cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Rapid micro-detection system for the enumeration of bacterial endospores

NASA continuously monitors spacecraft surfaces to assure a very low presence of bacterial endospores upon landing on the surface of Mars. In order to meet the rigid schedules of spacecraft assembly, a more rapid, sensitive spore detection assay is being considered as an alternate method to the current three-day NASA standard culture-based assay. The millipore microstar rapid system (RMDS) has been used successfully for rapid bioburden enumeration in a wide range of applications. It combines membrane filtration, adenosine triphosphate (ATP) bioluminescence chemistry, and image analysis based on photon detection with a charge coupled device (CCD) camera. The RMDS is rapid and simple, shows high sensitivity (1 colony forming unit [CFU]/sample), and correlates excellently with traditional culture-based methods. In addition, by utilizing the milliflex filtration system, the RMDS is ideal for sampling both large sample volumes and those samples containing inhibitory substances. In this study, we have evaluated the use of the RMDS as a rapid spore detection tool for NASA planetary protection applications. This is accomplished by preceding the RMDS incubation protocol with a heat shock step, 15 minutes at 80/spl deg/C, as a direct selection of spores. Different luciferase enzymes were tested in order to reduce the typical 18-24 hour incubation time to /spl sim/5 hours. Of the reagents evaluated, a formulation of a highly sensitive bioluminescence reagent was found to be more sensitive than the present millipore microstar reagents. Assay times of /spl sim/5 hours were repeatedly demonstrated along with low image background noise. In order to evaluate the applicability of this method, seven species of Bacillus (nine strains) that have been repeatedly isolated from clean room environments were assayed. All strains were detected in /spl sim/5 hours. The improved RMDS-based spore detection is under validation and is expected to achieve the goal of "same shift" measurement of spore bioburden during spacecraft assembly.
Wage and labor supply effects of illness in Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana: instrumental variable estimates for days disabled

Abstract Sickness should make individuals less productive, but there are problems in measuring this effect. First, how is adult morbidity measured in a household survey? Second, how is the impact or morbidity on productivity inferred, if earning is partly used to improve health? Self-reported functional activity limitation due to illness is considered an indicator of morbidity for wage earners and self employed people. To deal with both the measurement and joint determination problems, an instrumental variable estimation approach is used, where local food prices and health services instrument for disability days that reduce wages by at least 10% and hours by 3% or more.
Bupropion Reduces some of the symptoms of Marihuana Withdrawal in chronic Marihuana Users: A pilot study

Bupropion’s (Zyban® SR) effectiveness to treat symptoms experienced in marihuana withdrawal was tested in a double-blind, placebo-controlled study with chronic, heavy marihuana users. Participants maintained their usual marihuana intake until Quit Day after which they were required to cease intake of THC products for 14 days. A Withdrawal Discomfort Score revealed that for 7 days immediately following cessation, placebo-treated subjects reported more symptoms than bupropion-treated subjects. Self-reported craving for marihuana increased for the placebo-treated group but not for those treated with bupropion. Measures of sleep and cognitive performance were not different between the two groups. Participants in the bupropion treatment arm were more likely to complete the study than those randomized to the placebo arm (50% completion for bupropion vs. 33% completion for placebo). These results suggest that bupropion may be useful for alleviating marihuana withdrawal symptoms and be useful in subject retention during long-term cessation programs.
Determination of spectra from pulse-height data

Abstract A method for determining parameters of a physical spectrum from pulse-height data is described. This method is designed to utilize information from the entire range of data and possesses advantages over other methods in use which arbitrarily restrict the input-data range used for parameter determination. Applications to two problems in β-spectroscopy are made. This method is most useful in those cases in which the information is distributed fairly smoothly over many data points. The statistical errors associated with the parameters may be determined in a straightforward manner.
Google's Innovation Factory: Testing, Culture, and Infrastructure

Google’s external mythology has been one of a brilliant and chaotic innovation machine that produces new products and features at an amazing rate. Behind the curtain of public perception is a company that takes quality seriously and is reinventing how software is created, tested, released, and maintained; a reality that’s even more interesting than the myth. At Google we’ve learned a lot in the last few years about accelerating very large scale software development; in this paper we'll share what has worked and what hasn't worked for us.
Uniformity and homogeneity issues with concurrent iterative reconstruction algorithms

Concurrent iterative reconstruction algorithms are iterative reconstruction algorithms that inject projection data into the iterative process as the data become available during the SPECT acquisition process and continue iterations in the post-acquisition period as conventional iterative algorithms. Because projections acquired early are processed more than later projections, regional inhomogeneities may exist in the initial image estimates but decrease with further post-acquisition iteration. Regularization done either during the acquisition or post-acquisition iterations further reduces regional inhomogeneities. The authors tested statistical differences in regions throughout the reconstructed image to determine the minimal number of post-acquisition iterations and type of regularization needed to reach an image that is inter-regionally consistent. Depending on the requirements of the final clinical application, the algorithms can offer a reduction in post-acquisition reconstruction time when compared to conventional iterative algorithms and provide images free of reconstruction inhomogeneities.
Commissioning of a first-order transition jump in RHIC

