cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Relative duration of transmitted mitral A wave as a measure of left ventricular end-diastolic pressure and stiffness.

Background and objectives: The mitral A wave is transmitted to the left ventricular (LV) outflow tract where it is registered as Ar wave. We have related its transit time to the LV late diastolic stiffness. We also observed incidentally that the duration of the transmitted Ar wave exhibited marked variability and hence investigated its hemodynamic correlates. Methods and results: Mitral A wave and the Ar wave in the LV outflow tract were recorded using pulsed wave Doppler technique simultaneous with high fidelity LV pressure recordings in 20 patients undergoing cardiac catheterization. A high-speed contrast left ventriculogram was obtained as well. The duration of both these wave forms were measured and A wave duration minus the Ar wave duration was measured. The A minus Ar wave duration (range 0–95 ms) correlated with LV end-diastolic pressure (r = 0.54, P = 0.014, range 4–32 mmHg), LV late diastolic stiffness (r = 0.62, P = 0.004, range 0.1–1.6 mmHg/ml) and the amount of LV pressure rise with atrial contraction (r = 0.67, P = 0.001, range 2–13 mmHg). Conclusion: A minus Ar wave duration is an easily obtainable Doppler parameter that is related to LV late diastolic filling pressures and stiffness and gives insights into aspects of LV diastolic function. (ECHOCARDIOGRAPHY, Volume 21, January 2004)
Rapid Decline of OspC Borreliacidal Antibodies following Treatment of Patients with Early Lyme Disease

We determined whether the levels of OspC borreliacidal antibodies declined following treatment of early Lyme disease and whether the OspC7 peptide enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) could be used as an alternative test for detecting the response. Serum samples were collected from 37 subjects at the onset of illness and 2 and 6 months after treatment with doxycycline. The ELISA detected IgM and IgG OspC7 antibodies within 2 months in 18 (49%) and 5 (14%) sera, respectively. Moreover, the sera from 12 subjects who tested positive by the ELISA also showed borreliacidal activity which was completely abrogated when the antibodies to OspC7 were removed. The borreliacidal activity decreased greater than 4-fold in each seropositive patient within 6 months after treatment, and the findings were accurately predicted by the IgM ELISA. The results confirmed that the ELISA was an effective alternative for detection of OspC borreliacidal antibodies produced during early Lyme disease in humans and also provided strong evidence that a significant decline in the response coincides with successful treatment of the illness.
Ostilità e cardiopatia

Per centinaia di anni e in diversi contesti culturali, il benessere sociale, psicologico e fisico e stato associato con l’equilibrio delle forze naturali presenti all’interno della persona [1, 2]. Il legame tra salute fisica, personalita e fattori emotivi e sempre stato evidente sin dagli albori della pratica medica, sino a risalire ad Ippocrate [3]. Per quel che concerne il sistema cardiovascolare, William Harvey, nel 1628, noto che qualsiasi “turbamento mentale” che induce piacere o determina uno stato affettivo doloroso influisce sull’attivita del cuore. Nel 1910, Sir William Osler identificava i pazienti cardiaci come uomini estremamente ambiziosi con la tendenza a spingere i propri meccanismi corporei fino al limite [4]. Alexander [5] postulava che un’alta pressione sanguigna di origine sconosciuta (ipertensione essenziale o primaria) fosse prevalente tra le persone fortemente orientate al raggiungimento di un elevato status sociale e tendenti all’inibizione difensiva degli aspetti emotivi e cognitivi della rabbia. Con l’avanzare delle conoscenze nei campi della fisiologia, della psicologia, della medicina e della sociologia, le speculazioni prescientifiche del XIX e XX secolo hanno approfondito le indagini sul ruolo svolto dall’esperienza e dalla gestione delle emozioni nell’eziologia e nella fisiopatologia della malattia. Esiste un rilevante corpo di evidenze che mostra l’esistenza di un legame tra eventi stressanti e patologia cardiovascolare (cardiovascular disease, CVD); alcuni fattori psicologici quali ostilita, attitudine alla difesa sociale e sentimenti ed espressione della rabbia esercitano un effetto di mediazione su questo legame [6, 7, 8, 9, 10].
Finding What Works to Reduce Violence Against Women

A recent issue of JAMA highlights 2 studies that examined how physicians might treat or help prevent violence against women. If one only glanced at the results, they might seem like bad news. But a further reading should provide us with optimism about how we might address this difficult issue through the health care system.... Language: en
Effects of Orthodontic Treatment on Mandibular Rotation and Displacement in Angle Class II Division 1 Malocclusions

