cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Treatment induced neuropathy of diabetes—Long term implications in type 1 diabetes

Abstract Aims/Hypothesis Aggressive glucose control can result in treatment induced neuropathy of diabetes (TIND) if glycemic control is achieved too quickly. The aim of the present study is to describe the 8-year follow-up data on a cohort of individuals with type 1 diabetes who developed TIND. Methods Twenty-six individuals with type 1 diabetes and TIND were followed longitudinally for 8years with regular quantitative measurement of pain, neurological examinations and evaluation of microvascular complications. Comprehensive neurological testing was performed after TIND and 7–8years later. Results Among the 26 individuals with TIND, 19/26 had stable glycemic control and 7/26 had unstable glycemic control in long-term follow up. Those 19/26 with stable glycemic control had improvement in neuropathy, pain and microvascular complications while the 7/26 with unstable glycemic control had significant worsening of neuropathy, pain and microvascular complications ( P Conclusion/Interpretation TIND is a poorly understood iatrogenic complication of aggressive glycemic control, although individuals with stable glycemic control tended to improve, while those with unstable glycemic control worsened. Additional studies of TIND are required to understand potential outcomes in an era of medical ‘metrics' where physician reimbursement may be tied to achievement of excessively rapid glycemic control.
Macroeconomic causes of variance in house and property prices

This paper is a frankly empirical piece with the purpose of explaining the variance of housing prices as a function of macroeconomic fundamentals. The analysis is based upon data from six advanced countries, Australia, France, Germany, Japan, the UK, and the USA. The sample range stretches from 2001 thru 2012. A panel regression procedure is applied to the dataset. The findings suggest that housing price variance can be interpreted as a function of important macroeconomic variable. These macroeconomic variables include monetary growth, first differences in the current account as a percent of GDP, first differences in the imbalance between investment and savings, and the public debt as a percent of GDP. The rate of growth of housing prices also plays a role in individual countries.
Reconsidering the principal components of central bank independence: The more the merrier?

We use principal component analysis to reassess the link between different attribut- es of central bank independence and inflation performance. We suggest that coding problems may account for the fact that almost none of the attributes included in the Cukierman index has a systematic, plausible relationship with inflation. The multi-faceted Cukierman index also seems to be out-performed by a much narrower index focusing solely on policy indepen- dence. These findings point to the importance of using public choice analysis to isolate the real problem here: namely, finding specific central bank structures that effectively insulate central bankers from political pressures.
Local memory project: providing tools to build collections of stories for local events from local sources

The national (non-local) news media has different priorities than the local news media. If one seeks to build a collection of stories about local events, the national news media may be insufficient, with the exception of local news which "bubbles" up to the national news media. If we rely exclusively on national media, or build collections exclusively on their reports, we could be late to the important milestones which precipitate major local events, thus, run the risk of losing important stories due to link rot and content drift. Consequently, it is important to consult local sources affected by local events. Our goal is to provide a suite of tools (beginning with two) under the umbrella of the Local Memory Project (LMP) to help users and small communities discover, collect, build, archive, and share collections of stories for important local events by leveraging local news sources. The first service (Geo) returns a list of local news sources (newspaper, TV and radio stations) in order of proximity to a user-supplied zip code. The second service (Local Stories Collection Generator) discovers, collects and archives a collection of news stories about a story or event represented by a user-supplied query and zip code pair. We evaluated 20 pairs of collections, Local (generated by our system) and non-Local, by measuring archival coverage, tweet index rate, temporal range, precision, and sub-collection overlap. Our experimental results showed Local and non-Local collections with archive rates of 0.63 and 0.83, respectively, and tweet index rates of 0.59 and 0.80, respectively. Local collections produced older stories than non-Local collections, at a higher precision (relevance) of 0.84 compared to a non-Local precision of 0.72. These results indicate that Local collections are less exposed, thus less popular than their non-Local counterpart.
Selective Sweep in the Evolution of a New Sperm-Specific Gene in Drosophila

The Sdic gene cluster at the base of the X-chromosome is unique to the lineage of Drosophila melanogaster. The repeating unit in the cluster was formed from a duplication and fusion of the genes, AnnX and Cdic, which juxtaposed the 3′ untranslated region of AnnX to the third intron of Cdic. AnnX encodes Annexin 10 and Cdic encodes a cytoplasmic dynein intermediate chain. The 3′ untranslated region of AnnX contains two promoter elements, including a testis-specific element, and Cdic intron 3 contains a third promoter element; together these elements result in testis-specific transcription of Sdic. The Sdic protein features a novel amino terminus derived in part from Cdic intron 3 which contains motifs similar to those in axonemal dyneins. It has been demonstrated that the Sdic protein becomes incorporated into the tails of mature sperm. The evolution of the Sdic cluster required several deletions, at least one insertion, at least eleven nudeotide substitutions, and an estimated tenfold tandem duplication, all of which took place in the 1–3 million years since the divergence of D. melanogaster from D. simulans. Evidence for the ongoing evolution of Sdic including a recent selective sweep is found in the low levels of polymorphism across neighboring genes in the region, a large number of fixed amino acid replacements relative to fixed synonymous nucleotide substitutions, and a frequency spectrum of polymorphic nucleotides skewed toward rare variants. The analysis of polymorphism and divergence in the Sdic region, however, is complicated by the possible effects of background selection caused by deleterious new mutations, owing to the reduced amount of recombination in the region associated with its proximity to centromeric heterochromatin. We present the rapid evolution of this novel gene as a fascinating example of male-driven evolution incurred by recurrent selective sweeps.
Primary Language Predicts Outcomes in Acute Ischemic Stroke (P3.238)

