cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Human telomere biology: A contributory and interactive factor in aging, disease risks, and protection

Telomeres are the protective end-complexes at the termini of eukaryotic chromosomes. Telomere attrition can lead to potentially maladaptive cellular changes, block cell division, and interfere with tissue replenishment. Recent advances in the understanding of human disease processes have clarified the roles of telomere biology, especially in diseases of human aging and in some aging-related processes. Greater overall telomere attrition predicts mortality and aging-related diseases in inherited telomere syndrome patients, and also in general human cohorts. However, genetically caused variations in telomere maintenance either raise or lower risks and progression of cancers, in a highly cancer type-specific fashion. Telomere maintenance is determined by genetic factors and is also cumulatively shaped by nongenetic influences throughout human life; both can interact. These and other recent findings highlight both causal and potentiating roles for telomere attrition in human diseases.
Intersections of Identities: Counseling Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Asian-Americans

This paper addresses several key issues related to counseling lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Asian-Americans. An understanding of the intersections of these identities is important, yet can be complex because of the diversity within Asian-American cultural groups (i.e., ethnicity, generation, skin color, religion, levels of minority stress, and acculturation) and within LGBT communities. These factors may influence counselors' selection of developmentally appropriate and culturally sensitive counseling approaches for LGBT Asian-American clients. We propose a framework for understanding the intersection of racial/ethnic and sexual identity development, the Racial Ethnic and Sexual Orientation Identification Chart (RSIC), which is designed to assist therapists in determining relevant counseling issues and strategies. A case study is included along with a discussion of multidimensional assessment and clinical implications.
The Incidence of Clinically Isolated Syndrome Is Higher in African Americans and Whites Compared with Hispanics and Asians (P01.140)

Objective: To determine whether the incidence of clinically isolated syndrome (CIS) the precursor form of multiple sclerosis (MS) that encompasses optic neuritis and transverse myelitis as well as other clinical presentations, varies by race/ethnicity in a multi-ethnic, population-based cohort. Background We previously reported that the incidence of MS was higher in blacks than whites, Hispanics and Asians. Design/Methods: We used electronic record searches and complete medical records review to identify all newly diagnosed CIS and MS cases in the population-based, multiethnic membership of Southern California Kaiser Permanente (KPSC) between 2008 and 2009. The KPSC membership contributed 7,410,754 person-years of observation during the study period and the racial/ethnic distribution was 36.5% white, 8.6% black, 43.4% Hispanic, 9.3% Asian/Pacific Islanders (Asian/PI) and 1.9% other. Results: We identified 254 incident cases of CIS cases who did not yet met McDonald criteria for MS and did not have other obvious causes (e.g. viral, lupus, ischemia). The most common clinical presentation was optic neuritis (48.4%) followed by transverse myelitis (32.7%), other forms of mono-regional CIS (9.8%) and poly-regional CIS (9.1%). The average age at diagnosis with CIS was 42.9 years (range 14.8-80.8) and 70.5% were women. Among CIS cases, the racial/ethnic distribution was 47.6% white, 12.6% black, 33.1% Hispanic, 4.3% Asian/PI and 2.4% other. The incidence of CIS was 3.4 per 100,000 person-years. Incidence of CIS was higher in black (5.1, 95%CI=3.5-7.1) and white, non-Hispanic individuals (4.5, 95%CI=3.7-5.3) compared with white, Hispanic (2.6, 95%CI=2.1-3.2) and Asian/PI individuals (1.6, 95%CI=0.8-2.9; p Conclusions: The incidence of CIS is 3.4 per 100,000 person-years in a multi-ethnic, population-based cohort of Southern Californians. The incidence of CIS is higher in black and white individuals compared with Hispanic and Asian/PI individuals. Incidence rates standardized to the US census by age and gender will be presented at the meeting. Disclosure: Dr. Langer-Gould has nothing to disclose. Dr. Brara has nothing to disclose. Dr. Beaber has nothing to disclose. Dr. Zhang has nothing to disclose.
The Cochrane Collaboration and Library: Accessing the Best Evidence Through Systematic Reviews

The Cochrane Collaboration is an international organization of individuals committed to preparing, maintaining and updating the full-text of systematic reviews, and providing access to them through the Cochrane Library. It evolved in response to Archibald Leman Cochrane's challenge to health care professionals to provide an organized summary of relevant randomized controlled trials so that treatment decisions would be made on solid evidence supported by research. There are six organizational units that comprise the Collaboration and support the work of the volunteer contributors. These units take on various responsibilities and establish the policies, methods and guidelines for ensuring the integrity of material and data received. Available on CD-ROM and over the Internet, searching the Cochrane Library is relatively simple.
Respect for Human Rights: Law and History

