cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The Mechanism of Nucleotide Incorporation by Human DNA Polymerase η Differs from That of the Yeast Enzyme

DNA polymerase eta (Poleta) catalyzes the efficient and accurate synthesis of DNA opposite cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers, and inactivation of Poleta in humans causes the cancer-prone syndrome, the variant form of xeroderma pigmentosum. Pre-steady-state kinetic studies of yeast Poleta have indicated that the low level of fidelity of this enzyme results from a poorly discriminating induced-fit mechanism. Here we examine the mechanistic basis of the low level of fidelity of human Poleta. Because the human and yeast enzymes behave similarly under steady-state conditions, we expected these enzymes to utilize similar mechanisms of nucleotide incorporation. Surprisingly, however, we find that human Poleta differs from the yeast enzyme in several important respects. The human enzyme has a 50-fold-faster rate of nucleotide incorporation than the yeast enzyme but binds the nucleotide with an approximately 50-fold-lower level of affinity. This lower level of binding affinity might provide a means of regulation whereby the human enzyme remains relatively inactive except when the cellular deoxynucleoside triphosphate concentrations are high, as may occur during DNA damage, thereby avoiding the mutagenic consequences arising from the inadvertent action of this enzyme during normal DNA replication.
Breaking up is hard to do: how teens end violent dating relationships.

BACKGROUND: Dating violence affects nearly 30% of teens and is associated with numerous negative health outcomes. Teens do not tend to use adult or peer assistance to end violent dating relationshi...
Predoctoral Training in Pediatric Psychology at the University of Kansas Clinical Child Psychology Program

The training of clinical psychologists in general, and clinical child and pediatric psychologists in particular, has received significant commentary and evaluation in recent years (e.g., Cherry, Messenger, & Jacoby, 2000; Freedheim & Overholser, 1997; Kenny & Chmielewski, 1996; Roberts et al., 1998). Consistent with the biblical proverb of “iron sharpening iron,” the field of pediatric psychology, in particular, has benefited from the comments and critiques offered in the past. Perhaps owing to the earlier observations of a number of commentators, the recommendations for the training of pediatric psychologists offered by the Society of Pediatric Psychology (SPP) Task Force Report (Spirito et al., this issue) provide a thorough guide for program construction, program evaluation, and, possibly, program reinvention. A brief overview of several of the components of the Clinical Child Psychology Program (CCPP) at the University of Kansas (KU) presents an opportunity to examine how one program compares to the recommendations provided by the task force.
Differential register allocation

Micro-architecture designers are very cautious about expanding the number of architected registers (also the register field), because increasing the register field adds to the code size, raises I-cache and memory pressure, complicates processor pipeline. Especially for low-end processors, encoding space could be extremely limited due to area and power considerations. On the other hand, the number of architected registers exposed to the compiler could directly affect the effectiveness of compiler analysis and optimization. For high performance computers, register pressure can be higher than the available registers in some regions, e.g. due to optimizations like aggressive function inlining, software pipelining etc. The compiler cannot effectively perform compilation and optimization if only a small number of registers are exposed through the ISA. Therefore, it is crucial that more architected registers are available at the compiler's disposal without expanding the code size significantly.In this paper, we look at a new register encoding scheme called differential encoding that allows more registers to be addressed in the operand field of instructions than the direct encoding currently being used. We show it can be implemented with very low overhead. Based upon differential encoding, we apply it in several ways such that the extra architected registers can benefit the performance. Three schemes are devised to integrate differential encoding with register allocation. We demonstrate that differential register allocation is helpful in improving the performance of both high-end and low-end processors. Moreover, We can combine it with software pipelining to provide more registers and reduce spills.Our results show that differential encoding significantly reduces the number of spills and speeds up program execution. For a low-end configuration, we achieve over 12% speedup while keeping code size almost unaffected. For optimization on loops, it significantly speeds up loops with high register pressure (over 70% speedup).
Post-Thymectomy Organ-Specific Autoimmunity: Enhancement by Cyclosporine A and Inhibition by IL-2

It has previously been shown that the administration of cyclosporine A to newborn mice results in the development of autoimmunity later in life. It has been proposed that the neonatal administration of cyclosporine A results in altered thymic selection or inhibition of the development of suppressor cells. In the present study, treatment of day 3 thymectomized C3H/HeN mice with cyclosporine A (20 mg/kg/day) for 9 d post surgery increased the prevalence of antigastric autoantibodies. In contrast, the administration of IL-2 (300-600 Units/g/day) for 7 days after thymectomy inhibited the development of antigastric antibodies. We hypothesize that CsA may act by causing transient lymphokine abnormalities in the extrathymic environment during the first few weeks of life which lead to the development of antigastric antibodies. In contrast to the inhibition of development of antigastric antibodies, the administration of a similar course of IL-2 produced only a transient suppression of diabetes in NOD mice. These results and other data suggest that diabetes in NOD mice is probably due to a different immunologic defect.
Parity violation and gauge noninvariance of the effective gauge field action in three dimensions

