cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Treatment of Actinic Keratoses: A Randomized Split-Site Approach Comparison of Sequential 5-Fluorouracil and 5-Aminolevulinic Acid Photodynamic Therapy to 5-Aminolevulinic Acid Photodynamic Monotherapy.

Background Actinic keratoses (AKs) are skin lesions resulting from sun exposure and carry a risk of developing into squamous cell carcinoma. Current therapies for AK eradication include topical 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) and photodynamic therapy (PDT) with topical 5-aminolevulinic acid (ALA). However, sequential therapy with 5-FU-ALA-PDT may offer improved outcome compared to ALA-PDT alone. Objective The purpose of this study is to compare the long-term efficacy of AK clearance by sequential therapy with 5-FU-ALA-PDT versus ALA-PDT alone. Materials and methods This is a single center, randomized split-site approach study on equivalent anatomical and clinical sites. Seventeen patients were enrolled with one half of the site randomized to receive sequential 5-FU-ALA-PDT and the other side with ALA-PDT monotherapy. Total AKs were counted at baseline, 6 and 12 months. Results Median percentage reduction in AK number at 6 months for 5-FU-ALA-PDT versus ALA-PDT was 100% for 5-FU-ALA-PDT (N = 21) and 66.7% for ALA-PDT (N = 21), p = .001. Median percentage reduction in AK number at 12 months for 5-FU-ALA-PDT versus ALA-PDT was 100% for 5-FU-ALA-PDT (N = 22) and 82.6% for ALA-PDT (N = 22), p = .0002. Conclusion Sequential therapy with 5-FU-ALA-PDT is more effective at AK clearance at 6 and 12 months compared to ALA-PDT monotherapy.
Initial Diagnostic Evaluation of Stable Coronary Artery Disease: The Need for a Patient-Centered Strategy.

The diagnosis and subsequent management of coronary artery disease (CAD) represents a major challenge to our healthcare systems, affecting millions of patients each year. Despite many years and literally thousands of publications, the optimal approach for the evaluation of stable ischemic heart
Approximate vector matrix multiplication implementations for neuromorphic applications using memristive crossbars

Modern neuromorphic deep learning techniques, as well as unsupervised techniques like the locally competitive algorithm, rely on Vector Matrix Multiplications (VMMs). When designing biologically-inspired circuits, a VMM is used to represent synapse weighting between neighboring neurons. In hardware, this means that efficient implementations of VMMs are desirable for ASICs implementing neuromorphic algorithms. Next-generation nanodevices, such as memristors, provide the potential for not only power-efficient but also extremely fast calculation of these quantities. In this work, we set out to characterize different architectures using memristive crossbars that implement VMMs, as well as address the benefits of spiking in a VMM context. Acceptable VMM output errors were shown in relation to MNIST and CIFAR-10 classification tasks, and were tolerated up to ±0.001 per input with only a 10 % loss in relative accuracy. Due to intrinsic noise and sneak paths within the proposed architectures, a spiking approach is only viable for low-throughput applications with sparse inputs; however, with 1% of inputs active, it consumed 99.9% less power than other options. When amplifier noise is low, a termination-resistor-based voltage differential architecture was found to consume 75% less power than the virtual ground approach. With high noise, the traditional virtual ground architecture was shown to be capable of boosting the pre-differential signal beyond the noise threshold. This work should inform future implementations of VMMs for deep learning hardware, and provide insight into the requirements of next-generation, nanodevice-based machine learning ASICs.
Protein contact prediction by integrating deep multiple sequence alignments, coevolution and machine learning

In this study, we report the evaluation of the residue-residue contacts predicted by our three different methods in the CASP12 experiment, focusing on studying the impact of multiple sequence alignment, residue coevolution, and machine learning on contact prediction. The first method (MULTICOM-NOVEL) uses only traditional features (sequence profile, secondary structure, and solvent accessibility) with deep learning to predict contacts and serves as a baseline. The second method (MULTICOM-CONSTRUCT) uses our new alignment algorithm to generate deep multiple sequence alignment to derive coevolution-based features, which are integrated by a neural network method to predict contacts. The third method (MULTICOM-CLUSTER) is a consensus combination of the predictions of the first two methods. We evaluated our methods on 94 CASP12 domains. On a subset of 38 free-modeling domains, our methods achieved an average precision of up to 41.7% for top L/5 long-range contact predictions. The comparison of the three methods shows that the quality and effective depth of multiple sequence alignments, coevolution-based features, and machine learning integration of coevolution-based features and traditional features drive the quality of predicted protein contacts. On the full CASP12 dataset, the coevolution-based features alone can improve the average precision from 28.4% to 41.6%, and the machine learning integration of all the features further raises the precision to 56.3%, when top L/5 predicted long-range contacts are evaluated. And the correlation between the precision of contact prediction and the logarithm of the number of effective sequences in alignments is 0.66.
Effects of Laves phase particles on recovery and recrystallization behaviors of Nb-containing FeCrAl alloys

