cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Image/patient registration from (partial) projection data by the Fourier phase matching method

A technique for 2D or 3D image/patient registration, PFPM (projection based Fourier phase matching method), is proposed. This technique provides image/patient registration directly from sequential tomographic projection data. The method can also deal with image files by generating 2D Radon transforms slice by slice. The registration in projection space is done by calculating a Fourier invariant (FI) descriptor for each one-dimensional projection datum, and then registering the FI descriptor by the Fourier phase matching (FPM) method. The algorithm has been tested on both synthetic and experimental data. When dealing with translated, rotated and uniformly scaled 2D image registration, the performance of the PFPM method is comparable to that of the IFPM (image based Fourier phase matching) method in robustness, efficiency, insensitivity to the offset between images, and registration time. The advantages of the former are that subpixel resolution is feasible, and it is more insensitive to image noise due to the averaging effect of the projection acquisition. Furthermore, the PFPM method offers the ability to generalize to 3D image/patient registration and to register partial projection data. By applying patient registration directly from tomographic projection data, image reconstruction is not needed in the therapy set-up verification, thus reducing computational time and artefacts. In addition, real time registration is feasible. Registration from partial projection data meets the geometry and dose requirements in many application cases and makes dynamic set-up verification possible in tomotherapy.
Sound-induced vortex interactions in a zero-temperature two-dimensional superfluid

We present a systematic derivation of the effective action for interacting vortices in a non-relativistic two-dimensional superfluid described by the Gross-Pitaevskii equation by integrating out longitudinal fluctuations of the order parameter. There are no logarithmically divergent coefficients in the equations of motion. Our analysis is valid in a dilute limit of vortices where the intervortex spacing is large compared to the core size, and where number fluctuations of atoms in vortex cores are suppressed. We analyze sound-induced corrections to the dynamics of a vortex-antivortex pair and show that there is no instability to annihilation, suggesting that sound-mediated interactions are not strong enough to ruin an inverse energy cascade in two-dimensional zero-temperature superfluid turbulence.
Self-Determination: The Nigeria/Biafra Case

In the history of postcolonial Africa, no country has suffered a more tragic experience than Nigeria. After almost twenty years of gradual constitutional evolution by relatively orderly processes of conferences and negotiations, the structure of constitutional agreement collapsed; the army was broken into regional groups; citizens of Eastern Region origin fled much of the rest of the country during a series of massacres which produced a migration of hundreds of thousands of persons; the central government lost its effective authority over the Eastern Region; and when orderly processes of negotiation were suspended, the Eastern Region sought its own security and survival by declaring its independence, shortly after which the central government sought to reestablish its authority in the area by military action. The resulting war, which lasted two and one-half years, produced over a million casualties from military action, disease, and starvation.
A Joinpoint Coverage Measurement Tool for Evaluating the Effectiveness of Test Inputs for AspectJ Programs

Testing aspect-oriented programs is challenging in part because of the interactions between the aspects and the base classes with which the aspects are woven. Coverage metrics, such as joinpoint coverage, address faults resulting from the changes in base class control flow that may be introduced by the woven advices. Definitions of joinpoint coverage in the literature typically require counting the execution of aspects at each joinpoint. We present a tool for measuring joinpoint coverage from two perspectives: per advice, which measures the execution of the advice at each joinpoint it is woven into, and per class, which measures the execution of all the advices in each joinpoint in the class. This gives a more detailed measurement of joinpoint coverage and helps in identifying what more needs to be tested in both the base class and the aspect. The tool is based on AspectJ and Java bytecode, and thus, does not require any source code. We demonstrate the use of our tool to measure the joinpoint coverage of test inputs generated by Xie and Zhao's Aspectra framework.
Surface (catalytic) reactions on upper atmospheric aerosols

Highly reactive minor species and aerosol layers are present together at times in certain regions of the upper atmosphere. It is suggested that this interplay may lead to surface reactions that could affect the local photochemical balance. A simple model of the surface recombination of atomic oxygen at the mesopause, incorporating rough estimates of aerosol concentrations, is used to estimate the importance of this effect. Surface recombination does appear to be significant in comparison with gas phase recombination for atomic oxygen; however, major uncertainties remain in the model.
Observational Learning of Attitudes.