Several recent studies have found a positive, statistically significant correlation between ratification of human rights treaties and respect for human rights. Some commentators have interpreted these results as evidence of the causal effect of international human rights law on human rights outcomes. We revisit this debate and present evidence that for two treaties — the Convention on Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the Convention Against Torture — these results disappear once time trends are taken into account. Our evidence suggests that recent improvements in human rights are attributable to long running trends that pre-date the emergence of the relevant treaty regimes.
Control and Resistance: Remembering and Forgetting in the Changing Dynamics of State, Market, and Individuals

This chapter focuses on how the state control of media and various ways of resistance on Weibo have shaped the meanings of public events, and effectively utilized collective remembering to manipulate public opinion, escalating the contention over remembering and forgetting. This chapter captures the changing hierarchy of cultural authority in interpreting an event and organizing collective remembrance. Personalized narratives of public events, including those of journalists and ordinary citizens, have begun to challenge institutional (particularly official) authorities, calling for information transparency. As providers of social media platforms, the Internet business sector, including Sina, has been actively mobilizing media institutions, journalists, and witnesses to contribute to this platform during each event, integrating diverse sources, which in turn have collaboratively combated with forced forgetting, pushing back the boundary of journalistic freedom in China. Recently, official media organizations began to join the conversations and establish authorities on Weibo, which added to the complexity of the competition for discursive power within the tightening state control over the Internet.
Salmonella enterica synthesizes 5,6-dimethylbenzimidazolyl-(DMB)-α-riboside. Why some Firmicutes do not require the canonical DMB activation system to synthesize adenosylcobalamin

5,6-Dimethylbenzimidazolyl-(DMB)-α-ribotide, [α-ribazole-5'-phosphate (α-RP)] is an intermediate in the biosynthesis of adenosylcobalamin (AdoCbl) in many prokaryotes. In such microbes, α-RP is synthesized by nicotinate mononucleotide (NaMN):DMB phosphoribosyltransferases (CobT in S. enterica), in a reaction that is considered to be the canonical step for the activation of the base of the nucleotide present in adenosylcobamides. Some Firmicutes lack CobT-type enzymes, but have a two-protein system comprised of a transporter (i.e., CblT) and a kinase (i.e., CblS) that can salvage exogenous α-ribazole (α-R) from the environment using CblT to take up α-R, followed by α-R phosphorylation by CblS. We report that Geobacillus kaustophilus CblT and CblS proteins restore α-RP synthesis in S. enterica lacking the CobT enzyme. We also show that a S. enterica cobT strain that synthesizes GkCblS ectopically makes only AdoCbl, even under growth conditions where the synthesis of pseudoCbl is favored. Our results indicate that S. enterica synthesizes α-R, a metabolite that had not been detected in this bacterium, and that GkCblS has a strong preference for DMB-ribose over adenine-ribose as substrate. We propose that in some Firmicutes DMB is activated to α-RP via α-R using an as-yet-unknown route to convert DMB to α-R, and CblS to convert α-R to α-RP. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Endovascular treatment of an arterioportal fistula following pancreaticoduodenectomy

We present a rare case of an arterioportal fistula that formed between the superior mesenteric artery and portal vein 30 days following a pancreaticoduodenectomy, which was successfully managed with endovascular procedures.
Research Methods in Second Language Psycholinguistics

Chapter 1: The Psycholinguistics of SLA. Chapter 2: Self-paced reading. Chapter 3: Self-paced listening. Chapter 4: Eye-tracking with text. Chapter 5: Visual world eye-tracking. Chapter 6: Event-related potentials (ERPs). Chapter 7: fMRI. Chapter 8: Lexical decision tasks. Chapter 9: Cross-modal priming with sentences. Chapter 10: On psycholinguistic methods.
Left ventricular rotational mechanics in early infancy: Normal reference ranges and reproducibility of peak values and time to peak values

Abstract Introduction Left ventricular cardiac twist and torsion values have been described in premature and term neonates, but not in early infancy. Early and late peak untwist rates and time to peak (TTP) values have not been described in infants. Methods 53 term infants were enrolled prospectively. The following parameters were obtained by two blinded observers at 1–2months postnatal age: peak twist and torsion (twist indexed to LV length), peak twist rate and torsion rate, TTP twist, early peak untwist rate, TTP early untwist rate, late peak untwist rate, TTP late untwist rate. Reproducibility was assessed using intraclass correlation and Bland Altman analysis. Results Intraclass correlation was ≥0.87 for all peak rotational mechanics values. Measures of TTP values had intraclass correlation (ICC) values ≤0.77, with TTP twist rate demonstrating the lowest ICC (0.69). The only measure which demonstrated significant bias was TTP twist rate. Peak twist demonstrated modest correlation ( R =0.52, p Conclusions Measurements of rotational mechanics and timing to peak values have acceptable reproducibility. Peak twist, twist rate, and early untwist rate values in early infancy are similar to those reported in premature neonates, and higher than those reported in older children. Twist indexed to LV length (torsion) is lower in early infancy than in premature neonates, but higher than in term neonates.
Abstract 569: Both Young and Old ACE2-transgenic Mice are More Resistant to Cardiac Dysfunction Induced by Myocardial Infarction

