cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
HPV Vaccination and the Role of the Pediatric Dentist: Survey of Graduate Program Directors.

PURPOSE This study's purpose was to evaluate what is currently being taught in graduate pediatric dental programs regarding the human papillomavirus (HPV), the HPV vaccine, and risk factors associated with oropharyngeal cancer (OPC). METHODS A 42-question survey was administered via paper-and-pen survey instrument to attendees at the 2016 American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry (AAPD) annual meeting for graduate and associate program directors. The survey included questions evaluating attitudes/beliefs toward the HPV vaccine and current training in graduate pediatric dentistry programs and aimed to define whether the directors believe that the discussion of HPV vaccination and associated risk factors was within the scope of practice for pediatric dentists. RESULTS Sixty-four of 71 attendees completed the survey; 77 percent of respondents believe they should be discussing the HPV vaccine with patients/parents. Increased age of respondent was correlated with the idea of discussion of sexual health and its link to OPC being within the scope of practice of pediatric dentistry (r equals 0.35, P=.005). CONCLUSIONS A majority (77 percent) of graduate and associate program directors believe they should be discussing the human papillomavirus vaccine with patients and parents; however, only 25 percent of respondents currently include information about HPV and the vaccine in their curricula.
Abstract 2565: VCP/p97 segregase-mediated regulation of chromatin-bound PTEN stability

Phosphatase and Tensin homolog (PTEN) tumor suppressor protein is associated with many human cancers. PTEN has been shown to accumulate in the nucleus and control DNA repair in response to genotoxic stress. PTEN down-regulation impairs the capacity of global genomic nucleotide excision repair by suppressing the early DNA damage sensor, Xeroderma pigmentosum C (XPC), protein. Our recent work has demonstrated that the Valosin-containing protein (VCP)/p97 segregase participates in proteolytic processing of XPC and Cockayne syndrome B (CSB) proteins. Here, we show that (i) VCP/p97 segregase, in conjunction with its adaptor proteins, specifically extracts PTEN from damaged chromatin for targeted proteasomal degradation, (ii) inhibition of VCP/p97 activity induces the accumulation of PTEN on chromatin, and (iii) VCP/p97 physically interacts with PTEN. Depletion of VCP/p97, in p97-knockout cells or siRNA-mediated ablation in normal cells, affects the stability of PTEN in response to cellular UV irradiation. Results show that compromising the proteasome and VCP/p97 functions causes the accumulation of PTEN accompanied by an increase of UBXD7, proteasomal RPN2 and Sug1 within the chromatin compartment. To our knowledge, this is the first report to reveal that VCP/p97 segregase extracts tumor suppressor PTEN from damaged chromatin. (This work was supported by NIH grants ES002388 and ES012991 to AAW). Citation Format: Jinshan He, Gulzar Wani, Qianzheng Zhu, Altaf A Wani. VCP/p97 segregase-mediated regulation of chromatin-bound PTEN stability [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2017; 2017 Apr 1-5; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2017;77(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 2565. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2017-2565
Utility of CT Findings in the Diagnosis of Cecal Volvulus.

OBJECTIVE. The objective of our study was to assess the utility of CT features in the diagnosis of cecal volvulus. MATERIALS AND METHODS. Forty-three patients undergoing CT for cecal volvulus and with surgical or clinical follow-up were included. Two radiologists (11 years and 1 year of experience) evaluated CT examinations for the following: whirl sign, abnormal cecal position, “bird beak” sign, severe cecal distention, mesenteric engorgement, a newly described “central appendix” sign (defined as abnormal appendix position near midline), and overall impression for cecal volvulus. Univariable and multivariable assessments were performed. Patients with CT examinations in which the appendix was not visible were excluded from calculations involving the central appendix sign. RESULTS. Fifty-one percent (n = 22) of patients had cecal volvulus. All CT findings were significantly more common in patients with cecal volvulus (p < 0.01) other than mesenteric engorgement for reader 1 (p = 0.332). Readers 1 and 2 ide...
Determinants of Market Exclusivity for Prescription Drugs in the United States

The high prices of brand-name prescription drugs are a growing source of controversy in the United States. Manufacturers of brand-name drugs can command high prices because they are protected from generic competition by two types of government-granted monopoly rights. The first are patents on the drugs that generally define the basic period of brand-name-only sales. The second is awarded at the time of US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval and usually defines the minimum time until a generic can be sold. The initial patents last for 20 years and may be extended to account for time spent in clinical trials and regulatory review; other laws prevent approval of other manufacturers’ versions of new drugs for about 6 to 7 years, and for new biologics for 12 years. Overall, most new drugs receive about 12 to 16 years of market exclusivity from both kinds of monopoly protection combined. We reviewed the peer-reviewed medical and health policy literature to identify studies that described the different types of patent protection and regulatory exclusivities that shield brand-name prescription drugs from competition and thus help to sustain high drug prices. We also identified potential policy reforms intended to modify exclusivity periods to address public health needs by balancing drug affordability and industry revenue. The goal of policy in this area should be to ensure that drug market exclusivity periods provide for fair return on investment but do not indefinitely block availability of lower-cost generic drugs.
Past trauma and future choices: Differences in discounting in low-income, urban African Americans

