cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Heterothallism in Plasmopara viticola

Sexuality in the oomycete Plasmopara viticola, the causal agent of grapevine downy mildew, was studied using isolates from five populations from North America and Europe. Leaf discs of Vitis vinifera cv. ‘Chardonnay’ were inoculated with either individual single-sporangiophore isolates, or in all possible pairwise combinations of 25 isolates from New York State, USA. The occurrence of oospores in leaf discs indicated that the pathogen was heterothallic with two mating types, P1 and P2 in a ratio of 11 : 14 for this population. Heterothallism was confirmed when three representative isolates of each mating type from New York were coinoculated with each of 40 isolates from populations of P. viticola from Michigan, Missouri (USA), Germany and Italy. For each isolate tested, oospores formed with either test isolates of P1 or test isolates of P2 mating types, indicating that the isolates were exclusively P1 or P2 only. For these same isolates, no oospores formed as a result of self-crosses. The ratio of P1 : P2 mating types for all isolates in the study was 27 : 38, statistically equivalent to a 1 : 1 ratio according to χ2 analysis (P = 0·68).
Current crowding and phosphor efficacy in ac thin‐film electroluminescent display devices

Abstract— The variation of luminance with transferred charge in ZnS:Mn ac thin-film electroluminescent (ACTFEL) display devices was analyzed to determine the roles played by the preferred current paths (filamentary conduction) and manganese clustering in limiting the phosphor efficiency. Luminance-charge (L-Q) characteristics were measured in ZnS:Mn ACTFEL devices of varying Mn concentrations. L-Q characteristics showed a reduction in slope at higher values of Q. Also, the value of Q where the slope changed varied with the Mn/Zn ratio. These effects were attributed to the existence of preferred current paths in the phosphor layer where hot-electron flow clustered.
Deposition of Organochlorine Pesticides, PCBs (Aroclor 1268), and PBDEs in Selected Plant Species from a Superfund Site at Brunswick, Georgia, USA

Deposition of organochlorine pesticides (OCPs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) were measured in Loblolly pine needles (Pinus taeda) collected in and around a Linden Chemicals and Plastics (LCP) Superfund Site at Brunswick, Georgia, USA. For the comparison, foliage of eastern red cedar (Juniperus virginiana) was also collected to monitor contaminant levels. This study revealed that concentrations of OCPs, PCBs and PBDEs ranged from 0.75–10, 3.4–15 to 0.05–3, ng/g wet wt, respectively in both plant species. Total OCPs concentrations in pine needles decreased from 10 to 2.3 ng/g; and total PCBs decreased from 28 to 9.3 ng/g between 1997 and 2006. To our knowledge, this is the first report on PBDEs concentrations in pine needles and red cedar foliage samples from the Superfund Site at Brunswick, Georgia, USA.
Named Entity Recognition in Tweets: An Experimental Study

People tweet more than 100 Million times daily, yielding a noisy, informal, but sometimes informative corpus of 140-character messages that mirrors the zeitgeist in an unprecedented manner. The performance of standard NLP tools is severely degraded on tweets. This paper addresses this issue by re-building the NLP pipeline beginning with part-of-speech tagging, through chunking, to named-entity recognition. Our novel T-ner system doubles F1 score compared with the Stanford NER system. T-ner leverages the redundancy inherent in tweets to achieve this performance, using LabeledLDA to exploit Freebase dictionaries as a source of distant supervision. LabeledLDA outperforms co-training, increasing F1 by 25% over ten common entity types. Our NLP tools are available at: http://github.com/aritter/twitter_nlp
Locally divergence-free discontinuous Galerkin methods for the Maxwell equations

In this paper, we develop the locally divergence-free discontinuous Galerkin method for numerically solving the Maxwell equations. The distinctive feature of the method is the use of approximate solutions that are exactly divergence-free inside each element. As a consequence, this method has a smaller computational cost than that of the discontinuous Galerkin method with standard piecewise polynomial spaces. We show that, in spite of this fact, it produces approximations of the same accuracy. We also show that this method is more efficient than the discontinuous Galerkin method using globally divergence-free piecewise polynomial bases. Finally, a post-processing technique is used to recover (2k + 1)th order of accuracy when piecewise polynomials of degree k are used.
Prevention approaches in a preclinical canine model of Alzheimer's disease: benefits and challenges

Aged dogs spontaneously develop many features of human aging and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) including cognitive decline and neuropathology. In this review, we discuss age-dependent learning tasks, memory tasks, and functional measures that can be used in aged dogs for sensitive treatment outcome measures. Neuropathology that is linked to cognitive decline is described along with examples of treatment studies that show reduced neuropathology in aging dogs (dietary manipulations, behavioral enrichment, immunotherapy, and statins). Studies in canine show that multi-targeted approaches may be more beneficial than single pathway manipulations (e.g. antioxidants combined with behavioral enrichment). Aging canine studies show good predictive validity for human clinical trials outcomes (e.g. immunotherapy) and several interventions tested in dogs strongly support a prevention approach (e.g. immunotherapy and statins). Further, dogs are ideally suited for prevention studies as they the age because onset of cognitive decline and neuropathology strongly support longitudinal interventions that can be completed within a 3-5 year period. Disadvantages to using the canine model are that they lengthy, use labor-intensive comprehensive cognitive testing, and involve costly housing (almost as high as that of nonhuman primates). However overall, using the dog as a preclinical model for testing preventive approaches for AD may complement work in rodents and nonhuman primates.
Spatial Distribution and Dispersal Patterns of Central North American Freshwater Crayfish (Decapoda: Cambaridae) with Emphasis on Implications of Glacial Refugia

