cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Pre-gestational versus gestational diabetes: a population based study on clinical and demographic differences.

Abstract Aims To assess the clinical and demographic differences in patients with pre-gestational diabetes mellitus (PGDM) compared to those with gestational diabetes (GDM). Methods Using the 2001–2007 California Health Discharge Database, we identified 22,331 cases of PGDM and 147,097 cases of GDM via ICD-9-CM codes after excluding cases which were missing race or age data or with extremes of age. Data analyzed included demographics, pre-existing medical conditions, antepartum complications, and intrapartum complications. Logistic regression was used to adjust for potential confounders. Results Both PGDM and GDM incidences increased during the study period. Advancing age was associated with increased prevalence of both diseases. Although Asians were found to have the highest prevalence of GDM, they, along with Caucasians, were found have the lowest prevalence of PGDM. Conditions with increased frequency in PGDM versus GDM included chronic hypertension, renal disease, thyroid dysfunction, fetal CNS malformation, fetal demise, pyelonephritis, and eclampsia. Subjects with PGDM were more likely than those with GDM to have a shoulder dystocia, failed induction of labor, or undergo cesarean delivery. Conclusions We have demonstrated clinical morbidities and demographic factors which differ in patients with PGDM compared to patients with GDM. Our findings suggest PGDM to be associated with significantly higher morbidity when compared to GDM. Our findings also suggest that races with the highest tendency for GDM during pregnancy may not necessarily have the highest tendency for PGDM outside of pregnancy.
Teaching Ethical Analysis in Environmental Management Decisions: A Process-Oriented Approach

The general public and environmental policy makers often perceive management actions of environmental managers as "science," when such actions are, in fact, value judgments about when to intervene in natural processes. The choice of action requires ethical as well as scientific analysis because managers must choose a normative outcome to direct their intervention. I examine a management case study involving prescribed burning of sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) communities in south-central Montana (USA) to illustrate how to teach students to ethically evaluate a management action by precisely identifying: 1) the proposed management action, 2) the deficiency of the system to be remedied by the action, 3) the stakeholders affected by the action, and 4) the category and type of values affirmed in the management action. Through such analysis, students are taught to recognize implicit and explicit value judgments associated with management actions, identify stakeholders to whom managers have legitimate ethical obligations, and practice a general method of ethical analysis applicable to many forms of environmental management.
A sensor based tracking system using witnesses

Search and rescue of people in emergency situations, e.g. lost hikers, stranded climbers, or injured skiers has been difficult due to lack of information about their location at various times. Current location and tracking systems require a connected network via satellites, GSM base stations, or mobile devices. This requirement severely limits their applicability, particularly in remote wilderness areas where maintaining a connected network is very difficult. This paper proposes a new tracking system called Cenwits that is based on sensors that use RF for communication and emit beacons from time to time. When two sensors are in the range of one another, they record the presence of each other and exchange the information they recorded earlier. A sensor dumps all its information to an access point, whenever it is in the range of one. Important advantages of Cenwits include a loosely-coupled system that does not require network connectivity, power efficiency, and low cost. A preliminary prototype of Cenwits is being built using Berkley Mica2 Motes. The paper reports results from this preliminary prototype.
Long-term dynamics in Atlantic surfclam (Spisula solidissima) populations: The role of bottom water temperature

Abstract The potential linkages between warming bottom temperatures and increased mortality and/or reduced growth of the Atlantic surfclam (Spisula solidissima) were investigated using a model that simulates the temperature-dependent growth of the post-settlement population at specific locations on the Middle Atlantic Bight (MAB) continental shelf. External forcing for the individual-based surfclam model is provided by a 50-year simulation (1958–2007) of bottom water temperature obtained from an implementation of the Regional Ocean Modeling System for the northwestern Atlantic. The simulations show that in years with above average bottom water temperature (> 2 °C above average), surfclam assimilation rate is significantly reduced as a result of thermal stress, which leads to starvation mortality and an overall decline in the surfclam population of 2–9%, mainly in the inner shelf regions. Years with warmer bottom water temperatures were preceded by warm winters, which produced an earlier and longer summer season. These results suggest that the long-term observed decline in Atlantic surfclam populations on the MAB is a response to episodic warm years rather than a gradual warming trend in bottom water temperature, as previously suggested. These temperature driven population declines can persist for several years and have the largest effect on older and larger animals, which are the target of the commercial fishery.
Treatment Adherence in Pediatric Eosinophilic Gastrointestinal Disorders

