cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Post‐traumatic stress disorder symptoms, underlying affective vulnerabilities, and smoking for affect regulation

Background and Objectives Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is overrepresented among cigarette smokers. It has been hypothesized that those with PTSD smoke to alleviate negative affect and counteract deficient positive affect commonly associated with the disorder; however, limited research has examined associations between PTSD symptoms, smoking motives, and affective vulnerability factors. In the current study, we examined (1) whether PTSD symptoms were associated with positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement smoking motives; and (2) whether two affective vulnerability factors implicated in PTSD—anxiety sensitivity and anhedonia—mediated relationships between PTSD symptoms and smoking motives.
siRNA therapeutics: big potential from small RNAs

RNA interference (RNAi) is now an umbrella term referring to post-transcriptional gene silencing mediated by either degradation or translation arrest of target RNA. This process is initiated by double-stranded RNA with sequence homology driving specificity. The discovery that 21-23 nucleotide RNA duplexes (small-interfering RNAs, siRNAs) mediate RNAi in mammalian cells opened the door to the therapeutic use of siRNAs. While much work remains to optimize delivery and maintain specificity, the therapeutic advantages of siRNAs for treatment of viral infection, dominant disorders, cancer, and neurological disorders show great promise.
Advancing the Science in the Measurement of Health Care Quality Influenced by Nurses

A robust set of quality measures is essential to provide consumers with a vehicleto evaluate nurses' contributions to the care of hospitalized patients, providers, and systems with a set of nursing processes and outcomes to guide quality improvement, and insurers with indicators to reward hospitals for high quality nursing services. The processes employed by the Nursing Care Performance Measures Steering Committee convened by the National Quality Forum (NQF) in 2004 resulted in the endorsement of 15 indicators of health care quality influenced by nurses and contributed to the identification of significant gaps in measurement and priority areas for future research. This critical review of the state of the science related to health care processes and outcomes that reflect nurses' contributions to the quality of care for hospitalized patients is intended to push the boundaries in the measurement of nursing performance. Specific recommendations for future research and measure development are presented.
Peroxidase and Senescence

Kinetin and a,a'-dipyridyl prevented the rapid decrease of chlorophyll content in detached oat leaves senescing in the dark. In the light, detachment caused a 27-40% rise in peroxidase activity and kinetin enhanced the enzyme in the segments by about 80%. Darkness prevented any detachment-induced rise of the activity and decreased the stimulating action of kinetin and mechanical injury. The effect of dipyridyl on peroxidase activity in the dark was similar to that of kinetin. Kinetin enhanced the same distinctive isoperoxidases under light and dark conditions. Neither horseradish peroxidase nor that extracted from oat leaves showed any ability to hydroxy late free proline in vitro. A system which supposedly led to peroxidase-catalysed proline hydroxy lation yielded small amounts of hydroxyproline in the absence of the enzyme. Staining with Fast Blue BB salt in the presence of IAA as a substrate after electrophoresis indi cated that all detected oat isoperoxidases had an IAA oxidase activity visually paralleling their per oxidase activity. Crude extracts contained IAA oxidase inhibitors that could be partially or fully removed by dialysis. The possible significance of the rise in peroxidase activity during senescence is discussed.
A Simulation of Document Detection Methods and Reducing False Positives for Private Stream Searching

Private stream searching is a system of cryptographic methods that provide a search facility while preserving the confidentiality of the search criteria and matching documents. This research analyzes the original documentation detection method of the private search system, defines a new detection method based on an appended hash, and presents an analysis of false positives occurring in both methods. Our method offers a lower false positive rate than prior work, and integrates seamlessly into an implementation of private stream searching.
Novel DBMS extensions for functional brain image analysis

Using computerized analysis of neuroimages can potentially enhance sensitivity and specificity in the diagnosis of psychiatric diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, quantitative analysis of functional brain images remains a manual, tedious task. To address this problem, we are building an extended neuropsychiatric image database system to advance the study of brain images of psychiatric disease toward more comprehensive analyses. We report on our progress so far, and show the design and implementation of a suite of DBMS extensions, as well as the interface used by clinicians to compare metabolism results for single and multiple patients in specific brain regions, a task that was previously insurmountable. We are working toward a first in clinical applications of neuroimaging that bear directly upon patient assessment, diagnosis, and treatment.
Outcome Analysis for Treatment in 100 Patients with Deep Vein Thrombosis

The treatment of acute deep vein thrombosis has been the subject of much research aimed at delineat ing the safest and most effective approach to diagnosis and treatment. Studies regarding long-term treatment have been limited by the narrow scope of laboratory and clinical analyses of many patients. In this study of 100 patients with a history of deep vein thrombosis, treated on an outpatient basis by a diverse group of clinicians, follow-up data were retrieved in order to determine the outcomes of various approaches to acute and long-term care. Among individuals followed for > 1 year, in only two patients (2%) was death attributable to a thrombotic event related to the etiology of the first episode of deep vein thrombosis. Most deceased patients succumbed to unrelated causes (11%). Among the 77 survivors, most (52%) received long-term antiplatelet therapy. All individ uals with a plasma coagulation defect, whether inherited or acquired, received anticoagulation with either heparin or warfarin. Since the ...
Reproductive Efficiency of Jerseys, Red Sindhis, and Crossbreds

