cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Central-place foraging and ecological effects of an invasive predator across multiple habitats

Cross-habitat foraging movements of predators can have widespread implications for predator and prey populations, community structure, nutrient transfer, and ecosystem function. Although central-place foraging models and other aspects of optimal foraging theory focus on individual predator behavior, they also provide useful frameworks for understanding the effects of predators on prey populations across multiple habitats. However, few studies have examined both the foraging behavior and ecological effects of nonnative predators across multiple habitats, and none has tested whether nonnative predators deplete prey in a manner predicted by these foraging models. I conducted behavioral observations of invasive lionfish (Pterois volitans) to determine whether they exhibit foraging movements similar to other central-place consumers. Then, I used a manipulative field experiment to test whether their effects on prey populations are consistent with three qualitative predictions from optimal foraging models. Specifically, I predicted that the effects of invasive lionfish on native prey will (1) occur at central sites first and then in surrounding habitats, (2) decrease with increasing distance away from their shelter site, and (3) extend to greater distances when prey patches are spaced closer together. Approximately 40% of lionfish exhibited short-term crepuscular foraging movements into surrounding habitats from the coral patch reefs where they shelter during daylight hours. Over the course of 7 weeks, lionfish depleted native fish populations on the coral patch reefs where they reside, and subsequently on small structures in the surrounding habitat. However, their effects did not decrease with increasing distance from the central shelter site and the influence of patch spacing was opposite the prediction. Instead, lionfish always had the greatest effects in areas with the highest prey densities. The differences between the predicted and observed effects of lionfish foraging are likely due to different constraints faced by invasive predators compared to native predators, namely that lionfish do not face increased predation risk with increased movement away from shelter sites. By foraging at greater distances from patch reefs than native predators, lionfish eliminated a spatial refuge from predation used by juveniles of many commercially and ecologically important reef fishes.
Metal-Based Nanotoxicity and Detoxification Pathways in Higher Plants

The potential risks from metal-based nanoparticles (NPs) in the environment have increased with the rapidly rising demand for and use of nanoenabled consumer products. Plant’s central roles in ecosystem function and food chain integrity ensure intimate contact with water and soil systems, both of which are considered sinks for NPs accumulation. In this review, we document phytotoxicity caused by metal-based NPs exposure at physiological, biochemical, and molecular levels. Although the exact mechanisms of plant defense against nanotoxicity are unclear, several relevant studies have been recently published. Possible detoxification pathways that might enable plant resistance to oxidative stress and facilitate NPs detoxification are reviewed herein. Given the importance of understanding the effects and implications of metal-based NPs on plants, future research should focus on the following: (1) addressing key knowledge gaps in understanding molecular and biochemical responses of plants to NPs stress through g...
Porosity–permeability relationships in modeling salt precipitation during CO2 sequestration: Review of conceptual models and implementation in numerical simulations

Abstract Previous model studies indicate that injectivity can be impaired by salt precipitation near the injection well during CO2 injection ( Pruess and Muller, 2009 ). These results are largely determined by the relationship between permeability and salt precipitation which is developed by Verma and Pruess (1988) . Liu et al. (2013) presents a new relationship for permeability change owing to salt precipitation near a CO2 injection well, which differs from previous relationships in that it considers the fact that the salt precipitation occurs only in pore space occupied by brine during the precipitation process, and in that it is based on well-established relative-permeability relationships for two-phase flow in porous media. This work reviews the conceptual models based on which these porosity–permeability relationships are developed. The Liu et al. (2013) model is implemented in the multi-phase reservoir simulator TOUGH2, and simulation is conducted and compared with results in Pruess and Muller (2009) . Results show that the two constitutive relations give opposite conclusions in whether CO2 dry-out will clog the reservoir. In contrast to the conclusion from Pruess and Muller (2009) that permeability will decrease to essentially zero near the injection well, the new simulation predicts much less reduction in permeability. Discussions are given at the end on the evaluation of each relation and relevant experimental evidences.
National and State-Specific Shingles Vaccination Among Adults Aged ≥60 Years.

Introduction Shingles (herpes zoster) causes substantial morbidity, especially among older adults. The shingles vaccine has been recommended for people aged ≥60 years since 2006. This study assessed recent shingles vaccination at national and state levels among adults aged ≥60 years. Methods The 2014 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System data were analyzed in 2015 to assess shingles vaccination coverage among adults aged ≥60 years at national and state levels. Multivariable logistic regression and predictive marginal models identified factors independently associated with vaccination. Results Shingles vaccination coverage among adults aged ≥60 years was 31.8% (95% CI=31.4%, 32.2%). Among states, shingles vaccination coverage ranged from 17.8% (95% CI=15.8%, 20.0%) in Mississippi to 46.6% (95% CI=44.3%, 48.8%) in Vermont, with a median of 33.3%. Coverage was 40% in nine states. For all states, coverage was significantly higher among non-Hispanic whites compared with non-white races except for Oregon, with coverage differences ranging from –33.2% in the District of Columbia to 0.9% in Oregon and a median of –16.0%. Characteristics independently associated with vaccination were age, race/ethnicity, sex, education, employment status, household income, region, perceived health status, health insurance status, personal healthcare provider, routine checkup status, and whether reporting that cost was a barrier to seeing a doctor. Conclusions Coverage varied dramatically by state. State-level comparisons may aid in designing tailored intervention programs through sharing of best practices. Strategies are needed to mitigate financial barriers for both provider and patients, improve awareness, and increase provider recommendation of the vaccine.
Plant domestication and the assembly of bacterial and fungal communities associated with strains of the common sunflower, Helianthus annuus

