cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Abstract A99: Early colorectal cancer in an inner city hospital: Is the current guideline detecting preneoplastic lesions early enough?

Background: Early colorectal cancer refers to cancer diagnosed prior to the screening age of 50 years old or before the age of 55. Each patient9s risk for the development of colorectal cancer is influenced by age and race. Previous studies showed evidence that there is a higher burden of colorectal adenoma and possibly colorectal cancer in young African Americans more than 45 years old which may indicate that onset of this cancer maybe younger in this population group. The Committee of Minority Affairs and Cultural Diversity of the American College of Gastroenterology (ACG) recommends screening of African Americans at the age of 45, however, current clinical practice makes no distinction as to race. The objective of the study is to determine if race has an effect on the age and location of colorectal cancer on diagnosis. This study aims to provide supporting data in customizing screening practices in the African American population. Methods: The study is a retrospective review of records of patients diagnosed with colorectal cancer before 55 years old at the Cancer Institute Tumor Registry from 2000–2008 at Albert Einstein Medical Center, Philadelphia. The populations being compared were age and risk matched. Patients with risk factors for colorectal cancer or with metastatic cancer to the colon will be excluded from the study. Descriptive statistics and frequency distribution were used to categorize the characteristics of the subjects. Chi‐square test was used for bivariate analysis. Logistic regression will be used for multivariate analysis. Results: A total of 196 colorectal cancer patients were diagnosed before the age of 55 years old from 2000–2008. 116 (59.2%) were Caucasian, 54 (27.6%) were African American, 7 (3.6%) were Asian and 17 (8.7%) were from other racial groups. 106 (54.1%) were males while 90 (45.9%) were females. The mean age of diagnosis for African Americans was 48.07, SD 6.475 and Caucasians was 47.58, SD 6.740. Majority of the cancers were in the distal part of the colon (73.3% ‐ African Americans; 61.1% ‐ Caucasians). For both groups, majority of the cases were diagnosed at an advanced stage (41.4% stage 3 and 35% stage 4). Using chi square analysis, there is no significant difference between the age of diagnosis (p=0.188) and location (p=0.640) of colorectal cancer among African Americans and Caucasians. Conclusion: There was no disparity in the diagnosis of early colorectal cancer among African Americans and Caucasians in terms of age of diagnosis, stage and location. These patients usually present with cancer at an advanced stage and are commonly found in the distal parts of the colon. The data suggests that early cancers may be less influenced by race as previously described and that screening at age 45 for the entire population is reasonable. Citation Information: Cancer Prev Res 2010;3(1 Suppl):A99.
Labor Union Membership and Life Satisfaction in the United States

While a voluminous literature examines the effects of organized labor on workers’ wage and benefit levels in the United States, there has been little investigation into whether membership in a labo...
The Spiritualization of Secular Society: The Challenge of Peace in a World of Diversity:

Peace on earth is not to be expected. First, at least in its subhuman form, the law of nature is survival of the fittest, not self-deferential cooperation. Second, a philosophical consensus to prov...
Can One Predict Resolution of Neonatal Hyperthyrotropinemia

Objective To identify predictors of transience vs permanence of neonatal hyperthyrotropinemia. We hypothesized that infants with greater severity of perinatal stress are more likely to have transient thyrotropin elevations. Study design We retrospectively studied infants diagnosed with hyperthyrotropinemia between 2002 and 2014, following them for up to 12 years after diagnosis. Patients were divided into 3 groups: transient hyperthyrotropinemia (treatment was never prescribed), transient congenital hypothyroidism (treatment started but discontinued), and permanent congenital hypothyroidism (withdrawal unsuccessful or not attempted). We performed univariate and multiple logistic regression analyses, including and excluding infants with maternal thyroid disease. Results We included 76 infants, gestational age mean (±SD) 34.2 (±5.7) weeks, evaluated for hyperthyrotropinemia. Thirty-five (46%) were never treated, and 41 (54%) received levothyroxine. Of the treated patients, 16 successfully discontinued levothyroxine, and for 25 withdrawal either failed or was not attempted. We found that male patients were almost 5 times more likely than female patients to have transient neonatal hyperthyrotropinemia (OR 4.85; 95% CI 1.53-15.37). We documented greater maternal age (31.5 ± 5.48 years vs 26 ± 6.76 years, mean ± SD, P = .02), greater rate of cesarean delivery (86.7% vs 54.2%; P = .036), and retinopathy of prematurity (37.5% vs 8%; P = .02) in the group with transient congenital hypothyroidism vs the group with permanent congenital hypothyroidism. Conclusion The results show transience of neonatal thyrotropin elevations in a majority of patients and suggest a possible association of hyperthyrotropinemia with maternal and perinatal risk factors.
Um segredo público: o viver assistido, cuidadores, globalização*