Objective Examine treatment adherence rates in pediatric eosinophilic gastrointestinal disorders (EGID). Methods Participants were children aged 2.5–18 years with eosinophilic esophagitis or eosinophilic gastroenteritis (EGE) and their caregivers. A multimethod, multi-informant assessment including parent report and electronic monitoring was utilized, with a 90% cut point for nonadherence. Results Medication nonadherence prevalence was 30%. Adherence frequency was 91% ± 14% (0–100%) per parent report and 100% ± 69% (0–194%) per electronic monitors. Tube-feeding adherence was 99% ± 3%. Food allergen exposures were less than 1 per 2 weeks, with 33% nonadherence prevalence. Patients with EGE and toddlers with both conditions demonstrated poorer medication adherence (p’s < .05). Caregivers reported higher number of missed medication doses than food exposures (p < .05). Conclusions The prevalence and range of nonadherence demonstrates that subsets of these patients are nonadherent. Adherence to treatment in EGID is complex and multifaceted, with nonadherence varying across treatments.
Recent Developments in Geographic Profiling

This article outlines operational developments in geographic profiling in the last decade, focusing on police use and training and the exploration of new applications. A brief summary of environmental criminology, the theoretical foundation of geographic profiling, is first provided. The establishment of the geographic profiling analysis training program for property crime is then discussed. This is followed by a review of new applications of the methodology in border security, military counterinsurgency, counterterrorism, and geo-historical analysis. Research on the use of geographic profiling in biology, zoology, and epidemiology is next discussed. Finally, potential future developments are examined. Language: en
Cell transformation by pp60c-src mutated in the carboxy-terminal regulatory domain

We introduced two mutations into the carboxy-terminal regulatory region of chicken pp60c-src. One, F527, replaces tyrosine 527 with phenylalanine. The other, Am517, produces a truncated pp60c-src protein lacking the 17 carboxy-terminal amino acids. Both mutant proteins were phosphorylated at tyrosine 416 in vivo. The specific activity of the Am517 mutant protein kinase was similar to that of wild-type pp60c-src whereas that of the F527 mutant was 5- to 10-fold higher. Both mutant c-src genes induced focus formation on NIH 3T3 cells, but the foci appeared at lower frequency, and were smaller than foci induced by polyoma middle tumor antigen (mT). The wild-type or F527 pp60c-src formed a complex with mT, whereas the Am517 pp60c-src did not. The results suggest that one, inability to phosphorylate tyrosine 527 increases pp60c-src protein kinase activity and transforming ability; two, transformation by mT involves other events besides lack of phosphorylation at tyrosine 527 of pp60c-src; three, activation of the pp60c-src protein kinase may not be required for transformation by the Am517 mutant; and four, the carboxyl terminus of pp60c-src appears to be required for association with mT.
Electrohydraulic-Clamshell Heart with Energy Converter Inside the Compliance Reservoir

: Two new ideas on the electrohydraulic actuation of blood pumps have been combined. The first idea was to put the energy converters that propel the hydraulic fluid inside the compliance reservoir instead of having them separate. Compactness of the device and better cooling of the energy converter by the surrounding fluid are two major advanages of this approach. Secondly, we put the pumping membrane inside a clamshell that fits over a soft ventricle (I). The ventricle can be implanted first, after which the shell is slid over it. These two ideas have resulted in devices described in this paper. Preliminary in vitro and in vivo data are presented.
Evaluating a model of global psychophysical judgments—II: Behavioral properties linking summations and productions

Abstract Steingrimsson and Luce [Journal of Mathematical Psychology, in press] outlined the second author's proposed psychophysical theory [Luce (2002), Psychological Review, 109, 520–532; Luce (2004a) Psychological Review, 111, 446–454] and tested behavioral attributes that, separately, gave rise to two psychophysical functions, Ψ ⊕ and Ψ ∘ p . The function Ψ ⊕ maps pairs of physical intensities onto the positive real numbers and represents subjective summation, and the function Ψ ∘ p represents a form of ratio production. This article evaluates properties linking summation and production in such a way as to force Ψ ∘ p = Ψ ⊕ = Ψ . These properties, which are a form of distributivity, are subjected to an empirical evaluation in three experiments. The testing strategy is carried out in the auditory domain and concerns the subjective perception of loudness. Considerable support is provided for the existence of a single function Ψ for both summation and ratio production.
On the path to 3G

The authors discuss two complementary technologies at the forefront of the road to third generation systems; these are the General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) and Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) systems.
Social presence and service satisfaction: The moderating role of cultural value-orientation

Two studies examine the role of the cultural value orientation, self-construal, as a moderator of the relationship between social presence and service satisfaction. Cross-cultural data are collected in China and the USA to maximize variation on self-construal. Results suggest that social presence effects vary depending on the consumer's independent self-construal. Regardless of whether the service encounter is positive or negative, social presence increases the strength of satisfaction or dissatisfaction for low independents but not for high independents. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Single-scattering properties of Platonic solids in geometrical-optics regime

