Thermomechanical Fatigue Behavior of a Silicon Carbide Fiber-Reinforced Calcium Aluminosilicate Composite

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/65874/1/j.1151-2916.1993.tb04022.x.pd

Higher Absolute Lymphocyte Counts Predict Lower Mortality from Early-Stage Triple-Negative Breast Cancer

Purpose: Tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) in pretreatment biopsies are associated with improved survival in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). We investigated whether higher peripheral lymphocyte counts are associated with lower breast cancer–specific mortality (BCM) and overall mortality (OM) in TNBC. Experimental Design: Data on treatments and diagnostic tests from electronic medical records of two health care systems were linked with demographic, clinical, pathologic, and mortality data from the California Cancer Registry. Multivariable regression models adjusted for age, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, cancer stage, grade, neoadjuvant/adjuvant chemotherapy use, radiotherapy use, and germline BRCA1/2 mutations were used to evaluate associations between absolute lymphocyte count (ALC), BCM, and OM. For a subgroup with TIL data available, we explored the relationship between TILs and peripheral lymphocyte counts. Results: A total of 1,463 stage I–III TNBC patients were diagnosed from 2000 to 2014; 1,113 (76%) received neoadjuvant/adjuvant chemotherapy within 1 year of diagnosis. Of 759 patients with available ALC data, 481 (63.4%) were ever lymphopenic (minimum ALC <1.0 K/μL). On multivariable analysis, higher minimum ALC, but not absolute neutrophil count, predicted lower OM [HR = 0.23; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.16–0.35] and BCM (HR = 0.19; CI, 0.11–0.34). Five-year probability of BCM was 15% for patients who were ever lymphopenic versus 4% for those who were not. An exploratory analysis (n = 70) showed a significant association between TILs and higher peripheral lymphocyte counts during neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Conclusions: Higher peripheral lymphocyte counts predicted lower mortality from early-stage, potentially curable TNBC, suggesting that immune function may enhance the effectiveness of early TNBC treatment

Images of Eyes Enhance Investments in a Real-Life Public Good

A key issue in cooperation research is to determine the conditions under which individuals invest in a public good. Here, we tested whether cues of being watched increase investments in an anonymous public good situation in real life. We examined whether individuals would invest more by removing experimentally placed garbage (paper and plastic bottles) from bus stop benches in Geneva in the presence of images of eyes compared to controls (images of flowers). We provided separate bins for each of both types of garbage to investigate whether individuals would deposit more items into the appropriate bin in the presence of eyes. The treatment had no effect on the likelihood that individuals present at the bus stop would remove garbage. However, those individuals that engaged in garbage clearing, and were thus likely affected by the treatment, invested more time to do so in the presence of eyes. Images of eyes had a direct effect on behaviour, rather than merely enhancing attention towards a symbolic sign requesting removal of garbage. These findings show that simple images of eyes can trigger reputational effects that significantly enhance on non-monetary investments in anonymous public goods under real life conditions. We discuss our results in the light of previous findings and suggest that human social behaviour may often be shaped by relatively simple and potentially unconscious mechanisms instead of very complex cognitive capacities

Subliminal influence on generosity

We experimentally subliminally prime subjects prior to charity donation decisions by showing words that have connotations of pro-social values for a very brief time (17ms). Our main fnding is that, compared to a baseline condition, the pro-social prime increases donations by approximately 10-17 percent among subjects with strong pro-social preferences (universalism values). We find a similar effect when interacting the prime with the Big 5 personality characteristic of agreeableness. We furthermore introduce a novel method for testing for priming, "subliminity". This method reveals that some subjects are capable of recognizing prime words, and the overall results are weaker when we control for this capacity

Illegal births and legal abortions – the case of China

BACKGROUND: China has a national policy regulating the number of children that a woman is allowed to have. The central concept at the individual level application is "illegal pregnancy". The purpose of this article is to describe and problematicize the concept of illegal pregnancy and its use in practice. METHODS: Original texts and previous published and unpublished reports and statistics were used. RESULTS: By 1979 the Chinese population policy was clearly a policy of controlling population growth. For a pregnancy to be legal, it has to be defined as such according to the family-level eligibility rules, and in some places it has to be within the local quota. Enforcement of the policy has been pursued via the State Family Planning (FP) Commission and the Communist Party (CP), both of which have a functioning vertical structure down to the lowest administrative units. There are various incentives and disincentives for families to follow the policy. An extensive system has been created to keep the contraceptive use and pregnancy status of all married women at reproductive age under constant surveillance. In the early 1990s FP and CP officials were made personally responsible for meeting population targets. Since 1979, abortion has been available on request, and the ratio of legal abortions to birth increased in the 1980s and declined in the 1990s. Similar to what happens in other Asian countries with low fertility rates and higher esteem for boys, both national- and local-level data show that an unnaturally greater number of boys than girls are registered as having been born. CONCLUSION: Defining a pregnancy as "illegal" and carrying out the surveillance of individual women are phenomena unique in China, but this does not apply to other features of the policy. The moral judgment concerning the policy depends on the basic question of whether reproduction should be considered as an individual or social decision

Evaluation of Pax6 Mutant Rat as a Model for Autism

Autism is a highly variable brain developmental disorder and has a strong genetic basis. Pax6 is a pivotal player in brain development and maintenance. It is expressed in embryonic and adult neural stem cells, in astrocytes in the entire central nervous system, and in neurons in the olfactory bulb, amygdala, thalamus, and cerebellum, functioning in highly context-dependent manners. We have recently reported that Pax6 heterozygous mutant (rSey2/+) rats with a spontaneous mutation in the Pax6 gene, show impaired prepulse inhibition (PPI). In the present study, we further examined behaviors of rSey2/+ rats and revealed that they exhibited abnormality in social interaction (more aggression and withdrawal) in addition to impairment in rearing activity and in fear-conditioned memory. Ultrasonic vocalization (USV) in rSey2+ rat pups was normal in male but abnormal in female. Moreover, treatment with clozapine successfully recovered the defects in sensorimotor gating function, but not in fear-conditioned memory. Taken together with our prior human genetic data and results in other literatures, rSey2/+ rats likely have some phenotypic components of autism