cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Modelling of Detailed Insulin Receptor Kinetics Affects Sensitivity and Noise in the Downstream Signalling Pathway

Abstract Insulin resistance is a primary defect underlying the development of type II diabetes. In healthy conditions, insulin stimulates glucose uptake from the blood stream, but in diseased conditions the normal metabolic response is impaired. Identifying specific drug targets to restore insulin sensitivity at the cellular level and developing an effective treatment strategy require insight into both the biochemical mechanisms involved and the whole signalling network response to external cues. This study focuses on the consequences of integrating a detailed biochemical description of the insulin receptor trafficking compartment within a phenomenological model of the downstream signalling pathway. While the description of the experimental data is preserved by an iterative procedure of parameter fitting, the dynamic response of the network is highly modified, as shown by analyzing the complementary information derived from studying both connection sensitivities and node noise in the network. This is crucial considering the importance of network dynamics for identifying effective drug targets.
Genetics of Pheochromocytoma and Paraganglioma

Pheochromocytomas (PCC) and paragangliomas (PGL) are rare tumors that arise from chromaffin cells of the adrenal medulla and extra-adrenal ganglia, respectively. Germline mutations can be identified in 40 % of patients with PCC/PGL with variable penetrance. There are at least 14 distinct germline susceptibility mutations implicated in the development of hereditary PCC/PGL and several additional somatic mutations involved in sporadic tumors. The gene expression of PCC/PGL cluster into two main groups: the pseudo-hypoxia cluster and the kinase signaling cluster. In this chapter, we summarize the functions of common genes responsible for hereditary PCC/PGL, such as succinate dehydrogenase (SDH), von Hippel–Lindau (VHL), RET proto-oncogene, and neurofibromatosis type I (NF1) as well as several other recently discovered germline mutations associated with PCC/PGL. The study of these genes provides insights into the molecular mechanism of PCC/PGL, which involves various kinase signaling pathways and cellular response to hypoxia. Clinical presentations, other associated manifestations, biochemical profiles, and inheritance of these syndromes are also discussed. Finally, we review recently identified somatic mutations in sporadic PCC/PGL; because the appropriate management of patients with hereditary PCC/PGL is based on the risk of malignancy and recurrent disease, the algorithm, methods, and impact of genetic testing on clinical management are summarized.
Pre-Surgical Methylene-Blue “targeting” of Small Intrapulmonary Nodules In Patients with Haematological Malignancies: Preliminary Experience.

Abstract Abstract 4551 The diagnosis of intrapulmonary nodules in patients with haematological malignancies is problematic as such lesions are often small and impalpable and “non-targeted” surgical biopsy is difficult. The aim was to evaluate the utility of image-guided “targeting” of small pulmonary nodules with methylene-blue before video-assisted thoracoscopic (VATS) biopsy. Eleven patients (8M:3F) with median (range) age of 48 (27-62) years with haematological malignancies (lymphoma, n=6, AML/MDS, n=3, ALL, n=1,Castleman's disease, n=1) were referred for VATS biopsy. Equal volume of iodinated contrast) was injected in the vicinity of the target lesion and along a track (including the pleural surface and the overlying chest wall), using a 20G needle. The platelet count, diameter of targeted nodules, “perpendicular” distance from the pleural surface and complications were recorded. Patients were transferred to surgery from the CT suite. The median (range) platelet count was 256×109/L (54-453). The mean (range) diameter of targeted nodules was 12.5(5-22) mm and these were at a mean distance of 14.3±8.3mm from the pleural surface. Complications included small pneumothoracis in 4/11 (36%) patients and pain in 1/11 (9%). A definitive histopathological/microbiological diagnosis was achieved in 10/11 (91%) patients and included: organising pneumonia (n=4), respiratory bronchiolitis (n=2), Kaposi's sarcoma (n=1), mycobacterium fortuitum infection (n=1) and chronic GVHD (n=1). There were no cases of angioinvasive aspergillosis. This preliminary data suggest that pre-biopsy methylene-blue targeting of intrapulmonary lesions is a safe and promising technique for the diagnosis of indeterminate lung nodules in patients with haematological malignancy. Disclosures: Mufti: Celgene: Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Research Funding, Speakers Bureau.
Multimodal integration: a biological view

We present a novel methodology for building highly integrated multimodal systems. Our approach is motivated by neurological and behavioral theories of sensory perception in humans and animals. We argue that perceptual integration in multimodal systems needs to happen at all levels of the individual perceptual processes. Rather than treating each modality as a separately processed, increasingly abstracted pipeline – in which integration over abstract sensory representations occurs as the final step – we claim that integration and the sharing of perceptual information must also occur at the earliest stages of sensory processing. This paper presents our methodology for constructing multimodal systems and examines its theoretic motivation. We have followed this approach in creating the most recent version of a highly interactive environment called the Intelligent Room and we argue that doing so has provided the Intelligent Room with unique perceptual capabilities and gives insight into building similar complex multimodal systems.
Effects of organic load, sanitizer pH and initial chlorine concentration of chlorine-based sanitizers on chlorine demand of fresh produce wash waters

