cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Relationship between dose, time, and tumor yield in mouse dimethylhydrazine-induced colon tumorigenesis

Abstract Colorectal tumor yield and volume data were obtained using 355 CF1 mice serially sacrificed up to 84 weeks following various dose levels of the carcinogen 1,2-dimethylhydrazine dichloride (DMH). Several conclusions were reached: (a) With increasing doses of DMH, there was an increased tumor yield and decreased latency period. (b) With repeated doses, there was a rapidly cumulative tumor yield. (c) New tumors continued to accumulate in the colon and rectum even at long intervals after the DMH treatments. This was substantiated by a positive correlation between the number of tumors per colon and the delay after DMH. In addition, when several tumors were present in the same mouse, their sizes were graded rather than uniform. These observations are consistent with a 2- or multi-step carcinogenesis mechanism. The latter implies that DMH induces a permanent transmissible alteration within some cells which thereafter will be at risk for further alterations capable of initiating cancer growth.
Improving adherence to hormone replacement therapy with effective patient-physician communication

Surgically menopausal women are 5 times more likely to begin hormone replacement therapy than are naturally menopausal women, and they continue therapy for longer periods. The primary reasons that women refuse hormone replacement are fear of cancer and perceived side effects. In contrast, withdrawal bleeding is the major reason that women discontinue hormone replacement therapy. Physician-patient communication plays an important role in a woman's decision to use hormone replacement therapy, to fill her prescription, and to adhere to the regimen. The first visit at which hormone replacement therapy is discussed is crucial to establishing an effective patient-physician relationship. At least 15 minutes, and preferably 45 minutes, should be reserved for this visit. Patient follow-up-either by phone or in person-during the first month can help improve adherence because this is when many women may have nuisance side effects and discontinue therapy.
Association of actin with cortical microtubules revealed by immunogold localization inNicotiana pollen tubes

It is well known that an extensive array of actin microfilament (MF) bundles exists in the cytoplasm of pollen tubes and that it plays an important role in cytoplasmic streaming in these cells. Less well documented or understood is a cortical MF system, which occurs in two forms: single fine filaments running the length of the cortical microtubules (MTs), and MF bundles. In the present study we have utilized double immunogold labeling of tubulin and actin in rapidly frozen and freeze-substituted pollen tubes ofNicotiana alata in an attempt to clarify the distribution and association of these cytoskeletal proteins. We find that both antibodies bind to antigens associated with cortical MTs, while generative cell MTs label only with the tubulin antibody. Bundles of MFs that show a clear reaction with anti-actin are often seen associated with the cortical MTs, but it remains unclear if the single MT-associated MFs are labeled, and thus, if they are composed of actin. Nevertheless, a majority of cortical MTs show a close association with actin and it is possible that these MTs act as guide elements for MF bundles.
Latino men and familial risk communication about prostate cancer

Purpose This study investigated how familial communication about prostate cancer risk and screening affects sons of men with prostate cancer. It is important to engage Latino families shared decision making toward early detection because first degree relatives of men with PCa are at heightened risk and Latino men are diagnosed at more advanced stages of disease than Non-Hispanic White men.
Mauritamide A and accompanying oroidin alkaloids from the sponge agelas mauritiana

Abstract The alkaloid consitutents of a Fijian sponge, Agelas mauritiana, are described and consist of a new taurine containing compound, mauritamide A (3) accompanied by known oroidin alkaloids dibromophakellin (1) and midpacamide (2).
Chronic basophilic leukemia: a distinct clinico-pathologic entity?

: Objective: We sought to better define a group of rare and poorly understood myeloproliferative disorders that are characterized by prominent chronic basophilia in the absence of the Philadelphia chromosome (Ph) or its molecular equivalent. Methods: We screened our institution's electronic database from 1975 onwards, and identified four such cases. Clinical data and bone marrow pathology were carefully reviewed for these patients. Results: Two patients had prominent manifestations of basophil mediator-release and another presented with pituitary dysfunction. Bone marrow examination uniformly revealed trilineage hyperplasia with basophilia and eosinophilia, dysplastic megakaryocytic hyperplasia, and the absence of megakaryocyte clustering. An abnormal pattern of atypical mast cells was noted in two cases. While disease palliation was effectively achieved with hydroxyurea for one patient, transformation to acute myeloid leukemia was eventually observed in this case. Another patient has achieved long-term disease-free survival after undergoing allogeneic stem cell transplantation. Conclusions: Our observations reveal a striking pathologic similarity among all four cases, and suggest this disease, which may be aggressive with the potential to transform into acute leukemia, to possibly represent a distinct clinico-pathologic entity (chronic basophilic leukemia).
3D reconstruction of microvascular flow phantoms with hybrid imaging modalities