Summary An A-B, B-C, A-C mediation paradigm was used to investigate observational learning of attitudes in a laboratory situation. The A-B stage involved the learning of dissyllables as responses to instances of three concepts. In the B-C stage, Ss observed a model apparently receiving different levels of shock in association with the dissyllables. In the A-C stage, Ss pulled a lever after the presentation of each of the previously learned concept instances and an equal number of new instances of the same concepts. During a second presentation, Ss gave evaluative ratings of the concept instances. The latency, speed, and amplitude of the lever pull response were not affected by the experimental manipulations. With respect to ratings, instances of concepts associated with shock to the model were significantly more disliked than instances of concepts not paired with shock to the model.
The Outsider Wife: Integrating a Foreigner into a Bengali Household

This article analyzes the experience of an American woman in her role as a Bengali wife in India. The article explores the integration of the two roles, “outsider” and “wife.” The relationship between the foreign wife and the extended household of which she is a part is viewed as a system within which all participants collaborate in the construction and the maintenance of the role of the “outsider wife.”
The Identification and Evaluation of Racial Gerrymandering

Despite the elimination of differences in the population sizes of election districts, gerrymandering of district boundaries remains an obstacle to full equality for all social and political groups. Legal challenges to district lines on grounds of racial-vote dilution frequently fail because plaintiffs cannot show evidence of discriminatory intent on the part of the redistricting authorities and because no accepted measure of gerrymandering has been developed. A disputed redistricting may be one of hundreds of feasible, constitutional ways to redraw district lines. Charges of racial bias were evaluated using a statistical framework. Congressional districts in Manhattan were favorable to blacks, whereas districts in New Orleans and Mississippi were unfairly drawn to dilute black voting power. Courts, academics, and legal experts can use this evaluation method to determine the fairness of a proposed reapportionment or to judge a plan's equity for social or political interest groups.
Speaker awareness of non-local ejective phonotactics in Cochabamba Quechua

This paper presents evidence that speakers of Cochabamba Quechua are aware of non-local restrictions on ejectives in their language. A repetition task was run to investigate the synchronic status of two restrictions in Quechua: the co-occurrence restriction on ejectives, which prohibits roots with two ejectives (e.g., *[k’ap’i]), and the ordering restriction on ejectives, which prohibits roots with an initial plain stop and a medial ejective (e.g., *[kap’i]). Medial ejectives are generally attested in the language, but only occur in roots with an initial fricative or sonorant (e.g., [mat’i] ‘forehead’). Native Quechua speakers were asked to repeat a mixture of real and nonsense words with medial ejectives, where the nonsense words were either phonotactically legal but unattested roots or phonotactically illegal roots that violated either the co-occurrence restriction or the ordering restriction. Medial ejectives are accurately repeated significantly more often in nonce roots where the medial ejective is phonotactically legal than when it is illegal. There is variation among subjects as to whether accuracy differs greatly between the co-occurrence and ordering category targets. Additionally, there is variation in how roots that violate the ordering restriction are repaired: both de-ejectivization, e.g., target [kap’i] produced as [kapi], and movement of ejection, e.g., target [kap’i] produced as [k’api] are common. This variation in repair strategy has implications for the formal analysis of the restriction, which must predict all well-attested repairs.
Evaluating Geoscience Students' Spatial Thinking Skills in a Multi-Institutional Classroom Study

Spatial thinking skills are critical to success in many subdisciplines of the geosciences. We tested students’ spatial skills in geoscience courses at three institutions (a public research university, a comprehensive university, and a liberal arts college, all in the midwest) over a two-year period. We administered standard psychometric tests of spatial skills to students in introductory geology, mineralogy, sedimentology and stratigraphy, hydrogeology, structural geology, and tectonics courses. In addition, in some courses we administered a related spatial skills test with geoscience content. In both introductory and upper level undergraduate geology courses, students’ skills vary enormously as measured by several spatial thinking instruments. Additionally, students’ spatial skills generally improve only slightly during one academic term, in both introductory and advanced geoscience classes. More unexpectedly, while there was a tendency for high-performing students to be adept at multiple spatial skills, many individual students showed strong performance on tests of one spatial skill (e.g., rotation) but not on others (e.g., penetrative thinking). This result supports the contention that spatial problem solving requires a suite of spatial skills, and no single test is a good predictor of ‘‘spatial thinking.’’ 2014 National Association of Geoscience Teachers. [DOI: 10.5408/13-027.1]
Brome Mosaic Virus RNA Replication Proteins 1a and 2a Colocalize and 1a Independently Localizes on the Yeast Endoplasmic Reticulum

The universal membrane association of positive-strand RNA virus RNA replication complexes is implicated in their function, but the intracellular membranes used vary among viruses. Brome mosaic virus (BMV) encodes two mutually interacting RNA replication proteins: 1a, which contains RNA capping and helicase-like domains, and the polymerase-like 2a protein. In cells from the natural plant hosts of BMV, 1a and 2a colocalize on the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). 1a and 2a also direct BMV RNA replication and subgenomic mRNA synthesis in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, but whether the distribution of 1a, 2a, and active replication complexes in yeast duplicates that in plant cells has not been determined. For yeast expressing 1a and 2a and replicating BMV genomic RNA3, we used double-label confocal immunofluorescence to define the localization of 1a, 2a, and viral RNA and to explore the determinants of replication complex targeting. As in plant cells, 1a and 2a colocalized on and were retained on the yeast ER, with no detectable accumulation in the Golgi apparatus. 1a and 2a were distributed over most of the ER surface, with strongest accumulation on the perinuclear ER. In vivo labeling with bromo-UTP showed that the sites of 1a and 2a accumulation were the sites of nascent viral RNA synthesis. In situ hybridization showed that completed viral RNA products accumulated predominantly in the immediate vicinity of replication complexes but that some, possibly more mature cells also accumulated substantial viral RNA in the surrounding cytoplasm distal to replication complexes. Additionally, we find that 1a localizes to the ER when expressed in the absence of other viral factors. These results show that BMV RNA replication in yeast duplicates the normal localization of replication complexes, reveal the intracellular distribution of RNA replication products, and show that 1a is at least partly responsible for the ER localization and retention of the RNA replication complex.
A 1- to 4-year follow-up review of treatment of sciatica using chemonucleolysis or laminectomy

