cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The use of high-dose human menopausal gonadotropin in an in vitro fertilization program

Sixty-three normal ovulatory women suffering from obstructive tubal disease not corrected by previous surgery were enrolled in an in vitro fertilization (IVF) program. To achieve a large number of mature follicles, a relatively high dose of human menopausal gonadotropin (hMG) was administered (19±4 ampules/cycle). Monitoring consisted of daily follicular ultrasonography and serum estradiol measurements. Human chorionic gonadotropin (10,000IU) was administered when more than two large follicles (1.6 to 1.8cm in diameter) were visualized. Fifty-five laparoscopies for oocyte retrieval were performed. A mean of 4.3 follicles per woman were aspirated, and 3.2 oocytes per woman were recovered. The oocytes were preincubated for 8 or 24hours according to the morphologic degree of mucification and dispersal of the oocyte-corona-cumulus complex. Seventy-seven percent of the oocytes were fertilized and were transferred into the uterus 38 to 40hours after insemination. Fifty-two women received one to eight embryos (mean, 3.5±1.9), and 9 (17%) conceived. This regimen of high-dose hMG precludes the need for serum or urine luteinizing hormone monitoring, because the occurrence of spontaneous ovulation is low. It is valuable in increasing the number of fertilizable oocytes, the percentage of women undergoing embryo transfer, and compensates with multiple oocyte transfer for the high embryonic loss involved in IVF.
Salmonella Berta myocarditis: Case report and systematic review of non-typhoid Salmonella myocarditis.

Salmonella Berta myocarditis: Case report and systematic review of non-typhoid Salmonella myocarditis
Secreted P-glycoprotein is a noninvasive biomarker of chronic rhinosinusitis

Objective The discovery of noninvasive biomarkers of chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) is critical to enable our ability to provide prognostic information and targeted medical therapy. Epithelial P-glycoprotein (P-gp) is overexpressed in CRS and exists in an extracellular, secreted form. The objective of this study was to determine whether secreted P-gp concentrations are elevated in CRS and can be used to predict disease severity. Methods Institutional review board-approved study examining mucus concentrations of P-gp in 36 patients (10 control, 16 CRS without nasal polyps [CRSsNP], and 10 CRS with nasal polyps [CRSwNP]). P-gp concentrations were determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and normalized to total protein (TP). Clinical indices of disease severity, including the Sino-Nasal Outcomes Test (SNOT-22) and Lund-Mackay score, were collected for all patients. Results Secreted P-gp concentration was significantly higher in CRS versus control patients (mean ± standard deviation; 247.8 ± 224.8 vs. 102.4 ± 81.7 pcg P-gp/μg TP, P = 0.022). A threshold value of 250 pcg/μg TP was used to differentiate low versus high secretors. High P-gp secretors with CRS (sNP and wNP, n = 9) demonstrated significantly higher SNOT-22 and Lund-Mackay scores (57.1 ± 7.9 and 13.9 ± 7.3) versus low secretors (38.3 ± 23.9 and 6.8 ± 7.3; P = 0.030 and P = 0.013, respectively) and had a significantly higher proportion of CRSwNP (66.7%) versus the low secretors (23.5%, n = 17, P = 0.046). Conclusion P-gp secretion levels are significantly elevated in patients with CRS. High P-gp secretion is associated with a higher incidence of CRSwNP and confers worse subjective and objective measures of disease severity. The presence of elevated P-gp secretion may therefore represent a novel noninvasive biomarker of CRS and could be used to predict patients who may benefit from P-gp inhibitory therapeutic strategies. Level of Evidence N/A. Laryngoscope, 2016
Nonprofit relationship management: Extending the organization-public relationship to loyalty and behaviors

ABSTRACTThrough a survey of organizational stakeholders (N = 660), this study contributes to the understanding of nonprofit public relations in three key areas. First, a new five-factor scale to measure perceptions of the relationship cultivation strategies of stewardship was tested. Second, group differences between organization stakeholder types were explored. Third, a new working model that extends previous organization-public relationship (OPR) models to include variables of loyalty and behavioral intentions was advanced. Findings revealed theoretical, measurement, and practical applications.
Enacting instructional leadership: perspectives and actions of public K-12 principals

ABSTRACTThis article’s purpose is to highlight the perspectives and actions of urban, public school K-12 principals who are noted for prioritising instructional leadership. Grounded in the conceptual framework of agency, I examined the work experiences of 18 New York City public school principals nominated by supervisors, colleagues, trained educational consultants, parents, and students through a four-phase qualitative study consisting of interviews, time surveys, document review, and observations with participants. In order to uphold instructional leadership, analysis highlighted that participants assumed agency by engendering perspectives and actions that viewed instructional leadership as: grounded in learning, influenced by teachers/staff, requiring time and planning for principals and teachers/staff, and calls for teacher/staff empowerment.
And So Begins a Startling Adventure

