cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
10 Management of Cooley's anaemia

Summary The current management of Cooley's anaemia has succeeded in prolonging the patient's life to at least the fourth decade, in allowing a number of the patients to procreate children, and in allowing most of them to lead a nearly unrestricted normal life. The price to be paid for this is the cumbersome and expensive adherence to a rigorous regimen of chronic transfusion and compliance with chelation therapy. Economical and psychological factors make it difficult for many patients to benefit from these advances, but those who can may be reasonably assured of a long and fruitful existence. It must be realized that the only defect in Cooley's anaemia is one of haemoglobin synthesis, and well-managed patients are in any other aspect capable of leading a normal life. In certain areas of the world, such as Cyprus ( Loukopoulos et al, 1990 ) and Sardinia ( Cao et al, 1990 ), extensive and intensive programmes of prenatal screening have reduced to nearly negligible levels the birth of children with Cooley's anaemia (see Chapter 9 this volume). Yet, in many countries a complete management of Cooley's anaemia is today not feasible for economic or cultural reasons, and this disease remains a serious public health problem. The future of the management of Cooley's anaemia appears at the moment full of hopes and frustrations ( Gale, 1989 ; Bank, 1990 ). However, it is important to understand that if the current group of patients with Cooley's anaemia have to be the beneficiaries of future developments (be it genetic engineering and/or advances in histocompatibility matching), it is necessary that these patients be maintained in excellent clinical shape. It would be very sad when a cure for Cooley's anaemia became available, if most patients could not avail themselves of it because of pre-existing irreversible body damage.
A map-growing localization algorithm for ad-hoc wireless sensor networks

Localization is an important process in deploying ad-hoc wireless sensor networks. Several localization algorithms have been developed. However, they do not achieve satisfactory performance on irregular networks. In this paper, we present a localization algorithm based on an idea of growing local maps. Simulation was performed on networks of different shapes with different connectivity and anchor. Compared with APS DV-distance (Niculescu and Nath, 2001), the map-growing algorithm is about two times more accurate for C-shaped grid or hexagon networks with the same coverage as of APS DV-distance, when the range error is less than or equal to 10%R, where R is the radio range. Compared with APS Euclidean (Niculescu and Nath, 2001), the coverage of map-growing is 100% with low GPS ratio while APS Euclidean requires a higher GPS ratio to get a better coverage.
Poking Holes in Rheumatoid Joints

Pathological mechanisms that cause cell membrane lysis and an increase in intracellular calcium may explain how rheumatoid arthritis patients develop citrullination of intracellular proteins in their joints (Romero et al., this issue).
Recorded Speech, Virtual Environments, and the Effectiveness of Embodied Conversational Agents

Development of embodied conversational agents (ECAs) has tended to focus on the character’s dialog capabilities, with less research on the design and effect of the agent’s voice and of the virtual environments in which the agent exists. For a study of human-ECA rapport, we iteratively developed three versions of a game featuring an ECA, where each version of the game had a different combination of speech generation and virtual environment. Evaluations of the users’ interactions with the different versions of the game enabled us to assess the effects of changes in the agent’s voice and of changes in the agent’s virtual world.
Asymmetric code design for remote multiterminal source coding

Asymmetric code design for remote multiterminal source coding in the quadratic Gaussian case is presented in this paper. For remote multiterminal source coding of X, to achieve the minimum sum rate of the two independent encoders subject to a fidelity criterion d, theoretical bounds were derived independently. The main idea is to quantize the first observation Y/sub 1/ and apply Wyner-Ziv coding on Y/sub 2/ by using the quantized version of Y/sub 1/ as side information in an efficient asymmetric coding scheme. The practical code design gives results that are very close to the sum-rate bound.
Ovarian torsion: An unusual cause of abdominal pain in a young girl

The case of a 6-year-old girl with right lower quadrant pain is presented. For several days, she had experienced pain that worsened and then was accompanied by vomiting and low-grade fever. Acute appendicitis was considered, but at laparotomy she was found to have a necrotic, torsed ovary. The natural history, clinical presentation, and diagnostic features of ovarian torsion are reviewed.
Conservation of charge at an interface

Abstract In a continuous medium, the charge density and the current density are related by the continuity equation, expressing conservation of charge. When an interface separates two continuous media, we can also have a surface charge density σ and a surface current density i on the interface surface. We consider an interface of arbitrary shape, and derive the continuity equation relating σ and i from the principle of conservation of charge. The result can be expressed in terms of the surface divergence of i on the surface, familiar from tensor analysis. In an independent approach, we derive the same equation from Maxwell’s equations at the boundary.
N-Acetyl-Seryl-Aspartyl-Lysyl-Proline Attenuates Renal Injury and Dysfunction in Hypertensive Rats With Reduced Renal Mass Council for High Blood Pressure Research

