cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Prior irradiation and the development of coexistent differentiated thyroid cancer and hyperparathyroidism

Twelve patients with coexistent well-differentiated thyroid carcinoma and primary hyperparathyoidism were studied to determine the frequency of previous radiation exposure. Eight were found to have received prior irradiation. External radiation was administered to the head and neck region for benign conditions such as tonsillar enlargement, acne, scrofula, and thyroid enlargement. One patient received 131I therapy for carcinoma of the thyroid. The observation that 67% of the patients in this series had previous radiation to the head and neck strongly implicates radiation exposure in the development of coexistent well-differentiated thyroid carcinoma and hyperparathyroidism.
Increases in bispectral index lead to interventions that prevent possible intraoperative awareness

In this case a woman underwent a cervical laminectomy with a total i.v. anaesthesia technique and during her care two problems occurred with propofol delivery. In both cases, bispectral index increases alerted caregivers to the decreased propofol delivery and allowed them to make corrections in a manner timely enough to prevent the occurrence of awareness during anaesthesia. The case illustrates how intraoperative processed electroencephalographic monitoring may decrease the incidence of recall of awareness following surgery.
INDOLEAMINE 2,3-DIOXYGENASE PRODUCTION BY HUMAN DENDRITIC CELLS RESULTS IN THE INHIBITION OF T CELL PROLIFERATION

Dendritic cells (DCs) play a key role in the activation and regulation of B and T lymphocytes. Production of indoleamine 2, 3-dioxygenase (IDO) by macrophages has recently been described to result in inhibition of T cell proliferation through tryptophan degradation. Since DCs can be derived from monocytes, we sought to determine whether DCs could produce IDO which could potentially regulate T cell proliferation. Northern blot analysis of RNA from cultured monocyte-derived human DC revealed that IDO mRNA was induced upon activation with CD40 ligand and IFN-gamma. IDO produced from activated DCs was functionally active and capable of metabolizing tryptophan to kynurenine. Activated T cells were also capable of inducing IDO production by DCs, which was inhibited by a neutralizing Ab against IFN-gamma. DC production of IDO resulted in inhibition of T cell proliferation, which could be prevented using the IDO inhibitor 1-methyl-dl -tryptophan. These results suggest that activation of DCs induces the production of functional IDO, which causes depletion of tryptophan and subsequent inhibition of T cell proliferation. This may represent a potential mechanism for DCs to regulate the immune response.
Regulation of endothelin-1 synthesis in human pulmonary arterial smooth muscle cells : effects of transforming growth factor-β and hypoxia

Objective : Endothelin-1 (ET-1) potently regulates pulmonary vascular tone and promotes vascular smooth muscle cell growth. Clinical and animal studies implicate increased ET-1 production in the pathogenesis of primary and secondary pulmonary hypertension. Although pulmonary arterial smooth muscle cells (PASMCs) synthesize ET-1 under basal conditions, it is unknown whether factors that may be important in pulmonary hypertension, such as transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) or hypoxia, augment ET-1 production by these cells. Methods : We determined the effect of TGF-β and hypoxia on ET-1 release and preproET-1 mRNA from cultured rat and human PASMCs. Results : In the basal state, rat and human PASMCs synthesize, on average (mean±S.E.M.), 872±114 and 563±57 pg ET-1/mg cell protein over 24 h, respectively, a level that causes autocrine and paracrine effects in other tissues. TGF-β significantly increases the expression of preproET-1 mRNA and ET-1 production by both rat and human PASMCs. Hypoxia for 24 h, however, does not affect ET-1 release from rat or human PASMCs. Conclusions : Cultured rat and human PASMCs are a source of ET-1 production. Enhanced ET-1 release from PASMCs may contribute to the pathophysiology of TGF-β-induced pulmonary hypertension. ET-1 production by PASMCs is unlikely to contribute to the role of ET-1 in hypoxia-induced pulmonary vasoconstriction.
Current Status of Neoadjuvant Therapy for Non-small Cell Lung Cancer

Any program of therapy for clinically advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) that would increase the incidence of local tumor control and decrease the likelihood of distant metastatic disease would be of obvious benefit. The objective of neoadjuvant therapy is to eradicate the primary tumor and micrometastatic disease. In the past 10 years, many trials have been completed to evaluate neoadjuvant therapy and they have included sequential chemoradiotherapy, concurrent chemoradiotherapy, chemotherapy/surgery, and chemoradiation/surgery. These trials have predominately been phase 2 trials and have demonstrated that chemotherapy is generally well tolerated, surgery is technically feasible, and operative morbidity and mortality are not excessive. Long-term survival for patients with clinically advanced NSCLC is improved when compared with historic controls. These trials have demonstrated a greater than 50% clinical response rate and in approximately 20% of patients who have undergone resections, the tumor is sterilized. This latter group of patients demonstrate significantly improved survival. Cost-benefit ratios and quality of life have yet to be evaluated. Final determination of the effectiveness of neoadjuvant therapy for NSCLC awaits completion of phase 3 trials.
The Future of Antifungal Therapy

