cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Noncatalytic Domains of RGS9-1·Gβ5L Play a Decisive Role in Establishing Its Substrate Specificity

The complex between the photoreceptor-specific regulator of G protein signaling (RGS) protein, RGS9-1, and type 5 G protein β-subunit, Gβ5L, regulates the duration of the cellular response to light by stimulating the GTPase activity of G protein, transducin. An important property of RGS9-1·Gβ5L is that it interacts specifically with transducin bound to its effector, cGMP phosphodiesterase, rather than with transducin alone. The minimal structure within the RGS9-1·Gβ5L complex capable of activating transducin GTPase is the catalytic domain of RGS9. This domain itself is also able to discriminate between free and effector-bound transducin but to a lesser degree than RGS9-1·Gβ5L. The goal of this study was to determine whether other, noncatalytic domains of RGS9-1·Gβ5L enhance the intrinsic specificity of the catalytic domain or whether they set the specificity of RGS9-1·Gβ5L regardless of the specificity of its catalytic domain. We found that a double L353E/R360P amino acid substitution reversed the specificity of the recombinant catalytic domain but did not reverse the specificity of RGS9-1·Gβ5L. However, the degree of discrimination between free and effector-bound transducin was reduced. Therefore, noncatalytic domains of RGS9-1·Gβ5L play a decisive role in establishing its substrate specificity, yet the high degree of this specificity observed under physiological conditions requires an additional contribution from the catalytic domain.
A two-stage algorithm for discontinuity-preserving surface reconstruction

A two-stage algorithm for visual surface reconstruction from scattered data while preserving discontinuities is presented. The first stage consists of a robust local approximation algorithm (the moving least median of squares (MLMS) of error) to clean the data and create a grid from the original scattered data points. This process is discontinuity preserving. The second stage introduces a weighted bicubic spline (WBS) as a surface descriptor. The WBS has a factor in the regularizing term that adapts the behavior of the spline across discontinuities. The weighted bicubic approximating spline can approximate data with step discontinuities with no discernible distortion in the approximating surface. The combination of robust surface fitting and WBSs removes outliers and reduces Gaussian noise. Either stage by itself would not effectively remove both kinds of noise. Experimental results with the two-stage algorithm are presented. >
Sulfonated Polysulfone/POSS Nanofiber Composite Membranes for PEM Fuel Cells

In the present study, an implementation of the polymer/particle composite strategy is demonstrated, where fuel cell membranes are fabricated by electrospinning nanofibers composed of a proton conducting polymer with proton conducting, water-retaining inorganic nanoparticles. Specifically, a nanofiber mat was electrospun from sulfonated polyarylene ether sulfonesPAES to which sulfonated polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane sPOSS nanoparticles were added to improve water retention and proton conductivity. The interfiber voids were filled with an acid- and temperature-resistant hydrophobic photocurable polyurethane. This uncharged polymer surrounds each nanofiber, restricts fiber swelling in water, and provides mechanical strength to the membrane, thus permitting a higher loading of inorganic particles and the use of fibers with a fixedcharge concentration much greater than that which is practical in a homogeneous ion-exchange membrane. The resulting phaseseparated nanofiber/matrix-polymer morphology is similar to the desired/ideal bicontinuous structure in a block copolymer system, but there is more flexibility in our fabrication approach. Thus, the ionomer, fiber diameter, fiber volume fraction, and inert polymer can be selected independently. Additionally, the present approach might represent an effective way to fabricate a fluorocarbon-free “green” PEM with good mechanical properties and a conductivity exceeding that of Nafion at RHs less than 100%. Experimental
A maximum likelihood approach to segmenting range data

The problem of segmenting a range image into homogeneous regions in each of which the range data correspond to a different surface is considered. The segmentation sought is a maximum-likelihood (ML) segmentation. Only planes, cylinders, and spheres are considered as presented in the image. The basic approach to segmentation is to divide the range image into windows, classify each window as a particular surface primitive, and group like windows into surface regions. Mixed windows are detected by testing the hypothesis that a window is homogeneous. Homogeneous windows are classified according to a generalized likelihood ratio test which is computationally simple and incorporates information from adjacent windows. Grouping windows of the same surface types is cast as a weighted ML clustering problem. Finally, mixed windows are segmented using an ML hierarchical segmentation algorithm. A similar approach is taken for segmenting visible-light images of Lambertian objects illuminated by a point source at infinity. >
Law and Policy of Targeted Killing

This is a chapter from our forthcoming book, 'Laws, Outlaws, and Terrorists: Lessons from the War on Terrorism', (MIT Press, September 2010). This chapter addresses the legal, ethical, and strategic aspects of targeted killings as a counterterrorism measure, drawing on the American and Israeli experience. We argue that since terrorism is neither a traditional war nor a traditional crime, its non-traditional nature must affect how, where, and when we employ targeted killings. Specifically, we argue that whether one begins with a law enforcement model or a war model in mind, the ultimate contours of justifiable targeted killings are very similar under either paradigm.
Galectin-3 Binding Protein Secreted by Breast Cancer Cells Inhibits Monocyte-Derived Fibrocyte Differentiation