N -acetyl-seryl-aspartyl-lysyl-proline (Ac-SDKP) is a naturally occurring peptide of which the plasma concentration is increased 4- to 5-fold by angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors. We reported previously that, in models of both hypertension and postmyocardial infarction, Ac-SDKP reduces cardiac inflammation and fibrosis. However, it is unknown whether Ac-SDKP can prevent or reverse renal injury and dysfunction in hypertension. In the present study, we tested the hypothesis that, in rats with 5/6 nephrectomy (5/6Nx)-induced hypertension, Ac-SDKP reduces renal damage, albuminuria, and dysfunction by decreasing inflammatory cell infiltration and renal fibrosis and by increasing nephrin protein. Ac-SDKP (800 μg/kg per day, SC via osmotic minipump) or vehicle was either started 7 days before 5/6Nx (prevention) and continued for 3 weeks or started 3 weeks after 5/6Nx (reversal) and continued for another 3 weeks. Rats with 5/6Nx developed high blood pressure, left ventricular hypertrophy, albuminuria, decreased glomerular filtration rate, and increased macrophage infiltration (inflammation) and renal collagen content (fibrosis). Ac-SDKP did not affect blood pressure or left ventricular hypertrophy in either group; however, it significantly reduced albuminuria, renal inflammation, and fibrosis and improved glomerular filtration rate in both prevention and reversal groups. Moreover, slit diaphragm nephrin protein expression in the glomerular filtration barrier was significantly decreased in hypertensive rats. This effect was partially prevented or reversed by Ac-SDKP. We concluded that Ac-SDKP greatly attenuates albuminuria and renal fibrosis and improves renal function in rats with 5/6Nx. These effects may be related to decreased inflammation (macrophages) and increased nephrin protein.
Farmland: Is It Currently Priced as an Attractive Investment?

Farmland prices have risen dramatically in recent years, which has attracted interest from the broader investment community. At the same time, concern is being expressed regarding another bubble in farmland prices. This paper studies and compares the farmland price to cash rent ratio (P/rent) with the price to earnings (P/E) ratio of stocks. We find that the farmland P/rent ratio has reached historical highs and is currently at the level of the P/E ratio of the S&P 500 during the tech bubble. Data from 1911 to 2012 are used to estimate the beta of farmland, a measure of the risk that farmland adds to a diversified portfolio. The beta is found to be very low over this period. Farmland returns are also regressed against expected and unexpected inflation, and we find that farmland moves relatively close to one-to-one with inflation. We also report 10- and 20-year holding period returns for farmland and find that the relationship between return and the cyclically adjusted P/rent ratio is strongly negative. Moreover, the current cyclically adjusted P/rent ratio is extremely high, indicating a reason for caution when investors are considering farmland purchases.
Leonardo da Vinci's flights of the mind must continue: cardiac architecture and the fundamental relation of form and function revisited.

Summary This overview addresses the remarkable efficiency of the mammalian heart as a pump of unique capacity to quickly vary output and ejection velocity and its relation to ventricular geometry, fiber architecture, integrity of collagen scaffold and microvasculature and appropriate electrical activation. The unique functional capacity of the ventricle depends critically on the organization of cardiac muscle fibers in layers of counter-wound helices encircling the ventricular cavity in a pattern that allows a special twisting motion during systole and early diastole, essential to the mechanical efficiency of the normal ventricle to eject and suction venous return. The important contribution of advances in imaging techniques is reviewed, especially magnetic resonance with tagging and tensor analysis to define fiber orientation; these measurements are made without the use of implanted devices that can distort structure and even impair function. The impact of loss of optimalfiber orientation and geometry of the ventricle as a result of diseases that cause heart failure is analyzed, along with the possibility of improvement by carefully planned surgical restoration of ventricular geometry. The very encouraging results yielded by these therapeutic strategies are critically dependent on a clear understanding of the relation of structure and function that our analysis attempts to promote. Simultaneously, there is full acknowledgment of the unanswered questions that are inevitable but equally essential to the continuing search that scientific progress depends on.
Magnetic resonance imaging features of fibrocystic change of the breast

Abstract Purpose Studies specifically reporting MRI of fibrocystic change (FCC) of the breast are very few and its MRI features are not clearly known. The purpose of this study was to analyze the MRI features of FCC of the breast. Materials and Methods Thirty-one patients with pathologically proven FCC of the breast were retrospectively reviewed. The MRI study was performed using a 1.5-T MR scanner with standard bilateral breast coil. The imaging protocol consisted of pre-contrast T1-weighed imaging and dynamic contrast-enhanced axial T1-weighed imaging. The MRI features were interpreted based on the morphologic and enhancement kinetic descriptors defined on ACR BIRADS-MRI lexicon. Results FCC of the breast had a wide spectrum of morphologic and kinetic features on MRI. Two types of FCC were found, including a more diffuse type of nonmass lesion (12/31, 39%) showing benign enhancement kinetic pattern with medium wash-in in early phase (9/10, 90%) and a focal mass-type lesion (11/31, 35%) with enhancement kinetic usually showing rapid up-slope mimicking a breast cancer (8/11, 73%). Conclusion MRI is able to elaborate the diverse imaging features of FCC of the breast. Our result showed that FCC presenting as a focal mass-type lesion was usually overdiagnosed as malignancy. Understanding MRI of FCC is important to determine which cohort of patients should be followed up alone or receive aggressive management.
Immunization to prevent congenital cytomegalovirus infection