Background: Increased activity of the classic renin-angiotensin system (RAS) is associated with cardiovascular diseases (CVD) such as heart failure and hypertension. Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) is reported to provide a protective role in CVD. In addition, there is a shift in the balance of the ACE2/Angiotensin-(1-7) axis towards the ACE/Angiotensin II axis during aging, making the cardiovascular system more vulnerable to damages. We hypothesized that global ACE2-overexpression could correct the imbalance between the two axes by providing a cardiovascular protective role against heart failure both in young and aged mice. Methods: Both young (10 weeks old) and old (12 months old) ACE2-transgenic and wild type (WT) mice underwent myocardial infarction surgery. Cardiac function was measured using echocardiography four weeks after MI. The number of circulating inflammatory cells (CD11b) in the blood for these animals was also measured using flow cytometry. Results: In the MI animals, the WT-old mice had a significant reduction in ejection fraction (47.67±4.23%: from 72.63±8.52% to 24.96±4.29%). However, the reduction in EF for ACE2-old mice was 37% lower (26.26±1.90%: from 60.06±7.56% to 29.18±5.66%) than that of WT-old mice. Meanwhile, the MI-induced decrease in EF of 14.60±1.56% for ACE2-young mice (from 59.09±8.38% to 44.49±6.82%) also was significantly less than the 26.97±1.21% reduction observed in WT-young mice (from 53.23±7.67% to 26.26±6.46%). Thus, ACE2 overexpression provides some protection of cardiac function from ischemia-induced injury in both young and old animals. Moreover, the circulating monocytes and macrophages in the blood of ACE2-young MI mice (22.65±6.86%) was also less than which observed in the WT control (31.37±4.90%), suggesting that there is less cardiac damage in these animals. Conclusions: Collectively, our observation suggests that global ACE2 overexpression has a consistent cardiac protection both in the young and old and as a result, the heart may be more resistant to heart failure damage during aging. This protective effect may be partly due to its systematic anti-inflammatory effect.
Legal Jurisdiction and the Deterritorialization of Data

Electronic data — everything from e-mails and text messages to Facebook and Instagram posts to Twitter pronouncements to drone warfare data to search algorithms to financial transactions to cloud data storage — travels around the globe with little relationship to physical territory. In addition, all of this data is often in the custody and control of data intermediaries such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, private military contractors, and so on. Three important consequences flow from this ubiquitous technology-enabled, data-driven global societal activity. First, the territorial location of data becomes increasingly arbitrary and substantively unimportant. If I, as a U.S. citizen based in Maryland, have a g-mail account and Google, a U.S. corporation, decides to store my archived e-mails in Ireland or France or Indonesia (or indeed to split up the data fragments that make up each e-mail message among data warehouses in all three countries), that decision seems irrelevant to any question of whether I have somehow affiliated myself with any of those communities or governments for purposes of jurisdictional or choice-of-law analysis. Second, because of this deterritorialization of data, it will often be the case that territorially-based courts (or law enforcement authorities generally) are unable to easily enforce their decisions because those decisions require cooperation from relevant actors in far-flung communities. Third, as a direct result of the first two problems, governmental and judicial authorities are increasingly turning to multinational corporate data intermediaries to carry out and enforce their orders because only those companies have sufficient global reach to make legal rulings effective. But deputizing these intermediaries to become enforcement agents, while logical and possibly effective, raises new problems regarding the scope of governmental authority and the distortions involved in privatizing law enforcement. This Article therefore offers a set of principles that might guide legal regimes considering these sorts of jurisdictional dilemmas in the data-driven era in which we find ourselves.
Advances in InP/InGaAs Geiger-mode APD focal plane arrays (Conference Presentation)

This paper will describe recent developments in the state-of-the art for InP/InGaAs Geiger Mode focal plane arrays developed at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. Fabrication details of highly-dense arrays on a 25-micron pitch (256 x 256) will be presented, along with techniques developed to suppress crosstalk in neighboring pixels. These dense arrays are hybrized to highly efficient read-out circuits capable of simultaneous photon-counting imaging and photon time extraction for multiple user-defined regions of interest. Matching 256 x 256 microlens arrays are attached to the hybrized APD array/ROIC. Performance data and applications of the focal plane arrays will be discussed
ATOMIC-MODELS: SIMPLE PROCESSOR EXAMPLE

This chapter discusses the models that are present in discrete event system specification (DEVS)-Scheme and are organized using the system entity structure. It presents a comparison between the performance of single processor systems with multiprocessor systems including the multiserver, the pipeline, and the divide and conquer configurations. Performance evaluation is based on two fundamental measures—turnaround time, that is, the average time taken by the system to process jobs and throughput, the rate at which completed jobs emerge from the system. The multiprocessor configurations to be modeled have a coordinator each that sends problems to some subordinate processors and receives solutions from them. In the multiserver architecture, the coordinator reroutes incoming problems to whichever processor is free at the time. In the pipeline architecture, problems pass through the processors in a fixed sequence, each processor performing a part of the solution. In the divide and conquer architecture, problems are decomposed into sub-problems that are worked on concurrently and independently by the processors before being put together to form the final solution.
Can We Afford Theories of Learning

