cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Single-Neuron Gene Expression Analysis Using the Maxwell 16 LEV System in the Neural Systems and Behavior Course

Gene expression analysis from single cells has become increasingly prominent across biological disciplines; thus, it is important to train students in these approaches. Here, we present an experimental and analysis pipeline that we developed for the Neural Systems & Behavior (NS&B) course at Marine Biological Laboratory. Our approach used the Maxwell® 16 LEV simplyRNA Tissue Kit and GoTaq® 2-Step RT-qPCR System for gene expression analysis from single neurons of the crustacean stomatogastric ganglion, a model system to study the generation of rhythmic motor patterns. We used double-stranded RNA to knockdown expression of a putative neuromodulator-activated sodium channel. We then examined the electrophysiological responses to known neuromodulators and confirmed that the response was reduced. Finally, we measured how mRNA levels of several ion channel genes changed in response. Our results provide new insights into the neural mechanisms underlying the generation and modulation of rhythmic motor patterns.
George Herbert Mead: Symbolic Interaction and Social Change

By showing how the subject, the self, emerges out of a social process and why it is essentially a phase of that process, Mead evades phenomenalism, extreme behaviorism, reductionism, dualism, solipsism, and supernaturalism. He assumes that the social act is the unit of existence and that every such act, which takes place in a present, has both past and future in it, both efficient and final causes. Every self has, of necessity, a social component, the generalized other, which serves both as stabilizer and foundation for new proposals for modifying social action. Mead is a process philosopher, an organicist, interbehavioralist, clarifying the nature and function of symbolic interaction.
Abstract LB-214: The immunosuppressive roles of ovarian stromal tumor microenvironment

Ovarian cancer is the most lethal gynecologic malignancy in the US. Our group and others has shown that CD8+ lymphocyte infiltration in the ovarian tumor epithelium is associated with prolonged survival in patients with high-grade serous ovarian cancer. Despite the increasing evidence on stromal involvement in tumor progression, the interactions between stromal fibroblasts and cancer cells, as well as the underlying genetic composition of the stromal cells that could regulate the infiltration and activation of CD8+ cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) and affect patient survival is not fully understood. The present study seeks to evaluate the roles and to delineate the underlying mechanisms by which stromal cancer associated fibroblasts (CAFs) modulates immune response in ovarian cancer, particularly immune suppression by CAF-derived protein factors. By laser microdissection and transcriptome profiling of tumor tissue samples from ovarian cancer patients, we identified CAF-specific gene signatures for ovarian cancer that are associated with the survival duration of patients and with the differential tumor immune response. Among the differentially expressed genes identified, validation study by qPCR and immunohistochemistry indicated that stromal MFAP5 expression is significantly higher in patients with short survival duration and in patients with lower intratumoral CD8+ T cell density. Survival analysis result suggested that high stromal MFAP5 expression indicates poor disease prognosis (Hazard ratio=2.722, P Delineating the molecular mechanism by which MFAP5 modulates the progression and immune responses of ovarian cancer will shed light on the design of novel treatment modalities based on the blockade of tumor stroma-derived factors, which could promote activation and trafficking of cytotoxic CD8+ T cells and improve patient survival rates. Citation Format: Tsz-Lun Yeung, Cecilia S. Leung, Kwong-Kwok Wong, Michael J. Birrer, Stephen T. Wong, Karen H. Lu, Samuel C. Mok. The immunosuppressive roles of ovarian stromal tumor microenvironment [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2017; 2017 Apr 1-5; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2017;77(13 Suppl):Abstract nr LB-214. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2017-LB-214
Examining the Role of Trust in Peer-Assisted Learning

Peer-assisted learning is increasingly an element of academia and applied settings. Through member interaction, individuals in teams or groups may experience a litany of positive outcomes, including increased engagement, increased retention of information, and a more comprehensive understanding of a topic. However, the mechanisms behind these outcomes are not well understood. Our intent for this study is to examine individual learning outcomes in a controlled environment in order to identify sources of variation in performance. We hypothesize that trust development between individuals will be positively correlated with individual performance on a learning task. In order to test this hypothesis, we use a paired-associates learning task in a controlled environment. Our study results indicate that an interactive lecture condition produces higher accuracy than a peer-assisted learning condition. Possible explanations and ramifications of these pilot findings are explored in the discussion
Prospective evaluation of outcome of dogs with intrahepatic portosystemic shunts treated via percutaneous transvenous coil embolization.

