cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Effects of Temperature and Trophic State on Degradation of Environmental DNA in Lake Water.

Degradation of environmental DNA (eDNA) in aquatic habitats can affect the interpretation of eDNA data and the ability to detect aquatic organisms. The effect of temperature and trophic state on the decay of Common Carp (Cyprinus carpio) eDNA was evaluated using lake water microcosms and quantitative PCR for a Common Carp-specific genetic marker in two experiments. The first experiment tested the effect of temperature on Common Carp eDNA decay. Common Carp eDNA exhibited exponential decay that increased with temperature. The slowest decay rate was observed at 5 °C, with a T90 value (time to 90% reduction from initial concentration) of 6.6 days, as opposed to ∼1 day at higher temperatures. In a second experiment, decay was compared across waters from lakes of different trophic states. In this experiment, Common Carp eDNA exhibited biphasic exponential decay, characterized by rapid decay for 3–8 days followed by slow decay. Decay rate was slowest in dystrophic water and fastest in oligotrophic water, and de...
Under God?: Introduction: The Controversy over Religion in Politics

As politically alert Americans are well aware, the proper role of religious faith in the public life of the nation is one of the most controversial issues in the United States today. The controversy erupted anew when, on August 27, 2000, Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut – at the time, the Democratic candidate for vice president of the United States – addressed the congregation of the Fellowship Chapel, one of Detroit's largest African-American churches. In his speech, Senator Lieberman called for a larger role for religious faith in American politics. “As a people,” said Lieberman, “we need to reaffirm our faith and renew the dedication of our nation and ourselves to God and God's purpose.” The next day, on the front page, under the headline “Lieberman Seeks Greater Role for Religion in Public Life,” the New York Times reported that Lieberman “bluntly made the case for allowing faith into politics.” The Times then quoted some key passages from Senator Lieberman's speech: “I want to talk to you this morning about another barrier that may fall … as a result of my nomination,” he said. “I hope it will enable people, all people who are moved, to feel more free to talk about their faith and about their religion. And I hope that it will reinforce the belief that I feel as strongly as anything else, that there must be a place for faith in America's public life.” He added that “we know that the Constitution wisely separates church from state, but remember: the Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. […]
Verbal self-reports as a function of speed, accuracy, and reinforcement of the reported performance

Undergraduates reported about their performance on a delayed matching-to-sample (DMTS) task in which monetary reinforcers depended on both speed and accuracy. They made the reports by pressing “Yes” or “No” buttons to answer computer- presented queries about the speed, accuracy, or reinforcement of their performance on the just-completed DMTS trial. Reports about accuracy were positively, but not strongly, correlated with actual performance. Reports about speed were consistently biased in favor of affirmative reports, with subjects reporting that their DMTS responses were fast enough to earn reinforcement, regardless of actual response speed. Reports about reinforcement showed substantial intersubject variability. Manipulating the interval between DMTS performance and the self-report (from 3 s to 27 s) had no systematic influence on the correspondence between reports and performance, regardless of whether a distractor task was required during the interval. These results are inconsistent with an hypothesis that individuals performing speeded choice tasks directly monitor both speed and accuracy. The experiment illustrates the viability of studying verbal self-reports as operant behavior under discriminative control of some, but possibly not all, aspects of the reported performance.
Prognosis of Very Low-Birth Weight Infants

The cognitive and motor abilities of 43 very low birth weight children (VLBW) and classroom controls are reported from the Greenwood Children's Centre, City Hospital, Nottingham, England.
Surgery for Cortical Malformations Causing Epilepsy

The results of surgical treatment for malformations of cortical development (MCD) causing refractory epilepsy are reviewed from the Institute of Neurology, Queen Square, London, UK.
Analyzing plans with conditional effects

Several tasks, such as plan reuse and agent modeling, rely on interpreting a given or observed plan to generate the underlying plan rationale. Although there are several previous methods that successfully extract plan rationales, they do not apply to complex plans, in particular to plans with actions that have conditional effects. In this paper, we introduce SPRAWL, an algorithm to find a minimal annotated partially ordered structure that maximizes a given evaluation function for an observed totally ordered plan with conditional effects. The algorithm proceeds in a two-phased approach, first preprocessing the given plan using a novel needs analysis technique that builds a needs tree to identify the dependencies between operators in the totally ordered plan. The needs tree is then processed to construct a partial ordering that captures the complete rationale of the given plan. We also provide a polynomial-time algorithm to find non-optimal minimal annotated partial orderings of observed totally ordered plans with conditional effects. We provide illustrative examples and discuss the challenges we faced.
RNA Interference: History, Mechanisms, and Applications in Pest Management