Abstract The microstructures and mechanical properties of deformed and annealed Nb-containing FeCrAl alloys were investigated. Fine dispersion of Fe2Nb-type Laves phase particles was observed in the bcc-Fe matrix after applying a thermomechanical treatment, especially along grain/subgrain boundaries, which effectively stabilized the recovered and recrystallized microstructures compared with the Nb-free FeCrAl alloy. The stability of recovered areas increased with Nb content up to 1 wt%. The recrystallized grain structure in Nb-containing FeCrAl alloys consisted of elongated grains along the rolling direction with a weak texture when annealed below 1100 °C. An abnormal relationship between recrystallized grain size and annealing temperature was found. Microstructural inhomogeneity in the deformed and annealed states was explained based on the Taylor factor. Annealed Nb-containing FeCrAl alloys showed a good combination of strength and ductility, which is desirable for their application as fuel cladding in light-water reactors.
Examining the Influence of Exercise Intensity and Hydration on Gastrointestinal Temperature in Collegiate Football Players.

DeMartini-Nolan, JK, Martschinske, JL, Casa, DJ, Lopez, RM, Stearns, RL, Ganio, MS, and Coris, E. Examining the influence of exercise intensity and hydration on gastrointestinal temperature in collegiate football players. J Strength Cond Res 32(10): 2888-2896, 2018-Debate exists regarding the influence of intensity and hydration on body temperature during American football. The purpose of this study was to observe body core temperature responses with changes in intensity and hydration. Twenty-nine male football players (age = 21 ± 1 year, height = 187 ± 9 cm, mass = 110.1 ± 23.5 kg, body mass index [BMI] = 31.3 ± 5.0, and body surface area [BSA] = 2.34 ± 0.27 m) participated in 8 days of practice in a warm environment (wet bulb globe temperature: 29.6 ± 1.6° C). Participants were identified as starters (S; n = 12) or nonstarters (n = 17) and linemen (L; n = 14) or nonlinemen (NL; n = 15). Variables of interest included core body temperature (T), hydration status, and physical performance characteristics as measured by a global positioning system. Intensity measures of average heart rate (138 ± 9 bpm), low-velocity movement (4.2 ± 1.7%), high-velocity movement (0.6 ± 0.6%), and average velocity (0.36 ± 0.10 m·s) accounted for 42% of the variability observed in T (38.32 ± 0.34° C, r = 0.65, p = 0.01). Hydration measures (percent body mass loss = -1.56 ± 0.80%, urine specific gravity [Usg] = 1.025 ± 0.006, and urine color [Ucol] = 6 ± 1) did not add to the prediction of T (p = 0.83). Metrics of exercise intensity accounted for 39% of the variability observed in maximum T (38.83 ± 0.42° C, r = 0.62, p = 0.02). Hydration measures did not add to this prediction (p = 0.40). Low-velocity movement, high-velocity movement, average velocity, BMI, and BSA were significantly different (p = 0.002, p 0.05). Exercise intensity primarily accounted for the rise in core body temperature. Although L spent less time at higher velocities, T was similar to NL, suggesting that differences in BMI and BSA added to thermoregulatory strain.
Plasma-Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (PECVD)

This chapter presents a short review of plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) of non-oxide ceramics. A brief discussion of glow discharge plasmas as used in PECVD is presented first. This discussion provides a practical understanding of the processes and characteristic chemistry involved in PECVD. Next, the deposition of specific ceramic films is discussed in terms of precursors, types of plasmas and film properties. Although PECVD has been used extensively in microelectronics, these applications are not reviewed here. The focus of this chapter is on non-oxide ceramics used mainly as hard coatings, with the discussion confined to nitrides and carbides. Although TiB2, MoB, TaB2 and other borides are used as hard ceramic coatings, their deposition via plasma-enhanced CVD has not been reported. This chapter concludes with a discussion of the advantages and limitations of PECVD-prepared coatings.
On the Interannual Wind-Driven Response of the Tropical Pacific Ocean

A linear numerical model forced by ship-board wind estimates for each month from January, 1961 to December, 1978, has been used to study the interannual variability of the tropical Pacific Ocean. Model pycnocline variations at several stations are similar to the observed sea level fluctuations. El Nino events are depicted as periods when the pycnocline is persistently deep along the eastern boundary. Remotely forced equatorial Kelvin waves are responsible for this response. The character of each simulated El Nino is strongly dependent on the relation between zonal wind stress changes in the western and central equatorial Pacific. A rapid shoaling of the pycnocline in the western tropical Pacific during each El Nino is caused by westward-propagating Rossby waves. Interannual pycnocline displacements in the central equatorial Pacific are determined by the superposition of Kelvin waves excited to the west and first-mode Rossby waves generated to the east.
The effects of body composition on fasting heat production in pigs.

