cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The Biological Nature of the State

The origin of the state, long at the center of political science, can be greatly illuminated by the contemporary approach in evolutionary biology known as “inclusive fitness theory.” Natural selection is now analyzed using cost-benefit models akin to rational actor models in economics, game theory, and collective choice theory. The utility of integrating these approaches is illustrated by using the Prisoner's Dilemma and the Tragedy of the Commons to outline a general model for the evolution of political and legal institutions. This perspective also shows how traditional political philosophers explored “archetypical” problems that are easily translated into scientific terminology. It is thus possible to link biology to the study of human behavior in a nonreductionist manner, thereby generating new empirical hypotheses concerning the environmental correlates of social norms. Ultimately, such a unification of the natural and social sciences points to a return to the classical view that law and justice are not matters of pure convention, but rather are grounded on what is right “according to nature.”
Spatial representation of frequency-modulated tones in gerbil auditory cortex revealed by epidural electrocorticography

The present study investigated the topography of epidurally recorded middle latency components P1 and N1 evoked by spectrally dynamic stimuli (linearly frequency-modulated (FM) tones) with respect to the tonotopic structure of the right primary auditory cortex, field AI. Whereas the gross topography corresponded to the spectral content of the FM tones, specific tonotopic offsets were found between the potential distributions evoked by FM tones of different modulation direction (i.e. 'rising' vs. 'falling'). Potentials evoked by rising FM tones were located at tonotopic positions corresponding to higher frequencies compared with potentials evoked by falling FM tones. Data indicated that the magnitude of these offsets can be attributed to the local tonotopic resolution in AI and are not dependent on the modulation rate.
Will you let me use your nucleus? How Agrobacterium gets its T-DNA expressed in the host plant cellThis paper is one of a selection of papers published in this Special Issue, entitled The Nucleus: A Cell Within A Cell.

Agrobacterium is the only known bacterium capable of natural DNA transfer into a eukaryotic host. The genes transferred to host plants are contained on a T-DNA (transferred DNA) molecule, the transfer of which begins with its translocation, along with several effector proteins, from the bacterial cell to the host-cell cytoplasm. In the host cytoplasm, the T-complex is formed from a single-stranded copy of the T-DNA (T-strand) associated with several bacterial and host proteins and it is imported into the host nucleus via interactions with the host nuclear import machinery. Once inside the nucleus, the T-complex is most likely directed to the host genome by associating with histones. Finally, the chromatin-associated T-complex is uncoated from its escorting proteins prior to the conversion of the T-strand to a double-stranded form and its integration into the host genome.
Multimedia web-based programming development environment

A web-based environment for C, Java, and Unix shell script programming is described, together with its use in an engineering freshman C programming course. Besides the usual program development facilities such as compiling and debugging, the environment also provides multimedia features for presentation of program output, including audio, interactive graphics, interactive I/O, and HTML forms. The interactive graphics feature plots one or more user-defined functions and includes a graphical implementation of Newton's method for finding a zero given a function and its derivative. The audio feature plays 8 KHz. sampled sound which may be generated by a program directly or by performing signal processing on an input file. The HTML output feature allows students in advanced courses to develop specialized web-based sub- environments. The environment can be customized to provide different prototype files for each subproject of multiple courses and also different files for each student.
Modeling Two-Channel Speech Processing With the EPIC Cognitive Architecture

An important application of cognitive architectures is to provide human performance models that capture psychological mechanisms in a form that can be "programmed" to predict task performance of human-machine system designs. Although many aspects of human performance have been successfully modeled in this approach, accounting for multitalker speech task performance is a novel problem. This article presents a model for performance in a two-talker task that incorporates concepts from psychoacoustics, in particular, masking effects and stream formation.
Future for cryogenic devices for signal processing applications

This chapter describes some of the essential functions required for analog and digital signal processing. Cryogenic circuits can fulfil all of the required functions for signal processing, often with more than an order of magnitude increase in bandwidth capability over that which is available from existing room-temperature circuits.
See you, see me

Teens selectively disclose personal information on SNS.Frequent SNS use and large network size increase disclosure and posting regret.Having strangers as Facebook friends increases both disclosure and regret.Higher level of Facebook profile privacy setting is related with lower disclosure.Trust is negatively related with regret of posting on SNS. Self-disclosure is popular on social network site (SNS). However, teenagers' self-disclosure behavior and their regret of posting, a negative emotional experience, have been seldom studied. Using data from a nationally representative survey, this study tries to investigate teenagers' self-disclosure and regret of posting on SNS. We further examine how demographic variables, SNS use, different types of "friends", trust, and privacy control behavior relate to self-disclosure and regret of posting. We find that though teenagers reveal moderately high level of personal information on SNS, they do not disclose all types of personal information equally. Results also show that male and older teens disclose more personal information. Frequent SNS use, large SNS network size, and having strangers in SNS friend list increase both self-disclosure and posting regret. Setting SNS profile private is related to lower level of self-disclosure. Implications for privacy design of SNS are discussed.
Detecting Opinions in a Temporally Evolving Conversation on Twitter