When accelerating gold ions in the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) the transition energy must be crossed. RHIC uses a set of special quadrupoles and power supplies which can reverse polarity in less than 40 milliseconds. These quadrupoles are used to produce dispersion bumps which increase the transition energy as the beam approaches transition. The change of polarity will then jump the transition energy across the beam energy. This paper describes the commissioning of the RHIC transition crossing system.
The Astron Linear Accelerator

One of the primary requirements of the Astron controlled thermonuclear reactor experiment is an intense beam of relativistic electrons. An accelerator to produce such a beam with currents of the order of several hundred amperes has been in operation at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, Livermore, for several years. The accelerator operates on the principle of magnetic induction as applied to a linear accelerator. The original accelerator has been redesigned and rebuilt in order to increase the output beam current, to increase the beam energy, and to improve the quality of the output beam. Given in Table I is a comparison between the original machine and the design parameters for the new machine.
Dislocation modeling and acoustic emission observation of alternating ductile/brittle events in Fe-3wt%Si crystals

Abstract It has been established that hydrogen assisted subcritical crack growth in Fe-3wt%Si single crystals is discontinuous while accompanied by substantial plasticity. Prop osed micromechanisms of this process are addressed via observed fine-scale {100} cleavage features, acoustic emission tracking and computer simulation analysis. The near crack tip stress distribution in an elastic-plastic analysis enabled insight into how dislocation shielding led to mirocrack nucleation. Such discretized computational models include: the stress due to the dislocation self field, the stress from crack-dislocation interactions, the stress from the crack-external stress interaction and the external applied stress. Stress distributions in both macroscopic and microscopic scales of interest were also examined, appropriate to different slip systems. It was found that the stress at the crack tip became slightly compressive while the position of the maximum stress, approaching the theoretical strength shifts to about 2–30 nm from the crack tip. The high stress region may be correlated with the observed 1 μm discontinuous crack instabilities as detected by acoustic emission. The mutual feedback from experimental findings related to acoustic emission and crystallographical habits vis-a-vis theoretical aspects are analyzed. This approach results in a micromechanical model which has implications to both hydrogen embrittlement thresholds and the ductile-brittle transition.
TECHNICAL NOTE: Comparison of Thermostatic and Humidistatic Controls of Ventilation in a Modified Open Front Swine Finishing Facility1

ABSTRACT Four experiments were conducted to compare the CO 2 and relative humidity levels in a modified open front swine finishing house under 2 types of ventilation controls — thermostat and humidistat. The first 3 experiments were conducted during the winter. In Exp. 1, a thermostat (set at 18.3°C) activated an automatic winch to open or close a ventilating curtain. In the other room, the automatic winch was controlled by a humidistat [set at 55% relative humidity (RH) with an over-riding thermostat setat 12°C]. Experiments 2 and 3 were conducted in the same manner except that in the humidistat-controlled room, the overriding thermostat was set at 14.4 to 15.5°C, and a heater was employed to maintain a temperature similar to that of the thermostat-controlled room. Experiment 4 was conducted with a lower humidistat setting and identical thermostat settings in each room to measure room effects. Carbon dioxide concentrations and RH were significantly lower (P 0.05). As anticipated because of the identical settings in Exp. 4, CO 2 concentration and RH were similar in both rooms, as were all measures of growth performance. These results indicate that a humidistat can be used to reduce RH and CO 2 concentrations in a swine-finishing facility.
Real-time communication in FDDI-based reconfigurable networks

We report our ongoing research in real-time communication with FDDI-based reconfigurable networks. The original FDDI architecture was enhanced in order to improve its fault-tolerance capability while a scheduling methodology, including message assignment, bandwidth allocation, and bandwidth management is developed to support real-time communication. As a result, message deadlines are guaranteed even in the event of network faults. >
Changes in Seasonal Cloud Cover over the Arctic Seas from Satellite and Surface Observations

Winter and spring changes in cloudiness are compared over the arctic seas (ocean areas north of 60 degrees N) from the TOVS (TIROS Operational Vertical Sounder) Polar Pathfinder retrievals and two separate datasets derived from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR). All satellite products exhibit significant decreases in cloud fraction over the arctic seas during winter (December, January, February) on the order of 5 %/ decade. An equally striking increase in spring (March, April, May) cloudiness is evident from the TOVS Pathfinder (TPP) and the extended AVHRR Polar Pathfinder (APP-x) projects. In the Central Arctic these positive trends can be as large as 15 %/decade. Surface observations from the Russian drifting meteorological stations are consistent with satellite-observed changes during the 1980s. Negative trends in spring cloudiness reported by Comiso [2003] are in conflict with these findings. Spring changes in cloudiness are associated with changes in the atmospheric circulation. These dramatic, large-scale changes may have substantial impacts on the surface energy balance.
In Situ-Fabrication of TiCN Ceramic Coating on Titanium Alloy by Laser Cladding Technology