In the late 1970s the options for systemic antifungal therapy doubled with the addition of intravenous miconazole and oral ketoconazole to the two previously available agents, amphotericin B and flucytosine. The 1980s ushered in the next generation of triazole antifungals, fluconazole and itraconazole. These are the present-day mainstays of treatment for some of the most serious systemic fungal infections. However, the increase in the numbers and types of fungal pathogens, and especially the emergence of azole-resistant fungi, have prompted a continuing search for new therapeutic options. This search has yielded more-potent triazole antifungals, new vehicles for both polyenes and triazoles, and entirely new classes of agents such as the echinocandin derivatives ; in addition, it has prompted the evaluation of new combinations of present-day antifungals and exploration of the use of immunomodulators for treatment of fungal infections. Rapid developments in molecular mycology are permitting a concentrated search for more targets for antifungals. We are entering a new era of antifungal therapy in which we will continue to be challenged by systemic fungal diseases but will have greatly expanded options for treatment.
Ocular complications of sigmoid sinus thrombosis from L-asparaginase

This article presents a 9-year-old boy with acute lymphocytic leukemia who developed ocular complications after beginning treatment with L-asparaginase. Ocular motor examination revealed esotropia with a right abduction deficit, consistent with a sixth nerve palsy, and funduscopy revealed bilateral optic disc edema. Thrombosis of the right sigmoid sinus was noted on magnetic resonance imaging and magnetic resonance venography. Symptoms gradually resolved after discontinuing L-asparaginase and treatment with heparin.
Information Security and Risk Management

It is easy to find news reports of incidents where an organization’s security has been compromised. For example, a laptop was lost or stolen, or a private server was accessed. These incidents are noteworthy because confidential data might have been lost. Modern society depends on the trusted storage, transmission, and consumption of information. Information is a valuable asset that is expected to be protected. Information security is often considered to consist of confidentiality, integrity, availability, and accountability (Blakley, McDermott, & Geer, 2002). Confidentiality is the protection of information against theft and eavesdropping. Integrity is the protection of information against unauthorized modification and masquerade. Availability refers to dependable access of users to authorized information, particularly in light of attacks such as denial of service against information systems. Accountability is the assignment of responsibilities and traceability of actions to all involved parties. Naturally, any organization has limited resources to dedicate to information security. An organization’s limited resources must be balanced against the value of its information assets and the possible threats against them. It is often said that information security is essentially a problem of risk management (Schneier, 2000). It is unreasonable to believe that all valuable information can be kept perfectly safe against all attacks (Decker, 2001). An attacker with unlimited determination and resources can accomplish anything. Given any defenses, there will always exist a possibility of successful compromise. Instead of eliminating all risks, a more practical approach is to strategically craft security defenses to mitigate or minimize risks to acceptable levels. In order to accomplish this goal, it is necessary to perform a methodical risk analysis (Peltier, 2005). This article gives an overview of the risk management process. Background
Development and validation of a brain maturation index using longitudinal neuroanatomical scans

Abstract Background Major psychiatric disorders are increasingly being conceptualized as ‘neurodevelopmental’, because they are associated with aberrant brain maturation. Several studies have hypothesized that a brain maturation index integrating patterns of neuroanatomical measurements may reliably identify individual subjects deviating from a normative neurodevelopmental trajectory. However, while recent studies have shown great promise in developing accurate brain maturation indices using neuroimaging data and multivariate machine learning techniques, this approach has not been validated using a large sample of longitudinal data from children and adolescents. Methods T 1 -weighted scans from 303 healthy subjects aged 4.88 to 18.35 years were acquired from the National Institute of Health (NIH) pediatric repository ( http://www.pediatricmri.nih.gov ). Out of the 303 subjects, 115 subjects were re-scanned after 2 years. The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator algorithm (LASSO) was ‘trained’ to integrate neuroanatomical changes across chronological age and predict each individual 's brain maturity. The resulting brain maturation index was developed using first-visit scans only, and was validated using second-visit scans. Results We report a high correlation between the first-visit chronological age and brain maturation index (r = 0.82, mean absolute error or MAE = 1.69 years), and a high correlation between the second-visit chronological age and brain maturation index (r = 0.83, MAE = 1.71 years). The brain maturation index captured neuroanatomical volume changes between the first and second visits with an MAE of 0.27 years. Conclusions The brain maturation index developed in this study accurately predicted individual subjects' brain maturation longitudinally. Due to its strong clinical potentials in identifying individuals with an abnormal brain maturation trajectory, the brain maturation index may allow timely clinical interventions for individuals at risk for psychiatric disorders.
Impact of measurement errors on synchrophasor applications