Background Exposure to traumatic events is surprisingly common, yet little is known about its effect on decision making beyond the fact that those with post-traumatic stress disorder are more likely to have substance-abuse problems. We examined the effects of exposure to severe trauma on decision making in low-income, urban African Americans, a group especially likely to have had such traumatic experiences. Method Participants completed three decision-making tasks that assessed the subjective value of delayed monetary rewards and payments and of probabilistic rewards. Trauma-exposed cases and controls were propensity-matched on demographic measures, treatment for psychological problems, and substance dependence. Results Trauma-exposed cases discounted the value of delayed rewards and delayed payments, but not probabilistic rewards, more steeply than controls. Surprisingly, given previous findings that suggested women are more affected by trauma when female and male participants' data were analyzed separately, only the male cases showed steeper delay discounting. Compared with nonalcoholic males who were not exposed to trauma, both severe trauma and alcohol-dependence produced significantly steeper discounting of delayed rewards. Conclusions The current study shows that exposure to severe trauma selectively affects fundamental decision-making processes. Only males were affected, and effects were observed only on discounting delayed outcomes (i.e. intertemporal choice) and not on discounting probabilistic outcomes (i.e. risky choice). These findings are the first to show significant differences in the effects of trauma on men's and women's decision making, and the selectivity of these effects has potentially important implications for treatment and also provides clues as to underlying mechanisms.
Single-agent bevacizumab in the treatment of recurrent or refractory pediatric low-grade glioma: A single institutional experience

Author(s): Gorsi, Hamza S; Khanna, Paritosh C; Tumblin, Mark; Yeh-Nayre, Lanipua; Milburn, Mehrzad; Elster, Jennifer D; Crawford, John R | Abstract: INTRODUCTION:Bevacizumab-based therapy has been demonstrated to be effective in the treatment of refractory or recurrent pediatric low-grade glioma (LGG); however its efficacy as a single agent is less understood. METHODS:We report our experience with single-agent bevacizumab for the treatment of recurrent or refractory LGG treated with either standard 2 week dosing (10 mg/kg/dose every 2 weeks) or with a standard 2 week dosing followed by an increased interval dosing (10 mg/kg/dose every 4 weeks). RESULTS:From 2012 to 2017, 15 patients (five males and 10 females) with recurrent/refractory LGG (nine suprasellar, three thalamic, two brainstem, and one intramedullary spinal cord) were treated with a total of 156 doses of bevacizumab (115 every 2 week dosing, 41 every 4 week dosing, median 10 doses). Patients were refractory to a median of one nonsurgical therapy (range 0-3) prior to treatment with bevacizumab. Twelve of 15 demonstrated radiographic response (three complete, nine partial, and three stable disease). Significant clinical responses including improved visual fields (four), cranial neuropathy (three3), strength (seven), and gait (two) were observed. Bevacizumab was discontinued in 12 patients (resolution, one; disease stability, seven; progression, two; toxicity, one; and other, one) and three patients continue to receive monthly bevacizumab. Eleven patients eventually had radiographic progression (median 5 months, range 0.5-31) without clinical progression, and four of five receiving bevacizumab rechallenge had lpartial response. CONCLUSION:Single-agent bevacizumab is efficacious in the management of recurrent or refractory pediatric LGG with radiographic and clinical responses similar to those reported for bevacizumab-based therapies.
A Trust Region Method for Constrained Nonsmooth Equations

In this paper, we develop and analyze the convergence of a fairly general trust region method for solving a system of nonsmooth equations subject to some linear constraints. The method is based on the existence of an iteration function for the nonsmooth equations and involves the solution of a sequence of sub- problems defined by this function. A particular realization of the method leads to an arbitrary-norm trust region method. Applications of the latter method to the nonlinear complementarity and related problems are discussed. Sequential convergence of the method and its rate of convergence are established under certain regularity conditions similar to those used in the NE/SQP method [14] and its generalization [16]. Some computational results are reported.
Societal, Educational, and Occupational Changes

This chapter will provide a theoretical and empirical review of the societal and educational factors contributing to the relatively recent emergence of a new developmental stage occurring between adolescence and adulthood. The review specifically examines how these societal and educational changes have contributed to the ephemeral nature of emerging adulthood and the resulting consequences. Shifts in educational and occupational circumstances over the past few decades are continuing to impact and prolong the transition from adolescence to adulthood. Significant increases in enrollment in not only baccalaureate programs but post baccalaureate programs highlight the changing nature of modern careers and occupations. These educational and economic shifts are particularly noticeable in western societies but have been noted to some degrees in other societies augmenting the evolution from adolescence to adulthood globally.
Conformal Field Theory Methods and Construction of Witten’s Superstring Field Theory

