cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Influence of Methane Emissions and Vehicle Efficiency on the Climate Implications of Heavy-Duty Natural Gas Trucks

While natural gas produces lower carbon dioxide emissions than diesel during combustion, if enough methane is emitted across the fuel cycle, then switching a heavy-duty truck fleet from diesel to natural gas can produce net climate damages (more radiative forcing) for decades. Using the Technology Warming Potential methodology, we assess the climate implications of a diesel to natural gas switch in heavy-duty trucks. We consider spark ignition (SI) and high-pressure direct injection (HPDI) natural gas engines and compressed and liquefied natural gas. Given uncertainty surrounding several key assumptions and the potential for technology to evolve, results are evaluated for a range of inputs for well-to-pump natural gas loss rates, vehicle efficiency, and pump-to-wheels (in-use) methane emissions. Using reference case assumptions reflecting currently available data, we find that converting heavy-duty truck fleets leads to damages to the climate for several decades: around 70-90 years for the SI cases, and 50 years for the more efficient HPDI. Our range of results indicates that these fuel switches have the potential to produce climate benefits on all time frames, but combinations of significant well-to-wheels methane emissions reductions and natural gas vehicle efficiency improvements would be required.
Large-scale stochastic power grid islanding operations by line switching and controlled load shedding

Recently, there has been an increasing concern regarding the security and reliability of power systems due to the onerous consequences of cascading failures. Among many emergency control operations, controlled power grid islanding is a last resort yet powerful method to prevent large-scale blackouts. Islanding operations split the power grid into self-sufficient operational subnetworks and avoid cascading failures by isolating the failed elements of the power system into a non-operational island. In this paper, we consider a two-stage stochastic mixed-integer program to seek the optimal islanding operations under severe contingency states. Line switching and controlled load shedding are the main tools for the islanding operations and load shedding is considered as a measurement to gauge system’s inability to respond to disruption. The number of possible extreme contingencies grows exponentially as the size of the grid increases, and this results in a large-scale mixed-integer program, which is a computationally challenging problem to solve. We present an efficient decomposition method to solve this problem for large-scale power systems.
Rates of Obsidian Utilization In Central Mexico and on the South Gulf Coast

AbstractThis paper presents a series of estimates of the rate at which obsidian was used in domestic contexts in two regions of Mesoamerica. Rates of usage are found to have been remarkably low for all time periods, although there does appear to be a trend for consumption rates to increase with time. Rates of consumption at sites in the obsidian source region in Central Mexico and in areas such as the Tuxtlas Mountains which obtained lit hies by long-distance exchange are also found to have been very similar. Implications for the scale of long-distance exchange systems are also discussed.
Linking wading bird prey selection to number of nests

Establishing a link between food availability and productivity is often central to the recovery of declining populations; however, differences in prey selection may influence how populations are affected by changes in prey availability. We determined prey selection and prey availability for 3 wading bird species, and investigated the effects of prey availability on the number of nests initiated by 6 wading bird species in the Florida Everglades, USA. To determine prey selection, we compared food items recovered from tricolored heron (Egretta tricolor), snowy egret (Egretta thula), and little blue heron (Egretta caerulea) nestlings to aquatic prey availability from throw-traps across the Everglades landscape from 2012 to 2014. Tricolored heron and snowy egret prey composition was statistically similar across years, with the majority of prey biomass coming from relatively large (>1.9 cm) marsh fish. Little blue heron prey composition differed from the other wading bird species, and contained a higher percentage of grass shrimp (Palaemonetes paludosus) and exotic fish species. Numbers of small heron nests were positively influenced by the availability of large marsh fish across the landscape, whereas numbers of nests for other wading bird species (wood stork [Mycteria americana], great egret [Ardea alba], white ibis [Eudocimus albus]) were not. Our results suggest differences among wading bird species in their prey selection and availability. Although small heron foraging may seem restricted by their specialization on marsh fishes, their short nesting cycles allow for the phenological flexibility to delay nesting until foraging conditions are optimal. Conversely, wood storks with longer nesting cycles are more temporally constrained but have greater flexibility in prey items and foraging range. The annual number of small heron nests may be more robust to hydrological variability as a result of management action or global change than the number of wood stork nests. The temporal constraints of nesting by wood storks indicate that management of supporting wetland systems should provide continuous habitat availability during the nesting season. © 2016 The Wildlife Society.
Successful Analgesia and Sedation for Patients with Acute Heart Failure Syndromes

Patients presenting with an acute heart failure syndrome (AHFS) report the rapid onset of symptoms referable to their abnormal heart function.1 Their cardinal symptoms include dyspnea and fatigue, which are often accompanied by significant anxiety when the breathlessness is severe. Like the majority of critically ill patients, patients with acute heart failure commonly experience pain and discomfort, and relief of these symptoms is of paramount importance in their overall plan of care. This chapter provides an overview for the assessment of a patient’s need for analgesia and sedation, reviews the common medications and strategies used to successfully provide comfort and relieve pain, and discusses potential complications of sedative therapy.
Mitochondrial Superoxide Signaling Contributes to Norepinephrine-Mediated T-Lymphocyte Cytokine Profiles

