cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Developmental Specificity of the Interaction between the Locus Control Region and Embryonic or Fetal Globin Genes in Transgenic Mice with an HS3 Core Deletion

The human beta-globin locus control region (LCR) consists of five erythroid-lineage-specific DNase I-hypersensitive sites (HSs) and is required for activation of the beta-globin locus chromatin domain and globin gene expression. Each DNase I-HS of the LCR consists of a highly conserved core element and flanking sequences. To analyze the functional role of the core elements of the HSs, we deleted a 234-bp fragment encompassing the core of HS3 (HS3c) from a beta-globin locus residing on a 248-kb beta-locus yeast artificial chromosome and analyzed its function in F2 progeny of transgenic mice. Human epsilon-globin gene expression was absent at day 10 and severely reduced in the day 12 embryonic erythropoiesis of mice lacking HS3c. In contrast, gamma-globin gene expression was normal in embryonic erythropoiesis but it was absent in definitive erythropoiesis in the fetal liver. These results indicate that the core element of HS3 is necessary for epsilon-globin gene transcription in embryonic cells and for gamma-globin gene transcription in definitive cells. Normal gamma-globin gene expression in embryonic cells and the absence of gamma-globin gene expression in definitive cells show that different HSs interact with gamma-globin gene promoters in these two stages of development. Such results provide direct evidence for developmental stage specificity of the interactions between the core elements of HSs and the promoters of the globin genes.
Statin—Fibrate Combination Therapy

BACKGROUND:Precautionary warnings for severe myopathy and rhabdomyolysis from the coadministration of statins and fibrates have been well publicized. However, a recent cerivastatin labeling change made the combined use with fibric acid derivatives a contraindication. Practical recommendations for clinicians who care for patients with refractory mixed hyperlipidemia are needed.OBJECTIVE:To provide recommendations for clinicians in the treatment of refractory mixed hyperlipidemia.DATA SOURCES:A comprehensive MEDLINE (1966–July 2000) and bibliographic search was performed.DATA SYNTHESIS:Thirty-six published clinical trials and 29 case reports involving combination therapy with hydroxymethylglutaryl coenzyme A (HMG-CoA) reductase inhibitors and fibric acid derivatives regarding the occurrence of rhabdomyolysis or myopathy were reviewed. The literature review demonstrated that combination therapy with a statin and fibrate increases the risk of muscle damage, with an incidence of 0.12%. Risk factors that predis...
Current perceptions of the role of dental hygienists in interdisciplinary collaboration.

Purpose: Recent scientific studies show strong correlations between oral and systemic disease, creating a crucial need for increased communication between the medical and dental professions. Interdisciplinary collaboration between medical and dental providers is emerging as a critical component to effective patient care. Dental hygienists have been underutilized in interdisciplinary collaboration, and what utilization does take place has not been well studied. The objectives of this research are to assess dental hygienists9 perceptions of (1) their role in interdisciplinary collaboration, (2) the barriers to effective collaboration, and, (3) communication skills needed to better participate in interdisciplinary collaboration. Methods: Data were gathered using an original, 45-question, quantitative survey instrument, consisting of Likert scale, ranking, and demographic questions. After approval from Oregon State University9s Internal Review Board, the survey was pilot tested with 8 dental hygienists licensed in Oregon with diverse educational and practice backgrounds. The survey was revised based on feedback from the pilot test. Variables measured included experience, confidence, importance, leadership, knowledge utilization, and the future of interdisciplinary collaboration. Survey participants consisted of a convenience sample of Oregon dental hygienists (N=103), recruited from 2 large dental hygiene meetings. The overall response rate was 60% (N=103). Descriptive statistics and histograms were generated for all responses. To better understand the nature of relationships between variables, and to make comparisons among groups, statistical analyses included correlation analysis and t-tests. Results: Results show that dental hygienists perceive their role in interdisciplinary collaboration as valuable, both now and in the future. However, current experience in collaboration is limited. Barriers to collaboration include insufficient time and knowledge of medical diseases. Speaking, listening, and leadership skills are necessary to effectively participate in interdisciplinary collaboration. Conclusions: Analyses of these findings support a call for greater education in communication skills. Increased knowledge of medical diseases is also needed to increase further confidence in interdisciplinary collaboration. Interdisciplinary education needs to become the expected standard in dental and medical education. Organizational and individual barriers to collaboration require further study.
On the Interplay of Voltage/Frequency Scaling and Device Power Management for Frame-Based Real-Time Embedded Applications