This is a review of the operator construction of open superstring field theory. Witten’s approach to interactions is followed and the construction is given using conformai field theory methods. Using the mappings from the upper half plane one obtains the superstring correlation functions in the scattering plane. These give the vertex operators of the theory.
Rent Seeking and theImportance of Disorganization

Currently, rent seeking is all the rage in economics. Since I actually invented the idea, although not the name, the reader might be surprised if I did not discuss it in this book.1 That is not the only reason for bringing it up. One aspect of rent seeking is of great importance in the internal structure of any large organization.
The Influence of Smut Infection in Larker Barley on Malting and Brewing Quality1

(1968). The Influence of Smut Infection in Larker Barley on Malting and Brewing Quality. Proceedings. Annual meeting - American Society of Brewing Chemists: Vol. 26, Proceedings of the Annual Meeting 1968, pp. 37-41.
Magnetic resonance imaging with cochlear implants and auditory brainstem implants: Are we truly practicing MRI safety?

Objective Our objective is to evaluate the safety in patients with cochlear implants (CIs) and auditory brainstem implants (ABI) undergoing 1.5 Tesla (T) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Secondly, we want to raise awareness on CI and MRI safety, and advocate for continued improvement and advancement to minimize morbidity for our CI patients. Methods Retrospective case series from 2006 to 2018 at a single tertiary academic center. Data was collected on patients with CI or auditory brainstem implants undergoing MRI. Outcomes collected include demographic data, age at time of MRI, MRI characteristics, complications, CI manufacturer, and image quality. Results Eighteen patients with CI or ABI collectively underwent a total of 62 MRI scans. Five of 15 (33%) CI patients with magnet had complications: five total of 24 MRI scans (21%). Two patients had magnet removal prior to 29 MRI scans without complications. Four of five MRI-related complications were equipped with a U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved head wrap. Three of five required a trip to the operating room to explore and reposition the CI magnet; two could not complete MRI secondary to pain. Of the complications, two were Cochlear (Sydney, Australia), two Advanced Bionics (Valencia, CA), and one MED-EL (Innsbruck, Austria). Synchrony model (MED-EL) had 0 of seven complications, with a total of 19 MRI scans, which features a freely rotating and self-aligning magnet. Conclusion Our series offers a diverse number of CI manufacturers and is in accordance with other literature that CI MRI-related adverse events are occurring at an unacceptable frequency. We can promote CI MRI safety through our institutions' MRI CI patient protocols, raise awareness that diagnostic MRI benefits must outweigh CI-related complications, and advocate for continued industry technological innovation. Level of evidence 4 Laryngoscope, 129:482-489, 2019.
Engaging Future Professionals: How Language Teacher Associations Facilitate the Involvement of Student Members

Little has been previously documented about the ways language teacher associations (LTAs) support the membership and involvement of student teachers. In this study, the publicly available information on the websites of 124 LTAs in the United States was reviewed to identify the strategies used by these associations to recruit student members, facilitate their involvement in association activities, and meet their unique member needs. Associations reviewed included language-specific associations (e.g., Spanish, English as a second language) as well as associations serving teachers of various languages. Findings indicate that the primary way LTAs encourage students to join is by offering discounted student memberships. However, there is a lack of consistency in how “student” is defined and the type of evidence required to prove student status. LTAs demonstrate that they value student members by allowing them to participate in association governance, giving awards which recognize student teachers’ developing pedagogical skills, and featuring students in member spotlights on websites and in newsletters. They also allow students to contribute to the work of the association through volunteering and to the knowledge base of the field through special presentation and publication opportunities. LTAs further strive to meet students’ financial needs by offering membership and conference registration discounts, grants for conference attendance, and scholarships for educational pursuits. Finally, they attempt to meet student members’ social and career development through the formation of student subgroups and career mentoring initiatives. The chapter concludes with recommendations on steps LTAs can take to more actively involve student members.
Online Video: Content Models, Emerging Market Structure, and Regulatory Policy Solutions

This paper, based on a much more extensive book that is being completed this summer, proposes a regulatory system for the emerging online video medium. Huge Changes are coming for culture and society, as TV moves from slow change to Moore’s Law dynamics. Cloud platform providers, which will be vertically integrated into content and data, will dominate the system. The reasons are the fundamental economics of such operations, plus the advantages of data. The changes that are upon us also require us to conceive of a regulatory system for this new environment. Cloud-TV will transform content into experience. Its leading edge will be interactive, immersive, and individualized. This will affect Advertising and Marketing Applications, as well as Entertainment: film, games, sports, adventure, documentaries, adult applications. In consequence, Cloud TV will be an enormously powerful medium in social, cultural, and economic terms. The paper will analyze these impacts, and the problems. The emerging medium will also be dominated by a few organizations, and will cause significant societal problems (as well as positives). 1. The new media system will have multiple problems, some traditional ones in new settings, and some new ones. 2. The paper will identify the problems and show that most them will not be resolved through competition. 3. Governments, in addressing these issues, will find that they can regulate most effectively by delegating the policing of problems to the intermediate content platforms and infrastructure platforms. This was discussed at last year’s TPRC. 4. Furthermore, a more open and competitive media system will make it more difficult to deal with these problems than a more concentrated system. 5. Arguably more important for open and diverse media is to deal with market power. The better alternative model would be to require a system of unbundling of the segments with market power, and their accessibility and interoperation by independent providers. That model is the unbundled model with access rights/links . 6. Platforms with significant media market power (SMPP) accessed by right hold only limited liability for violations by those who use such access. They cannot impose restrictions beyond those of the law, or differentiate between content providers, beyond purely technical reasons. 7. The paper will work this out in considerable detail, and make specific regulatory recommendations
3-(4-Iodo­phen­yl)-2,3-di­hydro-1H-benzo[f]chromen-1-one