Summary Ten sets of three litter mate barrows from each of three genetic stocks, Behsville Highfat (HF) and Lowfat (LF) Duroc-Yorkshire composites and a Hampshire  Large White cross (CX), were used to investigate effects of body composition on fasting heat production (FHP). Pigs from each set were fasted for 24 h at 10, 17 or 24 wk of age before measuring respiratory exchange for 24 h in an open-circuit calorimeter. Average heat production during night hours (8 h) in the calorimeter was used to estimate FHP. Each pig was then slaughtered and dissected into three fractions: carcass, head and feet, viscera and blood. Each fraction was frozen, ground, sampled and analyzed for protein, fat, water and ash. Correlations within ages of FHP with calorimeter live weight (CLWT) were lower than with total weight of lean, protein or water, but near zero with fat at all ages. Coefficients of determination (R 2) for linear and nonlinear predictors of FHP from lean were: .58, .89 and .91 at 10, 17 and 24 wk, respectively, but from CLWT were: .52, .74 and .82, respectively. Negative partial regressions of FHP on fat improved R 2 slightly at 10 and 17 wk but not at 24 wk, suggesting that
Design principles for dynamic microphysiological systems

Abstract The increasing complexity and cost of drug discovery and medical research requires new approaches to efficiently develop the next generation of patient therapies. In vitro multiorgan systems have the potential to reduce cost and increase patient safety by bridging the gap between standard techniques of static cell culture and animal models and true human physiology. Multiorgan systems are dynamic cell culture platforms in which multiple tissue chambers are connected via flow of common media to recapitulate many aspects of the parent in vivo organ systems. These systems are complex feats of engineering requiring a cross-disciplinary design approach from many technical fields including biology, physiology, materials, and engineering. Herein we review key design aspects of multiorgan systems providing a framework to guide the development of future systems and highlight the results from one state-of-the-art system.
Epistemic Authority, Philosophical Explication, and the Bio-Statistical Theory of Disease

Christopher Boorse’s (Philos Pub Aff 5:49–68, 1975; J Theory Soc Behav 6:61–84, 1976; Philos Sci 44:542–573, 1977; in: VanDeVeer and Regan (eds) Health care ethics: an introduction, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, pp 359–393, 1987; in Humber, Almeder, Totowa (eds) What is disease?, Humana Press (Biomedical Ethics Reviews), New York City, pp 1–134, 1997; J Med Philos, 39:683–724, 2014) Bio-Statistical Theory (BST) comprehends diseases in terms of departures from natural norms, which involve an objectively describable deviation from the proper physiological or psychological functioning of parts of the human organism. I argue that while recent revisions and additional considerations (Boorse 2014) shield the BST from a number of issues raised by critics, they give rise to significant new challenges. These are related to the attribution of epistemic authority, the possibility of multiple concepts in the authoritative literature, and the framing of BST as “philosophical explication.” The conclusion is that, in its current form, the BST is unable to provide a robust framework for a naturalist classification.
Species Tree Inference under the Multispecies Coalescent on Data with Paralogs is Accurate

The multispecies coalescent (MSC) has emerged as a powerful and desirable framework for species tree inference in phylogenomic studies. Under this framework, the data for each locus is assumed to consist of orthologous, single-copy genes, and heterogeneity across loci is assumed to be due to incomplete lineage sorting (ILS). These assumptions have led biologists who use MSC-based inference methods to exclude from their analyses all loci that are present in more than a single copy in any of the genomes under consideration. Furthermore, such analyses involve the task of orthology assignment to avoid the potential of hidden paralogy in the data. The question we seek to answer in this study is: What happens if one runs an MSC-based species tree inference method on data where paralogy is present, in addition to or without ILS being present? Through simulation studies and analyses of two biological data sets, we show that running an MSC-based species tree inference method on data with paralogs, while treating all gene copies within a family as alleles from multiple individuals or by randomly selecting one copy per species, provide very accurate results that are almost identical to results obtained from single-copy genes. Our results have two significant implications. The operational implication is that MSC-based phylogenomic analyses do not have to be restricted to single-copy loci, thus maximizing the amount of data to be used. The interpretative implication is that when an MSC-based inference method infers an accurate species tree, this does not mean that ILS was much of a factor in the heterogeneity across loci.
Microvascular Endothelial Cells: Isolation, Identification, and Cultivation

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses isolation, identification, and cultivation of microvascular endothelial cells. The development of successful techniques for the isolation, identification, and culture of large-vessel endothelium has paved the way for the extension of these methods to microvascular endothelial cells. In isolation and culture of retinal microvessel endothelial cells, bovine eyes are obtained from a local slaughterhouse and transported to the laboratory on ice. The culture of heart microvessel endothelial cells has provided an important tool as to the role of the vascular endothelium of cardiac muscle in a number of physiologic and pathophysiologic functions, including prostaglandin synthesis. One of the major difficulties in the isolation and culture of microvascular endothelial cells is the identification of the putative endothelial cells.
Reflections on implementing a hospital-wide provider-based electronic inpatient mortality review system: lessons learnt.