RNA interference (RNAi) is emerging as a new technology for use in arthropod pest management. Unique features of RNAi-based methods including the specificity to the target pests and ability to knock down genes associated with insecticide resistance make this technology superior to the currently used pest management methods. The RNAi works best in coleopteran insects and also works well in some hemipteran insects. The RNAi does not work well in dipterans and lepidopteron insects. The RNAi could be used to study biology of insects, identify new target sites, fight insecticide resistance, regulate metabolism, produce sterile male insects, and suppress insect pest’s populations. In the near future, further research to improve RNAi in insects belonging to Hemiptera, Lepidoptera, and other orders will lead to development of efficient and cheaper methods for production and delivery of double-stranded RNA, understanding potential for resistance development and effects on nontarget organisms. This will help in moving RNAi technology to field applications.
Efficient replacement of plasma membrane outer leaflet phospholipids and sphingolipids in cells with exogenous lipids.

Our understanding of membranes and membrane lipid function has lagged far behind that of nucleic acids and proteins, largely because it is difficult to manipulate cellular membrane lipid composition. To help solve this problem, we show that methyl-α-cyclodextrin (MαCD)-catalyzed lipid exchange can be used to maximally replace the sphingolipids and phospholipids in the outer leaflet of the plasma membrane of living mammalian cells with exogenous lipids, including unnatural lipids. In addition, lipid exchange experiments revealed that 70–80% of cell sphingomyelin resided in the plasma membrane outer leaflet; the asymmetry of metabolically active cells was similar to that previously defined for erythrocytes, as judged by outer leaflet lipid composition; and plasma membrane outer leaflet phosphatidylcholine had a significantly lower level of unsaturation than phosphatidylcholine in the remainder of the cell. The data also provided a rough estimate for the total cellular lipids residing in the plasma membrane (about half). In addition to such lipidomics applications, the exchange method should have wide potential for investigations of lipid function and modification of cellular behavior by modification of lipids.
Use of Mechanical Circulatory Support in Patients Undergoing Percutaneous Coronary Intervention Insights From the National Cardiovascular Data Registry

Background—Little is known about the contemporary use of intra-aortic balloon pump (IABP) and other mechanical circulatory support (O-MCS) devices in patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in the setting of cardiogenic shock. Methods and Results—We identified 76 474 patients who underwent PCI in the setting of cardiogenic shock at one of 1429 National Cardiovascular Data Registry CathPCI participating hospitals from 2009 to 2013. Temporal trends and hospital-level variation in the use of IABP and O-MCS were evaluated. No mechanical circulatory support was used in 41 286 (54%) patients, 29 730 (39%) received IABP only, 2711 (3.5%) received O-MCS only, and 2747 (3.6%) received both IABP and O-MCS. At the start of the study period, 45% of patients undergoing PCI in the setting of cardiogenic shock received an IABP and 6.7% received O-MCS. The proportion of patients receiving IABP declined at an average rate of 0.3% per quarter, whereas the rate of O-MCS use was unchanged over the study ...
Evaluating transactive controls of integrated transmission and distribution systems using the Framework for Network Co-Simulation

With an ever-evolving power grid, concerns regarding how to maintain system stability, efficiency, and reliability remain constant because of increasing uncertainties and decreasing rotating inertia. To alleviate some of these concerns, demand response represents a viable solution and is virtually an untapped resource in the current power grid. This work describes a hierarchical control framework that allows coordination between distributed energy resources and demand response. This control framework is composed of two control layers: a coordination layer that ensures aggregations of resources are coordinated to achieve system objectives and a device layer that controls individual resources to assure the predetermined power profile is tracked in real time. Large-scale simulations are executed to study the hierarchical control, requiring advancements in simulation capabilities. Technical advancements necessary to investigate and answer control interaction questions, including the Framework for Network Co-Simulation platform and Arion modeling capability, are detailed. Insights into the interdependencies of controls across a complex system and how they must be tuned, as well as validation of the effectiveness of the proposed control framework, are yielded using a large-scale integrated transmission system model coupled with multiple distribution systems.
Genetically Evolved Receptor Models (GERM): A Procedure for Construction of Atomic-Level Receptor Site Models in the Absence of a Receptor Crystal Structure

Publisher Summary A genetic algorithm (GA) can be used to generate receptor site models, which quantitatively discriminate among compounds with varying biological activities. In this chapter, the utility of these models is extended in two ways. First, it demonstrates the application of evolved models to the evaluation of alternate binding modes for ligands, which can adopt different orientations or conformations. Second, it shows that sequence analysis can provide further insight into the probable nature of the receptor and can aid in identifying key features of the ligand that are required for ligand–receptor recognition. The chapter also demonstrates the utility of carrying out sequence analysis on the genes describing the evolved models. Sequence analysis permits identification of the most important structural features in determining the affinity and, particularly, the selectivity of the ligand–receptor interaction.
Position sensitivity within a bar of stilbene coupled to silicon photomultipliers