Voltage/Frequency Scaling (VFS) and Device Power Management (DPM) are two popular techniques commonly employed to save energy in real-time embedded systems. VFS policies aim at reducing the CPU energy, while DPM-based solutions involve putting the system components (e.g., memory or I/O devices) to low-power/sleep states at runtime, when sufficiently long idle intervals can be predicted. Despite numerous research papers that tackled the energy minimization problem using VFS or DPM separately, the interactions of these two popular techniques are not yet well understood. In this paper, we undertake an exact analysis of the problem for a real-time embedded application running on a VFS-enabled CPU and using multiple devices. Specifically, by adopting a generalized system-level energy model, we characterize the variations in different components of the system energy as a function of the CPU processing frequency. Then, we propose a provably optimal and efficient algorithm to determine the optimal CPU frequency as well as device state transition decisions to minimize the system-level energy. We also extend our solution to deal with workload variability. The experimental evaluations confirm that substantial energy savings can be obtained through our solution that combines VFS and DPM optimally under the given task and energy models.
Synthesis of sphingosine conjugate with controlled pore glass beads

Abstract Chemical synthesis of sphingosine conjugate with controlled pore glass beads via amide linkage is described
From the Territorial Frontier to the Frontier of Science: Library Service in the United States of America:

Aux dates decisives de la formation, du developpement et des crises de la nation americaine (1853; 1876; 1895; 1929; 1933-1943; 1966), sont presentees les evolutions des services bibliotheconomiques du pays
Telescoped Trajectories From Alcohol Initiation to Disorder in Children of Alcoholic Parents

The current study tested whether and why children of alcoholics (COAs) showed telescoped (adolescent) drinking initiation-to-disorder trajectories as compared with non-COAs. Using longitudinal data from a community-based sample, the authors confirmed through survival analyses that COAs progressed more quickly from initial adolescent alcohol use to the onset of disorder than do matched controls. Similar risks for telescoping were evident in COAs whose parents were actively symptomatic versus those whose parents had been previously diagnosed. Stronger telescoping effects were observed for COAs whose parents showed comorbidity for either depression or antisocial personality disorder. Both greater externalizing symptoms and more frequent, heavier drinking patterns at initiation failed to explain COAs' risk for telescoping, although externalizing symptoms were a unique predictor of telescoping. This risk for telescoping was also evident for drug disorders. These findings characterize a risky course of drinking in COAs and raise important questions concerning the underlying mechanisms and consequences of telescoping in COAs.
Endotoxin-Induced Cardiomyopathy and Systemic Inflammation in Mice Is Prevented by Aldose Reductase Inhibition

Background—Sepsis is a systemic inflammatory response syndrome characterized by excessive production of inflammatory cytokines and cardiovascular collapse. Postreceptor signaling events that lead to stress responses and cytokine production are sensitive to redox changes and products of lipid peroxidation. Methods and Results—We tested the hypothesis that inflammatory signaling and cytokine generation during sepsis depend on the activity of the enzyme aldose reductase, which catalyzes the reduction of lipid peroxidation–derived aldehydes and their glutathione conjugates. The results of the present study show that pharmacological inhibition of aldose reductase by sorbinil or knockdown of the enzyme by small interfering RNA prevents the activation of nuclear factor-B and the release of tumor necrosis factor- from lipopolysaccharide-stimulated RAW264.7 or H9c2 cells. Increases in serum and cardiac cytokines in response to lipopolysaccharide challenge were suppressed by inhibition of aldose reductase. Treatment with sorbinil blunted the activation of protein kinase C, c-Jun NH2-terminal kinase, and p38, as well as phosphorylation of interleukin receptor–associated kinase, IB- ,I B kinase complex-/, and phospholipase-1 and -1. These changes were associated with decreased myocardial nuclear factor-B and activating protein-1 activity, prostaglandin E2 production, induction of cyclooxygenase 2, and inducible nitric oxide synthase. Sorbinil treatment also induced functional recovery in myocardial fractional shortening in vivo and preserved contractile function of isolated perfused hearts. Inhibition of aldose reductase increased survival in mice injected with lethal doses of lipopolysaccharide. Conclusions—The present demonstration that aldose reductase mediates endotoxin-induced inflammation and cardiomyopathy suggests that inhibition of this enzyme may be useful to attenuate maladaptive host responses and to treat acute cardiovascular dysfunction associated with endotoxic shock. (Circulation. 2006;114:1838-1846.)
Decrease in liver norepinephrine in response to exercise and hypoglycemia

The existence of the sympathetic innervation of the liver has been known for many years, but the role of this system in regulation of liver metabolism is unclear. The purpose of these experiments was to identify physiological conditions for activation of liver sympathetics. Liver norepinephrine (NE) was measured in normal resting rats and in rats exposed to swimming, treadmill running, fasting, and insulin-induced hypoglycemia. Liver NE decreased significantly in response to swimming (-71% of control), treadmill running (-53% of control), and hypoglycemia (-24% of control). Rats that are endurance trained by daily bouts of treadmill running for 3 mo show no decrease in liver NE in response to a 60-min run on the treadmill, whereas nontrained rats show a 50% decrease in liver NE with the same amount of exercise. We conclude that the liver sympathetics are activated in response to swimming, treadmill exercise and hypoglycemia, and that endurance training causes a reduction in the degree of exercise-induced activation of these neurons.
Survey of Technology Policy