Abstract Chlorine-based sanitizers are widely used in fresh produce industry. However, maintaining sufficient free chlorine residual in wash solution in the presence of organic matter is a challenge. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of organic load, sanitizer pH and initial chlorine concentration on chlorine demand of fresh produce wash water. A full factorial design was used to study the chlorine demand of romaine lettuce wash water with different organic load when reacting with NaOCl solution at different pH (2.5, 4.0, 6.0, 8.0 and 9.5) and initial chlorine concentration (50, 75 and 100 mg L−1 free chlorine residual). The results showed that the chlorine demand of lettuce wash water significantly increased (P ≤ 0.05) with increasing organic load. The significant effect (P ≤ 0.05) of initial chlorine concentration on chlorine demand was only detected at high organic load. Increasing the pH of NaOCl from 2.5 to 9.5 led to decrease in the chlorine demand except slight increase from 6.0 to 8.0. Equations for predicting chlorine demand of various fresh produce wash waters at different organic load for different sanitizer pH and initial chlorine concentration were developed, and verified using four types of produce (romaine lettuce, iceberg lettuce, strawberry and grape) and two types of chlorine-based sanitizers (NaOCl and electrolyzed water). Our study demonstrated that organic load, sanitizer pH and initial chlorine concentration all affected the chlorine demand of produce wash water, and chlorine demand prediction equations developed can be used for different types of fresh produce and chlorine-based sanitizers.
HSV1 latent transcription and non-coding RNA: A critical retrospective

Virologists have invested great effort into understanding how the herpes simplex viruses and their relatives are maintained dormant over the lifespan of their host while maintaining the poise to remobilize on sporadic occasions. Piece by piece, our field has defined the tissues in play (the sensory ganglia), the transcriptional units (the latency-associated transcripts), and the responsive genomic region (the long repeats of the viral genomes). With time, the observed complexity of these features has compounded, and the totality of viral factors regulating latency are less obvious. In this review, we compose a comprehensive picture of the viral genetic elements suspected to be relevant to herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV1) latent transcription by conducting a critical analysis of about three decades of research. We describe these studies, which largely involved mutational analysis of the notable latency-associated transcripts (LATs), and more recently a series of viral miRNAs. We also intend to draw attention to the many other less characterized non-coding RNAs, and perhaps coding RNAs, that may be important for consideration when trying to disentangle the multitude of phenotypes of the many genetic modifications introduced into recombinant HSV1 strains.
Proteomics of Wheat Flour

Abstract Wheat is a major food crop grown on more than 215 million hectares of land throughout the world. Wheat flour provides an important source of protein for human nutrition and is used as a principal ingredient in a wide range of food products, largely because wheat flour, when mixed with water, has unique viscoelastic properties that make it possible to produce a cohesive dough. The viscoelastic properties are conferred by a complex group of proteins accumulated in the grain during development and form the basis of wheat flour quality. Certain proteins in wheat flour also are responsible for human health problems including allergies, food intolerances, and sensitivities. In recent years, proteomics methods have facilitated the detailed study of the wheat flour proteins and provided new insights into the molecular basis of flour quality and immunogenic potential.
The Causes of Wage Differentials between Immigrant and Native Physicians

This study aims to determine some important determinants of the wage differential between native and immigrant physicians by applying a human capital framework and Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression analysis. Section II of the paper details the human capital theoretical framework that is central to this study and that is used in the most important previous literature. Then, this literature is discussed in the context of the research problem that immigrant physicians earn substantially less than native physicians in the U.S. The principle hypotheses are also developed following the theory and literature review. Section III describes the data set and the empirical model that is employed to test the hypotheses. Section IV presents descriptive statistics as well as the results obtained from the regression models and discusses important findings. Section V concludes the paper with policy implications and avenues for future research. This article is available in The Park Place Economist: http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/parkplace/vol15/iss1/15
Sparse, Quantized, Full Frame CNN for Low Power Embedded Devices

This paper presents methods to reduce the complexity of convolutional neural networks (CNN). These include: (1) A method to quickly and easily sparsify a given network. (2) Fine tune the sparse network to obtain the lost accuracy back (3) Quantize the network to be able to implement it using 8-bit fixed point multiplications efficiently. (4) We then show how an inference engine can be designed to take advantage of the sparsity. These techniques were applied to full frame semantic segmentation and the degradation due to the sparsity and quantization is found to be negligible. We show by analysis that the complexity reduction achieved is significant. Results of implementation on Texas Instruments TDA2x SoC [17] are presented. We have modified Caffe CNN framework to do the sparse, quantized training described in this paper. The source code for the training is made available at https://github.com/tidsp/caffe-jacinto
Nuclear DNA in normal and refed Amoeba proteus