To metastasize, tumor cells often need to migrate through a layer of collagen-containing scar tissue which encapsulates the tumor. A key component of scar tissue and fibrosing diseases is the monocyte-derived fibrocyte, a collagen-secreting profibrotic cell. To test the hypothesis that invasive tumor cells may block the formation of the fibrous sheath, we determined whether tumor cells secrete factors that inhibit monocyte-derived fibrocyte differentiation. We found that the human metastatic breast cancer cell line MDA-MB-231 secretes activity that inhibits human monocyte-derived fibrocyte differentiation, whereas less aggressive breast cancer cell lines secrete less of this activity. Purification indicated that Galectin-3 binding protein (LGALS3BP) is the active factor. Recombinant LGALS3BP inhibits monocyte-derived fibrocyte differentiation, and immunodepletion of LGALS3BP from MDA-MB 231 conditioned media removes the monocyte-derived fibrocyte differentiation-inhibiting activity. LGALS3BP inhibits the differentiation of monocyte-derived fibrocytes from wild-type mouse spleen cells, but not from SIGN-R1(-/-) mouse spleen cells, suggesting that CD209/SIGN-R1 is required for the LGALS3BP effect. Galectin-3 and galectin-1, binding partners of LGALS3BP, potentiate monocyte-derived fibrocyte differentiation. In breast cancer biopsies, increased levels of tumor cell-associated LGALS3BP were observed in regions of the tumor that were invading the surrounding stroma. These findings suggest LGALS3BP and galectin-3 as new targets to treat metastatic cancer and fibrosing diseases.
Selected organizational outcome correlates of spirituality in the workplace.

This study addressed the feasibility, practicality, and effects of a management style defined as “Management-by-Virtues,” a management philosophy and practice based on virtues derived from religiou...
“Test the West”: East German Performance Art Takes on Western Advertising

L'A. analyse un sketch inclus dans une performance scenique presentee en avril 1991 par un groupe feminin d'artistes appele Exterra XX, qui recycle et critique la culture materielle de leur vie quotidienne, vetements, lingeries et chaussures a talon haut, qui a ete transformee par l'accent mis par la publicite occidentale sur la signification erotique des corps et vetements feminins. L'A. defend l'hypothese que cette performance subvertit le portrait des corps feminins comme outils de commercialisation dans les campagnes publicitaires occidentales, explorant comment certains aspects de la culture materielle de l'ex-RDA contextualisent la production de cette performance apres la chute du mur de Berlin en novembre 1989
Tic-related activity restriction as a predictor of emotional functioning and quality of life.

Objectives Tourette Syndrome (TS) is a chronic neuropsychiatric condition that frequently persists into adulthood. Existing research has identified demographic and symptom-level variables associated with psychopathology and poor quality of life in TS. However, behavior patterns associated with enhanced or adaptive psychological and global functioning among adults with TS have yet to be empirically identified. The current study examined whether tic-specific activity restriction is related to emotional functioning and quality of life in adults with TS.
Forwarding Memory through Diaporama: The Passing-on of Việt Kiều Nostalgia

It is true that in my memories of my childhood home—ranchstyle in West Los Angeles, with dark wood panels in the den and ceramic tiles in the kitchen—my parents’ music plays on the stereo: sounds of Sai Gon in the seventies, of Việt Nam in their own childhoods. I remember thining even then, that it is their music which evokes to me my parents' world, and that when they and their generation are gone, it is the songs that will remain for us to conjure by. As the child of exiles, a community that defines itself daily by its estrangement from the homeland, it is mine to inherit this strange sense of temporality—of mourning the coming loss of the memory of loss—as I witness the community's evolving "technologies of memory," developed in the now to save the past for the future
Failure Mode and Effect Analysis: An Application in Reducing Risk in Blood Transfusion

Article-at-a-Glance Background In February 2001 Good Samaritan Hospital in Dayton, Ohio, conducted a Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) on the blood transfusion process to reduce the risk of problems inherent in the procedure. Developing the FMEA The major steps of the analysis were to identify problems (failure modes), define their causes, and surmise the effects if failures occurred. Numerical scores were assigned for the likelihood of failure occurrence, the severity of the effects, and the possibility that the failure would escape detection. These scores were multiplied and reported as a risk priority number (RPN) for each failure mode. Solutions (process redesign actions) and monitoring plans (design validation) were developed to address the failure modes with the highest RPNs. Presenting the FMEA In March 2001 the FMEA document was presented to the Safety Board, which approved design changes such as use of a blood barrier system that restricts access to the blood until a patient-specific code is dialed. Results Measures were developed to analyze results, and rapid-cycle Plan-Do-Study-Act methodology was used to test and document redesign changes; most became the standard operating procedure. The new process accomplished its purpose of preventing serious, avoidable errors. No outcome errors occurred from March 2001 through June 2001 or in the 8 months following housewide implementation on June 18, 2001. Discussion FMEA was a valuable tool in error-trapping the blood transfusion process. Yet the FMEA process was time-consuming, tedious, and difficult and should be reserved for an organization's highest-priority processes.
Practical Electro-Optic Polymer Modulators Using PC/CLD

Optical modulators made of electro-optic polymers have been investigated to demonstrate the wide modulation bandwidth over 100 GHz by virtue of the inherent low dispersion of the refractive index between optical and millimeter-wave frequencies [1].
Medical screening of the athlete: How does asthma fit in?