Rounding off the first part of the book’s argument, this chapter begins its analysis of the early Superman comics, focusing exclusively on their retellings of his origin story. These comic stories are juxtaposed with recent claims that Superman should be regarded as an immigrant, a Moses figure, and a refugee from Nazism. Each of these Judeocentric readings is shown to be problematic and to have unintended, and sometimes troubling, consequences, when their logic is fully unpacked.
Multicultural Practice for Cultural Heterogeneity and National Cultural Homogeneity: Immigrant Youth’s Experience in Osaka, Japan

The notion of multiculturalism has been discussed by scholars since the number of immigrant workers and residents increased in the 1980s in Japan. Compared to other countries, Japan is relatively homogeneous with a small portion of racial and ethnic minorities.
Wavelength scanning based pixel super-resolution

We report a pixel super-resolution technique that uses wavelength scanning over a narrow spectrum to achieve an effective numerical-aperture of ∼1 with ∼2–3 fold less number of measurements than conventional lateral shift-based pixel super-resolution methods.
Understanding rationales for collaboration in high-intensity policy conflicts

Why people collaborate to achieve their political objectives is one enduring question in public policy. Although studies have explored this question in low-intensity policy conflicts, a few have examined collaboration in high-intensity policy conflicts. This study asks two questions: What are the rationales motivating policy actors to collaborate with each other in high-intensity policy conflicts? What policy actor attributes are associated with these rationales? This study uses questionnaire data collected in 2013 and 2014 of policy actors from New York, Colorado and Texas who are actively involved with hydraulic fracturing policy debates. The results show that professional competence is the most important rationale for collaborating, whereas shared beliefs are moderately important, and financial resources are not important. Policy actor attributes that are associated with different rationales include organisational affiliation and extreme policy positions. This article concludes with a discussion on advancing theoretical explanations of collaboration in high-intensity policy conflicts.
Some Extension to the Generalized Parity Space Method for FDI

Abstract This paper describes some new development in the method of failure detection and isolation (FDI) in uncertain systems. The new development is based on the generalized parity space method, however in a closed-loop setting. Residual signals generated by parity checks under this setting are shown to have enhanced robustness with respect to modeling errors and disturbances. An iterative algorithm is developed for optimizing the design of residual signal generators.
Patient characteristics, prognostic factors and outcome of dogs with high-grade primary mediastinal lymphoma.

The goals of this retrospective study were to determine the patient characteristics of dogs with high-grade primary mediastinal lymphoma and to determine outcome and associated prognostic factors. A total of 42 dogs were identified, in which 36 received treatment and had follow-up information available. The most common clinical signs included lethargy, anorexia and polyuria/polydipsia. Hypercalcemia and pleural effusion were common findings at diagnosis. The phenotype was almost exclusively T-cell, most often in association with lymphoblastic cytomorphology as defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) lymphoma classification scheme. The overall progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) were 133 and 183 days, respectively. Treatment with a CHOP (cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, prednisone) protocol was associated with an improved PFS (144 days) and OS (194 days) when compared with dogs that received other medical therapies (P = .005 and P = .002, respectively); the absence of pleural effusion at diagnosis was associated with an increased OS but not PFS. These results suggest that while the prognosis for dogs with mediastinal lymphoma is poor, survival may be improved with treatment using a CHOP-based protocol.
Robot Control Strategies for Task Allocation with Connectivity Constraints in Wireless Sensor and Robot Networks

Mobility within Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) has been widely considered for data collection tasks, where mobile robots physically collect the data from the sensors and return to the base station. Although this approach has proven to be useful in prolonging the lifetime of these networks, it cannot meet the requirements of real-time data collection tasks. For such tasks, we need to utilize mobile robots to create a connected path from the base station to the event, as well as use in-network forwarding through that path. This will provide a longer lifetime while addressing efficiency and scalability issues because mobile robots have a larger and renewable energy reserve, a longer transmission range, and capacity. One of the fundamental problems is how to coordinate robots to establish a connected path from the event location to the base station. We consider this fundamental problem with two objectives, namely minimizing distance traveled by the robots and minimizing hop count (the number of robots used on paths) under the constraints of satisfying the path and/or network connectivity. After mathematically formulating the underlying problems and discussing their NP-hardness, we propose various heuristic solutions. We then demonstrate the efficacy of our proposed solutions through extensive simulations.
Domain walls and the CP anomaly in softly broken supersymmetric QCD

In ordinary QCD with light, degenerate, fundamental flavors, $CP$ symmetry is spontaneously broken at $\theta=\pi$, and domain wall solutions connecting the vacua can be constructed in chiral perturbation theory. In some cases the breaking of $CP$ saturates an 't Hooft anomaly, and anomaly inflow requires nontrivial massless excitations on the domain walls. Analogously, $CP$ can be spontaneously broken in supersymmetric QCD with light flavors and small soft breaking parameters. We study $CP$ breaking and domain walls in softly broken SQCD with $N_f<N$ flavors. Relative to ordinary QCD, the supersymmetric case contains an extra light field, the $\eta^\prime$, which has interesting effects on the structure of the walls. Vanishing of the $CP$ anomaly is associated with the existence of multiple domain wall trajectories through field space, including walls which support no nontrivial massless excitations. In cases with an anomaly such walls are forbidden, and their absence in the relevant SQCD theories can be seen directly from the geometry of the low energy field space. In the case $N_f=N-1$, multiple approximately-BPS walls connect the vacua. Corrections to their tensions can be computed at leading order in the soft breaking parameters, producing a phase diagram for the stable wall trajectory. We also comment on domain walls in the similar case of QCD with an adjoint and fundamental flavors, and on the impact of adding an axion in this theory.
Evolution of the Mössbauer recoilless fraction during mechanochemical activation of iron oxides

