cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Flow cytometric evaluation of multicystic dysplastic kidneys

AbstractThe most appropriate management of the multicystic dysplastic kidney remains controversial. At issue is the long-term risk of the development of malignancy in the multicystic dysplastic kidney. The association between renal dysplasia and neoplasia has not been confirmed, with only 6 cases of malignancy reported. Nephroblastomatosis, a probable precursor of Wilms tumor, has been found in 5 to 7% of the cases of multicystic dysplastic kidney when specifically sought.In an attempt to determine whether a relationship exists between renal dysplasia and neoplasia in terms of abnormalities of cellular deoxyribonucleic acid content we performed flow cytometric evaluation on 30 formalin fixed, paraffin embedded archival specimens of multicystic dysplastic kidneys. None of the kidneys had evidence of malignancy. Nuclear deoxyribonucleic acid ploidy studies were performed on single dissociated nuclei prepared by the technique of McLemore and associates and stained with propidium iodide. All specimens demonst...
Management of acute burn injuries of the upper extremity in the pediatric population

Burns of the upper extremity occur frequently in children. Because of differences in development and anatomy, patterns of burn injury are different in children compared to adults. Immediate goals after these injuries are to prevent compartment syndromes and minimize progressive damage. The second decision is whether the burn requires conservative care or grafting. If the injury heals within 2 weeks, then scarring is minimized. If the wound has not healed in that time period, then grafting should be considered. Grafting techniques that optimize function and cosmetic appearance are outlined.
An MDD Approach to Multidimensional Bin Packing

We investigate the application of multivalued decision diagrams (MDDs) to multidimensional bin packing problems. In these problems, each bin has a multidimensional capacity and each item has an associated multidimensional size. We develop several MDD representations for this problem, and explore different MDD construction methods including a new heuristic-driven depth-first compilation scheme. We also derive MDD restrictions and relaxations, using a novel application of a clustering algorithm to identify approximate equivalence classes among MDD nodes. Our experimental results show that these techniques can significantly outperform current CP and MIP solvers.
AFLP Variation in Bromus Section Ceratochloa Germplasm of Patagonia

Bromus sect. Ceratochloa includes cultivated and native grasses of South and North America. This study examines amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) variation among 30 hexaploid and two octoploid accessions of South American B. catharticus Vahl., B. coloratus Steud., B. lithobius Trin., B. mango Desv., B. stamineus Desv., and B. tunicatus Phil. and one accession representing octoploid North American B. carinatus Hook & Arn. The proportion of shared AFLP fragments among accessions ranged from 0.67 to 0.99. Although 65% of all fragments (including rare phenotypes) were present in hexaploids and octoploids, the South and North American octoploids displayed more fragments per plant and a common set of additional AFLP fragments not present in the hexaploid accessions. The hexaploid B. coloratus, B. lithobius, and B. stamineus accessions form one well-defined group, evident by the proportion of shared AFLPs, whereas B. mango and B. tunicatus accessions formed another well-defined hexaploid group. However, taxa within these two hexaploid groups were poorly resolved and subtend the highly diverse group of hexaploid B. catharticus accessions. Excluding octoploids, 94% of the AFLP diversity was partitioned among accessions but only 53% of the variation was distributed among taxa. Moreover, variation within hexaploid B. catharticus alone reflected 97% of the total diversity among hexaploid accessions. The overall correlation between geographical distances and genetic similarities among hexaploid accessions, irrespective of taxa, is low (r = -0.243) but significant (P ≤ 0.01). Although recognizable forms of genetic variation certainly exist, it may be difficult practically to identify more than one genetically distinct species in the hexaploid Ceratochloa germplasm of Patagonia.
Thermal, Chemical, and Biological Processing

This session focuses on processing steps required to convert the carbohydrates of biomass into fuels and chemicals. For illustrative purposes, Fig. 1 shows a representative block flow diagram for a bioethanol process. (Of course, other approaches may be taken as well.) First, the biomass is pretreated to render it more digestible. Then enzymes are added that hydrolyze cellulose and hemicellulose into sugars. Finally, microorganisms (e.g., yeast) ferment these sugars to ethanol, which is recovered by distillation. The papers in this session describe various aspects of the process shown in Fig. 1, such as new developments in pretreatments, models of the saccharification and fermentation steps, enzyme recovery, combined enzyme/ethanol production, and a process that allows ethanol to be produced from biomass contaminated with radioactivity.
Spatially Correlated Dynamics in a Pika Metapopulaton

Publisher Summary This chapter presents the results of a long-term study of a metapopulation that appears ideal with regard to the measurement of parameters of a metapopulation. The metapopulation is large, relative to lifetime movements of the animals. Not all patches have been occupied in any census period. Both numerous extinctions and recolonizations have been recorded over the 20 plus years of observation of the metapopulation. The study organism is the American pika (Ochotona princeps), a small (132 g) alpine lagomorph, and the study site is the abandoned gold-mining area of Bodie, Mono County, California. A spatially explicit model is introduced that successfully integrates patch-specific population growth with these size and distance effects for the Bodie pika metapopulation. The results of the study suggest need for metapopulation models to incorporate explicit spatial dimensions and to examine a range of spatial and temporal scales in their analyses.
Adaptive planning for Markov decision processes with Uncertain Transition models via incremental feature dependency discovery

