cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Diel fluctuation in zooplankton grazing rate as determined from the downward vertical flux of pheopigments

The diel grazing activity of zooplankton was measured at a single study site in a temperate fjord, Dabob Bay, Washington, USA at several periods during spring, summer and fall of 1979–1981. Pheopigments were used as an indicator of herbivorous zooplankton activity. The downward vertical flux of pheopigment-containing fecal pellets was measured with sediment traps deployed over repetitive 4 h periods. Experiments were run for 24 to 36 h. A maximum in the flux of pheopigments was consistently noted within the euphotic zone during hours of darkness. Diel fluctuations in pheopigment flux showed amplitudes up to 29-fold. Nightly grazing activity accounted for 41 to 82% of the daily (24 h) grazing and was indirectly related to seasonal changes in daylength.
Low Profile Spiral on a Thin Ferrite Ground Plane for 220–500 MHz Operation

A small size, low profile spiral antenna (2" thick and 14" in aperture) is described that is backed by a thin ferrite ground plane. The antenna is intended to cover Satellite (UHF TacSat earth to LEO: 243-318 MHz) and enhance Radio (PRC-148, PRC-117F, PSC-5D: 243-512 MHz) communications. We carry out a step-by-step design to achieve the challenging goals of RHCP gain >0 dBi at θ = 0°; Bandwidth 220-500 MHz; VSWR <;2:1; Low LHCP (cross-pol) gain (<; -10 dBi); Low profile (2") and desired aperture size 14". Ground plane ferrite treatment, inductive loading, resistive termination and impedance matching techniques are adopted to raise the gain between 200-300 MHz and achieve the stated goals. As the aperture size is about λ/3.5 at 220 MHz and only λ/30 in height, achieving 0 dBi (from 220-500 MHZ) is quite challenging. Measured and simulated data are presented in the last section leading to impressive conclusions about the capability of the magnetic material coating to overcome the perennial issue associated with the ground plane's negative effects.
The influence of the time interval between coronary artery occlusion and the administration of hyaluronidase on salvage of ischemic myocardium in dogs.

SUMMARY The purpose of this study was to determine the time interval following coronary artery occlusion during which the administration of hyaluronidase exerts a significant protective effect on injured myocardium. Fortyeight open-chest dogs with coronary artery occlusion were studied. Fourteen were untreated (controls). Hyaluronidase (500 NF units/kg, iv) was administered 20 minutes (12 dogs), 3 hours (8 dogs), 6 hours (8 dogs), or 9 hours (6 dogs) after occlusion. Epicardial electrograms, recorded from 10 to 16 sites on the anterior surface of the left ventricle before, 15 minutes after, and 24 hours after coronary occlusion were analyzed for S-T segment elevation and changes in QRS morphology. Transmural specimens, excised 24 hours after occlusion from the sites at which the electrograms were recorded, were analyzed for creatine phosphokinase (CPK) activity and histological appearance. In all five groups, myocardial CPK depression, histological evidence of the extent of necrosis, and changes in QRS configuration correlated well with one another. In the controls, S-T segment elevation 15 minutes after occlusion (ST 15m) correlated well with myocardial CPK depression, histological extent of necrosis, and changes in the QRS complex 24 hours later. When hyaluronidase was given 20 minutes, 3 hours, or 6 hours after coronary occlusion, myocardial salvage was reflected in significantly less myocardial CPK depression for any given ST]5rn, less histological evidence of infarction, and less extensive changes in QRS configuration than in the untreated dogs, although there was a progressive reduction in tissue salvage as the time interval between occlusion and drug administration lengthened. Hyaluronidase administered 9 hours after occlusion had no demonstrable effect on the development of myocardial necrosis, suggesting that ischemic injury is totally irreversible by this time.
Extinction of the p and s polarizations of a wave on reflection at the same angle from a transparent film on an absorbing substrate: applications to parallel-mirror crossed polarizers and a novel integrated polarimeter

The p- and s-polarized components of light can be suppressed on reflection at the same angle of incidence from an absorbing substrate coated by a transparent thin film if the wave is refracted in the film at 45° and the constraint Re[(∊2 − α)/(1 − α)]1/2 = α + |∊2 − α| is satisfied, where 2α and ∊2 are the ratios of dielectric constants of the film and substrate, respectively, to that of the ambient. For high-reflectance metal substrates (|∊2| ≫ 1), α ≃ 1, the ratio of film to ambient refractive index approaches 2, and the unextinguished reflectances approach 1. The least film thicknesses required to suppress the p and s polarizations are in the ratio 2:1. The analysis is applied to Si and Al substrates in the near UV-visible-near-IR spectral range. It is found that the film refractive index and thickness should be controlled to within ±0.01 and ±5 A, respectively, for an Al substrate at 550 nm. Significant applications are proposed that include parallel-mirror crossed polarizers, a novel polarimeter that integrates the polarization-analysis and photodetection functions, high-reflectance crossed thin-film reflection polarizers integrated on the same substrate, and division-of-wavefront polarizing beam splitters.
Adenosine Prompts the Heart to Recruit Endothelial Progenitors

