cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Effects of high-impact mechanical loading on synovial cell cultures.

Massage therapy is commonly used following endurance running races with the expectation that it will enhance post-run recovery of muscle function and reduce soreness. A limited number of studies have reported little or no influence of massage therapy on post-exercise muscle recovery. However, no studies have been conducted in a field setting to assess the potential for massage to influence muscle recovery following an actual endurance running race. To evaluate the potential for repeated massage therapy interventions to influence recovery of quadriceps and hamstring muscle soreness, recovery of quadriceps and hamstring muscle strength and reduction of upper leg muscle swelling over a two week recovery period following an actual road running race. Twelve adult recreational runners (8 male, 4 female) completed a half marathon (21.1 km) road race. On days 1,4, 8, and 11 post-race, subjects received 30 minutes of standardized massage therapy performed by a registered massage therapist on a randomly assigned massage treatment leg, while the other (control) leg received no massage treatment. Two days prior to the race (baseline) and preceding the treatments on post-race days 1, 4, 8, and 11 the following measures were conducted on each of the massage and control legs: strength of quadriceps and hamstring muscles, leg swelling, and soreness perception. At day 1, post-race quadriceps peak torque was significantly reduced (p 0.05). All measures had returned to baseline at day 11. Massage did not affect the recovery of muscles in terms of physiological measures of strength, swelling, or soreness. However, questionnaires revealed that 7 of the 12 participants perceived that the massaged leg felt better upon recovery. Key PointsMassage does not appear to affect physiological indices of muscle recovery post exercise.Massage does appear to positively influence perceptions of recovery.More research needs to be completed on the purported benefits of massage.
Youth and the State A Cross-National Analysis of the Changing Status of Adolescence

This article argues that the nation-building process in the post-World War II era often results in changes in the definitions of adolescence and in the status of youth. This happens because both nation building and economic development have become the responsibilities of modern states. Using the work of John Meyer and his students (1978, 1979), I argue that these state-sponsored activities are guided by institutional “recipes” for development that are embodied in world system ideology. A key component of this ideology is the idea that rational action results from the activities of appropriately socialized individuals. As a result, harnessing the motivation of individuals to collective goals becomes a central concern of modern states. Efforts to do so have produced a number of institutional forms that have diffused rapidly throughout the periphery, for example, educational expansion. The adoption of other institutional devices to link individuals to the state depends on the internal characteristics of nati...
The Decisions of Corporate Special Litigation Committees: An Empirical Investigation

This Article examines the decisions of corporate special litigation committees using an original data set gathered from company filings with the SEC. It demonstrates that the prevailing view in corporate law - that special litigation committees uniformly decide to dismiss derivative litigation against manager colleagues - is not accurate. This Article shows that approximately forty percent of the time special litigation committees decide to settle claims or pursue them against one or more defendants. Furthermore, approximately seventy percent of the time cases subject to control by a special litigation end in settlement; only approximately twenty percent of the time is the end result dismissal. What has long been viewed as an engine for having derivative litigation dismissed actually leads to settlements most of the time. The view that special litigation committees behave too predictably has underwritten doubts about the ability of independent and disinterested directors to police conflict of interest transactions generally. The findings presented here show that the prevailing view about special litigation committee behavior is an unsound basis for generalizing about how independent and disinterested directors behave.
Rotation of DNA around intact strand in human topoisomerase I implies distinct mechanisms for positive and negative supercoil relaxation

Topoisomerases are enzymes of quintessence to the upkeep of superhelical DNA, and are vital for replication, transcription and recombination. An atomic-resolution model for human topoisomerase I in covalent complex with DNA is simulated using molecular dynamics with external potentials that mimic torque and bias the DNA duplex downstream of a single-strand cut to rotate around the intact strand, according to the prevailing enzymatic mechanism. The simulations reveal the first dynamical picture of how topoisomerase accommodates large-scale motion of DNA as it changes its supercoiling state, and indicate that relaxation of positive and negative supercoils are fundamentally different. To relax positive supercoils, two separate domains (the 'lips') of the protein open up by about 10-14 A, whereas to relax negative supercoils, a continuous loop connecting the upper and lower parts (and which was a hinge for opening the lips) stretches about 12 A while the lips remain unseparated. Normal mode analysis is additionally used to characterize the functional flexibility of the protein. Remarkably, the same combination of low-frequency eigenvectors exhibit the dominant contribution for both rotation mechanisms through a see-saw motion. The simulated mechanisms suggest mutations to control the relaxation of either type of supercoiling selectively and advance a hypothesis for the debated role of the N-terminal domain in supercoil relaxation.
Differential effects of oxytocin on steroid production by bovine granulosa cells

