cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Diffusion Imaging of Auditory and Auditory-Limbic Connectivity in Tinnitus: Preliminary Evidence and Methodological Challenges

Subjective tinnitus, or "ringing in the ears," is perceived by 10 to 15 percent of the adult population and causes significant suffering in a subset of patients. While it was originally thought of as a purely auditory phenomenon, there is increasing evidence that the limbic system influences whether and how tinnitus is perceived, far beyond merely determining the patient's emotional reaction to the phantom sound. Based on functional imaging and electrophysiological data, recent articles frame tinnitus as a "network problem" arising from abnormalities in auditory-limbic interactions. Diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging is a noninvasive method for investigating anatomical connections in vivo. It thus has the potential to provide anatomical evidence for the proposed changes in auditory-limbic connectivity. However, the few diffusion imaging studies of tinnitus performed to date have inconsistent results. In the present paper, we briefly summarize the results of previous studies, aiming to reconcile their results. After detailing analysis methods, we then report findings from a new dataset. We conclude that while there is some evidence for tinnitus-related increases in auditory and auditory-limbic connectivity that counteract hearing-loss related decreases in auditory connectivity, these results should be considered preliminary until several technical challenges have been overcome.
Fis1, Mff, MiD49, and MiD51 mediate Drp1 recruitment in mitochondrial fission

Several mitochondrial outer membrane proteins—mitochondrial fission protein 1 (Fis1), mitochondrial fission factor (Mff), mitochondrial dynamics proteins of 49 and 51 kDa (MiD49 and MiD51, respectively)—have been proposed to promote mitochondrial fission by recruiting the GTPase dynamin-related protein 1 (Drp1), but fundamental issues remain concerning their function. A recent study supported such a role for Mff but not for Fis1. In addition, it is unclear whether MiD49 and MiD51 activate or inhibit fission, because their overexpression causes extensive mitochondrial elongation. It is also unknown whether these proteins can act in the absence of one another to mediate fission. Using Fis1-null, Mff-null, and Fis1/Mff-null cells, we show that both Fis1 and Mff have roles in mitochondrial fission. Moreover, immunofluorescence analysis of Drp1 suggests that Fis1 and Mff are important for the number and size of Drp1 puncta on mitochondria. Finally, we find that either MiD49 or MiD51 can mediate Drp1 recruitment and mitochondrial fission in the absence of Fis1 and Mff. These results demonstrate that multiple receptors can recruit Drp1 to mediate mitochondrial fission.
Abnormal Activation of the Primary Somatosensory Cortex in Spasmodic Dysphonia: An fMRI Study

Spasmodic dysphonia (SD) is a task-specific focal dystonia of unknown pathophysiology, characterized by involuntary spasms in the laryngeal muscles during speaking. Our aim was to identify symptom-specific functional brain activation abnormalities in adductor spasmodic dysphonia (ADSD) and abductor spasmodic dysphonia (ABSD). Both SD groups showed increased activation extent in the primary sensorimotor cortex, insula, and superior temporal gyrus during symptomatic and asymptomatic tasks and decreased activation extent in the basal ganglia, thalamus, and cerebellum during asymptomatic tasks. Increased activation intensity in SD patients was found only in the primary somatosensory cortex during symptomatic voice production, which showed a tendency for correlation with ADSD symptoms. Both SD groups had lower correlation of activation intensities between the primary motor and sensory cortices and additional correlations between the basal ganglia, thalamus, and cerebellum during symptomatic and asymptomatic tasks. Compared with ADSD patients, ABSD patients had larger activation extent in the primary sensorimotor cortex and ventral thalamus during symptomatic task and in the inferior temporal cortex and cerebellum during symptomatic and asymptomatic voice production. The primary somatosensory cortex shows consistent abnormalities in activation extent, intensity, correlation with other brain regions, and symptom severity in SD patients and, therefore, may be involved in the pathophysiology of SD.
Intelligent Distributed Autonomous Power Systems (IDAPS)

The electric power system is an enabling infrastructure that supports the operation of other critical infrastructures and thus the economic well-being of a nation. It is, therefore, very important to design for resiliency and autonomous reconfigurability in the electric power grid to guard against man-made and natural disasters. One way to assure such self-healing characteristics in an electric power system is to design for small and autonomous subsets of the larger grid. This paper presents the concept of a specialized microgrid called an intelligent distributed autonomous power system (IDAPS). The IDAPS microgrid aims at intelligently managing customer-owned distributed energy resources such that these assets can be shared in an autonomous grid both during normal and outage operations. The proposed concept is expected to make significant contributions during emergency conditions, as well as creating a new market for electricity transaction among customers.
Temporal and spatial variations observed in the ionospheric composition of Venus: Implications for empirical modelling

