cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Molecular considerations relevant to the mechanism of active transport.

A small group of closely related proteins is responsible for all active transport in animal cells, and inorganic cations are the only substances transported by these enzymes. They share a common kinetic mechanism in which two fundamental conformations participate, each receiving and dispatching substrates from its unique side of the membrane. During transport, the cations must pass through their enzyme to cross the membrane and intense interest is currently focused on the possibility that the path which they follow lies within the interface between two discrete subunits in a dimeric structure. Although ‘half-of-sites’ behaviour, consistent with this hypothesis, has been reported, it is now known that systematic errors were responsible for this mistaken conclusion. The number of protomers which comprise a functional unit of active transport has not been determined.
The relationship between the antiviral action of interferon and prostaglandins in virus-infected murine cells

The relationship between prostaglandins (PG) and interferon (IFN) was investigated. IFN induced the synthesis of immunoreactive PGE and PGA at early and late stages, respectively, of vaccinia virus infection in mouse L fibroblasts. Only species-specific IFN possessed this activity and PG synthesis was stimulated in virus-infected cells, while normal L cells were not affected. The vaccinia virus infection did not significantly alter PG synthesis in the absence of IFN. Indomethacin increased the rate of vaccinia virus replication and partially inhibited the IFN-induced protection of L cells. The addition of exogenous PGA1 only partially reversed this effect. Finally, short-term PGA treatment induced the synthesis of two enzymes (protein kinase and 2,5A synthetase) thought to be partially responsible for the antiviral action of interferon. These findings suggest that a prostaglandin or PG-related compound seems to mediate at least one aspect of IFN action.
Enzymatic Approach to Waste Minimization in a Cattle Dipping Operation: Economic Analysis

Cattle dipping liquid containing the pesticide coumaphos must be discarded when potasan, a dechlorination product of coumaphos, accumulates. An enzymatic strategy is examined in which the enzyme parathion hydrolase is used to selectively hydrolyze potasan relative to coumaphos, therefore permitting the extended use of the cattle dipping liquid and reducing the overall generation of waste from the cattle dipping operation. A large-scale experiment was performed to confirm that the observed rate of potasan hydrolysis is an order of magnitude larger than the rate of coumaphos hydrolysis. A mathematical model was adapted to permit an economic comparison of the enzymatic waste minimization approach to the alternative of dumping the potasan-containing dipping liquid and recharging the dip vat with fresh coumaphos. This analysis demonstrates that because the amount of enzyme required is small and the cost of the coumaphos pesticide is large, it is almost always economical to extend the lifetime of the dip vat by...
An automated test for rheumatoid factor.

A continuous flow system utilizing a plasma fraction II-charcoal suspension for the detection and quantitation of rheumatoid factor has been developed. Tests indicate that the reactivity levels of the automated procedure and those of manual latex particle technics are comparable.
Aristotle on how to define a psychological state

Aristotle's psychology reserves for the person alone such things as thinking, desiring, and feeling pain. The soul itself is the subject of none of this. Nevertheless, only in virtue of the soul, more exactly certain of its parts, does the person manage to be in a given such state or to perform a given such act. So psychological explanation is a kind of levels explanation. What goes on at one level, the level of the person, is explained by what goes on at another, and lower, level of organization.~ Although I may think the G6del theorem in virtue of the content and operations of my mind, my mind does not think the theorem. I do. Likewise, it is I, rather than my soul, that desires to visit Trinidad. Moreover, higher level occurrences are effects of lower level occurrences, despite absence of standard causal relations between the levels. Levels causation, as we might call this, 2 is a kind of dependence. Thus arises the question of the exact nature of the dependence relation. One suggestion, floated in Wedin 1989, is that levels causation involves the supervenience of higher level mental or psychological states or events on certain lower level states or events. Wedin 1994 and, especially, Wedin 1993a develop this suggestion and, on the basis of Phys. VII.3, examine the merits of a version of supervenience that is consistent with so-called compositional plasticity. The present paper worries about compositional plasticity itself, specifically, about its fidelity to Aristotle's texts. Although I shall make some use of Phys. VII.3, the focus of the paper is one text only-Anim. I.l's discussion of anger. So its scope is nominally narrow. This is offset by the fact that the passage is a prominent player in recent debate. 3
Hydrosilylation of Aldehydes and Ketones Catalyzed by Nickel PCP-Pincer Hydride Complexes

Nickel PCP-pincer hydride complexes catalyze chemoselective hydrosilylation of C═O bonds of aldehydes and ketones in the presence of other functional groups. The mechanism involves C═O insertion into a nickel−hydrogen bond, followed by cleavage of the newly formed Ni−O bond with a silane.
Road funds, user charges, and taxes

