cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Growth at elevated CO2: photosynthetic responses mediated through Rubisco

Abstract. The global uptake of CO2 in photosynthesis is about 120 gigatons (Gt) of carbon per year. Virtually all passes through one enzyme, ribulose bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (rubisco), which initiates both the photosynthetic carbon reduction, and photorespiratory carbon oxidation, cycles. Both CO2 and O2 are substrates; CO2 also activates the enzyme. In C3 plants, rubisco has a low catalytic activity, operates below its Km (CO2), and is inhibited by O2. Consequently, increases in the CO2/O2 ratio stimulate C3 photosynthesis and inhibit photorespiration. CO2 enrichment usually enhances the productivity of C3 plants, but the effect is marginal in C4 species. It also causes acclimation in various ways: anatomically, morphologically, physiologically or biochemically. So, CO2 exerts secondary effects in growth regulation, probably at the molecular level, that are not predictable from its primary biochemical role in carboxylation. After an initial increase with CO2 enrichment, net photosynthesis often declines. This is a common acclimation phenomenon, less so in field studies, that is ultimately mediated by a decline in rubisco activity, though the RuBP/Pi-regeneration capacities of the plant may play a role. The decline is due to decreased rubisco protein, activation state, and/or specific activity, and it maintains the rubisco fixation and RuBP/Pi regeneration capacities in balance. Carbohydrate accumulation is sometimes associated with reduced net photosynthesis, possibly causing feedback inhibition of the RuBP/Piregeneration capacities, or chloroplast disruption. As exemplified by field-grown soybeans and salt marsh species, a reduction in net photosynthesis and rubisco activity is not inevitable under CO2 enrichment. Strong sinks or rapid translocation may avoid such acclimation responses. Over geological time, aquatic autotrophs and terrestrial C4 and CAM plants have genetically adapted to a decline in the external CO2/O2 ratio, by the development of mechanisms to concentrate CO2 internally; thus circumventing O2 inhibition of rubisco. Here rubisco affinity for CO2 is less, but its catalytic activity is greater, a situation compatible with a high-CO2 internal environment. In aquatic autotrophs, the CO2 concentrating mechanisms acclimate to the external CO2, being suppressed at high-CO2. It is unclear, whether a doubling in atmospheric CO2 will be sufficient to cause a de-adaptive trend in the rubisco kinetics of future C3 plants, producing higher catalytic activities.
DYNAMICS OF PLATFORM COMPETITION: EXPLORING THE ROLE OF INSTALLED BASE, PLATFORM QUALITY AND CONSUMER EXPECTATIONS

Researchers debate the role of installed base, platform quality and consumer expectations in driving the success of platforms. We analyze a dynamic model in which a new entrant with superior quality competes with an incumbent platform, and examine the long-run market outcomes. We find that the driver of market dynamics depends critically on the strength of indirect network effects and the consumer discount factor of future applications. We empirically examine the competition between the Xbox and PlayStation 2 consoles. We find that Xbox has a small quality advantage over PlayStation 2, and that the strength of indirect network effects and the discount factor in this market are within the range in which the market dynamics are quality driven. Counterfactual experiments suggest that PlayStation 2 could drive Xbox out of the market if the strength of indirect network effects more than doubles or the consumer discount factor increases by fifty percent.
Effect of delayed activated charcoal on acetaminophen concentration after simulated overdose of oxycodone and acetaminophen.

Objective. To determine the effect of activated charcoal (AC) on acetaminophen (APAP) absorption kinetics when administered at 1, 2, or 3 h after combined oral overdose with oxycodone. Methods. IRB-approved, prospective cross-over study of nine healthy human volunteers ingesting 5 g of APAP + 0.5 mg/kg of oxycodone on each of four study days. On the control day, subjects received no AC. On the remaining study days, subjects ingested 50 g of AC at 1, 2, or 3 h after drug ingestion. We measured serum APAP concentration hourly from 0 through 8 h and compared basic non-compartmental pharmacokinetic parameters. Results. Compared to the control, AC reduced area under the curve by 43% when given at 1 h (p < 0.0001), 22% when given at 2 h (p = 0.02), and 15% when given at 3 h (p = 0.26). AC at 1 h resulted in a 25% reduction in peak APAP concentration from 48.6 to 36.3 mcg/mL (p = 0.012) with no significant difference when given at 2 or 3 h. There was no significant difference in elimination half-life among the f...
Variational determination of self-consistent interactions in atomic collisions

State-to-state transition amplitudes are obtained from a variational functional for two colliding atomic systems whose states are self-consistently coupled. Specifying classical center-of-mass trajectories, this approach leads to an extension of the time-dependent self-consistent field approximation which requires iterative solutions of equations for forward and backward motions in time. The variational procedure is described for trial wave functions and trial transition densities. It is briefly illustrated with a model of two interacting two-state atoms.
Direct Selection for P1-Sensitive Mutants of Enteric Bacteria

