cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Research on the dissolved gas analysis of electrical fault simulation of natural ester insulating oils

In order to study the method of analysis the dissolved gas for the natural ester insulating oil transformer, test model was built according to the common types of electrical failures of oil-filled transformers. The discharge experiment of the natural ester insulating oil (Soybean oil and camellia seed oil) and mineral insulating oil was carried out to analyze and compare the type and percentage of gas generated under the typical discharge faults of different insulating oil and paper insulation. The results show that the main gas productions of natural ester insulating oils were CO 2 , CO and C 2 H 2 under the typical electrical faults. When the oil-immersed paper was insulated, the mineral insulating oil and natural ester insulating oil both produce more CO and CO 2 . The mineral insulating oil produced more C 2 H 2 than the natural ester insulating oil. The change of the content of CO 2 in the mineral insulating oil increases with the increase of the number of breakdowns was not obvious. The concentration of dissolved CO 2 in the natural ester insulating oil increased obviously with the increase of the breakdown times, and the concentration of CO 2 in oil with smaller water content was also lower. The characteristic gas of natural ester insulating oils was C 2 H 2 under electric breakdown fault. The gas types produced by the natural ester insulating oil were more than mineral insulating oil under the spark discharge and the partial discharge. The natural ester insulating oil mainly produced CO 2 , CO and H 2 under the spark electrical faults. When the oil-immersed paper insulation in addition to CO 2 , CO and H2, there were C2H2 generated, and total hydrocarbon content was not high; when the discharge capacity of 2×104 pC below, the discharge performance of low energy Partial discharge. The main characteristics gases of natural ester insulating oil were CO 2 , H 2 and CO under partial discharge, when the oil impregnated with insulating paper C2H2 was produced. But compared with the breakdown of discharge, the content of C2H2 was very small under the partial discharge. When the oil-immersed paper insulation, the concent of H2 in the oil increased with the increase of voltage action time, and the content of H 2 was higher than the same conditions under the pure oil test.
Measures of Spatial Equality

There has been an inequality of concern throughout history about equality as a social issue. This varying concern serves, in part, to explain the exclusion of equality in many theoretical contexts. Equality did have its moments in the intellectual sun under the pens of Aristotle, Hobbes, Rousseau, Marx and Mill. Yet, with the rise of capitalism, inequality came to be accepted as a transitional economic reality necessary for the engine of economic progress. Indeed, Kant decreed that inequality among men was a rich source of much that was evil, but also of everything that was good. Over time inequalities were to slowly decrease as economic systems matured.
Blizzard: fast, cloud-scale block storage for cloud-oblivious applications

Blizzard is a high-performance block store that exposes cloud storage to cloud-oblivious POSIX and Win32 applications. Blizzard connects clients and servers using a network with full-bisection bandwidth, allowing clients to access any remote disk as fast as if it were local. Using a novel striping scheme, Blizzard exposes high disk parallelism to both sequential and random workloads; also, by decoupling the durability and ordering requirements expressed by flush requests, Blizzard can commit writes out-of-order, providing high performance and crash consistency to applications that issue many small, random IOs. Blizzard's virtual disk drive, which clients mount like a normal physical one, provides maximum throughputs of 1200 MB/s, and can improve the performance of unmodified, cloud-oblivious applications by 2x-10x. Compared to EBS, a commercially available, state-of-the-art virtual drive for cloud applications, Blizzard can improve SQL server IOp rates by seven-fold while still providing crash consistency.
Applying non-parametric testing to discrete transfer entropy

Abstract Transfer entropy (TE) is a powerful algorithm which attempts to detect the transfer of information from one system to another. In neuroscience, it has the potential to track the movement of information through complex neuronal systems, and provide powerful insights into their organization and operation. One such application is the ability to infer the existence of causal connectivity (such as synaptic pathways) between neurons in a culture being recorded by micro-electrode array (MEA). There are several challenges, however, in applying TE to neurological data; one of these is the ability to robustly classify what experimental TE value qualifies as significant. We find that common methods in spike train analysis such as a Z-test cannot be applied, as their assumptions are not met. Instead, we utilize surrogate data to compute a sample under the null hypothesis (no causal connection), and resample experimental data through Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods to create a sample of TE values under experimental conditions. A standard non-parametric test (Mann-Whitney U-test) is then applied to compare these samples, and determine if they represent a significant connection. We have applied this methodology to MEA recordings of neuronal cultures developing over a period of roughly a month, and find that it provides a wealth of information regarding the cultures9 maturity. This includes features such as the directed graph of causal connections across the MEA and identification of information exchange centers. These results are consistent and carry a well-defined significance level.
Independent regulation of thioredoxin-1 and glutathione in UVB-irradiated keratinocytes (HaCaT)