Objective: This study aimed to determine if primary language impacts outcomes of acute stroke patients receiving IV thrombolysis. Background: Intravenous thrombolysis with tPA is the only FDA-approved medical therapy for acute ischemic stroke. There is a paucity of data regarding the effect of primary language on outcomes in stroke patients. Design/Methods: This is a retrospective study of patients with acute ischemic stroke who received IV tPA at our institution from January 1, 2013 to December 31, 2016. Subjects were divided by primary language. Subgroups for Non-English speakers were Spanish, Vietnamese, and Other-language. Outcomes were modified Rankin scale (mRS) at discharge, favorable outcome (mRS score 0–2) at discharge, mortality at hospital discharge, and length of stay (LOS). Statistical analysis was done with unpaired t-test and ANOVA multi-variant analysis as appropriate. Results: During the study period, 190 patients received IV tPA. Among them, 120 primarily spoke English, 35 Spanish, 22 Vietnamese, and 13 Other-languages. Favorable outcome at discharge was highest in Vietnamese group at 50%, followed by English (48%), Spanish (40%), and Other-language (7.7%). English and Vietnamese groups scored nearly two points better on mRS at discharge than the Other-language group. Mortality rate was highest in the Other-language group at 15.4%, followed by English (9.2%), Vietnamese (4.5%), and Spanish groups (2.9%). English-speaking patients had shorter mean LOS (4.2 days versus 5.2 days; 95% CI 0.068–2.02) compared to Non-English speaking patients. Average LOS for the Other-language group exceeded other groups by one week. The Other-language group was least likely to be discharged home (7.7%) compared to English (34.5%), Spanish (42.9%) and Vietnamese (50.0%) groups. Conclusions: This study demonstrated an outcome advantage for tPA patients whose primary language is more frequent (English, Spanish, Vietnamese) at a multi-ethnic hospital. Patients whose primary language was uncommon had higher mortality rate, longer LOS, and were less likely to be discharged home. Disclosure: Dr. Janarious has nothing to disclose. Dr. Anderson has nothing to disclose. Dr. Yu has nothing to disclose.
Management of Arrhythmias and Cardiac Implantable Electronic Devices in Patients With Left Ventricular Assist Devices

For patients with end-stage heart failure, the use of mechanical circulatory support has increased in the last decade due to improved outcomes with durable left ventricular assist devices. The management of these complex patients requires coordinated care by a multidisciplinary team including cardiac electrophysiologists because atrial and ventricular arrhythmias are prevalent in this population. There have been an increasing number of studies that attempt to address issues regarding arrhythmia management in patients with left ventricular assist devices. The purpose of this review is to provide electrophysiologists with an evidence-based approach to manage a broad spectrum of arrhythmia issues in these patients.
Label-free protein quantitation using weighted spectral counting.

Mass spectrometry (MS)-based shotgun proteomics allows protein identifications even in complex biological samples. Protein abundances can then be estimated from the counts of MS/MS spectra attributable to each protein, provided that one corrects for differential MS-detectability of the contributing peptides. We describe the use of a method, APEX, which calculates Absolute Protein EXpression levels based on learned correction factors, MS/MS spectral counts, and each protein's probability of correct identification.The APEX-based calculations consist of three parts: (1) Using training data, peptide sequences and their sequence properties, a model is built that can be used to estimate MS-detectability (O (i)) for any given protein. (2) Absolute abundances of proteins measured in an MS/MS experiment are calculated with information from spectral counts, identification probabilities and the learned O (i)-values. (3) Simple statistics allow for significance analysis of differential expression in two distinct biological samples, i.e., measuring relative protein abundances. APEX-based protein abundances span more than four orders of magnitude and are applicable to mixtures of hundreds to thousands of proteins from any type of organism.
Experience of financial toxicity among gynecologic oncology patients.

