cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Associations Between Social Network Characteristics and Loneliness During Pregnancy in a Sample of Predominantly African American, Largely Publicly-Insured Women

Most research evaluating relationships between social network attributes and loneliness have focused on older adult and adolescent networks. The present study examines the relationships between social network size (number of relationships), social network density (whether named relationships are connected to one another) and maternal loneliness during pregnancy. Eligible women were enrolled at the time of their dating ultrasound (between 8 and 12 weeks of gestation). Interested women provided written consent and completed demographic, social network and loneliness measures. Participants completed the same surveys in their third trimester. Mixed-regression models, adjusted for age, race, ethnicity, and insurance type, were used to assess the relationship between social network size, network density, and loneliness. A total of 94 pregnant women (mean age = 23.77, 70.2% Black, 87.2% public insurance) completed baseline study measures, and 60 participants completed both assessment time points. Completers and non-completers did not differ on key characteristics. Social network density, but not social network size, predicted maternal loneliness ( $$\beta$$ = − 1.27, 95% CI − 2.53, − 0.01, p = 0.0489) in the first and third trimester. These findings indicate that pregnant women’s social network density may be more intimately related to feelings of loneliness than the objective number of relationships. This knowledge can begin to inform the design of supportive approaches to improve women’s health.
Finding Friendship in a Contentious Place: A Conversation with Obergefell and Hodges from the Landmark U.S. Supreme Court Case on Same-Sex Marriage

In the 2015 landmark case Obergefell v. Hodges, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that same-sex couples had a fundamental right to marry as guaranteed by the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. Despite being on opposing sides of one of the most important Supreme Court rulings in recent history, Jim Obergefell and Rick Hodges developed the most unlikely friendship. On February 13, 2020, along with our College of Law panel, Mr. Obergefell and Mr. Hodges discussed their unique roads to becoming the named parties in this landmark ruling.
Watching with Feminist Vigilance: Media Genres of Male Partner Violence Against Women

This chapter argues that feminist vigilance entails staying alert to the appeal of dominant narratives of domestic and intimate partner violence and the way familiar film genres perpetuate those narratives. Shoos demonstrates feminist vigilance as a proactive force for transforming genre conventions and intervening in dominant storylines and social practices through a close review of the independent film, The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open. It is by staying alert to the opportunities such narratives offer for altering how we understand and ultimately, how we respond to oppression and abuse that feminist vigilance offers a hopeful and proactive perspective.
Examining the relationship between poor sleep health and risky driving behaviors among college students.

Objective: Risky driving behaviors, such as texting while driving, are common among young adults and increase risk of traffic accidents and injuries. We examine the relationship between poor sleep and risky driving behaviors among college students as potential targets for traffic injury prevention.Methods: Data for this study were obtained from a cross-sectional survey administered to a college student sample in the United States Midwest (n = 1,305). Sleep was measured using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). Risky driving behaviors were measured, including sending texts/emails; reading texts/emails while driving; talking on the phone while driving; falling asleep while driving; and driving under the influence. Risky driving behavior was defined as a response of "just once," "rarely," "sometimes," "fairly often" or "regularly" (reference = "never"). Logistic regression was used to examine the relationship between sleep and risky driving, after adjusting for confounders.Results: Among participants, 75% reported sending texts/emails while driving, 82% reported reading texts/emails while driving, and 84% reported phone talking while driving; 20% reported falling asleep while driving; 8% reported driving under the influence; and 62% reported 3 or more risky behaviors. Compared to those reporting no sleep disturbance, those with sleep disturbance "once or twice a week" were more likely to report sending a text/email while driving (aOR: 2.9, 95%CI:1.7-4.9), reading a text/email while driving (aOR:3.1,95%CI:1.5-5.5), talking on the phone while driving (aOR:1.9, 95%CI:1.0-3.4), and falling asleep while driving (aOR:3.4,95%CI:1.5-7.4). Compared to those reporting no daytime dysfunction, those reporting issues "once or twice a week" were more likely to report talking on the phone while driving (aOR:1.7, 95%CI:1.1-2.7) and falling asleep while driving (aOR:3.6,95%CI:2.3-5.6).Conclusions: Future research may consider designing behavioral interventions that aim to improve sleep, reduce drowsy driving among young adults.
Beating the Bends: Dolphin Thoracic Rete as a Natural Vascular Filter for Trapping Nitrogen Bubbles and Preventing Diving Decompression Sickness

The thoracic rete, a complex of interweaving vessels, is found in dolphins and other toothed whales (odontocetes). Its purpose is unclear, but proposed functions include: pressure-damping central nervous system blood flow, reducing displacement stress of the thorax during diving-induced lung collapse, or thermoregulation. The first two theories seem possible, but rete's location completely within the core of the body is not ideally positioned to function as a counter-current exchanger or in radiating heat. Rather, we hypothesize that its dorsal location and complex anatomy make it suitable to serve as a bubble trap to filter bubbles circulating in the bloodstream. The gross anatomy of the thoracic rete was examined in ten fresh dead dolphin and porpoise specimens donated by the Cape Cod Stranding Network (Massachusetts). The rete is located laterally along the thoracic and upper lumbar vertebrae, ventral to the vertebral transverse processes, between the dorsal ribs (extending laterally and ventrally appr...
How the mind makes welfare tradeoffs: evolution, computation, and emotion