Frail elderly and their caregivers are virtually invisible in representational circuits (film, the novel, photography, television, the web, newspapers), with the elderly habitually dismissed as non-citizens and their caregivers often literally not citizens of the nation-states in which they work. How can we bring what is a scandalous public secret of everyday life into visibility as care of the elderly increasingly becomes a matter of the global market in our neoliberal economies? This essay explores the representation of caregivers and elders, together, in photographs, the memoir, news and feature stories, and documentary film, suggesting that one of the most effective modes of advocating for changes in public policy is engaging people’s understanding through stories and images. In this study, I consider stories of assisted living, which involve elders, who are white, and paid caregivers, who are people of color, gendered female, and part of global care chains; these stories include American writer Ted Conover’s New York Times Magazine feature story ‘‘The Last Best Friends Money Can Buy’’ (1997) and Israeli Tomer Heymann’s documentary film ‘‘Paper Dolls’’ (2006). Of key importance is a feeling of kinship as new forms of the family take shape.
Evidence of a Functionally Segregated Pathway From Dorsal Cochlear Nucleus to Inferior Colliculus

Type O units in the central nucleus of the inferior colliculus (ICC) of decerebrate cats are excited by best frequency (BF) tones near threshold, but are inhibited by high-level tones at all freque...
HIGH PRESSURE STUDIES OF LIQUID BISMUTH AND LIQUID LEAD

ABSTRACT Electrical resistance measurements utilizing a Bridgman opposed anvil apparatus have been conducted to delineate the melting curve of liquid bismuth and liquid lead. In liquid bismuth a turning point has been observed in electrical resistance as a function of temperature at pressures up to about 35 kbar. This anomaly appears related to the anamalous peak in electrical conductivity found at 1 atmosphere and reported previously1,2. To detect this effect at high pressure required utilization of indirect measurements with liquid bismuth in contact with copper foil3. Anomalous behavior was also observed in electricql resistance studies of lead at high pressure4, however, these anomalies were restricted to the solid state, presumably above the softening temperature. The results observed in liquid bismuth are interpreted in terms of interactions among molten molecular species derived from the polycrystalline polymorphs in equilibrium with the liquids.
Guidelines and Best Practices for Open Source Transit Trip Planning Interfaces

Open source mass transit trip planning applications provide real-time transit information for a local community. The application provides local users with an inexpensive and accurate way to predict when their bus will arrive at the bus stop. Researchers and instructors have used the One Bus Away application as an opportunity to form cross-disciplinary development teams similar to the ones that students will experience in professional development environments. The study shares the lessons learned, the guidelines developed, and the best practices for designing transit trip planning interfaces during two implementations. User testing revealed that online mapping applications must support both riders who are familiar with the city (i.e., resident riders), as well as riders who are only visiting (i.e., visiting riders). In both cases, riders must rapidly understand the interface icons and metaphors during significant cognitive stress, environmental stress, and anxiety about missing their bus.
From time domain to Laplace domain

A possible theoretical framework for the time domain layer potentials for the wave equation is that of vector-valued distributions. From this moment on, instead of thinking of functions of the space and time variables u(x, t) we will think of functions of the time variable with values on a space of functions of the space variables, which amounts to considering the functions u(t) = u( ⋅ , t) (we will not change the name). In principle, our distributions will be only allowed to take real values, but the test functions (and the Laplace transforms of the distributions) will take complex values.
A functional genomics approach using high-throughput RNAi to identify genes as gemcitabine sensitizing targets in pancreatic cancer

B175 Pancreatic cancer is a deadly disease that kills more than 30,000 people in the United States each year. Pancreatic cancer often presents as an advanced, therapy resistant cancer that is refractory to many forms of chemotherapy. Current therapeutics to treat pancreatic cancer includes gemcitabine, yet the one-year survival of pancreatic cancer patients treated with gemcitabine is about 18%, representing a significant but modest advancement in the quality of life. In order to improve gemcitabine response in pancreatic cancer cells, we utilized high-throughput RNAi (HT-RNAi) to identify genes that when silenced would sensitize pancreatic cancer cells to gemcitabine. A HT-RNAi assay was developed to monitor the growth inhibition of MIA PaCa-2 pancreatic cancer cells transfected with siRNA and treated with gemcitabine. For screening, MIA PaCa-2 cells were transfected with siRNA from several small sRNAi libraries targeting cancer-associated genes (139 genes), kinases (574 kinases) and toxicologically relevant genes (75 genes). Twenty-four hours after siRNA transfection, an EC30 dose of gemcitabine was added and growth was assessed after 72 hours of drug exposure. Results from the screen using all three siRNA libraries showed that silencing the genes checkpoint kinase 1 (Chk1) and Ataxia-Telangiectasia and Rad3-related kinase (ATR) sensitized pancreatic cancer cells to gemcitabine. Validation of the screening results was done by examining the dose response of MIA PaCa-2 cells to gemcitabine treatment in the presence of six different Chk1 siRNA. These results showed a three to five-fold decrease in the EC50 for Chk1 siRNA-treated cells versus control siRNA-treated cells. Moreover, Chk1 siRNA-treated cells showed a decrease in proliferation with G0/G1 arrest. Similar results were seen using ATR siRNA-treated cells. Chk1 was further targeted with the small molecule inhibitor PD-407824 in combination with gemcitabine. Results showed that pretreatment of MIA PaCa-2 cells with the Chk1 inhibitor also sensitized cells to gemcitabine. These results indicate that Chk1 and possibly ATR could serve as putative therapeutic targets for sensitizing pancreatic cancer cells to gemcitabine. Furthermore, these findings demonstrate the effectiveness of using HT-RNAi as a tool for identifying sensitizing targets to chemotherapeutic agents. This study is now being expanded to genome-wide screening using larger siRNA libraries.
Robust output feedback control of PMSM using cascaded sliding mode and high gain observers

