, compared, and analyzed from the perspective of the detection mechanism and structure–property–performance correlations of COFs. Conclusions summarize the current accomplishments and analyze the challenges and limitations that exist for chemical detection under different mechanisms. Perspectives on how future directions of research can advance the COF-based chemical detection through innovation in novel COF design and synthesis, progress in device fabrication, and exploration of novel modes of detection are also discussed.
Posterior-only approach for the treatment of symptomatic central thoracic disc herniation regardless of calcification: A consecutive case series of 30 cases over five years.

PURPOSE To report the safety and efficacy of posterolateral approach for thoracic disc herniation (TDH) via a consecutive clinical case series of 30 central thoracic disc herniations that were all operated through a posterolateral approach. METHODS A retrospective review was conducted of all patients with symptomatic TDH who underwent surgical intervention from 2016 to 2021. A total of 23 patients comprising 30 central TDH were included in the study. Age, gender, location of the lesion, preoperative and post-operative Frankel and Nurick scores, surgical approach and instrumented vertebrae, and length of stay were recorded. FINDINGS 23 patients with an average age of 62 were included in the study. 30 of the 32 symptomatic TDH were centrally located. 8/32 TDH were calcified while 24/32 TDH were non-calcified. Unilateral and bilateral transpedicular approach was used in the treatment of 12/32 and 10/32 disc herniations respectively. A transfacet-pedicle sparing approach was used in 10/32 disc herniations. 19/23 (82.6%) of the patients had improvement in Nurick score while 12/23 (52.2%) patients had improvement in their Frankel scores. The average length of stay was 4.5 days. No major complications were encountered. All patients underwent a short-segment instrumented construct with no need for revision surgery for thoracic disc herniation, worsening myelopathy, or instrumentation failure. CONCLUSIONS 83% of the patients who underwent a transfacet or transpedicular decompression for the treatment of symptomatic TDH had improvement in their myelopathy with no neurological deterioration in any of the patients. Given the familiarity and low morbidity associated with a transfacet or transpedicular approach, posterolateral-based approaches remains an excellent alternative for surgical management of majority of the patients with thoracic disc herniations.
The Evolving Future of Cardiovascular Practice: Technology + Clinicians: A Means to a Better End

![Figure][1] In Book II of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics , the Greek philosopher famously stated that every activity aims at some end, and he further defined man’s virtues as a means to the ultimate end: happiness [(1)][2]. This has spawned centuries of debate over whether the end
Learning Organisations: Learning to Learn – The Learning Organisation in Theory and Practice

This chapter examines an approach to the challenge of rethinking and retooling American organizations that is widely used within educational organizations, including those serving the Jewish community: the creation of learning organizations. It reviews the development of the concept of the learning organization and discusses how it has been used in the Jewish educational world by looking at specific examples of its application. It also explores the relationship of evaluation research to creating organizations that learn. In this way the chapter addresses several questions: (1) Why has the concept of learning organizations been adapted for Jewish educational settings? (2) What has it contributed to Jewish educational practice? (3) What issues does it raise for Jewish educational practice and research?
Common Beliefs and Common Sense in Educational Policy and Practice

F. Tony Carusi’s thoughtful commentary about the conceptions of “common sense” in contemporary educational theorizing is a welcome and important contribution to the conversation about the current tides in educational reform and society generally. Carusi helpfully points out that Frederick Hess and Kevin Kumashiro, two educational thinkers who agree about very little in terms of educational reform, each hold relatively simplistic notions of “common sense.” Carusi finds that Michael Apple offers a more nuanced conception of common sense as something culturally and historically situated, but he argues that Giambattista Vico fills out the picture and provides educators with model for both disrupting common sense and producing alternative worldviews in it. In my response essay, I will revisit Hess’s and Kumashiro’s conceptions of common sense to offer a friendly critique of the Carusi–Vichian model of the commonsense educator.
Plant–community responses to shrub cover in a páramo grassland released from grazing and burning

