cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Assessing and quantifying denial of service attacks

Denial of service (DoS) attacks come in a variety of types and can target groups of users, individual users, or entire computer systems. With the ever-increasing reliance on networked information systems for command and control of military systems - not to mention communications infrastructures - relatively simple attacks that degrade or deny service can have devastating effects. The critical importance of protection from DoS attacks is well recognized by the DoD and in fact, the USA National Computer Security Center defines INFOSEC to include "measures and controls to protect infrastructure against denial of service". There are basically three levels of DoS attacks, growing both in sophistication and seriousness of attack effects. The simplest attack exploits errors and bugs in the design and source code of a network operating system. The second level of attack exploits known artifacts of a particular system implementation or protocol, often due to limited storage or capacity, to introduce delay, to saturate a system, or otherwise limit accessibility. The third and most damaging level of attack uses very specific features of the network protocol to mount the attack. These attacks are specifically designed to look like normal usage. We have modeled and validated five different DoS attacks. We have executed these attack models against a validated model of a target network whose architecture and stochastic behavior is varied for analysis purposes. We are currently conducting a systems analysis using these models and are looking across the protocol stack and target network for attack effects. This paper describes the analysis of one attack's effectiveness by varying the attack rate, server time out, and connection settings. Output from our model includes probability of denied service, delay and outage time, and correlations under attack and no attack conditions. Our objective is to characterize attack effects and to ultimately derive mitigation techniques and indications and warnings.
Reset careabouts in a SoC design

Advances in VLSI technology have enabled designers to integrate more functionality in one chip. One of the major design complexities arising from this is defining the reset architecture for a SoC, especially when there are multiple clock domains. Incorrect assumptions or overlooked issues might cause silicon bugs requiring costly re-spins or even worse to a missed opportunity. In this paper, various careabouts that help achieve first pass silicon success as well as reduced verification and manufacturing test generation effort with respect to the reset signal and the reset state are described.
Urgent Need for Blood: Administrative Issues

Providing blood components when there is an urgent need for transfusion depends on competent staff following standard operating procedures. These procedures should allow staff to efficiently issue uncrossmatched blood and perform pretransfusion testing. Accurate and timely communication between the transfusion service and the patient’s physician is critical in determining if blood components should be issued and transfused before the problem resolution is complete.
Observations of the middle school environment: The context for student behavior beyond the classroom

This article describes the use of an observation system to measure middle-school staff practices, environment characteristics, and student behavior in the school common areas. Data were collected at baseline from 18 middle schools participating in a randomized controlled trial of school-wide Positive Behavior Support. The observations were reliable and showed sensitivity to differences between school settings and between schools. Multilevel models with students nested in schools were used to examine the associations of staff practices and the school environment with student behavior. Less effective behavior management and more staff criticism, graffiti, and percentage of low-income students were associated with student problem behaviors. Greater use of effective behavior management and positive attention, and fewer low-income students were associated with positive student behavior. The use of data-based feedback to schools for intervention planning and monitoring is illustrated. Implications for school-wide efforts to improve student behavior in middle schools are discussed. This article reports on an observation system for measuring middle-school staff practices, environment characteristics, and student behavior in school common areas. The observation system was developed to measure the outcomes of school-wide interventions aimed at improving middle-school practices and environmental characteristics in an effort to decrease problem behaviors and increase positive behaviors in middle-school students. Almost two thirds of aggressive incidents at school occur outside of the classroom in a school common area (Lockwood, 1997). Middle-school students feel particularly unsafe in school areas that are lacking adult supervision (Astor, Meyer, & Pitner, 2001). The observation system therefore focuses on common areas of the school―places where students spend time before and after school starts, during passing times between classes, and during school breaks―such as hallways, the cafeteria, outdoor areas, the gym or game room, and school entryways and bus areas. The aims of this article are to describe the observation system procedures, reliability, and sensitivity to detect differences and to examine associations of observed staff practices and school environment characteristics with student behavior. The use of such descriptive and correlational information from baseline data can inform researchers and educators about potential mechanisms of school-wide efforts for student behavior improvement.
Detection of Functional Nicotinic Receptors Blocked by α-Bungarotoxin on PC12 Cells and Dependence of Their Expression on Post-Translational Events