The preparation and properties of ultrafine iron oxides continue to attract considerable interest and attention because of their importance in magnetic technologies and pigment applications [1–5]. Part of the interest comes from the fact that ball milling and related methods represent a novel alternative approach to the preparation of new materials and phases. Mossbauer spectroscopy represents a powerful method to characterize the sequence of magnetic phases formed during the ball milling process. The most important parameter in a Mossbauer effect experiment is the recoilless fraction f = exp(−k2〈x2〉), where k is the wavevector of the gamma rays and 〈x2〉 is the mean square vibrational amplitude of the resonant atom in the direction of observation. The only method available to date for the determination of the recoilless fraction relied on its temperature dependence and the determination of the Debye temperature from complicated equation plots. However, we have recently proposed a new method for the direct determination of the recoilless fraction by a single room-temperature transmission Mossbauer measurement. The method relies on a two-lattice comparative approach and made it possible to determine the recoilless fraction of various systems, from iron chlorides to nanoparticles [6, 7]. In the present paper we propose that the recoilless fraction represents an important parameter during the mechanochemical activation process. The magnetite precursor was milled in a hardened steel vial with six stainless-steel balls (type 440; four of 0.25 in. diameter and two of 0.5 in. diameter) in the SPEX mixer-mill for time periods ranging from 0–128 h. Room temperature transmission Mossbauer spectra were recorded using a constant acceleration spectrometer and a 50 mCi 57Co source diffused in a Rh matrix. For the recoilless fraction determination experiments, we produced physical mixtures of iron powder with the powder whose fraction was to be determined. Least squares fitting of the Mossbauer spectra was performed with the NORMOS program [8]. Fig. 1a–c shows the room-temperature Mossbauer spectra of the magnetite powder, after 0, 30 and 70 h of ball milling, respectively. The precursor in Fig. 1a was fitted by considering two sextets, corresponding to the tetrahedral and octahedral magnetic sublattices in the sample. The intermediate products in Fig. 2b were analyzed with five sextets and this analysis was consis-
General Decoupling Inequalities for Tangent Sequences

This chapter provides an introduction to the theory of decoupling of tangent sequences, which consists mainly of inequalities comparing functionals of dependent variables to functionals of conditionally independent (decoupled) random variables having equivalent conditional distributions given the immediate past. This tangency property of “shared conditional distributions given the immediate past” is the prevailing concept that has driven the development of the theory. It is surprising that this (minimal) assumption gives rise to such a wealth of interesting and useful results.
Intervention with Elderly Substance Abusers in the Workplace

The author discusses elderly alcohol and drug abusers in the workplace, emphasizing prevention and strategies to identify the abuser while the problem is still in the incipient stage. Social worker...
Effect of a brand story structure on narrative transportation and perceived brand image of luxury hotels

Abstract People are better suited to understand stories than arguments. This research examined the influence of a narrative transportation approach on luxury hotel consumers’ perceptions of brand image, using a variety of brand story structures. This study measured the effect of brand story structure on brand image and the mediating role of narrative transportation. Data was obtained via a 2 × 2 × 2 experiment, and a crafted brand story of a fictitious luxury hotel brand, with eight structurally varied versions. The results suggest that a well-structured brand story has the potential to enhance brand image, mediated by narrative transportation.
Abstract P356: Association Between Acculturation and Diet Quality Varies by Acculturation Construct and Heritage: Results From the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study on Latinos

Introduction: Inconsistencies remain on the reported associations between measures of acculturation and diet quality, particularly among Hispanics/Latinos. Hypothesis: We hypothesized that associat...
Contemporary Urban Destination Marketing: A Comparative Analysis

Globally, urban destinations have witnessed exponential growth in recent years with increased ease of access, more often than not through low-cost airlines, improved touristic infrastructure and more appealing products and experiences for visitors contributing to this growth. The multi-dimensional and multi-functional nature of urban tourist cities is such that they warrant particular research scrutiny and case-based investigation. In this regard, this chapter compares and contrasts the strategies of two large urban destinations in the state of Florida, namely Miami and Tampa. Both cities are experiencing a current surge in tourist numbers at a time when the state of Florida generally is now attracting over 110 million visitors per annum. Both are very different, however, in their scale, their market attractiveness and the strategies each has adopted for the future, and the overall differentiation they are seeking. Although nowhere near the market appeal of Orlando and its abundance of world-class theme parks, Miami and Tampa have more in common with many cities around the world and each represent new geographies of urban consumption and production. While entering the world’s stage, the onus is on destination marketers to creatively generate synergy and a theme that can encompass their diverse offerings, so as to not leave their prospective visitors confused on the city’s positioning. Both of these coastal cities are primed for unprecedented success in the coming decade; two more coastal cities embracing their urban destination destiny.
An Empirical Study of the Convergence Properties of the Non-Recombining HJM Forward Rate Tree in Pricing Interest Rate Derivatives