Data from phasor measurement units (PMUs) inform powerful diagnostic tools that can help avert catastrophic failures in the power grid. Because of this, understanding PMU measurement errors is particularly valuable. This paper examines internal and external factors contributing to PMU phase angle and frequency measurement errors and gives a reasonable explanation for each. Based on these explanations, the impact of those measurement errors on several synchrophasor applications are analyzed: event location detection, oscillation detection, islanding detection, and dynamic line rating.
Patient Prognostic Score and Associations With Survival Improvement Offered by Radiotherapy After Breast-Conserving Surgery for Ductal Carcinoma In Situ: A Population-Based Longitudinal Cohort Study

PurposeRadiotherapy (RT) after breast-conserving surgery (BCS) is a standard treatment option for the management of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). We sought to determine the survival benefit of RT after BCS on the basis of risk factors for local recurrence.Patients and MethodsA retrospective longitudinal cohort study was performed to identify patients with DCIS diagnosed between 1988 and 2007 and treated with BCS by using SEER data. Patients were divided into the following two groups: BCS+RT (RT group) and BCS alone (non-RT group). We used a patient prognostic scoring model to stratify patients on the basis of risk of local recurrence. We performed a Cox proportional hazards model with propensity score weighting to evaluate breast cancer mortality between the two groups.ResultsWe identified 32,144 eligible patients with DCIS, 20,329 (63%) in the RT group and 11,815 (37%) in the non-RT group. Overall, 304 breast cancer–specific deaths occurred over a median follow-up of 96 months, with a cumulative incid...
Development of a turbomachinery aeroelastic code based on a 3D linearized Euler solver

This paper describes the development of LINFLUXAE, a turbomachinery aeroelastic code based on the linearized unsteady 3D Euler solver, LINFLUX. The steady solution, required by LINFLUX is obtained from the nonlinear Euler/Navier Stokes solver TURBO-AE. The paper briefly describes the salient features of TURBO-AE, LINFLUX and the details of the aeroelastic extension. The aeroelastic formulation is based on a modal approach. The unsteady aerodynamic forces required for flutter and forced response are obtained by running LINFLUX for each mode for each interblade phase angle and for a given frequency. An eigenvalue formulation is used for flutter analysis. The forced response is calculated from the modal summation of the generalized displacements. The NASA / GE Energy Efficient Engine (Ecubed) fan configuration is chosen as a test case and the results are compared with those obtained from TURBO-AE and ASTROP2.
Crowding, Maternal Age, Age at Pupation, and Life History of Zophobas atratus (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae)

In Zophobas atratus (F.), crowding of larvae inhibits pupation, whereas isolation of crowded larvae triggers pupation, allowing duration of the larval stage to be manipulated experimentally. Effects of larval and adult crowding, birth order (maternal age), and duration of larval stage (larval age at pupation) on larval growth, adult reproduction, and adult longevity were determined in a factorial experiment spanning 2 1/2 generations. Larval growth decreased with density and increased with birth order. As larvae grew, they became repelled by other larvae and dispersed for pupation: the proportion pupating successfully first rose with age, then fell as death at metamorphosis became more frequent. Experimental isolation of larvae produced cohorts of adults that had spent 4, 7, and 10 mo as larvae. Body weight of these adults increased with larval age, decreased with larval density, and was higher for males. These F1 adults were allowed to breed at high and low density until they died. Lifetime egg and larval production generally decreased with birth order and larval age and increased with adult density. Male (but not female) longevity was strongly reduced by adult crowding. Both male and female longevity declined with birth order and larval age. The experimental factors acted on lifetime reproduction largely through their effects on longevity, but there remained a direct negative effect of birth order and larval age. Body weight and reproduction were uncorrelated because females of early birth order and early pupation were lowest in body weight but had the highest reproductive output. Females produced their highest-quality offspring early in life, but the effect was delayed until their offspring reproduced. These effects are discussed in light of their possible importance in this beetle's life history and population dynamics.
n and n + 1 Consecutive Integers with Equal Sums of Squares

(1962). n and n + 1 Consecutive Integers with Equal Sums of Squares. Mathematics Magazine: Vol. 35, No. 3, pp. 155-164.
Mites on Soybeans: Moisture and Temperature Relations

Computer analysis of population data for mites, predominantly Tetranychus turkestani Ugarov & Nikolski, in 8 soybean fields during a 7-year period showed a significant correlation with both rainfall and maximum temperature. Rainfall accounted for 51.3% and average maximum temperature for 25.3% of the population variation. Climatological conditions during August appeared to be the most important. Correlation of rainfall totals with mite population for each of the months June through September indicated that August rainfall was most influential. Moreover, of the monthly average maximum temperatures, only those of August were significantly related to peaks of mite abundance. Measurement of soybean leaf temperatures for 2 weeks with electrical monitoring equipment showed that T. turkestani lives under temperature conditions that can fluctuate widely within short periods.
From necessary illusion to rational choice