Shrub encroachment can follow grazing or burning release in paramo grasslands. While encroachment decreases herbaceous species richness in some grassland systems, the effects of this process on the herbaceous community in paramo grasslands are currently unknown. We collected data on shrub cover, herbaceous-species cover and species composition in a paramo grassland 12 years after release from burning and cattle grazing near Zuleta, Ecuador. Topographic and soil measures were also included as predictor variables of differences in community composition. Contrary to studies in other systems, shrub cover did not have a significant effect on herbaceous-species richness, whereas shrub-species richness significantly increased with shrub cover. However, shrub cover was associated with significant shifts in herbaceous–community composition. Most notably, there was an increase in some shade-tolerant forbs and tall-statured wetland grasses with increasing shrub cover, and a corresponding decrease in some short-statured grasses and early successional forbs. These results could indicate that the ameliorative effects of shrubs (e.g. frost and wind protection) in harsh alpine environments may partially compensate for the expected competitive effect of shrubs due to shading.
Developmental Stages and Energy Restriction Affect Cellular Oncogene Expression in Tissues of Female Rats

The influence of developmental stages and energy restriction on c-Ha-ras and c-fos cellular oncogene mRNA level was examined in mammary tissue and liver of female rats. c-Ha-ras and c-fos RNA transcripts in mammary tissue peaked at 9 wk of age, decreased during pregnancy, were lowest at mid-lactation and then increased at 25 wk. c-Ha-ras in liver showed highest expression at 5 wk and was hardly detectable at 11 wk, mid-pregnancy, mid-lactation and 25 wk. Liver c-fos and c-Ha-ras mRNA levels were similar. Lower c-Ha-ras and c-fos mRNA levels were observed in mammary tissue of energy-restricted (to 70% of ad libitum intake) rats at 25 wk compared with those allowed ad libitum access to food. Energy restriction did not affect liver c-Ha-ras and c-fos mRNA levels throughout the experimental period. These results demonstrate that developmental stages and energy restriction affect cellular oncogene mRNA levels with tissue-specific patterns.
Comprehensive forensic analyses of debris from the fatal explosion of a "cold fusion" electrochemical cell.

Selected components of explosion debris from the SRI International incident of January 2, 1992 were subjected to forensic analyses to elucidate potential causes of, or contributing factors to, the explosion. Interrogation of the debris encompassed nuclear, chemical, physical, and materials investigations. Nuclear studies for the determination of tritium and neutron-activation products in stainless steel and brass were conducted. No evidence for signature species indicative of orthodox nuclear events was detected. The inorganic and particulate analyses were likewise negative with respect to residues of unexpected chemical species. Such target compounds included conventional explosives, accelerants, propellants, or any exceptional industrial chemicals. Materials characterization identified the type of stainless steel used in the manufacture of the electrolytic cell as one relatively high in Mo concentration, probably type 316. Metallurgical analyses of the cell vessel wall and its detached base provided no evidence of corrosion or hydrogen embrittlement, leaving only ductile failure of the weld as contributing to the incident. The weld was found to have missed the center-line of the step joint, and the average penetration of the weld was measured to be 54%. The GC-MS analyses of trace organic components in the explosion debris provided a most interesting result. Although no evidence of organic explosives, oxidizers, or other unusual compounds was detected, the presence of an organic oil in the interior of the electrochemical cell was established. It is likely that the source of this oil was lubricating fluid from machining the metal cell components. If residues of hydrocarbon oils are present during “cold fusion” experiments, the potential exists for an explosive reaction in the enriched oxygen atmosphere within the pressurized headspace of an electrolytic cell. It is possible that the oxidation of organic oil contributed to the total energy inventory, and perhaps the initiation, of the subject explosion.
Mean transit time on Aquilion ONE and its utilization in patients undergoing acute stroke intervention.