90Background: “Financial toxicity” (FT) is increasingly recognized as an adverse outcome associated with cancer treatment. The degree of FT in the gynecologic oncology patient population has not been studied. This study used the comprehensive score for financial toxicity (COST) tool, a recently-validated survey, to examine FT in the gynecologic oncology population. Methods: All follow-up patients at a gynecologic oncology practice were invited to complete a cross-sectional survey including the COST (scale = 0-44) tool and a quality-of-life (QOL) survey, the EQ-5D-5L. Demographic and treatment data were gathered with additional survey questions and chart review. We dichotomized COST scores into low FT (top two tertiles) and high FT (bottom tertile); a lower COST score indicates higher FT. We assessed the correlation between COST and QOL scores using the Spearman correlation coefficient (r) and used univariable and multivariable linear regression to identify predictors of greater FT. We used log-binomial re...
Public health teaching in Mexico

In the training of the new generations, it is possible to observe increasingly less interest in humanistic content, coupled with a significant neglect of history and ethics. Conversely, there is a legitimate, growing interest in mastering one or more instrumental techniques. The goal of obtaining certain professional skills that will enable young graduates to entertain hopes of joining the labor market overshadows the aim of acquiring other cross-cutting skills that will help them not only understand the niche of the discipline they have studied, but also contribute to its necessary transformation.
The performance of a free surface and metal-removing constructed wetland: How a young wetland becomes mature

Abstract The H-02 wetland was constructed on the Savannah River Site (SC, USA) in 2007 to remove Cu and Zn from process and storm runoff water. Water samples were routinely collected from 2008 to 2017 in the primary discharge pipes, influent, effluent, and receiving stream. Water quality parameters were measured in situ, total and dissolved metal (Cu and Zn) concentrations were determined, and metal speciation was calculated with the Biotic Ligand Model. Generally, the H-02 wetland system functioned well during the reporting period. Alkaline waters in the pipe became neutral after running through the wetland. Total metal concentrations in the effluent were lower than the regulatory discharge limit with a removal efficiency of 63.8% (95% CI: 60.8–66.8%) for Cu and 70.5% (95% CI: 67.0–73.9%) for Zn. Reduced metal toxicity was inferred from the observed lower concentrations of free Cu2+ and Zn2+ in the effluent than that in the influent and pipe. As suggested by the higher percentage of Cu-organic matter complexes than Zn-organic matter complexes, Cu had a higher affinity for natural organic ligands than Zn. A three-stage performance pattern of a metal-removing constructed wetland was hypothesized, which includes the plateau stage, the trough stage, and the recovery stage. Further studies were needed to test this hypothesis, monitor the treatment efficiency, improve operation strategies, and ensure the long-term sustainability of H-02 wetland system.
Endovascular treatment of a descending thoracic pseudoaneurysm involving an intercostal loop graft

Abstract A 43 year-old man with past history of an extent I thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysm (TAAA) repair presented with an enlarging pseudoaneurysm involving an intercostal limb of a branched descending thoracic aortic graft. Right brachial artery and right common femoral artery were used to access the proximal and distal portions of the intercostal limb graft respectively, and a snare was used to establish access across the entire length of the tortuous graft. Under somatosensory evoked potential monitoring (SSEP), angioplasty balloons were used to occlude the distal and proximal ends of the limb graft. After observing no change in signals, two 16mm Amplatzer vascular plugs were used to occlude the distal and proximal portions of the intercostal limb graft thereby excluding the source of the enlarging pseudoaneurysm and redirecting flow through the main descending thoracic aortic graft. This case demonstrates that endovascular options should be considered in patients presenting with late complications such as pseudoaneurysms after previous open thoracic aortic surgery.
Industry-Wide Survey of Academic Anesthesiology Departments Provides Up-to-Date Benchmarking Data on Surgical Anesthesia Productivity.

BACKGROUND Benchmarking group surgical anesthesia productivity continues to be an important but challenging goal for anesthesiology groups. Benchmarking is important because it provides objective data to evaluate staffing needs and costs, identify potential operating room management decisions that could reduce costs or improve efficiency, and support ongoing negotiations and discussions with health system leadership. Unfortunately, good and meaningful benchmarking data are not readily available. Therefore, a survey of academic anesthesiology departments was done to provide current benchmarking data. METHODS A survey of members of the Society of Academic Associations of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine (SAAAPM) was performed. The survey collected data by facility and included type of facility, number and type of staff and anesthetizing sites each weekday, and the billed American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) units and number of cases over 12 months. The facility types included academic medical center (AMC), community hospital (Community), children's hospital (Children), and ambulatory surgical center (ASC). All anesthesia care billed using ASA units were included, except for obstetric anesthesia. Any care not billed or billed using relative value units (RVUs) were excluded. Percentage of nonoperating room anesthetizing sites, staffing ratio, and surgical anesthesia productivity measurements "per case" and "per site" were calculated. RESULTS Of the 135 society members, 63 submitted complete surveys for 140 facilities (69 AMC, 26 Community, 7 Children, and 38 ASC). In the survey, overall median productivity for AMC and Children was similar (12,592 and 12,364 total ASA units per anesthetizing site), while the ASC had the lowest median overall productivity (8911 total ASA units per anesthetizing site). By size of facility, in the survey, the smaller facilities ( 20% of anesthetizing sites were nonoperating room anesthetizing sites. Anesthesiology residents worked primarily in AMC and Children. In ASC and Community, residents worked only in 18% and 35% of facilities, respectively. More than half the AMCs reported at least 1 break certified nurse anesthetist (CRNA) each day. CONCLUSIONS To make data-driven decisions on clinical productivity, anesthesiology leaders need to be able to make meaningful comparisons at the facility level. For a group that provides care in multiple facilities, one can make internal comparisons among facilities and follow measurements over time. It is valuable for leaders to also be compare their facilities with industry-wide measurements, in other words, benchmark their facilities. These results provide benchmarking data for academic anesthesiology departments.
Isolated Adrenocorticotropic Hormone Deficiency Secondary to Chronic Opiate Use.