Spatial distributions of crayfish were evaluated in relation to glacial geography and possible modes of dispersal from refugia. Species dispersal patterns were a priori hypothesized and tested using principle components analysis (PCA). PCA factor loading plots were evaluated for hypothesized crayfish dispersal patterns. Cambarus laevis was limited to the unglaciated region, while Orconectes immunis, Orconectes virilis, and Procambarus gracilis may have dispersed from western glacial refugia in the upper Missouri drainage. Fallicambarus fodiens and Procambarus acutus dispersed from south of the glacial advance within the Mississippi embayment. Previous dispersal hypotheses for Orconectes propinquus recognized that northern refugia may have been from the Driftless Area in Wisconsin and Illinois and may have invaded more than one refuge since this species was common in unglaciated areas of southwestern Indiana. Orconectes indianensis center of abundance is in the unglaciated region. Disjunct populations likely dispersed into temporary glacial lakes that, when receded, left populations in previously glaciated areas. Cambarus polychromatus possibly dispersed from southern refugia, while Cambarus sp. A cf. diogenes dispersed from southern refugia not sympatric with C. polychromatus. The glacial refugia included western and southern areas of the glacial maximum; however, northern dispersal routes may be important with global climate change.
Reading too much into baboon skills

![Figure][1] CREDIT: KEN SILLS The Report “Orthographic processing in baboons ( Papio papio )” by J. Grainger et al. ([ 1 ][2]) demonstrates that baboons can learn to recognize printed words. The Perspective by M. L. Platt and G. K. Adams (“Monkey see, monkey read,” 13 April, p. [168
Self-Control at High and Low Levels of Mental Construal

The present experiment tested the hypothesis that low-level construals—a known contributor to self-control failure—can improve self-control under some circumstances. In support of this hypothesis, the authors found evidence that low-level construals (relative to high-level construals) improve performance on a measure of response inhibition that requires close attention and responsiveness to the immediate environment—the stop signal task (SST). They also found evidence, consistent with previous research, that high-level construals (relative to low-level construals) improve performance on a modified version of the SST (i.e., the delay SST) that requires both response inhibition and goal maintenance in working memory. These results suggest that, depending on the nature of the task, either low-level construals or high-level construals can enhance self-control.
Design and performance evaluation of a QoS-based dynamic channel allocation protocol for wireless and mobile networks

In recent years, we have witnessed a growing interest in the study of channel allocation and hand-off strategies for wireless networks to ensure continuous services that guarantee QoS to mobile users. To the best of our knowledge, most of the proposed channel allocation schemes do not take the QoS provisioning into account In this paper, we propose a distributed algorithm for dynamic channel allocation with an efficient adaptive channel reservation schema providing continuous QoS support. To acquire the low dropping rate, a proper number of channels in the congested cells is reserved for the handoff calls. This number of reserved channels is related to the wireless data traffic network. Our presented channel allocation protocol is based upon the mutual exclusion paradigm where all the channels are grouped into three groups and any cell in a cluster can not hold a channel group as long as another cell in the same cluster is holding the same group. We present our QoS-Based dynamic channel allocation protocol, and its performance evaluation, and discuss our experimental results we have obtained using realistic scenarios.
De novo genome assembly tool comparison for highly heterozygous species Vitis vinifera cv. Sultanina

Vitis vinifera cultivars are widely used for wine, table and raisin production throughout the world. A reference genome for an inbred line is available; however, standard cultivars are highly heterozygous. The heterozygosity makes it difficult to select an optimal assembler for de novo genome assembly. Here we have compared de novo genome assembly of the V. vinifera cv. Sultanina, a pivotal table grape genotype by ALLPATHS-LG and PLATANUS tools. Sequence reads were downloaded from NCBI using study accession SRP026420 and assembled using PLATANUS and ALLPATHS-LG assemblers. PLATANUS can manage high-throughput data from highly heterozygous samples while ALLPATHS-LG is used for different types of genomes like homozygous prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Comparison of assembly quality results by QUAST tool plots (cumulative, GC content and NGx) indicated the results of PLATANUS tool were more closely related with reference genome of V. vinifera than the results of ALLPATHS-LG. The PLATANUS assembly had a greater number of large contigs and scaffolds. The PLATANUS NG50 was two times that of the ALLPATHS-LG NG50. PLATANUS is a suitable tool for de novo genome assembly for V. vinifera cv. Sultanina and other highly heterozygous species.
Rotational and Vibrational Excitation in Electron-Molecule Scattering

This article reviews recent progress with the problem of incorporating vibrational and rotational coupling and excitation into the quantitative theory of electron-molecule scattering.
Deconstructing field-induced ketene isomerization through Lagrangian descriptors.