Root and rhizosphere microbial communities can affect plant health, but it remains undetermined how plant domestication may influence these bacterial and fungal communities. We grew 33 sunflower (Helianthus annuus) strains (n = 5) that varied in their extent of domestication and assessed rhizosphere and root endosphere bacterial and fungal communities. We also assessed fungal communities in the sunflower seeds to investigate the degree to which root and rhizosphere communities were influenced by vertical transmission of the microbiome through seeds. Neither root nor rhizosphere bacterial communities were affected by the extent of sunflower domestication, but domestication did affect the composition of rhizosphere fungal communities. In particular, more modern sunflower strains had lower relative abundances of putative fungal pathogens. Seed-associated fungal communities strongly differed across strains, but several lines of evidence suggest that there is minimal vertical transmission of fungi from seeds to the adult plants. Our results indicate that plant-associated fungal communities are more strongly influenced by host genetic factors and plant breeding than bacterial communities, a finding that could influence strategies for optimizing microbial communities to improve crop yields.
Liposomal Drug Product Development and Quality: Current US Experience and Perspective

Research in the area of liposomes has grown substantially in the past few decades. Liposomes are lipid bilayer structures that can incorporate drug substances to modify the drug's pharmacokinetic profile thereby improving drug delivery. The agency has received over 400 liposomal drug product submissions (excluding combination therapies), and there are currently eight approved liposomal drug products on the US market. In order to identify the pain points in development and manufacturing of liposomal drug products, a retrospective analysis was performed from a quality perspective on submissions for new and generic liposomal drug products. General analysis on liposomal drug product submissions was also performed. Results indicated that 96% of the submissions were Investigational New Drug (IND) applications, 3% were New Drug Applications (NDAs), and the remaining 1% was Abbreviated New Drug Applications (ANDAs). Doxorubicin hydrochloride was the most commonly used drug substance incorporated into the liposomes (31%). The majority of the liposomal products were administered via intravenous route (84%) with cancer (various types) being the most common indication (63%). From a quality perspective, major challenges during the development of liposomal drug products included identification and (appropriate) characterization of critical quality attributes of liposomal drug products and suitable control strategies during product development. By focusing on these areas, a faster and more efficient development of liposomal drug products may be achieved. Additionally, in this way, the drug review process for such products can be streamlined.
A Chromatographic Method for Estimating Fungal Growth by Glucosamine Analysis of Diseased Tissues

Summary Most fungi have cell walls of chitin which forms glucosamine on acid hydrolysis. Glucosamine analysis therefore gives a quantitative estimation of the amount of fungal tissue in infected plant materials. Glucosamine was separated by chromatography on the basic column of the automatic amino acid analyzer. The application of glucosamine analyses for estimating the amount of fungal tissue in infected plants was demonstrated in studies of various host-parasite systems including: sweet potato — Ceratocyslis fimbriata, pea plant — Fusarium oxysporum f. pisi and wheat — Puccinia graminis f. sp. tritici. Low glucosamine content of the pathogen precluded its application to potato — Phytophthora infestans and barley — Erysiphe graminis systems. The destruction of glucosamine during hydrolysis was studied. Advantages of this method are complete glucosamine separation, quantitative estimation by a specific rapid analysis, and automated determination. The method can be applied to small samples of tissue but is limited by low chitin levels in some pathogens.
Characterizing Categorical Map Patterns Using Neutral Landscape Models

Spatial patterns of landscapes are the result of numerous biotic, abiotic, and anthropogenic processes, and every landscape is in some way unique. Neutral landscape models—models that lack the explicit consideration of the particular processes generating landscape pattern (Gardner et al., Landsc Ecol 1:19–28, 1987; Gardner and Engelhardt, Perspect Plant Ecol Evol Syst 9:211–228, 2008)—have proven to be a helpful first step in characterizing pattern in the absence of specific ecological processes and thus serve as a null hypothesis, or baseline, for comparison with actual landscapes. Neutral landscape models have led to new understanding about habitat connectivity thresholds and the influence of landscape composition on spatial configuration (see Gardner and Urban, Landsc Ecol 22:15–29, 2007 for a review), and they offer a practical means of generating multiple landscape maps with similar statistical properties. This lab is designed to.
Demo Abstract: HB-Phone: A Bed-Mounted Geophone-Based Heartbeat Monitoring System