The distributions of several ion species in a data base obtained by in situ measurements of the thermal ion composition of the ionosphere of Venus by the Pioneer Venus Orbiter have been sorted to identify temporal and spatial variations and determine the feasibility of an analytical representation of the experimental results. The first results from the sorting of several prominent ions including O(+), O2(+), and H(+) and several minor ions including CO2(+), C(+), and H2(+) reveal significant diurnal variations which consist of strong day to night contrast in the ion concentrations, with differences of one to two orders of magnitude, depending upon ion mass and altitude. It is suggested that repeatable day to night gradients in the ion distribution are adaptable to parametric modeling.
Basis Selection for Wavelet Processing of Sparse Source Signals

An attractive property of wavelet bases is their ability to sparsely represent piecewise polynomial signals. The sparsity of a wavelet-domain representation depends on several factors such as the mother wavelet, the number of decomposition levels, and the structure of the original signal. We consider the problem of selecting an overcomplete or dyadic wavelet basis that can sparsely represent a sparse piecewise polynomial signal. Most existing applications that apply wavelet-domain processing techniques to signals that are inherently sparse have not considered the sparsity of underlying signal when selecting a wavelet basis. By accounting for the initial sparseness of a signal, the maximum wavelet filter length and number of decomposition levels can be computed. Selecting a wavelet basis that satisfies these maximum values guarantees that the resulting wavelet-domain representation will be at least as sparse as the original signal. This criteria for wavelet basis selection is of use in applications having sparse source signals.
Slowing Down the Ras Lane: miRNAs as Tumor Suppressors?

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small noncoding transcripts that regulate gene expression by promoting the degradation of transcribed messages or by inhibiting translation. Although bioinformatic approaches suggest that miRNAs may regulate the expression of a large fraction of the genome, the determination of miRNA gene targets and biological functions has been comparatively limited. Emerging studies suggest that many miRNAs may participate in human disease, including oncogenesis; but for the most part, the observations have been correlative. A recent study by Johnson and colleagues indicates that the let-7 miRNA negatively regulates the oncogenic family of Ras guanosine triphosphatases in both Caenorhabditis elegans and human tumor cell lines, suggesting that let-7 may act as a tumor suppressor. This work raises several important questions: Can other miRNAs act as tumor suppressors or oncogenes? Is miRNA deregulation a critical aspect of tumor development and maintenance? A number of recent studies have begun to address some of these functional questions, providing the field with a greater understanding of the role of miRNAs in cancer.
What It Will Take To Achieve The As-Yet-Unfulfilled Promises Of Health Information Technology

A team of RAND Corporation researchers projected in 2005 that rapid adoption of health information technology (IT) could save the United States more than $81 billion annually. Seven years later the empirical data on the technology’s impact on health care efficiency and safety are mixed, and annual health care expenditures in the United States have grown by $800 billion. In our view, the disappointing performance of health IT to date can be largely attributed to several factors: sluggish adoption of health IT systems, coupled with the choice of systems that are neither interoperable nor easy to use; and the failure of health care providers and institutions to reengineer care processes to reap the full benefits of health IT. We believe that the original promise of health IT can be met if the systems are redesigned to address these flaws by creating more-standardized systems that are easier to use, are truly interoperable, and afford patients more access to and control over their health data. Providers must ...
The formation of epithelial tubes.

Tubular organs are the thoroughfares through which the gases and liquids that sustain life are transported. Such organs also often serve as factories for the synthesis and delivery of the hormones and enzymes that are essential for tissue homeostasis and energy metabolism. Examples of tubular organs
Theme and variations on kinetics of GPCR activation/deactivation.

G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) initiate intracellular signaling pathways in response to physiologically and medically important extracellular ligands such as peptide and large glycoprotein hormones, neurotransmitters, sensory stimuli (odorant and taste molecules, light), calcium, l-amino acids, and are the target of many clinical drugs. The conversion of these extracellular stimuli into intracellular signals involves sequential and reversible reactions that initially take place at the plasma membrane. These reactions are mediated not only by dynamic interactions between ligands, receptors and heterotrimeric G proteins, but also by conformational changes associated with the activation/deactivation process of each protein. This review discusses the kinetic characteristics and rate-limiting reactions engaged in signal propagation that are involved in systems as diverse as neurotransmitter and hormonal signaling, and that have been recorded in live cells by Forster resonance energy transfer (FRET) approaches.
An Assessment of a Speech-Based Programming Environment