Insufficient or uncertain budgetary allocations to road maintenance have resulted in road deterioration that has significantly increased production and transport costs in many countries. To avoid this problem, highway professionals advocate the establishment of dedicated road funds, managed by independent road boards made up of user representatives. The road boards would have the power to determine both the level of charges for road use and the level of expenditure on road maintenance. By contrast, macroeconomists and public finance specialists have tended to resist the establishment of dedicated road funds. They argue that road funds reduce fiscal flexibility, do not adequately address problems associated with the provision of public goods or the internalization of externalities, and often are not well managed. In general, there are two long-term institutional options for reconciling fiscal prudence with asset maintenance: a road agency that is operated commercially (subject to the normal oversight of behavior accorded to privatized monopolies), or a reformed and well-functioning budget process. This article argues that road funds must be viewed as a provisional, case-specific intermediate step in the direction of one of the long-term solutions. The role and nature of road funds should be assessed not on general principles but on a case-by-case basis through the analysis of likely micro- and macroeconomic effects. The article recommends indicators for use in specific cases to determine whether a road fund should be introduced, continued, or abolished.
Two-Dimensional Variation of Bursting Properties in a Silicon-Neuron Half-Center Oscillator

We are developing hardware models of central pattern generators (CPGs) to enhance neural prostheses, create biologically based controllers for autonomous machines, and to better understand how biology creates stable and robust movements. Previously, we designed and implemented an analog integrated circuit model of a neuron with Hodgkin-Huxley like dynamics, the silicon neuron. In this work, we use silicon neurons to implement a half-center oscillator and show that the underlying dynamics of this CPG produce bursting behaviors that are well matched to the biological counterpart on which our model is based. In addition, we demonstrate the robustness of the bursting behavior by systematically varying two parameters in each silicon neuron and mapping the corresponding effects on the bursting
Computation of uncertainty distributions in complex dynamical systems

The computation of the stationary distribution of an uncertain nonlinear dynamical system is an important tool in analysis of the long term behavior of the system. One common approach is to use a Monte Carlo type method. However, that type of method requires many simulations runs to achieve a reasonable accuracy and can be computationally excessive. In this paper we formulate an alternative approach based on the theory of Random Dynamical Systems to solve this problem. Using the properties of the invariant measure of the Perron-Frobenius operator for the dynamical systems we obtain a simple characterization of the stationary distribution. The state space is discretized to obtain a finite dimensional approximation for the infinite dimensional Perron-Frobenius operator. Furthermore, an efficient subdivision algorithm for state space partition is discussed. The approach is demonstrated through a catalytic reactor system.
High-Throughput Genotyping of Green Algal Mutants Reveals Random Distribution of Mutagenic Insertion Sites and Endonucleolytic Cleavage of Transforming DNA

A high-throughput genetic screening platform in a single-celled photosynthetic eukaryote would be a transformative addition to the plant biology toolbox. Here, we present ChlaMmeSeq (Chlamydomonas MmeI-based insertion site Sequencing), a tool for simultaneous mapping of tens of thousands of mutagenic insertion sites in the eukaryotic unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. We first validated ChlaMmeSeq by in-depth characterization of individual insertion sites. We then applied ChlaMmeSeq to a mutant pool and mapped 11,478 insertions, covering 39% of annotated protein coding genes. We observe that insertions are distributed in a manner largely indistinguishable from random, indicating that mutants in nearly all genes can be obtained efficiently. The data reveal that sequence-specific endonucleolytic activities cleave the transforming DNA and allow us to propose a simple model to explain the origin of the poorly understood exogenous sequences that sometimes surround insertion sites. ChlaMmeSeq is quantitatively reproducible, enabling its use for pooled enrichment screens and for the generation of indexed mutant libraries. Additionally, ChlaMmeSeq allows genotyping of hits from Chlamydomonas screens on an unprecedented scale, opening the door to comprehensive identification of genes with roles in photosynthesis, algal lipid metabolism, the algal carbon-concentrating mechanism, phototaxis, the biogenesis and function of cilia, and other processes for which C. reinhardtii is a leading model system.
Design of liquid-nitrogen-insulated apparatus through unified breakdown field data having different area and volume effects

For designers of high temperature superconducting equipment with liquid nitrogen as a dielectric, an expedient universal curve is sought that incorporates area/volume effects for each member of a specified class of electrode shapes, thus providing the breakdown field of all such liquid nitrogen gaps with any practical sizes of electrodes and gap. Currently a single universal curve for breakdown strength with AC or DC stress is being developed for the class with sphere-sphere, plane-plane and sphere-plane gaps, with three independent parameters: the size of each electrode and gap, all at pressures at or slightly above 100 kPa.
DEBBIE: a configurable user interface for CAD frameworks