Microvascular flow phantoms were built to aid the development of a hemodynamic simulation model for treating hepatocelluar carcinoma. The goal is to predict the blood flow routing for embolotherapy planning. Embolization is to deliver agents (e.g. microspheres) to the vicinity of the tumor to obstruct blood supply and nutrients to the tumor, targeting into 30 - 40 μm arterioles. Due to the size of the catheter, it has to release microspheres at an upper stream location, which may not localize the blocking effect. Accurate anatomical descriptions of microvasculature will help to conduct a reliable simulation and prepare a successful embolization strategy. Modern imaging devices can generate 3D reconstructions with ease. However, with a fixed detector size, larger field of view yields lower resolution. Clinical CT images can't be used to measure micro vessel dimensions, while micro-CT requires more acquisitions to reconstruct larger vessels. A multi-tiered, montage 3D reconstruction method with hybrid-modality imagery is devised to minimize the reconstruction effort. Regular CT is used for larger vessels and micro-CT is used for micro vessels. The montage approach aims to stitch up images with different resolutions and orientations. A resolution-adaptable 3D image registration is developed to assemble the images. We have created vessel phantoms that consist of several tiers of bifurcating polymer tubes in reducing diameters, down to 25 μm. No previous work of physical flow phantom has ventured into this small scale. Overlapping phantom images acquired from clinical CT and micro-CT are used to verify the image registration fidelity.
Phosphorylation of myosin-I from rat liver by protein kinase C reduces calmodulin binding.

Abstract Three isoforms of the cytoskeletal-associated, mechanochemical enzymes known as myosin-I have been purified from rat liver; each coisolates with calmodulin. Incubation of the purified myosin-I′s with protein kinase Cγ and 32 P-ATP results in phosphorylation of the myosin-I heavy chains. After phosphorylation, the myosin-I isoforms bind less radiolabeled calmodulin in binding assays than observed for control samples. Since the purified isoforms are phosphoproteins as determined by immunoblotting with monoclonal antibodies which recognize phosphoamino acids, these results indicate that phosphorylation might play a role in regulation of myosin-I.
Tolerating noisy, irrelevant and novel attributes in instance-based learning algorithms

Abstract Incremental variants of the nearest neighbor algorithm are a potentially suitable choice for incremental learning tasks. They have fast learning rates, low updating costs, and have recorded comparatively high classification accuracies in several applications. Although the nearest neighbor algorithm suffers from high storage requirements, modifications exist that significantly reduce this problem. Unfortunately, its applicability is limited by several other serious problems. First, storage reduction variants of this algorithm are highly sensitive to noise. Second, these algorithms are sensitive to irrelevant attributes. Finally, the nearest neighbor algorithm assumes that all instances are described by the same set of attributes. This inflexibility causes problems when subsequently processed instances introduce novel attributes that are relevant to the learning task. In this paper, we present a comprehensive sequence of three incremental, edited nearest neighbor algorithms that tolerate attribute noise, determine relative attribute relevances, and accept instances described by novel attributes. We outline evidence indicating that these instance-based algorithms are robust incremental learners.
Tea Scale Control on Camellias in the Landscape

Tea scale, Fiorinia theae Green, has long been a destruetive pest of camellias in the Southeast (English and Turnipseed 1950, Kuitert and Dekle 1972) and homeowners have difficulties in Controlling infestations. Tea scale has no known parasites and no research has been conducted on its predators. A survey of tea scale control recommendations in the southeastern United States revealed that chemical Control by foliar sprays is advocated. Dimethoate soil drenches and disulfoton granular applications also are recommended. Trunk applications of systemic insecticides were tested and gave promising results (Tippins 1969).
Effects of the Mesonephros and Insulin-like Growth Factor I on Chondrogenesis of Limb Explants

The mesonephros has been shown to have a growth-promoting influence in vivo on limb outgrowth. This influence has been studied in detail using an organ culture system. The results show that in the presence of the mesonephros limb explants formed larger cartilages than cultures without mesonephros. Furthermore, with mesonephros, morphology of the cartilages is comparable to that of skeletal elements in vivo while cartilages formed in cultures lacking mesonephros were amorphous. The mesonephric influence also promoted the formation of a well-organized extracellular matrix in the cartilage while cartilage in cultures without mesonephros formed an abnormal appearing matrix. Cartilage matrices in cultures with or without mesonephros were immunoreactive to type IX and type II collagens, cartilage proteoglycan PGH, and link protein although cultures lacking mesonephros had a very restricted distribution of type IX collagen immunoreactivity. Despite the different distribution of type IX collagen, long-form-type IX collagen transcripts appeared similar in both types of culture based on in situ hybridization. The mesonephric effect on limb explants could be partially duplicated by the addition of insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I) to cultures without mesonephros. Furthermore, the mesonephric influence on cartilage growth and morphological differentiation could be blocked by the addition of a blocking antibody to IGF-I to cultures with mesonephros. The results support the hypothesis that IGF-I is one of the growth factors produced by the mesonephros which may play a role in early limb development and chondrogenesis.
Presence of Periodontal Data in Patient Records of General Practitioners

