cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Aerosol Infection of BALB/c Mice with Brucella melitensis and Brucella abortus and Protective Efficacy against Aerosol Challenge

Brucellosis is a zoonotic disease with a worldwide distribution that can be transmitted via intentional or accidental aerosol exposure. In order to engineer superior vaccine strains against Brucella species for use in animals as well as in humans, the possibility of challenge infection via aerosol needs to be considered to properly evaluate vaccine efficacy. In this study, we assessed the use of an aerosol chamber to infect deep lung tissue of mice to elicit systemic infections with either Brucella abortus or B. melitensis at various doses. The results reveal that B. abortus causes a chronic infection of lung tissue in BALB/c mice and peripheral organs at low doses. In contrast, B. melitensis infection diminishes more rapidly, and higher infectious doses are required to obtain infection rates in animals similar to those of B. abortus. Whether this difference translates to severity of human infection remains to be elucidated. Despite these differences, unmarked deletion mutants BADeltaasp24 and BMDeltaasp24 consistently confer superior protection to mice against homologous and heterologous aerosol challenge infection and should be considered viable candidates as vaccine strains against brucellosis.
Guessing the Rules: Conflict Resolution in the Post-Cold War Era

When the Soviet Union shattered into a dozen pieces, many students and practitioners of foreign policy and conflict resolution also lost their bearings. The bipolar international system which had provided an organizing framework for foreign policies and scholarly work was gone, replaced by a new world. To the surprise of many, the decade following the Cold War did not develop into a warm peace. It was tumultuous, bloody, riven by horrifying conflict not across national borders but across towns and roads and neighborhoods. It was also a decade of large-scale political and social transformation, largely toward democratic processes, personal freedom, unprecedented individual access to information, and of an astonishing growth in the global economy. Although we could see the new reality, its meaning remained elusive. Was there a new theory to explain this world? Had we arrived at the end of history, as Francis Fukuyama (1989) proposed, an end in which the growing embrace of liberal democracy presaged a more p...
Signal transduction in the retina and inherited retinopathies

In this paper, an attempt is made to highlight some of the recent developments in genetics to understand the group of inherited eye disorders referred to as retinitis pigmentosa (RP). Of the seven genes identified, six are expressed specifically in the photoreceptor cells and four encode the enzymes involved in the phototransduction pathway. A short discussion is presented of the tremendous phenotypic heterogeneity. An understanding of RP requires knowledge of other genetic and environmental factors as well as tests to measure the status of the patient's photoreceptor cells in various disease stages.
History of the grounded ice sheet in the Ross Sea sector of Antarctica during the Last Glacial Maximum and the last termination

Knowledge of variations in the extent and thickness of the Antarctic Ice Sheet is key for understanding the behaviour of Southern Hemisphere glaciers during the last ice age and for addressing issues involving global sea level, ocean circulation and climate change. Insight into past ice-sheet behaviour also will aid predictions of future ice-sheet stability. Here, we review ter- restrial evidence for changes in ice geometry that occurred in the Ross Sea sector of Antarctica at the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and during subsequent deglaciation. During the LGM, a thick grounded ice sheet extended close to the continental shelf edge in the Ross Embayment. This ice reached surface elevations of more than 1000 m along the coast of the central and southern Trans- antarctic Mountains and Marie Byrd Land. The local LGM occurred by 18 ka on the coast, but as late as 7- 10 ka inland. The first significant thinning took place at roughly 13 ka, with most ice loss happening in the Holocene. This history makes it unlikely that the Ross Sea sector was a major contributor to meltwater pulse 1A (MWP 1A). Resolution of a possible Antarctic origin for MWP 1A awaits detailed reconstructions from all sectors of the ice sheet. The Antarctic Ice Sheet contains the world's larg- est reservoir of fresh water and is a major control on Southern Hemisphere climate. A history of changes in ice-sheet extent and thickness is vital for answering questions involving the initiation of Southern Hemisphere glaciation and deglaciation
Semantic Video Clustering in Ad Hoc Networks for Content-Based Retrieval

Traditional content-based retrieval approaches employ either centralized or flooding strategies in ad hoc networks, which may result in low fault tolerance and high search cost making them inefficient. To facilitate an efficient video retrieval, we propose a logic-based content summary framework that is able to represent semantic contents of video data using concise logic terms. In this method the video data is characterized by color and wavelet coefficients which will be converted into logical terms by using threshold operators. The logical terms are then summarized as node content descriptions. The nodes containing similar node descriptions are clustered into a virtual infrastructure according to the semantic content.
The function and mechanism of convergent extension during gastrulation of Xenopus laevis

