cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Rigorous procedure for the design of conventional atmospheric crude fractionation units. Part III: Trade-off between complexity and energy savings

This paper is a follow-up to a two-part paper on the design of atmospheric crude units. In the first part [Bagajewicz, M.; Ji, S. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2001, 40 (2), 617-626], heat duty targets were determined, which were used in the second part [Bagajewicz, M.; Soto, J. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2001, 40 (2), 627-634] for the design of a multipurpose heat exchanger network. The designs shown in this second part featured maximum energy efficiency and required the splitting of the crude into three or four branches, either above or below the desalter. This article explores the trade-off between the complexity stemming from increased branching and the energy recovery. Therefore, the total annualized costs (operating cost and depreciation of capital) of solutions limited to one or two branches are compared with results of previous work.
Introduction: Place-based and Environmental Education

If environmental ethics and discourses on the significance of place are to bear on the real world they must be communicated and adopted. Said differently, we have to learn about their importance an...
A Study on Radiation Damage in PWO-II Crystals

We report in this paper an investigation on radiation hardness of 20 cm long PWO-II crystals produced at BTCP for the proposed PANDA experiment at FAIR. The optical and scintillation properties of PWO-II crystals, such as transmittance, light output and light response uniformity, were measured before and after γ-ray irradiations at different dose rates. PWO-II crystals are compared to PWO crystals used in the CMS experiment. Progresses are observed in the light output and the radiation hardness for PWO-II crystals. Its use for crystal calorimeters in future high energy physics experiments is discussed. To maintain crystal precision, a precision light monitoring system is mandatory to follow variations of crystal transparency in situ.
Water Masers Toward Star-Forming Regions in the Bolocam Galactic Plane Survey

We present preliminary results of a search for 22 GHz water masers toward 1400 star-forming regions seen in the Bolocam Galactic Plane Survey (BGPS) using the Green Bank Telescope (GBT). The BGPS is a blind survey of the Northern Galactic plane in 1.1 mm thermal dust emission that has cataloged star-forming regions at all evolutionary stages. Further information is required to determine the stage of each BGPS source. Since water masers are produced by outflows from low and high-mass star forming regions, their presence is a key component of determining whether the BGPS sources are forming stars and which evolutionary stage they are in. We present preliminary detection statistics, basic properties of the water masers, and correlations with physical properties determined from the 1.1 mm emission and ammonia observations obtained concurrently with the water masers on the GBT.
NRC releases report on “Groundwater Fluxes across Interfaces”

Estimates of groundwater recharge and discharge rates are needed at many different scales and for many different purposes. These include such diverse tasks as evaluating landslide risks, managing groundwater resources, locating nuclear waste repositories, and estimating global budgets of water and greenhouse gases. A report summarizing some of the major issues in recharge and discharge, titled “Ground-water Fluxes across Interfaces,” has just been released by the Committee on Hydrologic Science (COHS) of the National Research Council. The report focuses on spatial and temporal variability of recharge and discharge, their scaling relationships in space and time, and interactions of groundwater with climate.
Bundling Public and Charitable Supports to Cope with the Effects of the Great Recession

Objective We examine how low-income households have drawn upon public and charitable nonprofit sources of social assistance during and after the Great Recession. Methods Using panel survey data collected in the Detroit Metropolitan Area in 2008 and 2010, we explore the relationships between household characteristics, program use, and bundling of assistance. Results Roughly two-thirds of Detroit households within 300 percent of poverty received a public safety net benefit in the previous year; about 40 percent received assistance from more than one public program. More than one in six households received help from a nonprofit charity. Low educational attainment, unemployment, and health limitations are positively related to receipt of multiple public assistance programs. Conclusions Our findings point to persistent needs among poor and near-poor households after the Great Recession, as well as to the reality that many low-income households draw upon multiple sources of public assistance even when working. Many low-income households remain detached from public and charitable sources of support even as the safety net has expanded in response to the downturn.
Diagnosis and management of penetrating vascular trauma and the injured extremity

The principles, diagnosis, and management of vascular injuries in the traumatized extremity continue to evolve. Advances in surgical technique permit arterial repair with an extremely low rate of postoperative thrombosis. Associated injuries to soft tissue, nerve, and bony structures are now the primary determinants of limb salvage and function, assuming that the arterial injury is promptly recognized and appropriately managed. Emergency physicians play a pivotal role in initiating diagnostic and therapeutic algorithms critical to limb salvage. When a vascular injury is suspected, early consultation by a surgeon familiar with vascular trauma is essential. Delay in diagnosis and treatment can result in irreversible ischemia and limb loss.
High prevalence of structural heart disease in children with cblC-type methylmalonic aciduria and homocystinuria.

