cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Target Specificity of the Endonuclease from the Xenopus laevis Non-Long Terminal Repeat Retrotransposon, Tx1L

Elements of the Tx1L family are non-long terminal repeat retrotransposons (NLRs) that are dispersed in the genome of Xenopus laevis. Essentially all genomic copies of Tx1L are found inserted at a specific site within another family of transposable elements (Tx1D). This suggests that Tx1L is a site-specific retrotransposon. Like many (but not all) other NLRs, the Xenopus element encodes an apparent endonuclease that is related in sequence to the apurinic-apyrimidinic endonucleases that participate in DNA repair. This enzyme is thought to introduce the single-strand break in target DNA that initiates transposition by the target-primed reverse transcription (TPRT) mechanism. To explore the issue of target specificity more fully, we expressed the polypeptide encoded by the endonuclease domain of open reading frame 2 from Tx1L (Tx1L EN) and characterized its cleavage capabilities. This endonuclease makes a specific nick in the bottom strand precisely at one end of the presumed Tx1L target duplication. Because this activity leaves a 5′-phosphate and 3′-hydroxyl at the nick, it has the location and chemistry required to initiate new insertion events by TPRT. Tx1L EN does not make a specific cut at a preferred target site for Tx1D elements, ruling out the alternative possibility that the composite Tx1L-Tx1D element moves as a unit under the control of functions encoded by Tx1L. Further characterization revealed that the endonuclease remains active for many hours at room temperature and that it is capable of enzymatic turnover. Scanning substitution mutagenesis located the recognition site for Tx1L EN within 10 bp surrounding the primary nick site. Implications of these features for natural transposition events are discussed.
Self-acceleration of a charged jet

When insulators are sprayed electrostatically, charges are injected into the liquid, resulting in the formation of a charged jet. Mutual repulsion between these charges, which reside on the jet surface, causes the jet to accelerate. This acceleration is opposed by surface tension and inertial forces. As the jet accelerates, its radius decreases until it reaches a minimum radius. When the minimum jet size is achieved, the rate of acceleration decreases to zero. Equations are derived which allow this minimum radius to be calculated. In addition to the accelerating jet, the equations have another solution with the jet decelerating. In the experiments the acceleration is observed but not the deceleration. Rather, drops form on the end of the jet, indicating that it becomes unstable before it can decelerate. The values for minimum jet radius calculated from the equations are compared with experimental measurements of the minimum jet size in electrostatic spraying of insulators, and good correlation is obtained. >
Can Arms Races Lead to the Outbreak of War

The relationships between an arms race and the outbreak of war have been debated over many years. Indeed, the question of war outbreak is the most basic and fundamental one in any study of arms races. This question obviously carries much more urgency when it becomes that of whether a nuclear arms race might lead to a nuclear war. That is the focus of the present paper: the relationships between a nuclear arms race and the outbreak of nuclear war in a bipolar world of two nuclear powers. The paper also presents a specific application to the United States-Soviet Union arms race of the post-war period.
Allocating fixed-priority periodic tasks on multiprocessor systems

In this paper, we study the problem of allocating a set of periodic tasks on a multiprocessor system such that tasks are scheduled to meet their deadlines on individual processors by the Rate-Monotonic scheduling algorithm. A new schedulability condition is developed for the Rate-Monotonic scheduling that allows us to develop more efficient on-line allocation algorithms. Two on-line allocation algorithms—RM-FF and RM-BF are presented, and shown that their worst-case performance, over the optimal allocation, is upper bounded by 2.33 and lower bounded by 2.28. Then RM-FF and RM-BF are further improved to form two new algorithms: Refined-RM-FF (RRM-FF) and Refined-RM-BF (RRM-BF), both of which have a worst-case performance bound of 2. We also show that when the maximum allowable utilization of a task is small, the worst-case performance of all the new algorithms can be significantly improved. The worst-case performance bounds of RRM-FF and RRM-BF are currently the best bounds in the class of on-line scheduling algorithms proposed to solve the same scheduling problem. Simulation studies show that the average-case performance of the newly proposed algorithms is significantly superior to those in the existing literature.
Finite series-expansion reconstruction methods

Series-expansion reconstruction methods made their first appearance in the scientific literature and in the CT scanner industry around 1970. Great research efforts have gone into them since but many questions still wait to be answered. These methods, synonymously known as algebraic methods, iterative algorithms, or optimization theory techniques, are based on the discretization of the image domain prior to any mathematical analysis and thus are rooted in a completely different branch of mathematics than the transform methods which are discussed in this issue by Lewitt [51]. How is the model set up? What is the methodology of the approach? Where does mathematical optimization theory enter? What do these reconstruction algorithms look like? How are quadratic optimization, entropy optimization, and Bayesian analysis used in image reconstruction? Finally, why study series expansion methods if transform methods are so much faster? These are some of the questions that are answered in this paper.
A NEW STABILITY CRITERION FOR HUMAN SEATED TASKS WITH GIVEN POSTURES

