cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Mathematical Modeling in Neuroendocrinology

Mathematical models are commonly used in neuroscience, both as tools for integrating data and as devices for designing new experiments that test model predictions. The wide range of relevant spatial and temporal scales in the neuroendocrine system makes neuroendocrinology a branch of neuroscience with great potential for modeling. This article provides an overview of concepts that are useful for understanding mathematical models of the neuroendocrine system, as well as design principles that have been illuminated through the use of mathematical models. These principles are found over and over again in cellular dynamics, and serve as building blocks for understanding some of the complex temporal dynamics that are exhibited throughout the neuroendocrine system. © 2015 American Physiological Society. Compr Physiol 5:911-927, 2015.
Differential Transit Peptide Recognition during Preprotein Binding and Translocation into Flowering Plant Plastids

Despite the availability of thousands of transit peptide (TP) primary sequences, the structural and/or physicochemical properties that determine TP recognition by components of the chloroplast translocon are not well understood. By combining a series of in vitro and in vivo experiments, we reveal that TP recognition is determined by sequence-independent interactions and vectorial-specific recognition domains. Using both native and reversed TPs for two well-studied precursors, small subunit of ribulose-1,5-bis-phosphate carboxylase/oxygenase, and ferredoxin, we exposed these two modes of recognition. Toc34 receptor (34-kD subunit of the translocon of the outer envelope) recognition in vitro, preprotein binding in organellar, precursor binding in vivo, and the recognition of TPs by the major stromal molecular motor Hsp70 are specific for the physicochemical properties of the TP. However, translocation in organellar and in vivo demonstrates strong specificity to recognition domain organization. This organization specificity correlates with the N-terminal placement of a strong Hsp70 recognition element. These results are discussed in light of how individual translocon components sequentially interact with the precursor during binding and translocation and helps explain the apparent lack of sequence conservation in chloroplast TPs.
Foster mothers: are they unique?

Summasy.-117 foster mothers and 60 women who had children but were not foster mothers responded to Holland's Vocational Preference Inventory. Data were analyzed by age cohorts of under 41 and 41 yr, and over to determine whether foster mothers differed from non-foster mothers and if younger foster mothers differed from older ones in personality. Foster mothers scored significantly higher than non-foster mothers on the social scale and lower on the enterprising scale. The younger cohort of foster mothers differed from older ones by attaining higher scores on the realistic, social, enterprising and artistic scales. Such high scores reflect personality characteristics highly appropriate for substitute parents. These characteristics also suggest that younger foster mothers take a more assertive approach in this role which may be helpful in making necessary changes in the foster care system.
Liver transplantation in children with cystic fibrosis: a long-term longitudinal review of a single center’s experience

Abstract Background: Improved long-term survival in cystic fibrosis (CF) has led to an increased incidence of extrapulmonary complications of this disease. Of these, end-stage liver disease is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality with liver transplantation being the only effective therapy. Methods: Records of all CF pediatric liver transplant recipients were reviewed. Results: Twelve children with CF were the recipients of 16 allografts. The 1- and 5-year survival was 91.6% and 75%, respectively. There were 5 deaths at a mean interval of 6.8 ± 6.3 years. All of these deaths were related to pulmonary disease. Pulmonary function improved or remained stable in 8 of 9 patients tested. Despite an 83% incidence of positive sputum cultures, there was only one early mortality related to pulmonary sepsis in the setting of primary liver allograft nonfunction. Conclusions: Liver transplantation is acceptable treatment for children with CF and end-stage liver disease. Long-term survival is comparable to liver transplantation performed for other indications. Although posttransplant morbidity and mortality is related to lung disease, the authors speculate that as therapeutic improvements prolong the survival in CF, it is expected that longer survival after liver transplantation in this patient population may also be anticipated.
Locating the optic nerve in a retinal image using the fuzzy convergence of the blood vessels

We describe an automated method to locate the optic nerve in images of the ocular fundus. Our method uses a novel algorithm we call fuzzy convergence to determine the origination of the blood vessel network. We evaluate our method using 31 images of healthy retinas and 50 images of diseased retinas, containing such diverse symptoms as tortuous vessels, choroidal neovascularization, and hemorrhages that completely obscure the actual nerve. On this difficult data set, our method achieved 89% correct detection. We also compare our method against three simpler methods, demonstrating the performance improvement. All our images and data are freely available for other researchers to use in evaluating related methods.
Acute Renal Failure: A Practical Update

Acute renal failure (ARF) affects almost all medical specialties. Its occurrence seems to be increasing in hospitalized patients. A structured approach to the evaluation and management of ARF would facilitate rapid diagnosis and treatment in most patients. Appreciation for the multiple drugs that affect renal function is especially important. Exclusion of urinary outflow obstruction and administration of therapies that improve renal perfusion should be given top priority with respect to managing ARF. Dialytic intervention for ARF is required when otherwise irreversible pathophysiologic derangements of electrolyte homeostasis, fluid balance, and uremic solute control are imminent. This article provides a brief review and update on the clinical evaluation and management of ARF.
Handcarried Ultrasound Measurement of the Inferior Vena Cava for Assessment of Intravascular Volume Status in the Outpatient Hemodialysis Clinic