The processes thought to function in Xenopus gastrulation include bottle cell formation, migration of cells on the roof of the blastocoel, and autonomous convergent extension of the circumblastoporal region. A review of recent and classical results shows that only the last accounts for the bulk of the tissue displacement of gastrulation, including spreading of the marginal zone toward the blastopore, involution of the marginal zone, and closure of the blastopore. Microsurgical manipulation and explantation studies, analysed by time-lapse video and cine microscopy, shows that the dorsal circumblastoporal region contains two regions which show either autonomous or semiautonomous convergent extension. The dorsal involuting marginal zone (IMZ) undergoes convergence (narrowing) and extension (lengthening) after its involution, beginning at the midgastrula stage and continuing through neurulation, such that it simultaneously extends posteriorly across the yolk plug and narrows the blastoporal circumference. Concurrently, the corresponding region of the overlying non-involuting marginal zone (NIMZ) begins a complementary convergent extension, but at a greater rate, which spreads vegetally to occupy surface area vacated by the IMZ. Tissue recombination experiments show that the deep cells of the dorsal IMZ bring about convergent extension. Labelling of small populations of these cells with a cell lineage tracer shows that convergent extension involves intercalation of deep cells to form a longer, narrower array. Direct time-lapse video and cine micrography of deep cells in cultured explants show that convergent extension involves radial and circumferential intercalation. Removal of the entire blastocoel roof of the early gastrula, including all or part of the NIMZ, shows that convergent extension of the IMZ alone can bring about its involution and blastopore closure. The role of convergent extension in gastrulation of other amphibians and other metazoans and its significance to related problems in early development are discussed.
Cytomorphologic characteristics and differential diagnoses of lymphoepithelial carcinoma of the parotid.

Introduction Lymphoepithelial carcinoma of the salivary gland is an extremely rare neoplasm and is challenging to diagnose by fine needle aspiration (FNA). There are rare reports on the cytopathologic features of lymphoepithelial carcinoma, which may be mistaken for other high-grade salivary gland neoplasm or a metastasis to the salivary gland. Materials and methods A retrospective review was undertaken of 7 cases of lymphoepithelial carcinoma of the parotid diagnosed on FNA with histologic confirmation from 4 major medical centers. Results Cytomorphologic features of lymphoepithelial carcinoma include smears with moderate cellularity displaying a rich nonneoplastic population of lymphoplasmacytic cells admixed with tissue fragments of high grade, malignant undifferentiated epithelial cells with high nuclear to cytoplasm ratio, hyperchromasia, prominent nucleoli, and scant to abundant, indistinct cytoplasm. Discussion Diagnostic pitfalls of lymphoepithelial carcinoma include metastatic squamous cell carcinoma, metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma, and other high grade primary salivary gland neoplasms. Recognizing this lesion may help guide clinicians to perform additional imaging studies to exclude a primary from other sites.
Radiation dose in percutaneous coronary intervention: OUCH․․․ did that hurt?

The cumulative exposure to ionizing radiation from medical imaging is increasing with attention now focused on all aspects of radiation safety ([1][1]). In this issue of JACC: Cardiovascular Interventions , Fetterly et al. ([2][2]) present their study on the factors that influence radiation dose
The Terrorist Mindset and Terrorist Decisionmaking: Two Areas of Ignorance

Abstract : The following paper identifies two areas of ignorance in the current study of the phenomenon of terrorism: how terrorists think (is there such a thing as a terrorist mind?) and how terrorists groups make their decisions. The organization, financing weaponry, and tactics of terrorist groups have been studied. We have acquired a great deal of what might be called 'order of battle' information about terrorist groups. In some cases, a sizable portion of their membership has been identified; we know their names. Articles, or in some cases, books have been written about a few of the more notable leaders of terrorists groups: Ulrike Meinhof, Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, Leila Khaled, Yasir Arafat. A few have written about their own experiences in terrorist groups; Sean MacStiofain about his Irish Republican Army career and Susan Stern about her experiences in the Weather Underground. Some terrorists in prison have agreed to interviews. Some terrorists still at large have even been interviewed by journalists. It has been reported that the West German Bundeskriminalamt maintains a vast file that includes information on the reading habits, dental records, and musical preferences of known terrorists.
Selected Bibliography in Communication

(1969). Selected Bibliography in Communication. Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue canadienne des etudes africaines: Vol. 3, Rural Africa, pp. 248-256.
Projected sub-gradient with ℓ1 or simplex constraints via isotonic regression

We consider two classic problems in convex optimization: 1) minimizing a convex objective over the nonnegative orthant of the l1-ball and 2) minimizing a convex objective over the probability simplex. We propose an efficient and simple equality constraint elimination technique which converts the l1 and simplex constraints into order constraints. We formulate the projection onto the feasible set as an isotonic regression problem, which can be solved exactly in O(n) time via the Pool Adjacent Violators Algorithm (PAVA), where n is the dimension of the space. We design a C++ implementation of PAVA up to 25,000 times faster than scikit-learn. Our PAVA-based projection step enables the design of efficient projected subgradient methods which compare well against projected algorithms using direct projections onto the l1-ball and onto the simplex, with projection in O(nlog(n)) exact time and O(n) expected time. Interestingly, our technique is particularly well adapted to learning from sparse, skewed, or aggregated data, by decreasing the cross-correlations between data points.
A Discontinuous Galerkin Method for Pricing American Options Under the Constant Elasticity of Variance Model