It has been reported that little diagnostic information concerning periodontal conditions is entered in patient records of general practitioners, but actual rates for such chart entries are unknown. Records of regular patients, seen at least annually, were randomly selected from the offices of 36 general practitioners in two North Carolina counties. In each office 80 records were selected for audit. After adjustment, the final sample consisted of 2488 audited records. Entries noting the presence or absence of 14 diagnostic conditions were identified for the five previous years and for the patient's most recent examination. The presence of a periodontal diagnosis or periodontal treatment plan was noted. The number of radiographic sets exposed in the previous five years and the age of the most recent set were determined for complete series/panoramic films and for bitewings. Across practices, the most frequent notations (20.5% within the past five years) concerned the presence of probing depths and calculus. Gingival bleeding (13%) and plaque (12%) were noted less frequently. A periodontal diagnosis was recorded in only 16.3% of the records. Annualized rates for radiographic sets were 0.09 for complete series/panoramic films and 0.50 for bitewings. These data suggest that, except for radiographs, the majority of patient records do not contain sufficient diagnostic information to describe patients' periodontal health.
Refinements of the b-core and the strong equilibrium and the Aumann proposition

The Aumann proposition establishes that an outcome in the β-core of the one-shot gameG is the same as the strong equilibrium utility allocations of the associated supergame. We refine the β-core by requiring that the threat strategies used to deter deviations be credible and examine the consequences for the Aumann proposition in the case of the refinement. We show that a refinement of the strong-equilibrium notion is always in the refined β-core. The converse is not necessarily true unless the utility allocations are linear.
A RATIONAL RECONSTRUCTION OF MISBEHAVIOR

Classic social psychological research suggests that humans are more susceptible to social influence than they should be. This discrepancy between observed and normative behavior is often taken as the footprint of irrational reasoning. As much of the studied behavior is also socially undesirable, there is a dual verdict of irrationality and immorality. Using concepts and analytical tools from decision and game theories, we propose a rational reconstruction of key instances of misbehavior. Conforming with one's peers, obeying legitimate authority, and being less helpful when in a group of bystanders can be modeled as the outcomes of intelligent information processing and strategic behavioral choice. Yet, a reconstruction of rationality does not entail a reconstruction of morality.
Satiation in Collection of Myrmecochorous Diaspores by Colonies of Aphaenogaster rudis (Formicidae: Myrmicinae) in Central Ohio, USA

When ants are dispersing seeds (myrmecochory), cessation of foraging can be as important as recruitment in determining dispersal success. We studied food collection by Aphaenogaster rudis from experimental depots by monitoring temporal variation and preference in food removal (diaspores of Asarum canadense and Sanguinaria canadensis and larvae of Tenebrio obscurus). Removal of diaspores, but not insect larvae, declined to nearly zero over the scale of hours. Satiation extended over the scale of days for diaspores. Extensive collection of larvae inhibited future collection of diaspores, but the converse was not observed. Increasing distance from the nest reduced removal of diaspores, but not of food bodies isolated from diaspores. Removal rates for diaspores were uncorrelated with the number of workers or brood in a colony.
A bijection between a set of lexicographic semiorders and pairs of non-crossing Dyck paths

Abstract It is a known result that the set of distinct semiorders on n elements, up to permutation, is in bijective correspondence with the set of all Dyck paths of length 2 n . I generalize this result by defining a bijection between a set of lexicographic semiorders, termed simple lexicographic semiorders, and the set of all pairs of non-crossing Dyck paths of length 2 n . Simple lexicographic semiorders have been used by behavioral scientists to model intransitivity of preference (e.g., Tversky, 1969 ). In addition to the enumeration of this set of lexicographic semiorders, I discuss applications of this bijection to decision theory and probabilistic choice.
Phosphonolipids. 2. α-hydroxyphosphonolipid analogues of phosphatidic acid

Abstract Nominally isosteric phosphonic acid analogues of phosphatidic acid have been synthesized wherein a hydroxyl group is incorporated at the site adjacent to the phosphonyl center. The incorporation of the hydroxyl group into these analogues provides a means by which the molecule can interact with solvent or an enzyme site in a manner similar to that of the natural phospholipids. Unshared electron pairs associated with the hydroxyl group can mimic the interactions of the esteric oxygen of the natural materials. The capability for such interaction is absent from ordinary “isosteric methylene” analogues.
Chest wall recurrence of ductal carcinoma in situ of the breast after mastectomy