Accurate intravascular volume assessment is critical in the treatment of patients who receive chronic hemodialysis (HD) therapy. Clinically assessed dry weight is a poor surrogate of intravascular volume; however, ultrasound assessment of the inferior vena cava (IVC) is an effective tool for volume management. This study sought to determine the feasibility of using operators with limited ultrasound experience to assess IVC dimensions using hand-carried ultrasounds (HCU) in the outpatient clinical setting. The IVC was assessed in 89 consecutive patients at two outpatient clinics before and after HD. Intradialytic IVC was recorded during episodes of hypotension, chest pain, or cramping. High-quality IVC images were obtained in 79 of 89 patients. Despite that 89% of patients presented at or above dry weight, 39% of these patients were hypovolemic by HCU. Of the 75% of patients who left HD at or below goal weight, 10% were still hypervolemic by HCU standards. Hypovolemic patients had more episodes of chest pain and cramping (33 versus 14%, P = 0.06) and more episodes of hypotension (22 versus 3%, P = 0.02). The clinic with a higher prevalence of predialysis hypovolemia had significantly more intradialytic adverse events (58 versus 27%; P = 0.01). HCU measurement of the IVC is a feasible option for rapid assessment of intravascular volume status in an outpatient dialysis setting by operators with limited formal training in echocardiography. There is a poor relationship between dry weight goals and IVC collapsibility. Practice variation in the maintenance of volume status is correlated with significant differences in intradialysis adverse events.
Adjunctive intranasal oxytocin improves verbal memory in people with schizophrenia.

Abstract Introduction Cognitive deficits are a prominent, disabling component of schizophrenia and current pharmacological treatments have demonstrated limited efficacy in their amelioration. Oxytocin – though it has shown promise as a novel antipsychotic in multiple clinical trials – has as-yet poorly characterized effects on cognition, with some evidence indicating an amnestic profile. Method As part of a previously reported trial of chronic adjunctive oxytocin in schizophrenia, we measured its effect on two cognitive tests: the CVLT (California Verbal Learning Test) and the LNS (Letter Number Sequence). Tests were performed at baseline and after 3 weeks of treatment. Results We found no evidence for an amnestic effect and, in fact, significantly better performance with oxytocin on several subtests of the CVLT; namely total Recall trials 1–5 (p = 0.027), short delayed free recall (p = 0.032) and total recall discrimination (p = 0.020). In contrast we found no difference between placebo and oxytocin on LNS performance. Conclusions This is the first report we are aware of documenting a beneficial effect of oxytocin on cognition in schizophrenia. Though from a small sample (n = 15), these data both offset past concerns about oxytocin's amnestic effects, and may auger another potential benefit in addition to the already-demonstrated salutary effects on other components of the illness.
Homogamy over the net: Using internet advertisements to discover who interracially dates

There is relatively scant research on who interracially dates. The propensity to interracially date may be linked to symbolic racism. It is possible that political conservatives and the highly religious have symbolically racist notions inhibiting their willingness to interracially date. The primary purpose of this research is to discover who is willing to interracially date with an emphasis upon possible religious and political factors. A national sample of internet personal advertisements indicate that political conservatism is inversely related to willingness to date regardless of race or to date Blacks while religiosity, after proper controls, is inversely related to willingness to interracially date at all. There is evidence that political ideology and religiosity both effect interracial dating but in different ways.
Development of photostable proximity bioassays

We are developing a novel reporter for proximity assays based on enhanced lanthanide luminescence promoted by metal nanoparticles. This method should provide high on/off ratios using photostable labels.
Factors affecting aesthetic success and improvement in creativity: a case study of the musical genres of Mozart:

Factors predicting the aesthetic success and possible career-long improvement in quality of 610 musical compositions by W.A. Mozart were examined. Aesthetic success was measured by counts of available recordings and aesthetic significance ratings of each work. In Study 1, a work’s year of composition, duration, and genre were found to be significant predictors of aesthetic success. Concurrent productivity was not a stable predictor. In Study 2, the quality of works judged as masterpieces as well as the proportion of masterpiece-level music composed each year were found to increase over time, even during Mozart’s maturity. Improvement mainly occurred in large-scale compositions: sonata form instrumental works, operas, and choral works. The results suggest Mozart became more creative and perspicacious as his career progressed, even after the onset of compositional maturity.
Molecular phylogeny of the kelch-repeat superfamily reveals an expansion of BTB/kelch proteins in animals