Although opiate use can result in various endocrine disorders, isolated adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) deficiency resulting in secondary adrenal insufficiency remains uncommon. We present a case of a 54-year-old woman with a history of chronic opiate use who presented with a four-month history of worsening fatigue and syncopal episodes. Laboratory workup revealed a low ACTH with low baseline cortisol and normal levels of rest of the anterior pituitary hormones. The imaging study did not reveal any pituitary abnormality. The patient was diagnosed with opiate-induced isolated ACTH deficiency. Her symptoms improved after treatment with hydrocortisone. This case would further improve clinician's awareness towards opiate-induced endocrinopathies, including isolated ACTH deficiency, which can present with nonspecific signs and symptoms, creating a diagnostic challenge.
Cultivating an understanding of curiosity as a seed for creativity

Curiosity—the desire to know—is a powerful motivator for learning and behavior. Theoretical and anecdotal discussions have also linked curiosity to creativity and innovation, but there is little empirical evidence for this connection, aside from a handful of recent studies. We review the existing evidence and discuss potential mechanisms through which curiosity may facilitate the creative process. We further discuss important methodological issues that have limited past research on the relationship between curiosity and creativity. One limitation is the lack of studies investigating curiosity as a psychological state that fluctuates over time and with changing contexts rather than only as a trait. Another limitation is the scarcity of behavioral measures of exploration and curiosity. We discuss the few existing behavioral measures that have been used and introduce a new measure relying on real effort.
Trends in Use and Comparison of Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy, Brachytherapy, and Dose-Escalated External Beam Radiation Therapy for the Management of Localized, Intermediate-Risk Prostate Cancer.

This cohort study examines trends in the use of brachytherapy, external beam radiotherapy, and stereotactic body radiation therapy for disease management in patients with localized prostate cancer and compares outcomes between these therapies.
Portfolio selection with higher moments

We propose a method for optimal portfolio selection using a Bayesian decision theoretic framework that addresses two major shortcomings of the traditional Markowitz approach: the ability to handle higher moments and parameter uncertainty. We employ the skew normal distribution which has many attractive features for modeling multivariate returns. Our results suggest that it is important to incorporate higher order moments in portfolio selection. Further, our comparison to other methods where parameter uncertainty is either ignored or accommodated in an ad hoc way, shows that our approach leads to higher expected utility than competing methods, such as the resampling methods that are common in the practice of finance.
(Re)Made in America: Survivorship after the Shoah:

Until the l970s, ‘survivor’ referred predominantly to individuals who outlived others in the aftermath of disaster, or stood to inherit the remains of an estate; it was not imbued with evaluative c...
Self determination: A comprehensive strategy for making automated tests more effective and efficient

A significant change in software development over the last decade has been the growth of test automation. Most software organizations automate as many tests as possible, which not only saves time and money, but also increases reproducibility and reduces errors during testing. However, as software evolves over time, so must the test suites. For each software change, each test falls into one of four categories: (1) it needs to rerun as is, (2) it does not need to rerun, (3) it needs to change and rerun, (4) it should be deleted. This test management is currently done by hand, leading to shortcuts such as always running all tests (wasteful and expensive), deleting valuable tests that should be fixed, and not deleting unneeded tests. Over time, the test suite becomes larger and more expensive to run while also becoming steadily less effective. This project introduces a novel solution to this problem by giving individual tests the ability to self- manage through self-awareness and self-determination. Each test will encode its purpose (its test requirement), can discover what changed in the software, and then decide whether to run, not run, be changed, or self-delete. We are developing techniques and algorithms to compare syntactically two versions of the same program (previous and new) to identify differences. Tests can then check to see whether their purpose is affected by the change, and decide what to do. We have developed preliminary test framework infrastructure to be used with tests that satisfy edge coverage, based on the control flow graph. We have carried out empirical studies on open-source software to evaluate the accuracy of tests’ decisions and the cost of execution. Results are encouraging, indicating strong accuracy and reasonable cost.
Unified stability criteria for perturbed LTV systems with unstable instantaneous dynamics.

