cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Variation in symptoms of sleep-disordered breathing with race and ethnicity: the Sleep Heart Health Study.

Study objectives To examine the relation of sleep-related symptoms to race and ethnicity in a diverse sample of middle-aged and older men and women. Design Cross-sectional questionnaire survey. Setting In the initial phase of the Sleep Heart Health Study, men and women enrolled in participating epidemiologic cohort studies were surveyed. Participants 13,194 men and women 40 years of age and older, including 11,517 non-Hispanic white, 648 black, 643 American Indian, 296 Hispanic, and 90 Asian-Pacific Islander. Interventions Not applicable. Measurements and results After adjustment for BMI and other factors, frequent snoring was more common among Hispanic women (odds ratio (OR) = 2.25, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.48, 3.42) and black women (OR = 1.55, 95% Ci = 1.13, 2.13) than among non-Hispanic white women. Hispanic men were significantly more likely to report frequent snoring than non-Hispanic white men (OR = 2.30, 95% CI = 1.43, 3.69). Black, American Indian, and Asian men did not differ significantly from white men in snoring prevalence. American Indian women were significantly more likely to report breathing pauses during sleep than their white, non-Hispanic counterparts (OR = 1.52, 95% CI 1.03, 2.24), although polysomnography data on a subset of the sample suggested that the association between this symptom reported on questionnaire and objective evidence of sleep-disordered breathing may be weaker among American Indians than among other groups. Mean Epworth Sleepiness Scale scores were slightly higher in black men and women than in their white, non-hispanic counterparts. Conclusions Frequent snoring was more common among black and Hispanic women and Hispanic men than among their white non-Hispanic counterparts, even after adjusting for BMI and other factors. Further research including polysomnography and objective measurements of sleepiness is needed to assess the physiologic and clinical significance of these findings.
The Acceptor Quinones of Purple Photosynthetic Bacteria— Structure and Spectroscopy

Type II reaction centers (RCs) have two acceptor quinones that act in series. The primary quinone, QA, cycles between the oxidized quinone and singly reduced semiquinone. QA is tightly bound to the protein as aprosthetic group. The secondary quinone, QB, is reduced by Q A − , first to the semiquinone and then to the doubly reduced, fully protonated quinol, QH2. QB freely associates with the protein in the quinone and quinol states. The properties of the two quinones that facilitate this process are largely determined by the nature of the two quinone binding sites. Many reaction center crystal structures show these interactions, although there are significant uncertainties in the conformations of the two quinones, and in the significance of the variable location of QB in the protein. Consequently the influence of structure on quinone function is only very crudely understood. These issues are discussed with emphasis on the quinone reactions in the reaction center from the photosynthetic bacterium, Rhodobacter (Rba.) sphaeroides, which is the best characterized. The structural features of the quinones and their local protein environments are examined in the light of extensive spectroscopic studies, especially by Fourier transform infra-red spectroscopy (FTIR), electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) and electron nuclear double resonance (ENDOR), on the quinones in their functional redox states.
New Mixed-Mode Design Methodology for High-Efficiency Outphasing Chireix Amplifiers

A new design methodology providing optimal mixed-mode operation for dual-input class-F outphasing Chireix amplifiers is presented. The design starts with single-transistor class-F simulations at the intrinsic $I$ – $V$ reference planes to directly select the optimal peak and backoff resistive loads ${R}_{\mathrm{min}}$ and ${R}_{\mathrm{max}}$ and input RF gate drives yielding the best combination of efficiencies and output powers without needing to perform a load pull simulation or measurement. New analytic equations expressed only in terms of ${R}_{\mathrm{min}}$ and ${R}_{\mathrm{max}}$ are given for designing the Chireix combiner at the current source reference planes. Nonlinear embedding is then used to predict the incident power and multi-harmonic source and load impedances required at the package reference planes to physically implement the power amplifier (PA). An analytic formula solely expressed in terms of ${R}_{\mathrm{min}}$ and ${R}_{\mathrm{max}}$ is reported for the peak and backoff outphasing angles required at the PA input reference planes. A Chireix outphasing PA is designed using two 15-W GaN HEMTs. A Chireix outphasing PA exhibits a peak efficiency of 72.58% with peak power of 43.97 dBm and a 8-dB backoff efficiency of 75.22% at 1.9 GHz. Measurements with 10-MHz LTE signals with 9.6-dB PAPR yield 59.4% average drain efficiency at 1.9 GHz while satisfying the 3GPP linearity requirements.
Traumatic incudomalleolar disarticulation

Abstract Traumatic head injuries can be associated with ossicular chain disruption. Especially in the setting of temporal bone fractures, proper alignment of the ossicular chain has to be insured. Loss of normal ossicular alignment is associated with conductive hearing loss. Treatment of ossicular chain disruption, so called ossiculoplasty, aims to restore proper anatomic alignment of the ossicles with osseous or cartilaginous autograft and/or prosthetic devices.
Le cinéma d’Abdellatif Kechiche: prémisses et devenir: by Emna Mrabet, Paris, Riveneuve Éditions, 2016, 366 pp., €20 (softcover), ISBN 978-2-36013-429-8