The requirements for CAD framework user interfaces and the implementation of the DEBBIE user interface system in the HILDA CAD framework environment are discussed. By using DEBBIE designers are allowed to work on a conceptual level, free from data/tool management, to do creative design work. Many design tasks are automated to speed up the design processes. With a configurable user interface, designers can make the system look/act the way they want it to instead of trying to learn what the system forces on them. By allowing them easy integration and activation of tools, designers can pick and choose the best design tools available without worrying about compatibility of different tools. With standard tool interface programs, designers also spend much less time learning to use new tools. An overview of DEBBIE and general requirements of user interface for CAD frameworks are presented. >
Multiscale Modeling of Calcium Dynamics in Ventricular Myocytes With Realistic Transverse Tubules

Spatial-temporal Ca2+ dynamics due to Ca2+ release, buffering, and reuptaking plays a central role in studying excitation-contraction (E-C) coupling in both normal and diseased cardiac myocytes. In this paper, we employ two numerical methods, namely, the meshless method and the finite element method, to model such Ca2+ behaviors by solving a nonlinear system of reaction-diffusion partial differential equations at two scales. In particular, a subcellular model containing several realistic transverse tubules (or t-tubules) is investigated and assumed to reside at different locations relative to the cell membrane. To this end, the Ca2+ concentration calculated from the whole-cell modeling is adopted as part of the boundary constraint in the subcellular model. The preliminary simulations show that Ca2+ concentration changes in ventricular myocytes are mainly influenced by calcium release from t-tubules.
Fabrication and Analysis of High-Performance Integrated Solenoid Inductor With Magnetic Core

Integrated solenoid inductors with magnetic core were fabricated and analyzed. An inductance above 70 nH was achieved while keeping the coil resistance below 1 Omega and the device area below 1 mm2 using a solenoid design with a single magnetic layer. The inductance of the magnetic inductor was more than 30 times that of the air core inductor of the identical geometry, and the quality factor of the magnetic inductor was >5. Novel inductor designs and the scalability were also examined, and an inductance density higher than 200 nH/mm2 was obtained. The measured device properties and engineering tradeoffs were well explained by analytical models we developed.
Movements and Habitat Use of Yosemite Toads (Anaxyrus (formerly Bufo) canorus) in the Sierra National Forest, California

Abstract The Yosemite Toad (Anaxyrus (formerly Bufo) canorus) is a high-elevation species endemic to the central Sierra Nevada mountain range in California whose populations are in decline. There is limited information on their terrestrial movement and habitat use, which impairs our understanding of the ecology and habitat needs of this sensitive species. I present radio-tracking data collected from 35 adult toads in the Sierra National Forest during daylight hours in the late spring and summer of 2007–2009. Movements, microsite cover type, and terrestrial habitat are analyzed and interpreted with regard to life-history characteristics of A. canorus. Adult toads moved a mean distance of 270 m from aquatic breeding sites, and the maximum distance recorded was 1.26 km. Females moved significantly longer distances than did males and had a larger home range. Distance traveled was related to ordinal day as well as the interaction between day and sex. Adult A. canorus used terrestrial environments extensively a...
Error analysis for the truncation of multipole expansion of vector Green's functions

The advent of fast algorithms in computational electromagnetics has permitted the solution of integral equations with an unprecedented number of unknowns. This is the consequence of the development of the fast multipole algorithms (FMA) and the multilevel fast multipole algorithms (MLFMA). Such algorithms allow a matrix-vector multiplication to be performed in O(NlogN) operations or less for many scattering problems. Moreover, the memory requirements of these methods are O(NlogN), or almost matrix free. Using the fast matrix-vector multiplications in an iterative solver, problems for integral equations involving millions of unknowns have been solved previously. One of the most important mathematical formulas in FMA is the addition theorem. In the numerical implementation of the addition theorem, the infinite series should be truncated. The error analysis for the truncation error in the scalar Green's functions has been done by many researchers. In this paper, the error analysis for the truncation error in the multipole expansion of vector Green's functions is given.
Do Financial Statement Misstatements Facilitate Corporate Acquisitions

We provide evidence suggesting that managers use financial statement misstatements which improve reported results to facilitate acquisitions. Specifically, we find that firms misstating their financial statements are more likely to make stock-based acquisitions, but not cash-based acquisitions, after the start of the misstatement. In addition, misstatements classified as errors are not associated with stock-based acquisitions. We also find that managerial overconfidence and entrenchment are associated with managers making acquisitions after misstatements. Stock price reactions to restatement announcements are more negative, by 770 basis points on average, when stock-based acquisitions were made during the misstatement period, and these acquisitions are significantly more likely to result in goodwill impairments than are stock-based acquisitions made during non-misstatement periods. Collectively, these results suggest that managers exploit earnings overstatements to facilitate acquisitions and these acquisitions are largely value destroying.
A Nicotine Challenge to the Self-Medication Hypothesis in a Neurodevelopmental Animal Model of Schizophrenia.