For centuries, governments have pursued policies to improve the innovative performance of domestic industry and to enhance the economic returns to domestic firms and citizens from indigenously developed technologies. The mention of the patent system in Article I of the U.S. Constitution is only one example of technology policies; other examples are Colbert’s investments of state funds in such “strategic industries” as glass and tapestries (Lough, 1961), or the British government’s controls on the export of critical technologies for the spinning and weaving of cotton textiles during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries (Harris, 1986).
Total Lobbying: RECAP AND FINAL THOUGHTS

The primary objective of this book was to paint a broad picture of what lobbyists in America do. To serve this objective, I divided lobbying into three categories – public policy lobbying, land use lobbying, and procurement lobbying – and examined each category in detail. Specifically, I examined public policy lobbying in Chapters 3 and 4, land use lobbying in Chapter 5, and procurement lobbying in Chapter 6. These substantive chapters were designed to present detailed information about who lobbyists are, what interests they represent, how they do their jobs, and to what extent they affect government decisions. Here, I want to recap my findings by addressing the same set of questions I addressed at the end of Chapters 4, 5, and 6. I conclude with final observations about lobbying and lobbyists in the United States. RECAP OF SUBSTANTIVE FINDINGS Public policy lobbying, land use lobbying, and procurement lobbying have a lot in common. In many ways, however, they are different, as you have learned. Where Does Lobbying Take Place? As Chapters 3–6 demonstrate, lobbying takes place at all three levels of government – local, state, and national. As I pointed out in Chapters 1 and 2, journalists and scholars alike tend to focus their attention on Washington lobbying, rather than on state or local lobbying. This Washington-centric bias notwithstanding, the data clearly show that lobbying in America takes place wherever government decisions are made – in Washington, in state capitals, in cities, in towns, in counties, and in villages.
Volume distribution and separation of normal human leucocytes.

SummaryLeucocytes from normal adults have been studied by electronic sizing and separating methods. The volume distribution was found to be bimodal. Three cell groups of small volume dispersion were isolated and subsequently identified by hematological methods. The smaller-volume leucocyte peak was found to contain small lymphocytes and little else. The large-volume peak contained granulocytes in its central portion and mono-cytes in its large-volume tail. Using these methods, the relative abundance of a specific type of leucocyte can be greatly increased. These methods may also be applied to other cell suspensions.
Quantitative Analyses on the Cellulose Fermentation by Termite Protozoa

Termites of the genus Zootermopsis have been used in many of the studies of cellulose digestion in the Isoptera. These termites are large, easy to handle, and abundant. The two species which have been used, nevadensis and angusticollis , are similar in habits and appearance but can be distinguished in most cases on the basis of the characteristics described by Sumner (1933). They show an overlapping distribution (Chap. 24 in Kofoid et al, 1934) and according to Kirby (1932) they contain the same species of cellulose-digesting protozoa. These are the large hypermastigote flagellates Trichonympha collaris, T. campanula , and T. spkaerica , and the smaller polymastigote, Trichomas termopsidis .
Research on SHS Reaction of Ti-Ni Alloy Under Microgravity

SHS Process has been applied to the production of ceramic and metallic compound materials as powder metallurgy method.Authors have examined the mechanism of the high speed reaction in Ni-Ti compacts and made a porous shape memory alloy from the compacts under microgravity by use of a drop shaft.In the results, it was recognized that SHS process showed the effect of rapid heating and cooling in a short duration during microgravity experiment.In this paper, the author discribes the reviews of the recent studies on the Ti-Ni intermetallic compound through a new processing of appling the SHS reaction and microgravity environment.
Crystal structure of histone-like protein from Streptococcus mutans refined to 1.9 Å resolution.

Nucleoid-associated proteins (NAPs) in prokaryotes play an important architectural role in DNA bending, supercoiling and DNA compaction. In addition to architectural roles, some NAPs also play regulatory roles in DNA replication and repair, and act as global transcriptional regulators in many bacteria. Bacteria encode multiple NAPs and some of them are even essential for survival. Streptococcus mutans, a dental pathogen, encodes one such essential NAP called histone-like protein (HLP). Here, the three-dimensional structure of S. mutans HLP has been determined to 1.9 A resolution. The HLP structure is a dimer and shares a high degree of similarity with other bacterial NAPs, including HU. Since HLPs are essential for the survival of pathogenic streptococci, this structure determination is potentially beneficial for future drug development against these pathogens.
Experiential Learning for Undergraduates

Abstract Undergraduates have difficulty understanding the normal sensory losses and changes in functional status experienced by virtually all older adults. To overcome this experiential problem, a classroom assignment, the aging simulation exercise, was developed to engage students as active participants in their learning of what it genuinely means to “become older.” Students are obliged to “experience” first-hand some of the many aches and pains as well as sensory losses commonly associated with the aging process.
Agonistic behavior in pachycephalosaurs (Ornithischia, Dinosauria); a new look at head-butting behavior

