cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
High temperature rheology of tomato puree and starch dispersion with a direct-drive viscometer

A direct-drive concentric cylinder viscometer in a pressure chamber was used to study the flow behavior of a 11 Brix tomato puree at several temperatures in the range: 76 to 120C. The activation energy of flow of the tomato puree, based on apparent viscosity at 50 s -1 , was: 9.4 kJ mol -1 . The apparent viscosity (η a ) versus temperature profiles of a 4.0% waxy rice (WR) starch dispersion were determined during continuous heating from 30 to 110C at six shear rates in the shear range: 114 to 644 s -1 ; beginning at about 95C, significant increase in η a was observed at 114 and 160 s -1 . The said profiles collapsed to a single curve when η a values were converted to reduced viscosity, η aR =η a (γ -γt ). Values of η a of the starch dispersion were lower than those of η * at about the same shear rates, γ=5.7 s -1 and ω=6.3 rad s -1 .
What Drives New Ventures to Internationalize from Emerging to Developed Economies

The internationalization of new ventures from emerging economies to developed economies remains an unfilled gap at the intersection of the literature between international entrepreneurship and stra...
Tweeting, Texting, and Facebook Postings: Stirring the Pot with Social Media to Make Drama - Case Study and Participant Observation

This study of adolescent social drama is located at the intersection of research on adolescent peer relationships, group behaviors, youth culture, and mediated communication. An emergent construct, drama has been conceptualized as social interactions characterized by overreaction, exaggeration, excessive emotionality, prolongation, inclusion of extraneous individuals, inflated importance, and temporary relevance. This case study and participant observation involve a 15-year-old, white, middle class female and her mother. The purpose was two-fold: To determine if the events described map on to existing understandings of drama and to develop emergent themes and hypotheses through grounded theory analysis and ethnographic observation that might expand knowledge of drama. Findings suggest that this case reflects current understandings of drama. Emergent themes suggest that drama may also involve highly emotional group experiences and that while drama may be temporary and short-lived, it may also create a backdrop for additional problematic events. Keywords: Adolescent Social Drama, Teen Social Drama, Doing Drama, Drama, Texting, Tweeting, Facebook Posting, Case Study While recent attention has focused on problems around bullying in schools, particularly bullying that links cyber, electronic, and mediated forms of aggression to
The asthma–chronic obstructive pulmonary disease overlap syndrome: pharmacotherapeutic considerations

Asthma-chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) overlap syndrome (ACOS) is a commonly encountered yet loosely defined clinical entity. ACOS accounts for approximately 15-25% of the obstructive airway diseases and patients experience worse outcomes compared with asthma or COPD alone. Patients with ACOS have the combined risk factors of smoking and atopy, are generally younger than patients with COPD and experience acute exacerbations with higher frequency and greater severity than lone COPD. Pharmacotherapeutic considerations require an integrated approach, first to identify the relevant clinical phenotype(s), then to determine the best available therapy. The authors discuss the array of existing and emerging classes of drugs that could benefit those with ACOS and share their therapeutic approach. A consensus international definition of ACOS is needed to design prospective, randomized clinical trials to evaluate specific drug interventions on important outcomes such as lung function, acute exacerbations, quality of life and mortality.
Development of porous antireflective films on soda-lime-silica glass

Glass compositions were surveyed to identify candidates that could be heat-treated to produce an interconnected phase-separated structure needed for porous antireflective films and which matched the viscosity-temperature characteristics needed for the float glass process. A glass composition of 10% Na2O,10% CaO, and 80% SiO2 meets these criteria. Microstructural development and film-formation kinetics were characterized to permit definition of appropriate heat-treatment and selective dissolution processes. Broadband antireflective characteristics were developed on treated glass surfaces.
Thin low-loss dielectric coatings for free-space cloaking

We report stereolithographic polymer-based fabrication and experimental operation of a microwave X-band cloaking device. The device is a relatively thin (about one wavelength thick) shell of an air-dielectric composite, in which the dielectric component has negligible loss and dispersion. In a finite band (9.7–10.1 GHz), the shell eliminates the shadow and strongly suppresses scattering from a conducting cylinder of six-wavelength diameter for TE-polarized free-space plane waves. The device does not require an immersion liquid or conducting ground planes for its operation. The dielectric constant of the polymer is low enough (ϵ=2.45) to suggest that this cloaking technique would be suitable for higher frequency radiation, including visible light.
Analysis of drivers' behavior under reduced visibility conditions using a Structural Equation Modeling approach