The aim of this retrospective cephalometric study was to investigate the effects of orthodontic treatment on rotation and displacement of the mandible in Angle Class II, division 1 malocclusions. Thirty patients in the treated group (15 boys and 15 girls; mean age at pretreatment, 12.27 +/- 1.36 years) were compared with 28 subjects who had untreated Class II, division 1 malocclusions (15 boys and 13 girls; mean age at T1, 12.01 +/- 0.07 years). The patients in the first group were treated nonsurgically, without extraction, and without the use of functional appliances. Cephalometric data were obtained from three lateral cephalograms per case representing pretreatment (T1), posttreatment (T2), and at least 2-years postretention (T3). Thirty-seven variables were measured representing craniofacial morphology, tooth measurements, and mandibular displacement. Some variables were obtained from cranial base, maxillary, or mandibular superimposition. Statistical significance was established at P < .05, P < .01, and P < .001. The findings indicated that orthodontic treatment of Class II, division 1 malocclusions induced a more vertical mandibular growth direction associated with an increased vertical displacement of pogonion. Occlusal or vertical movement of maxillary and mandibular molars was not correlated to mandibular rotation or horizontal displacement of pogonion. When compared with controls, the treated group did not exhibit a significant difference in mandibular rotation or occlusal movement of maxillary molars; however, it did show a greater occlusal movement of mandibular molars during treatment.
The effect of epinephrine on coronary flow in the setting of a systemic-to-pulmonary artery shunt.

Background:Indirect clinical evidence suggests that coronary blood flow (CBF) is altered in patients palliated with systemic-to-pulmonary artery shunts (SPSs). The addition of epinephrine may exert additional effects.Methods:A total of 11 newborn piglets underwent placement of a 3.5- to 4-mm graft between the innominate artery and the pulmonary artery. Doppler probes measured flow continuously in the aorta (aortic flow [AoF]), pulmonary artery and left coronary artery at baseline (SPS closed), SPS open, and during epinephrine administration (SPS closed and open). Each animal served as its own control. Systolic and diastolic CBF, resistance (coronary vascular resistance index [CVRI]), and myocardial oxygen supply demand ratio were calculated.Results:Opening the SPS increased AoF and decreased systolic and diastolic pressure from baseline, with and without the presence of epinephrine. The CBF and CVRI decreased on opening the SPS in the presence of epinephrine. The decrease occurred only in diastole and was...
Evolutionary imprint of activation: The design principles of VSDs

Voltage-sensor domains (VSDs) are modular biomolecular machines that transduce electrical signals in cells through a highly conserved activation mechanism. Here, we investigate sequence–function relationships in VSDs with approaches from information theory and probabilistic modeling. Specifically, we collect over 6,600 unique VSD sequences from diverse, long-diverged phylogenetic lineages and relate the statistical properties of this ensemble to functional constraints imposed by evolution. The VSD is a helical bundle with helices labeled S1–S4. Surrounding conserved VSD residues such as the countercharges and the S2 phenylalanine, we discover sparse networks of coevolving residues. Additional networks are found lining the VSD lumen, tuning the local hydrophilicity. Notably, state-dependent contacts and the absence of coevolution between S4 and the rest of the bundle are imprints of the activation mechanism on the VSD sequence ensemble. These design principles rationalize existing experimental results and generate testable hypotheses.
Actin filament bundles are required for microtubule reorientation during growth cone turning to avoid an inhibitory guidance cue

The extracellular matrix through which growth cones navigate contains molecules, such as chondroitin sulfate proteoglycan, that can inhibit growth cone advance and induce branching and turning. Growth cone turning is accompanied by rearrangement of the cytoskeleton. To identify changes in the organization of actin filaments and microtubules that occur as growth cones turn, we used time-lapse phase contrast videomicroscopy to observe embryonic chick dorsal root ganglion neuronal growth cones at a substratum border between fibronectin and chondroitin sulfate proteoglycan, in the presence and absence of cytochalasin B. Growth cones were fixed and immunocytochemically labeled to identify actin filaments and dynamic and stable microtubules. Our results suggest that microtubules are rearranged within growth cones to accomplish turning to avoid chondroitin sulfate proteoglycan. Compared to growth cones migrating on fibronectin, turning growth cones were more narrow, and they contained dynamic microtubules that were closer to the leading edge and were more bundled. Cytochalasin B-treated growth cones sidestepped laterally along the border instead of turning, and in sidestepping growth cones, microtubules were not bundled and aligned. We conclude that actin filament bundles are required for microtubule reorientation and growth cone turning to avoid chondroitin sulfate proteoglycan.
Nutrient limitation of microbial phototrophs on a debris-covered glacier

Abstract Photosynthetic microbial communities are important to the functioning of early successional ecosystems, but we know very little about the factors that limit the growth of these communities, especially in remote glacial and periglacial environments. The goal of the present study was to gain insight into the degree to which nutrients limit the growth of photosynthetic microbes in sediments from the surface of the Toklat Glacier in central Alaska. Previous studies and historical observations indicated that this environment is dominated by unique soil algae, and that succession from a microbial to a plant-dominated system is very slow. We used a soil microcosm approach to determine if nitrogen (N) and/or phosphorus (P) additions would affect the development and final biomass of microbial phototroph communities in this system. We found that fertilization with P significantly increased the exponential growth rate (r), but P alone did not affect the final percent soil cover (K) by microbial phototrophs. Nitrogen alone had no effect on either r or K, but the combination of P and N dramatically increased K, thus showing that algal growth rate in this system is likely P-limited, but total productivity may be co-limited by P and N. In addition, nutrient treatments differentially stimulated microbial groups resulting in significantly different microbial communities among treatments. Overall, these results give a preliminary indication of the factors that might limit the development and productivity of photosynthetic microbial communities in an extreme and remote glacial system.
Emerging technologies with potential for objectively evaluating speech recognition skills