There are 4 million high school athletes in the United States, and there are 30 million athletes under age 18 yr competing in organized sports. The prevalence number of emergency room visits and deaths from asthma are significant. Medical clearance is required by all states for participation in high school sports. This article discusses the issues regarding the medical screening of the athlete and how asthma fits into the process. The preparaticipation sports physical is an overlooked and underutilized opportunity to improve asthma diagnosis and management in adolescents.
Human depredation by vampire bats (Desmodus rotundus) following a hog cholera campaign.

Hog cholera control efforts in Belize in 1975 included the slaughter of village pigs, a primary food source for the vampire bat (Desmodus rotundus). The bats then fed on secondary food sources, including humans. In 1 village, 22% of the families interviewed were exposed to attacks: 17 children and 2 adults were bit. Human depredation was not continuous as Desmodus located other hosts. Language: en
Abstract P1-10-19: Skin, and nail, infections associated with the addition of pertuzumab to trastuzumab-based chemotherapy

Objectives: We have maintained a local registry of skin and nail infections in patients receiving pertuzumab and trastuzumab as treatment for HER2 positive breast cancer. Over the past 16 months, we have continued to observe an increase in infectious complications in patients receiving the combination of pertuzumab and trastuzumab with or without chemotherapy. We expand a series of prospectively identified patients who developed infections while on these regimens. Methods: We became concerned about an increased incidence of infections shortly after the FDA approval of pertuzumab, and created an IRB approved registry of these patients. Results: Twenty-eight women were identified to have 32 separate infections (often at more than one site); 9 after cycle 1; 6 after cycle 2, 9 after cycle 3 and 8 after 4 or more cycles. The median age was 51 (Range 25-67); 14 received pertuzumab, trastuzumab, carboplatin, and docetaxel (PTCH), 5 pertuzumab, trastuzumab, and docetaxel, 7 pertuzumab, trastuzumab, and nab-paclitaxel, and 2 pertuzumab and trastuzumab. Folliculitis of the scalp, abdomen, and/or buttocks was observed in 19 patients, abscesses in 8 patients (4 of whom required incision and drainage) and cellulitis in 2. Severe paronychial infections involving one to 16 digits were observed in 4; 2 pt required surgical removal of 2 nails. Quantitative immunoglobulins were found to be low in 8 of 17 women tested; 2 patient had low total protein but did not have an assessment of quantitative immunoglobulins. All patients were initially treated with oral antibiotics, and 6 required hospitalization. Cultures were obtained in 10 patients; Staphylococcus aureus was identified in 4, methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in 5, Enterococcus faecalis in 1. A 57 year old pt receiving neoadjuvant PTCH died on cycle 2 day 7. Autopsy was consistent with sepsis and gram positive cocci were identified. A 62 year old became septic and developed renal failure. Skin biopsies were performed in 3 patients and are consistent with changes associated with EGFR inhibition. Conclusions: We believe these infections are a result of combining pertuzumab with trastuzumab as 2 pts received no concurrent chemotherapy. An awareness of this complication is critical as some infections may be life-threatening. We have initiated patient education to ensure awareness of this potential complication. Citation Format: Mortimer JE, Yuan Y, Jung J, Kruper L, Stewart D, Chung S, Yu WK, Mendelsohn M, D9Apuzzo M, Tegtmeier B, Dadwal S. Skin, and nail, infections associated with the addition of pertuzumab to trastuzumab-based chemotherapy. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Thirty-Eighth Annual CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium: 2015 Dec 8-12; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(4 Suppl):Abstract nr P1-10-19.
Nuclear β-Catenin Expression is Frequent in Sinonasal Hemangiopericytoma and Its Mimics

Sinonasal hemangiopericytoma (HPC) is a tumor showing pericytic myoid differentiation and which arises in the nasal cavity and paranasal sinuses. CTNNB1 mutations appear to be a consistent aberration in sinonasal HPC, and nuclear expression of β-catenin has been reported. Our aim was to evaluate the frequency of β-catenin expression in sinonasal HPC and its histologic mimics in the upper aerodigestive tract. Cases were retrieved from the surgical pathology and consultation files. Immunohistochemical staining for β-catenin was performed on 50 soft tissue tumors arising in the sinonasal tract or oral cavity, and nuclear staining was recorded semiquantitatively by extent and intensity. Nuclear reactivity for β-catenin was present in 19/20 cases of sinonasal HPC; 17 showed moderate-to-strong multifocal or diffuse staining, and 2 had moderate focal nuclear reactivity. All solitary fibrous tumors (SFT) (10/10) showed focal-to-multifocal nuclear staining, varying from weak to strong in intensity. Most cases of synovial sarcoma (9/10) showed nuclear β-catenin expression in the spindle cell component, ranging from focal-weak to strong-multifocal. No cases of myopericytoma (0/10) showed any nuclear β-catenin expression. β-catenin expression is prevalent in sinonasal HPC, but is also frequent in SFT and synovial sarcoma. Our findings indicate that β-catenin is not a useful diagnostic tool in the evaluation of spindle cell tumors with a prominent hemangiopericytoma-like vasculature in the sinonasal tract and oral cavity, and that definitive diagnosis relies on the use of a broader immunohistochemical panel.
Flight deck workload and acceptability of verbal and digital communication protocols