In this work the stability of perturbed linear time-varying systems is studied. The main features of the problem are threefold. Firstly, the time-varying dynamics is not required to be continuous but allowed to have jumps. Also the system matrix is not assumed to be always Hurwitz. In addition, there is nonlinear time-varying perturbation which may be persistent. We first propose several mild regularity assumptions, under which the total variations of the system matrix and its abscissa are well-defined over arbitrary time interval. We then state our main result of the work, which requires the combined assessment of the total variation of the system matrix, the measure when the system is not sufficiently "stable" and the estimate of the perturbation to be upper bounded by a function affine in time. When this condition is met, we prove that the neighborhood of the origin, whose size depends on the magnitude of the perturbation, is uniformly globally exponentially stable for the system. We make several remarks, connecting our results with the known stability theory from continuous linear time-varying systems and switched systems. Finally, a numerical example is included to further illustrate the application of the main result.
Integrated pest management can still deliver on its promise, with help from the bees

Farmers must juggle a myriad of decisions for their farms to be economically and environmentally sustainable. Doing this over successive growing seasons requires keeping pest populations below thresholds to avoid significant yield loss (1). Control programs to prevent these losses from pests can include crop rotation, resistant crops, biological controls, and insecticides targeting pests that may also kill natural enemies and pollinators (2, 3). In crops where pollination is needed, such as most fruits and vegetables, it is important to conserve the insects that visit flowers, including bees, hoverflies, and beetles, since they move pollen and enhance yields (4, 5). However, these insects are at risk from exposure to pesticides, with particular concern raised in recent years about field crop systems where there has been widespread adoption of seeds treated with neonicotinoid insecticides (6). With almost all corn seed treated with pesticides, it is worth asking whether the integrated pest management (IPM) approaches developed in the 1950s (7) remain relevant to modern-day agriculture and the current challenges of balancing pest control and pollinator conservation. In PNAS, Pecenka et al. (8) show that, for the corn–watermelon rotation system they study, the adoption of IPM can reduce costs and pesticide residues by reducing insecticides by 95%, limiting pest populations despite this savings in pesticide use, enhancing wild bees, and increasing crop yields. This is a powerful case study in integrated pest and pollinator management (IPPM) which has been proposed as a more holistic way to consider economically important insects in bee-pollinated crops (9, 10). Pests have robbed crop yields since the dawn of agriculture, and they continue to limit food and fiber production (11). Synthetic insecticides were developed in the 1950s to prevent this damage, but negative effects on the environment and human toxicity led to greater regulation … [↵][1] 1Email: isaacsr{at}msu.edu. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1
Other Mammalian and Chondrichtian Relaxins

The first relaxin sequence published was porcine relaxin and all subsequent sequences were necessarily compared with it. Rat relaxin was purified two years later,1 and within another two years the sequence was published by John et a1.2 The sequence was significantly different from that of porcine relaxin which was surprising in light of the similarity of rat and pig insulins. Variability proved to be the rule rather than the exception for relaxin structures isolated from different animals (Fig. 4.1). Rat relaxin would eventually play a significant role in the development of structure activity relations, in particular the receptor-binding site configuration.
On‐farm evaluation of a fall‐seeded rye cover crop for suppression of soybean aphid (Hemiptera: Aphididae) on soybean

Cover crops offer environmental and agricultural benefits, but adoption remains low. Soybean growers have indicated that the adoption of rye as a winter cover crop would increase, if it was shown to offer suppression of a key soybean pest, the soybean aphid Aphis glycines. We performed an on-farm evaluation of two cropping systems utilized in organic production and reduced-herbicide input production. One system includes a rye cover crop, whereas the other does not. At six and five location-years in Minnesota, A. glycines and predator populations, respectively, were measured and compared between the systems with and without rye. The system with the rye cover crop significantly suppressed A. glycines populations on soybean at five of six location-years. Predators appeared to respond more to prey abundance than to plant diversity. An exposure analysis examining biological control potential revealed no differences between soybean with and without rye at any location-year. Insect control can be added to the multiple benefits of rye winter cover crops.
A Rectilinear Steiner Minimal Tree Algorithm for Convex Point Sets

A k-extremal point set is a point set on the boundary of a k-sided rectilinear convex hull. Given a k-extremal point set of size n, we present an algorithm that computes a rectilinear Steiner minimal tree in time O (k5+k4n). For constant k, this algorithm runs in O(n) time and is asymptotically optimal, and for arbitrary k, the algorithm is the fastest known for this problem.
Relics of Death in Victorian Literature and Culture

Introduction: lyrical matter 1. Infinite materiality: Keats, D. G. Rossetti and the Romantics 2. The miracle of ordinary things: Bronte and Wuthering Heights 3. The many faces of death masks: Dickens and Great Expectations 4. The elegy as shrine: Tennyson and 'In Memoriam' 5. Hair jewelry as congealed time: Hardy and Far from the Madding Crowd Afterword: death as death Bibliography.
Comparison of the pharmacodynamic activity of cefotaxime plus metronidazole with cefoxitin and ampicillin plus sulbactam