Introduction A primary maternal cytomegalovirus (CMV) during pregnancy causes newborn disease that includes hearing deficit and/or mental retardation. Sources of data Relevant published literature. Areas of agreement There are no biologic obstacles to immunization against fetal/placental infection with CMV. Areas of uncertainty CMV vaccine trials may be difficult due to a lack of public awareness of CMV. Vaccine trials that use fetal infection as an endpoint will be prolonged, since vaccination will need to occur preconception. Areas timely for developing research Vaccines in preclinical development include antigens of the CMV gB glycoprotein and the gH/gL UL128, 130 and 131 pentameric complex. These antigens induce antibodies that block viral entry into fibroblasts and endothelial/epithelial cells. Vaccines immunogenic in animals include an inactivated virus with a wild-type UL131 gene, a DNA vaccine using a wild-type UL130 gene and peptide vaccines using peptides from UL130 and 131. Conclusions In spite of these potential obstacles, successful evaluation of CMV vaccines is possible.
Predictors of children's active commuting to school: an observational evaluation in 5 U.S. communities.

Background: Few reports examined long term predictors of children’s active commuting to school (walking or cycling to school, ACS). Purpose: To identify predictors of ACS over 1 school year among a sample of children with relatively high rates of ACS. Methods: Parents were surveyed in September 2010 (Time 1) and April 2011 (Time 2). The dependent variable was children’s commuting mode to school (active versus passive). Independent variables included: 1) parents’ outcome expectations (from Social Cognitive Theory: the expected risks/benefits for their child doing ACS), 2) distance to school, 3) participation in an adult-led walk to school group, 4) temperature, and 5) child demographics. Generalized mixed-models estimated odds ratios for ACS (n = 369 or 49.7% of Time 1 respondents). Results: Males (OR = 2.59, 95% CI [1.57–4.30]), adult-led walk to school group participation (OR = 1.80, 95% CI [1.14–2.86]), parents’ outcome expectations (OR = 1.26, 95% CI [1.14–1.39]), temperature (OR = 1.03, 95% CI [1.01–1...
Automatic segmentation of up to ten layer boundaries in SD-OCT images of the mouse retina with and without missing layers due to pathology

Accurate quantification of retinal layer thicknesses in mice as seen on optical coherence tomography (OCT) is crucial for the study of numerous ocular and neurological diseases. However, manual segmentation is time-consuming and subjective. Previous attempts to automate this process were limited to high-quality scans from mice with no missing layers or visible pathology. This paper presents an automatic approach for segmenting retinal layers in spectral domain OCT images using sparsity based denoising, support vector machines, graph theory, and dynamic programming (S-GTDP). Results show that this method accurately segments all present retinal layer boundaries, which can range from seven to ten, in wild-type and rhodopsin knockout mice as compared to manual segmentation and has a more accurate performance as compared to the commercial automated Diver segmentation software.
Recovery of Milk Constitutents in a Mozzarella-Like Product Manufactured from Nonfat Dry Milk and Cream by Direct Acidification at 4 and 35°C

Abstract A product resembling Mozzarella cheese was made by the culture method from fluid milk and reconstituted nonfat dry milk. Correlation coefficients between the amount of solids nonfat obtained from nonfat dry milk, on the one hand, and the fat and protein recoveries, on the other hand, were .24 and .28. Yield of product made by the culture method from fluid milk and varying amounts of reconstituted nonfat dry milk and recoveries of fat, protein, and total solids were greater than that made from fluid milk by direct acidification. However, product yield from reconstituted nonfat dry milk and cream by direct acidification was higher than that when the product was made from part fluid milk and part reconstituted nonfat dry milk by the culture method. But fat recoveries were greater when the culture method was used. The product made from fluid milk or from reconstituted nonfat dry milk and cream by the direct acidification method showed an average fat recovery of 84.31% when the milk was acidified at 4°C and 74.12% when acidified at 35°C. The product made by direct acidification from reconstituted nonfat milk and cream showed higher recoveries of protein and total solids than that made from fluid milk.
Transcatheter Arterial Chemoembolization: Current Technique and Future Promise

Transarterial chemoembolization is the mainstay of catheter based interventional oncologic therapies. This article describes the history of the procedure, selection of appropriate candidates, technical aspects of procedure performance, results, complications, and appropriate follow-up. In addition, the limitations and challenges of the procedure are outlined. Finally, the reader is introduced to novel and promising techniques and devices that hold future promise for transarterial therapy of malignancies.
trade figures: set fair?