Importance Death due to preventable medical error is a leading cause of death, with varying estimates of preventable death rates (14%–56% of total deaths based on national extrapolated estimates, 3%–11% based on single-centre estimates). Yet, how best to reduce preventable mortality in hospitals remains unknown. Objective In this article, we detail lessons learnt from implementing a hospital-wide, automated, real-time, electronic mortality reporting system that relies on the opinions of front-line clinicians to identify opportunities for improvement. We also summarise data obtained regarding possible preventability, systems issues identified and addressed, and challenges with implementation. We outline our process of survey, evaluation, escalation and tracking of opportunities identified through the review process. Methods We aggregated and analysed 7 years of review data regarding deaths, review responses categorised by ratings of possible preventability and inter-rater reliability of possible preventability. A qualitative analysis of reviews was performed to identify care delivery opportunities and institutional response. Results Over the course of 7 years, 7856 inpatient deaths occurred, and 91% had at least one review completed. 5.2% were rated by front-line clinicians as potentially being preventable (likely or possibly), and this rate was consistent over time. However, there was only slight inter-rater agreement regarding potential preventability (Cohen’s kappa=0.185). Nevertheless, several major systems-level opportunities were identified that facilitated care delivery improvements, such as communication challenges, need for improved end-of-life care and interhospital transfer safety. Conclusions Through implementation, we found that a hospital-wide mortality review process that elicits feedback from front-line providers is feasible, and provides valuable insights regarding potential preventable mortality and prioritising actionable opportunities for care delivery improvements.
A Case for the use of Pedagogical Agents in Online Learning Environments

Progressive multimedia learning tools have been extensively researched over the past twenty years. Two of these tools include intelligent tutoring systems (Graesser et al., 2004; Ma, Adesope, & Nesbit, 2011; VanLehn, 2011) and pedagogical agents (Mayer & DaPra, 2012; Moreno, Mayer, Spires, & Lester, 2001). In this paper we discuss pedagogical agents, which are visible characters in multimedia learning environments designed to facilitate learning (Moreno, 2005; Schroeder, Adesope, & Barouch Gilbert, 2012). Some researchers have expressed reservations that pedagogical agents may not be cost-effective (Choi & Clark, 2006; Clark & Choi, 2005; 2007). However, while it previously may have taken a considerable amount of time and resources to design and implement a pedagogical agent within a learning environment, recent advances in technology make pedagogical agent-based systems more accessible and affordable to educators. Pedagogical agent research is typically grounded in social agency theory. Social agency theory is based on previous research which indicates that people treat computers as fellow humans (Reeves & Nass, 1996), and posits that “social cues in a multimedia message can prime the social conversation schema in learners” (Mayer, Sabko, & Mautone, 2003, p. 419). Thus, Mayer et al. (2003) suggest that learners may perceive computer interaction as a social exchange of information. In sum, it is hypothesized that if the learner perceives the computer interaction as social communication, it may cause increased performance on transfer tests due to the student engaging in the “sense-making process” (Mayer et al., 2003, p. 420). This process describes active learning, which is delineated into three stages: selecting information, organizing it, and integrating it with prior knowledge (Mayer et al., 2003; Mayer, 2005). Alternatively, Mayer et al. (2003) posit that a lack of social cues in a multimedia message will not cause a social response in the learner, and thus foster rote learning, or memorization. As such, it is the process of deeper understanding (Atkinson, Mayer, & Merrill, 2005) that pedagogical agent researchers hope to foster to promote meaningful learning (Mayer et al., 2003) in pedagogical agent-based learning environments.
Sustained, cell-intrinsic versus intermittent, cell-extrinsic checkpoint blockade in solid tumor CAR T-cell therapy.

16Background: We and others have published that antigen-stress induced functional exhaustion of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells can be rescued by addition of anti-PD1 agents. To avoid the n...
Effect of fear of victimization on hazardous alcohol drinking, tobacco, and marijuana use among university students: A tale of two sexes

Abstract Background Fear of victimization has been associated with poorer physical and mental health, yet is understudied in public health. Few studies have examined sex differences in the effects of fear of victimization on substance use. We examined associations between fear of victimization and hazardous alcohol drinking, tobacco, and marijuana use among female and male university students. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted among university students in an urban location (n = 1415). Socio-demographics, substance use, and fear related to various crimes were measured using online surveys. All fear types were summed into a total fear score and categorized into quartiles: no/little fear, moderate fear, high fear, and very high fear. Chi-square tests and multiple logistic regression models were used to examine associations between fear of victimization, hazardous alcohol drinking, tobacco and marijuana use, by sex. Results Females were more likely to report high and very high fear of victimization (26.6% and 33.1%) than male students (19.8% and 16.3%; p Conclusions Higher fear of victimization was associated with substance use among females but not male students. Public health and health care professionals should acknowledge fear of victimization as a potential risk factor for substance use, particularly among women.
When media become the mirror: a meta-analysis on media and body image

A growing body of research on the media’s effects on body image suggests that media of different forms plays a vital role in shaping people’s body image concerns and behavioral intentions. By condu...
m‐Cyano­phenol

m-Cyano­phenol, NC—C6H4—OH or C7H5NO, crystallizes as chains of mol­ecules held together by O—H⋯NC hydrogen bonds, with an O⋯N distance of 2.847 (2) A.
Visualizing the Esophagus During Modified Barium Swallow Studies: A Systematic Review.