Study Objective. To compare the pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic activity of three drug regimens: cefotaxime plus metronidazole, cefoxitin, and ampicillin-sulbactam against two organisms frequently isolated in intraabdominal infection, Escherichia coli and Bacteroides fragilis. Design. Open-label, three-way crossover study. Setting. Hartford Hospital Clinical Research Center. Participants. Nine healthy volunteers. Interventions. Subjects received the following regimens: (1) a single 1-g intravenous dose of cefotaxime plus a single 500-mg oral dose of metronidazole; (2) two intravenous doses of cefoxitin, 2 g each dose given every 6 hours; and (3) two intravenous doses of ampicillin-sulbactam, 3 g each dose given every 6 hours. Measurements and Main Results. Serum bactericidal titers and drug concentrations were measured over a 12-hour period. The cefotaxime-metronidazole regimen showed superior activity against E. coli compared with ampicillin-sulbactam and cefoxitin. The mean areas under the bactericidal activity curve (AUBC) for the three regimens were 550.2, 68.7, and 48.9, respectively (p=0.0001). There was no significant difference in AUBC among the three regimens for B. fragilis. Serum concentrations of cefotaxime remained above the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) for E. coli significantly longer than did concentrations of ampicillin-sulbactam and cefoxitin (p=0.0002 and p=0.0023, respectively). Serum concentrations of metronidazole were still at 9 times the MIC for B. fragilis at the end of the 12-hour dosing interval; for ampicillin-sulbactam and cefoxitin concentrations remained above the MIC for one-half and less than one-fourth, respectively, of the dosing interval (p<0.0001). The ratio of AUC:MIC was also favorable for metronidazole (212.2) compared with 63.4 for ampicillin-sulbactam and 9.2 for cefoxitin. Conclusions. The combination of cefotaxime-metronidazole, even at the relatively low doses used in this study, provides coverage against gram-negative and anaerobic pathogens that is at least as effective as that of cefoxitin and ampicillin-sulbactam. In addition, its cost is considerably less expensive than that of the other regimens.
Legislative Delegation, the Unitary Presidency, and the Legitimacy of the Administrative State

This essay focuses on the relationship between nondelegation doctrine and so-called unitary executive theory. It argues that, if the Supreme Court were to embrace unitary executive theory without, as is highly unlikely, tightening up on the nondelegation doctrine, the result would be a constitutional disaster in terms of reduced executive branch legal and political accountability. Increasing the legitimacy of the administrative state ought to involve more, not fewer mechanisms that subject the exercise of presidential power to effective checks and balances.
Justice Jackson's Republic and Ours

Over the past few decades it has been repeatedly said by lawyers and judges that the form of thought and expression we know as the judicial opinion has been changing in deep, disturbing, but obscure ways. Somehow the expectations that were once appropriate to the work of courts, especially the Supreme Court, are frustrated and blocked. What has in fact been happening? How has our conception of the law been changing? What can now be done about it?This essay addresses these large questions by focusing on two opinions: first, the important opinion by Justice Jackson in the Steel Seizure Case, with an eye both to the what that opinion originally meant, in the legal and political culture in which it was issued, and to its present-day reception and interpretation; second, the opinion of Justice O'Connor in the recent Hamdi case (the "enemy combatant" case). The article explores how opinions used to be written and read; how they are written and read today; and what this means about the changes in the nature of legal thought, argument, and judgment that both practitioners and teachers have noticed.
The Johansen-Granger Representation Theorem: An Explicit Expression for I(1) Processes.

The Johansen-Granger representation theorem for the cointegrated vector autoregressive process is derived using the companion form. This approach yields an explicit representation of all coefficients and initial values. This result is useful for impulse response analysis, common feature analysis and asymptotic analysis of cointegrated processes.
Optimizing Building Energy Efficiency with Modeling and Intelligent Controls

ABSTRACT This article describes the results of a study that was conducted to establish a plan and subsequently perform modifications to the controls and operating strategy of a conference center located in Hammond, Indiana to maximize energy efficiency. During an initial analysis of building energy efficiency, it was determined that the building heating ventilating and air conditioning controls were outdated, poorly documented, lacked efficient coordination, and were partially malfunctioning. It was also determined that the existing control strategy resulted in poor air allocation to ducts and that there were several malfunctioning duct controls. An energy efficiency evaluation was conducted and a research effort initiated to determine ways to reduce costs. As part of this effort, the building HVAC controls were replaced with a wireless master control system that downloads optimal control patterns to smart thermostats for individual zones within the building as weather and building use patterns change. An...
¿Fue el siglo XVI una catástrofedemográfica para México?Una respuesta basada en lademografía históricano cuantitativa

Resumen es: El debate en torno al tamano de las poblaciones nativas de America en el momento del contacto con los europeos y el grado de despoblacion que le sigui...
Characterization of metal atoms in alloys by soft x-ray absorption spectroscopy☆

Abstract The x-ray K absorption spectra of iron, cobalt, nickel, copper and zinc, in binary alloys, display a fine structure near the main absorption edge that is characteristic of the electronic structure and site symmetry of the absorbing atom. Thus it is possible to identify these atoms in various alloys and to study the effect that alloying has on the fine structure.
The seven communication reasons organizations do not change