Are the trade figures set to improve? Nick Parsons of Union Discount argues that although the figures are likely to improve, a structural deficit is likely to remain.
In vitro analog of operant conditioning in aplysia. II. Modifications of the functional dynamics of an identified neuron contribute to motor pattern selection.

Previously, an analog of operant conditioning was developed using the buccal ganglia of Aplysia, the probabilistic occurrences of a specific motor pattern (i.e., pattern I), a contingent reinforcement (i.e., stimulation of the esophageal nerve), and monotonic stimulation of a peripheral nerve (i.e., n.2,3). This analog expressed a key feature of operant conditioning (i.e., selective enhancement of the probability of occurrence of a designated motor pattern by contingent reinforcement). In addition, the training induced changes in the dynamical properties of neuron B51, an element of the buccal central pattern generator. To gain insights into the neuronal mechanisms that mediate features of operant conditioning, the present study identified a neuronal element that was critically involved in the selective enhancement of pattern I. We found that bursting activity in cell B51 contributed significantly to the expression of pattern I and that changes in the dynamical properties of this cell were associated with the selective enhancement of pattern I. These changes could be induced by an explicit association of reinforcement with random depolarization of B51. No stimulation of n.2,3 was required. These results indicate that the selection of a designated motor pattern by contingent reinforcement and the underlying neuronal plasticity resulted from the association of reinforcement with a component of central neuronal activity that contributes to a specific motor pattern. The sensory stimulus that allows for occurrences of different motor acts may not be critical for induction of plasticity that mediates the selection of a motor output by contingent reinforcement in operant conditioning.
Convergence Analysis of Two Loss Functions in Soft-Max Regression

While the convergence rate of any optimization algorithm can be increased by selecting a larger stepsize parameter, this also magnifies the parameter estimation variance. This research introduces an analytical methodology for comparing the estimation variance when optimizing Soft-Max models using two different loss functions (Cross Entropy and Mean Square Error). This method can be used to adjust the stepsize parameters of algorithms with different loss functions so that they attain equal estimation variances after converging; this provides a fair starting point for a comparison of the convergence rates of the algorithms. The polyphonic pitch detection problem is used as a case study, and the performance of the models trained by the cross entropy loss function and the mean square error loss function are compared with each other and with a $k$ -nearest neighbor classifier.
Power Laws in Economics: An Introduction

Paul Samuelson (1969) was once asked by a physicist for a law in economics that was both nontrivial and true. This is a difficult challenge, as many (roughly) true results are in the end rather trivial (for example, demand curves slope down), while many nontrivial results in economics in fact require too much sophistication and rationality on the part of the agents to actually hold true in practice. 1 Samuelson answered, “the law of comparative advantage.” The story does not say whether the physicist was satisfied. The law of comparative advantage is a qualitative law, and not a quantitative one as is the rule in physics. Indeed, many of the insights of economics seem to be qualitative, with many fewer reliable
Topological and Algebraic Properties for Classifying Unrooted Gaussian Trees under Privacy Constraints

In this paper, our objective is to find out how topological and algebraic properties of unrooted Gaussian tree models determine their security robustness, which is measured by our proposed max-min information (MaMI) metric. Such metric quantifies the amount of common randomness extractable through public discussion between two legitimate nodes under an eavesdropper attack. We show some general topological properties that the desired max-min solutions shall satisfy. Under such properties, we develop conditions under which comparable trees are put together to form partially ordered sets (posets). Each poset contains the most favorable structure as the poset leader, and the least favorable structure. Then, we compute the Tutte-like polynomial for each tree in a poset in order to assign a polynomial to any tree in a poset. Moreover, we propose a novel method, based on restricted integer partitions, to effectively enumerate all poset leaders. The results not only help us understand the security strength of different Gaussian trees, which is critical when we evaluate the information leakage issues for various jointly Gaussian distributed measurements in networks, but also provide us both an algebraic and a topological perspective in grasping some fundamental properties of such models.
Venous Thromboembolism in Thermally Injured Patients: Analysis of the National Burn Repository

Currently, there is a paucity of information on the incidence of venous thromboembolism (VTE) in thermally injured patients. By using the National Burn Repository, the authors examined the incidence and risk factors for VTE after burn injury. The National Burn Repository was queried to identify adult burn patients treated between 1995 and 2007. Patients who died within 24 hours of admission, with length of stay less than 1 day, or who had nonthermal injuries were excluded. Bivariate statistics were generated to identify risk factors associated with VTE. Logistic regression was used to identify risk factors that were independently associated with VTE. The incidence of VTE in thermally injured patients was 0.6%. VTE incidence increased to 1.2% when patients required intensive care unit (ICU) admission or when patients had >10%TBSA burns. Patients with 40 to 59% TBSA burns were at highest risk for VTE (2.4%). TBSA burned, ICU days, and the number of operations were independently associated with increased VTE risk, when controlling for other risk factors. We created a predictive model for VTE, which included all variables that were known or could be derived at the time of admission. The combination of increased TBSA burned and need for ICU admission was strongly predictive (c-statistic = 0.82) of patients who developed VTE. At admission, the combination of increased TBSA burned and need for ICU admission predicts patients who develop VTE with high discrimination. Patients with these risk factors may benefit from early, aggressive VTE prophylaxis.
PS-205 Inhaled Nitric Oxide Increases Urinary Nitric Oxide Metabolites And Cgmp In Premature Infants: Relationship To Pulmonary Outcome