BACKGROUND: Neuroimaging techniques have been beneficial in identifying patients with salvageable penumbra. We sought to validate the mean transit time (MTT) map on computed tomography perfusion (CTP) imaging utilizing the Aquilion ONE CT scanner running a Singular Value Decomposition Plus (SVD+) algorithm in patients with acute large vessel ischemic stroke who underwent endovascular therapy. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective analysis of consecutive patients presenting to the emergency room who met the following criteria: 1) had a large vessel acute ischemic stroke 2) had a high quality whole-brain CTP 3) treated with endovascular therapy 4) received a follow up MRI with DWI within 48 hours. A blinded neurologist, neuroradiologist and neurosurgeon utilized Vitrea software to process the images independently using an infarct perimeter method. RESULTS: Twelve patients met the inclusion criteria. A comparison was made between the volumes of infarct core utilizing MTT and DWI after accounting for other co-founding factors (i.e recanalization rate, time between CT and MRI, time to achieve recanalization, and IV t-PA administration). MTT was redefined as capillary MTT (cMTT) which represented evolving capillary flow influenced by hypoxia induced vasodilation / vasoconstriction. We divided the patients into two groups based on the degree of reperfusion: A) patients with a TICI score of IIb or III and B) patients with a TICI score of I or IIa. We compared both groups and found that the rate of reperfusion significantly affected the volume of the infarct on MTT when compared to a follow up MRI (p value < 0.04). Furthermore, we found a strong positive correlation R2 = 0.6 between the average MTT infarct volume and the final DWI MR volumes. Also, the averaged MTT IC volumes were 84% of the final averaged DWI IC volumes. CONCLUSION: Although further studies are required to validate this retrospective study, preliminary data suggests that cMTT maps can be a valuable and accurate tool in the assessment of patients with acute stroke who may benefit from aggressive endovascular therapy.
Seasonal Variations in Microbial Populations and Environmental Conditions in an Extreme Acid Mine Drainage Environment

Microbial populations, their distributions, and their aquatic environments were studied over a year (1997) at an acid mine drainage (AMD) site at Iron Mountain, Calif. Populations were quantified by fluorescence in situ hybridizations with group-specific probes. Probes were used for the domains Eucarya, Bacteria, and Archaea and the two species most widely studied and implicated for their role in AMD production, Thiobacillus ferrooxidans and Leptospirillum ferrooxidans. Results show that microbial populations, in relative proportions and absolute numbers, vary spatially and seasonally and correlate with geochemical and physical conditions (pH, temperature, conductivity, and rainfall). Bacterial populations were in the highest proportion (>95%) in January. Conversely, archaeal populations were in the highest proportion in July and September (∼50%) and were virtually absent in the winter. Bacterial and archaeal populations correlated with conductivity and rainfall. High concentrations of dissolved solids, as reflected by high conductivity values (up to 125 mS/cm), occurred in the summer and correlated with high archaeal populations and proportionally lower bacterial populations. Eukaryotes were not detected in January, when total microbial cell numbers were lowest ( 30%) at moderate pHs and temperatures (∼2.5 and 20°C) in sites that were peripheral to primary acid-generating sites and lowest (0 to 5%) at low-pH sites (pH ∼0.5) that were in contact with the ore body. L. ferrooxidans was more widely distributed with respect to geochemical conditions (pH = 0 to 3; 20 to 50°C) but was more abundant at higher temperatures and lower pHs (∼40°C; pH ∼0.5) than T. ferrooxidans.
Investigation of kinematics and inverse dynamics algorithm with a DSP implementation of a neural network

An investigation is described to demonstrate the benefits which can be gained by using a digital signal processor (DSP) to implement robot related control schemes, kinematics, and inverse dynamics with a neural network. A neural network adaptive controller is given and applied to a robot manipulator having a closed kinematic chain, a configuration which is not well suited to the popular serial link algorithms. The Lyapunov's stability approach is used to develop a learning rule for the neural network controller that would guarantee the stability of the training process under mild conditions. The controller hardware consists of a PC-386, a fixed point DSP, and a floating point DSP. The software installed on each of these processors has the requirements of satisfying the specific responsibility assigned to that processor and of communicating with other processors so that necessary data is passed on in a timely manner. A computational software package has been built to further enhance the speed of the general control scheme and the neural network algorithm. The techniques used in the DSP implementation of the adaptive control algorithm in real-time are also discussed.
A reduced order admittance model for longitudinally loaded plasmonic nanorod antennas

It is demonstrated that the well-known network theory originally developed for microwave circuits can be successfully applied in the case of longitudinally loaded plasmonic nanorod antennas. By choosing different material constitution for the two loading volumes the antenna's input admittance can be custom engineered and thus its optical response can be tuned as desired. The realization of the proposed technique requires that the appropriate terminal ports be defined across the nanorod where the necessary voltage and current quantities can be probed. Then a reduced order admittance matrix of the loaded nanoantenna can be trivially extracted. Furthermore, analytical expressions are derived that very accurately characterize the loading volumes in terms of their admittance. The combination of the admittance matrix information along with admittance characterization of the loading volumes provides a compact computational tool that allows the antenna's optical response to be predicted without having to run lengthy full wave scattering simulations.
Deuterium trapping and release in titanium-based coatings for TFTR☆