A 6-mm by 6-mm by 50-mm bar of stilbene was coupled on both ends to silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) to assess the detector's position sensitivity to interactions throughout the bar. A Na-22 gamma ray source was collimated with a pair of lead bricks to produce a source beam that was used to irradiate five positions along the length of the bar. A logarithmic relationship between the ratio of the pulse heights obtained from the two SiPMs and the position of the collimated source was established. The standard deviation of the distribution of ratios from each measurement was propagated through the functional form to determine position resolution. The position resolution along the length of the bar was determined to have an average value of 4.9 mm.
Random effects probit and logit: understanding predictions and marginal effects

ABSTRACTRandom effects probit and logit are nonlinear models, so we need predicted probabilities and marginal effects to communicate the economic significance of results. In these calculations, how...
Capacity Markets: Rationale, Designs, and Trade-Offs

Many electricity markets around the world have implemented capacity markets (e.g., PJM, New England, New York, UK, Colombia), and many more are in the process of finalizing capacity market designs. In this chapter we will review the rationale behind capacity markets, the basic traits of the most popular designs and some outstanding design issues.
CloudPack* exploiting workload flexibility through rational pricing

Infrastructure as a Service pricing models for resources are meant to reflect the operational costs and profit margins for providers to deliver virtualized resources to customers subject to an underlying Service Level Agreements (SLAs). While the operational costs incurred by providers are dynamic -- they vary over time depending on factors such as energy cost, cooling strategies, and aggregate demand -- the pricing models extended to customers are typically fixed -- they are static over time and independent of aggregate demand. This disconnect between the dynamic cost incurred by a provider and the fixed price paid by a customer results in an economically inefficient marketplace. In particular, it does not provide incentives for customers to express workload scheduling flexibilities that may benefit them as well as providers. In this paper, we utilize a dynamic pricing model to address this inefficiency and give customers the opportunity and incentive to take advantage of any flexibilities they may have regarding the provisioning of their workloads. We present CloudPack: a framework for workload colocation, which provides customers with the ability to formally express workload flexibilities using Directed Acyclic Graphs, optimizes the use of cloud resources to minimize total costs while allocating clients' workloads, and utilizes Shapley valuation to rationally -- and thus fairly in a game-theoretic sense -- attribute costs to the customers. Using extensive simulation, we show the practical utility of our CloudPack colocation framework and the efficacy of the resulting marketplace in terms of cost savings.
Case reports of interprofessional care for clients enrolled in a mental health court.

Abstract Background: An interprofessional mental health court (MHC) team was created in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 2014 to help keep low-level offenders with mental health (MH) disorders out of the c...
Amblyopia therapy in Asian children: factors affecting visual outcome and parents' perception of children's attitudes towards amblyopia treatment.

Introduction Amblyopia treatment in the form of glasses and/or patching in children poses a great challenge to parents. This study aimed to assess the factors that influence visual outcome in amblyopia and children's perception towards treatment. Methods 180 children (aged 3.0-7.0 years) with newly diagnosed amblyopia were recruited. The effects of age, gender, type of amblyopia, treatment and compliance on visual outcome at one year were assessed. Parents completed a questionnaire on children's attitudes towards amblyopia treatment. Results 150 (83%) children with a mean age of 5.2 ± 0.8 years returned for follow-up at one year. 130 (87%) had refractive amblyopia and 20 (13%) had strabismic and refractive-strabismic amblyopia. Visual acuity (VA) of 6/9 or better in the amblyopic eye was achieved in 121 (81%) children. On multivariable analysis, poor responders were more likely to have initial VA of worse than 6/15 (relative risk [RR] 4.17, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.58-11.00, p = 0.004), prescribed combined (glasses and patching) treatment (RR 2.83, 95% CI 1.02-7.83, p = 0.045) and poor compliance (RR 6.10, 95% CI 1.90-19.57, p = 0.002) after adjustment for age, gender and type of amblyopia. While 7% of children initially reacted poorly to treatment, 5% remained uncooperative at the first follow-up visit. Children had difficulty with schoolwork (5%), mood changes (6%) and social problems (2%) associated with treatment. Conclusion Most children with amblyopia respond well to treatment, but more care (i.e. more parental education and closer follow-up) may be needed in children who are non-compliant and have poorer initial VA.
The Quality of Electricity Assessment in Marine Power Systems

The aim of the paper is to present some particularities of the electricity quality on board ships. The specific vulnerability of the naval power systems is given, first of all, by ship’s power plant and its finite character. Power generation systems on board ships have, in their structure, a significant number of static power converters: controlled rectifiers, DC sources, DC power converters, inverters, etc. whose powers reach the order of tens of MW, comparable to the power of a ship’s plant. The use of these devices in finite naval power plants, inevitably, produces a serious disturbance of the voltage and current waveforms, especially in the power consumer networks. The paper presents the theoretical framework of the problem as well as the results of measurements, which illustrate the presence of the disturbing harmonics due to the static converters.
Dynamic and structural differences between heme oxygenase-1 and -2 are due to differences in their C-terminal regions.