Purpose Despite the emphasis on using evidence-based practice for patient care, as clinicians, we sometimes find that there is insufficient evidence to support our clinical practices. One example o...
Paging Patterns Among Junior Surgery Residents in a Tertiary Care Center.

Objective An excessive amount of nonurgent pages may disrupt patient care, reduce efficiency, and contribute to burnout. We present detailed paging data to analyze frequency, content, and urgency of pages received by surgery residents to provide recommendations to reduce resident distractions and fatigue. Design Prospective review of pages received by surgery residents over 15 weeks in 2019. Pages were analyzed by content and urgency (routine, important, emergent) by author consensus and compared among day and night shifts, and page senders’ profession. Setting University tertiary-care hospital Participants Seventeen junior surgery residents (PGY-1 and PGY-2) Results Total 1,740 resident-hours yielded 1,871 pages. Residents working day and night shift received a median of 11 (IQR 7-14) and 13 (IQR 6-22) pages, respectively. Pages from nurses were most common for both shifts but constituted a significantly increased proportion at night (71.3% vs 36.7%, p Conclusions Over half of pages received by residents contain routine communications about care plan and request for non-urgent orders, even during night shift. Resident-nurse collaboration and support from technology services might optimizing communication pathways.
EOMES is responsible for WNT memory and can substitute for WNT in mesendoderm specification

Embryogenesis is guided by a limited set of signaling pathways that are reused at different times and places throughout development. How a context dependent signaling response is generated has been a central question of developmental biology, which can now be addressed with in vitro model systems. Our previous work in human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) established that pre-exposure of cells to WNT/{beta}-catenin signaling is sufficient to switch the output of ACTIVIN/SMAD2 signaling from pluripotency maintenance to mesendoderm (ME) differentiation. A body of previous literature has established the role of both pathways in ME differentiation. However, our work demonstrated that the two signals do not need to be present simultaneously and that hESCs have a means to record WNT signals. Here we demonstrate that hESCs have accessible chromatin at SMAD2 binding sites near pluripotency and ME-associated target genes and that WNT priming does not alter SMAD2 binding. Rather our results indicate that stable transcriptional output at ME genes results from WNT-dependent production of an additional SMAD2 co-factor, EOMES. We show that expression of EOMES can replace WNT signaling in ME differentiation, providing a mechanistic basis for WNT-priming and memory in early development.
On the Thermodynamics of Heat to Work Transformations

The contradiction existing between the entropy changes assigned by Clausius to the transformation heat to work (- Q / T), and that of current second law thermodynamics (zero), is here exposed.
A Graph-Based Integration of Multimodal Brain Imaging Data for the Detection of Early Mild Cognitive Impairment (E-MCI)

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia in older adults. By the time an individual has been diagnosed with AD, it may be too late for potential disease modifying therapy to strongly influence outcome. Therefore, it is critical to develop better diagnostic tools that can recognize AD at early symptomatic and especially pre-symptomatic stages. Mild cognitive impairment (MCI), introduced to describe a prodromal stage of AD, is presently classified into early and late stages (E-MCI, L-MCI) based on severity. Using a graph-based semi-supervised learning (SSL) method to integrate multimodal brain imaging data and select valid imaging-based predictors for optimizing prediction accuracy, we developed a model to differentiate E-MCI from healthy controls (HC) for early detection of AD. Multimodal brain imaging scans (MRI and PET) of 174 E-MCI and 98 HC participants from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) cohort were used in this analysis. Mean targeted region-of-interest (ROI) values extracted from structural MRI (voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and FreeSurfer V5) and PET (FDG and Florbetapir) scans were used as features. Our results show that the graph-based SSL classifiers outperformed support vector machines for this task and the best performance was obtained with 66.8% cross-validated AUC (area under the ROC curve) when FDG and FreeSurfer datasets were integrated. Valid imaging-based phenotypes selected from our approach included ROI values extracted from temporal lobe, hippocampus, and amygdala. Employing a graph-based SSL approach with multimodal brain imaging data appears to have substantial potential for detecting E-MCI for early detection of prodromal AD warranting further investigation.
The Housing bubble: how much blame does the Fed really deserve?