The question this essay sought to answer was whether the recent attempt by neo-Marxist theorists to unite the Marxist and rational-choice approaches to social and political analysis is possible. The examination of several prominent models and their underlying premises has suggested that such a theoretical project must necessarily fail, because the rationalchoice approach has at best been able merely to reproduce the ideological premises of bourgeois society. All its major concepts as well as its premises concerning the nature and structure of society, are derived from, determined by, and reflect the sphere of exchange relations, or the market. But insofar as this sphere is the inverted, phenomenal form of capitalist relations of production, any theory or method that grounds itself in that sphere can provide nothing more than a descriptive reflection of such one-sided and, therefore, distorted social relations. This leaves us with a theory or explanation of society that is equally ideological and distorted. For any Marxist, the concern with political practice has to be as fundamental as the theoretical one of accurately apprehending the nature of social reality. Without a concrete understanding of concrete conditions, there can only be quixotic or Utopian attempts at political action, which are bound to fail to the degree to which they are based on distorted, false, or ideological conceptions of social reality. Consequently, it is not surprising to find that neo-Marxist rational-choice theorists, when they do concern themselves with the tactics and strategy of working-class politics, end up advocating reformist, non-revolutionary courses of action. And this is not a political position coincidental to or divorced from the theoretical and methodological premises of their approach, but, on the contrary, is inextricably linked to and follows from those premises. The rational-choice approach, then, fails both on theoretical grounds, as a mere reflection of bourgeois ideology, as well as on practical political grounds. The supreme irony of such an approach is that it merely succeeds in standing Marx on his head, while its neo-Marxist proponents continue to believe that it is bringing Marxism “into the second half of the twentieth century.” But this is itself an illusion, although a necessary one.
Re-Engineering an Artificial Sweetener: Transforming Sucralose Residuals in Water via Advanced Oxidation

Sucralose is an artificial sweetener persistently present in wastewater treatment plant effluents and aquatic environments impacted by human activity. It has a potential to accumulate in the water ...
Tomographic reconstruction by quantitative phase imaging with broadband fields

We developed a theoretical and experimental approach that allows for solving the 3D scattering inverse problem via quantitative phase imaging with broadband fields.
Early auditory gamma band response abnormalities in first hospitalized schizophrenia.

Abstract Background: Abnormalities in coherent cortical circuit functioning, reflected in gamma band activity (~ 40 Hz), may be a core deficit in schizophrenia. The early auditory gamma band response (EAGBR) is a neurophysiologically simple probe of circuit functioning in primary auditory cortex. We examined the EAGBR in first hospitalized schizophrenia to assess whether it was reduced at first hospitalization. Method: Wavelet evoked power and intertrial phase locking of the EAGBR at Fz to standard tones during an oddball target detection task were examined in 28 first hospitalized schizophrenia patients (10 female) and 44 control subjects (17 female). Results: At first hospitalization EAGBR trial-to-trial phase locking and evoked power were significantly reduced in patients. Although reduced overall in patients, greater total symptoms were significantly associated with greater gamma phase locking and power. Additionally, greater EAGBR power was marginally associated with greater positive factor scores, hallucinations, and thinking disturbance. Conclusions: Abnormalities of gamma band functioning in local auditory sensory circuits are present in schizophrenia at first hospitalization further evidence that basic sensory processes are impaired in schizophrenia. It remains to be determined whether the EAGBR becomes permanently impaired with disease progression, and if its reduction is specific to schizophrenia.
Regulation of endothelial nitric oxide synthase mRNA, protein, and activity during cell growth

Cell growth influences the expression of several important tissue-specific functions. We sought to examine the effect of cell proliferation on nitric oxide (NO) synthase gene expression in cultured aortic bovine endothelial cells. Western and Northern blot analysis revealed three- and sixfold increases in NO synthase protein and mRNA, respectively, in growing compared with growth-arrested cells. The release of nitrogen oxides was also increased in proliferating cells compared with growth-arrested cells, as was the NO synthase activity assessed by L-arginine/L-citrulline conversion. Neither NO synthase inhibitors nor superoxide dismutase affected proliferation or thymidine incorporation, suggesting that increased NO release had no effect on endothelial cell growth. In conclusion, these studies demonstrate that expression of endothelial cell NO synthase is markedly increased in proliferating compared with quiescent nongrowing cells. The mechanisms underlying this and its physiological consequences remain to be defined.
Dynamic Environmental Photosynthetic Imaging Reveals Emergent Phenotypes

Summary Understanding and improving the productivity and robustness of plant photosynthesis requires high-throughput phenotyping under environmental conditions that are relevant to the field. Here we demonstrate the dynamic environmental photosynthesis imager (DEPI), an experimental platform for integrated, continuous, and high-throughput measurements of photosynthetic parameters during plant growth under reproducible yet dynamic environmental conditions. Using parallel imagers obviates the need to move plants or sensors, reducing artifacts and allowing simultaneous measurement on large numbers of plants. As a result, DEPI can reveal phenotypes that are not evident under standard laboratory conditions but emerge under progressively more dynamic illumination. We show examples in mutants of Arabidopsis of such "emergent phenotypes" that are highly transient and heterogeneous, appearing in different leaves under different conditions and depending in complex ways on both environmental conditions and plant developmental age. These emergent phenotypes appear to be caused by a range of phenomena, suggesting that such previously unseen processes are critical for plant responses to dynamic environments.
Current Use Pesticides

Chapter 4 discussed organochlorine pesticides, a group of chemicals that was widely used in the past, but had many problems including broad spectrum toxicity that affected both target pests and nontarget species along with a very long persistence in the environment. In this chapter, we discuss pesticides that are currently in production and use in the United States. These pesticides are chemically very diverse and often designed for a particular group of pests and have relatively short half-lives. Before we get into any specific group of pesticides, however, let us develop some basic understanding.
Software Development in Special Education.