Solving large scale sequential decision making problems without prior knowledge of the state transition model is a key problem in the planning literature. One approach to tackle this problem is to learn the state transition model online using limited observed measurements. We present an adaptive function approximator (incremental Feature Dependency Discovery (iFDD)) that grows the set of features online to approximately represent the transition model. The approach leverages existing feature-dependencies to build a sparse representation of the state transition model. Theoretical analysis and numerical simulations in domains with state space sizes varying from thousands to millions are used to illustrate the benefit of using iFDD for incrementally building transition models in a planning framework.
Cholesterol-CHD connection: evidence for the benefit of lipoprotein modification

Several clinical studies using lipid-lowering diets or agents have shown that lowering total cholesterol and low density lipoprotein (LDL) -cholesterol can help prevent coronary heart disease (CHD) death and non-fatal myocardial infarction [1,2]. In addition, two recent studies have shown that elevated levels of high density lipoprotein (HDL) -cholesterol also prevent CHD events [3,4].
Category V: Suspicious for Malignancy

The category “suspicious for malignancy” is a bridging category included in the Papanicolaou Society of Cytopathology guidelines for respiratory cytology. The category is useful to retain the high diagnostic specificity of the category “malignant” while still communicating to the treating clinician the cytopathologist’s high suspicion for the presence of a malignancy. The malignancy risk of the “suspicious for malignancy” category lies between that of the “atypical” and the fully “malignant” categories. This stratification allows the physician managing the patient to assess the degree of certainty that a cytopathologist has as to whether or not a malignancy is present. The category allows considerable discretion on the part of the treating physician to manage his or her patient most appropriately. Patients whose cytology specimen is designated “suspicious for malignancy” should be presented at a multidisciplinary conference where results of clinical findings, imaging studies, and the cytopathology diagnosis are correlated and optimal follow-up determined.
Are Busy People More or Less Likely to Use Social Networking Sites (SNSs)?: Prosumption, Time Budget, and SNS activities

This study investigated social networking site (SNS) activities from a prosumption-time budget perspective, which is the combination of the prosumption and time budget perspectives. SNS activities were categorized into three groups: SNS consumption activities, SNS production activities, and total SNS activities. The associations between work time and the frequencies of these three kinds of SNS activities were examined. Data for the empirical analysis were collected through a mail and web survey with a sample of 253 respondents and a sample of 394 college students in the Midwest United State from September to November, 2012. Significant correlations between work time and SNS production frequency were found for the two samples. Significant correlation between work time and total SNS activity frequency was found for the student sample. These significant correlations suggest a new pattern that has not been revealed by previous studies: busier people are more active in SNSs.
Put the Pedal to the METTL1: Adding Internal m7G Increases mRNA Translation Efficiency and Augments miRNA Processing.

Complementary papers by Zhang, Liu, and colleagues (Zhang et al., 2019) and Pandolfini, Barbieri, and colleagues (Pandolfini et al., 2019) develop new sequencing techniques that reveal that METTL1 N7-methylates internal guanosines in mRNAs and miRNAs to increase translation efficiency and miRNA processing, respectively.
Glacial geology and cosmogenic-nuclide exposure ages from the Tucker Glacier - Whitehall Glacier confluence, northern Victoria Land, Antarctica

We describe glacial-geological observations and cosmogenic-nuclide exposure ages from the vicinity of the present grounding line of Tucker Glacier, a large alpine glacier flowing from the mountains of northern Victoria Land, East Antarctica, into the outer Ross Sea. These data are relevant for constraining the extent of ice sheet expansion and retreat in the Ross Sea, and associated eustatic sea level impact, between the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and the present. In addition, a terrestrial geological record of ice thickness change from this region could provide evidence for or against the hypothesis that rapid eustatic sea-level rise during meltwater pulse 1A (“MWP-1A”) at 14.6 ka was in part the result of rapid, large-scale thinning or breakup of a marine-based portion of the LGM ice sheet in the outer Ross Sea. Glacial-geological observations, exposure ages on glacial deposits, and a novel application of in-situ-produced cosmogenic 14C in quartz-bearing bedrock to identify the limits of LGM ice cover in the absence of direct geomorphic evidence, show that Tucker Glacier near its present grounding line was 300 to 350 m thicker than present during the LGM and thinned steadily between 17 to 5 ka. The largest possible rapid thickness change in the time period 14 to 15 ka that could be accommodated by the exposure-age data is ∼50 m, which is a small fraction of that predicted for the western Ross Sea by model simulations of the Antarctic contribution to MWP-1A. There do exist possible scenarios in which hypothesized marine ice sheet collapse in the outer Ross Sea during MWP-1A might not be recorded by ice thickness changes at Tucker Glacier. However, our record of ice thickness changes spanning this time period is the closest such record to the outer Ross Sea that is likely to exist, and it agrees with all exposure-age deglaciation chronologies from other regions of the Ross embayment in providing no evidence for such an event.
Obstacles to Modelling Large Dynamical Systems

This paper describes some of the difficulties in bringing modern dynamical systems theory to bear upon the simulation of dynamical phenomena in complex models of natural processes.
Gene editing in hemophilia: a "CRISPR" choice?