A method has been developed to isolate mutants sensitive to coliphage P1 from bacterial genera normally not sensitive to this phage. P1clr100KM was used. This phage is heat inducible and confers kanamycin resistance when present as a prophage (in lysogens). P1-sensitive mutants of Klebsiella, Enterobacter, Citrobacter, and Erwinia have been found. This technique provides a well-known genetic system for the study of many bacterial genera that previously had either no such system or only a marginally useful means of genetic manipulation. It also extends the range of possible intergeneric hybrids that may be constructed and studied.
Bypassing Alzheimer’s Disease

Gastric bypass surgery improves the health of morbidly obese patients, who enjoy sustained weight loss, improved glucose metabolism, and amelioration of other obesity-related problems. Reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) may be another benefit to add to this list. Ghanim et al . have recently reported that Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery can reduce the expression of AD-related genes in blood. The authors performed Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery on 15 adult diabetic subjects with an average body mass index (BMI) of 52.1. Six months later, the patients’ average BMI had fallen to 40.4, and they showed significant decreases in blood glucose, serum insulin, and glycosylated hemoglobin levels. Because obesity and type 2 diabetes are risk factors for AD, the investigators speculated that this type of gastric bypass surgery might affect the pathogenesis and treatment of AD. They focused on peripheral blood cells that express amyloid precursor protein (APP), the protein that gives rise to the pathognomonic amyloid plaques in the brains of patients with AD. APP mRNA and protein levels were significantly reduced. Expression of other AD-related genes such as presenilin-2, clusterin, and PICALM was also lower in these blood cells after surgery. The procedure also reduced expression of the proinflammatory mediators that are usually associated with deteriorated glucose metabolism in obesity. Because gastric bypass surgery improves glucose metabolism, it has been assumed to also reduce the risk for AD in the long term. But now, this new work may have uncovered a marker of decreased risk for AD directly after surgery, giving us a clue about the connection between obesity and AD. H. Ghanim et al ., Reduction in inflammation and the expression of amyloid precursor protein and other proteins related to Alzheimer's disease following gastric bypass surgery. J. Clin. Endocrinol. Metab. 16 April 2012 (10.1210/jc.2011-3284). [[Abstract]][1] [1]: http://jcem.endojournals.org/content/early/2012/04/13/jc.2011-3284.abstract
Mammalian gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) receptor subtypes.

Mammalian gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH I) is a hypothalamic decapeptide that governs gonadotropin secretion through interaction with its seven transmembrane (7TM), G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) expressed by anterior pituitary cells. A second decapeptide, GnRH II, originally discovered in the chicken hypothalamus was recently reported to be expressed in the mammalian hypothalamus as well. A search of the recently-sequenced human genome identified a 7TM/GPCR on chromosome 1 that exhibited a higher identity with non-mammalian vertebrate GnRH II receptors (55%) than with the human GnRH I receptor (39%). Molecular cloning and nucleotide sequencing of this putative GnRH II receptor cDNA from monkey pituitary gland revealed a 379 amino acid receptor that, unlike the GnRH I receptor, possessed a C-terminal tail. Heterologous expression and functional testing of the receptor in COS-1 cells confirmed its identity as a GnRH II receptor: measurement of 3 H-inositol phosphate accumulation revealed EC 50 s ...
Head and neck cancer

In this review, the authors outline the epidemiology, genetic factors, treatment and outcomes of head and neck cancer.
Dynamic Imaging of Transient Metabolic Processes: PDT Is Just the Beginning

Most clinical nuclear medicine procedures, both PET and SPECT, acquire images at a single time point, usually a fixed time after injection of the radiotracer. For example, 18 F-FDG images generally are obtained at least an hour after injection, at which time the tracer has reached approximate equilibrium and the regional uptake represents a measure of glucose metabolism. Dynamic imaging, in which changes in tracer uptake over time are recorded, provides much more information on the underlying physiology. In addition to the equilibrium measurement, dynamic imaging provides data during the uptake and washout phases,
Acquainted With the Night Again and Again: Key Factors Associated With Relapse in Major Depressive Disorder

M depression is one of the most prevalent neuropsychiatric disorders in the United States with significant morbidity, and in 2012 approximately 16 million adults 18 years and older experienced at least 1 major depressive episode.1 According to the World Health Organization, major depression is also considered the disease that carries the heaviest disability burden among all neurobehavioral disorders, and it accounts for approximately 8.3% of all US years lived with a disability.2 Unfortunately, as noted by Figueroa et al3 in this issue of the Journal, the challenge of preventing relapse in major depressive disorder (MDD) may be greater than treating acute episodes, particularly given the fact that MDD relapse becomes progressively more frequent over time in individuals, with decreasing remission duration.4 In addition, Mueller et al5 noted that the rate of MDD relapse is quite high, as high as 80%, and that relapse is common, even during events in which a modifier such as postpartum depression is used in MDD.6,7 Such a high relapse rate may be the result of lack of treatment efficacy responsible for residual symptoms or other factors not properly addressed for a large percentage of patients with a first and recurrent major depressive episode. At an experiential and personal level, our patients frequently tell us that the recurring nature of MDD takes an overwhelming toll on their emotional and adaptive wellbeing, which makes MDD feel like other highly debilitating, chronic medical conditions. The question then arises, What variables have been investigated as potentially responsible or representing enhanced risk for MDD relapse?
Memory: Behavior and Neural Basis