Over the last ten years, special educators have developed a variety of software programs which attempt to address the unique needs of mildly handicapped students. Much of this work has been funded ...
Fast L 1 -eigenfaces for robust face recogntion

Face recognition using eigenfaces is a popular technique based on principal component analysis (PCA). However, its performance suffers from the presence of outliers due to occlusions and noise often encountered in unconstrained settings. We address this problem by utilizing L 1 -eigenfaces for robust face recognition. We introduce an effective approach for L 1 -eigenfaces based on combining fast computation of L 1 -PCA with a greedy search technique. Experimental results demonstrate that L 1 -eigenfaces outperform traditional L 2 -eigenfaces for face recognition and reconstruction on the Yale face database corrupted with random occlusions.
Bandwidth effects of signal fading for the mid-latitude HF channels

Wideband HF measurements made in August and September of 1989 over a midlatitude 2070-km path are discussed. The channel impulse response, is estimated by correlating the received probe signal with a direct-sequence pseudo-noise coded reference. The impulse response estimate allows concomitant analysis of both the received wideband power statistics as a function of signaling bandwidth and the delay-Doppler characteristics of the channel. Fading statistics are calculated for several receiver bandwidths. These measurements demonstrate that, by increasing the instantaneous signaling bandwidth from 4 kHz to 1 MHz, the required communications fade margin drops more than 10 dB. Data are presented on the time-of-arrival drifts over many minutes of the received wideband signal. >
Temporal Signature for Location Similarity

An increasing amount of user data, e.g., check-in history, from location-based social networks has become available for recommending new places. Recently, temporal check-in information was taken into consideration and has shown promise to improve the performance of current location recommenders. In this work, we study whether the visit time of a location can reflect the nature of the place and can be used to measure similarity between locations. In particular, we consider a new location feature, temporal signature (TS), to capture the temporal visit patterns of the location by aggregating all users' data, and apply various time series distance measures. We design several empirical studies with real-world data to evaluate the goodness of TS. The results show that TS features reflect the location semantics, geospatial locality, and location/category similarity in time.
A feminist posthumanist ecopedagogy in/for/with animalScapes

ABSTRACTExtending and challenging Arun Appadurai's anthropocentric “scapes,” this article converses with feminist posthumanism, ecofeminism, and the political ecology of education to develop a more...
Monolayer and bilayer polyaniline C3N: two-dimensional semiconductors with high thermal conductivity

Polyaniline (PANI) has been extensively studied in the past few decades owing to its broad applications in electronic devices. However, two dimensional PANI was not realized until very recently. In this work, the thermal transport properties of one of the newly synthesized 2D PANI structures, C3N, are systematically investigated using classical molecular dynamics simulations. The in-plane thermal conductivity (κ) of monolayer and bilayer C3N structures is computed, and the κ values for infinite-length systems are found to be as high as 820 and 805 W m−1 K−1, respectively. Both the values are markedly higher than those of many prevailing 2D semiconducting materials such as phosphorene, hexagonal boron nitride, MoS2 and MoSe2. The effects of different modulators, such as system dimension, temperature, interlayer coupling strength and tensile strain, on the calculated thermal conductivity are evaluated. Monotonic decreasing trends of thermal conductivity with temperature and tensile strain are found, while a positive correlation between the thermal conductivity and system dimension is revealed. Interlayer coupling strength is found to have negligible effects on the in-plane thermal conductivity of bilayer C3N. The cross-plane interfacial thermal resistance (R) between two adjacent C3N layers is evaluated in the temperature range from 100 to 500 K and at different coupling strengths. The predicted R at temperature 300 K equals 3.4 × 10−8 K m−2 W−1. The maximum reductions of R can amount to 59% and 68% with respect to temperature and coupling strength, respectively. Our results provide theoretical guidance to future applications of C3N-based low-dimensional materials in electronic devices.
D-ORAM: Path-ORAM Delegation for Low Execution Interference on Cloud Servers with Untrusted Memory