Heme oxygenase (HO) catalyzes heme degradation, a process crucial for regulating cellular levels of this vital, but cytotoxic, cofactor. Two HO isoforms, HO1 and HO2, exhibit similar catalytic mechanisms and efficiencies. They also share catalytic core structures, including the heme-binding site. Outside their catalytic cores are two regions unique to HO2: a 20-amino acid–long N-terminal extension and a C-terminal domain containing two heme regulatory motifs (HRMs) that bind heme independently of the core. Both HO isoforms contain a C-terminal hydrophobic membrane anchor; however, their sequences diverge. Here, using hydrogen–deuterium exchange MS, size-exclusion chromatography, and sedimentation velocity, we investigated how these divergent regions impact the dynamics and structure of the apo and heme-bound forms of HO1 and HO2. Our results reveal that heme binding to the catalytic cores of HO1 and HO2 causes similar dynamic and structural changes in regions (proximal, distal, and A6 helices) within and linked to the heme pocket. We observed that full-length HO2 is more dynamic than truncated forms lacking the membrane-anchoring region, despite sharing the same steady-state activity and heme-binding properties. In contrast, the membrane anchor of HO1 did not influence its dynamics. Furthermore, although residues within the HRM domain facilitated HO2 dimerization, neither the HRM region nor the N-terminal extension appeared to affect HO2 dynamics. In summary, our results highlight significant dynamic and structural differences between HO2 and HO1 and indicate that their dissimilar C-terminal regions play a major role in controlling the structural dynamics of these two proteins.
Analysis of Reserve and Regular Bottlings: Why Pay for a Difference Only the Critics Claim to Notice?

I report my tests of the hypothesis that wine consumers cannot distinguish the difference between regular and reserve bottlings of otherwise-similar wines. My results suggest that only about one purchaser in five should even consider buying the reserve bottling of a wine, rather than the regular. But since I cannot tell you how to distinguish that one person out of five, we can all aspire to drinking the reserve. I have more than 800 observations of wine drinkers’ who engaged in the following experiment. The drinker faces 3 glasses of wine, two of which contain identical wines [either the regular or the reserve] and the third contains a different wine [the other one]. I record whether the drinker can distinguish wines whether he can tell the singleton from the doubleton and, if the drinker can distinguish, which wine he prefers. I find that just over 40 per cent of the drinkers distinguish correctly, whereas one-third could if the process were random. Of those 40 percent who can distinguish, 52 percent prefer the more expensive, reserve wine, where as half would if the process were random. For this data set, 52 percent does not differ significantly from the expectedif-random half. I have recorded the sex of the testers and I can find that men can distinguish the wines better than random, but women cannot. The differences are so small, even though significant, however, that the Exact F test detects no significant difference between the ability of men and women in these tests. The results span tests of wines from Bordeaux, Burgundy, the Rhone, Spain, New Zealand, Italy, California [both red and white], Oregon, and Australia; the tests include still and sparkling wines. 1 Also, V. Duane Rath Professor of Accounting, Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago, 1101 East 58 Street, Chicago IL 60637; 773.702.7261; fa x 206.202.2114; roman.weil@gsb.uchicago.edu. I prepared this paper for the 9 Oenometrics Meeting of the Vineyard Data Quantification Society, Budapest, May 22-24, 2003, whose attendees provide my final data set. Some past attendees asked why is an accountant doing such work. I respond as follows. First, note that accounting is an intellectual discipline even though you probably think of it as bookkeeping and tax reporting. Accounting records in aggregating numbers information about complex transactions. Then, it attempts to enable users of that information to deduce from the numbers the underlying reality and how to use the data in decision making. Similarly, wine ratings record in aggregating numbers useful information about complex sensory experience. This paper attempts to help the user decide how to use the reported data in making decisions. Shannon Harwick assisted in the compilation of the data for this research and in the writing of this paper. Neither he nor I can distinguish better than random. M.L. Marais helped us with choosing suitable tests for the sex test. He can.
Assessing the Quality of Osteoporosis Care in Practice