The insitu-fabrication of TiCN ceramic coating by laser cladding-laser nitriding technique (LC-LN) was investigated. Pulsed YAG laser with the power of 500W was used as radiation source. Highly pure N2 was selected as the nitriding element; Titanium powder whose size is 20 m and the pure carbon powder were utilized as the coating materials. The influence of technology parameters such as pulse width, pulse frequency and scanning speed etc. on the insitu-formation of TiCN ceramic coating was studied. XRD results show that the main phases of the coating are TiC0.3N0.7 (or TiC0.2N0.8),TiN and TiN0.3. It was revealed that the appropriate process parameters for insitu-fabrication are the pulse frequency 15 Hz, pulse width 3.0ms, the scanning speed in the range of 9cm/min to 12cm/min, the pressure of N2 0.4MPa. The result of OM showed a metallurgical bonding without crack and bubble between the coating and the substrate was obtained. The microstructure of cladded coating is characterized by fine dentrites. The average microhardness in the coating is more than 1300HV which is about 4 times of that in the substrate.
Molecular Evolution of Drosophila Germline Stem Cell and Neural Stem Cell Regulating Genes

Here, we study the molecular evolution of a near complete set of genes that had functional evidence in the regulation of the Drosophila germline and neural stem cell. Some of these genes have previously been shown to be rapidly evolving by positive selection raising the possibility that stem cell genes as a group have elevated signatures of positive selection. Using recent Drosophila comparative genome sequences and population genomic sequences of Drosophila melanogaster, we have investigated both long- and short-term evolution occurring across these two different stem cell systems, and compared them with a carefully chosen random set of genes to represent the background rate of evolution. Our results showed an excess of genes with evidence of a recent selective sweep in both germline and neural stem cells in D. melanogaster. However compared with their control genes, both stem cell systems had no significant excess of genes with long-term recurrent positive selection in D. melanogaster, or across orthologous sequences from the melanogaster group. The evidence of long-term positive selection was limited to a subset of genes with specific functions in both the germline and neural stem cell system.
MANAGING THE OVERWEIGHT NEUROLOGY PATIENT: CLINICAL STRATEGIES *

Neurologic therapeutics are the primary cause of significant weight gain for neurology patients. When prescribing a drug, the physician weighs the benefit of the drug against the risks—serious side effects and potential drug-drug interactions. Weight gain is often not considered a serious side effect. Even modest amounts of weight gain, however, entail health risks. From the patient’s perspective, weight gain can seriously impair health-related quality of life, which may severely impact adherence to a drug regimen. Studies have shown weight gain is major factor in nonadherence to antiepileptic drugs, antiseizure drugs, tricyclic antidepressants, and atypical antipsychotics. Neurologists need not be trained in obesity management to help prepare patients for the additional challenges of being prone to weight gain before beginning a drug regimen. They may also serve as coach in helping the weight-gaining or overweight/obese patient to identify ways to control weight; a summary of recommended clinical strategies is reviewed here. (Adv Stud Med. 2003;3(6A):S494-S498)
Dose-response in the treatment of breast cancer: a critical review.

In animal tumor models the dose-response curve for cytotoxic agents, especially cyclophosphamide, may be steep, but the slope and shape of this curve depends not only on the drug used but on the schedule of drug administration, the specific tumor type, tumor cell kinetics, and tumor mass. It might be anticipated from these studies that the human tumors most sensitive to dose effects would be leukemia, lymphoma, small-cell carcinoma of the lung, and testicular tumors rather than the low growth fraction, relatively less responsive tumors such as breast cancer. However, the clinical evidence for a steep dose-response curve in any tumor type is limited. For breast cancer such evidence is largely retrospective or derived from uncontrolled trials. The data available from randomized trials makes it seem unlikely that small, or even moderate, reductions in drug dose for nontrivial reasons will compromise the survival of patients with either early or metastatic disease. In spite of promising data from small trials...
LRU caching with moderately heavy request distributions

Majority of practical caching algorithms, in particular those used in the World Wide Web applications, are based on the so-called Least-Recently-Used (LRU) cache replacement heuristic whose desirable attributes include low complexity, quick adaptability and high cache hit (low fault) probability. Recent studies have developed asymptotic characterization of the LRU fault probability for the generalized Zipf's (power) law request distributions. In this paper, we extend these results to include the distributions that decay faster than power laws but slower than exponential, hence named moderately heavy distributions. Informally, for these types of distributions and the independent reference model, the main result of this paper shows that the ratio between the cache fault probabilities of the LRU heuristic and the optimal static algorithm is, for large caches, equal to eγ a 1:78, where γ is Euler's constant. Interestingly enough, this limiting ratio is constant, i.e., it is invariant to the underlying characteristics of the request distributions.
Forced swim stress increases ethanol consumption in C57BL/6J mice with a history of chronic intermittent ethanol exposure