It feels easy and intuitive to make decisions about welfare tradeoffs — decisions pitting personal welfare against the welfare of someone else. Just because something feels easy, however, does not mean the computations that give rise to it are simple. We review evidence that natural selection has designed a series of internal regulatory variables that encode features of the other person (e.g., kinship, formidability, cooperative value) and the situation (e.g., the magnitude of the welfare at stake). These variables combine into a final variable, a welfare tradeoff ratio , which determines welfare tradeoffs. Moreover, some emotions, such as anger and forgiveness, function to update welfare tradeoff ratios in your mind and the minds of others. Conscious simplicity hides complex evolved design.
Accelerated three‐dimensional cine phase contrast imaging using randomly undersampled echo planar imaging with compressed sensing reconstruction

The aim of this study was to implement and evaluate an accelerated three-dimensional (3D) cine phase contrast MRI sequence by combining a randomly sampled 3D k-space acquisition sequence with an echo planar imaging (EPI) readout. An accelerated 3D cine phase contrast MRI sequence was implemented by combining EPI readout with randomly undersampled 3D k-space data suitable for compressed sensing (CS) reconstruction. The undersampled data were then reconstructed using low-dimensional structural self-learning and thresholding (LOST). 3D phase contrast MRI was acquired in 11 healthy adults using an overall acceleration of 7 (EPI factor of 3 and CS rate of 3). For comparison, a single two-dimensional (2D) cine phase contrast scan was also performed with sensitivity encoding (SENSE) rate 2 and approximately at the level of the pulmonary artery bifurcation. The stroke volume and mean velocity in both the ascending and descending aorta were measured and compared between two sequences using Bland–Altman plots. An average scan time of 3 min and 30 s, corresponding to an acceleration rate of 7, was achieved for 3D cine phase contrast scan with one direction flow encoding, voxel size of 2 × 2 × 3 mm3, foot–head coverage of 6 cm and temporal resolution of 30 ms. The mean velocity and stroke volume in both the ascending and descending aorta were statistically equivalent between the proposed 3D sequence and the standard 2D cine phase contrast sequence. The combination of EPI with a randomly undersampled 3D k-space sampling sequence using LOST reconstruction allows a seven-fold reduction in scan time of 3D cine phase contrast MRI without compromising blood flow quantification. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
On Psychotherapy, LGBT Identity, and Cultural Visibility: In Conversation with Alison Bechdel

Alison Bechdel is an acclaimed graphic novelist whose graphic memoirs have examined her closeted gay father's suicide, her own developing sexual and gender identity, and her experiences in psychoanalysis. The authors of this article interviewed Ms. Bechdel in order to explore her thoughts on the role of her early work in creating visibility for LGBT communities and the specific role of psychotherapy in her development and her artistic work. The article in turn examines Bechdel's work from the perspective of cultural representations of psychotherapy, development of gender identity and expression, and considers the implications of her work for the mental health practitioner caring for LGBT individuals.
Effect of Light Intensity on the Formation of Intracytoplasmic Membrane in Rhodospirillum rubrum

Holt, Stanley C. (University of California, Davis), and Allen G. Marr. Effect of light intensity on the formation of intracytoplasmic membrane in Rhodospirillum rubrum. J. Bacteriol. 89:1421–1429. 1965.—Cells of Rhodospirillum rubrum grown at low light intensity were found to contain much more internal membrane than cells grown at high light intensity. Highly purified membranes (chromatophores) from cells grown at low to moderate light intensity had a constant content of chlorophyll. Thus, the regulation of the chlorophyll content of the cell depends upon the formation of greater or lesser amounts of membrane which has a constant concentration of chlorophyll.
Relationship Between Permeability, Cell Division, and Murein Metabolism in a Mutant of Escherichia coli

