cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Statin use and risk of primary liver cancer in the Clinical Practice Research Datalink.

Background: Statins (3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase inhibitors) are widely prescribed to reduce cholesterol levels. Studies have suggested that statins are associated with reduced risk of liver cancer, but much of the evidence is from regions of the world with high liver cancer incidence rates. The current study examined the statins–liver cancer relationship in a low-rate region and examined the effects of preexisting liver disease and diabetes on that association.
A Discrete Matlab–Simulink Flickermeter Model for Power Quality Studies

A discrete model of the IEC 61000-4-15 flickermeter is developed for use with the Matlab-Simulink simulation software package. The discrete model is a faithful reproduction of a flickermeter defined by the IEC Standard; it duplicates the functional blocks described by the standard and operates in the same way as the standardized instrument to assure complete fidelity of results. The model is intended to be used within larger simulations that contain discrete model blocks, either alone or in combination with the Simulink SimPowerSystems blockset, to provide direct quantification of flicker. The model is fully developed, and all model parameters are provided for use with 60-Hz systems. A discrete calibrator is described that duplicates the test waveforms described by the IEC Standard.
Evaluation of indole‐based probes for high‐throughput screening of drug binding to human serum albumin: Analysis by high‐performance affinity chromatography

There has been growing interest in the use of rapid and selective separation methods such as high-performance affinity chromatography (HPAC) or affinity capillary electrophoresis (ACE) for the characterization of drug-protein interactions. L-Tryptophan is commonly used in these and other methods as a site-selective probe for examining the binding of small solutes and drugs at Sudlow site II on the protein HSA. However, solutions of L-tryptophan can be unstable and are generally prepared fresh daily for these studies. In this report, HPAC was used to examine other indole compounds as possible replacements for L-tryptophan as a site-selective probe for use in the high-throughput screening of drug binding to HSA; the implications of these results in the use of such compounds in ACE were also considered. The probe candidates that were tested included indole-3-acetic acid, indole-3-carboxylic acid, indole-3-butyric acid, indole-3-propionic acid, indole-3-methanol, 3-acetylindole, and 3-methylindole. All of these compounds were found by (1)H NMR and UV-Vis spectroscopy to be stable for up to 3 wk at room temperature when kept in a pH 7.4, 0.067 M phosphate buffer. The binding of these compounds was examined by using columns that contained immobilized HSA. 3-Acetylindole was found to be the best candidate in this group for use as an alternative probe to L-tryptophan for Sudlow site II. This probe had the same binding site and a similar affinity to L-tryptophan but was more stable in aqueous solution, making it suitable for high-throughput screening of drug-HSA binding in both HPAC and ACE.
The effect of levels of protein and vitamin B12 in hen diets on egg production and hatchability of eggs and on livability and growth of chicks.

Abstract The effects of feeding different levels of protein and vitamin B12 on egg production and hatchability of eggs of Single Comb White Leghorn hens were studied. Diets containing 16 and 32% corn-soybean meal protein with and without 10 μg. of vitamin B12 per kg. of diet were employed. Egg production and fertility of eggs were not significantly affected by protein level or vitamin B12 supplement. However, increasing protein level in the hen diets resulted in a significant decrease in hatchability. Vitamin B12 supplementation of both diets significantly improved hatchability of eggs. However, the supplementary vitamin B12 was not adequate to support desirable hatchability when the diet contained 32% protein. The high level of protein, and the addition of vitamin B12 to the 16% protein diet significantly increased egg weight. Chicks hatched from eggs produced by hens fed the different experimental diets were used to study the effect of breeder diets on chick growth and livability. A deficiency of vitamin B12 in the breeder had a detrimental effect on chick growth and livability. Increasing the protein level of the chick diet from 22 to 32% resulted in a further decrease in growth when the chicks were derived from vitamin B12 deficient hens. A high level of protein in the breeder diet also depressed chick growth. This growth depression was not counteracted by a dietary supplement of 500 μg. of vitamin B12/kg., by an oral dose of 50 μg. of vitamin B12/chick at hatching, or by an injection of 1 or 10 μg. of vitamin B12/bird at hatching. Vitamin B12 supplied through the hen diet was more effective than supplementation of chick diet in stimulating early chick growth. Mortality was higher in chicks hatched from hens fed the 16% protein diet than in those from hens fed 32% protein. This was the reverse of embryo mortality during incubation.
Image coding with a map and vector quantizer

An image coding scheme with low complexity and good performance is proposed. A map is used to split the image into two parts, where part A consists of blocks which are hard to code but bears most of the visual information, and part B consists of blocks which are easy to code but bears little visual information. The coefficients taken from a 2-D discrete cosine transform are used to separate the two parts and to generate the map. After the map is created, one uses two LBG vector quantizers to select the codebooks for each part and sends the addresses as well as the codebooks. The algorithm has been applied to the standard 512*512 Lena image, and an MSE (mean square error) of 61.82 (peak SNR of 30.22 dB) at a compression ratio of 21.40 (0.3738 bit/pixel) has been obtained. >
Modeling phase synchronization in a biologically-based network

