bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Diagnosis of Myasthenia Gravis
Authors: Blaes Franz
Published: April 2018

Myasthenia gravis is an autoimmune disorder of the neuromuscular junction. The diagnosis of myasthenia gravis (MG) is based on clinical features, combined with neurophysiological and immunological parameters. Autoantibodies against the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor are the main finding in about 80% of the patients. More recently, autoantibodies against muscle-specific kinase (MuSK) and lipoprotein receptor-associated protein 4 (LRP4) have been identified in a subset of MG patients. Additionally, anti-titin autoantibodies can point to an underlying thymoma in younger MG patients. Neurophysiological examination includes a repetitive stimulation to detect a possible decrement as the electrical correlate of pathological muscle fatigability. Single-fiber electromyography can identify neuromuscular transmission disturbances in otherwise unclear cases.
A novel flow sensor based on resonant sensing with two-stage microleverage mechanism
Authors: Yang B. , Guo X. , Wang Q. H. , Lu C. F. , Hu D.
Published: April 2018

The design, simulation, fabrication, and experiments of a novel flow sensor based on resonant sensing with a two-stage microleverage mechanism are presented in this paper. Different from the conventional detection methods for flow sensors, two differential resonators are adopted to implement air flow rate transformation through two-stage leverage magnification. The proposed flow sensor has a high sensitivity since the adopted two-stage microleverage mechanism possesses a higher amplification factor than a single-stage microleverage mechanism. The modal distribution and geometric dimension of the two-stage leverage mechanism and hair are analyzed and optimized by Ansys simulation. A digital closed-loop driving technique with a phase frequency detector-based coordinate rotation digital computer algorithm is implemented for the detection and locking of resonance frequency. The sensor fabricated by the standard deep dry silicon on a glass process has a device dimension of 5100 μm (length) × 5100 μm (width) × 100 μm (height) with a hair diameter of 1000 μm. The preliminary experimental results demonstrate that the maximal mechanical sensitivity of the flow sensor is approximately 7.41 Hz/(m/s)2 at a resonant frequency of 22 kHz for the hair height of 9 mm and increases by 2.42 times as hair height extends from 3 mm to 9 mm. Simultaneously, a detection-limit of 3.23 mm/s air flow amplitude at 60 Hz is confirmed. The proposed flow sensor has great application prospects in the micro-autonomous system and technology, self-stabilizing micro-air vehicles, and environmental monitoring.
Superslow relaxation in identical phase oscillators with random and frustrated interactions
Authors: Daido H.
Published: April 2018

This paper is concerned with the relaxation dynamics of a large population of identical phase oscillators, each of which interacts with all the others through random couplings whose parameters obey the same Gaussian distribution with the average equal to zero and are mutually independent. The results obtained by numerical simulation suggest that for the infinite-size system, the absolute value of Kuramoto's order parameter exhibits superslow relaxation, i.e., 1/ln t as time t increases. Moreover, the statistics on both the transient time T for the system to reach a fixed point and the absolute value of Kuramoto's order parameter at t = T are also presented together with their distribution densities over many realizations of the coupling parameters.
Crystal-phase intergradation in InAs nanostructures grown by van der Waals heteroepitaxy on graphene
Authors: Choi Ji Eun , Yoo Jinkyoung , Lee Donghwa , Hong Young Joon , Fukui Takashi
Published: April 2018

This study demonstrates the crystal-phase intergradation of InAs nanostructures grown on graphene via van der Waals epitaxy. InAs nanostructures with diverse diameters are yielded on graphene. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM) reveals two crystallographic features of (i) wurtzite (WZ)-to-zinc blende (ZB) intergradation along the growth direction of InAs nanostructures and (ii) an increased mean fraction of ZB according to diameter increment. Based on the HR-TEM observations, a crystal-phase intergradation diagram is depicted. We discuss how the formation of a WZ-rich phase during the initial growth stage is an effective way of releasing heterointerfacial stress endowed by the lattice mismatch of InAs/graphene for energy minimization in terms of less in-plane lattice mismatching between WZ-InAs and graphene. The WZ-to-ZB evolution is responsible for the attenuation of the bottom-to-top surface charge interaction as growth proceeds.
Size-dependent phase transition of Er2O3 under high pressure
Authors: Ren Xiangting , Yan Xiaozhi , Yu Zhenhai , Li Wentao , Yang Ke , Wang Xiaoli , Liu Yuzi , Wang Lin
Published: April 2018