Background/aims Inhaled NO (iNO) has been tested for prevention of bronchopulmonary dysplasia in premature infants, however the role of cGMP is not known. We hypothesised that levels of NO metabolites (NOx) and cGMP in urine, as a non-invasive source for biospecimen collection, would reflect the dose of iNO and relate to pulmonary outcome. Methods Studies were performed on 125 infants Results In NO-treated infants there was a significant dose-dependent increase of both urinary NOx and cGMP per creatinine (maximal 3.1- and 2-fold, respectively, at 10–20 ppm iNO) compared to off iNO. The ratio of cGMP to NOx, which may reflect efficiency of NO signalling via guanylate cyclase, was lower (mean 38%) at all doses of iNO compared to off NO. NOx and cGMP concentrations at both 2 ppm and off iNO were inversely related to severity of lung disease (Respiratory Severity Score) during the first month, and the NOx levels were lower in infants who died or developed BPD at term. NOx was higher in Caucasian compared to other infants at all iNO doses. Conclusions Urinary NOx and cGMP are biomarkers of endogenous NO production and lung uptake of iNO, and levels at some doses reflect the severity of lung disease in infants. These results support a role of the NO-cGMP pathway in lung development and repair from injury.
The Molecular Basis of Thyroid Hormone Action

Progress has been made in understanding the molecular basis of a number of clinical manifestations of thyroid disease, yet many questions remain. Why are there two thyroid hormone-receptor genes? Is the function of each of the two receptors indeed unique? How T3 receptors interact with other nuclear proteins and DNA-binding sites and how these interactions are influenced by T3 is incompletely understood. The developmental regulatory role of T3 receptor alpha 1 and its non-T3-binding alpha 2 variant needs to be defined. Most T3-regulated processes, especially those related to metabolism, muscle contraction, and brain development, function in concert with a number of other regulatory factors. The therapeutic applications of knowledge gained about the basic mechanisms of thyroid hormone action should ultimately extend beyond thyroid disease to processes regulated or influenced by T3; these include cardiac function, lipid metabolism, pituitary hormone secretion, and neural development.
Postnatal testing for unusual genodermatoses.

A number of infrequently encountered inherited diseases with cutaneous manifestations may be seen by dermatologists. Although not all of the genodermatoses have well-described laboratory abnormalities, many are associated with characteristic laboratory findings that may aid in their diagnosis. This article briefly reviews some of these genodermatoses and, where relevant, any associated laboratory features.
Development of an evaluation model for computer foodservice management systems.

Business evaluation practices were used to develop a model for postimplementation of a computer system in a foodservice. Four levels of success with acorresponding indicator for evaluation were identified as: I. Management Action-management implements data and reports; II. Management Change-management initiates use of system to find solutions to problems; III. Management Uses Analytical Approach -management uses system as a routine part of problem-solving; and IV. Management Change in Task-management’s role changes as a result of the computer system. Five computer functions were identified for evaluation: integrity, performance, use, efficiency, and effectiveness. Criteria, measurements, standards, and actual sections were then developed for each function.An instrument was developed on the basis of the evaluation, including forms, questionnaires, learning experiences, and scenarios. The instrument was then applied to two computer foodservice management systems-a custom-designed system and a packaged software system. The instrument was applied to software systems by the scenario method. Five criteria with key indicators were developed to determine successful application of the instrument. The evaluation model and the final instrument developed and applied in this study should be useful to dietitians evaluating a computer system 6 to 12 months after implementation in their foodservice. J Am Diet Assoc 89:1465-1472, 1989.
Total Serum Cholesterol and Ischemic Heart Disease Risk in Clinical Trials and Observational Studies