The phase relationships between motorneuron firing in invertebrate central pattern generators (CPGs) determine the sequence of muscle contractions and therefore the behavior of the animal. In the lobster stomatogastric ganglion, all of the neurons comprising two CPGs were identified. Physiologically determined parameters from identified neurons were incorporated in a new biophysically based model. To study the role of reciprocal inhibition the most common type of synaptic interaction in the CPGs, chains of neurons and 5*5 matrices, both with reciprocal inhibitory connections, were modeled. Oscillatory neurons at the ends of long odd-numbered chains could be brought into synchronization very rapidly. Pairs of oscillatory neurons embedded in the matrix, but bursting at different frequencies, became entrained at intermediate frequencies and phase relationships. The results suggest a mechanism for producing CPG motor patterns. >
Microwave remote sensing of Jupiter's atmosphere from an orbiting spacecraft

Microwave remote sounding from a spacecraft flying by or in orbit around Jupiter offers new possibilities for retrieving important and presently poorly understood properties of its atmosphere. In particular, we show that precise measurements of relative brightness temperature as a function of off-nadir emission angles, combined with absolute brightness temperature measurements, can allow us to determine the global abundances of water and ammonia and study the dynamics and deep circulations of the atmosphere in the altitude range from the ammonia cloud region to depths greater than 30 bars in a manner which would not be achievable with ground-based telescopes.
The Musite open-source framework for phosphorylation-site prediction.

Background With the rapid accumulation of phosphoproteomics data, phosphorylation-site prediction is becoming an increasingly active research area. More than a dozen phosphorylation-site prediction tools have been released in the past decade. However, there is currently no open-source framework specifically designed for phosphorylation-site prediction except Musite.
A REAL TIME TRAFFIC LIGHT RECOGNITION SYSTEM

Driving is a challenging task, especially for those with color vision deficiencies. Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) can provide useful information and make driving safe and convenient. A real time traffic light recognition system is presented in this paper for improving public safety and facilitating color deficient drivers. It may also be included as a part of ITS. The presented system consists of a digital video camera to record traffic lights and a portable PC to process images in real time. It uses various techniques of color detection, feature matching with normalized cross-correlation (NCC), and mathematical shape analysis for the traffic light recognition. For color detection, we obtained an initial solution by using RGB component adjustment, thresholding algorithm, and median filter. In dealing with illumination changes with weather and time, a simple adaptation method was developed. Feature matching with NCC was used after color detection to further detect and recognize the traffic lights. To improve the system's tolerance and robustness, a mathematical shape analysis was undertaken to obtain the final results. Numerous experiments were conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness and practicability of the system with images under different weather conditions. The average recognition ratio is higher than 95% from the testing results. The average processing time is 30 ms per frame, making the system suitable in real time conditions. Audio alert is added to the current system as an integral part of a portable system to be developed.
Exploring Deterministic Constraints: from a Constrained English POS Tagger to an Efficient ILP Solution to Chinese Word Segmentation

We show for both English POS tagging and Chinese word segmentation that with proper representation, large number of deterministic constraints can be learned from training examples, and these are useful in constraining probabilistic inference. For tagging, learned constraints are directly used to constrain Viterbi decoding. For segmentation, character-based tagging constraints can be learned with the same templates. However, they are better applied to a word-based model, thus an integer linear programming (ILP) formulation is proposed. For both problems, the corresponding constrained solutions have advantages in both efficiency and accuracy.
Direct observation of microbial inhibition of calcite dissolution.

Vertical scanning interferometry (VSI) provides a method for quantification of surface topography at the angstrom to nanometer level. Time-dependent VSI measurements can be used to study the surface-normal retreat across crystal and other solid surfaces during dissolution or corrosion processes. Therefore, VSI can be used to directly and nondestructively measure mineral dissolution rates with high precision. We have used this method to compare the abiotic dissolution behavior of a representative calcite (CaCO3) cleavage face with that observed upon addition of an environmental microbe, Shewanella oneidensis MR-1, to the crystal surface. From our direct observations, we have concluded that the presence of the microbes results in a significant inhibition of the rate of calcite dissolution. This inhibition appears to be a 2nd-order effect that is related to the formation of etch pits. The opening of etch pits was greatly inhibited in the presence of added bacteria, suggesting that the bacterial cells exert their effect by inhibiting the formation of etch pits at high-energy sites at the crystal surface caused by lattice defects, e.g., screw or point dislocations. The experimental methodology thus provides a nondestructive, directly quantifiable, and easily visualized view of the interactions of microbes and minerals during weathering (or corrosion) processes or during mineral precipitation.
Conversion of limited-entry decision tables to computer programs—a proposed modification to Pollack's algorithm