Amoeba proteus synthesizes DNA in G2 phase of the cell cycle upon feeding after starvation. The characteristics of the DNA synthesized in G2 have been studied by microscope photometry of individual Feulgen-stained nuclei and by buoyant density centrifugation of nuclear DNA in CsCl. Amoeba nuclei were found to contain 42.8 pg of DNA. This DNA bands in CsCl at a density of 1.693 g/cm3 with a satellite at 1.714 g/cm3 which makes up 24% of nuclear DNA. DNA from whole cells has an additional non-nuclear satellite at 1.726 g/cm3. When cells are starved and re-fed with food labeled with [3H]thymidine, the DNA synthesized is predominantly the 1.714 satellite. The amount of DNA synthesized in G2 is small since there is no measurable difference in Feulgen dye binding to nuclei of starved vs starved and re-fed cells. The data suggest that refeeding induces a resumption of late S phase DNA synthesis, or the preferential synthesis of specific DNA sequences such as rRNA genes.
Courtship and Mate Attraction in Parasitic Wasps

Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on the courtship and mate attraction in parasitic wasps particularly Melittobia digitata . Melittobia digitata are little parasitic wasps also known as WOWBugs. Their tiny stingers, used only to puncture hosts, cannot penetrate human flesh. Around the world, Melittobia raise their young upon the larvae and pupae of other insect species in several different orders, including bees and wasps, beeries, and flies. Melittobia males are highly aggressive toward one another, often battling to the death for the right to court and mate with their sisters inside the darkness of the host cocoon. Females—which make up over 95% of each generation—disperse after mating to undertake a hazardous journey to search for new hosts. Up to 700 mated females may emerge from a single host cocoon. Most will perish, but the lucky few find a new insect larva or pupa upon which to lay eggs. Within 17-24 days, these eggs will mature to adults able to breed and repeat the cycle.
The Association of Epstein-Barr Virus with Lymphoproliferative Disorders: A Re-evaluation Using the Polymerase Chain Reaction

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) has been associated with a variety of clinical syndromes in immunosuppressed and normal hosts. Until recently, Southern blotting (SB) has often been the technique used to demonstrate EBV DNA in a clinical sample. Under optimal conditions, it is possible to detect 106 EBV genomes by standard SB (1). Dot hybridization may be 10 fold more sensitive, but is less specific.
Murine hematopoietic stem cell activity is derived from pre-circulation embryos but not yolk sacs.

The embryonic site of definitive hematopoietic stem cell (dHSC) origination has been debated for decades. Although an intra-embryonic origin is well supported, the yolk sac (YS) contribution to adult hematopoiesis remains controversial. The same developmental origin makes it difficult to identify specific markers that discern between an intraembryonic versus YS-origin using a lineage trace approach. Additionally, the highly migratory nature of blood cells and the inability of pre-circulatory embryonic cells (i.e., 5–7 somite pairs (sp)) to robustly engraft in transplantation, even after culture, has precluded scientists from properly answering these questions. Here we report robust, multi-lineage and serially transplantable dHSC activity from cultured 2–7sp murine embryonic explants (Em-Ex). dHSC are undetectable in 2–7sp YS explants. Additionally, the engraftment from Em-Ex is confined to an emerging CD31+CD45+c-Kit+CD41− population. In sum, our work supports a model in which the embryo, not the YS, is the major source of lifelong definitive hematopoiesis. The source of where definitive hematopoietic stem cells (dHSCs) develop in the mouse embyro has been much debated. Here, the authors identify that dHSCs arise from the intra-embyronic region by using murine embryonic explant transplantation but not from the yolk sac.
Ranking diffusion tensor measures of brain aging and Alzheimer’s disease

Diffusion-weighted MRI (dMRI) offers a range of measures that are sensitive to brain aging and neurodegeneration. Here we analyzed data from 318 participants (mean age: 75.4±7.9 years; 143 men/175 women) from the third phase of the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI3), who were each scanned with one of six different diffusion MRI protocols using scanners from three different manufacturers. We computed 4 standard diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) anisotropy and diffusivity indices, and one advanced anisotropy index based on the tensor distribution function (TDF), in 24 white matter regions of interest. Modeling protocol effects, we ranked the diffusion indices for their strength of correlation with 3 standard clinical measures of cognitive impairment: the ADAS-Cog, MMSE, and sum-of-boxes Clinical Dementia Rating. Across all dMRI indices and cognitive measures, the cingulum-hippocampal region and the uncinate showed some of the strongest associations with cognitive impairment; largest effect sizes were detected with axial diffusivity (AxDDTI). While fractional anisotropy (FA) derived from the DTI model was the weakest in detecting associations with cognitive measures, FA derived from the TDF detected widespread, robust associations. Protocol differences affected dMRI indices; however by modeling protocol effects, we were able to pool dMRI data from multiple acquisition protocols and detect consistent associations with cognitive impairment and age. dMRI indices computed from the upgraded scanning protocols in ADNI3 were sensitive to cognitive impairment in brain aging, offering a benchmark to compare to future multi-shell or multi-compartment diffusion indices.
Open image in new windowIntroduction: Prospects for a Conceptual Synthesis