A major class of nicotinic receptors in the nervous system is one that binds α-bungarotoxin and contains the α7 gene product. PC12 cells, frequently used to study nicotinic receptors, express the α7 gene and have binding sites for the toxin, but previous attempts to elicit currents from the putative receptors have failed. Using whole-cell patch-clamp recording techniques and rapid application of agonist, we find a rapidly desensitizing acetylcholine-induced current in the cells that can be blocked by α-bungarotoxin. The current amplitude varies dramatically among three populations of PC12 cells but correlates well with the number of toxin-binding receptors. In contrast, the current shows no correlation with α7 transcript; cells with high levels of α7 mRNA can be negative for toxin binding and yet have other functional nicotinic receptors. Northern blot analysis and reverse transcription-PCR reveal no defects in α7 RNA from the negative cells, and immunoblot analysis demonstrates that they contain full-length α7 protein, although at reduced levels. Affinity purification of toxin-binding receptors from cells expressing them confirms that the receptors contain α7 protein. Transfection experiments demonstrate that PC12 cells lacking native toxin-binding receptors are deficient at producing receptors from α7 gene constructs, although the same cells can produce receptors from other transfected gene constructs. The results indicate that nicotinic receptors that bind α-bungarotoxin and contain α7 subunits require additional gene products to facilitate assembly and stabilization of the receptors. PC12 cells offer a model system for identifying those gene products.
Effect of Alcohol and Cigarette Smoke as Promoting Agents in Hamster Pouch Carcinogenesis

In a series of young Syrian hamsters, pouch carcinogenesis initiated by application of 7, 12-dimethylbenz(a)anthracene (DMBA) to cheek epithelium was augmented by subsequent application of alcohol or applied whole cigarette smoke or both. These findings support previous reports that smoke and alcohol act individually as promoting agents in experimental oral carcinogenesis. Neither locally applied alcohol nor applied whole cigarette smoke acted as co-carcinogens or carcinogens on hamster pouch epithelium. Under conditions of this study, whole cigarette smoke appeared to be a more potent promoting agent than locally applied alcohol, as evaluated clinically and histologically.
Oppression, Privilege, Bias, Prejudice, and Stereotyping: Problems in the APA Code of Ethics

The American Psychological Association’s Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct places ethical obligations upon psychologists based on another’s “age, gender, gender identity, race, ethnicity, culture, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, language or socioeconomic status.” This article explores 18 major problems with ethical prescriptions contained in the Ethical Code involving this phrase, including problems in clarity, inconsistency, comprehensiveness, its epistemic assumptions, and its impossibility for adherence, among others.
Filtering IP source spoofing using feasible path reverse path forwarding with SDN

Source IP spoofing is still an endemic challenge despite best practices documents being published more than 13 years ago that would prevent it if all ISPs abided by them. We argue that these approaches failed to gain widespread adoption due to fundamental incentive misalignment. We then propose an SDN-based solution designed to be placed at Internet exchange points by ISPs with the incentives to filter spoofed traffic. This solution doesn't replace existing routers and it runs on low-cost, high-speed OpenFlow switches with graceful failure strategies to make adoption simple.
Commentary: dissociative amnesia and the future of forensic psychiatric assessment.

In their article, Pyszora et al .[1][1] present the results of research in which they re-examined 50 violent offenders from an original case study. In the earlier study, they evaluated 59 amnesic violent offenders who received a life sentence in 1994 in England and Wales and compared them against a
Effect of virtual reality exposure and aural stimuli on eye contact, directional focus, and focus of attention of novice wind band conductors

This study examined the effects of virtual reality immersion with audio on eye contact, directional focus and focus of attention for novice wind band conductors. Participants (N = 34) included a co...
Reorientation dynamics of nanoconfined acetonitrile: a critical examination of two-state models.

Molecular dynamics simulations are used to investigate the reorientation dynamics of liquid acetonitrile confined within a nanoscale, hydrophilic silica pore. The dynamics are strongly modified relative to the bulk liquid—the time scale for reorientation is increased by orders-of-magnitude and the dynamics become nonexponential—and these effects are examined at the molecular level. In particular, commonly invoked two-state (or core–shell) models, with and without consideration of exchange of molecules between the states, are applied and discussed. A rigorous decomposition of the acetonitrile reorientational correlation function is introduced that permits the approximations implicit in the two-state models to be identified and tested systematically. The results show that exchange is an important component of the nanoconfined acetonitrile reorientation dynamics and a two-state model with exchange can accurately describe the correlation. However, the faithfulness of the model is related to the separation of ...
A Modified Methenamine Silver Method for Staining Aorta from Japanese Quail for Transmission Electron Microscopy

Abstract Methenamine silver, used to detect glycoprotein or mucopolysaccharide, has been applied in this study to Japanese quail (Coturnix coturnix japonica) aortas fixed for transmission electron microscopy. Stainless steel or titanium grids proved to be satisfactory for handling sections. In the procedure outlined in this paper, silver precipitation was prevented by leaving the staining vessels uncovered.
A Well-Traveled Lot: A Research Note on Judicial Travel by U.S. Supreme Court Justices

ABSTRACTToday’s Supreme Court justices are said to be a “well-traveled lot,” with some scholars and policymakers wondering whether to curtail judicial travel. Absent from much of this debate, however, are data. Relying on justices’ financial disclosure statements from 2002–2012, we examine which justices travel, how often, and for what purpose. We discover that justices are indeed well traveled and that their travel patterns are not random. Certain justices have a greater propensity to travel. What is more, personal, legal, and political factors predict travel. These findings assist the normative discussion about the role of judicial travel and aim to raise broader questions about judicial motivations.
Cuprates: Back to the Fermi Surface

