cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Bioinformatics in Genome Sequencing Projects

Genome sequencing and analysis is a field that has evolved very rapidly over the 10 years since a final draft of the human genome sequence was published in 2003. From obtaining a full genome sequence from a representative individual or strain of a small number of species, the genomics community has moved to documenting genetic diversity within species, with an emphasis on humans, and more generally by sequencing the genomes of a rapidly growing number of species. The advent of low-cost, very high throughput sequencing techniques has also made it possible to sample transcriptomes (the part of the genome transcribed into ribonucleic acid), genomic regions bound by proteins, bacterial communities, or even entire ecosystems, using sequencing approaches. This has spawned a new generation of software tools designed to handle the very large numbers of short sequences, commonly referred to as reads, produced by the new machines, and has also propelled the field of computational genomics into the realm of Big Data that require large and sophisticated computer systems for their management and analysis. Key Concepts: Rapidly evolving sequencing technologies have revolutionised the analysis of genomes. The management and analysis of billions of short sequence reads requires specialised software and access to high-end computer hardware. Clusters of commodity servers are the preferred infrastructure for genome sequencing projects, but machines with large amounts of memory are required for assembly. Cloud computing is expected to have a big impact on the field, but issues of data transfer are not fully resolved. Large distributed resources supporting a Map/Reduce programming paradigm and distributed storage, such as Apache Hadoop, will probably become standard. Keywords: computer infrastructure; hardware; networking; processors; software; genome projects; genome sequencing
LBVC: towards low-bandwidth video chat on smartphones

Video chat apps enable users to stay in touch with their family, friends and colleagues. However, they consume a lot of bandwidth and hence can quickly use up a monthly data plan quota, which is a high-cost resource on smartphones. In this paper, we propose LBVC (Low-bandwidth Video Chat), a user-guided vibration-aware frame rate adaption framework. LBVC takes a sender-receiver cooperative approach and reduces bandwidth usage as well as alleviates video quality degradation for video chat apps on smartphones. We implement LBVC on the Android platform and evaluate its performance on a series of experiments and user study with 21 pairs of subjects. Compared to the default solution, LBVC decreases bandwidth usage by 35% and at the same time maintains good video quality without introducing extra power consumption under typical video chat scenarios.
The Effects of Communication Parameters on End Performance of Shared Virtual Memory Clusters

Recently there has been a lot of effort in providing cost-effective Shared Memory systems by employing software only solutions on clusters of high-end workstations coupled with high-bandwidth, low-latency commodity networks. Much of the work so far has focused on improving protocols, and there has been some work on restructuring applications to perform better on SVM systems. The result of this progress has been the promise for good performance on a range of applications at least in the 16-32 processor range. New system area networks and network interfaces provide significantly lower overhead, lower latency and higher bandwidth communication in clusters, inexpensive SMPs have become common as the nodes of these clusters, and SVM protocols are now quite mature. With this progress, it is now useful to examine what are the important system bottlenecks that stand in the way of effective parallel performance; in particular, which parameters of the communication architecture are most important to improve further relative to processor speed, which ones are already adequate on modern systems for most applications, and how will this change with technology in the future. Such information can assist system designers in determining where to focus their energies in improving performance, and users in determining what system characteristics are appropriate for their applications. We find that the most important system cost to improve is the overhead of generating and delivering interrupts. Improving network interface (and I/O bus) bandwidth relative to processor speed helps some bandwidth-bound applications, but currently available ratios of bandwidth to processor speed are already adequate for many others. Surprisingly, neither the processor overhead for handling messages nor the occupancy of the communication interface in preparing and pushing packets through the network appear to require much improvement.
Gender‐Specific Effects on Verapamil Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics in Humans

Pharmacokinetic studies of i.v. and oral racemic verapamil and 14C-erythromycin breath tests (ERBT) were performed in 84 healthy men (n = 42) and women (n = 42). Verapamil was measured by HPLC, concentration versus time data were analyzed by noncompartmental models, protein binding was measured by equilibrium dialysis, and statistical analyses were performed by ANOVA. Clearance of i.v. and p.o. verapamil was 13.7 +/- 4.3 and 58.4 +/- 35 ml/min/kg (mean +/- SD) in women compared to 12.6 +/- 3.4 and 82.6 +/- 70 ml/min/kg in men (p = 0.076). Bioavailability was higher in women (0.25 +/- 0.09) compared to men (0.20 +/- 0.09, p = 0.019) with a significant Gender x Formulation interaction (p = 0.04). ERBT were higher in women (p < 0.0001). Verapamil (i.v. and p.o.) decreased blood pressure in all subjects with greater heart rate increases after p.o. verapamil in women compared to men (p = 0.041). The findings suggest that sex-specific differences in drug metabolism may occur in both the gut and the liver and involve multiple metabolic pathways and that pharmacokinetic differences will alter pharmacodynamic responses.
The Three Monotheistic World Religions and International Human Rights