Norepinephrine (NE) produces multifaceted regulatory patterns in T-lymphocytes. Recently, we have shown that NE utilizes redox signaling as evidenced by increased superoxide (O2●-) causally linked to the observed changes in these cells; however, the source of this reactive oxygen species (ROS) remains elusive. Herein, we hypothesized that the source of increased O2●- in NE-stimulated T-lymphocytes is due to disruption of mitochondrial bioenergetics. To address this hypothesis, we utilized purified mouse splenic CD4+ and CD8+ T-lymphocytes stimulated with NE and assessed O2●- levels, mitochondrial metabolism, cellular proliferation, and cytokine profiles. We demonstrate that the increase in O2●- levels in response to NE is time-dependent and occurs at later points of T-lymphocyte activation. Moreover, the source of O2●- was indeed the mitochondria as evidenced by enhanced MitoSOX Red oxidation as well as abrogation of this signal by the addition of the mitochondrial-targeted O2●--scavenging antioxidant MitoTempol. NE-stimulated T-lymphocytes also demonstrated decreased mitochondrial respiratory capacity, which suggests disruption of mitochondrial metabolism and the potential source of increased mitochondrial O2●-. The effects of NE in regards to redox signaling appear to be adrenergic receptor-dependent as specific receptor antagonists could reverse the increase in O2●-; however, differential receptors regulating these processes were observed in CD4+ versus CD8+ T-lymphocytes. Finally, mitochondrial O2●- was shown to be mechanistic to the NE-mediated T-lymphocyte phenotype as supplementation of MitoTempol could reverse specific changes in cytokine expression observed with NE treatment. Overall, these studies indicate that mitochondrial metabolism and O2●--mediated redox signaling play a regulatory role in the T-lymphocyte response to NE.
A two-stage algorithm for noisy and reverberant speech enhancement

In daily listening environments, speech is commonly corrupted by room reverberation and background noise. These distortions are detrimental to speech intelligibility and quality, and also severely degrade the performance of automatic speech and speaker recognition systems. In this paper, we propose a two-stage algorithm to deal with the confounding effects of noise and reverberation separately, where denoising and dereverberation are conducted sequentially using deep neural networks. In addition, we design a new objective function that incorporates clean phase information during training. As the objective function emphasizes more important time-frequency (T-F) units, better estimated magnitude is obtained during testing. By jointly training the two-stage model to optimize the proposed objective function, our algorithm improves objective metrics of speech intelligibility and quality significantly, and substantially outperforms one-stage enhancement baselines.
Ductile polyacrylonitrile fibers with high cellulose nanocrystals loading

Abstract Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) fibers containing up to 40 wt% cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) were processed. Structure, mechanical, and dynamic mechanical properties of these fibers were systematically investigated. The crystallinity, crystal size and crystallite orientation of PAN in PAN and PAN/CNC fibers significantly increases as the draw ratio increases from 4x to 15x. As compared to the control PAN fiber at a draw ratio of 4x, work of rupture increases by a factor of 2 only for 1 wt% CNC loading, and tensile modulus increased by a factor of two at the same draw ratio in fibers containing 40 wt% CNC. Though PAN/CNC 40 wt% fiber is brittle at 4x draw ratio, the elongation at break is significantly improved as fiber was drawn to a draw ratio of 29x and becomes comparable to that for the control PAN fiber at high draw ratio. This is the first study of such a high concentration of nano reinforcement in PAN fibers with good mechanical properties. These results should prove important in reinforcing broader class of polymers with CNCs and other nanomaterials, without making them brittle, which is a common draw back with many reinforcements and fillers.
Thermomechanical Response of Self-Assembled Nanoparticle Membranes

Monolayers composed of colloidal nanoparticles, with a thickness of less than 10 nm, have remarkable mechanical moduli and can suspend over micrometer-sized holes to form free-standing membranes. In this paper, we discuss experiments and coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations characterizing the thermomechanical properties of these self-assembled nanoparticle membranes. These membranes remain strong and resilient up to temperatures much higher than previous simulation predictions and exhibit an unexpected hysteretic behavior during the first heating–cooling cycle. We show this hysteretic behavior can be explained by an asymmetric ligand configuration from the self-assembly process and can be controlled by changing the ligand coverage or cross-linking the ligand molecules. Finally, we show the screening effect of water molecules on the ligand interactions can strongly affect the moduli and thermomechanical behavior.
Exact BER calculation of TCM-MAPSK using product trellis algorithm for DVB applications