The cuprate superconductor problem is approached from the conventional metallic stand8point, valid at dopings near the Tc maximum and beyond. There is strong evidence that the Tc maximum corresponds to EF lying at a van Hove singularity, a special situation leading to Marginal Fermi Liquid behavior, and also to a minimum in the isotope shift, as observed. The superconducting properties are discussed in the light of phononic and electronic pairing models.
Twelfth-century Italian confraternities as institutions of pastoral care

ABSTRACTWhen studied through canon law and scholastic pastoralia produced in the universities in the thirteenth century and beyond, medieval pastoral care comes across as spiritual care, more specifically the administration of sacraments and preaching, provided by the clergy for the faithful. This article complicates that view by arguing that in the twelfth century, the laity alongside the clergy was active in the provision and organisation of pastoral care. The sources examined are the surviving statutes of five religious confraternities – along with the obituaries and sermons in two cases – in Italy that flourished in the twelfth century and before. Each of these confraternities was centred around a church, established after an apostolic ideal, included laymen and women and local pastoral clergy of all levels, met regularly to celebrate the Eucharist, prayed for the dead members and made public confessions. Members prayed for and attended to the corporal needs of each other in case of sickness. In the f...
UAV-carried Long-distance Wi-Fi Communication Infrastructure

We develop an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)-carried long distance Wi-Fi communication infrastructure for smart city applications such as emergency response. In this paper, we describe the mobility of UAVs, the heading control mechanisms of directional antennae to reject wind disturbance, and practical UAV design issues such as the flight time of battery-powered UAVs. We demonstrate the performance of the UAV-carried communication infrastructure through a simulation study.
Alfalfa Weevil Control in New York

Experiments were conducted to determine the effective-first ness of experimental, labeled, and mixtures of various insecticides for controlling the alfalfa weevil, Hypera postica (Gyllenhal), in New York on fall and first- and second-crop alfalfa. None of the fall-applied insecticides, except HRS 1671 (heptachlorohexahydrokentomethanophthalan) gave better control than the normal performance of fall-applied heptachlor. Of the experimental materials tested on first and second-crop alfalfa, Bayer 25141 ( O, O -diethyl O-p- (phenyl phosphorothioate), GS 13005 [ O, O- dimethyl phosphorodithioate S -ester with 4- (mercaptocmethyl)-2-methoxy-∆2-1,3,4-thiadiazolin-5-one], and RP 11974 ( O, O -diethyl dithiophosphoryl methyl-3-chloro-6- benzoxazolone) showed the most promise.
Exact solution for compressive flow of viscoplastic fluids under perfect slip wall boundary conditions

Based on the perfect slip condition between rigid walls and fluids, the compressive flow of Herschel-Bulkley fluids and biviscous fluids was studied. The explicit expressions of stresses and fluid velocity were given. To move the rigid walls for a Herschel-Bulkley fluid with the yield stress (τ0), the mean pressure applied onto the rigid wall should be larger than 2τ0/ . No yield surface exists in the interior of the fluids when flow occurs. For a biviscous fluid, a critical load was given. The fluid behaves like the Bingham fluid when the external applied load onto the wall is larger than the critical load, otherwise the fluid is Newtonian.
Chronic nitrogen deposition alters tree allometric relationships: implications for biomass production and carbon storage

As increasing levels of nitrogen (N) deposition impact many terrestrial ecosystems, understanding the potential effects of higher N availability is critical for forecasting tree carbon allocation patterns and thus future forest productivity. Most regional estimates of forest biomass apply allometric equations, with parameters estimated from a limited number of studies, to forest inventory data (i.e., tree diameter). However, most of these allometric equations cannot account for potential effects of increased N availability on biomass allocation patterns. Using 18 yr of tree diameter, height, and mortality data collected for a dominant tree species (Acer saccharum) in an atmospheric N deposition experiment, we evaluated how greater N availability affects allometric relationships in this species. After taking into account site and individual variability, our results reveal significant differences in allometric parameters between ambient and experimental N deposition treatments. Large trees under experimental N deposition reached greater heights at a given diameter; moreover, their estimated maximum height (mean ± standard deviation: 33.7 ± 0.38 m) was significantly higher than that estimated under the ambient condition (31.3 ± 0.31 m). Within small tree sizes (5–10 cm diameter) there was greater mortality under experimental N deposition, whereas the relative growth rates of small trees were greater under experimental N deposition. Calculations of stemwood biomass using our parameter estimates for the diameter–height relationship indicated the potential for significant biases in these estimates (~2.5%), with under predictions of stemwood biomass averaging 4 Mg/ha lower if ambient parameters were to be used to estimate stem biomass of trees in the experimental N deposition treatment. As atmospheric N deposition continues to increase into the future, ignoring changes in tree allometry will contribute to the uncertainty associated with aboveground carbon storage estimates across a forest with a large geographic distribution in eastern North America.
Histidine to alanine mutants of human dihydroorotate dehydrogenase : Identification of a brequinar-resistant mutant enzyme