Objective To report outcome and complications after percutaneous transvenous coil embolization (PTCE) and evaluate the clinical, laboratory, and imaging changes in dogs with intrahepatic portosystemic shunts (IHPSS) pre-PTCE and post-PTCE. Study design Prospective clinical trial. Animals Twenty-five dogs (15 dogs in imaging subgroup) with IHPSS. Methods Clinical signs, hematologic, and biochemical parameters were recorded before and 3 months after PTCE. All dogs received the same medical treatment and underwent PTCE. In the imaging subgroup, ultrasonography, hepatic portal scintigraphy, and computed tomography-angiography were performed pre-PTCE and post-PTCE. Results All evaluated bloodwork values improved by at least 50% of their initial value, by 3 months post-PTCE. Liver volume increased after PTCE (P = .001), but remained lower than normal in 11/15 dogs. Hepatic arterial fraction decreased after PTCE (P = .029), consistent with increased portal blood flow to the liver. Twenty-four of 25 dogs were available for reevaluation at 3 months, and all abnormal clinical signs had resolved in 22/24 dogs. Conclusion PTCE appears promising as a treatment for IHPSS, as clinical signs resolved in most cases, bloodwork abnormalities often normalized, and the procedure was performed safely with minimal complications. PTCE increased hepatic portal perfusion and liver volume in most dogs. These promising results justify a future randomized clinical trial comparing PTCE, other attenuation options, and medical management alone.
Sepsis in Older Adults.

Sepsis disproportionally affects older adults with more than 60% of sepsis diagnoses attributed to adults aged 65 years and older. Identifying, diagnosing, and treating sepsis in older individuals remain a challenge for clinicians, and few studies focus specifically on older adults with multiple medical comorbidities. Principles guiding management of sepsis for older adults are generally the same as in younger adults; however, unique considerations particularly pertinent to the care older adults include antimicrobial selection and dosing, delirium management, and goals of care discussions. Other factors, such as medical comorbidities, cognitive impairment, and functional status, impact outcomes more than age alone.
A Multivariate Analytic Approach to the Differential Diagnosis of Apraxia of Speech.

Purpose Apraxia of speech (AOS) is a consequence of stroke that frequently co-occurs with aphasia. Its study is limited by difficulties with its perceptual evaluation and dissociation from co-occur...
Purification of NAD(P)H:quinone oxidoreductase 1 (NQO1) protein complexes using protein, immuno and tandem affinity purification techniques and identification of interacting proteins by MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry

3176 NAD(P)H:quinone oxidoreductase 1 (NQO1) is a cytoplasmic homodimeric flavoprotein, that has been reported to interact with p73α and p53, and another study identified an interaction between NQO1 and tubulin in Xenopus egg extract. However, a systematic study investigating NQO1 interacting proteins in mammalian cells has not been performed. In this study, NQO1 protein-protein interactions were examined using one- and two-step affinity purification methods. The one-step affinity purification approaches included: protein affinity purification, using the recombinant human NQO1 protein bound to an agarose solid support, as bait, to probe the human colon carcinoma BE, breast carcinoma MDA468 and pancreatic PANC-1 cancer cell lines and immuno affinity purification using the A180 monoclonal antibody attached to an agarose solid support to probe the complementary BE/NQ7, MDA468/NQ16 and PANC-1/C5 stably transfected NQO1 cell lines. The tandem affinity purification (TAP) technique has been used previously to successfully recover interacting proteins in mammalian cells. In this approach, NQO1 was expressed in the PANC-1 cell line, fused to two tandem affinity tags: a streptavidin and a calmodulin binding peptide. The consecutive purification steps of the TAP protocol utilized both affinity tags and yielded the tagged protein, NQO1, and its potential interacting proteins. The purified NQO1 protein-protein complexes from all affinity purification experiments were separated by SDS-PAGE electrophoresis. The proteins were characterized by in-gel digestion with trypsin, followed by MALDI-TOF mass spectrometric analysis, which identified a number of cytoskeletal proteins, including vimentin, tubulin and actin, which may interact with NQO1 directly or through a protein complex. The identification of the interaction of NQO1 with these cytoskeletal proteins reaffirms a potential role for NQO1 in regulating microtubule stability. (Supported by National Institute of Health grant R01 CA114441 and R01 CA51210).
Treatment Effects of Delta-9-THC in an Advanced Cancer Population

Descriptions of the typical subjective effects of marihuana usage abound in both popular and professional publications. For the most part, these studies utilize sociological and anecdotal approaches (Weil, Zinberg and Nelson, 1968). However, reports of systematic and objective research efforts dealing with the effects of ingestion of marihuana or its active ingredient, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), on broad psychological cognitive and physiological processes are almost nonexistent. This lack of relevant research is attributable to a combination of legal, ethical, social, and methodological problems.
Prognostic factors with high-dose melphalan for refractory multiple myeloma [see comments]

High doses of melphalan (HDM) and dexamethasone were administered to 43 patients with advanced multiple myeloma, 36 of whom were refractory to both standard melphalan-prednisone and vincristine-adriamycin- dexamethasone (VAD). Forty-four percent responded with greater than 75% reduction in calculated tumor mass, including three patients who achieved a complete remission. The response rate to HDM was 56% in 18 relapsing patients and 50% in 12 patients with less than 12 months of primary drug resistance, but it was only 23% among the remaining 13 unresponsive patients. A high early mortality rate of 30% was confined to 26 patients with either poor performance (Zubrod greater than 1) or impaired renal function (creatinine greater than 1.4 mg%). When this toxic treatment was given to the 21 patients with good performance (Zubrod less than 2) whose disease lacked high serum lactic dehydrogenase (less than or equal to 500 U/L) as a recently recognized feature of high-grade myeloma, a superior median survival of 18 months was obtained as opposed to only 3 months for the 22 remaining patients (P less than .001). Thus, when employed in a timely fashion, HDM overcomes resistance to standard chemotherapy and VAD and benefits selected patients with advanced myeloma.
Control of Legionella in Plumbing Systems