Both memory and aging are complex, multifaceted constructs. Their interaction may be initially described by focusing on age effects on different memory systems (e.g., episodic vs. semantic), but a more comprehensive approach considers age differences in the reliance on and efficiency of different neurocognitive components. Controlled processing and associational processing are two components showing significant age-related decline, although paradoxically older adults also rely more on controlled processing to compensate for impairments in earlier (e.g., sensory) processing. Age differences in default-mode processing also play a complicated role, as failure to suppress the default network during encoding disrupts performance, but disrupted default network connectivity likely contributes to impaired consolidation and association. We also discuss modifying factors such as emotion and culture which appear to have primarily qualitative rather than quantitative effects. Finally, considering aging in terms of neurocognitive components rather than systems or strategies may improve the efficacy of interventions to improve memory.
Controlling Non-Synchronous Microgrids for Load Balancing of Radial Distribution Systems

This paper proposes a novel control strategy such that downstream non-synchronous microgrids can perform load balancing functions. The proposed method can eliminate (or reduce) the unbalance of currents at the substation transformer of radial distribution systems. The load balancing ability of microgrids has been studied for two different scenarios: 1) using communications between the microgrid and the substation; and 2) using only local measurements at the microgrid. The limitations posed by the availability of measurements and system topology requirements for the success of the process are discussed. Two numerical examples are provided to validate the proposed control scheme using time domain and time-sequence power-flow simulations.
Characteristics of Induced/Triggered Earthquakes during the Startup Phase of the Guy–Greenbrier Earthquake Sequence in North–Central Arkansas

ABSTRACT Between August 2010 and June 2011, an intense sequence of induced earthquakes occurred along the Guy–Greenbrier fault in central Arkansas due to fluid injection at nearby waste disposal wells. A previous study by Horton (2012), limited to ∼1000 earthquakes having M D >∼2.0, illuminated the ∼13 km fault. We present an updated catalog of 17,395 earthquakes that is complete between 0≤ M L ≤4.4 between August 2010 and 20 October 2010, with earthquakes located using an updated 1D velocity model for the region. The inclusion of the small‐magnitude events reveals that seismicity starts below the SRE injection well a month earlier than estimated using only M D >2 events. During this period of time, the seismicity migrated from north to south, enhancing the resolution of three joined sections that form the northern ∼7.3 km portion of the fault, which plunges southward. The seismogenic zone covers the lower portion of the Paleozoic sedimentary layers and extends into the crystalline Precambrian basement (∼3 km z M L >3 events constrained within the basement. A b ‐value of 1.01 was obtained for the updated catalog during this period, with the b ‐value varying between 1.37 and 0.72 for different clusters of events. The seismicity pattern at depth is coincident with structural geologic features observed within the Fayetteville Shale (at ∼1500 m depth).
25-OH-Vitamin D Metabolism in Calcium Stone Formers

In addition to hypercalciuria, calcium stone formers demonstrate hypophosphatemia (serum Pi 1.03 ± 0.16 SD mM, N = 111) in comparison to normal subjects (Pi 1.22 ± 0.18 mM, N = 83; p < 0.001). Phosphate deprivation in animals increases urinary Ca excretion and accelerates renal formation of 1,25-(OH)2-D3. Phosphate deprivation in humans accelerates turnover of the plasma 25-OH-D pool determined from measurement of the serum 25-OH-D level, plasma volume taken as 5 percent of body weight and the rate of disappearance of injected 3H-25-OH-D3 or 14C-25-OH-D3. This accelerated turnover of the plasma 25-OH-D pool is associated with increased intestinal Ca absorption, the classical expression of Vitamin D activity, as well as, hypercalciuria and provides inferential evidence that in humans, as in animals, P04-deprivation accelerates renal production of 1, 25-(OH)2-D3. We have similarly evaluated turnover of the plasma 25-OH-D pool in Ca stone formers in an attempt to discover whether Vitamin D metabolism may be altered in this disease(s). We studied a small group of 8 stone formers among whom mean serum Pi averaged 1.28 ± 0.11 mM, a value somewhat, but not significantly, lower than in 11 healthy adults (Pi 1.36 ± 0.16 mM). Among the stone formers, turnover of the plasma 25-OH-D pool averaged 5.8 ± 1.7 nanomoles/day, a value not different from that of 5.7 ± 1.2 nanomoles/day in the 11 normals.
Fuels Management Reduces Tree Mortality from Wildfires In Southeastern United States

