cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Housekeeping genes for studies of plasma microRNA: A need for more precise standardization

Introduction Plasma microRNAs (miRNAs) are promising biomarkers for many forms of cancer in humans; however, a fundamental concern is the lack of standardization in current data acquisition and reporting. Part of this problem lies in the use of numerous, different housekeeping genes (HKG) for the acquisition of real-time polymerase chain reaction data. This existing practice of using different HKGs generally is accepted, but reproducibility of data for comparison and validation between different laboratories calls for improvement. The need for data reproducibility standardization is crucial. An ideal plasma HKG (1) should be expressed in all samples, (2) have medium-to-high levels of expression, and (3) have consistently measurable levels of expression. Methods Total RNA was extracted from 200-μL plasma samples via a modified miRNeasy (QIAGEN) extraction technique with yeast carrier. Total RNA purity was assessed with a Nanodrop 2000 spectrophotometer (Thermo Scientific). The cycle threshold (Ct) was fixed at 0.03 for all samples. We investigated 10 potential HKGs based both on reports in the literature and our previous data. The potential HKGs were Let-7a, Let-7d, Let-7g, miR-16, RNU6, RNU48, miR-191, miR-223, miR-484, and miR-520d-5p. Once all samples were run for each potential HKG, the mean Ct and SD was calculated for all sample groups, allowing for comparison among HKGs. Results We screened 380 miRNAs by using microfluidic array technology (Applied Biosystems) in a discovery cohort of 20 colorectal cancer (CRC) patients, 10 patients each with breast cancer (BC), lung cancer (LC), pancreatic cancer (PC), 11 patients with colorectal adenoma, and 12 controls. The mean Ct and SD was calculated for RNU6, miR-520d-5p, miR-16, miR-191, miR-223, and miR-484, which were expressed in all samples. Let-7a, Let-7d, Let-7g, and RNU48 were only expressed in 26%, 7%, 10%, and 8% of samples, respectively, and therefore were deemed to be insufficiently reliable HKGs. Only miRNAs with >50% expression were included in this statistical analysis. U6 and miR-520d-5p had the most consistent Ct as well as the least SD. The use of both RNU6 and 520d-5p as HKGs provided reliable results. Conclusion Among HKGs that were expressed in all samples, we suggest that RNU6 and miR-520d-5p were the best candidates for HKGs for studies of plasma miRNA because of the consistent and high Ct in all samples and a very narrow, reproducible SD.
Antipsychotic medication use in nursing homes: a proposed measure of quality

Objective The potential misuse of antipsychotic medications (APMs) is an ongoing quality concern in nursing homes (NHs), especially given recent black box warnings and other evidence regarding the risk of APMs when used in NH populations. One mechanism regulators could use is public reporting of APM use by NHs; however, there is currently no agreed-upon measure of guideline-inconsistent APM use. In this paper, we describe a proposed measure of quality of APM use that is based on Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Interpretive Guidelines, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) indications for APMs, and severity of behavioral symptoms. Methods The proposed measure identifies NH residents who receive an APM but do not have an approved indication for APM use. We demonstrate the feasibility of this measure using data from Medicaid-eligible long-stay residents aged 65 years and older in seven states. Using multivariable logistic regressions, we compare it to the current CMS Nursing Home Compare quality measure. Results We find that nearly 52% of residents receiving an APM lack indications approved by CMS/FDA guidelines compared with 85% for the current CMS quality measure. APM guideline-inconsistent use rates vary significantly across resident and facility characteristics, and states. Only our measure correlates with another quality indicator in that facilities with higher deficiencies have significantly higher odds of APM use. Predictors of inappropriate use are found to be consistent with other measures of NH quality, supporting the validity of our proposed measure. Conclusion The proposed measure provides an important foundation to improve APM prescribing practices without penalizing NHs when there are limited alternative treatments available. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Teleseismic Virtual-Source Imaging of the Basin Structures in the Three Gorges Region, China

Abstract The teleseismic virtual‐source reflection (TVR) profiling method uses free‐surface reverberations of the teleseismic P ‐wave ( PPdp phase) data to produce an image of the subsurface. Upper‐crustal reflections can be retrieved by deconvolving the average source wavelet for all stations in an array from the teleseismic P ‐wave coda recorded at each station of the array. We present a case study for which we construct the upper‐crustal TVR images in the Three Gorges (TG) region, China, based on a dataset of four teleseismic events recorded by a linear regional array of geophones. The features in the resultant TVR images, such as the geometry of the Zigui and Sichuan basins, correlate well with the surface geologic observations at the TG region. We identified reflectors in the Zigui and Sichuan basins that indicated their maximum depths at 2.6 and 7 km, respectively. The basin structure is consistent with the compressional stress regime that is evident by two reverse faults in the region: the Gaoqiao fault, corresponding to a basement ridge in the TVR image that separates the two basins, and the Xiannvshan fault. Online Material: Figures and discussion on choosing source length.
Mutations in the pore region modify epithelial sodium channel gating by shear stress.