This work considers the problem of speed sensorless vector control of a three-phase PMSM using nonlinear control methods. An improved design of continuous sliding mode observer (SMO) is provided with a comprehensive analysis of sigmoid boundary layer to establish its relation with the estimation accuracy. The idea of cascaded SMO and high gain observer (HGO) is proposed for robust speed estimation that reduces chattering, improves accuracy and requires neither a filter nor any boundary layer adaptation. For the speed control problem, a robust integral sliding mode control (ISMC) scheme is developed that works under varying load and parametric uncertainties. Simulation results have been used to evaluate the performance of proposed observers and controller.
Partially Supervised Sparse Factor Regression For Multi-Class Classification

The classical linear discriminant analysis (LDA) may perform poorly in multi-class classification with high-dimensional data. We propose a partially supervised sparse factor regression (PSFAR) approach, to jointly explore the potential low-dimensional structures in the high-dimensional class mean vectors and the common covariance matrix required in LDA. The problem is formulated as a multivariate regression analysis, with predictors constructed from the class labels and responses from the high-dimensional features. The regression coefficient matrix is then composed of the class means, for which we explore a sparse and low rank structure; we further explore a parsimonious factor analysis representation in the covariance matrix. As such, our model assumes that the high-dimensional features are best separated in their means in a low-dimensional subspace, subject to a few unobserved latent factors. We propose a regularized log-likelihood criterion for model estimation, for which an efficient Expectation-Maximization algorithm is developed. The efficacy of PSFAR is demonstrated by both simulation studies and a real application using handwritten digit data.
The impact of meteorological persistence on the distribution and extremes of ozone

CASTNET (Clean Air Status and Trends Network) ozone and temperature data and large-scale meteorological analysis are used to quantify the extent to which meteorological events and their persistence impact ozone with an emphasis on the high end of the ozone distribution (greater than the 90th percentile). Ozone increases with each successive stagnation day in all regions of the US, with the highest increase in the Northeastern US (0.4 standard deviation or ∼ 4.7 ppb per successive stagnation day). Ozone increases with days since cyclone passage only in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the US, but on average not enough to reach the 90th percentile concentration. Persistent high temperature does not result in further ozone increases in any region. On the interannual timescale there is little evidence that summers with large numbers of the above events increase ozone preferentially on the high end of the ozone distribution.
The influence of wrist posture, grip type, and grip force on median nerve shape and cross-sectional area

During grasping, the median nerve undergoes mechanical stress in the carpal tunnel which may contribute to carpal tunnel syndrome. This study investigated the effects of wrist posture, grip type, and grip force on the shape and cross-sectional area of the median nerve. Ultrasound examination was used to obtain cross-sectional images of the dominant wrist of 16 healthy subjects (8 male) at the proximal carpal tunnel during grasping. The cross-sectional area, circularity, and axis lengths of the median nerve were assessed in 27 different conditions (3 postures × 3 grip types × 3 force levels). There were no significant changes in median nerve cross-sectional area (P > 0.05). There were significant interactions across posture, grip type, and grip force affecting nerve circularity and axis lengths. When the wrist was flexed, increasing grip force caused the median nerve to shorten in the mediolateral direction and lengthen in the anteroposterior direction (P 0.07). With the wrist extended, the nerve became more flattened (less circular) as grip force increased during four finger pinch grip and chuck grip (P 0.3). Circularity was lower during the four finger pinch compared to chuck or key grip (P < 0.03). The findings suggest that grip type and wrist posture significantly alter the shape of the median nerve. Clin. Anat. 30:470-478, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Progressive Dying: Meaningful Acts of Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide

In this paper I use William James's understanding of “significance” in life to show that for certain patients euthanasia and assisted suicide can be importantly meaningful acts that family, friends, and health care professionals must acknowledge and even, at times, aid in bringing to fruition. Dying with meaning is transformative. It reshapes the lives of others that are left behind, giving to their lives new groundings by engaging them in the meaning of dying for us. For the patient, dying with meaning takes the seemingly formless void in the abyss of death and gives it a significant purpose in the last stages of life itself; it turns potential nothingness into actual significance. To the extent that we outsiders do not help the dying, we condemn terminally ill patients to a meaningless existence until they die.
Students’ and Teachers’ Conceptual Metaphors for Mathematical Problem Solving