In digital human modeling (DHM), the analysis of postural stability has five main goals: to determine if a posture is stable or unstable through an explicit criterion; to quantify the level of stability or provide a margin of stability that accounts for the height of the center of mass (COM) above the support plane(s); to be valid in the presence of externally applied forces and moments; be able to assess stability when multiple noncoplanar support planes exist, as is the case with seated postures; and to give insight into the support reaction force (SRF) distribution. To date, there is not a method for analyzing stability that can effectively meet each goal. This paper presents a new stability criterion and stability analysis that accomplishes each intended goal. The stability analysis is derived from the calculation of joint torque using the recursive Lagrangian dynamic formulation. A 56-degree-of-freedom (DOF) articulated digital human model is used to model seated postures to demonstrate the proposed stability criterion. Different given postures with different external load cases are presented.
Adult female hamsters avoid interspecific mating after exposure to heterospecific males.

When females mate with a heterospecific male, they do not usually produce viable offspring. Thus, there is a selective pressure for females to avoid interspecific mating. In many species, females innately avoid heterospecific males; females can also imprint on their parents to avoid later sexual interactions with heterospecific males. However, it was previously unknown whether adult females can learn to discriminate against heterospecific males. We tested the hypothesis that adult females previously unable to avoid interspecific mating learn to avoid such mating after being exposed to heterospecific males. Syrian hamster (Mesocricetus auratus) females not previously exposed to Turkish hamster (Mesocricetus brandti) males can discriminate between odors of conspecific and heterospecific males, but they mate with either type of male. However, when we exposed adult females to both a conspecific male and a heterospecific male through wire-mesh barriers for 8 days, and then paired them sequentially with the two males, females were more receptive to conspecific males and more aggressive to heterospecific males. When females were paired with the heterospecific male first and the conspecific male second, no female was receptive and all were aggressive to heterospecific males. When females were paired with the conspecific male first, only 43% of females were then aggressive toward the heterospecific male. That is, interactions with conspecific males may decrease a female’s ability to properly avoid heterospecific males. Our study clearly shows for the first time that females can learn during adulthood to avoid interspecific mating just by being exposed to stimuli from heterospecific males.
A Place for the Donkey: Natives and Aliens in the US Virgin Islands

Abstract This paper is concerned with one aspect of the protection of the natural environment by the US National Park Service at the Virgin Islands National Park, the Park Service classification of flora and fauna as native, non-native, naturalised and invasive. This is part of an interest by the Park Service and others to restore nature parks to the ecosystem thought to exist before European influence. Many St Johnians, long-time island residents and descendants of the early enslaved population, see things differently. For them, plants and animals that are part of their collective history and way of life belong on the island and in the park, even if conservation biologists classify them as invasive aliens. Islanders thus see recreating ecosystems, or wilderness, as erasing them from the history of the island and its landscape. The paper illustrates this with the case of the donkey, which the Park Service sees primarly as a destructive, non-native invasive, and which St Johnians see as a valued part of th...
Internet Studios: Teaching Architectural Design On-Line between the United States and Latin America

This article analyzes the pedagogical use of high-end computer graphics and low-and high-bandwidth Internet technology for international architectural education among numerous universities in the Americas. The findings can be applied to any discipline that involves a large number of participants within a design setting. The experiments have allowed design studios from seven schools of architecture in the U.S. and South America to work concurrently in a semesterlong design studio. Most of the collaboration was accomplished by using low-bandwidth Internet communication such as web publishing, chat, computerassisted design software and other technologies such as ISDN broadcasting. The author anticipates future experimentation with high-bandwidth technologies on the Internet2 Abilene Network.
India’s Contributions Over the Last 40 Years in Turbine Blade Dynamics

India is one of the founding members of IFToMM and took keen interest in its activities since its inception. It took full advantage of organizing and participating in events worldwide in various MMS areas. The contributions over the last 4–5 decades in Turbine Blade Dynamics from India are recounted here.
Passive modification of free carrier lifetime in high-Q silicon-on-insulator optics

A simple chemical method for reducing free-carrier lifetime in silicon photonics while maintaining low optical loss is presented. Lifetimes of ∼ 300ps for optical losses of ∼ 0.4cm−1 are achieved. Ramifications for nonlinear optics are discussed.
Compiler optimizations for improving data locality

In the past decade, processor speed has become significantly faster than memory speed. Small, fast cache memories are designed to overcome this discrepancy, but they are only effective when programs exhibit data locality. In this paper, we present compiler optimizations to improve data locality based on a simple yet accurate cost model. The model computes both temporal and spatial reuse of cache lines to find desirable loop organizations. The cost model drives the application of compound transformations consisting of loop permutation, loop fusion, loop distribution, and loop reversal. We demonstrate that these program transformations are useful for optimizing many programs.To validate our optimization strategy, we implemented our algorithms and ran experiments on a large collection of scientific programs and kernels. Experiments with kernels illustrate that our model and algorithm can select and achieve the best performance. For over thirty complete applications, we executed the original and transformed versions and simulated cache hit rates. We collected statistics about the inherent characteristics of these programs and our ability to improve their data locality. To our knowledge, these studies are the first of such breadth and depth. We found performance improvements were difficult to achieve because benchmark programs typically have high hit rates even for small data caches; however, our optimizations significantly improved several programs.
Influence of Phosphorous on the Kinetics of Ordering in Ni2Cr