Patients with osteoporosis can sustain fractures following falls or other minimal trauma. This risk of fracture can be reduced through appropriate diagnostic testing, pharmacologic therapy, and other readily measured standards of care. Our aim was to develop a credible clinical performance assessment to measure physicians’ quality of osteoporosis care, and determine reasonable performance standards for both competent and excellent care. This was a retrospective cohort study. Three hundred and eighty one general internists and subspecialists with time-limited board certification were included in the study. Performance rates on eight evidence-based measures were obtained from the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) Osteoporosis Practice Improvement Module® (PIM), a web-based tool that uses medical chart reviews to help physicians assess and improve care. We applied a patented methodology, using an adaptation of the Angoff standard-setting method and the Dunn-Rankin method, with an expert panel skilled in osteoporosis care to form a composite and establish standards for both competent and excellent care. Physician and practice characteristics, including a practice infrastructure score based on the Physician Practice Connections Readiness Survey (PPC-RS), were used to examine the validity of the inferences made from the composite scores. The mean composite score was 67.54 out of 100 maximum points with a reliability of 0.92. The standard for competent care was 46.87, and for excellent care it was 83.58. Both standards had high classification accuracies (0.95). Sixteen percent of physicians performed below the competent care standard, while 22 % met the excellent care standard. Specialists scored higher than generalists, and better practice infrastructure was associated with higher composite scores, providing some validity evidence. We developed a rigorous methodology for assessing physicians’ osteoporosis care. Clinical performance feedback relative to absolute standards of care provides physicians with a meaningful approach to self-evaluation to improve patient care.
Identification and genomic characterization of grapevine Kizil Sapak virus, a novel grapevine-infecting member of the family Betaflexiviridae.

A novel virus with a (+) single-stranded RNA genome was detected by high-throughput sequencing (HTS) in a sample of grapevine (Vitis vinifera) cv. Kizil Sapak (sample/isolate 127) that originated from Turkmenistan. The complete genome of the virus, tentatively named “grapevine Kizil Sapak virus” (GKSV), is 7,604 nucleotides in length, excluding the poly(A) tail. The genome organization of GKSV, encoded genes, and sequence domains are typical for members of the family Betaflexiviridae, specifically those belonging to the subfamily Trivirinae. Phylogenetic analysis placed GKSV within the subfamily Trivirinae, in the same clade as fig latent virus 1 (FLV-1) but distinct from the clades formed by members of other genera. A comparative analysis of GKSV-127 with the HTS-derived sequences obtained from two additional isolates showed that they are genetic variants of the same virus species. Based on current ICTV species and genus demarcation criteria, and the results of the sequence and phylogenetic analyses, we propose that GKSV and FLV-1 represent a new genus within the subfamily Trivirinae.
Note on the Delta Method for Finite Population Inference with Applications to Causal Inference

The delta method creates more general inference results when coupled with central limit theorem results for the finite population. This opens up a range of new estimators for which we can find finite population asymptotic properties. We focus on the use of this method to derive asymptotic distributional results and variance expressions for causal estimators. We illustrate the use of the method by obtaining a finite population asymptotic distribution for a causal ratio estimator.
The Double Discount: How Temporal and Spatial Distance Affect Policy Support

How does the combination of spatial and temporal distance affect policy support? Many policy challenges are characterized by long time horizons (e.g., multiple generations) and high geographic dispersion (e.g., multiple countries). However, existing studies which characterize how citizens discount policy benefits typically treat these dimensions in isolation. In this study, we use conjoint experiments to assess how citizens discount policy benefits across both time and space. Through a national survey in Japan, we find that citizens discount policy consequences in their own country but which are two generations removed (40-50 years) at a similar rate that they discount contemporary benefits that primarily accrue in other countries. Moreover, these effects are additive, so policies which are distant in both dimensions receive the lowest levels of support. This study underscores the unique challenges of garnering political support for the provision of global, multi-generational public goods.
Child welfare supervisors empowered through MSW education: graduates of a statewide title IV-E MSW program for public child welfare supervisors describe their learning

This paper describes a study of a statewide Title IV-E program that provides support for currently employed child welfare supervisors to obtain an MSW degree. The program’s purpose is to strengthen...
Tipping-point analysis uncovers critical transition signals from gene expression profiles

Abstract Tipping points existing in many biological processes. Identifying gene expression signals in the presence of entropic background is essential to decipher biological tipping points. We introduce a new method BioTIP which accurately, robustly, and reliably identifies tipping points and their significant gene signals. Through application to three benchmark datasets and comparison to previous analyses, we demonstrate that not only can BioTIP be applied to understanding of disease and developmental, but also to data at the cellular or organismal level. We applied BioTIP to two exemplary contexts on which tipping-point analyses had never been done and validated the statistical significance of the identified gene signals using independent datasets. By a literary investigation, we showed how the identified gene signals provide insight into regulatory networks of master transcription factors modulating those transitions. Our open-source software allows for future investigations using tipping point methodology to better characterize the plasticity, heterogeneity, and rapid switches in biological processes. Highlights ∙Shrinkage estimation reduces errors in the empirical correlation matrix thus inferring tipping point accurately ∙Refined feature selection and random walk isolate the early-warning signal for tipping point from background noise ∙Identification of the intermediate-risk stage in neuroblastoma as the most vulnerable and susceptible to treatment ∙First tipping-point interpretation of Etv2 oscillation that guides the haemato-endothelial bifurcation
A multi-center evaluation of hepatitis B reactivation with and without antiviral prophylaxis after kidney transplantation.

