cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
OAR: an opportunistic auto-rate media access protocol for ad hoc networks

The IEEE 802.11 wireless media access standard supports multiple data rates at the physical layer. Moreover, various auto rate adaptation mechanisms at the medium access layer have been proposed to utilize this multi-rate capability by automatically adapting the transmission rate to best match the channel conditions. In this paper, we introduce the Opportunistic Auto Rate (OAR) protocol to better exploit durations of high-quality channels conditions. The key mechanism of the OAR protocol is to opportunistically send multiple back-to-back data packets whenever the channel quality is good. As channel coherence times typically exceed multiple packet transmission times for both mobile and non-mobile users, OAR achieves significant throughput gains as compared to state-of-the-art auto-rate adaptation mechanisms. Moreover, over longer time scales, OAR ensures that all nodes are granted channel access for the same time-shares as achieved by single-rate IEEE 802.11. We describe mechanisms to implement OAR on top of any existing auto-rate adaptation scheme in a nearly IEEE 802.11 compliant manner. We also analytically study OAR and characterize the delay jitter and the gains in throughput as a function of the channel conditions. Finally, we perform an extensive set of ns-2 simulations to study the impact of such factors as node velocity, channel conditions, and topology on the throughput of OAR.
Telepsychiatry as a Case Study of Presence: Do You Know What You Are Missing?

This study explores the use of videoconferencing technology as a means of providing mental health consultations across distances. Analyses of 43 psychiatric interviews with 14 different patients using an interactive videoconferencing system over an 18-month period reveal that the telecommunications link compared favorably to face-to-face encounters in assessments by physicians and patients. However, telepsychiatry may hinder many of the ancillary practitioner-patient relationships that contribute to a psychiatric consultation and create a false sense of presence. The study stresses the importance of examining the new context created by implementation of any new communication technology, and of understanding the need for attention to secondary and peripheral contexts that could potentially be ignored because of telepresence.
COMPARISON OF EULERIAN TO LAGRANGIAN EXPECTED SPATIAL MOMENTS FOR TRANSPORT IN A HETEROGENEOUS POROUS MEDIUM WITH DETERMINISTIC LINEAR NONEQUILIBRIUM SORPTION

When a natural porous formation is viewed from an Eulerian perspective, incomplete characterization of the hydraulic conductivity leads to nonlocality in the constitutive theory, irrespective of whether the medium has evolving heterogeneity with velocity fluctuations over all scales. Within this framework two nonlocal constitutive models are developed for natural systems, one for conservative tracers and the other for reactive chemicals undergoing linear nonequilibrium sorption with deterministic rate constants. Exact solutions for the mean concentrations are obtained and used to determine the mean values of the spatial moments up to the third. A Lagrangian model (Dagan and Cvetkovic, 1993) for a similar problem is reviewed and comparisons are made between the expected Lagrangian and Eulerian moments. If the local-scale dispersive process is neglected in the Eulerian analysis, then the Lagrangian moments obtain. However, if the local-scale dispersive process is included in the Eulerian model, then the sec...
Glutathione-dependent One-electron Transfer Reactions Catalyzed by a B12 Trafficking Protein

CblC is involved in an early step in cytoplasmic cobalamin processing following entry of the cofactor into the cytoplasm. CblC converts the cobalamin cargo arriving from the lysosome to a common cob(II)alamin intermediate, which can be subsequently converted to the biologically active forms. Human CblC exhibits glutathione (GSH)-dependent alkyltransferase activity and flavin-dependent reductive decyanation activity with cyanocobalamin (CNCbl). In this study, we discovered two new GSH-dependent activities associated with the Caenorhabditis elegans CblC for generating cob(II)alamin: decyanation of CNCbl and reduction of aquocobalamin (OH2Cbl). We subsequently found that human CblC also catalyzes GSH-dependent decyanation of CNCbl and reduction of OH2Cbl, albeit efficiently only under anaerobic conditions. The air sensitivity of the human enzyme suggests interception by oxygen during the single-electron transfer step from GSH to CNCbl. These newly discovered GSH-dependent single-electron transfer reactions expand the repertoire of catalytic activities supported by CblC, a versatile B12-processing enzyme.
Partial Correction of Cystic Fibrosis Defects with PLGA Nanoparticles Encapsulating Curcumin

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a common life threatening genetic disease (incidence: approximately 1 in 2500 live births). CF is caused by mutations in CFTR, a chloride channel involved in epithelial secretion of fluid and electrolytes. The most common mutation entails the deletion of a phenylalanine in position 508 that causes protein misfolding and abnormal CFTR processing. The DeltaF508 mutation accounts for approximately 70% of all CF alleles, and about 90% of CF patients carry at least one copy of DeltaF508 CFTR. Curcumin, a natural constituent of Curcuma longa (turmeric spice), is a nontoxic low-affinity SERCA (sarco (endo)plasmic reticulum calcium ATPase) pump inhibitor thought to permit DeltaF508 CFTR escape from the ER. The compound has been shown to be capable of correcting the defect in cell lines and mice expressing DeltaF508 CFTR. In this work, poly lactic-co-glycolic acid (PLGA) nanoparticles encapsulating curcumin were synthesized and used to treat two different CF mouse strains in an effort to correct the defects associated with CF by improving bioavailability of the compound, which has previously been a challenge in treatment with curcumin. Our results suggest that oral administration of PLGA nanoparticles encapsulating curcumin enhances the effects of curcumin therapy in CF mice, as compared to delivery of nonencapsulated curcumin.
Personalizing rare disease research: how genomics is revolutionizing the diagnosis and treatment of rare disease