A mutant of Escherichia coli has been found to have an increased sensitivity to actinomycin D and to sodium deoxycholate and an unusual morphology which accompanies an abnormality in cellular division. All of these characteristics are suppressed when the strain is grown in the presence of d-alanine. This strain, called MAD-1, for murein altered division mutant, exhibits its pleiotropic phenotype only when certain carbon compounds are used as energy sources in minimal medium. Nonpermissive carbon sources, which elicit the disturbed phenotype, include glucose, mannitol, fructose, maltose, and lactose; permissive carbon sources include galactose, glycerol, lactate, and succinate. The mutant is able to transport nonpermissive carbon compounds; 3 mM 3',5'-cyclic adenosine monophosphate included in the medium does not alter the phenotype seen with growth on glucose. Deoxyribonucleic acid and protein synthesis are normal with respect to cellular mass increase. d-Alanine specifically suppresses the pleiotropic phenotype at a concentration six times lower than l-alanine, the only other compound found to be effective. There is no abnormality in the K(m) or V(max) of l-alanine racemase or d-alanine-d-alanine synthetase of MAD-1 compared to its parent, CR34. MAD-1 is more susceptible to growth inhibition by penicillin or cycloserine than its parent, and is exquisitely sensitive to lysis in the presence of sodium deoxycholate or lysozyme. When cell wall biosynthesis is inhibited, MAD-1 lyses much more rapidly than CR34, even after it has been phenotypically suppressed by growth on d-alanine. The incorporation of l-alanine and diaminopimelic acid into the peptidoglycan of the mutant and wild type is identical; d-alanine is incorporated 1.5 times more rapidly into MAD-1 cells grown under nonpermissive conditions. The peptidoglycan fragments seen after digestion with lysozyme were similar for MAD-1 and the wild type. The results are interpreted as being compatible with an increased autolytic rate in MAD-1, caused either by an increase in the quantity or activity of an autolysin, or by an abnormal cell wall which is especially susceptible to autolysis, but which was not detected by analysis of peptidoglycan fragments.
An efficient output function partitioning algorithm for reducing hardware overhead in self-checking circuits and systems

Either m-out-of-n or Berger code checkers are generally used in a self-checking circuit or system to detect unidirectional errors. Results have shown that the hardware overhead of such a checker increases nearly exponentially as the code length increases. The use of many smaller checkers may require much less hardware overhead than the use of an equivalently larger checker. An efficient partitioning scheme is presented so that the output functions can be partitioned into a smaller size so that a smaller checker can be used. The development of the proposed partitioning algorithm is presented. Results of this study show that the proposed algorithm reduces both hardware overhead and performance degradation significantly. >
Biological systems: Stochastic, deterministic or both

Many systems in nature, including biological systems, have very complex dynamics which generate random-looking time series. To better understand a particular dynamical system, it is often of interest to determine whether the system is caused by deterministic subsystems (e.g. chaotic systems), stochastic subsystems, or both. Although there are now several different approaches to determine this from time series data (e.g. correlation dimension and Lyapunov exponent calculations), these methods often require large amounts of stationary data (biological data is frequently nonstationary for long time scales), can often mis-identify certain systems, and can be subject to other technical problems. Alternatively, one can use methods that measure the complexity in a particular system which seldom make assumptions about a particular system, such as assuming the presence of stationarity. Additionally, mathematical and computational modeling techniques can be used to test different hypothesis about the dynamics of biological systems.
Structure–activity relationships of small molecule inhibitors of RAGE-Aβ binding

Abstract The Receptor for Advanced Glycation Endproducts (‘RAGE’) mediates transport of amyloid-β peptide (Aβ) into the brain, and is therefore an important target for the development of therapeutic agents for Alzheimer's disease. We describe structure–activity relationships for inhibition of RAGE-Aβ binding, derived from the analysis of a library of tertiary amides.
Novel Mathematical Programming Model for Computer Aided Molecular Design

The synthesis of new compounds by computer aided molecular design approaches has received considerable attention recently due mainly to the promise of reducing the time and effort required using traditional empirical approaches. These conventional approaches have involved trial and error methods in which a large number of compounds are synthesized and tested in a laboratory. This paper describes a general mathematical programming model for designing compounds that have prespecified performance characteristics. This formulation is novel in that it gives nearly complete information about the molecular structure and is therefore able to exploit accurate property prediction methods that require such information. The computer aided molecular design strategy is able to generate a set of promising candidate compounds for experimental evaluation. The new formulation is illustrated with a refrigerant design case study.
Fritz Machlup’s Methodology and The Theory of the Growth of the Firm

Fritz Machlup distinguished himself in several main areas, including industrial organization, with particular emphasis on the production and distribution of knowledge, and international monetary economics. However, his role as methodologist concerns us here. As the long-term mentor of Edith Penrose, whose M.A. and Ph.D. he supervised at Johns Hopkins from 1947 to 1951, and whose work on The Theory of the Growth of the Firm he co-directed, Machlup as methodologist was in the position to influence the structure of her thinking and modeling of the process theory of the growth of firms. Did he do so and how did he do so? These questions are the focus of this paper. While management scholars and economists have since the 1990s begun to consider the Austrian influences on Penrose’s work (Loasby 1991, 1999; Foss 1998; Mahoney and Michael 2005; Foss et al. 2006), little attention has been paid to the methodology underlying her process theory of the growth of firms and to the influence of Fritz Machlup. On the other hand, Machlup’s methodology has been studied (Loasby 1976; Nelson and Winter 1982) and defended against the charge of neoclassical orthodoxy by Langlois and Koppl (1991) and Koppl (1992). In the sections that follow we explore the distinguishing features of that methodology and their appearance in The Theory of the Growth of the Firm. The principal sources used in this study are the publications of Fritz Machlup and Edith Penrose, as well as the letters exchanged throughout 1955 when Penrose was drafting The Theory of the Growth of the Firm.
Explosives detection through fast-neutron time-of-flight attenuation measurements☆