Nicotine addiction is the leading cause of premature illness and death in the general population. Up to half of all cigarettes are consumed by a minority of the population: persons with schizophrenia and other forms of mental illness. Ironically, despite nicotine dependence being considered a serious and deadly form of addiction in the general population, research on smoking in mental illness is predominantly guided by the idea that smoking has beneficial medication-like treatment effects. This article considers pitfalls of adherence to the self-medication hypothesis as an exclusively held dogma. New evidence from animal modeling work suggests the need to broaden hypothesis-driven research on smoking in mental illness. Adolescent smoking could predispose to mental illness and/or increased nicotine dependence in schizophrenia may represent an involuntary, general addiction vulnerability that has little to do with the ‘helpful’ psychoactive effects of nicotine or other drugs.
Surfing toward the future

A new report from Chile about improving economic competitiveness advances a novel interpretation of innovation. Timing is everything.
Europe's Democratic Deficits through the Looking Glass: The European Union as a Challenge for Democracy

Despite widespread disagreement about democratic deficits in the European Union (EU), most critics begin by conceiving democracy as a problem for the EU. Seeing the EU as undemocratic or insufficiently democratic, they devise institutional innovations to democratize it. These innovations seem to require breaking the traditional link between democracy and the nation-state, which in this context appears outmoded or inappropriate. This article challenges that approach, arguing that it gets the relationship between democracy and the sovereign state wrong—or at least, incomplete—by stressing modern democratic theory's empirical ties to the state while underestimating their normative significance. The complex interdependence of normative and empirical assumptions informing modern democratic theory means that detaching democracy from the state is much less straightforward than critics often imagine. The essay argues instead for conceiving the EU as a problem for democratic theory. Doing so reveals that democratic theory is ill-equipped to address recent changes in the configuration of rule and new structures of governance associated with Europeanization, European integration, and globalization more broadly. This change in perspective highlights important limits in recent democratic theorizing about the EU and clarifies the role of European debates in reinterpreting and reconstructing democracy in the age of globalization.Michael Goodhart is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Pittsburgh, where he holds a secondary appointment in Women's Studies (goodhart@pitt.edu). He is grateful to Chris Bonneau, Mark Hallerberg, Andrew Lotz, John Markoff, Guy Peters, Alberta Sbragia, Dan Thomas, and to anonymous reviewers of this essay for their kind help and advice. He is also grateful to the European Union Center of Excellence at the University of Pittsburgh for the chance to present an earlier version of this essay and appreciates the suggestions he received at that time.
Imaging of fluid flow velocity using Doppler optical coherence tomography: preliminary results

Doppler optical coherence tomography (Doppler OCT) is a technique combining Doppler velocimetry with optical coherence tomography to measure fluid flow velocity at discrete spatial locations. Doppler OCT is an accurate method for the characterization of high resolution (<1 mm/s) fluid flow velocity. Some modifications on current OCT systems have been performed to realize Doppler OCT. Preliminary results on spatial profiles of fluid flow velocity in transparent plastic conduits are presented.
A novel approach to minimizing reconfiguration cost for LUT-based FPGAs

This paper proposes a novel approach to reducing the size of FPGA reconfiguration bits reams by fixing appropriate orders for LUT inputs. With such LUT input orders, memory locations that need to be altered during partial reconfiguration are relocated into common frames. We present a novel problem formulation that relates the number of frames (that need to be downloaded into FPGAs) to the number of minterms of a specially constructed logic function. A heuristic procedure is developed to solve the formulated problem in polynomial time. The proposed methodology is validated by experiments conducted on Xilinx Virtex FPGA platform. Considerable reduction on the size of reconfiguration bitstreams have been observed from our experimental results.
Containment or Engagement of China?: Calculating Beijing's Responses

that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is becoming a defining element in post-Cold War international politics, but there is much debate about what this entails and how the world should deal with an ascendant China. China’s rise and behavior are particularly bedeviling to the United States, but Beijing also poses substantial challenges to Asian and European nations as well as international regimes. Whether China will become a military threat to its neighbors, an adversary of the United States, a systemic challenge to the global order, or an cultural-ideological challenge to the West remain open questions.’ But China’s sheer size and growing power are already altering the contours of Asian security, international commerce, and the global balance of power. A robust debate is under way in Western and Asian nations about how best to deal with the awakened dragon. The uncertainties about China’s future capabilities and intentions, and the debate about alternative policy options, have spawned a lucrative cottage industry among analysts and pundits in academia, corporations, banks, governments, and the media worldwide. Analysts can reasonably estimate China’s economic and military power a decade or more hence based on its present and projected financial, technological and material resources. Far more difficult to predict is China’s internal political and social cohesion, and how Beijing will wield its new strength. Will China be a satisfied mature power or an insecure nounem riche power? Will it become a power at all? Will it flex its muscles or will they atrophy? Will China hold together or fall apart? Will its polity evolve liberally or revert to a dictatorial tyranny? Does Beijing seek regional hegemony or peaceful coexistence with its neighbors? Will the PRC play by the established rules of the international organizations and regimes, or does Beijing seek to undermine and change the rules and institutions? Do China’s leaders understand the rules and
Neurocognitive Complications of HIV Disease