The effective gauge field action due to fermions coupled to $\mathrm{SU}(N)$ gauge fields in three dimensions is found to change by $\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}\ensuremath{\pi}|n|$ under a homotopically nontrivial gauge transformation with winding number $n$. This gauge noninvariance can be eliminated by adding a parity-violating topological term to the action, or by regulating the theory in a way which produces this term automatically in the effective action. The Euler-Heisenberg effective action is calculated in the SU(2) theory and in QED.
Microbiology of airway disease in patients with cystic fibrosis

Individuals with cystic fibrosis have abbreviated life spans primarily due to chronic airway infection. A limited number of types of organisms are responsible for these infections, with Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa being of primary importance. In the pre-antibiotic era, greater than 90% of deaths due to infection were caused by S. aureus and death usually occurred in the first 2 years of life. With the advent of effective antistaphylococcal therapy, life spans increased and P. aeruginosa became the pathogen of primary importance. P. aeruginosa isolates recovered from patients with cystic fibrosis have a unique phenotypic characteristic referred to as "mucoid." The mucoid phenotype is due to the production of a mucoid exopolysaccharide. A mucoid exopolysaccharide is believed to play a central role in the establishment of chronic pseudomonal lung infection in these patients. A third organism, Pseudomonas cepacia, has recently been detected in the airways of older patients with cystic fibrosis and is associated with increased mortality. The virulence of P. cepacia is not understood, but the organism is extremely refractory to antimicrobial therapy. Other bacteria, including Haemophilus influenzae and members of the family Enterobacteriaceae, appear to play a secondary role in airway infection. Aspergillus fumigatus is the most important fungal agent causing allergic bronchopulmonary disease. The role of viruses has only recently been examined. At least in some patients with cystic fibrosis, respiratory syncytial virus may be important in predisposing to subsequent bacterial infections.
Novae Gesneriaceae Neotropicarum XI. New genera and species from the Guianas

Abstract Novae Gesneriaceae Neotropicarum XI. New genera and species from the Guianas. Brittonia 54: 344–351. 2002.—Two new genera of Gesneriaceae are described, Lampadaria and Cremersia, each with one new species: Lampadaria rupestris from Guyana and Cremersia platula from French Guiana, both belonging to the tribe Episcieae. The placement of Lembocarpus in the Episcieae near Cremersia and Rhoogeton is proposed.
Hepatocellular expression of glucose-6-phosphatase is unaltered during hepatic regeneration

Gluconeogenesis and glycogenolysis are essential hepatic functions required for glucose homeostasis. During the initial phase of hepatic regeneration, the immediate-early genes (IEG) are rapidly expressed, and the IEG RL-1 encodes for glucose-6-phosphatase (G-6-Pase). G-6-Pase is a microsomal enzyme essential for gluconeogenesis and glycogenolysis. This study employs a partial-hepatectomy model to examine the expression and activity of G-6-Pase. After partial hepatectomy, rat hepatic G-6-Pase gene expression is transcriptionally regulated, and mRNA levels are increased approximately 30-fold. However, in contrast to this rapid gene induction, microsomal enzyme activity is unchanged after partial hepatectomy. Western blotting demonstrates that microsomal G-6-Pase protein expression is also unchanged after partial hepatectomy, and similar results are also noted in whole liver homogenate. Thus, despite marked induction in gene expression of the IEG G-6-Pase after partial hepatectomy, protein expression and enzyme activity remain unchanged. These data indicate that, although this hepatocyte IEG is transcriptionally regulated, the physiologically important level of regulation is posttranscriptional. This highlights the importance of correlating gene expression of IEG with protein expression and physiological function.
Treatment of adult hyper-IgD syndrome with canakinumab.

Hyper-IgD and periodic fever syndrome (HIDS) is a rare, autosomal-recessive autoinflammatory disease characterized by lifelong recurrent episodes of systemic inflammation. HIDS frequently presents in infancy with intermittent fevers lasting from 4 to 7 days, recurring every 4 to 6 weeks. Febrile episodes may be unprovoked or precipitated by factors including infections, vaccinations, or stress. Associated symptoms may include abdominal pain, diarrhea, rashes, arthralgias, aphthous ulcers, and lymphadenopathy. During acute attacks, patients may exhibit leukocytosis, elevations in acute-phase reactants, and elevated levels of proinflammatory cytokines such as IL-1, IL-6, and TNF-a. At baseline, affected individuals may have elevated IgD levels; however, increases in IgD levels are not universal, particularly in very young patients. If clinical suspicion is high, HIDS should be considered despite normal serum IgD levels. Patients with HIDS may exhibit increased rates of infection, particularly with S pneumoniae; this may be secondary to infrequent IgG hypogammaglobulinemia or host conditions that may be permissive for persistence of this organism. HIDS is part of a clinical spectrum caused by decreased activity of mevalonate kinase, an enzyme involved in isoprenoid biosynthesis. Four mutations in MVK, the gene encoding mevalonate kinase (V377I, I268T, H20P/N, and P167L), account for more than 70% of the cases associated with HIDS. Lack of isoprenoid end products due to abnormal metabolism increases IL-1b secretion from mevalonate kinaseedeficient PBMCs, making IL-1 signaling a promising therapeutic target. Previous studies have shown inconsistent benefits of treatments including colchicine, cyclosporine, and statins. Many patients respond well to oral steroids, but the frequency of exacerbations makes a steroid-sparing therapy desirable. Biologic therapies have been successful in the treatment of other periodic fever syndromes. The cryopyrin-associated periodic syndromes are a group of fever disorders including familial cold autoinflammatory syndrome (FCAS) and Muckle-Wells syndrome (MWS). These conditions are also mediated through excessive IL-1b production. Canakinumab, a fully human antie IL-1b mAb, has been shown to induce rapid remission of symptoms in patients with cryopyrin-associated periodic syndromes and is approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of FCAS and MWS. Biologics including etanercept, adalimumab, and anakinra have all been shown to decrease the frequency and severity of febrile episodes in patients with HIDS. Small numbers of patients with HIDS treated with canakinumab have also shown clinical improvement. Here, we describe the case of a patient with HIDS who had significant clinical improvement with initiation of canakinumab therapy.
Quantitative Analysis of Variability and Uncertainty in Environmental Data and Models Volume 2. Performance, Emissions, and Cost of Combustion-Based NOx Controls for Wall and Tangential Furnace Coal-Fired Power Plants