Monitoring heartbeats takes an important role to ensure a person's health and well-being. Few of the existing systems are accurate, unobtrusive, robust and easy to install at the same time. Thus, we propose a completely unobtrusive system which can detect heartbeats during sleep by sensing the weak ballistic vibrations caused by heartbeats on any bed. The system, HB-Phone, is centered around the off-the-shelf geophone sensor and can be easily installed on an existing bed. In this demo, we demonstrate that our system can detect and extract heartbeats accurately and in real time, even with the presence of noise from the environment and gross body movements during sleep.
The Periodic Optimality of LQ Controllers Satisfying Strong Stabilization 1

Abstract A II test is presented for determining when a controller with periodic gains is superior to a LTI compensator for a class of LQ strong stabilization problems. For systems with strictly proper transfer functions, it is proven that stable high frequency periodic controllers based on weak variations from the LTI case cannot give better performance than stable LTI compensators. In the development, a means to evaluate the second partials of functions with respect to matrix valued parameters is introduced. Two examples detailing the application of the n test are provided.
Best in Class: The Returns on Endorsement in Business School Admissions

Substantial research has focused on how organizational and network processes may affect the screening and hiring of individuals into organizations. Less attention, however, has been devoted to exam...
Interaction of CO2 with Atomic Manganese in the Presence of an Excess Negative Charge Probed by Infrared Spectroscopy of [Mn(CO2)n]− Clusters

We report infrared photodissociation spectra of manganese–CO2 cluster anions, [Mn(CO2)n]− (n = 2–10) to probe structural motifs characterizing the interaction between Mn and CO2 in the presence of an excess electron. We interpret the experimental spectra through comparison with infrared spectra predicted from density functional theory calculations. The cluster anions consist of core ions combining a Mn atom with a variety of ligands, solvated by additional CO2 molecules. Structural motifs of ligands evolve with increasing cluster size from simple monodentate and bidentate CO2 ligands to oxalate ligands and combinations of these structural themes.
Ex vivo construction of human primary 3D–networked osteocytes

A human bone tissue model was developed by constructing ex vivo the 3D network of osteocytes via the biomimetic assembly of primary human osteoblastic cells with 20-25μm microbeads and subsequent microfluidic perfusion culture. The biomimetic assembly: (1) enabled 3D-constructed cells to form cellular network via processes with an average cell-to-cell distance of 20-25μm, and (2) inhibited cell proliferation within the interstitial confine between the microbeads while the confined cells produced extracellular matrix (ECM) to form a mechanically integrated structure. The mature osteocytic expressions of SOST and FGF23 genes became significantly higher, especially for SOST by 250 folds during 3D culture. The results validate that the bone tissue model: (1) consists of 3D cellular network of primary human osteocytes, (2) mitigates the osteoblastic differentiation and proliferation of primary osteoblast-like cells encountered in 2D culture, and (3) therefore reproduces ex vivo the phenotype of human 3D-networked osteocytes. The 3D tissue construction approach is expected to provide a clinically relevant and high-throughput means for evaluating drugs and treatments that target bone diseases with in vitro convenience.
Long-term effects of seven cleaning methods on light transmittance, surface roughness, and flexural modulus of polyurethane retainer material.

ABSTRACT Objectives: To evaluate the long-term effects of seven different cleaning methods on light transmittance, surface roughness, and flexural modulus of a polyurethane retainer material. Materials and Methods: Polyurethane retainer specimens (Vivera®, Align Technology Inc) (70 specimens, n = 10 per method, 50.8 mm × 12.7 mm × 1.0 mm) were exposed to seven cleaning methods twice a week for 6 months. Before treatment and after 6 months, light transmittance, surface roughness, and flexural modulus of the specimens were quantified. Qualitative assessment of randomly selected specimens from each solution was performed at baseline and after 6 months using a scanning electron microscope. Statistical analyses were performed at the .05 significance level. Results: Of the three test variables, light transmittance through the specimens was the only one that changed significantly from baseline to 6 months for all cleaning solutions, with all of them causing a decrease. However, except for 0.6% sodium hypochlorit...
Persistently Exciting Trajectories for Estimation

The model-based manipulator control methods achieve complete decoupling and linearization with the assumption that the dynamic model is exactly known. This assumption has been satisfied recently and both symbolic and numerical algorithms to estimate the dynamics parameters have been proposed. In deriving these algorithms the lack of sensing the full torque/force vector at each joint leads to the unidentifiability of some of the dynamics parameters. Moreover, the maximum number of parameters that may be estimated depends on the trajectory used for estimation and the kinematic structure of the manipulator. In this paper, we address the problem of generating persistently exciting trajectories for parameter estimation. To achieve our goal, we propose an algorithm that categorizes the dynamics parameters of a manipulator into three classes: uniquely identifiable, identifiable in linear combinations only and unidentifiable. Since the proposed algorithm categorizes the parameters only on the basis of the kinematic configuration of the manipulator, it allows one to determine if a chosen trajectory (for estimation) is persistently exciting. This knowledge also helps in making the estimation procedure more robust.
The Homeless: Degrees of Unmet Physical Need