In 1960, The Forest and the Sea, written by the accomplished naturalist Marston Bates, was published. It was his story of biology as told to the general public, largely by comparing the remarkable beauty and richness of life in a tropical rain forest and a tropical reef.
A Multiscale Framework for Designing High-Toughness Composite Materials

Development of high-toughness composite materials requires careful microstructure design as geometric distribution of phases, constituent properties and interface attributes combine to influence th...
Spectral mixture analysis in Google Earth Engine to model and delineate fire scars over a large extent and a long time-series in a rainforest-savanna transition zone

Abstract Fire is used worldwide to clear natural vegetation areas for economic activities and to manage the regeneration of already opened sites. In Brazil, fire has been traditionally used to convert natural vegetation areas to agricultural lands (slash and burn) and to manage pastures for livestock. We developed the Burned Area Spectral Mixture Analysis (BASMA) algorithm in Google Earth Engine, which is designed to process Landsat data to produce a multi-temporal fire scar database representing annual burned area for an extent of 362,000 km2 in the transition zone between the Amazon forest and the Cerrado biome. This region is considered a conservation hotspot, given its high deforestation rates over the last four decades. We digitally processed a 32-year time-series (1985 to 2017) of Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper, Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper+, and Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager data to map fire scars based on sub-pixel char fraction, aiming to generate a consistent burned area product at a finer scale and covering a longer period than those currently available for the region. Manually interpreted reference burned area polygons for each annual mosaic was used to guide the definition of the best fire scar endmember and its fraction threshold. To assess our BASMA-delineated fire scar, they were compared to independent datasets of manually delineated burned area produced by visual analysis of finer spatial resolution imagery, returning an average Dice Coefficient value of 0.86. Accuracy was also measured against the 30-meter Burned Area product available at the ‘Queimadas’ data portal. A total of 11,106,258 ha was mapped as having been affected by fire during the annual dry season over the 32 years, which represents 30.7% of the study region. Results showed a decreasing trend in the annual amount of burned area over the time-series. It reflects a similar pattern shown in the deforestation rate for the Legal Amazon, measured by the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research - INPE. Moreover, the Cerrado biome subset of the study region consistently showed higher burned area when compared to the Amazon forest subset. Our findings provide robust evidence that our approach is a consistent method to identify and delineate fire scars for large areas over a long time-series in a very efficient fashion, given the digital processing power of Google Earth Engine, which reduces the time necessary to analyze such big amount of data.
Functional Characterization of LIPA (Lysosomal Acid Lipase) Variants Associated With Coronary Artery Disease.

Objective: LIPA (lysosomal acid lipase) mediates cholesteryl ester hydrolysis, and patients with rare loss-of-function mutations develop hypercholesterolemia and severe disease. Genome-wide associa...
Oxidant Stress in Atherosclerosis: Oxidatively Modified LDL and LOX-1

Oxidative stress, implying an imbalance between oxidant and anti-oxidant species, is present in the atherosclerotic regions and plays a significant role in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis and its complications. Recent studies have demonstrated an association between increased oxidative stress and diabetes, hypertension, cigarette smoking and dyslipidemia, which are well known risk factors for atherosclerosis. The endothelial cells, the primary cell line to become dysfunctional early in the course of atherosclerosis internalizes ox-LDL mainly through its receptor LOX-1 which is responsible for many of the downstream effects on smooth muscle cell ans monocyte biology. Inhibition of LOX-1 by gene deletion significantly reduces atherogenesis in animal models. Many of the currently used drugs modulate atherosclerosis by their action on LOX-1 receptor. New molecules that modulate LOX-1 are currently under investigation. sLOX-1 is a potential biomarker in acute coronary injury and further studies needs to be done before it can be put to clinical use.
An End-to-End Framework for Cold Question Routing in Community Question Answering Services.

Routing newly posted questions (a.k.a cold questions) to potential answerers with the suitable expertise in Community Question Answering sites (CQAs) is an important and challenging task. The existing methods either focus only on embedding the graph structural information and are less effective for newly posted questions, or adopt manually engineered feature vectors that are not as representative as the graph embedding methods. Therefore, we propose to address the challenge of leveraging heterogeneous graph and textual information for cold question routing by designing an end-to-end framework that jointly learns CQA node embeddings and finds best answerers for cold questions. We conducted extensive experiments to confirm the usefulness of incorporating the textual information from question tags and demonstrate that an end-2-end framework can achieve promising performances on routing newly posted questions asked by both existing users and newly registered users.
Microkinetic simulation and fitting of the temperature programmed reaction of methanol on CeO2(111): H2 and H2O + V production