The Federal Aviation Administration hopes to convert air traffic management to Trajectory Based Operations (TBO), under which aircraft flight plans are known to computer systems which aid in scheduling and separation. However, few aircraft flying today have equipment designed to support TBO. We conducted a human-in-the-loop simulation of TBO using current fleet equipage. Three aircraft equipage levels were explored: Voice (the equipment currently used), FANS (the Future Aircraft Navigation System datacom designed for use in TBO), and ACARS (a datacom system widely used for communication with Airline Operation Centers). FANS uplinked flight plans can be automatically loaded into the Flight Management System, while ACARS delivers text that must be entered manually. Pilots rated various aspects of the procedures. Voice was preferred to FANS, with ACARS rated worst, apparently because of slow response times for requests with datacom. Using a mixture of Voice and datacom may provide the benefits of both.
Regulation of neuronal morphogenesis by 14-3-3epsilon (Ywhae) via the microtubule binding protein, doublecortin.

17p13.3 microduplication syndrome is a newly identified genetic disorder characterized by duplications in the 17p13.3 chromosome locus, resulting in a variety of disorders including autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Importantly, a minimum duplication region has been defined, and this region exclusively contains the gene encoding 14-3-3e. Furthermore, duplication of this minimum region is strongly associated with the appearance of ASD in human patients, thus implicating the overexpression of 14-3-3e in ASD. Using in vitro and in vivo techniques, we have found that 14-3-3e binds to the microtubule binding protein doublecortin preventing its degradation. We also found that 14-3-3e overexpression disrupts neurite formation by preventing the invasion of microtubules into primitive neurites, which can be rescued by the knockdown of doublecortin. To analyse the function of 14-3-3e in neurite formation, we used 14-3-3e flox mice and found that 14-3-3e deficiency results in an increase in neurite formation. Our findings provide the first evidence of cellular pathology in 17p13.3 microduplication syndrome.
Chapter Nine: Fragmented Signs

To show how the metaphysics of fragile realties, trying to gather and make sense of the dust upon which we dance unknowingly, can defy all such divinations and begin to form an enabling force, in this chapter I will turn to Walter Benjamin and other theorists, poets, and philosophers of fragments, dust, and debris to navigate the manner in which a liberating politics is rooted in a poetics of ruins. This marks the moment when no metanarrative of salvation can any longer hold and we must teach ourselves how to see a cohesive image in a broken mirror, where the intuition of transcendence is no longer predicated on any absolutist or absolute metaphor. Here I intend to articulate an even larger cosmopolitan context of understanding nations and the living organicity of their worldliness against ethnic nationalism and religious sectarianism. In other words, I am going to invite and lead you in the opposite direction of the politics of despair we live and learn today. The undaunted worldliness we see and celebrate in film, fiction, and history prepares the theoretical foregrounding of a revival of critical thinking toward the articulation of an intuition of transcendence. The rise of a new cosmopolitan worldliness, based on Walter Benjamin’s notion of “debris” and other thinkers will enable us to think through the rise a critical thinking that turns despair into ingredients of responsibility.
Usability Testing of the Information Search Agent: Interface Design Issues

Effectiveness of information technology use is one of the key issues influencing overall organization performance. Interface design of applications needs to support users in every day work activities. We propose a general methodology for testing the quality of software applications interfaces. Methods were verified in the research aimed at the usability testing of the information search agent for advanced retrieval of internet information (Copernic Agent Professional). The main methods used in our research were think-aloud protocols, but also interviews and observations. Paper characterizes the key findings together with recommendations for application performance improvements.
The Injurious Relationship Between Racial Microaggressions and Physical Health: Implications for Social Work

ABSTRACTIn recent years, the study of racial microaggressions (or subtle forms of racial discrimination) has increased significantly in the social sciences, particularly highlighting the negative impact of racial microaggressions on individuals’ mental health. Despite this, there is a dearth of literature that has examined the relationship between racial microaggressions and physical and psychological health. Using two self-reported measures—the Racial and Ethnic Microaggressions Scale (REMS) and the RAND 36-Item Short Form Health Survey—with a diverse group of participants (N = 277), results suggest that racial microaggressions are significantly correlated with poorer health conditions. Furthermore, racial microaggressions were found to predict various types of physical health conditions, such as general health problems, pain, lower energy levels, and fatigue. Finally, different types of microaggressions (e.g., microaggressions in school or the workplace, environmental microaggressions) were found to be ...
Is group agency a social phenomenon