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and the human rights movement lay claim to much of the same moral territory, notably concepts of human dignity, equality, and social justice. In practice there are many tensions. This article argues that common standards are necessary to govern relationships among religions and that international human rights standards best play that role. To achieve greater consensus and mutual understanding, the religious and human rights communities must examine how their meaning systems can and have changed over time, and differ across regions. Recognition of these variations and empirical evidence that religiosity is not necessarily inherently linked to prejudice can enable both the religious and human rights meaning systems to evolve toward greater consensus on common social norms.
Intracranial tumors. Vomiting as a presenting sign. A gastroenterologist's perspective

Vomiting is seen as a symptom in patients with brain tumors, but it rarely leads to the diagnosis in the absence of a recognized neurologic deficit. Five patients were referred to a pediatric gastroenterologist for outpatient evaluation of persistent vomiting and were subsequently found to have an intracranial mass lesion. The paucity of neurologic findings and the absence of headaches in most of these patients caused the referring physicians to focus on the gastrointestinal tract and not the central nervous system as the cause of the patients' vomiting. The pathophysiology of vomiting and evaluation of these patients is discussed; recognizable patterns of vomiting in these patients are described.
On the worldwide engineering students' meager performance in thermodynamics

In engineering, thermodynamics is the science of energy. This includes traditional and alternative sources of energy and energy availability, conversion and transmission. Practical engineering issues such as the efficiency of thermodynamic processes and systems are also covered in engineering thermodynamics courses. As the world is becoming more aware of the impeding energy crisis, a rounded understanding of thermodynamics by the engineers of 2020 is vital for addressing this global issue. Despite the importance of the subject, past and current engineering students worldwide struggle with thermodynamics as indicated by the pertinent literature. Student's difficulties with thermodynamics have been reported in several European countries, the US, Australia and India. Indeed, understanding the root causes of problems with teaching/learning thermodynamics is a requisite first step toward any solution, e.g., a design of effective new instructional strategies, curricula and textbooks. This paper provides a conci...
Attitudes of healthcare professionals regarding different modalities used to manage acute postoperative pain

Abstract The education and perceptions of healthcare professionals regarding pain are important in acute postoperative pain management. A survey was designed to assess healthcare providers’ knowledge and beliefs regarding the use of epidural analgesia (EA) or patient controlled analgesia (PCA) for acute postoperative pain management. Completed questionnaires were obtained from 46 (72%) third and fourth year medical students (MS) prior to their lecture on pain management. Forty-seven percent of the MS felt that EA provided superior analgesia to PCA. Seventy percent of the MS believed that naloxone had a longer duration of action than morphine. Completed questionnaires were received from 38 (63%) anesthesiology house officers (HO) from all levels of clinical anesthesia (CA) training. Sixty-eight percent of the HO felt that EA provided superior analgesia to PCA. The HO correctly responded that the duration of naloxone was shorter than morphine. Completed questionnaires were received from 20 (59%) post anesthesia care unit (PACU) nurses (RN). Fifty percent of the RN reported that EA provided superior analgesia to PCA. Eighty percent of the RN responded correctly that naloxone had a shorter duration than morphine. Our data suggests that lack of knowledge and fear of side effects may negatively affect pain management [Acute Pain 4 (1) (2001) 17].
Intracellular Injection of Heparin and Polyamines Effects on Phototransduction in Limulus Ventral Photoreceptors

Heparin is thought to inhibit InsP3 binding to receptors involved in the intracellular release of Ca2+. Injection of heparin into Limulus ventral photoreceptors to high intracellular concentrations reduces the amplitude and slows the rate of rise of voltage-clamp currents induced by brief flashes, tends to make the responses to long flashes more "square," and tends to block the light-induced rise in [Ca2+]i detected by arsenazo III. In these ways, intracellular heparin mimics the effects of high concentrations of intracellular BAPTA or EGTA. In addition, the effects of heparin are attenuated by prior injection of BAPTA to high intracellular concentrations. Neomycin and spermine are thought to inhibit phospholipase C activity. Injections of spermine or neomycin to low intracellular concentrations largely mimic the effects of intracellular heparin. These findings suggest that the predominant effect of polyamines is to inhibit light-induced production of InsP3 by phospholipase C activity and thereby reduce the light-induced increase in [Ca2+]i. Our findings suggest that excitation can proceed in the absence of InsP3-induced increases in [Ca2+]i, but (a) the gain and speed of transduction are reduced and (b) adaptation is largely blocked.
Automated docking using a Lamarckian genetic algorithm and an empirical binding free energy function