Neurocognitive complications are the most common sequelae of HIV infection if the full spectrum of HIV disease—from initial seroconversion to death from advanced AIDS—is considered. Though resembling subcortical neurological disorders from a neuropsychological standpoint, the presentation is variable, and almost any pattern can be seen. Although neuropsychological impairment is often subtle, it can affect day-to-day life and is associated with earlier mortality. It is not clear if milder forms of neurocognitive disturbance necessarily presage advanced dementia, and current data suggest a two-factor model: a subacute relapsing-remitting condition that can occur at any stage of HIV disease and a progressive, more fulminant dementia. The pathological substrates of these conditions are not well characterized, although recent data support the notion that synaptodendritic damage underlies the neuropsychological impairment, and may precede the neuronal loss and other pathological features more characteristic of ...
Clostridium sticklandii glycine reductase selenoprotein A gene: cloning, sequencing, and expression in Escherichia coli.

Abstract Gene grdA, which encodes selenoprotein A of the glycine reductase complex from Clostridium sticklandii, was identified and characterized. This gene encodes a protein of 158 amino acids with a calculated M(r) of 17,142. The known sequence of 15 amino acids around the selenocysteine residue and the known carboxy terminus of the protein are correctly predicted by the nucleotide sequence. An opal termination codon (TGA) corresponding to the location of the single selenocysteine residue in the polypeptide was found in frame at position 130. The C. sticklandii grdA gene was inserted behind the tac promotor of an Escherichia coli expression vector. An E. coli strain transformed with this vector produced an 18-kDa polypeptide that was not detected in extracts of nontransformed cells. Affinity-purified anti-C. sticklandii selenoprotein A immunoglobulin G reacted specifically with this polypeptide, which was indistinguishable from authentic C. sticklandii selenoprotein A by immunological analysis. Addition of the purified expressed protein to glycine reductase protein components B and C reconstituted the active glycine reductase complex. Although synthesis of enzymically active protein A depended on the presence of selenium in the growth medium, formation of immunologically reactive protein did not. Moreover, synthesis of enzymically active protein in a transformed E. coli selD mutant strain indicated that there is a nonspecific mechanism of selenocysteine incorporation. These findings imply that mRNA secondary structures of C. sticklandii grdA are not functional for UGA-directed selenocysteine insertion in the E. coli expression system.
The Design of 2-Colour Wallpaper Patterns Using Methods Based on Chaotic Dynamics and Symmetry

We describe the theoretical basis for the design of symmetric patterns using dynamics, chaos and symmetry. We show examples of some of the one- and two-colour wallpaper patterns that we have created using these ideas.
Warts, molluscum and things that go bump on the skin: a practical guide

Evidence-based medicine is a wonderful thing. It keeps much of the quackery and snake oil that plagues our field at bay. Sometimes, however, it creates a paradox in which clinicians become trapped, lamenting that because there is no evidence, nothing can be done. I find this notion particularly concerning, both in terms of the danger of stagnation in medicine, and, more importantly, as a philosophy in treating actual human beings. In the immortal words of the renown dermatologist Walter B Shelley: “Therapeutic nihilism may be the correct way to approach the facts, but not the patient.”1 Fortunately, none of these concerns applies to the treatment of warts and molluscum. People have used everything from duct tape to antacids to treat these common cutaneous maladies, and lack of evidence has not diminished the therapeutic enthusiasm in the least. As such, there are literally entire textbooks devoted to the subject.2 The present work does not attempt to be an exhaustive guide or review for all these therapies; rather I will focus on a few key practical points that hopefully will be helpful in navigating the thick foliage of this therapeutic jungle. Warts are extremely common viral infections of the skin. The human papillomavirus (HPV) is responsible for warts and actually represents a large group of closely related viruses with over 100 types. HPVs can infect any site with stratified squamous epithelium, including mucosal surfaces. Interestingly, many of the HPV types roughly correspond to clinical phenotypes. HPV type 1, for example, is associated with plantar warts, while type 28 is associated with flat warts.3 Although warts themselves often appear as well-defined tumours, the HPV can be present at very distant sites of the body and for many years. Remarkably, one study showed that nearly 70% of a healthy control group …
Electrodeposited Cobalt-Phosphorous-Derived Films as Competent Bifunctional Catalysts for Overall Water Splitting