Dihydroorotate dehydrogenase (DHODase) is the rate-limiting enzyme of the mammalian de novo pyrimidine biosynthesis pathway, and is the molecular target of the antiproliferative, immunosuppressive compound brequinar sodium (BQR). We have shown previously that the activity of the recombinant human enzyme displays pH and diethylpyrocarbonate sensitivities that implicate a critical role for one or more histidine residues in catalysis [Copeland et al., Arch Biochem Biophys 323: 79-86, 1995.]. Here we report the results of alanine scanning mutagenesis for each of the 8 histidine residues of the recombinant human enzyme. In most cases, the replacement of histidine by alanine had little effect on the Km values of the two substrates, dihydroorotate and ubiquinone, or on the overall kcat of the enzymatic reaction. Replacement of H71, H129, and H364 by alanine, however, completely abolished enzymatic activity. The loss of activity for the H71A mutant was unexpected, since this residue is not conserved in the homologous rat enzyme; in the rodent enzyme this residue is an asparagine. Replacement of H71 by asparagine in the human enzyme led to a full recovery of enzymatic activity, indicating that a histidine is not required at this position. Replacement of H26 by alanine led to about a 10-fold reduction in catalytic activity relative to the wild-type enzyme, with no significant perturbation of the substrate Km values. This mutant was, however, at least 167-fold less sensitive to inhibition by the noncompetitive inhibitor BQR. While the wild-type and other mutant enzymes displayed IC50 values for BQR inhibition between 6 and 10 nM, the H26A mutant was inhibited less than 25% at concentrations of BQR as high as 150 nM. These data suggest that H26 plays an important role in BQR binding to the enzyme.
The preparation of morphologically intact leukocytes from peripheral blood by means of gramicidin and lysolecithin.

A method involving the combined use of gramicidin and lysolecithin is described for the rapid and apparently quantitative isolation of morphologically intact leukocytes from circulating blood. The mixture of these two compounds gives rapid and complete lysis of erythrocytes. The use of either gramicidin or of lysolecithin alone in sufficient amount to completely lyse the red cells results in morphological damage to the leukocytes. For some as yet unknown reason, however, the combined use of these two agents in a definite ratio results in cancellation of this leukocyte damaging effect. The cells thus prepared appear to be consistently more intact morphologically than any yet prepared in this laboratory.
Method of moments electromagnetic emission simulations of metal lids over high-speed chips compared to measured results

The EMI (emission testing) failure caused by a floating metal lid on a clock module resulted in an opportunity ideal for comparisons to numerical simulation. The radiation was not layout dependent and the results of all the experiments were repeatable. The radiated emissions from a 62.5 MHz clock caused the product to fail at 1.8 GHz. Limitations of the physical experiments include having data taken at fixed frequencies and over a fixed frequency range. The experimental limitation was removed when a greater number of frequencies can be analyzed with simulation. The IBM Austin Site is now using a tool developed by IBM Research in Yorktown which is a method of moments (MoM), full-wave solver to Maxwell's equations to help predict and correct EMI related problems.
Proponents’ Standing to Defend Their Ballot Initiatives: A Post- Hollingsworth Work-Around?

Voter-enacted ballot initiatives have proved an effective means by which citizens can change state law in the absence of legislative willingness to enact the desired policy. Like other laws, however, successful initiatives are susceptible to legal challenges in the courts. In Hollingsworth v. Perry, the Supreme Court held that ballot initiative proponents lack standing to defend their initiatives. Fearing that their initiatives might be undefended (if state officials refuse to defend), proponents and scholars are now proposing to embed language in initiatives to give proponents personal standing to defend their initiatives. For example, one pending initiative would assess a $10,000 penalty on the proponent if the initiative is invalidated, thereby giving him a personal stake in the initiative’s validity. The Article concludes that Hollingsworth’s obstacles to standing, along with the Court’s broader restrictive standing philosophy, cast substantial doubt on these new proposals.
Lepton-number-violating searches for muon to positron conversion