A novel and robust automated docking method that predicts the bound conformations of flexible ligands to macromolecular targets has been developed and tested, in combination with a new scoring function that estimates the free energy change upon binding. Interestingly, this method applies a Lamarckian model of genetics, in which environmental adaptations of an individual's phenotype are reverse transcribed into its genotype and become . heritable traits sic . We consider three search methods, Monte Carlo simulated annealing, a traditional genetic algorithm, and the Lamarckian genetic algorithm, and compare their performance in dockings of seven protein)ligand test systems having known three-dimensional structure. We show that both the traditional and Lamarckian genetic algorithms can handle ligands with more degrees of freedom than the simulated annealing method used in earlier versions of AUTODOCK, and that the Lamarckian genetic algorithm is the most efficient, reliable, and successful of the three. The empirical free energy function was calibrated using a set of 30 structurally known protein)ligand complexes with experimentally determined binding constants. Linear regression analysis of the observed binding constants in terms of a wide variety of structure-derived molecular properties was performed. The final model had a residual standard y1 y1 .
Egocentric and nonegocentric coding in memory for spatial layout: Evidence from scene recognition

Much contemporary research has suggested that memories for spatial layout are stored with a preferred orientation. The present research examined whether spatial memories are also stored with a preferred viewpoint position. Participants viewed images of an arrangement of objects taken from a single viewpoint and subsequently were tested on their ability to recognize the arrangement from novel viewpoints that had been translated in either the lateral or the depth dimension. Lateral and forward displacements of the viewpoint resulted in increasing response latencies and errors. Backward displacement showed no such effect, nor did lateral translation that resulted in a centered “canonical” view of the arrangement. These results further constrain the specificity of spatial memory, while also providing some evidence that nonegocentric spatial information is coded in memory.
Consumer Racial Discrimination in Tipping: A Replication and Extension

This study examined the effects of server race, customer race, and their interaction on restaurant tips while statistically controlling for customers' perceptions of service quality and other variables. The findings indicate that consumers of both races discriminated against Black service providers by tipping them less than White service providers. Furthermore, this server race effect on tipping was moderated by perceived service quality and dining party size. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. Particularly noteworthy is the possibility that the server race effect on tipping represents an adverse impact against Black servers that makes the use of tipping to compensate employees a violation of employment discrimination law in the United States.
A four kinetic state model of fast axonal transport: Model formulation and perturbation solution

This paper formulates a four kinetic state model for fast axonal transport. The paper further develops the Smith-Simmons model that is based on equations governing intracellular molecular-motor-assisted transport; these equations are extended by considering four rather than three kinetic states for organelles. The model considers plus-end and minus-end-oriented organelles that can be either free (suspended in the cytosol) or attached to microtubules (MTs) (in the latter case organelles are transported by molecular motors). The paper then develops a method for uncoupling differential equations of the proposed model. A perturbation solution of this problem is obtained. The effect of transition between plus-end-oriented and minus-end oriented organelles is discussed. The accuracy of the obtained perturbation solution is evaluated by comparing the zero-order and the first-order results with a high-accuracy numerical solution.
Resistive-pulse detection of short dsDNAs using a chemically functionalized conical nanopore sensor

Aims: To develop nanopore resistive-pulse sensors for the detection of short (50 base-pair [bp] and 100 bp) DNAs. Materials & methods: Conically shaped nanopores were chemical etched into polyethylene terphthalate membranes. The as-etched membrane had anionic carboxylate sites on the pore walls. Neutral and hydrophilic ethanolamine functional groups were attached to these carboxylate sites using well-established EDC (1-ethyl-3-[3-dimethylaminopropyl] carbodiimide hydrochloride) chemistry. Results & discussion: The ethanolamine-functionalized pores were used to detect 50 and 100 bp DNAs via the resistive-pulse method. The resistive-pulse signature produced by the 50 bp DNA could be distinguished from that of the 100 bp DNA with these sensors. Conclusions: Attachment of ethanolamine to the carboxylate groups on the pore wall lowered the anionic charge density on the wall. This mitigated the problem of electrostatic rejection of the anionic DNAs from the pore and enabled the detection of these DNA analytes.
Refractory Peristomal Pyoderma Gangrenosum Successfully Treated With Intravenous Immunoglobulin: A Case Report

Refractory Peristomal Pyoderma Gangrenosum Successfully Treated With Intravenous Immunoglobulin: A Case Report
Diagnostic evaluation of the violent child and adolescent.

The diagnostic evaluation of the violent child and adolescent is a collaborative exercise, requiring diverse expertise. Most often the clinician will be faced with a variety of different kinds of psychiatric, neurologic, cognitive, and environmental vulnerabilities that have come together and created a violent child or adolescent. The identification of vulnerabilities leads to specific interventions and ultimately to the prevention of future violence.
AJKD Atlas of Renal Pathology: Arterionephrosclerosis.