The pricing of option contracts is one of the classical problems in Mathematical Finance. While useful exact solution formulas exist for simple contracts, typically numerical simulations are mandated due to the fact that standard features, such as early-exercise, preclude the existence of such solutions. In this paper we consider derivatives which generalize the classical Black-Scholes setting by not only admitting the early-exercise feature, but also considering assets which evolve by the Constant Elasticity of Variance (CEV) process (which includes the Geometric Brownian Motion of Black-Scholes as a special case). In this paper we investigate a Discontinuous Galerkin method for valuing European and American options on assets evolving under the CEV process which has a number of advantages over existing approaches including adaptability, accuracy, and ease of parallelization.
Environmental Life Cycle Assessment of Nanosilver-Enabled Bandages

Over 400 tons of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) are produced annually, 30% of which are used in medical applications due to their antibacterial properties. The widespread use of AgNPs has implications over the entire life cycle of medical products, from production to disposal, including but not limited to environmental releases of nanomaterials themselves. Here a cradle-to-grave life cycle assessment from nanoparticle synthesis to end-of-life incineration was performed for a commercially available nanosilver-enabled medical bandage. Emissions were linked to multiple categories of environmental impacts, making primary use of the TRACI 2.1 impact assessment method, with specific consideration of nanosilver releases relative to all other (non-nanosilver) emissions. Modeling results suggest that (1) environmental impacts of AgNP synthesis are dominated by upstream electricity production, with the exception of life cycle ecotoxicity where the largest contributor is mining wastes, (2) AgNPs are the largest contri...
THE ASSOCIATION OF HIGH-DENSITY LIPOPROTEIN CHOLESTEROL WITH LONG-TERM ADVERSE EVENTS AMONG PATIENTS WITH ESTABLISHED CORONARY ARTERY DISEASE: INSIGHTS FROM THE IMPROVE-IT TRIAL

HDL-C has been shown to predict first cardiovascular event, but its association with subsequent events in patients with cardiovascular disease is unknown. We evaluated patients (pts) in the IMPROVE-IT trial with non-missing 1-month HDL-C and LDL-C to study the association of HDL at qualifying event
On the existence of the 'bottleneck' phenomenon in vibrational relaxation of diatomic molecules

High-temperature vibrational relaxation of diatomic molecules is analyzed using master equation and Fokker-Planck diffusion equation modeling. Both approaches are based on the non-perturbative forced harmonic oscillator vibrational energy transfer rate model. The results show that the effect of the retarded diffusion at the intermediate vibrational energies during the relaxation process ('bottleneck'), predicted in the previous studies, does not exist at the high temperatures. It is also shown that the interpretation of the high-temperature vibrational relaxation as a diffusion-type process is inadequate due to the strong effect of multi-quantum energy transfer. The obtained results, applied to interpretation of the rates of thermal dissociation, suggest an important role of rotations in molecular activation at the high vibrational energies. (Author)
Operating characteristics of a femtosecond amplification cavity for infrared frequency combs

We develop a cavity model including transverse field variations and gain saturation to elucidate the operating characteristics of a femtosecond amplification cavity (fsAC) with an incident infrared frequency comb. After validating the model against experimental data, we explore how the fsAC operating characteristics, such as average output power and beam quality, vary with factors such as the pump beam and the output coupler reflectivity. We also examine the locking range of the fsAC and how the nonlinear Kerr effect places a limitation on the pulse duration that can be successfully amplified by the fsAC.
Review: 'Living with Brain Injuries: Narrative, Community, and Women’s Renegotiation of Identity' by J. E. Stewart

J. E. Stewart’s Living with Brain Injury: Narrative, Community, and Women’s Renegotiation of Identity provides an in-depth look at the experiences of ten women who sustained brain injuries at diffe...
Analysis of the Result of Allergic Reaction of Pure Antirabies Serum

In order to understand the occurrence rate of allergic reaction caused by injection of the pure antirabies serum,investiqation was carried out in 386 cases who were bitten by dogs or cats.We operated according to the《Direction of Antirabies Serum》 and evaluated the results.The total positive rate of allergic reaction was 6.99%,9.09% in male and 5.24% in female,no significant difference was found between them(P0.05).The positive rate in people aged ≤20 years was 2.92%,and that in people aged 20 years was 10.23%,presenting a significant difference between them(P0.01).By the method of rank correlation analysis,we found that there was a positive correlation between the positive rate of allergic reaction and the age(r s=0.929,P0.01).
Therapeutic goals: quality and quantity of life.