✓ To help clarify the comparative effects of chemonucleolysis and discectomy, the author studied 178 consecutive patients with sciatica who did not respond to conservative treatment. None had previously undergone laminectomy or chemonucleolysis or had spinal stenosis. All received postmyelography computerized tomography (CT) and, if the radiological interpretation was that of an extruded migrated disc, a laminectomy was performed; otherwise, the patient was given a choice of the two procedures. Of the 178 patients, 106 underwent chemonucleolysis and 72 laminectomy. Workers' compensation was being paid to 21.6% of the chemonucleolysis patients and 20.8% of the laminectomy patients. Postoperatively, substantial improvement was noted in 82.7% of the chemonucleolysis patients and 92.5% of the laminectomy patients at 6 weeks and in 92.8% of the chemonucleolysis patients and 89.7% of the laminectomy patients at 6 months. The majority of patients in both groups had improved neurological signs. Follow-up question...
Functions of Stretch Activation in Heart Muscle

Stretch activation is an intrinsic length-sensing mechanism that allows muscle to function with an autonomous regulation that reduces reliance on extrinsic regulatory systems. This autonomous regulation is most dramatic in asynchronous insect flight muscle and gives rise to wing beat frequencies
Strategies towards a better understanding of antibiotic action: Folate pathway inhibition in Haemophilus influenzae as an example

Two-dimensional electrophoresis was applied to the global analysis of the cellular response of Haemophilus influenzae to sulfamethoxazole and trimethoprim, both inhibitors of tetrahydrofolate synthesis. Deregulation of the synthesis rate of 118 proteins, involved in different metabolic pathways, was observed. The regulation of the genes involved in the metabolism of the amino acids methionine, threonine, serine, glycine, and aspartate was investigated in detail by analysis of protein synthesis and Northern hybridization. The results suggested that the synthesis of methionine biosynthetic enzymes in H. influenzae is regulated in a similar fashion as in Escherichia coli. A good correlation between the results obtained by Northern hybridization and quantification of protein synthesis was observed. In contrast to trimethoprim, sulfamethoxazole triggered the increased synthesis of the heat shock proteins DnaK, GroEL, and GroES.
High-speed SiGe HBT track-and-hold

A wideband track-and-hold (T/H) circuit is developed based on the IBM 7HP SiGe technology with f/sub t/ /spl sim/ 120 GHz. A switched-emitter-follower design incorporates features necessary to realize multi-GHz bandwidth and an improved design trade among bandwidth, linearity, and hold-mode feedthrough. Simulations incorporating layout parasitics show the core T/H circuit has a bandwidth of /spl sim/ 4 GHz and an extremely wide sampling aperture bandwidth well beyond 10 GHz. The simulations indicate the T/H has roughly 9-10 - bit performance for linearity and feedthrough level at a signal frequency of 4 GHz. Initial experimental results for the track mode response are also presented. The T/H shows promise for high-speed analog-to-digital conversion and subsampling applications.
Towards the quantitative modeling of pedogenesis — a review

Abstract The historical development of our pedogenetic model is reviewed, and trends or directions toward the future are discussed. Pedogenetic models are characterized with respect to relative degree of computation, complexity, and level of organization. These three characteristics are used as a framework for classification. Early qualitative models have well served the purpose of soil survey to describe the distribution of soils in landscapes. Further development of qualitative models will contribute to the understanding of soil genesis in areas where soil surveys are not completed. In the developed countries, however, the scientific questions have changed dramatically. Greater interest lies in understanding the physical and chemical processes of soil formation acting within relatively short time frames and assessing the interactions between natural processes and environmental change or anthropogenic impacts. Quantification of pedogenetic processes is a life-line to other environmental disciplines, and a mechanistic understanding would, in an ideal situation, describe and predict the behavior of a system for a limited number of years under changing environmental conditions. A proposed approach to mathematical simulation of the dynamic pedogenetic processes is to integrate soil physical, chemical, and other ecological system models into a quantitative pedogenetic model. Models may be developed as research tools in data-intensive studies at the pedon or horizon level, or for the purpose of simulating a soil system at the catena or soil region level. Specific kinds of pedogenetic models have specific implications with respect to the availability and spatial variability of the data needed for development and testing.
Role of Connexin 32 (Cx32) and Hearing Loss In Charcot-Marie-Tooth Syndrome (CMTS)