Emna Mrabet begins her study by providing a good contextual background on immigration in France, which is necessary for a better understanding of the filmmaker under study. The facts that Mrabet pr...
The double-edged blade of transnational citizenship: Mexican migrants’ views of the Peña Nieto administration

Studies of political transnationalism have focused on the rapprochement and increased attention that the Mexican state has directed at the Mexican diaspora in the United States (see Iskander in Creative state: forty years of migration and development policy in Morocco and Mexico, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 2010; Delano in Mexico and its diaspora in the United States: policies of emigration since 1848, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2011). In the context of the slow and painful democratic transition in Mexican politics, scholars and state actors have speculated that Mexican migrants in the United States are politically up for grabs, with no clear preference for any one particular Mexican party. Following the dubious return to power of the formerly hegemonic Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) from 2012 to 2018, this essay tracks Mexican migrants’ views of the Pena Nieto administration using original public opinion survey data. Focusing on two of the flashpoints of the outgoing presidential administration in Mexico—namely the energy sector reforms and the case of the disappeared students from Ayotzinapa—this essay asks, how do Mexican migrants in the United States view the political performance of the Pena Nieto administration? Drawing on unpublished survey data tracing US-based Mexican migrants’ political assessment of the recently defeated PRI administration—from its ominous political ascension to its handling of structural reforms and egregious human rights crises—this essay argues that Mexican migrants’ views of the Pena Nieto administration were transnationally tinged by blood and oil.
Caries Management Decision-Making: Diagnosis and Synthesis

The purposes of this article are to (1) offer a critical thinking skill set in decision-making and synthesis for caries diagnosis, and risk-adjusted and personalized management based on emulating the intended activity of the expert, (2) offer patient/case scenarios for application of the critical thinking skill set, (3) compare and contrast the results of applying an algorithm and expert thought process approach to patient analyses, (4) offer characteristics of the person making decisions and synthesizing information, and (5) for patients with complex health and social histories, include perspectives from other health care team members.
Situational Awareness with Ubiquitous Sensing: Towards Real-time Event Detection & Classification

A rapidly growing interest can be seen towards the use of ubiquitous sensing (e.g., smart-phones and in-vehicle sensors) for identification of road conditions and driver behaviors that adversely affect the comfort and safety of motorists. While such detection and classification tasks have achieved reasonable success, the overhead associated with big-data processing and classification possess challenges to low-cost low-bandwidth implementations. In this paper, by viewing the detection and classification problem as a discrete-time filtering task, a highly efficient approach that can be implemented in near real-time is presented. In particular, by focusing on vibration measurements (as generated by smart-phones or in-vehicle sensors), a bank of matched filters are developed for automatic detection and classification of several hazards, including identification of their type and time of car’s impact with the hazard. Presented approach is illustrated using real-life vibration data. This technique provides sufficient conditioning that the data can be used to determine the time of impact, type, and location of each hazard without any manual input.
EFFORT: Enhancing Energy Efficiency and Error Resilience of a Near-Threshold Tensor Processing Unit

Modern deep neural network (DNN) applications demand a remarkable processing throughput usually unmet by traditional Von Neumann architectures. Consequently, hardware accelerators, comprising a sea of multiplier and accumulate (MAC) units, have recently gained prominence in accelerating DNN inference engine. For example, Tensor Processing Units (TPU) account for a lion’s share of Google’s datacenter inference operations. The proliferation of real-time DNN predictions is accompanied with a tremendous energy budget. In quest of trimming the energy footprint of DNN accelerators, we propose EFFORT—an energy optimized, yet high performance TPU architecture, operating at the Near-Threshold Computing (NTC) region. EFFORT promotes a better-than-worst-case design by operating the NTC TPU at a substantially high frequency while keeping the voltage at the NTC nominal value. In order to tackle the timing errors due to such aggressive operation, we employ an opportunistic error mitigation strategy. Additionally, we implement an in-situ clock gating architecture, drastically reducing the MACs’ dynamic power consumption. Compared to a cutting-edge error mitigation technique for TPUs, EFFORT enables up to 2.5× better performance at NTC with only 2% average accuracy drop across 3 out of 4 DNN datasets.
The Jewish Athletes of Iran: The Sports Activities and Achievements of the Jews of Iran: Arsalan Geula, San Bernardino, CA: Author, 2019, ISBN 978-1-6538-7808-6 (pbk), 86 pp.