Abstract Computer simulations have been used to devise an algorithm for detection of explosives in luggage which is based upon measured projected number densities of H, C, N, and O. Other elements are lumped together as projection X. Dependence on luggage-thickness is reduced by normalizing the projection for each element by the total. Normalization constrains projections to a 4-dimensional space. Distributions of nonexplosive (N) and explosive (E) situations are generated by sorting results of simulations into bins in that 4-space. A detection matrix element, given by the ratio E (N + E) for each bin, is addressed by a measurement. For a realistic distribution of the numbers and types of luggage materials, the plastic explosive RDX, at 10% of suitcase thickness, can be detected in a single pixel with 85% reliability and a false alarm rate of 3%.
Hormone receptor status and survival in a population-based cohort of patients with breast carcinoma.

BACKGROUND The objective of this study was to assess hormone receptor status as an independent predictor of survival in a population-based cohort of women with breast carcinoma who were followed for up to 11 years. METHODS Since 1990, the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program has collected data on hormone receptor status among patients with breast carcinoma. In a cohort of 205,736 women with breast carcinoma age ≥ 20 years at diagnosis who were entered into the SEER data base between 1990 and 2000, the authors analyzed the association of hormone receptor status with year of diagnosis, patient age, disease stage, tumor histology, tumor grade, race/ethnicity, and metropolitan/statewide residence areas. Kaplan–Meier survival curves were compared according to hormone receptor status, and Cox proportional-hazards regression models were used to assess the association of hormone receptor status with breast carcinoma-specific and all-cause mortality controlling for age, disease stage, tumor grade, tumor histology, race/ethnicity, and SEER region. RESULTS Women who had tumors that were positive for both estrogen and progesterone hormone receptors had significantly better survival than other women with breast carcinoma in the overall cohort, within each stage, and in the younger and older age groups, although the survival advantage was greater among women age ≤ 50 years than among older women. Hormone receptor status was associated with mortality even when patient age, disease stage, tumor grade, tumor histology, race/ethnicity, and metropolitan/statewide residence areas were taken into account. CONCLUSIONS Hormone receptor status was identified as an independent predictor of outcome in women with breast carcinoma. Data from clinical trials with long follow-up may shed light on whether and how the benefit of hormonal and other treatment varies with hormone receptor status. Cancer 2005. © 2005 American Cancer Society.
Nonexistence of global solutions to semilinear wave equations in high dimensions

On considere le probleme de Cauchy pour l'equation d'onde semi lineaire (ο 2 /∂t 2 -Δ)u(x,t)=|u(x,t)| p (p>1), u(x,o)=f(x), u t (x,o)=g(x) avec f,g∈C o ∞ (R n )
Spectral and angular dependence of mid-infrared diffuse scattering from explosives residues for standoff detection using external cavity quantum cascade lasers

We present a study of the spectral and angular dependence of scattered mid-infrared light from surfaces coated with explosives residues (TNT, RDX, and tetryl) detected at a 2 m standoff distance. An external cavity quantum cascade laser provided tunable illumination between 7 and 8 μm. Important differences were identified in the spectral features between specular reflection and diffuse scattering which will impact most practical testing scenarios and complicate material identification. We discuss some of the factors influencing the dependence of observed spectra on the experimental geometry.
Coping with naturally-high levels of soil salinity and boron in the westside of central California

Abstract California has one of the most productive agricultural regions of the world, producing more than 400 commodities with a value of more than $37 billion. In the westside of central California, over 200,000 ha exhibit naturally high levels of salinity and boron (B) in the soils, especially those derived from Cretaceous soils. Both excessive salt and B negatively impact agronomic production in this part of California, which has severe economic consequences for the farming communities. Developing new salt and B management methods and identifying alternative tolerant crops are essential agronomic strategies for this region of California.
Current challenges in automatic software repair

The abundance of defects in existing software systems is unsustainable. Addressing them is a dominant cost of software maintenance, which in turn dominates the life cycle cost of a system. Recent research has made significant progress on the problem of automatic program repair, using techniques such as evolutionary computation, instrumentation and run-time monitoring, and sound synthesis with respect to a specification. This article serves three purposes. First, we review current work on evolutionary computation approaches, focusing on GenProg, which uses genetic programming to evolve a patch to a particular bug. We summarize algorithmic improvements and recent experimental results. Second, we review related work in the rapidly growing subfield of automatic program repair. Finally, we outline important open research challenges that we believe should guide future research in the area.
A Surgical Planning Method for Functional MRI Assessment of Language Dominance: Influences from Threshold, Region-of-Interest, and Stimulus Mode