This paper is on the calculation of exact bit error rate (BER) of TCM M-ary APSK applicable to the DVB for multimedia data transmission. The current DVB-S2/S2x standards utilize the concatenated FEC coding (LDPC + BCH) for QPSK, 8PSK, M-APSK (M is 8 to 256). However this complicated coded modulations can be effectively combined into a single process using TCM. Although standards specify the average BERs using simulation, currently no closed forms on the exact BER calculation can be found. Our approach is unique since practical pairwise error probability-based product trellis algorithm is used to yield the exact BERs of 2 and 4 state TCM-MAPSKs (M=4, 8, 16, 32, 64) with a proposed set partitioning under the constraint of identical total symbol energy regardless of M. The calculated results confirm the accuracy/effectiveness of the proposed method.
Functional safety and Industrie 4.0

Industrie 4.0 offers a new vision for the factories of the future. In these factories of the future safety will be critical. Functional safety addresses confidence that a piece of equipment will carry out its safety functionality when required to do so. It is an active form of safety in contrast to other forms of safety. Integrated circuits are fundamental in the implementation of functional safety and therefore to Industrie 4.0. This paper explores the implications of functional safety for Industrie 4.0. The implications include requirements for networks, security, robots/cobots and software and the semiconductors used to implement these features.
Shell Finite Element for Deep Drawing Problems: Computational Aspects and Results

We present an implicit finite element approach for the simulation of the deep-drawing of arbitrary shaped workpieces based on an updated Lagrangian formulation. Two triangular shell elements have been created (DKT18 and DKT12) taking into account bending effects, large displacements, large rotations and large strains, anisotropic elasto-plastic behaviour. Penalization methods are used to simulate contact conditions with Coulomb friction. Various numerical results are presented and compared with experimental ones.
First Report of Uromyces halstedii Rust on Native Painted Trillium in Pennsylvania

Between early June of 2014 and 2016, we observed chlorotic leaf spots on painted trillium (Trillium undulatum Willd.) within an oak-dominated hardwood forest in Westmoreland County, southwestern Pennsylvania. The leaf spots observed were circular, 1 to 1.5 cm diameter, occurring on both leaf surfaces, but more prominent on the abaxial surface. Clusters of yellow-orange aecia occurred within the leaf spots, and small dark red pycnia were centered within each cluster. Symptomatic leaves were collected in early June 2016 for morphological and molecular evaluations. Measurements of aecia, aeciospores, and pycnia were made using an Olympus SZ dissecting scope and an Olympus BX41 compound scope with cellSens imaging software (Olympus America Inc.) and GraphPad Software Inc. Inside aecial cup diameter averaged 232 36 µm (n=40), mean aeciospore diameter was 24 4 µm (n=37), and pycnia were 111 15 µm (n=43) wide at the base and tapered to a point. Measurements were similar to those reported for the aecial stage ref...
Laser ignition of CL-20 (hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane) cocrystals

Abstract Energetic cocrystals are a new class of materials that consist of two or more energetic molecules in a crystal structure. The multicomponent cocrystals can possess significantly different properties than either component, and therefore it is possible that their ignition behavior could be different than a physical mixture. In this paper, we report the time to ignition and reaction dynamics of various energetic materials, including select cocrystal materials under CO2 laser heating. An effort was made to minimize the amount of material used in comparison to previous laser ignition studies due to the limited availability of materials. The 1:1 molar Trinitrotoluene (TNT): Hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane (CL-20) produced by slurry or precipitation methods and 1:2 molar cyclotetramethylene-tetranitramine (HMX):CL-20 produced by slurry or resonant mixing methods were investigated along with the individual constituents and equivalent molar physical mixes. Pressed cylindrical pellets with diameters of 3.2 mm and heights between 1 and 2 mm were ignited at irradiances ranging from 310 to 1446 W/cm2. Visual imaging was performed with a high speed camera and ultraviolet (UV) spectral data were collected with a spectrometer coupled to a streak camera. Additionally, high speed schlieren imaging was performed to investigate the ignition dynamics prior to light generation. Specific species identified with the spectrometer include OH and CN, which coincide with the observation of the secondary flame as indicated from schlieren and first-light in the visual video record. All the cocrystallized materials ignited in a similar manner to CL-20 with comparable times to secondary flame formation, but the cocrystallized materials were found to have a shorter onset to gasification than the constituents or physical mixtures.
A Special Issue on Sport and Spirituality

Theology and philosophy are no strangers to one another even if they have grown apart. In bygone days, the overlap between the two was considerable. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, for instance, were...
Librarians and Open Government Data: Opening Possibilities

Column description. The Technology column examines current and developing technology topics in libraries. The column’s focus is creative uses of technology, introductions to new technologies, and c...
Practice of Teledermatopathology: A Systematic Review.