The immense growth of online social networks from simply being a medium of connecting people to assuming a variety of roles has led to a massive increase in their use and popularity. Today, networks like Facebook and Twitter act as news sources, mediums of advertising and facilitators of socio-political revolutions. In such a scenario, it is of vital importance to be able to detect the opinions of social network users in order to study the opinion flow processes that unfold in these networks. For many topics, the focus of the conversation evolves over time based on the occurrence of real-world events, which makes opinion detection challenging. Since it is not practical to label samples from every point in time, a general supervised learning approach is infeasible. In this work we propose a temporal machine-learning model that has its underpinnings in social network research conducted by sociologists over the years, to detect user opinions in evolving conversations. It uses a combination of hashtags and n-grams as features to identify the opinions of Twitter users on a topic, from their publicly available tweets. We use it to detect temporal opinions on Obamacare and U.S. Immigration Reform, for which it is able to identify user opinions with a very high degree of accuracy for a randomly chosen set of users over time.
An Elementary Proof that Schoenberg's Space-Filling Curve Is Nowhere Differentiable

in which the functions f, g are continuous on the interval 1", or by words to that effect. This "conventional wisdom" was shattered in 1890 when G. Peano [1] demonstrated that this definition embraces what are now called "space-filling curves," that is, curves that pass through every point of a two-dimensional region with positive content such as a square. Since one does not ordinarily call a square a curve, one has to place restrictions on f and g for (1) to produce what one might conventionally call a curve. For example, if one assumes that the mapping (f, g): I -> E2 is continuous and injective, one obtains what is generally referred to as a Jordan arc that is, by a theorem of Netto ("a bi-jective map from a line onto a surface is, by necessity, discontinuous" [2]) not space filling. Peano's pioneering work spawned numerous other examples of space-filling curves, one of which, namely Schoenberg's, will be the object of this discussion. To produce Schoenberg's curve, let I = [0, 1] and let f, g in (1) be defined by
Bringing data to the surface: recovering data loggers for large sample sizes from marine vertebrates

Despite the utility of data loggers for studying the fine-scale behavior and energetics of marine organisms, most studies using these tools have had relatively low sample sizes due to various factors including the logistical difficulty of physically recovering the loggers. Here, we report a simple methodology for recovering large numbers of data loggers over a broad search area, which has proven successful even for large, itinerant marine species. Techniques described include the use of VHF telemetry, a high-speed search vessel, GPS, and custom maps of the search area in order to record logger float package locations and optimize recovery strategy. We have deployed data logger packages on 193 sharks of 8 different species in the Gulf of Mexico, with a recovery rate of 97.4 %, retrieving 188 of the loggers with a total of over 4260 h of fine-scale acceleration data. Lost float packages are likely due to scavenging of sharks that succumbed to post-release mortality and ingestion of the packages by larger sharks. Mean (±SD) deployment time for the packages was 22.9 ± 22.5 h (range 0.7–205 h), and mean overall displacement distance was 31.3 ± 28.2 km (range 0.62–231 km). Animals showed a tendency to swim offshore after tagging, with 75 % of packages recovered at a bearing between 180° and 290° relative to their tagging location. Sharks swam to deeper water after tagging, with maximum depths reaching an average of 11 ± 8 m greater at the end of the track versus the start. Due to the high recovery rate and the reusability of these data loggers, we have successfully documented the post-release outcome of 188 sharks at a cost of approximately $535 per shark, compared to a cost of $4200 per shark to have done the same work with satellite tags. Given the high recovery rate and the cost-effectiveness of these tags, our results illustrate clear advantages in cost and data quality of this method compared to studies using conventional satellite tags.
The supernova connection.

They are the most energetic events in the Universe, but the origin of γ-ray bursts has been hard to establish. Observations of a burst close to our Galaxy now show that supernovae are, as suspected, likely culprits.
Iron for erythropoiesis.

Rabbits were rendered anemic by phlebotomy, by parenteral administration of phenylhydrazine and by phlebotomy coupled with transfusion of nonviable erythrocytes. Measurements were made of the number and iron uptake of immature erythroid cells, and the size and hemoglobin content of the circulating erythrocytes. All groups of animals showed the same degree of erythroid cellular proliferation in response to anemia. The total amount of hemoglobin synthesized was determined by the supply of iron to the marrow and was reflected in variations in hemoglobin content within the individual erythrocyte. For maximal production of hemoglobin in the animal with increased cellular proliferation, an increased plasma iron level is required.
Clinical applications of functional MRI in neuropsychiatry

Clinical neuroimaging is due for yet another sea change as functional neuroimaging becomes increasingly powerful and available. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is perhaps the most promising of the emerging techniques. The following review helps us understand the physics, strengths, limitations, and promise of fMRI. The authors are all affiliated with the Brain Imaging Center at McLean Hospital and with the Departments of Neurology (Dr. Levin) and Psychiatry (Dr. Renshaw) at Harvard Medical School.
Prosodic manifestations of confidence and uncertainty in spoken language.