Metaphors are regularly used by mathematics teachers to relate difficult or complex concepts in classrooms. A complex topic of concern in mathematics education, and most STEM-based education classes, is problem solving. This study identified how students and teachers contextualize mathematical problem solving through their choice of metaphors. Twenty-two high-school student and six teacher interviews demonstrated a rich foundation for these shared experiences by identifying the conceptual metaphors. This mixed-methods approach qualitatively identified conceptual metaphors via interpretive phenomenology and then quantitatively analyzed the frequency and popularity of the metaphors to explore whether a coherent metaphorical system exists with teachers and students. This study identified the existence of a set of metaphors that describe how multiple classrooms of geometry students and teachers make sense of mathematical problem solving. Moreover, this study determined that the most popular metaphors for problem solving were shared by both students and teachers. The existence of a coherent set of metaphors for problem solving creates a discursive space for teachers to converse with students about problem solving concretely. Moreover, the methodology provides a means to address other complex concepts in STEM education fields that revolve around experiential understanding.
Utility of the Outcome Questionnaire‐45.2 in outpatient anxiety clinics: A comparison between anxiety patients with and without co‐occurring depression

Objective The Outcome Questionnaire-45.2 (OQ-45) is a self-report measure of general psychological distress. Although intended to be transdiagnostic, the OQ-45 may be best conceptualized as a measure of depression; as such, its utility in assessing other symptoms such as anxiety is unclear. Method We examined scores on the OQ-45 in a sample of 329 patients with anxiety and related disorders, half of whom had co-occurring depression. Results Eighty-two percent of patients scored above the OQ-45 cutoff, whereas 18% were incorrectly screened out. Patients with co-occurring depression were more likely to score above the OQ-45 cutoff than nondepressed patients. Depression severity predicted many of the OQ-45 scales, even after controlling for anxiety severity. By contrast, most of the anxiety-specific measures failed to predict the OQ-45 after controlling for depression severity. Conclusions Findings suggest that the OQ-45 may not adequately capture anxiety symptoms and are discussed in terms of diagnostic screening and assessment.
Is regulatory adoption ceremonial? Evidence from lead director appointments

Research Summary: Regulatory bodies often wrestle with the thorny question of whether to mandate a governance practice or allow for organic adoption. While mandates afford rapid diffusion, we theorize that they also result in ceremonial adoptions. Leveraging a quasi‐natural experiment, we compare adoption outcomes for a governance practice—lead director adoption—that was mandated by the NYSE but not the NASDAQ. We find that NYSE firms are more likely than NASDAQ firms to have installed a lead director as a symbolic management tactic, so their lead directors are less effectual. We also find that transient institutional investors are deceived by this symbolic management, but dedicated institutional investors are not. Managerial Summary: Shareholders and analysts often desire to see companies introduce strict governance measures, such as proxy access and independent boards. Consequently, regulatory bodies often wrestle with the thorny issue of whether and when to mandate such practices for all companies. What they might not realize is that mandates may not work as well as they seem. Although more companies adopt reform under a mandate, they do so merely as a symbolic gesture. We look at one governance reform—appointing a lead director—finding that companies who introduce this reform as a result of a mandate appoint someone that is relatively toothless. We also find, though, that savvy investors are not actually fooled by this tactic and will trade out of firms that attempt such symbolic management.
Modifying Current Collectors to Produce High Volumetric Energy Density and Power Density Storage Devices.

We develop zirconium-templated NiO/NiOOH nanosheets on nickel foam and polypyrrole-embedded in exfoliated carbon fiber cloth as complementary electrodes for an asymmetric battery-type supercapacitor device. We achieve high volumetric energy and power density by the modification of commercially available current collectors (CCs). The modified CCs provide the source of active material, actively participate in the charge storage process, provide a larger surface area for active material loading, need no additional binders or conductive additives, and retain the ability to act as the CC. Nickel foam (NF) CCs are modified by use of a soft-templating/solvothermal treatment to generate NiO/NiOOH nanosheets, where the NF is the source of Ni for the synthesis. Carbon-fiber cloth (CFC) CCs are modified by an electrochemical oxidation/reduction process to generate exfoliated core–shell structures (ECFC). Electropolymerization of pyrrole into the shell structure produces polypyrrole embedded in exfoliated core–shell ...
Lowering the barrier to online malware detection through low frequency sampling of HPCs

As mobile phones become more ubiquitous in our daily lives, many malware creators have shifted their focus to these mobile platforms. While a plethora of work exists to try and detect malware as it is uploaded to app stores and when it is downloaded to user devices, malware still slips through. A lesser body of work has suggested that Hardware Performance Counters (HPCs) can provide an insight into detecting malware as it runs. While these works have been successful, they typically require thread-level sampling rates every tens of thousands of instructions and hundreds of KB/s to MB/s of bus bandwidth, resulting in high power overhead in battery constrained mobile devices. Unlike previous works, this paper proposes a coarser grained approach, requiring system-wide sampling rates in the hundreds of Hz and less than 10 KB/s of bandwidth, all while achieving similar accuracy to previous works and identification of zero-day attacks. The proposed method focuses purely on background detection, that is, detection of malware when its parent application is inactive. This technique relies upon a multi-layer neural network to extract the higher order dependencies between different HPCs as processes are executed on multiple cores. Experiments are conducted on a Motorola G4 platform, and classifiers are trained with multiple families of malware and a multitude of clean system states.
Religiosity and HIV Risk Behavior Involvement Among "At Risk" Women