See related article, pages 356–363 Adenosine has a long history of involvement in cardiac function. It was first purified from mammalian heart homogenates in 1929 by Drury and Szent-Gyorgyi,1 who reported a “suppressive” action of adenosine on the heart, including decreased heart beat rate and perfusion pressure,1 now termed bradycardia and coronary artery vasodilation, respectively. Based on a variety of experimental results from several laboratories, Berne et al proposed in the early 1960s that adenosine plays an important role in the adjustment of blood flow to the metabolic requirements of organs, including the heart, brain, and skeletal muscle.2 Numerous studies now support the hypothesis that adenosine can be directly released or generated from released ATP/ADP in the heart during ischemia, causing increased oxygen and nutrition supply by inducing coronary artery relaxation.3 Although adenosine exhibits reuptake via specific adenosine transporters, many, if not all, of the biological effects of adenosine are believed to be mediated by adenosine receptors (ARs), of which 4 subtypes (A1R, A2AR, A2BR, and A3R) have been cloned and pharmacologically characterized.4 The diverse physiological functions mediated by the different AR subtypes, particularly in the modulation of the cardiovascular system, have been confirmed by genetically engineered mice.4 Null mice have been generated for each of the AR subtypes, and none of the 4 ARs plays a critical role during development.4,5 Although each AR protein had been thought to exist in the cell membrane as a monomer, recent studies with recombinant expression systems have revealed that some of the AR subtypes heterodimerize with other G-protein coupled receptors. For example, A1R has been shown to heterodimerize with …
DPC-Based Hierarchical Broadcasting: Design and Implementation

This paper discusses interference precancellation in digital hierarchical broadcasting (HB). In particular, we present the principles and implementation of structured dirty paper coding (SDPC) that approaches the capacity limit of dirty paper coding in multilayer broadcasting. As an alternative to Tomlinson-Harashima precoding (THP), SDPC eliminates the significant performance loss suffered by THP in the low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regime due to the modulo operation. The key idea behind the SDPC scheme is the exploitation of the modulation structure of interference, thereby simplifying the demodulation process in hierarchical reception. We exemplify the SDPC technique by implementing an SDPC-based HB system on a real-time test bed. The experimental results show that SDPC delivers the performance of ldquosuperposition coding with successive interference cancellationrdquo without extra computation or memory requirements at the receiver side.
Molecular conformation of n-alkanes using terrain/funneling methods

Understanding molecular conformation is a first step in understanding the waxing (or formation of crystals) of petroleum fuels. In this work, we study the molecular conformation of typical fuel oils modeled as pure n-alkanes. A multi-scale global optimization methodology based on terrain methods and funneling algorithms is used to find minimum energy molecular conformations of united atom n-alkane models for diesel, home heating, and residual fuel oils. The terrain method is used to gather average gradient and average Hessian matrix information at the small length scale while funneling is used to generate conformational changes at the large length scale that drive iterates to a global minimum on the potential energy surface. In addition, the funneling method uses a mixture of average and point-wise derivative information to produce a monotonically decreasing sequence of objective function values and to avoid getting trapped at local minima on the potential energy surface. Computational results clearly show that the calculated united atom molecular conformations are comprised of zigzag structure with considerable wrapping at the ends of the molecule and that planar zigzag conformations usually correspond to saddle points. Furthermore, the numerical results clearly demonstrate that our terrain/funneling approach is robust and fast.
Photosynthesis–light relations of stream periphyton communities

The photosynthesis-irradiance (P-Z) relationship was examined in 10 intact periphyton communities from sites in eight streams that differed in ambient light, nutrient concentrations, and grazing pressure. Algal biomass ranged from 2.3 to 86 pg Chl a cm -* and taxonomic composition differed. Photoassimilation of 14C was measured in the laboratory at six light levels for each community. Photosynthesis by communities from shaded sites was photoinhibited at the highest light level. The light intensity at the onset of saturation (Zk) was positively correlated (P 5 0.05) with ambient light, but ranged only from - 100 to 400 pmol m-* s-l among communities. Lightsaturated, Chl-specific photosynthetic rates (PSChl M) ranged ffrom 0.26 to 1.4 pg C &g Chl a)-’ h-‘. The initial slope (a) of the P-Z response ranged from 0.80 to 6.4 pg C (mg Chl a)-’ (pmol quanta)-’ rr-* s-l. Unlike phytoplankton, (Y and PS, (per unit Chl a) of the periphyton communities were not well related to the ambient light environment and tend.ed to be lower for communities from high-light habitats. Further, the P-Z responses of the communities were better related to periphyton biomass than to the light environment. Self-shading and other aspects of development in a matrix seem to be important determinants of periphyton P-Z relationships.
Significance of an Atrial Gallop Sound in Mitral Regurgitation A Clue to the Diagnosis of Ruptured Chordae Tendineae