The size effect on the structural and optical properties of cubic Er2O3 was investigated under pressure by in-situ angular dispersive synchrotron x-ray diffraction (AD-XRD), Raman scattering, photoluminescence (PL), and impedance spectroscopy. Contrary to the phase transition sequence of cubic→monoclinic→hexagonal in bulk Er2O3, a transformation from cubic directly to hexagonal was observed in Er2O3 nanoparticals. Compared with bulk Er2O3, nano-Er2O3 showed an obvious elevation of phase transition pressure and larger bulk module. A third-order Birch-Murnaghan fitting yields zero pressure bulk moduli (B0) of 181(5), and 226(4) GPa and their pressure derivatives (B′0) of 4.0(7), 1.9(5) for the cubic and hexagonal phases, respectively. The multiple PL lines of 4S3/2→4I15/2 originating from the cubic phase are also altered due to phase transformation. The impedance spectroscopy indicated that the nano-Er2O3 is an insulator up to 30 GPa. These findings give a fresh understanding of size influence on the phase transition sequences and sheds light on the applications of nano-Er2O3.
Dual origin of room temperature sub-terahertz photoresponse in graphene field effect transistors
Authors: Bandurin D. A. , Gayduchenko I. , Cao Y. , Moskotin M. , Principi A. , Grigorieva I. V. , Goltsman G. , Fedorov G. , Svintsov D.
Published: April 2018

Graphene is considered as a promising platform for detectors of high-frequency radiation up to the terahertz (THz) range due to its superior electron mobility. Previously, it has been shown that graphene field effect transistors (FETs) exhibit room temperature broadband photoresponse to incoming THz radiation, thanks to the thermoelectric and/or plasma wave rectification. Both effects exhibit similar functional dependences on the gate voltage, and therefore, it was difficult to disentangle these contributions in previous studies. In this letter, we report on combined experimental and theoretical studies of sub-THz response in graphene field-effect transistors analyzed at different temperatures. This temperature-dependent study allowed us to reveal the role of the photo-thermoelectric effect, p-n junction rectification, and plasmonic rectification in the sub-THz photoresponse of graphene FETs.
Transient interaction between a reaction control jet and a hypersonic crossflow
Authors: Miller Warrick A. , Medwell Paul R. , Doolan Con J. , Kim Minkwan
Published: April 2018

This paper presents a numerical study that focuses on the transient interaction between a reaction control jet and a hypersonic crossflow with a laminar boundary layer. The aim is to better understand the underlying physical mechanisms affecting the resulting surface pressure and control force. Implicit large-eddy simulations were performed with a round, sonic, perfect air jet issuing normal to a Mach 5 crossflow over a flat plate with a laminar boundary layer, at a jet-to-crossflow momentum ratio of 5.3 and a pressure ratio of 251. The pressure distribution induced on the flat plate is unsteady and is influenced by vortex structures that form around the jet. A horseshoe vortex structure forms upstream and consists of six vortices: two quasi-steady vortices and two co-rotating vortex pairs that periodically coalesce. Shear-layer vortices shed periodically and cause localised high pressure regions that convect downstream with constant velocity. A longitudinal counter-rotating vortex pair is present downstream of the jet and is formed from a series of trailing vortices which rotate about a common axis. Shear-layer vortex shedding causes periodic deformation of barrel and bow shocks. This changes the location of boundary layer separation which also affects the normal force on the plate.
Investigating chaotic wake dynamics past a flapping airfoil and the role of vortex interactions behind the chaotic transition
Authors: Bose Chandan , Sarkar Sunetra
Published: April 2018

The present study investigates the complex vortex interactions in two-dimensional flow-field behind a symmetric NACA0012 airfoil undergoing a prescribed periodic pitching-plunging motion in low Reynolds number regime. The flow-field transitions from periodic to chaotic through a quasi-periodic route as the plunge amplitude is gradually increased. This study unravels the role of the complex interactions that take place among the main vortex structures in making the unsteady flow-field transition from periodicity to chaos. The leading-edge separation plays a key role in providing the very first trigger for aperiodicity. Subsequent mechanisms like shredding, merging, splitting, and collision of vortices in the near-field that propagate and sustain the disturbance have also been followed and presented. These fundamental mechanisms are seen to give rise to spontaneous and irregular formation of new vortex couples at arbitrary locations, which are the primary agencies for sustaining chaos in the flow-field. The interactions have been studied for each dynamical state to understand the course of transition in the flow-field. The qualitative changes observed in the flow-field are manifestation of changes in the underlying dynamical system. The overall dynamics are established in the present study by means of robust quantitative measures derived from classical and non-classical tools from the dynamical system theory. As the present analysis involves a high fidelity multi-unknown system, non-classical dynamical tools such as recurrence-based time series methods are seen to be very efficient. Moreover, their application is novel in the context of pitch-plunge flapping flight.
Stabilising high energy orbit oscillations by the utilisation of centrifugal effects for rotating-tyre-induced energy harvesting
Authors: Zhang Yunshun , Zheng Rencheng , Nakano Kimihiko , Cartmell Matthew P.
Published: April 2018