One way to improve safety under reduced visibility conditions (i.e., reduce the chances of visibility related crashes) is to improve drivers' behavior under such adverse weather conditions. The aim of this paper is to thoroughly examine drivers' responses under low visibility conditions and quantify the impacts and values of various factors found to be related to drivers' compliance and drivers' satisfaction with variable speed limit (VSL) and changeable message signs (CMS) instructions in different visibility, traffic conditions, and on two types of roadways; freeways and two-lane roads. The data used for the analyses were obtained from a self-reported questionnaire survey carried out among 566 drivers in Central Florida, USA. To achieve these goals, Explanatory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approaches were adopted. The results revealed that drivers' satisfaction with VSL/CMS was the most significant factor that positively affected drivers' compliance with advice or warning messages displayed on VSL/CMS under different fog conditions followed by human factors. Moreover, it was found that roadway type affected drivers' compliance to VSL instructions under medium and heavy fog conditions. Furthermore, drivers' familiarity with VSL and human factors were the significant factors affecting drivers' satisfaction with VSL/CMS advice under reduced visibility conditions. Based on the findings of the present study, several recommendations are suggested as guidelines to improve drivers' behavior in such reduced visibility conditions by enhancing drivers' compliance with VSL/CMS instructions.
Adaptive-Control Model for Neutrophil Orientation in the Direction of Chemical Gradients

Neutrophils have a remarkable ability to detect the direction of chemoattractant gradients and move directionally in response to bacterial infections and tissue injuries. For their role in health and disease, neutrophils have been extensively studied, and many of the molecules involved in the signaling mechanisms of gradient detection and chemotaxis have been identified. However, the cellular-scale mechanisms of gradient sensing and directional neutrophil migration have been more elusive, and existent models provide only limited insight into these processes. Here, we propose a what we believe is a novel adaptive-control model for the initiation of cell polarization in response to gradients. In this model, the neutrophils first sample the environment by extending protrusions in random directions and subsequently adapt their sensitivity depending on localized, temporal changes in stimulation levels. Our results suggest that microtubules may play a critical role in integrating all the sensing events from the cellular periphery through their redistribution inside the neutrophils, and may also be involved in modulating local signaling. An unexpected finding was that model neutrophils exhibit significant randomness in timing and directionality of activation, comparable to our experimental observations in microfluidic devices. Moreover, their responses are robust against alterations of the rate and amplitude of the signaling reactions, and for a broad range in chemoattractant concentrations and spatial gradients.
SOCR: Statistics Online Computational Resource

The need for hands-on computer laboratory experience in undergraduate and graduate statistics education has been firmly established in the past decade. As a result a number of attempts have been undertaken to develop novel approaches for problem-driven statistical thinking, data analysis and result interpretation. In this paper we describe an integrated educational web-based framework for: interactive distribution modeling, virtual online probability experimentation, statistical data analysis, visualization and integration. Following years of experience in statistical teaching at all college levels using established licensed statistical software packages, like STATA, S-PLUS, R, SPSS, SAS, Systat, etc., we have attempted to engineer a new statistics education environment, the Statistics Online Computational Resource (SOCR). This resource performs many of the standard types of statistical analysis, much like other classical tools. In addition, it is designed in a plug-in object-oriented architecture and is completely platform independent, web-based, interactive, extensible and secure. Over the past 4 years we have tested, fine-tuned and reanalyzed the SOCR framework in many of our undergraduate and graduate probability and statistics courses and have evidence that SOCR resources build student's intuition and enhance their learning.
Extensible supply voltage control mechanism for low power array structure design

A novel supply voltage switching control mechanism, called D-logic, for reducing power dissipation of array structures is presented. With this D-logic mechanism, the supply voltage levels are successively activated by external clock signal in the direction of signal propagation, which eliminates power dissipated by the glitches. The mechanism is easily incorporated with minimal circuit change in the existing array structure, and the speed of the array structure can be maintained. We have reduced the energy consumption of the multipliers and CORDICs as much as 50% with the proposed D-logic circuitry.
Compressibility and vapor pressure of methyl borate

Pressure-volume-temperature measurements have been made on methyl borate over the temperature range of 2257deg; to 300°C. and pressures of 30 to 200 atm. in a variable volume P-V-T bomb. Vapor-pressure measurements from 180°C. to the critical point have also been made with the same apparatus. The vapor-pressure data are presented in the form of the Antoine equation, and the P-V-T data together with the vapor-pressure data have been fitted to the Benedict-Webb-Rubin equation of state.
Effect of synthetic analogues of hydrocortisone on the blood pressure of adrenalectomized rats on sodium restriction.