This is Volume 2 of a two-volume set of reports describing work conducted at North Carolina State University sponsored by Grant Number DE-FG05-95ER30250 by the U.S. Department of Energy. The title of the project is “Quantitative Analysis of Variability and Uncertainty in Acid Rain Assessments.” The work conducted under sponsorship of this grant pertains primarily to two main topics: (1) development of new methods for quantitative analysis of variability and uncertainty applicable to any type of model; and (2) analysis of variability and uncertainty in the performance, emissions, and cost of electric power plant combustion-based NOx control technologies. These two main topics are reported separately in Volumes 1 and 2.
Estimation in the Presence of Measurement Error

The importance of measurement error for parameter estimation and for the design of statistical studies, particularly sample surveys, is examined. Beginning with a brief review of Hansen's contributions, the discussion concentrates on estimation problems in which measurement error leads to bias in the usual estimators. Distribution functions and regression equations are discussed, and the implications for the design of surveys are presented.
An Application of Newton's Power-Sum Formulas

(1949). An Application of Newton's Power-Sum Formulas. The American Mathematical Monthly: Vol. 56, No. 6, pp. 377-379.
Clinical Analysis of the Neonatal Seizures in 52 Newborns Delivered Within 1 Week

Objective To investigate the clinical features of neonatal seizures in newborns delivered within 1 week, so as to provide reliable recommendations for clinical treatment and prevention of the disease. Methods Fifty-two neonates with neonatal seizures admitted in our hospital from December 2012 to March 2015 were randomly selected. And their clinical data were retrospectively analyzed. Results In this study, 44.23% of the neonates had neonatal seizures within 3d of delivery, 36.54% of them had neonatal seizures within 3-7d of delivery, 40.38% of them had the disease due to hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy. Microminiature attack was the most common attack type, accounting for 9.62% of all the attack types. After antispasmodic and etiological treatment, of the 52 neonates, 31 cases were cured successfully, 16 cases were improved, but 5 cases died. Conclusion The clinical signs of neonates, especially those delivered within 3 days, should be closely observed. Timely detection and treatment of neonatal seizures can protect the safety of the children and reduce the incidence of sequelae.
When to operate for carcinoma of the lung

Surgical resection remains the accepted treatment of localized carcinoma of the lung. The present means of patient evaluation have made possible accurate tumor staging and have led to an appreciable increase in the rate of resectability. When the tumor is found at operation to be localized to the lung, the patient has a 35% to 50% chance of surviving for five years. This observation makes it imperative that patients with bronchogenic carcinoma be evaluated rapidly and operated on, if indicated, as quickly as possible.
A Variables and Constraints Aggregation Procedure for A Problem in Water Resources Development

AbstractThis paper considers a mathematical model for optimal conjunctive management of surface and ground-water resources. The resulting model is a large scale nonconvex mathematicalprogramming problem. The solution procedure takes full advantage of the maihematical structure of the problem. It adopts a relaxation .strategy to achieve decomposition, and usesvariables and constraints aggregation to reduce the size of the problem. The computational requirement of the procedure is evaluated by obtaining a numerical solution for realistic data. The computations are also carried further to find the optimal design variables
Coherent States and Constrained Systems

The quantization of systems with constraints is important in many applications that include lightfront quantization schemes along with familiar gauge theories. Principal techniques for the quantization of such systems involve conventional operator techniques [1], path integral techniques in terms of the original phase space variables [2], extended operator techniques involving ghost variables in addition to the original variables and extended path integral techniques also including ghost fields [3]. In most popular techniques Gribov ambiguities of one or another kind appear that render the approach difficult if not outright impossible [4]. Gribov difficulties were first established for functional integral techniques, but it has recently been shown that even the popular BRST approach is not immune to Gribov ambiguities [5].
The Validity of the Quick-FAAM in Patients Seeking Treatment for an Acute or Subacute Foot or Ankle Health Condition.