Abstract Ten measures related to breeding efficiency were used for comparisons among pure Jerseys and Red Sindhis and crossbreds with ¾, ½, or ¼ European dairy inheritance (Brown Swiss, Holstein, or Jersey) at two locations. Jerseys and crossbreds were common to both herds with Sindhis only at Jeanerette. Means for age at puberty (first estrus after 12 mo) were 425 ± 4.2, 434 ± 6.9, 459 ± 6.9, 504 ± 14.1, and 717 ± 40.4 days for Jerseys, crosses of ¾, ½, or ¼ and Sindhi. The increase in age of puberty was additive but not entirely. The ¾ and ½ tended to excel parent breeds in rebreeding less than 145 days postpartum, but by 200 days percentages of conception were similar. Average heterosis in percent was 18.4 for age at puberty, .04 days from calving to first heat, 9.6 days first breeding to conception, 8.5 days open, 4.3 calving interval, and 1.9 in services for conception. The average for the latter five measures was 4.9%. Significant effects of breed and location in several cases may have been due to sampling variance. Percentages of nonbreeding heifers were similar for Jerseys and ¾ or ½ crosses (8.0%) but high in ¼ crosses (15.4%). Fewer crosses completed two gestations. Both in first and later parities, crosses, particularly ¼, had higher frequencies of reproductive disorders than Jerseys (6.8 versus 4.2). Crosses also had higher frequencies of dystocia or abortions than Jerseys. Percentages of lactations terminated for health, sterility, or death were similar among breed groups. The ¾ and ½ crosses averaged about 17 days shorter in calving interval, but the calving interval required for the ¾ to equal Jerseys in milk yield should have been 15 to 29 days shorter than observed. The ½ crosses would need intervals less than 285 days to be as productive as Jerseys.
RBC autoantibodies in autoimmune lymphoproliferative syndrome.

BACKGROUND: Patients with autoimmune lymphoproliferative syndrome (ALPS) have an autosomal dominant genetic defect that affects lymphocyte apoptosis and is associated with chronic nonmalignant lymphadenopathy, splenomegaly, and autoimmunity, particularly affecting RBCs, WBCs, and platelets. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: DATs were performed on 34 consecutive patients with ALPS and 37 of their clinically unaffected relatives. The effects of age, sex, race, and immunoglobulin levels on the incidence of autoantibodies and clinical hemolysis were assessed. RESULTS: The DAT was positive in 21 (62%) of ALPS patients but in only 1 (3%) of their relatives (p = 0.001). The DAT reacted because of IgG alone in 43 percent, complement alone in 5 percent, and IgG plus complement in 19 percent; 33 percent of the patients′ cells had a positive reaction with polyspecific reagent only. All 10 ALPS patients with a history of hemolytic anemia had a positive DAT. Sixty percent of them had only IgG on their cells, 30 percent had IgG and complement, and 10 percent reacted only with polyspecific reagent. Of the 11 patients with a positive DAT and no history of hemolytic anemia, IgG alone was present in 27 percent, complement alone in 9%, and IgG plus complement in 9 percent; 55 percent had positive DATs only with polyspecific reagent. Among ALPS patients, those with a positive DAT had greater quantities of cells with increased α and β T-cell receptors that phenotyped as CD4–CD8– and higher IgG levels. CONCLUSIONS: The DAT results in ALPS patients are most similar to those found in warm autoimmune hemolytic anemia. The DAT is useful to distinguish affected and unaffected persons within an ALPS family.
Re-inforced stealth breakpoints

This paper extends VAMPiRE, a stealth breakpoint framework specifically tailored for microscopic malware analysis. Stealth breakpoints are designed to provide unlimited number of code, data and I/O breakpoints that cannot be detected or countered. However, in this paper we present several attacks that can be used to detect and counter VAMPiRE. We then present a solution towards preventing such attacks in the form of a new breakpoint framework named Galanus. Galanus also adds support for legacy I/O breakpoints in kernel-mode, an important feature required to analyze keyloggers, BIOS flashers, CMOS updaters and rootkits. We also evaluate Galanus, comparing it to VAMPiRE in the context of a few real-world malware.
Renoprotection by ACE Inhibition or Aldosterone Blockade Is Blood Pressure–Dependent

Renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system blockade has been shown to protect against renal damage in salt-supplemented, stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRsp). Based on intermittent tail-cuff blood pressure (BP) measurements, it has been claimed that such protection is BP-independent and mediated by a blockade of the direct tissue-damaging effects of angiotensin and/or aldosterone. BP radiotelemetry was performed for 8 weeks in ≈10-week-old male SHRsp who received a standard diet and either tap water (n=10) or 1% NaCl to drink. Saline-drinking SHRsp were either left untreated (n=12), received enalapril (50 mg/L) in drinking fluid (n=9), or had subcutaneous implantation of time-release 200-mg pellets of aldactone (n=10). The average systolic BP (mean±SEM) during the final 3 weeks was significantly higher ( P r =0.8, P 5 was only observed in SHRsp whose average systolic BP during the final 3 weeks exceeded 200 mm Hg, indicating a threshold relation with BP. These data show that protection by renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system blockade in this model is BP-dependent and mediated by preventing the severe increases in BP seen in untreated salt-supplemented SHRsp and further underscore the limitations of interpretations based on conventional tail-cuff BP measurements.
Promoting Meaningful Learning through Video Production-Supported PBL

This paper reports on a design-based research for designing, implementing, and refi ning a problem-based learning (PBL) course on educational digital video at the University of Lapland’s Faculty of Education. The course builds on a combination of problem solving in small group tutorial sessions and realizing a practical hands-on project during which the students design and produce educational videos about the topics they are studying. The research has a dual goal of refi ning the PBL course and designing a pedagogical model that combines video production with PBL to support students’ meaningful learning. The data were collected through a questionnaire for the course students, audio recordings of students’ interviews, and students’ performance results. Results and their implications for the course design and for the video-supported PBL model are presented.
When Do Firms Divest Foreign Operations

Extant literature on divestment has repeatedly found that firms are likely to divest their poorly performing operations. In this paper, I consider how product market relatedness and geographic market differences in growth, policy stability, and exchange rate volatility can moderate the negative relationship between performance and divestment. Results from a comprehensive panel of U.S. multinational corporations MNCs reveal that conventional arguments about poor performance hold for both related and unrelated firm operations in countries characterized by low growth, policy stability, and exchange rate stability. However, the results also show that there are significant differences across the divestment decisions of firms for their related and unrelated foreign operations in countries characterized by high growth, policy instability, and exchange rate volatility. Although poor performance has been called the most significant predictor of divestment, this paper considers how interactions across multilevel factors influence the divestment decisions of firms and reveals how U.S. MNCs respond to both product and geographic market characteristics when making divestment decisions for their foreign operations.
Induction chemotherapy in locally advanced head and neck cancer: a new standard of care?

Locally advanced squamous cell cancer of the head and neck is a major contributor to morbidity and mortality worldwide. Despite progress through the use of multimodality treatment involving surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy in recent years, the survival remains poor, and treatment-related morbidity—mainly caused by radiation-induced effects such as soft tissue scarring, esophageal stenosis, xerostomia, dental decay, and osteoradionecrosis—is a major problem in long-term survivors. Data from early trials and encouraging results from meta-analyses have revived interest in the use of neoadjuvant or induction chemotherapy before definitive local treatment. Recent randomized trials have demonstrated marked improvements in survival with the addition of the taxane docetaxel (Taxotere) to the traditional induction regimen consisting of cisplatin and 5FU (TPF) compared with cisplatin and 5FU (PF) alone and have established a new standard of care. The newer TPF induction chemotherapy regimens also appear to be tolerated better than PF when accompanied by adequate supportive measures. Studies to enhance the efficacy of TPF induction chemotherapy by adding new targeted agents, such as the EGF-R inhibitors cetuximab and panitumumab, are underway.
Spontaneous synchronization in nature

Mutual synchronization of oscillators is ubiquitous in biology. The author reviews two examples in some detail. Everyone has heard of the phenomenon of synchronized menstrual cycles among women friends or roommates (Anonymous 1977). The first scientific study of menstrual synchrony was carried out by Martha McClintock (1971) while she was an undergraduate psychology major at Radcliffe in the late 60's. She studied 135 women undergraduates and had them keep records of their periods throughout the school year. In October, the cycles of close friends and roommates started an average of 8.5 days apart, but by March, the average spacing was down to 5 days, a statistically significant change. Randomly matched pairs of women showed no such change. In the animal world, groups of Southeast Asian fireflies provide a spectacular example of synchronization. Along the tidal rivers of Malaysia, Thailand and New Guinea, thousands of fireflies congregate in trees at night and flash on and off in unison. When they first arrive, their flickerings are uncoordinated. But as the night goes on, they build up the rhythm until eventually whole treefuls pulsate in silent concert. You can see this display on David Attenborough's (1992) television show The Trials of Life, in the episode called "Talking to Strangers". As he explains, "All those that are flashing are males, and their message, of course, is directed to the females, and it's a very simple one: 'Come hither-mate with me'".
Multiparametric magnetic resonance imaging of the prostate: current status in prostate cancer detection, localization, and staging.