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) associated with hypertension disproportionately affects African Americans, and occurs at younger age (as young as 20s) and with faster progression than in whites. Men are affected more than women. Patients develop progressive proteinuria that is related to the severity of hypertension, and may even have nephrotic range proteinuria. Hypertension-associated CKD accounts for approximately 25% of patients reaching end-stage kidney disease. Intensive therapy with antihypertensive drugs, including renin-angiotensin blockade, slows progression. Malignant hypertension can present with additional findings including congestive heart failure, acute kidney injury, and microangiopathic hemolytic anemia. Light microscopy: Hypertension-associated kidney disease is characterized by arterionephrosclerosis, with medial thickening, intimal fibrosis, and tortuosity of mediumand large-sized arteries. There is medial thickening and hyalinosis of arterioles, frequently associated with global glomerulosclerosis and often seen in a solidified pattern. Secondary segmental sclerosis can occur, particularly in a perihilar location. There is proportional tubulointerstitial fibrosis. With accelerated hypertension-associated injury, there is mucoid change of the arteries. Endothelial swelling and red blood cell fragments may be present in the arterial wall, and medial hypertrophy of small interlobular arteries in a concentric pattern with luminal stricture, the so called “onion skinning,” may be seen. In malignant hypertension, fibrinoid necrosis of the wall of arterioles and/or interlobular arteries often occurs with red blood cell fragments and fibrin within the lumen. Glomerular involvement with fibrin thrombi is uncommon.
External K+ ions increase rate of opening of outward current channels in snail neurons.

Outward currents in isolated, internally-perfused snail neurons were slowed and reduced in amplitude by replacement of external K with Na, Cs, or tris. This behavior is not predicted by electrodiffusion theory, but can be described by a second-order kinetic model. The effect of potassium replacement is to reduce the rate constant for channel opening by aout 25% without affecting the rate constant for channel closing. The open channels may be stabilized by external potassium ions, thus increasing the mean channel open time.
Analysis of quality monitoring data from secondary water supply in Quanzhou city from 2009 to 2011

Objective:To understand the status of water quality from secondary water supply in Quanzhou city,to provide scientific data for carrying out effective health supervision in future.Methods: The test results of secondary water supply from 2009 to 2011 were analyzed and evaluated according to "Hygienic standard for drinking water"(GB 5749-2006).Results: Of the 361 water samples tested from 2009 to 2011,248 of them were up to the standard,accounting for 68.7%.The qualified rate was 64.0% in 2009,69.2% in 2010 and 71.4% in 2011,respectively.It was upswing year by year.Conclusion: The qualified rate of secondary water supply was low in Quanzhou City from 2009 to 2011,health supervision must be strengthened,in order to improve the quality of secondary supply water and guarantee the safety of drinking water.
Circuit design of CompactPCI bus switch module

For its strong compatibility and comprehensive function,CompactPCI bus has been accepted and widely used in the industrial automation and automation testing industry,but the imported CompactPCI bus switch module is very expensive,and its running and maintenance cost are expensive too.So it is important to design domestic CompactPCI bus switch module.One of such module has been designed using PCI9054 as bus bridge chip,FPGA and the large current Darlington transistor as decoding driver for the switch array.The developed module can be widely applied to the field of automation testing,and the generality and extendibility of its interface and driving circuits are very well so that they can be used as the basic circuit blocks of other CompactPCI bus modules.
Low-Power Manycore Accelerator for Personalized Biomedical Applications

Wearable personal health monitoring systems can offer a cost effective solution for human healthcare. These systems must provide both highly accurate, secured and quick processing and delivery of vast amount of data. In addition, wearable biomedical devices are used in inpatient, outpatient, and at home e-Patient care that must constantly monitor the patient's biomedical and physiological signals 24/7. These biomedical applications require sampling and processing multiple streams of physiological signals with strict power and area footprint. The processing typically consists of feature extraction, data fusion, and classification stages that require a large number of digital signal processing and machine learning kernels. In response to these requirements, in this paper, a low-power, domain-specific many-core accelerator named Power Efficient Nano Clusters (PENC) is proposed to map and execute the kernels of these applications. Experimental results show that the manycore is able to reduce energy consumption by up to 80% and 14% for DSP and machine learning kernels, respectively, when optimally parallelized. The performance of the proposed PENC manycore when acting as a coprocessor to an Intel Atom processor is compared with existing commercial off-the-shelf embedded processing platforms including Intel Atom, Xilinx Artix-7 FPGA, and NVIDIA TK1 ARM-A15 with GPU SoC. The results show that the PENC manycore architecture reduces the energy by as much as 10X while outperforming all off-the-shelf embedded processing platforms across all studied machine learning classifiers.
Inhibition of azoreductase by oxygen. The role of the azo anion free radical metabolite in the reduction of oxygen to superoxide.