Human material need, as we have stated several times previously, consists of two central elements: physical need and the need for work itself. Poverty or economic hardship is a condition wherein economic resources in general are insufficient to meet physical need. Since need is a normative concept that reflects the values of the persons who use it and homelessness is a special type of unmet physical need, it is virtually impossible to achieve universal agreement as to the proper definition of homelessness.
Instructional Interventions in Mathematics for Students with Learning Disabilities

Publisher Summary This chapter describes the results of recent intervention research aimed at improving the performance for students with learning disabilities in mathematics. Memory and strategic deficits can differentially affect mathematics performance, causing some students to experience difficulty in conceptualizing mathematical operations, representing and automatically recalling math facts, conceptualizing and learning algorithms as well as mathematical formulae, or solving mathematical word problems. Every day, mathematics emphasizes concept acquisition and innovative problem solving over computation and procedures. Problems are more in-depth and are taken from either the student's everyday world or information from other curriculum areas, such as geography or life science. Self-reflection sessions were designed to prompt recognition of the student's need to be planful and to use an efficient strategy when completing math problems. Teachers encouraged students to determine how they completed their worksheets, discuss their ideas, consider how their methods worked, and to be self-reflective. The acquisition condition students received four lessons that provided instruction, modeling, and feedback on use of the strategy. The low-dose acquisition plus transfer condition students received training on transferring the skill to related problems for the third and fourth lessons.
Physiological Transition from Fetal to Neonatal Life in Pregnancy

More than 3 billion years after the formation of the earth, vertebrate life first originated in the sea. Jawless eel-like vertebrates and placoderms (primitive fish, now extinct) evolved initially, and100millionyears later in theDevonianperiodof thePaleozoic era, cartilaginous fish (the shark families) and boney fishes first appeared in the sea. By the end of the 40 million year Devonian period, boney fishes similar in many ways to the lungfish of today first crawled onto land. These evolved into the crossopterygian fishes, which had some capacity to breath air and use their fins to move across the remaining one third of the world not previously inhabited by vertebrates—dry land (1, 2). Instead of surviving on the paltry amounts of oxygen dissolved in the sea, air containedmore than 20%oxygen. The prospects for improved energy utilization were boundless. Full air breathing was slow to evolve; in all, more than 100 million years passed between the first land-visitation boney fishes and the first fully air breathing mammals, the reptiles. Reproduction on land is a remarkable adaptation. Progeny born to non-mammalian aquatic species still extract oxygen from water. In land mammals that retain their fetuses in utero until the moment of birth, conversion of respiration for non-aquatic life must occur in a matter of minutes. Fetuses receiving their oxygen supply by placental diffusion from the maternal circulation change their entire mode of cardiovascular circulation, expand their lungs, and become air-breathing neonates. The process is as flawless as it is spectacular, and the mechanisms enabling this transformation remain incompletely understood. Some of the physiological events, however, can be described. This information is useful in understanding not only fetal survival during gestation, but also in understanding mechanisms of disease later in life, e.g., cor pulmonale and pulmonary hypertension during hypoxemia in adults. These events are outlined in brief detail in this chapter. Much of this work is taken from several chapters of a textbook written by the author and a colleague (3). Considerations of lung regeneration in disease are derived in large part from the Proceedings of the American Thoracic Society: Lund Conference VI on Lung Growth and Regeneration in Human Disease (4).
Controlling Fine-Grain Sharing in Natural Language with a Virtual Assistant

This paper proposes a novel approach to let consumers share data from their existing web accounts and devices easily, securely, and with fine granularity of control. Our proposal is to have our personal virtual assistant be responsible for sharing our digital assets. The owner can specify fine-grain access control in natural language; the virtual assistant executes access requests on behalf of the requesters and returns the results, if the requests conform to the owner's access control policies. Specifically, we allow a virtual assistant to share any ThingTalk command--an event-driven task composed of skills drawn from Thingpedia, a crowdsourced repository with over 200 functions currently. Access control in natural language is translated into TACL, a formal language we introduce to let users express for whom, what, when, where, and how ThingTalk commands can be executed. TACL policies are in turn translated into SMT (Satisfiability Modulo Theories) formulas and enforced using a provably correct algorithm. Our Distributed ThingTalk Protocol lets users access their own and others' data through their own virtual assistant, while enabling sharing without disclosing information to a third party. The proposed ideas have been incorporated and released in the open-source Almond virtual assistant. 18 of the 20 users in a study say that they like the concept proposed, and 14 like the prototype. We show that users are more willing to share their data given the ability to impose TACL constraints, that 90% of enforceable use cases suggested by 60 users are supported by TACL, and that static and dynamic conformance of policies can be enforced efficiently.
Proceedings of the 2005 ACM workshop on Research in knowledge representation for autonomous systems