The isothermal ordering kinetics of stoichiometric Ni2Cr was investigated in specimens aged at 500°C and containing 3 different phosphorous impurity concentrations; 0.004, 0.032, and 0.142 atomic percent P. In every case, higher P specimens were found to transform more rapidly than lower P content specimens, with as much as an order of magnitude difference in transformation times. Low and medium P specimens transformed via a continuous ordering process. In contrast, the highest P specimens transformed by an unusual process in which colonies of ordered domains were formed which consumed grains through the advance of an order-disorder interface. Colonies tens of microns in size were typically observed while individual ordered domains were only a few tens of nm in size.
Die Ethik des Präferenz-Managements: Risiko, Werte und Entscheidungen*

In diesem Kapitel werde ich in wenigen Worten die Psychologie des Risikos und einige ihrer Implikationen beschreiben. Dabei werde ich mit einer Untersuchung der Subjektivitat beginnen, sowie den Werten, welche in der Definition und Beurteilung von Risiko inbegriffen sind. Ich werde argumentieren, dass es legitime, werte-geladene Sachverhalte gibt, welche den multiplen Dimensionen der offentlichen Risikowahrnehmung zu Grunde liegen, und diese Werte sind als Risiko- Richtlinien-Entscheidungen (risk-policy decisions) zu erachten.
Extracorporeal Shock Wave Lithotripsy-Induced Perirenal Hematomas

AbstractSubcapsular or perirenal bleeding is the most commonly experienced adverse effect directly attributable to externally applied shock waves. The first consecutive 3,620 extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy treatments with the HM3 Dornier lithotriptor at our institution resulted in 24 hematomas in 21 patients, for an incidence of 0.66 per cent. Various factors associated with treatment were examined. The number of shock waves (up to 2,000) and voltage up to 24kv. did not correlate with the development of hematoma. Coagulation studies were normal in all patients with hematomas. There was no correlation of patient size and weight, or stone size, number or location with the occurrence rate of perinephric hematoma.Patients with pre-existing hypertension, particularly those with unsatisfactory control of hypertension, had a significantly increased incidence of perinephric hematoma. The incidence of hematoma in hypertensive patients was 2.5 per cent and it increased to 3.8 per cent in patients with unsati...
The physiologic basic of some disorders of motor function of the esophagus.

Disorder of motor function of the esophagus usually is manifested by one or more of four physiologically detectable changes: achalasia, motor failure or paralysis, dyskinesia, and spasm or cramp. Achalasia is seen in the gastroesophageal sphincter. Partial or complete failure of contraction occurs most commonly in the esophagus. In dyskinesia, the progressive sequence of the contraction is lost, and the entire organ or a part of it contracts simultaneously. Too much contraction for too long a period causes diffuse spasm. Refinements in technics of detection should result in better definition of esophageal motor disorders and better management of patients.
[Distribution of the isoenzym lactatdehydrogenase in human cartilage (author's transl)].

Die Analyse des LDH-Isoenzymverteilungsmusters im normalen Knorpel wird fur die Interpretation von Enzymwerten bei krankhaften Gelenkveranderungen wertvolle Hinweise geben konnen. Sie kann Aufschlusse uber die jeweils resultierende Stoffwechselsituation im Gelenk bieten. Da bisher noch keine reprasentativen Untersuchungen uber den normalen menschlichen Knorpel bekannt sind, wird in der vorliegenden Arbeit der Versuch unternommen, das LDH-Isoenzymverteilungsmuster im normalen Knorpel zu bestimmen. Das Ergebnis zeigt, das im normalen menschlichen Gelenkknorpel die LDH-5 mit durchschnittlich 75,3% uberwiegt und ein starker Abfall zur LDH-4 (21,7%) und zur LDH-3 (3,2%) erfolgt. Das Ergebnis fugt sich damit gut in die bisherigen Daten uber den Gelenkknorpel ein.
The Futures of Monetary Stabilization Policy

In deciding monetary policy, the Federal Reserve of the United States faces two major sets of problems, namely, those having to do with precision and those having to do with time-inconsistency. Sumner offers what he believes to be a solution to both the precision and the time-inconsistency problems in the form of a CPI futures market created and run by the Fed. Garrison and White disagree, countering that this would in fact be a non-solution. The purpose of this paper is to suggest an alternative to Sumner's proposal that avoids the issues outlined by Garrison and White that ultimately allows the Fed to solve both sets of problems as Sumner originally intended.
Detecting rare and common haplotype-environment interaction under uncertainty of gene-environment independence assumption