This book is built around three enlightened attempts to rephrase learning and instruction in ways more sensitive to the social organization of learning situations. This paper extends the effort by pointing at a growing scandal. Institutions of learning have been corrupted by the market. Learning has been measured, credentialed, bought, and sold to the point that educational reformers have to worry about the use and misuse of their most important product. They have to worry about the connections learning makes to persistent structural inequalities. Learning has been commodified, and efforts to reform learning instruction must be sensitive not just to the gentle facts of how it is best done by people working together, but to the more disturbing facts of how it can be isolated, tested, administered, fetishized, and put up for sale in the reproduction of career and income lines. Serious advances in learning theory must be protected from the possibility that they can be used to make things worse.
Coupling of Precipitation and Cloud Structures in Oceanic Extratropical Cyclones to Large-Scale Moisture Flux Convergence

AbstractPrecipitation (from TMPA) and cloud structures (from MODIS) in extratropical cyclones (ETCs) are modulated by phases of large-scale moisture flux convergence (from MERRA-2) in the sectors o...
Barriers and Facilitators to Recurrent Preterm Birth Prevention among Low-Income Women: A Qualitative Study.

Objective To examine patient perspectives on the experience of preterm birth (PTB) and recommended PTB prevention strategies, focusing on barriers to and facilitators of PTB prevention among low-income women. Materials and Methods This is an observational study using qualitative methodology to investigate barriers to and facilitators of recurrent PTB prevention among low-income pregnant and postpartum women. Participants were either (1) postpartum from an initial spontaneous PTB, (2) pregnant and receiving 17-α-hydroxyprogesterone caproate (17P), or (3) pregnant or postpartum and declined/discontinued 17P. Participants completed individual interviews, and transcripts were analyzed using modified grounded theory techniques. Results Of 33 participants, the majority identified as non-Hispanic black (64%) or Hispanic (27%). Four facilitator themes included patient-centered environment, informed choice, social network, and motivation for a healthy family. Barriers included competing demands, resources, skepticism, and normalization. Three considerations, termed subjective influencers, could support women's decisions to use or decline 17P, including personal beliefs about one's body, the role of the fetus, and beliefs on interventionism. Conclusion The facilitators and barriers identified herein offer insight into the lived experiences of women at a risk of recurrent PTB. Future programs aimed at reducing PTB disparities may benefit from addressing low-income minority women's structural and social determinants of PTB prevention.
Mixed Matrix Membranes for CO2 Separations: Membrane Preparation, Properties, and Separation Performance Evaluation

Abstract The membrane technology has great potential for practical CO2 removal. To realize the potential, efforts have been made to fabricate membranes with satisfactory separation efficiency and durability. Mixed matrix membranes (MMMs), which contain nanomaterials dispersed in polymer matrices, have appealing CO2 separation performances. They usually have facile processability and are inexpensive to manufacture. However, developing a completely defect-free polymer/filler interface is still a challenge. To overcome the membrane performance limitations and the fabrication challenges, numerous nanomaterials have been synthesized and applied for fabricating MMMs. This chapter reviews and puts in perspective advances made in fabricating novel MMMs containing nanomaterials such as nonporous nanoparticles, metal and metal oxides, zeolites, carbon-based nanomaterials, organic frameworks (metal and covalent), and sheetlike two-dimensional nanomaterials. Effects of defects at the interfaces of polymers and nanomaterials, and the addition of adhesion agents are discussed. Several nanomaterial modification techniques used for alleviating the MMM manufacturing problems are also covered.
Trails-as-transects: phenology monitoring across heterogeneous microclimates in Acadia National Park, Maine

Climate‐driven shifts in phenology, which are being observed worldwide, affect ecosystem services, trophic interactions, and community composition, presenting challenges to managers in protected areas. Resource management benefits from local, species‐specific phenology information. However, phenology monitoring programs in heterogeneous landscapes typically require serendipitous historical records or many years of contemporary data before trends in phenological responses to changes in climate can be analyzed. Here, we used a trails‐as‐transects approach to rapidly accumulate monitoring data across environmental gradients on three mountains in Acadia National Park, Maine, USA, and compared our results to phenological changes observed in Concord, Massachusetts, USA. In four years of intensive monitoring of transects on three mountains, we found large variability in spring temperatures across the mountains, but consistent patterns of advancing flower and leaf phenology in warmer microclimates. Reduced sampling intensity would have yielded similar results, but a shorter duration would not have revealed these patterns. The plants in Acadia responded to warming spring temperatures by shifting leaf and flower phenology in the same direction (earlier), but at a reduced rate (as measured in d/°C), in comparison with plants in southern New England (e.g., Concord, Massachusetts, USA). Our approach takes advantage of topographical complexity and associated microclimate gradients to substitute for long time series, allowing for rapid assessment of phenological response to climate. Other climate gradients (e.g., urban‐to‐rural, latitudinal, or coastal‐to‐inland) could work similarly. This intensive monitoring over a short time period quickly builds a robust dataset and can inform management decisions regarding future monitoring strategies, including sampling designs for citizen science‐based phenology monitoring programs.
Chemicals from Biomass