Introduction Teledermatopathology has the potential to revolutionize the practice of diagnosing skin diseases. This review provides an overview of the advantages, limitations, and future directions of teledermatopathology. Methods MEDLINE was searched via PubMed and Google Scholar databases for relevant articles published from 2012 to the present. Additional articles were also identified by hand-searching. Results A total of 2675 citations were identified in the initial search. Two thousand five hundred seventy-three were excluded based on duplicates and review of titles and abstracts. Eighty studies failed to meet the inclusion criteria, resulting in a total of 22 articles for analysis. Nine additional articles were hand-searched. Conclusions Recent studies report that telepathology increases access to specialists, reduces interpretive errors and health care expenditures, improves the efficiency of workflow, and optimizes patient outcomes. It also facilitates international collaboration by widening global access to dermatopathology services and providing educational resources in underserved areas. However, the quality and regulations of digital slide imaging in teledermatopathology need to be improved.
Robustly Cycling Xenopus laevis Cell-Free Extracts in Teflon Chambers

A central advantage of studying Xenopus laevis is the manipulability of its cell-free extracts, which perform the cell cycle in vitro. However, these extracts are known to be experimentally temperamental and will often complete at most one or two cycles. Over the course of developing systems for imaging cell cycle events in extracts in real time, we unexpectedly found that when standard Xenopus extracts are placed in Teflon tubes, they cycle extremely robustly; in one series of experiments, over 90% (n = 13) of extracts cycled an average of seven and as many as 14 times. Extracts incubated in other materials, such as glass and polydimethylsiloxane, do not cycle as robustly. Here we present protocols for preparing Xenopus extracts and imaging them in Teflon tubes. This method extends the usefulness of this powerful model organism.
Unsupervised machine learning based on non-negative tensor factorization for analyzing reactive-mixing

Abstract Analysis of reactive-diffusion simulations representing complex mixing processes requires a large number of independent model runs. For each high-fidelity model simulation, the model inputs are varied and the predicted mixing behavior is represented by temporal and spatial changes in species concentration. It is then required to discern how the model inputs (such as diffusivity, dispersion, anisotropy, and velocity field properties) impact the mixing process. This task is challenging and typically involves interpretation of large model outputs representing temporal and spatial changes of species concentration within the model domain. However, the task can be automated and substantially simplified by applying Machine Learning (ML) methods. In this paper, we present an application of an unsupervised ML method (called NTF k ) using Non-negative Tensor Factorization (NTF) coupled with a custom clustering procedure based on k -means to reveal the temporal and spatial features in product concentrations. An attractive and unique aspect of the proposed ML method is that it ensures the extracted features are non-negative, which is important to obtain a meaningful deconstruction of the mixing processes. The ML methodology is applied to a large set of high-resolution finite-element model simulations representing anisotropic reaction-diffusion processes in perturbed vortex-based velocity fields. The applied finite-element method ensures that spatial and temporal species concentration are always non-negative, even in the case of high anisotropic contrasts. The simulated reaction is a fast irreversible bimolecular reaction A + B → C , where species A and B react to form species C . The reactive-diffusion model input parameters that control mixing include properties of the velocity field (such as vortex structures), anisotropic dispersion, and molecular diffusion. We demonstrate the applicability of the ML feature extraction method to produce a meaningful deconstruction of model outputs to discriminate between different physical processes impacting the reactants, their mixing, and the spatial distribution of the product C . The presented ML analysis allowed us to identify additive temporal and spatial features that characterize mixing behavior. The application of the proposed NTF k approach is not limited to reactive-mixing. NTF k can be readily applied to any observed or simulated datasets that can be represented as tensors (multi-dimensional arrays) and have separable latent signatures or features.
A Rare case of recurrent Guillain-Barré syndrome without albuminocytological dissociation

Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS) is an immune-mediated polyneuropathy, often preceded by an illness. It is a self-limiting illness in most of the cases, but recurrence is rare and can be seen in about 1%-6% of patients. GBS is characterised by progressive, symmetrical, proximal and distal weakness. Areflexia and sensory disturbances are also common. Patients with GBS usually have albuminocytological dissociation on cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) analysis. This is a case of a 69-year-old woman with recurrent GBS and normal CSF findings.
One-dimensional tellurium chains: Crystal structure and thermodynamic properties of PrCuxTe2 (x ~ 0.45)

Abstract X-ray diffraction, crystal structure, magnetization, and heat capacity results are presented for the rare earth – chalcogenide ternary system PrCu0.45Te2 and its non-4f analogue LaCu0.40Te2. The crystal structure of PrCu0.45Te2 is characterized by chains of edge and corner-sharing CuTe4 tetrahedra and Pr centered in polyhedra comprised of Cu and Te. The Cu site is partially occupied and exhibits signatures of local disorder. Magnetic susceptibility measurements show a Curie-Weiss temperature dependence consistent with a Pr3+ state. No magnetic ordering is observed down to 1.8 K, but the negative Curie-Weiss temperature suggests an antiferromagnetic exchange interaction. Importantly, the low temperature heat capacity of PrCu0.45Te2 is strongly enhanced by comparison to LaCu0.40Te2, suggesting that there is a build-up of entropy that is associated with the 4f-electrons from the Pr3+ ions. These features reveal possible spin frustration behavior and introduce this family of materials as a template for studying new phenomenon.
Reliability and validity of a self-report scale for daily assessments of the severity of anxiety symptoms.