Abstract We have measured the deuterium trapping and thermal release characteristics of three candidate armor and limiter materials for TFTR: Ti explosively bonded onto Cu; TiB 2 and TiC chemically vapor deposited on C. The re-emission rate of deuterium was monitored during bombardment with 10 keV D + 3 and the post-implantation retention was measured with D( 3 He, α)H nuclear reaction profiling and linear ramp thermal desorption. Titanium claddings showed no thermal release of deuterium for fluences of 10 19 D/cm 2 at 375 K; at 775 K, only 65% of the fluence was released during implantation to 10 18 D/cm 2 . This high retention is shown to result from titanium deutende precipitation and the formation of a bulk deuterium solid solution. In contrast, the TiB 2 and TiC coatings showed a rapid saturation in deuterium retention of 17 D/cm 2 .
Assessment of chemical nonequilibrium in rarefied hypersonic flow

Calculations are presented of chemical nonequilibrium in the rarefied hypersonic flowfields surrounding reentering spacecraft in the upper atmosphere. The direct simulation Monte Carlo method is the solution technique employed. Methods by which chemical reactions are included in this simulation scheme are focused upon. In particular, the coupling of vibrational and dissociative nonequilibrium is investigated. The assumption of a fully excited mode has very little effect on the calculated results when the vibrational mode does not contribute to the energy available for reaction. A steric factor for dissociative reactions is developed which includes the vibrational energy of the dissociating molecule. Calculations are presented for the flow along the stagnation streamline of a blunt body for conditions representative of the entry and exit phases of the Aeroassisted Flight Experiment vehicle at an altitude of 90 km. It is found that both the flow properties and surface quantities are significantly affected by the introduction of the steric factor.
Implant material properties and their role in micromotion and failure in total hip arthroplasty

One of the most vital criteria for hip implant longevity is bony ingrowth that would anchor the implant to the bone. However, motion between the implant and surrounding bone (called micromotion) can hamper this, eventually leading to pain, loss of motion, damage to the bone, and eventual revision of the surgery. The objective of this research was to determine how mechanical properties; namely Young’s modulus, affects micromotion and failure in the surrounding bone. Mathematical models were used, along with finite element analysis, to determine if elastic modulus played a role in both micromotion and bone failure. However, by increasing the modulus of the implant, the bone becomes susceptible to stress shielding. Therefore, it is important to optimize implants for both stress shielding and micromotion.
The social benefits of private infectious disease-risk mitigation

Does society benefit from private measures to mitigate infectious disease risks? Since mitigation reduces both peak prevalence and the number of people who fall ill, the answer might appear to be yes. But mitigation also prolongs epidemics and therefore the time susceptible people engage in activities to avoid infection. These avoidance activities come at a cost—in lost production or consumption, for example. Whether private mitigation yields net social benefits depends on the social weight given to the costs of illness and illness avoidance, now and into the future. We show that, for a large class of infectious diseases, private risk mitigation is socially beneficial. However, in cases where society discounts the future at either very low or very high rates relative to private individuals, or where it places a low weight on the private cost of illness, the social cost of illness under proportionate mixing (doing nothing) may be lower than the social cost of illness under preferential mixing (avoiding infectious individuals). That is, under some circumstances, society would prefer shorter, more intense epidemics without avoidance costs over longer, less intense epidemics with avoidance costs. A sobering (although not surprising) implication of this is that poorer societies should be expected to promote less private disease-risk mitigation than richer societies.
Glutamate uptake in mice bred for ethanol withdrawal severity.