In this issue of Blood , Wang et al report correction of the bleeding phenotype in newborn and adult factor IX (FIX) knockout mice through in vivo gene editing mediated by clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats/CRISPR associated protein 9 (CRISPR/Cas9). 1 This technology involves a guide RNA that matches the target gene of interest and the endonuclease, Cas9, which introduces a double-stranded DNA-break enabling modifications to the genome.
Metatarsalgia in Metatarsus Adductus Patients: A Rational Approach

Metatarsus adductus (MA) is a congenital condition resulting in adduction of the forefoot at the tarsometatarsal joint, medial metatarsal deviation, supination of the hindfoot through the subtalar joint, and plantarflexed first ray. The exact underlying pathophysiology remains elusive. There is increasing evidence highlighting the importance of recognizing MA as an associated deformity that complicates management of hallux valgus (HV). Unfortunately, metatarsalgia and lesser toe pathology is also common in this population. We present a review regarding the epidemiology, pathomechanics, and a comprehensive surgical treatment algorithm to optimize the management of patients with MA, HV, lesser toe deformity, and metatarsalgia.
Managing Diagnostic Uncertainty in Pediatric Sepsis Quality Improvement with a Two-Tiered Approach.

Severe sepsis requires timely, resource-intensive resuscitation, a challenge when a sepsis diagnosis is not confirmed. The overall goals were to create a pediatric sepsis program that provided high-quality critical care in severe sepsis (Sepsis Stat), and, in possible sepsis, flexible evaluation and treatment that promoted stewardship (Sepsis Yellow). The primary aims were to decrease time to antibiotics and the intensive care unit requirement. Methods A 2-tiered clinical pathway was implemented at 6 pediatric emergency departments and urgent care centers, incorporating order sets, education, paging. The Sepsis Stat pathway included 2 nurses, hand delivery of antibiotics, resuscitation room use. The Sepsis Yellow pathway included prioritized orders, standardized procedures, close monitoring, and evaluation of whether antibiotics were warranted. Results From April 2012 to December 2017, we treated 3,640 patients with suspected and confirmed sepsis. Among the 932 severe sepsis patients, the 30-day, in-hospital mortality was 0.9%. Arrival to recognition time improved from 50 to 4 minutes. Recognition to antibiotic time demonstrated an in-control process in our goal range with a median of 43 minutes for Sepsis Stat patients, 59 minutes for Sepsis Yellow patients. The proportion of severe sepsis patients requiring intensive care unit care declined from 45% to 34%. On the Sepsis Yellow pathway, 23% were de-escalated with discharge to home without antibiotics. Conclusions This novel 2-tiered approach to pediatric sepsis quality improvement in varied emergency care settings improved process and outcome measures in severe sepsis while promoting stewardship and de-escalation where appropriate. Matching resources to the degree of illness was important in supporting quality care in potentially septic children.
Second-Scale Coherence Measured at the Quantum Projection Noise Limit with Hundreds of Molecular Ions

Cold molecules provide an excellent platform for quantum information, cold chemistry, and precision measurement. Certain molecules have enhanced sensitivity to beyond standard model physics, such as the electron's electric dipole moment ($e\text{EDM}$). Molecular ions are easily trappable and are therefore particularly attractive for precision measurements where sensitivity scales with interrogation time. Here, we demonstrate a spin precession measurement with second-scale coherence at the quantum projection noise (QPN) limit with hundreds of trapped molecular ions, chosen for their sensitivity to the $e\text{EDM}$ rather than their amenability to state control and readout. Orientation-resolved resonant photodissociation allows us to simultaneously measure two quantum states with opposite $e\text{EDM}$ sensitivity, reaching the QPN limit and fully exploiting the high count rate and long coherence.
Cooperative Level Curve Tracking in Advection-Diffusion Fields

Level curve tracking in a spatial-temporal varying field is an important problem in many applications such as tracking and monitoring the propagation of a wildfire. In this paper, we investigate the level curve tracking problem using a collaborating group of sensing agents in an advection-diffusion field with obstacles. We implement a cooperative Kalman filter that takes into consideration the spatial-temporal varying property of the field to estimate the field value and gradient at two consecutive time steps, which are used in the motion control law that applies to the center of the agent formation so that the center of the formation is able to detect and track a desired level curve value in the advection-diffusion field. Obstacle avoidance is considered in the motion control law design. Simulations show satisfactory results of the proposed strategy.
NOTE ON THE DUAL BRST SYMMETRY IN GAUGE THEORY