Abstract Objective To characterize the frequency and nature of cardiovascular defects in patients with CblC-type methylmalonic aciduria and homocystinuria (cblC), an inborn error of cobalamin (vitamin B12) metabolism resulting in accumulation of methylmalonic acid and homocysteine. Study design A retrospective observational study was conducted investigating 10 patients with cblC ranging in age from 2 weeks to 24 years (mean 4.4 years +/− 7.5 years, median 0.6 years). All patients underwent a complete 2-D echocardiogram including quantitative assessment of left ventricular systolic function. Results Structural heart defects were detected in 50% of patients with cblC. Heart defects included left ventricular (LV) non-compaction (3), secundum atrial septal defect (2), muscular ventricular septal defect (1), dysplastic pulmonary valve without pulmonary stenosis (1) and mitral valve prolapse with mild mitral regurgitation (1). One patient had resolved cor pulmonale and right heart failure secondary to pulmonary embolism. All patients had quantitatively normal LV systolic function. Conclusions Diverse and clinically significant structural heart defects appear to be highly prevalent in cblC, perhaps due to abnormal DNA and histone methylation during embryogenesis. The specific cardiac defects detected in our cohort were variable, and studies with a larger number of patients are needed to establish which forms are most common. Routine and periodic cardiovascular evaluation may be indicated in patients with cblC.
Experimental field testing of a real-time construction hazard identification and transmission technique

Hazard identification and communication are integral to most construction methods, and every construction safety management activity. Unfortunately, in practice, significant hazards are often not recognized and communicated leading to sub-optimal hazard awareness at the crew level. To bridge this gap in performance, we conducted a two-year intensive research project focused on developing a strategy that increases the proportion of hazards identified, communicated, and managed. Specifically, we designed a hazard identification and transmission (HIT) board that is used in conjunction with energy-based retrieval mnemonics and facilitates identifying and communicating hazards during both the planning and the execution phases. The strength of this strategy lies in the fact that workers are able to detect and communicate hazards in real time using energy-source mnemonic cues, which significantly reduces cognitive demand. Following development, we conducted immersive field studies to evaluate the impact of the d...
Evaluating treatment outcomes for adults who stutter

The evaluation of stuttering treatment outcomes has traditionally focused primarily on changes in the production of speech disfluencies, even though many treatment approaches also address other aspects of the stuttering disorder, such as the speaker's reactions to stuttering and the overall effect of stuttering on the speaker's ability to communicate. One reason for the relative lack of outcomes data for many commonly recommended treatment programs is the fact that clinicians and researchers have not previously had access to a reliable means of assessing changes in the broader consequences of stuttering on a speaker's life. This paper describes an ongoing effort to develop a series of measurement instruments that can be used to evaluate the outcomes of a wide variety of stuttering treatment approaches by measuring changes in speakers' affective, behavioral, and cognitive reactions to stuttering; the effect of stuttering on speakers' functional communication abilities; and the impact of stuttering on speakers' overall quality of life.
2010 He Huliau--Department of Native Hawaiian Health.

Since its creation by the Board of Regents of the University of Hawai‘i in October 2003, the Department of Native Hawaiian Health of the John A. Burns School of Medicine has been a leader in research addressing the health of Hawai‘i's host population. It has established a Center for Native and Pacific Health Disparities Research at the University of Hawai‘i. The Department has found that difference in health and health care can influence and are influenced by health disparities research. The elimination of health disparities has become a widespread public health imperative. In 2000, the U.S. Congress passed the Minority Health and Health Disparities Research and Education Act, which established the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NCMHD). The National Institutes of Health were mandated to fund and coordinate research, research training, and community outreach and dissemination activities to eliminate health disparities in America. Concurrently, the Institute of Medicine released its report on “Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care,” which informed public health officials and policymakers to take action to reduce and eliminate health disparities. Healthy People 2010, the agency which establishes our nation's health priorities, also established Health Disparities as one of only two public health goals for 2010 and established several targets for improvement and evaluation. The goal of health disparities research is to make scientific discoveries that will eliminate unjust differences in health and health care and promote better health for all people.
MIDAS TLM: man-machine integrated design and analysis system task loading model