It is generally assumed that group agency must be a social phenomenon because it involves interactions among many human beings. This assumption overlooks the real metaphysical nature of agency, which is both normative and voluntarist. Construed as a normative phenomenon, individual agency arises wherever there is a point of view from which deliberation and action proceed in accord with the requirements that define individual rationality. Such a point of view is never a metaphysical given, but is always a product of rational activities that aim to satisfy the requirements that define individual rationality. When such a deliberative point of view is forged within a whole human life, there is a single agent of human size. But such points of view can also be forged within parts of human lives so as to constitute multiple agents within them; and they can also be achieved within groups of human lives so as to constitute group agents that literally deliberate and act as one. If such a group agent were a social phenomenon, then its agency would simultaneously be the agency of many even as it was also the agency of one. In that case, its deliberations and actions would have to proceed from many separate deliberative points of view, at the same time that they also proceeded from a single deliberative point of view. A correct account of rational agency shows that this is not necessarily so, and indeed, not typically so. Moreover, if it were so much as possible for this to be so, it would require special conditions of the sort that Rousseau identified in his account of the general will. But this special case is not a good model on which to understand the cases of group agency that are most often discussed in the philosophical literature. They are more appropriately viewed as cases in which the condition of individual agency is realized at the level of a group, than as cases of social agency per se.
(Re-)Locating the Local and National in the Global: Multi-Scalar Political Alignment in Transnational European Dockworker Union Campaigns

Labour activists have called for greater international co-ordination among trade unions in response to the assault on organized labour by global capital, but such co-ordination faces many hurdles. Under what conditions can unions overcome those barriers and co-ordinate effectively to achieve campaign goals? I examine this question through a comparison of European-level international solidarity with Portuguese, Greek and English affiliates of the International Dockworkers Council involved in labour disputes. The divergent outcomes of otherwise similar cases reveal the critical role of politics and strategy at different scales and sites of union organization in determining the successful exercise of labour internationalism.
Becoming Who We Serve: A Model of Multi-Layered Employee-Customer Identification

Though employee identification with customers has received little explicit attention in organizational scholarship, and has only recently emerged as an area of focus in marketing, research suggests...
Application of Design of Experiment Method for Sports Results Prediction

Abstract Sports results prediction is increasingly important than many years ago, many factors can impact the results. Other than prediction accuracy, easy to predict is also significant. This research paper explores three easy to grab factors and uses DOE (Design of Experiment) method to determine the effects on sports result prediction. Another goal is to explore the three factors’ importance. This research data modeling is based on the NBA (National Basketball Association) game data. All the data is extracted from an official and public data source of 2015 to 2016 regular season.
The Angular Spectrum of Dyadic Green’s Function in 3-D Scattering Environments

A rigorous representation of the dyadic Green’s function of the 3-D vector wave equation is derived between two disjoint communication volumes with arbitrary external scattering. The resulting expression is a double-integral of two plane waves multiplied with a dyadic kernel called the double-angular spectrum of the system. The two plane waves are the wave components traveling in various directions on the transmit and receive sides, respectively, and the dyadic spectrum, which is composed of orthogonal vector spherical harmonics, describes the waves’ interaction strength and polarization change. The derived DGF representation offers valuable physical insights and provides a rigorous mathematical framework that potentially can facilitate other electromagnetic propagation-related studies. As the core of this framework, the dyadic spectrum is numerically investigated in a model system with random scattering. The results bring to light many insightful characteristics on the statistical behaviors of the wave propagation between the communication volumes.
Generation of cell-laden hydrogel microspheres using 3D printing-enabled microfluidics

3D printing has been shown to be a robust and inexpensive manufacturing tool for a range of applications within biomedical science. Here we report the design and fabrication of a 3D printer-enabled microfluidic device used to generate cell-laden hydrogel microspheres of tunable sizes. An inverse mold was printed using a 3D printer, and replica molding was used to fabricate a PDMS microfluidic device. Intersecting channel geometry was used to generate perfluorodecalin oil-coated gelatin methacrylate (GelMA) microspheres of varying sizes (35–250 µm diameters). Process parameters such as viscosity profile and UV cross-linking times were determined for a range of GelMA concentrations (7–15% w/v). Empirical relationships between flow rates of GelMA and oil phases, microspheres size, and associated swelling properties were determined. For cell experiments, GelMA was mixed with human osteosarcoma Saos-2 cells, to generate cell-laden GelMA microspheres with high long-term viability. This simple, inexpensive method does not require the use of traditional cleanroom facilities and when combined with the appropriate flow setup is robust enough to yield tunable cell-laden hydrogel microspheres for potential tissue engineering applications.
Iodine-Induced Fetal Hypothyroidism: Diagnosis and Treatment with Intra-Amniotic Levothyroxine.