The kelch motif is an ancient and evolutionarily-widespread sequence motif of 44–56 amino acids in length. It occurs as five to seven repeats that form a β-propeller tertiary structure. Over 28 kelch-repeat proteins have been sequenced and functionally characterised from diverse organisms spanning from viruses, plants and fungi to mammals and it is evident from expressed sequence tag, domain and genome databases that many additional hypothetical proteins contain kelch-repeats. In general, kelch-repeat β-propellers are involved in protein-protein interactions, however the modest sequence identity between kelch motifs, the diversity of domain architectures, and the partial information on this protein family in any single species, all present difficulties to developing a coherent view of the kelch-repeat domain and the kelch-repeat protein superfamily. To understand the complexity of this superfamily of proteins, we have analysed by bioinformatics the complement of kelch-repeat proteins encoded in the human genome and have made comparisons to the kelch-repeat proteins encoded in other sequenced genomes. We identified 71 kelch-repeat proteins encoded in the human genome, whereas 5 or 8 members were identified in yeasts and around 18 in C. elegans, D. melanogaster and A. gambiae. Multiple domain architectures were identified in each organism, including previously unrecognised forms. The vast majority of kelch-repeat domains are predicted to form six-bladed β-propellers. The most prevalent domain architecture in the metazoan animal genomes studied was the BTB/kelch domain organisation and we uncovered 3 subgroups of human BTB/kelch proteins. Sequence analysis of the kelch-repeat domains of the most robustly-related subgroups identified differences in β-propeller organisation that could provide direction for experimental study of protein-binding characteristics. The kelch-repeat superfamily constitutes a distinct and evolutionarily-widespread family of β-propeller domain-containing proteins. Expansion of the family during the evolution of multicellular animals is mainly accounted for by a major expansion of the BTB/kelch domain architecture. BTB/kelch proteins constitute 72 % of the kelch-repeat superfamily of H. sapiens and form three subgroups, one of which appears the most-conserved during evolution. Distinctions in propeller blade organisation between subgroups 1 and 2 were identified that could provide new direction for biochemical and functional studies of novel kelch-repeat proteins.
Statistical Methods for Test and Biomarker Evaluation Studies: A Clinical Chemistry Series

Studies related to the development and evaluation of biomarkers constitute a major portion of the published work in Clinical Chemistry . In 2011, for example, approximately 70% of original articles considered these topics. Owing to the importance of biomarker evaluation, knowledge of statistical approaches for assessing biomarker data has become increasingly necessary, and the surprisingly high citation rates for many articles on such statistical approaches [e.g., (1–3)] would appear to support this view. To comprehend the rapidly growing literature regarding the utility of new biomarkers, readers must develop familiarity with a growing list of statistical concepts, not only of how biomarker studies should be conducted and evaluated but also of the statistical methods used to evaluate the data from such studies. The latter can range from simple measures of diagnostic …
The socio-economic determinants of older people's health in Brazil: the importance of marital status and income

Studies in various countries have reported that older people who are married have better health than older widows. This paper reports a replication of these analyses with Brazilian data. The main objective was to explore the relationships between marital status, individual and household income, and the health of men and women using ordered logistic regression with self-assessed health as the dependent variable. The explanatory variables of interest were gender, marital status, and individual and family income. The data are from a survey of 7,920 non-institutionalised older people resident in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul in 1995. The survey used a structured, multi-disciplinary questionnaire, which collected information on demographic attributes, household composition, social relations, occupation, income and health status. The results show that widows were 20 per cent more likely to report better health than married women. The women without individual income had worse health than those who did, even after controlling for family income. For men, there were no significant differences in health by marital status. The main recommendation is that the health status and economic circumstances of married elderly women should be given more attention in both research and policy, certainly in Brazil and probably in other Latin American countries. Programmes of income support to the poorest households should include specific transfers to these elderly women. Brazil's Family Health and Older People's Health public programmes should place more emphasis on the health of elderly home-makers.
Complement-induced endothelial dysfunction in rabbits: mechanisms, recovery, and gender differences

Activation of complement and attenuation of endothelium-dependent relaxation occur in a number of pathophysiological conditions. The aim of this study was to investigate the mechanisms of human complement activation and loss of endothelium-dependent relaxation in rabbit tissue, the duration of this loss, and the effects of gender and serum concentration. In rabbit thoracic aortic rings precontracted with phenylephrine, human serum (HS) concentration dependently induced a loss of endothelium-dependent relaxation to the receptor-dependent vasodilator acetylcholine (ACh) and receptor-independent vasodilator calcium ionophore A23187. Serum-induced loss of ACh-dependent relaxation was decreased when rings were bathed in 1) HS depleted of factor B, C2, or C8, 2) heat-inactivated HS, or 3) HS with complement inhibitor sCR1 or sCR1[desLHR-A]. Superoxide dismutase had no effect on serum-induced loss of ACh-dependent relaxation. Serum-induced loss of ACh-dependent relaxation returned to control values after removal of HS. Serum-induced loss of ACh-dependent relaxation was greater in male than in female aortic rings. These results suggest that 1) complement activation directly attenuates endothelium-dependent relaxation via the classical and alternative pathways independent of superoxide anion formation, 2) this attenuation is concentration dependent, reversible, and dependent on formation of C5b-9, and 3) endothelial tissue from males is more susceptible than that from females to the acute effects of complement activation.
Financial challenges in higher education: community college leadership style and ranking