Convergence rate and accuracy of the non-recombining HJM forward rate tree are tested by constructing a tree for the forward rate process equivalent to the Hull-White short rate process. Put option values on a ten-year discount bond from the forward rate tree are compared to the accurate values obtained from a recombining short rate lattice. European option values from the HJM tree converge to the true value in twelve steps for all option maturities up to twenty-five years. American option values are within a cent or two of the accurate values for one and five-year options, but do not converge to the accurate value in twenty-four steps, the maximum attempted, for higher maturities. At-the-money options are underpriced by one percent for ten-year maturity and by more than three percent for twenty-five year maturity. Out-of-the-money options are underpriced by up to nine percent. Results are independent of the shape of the initial term structure. Using an HJM tree with equal stepsizes leads to more accurate values for European options, but a tree with linearly increasing stepsizes performs better in the case of American options. It is found optimal to have the same number of forward rates maturing per year beyond option maturity as the number of steps per year through option maturity.
Diagnostic dilemma of granulomatous inflammation in cancer patients.

OBJECTIVE To determine the frequency of granulomatous inflammation on histopathological findings amongst cancer patients and correlating them with tuberculosis. METHODS The retrospective review was conducted at Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre, Lahore, Pakistan, and comprised medical records of cancer patients with a histopathological finding of granulomatous inflammation between January 2010 and December 2015. Data was reviewed, including clinical history, availability of acid fast bacilli stain on tissue and mycobacterium tuberculosis culture results. Data related to treatment, duration and outcomes was also reviewed and was analysed using SPSS 19. RESULTS Out of 28690 cancer patients during the study period, 17345(60.4%) had undergone biopsy for different reasons, and of those, 78 (0.45%) had granulomatous inflammation and formed the study sample. Among them, 40(51.3%) patients had caseous granulomatous inflammation while 38 (48.7%) had non-caseous granulomas. Acid fast bacillus tissue stain was performed on 77(98.7%) patients, of whom only 9 (11.5%) specimens showed acid fast bacilli. Mycobacterium tuberculosis culture was performed on 53(68%) specimens and among them 13(16.7%) grew mycobacterium tuberculosis. Anti-tuberculosis treatment was offered to 38 (48.7%) patients, including those with positive AFB stain and MTB culture results. Of them, 32(41%) patients completed the treatment while 4(5.1%) defaulted and 2(2.6%) died. Symptomatic and radiological improvement was observed in 16(20.5%) patients. CONCLUSIONS Granulomatous inflammation was infrequently encountered in cancer patients. Mycobacterium tuberculosis cultures assisted in definitive decision-making but granulomatous inflammation could not be anticipated when the specimens were initially processed except when visible caseation was encountered. Processing specimens for mycobacterium tuberculosis cultures when caseation was encountered may be a reasonable strategy to adopt.
Obesity And Obstetric Anesthesia: Current Insights

Obesity is a significant global health problem. It results in a higher incidence of complications for pregnant women and their neonates. Cesarean deliveries are more common in obese parturients as well. The increased burden of comorbidities seen in this population, such as obstructive sleep apnea, necessitates antepartum anesthetic consultation. These patients pose unique challenges for the practicing anesthesiologist and may benefit from optimization prior to delivery. Complications from anesthesia and overall morbidity and mortality are higher in this population. Neuraxial anesthesia can be challenging to place in the obese parturient, but is the preferred anesthetic for cesarean delivery to avoid airway manipulation, minimize aspiration risk, prevent fetal exposure to volatile anesthetic, and decrease risk of post-partum hemorrhage from volatile anesthetic exposure. Monitoring and positioning of these patients for surgery may pose specific challenges. Functional labor epidural catheters can be topped up to provide conditions suitable for surgery. In the absence of a working epidural catheter, a combined spinal epidural anesthetic is often the technique of choice due to relative ease of placement versus a single shot spinal technique as well as the ability to extend the anesthetic through the epidural portion. For cesarean delivery with a vertical supraumbilical skin incision, a two-catheter technique may be beneficial. Concern for thromboembolism necessitates early mobilization and a multimodal analgesic regimen can help accomplish this. In addition, thromboprophylaxis is recommended in this population after delivery-especially cesarean delivery. These patients also need close monitoring in the post-partum period when they are at increased risk for several complications.
Clinical Results of Acetabular Fracture Fixation Using a Focal Kocher-Langenbeck Approach Without a Specialty Traction Table