The objective was to determine the effectiveness of a regular prescri bed burning program for reducing tree mortality in southern pine Jbrests burned by wildfire. This study was conducted on public and industry lands in northeast Florida. On the Osceola National Forest, mean mortality was 35% in natural stands and 43% in plantations two growing seasons after a lune 1998 wildfire. Burn history significantly affected mortality with those stands prescri be-burned 1.5 yrpriorto the wildfire having the lowest mortality, while stands prescribe-burned 2 or more years prior had higher mortality. Although significant tree mortality did occur on the Osceola National Forest, with all trees killed in some stands, many trees in other burned stands did survive. The overall mortality was lower in both plantations and natural stands on the-Osceala than at Tiger Ba~'where prescribed burning had been less frequent. The highest mortality rates occurred on the Lake Butler Forest where prescribed burning had not been used since plantation establishment. Thus, a regular prescribed burning program will i-educe mortality following wiidfires in both natural and planted stands of southern pines onflatwoods sites, even when wildfires occur under severe drought conditions. South. I. AppI. For. 28(1):28—34.
Advances in Understanding the Biology and Genetics of Acute Myelocytic Leukemia

Acute myelocytic leukemia (AML) is a malignant neoplasm of hematopoietic cells characterized by an abnormal proliferation of myeloid precursor cells, decreased rate of self-destruction and an arrest in cellular differentiation. The leukemic cells have an abnormal survival advantage. Thus, the bone marrow and peripheral blood are characterized by leukocytosis with a predominance of immature cells, primarily blasts. As the immature cells accumulate in the bone marrow, they replace the normal myelocytic cells, megakaryocytes, and erythrocytic cells. This leads to a loss of normal bone marrow function and associated complications of bleeding, anemia, and infection. The incidence of AML increases with age, peaking in the sixth decade of life. In the United States, there are about 10,000 new cases of AML and 7,000 deaths in those with an AML diagnosis per year. Current molecular studies of AML demonstrate that it is a heterogeneous disorder of the myeloid cell lineage. This paper will discuss the most recent understanding and research of the cellular origin of AML and associated common genetic mutations that fuel the neoplastic process. Also discussed are how these advances have impacted the classification, selection of therapy, and definition of complete remission in AML. Promyelocytic leukemia will be discussed in detail as this AML subtype reveals how our understanding of the biology and genetics of the disease has led to targeted therapy that results in a cure in up to 80% of patients.
Building health behavior models to guide the development of just-in-time adaptive interventions: A pragmatic framework

Advances in wireless devices and mobile technology offer many opportunities for delivering just-in-time adaptive interventions (JITAIs)-suites of interventions that adapt over time to an individual's changing status and circumstances with the goal to address the individual's need for support, whenever this need arises. A major challenge confronting behavioral scientists aiming to develop a JITAI concerns the selection and integration of existing empirical, theoretical and practical evidence into a scientific model that can inform the construction of a JITAI and help identify scientific gaps. The purpose of this paper is to establish a pragmatic framework that can be used to organize existing evidence into a useful model for JITAI construction. This framework involves clarifying the conceptual purpose of a JITAI, namely, the provision of just-in-time support via adaptation, as well as describing the components of a JITAI and articulating a list of concrete questions to guide the establishment of a useful model for JITAI construction. The proposed framework includes an organizing scheme for translating the relatively static scientific models underlying many health behavior interventions into a more dynamic model that better incorporates the element of time. This framework will help to guide the next generation of empirical work to support the creation of effective JITAIs.
Optimizing And-Or Parallel Models

This chapter describes ways of improving the performance of combined and-or parallel implementations. The model for and-or parallel execution of logic programs that we consider integrates the class of methods for exploiting or-parallelism which perform variable access and task-creation operations in constant-time (such as Binding Arrays method and Versions Vectors method) and the RAP method for independent and-parallelism. The major run-time overhead in such and-or parallel models can be traced back to the overhead incurred for or-parallelism during processor task switching. We present a number of techniques for reducing this overhead, by exploiting and-parallelism and the semantics of Conditional Graph Expressions (CGEs). Essentially, we reduce the overhead by reducing the number of conditionally bound variables whose bindings need to be installed during task-switching. These techniques can be easily incorporated in a compiler, and can lead to substantial savings in execution time.
Columbia and Her Sisters: Personifying the Civil War

This essay examines the ubiquity of female personifications in the literature and visual culture of the Civil War in order to illustrate the significance of symbolic femininity to both sides of the conflict and to document the various ways in which these personifications were strategically deployed. Based on substantial archival research, this essay inserts Columbia, also known as Lady Liberty, and other female personifications of the Union and the Confederacy into the critical discussion and historical understanding of the way in which American writers and artists understood the stakes and consequences of the conflict.
Introduction to Multimedia Database Systems