Pollack has proposed an algorithm for converting decision tables into flowcharts which minimize subsequent execution time when compiled into a computer program. Two modifications o this algorithm are proposed. The first relies on Shannon's noiseless coding theorem and the communications concept of entropy but does not completely test the ELSE Rule. The second modification completely tests the ELSE Rule but results in more executions than the first modification. Both modifications result in lower execution time than Pollack's algorithm. However, neither modification guarantees a globally optimal solution.
Microfluidic heart on a chip for higher throughput pharmacological studies

We present the design of a higher throughput “heart on a chip” which utilizes a semi-automated fabrication technique to process sub millimeter sized thin film cantilevers of soft elastomers. Anisotropic cardiac microtissues which recapitulate the laminar architecture of the heart ventricle are engineered on these cantilevers. Deflection of these cantilevers, termed Muscular Thin Films (MTFs), during muscle contraction allows calculation of diastolic and systolic stresses generated by the engineered tissues. We also present the design of a reusable one channel fluidic microdevice completely built out of autoclavable materials which incorporates various features required for an optical cardiac contractility assay: metallic base which fits on a heating element for temperature control, transparent top for recording cantilever deformation and embedded electrodes for electrical field stimulation of the tissue. We employ the microdevice to test the positive inotropic effect of isoproterenol on cardiac contractility at dosages ranging from 1 nM to 100 μM. The higher throughput fluidic heart on a chip has applications in testing of cardiac tissues built from rare or expensive cell sources and for integration with other organ mimics. These advances will help alleviate translational barriers for commercial adoption of these technologies by improving the throughput and reproducibility of readout, standardization of the platform and scalability of manufacture.
Female parthenogenetic apomixis and androsporogenetic parthenogenesis in embryonal cells of Araucaria angustifolia : interpolation of progenesis and asexual heterospory in an artificial sporangium

Cell fate, development timing and occurrence of reproductive versus apomictic development in gymnosperms are shown to be influenced by culture conditions in vitro. In this study, female parthenogenetic apomixis (fPA), androsporogenetic parthenogenesis (mAP) and progenesis were demonstrated using embryonal initials of Araucaria angustifolia in scaled-up cell suspensions passing through a single-cell bottleneck in darkness and in an artificial sporangium (AS). Expression was based on defined nutrition, hormones and feedforward-adaptive feedback process controls at 23–25 °C and in darkness. In fPA, the nucleus of an embryonal initial undergoes endomitosis and amitosis, forming a diploid egg-equivalent and an apoptotic ventral canal nucleus in a transdifferentiated archegonial tube. Discharge of egg-equivalent cells as parthenospores and their dispersal into the aqueous culture medium were followed by free-nuclear conifer-type proembryogenesis. This replaced the plesiomorphic and central features of proembryogenesis in Araucariaceae. Protoplasmic fusions of embryonal initials were used to reconstruct heterokaryotic expressions of fPA in multiwell plates. In mAP, restitutional meiosis (automixis) was responsible for androsporogenesis and the discharge of monads, dyads, tetrads and polyads. In a display of progenesis, reproductive development was brought to an earlier ontogenetic stage and expressed by embryonal initials. Colchicine increased polyploidy, but androspore formation became aberrant and fragmented. Aberrant automixis led to the formation of chromosomal bouquets, which contributed to genomic silencing in embryonal initials, cytomixis and the formation of pycnotic micronucleated cells. Dispersal of female and male parthenospores displayed heteromorphic asexual heterospory in an aqueous environment.
The development-associated cleavage of lens connexin 45.6 by caspase-3-like protease is regulated by casein kinase II-mediated phosphorylation.

Gap junctions are important in maintaining lens transparency and metabolic homeostasis. In this paper, we report that the gap junction-forming protein, connexin (Cx) 45.6, was specifically truncated during lens development and that the majority of the truncated fragments were located in the differentiated lens fibers. When isolated lens membranes were treated by caspase-3, the truncated fragments of Cx45.6 were reproduced, and this truncation occurred at the COOH terminus of Cx45.6. Moreover, when primary lens cells were treated with apoptosis-inducing reagents, Cx45.6 was cleaved similarly as the in vitro treatment by caspase-3, and this cleavage was blocked by a caspase-3 inhibitor. These results suggest that caspase-3 is responsible for the development-associated cleavage of Cx45.6. The cleavage site of Cx45.6 was identified between amino acid residues Glu367 and Gly368. We have shown previously that Ser363 is an in vivophosphorylated site by casein kinase II, and this specific phosphorylation leads to a rapid turnover of Cx45.6. Interestingly, we found here that when Ser363 was phosphorylated by casein kinase II, the cleavage of Cx45.6 catalyzed by caspase-3 was inhibited. This study, for the first time, demonstrates that a connexin can be a direct target of an apoptotic protease and that cleavage by caspase-3-like protease leads to the development-associated truncation of a lens connexin. Finally, caspase-3-mediated cleavage can be regulated by casein kinase II-mediated phosphorylation, suggesting that Cx45.6 turnover and specific cleavage by caspase-3-like protease is alternatively modulated.
Social Support and Sexual Risk Among Establishment-Based Female Sex Workers in Tijuana