The use of biomass as a source of materials is different from the use of biomass as a source of fuels. First, the scale of production of chemicals is smaller than of fuels. Using the United States as an example, in 1980 total energy use was 79 EJ* (DOE 1982). Chemical feedstock use (which is included in the above) was 3.2 EJ, or 8.4 percent of the total (USITC 1980; C&EN 1981). (OECD data gives a lower number, 6.1 percent for the United States and 6.3 percent for the OECD countries as a whole (IEA).) Another way to compare the chemicals and fuels is to look at ethyl alcohol and gasoline. The United States in 1980 consumed 3.8 × 1011 liters of gasoline, but synthetic ethanol production was only 6.6 × 108 liters. (By way of comparison with biomass production, if all the maize production in the United States were converted to ethanol, it would amount to 8.4 × 1010 liters.)
Characterization of synovial fluid metabolomic phenotypes of cartilage morphological changes associated with osteoarthritis.

Summary Objective Osteoarthritis (OA) is a multifactorial disease with etiological heterogeneity. The objective of this study was to classify OA subgroups by generating metabolomic phenotypes from human synovial fluid. Design Post mortem synovial fluids (n = 75) were analyzed by high performance-liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LC-MS) to measure changes in the global metabolome. Comparisons of healthy (grade 0), early OA (grades I-II), and late OA (grades III-IV) donor populations were considered to reveal phenotypes throughout disease progression. Results Global metabolomic profiles in synovial fluid were distinct between healthy, early OA, and late OA donors. Pathways differentially activated among these groups included structural deterioration, glycerophospholipid metabolism, inflammation, central energy metabolism, oxidative stress, and vitamin metabolism. Within disease states (early and late OA), subgroups of donors revealed distinct phenotypes. Synovial fluid metabolomic phenotypes exhibited increased inflammation (early and late OA), oxidative stress (late OA), or structural deterioration (early and late OA) in the synovial fluid. Conclusion These results revealed distinct metabolic phenotypes in human synovial fluid, provide insight into pathogenesis, represent novel biomarkers, and can move toward developing personalized interventions for subgroups of OA patients.
The Differential Impact of the Federal Reserve Rate Hikes on National and Regional Employment Figures: Evidence from San Joaquin County

This study examines the relationship between Federal Reserve interest rate actions and the employment growth rate in one county within California’s San Joaquin Valley, an economically distressed rural area. Since 2016, the Federal Reserve implemented a series of interest rate hikes and a “quantitative tightening” process to reduce the size of its balance sheet. Our data show that this tightening did slow the rate of employment growth nationally, but the rate slowed more in California and still more in San Joaquin County. This vulnerable region paid a high price for the desired contraction of monetary policy.
Thirty years after the fall: An academic perspective

How has academia understood the massive changes in the world since 1989? This article emphasizes the important role of institutional analysis and empirical scholarship of various kinds. There has also been new attention to issues of identity. Finally, there have been monumental changes in the way scholarship is produced and consumed, and these too have consequences for the field.
The Primate Cerebellar Cortex: A Golgi and Electron Microscopic Study

Publisher Summary This chapter talks about the primate cerebellar cortex. The discussion is interspersed in the presentation to explain immediately the interpretations given the electron micrographs. The capricious method of Golgi, which now and then reveals the external morphology of a nerve cell and all its processes more completely than any other technique, has been most successful when applied to the cerebellar cortex. In the present study features of the cerebellar cortex are illustrated with Golgi impregnations of the macaque monkey (Macaca mulatta) and with electron micrographs of man, the macaque monkey (Macaca mulatta) and the squirrel monkey (Suimiri sciureus) .Olivocerebellar fibers, conceivably, drive the intracerebellar nuclei and continuing on as climbing fibers stimulate the Purkinje cells. The climbing fiber-Purkinje cell ratio may be one to one. Purkinje cells actively inhibit the cerebellar nuclei and Deiters nucleus. This inhibition is continuously modified by circuits activated by mossy fibers, arriving from spinal, reticular, vestibular, pontine and tegmental sources.
AECT/RTD young researcher paper effect of color and monochrome versions of a film on incidental and task-relevant learning

Will the use of color in a film help students learn to identify basic shapes in nature and man-made objects? Will it affect learning of task-relevant and incidental information differently? This study found that color helped fourth and fifth-grade students of all ability levels learn incidental information but affected learning of task-relevant information differently depending on ability level. This paper won the Young Researcher Award competition sponsored by the Research and Theory Division of AECT. The award is given for the best report on experimental, descriptive, or historical study in educational technology.—Ed.
Characterization of Corrosion Protective Films on Steel and Aluminum Alloys