The MIDAS task loading model (TLM) was developed to predict the visual, auditory, cognitive, and motor loads that would be imposed on a pilot while flying various cockpit designs. This model classifies the task demands imposed on a pilot with a set of psychological attributes that represent the demands with the most impact. These attributes are uniquely classified by the MIDAS TLM for each task, and the classifications are used to predict the imposed task loads. An experiment was conducted with helicopter pilots to verify the predicted loads of a set of flight tasks. The results indicated some significant correlations between the predicted loads for the single tasks and pilot responses, but none between the predicted loads for the dual tasks and pilot responses. >
SMOTE: synthetic minority over-sampling technique

An approach to the construction of classifiers from imbalanced datasets is described. A dataset is imbalanced if the classification categories are not approximately equally represented. Often real-world data sets are predominately composed of "normal" examples with only a small percentage of "abnormal" or "interesting" examples. It is also the case that the cost of misclassifying an abnormal (interesting) example as a normal example is often much higher than the cost of the reverse error. Under-sampling of the majority (normal) class has been proposed as a good means of increasing the sensitivity of a classifier to the minority class. This paper shows that a combination of our method of oversampling the minority (abnormal)cla ss and under-sampling the majority (normal) class can achieve better classifier performance (in ROC space)tha n only under-sampling the majority class. This paper also shows that a combination of our method of over-sampling the minority class and under-sampling the majority class can achieve better classifier performance (in ROC space)t han varying the loss ratios in Ripper or class priors in Naive Bayes. Our method of over-sampling the minority class involves creating synthetic minority class examples. Experiments are performed using C4.5, Ripper and a Naive Bayes classifier. The method is evaluated using the area under the Receiver Operating Characteristic curve (AUC)and the ROC convex hull strategy.
HOMOGENEOUS SPACES OF NONPOSITIVE CURVATURE AND THEIR GEODESIC FLOW

Consider the geodesic flow on the unit tangent bundle SH of a 1-connected, irreducible homogeneous space H of nonpositive curvature. We prove that any flow invariant, isometry invariant C0-function on SH is necessarily constant, unless H is symmetric of higher rank. As the main applications, we obtain rigidity and partial classification results for spaces H whose geodesic symmetries are (asymptotically) volume-preserving.
Multi-slot silicon optical waveguides

We describe, fabricate and demonstrate multi-slotted silicon nanophotonic waveguides, comprised of four low index slots etched longitudinally along the waveguide. The computed modal profiles are well described by supermode theory. We have measured the group index of refraction of the waveguide in the TE and TM polarizations.
Analysis of child pick-up during daily routines and for daytime no-notice evacuations

In a no-notice disaster (e.g., nuclear explosion, terrorist attack, or hazardous materials release), an evacuation may start immediately after the disaster strikes. When a no-notice evacuation occurs during the daytime, household members are scattered throughout the regional network, and some family members (e.g., children) may need to be picked up. This household pick-up and gathering behavior was seldom investigated in previous work due to insufficient data; this gap in our understanding about who within families handles child-gathering is addressed here. Three hundred fifteen interviews were conducted in the Chicago metropolitan area to ascertain how respondents planned their response to hypothetical no-notice emergency evacuation orders. This paper presents the influencing factors that affect household pick-up and gathering behavior/expectations and the logistic regression models developed to predict the probability that parents pick up a child in three situations: a normal weekday and two hypothetical emergency scenarios. The results showed that both mothers and fathers were more likely to pick up a child under emergency conditions than they were on a normal weekday. For a normal weekday, increasing the distance between parents and children decreased the probability of parents picking up children; in other words, the farther parents are from their children, the less likely they will pick them up. In an emergency, effects of distance on pick-up behavior were significant for women, but not significant for men; that is, increasing the distance between parents and children decreased the probability that mothers pick up a child, but had a less significant effect on the fathers' probability. Another significant factor affecting child pick-up behavior/expectations was household income when controlling for distance. The results of this study confirm that parents expect to gather children under emergency conditions, which needs to be accounted for in evacuation planning; failure to do so could cause difficulties in executing the pick-ups, lead to considerable queuing and rerouting, and extend the time citizens are exposed to high levels of risk.
Towards robust face recognition from multiple views

The paper presents a novel approach to aid face recognition: Using multiple views of a face, we construct a 3D model instead of directly using the 2D images for recognition. Our framework is designed for videos, which contain many instances of a target face from a sequence of slightly differing views, as opposed to a single static picture of the face. Specifically, we reconstruct the 3D face shapes from two orthogonal views and select features based on pairwise distances between landmark points on the model using Fisher's linear discriminant. While 3D face shape reconstruction is sensitive to the quality of the feature point localization, our experiments show that 3D reconstruction together with the regularized Fisher's linear discriminant can provide highly accurate face recognition from multiple facial views. Experiments on the Carnegie Mellon PIE (pose, illumination and expressions) database containing the faces of 68 people, with at least 3 expressions under varying lighting conditions, demonstrate vastly improved performance
Invasive dreissenid mussels and benthic algae in Lake Michigan: characterizing effects on sediment bacterial communities.