Objective: Evaluate the role of Cx32 and hearing loss associated with Charcot-Marie-Tooth syndrome using a Cx32 knockout (KO) mice model. Study Design: Scientific Research. Methods: Cx32 knock-out mice (KO) were compared to CBA normal hearing controls and Cx32 wild type (WT) mice to evaluate inner ear development using epifluorescent microscopy and auditory performance using auditory brainstem response (ABR) testing at approximately 3, 6, and 12 months of age. Distribution of Cx32 was compared relative to Cx26 and Cx30 using immunofluorescent staining and epifluorescent microscopy. Results: Cx32KO mice showed greater hearing loss compared to CBA controls by 4.5-6 months of age (thresholds: 51.75 +/10.3 dB verse 40 +/5 dB, respectively, p=0.0001). The difference became more pronounced with aging (13 month CBA control threshold: 41.7 +/2.9 dB verses 10-11 month Cx32KO threshold: 63.6 +/14.2 dB, p<0.0001). Distribution of Cx32 differed from Cx26 and Cx30. Cx26 and Cx30 were prominent in the spiral lamina, supporter cell region, and lateral connective tissue in the CBA, Cx32WT, and Cx32KO mice. In contrast, Cx32 showed minimal presence and solely in the supporter cell region in both the CBA and Cx32WT mice while absent in the Cx32KO mice. Conclusion: While Cx32KO mice showed normal cochlear architectural morphology, Cx32 deletion results in earlier hearing loss. This may suggest a cochlear endolymphatic dysregulation due to its location in the supporter cell region as the cause of hearing loss in CMTS, not auditory neuropathy, as Cx32 was not present in the spiral ganglion. Cx32KO mice may serve to study hearing loss in CMTS.
An energy conservation method for wireless sensor networks employing a blue noise spatial sampling technique

In this work, we present a method for the selection of a subset of nodes in a wireless sensor network whose application is to reconstruct the image of a (spatially) bandlimited physical value (e.g., temperature). The selection method creates a sampling pattern based on blue noise masking and guarantees a near minimal number of activated sensors for a given signal-to-noise ratio. The selection method is further enhanced to guarantee that the sensor nodes with the least residual energy are the primary candidates for deselection, while enabling a tradeoff between sensor selection optimality and balanced load distribution. Simulation results show the effectiveness of these selection methods in improving signal-to-noise ratio and reducing the necessary number of active sensors compared with simpler selection approaches.
Repair of prosthetic mitral valve paravalvular leak using an off-pump transapical approach

Patients who present with significant paravalvular regurgitation after mitral valve replacement remain a difficult patient population and high-risk surgical candidates. We present 3 cases of transapical closure of mitral valve paravalvular leak (PVL) after mitral valve replacement using Amplatzer closure devices (AGA Medical Corp, Plymouth, MN). All 3 patients experienced decreased regurgitation at the site of the closure as well as symptomatic improvement in their heart failure.
Indications for EBRT for Medullary and Anaplastic Thyroid Carcinoma

The purpose of this chapter is to present indications for using external beam radiation therapy (EBRT) in patients with Medullary and Anaplastic thyroid cancer. Radiotherapy dose schedules and techniques are in the subject of other chapters in this section of this book. MEDULLARY THYROID CANCER
Ultrastructural studies of bovine retinal microvascular basement membranes with the cationic dye ruthenium red

Our recent observation that the basement membranes of brain microvessels do not stain with the cationic dye ruthenium red has raised the question of whether the basement membranes of this and other vascular beds functioning as barriers between blood and neural tissues are deficient in the polyanionic macromolecules, such as glycosaminoglycans, which are responsible for the ruthenium red staining of other vascular basement membranes. We therefore attempted to produce staining in the only barrier-type microvascular basement membrane known to contain heparan sulfate. Bovine retinas were fixed by immersion in aldehyde fixatives containing ruthenium red, buffered with either 10 mM or 100 mM sodium cacodylate. We found discrete, electron-dense deposits of ruthenium red in vascular basement membranes, quite similar to those seen in vascular basement membranes of nonneural tissues after exposure to ruthenium red. These deposits were more distinct and more frequent in tissue exposed to ruthenium red-aldehyde solutions buffered with 10 mM cacodylate. They were not seen if ruthenium red was omitted from the fixative. The results demonstrate that anionic macromolecules in basement membranes of barrier-type microvessels can be stained with cationic dyes, and suggest that the failure of brain microvessels to stain with ruthenium red may be the result of a relative or total lack of polyanion in this basement membrane, or of other unique properties.
The Mechanism of Fluid Absorption at Ecdysis in the American Lobster Homarus Americanus