Previous studies have shown that epithelial Na+ channels (ENaCs) are activated by laminar shear stress (LSS). ENaCs with a high intrinsic open probability because of a mutation (βS518K) or covalent modification of an introduced Cys residue (αS580C) in the pre-second transmembrane domain (pre-M2) were not activated by LSS, suggesting that the pre-M2 region participates in conformational rearrangements during channel activation. We examined the role of the pore region of the α-subunit in channel gating by studying the kinetics of activation by LSS of wild-type ENaC and channels with Cys mutations in the tract Ser576–Ser592. Whole cell Na+ currents were monitored in oocytes expressing wild-type or mutant ENaCs prior to and following application of LSS. Following a 2.2-s delay, a monoexponential increase in Na+ currents was observed with a time constant (τ) of 8.1 s in oocytes expressing wild-type ENaC. Cys substitutions within the α-subunit in the tract Ser580–Ser589 resulted in: (i) a reduction (Ser580–Trp585, Gly587) or increase (Ser589) in delay times preceding channel activation by LSS, (ii) an increase (Gln581, Leu584, Trp585, Phe586, Ser588) or decrease (Ser589) in the rate of channel activation, or (iii) a decrease in the magnitude of the response (Ser583, Gly587, Leu584). Cys substitutions at a putative amiloride-binding site (αSer583 or βGly525) or within the selectivity filter (αGly587) resulted in a reduction in the LSS response, and exhibited a multiexponential time course of activation. The corresponding γ-subunit mutant (αβγG542C) had a minimal response to LSS and exhibited a high intrinsic open probability. These data suggest that residues in the pore region participate in the sensing and/or transduction of the mechanical stimulus that results in channel activation and are consistent with the hypothesis that the ENaC pore region has a key role in modulating channel gating.
La Cárcel de amor como exemplum

En el presente trabajo pretendemos demostrar que la Carcel de amor de Diego de San Pedro se enmarca todavia en la literatura de exemplum.
Millennial Health Care : Change You Can Believe in

A millennium is 1,000 years. In little over a decade after the beginning of the new millennium in 2000, remarkable changes have occurred in health-care education and health-care delivery. A new millennial generation of students, trainees, junior faculty, and young practicing physicians has come of age. The numbers of women in medicine have vastly increased. Technology has impacted education with an array of educational content-delivery techniques vastly different from the usual broadcast method of teaching. New curricula have expanded to encompass teamwork with interprofessional education of the entire team. Outcomes of educational efforts now include not only knowledge transfer but also performance improvement. Delivery of health care is also dramatically different. The sentinel driver of the quality and patient safety moment, To Err Is Human, was published only 12 years ago, yet fundamental changes in expectations and measurement for health-care quality and safety have occurred to alter the health-care landscape. Financing health care has become a prime issue in the current state of the US economy. New themes in health-care delivery include teamwork and highly functioning teams to improve patient safety, the dramatic increase in palliative care and end-of-life care, and the expanded role of nursing in health-care delivery. Each issue emanating since the beginning of the millennium does not have a right vs wrong implication. This discussion is an apolitical "environmental scan" with the purpose of illuminating these dramatic changes and then outlining the implications for health-care education and health-care delivery in the coming years.
Routing Over Multi-Hop Wireless Networks with Non-Ergodic Mobility

Routing to mobile nodes in a wireless network is conventionally performed by associating a static IP address (or a geographic location) to each node, and routing to that address using routing tables at intermediate nodes that are updated periodically to reflect mobility-induced network topology changes. This mode of routing works when the mobiles' speeds as well as the number of mobiles are small. However, in the presence of large number of fast-moving mobiles, such approaches are infeasible and can lead to excessive overheads, routing failures and hence, throughput loss. In this paper, we consider a wireless network over a domain with a collection of static nodes (that form a connected cover of the domain) and mobile nodes, where the mobile nodes can move in an arbitrary (non-ergodic) manner over sub-domains of the network. For such a system, we develop new routing algorithms (based on a spatial multi-resolution search) that we show are efficient both in terms of routing overheads and throughput. In particular, we show that the achievable rate region of the proposed algorithm is within a poly-logarithmic constant of the optimal rate region with non-ergodic mobility.
Determination of the single-pass impulse response of the body tissues with circulatory models

Classical in vivo kinetics are based on the analysis of the blood disappearance curve of a substance. This curve is determined by the interplay of the substance transport in the circulatory system and the kinetics of the body tissues. The characteristic response of the body tissues, that is, their single-pass impulse response, is obscured in the disappearance curve by multiple recirculations in the heart-systemic loop. The single-pass impulse response can be appropriately determined with circulatory models. The author investigates the theoretical aspects of the determination of the impulse response and proposes suitable algorithms for the analysis of experimental data with circulatory models. The problem of what information the most typical experimental configurations yield on the single-pass impulse response, and what assumptions are necessary for determining the impulse response in a given configuration is studied first. It is shown that assumptions are usually necessary, unless a proper experimental design is adopted. Two algorithms are then developed For the determination of the impulse response from experimental data, in the general case. The first calculates the response from an exponential description of the disappearance curve, while the second is based on a state space representation of circulatory models. The first method has the important limitation that it does not always ensure physiologically plausible results; the state space approach overcomes this limitation, and is the method of choice. With the state space approach, the determination of the single-pass impulse response is a standard parameter estimation problem with finite dimensional linear systems. The analysis of real data from a study on glucose kinetics illustrates the practical relevance of the results. >
A cybernetical model of the internal cellular clock