Context:Documented barriers to implementation of patient-reported outcome instruments (PROs) in practice include administration and scoring time. The Quick Foot and Ankle Ability Measure (Quick-FAAM) was developed to decrease these barriers; however, the clinometric properties in an acute population is unknown. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to determine the internal consistency, validity, and the floor and ceiling effects of the Quick-FAAM in patients seeking treatment for an acute or sub-acute ankle or foot health condition.Study Design:Cross-Sectional.Setting:Healthcare facilities.Patients:A total of 50 patients (20.3±2.2years, 177.9±10.7cm, 80±19.4kg) seeking treatment for an acute or sub-acute ankle or foot condition.Main Outcome Measures:Each patient completed a demographic and health history questionnaire followed by five PROs: the Quick-FAAM, the FAAM-Activities of Daily Living (ADL), FAAM-Sport, the modified Disablement in the Physically Active Scale (mDPA), the Short-Form 12 (SF-12) an...
Long-Range Nano-Scanning Devices Based on Optical Sensing Technology

A compact, low-cost, and high-performance nanopositioning system for dimensional metrology tools. A polymer-based large-range nanopositioning system was fabricated by an additive manufacturing (AM) process, stereolithography. The AM flexural properties were characterized to design the nanopositioning stage capable of millimeter range motion. It was considered to be responsible for AM fabrication tolerance or local irregularity in material properties because those properties are highly dependent on curing temperature and time even though the stage is fabricated layer-by-layer under the identical condition. Also, a design principle of an optical knife-edge sensor (OKES) is to provide a long range and high accuracy for nanopositioning. The OKES utilizes interference fringe due to optical knife-edge diffraction and has more than 40 % of high sensor sensitivity slope. The OKES was modeled by using electromagnetic wave propagation principle and experimentally verified by testing the OKES with the XY stage. The sensor noise level shows X 20.1 nm and Y 19.4 nm, and the fundamental sensing limit of the OKES was estimated X 0.19 nm/\( \sqrt{\mathrm{Hz}} \) and Y 0.23 nm/\( \sqrt{\mathrm{Hz}} \) for ±1.0 mm working range. In the XY circular motion, 0.2/1.0/2.0 mm diameter at 1 Hz, the trajectory root-mean-square errors were 0.77/2.50/3.50 μm, respectively. These results indicate that the OKES can be a good alternative to precision metrology tools in terms of large working range, positioning accuracy, resolution, linearity, bandwidth, and control effectiveness.
Reliability of the Planned Pedicle Screw Trajectory versus the Actual Pedicle Screw Trajectory using Intra-operative 3D CT and Image Guidance.

Background Technological advances, including navigation, have been made to improve safety and accuracy of pedicle screw fixation. We evaluated the accuracy of the virtual screw placement (Stealth projection) compared to actual screw placement (intra-operative O-Arm) and examined for differences based on the distance from the reference frame. Methods A retrospective evaluation of prospectively collected data was conducted from January 2013 to September 2013. We evaluated thoracic and lumbosacral pedicle screws placed using intraoperative O-arm and Stealth navigation by obtaining virtual screw projections and intraoperative O-arm images after screw placement. The screw trajectory angle to the midsagittal line and superior endplate was compared in the axial and sagittal views, respectively. Percent error and paired t-test statistics were then performed. Results Thirty-one patients with 240 pedicle screws were analyzed. The mean angular difference between the virtual and actual image in all screws was 2.17° ± 2.20° on axial images and 2.16° ± 2.24° on sagittal images. There was excellent agreement between actual and virtual pedicle screw trajectories in the axial and sagittal plane with ICC = 0.99 (95%CI: 0.992-0.995) (p Conclusion The virtual projection view is clinically accurate compared to the actual placement on intra-operative CT in both the axial and sagittal views. There is slight imprecision (~2°) in the axial and sagittal planes and a minor difference in the sagittal thoracic and lumbar angulation, although these did not affect clinical outcomes. In general, we find that pedicle screw placement using intraoperative cone beam CT and navigation to be accurate and reliable, and as such have made it a routine part of our spine practice. This study was approved by the University of Minnesota IRB (#1303E30544).
Modeling of Intelligent Behaviour in Haptic Enabled Tug-of-War Simulation

Virtual environment (VE) is a prime component in haptic interaction system. Traditional passive VE is not suitable to model human-machine interaction intelligence in haptic system such as a virtual tug-of-war system. Novel taxonomy of virtual environment is proposed according to different interaction tasks in physical world. Based on the difference between passive and active VE, intelligent VE is defined as a special type of nonlinear and active VE. The components of intelligent VE are identified and challenges within modeling and rendering method are discussed. Based on a one-dimensional haptic device, a virtual tug-of-war prototype is developed and different rendering algorithms are compared. Experiment results illustrate that the intelligent VE enhance the fidelity of the tug-of-war process and the rendering algorithm could ensure stability of the haptic system. The developed prototype can be utilized in entertainment areas.
Source Customization Reduces Psychological Reactance to a Persuasive Message via User Control and Identity Perceptions