PREVIOUS experimental work has established that several of the adrenal steroids may produce hypertension: desoxycorticosterone (DOC) (1, 2, 3, 4), cortisone (5, 6) and hydrocortisone (7). It seems likely that more than one mechanism is involved in the action of these steroids upon the blood pressure. That of desoxycorticosterone is conditioned by the amount of sodium available, i.e., the development of hypertension is accentuated by a liberal sodium intake (4) and can be prevented by sodium restriction (8). In contrast, the action of cortisone is not influenced by variation in the sodium content of the diet (6) and the hypertension induced by hydrocortisone is not agumented by a high sodium intake or by reduction in renal mass (9). This suggests that both cortisone and hydrocortisone produce their effect upon the blood pressure through some mechanism which differs from that invoked by desoxycorticosterone.
Asymmetric Assortative Mating between Two Hybridizing Orchelimum Katydids (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae)

Abstract The katydids Orchelimum nigripes and O. pulchellum (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae) have a largely allopatric distribution in the eastern United States, but hybridization between these species has been well documented in two contact zones. I used animals from populations just outside a narrow, recently formed upstream-downstream hybrid zone along the Potomac River near Washington, D.C., in laboratory mate-choice trials to examine the possible importance of differential patterns of mate preference in determining the structure and dynamics of this hybrid zone. Offered a choice between a male of each species, O. nigripes females showed an extreme preference for conspecific mates, but O. pulchellum females showed no clear preference. This asymmetry in mate discrimination may contribute to the apparently ongoing replacement along the Potomac of O. pulchellum by O. nigripes in the wake of a moving hybrid zone.
What You Should Know About the Debit Card in Your Wallet: Where the Federal Reserve’s New Overdraft Rules May Fall Short

Bank debit cards may look like credit cards, but they certainly do not act like them when it comes to account overdrafts. This does not suggest that credit cards are better than debit cards, as complaints abound concerning the transparency of fees charged to consumers for credit card transactions as well. Nevertheless, consumers are more familiar with the workings of credit cards, often not realizing that credit and debit overdraft charges work differently. This essay supports the opt-in regulatory mechanism for overdraft fees of the general type adopted by the Federal Reserve in its Final Rules, particularly because the multi-tiered approach adopted recognizes that consumers may desire to have overdraft protection on some items, such as paper checks, but may not desire the same protection for ATM and POS transactions.
CONTROL: continuous output and navigation technology with refinement on-line

The CONTROL project at U.C. Berkeley has developed technologies to provide online behavior for data-intensive applications. Using new query processing algorithms, these technologies continuously improve estimates and confidence statistics. In addition, they react to user feedback, thereby giving the user control over the behavior of long-running operations. This demonstration displays the modifications to a database system and the resulting impact on aggregation queries, data visualization, and GUI widgets. We then compare this interactive behavior to batch-processing alternatives.
A comparison of atmospheric effects on differential phase for a two-element antenna array and nearby site test interferometer

Phased arrays of reflector antennas can be used to obtain effective area and gain that are much larger than is practical with a single antenna. This technique is routinely used by NASA for receiving weak signals from deep space. Phase alignment of the signals can be disrupted by turbulence in the troposphere, which causes fluctuations in the differences of signal delays among the antennas. At the Deep Space Network stations, site test interferometers (STIs) are being used for long-term monitoring of these delay fluctuations using signals from geostationary satellites. In this paper, we compare the STI measurements with the phase variations seen by a nearby two-element array of 34 m diameter antennas tracking 8.4 GHz and 32 GHz signals from the Cassini spacecraft in orbit around Saturn. It is shown that the statistics of the STI delay fluctuations, after appropriate scaling for differences in antenna separation and elevation angle and conversion to phase at the spacecraft frequencies, provide reliable estimates of the phase fluctuations seen by the large antennas on the deep space signal. Techniques for adaptive compensation of the phase fluctuations are available when receiving a sufficiently strong signal, but compensation is often impractical or impossible when using the array for transmitting. These results help to validate the use of long-term STI data for assessing the feasibility of large transmitting arrays at various sites.
Combined oestrogen—progestin treatment of vaginal haemorrhage following gonadotrophin-releasing hormone agonist therapy of uterine myomas

Three pre-menopausal women with uterine myomas were treated with leuprolide acetate depot and experienced profuse vaginal bleeding 7-11 weeks after initiation of treatment, despite profound oestradiol suppression. In each case, leuprolide therapy was discontinued and the women were treated with combination oral contraceptives and ferrous sulphate. Vaginal bleeding ceased within 24-48 h of oral contraceptive treatment in all women. Haemoglobin concentrations were restored to normal values and all women underwent definitive surgical treatments after 4-6 weeks of oral contraceptive treatment without the need for homologous blood transfusion. The final pathology report revealed focal necrosis of submucous myomas in all cases.
Analysis of risk factors of hypertension in Wuxi New District residents

Objective To analyze the main risk factors of hypertension in residents of Wuxi New District for hypertension prevention. Methods A stratified random sampling was conducted among inhabitants over 18 years old,and the data were collected through household-visit survey. Data were analyzed with both single factors and multifactor non-conditional Logistic regression analysis. Results The prevalence of hypertension among adults in Wuxi New District was 19. 04percent,while blood pressure control rate was only 44. 52%. Age,life stress,body mass index,family history of hypertension,waistline,drinking were positively related to hypertension by Logistic regression model analysis,while cultural level was negatively related to hypertension prevalence. Conclusion In Wuxi New District,the prevalence of hypertension was high,and the control rate was low,therefore,we should improve the health lifestyle to reduce the risk of hypertension.
Evaluation of the Spacers Oligonucleotide typing as a practical approach in molecular epidemiology of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in Henan