Legionellae are bacteria that have been identified as the cause of legionellosis. Based on a rate of about 1.2 cases of legionellosis/10,000 persons/yr (Foy et al. 1979), more than 25,000 cases of this disease are estimated to occur annually within the U.S. These cases are caused primarily by one of 23 currently recognized species of the genus Legionella. Most cases of legionnaires’ disease, the pneumonia form of legionellosis, have developed in persons who were immunosuppressed or appeared to be more susceptible because of an underlying illness, heavy smoking, alcoholism, or age (i.e., more than 50 years old). In contrast, although legionnaires’ disease has developed in some healthy persons, outbreaks involving healthy persons have been limited to the milder, nonpneumonia form of the disease called Pontiac fever.
Acquired Urethrovaginal Fistula and Urethral Atresia in a Patient with a Sacrococcygeal Teratoma.

Abstract Acquired urethrovaginal fistulae and urethral atresia are rare findings in pediatric patients, but have been described in adult patients related to trauma or iatrogenic injury. Little exists in the published literature to guide management of such conditions in children, but lessons learned from congenital causes can help. Herein we discuss the preoperative evaluation and management of a child with an acquired urethrovaginal fistula and urethral atresia likely related to in utero compression from an intrapelvic sacrococcygeal teratoma and provide several images detailing the complex anatomy.
Anomalous Dense Liquid Condensates Host the Nucleation of Tumor Suppressor p53 Fibrils.

Summary About half of human cancers are associated with mutations of the tumor suppressor p53. Gained oncogenic functions of the mutants have been related to aggregation behaviors of wild-type and mutant p53. The thermodynamic and kinetic mechanisms of p53 aggregation are poorly understood. Here we find that wild-type p53 forms an anomalous liquid phase. The liquid condensates exhibit several behaviors beyond the scope of classical phase transition theories: their size, ca. 100 nm, is independent of the p53 concentration and decoupled from the protein mass held in the liquid phase. Furthermore, the liquid phase lacks constant solubility. The nucleation of p53 fibrils deviates from the accepted mechanism of sequential association of single solute molecules. We find that the liquid condensates serve as pre-assembled precursors of high p53 concentration that facilitate fibril assembly. Fibril nucleation hosted by precursors represents a novel biological pathway, which opens avenues to suppress protein fibrillation in aggregation diseases.
DiAd: Domain Adaptation for Learning at Scale

Massive online courses occupy an important place in the educational landscape of today. We study an approach to scale predictive analytic models derived from online course discussion fora--specifically that of confusion detection--onto other courses. The primary challenge here is the lack of labeled examples in a new course and this calls for unsupervised domain adaptation (DA). As a first step in exploring DA in the education domain, we propose a simple algorithm, DiAd, which adapts a classifier trained on a course with labeled data by selectively choosing instances from a new course (with no labeled data) that are most dissimilar to the course with labeled data and on which the classifier is very confident of classification. Our algorithm is empirically validated on the confusion detection task across multiple online courses. We find that DiAd outperforms other methods on the target domain, while showing a comparable performance to a popular method that uses labeled data from the target domain.
Liposomal Formulations for Focal and Targeted Drug Delivery in Cancer and Other Diseases

As scientists in the field of drug delivery, the endeavor to constantly improve strategies for the specific delivery of the drug to its target cannot be over exaggerated! This field has been evolving constantly and has now come a long way from the classic small molecules to targeted drug delivery systems and now, one of the most recent transformations, “Focal drug delivery” (FDD). From recent literature that will be described in the course of this chapter, it could be derived that FDD is a drug delivery scheme to “encapsulate the drug to form a non-leaky/inert package and then zap it with ultrasound (US) at the desired site for therapeutic action.” This chapter will mainly focus on liposomes as the drug-packing agents for FDD, mainly dealing with cancer therapy, but will also include several other recent non-cancer-related therapies that employ liposomal focal drug delivery (LFDD). Also, from available literature, focused ultrasound, i.e., ultrasound (US) that can be narrowed to a small foci of interest, seems to be the rational choice for zapping the liposomal carrier to preclude off-target effects. However, there are several studies that have successfully shown FDD using clinical grade US. All such studies related to application of LFDD in cancer therapy will be covered first in this manuscript followed by the application of LFDD to non-cancer therapies.
Postoperative Opioid Use Using Enhanced Recovery After Surgery Guidelines for Benign Gynecologic Procedures.