We analyze the relation between the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian BRST symmetry generators for a recently proposed two-dimensional symmetry. In particular it is shown that this symmetry may be obtained from a canonical transformation in the ghost sector in a gauge-independent way.
Performance Modeling and Evaluation of a Production Disaggregated Memory System

High performance computers rely on large memories to cache data and improve performance. However, managing the ever-increasing number of levels in the memory hierarchy becomes increasingly difficult. The Disaggregated Memory System (DMS) architecture was introduced in recent years for better memory utilization. DMS is a global memory pool between the local memories and storage. To leverage DMS, we need a better understanding of its performance and how to exploit its full potential. In this study, we first present a DMS performance model for performance evaluation and analysis. We next conduct a thorough performance evaluation to identify application-DMS characteristics under different system configurations. Experimental tests are conducted on the RAM Area Network (RAN), a DMS implementation available at the Argonne National Laboratory, for performance evaluation. Then, the results of performance experiments are presented along with an analysis of the pros and cons of the RAN-DMS design and implementation. The counterintuitive performance results for the K-means application are analyzed at code-level to illustrate DMS performance. Finally, based on our findings, we present some discussions on future DMS design and its potential on AI applications.
Tamsulosin to Prevent Urinary Retention Following Female Pelvic Reconstructive Surgery: A Multicenter Randomized Controlled Trial

Study Objective To determine if tamsulosin is effective in reducing the risk of postoperative urinary retention in women undergoing pelvic reconstructive surgery. Design We performed a multicenter double-blind randomized controlled trial. Setting Surgery for pelvic organ prolapse with or without a concomitant incontinence procedure. Patients or Participants All patients undergoing surgery for pelvic organ prolapse from August 2018 to March 2020 at two academic institutions were screened. Patients with a history of urinary retention requiring catheterization, sulfa allergy, or a preoperative post-void residual volume of greater than 100ml were not eligible. Participants who experienced cystotomy were excluded from analysis. A total of 132 patients were enrolled. Interventions Using permuted block randomization, participants were allocated to receive a 10-day course of either tamsulosin 0.4mg or placebo, beginning 3 days prior to surgery. Both patients and providers were blinded to treatment group. A standardized voiding trial was performed on postoperative day one. Measurements and Main Results An intention-to-treat analysis of 118 patients was performed. Patients received either tamsulosin (n=57) or placebo (n=61). Mean age was 61.2 ± 10.2 years, 86.4% were Caucasian, and 71.2% had stage 2 or 3 prolapse. Procedures included vaginal prolapse repair in 85.6%, abdominal prolapse repair in 49.2%, hysterectomy in 66.9%, and midurethral sling in 60.2%. Groups were similar in regards to demographics, pelvic organ prolapse quantification scores, baseline urinary symptoms, urodynamic parameters, and surgical details. Tamsulosin users had a significantly lower rate of urinary retention compared to placebo (8.7% vs 24.6%, p=0.03). Postoperative urinary tract infection and prolonged urinary retention requiring reoperation did not differ between groups. Variables associated with the development of postoperative urinary retention included tamsulosin use (OR 0.29, 95%CI 0.10-0.85) and American Urological Association Symptom Index score (OR 0.90, 95%CI 0.82-0.98). Conclusion This study supports the prophylactic use of tamsulosin to reduce the risk of postoperative urinary retention following female pelvic reconstructive surgery.
Does Health Service Funding Go Where the Need Is? A Prototype Spatial Access Analysis for New Urban Contracts Data

Much of spatial access research measures the proximity to health service locations. We advance this research by focusing on spatial access to health services by taking health service funding into account. This is made possible by a new administrative data source: financial contracts data for those human services that are delivered by nonprofits under contract with the government. In a prototypical spatial access study we draw on 2018 data about contracted nonprofit health services funded by the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) that CDPH collected for the purpose of this study. We find that the common container approach of aggregating contract amounts by provider headquarter locations in a given area (ignoring satellite service sites) underestimates the share of funding that goes to Chicago neighborhoods with higher hardship. Once service sites and spatial access are taken into account, a larger share of CDPH funds was found to be within walkable reach of Chicago’s high hardship areas. This was followed by low hardship areas (which could be driven by more headquarter locations there that do serve areas throughout the city). Medium hardship areas trail both, perhaps warranting closer attention. We explore these results by program type and neighborhood with a spatial decision support system developed for the health department.
Comparison of Nodule Endophyte Composition, Diversity, and Gene Content between Medicago truncatula Genotypes

Leguminous plants form symbiotic relationships with rhizobia. These nitrogen-fixing bacteria live in specialized root organs called nodules. Although rhizobia form the most notable host relationshi...
Modeling regional disparity and the reverse commute