Oxidative stress has long been defined as an imbalance of intracellular oxidizing and reducing equivalents in favor of the former. However, the last 15 years have seen substantial research revealing that the endogenous antioxidant response is more complex than previously imagined. In the present study, we show that two thiol/disulfide couples with important antioxidant functions, glutathione (GSH) and thioredoxin-1 (Trx1), are regulated independent of one another in UVB-irradiated human keratinocytes (HaCaT), supporting the notion that oxidative stress is not defined by a global imbalance of oxidants and antioxidants, but by disruptions to specific redox pathways. In keratinocytes treated with 30 mJ/cm2 of UVB radiation, GSH steady-state redox potentials (Eh) shift from -241 mV to -177 mV at 1 hour post-treatment; this shift corresponds with a similar shift in the redox state of glutaredoxin, a GSH-dependent couple containing a thioredoxin motif. Significantly, Trx1 redox state does not show a positive shift following UVB treatment, but a negative shift toward a more reducing potential, suggesting that Trx1 is resistant to UVB-induced oxidation in spite of being upregulated post-treatment. These data indicate that GSH and Trx1 operate within discrete pathways under non-reciprocal regulation. We further demonstrate that GSH operates within specific pathways incident to different oxidant exposures. Distinct S-glutathionylated protein targets exist for UVB and H2O2 treatment groups and untreated controls, as shown via western blot. Protein targets were identified with mass spectrometry, producing unique sets of GSH interactors for the three different treatment groups. Each set of interactors contains significant numbers of proteins involved in coherent molecular pathways as determined by STRING pathway analysis, reinforcing a paradigm where oxidative stress is marked principally by disruptions to specific redox pathways, not a general oxidant/antioxidant equilibrium.
Amniotic membrane and placental histopathological findings after open and fetoscopic prenatal neural tube defect repair.

OBJECTIVES To describe and compare placental and amniotic histology in women who underwent a fetoscopic myelomeningocele repair to those who underwent an open hysterotomy myelomeningocele repair. Also, we intended to compare findings from both prenatal repair groups to age-matched control pregnant patients. METHODS Placental and membrane histopathology from 43 prenatally repaired spina bifida cases (17 fetoscopic and 26 open) and 18 healthy controls were retrospectively assessed. Quantitative assessment of histopathology included apoptosis count and maternal and fetal underperfusion scores. Qualitative assessment included the detection of pigmented macrophages and/or signs of placental/amniotic inflammation. Associations between the duration of surgery or the duration of CO2 insufflation and quantitative histological parameters were tested. RESULTS Fetoscopic surgery cases did not show significant differences in any of the studied parameters when compared against controls. No differences were detected either when compared with open repaired cases, except for lower proportion of pigmented laden macrophages in the fetoscopic group (11.8% vs 61.5%, P < 0.01). No associations between the duration of surgery or the duration of CO2 exposure and any of the quantitative histological parameters were detected. CONCLUSIONS These preliminary results support the lack of detrimental effects of the use of heated and humidified CO2 gas for uterine insufflation to fetal membranes and placenta.
Electromagnetic evaluation of brick specimens using synthetic aperture radar imaging

Abstract Condition assessment of masonry structures is important for maintaining their safety and durability. In this paper, a 10-GHz synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging system is proposed for assessing the condition of brick specimens. Three brick specimens of different sizes were manufactured and imaged remotely by the SAR system inside an anechoic chamber at different ranges (from 0.4 m to 0.9 m). Empirical models for ranging, sizing and predicting dielectric constant of brick specimens were developed from the SAR images. Range, size, and dielectric constant of a brick specimen can be calculated from the amplitudes and distribution from its SAR image.
Energy Efficiency of RSMA and NOMA in Cellular-Connected mmWave UAV Networks

Cellular-connected unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are recently getting significant attention due to various practical use cases, e.g., surveillance, data gathering, purchase delivery, among other applications. Since UAVs are low power nodes, energy and spectral efficient communication is of paramount importance. To that end, multiple access (MA) schemes can play an important role in achieving high energy efficiency and spectral efficiency. In this work, we introduce rate-splitting MA (RSMA) and non-orthogonal MA (NOMA) schemes in a cellular-connected UAV network. In particular, we investigate the energy efficiency of the RSMA and NOMA schemes in a millimeter-wave (mmWave) downlink transmission scenario. Furthermore, we optimize precoding vectors of both the schemes by explicitly taking into account the 3GPP antenna propagation patterns. The numerical results for this realistic transmission scheme indicate that RSMA is superior to NOMA in terms of overall energy efficiency.
Helpful sternal wound vacuum-assisted closure techniques in two open chest situations: Central extracorporeal membrane oxygenation and sternal infection.