There is no guarantee that the violation of the lepton number, assuming it exists, will primarily manifest itself in neutrinoless double beta decay ($0\ensuremath{\nu}\ensuremath{\beta}\ensuremath{\beta}$). Lepton-number violation and lepton-flavor violation may be related, and much-needed information regarding the physics that violates the lepton number can be learned by exploring observables that violate lepton flavors other than the electron flavor. One of the most promising observables is the ${\ensuremath{\mu}}^{\ensuremath{-}}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{e}^{+}$ conversion, which can be explored by experiments that are specifically designed to search for the ${\ensuremath{\mu}}^{\ensuremath{-}}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{e}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ conversion. We survey lepton-number violating dimension-five, -seven, and -nine effective operators in the standard model and discuss the relationships between Majorana neutrino masses and the rates for $0\ensuremath{\nu}\ensuremath{\beta}\ensuremath{\beta}$ and the ${\ensuremath{\mu}}^{\ensuremath{-}}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{e}^{+}$ conversion. While $0\ensuremath{\nu}\ensuremath{\beta}\ensuremath{\beta}$ has the greatest sensitivity to new ultraviolet energy scales, its rate might be suppressed by the new physics relationship to lepton flavor, and the ${\ensuremath{\mu}}^{\ensuremath{-}}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{e}^{+}$ conversion offers a complementary probe of lepton-number-violating physics.
Insurgency and Violent Extremism in Pakistan

AbstractPakistan has an uneven history of dealing with insurgencies and extremism. This article identifies the various campaigns and policies employed to defeat militants and deal with violent extremism. It describes the major anti-state groups and how Pakistan’s military and civilian leaders, relying on the related strategies of selectivity, gradualism and containment, have allowed militancy and terrorism to thrive. This article finds that while the elites and the public may have belatedly come to appreciate the existential internal threats these groups pose to the country, there are strong reasons to doubt the state’s full commitment to its promises to take meaningful action.
Social learning through prediction error in the brain

Learning about the world is critical to survival and success. In social animals, learning about others is a necessary component of navigating the social world, ultimately contributing to increasing evolutionary fitness. How humans and nonhuman animals represent the internal states and experiences of others has long been a subject of intense interest in the developmental psychology tradition, and, more recently, in studies of learning and decision making involving self and other. In this review, we explore how psychology conceptualizes the process of representing others, and how neuroscience has uncovered correlates of reinforcement learning signals to explore the neural mechanisms underlying social learning from the perspective of representing reward-related information about self and other. In particular, we discuss self-referenced and other-referenced types of reward prediction errors across multiple brain structures that effectively allow reinforcement learning algorithms to mediate social learning. Prediction-based computational principles in the brain may be strikingly conserved between self-referenced and other-referenced information.
The efficacy of a telemedicine-based weight loss program with video conference health coaching support.

IntroductionClinically significant weight loss is defined as a ≥5% of initial body weight loss within a 6-month period. The purpose of this study was to assess body weight change from a 12-week tel...
Fast fault detection challenge for alienation coefficient based bus fault discriminator

One of the latest fault discrimination algorithms used to supervise bus differential protection schemes, is Alienation Coefficient Algorithm (ACA). ACA uses alienation coefficient of current signals during first one-eighth cycle after fault inception to discriminate between internal and external faults. Therefore, the performance of ACA highly depends on fault detection speed. This paper examines the performance of ACA for currently used fault detection technique and the results reveal that ACA fails to detect external fault in case of fast current transformer (CT) saturation. This paper also proposes an alternative fault detection technique for ACA and presents a simulation study to validate the performance. Documented results show that ACA with the new fault detection technique performs better for fast CT saturation during close-in external faults.
Pharmacokinetics of Iodine and Fluoride following Application of an Anticaries Varnish in Adults

Researchers have suggested that combining topical fluoride with an antiseptic to reduce cariogenic bacteria may be more effective than fluoride application alone in preventing dental caries. In pre...
Assessment of Pulmonary Venous Anatomy

The development of radio-frequency ablation for the treatment of atrial fibrillation has led to increased interest in the accurate determination of pulmonary vein anatomy to help plan the procedure and to monitor for postablation stenosis. Contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance angiography readily demonstrates the pulmonary veins and is the method of choice for these required serial imaging studies. In this chapter, we review the techniques for pulmonary vein imaging, normal and variant pulmonary vein anatomy, the utility of imaging prior to and after atrial fibrillation ablation, and congenital pulmonary vein anomalies.
Complete parietal and visceral peritonectomy of the pelvis for advanced primary and recurrent ovarian cancer

Recurrence within the pelvis of ovarian cancer is a common mechanism of treatment failure [1]. This pattern of recurrence presents a poor prognosis and usually is a lethal clinical situation. In an attempt to curatively resect pelvic recurrence and to optimally treat advanced primary ovarian cancer, complete pelvic peritonectomy combined with intraperitoneal chemotherapy has been used. This cytoreductive approach to cancer treatment represents a new strategy for advanced pelvic malignancy. The complete pelvic peritonectomy is a surgical procedure in which all of the parietal and visceral peritoneal surfaces at risk for seeding of cancer are removed. The dissections included a stripping of the pelvic peritoneum, a low resection of the sigmoid colon, and an en bloc removal of all female genitalia.
Fast, High-Order, High-Frequency Integral Methods for Computational Acoustics and Electromagnetics