Dreissenid mussels have invaded the Laurentian Great Lakes causing dramatic changes to benthic–pelagic interactions. Despite research on food web impacts, there is limited data on mussel effects on benthic bacterial communities. This study examined effects of dreissenid mussels and benthic algae on sediment bacterial community composition and diversity. Triplicate experimental sediment plus lake water microcosms were used and either mussels, benthic algae or both were added. Changes in water nutrient chemistry and sediment bacterial communities were monitored using 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing, over 21 days. When mussels were present, nitrate and soluble reactive P increased significantly as the dominant N and P forms. Bacterial diversity increased in all microcosms, although bacterial community composition was distinct between treatment. Higher nitrate in mussel microcosms was accompanied by increases in nitrifying taxa (Nitrospira, Nitrosomonas), which are important in oxidizing mussel-excreted ammonium. Microcosms with algal additions showed increases in bacterial taxa capable of degrading algal cellulose, and Pelagibacter (SAR11) disappeared from all but control microcosms. This study suggests that bacterial communities in lake sediments respond to mussels and algae. Functional analysis of bacterial communities provides insights into changes in microbially mediated benthic nutrient transformations associated with invasive dreissenid mussels and benthic algae in lake ecosystems.
Changes in Health Between Ages 54 and 65: The Role of Job Characteristics and Socioeconomic Status

The authors model the relationships between socioeconomic status (SES), working conditions, and changes between ages 54 and 65 in three very different health outcomes. To what extent is SES associated with changes in health net of the working conditions? At the same time, to what extent are working conditions associated with health net of SES? To address these questions the authors use unique data from a single cohort of women and men to model changes in health between ages 54 and 65. Although results vary across outcomes, there are some circumstances in which associations between SES and changes in health are attributable to working conditions, and there are other circumstances in which associations between working conditions and changes in health are attributable to SES. The largely disconnected literatures on health disparities (in the social sciences and public health) and job design (in occupational stress and ergonomics) could and should be fruitfully integrated.
Parathyroid Adenomas and Hyperplasia on Four-dimensional CT Scans: Three Patterns of Enhancement Relative to the Thyroid Gland Justify a Three-Phase Protocol.

Parathyroid lesions can be grouped into three distinct relative enhancement patterns on the basis of attenuation compared with attenuation of the thyroid gland; this classification highlights the importance of a protocol with a nonenhanced and at least two contrast material–enhanced phases.
Parallel waveform relaxation of circuits with global feedback loops

Feedback loops often severely degrade the performance of waveform relaxation techniques in solving large circuit analysis problems. Several new approaches have been studied to provide greater parallelism and faster convergence for such circuits. WRV256, an experimental waveform-relaxation-based parallel circuit simulator for the Victor family of distributed memory parallel machines, was used to study performance tradeoffs of partitioning and scheduling algorithms for circuits containing global feedback loops. This investigation included circuits ranging from less than 300 to over 93000 transistors. Several of the circuits were extracted directly from a 16 Mb DRAM design. >
An Empirical Investigation of Bootstrap Financing Among Small Firms

This study examines the use of 27 bootstrap financing methods among a sample of 91 small firms. Owners' rankings of the importance suggested that bootstrap financing was not central to their firms 'financing strategy. Owners who had greater difficulty of raising capital ranked bootstrap financing methods that (I) slowed disbursements, (2) generated cash, and (3) subsidized operations as being more important than owners who experienced less difficulty in raising capital. Owners who believed their firms were more undercapitalized ranked bootstrap financing methods that (I) slowed disbursements. (2) generated cash, and (3) minimized investment as being more important than owners who experienced less difficulty in raising capital. The use of bootstrap financing was also directly related to the risk of the firm. The results can be used by owners of small firms, consultants, and support agencies that provide assistance to small firms in areas of financial planning and capital acquisition. Understanding the use and availability of all sources of capital will enable owners to obtain a comprehensive understanding of capital alternatives and financial strategies. Agencies that provide support services can use the information to better assist small firms in developing financing strategies. This information could easily be built into training programs for both new and existing small businesses.
Financing Virginia’s Roads: Value-Based Investing for Government Infrastructure