This is book is a welcome addition to the relatively small corpus of writings on the social history of Jews in Iran. It also provides valuable information on sports in Iran, an underdeveloped field...
Pathophysiology of Cardiovascular Disease in Chronic Lung Disease

Multiple factors contribute to the complex link between cardiovascular disease (CVD) and chronic lung diseases (CLD). Despite having numerous shared risk factors including smoking and socioeconomic status, there is now growing evidence to suggest potential causality between CLD and CVD rather than simple association. In this chapter, we will review the pathobiologic processes that may drive the development of CVD in patients with CLD.
The seasonality of nutrients and sediment in residential stormwater runoff: Implications for nutrient-sensitive waters.

Abstract The discharge of excess nutrients to surface waters causes eutrophication, resulting in algal blooms, hypoxia, degraded water quality, reduced and contaminated fisheries, threats to potable water supplies, and decreases in tourism, cultural activities, and coastal economies. An understanding of the contribution of urban runoff to eutrophication is needed to inform management strategies. More broadly, the seasonality in nutrient concentrations and loads in urban runoff needs further analysis since algal blooms and hypoxia are seasonal in nature. This study quantifies the variation of nutrients and sediment in stormwater runoff across seasons from four urban residential sewersheds located in Columbus, Ohio, USA. An average of 62 runoff events at each sewershed were sampled using automated samplers during stormflow and analyzed for nutrients and total suspended solids (TSS). Spring total nitrogen concentrations had a significantly (p
Automated extraction of homogeneous regions by seeded region shrinkage

Drawing a spectrally homogeneous region of interest in a remotely sensed image is a common task for an image analyst when performing, for instance, atmospheric correction or end-member selection. Manually selecting a homogeneous sample of pixels can be tedious and error prone due to the limits of human perception and data visualization. I present a region shrinkage method that automates the extraction of a spectrally homogeneous and spatially contiguous region from a user selected seed pixel. The proposed technique combines divisive clustering, connected component analysis, and image noise estimation to generate a series of candidate regions of increasingly smaller size until they converge to the seed pixel through similarity space. From these candidate regions, an optimal one is identified that is spectrally homogeneous, spatially contiguous, and as large as possible. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method achieved detection rates of up to 95%, false alarm rates below 1%, and was robust to the main user input, the seed pixel location.
Biodegradation of microplastics in food and agriculture

Microplastic particles and fibers are widely distributed pollutant in the food and agriculture systems. While a growing number of studies have shown that microplastics are toxic to plant and animal life, systemic efforts to reduce their presence have been scarce. Research on how microplastics spread points to wastewater treatment plants as a key source from which microplastics may enter natural bodies of water, groundwater, or terrestrial ecosystems. In parallel, discovery of microorganisms capable of plastic degradation through enzymatic depolymerization has created growing interest in use of biocatalysis to reduce the number of microplastics released into the environment. In this review, we summarize the current state of the microplastic literature, focusing on their presence in wastewater treatment facilities and their biodegradation by microorganisms. We propose introduction of microplastic degradation by engineered enzymes in situ in currently employed wastewater treatment unit operations. To conclude, we highlight other areas of the food and agricultural systems that may benefit from biocatalytic interventions for microplastic biodegradation.
Relational memory in the early stage of psychotic bipolar disorder.

Abstract Relational memory is impaired in psychotic disorders. In non-affective psychotic disorders, relational memory deficits are present in the early stage of illness and become more pronounced in the chronic stage. Previous studies have demonstrated cognitive deficits in early-stage psychotic bipolar disorder, but it is unclear whether relational memory is impaired. We examined relational memory using a face-scene binding task in early-stage psychotic bipolar disorder patients (n = 33) and compared their performance with healthy control (n = 40) and early-stage non-affective psychosis participants (n = 40). During training, participants learned to associate faces with background scenes. During testing, participants viewed a scene overlaid by three faces and were asked to recall the matching face. Relational memory was assessed indirectly using eye movements and explicitly using forced-choice recognition. Preferential viewing of the matching face, as captured by overall proportion of viewing and viewing across time, was significantly lower in psychotic bipolar disorder than in the healthy control group. However, preferential viewing of the matching face in psychotic bipolar disorder was significantly better than in non-affective psychosis. These findings provide novel evidence that relational memory in patients with early-stage psychotic bipolar disorder is intermediate between healthy control and early-stage non-affective psychosis subjects.
Time-Varying Functional Connectivity Decreases as a Function of Acute Nicotine Abstinence.