Abstract Background To evaluate the efficacy of rapidly effective treatments it is necessary to use measures that are designed to assess symptom severity over short intervals. In the present report from the Rhode Island Methods to Improve Diagnostic Assessment and Services (MIDAS) project, we modified our previously published anxiety scale and examined the reliability and validity of a daily version of the Clinically Useful Anxiety Outcome Scale (CUXOS-D, D indicates daily version). Methods Two thousand four hundred and ninety-one patients presenting for treatment to a partial hospital program completed the CUXOS-D as part of their initial paperwork and on a daily basis thereafter. Test-retest reliability was examined in 50 patients who completed the CUXOS-D twice on the same day. A subset of 73 patients was interviewed by a trained rater who administered the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HAMA) at baseline and on the day of discharge. Results The CUXOS-D had high internal consistency and test-retest reliability and was more highly correlated with another measure of anxiety symptoms than depressive symptoms. CUXOS-D scores progressively declined during the course of treatment, and scores on each successive day were significantly lower than the preceding day. The change in CUXOS-D scores was significantly correlated with a change in HAMA scores (r = 0.61, p Discussion In a large sample of partial hospital patients mostly diagnosed with mood and anxiety disorders, we demonstrated some aspects of the reliability and validity of the CUXOS-D.
50 Years of The DATA BASE for Advances in Information Systems: Reflections of the Editor in the Middle

This article offers a historical overview of the middle years of publishing The DATA BASE for Advances in Information Systems in the context of the evolution of the field of Management Information Systems. The journey of the editor-in-chief during these years is revealed, including the challenges and professional development achieved through journal editorship. The development of DATA BASE is contrasted with the complementary evolution of the MIS Quarterly. Possibilities for advancing DATA BASE into a socialmedia platform are explored.
Effect of Surface-Modification on In Vitro Corrosion of Biodegradable Magnesium-Based Helical Stent Fabricated by Photo-chemical Etching

During the last decade, magnesium and its alloys have been extensively studied to develop a new generation of biodegradable medical implants. The fast degradation rate of pure magnesium and related alloys in the physiological environment poses significant challenges to devices made of these materials for biomedical applications. In this study we have designed and fabricated biodegradable helical stents made of AZ31 magnesium alloy, and have explored their in vitro corrosion behavior in Dulbecco's Modified Eagle's Medium (DMEM). The corrosion rate was significantly reduced by surface modifications of the helical stent, achieved through applying a biocompatible Parylene C polymer coating, or via appropriate chemical etching of the devices in inorganic solutions. The corrosion rates of the coated AZ31 Mg helical stents were compared with uncoated samples used as a control. The results achieved indicated that all tested surface modifications successfully inhibited metal corrosion rates in vitro. Materials coated with Parylene C coating revealed a maximum corrosion rate reduction of 70% to 85% in DMEM solution.
Effects of Ensemble Size and Repertoire Difficulty on Ratings of Concert Band Performances

The purpose of this study was to examine effects of ensemble size and repertoire difficulty on listeners’ perceptions of concert band performances. Undergraduate music majors (N = 210) viewed an au...
Hypolimnetic oxygenation 4. Effects on turbidity in Camanche Reservoir and its downstream fish hatchery

Horne AJ. 2019b. Hypolimnetic oxygenation 4. Effects on turbidity in Camanche Reservoir and its downstream fish hatchery. Lake and Reserve Manage. 36:360–375. Turbidity is a major concern for reser...
Hepatitis C Virus

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is the most common bloodborne pathogen in the United States, chronically affecting approximately 2.4 million Americans, most of whom are unaware of the infection. Highly effective, well-tolerated therapies are now available with markedly simplified treatment algorithms. Eradication of HCV is a national goal. Increased efforts to extend access to treatment to populations that traditionally are difficult to treat, such as persons who inject drugs, are critical to achieving eradication. Given the magnitude of the disease burden, an increased role of primary care providers in screening, patient stratification, and treatment will be needed.
Solitary Metastasis of Colon Adenocarcinoma Mimicking Colloid Cyst of the Third Ventricle

Metastatic lesions to the choroid plexus, although far less common than colloid cysts, can present very similarly both symptomatically and radiographically. Choroid plexus metastases are most common in the lateral ventricles, however, when they occur in the third and fourth ventricles they may cause obstructive hydrocephalus typical of a colloid cyst lesion. Renal cell carcinoma is the most common primary cancer, but many rare primaries have been reported. When patients are presenting with symptoms typical of colloid cysts it is important to consider past oncological history and if past medical history is significant for cancer using MR spectroscopy may be valuable in distinguishing between cystic and metastatic lesions.
Corporations as Semi-States