We present a project aimed at understanding the acoustic and prosodic correlates of confidence and uncertainty in spoken language. We elicited speech produced under varying levels of certainty and performed perceptual and statistical analyses on the speech data to determine which prosodic features (e.g., pitch, energy, timing) are associated with a speaker’s level of certainty and where these prosodic manifestations occur relative to the location of the word or phrase that the speaker is confident or uncertain about. Our findings suggest that prosodic manifestations of confidence and uncertainty occur both in the local region that causes the uncertainty as well as in its surrounding context.
The Production Function

This chapter is somewhat different from those which have gone before primarily in paying a good deal more attention to the problems inherent in choosing specific functional forms to represent the production structure. We have, of course, discussed a number of particular functions elsewhere — the linear, the quadratic, the logarithmic, and even the CES — but the list of functions whose properties are well understood is more extensive than those just mentioned and, even for those just listed, detailed comparisons have not been made to this point. Normally, we might consider the study of production after we have studied investment, on the grounds that the latter is part of aggregate demand (two components of which we have already considered in Chapters 2 and 3) while the former is a key concept in aggregate supply. This procedure is not optimal in this study primarily because we use specific functional forms for the production function in our study of investment; that is, the production function (as it is studied here) is one input into an aggregate investment function. There are, of course, other inputs into the investment function — such as a specification of the cost of capital and of tax laws — which are also studied later. Of course, we do not mean to ignore the simultaneous equation nature of the production process either, so it is more a matter of logical order as designed in this study than a matter of principle. We should note, though, that all we have to say on the topic of “aggregate supply” is contained in Chapter 1.[1]
GLEAMS Model Evaluation — Hydrology and Erosion Components

The seven watershed data sets provided were evaluated using the hydrology and erosion model components of GLEAMS. Overall, the model did a better job of estimating the hydrology and erosion for annual periods than for monthly or storm by storm comparisons with the observed training data sets. CREAMS/GLEAMS originally developed as a planning tool and not an absolute prediction model, is used to evaluate proposed agricultural management systems against the in place conventional farming practices. The use of the NRCS curve number method for runoff estimation and the USLE technology for erosion simulation is an improvement over USLE procedures, but the model is limited in the prediction of storm events.
Chapter 9 – Cell Metabolism

How does a cell function in biology and in chemistry? The essence of an organism, or the central dogma of biology, resides in the chromosome as a linear sequence of nucleotides that form a language (genetic code) to describe the production of cellular components. The cell controls the storage and transmission of information through DNA and/or RNA. DNA is responsible for its own replication, and transcripts information into RNA species that serves both as machinery and template to translate genetic information into proteins. Proteins are posttranslationally processed to enable their intended functions. The cell senses the availability of nutrients and transports them into cytoplasm. The transport can be through passive diffusion, or facilitated by protein. Cellular metabolism is concerned with two primary functions: catabolism and anabolism. Three most important pathways are: Embden-Meyerhof-Parnas, or glycolysis; tricarboxylic acid cycle, or citric acid cycle; and pentose-phosphate, or hexose-monophosphate. The conversion of pyruvate to glucose is called glucogenesis. The reducing power is used to generate ATP through the electron transport chain. If oxygen is the electron acceptor, the process is called aerobic respiration, while anaerobic respiration is when another electron acceptor is used in conjunction. Substrate-level phosphorylation supplies ATP. The end products of fermentative metabolism are important commercially, and are formed in response to the cell's need to balance consumption and the production of reducing power. Autotrophic organisms use CO 2 as their carbon source and rely on the Calvin (or Calvin-Benson) cycle to incorporate (or fix) carbon from CO 2 into cellular material. Energy is obtained either through light (photoautotroph) or oxidation of inorganic chemicals (chemoautotroph). The asymptotic behavior of metabolic pathways is calculated by the Monod equation.
A finite element method for light activated shape-memory polymers

Summary Shape-memory polymers (SMPs) belong to a class of smart materials that have shown promise for a wide range of applications. They are characterized by their ability to maintain a temporary deformed shape and return to an original parent permanent shape. In this paper, we consider the coupled photomechanical behavior of light activated shape-memory polymers (LASMPs), focusing on the numerical aspects for finite element simulations at the engineering scale. The photomechanical continuum framework is summarized, and some specific constitutive equations for LASMPs are described. Numerical implementation of the multiphysics governing partial differential equations takes the form of a user defined element subroutine within the commercial software package ABAQUS. We verify our two-dimensional and three-dimensional finite element procedure for multiple analytically tractable cases. To show the robustness of the numerical implementation, simulations are performed under various geometries and complex photomechanical loading. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Decoupled trajectory planning for a submerged rigid body subject to dissipative and potential forces