One of the challenges to realize large-scale water splitting is the lack of active and low-cost electrocatalysts for its two half reactions: H2 and O2 evolution reactions (HER and OER). Herein, we report that cobalt-phosphorous-derived films (Co-P) can act as bifunctional catalysts for overall water splitting. The as-prepared Co-P films exhibited remarkable catalytic performance for both HER and OER in alkaline media, with a current density of 10 mA cm−2 at overpotentials of −94 mV for HER and 345 mV for OER and Tafel slopes of 42 and 47 mV/dec, respectively. They can be employed as catalysts on both anode and cathode for overall water splitting with 100 % Faradaic efficiency, rivalling the integrated performance of Pt and IrO2. The major composition of the as-prepared and post-HER films are metallic cobalt and cobalt phosphide, which partially evolved to cobalt oxide during OER.
Differential Power Processing for Increased Energy Production and Reliability of Photovoltaic Systems

Conventional energy conversion architectures in photovoltaic (PV) systems are often forced to tradeoff conversion efficiency and power production. This paper introduces an energy conversion approach that enables each PV element to operate at its maximum power point (MPP) while processing only a small fraction of the total power produced. This is accomplished by providing only the mismatch in the MPP current of a set of series-connected PV elements. Differential power processing increases overall conversion efficiency and overcomes the challenges associated with unmatched MPPs (due to partial shading, damage, manufacturing tolerances, etc.). Several differential power processing architectures are analyzed and compared with Monte Carlo simulations. Local control of the differential converters enables distributed protection and monitoring. Reliability analysis shows significantly increased overall system reliability. Simulation and experimental results are included to demonstrate the benefits of this approach at both the panel and subpanel level.
The fetal presacral pseudo-mass: a normal sonographic variant.

We examined 416 consecutive third trimester intrauterine gestations over a 4-month period and discovered 26 hypoechoic masses in the fetal presacral space (6.3% incidence). These masses varied in diameter from 15 to 30 mm (mean, 21.5 mm). All neonates were normal on follow-up examination, without evidence of any masses or neurologic deficits. The fetal rectosigmoid colon frequently is identified in the third trimester and may reach 2 to 3 cm at term. Because the prevalence of meconium-filled rectum (6.3%) exceeds that of a presacral teratoma (0.0025%), this normal anatomic variant should be considered the most common cause of a third trimester presacral "mass."
Mrs. Lincoln's Lawyer's Cat: The Future of Legal Scholarship

"Mrs. Lincoln's Lawyer's Cat," which appeared in the online companion to the Connecticut Law Review, CONNtemplations, begins with a discussion of the role that law reviews occupy in their parent institutions and it explores the correlations between citations to law schools' main reviews and the most recent US News rankings (2008). It is part of a symposium on law reviews and, thus, continues a discussion with Ronen Perry and others, which began in the Connecticut Law Review in 2006. The brief essay then turns to literature on "the history of the book" to suggest some of the reasons why we might draw inferences about a law school from the contents of its review. Finally, it turns to a discussion of the role that law reviews and the internet may play in propagating legal knowledge, as financial pressures make it harder to publish books.
Managing End-of-Life Care: Medico-Legal, Social, Ethical and Philosophical Challenges

This paper analyzes the two foundational challenges to human health care management at the end-stage of life: the extent to which a competent patient with a terminal medical condition may control the extent of medical treatment received or refused and the level of state control and intervention in the dying process. Within the context of these challenges is a central question: namely, whether there is a right, or a liberty interest, to die with dignity? Calibrating a point of balance in medical decision-making between recognizing patient autonomy and decisional capacity and the police power of the state to safeguard life at all stages, must be shaped ultimately by medical policies recognizing the principle of medical futility and need for compassionate adjusted palliative care.Cost benefit analysis of treatment benefits is central to a determination of medical futility — this, simply because the determination is fundamentally a clinical judgment and not an encompassing moral evaluation or principle on the “worthlessness” of life. Whether the operable normative standard for policy-making is termed agape, charity, compassion, love, or mercy, the common unifying denominator in palliative care is a humane, morally responsible approach to dealing with intractable suffering at the end-stage of life. The major obstacle to validating the principle of autonomy and applying it in end-of-life treatment decisions, is a failure of patients to express — unequivocally by documentation, principally through living wills and health care proxies — their wishes for end-of-life care. Without educated “self-help” responses by responsible individuals which set forth their wishes for treatment or nontreatment before medical crises occur, the courts are forced, essentially, to manage cases of this nature by determining what — medically — is in a patient’s best interests or, alternatively, what judgment would have been made by a patient had he or she made a competent decision in advance of a present medical emergency. Placing death-bed decision making authority within the scope of judicial administration is to be avoided whenever possible. This authority should always be kept within the family unit.
China's Military Power: Assessing Current and Future Capabilities

Once termed the 'world's largest military museum', the Chinese military has made enormous progress over the past twenty years. With skyrocketing military budgets and new technology, China's tanks, aircraft, destroyers, and missile capabilities are becoming comparable to those of the United States. If these trends continue, how powerful will the Chinese military be in the future? Will its capabilities soon rival or surpass those of the United States? The most comprehensive study of its kind, this book provides a detailed assessment of China's military capabilities in 2000 and 2010 with projections for 2020. It is the first of its kind in outlining a rigorous, theoretically and empirically grounded framework for assessing military capability based on not just weaponry but also doctrine, training, equipment, and organizational structure. This framework provides not only the most accurate assessment of China's military to date but an important new tool in the study of military history.
Recurrent violent injury: magnitude, risk factors, and opportunities for intervention from a statewide analysis.