Work-related exposure to noise and other ototoxins can cause damage to the cochlea, synapses between the inner hair cells, the auditory nerve fibers, and higher auditory pathways, leading to difficulties in recognizing speech. Procedures designed to determine speech recognition scores (SRS) in an objective manner can be helpful in disability compensation cases where the worker claims to have poor speech perception due to exposure to noise or ototoxins. Such measures can also be helpful in determining SRS in individuals who cannot provide reliable responses to speech stimuli, including patients with Alzheimer's disease, traumatic brain injuries, and infants with and without hearing loss. Cost-effective neural monitoring hardware and software is being rapidly refined due to the high demand for neurogaming (games involving the use of brain-computer interfaces), health, and other applications. More specifically, two related advances in neuro-technology include relative ease in recording neural activity and availability of sophisticated analysing techniques. These techniques are reviewed in the current article and their applications for developing objective SRS procedures are proposed. Issues related to neuroaudioethics (ethics related to collection of neural data evoked by auditory stimuli including speech) and neurosecurity (preservation of a person's neural mechanisms and free will) are also discussed.
Model Order Reduction of Electrochemical Batteries Using Galerkin Method

This paper presents a model order reduction (MOR) method for modeling and estimation of a first-principles electrochemical Lithium-ion battery. The MOR approach combines the Galerkin method with coordinate transformation and is applied to solve the spherical diffusion problem with non-zero flux boundary conditions. The order of the reduced-order model (ROM) is carefully selected based on analysis in the frequency domain. With the reduced-order diffusion model, an enhanced single particle model which incorporates the electrolyte dynamics is developed and validated against the experimental data.Copyright © 2015 by ASME
Histokinetic Responses of Epithelial Cells in Histophysiologic Gradient Culture

ABSTRACT In our new procedure, excised tissue is provided with a setting closely resembling that seen in nature, where membranes composed of stratified epithelial cells have their attachment and their complete metabolic exchange including oxygen on a common interface. A thin collagen diaphragm, covering one end of a shallow cylinder, is the physical substrate to which the tissue is attached, and through which it receives all nutrients. This new culture system has been evaluated with some tissues of the experimental cancer laboratory, chick embryo skin, normal rat bladder, transplantable tumors, and cell lines. Specific histokinetic responses were expressed by each of the inocula resulting, after a few days, in a spatial organization of tissue characteristic for each inoculum and similar to the tissue arrangement found in the intact animal.
Advancing the Experimental Method in Marketing

) A formal center has been established to encourage the use of experimentation in the study of a wide variety of activities related to business, including consumer behavior and other facets of marketing. Early efforts of the personnel at the Center include experimentation in conformity, communications, cognitive dissonance, ethics, and effort as related to satisfaction. The results of the early work have been encouraging and it is now anticipated that the Center will be a permanent research unit.
Meet the President

![Figure][1] The incoming President of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) is Rodney A. Carter, Professor and Associate Dean for Professional and External Relations at the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy. Rod received a bachelor of science degree in pharmacy
RIVERINE BARRIERS TO GENE FLOW AND THE DIFFERENTIATION OF FENCE LIZARD POPULATIONS.

Even prior to the advent of population genetics, it was held that the exchange of genes among populations retards differentiation and promotes the cohesiveness of species. Jordan (1905) maintained that the characters of a species remain "substantially uniform" if free movement of individuals is possible. This concept of a conservative evolutionary factor became a fundamental component of the synthetic theory of evolution (Dobzhansky, 1937; Mayr, 1942). Ehrlich and Raven (1969), questioning the validity of the traditional view, suggested that gene flow may play an inconsequential role in the cohesion of populations. Instead of stimulating research, this paper was the provenance of an influential viewpoint that relegates gene flow to a lower echelon of evolutionary factors. For example, Emmel (1976) wrote, "It therefore became apparent by the late 1960's that gene flow between populations seems to have little to do with holding species together as similar phenotypic units . . . . " We have contended that this neo-orthodoxy lacks an empirical base (Jackson and Pounds, 1979). The present empirical study focuses on the effect of gene flow on the divergence of neighboring demes. Theoretically, parapatric differentiation can occur (Jain and Bradshaw, 1966; Endler, 1973, 1977), and laboratory experiments have confirmed this (e.g., Endler, 1973, 1977). However, as laboratory and computer models often assume conditions not found in nature, examination of natural situations is imperative. Well-documented instances of natural parapatric
Some Remarks About Bridge Probabilities

(1986). Some Remarks About Bridge Probabilities. Mathematics Magazine: Vol. 59, No. 3, pp. 153-157.
Intensity of chronic pain - The wrong metric?