We review a set of algorithms and methodologies developed recently for the numerical solution of problems of scattering by complex bodies in three-dimensional space. These methods, which are based on integral equations, high-order integration, Fast Fourier Transforms and highly accurate high-frequency integrators, can be used in the solution of problems of electromagnetic and acoustic scattering by surfaces and penetrable scatterers — even in cases in which the scatterers contain geometric singularities such as comers and edges. All of the solvers presented here exhibit high-order convergence, they run on low memories and reduced operation counts, and they result in solutions with a high degree of accuracy. In particular, our approach to direct solution of integral equations results in algorithms that can evaluate accurately in a personal computer scattering from hundred-wavelength-long objects — a goal, otherwise achievable today only by super-computing. The high-order high-frequency methods we present, in turn, are efficient where our direct methods become costly, thus leading to an overall computational methodology which is applicable and accurate throughout the electromagnetic spectrum.
Probation system in Turkey: an analysis of a public policy formation using multiple streams framework

ABSTRACTTurkey initiated a major reform in its criminal justice system in 2005 and a probation system was officially created. This article analyses the probation policy formation, and development p...
Characterization of glycine-N-acyltransferase like 1 (GLYATL1) in prostate cancer.

BACKGROUND Recent microarray and sequencing studies of prostate cancer showed multiple molecular alterations during cancer progression. It is critical to evaluate these molecular changes to identify new biomarkers and targets. We performed analysis of glycine-N-acyltransferase like 1 (GLYATL1) expression in various stages of prostate cancer in this study and evaluated the regulation of GLYATL1 by androgen. METHOD We performed in silico analysis of cancer gene expression profiling and transcriptome sequencing to evaluate GLYATL1 expression in prostate cancer. Furthermore, we performed immunohistochemistry using specific GLYATL1 antibody using high-density prostate cancer tissue microarray containing primary and metastatic prostate cancer. We also tested the regulation of GLYATL1 expression by androgen and ETS transcription factor ETV1. In addition, we performed RNA-sequencing of GLYATL1 modulated prostate cancer cells to evaluate the gene expression and changes in molecular pathways. RESULTS Our in silico analysis of cancer gene expression profiling and transcriptome sequencing we revealed an overexpression of GLYATL1 in primary prostate cancer. Confirming these findings by immunohistochemistry, we show that GLYATL1 is overexpressed in primary prostate cancer compared with metastatic prostate cancer and benign prostatic tissue. Low-grade cancers had higher GLYATL1 expression compared to high-grade prostate tumors. Our studies showed that GLYATL1 is upregulated upon androgen treatment in LNCaP prostate cancer cells which harbors ETV1 gene rearrangement. Furthermore, ETV1 knockdown in LNCaP cells showed downregulation of GLYATL1 suggesting potential regulation of GLYATL1 by ETS transcription factor ETV1. Transcriptome sequencing using the GLYATL1 knockdown prostate cancer cell lines LNCaP showed regulation of multiple metabolic pathways. CONCLUSIONS In summary, our study characterizes the expression of GLYATL1 in prostate cancer and explores the regulation of its regulation in prostate cancer showing role for androgen and ETS transcription factor ETV1. Future studies are needed to decipher the biological significance of these findings.
Biofuels technologies: An overview of feedstocks, processes, and technologies

Abstract For several decades, in many countries around the world biofuels have been an integral part of the energy market portfolio. While introduced as a new technology and a complementary energy source, in some cases supported by governmental subsidies, in recent years biofuels production has become controversial. On the one hand, due to subsidy policies biofuels became a competitive energy source, thus determining blending rules for traditional gasoline, and directly impacting fossil fuel markets. On the other hand, economic, environmental, and social benefits of biofuels, although widely acknowledged in the literature in general, have been questioned in terms of their scope and extent. In the face of ongoing scientific and professional discussions on biofuels, it is important to delineate differences and similarities among various biofuels feedstocks, processes, and technologies. It is specifically the diversity of those technologies that will determine and allow for a more comprehensive assessment of the final economic, environmental, and social sustainability levels of biofuels produced from the respective feedstocks and with different processes. This chapter will provide a closer look at these issues at hand.
Five Consecutive Years of Screening with Digital Breast Tomosynthesis: Outcomes by Screening Year and Round

The sensitivity of digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) was higher than that of digital mammography (DM) in each of the first 5 years after implementation of DBT. DBT also helped detect a higher prop...
Distinct 6-Month Functional Outcome Trajectories and Predictors after Traumatic Brain Injury (P6.302)