Abstract This paper measures a) whether the reverse commute – a commute where a worker travels from a home location in the city to a workplace location in the suburbs – is characterized by a uniquely disparate socioeconomic and demographic space between home and workplace, and b) what role greater fragmentation between municipalities in a region might play in this theoretically inequitable circumstance. We employ administrative origin–destination data from the metropolitan Philadelphia, PA area and contemporary dimension reduction methodologies to model the likelihood of an origin destination pair being classified as a reverse commute. Particular attention is given to interactions between socioeconomic and metropolitan fragmentation terms and non-linear specifications of predictor variables. Greater socioeconomic and demographic disparity between home and work geographies is found to uniquely predict the reverse commute. We also find that fragmentation at the metropolitan scale has a multidimensional impact in relation to this socio-economic difference. Together, our findings appear to signal that, while greater regional socioeconomic disparity does indeed correlate with the reverse commute, greater metropolitan fragmentation may not. This portrait highlights new areas for transport research around political fragmentation and makes the case for renewed, equity-oriented policy investment in the reverse commuting problem.
Sorption and Release of Nickel and Zinc Using a Mixed-Algae Community Collected from a Mine Drainage Passive Treatment System

AbstractMine water from upwellings in Commerce, Oklahoma is treated by the Mayer Ranch Passive Treatment System (MRPTS) to remove contaminants. Nickel [Ni(II)] and zinc [Zn(II)], which are toxic to...
Physician-Assisted Suicide — The Worry About Abuse

In June 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed decisions in the 9th (Compassion, 1996) and 2nd (Quill, 1996) Federal Circuit Courts of Appeal that had held that state laws prohibiting physician-assisted suicide (PAS) in Washington and New York, respectively, were unconstitutional (U.S. Supreme Court, 1997). The decisions left states free to craft policy on physician-assisted suicide and to prohibit it, as most states now do, or to permit it under one or another regulatory system, as Oregon now does (Oregon, 1995). While I believe there is a plausible constitutional argument that can be, and was, made for a constitutionally protected liberty interest in determining “the time and manner of one’s death,” as the 9th Federal Circuit Court’s opinion put it, the present Supreme Court has made clear that it does not accept any such broad right. Some commentators, as well as more than one of the justices, have interpreted the Court’s decision as leaving open the possibility of accepting a more narrowly framed right to physician-assisted suicide in the future, but for now the principal focus of efforts to secure such a right will return to the states, either through referenda or legislative action, where it had been before the two Circuit Court opinions.
Spreadsheet graphics for curve sketching in mathematics

This paper focuses on one aspect of the recent developments in the use of technology in teaching mathematics -- the use of spreadsheet graphics to display problems visually, as well as numerically. Several applications and recent trends are discussed. Since many schools are requiring all students to be familiar with spreadsheets as part of a computer literacy requirement, it is now reasonable to expect them to use spreadsheet graphics in a math course. The spreadsheet program used for examples in this paper is Lotus 1-2-3, but any spreadsheet program will work as well.
Spectral diagnosis and imaging

Summary form only received as follows: Recent research indicates that laser spectroscopy can be used to diagnose disease and extract histochemical information. Reflectance, absorption, fluorescence and Raman scattering in the infrared, visible and ultraviolet can all be used without the use of exogenous (external) dyes. Data can be obtained in real time during clinical procedures using optical fiber contact probes, needles, and endoscopic imaging techniques. Biopsy is not required, and the methods are non-perturbative. Laser-induced fluorescence has been most widely studied. In addition, vibrational techniques have recently begun to be explored. Raman spectroscopy appears to be the most promising of these. Signals are weak but information content is high, and new technology opens the possibility of clinical application of such techniques. Clinical results and their biophysical basis are presented. Prospects for spectral imaging in two and three dimensions are also discussed.
Effects of chemical substitution on the electronic spectra of aromatic compounds: Part II. Perturbation formulas for substituted parabenzoquinones

Abstract The two π−π ∗ transitions observed in parabenzoquinone at 35 kK and 40 kK are given the labels 1A-1K and 1A-1J, respectively, arguing from the Platt free electron classification scheme. Formulas for the changes of intensity and shifts in transition frequency as a function of type, number, and position of substitution are derived, using the method which Petruska applied successfully to benzene. If “ortho effect” correction terms are introduced into the formulas whenever two substituents are adjacent to each other, the formulas for the intensity of the transition at 35 kK and for the frequency shifts of both transitions hold to within ±10% for methyl, methoxy, and hydroxy substitution. A proportionality is found between parameters computed for these formulas and the corresponding parameters found by Petruska for benzene.
Confronting Sexual Stigma and Prejudice: Theory and Practice

This article explores theoretical and applied questions that are relevant to social scientists' efforts to understand and confront sexual stigma. A framework is presented for conceptualizing such stigma as a cultural phenomenon with structural and individual manifestations. The latter include enacted stigma and felt stigma, as well as internalized stigma, which encompasses self-stigma among sexual minorities and sexual prejudice among heterosexuals. Insights suggested by the model for reducing sexual prejudice are discussed. At the structural level, the framework highlights processes whereby heterosexism legitimates and perpetuates sexual stigma and the power differentials that it creates. Social and behavioral scientists, roles in working to eliminate heterosexism are discussed, and psychologists' contributions to court cases challenging state sodomy laws are described. It is argued that confronting sexual stigma will not only address an important social problem but will also enrich scientific understanding of human behavior.
Immigration and the American Realities of Assimilation and Multiculturalism