Finding rare variants and gene-environment interactions (GXE) is critical in dissecting complex diseases. We consider the problem of detecting GXE where G is a rare haplotype and E is a nongenetic factor. Such methods typically assume G-E independence, which may not hold in many applications. A pertinent example is lung cancer-there is evidence that variants on Chromosome 15q25.1 interact with smoking to affect the risk. However, these variants are associated with smoking behavior rendering the assumption of G-E independence inappropriate. With the motivation of detecting GXE under G-E dependence, we extend an existing approach, logistic Bayesian LASSO, which assumes G-E independence (LBL-GXE-I) by modeling G-E dependence through a multinomial logistic regression (referred to as LBL-GXE-D). Unlike LBL-GXE-I, LBL-GXE-D controls type I error rates in all situations; however, it has reduced power when G-E independence holds. To control type I error without sacrificing power, we further propose a unified approach, LBL-GXE, to incorporate uncertainty in the G-E independence assumption by employing a reversible jump Markov chain Monte Carlo method. Our simulations show that LBL-GXE has power similar to that of LBL-GXE-I when G-E independence holds, yet has well-controlled type I errors in all situations. To illustrate the utility of LBL-GXE, we analyzed a lung cancer dataset and found several significant interactions in the 15q25.1 region, including one between a specific rare haplotype and smoking.
Cardiac Length-Dependent Activation: Weak Binding Hypothesis Tested by a Computational Sarcomere Model

Experiments suggest that length changes alter activation in cardiac sarcomeres within a few milliseconds (Mateja & deTombe, 2012). Thus, the mechanism producing length-dependent activation must occur early in the contractile cycle, such as during the formation of weakly bound crossbridges. We hypothesized that a decrease in the energy required to form weak crossbridges would lead to greater probability of their formation. Such decrease in energy at longer sarcomere lengths could occur via reduction in both: (1) radial distance a crossbridge stretches to attach to actin, due to lattice spacing; (2) radial elastic crossbridge stiffness, due to influence of sarcomere length on modulators such as titin, myosin light chains, or myosin binding protein-C. We have previously developed a compact kinetic model of cardiac sarcomere dynamics (Hunter, BPS Meeting 2015). Parameters in this model were adjusted to produce the best fit with five experimental measures at constant sarcomere length (from others’ published data): (1) F-pCa relation, (2) alteration in F-pCa with addition of NEM-S1 strong crossbridges, (3) relation between kinetics of tension recovery and calcium concentration [k(TR)-pCa relation], (4) alteration in k(TR)-pCa with addition of NEM-S1, (5) shape of F-Ca loops during twitches. All five of these sets of experimental data were reasonably matched by the model using the best-fit set of parameters. Holding all other best-fit parameters constant, we then modified just the binding constant for weak crossbridges. An increased binding constant (due to lower energy to form a weak crossbridge) reproduced both of the following effects of increased sarcomere length: (1) shifted mid-point of F-pCa relation to lower [Ca++], (2) increased maximum force at saturating [Ca++]. Both of these experimental effects of increased sarcomere length are well known from published data (Dobesh, Konhilas, deTombe, 2002).
Homicide Rates in the Old West

This article describes the methods that social scientists use to measure and compare the risks that various populations face of being murdered. It demonstrates that the West was unusually homicidal compared to the rest of the Western world, except for the most violent areas of the South during Reconstruction.
Simulation of anti-relay attack schemes for RFID ETC system

As Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) systems, such as E-ZPass, expands to cope with increasing development of the world's highway transportation infrastructure and generate public revenue, they have also become the subject of security attacks like any information system. Traditional security solutions are not applicable to ETC systems due to limited computing/storage resources and mobility requirements. Most ETC systems use Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology to identify vehicles and communicate messages, which makes the systems vulnerable to eavesdrop by the nature of open wireless channels. This paper addresses the unique characteristics of ETC systems and focuses on a particular kind of network security threats named replay attacks. We propose two methods; time-out delay and randomized ID renewal that will eliminate or greatly reduce the success of attacks. Both methods will deny access to the attacker in an attempt to replay the genuine user's ID. Through simulation, we demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach under various scenarios. Our simulation tool can also be used for education purposes to illustrate the underlying principles of various security attacks to ETC systems.
Chief Justice Rehnquist's Enduring Democratic Constitution