The time-dependent geometrical separatrices governing state transitions in field-induced ketene isomerization are constructed using the method of Lagrangian descriptors. We obtain the stable and unstable manifolds of time-varying transition states as dynamic phase space objects governing configurational changes when the ketene molecule is subjected to an oscillating electric field. The dynamics of the isomerization reaction are modeled through classical trajectory studies on the Gezelter–Miller potential energy surface and an approximate dipole moment model which is coupled to a time-dependent electric field. We obtain a representation of the reaction geometry, over varying field strengths and oscillation frequencies, by partitioning an initial phase space into basins labeled according to which product state is reached at a given time. The borders between these basins are in agreement with those obtained using Lagrangian descriptors, even in regimes exhibiting chaotic dynamics. Major outcomes of this work are: validation and extension of a transition state theory framework built from Lagrangian descriptors, elaboration of the applicability for this theory to periodically- and aperiodically-driven molecular systems, and prediction of regimes in which isomerization of ketene and its derivatives may be controlled using an external field.
Integration of Metabolic and Quorum Sensing Signals Governing the Decision to Cooperate in a Bacterial Social Trait

Many unicellular organisms live in multicellular communities that rely on cooperation between cells. However, cooperative traits are vulnerable to exploitation by non-cooperators (cheaters). We expand our understanding of the molecular mechanisms that allow multicellular systems to remain robust in the face of cheating by dissecting the dynamic regulation of cooperative rhamnolipids required for swarming in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. We combine mathematical modeling and experiments to quantitatively characterize the integration of metabolic and population density signals (quorum sensing) governing expression of the rhamnolipid synthesis operon rhlAB. The combined computational/experimental analysis reveals that when nutrients are abundant, rhlAB promoter activity increases gradually in a density dependent way. When growth slows down due to nutrient limitation, rhlAB promoter activity can stop abruptly, decrease gradually or even increase depending on whether the growth-limiting nutrient is the carbon source, nitrogen source or iron. Starvation by specific nutrients drives growth on intracellular nutrient pools as well as the qualitative rhlAB promoter response, which itself is modulated by quorum sensing. Our quantitative analysis suggests a supply-driven activation that integrates metabolic prudence with quorum sensing in a non-digital manner and allows P. aeruginosa cells to invest in cooperation only when the population size is large enough (quorum sensing) and individual cells have enough metabolic resources to do so (metabolic prudence). Thus, the quantitative description of rhlAB regulatory dynamics brings a greater understating to the regulation required to make swarming cooperation stable.
Tailoring Farm Account Projects to Answer Aggregate Questions

CONOMIC illiteracy has long been of concern to agricultural economists. In particular, some have doubted whether farmers understand aggregate industry-wide implications of individual farm and consumer actions [1]. From an educational viewpoint, this situation is not too surprising. Emphasis on the farm firm is an outgrowth of the development and evolution of the agricultural economics profession. The micro approach has been reinforced by the close ties of extension programs to account projects having the objective of helping the individual-farm operation. Further, many questions relating to interfarm economics are still in the embryonic research stage. Methods for studying and hence explaining these issues are not well understood by researchers and educators themselves. Researchers have not found data from existing farm account projects very satisfactory in studying aggregate relationships. In fact, data have not generally been collected with any thought given to aggregate needs. To our knowledge, even the general nature of these aggregate needs has not been spelled out. With no better alternative sources, researchers have continued to use these data. And since researchers have not offered positive and feasible suggestions for improvement, extension personnel have continued to collect farm account data to meet their micro needs.
Joint 2D and 3D phase processing for quantitative susceptibility mapping: application to 2D echo-planar imaging

Quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) measures tissue magnetic susceptibility and typically relies on time-consuming three-dimensional (3D) gradient-echo (GRE) MRI. Recent studies have shown that two-dimensional (2D) multi-slice gradient-echo echo-planar imaging (GRE-EPI), which is commonly used in functional MRI (fMRI) and other dynamic imaging techniques, can also be used to produce data suitable for QSM with much shorter scan times. However, the production of high-quality QSM maps is difficult because data obtained by 2D multi-slice scans often have phase inconsistencies across adjacent slices and strong susceptibility field gradients near air-tissue interfaces. To address these challenges in 2D EPI-based QSM studies, we present a new data processing procedure that integrates 2D and 3D phase processing. First, 2D Laplacian-based phase unwrapping and 2D background phase removal are performed to reduce phase inconsistencies between slices and remove in-plane harmonic components of the background phase. This is followed by 3D background phase removal for the through-plane harmonic components. The proposed phase processing was evaluated with 2D EPI data obtained from healthy volunteers, and compared against conventional 3D phase processing using the same 2D EPI datasets. Our QSM results were also compared with QSM values from time-consuming 3D GRE data, which were taken as ground truth. The experimental results show that this new 2D EPI-based QSM technique can produce quantitative susceptibility measures that are comparable with those of 3D GRE-based QSM across different brain regions (e.g. subcortical iron-rich gray matter, cortical gray and white matter). This new 2D EPI QSM reconstruction method is implemented within STI Suite, which is a comprehensive shareware for susceptibility imaging and quantification. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Pairing Traditional and Generic Common Knowledge