The kinetics and mechanism for temperature programmed reaction following adsorption of an adsorbate can be better understood by simulation and fitting with comparison to experiment. A case study is presented here for the chemistry of adsorption of methanol on a CeO2(111) surface followed by heating. The gas products observed are CH3OH, CH2O, H2, H2O, CO, CO2. At low temperatures (< 500 K), there is formation of H2 and H2O, where the H2O formation is accompanied by lattice oxygen vacancy (V) formation and is thus important in determining the selectivity towards different products. Microkinetic modeling was performed using a recently published method for fitting to gain mechanistic knowledge of the H2 and H2O + V formation at < 500 K. In the kinetic models used here, most of the H2 and H2O + V formation can be explained by a mechanism in which a metastable state of hydrogen on the surface (H*) acts as an intermediate. Two possibilities were investigated for the source of the metastable H* intermediate: H* from CH bond breaking of methoxies, or promotion of H+ to H* via electron transfer from ionic methoxies absorbed in oxygen vacancies (CH3O−/V). From this study, we consider the latter to be more likely at < 500 K. For the H2O formation, it was found to be critical that H2O cannot dissociate directly on oxygen vacancies. Catalytic chemistry was observed in simulations, including catalytic formation of oxygen vacancies. Various features of the experimental results were reproduced, including methoxies being the major carbon containing species on the surface at < 500 K.
Systematic review: hepatosplenic T-cell lymphoma on biologic therapy for inflammatory bowel disease, including data from the Food and Drug Administration Adverse Event Reporting System.

Background Hepatosplenic T-cell lymphoma (HSTCL) is a rare, poorly treatable malignancy associated with therapy for IBD. Current knowledge of HSTCL risk in IBD comes from an era of step-up therapy, before earlier use of biologics or combination therapy was advocated to achieve deep mucosal healing. HSTCL risk among newer biologic classes has also not been evaluated. Aims To systematically characterise the association of HSTCL with biologic therapy for IBD. Methods We conducted a literature search and query of the Food and Drug Administration Adverse Event Reporting System to summarise HSTCL cases among IBD patients with prior biologic exposure. Demographics and immunosuppression exposure were extracted. Patients were stratified by current regimen (combination therapy, biologic monotherapy or no biologic), and biologic class (anti-TNF, anti-integrin, anti-interleukin 12/23). Results Sixty-two cases of HSTCL were identified from 2486 abstracts and 181 FDA Adverse Events Reporting System reports. The median age of affected patients was 28 years (range 12-81), and 83.6% were male, 84.7% had Crohn's disease. Five of 62 patients had no reported azathioprine/mercaptopurine exposure. Three patients within the cohort developed HSTCL after exposure to natalizumab, vedolizumab or ustekinumab; all three also had anti-TNF and azathioprine/mercaptopurine exposure. Forty-three of 49 (87.8%) patients with known outcomes died with a median survival of 5 months. Conclusions Consistent with existing data, almost all identified HSTCL cases among IBD patients on biologic therapy had azathioprine/mercaptopurine exposure, and all cases on patients exposed to biologics had anti-TNF exposure. These data suggest initiating a patient-centred discussion before starting anti-TNF therapy or other biologics.
Tubulointerstitial Nephritis and Uveitis Syndrome: Characterization of Clinical Features.

To describe clinical manifestations of patients with tubulointerstitial nephritis and uveitis syndrome (TINU) with a focus on posterior segment findings. Retrospective chart review. 17 patients wer...
A Route Towards Fabrication of Functional Ceramic/Polymer Nanocomposite Devices Using the Cold Sintering Process

The use of low-temperature and energy-efficient techniques to fabricate composites with tailored interfaces is currently a topic of growing interest. This study reports the proof of concept of a process to fabricate functional multilayer varistor (MLV) devices below 150 °C. In this MLV device, a small volume fraction of polyetherimide polymer is used to engineer ZnO grain boundaries, and the multilayer composite is cofired with base metal internal electrodes via the cold sintering cofired ceramic (CSCC). The resulting dense nanocomposite MLV and controlled nonlinear current–voltage response of the device confirmed the potential of CSCC. This work also opens up the possibility to fabricate multilayer devices for other types of applications.
Anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody-positive vasculitis presenting with periaortitis and muscle vasculitis in a patient with chronic Chagas disease: comment on the letter by Garcia-Bustos et al.