This is the text of the 1998 presidential address of the Eastern Sociological Society presented in Philadelphia on March 22 1998. The author discusses the potential increase in the number of ethnic minority groups in the United States. "This projected shift has been seen by many commentators as implying the possibility of revolutionary changes in the relationship between majority and minority Americans including a decline of or even an end to European American social and cultural dominance and a flowering of multiculturalism. In this paper I intend to put these implications under a sociological magnifying glass and consider some alternative scenarios." (EXCERPT)
Recent spatiotemporal patterns in temperature extremes across conterminous United States

With a warming climate, understanding the physical dynamics of hot and cold extreme events has taken on increased importance for public health, infrastructure, ecosystems, food security, and other domains. Here we use a high-resolution spatial and temporal seamless gridded land surface forcing data set to provide an assessment of recent spatiotemporal patterns in temperature extremes over the conterminous United States (CONUS). We asked the following: (1) How are temperature extremes changing across the different regions of CONUS? (2) How do changes in extremes vary on seasonal, annual, and decadal scales? (3) How do changes in extremes relate to changes in mean conditions? And (4) do extremes relate to major modes of ocean-atmosphere variability? We derive a subset of the CLIMDEX extreme indices from the North American Land Data Assimilation phase 2 forcing data set. While there were warming trends in all indices, daytime temperature extremes warmed more than nighttime. Spring warming was the strongest and most extensive across CONUS, and summer experienced the strongest and most extensive decrease in cold extremes. Increase in winter warm extremes appeared weakening relative to the rapid 1950–1990 increase found in previous studies. The Northeast and Midwest experienced the most warming, while the Northwest and North Great Plains saw the least. We found changes in average temperatures were more associated with changes in cold extremes than warm extremes. Since 2006 there have been 5 years when more than 5% of the U.S. experienced at least 90 warm days, something not observed in the previous 25 years. The unusually warm first decade of 21st century could have been associated with the warm conditions of near El Nino–Southern Oscillation-neutral phase of the decade, and possibly amplified by anthropogenic forcing. The widespread, lengthy, and severe extreme hot events documented here during the past three decades underscore the need to implement thoughtful adaptation plans in the very near future, to the growing evidence of increasing warm extremes across United States.
Chlorpheniramine and ephedrine in combination for motion sickness

Background: Chlorpheniramine is effective against motion sickness, but produces sedation. To reduce chlorpheni- ramine's sedating effect and increase its effectiveness, ephedrine was combined with chlorpheniramine to prevent motion sickness. Methods: Chlorpheniramine (C) and chlorpheniramine plus ephedrine (Chlorphedra) were studied in a randomized, double blind, crossover trial. Eighteen normal subjects were randomized to six different orderings of placebo, C (12 mg) or Chlorphedra (12 mg C + 50 mg ephedrine). They ingested the medication 3.25 hours before off vertical axis rotation in a rotating chair. Cognitive testing with both objective and subjective tests was performed before drug ingestion, at peak drug effect and following rotation. Results: Both C and Chlorphedra significantly increased chair time compared to placebo (6.6 to 10.3 minutes (C), 10.2 minutes (Chlorphedra), p< 0.01). Subjects reported significantly more sleepiness on the Karolinska sleepiness scale after taking C (3.3 placebo, 4.9 C ( p< 0.005)) but not with Chlorphedra (3.3 placebo, 3.1 Chlorphedra). Chlorphedra resulted in significantly higher reported alertness, clearheadedness and attentiveness compared to C. Deficits seen on objective tests with C were corrected with Chlorphedra. Subjects noted more side effects with Chlorphedra. Conclusion: Ephedrine does not increase the effectiveness of chlorpheniramine against motion sickness, but counteracts sedative and performance effects successfully.
What managers should never want to hear: silence

Purpose – Every organizational member makes a daily decision to speak up or to be silent on a host of issues. Silence can be problematic. The purpose of this paper is to posit that managers should listen for the silence, not mistaking its presence for agreement or for understanding from those they work with and lead. Design/methodology/approach – This paper’s “reflections on practice” (Schon, 1983) spring from 60+ years of discussions with practicing managers involving such questions as: “what makes for a sound, robust, successful decision-making process? How do you empower those you lead? What was missing in the decisions you have observed that went awry?”. Findings – A critical set of seven questions and six statements that managers should want to periodically hear from their employees are presented and discussed. Four root causes of silence are also presented, along with suggestions for their mitigation. Practical implications – The specifics presented are easily, broadly, and beneficially applicable. ...
Malnutrition and the Brain: Changing Concepts, Changing Concerns