Despite compelling evidence that elevated plasma total and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol plays a causal role in ischemic heart disease (IHD) (evidence derived from molecular biologic, genetic, animal experimental, and human observational studies), the results of individual clinical trials testing the lipid hypothesis have not been regarded as conclusive. Analyzed in aggregate, however, the trials results indicate a dose-response relationship between amount of cholesterol lowering and reduction of ischemic heart disease risk. This summary analysis predicted the quantitative measure of efficacy in the recently completed Lipid Research Clinics Coronary Primary Prevention Trial (LRC-CPPT). There was a quantitatively similar relationship between the amount of IHD risk reduction associated with amount of total plasma cholesterol reduction within the active drug (cholestyramine) treated group. Further, the risk function relating baseline level of total plasma cholesterol to ischemic heart disease incidence in community-based studies such as Framingham was so similar to the risk function of the LRC-CPPT placebo group that it accurately predicted the ischemic heart disease events in the trial. These findings in aggregate provide strong confirmation of the lipid hypothesis, indicate that lowering total plasma cholesterol in middle-aged hypercholesterolemic men will reduce ischemic heart disease risk, and suggest that some extrapolation of the results to lower levels of plasma cholesterol is appropriate. However, aggregate evidence that supports the lipid hypothesis should be distinguished from that required for intervention and treatment programs. Instituting the latter requires the review and evaluation of the evidence relating cholesterol levels and cholesterol reduction not only to ischemic heart disease, but also to other outcomes. Safety, cost, and efficacy under a range of strategies directed at both high-risk subgroups and total populations must also be considered.
Analyses of infrequent (quasi‐decadal) large groundwater recharge events in the northern Great Basin: Their importance for groundwater availability, use, and management

There has been a considerable amount of research linking climatic variability to hydrologic responses in the western United States. Although much effort has been spent to assess and predict changes in surface-water resources, little has been done to understand how climatic events and changes affect groundwater resources. This study focuses on characterizing and quantifying the effects of large, multi-year, quasi-decadal groundwater recharge events in the northern Utah portion of the Great Basin for the period 1960 to 2013. Annual groundwater level data were analyzed with climatic data to characterize climatic conditions and frequency of these large recharge events. Using observed water-level changes and multivariate analysis, five large groundwater recharge events were identified with a frequency of about 11 to 13 years. These events were generally characterized as having above-average annual precipitation and snow water equivalent and below-average seasonal temperatures, especially during the spring (April through June). Existing groundwater flow models for several basins within the study area were used to quantify changes in groundwater storage from these events. Simulated groundwater storage increases per basin from a single recharge event ranged from about 115 Mm3 to 205 Mm3. Extrapolating these amounts over the entire northern Great Basin indicates that a single large quasi-decadal recharge event could result in billions of cubic meters of groundwater storage. Understanding the role of these large quasi-decadal recharge events in replenishing aquifers and sustaining water supplies is crucial for long-term groundwater management. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Changes in the Blood during Amphibian Metamorphosis

Metamorphosis is a developmental period in which marked changes occur in various tissues and organ systems. The anatomical changes are particularly dramatic in the anurans. Underlying these visible alterations are cellular and molecular changes that have attracted many investigators interested in biological regulatory mechanisms.
SP0130 Comorbidities in Rheumatoid Arthritis: Cause or Effect?

Dr. Solomon will discuss several areas in his presentation: 1. The concept of morbidities in rheumatoid arthritis; 2. Specific morbidities including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and hyperlipidemia; and 3. Whether morbidities should be viewed as cause or effect with respect to rheumatoid arthritis. The discussion will focus on current scientific developments and how they pertain to rheumatology practice. Disclosure of Interest D. Solomon Grant/research support from: Amgen, Lilly, Pfizer, Genentech, Bristol Myers Squibb
Mesenchymal Stem Cell Treatment in Mice Models of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) is a complex autoimmune inflammatory disease causing a diverse clinical spectrum of organ damage such as kidney and liver failure. The control of the immunological deregulation and repair of the vascular integrity to prevent organ damage are keys for treatment. Available chemotherapy options are toxic and are not efficient in controlling inflammation and vasculitis.
The Effect of Age and Childhood Social Class on Preference for New Healthcare Practices

ABSTRACTBourdieu theorized that habitus structures and is structured by experiences in the social world, with childhood experiences having the strongest influence. Habitus can yield rewards in specific fields through dispositions to enact certain practices. Healthcare provides an opportunity to assess how age and childhood social class interact to produce preferences in a changing field. Are people who developed their habitus in higher social classes as children more likely to report preferences that reflect new practices? Is there greater inequality at older ages? We find that parents’ educational attainment and occupational prestige does not have a direct effect on respondents’ preferences to be involved in their healthcare decisions. However, there is a significant interaction with age, with larger gaps by childhood social class among older respondents. Results suggest that when valued practices change, socially advantaged groups can most quickly adapt. The findings have implications for the replicatio...
Foldover of nonlinear eigenmodes in magnetic thin film based feedback rings

The foldover effect of nonlinear eigenmodes in feedback ring systems was observed. Experiments made use of a system that consisted of a magnetic thin film strip, which supported the propagation of spin waves, and a microwave amplifier, which amplified the signal from the output of the magnetic strip and then fed it back to the input of the magnetic strip. The signal amplitude vs frequency response in this ring system showed resonant peaks which resulted from ring eigenmodes. With an increase in the resonance amplitude, those resonant peaks evolved from symmetric peaks to asymmetric ones and then folded over to higher frequencies. The experimental observations were reproduced by theoretical calculations that took into account the nonlinearity-produced frequency shift of the traveling spin waves.
Postprandial Suppression of Glucagon Secretion: A Puzzlement