Rationale: Withdrawal seizure-prone and withdrawal seizure-resistant mice were selectively bred to exhibit differences in handling-induced convulsion severity during ethanol withdrawal. The glutamatergic system has been implicated in seizure activity as well as ethanol withdrawal symptoms. Objective: This study assessed L-[3H]glutamate uptake into hippocampal synaptosomes prepared from withdrawal seizure-prone and- resistant mice. Methods:Glutamate uptake was characterized following repeated handling-induced convulsions, during acute intoxication, and during peak withdrawal following chronic ethanol exposure. Results: Hippocampal synaptosomal L-[3H]glutamate uptake did not differ between convulsion- and ethanol-naive withdrawal seizure-prone and- resistant mice. Furthermore, exposure to convulsions or to a hypnotic dose of ethanol (4 g/kg) did not alter L-[3H]glutamate uptake. However, withdrawal from 72 h of ethanol exposure significantly increased L-[3H]glutamate uptake in both mouse lines as compared to their respective ethanol-naive controls. Conclusions:These data suggest that glutamate uptake is influenced by chronic ethanol exposure similarly in both withdrawal seizure-prone and- resistant mice. The observed increases in glutamate uptake during withdrawal may be associated with compensatory mechanisms triggered by chronic intoxication and are independent of the selected differences for withdrawal severity.
Interaction of PGHS-2 and glutamatergic mechanisms controlling the ovine fetal hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis

Prostaglandins, generated within the fetal brain, are integral components of the mechanism controlling the fetal hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. Previous studies in this laboratory have demonstrated that PGHS-2 inhibition reduces the fetal HPA response to cerebral hypoperfusion, blocks the preparturient rise in fetal plasma ACTH concentration, and delays parturition. We have also discovered that blockade of NMDA receptors reduces the fetal ACTH response to cerebral hypoperfusion. The present study was designed to test the hypothesis that PGHS-2 action and the downstream effect of HPA axis stimulation is itself stimulated by NMDA-glutamatergic neurotransmission. Chronically catheterized late-gestation fetal sheep were subjected to intravenous injection of NMDA (1 mg, iv; n=8). All responded with increases in fetal plasma ACTH and cortisol concentrations. Pretreatment with intravenous injection of resveratrol (100 mg, iv; n=5), a specific inhibitor of PGHS-1, did not alter the magnitude of the HPA axis response to the NMDA. Pretreatment with nimesulide (10 mg, iv; n=6), a specific inhibitor of PGHS-2, significantly reduced the HPA response to NMDA. To further explore this interaction, we injected NMDA in 6 chronically catheterized fetal sheep that were chronically infused with nimesulide (n=6) at a rate of 1 mg/day into the lateral cerebral ventricle for 5-7 days. In this group, there as no significant ACTH response to NMDA. Finally, we tested whether the HPA response to prostaglandin E 2 (PGE 2 ) is mediated by NMDA receptors. Seven chronically catheterized late-gestation fetal sheep were subjected to injection of 100 ng PGE 2 , a treatment that significantly increased fetal plasma ACTH and cortisol concentrations. Pretreatment with ketamine (10 mg, iv), an NMDA antagonist, did not alter the ACTH or cortisol response to the PGE 2 . We conclude that generation of prostanoids via the action of PGHS-2 in the fetal brain augments the fetal HPA axis response to NMDA-mediated glutamatergic stimulation.
The cardiac sarcoplasmic reticulum calcium-release channel: modulation of ryanodine binding and single-channel activity

[3H]Ryanodine binding to a preparation of isolated cardiac sarcoplasmic reticulum has been investigated. A method is reported which produces a very high level of specific binding. Scatchard analysis of binding up to 50 nM ryanodine yields data which infer a single class of binding sites with a Kd of 1.4 nM and a Bmax of 9.7 pmol/mg protein. Micromolar calcium is the principal activating ligand and its effects on binding are modulated by ligands which similarly affect the activity of single calcium-release channels incorporated into artificial planar phospholipid bilayers. The benzimidazole drug, sulmazole, is able to stimulate ryanodine binding in the presence of sub-activating calcium concentrations. Ryanodine binds to the native channel only when it is in its open state and stimulation of maximal ryanodine binding is achieved by ligands which are insufficient to produce full single-channel activation. A model is proposed which relates the modulation of ryanodine binding to the behaviour of single channels.
Robust automated lymph node segmentation with random forests