Abstract Background The nicotine withdrawal syndrome (NWS) includes affective and cognitive disruptions whose incidence and severity vary across time during acute abstinence. However, most network-level neuroimaging uses static measures of resting-state functional connectivity and assumes time-invariance and is thus unable to capture dynamic brain-behavior relationships. Recent advances in resting-state functional connectivity signal processing allow characterization of time-varying functional connectivity (TVFC), which characterizes network communication between networks that reconfigure over the course of data collection. Therefore, TVFC may more fully describe network dysfunction related to the NWS. Methods To isolate alterations in the frequency and diversity of communication across network boundaries during acute nicotine abstinence, we scanned 25 cigarette smokers in the nicotine-sated and abstinent states and applied a previously validated method to characterize TVFC at a network and a nodal level within the brain. Results During abstinence, we found brain-wide decreases in the frequency of interactions between network nodes in different modular communities (i.e., temporal flexibility). In addition, within a subset of the networks examined, the variability of these interactions across community boundaries (i.e., spatiotemporal diversity) also decreased. Finally, within 2 of these networks, the decrease in spatiotemporal diversity was significantly related to NWS clinical symptoms. Conclusions Using multiple measures of TVFC in a within-subjects design, we characterized a novel set of changes in network communication and linked these changes to specific behavioral symptoms of the NWS. These reductions in TVFC provide a meso-scale network description of the relative inflexibility of specific large-scale brain networks during acute abstinence.
The virtual workplace: The impact of embedding business simulations into classroom culture

Today’s business management students have come of age in a new, interactive, technology-rich environment; therefore, instructors should modify their teaching modalities to embrace embedded simulati...
Dispersion properties and dynamics of ladder-like meta-chains

Abstract Several natural and engineered systems may be idealized as sets of spring–mass structures that are coupled in parallel. These range from macroscopic structures such as buildings connected at story-levels with flexible elements, to microscopic systems such as stacked chains of atoms with inter-layer bonds. We realize two possible configurations of such systems by varying the frequency of coupling. One is a configuration where every mass in one chain is coupled to its corresponding mass in the other chain (full coupling). The other configuration consists of chains that are periodically coupled only at certain locations (partial coupling). We develop analytical dispersion relations for both cases, and reveal several interesting and unusual characteristics. Specifically, we show that wave propagation in fully-coupled meta-chains has a dual nature. Depending on problem parameters, the system may behave similar to an acoustic metamaterial (AM) with a locally-resonant band gap or it may allow for the simultaneous propagation of two independent waves. The partially-coupled system exhibits more complex behavior, including nearly flat and negative group velocity bands as well as several Bragg scattering and local resonance band gaps. Furthermore, we present two example devices for wave propagation control using finite prototypes of each meta-chain configuration; realizing a narrow-band pass filter in one of them and a low-frequency rainbow trap filter in the other. Finally,we discuss our findings within the framework of modular design of metamaterial building blocks.
Understanding East Asian holistic cognitive style and its cultural evolution: a multi-disciplinary case study of Traditional Chinese Medicine

This paper improves understanding of the cognitive anthropology of East Asian holistic cognition by providing readers a detailed, multi-disciplinary case study of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). In §1 contemporary results in cross-cultural psychology studies are used to review four components of holistic cognitive style: non-linear associationism, causal pluralism, contextualism, and inconsistency. §2 discusses cognitive commitments in five major TCM doctrines: five agents (wu xing), organs, qi and blood, the theory of meridians (jing luo), and yin-yang. §3 presents a close reading of East Asia’s most influential historical medical text, the Huangdi Neijing, in terms of its representation of components of holistic style (in §1) through major TCM commitments (in §2). §4 presents machine-learning research findings using an historical Chinese corpus to show the wide dispersal of holistic cognition in Early Chinese literature and its medical texts. §5 explains some of the major means by which TCM and the holistic cognition on which it is based was culturally transmitted into the present. §6 reviews experiments asserting that TCM training is not merely correlated with but causes holistic cognition. In §7 and §8 we scrutinize holistic cognition as present in discussions of diagnosis and treatment in contemporary TCM textbooks.
Child Maltreatment and Medical Fragility: Fatalities in the First Year of Life.

In this month’s Pediatrics , Schneiderman et al examine infant deaths for medical causes among infants previously reported to child protective services.1 Using probabilistically linked birth records, child protective service records, and death records, the authors examined risk of death through the first year of life. Their analyses controlled for sex, race and ethnicity, maternal age, early prenatal care, insurance status, birth weight, and prematurity. Infants reported for maltreatment had an almost twofold increase in risk of for any medical cause of death. Are infants with serious medical conditions at higher risk for maltreatment or is maltreatment more likely to be detected among those with serious medical conditions? An increased risk for death would follow from prematurity, congenital abnormalities, or intrauterine exposure to infection.2 Children with these conditions likely require careful and more frequent medical encounters. Missed appointments and lack of follow-through on … Address correspondence to Desmond Runyan, The Kempe Center, 13123 East 16th Ave B390, Aurora CO 80045. E-mail: des.runyan{at}cuanschutz.edu
Microcontroller for the EPS functional safety, its challenge for fail operational approach

It has passed almost 2.5 years since ISO26262 international standard was issued. As for the microcontroller, still lots of interpretation for the actual implementation of the architecture and its verification method are in discussion and sometimes there are many confusion. It is said one reason for this might be abstract way of writing for the ISO26262. Even if ISO26262_Part10 exists as guideline, it is not enough.
Conjugated Polyelectrolyte-Sensitized TiO2 Solar Cells: Effects of Chain Length and Aggregation on Efficiency.