The elderly population is projected to increase from the present 11 per cent of the overall population to 20 per cent by the year 2020. The efforts of the medical community are directed toward extending the quantity of life. However, economic necessity and technologic advance in medicine will dictate the health care delivery to the elderly, as quality of life becomes a major factor in therapeutic decision.
Working at the Intersection of Race and Public Policy: The Promise (and Perils) of Putting Research to Work for Societal Transformation

Today, race and ethnicity scholars generate a wealth of important research that documents the parameters of racial and/or ethnic inequality, how such inequality persists, and how it relates to, or ...
Morbidity and health care costs of the elderly

Pure demographic prognoses cannot adequately foresee the future trends in (multi-)morbidity and costs of illness of the elderly. One has to take into account the current structure and distribution of morbidity in ambulatory and clinical care as well as the scientific hypotheses on different types of morbidity of the elderly which may be responsible for specific patterns of use of the health services and for the action taken by the health care system.
Delivering on the promise: poly ADP ribose polymerase inhibition as targeted anticancer therapy.

Purpose of reviewThe article presents the rationale, clinical development, and current status of poly (ADP ribose) polymerase inhibitors (PARPis) as anticancer agents.Recent findingsThe recent approval of olaparib in heavily pretreated patients with advanced ovarian cancer carrying a BRCA1/2 mutatio
Atomically Thin Ohmic Edge Contacts Between Two-Dimensional Materials

With the decrease of the dimensions of electronic devices, the role played by electrical contacts is ever increasing, eventually coming to dominate the overall device volume and total resistance. This is especially problematic for monolayers of semiconducting transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), which are promising candidates for atomically thin electronics. Ideal electrical contacts to them would require the use of similarly thin electrode materials while maintaining low contact resistances. Here we report a scalable method to fabricate ohmic graphene edge contacts to two representative monolayer TMDs, MoS2 and WS2. The graphene and TMD layer are laterally connected with wafer-scale homogeneity, no observable overlap or gap, and a low average contact resistance of 30 kΩ·μm. The resulting graphene edge contacts show linear current–voltage (I–V) characteristics at room temperature, with ohmic behavior maintained down to liquid helium temperatures.
Non-linear eigenspace visual object tracking

This paper presents a visual object tracking algorithm using an eigenspace representation. Previous approaches to eigenspace methods for object tracking use vectorized image regions as observations. Here, feature vectors associated to pixels of the target template are considered to be individual observations of the target object. The collection of observations is learned using non-linear subspace projection to arrive at an eigenspace representation. This representation allows tracking pixel-wise but the pixels are tied together using subspace representation which provides a robust and compact representation of the object. Localization and segmentation are carried out by deriving a similarity function in the eigenspace representation. A gradient descent and mean-shift based techniques are derived to maximize the similarity function with respect to the transformation parameters. The de-noising and clustering capabilities of the eigenspace representation lead to a localization procedure that is robust to noise and partial occlusion. For fast moving objects and to recover from total occlusion, a probabilistic search strategy, based on particle filter, is also developed. A unique feature of our approach is that it permits segmentation in addition to localization when multiple templates of the target are given. The performance of the algorithm is tested on real world tracking examples.
Type B Aortic Arch Interruption in an Adult

The presentation and treatment of a patient with a type B interrupted aortic arch with an isolated left subclavian artery is described.
Case 37-2016. An 86-Year-Old Woman with Leukocytosis and Splenomegaly.

An 86-year-old woman was seen at this hospital because of fatigue, night sweats, leukocytosis, and splenomegaly. Review of the peripheral-blood smear revealed neutrophilia without dysplastic features, immature forms, or monocytosis. A diagnostic procedure was performed.
Recent Achievements in Characterizing the Histone Code and Approaches to Integrating Epigenomics and Systems Biology

Functional epigenetic regulation occurs by dynamic modification of chromatin, including genetic material (i.e., DNA methylation), histone proteins, and other nuclear proteins. Due to the highly complex nature of the histone code, mass spectrometry (MS) has become the leading technique in identification of single and combinatorial histone modifications. MS has now overcome antibody-based strategies due to its automation, high resolution, and accurate quantitation. Moreover, multiple approaches to analysis have been developed for global quantitation of posttranslational modifications (PTMs), including large-scale characterization of modification coexistence (middle-down and top-down proteomics), which is not currently possible with any other biochemical strategy. Recently, our group and others have simplified and increased the effectiveness of analyzing histone PTMs by improving multiple MS methods and data analysis tools. This review provides an overview of the major achievements in the analysis of histone PTMs using MS with a focus on the most recent improvements. We speculate that the workflow for histone analysis at its state of the art is highly reliable in terms of identification and quantitation accuracy, and it has the potential to become a routine method for systems biology thanks to the possibility of integrating histone MS results with genomics and proteomics datasets.
Chapter 85 – The Synthetic Analog of Δ9-Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC): Nabilone. Pharmacology and Clinical Application