We investigate the single-scattering properties of the Platonic solids with size parameters in the geometrical-optics regime at wavelengths 0.66 and 11 μm using the geometrical-optics method. The comparisons between the results for the Platonic solids and four types of spherical equivalence show that the equal-surface-area spherical equivalence has the smallest errors in terms of the extinction cross section at both wavelengths. At a wavelength of 0.66 μm, all the spherical equivalences substantially overestimate the asymmetry factors of the Platonic solids; and in the case of strong absorption, they underestimate the single-scattering albedo. The comparisons also show that the spherical equivalences cannot be used to describe the spatial distribution of scattered intensity associated with a prismatic polyhedron.
Physician Global Assessment (PGA) and Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PASI): Why do both? A systematic analysis of randomized controlled trials of biologic agents for moderate to severe plaque psoriasis

Background Although there are many psoriasis assessment tools currently published, one of the unmet needs in psoriasis research remains consensus about the single best validated and reproducible assessment tool. Objectives In this systematic review we sought to determine the degree of correlation between two commonly used psoriasis assessment tools, the Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PASI) and Physician Global Assessment (PGA). Methods Randomized controlled systemic trials in moderate to severe psoriasis were reviewed using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses guidelines. We recorded and compared the percent of patients achieving both 75% reduction in PASI score (PASI 75) and PGA 0 or 1 (clear or almost clear) at 8 to 16 weeks, 17 to 24 weeks, and greater than 24 weeks of treatment with the investigational drug. Results Our literature review yielded 30 randomized controlled trials using biologic agents in moderate to severe psoriasis. We found that the two assessment tools correlate very tightly except at the lower bounds of therapeutic efficacy. The r 2 values for the correlation between PASI 75 and a score of clear or almost clear on the PGA were 0.9157 at 8 to 16 weeks and 0.892 at 17 to 24 weeks. Limitations Limitations of our study include the small number of randomized controlled trials publishing the percent of patients achieving 75% reduction in PASI score and a score of clear or almost clear on the PGA after 24 weeks of therapy. In addition, our results are not generalizable beyond the patients with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. Conclusion The two assessment tools are substantially redundant and either alone is a sufficient tool for assessing psoriasis severity in patients with moderate to severe disease. Because the PASI is better validated and more detailed, it remains the score of choice for clinical trials, but the simpler PGA may be well suited for community-based outcomes projects.
Successful treatment of intraoperative malignant hyperthermia during renal transplantation

Malignant hyperthermia is a complication of general anesthesia that is especially problematic if it occurs during renal transplantation because myoglobinemia, shock, and ischemia play a role in injuring the transplanted kidney. In this report, we describe a case of malignant hyperthermia, its clinical course, and the measures taken to successfully treat it and preserve the function of a kidney allograft.
Two-port analysis of microcirculation: an extension of windkessel

We examined the suitability of the three-element windkessel as a reduced model of pulsatile pressure-flow relations at arteriolar and venular ends of a microcirculatory bed. Frequency domain (two-port) analysis of a distributed model of an idealized (single input, single output) microvascular network in skeletal muscle, consisting of 391 discrete vessel segments from a 20-microns-diameter arteriole to a 28-microns-diameter venule, demonstrated that the three-element windkessel is a good representation of arterial input impedance when pressure pulsations are absent at the venous end. The same model with different parameter values accounts well for venous pressure-flow relations if no pulsations occur at the arterial end. We showed that a five-element model (2 compliances, 3 resistors) provided a superior representation of pulsatile pressure-flow relations at both arterial and venous ends. Relating parameter values to known properties of the network revealed the physiological significance of the five elements. This model may prove a useful component in circulatory models incorporating both arteries and veins. While parameter values obtained herein were strictly valid for the particular microvascular network described, guidelines are provided based on physiological properties so that values may be estimated for different microvascular beds.
Isolation of the kernel for respiratory rhythm generation in a novel preparation: the pre-Bötzinger complex "island".

The pre-Botzinger complex (pre-BotC), a bilaterally distributed network of rhythmogenic neurons within the ventrolateral medulla, has been proposed to be the critical locus for respiratory rhythm g...
Professional orchestral conductors’ use of selected teaching behaviors in rehearsal

This descriptive study examined professional conductors’ use of rehearsal time in sequential pattern components, discussing task presentation targets, and using verbal imagery and modeling techniques. Commercially available videos of 15 professional conductors rehearsing prominent orchestras were scripted, coded, and timed for selected teaching behaviors. Results revealed that professional conductors spent a large amount of rehearsal time allowing the ensemble to perform, presenting musical information, and focusing on interpretational aspects of the music (especially dynamics and style). All the conductors used verbal modeling to some extent, and most used verbal imagery at some point in rehearsal. Preservice and practicing music educators/conductors may find these results to be beneficial when reflecting on and refining their own teaching skills.
A model-based approach to refine process parameters in smart manufacturing:

This article describes a model-based approach for defining and refining process parameters in dynamically changing, smart manufacturing environments. This approach uses equation-based models to pre...
Mexicans in the Making of America. By Neil Foley.