This paper studies the practical but challenging problem of motion planning for a deeply submerged rigid body. Here, we formulate the dynamic equations of motion of a submerged rigid body under the architecture of differential geometric mechanics and include external dissipative and potential forces. The mechanical system is represented as a forced affine-connection control system on the configuration space SE(3). Solutions to the motion planning problem are computed by concatenating and reparameterizing the integral curves of decoupling vector fields. We provide an extension to this inverse kinematic method to compensate for external potential forces caused by buoyancy and gravity. We present a mission scenario and implement the theoretically computed control strategy onto a test-bed autonomous underwater vehicle. This scenario emphasizes the use of this motion planning technique in the under-actuated situation; the vehicle loses direct control on one or more degrees of freedom. We include experimental results to illustrate our technique and validate our method.
Acquisition of survey knowledge using walking in place and resetting methods in immersive virtual environments

Locomotion in large virtual environments is currently unsupported in smartphone-powered virtual reality headsets, particularly within the confines of limited physical space. While motion controllers are a workaround for this issue, they exhibit known problems: they occupy the subject's hands, and they cause poor navigation performance. In this paper, we investigate three hands-free methods for navigating large virtual environments. The first method is resetting, a reorientation technique that allows for both translation and rotation body-based cues. The other two methods are walking in place techniques that use only rotation-based cues. In the first walking in place technique, we make use of the inertial measurement unit of the smartphone embedded in a Samsung Gear VR to detect when subjects are stepping. The second technique uses the Kinect's skeletal tracking for step detection. In this paper, we measure the survey component of spatial knowledge to assess three navigation conditions. Our metrics examine how well subjects gather and retain information from their environment, as well as how well they integrate it into a single model. We find that resetting leads to the strongest acquisition of survey knowledge, which we believe is due to the vestibular cues provided by this method.
Diagnosing Obesity: Beyond BMI

BMI is useful as a general indicator of body composition, particularly at the extreme ends of the spectrum, but has some limitations. Virtual Mentor is a monthly bioethics journal published by the American Medical Association.
Control Mechanisms of the Holo-Editosome in Trypanosomes

RNA metabolism in the single mitochondrion of trypanosomes and related kinetoplastid protozoa exhibits a unique posttranscriptional maturation of mRNAs by specific U insertion/deletion RNA editing that creates protein-coding sequences in 12 mRNA targets. In T. brucei, the editing apparatus includes over 40 proteins and hundreds of small noncoding guide RNAs (gRNAs). The editing machinery faces several challenges besides the need to coordinate its numerous components. These challenges include specific targeting of over 3000 sites in mRNA-gRNA hybrids, faithful discrimination of a large pool of pre-edited, partially edited intermediates and fully edited transcripts in the mitochondrial milieu, and differential control of editing in insect and mammal hosts. However, the basic mechanistic steps that control substrate loading, initiation, and progression of editing are not understood. A growing understanding of the holo-editosome organization offers important clues. The editing holoenzyme is a dynamic aggregate of multi-protein subcomplexes: the “RNA-free” editing enzyme termed RECC and auxiliary RNPs. One RNP is the REH2C subcomplex that includes an RNA helicase. Another subcomplex is RESC that includes two proposed modules: GRBC and REMC. The current model of RNA editing apparatus involves multi-RNP complexes serving as scaffolds that bring together mRNA, gRNA, and the RECC enzyme. Such molecular scaffolds may provide a context for specific mRNA-gRNA annealing, specific site recognition, and editing fidelity and progression. Here, we review protein components in RECC that exhibit differential effects during the life cycle of trypanosomes and specific components of the auxiliary RNPs that may participate in editing control. Notably, variants of RECC and the accessory RNPs have been identified. These findings lead us to propose an updated model of RNA editing, whereby isoforms of enzymatic and nonenzymatic subcomplexes establish “dynamic” functionally distinct holo-editosomes. This should expand the flexibility and specificity of the control mechanisms in RNA editing.
Granuloma mercurial en mano: a propósito de un caso

IntroductionA number of factors including socioeconomic status have been correlated with post-operative outcomes in orthopedic trauma. The objective of this study is to compare post-operative cours...
Regulation of Inflammation by Fas Ligand Expression on the Vascular Endothelium