Objective: Our aim was to use data-driven analytics to identify distinct 6-month functional outcome trajectories after traumatic brain injury (TBI) to inform design of clinical trials. Background: Cross-sectional approaches to outcome assessment may not adequately capture heterogeneity in recovery after TBI. The Citicoline Brain Injury Treatment (COBRIT) trial was a negative trial of Citicoline vs. placebo in patients with mild-complicated to severe TBI (age 18–71y). While the primary endpoint was a 3-month binary outcome derived from the Glasgow Outcome Scale Extended (GOSE; the most widely used TBI functional outcome assessment) and a cognitive battery, the study also collected data on 1 and 6-month GOSE, thus facilitating functional trajectory analysis. Design/Methods: In this secondary analysis of COBRIT trial data, we used latent class growth analysis (LCGA) to identify distinct 6-month functional recovery trajectories among 1,045 TBI survivors. LCGA is a data-driven analytic that identifies groups of patients with similar trajectories allowing for visualization of multiple distinct recovery patterns. Next, we used multinomial logistic mixed effect models and backward elimination to identify independent baseline clinical predictors of these trajectories. Results: 4 distinct functional recovery trajectories were identified: 1. “Slight-decliners” (n=149) who started with good recovery followed by stability or slight post-recovery decline, 2. “rapid-improvers” (n=103) who experienced rapid total recovery despite starting with a range of disabilities, 3. “gradual-improvers” (n=699) who experienced steady gradual improvement, and 4. “non-improvers” (n=94) who started with severe disability and did improve. Trajectory group membership was not predicted by Citicoline treatment (p=0.997). Age, race, pre-injury employment, TBI mechanism, Glasgow Coma Scale, post-traumatic amnesia, midline shift, and subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) on head CT were identified as independent predictors of 6-month functional trajectory. Conclusions: LCGA successfully identified clinically meaningful recovery trajectories. Analyzing GOSE as a cross-sectional binary outcome may miss important groups of improving or declining patients. Racial disparities in recovery deserve further study. Study Supported by: The NINDS (Beeson K23NS095755), American Federation for Aging Research, and UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences. Disclosure: Dr. Gardner has nothing to disclose. Dr. Cheng has nothing to disclose. Dr. Ferguson has nothing to disclose. Dr. Boscardin has nothing to disclose. Dr. Zafonte has nothing to disclose. Dr. Manley has nothing to disclose.
Kompromat: A theory of blackmail as a system of governance

Abstract Kompromat - widespread criminality combined with systematic blackmail - plays an important role in the governance of many non-democratic states. I model this phenomenon. Citizens have a preference for retribution, that is, for inflicting costly punishments on criminals. The state can manipulate this preference for its own benefit by tolerating crime while collecting evidence of crimes to use for blackmail. High levels of crime coexist with large expenditures on police. The rich but not the poor are allowed to commit crimes, increasing inequality. Kompromat regimes appear in states with low fiscal capacity and either very low or very high police capacity. When police capacity is high, investments in fiscal capacity and police capacity can be substitutes. States with initially similar capacities can diverge over time, and states that enter the kompromat regime can become stuck there. The possibility of kompromat qualifies previous claims that evolved retributive preferences increase material welfare.
Nearly perfect photon utilization in an air-bridge thermophotovoltaic cell

Thermophotovoltaic (TPV) cells utilize locally emitted thermal radiation to generate electricity. To reach high efficiencies, the unusable spectrum (the below bandgap, or out-of-band spectrum) of the thermal source must be recycled to the source. Current approaches for photon recycling use back-surface reflectors or front surface filters, however, these have not exceeded 95 % out-of-band reflectance. In this work, we demonstrate an out-of-band reflectance of ~99% in a thin-film In0.53Ga0.47As TPV using an air-bridge as photon reflector, which effectively eliminates out-of-band absorption losses. The nearly perfect photon utilization enables a record high TPV power conversion efficiency of over 31% measured with a 1500K blackbody emitter.
A large-eddy simulation study on the similarity between free vibrations of a flexible cylinder and forced vibrations of a rigid cylinder

Abstract The strip theory in hydrodynamics has been widely used for predicting complex vortex induced vibrations (VIV) behind bluff bodies, but the question of how accurate such predictions are has not been addressed adequately before. In order to corroborate the application of strip theory in VIV, we present a comparative study between free mono-frequency vibrations of a long flexible cylinder in both uniform and linearly sheared flow and corresponding forced vibrations of a rigid cylinder with prescribed sinusoidal motions. We employ the entropy–viscosity large-eddy simulation (LES) to resolve the vortical flow and the coupled cylinder response, which we validate by companion experiments of the same configuration. We then extract from LES, at the same Reynolds number, the values of the sectional vibration amplitude, frequency, and phase angle (between inline and crossflow motions), and use them as input parameters for the forced vibration case, for which we perform two-dimensional simulations. We show here by systematic simulation studies that the hydrodynamic coefficients exhibit strong similarities between the two cases, and the forced vibration closely resembles the sectional near wake of the free vibration.
Dysregulated Arginine Metabolism and Left Ventricular Hypertrophy in Pediatric Chronic Kidney Disease and End Stage Renal Disease