ABSTRACTA large number of new community college presidents will be hired in the next 5 years due to vacancies. New leaders must be prepared to lead their institutions through the challenges facing community colleges. Forty-one community college presidents in North Carolina participated in our research (70.7% response rate). We found that community college presidents’ perceptions of their management styles all fall within the “team management” orientation according to the Blake and Mouton Managerial Grid (Blake & Mouton, 1964). We then examined the financial management challenges faced by community college presidents and found empirical evidence regarding how community college presidents rank six of the most critical financial challenges identified in the literature. Presidents’ rankings of the six most critical financial challenges showed that the three most pressing concerns are maintaining student access during times of increasing educational costs, managing enrollment during times of decreasing state f...
Identifying Direct Notch Transcriptional Targets Using the GSI-Washout Assay

Genetic gain- and loss-of-function studies have traditionally been used to study transcriptional networks regulated by the Notch signaling pathway; however these techniques lack the ability to resolve primary and secondary transcriptional events. In contrast, the γ-secretase inhibitor (GSI) washout assay takes advantage of the reversibility of GSI, a pharmacological inhibitor of Notch signaling, along with the ability of cycloheximide to prevent secondary transcriptional effects to identify direct Notch pathway targets. Here we review this technique and the technical considerations for adapting this assay to a cell type of choice.
Recognizing and managing complications to prevent maternal deaths.

THE goal of all labor and delivery units and of birthing centers is a safe birth for both newborn and mother. Yet, an examination of current statistics raises significant questions about whether that aim is being achieved. A report released this year found that more than 2 women die of pregnancy-related causes every day in the United States, with the maternal mortality ratio doubling from 6.6 deaths per 100 000 births in 1987 to 13.3 deaths per 100 000 births in 2006.1 This means that the likelihood of a woman dying in childbirth in the United States is 5 times as great as in Greece, 4 times as great as in Germany, and 3 times as great as in Spain.1 Maternal mortality rates in the state of California alone have nearly tripled from 1996 to 2006,2 rising to nearly 17 deaths per 100 000 live births in 2009. As serious as these statistics are, the study warns that the number of maternal deaths in the United States may actually be much higher because of a lack of federal reporting requirements and incomplete data collection at state and local levels.
Influence of Coformer Stoichiometric Ratio on Pharmaceutical Cocrystal Dissolution: Three Cocrystals of Carbamazepine/4-Aminobenzoic Acid.

Cocrystallization is a technique to optimize solid forms that shows great potential to improve the solubility of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). In some systems, an API can form cocrystals in multiple stoichiometries with the same coformer. However, it remains unclear how coformer stoichiometry influences solubility. This paper investigates the pharmaceutical:coformer pair carbamazepine (CBZ)/p-aminobenzoic acid (PABA); both CBZ/PABA 1:1 and 2:1 cocrystals are known, and a novel 4:1 CBZ/PABA cocrystal is reported here. The 4:1 cocrystal is structurally characterized, and phase stability data suggest that it is a thermodynamically unstable form. Dissolution experiments show that there is no correlation between the cocrystal stoichiometry and dissolution rate in this system. On the other hand, with the relatively weak intermolecular interactions, metastable forms can be beneficial to dissolution rate, which suggests that more effort should be devoted to cocrystal production with kinetic growth met...
Insecticidal Dusts: Grain Protectants During High Temperature-Low Humidity Storage

Diatomaceous earth dusts impregnated with 4.5, 6.0, and 7.5 ppm AI pirimiphos-methyl and with 5.0, 7.5, and 10 ppm AI malathion were tested as protectants against insect attack on hard winter wheat (11.2% moisture) stored at ca. 33.4°C and 40% RH. The dusts were applied at a rate of 0.5 kg dust/metric ton of wheat. Sprays prepared from emulsifiable concentrates and the dust base alone were used for treatment checks. Dust formulations were more effective than sprays that contained equivalent doses and were much more effective were than diatomaceous earth alone. Pirimiphos-methyl was more effective than malathion.
Numerical Simulation of Aerodynamic Flow Including Induced Magnetic and Electric Fields

This paper presents a numerical method for solving the Navier-Stokes equations coupled to Maxwell’s equations describing ionized flows within strong electric and magnetic fields. This set is difficult to solve because the characteristic speeds vary from the speed of sound to the speed of light. An algorithm and boundary condition procedures are presented for solving these equations. A scaling of the Maxwell flux vectors is used to control the numerical dissipation inherent in the Modified-Steger-Warming method used to solve the governing equations. This novel scaling procedure enabled both stable and accurate solutions to be found for theses equations. This fully implicit numerical method is tested first on the Hartmann flow problem and then by simulating the flow within an MFD accelerator, generator and simplified scramjet engine.
D-Dimer Levels before HIV Seroconversion Remain Elevated Even after Viral Suppression and Are Associated with an Increased Risk of Non-AIDS Events