Objective To Evaluation genotyping method Spoligotyping for Mycobacterium tuberculosis,Understand the types and distribution of genotypes of Mycobacterium tuberculosis clinical isolates and distribution features of Beijing family genotype in henan province.Methods M.tuberculosis clinical isolates selected from Henan province randomly were cultured with Lowenstein-Jensen medium.The bacteria from which the genome DNA was extracted were collected.The clustering of genotype was analyzed on http://www.miru-vntrplus.org/MIRU/index.faces website.Chi-Square test was used for statistical analysis.Results The Spoligotyping pattern of 310 M.tuberculosis clinical isolates were analyzed respectively.The clustering of genotype showed that these strains could be categorized into 4 gene clusters(Beijing and Beijing like、T、Manu、S)and 24 genotypes.267 strains were Beijing family genotype accounting for 86.1 %,and shows the association between the Beijing family and the MDR-TB.The Beijing family genotype proportion in younger groups is higher than the older groups.The association between young age and Beijing strains was even stronger in younger ages.There are different characteristics of Beijing family genotype isolated in different regions.Conclusions The popular Genotype of the M.tuberculosis in Henan is Beijing family,The association between Beijing family and drug resistance、age、geography is significant.We should strengthen monitoring the Beijing family genotype.
Clinical analysis of blood glucose changes in 193 cases of critically ill children

Objective:To observe the changes of blood glucose in 193 cases of critically ill children and the association between the stress hyperglycemia and outcome.Method:The information of 193 cases of critically ill children in PICU from January 2002 to December 2007 were retrospective analyzed.Result:①123 of 193(63.7 percent)cases of critically ill children had hyperglycemia;the maximum blood glucose value was 30.5mmol/L,the average value was 8.223mmol/L.②87(63.0%)cases of children with hyperglycemia were in the 3 year old age group,17(60.7%)in the 3-7 age group,9(64.3%)in the 7-10 age group,10(76.9%)in the 10 age group;The incidence of high blood glucose in all age groups were close(P0.05).③There was statistically significant difference in the elevated blood glucose levels among the different primary disease groups(P0.05).④The mechanical ventilation time and PICU stay time for children in hyperglycemia group were significantly longer than that of normal glucose group(P0.05,respectively).⑤There was statistically significant difference in the incidence of organ damage between hyperglycemia group and normal glucose group(P0.05).⑥The hospital mortality rate within 7 days of hyperglycemia group is significantly higher than that of normal glucose group(P0.05).Conclusion:There was a significant association between hyperglycemia and outcome.Our results support a trial of tight glycemic control in critically ill children.
Resilience Theory, Information Behaviour and Social Support in Everyday Life

LIS professionals may benefit from understanding resiliency theory in order to better serve users who have experienced stressful or adverse life events. This paper examines key theoretical concepts of stress, resilience, affect and cognition overlap and social support as key elements of coping or buffering the individual from negative outcomes. Les professionnels de la bibliotheconomie et des sciences de l’information tireraient profit d’une meilleure comprehension de la theorie de la resilience lors de la prestation de services aux usagers en situation de stress. Cette communication examine les concepts theoriques cle que sont le stress, la resilience, le chevauchement de l’affectif et du cognitif ainsi que le soutien social comme elements de reponse et de defense aux situations negatives.
Validation of a panel of ADAMTS13 assays for diagnosis of thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura: activity, functional inhibitor, and autoantibody test.

Summary Introduction Quantitation of ADAMTS13 activity, functional inhibitors, and autoantibodies is crucial in diagnosis and management of thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura. We compared and optimized commercial assay kits and validated a testing panel. Methods Citrated plasma specimens from healthy volunteers and residual samples submitted for clinical testing were used in the study. Commercially available ADAMTS13 activity assays including ACTIFLUOR™ ADAMTS13 (Sekisui Diagnostics, Stamford, CT, USA), LIFECODES ATS-13 (Gen-Probe Inc., San Diego, CA, USA), and TECHNOZYM® ADAMTS-13 (Technoclone, Vienna, Austria) were evaluated. Functional inhibitor assays were performed using internally developed mixing protocols. Two autoantibody assays were also evaluated: IMUBIND® (Sekisui Diagnostics) and TECHNOZYM® ADAMTS-13 INH ELISA kits (Technoclone). Results A laboratory-developed assay using ACTIFLUOR™ reagents showed best agreement with the reference method, and full validation showed a reportable range of 5% (LLOQ) to 114% with a reference interval of ≥68%. Both intra- and interassay coefficients of variation were <10%. Inhibitor assays performed with the kits showed 95% overall agreement with the reference method. A modification of the TECHNOZYM® autoantibody assay showed 85% overall agreement with the reference method with imprecision approximately 20%. Conclusion ADAMTS13 activity and inhibitor tests using ACTIFLUOR™ reagents and modified TECHNOZYM® autoantibody ELISA showed superior performance compared to the other kits for clinical use in this study.
Using Queer Pedagogy and Theory to Teach Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night