Mexicans in the Making of America . By Neil Foley. (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2014. xii + 344 pp. Illustrations, maps, notes, index. $29.95.) Neil Foley’s ambitious new book makes a strong case for using a transnational approach toward understanding Mexican American history. Using over a decade of archival research from Mexico City and the United States, Foley has produced a highly valuable survey of Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans from the colonial period to the twenty-first century. His main premise is that Mexicans and their children have been making and remaking American culture through regional, national, and transnational struggles. To accomplish this, Foley situates “the history of Mexicans in the United States … within the context of relations between Mexico and the United States” (p. 11). Foley’s … jose.alamillo{at}csuci.edu
Complications Following Pediatric Tracheotomy.

Importance Pediatric tracheotomy is a complex procedure with significant postoperative complications. Wound-related complications are increasingly reported and can have considerable impact on clinical course and health care costs to tracheotomy-dependent children. Objective The primary objective of this study was to identify the type and rate of complications arising from pediatric tracheotomy. Design, Setting, and Participants A retrospective review of medical records of 302 children who underwent tracheotomy between December 1, 2000, and February 28, 2014, at a tertiary care pediatric referral center. Records were reviewed for preoperative diagnoses, gestational age, age at tracheotomy, tracheotomy technique, and incidence of complication. Main Outcomes and Measures Main outcome measures included incidence, type, and timing of complications. Secondary measures included medical diagnoses and surgical technique. Results Of the 302 children who underwent tracheotomy, the median (SD) age at time of tracheotomy was 5 months (64 months) and the range was birth to 21 years. The most frequent diagnosis associated with performance of a tracheotomy was ventilator-associated respiratory failure (61.9%), followed by airway anomaly or underdevelopment (25.2%), such as subglottic or tracheal stenosis, laryngotracheomalacia, or bronchopulmonary dysplasia. The remaining indications for tracheotomy included airway obstruction (11.6% [35 of 302]) and vocal fold dysfunction (1.3% [4 of 302]). No statistical significance was found associated with diagnosis and incidence of complications. Sixty children (19.9%) had a tracheotomy-related complication. Major complications, such as accidental decannulation (1.0% [3 of 302]). There were no deaths associated with tracheotomy. Minor complications, such as peristomal wound breakdown or granuloma (12.9% [39 of 302]) and bleeding from stoma (1.7% [5 of 302]), were more common. Of all complications, 70% (42 of 60) occurred early (≤7 days postoperatively) and 20% (12 of 60) were late (>7 days postoperatively). Conclusions and Relevance Pediatric tracheotomy at our institution is associated with an overall 19.9% incidence of complications. Although the rate of major complications such as accidental decannulation or death is low, rates of peristomal skin breakdown and development of granuloma are more frequently reported and can occur at any point following tracheotomy. Further work is necessary to understand and mitigate wound care issues in post-tracheotomy care.
A General Method for Constructing Atomic-Resolution RNA Ensembles using NMR Residual Dipolar Couplings: The Basis for Interhelical Motions Revealed

The ability to modulate alignment and measure multiple independent sets of NMR residual dipolar couplings (RDCs) has made it possible to characterize internal motions in proteins at atomic resolution and with time scale sensitivity ranging from picoseconds up to milliseconds. The application of such methods to the study of RNA dynamics, however, remains fundamentally limited by the inability to modulate alignment and by strong couplings between internal and overall motions that complicate the quantitative interpretation of RDCs. Here, we address this problem by showing that RNA alignment can be generally modulated, in a controlled manner, by variable elongation of A-form helices and that the information contained within the measured RDCs can be extracted even in the presence of strong couplings between motions and overall alignment via structure-based prediction of alignment. Using this approach, four RDC data sets, and a broad conformational pool obtained from a 8.2 μs molecular dynamics simulation, we successfully construct and validate an atomic resolution ensemble of human immunodeficiency virus type I transactivation response element RNA. This ensemble reveals local motions in and around the bulge involving changes in stacking and hydrogen-bonding interactions, which are undetectable by traditional spin relaxation and drive global changes in interhelical orientation. This new approach broadens the scope of using RDCs in characterizing the dynamics of nucleic acids.
Coupling of energy-dispersive and wavelength-dispersive spectrometers by use of a central computer with an electron microprobe analyser

A fully automatic wavelength-dispersive electron microprobe analyser and an energy-dispersive analyser were linked by a central computer (hardwareand software) in such a way that quantitative analysis was possible partially in the energy-dispersive and partially in the wavelength-dispersive mode. The original investment and technical achievement are discussed together with the time and quality of analysis which may be expected.
A rapid method for in vitro screening of immunosuppressants using mouse spleen cells.