This project is part of a cooperative effort to further our understanding of the formation, structure, and mechanisms for improved corrosion protection and enhanced adhesion of selected films on metal alloys. We report here results for three systems, each of which either has been or can be used on metal substrates that have important commercial applications. These three film systems are (i) polyacrylic acid (PAA) modified zinc phosphate films on steel; (ii) dilute cerium based treatment, with anodic polarization, of an Al 6061 alloy, and also on SiC/A1 6061 metal matrix composite (MMC) specimens; and (iii) polytitanosiloxane (PTS) ceramic films on Al 6061. Film growth and surface modification treatments were made in our laboratories and the films characterized by several nondestructive techniques. These techniques include electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), Raman spectroscopy, infrared reflection absorption spectroscopy (IRAS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), electron dispersive analysis by x-rays (EDAX), and atomic force microscopy (AFM).
A Tutorial in Macromolecular Modeling

I have prepared a tutorial in macromolecular graphics using the widely available programs MAGE and PREKIN on Macintosh computers. Students who complete this tutorial, which is appropriate for use i...
Onabotulinumtoxin Type A reconstitution with preserved versus preservative-free saline in chronic migraine (B-RECON). A randomised, double-blind trial.

Introduction Onabotulinumtoxin type A (BoNTA) is manufactured as powder that requires reconstitution with normal saline prior to injection. Previous literature has suggested that preserved saline (PS) exerts a local anaesthetic effect, and reduces the procedure discomfort when used in reconstitution in lieu of preservative-free saline (PFS). However, this was mainly studied in the aesthetics indications of BoNTA, and never in its use for the treatment of chronic migraine. The distinction is important as chronic migraine population suffers high incidence of scalp allodynia which makes it more prone to injection site pain. In addition, the pain of the procedure itself may be related to the spike of migraine frequency in the immediate postprocedural period which can occur in up to 5% of patients receiving the treatment. Our trial aimed to study the difference in procedural pain scale, and postprocedural headache rating with the use of PS vs PFS in constitution of BoNTA when used as a treatment for chronic migraine. Methods 68 subjects were consecutively enrolled in an outpatient setting at a large tertiary headache centre over a period of 6 months. Subjects were randomised into PS or PFS group. BoNTA was administered as per standard protocol in both groups. Injection site pain scores and frequency of headache days in the immediate following week were recorded. Wilcoxon rank sum tests were used to compare differences in between groups using SPSS software. Results Analysis (SAS V 9.4) revealed that those receiving [PF] had significantly higher procedure pain scores than those receiving [P] (5.3 vs 3.2, respectively). There was no difference in the headache or migraine frequency in the immediate postprocedural period. Conclusion This study supports the use of PS (bacteriostatic) over PFS for reconstitution of BoNTA in chronic migraine as it reduces the discomfort of the injection sites.
Autosomal dominant hyper‐IgE syndrome: When hematopoietic stem cell transplantation should be considered?

AD-HIES or Job's syndrome is a primary immunodeficiency, caused by dominant negative mutations in signal transducer and activator of transcription (STAT) 3. The syndrome is characterized by infectious, immunologic, and non-immunologic manifestations and is associated with significant morbidity, mortality, and development of lymphomas. What has not yet been elucidated is the role of HSCT in the disease treatment spectrum. We review published cases of patients with AD-HIES that underwent HSCT and attempt to clarify at what stage HSCT should be considered and what are the complications.
Increased Ephrin-B2 expression in pericytes contributes to retinal vascular death in rodents.

Abstract Aims Diabetes-induced retinal vascular cell death aggravates diabetic retinopathy (DR) to the proliferative stage and blindness. Pericytes play a crucial role in retinal capillaries survival, stability, and angiogenesis. Ephrin-B2 is a tyrosine kinase that regulates pericytes/endothelial cells communication during angiogenesis; yet, its role in DR is still unclear. We hypothesize that diabetes increases Ephrin-B2 signaling in pericytes, which contributes to inflammation and retinal vascular cell death. Methods Selective inhibition of the Ephrin-B2 expression in the retinal pericytes was achieved using an intraocular injection of adeno-associated virus (AAV) with a specific pericyte promotor. Vascular death was determined by retinal trypsin digest. Pathological angiogenesis was assessed using the oxygen-induced retinopathy model in pericyte-Ephrin-B2 knockout mice, wild type, and wild type injected with AAV. Angiogenic properties, inflammatory, and apoptotic markers were measured in human retinal pericytes (HRP) grown under diabetic conditions. Key finding Diabetes significantly increased the expression of Ephrin-B2, inflammatory, and apoptotic markers in the diabetic retinas and HRP. These effects were prevented by silencing Ephrin-B2 in HRP. Moreover, Ephrin-B2 silencing in retinal pericytes decreased pathological angiogenesis and acellular capillaries formation in diabetic retinas. Significance Increased Ephrin-B2 expression in the pericytes contributed to diabetes-induced retinal inflammation and vascular death. These results identify pericytes-Ephrin-B2 as a therapeutic target for DR.
Impact of the CYP2C19*17 Allele on Outcomes in Patients Receiving Genotype-Guided Antiplatelet Therapy After Percutaneous Coronary Intervention.