Cloud computing has evolved into a promising computing paradigm. However, it remains a challenging task to protect application privacy and, in particular, the memory access patterns, on cloud servers. The Path ORAM protocol achieves high-level privacy protection but requires large memory bandwidth, which introduces severe execution interference. The recently proposed secure memory model greatly reduces the security enhancement overhead but demands the secure integration of cryptographic logic and memory devices, a memory architecture that is yet to prevail in mainstream cloud servers.,,,, In this paper, we propose D-ORAM, a novel Path ORAM scheme for achieving high-level privacy protection and low execution interference on cloud servers with untrusted memory. D-ORAM leverages the buffer-on-board (BOB) memory architecture to offload the Path ORAM primitives to a secure engine in the BOB unit, which greatly alleviates the contention for the off-chip memory bus between secure and non-secure applications. D-ORAM upgrades only one secure memory channel and employs Path ORAM tree split to extend the secure application flexibly across multiple channels, in particular, the non-secure channels. D-ORAM optimizes the link utilization to further improve the system performance. Our evaluation shows that D-ORAM effectively protects application privacy on mainstream computing servers with untrusted memory, with an improvement of NS-App performance by 22.5% on average over the Path ORAM baseline.
To Fidget or Not to Fidget, That Is the Question: A Systematic Classroom Evaluation of Fidget Spinners Among Young Children With ADHD:

Objective: To examine how fidget spinners affect children with ADHD's gross motor activity and attentional functioning in class, both during the initial and final phase of an intensive evidence-based behavioral treatment. Method: Using an A-B-A-B design, 60 children (Mage = 4.86 years, 83% Hispanic) diagnosed with ADHD participated in the study. Following a baseline period, four random children from each classroom were given fidget spinners across three separate days (n = 48). Children wore accelerometers and were videotaped for 5-min during class in which attentional data were coded. Results: During the initial phase of treatment (but not during the final phase), the use of fidget spinners was associated with a decrease in activity levels. Children's use of fidget spinners was associated with poorer attention across both phases of treatment. Conclusion: Fidget spinners negatively influence young children with ADHD's attentional functioning, even in the context of an evidence-based classroom intervention.
1st AAAI/ACM Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, and Society: a retrospective

The 1st AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society (AIES-18) was held February 13, 2018 at the Hilton New Orleans Riverside, in New Orleans, Louisiana. The event was held just before AAAI in order to highlight the overlap of the two conference and logistical support for the conference was provided by AAAI. By attendance measures the conference was a resounding success with a sold out registration of over 300 people. The conference brought together program chairs from the four major focal areas: AI and jobs: Jason Furman (Harvard University); AI and law: Gary Marchant (Arizona State University); AI and philosophy: Huw Price (Cambridge University); and AI: Francesca Rossi (IBM and University of Padova). All the paper from the conference are available for download at the conference website: http://www.aies-conference.com/
Chiroptical Methods and Their Applications to Biomolecular Systems

We will describe the various optical methods which have been used to study chiral biomacromolecules and their ordered aggregates such as found in viruses, ribosomes, membranes, etc. It is redundant to use the term chiral biomacromolecule, because all biomacromolecules are chiral. Therefore, we use chiral to chararacterize the optical method. A chiroptical method is thus one which yields nonzero results only when applied to chiral molecules. Here we will consider: circular dichroism — the differential absorption of incident left and right circularly polarized light circular intensity differential scattering — the differential scattering of incident left and right circularly polarized light optical rotation — the rotation of the plane of polarization of incident linearly polarized light circularly polarized luminescence — the differential emission of left and right circularly polarized light
Regulation of gene expression of rat insulin-like growth factor binding proteins 1 and 2.

Virtually all of the insulin-like growth factors (IGFs) in extracellular fluids and cell culture medium occur complexed to specific IGF-binding proteins (IGFBPs).1,2 The IGFBPs are a family of proteins that bind IGF-I and IGF-II but are unrelated to IGF receptors. Four IGFBPs have been cloned from human and rat sources,1–8 and partial protein sequence information is available forafifthlGFBP.9–11 OthermembersoftheIGFBPfamilyundoubtedlyexist,12butspecific assignment must await amino acid or nucleotide sequencing.
Abstract 3393: Expression Patterns of the Cardiac Myofilament Proteins- Analysis of Surgical Myectomy Tissue from Patients with Sarcomeric Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy

Background: Mutations in sarcomeric/myofilament proteins are commonly implicated in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). However, the mechanisms underlying disease pathogenesis are not completely understood. Utilizing flash-frozen surgically resected left ventricular (LV) tissue from patients with obstructive HCM, we investigated the effect of sarcomeric HCM on tissue expression of various myofilament proteins. Methods: Frozen surgical specimens from 47 patients with HCM who underwent septal myectomy at the Mayo Clinic between 1999 and 2003 were examined. Using PCR, DHPLC, and direct DNA sequencing, all were genotyped for mutations involving the 8 myofilament-encoding genes that currently comprise the clinically available genetic test for sarcomeric HCM. Whole protein lysate was extracted from the frozen myectomy tissues and levels of myosin binding protein C, myosin heavy chain, alpha actin and alpha actinin were analyzed by Western Blot; GAPDH was used as a loading control. Frozen LV tissue derived from normal hearts of accidental death victims served as a reference group. Results: Overall, 25/47 (53%) patients had sarcomeric HCM including 13 patients with myosin binding protein C (MYBPC3) mutations and 10 with mutations in the beta myosin heavy chain (MYH7). Compared to normal heart tissue, the expression of myosin heavy chain was up-regulated significantly regardless of the underlying disease-causing genotype (genotype positive = genotype negative). However, there was gene-specific upregulation of myosin binding protein C with marked increases detected in patients with MYH7-HCM. In contrast, normal levels of myosin binding protein C were seen in patients with either MYBPC3-HCM or genotype-negative HCM. Conclusions: This is the first study to examine the expression pattern of sarcomeric proteins in a large collection of flash frozen human HCM myectomy tissue. Up-regulated, genotype-specific cardiac tissue expression of myosin binding protein C among patients with MYH7 (beta myosin heavy chain)-HCM suggests a novel compensatory pathway underlying the development of cardiac hypertrophy for one of most common genetic subtypes of HCM.
Composite Plaster/Hydroxylapatite Implants for Jaw Bone Restoration