Pancreatic glucagon is a 29–amino acid hormone processed from proglucagon by prohormone convertase 2 in the pancreatic α-cells (1). Glucagon’s best-established function is to defend against decreases in glucose availability during fasting, stress, and exercise by stimulating hepatic glycogenolysis phasically and hepatic gluconeogenesis tonically (1–5). Glucagon also increases phasically during mixed-nutrient meals (6,7). Although many individual controls of glucagon secretion have been identified (Fig. 1), their interaction under physiological conditions is poorly understood. Figure 1 Some controls of glucagon secretion that may be involved in glucagon nonsuppression or tonically increased fasting glucagon levels in insulin resistance or diabetes (note that receptor mechanisms are not shown). As reviewed in detail elsewhere (1–5,26–28), nutrient, neural, endocrine, paracrine, and autocrine effects control glucagon secretion. The dynamic interactions among these controls are poorly understood. As the figure indicates, there are many possibilities for positive- and negative-feedback loops (e.g., glucagon stimulates both hepatic glucose production and insulin secretion, and both glucose and insulin inhibit glucagon secretion), for indirect effects (e.g., the incretin hormone glucagon-like peptide 1 [GLP-1] stimulates insulin and amylin secretion, both of which inhibit glucagon secretion, both by acting directly on the α-cells and by reducing gastric emptying), and for antagonistic effects (one example is that the incretin hormone GLP-1 inhibits glucagon secretion but the incretin hormone glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide [GIP] stimulates it; another example is that mixed-nutrient meals increase both plasma glucose, which inhibits glucagon secretion, and plasma amino acids, which stimulates glucagon secretion, with the net result a brief stimulation of glucagon secretion). Somatostatin may contribute in situations in which insulin and glucagon …
Ensembles of models in fMRI : stable learning in large-scale settings

In medical imaging, collaborative worldwide initiatives have begun theacquisition of hundreds of Terabytes of data that are made available to thescientific community. In particular, functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging --fMRI-- data. However, this signal requires extensive fitting and noise reduction steps to extract useful information. The complexity of these analysis pipelines yields results that are highly dependent on the chosen parameters.The computation cost of this data deluge is worse than linear: as datasetsno longer fit in cache, standard computational architectures cannot beefficiently used.To speed-up the computation time, we considered dimensionality reduction byfeature grouping. We use clustering methods to perform this task. We introduce a linear-time agglomerative clustering scheme, Recursive Nearest Agglomeration (ReNA). Unlike existing fast agglomerative schemes, it avoids the creation of giant clusters. We then show empirically how this clustering algorithm yields very fast and accurate models, enabling to process large datasets on budget.In neuroimaging, machine learning can be used to understand the cognitiveorganization of the brain. The idea is to build predictive models that are used to identify the brain regions involved in the cognitive processing of an external stimulus. However, training such estimators is a high-dimensional problem, and one needs to impose some prior to find a suitable model.To handle large datasets and increase stability of results, we propose to useensembles of models in combination with clustering. We study the empirical performance of this pipeline on a large number of brain imaging datasets. This method is highly parallelizable, it has lower computation time than the state-of-the-art methods and we show that, it requires less data samples to achieve better prediction accuracy. Finally, we show that ensembles of models improve the stability of the weight maps and reduce the variance of prediction accuracy.
Direct measurement of conformational strain energy in protofilaments curling outward from disassembling microtubule tips

Disassembling microtubules can generate movement independently of motor enzymes, especially at kinetochores where they drive chromosome motility. A popular explanation is the 'conformational wave' model, in which protofilaments pull on the kinetochore as they curl outward from a disassembling tip. But whether protofilaments can work efficiently via this spring-like mechanism has been unclear. By modifying a previous assay to use recombinant tubulin and feedback-controlled laser trapping, we directly demonstrate the spring-like elasticity of curling protofilaments. Measuring their mechanical work output suggests they carry ~25% of the energy of GTP hydrolysis as bending strain, enabling them to drive movement with efficiency similar to conventional motors. Surprisingly, a β-tubulin mutant that dramatically slows disassembly has no effect on work output, indicating an uncoupling of disassembly speed from protofilament strain. These results show the wave mechanism can make a major contribution to kinetochore motility and establish a direct approach for measuring tubulin mechano-chemistry.
OpenDSS and OpenDSS-PM open source libraries for NI LabVIEW

The EPRI Open Source Distribution System Simulator, OpenDSS, has been widely used to perform planning studies and research, particularly in the area of Distributed Energy Resources (DER). After being released in 2008 as open source software it has become widely used around the world. One of the features that makes OpenDSS popular is that the package offers interfaces for co-simulation. Initially, the program was released with a COM interface and, recently, the “Direct DLL” interface has been released so that users can access the program features on platforms incompatible with COM. With these interfaces, users can integrate their customized models into OpenDSS, control the simulation and to integrate OpenDSS into their own software. OpenDSS has continued to evolve and now offers a version to perform parallel computing in modern multi-core computers. This version is called OpenDSS-PM (Parallel Machine) and is available to the public as well. To keep expanding the integration capabilities of OpenDSS, this paper presents the graphical OpenDSS and OpenDSS-PM libraries for NI LabVIEW. These libraries are open source and can be installed in LabVIEW online using the VI package Manager.
A Flâneur in the Erotic City: Prince and the Urban Imaginary