Two sets of conjugated polyelectrolytes with different molecular weights (Mn) in each set were synthesized. All polymers feature the same conjugated backbone with alternating (1,4-phenylene) and (2,5-thienylene ethynylene) repeating units, but different linkages between the backbone and side chains, namely, oxy-methylene (-O-CH2-) (P1-O-n, where n = 7, 9, and 14) and methylene (-CH2-) (P2-C-n, n = 7, 12, and 18). They all bear carboxylic acid moieties as side chains, which bind strongly to titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles. The two sets of polymers were used as light-harvesting materials in dye-sensitized solar cells. Despite the difference in molecular weight, polymers within each set have very similar light absorption properties. Interestingly, under the same working conditions, the overall cell efficiency of the P1-O-n series increases with a decreasing molecular weight while the efficiency of the P2-C-n series remains constant regardless of the molecular weight. Steady state photophysical measurem...
Interventions for Hazard Control during Food Processing

Food preservation technologies, some of which have been used for centuries to minimize deterioration of foods and to enhance their safety, include salting, heating, chilling, freezing, drying, acidifying (either directly or by fermentation), modifying packaging atmosphere, and using chemical antimicrobial compounds. The major approaches used to enhance the microbiological quality and safety of food include the application of procedures that (i) prevent or minimize access of microorganisms to the product, (ii) reduce contamination that has gained access to the product, (iii) inactivate microorganisms on the product without cross-contamination, and (iv) prevent or inhibit growth of microorganisms which have gained access and have not been inactivated, during product storage. The antimicrobial activity of essential oils or their components has also been enhanced when combined with nonthermal processing technologies, such as high-pressure processing (HPP), high-intensity pulsed electric fields (PEF), and ultrasound. Overall, non edible antimicrobial films can be classified as those that contain additives that (i) migrate to the surface of the food or (ii) are bound to the surface layer of the film and are effective against surface contamination without migration. Several other food processing technologies for microbial inactivation have been described in scientific publications. These include radio frequency heating, ohmic and conductive heating, UV light, pulsed light, ultrasound, magnetic fields, high-voltage arc discharge, and dense-phase carbon dioxide. The goal of any food preservation method is to enhance product safety, maintain product quality, and extend product shelf life by inactivating or retarding the growth of pathogenic and spoilage microorganisms.
Cytoplasmic estrogen and progesterone receptors in primary cervical carcinoma: Clinical and histopathologic correlates

Abstract From 1977 to 1981, 39 cases of primary cervical carcinoma were assayed for the presence or absence of cytoplasmic estrogen (ER c ) and progesterone (PR c ) receptors by a saturation point dextran-coated charcoal assay. The levels of ER c and PR c were compared with clinical stage, histologic type, histologic grade, menstrual status, age, and survival. Carcinomas were divided into positive and negative receptor groups with the use of greater than 5 fmol/mg of cytosol protein for ER c and 10 fmol/mg of cytosol protein for PR c as discrimination points. Survival of the patients studied was computed by means of the product-limit analysis according to Kaplan-Meier. A statistically significant difference in survival in the PR c + group versus the PR c − group in the total group of patients was noted with the Mantel-Cox test (P = 0.049). When pateints were stratified according to menopausal status, a statistically significant difference in survival was noted between the PR c + group versus the PR c − group in the premenopausal patients only.
GLOBAL-READY WORKFORCE LEVERAGING DIVERSITY IN EDUCATION FOR WORKFORCE READINESS IN THE CARIBBEAN

Abstract Change has become commonplace in every sphere of life and learners must be taught as part of their formal and informal learning and development indoctrination to deal with many unknowns and interact in diverse environments. Diversity is an important asset in any educational establishment as well as the changing workplace and must be fully leveraged in the every teaching and learning curriculum in the Caribbean. When teaching and learning organizations embrace diversity as an element of their learning and development culture, learners are given a competitive edge, given the level of cultural sensitivity they develop in their interaction with other students who are dissimilar and when the teaching and learning process and content, address the subject of diversity. Thus, when students are prepared to deal with the challenges presented in the globally connected and economically linked society, they are better prepared to succeed in the workplace both locally and globally. Therefore, educators, policy-makers and workplace professionals must be intentional in their chosen inclusion strategies to truly cultivate a learning climate that is safe to learn because students are made to feel valued, recognized and appreciated for who they are and what they bring and share in each learning encounter. Key words: diversity; globalization; culturally dissimilar; education leadership, generationally dissimilar; linguistically dissimilar; ideologically dissimilar, biologically dissimilar, Caricom, economically dissimilar, West Indies, globalized teaching and learning, Caribbean, teaching and learning diversely.
Caspase-dependent and -independent death pathways in cancer therapy