BACKGROUND Dressing open sternal wounds after cardiac surgery can be challenging. In cases where extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) is required, the sternum is left open with cannulae traversing the wound, making it difficult to create a water-tight seal and maintain sterility. Patients with a deep sternal infection may also be left with an open sternum between the time of debridement and reconstruction; in such cases, stabilizing the dressing in an ambulatory patient can pose a challenge. METHODS Two cases are reviewed, each highlighting the solutions to the problems mentioned above. RESULTS In case 1, a patient with an open sternum and central ECMO, we describe construction of a dressing that achieves air seal and blood seal, and helps maintain the cannulae in a safe, stable position. In case 2, an ambulatory patient, we describe a modification of a recently published "Two Bridge Technique" that provides a stable dressing in three dimensions. CONCLUSION Performance of specific techniques and attention to detail in complex situations can make a big difference in open sternum patients treated with temporary, vacuum-assisted dressings. Achieving vacuum and fluid seal is important for sterility, integrity of adjacent skin, and caregiver safety.
Examining the case for long-range battery electric vehicles with a generalized description of driving patterns

Abstract Usage data from fleets of instrumented vehicles in several US cities have been used in numerous studies of the prospective costs, benefits and customer acceptance of battery-electric vehicles (BEV). In turn, the results of these studies can be used to design policies and strategies that promote electrification of personal transportation. Any broader application of the results of these regional studies carries the implicit assumption that vehicle usage in the affected population is similar to that of population selected for the underlying usage study. Given this projection of behavior from one population onto others, replacement of the raw usage data with a statistical representation of the heterogeneity of vehicle usage should be equally valid while reducing elaborate studies of large data sets to just a few equations and spreadsheet calculations. We demonstrate this analytic approach in a study of the trade-off between increasing cost and convenience of incremental all-electric range (AER), and the cost of fast chargers needed whenever range is insufficient for a given day of travel. Three scenarios are considered: (1) A single range was assigned to all vehicles regardless of individual usage, (2) a common tolerance for the frequency of charging away from home was ascribed to all users and the range computed accordingly, and (3) the range that minimized the combined cost of batteries and electricity was computed for each vehicle. All three methods suggest optimal fleet-average range of approximately 175 km. However, both the frequency of visits to fast-charging stations and the energy drawn from those chargers is reduced by allowing users to choose the range that best matches their needs. For example, allowing a choice of range that results in a fleet average range of 200 km in place of a common fixed range of 200 km, the frequency of visits to fast chargers is reduced by 25% and the energy drawn from those chargers is reduced by over 50%. These results suggest that the total cost of universal BEV deployment can be reduced by allowing users to choose the BEV range that matches their needs.
Public deliberation and social justice sensibilities in Greensboro Participatory Budgeting

Participatory budgeting (PB) has emerged as a tool for empowering marginalized communities and advancing social justice through public deliberation and advocacy. However, public deliberation schola...
Robotic low anterior resection for a distal sigmoid colon cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic: a video vignette.

The COVID-19 pandemic brings unprecedented challenges for both surgeons and patients. For patients who still require surgical management during this time, measures to decrease exposure risk during their hospitalization should be a priority. Minimally invasive approaches to low anterior resections (LAR) have been shown to result in early return of bowel function and a short length of stay.
Gritty sets and functions

We define a subset of the unit interval to be gritty if it intersects every subinterval with positive measure but does not contain any subinterval. A countable sequence of pairwise disjoint gritty sets is constructed. These are then used to construct a function which is strictly increasing but has zero derivative on a set of positive measure and a function which is unbounded on a subset of positive measure of every subinterval yet has a finite integral.
Psychiatric Evaluation and Management in Pediatric Spinal Cord Injuries: a Review.

To summarize current key recommendations in the evaluation and management of mental health disorders associated with spinal cord injuries (SCI) among pediatric patients, based on a review of recent evidence-based literature and clinical experience. Anticipating potential mental health risks among youth with SCI and implementing early multidisciplinary management improves physical and mental health outcomes. When caregivers of youth with SCI model healthy coping strategies, it promotes healthy coping strategies in patients themselves. Peer mentor programs can be instrumental in patient adjustment, improve mental health, and aid in recovery. Pediatric SCI is particularly impactful on a child’s development and individuation. Early involvement of a mental health team while in the hospital can help with the initial adjustment period and address psychiatric concerns that might interfere with recovery. The transition from the hospital to home is a period of vulnerability for individuals with SCI.
Incorporating Universal Design into Tsunami Modeling Results for Cascadia Subduction Zone Faults to Create an Inundation Map and Universally Designed Evacuation Map for Port Angeles, WA

Current tsunami hazard inundation and evacuation maps in the Puget Sound are based primarily on Cascadia and Seattle fault tsunamis. The standard evaluation process for tsunami impacts focuses on elevation and hypothetical fault rupture of known and predicted earthquakes. However, there are several known tsunami deposits in the Puget Sound that are not from Cascadia or Seattle fault tsunamis, potentially from other faults within the region, that could affect tsunami mitigation. Work to understand newly discovered crustal deformation and faults in Puget Sound is ongoing, therefore evacuation and inundation maps need to be updated to include these new faults and integrate universal design more broadly. Methods involved using GeoClaw software to map tsunamis from the Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ), Leech River fault (LRF), and Utsalady Point fault (UPF). Modeled tsunamis determined the overall inundation of Port Angeles, Washington through a wide range of earthquake inputs of magnitude, proximity, and recurrence. The output simulations were evaluated with key components of universal design to create a new tsunami hazard map. Comparison between the universal design-based map to current the tsunami hazard map allowed for an evaluation of the current evacuation map. This evaluation can improve the assessment of bridges and other evacuation mechanisms. This research can contribute to future tsunami hazard map revisions saving lives, can help with emergency management planning, and spur reevaluating evacuation plans within the tsunami impact area.
Disparate Practice Patterns and Survival Outcomes: The Impact of Centralization of Cancer Care for Adrenocortical Carcinoma in the United States.