Background. Optimal management of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) of the breast is a problem that is occurring with greater frequency, mostly because of the increasing use of mammographic screening. The traditional role of mastectomy for DCIS has been challenged by breast-conserving procedures. Regardless of the method of treatment used, local control with complete tumor eradication is the major goal in the management of DCIS. Methods and Results. A patient is reported in whom DCIS recurred in residual breast tissue in the chest wall several years after mastectomy. Conclusions. Chest wall recurrence of DCIS within residual breast tissue probably is caused by failure of tumor excision, new primary tumor, or both. This observation underscores that (1) mastectomy may not result in complete removal of breast tissue, and (2) this residual breast tissue may be the substrate for “chest wall recurrences” in some patients with breast cancer.
Erasing “Property Lines”: A Collaborative Notion of Authorship and Textual Ownership on a Fan Wiki

Abstract The collaborative affordances of the wiki, in conjunction with local literacy practices, have important implications for the development of contemporary online notions of authorship. Using discourse analytic methods focused on the talk pages of several World of Warcraft Wiki (WoWWiki) articles, this essay seeks to identify particular patterns of language use in the interactions between members of this online voluntary writing group in order to identify how contributors think about authorship in a clearly collaborative writing space. Candace Spigelman's (1998) theoretical construct of “habits of mind” and James Paul Gee (1989) theory of discourse are used to describe more or less effective ways of collaborating on writing in this context. The findings suggest the direction of this writing is toward much more collaborative and communal notions of authorship—ones in which the meaning of “collaborative” and “authorship” are being redefined. Successful collaborative writing on WoWWiki is a result of writers sharing common “habits of mind,” and collaboration can be disrupted by those who hold more author-centric perspectives of textual ownership.
Bentham on Presumed Offenses

In a rarely-discussed passage in the Principles of the Penal Code, Jeremy Bentham discussed a category of offenses he labeled presumed, or evidentiary, offenses. The conduct penalized under such offenses is subject to punishment, Bentham observed, not because it is intrinsically wrong, but instead because engaging in such conduct probabilistically indicates that those who engage in such conduct have done something else that is in fact intrinsically wrong. Bentham offered as examples of presumed offenses the possession of shipwrecked property with altered markings, and the punishment as infanticide of the failure to report the birth of an infant subsequently found dead. Nowadays, evidentiary offenses include the punishment as a drug dealer of anyone found in possession of more than a specified quantity of narcotics, and punishing those who enter or leave the country with large amounts of unreported cash, on the assumption that they are likely to be engaged in money laundering or drug trafficking. Bentham was mildly skeptical of such offenses, but grudgingly accepted their value in light of deficiencies in procedure and in the judiciary. These days the skepticism is even greater, with courts and commentators in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and elsewhere believing that such offenses deny to a defendant the right to establish that he did not in fact engage in the conduct that the presumed offense probabilistically but not necessarily indicates. On closer analysis, however, such skepticism appears unjustified. Almost all offenses, and indeed almost all legal rules, are premised on a probabilistic relationship between the behavior the rule encompasses and the behavior that is the rule-maker’s real concern. Presumed offenses may make this relationship especially obvious, but it is a relationship that exists whenever the law operates by the use of rules.
Conceptual modeling of postmortem evaluation findings to describe dairy cow deaths

Dairy cow mortality levels in the United States are excessive and increasing over time. To better define cause and effect and combat rising mortality, clearer definitions of the reasons that cows die need to be acquired through thorough necropsy-based postmortem evaluations. The current study focused on organizing information generated from postmortem evaluations into a monitoring system that is based on the fundamentals of conceptual modeling and that will potentially be translatable into on-farm relational databases. This observational study was conducted on 3 high-producing, commercial dairies in northern Colorado. Throughout the study period a thorough postmortem evaluation was performed by veterinarians on cows that died on each dairy. Postmortem data included necropsy findings, life-history features (e.g., birth date, lactation number, lactational and reproductive status), clinical history and treatments, and pertinent aspects of operational management that were subject to change and considered integral to the poor outcome. During this study, 174 postmortem evaluations were performed. Postmortem evaluation results were conceptually modeled to view each death within the context of the web of factors influencing the dairy and the cow. Categories were formulated describing mortality in terms of functional characteristics potentially amenable to easy performance evaluation, management oversight, and research. In total, 21 death categories with 7 category themes were created. Themes included specific disease processes with variable etiologies, failure of disease recognition or treatment, traumatic events, multifactorial failures linked to transition or negative energy balance issues, problems with feed management, miscellaneous events not amenable to prevention or treatment, and undetermined causes. Although postmortem evaluations provide the relevant information necessary for framing a cow's death, a restructuring of on-farm databases is needed to integrate this level of detail into useful monitoring systems. Individual operations can focus on combating mortality through the use of employee training related to postmortem evaluations, detailed forms for capturing necropsy particulars and other relevant information related to deaths, and standardized nomenclature and categorization schemes. As much as anything, the simple act of recognizing mortality as a problem might be the most fundamental step toward controlling its progression.
Molecular Integrals between Real and between Complex Atomic Orbitals