Each year federal, state, and local governments in the United States invest billions of dollars on roads, bridges, airports, and other infrastructure projects. Unlike private firms, government agencies have no price signals to guide their decisions, making it more difficult for them to make sound investment decisions. This paper develops a method to aid government officials in making investment decisions for infrastructure. It applies a technique, called Economic Value Analysis, that business firms use when they introduce into the market new products and services for which there are no existing market prices. Government officials can use this technique to decide where their scarce infrastructure dollars should be invested to produce the most value for the general public. The technique is illustrated by examining projects from the Virginia Department of Transportation’s 2025 Plan.
Ocasio v. United States: Why the Hobbs Act Punishes Co-conspirator Extortion

The issue of police corruption is a dynamic topic of public dialogue. In Ocasio v. United States, the issue before the United States Supreme Court was whether the conduct of Defendant, a former member of the Baltimore City Police Department, was contemplated by the Hobbs Act. The Defendant was involved as a co-conspirator in a kickback scheme, for which he was convicted under Section 1951(b)(2) under the Hobbs Act. This Article argues that the term "another" in Section 1951(b)(2) contemplates Defendant's role as a co-conspirator; therefore, the Court should uphold Defendant's conviction. This Article argues that the text, legislative history, and the public policy underlying the Hobbs Act support this construction of the Hobbs Act. Further, this Article explores the important role that the Hobbs Act serves in fighting police corruption. This Article was published before the Supreme Court's disposition, and should be cited as follows: Joshua T. Carback, Note, Joshua T. Carback, Ocasio v. United States: Why the Hobbs Act Punishes Co-Conspirator Extortion, 75 Md. L. Rev. Endnotes (2016).
Descriptions of the Nymphal Stages of Some North American Pentatomidae (Hemiptera-Heteroptera)

A study of various instars is presented as an aid to identification. The external morphological characters of nymphs are discussed, and a detailed description is given of each instar (with very few exceptions) of the following 16 species: Euschistus variolarius (P. de B.), E. euschistoides (Voll.), E. tristigmus (Say), Mormidea lugens (Fabr.), Coenus delius (Say), Menecles insertus (Say), Trichopepla semivittata (Say), Neottiglossa sulcifrons Stal, Peribalus limbolarius Stal, Pitedia persimilis Horvath, Thyanta custator (Fabr.), Cosmopepla bimaculata (Thomas), Oebalus pugnax (Fabr.), Acrosternum hilare (Say), Podisus maculiventris (Say), and Perillus bioculatus (Fabr.). At least one instar each of 14 of these species is illustrated.
Developing predictive assays: The phenotypic screening “rule of 3”

Phenotypic drug discovery approaches can positively affect the translation of preclinical findings to patients. However, not all phenotypic assays are created equal. A critical question then follows: What are the characteristics of the optimal assays? We analyze this question and propose three specific criteria related to the disease relevance of the assay-system, stimulus, and end point-to help design the most predictive phenotypic assays.
Means and ends: political existentialism

I n this chapter we return to the texts that form the common source for the ethical and political streams mentioned in the previous chapter. But now our intent is to review some of the same institutions, structures and events from the perspective of Sartre’s developing political theory and practice. Perforce, such a move will entail some repetition – a certain “rerun” of the film for the sake of a perspective politically enriched much as Heidegger famously ventured when he undertook a Wiederholung (repetition) of the first portion of Being and Time under the aspect of “temporality” in the second. The political significance rather eclipsed in the previous chapter should now achieve full view. As a student in the lycee, the young Sartre did not display a serious interest in political theory or in practical politics generally. His natural tendencies were anarchic. Toward the end of his years at the ENS, however, he did publish an informed essay on contemporary French legal theories “The Theory of State in Modern French Thought” (1927). It was in the fall of that year that his close friend Paul Nizan joined the French Communist Party (PCF). Nizan would later spend an idealistic year in the USSR and return to lecture Sartre, Beauvoir and their mutual friends on the promise of the Soviet Revolution. Sartre’s interests, at that time, were more literary and philosophical than political. He resisted the siren call of socialism, for example, that had turned the heads of many of his classmates at the Ecole, including Raymond Aron. Eschewing party adherence, Sartre nonetheless was strongly opposed to colonialism, which he regarded as a sordid form of state takeover. The young Sartre harbored a basic egalitarian spirit from his early teens and, as he recalled, thought of the French control of Algeria whenever the injustice of colonialism came to mind ( Cer 478). As his life-long companion Simone de Beauvoir remarks, they showed little concern for politics after graduation and did not even vote in the critical general election of 1936 that ushered in the socialist program of the Front Populaire. But even in those years his tendencies veered toward the Left.
Conclusion: Between Phenomenology and Structuralism