Purpose:Adrenocortical carcinoma is a rare but aggressive malignancy. While centralization of care to referral centers improves outcomes across common urological malignancies, there exists a paucit...
Comparison of Gravity Independence Criteria for Two-Phase Flow

The effect of gravity on two-phase flow phenomena depends on the relative magnitude of the gravity force to inertia, viscous, and surface tension forces. Two-phase flow research has investigated he...
Apollo:: An ML-assisted Real-Time Storage Resource Observer

Applications and middleware services, such as data placement engines, I/O scheduling, and prefetching engines, require low-latency access to telemetry data in order to make optimal decisions. However, typical monitoring services store their telemetry data in a database in order to allow applications to query them, resulting in significant latency penalties. This work presents Apollo: a low-latency monitoring service that aims to provide applications and middleware libraries with direct access to relational telemetry data. Monitoring the system can create interference and overhead, slowing down raw performance of the resources for the job. However, having a current view of the system can aid middleware services in making more optimal decisions which can ultimately improve the overall performance. Apollo has been designed from the ground up to provide low latency, using Publish-Subscriber Pub-Sub semantics, and low overhead, using adaptive intervals in order to change the length of time between polling the resource for telemetry data and machine learning in order to predict changes to the telemetry data between actual resource polling. This work also provides some high level abstractions called I/O curators, which can further aid middleware libraries and applications to make optimal decisions. Evaluations showcase that Apollo can achieve sub-millisecond latency for acquiring complex insights with a memory overhead of ~57 MB and CPU overhead being only 7% more than existing state-of-the-art systems.
Acupuncture: A Clinical Option for Pain Management

Acupuncture is an ancient medical practice looking to find a place in western clinics. This article details the history, proposed mechanisms of action, and efficacy of acupuncture.
HyperSF: Spectral Hypergraph Coarsening via Flow-based Local Clustering.

Hypergraphs allow modeling problems with multi-way high-order relationships. However, the computational cost of most existing hypergraph-based algorithms can be heavily dependent upon the input hypergraph sizes. To address the ever-increasing computational challenges, graph coarsening can be potentially applied for preprocessing a given hypergraph by aggressively aggregating its vertices (nodes). However, state-of-the-art hypergraph partitioning (clustering) methods that incorporate heuristic graph coarsening techniques are not optimized for preserving the structural (global) properties of hypergraphs. In this work, we propose an efficient spectral hypergraph coarsening scheme (HyperSF) for well preserving the original spectral (structural) properties of hypergraphs. Our approach leverages a recent strongly-local max-flow-based clustering algorithm for detecting the sets of hypergraph vertices that minimize ratio cut. To further improve the algorithm efficiency, we propose a divide-and-conquer scheme by leveraging spectral clustering of the bipartite graphs corresponding to the original hypergraphs. Our experimental results for a variety of hypergraphs extracted from real-world VLSI design benchmarks show that the proposed hypergraph coarsening algorithm can significantly improve the multi-way conductance of hypergraph clustering as well as runtime efficiency when compared with existing state-of-the-art algorithms.
Measuring brain glucose metabolism in order to predict response to antidepressant or placebo: A randomized clinical trial.