Publisher Summary Working with complex atomic orbitals (AO's) instead of real ones is of advantage. The investigation of difficult molecular integrals necessitates a shift of AO's from one center to another or to consider rotations of AO's in addition to their translations. The use of complex atomic orbitals allows a compact and flexible way of writing and doing the calculations. The use of complex AO's, however, will lead to complex integrals over the interaction operator and four complex atomic orbitals. In the linear combinations of atomic orbitals (LCAO's)—molecular orbitals (MO's) approximation, the real molecular integrals for the electron interaction energy are then given in terms of these complex integrals. The chapter discusses the electron interaction energy integrals between real MO's expressed by real and imaginary parts of complex integrals between complex AO's. A comparison of the integrals between real MO's represented by integrals between complex AO's is presented in the chapter. The integrals between real MO's are represented by integrals between real and imaginary parts of complex charge distributions. Finally, the chapter discusses the equivalent procedures for overlap integrals.
Enhanced Identification of Strong Robustly Testable Paths

Strong robustly sensitizable paths play an essential role in determining circuit timing characteristics as well as defining delay fault diagnosis resolution. A novel technique is presented that increases the number of strong robustly sensitizable path delay faults (PDFs) through validation. Experimental results show that the proposed strong robust validation technique significantly improves the number of strong robustly sensitizable PDFs therefore increases diagnosis resolution and improves the ability to correctly determine circuit timing characteristics
An atmospheric pressure ultrahigh frequency plasma jet for ambient mass spectrometry

A device for formation of an ultrahigh frequency atmospheric pressure plasma jet is presented. A nonthermal stable argon plasma jet was formed at the frequency of 850 MHz at forward and reflected powers of 9 and 3 W, respectively. Plasma jet was utilized as an ionization source for ambient mass spectrometry. Volatile organic compounds (benzene, acetone, propan-2-ol, acetic acid, and acetonitrile) were ionized by the plasma jet and detected by the mass spectrometer. The results suggest that the UHF plasma jet can serve as a device suitable for producing ions for ambient mass spectrometry.
PMD Compensation in Polarization-Multiplexed Multilevel Modulations by Turbo Equalization

We propose the multilevel maximum a posteriori probability (MAP) detector suitable for use in polarization-multiplexed optical communications using multilevel modulation and coherent detection. The proposed multilevel MAP detection scheme considers two symbols transmitted over two orthogonal polarization states as a two-component symbol. We demonstrate experimentally that the proposed MAP scheme is effective in eliminating the bit-error-ratio (BER) floor phenomenon introduced by the conventional MAP equalizer, which considers the symbols transmitted over both polarizations independently. To improve further tolerance to optical fiber polarization-mode dispersion, we iterate extrinsic soft information between the MAP detector and soft-iterative decoder, in a turbo equalization fashion. Penalty of less than 1.5 dB at 20 Gb/s (and BER of 10-6 ) for differential group delay of 100 ps is reported.
Orderly Marketing for Lemons: Who Benefits?

The orderly marketing goal of federal marketing orders may deal with price stability or uniform flow of product to market, a choice which can have important economic implications. This study examines the impact of four fresh lemon marketing strategies on returns at the producer, FOB, and retail levels, together with marketing margins and consumer surplus. Producers, as a group, and consumers should favor a constant price strategy. Some individual producers and middlemen, however, enjoyed higher returns with constant weekly sales. Explanations of the shift in lemon sales patterns which occurred during the 1970s is examined in light of these results.
Increased Excitability of Aged Rabbit CA1 Neurons after Trace Eyeblink Conditioning

Cellular properties of CA1 neurons were studied in hippocampal slices 24 hr after acquisition of trace eyeblink conditioning in young adult and aging rabbits. Aging rabbits required significantly more trials than young rabbits to reach a behavioral criterion of 60% conditioned responses in an 80 trial session. Intracellular recordings revealed that CA1 neurons from aging control rabbits had significantly larger, longer lasting postburst afterhyperpolarizations (AHPs) and greater spike frequency adaptation (accommodation) relative to those from young adult control rabbits. After learning, both young and aging CA1 neurons exhibited increased postsynaptic excitability compared with their respective age-matched control rabbits (naive and rabbits that failed to learn). Thus, after learning, CA1 neurons from both age groups had reduced postburst AHPs and reduced accommodation. No learning-related differences were seen in resting membrane potential, membrane time constant, neuron input resistance, or action potential characteristics. Furthermore, comparisons between CA1 neurons from trace-conditioned aging and trace-conditioned young adult rabbits revealed no statistically significant differences in postburst AHPs or accommodation, indicating that similar levels of postsynaptic excitability were attained during successful acquisition of trace eyeblink conditioning, regardless of rabbit age. These data represent the first in vitro demonstration of learning-related excitability changes in aging rabbit CA1 neurons and provide additional evidence for involvement of changes in postsynaptic excitability of CA1 neurons in both aging and learning.
Do pad tests and voiding diaries affect patient willingness to participate in studies of incontinence treatment outcomes

