bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Use of Copy Number Deletion Polymorphisms to Assess DNA Chimerism
Authors: Bruno Damien L , Ganesamoorthy Devika , Thorne Natalie P , Ling Ling , Bahlo Melanie , Forrest Sue , Veenendaal Marieke , Katerelos Marina , Skene Alison , Ierino Frank L , Power David A , Slater Howard R 
Published: June 2014

Abstract

BACKGROUND
We describe a novel approach that harnesses the ubiquity of copy number deletion polymorphisms in human genomes to definitively detect and quantify chimeric DNA in clinical samples. Unlike other molecular approaches to chimerism analysis, the copy number deletion (CND) method targets genomic loci (&gt;50 base pairs in length) that are wholly absent from wild-type (i.e., self) background DNA sequences in a sex-independent manner.

METHODS
Bespoke quantitative PCR (qPCR) CND assays were developed and validated using a series of DNA standards and chimeric plasma DNA samples collected from 2 allogeneic kidney transplant recipients and 12 pregnant women. Assay performance and informativeness were assessed using appropriate statistical methods.

RESULTS
The CND qPCR assays showed high sensitivity, precision, and reliability for linear quantification of DNA chimerism down to 16 genomic equivalents (i.e., 106 pg). Fetal fraction (%) in 12 singleton male pregnancies was calculated using the CND qPCR approach, which showed closer agreement with single-nucleotide polymorphism–based massively parallel sequencing than the SRY (sex determining region Y) (Y chromosome) qPCR assay. The latter consistently underestimated the fetal fraction relative to the other methods. We also were able to measure biological changes in plasma nonself DNA concentrations in 2 renal transplant recipients.

CONCLUSIONS
The CND qPCR technique is suitable for measurement of chimerism for monitoring of rejection in allogeneic organ transplantation and quantification of the cell-free fetal DNA fraction in maternal plasma samples used for noninvasive prenatal genetic testing.
Islamic concept of music communication in street begging performance: A study of Babiyala in Ilorin Metropolis
Authors: Oghenevwarho Ojakovo Gabriel 
Published: June 2014

Abstract
This study examines the Islamic perspective of musical renditions by babiyala/for the sake of God itinerant musicians as a communicative tool in street-begging performance in Ilorin Metropolis. In this respect, we use, primarily, the observation, descriptive and interview methods for the study. Relevant secondary sources such as journals, books, newspapers and the Internet are used to complement the primary sources. Findings from this study therefore prove that music has been a veritable communication medium adopted by the babiyala itinerant musicians as a measure to be noticed by their benefactors, who in turn give alms to them. Islam, the dominant religion in Ilorin metropolis, plays a major role in appreciating their performance through alms giving to meet their daily needs. The law made by the state government illegalizing the activities of itinerant musicians both skilled and unskilled who source for alms publicly from members of the public is not a practical solution to these vices. It also proves that, despite this law, the rate of street begging is on the increase. We therefore conclude that the state, through the National Directorate of Employment Labour and Productivity, should create a scheme aimed at empowering abled babiyala itinerate musicians who form part of the majority of them in Ilorin metropolis. This can be achieved by developing them in the area of musical skills that will enable them to be self-reliant. This, when implemented, will markedly reduce their numbers and give them a place in the social stratification.
Censoring metaphors in translation: Shakespeare's Hamlet under Franco
Authors: Sullivan Karen , Bandín Elena 
Published: June 2014

AbstractIn the three versions of Hamlet translated during the Franco regime in Spain, metaphors related to the censored themes of sex and religion were altered or removed. In this study, we employ the Metaphor Identification Procedure (Pragglejaz Group 2007) to identify all metaphors involving sex and religion in Shakespeare's Hamlet and its three Franco-era Spanish translations. We find that under the influence of censorship, authors employ many of the strategies for metaphor translation also used for uncensored texts, such as those identified by Newmark (1981), van den Broeck (1981), and Toury (1995). However, we argue that censorship encourages strategies judged as less preferable, more extreme, or which are not usually discussed in translation studies. These strategies appear to be selected specifically to remove the material subject to censorship, whether this is found in the source domain (vehicle) or the target domain (tenor) of a metaphor.
Relay Selection Based Double-Differential Transmission for Cooperative Networks with Multiple Carrier Frequency Offsets: Model, Analysis, and Optimization
Authors: Zhao Kun , Zhang Bangning , Pan Kegang , Liu Aijun , Guo Daoxing 
Published: June 2014