Borrowing treatment principles from acute and end-of-life pain care, particularly a focus on pain intensity, has had harmful consequences for patients with chronic pain. Multimodal therapy, by contrast, aims to reduce pain-related distress, disability, and suffering.
Aqueous and surface chemistry of calcium-metal hydroxides in high pH environments

There is considerable interest in the chemistry associated with hazardous waste treatment by cement. The hydration of Portland cement is retarded in presence of zinc, cadmium and lead ions. Mixed hydroxides of calcium, zinc, cadmium and lead have been recently identified in the high pH environments of hydrating cement. FTIR, XRD, SEM, and SPM have been used to characterize these systems. A chemical equilibrium model of the early hydration of a zinc-doped cement/water system, Na-K-Ca-ZnH-SO{sub 4}-OH-Zn(OH){sub 2}-Zn(OH){sub 3}-Zn(OH){sub 4}-H{sub 2}O, has been developed to better understand the mechanism of the surface formation of calcium hydroxyzincate (CHZ). The model is based on Pitzer`s semi-empirical method for calculation of ion-activity coefficients at high ionic strength. The Pitzer parameters for Na{sup +}-Zn{sup 2+}, Na{sup +}-Zn{sup 2+}-SO{sub 4}{sup 2{minus}} and K{sup +}-Zn(OH){sub 4}{sup 2{minus}} have been evaluated, and the results successfully predict the equilibria (solubilities) of Na{sub 2}SO{sub 4}-ZnSO{sub 4}-H{sub 2}O, NaOH-Zn(OH){sub 2}-H{sub 2}O and KOH-ZnO-H{sub 2}O systems. The chemical model clearly demonstrates that the formation of CHZ on the calcium-silica-hydrate (C-S-H) surface is critically controlled by the Ca{sup 2+} ion concentration as well as pH of the pore water system. The results of this study suggest that the growth of CHZ is precededmore » by surface complex formation. Sequential charge control and sequential structure development have been used to discuss the surface selectivity of these compounds and their control of cement hydration.« less
The Inflationary Process of the Iranian Economy, 1970–1980

During the past decade, the Iranian economy has experienced two severe shocks. The first was the huge increase in oil revenues and the subsequent increase in government expenditures. The second was the Iranian revolution, with the concomitant flight of capital and production setbacks. The first shock produced in the Iranian economy severe inflation that, although not unfamiliar to the Iranians, has been unprecedented in scale and is still accelerating. Analysis of the causes of this inflation is important for understanding the course of events and for predicting future trends.
Guilin Area 2262 Female Genital Tract HPV Infection and Genotype Analysis Results

Objective Know guilin area type high-risk human papilloma virus(HPV) infection and subtype distribution,in order to prevent cervical cancer lesion before,and provides some references for the cervical cancer.Methods the medical nucleic acids rapid diversion hybrid gene chip technology on 2262 women in HPV DNA genetic results analysis.ResuIts Detect the HPV positive rate of 26.22%,in 2262 women with high-risk type higher infection rate(19.20%),low-risk type low infection rate(7.02%);Ordinary women in the infection rate was 18.89%,the infection rate was 84.38%in patients with cervical lesions,compared the difference was statistically significant(x~2 = 457.01,P= 0.00 0.05);Positive rate of HPV was different,different ages shows bimodal u-shaped curve,the first peak in young women 1(20~30 years old),positive rate was 24.61%,the second peak is located in the middle-aged and old women(51~ 65 years),the highest positive rate of 51.74%;High-risk type mainly HPV52.16,58.The most common low-risk type with HPV6 and 11.Conclusion Guilin area 2262 women type cervical HPV infection common high-risk subtype is HPV52,16,58.Low-risk type subtype is HPV6,11.Infection tend to be younger and older age.Genotyping of HPV infection in guilin are in Asian population distribution rules denied,but has its regional characteristics.
Microeconomic Foundations: Innovation, Productivity and Competitiveness

How do US firms and workers stack up against their foreign counterparts? Is US prosperity under siege from ever cheaper imports and production off-shoring? Does the US retain its edge in innovation? Or, if no longer Japan, is China, India or Korea poised “to eat our lunch?” In recent decades, the accelerated pace of globalization and technological change has transformed the US workplace. Concern over how to cope has focused the political dialogue on enhancing international “competitiveness.” But what does it mean for a country, as opposed to a particular firm or individual worker, to grow more or less competitive? And what are the implications for US hegemony?
Respiratory Tract Cytology

The respiratory tract is traditionally divided into upper airway (sinonasal space to larynx) and lower airway (trachea to lungs). In this chapter, the focus will be on the lower airway which accounts for the majority of specimens from the respiratory tract that cytopathologists are expected to review. These specimens have increased in number, partly due to the tremendous advances in thoracic imaging which have allowed radiologists to detect an ever-increasing number of thoracic lesions that need cytological evaluation. Often the differential diagnosis includes non-neoplastic conditions (e.g., infections, iatrogenic) vs truly neoplastic entities. The clinical and radiologic findings are however rarely conclusive for the treating physicians. Thus, histological and/or cytological diagnosis of these lesions are required for selecting the appropriate therapeutic management.
Evaluation of Aluminum Hydroxide-Amended Zeolites in Fluoride Removal: Column Filtration and Regeneration