Background Hepatitis B virus (HBV) reactivation in hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) negative and hepatitis B core antibody (anti-HBc) positive kidney transplant recipients ranges between 1.4-9.6%. Limited evidence is available regarding routine antiviral prophylaxis and identifiable risk factors for HBV reactivation in this population. Methods In this multi-center retrospective study, we evaluated the prevalence of HBV reactivation in HBsAg-negative anti-HBc-positive kidney transplant recipients who did or did not receive antiviral prophylaxis. The primary outcome assessed the prevalence of HBV reactivation, defined as a positive HBV DNA by PCR of any viral load at or above the minimal detection level. The principal safety outcomes assessed 1-year graft survival, 1-year all-cause mortality, biopsy proven acute rejection (BPAR), and antibody mediated rejection (AMR). Results One-hundred sixty-one patients met inclusion criteria and comprised of two groups, antiviral prophylaxis (n=14) and no antiviral prophylaxis (n=147). Of patients who did not receive prophylaxis only five (3.4%) experienced HBV reactivation whereas one (7.1%) patient in the prophylaxis group experienced reactivation over a median follow-up of 1103 days (p= 0.43). Furthermore, there were no differences with respect to all secondary outcomes. Statistical analysis demonstrated delayed graft function to be a significant factor associated with HBV reactivation. Conclusion These study results suggest that the prevalence of HBV reactivation in HBsAg-negative anti-HBc-positive kidney transplant recipients is low, regardless of antiviral prophylaxis. Furthermore, there were no significant graft related outcomes among those that did experience reactivation. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Java network security

Performance management performance measurement network applications software performance applications applets networks quick tips and recipes.
Family-based Association Test (FBAT)

Statistical tests of association are commonly used to confirm or exclude a relationship between disease and selected genes. Tests which are based on data from unrelated individuals are very popular, but can be biased if the sample contains individuals with different genetic ancestries. Family-based Association tests avoid the problem of bias due to mixed ancestry by using within family comparisons. Many different family designs are possible, the most popular using parents and offspring, but others use just sibships. Dichotomous, measured and time-to-onset phenotypes can be accommodated. FBATs are generally less powerful than tests based on a sample of unrelated individuals, but special settings exist, for example testing for rare variants with affected offspring and their parents, where the family design has a power advantage. Key Concepts: Genetic tests based on population samples can be biased due to differing genetic ancestries. Association designs using family members can avoid bias by using within family comparison. The simplest family test is the TDT which uses affected offspring and their parents. FBAT refers to a class of tests for family designs that can accommodate any type of genetic model, any phenotype and any family configuration, e.g. parents and their offspring, sibships or even general pedigrees. In general, FBAT's are less powerful than their population-based counter-parts, and they generally also require more genotyping, but in some circumstances, e.g. for rare variants and in testing for gene–environment interactions, they can be more powerful. Keywords: genetic association test; TDT; family design; trios; discordant sibship test; missing parents; Mendel's laws; linkage; linkage disequilibrium
John Caspar Wild: Painter and Printmaker of Nineteenth-Century Urban America

Review of: "John Caspar Wild: Painter and Printmaker of Nineteenth-Century Urban America," by John W. Reps.
Triaminooxyphosphonium dipolar ions and triaminodioxy phosphoranes from the reaction of triaminophosphines with α-diketones: Demonstration of the co-existence of 4-coordinated and 5-coordinated phosphorus in solution. P31 NMR spectra

Abstract The phosphorus of trisdimethylaminophosphine added to the oxygen of the α-diketone, benzil, and gave a 1:1 adduct. This adduct could be isolated in two crystalline forms: one of them was a triaminooxyphosphonium dipolar ion, and the other was a cyclic triaminodioxyphosphorane. Solutions of these crystalline adducts contained the same molecular species in equilibrium with each other. Certain solvents favoured the cyclic form with 5-coordinated phosphorus, while others favoured the dipolar ion with 4-coordinated phosphorus. The value of the P31 NMR shifts varied from +30·2 ppm vs H3PO4 in 0·8M hexane to +13·1 ppm in 1·2M methylene chloride solutions. In methylene chloride solutions, the value of the shift varied significantly with concentration. The 1:1 adducts made from the reactions of the 5-membered cyclic triaminophosphines 2-N-pyrrolidino-, 2-dimethylamino-, and 2-methoxy-1,3,2-diazaphospholanes with benzil existed exclusively as cyclic triaminodioxyphosphoranes in the crystalline state and in solutions. The reaction of acenaphthenequinone with the cyclic aminophosphines produced the corresponding aminophosphine oxides via unstable adducts with POC bonds, which were formed at −70°.
Indexing a protein-protein interaction network expedites network alignment