Microsomal azo reduction of the diazonaphthol dye sulfonazo III is strongly inhibited by oxygen. The sulfonazo III anion radical metabolite, which is apparently the first intermediate of azoreductase activity, appears to react with oxygen in aerobic microsomal incubations. Even though the sulfonazo III is unchanged in aerobic NADPH-supplemented microsomal incubations, oxygen consumption increases 10-fold to 122 nmoles/min/mg of protein. This stimulated oxygen consumption is partially reversed by either superoxide dismutase or catalase. Concomitant with the increase in oxygen uptake is a 9-fold increase in the rate of superoxide formation. The oxidation of NADPH is also greatly increased by sulfonazo III, but is not influenced by superoxide dismutase or catalase. These results suggest that futile formation of the sulfonazo III anion free radical mediates oxygen reduction to O2- and NADPH oxidation, and that NADPH is not being oxidized by a superoxide-NADPH chain reaction.
Eliminating Intra-Warp Load Imbalance in Irregular Nested Patterns via Collaborative Task Engagement

Nested patterns are one of the most frequently occurring algorithmic themes in GPU applications where coarse-grained tasks are constituted from a number of fine-grained ones. However, efficient execution of irregular nested patterns, with coarse-grained tasks that substantially vary in size, has remained an open problem for the GPU's SIMT architecture. Existing methods rely on static task decomposition where one or a fixed number of threads inside the SIMD grouping (warp) carry out the fine-grained tasks. These approaches fail to provide portable performance across diversity of irregular inputs. Moreover, due to intra-warp load imbalance, they incur warp underutilization. In this paper, we introduce a novel software technique called Collaborative Task Engagement (CTE) that, unlike previous methods, achieves sustained high warp execution efficiencies across irregular inputs and provides portable performance. CTE assigns a group of coarse-grained tasks to the warp and allows threads inside the warp carry out the expanded list of fine-grained tasks collaboratively. In multiple rounds, all the warp threads perform mapping portion of fine-grained tasks and participate in a reduction phase with appropriate lanes to reduce calculated values. This scheme avoids over-subscription or under-subscription of threads while preserving the benefits of parallel reduction. We prepared a CUDA C++ device-side template library for developers to easily express nested patterns in GPU kernels using our technique. Our experiments show that CTE delivers up to 37% warp execution efficiency improvement and gives up to 1.51x speedup over sub-warp decomposition with the best sub-warp width.
Classification of retinal vessels into arteries and veins for detection of hypertensive retinopathy

The damage to the retina of the eye caused by high blood pressure is known as hypertensive retinopathy (HR). The advancement in automatic retinal image analysis has made it possible to detect & diagnose this disease at an early stage. To indicate the presence and severity of Hypertensive Retinopathy, Arterio-Venous ratio (AVR) is an important measurement. For the calculation of AVR (the ratio of retinal arterioles to venuoles), classification of vessels into arteries and veins is an essential step. This paper proposes a novel technique for classifying the vessels into arteries and veins. The proposed system uses binary vessel mask and optic disc (OD) center localization to extract Region of Interest (ROI) around OD. Feature extraction modules extract a number of intensity based features followed by classification which classifies vessels as arteries and veins. The features are extracted by focusing on the visual difference between the arteries and veins in different color spaces. The proposed system is tested on a locally gather fundus image dataset. An accuracy of 81.3% is achieved.
Effect of variations in atelectasis on tumor displacement during radiation therapy for locally advanced lung cancer

Abstract Purpose Atelectasis (AT), or collapsed lung, is frequently associated with central lung tumors. We investigated the variation of atelectasis volumes during radiation therapy and analyzed the effect of AT volume changes on the reproducibility of the primary tumor (PT) position. Methods and materials Twelve patients with lung cancer who had AT and 10 patients without AT underwent repeated 4-dimensional fan beam computed tomography (CT) scans during radiation therapy per protocols that were approved by the institutional review board. Interfraction volume changes of AT and PT were correlated with PT displacements relative to bony anatomy using both a bounding box (BB) method and change in center of mass (COM). Linear regression modeling was used to determine whether PT and AT volume changes were independently associated with PT displacement. PT displacement was compared between patients with and without AT. Results The mean initial AT volume on the planning CT was 189 cm 3 (37-513 cm 3 ), and the mean PT volume was 93 cm 3 (12-176 cm 3 ). During radiation therapy, AT and PT volumes decreased on average 136.7 cm 3 (20-369 cm 3 ) for AT and 40 cm 3 (−7 to 131 cm 3 ) for PT. Eighty-three percent of patients with AT had at least one unidirectional PT shift that was greater than 0.5 cm outside of the initial BB during treatment. In patients with AT, the maximum PT COM shift was ≥0.5 cm in all patients and >1 cm in 58% of patients (0.5-2.4 cm). Changes in PT and AT volumes were independently associated with PT displacement ( P 2 = 0.58) compared with the BB method (R 2 = 0.80). The median root mean squared PT displacement with the BB method was significantly less for patients without AT (0.45 cm) compared with those with AT (0.8cm, P = .002). Conclusions Changes in AT and PT volumes during radiation treatment were significantly associated with PT displacements that often exceeded standard setup margins. Repeated 3-dimensional imaging is recommended in patients with AT to evaluate for PT displacements during treatment.
Nurses’ Ability to Detect Problems of Hospital-Acquired Infections the Effects of Risk Factors, Expertise, and Time Pressure:

Nurses must manage a variety of problems in order to maintain performance. The first step in managing these problems is detecting that there is in fact a problem. The current study aimed to investigate how nurses detect the problem of a patient developing a hospital-acquired infection (HAI). Specifically, the experiment examined the effects of varying the number of risk factors, nurse experience, and the presence or absence of time pressure. General findings and implications are discussed.
Finger Fractures and Dislocations

Various common injuries in the wrist and hand are investigated in this chapter. Significant attention is paid not only to proper diagnostic examination and imaging, but also to optimal nonoperative and operative treatment options to manage these conditions.
The ability to choose can increase satiation

The ability to choose should let people create more enjoyable experiences. However, in a set of 5 studies, people who chose repeatedly during ongoing consumption exhibited a greater drop in enjoyment compared with those who received a series of random selections from the same set of liked stimuli. Process evidence indicated that choosing increased satiation because it triggered overall reflections on the repetitive nature of the ongoing consumption experience. Moderating evidence also supported our theoretical account as differences in satiation disappeared when nonchoosers were explicitly cued to think about repetition in the general sense, or when choosers made all of their choices before the onset of repeated consumption. Additional measures and analyses further established that choice set size, the difficulty of choosing, and other alternative accounts could not fully explain the pattern of effects. The paper closes with a discussion of the implications of these findings for understanding the causes of satiation, the consequences of choosing, and improving individuals’ experiences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)
Numbers and Cardinalities: What’s Really Wrong with the Easy Argument for Numbers?

This paper investigates a certain puzzling argument concerning number expressions and their meanings, the Easy Argument for Numbers. After finding faults with previous views, I offer a new take on what’s ultimately wrong with the Argument: it equivocates. I develop a semantics for number expressions which relates various of their uses, including those relevant to the Easy Argument, via type-shifting. By marrying Romero ’s (Linguist Philos 28(6):687–737, 2005) analysis of specificational clauses with Scontras ’ (The semantics of measurement, 2014) semantics for Degree Nouns, I show how to extend Landman ’s (Indefinites and the type of sets, Blackwell, Oxford, 2004) Adjectival Theory to numerical specificational clauses. The resulting semantics can explain various contrasts observed by Moltmann (Philos Stud 162:499–536, 2013a), but only if Scontras’ contention that degrees and numbers are sortally distinct is correct. At the same time, the Easy Argument can establish its intended conclusion only if numbers and degrees are mistakenly assumed to be identical.
Exploiting the conformational-selection mechanism to control the response kinetics of a “smart” DNA hydrogel

The sequence-specific hybridization and molecular recognition properties of DNA support the construction of stimulus-responsive hydrogels with precisely controlled crosslink geometry. Here we show that, as predicted by the conformational selection mechanism, the response kinetics of such a hydrogel can be tuned over orders of magnitude by modulating the thermodynamic stability of its crosslinks.
The Orientation of Future Cinema: Technology, Aesthetics, Spectacle

Book Review: Bruce Isaacs, The Orientation of Future Cinema: Technology, Aesthetics, Spectacle. Bloomsbury, 2014. 320 pp. ISBN 9781628924312 (paperback)
Fundamentals of Structural Analysis of Glycosphingolipids by Proton Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy

To determine the primary structure of the carbohydrate portion of a glycosphingolipid, it is necessary to establish the composition and configuration of its sugar residues, and the sequence and linkage sites of the oligosaccharide chain. This information has traditionally been obtained by application of a combination of such procedures as compositional analysis by gas-liquid chromatography, mass spectrometry, permethylation studies, Smith degradation, partial acid or enzyme hydrolysis, optical rotation measurements, etc. However, these techniques are time-consuming, require elaborate derivatization of the substance, and access to many different instruments. Furthermore, these procedures do not afford secondary structural information (solution conformation) which is important in understanding the biological properties of these compounds. Proton nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, on the other hand, is well-suited for providing the primary and secondary structure of glycosphingolipids because this method is rapid, quantitative, sensitive and nondestructive. However, previous utilization of proton NMR has yielded only incomplete data concerning the primary structure of these substances.
Writing an excuse or educating the patient.