In their interesting letter entitled ‘Anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody-positive vasculitis presenting with periaortitis and muscle vasculitis in a patient with chronic Chagas disease’, publishe...
Ethics and educational technologies

This paper is in response to the manuscript entitled “Ethical oversight of student data in learning analytics: a typology derived from a cross-continental, cross-institutional perspective” (Willis et al., Educ Technol Res Dev 64(5):881–901, 2016) from an ethical perspective. The impact of the article is that it offered a working typology of ethical approaches and aims to determine the ethical intersection of internal student data usage and application. Their review of ethical approaches included research institutions from three continents. Findings from this review have implications for applied research with student data. This is particularly interesting given the differences in ethical approaches in the United States (more utilitarian) and the European Union’s rather strict deontological approach. While learning analytics offer rich student data for personalizing educational technologies, there is associated potential for threats to autonomy and privacy. A limitation of the topology is that it did not include other people groups (e.g., Asia, South America, Australia). Future learning analytics, design, application, and research will need to consider both where the technologies were developed and where educational technologies are being applied.
«Ya, ya se abren las flores»: la lírica de Santa Teresa en la historia literaria de la mística cristiana

There are very few Christian mystics in the Western Middle Ages that resort to verse as a means of expression in their writing, an anomaly if compared, e.g., to the centrality of poetry strictu senso in the literary history of Arabic and Persian Sufism. The first half of this study offers a comprehensive evaluation of Teresa of Avila’s body of poetry —the converso Carmelite reformer— within the literary history of Christian mysticism, all of it set in contrast with San Juan de la Cruz’s poetry, framed by selective references to her few precursors in the 13th and 14th centuries (Mechtild de Magdeburg, Hadewijch de Brabante, Jacopone da Todi and Richard Rolle), and with Hispanic love literature as a secular comparandum. The second part will showcase Saint Teresa’s aesthetics in her mystical theology with a close reading of her lyric gloss on Song of Songs 2,16, «Dilectus meus mihi et ego illi».
Unlabeled salivary gland organoids have distinct Raman signatures following FGF2-induced proacinar cell differentiation

Organoids are self-organized three-dimensional (3D) tissue cultures that model the structure and function of organs to provide insights into signaling during organ formation and have translational applications in disease modeling and assessing drug responses. Due to their heterogeneity, there is a need for non-destructive methods to identify the differentiation state, or the phenotype, of organoids. As organoids often contain complex mixtures of basement membrane and/or extracellular matrix proteins, which are often highly auto-fluorescent, it typically makes low-resolution Raman measurements a challenge. We developed Raman confocal micro-spectroscopy methods to avoid and minimize the matrix signal and define specific Raman signatures for growth factor-differentiated and non-differentiated organoids. In complex, branched salivary gland organoids derived from mouse embryonic epithelial and stromal cells embedded within the laminin-rich basement membrane matrix, Matrigel, we identified specific Raman spectral signatures for organoids in different differentiation states. We report that either comparison of spectral signatures or multivariate SVD analysis can be used to distinguish between organoids treated with FGF2, organoids treated with EGF, and non-treated controls. Raman spectral signatures can be used to non-invasively distinguish between different phenotypes in the 3D context of unlabeled organoids. HighlightsO_LIFGF2-dependent proacinar cell differentiation in salivary organoids have unique Raman signatures detected with a novel confocal-based Raman imaging approach. C_LIO_LIThese signatures can be used in unlabeled salivary organoids to monitor proacinar cell differentiation. C_LIO_LIConfocal-based Raman imaging may be applicable to monitoring differentiation state of other types of organoids. C_LI
Third-order transport coefficients of ion swarms

Mobility and diffusion coefficients are generally extracted from experimental measurements of ion arrival time distributions using tensors of ranks one and two, i.e., in terms of the diffusion equation that is equivalent to Fick’s second law. The theory is extended here to tensors of rank three. It is shown that under customary circumstances, the generalized diffusion equation only contains a single third-order transport coefficient. This equation is used to generate synthetic data for ions moving through a pure gas. The mobility and diffusion coefficients and third-order transport coefficients inferred from these data are compared with values used to simulate the arrival time distribution. Finally, an existing computer program has been modified in order to compute one component of the third-order transport coefficient, and this program has been applied to Li+ in He.
Carcinoma of Hepatic Duct Bifurcation

laboratory studies. 2. B/L subcostal (roof top) incision. 3. Completely mobilize the liver. 4. Carefully evaluate for evidence of metastatic disease by palpation and intraoperative ultrasound of liver including the caudate lobe, subhilar and retroduodenal area. 5. Examine all peritoneal surfaces. 6. Perform cholecystectomy by top-down technique. 7. Perform a complete Kocher maneuver. 8. Dissect the porta hepatis including the following: Circumferential dissection of the portal vein and hepatic ●
The Use of Distributor and National Brands

ABSTRACT The differences in foodservice managers' perceptions of the relative quality, value and pricing of distributor versus national brands were investigated, as well as projected future usage behaviors. Managers' perceptions were determined by rating their level of agreement with various statements regarding the use of brands in their foodservice operations. The results indicated that foodservice directors do not perceive national brands as being higher in quality than distributor brands. However, they believe that their customers perceive such a difference. As a result, the data suggest that foodservice managers will increase the use of national brands in the future.
Finding Minimal Unsatisfiable Cores of Declarative Specifications