Cloonan explores Early Modern constructions and conventions of both gender and theater, offering high school teachers of 11th and 12th graders who teach Shakespeare’s plays, particularly Twelfth Night, activities and discussion points that will illuminate students’ readings. Through the provided unit, which includes dramatic performances, writing activities, and textual analysis, teachers and their students use queer theory and queer pedagogy to ultimately challenge gender norms.
Sensible decisions: toward a theory of decision-theoretic information invariants

We propose a decision-theoretic notion of invariance in bounded rational decision making. We show how optimal decision making in sensory robotics can be approximately preserved under transformations of the decision rule. In particular, we present a decision theoretic analysis of the use of visual routines in action arbitration in real-time robot soccer. In this domain, stochastic dominance, and therefore decisions, can be sensed approximately from the environment, and we exploit this in our decision making.
Assessing the Impact of Magic Johnson's HIV Positive Announcement on a University Campus

Was Magic Johnson's public HIV positive disclosure correlated with changes in AIDS-related attitudes and behaviors of individuals on a college campus? Students surveyed within two weeks of Johnson'...
“I Went Through it so You Don't Have To”: Faith‐Based Community Organizing for the Formerly Incarcerated

This article examines how civil religion reworks state/citizen relations among the formerly incarcerated. Participant observation and interviews were collected at two sites: FORCE (Fighting to Overcome Records and Create Equality), a civic group of formerly incarcerated persons and former gang members, and Community Renewal Society, a larger, interfaith civic group that provided institutional backing for FORCE. Data collection occurred over 18 months, as the two groups utilized faith-based community organizing to advance legislative reform (Illinois House Bill 5723/3061) expanding the sealing of criminal records. Findings suggest that faith-based community organizing, together with formerly incarcerated persons’ use of “redemption scripts,” can facilitate empowering social integration. Whereas research on religion in the postincarceration experience has focused on rehabilitation and reentry programming, our findings suggest that civil religion can facilitate empowering social integration. Civil religion enables collective and political action by de-privatizing personal narratives.
Airtight miniaturized chromatography: a safer method for radiopharmaceutical quality control

Miniaturized chromatography is widely used for quality control of radiopharmaceuticals. Recently, published chromatography procedures have illustrated or described chromatography chambers open to the air in use, suggesting that volatile toxic mobile phases are harmless to people in the vicinity. The authors describe the results of their search for an inexpensive closed chromatography chamber that can be used to derive safely the benefits from conventional miniaturized chromatography.
Immune compromization and disparities in cancer type among sexual minority men.

e16564 Background: Self-identified gay men are at higher risk for contracting HIV and other sexually transmitted infections than their heterosexual counterparts. Gay men are also at higher risk for...
Automaticity and Flexibility of S-R Retrieval During Priming.

Learned associations between stimuli and responses (S–R associations) make important contributions to behavioral and neural priming. The current study investigated the automaticity and flexibility of these S–R associations and whether the global task context in which they occur modulates the impact of S–R retrieval on priming. Participants engaged in a semantic repetition priming task in which S–R retrieval is known to influence priming. Across participants, repetition priming occurred in global task contexts (i.e., combination of activated task sets) that either remained consistent or shifted across time. In the stable context group, the global task context at study matched that at test, whereas in the shifting context group, the global task context at study differed from that at test. Results revealed that the stability of the global task context did not affect the magnitude of S–R contributions to priming and that S–R contributions to priming were significant in both the stable and shifting context groups. These results highlight the robustness of S–R contributions to priming and indicate that S–R associations can flexibly transfer across changes in higher-level task states.
Decreasing Returns to Scale, Fund Flows, and Performance

Theoretical models imply fund size and performance should be negatively linked. However, empiricists have failed to uncover consistent support for this negative relation. Using a new econometric framework which structurally models fund-specific sensitivities to decreasing returns to scale, we find a both economically and statistically significant negative relation between fund size and performance. Exploiting fund heterogeneity to decreasing returns to scale, we show that investors direct flows to those funds with low sensitivity to decreasing returns to scale. Interestingly, investors appear to over-allocate capital to these low sensitivity funds leading to significantly negative excess performance. First posted to SSRN: June 22, 2017
Short Pulse Laser Based Thermal Therapy