Programmers who suffer from repetitive stress injuries find it difficult to program by typing. Speech interfaces can reduce the amount of typing, but existing programming-by-voice tools make it awkward for programmers to enter and edit program text. We used a human-centric approach to address these problems. We first studied how programmers verbalize code, and found that spoken programs contain lexical, syntactic and semantic ambiguities that do not appear in written programs. Using the results from this study, we designed Spoken Java, a syntactically similar, yet semantically identical variant of Java that is easier to speak. We built an Eclipse IDE plug-in called SPEED (for speech editor) to support the combination of Spoken Java and an associated command language. In this paper, we report the results of the first study ever of any working programming-by-voice system. Our evaluation with expert Java developers showed that most developers had little trouble learning to use the system via spoken commands, but were reluctant to speak literal code out loud. As expected, programmers found programming by voice to be slower than typing
Impaired Listeners' Recognition of Speech Presented Dichotically Through High- and Low-Pass Filters

50-word phonetically balanced word lists were presented to hearing-impaired subjects dichotically, with the signal going to one ear high-pass filtered above 780 Hz, and the same signal simultaneously presented to the other ear through a low-pass filter with the same cutoff frequency. The performance with this split-signal presentation was compared to both unfiltered diotic and high-pass diotic presentations. The split-signal scheme did not show a significant advantage over both the unfiltered and high-pass diotic presentations in any of the 22 subjects tested; in 1 subject it showed a significant disadvantage. Group differences were near zero for 16 subjects tested at the presumed maximum of their performance-intensity function and showed only a weak (insignificant) advantage for the split-signal scheme over the unfiltered presentation when most comfortable level and the best of three filter cutoff frequencies were chosen individually for 6 subjects. The conclusion was drawn that the split-signal presenta...
Optical implementation of a multiwavelength half-adder.

We report optical implementations of multiwavelength digital logic operations, demonstrating a half-adder that utilizes photoinduced gratings in photorefractive media. Phase-matched diffraction from multigratings is employed to achieve spectrally parallel arithmetic operations of carry, whereas multiwavelength holographic interference is employed to achieve spectrally parallel arithmetic operations of SUM. We also propose the use of phase-matched cross-polarization readout in uniaxial photorefractive crystals to achieve collinear operation. We show that a parallelism of hundreds of bits is possible.
Genetic Analyses of Heat-Sensitve Pawn Mutants of PARAMECIUM AURELIA.

Heat-sensitive Pawn (ts Pawns) of Paramecium aurelia behaved normally when grown at 23 degrees but failed to avoid strong stimuli at 35 degrees . Four of the five ts Pawn lines tested were found to be allelic at a locus known also to carry temperature-independent Pawn mutations. The fifth ts Pawn line complemented all the conditional and unconditional Pawn mutants of the two known loci. This result, together with the patterns of F(2) segregation from various crosses, suggested the existence of a third Pawn locus. An additive effect of the unlinked ts Pawn genes was observed. These findings and the significance of ts Pawns as experimental material in behavioral and physiological research are discussed.
The War and the English Constitution

The Constitutional Atmosphere . In examining the effect of the present war on the English constitution, we are obliged to consider that constitution in its own context. Whether for good or ill, there is no international standard of practice, nor any universally accepted philosophical dogma, by which one may estimate its qualities. One cannot usefully apply to the English constitution the test of conformance to the ideals of Plato or Aristotle (or even of Thrasymachus the Sophist), or of Marx or Pareto, or even of Hamilton or Jefferson. It is profitless to wonder how well the English institutions of today might suit contemporary France, let us say, or contemporary America; nor is it relevant for either me or you to say “I like” or “I don't like.” The historical context of the English constitution is Locke and 1688, Disraeli and Gladstone, Asquith and 1911, Baldwin and 1926.
Beaver activity increases aquatic subsidies to terrestrial consumers

Summary The occurrence and importance of fluxes of nutrients and organic matter between aquatic and terrestrial habitats is well established, but how catchment characteristics influence these fluxes remains unclear. Beaver (Castor canadensis) alter freshwater ecosystems and increase aquatic production, but it is unknown how these changes influence the magnitude and lateral dispersal of aquatic nutrients into terrestrial ecosystems. We examined differences in abundances of dominant aquatic invertebrates, wolf spiders (Lycosidae), and deer mice (Peromyscus maniculatus), at beaver and non-beaver sites. We used stable isotopes to track aquatic-derived carbon in terrestrial consumers and linear mixed-effects models to examine the importance of beaver presence and distance from stream channel on the percentage of aquatic-derived carbon in terrestrial consumers. Sites with beaver activity had >200% higher aquatic invertebrate emergence rates as well as 60% and 75% higher abundances of spiders and deer mice, respectively, relative to non-beaver sites. The tissues of both spiders and deer mice exhibited a greater percentage of aquatic-derived carbon at sites with beaver activity than at non-beaver sites. Aquatic-derived carbon in deer mice declined linearly with distance from the stream edge at both beaver and non-beaver sites. The contribution of aquatic-derived carbon in mice extended farther from the stream edge in beaver-modified catchments. Aquatic-derived carbon in spiders also declined linearly with distance from the stream at beaver sites but not at non-beaver sites. We documented a novel example of increased aquatic subsidy to riparian areas with beaver activity, leading to changes in the magnitude of the lateral dispersal of aquatic nutrient subsidies to the terrestrial environment in small stream systems. Understanding the effects of natural disturbance regimes, such as beaver modification, will be important for management and, where appropriate, restoration of natural catchment processes.
Are the core values of the radiological protection system shared across cultures