AbstractPure aluminum (hydr)oxide (AlOOH) and AlOOH-amended sodalite exhibited good performance in column fluoride removal studies in terms of service time (time until breakthrough), energy require...
Potassium Homeostasis: The Knowns, the Unknowns, and the Health Benefits

Potassium homeostasis has a very high priority because of its importance for membrane potential. Although extracellular K+ is only 2% of total body K+, our physiology was evolutionarily tuned for a high-K+, low-Na+ diet. We review how multiple systems interface to accomplish fine K+ balance and the consequences for health and disease.
How Do You See Me? The Neural Basis of Motivated Meta-perception.

We cannot see the minds of others, yet people often spontaneously interpret how they are viewed by other people (i.e., meta-perceptions) and often in a self-flattering manner. Very little is known about the neural associations of meta-perceptions, but a likely candidate is the ventromedial pFC (VMPFC). VMPFC has been associated with both self- and other-perception as well as motivated self-perception. Does this function extend to meta-perceptions? The current study examined neural activity while participants made meta-perceptive interpretations in various social scenarios. A drift-diffusion model was used to test whether the VMPFC is associated with two processes involved in interpreting meta-perceptions in a self-flattering manner: the extent to which the interpretation process involves the preferential accumulation of evidence in favor of a self-flattering interpretation versus the extent to which the interpretation process begins with an expectation that favors a self-flattering outcome. Increased VMPF...
Program Composition Notation

Program Composition Notation (PCN) is a notation for composing programs. The programs that are composed may be expressed in base languages, such as Fortran, Lisp, or Strand or in PCN itself. The PCN research effort has a narrow focus. The chapter explains the program composition operators. The traditional method of constructing programs is by sequential composition. The chapter presents the evaluation the thesis that other forms of program composition are helpful, and that programmers should be able to define their own composition operators for program composition. A goal of an effort is to identify proof rules for the composition operators, and to evaluate their efficacy in reasoning about programs. A unifying framework has been proposed for developing numeric, symbolic, and reactive programs. The focus is to develop programs by stepwise refinement, starting with programs with simpler proofs and refining them if they are not adequately efficient. PCN is an outgrowth of UNITY and Strand. It has the basic data types: boolean, integer, single and double precision floating point number, character, and string. The initial value of a variable of a basic data type is arbitrary. The chapter also explores that a PCN has a data type called synch, for synchronization. The initial value of a synch variable is a special symbol, φ that indicates that the variable is undefined. Programmers have the obligation of proving that a synch variable is assigned at most one value. Given such a proof, a synch variable is both undefined (φ), or it is defined and its definition remains unchanged. A synch variable can be assigned a value of any type.
Confirming the Tripartite Structure of the Duke University Religion Index: A Methodological Approach

The present study provided a methodological critique regarding psychometric investigations of the Duke University Religion Index (DUREL) and its variants. Nine hundred seventeen (630 females and 287 males) university students (M age = 19.24) completed the DUREL, the Personal Religious Inventory, and the Daily Spiritual Experiences Scale online. Confirmatory factor analyses were performed to assess a three-factor (organizational religious activity; non-organizational religious activity; and intrinsic religiosity) and a unidimensional model of the DUREL. Chi-square difference tests were performed, and Akaike information criterion values and Bayesian information criterion values were compared between the models, each of which supported the three-factor model for the DUREL over the unidimensional model. Convergent validity for the three factors of the DUREL emerged through Spearman’s rho correlations with measures of personal prayer, ritual religious attendance, religious integration, Closeness to the Divine. This study concluded that the DUREL is a multidimensional measurement of religion for use in English-speaking university students, and it provided a broad methodological note regarding future investigations of measures of religion or spirituality that possess an existing theoretical model.
Evaluating Robot Behavior in Response to Natural Language

Human-robot teaming can be improved if a robot»s actions meet human users» expectations. The goal of this research is to determine what variations of robot actions in response to natural language match human judges» expectations in a series of tasks. We conducted a study with 21 volunteers that analyzed how a virtual robot behaved when executing eight navigation instructions from a corpus of human-robot dialogue. Initial findings suggest that movement more accurately meets human expectation when the robot (1) navigates with an awareness of its environment and (2) demonstrates a sense of self-safety.
An idiographic approach to understanding personality structure and individual differences among smokers

We present a social-cognitive theory which requires an idiographic assessment of individual differences in personality structure among smokers, and contrast this approach to traditional nomothetic trait approaches. A sample of 15 regular smokers completed idiographic assessment procedures designed to tap into three cognitive structures (smoker self-schema, abstainer ideal-possible self, abstainer ought-possible self) which are proposed to regulate individual differences in smoking behavior, coping behavior, and finally smoking cessation. Support for the idiographic approach was found. The three cognitive structures were distinguishable from one another, and had properties that self-schema are proposed to hold, and intraindividual patterns of schematic responding across situations were stable and predictable phenomena. These findings are not consistent with a nomothetic trait approach. We discuss the implications of these results for individual-differences assessment among smokers and suggest avenues for future research.
Intramuscular E-selectin/adeno-associated virus gene therapy promotes wound healing in an ischemic mouse model