In the title compound, C19H13IO2, the dihedral angle between the naphthyl ring system and the pendant iodo­phenyl ring is 72.48 (11)°. In the crystal, C—H⋯π inter­actions and I⋯O [3.293 (2) A] halogen bonds are observed, which combine to generate a herringbone packing motif.
School Reputation as a Site of Struggle: An Investigation of the Impact of School Choice in Washington, DC on a Neighborhood Public School.

In this article, I draw on interviews with teachers and administrators at a secondary neighborhood public school in Washington, DC about their perceptions of how the school is viewed by external stakeholders and the impact of those perceptions within an urban education market. Extant empirical research on market forces and effects has not centrally focused on school reputation as an analytic unit to understand how public schools are impacted by school choice and competition. Utilizing reputation of place as a conceptual frame, the findings reveal that school reputation has both discursive and material impacts on urban public schools. Further, school reputation acts as a site of struggle for educators at three distinct and overlapping areas: struggle with partners, struggle with enrollment, and site of struggle with the urban space environment. Finally, the findings confirm that the logics of choice as a means for school improvement are inherently flawed. Given these findings, recommendations for teachers and leaders are offered.
A family affair.

I have sometimes wondered what it would be like to have one of my children join me in the practice of medicine. I just didn't anticipate that it would happen when one of them was 12 years old.
Avoiding Drug Resistance by Substrate Envelope-Guided Design: Toward Potent and Robust HCV NS3/4A Protease Inhibitors

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infects millions of people worldwide, causing chronic liver disease that can lead to cirrhosis, hepatocellular carcinoma, and liver transplant. In the last several years, the advent of direct-acting antivirals, including NS3/4A protease inhibitors (PIs), has remarkably improved treatment outcomes of HCV-infected patients. However, selection of resistance-associated substitutions and polymorphisms among genotypes can lead to drug resistance and in some cases treatment failure. A proactive strategy to combat resistance is to constrain PIs within evolutionarily conserved regions in the protease active site. Designing PIs using the substrate envelope is a rational strategy to decrease the susceptibility to resistance by using the constraints of substrate recognition. We successfully designed two series of HCV NS3/4A PIs to leverage unexploited areas in the substrate envelope to improve potency, specifically against resistance-associated substitutions at D168. Our design strategy achieved better resistance profiles over both the FDA-approved NS3/4A PI grazoprevir and the parent compound against the clinically relevant D168A substitution. Crystallographic structural analysis and inhibition assays confirmed that optimally filling the substrate envelope is critical to improve inhibitor potency while avoiding resistance. Specifically, inhibitors that enhanced hydrophobic packing in the S4 pocket and avoided an energetically frustrated pocket performed the best. Thus, the HCV substrate envelope proved to be a powerful tool to design robust PIs, offering a strategy that can be translated to other targets for rational design of inhibitors with improved potency and resistance profiles.IMPORTANCE Despite significant progress, hepatitis C virus (HCV) continues to be a major health problem with millions of people infected worldwide and thousands dying annually due to resulting complications. Recent antiviral combinations can achieve >95% cure, but late diagnosis, low access to treatment, and treatment failure due to drug resistance continue to be roadblocks against eradication of the virus. We report the rational design of two series of HCV NS3/4A protease inhibitors with improved resistance profiles by exploiting evolutionarily constrained regions of the active site using the substrate envelope model. Optimally filling the S4 pocket is critical to avoid resistance and improve potency. Our results provide drug design strategies to avoid resistance that are applicable to other quickly evolving viral drug targets.
Effects of access to stationary brushes and chopped hay on behavior and performance of individually housed dairy calves