Abstract Oxytocin (OT) and its mRNA are expressed at very low levels in granulosa cells from bovine preovulatory follicles isolated before the LH FSH surge and increase dramatically between the surge and ovulation. We have shown previously that OT stimulates progesterone secretion by granulosa cells obtained before, but not after the gonadotropin surge, suggesting that OT may be involved in the follicular/luteal phase shift in steroidogenesis from estradiol/androgen to progesterone. One objective of this study was to determine if OT affects estradiol as well as progesterone production by utilizing culture conditions that maintain estradiol secretion in vitro. A second objective was to determine if OT regulates steroidogenesis by effects on the levels of mRNA for the steroidogenic enzymes involved in progesterone synthesis, cytochrome P450 side-chain cleavage (P450scc) and 3β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (3β-HSD), or in estradiol production, cytochrome P450 aromatase (P450arom). Granulosa cells were isolated from bovine preovulatory follicles and cultured for 3 days with or without OT in medium supplemented with either insulin (1 μg/ml) + 1% fetal calf serum (FCS), which maintains basal estradiol secretion, or low doses of FSH (1 and 2 ng/ml) + 1% FCS, a culture condition that maximizes effects of FSH on estradiol secretion. After the first day of culture, OT stimulated progesterone (P
L1. Imitators of severe preeclampsia.

There are many obstetric, medical, and surgical disorders that share many of the clinical and laboratory findings of patients with severe preeclampsia–eclampsia. Imitators of severe preeclampsia–eclampsia are life-threatening emergencies that can develop during pregnancy or in the postpartum period. These conditions are associated with high maternal perinatal mortality and morbidities, and survivors may face long-term sequelae. The pathophysiologic abnormalities inmany of these disorders include vasospasm, platelet activation or destruction, microvascular thrombosis, endothelial cell dysfunction, and reduced tissue perfusion. Some of these disorders include acute fatty liver of pregnancy (AFLP), thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP), hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), acute exacerbation of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), catastrophic antiphospholipid antibody syndrome, and disseminated herpes simplex. AFLP is associated with increased rate of maternal mortality (1.8–10%), and severe morbidities such as DIC (50–100%), hypoglycemia (50–70%), acute tubular necrosis (50–100%), encephalopathy, and sepsis. The perinatal mortality in recent case series is approximately 13% with 75% preterm delivery. In patients with TTP/HUS, the reported maternal mortality with the use of plasma pheresis in recent case series ranged from 0% to 10%, however, maternal morbidities such as central nervous system and renal injury remain high. The perinatal mortality rte in these pregnancies is 29%. In pregnancies complicated by SLE,maternal complications are substantially increased in those with antiphospholipid syndrome (APS), and maternal mortality is almost 50% in those who develop the catastrophic APS. Finally, disseminated herpes infection is associated with maternal and perinatal mortality if not
A 17.8 dBm 110–130 GHz Power Amplifier and doubler chain in SiGe BiCMOS technology

A D-Band ×2 frequency multiplier-amplifier chain implemented in a f T /f MAX = 250/330 GHz 0.12 µm SiGe BiCMOS technology is presented. The chain achieves a peak output power of 17.8 dBm at 115 GHz and consists of input balun and push-push frequency doubler which drives a balanced three stages Power Amplifier (PA). It operates from 110 GHz to 130 GHz (3 dB power bandwidth) with −2 dBm input power at V-Band and consumes a total DC power of 600 mW. The PA achieves output 1 dB compression point and saturated power of 13.5 and 17.6 dBm, respectively, at 120 GHz and peak small signal gain of 32 dB.
Alcohol: Effects on the Central Nervous System

Alcoholism has become a public health problem. The Surgeon General reports (1979) that alcoholism is increasing in men and women of all ages and that the seriousness of the problem is increased severalfold when statistics show that 20–25% (about 3 million) of 14- to 17-year-old adolescents are problem drinkers, i.e., intoxicated at least once per month. Thus, the effects of alcohol on health have received much attention in numerous disciplines—clinical, behavioral, biochemical, nutritional, and others. In this chapter, discussion will be restricted to the effects of alcohol consumption on the central nervous system in adults as well as fetuses.
Intelligent Learning Agents for Music-Based Interaction and Analysis

My main research motivation is to develop complete autonomous agents that interact with people socially. For an agent to be social with respect to humans, it needs to be able to parse and process the multitude of aspects that comprise the human cultural experience. That in itself gives rise to many fascinating learning problems. I am interested in tackling these fundamental problems from an empirical as well as a theoretical perspective. Music, as a general target domain, serves as an excellent testbed for these research ideas. Musical skills - playing music (alone or in a group), analyzing music or composing it - all involve extremely advanced knowledge representation and problem solving tools. Creating "musical agents" - agents that can interact richly with people in the music domain - is a challenge that holds the potential of advancing social agents research, and contributing important and broadly applicable AI knowledge. This belief is fueled not just by my background in computer science and artificial intelligence, but also by my deep passion for music as well as my extensive musical training.
CONTRIBUCIÓN AL CONOCIMIENTO DE LAS ESPECIES DEL COMPLEJO DE NABIS PUNCTIPENNIS BLANCHARD, 1852 (HEMIPTERA: HETEROPTERA: NABIDAE) EN CHILE