Purpose – Management attempts to transform organizations seldom succeed. This paper aims to describe seven common communication behaviors accompanying those failures.Design/methodology/approach – This paper integrates material from three recent communication and organizational change studies, recent change theory, and complexity theory to model communication and change processes. All the studies employed traditional ethnographic methods, but one study employed quantitative methods as well as part of a mixed methods design.Findings – Data describe six common communication behaviors during failed organizational change efforts. The combination of these behaviors suggests a seventh pattern. Communication during failed efforts seldom involves enough communication opportunities, lacks any sense of emerging identification, engenders distrust, and lacks productive humor. These problems are compounded by conflict avoidance and a lack of interpersonal communication skills. Members decouple the system, sheltering th...
Labial tip sensilla of Blissus leucopterus leucopterus (Hemiptera: Blissidae): Ultrastructure and behavior

The cuticular sensory receptors that are found on the apex of the labium of hemipterans play an important role in their feeding behavior. In this study we describe the ultrastructure, number, and distribution of sensilla on the labium apex of the chinch bug, Blissus leucopterus leucopterus. Each apical field of sensilla on the labium contains 11 uniporous peg sensilla and one sensillum chaeticum. The uniporous peg sensilla are innervated by 4-5 bipolar neurons that send dendrites in the lumen of each peg. Three neurons are associated with each sensillum chaeticum, two neurons have dendrites in the lumen of the sensillum, and the third dendrite ends in a tubular body at the base of the sensillum. Behavioral tests that involve chemical blockage of the sensory receptors show the importance of the labial sensilla in feeding behavior. Both morphological and behavioral evidence indicate that the labial sensilla have a chemosensitive function.
Observations on the pathway of carotenoid synthesis in rhodopseudomonas

Abstract The carotenoid composition of a number of green mutants of Rhodopseudomonas spheroides and Rhodopseudomonas gelatinosa has been examined. The accumulation patterns of these mutants support the hypothesis that chloroxanthin is a normal intermediate in the conversion of neurosporene to spheroidene in these species. Evidence was also obtained to support the proposal of Eimhjellen and Jensen 1 that in Rhodopseudomonas gelatinosa spirilloxanthin is formed via secondary conversions of the carotenoids of the spheroidene group and not from lycopene by the route characteristic of Rhodospirillum rubrum .
Electrophysiological and behavioral indicants of selective attention to multifeature gratings.

The mechanisms underlying selective attention to gratings consisting of a particular conjunction of spatial frequency and orientation were investigated by means of both visual evoked potential (VEP) and behavioral measures. The effects of selective attention upon the VEP indicated two general types of selection processes: one which is specific to the features contained in the relevant gratings and is most pronounced approximately 225 msec post-stimulation, and another which is specific to the conjunction of features defining the relevant grating and is most pronounced 250–375 msec following the presentation of the stimulus. The behavioral responses primarily reflected this latter, or grating-specific, attentional process. The results are discussed in terms of the role of sensory feature channels in mediating selective attention to visual stimuli and are related to various information processing models of visual pattern selection.
The agitated brain injured patient. Part 2: Pathophysiology and treatment

The management of agitation after brain injury remains uncertain because of a lack of a consistent definition and a poor understanding of the underlying mechanism. Part 1 of this review focused on definitions, differential diagnosis, and assessment. Part 2 reviews potential mechanisms for posttraumatic agitation and common intervention strategies. The intent of this two-part series is to advocate for a consistent definition for posttraumatic agitation, to encourage the use of appropriate assessment and monitoring strategies, and to recommend that intervention decisions are based on at least a theoretical understanding of the relationship between specific target behaviors and probable brain-behavior relationships.
Superconducting-state enhancement of thermal conductivity in the cuprates: Correlation with the pair density.

The systematics of the superconducting-state enhancements of in-plane thermal conductivity for YBa{sub 2}Cu{sub 3}O{sub 6+{ital x}} (Y-123), Bi{sub 2}Sr{sub 2}CaCu{sub 2}O{sub 8}, Tl{sub 2}Ba{sub 2}CuO{sub 6}, and La{sub 2{minus}{ital x}}Sr{sub {ital x}}CuO{sub 4} single crystals are examined. For Y-123 the enhancements are shown to correlate with specific-heat jumps, a measure of the superconducting pair density. The substantially larger enhancements observed for Y-123 are attributed to the condensate arising from oxygen-filled CuO chains. We discuss the constraints imposed by measurements of microwave conductivity on the electronic contribution to this phenomenon.
Tone Features, Tone Perception, and Peak Alignment in Thai