Objectives To report the clinical result of a series of patients who underwent acetabular fracture fixation using a Kocher-Langenbeck approach without a specialty traction table. Design Retrospective case series. Setting Level 1 trauma center. Patients/participants All patients who sustained posterior wall or posterior wall associated acetabular fractures that were treated operatively with a Kocher-Langenbeck approach over a 5-year period. Intervention Surgical fixation of acetabular fractures using a flat, radiolucent table. Main outcome measurements Outcomes included reduction quality and complications such as infection, heterotopic ossification, loss of reduction or fixation, medical complications, and neurologic injury. Results We identified 172 patients. No articular malreductions of greater than 2 mm were noted on postoperative CT scans. There were 13 surgical complications observed (8.1%). There was 1 death in our cohort (0.6%), and 3 patients had nonfatal pulmonary emboli (1.9%). There were no nerve injuries observed. There were 6 acute infections (3.1%) requiring surgical intervention. Three patients had symptomatic heterotopic bone that required excision (1.9%). Four patients (2.5%) required eventual total hip arthroplasty. Conclusion Overall, we report on the largest cohort in the literature undergoing a prone Kocher-Langenbeck without a specialty table for acetabular fracture fixation. We found that limited extremity prepping and draping for a prone Kocher-Langenbeck on a flat, radiolucent table did not result in an increased rate of postoperative neurological complications or malreductions of acetabular fractures. Level of evidence Therapeutic Level IV. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.
Acting for whom, against what? Group membership and multiple paths to engagement in social change.

In a connected and politically engaged world, it is essential to understand how, why, and when people from diverse backgrounds may support social action. Integrating findings from the collective action, solidarity, and allyship literatures, we present working models of how the lenses through which individuals possessing different group memberships may psychologically identify (as part of the targeted group, an inclusive stigmatized identity, or the societally dominant group) and perceive injustice (as exclusively affecting the targeted group, inclusively affecting the target group and one’s ingroup, or perceiving ingroup privileges) may shape social change efforts. We highlight disparate effects of positive (and negative) contact between groups on the mobilization of socially dominant and stigmatized groups that may provide challenges to diverse coalitions seeking social change.
Additive Manufacturing of High-Refractive-Index, Nanoarchitected Titanium Dioxide for 3D Dielectric Photonic Crystals.

Additive manufacturing at small scales enables advances in micro- and nano-electromechanical systems, micro-optics, and medical devices. Materials that lend themselves to AM at the nano-scale, espe...
Legitimate earnings inequality and national welfare commitment: Correspondence between economic institutions and the pay 80,000+ people in 30 nations think legitimate for ordinary jobs and for elite jobs.

Abstract In formulating views of just reward for high-status and low-status work, do ordinary citizens take cues from their nation's public stance on income inequality as institutionally embedded in their welfare state, i.e. their social welfare and labor market policies, their "welfarism"? How large a morally correct earnings gap flows from that? Our multilevel analyses (fixed effects, random intercepts) replicate prior research on the impact of individual characteristics and socioeconomic development. They open new territory with the discovery that public opinion on legitimate/just earnings of high-status occupations aligns moderately strongly with welfarism, ceteris paribus, with welfare state citizens advocating lower pay for the elite but not higher pay for working-class occupations: The welfare state is not (or no longer) a matter of helping the poor but instead of bringing down the elite, "cutting down the tall poppies". Data: World Inequality Study v2.1: 30 countries, 71 surveys, and over 88,000 individuals.
Abstract 2883: A transformable delivery system for the effective treatment of pediatric central nervous system tumors

Malignancies of the central nervous system (CNS) are the most common type of solid tumor affecting children and a leading cause of cancer-related death in children. With the deterioration of brain tumors, blood-brain barrier (BBB)/blood-brain tumor barrier (BBTB) with poor permeability, and relatively weak enhanced permeability and retention effect become major obstacles in delivering therapeutics to brain tumors. Vincristine (VCR) is a mainstay of treatment of a variety of cancers including brain tumors due to its well-defined mechanism of action and demonstrated anticancer activity. However, the clinical application of VCR in brain tumors was limited by its neurotoxicity and inability to penetrate BBB/BBTB resulting in unsatisfactory anti-cancer efficacy. In this project, we developed a transformable nanoparticle, named Ninja-nanoparticle, which is capable overcoming several important barriers for drug delivery to CNS tumors resulting in better efficacy and toxicity profile. Ninja-NP was stable during circulation due to crosslinking and could transpass BBB/BBTB through glucose receptor-mediated transcytosis. Ninja-NP could further transform into smaller nanoparticle upon encountering acidic microenvironment and revealed hidden moiety to target tumor surface overexpressed sialic acid. Ninja-NP employed a unique strategy which could sequentially target BBB/BBTB and brain tumor cells. Our study confirmed that VCR loaded Ninja-NP significantly accumulated at the orthotopic brain tumor sites, and exhibited superior anti-cancer efficacy in orthotopic diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG), the most deadly pediatric CNS tumor, then free VCR or Liposomal VCR with limited systemic toxicity. Ninja-NP addresses multiple challenges for CNS tumor treatment and exhibits great potential to be translated into an effective theranostic nano-platform which could be seamlessly integrated into standard human brain tumor management (imaging-guided drug delivery) with reduced long term toxicity. Citation Format: Tzu-yin Lin. A transformable delivery system for the effective treatment of pediatric central nervous system tumors [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research 2020; 2020 Apr 27-28 and Jun 22-24. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2020;80(16 Suppl):Abstract nr 2883.
Crosstalk between the antioxidant and cell wall integrity systems in fungi by 2-hydroxy-4-methoxybenzaldehyde