AbstractDue to the distributed nature, cooperative networks are generally subject to multiple carrier frequency offsets (MCFOs), which make the channels time-varying and drastically degrade the system performance. In this paper, to address the MCFOs problem in detect-andforward (DetF) multi-relay cooperative networks, a robust relay selection (RS) based double-differential (DD) transmission scheme, termed RSDDT, is proposed, where the best relay is selected to forward the source's double-differentially modulated signals to the destination with the DetF protocol. The proposed RSDDT scheme can achieve excellent performance over fading channels in the presence of unknown MCFOs. Considering double-differential multiple phase-shift keying (DDMPSK) is applied, we first derive exact expressions for the outage probability and average bit error rate (BER) of the RSDDT scheme. Then, we look into the high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regime and present simple and informative asymptotic outage probability and average BER expressions, which reveal that the proposed scheme can achieve full diversity. Moreover, to further improve the BER performance of the RSDDT scheme, we investigate the optimum power allocation strategy among the source and the relay nodes, and simple analytical solutions are obtained. Numerical results are provided to corroborate the derived analytical expressions and it is demonstrated that the proposed optimum power allocation strategy offers substantial BER performance improvement over the equal power allocation strategy.
Phonetic environment of disfluencies in children with stuttering
Authors: Mahesh Sangeetha , Geetha Y.V. 
Published: June 2014

AbstractPhonological contributions to stuttering have been discussed with increased attention in the recent years. The present study is aimed to analyze the effect of phonological environment during the instances of stuttering. The study included 10 monolingual children with stuttering (CWS) in the age range of 6–8 years, who spoke Kannada (south Indian language) as their mother tongue. Conversation, topic narration, story narration, and picture description tasks were carried out in Kannada language. The relative difficulty of individual syllables for each participant was determined. Further, the effect of phonetic environment (succeeding syllable) during the instances of stuttering was calculated. The results revealed a rank order of relative occurrence of succeeding consonantal contexts. Most of the time, the phonetic environment included voiceless consonants, nasals, and plosives compared to others. This indicated that CWS may have difficulties in the transition of articulatory movement from oral to nasal and from voiced to voiceless consonants during speech production. Findings also revealed variability in the occurrence of phonetic context within and between CWS, which supports the disturbances occurring across various time domains. It is hoped that the findings of the current study will support theorists, researchers, and clinicians in arriving at a more comprehensive understanding of stuttering and phonetic behavior in CWS.
Intergenerational Wealth Transfer and the Need to Revive and Metamorphose the Israeli Estate Tax
Authors: Hacker Daphna 
Published: June 2014

Abstract
This article suggests enacting an accession tax instead of the estate duty – which was repealed in Israel in 1981. This suggestion evolves from historical and normative explorations of the tension between perceptions of familial intergenerational property rights and justifications for the “death tax,” as termed by its opponents, i.e., estate and inheritance tax. First, the Article explores this tension as expressed in the history of the Israeli Estate Duty Law. This chronological survey reveals a move from the State’s taken-for-granted interest in revenue justifying the Law’s enactment in 1949; moving on to the “needy widow” and “poor orphan” in whose name the tax was attacked during the years 1959–1964, continuing to the abolition of the tax in 1981 in the name of efficiency and the right of the testator to transfer his wealth to his family, and finally cumulating with the targeting of tycoon dynasties that characterizes the recent calls for reintroducing the tax. Next, based on the rich literature on the subject, the Article maps the arguments for and against intergenerational wealth transfer taxation, placing the Israeli case in larger philosophical, political, and pragmatic contexts. Lastly, it associates the ideas of accession tax and “social inheritance” with inspirational sources for rethinking a realistic wealth transfer taxation to bridge the gap between notions of intergenerational familial rights and intergenerational social justice.
Peroxide vulcanization of natural rubber. Part I: effect of temperature and peroxide concentration
Authors: Kruželák Ján , Sýkora Richard , Hudec Ivan 
Published: June 2014