The incidence of atrial gallop sounds was studied in 51 patients with pure mitral regurgitation of sufficient severity to require operative treatment. Seventeen patients were in sinus rhythm. Nine of them had atrial gallop sounds and mitral regurgitation secondary to ruptured chordae tendineae, while six without atrial gallop sounds had primary valvular disease. The degrees of disability or the hemodynamic findings did not differ among the patients with ruptured chordae tendineae and those with primary valvular disease and sinus rhythm. However, the duration of symptoms and the history of a heart murmur were much shorter and the left atrium tended to be smaller in patients with ruptured chordae tendineae than in those with primary valvular disease. Sinus rhythm in a symptomatic patient with severe mitral regurgitation, therefore, should suggest the diagnosis of ruptured chordae tendineae. If, in addition, an atrial gallop sound is found the diagnosis of ruptured chordae tendineae is even more likely.
Joint Model Selection and Parameter Estimation by Population Monte Carlo Simulation

In this paper, we study the problem of joint model selection and parameter estimation under the Bayesian framework. We propose to use the Population Monte Carlo (PMC) methodology in carrying out Bayesian computations. The PMC methodology has recently been proposed as an efficient sampling technique and an alternative to Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling. Its flexibility in constructing transition kernels allows for joint sampling of parameter spaces that belong to different models. The proposed method is able to estimate the desired a posteriori distributions accurately. In comparison to the Reversible Jump MCMC (RJMCMC) algorithm, which is popular in solving the same problem, the PMC algorithm does not require burn-in period, it produces approximately uncorrelated samples, and it can be implemented in a parallel fashion. We demonstrate our approach on two examples: sinusoids in white Gaussian noise and direction of arrival (DOA) estimation in colored Gaussian noise, where in both cases the number of signals in the data is a priori unknown. Both simulations show the effectiveness of our proposed algorithm.
High Alanine Aminotransferase Is Associated With Decreased Hepatic Insulin Sensitivity and Predicts the Development of Type 2 Diabetes

It has been proposed that liver dysfunction may contribute to the development of type 2 diabetes. The aim of the present study was to examine whether elevated hepatic enzymes (alanine aminotransferase [ALT], aspartate aminotransferase [AST], or gamma -glutamyltranspeptidase [GGT]) are associated with prospective changes in liver or whole-body insulin sensitivity and/or insulin secretion and whether these elevated enzymes predict the development of type 2 diabetes in Pima Indians. We measured ALT, AST, and GGT in 451 nondiabetic (75-g oral glucose tolerance test) Pima Indians (aged 30 +/- 6 years, body fat 33 +/- 8%, ALT 45 +/- 29 units/l, AST 34 +/- 18 units/l, and GGT 56 +/- 40 units/l [mean +/- SD]) who were characterized for body composition (hydrodensitometry or dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry), whole-body insulin sensitivity (M), and hepatic insulin sensitivity (hepatic glucose output [HGO] during the low-dose insulin infusion of a hyperinsulinemic clamp) and acute insulin response (AIR) (25-g intravenous glucose challenge). Sixty-three subjects developed diabetes over an average follow-up of 6.9 +/- 4.9 years. In 224 subjects, who remained nondiabetic, follow-up measurements of M and AIR were available. At baseline, ALT, AST, and GGT were related to percent body fat (r = 0.16, 0.17, and 0.11, respectively), M (r = -0.32, - 0.28, and -0.24), and HGO (r = 0.27, 0.12, and 0.14; all P < 0.01). In a proportional hazard analysis with adjustment for age, sex, body fat, M, and AIR, higher ALT [relative hazard 90th vs. 10th centiles (95% CI): 1.9 (1.1-3.3), P = 0.02], but not AST or GGT, predicted diabetes. Elevated ALT at baseline was associated prospectively with an increase in HGO (r = 0.21, P = 0.001) but not with changes in M or AIR (both P = 0.1). Higher ALT concentrations were cross-sectionally associated with obesity and whole-body and hepatic insulin resistance and prospectively associated with a decline in hepatic insulin sensitivity and the development of type 2 diabetes. Our findings indicate that high ALT is a marker of risk for type 2 diabetes and suggest a potential role of the liver in the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes.
Observation of Reduced Oxidation Rates for Plasmaassisted CVD Copper Films

Oxidation kinetics of plasma-assisted chemical vapor deposited (PA-CVD) copper films were investigated using Rutherford backscattering spectrometry (RBS). The PA-CVD copper films were deposited using hydrogen plasma reduction of bis(hexafluoroacetylacetonato) copper(II), Cu(hfa)2, precursor. Under identical experimental conditions, PA-CVD copper films oxidize more slowly than sputtered copper films. This decrease in oxidation is manifested both as a time delay at the beginning of the oxidation of the PA-CVD copper films and as a decrease in the rate of oxide growth at oxidation temperatures of 200°C and below. The possivation appears to be caused by the hydrogen plasma present during depostion.
Cepharanthine (biscoclaurine alkaloid) treatment in endotoxic shock of suckling rats.