Common Knowledge C is a standard tool in epistemic logics. Generic Common Knowledge J is an alternative which has desirable logical behavior such as cut-elmination and which can be used in place of C in the analysis of many games and epistemic senarios. In order to compare their deductive strengths directly we define the multi-agent logic \(\mathsf{S4}_n^{CJ}\) built on a language with both C and J operators in addition to agents’ \(K_i\)s so that any finite prefix of modal operators is acceptable. We prove \(\mathsf{S4}_n^{CJ}\) is complete, decidable, and that \(J\varphi \rightarrow C\varphi \) though not \(C\varphi \rightarrow J\varphi \). Additional epistemic scenarios may be investigated which take advantage of this dual layer of common knowledge agents.
Self-control capacity as a predictor of borderline personality disorder features, problematic drinking, and their co-occurrence

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) and alcohol use disorder (AUD) share impulsivity as an etiological factor. However, impulsivity is ill-defined, often overlapping with self-control capacity. This study attempts to disentangle these constructs and their associations with alcohol use and BPD. Undergraduates (n = 192) completed the Five Factor Model Rating Form, which generated two-dimensional scales of BPD, the Self-Control Scale, the UPPS-P (self-reported impulsivity), and the stop-signal and delay discounting tasks (laboratory-measured impulsivity). Self-control appeared as a major predictor of BPD features and drinking, explaining as much or more variance in outcome than impulsivity. Co-occurrence of elevated BPD features and problem drinking was also best explained by self-control. Laboratory measures of impulsivity were not correlated with BPD scales or alcohol use. Self-regulatory capacity may be an important but overlooked factor in BPD and alcohol use and should be considered alongside impulsivity in future research.
The Genus Lorryia

Five species groups of the tydeid mite genus Lorryia, 2 of which groups are new, are recognized, and 1 species is not assigned to any group. The Lwiroensis group includes Lwiroensis Baker; marcandrei , n. sp.; hondurensis, n. sp.; panitae, n. sp.; floridensis, n. sp.; vivipara (Thor) ; and indonesiensis, n. sp. The Bedfordiensis group includes Bedfordiensis Evans; superba Oudemans; pulchra (Oudemans); reticulata (Oudemans); polaris Womersley; evansi, n. sp.; fundadorensis, n. sp.; podocarpa, n. sp.; collyerae, n. sp.; mammilaris (Berlese); formosa Cooreman; atyeoi, n. sp.; summersi, n. sp.; chiapensis, Baker; benensis, n. sp., turrialbensis, n. sp.; funki, n. sp., raphignathoides (Berlese) ; cooremani, n. sp.; catenulata (Thor); and sigthori Baker. The Ajricana group includes africana Baker; grewia, n. sp.; macquillani, n. sp.; armaghensis, n. sp.; and boycei (Baker). The Pandana group (new) includes pandana, n. sp. The Congoensis group (new) includes Congoensis , n. sp. Not assigned is venustula (Berlese).
Sparse Canonical Temporal Alignment With Deep Tensor Decomposition for Action Recognition

In this paper, we solve three problems in action recognition: sub-action, multi-subject, and multi-modality, by reducing the diversity of intra-class samples. The main stage contains canonical temporal alignment and key frames selection. As we know, temporal alignment aims to reduce the diversity of intra-class samples; however, dense frames may yield misalignment or overlapped alignment and decrease recognition performance. To overcome this problem, we propose a sparse canonical temporal alignment (SCTA) method, which selects and aligns key frames from two sequences to reduce diversity. To extract better features from the key frames, we propose a deep non-negative tensor factorization (DNTF) method to find a tensor subspace integrated with SCTA scheme. First, we model an action sequence as a third-order tensor with spatiotemporal structure. Then, we design a DNTF scheme to find a tensor subspace in both spatial and temporal directions. Particularly, in the first layer, the original tensor is decomposed into two low-rank tensors by NTF, and in the second layer, each low-rank tensor is further decomposed by tensor-train for time efficiency. Finally, our framework composed of SCTA and DNTF could solve the three problems and extract effective features for action recognition. Experiments on synthetic data, MSRDailyActivity3D, and MSRActionPairs data sets show that our method works better than competitive methods in terms of accuracy.
Gender differences in recognition of toy faces suggest a contribution of experience.

Abstract When there is a gender effect, women perform better then men in face recognition tasks. Prior work has not documented a male advantage on a face recognition task, suggesting that women may outperform men at face recognition generally either due to evolutionary reasons or the influence of social roles. Here, we question the idea that women excel at all face recognition and provide a proof of concept based on a face category for which men outperform women. We developed a test of face learning to measures individual differences with face categories for which men and women may differ in experience, using the faces of Barbie dolls and of Transformers. The results show a crossover interaction between subject gender and category, where men outperform women with Transformers’ faces. We demonstrate that men can outperform women with some categories of faces, suggesting that explanations for a general face recognition advantage for women are in fact not needed.
Ablation of Atrial Fibrillation: How Can Less Be More?