INTRODUCTION: Although preventing recurrent violent injury is an important component of a public health approach to interpersonal violence and a common focus of violence intervention programs, the true incidence of recurrent violent injury is unknown. Prior studies have reported recurrence rates from 0.8% to 44%, and risk factors for recurrence are not well established. METHODS: We used a statewide, all-payer database to perform a retrospective cohort study of emergency department visits for injury due to interpersonal violence in Florida, following up patients injured in 2010 for recurrence through 2012. We assessed risk factors for recurrence with multivariable logistic regression and estimated time to recurrence with the Kaplan-Meier method. We tabulated hospital charges and costs for index and recurrent visits. RESULTS: Of 53 908 patients presenting for violent injury in 2010, 11.1% had a recurrent violent injury during the study period. Trauma centers treated 31.8%, including 55.9% of severe injuries. Among recurrers, 58.9% went to a different hospital for their second injury. Low income, homelessness, Medicaid or uninsurance, and black race were associated with increased odds of recurrence. Patients with visits for mental and behavioral health and unintentional injury also had increased odds of recurrence. Index injuries accounted for $105 million in costs, and recurrent injuries accounted for another $25.3 million. CONCLUSIONS: Recurrent violent injury is a common and costly phenomenon, and effective violence prevention programs are needed. Prevention must include the nontrauma centers where many patients seek care.Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Language: en
Relationships between ion and water movement in the human jejunum, ileum and colon during perfusion with bile acids.

1. Perfusion of the human jejunum with low concentrations of glycine-conjugated bile acids in physiological solutions induced net fluid flow that varied between absorption and secretion, with only slight variation of the luminal osmotic and ionic milieu. 2. Transmucosal net flux rates for water and the principal ions were calculated. Regression analysis of the flux data was consistent with the concept of a ‘net transported fluid’ which was iso-osmotic with respect to the lumen, with a superimposed fixed net anion exchange unaffected by the rate or direction of bulk flow. 3. Recalculation of earlier data from comparable studies of the human colon showed similar relationships consistent with varying iso-osmotic bulk flow and fixed ion exchange, the latter differing from that found in the proximal bowel. 4. Studies were performed also in the human ileum. Variable iso-osmotic bulk flow was again encountered, but ion exchange was of a lower magnitude than in the jejunum or colon. Qualitatively, ion exchange in the ileum was intermediate between the jejunum and colon. 5. These analyses suggest that transmucosal bulk flow and ion exchange may be quantitatively and spatially independent processes. They provide support for the hypothesis that bulk flow may be intercellular (and hence extracellular), while ion exchange may take place across the luminal face of the mucosal cell. 6. Secretory agents, such as the dihydroxy bile acids, provide a useful means of analysing solute-solvent flow relationships in greatly differing bulk flow conditions with relatively stable physicochemical parameters.
The Content-Neutrality Jurisprudential Regime

Jurisprudence is a critical component of Martin Shapiro’s concept of political jurisprudence and is equally important to the construct of a jurisprudential regime. Content-neutrality is the key jurisprudential regime for freedom of expression law. In this chapter, I focus on the jurisprudential side of jurisprudential regime theory, tracing the origins, justification and development of the content-neutrality jurisprudence (Richards and Kritzer, 2002).
Improving Police Use of Force: A Policy Essay on National Data Collection:

Documenting police use of force has been an issue in the United States since at least 1931. As of July 2016, there is still no standardized national data collection effort, despite a call from several presidential and civil rights commissions to do so. Without accurate and timely national data, a moral panic of sorts unfolds that replaces rational thought and debate necessary to enact public policy. Moreover, without such data, it is virtually impossible to estimate the incidence and prevalence of police use of force, which leaves U.S. law enforcement agencies at a tremendous disadvantage for improving practices. This essay briefly examines the history of calls to improve police practices through collecting national use of force data and then offers a practical solution based on rational-technical theory of organizations with a brief analysis of a new promising, but limited, data set. The essay concludes with a proposed research agenda should national data become available through pending legislation H.R....
Gene-environment interplay in the context of romantic relationships

A growing body of research supports an important role for genetic factors on intimate, romantic relationships. In this article, we review research that has examined the interplay between genetic and environmental influences on romantic relationships and the associations between relationship outcomes and important individual differences related to relationships. We first elaborate on how behavioral genetic and molecular genetic methods can be used to understand the etiology of relationship outcomes. We then review empirical studies that have examined gene-environment correlations and gene-by-environment interactions in predicting romantic relationship outcomes (e.g., relationship formation, relationship quality and functioning, relationship dissolution) and their association with the physical health, mental health, and well-being of relationship partners.
On the estimation of the effect of stressors on birth outcomes