The monolayer of endothelial cells that coat the luminal surface of the vessel wall have numerous physiological functions including the prevention of coagulation, control of vascular permeability, maintenance of vascular tone, and regulation of leukocyte extravasation. While the vascular endothelium plays a pivotal role in recruiting inflammatory cells at the site of infection or wounding, the normal endothelium is believed to serve as a barrier to inflammation in the absence of inflammatory stimuli.
Automated System Monitoring and Notification With Swatch

This paper describes an approach to monitoring events on a large number of servers and workstations. While modern UNIX systems are capable of logging a variety of information concerning the health and status of their hardware and operating system software, they are generally not configured to do so. Even when this information is logged, it is often hidden in places that are either not monitored regularly or are susceptible to deletion or modification by a successful intruder. Also, a system administrator must often monitor several, perhaps dozens, of systems. To address these problems, our approach begins with the modification of certain system programs to enhance their logging capabilities. In addition, our approach calls for the logging facilities on each of these systems to be configured in such a way as to send a copy of the critical system and security related information to a dependable, secure, central logging host system. As one might expect, this central log can see a megabyte or more of data in a single day. To keep a system administrator from being overwhelmed by a large quantity of data we have developed an easily configurable log file filter/monitor, called swatch. Swatch monitors log files and acts to filter out unwanted data and take one or more user specified actions (ring bell, send mail, execute a script, etc.) based upon patterns in the log.
A STUDY OF THE PHOTOCATALYTIC CLEAVAGE OF WATER ON NOBLE METAL PHOTOCATALYSIS WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO: 1. Hydrogen Generation Through Photoinduced Reduction of Water and 2. Oxygen Generation through Photoinduced Oxidation of Water

Using halogen tungsten lamp to simulate sunlight as the sole light source for the experiment untertaken, study of photocatalytic cleavage of water on Pt/TiO2/RuOx for photoinduced reduction of water to liberate H2 and on RuOx/TiO2 for photoinduced oxidation of water to evolve oxygen was separately carried out and the preliminary results are presented in this paper. The precipitation position and amount of the principal active constituents of the H2-generation catalyst, (Pt on n-TiO2) were investigated first; ways of doping of catalysts together with the doping conditions using niobium (Nb) as donor impurity effect of the proportion among the constituents of the catalytic system on the H2 generation activity and the specfic action of Ruthenium oxide in the catalyst were studied. The activity of the H2-generation catalyst, Pt/TiO2/RuOx for the photocatalytic reduction of water is expressed as 53.6 ml. H2 per hour per liter of reaction liquor. The effects of the following items on the O2 generation activity: The method of preparation of O2-generation catalyst, the loading quantity of RuOx on catalyst carrier, pH-value of the reaction liquor and whether the recovered catalyst can be submitted to repeated use, have been investigated. The oxygen-generation catalyst, RuOxTiO2 for the photocatalytic oxidation of water is found to be 21.3 ml O2 per hour per liter of reaction liquor. Both catalysts mentioned above were examined by the use of X-ray photoelectron spectroseopy(XPS) with the purpose of displaying the cause for the difference in catalytic activity of various catalysts of the same nominal composition.
Exploring the Lived Experiences of Staff Nurses Transitioning to the Nurse Manager Role.

OBJECTIVEThe objective of this study was to discover the experience of nurse managers (NMs) who had transitioned from a staff nurse positionBACKGROUNDNurses who become NMs may receive little or no training or support during the transition process. This study sought to gain the perspective of NMs who
Cones in ageing and harsh environments: the neural economy hypothesis.

Purpose Cones are at great risk in a wide variety of retinal diseases, especially when there is a harsh microenvironment and retinal pigment epithelium is damaged. We provide established and new methods for assessing cones and retinal pigment epithelium, together with new results. We investigated conditions under which cones can be imaged and could guide light, despite the proximity of less than ideal retinal pigment epithelium. Recent findings We used a variety of imaging methods to detect and localise damage to the retinal pigment epithelium. As age-related macular degeneration is a particularly widespread disease, we imaged clinical hallmarks: drusen and hyperpigmentation. Using near infrared light provided improved imaging of the deeper fundus layers. We compared confocal and multiply scattered light images, using both the variation of detection apertures and polarisation analysis. We used optical coherence tomography to examine distances between structures and thickness of retinal layers, as well as identifying damage to the retinal pigment epithelium. We counted cones using adaptive optics scanning laser ophthalmoscopy. We compared the results of five subjects with geographic atrophy to data from a previous normative ageing study. Using near infrared imaging and layer analysis of optical coherence tomography, the widespread aspect of drusen became evident. Both multiply scattered light imaging and analysis of the volume in the retinal pigment epithelial layer from the optical coherence tomography were effective in localising drusen and hyperpigmentation beneath the photoreceptors. Cone photoreceptors in normal older eyes were shorter than in younger eyes. Cone photoreceptors survived in regions of atrophy, but with greatly reduced and highly variable density. Regular arrays of cones were found in some locations, despite abnormal retinal pigment epithelium. For some subjects, the cone density was significantly greater than normative values in some retinal locations outside the atrophy. Summary The survival of cones within atrophy is remarkable. The unusually dense packing of cones at some retinal locations outside the atrophy indicates more fluidity in cone distribution than typically thought. Together these findings suggest strategies for therapy that includes preserving cones.
Cooling dynamics of two titanium alloys during laser powder bed fusion probed with in situ X-ray imaging and diffraction