Abstract
Four different peroxides as curing agents were used to prepare vulcanizates based on natural rubber (NR). The effects of temperature and peroxide concentration on the vulcanization characteristics of rubber compounds, cross-link density (ν) and physical-mechanical properties of equivalent vulcanizates were investigated. The results revealed that the vulcanization temperature and also the relative amount of peroxide decomposition products are of significant importance in the properties of vulcanizates. Lower vulcanization temperature and lower concentration of peroxides were found to be better factors, showing a proper balance between the degree of cross-linking of the rubber and degradation of the macromolecular chains by side reactions in relation to the crystallization of NR, which imparts vulcanizates based on NR outstanding properties.
Effect of the amount of SiC, number of strokes, and applied load on the reciprocating wear behavior of Al-SiC composites
Authors: Lakshmipathy Jayakumar , Kulendran Balamurugan 
Published: June 2014

Abstract
The wear behavior of Al/SiC composites prepared by stir casting technique is investigated to find out the effects of the weight percentage of SiC, load, and the number of strokes on a shaper machine. Metal matrix composite (MMC) pins are prepared with different weight percentages of SiC (10%, 15%, and 20%). The tests are carried out with different load conditions (25, 50 and 75 N) and different number of strokes (420,780 and 1605 strokes). Wear surfaces of tested samples are examined in scanning electron microscope (SEM). Hardness and impact tests are also carried out on the MMC samples. The experimental results show that the hardness of composites increases with an increase in SiC particle, and the impact strength decreases with increase in SiC content. The volume loss of MMC specimens are less than that of the matrix alloy. Moreover, the temperature rise near the contact surface of the MMC specimens increases with increase in wt% of SiC, load, and number of strokes. The coefficient of friction decreases with increase in load and the number of strokes.
Patient Tolerability of Bowel Preparation is Associated with Polyp Detection Rate During Colonoscopy
Authors: Holt Edward W. , Yimam Kidist K. , Ma Hanley , Shaw Richard E. , Sundberg Richard A. , Verhille Michael S. 
Published: June 2014

Background & Aims: A number of factors have been identified that influence the yield of screeningcolonoscopy. The perceived tolerability of bowel preparation has not been studied as a predictor of quality outcomes in colonoscopy. We aimed to characterize the association between patient-perceived tolerability of bowel preparation and polyp detection during colonoscopy.Methods: We performed a cross-sectional cohort study of 413 consecutive adult patients presenting foroutpatient colonoscopy at two outpatient endoscopy centers at our institution. We developed a standardized questionnaire to assess the patient's experience with bowel preparation. Bowel preparation quality was measured using the validated Ottawa scale and colonoscopic findings were recorded for each patient. The primary outcome was polyp detection and the secondary outcome was the quality of bowel preparation.Results: Patient-reported clarity of effluent during bowel preparation correlated poorly with Ottawa score during colonoscopy, k=0.15. Female gender was an independent risk factor for a poorly tolerated bowel prep (OR 3.93, 95% CI 2.30 - 6.72, p<0.001). Report of a poorly tolerated bowel prep was independently associated with the primary outcome, polyp detection (OR 0.39, 95% CI 0.18 - 0.84, p=0.02) and also with the secondary outcome, lower quality bowel preparation (OR 2.39, 95% CI 1.17 - 4.9, p=0.02).Conclusions: A patient-perceived negative experience with bowel preparation independently predicted both a lower quality bowel preparation and a lower rate of polyp of detection. Assessment of the tolerability of bowel preparation before colonoscopy may be a clinically useful predictor of quality outcomes during colonoscopy.
Thermo-Mechanical and ILSS Properties of Woven Carbon/Epoxy-XD-CNT Nanophased Composites
Authors: Hossain Mohammad K. , Chowdhury Md Mahmudur R. , Salam Mahmud B. , Malone Johnathan , Hosur Mahesh V. , Jeelani Shaik , Bolden Nydeia W. 
Published: June 2014