Diverse precision medical applications rely on short pulse lasers, ranging from corneal sculpting and tumor ablation to diagnostic imaging and cosmetic procedures. Both laser parameters, such as laser wavelength, power, pulse width, and irradiation time, and tissue parameters, including thermophysical and optical properties and vascularization influence the temperature rises and heat affected zones achieved by any laser thermal therapy. In order to optimize the thermal dose delivered to tissues and reduce unwanted damage to surrounding healthy tissue through heat diffusion, it is critical to perform numerical modeling and analysis prior to treatment. A novel temperature controlled synthetic tissue phantom with countercurrent synthetic blood flow was designed and developed in response to the many challenges inherent to performing laboratory experiments to characterize laser-tissue interactions. A short pulse Nd:YAG laser was used to irradiate the phantoms for cases both with and without blood flow and for varying blood flow rates. A finite element model was developed to analyze the effects of blood flow on temperature rise in the tissue phantoms and was validated by the experimental measurements. Both the numerical modeling results and the experimental measurements indicated that subsurface countercurrent blood flow decreased peak surface temperature rises due to short pulse laser irradiation. Increased volumetric blood flow rates further decreased peak surface temperature rises. The novel temperature controlled vascularized synthetic tissue phantom design presents a viable alternative to live animals for use in analyzing the thermal effects of a given laser therapy and could be adapted for use in the experimental optimization of various thermal treatments.
An Analysis of the Autobiographical Statements of Adolescents

Students in three schools in grades 8 through 11 were asked to write what kind of person they were. Four hundred nineteen responses were obtained. These responses were categorized into 136 primary ...
Justifying Security Measures — a Position Paper

There is a problem with the way we reason about problems in security. The justifications that we offer for many security measures reduce to unfalsifiable claims or circular statements. This position paper argues that reliance on less-than-solid arguments acts as a brake on progress in security.
A Linear Objective Function-Based Heuristic for Robotic Exploration of Unknown Polygonal Environments.

This work presents a heuristic for describing the next best view location for an autonomous agent exploring an unknown environment. The approach considers each robot as a point mass with omnidirectional and unrestricted vision of the environment and line-of-sight communication operating in a polygonal environment which may contain holes. The number of robots in the team is always sufficient for full visual coverage of the space. The technique employed falls in the category of distributed visibility based deployment algorithms which seek to segment the space based on each agent's field of view with the goal of deploying each agent into the environment to create a visually connected series of agents which fully observe the previously unknown region. The contributions made to this field are a technique for utilizing linear programming methods to determine the solution to the next best observation (NBO) problem as well as a method for calculating multiple NBO points simultaneously. Both contributions are incorporated into an algorithm and deployed in a simulated environment built with MATLAB for testing. The algorithm successfully deployed agents into polygons which may contain holes. The efficiency of the deployment method was compared with random deployment methods to establish a performance metric for the proposed tactic. It was shown that the heuristic presented in this work performs better the other tested strategies.
The aesthetic life of artificial flavors

AbstractArtificiality is usually understood as that which is man-made and is in contraposition to the natural. The term itself is increasingly recognized as a negative pole, while the label of “nat...
The Effect of Drought on Public Water Supplies in Iowa

The State of Iowa may be roughly divided into three sections as to the predominating sources of water supply. The municipalities in the southern third of the state, except in the extreme east where there are a number of deep well supplies and river supplies, and in the extreme west where shallow well supplies predominate, depend principally upon impounded surface water supplies. The municipalities in the western fourth of the state and the west central portion of the state depend principally upon shallow wells, whereas in the remainder of the state the principal sources of municipal water supply are from deep wells. Shallow wells are arbitrarily taken as those that are 100 feet or less in depth. For the most part the shallow wells terminate in the unconsolidated loess, glacial drift or alluvium, and the deep wells terminate in consolidated formations and may be classed as rock wells. There are, of course, exceptions as the result of the arbitrarydepth classification. The drift is at least 200 feet deep in a few instances while in other cases wells terminate in bed rock at depths less than 100 feet. The principal deep aquifers in the east part of the state are the St. Peter, Jordan, Dresbach and Mt. Simon sandstones and intermediate limestones and dolomites. These formations outcrop in northeastern Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin and dip to the southwest so that the St. Peter, the upper extensive sandstone, is about 3,000 feet below the ground surface at Greenfield in Adair County. These formations run roughly parallel to each other and are quite continuous although the thickness is not uniform.
Cross-Border Targeted Killings: "Lawful but Awful"?