Providing individually housed dairy calves with opportunities for a greater range of natural behaviors, including foraging and grooming, has broad benefits for their behavioral development and performance. We evaluated the effects of providing hay and stationary brushes on performance and time engaged in feeding, grooming, and nonnutritive oral behaviors. Holstein calves were individually housed and assigned at 14 d of age to 1 of 4 treatments providing: a stationary brush (n = 10), chopped coastal bermudagrass hay (n = 9), both a stationary brush and chopped bermudagrass (n = 10), or no brushes nor additional feed (n = 10). Calves had ad libitum access to calf starter and water and were provided 8 L/d pasteurized waste milk fed in 2 meals via a teat bucket. Beginning at 43 d of age, calves were weaned across 10 d. Solid feed intake was measured daily, and growth parameters and cleanliness were measured weekly. Behavioral data were collected on 2 consecutive days at 25 ± 3 d, recorded continuously from video within daylight for 12 h. Provision of hay tended to increase solid feed intake and average daily gain during weaning, and calves provided a brush had improved coat cleanliness during weaning. Calves performed nonnutritive oral behavior, primarily directed toward the pen, with peaks in these abnormal behaviors around milk feeding. The duration of teat-directed nonnutritive sucking was reduced by access to either hay or a brush, compared with neither (3.2 vs. 6.8 min/12 h observation). Provision of a brush reduced pen-directed sucking (38.4 vs. 59.0 min/12 h observation), particularly at milk-feeding time, and also reduced standing time around milk feeding. Self-grooming was not affected by brush or hay access, but provision of the brush increased total time engaged in grooming behaviors (52.9 vs. 40.2 min/12 h observation). These results support benefits of accommodating natural foraging and grooming behaviors, yet reveal a high prevalence of nonnutritive oral behaviors in dairy calves. Overall, these findings underline the importance of environmental complexity in early rearing environments, and compel further consideration of behavioral needs of dairy calves to reduce the development of abnormal behaviors.
Feature-based automated segmentation of ablation zones by fuzzy c-mean clustering during low-dose computed tomography

Purpose Intra-procedural monitoring and post-procedural follow-up is necessary for a successful ablation treatment. An imaging technique which can assess the ablation geometry accurately is beneficial to monitor and evaluate treatment. In this study, we developed an automated ablation segmentation technique for serial low-dose, noisy ablation computed tomography (CT) or contrast-enhanced CT (CECT). Methods Low-dose, noisy temporal CT and CECT volumes were acquired during microwave ablation on normal porcine liver (four with non-contrast CT and eight with CECT). Highly constrained backprojection (HYPR) processing was used to recover ablation zone information compromised by low-dose noise. First-order statistic features and normalized fractional Brownian features (NBF) were used to segment ablation zones by fuzzy c-mean clustering. After clustering, the segmented ablation zone was refined by cyclic morphological processing. Automatic and manual segmentations were compared to gross pathology with Dice's coefficient (morphological similarity), while cross-sectional dimensions were compared by percent difference. Results Automatic and manual segmentations of the ablation zone were very similar to gross pathology (Dice Coefficients: Auto.-Path. = 0.84 ± 0.02; Manu.-Path. = 0.76 ± 0.03, P = 0.11). The differences in ablation area, major diameter and minor diameter were 17.9 ± 3.2%, 11.1 ± 3.2% and 16.2 ± 3.4%, respectively, when comparing automatic segmentation to gross pathology, which were lower than the differences of 32.9 ± 16.8%, 13.0 ± 9.8% and 21.8 ± 5.8% when comparing manual segmentation to gross pathology. Manual segmentations tended to overestimate gross pathology when ablation area was less than 15 cm2 , but the automated segmentation tended to underestimate gross pathology when ablation zone is larger than 20 cm2 . Conclusion Fuzzy c-means clustering may be used to aid automatic segmentation of ablation zones without prior information or user input, making serial CT/CECT has more potential to assess treatments intra-procedurally.
Analysis of burst acknowledgement mechanisms for IEEE 802.11e WLANs over fading wireless channels

Transmission opportunity, or TXOP, is a channel control method introduced in the IEEE 802.11e wireless local area network (WLAN) standard. The control method includes some new operations developed for improving channel efficiency. In this paper, we propose an analytical model to evaluate these TXOP operations under fading channels. With this model, we calculate the maximum achievable throughput for the IEEE 802.11 DCF with RTS/CTS access mode. In addition, we quantify in the experiments how these operations can affect the system efficiency for different environments. The experiment results well confirm the theoretical model that provides new insights on design criterion for a WLAN in the real world.
Using Word Embeddings to Deter Intellectual Property Theft through Automated Generation of Fake Documents

Theft of intellectual property is a growing problem—one that is exacerbated by the fact that a successful compromise of an enterprise might only become known months after the hack. A recent solution called FORGE addresses this problem by automatically generating N “fake” versions of any real document so that the attacker has to determine which of the N + 1 documents that they have exfiltrated from a compromised network is real. In this article, we remove two major drawbacks in FORGE: (i) FORGE requires ontologies in order to generate fake documents—however, in the real world, ontologies, especially good ontologies, are infrequently available. The WE-FORGE system proposed in this article completely eliminates the need for ontologies by using distance metrics on word embeddings instead. (ii) FORGE generates fake documents by first identifying “target” concepts in the original document and then substituting “replacement” concepts for them. However, we will show that this can lead to sub-optimal results (e.g., as target concepts are selected without knowing the availability and/or quality of the replacement concepts, they can sometimes lead to poor results). Our WE-FORGE system addresses this problem in two possible ways by performing a joint optimization to select concepts and replacements simultaneously. We conduct a human study involving both computer science and chemistry documents and show that WE-FORGE successfully deceives adversaries.
Compare FDG-PET and abdominal and pelvic MRI in detecting of residual or recurrent colorectal cancer