Nonlinear energy harvesters are frequently considered in preference to linear devices because they can potentially overcome the narrow frequency bandwidth limitations inherent to linear variants; however, the possibility of variable harvesting efficiency is raised for the nonlinear case. This paper proposes a rotational energy harvester which may be fitted into an automobile tyre, with the advantage that it may broaden the rotating frequency bandwidth and simultaneously stabilise high-energy orbit oscillations. By consideration of the centrifugal effects due to rotation, the overall restoring force will potentially be increased for a cantilever implemented within the harvester, and this manifests as an increase in its equivalent elastic stiffness. In addition, this study reveals that the initial potential well barriers become as shallow as those for a bistable system. When the rotational frequency increases beyond an identifiable boundary frequency, the system transforms into one with a potential barrier of a typical monostable system. On this basis, the inter-well motion of the bistable system can provide sufficient kinetic energy so that the cantilever maintains its high-energy orbit oscillation for monostable hardening behaviour. Furthermore, in a vehicle drive experiment, it has been shown that the effective rotating frequency bandwidth can be widened from 15 km/h–25 km/h to 10 km/h–40 km/h. In addition, it is confirmed that the centrifugal effects can improve the harvester performance, producing a mean power of 61 μW at a driving speed of 40 km/h, and this is achieved by stabilising the high-energy orbit oscillations of the rotational harvester.
Self-oscillations of a two-dimensional shear flow with forcing and dissipation
Authors: López Zazueta A. , Zavala Sansón L.
Published: April 2018

Two-dimensional shear flows continuously forced in the presence of dissipative effects are studied by means of numerical simulations. In contrast with most previous studies, the forcing is confined in a finite region, so the behavior of the system is characterized by the long-term evolution of the global kinetic energy. We consider regimes with 1 < Reλ << Re, where Reλ is the Reynolds number associated with an external friction (such as bottom friction in quasi-two-dimensional flows), and Re is the traditional Reynolds number associated with Laplacian viscosity. Depending on Reλ, the flow may develop Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities that exhibit either regular or irregular oscillations. The results are discussed in two parts. First, the flow is limited to develop only one vortical instability by choosing an appropriate width of the forcing band. The most relevant regime is found for Reλ > 36, in which the energy maintains a regular oscillation around a reference value. The flow configuration is an elliptical vortex tilted with respect to the forcing axis, which oscillates steadily also. Second, the flow is allowed to develop two Kelvin-Helmholtz billows and eventually more complicated structures. The regimes of the one-vortex case are observed again, except for Reλ > 135. At these values, the energy oscillates chaotically as the two vortices merge, form dipolar structures, and split again, with irregular periodicity. The self-oscillations are explained as a result of the alternate competition between forcing and dissipation, which is verified by calculating the budget terms in the energy equation. The relevance of the forcing-vs.-dissipation competition is discussed for more general flow systems.
Fluctuating chemohydrodynamics and the stochastic motion of self-diffusiophoretic particles
Authors: Gaspard Pierre , Kapral Raymond
Published: April 2018

The propulsion of active particles by self-diffusiophoresis is driven by asymmetric catalytic reactions on the particle surface that generate a mechanochemical coupling between the fluid velocity and the concentration fields of fuel and product in the surrounding solution. Because of thermal and molecular fluctuations in the solution, the motion of micrometric or submicrometric active particles is stochastic. Coupled Langevin equations describing the translation, rotation, and reaction of such active particles are deduced from fluctuating chemohydrodynamics and fluctuating boundary conditions at the interface between the fluid and the particle. These equations are consistent with microreversibility and the Onsager-Casimir reciprocal relations between affinities and currents and provide a thermodynamically consistent basis for the investigation of the dynamics of active particles propelled by diffusiophoretic mechanisms.
Characterization of mechanical properties of battery electrode films from acoustic resonance measurements
Authors: Dallon Kathryn L. , Yao Jing , Wheeler Dean R. , Mazzeo Brian A.
Published: April 2018

Measurements of the mechanical properties of lithium-ion battery electrode films can be used to quantify and improve manufacturing processes and to predict the mechanical and electrochemical performance of the battery. This paper demonstrates the use of acoustic resonances to distinguish among commercial-grade battery films with different active electrode materials, thicknesses, and densities. Resonances are excited in a clamped circular area of the film using a pulsed infrared laser, and responses are measured using an electret condenser microphone. A numerical model is used to quantify the sensitivity of resonances to changes in mechanical properties. When the numerical model is compared to simple analytical models for thin plates and membranes, the battery films measured here trend more similarly to the membrane model. Resonance measurements are also used to monitor the drying process. Results from a scanning laser Doppler vibrometer verify the modes excited in the films, and a combination of experimental and simulated results is used to estimate the Young's modulus of the battery electrode coating layer.
Pyroelectricity of silicon-doped hafnium oxide thin films
Authors: Jachalke Sven , Schenk Tony , Park Min Hyuk , Schroeder Uwe , Mikolajick Thomas , Stöcker Hartmut , Mehner Erik , Meyer Dirk C.
Published: April 2018