ABSTRACT Study Objective To evaluate opioid use after benign gynecologic surgery after implementation of Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) opioid prescribing recommendations. Design A prospective cohort study. Setting An academic tertiary care hospital. Patients All patients undergoing elective benign gynecologic surgery at a large academic institution between August 2017 and December 2017, 1 year after ERAS postoperative opioid prescribing recommendations were implemented for the benign gynecologic surgery department. Interventions A chart review determining opioid prescription quantity and a patient telephone survey 7 days after surgery were both performed. Total opioid use was calculated. Physician adherence to the institution's ERAS postoperative opioid prescribing recommendations after benign gynecologic surgery was then determined. Patients were classified as either in the physician adherent to ERAS group or the physician nonadherent to ERAS group. After this stratification, patients’ total opioid use within each group was then compared. Measurements and Main Results A total of 241 consecutive benign gynecologic surgical procedures were reviewed. Opioids were prescribed for outpatient postoperative pain management in 186 (77.2%) of these procedures. Physician adherence to the ERAS postoperative opioid prescribing recommendations occurred in 150 (62.2%) of all surgical cases. The telephone survey was completed by 144 (59.8%) patients 7 days after their surgery. Among survey participants, a total of 13 783.5 morphine milligram equivalents (MMEs) or 64.7% of all opioids prescribed were unused 7 days after surgery. This is equivalent to 1838 oxycodone 5-mg tablets unused by the end of the study period. For all surgical procedure types, the ERAS-nonadherent group was prescribed statistically significantly more opioids per patient than the ERAS-adherent group (246.2 ± 22.8 MME vs 81.1 ± 6.2 MME, p Conclusion Patients require significantly less opioids after benign gynecologic surgery than they are being prescribed. Physician adherence to the ERAS postoperative opioid recommendations is suboptimal and contributes significantly to the quantity of unused opioids after surgery for benign gynecologic indications. Almost two thirds of all opioids prescribed are not used by 1 week after benign gynecologic surgery.
Efficient time-stepping techniques for simulating turbulent reactive flows with stiff chemistry

Abstract In this work, a set of techniques is developed for the efficient temporal integration of compressible turbulent reacting flows with stiff chemistry. The proposed approach combines steady-state preserving operator splitting, semi-implicit ODE integration, and dynamic load rebalancing. Specifically, the simpler balanced splitting method is constructed as a second-order steady-state preserving operator splitting formulation, with improved stability properties and reduced computational cost compared with the original simple balanced splitting method. The method is shown to be capable of accurately capturing ignition and extinction for reaction–diffusion systems near critical conditions. The semi-implicit integration scheme, namely ROK4E, is constructed following the order conditions of the Rosenbrock–Krylov methods with improved efficiency. Designed for the integration of homogeneous reacting systems, ROK4E utilizes the low-rank approximation of the Jacobian to reduce the cost for integrating the system of ODEs that has relatively few stiff components compared with the interval of the integration. To address the scalability issue associated with the spatial clustering of chemical reactivity, a dynamic load rebalancing procedure is developed. The resulting time-integration techniques are employed in a 3D simulation of a temporally evolving turbulent planar flame with dimethyl ether/air chemistry, and improvements with respect to the computational efficiency and strong scalability are examined.
Introduction: Employment Law and the Evolving Organization of Work - A Commentary

In 2013, Northeastern University Law Journal hosted a symposium, titled “Employed or Just Working?,” to address issues of legal protections for workers in the United States, regardless of their official classifications. This article introduces the symposium’s resultant articles. It places the specific topics addressed by issue contributors in the context of the history of workers’ rights being defined and redefined as courts and legislatures responded to complex social, political and economic forces. This contextualization touches on several periods: the post-Lochner depression era; the era of civil rights activism that gave rise to basic notions of dignity and rejected discrimination based on status; and the emergence of concern in the 1970s regarding the status of at-will employees when their claims collided with matters of public concern – resulting in various anti-retaliation provisions both under the common law and under a myriad of whistleblower statutes. Reflecting an assumption that the employee-employer relationship was amenable to simple analysis and definition, none of the 20th century federal statutes attempted to include even a reasonably useful definition of the key terms of “employee” or “employer.” In fact, the statutory definitions are tautological: employees are individuals employed by employers; employers are entities that employ employees. Despite this statutory assumption, the courts have repeatedly been called upon to apply each statute to nonstandard employment relationships. The definitional problems have never been solved, as the articles in this symposium illustrate.The author finds that the four contributed articles draw a troubling picture, reminding us that there are inadequate legal protections for misclassified workers and workers in nonstandard and evolving work arrangements.
Humidified high flow oxygen in paediatrics: who, when and where; a service evaluation