a fi p L b s p i rostate cancer is a major medical and socioeconomic problem. Prostate cancer is the most common noncutaeous cancer and the second most common cause of cancer eath in American men. The 2007 report from the American ancer Society projected 218,890 new cases of prostate caner and 27,050 additional deaths due to the disease in the nited States.1 It is anticipated that the aging population will ead to increases in prostate cancer incidence. Screening for prostate cancer involves digital rectal examnation (DRE), assessment of the prostate-specific antigen PSA) level in serum, and transrectal ultrasonography TRUS) with biopsy. In about 14% of men with prostate ancer, diagnosis can be established on the basis of DRE lone.2 Challenges for the DRE include interexaminer varibility in DRE findings, which has been shown to occur irrepective of experience level,3 and the fact that only peripheral one tumors can be palpated transrectally. Studies have hown that DRE is still important in diagnosing clinically mportant prostate cancer and continues to provide imporant prognostic information.4,5 The most widely used and available test to detect prostate ancer is the measurement of serum PSA. Disease incidence, tage at presentation, and 5-year survival rates have imroved significantly in the last 20 years following the introuction of PSA testing, which led to widespread screening for rostate cancer worldwide. Although elevated PSA levels can e suggestive of malignancy, benign conditions such as beign prostatic hyperplasia or prostatitis can also lead to PSA levation.6 It was demonstrated that only 25 to 40% of men ith PSA above the 4.0 ng/mL threshold will be diagnosed ith cancer, leading to about 60 to 75% of men in the PSA ange 4.0 to 10 ng/mL undergoing an unnecessary biopsy.7 bout 15% of men over the age of 60 have prostate cancer
Articular fractures of the proximal interphalangeal joint with missing elements: repair with partial toe joint osteochondral autografts.

Abstract Five cases of traumatic destruction of a condyle of the proximal interphalangeal joint repaired with a free autogenous graft of a corresponding toe condyle are presented. Precise fitting is esential: 1 patient required a second graft when the initial undersized graft was absorbed. Four of the 5 cases regained laterally stable bicondylar joints and functional fingers. Range of motion varied inversely to the magnitude of the injury and the surgery. Active range of motion at the proximal interphalangeal joint was 80° in 2 digits, 45° in 1, and 10° in 1 complex case; 1 case was considered a failure. (J Hand Surg 1999;24A:78–85. Copyright © 1999 by the American Society for Surgery of the Hand.)
Point-to-point connectivity between neuromorphic chips using address events

This paper discusses connectivity between neuromorphic chips, which use the timing of fixed-height fixed-width pulses to encode information. Address-events (log/sub 2/(N)-bit packets that uniquely identify one of N neurons) are used to transmit these pulses in real time on a random-access time-multiplexed communication channel. Activity is assumed to consist of neuronal ensembles-spikes clustered in space and in time. This paper quantifies tradeoffs faced in allocating bandwidth, granting access, and queuing, as well as throughput requirements, and concludes that an arbitered channel design is the best choice. The arbitered channel is implemented with a formal design methodology for asynchronous digital VLSI CMOS systems, after introducing the reader to this top-down synthesis technique. Following the evolution of three generations of designs, it is shown how the overhead of arbitrating, and encoding and decoding, can be reduced in area (from N to /spl radic/N) by organizing neurons into rows and columns, and reduced in time (from log/sub 2/(N) to 2) by exploiting locality in the arbiter tree and in the row-column architecture, and clustered activity. Throughput is boosted by pipelining and by reading spikes in parallel. Simple techniques that reduce crosstalk in these mixed analog-digital systems are described.
Two-Way Hydroacoustic Communications Link for an Ocean-Bottom Seismograph

An underwater acoustic telemetry system was developed to provide a two-way communications link between an ocean-bottom seismograph and a ship overhead. Four data channels are transmitted from the instrument on IRIG Channel 12 (10.5 kc/s). Commands to the instrument are transmitted in the form of a simple pulse position code using a 14 kc/s carrier, and provide for such functions as gain change, calibration, instrument leveling, and uncaging. A mercury battery pack provides sufficient power for 15 days of continuous operation. Acoustic power output is approximately 2.5 watts at an overall efficiency of 20 percent. Instrumentation and batteries are housed in two spherical pressure vessels designed to withstand depths in excess of 2500 fathoms. The system was successfully operated in May, 1964, off Bermuda.
ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF CHINA'S WTO ACCESSION ON INVESTMENT

During the early 1990s, foreign direct investment (FDI) in China boomed, subsequently claiming a large share of all Foreign Direct Investment in developing countries. However, the rate of growth in FDI slowed in the later 1990’s, as investors’ high expectations failed to fully materialize. With China’s accession to the WTO at long last a reality, FDI growth has once again picked up. This paper formally explores the linkage between WTO accession and investment in China over the next two decades. The effects of a number of features of China’s accession are examined, including: the removal of tariffs and quotas, the potential for improved productivity in the automobile sector due to production rationalization, and finally, the liberalization of rules governing direct trade and foreign investment in the service sectors. We find that investment and capital stocks increase substantially as a result of China’s accession. Moreover, accession doubles the extent of foreign ownership of Chinese assets relative to the no-accession baseline by 2020. Central to this increase in foreign ownership is the expected catch-up in the productivity of the services sectors driven by the opening up of these sectors to foreign investment. The resulting impact on GDP is also large -- 22.5% higher in 2020 as a result of WTO accession. The static welfare gains (16% by 2020) are dampened due to the fact that a substantial share of the additional investment comes from overseas. These estimates are far larger than those predicted by earlier studies, which ignored the reforms affecting the services sectors of China, and which also abstracted from capital accumulation and international capital mobility. Given its critical importance to our analysis, future research should be directed towards narrowing the uncertainty associated with the impact of accession on productivity in the services sectors.
Charitable choice policy and abused children: the benefits and harms of going beyond the public‐private dichotomy