This chapter addresses the issues of data modeling, architecture, query processing, and indexing. Other related topics, such as synchronization, QoS, and content-based retrieval are also touched upon. A number of studies have investigated the modeling of multimedia data from a conceptual perspective including graphical models, Petri-Net based models, object-oriented models, collaborative models, and temporal abstraction models. A general framework for multimedia data modeling has also been proposed. Some of these models deal primarily with the synchronization aspects of multimedia data, whereas others are more concerned with facilitating the browsing of multimedia data. The research community has explored multimedia database architectures at different levels including the system, schema, and functional levels. Querying a multimedia database consists of retrieving text, images, video, and audio simultaneously. Because the data in a multimedia database are usually not as structured as the data in a conventional database, querying multimedia data is not a trivial problem and has been a popular research area. Feature-based indexing and retrieval have been commonly used in multimedia database systems. However, images usually have high-dimensional feature vectors, which are difficult to index. One popularly used index structure is the R -tree and its variants. Such indexing approaches support the nearest neighbor searches efficiently.
An anomalous transmission of an ultrathin metallic grating

We report on the theoretical and experimental study of an inverse wire grid polarizer effect in ultrathin metallic gratings, where the metal thickness is on the order of the skin depth of the metal. This phenomenon exhibits that TM polarized waves are reflected and TE polarized waves are transmitted. This anomalous effect depends mainly on the metal thickness and metal width. We systematically investigate and demonstrate the effect by simulation and experiments methods, a gradient metallic thickness (4nm to 30nm) film by introducing a shadow-mask fabrication approach. Our results can be used the development of ultra-thin nano-strip based thin planar metasurfaces with low loss.
Highly charged ion Coulomb crystallization in mixed strongly coupled plasmas

The investigation of highly charged ion Coulomb crystallization in mixed strongly coupled plasmas is of interest in many areas: white dwarf astrophysical plasmas are believed to have very similar thermodynamic properties, cold highly charged ions can be used as an object for high precision laser spectroscopy of fine and hyperfine transitions in the visible due to the absence of Doppler broadening and, an entirely new area of research is the potential application to highly charged ion based quantum computing schemes.
A bacterial global regulator forms a prion

Prions are self-propagating protein aggregates that act as protein-based elements of inheritance in fungi. Although prevalent in eukaryotes, prions have not been identified in bacteria. Here we found that a bacterial protein, transcription terminator Rho of Clostridium botulinum (Cb-Rho), could form a prion. We identified a candidate prion-forming domain (cPrD) in Cb-Rho and showed that it conferred amyloidogenicity on Cb-Rho and could functionally replace the PrD of a yeast prion-forming protein. Furthermore, its cPrD enabled Cb-Rho to access alternative conformations in Escherichia coli—a soluble form that terminated transcription efficiently and an aggregated, self-propagating prion form that was functionally compromised. The prion form caused genome-wide changes in the transcriptome. Thus, Cb-Rho functions as a protein-based element of inheritance in bacteria, suggesting that the emergence of prions predates the evolutionary split between eukaryotes and bacteria.
High-speed free-space optical continuous-variable quantum key distribution enabled by three-dimensional multiplexing.

A high-speed four-state continuous-variable quantum key distribution (CV-QKD) system, enabled by wavelength-division multiplexing, polarization multiplexing, and orbital angular momentum (OAM) multiplexing, is studied in the presence of atmospheric turbulence. The atmospheric turbulence channel is emulated by two spatial light modulators (SLMs) on which two randomly generated azimuthal phase patterns yielding Andrews’ spectrum are recorded. The phase noise is mitigated by the phase noise cancellation (PNC) stage, and channel transmittance can be monitored directly by the D.C. level in our PNC stage. After the system calibration, a total SKR of >1.68 Gbit/s can be reached in the ideal system, featured with lossless channel and free of excess noise. In our experiment, based on commercial photodetectors, the minimum transmittances of 0.21 and 0.29 are required for OAM states of 2 (or −2) and 6 (or −6), respectively, to guarantee the secure transmission, while a total SKR of 120 Mbit/s can be obtained in case of mean transmittances.
Distress in older adult cancer patients approaching end of life.

9548 Background: Lay health navigators are able to address various issues that cause distress in older cancer survivors by administering and responding to distress thermometers (DT). Methods: Lay n...
Treatment Delivery Technology for Brachytherapy

While external beam treatment technology has become more complex over the years with the introduction of MLCs, IMRT, and VMAT, it still pales in comparison with the range of delivery devices and techniques that brachytherapy brings to the table. With brachytherapy, each tumor location necessarily has a unique technique and applicator setup. Because of the wide range of applications and tumor sites treated with brachytherapy, delivery technology is diverse. This chapter serves as an introduction to the diversity of brachytherapy treatment delivery technology in which we summarize the most popular delivery techniques and methodologies. The most common applicator geometries and treatment modalities are outlined. And standard workflows are presented for sealed source permanent implants, afterloader-based (high dose rate and pulsed dose rate) applications, and 90-Yttrium microspheres.
Quantitative contrast-enhanced spectral mammography based on photon-counting detectors: A feasibility study.