Welcome to the "Research in Knowledge Representation for Autonomous Systems" Workshop. This is the second in what is expected to be a long series of workshops focusing on leveraging different knowledge representation techniques to benefit autonomous systems.This workshop is predicated on the observation that a large body of work exists in various knowledge representation and ontology areas, yet relatively little has been applied to the area of world modeling in autonomous systems. The field of autonomous systems has reached a level of maturity such that it could greatly benefit from the work that has been ongoing in these areas. World modeling in autonomous systems can also serve as a prime problem domain in which to apply theoretical and practical knowledge representation, ontological, and data fusion techniques.For the purpose of this workshop, we are treating knowledge representation in a very all-encompassing manner to include the representation of parametric knowledge, spatial, temporal and iconic knowledge (including images and maps), symbolic knowledge (including ontologies), a priori and in situ knowledge, risk knowledge, value judgments, task knowledge, system knowledge, etc.The objective of this workshop is to bring together colleagues in the autonomous systems, knowledge representations, ontology, and data fusion communities to find ways of leveraging existing knowledge technologies to benefit autonomous systems. This workshop will be unique in that is will be driven by the needs of the robotics community.This half-day workshop will feature presentations from Bjorn Gottfried on collision avoidance using quantitative spatial relations, Mike Foedisch on a combined sensory processing/knowledge-based approach as applied to road detection for autonomous vehicles, Michael Cebulla on ontologies and fuzzy description logics to assess behavior in autonomous systems, Craig Schlenoff on the development of a robot ontology for Urban Search and Rescue application, and Stephen Balakirsky on efforts to encode self awareness in a simulation architecture called MOAST.Please be aware that the next in the series of Knowledge Representation for Autonomous Systems workshop will be proposed to be held as part of ICRA in Orlando, Florida USA in May 2006.
Economic Benefit of "Modern" Nonemergency Medical Transportation That Utilizes Digital Transportation Networks.

Objectives. To determine the economic benefit of “modern” nonemergency medical transportation (NEMT) that utilizes digital transportation networks compared with traditional NEMT in the United State...
The Ethical Knower: Rethinking Our Pedagogy in the Age of Trump:

This article seeks to begin a conversation about pedagogical responses to the current moment. Specifically, I argue that two of adult learning’s most venerated practices—transformative learning and...
Innovations for integrated care: The Association of Medicine and Psychiatry recognizes new models

This editorial looks at the current state of the integration of medicine and psychiatry in clinical practice. We note selected recent triumphs and barriers to implementing integrated care, highlighting some gaps and priorities for future innovations. In contrast to the relatively more orderly culture of health services research, where some notable innovations in integrated care were funded, tested, and published, the health care marketplace can be a difficult place to identify and track the innovations that could shape health care reform. Recognizing the need to find, describe, and disseminate the most innovative models in integrated care, the Association of Medicine and Psychiatry (AMP) launched in 2016 the Innovative Models for Integrated Care Awards. Although many service innovations solve local problems, some can also act as models to be adopted in multiple settings. The projects that win AMP Innovative Models for Integrated Care Awards are selected for their innovativeness, their clinical importance, their generalizability, and their effectiveness. We briefly describe here the four models that earned these awards at the 2017 AMP Annual Meeting. They demonstrate innovations across a range of settings and populations: inpatient general hospital patients under constant observation in New York, severely mentally ill patients in a federally qualified health center in San Francisco, outpatients in a VA women's health center in Chicago, and HIV patients in an academic infectious disease clinic in Charleston, south Carolina. These model descriptions aim to encourage the implementation of innovative models that advance the integration of medicine and psychiatry.
A Dipole-Moment-Based Formulation for Numerically Efficient Analysis of Scattering From Truncated Periodic Structures

Numerical analysis of truncated periodic structures by utilizing conventional method of moments (MoM) technique is challenging because the number of unknowns involved is often very large; hence, the computational cost is high. This letter presents a novel approach, based on the dipole moment (DM) method, for analyzing electromagnetic scattering from truncated periodic structures whose geometrical and/or material properties vary locally from those of a strictly doubly infinite periodic structure. The main advantage of using the DM method is that it provides convenient closed-form expressions for the scattered fields, facilitating the matrix computation in the context of the MoM much more efficiently than when the conventional Rao–Wilton–Glisson (RWG) type of basis functions are used for the same computation. Numerical results obtained by using the proposed approach are compared with those derived from a commercial MoM software package, and good agreement is found. The time advantage is clearly evident from this comparison.
Effects of the Affordable Care Act on Health Insurance Coverage Among Middle-Aged Adults.