New data is provided for the Nabis punctipennis complex in Chile. New biological and distributional data are delivered for Nabis faminei. The distribution of N. punctipennis in Chile is clarified. A new species, Nabis ashworthi is described from Southern Chile. A key to the species of the complex present in Chile is included.
During Infection, Theiler's Virions Are Cleaved by Caspases and Disassembled into Pentamers

UNLABELLED Infected macrophages in spinal cords of mice persistently infected with Theiler's murine encephalomyelitis virus (TMEV) undergo apoptosis, resulting in restricted virus yields, as do infected macrophages in culture. Apoptosis of murine macrophages in culture occurs via the intrinsic pathway later in infection (>10 h postinfection [p.i.]) after maximal virus titers (150 to 200 PFU/cell) have been reached, with loss of most infectious virus (<5 PFU/cell) by 20 to 24 h p.i. Here, we show that BeAn virus RNA replication, translation, polyprotein processing into final protein products, and assembly of protomers and pentamers in infected M1-D macrophages did not differ from those processes in TMEV-infected BHK-21 cells, which undergo necroptosis. However, the initial difference from BHK-21 cell infection was seen at 10 to 12 h p.i., where virions from the 160S peak in sucrose gradients had incompletely processed VP0 (compared to that in infected BHK-21 cells). Thereafter, there was a gradual loss of the 160S virion peak in sucrose gradients, with replacement by a 216S peak that was observed to contain pentamers among lipid debris in negatively stained grids by electron microscopy. After infection or incubation of purified virions with activated caspase-3 in vitro, 13- and 17-kDa capsid peptide fragments were observed and were predicted by algorithms to contain cleavage sites within proteins by cysteine-dependent aspartate-directed proteases. These findings suggest that caspase cleavage of sites in exposed capsid loops of assembled virions occurs contemporaneously with the onset and progression of apoptosis later in the infection. IMPORTANCE Theiler's murine encephalomyelitis virus (TMEV) infection in mice results in establishment of virus persistence in the central nervous system and chronic inflammatory demyelinating disease, providing an experimental animal model for multiple sclerosis. Virus persistence takes place primarily in macrophages recruited into the spinal cord that undergo apoptosis and in turn may facilitate viral spread via infected apoptotic blebs. Infection of murine macrophages in culture results in restricted virus yields late in infection. Here it is shown that the early steps of the virus life cycle in infected macrophages in vitro do not differ from these processes in TMEV-infected BHK-21 cells, which undergo necroptosis. However, the findings late in infection suggest that caspases cleave sites in exposed capsid loops and possibly internal sites of assembled virions occurring contemporaneously with onset and progression of apoptosis. Mechanistically, this would explain the dramatic loss in virus yields during TMEV-induced apoptosis and attenuate the virus, enabling persistence.
First-principle modeling and characterization of thermal modulation in comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography using a microfabricated device

Abstract Thermal modulation of analyte effluents at a junction between serially connected complementary columns is a critical process in comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography (GC × GC). However, little effort has been made to theoretically study this process with a full understanding of key phenomena. We developed a theoretical model of single-stage thermal modulation processes based on fundamental physics of gas chromatography (GC) with the aim to elucidate factors leading to improvements in GC × GC analyses. Model predictions were compared with experimental data obtained using our microfabricated thermal modulator (μTM) operating as a single-stage thermal modulator. Built upon one-dimensional ( 1 D) GC theory, our model predicted the temporal and spatial distribution of analyte concentration within a thermal modulator (TM) channel during periodically repeating modulation cycles, each consisting of a cooling and heating period and yielding sharp peaks from a broad first dimension peak. Our model incorporated the effect of the location of the incoming 1 D Gaussian peak to the μTM, with respect to the onset of the cooling period and the influence of cold interconnects on the thermal modulation process. Excellent match between experiment and simulation was obtained. Finally we proposed a few design modifications which could drastically improve performance of our μTM.
Object Correlation, Maneuver Detection, and Maneuver Characterization using Control Effort Metrics with Uncertain Boundary Conditions and Measurements

Object correlation, maneuver detection, and maneuver characterization are persistent problems in space surveillance and space object catalog maintenance. This paper demonstrates the utility of using quadratic trajectory control cost, an analog to the trajectory L2-norm in control, as a distance metric with which to correlate object observations, detect maneuvers, and characterize maneuvers using real-time sensor measurement residuals and prior state uncertainty. An object track correlation approach is investigated that frames the Two-Point Boundary Value Problem (TPBVP) with uncertain boundary conditions in terms of the control distance metric framework. Also, information typically available to operators such as propagated state uncertainty, measurement uncertainty, and real-time measurement residuals are also incorporated into the control distance metric framework. Careful inclusion of these uncertainties enables conservative maneuver detection and characterization. Simulated examples of the approaches are given and implications are discussed. Potential avenues for future research and contributions are summarized.
Thermal expansion anisotropy of ternary titanium silicides based on Ti5Si3