The hypothesis that pachycephalosaurid dinosaurs used their massive domed heads in agonistic head-to-head butting is reexamined. It is questionable whether such behavior was possible because of the small contact area of opposing heads. Instead, flank-butting is suggested based on analogy with extant African antelopes. Two types of flank-butting are recognized on the basis of dome structure. Type One is seen in Pachycephalosaurus, Prenocephale, and Stegoceras, all of which have tall, rounded frontoparietal domes. Such domes would maximize the mass of the head in flank-directed blows. Pain would be felt by the opponent without causing serious injury. Type Two is seen in Stygimoloch, in which squamosal horns are developed along the posterior margins of the dome. These horns seem to be an adaptation for causing maximum pain locally during flank-butting without causing serious injury. The horns probably were not sharp, but blunted.
Evaluation of the ovine callipyge locus: IV. Genotypic effects on reproductive traits.

A resource population of ewes derived from Dorset and Romanov grandparents was generated over 5 yr to provide genotypic and phenotypic data to estimate effects of each callipyge genotype on component traits of reproduction. Effects on ovulation rate were estimated from data recorded by examination of ovaries from serially slaughtered ewe lambs (n = 174) born in 1994 and 1995. Productivity and longevity through 5 yr of age were recorded on a total of 265 F 2 ewes produced in 1996 through 1998. Number of lambs born, birth weights, and weaning weights of lambs were calculated for each ewe. Weaning weight was recorded for each lamb and adjusted for age to 56 and 32 d for dam- and nursery-reared lambs, respectively. Longevity was determined as a binary trait based on the presence or absence of the ewe in the breeding flock at 5 yr of age. Ewes generated 937 records for breeding weight and 925 records for conception rate, which was determined on ewes exposed and still present at the start of each lambing season. Seven hundred seventeen records were analyzed for traits based on the number of ewes lambing. Genotypes for the causative callipyge mutation were determined using a matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry assay. Each ewe was classified into 1 of 4 genotypes; N Mat N Pat , N Mat C Pat , C Mat N Pat , or C Mat C Pat , where N represents wild type and C represents the mutant allele. The mean ovulation rate of the ewe lambs genotyped N Mat N Pat was greater (P < 0.02) than that exhibited by N Mat C Pat ; however, the estimated difference of 0.25 ovum in the ewe lambs did not affect the number born. The live weight of N Mat C Pat ewes at breeding was 2.5 kg less than that of other genotypes (P < 0.01). The callipyge genotype class did not significantly affect conception rates, fecundity, maternal ability, or ewe longevity. Maintaining a ewe flock to produce homozygous mutant rams for use in terminal sire mating systems presents no unusual problems from a reproduction standpoint.
THE RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF FIBER FRICTION AND TORSIONAL AND BENDING RIGIDITIES IN COTTON SLIVER, ROVING, AND YARN

In each stage of cotton processing from carding through yarn, the importance of cotton fiber properties and the interaction of fiber on fiber are complex and not fully understood. This work compares how select fiber and fiber interaction properties of raw stock cotton are altered as temperature and humidity are changed independently. Such comparisons provide the key for determining how fiber-to-fiber friction, fiber rigidities, and fiber breaking tenacity and elongation enter into the cohesive forces of cotton sliver, roving, and yarn.
First large volume characterization of the QIE10/11 custom front-end integrated circuits

The CMS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will upgrade the photon detection and readout systems of its barrel and endcap hadron calorimeters (HCAL) through the second long shutdown of the LHC in 2018. A central feature of this upgrade is the development of two new versions of the QIE (Charge Integrator and Encoder), a Fermilab-designed custom ASIC for measurement of charge from detectors in high-rate environments. These most recent additions to the QIE family feature 17-bits of dynamic range with 1% digitization precision for high charge and a time-to-digital converter (TDC) with half nanosecond resolution all with 16 bits of readout per bunch crossing. For the first time, the CMS experiment has produced and characterized in great detail a large volume of chips. The characteristics and performance of the new QIE and their related chip-to-chip variations as measured in a sample of 10,000 chips is described.
WE-G-209-00: Identifying Image Artifacts, Their Causes, and How to Fix Them

Digital radiography, CT, PET, and MR are complicated imaging modalities which are composed of many hardware and software components. These components work together in a highly coordinated chain of events with the intent to produce high quality images. Acquisition, processing and reconstruction of data must occur in a precise way for optimum image quality to be achieved. Any error or unexpected event in the entire process can produce unwanted pixel intensities in the final images which may contribute to visible image artifacts. The diagnostic imaging physicist is uniquely qualified to investigate and contribute to resolution of image artifacts. This course will teach the participant to identify common artifacts found clinically in digital radiography, CT, PET, and MR, to determine the causes of artifacts, and to make recommendations for how to resolve artifacts. Learning Objectives: 1. Identify common artifacts found clinically in digital radiography, CT, PET and MR. 2. Determine causes of various clinical artifacts from digital radiography, CT, PET and MR. 3. Describe how to resolve various clinical artifacts from digital radiography, CT, PET and MR.
Straight Talk in Persuasion