Abstract A model of a cell-labeling mechanism for the developmental tree of a multicellular organism is suggested. The cell-labeling information is assumed to originate because the DNA strands are complementary, rather than identical, so a pair of replicated DNA can carry different information content to newly created pairs of chromosomes. This mechanism can serve as an internal cellular clock and as one of the factors involved in the control of cell differentiation. Some possible structures were analyzed by means of the mathematical theory of reliability and compared with the results of Hayflick's experiments on limited cells' lifetime. The external destruction of the clock mechanism can remove limitations on cell's reproductions and is considered as a cause of carcinogenesis; the model exhibits cumulative and threshold effects. The cell-labeling mechanism of the model is able to provide sometimes equivalent labeling for the initial zygote division as a necessary condition for the appearance of monozygote twins; it is most likely that this may occur only for pairs of monozygote twins with the probability equal to an integer power of 1 2 .
Sprite: a simple, cheat-proof, credit-based system for mobile ad-hoc networks

Mobile ad hoc networking has been an active research area for several years. How to stimulate cooperation among selfish mobile nodes, however, is not well addressed yet. In this paper, we propose Sprite, a simple, cheat-proof, credit-based system for stimulating cooperation among selfish nodes in mobile ad hoc networks. Our system provides incentive for mobile nodes to cooperate and report actions honestly. Compared with previous approaches, our system does not require any tamper-proof hardware at any node. Furthermore, we present a formal model of our system and prove its properties. Evaluations of a prototype implementation show that the overhead of our system is small. Simulations and analysis show that mobile nodes can cooperate and forward each other's messages, unless the resource of each node is extremely low.
A Random Matrix Model of Black Holes

A random matrix model of black holes is given based on analysis of Gaussian complex ensembles, based on the generalization of chRMT of QCD. Spacetime freedoms are incorporated in terms of eigenvalues of the ensemble. Classical observables of black holes can be computed using this model and it satisfies asymptotic freedom and holographic principle.
Improving breast cancer survivors' knowledge using a patient-centered intervention.

Background Low-income, minority women with breast cancer experience a range of barriers to receiving survivorship information. Our objective was to test a novel, patient-centered intervention aimed at improving communication about survivorship care. Methods We developed a wallet card to provide oncologic and follow-up care survivorship information to breast cancer patients. We used a prospective, pre–post design to assess the intervention at a safety net hospital. The intervention was given by a patient navigator or community health worker. Results Patient knowledge (n = 130) of personal cancer history improved from baseline pretest to 1 week after the intervention for stage (66–93%; P Conclusion A patient-centered survivorship card improved short-term recall of key survivorship care knowledge and seems to be effective at reducing communication barriers for this population. Further studies are warranted to assess long-term retention and the impact on receipt of appropriate survivorship follow-up care.
The Challenge of Mai Chung: Teaching Technical Writing to the Foreign‐Born Professional in Industry

Because of the growing numbers of foreign-born technical professionals in American industry, the need for appropriate on-site instruction in the English of Science and Technology (EST) is becoming urgent. However, what the working professional needs from a course in writing EST differs markedly from what the university student in a technical degree program needs. This article identifies the most important of these differences and their implications for course design and materials development. It also argues that recent research on the dynamics of reading technical English can be used to inform the teaching of the technical writing skills that non-native speakers of English require in industry settings. The main work I am doing is programing in data base system. Except to writing the program I have to put comments to my program shortly and clearly. When design a new command we are required to do the system documentation about the system is designed for the walk through. It is hard for me to write down and let people understand what I intend to do neatly and straight forward.
Uncertain Cost Estimates Influencing Priorities for Multimodal Transportation Corridors

Economic uncertainties have prompted transportation departments to consider cost-effective spending to reduce funding shortages. Although methods exist for identifying and prioritizing projects, there is need for analysis of long-range plans that consider stakeholder perspectives. This article compares two pairs of cost estimates: (a) modal agency cost estimates with (b) highway-only implementations and (c) regional Transportation Planning Organization (TPO) plans with (d) the state Department of Transportation (DOT) highway plan. This article develops methods to compare the perspectives of cost estimates for transportation improvements. The methods are adaptable to include both preliminary cost data and detailed life cycle cost data. The results aid in the prioritization of engineering and long-range planning efforts for projects that are expected to contribute to the goals of a variety of stakeholder investments. The methods support efforts for increasing accuracy and inclusion of life cycle costs into project estimates and employment of more sophisticated cost methodologies, such as cost-effectiveness and cost–benefit analysis.
A CMOS-compatible piezoelectric vibration energy scavenger based on the integration of bulk PZT films on silicon