The majority of current anticancer therapies induce tumor cell death through the induction of apoptosis. Alterations in the apoptotic pathways may determine tumor resistance to these therapies. Activation of the proteolytic cascade involving caspase family members is a critical component of the execution of cell death in apoptotic cells. However, recent studies suggest that cell death can proceed in the absence of caspases. In this review we describe the role of caspase-dependent and -independent pathways as targets for anticancer treatment; better understanding of diverse modes of tumor cell death will help to avoid ineffective treatment and provide a molecular basis for the new strategies targeting caspase-independent death pathways in apoptosis-resistant forms of cancer.
Bacteriophage Lambda and its Relatives

Bacteriophage lambda is a virus that infects the bacterial species Escherichia coli. It is a temperate virus, in that it can either make virion progeny in its host, or establish a state in which its chromosome is integrated into the host chromosome and its own replicative genes are turned off. Keywords: bacteriophage; lambda; lysogeny; lytic; lysogenic; prophage; bacteriophage evolution; virus
Paying Human Subjects in Research: Where Are We, How Did We Get Here, and Now What?

Both international and federal regulations exist to ensure that scientists perform research on human subjects in an environment free of coercion and in which the benefits of the research are commensurate with the risks involved. Ensuring that these conditions hold is difficult, and perhaps even more so when protocols include the issue of monetary compensation of research subjects. The morality of paying human research subjects has been hotly debated for over 40 years, and the grounds for this debate have ranged from discussion of legal rights, economic rights, philosophical principles of vulnerability and altruism to bioethical concepts of consent, best-interest determination, and justice theory. However, the thought surrounding these issues has evolved over time, and the way we think about the role of the human research subject today is markedly different than the way we thought in the past. Society first thought of the research subject as an altruist, necessarily giving of his time to benefit society as a whole. As time progressed, many suggested that the subject should not need to sacrifice himself for research: if something goes wrong, someone should compensate the subject for injuries. The concept of redress evolved into a system in which subjects were offered money as an inducement to participate in research, sometimes merely to offset the monetary costs of participation, but sometimes even to mitigate the risks of the study. This article examines ethical and legal conversations regarding compensation from the 1960s through today, examining theories of the ethics of compensation both comparatively and critically. In conclusion, we put forward an ethical framework for treating paid research subjects, with an attempt to use this framework as a means of resolving some of the more difficult problems with paying human subjects in research.
Differentiation-induced and constitutive transcription of human papillomavirus type 31b in cell lines containing viral episomes

The expression of viral genes during the productive life cycle of human papillomaviruses (HPV) is tightly coupled to the differentiation program of epithelial cells. We have examined transcription of HPV as a function of differentiation in an in vitro organotypic raft culture system which allows for epithelial stratification at the air-liquid interface. When CIN612 cells, which contain episomal copies of HPV type 31b (HPV31b), were allowed to stratify in raft cultures, they differentiated in a manner which was histologically similar to that seen in a cervical intraepithelial neoplasia I biopsy lesion. In monolayer cultures of CIN612 cells, two major polycistronic HPV31b transcripts of 1.7 kb which encode (i) E6, E7, E1-E4, and E5 and (ii) E6*, E7, E1-E4, and E5 were identified. These RNAs initiated at a promoter, P97, in the upstream regulatory region of the virus. Following differentiation in raft cultures, the relative abundance of RNAs initiated at P97 was unchanged. In contrast, the expression of a 1.3-kb RNA encoding an E1-E4 fusion protein and E5 was found to increase substantially following differentiation. This transcript was initiated at a novel promoter within the E7 gene (P742). These studies have therefore identified a constitutive viral promoter which is active throughout stratified epithelium as well as a novel promoter which is induced upon epithelial cell differentiation.
Essay on Four Boys

In a chemical I let myself hold them. I had my time, I had more than I deserved. I get sick talking with myself. Too bad I couldn't become a stone when I die, Plucked by a young boy's hand From the system of a clear stream, Every bridge in town rattling through a dream. The body has a religious need for silence. As if the mind could not be filthy in it. Four boys climbed a tree that held them all As long as the day. They fell one by one in the asthma of contrition. To speak of it is to eat your way out of a membrane, A burning bone held in the hand, A vein hanging from the mouth, A vapor inhaled by a machine or a cow. Hard faces now at their rowing Through the filaments of our names.
Aging: A shift from redox regulation to oxidative damage

Proteins, nucleic acids, and lipids can undergo various forms of oxidative modification. In numerous instances, these modifications result in irreversible loss of function. The age-dependent accumulation of oxidatively modified and dysfunctional macromolecules provides the basis for the free radical theory of aging. Pro-oxidants, however, are also capable of catalyzing fully reversible modifications to protein. It is increasingly apparent that these reactions participate in redox-dependent regulation of cell metabolism and response to stress. The adventitious use of free radical species adds complexity to the experimental and theoretical manner in which the free radical theory is to be tested and considered. Elucidation of mechanisms by which reversible oxidative processes are controlled, the components involved, and the metabolic consequences and how they are altered with age will provide new insight on the aging process and attempts to delay the inevitable.
Growth of GaAs 1- x P x /GaAs and InAs x P 1- x /InP strained quantum wells for optoelectronic devices by gas-sou rce molecular beam epitaxy