‘Art’ is an important word in Austen criticism. Used admiringly, it turns up in almost all discussion of her work, its centrality asserted in book titles from Mary Lascelles’ Jane Austen and Her Art (1939) to Roger Gard’s Jane Austen’s Novels: The Art of Clarity (1992).1 When writing about Jane Austen’s art, critics generally refer to her narrative control, her subtle indirections, her mastery of refracted discourse. Emma is usually taken to represent the apogee of this artistry, while Persuasion is often seen in slightly different terms — sometimes as a shift to a new Romantic mode, and sometimes as a draft which has yet to attain Emma’s level of polish.2 Of course, no reader of Persuasion argues that it is not artful, and its subtleties are usually organized into three categories: control of viewpoint through a particularly reliable and admirable heroine, use of indirect speech and physical gesture as modes of communication, and careful layering of narrative voice and characters’ speech. My reading of Persuasion does not deny any of these artistic techniques, but argues that even while Austen deploys them, she simultaneously questions her own artful constructs, inscribing into her text interrogations and even subversions of her own subtleties.
Measuring Trust in the Press in a Changing Media Environment

ABSTRACTThe only long term trend data on trust in the American press comes from the General Social Survey (GSS). The erosion of trust in the press as measured by the GSS indicator is indisputable, but its implications for the functioning of American democracy depend on what, precisely, is being measured. In this study we use an experimental design embedded in a representative national probability sample to shed light on what people are thinking of when they say they trust or distrust the American press. Are they thinking about the sources they themselves use for news? The sources that are most popular with the population at large? An average of all possible media sources? We find that individuals express much greater trust in the press when they are asked to consider specific news sources than when they are asked to evaluate a generic news media. Our results suggest that an accessibility bias combined with the proliferation of news sources in recent years may lead individuals to think of distrusted source...
Biomarkers of Atrial Cardiopathy and Atrial Fibrillation Detection on Mobile Outpatient Continuous Telemetry After Embolic Stroke of Undetermined Source.

Background Biomarkers of atrial dysfunction or "cardiopathy" are associated with embolic stroke risk. However, it is unclear if this risk is mediated by undiagnosed paroxysmal atrial fibrillation or flutter (AF). We aim to determine whether atrial cardiopathy biomarkers predict AF on continuous heart-rhythm monitoring after embolic stroke of undetermined source (ESUS). Methods This was a single-center retrospective study including all patients with ESUS undergoing 30 days of ambulatory heart-rhythm monitoring to look for AF between January 1, 2013 and December 31, 2015. We reviewed medical records for clinical, radiographic, and cardiac variables. The primary outcome was a new diagnosis of AF detected during heart-rhythm monitoring. The primary predictors were atrial biomarkers: left atrial diameter on echocardiography, P-wave terminal force in electrocardiogram (ECG) lead V1, and P wave - R wave (PR) interval on ECG. A multiple logistic regression model was used to assess the relationship between atrial biomarkers and AF detection. Results Among 196 eligible patients, 23 (11.7%) were diagnosed with AF. In unadjusted analyses, patients with AF were older (72.4 years versus 61.4 years, P P = .03). In a multivariable model, the only predictor of AF was age ≥ 60 years (odds ratio, 3.0; 95% CI, 1.06-8.5; P = .04). Conclusion Atrial biomarkers were weakly associated with AF after ESUS. This suggests that previously reported associations between these markers and stroke may reflect independent cardiac pathways leading to stroke. Prospective studies are needed to investigate these mechanisms.
Hyper-O-GlcNAcylation Attenuates Autophagic Flux in an MTOR Dependent Manner and Leads to Accumulation of α-Synuclein in Neurons

O-GlcNAcylation is one of the unique forms of glycosylation which involves the β-O-linkage of N-acetylglucosamine (O-GlcNAc) to cellular proteins. This unique post translational modification is involved in a vast array of physiological and pathological functions. To determine the impact of increased O-GlcNAcylation on neuronal function and survival, we cultured rat primary cortical neurons and exposed them with thiamet G, a highly selective OGA inhibitor. We found that thiamet G significantly increased protein O-GlcNAcylation, increased p-mTOR/mTOR, and decreased autophagic flux. This was accompanied by an accumulation of aggregation-prone, Parkinson’s disease causing α-synuclein protein. To determine whether enhancing autophagy in the presence of hyper-O-GlcNAcylation may attenuate α-synuclein accumulation, we exposed neurons to rapamycin, an mTOR dependent autophagy inducer. Rapamycin alone significantly decreased basal O-GlcNAcylated protein levels, without decreasing thiamet-G induced hyper-O-GlcNAcylation. Interestingly, rapamycin partially rescued hyper-O-GlcNAcylation-induced autophagic inhibition as indicated by a partial decrease of p62 levels in the presence of rapamycin in neurons exposed to thiamet G. Furthermore, thiamet-G induced α-synuclein accumulation was also partially decreased by rapamycin. Taken together the results of this study suggest that mTOR activation may be one of the mechanisms involved in hyper-O-GlcNAcylation induced autophagic inhibition and α-synuclein accumulation.
Applying principles of resource competition theory to microalgae biomass production: A more refined relationship between species richness and productivity