Our conceptions of how malnutrition endured early in life affects brain development have evolved considerably since the mid-1960s. At that time, it was feared that malnutrition endured during certain sensitive periods in early development would produce irreversible brain damage possibly resulting in mental retardation and an impairment in brain function. We now know that most of the alterations in the growth of various brain structures eventually recover (to some extent), although permanent alterations in the hippocampus and cerebellum remain. However, recent neuropharmacological research has revealed long-lasting, if not permanent, changes in brain neural receptor function resulting from an early episode of malnutrition. These more recent findings indicate that the kinds of behaviors and cognitive functions impaired by malnutrition may be more related to emotional responses to stressful events than to cognitive deficits per se, the age range of vulnerability to these long-term effects of malnutrition may be much greater than we had suspected and the minimal amount of malnutrition (hunger) necessary to produce these long-term alterations is unknown.
Improving Application Performance and Predictability Using Multiple Virtual Lanes in Modern Multi-core InfiniBand Clusters

Network congestion is an important factor affecting the performance of large scale jobs in supercomputing clusters, especially with the wide deployment of multi-core processors. The blocking nature of current day collectives makes such congestion a critical factor in their performance. On the other hand, modern interconnects like InfiniBand provide us with many novel features such as Virtual Lanes aimed at delivering better performance to end applications. Theoretical research in the field of network congestion indicate Head of Line (HoL) blocking as a common causes for congestion and the use of multiple virtual lanes as one of the ways to alleviate it. In this context, we make use of the multiple virtual lanes provided by the InfiniBand standard as a means to alleviate network congestion and thereby improve the performance of various high performance computing applications on modern multi-core clusters. We integrate our scheme into the MVAPICH2 MPI library. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first such implementation that takes advantage of the use of multiple virtual lanes at the MPI level. We perform various experiments at native InfiniBand, microbenchmark as well as at the application levels. The results of our experimental evaluation show that the use of multiple virtual lanes can improve the predictability of message arrival by up to 10 times in the presence of network congestion. Our microbenchmark level evaluation with multiple communication streams show that the use of multiple virtual lanes can improve the bandwidth / latency / message rate of medium sized messages by up to 13%. Through the use of multiple virtual lanes, we are also able to improve the performance of the Alltoall collective operation for medium message sizes by up to 20%. Performance improvement of up to 12% is also observed for Alltoall collective operation through segregation of traffic into multiple virtual lanes when multiple jobs compete for the same network resource. We also see that our scheme can improve the performance of collective operations used inside the CPMD application by 11% and the overall performance of the CPMD application itself by up to 6%.
The dnaX gene encodes the DNA polymerase III holoenzyme τ subunit, precursor of the γ subunit, the dnaZ gene product

The E. coli dnaX and dnaZ gene products, essential for E. coli DNA replication, serve in chain elongation. Both genes, located at 10.4 min and previously cloned into a λ vector and a ColE1 plasmid, were subcloned into pBR322 (pMK212). The coding region for the dnaX and dnaZ genes was localized to a 2.2-kb segment by deletion analysis of pMK212. The products of dnaX and dnaZ genes were identified as 78 kd and 52 kd polypeptides, respectively, by using maxicells bearing deletion clones of pMK212. Peptide mapping after limited proteolysis showed that the dnaZ gene product (52 kd) is a part of the dnaX gene product (78 kd), thus accounting for the coding capacity of the 2.2 kb region for both the dnaX and dnaZ genes. The dnaX gene product appears to be the τ subunit of DNA polymerase III holoenzyme; the dnaZ gene product is confirmed as the γ subunit of the holoenzyme.
Dose response, coasting, and differential fiber vulnerability in human toxic neuropathy: a prospective study of pyridoxine neurotoxicity.

We administered either 1 or 3 g/d of pyridoxine (vitamin B 6 ) to five healthy volunteers and repeatedly followed serum pyridoxal phosphate levels, clinical symptoms and signs, quantitative sensory thresholds (QSTs), and sural nerve electrophysiology. Pyridoxine was discontinued at the first sign of either clinical or laboratory abnormality. In all subjects, sensory symptoms and QST abnormalities occurred concurrently. Subjects receiving higher doses became symptomatic earlier than low-dose subjects. Elevation of thermal QSTs preceded or exceeded that for vibration in the threr low-dose subjects; vibration and thermal QST became abnormal simultaneously in the higher-dose subjects. A reduction in the amplitude of the sural sensory potential lagged behind QST changes in two of9 three subjects. Symptoms continued to progress (“coasting”) for 2 to 3 weeks despite stopping pyridoxine administration and the return of serum pyridoxal phosphate levels to normal. This study suggests that (1) there is a clear dose-percent relationship for pyridoxine-induced neuropathy, (2) QST is a sensitive measurement for detecting early peripheral neuropathy; QST abnormalities may precede changes in nerve conduction studies, (3) coasting appears unrelated to persistently elevated blood levels of the toxin, and (4) a dose-dependent vulnerability may exist among nerve fibers of9 different caliber when exposed to an axonal toxin, such as pyridoxine.
Mucinous cystadenocarcinoma of the breast with amplification of the HER2-gene confirmed by FISH: The first case reported

Summary We present the first case of a primary mucinous cystadenocarcinoma of the breast that, in addition to the characteristic immunophenotype (CK7 + , CK20 − , ER − , PR − , and cdx2 − ), showed a strong membranous HER2-protein expression and HER2-gene amplification documented by fluorescence in situ hybridization.
Oral immunization with recombinant Salmonella typhimurium expressing surface protein antigen A (SpaA) of Streptococcus sobrinus: effects of the Salmonella virulence plasmid on the induction of protective and sustained humoral responses in rats.