In this paper we show that pseudomorphically strained heterostructures of InAsxP1−x/InP may be an alternative to lattice-matched heterostructures of In1−xGaxAsyP1−y/InP for optoelectronic applications. We first studied the group-V composition control in the gas-source molecular beam epitaxy (GSMBE) of the GaAs1-xPx/GaAs system. Then we studied GSMBE of strained InAsxP1−x/InP multiple quantum wells with the ternary well layer in the composition range 0.15 <x < 0.75. Structural and optical properties were characterized by high-resolution x-ray rocking curves, transmission electron microscopy, absorption and low-temperature photoluminescence measurements. High-quality multiple-quantum-well structures were obtained even for highly strained (up to 2.5%) samples. The achievement of sharp excitonic absorptions at 1.06, 1.3 and 1.55μm at room temperature from InAsxP1−x/InP quantum wells suggests the possibility of long-wavelength optoelectronic applications.
A Weapon-Related Injury Surveillance System in New York City

Abstract Context: Assault injuries and deaths are a major public health problem in New York City but they are poorly understood because there is a dearth of information concerning them. Objective: Develop and implement a low-cost, efficient, permanent weapon-related injury surveillance system (WRISS) for the city. Design: WRISS was established, using a hierarchical exclusionary model, to capture all weapon-related (gunshot, stab, blunt instrument trauma) mortality and morbidity. Setting: The five boroughs of New York City: The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island. Participants: NYC Vital Statistics Office, New York State hospital discharge database, Statewide Planning and Research Cooperative Systems (SPARCS), hospital emergency departments, and the police department. Main Outcome Measures: Surveillance system simplicity, acceptability, flexibility, cost. Results: NYC WRISS is a simple surveillance system depending on both existing data sources and active data collection, and is therefore acceptable to providers. It is flexible and has allowed assault injuries without weapons to be added to better reflect domestic assaults. The cost is low, less than $60,000 per year. Conclusions: NYC WRISS is an efficient, cost-effective surveillance system, particularly suited to big cities with many assault injuries. Its low cost and obvious importance as a public health tool have allowed for its institutionalization, reflected by a permanent health department position, and annual reports alongside the more traditional public health surveillance systems. Analyses of data from 1990 to 1996 have lent new understanding to the decrease in homicides and assaults in New York City during that period.
Allozymic variation in desert pupfish from natural and artificial habitats: Genetic conservation in fluctuating populations

We studied patterns of allozymic variation among wild and captive populations of endangered desert pupfish Cyprinodon m. macularius. Much of the existing variation can be attributed to different founder sources, founder and bottleneck effects, or a combination of all three. Local isolation, either natural or artificial, promotes divergence of both wild and captive populations. Divergence was countered over the natural long-term condition of drought by dispersal and population mixing during brief wetter periods. Such gene flow among populations is now precluded by anthropogenic control of hydrologic pattern. Recovery of this species to self-sufficiency will likely require re-establishment of a natural hydrology, which, for the foreseeable future, is unlikely in the lower Colorado River basin. If this charismatic desert species is to survive, resource managers must combine knowledge of ecological and genetic patterns with political realities. Until natural habitats are re-established, a captive management program that more closely mimics patterns of alternating gene flow and isolation should be implemented.
FPGA-based unified one-cycle controller for single phase boost PFC

The use of FPGA for development of digital control strategies for power electronics applications has shown a growing interest of many researchers. The advantages offered by FPGA include lower design effort, high performance and highly flexible prototyping. This paper proposes a unified one-cycle controller for boost PFC based on FPGA. This controller can be applied to a total of twelve converters, six inverters and six rectifiers defined by four single phase VSI topologies and three voltage modulation types. The project was developed with the tools of Altera® Quartus® II. The proposal is validated by simulation and experimental results.
The Spectra of the Rare Gases and their Zeeman Effects

The Zeeman effect of the rare gases is discussed from the standpoint of the coupling scheme of Shortley and Fried. The matrices for this type of interaction are calculated and also the $g$ factors from the transformations to $\mathrm{LS}$ coupling for the ${p}^{5}f$ configurations. These enable us to determine the Paschen-Back patterns to be expected. The calculated patterns are compared with observed structures and the agreement is very satisfactory in most cases.
Fiber optic gel point sensor for paper coating drying control and optimization