The mechanism underlying the excess risk of non-AIDS diseases among HIV infected people is unclear. HIV associated inflammation/hypercoagulability likely plays a role. While antiretroviral therapy (ART) may return this process to pre-HIV levels, this has not been directly demonstrated. We analyzed data/specimens on 249 HIV+ participants from the US Military HIV Natural History Study, a prospective, multicenter observational cohort of >5600 active duty military personnel and beneficiaries living with HIV. We used stored blood specimens to measure D-dimer and Interleukin-6 (IL-6) at three time points: pre-HIV seroconversion, ≥6 months post-HIV seroconversion but prior to ART initiation, and ≥6 months post-ART with documented HIV viral suppression on two successive evaluations. We evaluated the changes in biomarker levels between time points, and the association between these biomarker changes and future non-AIDS events. During a median follow-up of 3.7 years, there were 28 incident non-AIDS diseases. At ART initiation, the median CD4 count was 361cells/mm3; median duration of documented HIV infection 392 days; median time on ART was 354 days. Adjusted mean percent increase in D-dimer levels from pre-seroconversion to post-ART was 75.1% (95% confidence interval 24.6–148.0, p = 0.002). This increase in D-dimer was associated with a significant 22% increase risk of future non-AIDS events (p = 0.03). Changes in IL-6 levels across time points were small and not associated with future non-AIDS events. In conclusion, ART initiation and HIV viral suppression does not eliminate HIV associated elevation in D-dimer levels. This residual pathology is associated with an increased risk of future non-AIDS diseases.
An efficient modularized sample-based method to estimate the first-order Sobol' index

Abstract Sobol׳ index is a prominent methodology in global sensitivity analysis. This paper aims to directly estimate the Sobol׳ index based only on available input–output samples, even if the underlying model is unavailable. For this purpose, a new method to calculate the first-order Sobol׳ index is proposed. The innovation is that the conditional variance and mean in the formula of the first-order index are calculated at an unknown but existing location of model inputs, instead of an explicit user-defined location. The proposed method is modularized in two aspects: 1) index calculations for different model inputs are separate and use the same set of samples; and 2) model input sampling, model evaluation, and index calculation are separate. Due to this modularization, the proposed method is capable to compute the first-order index if only input–output samples are available but the underlying model is unavailable, and its computational cost is not proportional to the dimension of the model inputs. In addition, the proposed method can also estimate the first-order index with correlated model inputs. Considering that the first-order index is a desired metric to rank model inputs but current methods can only handle independent model inputs, the proposed method contributes to fill this gap.
Portrayals of African Americans in family medicine recruiting literature.

OBJECTIVE: To study portrayals of African Americans in family medicine recruiting literature on a quantitative basis. DESIGN: Survey. SETTING: Seventy six family medicine residency recruiting brochures, from programs responding to letters requesting "information and an application" for an unrelated study. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Numbers of African Americans portrayed as physicians, other health care professionals, patients, and other in recruiting brochures. RESULTS: Out 2433 individuals portrayed, African Americans accounted for 4.2% of physicians, 10.8% of other health care providers, and 17% of patients. Brochures from twenty three programs, containing photographs of 502 individuals portrayed no African Americans. CONCLUSIONS: About one third of a sample of family practice program brochures sent to resident applicants in 1992 contained no photographs of African Americans. Implications for the recruitment of minorities to family medicine programs are discussed.
Introduction to Multi-attribute Decision Making in Business Analytics

Multi-attribute decision making (MADM) is commonly used when we are comparing more than two courses of actions or alternatives based upon many selected criteria. In this chapter, we present methodologies to conduct MADM analysis. These methodologies include data envelopment analysis (DEA), simple additive weighting (SAW), analytical hierarchy process (AHP), and the technique of order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS). We describe each methodology, provide some strengths and limitations of each, discuss tips for sensitivity analysis, and provide two examples to illustrate each method. Additionally, we provide a carry-through example based upon social network analysis so that we can compare these methods.
Basic Institutions of the Soviet-type Economy: (I) Administering the State Production Establishment

To achieve the goals described in Chapter 1, the Soviet leaders designed a special kind of political and economic order. The central and most distinctive institution of this system is what I will call the state production establishment — a kind of supercorporation charged with running the economy, under unified management and for a centrally determined purpose. This corporation is closely integrated with two other structures — the state and the monopoly political party. The state production establishment is charged not simply with the job of production, but with production for goals set by the political leadership, and it is able to use all the instruments of state power, as well as economic instruments, to serve this purpose.
Resonant germanium-on-silicon photodetector with evanescent waveguide coupling

A 4.5-μm-radius resonant germanium-on-silicon photodetector is first demonstrated with evanescent coupling from bus waveguide, achieving 2.03nA dark current, 1.04A/W responsivity at 1530nm, 32.9GHz electro-optic bandwidth and enhancement on responsivities for longer wavelengths (>0.3A/W at 1630nm).
Ott1 (Rbm15) Is Required for the Large to Small Pre B-Cell Transition