When Ebola came to West Africa in 2014, Liberia could not cope. The State’s already fragile public health infrastructure was largely ineffective in responding to the illness and preventing its spread. And, the World Health Organization’s support was slow and stilted. By contrast, Firestone, a tire company that operates a vast rubber plantation in Liberia and runs its own hospital for 80,000 employees, family dependents, and persons in neighboring localities, responded to the virus much more effectively. This Article uses Firestone’s Ebola response as an entry point to study a phenomenon too frequently overlooked. Many for-profit firms that maintain operations in failed and fragile States discharge significant quasi-governmental functions. They provide security, housing, food, water, transportation, infrastructure, and healthcare. And, they undertake such tasks not only for their employees but, sometimes, these businesses also reach beyond their own private domain to respond to challenges impacting the local community. Yet, legal scholarship on failed and fragile States largely ignores the provision of public goods by these business entities. This Article suggests that much work remains to be done to grapple with the implications of the various functions undertaken by these business entities. The Article first details instances of corporations acting as semi-States to add fresh nuance to the prevailing narrative concerning the role of business in failed and fragile States. It then marshals theoretical insights available at the intersection of corporate law and international law to suggest a more complex understanding of the behavior of profit-motivated actors in the State’s absence. The Article then applies this renovated model to question the appropriateness of laws that dissuade firms from operating in failed and fragile States. It flags and addresses reasons for caution but also considers alternative means through which the international community might better foster the socially beneficial potential of for-profit firms operating in failing States.
The future of citizenship

The ongoing expansion in the field of citizenship studies is one of the most important and remarkable recent trends in social sciences and humanities research. Some scholars raise questions about citizenship within a larger critique of liberalism and its institutions; others point to citizenship's inherently exclusionary nature. This volume examines--without advocating any ideological agenda--the evolving meaning of citizenship, with an eye to the future. The contributors--writing from the perspectives of anthropology, sociology, psychology, law, history, and other disciplines--examine four modes of citizenship in comparative global context: Differentiated, Divided, Dispersed, and Deterritorialized. The future of citizenship, they argue, may be a worldwide "citizenship by association," tantamount to a global civic interface.
Entrepreneurial Risk: Have We Been Asking the Wrong Question?

Entrepreneurs are often thought to engage in "risky" behaviors. Thus, they may be seen as more willing than average to take risks. We offer a dissenting view. Central to entrepreneurship is the alertness perspective which suggests that entrepreneurs may assess opportunities and threats differently than non-entrepreneurs. That differential assessment may be understood in terms of Bayesian probability. The Bayesian model argues that differing assessments of prospective outcomes may be attributable to differences in prior information. This perspective on risk assessment has implications for entrepreneurial decision making, whether to launch a new venture or adopt a growth strategy. The literature is reviewed, a synthesis is offered, a numerical example is developed, and a research agenda is proposed.
Lines Drawn upon the Water: First Nations and the Great Lakes, Borders and Borderlands – Edited by Karl S. Hele

This book draws attention to the important contribution the field of borderlands offers students of history. In twelve complementary essays, Karl S. Hele has assembled a volume that focuses on Nati...
Fabrication and characterization of mixed-signal polymer-enhanced silicon interposer featuring photodefined coax TSVs and high-Q inductors

This paper demonstrates: (a) low-loss photodefined polymer-embedded copper vias within a 10 Ω-cm resistivity silicon to yield electrical performance similar to glass interposers; (b) coaxial polymer-embedded vias with desired wideband impedance and reduced coupling; and (c) high-Q inductors attained using the photodefined polymer-enhancement technology.
Preparation of cilia and flagella for thin-section transmission electron microscope analysis.

Publisher Summary Flagellar images are composed of multiple overlapping structures. This is because the thickness of a standard “thin section” (50–60 nm) is much greater than the dimensions of many important axonemal components. Preparations that provide a high density of flagellar sections allow the investigator to find satisfactory images much quickly. Fixation of isolated axonemes yields a large number of specimens in a given section and allows tannic acid to be used as a mordant. Preparations of isolated flagella also yield a large number of specimens per section and allow observation of the flagellar matrix and membrane, although the matrix may obscure some axonemal structures. Fixation of flagella in situ can preserve information about developmental stages of flagellar growth and spatial relationships between the flagella and the underlying cells, and allows portions of the basal body/flagellum proximal to the abscission point to be studied. The conditions of fixation must also be decided. Novel combinations of fixation protocols and specimens are unpredictable, and so literature or a protocol that has worked for a similar specimen needs to be referred. The methods suggested in this chapter are based on those that have worked for Chlamydomonas and related species, but may be suitable for other specimens as well. The chapter discusses the sourcing of materials and the procedure involved—fixation of isolated axonemes, of isolated flagella, and of flagella in situ. Flagellar membranes are osmotically active until after postfixation with OsO 4 , so the fixation and wash solutions should have the appropriate tonicity. Usually, this has to be determined by trial and error. Fixative solutions that are hypotonic ensure penetration by the fixative, but can also result in swelling of the flagella and sometimes even cause the axoneme to curl up inside the flagellar membrane.
Thermostats for Individuals with Movement Disabilities: Design Options and Manipulation Strategies