Two recent empirical papers have blamed the Fed for the latest boom and bust in housing. Neither study includes long-term interest rates, which are more affected by global factors than the federal ...
A class of forms from function: the case of parts moving in contact

We consider the general problem of designing mechanical parts moving in contact under the influence of externally applied loads. Geometrically, the problem may be characterized in terms of a conjugate triplet, which is formed by the two shapes moving in contact and their relative motion. We show that every such triplet belongs to one or more classes of functionally equivalent designs that may be represented uniquely by maximal triplets, corresponding respectively to the two largest contact shapes that are guaranteed to contain all other possible solutions to the contact design problem. In practical terms, the proposed characterization of the contact problem enables the systematic exploration of the design space using fully defined representatives of the functionally equivalent class of parts. Furthermore, such exploration may be performed using standard tools from geometric modeling, and without assuming any particular parameterization that necessarily restrict both the design space and possible computational techniques for exploring feasible designs. Because the proposed approach supports the generation of an essentially unlimited space of design solutions for a given contact problem, it is particularly effective at the conceptual design stage.
A priori calculations of pKa's for organic compounds in water. The pKa of ethane

The enduring fascination of organic chemists with acidities and basicities reflects the fundamental importance of these concepts in understanding organic reactivity. Developing scales of aqueous acidities for weak organic acids is challenging in view of the need for extrapolations from organic solvents to water, ion-pairing and aggregation effects for organometallic compounds, and the derivation of thermodynamic quantities from kinetic measurements. The problems are reflected in the experimental ranges for the pK/sub a/'s of the simplest alkanes, methane and ethane, which cover from 40 to 60. In the present communication, they demonstrate how simulation methodology can be used to obtain a priori predictions for the relative pK/sub a/'s of organic compounds in water. The first applications are for the pK/sub a/'s of acetonitrile and ethane relative to methanethiol.
Ron Coffey: The Thinker's Thinker

Tribute to Ron Coffey. Ronald J. Coffey was among the first on our faculty, and (I daresay) in the country, to recognize these attributes of good thought and to bring them to bear on the study of law.
Unsupervised Visual Representation Learning by Context Prediction

This work explores the use of spatial context as a source of free and plentiful supervisory signal for training a rich visual representation. Given only a large, unlabeled image collection, we extract random pairs of patches from each image and train a convolutional neural net to predict the position of the second patch relative to the first. We argue that doing well on this task requires the model to learn to recognize objects and their parts. We demonstrate that the feature representation learned using this within-image context indeed captures visual similarity across images. For example, this representation allows us to perform unsupervised visual discovery of objects like cats, people, and even birds from the Pascal VOC 2011 detection dataset. Furthermore, we show that the learned ConvNet can be used in the R-CNN framework [19] and provides a significant boost over a randomly-initialized ConvNet, resulting in state-of-the-art performance among algorithms which use only Pascal-provided training set annotations.
Managing High and Volatile Food Prices

The recent period of high and volatile food prices has cast doubt on many longstanding assumptions such as the inevitability of declining real food prices, and brought to an end a long period of food price stability. Some of the key driving forces appear to have been declines in yield growth for major commodities and the rapid growth of biofuels. Both high and volatile food prices are justly causes for concern. Key elements of the cure for high food prices include a strong focus on agricultural research and development, as well as rural development more generally, and a reconsideration of the role of biofuels. The best cures for food price volatility aim to reduce it by improving market information and reducing output volatility. Social safety nets are the best policy for coping with its effects, while the widely-used trade and storage policy measures have many complex and uncertain effects.
Current Status of Fractional Laser Resurfacing

Fractional lasers were first developed based on observations of lasers designed for hair transplantation. In 2007, ablative fractional laser resurfacing was introduced. The fractionation allowed deeper tissue penetration, leading to greater tissue contraction, collagen production and tissue remodeling. Since then, fractional erbium:YAG resurfacing lasers have also been introduced. These lasers have yielded excellent results in treating photoaging, acne scarring, and dyschromia. With the adjustment of microspot density, pulse duration, number of passes, and fluence, the surgeon can adjust the treatment effects. These lasers have allowed surgeons to treat patients with higher Fitzpatrick skin types (types IV to VI) and greater individualize treatments to various facial subunits. Immunohistochemical analysis has demonstrated remodeling effects of the tissues for several months, producing longer lasting results. Adjuvant treatments are also under investigation, including concomitant face-lift, product deposition, and platelet-rich plasma. Finally, there is a short recovery time from treatment with these lasers, allowing patients to resume regular activities more quickly. Although there is a relatively high safety profile for ablative fractionated lasers, surgeons should be aware of the limitations of specific treatments and the associated risks and complications.
Cyclic Ether Synthesis via Palladium-Catalyzed Directed Dehydrogenative Annulation at Unactivated Terminal Positions.