What, then, are we to make of Merleau-Ponty’s reflections on the relation between philosophy and the human sciences, the problem of our knowledge of others, and the implications of the phenomena of speech and expression for the philosophy of history? In wrestling with these and kindred problems, was he deepening Husserl’s analyses and applying an existential phenomenology to certain of crucial dimensions of social life? Or was he staking out a position beyond phenomenology, a position whose full implications would become clearer only in the decade after his death? We have seen how he became uncomfortable with such notions as ‘lived experience’, ‘constitution’, ‘intentionality’, and the ‘tacit cogito’ Yet we have also seen that his reading of Saussure, his use of Lacan, and his response to Levi-Strauss betray a continued commitment to certain fundamental concerns of the phenomenological project. Where, then, are we to place this most elusive of thinkers?
A model-based decision support tool for building portfolios under uncertainty

Abstract Despite abundant energy use data, few facilities managers have a good benchmark for tracking energy performance in commercial buildings. Building energy self-benchmarking is an effective means of comparing performance to expectations. This paper presents an improved theory for a decision support tool that can self-benchmark building energy performance, identify energy faults, and quantify their severity. Detailed building energy simulation modeling of a big-box retail store with open source software is accessible and economical to industry for generating performance benchmarks. Methods of parametric sampling and uncertainty analysis are enhanced with detailed parameter uncertainty characterization. Uncertainty and sensitivity analysis are used to adjust risk tolerance thresholds for each unique monitored end-use. A dynamic cost function allows utility theory to compute expected costs covering multiple criteria. Improved theory for decision support tool is tested on ten faulted model scenarios placed in three climate zones. Finally, we demonstrate fault response prioritization.
Hidden Markov model-based gesture recognition with FMCW radar

In this paper we present experimental results for the development of a gesture recognition system using a 77 GHz FMCW radar system. We measure the micro-Doppler signature of a gesturing hand to construct an energy distribution in velocity space over time. A gesturing hand is fundamentally a dynamical system with unobservable “state” (i.e. the name of the gesture) which determines the sequence of associated observable velocity-energy distributions, so a Hidden Markov Model is used to for gesture recognition, a more tailored approach than the SVM classifiers used in previous work. We also describe a method for reducing the length of our feature vectors by a factor of 12 without hurting the recognition performance, by reparameterizing them in terms of a sum of Gaussians.
A (Strong) Structuration Framework for Macro-micro Governance Integration in Healthcare Settings

Recent literature indicates that macro (hierarchical) and micro (relational) governance initiatives in medical contexts are developed in isolation rather than interactively. Hierarchical governance...
Optimization of the defects and the nonradiative lifetime of GaAs/AlGaAs double heterostructures

We used Raman scattering and time-resolved photoluminescence spectroscopy to investigate the molecular-beam-epitaxy (MBE) growth parameters that optimize the structural defects and therefore the internal radiative quantum efficiency of MBE-grown GaAs/AlGaAs double heterostructures (DH). The DH structures were grown at two different temperatures and three different As/Ga flux ratios to determine the conditions for an optimized structure with the longest nonradiative minority carrier lifetime. Raman scattering measurements show an improvement in the lattice disorder in the AlGaAs and GaAs layers as the As/Ga flux ratio is reduced from 40 to 15 and as the growth temperature is increased from 550 to 595 °C. The optimized structure is obtained with the As/Ga flux ratio equal to 15 and the substrate temperature 595 °C. This is consistent with the fact that the optimized structure has the longest minority carrier lifetime. Moreover, our Raman studies reveal that incorporation of a distributed Bragg reflector lay...
Playing Pirates with Tom Sawyer: The Intersection of Reader-Response Theory and Play Theory

Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer tells the story of a boy’s adventures in a Midwestern American town during the mid-nineteenth century, but it also provides an insightful account of how many children respond to literature. Although Tom is not seen reading over the course of the novel, the depictions of Tom’s play provide amble evidence that Tom enjoys reading adventures stories. The novel includes many instances of Tom incorporating elements from stories, especially pirate stories, in his pretend play. Tom’s response to pirate stories has significant connections to both reader-response theory and play theory. Although the terms reader-response theory and play theory were not yet coined when Twain published The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in 1876, Twain’s depiction of Tom’s playful response to pirate stories anticipated many of the key arguments and observations that these theorists have made concerning children’s responses to literature.
Interest Rate Volatility, the Yield Curve, and the Macroeconomy ☆