A decade after the complete sequencing of the human genome, combined with recent advances in throughput and sequencing costs, the genetics of rare diseases has entered a new era. There has now been an explosion in the identification and mapping of rare diseases, with over 10,000 exomes having been sequenced to date. This article surveys the progress and development of technologies to understand rare disease; it provides a historical overview of traditional techniques such as karyotyping and homozygosity mapping, reviews current methods of whole-exome and -genome sequencing, and provides a future perspective on upcoming developments such as targeted drugs and gene therapy. This article will discuss the implications of these methods for rare disease research, along with a discussion of the success stories that provide great hope and optimism for patients and scientists alike.
Failure mode effects and criticality analysis: innovative risk assessment to identify critical areas for improvement in emergency department sepsis resuscitation

Background Sepsis is an increasing problem in the practice of emergency medicine as the prevalence is increasing and optimal care to reduce mortality requires significant resources and time. Evidence-based septic shock resuscitation strategies exist, and rely on appropriate recognition and diagnosis, but variation in adherence to the recommendations and therefore outcomes remains. Our objective was to perform a multi-institutional prospective risk-assessment, using failure mode effects and criticality analysis (FMECA), to identify high-risk failures in ED sepsis resuscitation. Methods We conducted a FMECA, which prospectively identifies critical areas for improvement in systems and processes of care, across three diverse hospitals. A multidisciplinary group of participants described the process of emergency department (ED) sepsis resuscitation to then create a comprehensive map and table listing all process steps and identified process failures. High-risk failures in sepsis resuscitation from each of the institutions were compiled to identify common high-risk failures. Results Common high-risk failures included limited availability of equipment to place the central venous catheter and conduct invasive monitoring, and cognitive overload leading to errors in decision-making. Additionally, we identified great variability in care processes across institutions. Discussion Several common high-risk failures in sepsis care exist: a disparity in resources available across hospitals, a lack of adherence to the invasive components of care, and cognitive barriers that affect expert clinicians' decision-making capabilities. Future work may concentrate on dissemination of non-invasive alternatives and overcoming cognitive barriers in diagnosis and knowledge translation.
FSTPA-I: a formal approach to hazard identification via system theoretic process analysis

Cyber-physical systems (CPS) are usually safety critical, making systems safety a CPS issue. Many efforts have been made in safety verification of CPS and some effort has been made in safety-guided design of specific CPS, but fewer efforts have been made in a formal science to aid in safety-guided design. One domain crucial to safety-guided design is hazard analysis, which can be challenging for complex dynamic systems like CPS. Recently, systems theoretic process analysis (STPA) has emerged as a promising hazard analysis technique applicable to CPS; however despite its improvement over traditional techniques, it lacks a solid formal (rig-orous) approach making much of its application ad-hoc and open to a lot of the issues with non-rigorous methods. This paper presents a formal framework for the hazard identification step in STPA (STPA Step One). We show that the formal framework handles many of the issues that arise in a non-rigorous approach and makes the results from analysis less ambiguous and more complete. We also find that an explicit notion of system components is not necessary for undertaking hazard analysis on the system level much in line with the way systems are analyzed in other systems theory fields.
Oxidative phosphorylation and proton translocation in membrane vesicles prepared from Escherichia coli.

Membrane vesicles have been prepared from E. coli which are capable of catalyzing oxidative phosphorylation with several physiological substrates. Phosphorylation efficiencies of 0.62 ± .06 moles ATP formed per gram-atom oxygen consumed have been observed with NADH as substrate. The phosphorylation is sensitive to uncouplers, fulfilling an essential requirement for the study of oxidative phosphorylation in cell-free systems. Since the vesicles also catalyze, either during respiration or ATP hydrolysis, uncoupler sensitive uptake of protons, they are inverted with respect to whole bacteria and allow the study of additional parameters relating to energy coupling.
Generating Bivariate Uniform Data with a Full Range of Correlations and Connections to Bivariate Binary Data

In this article, random number generation algorithms for generating bivariate uniform data based on a known class of symmetric bivariate uniform distributions that allow the entire correlation range are given, and its previously unrecognized connection with bivariate binary data is established via matching the cumulative distribution functions.
Review Essay: Canada-United States Economic Relations Today: Living with the Free Trade Agreement

(1990). Review Essay: Canada-United States Economic Relations Today: Living with the Free Trade Agreement. American Review of Canadian Studies: Vol. 20, No. 4, pp. 423-446.
Men's reactions to hypothetical female sexual advances: a beauty bias in response to sexual coercion