Abstract Background Poor wound healing in critical limb ischemia (CLI) is attributed to impaired neovascularization and reperfusion. Optimizing the ischemic wound with adhesion molecules that enhance stem cell homing may revolutionize treatment. The purpose of this study is to test the efficacy of adhesion molecule E-selectin on wound healing in an ischemic mouse wound. Methods Adult FVB/NJ mice underwent unilateral femoral artery and vein ligation to induce CLI. A 4-mm punch biopsy wound was created on the anterior thigh to simulate ischemic wounds. Intramuscular injection of adeno-associated virus (AAV) carrying either E-selectin (E-selectin/AAV, n = 11) or LacZ as control (LacZ/AAV, n = 10) was performed. Gross wound size was measured for 10 d postoperatively. Ischemic hindlimb reperfusion was quantified using laser Doppler imaging. Wound tissue neovascularization was visualized using DiI perfusion and confocal microscopy. E-selectin expression in wounds was verified by immunofluorescence. Results Immunofluorescence confirmed E-selectin/AAV delivery in treatment versus control limbs. Wounds from E-selectin/AAV mice versus controls revealed surface area healing of 54% versus 20% (P Conclusions Intramuscularly injected E-selectin/AAV gene therapy in mice with CLI significantly increases wound angiogenesis and limb reperfusion, expediting overall wound healing.
BORN-INFELD ACTIONS AND D-BRANE PHYSICS

Some very interesting things can be learned about the physics of D-branes by studying the solutions of the effective action for low-energy fluctuations of the D-brane about its ground state. Many pieces of evidence indicate that the correct action is essentially the Born-Infeld action for nonlinear electrodynamics (with some modifications to adapt it to the D-brane context). We motivate this description of the dynamics of branes and then explore a series of applications, starting with the simple case of branes in flat space and working our way up to branes in the curved backgrounds of large numbers of other branes. Some of these applications make contact with the AdS/CFT conjecture of Maldacena in interesting ways and these are developed in some detail.
Domains of virus glycoproteins.

Publisher Summary This chapter reviews current information about the structure and function of virus glycoproteins. There are few virus glycoproteins that provide prototypes for illustrating important relationships between the functions and glycoprotein structure. The discussion presented in the chapter concentrates on those viral glycoproteins that (1) span the lipid bilayer once, (2) are oriented such that the carboxy terminus comprises the cytoplasmic domain, and (3) contain asparagine-linked oligosaccharides. There are also viral glycoproteins with extensive O-linked glycosylation, some of which are also presented in the discussion. The chapter also focuses on the studies involving directed mutagenesis and construction of chimeric proteins. The effects of altering specific amino acid sequences, of swapping domains, and of adding a new domain to a protein serve to define the functions of a domain and to show that a domain can be independently associated with a specific function. The experiments described have been carried out by inserting the genes of particular viral glycoproteins—such as cDNAs—into expression vectors and transcribing the cDNAs from the promoter provided by the expression vector. This approach established that localization and functions such as the fusogenic activity are properties of the viral glycoprotein per se and do not require other viral-coded components.
The effectiveness of root cause analysis: what does the literature tell us?

Article-at-a-Glance Background Root cause analysis (RCA) is an analysis framework used in health care to determine the systemic causes and prevent recurrences of adverse events. It is required by The Joint Commission for reported events and by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) National Center for Patient Safety for qualifying events in VA medical centers. The evidence on RCA effectiveness in improving patient safety was reviewed. Methods MEDLINE®, Academic Search™ Premier, and the Cochrane Database were searched from database inception to September 2007. RCA case studies and articles that directly addressed the RCA framework were reviewed. Results Discussion of RCA did not emerge in the literature until the late 1990s, and there have been no controlled trials that test the RCA framework. Twenty-three articles describe the RCA process, 38 articles present RCA case studies, and 12 articles analyze weaknesses of the RCA framework. Eleven of the case studies measure RCA effectiveness, 3 using clinical outcome measures and 8 using process measures. All 11 articles report improvement of safety following RCA. RCA participants report the difficulty in forming causal statements and in developing/implementing corrective actions. Criticisms of RCA include the uncontrolled study design and participant biases. Discussion Overall, the limited literature on RCA effectiveness provides anecdotal evidence that RCA improves safety. At the same time, it highlights the numerous theoretical problems with the analytical framework. Formal studies at the system level and cost-benefit analysis are needed to determine the effectiveness of RCA. Structured publication of case studies will support shared knowledge and will provide benchmarks for improvement. Enrichment of the RCA literature body will enable reproducibility of improvement work, optimization of analysis, and validation of the framework itself.
Different Perspectives of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning: The Case of the Software Design Project