Abstract Gram-negative sepsis/septic shock causes significant mortality in newborns. However, there has been no established method for newborn endotoxic shock treatment. Prostaglandins play a role in endotoxic shock. Cepharanthine is a biscoclaurine alkaloid that primarily inhibits phospholipase A2. Therefore, the effects of cepharanthine have been studied on endotoxic shock in newborn rats. Cepharanthine decreased the 24 h mortality of endotoxic shock in a dose-related manner. At the dose of 0.2 mg kg-1 it effectively reduced the mortality from 90 to 21% in newborn rats. It also induced hyperglycaemia in control rats and blunted the hypoglycaemia of endotoxic shock. Cepharanthine did not suppress body weight gain nor did it delay death as seen with glucocorticoid treatment. We conclude that cepharanthine is beneficial in the treatment of newborn endotoxic shock.
A fast numerical scheme for computing the response of composites using grid refinement

A numerical scheme is presented to compute the response of a composite material to an applied field. The scheme is based on an iteration that uses a Fourier transform based projection method to compute the response of a reference material to the applied field, and a contraction mapping to relate the response of the reference material to the response of the composite material. The scheme also utilizes nested uniform grids to improve performance, and to evaluate the refinement of the grid.
Characterization of Modified Monosodium Titanate – An Improved Sorbent for Strontium and Actinide Separations

High-level nuclear waste produced from fuel reprocessing operations at the Savannah River Site (SRS) requires pretreatment to remove {sup 134,137}Cs, {sup 90}Sr, and alpha-emitting radionuclides (i.e., actinides) prior to disposal onsite as low level waste. An inorganic sorbent, monosodium titanate (MST), is currently used to remove {sup 90}Sr and alpha-emitting radionuclides, while a caustic-side solvent extraction process is used for removing {sup 134,137}Cs. A new peroxotitanate material, modified MST, or mMST, has recently been developed and has shown increased removal kinetics and capacity for {sup 90}Sr and alpha-emitting radionuclides compared to the current baseline material, MST. This paper describes recent results focused on further characterization of this material.
Elders' Decision Making Regarding the Use of Long-Term Care Services: A Precarious Balance:

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore factors that influenced decision making regarding the use and nonuse of long-term care services, with a particular focus on elders' attitudes, values, and beliefs. The sample (N = 27) consisted of high-functional elders recently admitted to nursing homes and community-dwelling, high-risk elders recently diverted from nursing homes following a prescreening program. Data were collected through indepth, face-to-face, semistructured interviews and analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Independence and sense of self were the strongest values to emerge. The attitude of acceptance, both passive and active, helped elders cope with increasing levels of dependency and lifestyle changes. The desire to be part of decisions, both major life planning and day-to-day choices such as meal planning, was pervasive. Decision making was individualistic and complex. Loss of control was threatening to the sense of self, leaving some elders feeling shortchanged.
What is an adjoint model

Adjoint models are powerful tools for many studies that require an estimate of sensitivity of model output (e.g., a forecast) with respect to input. Actual fields of sensitivity are produced directly and efficiently, which can then be used in a variety of applications, including data assimilation, parameter estimation, stability analysis, and synoptic studies. The use of adjoint models as tools for sensitivity analysis is described here using some simple mathematics. An example of sensitivity fields is presented along with a short description of adjoint applications. Limitations of the applications are discussed and some speculations about the future of adjoint models are offered.
Integrating the Engineering Curriculum through the Synthesis and Design Studio.

Traditional curricular approaches within engineering education tend to be fragmented, with opportunities for content- and meta-level synthesis being mostly limited to freshman and senior year design courses. In this paper, we are proposing a curricular model, the Synthesis and Design Studio, to combat the tendency towards fragmented curricula. The approach proposed here attempts to negotiate the realities of fragmented curricula by providing an integrative learning component that exposes Environmental Engineering students to open-ended projects with the intent that students will develop an integrated understanding of their courses, lives, and professional futures. The pedagogical features and theoretical design of the Studios will be described. Project-led research was conducted, and results from this interpretive analysis of reflections and focus group transcripts are described to explore students’ accounts of both content- and meta-level integration as they participated in a Studio.
Synergism and Flame Retardancy

This chapter is a review of the concept of synergism and its applicability to the flame retardation of polymers. Literature available on this subject has been analyzed to arrive at some understanding of the phenomenon and its mechanistic basis.
Optimizing performance of parallel i/o operations for high performance computing