Abstract There is growing interest in the potential medical uses of cannabinoids. Nabilone is a synthetic analog of the primary psychoactive cannabinoid in the cannabis plant, Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ9-THC). The objective of this review is to summarize the latest findings regarding the efficacy of nabilone for a range of medical and psychiatric conditions. Nabilone has favorable pharmacological properties for clinical use, such as, high oral bioavailability, a long duration of action, and low abuse liability. Laboratory studies and clinical reports suggest that nabilone has moderate efficacy in the treatment of nausea, chronic pain, pain-associated insomnia, PTSD-induced nightmares, dyskinesia and chronic anxiety. In noncannabis users, doses of 1–2 mg/day have therapeutic efficacy, with mild adverse effects for most indications. Nabilone has greatest promise as an adjunct treatment or as an alternative medication for patients who are unresponsive to other therapies. Recent studies suggest high doses of nabilone (6–8 mg/day) reduce cannabis withdrawal and relapse, as measured in the laboratory, suggesting that this medication may also be useful for the treatment of cannabis use disorder.
Finite dipole model for extreme near-field thermal radiation between a tip and planar SiC substrate

Abstract Recent experimental studies have measured the infrared (IR) spectrum of tip-scattered near-field thermal radiation for a SiC substrate and observed up to a 50 cm − 1 redshift of the surface phonon polariton (SPhP) resonance peak [1] , [2] . However, the observed spectral redshift cannot be explained by the conventional near-field thermal radiation model based on the point dipole approximation. In the present work, a heated tip is modeled as randomly fluctuating point charges (or fluctuating finite dipoles) aligned along the primary axis of a prolate spheroid, and quasistatic tip-substrate charge interactions are considered to formulate the effective polarizability and self-interaction Green's function. The finite dipole model (FDM), combined with fluctuational electrodynamics, allows the computation of tip-plane thermal radiation in the extreme near-field (i.e., H / R ≲ 1 , where H is the tip-substrate gap distance and R is the tip radius), which cannot be calculated with the point dipole approximation. The FDM provides the underlying physics on the spectral redshift of tip-scattered near-field thermal radiation as observed in experiments. In addition, the SPhP peak in the near-field thermal radiation spectrum may split into two peaks as the gap distance decreases into the extreme near-field regime. This observation suggests that scattering-type spectroscopic measurements may not convey the full spectral features of tip-plane extreme near-field thermal radiation.
The Evolution of Institutional-Research Professionals in Small- and Medium-Sized Institutions

This concluding chapter discusses the main challenges currently facing institutional research at small- and medium-sized colleges and describes how the field may evolve.
The Malpelo Plate Hypothesis and implications for nonclosure of the Cocos-Nazca-Pacific plate motion circuit

Using global multiresolution topography, we estimate new transform-fault azimuths along the Cocos-Nazca plate boundary and show that the direction of relative plate motion is 3.3° ± 1.8° (95% confidence limits) clockwise of prior estimates. The new direction of Cocos-Nazca plate motion is, moreover, 4.9° ± 2.7° (95% confidence limits) clockwise of the azimuth of the Panama transform fault. We infer that the plate east of the Panama transform fault is not the Nazca plate but instead is a microplate that we term the Malpelo plate. With the improved transform-fault data, the nonclosure of the Nazca-Cocos-Pacific plate motion circuit is reduced from 15.0 mm a−1 ± 3.8 mm a−1 to 11.6 mm a−1 ± 3.8 mm a−1 (95% confidence limits). The nonclosure seems too large to be due entirely to horizontal thermal contraction of oceanic lithosphere and suggests that one or more additional plate boundaries remain to be discovered.
Dual-Energy CT in Enhancing Subdural Effusions that Masquerade as Subdural Hematomas: Diagnosis with Virtual High-Monochromatic (190-keV) Images.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Extravasation of iodinated contrast into subdural space following contrast-enhanced radiographic studies results in hyperdense subdural effusions, which can be mistaken as acute subdural hematomas on follow-up noncontrast head CTs. Our aim was to identify the factors associated with contrast-enhancing subdural effusion, characterize diffusion and washout kinetics of iodine in enhancing subdural effusion, and assess the utility of dual-energy CT in differentiating enhancing subdural effusion from subdural hematoma. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed follow-up head dual-energy CT studies in 423 patients with polytrauma who had undergone contrast-enhanced whole-body CT. Twenty-four patients with enhancing subdural effusion composed the study group, and 24 randomly selected patients with subdural hematoma were enrolled in the comparison group. Postprocessing with syngo.via was performed to determine the diffusion and washout kinetics of iodine. The sensitivity and specificity of dual-energy CT for the diagnosis of enhancing subdural effusion were determined with 120-kV, virtual monochromatic energy (190-keV) and virtual noncontrast images. RESULTS: Patients with enhancing subdural effusion were significantly older (mean, 69 years; 95% CI, 60–78 years; P P = .001). Peak iodine concentration in enhancing subdural effusions was reached within the first 8 hours of contrast administration with a mean of 0.98 mg/mL (95% CI, 0.81–1.13 mg/mL), and complete washout was achieved at 38 hours. For the presence of a hyperdense subdural collection on 120-kV images with a loss of hyperattenuation on 190-keV and virtual noncontrast images, when considered as a true-positive for enhancing subdural effusion, the sensitivity was 100% (95% CI, 85.75%–100%) and the specificity was 91.67% (95% CI, 73%–99%). CONCLUSIONS: Dual-energy CT has a high sensitivity and specificity in differentiating enhancing subdural effusion from subdural hematoma. Hence, dual-energy CT has a potential to obviate follow-up studies.
Effect of continuous optical fiber bonding on ultrasonic detection using fiber Bragg grating