Stress exposure has been identified as one risk factor for alcohol abuse that may facilitate the transition from social or regulated alcohol use to the development of alcohol dependence. Additionally, stress is a common trigger for relapse and subsequent loss of control of drinking in alcohol-dependent individuals. The present study was designed to characterize effects of repeated forced swim stress (FSS) on ethanol consumption in three rodent drinking models that engender high levels of ethanol consumption. Adult male C57BL/6J mice were exposed to 10-min FSS 4 h prior to each drinking session in three different models of high ethanol consumption: chronic intermittent ethanol (CIE) drinking (a model of dependence-like drinking), drinking-in-the-dark (DID; a model of binge-like drinking), and intermittent vs. continuous access (a model of escalated drinking). In the CIE drinking paradigm, daily FSS facilitated the escalation of ethanol intake that is typically seen in CIE-exposed mice without altering ethanol consumption in control mice exposed to FSS. FSS prior to drinking sessions did not alter ethanol consumption in the DID or intermittent access paradigms, whereas stressed mice in the continuous access procedure consumed less ethanol than their nonstressed counterparts. The CIE drinking paradigm may provide a helpful preclinical model of stress-induced transition to ethanol dependence that can be used to (1) identify underlying neural mechanisms that facilitate this transition and (2) evaluate the therapeutic potential of various pharmacological agents hypothesized to alleviate stress-induced drinking.
Gating Kinetics in Ionic Channels

It is now well established that the rising phase of the action potential seen in many nerve, muscle and cardiac cells generates from a selective increase in the membrane permeability to Na ions, PNa· When studied under voltage clamp, the changes in PNa which underlie the upstroke of the action potential are measured as changes in the electrical conductance, gNa· For a positive step change in the clamped membrane potential gNa is seen to, with a delay, rise to a peak value (activate) and then, even though the potential is held constant, to decline to a small value (inactivate). A central issue in the problem of the molecular organization of this Na channel gating machinery is the nature of the relation between the activation and inactivation processes.
Computation of Constrained Plane Sets

(1977). Computation of Constrained Plane Sets. Mathematics Magazine: Vol. 50, No. 4, pp. 201-205.
Conservation by native peoples : Prey choice in a depleted habitat.

Native peoples have often been portrayed as natural conservationists, living a “balanced” existence with nature. It is argued that this perspective is a result of an imprecise operational definition of conservation. Conservation is defined here in contrast to the predictions of foraging theory, which assumes that foragers will behave to maximize their short-term harvesting rate. A behavior is deemed conservation when a short-term cost is paid by the resource harvester in exchange for long-term benefits in the form of sustainable harvests. An example of the usefulness of such an operational definition is presented using data on patch and prey choice decisions of a group of subsistence hunters, the Piro of Amazonian Peru. Results indicate that the area around the Piro village is depleted of prey, and that hunters allocate more time to patches where return rates are highest. This response is consistent with both a conservation strategy and foraging theory. Contrary to the expectation of the conservation strategy, however, hunters do not restrain from pursing opportunistically encountered prey in the depleted areas. The implications for conservation policy are briefly discussed.
B. thuringiensis U. S. Assay Standard: Report on the Adoption of a Primary U.S. Reference Standard for Assay of Formulations Containing the δ-Endotoxin of Bacillus thuringiensis

A meeting was held on 15 May 1972, at Brownsville, TX, to discuss the adoption of a Primary U.S. Reference Standard for use in the standardization of formulations of the δ -endotoxin produced by Bacillus thuringiensis . The meeting was attended by representatives of the U.S. manufacturers of these formulations, by representatives from the USDA, and by a representative of the Pesticides Regulation Division of the EPA. At this meeting, a formulation of the δ -endotoxin produced by the HD-1 isolate of B. thuringiensis var. kurstaki was adopted as the Primary U. S. Reference Standard. This formulation, designated HD-1-S-1971, was assigned a potency of 18,000 international units (IU)/mg, based on the international standard, E-61.
Disruptiin of energy transductiin in sarcoplasmic reticulum by trypsin cleavage of (Ca2+ + Mg2+)-ATPase.