Enlarged lymph nodes may indicate the presence of illness. Therefore, identification and measurement of lymph nodes provide essential biomarkers for diagnosing disease. Accurate automatic detection and measurement of lymph nodes can assist radiologists for better repeatability and quality assurance, but is challenging as well because lymph nodes are often very small and have a highly variable shape. In this paper, we propose to tackle this problem via supervised statistical learning-based robust voxel labeling, specifically the random forest algorithm. Random forest employs an ensemble of decision trees that are trained on labeled multi-class data to recognize the data features and is adopted to handle lowlevel image features sampled and extracted from 3D medical scans. Here we exploit three types of image features (intensity, order-1 contrast and order-2 contrast) and evaluate their effectiveness in random forest feature selection setting. The trained forest can then be applied to unseen data by voxel scanning via sliding windows (11×11×11), to assign the class label and class-conditional probability to each unlabeled voxel at the center of window. Voxels from the manually annotated lymph nodes in a CT volume are treated as positive class; background non-lymph node voxels as negatives. We show that the random forest algorithm can be adapted and perform the voxel labeling task accurately and efficiently. The experimental results are very promising, with AUCs (area under curve) of the training and validation ROC (receiver operating characteristic) of 0.972 and 0.959, respectively. The visualized voxel labeling results also confirm the validity.
Vascular Wall Progenitor Cells in Health and Disease

The vasculature plays an indispensible role in organ development and maintenance of tissue homeostasis, such that disturbances to it impact greatly on developmental and postnatal health. Although cell turnover in healthy blood vessels is low, it increases considerably under pathological conditions. The principle sources for this phenomenon have long been considered to be the recruitment of cells from the peripheral circulation and the re-entry of mature cells in the vessel wall back into cell cycle. However, recent discoveries have also uncovered the presence of a range of multipotent and lineage-restricted progenitor cells in the mural layers of postnatal blood vessels, possessing high proliferative capacity and potential to generate endothelial, smooth muscle, hematopoietic or mesenchymal cell progeny. In particular, the tunica adventitia has emerged as a progenitor-rich compartment with niche-like characteristics that support and regulate vascular wall progenitor cells. Preliminary data indicate the involvement of some of these vascular wall progenitor cells in vascular disease states, adding weight to the notion that the adventitia is integral to vascular wall pathogenesis, and raising potential implications for clinical therapies. This review discusses the current body of evidence for the existence of vascular wall progenitor cell subpopulations from development to adulthood and addresses the gains made and significant challenges that lie ahead in trying to accurately delineate their identities, origins, regulatory pathways, and relevance to normal vascular structure and function, as well as disease.
Flow simulation with locally-refined LBM

We simulate 3D fluid flow by a locally-refined lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) on graphics hardware. A low resolution LBM simulation running on a coarse grid models global flow behavior of the entire domain with low consumption of computational resources. For regions of interest where small visual details are desired, LBM simulations are performed on fine grids, which are separate grids superposed on the coarse one. The flow properties on boundaries of the fine grids are determined by the global simulation on the coarse grid. Thus, the locally refined fine-grid simulations follow the global fluid behavior, and model the desired small-scale and turbulent flow motion with their denser numerical discretization. A fine grid can be initiated and terminated at any time while the global simulation is running. It can also move inside the domain with a moving object to capture small-scale vortices caused by the object. Besides the performance improvement due to the adaptive simulation, the locally-refined LBM is suitable for acceleration on contemporary graphics hardware (GPU), since it involves only local and linear computations. Therefore, our approach achieves fast and adaptive 3D flow simulation for computer games and other interactive applications.
High resolution numerical and experimental studies of fatigue cracks

Abstract High resolution experimental measurements of near-tip fatigue crack parameters are directly compared with independent high resolution elastic-plastic finite element simulations of growing fatigue cracks. Special attention is given to active crack tip strain fields, crack opening displacements, and crack closure behavior. Proper normalizations are identified to compensate for different material properties, crack geometries, and applied stress levels. Numerical and experimental results are shown to be qualitatively and often quantitatively consistent with respect to observed experimental scatter. The behavior of long cracks under low applied stress levels is compared with the behavior of short cracks under high applied stress levels. Fatigue cracks are compared with elastic and elastic-plastic stationary cracks.
Hierarchical probabilistic model for news composition

We present a method for the automated composition of personalized newspapers. Traditional newsprint composition is a laborious and expensive manual process. We develop a two level hierarchical page layout model that models aesthetic design choices using local (within article region) and global (page level) prior probability distributions. Given content to be composed, our model can infer the best way to divide a page into layout regions and simultaneously optimize content fit within these regions. We automate decisions on how to paginate articles, flow article text across pages, crop images, adjust whitespace etc. for the best overall newspaper compositions. We also show how content editing which is a very important task in the traditional news workflow can be incorporated in a semi-automated manner within our framework. Our model is a generalization of our prior work on probabilistic modeling of single-flow layouts to enable multiple article flows on a page, while still allowing one or more articles that may break on a page and continue on subsequent pages.
Internal Carotid Artery Stenosis as the Sequela of a Pseudoaneurysm After Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Infection

