In Face on Facebook: Brooklyn's Drag Community and Sociotechnical Practices of Online Communication

Recently, Brooklyn has seen an explosion of drag culture, with dozens of performers taking the stage in any given week. Social media plays a vital role for members of this community, simultaneously allowing self‐promotion and community solidarity. Drawing on focus group interviews, we analyze the communication practices of Brooklyn's drag performers, examining both the advantages and drawbacks of social media platforms. Using conceptual frameworks of faceted identity and relational labor, our discussion focuses on affordances and constraints of multifaceted identity in online contexts and theories of seamful design. We contend that by analyzing online communication practices of drag performers, it becomes possible to identify gaps between embedded ideologies of mainstream social media technologies and the localized values of outsider communities.     

Anxiolytic activity of glycine-B antagonists and partial agonists--no relation to intrinsic activity in the patch clamp

On the basis of animal models, anxiety was one of the first suggested clinical applications of partial agonists of the glycineB site coupled to the NMDA receptor. It is not certain, however, whether these findings can be extended to full glycineB antagonists and what is the relation between intrinsic activity (degree of NMDA receptor antagonism) and anxiolytic effect. In the present study several NMDA receptor antagonists, including several glycineB antagonists/partial agonists, were tested for anxiolytic activity in the Vogel conflict test and the elevated plus-maze. Additionally, the intrinsic activities of the glycineB partial agonists used [ACPC, (R,+)-HA-966 and D-cycloserine] were compared in patch-clamp experiments in cultured neurones. In the plus-maze the most striking increase in the time spent in open arms (index of anxiolytic effect) was seen after diazepam and D-cycloserine (at doses that did not change locomotion). Also reliable (dose-dependent), although weaker, anxiolytic activity was produced by the uncompetitive NMDA receptor antagonist (+)MK-801 and the competitive antagonist CGP 39551. Modest anxiolytic-like effect in the plus-maze was also observed after the glycineB antagonist L-701,324 and the partial agonist (+,R)-HA-966. Uncompetitive antagonists memantine and amantadine, the glycineB partial agonist ACPC (up to 600 mg/kg) or the full antagonists MRZ 2/570, MRZ 2/571 and MRZ 2/576 had no effect. In the Vogel conflict test neither memantine, nor any of the full glycineB antagonists tested (L-701,324 and MRZ 2/576), showed anxiolytic activity. Patch-clamp studies revealed that the intrinsic activity of (+,R)-HA-966, D-cycloserine and ACPC was 13, 57 and 92%, respectively, as compared to that of glycine itself (100%). In conclusion, for the agents tested there is no clear relation between the levels of intrinsic activity, i.e. degree of NMDA receptor inhibition, and anxiolytic activity. Moreover, L-701,324 and MRZ-type glycineB full antagonists do not exchibit anxiolytic activity in the elevated plus-maze and Vogel conflict test.     

Investigation of Dead Times and Dead Zones in Wire Chambers Operated in the Self-Quenching Streamer Mode

The large saturated pulses of the type referred to as "self-quenching streamer" promise to provide an inexpensive method of radiation detection. We have continued our investigations of the performance of wire chambers operating in this mode, with particular emphasis on measurements of dead times and dead zones. The results of these measurements and their effect on the application of such chambers in high rate environments and for digital gas sampling calorimetry are discussed.     

Structural rearrangement at the yttrium-depleted surface of HCl-processed yttrium aluminosilicate glass for Y-microsphere brachytherapy

The design of a process to create yttrium aluminosilicate microspheres with a core–shell structure is of interest in the field of cancer brachytherapy. Glass microspheres with yttrium-depleted shell may indeed reduce the risk of ⁹⁰Y release into the organism. Here we show – by means of confocal micro-Raman scattering, microfluorescence, X-ray-fluorescence analysis, and IR spectroscopy – that yttrium depletion may be achieved by etching in HCl solution (pH 2) at a rate of 1 μm day⁻¹ in bulk glass and 3 μm day⁻¹ in glass microsphere (35 μm of diameter). Importantly, the spectroscopic results – collected in confocal configuration along the processed layer – indicate a high degree of structural reconstruction of the glass network, with the formation of an interconnected silicate-rich glass that surrounds a core of unmodified yttrium aluminosilicate. We also demonstrate that the process is driven by non-bridging oxygen sites, which regulate the hydroxylation and structural reconstruction of the glass within the Y-depleted layer. The analysis gives also some insight into open fundamental questions about the short-range structure and the chemical stability of this kind of glass, which is also important in photonics and nuclear waste disposal.     