Previous research has indicated that giving users the opportunity to customize a persuasive source led to increased liking for the product that the source was selling. In this study, users were eit...
Nuclear astrophysics of worlds in the string landscape

Motivated by landscape models in string theory, cosmic nuclear evolution is analyzed allowing the standard model Higgs expectation value $w$ to take values different from that in our world ($w\ensuremath{\equiv}1$), while holding the Yukawa couplings fixed. Thresholds are estimated, and astrophysical consequences are described, for several sensitive dependences of nuclear behavior on $w$. The dependence of the neutron-proton mass difference on $w$ is estimated based on recent calculations of strong isospin symmetry breaking, and is used to derive the threshold of neutron-stable worlds, $w\ensuremath{\approx}0.6\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.2$. The effect of a stable neutron on nuclear evolution in the big bang and stars is shown to lead to radical differences from our world, such as a predominance of heavy $r$-process and $s$-process nuclei and a lack of normal galaxies, stars, and planets. Rough estimates are reviewed of $w$ thresholds for deuteron stability and the $pp$ and $pep$ reactions dominant in many stars. A simple model of nuclear resonances is used to estimate the $w$ dependence of overall carbon and oxygen production during normal stellar nucleosynthesis; carbon production is estimated to change by a fraction $\ensuremath{\approx}15(1\ensuremath{-}w)$. Radical changes in astrophysical behavior seem to require changes in $w$ of more than a few percent, even for the most sensitive phenomena.
Production, characterization, and assessment of a stable analog of the response regulator CheY-phosphate from Thermotoga maritima.

Phosphorylation of CheY promotes association with the flagellar motor and ultimately controls the directional bias of the motor. However, biochemical studies of activated CheY-phosphate have been challenging due to the rapid hydrolysis of the aspartyl-phosphate in vitro. An inert analog of Tm CheY-phosphate, phosphono-CheY, was synthesized by chemical modification and purified by cation-exchange chromatography. Changes in HPLC retention times, chemical assays for phosphate and free thiol, and mass spectrometry experiments demonstrate modification of Cys54 with a phosphonomethyl group. Additionally, a crystal structure showed electron density for the phosphonomethyl group at Cys54, consistent with a modification at that position. Subsequent biochemical experiments confirmed that protein crystals were phosphono-CheY. Isothermal titration calorimetry and fluorescence polarization binding assays demonstrated that phosphono-CheY bound a peptide derived from FliM, a native partner of CheY-phosphate, with a dissociation constant of ∼29 µM, at least six-fold more tightly than unmodified CheY. Taken together these results suggest that Tm phosphono-CheY is a useful and unique analog of Tm CheY-phosphate. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Fuzzy Choice Functions

Abstract An approach to choice function theory based on fuzzy set theory is suggested. A number of necessary and sufficient conditions on a fuzzy choice function to be a fuzzy rational choice function of a certain type are established.
Abstract W P100: Arginase-1 Is A Novel Biomarker Of Post-stroke Immune Suppression

Objective: Arginase-1 (ARG1) is a novel biomarker of vascular and immune responses in ischemic stroke (IS). The objective of this study was to determine the relationship between ARG1 peripheral blood gene expression, history of hypertension and IS recovery. Methods: Peripheral blood samples were collected from IS patients’ ≥18 years of age within 24 hours from symptom onset. Stroke severity was determined by the NIHSS. Diagnosis of hypertension and lymphocyte counts were obtained from medical record. Modified rankin scale (MRS) was used to determine 30 day recovery. RNA was extracted from Paxgene RNA tubes, amplified, and hybridized to Illumina HumanRef-8v2 bead chips. Gene expression was compared in a univariate manner between IS patients with good (MRS 0-1) and bad (MRS 2-6) outcome using t-test in GeneSpring. Inflation of type one error was corrected by Bonferroni. Results: Twenty-three IS patients were recruited. Most patients had cardioembolic (n=14; 41.2%) or large artery stroke (n=5; 14.7%). Median pre stroke MRS was 0; median baseline NIHSS was 3 (range 0-24); and median 30 day MRS was 0 (range 0-6). ARG1 was higher in stroke patients with a history of hypertension (p=0.021); and there was an inverse relationship between ARG1 and lymphocyte count. When controlling for age, NIHSS and hypertension, high baseline expression of ARG1 significantly predicted worse scores on the MRS. We conducted a pilot study in n=3 female rats undergoing middle cerebral artery occlusion. As expected, there is an increase in ARG1 expression in the peripheral blood at 2 hours after ischemia that decreases within 24 hours, similar to that which we see in our human IS population. Discussion: This preliminary data supports the hypothesis that mechanisms of ARG1 induced lymphocytopenia are altered by the presence of pre-existing cardiovascular disease and may play a role in post-stroke immune suppression. Future studies are required to determine the functional relationships between ARG1 and immune dysfunction and determine appropriate clinical interventions.
2002 Distinguished Service Award