1719 Objectives: Colon cancer is the second most leading cause of death in the United States. Eighty percent of patients can be cured with surgical resection, two third of them will experience recurrence. The objective of our study was to compare the usefulness of FDG-PET imaging in the detection of local recurrence or metastases to the abdomen and pelvis in patient with colorectal cancer as compared to abdominal and pelvic MRI (MRI). Methods: Forty-seven consecutive patients (25 males and 22 females, mean age of 59±13 year) with history of colorectal cancer were included in the retrospective analysis. FDG PET and MRI studies within 2 months interval were reviewed for the presence of residual or local recurrence disease in abdominal and pelvic area. The presence of the diseases was proved by histopathologic findings and/or clinical follow up at least 6 months. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV) and accuracy were calculated for each imaging modalities. The performances of both imaging modalities were compared using Chi-square test for equality of distributions. Results: For the FDG PET studies, the sensitivity, specificity measured 86% (30/35) and 83% (10/12) respectively. The PPV, NPV and accuracy were 94% (30/32), 67% (10/15) and 85% (40/47) respectively. As for MRI studies, the sensitivity and specificity measured 91% (32/35) and 58% (7/12) respectively. The PPV, NPV and accuracy measured 87% (32/37), 70% (7/10) and 83% (39/47) respectively. There was no statistically significant difference between FDG PET and MRI in detecting the presence of the disease intra-abdomen. Conclusions: FDG PET is a tool that could be used in the detection and assessment of a residual versus recurrent disease of abdomen and pelvis in colorectal cancer. In our study, FDG PET showed to be superior in specificity than MRI. On the other hand, MRI was superior in sensitivity than FDG PET. In the future, combined PET and MRI imaging modalities may be useful in the management of patients with colorectal cancer.
Matchsticks, scram jets, and black holes - Numerical simulation faces reality

The evolution of the science and art of numerical simulation of complex, complicated fluid flows has made enormous strides in the past 40 years. We have progressed from relatively simplified one-dimensional steady-state results to fully three-dimensional, time-dependent simulations including very complex physics. These advances have been driven by new computational hardware, new algorithms for solving the equations, and the real need for this technology. The broad range of applications that are possible are emphasized and some of what we can now do, what we have learned, and where we might go with this exciting technology in the future is described
Porcine small intestine graft for reconstruction of oral defects.

Objective To evaluate the feasibility and outcomes of porcine submucosal allograft (Biodesign Sinonasal Repair Graft [Cook Medical, Bloomington, IN]) in oral cavity and oropharynx reconstruction after ablative surgery. Methods We conducted a prospective and retrospective review of patients who underwent Biodesign Sinonasal Repair Graft reconstruction for oral and oropharyngeal surgical defects at a single institution between 2018 and 2020. A total of 11 patients were included in the study. Data points included their perioperative medical and demographic data, immediate postoperative course, and follow-up visits at 10 days and at 2 months. The clinicopathologic characteristics of their disease, postoperative esthetic, and functional outcomes were recorded and analyzed. Results Eleven procedures have been performed, and all patients received Biodesign reconstruction either immediately after ablation or after they failed a previous reconstruction. None of the patients had bone exposure. The subsites included oral tongue (n = 6), floor of the mouth (n = 3), buccal mucosa (n = 1), and soft palate (n = 1). In all cases, the operations and the postoperative course were uneventful. The mean defect size was 22 cm2. The median start of oral intake was at 2 days postoperatively. The Biodesign graft healed well in all patients with no total graft loss. There was one complication that required revision surgery due to obstruction of Wharton's duct by the Biodesign material. Conclusions Biodesign can be a viable option for small and medium-sized oral and oropharyngeal defects in patients who are medically unfit or do not want to undergo a free flap surgery. Level of Evidence 4.
Leaked-Web: Accurate and Efficient Machine Learning-Based Website Fingerprinting Attack through Hardware Performance Counters.