Abstract The OTT1 gene is fused with the MAL gene in t(1;22) infant-associated acute megakaryocytic leukemia generating a chimeric protein, OTT1-MAL. OTT1 is a transcriptional activator/repressor related to the spen/SHARP/Mint family. Mint was shown to regulate follicular versus marginal zone B-cell development in the spleen; however, Ott1's physiologic role in B cell development is not fully understood. Recent data utilizing conditional deletion of a targeted Ott1 allele in mice delineated multiple regulatory roles for Ott1 in myeloid and lymphoid differentiation. Previous work by our laboratory showed that loss of Ott1 in addition to causing a myeloid and megakaryocytic expansion, results in a block in B development prior to the B220+CD43-IgM+ stage. We have characterized Ott1-deficient B-cell progenitors to identify stage- and process-specific requirements for Ott1 in pre B development. Ott1-deleted bone marrow and fetal liver could not generate pre B colonies in methylcellulose, however, we were able to establish IL-7-dependent pro B cell lines in vitro and observed no significant differences in proliferation, apoptosis or the ability to form v-Abl-transformed cell lines. Activated Ras or overexpression of Bcl2 failed to rescue pre B colony formation. In vivo, Ott1 null fetal liver pre B-cells expressed Ig heavy chain but failed to express the B-cell receptor (BCR) on their surface even though kappa rearrangement was detectable in vitro. In comparison to wildtype cells, B220+CD43-IgH+ Ott1 null cells were larger in size, had lower levels of IL-7R, but proliferated at higher levels and with an associated increase in apoptosis. Moreover, these cells had normal pre-BCR proximal signaling as judged by phospho-Blnk and phospho-Erk, but increased phosphorylation of S6 after IL7 and Ig stimulation. Ott1 null large pre B-cells had normal expression of Myc, but higher levels of expression of Cyclin D1. Taken together, these data indicate that loss of Ott1 results in enhanced proliferation and apoptosis in the pre B-cell compartment causing a developmental block at the large to small pre B-cell transition. Differentiation blocks at the pro and pre B stage through mutations in B cell regulatory genes, such as PAX5, BTK and BLNK, have been recently demonstrated in acute lymphocytic leukemias. It is plausible that mutations in OTT1, given its position in the tightly regulated process of B cell development, may likewise contribute to pre B-leukemogenesis.
X-ray diffraction and FTIR investigations of cellulose deposition during cotton fiber development:

The structure and organization of cellulose in developing cotton fibers harvested from two cultivars of Gossypium hirsutum L. (Texas Marker-1 and TX55) at varying developmental stages from 10 to 56...
The Tender Cut: Inside the Hidden World of Self-Injury, Patricia Adler, Peter Adler. New York University Press (2011)

Until recently, the topic of self-injury has been framed within the medical and psychological discourse. Patricia and Peter Adler, long considered experts in the sociology of deviance, offer a pion...
Scoring system for differentiating perforated and non-perforated pediatric appendicitis.

Objectives Appendicitis is the most common indication for emergency pediatric surgery and its most significant complication is perforation. Perforated appendicitis (PA) may be managed conservatively, whereas non-perforated appendicitis (NP) is managed surgically. Recent studies have shown that ultrasound (US) is effective for differentiating between PA and NP, and does not expose pediatric patients to ionizing radiation. The purpose of this study is to enhance the accuracy of differentiation with a novel scoring system based on clinical, laboratory, and US findings. Methods This retrospective study included 243 patients aged 2-17 years who presented between 2006 and 2013 with surgically proven appendicitis, of whom 60 had perforation. Clinical and laboratory data were collected and US images evaluated by a pediatric radiologist. To create the scoring system, point values were assigned to each parameter. A randomly selected training sample of 137 subjects was used to create a scoring prediction model. The model was tested on the remaining 106 patients. Results Scores of ≥6, ≥11, and ≥15 yielded specificities of 64, 91, and 99%, and sensitivities of 96, 61, and 29%, respectively (p Conclusions We have designed a scoring system incorporating clinical, laboratory, and sonographic findings which can differentiate PA from NP with high specificity.
Biological Explanations as Cursory Covering Law Explanations

There have been two main sorts of response to difficulties in applying the covering law model of explanation to biology. The first sort, which I call modified law accounts, more or less maintain the logical structure of covering law explanations, but weaken or alter the criteria of lawhood, so that inference from biological generalizations failing in one way or another to satisfy stricter criteria are still deemed explanatory. The second sort, which I call lawless accounts, involve a more wholesale rejection of the covering law model. According to these views, biological explanations are not inferences from natural laws at all. The new mechanist account is a promising example. I have been developing a third sort of account, which I call the cursory covering law model. According to this model, biological explanations can be accommodated within the covering law model without the weakening of the law constraint envisaged in the modified law accounts, provided it is permissible to employ approximating statements about laws as premises in the explanation. I argue that the cursory covering law model subsumes and explains the insights of both the modified law and lawless accounts. It can accommodate the apparent lack of strict biological laws while nevertheless explaining how less-strict biological generalizations can be the basis for cursory covering law explanations. It can also explain why biology significantly involves the discovery of biological mechanisms. Furthermore, since both the modified law and lawless accounts are consistent with the cursory covering law model, any difficulties in understanding biological explanation addressed by the newer approaches will be difficulties that can be addressed equally well within the covering law model.
Gender, metal and the media: women fans and the gendered experience of music