Ferroelectricity in hafnium oxide thin films is known to be induced by various doping elements and in solid-solution with zirconia. While a wealth of studies is focused on their basic ferroelectric properties and memory applications, thorough studies of the related pyroelectric properties and their application potential are only rarely found. This work investigates the impact of Si doping on the phase composition and ferro- as well as pyroelectric properties of thin film capacitors. Dynamic hysteresis measurements and the field-free Sharp-Garn method were used to correlate the reported orthorhombic phase fractions with the remanent polarization and pyroelectric coefficient. Maximum values of 8.21 µC cm−2 and −46.2 µC K−1 m−2 for remanent polarization and pyroelectric coefficient were found for a Si content of 2.0 at%, respectively. Moreover, temperature-dependent measurements reveal nearly constant values for the pyroelectric coefficient and remanent polarization over the temperature range of 0 °C to 170 °C, which make the material a promising candidate for IR sensor and energy conversion applications beyond the commonly discussed use in memory applications.
QED effects on individual atomic orbital energies
Authors: Kozioł Karol , Aucar Gustavo A.
Published: April 2018

Several issues, concerning QED corrections, that are important in precise atomic calculations are presented. The leading QED corrections, self-energy and vacuum polarization, to the orbital energy for selected atoms with 30 ≤ Z ≤ 118 have been calculated. The sum of QED and Breit contributions to the orbital energy is analyzed. It has been found that for ns subshells the Breit and QED contributions are of comparative size, but for np and nd subshells the Breit contribution takes a major part of the QED+Breit sum. It has also, been found that the Breit to leading QED contributions ratio for ns subshells is almost independent of Z. The Z-dependence of QED and Breit+QED contributions per subshell is shown. The fitting coefficients may be used to estimate QED effects on inner molecular orbitals. We present results of our calculations for QED contributions to orbital energy of valence ns-subshell for group 1 and 11 atoms and discuss about the reliability of these numbers by comparing them with experimental first ionization potential data.
Activation of AMPK by metformin improves withdrawal signs precipitated by nicotine withdrawal
Authors: Brynildsen Julia K. , Lee Bridgin G. , Perron Isaac J. , Jin Sunghee , Kim Sangwon F. , Blendy Julie A.
Published: April 2018

Significance

Cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the United States. Severe withdrawal symptoms are the reason most people have a hard time quitting smoking. AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) is a master regulator of energy homeostasis and is activated in response to cellular stressors. We discovered that the AMPK pathway is activated following chronic nicotine use but is repressed following nicotine withdrawal. We reasoned that increasing pAMPK levels pharmacologically might reduce symptoms of nicotine withdrawal. After giving mice metformin, an AMPK activator, we were able to reduce nicotine withdrawal, and found that this was dependent on the presence of the AMPK protein in the hippocampus. This study suggests that AMPK activation could be a target for smoking cessation.
Accurate and sensitive quantification of protein-DNA binding affinity
Authors: Rastogi Chaitanya , Rube H. Tomas , Kribelbauer Judith F. , Crocker Justin , Loker Ryan E. , Martini Gabriella D. , Laptenko Oleg , Freed-Pastor William A. , Prives Carol , Stern David L. , Mann Richard S. , Bussemaker Harmen J.
Published: April 2018

Significance

One-tenth of human genes produce proteins called transcription factors (TFs) that bind to our genome and read the local DNA sequence. They work together to regulate the degree to which each gene is expressed. The affinity with which DNA is bound by a particular TF can vary more than a thousand-fold with different DNA sequences. This study presents the first computational method able to quantify the sequence-affinity relationship almost perfectly over the full affinity range. It achieves this by analyzing data from experiments that use massively parallel DNA sequencing to comprehensively probe protein–DNA interactions. Strikingly, it can accurately predict the effect in vivo of DNA mutations on gene expression levels in fly embryos even for very-low-affinity binding sites.
Hip extensor mechanics and the evolution of walking and climbing capabilities in humans, apes, and fossil hominins
Authors: Kozma Elaine E. , Webb Nicole M. , Harcourt-Smith William E. H. , Raichlen David A. , D'Août Kristiaan , Brown Mary H. , Finestone Emma M. , Ross Stephen R. , Aerts Peter , Pontzer Herman
Published: April 2018

Significance

The evolution of humans’ distinct bipedal gait remains a focus of research and debate. Many reconstructions of hominin locomotor evolution assume climbing capability trades off against walking economy, with improvement in one requiring diminishment of the other, but few have tested these functional inferences experimentally. In this study, we integrate experimental locomotor mechanics from humans and other primates with osteological measurements to assess the locomotor capabilities of early hominins. Our analyses show that changes in the ischium and hamstrings would have made walking more economical without reducing the utility of these muscles for climbing in early hominins. A wider set of evolutionary solutions may have been available to early hominins than previously recognized.
Fluctuations uncover a distinct class of traveling waves
Authors: Birzu Gabriel , Hallatschek Oskar , Korolev Kirill S.
Published: April 2018