ABSTRACTCarbon fiber-reinforced epoxy composites (CFEC) were fabricated infusing 0, 0.15, 0.30, and 0.40 wt% amino-functionalized XD-grade carbon nanotubes (NH2-XDCNTs) using the compression molding process under 16 kips. The thermo-mechanical and interlaminar shear properties of CNT incorporated carbon/epoxy composite samples were evaluated by performing dynamic-mechanical thermal analysis (DMTA) and short beam shear (SBS) tests. XD-CNTs were infused into Epon 862 resin using a mechanical stirrer followed by a high intensity ultrasonic liquid processor for better dispersion. After the sonication, the mixture was placed in a three roll milling processor for 3 successive cycles at 140 rpm, with the gap spaces incrementally reduced from 20 to 5 μm, to obtain the uniform dispersion of CNTs throughout the resin. Epikure W curing agent was then added to the modified resin and mixed using a high-speed mechanical stirrer. Finally, the fiber was reinforced with that modified resin using the compression molding process. The results obtained from the DMTA test were analyzed based on the storage modulus, glass transition temperature, and loss modulus. The analysis indicated that the thermo-mechanical properties were linearly increasing from 0 to 0.3 wt% XDCNT loading. The SBS test results exhibited that the incorporation of XDCNTs into the composite increased the interlaminar shear strength (ILSS) by up to 22% at 0.3 wt% CNT loading. Better dispersion of XDCNTs might be attributed to more crosslinking sites and better interaction between fiber and matrix resulting in an improved fiber-matrix interface, whereas, the reaction between functional groups –NH2 of XDCNTs with epoxide groups of resin and epoxy silanes of fiber surfaces improved the crosslinking and thereby ILSS properties of carbon/epoxy composites.
Novel method of electrical resistance measurement in structural composite materials for interfacial and dispersion evaluation with nano- and hetero-structures
Authors: Park Joung-Man , Kwon Dong-Jun , Wang Zuo-Jia , Byun Joon-Hyung , Lee Hyung-Ik , Park Jong-Kyoo , DeVries Lawrence K. 
Published: June 2014

ABSTRACTInterest in development in the use of nanoparticles in structural composites for the improvement of thermal conductivity, mechanical properties and electrical properties has recently stimulated some research efforts. Such improvements require the introduction of functional groups and the proper selection and concentration of the nanoparticles, as well as their uniform dispersion. The identification and verification of uniformity of dispersion is very important in the efficient processing for improved performance. Recently, new methods for studying and evaluating the interfacial properties between the reinforcing fibers and the epoxy matrix, have been developed. Distinct from FE-SEM observation, electrical resistance methods are being developed which can be applied for to measure interfacial shear strength (IFSS) and degree of dispersion. The main principle, on which the electrical resistance measurement is based, is Kirchhoff’s laws, which considers conductive materials as electrical circuits. In this research, the self sensing character of the conductive carbon nanotubes (CNT) and conventional carbon reinforcing fibers has been successfully used as a method for evaluating the dispersion of nanoparticles and interfacial adhesion. The electrical resistance in these composites was observed to be dependent on differences in wetting and interfacial adhesion between matrix and fillers. In summary, a correlation was observed between the electrical resistance and dispersion and degree of cure. It is felt that these methods, along with the electro-micromechanical methods, provide valuable tools for investigating the role of interfacial behavior on thermal conductivity, electrical and mechanical properties. Optical observations by FE-SEM of degree of dispersion and interfacial adhesion are consistent with the electrical resistance results. Additionally, it may be possible to use electrical resistance circuit analysis to detect the location of and extent of micro-damage within composite materials.
Unusual Ovipositional Behavior of the Stink Bug Bagrada hilaris (Hemiptera: Heteroptera: Pentatomidae)
Authors: Taylor Melise E , Bundy C S , McPherson J E 
Published: June 2014