Proteolytic digestion of sarcoplasmic reticulum vesicles with trypsin has been used as a structural modification with which to examine the interaction between the ATP hydrolysis site and calcium transport sites of the (Ca2++Mg2+)-ATPase. The kinetics of trypsin fragmentation were examined and the time course of fragment production compared with ATP hydrolytic and calcium uptake activities of the digested vesicles. The initial cleavage (TD 1) of the native ATPase to A and B peptides has no effect on the functional integrity of the enzyme, hydrolytic and transport activities remaining at the levels of the undigested control. Concomitant with the second tryptic cleavage (TD 2) of the A peptide to A1 and A2 fragments, calcium transport is inhibited. Kinetic analysis demonstrates that the rate constant for inhibition of calcium uptake is correlated with the rate constant of a fragment disappearance. Both Ca2+-dependent and total ATPase activities are unaffected by this second cleavage. Passive loading of vesicles with calcium and subsequent efflux measurements show that transport inhibition is not due to increased permeability of the membrane to calcium even at substantial extents of digestion. Steady-state levels of acidstable phosphoenzyme are unaffected by either TD 1 or TD 2, indicating that uncoupling of the hydrolytic and transport functions does not increase the turnover rate of the enzyme and that TD 2 does not change the essential characteristics of the ATP hydrolysis site. Sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) vesicles were examined for the presence of “tightly bound” nucleotides and are shown to contain 2.8–3.0 nmol ATP and 2.6–2.7 nmol ADP per mg SR protein. The ADP content of SR remains essentially unchanged with TD 1 cleavage of the ATPase enzyme to A and B peptides, but declines upon TD 2 in parallel with the digestion of the A fragment and the loss of calcium uptake activity of the vesicles. The ATP content is essentially constant throughout the course of trypsin digestion. The results are discussed in terms of current models of the SR calcium pump and the molecular mechanism of energy transduction.
Perspective: Digitizing the Diary – Experiments in Queer Encoding (A Retrospective and a Prospective)

AbstractThis essay reflects on the process I am leading within the Victorian Lives and Letters Consortium ( ) to create a scholarly edition of the diary of ‘Michael Field’ (Katharine Bradley and Edith Cooper). Situated in relation to a broader context of nineteenth-century manuscript digitization, it reflects both on the possibilities the digital environment offers for the study of manuscript life-writing, and on the timely and significant questions Bradley and Cooper’s diary raises for the field of manuscript digitization. By revisiting my earlier analysis of Bradley and Cooper’s collaborative life-writing, I probe the nature of their joint diary, asking what type of document it is and how it sits in relation to both nineteenth-century and contemporary understandings of life-writing. I then consider the new kinds of analysis and investigation the digitized diary will make possible, and the kind of new knowledge (historical and otherwise) we might seek from it. The journals ...
Analysis of City Drinking Water Quality in Anhui Province during 2002～2006

Objective To fully know the city drinking water quality andhealth supervising management in Anhui Province during 2002-2006.MethodsWater supply situation and the surveillance and supervising data were analyzed.ResultsThe total qualified rate of water sources was low and the qualified rate of surface water sources was obviously lower than that of underground water sources.Qualified rate of beginning and end water in pipe network was still high.the qualified rate of water by deal with fully was obviously higher than that by deal with partly.The total qualified rate of secondary water suppliers was obviously low.ConclusionIt was necessary to protect water source and improve inspection on drinking water quality.
Studies of aggregation and thromboxane B2 synthesis in avian thrombocytes: comparison between atherosclerosis-susceptible and resistant breeds

Comparison of thrombocyte aggregation in response to arachidonic acid and synthesis of prostaglandins from C14-arachidonic acid by thrombocytes was made between atherosclerosis-susceptible White Carneau and atherosclerosis-resistant Show Racer Pigeons. Contrary to the expectations, thrombocytes from atherosclerosis-susceptible pigeons were a) less sensitive to arachidonic acid induced aggregation and b) synthesized less thromboxane B2 (stable product of proaggregatory thromboxane A2) from C14-arachidonic acid. Analysis of fatty acid composition of thrombocyte phospholipids indicated a higher concentration of arachidonic acid in White Carneau Pigeons. These results suggest that thrombocytes from atherosclerosis-susceptible pigeons are altered early and as a defense mechanism display less responsiveness towards aggregation.
Intraoperative Neuromonitoring for Anterior Cervical Spine Surgery: What Is the Evidence?

Study design Systematic review and meta-analysis. Objective The goal of this study was to (i) assess the risk of neurological injury after anterior cervical spine surgery (ACSS) with and without intraoperative neuromonitoring (ION) and (ii) evaluate differences in the sensitivity and specificity of ION for ACSS. Summary of background data Although ION is used to detect impending neurological injuries in deformity surgery, it's utility in ACSS remains controversial. Methods A systematic search of multiple medical reference databases was conducted for studies on ION use for ACSS. Studies that included posterior cervical surgery were excluded. Meta-analysis was performed using the random-effects model for heterogeneity. Outcome measure was postoperative neurological injury. Results The search yielded 10 studies totaling 26,357 patients. The weighted risk of neurological injury after ACSS was 0.64% (0.23-1.25). The weighted risk of neurological injury was 0.20% (0.05-0.47) for ACDFs compared with 1.02% (0.10-2.88) for corpectomies. For ACDFs, there was no difference in the risk of neurological injury with or without ION (odds ratio, 0.726; confidence interval, CI, 0.287-1.833; P = 0.498). The pooled sensitivities and specificities of ION for ACSS are 71% (CI: 48%-87%) and 98% (CI: 92%-100%), respectively. Unimodal ION has a higher specificity than multimodal ION [unimodal: 99% (CI: 97%-100%), multimodal: 92% (CI: 81%-96%), P = 0.0218]. There was no statistically significant difference in sensitivities between unimodal and multimodal [68% vs. 88%, respectively, P = 0.949]. Conclusion The risk of neurological injury after ACSS is low although procedures involving a corpectomy may carry a higher risk. For ACDFs, there is no difference in the risk of neurological injury with or without ION use. Unimodal ION has a higher specificity than multimodal ION and may minimize "subclinical" intraoperative alerts in ACSS. Level of evidence 3.
Theorizing and Operationalizing a Bioarchaeology of Societal Collapse and Reorganization