Social support can affect health outcomes of female sex workers. In this inductive feminist grounded theory study based on 20 in-depth interviews, we explore how establishment-based female sex workers in Tijuana perceive the impact of the connections among women on their lives and health. Participants elected to discuss the importance of social support from mothers, sisters, friends, and co-workers, and the empowering and disempowering aspects of these relationships. In previous studies, scholars demonstrated the efficacy of formal organization of female sex workers in promoting the mitigation of sexual and HIV risk. We show the importance of informal ties with other women. Some participants mentioned competitive relationships, others talked about cooperation and the desire for a venue to learn from one another. Social interactions with other women are especially empowering when female sex workers can openly engage in “woman talk” that may contribute to the mitigation of sexual and HIV risk.
Security challenges in the internet of things

The internet of things (IoT) is emerging as a popular future internet paradigm, in which physical entities and cyber entities are connected to form a network of networks. It is expected to enable mass participation of 'things' on mission critical services such as energy, mobility, healthcare, to name a few. Therefore, it is a matter of time for the IoT network to grow to billions of connected nodes. This leads to a variety of new, as well as existent, potential security risks whose severity depends on the environment in which the internet of things is deployed. This paper categorises the major components in the IoT domain and provides a classification of security requirements and security threats applicable to each component. It also discusses open security problems and provides directions for future research in order to address scalability and efficiency concerns, while allowing seamless introduction of new applications in this domain.
The Association between Point-of-Sale Advertising Bans and Youth Experimental Smoking: Findings from the Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS)

Background and Objectives: while existing research has demonstrated a positive association between exposure to point-of-sale (POS) tobacco advertising and youth smoking, there is limited evidence on the relationship between POS advertising restrictions and experimental smoking among youth. This study aims to fill this research gap by analyzing the association between POS advertising bans and youths' experimental smoking. Methods: Global Youth Tobacco Surveys from 130 countries during 2007-2011 were linked to the WHO “MPOWER” tobacco control policy measures to analyze the association between POS advertising bans (a dichotomous measure of the existence of such bans) and experimental smoking using weighted logistic regressions. All analyses were clustered at the country level and controlled for age, parents' smoking status, GDP per capita, and country-level tobacco control scores in monitoring tobacco use, protecting people from smoke, offering help to quit, warning about the dangers of tobacco, enforcing promotion/advertising bans, and raising taxes on tobacco. Results: The results suggest that a POS advertising ban is significantly associated with reduced experimental smoking among youth (OR = 0.63, p < 0.01), and that this association is seen for both genders (boys OR = 0.74, p < 0.1; girls OR = 0.52, p < 0.001). Conclusions: POS advertising bans are significantly associated with reduced experimental smoking among youth. Adopting POS advertising bans has the potential to reduce tobacco use among their youth in countries currently without such bans.
Flow Propagation Analysis: Computer or Eyeball?

Blood flow throughout the cardiovascular system is governed by the Navier-Stokes equations, a set of 4 coupled 4-dimensional (3 of space and 1 of time) partial differential equations. Although these are impossibly complex to solve analytically or even with the most powerful supercomputers, there are
Beta-2 adrenoceptor control of the venous circulation in intact dogs.

The effects of beta-2 adrenoceptor stimulation on the peripheral circulation in 10 dogs were evaluated. All studies were done during ganglion blockade with hexamethonium. Venous capacitance was assessed by measuring mean circulatory filling pressure, venous compliance and unstressed vascular volume. Beta-2 stimulation was achieved with terbutaline (27 micrograms/min) after beta-1 blockade with metoprolol (0.75 mg/kg). At a dose of terbutaline that decreased mean aortic pressure from 80.4 +/- 3.5 to 58.9 +/- 1.9 mm Hg (P less than .01), there was no change in cardiac index (155.8 +/- 10.5 vs. 161.1 +/- 9.1 ml/kg/min) despite an increase in heart rate from 118.6 +/- 5.2 to 132.6 +/- 5.0 beats/min. Right atrial pressure, left ventricular end-diastolic pressure and dP/dt did not change. Systemic vascular resistance decreased from 0.52 +/- 0.02 to 0.39 +/- 0.03 mm Hg . min . kg . ml (P less than .01). Arterial compliance increased from 0.067 +/- 0.003 to 0.088 +/- 0.007 ml/mm Hg/kg and the volume of blood shifted out of the larger arteries was 1.8 +/- 0.4 ml/kg. Mean circulatory filling pressure did not change but venous compliance decreased from 1.90 +/- 0.04 to 1.47 +/- 0.06 ml/mm Hg/kg and unstressed vascular volume increased from -14.5 +/- 0.5 to -8.4 +/- 0.5 ml/kg. Central blood volume increased from 22.8 +/- 1.1 to 27.4 +/- 2.2 ml/kg. There was an increase in total blood volume from 81.1 +/- 2.7 to 90.5 +/- 3.7 ml/kg. To determine the extent to which changes in the spleen were responsible for these observations, five dogs were studied 2 weeks after splenectomy.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
2.9-Å Resolution Structure of Anthrax Protective Antigen Pore Determined by Cryo Electron Microscopy