Background Iodine is necessary for fetal thyroid development. Excess maternal intake of iodine can cause fetal hypothyroidism due to the inability to escape from the Wolff-Chaikoff effect in utero. Case report We report a case of fetal hypothyroid goiter secondary to inadvertent excess maternal iodine ingestion from infertility supplements. The fetus was successfully treated with intra-amniotic levothyroxine injections. Serial fetal blood sampling confirmed fetal escape from the Wolff-Chaikoff effect in the mid third trimester. Early hearing test and neurodevelopmental milestones were normal. Conclusion Intra-amniotic treatment of fetal hypothyroidism may decrease the rate of impaired neurodevelopment and sensorineural hearing loss.
Planning graph-based heuristics for cost-sensitive temporal planning

Real world planners need to be sensitive to the quality of the plans they generate. Unlike classical planning where quality is often synonymous with plans having least number of actions, in temporal planning plan quality is multidimensional. It involves both temporal aspects of the plan (such as makespan, slack, tardiness) and execution cost aspects (such as cumulative action cost, resource consumption). Until now, most domain-independent temporal planners have concentrated solely on the former, ignoring the latter. In this paper, we consider the problem of developing heuristics that are sensitive to both makespan and cost, and develop a planning graph-based approach for this purpose. Our approach involves augmenting a (temporal) planning graph data structure with a mechanism to track the execution cost of the goals and subgoals. Since the cost of achieving a goal is dependent on the amount of available time, we need to track the cost of a literal as a function of time. We present a methodology for efficiently tracking the cost functions, and discuss how they can be used as the basis for deriving heuristics to support any objective function based on makespan and execution cost. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this general method for deriving cost- and makespan-sensitive heuristics in the context of Sapa a forward chaining planner for metric temporal domains that we have been developing. A version of Sapa using a subset of the techniques discussed in this paper was one of the best domain independent planners for domains with metric and temporal constraints in the third International Planning Competition, held at AIPS-02.
Model filled rubber IV: Dependence of stress-strain relationship on filler particle morphology

The addition of monodisperse size crosslinked polystyrene (PS) particles, synthesized by emulsifier-free emulsion polymerization, to polysulfide matrix enhanced mechanical properties of the cured rubbery composites. The modulus, fracture strength, and elongation at break increased with increasing filler volume fraction up to 30 wt % PS particles. The strength and elongation at break decreased with increasing particle diameter from 0.315 to 1.25 μm. The strength at break increased, but the extension decreased, as the particle crosslink density increased from 0 to 5 mol % DVB. Interparticle interactions are dominant and lead to the formation of clusters which form a network structure in PS particle filled composites. Since the number density, as well as the total surface area, of particles increase with decreasing particle diameter, interparticle attractions are enhanced, the tendency for cluster formation increased with decreasing particle size from 1.25 to 0.315 μm. As particle crosslink density was reduced, the porosity and surface roughness of particles increased. Then, the dispersion of particles in the matrix was enhanced and particle agglomeration reduced but more polymer matrix was adsorbed on the particles. These particles or clusters act as physical crosslinks, resulting in an increased total effective crosslink density in the filled composites.
Automatic Opinion Polarity Classification of Movie Reviews

One approach to assessing overall opinion polarity (OvOP) of reviews, a concept defined in this paper, is the use of supervised machine learning mechanisms. In this paper, the impact of lexical filtering, applied to reviews, on the accuracy of two statistical classifiers (Naive Bayes and Markov Model) with respect to OvOP identification is observed. Two kinds of lexical filters, one based on hypernymy as provided by WordNet (Fellbaum, 1998), and one hand-crafted filter based on part-of-speech (POS) tags, are evaluated. A ranking criterion based on a function of the probability of having positive or negative polarity is introduced and verified as being capable of achieving 100% accuracy with 10% recall. Movie reviews are used for training and evaluation of each statistical classifier, achieving 80% accuracy.
Does Clinical Performance Correlate with Physicians’ Scores on Written Examinations?

Questions about “correlations” often appear straightforward, but a simple correlation coefficient may mask more confusing data. For example, there is a “strong” correlation between the thermal conductivity of pure copper and temperature, but a review of data related to this correlation shows that there is considerable “scatter” of the data. The correlation coefficient masks this scatter. The question posed as the title for this paper has been a much more difficult one to address than questions about more easily measurable properties such as the thermal conductivity of copper.
Abstract # 3162 Salivary cortisol, DHEA-S, and ethnicity in quality of life of cancer caregivers

Stressed caregivers are known to have poorer quality of life (mental and physical health) during the caregiving period. Unknown are prospective longitudinal associations of early caregiving stress with quality of life years later, biological pathways of the associations, and ethnic differences in the associations. Family caregivers (n = 64, 49-years-old, 70% female, 56% Hispanic) of colorectal cancer patients provided data around the time of relative’s diagnosis (T1) and one year later (T2), including self-reported caregiving stress at T1, mental and physical health at T2, and saliva samples at T1 where cortisol and DHEA-S were assayed. Caregivers reported moderate levels of caregiving stress, and mental and physical health at 50th percentile and comparable levels of the US norms, respectively. SEM revealed that controlling for age and ethnicity, greater caregiving stress and lower waking cortisol related to poorer mental health at T2 (betas > ∣.22∣, ps .05), and higher waking DHEA-S related to better physical health at T2 (beta=.49, p = .05). When Hispanics vs non–Hispanics are compared, greater caregiving stress related to lower waking DHEA-S and smaller DHEA-S AUG (marginally) among Hispanics, whereas caregiving stress related to higher waking DHEA-S and larger DHEA-S AUG among non–Hispanics (betas > ∣.23∣, ps .08). Findings suggest need for further investigation of biological pathways and more nuanced sociocultural factors that link caregiving stress to longer-term quality of life outcomes differentially by Hispanics vs non–Hispanics with larger samples.
Starting to Talk at Age 10 Years: Lessons About the Acquisition of English Speech Sounds in a Rare Case of Severe Congenital But Remediated Motor Disease of Genetic Origin.