Abstract The anisotropy of the coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) of Ti 5 Si 3 , defined as the ratio of the CTEs in the c and a directions, has a value of 2.7. In this paper we investigate the influence of ternary alloying additions on this value. Whereas Nb and Ta additions did not change the CTE anisotropy significantly, additions of V, Cr, Zr and Hf reduced it to values close to 2. According to Fu et al.'s ab initio model for the CTE anisotropy in 5–3 compounds with chain structures [Acta Mater. 51 (2003) 5083] the site occupations of the ternary alloying additions are crucial for determining the CTE anisotropy. These site occupations were determined for Zr and Nb additions and are consistent with the observed CTE anisotropy values.
Icosahedral Boron-Rich Solids as Refractory Semiconductors

Icosahedral boron-rich solids are refractory materials composed of twelve-atom boron-rich icosahedral units with strong intericosahedral linkages. These distinctive structures admit unusual electronic and thermal transport properties. Here the distinctive (three-center) bonding which underlies these materials is first described. Then it is shown how insulators, semiconductors and highly degenerate (metal-like) materials emerge from the same basic structure with appropriate substitutions. The electronic transport of the boron carbides is then addressed. The boron carbides are degenerate p-type semiconductors in which the charge carriers are diamagnetically aligned pairs of electrons which hop between icosahedra. Uniquely, this thermally activated hopping conductivity increases with increasing hydrostatic pressure. However, the Seebeck coefficient (thermoelectric power) is uncharacteristic of a degenerate semiconductor. Namely, the Seebeck coefficient is typically both large and an increasing function of temperature. In addition, despite the hardness and refractory character of these materials, their thermal conductivities can be surprisingly low with a glass-like temperature dependence. These features are manifestations of the distinctive structure and bonding of these solids. In fact, this novel mix of properties makes the boron carbides exceptionally good very-high-temperature p-type thermoelectric materials. Icosahedral boron-rich solids have additional potential as high temperature semiconductors. In particular, the wide-gap icosahedral boronrich pnictides, B12P2 and B12As2, may be doped to form wide-gap refractory semiconductors. For example, replacement of the group V element with either a group VI or a group IV element is expected to yield n-type and ptype material, respectively.
Detection of Rotavirus in Treated Drinking Water

The removal of naturally occurring viruses was studied at a full scale 9m 3 /sec (205 mgd) water treatment plant. Rotavirus was detected in 41 of 113 large volume samples collected after successive stages of the water treatment process. Virus recovery was highest during the summer rainy season when water quality declined. Rotavirus was recovered from 3 of 26 finished water samples which met acceptable limits for turbidity, total coliform bacteria and residual chlorine. Water from heavily polluted sources which meets water quality guidelines cannot be assumed to be virus free.
Immunity test of electrostatic discharge for electronic Watt-hour meter and ESD protection

The basic theory of Electrostatic Discharge(ESD) is introduced.According to GB/T 17215.211-2006 and GB/T 17626.2-2006,the test-setup,test procedure and the evaluation of test results are clarified.Finally,the effective protection against ESD is given.
Long-Term Results of Coronary Rehabilitation: Rationale, Implementation and Significance of Programs

Rehabilitative programs are based on the concept that many patients with symptomatic coronary disease can and should return to a productive and active life. In the United States, particularly during the past decade, this rehabilitative approach has been progressively incorporated into traditional medical care. Because rehabilitation should begin at the onset of the acute illness and continue during the long-term care of the patient, the primary physician has a pivotal role in initiating and coordinating rehabilitative efforts.
How to avoid flying blind. To truly improve U.S. healthcare, leaders must consider seven moral values.

To genuinely improve U.S. healthcare, we must base it on seven moral values familiar to Americans: Preserving individual dignity. Patients have a right to information about their medical condition and a right to participate in decisions about treatment. Society should make a basic package of healthcare available to all who need it. Caring for patients' welfare. As providers are obliged to have compassion for patients' suffering, they should also put patients' interests above their own and avoid conflicts of interest. Protecting the least well-off. Many who are poor, less educated, or members of racial or ethnic minorities bear disproportionate burdens of morbidity and mortality. They should receive care that compensates for those disadvantages. Seeking the common good. Our society has a strong disposition toward excessive individualism. We need greater emphasis on public health and preventive measures, as well as more opportunities for the public to help shape the healthcare system. Containing the healthcare costs. Waste is offensive both economically and morally. We can contain costs only by grappling explicitly with the need for healthcare rationing, which should be applied according to ethical criteria. Retaining a sense of responsibility. Society can help renew a sense of responsibility b anchoring it in the concept of subsidiarity, according to which the best government is the least government necessary to perform its appropriate tasks. Establishing high standards of quality. Providers should pursue excellence as measured by improved medical outcomes, uniform use of appropriate procedures, and increased consumer satisfaction. Quality-of-life judgments can be useful in making healthcare decisions, especially for persons who are dying.
Nearly One-Third Of Enrollees In California’s Individual Market Missed Opportunities To Receive Financial Assistance