ABSTRACTPurpose: We used the Simplified Urinary Incontinence Outcome Score (SUIOS) to retrospectively assess the continence outcomes following 107 consecutive autologous rectus fascia pubovaginal sling procedures. This outcome score requires completion of a questionnaire, voiding diary and pad test. The voiding diary and pad test provide objective data but require a degree of patient effort and motivation. We determine if the voiding diary and pad test requirements would significantly reduce the rate of followup.Materials and Methods: After recruitment letters were mailed to all eligible patients, followup telephone calls were made to ask them to complete the SUIOS protocol. Those who agreed were mailed a packet containing the pre-weighed pads, voiding diary and questionnaire. Patients who refused were asked to complete a telephone questionnaire instead. Patients were given 1 month to complete and return the study materials. If the materials were not returned, repeat telephone reminders were made. If pati...
The Surgical Management of Thyroid Cancer

Thyroid cancer has been increasing in incidence, with the number of reported cases in the US rising by 25% over the last 3 years. With growing technological advances in the field and improved contributions of diagnostics, surgical decision-making and operative planning have taken on new challenges. Herein, we review the current clinical practice recommendations and active areas of surgical controversy, reflective of the most recently published professional consensus guidelines and a systematic review of the literature.
Pituitary imaging is indicated for the evaluation of hyperprolactinemia.

common were infertility (48%), headaches (39%), oligoamenorrhea (29%), galactorrhea (24%), and visual changes (13%). Hypothyroidism was diagnosed in 2 of 104 (1.9%) patients. Of 86 patients who had pituitary imaging, 23 (26%) had normal findings and 63 (74%) had pituitary tumor; of these, 47 (55% of total imaged) had microadenomas and 16 (19% of total imaged) had macroadenomas. There was a statistically significant association between the tumor size and the PRL level. However, 11% of the patients with microadenomas had PRL levels 200 ng/mL, and 44% of the patients with macroadenomas had PRL levels between 25 and 200 ng/mL. Conclusion(s): The most common symptoms in the population studied were infertility and headaches. Coexisting thyroid disease was an uncommon finding. Most patients had a pituitary tumor on MRI. Although tumor size correlated with the serum PRL level, some macroadenomas were detected in women with only moderately elevated PRL values. On the basis of these findings, pituitary imaging should be obtained to identify pituitary tumors in all patients with persistently elevated PRL levels. (Fertil Steril 2005;84:181–5. ©2005 by American Society for Reproductive Medicine.)
Progressing Prostate Carcinoma

In the Karnell Cancer Center Grand Rounds, we present a patient who underwent radical prostatectomy with bilateral pelvic lymphadenectomy, but had positive margins and subsequently developed local recurrence and then systemic disease. Pathologic and radiologic aspects of his disease are discussed. Therapeutic options at different stages of the disease are examined from the point of view of the urologist, radiation oncologist, and medical oncologist. The surgical portion of the discussion focuses on the selection of initial therapy. Both the selection of surgical candidates and choice of pre- or post-operative therapy in patients can be aided by prognostic tools looking at several variables, including prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level, Gleason score of the tumor, seminal vesicle invasion, extracapsular invasion, and lymph node involvement. Low-risk patients can be treated with monotherapy, such as radical prostatectomy, external beam radiation therapy, prostate brachytherapy, or cryosurgical ablation of the prostate. Higher risk patients may require adjuvant and possibly neoadjuvant therapy in addition. The radiation portion of the discussion focuses on the use of radiation therapy as salvage for relapsing disease. Of particular importance is the point that treating high-risk patients whose PSA levels have started to rise but are less than 1 ng/ml results in a long-term PSA control rate as high as 75%, but that limiting the use of salvage radiation therapy to patients with high PSA levels or biopsy confirmation of local recurrence in the face of a negative bone scan results in biochemical long-term control of less than 40%. In the medical oncology part of the discussion, the major focus is on the use of chemotherapy to treat patients whose disease has become resistant to hormonal therapy. Mitoxantrone plus a corticosteroid has been found to offer significant palliation for such patients. Combination therapy with estramustine plus taxanes, other microtubule inhibitors, or other agents such as topoisomerase II inhibitors, has been found to cause shrinkage of measurable soft tissue disease and diminution of serum PSA levels. The development of effective hormonal and chemotherapeutic drugs for treatment of metastatic disease has led to new interest in adjuvant and neoadjuvant therapy of high-risk patients.
Alveolar Macrophage Subpopulations in Patients With Active Pulmonary Tuberculosis