Since September 11, the United States has waged two very open wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. These two wars have killed nearly 7,000 U.S. military personnel and left some 50,000 American troops wounded; they have also left an unknown number of Iraqi and Afghan soldiers and civilians dead or wounded. But alongside these two costly and visible wars, the United States has also been waging what amounts to a third war.This third war is a secret war, waged mostly by drone strikes, though it has also involved a smaller number of special operations raids. The author calls this third war a secret war, because though its existence is widely known, it remains officially unacknowledged by the government of the United States: In court filings, for instance, the United States continues to state that it will neither confirm nor deny its involvement in drone strikes outside of traditional battlefields.We do not know what this secret war has cost us in dollars, and we do not know its cost in human lives, either. Drone strikes are appealing to the United States for the obvious reason that the use of unmanned aerial vehicles creates no short-term risk to the U.S. personnel who operate them. On the ground, however, U.S. drone strikes are estimated to have killed some 3,000 to 4,000 people in at least three countries (Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia) and perhaps as many as half-a-dozen countries (including Mali, the Philippines, and perhaps Nigeria). For the most part, we do not know the identities of those killed by U.S. drone strikes, or the precise reasons they were targeted. We do not even know what percentage of the dead were specifically targeted, as opposed to those who simply became collateral damage in a U.S. strike aimed at someone else.How should we evaluate this secret conflict, more than a decade after the September 11 attacks? There is a phrase that was coined by my friend and former professor, Harold Hongju Koh, former Dean of Yale Law School, and more recently the State Department’s Legal Advisor under President Obama. Harold Koh sometimes uses the term “lawful but awful,” though he does not apply that term to the drone war. In fact, Koh has been a staunch defender of the legal right of the administration to wage this particular secret war. The author feels, however, this secret war fits squarely into in the “arguably lawful but nonetheless fairly awful” category.She states this for three very distinct reasons, although she feels they all overlap to some extent. First, this secret war is deeply offensive to core principles of American democracy, in particular to any notion of constitutional checks and balances. Second, it undermines core rule of law norms, internationally as well as domestically. And third, it is strategically misguided: At best, it is unhelpful; at worst, it is distinctly counterproductive.
Stereo Vision for the Acquisition and Tracking of Moving Three-Dimensional Objects

A multiple-camera motion stereo solution is described that uses two-dimensional positions and velocities of tracked features to produce absolute three-dimensional positions of the features on a moving rigid object, without matching features between cameras. A system is described for automatically initializing the tracking of a known moving object by using such a motion stereo solution, using its results to aid in stereo matching to improve the accuracy of these results, and then matching these three-dimensional feature positions to an object model.
Countering Over-Confidence and Over-Optimism By Creating Awareness and Experiential Learning Amongst Stock Market Players

This paper explores the effects of the over-confidence and over-optimism biases in the stock markets. These biases strike at the root of why people trade and often, why people incur losses on the stock market. It suggests legal and other responses that would mitigate these biases. In Part I, the author elaborates on the meaning and presence of the over-confidence and over-optimism biases amongst players in the stock markets and notes their continued presence amongst investors. In Part II, the author observes the key effects of these biases and estimates the economic costs incurred as a result of these biases. She concludes that they are substantially high and recommends efforts to minimize these biases amongst investors in the stock markets. In Part III, the author explores ways in which legal policy can help limit these biases effectively.
Observability and Performance Analysis of a Model-Free Synthetic Air Data Estimator

The performance, accuracy, and observability of a model-free angle of attack and angle of sideslip estimator are presented. The estimator does not require an aircraft dynamic model; rather, it only...
IL-17 metabolically reprograms activated fibroblastic reticular cells for proliferation and survival.

Lymph-node (LN) stromal cell populations expand during the inflammation that accompanies T cell activation. Interleukin-17 (IL-17)-producing helper T cells (TH17 cells) promote inflammation through the induction of cytokines and chemokines in peripheral tissues. We demonstrate a critical requirement for IL-17 in the proliferation of LN and splenic stromal cells, particularly fibroblastic reticular cells (FRCs), during experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis and colitis. Without signaling via the IL-17 receptor, activated FRCs underwent cell cycle arrest and apoptosis, accompanied by signs of nutrient stress in vivo. IL-17 signaling in FRCs was not required for the development of TH17 cells, but failed FRC proliferation impaired germinal center formation and antigen-specific antibody production. Induction of the transcriptional co-activator IκBζ via IL-17 signaling mediated increased glucose uptake and expression of the gene Cpt1a, encoding CPT1A, a rate-limiting enzyme of mitochondrial fatty acid oxidation. Hence, IL-17 produced by locally differentiating TH17 cells is an important driver of the activation of inflamed LN stromal cells, through metabolic reprogramming required to support proliferation and survival. Fibroblastic reticular cells support lymph-node function and adaptive immunity. McGeachy and colleagues show that the cytokine IL-17 is needed to trigger metabolic changes required for the proliferation and survival of these cells in reactive lymph nodes.
Food insecurity in females with phenylketonuria