Abstract Using tornadoes as a source of random variation in exposure to stressors, this papers shows that failure to account for selection through attrition before birth, can lead to significant errors of interpretation of the results of commonly run regressions.
Genomic of circulating tumor cells in metastatic breast cancer

1002 Background: Metastatic breast cancer (MBC) is an incurable condition and palliative treatments are selected by considering pre-treatment prognostic and predictive factors. Recently, we reporte...
Using HPX and OP2 for Improving Parallel Scaling Performance of Unstructured Grid Applications

Computer scientists and programmers face the difficultly of improving the scalability of their applications while using conventional programming techniques only. As a base-line hypothesis of this paper we assume that an advanced runtime system can be used to take full advantage of the available parallel resources of a machine in order to achieve the highest parallelism possible. In this paper we present the capabilities of HPX -- a distributed runtime system for parallel applications of any scale -- to achieve the best possible scalability through asynchronous task execution [1]. OP2 is an active library which provides a framework for the parallel execution for unstructured grid applications on different multi-core/many-core hardware architectures [2]. OP2 generates code which uses OpenMP for loop parallelization within an application code for both single-threaded and multi-threaded machines. In this work we modify the OP2 code generator to target HPX instead of OpenMP, i.e. port the parallel simulation backend of OP2 to utilize HPX. We compare the performance results of the different parallelization methods using HPX and OpenMP for loop parallelization within the Airfoil application. The results of strong scaling and weak scaling tests for the Airfoil application on one node with up to 32 threads are presented. Using HPX for parallelization of OP2 gives an improvement in performance by 5%-21%. By modifying the OP2 code generator to use HPX's parallel algorithms, we observe scaling improvements by about 5% as compared to OpenMP. To fully exploit the potential of HPX, we adapted the OP2 API to expose a future and dataflow based programming model and applied this technique for parallelizing the same Airfoil application. We show that the dataflow oriented programming model, which automatically creates an execution tree representing the algorithmic data dependencies of our application, improves the overall scaling results by about 21% compared to OpenMP. Our results show the advantage of using the asynchronous programming model implemented by HPX.
Early Requirements for Mechanical Voting Systems

The problem of setting the requirements for voting systems is as old as democracy. With the advent of voting machinery in the 19th century, the problem became more difficult. In most cases, it was the technologists who set out to formally articulate requirements. In many cases, these are clearly stated, as such, in patent applications of the era. Sadly, some of these requirements have been repeatedly forgotten in subsequent years. By the early 20th century, several authors produced concise summaries of these requirements, but their efforts reflect strong vendor bias.
Abstract B073: Protein nanoparticles for controllable T cell activation

The immunosuppressive nature of cancer prevents a sustained response to T-cell-inducing vaccines. We hypothesize that co-delivering antigens and adjuvants directly to sub-compartments of antigen presenting cells could elicit specific CTL and Th1 activation, providing more control over the immune response. To accomplish this goal, we are developing protein nanoparticles capable of delivering payloads consisting of RNA, protein, and small molecules to target cells. One class of protein nanoparticles is produced in E. coli and is capable of packaging its own RNA to enable evolution of improved functions such as increased RNA packaging, improved serum stability, and pH-mediated disassembly for endosomal payload delivery. Another class of protein nanoparticles can bud from HEK293F cells containing small molecule adjuvants and mRNA-encoded antigens. By pseudotyping these enveloped protein nanoparticles with viral fusion proteins, we can deliver nucleic acids to the cytosol of target cells where they are translated to produce the desired protein antigen. These non-viral delivery devices could improve our ability to control immune responses against cancer. Citation Format: Marc J. Lajoie, Gabriel Butterfield, Elizabeth Gray, Kate DaPron, Daniel Stetson, David Baker, Neil King. Protein nanoparticles for controllable T cell activation [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Second CRI-CIMT-EATI-AACR International Cancer Immunotherapy Conference: Translating Science into Survival; 2016 Sept 25-28; New York, NY. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Immunol Res 2016;4(11 Suppl):Abstract nr B073.
Circa 1999: The Possibilities for Community and Democracy

AbstractThere is a large movement in contemporary public administration and political science calling for a return to civic democracy and for the democratizing of public administration. What is assumed in these calls to civic democracy is that civic community and active, discursive citizenship are possible in the current political economy. It is argued here that the possibilities for citizenship and community are significantly constrained in the current corporatized, consumption-based U. S. political economy. Late 2th century individualistic consumerism has wrought a political economy that is devoid of care and love. Community and citizenship in a corporatized, consumption-based political economy need care and love to correct the imbalance between the “I” and the “We” that is at the heart of contemporary problems of governance and citizenship.