During the past decade, increased attention has been payed to the role that religious and faith-based organizations can play in enhancing health behaviors. Generally, researchers have found that religious and faith-based programs can have a positive impact upon enhancing people's health and helping them to reduce risky health practices. Initial research into the impact that these programs can have on HIV-related knowledge and risk behaviors has also been promising, albeit quite limited. In this study, we examine the role that religiosity plays in women's involvement in HIV risk behaviors. Religiosity was found to be a strong predictor of women's involvement in HIV-related risky behaviors, with the greatest risk reported by women who were the least religious.
Identification of the murder weapon by intricate patterned injury measurements.

Critical studies of an intricate blunt force injury pattern in a brutal homicide led to the identification of the murder weapon. A 50-year-old male was bludgeoned to death in his apartment during a robbery allegedly engineered by his daughter. Careful measurements and overlay construction of the wounds relative to the magazine catch, lanyard ring, magazine chamber, and butt of a 32-caliber Eistegui Hermanos fibar (Espana) automatic pistol led to the conclusion that either the alleged weapon or one identical to it caused the fatal injuries.
Preclinical Models for Evaluating Topoisomerase I-Targeted Drugs

Type I and II DNA topoisomerases are the targets for numerous clinically efficacious antitumor agents. Over the last decade, considerable effort has been expended in developing camptothecin (CPT) derivatives that selectively target DNA topoisomerase I (TOP-I) (1). The prodrug irinotecan (CPT-11) is approved for treatment of colon carcinoma and has demonstrated significant activity against numerous other cancers in adults and children. Topotecan is approved for treatment of platinum- or taxane-resistant ovarian carcinoma and has demonstrated broad-spectrum activity (2). Other analogs are in clinical development, such as D5198f and the homocamptothecins and liposomal formulations of CPT derivatives, and offer the potential for prolonged plasma exposures.
Touch and Pain

The field of touch and pain in infancy have only recently been explored. Touch is the earliest developing sense and even as early as the newborn period, the sense of touch is well developed, and the newborn experiences pain. In this piece research is reviewed on early touch perception including temperature, texture, and weight perception by infants. Studies are also reviewed on infants’ behavioral and physiological responses to pain and effective interventions for pain including stimulation of other senses through aromas and sucrose and activity such as nonnutritive sucking.
Theorizing About Family Quality of Life

In this chapter we present a unified theory of family quality of life (FQOL) for families of children with intellectual and other disabilities. We begin with a review of the definitional and explanatory components of FQOL and the variables forwarded in the family quality of life (FQOL) literature. We depict FQOL as an interactive process in which individual family member demographics, characteristics, and beliefs interact with family-unit dynamics and characteristics within the context of individual and family-level supports, services, and practices. This interactive inner framework of the model is further impacted by federal, state, and local systems, policies, and programs. Using the basic building blocks of theory and empirical data from the family quality of literature, we illustrate how these unique components combine to produce an explanation of FQOL. We end with a working theoretical model of FQOL which serves as a guide for researchers to generate multiple testable theoretical statements.
Challenging adulthood: Changing initiation rites among the Balanta of Guinea-Bissau

This article is about how changing initiation rites among the Balanta of Guinea-Bissau are affecting their society, and how neoliberal changes in society are affecting Balanta rites of passage and ...
Abstract 041: Brain Cytochrome P450 1B1-Testosterone Generated Metabolite 6Beta-Hydroxytestosterone Contributes to Angiotensin II-Induced Increased Sympathetic Outflow and Blood Pressure

Cytochrome P450 1B1 (CYP1B1)-generated testosterone (T) metabolite 6β-hydroxytestosterone (6β-OHT) contributes to angiotensin (Ang) II-induced hypertension in the male mice. However, the site of ac...
TRIENNIAL GROWTH SYMPOSIUM: THE NUTRITION OF MUSCLE GROWTH: Impacts of nutrition on the proliferation and differentiation of satellite cells in livestock species1,2