Phenylketonuria (PKU) is a genetic disorder characterized by insufficient metabolism of phenylalanine. Depending on severity, patients follow a low-phenylalanine diet and may consume medical food (MF) and low-protein modified foods; dietary and medical treatment can be expensive. This study assessed prevalence of food insecurity (FI), the lack of resources to access enough nutritious food to have an active, healthy life, in females with PKU and examined associations with diet and metabolic control. Participants were recruited from a research-based camp in 2018. Adult and adolescent modules of the USDA Household Food Security survey were utilized to categorize participants as food secure [high food security (FS) or marginal FS] or food insecure (low FS or very low FS); results were compared to the general U.S. population. Dietary intake via three-day food records and plasma amino acids were also assessed. Thirty females 11-58 years of age (mean = 21.4 years) participated. Twelve (40%), including seven adolescents (44%) and five adults (36%), were FI compared to the U.S. prevalence of 11.1%. MF protein intake was significantly lower in those with very low FS compared to high FS and low FS (P = .04). Age and intact protein intake were significantly higher in those with very low FS compared to high FS (P < .05). Our study suggests adolescent and adult females with PKU have a higher prevalence of FI than the general U.S. population. Those with very low FS were older, consumed more dietary phenylalanine and intact protein, and less MF protein. Clinicians should consider screening for FI in patients with PKU.
Self-healing materials utilizing supramolecular interactions

Abstract The development of dynamic plastics that can self-repair materials properties on demand will provide tremendous leaps forward in the ability to reprocess commodity plastics on a global scale. To this end, the utilization of dynamic, supramolecular bonds as reversible cross-links has the potential for great impact. These supramolecular bonds have been implemented for a vast range of polymers and materials with differing levels of dynamicity depending on the interaction. Supramolecular interactions utilized in self-healing materials are described herein and include such dynamic bonds as host–guest complexes, ligand–metal coordination, hydrogen bonding, dynamic covalent bonds, and electrostatic interactions.
Beyond Ablation in Atrial Fibrillation: 10 Steps to Better Control:

The prevention and treatment of atrial fibrillation includes risk factor modification beyond ablation, with lifestyle modifications including treatment of obesity through diet and moderate exercise being at the top of the list. Losing 10% of body weight if obese, a plant-based diet, exercise, maintaining systolic blood pressure below 130 mm Hg, treatment of sleep disorders and obstructive sleep apnea, stress management, and treatment of depression and anxiety should all be included in treatment. Maximizing evidence-based treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and diabetes is also paramount.
First Metatarsal Phalangeal Joint Arthrodesis without the Use of Hardware after Failed Arthroplasty: A Case Report.

Introduction First metatarsal phalangeal joint (MTPJ) arthroplasty has a high failure rate due to aseptic loosening, which leads to bone loss. The salvage procedure is conversion to an arthrodesis, but bone loss can make obtaining screw fixation difficult. Herein, we report a unique case of revision first-metatarsal arthrodesis without the use of hardware after a failed arthroplasty. Case Report A 60-year-old women presented to us with first MTPJ pain in the setting of failed arthroplasty. We performed an arthrodesis; however, intraoperatively, hardware fixation could not be obtained due to bone loss. We utilized allograft bone struts to maintain first ray length and to hold the correct hallux position during arthrodesis maturation. Conclusion Bone loss is a frequently encountered problem in revision surgery to a first MTPJ arthrodesis. An arthrodesis can be obtained without the use of hardware in scenarios where bone loss precludes screw fixation.
Acute Appendicitis Associated With Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children

Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) has been reported to cause significant gastrointestinal symptoms. In this case series, we present four patients with MIS-C with documented acute appendicitis, which strengthens the association between SARS-CoV-2, MIS-C, and acute appendicitis.
Examining runner's outdoor heat exposure using urban microclimate modeling and GPS trajectory mining

Abstract It is important to quantify human heat exposure in order to evaluate and mitigate the negative impacts of heat on human well-being in the context of global warming. This study proposed a human-centric framework to examine human personal heat exposure based on anonymous GPS trajectories data mining and urban microclimate modeling. The mean radiant temperature (Tmrt) that represents human body's energy balance was used to indicate human heat exposure. The meteorological data and high-resolution 3D urban model generated from multispectral remotely sensed images and LiDAR data were used as inputs in urban microclimate modeling to map the spatio-temporal distribution of the Tmrt in the Boston metropolitan area. The anonymous human GPS trajectory data collected from fitness Apps was used to map the spatio-temporal distribution of human outdoor activities. By overlaying the anonymous GPS trajectories on the generated spatio-temporal maps of Tmrt, this study further examined the heat exposure of runners in different age-gender groups in the Boston area. Results show that there is no significant difference in terms of heat exposure for female and male runners. The female runners in the age of 45–54 are exposed to more heat than female runners of 18–24 and 25–34, while there is no significant difference among male runners. This study proposed a novel method to estimate human heat exposure, which would shed new light on mitigating the negative impacts of heat on human health.
Experimental Signatures of a Parity Violating Anomalous Coupling $g_5^Z$

I discuss the experimental signatures of a parity violating but CP conserving interaction in the symmetry breaking sector of the electroweak theory.