Introduction: Humidified high flow nasal cannula oxygen (HHFNCO) has increased in use in paediatric service with limited good quality studies. It might reduce PICU admissions in bronchiolitic patients, but there is no evidence that it reduces length of admission. Here the results of a service evaluation on the use of HHFNCO at Leeds Children’s Hospital during the bronchiolitic season 2016/17 are presented. Aims and Objectives: The aims were to assess patient characteristics of those going on HHFNCO, clinical area where it was commenced and outcome. Methods: Patients who were commenced on HHFNCO were identified through the handover sheets during the period of November 2016 to the end of February 2017. The data was assessed using MS Excel 2010. Results: During the study period 61 patients who started HHFNCO were identified. Out of 206 patients diagnosed with bronchiolitis during this time, 46 (22%) were commenced on HHFNCO. The average age of those starting HHFNCO was 3.5 months. Nine specific clinical areas were identified where HHFNCO was started, including PICU, HDU, Emergency Department, Respiratory ward, and Medical Admissions Unit. Being premature or having a congenital cardiac problem alone did not increase the risk of escalation of care. However, having more than one underlying comorbidity or having genetic disorder did. Not following the local guidelines was associated with escalation of care. Children with no pre-existing comorbidities who were started on HHFNCO did not require escalation of care. Conclusions: HHFNCO can be safely commenced in a variety of settings. Children with multiple pre-existing comorbidities commenced on HHFNCO were at higher risk of escalation of care.
CELL SURFACE GALACTOSYLTRANSFERASE IN MITOSIS, DIFFERENTIATION, NEOPLASTIC TRANSFORMATION AND METASTASES

Several glycosyltransferase activities, usually associated with intracellular membranes, were detected as cell surface membrane activities of the undifferentiated intestinal crypt cell, fetal intestinal cell, and the chemically induced intestinal tumor cell. In contrast, the differentiated villus cell demonstrated only cell surface sialyltransferase activity. Subcellular fractionation of villus and crypt cells demonstrated a lateral membrane fraction of villus cells separable from Golgi membrane whereas crypt cell surface membrane had the enzyme features of Golgi membranes. These data suggest a similarity between crypt cell surface membrane and crypt Golgi membrane. In addition, crypt cells, fetal intestinal cells, and tumor cells were found to be preferentially agglutinated by Concanavalin A (Con A). Exposure of these cells to Con A appeared to specifically reduce galactosyltransferase. Virally transformed tissue culture cells and animal tumor cells were shown to have a number of cell surface glycosyltransferase activities but to release only galactosyltransferase into the medium or serum. A specific role is proposed for this enzyme in cell adhesion, cell recognition, and metastatic processes.
Using Deep Convolutional LSTM Networks for Learning Spatiotemporal Features

This paper explores the use of convolutional LSTMs to simultaneously learn spatial- and temporal-information in videos. A deep network of convolutional LSTMs allows the model to access the entire range of temporal information at all spatial scales. We describe our experiments involving convolutional LSTMs for lipreading that demonstrate the model is capable of selectively choosing which spatiotemporal scales are most relevant for a particular dataset. The proposed deep architecture holds promise in other applications where spatiotemporal features play a vital role without having to specifically cater the design of the network for the particular spatiotemporal features existent within the problem. Our model has comparable performance with the current state of the art achieving 83.4% on the Lip Reading in the Wild (LRW) dataset. Additional experiments indicate convolutional LSTMs may be particularly data hungry considering the large performance increases when fine-tuning on LRW after pretraining on larger datasets like LRS2 (85.2%) and LRS3-TED (87.1%). However, a sensitivity analysis providing insight on the relevant spatiotemporal temporal features allows certain convolutional LSTM layers to be replaced with 2D convolutions decreasing computational cost without performance degradation indicating their usefulness in accelerating the architecture design process when approaching new problems.
Whole-Body Metabolism, Carbohydrate Utilization, and Caloric Energy Balance After Sport Concussion: A Pilot Study:

Background:Sport concussion (SC) causes an energy crisis in the brain by increasing energy demand, decreasing energy supply, and altering metabolic resources. Whole-body resting metabolic rate (RMR...
The Complexity of Bendless Three-Dimensional Orthogonal Graph Drawing

We consider embeddings of 3-regular graphs into 3-dimensional Cartesian coordinates, in such a way that two vertices are adjacent if and only if two of their three coordinates are equal (that is, if they lie on an axisparallel line) and such that no three points lie on the same axis-parallel line; we call a graph with such an embedding an xyz graph. We show that planar xyz graphs can be recognized in linear time, but that it is NP-complete to determine whether an arbitrary graph is an xyz graph. We also describe an algorithm with running time O(n2) for testing whether a given n-vertex graph is an xyz graph. Submitted: July 2012 Reviewed: October 2012 Revised: November 2012 Accepted: January 2013 Final: January 2013 Published: January 2013 Article type: Regular paper Communicated by: C. Toth This material was presented in a preliminary form at Graph Drawing 2008. We thank Ed Pegg, Jr., Tomo Pisanski, Frank Ruskey, Tom Tucker, Arthur White, and the anonymous reviewers for Graph Drawing 2008 for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper, and Sergio Cabello for the reference to the work of Kawarabayashi and Mohar. This work was supported in part by NSF grants 1217322 and 0830403 and by the Office of Naval Research under grant N00014-08-1-1015. E-mail address: eppstein@uci.edu (David Eppstein)
Examining the Personal and Perceived Organizational Characteristics Associated With Juvenile Probation Staff Job Satisfaction