Background: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death in patients with Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) and End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD). Left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) is common in pediatric CKD patients and is an independent risk factor for cardiovascular (CV) morbidity/mortality. Nitric oxide (NO), an endothelium derived vasoactive substance critical for vascular homeostasis, is synthesized from arginine via NO synthase enzymes. Arginine is also a substrate for arginase enzymes therefore arginine bioavailability affects NO synthesis. The kidneys play a key role in de novo arginine synthesis as well as …
The mapping behind the movement: On recovering the critical cartographies of the African American Freedom Struggle

Abstract Responding to recent work in critical cartographic studies and Black Geographies, the purpose of this paper is to offer a conceptual framework and a set of evocative cartographic engagements that can inform geography as it recovers the seldom discussed history of counter-mapping within the African American Freedom Struggle. Black resistant cartographies stretch what constitutes a map, the political work performed by maps, and the practices, spaces, and political-affective dimensions of mapping. We offer an extended illustration of the conventional and unconventional mapping behind USA anti-lynching campaigns of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, highlighting the knowledge production practices of the NAACP and the Tuskegee Institute’s Monroe Work, and the embodied counter-mapping of journalist/activist Ida B. Wells. Recognizing that civil rights struggles are long, always unfolding, and relationally tied over time and space, we link this look from the past to contemporary, ongoing resistant cartographical practices as scholars/activists continue to challenge racialized violence and advance transitional justice, including the noted memory-work of the Equal Justice Initiative. An understanding of African American traditions of counter-mapping is about more than simply inserting the Black experience into our dominant ideas about cartography or even resistant mapping. Black geographies has much to teach cartography and geographers about what people of color engaged in antiracist struggles define as geographic knowledge and mapping practices on their own terms—hopefully provoking a broader and more inclusive definition of the discipline itself.
Heterogeneous Amenity Spillovers of Local Economic Shocks

Federal place-based policy could improve efficiency if it targets areas with large amenity or agglomeration externalities. We begin by showing that positive shocks to federal spending in a county and their associated economic stimulus substantially decrease crime, an important amenity. We then employ two machine learning algorithms---causal trees and causal forests---to conduct a data-driven search for heterogeneity in this effect. The effect is larger in below-median income counties, and the difference is economically and statistically significant. This heterogeneity likely improves the efficiency of the many place-based policies that target such areas.
Remodeling Existing Facilities

The buildings and equipment which comprise a dairy operation are there to facilitate the job of caring for the animals on the farm. Labor requirements, flow of animals and materials, pollution control, future expansion and management requirements are important considerations in design. Planning for new construction or remodeling of these dairy facilities must be based on a sound management plan. The plan sets forth all factors related to nutrition health and growth as well as all other activities of the dairy farm operation. The buildings and equipment which comprise dairy facilities are merely tools which allow essential tasks prescribed by the management plan to be carried out on a regular basis. Haphazard planning or impulsive acquisition of buildings or equipment will only lead to facilities which impede implementation of updated management plans and hinder future development and expansion. Providing environments that meet the needs of the animals being housed is important in design, also. While many of these needs may be obvious, the degree to which they are satisfied may vary widely. This may be due to a lack of understanding as to just what the needs of the animals are when it comes to establishing and maintaining their environment. For example, a warm barn for calves may have excessively high relative humidity due a lack of understanding of both the needs of the calves and the design and operation of the ventilation system. Or, it may result from an improper ordering of the priorities being used for design. For example, the establishment of the environment in a barn may place the needs of people and equipment ahead of the needs of the animals which are to be housed, oftentimes to the detriment of the animals. A discussion of some of the considerations for meeting the needs of dairy animals follows.
A Multilevel-Modular 10 kV Silicon Carbide MOSFET Module using Custom High-Voltage Isolated Gate Driver, Coupling, and Snubber Circuits

This paper presents a multilevel-modular high voltage (HV) switch architecture comprised of series-connected SiC MOSFETs and a voltage balancing method that achieves <1.1% voltage mismatch under steady-state and switching modes. An individual module consists of four series-connected 1.7-kV rated SiC MOSFETs, yielding a breakdown voltage of 6.8-kV, and driven by a single custom 10-kV isolated gate driver. One gate driver per module and 46 passive components (e.g., coupling capacitors, resistors, etc.) per module lead to low-cost fabrication and simpler operation of this HV switch. The unique modularity feature of the proposed switch enables voltage scalability to the limit of the weakest passive link. Any single or a combination of multiple passive components (e.g., capacitors, diodes, resistors, etc.) can form the weakest passive link in a module. Further, the high volumetric power density realized by the physical layout and modular stacking is within 80% of a fully custom/integral design. The working principle of the HV switch during switching transients and steady-state are demonstrated and compared in simulation and from measurements. Simulation and experimental results demonstrate excellent voltage balancing as supported by a minimal voltage imbalance of <80-V among the individual MOSFETs in the HV switch at a supply voltage of 6-kV and a switching frequency of 15-kHz.