The Affordable Care Act includes financial assistance that reduces both premiums and cost-sharing amounts for lower-income Americans, to increase the affordability of health insurance coverage and ...
Kalman filtering with synthetic measurements under an event-triggered sensor scheduler

This work studies the information update of the Kalman filter under a threshold-based event-triggered sensor scheduler designed to reduce the sensor-to-estimator communication cost while preserving estimation accuracy. For each sensor, when its normalized innovation is below a threshold required for data transmission (i.e., the sensor does not send measurements to the estimator), existing filtering algorithms extract this implicit information to update the estimation error covariance. However, when the low normalized innovations are insufficient indicators of the overall estimation accuracy, the state estimate may still need to be corrected. This occurs for example when the sensors directly measure only a subset of the full state vector. We propose a filtering algorithm to correct the state estimate in addition to the error covariance without requiring additional data transmission. The estimator performs the correction using synthetic measurements with bounded error compared to the true measurements, which are generated by the estimator. By correcting the estimate with synthetic measurements, the proposed filter can further reduce the estimation error at a small cost of error covariance inflation. We first show that the proposed filter is an approximate minimum mean square error estimator when the synthetic measurement is given. Second, the estimation error dynamics of the proposed filter is shown to be input-to-state stable, indicating that the estimation error is also small if the disparity between the synthetic and true measurements is small. Numerical experiments illustrate the evolution of the estimation error given by the proposed filter, and show the filter can improve the overall estimation accuracy. Supplementary source code is available at https://github.com/yesun/KFSMecc2016.
Multi-Year Measurements of Field-Scale Metolachlor Volatilization

Volatilization is a critical pathway for herbicide loss from agricultural fields, and subsequently deposited downwind from the edge of the field. To better understand the volatilization process, field-scale turbulent volatilization fluxes of metolachlor (2-chloro-N-(2-ethyl-6-methylphenyl)-N-(2-methoxy-1-methylethyl) acetamide) were quantified for 13 consecutive years using a combination of herbicide concentration profiles and eddy diffusivities derived from turbulent fluxes of heat and water vapor. Site location, type of herbicides, and agricultural management practices remained unchanged during this study in order to evaluate the effect of soil moisture on metolachlor volatilization. Twenty gravimetric surface soil moisture samples (0–5 cm) were collected immediately after herbicide application and then at 0430 hours each morning to determine the impact of surface moisture on herbicide volatilization. Five days after application, cumulative herbicide volatilization ranged from 5 to 63% of that applied for metolachlor. Metolachlor volatilization remained an important loss process more than 5 days after application when the soil surface was moist. Conversely, if the soil surface was dry, negligible volatilization occurred beyond 5 days. Furthermore, the total amount of metolachlor volatilized into the atmosphere increased exponentially with surface soil water content during application (r 2 = 0.78). Metolachlor volatility was found to be governed largely by surface soil moisture.
Decision Making: The Utility of Basic Modes

What drives decision processes in public administration? What information do decision makers require to make a decision? Decisions make in the public sector routinely involve public money and public trust; yet, the question posed by V.O. Key (1940); “on what basis shall we decide to allocate funds to one program instead of another?” has become more rhetorical than answerable. Nevertheless, the answer to the question may be the “essence” of decision making in public administration. Contributing to an understanding of this essence is the objective of this study.Attempts have been made to determine the core elements of decision making; however, such attempt offer a relatively global view of the decision maker and are not model of decision making per se. Although such paradigms are important to public administration in terms of categorizing and describing our conception of the decision maker as either rational, organizational, or governmental/political, they fall short of describing exactly what are t...
Investigation of an optimal cell lysis method for the study of the zinc metalloproteome of Histoplasma capsulatum.

This work sought to assess optimal extraction conditions in the study of the metalloproteome of the dimorphic fungus Histoplasma capsulatum. One of the body’s responses to H. capsulatum infection is sequestration of zinc within host macrophage (MO), as reported by Vignesh et al. (Immunity 39:697–710, 2013) and Vignesh et al. (PLOS Pathog 9:E1003815, 2013). Thus, metalloproteins containing zinc were of greatest interest as it plays a critical role in survival of the fungus. One challenge in metalloproteomics is the preservation of the native structure of proteins to retain non-covalently bound metals. Many of the conventional cell lysis, separation, and identification techniques in proteomics are carried out under conditions that could lead to protein denaturation. Various cell lysis techniques were investigated in an effort to both maintain the metalloproteins during lysis and subsequent analysis while, at the same time, serving to be strong enough to break the cell wall, allowing access to cytosolic metalloproteins. The addition of 1% Triton x-100, a non-ionic detergent, to the lysis buffer was also studied. Seven lysis methods were considered and these included: Glass Homogenizer (H), Bead Beater (BB), Sonication Probe (SP), Vortex with 1% Triton x-100 (V, T), Vortex with no Triton x-100 (V, NT), Sonication Bath, Vortex, and 1% Triton x-100 (SB, V, T) and Sonication Bath, Vortex, and no Triton x-100 (SB, V, NT). A Qubit® Assay was used to compare total protein concentration and inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) was utilized for total metal analysis of cell lysates. Size exclusion chromatography coupled to ICP-MS (SEC-HPLC-ICP-MS) was used for separation of the metalloproteins in the cell lysate and the concentration of Zn over a wide molecular weight range was examined. Additional factors such as potential contamination sources were also considered. A cell lysis method involving vortexing H. capsulatum yeast cells with 500 μm glass beads in a 1% Triton x-100 lysis buffer (V, T) was found to be most advantageous to extract intact zinc metalloproteins as demonstrated by the highest Zn to protein ratio, 1.030 ng Zn/μg protein, and Zn distribution among high, mid, and low molecular weights suggesting the least amount of protein denaturation.
Multiwavelength Anomalous Diffraction in Macromolecular Crystallography