Anthrax toxin, the major virulence factor of Bacillus anthracis causing high mortality in human and animals, comprises protective antigen (PA), lethal factor (LF) and edema factor (EF). PA plays a central role in the toxicity by translocating the enzymes LF and EF into the cytosol, which makes it not only a vaccine component and therapeutic target for anthrax infections but also an excellent model system for understanding the mechanism of protein translocation. PA first forms soluble oligomeric prepores on the host cell surface and then the endosomal acidification converts prepores into membrane-spanning pores that perform the protein translocation activity. Although atomic structures of PA prepores are available, how PA senses low pH, converts to active pore and translocates LF and EF are not well defined without a high-resolution structure of the PA pore. Here we report the structure of PA pore at 2.9-A resolution solved by cryo electron microscopy with direct electron counting. The structure reveals the details of the membrane-spanning translocation channel and the long-sought-after catalytic Φ-clamp. Supported by a large body of existing mutagenesis data and by comparisons with available PA prepore structures, our atomic model suggests mechanisms of the low-pH triggered conversion from prepore to pore and of proton-driven protein translocation through the PA pore.Acknowledgements: This work was supported in part by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the American Heart Association.
Distribution and antibiotics resistance of 872 clinical pyogenic bacteria

Objective:To research distribution of common bacteria in hospital and to detect their resistence of antibiotics.Methods: The identification of bacteria and bacteria susceptibility test were performing automatic bio analysis-Vitek-32 and Kirby-Bauer method.Results: There were 872 strains was isolated,the common organisms were Escherichia coli,Pseudomonas aeruginosa,Staphylococcus aureus,and Klebsiella pneumoniae.The resistance to common antibiotics of Staphylococcus aureus was more than 80%.But Vancomycin was still effective to all Gram positive coccus.Gram negative bacillus had higher resistance against the Amicillin,Piperacillin,ciprofloxacin and Gentamicin.Conclusion: Bacterial resistance in Huzhou was very serious.
The effect of organic acids on renal clearance of methotrexate in man

The renal clearance of the folic acid antagonist, methotrexate, was compared with that of inulin and para-aminohippurate in 15 patients with disseminated malignancy. The clearance of methotrexate exceeded that of inulin clearance in all cases, indicating methotrexate is not only filtered but is also actively secreted by the renal tubules. The simultaneous intravenous administration of weak organic acids resulted, generally, in suppressive effects on the clearance of methotrexate. Salicylate and high concentrations of para-aminohippurate reduced methotrexate clearance well below the glomerular filtration rate; whereas, sulfisoxazole had only a minimal effect on total methotrexate clearance. The variations of plasma protein binding of methotrexate induced by these same drugs did not correlate with the direction or degree of methotrexate clearance. It is concluded from these studies that methotrexate is excreted by a combination of glomerular filtration and active tubular transport and that methotrexate clearance is not directly related to the level of free methotrexate presented to the kidneys. It is furthermore suggested that the alterations in plasma protein binding and renal clearance of methotrexate provoked by the simultaneous administration of other organic acids may be clinically exploitable in cancer chemotherapy.
Assays of Bypass Replication of Genotoxic Lesions in Cell-Free Extracts

The in vitro replication assay described here measures bidirectional replication of a circular double- stranded DNA template upon initiation at the SV40 origin. It models a single eukaryotic replication unit (replicon) and recapitulates the biochemical steps involved in the catalysis of both leading and lagging strand synthesis during semiconservative DNA replication. Except for the SV40 large T antigen, all other proteins necessary for initiation and assembly of functional replication forks are provided by the cell-free extract. This assay can be used to demonstrate bypass replication of genotoxic lesions. It supports replication across a specific damaged site on the template DNA (i.e., translesion synthesis) by specialized DNA polymerases. This chapter illustrates the efficient translesion synthesis of UV-induced thymine dimers by DNA polymerase eta.
Risk Models for Chemotherapy-Induced Neutropenia in Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma

Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma is primarily a disease of the elderly, with 61% of the new cases reported in patients 60 years old or older. Aggressive combination chemotherapy can cure some patients, but there are frequently treatment failures and overall survival is low. Retrospective studies have found that treatment with less than standard chemotherapy doses is associated with lower survival, and surveys of practice patterns have found that many patients, especially elderly ones, are treated with substandard regimens and doses. Neutropenia is the major dose-limiting toxicity of chemotherapy in patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. First-cycle use of colony-stimulating factor (CSF) can reduce the incidence of neutropenia and its complications and help maintain the chemotherapy doses. Researchers have investigated risk factors in patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma to determine which patients are at highest risk for neutropenia and would benefit from targeted first-cycle CSF support. It has been shown in several studies that advanced age, poor performance status, and high chemotherapy dose intensity are risk factors. Other trials suggest that low serum albumin levels, elevated lactate dehydrogenase levels, bone marrow involvement, and high levels of soluble tumor necrosis factor receptor are also risk factors. Dose intensity has also been shown in many studies to be an important predictor of survival in patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Managing the toxicity of chemotherapy with CSF has facilitated the delivery of planned dose on time, as well as dose-intensified chemotherapy regimens. The promising results from recent clinical trials of dose-dense regimens with CSF support suggest that this could prove to be the best strategy for improving patient outcomes.
Drug safety evaluation of oral tenofovir disoproxil fumarate-emtricitabine for pre-exposure prophylaxis for human immunodeficiency virus infection.