Charitable Choice Policy, the heart of President Bush’s Faith‐Based Initiative, is the direct government funding of religious organizations for the purpose of carrying out government programs. The Bush presidential administration has called for the application of Charitable Choice Policy to all kinds of social services. Advocates for child‐abuse victims contend that the Bush Charitable Choice Policy would further dismantle essential social services provided to abused children. Others have argued Charitable Choice Policy is unconstitutional because it crosses the boundary separating church and state. Rather than drastically altering the US social‐policy landscape, this paper demonstrates that the Bush Charitable Choice Policy already is in place for childabuse services across many of the fifty states. One reason this phenomenon is ignored is due to the reliance on the public‐private dichotomy for studying social policies and services. This paper contends that relying on the public‐private dichotomy leads researchers to overlook important configurations of actors and institutions that provide services to abused children. It offers an alternate framework to the public‐private dichotomy useful for the analysis of social policy in general and, in particular, Charitable Choice Policy affecting services to abused children. Employing a new methodological approach, fuzzy‐sets analysis, demonstrates the degree to which social services for abused children match ideal types. It suggests relationships between religious organizations and governments are essential to the provision of services to abused children in the United States. Given the direction in which the Bush Charitable Choice Policy will push social‐policy programs, scholars should ask whether abused children will be placed in circumstances that other social groups will not and why.
The Chemistry of the Polluted Troposphere

Several important aspects of the chemistry of the polluted troposphere are discussed in terms of the elementary reactions involved. First, the mechanism of ozone generation in the polluted atmosphere is reviewed briefly. Limitations on the use of the approximate photostationary state equation, [O3] [NO]/[NO2] ≃ k1/k3, are discussed. Then the effects of the levels of the impurities, NO, N02, CO, hydrocarbons, and aldehydes on the maximum ozone development are considered through computer modelling of the chemistry of simulated atmospheres. These results are used to illustrate the development of control strategy for ozone in the polluted troposphere. The simulations are used also to predict the transformations and product distributions of nitrogen-containing products resulting from the oxidation of NO and NO2 in the atmosphere. Finally the mechanisms of acid development in the polluted atmosphere are considered.The effect of the various pollutant levels on some of the important homogeneous and heterogeneous pathways for S02 oxidation are considered from the standpoint of the elementary steps involved. Interrelationships between the homogeneous and heterogeneous pathways of S02 oxidation are noted.
Hidden genetic variation in the germline genome of Tetrahymena thermophila

Genome architecture varies greatly among eukaryotes. This diversity may profoundly affect the origin and maintenance of genetic variation within a population. Ciliates are microbial eukaryotes with unusual genome features, such as the separation of germline and somatic genomes within a single cell and amitotic division. These features have previously been proposed to increase the rate of molecular evolution in these species. Here, we assessed the fitness effects of genetic variation in the two genomes of natural isolates of the ciliate Tetrahymena thermophila. We find more extensive genetic variation in fitness in the transcriptionally silent germline genome than in the expressed somatic genome. Surprisingly, this variation is not primarily deleterious, but has both beneficial and deleterious effects. We conclude that Tetrahymena genome architecture allows for the maintenance of genetic variation that would otherwise be eliminated by selection. We consider the effect of selection on the two genomes and the impacts of reproductive strategies and the mechanism of sex determination on the structure of this variation.
Getting the Full Benefits of CFD in Conceptual Design

The applied aerodynamics community is struggling to develop a means of incorporating computational fluid dynamics (CFD) into the early stages of aircraft systems design, where it can have the greatest impact on vehicle design. This paper describes developments in computational design methodology arising from research into multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO) done recently by the authors that addresses this problem. The premise is that advanced CFD should be used to precompute a database of solutions which is then interpolated during the design process. Design of experiments theory is used to select the "conditions" or "design points" used to populate the database, and statistical methods are then used to develop a mathematical model of the CFD solutions which is used to "interpolate" the database. The specific models we use, called "response surface models" are quadratic least squares fits to functions of the CFD results. Populating the database is made possible through the use of coarse grained parallel computing. We demonstrate the method using a recent example from our MDO work.
Perfect Capture: Three Takes on Replay, Machinima and the History of Virtual Worlds