Significance

Traveling waves describe diverse natural phenomena from crystal growth in physics to range expansions in biology. Two classes of waves exist with very different properties: pulled and pushed. Pulled waves are driven by high growth rates at the expansion edge, where the number of organisms is small and fluctuations are large. In contrast, fluctuations are suppressed in pushed waves because the region of maximal growth is shifted toward the population bulk. Although it is commonly believed that expansions are either pulled or pushed, we found an intermediate class of waves with bulk-driven growth, but exceedingly large fluctuations. These waves are unusual because their properties are controlled by both the leading edge and the bulk of the front.
Structural dynamics is a determinant of the functional significance of missense variants
Authors: Ponzoni Luca , Bahar Ivet
Published: April 2018

Significance

Discrimination of clinically relevant mutations from neutral mutations is of paramount importance in precision medicine and pharmacogenomics. Our study shows that current computational predictions of pathogenicity, mostly based on analysis of sequence conservation, may be improved by considering the changes in the structural dynamics of the protein due to point mutations. We introduce and demonstrate the utility of a classifier that takes advantage of efficient evaluation of structural dynamics by elastic network models.
Transient fibrosis resolves via fibroblast inactivation in the regenerating zebrafish heart
Authors: Sánchez-Iranzo Héctor , Galardi-Castilla María , Sanz-Morejón Andrés , González-Rosa Juan Manuel , Costa Ricardo , Ernst Alexander , Sainz de Aja Julio , Langa Xavier , Mercader Nadia
Published: April 2018

Significance

After myocardial infarction in the mammalian heart, millions of cardiomyocytes are lost and replaced by fibrotic scar tissue. While fibrosis is persistent in adult mammals, there are some vertebrates, including zebrafish, with the capacity for regeneration. This process does not occur in the absence of fibrosis. Here we studied subpopulations of collagen-producing cells and analyzed their fate after complete regeneration of the zebrafish myocardium. Our data show that fibroblasts persisted in the regenerated heart but shut down the profibrotic program. While fibrosis could be considered as detrimental to the regeneration process, our study reveals a positive effect on cardiomyocyte proliferation. Accordingly, a fibrotic response can be beneficial for heart regeneration.
Effects of iron on the lattice thermal conductivity of Earth’s deep mantle and implications for mantle dynamics
Authors: Hsieh Wen-Pin , Deschamps Frédéric , Okuchi Takuo , Lin Jung-Fu
Published: April 2018

Significance

Presence of iron in Earth’s lower mantle may critically affect its physical properties and thermochemical structures. However, its effects on thermal conductivity and dynamics of deep mantle remain unknown. We studied lattice thermal conductivity of lower-mantle ferropericlase to 120 GPa using ultrafast optics. We observed an enhanced iron substitution effect in the low-spin iron-rich ferropericlase, with thermal conductivity that significantly drops across spin transition. Combined with bridgmanite data, we provided a self-consistent radial profile of lower-mantle thermal conductivity, which is dominated by pressure, temperature, and iron effects and shows a twofold increase throughout the lower mantle. If ultralow velocity zones are hot and strongly enriched in iron, their exceptionally low thermal conductivity will delay their cooling, influencing lowermost mantle dynamics.
Negative regulator of E2F transcription factors links cell cycle checkpoint and DNA damage repair
Authors: Wang Lili , Chen Hanchen , Wang Chongyang , Hu Zhenjie , Yan Shunping
Published: April 2018

Significance

DNA is frequently damaged by both endogenous and exogenous factors. In response to DNA damage, cells activate checkpoints to arrest cell cycle progression, allowing sufficient time for DNA repair. Defects in DNA repair cause many diseases including cancers. The E2F transcription factors are key players in cell cycle progression and are negatively regulated by the tumor suppressor protein Retinoblastoma. In this study, we demonstrated that the DNA repair protein SNI1, a subunit of SMC5/6 complex, is a negative regulator of E2Fs. In addition, this study also suggests that checkpoint and DNA repair are directly linked by SNI1, providing insights into DNA damage responses.
Critical impact of vegetation physiology on the continental hydrologic cycle in response to increasing CO
2
Authors: Lemordant Léo , Gentine Pierre , Swann Abigail S. , Cook Benjamin I. , Scheff Jacob
Published: April 2018

Significance

Predicting how increasing atmospheric CO
2
will affect the hydrologic cycle is of utmost importance for a wide range of applications. It is typically thought that future dryness will depend on precipitation changes, i.e., change in water supply, and changes in evaporative demand due to either increased radiation or temperature. Opposite to this viewpoint, using Earth system models, we show that changes in key water-stress variables will be strongly modified by vegetation physiological effects in response to increased [CO
2
] at the leaf level. These results emphasize that the continental carbon and water cycles have to be studied as an interconnected system.
Superresolution microscopy reveals structural mechanisms driving the nanoarchitecture of a viral chromatin tether
Authors: Grant Margaret J. , Loftus Matthew S. , Stoja Aiola P. , Kedes Dean H. , Smith M. Mitchell
Published: April 2018