Purpose To investigate the feasibility of accurate quantification of iodine mass thickness in contrast-enhanced spectral mammography. Materials and methods A computer simulation model was developed to evaluate the performance of a photon-counting spectral mammography system in the application of contrast-enhanced spectral mammography. A figure-of-merit (FOM), which was defined as the decomposed iodine signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) with respect to the square root of the mean glandular dose (MGD), was chosen to optimize the imaging parameters, in terms of beam energy, splitting energy, and prefiltrations for breasts of various thicknesses and densities. Experimental phantom studies were also performed using a beam energy of 40 kVp and a splitting energy of 34 keV with 3 mm Al prefiltration. A two-step calibration method was investigated to quantify the iodine mass thickness, and was validated using phantoms composed of a mixture of glandular and adipose materials, for various breast thicknesses and densities. Finally, the traditional dual-energy log-weighted subtraction method was also studied as a comparison. The measured iodine signal from both methods was compared to the known value to characterize the quantification accuracy and precision. Results The optimal imaging parameters, which lead to the highest FOM, were found at a beam energy between 42 and 46 kVp with a splitting energy at 34 keV. The optimal tube voltage decreased as the breast thickness or the Al prefiltration increased. The proposed quantification method was able to measure iodine mass thickness on phantoms of various thicknesses and densities with high accuracy. The root-mean-square (RMS) error for cm-scale lesion phantoms was estimated to be 0.20 mg/cm2 . The precision of the technique, characterized by the standard deviation of the measurements, was estimated to be 0.18 mg/cm2 . The traditional weighted subtraction method also predicted a linear correlation between the measured signal and the known iodine mass thickness. However, the correlation slope and offset values were strongly dependent on the total breast thickness and density. Conclusion The results of this study suggest that iodine mass thickness for cm-scale lesions can be accurately quantified with contrast-enhanced spectral mammography. The quantitative information can potentially improve the differential power for malignancy.
Cost-Effective Superconducting Magnet Design for Next-Step Fusion Experiments

It is widely believed that the use of superconducting magnets in next-step fusion experiments is driven only by the reactor relevance of low circulating power in a fusion plant. However, there is a broad range of fusion magnet applications in which the use of superconducting magnets in near-term experiments will reduce the capital cost of an experiment, along with further reductions in the operating cost. This claim extends to Proof-of-Principle and Proof-of-Performance experiments for Steady-State and Spherical Tori, Compact Stellarators, Spheromaks, and Heavy Ion Fusion Drivers.
A Least-Square Model to Estimate Historical Percentages of Itinerant General Aviation Operations by Aircraft Types and Flight Rules at an Airport

Historical airport-level General Aviation (GA) activity plays an important role in airport managerial and operational decision-making processes. We developed a model to estimate historical percentages of itinerant GA operations by four aircraft types and two flight rules. The model is formulated as a least-square optimization model and can be applied to both towered and nontowered airports. We applied the model to airports in the Terminal Area Forecast and compared model estimates with the observed statistics. This study provides a method that could be used in the decision-making processes that require detailed historical GA operations.
Purgatory, Atonement, and the Self

Purgatory has traditionally been thought of both as a state—the middle condition between earthly existence and eternal destiny—and a process preparatory to Heaven and Hell, a process whose pains and penalties have the effecting of purging the souls of those who undergo them. How would such ‘purging’ work? The aim of this chapter is to offer an answer to this question by connecting some themes in the philosophy of punishment with themes relating to the substitution theory of atonement. Its concluding suggestion is that the pains of Purgatory eliminate attachments to the self, and may thereby determine whether after death there remains anyone for whom Christ can atone.
Augmented Reality Device Operator Cognitive Strain Determination and Prediction

Augmented reality (AR) solutions are in the process of entering a broad variety of industries to modify the capabilities of workers through (close to) real-time display of context-dependent information. An example for real-time training is the display of instructional materials, such as manuals, for operation and maintenance. Especially in industrial settings, this will allow for the enhancement of workforce capabilities in real-time. However, little is known with respect to the cognitive load that is incurred as a result of this process, which might hinder the realization of desired outcomes. In this paper, we evaluate visual tasks with respect to the cognitive load based on electroencephalography (EEG) employing existing and new metrics utilizing a publicly available data set. In turn, we provide an initial quantified and directly measured approach. We find that overall results are highly subjective, but already available commercial equipment can readily be employed to determine the cognitive load with R2 scores around 0.5 when utilizing k-nearest-neighbor (KNN) approaches directly. More intricate metrics at different measurement points could thus help detect and alleviate undesired stressors in industrial augmented reality settings.
Stationary digital intraoral tomosynthesis: demonstrating the clinical potential of the first-generation system