As a female metal fan, I was excited to read what dwells within the pages of Rosemary Lucy Hill’s book Gender, Metal and the Media: Women Fans and the Gendered Experience of Music. Metal music and ...
A Membraneless Direct Isopropanol Fuel Cell (DIPAFC)Operated with a Catalyst-Selective Principle

The concept of catalyst-selective membraneless direct liquid fuel cell (DLFC) has recently been proposed and has successfully been demonstrated with a number of alcohol or formate fuels. However, there is a critical anolyte-poisoning issue in the previous membraneless alkaline DLFC systems due to CO2 formation upon the oxidation of liquid fuels. This study demonstrates a new membraneless DLFC system with isopropanol as an anode fuel. The dehydrogenation of isopropanol generates mainly acetone rather than CO2 as a product, which eliminates the CO2-poisoning concerns. Operation of the membraneless direct isopropanol fuel cells (DIPAFCs) is principally based on the high catalytic selectivity of the cathode catalyst which exhibits high catalytic activity for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) but no activity for the isopropanol oxidation reaction (IPAOR). The highly selective cathode catalysts demonstrated in this study are spinel MnCo2O4 or MnNiCoO4 oxide nanoparticles coupled to a multiwall carbon nanotube...
Scheduling Parallelizable Jobs Online to Maximize Throughput

In this paper, we consider scheduling parallelizable jobs online to maximize the throughput or profit of the schedule. In particular, a set of n jobs arrive online and each job \(J_i\) arriving at time \(r_i\) has an associated function \(p_i(t)\) which is the profit obtained for finishing job \(J_i\) at time \(t+r_i\). Each job can have its own arbitrary non-increasing profit function. We consider the case where each job is a parallel job that can be represented as a directed acyclic graph (DAG). We give the first non-trivial results for the profit scheduling problem for DAG jobs and show O(1)-competitive algorithms using resource augmentation.
Neurobiology of Craving: Current Findings and New Directions

This review seeks to provide an update on the current literature on craving and its underlying neurobiology, as it pertains to alcohol and drug addiction. Studies on craving neurobiology suggest that the brain networks activated by conditioned cues in alcohol- and drug-dependent populations extend far beyond the traditional mesolimbic dopamine system and suggest that the early neurobiological theories of addiction, which heavily relied on dopamine release into the nucleus accumbens as the primary mechanism driving cue-induced craving and drug-seeking behavior, are incomplete. Ongoing studies will advance our understanding of the neurobiological underpinnings of addiction and drug craving by identifying novel brain regions associated with responses to conditioned cues that may be specific to humans, or at least primates, due to these brain areas’ involvement in higher cognitive processes. This review highlights recent advances and future directions in leveraging the neurobiology of craving as a translational phenotype for understanding addiction etiology and informing treatment development. The complexity of craving and its underlying neurocircuitry is evident and divergent methods of eliciting craving (i.e., cues, stress, and alcohol administration) may produce divergent findings.
“Learning to Be Myself”: Paths 2 the Future Career Development Curriculum for Young Women With Disabilities:

Young women with disabilities often experience limited career options and opportunities. This study provides an overview and preliminary results from the “Paths 2 the Future” (P2F) curriculum desig...
Analysis of Missing Data

In this chapter, I present older methods for handling missing data. I then turn to the major new approaches for handling missing data. In this chapter, I present methods that make the MAR assumption. Included in this introduction are the EM algorithm for covariance matrices, normal-model multiple imputation (MI), and what I will refer to as FIML (full information maximum likelihood) methods. Before getting to these methods, however, I talk about the goals of analysis.
A Conflict Model of Tribal Separatism and Oppression

Ethnic and other forms of tribal conflict have been extensively studied, but not within the economic model of conflict. The paper develops and empirically tests a model in which a dominant group chooses the division of jointly produced income, and a subservient group then allocates its resources between joint and separate production. Free trade among members of a society is argued to be an important determinant of the amount of intertribal cooperation.
The Potential for Convergence between Synthetic Biology and Bioelectronics

The fields of synthetic biology, which focuses on genetic and cellular substrates, and bioelectronics, which focuses on interfacing electronics with biology, may appear to have little in common on the surface. However, we contend that there is potential for convergence between the two fields based on shared and complementary design principles from each field. We provide examples where this convergence is beginning to take place in the engineered measurement and control of cell populations, individual cells, and membrane transport. We propose that as the convergence spreads, bioelectronics will enable real-time sensing and control of synthetic biological processes through integration with conventional electronics. The increased capabilities resulting from this convergence may broaden the scope and deepen the impact of both synthetic biology and bioelectronics.
Robust mixing