Purpose This study was conducted to observe speech development in a child whose onset of oral communication was extremely delayed. In rare cases, children are born with physical limitations that te...
Clinical activity of the EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor osimertinib in EGFR-mutant glioblastoma

Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common primary malignant brain tumor in adults and carries a dismal prognosis. The EGFR gene is among the most commonly deranged genes in GBM and thus an important therapeutic target. We report the case of a young female with heavily pretreated EGFR-mutated GBM, for whom we initiated osimertinib, an oral, third-generation tyrosine kinase inhibitor that irreversibly inhibits EGFR and has significant brain penetration. We then review some of the main challenges in targeting EGFR, including lack of central nervous system penetration with most tyrosine kinase inhibitors, molecular heterogeneity of GBM and the need for enhanced specificity for the EGFR mutations relevant in GBM.
Efficient, wide-band coupled structural-acoustic computations combining time and frequency domain finite elements/equivalent sources

Time and frequency domain computations are complementary, and here, the overall goal is to combine them to generate wide-band solutions of coupled structural-acoustic problems. Modal frequency response computations are efficient for low frequencies but become inefficient as the number of basis functions required to represent the response grows large. Modal formulations are required for large problems because the coupled equation system becomes densely populated when acoustic pressure forces are included. In contrast, the equation system remains sparsely populated in time domain formulations when the time step size is chosen appropriately, allowing large problems to be solved efficiently in terms of nodal degrees-of-freedom. However, the analysis times depend linearly on the number of time steps and a large number are generally required to represent the ringing response of low frequency modes. Here, the number of time steps is limited by applying an exponential taper to the time domain solution and truncating the computations. This reduces leakage effects, but does not affect components of response that have damped out before it is applied. Examples are given to illustrate the computations and the tradeoff between number of basis functions in the modal frequency response computations and number of time steps in the transient analyses.Time and frequency domain computations are complementary, and here, the overall goal is to combine them to generate wide-band solutions of coupled structural-acoustic problems. Modal frequency response computations are efficient for low frequencies but become inefficient as the number of basis functions required to represent the response grows large. Modal formulations are required for large problems because the coupled equation system becomes densely populated when acoustic pressure forces are included. In contrast, the equation system remains sparsely populated in time domain formulations when the time step size is chosen appropriately, allowing large problems to be solved efficiently in terms of nodal degrees-of-freedom. However, the analysis times depend linearly on the number of time steps and a large number are generally required to represent the ringing response of low frequency modes. Here, the number of time steps is limited by applying an exponential taper to the time domain solution and truncat...
Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome among Infants Born to Mothers with Sickle Cell Hemoglobinopathies.

Objective The objective of this study is to examine risk factors for neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) among infants born to mothers with sickle cell hemoglobinopathies (SCH). Study Design Retrospective cohort study of nonanomalous, singleton infants born to mothers with laboratory confirmed SCH. Infants were included if they were diagnosed with NAS prior to hospital discharge. The outcome of interest was the association of maternal variables with NAS. Results Of 131 infants born to mothers with SCH, 4% (n = 5) were diagnosed with NAS. Mothers of infants with NAS were more likely to have SC disease (80%) compared with other SCH (20%), p = 0.001. Fifteen women had antepartum (AP) admissions for pain and/or sickle crisis. Of these patients, four infants (29%) were diagnosed with NAS. The median (5th and 95th percentile) maternal AP length of stay for women with infants diagnosed with NAS to mothers with sickle cell disease was 132 (5, 180) days (p = 0.02). Conclusion Incidence of NAS among mothers with SCH is low; severe disease characterized by AP sickle cell crisis requiring prolonged AP admission for pain control significantly increases the risk of NAS. Further studies are needed to investigate the association of maternal opioid dose and NAS.
Identification of a Subtype of Hepatocellular Carcinoma with Poor Prognosis Based on Expression of Genes within the Glucose Metabolic Pathway