Nutrition and other external factors are known to have a marked effect on growth of skeletal muscle, modulated, at least in part, through effects on satellite cells. Satellite cells and their embryonic precursors play an integral role in both prenatal and postnatal skeletal muscle growth of mammals. Changes in maternal nutrition can impact embryonic muscle progenitor cells which ultimately impacts both prenatal and postnatal skeletal muscle development. Satellite cells are important in postnatal skeletal muscle growth as they support the hypertrophy of existing myofibers. Hypertrophy of existing fibers is the only mechanism of postnatal muscle growth because muscle fiber number is fixed at birth and fiber nuclei have exited the cell cycle. Because fiber nuclei do not divide, additional nuclei required for hypertrophy must be acquired from satellite cells. To date, little research has aimed at determining whether nutrition directly impacts satellite cell populations within skeletal muscle of livestock species. However, it is well established that nutrition alters circulating concentrations of various growth factors such as insulin-like growth factor 1, epidermal growth factor, hepatocyte growth factor, and fibroblast growth factor. Each of these different growth factors impacts satellite cell proliferation and/or activation, indicating that nutrition likely plays a large role in skeletal muscle growth through impacting the satellite cell pool in both prenatal and postnatal growth. The relationship among nutrition, growth factors, and satellite cells relative to skeletal muscle growth is an important area of research that warrants further consideration.
Memory-Augmented Recurrent Networks for Dialogue Coherence.

Recent dialogue approaches operate by reading each word in a conversation history, and aggregating accrued dialogue information into a single state. This fixed-size vector is not expandable and must maintain a consistent format over time. Other recent approaches exploit an attention mechanism to extract useful information from past conversational utterances, but this introduces an increased computational complexity. In this work, we explore the use of the Neural Turing Machine (NTM) to provide a more permanent and flexible storage mechanism for maintaining dialogue coherence. Specifically, we introduce two separate dialogue architectures based on this NTM design. The first design features a sequence-to-sequence architecture with two separate NTM modules, one for each participant in the conversation. The second memory architecture incorporates a single NTM module, which stores parallel context information for both speakers. This second design also replaces the sequence-to-sequence architecture with a neural language model, to allow for longer context of the NTM and greater understanding of the dialogue history. We report perplexity performance for both models, and compare them to existing baselines.
Hydrogen Sensors Based on Flexible Carbon Nanotube-Palladium Composite Sheets Integrated with Ripstop Fabric.

This work describes the design and fabrication of free-standing carbon nanotube-palladium (CNT-Pd) composite sheets for hydrogen gas sensing. The CNT-Pd composites were made by electroplating palladium onto a solvent-densified and oxygen plasma-treated CNT sheet. The latter was prepared using high purity CNTs drawn from a dense, vertically aligned array grown by chemical vapor deposition on silicon substrates. The CNT-Pd sheets were characterized by energy-dispersive spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and X-ray diffraction. The amount of palladium in the composite was 16.5 wt % as measured via thermogravimetric analysis. Thin strips of the CNT-Pd sheets were assembled as chemiresistor sensors and tested for hydrogen gas detection. The sensors demonstrated a limit of detection of 0.1 mol % and displayed signal reversibility without the need for oxygen removal or heat treatment. A decrease in signal reversibility was observed after multiple exposure cycles; however, redensification with ethanol sig...
Quantifying Local Currents and their effects on Coral Reefs in French Polynesia

Coral reefs around the world are being significantly affected by global changes in sea surface temperature as well as ocean acidification. However, scientists have a limited understanding of how local currents affect the chemical and thermal relationships between the reef building corals and the surrounding saltwater environment. Coral reefs are known to cause a diel-cycle with dramatic changes in the carbonate system along with oxygen. As calcifying reefs grow, they remove calcium and carbonate ions, reducing dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) and total alkalinity (TAlk) and decreasing pH levels. The carbonate ions must be replaced in order for the coral to continue its calcification at a consistent rate. This residence time of surrounding seawater is very difficult to locally quantify in a coral reef as the bathymetry is complex, creating variable currents in all 3 dimensions. Ocean acidification and its negative impact on coral reef health is expected to increase, and fine-scale observations of the link between residence time of surrounding seawater and the dynamic change in water properties remain unknown. A prototype sensor was built with the aim to provide direct measurements of the fine-scale mixing dynamic to collect data from which estimates of mass transfer can be calculated within the reef environment. The neutrally buoyant passive sensor tracks local water parcels in 3 dimensions and records water parameters in a small area on a coral reef. The design and prototyping of this type of sensor will lead to an improved observational tool in coral reef research.
Improving the Pharmacodynamics and In Vivo Activity of ENPP1-Fc Through Protein and Glycosylation Engineering

Enzyme replacement with ectonucleotide pyrophosphatase phospodiesterase-1 (ENPP1) eliminates mortality in a murine model of the lethal calcification disorder generalized arterial calcification of infancy. We used protein engineering, glycan optimization, and a novel biomanufacturing platform to enhance potency by using a three-prong strategy. First, we added new N-glycans to ENPP1; second, we optimized pH-dependent cellular recycling by protein engineering of the Fc neonatal receptor; finally, we used a two-step process to improve sialylation by first producing ENPP1-Fc in cells stably transfected with human α-2,6-sialyltransferase (ST6) and further enhanced terminal sialylation by supplementing production with 1,3,4-O-Bu3 ManNAc. These steps sequentially increased the half-life of the parent compound in rodents from 37 hours to ~ 67 hours with an added N-glycan, to ~ 96 hours with optimized pH-dependent Fc recycling, to ~ 204 hours when the therapeutic was produced in ST6-overexpressing cells with 1,3,4-O-Bu3 ManNAc supplementation. The alterations were demonstrated to increase drug potency by maintaining efficacious levels of plasma phosphoanhydride pyrophosphate in ENPP1-deficient mice when the optimized biologic was administered at a 10-fold lower mass dose less frequently than the parent compound-once every 10 days vs. 3 times a week. We believe these improvements represent a general strategy to rationally optimize protein therapeutics.
Estimating safety performance functions for two-lane rural roads using an alternative functional form for traffic volume