ABSTRACTIntroduction: Tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF) and emtricitabine (FTC) are nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors approved as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) against human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Prophylactic TDF-based regimens have been shown to reduce the risk of HIV infection by 74 to 92% among participants with detectable drug levels. Adverse events observed in clinical trials include nausea, elevated creatinine and liver enzymes, and decreased bone mineral density.Areas covered: This article reviews the pharmacology, pharmacokinetics, and the safety profile of TDF and FTC used as PrEP for HIV infection.Expert opinion: TDF-FTC can have a large impact in preventing HIV infections among high risk individuals when taken daily. Although TDF-FTC is associated with adverse events, they can be minimized with clinician-guided monitoring.
Life Cycle Analysis Summary for Automotive Lithium-Ion Battery Production and Recycling

Some have raised concerns regarding the contribution of lithium-ion battery pack production to the total electric vehicle energy and emissions profile versus internal combustion vehicles, and about potential battery end-of-life issues. This detailed life cycle analysis (LCA) examines these issues and identifies potential hot-spots within the battery pack life cycle for five cathode materials and a proposed lithium metal anode. The battery assembly stage, identified by some as an energy concern, is determined to be problematic only for “pioneer” plants (i.e. low-throughput facilities), but not for at-capacity plants, and battery electric vehicles with batteries from either facility type outperform conventional vehicles in terms of lowering GHG emissions. For at-capacity plants, the battery materials dominate energy impacts, with cathode materials representing 10–50% of that energy, depending on cathode type. Recycling can further mitigate battery life-cycle impacts, while also being economically attractive for all cathode materials, even those with low elemental values.
Special Issue on the Generalized Intelligent Framework for Tutoring (GIFT): Creating a Stable and Flexible Platform for Innovations in AIED Research

The Generalized Intelligent Framework for Tutoring (GIFT) is a research prototype with three general goals associated with its functions and components: 1) lower the skills and time required to author Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITSs) in a variety of task domains; 2) provide effective adaptive instruction tailored to the needs of each individual learner or team of learners; and 3) provide tools and methods to evaluate the effectiveness of ITSs and support research to continuously improve instructional best practices. This special issue focuses primarily on the third goal, GIFT as a research testbed. A discussion thread covers each article within this special issue and discusses its actual and potential impact on GIFT as a research tool for AIED. Our primary motivation was to introduce the AIED community to GIFT not just as a research tool, but as an extension of familiar challenges taken on previously by AIED scientists and practitioners. This preface provides a high level overview of the GIFT functions (authoring, instructional delivery and management, and experimentation) and presents its primary design principles. To learn more about GIFT, freely access the software, documentation, and associated technical papers visit www.GIFTtutoring.org .
The Identification of Fiduciary Relationships

This chapter in the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Fiduciary Law provides synthetic analysis of the law on fiduciary relationships, focusing on the identification of fiduciary relationships and fiduciary relationship formation and termination. The chapter discusses status- and fact-based methods of identifying fiduciary relationships, as well as analogical and definitional variants on these methods. The chapter concludes by highlighting the increasing convergence on powers-based definitions of the fiduciary relationship, and by explaining the merits of definitional reasoning.
The Role of Choice Clustering and Descriptive Norms in Attenuating Psychological Reactance to Water and Energy Conservation Messages

The current study advances the literature on environmental communication by exploring message strategies for promoting residential water and energy conservation. In doing so, this study also builds...
Demonstration of rational communicative behavior in coordinated defense

The primary goal of our demonstration is to show results we obtained on communication among artificial and human agents interacting in a simulated air defense domain. For artificial agents, we advocate a decision-theoretic message selection mechanism which maximizes the expected utility of the communicative actions. Thus, the agents compute the expected utility of alternative communicative behaviors, and execute the one with the highest value (Noh & Gmytrasiewicz 1999). Following the principle of maximizing the expected utility, our agents are intended to be rational in their communicative behavior; they send only the most valuable messages, and never send messages they consider to be damaging given the circumstances at hand. In the anti-air defense the agents, human or artificial, are coordinating their defense actions, in this case interception of threats, with other defense agents. The goal of defending agents is to minimize damages to their territory. To fulfill their mission, the agents need to coordinate and, sometimes, to communicate with other agents. However, since the communication bandwidth is usually limited in a battlefield environment, it is more valuable for a defending agent to be selective as to what messages should be sent to other agents. Endowing the agents with a decision-theoretic method to choose their own communicative behavior given a situation at hand frees our agents from depending on communication protocols, frequently advocated in other work. We feel that relying on protocols drawn up beforehand could lock the agents into suboptimal behavior in unpredictable domain like the battlefield, in which situations that were not foreseen by the designer are likely to occur. Our approach uses the Recursive Modeling Method proposed before in (Gmytrasiewicz & Durfee 1995). RMM endows an agent with a compact specialized representation of other agents’ beliefs, abilities, and intentions. As such, it allows the agent to predict the message’s decision-theoretic (DT) pragmatics, i.e., how a particular message will change the decision-making situation of the agents, and how the other agents are
Case-Based Goal Selection Inspired by IBM’s Watson