The study investigated 277 college men's reactions to a vignette in which they were to imagine receiving an uninvited sexual advance from a casual female acquaintance. Subjects were predominantly middle-class Caucasian students. The vignette varied in the degree of coercion used (low — touch, moderate — push, high — threat, and very high — weapon). For each coercion level, the initiator was described as either very attractive or very unattractive. Subjects rated acceptability of the act, feelings of being pleased, violated, and negatively affected by the incident, and indicated if they would consent to further sexual activity. Results showed that men had significantly more negative reactions to advances that employed high and very high levels of force as compared to low and moderate levels. A beauty bias was found in that men had more positive (or less negative) reactions to the actions of an attractive vs. an unattractive initiator. Men had generally positive reactions to the sexual advance of an attractive woman who used low or moderate levels of coercion. Reactions to all other vignette situations were predominantly negative. As a model for future research, it is proposed that male and female reactions to sexual coercion can be predicted by levels of violation of sexual standards, force used, initiator sexual desirability, and romantic relationship with the initiator.
Babbitt, Minnesota: Case Study of Pretreated Crumb Rubber Modified Asphalt Concrete

A 2.38-mm (No. 10) mesh crumb rubber from waste passenger tires was pretreated with a low-viscosity petroleum-based product and used as an aggregate replacement in asphalt concrete mixtures. The preconstruction testing consisted of the development of an appropriate aggregate gradation, mix design information, and fundamental mixture properties such as temperature susceptibility, moisture sensitivity, low temperature behavior, and permanent deformation characteristics. Five crumb rubber modified (CRM) asphalt concrete plus two control test sections were placed in Babbitt, Minnesota, in the fall of 1993. Variables in the CRM sections include pretreated and untreated crumb rubber and CRM mixtures in just the wear course or throughout the 150-mm (6-in.) pavement section. Laboratory results indicated that there was little difference in the temperature susceptibility between the mix design and behind-the-paver mixtures. Although the mix design samples indicated some increase in the moisture sensitivity of the C...
INFLUENCE OF HOST FACTORS ON NEUROINVASIVENESS OF VESICULAR STOMATITIS VIRUS : I. EFFECT OF AGE ON THE INVASION OF THE BRAIN BY VIRUS INSTILLED IN THE NOSE.

1. After intracerebral injection or nasal instillation of vesicular stomatitis virus in young or old mice, there was no evidence of a generalized, systemic or blood infection. 2. Within 1 hour after nasal instillation of as much as 100,000 M.C.L.D. in young or old mice, no virus (i.e., less than 60 to 70 M.C.L.D.) could be demonstrated in the nasal mucosa. 2 days later and thereafter virus was abundant in the nasal mucosa of young mice, while among old mice it remained undemonstrable in some and present in small amount in others. 3. Virus was not detected in the anterior rhinencephalon of young and old mice within a few minutes and 5 hours after nasal instillation, but was almost uniformly demonstrable in this region, although not in the rest of the brain, on the 2nd day. This indicated that the primary invasion of the brain occurred by the olfactory rather than the fifth nerve pathway. 4. The essential difference in the further pathogenesis of the disease between the young mice which succumb with encephalomyelitis (5th day) and the old mice which survive without showing clinical signs of brain involvement, is in the progression of the virus from the anterior rhinencephalon. In the young the rest of the brain is invaded, while in the old resistant mice it is not, the progression of virus being arrested somewhere in the anterior rhinencephalon. 5. Since minimal amounts of virus injected intracerebrally were shown to be disseminated quickly through the entire brain, killing old as well as young mice, it was clear that virus so inoculated must spread differently from that which reaches the brain by the olfactory pathway. 6. That the arrest of virus progression in the brains of certain old mice is the result of a preexisting, localized barrier, developed with age, and is not due to a rapidly acquired, specific, cerebral immunity was shown by the failure of old mice to resist an intracerebral injection of 1 to 10 M.C.L.D., 2, 3, 4, or 5 days after preliminary nasal instillation.
SU-GG-T-400: Dosimetric Characterization and Biological Validation of a Phantom for Three Dimensional IMRT-Based In Vitro Experiments