Presurgical determination of language laterality is an important step for assessing potential risk of dysfunction resulting from brain resection within or near suspected language areas. Image-based functional MRI (fMRI) methods seek to address limitations to the clinical gold-standard technique by offering a safer, less costly, and non-invasive alternative. In this study we outline a set of protocols for objective determination of langue-specific asymmetry from fMRI activation maps. We studied 13 healthy, right-handed volunteers using a vocalized antonym-generation task. Initially, using the standard threshold-dependent laterality index (LI) procedure, we demonstrated an undesirably high degree of intra-subject variability and indeterminacy in LI value. We addressed this issue by implementing a novel threshold-independent method, resulting in a single, unambiguous LI for each subject. These LIs were then averaged across the group and used to compare functional laterality within the whole hemispheric volumes and six intra-hemispheric regions-of-interest (ROIs). We noted that as a result of increased bilateral activation from vocalizations, laterality assessment calculated from the whole hemisphere resulted in insignificant asymmetry. However, by focusing the LI exclusively on the inferior frontal (IFG) and supramarginal gyri (SMG), robust leftward asymmetries were observed. We also examined the influence of stimulus mode on the group mean ROI LI, and observed an increase in IFG asymmetry using visual mode, and in SMG using the auditory mode. Based on these findings, we make recommendations for optimized presurgical protocols.
Computer-Aided Diagnosis and Localization of Lateralized Temporal Lobe Epilepsy Using Interictal FDG-PET

Interictal FDG-PET (iPET) is a core tool for localizing the epileptogenic focus, potentially before structural MRI, that does not require rare and transient epileptiform discharges or seizures on EEG. The visual interpretation of iPET is challenging and requires years of epilepsy-specific expertise. We have developed an automated computer-aided diagnostic (CAD) tool that has the potential to work both independent of and synergistically with expert analysis. Our tool operates on distributed metabolic changes across the whole brain measured by iPET to both diagnose and lateralize temporal lobe epilepsy. When diagnosing left temporal lobe epilepsy (LTLE) or right TLE (RTLE) versus non-epileptic seizures (NES), our accuracy in reproducing the results of the gold standard long term video-EEG monitoring was 82% (95% confidence interval [CI] 69-90%) or 88% (95% CI 76-94%), respectively. The classifier that both diagnosed and lateralized the disease had overall accuracy of 76% (95% CI 66-84%), where 89% (95% CI 77-96%) of patients correctly identified with epilepsy were correctly lateralized. When identifying LTLE, our CAD tool utilized metabolic changes across the entire brain. By contrast, only temporal regions and the right frontal lobe cortex, were needed to identify RTLE accurately, a finding consistent with clinical observations and indicative of a potential pathophysiological difference between RTLE and LTLE. The goal of CADs is to complement—not replace—expert analysis. In our dataset, the accuracy of manual analysis of iPET (~80%) was similar to CAD. The square correlation between our CAD tool and manual analysis, however, was only 30%, indicating that our CAD tool does not recreate manual analysis. The addition of clinical information to our CAD, however, did not substantively change performance. These results suggest that automated analysis might provide clinically valuable information to focus treatment more effectively.
Chronic attachment of a connector to a rat's skull without screws

Abstract Commonly used techniques for chronic attachment to the rat's skull have dislodgement problems, are difficult to do, and/or risk damage to the cortex. A technique has been developed that solves these problems and offers the unique advantage of easy removal of the connector and electrodes when the rat is sacrificed.
Glaucoma filtering surgery with postoperative 5-fluorouracil in patients with intraocular inflammatory disease.

Twenty-one eyes of 18 patients with uncontrolled glaucoma and intraocular inflammatory disease had glaucoma filtering surgery with postoperative subconjunctival 5-fluorouracil (5-FU). Follow-up for eyes in which intraocular pressure was controlled ranged from 6 to 53 months (mean, 34 months; median, 35 months). Fifteen of 21 eyes (71 %) had controlled intraocular pressure (21 mmHg or less). Control was achieved in 9 of 10 (90%) phakic eyes and in 6 of 11 (55%) aphakic or pseudophakic eyes with or without glaucoma medication. Four of six filter failures had a second filtering procedure with 5-FU, and of these four procedures, three were successful. Cataract progression occurred in 9 of 10 phakic eyes, leading to cataract surgery in 7 eyes. Other complications included corneal epithelial defects in 13 eyes, bleb leaks in 3 eyes, choroidal effusions in 13 eyes, 1 choroidal hemorrhage, 1 serous retinal detachment and macular retinal pigment epithelial disturbance associated with hypotony and choroidal effusion. Filtering surgery with postoperative subconjunctival 5-FU can successfully control intraocular pressure in eyes with ocular inflammatory disease.
Characterization of Different Forms of the Androgen Receptor