Significance

Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus propagates by attaching to host chromatin. This tether is essential for viral maintenance, and its disruption represents a potential treatment for persistent infection. However, fundamental questions remain, including how the underlying viral chromatin is folded, how the tether protein is organized, and how it is presented for host attachment. Using superresolution fluorescence microscopy, we have visualized single tethers in cells and built a working model of their structure. The folding of the viral chromatin mimics that of active chromatin, driven by nucleosome positioning and DNA bending. Furthermore, tether proteins are arranged in ordered clusters projected outward from the viral chromatin axis. These principles are likely to be applicable to the tethers of other DNA tumor viruses.
Origins and spread of fluted-point technology in the Canadian Ice-Free Corridor and eastern Beringia
Authors: Smith Heather L. , Goebel Ted
Published: April 2018

Significance

We report geometric morphometric and cladistic analyses of archaeological materials establishing early human interaction between the North American Arctic, western Canadian “Ice-Free Corridor,” and temperate North America prior to 12,000 years ago, when the Corridor is inferred to have opened after initial retreat of the continental ice sheets. The findings inform a broad range of scientists engaged in genomic, evolutionary, ecological, climatological, geological, and anthropological studies of the late Pleistocene, providing tangible evidence of human dispersal through the Americas and placing the archaeological record in the context of new genetic models chronicling the initial migration into America, as well as paleoecological interpretations of the “opening” of interior western Canada’s earliest habitable environments.
Physicians Report Adopting Safer Opioid Prescribing Behaviors after Academic Detailing Intervention
Authors: Larson Mary Jo , Browne Cheryl , Nikitin Ruslan V. , Wooten Nikki R. , Ball Sarah , Adams Rachel Sayko , Barth Kelly
Published: April 2018

Background

This study evaluated an educational intervention intended to increase physicians’ use of patient prescription history information from the state prescription monitoring program (PMP) and their adoption of clinical behaviors consistent with opioid prescription guidelines to reduce patient risk.

Methods

Physician volunteers (n = 87) in community practices and Veterans Administration medical settings in South Carolina received an office-based, individualized, educational intervention (Academic Detailing) from a trained pharmacist who promoted three key messages about safer opioid prescribing. Physicians were registered for the state PMP, guided through retrieving patient information from the PMP, and given patient-centered materials. Physicians consented to completing web-surveys; 68 (78%) completed follow-up surveys on average 12.2 weeks post-intervention.

Results

Of 43 respondents who did not use the PMP before the intervention, 83% adopted PMP use. Self-reports also revealed a significant increase in frequency of the following behaviors: 1) using patient report information from the PMP, 2) using a standardized scale to monitor pain intensity and interference with daily functioning, and 3) issuing orders for urine toxicology screens for patients maintained long-term on opioids.

Conclusions

The intervention was effective in promoting physician adoption of prescribing behaviors intended to reduce risks associated with prescription opioids. The self-report findings of this study should be confirmed by analysis using data on the number of queries submitted to the state's PMP. The present study suggests that a single academic detailing visit may be an effective tool for increasing physician voluntary registration and utilization of data on patients’ prescription history contained in a state PMP.
Worm wounding increases levels of pollen-related food allergens in soybean (Glycine max)
Authors: Hanafusa Kayo , Murakami Hiroki , Ueda Takuya , Yano Erika , Zaima Nobuhiro , Moriyama Tatsuya
Published: April 2018

The levels of food allergens in worm-wounded or non-wounded green soybeans (edamame) and mature soybeans were investigated by immunoblotting and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), using allergen-specific antibodies. Non-wounded and worm-wounded soybeans showed similar total protein profiles after Coomassie brilliant blue staining, but some protein bands were observed to have been changed by worm wounding. Immunoblotting with specific antibodies for major soybean allergens (Gly m 5, Gly m 6, Gly m Bd 30 K, and Kunitz soybean trypsin inhibitor) revealed that protein band profiles and intensities were not significantly changed by worm wounding. In contrast, levels of the pollen-related soybean allergens Gly m 4 and Gly m 3 were strongly increased by worm wounding in both green and mature soybeans, as detected by immunoblotting and ELISA. These results suggested that the pollen-related food allergen risk (i.e., oral allergy syndrome; OAS) from soybeans might be enhanced by worm wounding of soybeans.
Queer of Color Critique
Authors: Ferguson Roderick A.
Published: April 2018