Atrial fibrillation (AF) ablation remains suboptimal—despite spectacular results in individual patients—for both persistent and paroxysmal AF using contemporary catheters.1 The benefits of pulmonary vein isolation (PVI) likely extend beyond isolating triggers because ablation may be more successful if wide areas are ablated by radiofrequency or cryoballoons,2 and patients without AF may have reconnected pulmonary veins.3 Hence, it seems intuitive that additional lesion sets should improve outcomes. Article see p 1316 However, several meta-analyses have suggested that commonly applied ablation sets beyond PVI provide inconsistent benefit.4 This was illustrated vividly by the Substrate and Trigger Ablation for Reduction of Atrial Fibrillation Part 2 (STAR-AF2) trial, in which the 59% success of PVI was not improved by adding lines or targeting Complex Fractionated Atrial Electrograms (CFAE).5 However, a major criticism of STAR-AF2 is that lines were not blocked in 26% of patients. Into this arena comes the No Benefit of Complex Fractionated Atrial Electrogram Ablation in Addition to Circumferential Pulmonary Vein Ablation and Linear Ablation (BOCA) trial of ablation strategies for persistent and long-standing persistent AF in this issue of Circulation: Arrhythmia and Electrophysiology .6 BOCA addresses 2 unanswered questions: what is ablation success when lines are proven to be complete, and what is the value of supplementary widespread ablation (CFAE) if lines are blocked? In BOCA, the investigators prospectively randomized 131 persistent AF patients in 1:1 fashion to PVI+lines (roof and mitral, control) or PVI+lines+CFAE (CFAE). Conduction block was confirmed in 95% of mitral lines and 100% of roof lines and PVI. The investigators found that patients in the CFAE arm had no advantage over the control arm, with similar single (46.2% versus 56.9%, P =0.20) and multiprocedure (78% versus 80%, P =1.0) freedom from atrial arrhythmias at 12 months. Patients …
Modelling the morphology and thermomechanical behaviour of low-bandgap conjugated polymers and bulk heterojunction films

This paper describes the use of molecular dynamics (MD) to predict the nanoscale morphology and thermomechanical behavior of three low-bandgap semiconducting polymers and their blends with PC71BM. While the three polymers modeled in this study—PTB7, PDTSTPD, and TQ1—all exhibit the donor–acceptor motif characteristic of high-performance donor materials in organic solar cells, they exemplify different morphologies in the solid state. Predictions from the atomistic simulations presented here include the average conjugation length of the polymers, the structural arrangement of conjugated donor and acceptor units in neat and bulk heterojunction (BHJ) films, as well as the glass transition temperature and tensile modulus of neat and BHJ polymer films. Calculated tangent correlation functions exhibit oscillatory decay. This finding suggests that DA polymers are more appropriately modeled as ribbon-like chains as opposed to worm-like chains. To account for the range of morphologies accessible by processing manipulations, both a melt-quenched and a self-aggregated morphology are prepared. Owing to the greater free volume of the self-aggregated morphology, these solid structures are found to be softer and weaker than the melt-quenched morphologies. The experimental modulus measured previously for PDTSTPD is similar to the predicted self-aggregated morphology, while the experimental modulus of PTB7 is similar to the predicted melt-quenched modulus. Our comparisons with experiment suggest that solution-processing plays a critical role in optimizing the mechanical properties of conjugated polymeric materials. Overall, the results of this study suggest the promise of MD simulations in determining the ways in which molecular structure influences the morphology and mechanical properties of bulk heterojunction films for solar cells and other organic electronic devices.
Dialysis-associated steal syndrome (DASS)

IntroductionIn this article, we will review the clinical symptoms of dialysis access steal syndrome (DASS), evaluation, treatment options, and our approach and treatment algorithm.MethodsWe reviewe...
Asians and Pacific Islanders

The US census uses the term “Asians and Pacific Islanders” to encompass individuals with ethnic origins in the Far East, Southeast Asia, and the Indian Subcontinent. Asians and Pacific Islanders account for approximately 5.6% of the US population, with the majority living in ten states: the states of California, Florida, New Jersey, New York, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Texas, Virginia, and Washington, and increasing numbers settling in the states of Arkansas, Connecticut, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina. And, although Asians and Pacific Islanders are frequently referred to as a single group, this group actually comprises more than 50 distinct subgroups that speak more than 100 different languages and dialects. The subgroups within this larger category are quite diverse with respect to other features as well. As an example, it has been estimated that 55% of Vietnamese persons older than 5years of age do not speak English at home, compared to 22% of Asian Indians. This diversity of language, culture, and socioeconomic conditions within the larger grouping of Asians and Pacific Islanders presents challenges in HIV/AIDS prevention efforts.
Measuring Long-Range 13C–13C Correlations on a Surface under Natural Abundance Using Dynamic Nuclear Polarization-Enhanced Solid-State Nuclear Magnetic Resonance