Statistical models of expected crash frequency are referred to as Safety Performance Functions (SPFs) in the first edition of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials' Highway Safety Manual (HSM). The SPFs in the HSM specify expected annual crash frequencies as a function of various roadway and roadside features, with the most important predictor variable being traffic volume, which serves as a measure of vehicle exposure to crashes. Traffic volumes are typically measured using the average annual daily traffic and are incorporated into the SPFs using a natural logarithm transformation. This specification suggests that the relationship between expected crash frequency and traffic volume increases non-linearly with a constant elasticity over the range of observed values. While researchers concur that the relationship between expected crash frequencies and traffic volume is non-linear, further exploration of the functional form of this relationship may offer additional insights concerning the association between safety performance and vehicle exposure. This paper proposes an alternative functional form for the traffic volume variable in SPFs that allows for different elasticities between traffic volume and expected crash frequency within different traffic volume ranges, while preserving the same general non-linear relationship in existing HSM SPFs. Although other forms-like the Hoerl function-have been proposed in the literature, the proposed model allows for natural breakpoints in the traffic volume for which roadway or geometric features might have varying effects on low- or high-volume roads. The proposed functional form was applied to SPFs developed for two-lane rural roadways in Pennsylvania. Comparisons with SPFs developed using the traditional and Hoerl functional forms suggest that this proposed functional form offers an improved fit and predictive performance, and thus might be considered for the development of future SPFs.
Antinociceptive and Discriminative Stimulus Effects of Six Novel Psychoactive Opioid Substances in Male Rats.

Compounds with novel or fentanyl-like structures continue to appear on the illicit drug market and have been responsible for fatalities, yet there are limited preclinical pharmacological data available to evaluate the risk of these compounds to public health. The purpose of the present study was to examine acetyl fentanyl, butyryl fentanyl, 3,4-dichloro-N-[[1-(dimethylamino)cyclohexyl]methyl]benzamide (AH-7921), 1-cyclohexyl-4-(1,2-diphenylethyl)piperazine (MT-45), 4-chloro-N-[1-(2-phenylethyl)-2-piperidinylidene]-benzenesulfonamide (W-15), and 4-chloro-N-[1-[2-(4-nitrophenyl)ethyl]-2-piperidinylidene]-benzenesulfonamide (W-18) for their relative potency to reference opioids and their susceptibility to naltrexone antagonism using the 55oC warm-water, tail-withdrawal assay of antinociception and a morphine drug discrimination assay in male, Sprague-Dawley rats. In the antinociception assay, groups of 8 rats per drug were placed into restraining tubes, their tails were immersed into 40o or 55oC water, and the latency for tail withdrawal was measured with a cutoff time of 15 seconds. In the drug discrimination assay, rats (n = 11) were trained to discriminate between 3.2 mg/kg morphine and saline, subcutaneously, in a two-choice, drug discrimination procedure under a fixed ratio-5 schedule of sucrose pellet delivery. Morphine, fentanyl, and four of the synthetic opioids dose dependently produced antinociception and fully substituted for morphine in the drug discrimination assay with the following rank order of potency: fentanyl > butyryl fentanyl > acetyl fentanyl > AH-7921 > MT45 > morphine. All drugs that produced antinociception or morphine-like discriminative stimulus effects were blocked by naltrexone. W-15 and W-18 did not show antinociceptive or morphine-like discriminative stimulus effects at the doses tested supporting a lack of opioid activity for these two compounds. These findings suggest that butyryl fentanyl, acetyl fentanyl, AH-7941, and MT-45 have abuse liability like other opioid agonists. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT As novel psychoactive substances appear on the illicit drug market, preclinical pharmacological testing is required to assist law enforcement, medical professionals, and legal regulators with decisions about potential public health risks. In this study, four synthetic opioids, acetyl fentanyl, butyryl fentanyl, AH-7921, and MT-45 produced effects similar to fentanyl and morphine and were blocked by naltrexone. These data suggest the four synthetic opioids possess similar abuse liability risks as typical opioid agonists.
Chapter 15 The pleiotropic vitamin D hormone