Genotyping for CYP2C19 no function alleles to guide antiplatelet therapy after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) improves clinical outcomes. Although results for the increased function CYP2C19*17 allele are also reported, its clinical relevance in this setting remains unclear. A collaboration across nine sites examined antiplatelet therapy prescribing and clinical outcomes in 3,342 patients after implementation of CYP2C19-guided antiplatelet therapy. Risk of major atherothrombotic and bleeding events over 12 months after PCI were compared across cytochrome P450 2C19 isozyme (CYP2C19) metabolizer phenotype and antiplatelet therapy groups by proportional hazards regression. Clopidogrel was prescribed to a similar proportion of CYP2C19 normal (84.5%), rapid (82.9%), and ultrarapid metabolizers (80.6%) (P = 0.360). Clopidogrel-treated normal metabolizers (20.4 events/100 patient-years; adjusted hazard ratio (HR) 1.00, 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.75-1.33, P = 0.993) and clopidogrel-treated rapid or ultrarapid metabolizers (19.1 events/100 patient-years; adjusted HR 0.95, 95% CI, 0.69-1.30, P = 0.734) exhibited no difference in major atherothrombotic events compared with patients treated with prasugrel or ticagrelor (17.6 events/100 patient-years). In contrast, clopidogrel-treated intermediate and poor metabolizers exhibited significantly higher atherothrombotic event risk compared with prasugrel/ticagrelor-treated patients (adjusted HR 1.56, 95% CI, 1.12-2.16, P = 0.008). When comparing clopidogrel-treated rapid or ultrarapid metabolizers to normal metabolizers, no difference in atherothrombotic (adjusted HR 0.97, 95% CI, 0.73-1.29, P = 0.808) or bleeding events (adjusted HR 1.34, 95% CI, 0.83-2.17, P = 0.224) were observed. In a real-world setting of genotype-guided antiplatelet therapy, the CYP2C19*17 allele did not significantly impact post-PCI prescribing decisions or clinical outcomes. These results suggest the CYP2C19 *1/*17 and *17/*17 genotypes have limited clinical utility to guide antiplatelet therapy after PCI.
Racializing Patriarchy: Lessons from Police Brutality

The central point of this chapter is that patriarchy is not simply about male dominance over women but is an inherently racial formation. This point is developed through bringing together scholarship produced by Black feminist theorists, other feminist scholars, and research on racialized police brutality. Using Mary Douglas’s classic theory of purity and pollution, and using the Newark, NJ, racial uprising of 1967 as a case study, it is argued that patriarchal formations like the police are premised on a model of the “superior man” that aligns masculinity not only with biological maleness but also with whiteness, heterosexuality, and physical perfection.
Who is in the Room? Notification for Intrusions While in Virtual Reality:

The development of head-mounted display virtual reality systems (e.g., Oculus Rift, HTC Vive) has resulted in an increasing need to represent the physical world while immersed in the virtual. Curre...
Language and Emotion: Introduction to the Special Issue.

What is the relationship between language and emotion? The work that fills the pages of this special issue draws from interdisciplinary domains to weigh in on the relationship between language and emotion in semantics, cross-linguistic experience, development, emotion perception, emotion experience and regulation, and neural representation. These important new findings chart an exciting path forward for future basic and translational work in affective science.
Chapter 7 Patch Clamp of Cation Channels

Publisher Summary Recently, the patch-clamp technique has been used to study ion transport in epithelial tissues. The ability of an epithelial tissue to perform net ion transport is a consequence of the asymmetric distribution of ion channels and transporters in the apical and basolateral membranes of the epithelial cells. Application of patch-clamp techniques to the study of ion channels in epithelia is complicated by this assymmetric distribution of channel populations. This chapter discusses recent advances in the application of the patch-clamp technique to the study of cation channels in epithelia tissue. It defines a cation channel as a proteinaccous pore that spans a lipid bilayer, and allows cations to flow through this membrane-spanning protein as opposed to the lipid bilayer. Indeed, this would be an adequate definition if cations could not permeate anion-selective channels. The chapter reviews the technical approaches used by investigators in the study of cation channels in epithelia. It also outlines the experimental approaches used to study cation channels in epithelia. The physiological relevance of the patch-clamp data obtained from three different epithelial tissues are discussed.
Picomolar quantitation of free sulfite in foods by means of [57Co]hydroxocobalamin and radiometric chromatography of [57Co]sulfitocobalamin: Method, applications and significance of coexisting sulfides