Purpose: To characterize the dosimetry of a previously described cylindrical phantom for use in 3‐dimensional intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT)‐based in vitro cell experiments and validate the phantom by comparing its performance in vitro to a standard experimental setup. Method and Materials: The phantom was loaded with a stack of three 6‐well tissue‐culture plates. An IMRT plan with a single PTV encompassing all plates was created and delivered in the phantom. Calculated doses were compared to those measured using both an array of thermoluminescencedosimeters(TLDs) and film placed in the phantom. In vitro validation was performed by delivering an array of doses from 0–10 Gy to two human cancer cell lines (A549 and SCC116) using both the phantom and a standard experimental setup employing a single open field. Percentage of viable cells post‐irradiation (%Via) was compared for both setups using the diphenylamine (DPA) assay. Results: The percent differences between TLD measurements and corresponding points in the treatment plan ranged from −1.3%–2.9% (p>0.05 for all cases). Average point‐by‐point percent dose difference (%Ddiff) between each film and the corresponding calculated dose plane ranged from 1.6%–3.1%, while the %Ddiff at which 95% of the film points agreed to ⩽3.0% ranged from 2.8%–4.1%. These results show good general agreement between measured and predicted dose. Comparison of the two experimental setups revealed average differences in %Via of 1.28% and 3.26% for SCC116 and A549, respectively (p>0.05 for all cases). Conclusion: Good general agreement between calculated and TLD and film measured dose within the phantom under experimental conditions, along with strong agreement in cell response when using the phantom versus a standard experimental setup show that the phantom is a useful, efficient, and dynamic tool for 3‐dimensional in vitro cell experiments. Conflict of Interest: Supported by a grant from MedImmune.
Xenograft growth and histodifferentiation of squamous cell carcinomas of the pharynx and larynx

The potential for growth in a xenogeneic host and the pattern of histodifferentiation was examined in 56 human squamous cell carcinomas of the pharynx and larynx transplanted to nude mice. Among these 56 transplanted tumors, 13 of 36 primary and 12 of 20 metastatic tumors were found to be tumorigenic in nude mice. Eleven of 24 pharyngeal and 14 of 32 laryngeal tumors grew in nude mice. The dynamics of transplanted tumor growth in the surrogate host took place independent of the tumor grade and site of tumor origin. Transplanted tumors exhibited a higher mitotic index compared with the original tumors. Each passage of a tumor line resulted in most of the xenograft tumors exhibiting an increased degree of differentiation without invasion of host tissues. No difference was observed between patients who engrafted tumors in the xenograft model and those who did not with respect to tumor biology or clinical findings, including survival.
Aminopeptidase Activity in Albino Rabbit Extraocular Tissues Relative to the Small Intestine

Abstract Aminopeptidase activity in the corneal epithelium and the conjunctiva of the albino rabbit eye was determined using l -leucine-, l -alanine-, and l -arginine-4-methoxy- β -naphthylamide as substrates. This was compared with the aminopeptidase activity in the duodenum, jejunum, and ileum. The two ocular tissues were found to be 5–15% as active as the ileum in aminopeptidase activity. There was indirect evidence that the dominant aminopeptidase in the corneal epithelium is different from that in the conjunctiva, suggesting that further studies are warranted to investigate the possibility of delivering certain peptides systemically via the conjunctiva without simultaneously exposing the intraocular tissues to these peptides.
Psychopharmacological studies of some 1-(chlorophenyl)-2-aminopropanes. II. Effects on avoidance and discrimination behavior.

A series of l-(chlorophenyl)-2-aminopropanes previously shown to suppress appeti-tive-controlled behavior were compared with d-amphetamine and methamphetamine on an avoidance procedure. Rats trained to press a lever to avoid intermittent electroshocks were used. In alternate 10-minute periods, a rat received a time-out (TO) when no responding on the lever was necessary. The discrimination between the two periods was cued by appropriate visual stimuli. The two lowest doses that suppressed the appetitive-controlled behavior were studied. With the unsubstituted amphetamines, the rats produced high response rates during both the avoidance and TO periods with a reduction in the number of shocks received. On the whole, the chloro-substituted compounds produced relatively small increases in the rats’ response rates with little or no change in the number of shocks received. These results indicate that, at the doses used, the chloro-substituted compounds produced less CNS stimulation than did d-amphetamine or methamphetamine.
Envelope-function formalism for valence bands in wurtzite quantum wells.

A theoretical treatment of the valence-band spectrum of wurtzite-type materials is developed starting from the Rashba-Sheka-Pikus (RSP) 6\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}6 matrix Hamiltonian for coupled ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Gamma}}}_{9}$, ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Gamma}}}_{7}$, and ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Gamma}}}_{7}$ levels. A unitary transformation is applied in order to diagonalize the RSP Hamiltonian to two 3\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}3 blocks and the results are compared with those obtained for cubic structures [C. Y.-P. Chao and S. L. Chuang, Phys. Rev. B 46, 4110 (1992)]. Using the diagonalized form of the Hamiltonian, a solution for hole states in wurtzite quantum wells (QW's) is constructed and explicit expressions for the QW valence subband edges are obtained. We suggest that parameters of the RSP Hamiltonian for w\"urtzite structures can be deduced from experimental observations of the energy separation between edges of the hole subbands in QW's. \textcopyright{} 1996 The American Physical Society.
Statistical wormhole detection for mobile sensor networks