SUMMARY 1. The mechanism of fluid absorption at ecdysis was investigated in the stenohaline marine decapod, Homarus americanus. 2. Sea-water uptake began approximately 1 h before ecdysis, increased rapidly during ecdysis, and was completed 2 h after ecdysis. 3. Increased drinking rates were measured during and just after ecdysis. The quantity of water ingested was equal to the total amount of water absorbed during moult, indicating that fluid entered the haemolymph exclusively via the lining of the digestive tract. 4. It was estimated that 91 % of the ingested sea water appeared in the haemolymph by 2-5 h postecdysis. 5. The midgut appeared to be the principal part of the digestive tract involved in the absorption of fluid into the haemolymph. X-radiography of lobsters that ingested a suspension of barium sulphate during ecdysis demonstrated that accumulation and concentration of this compound occurred within the midgut during the 2-5 h of haemolymph expansion following ecdysis. Elevated net water fluxes across perfused midgut were observed in late proecdysis and 0-5 h after ecdysis.
Connecting RDA and RDF: Linked Data for a Wide World of Connected Possibilities

Libraries have struggled with connecting a plethora of content and the metadata stored in catalogs to patrons. Adding more value to catalogs, more tools for reference librarians, and enriched patron search, linked data is a means to connect more people with more relevant information. With the recent transition to the Resource Description and Access (RDA) cataloging standard within libraries, linking data in library databases has become a much easier project to tackle, largely because of another standard called Resource Description Framework (RDF). Both focus on resource description and both are components of linked data within the library. Tying them together is the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) conceptual framework. Acknowledging that linked data components are most likely new to many librarians, this article seeks to explain what linked data is, how RDA and RDF are connected by FRBR, and how knowledge maps may improve information access.
Preventing Jailhouse Suicides

Psychiatric consultants to city and county jails are confronted with the challenge of preventing jailhouse suicides, a problem of national scope. Suicide prevention programs in jails must emphasize screening and identification, psychological support, observation, disarmament, clarity and consistency, and diagnosis, treatment, and/or hospitalization. Exactly how these principles are formulated and implemented will depend on the unique circumstances of each jail. Finally information is presented as evidence that a program that embodies these principles can effectively reduce the number of suicides in a jail where the average daily census has increased from fewer than 400 to greater than 900 in the past six years.
Property Rules and Liability Rules

This paper presents a summary, including a discussion of the jurisprudential implications, of the literature spawned by the seminal article by Calabresi and Melamed on Property and Liability Rules.
Attachment in middle childhood: predictors, correlates, and implications for adaptation

Middle childhood is a relative lacuna in behavioral attachment research. We examined antecedents, correlates, and implications of parent-child attachment at age 10 in a longitudinal study of community families from a Midwestern US state (N = 102, mothers, fathers, and children). Dimensions of security, avoidance, ambivalence, and disorganization of children's attachment to each parent were observed in lengthy naturalistic interactions and assessed using Iowa Attachment Behavioral Coding (IABC). IABC scores were meaningfully associated with history of parental responsiveness (7-80 months) and with earlier and concurrent attachment security, assessed with other established instruments (parent- and observer-rated Attachment Q-Set at 25 months, children's reports at age 8 and 10). Structural equation modeling analyses revealed that the overall history of responsive care was meaningfully associated with Security, Avoidance, and Disorganization at age 10, in both mother-child and father-child relationships, and that most recent care uniquely predicted Security. IABC scores were also meaningfully related to a broad range of measures of child adaptation at ages 10-12. Cumulative history of children's security from infancy to middle childhood, integrating measures across relationships and methodologies, also predicted child adaptation at ages 10-12.
High-Performance and Endurable Cache Management for Flash-Based Read Caching

Flash-based SSDs are widely used as storage caches, which can benefit from both the higher performance of SSDs and lower price of disks. Unfortunately, issues of reliability and lifetime limit the use of flash-based cache. One way to solve this problem is to use the flash memory as read cache and use other devices like nonvolatile memory for write buffering. In this paper, we propose a new flash-aware read cache design, which leverages out-of-place update property of SSDs to improve both cache hit ratio and lifetime. Due to the out-of-place update property, when a cache entry is evicted from the flash cache, the eviction only removes the metadata, while the real data is still accessible and resides in the physical flash page until the whole flash block being erased. The main idea of our flash-aware cache is to reuse these evicted but still available data, when a request for the previously evicted data page arrives, instead of accessing underlying storage to fetch the data and rewriting it into fash cache, our design just needs to revive the evicted data. To evaluate the benefits of flash-aware cache design, we implemented the normal LRU, normal ARC, flash-aware LRU (FLRU), and flash-aware ARC (FARC) cache algorithms on the Disksim simulator with SSD extension. Our simulation results demonstrate that our flash-aware cache can improve the cache hit ratio by up to 28 percent, reduce the average response time by up to 40 percent with higher performance stability, and alleviate the lifetime limitation of flash cache by reducing the erase count by up to more than 70 percent. Besides of the flash-aware design, we also propose a new zero-migration garbage collection scheme to further extend the lifetime of flash cache. Our experiments show that the combination of our flash-aware cache design and the zero-migration garbage collection scheme reduces the erase count by up to nearly 90 percent.
Thalassiomycetes I. Principles of Delimitation of the Marine Mycota with the Description of a New Aquatically Adapted Deuteromycete Genus