Queer of color critique is a critical discourse that began within the U.S. academy in response to the social processes of migration, neoliberal state and economic formations, and the developments of racial knowledges and subjectivities about sexual and gender minorities within the United States. It was an attempt to maneuver analyses of sexuality toward critiques of race and political economy. As such, the formation was an address to Marxism, ethnic studies, queer studies, postcolonial and feminist studies. Queer of color critique also provided a method for analyzing cultural formations as registries of the intersections of race, political economy, gender, and sexuality. In this way, queer of color critique attempted to wrest cultural and aesthetic formations away from interpretations that neglected to situate those formations within analyses of racial capitalism and the racial state.
Decoloniality and Identity in Central American Latina and Latino Literature
Authors: Arias Arturo
Published: April 2018

The presence of coloniality is critical for the explication, and reflection, on racialized and subalternized relations of dominance/subordination. The Spanish invasion in 1492 was the first marker and constitutive element of modernity. In 1992 Peruvian sociologist Anibal Quijano introduced the category of coloniality of power, further developed by Walter Mignolo. This epistemic change not only constituted a pattern of continual production of racialized identities and an unequal hierarchy whereby European identities and knowledge were considered superior to all others in what amounted to a caste system but also generated mechanisms of social domination that preserved this social classification into the present. Coloniality is not limited to the colonial period, which ended for most of Latin America in the first quarter of the 19th century. Despite political independence from Spain or Portugal, the pattern elaborated by Quijano continues to our day, structuring processes of racialization, subalternization, and knowledge production. This is the reason Mignolo labels it a “matrix of power.”

Central American–American literature represents the nature of colonialized violence suffered by U.S. Central Americans and constitutes racialized and subalternized migrants as a form of interpellating agency deployed in the name of the excluded subjects. Novelist Mario Bencastro’s Odyssey to the North, Sandra Benítez’s Bitter Grounds, Francisco Goldman’s The Divine Husband, and the EpiCentro poets mobilize in different fashions and directions the inner contradictions of identitary and decolonial issues in reaction to colonialized perceptions of textual subjectivities—or their traces—manifested in their respective discursive practices. These phenomena cannot be understood outside of the historical flux generated by the coloniality of power.
Kunitz, Stanley
Authors: Millier Brett C.
Published: April 2018

The career of American poet Stanley Kunitz (1905–2006) spanned nearly eighty years of continuous productivity and achievement. At the age of 95, he was named Poet Laureate of the United States, and was also a Guggenheim (1945), Pulitzer Prize (1959), and National Book Award (1995, at the age of 90) winner. Born on the older edge of a generation of American poets whose lives were saddened and cut short by mental illness and alcoholism (his friends Theodore Roethke and Robert Lowell among them, as well as Randall Jarrell, John Berryman, Elizabeth Bishop, and Delmore Schwartz), Kunitz overcame early sorrow and personal disappointment and lived, writing poems up to the time of his death at the age of 100. His early work showed the influence of the Metaphysicals and was generally highly formal and intellectually abstract. He resisted the move toward looser, “confessional” poetry for a long time after his contemporaries had embraced it, but critics agree that most of his best work followed his first “confessional” volume, The Testing Tree (1971). From 1946, Kunitz taught literature and creative writing at universities including Bennington College, SUNY Pottsdam, the New School, the University of Washington, and Columbia University. After his retirement, he devoted himself to gardening, and to writing “visionary” poems of maturity and old age, some of the finest in the language.
Cultural Communication
Authors: Covarrubias Patricia Olivia
Published: April 2018

An enduring problem for all people is the universal call for figuring out how to live together. This problem, which requires some measure of organization, quintessentially is responded to and managed in and through communication. That is, humans coordinate their daily meaningful actions via situated webs of linguistic and nonlinguistic means during the course of daily social interactions. These situated webs can be interpreted as cultural codes about communication. Further, and importantly, these codes vary across social groupings—and the codes are distinctive. This distinctiveness arises from the reality that societies shape their respective codes according to their local means and meanings; that is, to their own sets of beliefs, values, and rules for managing their lives individually and collectively.

The communicative means and meanings in and by which humans create meaningful lives are the central concern of cultural communication, which is defined as follows: the social enactment of learned systems of symbolic resources, premises, rules, emotions, spatial orientations, and notions of time that groups of people use to shape distinctive and meaningful communal identities, relationships, and ways of living and being. Indeed, cultural communication pertains to the use of language and other communicative means to carry out the activities and commitments of their particular communities in and through the use of symbolic resources. These resources include verbal and nonverbal means, as well as the rules for using and interpreting them.

This paper is inspired by a number of scholars of cultural communication, including Dell Hymes, who conceptualized the ethnography of communication (EOC); Gerry Philipsen and his notion of codes of communication; and the many scholars who have followed their leads.