A wormhole attack is one of the most challenging yet detrimental security issues in mobile wireless sensor networks (mWSNs). However, as most of the existing countermeasures are designed mainly for fixed WSNs using hardware devices or information of entire WSNs (topology or statistical), they cannot be effectively used in mWSNs. In this paper, we propose, Statistical Wormhole Apprehension using Neighbors (SWAN), a novel wormhole countermeasure for mWSNs. As SWAN utilizes the localized statistical neighborhood information collected by mobile nodes, it apprehends wormholes not only without requiring any special hardware device but also without causing significant communication and coordination overhead. We performed extensive studies on false positive and detection rates via both analysis and simulations. Our simulation results show that SWAN can detect wormhole attacks with high probabilities and very low false positive rates.
BLADDER TUMOR IMPLANT FROM RENAL ADENOCARCINOMA

Abstract Adenocarcinoma of the kidney has rarely produced secondary tumor in the ureter, bladder, or urethra. A case of vesical implantation of renal adenocarcinoma is reported.
Analyzing the behavior and reliability of voting systems comprising tri-state units using enumerated simulation

Abstract Voting is a common technique used in combining results from peer experts, for multiple purposes, and in a variety of domains. In distributed decision making systems, voting mechanisms are used to obtain a decision by incorporating the opinion of multiple units. Voting systems have many applications in fault tolerant systems, mutual exclusion in distributed systems, and replicated databases. We are specifically interested in voting systems as used in decision-making applications. In this paper, we describe a synthetic experimental procedure to study the behavior of a variety of voting system configurations using a simulator to: analyze the state of each expert, apply a voting mechanism, and analyze the voting results. We introduce an enumerated-simulation approach and compare it to existing mathematical approaches. The paper studies the following behaviors of a voting system: (1) the reliability of the voting system, R; (2) the probability of reaching a consensus, Pc; (3) certainty index, T; and (4) the confidence index, C. The configuration parameters controlling the analysis are: (1) the number of participating experts, N, (2) the possible output states of an expert, and (3) the probability distribution of each expert states. We illustrate the application of this approach to a voting system that consists of N units, each has three states: correct (success), wrong (failed), and abstain (did not produce an output). The final output of the decision-making (voting) system is correct if a consensus is reached on a correct unit output, abstain if all units abstain from voting, and wrong otherwise. We will show that using the proposed approach, we can easily conduct studies to unleash several behaviors of a decision-making system with tri-state experts.
Parameterization of diffusion-influenced intermolecular electron transfer in the static quenching limit

Abstract For the quenching of 9,10-dicyanoanthracene fluorescence by a series of aromatic amines in acetonitrile, a finite-sink analysis provides values of the effective electron-transfer distance R which increase with exergonicity (−Δ G 0 ) from 420 pm for benzylamine (Δ G 0 = −0.77 eV), close to that expected for a contact pair, to 1000 pm for N,N,N′,N′-tetramethyl- p -phenylenediamine Δ G 0 = −1.81 eV) which exceeds that associated with a solvent-separated pair. Similar values of R are recovered for the same systems in n -hexane and t -butylbenzene. Estimates of effective electron transfer rate constants v t > 10 12 s − at R are independent of temperature and solvent polarity and show no systematic variance with R , qualitatively consistent with long-range electron transfer from quencher to fluor with increasing probability as their separation is reduced by diffusive approach in the ‘inverted’ region.
Assessing horizontal transfer of nifHDK genes in eubacteria: nucleotide sequence of nifK from Frankia strain HFPCcI3

The structural genes for nitrogenase, nifK, nifD, and nifH, are crucial for nitrogen fixation. Previous phylogenetic analysis of the amino acid sequence of nifH suggested that this gene had been horizontally transferred from a proteobacterium to the gram-positive/cyanobacterial clade, although the confounding effects of paralogous comparisons made interpretation of the data difficult. An additional test of nif gene horizontal transfer using nifD was made, but the NifD phylogeny lacked resolution. Here nif gene phylogeny is addressed with a phylogenetic analysis of a third and longer nif gene, nifK. As part of the study, the nifK gene of the key taxon Frankia was sequenced. Parsimony and some distance analyses of the nifK amino acid sequences provide support for vertical descent of nifK, but other distance trees provide support for the lateral transfer of the gene. Bootstrap support was found for both hypotheses in all trees; the nifK data do not definitively favor one or the other hypothesis. A parsimony analysis of NifH provides support for horizontal transfer in accord with previous reports, although bootstrap analysis also shows some support for vertical descent of the orthologous nifH genes. A wider sampling of taxa and more sophisticated methods of phylogenetic inference are needed to understand the evolution of nif genes. The nif genes may also be powerful phylogenetic tools. If nifK evolved by vertical descent, it provides strong evidence that the cyanobacteria and proteobacteria are sister groups to the exclusion of the firmicutes, whereas 16S rRNA sequences are unable to resolve the relationships of these three major eubacterial lineages.
Impact of smokeless tobacco packaging on perceptions and beliefs among youth, young adults, and adults in the U.S: findings from an internet-based cross-sectional survey