Here, a palladium-catalyzed functionalization of unactivated sp3 C–H bonds with internal alcohol nucleophiles is described. Directed by an oxime-masked alcohol, annulation chemoselectively occurs at the β position, leading to a range of aliphatic cyclic ethers with four- to seven-membered rings. Tethered primary, secondary, and tertiary free hydroxyl groups can all react to give the corresponding cyclized products. In addition, benzyl and silyl protected alcohols can also be directly coupled. An sp3 C–H activation/intramolecular SN2 pathway was proposed.
Learning and Generalization in Random Automata Networks

It has been shown [7,6] that feedforward Boolean networks can learn to perform specific simple tasks and generalize well if only a subset of the learning examples is provided for learning. Here, we extend this body of work and show experimentally that random Boolean networks (RBNs), where both the interconnections and the Boolean transfer functions are chosen at random initially, can be evolved by using a state-topology evolution to solve simple tasks. We measure the learning and generalization performance, investigate the influence of the average node connectivity K, the system size N, and introduce a new measure that allows to better describe the network’s learning and generalization behavior. Our results show that networks with higher average connectivity K (supercritical) achieve higher memorization and partial generalization. However, near critical connectivity, the networks show a higher perfect generalization on the even-odd task.
Implementation of multiple rule firing production systems on hypercube

The performance of production programs can be improved by firing multiple rules in a production cycle. In this paper, we present the multiple-contexts-multiple-rules (MCMR) model which speeds up production program execution by firing multiple rule concurrently and guarantees the correctness of the solution. The MCMR model is implemented using the RUBIC parallel inference model on the Intel iPSC/2 hypercube. The Intel iPSC/2 hypercube is chosen because it is a cost-effective solution to large-scale application. To avoid unnecessary synchronization and improve performance, rules are executed asynchronously and messages are used to update the database. Preliminary implementation results for the RUBIC parallel inference environment on the Intel iPSC/2 hypercube are reported.
Generating and updating textures for a large-scale environment

With the rapid development of sensor and modeling technologies, it becomes increasingly feasible to model a large-scale environment. However, the acquisition and updating of textures for such a large-scale environment is still a challenging task, often demanding tedious and time-consuming manual interactions. This paper presents new techniques to generate high quality textures for given rough urban building models by automatic camera calibration and pose recovery, and to continuously update these textures in real time using videos as a texture resource. A number of static textures are generated for a university campus size model, and these textures are dynamically updated using videos in real time, which demonstrate the effectiveness of our algorithms.
Global Production with Export Platforms

Most international commerce is carried out by multinational firms, which use their foreign affiliates both to serve the market of the host country and to export to other markets outside the host country. In this article, I examine the determinants of multinational firms’ location and production decisions and the welfare implications of multinational production. The few existing quantitative general equilibrium models that incorporate multinational firms achieve tractability by assuming away export platforms—that is, they do not allow foreign affiliates of multinationals to export—or by ignoring fixed costs associated with foreign investment. I develop a quantifiable multicountry general equilibrium model, which tractably handles multinational firms that engage in export platform sales and that face fixed costs of foreign investment. I first estimate the model using German firm-level data to uncover the size and nature of costs of multinational enterprise and show that the fixed costs of foreign investment are large. Second, I calibrate the model to data on trade and multinational production for twelve European and North American countries. Counterfactual analysis reveals that multinationals play an important role in transmitting technological improvements to foreign countries and that the pending Canada-EU trade and investment agreement could divert a sizable fraction of the production of EU multinationals from the U.S. to Canada.
The many meanings of care in clinical research

The conduct of clinical research often involves two distinguishable sets of relationships: the researcher-subject relationship, and the clinician-patient relationship. Some scholars argue that being a patient in a clinical care setting and a subject in a research study are so different that anything that would promote in subjects the view that they are in clinician-patient relationships is exploitative and deceptive. This paper presents findings intended to initiate a more empirically-based discussion of this issue. Using data from 82 in-depth interviews with physician-investigators, nurse-study coordinators and patient-subjects in early phase clinical trials, we find that research personnel are likely to be seen, and to see themselves, as clinical caregivers. We also find evidence that while researchers and subjects often tend to view care and research as conflicting activities, both parties tend to see research as a way of caring for patients. We found no relationship, however, between subjects' perception of care-giving by researchers and the tendency to misunderstand that they are in a research study. Because research, by necessity and inclination, is unlikely ever to be 'care-free', we recommend that the ethical debate surrounding the danger of confusing research with treatment take into account the kinds of care described by respondents.
Multiparty equality function computation in networks with point-to-point links

In this paper, we study the problem of computing the multiparty equality (MEQ) function: n ≥ 2 nodes, each of which is given an input value from {1,...,K}, determine if their inputs are all identical, under the point-to-point communication model. The MEQ function equals to 1 if and only if all n inputs are identical, and 0 otherwise. The communication complexity of the MEQ problem is defined as the minimum number of bits communicated in the worst case. It is easy to show that (n-1) log2 K bits is an upper bound, by constructing a simple algorithm with that cost. In this paper, we demonstrate that communication cost strictly lower than this upper bound can be achieved. We show this by constructing a static protocol that solves the MEQ problem for n = 3, K = 6, of which the communication cost is strictly lower than the above upper bound (2 log2 6 bits). This result is then generalized for large values of n and K.
A compact quasi-axisymmetric stellarator reactor