Abstract Recombinant strains of Salmonella typhimurium have been studied as antigen delivery systems to determine their effectiveness as multivalent vaccines. Here we compare the efficacy of two strains of S. typhimurium , χ4072 (pYA2905) and χ3987 (pYA2905), expressing SpaA of Streptococcus sobrinus 6715 as oral vaccines for dental caries. Both strains are attenuated ΔcyaΔcrpΔasd mutants with their Asd − phenotypes complemented by the Asd + plasmid pYA2905, which also encodes a peptide fragment of SpaA. S. typhimurium χ3987 (pYA2905), unlike S. typhimurium χ4072 (pYA2905), contains the 100 kb S. typhimurium virulence plasmid. Fischer rats were orally immunized with ∼10 9 S. typhimurium χ3987 (pYA2905) or χ4072 (pYA2905) and then challenged with cariogenic S. sobrinus 6715. Rats orally immunized with either strain of recombinant Salmonella developed salivary IgA anti-SpaA responses and had lower levels of S. sobrinus -induced dental caries than nonimmunized, infected animals. In a second series of experiments, the kinetics and isotype of the serum and salivary antibody responses were determined in rats orally immunized with S. typhimurium χ3987 (pYA2905) or χ4072 (pYA2905) on weeks 0 and 8. IgG and IgM serum antibody responses to SpaA and S. typhimurium were detected after the primary and secondary immunizations, and the secondary immunization boosted serum IgG anti- Salmonella activity. In general, animals immunized with χ3987 (pYA2905) had higher serum anti-SpaA, as well as serum and salivary anti- Salmonella , responses than animals immunized with χ4072 (pYA2905). This study demonstrates the effective use of two recombinant S. typhimurium strains as oral vaccines for inducing protective and sustained immune responses against a mucosal pathogen and suggests that the recombinant Salmonella vaccine strain carrying the virulence plasmid induced similar or higher protective immune responses than the strain lacking the virulence plasmid.
Selecting Prior Year’s Top Fund of Hedge Funds as This Year’s Choice

Can investors select winning funds of hedge funds (FOFs) by merely assuming a simple trading strategy? Can historical information present insight on future returns? Financial theory presumes that stock markets are efficient and using any type of trading strategy will not be successful in the long-run. This article investigates a pure simple trading strategy to see if selecting last year’s top-performing FOFs as this year’s choice can outperform three FOF indexes and the S&P 500 Index. We further apply the strategy to the top-performing onshore and offshore funds, respectively, and compare them to the HFR Onshore and HFR Offshore indices, respectively. We generally find that selecting (up to) the six best performing FOFs is a winning strategy that outperforms both the market and the benchmark FOFs indices. There appears to be little benefit to over-diversifying in excess of this number. This finding applies both to onshore and offshore FOFs.
Silicon morphology in sodium modified AlSi eutectic alloys

Abstract Optical and scanning electron microscopy of laboratory samples of sodium modified AlSi alloy of commerical purity has revealed that the modified eutectic structure grows as spherulites. The spherulites consist of aligned branched silicon fibres radiating from the spherulitic center. All the iron impurity was concentrated in the spherulite boundaries as AlFeSi compound. Nearly all the AlFeSi was in the form of β needles.
Recovering singularities of a potential from singularities of scattering data

In this paper we show that the leading singularities of certain potentials can be determined from the leading singularities of the backscattering (as well as other determined sets of scattering data). The potentials in question are conormal with respect to smooth surfaces of arbitrary dimension; the restrictions on their orders allow for unbounded potentials in all dimension greater than or equal to three.
Moderately strong theory applied to second-order statistics

Recently, a heuristic model for scintillation in moderate to strong turbulence was developed. It is based on the idea of filter functions that eliminate scale sizes that lose their ability to affect a laser beam as it propagates. This approach allows the validity of the Rytov approximation to be extended into moderate to strong turbulence. In this paper, we investigate applying this theory to second order statistics.
A model for interconnected LANs with general arrivals

Abstract We present an analytic model for the performance evaluation of interconnected local area networks. The system is decomposed into three elementary subnetworks—routers, Ethernets with 10 Mbps capacity, and an FDDI backbone with 100 Mbps capacity—each of which is modeled by a GI/G/1 queue. Routers are modeled as polling machines with the assumption that packets arriving at the router are not copied when they are moved from input queues to output queues. An approximate analysis based on the first two moments of interarrivai time and packet length distribution is applied to each subnetwork to obtain the performance. A variety of studies are conducted to evaluate those parameters affecting the performance of system. The optimum network structure with least waiting time could be found from our model by varying the number of routers connected to the FDDI and the number of Ethernets connected to routers.