(2003). 2002 Distinguished Service Award. Plains Anthropologist: Vol. 48, No. 184, pp. 1-2.
TSG6 as a central mediator of macrophage M2 polarization (IRC5P.626)

TNF-α stimulated gene-6 (TSG6) is an anti-inflammatory protein, secreted by activated monocytes and endothelial cells. TSG6 binds to CD44 receptor expressed on multiple cell types including monocytes/macrophages. We tested the concept that TSG6 via binding to CD44 induces a phenotypic shift in macrophages from pro-inflammatory M1 to anti-inflammatory M2 type that protects the mice against lung inflammation and injury induced by endotoxin LPS. We show that TSG6 suppressed the induction of M1 markers (IL-6, IL-1β, CXCL1, iNOS) and activated expression of M2 marker genes (such as IL-10, Mannose receptor (CD206) and Chitinase-3-like-3). The shift was abrogated in macrophages isolated from CD44 -/- mice. TSG6 also suppressed the activation of NF-ΚB signaling by inhibiting interaction of MyD88 with TLR4. In addition, TSG6 induced activation of anti-inflammatory transcription factor STAT6 in LPS exposed macrophages. Intra-tracheal instillation of TSG6 protected the mice against LPS induced mortality. Moreover, mice treated with TSG6 showed significantly suppressed lung vascular injury and neutrophil sequestration on challenge with LPS. That TSG6 binding to CD44 activates the macrophage anti-inflammatory program suggests that TSG6 is a specialized regulator of inflammation and potential therapeutic target.
Civil Rights: An American History—Book Introduction

This book is a history of how Americans have struggled over the meaning of civil rights from the Civil War through today. I explain how a label initially deployed in the aftermath of the Civil War as a term of legal categorization, valued (and challenged) as much for what it excluded as for what it protected, morphed into something quite different in the twentieth century. A narrow term of law became, in the 1940s, an agenda for policy reform and then, in the 1960s, a rallying cry for a social movement. Yet even as the movement for this new, emboldened idea of civil rights remade American life and law, progressive activists challenged its perceived limitations. They argued that civil rights reforms failed to break down the entrenched inequalities that still defined American society, that what was needed was a different mindset, more ambitious legal tools, and more far-reaching labels, such as social and human rights. In the years following the civil rights movement, conservatives began to describe their own agenda of law-and-order policies, ending affirmative action, and opposing abortion as protecting civil rights. Liberals denounced what they saw as the illegitimate cooptation of the term, while at the same time framing their own causes—equal rights for women, the disabled, LGBT people—as new battles for civil rights. The premise of Civil Rights: An American History is that there has never been a singular, unchanging definition of civil rights. My goal is to reconstruct the concept in all its complexity; to not dismiss paradox or contradiction as errors or mistakes but to use them to help illuminate the public meaning of civil rights. I want to excavate the term as it was used and contested, redefined and redeployed. On a more general level, this book offers a case study of how the words and categories by which we understand our world become objects of contestation and points of leverage for social, political, and legal action. Civil rights has become one of the most powerful and contested terms of our present-day struggles. Its power lies in its distinctive blend of abstract idealism and historical specificity. One cannot speak of civil rights without referencing the history of civil rights, without placing today’s struggles alongside past struggles. To debate the meaning of civil rights today is to debate the history of civil rights in America. This book provides the first comprehensive account of that history.
REAL-TIME CLASSIFIER BASED ON ADAPTIVE COMPETITIVE SELF-ORGANIZING ALGORITHM

This article introduces a novel adaptive competitive self-organizing (ACS) model, with applicability for real-time clustering and vector quantization. An important feature of this model is its dynamic structure and self-adjusting parameters that also offers a solution to the problem of parasitic limit points and consequently in more accurate label assignments. This unsupervised classifier is free of any external control mechanism. Its self-organizing (SO) dynamic is governed by the gradient descent (GD) theory in cooperation with a competition mechanism based on Lotka–Volterra competitive exclusion. The core algorithm of this classifier is based on developing an energy function, where its minima or equilibrium points correspond to the centroid of similar input patterns. Since this energy function is a form of Lyapunov function, it guarantees stabilization of the dynamical trajectories of labels in finite numbers of isolated equilibrium points. This energy function along with other control parameter functi...
Cyborg Botany: Augmented Plants as Sensors, Displays and Actuators

The nature has myriad plant organisms, many of them carrying unique sensing and expression abilities. Plants can sense the environment, other living entities and regenerate, actuate or grow in response. Our interaction mechanisms and communication channels with such organisms in nature are subtle, unlike our interaction with digital devices. We propose a new convergent view of interaction design in nature by merging and powering our electronic functionalities with existing biological functions of plants. Cyborg Botany is a design exploration of deep technological integration within plants. Each desired synthetic function is grown, injected or carefully placed in conjunction with a plant's natural functions. With a nanowire grown inside the xylem of a plant [1, 2, 3, 4], we demonstrate its use as a touch sensor, motion sensor, antenna and more. We also demonstrate a software through which a user clicks on a plant's leaves to individual control their movement [6], and explore the use of plants as a display [5]. Our goal is to make use of a plant's own sensing and expressive abilities of nature for our interaction devices. Merging synthetic circuitry with plant's own physiology could pave a way to make these lifeforms responsive to our interactions and their ubiquitous sustainable deployment.
Risk Factors for New Hypothyroidism During Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitor Therapy in Advanced Nonthyroidal Cancer Patients