Declarative specifications exhibit a variety of problems, such as inadvertently overconstrained axioms and underconstrained conjectures, that are hard to diagnose with model checking and theorem proving alone. Recycling core extractionis a new coverage analysis that pinpoints an irreducible unsatisfiable core of a declarative specification. It is based on resolution refutation proofs generated by resolution engines, such as SAT solvers and resolution theorem provers. The extraction algorithm is described, and proved correct, for a generalized specification language with a regulartranslation to the input logic of a resolution engine. It has been implemented for the Alloy language and evaluated on a variety of specifications, with promising results.
Characteristics of Specific Radiopharmaceuticals

In Chapter 6 the general principles of labeling methods were discussed, particularly iodination and 99mTc-labeling, and kit preparation of 99mTc-radiopharmaceuticals was described. In this chapter the basic principles of preparation, labeling yield, stability, storage conditions, and other characteristics of several radiolabeled compounds most commonly used in nuclear medicine will be discussed.
Applying flow analysis methods to the problem of network design

One of the reasons that the communication network design problem is so difficult is that there are numerous competing objectives. The following criteria must be met in an optimum design: minimize the cost of the resulting network; maximize flow between all pairs of nodes; allow multiple commodities to simultaneously use the network; synthesize an optimum topology for the network; and provide an efficient routing protocol for messages. The approach taken in this paper is to relax one of the goals by assuming that only one source-sink pair at a time uses the network. The single commodity approach produces a minimum weight topology which can be mapped to multiple commodities by assigning link capacities proportionate to the edge weights. Finally, some post-processing may be necessary to account for more complex cost functions, such as the one above, where both capacity and distance affect cost.
How Should We Govern Ourselves at Home

All three books are reviewed with an eye towards the possibilities of local democracy in the contemporary United States and in particular on whether or not there is a tradeoff between democracy and prosperity. All three books argue that there is no such tradeoff - whether viewed from the perspective of the first democracy (namely Athens), or from the perspective of seemingly dysfunctional contemporary small democracies (e.g., cities in large modern democratic polities), or even from the perspective of all of human history - democracy spurs material success. In this essay, we will consider how this can be so, especially at the local level in modern democracies. The essay concludes that there is much to recommend vibrant local direct democracy, even now, but observes that, somewhat ironically, realizing the promise of bold democratic leadership by amateurs first requires that new governmental structures be expertly applied from above. Books Reviewed (in order): 1) Josiah Ober, Democracy and Knowledge: Innovation and Learning in Classical Athens (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008); 2) Douglass C. North, John Joseph Wallis, Barry R. Weingast, Violence and Social Orders: A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009); 3) Gerald E. Frug and David J. Barron, City Bound: How States Stifle Urban Innovation (Cornell: Cornell University Press, 2008).
Poor Sleep Quality and Associated Inflammation Predict Preterm Birth: Heightened Risk among African Americans

Study objectives Poor sleep promotes inflammation. In turn, inflammation is a causal mechanism in term as well as preterm parturition. In the United States, a persistent racial disparity in preterm birth exists, with African Americans showing ∼1.5 times greater risk. This study examined associations among sleep quality, serum proinflammatory cytokines, and length of gestation in a racially diverse sample of 138 pregnant women. Design Observational. Measurements Women completed the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and other psychosocial and behavioral measures during midpregnancy. Serum levels of interleukin (IL)-6, IL-8, IL-1β, and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α were determined by high-sensitivity assays. Birth outcomes were determined via medical record review. Results Among African American women (n = 79), shorter gestation was predicted by poorer overall sleep (rs = -0.35, P = 0.002) as well the following PSQI subscales: subjective sleep quality (rs = -0.34, P = 0.002), sleep latency (rs = -0.27, P = 0.02), and sleep efficiency (rs = -0.27, P = 0.02). African American women with poor sleep quality (PSQI > 5) had 10.2 times the odds of preterm birth compared to those with good sleep quality. In contrast, among European American women (n = 53), gestational length was not significantly predicted by sleep quality (Ps > 0.12). Bootstrapping analyses showed that, among African Americans, IL-8 significantly mediated the association between sleep quality and length of gestation (indirect effect estimate -0.029; 95% confidence interval -0.06, -0.002). Conclusions The data provide novel evidence that African American women exhibit greater inflammation in response to sleep disturbance than European American women and these effects correspond with length of gestation. Racial differences in susceptibility to sleep induced immune dysregulation may contribute to marked racial disparities in preterm birth.
Case Report The diagnosis of unsuspected esophageal perforation by computed tomography

The successful management of esophageal perforation requires prompt diagnosis and surgical intervention. The hazards of delayed recognition of esophageal perforation have been recently emphasized. A case of unsuspected esophageal perforation detected by computerized tomography of the chest (CT) is described and illustrated. CT is an effective technique for displaying mediastinal and complex pleural-parenchymal abnormalities and often provides information which is of diagnostic value.
Influence of processing and palm oil on the carbonyls and fatty acids in Nigerian cassava foods