This paper presents the micro-fabrication and testing of a CMOS-compatible high-performance piezoelectric inertial power generator. This is believed to be the first wafer-level micro-scale generator integrating a bulk piezoelectric ceramic, PZT. The technology offers advantages in fabrication flexibility and device performance over existing piezoelectric thin film deposition methods. The process involves aligned solder-bonding and thinning of bulk PZT pieces on Si. By conserving the bulk piezoelectric properties of the PZT material, high generator output voltage and high output impedance are obtained, simplifying rectification and regulation. Additional benefits of this process include the capability to obtain thick (5µm to 100µm) piezoelectric films without chemical patterning. Here, we describe a harvester with a Si proof mass, which generates 0.15µW from an input acceleration of 0.1g at 263Hz, and 10.2µW from an input acceleration of 2g at 252Hz. The unpackaged active volume of the generator (beam + mass) is 12.1mm3. The fabricated device has the highest Normalized Power Density for a PZT-based MEMS harvester reported to date, to the authors' knowledge.
Laboratory Culture and Preliminary Characterization of the Nitrogen-Fixing Rhizosolenia-Richelia Symbiosis

(...) Nitrogen-fixation by the symbiont could sustain the symbiosis. Growth and nitrogenase activity demonstrated light saturation kinetics, with no photoinhibition up to 315 μE.m -2 .s -1 for growth and 780 μE.m -2 .s -1 for nitrogen fixation. The symbiosis is not obligate for Rhizosolenia, which is capable of growth independent of the symbiont if a nitrogen source is available. The symbion is contained in the periplasmic space between the Rhizosolenia plasmalemma and frustule, and preliminary evidence suggests excretion of fixed nitrogen into the medium may be occuring
Computer-aided design of self-testable VLSI circuits

The authors present the computer-aided self-test system, a CAD tool for designing of self-testable VLSI circuits. Given a register-transfer-level circuit graph and test requirements, CAST augments the circuit with features that make it self-testable. The objective of the CAST procedures is to maximize built-in test hardware in obtained designs. They give an example that illustrates the CAST design process. The CAST system can be easily extended to incorporate other high-level BIST (built-in self-test) techniques, such as the circular self-test path. >
The A2B Adenosine Receptor Promotes Th17 Differentiation via Stimulation of Dendritic Cell IL-6

Adenosine is an endogenous metabolite produced during hypoxia or inflammation. Previously implicated as an anti-inflammatory mediator in CD4(+) T cell regulation, we report that adenosine acts via dendritic cell (DC) A(2B) adenosine receptor (A(2B)AR) to promote the development of Th17 cells. Mouse naive CD4(+) T cells cocultured with DCs in the presence of adenosine or the stable adenosine mimetic 5'-(N-ethylcarboximado) adenosine resulted in the differentiation of IL-17- and IL-22-secreting cells and elevation of mRNA that encode signature Th17-associated molecules, such as IL-23R and RORγt. The observed response was similar when DCs were generated from bone marrow or isolated from small intestine lamina propria. Experiments using adenosine receptor antagonists and cells from A(2B)AR(-/-) or A(2A)AR(-/-)/A(2B)AR(-/-) mice indicated that the DC A(2B)AR promoted the effect. IL-6, stimulated in a cAMP-independent manner, is an important mediator in this pathway. Hence, in addition to previously noted direct effects of adenosine receptors on regulatory T cell development and function, these data indicated that adenosine also acts indirectly to modulate CD4(+) T cell differentiation and suggested a mechanism for putative proinflammatory effects of A(2B)AR.
Recent climate warming forces contrasting growth responses of white spruce at treeline in Alaska through temperature thresholds

Northern and high-latitude alpine treelines are generally thought to be limited by available warmth. Most studies of tree-growth–climate interaction at treeline as well as climate reconstructions using dendrochronology report positive growth response of treeline trees to warmer temperatures. However, population-wide responses of treeline trees to climate remain largely unexamined. We systematically sampled 1558 white spruce at 13 treeline sites in the Brooks Range and Alaska Range. Our findings of both positive and negative growth responses to climate warming at treeline challenge the widespread assumption that arctic treeline trees grow better with warming climate. High mean temperatures in July decreased the growth of 40% of white spruce at treeline areas in Alaska, whereas warm springs enhance growth of additional 36% of trees and 24% show no significant correlation with climate. Even though these opposing growth responses are present in all sampled sites, their relative proportion varies between sites and there is no overall clear relationship between growth response and landscape position within a site. Growth increases and decreases appear in our sample above specific temperature index values (temperature thresholds), which occurred more frequently in the late 20th century. Contrary to previous findings, temperature explained more variability in radial growth after 1950. Without accounting for these opposite responses and temperature thresholds, climate reconstructions based on ring width will miscalibrate past climate, and biogeochemical and dynamic vegetation models will overestimate carbon uptake and treeline advance under future warming scenarios.
Early postmolt performance of laying hens fed a low-protein corn molt diet supplemented with corn gluten meal, feather meal, methionine, and lysine