Multiwavelength anomalous diffraction (MAD) is the fastest growing method of structure determination in macromolecular crystallography. At least twenty-five new structures solved with MAD were published in the past year. Many factors contribute to the growth of MAD, and its future is extremely bright. The experience gained over the past several years is now being generalized to make MAD more accessible. This paper aims to present a practical overview of MAD. I first review the observational equation for MAD and describe the basis of the phasing signal and how it is estimated for specific problems. This is followed by a discussion of the design of a MAD experiment, schemes for data analysis and phasing, and considerations in solving the anomalous-scatterer partial structure. Finally, there is a discussion of selenomethionine as a phasing vehicle. More comprehensive reviews of MAD have been published by W. A. Hendrickson, who pioneered its development and application in macromolecular crystallography [1,2]. Several short papers covering various aspects of MAD are included in the proceedings of the 1997 CCP4 Study Weekend [Recent Advances in Phasing, K. Wilson, G. Davies, and S. Bailey, eds., SERC Daresbury Laboratory, Warrington, U.K, 1997, in press].
Definition of the Floating System for Phase IV of OC3

Phase IV of the IEA Annex XXIII Offshore Code Comparison Collaboration (OC3) involves the modeling of an offshore floating wind turbine. This report documents the specifications of the floating system, which are needed by the OC3 participants for building aero-hydro-servo-elastic models.
PRELIMINARY FINDINGS ON SIZE EFFECT IN ECC STRUCTURAL MEMBERS IN FLEXURE

ABSTRACT This article examines the presence of size effect in ECC structurally sized members in flexure. High tensile strain capacity, fracture toughness, and characteristic length make ECC an ideal material for preventing brittle failures responsible for size effects present in concrete members. This study primarily focuses on the structural implications of size effect in ECC and steel reinforced ECC (R/ECC) members. Three series of beam specimens fabricated of reinforced concrete, ECC, and R/ECC are tested in flexure to determine the presence and severity of size effect. Preliminary test results of structurally sized members, currently up to 1.4 meters in length, are presented. Correlations between size effect in brittle and quasi-brittle materials and material characteristic length are also discussed.
Failure and Fracture Behavior of Brittle Polymer Foam

Experimental study was performed to investigate the fracture behavior of relatively brittle polymer foam. A single notch bending specimen made of a PVC core cell foam A-series, A 800 and A 1200, are used for the investigation. To measure the strain around the defect section, a 2D digital image correction (DIC) technique was used. The fracture initiation toughness was calculated from the load displacement curve and a strain fields obtained from DIC technique. Furthermore a study was performed to investigate the failure behavior of foam core with sharp cracks, notch and circular hole. To reduce the size effect, the net cross-sectional areas of the specimen for all the geometries considered are kept constant. An Instron tensile loading machine was used and the tensile load was measured directly through the load cell. The full strain field around the section was measured using DIC and the data points at the interest location were extracted. The result was compared with the dog-bone tensile experiment of intact specimen. It was observed that, the net section strength for specimen with cracks, notch and circular hole is higher than that of the intact foam core.
ACUTE RENAL FAILURE IN THE INTENSIVE CARE UNIT: Therapy Overview, Patient Risk Stratification, Complications of Renal Replacement, and Special Circumstances

This article provides a basic definition of severity scoring among patients with acute renal failure and extends the definition into the types of dialysis support that are generally used in intensive care unit acute renal failure. Acute dialysis dosing and the problems that create a difference between chronic renal failure and acute renal failure support are described, the dialytic techniques and side effects and complications of each are compared, and nonrenal-based special situations in which extracorporeal therapy has been found to be helpful are defined.
Apoptosis and Cell Death