Abstract Ecosystem productivity is commonly greater when biodiversity is high, an observation that extends to artificial systems, such as microalgae production systems employing polycultures. Regarding these, when functional diversity within polycultures is also high, the stability of production is increased. There are various strategies to designing biomass production systems; some differentiate between ways in which nutrients are resupplied to production chambers after harvesting. Here, a mathematical model is developed that depicts a microalgae biomass production facility. Simulation analyses are then performed to explore optimization strategies that consider production magnitude and functional diversity within polycultures. Two nutrient resupply strategies are explored. The first involves using the same concentrations of nutrients with each resupply after harvesting. The second involves using alternating nutrient concentrations of varied proportions (relative to each other) for the resupply after harvesting. The first nutrient resupply strategy is best depicted by an ecological paradigm described by the resource-saturation limitation (RSL) model. The second nutrient resupply strategy is best depicted by another ecological paradigm described by the resource-ratio (RR) model. Findings suggest that if confidence is high that the polycultures being employed are resilient, then designing a biomass production system following the RSL-model approach is best. In such a system, the complementarity of the polyculture being employed should be maximized, as this will produce the highest biomass production. But if confidence is low that the polycultures are resilient, then designing a biomass production system following the RR-model approach is best. In this case, designing the resource supply fluctuations with intermediate proportional alternations, and employing polycultures of lesser complementarity, is best. This will maximize functional diversity, and therefore production stability.
Finding Resilient Networks: Measuring Resilience in Post-Extreme Event Reconstruction Missions

To be effective, governance structures in rapidly changing environments must not only have the capacity to govern, but also the resilience to respond to that changing environment. In disaster management, resilience in response networks is a product of identifying and exchanging information among participating actors regarding on-going changes in the system. Monitoring changes on the ground, coordinating actions within your own organization and with other organizations, and adapting to changing conditions with available resources produces resilience. These are overlapping concepts that often correlate, inhibiting easy combination. This research proposes a measure built from four components of resilience: presence on the ground, internal coordination, external coordination, and adaptation, using ordinal scales in a network analytic framework. Each component is scored in network interactions, and a factor analysis examines correlations among the components and calculates factor loadings that can aggregate to a measure of resilience. Data come from two events of post-conflict reconstruction: the UN interventions in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which began in 1995, and in Haiti, which began in 2004. The research proposes a measure of resilience that is based in a complex adaptive systems approach and applies that measure to these two cases to verify its effectiveness.
Putting Numbers on Geologic Ages

While geologists knew simply that the Earth was very old, physicist Lord Kelvin calculated its age to be about 100 million years. On the basis of the rate of delivery of salt to the ocean by rivers, the Earth’s age was calculated to be 90 million years. Many geologists felt that these ages were too short to account for everything that had happened. A major breakthrough came at the end of the nineteenth century with the discovery of radioactive decay of heavy elements. Also, at the end of the century Svante Arrhenius noted that the carbon dioxide being introduced into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels would warm the planet. It was soon realized that the rates of decay of radioactive elements could be used to date rocks. The Earth’s age turned out to be measured in billions, not millions, of years. By 1920, a numerical age framework similar to the one we have today had been established.
Abstract 054: Genetic Deficiency in Nox2-containing NADPH Oxidase Decreases Susceptibility to Venous Thrombosis in Mice

Activated neutrophils release neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) via a pathway dependent on reactive oxygen species (ROS). NETs are enriched in extracellular DNA and histones, and contribute to ...
Heat Transport through Powders

Heat transport or entropy production is a problem common to all low temperature work. Sometimes heat transport can be undesirable and should be cut to a minimum. These unwanted “heat-leaks” are costly, and the lower the temperature the more costly it becomes to remove a given amount of heat and discharge it at ambient temperatures. In an effort to cut “heat-leaks” to a minimum for given boundary and temperature conditions several ideas have been tried.
Gender, Modern Sexism, and the 2016 election

ABSTRACTIn the summer and fall of 2016, we examined how gender norms relate to perceptions of the ideal president as well as favorability toward Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Participants liste...
Roles of TroA and TroR in Metalloregulated Growth and Gene Expression in Treponema denticola.