Network query problem aligns a small query network with an arbitrarily large target network. The complexity of this problem grows exponentially with the number of nodes in the query network if confidence in the optimality of result is desired. Scaling this problem to large query and target networks remains to be a challenge. In this article, we develop a novel index structure that dramatically reduces the cost of the network query problem. Our index structure maintains a small set of reference networks where each reference network is a small, carefully chosen subnetwork from the target network. Along with each reference, we also store all of its non-overlapping and statistically significant alignments with the target network. Given a query network, we first align the query with the reference networks. If the alignment with a reference network yields a sufficiently large score, we compute an upper-bound to the alignment score between the query and the target using the alignments of that reference and the target (which is stored in our index). If the upper-bound is large enough, we employ a second round of alignment between the query and the target by respecting the mapping found in the first alignment. Our experiments on protein-protein interaction networks demonstrate that our index achieves a significant speed-up in running time over the state-of-the-art methods such as ColT. The alignment subnetworks obtained by our method are also statistically significant. Finally, we observe that our method finds biologically and statistically significant alignments across multiple species. We developed a reference network based indexing structure that accelerates network query and produces functionally and statistically significant results.
Dna2 helicase/nuclease causes replicative fork stalling and double-strand breaks in the ribosomal DNA of Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

We have proposed that faulty processing of arrested replication forks leads to increases in recombination and chromosome instability in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and contributes to the shortened lifespan of dna2 mutants. Now we use the ribosomal DNA locus, which is a good model for all stages of DNA replication, to test this hypothesis. We show directly that DNA replication pausing at the ribosomal DNA replication fork barrier (RFB) is accompanied by the occurrence of double-strand breaks near the RFB. Both pausing and breakage are elevated in the early aging, hypomorphic dna2-2 helicase mutant. Deletion of FOB1, encoding the fork barrier protein, suppresses the elevated pausing and DSB formation, and represses initiation at rDNA ARSs. The dna2-2 mutation is synthetically lethal with Δrrm3, encoding another DNA helicase involved in rDNA replication. It does not appear to be the case that the rDNA is the only determinant of genome stability during the yeast lifespan however since strains carrying deletion of all chromosomal rDNA but with all rDNA supplied on a plasmid, have decreased rather than increased lifespan. We conclude that the replication-associated defects that we can measure in the rDNA are symbolic of similar events occurring either stochastically throughout the genome or at other regions where replication forks move slowly or stall, such as telomeres, centromeres, or replication slow zones.
Vibrational circular dichroism studies of 3 10 -helical solution conformers in dehydro-peptides

The solution conformations of a series of pentapeptides containing the unsaturated reside dehydrophenylalanine have been investigated by infrared, vibrational circular dichroism, electronic CD and NMR spectroscopies. VCD couplets in the NH-stretching region are identified as markers for the left or right-handed helical orientation of NH bonds in these peptides.
Effects of a bovine pineal peptidic fraction (E5) on plasma and pituitary levels of LH, FSH and prolactin

Pituitary levels of prolactin were significantly diminished after 5 s.c. injections spaced 12 h apart of 5 μg of a partially purified bovine pineal peptide fraction (E5) in both intact and castrated rats. E5 treatment did not significantly affect the castration-induced changes in plasma luteinizing hormone (LH), follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) or pituitary LH but did partially block the pituitary fall in FSH in castrated animals.
Application of computer analysis of mammography phantom images (CAMPI) methodology to the comparison of two digital biopsy machines

The objective of this research was to compare a Fischer MammoVision/MammoTest and a LoRad DSM digital biopsy machine using the Computer Analysis of Mammography Phantom Images (CAMPI) methodology. This study reports on analysis of the 4 largest microcalcification groups (M1, M2, M3 and M4) and the largest nodule (N1) in a mammography accreditation phantom on images acquired at 26 kVp and different mAs values on the two machines. Both machines were linear in response but the MammoTest was more sensitive (i.e., it yielded a larger gray- scale value for a given x-ray technique). However, even after correcting for this difference, the CAMPI noise measure was substantially smaller for the LoRad than the MammoTest over the range of mAS values studied. Similarly, the CAMPI signal- to-noise-ratio and correlation measures were higher for the LoRad than the MammoTest over the same range of mAs, especially for the larger objects (M1/M2 and N1). For the smaller specks in M3/M4 somewhat closer performance was observed. The overall differences are attributed to better contrast/noise performance of the LoRad which appear to outweigh its lesser resolution capability. Our results are in agreement with earlier physical and psychophysical measurements using different methodologies. This work also describes better predictive models (i.e., fits) to describe the variation of all CAMPI measures with mAs at constant kVp. For example, the noise measure was fitted to a function that included physically reasonable sources of noise e.g., dark noise and detector gain fluctuations, in addition to the usual quantum noise. These fits can be used to summarize machine performance and to predict dependencies on other variables (e.g., exposure or dose) that are related to the mAs.
Growth related residual strain in lec GaAs

Abstract Residual strain in indium doped GaAs wafers with diameters up to 75 mm is determined using the piezo-optical effect in the near infrared. The maximum shear strain in wafers is found to be a pronounced function of post-growth cooling conditions of the crystals and of the configuration of the dislocation network.
Monitoring memory errors: the influence of the veracity of retrieved information on the accuracy of judgements of learning.