We report that spatial (<1 nm) proximity between different molecules in solid bulk materials and, for the first time, different moieties on the surface of a catalyst, can be established without isotope enrichment by means of homonuclear CHHC solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance experiment. This 13C–13C correlation measurement, which hitherto was not possible for natural-abundance solids, was enabled by the use of dynamic nuclear polarization. Importantly, it allows the study of long-range correlations in a variety of materials with high resolution.
BUILDING EFFECTIVE VIRTUAL LEARNING TEAMS THROUGH ENHANCED TEAM PROCESSES

Information and communication technologies have changed the way how people live, learn and conduct the business activities. The utilization of virtual teams to support cooperative learning becomes a leading topic in distance education. Previous research reveals that the practices of collaborative learning through team interactions enrich students’ learning experiences and prepare them to embrace the real-world problems in the team-based activities. Aligned with the philosophy of learning community, virtual learning teams have reported enhanced student-to-student engagement, raised motivation, higher student satisfaction, greater retention rates, and better academic performance with improved critical thinking, problem-solving, and communication capabilities. In this article, not only challenges are identified, but also strategies to create and facilitate productive virtual learning teams are recommended. These proposed strategies are instrumental in cultivating virtual teams and can be beneficial to instructional designers or instructors who might either integrate the team component into the curriculum or facilitate virtual teams in the online classrooms.
Ranking Based Multitask Learning of Scoring Functions

Scoring functions are an important tool for quantifying properties of interest in many domains; for example, in healthcare, a disease severity scores are used to diagnose the patient’s condition and to decide its further treatment. Scoring functions might be obtained based on the domain knowledge or learned from data by using classification, regression or ranking techniques - depending on the type of supervised information. Although learning scoring functions from collected data is beneficial, it can be challenging when limited data are available. Therefore, learning multiple distinct, but related, scoring functions together can increase their quality as shared regularities may be easier to identify. We propose a multitask formulation for ranking-based learning of scoring functions, where the model is trained from pairwise comparisons. The approach uses mixed-norm regularization to impose structural regularities among the tasks. The proposed regularized objective function is convex; therefore, we developed an optimization approach based on alternating minimization and proximal gradient algorithms to solve the problem. The increased predictive accuracy of the presented approach, in comparison to several baselines, is demonstrated on synthetic data and two different real-world applications; predicting exam scores and predicting tolerance to infections score.
Evaporation-driven thermocapillary Marangoni convection in liquid layers of different depths

This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in PUBLICATION Elsevier Ltd, [Vol #122, (JULY 2018)] DOI: 10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2018.01.136
Finding Historical Meaning without Britain

This chapter examines the problematic nature of an external focus for national identity in educational materials. Having both a national and imperial identity was not a problem for settler colonies until the imperial identity eroded after the Second World War, due to the decolonization of the British Empire. The increasing irrelevance of Britishness as an organizing paradigm for historical narratives led to a re-evaluation of educational content in subjects such as history and civics. For the first time in Ontarian and Victorian history, educators embraced an internally focused identity celebrating the unique historical development of Canada and Australia within a multicultural framework. Both territories sought to use multiculturalism as a way to re-establish a narrative for the nation, though this move, too, produced significant criticism. Educators rejected the association with Empire but could not reach a consensus on what should replace it.
When Can Manipulations be Avoided in Two-Sided Matching Markets? -- Maximal Domain Results

In two-sided matching markets, stable mechanisms are vulnerable to various kinds of manipulations. This paper investigates conditions for the student-optimal stable mechanism (SOSM) and the college-optimal stable mechanism (COSM) to be immune to manipulations via capacities and pre-arranged matches. For SOSM, we find that strongly monotone preferences in populations and weakly maximin preferences are the maximal domains of college preferences that guarantee immunity to manipulations via capacities and pre-arranged matches, respectively. In contrast, COSM is susceptible to both manipulations whenever colleges have multiple positions.
Systems Behavior and Geoscience Problem-Solving

Pure and applied science can be considered as two aspects of the same system of accumulating knowledge, a process termed the scientific method. The scientific method and its development may be viewed as a multitrack activity which includes cybernetics, operations research, and a systems approach, all of which are necessary to analyze and solve extremely complex problems. Advent of the computer, which can serve as an intelligence amplifier, was timely in that it is available now to assist in solving complex geological problems.
Egg-hatching Rhythms in Three Species of Fiddler Crabs

ABSTRACT The time of egg hatching of the fiddler crabs, Uca pugnax , U. pugilator and U. minax was monitored under controlled laboratory conditions and under natural field conditions. Hatch profiles were constructed by counting zoeae collected from individual females under controlled laboratory conditions every 10 minutes. Complete hatching of the 1,500–94,000 embryos in an egg sponge occurred over the course of several minutes, related to the time of the nocturnal high tide. The female aided hatching by vigorous abdominal contractions. Sampling in a typical intertidal creek every two hours at four depths over a 33-hour period indicated a large peak of zoeae near the nighttime high tide. Such timing may minimize predation on eggladen females walking to the water's edge to deposit their hatching zoeae. Tidal timing may also reduce predation as well as tidal flushing of Uca larvae.
Understanding Demographic Transitions: An Overview of French Historical Statistics

Claude Diebolt and Faustine Perrin Population Economics Series, Cham, CH: Springer, 2017. XVIII-176 pp. ISBN 978-3-319-44650-9. Hardcover: USD 129.00
Use of Isokinetic Dynamometry to Assess Muscle Function in Burned Patients is a Reliable Tool to Assist Progressive Resistance Exercise Prescription.