SummaryAn in vitro system for quantitatively measuring hemolysin production by mouse spleen cells is described. The synthesis of hemolysin was shown to be de novo and the rate of appearance was linear with respect to culture time. Known immunosuppressive chemicals were tested using this system and were found to be effective at inhibiting antibody production whereas nonimmunosuppressive drugs were noneffective. These findings suggested that this system would be suitable for rapidly screening chemicals for immunosuppressive activity and may be of aid in determining their mode of action at a cellular level.
Viral diseases; their control by immunologic means.

It has long been held that a killed-virus antigen would not induce complete immunity, that the effect would be transient, and that many injections would be required. These preconceptions are false. An adequate antigenic stimulus with killed-virus poliomyelitis vaccine will induce long-lasting and possibly permanent effects. It is also possible that durable immunity can be induced by a single antigenic stimulus if it is sufficiently potent.Exciting possibilities for the future include the addition to the poliomyelitis vaccines of other viruses that may behave in the same manner, to permit induction of immunity to many diseases at the same time. Very little new knowledge is required for this to be possible, and technics for acquiring the knowledge are at hand.
Magnetism of Hydrogenated Rare Earth Intermetallic Compounds

Rare earth intermetallic compounds containing the 3d-transition metals are very useful in the study of the effects of hydrogen on th magnetism of Mn, Fe, Co and Ni. This cannot be done directly except by making use of rather high pressures since these 3d metals do not absorb significant amounts of hydrogen at atmospheric pressure; however, hydrogen introduction can be accomplished at moderate pressures using intermetallic compounds (vide infra). As an illustration of the effect of hydrogenation on 3d transition metals, Baranowski (1) has recently reported on the magnetism of Mn when placed under a pressure of some thousands of atmospheres of hydrogen. He finds that Mn, an antiferromagnetic metal, becomes ferromagnetic with a Curie temperature near room temperature. This alteration in behavior is consistent with the current concept of the electronic makeup of the 3d metals, advocated most strongly by Stearns (2), to the effect (1) that the d electrons divide into two categories, localized and itinerant and (2) that the concentration of the latter determines whether a metal orders ferromagnetically or antiferromagnetically. According to the point of view of Stearns Fe, Co and Ni have few itinerant 3d-electrons, ~0.05 per atom, and they order ferromagnetically whereas Mn has a larger number which leads to antiferromagnetic ordering.
Integrating psychology and neuroscience: Comment on Schwartz et al. (2016).

This article calls attention to a large body of uncited literature that renders the levels of analysis argument upon which Schwartz, Lilienfeld, Meca, and Sauvigne (2016) based their reappraisal of the role of neuroscience within psychology obsolete. Examples of effective integration of psychology and neuroscience without benefit of any bridging laws are provided. Implications for training are mentioned. (PsycINFO Database Record
A Writing-Across-the-Curriculum Faculty Development Program: An Experience Report

This case study reports on the experiences of designing and assessing the effectiveness of a faculty development program on writing across the curriculum (WAC). The report focuses on the question: What are the key components of an effective faculty development program to integrate WAC into engineering and scientific courses taught by faculty in those disciplines? Situating the case: Two main models of WAC implementation exist: direct instruction, which uses writing specialists to deliver instruction to engineering and science students, and the department-centered model, which instructs faculty in engineering and scientific disciplines to teach writing as part of technical courses. How the case was studied: A report of the experiences of the authors and the feedback from the participants. About the case: The workshop was aimed at teachers in various disciplines and covered these main topics: fundamentals of writing theory and pedagogy, writing assignment design and assessment, and situating writing assignments in courses across the disciplinary curriculum. It took place over 10 weeks during a 15-week semester and included large- and small-group meetings, consultations with the members of the university WAC program, and peer review of writing assignment drafts. Conclusions, limitations, and suggestions for future research: Key challenges in developing the workshop included designing ways to bridge the conceptual gap between the participants’ and WAC instructors’ understanding of the role of writing in disciplinary courses, limited time available to the participants, and scheduling challenges. The workshop was given seven times. Most of the faculty participants (90%) generally found it to be very effective or effective. Studies of workshops with larger populations of trainees are suggested.
Golden-Free Trojan Detection

Hardware Trojans pose a serious threat to the expected functionality, performance, and security of integrated circuits (ICs). Many of the existing techniques for detection of hardware Trojans require the use of a “golden IC.” The golden IC is a fabricated instance of the design which is required to be free of Trojans and is used as a reference to verify the responses obtained from an IC under authentication. However identification and even existence of a golden IC may not be possible. In light of these challenges, techniques are desired which can detect a hardware Trojan without the need for a golden IC. This chapter gives an overview of golden-free Trojan detection.
Changes in water quality following opening and closure of a bar-built estuary (Pescadero, California)