(1959). Thalassiomycetes I. Principles of Delimitation of the Marine Mycota with the Description of a New Aquatically Adapted Deuteromycete Genus. Mycologia: Vol. 51, No. 6, pp. 871-876.
The Chemical Composition of Commercially Available Fluorine Compounds

A survey of the chemical composition of the commercially available fluorine compounds was made. Fifty-seven samples of fifteen different materials were received from sixteen different sources. The percentage purity of these compounds in general was of a high order. The principal fluorine compounds that are now used as insecticides are sodium fluoride, sodium fluosilicate, barium fluosilicate, sodium fluoaluminate, potassium fluoaluminate and “calcium fluosilicate compound.” A few years ago some of these compounds were unavailable. Others were variable in composition, and their high density and other physical properties made them ill-suited for spraying and especially for dusting. At the present time, however, pure fluorine compounds are available, and their physical properties have been improved by admixture of silica and in other ways so that they are quite satisfactory for spraying and dusting purposes.
Extra-Chromosomal DNA in Early Stages of Oogenesis in Acheta Domesticus

A large extra-chromosomal DNA body is found in gonial and oocyte nuclei of Acheta domesticus . Somatic cells within the ovary do not contain the DNA body which is limited to the nuclei of gametogenic cells. During early prophase of meiosis this body is spherically shaped and intensely Feulgen positive. Electron microscopy shows it to be composed of tightly packed fibrogranular material. The body is formed in the nuclei of premeiotic interphase cells where it first appears and a mass of dense chromatin material located within the nucleolus. In nuclei of early prophase cells the body is closely associated with the nuclear membrane. It increases in size, reaching a maximum in mid-pachytene nuclei. During late pachytene-early diplotene stage of meiosis the tight fibrillar material within the body loosens and takes on a less compact appearance. At the same time large fascicles of RNA-containing material accumulate within and around the DNA body. The amount of RNA material surrounding the body increases as the oocytes proceed into an arrested diplotene stage of development.
Study on tax and fee based on the model of foreign cooperation exploitation of oil-gas resources

In order for domestic oil-gas company to better participate in the international competition and further understand the issue of tax and fee on foreign oil-gas,through comparative study on the relevant document material,the paper summarizes the model of foreign oil-gas cooperation as production sharing,external franchise,external servicing and domestic-foreign joint venture and forecasts the developing trend of foreign tax and fee system of oil-gas as encouraging oil-gas cooperation,implementing the profit linked progressive tax system,setting tax rate according to the life cycle of oil-gas company,developing flexible and mutual complementary revenue system,uniting the standard of tax and fee of oil-gas.
Complications of sinusitis: what to watch for.

Sinus infection remains a common cause of orbital inflammatory disease. Prompt diagnosis, particularly of intracranial extension of infection, is essential. Surgical drainage is required in patients with abscess formation or in whom complications do not respond to medical treatment.
The melanoma‐linked “redhead” MC1R influences dopaminergic neuron survival

Objective Individuals with Parkinson disease are more likely to develop melanoma, and melanoma patients are reciprocally at higher risk of developing Parkinson disease. Melanoma is strongly tied to red hair/fair skin, a phenotype of loss-of-function polymorphisms in the MC1R (melanocortin 1 receptor) gene. Loss-of-function variants of MC1R have also been linked to increased risk of Parkinson disease. The present study is to investigate the role of MC1R in dopaminergic neurons in vivo. Methods Genetic and pharmacological approaches were employed to manipulate MC1R, and nigrostriatal dopaminergic integrity was determined by comprehensive behavioral, neurochemical, and neuropathological measures. Results MC1Re/e mice, which carry an inactivating mutation of MC1R and mimic the human redhead phenotype, have compromised nigrostriatal dopaminergic neuronal integrity, and they are more susceptible to dopaminergic neuron toxins 6-hydroxydopamine and 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP). Furthermore, a selective MC1R agonist protects against MPTP-induced dopaminergic neurotoxicity. Interpretation Our findings reveal a protective role of MC1R in the nigrostriatal dopaminergic system, and they provide a rationale for MC1R as a potential therapeutic target for Parkinson disease. Together with its established role in melanoma, MC1R may represent a common pathogenic pathway for melanoma and Parkinson disease. Ann Neurol 2017;81:395–406
Dual Role of Inorganic Polyphosphate (POLYP) in the Regulation of Mitochondria-Dependent Cell Death