There is critical need for a clinically useful tool to predict antidepressant treatment outcome in major depressive disorder (MDD) to reduce suffering and mortality. This analysis sought to build upon previously reported antidepressant treatment efficacy prediction from 2-[18F]-fluorodeoxyglucose - Positron Emission Tomography (FDG-PET) using metabolic rate of glucose uptake (MRGlu) from dynamic FDG-PET imaging with the goal of translation to clinical utility. This investigation is a randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled trial. All participants were diagnosed with MDD and received an FDG-PET scan before randomization and after treatment. Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS-17) was completed in participants diagnosed with MDD before and after 8 weeks of escitalopram, or placebo. MRGlu (mg/(min*100 ml)) was estimated within the raphe nuclei, right insula, and left ventral Prefrontal Cortex in 63 individuals. Linear regression was used to examine the association between pretreatment MRGlu and percent decrease in HDRS-17. Additionally, the association between percent decrease in HDRS-17 and percent change in MRGlu between pretreatment scan and post-treatment scan was examined. Covariates were treatment type (SSRI/placebo), handedness, sex, and age. Depression severity decrease (n = 63) was not significantly associated with pretreatment MRGlu in the raphe nuclei (β = -2.61e-03 [-0.26, 0.25], p = 0.98), right insula (β = 0.05 [-0.23, 0.32], p = 0.72), or ventral prefrontal cortex (β = 0.06 [-0.23, 0.34], p = 0.68) where β is the standardized estimated coefficient, with a 95% confidence interval, or in whole brain voxelwise analysis (family-wise error correction, alpha = 0.05). MRGlu percent change was not significantly associated with depression severity decrease (n = 58) before multiple comparison correction in the RN (β = 0.20 [-0.07, 0.47], p = 0.15), right insula (β = 0.24 [-0.03, 0.51], p = 0.08), or vPFC (β = 0.22 [-0.06, 0.50], p = 0.12). We propose that FDG-PET imaging does not indicate a clinically relevant biomarker of escitalopram or placebo treatment response in heterogeneous major depressive disorder cohorts. Future directions include focusing on potential biologically-based subtypes of major depressive disorder by implementing biomarker stratified designs.
Identification of a slime exopolysaccharide depolymerase in mucoid strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Strains ofPseudomonas aeruginosa recovered from pulmonary infections in cystic fibrosis (CF) patients are often mucoid in appearance owing to the secretion of a viscous slime exopolysaccharide (EPS). Unlike most mucoid isolates, strains WcM#2, P10, and P11 produce mucoid colonies after 24 h of incubation at 37°C, which become nonmucoid upon further incubation; this suggests the presence of a slime-degrading enzyme or depolymerase. Using both qualitative and quantitative assays, the presence of a slime EPS depolymerase was confirmed in each of these three strains as well as in four of four additional mucoid strains. Depolymerase activity was lower but still detectable in four of four nonmucoid strains. Enzyme preparations from strains WcM#2, P10, and P11 were active on most, but not all, slime EPS preparations fromP. aeruginosa strains, as well as sodium alginate; greater activity was observed on substrates after deacetylation. Comparisons are made between the enzyme described in this study and previous reports of slime EPS depolymerase in mucoid strains ofP. aeruginosa.
Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer All-Sky Monitor Localization of SGR 1627-41

The fourth unambiguously identified soft gamma repeater (SGR), SGR 1627-41, was discovered with the BATSE instrument on 1998 June 15. Interplanetary Network (IPN) measurements and BATSE data constrained the location of this new SGR to a 6° segment of a narrow (19'') annulus. We present two bursts from this source observed by the All-Sky Monitor (ASM) on the Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer. We use the ASM data to further constrain the source location to a 5' long segment of the BATSE/IPN error box. The ASM/IPN error box lies within 03 of the supernova remnant G337.0-0.1. The probability that a supernova remnant would fall so close to the error box purely by chance is ~5%.
New Evapotranspiration Crop Coefficients

Improved crop coefficients for various Pacific Northwest irrigated crops were developed for estimating crop evapotranspiration (ET) from estimates or measurements of reference ET. Reference ET was based on that for well watered, actively growing alfalfa with sufficient growth for near maximum ET in arid, irrigated regions. ET for the alfalfa reference crop and other crops was measured with sensitive weighing lysimeters at the field site near Kimberly, Idaho. The new crop coefficients are basal or minimal coefficients for conditions when soil evaporation is minimal but root-zone soil moisture is adequate. When combined with improved estimates of evaporation from wet soils, they should permit more accurate estimates of daily crop ET, more accurate irrigation scheduling, and more reliable estimates of crop water requirements. Curves were developed for alfalfa, potatoes, snap beans, sugarbeets, peas, sweet and field corn and winter and spring cereals.
α Channeling in a Rotating Plasma

The wave-particle α-channeling effect is generalized to include rotating plasma. Specifically, radio frequency waves can resonate with α particles in a mirror machine with E × B rotation to diffuse the α particles along constrained paths in phase space. Of major interest is that the α-particle energy, in addition to amplifying the RF waves, can directly enhance the rotation energy which in turn provides additional plasma confinement in centrifugal fusion reactors. An ancillary benefit is the rapid removal of alpha particles, which increases the fusion reactivity.
Ultraslow Optical Dephasing of Pr3+:LaF3

Optical free induction dephasing times as long as 16 μsec, corresponding to an optical homogeneous linewidth of 10 kHz, have been observed for the 3H4↔1D2 transition of Pr3+ ions in LaF3 at 2°K. Measurements are facilitated by a frequency-locked cw dye laser and a new form of laser frequency switching. Zeeman studies reveal a Pr-F dipole-dipole dephasing mechanism where the Pr nuclear moment is enhanced in both 1D2 and 3H4.
“Can a physically secure RFID be produced?”: A review of RFDNA

A certificate of authenticity (COA) is an inexpensive physical object that has a random unique structure with high cost of near-exact reproduction. An additional requirement is that the uniqueness of COA's random structure can be verified using an inexpensive device. A COA design for objects that behave as COAs in the electromagnetic field is proposed. The objective is to complement RFIDs so that they are physically, not only digitally, unique and hard to replicate. By enabling this feature, it is desired to create a super-tag whose information about the product can be read within a relative far-field, and also whose authenticity can be verified within its near-field with low probability of a false alarm. This can ultimately lead to a physically-secure RFID.
Trypsinogen-activation peptides in experimental rat pancreatitis: Prognostic implications and histopathologic correlates