Alveolar macrophages are a heterogeneous cell population. The heterogeneity of alveolar macrophages recovered by bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) from 12 patients with active pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) and 10 normal subjects was studied using Percoll density fractionation. The numbers and subsets (on the basis of CD3, CD4, and CD8 monoclonal antibodies) of lymphocytes in BAL were measured by flow cytometry. Alveolar macrophages recovered from patients with TB were mainly in the lower-density fractions ( 1.070 g/ml). There were no significant differences in alveolar macrophages' repartition between smokers and nonsmokers in either patients with TB or normal subjects. The significant changes in the proportions of the lowest fraction and the higher fractions of alveolar macrophages in patients with TB were not altered after division of our patients into smoker and nonsmoker subgroups when compared with corresponding subgroups in normal subjects. The proportion of the alveolar macrophages in the lowest fraction was inversely related to the bacterial load of sputum and the disease extent on chest radiography in TB patients. The CD4/CD8 ratio was significantly higher in patients with TB. This study shows that alveolar macrophages from TB patients are heterogeneous with hypodense cells predominant probably by interaction with T lymphocytes. Changes in the proportions of alveolar macrophages within subpopulations may be of critical importance in determining the overall response of the lung to TB infection.
A modular strategy for engineering orthogonal chimeric RNA transcription regulators

Antisense RNA transcription attenuators are a key component of the synthetic biology toolbox, with their ability to serve as building blocks for both signal integration logic circuits and transcriptional cascades. However, a central challenge to building more sophisticated RNA genetic circuitry is creating larger families of orthogonal attenuators that function independently of each other. Here, we overcome this challenge by developing a modular strategy to create chimeric fusions between the engineered transcriptional attenuator from plasmid pT181 and natural antisense RNA translational regulators. Using in vivo gene expression assays in Escherichia coli, we demonstrate our ability to create chimeric attenuators by fusing sequences from five different translational regulators. Mutagenesis of these functional attenuators allowed us to create a total of 11 new chimeric attenutaors. A comprehensive orthogonality test of these culminated in a 7 × 7 matrix of mutually orthogonal regulators. A comparison between all chimeras tested led to design principles that will facilitate further engineering of orthogonal RNA transcription regulators, and may help elucidate general principles of non-coding RNA regulation. We anticipate that our strategy will accelerate the development of even larger families of orthogonal RNA transcription regulators, and thus create breakthroughs in our ability to construct increasingly sophisticated RNA genetic circuitry.
Direct access test scheme-implementation and verification in embedded ASIC designs

The direct access test scheme (DATS) that eliminates the designer's burden of embedded block cell test generation is discussed. This scheme provides for testing of embedded block cells using proven test vectors. The implementation and automatic verification of DATS in ASIC designs is discussed. >
Metamodeling: a state of the art review

The simulation community has used metamodels to study the behavior of computer simulations for over twenty-five years. The most popular techniques have been based on parametric polynomial response surface approximations. In this state of the art review, we present recent developments in this area, with a particular focus on new developments in the experimental designs employed.
A robust approach for high resolution frequency estimation

A robust estimation method for frequencies of received signals is considered. The influence function of a robust estimate is derived for the sinusoidal signals. The variance of the robust estimate is also derived using the influence function. It is found that the robust estimate attains the Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB) for the contaminated Gaussian distribution. It is of order O(N/sup -3/) and is close to the CRLB for the perfect Gaussian distribution. The authors introduce some basic definitions for the high-resolution frequency estimation method and prove that the robust estimate has the high-resolution property. This property is also confirmed by numerical simulations. >
Study Of Non-Linear Frequency Warping Functions For Speaker Normalization

In this paper, we study non-linear frequency-warping functions that are commonly used in speaker normalization. This study is motivated by our recently proposed affine transformation model for speaker normalization [1] which has provided improved recognition performance when compared to uniform scaling model [1, 2]. In this work, using formant data from Peterson & Barney and Hillenbrand vowel databases, we analyze the behavior of scale factor as a function of frequency. The empirical observation [3, 4] shows that while uniform scaling assumption may be valid at higher frequencies, there are significant deviations at low frequencies. We show that while our recently proposed model has behavior similar to the empirical result, the behavior of many of the commonly used non-linear models (including that of Eide-Gish, power law and bilinear transformation) differ significantly from the empirical result. This difference in behavior from the empirical observation may explain the limited improvement in recognition performance provided by these non-linear models when compared to conventional uniform-scaling model. We also show that our proposed model does better fitting to the formant data than these non-linear models. We, therefore, conclude that the affine-transformation model may be a more appropriate non-linear model for speaker normalization.
Automatic identification and analysis of activation wavefronts in a 2-D electrogram array

Cardiac activation sequences are normally determined by the detection and timing of local activations in cardiac electrograms, but assigning of a unique activation time, especially during ventricular fibrillation (VF), is often difficult. Even if distinct activations can be derived, it is difficult to group activations into wavefronts. A method was developed for automating the identification and analysis of distinct wavefronts of electrical activity that eliminates the inconsistencies of manual analysis and the ambiguities of isochronal mapping. After individual wavefronts have been identified, analysis of their characteristics became a simple task that was also automated. This automated method shows promise as an accurate and powerful tool for quantitative analysis of VF. >
Potential benefit of lymphadenectomy for the treatment of node-negative locally advanced uterine cancers.