Inorganic polyphosphate (polyP) is a ubiquitous biological polymer that is well-conserved throughout the evolution and various species. Isoenergetic with ATP, polyP is composed of multiple subunits of orthophosphate, linked together by phosphoanhydride bonds. PolyP plays divergent roles in mammalian cells. In mitochondria, polyP is involved in the induction of the calcium-activated mitochondrial permeability transition pore (mPTP), as well as in the stimulation of the calcium-induced cell death. Paradoxically, cells with reduced amounts of mitochondrial polyP showed higher levels of cell death in response to increased ROS. Here we show that decreased amount of polyP also decreases cells resistance to rotenone and heat-shock induced cytotoxicity. We also demonstrate that the presence of polyP in mammalian cells prevents the aggregation of the C-subunit of ATP synthase. These findings are in agreement with the recently proposed role of polyP as a molecular chaperone, involved in cell stress response. We hypothesize that polyP plays a dual role in the mitochondria-related cell death pathway: during the initial stress it protects mitochondria by preventing protein aggregation, while excessive stress leads to the mitochondrial calcium overload and, eventually, to the polyP-mediated activation of mPTP.
Article 44 [Regional Integration Organizations]

Article 44 extends to the “Regional integration organizations” (RIOs) the opportunity to become Party of the CRPD by the signature and the deposit of their acts of formal confirmation or accession. In virtue of the clause provided by Article 44, the CRPD is the first human rights treaty to be opened for signature by a RIO. Under Article 44, the notion of “Regional integration organizations” should be broadly interpreted as to cover all regional organizations having competence as regards the rights protected in the CRPD. Accordingly, this norm does not provide the participation of the EU exclusively, even if, at the date, the EU is the only RIO to have ratified the Convention. The EU was directly involved in the negotiation process and has become a Contracting Party, alongside the EU Member States having ratified it. From the point of view of the EU law, the participation of the Union in the CRPD represents an example of conclusion of a mixed agreement. The EU’s ratification of the CRPD sets a positive precedent in public international law. In this light, new developments in the protection of the rights of disabled people could derive from the accession of other RIOs to the CRPD.
Motivation for and use of social networking sites: Comparisons among college students with and without histories of non-suicidal self-injury

ABSTRACTObjective: This research examines potential differences in social network use and motivation for social network use by non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) status. Participants: 367 (73% women; Mage = 20.60) college students were recruited in November–December 2011. Methods: A random sample of 2,500 students was accessed through a university registrar to recruit students interested in an online survey assessing NSSI and various health-related behaviors. Results: Social network use and motivations for social networks did not differ by NSSI status. Conclusions: Results suggest that it is not patterns of use or motivation to use social networks that could lead to concern about online behavior (i.e., behavior increasing risk of future NSSI) among those with NSSI history. Rather, future preventive and intervention efforts should address the NSSI-related content that is available online, since this is unregulated, often explicit, and commonly includes “pro-NSSI” content that may be problematic and increase r...
Modulation of Inflammatory Response to Implanted Biomaterials Using Natural Compounds

Tissue engineering offers a promising strategy to restore injuries resulting from trauma, infection, tumor resection, or other diseases. In spite of significant progress, the field faces a significant bottleneck; the critical need to understand and exploit the interdependencies of tissue healing, angiogenesis, and inflammation. Inherently, the balance of these interacting processes is affected by a number of injury site conditions that represent a departure from physiological environment, including reduced pH, increased concentration of free radicals, hypoglycemia, and hypoxia. Efforts to harness the potential of immune response as a therapeutic strategy to promote tissue repair have led to identification of natural compounds with significant anti-inflammatory properties. This article provides a concise review of the body's inflammatory response to biomaterials and describes the role of oxygen as a physiological cue in this process. We proceed to highlight the potential of natural compounds to mediate inflammatory response and improve host-graft integration. Herein, we discuss the use of natural compounds to map signaling molecules and checkpoints that regulate the cross-linkage of immune response and skeletal repair.
Interactions between Politics and Natural Resource Organizations: How Do You Address Increasing Politicization while Maintaining Technical Expertise for Sustainable Resource Management?

Policymakers and scientists need to work together to create and implement science-based decisions and actions that sustain and protect our fisheries and aquatic resources. It appears, however, that...
Auditory Overview of Web Pages for Screen Reader Users

Blind users browse the web using screen readers. Screen readers read the content on a web page sequentially via synthesized speech. The linear nature of this process makes it difficult to obtain an overview of the web page, which creates navigation challenges. To alleviate this problem, we have developed ScreenTrack, a browser extension that summarizes a web page's accessibility features into a short, dynamically generated soundtrack. Users can quickly gain an overview of the presence of web elements useful for navigation on a web page. Here we describe ScreenTrack and discuss future research plans.
Proximate and fatty acid composition of 13 important freshwater fish species in central Europe