Users' website browsing history contains sensitive information, like health conditions, political interests, financial situations, etc. Some recent studies have demonstrated the possibility of inferring website fingerprints based on important usage information such as traffic, cache usage, memory usage, CPU activity, power consumption, and hardware performance counters information. However, existing website fingerprinting attacks demand a high sampling rate which causes high performance overheads and large network traffic, and/or they require launching an additional malicious website by the user, which is not guaranteed. As a result, such drawbacks make the existing attacks more noticeable to users and corresponding fingerprinting detection mechanisms. In response, in this work, we propose Leaked-Web, a novel accurate and efficient machine learning-based website fingerprinting attack through processor's Hardware Performance Counters (HPCs). Leaked-Web efficiently collects hardware performance counters in users' computer systems at a significantly low granularity monitoring rate and sends the samples to the remote attack's server for further classification. Leaked-Web examines the web browsers' microarchitectural features using various advanced machine learning algorithms ranging from classical, boosting, deep learning, and time-series models. Our experimental results indicate that Leaked-Web based on a LogitBoost ML classifier using only the top 4 HPC features achieves 91% classification accuracy outperforming the state-of-the-art attacks by nearly 5%. Furthermore, our proposed attack obtains a negligible performance overhead (only <1%), around 12% lower than the existing hardware-assisted website fingerprinting attacks.
Non-uniform Compressive Sensing via Ohmic Voltage Attenuation: A Memristive Crossbar Design Approach Leveraging Intrinsic Computation

Compressive Sensing (CS) is a promising technique for transmitting signals in power-critical applications such as Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Non-uniform CS optimizes this process by adjusting sampling frequency based on the relative importance levels characterized by the signal of interest. Recent advances have yielded energy-efficient hardware implementations of CS sampling, leveraging spin-based crossbar architectures for in-memory vector-matrix multiplication and through the use of probabilistic bit (p-bit) devices to generate tunable random outputs for writing the array. Thus, a region of interest is generated via column-ordered density of on-state devices. Herein, we propose a simple design for supplying inputs to the p-bit devices, based on Ohmic voltage attenuation occurring along the word lines of the crossbar array. The technique embeds some required computations to be conducted intrinsically by the cross-points of the memristive array, thus bypassing overheads of conventional instruction execution and eliminating the need for costly hardware components such as lookup tables and data converters. The design is shown to be robust for various array sizes and parasitics while generating the appropriate tuning signals within a single clock cycle duration of 1.6ns, and at an energy overhead of 333fJ. Compared with a standard approach using lookup tables and digital to-analog converters, the design herein achieves a 583-fold reduction in energy and 23-fold reduction in transistor count.
MACROSYSTEM OF THE SOCIETAL SELF-ORGANIZATION

The macrosystem of the societal self-organization was developed under the hypothesis that the societal organization surfaces as a result of the interface between two forces of nature; on the one side is the human creativity that strives to secure human needs and to enrich individual’s existence; on the other side is the entropy that tends to degrade all things that are created and to inflict disorder where order exists. By means of holistic concepts representing the various aspects of the societal organization first the study depicts, the society’s organizational design for encountering entropy. The second part of the model introduces the operational processes through which the organizational design is sustained and altered. The concluding discussion of equilibration, progress, and development relates the study to societal development.
Descriptions of the postembryonic developmental stages of Hatschekia bifurcata Yamaguti & Yamasu, 1959 (Copepoda, Siphonostomatoida, Hatschekiidae)

A series of descriptions of postembryonic developmental stages of Hatschekia bifurcataYamaguti & Yamasu, 1959 is presented based on free-living larvae reared from eggs detached from ovigerous females recovered from the branchial lamellae of Aulacocephalus temminckiBleeker, 1855, as well as on copepodids I-VI from A. temminckiand Diploprion bifasciatumCuvier, 1828 (Pisces, Perciformes, Serranidae). The number of naupliar stages preceding the infective copepodid I is three in this species as in H. multibarbataeIzawa, 2015. A diagnostic feature of the species, a hook-like ventral process on the fourth antennular segment of the female, is regarded as an enlarged seta and was found to appear after copepodid V. A correction in the previously given setation of leg 2 and a complemental description of the antennule of the adult female are made. The male of this species is herein described for the first time. The sexes become distinct at copepodid III, and then growth curves of both sexes diverge stage by stage, as in H. multibarbatae. Aulacocephalus temminckiis reported as a new host species for H. bifurcata.
Trollope, Seriality, and the 'Dullness' of Form

Trollope’s serial fiction satirizes literary tropes and conventions in order to produce a sense of historical veracity. In the Barsetshire series, Trollope uses undeveloped or ‘embryo’ plots in order to build narrative suspense within highly conventional plots. Within plots so conventional that conclusions are foregone, Trollope engineers excitement by offering multiple paths toward the foregone conclusion. Henry James found Anthony Trollope’s chatty, intrusive narrator to be most irritating. Trollope ‘took a suicidal satisfaction in reminding the reader that the story he was telling was only, after all, make believe,’ he wrote (116–7). Chiding Trollope’s interventions as ‘inartistic,’ James continues: ‘It is impossible to imagine what a novelist takes himself to be unless he regards himself as a historian and his narrative as a history. It is only as a historian that he has the smallest locus standi. As a narrator of fictional events he is nowhere; to insert into his attempt a back-bone of logic, he must relate events that are assumed to be real’ (116–7). James is correct in one sense: Anthony Trollope did not work within
Motivations of Play in MMORPGs