Abstract Intrapancreatic activation of trypsinogens is believed to occur either as a cause or a consequence of acute pancreatitis and to be associated with the more severe forms of the disease. Trypsinogen-activation peptides (TAPs) were measured in plasma, urine, and ascites of rats (n = 54) assigned to different pancreatitis-inducing regimens reproducing the entire spectrum of severity. Compared with survivors, nonsurvivors at 9 hours had significantly higher TAP levels in plasma at 3 hours ( P = 0.0001), urine (peak, 1–4 hours) ( P = 0.004), and ascites ( P = 0.0001) after death. Stepwise discriminant analysis showed that TAP in urine and plasma were the most accurate predictors of outcome (88.2% of animals) compared with other routine laboratory parameters. Morphometric analysis showed that the best histopathologic correlates of TAP elevation were acinar necrosis and intrapancreatic hemorrhage. In a second series of experiments using a homogeneous technique of induction producing pancreatitis with a mortality of 55% at 48 hours, plasma TAP level at 3 hours (cutoff, 0.5 nmol/L) and/or urinary TAP level (peak, 1–6 hours; cutoff, 25 nmol/L) accurately predicted outcome in 85% of animals. It is concluded that the TAP assay gives an accurate early prediction of outcome in different pancreatitis models and correlates best with acinar necrosis and hemorrhage.
The greenhouse development rights framework for global burden sharing: reflection on principles and prospects

The Greenhouse Development Rights (GDRs) Framework is a proposal for a global climate agreement in which the obligations assigned to nations are based on a combination of responsibility (contribution to the problem) and capacity (ability to pay). A key feature of the GDRs framework is that it is modeled on the assignment of a ‘right to development’ to individuals, such that individuals with incomes below a ‘development threshold’ are nominally exempted from obligations to pay for mitigation and adaptation. Obligations for those ‘over the threshold’ are calculated in the same way for rich persons in poor countries and rich persons in rich countries. As income distribution within countries is taken into account and all countries have some wealthy people, all countries have a positive obligation to contribute to global mitigation and adaptation requirements, eliminating the sharp distinction between Annex I and non-Annex I countries. In the last few years, GDRs has become one of the most widely known of the many so-called burden-sharing frameworks that have been proposed. In this essay, one of the co-authors of the GDRs framework presents the framework's fundamental principles, describes its place in the larger discussion of burden-sharing and climate justice, and reflects on its prospects in the next phase of the global climate negotiations. Hopefully it will be helpful both to readers new to GDRs and to our existing supporters and critics. WIREs Clim Change 2013, 4:61–71. doi: 10.1002/wcc.201 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.
The Spectrum of 1ES0229 + 200 and the Cosmic Infrared Background

Aims. We reexamine the implications of the recent HESS observations of the blazar 1ES0229+200 for constraining the extragalactic mid-infrared background radiation. Methods. We examine the effect of gamma-ray absorption by the extragalactic infrared radiation on predicted intrinsic spectra for this blazar and compare our results with the observational data. Results. We find agreement with our previous results on the shape of the infrared spectral energy distribution, contrary to the recent assertion of the HESS group. Our analysis indicates that 1ES0229+200 has a very hard intrinsic spectrum with a spectral index between 1.1 +/- 0.3 and 1.5 0.3 in the energy range between 0.5 TeV and 15 TeV. Conclusions. Under the assumptions that (1) the models of Stecker et al. as derived from numerous detailed infrared observations are reasonable, and (2) spectral indexes in the range 1 < Gamma < 1.5 are obtainable from relativistic shock acceleration under the astrophysical conditions extant in blazar flares, the fits to the observations of 1ES0229+200 using our previous infrared spectral energy distributions are consistent with both the infrared and -ray observations. Our analysis presents evidence indicating that the energy spectrum of relativistic particles in 1ES0229+200 is produced by relativistic shock acceleration, producing an intrinsic gamma-ray spectrum with index 1 < Gamma < 1.5 and with no evidence of a peak in the spectral energy distribution up to energies approximately 15 TeV.
Constructing a Dialogue: Geographic Education and Geographic Research

Geographic researchers and those who specialize in educational issues have paid insufficient attention to one another. Many theoreticians are openly contemptuous of those who study education; many who focus on pedagogy are unnecessarily defensive. This essay calls for a program of sustained intercourse that is explicitly mutually transformative in nature. It reviews what each perspective offers the other. A change in attitude among those who emphasize geographic research is needed that takes pedagogy far more seriously than it has hitherto. Conversely, geographers whose professional interest is in education would benefit from including new conceptual material such as social theory and political economy in pedagogic works. The results of such an intersection would be to inject new energy into the field, including secondary schools, widen geography's audience, and enhance its popular reputation.
Interactions Between the Host Innate Immune System and Microbes in Inflammatory Bowel Disease