This paper investigates the relationship between the phonological features of tone and tone perception in Thai. Specifically, it tests the hypothesis (proposed by Moren & Zsiga, 2006) that the principle perceptual cues to the five-way tonal contrast in Thai are high and low pitch targets aligned to moras. Results of four perception studies, one using natural speech and three using digitally-altered speech, are presented in support of the hypothesis. It is argued that, by associating tones to moras, a straightforward mapping from the abstract autosegmental features H and L to the production and perception of Thai tones, a heretofore elusive goal, can be accomplished. This result has consequences for theories of contour tone perception, the distinctive features of tone, and the alignment of pitch targets to the segmental string.
Extended-Field Large-Aperture Interferometer–Spectrometer for Airglow Surveys

The design of a field-of-view-widened interferometer for airglow survey work is discussed, and some preliminary airglow results are presented. The 4.5-cm aperture optics of the interferometer give a very large throughput gain compared with a conventional slit spectrometer. In addition, by using optical wedge compensators, the field of view is widened to over 5° full angle, resulting in a field-widened throughput gain of approximately 100 compared with a standard Michelson interferometer of the same aperture size. Digital recording is used to achieve sufficient dynamic range and to aid in computation of the fast fourier transforms. A series of airglow spectra of the midlatitude sky in the spectral region from 0.6 μ to 0.9 μ down to a resolution of about 2 A are given for a sunset transition and also at night. Bright features are the vibration-rotation hydroxyl emission bands and the oxygen red lines. Particularly interesting are enhancement of these emissions during twilight and the observation of what may be vibrationally excited O2 in the lower atmosphere.
Antitumor vaccination with HER‐2‐derived recombinant antigens

Certain types of malignant tumors overexpress HER-2, a transmembrane glycoprotein of the class I receptor tyrosine kinase erbB family. To develop an effective HER-2 vaccine for the selective immunotherapy of these malignancies, we have genetically engineered fusion proteins containing portions of extra- and intracellular HER-2 domains. Activated dendritic cells (DC) cocultured with these novel antigens (Ag) could induce potent responses of Ag-specific T-cell lines in vitro and a protection against HER-2-expressing tumor in vivo. The protective capabilities of HER-2-derived fusion proteins correlated with the efficiency of their presentation to Ag-specific T-cell hybridomas. The most effective Ag contained GM-CSF, the presence of which facilitated their internalization by antigen-presenting cells (APC) in a receptor-mediated manner.
The contribution of sleep to improvements in working memory scanning speed: A study of prolonged sleep restriction

Working memory scanning and motor response speeds were assessed in chronically sleep restricted participants using the Sternberg item recognition paradigm (SIRP). Twenty-two healthy volunteers (ages 21–30) living in a controlled hospital environment were allowed either 4 h of sleep opportunity (50% of habitual sleep) or 8 h of sleep opportunity (100% of habitual sleep) for 12 days. Working memory scanning efficiency (time taken to access an item in working memory) was tested for the first 9 days of sleep restriction and improved over time in participants permitted an 8 h sleep period, but did not change significantly in participants permitted a 4 h sleep period. Speed of motor response (reaction time independent of cognitive processing) did not change significantly in either group. These results indicate that the efficiency of working memory scanning can improve with repeated practice given sufficient sleep, and that prolonged sleep restriction to 50% of habitual sleep prevents this improvement.
Hypogonadal symptoms are associated with different serum testosterone thresholds in middle-aged and elderly men.

Objective To determine the association between hypogonadal symptoms and total serum testosterone levels in middle-aged and elderly men (aged >40 years), and to identify whether there exists a clear-cut discriminatory threshold of total testosterone below which the probability of hypogonadal symptoms increases. Methods We retrospectively reviewed the charts of 360 men who presented to an outpatient men's health clinic with a chief complaint of low testosterone. Sexual, psychological, and physical symptoms were evaluated using the androgen deficiency in the aging male (ADAM) questionnaire. Serum levels of total testosterone were collected on the same day on which men completed their ADAM questionnaires. We performed the univariate (t test, chi-square, and binary logistic regression) and multivariate analyses (binary logistic regression) to evaluate the total testosterone threshold and the symptoms that predicted a low-testosterone level. Results A cluster of symptoms: 1 sexual (decreased libido), 1 psychological (decreased energy), and 3 physical (decreased strength or endurance, decreased ability to play sports, and falling asleep after dinner) were most associated with total serum testosterone levels of ≤300 ng/dL. The threshold testosterone serum levels that were associated with an increased prevalence of these hypogonadal symptoms ranged from 320 to 375 ng/dL. On multivariate analysis, age, but not symptoms on the ADAM questionnaire, predicted a total testosterone level of Conclusion A distinct constellation of hypogonadal symptoms exists at various serum testosterone levels. Consequently, identification of the thresholds for specific symptom management will be critical in establishing patient-centered treatment algorithms.
Immunocompetence, mast cells and sexual behaviour

This paper reports a provocative and novel observation. Specifically, we have shown that in ring doves, following a brief period of courtship, cells of the immune system - mast cells- appear in the brain. This is surprising in that it has long been thought that the blood brain-barrier prevents the movement of blood-borne cells into the parenchyma of the brain. The conditions under which these cells appear, their chemical and ultrastructural features and their potential in neuroendocrine signalling functions are discussed.