Background: Thyroid dysfunction during tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) cancer treatment is common, but predisposing risk factors have not been determined. Recommendations for monitoring patients tr...
The Distribution of Returns and Risk Forecasting

Publisher Summary The objective of this chapter is to revive the simple analytic tradition of value-at-risk (VaR) calculation while taking account of nonlinear payoff functions and departures from normality. The basic idea behind the approach is that there are fundamental risk factors that are multivariate normal and the departures from normality observed in actual return series are the consequence of a nonlinear relationship between the actual returns and the fundamental risk factors. This approach is used to conduct a risk analysis of a simple futures portfolio. The risk analysis includes estimates of the VaR, the components of the VaR, and the conditional expected loss (CeL) of the portfolio. All commercial applications of the VaR methodology are based on advanced simulation models. These models have the advantage of being able to use exact valuations rather than using delta and delta-gamma approximations, and they can employ distributions of returns based on historical data rather than the normal approximation.
Exploring the factor structure of a battery of neuropsychological assessments among the CENC cohort

Objective The goal of the Chronic Effects of Neurotrauma Consortium (CENC) study is to explore the effects of concussions among Service Members and Veterans. A factor model was fit to selected neuropsychological measures to identify potentially useful relationships between assessments collected on CENC-enrolled participants. Method 492 post-9/11 participants with combat exposure were enrolled across four VA study sites. Participants completed assessments including concussion history, neurocognitive functioning, and self-report questionnaires. Exploratory factor analyses (EFA) using four different methods with varimax and promax rotations were used to analyse the cognitive variables. Final model selection was based on factor loadings towards simple structure. Results The scree plot suggested the number of factors to be extracted was between 4 and 5. EFA produced a 5-factor MINRES model with promax rotation that resulted in a factor loading with variables loading on only one factor with a predefined threshold (0.40). Variables loaded on five cognition domains: list learning, working memory/executive skills, cognitive control, fluency, and memory. Conclusion These results provide reasonable evidence that data collected from the CENC neuropsychological battery can be reduced to five clinically useful factors. This will enable us to use the factors for further study of the impact of concussion on neurodegeneration.
Proteomic Profiling of Mouse Brains Exposed to Blast-Induced Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Reveals Changes in Axonal Proteins and Phosphorylated Tau

Alzheimer’s disease (AD), the most prevalent form of dementia, is characterized by two pathological hallmarks: Tau-containing neurofibrillary tangles and amyloid-β protein (Aβ)-containing neuritic plaques. The goal of this study is to understand mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI)-related brain proteomic changes and tau-related biochemical adaptations that may contribute to AD-like neurodegeneration. We found that both phosphorylated tau (p-tau) and the ratio of p-tau/tau were significantly increased in brains of mice collected at 3 and 24 h after exposure to 82-kPa low-intensity open-field blast. Neurological deficits were observed in animals at 24 h and 7 days after the blast using Simple Neuroassessment of Asymmetric imPairment (SNAP) test, and axon/dendrite degeneration was revealed at 7 days by silver staining. Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) was used to analyze brain tissue labeled with isobaric mass tags for relative protein quantification. The results from the proteomics and bioinformatic analysis illustrated the alterations of axonal and synaptic proteins in related pathways, including but not being limited to substantia nigra development, cortical cytoskeleton organization, and synaptic vesicle exocytosis, suggesting a potential axonal damage caused by blast-induced mTBI. Among altered proteins found in brains suffering blast, microtubule-associated protein 1B, stathmin, neurofilaments, actin binding proteins, myelin basic protein, calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase, and synaptotagmin I were representative ones involved in altered pathways elicited by mTBI. Therefore, TBI induces elevated phospho-tau, a pathological feature found in brains of AD, and altered a number of neurophysiological processes, supporting the notion that blast-induced mTBI as a risk factor contributes to AD pathogenesis. LC/MS-based profiling has presented candidate target/pathways that could be explored for future therapeutic development.
The Future of Fintech and the American Dream

Small business lending was first recorded over 3000 years ago when merchants in Mesopotamia borrowed silver and paid interest to fund their businesses. In many ways, the truths of small business lending have been constant over time. Small business lending is risky and filled with frictions. All this may be changing with the innovations that technology has brought to the sector. The author concludes with three predictions for the new world of small business lending and posits positive outcomes from transformations that fintech innovations will bring.
Social Determinants of Human Papillomavirus Vaccine Uptake: An Assessment of Publicly Available Data.