This chapter takes a theoretical and operational approach to comprehensively understand how societies reorganize in the aftermath of state collapse. Although some general patterns appear consistent across cultures and in different eras, socio-political fragmentation is a process that varies in time, scale, and configuration. So too, the impacts of such transformations may be variably experienced by individuals as societal restructuring ensues. Issues dramatically impacted in eras following state disaggregation include where people must decide to live and how to treat their dead; how people reorganize themselves as a community and identify themselves vis-a-vis non-members; and how to cope with violence, food insecurity, and the ravages of chronic health problems. These domains are approached through the creative implementation of reliable bioarchaeological correlates.
THERAPEUTIC EMBOLIZATION OF NEUROVASCULAR LESIONS

SUMMARY Interventional neuroradiologic procedures have become the preferred treatment for certain vascular disorders of the central nervous system as a result of the development of new catheters and embolic agents and improved imaging techniques. Whether these procedures are used preoperatively or as definitive treatment, the risk of embolization has decreased with increasing experience, and they compare favorably with the risk of surgery and other treatment modalities. Although devascularizing procedures decrease or eliminate the blood supply to vascular lesions, transluminal angioplasty and thrombolytic therapy increase blood flow to tissues and are effective treatments for symptomatic cerebral vasospasm and iatrogenic cerebral emboli, respectively. Conscious sedation is the preferred anesthetic technique for therapeutic angioembolization because of the ability to perform repeated neurologic assessment. For the uncooperative, obtunded, and pediatric patient, general anesthesia is required for immobilization, control of the airway, and ventilation. Evoked-potential monitoring and preembolization testing with Amytal sodium have decreased the incidence of neurologic complications significantly. Patients with cardiovascular instability and elevated intracranial pressure are at increased risk if controlled hypotension is necessary during embolization. Complications associated with therapeutic embolization can result in stroke, paralysis, or death. An anaphylactic reaction to contrast media can produce airway obstruction and cardiopulmonary compromise. Resuscitation equipment and emergency drugs should always be available. Acute pulmonary embolism may occur if an arterial injection of embolizing material is carried through an AVM to the venous circulation and thence into the lung. Closure of a large AVM may result in acute systemic hypertension and pulmonary edema; this is a common complication of occlusion of a vein of Galen AVM in an infant. Intracranial hemorrhage is another serious complication of neuroembolic procedures. Emergency management includes airway control, hyperventilation and barbiturate administration for elevated intracranial pressure, and maintenance of cardiovascular stability to preserve cerebral perfusion pressure.
Evolving Strategies for Therapeutically Targeting Cancer Stem Cells

Cancer is a multifactor and multistep process that is affected intrinsically by the genetic and epigenetic makeup of tumor cells and extrinsically by the host microenvironment and immune system. A key component of cancer involves a unique subpopulation of highly malignant cancerous cells referred to as cancer stem cells (CSCs). CSCs are positioned at the apex of the tumor hierarchy with an ability to both self-renew and also generate non-CSC/differentiated progeny, which contribute to the majority of the tumor mass. CSCs undergo functional changes and show plasticity that is stimulated by specific microenvironmental cues and interactions in the tumor niche, which contribute to the complexity and heterogeneity of the CSC population. The prognostic value of CSCs in the clinic is evident since there are many examples in which CSCs serve as markers for poor patient prognosis. CSCs are innately resistant to many standard therapies and they display anoikis resistance, immune evasion, tumor dormancy, and field cancerization, which may result in metastasis and relapse. Many academic laboratories and biotechnology companies are currently focusing on strategies that target CSCs. Combination therapies, epigenetic modifiers, stemness inhibitors, CSC surface marker-based therapies, and immunotherapy-based CSC-targeting drugs are currently undergoing clinical trials. Potential new targets/strategies in CSC-targeted therapy include MDA-9/Syntenin (SDCBP), Patched (PTCH), epigenetic targets, noncoding RNAs, and differentiation induction. Defining ways of targeting and destroying CSCs holds potential to impact significantly on cancer therapy, including prevention of metastasis and cancer recurrence.
Narbs: A Narrative Approach to the Use of Big Data