ABSTRACT The availability of divalent metal cations required as cofactors for microbial metabolism is severely limited in the host environment. Bacteria have evolved highly regulated uptake systems to maintain essential metal homeostasis to meet cellular demands while preventing toxicity. The Tro operon (troABCDR), present in all sequenced Treponema spp., is a member of a highly conserved family of ATP-binding cassette transporters involved in metal cation uptake whose expression is controlled by TroR, a DtxR-like cation-responsive regulatory protein. Transcription of troA responds to divalent manganese and iron (T. denticola) or manganese and zinc (T. pallidum), and metal-dependent TroR binding to the troA promoter represses troA transcription. We report here the construction and complementation of defined T. denticola ΔtroR and ΔtroA strains to characterize (i) the role of TroA in metal-dependent T. denticola growth and (ii) the role of TroR in T. denticola gene expression. We show that TroA expression is required for T. denticola growth under iron- and manganese-limited conditions. Furthermore, TroR is required for the transcriptional regulation of troA in response to iron or manganese, and deletion of troR results in significant differential expression of more than 800 T. denticola genes in addition to troA. These results suggest that (i) TroA-mediated cation uptake is important in metal homeostasis in vitro and may be important for Treponema survival in the host environment and (ii) the absence of TroR results in significant dysregulation of nearly one-third of the T. denticola genome. These effects may be direct (as with troA) or indirect due to dysregulation of metal homeostasis. IMPORTANCETreponema denticola is one of numerous host-associated spirochetes, a group including commensals, pathobionts, and at least one frank pathogen. While most T. denticola research concerns its role in periodontitis, its relative tractability for growth and genetic manipulation make it a useful model for studying Treponema physiology, metabolism, and host-microbe interactions. Metal micronutrient acquisition and homeostasis are highly regulated both in microbial cells and by host innate defense mechanisms that severely limit metal cation bioavailability. Here, we characterized the T. denticolatroABCDR operon, the role of TroA-mediated iron and manganese uptake in growth, and the effects of TroR on global gene expression. This study contributes to our understanding of the mechanisms involved in cellular metal homeostasis required for survival in the host environment.
Construction Portfolio Performance Management Using Key Performance Indicators

The purpose of this study is to determine the relative importance of key results areas (KRAs) and develop key performance indicators (KPIs) for construction portfolio performance management. The research methodology consists of the following steps: (1) Designing and conducting a fact-finding survey of owners and contractors to determine the relative importance of KRAs; (2) Designing and conducting structured interviews to develop KPIs; and (3) Assessing the usefulness of the results. Unlike the literature that has consistently highlighted the importance of risk management for construction portfolio performance management, risk management is not among top five KRAs (schedule, cost, cash flow, change management and safety) identified in the survey. This represents the significant gap in how research community and industry look at portfolio performance management. When it comes to dashboard development, contractors and owners have different KRAs within their dashboard for portfolio management. The limited knowledge about the relative importance of KRAs is one of the most important barriers towards managing project portfolios. This study is the first attempt to critically examine the literature and practice of construction portfolio performance management in order to highlight noteworthy differences between KRAs studied by the research community and implemented by the industry.
Climate Change as a Social Determinant of Health

* Abbreviations: AAP — : American Academy of Pediatrics SDOH — : social determinant of health Social determinants of health (SDOHs), defined as the social circumstances in which people are born, grow, live, work, and play, profoundly affect children’s health and drive health disparities.1 SDOHs are shaped by the distribution of money, power, and resources at global, national, and local levels. The list of potential SDOHs is expansive and includes food insecurity, housing instability, violence exposure, structural racism, poverty, and immigration-related stressors. Addressing SDOHs within the pediatric medical home has garnered considerable interest lately as a potential solution to both improving health across the life course and mitigating health care costs.1 However, one critical determinant is missing from the pediatric community’s definition of SDOHs: climate change. Climate change (also called global warming) is arguably one of the greatest public health threats of our time. Climate change is caused by rising greenhouse gas emissions from human activity, resulting in higher global average temperatures and changes to environmental and human systems. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) issued a policy statement in 2007 (revised in 2015) encouraging pediatricians to reduce carbon emissions and support families experiencing the effects of climate change.2 We agree with this call to action. However, given the current national focus of policymakers, funders, and health care systems on addressing SDOHs, along with the ubiquitous impact of the changing climate on the social and environmental circumstances in which children live, we recommend climate … Address correspondence to Maya I. Ragavan, MD, MPH, MS, Division of General Academic Pediatrics, University of Pittsburgh, 3414 Fifth Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15213. E-mail: ragavanm{at}chp.edu
Proposed Workflow for Rehabilitation in a Field Hospital Setting during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The novel Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has challenged healthcare facilities throughout the world. In many regions, the need for acute inpatient healthcare services has exceeded the capacity of hospital systems, and field hospitals are being utilized as one part of the response strategy. Given the urgency and novelty of this pandemic, healthcare systems are attempting to rapidly execute plans for field hospitals, and rehabilitative care in this environment merits particular consideration given the potential impacts of mobilization and rehabilitative therapies on morbidity, mortality, duration of ventilation, and lengths of ICU/hospital stay. In order to address this need, a model for rehabilitation in field hospitals is presented here. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Quantifying the Mobility Benefits of Express Lanes using Real-Time Traffic Data:

Traffic congestion is one of the major problems facing transportation agencies, especially in urban areas. Agencies are exploring ways to use the existing transportation infrastructure efficiently ...
Hardware Trojan Detection at Run-time using Machine-Learning Techniques

There has been a growing trend in recent years to outsource various aspects of the semiconductor design and manufacturing flow to different parties spread across the globe. Such outsourcing increases the risk of adversaries adding malicious logic, referred to as hardware Trojans, to the original design. The increased complexity of modern microprocessors increases the difficulty in detecting hardware Trojans at early stages of design and manufacturing. Therefore, there is a need for run-time detection techniques to capture Trojans that escape detection at these stages. This talk will introduce a machine learning-based run-time hardware Trojan detection method for microprocessor cores. This approach uses Half-Space trees and changepoint-based anomaly detection algorithm to detect the activation of Trojans that introduce abnormal patterns in the data streams obtained from performance counters. It does not modify the original microprocessor design to integrate on-chip monitoring sensors. We evaluate our method by detecting the activation of Trojans that cause denial-of-service, the degradation of system performance, and change in functionality of a microprocessor core. Results obtained using the OpenSPARC T1 core and an field-programmable gate array (FPGA) prototyping framework show that the Trojan activation is detected with a true positive rate of above 99% and a false positive rate of 0% for most of the implemented Trojans.
Turbulence in the heavens

The largest ever simulation of astrophysical turbulence substantially improves our understanding of how energy injection on large interstellar scales governs how stars form on small scales.
COPD Comorbidity Profiles and 2-Year Trajectory of Acute and Postacute Care Use.

Background Multiple morbidity is the norm in advanced COPD and contributes to high symptom burden and worse outcomes. Research Question Can distinct comorbidity profiles be identified and validated in a community-based sample of patients with COPD from a large integrated health care system using a standard, commonly used diagnostic code-based comorbidity index and downstream 2-year health care use data? Study Design and Methods In this retrospective cohort study, we used latent class analysis (LCA) to identify comorbidity profiles in a population-based sample of 91,453 patients with a COPD diagnosis between 2011 and 2015. We included specific comorbid conditions from the Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI) and accounted for variation in underlying prevalence of different comorbidities across the three study sites. Sociodemographic, clinical, and health-care use data were obtained from electronic health records (EHRs). Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to compare rates of acute and postacute care use by class. Results The mean age was 71 ± 11 years, 55% of patients were women, 23% of patients were people of color, and 80% of patients were former or current smokers. LCA identified four distinct comorbidity profiles with progressively higher CCI scores: low morbidity (61%; 1.9 ± 1.4), metabolic renal (21%; 4.7 ± 1.8), cardiovascular (12%; 4.6 ± 1.9), and multimorbidity (7%; 7.5 ± 1.7). In multivariate models, during 2 years of follow-up, a significant, nonoverlapping increase was found in the odds of having any all-cause acute (hospitalizations, observation stays, and ED visits) and postacute care use across the comorbidity profiles. Interpretation Distinct comorbidity profiles can be identified in patients with COPD using standard EHR-based diagnostic codes, and these profiles are associated with subsequent acute and postacute care use. Population-based risk stratification schemes for end-to-end, comprehensive COPD management should consider integrating comorbidity profiles such as those found in this study.
Early childhood temperament predicts intolerance of uncertainty in adolescence

Intolerance of uncertainty (IU) is the trait propensity to react negatively to uncertainty. To date, very few studies have explored early childhood predictors of IU. The current study identifies relations between child temperament assessed at age 3 (N = 559) and IU assessed at ages 12 (N = 432) and 15 (N = 415). Temperament was assessed through both laboratory observation (Laboratory Temperament Assessment Battery) and maternal report (Children's Behavior Questionnaire). IU was assessed through both maternal rating and child self-report using the 12-item Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale for Children. Higher levels of temperamental negative emotionality/neuroticism and lower levels of temperamental positive emotionality/extraversion assessed at age 3 predicted higher levels of IU in early-mid adolescence. Unique relationships were found at the trait facet level, and differences were observed between informants. These findings suggest that certain early child temperament traits can serve as markers of risk for difficulty dealing with uncertainty later in life. Future research should explore whether this relationship translates to increased risk for psychopathology.
A Bibliometric Study of Family Studies Journals Using Journal Impact Factors, CiteScore and H-index

Although there are bibliometric studies of journals in various fields, the field of family studies remains unexplored. Using the bibliometric metrics of the two-year and five-year Journal Impact Factors, the H-index, and the newly revised CiteScore, this paper examines the relationships among these metrics in a bibliometric study of forty-four representative family studies journals. The citation data were drawn from Journal Citation Reports, Scopus, and Google Scholar. The correlation analysis found strong positive relationships on the metrics. Despite the strong correlations, discrepancies in rank orders of the journals were found. A possible explanation of noticeable discrepancy in rankings was provided, and the implications of the study for stakeholders were discussed.