Isokinetic dynamometry is used during exercise testing and rehabilitation to obtain a quantitative strength measurement on which progressive strength training programs can be based. This study assesses the test-retest reliability of isokinetic leg function in the knee flexors and extensors at 150 degrees/second in children and young adults with severe burns to be used for rehabilitation exercise program prescription. In 39 severely burned patients (49 ± 14% total body surface area burn [TBSA], mean ± SD; 34 ± 21% TBSA 3 rd degree; 14 ± 5 years, 153.3 ± 16.5 cm height; 53.8 ± 17.9 kg) knee flexion/extension isokinetic dynamometry at 150 degrees/second was performed on each patient's dominant leg in two sessions. The patient was acquainted with the test and performed 1 set of 10 repetitions at 150 degrees/second. A second session of 1 set of 10 repetitions at 150 degrees/second was performed within 24 hours of the first. Muscle function outcomes were knee flexion/extension peak torque, average peak torque, and average power. One-sample paired t-tests were performed for all muscle function outcomes; intraclass correlation coefficients and r2 values with session two as a function of session one were calculated. Sessions did not differ significantly in knee extension or flexion for any muscle function outcome or the hamstrings to quadriceps ratio. All intraclass correlation coefficients were >0.89 and r2 >0.79. Test-retest isokinetic dynamometry functional measurements in the knee flexors and extensors at 150 degrees/second are reliable in the burn population and may aid resistance rehabilitation program prescriptions.
The impact of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy on math anxiety in adolescents

In this nonconcurrent, multiple-baseline, single-subject research study, the authors conducted a preliminary exploration of whether mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) can be expanded to the...
Expression of MHC Class I Genes in Mouse Hepatitis Virus (MHV-A59) Infection and in Multiple Sclerosis

The alteration in expression of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I genes on neural cells in association with central nervous system (CNS) demyelination was studied. Infection of mice or glial cell cultures with a neurotropic demyelinating coronavirus, mouse hepatitis virus (MHV) strain A59, was used as a model system. While uninfected neural cells do not express detectable amounts of MHC class I surface antigens, after infection with MHV-A59 in vitro or in vivo, these antigens can be detected by reaction with a monoclonal antibody against H-2D and H-2K. Induction of MHC class I antigens by MHV-A59 infection in mice was associated with increased levels of H-2 mRNA. Upregulation of MHC class I antigens involved the production of soluble factor/s produced by infected astrocytes. The identity of the factor, which is not interferon, is at present unknown. Brain specimens from autopsies of patients with multiple sclerosis, a human inflammatory demyelinating diseases, were also examined for alteration of MHC antigens. Both class I and class II surface antigens were found in active plaques but not in chronic plaques or in normal brain. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that MHC class I antigen induction may play a role in inflammatory CNS demyelination in both experimental animals and in humans.
Maternal heterosis and grandmaternal effects in beef cattle: postweaning growth and carcass traits.

Crossbred steer and heifer progeny from 5-, 6- and 7-yr-old dams produced in a four-breed diallel crossing experiment involving the Brown Swiss, Red Poll, Hereford and Angus maternal grandsires and maternal granddams were evaluated for postweaning growth and carcass traits to estimate breed mean maternal heterosis, maternal heterosis for specific breed cross females, average maternal heterosis for all crosses, breed grandmaternal effects and net breed effects in crosses. All progeny evaluated were born in 1979 and 1980 and were sired by 7/8 or 15/16 Simmental bulls. Average maternal heterosis was significant for 200-d weight in heifers but not in steers and was not significant for final weight (444-d) in either heifers or steers. The effects of maternal heterosis on postweaning growth were not important. Differences among breeds in mean maternal heterosis values were small for growth-related traits. Breeds did not differ (P greater than .05) in grandmaternal effects for growth-related traits; Brown Swiss tended to be highest, Red Poll lowest, with Hereford and Angus intermediate. Differences in net breed effects in crosses favored Brown Swiss over the three other breeds and were generally significant for growth traits. Average maternal heterosis, though generally positive, was not significant for carcass traits on either an age-constant or weight-constant basis. Differences among breeds were small in grandmaternal effects, specific heterosis and net effects in crosses for carcass traits associated with both weight or composition; generally the Brown Swiss breed was favored on carcass traits associated with weight in the age-constant analysis and generally had a higher lean-to-fat ratio than the three other breeds in both the age-constant and weight-constant analyses.
Complicating the Labor Market as a Social Institution