Access to insurance coverage is challenging for middle-aged adults with higher perceived insurance needs (e.g., declining health status) and higher barriers to coverage (e.g., unstable employment a...
Developing a framework for stormwater management: leveraging ancillary benefits from urban greenspace

Managing stormwater and wastewater has been a priority for cities for millennia, but has become increasingly complicated as urban areas grow and develop. Since the mid-1800s, cites often relied on an integrated system of underground pipes, pumps, and other built infrastructure (termed gray infrastructure) to convey stormwater away from developed areas. Unfortunately, this gray infrastructure is aging and often exceeds its designed capacity. In an effort to alleviate issues related to excess stormwater, many urban areas across the United States are interested in using green infrastructure as a stopgap or supplement to inadequate gray infrastructure. Green infrastructure and other greenspace promote interception and/or infiltration of stormwater by using the natural hydrologic properties of soil and vegetation. Furthermore, there are numerous ancillary benefits, in addition to stormwater benefits, that make the use of greenspace desirable. Collectively, these ecosystem services can benefit multiple aspects of a community by providing benefits in a targeted manner. In this paper, we present a framework for balancing stormwater management against ancillary benefits of urban greenspace. The framework is structured around the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment ecosystem service categories: provisioning, cultural, regulatory, and supporting services. The purpose is to help communities better manage their systems by 1) allowing stakeholders to prioritize and address their needs and concerns within a community, and 2) maximize the ecosystem service benefits received from urban greenspace.
Detection of the MYD88 L265P mutation in Waldenström’s macroglobulinemia using a highly sensitive allele-specific PCR assay.

8042 Background: Waldenstrom’s macroglobulinemia (WM) is a B-cell malignancy characterized by bone marrow (BM) infiltration with lymphoplasmacytic cells and production of an IgM paraprotein. By who...
A mouse model of placenta accreta spectrum

Abstract Introduction Placenta Accreta Spectrum (PAS) disorder is one of the leading causes of maternal morbidity and mortality due to uncontrollable hemorrhage. The greatest risk factor for development of PAS is prior uterine surgery, frequently cesarean delivery. Despite considerable clinical knowledge, animal models of PAS are lacking. To address this, we used two surgical approaches to create uterine scarring in peripartum and non-pregnant CD-1 mice. Il10−/− mice, with a pro-inflammatory phenotype were also studied. Methods In peripartum mice, a hysterotomy was performed to simulate a cesarean section. The second approach utilized endometrial curettage in non-pregnant mice. Sham-operated mice served as control. Following recovery, females were mated. On gestation day 16, pregnant females were euthanized, and the uterus was excised. Tissue was fixed, sectioned, and stained with H&E or cytokeratin immunohistochemistry. The cytokeratin-positive area extending beyond the trophoblast giant cells was measured by quantitative image analysis. Disruption of the circular (inner myometrium) smooth muscle was scored semi-quantitatively. Results In surgically scarred mice, trophoblast invasion was deeper relative to control mice, regardless of surgical method. The myometrium in experimental mice showed significant disruption compared to sham controls. Results from CD-1 and Il10−/− mice were similar, with the latter showing more severe pathology. Discussion While further refinement of surgical method is required, our data indicate that surgical uterine scarring in mice represents a promising model of PAS.
Bradley Manning: Prisoner of Conscience

Today in international legal terms, the United States government itself should now be viewed as constituting an ongoing criminal conspiracy under international criminal law in violation of the Nuremberg Charter, the Nuremberg Judgment, and the Nuremberg Principles, because of its formulation and undertaking of serial wars of aggression, crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, and war crimes that are legally akin to those perpetrated by the former Nazi regime in Germany. As a consequence, American citizens and soldiers such as Bradley Manning possess the basic right under international law and United States domestic law, including the U.S. Constitution, to engage in acts of civil resistance designed to prevent, impede, thwart, or terminate ongoing criminal activities perpetrated by U.S. government officials in their conduct of foreign affairs policies and military operations purported to relate to defense and counter-terrorism.
Estimator variables can matter even for high-confidence lineup identifications made under pristine conditions.

OBJECTIVE According to the pristine conditions hypothesis, high-confidence identifications will be "remarkably accurate" when identification procedures (i.e., system variables, e.g., fair filler selection, double-blind administration, unbiased lineup instructions) are optimal, even if estimator variables (e.g., weapon presence, lighting, distance) are suboptimal (Wixted & Wells, 2017, p. 10). This has led some to conclude that estimator variables are not of much importance under those conditions. HYPOTHESIS We hypothesized that when multiple estimator variables are deficient, even high-confidence identifications will be less accurate than they would be when multiple estimator variables are optimal. METHOD With a sample of 2,191 college students (Mage = 20.14, 73% women), we conducted a strong test of this hypothesis by comparing a situation in which estimator variables were manipulated to produce either very good or very poor memory performance. RESULTS High-confidence suspect identifications were made significantly less frequently under poor viewing conditions than under good viewing conditions, and these differences are substantial if one assumes low base rates of guilt. CONCLUSIONS Estimator variables can be important for evaluating even high-confidence suspect identifications and establish some important boundary conditions for the pristine conditions hypothesis. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
Historical Tools of Anthropometric Facial Assessment: A Systematic Raw Data Analysis on the Applicability of the Neoclassical Canons and Golden Ratio.