The interactive, immersive and performative aspects of digital games and virtual worlds take the challenges faced by media archivists, curators and historians beyond software preservation to problems that demand new documentation and preservation strategies. The social and performative aspects of online worlds are forcing repositories to develop new strategies for preservation. Of the utmost importance is to preserve and archive practices and performances and not only the software that made these practices and performances possible. The author also argues that the three primary methods for making machinima during its brief history — demo, screen capture, and asset composition — can be matched to three ways for documenting the history of virtual worlds (replay, POV recording, and asset extraction), concluding that machinima provides compelling evidence for the ability of players to turn digital games into their own creative medium.
Attraction of Female Lesser Wax Moths (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) to Male-Produced and Artificial Sounds

Virgin female lesser wax moths, Achroia grisella (F.), released inside a greenhouse 3.5 m from each of six pairs of baits were caught in sticky traps and counted. The number of female moths caught in each trap determined the relative attractiveness of the following baits: intact males producing sound and pheromone, muted males producing pheromone, muted males and 72-kHz synthesized sound, and the synthesized sound alone. Intact males attracted the highest percentage of virgin females (78%), whereas muted males plus 72-kHz sound attracted 66% of virgin females. Whether paired against an empty cage or against muted males, synthesized sound attracted 31 to 32% of the virgin females released. Only 6% or less of the females were trapped near muted males. Groups of intact males out competed single males.
Presequence-Independent Mitochondrial Import of DNA Ligase Facilitates Establishment of Cell Lines with Reduced mtDNA Copy Number

Due to the essential role played by mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) in cellular physiology and bioenergetics, methods for establishing cell lines with altered mtDNA content are of considerable interest. Here, we report evidence for the existence in mammalian cells of a novel, low- efficiency, presequence-independent pathway for mitochondrial protein import, which facilitates mitochondrial uptake of such proteins as Chlorella virus ligase (ChVlig) and Escherichia coli LigA. Mouse cells engineered to depend on this pathway for mitochondrial import of the LigA protein for mtDNA maintenance had severely (up to >90%) reduced mtDNA content. These observations were used to establish a method for the generation of mouse cell lines with reduced mtDNA copy number by, first, transducing them with a retrovirus encoding LigA, and then inactivating in these transductants endogenous Lig3 with CRISPR-Cas9. Interestingly, mtDNA depletion to an average level of one copy per cell proceeds faster in cells engineered to maintain mtDNA at low copy number. This makes a low-mtDNA copy number phenotype resulting from dependence on mitochondrial import of DNA ligase through presequence-independent pathway potentially useful for rapidly shifting mtDNA heteroplasmy through partial mtDNA depletion.
A novel anti-vascular therapy for cancer.

Commentary to: Targeting Vascular and Avascular Compartments of Tumors with C. novyi-NT and Anti-microtubule Agents L.H. Dang, C. Bettegowda, N. Agrawal, I. Cheong, D. Huso, P. Frost, F. Loganzo, L. Greenberger, J. Barkoczy, G.R. Pettit, A.B. Smith, H. Gurulingappa, S. Khan, G. Parmigiani, K.W. Kinzler, S. Zhou and B. Vogelstein
Spectral measurement of the relative concentration of two chromophores in localized defects within turbid media

We present a spectral approach for assessing relative concentration of two chromophores in localized inhomogeneities within turbid-media. Initial experiments on highly scattering suspensions show that relative concentration of two dyes can be determined within 10%.
The Brain Dead Patient Is Still Sentient: A Further Reply to Patrick Lee and Germain Grisez

Patrick Lee and Germain Grisez have argued that the total brain dead patient is still dead because the integrated entity that remains is not even an animal, not only because he is not sentient but also, and more importantly, because he has lost the radical capacity for sentience. In this essay, written from within and as a contribution to the Catholic philosophical tradition, I respond to Lee and Grisez's argument by proposing that the brain dead patient is still sentient because an animal with an intact but severed spinal cord can still perceive and respond to external stimuli. The brain dead patient is an unconscious sentient organism.
Introduction: Baltic economic research

(2000). Introduction: Baltic economic research. Journal of Baltic Studies: Vol. 31, Baltic Economies in Transition, pp. 125-126.
Economic Hardship, Parents' Depression, and Relationship Distress among Couples With Young Children.

Using data from the FFCW (n = 1,492 couples), the authors assessed stress, health selection, and couple-crossover hypotheses by examining (1) the bidirectional association between economic hardship...
Capitalism Russian-Style: The rise and fall of the private banks

Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, July 1998: There it stood, gleaming reassuringly in the hotel lobby – an ATM cash machine, courtesy of a leading Russian bank. It was the first modern object I had seen on arriving on Sakhalin Island, eight time zones east of Moscow and one of most neglected places on earth. Yet with the discovery of oil, new money was starting to bring the first signs of change – a remodeled hotel, a new business center, and even a cellular telephone company, all within a stone's throw of Lenin's statue on Revolution Square. And an ATM machine. Cautiously I stepped up and inserted my card. Amazingly, it beeped and whirred, and out popped a sheaf of fresh ruble notes. It worked! But not for long: within less than a month that Russian bank had collapsed, the cash machine stood cashless, and anyone on Sakhalin who wanted ruble notes had to fly to Moscow to get them. Until the summer of 1998, banking was the headline story of Russia's nascent market economy. More than any other post-Soviet institution, the new private banks symbolized the vast transfer of wealth from state to private hands and the return of money to center stage in the Russian economy. The private banks were born in the late 1980s from the breakup of the Soviet banking monopoly, and they grew rich on the opportunities for trade and arbitrage that opened up as the Soviet state weakened.
Colorblind Science?: Perceptions of the Importance of Racial Diversity in Science Research