Abstract
The stink bug Bagrada hilaris (Bermeister) (Hemiptera: Heteroptera: Pentatomidae) is an Old World pest recently established in North America. Literature on the ovipositional behavior of B. hilaris is limited. As part of a study on the seasonal biology of B. hilaris in New Mexico, we included observations of the odd egg-laying behavior of this bug. Here, we describe and illustrate the phases associated with this behavior.
The Commercial Production of Coalbed Methane: A Review of 53 Wells in the Black Warrior Basin
Authors: Dunn B. W. 
Published: June 2014

Abstract
The following is a review of the actual performance of 53 conventionally drilled vertical coalbed methane wells developed by a joint coal industry/gas industry effort owned equally by Jim Walter Resources Inc. (JWR), a subsidiary of Jim Walter Corporation of Tampa, Florida and Enhanced Energy Resources, Inc. (EER) a subsidiary of Kaneb Services Inc. of Houston, Texas. The unique characteristics of the coalbed reservoir are briefly described. Actual gas production and computer model predictions are compared and the costs and revenues are discussed with specific emphasis on the economic results.
This paper differs from previous technically oriented discussions of coalbed methane production in that economic viability, initially established in February of 1982, continues to be demonstrated. There are a number of technical papers on the theory and technology several of which are references for this paper.
Production Area I (31 well production area developed in 1981-1982) has been generating an operating profit for 30 months. Production Area II (22 well production area developed in the spring of 1983) has produced operating profits each of it's 14 months. Operating oncome was favorably influenced by the completion of an 8″ transmission line in January of 1983 and more recently by the reduction in operating costs effected by Black Warrior Methane (BWM) the operator of the Brookwood Joint Venture since August of 1983. Initial production in late 1979 was evaluated in the form of a five well pilot project before commercial development commenced in late 1981. A total of 31 wells were drilled by mid 1982. First sales were in February of that year. An additional 22 conventional vertical wells were delivering to the sales pipeline by the summer of 1983 for a total of 53 wells from two production areas.
Steadily improving operating income over the 30 months of sales operations, attributable to improvements in operational techniques and cost reduction demonstrates economic viability. The application of this information to the reservoir model predictions of long term deliverability permits future economic performance to be projected. Significant proved reserves have also been established.
A New Chemical EOR for Sandstone and Carbonate Reservoirs
Authors: Mahmoud M. A. , Abdelgawad K. Z. 
Published: June 2014

Abstract
Recently the low salinity water flooding has been introduced as an effective enhanced oil recovery method in sandstone and carbonate reservoirs. The recovery mechanism using low salinity water injection is still debatable. The suggested mechanisms are: wettability alteration, interfacial tension reduction, and rock dissolution. In this paper we will introduce a new chemical EOR method for sandstone and carbonate reservoirs that will give better recovery than the low salinity water injection without treating sea water. The new chemical EOR fluid can be used at low concentrations and can be added to the raw sea water without treatment or softening. Low salinity water was proved to cause damage to the reservoir because of the calcium sulfate scale formation during the flooding process. These chemicals are chelating agents at high pH value such as EDTA and HEDTA.
Coreflood experiments and zeta potential measurements were performed using EDTA and HEDA chelating agents added to the sea water and injected into Berea sandstone and Indiana limestone cores of 6 in. length and 1.5 in. diameter. The coreflooding experiments were performed at 100°C and high pressure. The newly introduced EOR method does not cause sulfate precipitation and the core permeability was not affected. The coreflooding effluent was analyzed for cations using the ICP to explain the recovery mechanism. The effect of iron minerals on the rock surface charge will be investigated through the measurements of zeta potential for different rocks containing different iron minerals.
The oil recovery increase in both sandstone and carbonate cores was up to 23% of the initial oil in place using the new fluid system. The rock dissolution, interfacial tension (IFT) reduction, and wettability alteration were the recovery mechanism in order. The IFT reduction was due to the high pH of the newly introduced fluid. The existence of iron minerals in sandstone rocks increase the positive values of zeta potential and this will change the rock towards more oil wet. Adding EDTA and HEDTA chelating agents at high pH to the sandstone rocks containing iron changed zeta potential to be negative in which changing the rock towards more water wet.