Abstract Metal parts produced by laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) additive manufacturing exhibit characteristic microstructures comparable to those observed in laser welding. The primary cause of this characteristic microstructure is rapid, localized heating and cooling cycles, which result in extreme thermal gradients where material solidification is followed by fast cooling in the solid state. The final microstructure and mechanical performance are also influenced by pore formation caused by melt pool fluid dynamics. Here, we use high speed, in situ X-ray diffraction to probe the kinetics of cooling and solid-solid phase transitions after laser melting in two aerospace titanium alloys: Ti-6Al-4V, an α + β alloy; and Ti-5Al-5V-5Mo-3Cr, a near-β alloy. We complement these diffraction studies with in situ X-ray imaging to probe melt pool dynamics and pore formation. From these two complementary probes, we quantify pore formation during melting and the subsequent microstructural evolution as the material rapidly cools after solidification. These results are critical for understanding defect formation and residual stress development in different titanium alloys under LPBF conditions and can help inform process models to predict final part performance.
Mitochondrial contributions to vascular endothelial dysfunction, arterial stiffness, and cardiovascular diseases.

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) affects one in three adults and remains the leading cause of death in America. Advancing age is a major risk factor for CVD. Recent plateaus in CVD-related mortality ra...
SoK: assessing the threat potential of vibration-based attacks against live speech using mobile sensors

Existing academic research on vibration-based speech attacks has introduced interesting and intellectually appealing threat vectors with proof-of-concept demonstrations in controlled environments. The attacks presented in these studies exploit different types of sensors such as MEMS motion sensors, laser-based sensors, and some other sensors (camera, position error signal, piezo-disc) to measure the vibrations induced on an object by nearby sensitive speech. Such sensors are commonly found on mobile devices like smartphones and tablets that can be exposed to sensitive speech, revealing the significance of this potential threat. These studies have amassed significant attention in news and media and introduced concern to people about the safety of their day-to-day speech and around their personal, wireless and IoT devices. However, we hypothesize that the controlled experiments in the prior research maintain critical parameter values that are favorable to attack success (deviating from the limiting settings in a real-world scenario) and produce results that suggest a greater real-life threat level than actually exists. The contributions made in this paper are as follows; First, we provide a detailed review of 10 existing academic research works related to vibration-based eavesdropping attacks. Second, we identify key experimental parameters that can impact the success of eavesdropping in the vibration domain. Third, we build a framework to evaluate the existing literature based on the Percent Parameters in Favored Settings (PPFS) Score metric that we define. Lastly, we use our defined framework to evaluate the feasibility of the existing vibration-based speech attacks to compromise live human speech to the extent of full speech recognition. The results of our evaluation suggest that none of the existing vibration-based eavesdropping attacks have a high likelihood of successfully compromising live human speech in a real-world scenario.
Threats to Water Supplies in the Tropical Andes

Climate models predict that greenhouse warming will cause temperatures to rise faster at higher than at lower altitudes. In the tropical Andes, glaciers may soon disappear, with potentially grave consequences for water supplies.
The Nuclear Star Cluster of the Milky Way: Star Formation, Dynamics and Central Black Hole

High spatial resolution, near-infrared imaging and spectroscopy of the nuclear star cluster have given key new insights about the dynamics, evolution and mass distribution in the Milky Way Center. The central parsec is powered by a cluster of hot, massive stars which must have formed a few million years ago. Either star formation was triggered in the central parsec by the infall of a very dense cloud, or a dense, young star cluster formed outside of the central parsec sank rapidly into the nuclear region through dynamical friction. The presence of luminous asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars suggests that there were earlier such star formation episodes. Measurements of radial and proper motions for more than 200 stars delineate the stellar dynamics to a scale of a few light days from the dynamic center which is coincident with the compact radio source (SgrA*) within ~0.1" (800 AU). The stellar velocities increase toward SgrA* with a Kepler law (to >1000 km/s for the innermost stars), implying the presence of a three million solar mass central (dark) mass. The observations make a compelling case that this mass concentration is a black hole which is currently accreting at a low rate or radiating at low efficiency. With the exception of the young, massive stars the velocity field of the central stellar cluster is close to isotropic. The young stars are characterized by a turbulent rotation pattern that still carries the imprint of the angular momentum distribution in the original cloud or star cluster.
The religious freedom peace