There has been an increasing attention to “big data” as a source of information about individuals. Much of the focus has been on the structured data such as demographics and behavior. However, other unstructured data in the form of utterances from individuals could shed light on personal opinions and attitudes. These data are considered as tiny narrative bits—narbs—that offer insights into the life of the individual. This chapter offers a way of categorizing the unstructured component to offer an analytical starting point to answer questions that arise when big data are examined through the lens of narbs.
A Secure Framework for Medical Information Exchange (MI-X) between Healthcare Providers

As the exchange of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) among different healthcare providers has become a point of interest, it poses serious security and privacy concerns. Previous work proposed to offer medical information exchange has been partially secure, expensive (in terms of messages exchanged), and sometimes requires special hardware, like smart cards, to be present with the users. In this paper, we propose a framework that allows secure exchange of EHRs among different healthcare providers. The framework provides healthcare providers with the capability of mutual authentication and patient authentication. It also ensures the privacy, integrity, and auditability of medical information being exchanged. Patients authorize a certain type of medical information to be retrieved, which helps prevent any undesired leakage of medical information unintentionally. Our exchange protocol is efficient and secure for the purpose of medical information exchange and offers a high level of security for such exchanges.
Comparing physical activity of pedal-assist electric bikes with walking and conventional bicycles

Abstract This paper presents a study on physical activity implications of electric bikes, focusing on the users of an on-campus conventional bicycle and e-bike sharing system at the University of Tennessee. The study describes field trials of 17 users of the bikesharing system and investigates physical activity metrics on identical trips made by three different modes: walk, conventional bicycle, and pedal-assist electric bicycle. The users completed a hilly 4.43 kilometer route using each mode. Heart rate and human power output were monitored along with GPS for each bout. In addition, the study used a laboratory test to relate oxygen consumption rate (VO 2 in ml/kg/min) and energy expenditure (EE kcal/kg/min) to user heart rate during bouts. Energy expenditure and ventilation rates (per minute) for all modes were not statistically different. However, total EE and VO 2 for each bout (per mile) for e-bikes are 24% lower than that for conventional bicycles, and 64% lower than for walking. This reflects the shorter travel time. Differences between e-bikes and bicycles are most pronounced on the uphill segment. Still, e-bikes provide moderate physical activity (MET>3) on flat segments and downhill segments, and vigorous physical activity (MET>6) on uphill segments. For e-bike trials, riders reported higher levels of enjoyment and lower need for a shower than walk or conventional bicycle trials. This paper adds to the expanding literature by comparing e-bike, bicycle and walk EE and VO 2 . E-bikes can contribute as an active transportation mode to meet required physical activity guidelines.
Computerized reminders increased cancer screening and counseling in primary care settings

Source Citation McPhee SJ, Bird JA, Fordham D, Rodnick JE, Osborn EH. Promoting cancer prevention activities by primary care physicians. Results of a randomized, controlled trial. JAMA. 1991 Jul 24...
Relationship between exercise capacity and glucose tolerance in cystic fibrosis

Background Improved exercise capacity (EC) and normal glucose tolerance (NGT) are independently associated with favorable outcomes in CF, however, little information on this relationship exists in patients with CF. Methods Cardiopulmonary exercise tests, oral glucose tolerance tests (OGTT), and HbA1c values measured within a 12-month period were evaluated on 83 pediatric patients diagnosed with CF. Patients were categorized as having NGT, abnormal glucose tolerance (AGT), or CF-related diabetes (CFRD). Results EC decreased as severity of glucose intolerance increased across NGT, AGT, and CFRD groups (P = 0.02). Compared to patients with NGT, patients with CFRD had lower peak VO2 mL/kg/min (33.0 ± 7.3 vs 41.3 ± 9.4, P = 0.01), lower VO2% (81 ± 20 vs 93 ± 17, P = 0.03), and higher HbA1c (6.9 ± 1.7 vs 5.4 ± 0.4, P < 0.01). There was a positive association with age and FEV1% with EC in the 17 patients with CFRD. In the 66 patients without diabetes, peak EC was positively associated with FEV1% and negatively associated with age, fasting insulin, and insulin 120 min. After accounting for age and FEV1%, multivariate analyses indicated that insulin and glucose values at 120 min predicted EC. Conclusions These data provide evidence that poor glucose tolerance is associated with lower EC in pediatric patients with CF. There was a significant relationship between glucose and insulin values obtained by OGTT with EC in a sample of non-diabetic patients with preserved lung function. Future studies are warranted to confirm these findings and investigate the potential role of exercise in the management or prevention of CFRD.
Making the Move from Shouting to Listening to Public Action: A Student Perspective on Millennials and Dialogue