Commercial White Leghorn hens (65, 63, or 70 wk of age in Experiments 1, 2, and 3, respectively) were induced molted by feed withdrawal until approximately 28% body weight was lost. All hens were then weighed, and seven replicate groups of 12 hens each were fed molt diets. In Experiment 1, three diets consisted of a corn basal diet (7.9% CP) or this diet supplemented with corn gluten meal (CGM) and Lys or feather meal (FM), Met, and Lys. In Experiments 2 and 3, varying levels of FM and FM with Met and Lys were evaluated. A 16% CP corn-soybean meal diet was used as a positive control in all experiments. The molt diets were fed for 17, 15, and 17 d in Experiments 1, 2, and 3, respectively, and production performance was measured for 8 wk from the beginning of feeding the layer diet. In all experiments, hens fed the 16% CP corn-soybean meal molt diet returned to egg production and regained body weight at a faster rate than did hens fed any of the other diets. In Experiment 1, early egg production of hens fed the corn basal diet supplemented with CGM and Lys or supplementation with FM, Met, and Lys was greater (P < 0.05) than that of hens fed the basal diet alone. In Experiment 2, very early egg production (Week 1) and body weight gain were lower (P < 0.05) for hens fed the corn basal diet than for hens fed the basal supplemented with FM, Met, and Lys. The addition of 5.75 or 8.5% FM or 5.75% FM plus Met and Lys generally increased (P < 0.05) early egg production and postmolt body weight gain compared to the corn basal diet in Experiment 3. The present study thus indicated that improved early postmolt performance may be achieved by supplementation of a low-protein corn molt diet with various combinations of CGM, FM, Met, and Lys.
Clinical and biomechanical measures of balance as fall predictors in ambulatory nursing home residents.

Background We evaluated the capacity of biomechanical and clinical measures of balance to predict future risk of recurrent falls in a cohort of frail, elderly ambulatory residents of 12 Tennessee community nursing homes. Methods Baseline measurements of balance and other potential fall risk factors were obtained in 303 ambulatory nursing home residents. Balance measures included biomechanics force platform measurements of postural sway (area ellipse and mean velocity) and clinical measures, which included functional reach, Tinetti balance subscale (adapted from Tinetti's Performance Oriented Mobility Index), timed chair stands, and 10-foot walk. Residents who fell two or more times during follow-up (mean of 11 months) were identified from nursing home incident reports and nursing notes. The predictive value of the balance measures was evaluated by the incidence density ratio (IDR) estimated from proportional hazards models. Results There were 118 recurrent fallers (54.2 per 100 person-years). Rates of recurrent falls increased with increasing quintiles of both the biomechanical and clinical measures of balance, with unadjusted IDRs (95% CI) per quintile change of 1.22 (1.07-1.39) for area ellipse, 1.12 (0.98-1.27) for mean velocity of postural sway, 1.29 (1.13-1.47) for the Tinetti balance subscale, 1.24 (1.08-1.41) for timed walk, 1.24 (1.09-1.42) for timed chair stands, and 1.12 (0.98-1.28) for functional reach. Controlling for age, gender, height, and weight did not materially affect the linear relationship between the balance measure quintiles and subsequent recurrent falls. However, after controlling for additional fall risk factors, only area ellipse of postural sway and the Tinetti balance subscale remained independently predictive of subsequent recurrent fall rates, with IDRs of 1.16 (1.02-1.36) and 1.17 (1.01-1.34), respectively. In an analysis where subjects were stratified by tertiles of each of these two measures, each measure appeared to independently predict future rates of recurrent falls. The independent predictive capacity of each measure persisted after controlling for other fall risk factors in a multivariate analysis with IDRs of 1.15 (1.00-1.32) for area ellipse and 1.15 (1.00-1.32) for the Tinetti balance subscale. Inclusion of both balance measures in a model with other fall risk factors to evaluate their relationship did not materially alter IDR point estimates of these risk factors. Conclusions In this cohort of frail, nursing home residents, both area ellipse of postural sway and the Tinetti balance subscale independently predicted risk of future recurrent falls. However, the predictive value of other independent fall risk factors on risk of future recurrent falls persisted and was not explained by these two measures. Thus, assessment of patient fall risk based on surrogate endpoints, for either research or clinical practice, may need to include multiple measurements.
Electron Beam-Induced Graft Polymerization of an Oligomeric Vinyl Phosphonate on Wool

Electron beam-induced graft polymerization of the oligomeric vinyl phosphonate, Fyrol 76, and/or comonomers on wool substrate was studied using 0.5 to 10 Mrad irradiation doses. Polymerization was retarded by the presence of oxygen and moisture, and in all experiments the rate of polymerization slowed above 2 Mrad dose. Increasing concen trations of Fyrol and hydrogen donors on the wool minimized the effect of oxygen on polymerization. Comonomers had little effect on grafting of Fyrol but did decrease the degree of flame retardancy achieved compared to grafting of Fyrol alone. Wool with uptakes of greater than 5% polymerized Fyrol exhibited improved flame-retardant properties without significant loss in physical and esthetic properties.
Paspahegh: visualizing a seventeenth-century algonquian indian village in the virginia chesapeake