William H. Rehnquist's essay, "The Notion of a Living Constitution," was delivered as the Will E. Orgain Lecture and then published thirty years ago, back when Rehnquist was still a relatively junior Associate Justice. The piece provides a clear and coherent statement of Rehnquist's judicial philosophy, and the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy and the Texas Law Review deserve thanks for their initiative and generosity in reproducing it, in memory of his life and work. This introduction to Rehnquist's essay highlights his view that the Notion of a Living Constitution was to be resisted, not out of pious reverence for the Founders' insight into the moral, economic, and social challenges facing late-Twentieth Century society. Nor did his critique purport to be the product of a tight deduction from premises relating to the very nature of a written constitution. He was not a fundamentalist, or even a thoroughgoing, principled originalist. His aim was not to deny or resist constitutional change, but instead to insist and ensure that We the People, the ultimate source of authority in this Nation, acting through our politically accountable representatives, retain the right to serve (or not) as the agents of and vehicles for that change. What animates Rehnquist's essay - and, indeed, his career on the Court - is not so much a misplaced attachment to stasis, or a slavish adherence to ideological formulae, but a clear-eyed appreciation for tension that can exist between the antidemocratic and antimajoritarian facets of judicial review and the political theory basic to democratic society.
Neural Encoding of Sound Intensity in the Ventral Cochlear Nucleus of Awake and Behaving Cats

ABSTRACT Changes in the average discharge rate of most auditory neurons saturate over a 35-dB range of sound levels when experiments are performed on anesthetized animals. Nevertheless, human listeners are sensitive to small intensity differences over a 110-dB range of sound levels. We have tested the hypothesis that the neural encoding of sound intensity is enhanced in awake subjects relative to anesthetized animals by recording unit activity in the ventral cochlear nucleus (VCN) of awake, behaving cats. Data obtained in the presence of continuous background noise show a shift to higher stimulus levels and dynamic range compression. These noise effects limit a unit's ability to encode changes in stimulus intensity with changes in discharge rate. Units in awake cats exhibited larger shifts and less compression in noise (i.e., better dynamic range adjustment) than were observed in previous studies of anesthetized cats ( Costalupes et al., 1984 ). Dynamic range adjustment to noise in awake cats is similar to effects produced in anesthetized cats by stimulating olivocochlear efferent fibers ( Winslow and Sachs, 1987 ).
Deconflating the ZPD and instructional scaffolding: Retranslating and reconceiving the zone of proximal development as the zone of next development

Abstract This article provides a reconception of what is known as Vygotsky's “zone of proximal development,” particularly its improper conflation with the notion of “instructional scaffolding.” The article introduces the essay's purpose and motivation; reviews and critiques Vygotsky's description of the ZPD and explains how it has come to be misinterpreted; summarizes Wood, Bruner, and Ross's introduction of the scaffolding metaphor; and provides a different, more accurate translation of the ZPD as the zone of next development, based on the documentary film The Butterflies of Zagorsk. Through this analysis, the author contends that the conflation of scaffolding with the ZPD has produced a trivialization of Vygotsky's greater body of work, reducing it to a briefly-mentioned pedagogical idea and resulting in the neglect of his more important project of generating a comprehensive cultural-historical-social theory of mediated human development.
Functional Behavior Assessment and Function-Based Intervention Planning: Considering the Simple Logic of the Process.

While functional behavior assessment (FBA) has been a part of special education law and embedded in Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) since 1997, a precise definition of what actio...
Trilinear maps for cryptography II.

We construct cryptographic trilinear maps that involve simple, non-ordinary abelian varieties over finite fields. In addition to the discrete logarithm problems on the abelian varieties, the cryptographic strength of the trilinear maps is based on a discrete logarithm problem on the quotient of certain modules defined through the N\'{e}ron-Severi groups. The discrete logarithm problem is reducible to constructing an explicit description of the algebra generated by two non-commuting endomorphisms, where the explicit description consists of a linear basis with the two endomorphisms expressed in the basis, and the multiplication table on the basis. It is also reducible to constructing an effective $\mathbb{Z}$-basis for the endomorphism ring of a simple non-ordinary abelian variety. Both problems appear to be challenging in general and require further investigation.
Neutralization of macrophage migration inhibitory factor improves host survival after Clostridium difficile infection.

Abstract Clostridium difficile is an important cause of nosocomial diarrhea in the western world. Toxins (A, B, and binary toxins) generated by C. difficile bacteria damage intestinal epithelial cells. Hallmarks of host response to C. difficile infection (CDI) include upregulation of inflammatory mediators and tissue infiltration by immune cells. Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) is an inflammatory cytokine that is known to enhance the host immune response to infectious pathogens. Additionally, MIF can adversely impact host survival to numerous infections. The role of MIF in the pathogenesis of CDI remains poorly understood. Here, we show that patients with CDI had significantly higher circulating MIF compared to patients who had diarrhea but tested negative for C. difficile (non-CDI controls). Similarly, in a mouse model, C. difficile challenge significantly increased levels of plasma and tissue MIF. Antibody-mediated depletion of MIF decreased C. difficile-induced inflammatory responses, clinical disease, and mortality. Together, these results uncover a potential role for MIF in exacerbating CDI and suggest that use of anti-MIF antibodies may represent a therapeutic strategy to curb host inflammatory responses and improve disease outcomes in CDI.
Traces of Predation

Predation, a normal activity in most recent communities, is a way of life for many animals and may exert control over the population density of other members of the community. Our knowledge of ancient examples of this important function is meager. This dearth stems mainly from (1) destruction of the evidence itself during predation, (2) collecting biases toward complete specimens and away from incomplete and broken specimens that might show predation damage, and (3) our inability to recognize the evidence of predation.
Opioid overdose response training in pharmacy education: An analysis of students' perception of naloxone use for opioid overdose prevention.