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the multiple actions of vitamin D 3 and the pleiotropic mechanisms by which these actions are accomplished. Vitamin D, along with parathyroid hormone and calcitonin, plays a primary role in calcium and phosphorus homeostasis in the body. Vitamin D 3 can be obtained either through the diet or by the conversion of 7-dehydrocholesterol in the skin by the action of ultraviolet light. The mechanism by which most 1,25(OH) 2 D 3 -mediated actions occur is analogous to that of the classic steroid hormones. 1,25(OH) 2 D 3 is known to interact with a specific receptor in its target cells resulting in transformation of the receptor to a form with high affinity for DNA. The hormone–receptor complex interacts with specific DNA sequences regulating the transcription rate of certain target genes to induce de novo synthesis of mRNA species. One of the major effects of 1,25(OH) 2 D 3 in its target tissues is the induction of a calcium-binding protein, which is the major known protein product induced by 1,25(OH) 2 D 3.
When War Is Work: The G.I. Bill, Citizenship, and the Civic Generation

Since its enactment in June 1944,1 the G.I. Bill has been elevated to almost mythical status in our collective memory. And in recent years, increased interest in the World War II generation has precipitated further discussion of the G.I. Bill, its beneficiaries, and its impact on postwar America 2 and beyond. Unfortunately, most of these accounts veer towards hagiography, reifying the Bill, without critically analyzing its impact and effects.3 In one account, the G.I. Bill is characterized as the law that "made" modem America.4
High frequency relaxation phenomena in ferromagnetic and ferrimagnetic systems-physics and phenomenology

Summary form only given. The author brings together the phenomenological and the physical considerations of magnetization dynamics for ferromagnets and ferrites. He explains the origins of the various phenomenological models, and where these models work and do not work. He identifies and describes various physical loss processes which appear to play important roles in the damping and relaxation for magnetic materials and thin films.
AN INVESTIGATION INTO SIXTH GRADE STUDENTS’ UNDERSTANDING OF RATIO AND PROPORTION

Drawing on written assessments collected from 58 sixth grade students, this article discusses the results of a study that examined patterns in middle-grade boy’s and girl’s written problem solving strategies for a mathematical task involving proportional reasoning and their level of understanding of ratios and proportions. This work is a part of a larger, longitudinal project, Mathematics Identity Development and Learning (MIDDLE), that focused on the impact of mathematics reform on students’ development as mathematics knowers and learners and identifying process the explains changes in students’ mathematical learning and self-conceptions. Findings the current work speaks to student strategy use, errors, and levels of understanding.
An observer based sample detection scheme for atomic force microscopy

In dynamic mode operation of atomic force microscopes steady state signals like amplitude and phase are typically used for the detection and imaging of sample. Due to the high quality factor of the micro-cantilever probe the corresponding methods are inherently slow. In this paper we present a novel methodology for fast interrogation of sample that exploits the transient signals. A novel method is introduced for the detection of small time scale tip-sample interactions. Simulations and experiments show that the method results in significant increase in bandwidth and resolution as compared to the steady state data based methods.
Race and Place: Race Relations in an American City

A striking but little recognized change in race relations during the past two decades has seen the declining levels of racial segregation in most of America's major metropolitan areas. More American cities are beginning to have black and white residents. An integral component of this decline in residential segregation has been the large-scale movement of blacks to the suburbs. This book focuses on the attitudes and behavior of African Americans and whites. Will whites' attitudes about blacks and blacks' attitudes toward whites change if they are living in integrated neighborhoods rather than apart from one another? Are black suburbanites more likely to share the views of their fellow white suburbanites or of their fellow African Americans in the central city? Will residential integration and new patterns of race in the suburbs break down divisions between blacks and whites in their views of local public services?
Ages of Globular Clusters

A brief historical introduction is given. Recent advances in precision photometry of faint stars in globular clusters and in the modeling of turnoffs and synthetic horizontal branches, indicate that there is a spread in age of at least 4 Gyr among Galactic globular clusters. Absolute ages are more difficult to determine and the sources of uncertainty are discussed. On the observational side, chemical abundances, [Fe/H] and [O/Fe], are the major sources of uncertainty. Two effects hitherto ignored in evolutionary calculations and currently under study, rotation and diffusion, are discussed. Internal rotation affects the ages only in a minor way. The diffusion of helium near the main sequence could be important in reducing the derived ages of the oldest clusters; its efficiency, which is poorly known, can however be constrained and evaluated by lithium abundance observations. Finally, an approximate chronology of the Galaxy is presented on the basis of our current best understanding of cluster dating. The lowest age derived for the cluster M92 is 14 Gyr, which puts a strong constraint on the cosmological timescale.
Pharmacodynamics of 3H-digoxin in infants.

The absorption, tissue concentration, and urinary and fecal excretion of 3H-digoxin was studied in 20 infants with serious congenital cardiac malformations and, except for minor differences, the results were in the same range as those reported for adults. The published recommendations of higher dosage requirements in infants for maximum therapeutic effectiveness and the suggested lower dosage for the neonatal period to reduce the danger of toxicity can therefore not be explained by differences in absorption, tissue fixation, and excretion of the glycoside by the neonate and infant when compared with the adult. A major difference is that infants excrete primarily unchanged digoxin, whereas adults excrete both unaltered digoxin and metabolites.