Objectives:Despite cancer prevention benefits associated with the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, uptake in the United States is relatively low among males and females. Our objective was to use...
Exploring and troubleshooting istio issues

Cloud computing gave rise to a Cloud-native[1] approach for operating application software in the cloud, whereby applications are segmented into micro-services that can be designed and deployed independently of each other. This significantly increases application maintainability, reduces time to market, and helps leveraging cloud computing model. On the other hand, this approach increases the system level complexity of the application and poses new challenges, such as how services discover each other, and how application handles individual service upgrades. To support cloud-native paradigm, new development, deployment, and orchestration tools are created. One of such tools is Istio [2] service mesh, built to connect, secure, control, and observe services. While immensely useful to application developers, Istio is an additional layer in cloud compute platform software stack and is thus prone to failure or misuse. In this work, we address the question of how to explore and troubleshoot software systems managed by Istio, focusing on micro-services upgrades and versioning. Cloud native applications are not upgraded at once like monolithic applications are. Instead, individual micro-services are gradually upgraded over time, so that older service instances live side by side with newer ones, as part of a single application. Istio supports application upgrades by splitting traffic as defined in configurable resources named virtualservices. When everything is good, Istio relieves operators from overheads related to system upgrades. The question is what happens when something goes wrong, e.g. when Istio is misconfigured. Such errors are inherently hard to detect, especially as overall systems complexity and scale grow. We have extended a real-time network topology and protocol analyzer, Skydive [4], developed to explore and troubleshoot the physical, the virtual, and the application connectivity in the cloud. To support cloud-native environments, we have developed k8s [3] and Istio probes and contributed them to the community. These probes enrich Skydive object model with k8s objects, e.g. pods and services, as well as with Istio objects, e.g. virtualservices and destinationrules. We use Bookinfo, an online book store application, to demonstrate how Skydive helps exploring misconfiguration in Istio versioning. One of Bookinfo microservices, called Reviews, has two functionally different versions, and the user expects Istio to split traffic between them according to weights configured in the related virtualservice. Figure 1 presents Skydive's representation of the actual configuration, discovered at run-time by our probes. Using this representation, aided by querying and filtering capabilities of Skydive, one can explore Istio and k8s objects and relationships between them, to debug an undesired versioning behavior. In the future, we aim at supporting additional use cases, e.g security policies, circuit breakers, timeouts, and retries. We expect that the most value will be derived from multilayer exploration combined with Skydive's capability to capture/inject traffic.
The Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act – After the 1972 Amendments

In October of 1972, Congress enacted the most significant and far-reaching amendments to the Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (Longshoremen’s Act) since federal compensation benefits were first made available in 1927. Major alterations have been made in the level of benefits, administration by the Secretary of Labor, and procedure within the compensation system. The jurisdictional scope of the Longshoremen’s Act has been expanded, third-party rights have been redrawn, and indemnity actions have been eliminated.The 1972 amendments will radically alter the pattern of federal compensation practice and maritime personal injury litigation, and the courts increasingly have occasion to comment on the effect of these amendments. This article will examine the more important features of the 1972 amendments, analyze the alterations in jurisdiction and third-party rights, and discuss some of the practical aspects of settling cases and recovering liens under the new law.
Impact of autologous stem cell transplant in myeloma patients on renal function and overall survival.

e19535Background: Renal impairment has been negatively associated with progression free survival and overall survival in patients diagnosed with multiple myeloma (MM). Autologous stem cell transpla...
A Prediction-Correction Primal-Dual Algorithm for Distributed Optimization

In this work, we propose a novel primal-dual algorithm for solving distributed optimization problems with consensus constraints over a network of agents. Our starting point is to form the Lagrangian of the constrained problem. The agents update their dual variables using dual gradient ascent (the dual step). By interpreting the dual variables as time-varying parameters, the agents track the minimizer of the resulting time-varying Lagrangian using a prediction-correction scheme (the primal step). Each iteration of the resulting algorithm requires two rounds of communication and two local Hessian inversions per agent. In particular, we establish exponential convergence of the resulting algorithm to a neighborhood of the optimal solution. Numerical experiments support the theoretical conclusions.
The development of the trunk neural crest in the turtle Trachemys scripta

BACKGROUND The neural crest is a group of multipotent cells that give rise to a wide variety of cells, especially portion of the peripheral nervous system. Neural crest cells (NCCs) show evolutionary conserved fate restrictions based on their axial level of origin: cranial, vagal, trunk, and sacral. While much is known about these cells in mammals, birds, amphibians, and fish, relatively little is known in other types of amniotes such as snakes, lizards, and turtles. We attempt here to provide a more detailed description of the early phase of trunk neural crest cell (tNCC) development in turtle embryos. RESULTS In this study, we show, for the first time, migrating tNCC in the pharyngula embryo of Trachemys scripta by vital-labeling the NCC with DiI and through immunofluorescence. We found that (a) tNCC form a line along the sides of the trunk NT; (b) The presence of late migrating tNCC on the medial portion of the somite; (c) The presence of lateral mesodermal migrating tNCC in pharyngula embryos; (d) That turtle embryos have large/thick peripheral nerves. CONCLUSIONS The similarities and differences in tNCC migration and early PNS development that we observe across sauropsids (birds, snake, gecko, and turtle) suggests that these species evolved some distinct NCC pathways.