Three forms of the androgen receptor have been characterized at high ionic strength in partially purified cytosol and nuclear fractions of rat ventral prostate, epididymis, testis, and seminal vesicle by ion exchange chromatography on phosphocellulose, gel filtration in Sephadex G-200, and sedimentation in sucrose gradients. The three forms have the following properties, respectively: elution from phosphocellulose at 0.15--0.20, 0.3--0.5, and 0.20--0.32 M KCl; gel filtration radii of 53, 36, and 22 A; sedimentation coefficients of 5.0S, 3.6S, and 3.0S; frictional ratios of 1.65, 1.4, and 1.0; and molecular weights of 115,000, 55,000, and 29,000. In testis and epididymis cytosol, the 53 A, 5S form was more abundant than the 36 A, 3.6S form. In ventral prostate, the 36 A, 3.6S receptor was the predominant form. Variable amounts of all three forms were observed in seminal vesicles. Conversion from 36 A, 3.6S to 22 A, 3.0S was induced by heating ventral prostate cytosol and could be blocked by serine protease inhibitors. The 22 A, 3.0S receptor fragment from heated prostate cytosol was similar in size and symmetry to receptor extracted in 0.5 M KCl from prostate nuclei labeled in vivo. Extracts of epididymis and seminal vesicle nuclei contained both 36 and 22 A forms.
Regulation of cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterases of cerebral cortex by Ca2+ and cyclic GMP.

— Cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterase activity of porcine cerebral cortical extracts was measured with 0.1–100 μM-cyclic AMP and cyclic GMP and found to be dependent on both Ca2+ and added cyclic nucleotides. With decreasing substrate concentration activity with cyclic GMP became more dependent on Ca2+ whereas hydrolysis of cyclic AMP became less dependent. Cyclic GMP at 3 μM stimulated the hydrolysis of 0.1–10μM-cyclic AMP in the absence of Ca2+ (< 10-10M) but inhibited activity with 200 μM-Ca2+ present. This differential, substrate- and Ca2+-dependent regulation was attributed to the presence of at least two types of phosphodiesterase distinguishable by DEAE-column chromatography. In the absence of Ca2+, activity with 1 μM-cyclic GMP eluted in one minor peak followed by two major peaks, D-I and D-II. Activity with 1 μM-cyclic AMP eluted almost entirely in D-II. Hydrolysis of cyclic AMP in D-II was activated by cyclic GMP. With added Ca2+ plus a Ca2+-dependent regulator (CDR), activity with 1 μM-cyclic GMP was markedly increased and eluted entirely at D-I. Total activity with 1 μM-cyclic AMP was only moderately increased and eluted as D-I with a shoulder at D-II. Elution profiles with 100 μM-substrate were relatively independent of substrate, with D-I predominant with Ca2+·CDR present and D-II predominant in its absence. Kinetic analysis of rechromatographed D-I showed a 20- to 40-fold activation by Ca2+·CDR that was largely due to an increase in Vmax, with only 50% decreases in Km Both substrates competitively inhibited hydrolysis of the other with Ki values equal to their respective Km values (1.7 μM for cyclic GMP and 48 μM for cyclic AMP with Ca2+-CDR present). Studies with theophylline and trifluoperazine indicate differential, substrate-dependent inhibitions of both enzymes. These findings demonstrate that phosphodiesterase activity in neural tissue is subject to regulation by Ca2+, cyclic GMP, and inhibitors in a complex, substrate-specific and concentration-dependent manner.
Coupled-mode analysis of an electrooptic frequency shifter

In this paper, we present a semiclassical wave equation analysis using a coupled-mode expansion formalism to study the effect of a microwave field on a train of short optical pulses co-propagating in a traveling-wave modulator structure. This device can continuously shift the central frequency of light pulses. We demonstrate the effect of the applied field on the light spectrum, the dependence on the relation between microwave wavelength and pulse length, and the effect of changing the interaction length or the power of the applied microwave field. The results of the calculation of these effects are presented.
Contrast discrimination charts for demonstrating the effect of anoxia on vision.

A test of visual contrast discrimination has been developed for demonstrating visual impairment due to anoxia at altitudes of 15,000 feet or above. It is made of photographically printed Landolt rings only slightly darker than their white background, and varying in contrast so as to cover the range just barely discriminated by different individuals at sea level and at altitude. Since moderate anoxia has little effect on vision in daylight, but causes a deterioration in contrast discrimination at twilight and night, the tests are designed to be viewed at a twilight brightness of about 0.1 millilambert. Trials with aviation cadets and other untrained persons have shown that the tests fulfill their purpose of demonstrating the effect of anoxia on vision. They also show the existence of large individual differences in the score at sea level and in the effect of altitude. The tests have been used in researches with skilled subjects on the effects of various procedures for producing anoxia, and have successfully given a quantitative measure of the resulting visual impairment.
SWEETLEAD: an In Silico Database of Approved Drugs, Regulated Chemicals, and Herbal Isolates for Computer-Aided Drug Discovery