Management of coronary artery disease and acute coronary syndrome in the chronic kidney disease population—A review of the current literature

Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) is a large contributor to morbidity and mortality in the chronic kidney disease (CKD) and end‐stage renal disease (ESRD) population. Due to the fact that many large‐scale trials evaluating management for acute coronary syndromes (ACS) and CAD have excluded patients with CKD, there is a paucity of data investigating medical management of CAD and revascularization strategies of these patients. Further, while there have been many advances in the treatment for ACS and CAD, both medically and technologically, few studies have focused on the CKD population and many predate these advancements in management. Newer studies that include CKD patients have shown heterogeneity in various outcomes, making management decisions challenging. In this review, we summarize the epidemiologic significance of ACS and CAD in patients with CKD, discuss the diagnosis of ACS in this patient population, and review the therapeutic interventions in patients with CKD.     

Designing security for number sequences generated by means of the sawtooth chaotic map

In the paper, we describe how to design the security of number sequences generated by a generator, exploiting the concept of partition of the state space of the sawtooth chaotic map into disjoint subspaces. We prove that the generator can generate nonperiodic and periodic sequences with arbitrary order of elements when the map is implemented in an uncountable set, and periodic sequences with arbitrary order of elements when the map is implemented in a countable set. The numerical security of the generated sequences is shown to be comparable when we limit our observations to finite time intervals. A method of designing the security of sequences produced by the generator was proposed. It was also demonstrated that the existence of methods for reconstructing the linear congruential generator does not imply automatic reconstruction of the generator, exploiting the concept of partition of the state space of the sawtooth map implemented in a finite-state machine.     

Some application-orientated properties of stress-reduced silicon wafers

Based on thermomechanical tests and theoretical considerations, several charges of stress-reduced open silicon wafers were subjected to a complete standard bipolar process. The estimated advantages can clearly be demonstrated by looking at the wafer shape behaviour and at the yields under real process conditions.     

Learning from positive and unlabeled data: a survey

Learning from positive and unlabeled data or PU learning is the setting where a learner only has access to positive examples and unlabeled data. The assumption is that the unlabeled data can contain both positive and negative examples. This setting has attracted increasing interest within the machine learning literature as this type of data naturally arises in applications such as medical diagnosis and knowledge base completion. This article provides a survey of the current state of the art in PU learning. It proposes seven key research questions that commonly arise in this field and provides a broad overview of how the field has tried to address them.

     

Efficient Screening of Target-Specific Selected Compounds in Mixtures by 19F NMR Binding Assay with Predicted 19F NMR Chemical Shifts

Ligand-based ¹⁹F NMR screening is a highly effective and well-established hit-finding approach. The high sensitivity to protein binding makes it particularly suitable for fragment screening. Different criteria can be considered for generating fluorinated fragment libraries. One common strategy is to assemble a large, diverse, well-designed and characterized fragment library which is screened in mixtures, generated based on experimental ¹⁹F NMR chemical shifts. Here, we introduce a complementary knowledge-based ¹⁹F NMR screening approach, named ¹⁹Focused screening, enabling the efficient screening of putative active molecules selected by computational hit finding methodologies, in mixtures assembled and on-the-fly deconvoluted based on predicted ¹⁹F NMR chemical shifts. In this study, we developed a novel approach, named LEFshift, for ¹⁹F NMR chemical shift prediction using rooted topological fluorine torsion fingerprints in combination with a random forest machine learning method. A demonstration of this approach to a real test case is reported.