Abstract This paper provides theory and evidence that a low-dimensional term structure model can simultaneously price bonds and related options. It shows that a component of volatility risk largely unrelated to the shape of the yield curve is a determinant of expected excess returns for holding long maturity bonds. It also finds evidence for this return relationship both in the model and directly in the data through regression analysis. The paper also identifies a link between corporate earnings performance and interest rate volatility, providing a channel driving interest rate volatility. The structure of risk in the model that gives rise to these features of volatility is distinct from that inherent in recent models with unspanned stochastic volatility.
Subpopulation of Human Tonsillar Lymphocytes With Mitochondria Visible by Light Microscopy

We observed a subpopulation of human tonsillar lymphocytes with cytoplasmic inclusions that stained orthochromatically blue with Wright stain. These lymphocytes represented fewer than 2% of cells in suspensions of cells from most tonsils; however, suspensions of tonsillar cells from 4 to 18 studied patients contained more than 2% (2.8%--6.4%) lymphocytes with cytoplasmic inclusions. These cells sedimented less rapidly than the modal population of lymphocytes in a previously described isokinetic gradient. Histochemical and ultrastructural studies suggested that the stained inclusions were prominent mitochondria stained by the Wright stain.
Exploring the Host Desmoplastic Response to Pancreatic Carcinoma: Gene Expression of Stromal and Neoplastic Cells at the Site of Primary Invasion

The dramatic opportunities presented by comprehensive gene profiling technologies are curbed by the problem of segregating these large amounts of gene expression data into meaningful categories for study. This is particularly evident in infiltrating carcinomas of the pancreas, in which global gene expression data primarily mirrors the prominent desmoplastic response to the infiltrating neoplasm. In an effort to better characterize the gene expression of invasive pancreatic cancers and their associated desmoplastic response, we performed in situ hybridization on pancreatic cancer tissues to characterize the expression of 12 genes identified by serial analysis of gene expression as highly expressed in invasive pancreatic cancer tissues but not in pancreatic cancer cell lines. In situ hybridization demonstrated that eight genes were expressed within the stromal and/or angioendothelial cells of the desmoplastic response to the invasive tumor, and four of these genes were specifically expressed by the stromal cells immediately adjacent to the invasive neoplastic epithelium, suggesting regional differences in gene expression within the host desmoplastic response. In contrast, four genes were specifically expressed by the invasive neoplastic epithelium, indicating important differences between in vivo and in vitro gene expression of human epithelial neoplasms. We have identified a highly organized structure of gene expression within the host stromal response to invasive pancreatic cancer that may reflect tumor-host communication and serve as a target for therapeutic intervention.
ERYTHROPOIESIS IN RATS WITH ACUTE UREMIA AND THE EFFECT OF ERYTHROPOIETIN.

The proliferative activity of erythropoietic and other tissues has been studied in normal, nephrectomized and bilateral ureter ligated rats. Forty-eight hours after bilateral nephrectomy, rats showed a significant suppression of DNA synthesis and Fe59 incorporation in the bone marrow and spleen. The administration of erythropoietin prevented this suppression of Fe59 uptake, and produced an increase in splenic DNA synthesis comparable to that noted in the normal, similarly stimulated animal. Bilateral ureter ligation in animals, producing a blood urea nitrogen elevation equal to that induced by nephrectomy, caused no suppression of DNA synthesis in bone marrow or spleen. These latter animals exceeded the normal in their response to erythropoietin administration. Intestinal DNA synthesis was unaffected in uremia produced by nephrectomy or ureter ligation. Thymic proliferative activity was suppressed in uremia induced by either procedure. The observations indicate that acute, severe uremia of relatively short duration does not influence the DNA synthetic activity of all tissues in an adverse fashion. What factors may modify tissue responses are unknown. In the case of erythropoietic organs, such factors seem to originate in the kidney.
Optimal Detection for One-Shot Transmission Over Diffusion-Based Molecular Timing Channels

This paper studies optimal detection for communication over diffusion-based molecular timing (DBMT) channels. The transmitter simultaneously releases multiple information particles, where the information is encoded in the time of release. The receiver decodes the transmitted information based on the random time of arrival of the information particles, which is modeled as an additive noise channel. For a DBMT channel without flow, this noise follows the Levy distribution. Under this channel model, the maximum-likelihood (ML) detector is derived and shown to have high computational complexity. It is also shown that under ML detection, releasing multiple particles improves performance, while for any additive channel with $\boldsymbol {\alpha }$ -stable noise where $\boldsymbol {\alpha }\boldsymbol { (such as the DBMT channel), under linear processing at the receiver, releasing multiple particles degrades performance relative to releasing a single particle . Hence, a new low-complexity detector, which is based on the first arrival (FA) among all the transmitted particles, is proposed. It is shown that for a small number of released particles, the performance of the FA detector is very close to that of the ML detector. On the other hand, error exponent analysis shows that the performance of the two detectors differ when the number of released particles is large.
Adolescent Contraception in the Emergency Department: Abnormal Uterine Bleeding and Beyond