This essay provides an overview of what one senior student at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, Colorado, found while researching the power of conversation to foster civic engagement among her peers. The essay is divided into three sections. First, research on the Millennials is summarized to provide an overview of this generation’s characteristics. Second, the methodology and findings of the applied portions of the student’s senior thesis, referred to as Conversations for Change, are outlined. The third portion, the essay’s conclusion, calls for the increased presence of the student voice in our colleges and universities so as to empower the Millennials’ potential to participate in democracy.
Exploiting PubMed for Protein Molecular Function Prediction via NMF Based Multi-label Classification

Gene ontology (GO) defines terms and classes used to describe gene functions and relationships between them. GO has been the standard to describing the functions of specific genes in different model organisms. GO annotation which tags genes with GO terms has mostly been a manual and timeconsuming curation process. In this paper we describe the development and evaluation of an innovative predictive system to automatically assign a gene its molecular functions (GO terms) using biomedical literature as a resource. We treated a GO term assignment as a multi-label multi-class classification problem. Rather than the commonly used bag-of-words approach, we used non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) for feature reduction and then performed the classification of genes. To address the multi-label aspect of the data, we used the binary-relevance method. We experimented with different classifiers and found that the combination of binary relevance and K-nearest neighbor (KNN) classifier gave the best performance. Our evaluation on UniProtKB/Swiss-Prot dataset showed the best performance of .83 in terms of F-measure.
Kinesiology Students’ Perceptions of Ambivalent Sexism

The culture of sport has historically reinforced hegemonic notions of gender. Both intercollegiate and professional sports in the United States are male-dominated in employment numbers and leadership positions. This raises concerns about the professional work environment women will encounter in their careers. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine perceptions of sexism among kinesiology students who will be entering the male-dominated sports workplace. The Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI) was used to measure sexism (hostile and benevolent) among students enrolled in kinesiology-related majors at a large public university in the southeastern United States. Men scored significantly higher than women on both subscales. Undergraduate students also scored significantly higher than graduate students. Overall, the mean scores in this study were higher than those reported previously for other college student populations. The findings suggest considerable hostile and benevolent sexism among these students.
Fluorometric Determination of Histamine in Tuna: Development of Method

Tuna extracts are treated with an anion exchange resin to remove interfering materials, histamine is derivatized with o-phthaladehyde, and the fluorescence of the resulting compound is measured fluorometrically. Replicate analyses of acceptable and decomposed tuna packed in oil or water agreed within 1 mg at a level of 10 mg/100 g and within 12 mg at a level of 100 mg/100 g. Recoveries of histamine added to fish were greater than 90 and greater than 83% at levels of 10 and 100 mg/100 g, respectively. The new method is more rapid and specific and is simpler than previous methods because no liquid-liquid extractions or chromatographic separations of histamine are required. The sensitivity of the method allows quantitation of less than 10 mg histamine/100 g sample. The accuracy and precision of the fluorometric method are comparable to those of the official AOAC colorimetric method.
Knowledge-based personalization

We present a novel method for software personalization. Personalization is understood broadly as a set of mechanisms by which an application is tailored to a particular end user and his or her task. The presented method outlined here is motivated by and remedies a few widely recognized problems in the way customization is carried out. The proposed method has been used in a collaborative system called Writer's Aid. Itrelies on a declarative specification of preconditions and effects of system's actions and applies artificial intelligence, automated reasoning, and planning framework and techniques to dynamically recognize the lack or availability of the personal information at the precise time when it affects a system action and initiates an interaction with the user aimed at eliciting this information in case it has not yet been specified.
Pathogenic weight-control behavior in female athletes

In brief: Athletes have gone to extraordinary lengths to reduce their body fat stores in an effort to improve performance. To identify athletes who need help, a questionnaire was administered to 182 female collegiate athletes. Results showed that 32% practiced at least one of the weight-control behaviors defined as pathogenic, which include self-induced vomiting; binges more than twice weekly; and the use of laxatives, diet pills, and/or diuretics. A number of steps are suggested to alert coaches, trainers, and team physicians to the high-risk athlete who requires special attention or treatment to correct this disorder.
Think Tanks, Foreign Policy, and Emerging Powers

The definition of the term “think tank” has changed significantly over time. Since their emergence in the 1830s, there have been four distinct eras during which the definitions of think tanks have developed. In the first era, think tanks were considered completely independent; in the second era, they were considered government contracted; in the third era, they became more focused on scholars and academics; and lastly in the present era, many different scholars give slightly different definitions of the term “think tank,” but these almost always have to do with expertise on a certain topic aiding policy-making and governance. There is much debate regarding the independence of think tanks when it comes to legality, finances, and intellect, yet most academics agree that think tanks generally enjoy a significant amount of independence. This chapter also aims to acknowledge the conditional differences that a think tank may face in countries outside the United States, which may cause it to operate differently. It becomes especially imperative to note the difference in the think tanks working in other regions such as the developing world or among emerging powers.