Around the world, religion's influence on societies and politics is increasing. Arguably religion is today a more salient feature of international politics than at any point in the last 300 years. Yet this increase in religion's prominence comes at the precise time that religious expression has come under unprecedented assault from both state actions and communal hostilities involving religion. At the same time, religious extremism and violence have also been on the rise globally. This article makes the case that these two trends – repression of religion and resistance on the part of believers – are intertwined. Here, I survey four forms of violence: domestic religious terrorism, international religious terrorism, religious civil wars and interstate conflicts. In each case, I outline different pathways through which restrictions on religion lead to violence, marshal data derived and coded from conflict databases, and present brief case studies showing how states that hinder religious freedom are dispropor...
Microbial Forms in Biofouling Events

Biofouling is the result of the accumulation of inorganic and organic particulate matters along with the growth of various microorganisms on a surface. It has led to many undesirable problems in industry, medical transplant, and water distribution pipelines. The major advantages of bacterial adhesion for microbial survival are that microorganisms growing inside biofilm are much less susceptible to antimicrobial agents than are their planktonic counterparts, and the microbial adhesion to solid surface can enhance the possibility of accessing nutrients in an aqueous environment. This article describes the microorganisms' forms in biofouling formation, including different phenomena of microbial attachment to surfaces. Moreover, the competition and syntrophic correlation among microorganisms (e.g., bacteria, fungi, algae) in biofouling events are explored. Two important examples of biofouling in water industry (cooling tower and membrane water treatment system) are discussed with respect to microbial phases in biofouling layers. Finally, different types of biocides for biofouling control are introduced and compared. Keywords: biofouling; biofouling formation; nutrient adsorption; microbial correlation; bacteria; fungi; algae; competition; syntrophic; cooling tower; membrane treatment; biocide
STUDIES ON IMMUNITY IN ANTHRAX XI. Control of Cellular Permeability by Bicarbonate Ion in Relation to Protective Antigen Elaboration

Puziss, Milton (Fort Detrick, Frederick, Md.) and Mary B. Howard. Studies on immunity in anthrax. XI. Control of cellular permeability by bicarbonate ion in relation to protective antigen elaboration. J. Bacteriol. 85:237–243. 1963.—No elaboration of Bacillus anthracis protective antigen was demonstrated after addition of bicarbonate to cultures incubated 42 hr in a bicarbonate-free medium. Antigen accumulation in culture filtrates was greater if the bicarbonate was added to these cultures early in the growth period. Cell-free extracts of washed cell suspensions, prepared by hand grinding or lysozyme treatment, had no demonstrable intracellular protective antigen. Sonic treatment released antigen in measurable amounts, but tended to destroy or degrade the labile antigen. Freezing and thawing disrupted the cells and liberated the antigen; protective antigen was shown to be of internal rather than of extracellular origin. Maximal intracellular antigen concentration occurred before the peak concentration was reached in the culture filtrates. Antigen also was found in cell extracts from bicarbonate-free culture media when none was present in the corresponding culture filtrates. A high level of internal protective antigen was present in cells grown in a bicarbonate-free medium maintained at a constantly alkaline pH; only a trace of antigen was present in the corresponding pH-adjusted culture filtrate. The hypothesis is presented that bicarbonate functions to control cellular permeability and release of antigen from the cells into the ambient medium.
Caloric Restriction to Moderate Senescence: Mechanisms and Clinical Utility.

As life expectancy in the United States continues to increase, the maintenance of independence among older Americans has emerged as a major clinical and public health priority. Therefore, there is an urgent need to identify interventions that can maintain or enhance cognitive and physical function with the goal of preventing or delaying the onset of disability. To date, caloric restriction (CR) is the only method that has been consistently found to increase life span and delay the onset of age-associated diseases such as cancer and diabetes across multiple species. The promise of calorie restriction as an intervention to improve health and/or maintain function in humans, however, only holds if individuals are able to adhere to this intervention over the long term. Unfortunately, long-term adherence to CR regimens is notoriously poor, likely due to complex interactions between behavioral, physiological, psychological, and environmental variables. Thus, a current challenge for both researchers and clinicians is to identify methods that can assist individuals in maintaining CR over the long term.
Extraction of EMG signal buried in RMI noise

ABSTRACT The electromyographic signal (EMG) describes the muscle activity. But, when acquired under special conditions, such as functional Resonance Magnetic Images (fMRI), an important amount of noise, hide completely the useful signal. The purpose of this paper is to analyze fMRI noise characteristics and to develop an approach to reduce it. The proposed idea is based on spectral subtraction of the noise spectrum estimate over the entire EMG spectrum. Evaluation of the technique performances reveal that spectral subtraction is a viable artifact reduction tool that should be used with EMG collected during fMRI data acquisition.
Reconstruction with radial forearm flaps after ablative surgery for hypopharyngeal cancer