A large body of scientific careers literature explores the experiences of underrepresented minorities in STEM fields and why they exit the academic pipeline at various stages. These studies commonly address how to improve racial diversity in science but provide little discussion of why that diversity is important for science research. Feminist science studies scholars, on the other hand, have theorized about the importance of diversity in knowledge production for decades but provide little empirical work on how to address current disparities. My research bridges these literatures by examining how diversity programs in the sciences justify their continued funding, and how these justifications map onto contemporary theories of knowledge production. Do diversity program directors seek to increase diversity in science because of political motives, like equality and justice for racial minorities, or because they believe that racially diverse workforces will produce better science? Based on interviews with federally-funded diversity program directors at universities and archival data from these programs, I find that program directors’ responses can be classified into three categories: diversity is important politically, diversity is important pragmatically, and diversity is important epistemically. About half of the respondents found diversity to be important for the content of scientific knowledge. I argue that studying diversity in scientific knowledge production is different than studying the impacts of diversity in other fields due to current conceptions of scientific objectivity. Scholarship on scientific knowledge production can help diversity program directors and science careers scholars better articulate the need for diversity programming in STEM fields.
Modeling and Robust H ∞ Control of a Nonlinear and Oscillating 2-dof Multimorph Cantilevered Piezoelectric Actuator

This chapter presents the characterization, modeling, and robust control of a nonlinear and oscillating 2-degrees of freedom (2-dof) piezoelectric cantilevered actuator. The actuator possesses a high resolution and a high bandwidth of the actuator, however, it is typified by a hysteresis and creep nonlinearities, a badly damped vibration and a strong coupling between the two axes. Based on the quadrilateral approach, a simple model which can account efficiently all these properties is proposed. Indeed, the model is linear followed by well-defined uncertainties and perturbations. In order to ensure certain performances, a robust standard H ∞ control technique is used to synthesize controllers for the 2-dof actuator. The experimental results confirm the efficiency of the proposed approach of modeling and control design.
Tikhonov-based Regularization of a Global Optimum Approach of One-layer Neural Networks with Fixed Transfer Function by Convex Optimization

Regularization is useful for extending learning models to be effective for classifications. Given the success of regularized-perceptron-based (one-layer neural network) methods, a similar kind of regularization is introduced for two global-optimum approaches recently proposed by Castillo et al., which combined the degree of freedom of using nonlinear transfer functions with the computational efficiency of solving complex problems. We focused on the two approaches that used sigmoid transfer functions. The first linear approach involved solving a set of linear equations, while the second min-max approach was reduced to a linear programming problem. We introduced regularization in such a way that the first linear approach remained linear and had a close form solution, while the second min-max approach was converted from a linear programming into a quadratic programming problem. Electroencephalography recordings were used to show how classifications could be improved
Single Versus Double Umbilical Cord Blood Transplantation (UCBT): Higher Risk of Acute Graft-Versus-Host Disease (GVHD) but Lower Transplant Related Mortality (TRM) in Recipients of Double UCBT.

Abstract Transplantation of 2 partially HLA matched UCB units has been shown to be a safe and effective means to overcome the cell-dose barrier in adolescents and adults. In addition, preliminary data suggest that double UCBT is associated with a greater graft-versus-leukemia effect (Blood 2005: 106:93a). To date, there has been no comparative analysis on the risk of acute GVHD in this population of patients. Therefore, we compared rates of acute GVHD in recipients of single (n=210) versus double (n=169) UCBT. Double UCB recipients were more likely to be older, transplanted in recent years, treated with a non myeloablative therapy, received mycophenolate mofetil as GVHD prophylaxis, and less likely to receive antithymocyte globulin (ATG) as part of the conditioning. Incidences of grades II–IV and III–IV acute GVHD were higher in recipients of double than single UCBT recipients (60% vs 33%, p.01) and (21% vs 11%, p=.01), respectively. Adjusting for differences between groups, two factors were associated with the development of grade II–IV acute GVHD in Cox regression: use of 2 UCB units (RR 2.0 vs 1.0 [95% CI, 1.3–3.2, p.01]) and absence of ATG in the preparative regimen (RR 1.0 vs 0.5 [95% CI, 0.3–0.8, p.01]). Other factors that were tested in the model but not determined to be significantly associated with acute GVHD were recipient age, gender, weight, diagnosis, time from diagnosis to UCBT, HLA disparity, total and CD3 cell dose, CMV serostatus, conditioning regimen, and GVHD prophylaxis. Despite increased risk of acute GVHD, TRM 1 year was significantly lower in recipients of double UCBT (17%, 95% CI, 5–29%) as compared to recipients of a single UCBT (47%, 95% CI, 26–68%; p =.02) (Figure 1) among those that developed grade III–IV acute GVHD. Survival at 1 year among those with grade III–IV acute GVHD was significantly higher after double UCBT (67%, 95% CI, 51–83%) than after single UCBT (41%, 95% CI 21–61%; p=.04) (Figure 2). Download : Download high-res image (71KB) Download : Download full-size image Download : Download high-res image (71KB) Download : Download full-size image In conclusion, risk of acute GVHD is significantly higher in recipients of two partially HLA matched UCB units, yet it does not appear to adversely effect TRM or survival. ATG in the preparative therapy, however, does not appear to reduce TRM despite its favorable association with reduced GVHD. Impact of GVHD on immune recovery and infection risk in recipients of single and double UCBT is under investigation.
Interprofessional care teams: the perils of fads and fashions