In September of 1986, megastar Prince journeyed across the Atlantic to France to begin filming his second motion picture Under the Cherry Moon. Having captured the US imagination in the commercially successful Purple Rain (1984), “The Kid” (Prince’s Purple Rain alias) was eager to begin shooting his idea for a wry comedy in black and white in “homage to the B films of the 1940’s” (Goodman, 1986). Prince’s artistic, transcontinental trek was already on display with his 1985 Around the World in a Day, an album that at once pushed him forward musically by looking backward to 1960s psychedelic, Beatles-esque pop. An avant-garde experimentalist, Prince was seemingly constructing a new musical paradigm that linked past and present in kaleidoscopic fashion. The title song might have Prince playing the melodious wanderer: “Open your heart, open your mind, A train is leaving all day, A wonderful trip through our time, And laughter is all U pay.” Parade: Music from The Motion Picture “Under the Cherry Moon” continued the sauntering theme as the diminutive Prince declares in the title track, “The little 1 will escort U, 2 places within your mind.” In this manner, the wanderings of Prince’s character Christopher Tracy took him “more often to the strange corners of Paris than to its historic centre, to the strongholds of multiculturalism rather than to the classic headquarters of the Gallic tradition” (White, 2001). The purpose of the article is to present Prince as a postmodern flâneur. Beyond notions of his dandyism, most directly observed in his use of signifiers that convey gender ambiguity/bending, Prince’s urban representations, traveling imagery, solitary character, social commentary, contradictory relationships with women, and transformative creativity mark a new take on the flâneur.
Image super-resolution via sparse representation and local texture constraint

Recent researches have proved the efficiency of sparse representation based methods in single image super resolution (SISR) reconstruction. However, these classic methods fail to consider the image edge information and local texture details during reconstruction process, thus result in unwanted edge artifacts and local texture blurring of the reconstructed high-resolution (HR) images. In this paper, considering that the HR image and its corresponding low-resolution (LR) image share similar texture structure in corresponding positions, we propose a new SISR reconstruction method by combining sparse representation and a local texture constraint. In our method, the HR and LR image patch pairs are firstly extracted from training samples and then are used to train a HR and LR dictionary pair. Then, in code stage, we apply a local texture constraint to restrict the local texture similarity between the input LR image patches and reconstructed HR image patches. Furthermore, we introduce a global texture constraint to a global optimization model to further enhance the reconstructed image quality. Experimental results prove that the proposed method can generate sharper edges and clearer texture details than some state-of-the-art image super-resolution methods.
Isolation of Xenopus Oocytes

Xenopus oocytes and oocyte extracts are the starting material for a variety of experimental approaches. Oocytes are obtained by surgical removal of the ovary from anesthetized females. Although oocytes may be used while they remain within their ovarian follicle, it is more practical to work with defolliculated oocytes. Defolliculation can be performed either manually or enzymatically. Here we present a protocol for the isolation and separation of Xenopus oocytes at various developmental stages, and guidelines for maintaining oocytes in culture.
‘I feel like I can do it now’: preservice teacher efficacy in a co-teaching community of practice

AbstractTeacher efficacy, or teachers’ feelings about their abilities in the classroom, remains a major component of educational research. We know that despite participating in shared or similar experiences, some preservice teachers (PSTs) develop feelings of teacher efficacy and some do not. Yet, in-depth examinations into the specific practices of successful host schools are scarce in the deep field of teacher efficacy research. We examine the deliberate actions of one Midwestern elementary school to establish a climate and co-teaching process that deliberately seeks to foster PST success and feelings of confidence in the classroom. We also discuss implications for teacher education.
Accelerating 2d-to-3d video conversion on multi-core systems

While the 3D-TV becomes widely available in the market, consumers will face the problem of serious shortage of 3D video content. Since the difficulty of 3D video capturing and manufacturing, the automatic video conversion from 2D serves as an important solution for producing 3D perception. However, 2D-to-3D video conversion is a compute-intensive task and real-time processing speed is required in online playing. Nowadays, with the multi-core processor becoming the mainstream, 2D-to-3D video conversion can be accelerated by fully utilizing the computing power of available multi-core processors. In this paper, we take a typical algorithm of automatic 2D-to-3D video conversion as reference and present typical optimization techniques to improve the implementation performance. The result shows our optimization can do the conversion on an average of 36 frames per second on an Intel Core i7 2.3 GHz processor, which meets the real-time processing requirement. We also conduct a scalability performance analysis on the multi-core system to identify the causes of bottlenecks, and make suggestion for optimization of this workload on large-scale multi-core systems.