Abstract Background and purpose Pharmacists in New Mexico have prescriptive authority to prescribe naloxone. However, no formal naloxone training has been provided for students at the University of New Mexico College of Pharmacy. Educational activity and setting Training was incorporated into a pharmaceutical care laboratory course. First-year (P1) (n = 63) and third-year (P3) (n = 78) pharmacy students were asked to answer a pre- and post-training survey. The survey was designed to assess students’ self-rated knowledge, clinical-type skills related to naloxone and opioids, and attitude toward prescribing naloxone. In class students reviewed the epidemiology of opioid overdose and risk assessment methods for patients, and the students practiced using an intranasal spray and an auto injector. Findings The pre-survey showed that P3 students had higher confidence levels in regards to naloxone therapy compared with P1 students. However, educational materials significantly increased confidence levels in drug knowledge, clinical-type skills, and patient counseling in both cohorts. The P3 cohort tended to be more likely to disagree with advertisements about the availability of naloxone therapy by pharmacists as compared to the P1 cohort. Summary P1 and P3 students demonstrated improved knowledge, skills, and attitudes in regards to naloxone therapy and dispensing. Naloxone training is essential to increase pharmacy students’ knowledge about opioid overdose and naloxone benefits. Although the training helped increase students’ confidence level, additional practical training and longitudinal instruction in a pharmacy curriculum would be valuable so that students could transfer the knowledge into practice as a pharmacist.
PageRank Acceleration for Large Graphs with Scalable Hardware and Two-Step SpMV

PageRank is an important vertex ranking algorithm that suffers from poor performance and efficiency due to notorious memory access behavior. Furthermore, when graphs become bigger and sparser, PageRank applications are inhibited as most current solutions profoundly rely on large random access fast memory, which is not easily scalable. In this paper we present a 16nm ASIC based shared memory platform for PageRank implementation that fundamentally accelerates Sparse Matrix dense Vector multiplication (SpMV), the core kernel of PageRank. This accelerator is scalable, guarantees full DRAM streaming and reduces off-chip communication. More importantly, it is capable of handling very large graphs (∼2 billion vertices) despite using significantly less fast random access memory than current solutions. Experimental results show that our proposed accelerator is able to yield order of magnitude improvement in both energy efficiency and performance over state of the art shared memory commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) solutions.
Characterizing Transport Current Defects in 1-cm-Wide YBa2Cu3O7-δ Coated Conductors

We have used a low temperature magnetic imaging system to determine current pathways in 5 cm long “good” and “bad” regions of a 1-cm-wide YBa 2 Cu 3 O 7-δ coated conductor. The good and bad regions were identified with 4 point probe measurements taken at 1 cm intervals along the tape length. The current density map from the good region showed the expected edge peaked structure, similar to that seen in previous work on high quality test samples grown on single crystal substrates. The structure was also consistent with theoretical understanding of thin film superconductors where demagnetizing effects are strong. The maps from the bad region showed that the current was primarily confined to the right half of the sample. The left half carried only a small current that reached saturation quickly. Effectively halving the sample width quantitatively explains the critical current measured in that section. Spatially resolved x -ray analysis with 1 mm resolution was used to further characterize the bad section and suggested an abnormally large amount of a -axis YBCO present. This may be the result of non-uniform heating leading to a low deposition temperature in that area.
Molecular characterization of the proline-1 (pro-1) locus of Neurospora crassa, which encodes delta 1-pyrroline-5-carboxylate reductase.

Δ1-pyrroline-5-carboxylate reductase (P5CR; [l-proline: NAD(P+) 5-oxidoreductase]; EC 1.5.1.2) catalyzes the final step in proline biosynthesis. We have shown that theproline-1 (pro-1) locus ofNeurospora crassa encodes P5CR. Thepro-1 gene was localized to a 3.2 kb region by complementation of (restoration of proline-independent growth to) a proline auxotroph carrying a recessive mutation at thepro-1 locus. The nucleotide sequence of this 3.2 kb region contains an open reading frame with coding capacity of 311 amino acids. The deduced polypeptide shows significant similarity to P5CR amino acid sequences. Similarity ofN. crassa P5CR is greatest to that of the yeast,Saccharomyces cerevisiae, but is also strong to P5CR sequences from archaea, eubacteria, plants, and humans. InN. crassa, amino acid imbalance, including deficiency or excess of a single amino acid, such as histidine, induces expression of many amino acid biosynthetic genes that are under cross-pathway control, a general regulatory system analogous to general amino acid control inSaccharomyces. Although P5CR catalyzes the only committed step in proline biosynthesis,pro-1 expression was unaltered by histidine starvation and independent of CPC1, a positively acting transcription factor that mediates cross-pathway control inN. crassa.
CHURP: A Lightweight CLI Framework to Enable Novice Users to Analyze Sequencing Datasets in Parallel