Research demonstrates that tobacco packaging elements (including health warning labels, descriptive characteristics, and corporate branding) are associated with knowledge of health risks and product appeal with cigarettes. Yet, little research has assessed this with smokeless tobacco (SLT) packaging. This study evaluates the association between three SLT packaging elements with knowledge of health risks and perceptions of novelty and appeal. Additionally, we assess how effects of these messages may differ across age groups, including youth (14-17 years), young adults (18-25 years), and older adults (26-65 years). 1000 participants were administered a web-based survey in 2010 and shown three sets of SLT packs in random order, varied by descriptor (flavor descriptor vs. none), warning label format (graphic vs. text), and corporate branding (branded vs. plain packaging). Participants rated the packs compared with “no difference” on appeal, novelty, and risk perceptions associated with product use. Chi-square tests were used to test for significant differences in pack selections. Multinomial regression was employed to evaluate the association between effects of packaging elements and participant age. More respondents selected the pack with the graphic warning label as the pack to make them consider the health risks associated with SLT use, attract their attention, and be least attractive to a smoker. The product with the text warning label was the product someone their age would want to be seen using and would appeal to peers. The SLT pack with the flavor descriptor was not associated with health risks associated with product use. The pack with corporate branding was selected as more appealing, to attract attention, and one they would want to be seen using; the plain pack was less attractive to smokers. Youth and young adults were more likely to indicate that pack elements affected their perceptions of appeal and risk associated with SLT products. These results suggest that SLT pack characteristics have a measurable effect on perceptions of health risk and product appeal. Future research should assess these findings in the context of harm reduction. Specifically, research is needed to determine whether pack elements on SLT products can effectively convey risk and harm.
Connecting species richness, abundance and body size in deep-sea gastropods

Aim This paper examines species richness, abundance, and body size in deep-sea gastropods and how they vary over depth, which is a strong correlate of nutrient input. Previous studies have documented the empirical relationships among these properties in terrestrial and coastal ecosystems, but a full understanding of how these patterns arise has yet to be obtained. Examining the relationships among macroecological variables is a logical progression in deep-sea ecology, where patterns of body size, diversity, and abundance have been quantified separately but not linked together. Location 196 ‐ 5042 m depth in the western North Atlantic. Method Individuals analysed represent all Vetigastropoda and Caenogastropoda (Class Gastropoda) with intact shells, excluding Ptenoglossa, collected by the Woods Hole Benthic Sampling Program (3424 individuals representing 80 species). Biovolume was measured for every individual separately (i.e. allowing the same species to occupy multiple size classes) and divided into log 2 body size bins. Analyses were conducted for all gastropods together and separated into orders and depth regions (representing different nutrient inputs). A kernel smoothing technique, Kolmogorov-Smirnov test of fit, and OLS and RMA were used to characterize the patterns. Results Overall, the relationship between the number of individuals and species is right skewed. There is also a positive linear relationship between the number of individuals and the number of species, which is independent of body size. Variation among these relationships is seen among the three depth regions. At depths inferred to correspond with intermediate nutrient input levels, species are accumulated faster given the number of individuals and shift from a right-skewed to a log-normal distribution. Conclusion A strong link between body size, abundance, and species richness appears to be ubiquitous over a variety of taxa and environments, including the deep sea. However, the nature of these relationships is affected by the productivity regime and scale at which they are examined.
Bovine Viral Diarrhea Virus Isolated from Fetal Calf Serum Enhances Pathogenicity of Attenuated Transmissible Gastroenteritis Virus in Neonatal Pigs

A bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV-C) was isolated from swine tissue culture cells used to attenuate the transmissible gastroenteritis virus (TGEV) after 68 passes. Piglets given a pure culture of BVDV- C developed clinical signs similar to those of a mild TGEV infection and recovered by 10 days postexposure. Villous blunting and fusion was observed in the small intestine, and a lymphocyte depletion was observed in Peyer's patches in the ileum. Piglets given a combination of BVDV-C and attenuated TGEV developed clinical signs similar to those of a virulent TGEV infection and were euthanized. The combined infection induced a generalized lymphocyte depletion throughout the lymphatic system and villous atrophy in the intestinal tract. Piglets exposed to a another type I strain of BVDV (NY-1) either alone or in combination with the attenuated TGEV had mild clinical signs similar to those of a TGEV infection. Moderate villous atrophy in the ileum and a lymphocyte depletion in the mesenteric lymph node were observed in these piglets postmortem. The data indicate a potential problem for diagnostic laboratories in relation to a diagnosis of virulent TGEV infections and in the field for young piglets exposed to a BVDV-contaminated TGEV vaccine. The transmissible gastroenteritis virus (TGEV) is a member of the Coronaviridae family of viruses. Co- ronaviruses are pleomorphic enveloped viruses with a nonsegmented positive-stranded RNA genome. 18 The mammalian coronaviruses are divided into 2 serologic groups. 15 Members of group I include canine corona- virus, feline enteric coronavirus, feline infectious peri- tonitis virus, human coronavirus 229E, porcine respi- ratory coronavirus, and TGEV. The group I viruses are antigenically related, but they exhibit a strong host specificity. TGEV infects swine of all ages, producing an economically important disease. 13 The severity of the disease is inversely related to the age of the pigs at the time of their exposure and to the virulence of the virus. Animals ,10 days of age exposed to a vir- ulent virus usually die within 7 days, whereas those 10-21 days of age exhibit clinical signs of a severe infection and about 50% die. 17 Sows and pigs .3 weeks of age usually have a milder response, with loss of appetite and diarrhea for 1-2 days being common, although vomiting, elevated temperatures, and death have also been observed. Producers attempt to control the disease by vaccination with modified-live virus vaccines for TGEV. These vaccines are produced in cell cultures supplemented with fetal bovine serum (FBS).
Isolated comitant esotropia and Chiari I malformation