Using common household products is often difficult for people with neuromuscular disorders, spinal cord injury, or arthritis. We need to better understand their capabilities when designing and adapting products that are easier for them to use. In this study, individuals with movement impairments used two experimental home control thermostats with features that allowed easier positioning and viewing. The participants employed a variety of grasping and manipulation strategies, including some that were not anticipated by the designers. Participants' preferences indicated that the appearance of the product, not just effective control design, was an important factor in their judgments. We discuss the implications of the study results for universal design and adaptation of traditional products for the elderly and those with disabilities.
Exhibit Review Essay

Book reviewed in this article: Science in American Life. Arthur Molella, curator. Permanent exhibit at the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, opened April 1994.
Cocaine absorption after application of a viscous cocaine-containing TAC solution.

Study objectives : We sought to measure plasma cocaine and benzoylecgonine levels in children after application of a solution of a topical anesthetic containing tetracaine 0.5%, epinephrine 1---2,000, and viscous cocaine 5.9% (TAC) to lacerations requiring suture repair. Previous reports demonstrating cocaine absorption used aqueous cocaine. The purpose of this study is to determine whether systemic absorption occurs with viscous cocaine. Methods : We used a convenience sample of children in a pediatric emergency department during the summer months of 1994 and 1995. Participants were pediatric patients less than 15 years of age with simple lacerations requiring suturing. Results : Twenty-five patients were enrolled in the study. The mean age of the patients was 8.5 years (range, 3 to 13 years). Lacerations tended to be small, with a mean length of 2.2 cm (range, 1 to 8 cm). Plasma cocaine and benzoylecgonine levels were measured by means of high-performance liquid chromatography. The mean time for obtaining the plasma sample for cocaine analysis was 67.2±23.9 minutes (range, 28 to 130 minutes) after application of the viscous cocaine-containing TAC solution. Qualitative assay results, which were accurate to 50 ng/mL, were negative in all 25 patients for both plasma cocaine and benzoylecgonine. No child demonstrated any signs or symptoms suggestive of cocaine toxicity. Conclusion : In our study, application of viscous cocaine-containing TAC solutions to small lacerations did not produce clinically important cocaine absorption.
On the hardness of evading combinations of linear classifiers

An increasing number of machine learning applications involve detecting the malicious behavior of an attacker who wishes to avoid detection. In such domains, attackers modify their behavior to evade the classifier while accomplishing their goals as efficiently as possible. The attackers typically do not know the exact classifier parameters, but they may be able to evade it by observing the classifier's behavior on test instances that they construct. For example, spammers may learn the most effective ways to modify their spams by sending test emails to accounts they control. This problem setting has been formally analyzed for linear classifiers with discrete features and convex-inducing classifiers with continuous features, but never for non-linear classifiers with discrete features. In this paper, we extend previous ACRE learning results to convex polytopes representing unions or intersections of linear classifiers. We prove that exponentially many queries are required in the worst case, but that when the features used by the component classifiers are disjoint, previous attacks on linear classifiers can be adapted to efficiently attack them. In experiments, we further analyze the cost and number of queries required to attack different types of classifiers. These results move us closer to a comprehensive understanding of the relative vulnerability of different types of classifiers to malicious adversaries.
Plutonium immobilization and radiation effects.

In their report “Radiation tolerance of complex oxides” (4 Aug., p. [748][1]), Sickafus and colleagues note in the last paragraph “that compounds with the fluorite structure are especially stable in a displacive radiation damage environment,” and they propose that complex oxides that have a
Path-goal theory of leadership: Lessons, legacy, and a reformulated theory

In this paper I present a retrospective review of the development and history of the path-goal theory of leader effectiveness. I briefly describe the origin of the theory. The theory is then summarized. The various methodologies that have been used to test the theory and lessons learned from empirical testing are discussed. Two legacies of the theory are described: the substitutes for leadership theory and the 1976 theory of charismatic leadership. A reformulated 1996 path-goal theory of work unit leadership is presented. The reformulated theory specifies leader behaviors that enhance subordinate empowerment and satisfaction and work unit and subordinate effectiveness. It addresses the effects of leaders on the motivation and abilities of immediate subordinates and the effects of leaders on work unit performance. The reformulated theory includes 8 classes of leader behavior, individual differences of subordinates, and contingency moderator variables which are related to each other in 26 propositions. The contingency moderators of the theory specify some of the circumstances in which each of the behaviors are likely to be effective or ineffective. It is argued that the essential underlying rationale from which the propositions are derived is strikingly parsimonious. The essence of the theory is the meta proposition that leaders, to be effective, engage in behaviors that complement subordinates ' environments and abilities in a manner that compensates for deficiencies and is instrumental to subordinate satisfaction and individual and work unit performance. This meta proposition, and the specific propositions derived from it, are consistent with, and integrate, the predictions of current extant theories of leadership. Further, the propositions of the theory are consistent with empirical tests with empirical generalizations resulting from earlier task and person oriented research. It is my hope that the 1996 theory will be subjected to empirical tests and that such tests will lead to a further improved theory to be formulated at some future time.
Evaluating predictions of critical oxygen desaturation events