Patients who have been encouraged to think of themselves as consumers and a medical system that is driven by individual demands rather than big-picture planning can undermine fairness in the distribution of vaccines.
Comparative analysis of emergency department patients lost to follow-up after computerized alcohol screening and brief intervention

Author(s): Hosseini Farahabadi, M; Chakravarthy, B; Hoonpongsimanont, W; Vaca, FE; McCoy, CE; Anderson, CL; Imani, G; Wong, P; Lotfipour, S | Abstract: Many studies have evaluated the effectiveness of alcohol screening and brief intervention (SBI) but most of them have reported substantial loss to follow-up without investigating the characteristics of those lost to follow-up. We examined the association between Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) scores, readiness-to-change scores and the demographic factors with lost to follow-up. This retrospective study compared demographic characteristics, AUDIT and readiness-to-change scores for 190 lost to follow-up patients to 221 completed follow-up patients who participated in SBI in the Emergency Department between June 2006 and May 2007. Comparing the association between baseline characteristics and completed follow-up rate, those 30–39, 40–49 and 50 years and older had 0.46 (95% CI 0.32–0.91), 0.49 (95% CI 0.29–0.90) and 0.58 (95%CI 0.22–0.79) lower odds of completing follow-up, respectively, in comparison to those 18–29 years of age. The loss to follow-up group reported more negative consequences of alcohol and binge drinking than the completed follow-up group (p = 0.04). Using logistic regression, patients who experienced more negative effects of alcohol had 0.87 lower odds of completing follow-up (95% CI 0.79–0.96). The patients lost to follow-up in this study were significantly different in age and alcohol drinking habits compared to those completed follow-ups. It is important to consider differential loss to follow-up in assessing the validity and generalizability of intervention studies. This could help in tailoring methods of approaching patients based on target population characteristics.
The High-Order Maximum Principle: From Approximations of Reachable Sets to High-Order Necessary Conditions for Optimality

In this chapter, we prove the Pontryagin maximum principle. The proof we present follows arguments by Hector Sussmann [244, 247, 248], but in a smooth setting. It is somewhat technical, but provides a uniform treatment of first- and high-order variations. As a result, we not only prove Theorem 2.2.1, but obtain a general high-order version of the maximum principle (e.g., see [140]) from which we then derive the high-order necessary conditions for optimality that were introduced in Sect. 2.8.
Care Seeking Patterns for Women Requiring a Repeat Pelvic Organ Prolapse Surgery Due to Native Tissue Repair Failure Compared to a Mesh Complication.

OBJECTIVE To explore patient migration patterns in patients requiring repeat surgery after Pelvic Organ Prolapse (POP) repair as there is a limited understanding of care seeking patterns for repeat surgery after POP repair. We hypothesized that undergoing repeat surgery for a prolapse mesh complication would be associated with an increased incidence of migration to a new facility for care compared to those undergoing repeat surgery for recurrent POP. METHODS In this retrospective population based study, all females who underwent an index POP repair procedure (with or without mesh) at nonfederal facilities who subsequently underwent a repeat surgery (recurrent prolapse repair or mesh complication) were identified from the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development for the state of California (2005-2011). The location of index repair and repeat surgery were identified and factors associated with migration were explored. RESULTS Of the 3,930 women who underwent repeat surgery for either POP recurrence or a mesh complication, 1,331 (33.9%) had surgery at a new facility. Multivariate analysis revealed that mesh complications (odds ratio [OR] 1.28, P = 0.004) or native tissue same compartment recurrence (OR 1.19, P = 0.02) were both associated with increased odds of undergoing surgery at a new facility. Having surgery in a county with multiple centers increased the odds of migration to a new facility for care (OR = 1.33, P < 0.001), unless the initial repair was at a high volume institution (OR = 0.32, P < 0.001). Overall across indications, women changing locations for their second surgery tended to migrate toward select centers in urban areas. CONCLUSION Women who undergo repeat surgery after POP repair have similar patterns of migration to a new facility irrespective of the indication for surgery.
Salinity Effects on Germination of Artemisia herba–alba Asso: Important Pastoral Shrub from North African Rangelands

Abstract Artemisia herba–alba Asso (known in Arabic as Shih) is an evergreen aromatic shrub endemic in North African rangelands with high pastoral and medicinal relevance. The present work was designed to determine the effect of four soluble salts (NaCl, Na2SO4, MgCl2, and CaCl2) on germination of A. herba–alba seeds. Four concentrations (0, 50, 10, and 150 mM) of each salt were used to test the influence of salinities on germination percentage (GP), rate of germination (RG), and germination tolerance index (GTI %). The experiment was conducted in a controlled incubator with a 12h–photoperiod under 15°C dark/25°C light. The results showed that both GP and (RG) decreased significantly with salinity, and the highest GP was observed in the distilled water control (~ 80%). The germination tolerance index (GTI %) revealed that A. herba–alba seeds were more tolerant to CaCl2 than other soluble salts. Comparatively, at high salt concentrations, MgCl2 and Na2SO4 were generally the most toxic salts followed by NaCl and CaCl2. The germination of A. herba–alba over a wide range of soluble salts suggests that this species can establish in salt-degraded soils. Therefore, this species appears a promising candidate for the rehabilitation of rangeland with saline soils.
In vitro test systems to determine tetracycline residue binding to human feces