IBM’s Watson uses a variety of scoring algorithms to rank candidate answers for natural language questions. These scoring algorithms played a crucial role in Watson’s win against human champions in Jeopardy!. We show that this same technique can be implemented within a real-time strategy (RTS) game playing goal-driven autonomy (GDA) agent. Previous GDA agents in RTS games were forced to use very compact state representations. Watson’s scoring algorithms technique removes this restriction for goal selection, allowing the use of all information available in the game state. Unfortunately, there is a high knowledge engineering effort required to create new scoring algorithms. We alleviate this burden using case-based reasoning to approximate past observations of a scoring algorithm system. Our experiments in a real-time strategy game show that goal selection by the CBR system attains comparable in-game performance to a baseline scoring algorithm system.
Book Review: The Framers' Coup: The Making of the United States Constitution. By Michael J. Klarman. Oxford University Press, 2016. Pp. xii 865.

This commendatory review of Michael Klarman’s The Framer's Coup takes up for consideration some polemical uses to which the book might be put. One of those might be as a brief in support of calls now heard for a national constitutional convention or other project of major constitutional repair. “[T]hroughout American history,” Klarman reminds us,”political actors have invoked the wisdom and virtue of the Framers as arguments against constitutional change,” while the facts assembled in his new book—about the values, aims, beliefs, tactics, and strategies of those who took controlling parts in the Constitution-making process, about general hazards to rationality affecting the process as a whole, and about the role in these events of sheer accident and luck—can be read as a takedown of the Framing from any high pedestal of reverence it may hitherto have occupied in the minds of readers. What about more radical implications? Klarman has in the past authored scholarship to question the entire project of constitutionalism, at least of what he has called the “judicially enforceable” type. He has proposed to Americans, for serious consideration as our path of deliverance from a choice between rule from eighteenth-century graveyards and rule by electorally untethered judges, that “we can simply be anticonstitutionalists. That is, we can decide controverted policy questions for ourselves through political struggle (as much of the rest of the world does it), rather than through the edicts of long-dead Framers or relatively unaccountable judges.” Should we, then, be reading The Framers’ Coup as a brief in support of a general stance of constitutional disparagement? I have doubted it. Setting the Framing on clay feet is one thing; a call for ejection of the resulting Constitution from its place of providing, while it stands, a basic law for the country is quite another thing. The second thing is not logically deducible from the first; and Klarman’s book, to my eye, stops noticeably short of the second—perhaps partly, I suggest, as a result of Klarman's experience in researching and writing this treasure of scholarship.
The Design and Creation of an Interactive E-Book: "Book of Answer"

Interactive E-book is a digital book which the reader can direct the storyline and interact with it. 'The book of answer' is a kind of popular book that reader can interact with. In this project, we aim to develop an PVE game to simulating the process that the reader interact with the computer with the content of the book saved in. We use Python to realize the interactive dialogue process in GUI (Graphical User Interface).
Relationship between body mass index and operative time in women receiving immediate postpartum tubal ligation.

Abstract Objectives The aim of the study was to (1) assess the relationship between body mass index (BMI) and operative time during immediate postpartum tubal ligation procedures and to (2) determine whether operative time is non-inferior in women with BMI ≥30 versus women with BMI Study design We conducted a retrospective cohort study of women who received immediate postpartum tubal ligations following vaginal delivery from 2013 to 2017 at a university hospital. We abstracted demographic information, patient and procedural characteristics, and clinical outcomes. We assessed the relationship between BMI and operative time via linear regression. We also conducted non-inferiority analysis to determine whether the mean operative time in women with BMI ≥30 was non-inferior to the mean operative time in women with BMI Results A total of 279 women were included for analysis, among whom N=79 (28%) had a BMI of 25–29.9 and N=171 (61%) had a BMI ≥30. Demographic characteristics were similar in both groups. We found that operative time increased by 35 s for each one-point increase in BMI (p Conclusion There is a small increase in postpartum tubal ligation operative time with increasing BMI. However, among women who received immediate postpartum tubal ligations at our institution, women with BMI ≥30 versus BMI Implications While increasing body mass index slightly increases the operative time for immediate postpartum tubal ligations, this increase in time does not appear to be clinically significant.
Examining the Effectiveness, Efficiency, and Usability of a Web-Based Experiential Role-Playing Aging Simulation Using Formative Assessment