BACKGROUND The fundamental tenets of facial aesthetic surgery education have not changed in centuries. Research is beginning to demonstrate that the Neoclassical Canons and the Golden Ratio, Phi, have limited use in populations other than those of White European extraction. OBJECTIVES The purpose of this study is to analyze the comparable raw data in the literature to determine 1) if there is interethnic variability in Neoclassical Canon and Phi measurements and 2) if the measurements in these representative samples differ from the "ideal." METHODS A PubMed/Scopus search was performed. Manuscripts with raw data and individuals aged ≥16 were included. Measurements were extracted and used to calculate the Neoclassical Canons and Phi. One-way ANOVA tests were run to compare mean measurements across six ethnic groups. p<0.05. RESULTS Twenty-seven articles were included. Every continent was represented except Antarctica and Australia. Men were less commonly studied than women. Subject ages ranged from 16 to 56. Averaged Canons 2, 6-8 measurements had significant interethnic differences in males whereas Canons 5-8 had significant differences across ethnicities in females. For men, there was significant interethnic variability in measurements of Phi 2, 5, 8, 10 and 17. For women, Phi 1, 2, 5, 8, 10 and 17 varied across ethnicities. No ethnic/gender group showed consistent approximation of the "ideal" for both the Neoclassical Canons and Phi. CONCLUSIONS Today, the utility of the Neoclassical Canons and Phi is limited. It is incumbent on our field to systematically study and define the anthropometric measures that define the "ideal."
Basic Probability Theory

Except for the fact that the domain is a σ—field, the following is a repeat of our earlier definition. (Again, variation will be found across texts.)
Fixation of Soil Phosphorus

Publisher Summary In many soils, fixed phosphorus probably embraces most of the phosphorus available for plant absorption. During the processes of soil formation, phosphorus enters the soil solution and is subsequently converted into fixed phosphorus or absorbed by plants and eventually deposited on the soil surface as plant or animal residues. Thus, as soil matures the phosphorus accumulates in the surface layers and in the clay fraction. The relative ability of soils, clay minerals, and hydrous oxides to fix phosphorus has been determined by a variety of methods, such as by measuring the decrease in the concentration of aqueous phosphate solutions equilibrated with soils and by measuring the amounts of phosphorus extractable from soils equilibrated with phosphatic compounds as compared with untreated soils. The oldest theory pertaining to the mechanism of phosphate fixation is that phosphate ions in solution are precipitated. In the case of biological fixation of phosphorus, soil phosphorus adsorbed by plants is converted into the organic compounds of phosphorus. When the plant products are returned to the soil, they provide a source of energy for the soil microflora, which in turn synthesizes the organic compounds of phosphorus.
Overview of animal models of schizophrenia.

Animal models of schizophrenia may increase the understanding of the neurological abnormalities associated with the disorder and aid in the development of rational pharmacological treatments. Rather than attempting to model the entire syndrome of schizophrenia, a more biologically oriented approach to animal models has been to focus on specific symptoms of schizophrenia that are more objectively measured in the clinical population and more directly translatable to animals (e.g., observables or endophenotypes). This overview focuses on behavioral measures that have been investigated in rodent models of schizophrenia with varying degrees of predictive, etiological, and construct validity. Because of the severity of cognitive deficits in schizophrenia and their resistance to current treatments, there is a need to develop animal models specific to the cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia. In light of this need, this overview discusses rodent models of cognition with relevance to the core cognitive deficits observed in schizophrenia. Keywords: animal model; schizophrenia; cognition; validity; antipsychotic; rodent
The uses and potential of biometrics in health care: Are consumers and providers ready for it?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide an understanding of the utilization, attitudes, and concerns of health care consumers and providers about biometrics.Design/methodology/approach – Data were analyzed from a survey of 324 adult subjects, including 167 “health care consumers” and 157 “healthcare providers.”Findings – Health care providers were found more accepting of biometric technologies than consumers, a finding that seems to follow from more familiarity and experience with those technologies. Feelings about the potential uses and limitations of biometrics were found to be more differentiated among providers than consumers. Yet, concerns about privacy and the need for information limits were identifiable as important feelings among providers and consumers alike. Finally, demographic characteristics only weakly to modestly distinguished concerns about privacy and confidentiality among health care consumers and providers.Research limitations/implications – The findings reported here suggest...
Automatic detection and segmentation of axillary lymph nodes