The Paspahegh Project is a reconstruction of an Algonquian Indian village in seventeenth-century Virginia. It is a collaborative venture involving an historian, computer programmer, a visual artist and two public school teachers and their students. The project joins the latest technologies and visualization techniques to textual, cartographic, and archaeological evidence to produce a virtual reality model of the village for teachers, students, and the general public. The model will be published on the Virtual Jamestown web site and, funding permitting, rendered in the form of an educational game for distribution in DVD format.
CMV Infections and Immune Responses

CMV is an important pathogen in immunocompromised persons, including neonates, AIDS patients, organ transplant patients and oncology patients. Immunologic studies in humans and mice indicate a critical role for cytotoxic lymphocytes in recovery from infection. Cytotoxic T cell responses to products of the immediate early genes may be particularly important and these findings may provide a basis for the development of effective vaccines and for strategies to adoptively transfer immunity to CMV.
Materials and Structures for Advanced III-HBTs

This paper reviews the present status of heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) technology based on GaAlAs/GaAs and InP/InGaAs materials, and discusses a variety of approaches for device improvement. Among the possibilities presented are novel structures to reduce base-collector capacitance, and novel materials to increase breakdown voltage and reduce base-emitter turn-on voltage.
Successful emergency replacement of the ascending aorta and aortic and mitral valves in the Marfan syndrome

A 37-year-old man with the Marfan syndrome and chronic mitral regurgitation suffered an acute dissecting aneurysm of the ascending aorta with aortic regurgitation. Emergency replacement of the mitral valve, aortic valve, and ascending aorta was carried out, and the patient made an uneventful recovery. He is doing well 18 months after surgery. This is the first reported case of survival from such a procedure in the face of acute dissection with Marfan's syndrome. Indications for elective surgery are discussed and the uncertainties about the prognosis outlined. Continued reporting of the results and follow-up data are necessary for final assessment of the surgical treatment of the cardiovascular manifestations of this disease.
Pragmalinguistic Variation and Barista Perceptions in US Café Service Encounters

This chapter examines pragmatic variation at the production and perception levels in requests for service in US cafe service encounters. Drawing on a revised framework of variational pragmatics (Schneider and Barron 2008, Barron and Schneider 2009, Schneider 2010), the present study analysed pragmatic variation in the request for service at the actional level (request head act and internal and external modification). It also looked at pragmatic variation according to the gender of the customer and the barista. The natural data — comprising 330 requests for service and the ensuing responses (165 male customers and 165 female customers) — were collected in a cafe in the Midwestern US using the field notes method (Beebe 1995). In addition to the customer requests for service, perception data were collected from two baristas who completed a questionnaire regarding their perceptions of politeness in different types of requests. With regard to pragmalinguistic variation, results showed that of the six types of request forms found in the present study, conventional indirect forms, ellipticals and assertions were frequently produced in the college cafe community of practice. Two forms were often used to downgrade a request for service, namely ‘please’ and ‘just’. The preference for these forms was influenced by the gender of both the customer and the barista. This chapter ends with a qualitative analysis of US cafe baristas’ perceptions of the (im)politeness of request forms, internal modifications and external modifications.
Addressing Measurement Error Bias in GDP with Nighttime Lights and an Application to Infant Mortality with Chinese County Data

As an emerging research area, application of satellite-based nighttime lights data in the social sciences has increased rapidly in recent years. This study, building on the recent surge in the use ...
Physical aging of glassy perfluoropolymers in thin film composite membranes. Part I. Gas transport properties

Abstract Physical aging of thin film glassy polymers continuously decreases gas permeability, presenting a great challenge in designing membrane systems for long-term gas separation. Most studies on the effect of physical aging on membrane applications use freestanding thin films, which are often annealed above the polymer glass transition temperature (Tg) before gas permeability is determined. However, industrial membranes are often thin film composites (TFCs) comprising the thin film on top of porous polymeric supports, and they may not be annealed above the Tg. The objective of this study is to investigate the effect of physical aging of the selective layer on gas permeance and selectivity of TFC membranes to establish industrial relevance. Two-layer TFC membranes consisting of perfluoropolymers (including Teflon® AF1600 and Hyflon® AD) at various film thicknesses (50 – 400 nm) on polyethersulfone porous support were prepared and determined for permeances of CH4, N2, H2 and CO2 at 35 °C for over 1000 h. Gas permeances decrease with time, and the decrease is more significant for larger penetrants and for membranes with thinner selective layers. For example, CH4 permeance decreases by 54% and 27% after aging for about 1400 h in TFC membranes comprising 50-nm- and 370-nm-thick Teflon AF1600, respectively. The decrease of gas permeances over time in these TFC membranes is compared with that of freestanding films. This study is one of only a few to present the results of physical aging in industrial TFC membranes and to provide useful insights for practical membrane applications.
Via: Improving Internet Telephony Call Quality Using Predictive Relay Selection