Stationary intraoral tomosynthesis (sIOT) is an experimental imaging approach using a fixed array of carbon nanotubeenabled x-ray sources to produce a series of projections from which three-dimensional information can be reconstructed and displayed. Customized to the dental workspace, the first-generation sIOT tube is compact, easy-to-operate, and designed to interface with standard digital intraoral detectors. The purpose of this work was to explore the utility of the sIOT device across a range of dental pathologies and thereby identify limitations potentially amenable to correction through post-acquisition processing. Phantoms, extracted human teeth, and cadaveric specimens containing caries, fractures, and dilacerated roots, often associated with amalgam restorations, were imaged using tube settings that match the kVp and mA used in conventional clinical 2D intraoral imaging. An iterative reconstruction approach generated a stack of image slices through which the reader scrolls to appreciate depth relationships. Initial experience demonstrated an improved ability to visualize occlusal caries, interproximal caries, crown and root fractures, and root dilacerations when compared to 2D imaging. However, artifacts around amalgam restorations and metal implants proved problematic, leading to the incorporation of an artifact reduction step in the post-acquisition processing chain. These findings support the continued study of sIOT as a viable limited-angle tomography tool for dental applications and provide a foundation for the ongoing development of image processing steps to maximize the diagnostic utility of the displayed images.
Kyrgyzstan’s informal settlements: yntymak and the emergence of politics in place

This article explores the intersections of theory and community knowledge, experiences and imagination to illustrate how Kyrgyzstan’s informal settlements contest both normative politics and curren...
Newton Puts It All Together

In 1686, Isaac Newton published, in Latin, his PhilosophiaeNaturalis Principia Mathematica, commonly called the Principia. In this landmark effort, he was able to synthesize the work of his predecessors, Copernicus, Brahe, Kepler, and Galileo, and produce a “system of the world” that described not only the celestial motions with remarkable precision, but also the behavior of matter here on the earth. At the outset, he wrote down three “laws”—more accurately, axioms—concerning the motion of matter. These he considered to be given. According to a translation from the Latin by A. Motte, they are
Hawaii's public mental health system.

The following article addresses the nature of and problems with the public mental health system in Hawaii. It includes a brief history of Hawaii's public mental health system, a description and analysis of this system, economic factors affecting mental health, as well as a needs assessment of the elderly, individuals with severe mental illness, children and adolescents, and ethnically diverse individuals. In addition to having the potential to increase suicide rates and unnecessarily prolong personal suffering, problems in the public mental health system such as inadequate services contribute to an increase in social problems including, but not limited to, an increase in crime rates (e.g., domestic violence, child abuse), divorce rates, school failure, and behavioral problems in children. The population in need of mental health services in Hawaii is under served, with this inadequacy of services due to economic limitations and a variety of other factors. Language: en
Park Access and Equity in a Segregated, Southern U.S. City: A Case Study of Tallahassee, FL

Abstract As more research has been done regarding access to parks with a lens of environmental justice, the results on who has access and what type of access has been mixed, although overall there ...
ModelKB: towards automated management of the modeling lifecycle in deep learning

Deep Learning has improved the state-of-the-art results in an ever-growing number of domains. This success heavily relies on the development and training of deep learning models, also known as deep neural networks (DNN). Often, developing a DNN is an ad-hoc, iterative process that results in producing tens to hundreds of models before arriving at a satisfactory result. While there has been a surge in the number of tools and frameworks that aim at facilitating deep learning, the issues of model management have been largely ignored. In particular, deep learning practitioners have to manually track their experiments using text files, spreadsheets or folder hierarchies, which is expensive, time-consuming, and error-prone. In this paper, we present our ongoing work and vision towards automating end-to-end model management in deep learning. Specifically, we introduce a tool prototype, named ModelKB, that can automatically (1) extract and store the model's metadata-including its architecture, weights, and configuration; (2) visualize, query, and compare experiments; and (3) reproduce experiments. Our overarching goal is to automate the model management process with minimal user intervention using the user's favorite framework. We report the current status of ModelKB, a pilot user study, and the challenges of automating model management in deep learning.
Impact of local meteorology on wake characteristics at Perdigão

During January – June 2017 a unique data set of Doppler lidar observations of a single wind turbine wake was collected within the Perdigao flow in complex terrain experiment conducted as part of the New European Wind Atlas. Over the six-month period, over 19,000 10- minute scans comprising a combination of; Arc Scans at ten elevation angles, Vertical Azimuth Display and Range Height Indicator scans were conducted. These data were subsequently analysed using a newly-developed automated wake identification and tracking algorithm. In total, over 1,900 ten-minute periods were identified as 'wake periods' by the algorithm, over 1000 with coherent wake centres. For these wakes, the detailed 3D volume of the wake characteristics are examined to assess the impact of different meteorological conditions on the magnitude and recovery of the velocity deficit in coherent wakes as they advect downwind.
Simultaneous effects of the apolipoprotein E polymorphism on apolipoprotein E, apolipoprotein B, and cholesterol metabolism.