According to Koschmann (1996), the term of computer-supported collaborative learning came into existence about a decade ago reflecting theoretical changes in the field of educational technology. A central factor that triggered the emergence of CSCL was a different view of learning and instruction that put social issues in the center of study. Theoretical approaches such as social constructivism, sociocultural psychology or situated cognition use different metaphors for the social process but they represent the common ground for the design and study of CSCL Researchers and practitioners interested in these approaches started the CSCL conference in 1995. In 1999, the third CSCL meeting was held at Stanford University in Palo Alto and brought together educators, psychologists, anthropologists, computer scientists, and practitioners engaged in the development and study of computer-supported collaborative learning environments. While these different communities share a common theme, each of them approaches CSCL from a different perspective: some researchers presented developments of interface features and tools, other focused on classroom implementations and their challenges, and then others again examined patterns of interactions. We can learn from all of these perspectives because they tell an important piece of the CSCL story but it makes for a complex narrative because so many different aspects are under consideration and in need to be integrated—a common issue of any educational situation under investigation.
Developing awareness among junior and senior high school students of the cost of a child.

(1986). Developing Awareness among Junior and Senior High School Students of the Cost of a Child. Health Education: Vol. 17, Teaching Ideas, pp. 40-41.
Screening for Ovarian Cancer.

A 61-year-old woman presents to your office for a well-woman examination. She had a normal Papanicolaou (Pap) test last year and has no medical problems. She quit smoking 10 years ago, reports a family history significant only for cardiovascular disease, and is sexually active with her husband.
Dynamic off-resonance correction for spiral real-time MRI of speech.

PURPOSE To improve the depiction and tracking of vocal tract articulators in spiral real-time MRI (RT-MRI) of speech production by estimating and correcting for dynamic changes in off-resonance. METHODS The proposed method computes a dynamic field map from the phase of single-TE dynamic images after a coil phase compensation where complex coil sensitivity maps are estimated from the single-TE dynamic scan itself. This method is tested using simulations and in vivo data. The depiction of air-tissue boundaries is evaluated quantitatively using a sharpness metric and visual inspection. RESULTS Simulations demonstrate that the proposed method provides robust off-resonance correction for spiral readout durations up to 5 ms at 1.5T. In -vivo experiments during human speech production demonstrate that image sharpness is improved in a majority of data sets at air-tissue boundaries including the upper lip, hard palate, soft palate, and tongue boundaries, whereas the lower lip shows little improvement in the edge sharpness after correction. CONCLUSION Dynamic off-resonance correction is feasible from single-TE spiral RT-MRI data, and provides a practical performance improvement in articulator sharpness when applied to speech production imaging.
Uncertainties in Low-Pressure Shock Experiments on Heterogeneous Materials

Understanding and quantifying the uncertainties in experimental results are crucial to properly interpreting simulations based on those results. While methods are reasonably well established for estimating those uncertainties in high-pressure shock experiments on homogeneous materials, it is much more difficult to treat relatively low-pressure experiments where shock rise times are significant and material strength is not negligible. Sample heterogeneity further complicates the issue, especially when that heterogeneity is not characterized in each sample. Here, we extend the Monte Carlo impedance matching approach used in high-pressure Z experiments to low-pressure experiments on heterogeneous porous materials. The approach incorporates uncertainties not only in the equation of state of the impedance matching standard but also those associated with its strength. In addition, we also examine approaches for determining material heterogeneity and evaluate its effect on the experimental results.
Collecting the Rent: The Global Battle to Capture MNE Profits

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) often earn substantial profits, or "economic rents." Often, these MNEs are domiciled in the United States, and the rents derive from ownership of intellectual property. These MNEs have structured their affairs to pay little taxes to countries outside the United States or otherwise to share their rents in these countries. Apple and Microsoft, for example, may earn roughly half their profits outside the United States but do not pay significant amounts of taxes to any foreign country. The European Union and other countries have responded to this state of affairs with new tax legislation, antitrust actions, and other policies that have the effect of, and perhaps the intention of, capturing a greater share of MNE rents for their treasuries or citizens. To date, these policies are discussed in separate literatures focused on a particular policy domain (tax, antitrust, and so on). This paper offers the first unified or comparative analysis of the issue. We examine the various policy levers which a nation may employ to claw rents away from a non-resident MNE. We consider tax, anti-trust policy, state-owned enterprises, price regulation, tariffs and other types of trade policies. We discuss the relative merits of each policy, including their economic welfare consequences (nationally and globally) and their effects on the distribution of rents. We also consider the circumstances in which one policy is likely to be superior to others from a national or global perspective.
Communicative Use of Triadic Eye Gaze in Children With Down Syndrome, Autism Spectrum Disorder, and Other Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.

Purpose This study examines differences in the communicative use of triadic eye gaze (TEG) during a communicative interaction in 2 neurodevelopmental disorders: Down syndrome (DS) and autism spectr...
In fetuses with congenital lung masses, decreased ventricular and atrioventricular valve dimensions are associated with lesion size and clinical outcome.