Abstract Bar-built estuaries are coastal environments characterized by the partial closure of the estuary's mouth with a sandbar barrier for extended periods (closed state). Through natural events (rainfall) or anthropogenic influences, the sandbar is breached, reopening the estuary to the ocean. The transition from closed to open state often leads to extensive physical and chemical changes in the estuarine conditions, as water mixing and sediment resuspension are increased, which could result in the oxidation of sediment acid-volatile sulfides (AVS). We followed monthly changes in water's and sediment geochemical characteristics at thirty-two sites spanning the Pescadero Estuary over a one-year period. We showed that the transition from closed to open state leads to significant decreases in aqueous pH to circumneutral values and significant increases in aqueous hydrogen sulfide and iron concentrations to 10.6 μM and 59.1 μM, respectively, due to sediment AVS oxidation following sediment resuspension. Aqueous hydrogen sulfide concentrations observed in both closed and open states were significantly higher than the recommended thresholds for aquatic life. Moreover, mildly acidic water conditions in the open state were lower than the recommended limits for aquatic life. Our spatial analysis further highlighted that some parts of the estuary were more vulnerable to decreased water quality. Indeed, high sediment AVS contents (19–24 mmol kg− 1 ) were observed year-round at the River Confluence and Butano Creek regions, which implies a high potential for severe water acidification and metal release when the estuary transitions from closed to open state.
Security games: the coded logics of the playable war on ISIS

‘Security Games’ argues that the coded affordances of digital war games mimic and perpetuate the cultural structures that make up contemporary understandings of in/security in the ‘War on ISIS’. By...
Reading Carlos Bulosan/Documenting the Filipino Diaspora

This editorial introduction to Writer in Exile/Writer in Revolt: Critical Perspectives on Carlos Bulosan (2016) sheds light on the diasporic scope of Bulosan’s literary imagination and the literary scholarship on his diverse body of writing. Writer in Exile/Writer in Revolt gathers for the first time nearly sixty years of literary criticism by scholars in the United States and the Philippines on Bulosan, a pioneering twentieth-century Filipino writer in the United States. The editorial introduction highlights the ways in which Writer in Exile/Writer in Revolt documents the unfolding of Bulosan’s radical literary imagination which straddles the colonial and neocolonial periods of U.S.-Philippines relations (from the pre-Pacific War period to the Cold War period). Six decades of literary criticism generate a fascinating inventory of Bulosan’s invaluable contributions to modern diasporic Filipino literature that, when historicized, problematize the notion of hybridity and trouble the binary opposition between Asian and Asian American literatures. In addition to discussing the significance of Writer in Exile/Writer in Revolt, the editorial introduction features Cabusao’s dialogue piece (featured in the anthology) with distinguished Asian American scholars Marilyn Alquizola and Lane Ryo Hirabayashi on their groundbreaking research on Bulosan’s FBI files which reveals the transnational nature of U.S. political surveillance/repression and the diasporic framing of Filipino resistance that informed Carlos Bulosan’s life and work
Intergenic and intronic DNA hypomethylated regions as putative regulators of imprinted domains.

Aim To investigate the regulatory potential of intergenic/intronic hypomethylated regions (iHMRs) within imprinted domains. Materials & methods Based on the preliminary results of the histone modification and conservation profiles, we conducted reporter assays on the Peg3 and H19 domain iHMRs. The in vitro results were confirmed by the in vivo deletion of Peg3-iHMR designed to test its function in the Peg3 imprinted domain. Results & conclusion Initial bioinformatic analyses suggested that some iHMRs may be noncanonical enhancers for imprinted genes. Consistent with this, Peg3- and H19-iHMRs showed context-dependent promoter and enhancer activity. Further, deletion of Peg3-iHMR resulted in allele- and sex-specific misregulation of several imprinted genes within the domain. Taken together, these results suggest that some iHMRs may function as domain-wide regulators for the associated imprinted domains.
Mary K. Firestone: Groundbreaking Journey of a Microbial Matriarch

Mary Firestone is a microbial ecologist who has worked extensively on the roles of soil microorganisms in terrestrial ecosystem function. She is known for her early work on microbial mediation of nitrogen oxidation and reduction processes, including microbial control of nitrous oxide and nitric oxide production, microbial adaptation to water regimes, and carbon- and nitrogen-based interactions among plant roots and soil organisms. She is a central player in the development of microbial physiological ecology, and perhaps no other scientist has done more to integrate microbial ecology with terrestrial biogeochemistry. Firestone grew up in Oklahoma City, OK, and knew from an early age that she wanted to be a scientist. Initially a lab technician valued for her instrumentation abilities, she earned a B.S. and M.S. in microbiology from Michigan State University and a Ph.D. in soil science; her dissertation on control of N2O production won the Soil Science Society of America’s Emil Truog award. She joined the faculty at University of California, Berkeley (UCB), in 1979 and at the time was one of the very few women on soil science faculties in the United States. Mary went only to play many roles at UCB, including chairing the faculty senate in 2008. Her work has been recognized by a range of disciplines: she is a fellow of the Soil Science Society of America, American Academy of Microbiology, Ecological Society of America, and American Geophysical Union. Universally described as brilliant, beloved, and dedicated to her students, Mary Firestone was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in May 2017.
Gene modification therapies: views of parents of people with Down syndrome.