Satisfied employees are essential to an organization, as they are often the primary means for meeting organizational needs. Job satisfaction is particularly important among criminal justice agencie...
Investigation of the linearized spectral contribution in the simultaneous estimation of spectra and basis images in multispectral CT reconstruction

Simultaneous estimation of spectra and basis images in multispectral CT reconstruction employs a data model with unknown spectra. One approach is based on the linearization of the data model, which leads to two linear terms, with regards to the basis image and to the spectrum. The latter one, i.e., the linearized matrix of spectral contribution, is new, to the best of our knowledge, and warrants investigations. In this work, we have characterized the conditioning of the linearized matrix of spectral contribution using singular value decomposition (SVD). We have also proposed a SVD-based preconditioner for the matrix and incorporated it in a constrained optimization problem for recovering the spectrum. The results have showed improved conditioning of the matrix and accurate recovery of the spectrum by use of the SVD-based preconditioner.
Descemet’s Membrane Endothelial Keratoplasty (DMEK)

Selective replacement of the corneal endothelium was introduced as a theoretical concept and first performed in humans with graft-retaining sutures in the 1950s by Drs. Jose Barraquer and Charles Tillet. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, deep lamellar endothelial keratoplasty (DLEK), which involved painstaking manual dissection of the recipient and donor followed by a graft-supporting air bubble tamponade, was introduced by Drs. Gerrit Melles and Mark Terry. DLEK evolved into Descemet’s stripping endothelial keratoplasty (DSEK) with introduction of the “descemetorhexis” by Dr. Melles to simplify recipient preparation, and further evolved into descemet stripping automated endothelial keratoplasty (DSAEK) with Dr. Mark Gorovoy’s introduction of the microkeratome to speed donor lenticule preparation. By 2011, DSAEK became the standard of care for endothelial disease and surpassed penetrating keratoplasty as the most commonly performed corneal transplant surgery in the United States.
Handling uncertainty

Uncertainty is triggered by many events during the experience of illness - from hearing bad news to meeting a new doctor. Oncology professionals need to recognize the intense feelings associated with uncertainty and respond empathically to patients. This article describes opportunities to strengthen the therapeutic connection and minimize uncertainty.
Trampoline Injuries in a Statewide Trauma System.

Introduction It is well known that trampolines can be a particular source of danger, especially in children. We sought to examine the profile of those patients with trampoline injuries. We hypothesized there would be certain injury patterns predicative of trampoline injuries. Methods All patients submitted to Pennsylvania Trauma Outcome Study database from 2016 to 2018 were analyzed. Trampoline injury was determined by ICD-10 activity code. Injury patterns in the form of abbreviated injury scale body regions were examined. Patient demographics and clinical variables were compared between those with trampoline injury vs those without. Results There were 107 patients with a trampoline injury. All of these patients were discharged alive and had a blunt mechanism of injury. The most common injury type was injury to the extremities (n=90,[84.1%]) with 54(50.5%) upper extremity injuries and 36(33.6%) lower extremity injuries. Ten (9.35%) patients had injury to the spine and five (4.67%) had head injury. Those with trampoline injuries were significantly younger (13y vs. 48.6y) and more likely to be white or of Hispanic ethnicity. Almost half of the patients injured (49.5%) were under 10 years. Patients with trampoline injuries had significantly lower Injury Severity Scores and significantly higher shock index. Discussion The majority of patients with trampoline injuries had injury to an extremity. These results help better understand the demographic, physiologic, and anatomic patterns surrounding trampoline injuries. Current government standards recommend that no child under age six should use a full-sized trampoline; however, based of this study, we advise that this age be increased to ten.
Kant and the Metaphysics of Causality

This is a book about Kant's views on causality as understood in their proper historical context. Specifically, Eric Watkins argues that a grasp of Leibnizian and anti-Leibnizian thought in eighteenth-century Germany helps one to see how the critical Kant argued for causal principles that have both metaphysical and epistemological elements. On this reading Kant's model of causality does not consist of events, but rather of substances endowed with causal powers that are exercised according to their natures and circumstances. This innovative conception of Kant's view of causality casts a light on Kant's philosophical beliefs in general, such as his account of temporality, his explanation of the reconciliation of freedom and determinism, and his response to the skeptical arguments of Hume.
Permanent Present Tense: The Unforgettable Life of the Amnesic Patient, H. M.