Cell death plays a central role in multicellular organisms during their early development in sculpting the body parts and in their adult life by controlling cell numbers (homeostasis), and cell death further protects the organism overall by removing all cells damaged by disease, aging, infection, genetic mutation, and exposure to toxic agents. Kerr et al1 coined the term “apoptosis,” referring to a particular morphology of physiological cell death involving cell shrinkage, nuclear condensation, membrane blebbing, and cellular and nuclear fragmentation into membrane-bound apoptotic bodies (Fig. 4.1). The lipid changes that occur in the membrane eventually lead to phagocytosis of the apoptotic cellular fragments. Often apoptosis is used synonymously with programmed cell death, implying that death results from the regulated activation of a preexisting death program that is encoded in the genome. The first evidence of a genetic program that orchestrates physiological cell death came from the developmental studies of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. 2 Our knowledge of cell death and the mechanisms of its regulation increased dramatically in the past two decades with the discovery of several death genes in C. elegans 3 and their counterparts in mammals. Now it is clear that apoptotic cell death has important biological roles not only in development and homeostasis but also in the pathogenesis of several disease processes. Dysregulation of apoptosis is found in a wide spectrum of human diseases, including cancer, autoimmune diseases, neurodegenerative diseases, ischemic diseases, and viral infections.4 Interestingly, death programs other than apoptosis with different morphological features were also considered in controlling the cell numbers. These death programs could be directed by the condemned cell itself or by neighboring cells, with or without the help of humoral factors.
Machine Learning Classification of Antimicrobial Peptides Using Reduced Alphabets

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are being considered as a promising replacement for antibiotics. They take action in the bodies' adaptive immune system. While its effect inside the body is primarily known, a problem of correctly identifying AMPs based on their sequence features remains a subject of active investigations. Here we optimize the use of the reduced alphabet, simplify 20-letter amino acid alphabet to 2-4 letters, and the use of N-grams, short strings of amino acids, to find a correlation between a profile of N-gram frequencies. The calculations were carried out using java programs written for this study and WEKA machine learning software. Classification using machine learning methods was then conducted for AMP subclasses, including antibacterial, antifungal, and antiviral peptides. The results show that reduced alphabets with N-gram frequency analysis are a promising alternative in the area of AMP classification and prediction. All AMP sequences were retrieved from different sources. AMP set consists of 7984 sequences, not necessarily of any specific class. We also used class-specific AMP sets (antibacterial, antiviral, and antifungal). A raw negative set consisting of 20258 non-AMPs using sequence fragments from annotated protein sequence databases. The classification of AMPs against non-AMPs was successful. Models achieved maximum accuracy of 87.71% using frequency N-gram analysis, alphabet reduction option 47, and the RF model with 10 trees cross-validation. Classification using more specific classes of AMPs was conducted next. First, classification of ABPs against non-ABPs AMPs achieved maximum accuracy of 86.83% using frequency N-gram analysis, alphabet reduction option 47, and RF model, while with bagging algorithm 84.35%. Second, classification of AVPs against non-AVP AMPs achieved an accuracy of 92.75% and 92.30% using frequency N-gram analysis, alphabet reduction option 47 and 29 respectively, and with RF model. This experiment also consisted of many other successful trials. RF significantly outperforms each of the other six learning algorithms. Alphabet reduction 47 most often yielded the highest classification accuracies. This finding implies that 4-cluster alphabet is optimal for N-gram frequency analysis and machine learning. Our results suggest that the classifiers produced possess great predictive power and can be of significant use in various biological and medical applications, potentially saving tens or hundreds of thousands of lives.
Publications: 1839–1845

The publications that Dirichlet offered from late 1839 until his travel to Italy in 1843 had a common theme. It was that of progressing on the new pathways opened as the result of his reflecting on the successful technique he had applied to the proof of the theorem on arithmetic progressions. He wished to explore further the possibilities of linking number-theoretic questions to infinitesimal analysis, in particular, the use of his L-series and functions, suggested by Euler’s Chapter 15 of the Introduction to Analysis of the Infinite [Euler 1748].
The synthesis of 2,3,3a,4,5,7a-hexahydro-1H-inden-1-ols by intramolecular Diels-Alder reactions of 1,3,8-nonatrien-5-ols. Dependence of product stereochemistry on the substitution pattern

A short and efficient synthesis of the title compounds is described, starting from readily available α,β-unsaturated carbonyl compounds and β,γ-unsaturated ketones. Their directed aldol condensation yields unsaturated hydroxy ketones which are dehydrated to the trienones. Athough these fail to cyclize on heating, the intramolecular Diels-Alder reaction can be brought about after reduction or alkyllithium addition to the carbonyl group. Alkyl substitution in the position 1, 2, 3, 5, and 7 has little influence on the ease and yield of cyclization, whereas a methyl group at C-4 hinders it considerably. The title compounds are obtained as mixtures of usually all four stereoisomers, of which one predominates (≥50%) in most cases
Abstract 966: Coffee consumption and invasive breast cancer incidence among postmenopausal women in the Cancer Prevention Study II Nutrition Cohort