Abstract The emergency department (ED) is a frequent and important site for gynecologic care, and many women present to the ED for reproductive health concerns such as abnormal menses. Due to early menstrual age and increased incidence of sexually transmitted infections, adolescents are particularly prone to abnormal menses, but are also disproportionately affected by unintended pregnancy. While EDs have long been used for the evaluation and initial management of abnormal uterine bleeding, general contraceptive provision in the ED is a novel approach to addressing unmet contraceptive needs among adolescent women. We review normal menstruation and the evaluation and management of abnormal uterine bleeding in adolescents, including the use of combined oral contraceptives. Expanding on this established indication for contraceptive use in the ED, we present attitudes, barriers, and approaches to ED provision of contraceptives for adolescent pregnancy prevention.
Enhancing self-efficacy to enable tourism microentrepreneurship: a quasi-experiment

This study evaluates the impact of a microentrepreneurship-focused pedagogical intervention in a college level tourism course aimed at increasing students’ tourism e-microentrepreneurial self-effic...
Global Digital Citizenship: Providing Context.

This paper provides details of the redesign of a digital citizenship unit for pre-service teachers to better support their future students in gaining an understanding of the importance of teaching global digital citizenship. The purpose of the unit design was to broaden these future teachers’ understandings of the complexity of being effective global digital citizens by embedding the subtopics of digital citizenship; equitable access, global awareness, cultural understanding, and safe, healthy, legal, ethical, and responsible uses of technology into the foundations of modeling and integrating technology into the curriculum. To help them learn these complex issues so they could make more critical curriculum decisions in their future classrooms, teacher candidates engaged in a collaborative jigsaw activity, a debate, and were assessed by posting their perspectives in their personal blogs. These teacher candidates demonstrated their growth on this complex, but vital, issue by providing contextual examples.
Dynamic Changes in Circulating Tumor DNA During Chemoradiation for Locally Advanced Lung Cancer.

Abstract Purpose Concurrent chemoradiation therapy (CRT) is the principal treatment modality for locally advanced lung cancer. Cell death due to CRT leads to the release of cell-free DNA (cfDNA) and circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) into the bloodstream, but the kinetics and characteristics of this process are poorly understood. We hypothesized that there could be clinically meaningful changes in cfDNA and ctDNA during a course of CRT for lung cancer. Methods and materials Multiple samples of plasma were obtained from 24 patients treated with CRT for locally advanced lung cancer to a mean dose of 66 Gy (range, 58-74 Gy) at the following intervals: before CRT, at weeks 2 and 5 during CRT, and 6 weeks after treatment. cfDNA was quantified, and a novel next generation sequencing (NGS) technique using enhanced tagged/targeted-amplicon sequencing was performed to analyze ctDNA. Results Patients for whom specific mutations in ctDNA were undetectable at the baseline time point had improved survival, and potentially etiologic driver mutations could be tracked throughout the course of CRT via NGS in multiple patients. We quantified the levels of cfDNA from patients before CRT, at week 2, week 5, and at 6 weeks after treatment. No differences were observed at weeks 2 and 5 of therapy, but we noted a significant increase in cfDNA in the posttreatment follow-up samples compared with samples collected before CRT (P = .05). Conclusions Dynamic changes in both cfDNA and ctDNA were observed throughout the course of CRT in patients with locally advanced lung cancer. Specific mutations with therapeutic implications can be identified and tracked using NGS methodologies. Further work is required to characterize the changes in cfDNA and ctDNA over time in patients treated with CRT and to assess the predictive and prognostic potential of this powerful technology.
The poor’s struggle for political incorporation: the piquetero movement in Argentina

Pierre Bourdieu once called the protest movement of the unemployed ‘a social miracle,’ arguing that its existence was an achievement in and of itself. In this book, Federico Rossi shows us the work...
How can we talk about ‘transnational’ when we talk about Japanese cinema?

Is it possible to talk about “transnational” when we talk about Japanese cinema? If it is, how? It is true that there are problems in the concept of national cinema. We all know by now that: 1) the...
Effects of in-service and coaching to increase teachers’ use of research-based strategies in beginning reading

AbstractIn-service and coaching can increase teachers’ use of research-based practices. This study examined the effects of in-service training plus coaching that included preconference, side-by-sid...