For laboratory demonstrations, Lamb wave detection using fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors is typically performed with only the grating location spot bonded and with the fiber axis aligned with the ultrasonic propagation direction. However, in reality, the entire length of fiber is often bonded to protect the fiber from any environmental damage, referred to here as continuous bonding. Theoretically, the Lamb wave signal can couple to the guided traveling wave in the optical fiber at any adhered location, which could potentially produce output signal distortion. In this paper, we investigate the impact of continuously bonding a long length of optical fiber on the measured Lamb wave signal detected by an FBG. Therefore, an experiment is performed to measure the Lamb wave signals excited from a PZT actuator using a surface bonded FBG with varying optical fiber bond length, indicating that the output FBG response remains constant with changing length. The second experiment investigates the FBG angular response to the traveling wave in the optical fiber, and compares to the conventional case where FBG directly measures the Lamb waves with varying angle. Specifically, the optical fiber is bonded to the plate at a distance away from the FBG. The Lamb wave is launched to the bond location with varying angles, which is coupled to traveling wave, then measured with FBG. The results indicate that the mechanism of the Lamb wave transfer to the directly bonded FBG is through displacement matching, whereas that of the traveling wave is through a forced excitation.
The Power to Propose versus the Power to Oppose

In this paper we compare proposal power to veto power within the context of a majority-rule voting system, such as a legislature. To illustrate the issues involved, consider the following scenario: P can propose a bill, which is then enacted if a majority (M) of legislators vote in favour of the bill and V (for veto player) agrees to its passage. P could stand for the committee system in the US House of Representatives, where a committee brings a bill to the floor of the house. V would then stand for the president who can veto a bill.1 And even if the President does not veto the bill, the Supreme Court might find the bill unconstitutional. So the Supreme Court can be seen as a veto player, as well. When does the proposer have more power than the veto player? More generally, what is the outcome if there are several proposers and/or veto players?
The Passion of Finitude and Poetic Creation: On Pedro Salinas’s El Contemplado

In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle speaks of moral virtue as a way of being “concerned with actions and passions, and ... [thereby with] pleasures and pains”.1 As will become apparent, moral virtue essentially involves knowledge, and yet it is only a manner sui generis of having knowledge, for “as a condition of the possession of the virtues knowledge has little or no weight ...”.2 The important question would then be this: in what fashion is the irrational element,3 i.e., the passions and the attendant pleasures and pains,4 to be connected to a rational principle, if indeed a man is to be considered virtuous in his living?
Equations of mind: Data science for inferring nonlinear dynamics of socio-cognitive systems

Abstract Discovering the governing equations for a measured system is the gold standard for modeling, predicting, and understanding complex dynamic systems. Very complex systems, such as human minds, pose stark challenges to this mode of explanation, especially in ecological tasks. Finding such “equations of mind” is sometimes difficult, if impossible. We introduce recent directions in data science to infer differential equations directly from data. To illustrate this approach, the simple but elegant example of sparse identification of nonlinear dynamics (SINDy; Brunton, Proctor, & Kutz, 2016) is used. We showcase this method on known systems: the logistic map, the Lorenz system, and a bistable attractor model of human choice behavior. We describe some of SINDy’s limitations, and offer future directions for this data science approach to cognitive dynamics, including how such methods may be used to explore social dynamics.
Shifting epistemologies during instructional conversations about “good” argumentative writing in a high school English language arts classroom

A widespread instructional practice in the teaching of argumentative writing is the use of writing samples or models during instructional conversations about what counts as “good argumentative writing.” In this article, we focus on a set of lessons in a high school English language arts classroom in order to gain insight into how a teacher’s use of writing samples contributed not only to what counts as “good argumentative writing” in that classroom, but how her instructional conversations with a group of 11th grade students revealed a shift in her “argumentative epistemologies” for teaching literature-related argumentative writing. We examine simultaneously the impact of instructional conversations on the evolution of the socially constructed definitions of good argumentative writing and the teacher’s shifting argumentative epistemologies by tracing the teacher’s socially constructed definitions of good argumentative writing in the instructional conversations around argumentative writing samples as they evolve and change over time. The findings suggest that the interactional construction of “good argumentative writing” in instructional conversations was influenced by the broader instructional context (e.g., a testing regimen), by the teacher’s argumentative epistemologies for what counts as good writing, and by the conversational interaction of teachers and students in classroom lessons.
Impact of Controlled Choice Assignment on Home Values