In considering gene modification technologies, the priorities of patient communities must be a central consideration. The purpose of this study is to assess views of families with Down syndrome (DS) regarding potential genome-based interventions. We constructed an anonymous online survey for family members of people with DS. Participants were asked to agree or disagree with scenarios describing hypothetical interventions to silence or significantly alter the physical and cognitive effects of a trisomy 21, and also with scenarios depicting currently available physical interventions. All 532 respondents were parents of people with DS. For each of the five scenarios, over half said they would approve the intervention or would advise their children with DS to do so. Responses to hypothetical prenatal and pediatric cognitive interventions were significantly affected by participants’ assessments of the impact of DS on their children’s and their families’ lives, while physical and adult cognitive scenarios were not. Future interventions to address genetic conditions will impact patient communities and cannot succeed without their input and support. While many parents of people with DS indicated approval for hypothetical genetic therapies, these results indicate a need for continuing dialogue about benefits and drawbacks of gene modification technologies.
Analytic spherical harmonic coefficients for polygonal area lights

Spherical Harmonic (SH) lighting is widely used for real-time rendering within Precomputed Radiance Transfer (PRT) systems. SH coefficients are precomputed and stored at object vertices, and combined interactively with SH lighting coefficients to enable effects like soft shadows, interreflections, and glossy reflection. However, the most common PRT techniques assume distant, low-frequency environment lighting, for which SH lighting coefficients can easily be computed once per frame. There is currently limited support for near-field illumination and area lights, since it is non-trivial to compute the SH coefficients for an area light, and the incident lighting (SH coefficients) varies over the object geometry. We present an efficient closed-form solution for projection of uniform polygonal area lights to spherical harmonic coefficients of arbitrary order, enabling easy adoption of accurate area lighting in PRT systems, with no modifications required to the core PRT framework. Our method only requires computing zonal harmonic (ZH) coefficients, for which we introduce a novel recurrence relation. In practice, ZH coefficients are built up iteratively, with computation linear in the desired SH order. General SH coefficients can then be obtained by the recently developed sparse zonal harmonic rotation method.
Medicine, Technology, and Genetic Engineering: Reflections from the Outside

Advances in technology are producing many changes in the ways humans view and manage their lives. The refinement of genetic engineering techniques has created vast opportunities for humankind, along with novel problems and dangers. Accordingly, the questions that must be addressed pertain to the nature of life itself. Yet the scientific community can not be given sole discretion In managing todey's technologies. Instead, all segments of society must be Involved In determining how genetic engineering will be used. Of all the areas of human endeavor, technology most often affects the field of medicine. The marriage of technology and medicine science applied to the art of healing influences persons in a manner unlike any other type of scientific undertaking. Changes in the "technology of medicine" come fast and furious, and usually involve questions concerning the nature of death and sickness. Moreover, these questions have more than academic significance to the public. Along with the benefits of medical technology are, of course, problems to be addressed. A growing number of critics claim the marriage of medicine and technology Is not necessarily a match made in heaven. They feel changes In technology are threatening society's moral foundation, destroying person's perceptions ?f the meaning of life, and endangering the existence of the human species. Ethical questions in the medical field are prevalent, but certainly not new. The answers to such querries can prove evasive and controversial. For example, the issue of abortion has sparked bitter discussions. On December 1, 1982 Mr. Barney Clark opened a new chapter of medical history, with the first human use of an artificial heart. As a result of
Awarded Best Student Paper! - Pond: The OceanStore Prototype

OceanStore is an Internet-scale, persistent data store designed for incremental scalability, secure sharing, and long-term durability. Pond is the OceanStore prototype; it contains many of the features of a complete system including location-independent routing, Byzantine update commitment, push-based update of cached copies through an overlay multicast network, and continuous archiving to erasure-coded form. In the wide area, Pond outperforms NFS by up to a factor of 4.6 on read-intensive phases of the Andrew benchmark, but underperforms NFS by as much as a factor of 7.3 on write-intensive phases. Microbenchmarks show that write performance is limited by the speed of erasure coding and threshold signature generation, two important areas of future research. Further microbenchmarks show that Pond manages replica consistency in a bandwidth-efficient manner and quantify the latency cost imposed by this bandwidth savings.
Theoretical Simulation of Experimental Observations of Surface Wave Propagation on a Fluid-Saturated Porous Material