We aimed to investigate proximate and fatty acid composition of important freshwater fish species in the Czech Republic. Sampled fish include seven species from intensive farming: African catfish, rainbow trout, Wels catfish, Nile tilapia, brook trout, northern whitefish, and pikeperch; eight species from semi-intensive culture systems: common carp, northern pike, pikeperch, grass carp, European perch, tench, silver carp, and catfish; and three species from extensive culture systems: rainbow trout, tench, and common carp. The fat content and fatty acid composition were highly influenced by the culture systems. Simultaneously, we observed a significant dependence of fatty acid composition on the fat content. The content of saturated fatty acids was below 34% in all analyzed fish. Northern pike, pikeperch, and European perch contained with over 50% the highest proportion of polyunsaturated fatty acids. Intensively cultured fish reached the highest content of eicosapentaenoic and docosahexaenoic fatty acid. Nutritional quality was determined by atherogenic and thrombogenic indexes which ranged from 0.27 to 0.63 and 0.20 to 0.61 and by ratios n-3/n-6 (0.54–3.45) and polyunsaturated/saturated fatty acids (0.67–2.01). Results demonstrated that the flesh of all studied species are of high nutritional quality.
Bringing parents together: an innovative approach for parental involvement in an immersion school in the Basque Autonomous Community

In this article, I analyse the programme and pedagogy of Karmelo Ikastola, a Basque immersion school that promotes parental involvement and language use within the family. The Karmelo case is notew...
Eye detection and face recognition using evolutionary computation

This chapter introduces evolutionary computation (EC) and genetic algorithms (GAs) for face recognition tasks. We first address eye detection as a visual routine and show how to implement it using a hybrid approach integrating learning and evolution. The goals of the novel architecture for eye detection are twofold: (i) derivation of the saliency attention map using consensus between navigation routines encoded as finite state automata (FSA) evolved using GAs and (ii) selection of optimal features using GAs and induction of DT (decision trees) for possibly classifying as eyes the most salient locations identified earlier. Experimental results, using 30 face images from the FERET data base show the feasibility of our hybrid approach. We then introduce the Optimal Projection Axes (OPA) method for face recognition. OPA works by searching through all the rotations defined over whitened Principal Component Analysis (PCA) subspaces. Whitening, which does not preserve norms, plays a dual role: (i) counteracts the fact that the Mean Square Error (MSE) principle underlying PCA preferentially weights low frequencies, and (ii) increases the reachable space of solutions to include non-orthogonal bases. As the search space is too large for any systematic search, stochastic and directed (‘greedy’) search is undertaken using again evolution in the form of Genetic Algorithms (GAs). Evolution is driven by a fitness function defined in terms of performance accuracy and class separation (‘scatter index’). Experiments carried out using 1,107 facial images corresponding to 369 subjects (with 169 subjects having duplicated images) from the FERET data base show that OPA yields improved performance over the eigenface and MDF (Most Discriminant Features) methods.
Two-dimensional, long-axis echocardiographic ratios for assessment of left atrial and ventricular size in dogs.

Abstract Introduction Left ventricular (LV) and left atrial (LA) enlargement affect management and outcome of dogs with cardiac disease. Short-axis, two-dimensional echocardiographic (2DE) images, indexed to the aorta (Ao), are frequently used to identify cardiomegaly. Long-axis images offer complementary views of the left heart. Animals Eighty healthy dogs and 25 dogs with MMVD. Methods Healthy dogs were prospectively recruited to determine reference intervals (Clinical Laboratory Standards Institute methodology) for long-axis ratios. Measurement variability and repeatability were quantified by intraclass correlation coefficient and coefficient of variation. Mean long-axis ratios from dogs with MMVD were compared with healthy dogs (unpaired t-test). In addition, the proportion of MMVD dogs exceeding the 97.5 percentile by LV/Ao and a conventional, allometric method were compared (McNemar’s test). Results Two-dimensional echocardiographic long-axis reference intervals were as follows: left ventricular to aortic dimension (LV/Ao) 1.8–2.5; left atrial to aortic dimension (LA/Ao) 1.8–2.4, and left atrial to left ventricular dimension (LA/LV) 0.9–1.1. Intraobserver and interobserver measurement agreement was good-to-excellent (intraclass correlation coefficients ≥0.84), and day-to-day variability was low (coefficient of variations Conclusions Simple 2DE long-axis ratios of LV/Ao, LA/Ao, and LA/LV are repeatable and demonstrate clinical utility for identifying LV and LA enlargement in dogs with MMVD.
Co-use of Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems and Combustible Cigarettes, and Their Association with Internalizing Pathology and Vulnerabilities.

Nicotine use and psychological distress exert negative bidirectional effects on one another, and are impacted by shared vulnerabilities. Little work has examined the extent to which these relations differ between adult electronic nicotine delivery system (ENDs) users with varied combustible cigarette use histories. The current study examined differences in internalizing symptoms and vulnerabilities between adult dual and single ENDs users with and without a history of combustible cigarette use. Single ENDs users without combustible use histories reported significantly greater stress and anxiety symptoms than single ENDs users with combustible use histories. Single ENDs users without combustible use histories reported greater anxiety and difficulty regulating their emotions than dual-users. Dual- and single users with prior combustible use histories did not differ in internalizing pathology or vulnerability presentations. This suggests that pathology and vulnerability presentation among nicotine users are influenced by both current and past nicotine use history.