In 1953, 27-year-old Henry Gustave Molaison underwent an experimental "psychosurgical" procedure--a targeted lobotomy--in an effort to alleviate his debilitating epilepsy. The outcome was unexpected--when Henry awoke, he could no longer form new memories, and for the rest of his life would be trapped in the moment. But Henry's tragedy would prove a gift to humanity. As renowned neuroscientist Suzanne Corkin explains in Permanent Present Tense, she and her colleagues brought to light the sharp contrast between Henry's crippling memory impairment and his preserved intellect. This new insight that the capacity for remembering is housed in a specific brain area revolutionized the science of memory. The case of Henry--known only by his initials H. M. until his death in 2008--stands as one of the most consequential and widely referenced in the spiraling field of neuroscience. Corkin and her collaborators worked closely with Henry for nearly fifty years, and in Permanent Present Tense she tells the incredible story of the life and legacy of this intelligent, quiet, and remarkably good-humored man. Henry never remembered Corkin from one meeting to the next and had only a dim conception of the importance of the work they were doing together, yet he was consistently happy to see her and always willing to participate in her research. His case afforded untold advances in the study of memory, including the discovery that even profound amnesia spares some kinds of learning, and that different memory processes are localized to separate circuits in the human brain. Henry taught us that learning can occur without conscious awareness, that short-term and long-term memory are distinct capacities, and that the effects of aging-related disease are detectable in an already damaged brain. Undergirded by rich details about the functions of the human brain, Permanent Present Tense pulls back the curtain on the man whose misfortune propelled a half-century of exciting research. With great clarity, sensitivity, and grace, Corkin brings readers to the cutting edge of neuroscience in this deeply felt elegy for her patient and friend.
The Quantitation of Psilocybin in Hallucinogenic Mushrooms Using High Performance Liquid Chromatography

A method using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with an acetonitrile, water, and phosphoric acid mobile phase and a bonded cyano-amino-type polar phase column has been developed for the rapid, selective, and accurate quantitation of psilocybin in dry mushroom material. A simple one-step procedure is used for the quantitative extraction of psilocybin in under 60 min. The 267:254 nm absorbance ratio is used as a check on peak purity for the psilocybin response.
Security of a Keystream Cipher with Secret Initial Value

A keystream can be produced by driving a known pseudo-random function with a counter, starting with a secret initial value. Knowledge of M blocks of keystream allows a speed-up of crypt-analysis by a factor of M over exhaustive search. A similar result holds when the function is a secret choice from a parameterized family. These results are the best possible under a black-box model, i.e., where the function is revealed to the analyst only by calling an oracle.
Response of VLF insulators to lightning strokes

The response of very low frequency (VLF) insulators to lightning strokes is a complex phenomenon and not yet understood completely. This project is undertaken at Arizona State University (ASU) to understand recent failures of VLF insulators during lightning strokes at a US Navy site. An analytical model has been formulated to characterize the breakdown of bridged air gaps under lightning strokes. A Matlab/sup /spl reg// program has been written for determining volt-time characteristics of bridged air gaps under lightning strokes and the results have been verified with the available test data.
Genomic prospecting for microbial biodiesel production.

Biodiesel is defined as fatty acid mono-alkylesters and is produced from triacylglycerols. In the current article we provide an overview of the structure, diversity and regulation of the metabolic pathways leading to intracellular fatty acid and triacylglycerol accumulation in three types of organisms (bacteria, algae and fungi) of potential biotechnological interest and discuss possible intervention points to increase the cellular lipid content. The key steps that regulate carbon allocation and distribution in lipids include the formation of malonyl-CoA, the synthesis of fatty acids and their attachment onto the glycerol backbone, and the formation of triacylglycerols. The lipid biosynthetic genes and pathways are largely known for select model organisms. Comparative genomics allows the examination of these pathways in organisms of biotechnological interest and reveals the evolution of divergent and yet uncharacterized regulatory mechanisms. Utilization of microbial systems for triacylglycerol and fatty acid production is in its infancy; however, genomic information and technologies combined with synthetic biology concepts provide the opportunity to further exploit microbes for the competitive production of biodiesel.
Cilia and Human Disease

Cilia and centrioles are highly conserved organelles that have hundreds of proteins associated with them. Studies in mice have shown that these organelles are essential for mammalian development and mice that cannot assemble them die in utero. However, mutations in many cilia and centriole genes cause human diseases that show a great range in defects. Defects in centrioles are associated with microcephaly and mental retardation. The reduction in brain size is related to the loss of neuronal progenitor cells. Defects in centrioles may also be associated with Sjogren syndrome, an autoimmune disease, because of defects in formation of the immunological synapse. Defects that cause immotile cilia result in chronic respiratory infections, infertility, and congenital heart defects. Defects in primary cilia share various symptoms that include loss of vision, obesity, diabetes, cystic kidney disease, mental retardation, polydactyly, and short bones. Many of these diseases are associated with the transport and sorting of receptors onto the ciliary membrane for sensing the environment. Key Concepts: Cilia perform functions in many different tissues and during development. Many ciliary mutations affect multiple tissues and organs. Key signalling pathways require cilia. Orientation of the spindle during mitosis requires functional centrioles. Keywords: cilia; centriole; basal body; transition zone; microcephaly; autoimmune disease; cystic kidney disease; obesity; retinal degeneration; polydactyly
The physiology of (dis)honesty: Does it impact health?