Sintered ceramic, nonresorbable hydroxylapatite (HA) is a calcium phosphate biomaterial widely employed alone for augmentation or maintenance of the mandibular ridge and for filling alveolar bony defects. The small particles used for ridge augmentation or periodontal defects tend to scatter and the larger blocks used for extraction sockets don’t fit well. Our recent studies suggest that these problems can be circumvented by composite plaster of Paris/HA implants. In addition to binding the HA particles, the plaster makes the implants easier to shape. Plaster is not only very biocompatible but may actually help prevent infection. It appears to act as a scaffold for incorporation of the HA particles into osseous tissue. In several days the plaster is resorbed but it is replaced at the same rate by infiltrating fibrovascular tissue; plaster definitely promotes the filling of osseous defects initially by connective tissue. This tissue not only maintains the form and integrity of the implant, but its vascular and collagen components promote healing and contribute to subsequent filling of the defects and approximation of the HA particles by new cancellous bone. These composite implants can be preformed on casts prior to surgery or tailored during the surgical procedure. Their use precludes the difficulties encountered when plaster alone is implanted (resorption) or when HA alone is used (particle scatter or nonpenetration of the material by host vascular and connective tissues). By having a resorbable component which permits penetration by fibrovascular tissue and a nonresorbable component which can act as a nidus for new cancellous bone formation, these composite alloplasts act like artificial bone. Their use to support a denture, or for immobilizing teeth and reducing pocket depths in advanced periodontal disease, gives better results than HA alone.
Effect of high temperature on pollen morphology, plant growth and seed yield in quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.)

Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) has gained considerable attention worldwide during the past decade due to its nutritional and health benefits. However, its susceptibility to high temperatures has been reported as a serious obstacle to its global production. The objective of this study was to evaluate quinoa growth and pollen morphology in response to high temperatures. Pollen morphology and viability, plant growth and seed set, and several physiological parameters were measured at anthesis in two genotypes of quinoa subjected to day/night temperatures of 22/16°C as a control treatment and 40/24°C as the heat stress treatment. Our results showed that heat stress reduced the pollen viability between 30% and 70%. Although no visible morphological differences were observed on the surface of the pollen between the heat‐stressed and non‐heat‐stressed treatments, the pollen wall (intine and extine) thickness increased due to heat stress. High temperature did not affect seed yield, seed size and leaf greenness. On the other hand, high temperature improved the rate of photosynthesis. We found that quinoa has a high plasticity in response to high temperature, though pollen viability and pollen wall structure were affected by high temperatures in anthesis stage. This study is also the first report of quinoa pollen being trinucleate.
HLSPredict: cross platform performance prediction for FPGA high-level synthesis

FPGA application developers must explore increasingly large design spaces to identify regions of code to accelerate. High-Level Synthesis (HLS) tools automatically derive FPGA-based designs from high-level language specifications, which improves designer productivity; however, HLS tool run-times are cost-prohibitive for design space exploration, preventing designers from adequately answering cost-value decisions without expert guidance. To address this concern, this paper introduces a machine learning framework to predict FPGA performance and power consumption without relying on analytical models or HLS tools in-the-loop. For workloads that were manually optimized by appropriately setting pragmas, the framework obtains a worst-case relative error of 9.08% while running 43.78x faster than HLS; for unoptimized workloads, the framework obtains a worst-case relative error of 9.79% while running 36.24x faster than HLS.
Annual Degradation Rate and its Linearity Analysis using Metered kWh Data

The degradation rate analysis of 38 commercial crystalline-silicon (c-Si) photovoltaic (PV) power plants fielded for up to 16 years in a hot-dry climate of Arizona has been evaluated. Based on the metered kWh data and modeled weather data of these systems, the linearity and degradation rate analyses of PV modules are statistically determined using three different performance approaches: PR (Performance Ratio), PI (Performance Index), and Raw kWh. The evaluation approaches developed and used in this work are validated using the in-field current-voltage measurements previously performed in four commercial systems.
Identification of the Metabolic Profile of the α-Tubulin-Binding Natural Product (-)-Pironetin