The Controlled Choice assignment policy adopted by Rockford School District in 1996 and used in several other school districts removes neighborhood school assignments and splits the district into zones from which parents select schools, with final assignment dependent on the racial mix of the schools and the studentâ€™s race. This analysis is the first to show that there is an average loss of $3,700 for homes due to implementation and a gain of $2,980 upon termination of the policy, and the impacts are directly tied to the neighborhood school to which the home was previously assigned.
Serendipity in Recommender System: A Holistic Overview

Recommender system is a software built to retrieve relevant information based on user interest [1]. Recommender system can determine user's interest by looking at several resources such as user's consumed items, similar users, and search logs. The massive amount of information about users and items coupled with extensive research in increasing recommender system's accuracy resulted in an "over-specialization" problem [2]. In which, recommender systems tend to recommend obvious items or previously known items. These obvious recommendations result in failing to arouse users' long-term interest. For example, a high accuracy travel recommender system will never recommend new places to a user outside of the already visited places. To mitigate this problem, researchers shifted from focusing on accuracy to achieve user satisfaction to a more user central measures known as beyond accuracy measures. These measures believed to increase user satisfaction, and long-term interest.
A Social Cognitive Analysis of Antagonism and Reactive Aggression

Abstract Antagonistic people are hostile and prone to reactive aggression under conditions of provocation. It is useful to understand these dynamics in terms of social cognitive mechanisms, which can focus on questions of reactivity. Antagonistic people find hostile stimuli more compelling, but they are also prone to perceive hostility when it might not exist. When provoked, antagonistic people feel more justified in retaliating or acting aggressively. Underlying these interpersonal processes are more specific cognitive mechanisms. When stimuli compete for attention, antagonism predicts the extent to which hostile stimuli are selected for further processing. Hostile thoughts have a greater impact at higher levels of antagonism in part because they are not self-regulated and behavioral tendencies are more approach oriented among antagonistic people. The present chapter reviews mechanisms of this type, which can provide an explanatory basis for understanding why the trait of antagonism has the correlates it does.
Using Multiple Resonances to Widen the Band for High-Permeability Spiral-Pair Metamaterials

In this letter, we propose a new possibility to design a wider band for high-permeability material using metamaterial inclusions. A metamaterial formed by U-spiral-pair resonator with incremental variations in dimensions is proposed and analyzed. By optimizing its parameters, we create multiresonant responses that are close to each other. This can help to achieve high permeability over a wider frequency band. It is shown that the proposed design can achieve approximately up to 40% more bandwidth than the single-resonance material for effective permeability values above 2. The design, analysis, fabrication, and measurements showing widening the band with high permeability are presented. Results of full-wave simulations and experiments using waveguide measurements are compared.
Postsecondary Education and Employment for Youth With Autism: Preliminary Results From a Customized Transition Program

Background/Purpose Autism spectrum disorders encompass a group of neurodevelopmental disorders whose defining features include deficits in social communication across multiple contexts ( American Psychological Association, 2011 ). The prevalence of autism has been increasing at an alarming rate stemming from changes in diagnostic criteria, genetic risk factors, and growing awareness of the condition. Objective This primary objective of this article is to provide an overview of a customized transition program, The Learning Academy (TLA), for students with autism. Method Pretest/posttest survey tool. Findings Fifty-eight percent ( n =15) of respondents reported employment after attending TLA. Of these individuals, 80% ( n =12) report they are currently working. Data from a prior survey year captured information from a larger percentage of TLA graduates (85% response rate; n =51) with a total of 63% ( n =32) reporting that they had obtained competitive or self-employment. Conclusions Preliminary evidence indicates that the TLA program is effective in improving postsecondary education and employment rates in graduates. Implications for rehabilitation counseling research, policy, and education are presented.
Distinct Structural Features of the Lon Protease Drive Conserved Hand-over-Hand Substrate Translocation

Abstract Hand-over-hand translocation is emerging as the conserved mechanism by which ATP hydrolysis drives substrate translocation within the classical clade of AAA+ proteins. However, the operating principles of the distantly related HCLR clade, which includes the important quality control protease Lon, remains poorly defined. We determined a cryo-electron microscopy structure of Y. pestis Lon trapped in the act of processing substrate. This structure revealed that sequential ATP hydrolysis and hand-over-hand substrate translocation are conserved in this AAA+ protease. However, Lon processes substrates through a distinct molecular mechanism involving structural features unique to the HCLR clade. Our findings define a previously unobserved translocation mechanism that is likely conserved across HCLR proteins and reveal how fundamentally distinct structural configurations of distantly-related AAA+ enzymes can power hand-over-hand substrate translocation.
Brain maturation study during adolescence using graph laplacian learning based fourier transform