Progressive decreases in the cost of DNA sequencing have contributed to a decades-long exponential increase in the production of new sequencing datasets. The processing of these datasets has in turn led biology, a field that has traditionally relied on local "lab" servers to address its computational needs, to become increasingly reliant on High Performance Computing (HPC) resources. Though many operations on sequencing datasets are trivially parallelizable on multiple levels, the lack of an HPC tradition in biological research has hampered fully parallelized deployments.Here we present a lightweight flexible framework for performing parallelized processing of raw gene expression data. The framework uses a Python3 based frontend for specifying analysis options, data paths, and reference datasets. This frontend sanitizes and resolves the options, providing verbose error checking before writing a human readable configuration file and basic scripts for batch submission. The submission scripts leverage the scheduler to implement a scatter-gather approach, submitting potentially hundreds of individual jobs via a job array, each small enough to take advantage of backfill in a high contention HPC environment. The gather component is handled through a script submitted with an "after-okay" dependency.
Machine Learning-Assisted Array-Based Biomolecular Sensing Using Surface-Functionalized Carbon Dots.

Fluorescent array-based sensing is an emerging differential sensing platform for sensitive detection of analytes in a complex environment without involving a conventional “lock and key” type-specif...
Arm yourself for the coming battle over Social Security.

The U.S. Social Security system is in deep trouble--and that's not just bad news for your friends and family. It's also bad news for your company. Unless the Social Security system is changed, by 2017 the cash flowing out of it will exceed the cash coming in, and by 2041 the system will be utterly insolvent. But the trouble will start sooner than that: In the next decade, the very prospect of the rising deficit will mean serious pressure on recent tax cuts, higher long-term interest rates, increased pension-funding costs, and other punishing conditions for U.S. businesses. Clearly, there's a lot at stake for companies, which is why executives need to participate in the growing debate about Social Security reform, says Robert Pozen, a visiting professor at Harvard Law School who served on the President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security. In this article, he urges business leaders to take a stance on how the system should be reformed, suggesting they work with interest groups to make their voices heard. After taking a comprehensive look at the debates surrounding Social Security reform, Pozen outlines the three main alternatives executives might choose to support: increasing contributions to Social Security, decreasing the growth of benefits for more-affluent workers, and increasing investment returns on Social Security assets. What's needed to fix the current system, he contends, is a careful balance of all three.
An AAOS-NIH symposium. Fracture repair: challenges, opportunities, and directions for future research.

Fracture-healing is a complex, highly organized biological process that leads to the restoration of skeletal integrity by the regeneration of bone. This unique property differentiates bone from other tissues and is essential for skeletal health, homeostasis, and survival. Although fracture-healing is one of the most consistent and reliable reparative responses of human tissue, its impairment or failure can lead to devastating clinical consequences. Conversely, a comprehensive understanding of the basic science of fracture-healing may reveal some of the most well-kept secrets of nature, providing clinicians and scientists with new paths for investigation and leading to advanced therapies for the treatment of skeletal injuries and diseases. This article summarizes the key discussion points of the 2007 American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) Research Symposium entitled “Fracture Repair: Challenges and Opportunities.” The major goals of this meeting were (1) to identify the unmet needs and research directions for basic, translational, and clinical research in fracture-healing so as to guide the scientific community, and (2) to provide critical feedback to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to impact their long-range planning and priority-setting processes. The symposium was organized in a “bench-to-bedside” manner, beginning with presentations on basic- science concepts and followed by discussions on translational research, emerging technologies, and the design and conduct of clinical investigations. The supplement to this issue of The Journal carries full-length manuscripts for these presentations. However, in order to identify the challenges, opportunities, and directions for future research, breakout sessions on tissue responses and cellular recruitment after skeletal injury, cellular signaling, translational research, and clinical trial design provided the setting for meeting these objectives. The output from those sessions forms the basis of this report. Our current understanding of the early events of fracture-healing recognizes that several cell types, including those resident at the site of the injury …
Dark-Binding Process Relevant to Preventing Photosensitized Oxidation: Conformation-Dependent Light and Dark Mechanisms by a Dual-Functioning Diketone

Few photosensitizers function in both light and dark processes as they usually have no function when the lights are turned off. We hypothesized that light and dark mechanisms in an α-diketone will be decoupled by dihedral rotation in a conformation-dependent binding process. Successful decoupling of these two functions is now shown. Namely, anti- and syn-skewed conformations of 4,4′-dimethylbenzil promote photosensitized alkoxy radical production, whereas the syn conformation promotes a binding shutoff reaction with trimethyl phosphite. Less rotation of the diketone is better suited to the photosensitizing function since phosphite binding arises through the syn conformer of lower stability. The dual function seen here with the α-diketone is generally not available to sensitizers of limited conformational flexibility, such as porphyrins, phthalocyanines, and fullerenes.
Chairman of the Fed

The Federal Reserve was created to promote stability and growth by means of an elastic currency, a task at which it failed miserably during the Great Depression, but which inspired the additional tasks of assisting employment and price stability. Martin’s term as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Open Market Committee (1951–70) was characterized by conflicts between his desire for stable prices, bolstered by his skepticism regarding the stimulative effects of inflation, and Keynesian and administration desires for the Fed’s financing of government deficits.
Burden of Illness in Households With Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2-Infected Children.