I/O is probably the most limiting factor on high-end machines for large scale parallel applications as of today. Parallel I/O offers interfaces to allow multiple processes to access the same file concurrently. MPI, the de-facto standard for message passing in parallel scientific applications, has a parallel I/O specification defined in version two of the standard. Some of the features that distinguish MPI-I/O from POSIX I/O include relaxed consistency semantics, file views, collective I/O operations, and shared file pointers. As of today, when it comes to meeting the needs of the HPC community, existing MPI-I/O libraries are limited in terms of performance, modularity, and portability over different hardware architectures and file systems. In this thesis the following goals are accomplished: develop a novel and flexible architecture for a parallel I/O library, develop new algorithms for collective I/O operations, develop automatic selection algorithms for choosing an optimal or close to optimal collective I/O algorithms and its associated parameters such as the number of aggregators (the processes that actually handle the low-level I/O operations), and finally develop a static, pre-execution tuning methodology to tune for runtime parameters/algorithms that are ideal for a certain scenario.
An Overview of the Korean Fishery: Production and Trade of Groundfish

The inland, nearshore and distant water fisheries of South Korea are described along with changes in both domestic consumption and South Korea’s international trade in fish products.
Employee Perspectives on Stock Ownership: Financial Investment or Mechanism of Control?

This paper explores employee ownership as a financial investment rather than a mechanism of control. Viewed from such a perspective, relations among employee ownership, satisfaction, and desired influence are more complex than supposed. Employee owners' satisfaction with the firm and their jobs depends, in part, on their perceptions of the firm's financial performance and of the effectiveness of other employees. Dissatisfaction may increase efforts by employee owners to influence decision making.
Studies on the microtubules in heliozoa. IV. The effect of colchicine on the formation and maintenance of the axopodia and the redevelopment of pattern in Actinosphaerium nucleofilum (Barrett).

When specimens of Actinosphaerium are placed in a solution of colchicine, the axopodia retract and that portion of the birefringent core (axoneme) present in each axopodium disappears. In fixed specimens, it has been shown that the axoneme consists of a highly patterned bundle of microtubules each 220 A in diameter. During colchicine treatment the microtubules, present in the axopodial portion of the axoneme, break down and do not reform until the cells are washed free of the colchicine and allowed to recover. In the basal portion of the axoneme or that portion confined to the cell body, most of the microtubules within the remaining axonemes is altered; in longitudinal section these tubules no longer appear straight but present an undulatory profile. When the specimens are washed free of the colchicine and allowed to recover, axopodia reform and within each numerous microtubules are present. From these observations we conclude that the mircotubules are instrumental in the maintenance of the axopodia as well as in supplying the force necessary for their regrowth. Observations are also presented on the disintegration products of microtubules, on microtubules and cytoplasmic motility, and on the redevelopment of pattern. The latter is discussed at some length, for it appears that the inter-axonemal organization is somewhat modified by the colchicine treatment.
Clinical Observation on Dialectical Addition and Subtraction Ectopic Pregnancy 2 United Mifepristone in the Treatment of Ectopic Pregnancy

Objective:To study dialectical addition and subtraction ectopic pregnancy 2 United mifepristone conservative treatment for ectopic pregnancy clinical effect;Method:130 cases of tubal ectopic pregnancy patients were divided into dialectical addition and subtraction ectopic pregnancy 2 and subtraction United mifepristone conservative treatment group and operation treatment in the control group,observation of tubal patency,pregnancy,quality of life and negative emotions;Result:The observation group tubal patency,pregnancy,intrauterine pregnancy and KPS score,MUNSH score,ESCA score,the overall quality of life were significantly were significantly higher than those in the control group;NRS score,HAMD scores,HAMA score was significantly lower than the control group;Conclusion:dialectical addition and subtraction ectopic pregnancy 2 United mifepristone conservative treatment can effectively improve the effect of treatment,improve the quality of life,with a positive clinical value.
MOSx and Voice Outage Rate in Wireless Communications

Average packet loss rate (PLR) or average mean opinion score (MOS) are often used performance indicators for voice communications. However, even for a fixed average PLR, the delivered voice quality depends on the location of the packet losses as well as the distribution of packet losses due to the differences in voice codecs, their packet loss concealment schemes, the difficulty of concealing packet losses in unvoiced- to-voiced and voiced-to-unvoiced transition regions, and the difficulty of concealing successive packet losses. The result is that there is a distribution of achieved MOS values for a fixed average PLR and that the average MOS value may not capture the voice communications performance. Using the PESQ-MOS, we study the distribution of MOS values for wireless voice communications over additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) and multipath fading channels using G.711 and G.729 voice codecs and their packet loss concealment schemes. Based on the distribution of PESQ-MOS, we define a quality indicator referred to as the MOSx, which is the MOS value that a user can expect to achieve or exceed x% of the time, where MOS and x are chosen to correspond to an acceptable voice outage rate. The MOSx is then used to evaluate the performance of G.711 and G.729 codecs over frequency selective fading and AWGN channels for voice over IEEE 802.11 a wireless LANs.
KEEPING QUALITY OF MILK EXPOSED TO HIGH TEMPERATURE AS EXPERIENCED DURING TRANSPORT IN AUTOMOBILES1

To simulate conditions encountered in automobiles during warm weather in Florida, half-gallon cartons of milk, after tempering at 39 F, were exposed to 120 F for 0, 30, 60 or 90 min, after which milks were 39, 64, 78, and 91 F, respectively. All samples were then held at 39 F throughout the remainder of the study. The standard plate count was significantly higher on samples exposed to 120 F for 60–90 min than on those exposed for the shorter time. A taste panel detected flavor differences among samples of milk receiving the different heat exposures. The shelf-life of fluid milk was determined by the number of bacteria present in the sample at the commencement of the storage period, the length of the lag phase of growth, the rate of bacterial growth at the storage temperature used, and finally the type of microorganism present. If milk is to be exposed to high temperature in an automobile for more than 30 min, it should be held in an insulated container until it can be placed in the home refrigerator.
Algorithmic three-dimensional analysis of tumor shape in MRI improves prognosis of survival in glioblastoma: a multi-institutional study.