Abstract Objective. The aim of this study was to examine the outcomes in patients with high-risk Stage I endometrial cancers surgically staged by complete pelvic and para-aortic lymphadenectomy, with negative nodes, and treated with postoperative brachytherapy. Methods. From the database of patients treated for Stage I endometrial cancer, 23 patients were identified with either >50% myometrial invasion or grade 3 histology treated with total abdominal hysterectomy, bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy, and pelvic and para-aortic lymphadenectomy. All patients had no pathologic evidence of disease in the lymph nodes. These patients were then treated with brachytherapy and followed for treatment and cost outcomes. A comparison was made of the cost of treatment between brachytherapy and external beam radiation. Results. All 23 patients with either grade 3 tumor or greater than 50% myometrial invasion were treated with total abdominal hysterectomy with lymphadenectomy followed by brachytherapy for lesions that did not extend outside the uterine specimen. For all patients in this series, there were no recurrences in the follow-up period (median 25 months). This regimen is more cost efficient and spares the patient from possible complications related to whole pelvic radiation, at an average cost savings of $4100. Conclusion. Women undergoing hysterectomy for endometrial adenocarcinoma with high-risk node-negative disease confined to the uterus can be safely treated with brachytherapy, at a substantial cost savings, without compromising survival.
A Follow-Up Study Of Special Education Graduates

This study investigated the vocational and community adjustment of 129 special education high school graduates. A questionnaire was administered via the telephone to verbal subjects, their parents, and adult service providers. All subjects had received a minimum of 3 years of self-contained (5 to 6 hours daily) special education on regular school campuses and some had received community-based instruction. The sample comprised graduates between the years 1983 and 1985; 64% were male. The employment picture was not optimistic for these individuals. When work-related placements such as day activity centers and sheltered vocational placements were counted as employment, 48% of women and 75% of men were employed. Only 33% of the sample were employed competitively; a majority of these subjects were severely learning disabled. Subjects who were mentally retarded were employed largely in subsidized work; 4 were employed competitively. Most subjects (70%) were living with their families, 15% were in group homes, 1...
Spider, bacterial and fungal phospholipase D toxins make cyclic phosphate products

Phospholipase D (PLD) toxins from sicariid spiders, which cause disease in mammals, were recently found to convert their primary substrates, sphingomyelin and lysophosphatidylcholine, to cyclic phospholipids. Here we show that two PLD toxins from pathogenic actinobacteria and ascomycete fungi, which share distant homology with the spider toxins, also generate cyclic phospholipids. This shared function supports divergent evolution of the PLD toxins from a common ancestor and suggests the importance of cyclic phospholipids in pathogenicity.
No association between the XPD 312, 751, or XRCC1 399 polymorphisms and K-ras gene mutation in smoking non-small-cell lung cancer

Lung cancer is strongly associated with exposure to tobacco smoke ([1][1][–3][2]). Mutations in the K-ras gene have been found in 20–35% of lung adenocarcinomas of smokers ([4][3][–8][4]), compared with about 5–7% in those of nonsmokers ([7][5], [8][4]), suggesting that their formation may
Non-nutritive sweeteners in breast milk: perspective on potential implications of recent findings.

We recently determined that nonnutritive (NNS) sweeteners ingested by lactating mothers are passed to their infants in breast milk (Sylvetsky et al., 2015). Three NNS including sucralose, acesulfame-K (ace-K), and saccharin were found in the breast milk of 65% of twenty lactating women who had been enrolled in the study, irrespective of their history of NNS usage. While most of the mothers reported NNS intake during the day prior to collection of the breast milk sample, NNS were also found in samples from women who were not aware of consuming NNS. The findings that NNS are present in breast milk raises several issues regarding infant exposure to these nonnutritive compounds and highlights the need for future research studying the potential short- and long-term effects of exposure to NNS early in life.
Vitamin D and Prostate Cancer

Following epidemiological observations that suggested links between low vitamin D exposure and increased risk of prostate cancer, interest in clarifying a potential role of this steroid hormone in prostate cancer has grown. While the results have been mixed, epidemiologic studies have suggested that severe vitamin D deficiency may increase the risk of clinically important prostate cancer. Laboratory investigation provides clear evidence of the potential of vitamin D receptor (VDR) ligands to induce growth arrest and promote apoptosis in a variety of cancer models. Because there are hundreds of vitamin D responsive genes, multiple mechanisms for these observations have been proposed.