Wave propagation in fluid-saturated porous materials presents very particular features like the appearance of a second compressional wave, the so-called slow compressional wave, in addition to the conventional P (or fast compressional) and the shear wave [1,2]. First experimental observation of the slow compressional wave was carried out by Plona in 1980 in water-saturated porous ceramics at ultrasonic frequencies [3]. In 1983 Feng and Johnson predicted the existence of a new surface mode along a fluid/fluid-saturated porous solid interface, in addition to the well-known leaky-Rayleigh and true Stoneley modes [4,5]. Feng and Johnson introduced the so-called surface stiffness, T, as a parameter which describes the boundary conditions at the interface. For a value of T=0 the pores at the surface are considered open, whereas for a value of T=∞ they are considered to be closed. However, according to the theory this new surface mode appears only when closed pores boundary conditions prevail at the interface. This last restriction renders the observation of the new mode problematic, because the extreme difficult in closing the surface pores without clogging all the pores close to the surface (e.g. by painting). In 1992 Nagy observed experimental evidence of the slow surface wave [6]. Nagy demonstrated that capillary forces can extend an ideally thin membrane over the surface pores at the interface between a porous solid saturated with a wetting fluid (e.g. water or alcohol) and a non-wetting fluid (e.g. air). Under this conditions, experimental evidence of a simple form of the new surface wave mode predicted by Feng and Johnson during alcohol saturation of a sintered glass beads specimen was obtained. However, due to problems inherent to the excitation of surface waves in fluid-saturated porous solids (e.g. extremely high attenuation, small propagation lengths, etc.) the results were not conclusive. In this work we will show that the experimental evidence of slow surface wave can be predicted by the analytical method of Feng and Johnson [5], if slight modifications are introduced into the calculation technique in order to account for some of the particular characteristics of the experiment.
Subunit Interactions in Glyceraldehyde-3-Phosphate Dehydrogenase: A Fluorometric and Calorimetric Analysis of DPN Binding as a Function of Temperature

Some rather large effects of temperature on the kinetics of reactions catalyzed by the rabbit muscle and liver glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenases (GPD) and the results of Kirschner and coworkers (1) on the temperature perturbation of DPN binding by the enzyme from yeast prompted us to examine the temperature dependence of DPN and DPNH binding by the mammalian enzyme and to determine the thermodynamic parameters. In order to cope with the very strong coenzyme binding of the mammalian GPD, we employed the quenching of protein fluorescence as an indicator of complex formation (2) after establishing that the quenching was colinear with binding at the three high affinity sites of the protein. The fourth and weakest binding site does not give an optical signal for ligand addition and must be examined by separat ion methods (3, 4). A set of fluorescence quenching titrations at a series of temperatures is shown in Fig.1. The results at 2.5° are in approximate accord with estimates made by Conway and Koshland (3) at 4° and at much higher protein concentrations by the stepwise removal of bound DPN in a series of prolonged dialyses. The effect of increasing the temperature is to weaken the bind ing and to make the curves progressive I y steeper at their midpoints. Whereas three constants are required to describe the curve at 2.5° , the curve at 36° may be described by a sing le intrinsic binding constant. A similar but slightly less extreme set of curves was obtained in the titration of apo-enzyme with DPNH. The convergence of the three K’s with in-creasing temperature suggest that at still higher temperatures a positive cooperativity might develop, analo-gous to that observed with the yeast enzyme at 40°. However, stability restrictions have prevented us from going much above 36° so that this possibility could not be tested.
Electronic stopping power of protons and alpha particles in nickel

The electronic stopping power of nickel for protons and alpha particles at velocities below and around the Fermi velocity has been obtained to high accuracy using time-dependent density functional theory. For the wide range of projectile velocities considered, we observed different regimes of electronic stopping due to the alternative participation of $s$- and $d$-band electrons. Despite the sharp discontinuity in the electronic density of states near the Fermi energy characteristic of the nickel band structure, we do not find an anomalous nonlinear electronic stopping power limit as a function of velocity. However, we find a crossover region above $v=0.15\phantom{\rule{0.28em}{0ex}}\mathrm{a}.\mathrm{u}.$ both for protons and alpha particles, related to the increase in participating host electrons and, in the case of alpha particles, to an increase of the charge state. We compare our calculated results with widely available experimental data and analyze the low velocity limits in the context of Lindhard's linear response theory and previous nonlinear density functional calculations. The comparison shows good accord with the lowest velocity experiments available. This may indicate that the adiabatic local density approximation is already a good theory to calculate electronic stopping power in materials at low velocity.
Abstract P397: Neighborhood Environment Perceptions Associate With Depression Levels and Cardiometabolic Risk: Data From the Washington, DC Cardiovascular Health and Needs Assessment

Background: Little is understood about associations between perceived neighborhood characteristics and depression, a known cardiovascular (CV) disease risk factor, in diverse populations. We examin...
Gastrointestinal motility, dysbiosis and opioid-induced tolerance: is there a link?

Studies show that gut microbial dysbiosis induced by chronic opioid use is linked to central opioid tolerance. Here, we suggest that a persistent decrease in gastrointestinal motility by opioids is a primary cause of gut microbial dysbiosis and that improving gastrointestinal transit might be a strategy in preventing opioid analgesic tolerance.