In this retrospective, IRB-exempt study, we analyzed data from 68 patients diagnosed with glioblastoma (GBM) in two institutions and investigated the relationship between tumor shape, quantified using algorithmic analysis of magnetic resonance images, and survival. Each patient’s Fluid Attenuated Inversion Recovery (FLAIR) abnormality and enhancing tumor were manually delineated, and tumor shape was analyzed by automatic computer algorithms. Five features were automatically extracted from the images to quantify the extent of irregularity in tumor shape in two and three dimensions. Univariate Cox proportional hazard regression analysis was performed to determine how prognostic each feature was of survival. Kaplan Meier analysis was performed to illustrate the prognostic value of each feature. To determine whether the proposed quantitative shape features have additional prognostic value compared with standard clinical features, we controlled for tumor volume, patient age, and Karnofsky Performance Score (KPS). The FLAIR-based bounding ellipsoid volume ratio (BEVR), a 3D complexity measure, was strongly prognostic of survival, with a hazard ratio of 0.36 (95% CI 0.20–0.65), and remained significant in regression analysis after controlling for other clinical factors (P = 0.0061). Three enhancing-tumor based shape features were prognostic of survival independently of clinical factors: BEVR (P = 0.0008), margin fluctuation (P = 0.0013), and angular standard deviation (P = 0.0078). Algorithmically assessed tumor shape is statistically significantly prognostic of survival for patients with GBM independently of patient age, KPS, and tumor volume. This shows promise for extending the utility of MR imaging in treatment of GBM patients.
A process engineering approach to increase organoid yield.

ABSTRACT Temporal manipulation of the in vitro environment and growth factors can direct differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells into organoids – aggregates with multiple tissue-specific cell types and three-dimensional structure mimicking native organs. A mechanistic understanding of early organoid formation is essential for improving the robustness of these methods, which is necessary prior to use in drug development and regenerative medicine. We investigated intestinal organoid emergence, focusing on measurable parameters of hindgut spheroids, the intermediate step between definitive endoderm and mature organoids. We found that 13% of spheroids were pre-organoids that matured into intestinal organoids. Spheroids varied by several structural parameters: cell number, diameter and morphology. Hypothesizing that diameter and the morphological feature of an inner mass were key parameters for spheroid maturation, we sorted spheroids using an automated micropipette aspiration and release system and monitored the cultures for organoid formation. We discovered that populations of spheroids with a diameter greater than 75 μm and an inner mass are enriched 1.5- and 3.8-fold for pre-organoids, respectively, thus providing rational guidelines towards establishing a robust protocol for high quality intestinal organoids.
A constraint programming approach for the team orienteering problem with time windows

We propose a constraint programming (CP) model to solve the TOPTW.Our model obtains the best known solutions for 122 out of 304 benchmark instances.It also finds 49 optimal solutions out of 66 known optimal solutions.It improves the solution for 1 instances and proves 2 new optimal solutions. The team orienteering problem with time windows (TOPTW) is a NP-hard combinatorial optimization problem. It has many real-world applications, for example, routing technicians and disaster relief routing. In the TOPTW, a set of locations is given. For each, the profit, service time and time window are known. A fleet of homogenous vehicles are available for visiting locations and collecting their associated profits. Each vehicle is constrained by a maximum tour duration. The problem is to plan a set of vehicle routes that begin and end at a depot, visit each location no more than once by incorporating time window constraints. The objective is to maximize the profit collected. In this study we discuss how to use constraint programming (CP) to formulate and solve TOPTW by applying interval variables, global constraints and domain filtering algorithms. We propose a CP model and two branching strategies for the TOPTW. The approach finds 119 of the best-known solutions for 304 TOPTW benchmark instances from the literature. Moreover, the proposed method finds one new best-known solution for TOPTW benchmark instances and proves the optimality of the best-known solutions for two additional instances.
Infants and Children at the Cocktail Party