We investigated the dynamics of illness among household members of SARS-CoV-2 infected children that received medical care (n=32). We identified 144 household contacts (HCs): 58 children and 86 adults. Forty-six percent of HCs developed symptoms consistent with COVID-19 disease. Child-to-adult transmission was suspected in 7 cases.
Imagination, Symbolic Cognition, and Human Evolution: The Early Arts Facilitated Group Survival

The deep past of human evolution is murky. Archaeological and fossil evidence from Africa provides critical estimates for dates of past landmark events, but there are gaps in the timeline. They can be filled from combined data on climate conditions, physiological traits, inferred brain and cognitive capacities, and comparative biology. It is argued here that evolutionary survival pressures recruiting the functions of symbolic cognition and the imagination contributed to the rise of the earliest arts. Practical survival preceded symbolic art expressions; utilitarian application of ochre sparked imaginative expansion into body paintings displays. Fire hearths for communal cooking, warmth, and tool making provided space for sharing experiences, real and imagined, and allowed the initiation of storytelling and theater-like acting. Inherited physiological traits were tapped by evolutionary forces in symbolic displays of bonding and solidarity through vocal chorusing and rhythmically moving group kinetic formations. The evolutionary drivers behind the earliest arts were enhancement of survival through symbolic expressions of social cohesion and group effort.
Synchronized Analog Capacitor Arrays for Parallel Convolutional Neural Network Training

We report a novel Synchronized Analog Capacitor Arrays (SACA) to accelerate Convolution Neural Network (CNN) training. The synchronized cross-point capacitor arrays, functioning as replicated weights kernels, train on image patches in parallel. Parallel CNN training is challenging in analog arrays because of weight divergence in the replicated kernel. Capacitor arrays solve this problem by charge sharing between correlated capacitor in the kernel replicas to keep them synchronized. Using SACA, we show we can accelerate CNN training by >100x compared to other analog accelerators.
Diagnosis and Treatment of Central Neurogenic Wrist Pain

Partial wrist denervation is an important technique in the upper extremity surgeon’s armamentarium. This procedure attempts to control joint pain by surgical interruption of sensory input from the painful articulation, without affecting the stability or proprioception of the joint. It provides an alternative for patients who are not yet ready or candidates for a more aggressive salvage procedure like an arthroplasty or arthrodesis. Potential advantages of denervation compared to other procedures include shorter recovery, no use of hardware, and limited postoperative immobilization. The results from studies performed to date are encouraging and have demonstrated improved pain control in many patients without joint instability. In the upper limb, the most widely performed surgery of this kind is the partial denervation of the wrist, addressing the anterior interosseous nerve (AIN) and posterior interosseous nerve (PIN).
Planning urban community gardens strategically through multicriteria decision analysis

Abstract Urban agriculture is widely promoted as a strategy to advance sustainability goals. Urban community gardens serve as multifunctional green infrastructure, providing an array of social and environmental co-benefits. While these services, such as increased access to nutritious food, have been studied extensively, research on siting community gardens remains sparse, especially in their multifunctional roles. This paucity is significant because the spatial distribution of gardens determines which residents benefit from them, the long-term garden success, and the multiple co-benefits for neighborhoods and metropolitan areas. To overcome potential biases related to decisions made ad hoc or by community requests, this study presents a systematic stakeholder-driven approach for strategic urban community garden siting through Multicriteria Decision Analysis (MCDA), reducing thousands of potential parcels to a small number for subsequent in-depth site analysis. We apply this methodology in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Utilizing local stakeholder-weighted criteria, we develop siting indices that incorporate physical and sociodemographic factors that either contribute to site potential or represent priority locations for gardens. The resulting indices–a Social Characteristics Index, Physical Setting Index, and Comprehensive Index–are applied to an expansive inventory of vacant candidate parcels across the metro. The three indices identify moderate to high-scoring parcels within the urban core, but siting scores diverge towards the urban fringe. When tasked with assessing the siting criteria comprehensively, stakeholders prioritize social criteria. Thus, the Social Characteristics and Comprehensive indices prioritize disadvantaged communities in the urban core, potentially excluding aspiring gardeners who live in suburbs. This highlights a potential tradeoff between planning urban community gardens to maximize desired co-benefits and other siting criteria that may influence long-term success.