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most prevalent primary cancer and a highly aggressive liver malignancy. Liver cancer cells reprogram their metabolism to meet their needs for rapid proliferation and tumor growth. In the present study, we investigated the alterations in the expression of the genes involved in glucose metabolic pathways as well as their association with the clinical stage and survival of HCC patients. We found that the expressions of around 30% of genes involved in the glucose metabolic pathway are consistently dysregulated with a predominant down-regulation in HCC tumors. Moreover, the differentially expressed genes are associated with an advanced clinical stage and a poor prognosis. More importantly, unsupervised clustering analysis with the differentially expressed genes that were also associated with overall survival (OS) revealed a subgroup of patients with a worse prognosis including reduced OS, disease specific survival, and recurrence-free survival. This aggressive subtype had significantly increased expression of stemness-related genes and down-regulated metabolic genes, as well as increased immune infiltrates that contribute to a poor prognosis. Collectively, this integrative study indicates that expressions of the glucose metabolic genes could be used as potential prognostic markers and/or therapeutic targets, which might be helpful in developing precise treatment for patients with HCC.
Partial Affection: The Place(s) of Female Domestic Workers in Recent Brazilian Cinema

Minchillo examines two recent Brazilian feature films—Que horas ela volta?/The Second Mother (Anna Muylaert, 2015) and Casa Grande/The Ballad of Poor Jean (Fellipe Barbosa, 2014)—to discuss the role of female domestic workers within the dynamics of power in Brazilian society. By comparing cinematic representations of empregadas domesticas, the chapter interrogates whether they can negotiate their humanity in a place—the house of their employers—where they must be serviceable and yet invisible. In his study, Minchillo analyzes how directors Anna Muylaert and Fellipe Barbosa dialogue with the Brazilian long-lasting history of social asymmetries and the more recent attempts to promote social justice and the enfranchisement of the poor.
The Mouse Action Recognition System (MARS): a software pipeline for automated analysis of social behaviors in mice

The study of social behavior requires scoring the animals9 interactions. This is generally done by hand-- a time consuming, subjective, and expensive process. Recent advances in computer vision enable tracking the pose (posture) of freely-behaving laboratory animals automatically. However, classifying complex social behaviors such as mounting and attack remains technically challenging. Furthermore, the extent to which expert annotators, possibly from different labs, agree on the definitions of these behaviors varies. There is a shortage in the neuroscience community of benchmark datasets that can be used to evaluate the performance and reliability of both pose estimation tools and manual and automated behavior scoring. We introduce the Mouse Action Recognition System (MARS), an automated pipeline for pose estimation and behavior quantification in pairs of freely behaving mice. We compare MARS9s annotations to human annotations and find that MARS9s pose estimation and behavior classification achieve human-level performance. As a by-product we characterize the inter-expert variability in behavior scoring. The two novel datasets used to train MARS were collected from ongoing experiments in social behavior, and identify the main sources of disagreement between annotators. They comprise 30,000 frames of manual annotated mouse poses and over 14 hours of manually annotated behavioral recordings in a variety of experimental preparations. We are releasing this dataset alongside MARS to serve as community benchmarks for pose and behavior systems. Finally, we introduce the Behavior Ensemble and Neural Trajectory Observatory (Bento), a graphical interface that allows users to quickly browse, annotate, and analyze datasets including behavior videos, pose estimates, behavior annotations, audio, and neural recording data. We demonstrate the utility of MARS and Bento in two use cases: a high-throughput behavioral phenotyping study, and exploration of a novel imaging dataset. Together, MARS and Bento provide an end-to-end pipeline for behavior data extraction and analysis, in a package that is user-friendly and easily modifiable.
Extending the Calpain-Cathepsin Hypothesis to the Neurovasculature: Protection of Brain Endothelial Cells and Mice from Neurotrauma.

The calpain-cathepsin hypothesis posits a key role for elevated calpain-1 and cathepsin-B activity in the neurodegeneration underlying neurotrauma and multiple disorders including Alzheimer's disease (AD). AD clinical trials were recently halted on alicapistat, a selective calpain-1 inhibitor, because of insufficient exposure of neurons to the drug. In contrast to neuroprotection, the ability of calpain-1 and cathepsin-B inhibitors to protect the blood-brain barrier (BBB), is understudied. Since cerebrovascular dysfunction underlies vascular dementia, is caused by ischemic stroke, and is emerging as an early feature in the progression of AD, we studied protection of brain endothelial cells (BECs) by selective and nonselective calpain-1 and cathepsin-B inhibitors. We show these inhibitors protect both neurons and murine BECs from ischemia-reperfusion injury. Cultures of primary BECs from ALDH2 -/- mice that manifest enhanced oxidative stress were sensitive to ischemia, leading to reduced cell viability and loss of tight junction proteins; this damage was rescued by calpain-1 and cathepsin-B inhibitors. In ALDH2 -/- mice 24 h after mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), BBB damage was reflected by significantly increased fluorescein extravasation and perturbation of tight junction proteins, eNOS, MMP-9, and GFAP. Both calpain and cathepsin-B inhibitors alleviated BBB dysfunction caused by mTBI. No clear advantage was shown by selective versus nonselective calpain inhibitors in these studies. The lack of recognition of the ability of calpain inhibitors to protect the BBB may have led to the premature abandonment of this therapeutic approach in AD clinical trials and requires further mechanistic studies of cerebrovascular protection by calpain-1 inhibitors.