INTRODUCTION The clinical importance of mass effect from congenital lung masses on the fetal heart is unknown. We aimed to report cardiac measurements in fetuses with congenital lung masses and to correlate lung mass severity/size with cardiac dimensions and clinical outcomes. METHODS Cases were identified from our institutional database between 2009 and 2016. We recorded atrioventricular valve (AVVz) annulus dimensions and ventricular widths (VWz) converted into z scores, ratio of aortic to total cardiac output (AoCO), lesion side, and congenital pulmonary airway malformation volume ratio (CVR). Respiratory intervention (RI) was defined as intubation, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), or use of surgical intervention prior to discharge. RESULTS Fifty-two fetuses comprised the study cohort. Mean AVVz and VWz were below expected for gestational age. CVR correlated with ipsilateral AVVz (RS = -.59, P < .001) and ipsilateral VWz (-0.59, P < .001). Lower AVVz and AoCO and higher CVR were associated with RI. No patient had significant structural heart disease identified postnatally. CONCLUSION In fetuses with left-sided lung masses, ipsilateral cardiac structures tend to be smaller, but in our cohort, there were no patients with structural heart disease. However, smaller left-sided structures may contribute to the need for RI that affects a portion of these fetuses.
Linear Algebra-Based Triangle Counting via Fine-Grained Tasking on Heterogeneous Environments : (Update on Static Graph Challenge)

Triangle counting is a representative graph problem that shows the challenges of improving graph algorithm performance using algorithmic techniques and adopting graph algorithms to new architectures. In this paper, we describe an update to the linear-algebraic formulation of the triangle counting problem. Our new approach relies on fine-grained tasking based on a tile layout. We adopt this task based algorithm to heterogeneous architectures (CPUs and GPUs) for up to 10.8x speed up over past year’s graph challenge submission. This implementation also results in the fastest kernel time known at time of publication for real-world graphs like twitter (3.7 second) and friendster (1.8 seconds) on GPU accelerators when the graph is GPU resident. This is a 1.7 and 1.2 time improvement over previous state-of-the-art triangle counting on GPUs. We also improved end-to-end execution time by overlapping computation and communication of the graph to the GPUs. In terms of end-to-end execution time, our implementation also achieves the fastest end-to-end times due to very low overhead costs.
Virtual output feedback in parameter estimation

Abstract The use of poles as targets for estimating parameters of linear systems is attractive from a variance perspective but the limitations are well-known, namely: the number of poles that can be identified is often smaller than the parameters to be estimated and their sensitivity can be small. One way to mitigate these limitations, initially put forth about 20 years ago, is to collect data while the structure operates in closed-loop. In this manner, poles for different gains can be aggregated, and some control over the sensitivities can be realized by gain design. This paper shows that closed-loop interrogation can be realized without physical feedback by signal processing supported on the relation between open-loop and closed-loop transfer matrices for a given gain. Guidelines for closed-loop pole locations that provide robustness are derived and two numerical examples that exemplify the scheme in a model updating framework are included.
Analysis of monitoring results of children dental fluorosis in drinking-water-borne endemic fluorosis areas in Liaoning province in 2011

Objective To investigate the prevalence of children dental fluorosis in drinking-water-borne endemic fluorosis areas in Liaoning province and to evaluate the disease prevention effects of water improvement measures.Methods Haicheng city,Linghai city,Faku county,Fumeng county,Liaoyang county and Jianping county six endemic fluorosis diseased counties (cities) of Liaoning province were included in the study in September 2011.In each county,3 water improvement villages were selected as survey points.In each surveyed village,children aged 8-12 were generally surveyed the prevalence of dental fluorosis.One tap water sample was collected in each surveyed village for determination of water fluorine.level.Results A total of 786 children aged 8-12 were examined; 110 of them were found with dental fluorosis; detection rate of dental fluorosis was 14.0％ ; no defect case of dental fluorosis was found,and dental fluorosis index was 0.27.Among the cases,very mild were 76 cases,and the detection rate was 9.7％; mild 33 cases,the detection rate was 4.2％; moderate 1 case,the detection rate was 0.1％; and no severe case.Four cases were in the eight-year-old group,accounting for 3.6％ of the total number of cases; 20 in the 9-year-old group,accounting for 18.2％ ; 26 in the 10-year-old group,accounting for 23.6％; 32 in the 11-year-old group,accounting for 29.1％; and 28 in the 12-year-old group,accounting for 25.5％.The differences of detection rates of dental fluorosis of children in each age groups were statistically significant (x2 =13.57,P ＜ 0.05).Water fluoride of the 18 water samples ranged from 0.34 to 2.03 mg/L; 77.8％ (14/18) of the water improvement areas reached the control standard for endemic fluorosis areas.Conclusion The prevalence of dental fluorosis in the areas with high fluoride in drinking water remains high,the measures of water improvement should be strengthened. Key words: Water-improving project; Drinking water; Fluorosis, dental; Results evaluation