Economic analyses of labor markets in the URPE tradition developed several key observations that have challenged mainstream analysis. First was the recognition that production is a social process t...
Analyzing thermal effect in KTN crystal for high-speed continuous optical beam deflection

In this study, we quantitatively simulate the thermal effect in the application of high-speed KTN beam deflectors. Dielectric heating can contribute to a substantial temperature increase in high-speed continuous KTN electro-optic (EO) beam deflection. The influence of dielectric heating in KTN is analyzed for different parameters, such as the beam deflection angle, geometric dimension, and the scanning frequency. The optimal structure that can minimize the thermal effect is explored.
Online Tutoring Through a Cloud-Based Virtual Tutoring Center.

Online tutoring has gained popularity in recent years, which allows students to get tutoring service from tutors in an online, virtual environment. To support effective online tutoring, an integrated online tutoring system is essential. This paper presents a cloud-based virtual tutoring center that supports online tutoring for college students to complement the tutoring service of physical tutoring centers on a campus. We present the overall architecture of the virtual tutoring center system and show preliminary results of using the virtual tutoring center to provide online tutoring for computer science students.
Beam Instabilities in Magnetized Pair Plasma

Beam instabilities in the strongly magnetized electron-positron plasma of pulsar magnetospheres are considered. We analyze the resonance conditions and estimate the growth rates of the Cherenkov and cyclotron instabilities of the ordinary (O), extraordinary (X) and Alfv\'{e}n modes in two limiting regimes: kinetic and hydrodynamic. As a preliminary step, we reconsider wave dispersion and polarization properties in a one dimensional pair plasma taking into account relativistic thermal effects. We then find the location of the Cherenkov and cyclotron resonance of the X, O and Alfv\'{e}n waves with the particles from the primary beam. The importance of the different instabilities as a source of the coherent pulsar radiation generation is then estimated taking into account the angular dependence of the growth rates and the limitations on the length of the coherent wave-particle interaction imposed by the curvature of the magnetic field lines. We conclude, that in the pulsar magnetosphere the Cherenkov-type instabilities occur in the hydrodynamic regimes, while the cyclotron-type instabilities occur in the kinetic regime. We argue, that electromagnetic cyclotron-type instabilities on the X, O and probably Alfv\'{e}n waves are more likely to develop in the pulsar magnetosphere.
Can the coinsurance effect explain the diversification discount

This paper examines whether the coinsurance effect can explain the diversification discount. Lower firm risk combined with higher leverage will cause a wealth transfer from shareholders to bondholders, thereby resulting in a lower excess value for diversified firms relative to that for focused firms. I find that firm risk is significantly lower and leverage is significantly higher for diversified firms even after controlling for other variables that may affect firm risk and leverage. However, the magnitude of the difference is not very large. For both the full sample and the sub-sample of pseudo conglomerates, the coinsurance effect is a significant determinant of the cross-sectional variation of excess value, but not the value loss from diversification. Specifically, the coefficient associated with the multi-segment dummy does not decrease and is still negative and significant even after firm leverage and firm risk are included in the regression specifications. I also find a significant and large diversification discount for all-equity firms. These results hold even after controlling for fixed firm and calendar year effects. These results stand in direct contrast to those reported in Mansi and Reeb (2002), and indicate that the coinsurance effect cannot explain away the diversification discount.
Protection from lethal Clostridioides difficile infection via intraspecies competition for co-germinant

Abstract Clostridioides difficile, a Gram-positive, spore-forming bacterium, is the primary cause of infectious nosocomial diarrhea. Antibiotics are a major risk factor for C. difficile infection (CDI) as they disrupt the gut microbial community, enabling increased germination of spores and growth of vegetative C. difficile. To date the only single-species bacterial preparation that has demonstrated efficacy in reducing recurrent CDI in humans is non-toxigenic C. difficile. Using multiple infection models we determined that pre-colonization with a less virulent strain is sufficient to protect from challenge with a lethal strain of C. difficile, surprisingly even in the absence of adaptive immunity. Additionally, we showed that protection is dependent on high levels of colonization by the less virulent strain and that it is mediated by exclusion of the invading strain. Our results suggest that reduction of amino acids, specifically glycine following colonization by the first strain of C. difficile is sufficient to decrease germination of the second strain thereby limiting colonization by the lethal strain. Importance Antibiotic-associated colitis is often caused by infection with the bacterium Clostridioides difficile. In this study we found that reduction of the amino acid glycine by pre-colonization with a less virulent strain of C. difficile is sufficient to decrease germination of a second strain. This finding demonstrates that the axis of competition for nutrients can include multiple life stages. This work is important, as it is the first to identify a possible mechanism through which pre-colonization with C. difficile, a current clinical therapy, provides protection from reinfection. Furthermore, our work suggests that targeting nutrients utilized by all life stages could be an improved strategy for bacterial therapeutics that aim to restore colonization resistance in the gut.