Abstract PURPOSE: To report four patients with isolated comitant esotropia and Chiari I malformation and discuss the most appropriate management. METHODS: Case reports and literature review. RESULTS: All four patients (5, 14, 16, and 37 years of age) presented with an isolated comitant esotropia that led to the diagnosis of Chiari I malformation. The first two patients underwent uncomplicated neurosurgical decompression of their malformation, followed by complete resolution of their esotropia. The third patient underwent strabismus surgery and experienced initial resolution of the esotropia, but eventual recurrence resulted in the strabismus surgery being repeated 5 years later. The fourth patient had strabismus surgery with resolution of the esotropia but only 2 months of follow-up. CONCLUSION: Although management of patients with Chiari I malformation and severe neurologic findings typically includes surgical decompression, management is less straightforward in cases with subtle findings or in which ocular findings are isolated. The decision to perform neurosurgical decompression or strabismus surgery should still be made on a case-by-case basis, with the understanding that strabismus surgery may provide only temporary ocular alignment.
Alcohol consumption, interleukin-6 and apolipoprotein E genotypes, and concentrations of interleukin-6 and serum amyloid P in older adults

BACKGROUND: Whether alcohol intake is associated with concentrations of interleukin-6 (IL-6) and serum amyloid P (SAP) is uncertain. OBJECTIVE: We determined how alcohol intake and apolipoprotein E (apo E) and IL-6 promoter (IL-6 -174G[rightward arrow]C) polymorphisms interact for concentrations of IL-6 and SAP. DESIGN: In the Cardiovascular Health Study, 2454 older adults reported their intake of beer, wine, and liquor and underwent measurements of circulating IL-6 and SAP. RESULTS: Alcohol intake was not associated with IL-6 concentrations among apo E4-negative or IL-6C-positive participants but was positively associated among both apo E4-positive and IL-6C-negative participants (P for trend = 0.02 for both). The corresponding interactions on SAP were not significant for alcohol overall but were similar for liquor intake. CONCLUSIONS: Among older adults free of clinical cardiovascular disease, specific IL-6 promoter and apo E alleles appeared to confer positive associations of alcohol consumption with IL-6 concentrations. Genetic heterogeneity should be considered in understanding the cardiovascular effects of alcohol intake.
Minimum Mean-Squared Error Estimation of Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients Using a Novel Distortion Model

In this paper, a new method for statistical estimation of Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCCs) in noisy speech signals is proposed. Previous research has shown that model-based feature domain enhancement of speech signals for use in robust speech recognition can improve recognition accuracy significantly. These methods, which typically work in the log spectral or cepstral domain, must face the high complexity of distortion models caused by the nonlinear interaction of speech and noise in these domains. In this paper, an additive cepstral distortion model (ACDM) is developed, and used with a minimum mean-squared error (MMSE) estimator for recovery of MFCC features corrupted by additive noise. The proposed ACDM-MMSE estimation algorithm is evaluated on the Aurora2 database, and is shown to provide significant improvement in word recognition accuracy over the baseline.
New Approaches to Measurement and Treatment Research to Improve Cognition in Schizophrenia

An overview is provided of the set of articles included in this special issue of Schizophrenia Bulletin that were derived from the final meeting of the Measurement and Treatment Research to Improve Cognition in Schizophrenia (MATRICS) program. These essays summarize the presentations and discussions of the MATRICS New Approaches Conference that examined the future needs of the field for a coordinated research effort to improve the preclinical and clinical science required to optimize new cotreatments for the cognitive deficits in patients with schizophrenia. Specific priorities for a research agenda involving collaborations among academic, industrial, and governmental participants are addressed.
Combined Phosphoproteomics and Bioinformatics Strategy in Deciphering Drug Resistant Related Pathways in Triple Negative Breast Cancer