An empirical model of player motivations in MMORPGs provides the foundation to understanding and assessing how players differ from one another and how motivations of play relate to age, gender, usage patterns and in-game behaviors. In the current study, a factor analytic approach was used to create an empirical model of player motivations. The analysis revealed 10 motivation subcomponents that grouped into 3 overarching components (Achievement, Social, and Immersion). Relationships between motivations and demographic variables (age, gender, and usage patterns) are also presented.
Suppression of sodium channel function in differentiating C2 muscle cells stably overexpressing rat androgen receptors

Differentiation of skeletal muscle and the formation of the neuromuscular junction are regulated by steroid hormones. The effects of androgens on ion channel proteins central to neuromuscular signalling have been investigated in differentiating mouse muscle C2 cells and in C2 cells that stably overexpress the rat androgen receptor (AR) cDNA. Neither the expression nor function of ACh receptors was regulated by androgenic actions in these cells. However, voltage- dependent sodium (Na) current density was decreased by androgen treatment of C2 cells and was abolished, even in the absence of androgens, in C2 cells that overexpress the AR. The decrease in functional Na current was not accompanied by concomitant decreases in Na channel mRNA, suggesting that AR influence posttranscriptional processing of Na channels in differentiating C2 cells.
Using PIC processors in computer organization

Computer Organization and Computer Architecture topics face an ever increasing squeeze out of the computer science curriculum. Reasons include the need to include more topics, the increased complexity of the desktop and perceived lack of "usefulness" by faculty and students. But we focus on the fact that our students have rarely, if ever, "built" something. By using an inexpensive microcontroller (PIC), we can show students the validity of learning computer organization and share with them the joy of constructing a "real" project. We describe the selection process for a microcontroller, the advantages of the PIC family, and conclude with a traditional project students build as part of the Organization course.
DRAM technology: outlook and challenges

As we approach the new millenium DRAM technology is faced with a number of significant new challenges in addition to those associated with the historical DRAM scaling paradigm. Continued lithographic capability scaling is of course required, but this must now be accomplished on an accelerated schedule at a time when the overall development infrastructure (masks, inspection, repair, steppers, resists) is struggling to keep up with historical trends. Similar limitations exist for continued scaling of many cell technologies: node dielectric thickness, array transistor threshold/leakage control, support transistor performance, high aspect ratio metallization and gap fill all face fundamental materials or physics limitations which require significant effort and cost to overcome. At the same time. Continued scaling in support of the historical 27%/bit/yr cost decline requires breakthroughs in both cell technology and product architecture to address the theoretical cell area limit of 8 lithographic squares for the classical folded bitline architecture. Finally, these challenges are appearing at a time when the DRAM marketplace is diverging into multiple high performance interface requirements which stress these technology features even further while market pricing continues to put extreme pressure on process and development cost containment. The author reviews many of these challenges, comments on the details of the technical issues and then outlines some alternatives which may address the concerns.
Chronic levodopa treatment alters basal and dopamine agonist-stimulated cerebral glucose utilization

The effect of chronic levodopa administration on the functional activity of the basal ganglia and its output regions was evaluated by means of the 2-deoxyglucose (2-DG) autoradiographic technique in rats with a unilateral 6-hydroxydopamine lesion of the nigrostriatal pathway. The rates of local cerebral glucose utilization were studied under basal conditions as well as in response to challenge with a selective D1 or D2 dopamine-receptor agonist. Levodopa (100 mg/kg/d, i.p.) was administered for 19 d either continuously via infusion with an osmotic pump or intermittently by twice-daily injections. Following a 3-d washout, glucose utilization was found to be decreased by both levodopa regimens in the nucleus accumbens; intermittent levodopa also decreased glucose utilization in the entopeduncular nucleus, subthalamic nucleus, ventrolateral thalamus, ventromedial thalamus, ventroposterolateral thalamus, and lateral habenula. In control (lesioned and treated chronically with saline) rats, the D1 agonist SKF 38393 (5 mg/kg, i.v.) increased 2-DG uptake in the substantia nigra pars reticulata and entopeduncular nucleus ipsilateral to the lesion by 84% and 56%, respectively. Both continuous and intermittent levodopa blunted the SKF 38393-induced elevation in glucose metabolism in the substantia nigra pars reticulata, while intermittent levodopa also attenuated the increase in the entopeduncular nucleus. The D2 agonist quinpirole (0.4 mg/kg, i.v.) did not increase glucose utilization in any brain region in control animals; following intermittent levodopa treatment, however, quinpirole increased 2-DG uptake by 64% in the subthalamic nucleus and by 39% in the deep layers of the superior colliculus on the ipsilateral side.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Developing black box specifications through sequence enumeration

A rigorous behavioral specification can greatly reduce risk by exposing ambiguities in requirements and making explicit otherwise tacit information. Such an external, or "black box" specification can be developed from behavioral requirements in a systematic manner through the process of sequence enumeration. This process results in an arguably complete, consistent, and traceable specification of external system behavior. Sequence abstraction provides a powerful means to manage and focus the enumeration process.