The vast majority of children learn language despite the fact that they must do so in noisy environments. This chapter addresses the question of how children separate informative sounds from competing sounds and the limitations imposed on such auditory scene analysis by an immature auditory nervous system. Immature representation of auditory-visual synchrony, and possibly immature binaural processing, may limit the extent to which even school-age listeners can use those sources of information to parse the auditory scene. In contrast, infants have a relatively mature representation of sound spectrum, periodicity, and temporal modulation. Although infants and children are able to use these acoustic cues in auditory scene analysis, they are less efficient than adults at doing so. This lack of efficiency may stem from limitations of the mechanisms specifically involved in auditory scene analysis. However, the development of selective attention also makes an important contribution to the development of auditory scene analysis.
Design and Construction of Novel Peptides and Proteins by Tailored Incorporation of Coenzyme Functionality

Recent research in a number of laboratories has focused on devising strategies for the integration of coenzyme functionality into non-native biopolymer scaffolds. The goal of this research is to influence the inherent chemical reactivity of coenzymes to generate unique molecules with novel functional properties. This review will discuss the progress made in this area and delineate the issues involved in using polypeptides and proteins to harness the chemical properties of selected coenzymes. The specific coenzymes that will be presented in this review are pyridoxal phosphate, thiazolium pyrophosphate, flavin and nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide.
Factors Influencing Injury Severity of Bicyclists Involved in Crashes with Motor Vehicles: Bike Lanes, Alcohol, Lighting, Speed, and Helmet Use.

OBJECTIVES In 2014, 726 bicyclists were killed and an additional 50,000 were injured in crashes with motor vehicles. The number of cyclists in the United States is increasing, and as a result there has been a call for more bike lanes. We examined the difference in the severity of injury of bicyclists involved in motor vehicle crashes when riding in the traffic lane compared with riding in a bike lane or on a paved shoulder. We also controlled for other safety factors, including alcohol use, travel speed, posted speed, helmet usage, and lighting conditions to determine their impact on bicyclist safety. METHODS Single-year National Automotive Sampling System-General Estimates System files were used to analyze data regarding the bike lanes, and multiyear data were used to analyze the additional factors. Univariate and multiple regression analyses controlling for confounders were performed on the data. RESULTS When adjusting for speed limit, alcohol use by driver, weather conditions, time of day, and helmet use, the cyclist's position had no significant effect on the severity of injury (P = 0.57). The severity of injury was significantly greater when the driver or bicyclist had been drinking alcohol (P < 0.0001 and P < 0.003, respectively). Bicyclists were more severely injured when vehicles moved at greater speeds and the posted speed limit was higher (P < 0.0001 for both). Also, injury severity was found to be significantly higher when lighting conditions were "dark" (P < 0.0001). CONCLUSIONS Our findings suggest that simply having a dedicated space for bicyclists, such as a bike lane or a paved shoulder, does not reduce the severity of injuries sustained when a crash with a motor vehicle takes place. Cyclist safety could be improved by implementing changes that affect vehicle speed, alcohol use by drivers, and lighting conditions. Moreover, emergency physicians should be aware that when they receive a report of a cyclist being struck by a car in a bike lane, they should prepare to treat injuries of severity similar to those received by a bicyclist hit by a vehicle in traffic.
Conservation laws and null divergences II. Non-negative divergences

It is shown that P, depending on x, u and derivatives of u, satisfies Div P ≥ 0 for all such x, u, if and only if Div p = Φ( x ) ≥ 0 where Φ is independent of u. Applications to theories of continuum thermomechanics are discussed.
Analysis of high efficiency multistage matching networks with volume constraint

Matching networks have useful applications in transforming voltages and impedances in resonant inverters and dc-dc converters. Stacking multiple stages of matching networks can, in some cases, increase the efficiency because each stage is responsible for smaller transformation, but it also reduces the available inductor volume for each stage which can increase the loss. We present optimization of matching networks with volume constraints to determine the optimum number of stages and other design choices for various transformation ratios, volumes and impedances. Scaling models of inductor performance with size are presented and their effect on the efficiency of single-stage and multistage matching networks is analyzed. The analytical results are verified by an experiment using 1- and 2-stage matching networks with a total volume constraint and a voltage transformation ratio of 4. Simple design rules for designing matching networks are presented for voltage transformation ratios lower than 20.
A study of common student practices for determining the domain and range of graphs

ABSTRACTThis study focuses on how students in different postsecondary mathematics courses perform on domain and range tasks regarding graphs of functions. Students often seem to focus on notable aspects of a graph and fail to see the graph in its entirety. Many students struggled with piecewise functions, especially those involving horizontal segments. Findings indicate that Calculus I students performed better on domain tasks than students in lower math courses; however, they did not outperform students in lower math courses on range tasks. In general, student performance did not provide evidence of a deep understanding of domain and range.
Highly Sensitive Refractive Index Sensing with Silicon-Based Dielectric Metasurfaces

We design and simulate microfluidic refractive index sensors based on optical dielectric metasurfaces comprised of resonant silicon nanoantennas. Sensitivity as high as <10−7 RIU is modeled; experimental realization is in progress with biomarker of interest.
Redox Imaging of Human Breast Cancer Core Biopsies: A Preliminary Investigation