Because of the absence of a clear therapeutic target for triple negative breast cancer (TNBC), conventional chemotherapy is the only available systemic treatment option for these patients. Despite chemotherapy treatment, TNBC patients still have worse prognosis when compared with other breast cancer patients. The study is to investigate unique phosphorylated proteins expressed in chemoresistant TNBC cell lines. In the current study, twelve TNBC cell lines were subjected to drug sensitivity assays against chemotherapy drugs docetaxel, doxorubicin, gemcitabine, and cisplatin. Based on their half maximal inhibitory concentrations, four resistant and two sensitive cell lines were selected for further analysis. The phosphopeptides from these cells were enriched with TiO2 beads and fractionated using strong cation exchange. 1,645 phosphoprotein groups and 9,585 unique phosphopeptides were identified by a high throughput LC-MS/MS system LTQ-Orbitrap. The phosphopeptides were further filtered with Ascore system and 1,340 phosphoprotein groups, 2,760 unique phosphopeptides, and 4,549 unique phosphosites were identified. Our study suggested that differentially phosphorylated Cdk5, PML, AP-1, and HSF-1 might work together to promote vimentin induced epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) in the drug resistant cells. EGFR and HGF were also shown to be involved in this process.
Classification of Emergency Department Chief Complaints Into 7 Syndromes: A Retrospective Analysis of 527,228 Patients

Study objective Electronic surveillance systems often monitor triage chief complaints in hopes of detecting an outbreak earlier than can be accomplished with traditional reporting methods. We measured the accuracy of a Bayesian chief complaint classifier called CoCo that assigns patients 1 of 7 syndromic categories (respiratory, botulinic, gastrointestinal, neurologic, rash, constitutional, or hemorrhagic) based on free-text triage chief complaints. Methods We compared CoCo's classifications with criterion syndromic classification based on International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision (ICD-9) discharge diagnoses. We assigned the criterion classification to a patient based on whether the patient's primary diagnosis was a member of a set of ICD-9 codes associated with CoCo's 7 syndromes. We tested CoCo's performance on a set of 527,228 chief complaints from patients registered at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center emergency department (ED) between 1990 and 2003. We performed a sensitivity analysis by varying the ICD-9 codes in the criterion standard. We also tested CoCo on chief complaints from EDs in a second location (Utah). Results Approximately 16% (85,569/527,228) of the patients were classified according to the criterion standard into 1 of the 7 syndromes. CoCo's classification performance (number of cases by criterion standard, sensitivity [95% confidence interval (CI)], and specificity [95% CI]) was respiratory (34,916, 63.1 [62.6 to 63.6], 94.3 [94.3 to 94.4]); botulinic (1,961, 30.1 [28.2 to 32.2], 99.3 [99.3 to 99.3]); gastrointestinal (20,431, 69.0 [68.4 to 69.6], 95.6 [95.6 to 95.7]); neurologic (7,393, 67.6 [66.6 to 68.7], 92.7 [92.6 to 92.8]); rash (2,232, 46.8 [44.8 to 48.9], 99.3 [99.3 to 99.3]); constitutional (10,603, 45.8 [44.9 to 46.8], 96.6 [96.6 to 96.7]); and hemorrhagic (8,033, 75.2 [74.3 to 76.2], 98.5 [98.4 to 98.5]). The sensitivity analysis showed that the results were not affected by the choice of ICD-9 codes in the criterion standard. Classification accuracy did not differ on chief complaints from the second location. Conclusion Our results suggest that, for most syndromes, our chief complaint classification system can identify about half of the patients with relevant syndromic presentations, with specificities higher than 90% and positive predictive values ranging from 12% to 44%.
Streaming association rule (SAR) mining with a weighted order-dependent representation of Web navigation patterns

This paper considers a problem of finding predictive and useful association rules with a new Web mining algorithm, a streaming association rule (SAR) model. We first adopt a weighted order-dependent scheme (assigning more weights for early visited pages) rather than taking a traditional Boolean scheme (assigning 1 for visited and 0 for non-visited pages). This way, we intend to improve the limited representation of navigation patterns in previous association rule mining (ARM) algorithms. We also note that most traditional association rule models are not scalable because they require multiple scans of all records to re-calibrate a predictive model when there are new updates in original databases. The proposed SAR model takes a "divide-and-conquer" approach and requires only single scan of data sets to avoid the curse of dimensionality. Through comparative experiments on a real-world data set, we show that prediction models based on a weighted order-dependent representation are more accurate in predicting the next moves of Web navigators than models based on a Boolean representation. In particular, when combined with several heuristics developed to eliminate redundant association rules, SAR models show a very comparable prediction accuracy while maintaining a small fraction of association rules compared to traditional ARM models. Finally, we quantify and graphically show the significance or contribution of each pages to forming unique rule sets in each database segments.
Advanced boron-based ultra-low energy doping techniques on ultra-shallo junction fabrications

The focus of this paper is a comparative study of the advanced boron-based ultra-low energy (ULE) doping techniques on ultra-shallow junction (USJ) fabrications, including beam-line atomic 11B implant, BF 2 , B 18 H 22 , C 2 B 10 H 12 molecular implants, cluster B implant, and B 2 H 6 and BF 3 PLAD implants. It has been found that B 2 H 6 PLAD and B 18 H 22 molecular implants demonstrate the best R S -x j and abruptness characteristics. Beam-line BF 2 implant shows poor R S -x j characteristics due to its serious RIE effect by F species. Cluster B implant shows the worst R S -x j characteristics and a very rough surface. Both are attributed to its serious self-sputtering effect because of its much larger and heavier ion species although further optimization may lead to improvement.