Human apolipoprotein (apo) E is polymorphic. We have investigated the effect of the apo-E polymorphism on quantitative plasma levels of apo E, apo B, and total cholesterol in a sample of 563 blood-bank donors from Marburg and Giessen, West Germany. The relative frequencies of the epsilon 2, epsilon 3, and epsilon 4 alleles are .063, .793, and .144, respectively. The average effects of the epsilon 2 allele are to raise apo-E levels by 0.95 mg/dl, lower apo B levels by 9.46 mg/dl, and lower total cholesterol levels by 14.2 mg/dl. The average effects of the epsilon 4 allele are to lower apo-E levels by 0.19 mg/dl, to raise apo-B levels by 4.92 mg/dl, and to raise total cholesterol levels by 7.09 mg/dl. The average effects of the epsilon 3 allele are near zero for all three phenotypes. The apo-E polymorphism accounts for 20% of the variability of plasma apo-E levels, 12% of the variability of plasma apo-B levels, and 4% of the variability of total plasma cholesterol levels. The inverse relationship between the genotype-specific average apo-E levels and both the genotype-specific average apo-B and cholesterol levels is offset by a positive relationship between apo-E levels and both apo-B and cholesterol levels within an apo-E genotype. The apo-E polymorphism also has a direct effect on the correlation between apo-E and total cholesterol levels. The implication of these results on multivariate genetic analyses of these phenotypes is discussed.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
The Festival for Peace: Some Ruminations on My Journey through Music

ABSTRACTThis personal essay begins with a discussion of the Festival for Peace, an all-day rock show at Shea Stadium, NYC, August 1970. After a brief discussion of my impressions of the Festival fo...
CHAPTER 5 – Bacterial Pathogens

Publisher Summary Bacterial pathogens are divided into: Gram-positive and Gram-negative, based upon their staining attributes with Gram's stain. This differentiation was a useful tool, but it provides little taxonomic resolution in this age of sophisticated molecular diagnostics and bacterial systematics. Some bacterial pathogens have very little genomic variation valuable for sub typing and strain identification. The most common cause for this lack of variation is that these organisms have only recently “emerged” as pathogens from a closely related bacterium in the “recent” past. The close bacterial relative may or may not have been a pathogen, but some genetic change presumably occurred (genes could have been gained or lost) that changed its virulence properties and converted it into a highly effective human pathogen. This situation is fairly common for bacterial pathogens encountered in biocrimes, and exists in all pathogens that rapidly expand during an epidemic. Bacterial pathogens —such as, Bacillus anthracis, Yersinia pestis, Franciscella tularensis, Brucella, melioidosis and glanders are described in the chapter. When the highest sub typing resolution is required for the most precise identification of bacterial isolates, the most diverse and mutable genomic loci are used. For example, highly mutable genomic regions are found in the Variable Number Tandem Repeat (VNTR) loci. Many different bacterial pathogens are employed in s. It is difficult to predict which pathogen will be used in the future, although availability, ease of handling, ease of weaponization, and potential impact (death or terror) are factors that might narrow the options.
Utility of laboratory markers in evaluating for acute compartment syndrome in the emergency department.

Background Acute compartment syndrome is diagnosed by clinical examination with the aid of direct compartmental measurement. Previous work suggested using several laboratory markers that may suggest ongoing acute compartment syndrome in hospitalized patients. Serum creatinine kinase (CK) levels >4000 U/L, chloride (Cl) levels >104 mg/dL, and blood urea nitrogen (BUN) levels <10 mg/dL were found to have 100% association with the diagnosis of acute compartment syndrome. This strategy has not been studied in emergency department (ED) patients. Methods A retrospective chart review of all patients diagnosed with acute compartment syndrome of the upper and lower extremity or tibia/fibula fracture was performed from 13 EDs between February 22, 2008 and October 1, 2018. Serum values were collected for each patient: CK, sodium (Na), potassium (K), Cl, bicarbonate (HCO3), glucose, BUN, creatinine (Cr), calcium, lactic acid (LA), and ionized calcium (iCa). A control group composed of patients without acute compartment syndrome who had tibia and/or fibula fractures was analyzed to compare with our cohort. Results We identified 930 patients who meet inclusion criteria (389 acute compartment syndrome patients and 541 tibia/fibula fracture patients). Sex and ethnicity were similar in each population. A majority of the patients were evaluated at EDs without a trauma center designation. Using univariate modeling, HCO3, CK, iCa, Cr, BUN, and K values were found to be individual significant predictors of acute compartment syndrome (P < 0.05). Multivariate regression models found that HCO3 and Cr were significant predictors of acute compartment syndrome with a C-statistic of 0.77. The Valdez model had a prediction accuracy of 0.52 and a specificity of 99.2% but had a sensitivity of only 2.9%. Conclusion Our model demonstrates that use of serum biomarkers in the ED does aid in the diagnosis of acute compartment syndrome in patients in the ED with 99.2% specificity but has a sensitivity of only 2.9%. Further research and prospective evaluation of serum markers are needed.