Background. Patients afflicted with advanced hypopharyngeal cancer must contend with both potentially poor survival prognosis and a compromised quality of remaining life. After extensive ablative surgery, it is imperative to use a reliable, low morbidity reconstructive strategy that will allow for an expedient reconstitution of speech and swallowing. Methods. Retrospective review of the records of 28 patients who underwent pharyngoesophageal reconstruction with radial forearm free flaps (RFFF) between 1996 and 2001 by a single surgeon (RE). Analysis was confined to patients requiring complete tubulation of the RFFF. Perioperative mortality, morbidity, and functional evaluation based on the parameters of speech and swallowing were analyzed. Results. Completely tubulated RFFF were required in 25 patients. There was 100% RFFF survival with no perioperative mortalities. The median hospital stay was 8.0 days. All patients acquired a reconstitution of oral alimentation; median time to swallowing was 18.0 days. Fourteen of 16 patients (93%) were able to rely on TEP speech as their main modality of communication. Two patients (8%) had early fistulas develop, and 5 (20%) had late fistulas develop. Nine patients (36%) required mechanical dilatation; five of the nine patients required only one dilatation. Conclusion. Review of our experience has confirmed the reliability and excellent functional outcome associated with this flap. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Head Neck 25: 261–266, 2003
General factors of affective temperament and their relation to job satisfaction over time

Abstract This study investigated the extent to which employee satisfaction is related to two broad emotional traits, Positive Affect (PA) and Negative Affect (NA). Eighty-two employees at Southern Methodist University completed trait NA and PA scales as part of their participation in a comprehensive health and fitness project. From 9 to 39 months later (mean interval = 27 months), subjects were retested on these temperament scales and also completed job change and satisfaction measures. Trait PA and NA were not only significantly correlated with several aspects of concurrent employee satisfaction, but also predicted some facets of job satisfaction that were assessed an average of over 2 years later. Finally, hierarchical multiple regression analyses indicated that emotional temperament, major job changes, and occupational quality variables each made independent contributions to the prediction of job satisfaction. These data, together with those from previous studies, demonstrate that job satisfaction can be usefully viewed in the context of the more general emotional lives of employees.
Low-osmolar contrast media in the 1990s. Guidelines for urography in a cost-sensitive environment.

OBJECTIVES The author reviews the clinical, ethical, medicolegal, and economic consequences of the routine versus limited use of low-osmolar contrast media for patients undergoing urographic and other radiologic studies. METHODS A comprehensive review of the literature since the introduction of low-osmolar contrast media was conducted, focussing on medical decision making and the economic impact of those decisions on radiologic studies requiring the administration of water-soluble contrast agents. RESULTS Compared with high-osmolar ionic contrast media, routine use of low-osmolar agents for intravascular injection during diagnostic imaging results in fewer idiosyncratic reactions in patients and potentially less renal injury in a subgroup of critically ill patients. The high cost of low-osmolar agents relative to the overall cost of the examination has prevented the universal adoption of this class of agents in the United States. CONCLUSIONS Economic pressures on private and government-based insurance plans, as well as on managed-care systems responsible for a variety of patient populations, continue to limit the availability of low-osmolar agents to the individual patient.
Fractionation and trace metal content of a commercial humic acid

Abstract Aldrich humic acid was separated into humin, humic acid, and fulvic acid. These fractions and the unfractionated humic material were wet digested and analyzed for Cu, Cd, Cr, Fe, Mn, Ni, Pb and Zn by atomic absorption. Solid samples and digests were also analyzed for manganese by neutron activation.
Lattice-ordered triangular matrix algebras

Abstract In this article we give some necessary and sufficient conditions for a lattice-ordered semigroup algebra to be isomorphic to a lattice-ordered triangular matrix algebra.
Permeation of hepatocyte growth factor across the blood-brain barrier.

Abstract Hepatocyte growth factor (HGF), mainly produced and acting in the periphery, attenuates cerebral ischemia-induced cell death and thus shows therapeutic potential in CNS regeneration. Accordingly, we tested its ability to permeate the blood–brain barrier (BBB). HGF was stable in the circulating blood of adult mice for up to 20 min, as HPLC showed intact 125 I-HGF in both serum and brain homogenate. Multiple time regression analysis revealed a rapid blood-to-brain influx rate of 0.38 ± 0.07 μl/g min, faster than might be expected for a protein of this size. Although excess unlabeled HGF failed to inhibit of the influx of 125 I-HGF in mice, the use of a higher dose of unlabeled HGF in cellular uptake studies showed the presence of saturable endocytosis. Furthermore, capillary depletion studies showed that about 32% of the HGF present in brain entered the parenchymal compartment in contrast to the 11% entrapped in endothelial cells 10 min after intravenous bolus injection. The amount of HGF that crossed the BBB in intact form was substantial and could be physiologically important in the CNS.