Lymph node detection and measurement is a difficult and important part of cancer treatment. In this paper we present a robust and effective learning-based method for the automatic detection of solid lymph nodes from Computed Tomography data. The contributions of the paper are the following. First, it presents a learning based approach to lymph node detection based on Marginal Space Learning. Second, it presents an efficient MRF-based segmentation method for solid lymph nodes. Third, it presents two new sets of features, one set self-aligning to the local gradients and another set based on the segmentation result. An extensive evaluation on 101 volumes containing 362 lymph nodes shows that this method obtains a 82.3% detection rate at 1 false positive per volume, with an average running time of 5-20 seconds per volume.
Hydrogenosome, a Cytoplasmic Organelle of the Anaerobic Flagellate Tritrichomonas foetus, and Its Role in Pyruvate Metabolism

Abstract Homogenates of Tritrichomonas foetus have pyruvate synthase and hydrogenase, but lack pyruvate-formate lyase and formate dehydrogenase. Pyruvate synthase was measured by three anaerobic methods: (a) CO2-pyruvate exchange, which was inhibited by CoA and by several electron acceptors; (b) pyruvate oxidation as measured by the CoA-dependent reduction of methyl viologen, FMN, FAD, riboflavin or clostridial ferredoxin; (c) pyruvate synthesis from acetyl-CoA, CO2, and H2 in the presence of methyl viologen. Hydrogenase as measured by the reduction of methyl viologen, FMN, FAD, riboflavin, or ferredoxin by H2 showed no cofactor requirements. Both enzymes are O2-sensitive and require thiol compounds. As shown by differential sedimentation and isopycnic centrifugation, these activities are in a subcellular particle identified previously as the site of malate and α-glycerophosphate dehydrogenases. Al-though resembling a microbody, this particle lacks catalase and NADH oxidase and is not a peroxisome. It plays a central role in pyruvate degradation, generating electrons leading to molecular hydrogen, by reactions similar to those occurring in clostridia. The term "hydrogenosome" is suggested to designate this organelle.
Recombinant outer membrane protein: a potential candidate for Th17 based vaccine against Klebsiella pneumoniae. (VAC7P.967)

Bacterial pneumonia is a leading cause of mortality and one major pathogen associated with this disease is Klebsiella pneumoniae. Recently, the emergence of antibiotic resistant strains demands an effective vaccine against these bacteria. We have previously shown that intranasal immunization with heat-killed K. pneumoniae or crude outer membrane proteins isolated from K. pneumoniae induced antigen specific Th17 responses and these Th17 cells conferred serotype independent protection against various clinical isolates of K. pneumoniae including the recently described multidrug resistant New Delhi Metallo-beta-lactamase-1 strain. To develop a clinically relevant Klebsiella vaccine, we cloned single OMP genes by PCR from K. pneumoniae and successfully expressed one recombinant outer membrane protein, OmpX, in the BL21 E. coli strain. The purified recombinant OmpX was recognized by Klebsiella immune serum by direct ELISA and also recognized by Th17 cells from Klebsiella immunized mice. In vivo, intranasal immunization of the purified OmpX induced robust mucosal Th17 responses and left IL-17 producing gamma-delta T cells unaffected. Ongoing work will determine whether these Th17 responses will result in serotype independent protection against live bacterial challenge including the multidrug resistant strains.
Localization of phosphorylation sites with respect to the functional domains of the mouse L cell glucocorticoid receptor.

Digestion of the rat liver glucocorticoid receptor with chymotrypsin results in the generation of a 42-kDa fragment which contains the steroid-binding and DNA-binding domains and the antigenic site for the BuGR anti-glucocorticoid receptor monoclonal antibody, while digestion with trypsin generates a 15-kDa receptor fragment containing only the DNA-binding function and the BuGR epitope (Eisen, L.P., Reichman, M.E., Thompson, E.B., Gametchu, B., Harrison, R. W., and Eisen, H.J. (1985) J. Biol. Chem. 260, 11805-11810). In this paper, glucocorticoid receptor of mouse L cells that were grown in the presence of [32P]orthophosphate was digested with trypsin or chymotrypsin (either before or after immune purification with BuGR antibody) and analyzed by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, autoradiography, and Western blotting. The receptor is endogenously phosphorylated only on serine residues. Chymotrypsin digestion results in a 32P-labeled 42-kDa receptor fragment which contains steroid-binding, DNA-binding, and BuGR-reactive sites. Trypsin digestion generates a 27-kDa steroid-bound fragment (meroreceptor) which is not labeled with 32P and a 32P-labeled 15-kDa fragment which contains both the DNA-binding domain and the BuGR epitope. We have calculated that there are 4 times as many phosphate residues in the intact receptor than in the 42-kDa chymotrypsin fragment. From examination of 32P-labeled receptor fragments, we have deduced that one phosphate is located between amino acids 398 and 447, a region containing the BuGR epitope and about one-third of the DNA-binding domain, and the remaining three phosphates appear to be clustered just to the amino-terminal side of the BuGR epitope in a region defined by amino acids 313 to 369. Treatment of intact 32P-labeled receptor in cytosol with alkaline phosphatase removes these three phosphates, but it does not remove the phosphate from the DNA-binding-BuGR-reactive fragment and it does not affect the ability of the transformed receptor to bind to DNA-cellulose.