Research suggests that dishonest acts may be embodied. That is, when a person anticipates or acts dishonestly, the choice or behavior is not only reflected in the mind but also in the brain and body. While recent summaries of virtuous acts suggest that truth, altruism, and fairness confer a suite of psychological and health benefits to the benefactor, we suggest that lying, cheating, and stealing may do the opposite. We review research literatures on the neuroscience, psychophysiology, and endocrinology of dishonesty and suggest that, over time, dishonest behavior may be bad for our health.
Freshwater Planarians as an Alternative Animal Model for Neurotoxicology

Traditional toxicology testing has relied on low-throughput, expensive mammalian studies; however, timely testing of the large number of environmental toxicants requires new in vitro and in vivo platforms for inexpensive medium- to high-throughput screening. Herein, we describe the suitability of the asexual freshwater planarian Dugesia japonica as a new animal model for the study of developmental neurotoxicology. As these asexual animals reproduce by binary fission, followed by regeneration of missing body structures within approximately 1 week, development and regeneration occur through similar processes allowing us to induce neurodevelopment "at will" through amputation. This short time scale and the comparable sizes of full and regenerating animals enable parallel experiments in adults and developing worms to determine development-specific aspects of toxicity. Because the planarian brain, despite its simplicity, is structurally and molecularly similar to the mammalian brain, we are able to ascertain neurodevelopmental toxicity that is relevant to humans. As a proof of concept, we developed a 5-step semiautomatic screening platform to characterize the toxicity of 9 known neurotoxicants (consisting of common solvents, pesticides, and detergents) and a neutral agent, glucose, and quantified effects on viability, stimulated and unstimulated behavior, regeneration, and brain structure. Comparisons of our findings with other alternative toxicology animal models, such as zebrafish larvae and nematodes, demonstrated that planarians are comparably sensitive to the tested chemicals. In addition, we found that certain compounds induced adverse effects specifically in developing animals. We thus conclude that planarians offer new complementary opportunities for developmental neurotoxicology animal models.
Enhanced brain delivery of 2′-fluoro-5-methylarabinosyluracil

Abstract The dihydropyridine ⇌ pyridinium salt redox carrier based chemical delivery system (CDS) approach was applied to the antiviral agent 2′-fluoro-5-methylarabinosyluracil (FMAU) ( 1 ). Two CDSs were examined, having the redox carrier attached to the 3′-OH functionality and the 5′-OH group esterified with hexanoic ( 2a ) and octanoic acid ( 2b ), respectively. In vitro stability and in vivo distribution studies were performed. When 2a was systemically administered to rats, sustained levels of the oxidized, trigonelline ester ( 3a ) were found in brain. The parent drug was identified beginning at 4 h post-dosing. In the case of 2b, both the oxidized form ( 3b ) and the native 1 were found in brain at relatively high concentrations. No drug ( 1 ) was detected in brain after administration of an equivalent amount (50 μ mol/kg) of FMAU.
Sensitivity analysis of imaging geometries for prostate diffuse optical tomography

Endoscopic and interstitial diffuse optical tomography have been studied in clinical investigations for imaging prostate tissues, yet, there is no comprehensive comparison of how these two imaging geometries affect the quality of the reconstruction images. In this study, the effect of imaging geometry is investigated by comparing the cross-section of the Jacobian sensitivity matrix and reconstructed images for three-dimensional mathematical phantoms. Next, the effect of source-detector configurations and number of measurements in both geometries is evaluated using singular value analysis. The amount of information contained for each source-detector configuration and different number of measurements are compared. Further, the effect of different measurements strategies for 3D endoscopic and interstitial tomography is examined. The pros and cons of using the in-plane measurements and off-plane measurements are discussed. Results showed that the reconstruction in the interstitial geometry outperforms the endoscopic geometry when deeper anomalies are present. Eight sources 8 detectors and 6 sources 12 detectors are sufficient for 2D reconstruction with endoscopic and interstitial geometry respectively. For a 3D problem, the quantitative accuracy in the interstitial geometry is significantly improved using off-plane measurements but only slightly in the endoscopic geometry.
Transverse confinement of an ion beam in a purely electrostatic configuration

Abstract The transverse confinement of an ion beam in a purely electrostatic configuration is studied. Analytical expressions for the electric potential of three different electrode configurations are found. Each configuration may be described as consisting of many closely spaced Einzel lenses, such that the focusing periodicity length is much smaller than the transverse size of the beam. Classical trajectory computer simulations are used to obtain a map of the phase space co-ordinates for which transverse electrostatic confinement occurs with one of the configurations. The results indicate that confinement should occur for a large range of conditions. It is speculated that the configurations studied can be used for transverse confinement of ion beams in either electrostatic ion traps or electrostatic ion storage rings.
Carbon-13 chemical shifts in some 1-substituted 5-imino-3-phenyl-4-thioxo-2-imidazolidinones and related compounds

The cmr spectra of the title compounds have been obtained and the resonances assigned by classical means. Coupling of the imino proton to C-5 is observed to be smaller than that to C-4. A very large downfield shift due to substitution of a carbonyl sulfur at C-4 is observed. The nmr assignments are shown to be self-consistent throughout the series.