Rationale and Objectives The clinical gold standard for breast cancer diagnosis relies on invasive biopsies followed by tissue fixation for subsequent histopathological examination. This process renders the specimens to be much less suitable for biochemical or metabolic analysis. Our previous metabolic imaging data in tumor xenograft models showed that the mitochondrial redox state is a sensitive indicator that can distinguish between normal and tumor tissue. In this study, we investigated whether the same redox imaging technique can be applied to core biopsy samples of human breast cancer and whether the mitochondrial redox state may serve as a novel metabolic biomarker that may be used to distinguish between normal and malignant breast tissue in the clinic. Our long-term objective was to identify novel metabolic imaging biomarkers for breast cancer diagnosis. Materials and Methods Both normal and cancerous tissue specimens were collected from the cancer-bearing breasts of three patients shortly after surgical resection. Core biopsies and tissue blocks were obtained from tumor and normal adjacent breast tissue, respectively. All specimens were snap-frozen with liquid nitrogen, embedded in chilled mounting medium with flavin adenine dinucleotide and reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide reference standards adjacently placed, and scanned using the Chance redox scanner (ie, cryogenic nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide/oxidized flavoprotein fluorescence imager). Results Our preliminary data showed cancerous tissues had up to 10-fold higher oxidized flavoprotein signals and had elevated oxidized redox state compared to the normal tissues from the same patient. A high degree of tumor tissue heterogeneity in the redox indices was observed. Conclusions Our finding suggests that the identified redox imaging indices could differentiate between cancer and noncancer breast tissues without subjecting tissues to fixatives. We propose that this novel redox scanning procedure may assist in tissue diagnosis in freshly procured biopsy samples before tissue fixation.
Using reduced density matrix techniques to capture static and dynamic correlation in the energy landscape for the decomposition of the CH 2 CH 2 ONO radical and support a non-IRC pathway

The unexpected abundance of HNO in the photodecomposition of the radical 2-nitrosooxy ethyl (CH2CH2ONO) is investigated through calculations of the potential energy surface by the anti-Hermitian contracted Schrodinger equation (ACSE) method, which directly generates the 2-electron reduced density matrix. The ACSE, which is able to balance single-reference (dynamic) and multi-reference (static) correlation effects, reveals some subtle correlation effects along the intrinsic reaction coordinate (IRC) en route to NO + oxirane, an IRC which offers a potential bifurcation to the HNO + vinoxy product channel. These effects were not fully captured by either single-reference techniques, such as coupled cluster, or multi-reference techniques, such as second-order multi-reference perturbation theory. These correlation effects reveal small to moderate energy changes in key transition states, which have implications for the reaction mechanism as related to the production of HNO.
Book Review: Jayson Beaster-Jones and Natalie Sarrazin (Eds), Music in Contemporary Indian Film: Memory, Voice, Identity

Jayson Beaster-Jones and Natalie Sarrazin (Eds), Music in Contemporary Indian Film: Memory, Voice, Identity. New York, NY: Routledge, 2017, 212 pp., USD 49.95 (Paperback), ISBN 9781138929364.
“ ut experiri et scire posset ”: Pictorial Evidence and Judicial Inquiry in Hans Fries’ Kleiner Johannes Altar

Featuring scenes of John the Evangelist’s trial on Ephesus and his later visions of the Apocalypse on Patmos, the Kleiner Johannes Altar by Hans Fries is his most intensely juridical work. The altar reveals his particular attunement to the investigative mode of truth-seeking refined by the judicial inquisitio, or inquiry, which further established the standards of evidence required to prove the miraculous and visionary. Fries conforms his representation of visionary experience to new concepts of the sacred redefined in the judicial sphere; his innovative pictorial and material strategies strongly elicit a judicial investigation of the image itself, thus allowing him to make distinctive claims about the visual certitude of his work. Fries’ own participation as an expert witness in an inquisitional trial, tasked with investigating a purported miracle, suggests that the altar’s claims of certitude were based not only on the increasing acknowledgement in this period of the epistemic value of the artisan’s craft, but also on the shared rhetoric between artisanal and judicial modes of inquiry.
Rough Surface Effects in Backscatter Returns from Forests

Electromagnetic backscattering from hemlock trees in Howland forest, Maine, is studied. The forest is assumed to be a sparsely distributed medium with discrete dielectric scatterers, namely; leaves, branches and trunks. The earth beneath is a moderately rough surface. Backscattering is computed as a sum of direct, direct-reflected and surface backscattering coefficients. The trunk-ground contribution can be represented as a component reflected from the average surface and a contribution for the surface fluctuations. Previously, Kirchhoff's Method (Lang 2004) had been used to represent the scattering from the rough surface. The Integral Equation Method (IEM) which incorporates the Kirchhoff's approach will be used here. Comparisons of the results for the Kirchhoff and IEM approaches will be made. Both approaches show that when the surface is very rough, the backscatter from the trunk rough surface fluctuation component is dominant. These model results will then be compared to backscatter measurements made by Air SAR overflights in 1990.