The definition of cultural communication requires some fleshing out—and in particular, the tension between the individual and the communal that exists within the concept of cultural communication needs attention. Empirically accessed, real-life examples of locations where communication can be seen, heard, felt, and experienced help to explicate cultural communication. Such examples include cultural terms, silence practices, terms of address, rituals, and social dramas. Indeed, cultural communication treats culture and people, not with wide brushstrokes where the features of daily life occur uniformly and generically, but rather as unique sets of social actors whose lives are composed of intricate webs of nuanced expressions and attendant meanings, wherein each enactor plays a part in animating the symbolic resources that comprise their richly diverse schemes of life.
Visuality and Security
Authors: Heck Axel
Published: April 2018

The term security has its origins in the Latin word securitas, which could be translated as “without care” or “without worries.” Security as a concept used in social sciences indicates a specific political condition or social constellation under which an individual, larger group, or state routinely exists without the worry of being physically harmed, attacked, or otherwise injured. In times of crisis, where civil wars threaten the stability and the security of whole regions, where terrorists aim to kill civilians and millions of refugees leave their homes searching for more secure places, it is no wonder that the concept of security has gained much attention and is debated in political and academic circles.

Taking a closer look at the academic debates in political science and communication studies reveals different ontological understandings about what “security” is and a variety of epistemological approaches how to study it. While positivists take security as a fact and an objective condition that can be measured and clearly defined, critical approaches question that security is an objective or given fact. In critical security studies, security and especially insecurity are understood as social and discursive practices. If security and insecurity are not taken as objective facts, but as the result of social constructions, the question arises of how, and under which conditions, security and insecurity are socially constructed and who or what contributes to these discourses in a meaningful way.

While the significance of language for the discursive construction of security is well researched in social sciences, the visual dimension of security discourses has caught particular attention in the last decade in political and communication studies. This has occurred because where, what, and how we see (media reports, pictures of catastrophes and war, street crime, violence, suspects, terrorists etc.) significantly shape our understanding of security and insecurity. Alternatively, or more precisely, security discourse is hard to imagine without reference to some sort of visual communication.

Communication studies and political science (especially the subdiscipline critical security studies, or CSS) have focused on the nexus between visuality and security for many years now—but in interdisciplinary coexistence rather than in exchange. This article intends to bridge this gap between the disciplines by introducing theoretical concepts and paths in literature of both research traditions. In particular, the concept of visual securitization might be an interesting toehold, as it sheds light on the question of how visual communication (media images, television, films, and other media) contribute to the discursive construction of threats, dangers, and insecurities, thereby enabling extraordinary political measures (from public surveillance to so-called enhanced interrogation techniques and military interventions) to secure the endangered referent object.
Globalization, Culture, and Communication: Renationalization in a Globalized World
Authors: Iwabuchi Koichi
Published: April 2018

Cultural globalization has promoted seemingly opposing forces simultaneously, such as recentering and decentering, standardization and diversification, and renationalization and transnationalization. The intensification of transnational flows of media culture and the associated cross-border connection and communication has been destabilizing national cultural borders and engendering the formation of diverse mediated communities among hitherto marginalized people and groups within and across national borders. At the same time, we have observed the increasing pervasiveness of the inter-nationalized modes of media culture flows and communication—“inter-nationalized” with a hyphen is intentional—in the sense of highlighting the nation as the unit of global cultural encounters that resolidify exclusive national boundaries.

The synergism of the process of market-driven glocalization and the state’s policy of soft power and nation branding has further instituted a container model of the nation, as the inter-nationalized circulation and encounter of media culture have become sites in which national identity is mundanely invoked, performed, and experienced. In this process, national cultural borders are mutually reconstituted as transnational cultural flows and encounters are promoted in a way to accentuate a nation-based form of global cultural encounter and exchange. While lacking in a historically embedded, coherent narrative of the nation, it works to institute a new, container form of the nation in which cultural diversity within national borders is not given its due attention and thus sidelined. Facilitation of border crossing of culture and communication does not necessarily accompany the transgression of clearly demarcated national cultural borders.
Cyberlibertarianism
Authors: Dahlberg Lincoln
Published: April 2018

Cyberlibertarianism, broadly speaking, refers to a discourse that claims that the Internet and related digital media technology can and should constitute spaces of individual liberty. Liberty here is understood as non-interference such that individuals are able to act and express themselves as they choose, and thus are self-governed, where interference is understood as most readily emanating from governments but also at times from corporations, particularly crony-capitalist ones. Various strands of this discourse have developed over the last few decades. These strands differ in the weight that they place on technology, markets, policy, and law for securing cyberspace as a space of, and for, individual freedom.
Predictability of El Niño-Southern Oscillation Events
Authors: Duan Wansuo , Mu Mu
Published: April 2018

This article retrospects the studies of the predictability of El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events within the framework of error growth dynamics and reviews the results of previous studies. It mainly covers (a) the advances in methods for studying ENSO predictability, especially those of optimal methods associated with initial errors and model errors; and (b) the applications of these optimal methods in the studies of “spring predictability barrier” (SPB), optimal precursors for ENSO events (or the source of ENSO predictability) and target observations for ENSO predictions. In this context, some of major frontiers and challenges remaining in ENSO predictability are addressed.