Pironetin, the only crystallographically confirmed natural product to target α-tubulin, displays potent cytotoxic activity against sensitive and resistant A2780 ovarian cancer cell lines but is only marginally active in vivo. We now report that pironetin has a short half-life (<7 min) in human liver microsomes, suggesting that its limited in vivo efficacy is due to rapid metabolism. Further, we describe the discovery of epoxypironetin as pironetin’s major metabolite in human liver microsomes.
Adversarial Attack on Microarchitectural Events based Malware Detectors

To overcome the performance overheads incurred by the traditional software-based malware detection techniques, Hardware-assisted Malware Detection (HMD) using machine learning (ML) classifiers has emerged as a panacea to detect malicious applications and secure the systems. To classify benign and malicious applications, HMD primarily relies on the generated low-level microarchitectural events captured through Hardware Performance Counters (HPCs). This work creates an adversarial attack on the HMD systems to tamper the security by introducing the perturbations in the HPC traces with the aid of an adversarial sample generator application. To craft the attack, we first deploy an adversarial sample predictor to predict the adversarial HPC pattern for a given application to be misclassified by the deployed ML classifier in the HMD. Further, as the attacker has no direct access to manipulate the HPCs generated during runtime, based on the output of the adversarial sample predictor, we devise an adversarial sample generator wrapped around a normal application to produce HPC patterns similar to the adversarial predictor HPC trace. As the crafted adversarial sample generator application does not have any malicious operations, it is not detectable with traditional signature-based malware detection solutions. With the proposed attack, malware detection accuracy has been reduced to 18.04% from 82.76%.
Overdiagnosis and overtreatment of prostate cancer.

Overview:Prostate cancer is a ubiquitous disease, affecting as many as two-thirds of men in their 60s. Through widespread prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing, increasing rates of prostate biops...
King and the other America: the Poor People’s Campaign and the quest for economic equality

King and the Other America begins with the end of Resurrection City – the destruction of a temporary city of over 3,000 poor people and their allies located on the National Mall. From this encampme...
Continuous Intra-arterial Infusion of Verapamil for Treatment of Severe Vasospasm after Subarachnoid Hemorrhage

Abstract Delayed cerebral ischemia (DCI) is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality after aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH). Options are limited for treating vasospasm refractory to medical therapy. We present a patient with SAH and refractory vasospasm. After coil embolization of the aneurysm and initial near complete improvement, the patient developed severe DCI causing coma. Medical therapy failed and angiography showed severe vasospasm complicated by chronic occlusion of distal left ICA. Balloon angioplasty of proximal right ICA was attempted but failed, as a micro wire could not be advanced into the distal ICA and proximal ACA, MCA, and basilar arteries. Intra-arterial verapamil injection produced transient improvement but angioplasty could not be performed. Due to severe bilateral cerebral hypoperfusion, continuous intra-arterial verapamil was infused using micro-catheters placed in the right ICA and vertebral artery. After 22 hours there was significant improvement in caliber of both vessels and perfusion in both hemispheres without complications.
A SINGLE NUCLEOTIDE POLYMORPHISM WITHIN THE RXRA GENE PREDICTS A FAVORABLE RESPONSE TO EXERCISE IN HEART FAILURE

Heart failure (HF) is a morbid condition associated with impaired exercise capacity. Exercise training is an effective strategy to improve functional capacity and quality of life. However, response to exercise training is highly variable and whether there are genetic factors that may impact response
Impact of Pulmonary Embolism Response Team on Anticoagulation Prescribing Patterns in Patients With Acute Pulmonary Embolism

Introduction:Anticoagulation remains the mainstay pharmacotherapy for acute pulmonary embolism (PE), but multiple treatment options exist. The Pulmonary Embolism Response Team (PERT) is a multidisc...
Expression of oxytocin receptors in the zebra finch brain during vocal development

Like human language, song in songbirds is learned during an early sensitive period and is facilitated by motivation to seek out social interactions with vocalizing adults. Songbirds are therefore powerful models with which to understand the neural underpinnings of vocal learning. Social motivation and early social orienting are thought to be mediated by the oxytocin system; however, the developmental trajectory of oxytocin receptors in songbirds, particularly as it relates to song learning, is currently unknown. This gap in knowledge has hindered the development of songbirds as a model of the role of social orienting in vocal learning. In this study, we used quantitative PCR to measure oxytocin receptor expression during the sensitive period of song learning in zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata). We focused on brain regions important for social motivation, attachment, song recognition, and song learning. We detected expression in these regions in both sexes from post-hatch day 5 to adulthood, encompassing the entire period of song learning. In this species, only males sing; we found that in regions implicated in song learning specifically, oxytocin receptor mRNA expression was higher in males than females. These sex differences were largest during the developmental phase when males attend to and memorize tutor song, suggesting a functional role of expression in learning. Our results show that oxytocin receptors are expressed in relevant brain regions during song learning, and thus provide a foundation for developing the zebra finch as a model for understanding the mechanisms underlying the role of social motivation in vocal development. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.