In the face of drastically rising drug discovery costs, strategies promising to reduce development timelines and expenditures are being pursued. Computer-aided virtual screening and repurposing approved drugs are two such strategies that have shown recent success. Herein, we report the creation of a highly-curated in silico database of chemical structures representing approved drugs, chemical isolates from traditional medicinal herbs, and regulated chemicals, termed the SWEETLEAD database. The motivation for SWEETLEAD stems from the observance of conflicting information in publicly available chemical databases and the lack of a highly curated database of chemical structures for the globally approved drugs. A consensus building scheme surveying information from several publicly accessible databases was employed to identify the correct structure for each chemical. Resulting structures are filtered for the active pharmaceutical ingredient, standardized, and differing formulations of the same drug were combined in the final database. The publically available release of SWEETLEAD (https://simtk.org/home/sweetlead) provides an important tool to enable the successful completion of computer-aided repurposing and drug discovery campaigns.
Urban ecosystem design

We address the open problem of spatial distribution of vegetation in urban environments by introducing a user-guided simulation and procedural system for integrating plants into the interactive design process of 3D urban models. Our approach uses as input 3D geometry of an urban layout from which it infers initial conditions and parameters of procedural rules. A level of manageability is calculated for each area of the urban space. The manageability level defines the amount of influence between the wild ecosystem simulation, where the plants compete for resources and seed freely, and the managed ecosystem, where nearly no seeding is allowed and the plants grow only under well-defined conditions. The wild ecosystems are handled by a simulation of plant competition for resources, whereas the procedural generation is based on an expandable set of behavioral rules of owners and typical plant management. Our system provides an interactive semi-automatic method to calculate a spatial plant distribution and to create an urban model with plants covering an area of several square kilometers in less than a minute. It provides a high degree of controllability and works tightly with an urban simulation system. We show various examples, such as plant development over time in managed and unmanaged areas, effect of procedural rules on the plant distribution, and the effect of changing the level of manageability and the plant distribution.
Dark matter: Time for detection

Multiple lines of astrophysical evidence suggest that over one-quarter of the mass of the Universe takes the form of dark matter, with a density in our Solar System of roughly one hydrogen atom's mass per cubic metre. Most attempts to directly detect dark matter have focused on particles such as weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) or axions. Enormous detectors searching for dark matter have been built. They are looking for signals such as tiny flashes of light from collisions between dark matter and liquid xenon, phonons created by collisions in germanium, or microwaves generated by axions in a resonant cavity. Yet so far, dark matter has passed through the Earth undetected. An alternative explanation is that dark matter acts more like a classical, spatially dependent field. Writing in Nature Physics, Andrei Derevianko and Maxim Pospelov now suggest searching for such a field using a world-wide network of atomic clocks to register any changes in the their ticking rate as the Earth passes through dark matter.
Densification of Water Ice Deposits on the Residual North Polar Cap of Mars

Abstract Understanding the density evolution of any ice deposits on the martian north polar residual cap is key to understanding whether the cap contains a climate record in the form of occluded samples of past atmospheres. We present a physical model for densification of water ice deposits on the cap due to gravity-driven sintering and temperature-gradient-driven vapor transport. The model predicts the steady-state profile of porosity versus depth in the ice cap for specified, time-independent mass accumulation rate and surface deposition density and for surface temperatures with specified diurnal and seasonal variations that comprise an invariant annual cycle. We find that, in contrast to the analogous situation on Earth, vapor transport dominates densification in the current martian climate. This mechanism can produce very low-porosity near-surface ice, even when accumulation rates are small but positive, comparable to those presently thought to occur. Thus recent inferences of high thermal inertia on the cap may not necessarily imply that the cap is ablating. The model predicts a sharp transition between temperature and accumulation conditions under which a deep firn column results and those characterized by very low surface porosity. Finally, we derive a temporal-frequency-dependent thermal inertia for a vertically inhomogeneous medium. Observations of this quantity are, at least in principle, useful for remote estimation of the ice cap density variations within about 10 m of the surface.
Computer-aided diagnosis of pulmonary nodules on CT scans: improvement of classification performance with nodule surface features.

The purpose of this work is to develop a computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) system to differentiate malignant and benign lung nodules on CT scans. A fully automated system was designed to segment the nodule from its surrounding structured background in a local volume of interest (VOI) and to extract image features for classification. Image segmentation was performed with a 3D active contour method. The initial contour was obtained as the boundary of a binary object generated by k-means clustering within the VOI and smoothed by morphological opening. A data set of 256 lung nodules (124 malignant and 132 benign) from 152 patients was used in this study. In addition to morphological and texture features, the authors designed new nodule surface features to characterize the lung nodule surface smoothness and shape irregularity. The effects of two demographic features, age and gender, as adjunct to the image features were also investigated. A linear discriminant analysis (LDA) classifier built with features from stepwise feature selection was trained using simplex optimization to select the most effective features. A two-loop leave-one-out resampling scheme was developed to reduce the optimistic bias in estimating the test performance of the CAD system. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, Az, for the test cases improved significantly (p 0.05) when they were added to the feature space containing the morphological, texture, and new gradient field and radius features. To investigate if a support vector machine (SVM) classifier can achieve improved performance over the LDA classifier, we compared the performance of the LDA and SVMs with various kernels and parameters. Principal component analysis was used to reduce the dimensionality of the feature space for both the LDA and the SVM classifiers. When the number of selected principal components was varied, the highest test Az among the SVMs of various kernels and parameters was slightly higher than that of the LDA in one-loop leave-one-case-out resampling. However, no SVM with fixed architecture consistently performed better than the LDA in the range of principal components selected. This study demonstrated that the authors’ proposed segmentation and feature extraction techniques are promising for classifying lung nodules on CT images.
Cathode performance as a factor in electricity generation in microbial fuel cells