We focused our research on the formative assessment of a web-based, role-playing simulation to better understand its effectiveness, efficiency, and usability prior to implementation. Participants received an email invitation with a link to the simulation. After completing the simulation activities, participants were asked to complete an electronic questionnaire. In addition, participants were offered incentives to participate in a face-to-face think-aloud protocol, in which the participants navigated the simulation while answering questions and describing their thoughts out loud to the researcher. In total, forty-two participants completed the electronic survey and ten participants completed the face-to-face think-aloud protocol. The results indicate that participants found that the web-based, role-playing simulation adequately synthesized fundamental knowledge and skills; it is organized in a way that helped the learner; and it is easy to navigate. However, this formative assessment of experiential role-playing aging simulation also showed that there are improvements and adjustments that should be considered before implementing it as an instructional tool. Although participants were eager to learn more about the subject presented, the message design (graphics, animations, and colors) needed careful consideration and revision.
A comparison of contrast sensitivity and sweep visual evoked potential (sVEP) acuity estimates in normal humans

Several previous studies have demonstrated that for normal adult subjects the optotype acuity measured with charts is better than the acuity determined with the sweep visual evoked potential (sVEP) using gratings or checks. However, there is no difference in psychophysical measures of acuity with optotype or grating charts. Thus, it is unclear whether the acuity discrepancy between optotype charts and the sVEP result from the stimulus design or other methodological differences. The purpose of this experiment is to determine the relationship between acuities extrapolated from a contrast sensitivity function (CSF) that uses optotypes and the sVEP. Normal subjects (N = 10) with acuity of 0.00 logMAR or better (ETDRS chart) were recruited for this study. Two commercially available systems were used to measure CSFs [i.e., the Beethoven System (Ryklin Software, NY) and the qCSF system (Adaptive Sensory Tech, CA)]. The stimuli for the Beethoven were sine wave gratings (0.75–18.50 cpd), and thresholds were determined with a 2-alternative forced choice (2-AFC) procedure combined with a staircase. The stimuli for the qCSF system were spatially filtered letters (10 possible letters, 10-AFC) with the letter sizes and contrasts determined by a Bayesian adaptive procedure. Visual acuity was determined by fitting the data with a double exponential equation and extrapolating the fit to a contrast sensitivity of one. The sVEP was obtained with the PowerDiva (Digital Instrumentation for Visual Assessment, version 3.5, CA). The stimuli were sine wave gratings (80% contrast, 3–36 cpd) counterphased at 7.5 Hz. The final acuity was the average of two estimates each derived from the average of 10 sweeps. The average logMAR chart (acuity converted to cpd), sVEP, Beethoven, and qCSF acuities were 36.6 ± 4.62 cpd (mean ± SD), 31.2 ± 4.59 cpd, 27.3 ± 7.38 cpd, and 27.6 ± 6.36 cpd, respectively. The logMAR chart acuity was significantly different from the other acuity estimates (all p values 0.05). The Beethoven and the qCSF acuities had a good intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC = 0.85). Similar to previous publications, the sVEP acuity estimate was less than the optotype chart acuity. The acuity determined with the sVEP and the CSFs with letter and grating stimuli were not statistically different, suggesting that the difference in acuity with the sVEP and optotype charts does not result from stimulus differences. Other methodological differences must account for the discrepancy in sVEP and optotype chart acuity.
Pre-Phaser: Precise Cell-Cycle Phase Detector for scRNA-seq

Precise cell cycle phase identification in scRNA-seq improves differential expression analysis. However, the sparseness of scRNA-seq data contributes to the challenge of combining external cell cycle information with gene expression for precise cell phase identification. Existing techniques select their own set of marker genes for each coarse cell cycle phase, and assign cells with enriched average marker expression to this coarse phase. We observe that precise points along the cell cycle are associated with time course points from microarray experiments that identify cycling genes. In this work, we present the effectiveness of using k-nearest neighbors (kNN) to predict coarse cell cycle phase, and extend the kNN methodology to present the first method to identify precise cell cycle phases by correlating single cell transcript counts for significant cycling genes with time course points. We demonstrate that tuned kNN outperforms existing methods in assigning coarse cell cycle phase, getting an average F1 score of 0.641 on four previously published scRNA-seq datasets. We then describe Pre-Phaser, which establishes a general computational approach for precise cell phase assignment using kNN. Our k-fold cross-validation has an accuracy of 0.872 in precise prediction, and conversion to coarse phase yields an F1 score of 0.716. Our results motivate research into precise precise cell phase assignment to enable fine-tuned differential expression analyses.
Madman in the Closet: "Homosexual Panic" in Nineteenth Century New England.

This analysis uses trial records from the 1860s to explore a same-sex male relationship that devolved into panic and murder. The paper’s goal is to better understand how, during the middle of the n...