Interactive real-time streaming applications such as audio-video conferencing, online gaming and app streaming, place stringent requirements on the network in terms of delay, jitter, and packet loss. Many of these applications inherently involve client-to-client communication, which is particularly challenging since the performance requirements need to be met while traversing the public wide-area network (WAN). This is different from the typical situation of cloud-to-client communication, where the WAN can often be bypassed by moving a communication end-point to a cloud “edge”, close to the client. Can we nevertheless take advantage of cloud resources to improve the performance of real-time client-to-client streaming over the WAN? In this paper, we start by analyzing data from a large VoIP provider whose clients are spread across over 21,000 AS’es and nearly all the countries, to understand the challenges faced by interactive audio streaming in the wild. We find that while inter-AS and international paths exhibit significantly worse performance than intra-AS and domestic paths, the pattern of poor performance is nevertheless quite scattered, both temporally and spatially. So any effort to improve performance would have to be fine-grained and dynamic. Then, we turn to the idea of overlay routing, but in the context of the well-provisioned, managed network of a cloud provider rather than peer-to-peer as has been considered in past work. Such a network typically has a global footprint and peers with a large number of network providers. When the performance of a call via the direct path is predicted to be poor, the call traffic could be directed to enter the managed network close to one end point and exit it close to the other end point, thereby avoiding wide-area communication over the public Internet. We present and evaluate data-driven techniques to deciding whether to relay a call through the managed network and if so how to pick the ingress and egress relays to maximize performance, all while operating within a budget for relaying calls via the managed overlay network. We show that call performance can potentially improve by 40%-80% on average, with our techniques closely matching it.
Physiological Evidence for Spinal Cord Input to the Motor Thalamus

The motor thalamus can be divided into a pallidal-receiving and a cerebellar-receiving part (Ilinsky and Kultas-Ilinsky, 1987). According to this definition, the nuclei of the pallidal-receiving part can be grouped together as VA (ventral anterior), those of the cerebellar-receiving part as VL (ventral lateral). The cerebellar-receiving VL is traditionally viewed as a relay center through which the cerebellum sends information to motor cortical areas (Massion and Sasaki, 1979). In reality, it is more than a simple relay because it contains interneurons (Ilinsky et al., 1993) and receives projections from various sources, such as the cerebral cortex, intrathalamic nuclei, midbrain, brain stem, and spinal cord (c.f. Jones, 1985; Nakano et al., 1985; Anderson and DeVito, 1987, Ilinsky et al., 1999). Information from a number of sources (e.g. cerebral cortex, Uno et al., 1970; thalamic reticular nucleus, Ando et al., 1995; spinal cord, Mackel and Noda, 1988) converges with cerebellar information in VL neurons and can, therefore, modulate the information that the cerebellum sends to the motor cortex.
Promoting Active Treatment Engagement in Child and Family Therapy

Children have considerable behavioral health need and families either do not engage in appropriate treatment or drop out early. Treatment engagement applied to families is arguably more complex than applying these strategies to adults, as there may be a number of consumers involved in the treatment of one child. Techniques for meeting this challenge are discussed from the perspective of the Stages of Change perspective and relayed in a stepped care framework. The empirical evidence base for these recommendations is reviewed.
The Ubiquitin Binding Protein TAX1BP1 Mediates Autophagasome Induction and the Metabolic Transition of Activated T Cells.

During immune responses, naive T cells transition from small quiescent cells to rapidly cycling cells. We have found that T cells lacking TAX1BP1 exhibit delays in growth of cell size and cell cycling. TAX1BP1-deficient T cells exited G0 but stalled in S phase, due to both bioenergetic and biosynthetic defects. These defects were due to deficiencies in mTOR complex formation and activation. These mTOR defects in turn resulted from defective autophagy induction. TAX1BP1 binding of LC3 and GABARAP via its LC3-interacting region (LIR), but not its ubiquitin-binding domain, supported T cell proliferation. Supplementation of TAX1BP1-deficient T cells with metabolically active L-cysteine rescued mTOR activation and proliferation but not autophagy. These studies reveal that TAX1BP1 drives a specialized form of autophagy, providing critical amino acids that activate mTOR and enable the metabolic transition of activated T cells.
Screening nasal swabs for methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus: A regional burn center’s experience