Pseudoaneurysm of the internal carotid artery is an extremely uncommon complication of pediatric deep neck space infections in the postantibiotic era, and poses a diagnostic challenge to clinicians. Early recognition and aggressive management are essential to prevent mortality and serious morbidity. We describe a pseudoaneurysm of the left internal carotid artery after a retropharyngeal abscess in an infant. The retropharyngeal abscess required surgical drainage, and the pseudoaneurysm was managed conservatively with antibiotic therapy. The patient developed 50% stenosis of the left internal carotid artery after recovery. Limited data are available about long-term outcomes of pseudoaneurysms of the internal carotid artery. During 7-year follow-up, she demonstrated no neurologic sequelae and normal development. Despite the left internal carotid artery stenosis, blood supply to the left cerebral hemisphere is well maintained through the circle of Wills. We highlight the importance of early recognition and aggressive management to avoid serious outcomes.
Modified Decohesion Test (MDT) for Interfacial Fracture Toughness Measurement in Microelectronic/MEMS Applications

Delamination of intrinsically or residually stressed thin films is commonly encountered in microelectronics and MEMS systems. Thin films typically accrue stresses through micro structural variations caused by physical vapor deposition, thermally induced stresses imposed due to thermal mismatch, and/or extrinsically introduced forces. These stresses can reach upwards of 1 GPa and can easily exceed the strength of the metal thin film interface. Knowledge of the interfacial fracture toughness (Γ) is necessary to predict if delamination will occur. However, measuring Γ is a challenge for thin film interfaces. Typical testing methods such as bimaterial cantilever, microscratch, peel, bulge, or edge lift-off are limited to organic films, cause complex stress fields, can only measure a single mode mix, or cannot achieve the large energy release rates typical of metal thin film interfaces. A new approach based on the decohesion test, called the modified decohesion test (MDT), eliminates these shortcomings of current testing methods. In this approach, a highly stressed super layer is used to drive delamination and “tune-in” the mode mix at the crack tip. Since the deformations remain elastic, a mechanics-based solution can be used to correlate test parameters to the energy release rate. Common IC fabrication techniques are used to prepare the sample and execute the test, thereby making the test compatible with current microelectronic or MEMS facilities. Varying the crack surface area rather than the energy in the super layer allows the ability to bound Γ using a single test wafer providing a 90% savings in resources and 95% savings in time. Other modifications allow application of the method to highly chemically reactive metals and decrease the sample preparation time. Design, preparation, and execution of the MDT are presented. Results of finite element models are used to validate the approach. Results are shown for a Ti/Al2 O3 interface.Copyright © 2002 by ASME
On the worst-case arithmetic complexity of approximating zeros of systems of polynomials

Let $d_1 , \cdots ,d_n $ be positive integers. Let $\mathcal{P}$ denote the set of systems of polynomials $f:\mathbb{C}^n \to \mathbb{C}^n $ that have only finitely many zeros, including those “at infinity,” and that satisfy degree $(f_i ) = d_i $ for all i. Let $0 < \varepsilon \leqq R$. It is shown for fixed $d_1 , \cdots ,d_n $, that with respect to a certain model of computation, the worst-case computational complexity of obtaining $\varepsilon $-approximations to at least those zeros $\xi $ satisfying $|\xi | \leqq R$ for arbitrary $f \in \mathcal{P}$ is $\Theta (\log \log (({ R / \varepsilon }))$; that is to say, both upper and lower bounds are proved. An algorithm for proving the upper bound is introduced. The number of operations required by this algorithm is \[O\left[ {n\mathcal{D}^4 (\log \mathcal{D})(\log \log ( { R / \varepsilon } )) + n^2 \mathcal{D}^4 \left( \begin{array}{*{20}c} {1 + \Sigma d_i} \\ n \\ \end{array} \right)^4 } \right],\quad {\text{where }}\mathcal{D} = \prod\limits_{i = 1}^...