This paper presents a new approach for evaluating predictions of oxygen saturation levels in blood ( SpO2). A performance metric based on a threshold is proposed to evaluate SpO2 predictions based on whether or not they are able to capture critical desaturations in the SpO2 time series of patients. We use linear auto-regressive models built using historical SpO2 data to predict critical desaturation events with the proposed metric. In 20 s prediction intervals, 88%–94% of the critical events were captured with positive predictive values (PPVs) between 90% and 99%. Increasing the prediction horizon to 60 s, 46%–71% of the critical events were detected with PPVs between 81% and 97%. In both prediction horizons, more than 97% of the non-critical events were correctly classified. The overall classification capabilities for the developed predictive models were also investigated. The area under ROC curves for 60 s predictions from the developed models are between 0.86 and 0.98. Furthermore, we investigate the effect of including pulse rate (PR) dynamics in the models and predictions. We show no improvement in the percentage of the predicted critical desaturations if PR dynamics are incorporated into the SpO2 predictive models (p-value = 0.814). We also show that including the PR dynamics does not improve the earliest time at which critical SpO2 levels are predicted (p-value = 0.986). Our results indicate oxygen in blood is an effective input to the PR rather than vice versa. We demonstrate that the combination of predictive models with frequent pulse oximetry measurements can be used as a warning of critical oxygen desaturations that may have adverse effects on the health of patients.
Optical properties of cerium and europium doped fluoroaluminate glasses

Abstract Fluoroaluminate glasses with the composition 36.5 AlF3:13.5 YF3:20 CaF2:10 MgF2:10 SrF2:10 BaF2 were doped with cerium and europium under various melting conditions. Depending on the melting conditions, different oxidation states of cerium and europium were obtained in the glasses. Using UV-visible absorption and fluorescence spectroscopy, these glasses were characterized. Cerium doped fluoroaluminate glasses had broad UV emission but exhibited apparent concentration quenching after concentrations of less than 1 mol% CeF4. Europium doped glasses exhibited a broad UV/blue emission due to Eu2+ and while concentration quenching was not observed with increased levels of EuF3, the ratio of Eu2+/Eu3+ decreased with increasing total europium content. The apparent obeyance of the tarnishing model indicates that the Eu2+/Eu3+ ratio might be increased by increased exposure to H2.
Major element chemistry, weathering and element yields for the Caura River drainage, Venezuela

The Caura River, a major tributary of the Orinoco River, was sampled at bi-weekly intervals for two years. Because the watershed is covered with undisturbed forest overlying a Precambrian shield, the water of the Caura River has low conductivity (mean, 15 uS/cm), contains small amounts of particulate material (mean, 11 mg/1), and is slightly acidic (median pH, 6.8). Concentrations of total dissolved solids vary less than two-fold in response to the seasonal ten-fold variation in discharge; concentrations of particulate material vary more (ten-fold) and are lowest at the time of peak discharge. Seasonal changes in concentrations of Si, major metal cations, and hydrogen ion are complementary to each other and indicate regular seasonal changes in weathering rates. Measurements of bulk atmospheric deposition and the observed runoff yield of Cl and S were used in estimating the basin-wide atmospheric deposition of major elements, which were as follows (kg/ha/yr): Ca, 1.3; Mg, 0.29; Na, 8.2; K, 1.0; Cl, 12; S, 2.8; P, 0.14. Element ratios show that terrestrial sources contribute strongly to the atmospheric deposition of Ca, K, S, and P. From the atmospheric contributions and runoff yields, watershed retention was computed for major elements with reference to Si. The watershed accumulates Al, Fe, and P, whereas losses of Ca, Mg, Na, K, and S originating from non-atmospheric sources exceed the relative loss rates of Si. The rock weathering rate based on Si is 1.8 cm/ 1,000 years. Although significant amounts of Ca, Mg, Na, and K are found in atmospheric deposition, the dominant influence on the mass balances of these elements is weathering rather than deposition. Weathering has a trivial influence on the cycles of Cl and S. Both atmospheric deposition and weathering are important in the mass balance of P. The ecosystem does not effectively conserve most biologically active elements (Ca, Mg, Na, K). The ecosystem conserves significant amounts of phosphorus (31% of total input), but probably by abiotic mechanisms.