The intestinal immune system defends against pathogens and entry of excessive intestinal microbes; simultaneously, a state of immune tolerance to resident intestinal microbes must be maintained. Perturbation of this balance is associated with intestinal inflammation in various mouse models and is thought to predispose humans to inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The innate immune system senses microbes; dendritic cells, macrophages, and epithelial cells produce an initial, rapid response. The immune system continuously monitors resident microbiota and utilizes constitutive antimicrobial mechanisms to maintain immune homeostasis. associations between IBD and genes that regulate microbial recognition and innate immune pathways, such as nucleotide oligomerization domain 2 (Nod2), genes that control autophagy (eg, ATG16L1, IRGM), and genes in the interleukin-23–T helper cell 17 pathway indicate the important roles of host-microbe interactions in regulating intestinal immune homeostasis. There is increasing evidence that intestinal microbes influence host immune development, immune responses, and susceptibility to human diseases such as IBD, diabetes mellitus, and obesity. Conversely, host factors can affect microbes, which in turn modulate disease susceptibility. We review the cell populations and mechanisms that mediate interactions between host defense and tolerance and how the dysregulation of host-microbe interactions leads to intestinal inflammation and IBD.
Quaternary Derivatives of Benzoyltropine and Benzoyl-ψ-tropine with Anticholinergic and Local Anæsthetic Properties

IN the course of experiments dealing with correlations between structure and effect of cholinergic-blocking (antimuscarine, antinicotinic) actions1,2, it has been found that in the case of compounds with tropeine structure the influence exerted on the effects by different quaternary groups shows great variations. Quaternary derivatives of tropeines possessing local anaesthetic properties, for example, benzoyltropine (= benzoyl-anti-tropine)3, as well as benzoyl-ψ-tropine (= benzoyl-syn-tropine), have been prepared and studied5, special consideration being given to the correlations between stereo-structure and pharmacological effect. Antimuscarine, ganglionic-blocking, curare-like, as well as local anaesthetic actions have been investigated. The effects of the individual compounds are shown in the accompanying table.
Bis[2-(3-carboxyphenoxy)carbonylethyl]phosphinic Acid (m-BCCEP): A Novel Affinity Cross-Linking Reagent for the β-Cleft Modification of Human Hemoglobin

The design and synthesis of bis[2-(3-carboxyphenoxy)carbonylethyl]phosphinic acid (m-BCCEP, 1) as a site-directed affinity reagent for cross-linking human hemoglobin have been reported as part of our long-term goal to generate artificial blood for emergency transfusions. Molecular modeling techniques were used to design the reagent, employing crystal coordinates of human hemoglobin A0 imported from the Protein Data Bank. It was synthesized in four steps commencing from 3-hydroxybenzoic acid. The reagent 1 was converted to its trisodium salt to allow effective cross-linking in an aqueous medium. The reagent 1, as its trisodium salt, was found to specifically cross-link stroma-free human hemoglobin A0 in the β-cleft under oxygenated reaction conditions at neutral pH. The SDS-PAGE analyses of the modified hemoglobin pointed to the molecular mass range of 32 kDa as anticipated. The HPLC analyses of the product suggested that the cross-link had formed between the β1-β2 subunits. Molecular dynamics simulation s...
Feedlot performance and carcass characteristics of spring-born wethers finished and processed in the fall or spring

Abstract Seasonal availability of lamb in the Western United States contributes to a large fluctuation in lamb supply. However, alternatives to fall marketing may not be practical unless feedlot performance and carcass characteristics of older lambs finished in the spring is equal to or superior to fall finished lambs. Our objective was to evaluate feedlot performance and carcass characteristics of spring-born wether lambs that were either feedlot finished in the fall and slaughtered at 7–8 months of age, or feedlot finished in the spring and slaughtered at 14–15 months of age. April- and May-born whiteface wethers ( n = 240) were used in a complete random design experiment with wethers finished on an 80% whole barley-based diet starting when they were either 5–6 months (FALL), or 12–13 months (SPRING) of age in October or May, respectively. Wethers were fed in outdoor pens with 12-pens/finishing trial, four lambs/pen, and six finishing trials (three fall and three spring) during a 3-year period. Feedlot response variables included BW, DMi, gain:feed ratios, ADG, and body composition. Carcass variables were body wall thickness, back fat, yield, and USDA quality grade. Year × treatment interactions were detected for all feedlot variables ( P P > 0.50). Intake, ADG, final BW (years 2 and 3 only), and body wall thickness were greater ( P P > 0.05) between FALL and SPRING finished lambs. Gain:feed ratio did not differ ( P > 0.05) between FALL and SPRING wethers in year 1, but was greater ( P P
Prediction of cooling time in injection molding by means of a simplified semianalytical equation