In the production of pigment-coated paper or paperboard, the method and rate of drying of the coating will significantly influence the print quality of the finished product. Improper drying during initial st sages can cause binder migration that leads to its non-uniform concentration on the surface of the coating. Such effect causes print mottle, and is a primary reason for poor print quality. The location at which binder immobilization has occurred is called the Gel Point. An on-line fiber optic sensor system has been applied to continuously monitor the location of the Gel Point. Each sensor consists of a light source, an optical fiber for delivering the radiation, two optical fibers for diffuse and specular radiation monitoring and two detectors. The ratio R between diffuse and specular signals indicates coating conditions. A system description and experimental results are presented. The Gel Point measurement system has show that is provides a sensitive measurement of the gel point location, as it is affected by machine speed, coat weight, incoming substrate moisture levels and drying energy and can predict print mottle. This provides the paper maker with a completely independent method for monitoring the coating drying process.
ULTRASTRUCTURAL FEATURES OF THE DIVIDING MEIOCYTE OF ONOCLEA SENSIBILIS

PRECISE REGULARITY in the behavior of cytoplasmic inclusions during meiosis in ferns and fern allies have been reported in a number of species (Senjaninova, 1927; Lewitski, 1925; Marengo, 1949). These studies dealt with inclusions preserved by the classical techniques of light microscopy, and it was not until 1972 that the ultrastructure of the dividing spore mother cell was elucidated (Marengo and Marengo, 1972). Since the author's paper of 1949 showed a compact mitochondrial plate completed at telophase I of meiosis and retaining its identity until completion of telophase II, the study of a meiotic stage of this species showing this consistent feature might disclose the true identity and structure of the cytoplasmic bodies composing this plate and also the nature of other inclusions not as significantly localized at this meiotic stage. This paper will describe the ultrastructural features of the Onoclea sporocyte at anaphase of the second meiotic division.
ESTIMATING THE EFFECT OF HEAT STORAGE ON EVAPORATION RATES

ABSTRACT In the development of the Penman model, the effect of heat storage on evaporation rates was considered to be negligible in comparison with the net radiant heat. Comparison of mean daily evaporation rates observed using a floating pan and evaporation rates computed using the Penman model indicated that heat storage may be an important factor controlling evaporation rates from a pond during the period from April to August. A linear regression equation relating the residuals of the observed and computed evaporation rates to the radiation of the previous day can be used to adjust the Penman estimates for the effect of heat storage. The equation reduced the heat storage hysteresis without requiring additional meteorological data.
Structure distortion of Zn4O13C24H12 framework (MOF-5)

Abstract Zn 4 O 13 C 24 H 12 framework (MOF-5) can occupy either cubic or tetragonal structure. It was recognized that the tetragonal MOF-5 was a distorted cubic MOF-5 caused by filling effect of ZnO or solvent. However, herein, it was found that the ZnO and solvent inside the pores of the framework did not cause the distortion of cubic MOF-5. Furthermore, the distortion is strongly dependent on the solvent vacuumed to dry the framework. If the vacuumed solvent was dimethylformamide (DMF), the crystal structure of MOF-5 was tetragonal. In contrast, if DMF was displaced by CH 2 Cl 2 before the vacuum, the obtained MOF-5 occupied a perfect cubic structure. The thermal decomposition of cubic and tetragonal MOF-5s produced the same products: CO 2 , benzene, amorphous carbon, and crystal ZnO. However, the thermal decomposition of cubic MOF-5 requires a higher temperature than the tetragonal one, indicating that cubic MOF-5 is more stable than the tetragonal one.
An region upstream of the gene promoter for the β-amyloid precursor protein interacts with proteins from nuclear extracts of the human brain and PC12 cells

The amyloid beta-protein (Abeta) is the major proteinaceous component of the amyloid deposits that accumulate extracellularly in the brain of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Abeta is generated proteolytically from a larger beta-amyloid precursor protein (betaAPP). The apparent overexpression of the betaAPP gene in certain areas of AD brains indicate that abnormalities in gene regulation might be an important factor in AD. Here, I report that an upstream regulatory element (URE) located between -2257 to -2234 base pair (bp) of the human betaAPP promoter may interact with a novel protein(s) as determined by a gel shift assay. To determine whether this novel protein is related to an already characterized transcription factor, a gel shift assay was performed using various specific competitors in human neuroblastoma and rat pheochromocytoma (PC12) cells. The labeled URE probe could interact with a distinct nuclear factor which was not competed by the oligonucleotides specific for the different transcription factors, AP1, AP2, AP3, GRE, Oct1, NF1 and NF-kappaB. Alternatively the specific protein band(s) detected with either the labeled NF-kappaB or NF1 probe could not be competed out with an excess of unlabeled URE. To determine if such a band could be detected in human brain tissue samples, a gel shift assay from the nuclear extracts of the human brain was performed. A distinct URE-specific nuclear factor was detected in different regions of the brain as well. To determine the size of the protein(s) that were specifically bound in the DNA-protein complexes, Southwestern blotting was performed. Using the URE probe, two major protein bands of approximately 53 and 116 kDa were detected in PC12 nuclear extracts. These results suggest that the protein factor(s) interacting with URE is not related to the known transcription factors tested, and that the protein is expressed in certain cell types and different regions of the human brain.