We report the progress made in assessing the potential of compact, quasi-axisymmetric stellarators as power-producing reactors. Using an aspect ratio A=4.5 configuration derived from NCSX and optimized with respect to the quasi-axisymmetry and MHD stability in the linear regime as an example, we show that a reactor of 1 GW(e) maybe realizable with a major radius /spl les/8 m. This is significantly smaller than the designs of stellarator reactors attempted before. We further show the design of modular coils and discuss the optimization of coil aspect ratios in order to accommodate the blanket for tritium breeding and radiation shielding for coil protection. In addition, we discuss the effects of coil aspect ratio on the peak magnetic field in the coils.
Discovering the biomedical deep web

The rapid growth of biomedical information in the Deep Web has produced unprecedented challenges for traditional search engines. This paper describes a new Deep web resource discovery system for biomedical information. We designed two hypertext mining applications: a Focused Crawler that selectively seeks out relevant pages using a classifier that evaluates the relevance of the document with respect to biomedical information, and a Query Interface Extractor that extracts information from the page to detect the presence of a Deep Web database. Our anecdotes suggest that combining focused crawling with query interface extraction is very effective for building high-quality collections of Deep Web resources on biomedical topics.
A Note on Modalities for Nonconjunctive Global Predicates

Global predicate detection is an important problem in distributed executions. A conjunctive predicate is one in which each conjunct is defined over variables local to a single process. Polynomial space and time algorithms exist for detecting conjunctive predicates under the Possibly and Definitely modalities, as well as under a richer class of fine-grained modalities based on the temporal interaction of intervals. However, it is much more difficult to detect nonconjunctive predicates under the various modalities because the entire state lattice may need to be examined. We examine the feasibility of detecting nonconjunctive predicates under the fine-grained temporal modalities using the interval-based approach. We gain some insightful observations into how nonconjunctive predicates can be decomposed, and into the relationships among the intervals (at different processes) in which the local variables have values that can satisfy the nonconjunctive predicate.
Bioptics mit Multifokallinsen und Lasek

Bei Multifokallinsen ist die exakte postoperative Emmetropie fur das funktionelle Ergebnis von entscheidender Bedeutung. Daher erscheint es sinnvoll, auch minimale spharische oder zylindrische postoperative Ametropien durch eine zusatzliche refraktivchirurgische Masnahme zu korrigieren (Bioptics). Andererseits konnte befurchtet werden, dass sich durch diese zusatzliche Masnahme photoptische Nebenwirkungen und Kontrastverlust verstarken. In der Literatur liegen bisher nur sehr vereinzelt Daten zu Bioptics bei Multifokallinsen vor. Bei 8 Augen von 7 Patienten fuhrten wir nach Multifokallinsenimplantation eine Laser-subepitheliale Keratomileusis (Lasek) durch. Vor und 6 Monate nach Lasek untersuchten wir zusatzlich zum Visus die folgenden Funktionen: Kontrastempfindlichkeit (Pelli Robson), Niedrigkontrast-Visus (Humphrey-AR 570), Gegenlicht-Visus (Humphrey-AR 570) und Messungen am Mesoptometer II (Fa. Oculus). Praoperativ lag die Kontrastempfindlichkeit zwischen 1,2 und 1,65, postoperativ zwischen 1,35 und 1,65. Der Niedrigkontrast-Visus betrug praoperativ 50–70% des Fernvisus, postoperativ 57–70%; der Gegenlicht-Visus betrug 12,5–50% bzw. 28,5–57%. Die Mesoptometermessungen waren nach Lasek unverandert. Nach DOG-Kriterien erreichten 4 Patienten Nachtfahrtauglichkeit. Das Bioptics-Verfahren als Lasek nach Multifokallinsenimplantation zeigt keine funktionellen Verschlechterungen hinsichtlich Niedrigkontrast- und Gegenlicht-Visus bei gleichzeitiger Verringerung der postoperativen Ametropie im Vergleich zur ausschlieslichen Multifokallinsenimplantation.
Ownership structure and control: The mutualization of stock life insurance companies☆

Abstract We examine an unusual sample of firms within the life insurance industry: 30 firms which switched from a common-stock to a mutual-ownership structure. Our evidence indicates that the rate of growth of premium income from policyholders remains unchanged, stockholders receive a premium for their stock, and management turnover declines; thus, no group of claimholders systematically loses in the sample of firms which choose to go through the mutualization process. We therefore conclude that for this sample of firms, changing from a stock to a mutual-ownership structure is on average efficiency-enhancing.
Making – or Picking – Winners: Evidence of Internal and External Price Effects in Historic Preservation Policies

This article measures the impacts of historic preservation regulations on property values inside and outside of officially designated historic districts. The analysis relies on a model of historic designation to control for the tendency to designate higher quality properties. An instrumental variables model using rich data on historic significance corrects for this bias. The results for Chicago during the 1990s indicate that price impacts from designation inside a landmark district vary considerably across homes inside the districts. Controlling for extant historic quality, which the market values positively, restrictions apparently have negative price effects on average both within and outside districts.