The current study examined the degree to which predictions of memory performance made immediately or at a delay are sensitive to confidently held memory illusions. Participants studied unrelated pairs of words and made judgements of learning (JOLs) for each item, either immediately or after a delay. Half of the unrelated pairs (deceptive items; e.g., nurse–dollar) had a semantically related competitor (e.g., doctor) that was easily accessible when given a test cue (e.g., nurse–do_ _ _r) and half had no semantically related competitor (control items; e.g., subject–dollar). Following the study phase, participants were administered a cued recall test. Results from Experiment 1 showed that memory performance was less accurate for deceptive compared with control items. In addition, delaying judgement improved the relative accuracy of JOLs for control items but not for deceptive items. Subsequent experiments explored the degree to which the relative accuracy of delayed JOLs for deceptive items improved as a res...
Different effects of unilateral versus bilateral subthalamic nucleus stimulation on walking and reaching in Parkinson's disease

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of unilateral versus bilateral subthalamic nucleus (STN) stimulation on quantitative measures of walking and reaching in Parkinson's disease (PD). We used kinematic measures and the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) motor subscale (subscale III) to evaluate the movement of 6 people with PD who had bilateral STN stimulators implanted for at least 6 months and withheld their anti-parkinson medication for at least 8 hours. Subjects were studied with both stimulators off, one on, and both on. Kinematic data were collected as subjects walked, reached to a target, and were rated using the UPDRS motor subscale. STN stimulation improved walking speed and stride length, with the greatest benefit from bilateral stimulation. Reaching speed was improved by unilateral STN stimulation alone, with no additive effect of bilateral stimulation. UPDRS motor subscale ratings paralleled the kinematic findings. STN stimulation did not restore PD subjects' movements to the level of age-matched controls. Overall, these results provide further evidence that the basal ganglia pathways involved in control of walking and reaching may be distinct. We speculate that basal ganglia may influence walking through bilateral pedunculopontine projections and reaching through ipsilateral thalamocortical projections. Our findings also suggest that maximal improvement of walking requires bilateral rather than unilateral STN stimulation.
Genetic testing: A personal story of one nurse's involvement in health policy

Abstract The intersection among basic research, clinical practice, and public policy is evident in the emerging issues raised by the recent advances in the Human Genome Project. The public policy implications of this groundbreaking research have long been recognized, and a portion of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding has been earmarked for studies exploring the ethical, legal, and social implications of scientific knowledge development. The public policy implications have been known as well, and there is an established mechanism to provide advice on oversight of the development and deployment of genetic tests. Many of the public policy issues have a direct affect on nursing and nursing practice, and it has been both important and rewarding to provide a nursing perspective to the policy making process. This article will discuss how one nurse became involved in making health policy, and the importance of this contribution to professional nursing practice. Copyright 2003, Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved.
Physical and Chemical Compatibility of Injectable Acetaminophen During Simulated Y-Site Administration

PurposeThe physical and chemical compatibility of intravenous acetaminophen with commonly administered injectable medications was evaluated.MethodsSimulated Y-site evaluation was accomplished by mi...
Conversational behavior in two health care institutions for the elderly.

This article develops a perspective for studying conversational behavior in geriatric institutions. The discussion first considers why conversation is a theoretically significant focus for communications researchers concerned with the aged, and then the article presents data from ethnographic studies of two nursing facilities. Symbolic interactionism underlies the analyses discussed here, for it is suggested that conversations are a means by which interactants communicate about (and so, “construct”) their social reality, their relative social statuses, etc. The importance of conversational (more broadly, communicational) behavior for staff-patient relationships in nursing homes is especially highlighted by the data, which were collected over a fifteen-month period.
Carcinogenicity Testing and the Concept of Dose-Response Relationships

(1983). Carcinogenicity Testing and the Concept of Dose-Response Relationships. Clinical Research Practices and Drug Regulatory Affairs: Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 101-107.
Half counts in latin quarters

If L is a matrix of order 2m or 2m + 1, the m X m submatrices are called quarters of L. If B is a quarter of a Latin square L of order 2m or 2m + 1, one defines h(B) to be the number of cells of B occupied by the m numbers which occur in B with greatest frequency. Let H(L) be the maximum of h(B) as B varies over the quarters of L. It is proved that H(L) >= 2m^2 + m + 1 of (L) = 2m similar results are obtained for L of order 2m + 1.