AbstractIt is widely believed that interprofessional care teams can improve patient care and increase safety. This belief among key stakeholders has often led to the imposition of team-based approaches without an adequate understanding of internal team dynamics, with attendant problems in implementation, that have made their performance often fall short of their promise. In this essay, we will first explore the promise of teamwork while providing a definition. In actual practice, the internal dynamics of teams often impede their successful operation. Communication difficulties, status differences, and the complexity of the task all present substantial obstacles to the successful implementation of teams. However, in spite of these problems, teams are the latest fad with their symbolic adoption decoupling them from their actual performance.
Suppression of turbulence by heterogeneities in a cardiac model with fiber rotation.

Electrical scroll wave turbulence in human ventricles is associated with ventricular fibrillation and sudden cardiac death. We perform three-dimensional simulations on the basis of the anisotropic Fenton-Karma model and show that macroscopic, insulating heterogeneities (e.g., blood vessels) can cause the spontaneous formation of pinned scroll waves. The wave field of these vortices is periodic, and their frequencies are sufficiently high to push the free, turbulent vortices into the system boundaries where they annihilate. Our study considers cylindrical heterogeneities with radii in the range of 0.1 to 2 cm that extend either in the transmural or a perpendicular direction. Thick cylinders cause the spontaneous formation of multi-armed rotors according to a radius-dependence that is explained in terms of two-dimensional dynamics. For long cylinders, local pinning contacts spread along the heterogeneity by fast and complex self-wrapping.
CHAPTER 18 – HYPERFINE INTERACTIONS

Publisher Summary The most important interaction between a nucleus of charge and an electron is the Coulumb interaction. All other interactions between a nucleus and the electrons of the same atom are classified as hyperfine interactions. Among the hyperfine interactions, the most important are the ones arising because of a nucleus possessing a magnetic dipole moment and an electric quadrupole moment. The quadrupole moment of a nucleus is a measure of the departure of the mean distribution of nuclear charge from spherical symmetry. It is positive for a distribution that is prolate ellipsoidal, negative for an oblate distribution, and zero for a spherically symmetric distribution.
POSTER: PriReMat: A Distributed Tool for Privacy Preserving Record Linking in Healthcare

Medical institutions must comply with various federal and state policies when they share sensitive medical data with others. Traditionally, such sharing is performed by sanitizing the identifying information from individual records. However, such sanitization removes the ability to later link the records belonging to the same patient across multiple institutions which is essential for medical cohort discovery. Currently, human honest brokers assume stewardship of non sanitized data and manually facilitate such cohort discovery. However, this is slow and prone to error, not to mention that any compromise of the honest broker breaks the system. In this work, we describe PriReMat, a toolset that we have developed for privacy preserving record linkage. The underlying protocol is based on strong security primitives that we had presented earlier. This work describes the distributed implementation over untrusted machines and networks.
The association between obesity and disability in survivors of joint surgery: analysis of the health and retirement study.

Abstract Background Obesity is associated with osteoarthritis and the need for joint surgery. Obese patients who undergo joint surgery may have a higher risk of morbidity compared with normal or overweight patients but less is known about their risk of postoperative disability. The primary objective of our study was to determine the association between obesity and the development of new dependence in activities of daily living within 2 years after joint surgery. Methods We obtained data from the Health and Retirement Study, a longitudinal survey of older Americans. We included participants who indicated having joint surgery for arthritis. We defined obesity as a BMI ≥30 kg m -2 . Our outcome was a new or increased dependence in one or more activities of daily living after surgery. Results We analysed data on 2519 respondents who underwent joint surgery for arthritis. Respondents had a median age of 69yr, 65.5% were female, 66.6% had joint replacement surgery and 45.3% were obese. The overall incidence of a new dependence within 2years was 22.1%. Obese respondents had a higher incidence of new dependence compared with non-obese respondents (25.4% vs 19.4%, P Conclusions Obesity is associated with an increased risk of developing dependence in the 2 years after joint surgery. Our study findings identify a high-risk group that may benefit from targeted interventions and allocation of perioperative resources to optimize recovery and minimize longer-term disability.