The concentration dependent reaction of sulfite with 57Co-labeled hydroxocobalamin (OH57CoCbl) to produce a sulfitocobalamin (SO(3)57CoCbl) adduct served as a quantification strategy for foodborne sulfite residues freely extracted into pH 5.2, 0.05 M acetate buffer. SO(3)57CoCbl was then resolved using SP-Sephadex C-25 gel chromatography and its radiometric detection allowed calculation of a standard logit plot from which unknown sulfite concentrations could be determined. The sulfite detection range was 6.0 nM-0.3 pM with respective relative standard deviations of 4.4-29.4% for 50-microl samples. Individual incidences of foodborne sulfite intolerances provoked by L-cysteine or sulfite additive use in bakery products, which remained undetected using conventional sulfite analytical methods, underscored the quantitative value of the method. The analytical significance and occurrences of detectable sulfides coexisting with foodborne sulfite residues was also addressed.
Peptidergic innervation of the human esophageal smooth muscle

Studies were performed to define the peptidergic nature of intramural nerves in the human esophagus. Cryosections of uninvolved surgically resected tissues from 14 individuals were studied by immunofluorescence for the localization of 10 neuropeptides. Myenteric neurons showed bombesin-, calcitonin gene-related peptide-, galanin-, substance P-, vasoactive intestinal polypeptide-, leucine-enkephalin-, methionine-enkephalin-, neuropeptide Y-, and somatostatin-like immunoreactivity. Submucous neurons had all the above except neuropeptide Y, methionine-enkephalin, leucine-enkephalin, and bombesin. Both groups of neurons received nerve terminations positive for calcitonin gene-related peptide, galanin, neuropeptide Y, substance P, and vasoactive intestinal polypeptide. Myenteric neurons additionally received terminations positive for neuropeptide Y, methionine-enkephalin, and somatostatin. All muscle layers had varicose fibers that reacted for calcitonin gene-related peptide, galanin, neuropeptide Y, and substance P. Longitudinal and circular muscle received few nerves reactive for leucine-enkephalin, whereas methionine-enkephalin was localized in a few nerve endings in the circular muscle. Somatostatin- and bombesin-reactive nerves occurred in longitudinal muscle. No cholecystokinin-reactive nerves were found. This study extends the results of previous studies and shows the previously undescribed presence of calcitonin gene-related peptide- and galanin-reactive nerves in the human esophagus and identifies neuropeptides that may serve as motor, sensory, and modulatory neurotransmitters of esophageal nerves.
David Reimer's Legacy: Limiting Parental Discretion

The authors question the limits of parental authority to consent to infant sex assignment surgeries and suggest that unnecessary life-altering surgeries should be delayed until the child has capacity to consent.
Categorical Perception as an Acquired Phenomenon: What are the Implications?

Previous research on categorical perception (CP) has focussed primarily on low-level sensory continua. In a series of recent studies, we have found CP effects for ‘higher level’ representations: individual face categories. These findings suggest that CP effects can be acquired through experience, since such effects appear to vary as a direct function of the level of familiarity with individual faces. Thus, CP boundaries need not be innately specified. As such, the phenomenon of CP is much broader than has previously been believed. In this paper, we discuss the implications of these findings and explore various possible mechanisms to account for the phenomena. We then describe a number of further studies designed to distinguish between competing accounts.
In vivo analysis of lacZ fusion genes in transgenic Drosophila melanogaster.

Publisher Summary This chapter presents the in vivo analysis of lacZ fusion genes in transgenic Drosophila melanogaster . lacZ reporter genes have been used most successfully for unraveling the in vivo transcription mechanisms that control embryonic pattern formation. These studies combine genetic, biochemical, and transgenic experiments: By crossing a line containing a lacZ transgene into Drosophila mutants, regulatory genes involved in the activation and repression of the transgene can be identified. In many cases, these genes encode transcription factors, and DNA-binding studies are performed to determine whether they bind directly to sites within the enhancer. Individual binding sites are then subjected to in vitro mutagenesis, and lacZ reporter genes containing the mutant forms of the enhancer are tested in vivo . If an identified binding site is important for the function of the enhancer, this will be reflected in changes in its expression pattern. The analysis of lacZ transgenes requires an efficient method for introducing exogenous DNA into the genome. This was first accomplished by Rubin and Spradling, who took advantage of the transposition properties of Pelements, which are natural transposons found in some strains of Drosophila . Their work is the basis for the protocol for generating transgenic flies that is presented in the chapter.
Dynamic Pade' approximant and behavior singularities in nonlinear physico-chemical systems

Spatio-temporal phenomena in nonlinear systems have been found to be of great variety including periodic and chaotic structures.1 We shall find here that the method of Pade' approximants may be extended to describe some of these phenomena including the chemical center wave. Catastrophe (or more generally singularity) theory is also shown here to be of great utility in obtaining classification theorems for systems with multiple space or time scales. The idea of symmetry broken singularities is introduced. Finally, unlike in the case of ordinary differential systems, it is shown that in some cases the phenomena must be understood in terms of the geometry of function space via "behavior functionals". These ideas shall be introduced through a discussion of various physical problems including crystal growth and reaction diffusion systems.