Monocarbonyls, free fatty acids and total fatty acids were determined for traditionally and mechanically processed gari, lafun, and crude palm oil. n-Alkanals and 2-alkanones were most abundant in the cassava foods, and unsaturated aldehydes contributed by palm oil to yellow gari were observed to a limited extent. 2-Alkanones were not found in the palm oil, which indicated that they arise through the fermentation processes. Mechanically processed gari exhibited a total fatty acid profile generally similar to traditionally processed gari.
Acceleration of the degradation of tyrosine aminotransferase in rat hepatoma (HTC) cells by inhibitors of cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterase

Abstract The following inhibitors of cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterase reduce the specific activity of tyrosine aminotransferase when added to cultures of rat hepatoma (HTC) cells: theophylline, 1-methyl-3-isobutylxanthine, 4-(3-butoxy-4-methoxybenzyl)-2-imidazolidinone, and papaverine. Immunochemical measurements show that each inhibitor reduces the rate of tyrosine aminotransferase synthesis and increases the rate of degradation of the enzyme. The effect on synthesis also occurs with general proteins while that on degradation appears specific for tyrosine aminotransferase.
Transitioning from informal to formal substitute care following maltreatment investigation

Abstract This study examined associated factors of placement into formal substitute care following a maltreatment investigation and the relationship between children's entry into formal substitute care and changes in caregivers. The sample from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being included 3038 children who lived with biological parents or were placed in informal kinship and non-kinship care at the close of investigation. Placement in informal kinship and non-kinship care following a maltreatment investigation, younger age of a child, previous CPS reports, and poverty status were associated with greater odds of subsequent entry into formal substitute care. Informal kinship care following an investigation appears to be a placeholder and many of the children in such an arrangement are incorporated into the formal substitute care system. The transition from informal to formal substitute care, however, does not necessarily mean a disruption in children's placement. It can be beneficial to start foster parent training at an early stage of the assessment and preparation process for informal kin and non-kin caregivers because many of them are to become foster caregivers. It may also be advantageous to develop a standardized tool to assess informal caregivers' service needs, and make training and support services responsive to those particular needs.
Antenatal Glucocorticoid, Magnesium Exposure, and the Prevention of Brain Injury of Prematurity

Prevention of perinatal white matter injury with or without severe intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH) is critical to reduce cerebral palsy (CP) in premature infants. Antenatal therapies that may afford neuroprotection include glucocorticolds, which are associated with a significant reduction in severe IVH, and magnesium, which is associated with reduced CP. Potential protective mechanisms of glucocorticoids include a direct effect on brain, improved respiratory function, and more stable blood pressure hemodynamics. Because magnesium is often administered to mothers with pregnancy-induced hypertension, a condition associated with reduction in severe IVH, the independent neuroprotective role of magnesium remains unclear and warrants additional studies.
The purificatory role of the five products of the cow in Hinduism

The modern Hindu use of the “five products of the cow” (milk, curd, ghi, urine, and dung) in ritual purification is examined. The five products’ value in such purification today, as in ancient India, is clearly linked to the sanctity of the cow. The earliest Indian literary reference to the five products being used in ritual purification, moreover, dates from the same historical period that the sacred cow concept itself developed. Thus it is almost certain that the rise of the sacred cow concept led to the use of the five products of the cow in ritual purification, a classic example of the influence of religious beliefs on the use of food and other resources.
Interleukin‐1β‐Mediated Regulation of μ‐Opioid Receptor mRNA in Primary Astrocyte‐Enriched Cultures

Opioids have been found to modulate the immune system by regulating the function of immunocompetent cells. Several studies suggest that the interaction between immune and opioid systems is not unidirectional, but rather reciprocal, in nature. In the CNS, one cellular target of immune system activation is the astrocytes. These glial cells have been shown to produce the opioid peptide, proenkephalin, to express the mu-, delta-, and kappa-opioid receptors, and to respond to the immune factor interleukin-1 beta (IL1 beta) with an increased proenkephalin synthesis. To characterize more completely the astrocytic opioid response to immune factor stimulation, we examined the effect of IL1 beta (1 ng/ml) on the mu-receptor mRNA expression in primary astrocyte-enriched cultures derived from rat (postnatal day 1-2) cortex, striatum, cerebellum, hippocampus, and hypothalamus. A 24-h treatment with IL1 beta produced a 70-80% increase in the mu-receptor mRNA expression in the striatal, cerebellar, and hippocampal cultures but had no effect on this expression in the cortical and hypothalamic cultures. This observation represents one of the few demonstrated increases in levels of the mu-receptor mRNA in vitro or in vivo, since the cloning of the receptor. The enhanced mu-receptor mRNA expression, together with the previous observation that IL1 beta stimulates proenkephalin synthesis in astrocytes, supports the IL1 beta-mediated regulation of an astroglial opioid peptide and receptor in vitro, a phenomenon that may be significant in the modulation of the gliotic response to neuronal damage. Therefore, the astroglial opioid "system" may be important in the IL1 beta-initiated, coordinated response to CNS infection, trauma, or injury.