We would like to comment on a recent study where the redox-modulatory anti-protozoal drug chloroquine has shown to trigger a crosstalk between the antioxidant and cell wall integrity systems in the...
Heart failure in children: Priorities and approach of the ACTION collaborative

Abstract Despite significant advances in the medical field, pediatric heart failure continues to have a significant health burden. ACTION (Advanced Cardiac Therapies Improving Outcomes Network) was formed to bring the benefits of a learning health system to the problems of pediatric heart failure and VAD care. The ACTION learning collaborative network has expanded its focus to incorporate quality improvement initiatives aimed at improving outcomes in pediatric heart failure. The multiple initiatives include a collaboration with the Pediatric Health Information System (PHIS) database, timely referral for heart failure management in Fontan patients, formation of a waitlist outcomes committee, and a heart failure management committee with numerous parent and provider education initiatives.
A culture of despair? Inequality and expectations of educational success

A culture of despair represents a negative feedback loop, where perceptions of high economic inequality result in declines in expectations of future success and, in turn, lower probabilities of favorable outcomes. We focus on the first link in that proposed causal chain, the relationship between economic inequality and expectations. Using a panel of youths and geographic variation in inequality, we find a link between inequality and expectations regarding educational outcomes. Our findings show that youth of low socioeconomic status (SES) are negatively affected by inequality. In short, we find support for the theory of a culture of despair.
Relative Atomic Solar System Abundances, Mass Fractions, and Atomic Masses of the Elements and Their Isotopes, Composition of the Solar Photosphere, and Compositions of the Major Chondritic Meteorite Groups

This brief special communications article gives data for atomic abundances and mass fractions for the elemental and isotopic solar system composition, the atomic masses of the elements and their isotopes, the composition of the solar photosphere, and the compositions of the major chondritic meteorite groups. This additional material is relevant for researchers who are interested in this Topical Collection on planetary evolution.
Understanding and Challenging Opposition to Housing Construction in California’s Urban Areas

Housing affordability is one of the most pressing issues facing California today. In the intense public debate over how to make housing affordable, the role of new supply is a key point of contention. This debate continues despite robust empirical evidence demonstrating that supply constraints — low-density zoning chief among them — are a core cause of increasing housing costs. Many California residents resist new housing development, especially in their own neighborhoods. This white paper provides background on the opposition to new housing construction and a set of policy recommendations for the state government to address this resistance. I first describe how limiting new construction makes all housing less affordable, exacerbates spatial inequalities, and harms the state’s economic productivity and environment. I then discuss the varied motivations for opposing more intensive land use, and highlight the way the complexity of the housing market confuses public debates over this topic. In the fourth section, I list various tactics used to block housing projects and demonstrate just how many veto points there are in our current system. I conclude by presenting several proposals for reform that have potential to reduce the power of local opposition to new housing. The state government should take action in at least four areas — enforcing and enhancing existing laws, pushing local planning agencies to represent more people more equally, providing information for public discussion, and developing ways to make planning decisions at a metropolitan, not neighborhood scale.
Abstract 901: Quality of life among oropharyngeal cancer survivors

Purpose: Oropharyngeal cancer incidence continues to increase in the United States. Studies on the quality of life (QOL) experienced by oropharyngeal cancer patients usually assessed QOL one year after diagnosis instead of in the long term, and most were hospital-based. The aim of this study is to assess oral health and QOL in oropharyngeal cancer survivors in a population-based cohort over a long term follow-up. Methods: First primary oropharyngeal cancer patients, with confirmed cancer diagnosis from 1996 to 2016 were identified in the Utah Cancer Registry. Between January and May of 2019, the patients completed the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire Core-30 (EORTC QLQ-C30), Quality of Life Questionnaire Head and Neck Cancer Module (EORTC QLQ-HN >70 is considered a high level of functioning and Results: Among 262 oropharyngeal cancer survivors, 84.0% were male, 74.7% were sixty and older at cancer diagnosis, 21.8% were overweight (µ=26.5 (sd=4.9) kg/m2). More than half of participants had seen a dentist within the last 6 months (65.8%) and were former smokers (51.1%). The global QoL means scores for 1996-2000, 2001-2005, 2006-2010, and 2011-2016 were 77.5 (sd=16.3), 73.4 (sd=17.6), 67.3 (sd=24.1), and 73.4 (sd=20.4). Both the global QoL mean score (72.0 (sd=20.8)) and the OHIP-14 mean score (13.2 (sd=13.9)) were fairly high. Similarly, individual QoL physical, role, emotional, cognitive, and social mean scores from the QLQ-30 were also fairly high, ranging from 77.8 to 85.9. From the EORTC HN 2021 Apr 10-15 and May 17-21. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2021;81(13_Suppl):Abstract nr 901.
Hanna-Barbera’s Cacophony: Sound Effects and the Production of Movement:

Zaps, crashes, boinks, and bangs flooded TV’s airwaves with the rise of Hanna-Barbera Productions at the end of the 1950s, and these sound effects have been heard ever since. Hanna-Barbera Producti...
Approaching the Real-World: Supporting Activity Recognition Training with Virtual IMU Data

Recently, IMUTube introduced a paradigm change for bootstrapping human activity recognition (HAR) systems for wearables. The key idea is to utilize videos of activities to support training activity recognizers based on inertial measurement units (IMUs). This system retrieves video from public repositories and subsequently generates virtual IMU data from this. The ultimate vision for such a system is to make large amounts of weakly labeled videos accessible for model training in HAR and, as such, to overcome one of the most pressing issues in the field: the lack of significant amounts of labeled sample data. In this paper we present the first in-detail exploration of IMUTube in a realistic assessment scenario: the analysis of free-weight gym exercises. We make significant progress towards a flexible, fully-functional IMUTube system by extending it such that it can handle a range of artifacts that are common in unrestricted online videos, including various forms of video noise, non-human poses, body part occlusions, and extreme camera and human motion. By overcoming these real-world challenges, we are able to generate high-quality virtual IMU data, which allows us to employ IMUTube for practical analysis tasks. We show that HAR systems trained by incorporating virtual sensor data generated by IMUTube significantly outperform baseline models trained only with real IMU data. In doing so we demonstrate the practical utility of IMUTube and the progress made towards the final vision of the new bootstrapping paradigm.
Enhanced microalgae cultivation using wastewater nutrients extracted by a microbial electrochemical system.

Abstract Cultivating algae using wastewater nutrients is a potential approach to realize resource recovery that can contribute to circular economy. However, growing algae directly in a wastewater has problems such as bacterial contamination and a low biomass density. To address those problems, we investigated microalgal cultivation in a photobioreactor (PBR) fed with the nutrients extracted from wastewater by a microbial nutrient recovery cell (MNRC). With an external voltage of 0.3 V, the MNRC-PBR system removed 96% of COD and recovered 44% of NH4+-N and 39% of PO43−-P at a hydraulic retention time of 7.2 h. Microalgae cultivated in the nutrient recovery medium from the MNRC had 8.3-fold biomass density and 1.4-fold lipid contents, versus that cultivated in a food wastewater containing more nutrients. More significantly, 90% of biomass yielded from the MNRC-PBR system was microalgae, much higher than ∼30% in the food wastewater. A liquid exchange ratio of 30% achieved the highest microalgal density of 0.61 ± 0.06 g L−1, comparable to that in a standard BG11 medium. There was a tradeoff between recycling PBR medium and microalgal growth. The accumulated salinity was observed in the extended operation of the MNRC-PBR system treating an actual food wastewater. The results of this study have demonstrated an effective approach to extract nutrients from wastewater for enhanced microalgal growth and improved biomass quality.
Improving the Performance of Multiple Conjugate Gradient Solvers by Exploiting Overlap

Conjugate gradient solvers are often being the most time-consuming part of many scientific applications. These solvers exhibit communications operations that can prevent high performance from being achieved at large scale systems. In this paper we present a novel technique to boost the performance of these solvers. In this technique multiple independent solvers that occur in some applications are combined allowing for the overlapping many communications with other communication and computation resulting with increased performance. This work is the first time that combination of CG solvers is exploited and offers performance improvements which may be particularly important in very large-scale systems. Results are presented for the MIMD Lattice (MILC) application and show that the cost of collective communications can be reduced by a factor of 2.5×. Moreover the performance of MILC is significantly improved, by over 10% for typical lattice sizes on a 1,024-processor system.
Algorithms for 2-Route Cut Problems

In this paper we study approximation algorithms for multi-route cutproblems in undirected graphs. In these problems the goal is to find a minimum cost set of edges to be removed from a given graph such that the edge-connectivity (or node-connectivity) between certain pairs of nodes is reduced below a given threshold K. In the usual cut problems the edge connectivity is required to be reduced below 1 (i.e. disconnected). We consider the case of K= 2 and obtain poly-logarithmic approximation algorithms for fundamental cut problems including single-source, multiway-cut, multicut, and sparsest cut. These cut problems are dual to multi-route flows that are of interest in fault-tolerant networks flows. Our results show that the flow-cut gap between 2-route cuts and 2-route flows is poly-logarithmic in undirected graphs with arbitrary capacities. 2-route cuts are also closely related to well-studied feedback problems and we obtain results on some new variants. Multi-route cuts pose interesting algorithmic challenges. The new techniques developed here are of independent technical interest, and may have applications to other cut and partitioning problems.
Breast Cancer Prevention