Although microbial fuel cells (MFCs) generate much lower power densities than hydrogen fuel cells, the characteristics of the cathode can also substantially affect electricity generation. Cathodes used for MFCs are often either Pt-coated carbon electrodes immersed in water that use dissolved oxygen as the electron acceptor or they are plain carbon electrodes in a ferricyanide solution. The characteristics and performance of these two cathodes were compared using a two-chambered MFC. Power generation using the Pt-carbon cathode and dissolved oxygen (saturated) reached a maximum of 0.097 mW within 120 h after inoculation (wastewater sludge and 20 mM acetate) when the cathode was equal size to the anode (2.5 × 4.5 cm). Once stable power was generated after replacing the MFC with fresh medium (no sludge), the Coulombic efficiency ranged from 63 to 78%. Power was proportional to the dissolved oxygen concentration in a manner consistent with Monod-type kinetics, with a half saturation constant of KDO = 1.74 mg ...
Theoretical discussion of line shapes in the optical and U. V. spectra of large polyatomic molecules

Abstract Interference effects in the electronic spectrum of large polyatomic molecular systems are discussed. It is shown that there exist some specific features characteristic to molecular systems and absent in atoms - the line shape of an inhomogeneously broadened resonance is dependent on light polarization.
Incorporation and Fate of Estradiol-17β-6, 7-H3 in Rabbit Oviducts.

SummaryThe incorporation and fate of estradiol-17β-6,7-H3 was studied in the female rabbit. The Fallopian tube of the rabbit showed an affinity for estradiol-17β at the same level as uterine tissue. The major portion of radioactive steroids present in the Fallopian tube, uterus and skeletal muscle was in the ether-soluble fraction, whereas in plasma significant amounts of activity were present in the aqueous layer. Estradiol-17β was the only radioactive estrogen found in the tubal and uterine tissues. Radioactivity was identified as estrone and estradiol-17β in the skeletal muscle, and as estrone, estradiol-17β and estriol in the plasma.
Elitocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina and its impact on the contemporary understanding of the crime of genocide

In my paper I will present and discuss the theoretical concept of elitocide (a systematic elimination of leading figures of a society or a group) and its impact on the crime of genocide on the example of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina 1992–1995. A systematization and scientific classification of elitocide as a sociological phenomenon bears great importance to the field of study on genocide, mass murder and human rights abuses. The scientific elaboration of new or hitherto neglected occurrences of organized violence has a significant impact on the understanding of the phenomenon of systematic war crimes and mass atrocities in modern war conflicts. In order to better understand how genocide or potentially genocidal mass murders emerge and how they can be prevented, it is necessary to modify and redevelop their conventional theoretical framework. Since the premises of modern war have changed, the science is obliged to adapt its approach to this new reality. This paper is a contribution to making the cause...
Hierarchical Control Strategy for an Integrated Wastewater Treatment Plant

Abstract This paper presents the design of a hierarchical control system consisting of a model based centralized supervisory controller and a group of embedded controllers for a set of integrated biological reactors, which is a part of NASA's advanced regenerative wastewater treatment system. A first principle model developed by [Zhang and Hoo, 2007] is used to design the centralized model predictive controller to regulate the performance of the integrated biological reactors for on-supply & on-demand operations simultaneously. The embedded control is implemented as safety mode to guarantee the process throughput performance in case of malfunction or the loss of communication with the higher level supervisory controller. The control design is implemented and tested on a testbed that is 1/20 th the scale of the actual biological reactors.
Herbicide use in Asian rice production

Abstract Economic growth and rising labor costs in many regions of Asia have led to the widespread adoption of herbicides in rice production. This trend has been reinforced by the spread of direct-seeded rice technologies that require chemical weed control in the early stages of crop growth to prevent substantial yield losses. Herbicide use has been shown to be privately profitable for Asian rice farmers, but the question remains as to whether it is socially profitable when environmental costs, health costs, and the societal costs of labor displacement in some economically stagnant regions are accounted for. This paper analyzes the causes and potential environmental, health, and equity consequences of extensive herbicide use in Asian rice systems, and discusses the importance of an integrated weed management strategy for future rice production.
Nonlinear bending of thick beams laminated from bimodular composite materials

Abstract A higher-order shear deformation beam theory is presented to analyze geometrically nonliner bending of thick, rectangular beams made from bimodular materials. This is performed by using a mixed finite element model. Results are reported for maximum deflections of simply-supported and clamped-clamped beams under a uniformly distributed load. The effect of material bimodularity on the nonlinear transverse deflection is investigated.