In this paper, we develop a new “robust mixing” framework for reasoning about adversarially modified Markov Chains (AMMC). Let ℙ be the transition matrix of an irreducible Markov Chain with stationary distribution π. An adversary announces a sequence of stochastic matrices $\{{\mathbb{A}}_t\}_{t > 0}$ satisfying $\pi{\mathbb{A}}_t = \pi$. An AMMC process involves an application of ℙ followed by ${\mathbb{A}}_t$ at time t. The robust mixing time of an irreducible Markov Chain ℙ is the supremum over all adversarial strategies of the mixing time of the corresponding AMMC process. Applications include estimating the mixing times for certain non-Markovian processes and for reversible liftings of Markov Chains. Non-Markovian card shuffling processes: The random-to-cyclic transposition process is a non-Markovian card shuffling process, which at time t, exchanges the card at position $t {\pmod n}$ with a random card. Mossel, Peres and Sinclair (2004) showed that the mixing time of this process lies between (0.0345+o(1))nlogn and Cnlogn + O(n) (with C ≈4 ×105). We reduce the constant C to 1 by showing that the random-to-top transposition chain (a Markov Chain) has robust mixing time ≤nlogn + O(n) when the adversarial strategies are limited to those which preserve the symmetry of the underlying Markov Chain. Reversible liftings: Chen, Lovasz and Pak showed that for a reversible ergodic Markov Chain ℙ, any reversible lifting ℚ of ℙ must satisfy ${\mathcal{T}}({\mathbb{P}}) \leq {\mathcal{T}}(\mathbb{Q})\log (1/\pi_*)$ where π* is the minimum stationary probability. Looking at a specific adversarial strategy allows us to show that ${\mathcal{T}}(\mathbb{Q}) \geq r({\mathbb{P}})$ where r(ℙ) is the relaxation time of ℙ. This helps identify cases where reversible liftings cannot improve the mixing time by more than a constant factor.
Report of the committee on chemistry of natural waters, 1935–36

The membership of this Committee was not changed during the past year. A publication has appeared during the year giving the analytical data assembled for and used as a basis for Bulletin 40 of the Department of Public Works, California. This new publication, printed as 40-A, is entitled “Detailed analyses showing qualities of irrigation-waters.” Analyses are given for both surface- and ground-waters.
Nondestructive estimation of remaining fatigue life without the loading history

A new nondestructive method to estimate the remaining fatigue life of a fatigue specimen with unknown knowledge of the loading history is presented. It requires only one short-time excitation test....
Extracting Syntactical Patterns from Databases

Many database columns contain string or numerical data that conforms to a pattern, such as phone numbers, dates, addresses, product identifiers, and employee ids. These patterns are useful in a number of data processing applications, including understanding what a specific field represents when field names are ambiguous, identifying outlier values, and finding similar fields across data sets.One way to express such patterns would be to learn regular expressions for each field in the database. Unfortunately, existing techniques on regular expression learning are slow, taking hundreds of seconds for columns of just a few thousand values. In contrast, we develop XSYSTEM, an efficient method to learn patterns over database columns in significantly less time.We show that these patterns can not only be built quickly, but are expressive enough to capture a number of key applications, including detecting outliers, measuring column similarity, and assigning semantic labels to columns (based on a library of regular expressions). We evaluate these applications with datasets that range from chemical databases (based on a collaboration with a pharmaceutical company), our university data warehouse, and open data from MassData.gov.
Gd(III)–Pt(IV) theranostic contrast agents for tandem MR imaging and chemotherapy

Pt(IV) prodrugs have emerged as versatile therapeutics for addressing issues regarding off-target toxicity and the chemoresistance of classic Pt(II) drugs such as cisplatin and carboplatin. There is significant potential for Pt(IV) complexes to be used as theranostic agents, yet there are currently no reported examples of Gd(III)–Pt(IV) agents for simultaneous MR imaging and chemotherapy. Here we report the synthesis, characterization, and in vitro efficacy of two Gd(III)–Pt(IV) agents, GP1 and GP2. Both agents are water soluble and stable under extracellularly relevant conditions but are reduced under intracellular conditions. Both are cytotoxic in multiple cancer cell lines, cell permeable, and significantly enhance the T1-weighted MR contrast of multiple cell lines. Thus, GP1 and GP2 are promising agents for tandem MR imaging and chemotherapy and provide a versatile platform through which future Gd(III)–Pt(IV) agents can be developed.
Using Transfer Learning and BPDFHE to Improve Ocular Image Recognition Accuracy

We used image enhancement algorithms along with transfer learning to fine-tune a deep convolutional neural network to perform ocular image recognition. To enhance the input images, we used a novel color image histogram equalization technique called Brightness Preserving Dynamic Fuzzy Histogram Equalization, which showed significant accuracy improvements: on the test data, using AlexNet, the ROC Area Under the Curve (AUC) increased to over 0.99, Equal Error Rate (EER) decreased 4-fold and dropped below 4%, and decidability (a measure of class separability) increased from 1.89 to 4.17