A simplified semianalytical equation, used successfully in food freezing/chilling time prediction, is proposed as a potential simple alternative for cooling time prediction in injection molding of polymer parts, amorphous or semicrystalline. This equation is based on a convective boundary condition for the mold-part interface and requires information on the thermal contact resistance (TCR) or thermal contact conductance (TCC) at this interface, as well as information on the initial and final product temperatures, the mold surface temperature, and the thermal properties of the part. Eighty-five data points for four polymers, Polystyrene (PS), Polycarbonate (PC), Polypropylene (PP), and Polyethylene (PE) were generated with C-MOLD™, a commercial injection molding design software, and the performance of the proposed equation was tested. The % mean error and its standard deviation (SD) in cooling time prediction were, respectively, −11.61 and 2.27 for PS, −6.04 and 2.13 for PC, −7.27 and 6.55 for PP, and −8.88 and 2.93 for PE. It was also shown that the accuracy of the proposed equation is not affected significantly by the exact knowledge of the TCC, provided that the latter is not smaller than 1000–2000 W m−2 K−1. Since in this comparison all necessary temperatures were obtained from C-MOLD™, methods of using the proposed equation independently were tested. The use of the inlet melt temperature as the initial product temperature increased the % mean error by mostly 1.5% while its SD remained practically the same. By incorporating a literature based heat balance method in the proposed equation, it was possible to use it as a stand-alone predictor of polymer cooling time. The % mean error and its SD calculated this way were, respectively, −9.44 and 0.97 for PS, −9.44 and 0.83 for PC, −14.22 and 5 for PP, and −20.12 and 1.38 for PE. The proposed equation, at least in a preliminary stage, can be used successfully to predict the cooling time of the selected semicrystalline or amorphous polymers with the accuracy being higher for amorphous polymers. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Adv Polym Techn 22: 188–208, 2003; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/adv.10048
Location and PCR‐based detection of three polymorphisms of the human erythrocyte β‐spectrin gene (SPTB)

Summary. Defects of β spectrin, a structural protein of the erythrocyte membrane skeleton, have been identified in many cases of inherited disorders of red blood cell shape such as hereditary elliptocytosis and spherocytosis. To aid in genetic analyses of families with these disorders, the locations of three β-spectrin gene (SPTB) polymorphisms were mapped and PCR-based assays designed for their identification. Using these PCR-based assays, the frequencies of these polymorphisms were determined in two populations.
Tipranavir: a new protease inhibitor for the pediatric population

Highly active antiretroviral therapy can provide sustained viral suppression and a beneficial immunological response in both antiretroviral-naive and -experienced pediatric patients infected with HIV. While there have been many antiretroviral studies in adults infected with HIV, considerably less information is available in similar HIV-infected pediatric or adolescent patients. Tipranavir, a new-generation protease inhibitor approved for use in adults with resistant HIV strains, has recently been studied in HIV-infected children and adolescents. In this article, we summarize available pharmacokinetic, safety, tolerability and efficacy data obtained from children and adolescents treated with a pediatric tipranavir formulation.
Barbara Jordan's symbolic use of language in the keynote address to the national women's conference

Barbara Jordan's keynote address to the National Women's Conference provides a focus for this analysis of her symbolic use of language. Numerous qualities contribute to Jordan's effectiveness as a rhetor, however, four dimensions of effective political language, drawn primarily from the works of Murray Edelman, serve as interdependent considerations for this analysis. The four dimensions are: (1) How Jordan creates unifying images in her discourse; (2) How Jordan reasons with her audience; (3) How Jordan's discourse reinforces symbolic images for her audience; (4) How Jordan creates participatory roles for her listeners.
PSYCHOMETRIC COMPARISON OF OLD AND YOUNG SUPERVISORS

Summary.-Supervisors (n = 67) in a large government supply depot were studied on a large number of variables. Statistically significant differences berween older and younger supervisors were found on 13 variables drawn from G standard psychological tesn. No differences were found in ratings from superiors, morale factors, or variables concerned with work group performance. Much research has been done on the physiological aspects of aging; understanding of the psychological factors in aging, however, is still minimal. Armchair theories have focused on the traumatic aspects of later life, and many present concepts are based upon old data interpreted in the early days of actuarial prediction. Unfortunately, the number of empirical studies is still small. The present investigation is an attempt to expand objective psychological data in this area. METHOD As a part of a larger study conducted by the senior author, a battery of psychological tests, check lists, and rating scales was administered to a group of 67 male supervisors at a large supply depot operated by the U. S. Government. Each supervisor was responsible for the total direction of a work group engaged in a variety of warehouse and supply functions including storage, maintenance, packaging, and shipment. Although the kinds of material handled and the technical knowledge required varied widely among departments, the basic supervisory functions and responsibilities were highly homogeneous. Objective data from personnel records were also made available. In all, more than 60 measures were obtained for each S. The following psychological tests were included in the battery: The American Council on Education Psychological Examination (ACE), 2 variables; The California F Scale; The Empathy Test; The Hidden-figures Test (HFT) ; The Guilford-Zimmerman Temperament Survey (G-2) ; How Supervise?; The Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16 PF), 16 variables; The George Washington University Social Intelligence Test (GWSIT) , 5 variables; and The Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (W-G). In addition, a questionnaire using items identified by French (1953) as factorally pure measures of alertness, social resourcefulness, self-confidence, and sociabiliry was constructed and administered along with the standard psychological tests. Each S was rated on a linear scale of supervisory effectiveness by his immediate superior. Data from personnel records were organized to describe the work group of each S in terms of number of accidents reported, number of suggestions submitted, number of awards received, number of workers recognized for superior