Background Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a pathogen that can result in substantial morbidity and mortality. Early detection of MRSA colonization by screening nasal swabs may be important in the management of burn-injured patients. However, studies examining its use in this population are limited. The aim of this study was to study the utility of admission MRSA screening nasal swabs and determine if being positive for MRSA on admission impacted outcomes. Materials and methods A retrospective review was conducted of burn patients who presented to a single regional burn center between June 2012 and December 2014. Electronic medical records and charts were reviewed for patient demographics and management. MRSA screening swabs were obtained from the anterior nares of burn patients upon admission. Patients without a MRSA nasal swab within 48 h of admission were excluded. Outcomes analyzed included overall length of stay, ICU admission and length of stay, mechanical ventilation, procedure count, time to excision, and wound complications after normalizing to total body surface area burn size (%TBSA). Results During the study period, 601 patients received a MRSA screening nasal swab upon admission. Of these, 24 patients screened positive for MRSA (4%). Patients who screened positive for MRSA had a significantly increased mean length of stay (3.95 v 2.36 days; p < 0.05) and number of surgical procedures (1.92 v 1.06; p < 0.05). Positively screened patients also had a higher proportion of wound infections (50% v 18.2%; p < 0.05), half of which were caused by MRSA. Subsequent graft complications were seen in 50% of patients with a wound complication. Only 2 positively screened patients were started on empiric antibiotics. Conclusions Burn patients who screened positive for MRSA had greater lengths of stay, more surgical procedures, and higher wound complications. Early identification of MRSA colonized patients in this patient population might allow for treatment modifications that improve outcomes. Further study is warranted in a prospective clinical trial.
Oral Anticoagulants in Patients with Variable Renal Function

The ongoing use of direct oral anticoagulant therapy versus warfarin in individuals with varying renal function is challenging. The degree of renal function variability, the context in which renal function changes occur, and other patient and provider-specific factors must be carefully evaluated when assessing the benefits and risks of ongoing direct oral anticoagulant therapy.
MicroRNAs Induce a Permissive Chromatin Environment that Enables Neuronal Subtype-Specific Reprogramming of Adult Human Fibroblasts

Summary Directed reprogramming of human fibroblasts into fully differentiated neurons requires massive changes in epigenetic and transcriptional states. Induction of a chromatin environment permissive for acquiring neuronal subtype identity is therefore a major barrier to fate conversion. Here we show that the brain-enriched miRNAs miR-9/9 ∗ and miR-124 (miR-9/9 ∗ -124) trigger reconfiguration of chromatin accessibility, DNA methylation, and mRNA expression to induce a default neuronal state. miR-9/9 ∗ -124-induced neurons (miNs) are functionally excitable and uncommitted toward specific subtypes but possess open chromatin at neuronal subtype-specific loci, suggesting that such identity can be imparted by additional lineage-specific transcription factors. Consistently, we show that ISL1 and LHX3 selectively drive conversion to a highly homogeneous population of human spinal cord motor neurons. This study shows that modular synergism between miRNAs and neuronal subtype-specific transcription factors can drive lineage-specific neuronal reprogramming, providing a general platform for high-efficiency generation of distinct subtypes of human neurons.
Reelaborando Las historias que contamos de Sarah Polley (y el tema de la expresión creativa)

(2015). Reelaborando Las historias que contamos de Sarah Polley (y el tema de la expresion creativa) The International Journal of Psychoanalysis (en espanol): Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 526-544.
Multiscale positive feedbacks contribute to unidirectional gastric disease progression induced by helicobacter pylori infection

Helicobacter Pylori (HP) is the most common risk factor for gastric cancer. Nearly half the world’s population is infected with HP, but only a small percentage of those develop significant pathology. The bacteria itself does not directly cause cancer; rather it promotes an environment that is conducive to tumor formation. Upon infection, HP induces transcriptional changes in the host, leading to enhanced proliferation and host immune response. In addition, HP causes direct damage to gastric epithelial cells. We present a multiscale mechanistic model of HP induced changes. The model includes four modules representing the host transcriptional changes in response to infection, gastric atrophy, the Hedgehog pathway response, and the restriction point that controls cell cycle. This model was able to recapture a number of literature reported observations and was used as an “in silico” representation of the biological system for further analysis. Dynamical analysis of the model revealed that HP might induce the activation of multiple interplayed positive feedbacks, which in turn might result in a “ratchet ladder” system that promotes a unidirectional progression of gastric disease. The current multiscale model is able to recapitulate the observed experimental features of HP host interactions and provides dynamic insights on the epidemiologically observed heterogeneity in disease progression. This model provides a solid framework that can be further expanded and validated to include additional experimental evidence, to understand the complex multi-pathway interactions characterizing HP infection, and to design novel treatment protocols for HP induced diseases.
Decentralized control of robotic swarms from high-level temporal logic specifications

Work in swarm robotics typically focuses on the bottom-up design of local rules for individual robots that create emergent swarm behaviors. In this paper, we take a top-down approach and consider the following problem: how can we specify a desired collective behavior and automatically synthesize decentralized controllers that can be distributed over robots to achieve the collective objective in a provably correct way? We propose a formal specification language for the high-level description of swarm behaviors on both swarm and individual levels. We present algorithms for automated synthesis of decentralized controllers and synchronization skeletons that describe how groups of robots must coordinate to satisfy the specification. We demonstrate our algorithms on a case study.
Moral technologies of economic life: Fridman’s Freedom from Work and Wilkis’ The Moral Power of Money

Two recent ethnographies from Stanford University Press examine popular economic practices and the theoretical and moral terrains built around them by everyday practitioners of economic life.In Fre...