Accumulating evidence suggests that coffee consumption may be inversely associated with breast cancer risk among postmenopausal women, with growing evidence of a stronger association for caffeinated than for decaffeinated coffee. However, few studies have examined this association by hormone receptor status or minimized confounding due to cigarette smoking. Recently, we found that caffeinated, but not decaffeinated coffee consumption was inversely associated with breast cancer mortality among nonsmoking women enrolled in the Cancer Prevention Study-II (CPS-II). Subsequently, the 2018 WCRF/AICR Diet, Nutrition, Physical Activity and Cancer Third Expert Report drew no conclusion regarding the association between coffee consumption and breast cancer risk. To provide further evidence, we examined total, caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee consumption in relation to postmenopausal invasive breast cancer incidence, overall, among nonsmokers and by estrogen and/or progesterone receptor (ER/PR) status among women enrolled in the CPS-II Nutrition Cohort, a subcohort of CPS-II. This analysis included 57,120 postmenopausal women who were cancer-free and reported coffee intake in 1999, and who were followed for cancer incidence through June 2013. During follow-up, 2,848 (2,349 ER or PR positive, and 252 ER and PR negative) women with a verified invasive breast cancer were identified. Cox proportional hazards regression was used to estimate multivariable-adjusted hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI). Neither total nor decaffeinated coffee consumption was associated with risk of invasive breast cancer among all women or in any subgroup. For caffeinated coffee consumption, the HR (95% CI) for consumption of 2 or more cups/day, compared to less than 1 cup/month, was 0.90 (0.82-1.00) among all women, and 0.88 (0.80-0.98) among nonsmokers. Similarly, caffeinated coffee consumption was associated with a statistically significantly lower risk of ER+ or PR+ breast cancer (HR=0.88, 95% CI 0.79-0.99) and a nonsignificant lower risk of ER- and PR- breast cancer (HR=0.83, 95% CI 0.59-1.16) among all women. These findings underscore the importance of stratifying on type of coffee in studies examining the association between coffee consumption and risk of invasive postmenopausal breast cancer. Additionally, to better understand the role of caffeinated vs. decaffeinated coffee in breast cancer etiology we will examine the potential mediating effects of coffee metabolites on this association. Citation Format: Susan M. Gapstur, Marjorie L. McCullough, Rebecca A. Hodge, Ying Wang, Caroline Y. Um, Terryl J. Hartman, Mia M. Gaudet. Coffee consumption and invasive breast cancer incidence among postmenopausal women in the Cancer Prevention Study II Nutrition Cohort [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2019; 2019 Mar 29-Apr 3; Atlanta, GA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2019;79(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 966.
Accelerated mono‐ and biexponential 3D‐T1ρ relaxation mapping of knee cartilage using golden angle radial acquisitions and compressed sensing

Purpose To use golden-angle radial sampling and compressed sensing (CS) for accelerating mono- and biexponential 3D spin-lattice relaxation time in the rotating frame (T1ρ ) mapping of knee cartilage. Methods Golden-angle radial stack-of-stars and Cartesian 3D-T1ρ -weighted knee cartilage datasets (n = 12) were retrospectively undersampled by acceleration factors (AFs) 2-10. CS-based reconstruction using 8 different sparsifying transforms were compared for mono- and biexponential T1ρ -mapping of knee cartilage, including spatio-temporal finite differences, wavelets, dictionary from principal component analysis, and exponential decay models, and also low rank and low rank plus sparse models (L+S). Complex-valued fitting was used and Marchenko-Pastur principal component analysis filtering also tested. Results Most CS methods performed well for an AF of 2, with relative median normalized absolute deviation below 10% for monoexponential and biexponential mapping. For monoexponential mapping, radial sampling obtained a median normalized absolute deviation below 10% up to AF of 10, while Cartesian obtained this level of error only up to AF of 4. Radial sampling was also better with biexponential T1ρ mapping, with median normalized absolute deviation below 10% up to AF of 6. Conclusion Golden-angle radial acquisitions combined with CS outperformed Cartesian acquisitions for 3D-T1ρ mapping of knee cartilage, being it is a good alternative to Cartesian sampling for reducing scan time and/or improving image and mapping quality. The methods exponential decay models, spatio-temporal finite differences, and low rank obtained the best results for radial sampling patterns.
Can a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis be made without ruling out neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder

Abstract Background The symptoms of multiple sclerosis (MS) can overlap with neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder (NMOSD). Although testing is available for aquaporin 4 (AQP4) and myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (MOG) antibodies, screening for NMOSD is recommended but not mandatory to establish a diagnosis of MS. Methods and results We queried 319,994 individuals who filed claims for MS and NMOSD in a Truven Health Analytics (THA) database and had at least one year of uninterrupted health insurance coverage. Of this cohort, 2001 (0.62%) were diagnosed as having NMOSD after an initial diagnosis of MS, based on ICD 9/10 codes. Since THA only offers claims-based data, we initiated an individual patient-based data search at our medical center to screen for potential misdiagnoses. We identified 4/54 (7.4%) NMOSD cases that were initially diagnosed as having MS. Conclusions The results from our small study have significant implications––symptoms, clinical presentation or classic radiological findings perhaps cannot reliably separate MS from NMOSD. If our study findings can be replicated, guidelines to diagnose MS ought to recommend that NMOSD be excluded first despite typical clinical and radiological findings pointing to MS.