Early detection, combined with targeted and more effective therapies, has led to significant reductions in breast cancer-related deaths. Approximately 90 % of women diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer are alive and disease-free 10 years after diagnosis. Despite these successes, breast cancer still affects 1 in 8 women and remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality in women of every race and ethnicity and continues as a major cause of death in women 35–54 years. These facts combined with the increasing rates of breast cancer worldwide with industrial development, especially among previously low-risk regions and low-risk populations, have created new concerns (Minami et al., Int J Cancer 108(6):901–906, 2004; Althuis et al., Int J Epidemiol 34(2):405–412, 2005; Bosetti et al., Ann Oncol 16(3):489–511, 2005; Newman and Vogel, Surg Clin North Am 87(2):307–316, 2007; Jemal, CA Cancer J Clin 61:69–90, 2011). The latter is a particularly worrisome trend for regions, and populations where use of screening and access to advances in treatment remain limited and mortality rates high (Yip and Taib, Future Oncol 8(12):1575–1583, 2012). Given that the worldwide burden of breast cancer is nearly 1.4 million new cases, a quarter of all cancer diagnoses in women with just under half a million lives lost annually to the disease (http://globocan.iarc.fr/factsheet.asp), the prevention and early detection of breast cancer remains a major global public health priority.
A proteolytically activated tyrosinase from frog epidermis.

Abstract Tyrosinase (o-diphenol:O2-oxidoreductase; EC 1.10.3.1) is present in the epidermis of Rana pipiens pipiens as an inactive proenzyme that can be activated by a variety of endopeptidases, chymotrypsin being the most effective. This proenzyme has been purified to homogeneity as judged by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Inactive and active tyrosinase both have molecular weights of 200,000 ± 12,000 estimated by gel filtration over Sepharose 6B. The proenzyme contains 0.15 % copper. Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis in the presence of sodium dodecyl sulfate indicates polypeptide molecular weights of 54,100 ± 700 for the inactive and 50,000 ± 700 for the active proteins. A peptide of molecular weight approximately 5,700 ± 1,100 appears on chymotryptic activation of the proenzyme. This peptide may be located on the NH2-terminal portion of the proenzyme since slow activation of the proenzyme occurs in the presence of leucine aminopeptidase. A tetrameric structure is suggested for both active and inactive enzymes. Tyrosine and 3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine (DOPA) are oxidized with approximately equal Km of 5 x 10-3 m and kcat of 800 min-1. The enzyme is inhibited competitively with respect to DOPA by a variety of substituted benzoic acids. Inhibition by copper-complexing reagents such as diethyldithiocarbamate and cyanide can be reversed by addition of copper and there is evidence that copper may be reversibly removed from the active enzyme. Isoelectric points of 9.35 and 9.25 for the inactive and active enzymes, respectively, are consistent with the amino acid composition of the former material. A proteolytically activated tyrosinase from a related subspecies of frog Rana pipiens berlandieri exhibits an isoelectric point near six suggesting that the basicity of the enzyme is not related to its function. The utility of this enzyme-proenzyme system is discussed as an example of post-translational control of active enzyme levels.
Design of Highly-Nonlinear Tellurite Fibers with Zero Dispersion Near 1550nm

We designed highly-nonlinear tellurite fibers with zero-dispersion near 1550 nm and the nonlinear coefficient gamma over 200 km-1 -W-1 using various structures including tapered fibers and photonic crystal structures. Applications to fiber optical parametric amplifiers (OPAs) are discussed
Calculation of the Prompt Neutron Spectrum and Average Prompt Neutron Multiplicity for the Spontaneous Fission of 252Cf

We calculate the prompt fission neutron spectrum and average prompt neutron multiplicity for the spontaneous fission of 252Cf. Our calculations are based upon conventional nuclear-evaporation theory and account for the effects of (1) the motion of the fission fragments, (2) the distribution of fission-fragment residual nuclear temperature, and (3) the energy dependence of the cross section for the inverse process of compound-nucleus formation. Because of increased accuracy requirements due to the use of the 252Cf(sf) reaction as a standard, we perform our calculations with greater accuracy than previously. In particular, we calculate the integral for the average energy release without approximation and with the use of more recent mass sources. Following our theoretical calculations, we perform a least-squares adjustment to a specific experimental spectrum and present the comparison.
Indigenous resource rights and conservation of the monkey-puzzle tree (Araucaria araucana, Araucariaceae): a case study from southern Chile.

This article outlines the ethnobotanical and economic importance of the monkey-puzzle tree (Araucaria araucana,), a long-lived conifer endemic to the temperate forests of Chile and Argentina. It also assesses the connection between indigenous resource rights and environmental conservation by examining the history of the tree’s use in Ralco Lepoy, an indigenous community of 800 inhabitants located in the Andes of southern Chile. Primary data were collected through interviews and field observations. Secondary data were collected through archival research in national and provincial capitals. Self-determination and territorial rights are important factors in the indigenous interest in and commitment to the conservation of the monkey-puzzle tree. A complementary approach to indigenous land rights and environmental protection may be an appropriate strategy to decentralize conservation efforts and ensure local participation in developing sustainable resource management plans.