Abstract The use of antimicrobials, such as tetracycline, in food-producing animals may result in antimicrobial drug residues (ADR) in edible tissues from treated animals and contribute to the emergence of antibiotic resistant bacteria. The Veterinary International Conference on Harmonization (VICH) document (VICH GL36(R)/FDA-CVM Guidance for Industry#159) provides guidance on evaluating the safety of veterinary ADR in the human foods as related to effects on the human intestinal microbiome. One recognized research gap is a need for additional data and testing requirements to determine the fraction of an oral dose of ADR available to intestinal microorganisms. In the present study, we address this need by examining the binding of tetracycline to human feces using chemical and microbiological assays. High-performance liquid chromatography and liquid chromatography mass spectrometry assays showed that 25% (w/v) diluted steam sterilized feces dosed with 0.15 and 1.5 μg/ml tetracycline had binding of 58.2 ± 10.8% and 56.9 ± 9.1%, respectively. Tetracycline binding to fecal slurries gave similar results. Microbiological assays with two reference bacterial strains validated the results of the chemical assays. Based on data from chemical and microbiological assays methods, the fraction of dose available to microorganisms was 0.418 and 0.431 of the 0.15 and 1.5 μg/ml tetracycline treatments, respectively. This study also proposes factors to be considered when designing and conducting experiments to determine the percent of an antimicrobial agents that is available to microorganisms in the gastrointestinal tract.
Perceptions of Barriers Towards Active Surveillance for Low-Risk Prostate Cancer: Results From a National Survey of Radiation Oncologists and Urologists

The reasons for low clinical adoption of active surveillance (AS) for low-risk prostate cancer (PCa) remain poorly understood. Thus, we conducted a national survey of radiation oncologists (ROs) and urologists (UROs) to elucidate perceived barriers to AS for low-risk PCa. In 2017, we undertook a four-wave mail survey of 1855 ROs and UROs. The survey instrument assessed attitudes about possible barriers towards AS for low-risk PCa. We used Pearson Chi square and multivariable logistic regression analyses to identify physician characteristics associated with attitudes about AS. We received 691 completed surveys for an overall response rate of 37.3%. A majority of respondents indicated that they felt comfortable recommending AS (90.0%), agreed that high-level evidence supports it (82.3%), and considered AS equally effective for survival compared with surgery and radiation therapy (84.4%). UROs were less likely to agree that patients were not interested in AS for low-risk PCa compared with ROs (16.5 vs. 48.9%; adjusted odds ratio [OR] 0.18, p < 0.001). Similarly, UROs were less likely to concur patients avoid AS because of repeat prostate biopsies than ROs (36.3 vs. 55.4%; adjusted OR 0.41, p < 0.001). ROs and UROs were more likely to agree that patients preferred treatments delivered by the respondent’s specialty. Physician perceptions of patient lack of interest in AS, need for repeat prostate biopsies, and biases of patient treatment preferences in favor of their own specialty treatments represent key barriers to AS. Shared decision making may be a meaningful approach to engaging patients in conversations about treatment decisions.
Live Demonstration: Sensor Automation Platform and Multi-sensor Badge for the Sensory Impaired

For this demonstration, we present a sensor automation software platform, dubbed eGor [1], interfacing with a custom wearable multi-sensor “badge” designed to augment the awareness of humans with sensory impairment. To test and operate the multi-sensor badge, the eGor platform is a digital laboratory assistant that enable users to remotely automate instruments with precise timing control and automatically collect results datasets as a digital object. The eGor platform is a collection of user-friendly browser-based tools that achieve individual functions. The Designer tool, for instance, manages a digital inventory of instruments and digitally creates measurement and test procedures. The Executer tool provides scheduled or real-time data acquisition, enabling developers to inspect multiple sensors at once and automatically generate digital objects tagged with meta-data. Finally, eGor provides an Analyzer tool that allows the user to search and curate digital objects and view or process the datasets within. In this demonstration, the eGor tools will be used to constantly observe datasets collected by the wearable multi-sensor badge and inform the user through a haptic feedback mechanism. The eGor platform serves both as a sensor characterization tool and, in this demonstration, as an element of an assistive device. The demonstrated system will provide users with a “sixth sense”, augmenting their awareness with a machine-generated understanding of their surrounding environment that may not be available to some sensory impaired humans.