Objective: Longitudinal neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that adolescence is the crucial developmental epoch of continued brain growth and change. A large number of researchers dedicate to uncovering the mechanisms about brain maturity during adolescence. Motivated by both achievement in graph signal processing and recent evidence that some brain areas act as hubs connecting functionally specialized systems, we proposed an approach to detect these regions from spectral analysis perspective. In particular, as human brain undergoes substantial development throughout adolescence, we addressed the challenge by evaluating the functional network difference among age groups from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) observations. Methods: We treated these observations as graph signals defined on the parcellated functional brain regions and applied graph Laplacian learning based Fourier Transform (GLFT) to transform the original graph signals into frequency domain. Eigen-analysis was conducted afterwards to study the behavior of the corresponding brain regions, which enables the characterization of brain maturation. Result: We first evaluated our method on the synthetic data and further applied the method to resting and task state fMRI imaging data from Philadelphia Neurodevelopmental Cohort (PNC) dataset, comprised of normally developing adolescents from 8 to 22. The model provided a highest accuracy of 95.69% in distinguishing different adolescence stages. Conclusion: We detected 13 hubs from resting state fMRI and 16 hubs from task state fMRI that are highly related to brain maturation process. Significance: The proposed GLFT method is powerful in extracting the brain connectivity patterns and identifying hub regions with a high prediction power
IRIS: Big data-informed discovery of cancer immunotherapy targets arising from pre-mRNA alternative splicing

Aberrant alternative splicing (AS) is widespread in cancer, leading to an extensive but largely unexploited repertoire of potential immunotherapy targets. Here we describe IRIS, a computational platform leveraging large-scale cancer and normal transcriptomics data to discover AS-derived tumor antigens for T-cell receptor (TCR) and chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapies. Applying IRIS to RNA-Seq data from 22 glioblastomas resected from patients, we identified candidate epitopes and validated their recognition by patient T cells, demonstrating IRIS9s utility for expanding targeted cancer immunotherapy.
Understanding the Athletic Trainer's Role in the Return-to-Learn Process at National Collegiate Athletic Association Division II and III Institutions

Context Postconcussion, student-athletes should return to the classroom using a gradual, stepwise process to ensure that symptoms are not exacerbated by cognitive activities. The National Collegiat...
The Societal Factor, or How Social Dynamics Affect Science

R. A. Fisher was one of the most influential scientific thinkers of the twentieth century. He was mentioned earlier for his seminal contributions regarding accurate estimates of the likelihood of an error emerging from a given data set ( P values, discussed in Chapter 9). Fisher appreciated that the correlation of two variables only indicated that they have some association, but could not demonstrate causality. In the twentieth century, data began to emerge that people who smoked had a higher rate of lung cancer than those who did not smoke, beginning a debate that would rage for close to a century regarding the carcinogenic effects of tobacco. Unlike most who began to develop the view that smoking tobacco probably increased one’s risk of cancer, Fisher became convinced that it was in fact the other way around; he essentially argued that cancer caused smoking. 1 This view, which seems curious in retrospect, was quite logical at the time (and remains logically valid).
Design and Evaluation of a Tethered, Open Port Sampling Interface for Liquid Extraction-Mass Spectrometry Chemical Analysis

Presented is a tethered, liquid-extraction-sampling interface designed for the mass spectrometric surface sampling/analysis of 3D objects. The tethered, open port sampling interface (TOPSI) incorporates a vacuum line between the sampling probe and ionization source, which enables the ability for an extended, tethered sample transfer line. Herein, several designs of the hand-held TOPSI are presented and evaluated on the basis of the analytical metrics of analyte transport time, peak width, and analyte sensitivity. The best analytical metrics were obtained with capillary flow resistances arranged in a particular order and the vacuum region set at 6.2 kPa. This TOPSI design incorporated a transfer capillary 1 m in length, while retaining a fast analyte transport time (12 s), short signal peak width (5 s baseline-to-baseline), and high analyte signal at 90% of that obtained with a regular open port sampling interface (OPSI). The hand-held TOPSI was demonstrated for the characterization of extracted small molecules and metabolites from the surface of mint and rosemary leaves.
Update on the PennPET Explorer: A Whole-body Imager with Scalable Axial Field-of-View.

Following successful performance testing and human imaging of a prototype PennPET Explorer, the scanner has been expanded to a current axial field of view of 1.12 m. Initial studies on this instrument have demonstrated encouraging results for total-body positron emission tomography imaging. Planned studies will test the capabilities of the PennPET Explorer further and inform the design of further human imaging protocols.