In spite of ongoing globalisation in many fields, the ethics of radiological protection have long been discussed almost exclusively in terms of 'Western' moral philosophy concepts such as utilitarianism or deontology. A cross-cultural discourse in this field is only just beginning. In 'Principles of Biomedical Ethics', Beauchamp and Childress suggested that there exists a 'common morality' which is 'not relative to cultures or individuals, because it transcends both'. They proposed four cross-culturally valid principles for decision making in medicine: respect for autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, and justice. A similar approach is being developed by the International Commission on Radiological Protection Task Group 94 on the ethics of radiological protection. Here, the core values are: human dignity, beneficence/non-maleficence, prudence, and justice. Other values could be added, such as consideration for the interests of society as a whole or the interests of future generations, or procedural values such as transparency and accountability; this paper will include a brief discussion on how they relate to the four basic principles. The main question to be addressed here, however, is whether the proposed core values are indeed part of a 'common morality'. This, as it will be argued, cannot be decided by a global opinion poll, but has to be based on an analysis of the written and oral traditions that have provided ethical orientation throughout history, and are still considered seminal by the majority of people. It turns out that there are indeed many commonalities across cultures, and that the concept of globally shared core values for the radiological protection system is not hopelessly idealistic.
Physical and behavioural determinants of resilience in the transportation system: a case study of vehicle electrification and trip prioritisation

The coupling of transportation and electrical grid infrastructures through plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) offers the potential to improve system resilience by diversifying energy supply. In addition, adaptive behavioural responses can mitigate the effects of a disruption. This paper examines vehicle electrification and trip prioritisation as physical and behavioural determinants of transportation system resilience during a gasoline supply disruption using National Household Travel Survey data. Realised travel factor, the ratio of completed to demanded travel, is defined as an indicator of resilience. Simulations using the overall population indicate trip prioritisation improves resilience more than PEV adoption at lower levels of electrification (below 20 mile electric range), although household-level results vary according to fleet size and travel demand. While 67% of households require no adaptive change during a five-day disruption, additional households are able to complete all high-priority trips through trip prioritisation (+12%), PEV adoption (/14%), or a combination of both (+23%).
Normal Mode Analysis of a Single Polyethylene Chain

In certain cases, atomistic simulations of systems with one-dimensional symmetry have shown divergent (infinite) heat conduction properties, even when the interactions are anharmonic. One limitation of many previous works, however, is that toy models were used and thus the resulting conclusions could not be easily extended to more real materials found in nature. In this paper, we examine a more realistic model of a single polyethylene chain, using the AIREBO potential to describe the atomic interactions. We computed normal mode correlation functions and noticed that when the domain is longer than 40 unit cells, the lowest frequency modes in the system remain strongly correlated after five nanoseconds of simulation time. This retention of energy correlation over such a long period identifies these modes as possible sources of anomalous energy transport in a real system. This finding suggests that new and cheap polymeric materials can be engineered to exhibit high thermal conductivity.Copyright © 2008 by ASME
Design of Guangxi Youjiang Yuliang Ship Lock Scheduling Management System

The development background of Guangxi Youjiang Yuliang ship lock scheduling management system and the scheduling process for ship lock are introduced.The system deployment,function design,general architecture,and linkage design are described in details.
Bayesian Indoor Navigation Aid for Users with Limited Perceptual Input.

Indoor spatial navigation is a challenge for individuals with limited visual input (Low Vision) and can be a challenge for individuals with normal visual input in unfamiliar, complex environments. Although outdoor navigation can be achieved using Global Positioning Systems (GPS), these signals are not available for indoor navigation. We have developed an indoor navigation aid that uses a Bayesian approach (Partially Observable Markov Decision Process; POMDP) to localize and guide a user within an unfamiliar building. We describe the fundamental concept here, in addition to empirical evaluation of the system within virtual environments of varying sizes. Our findings show that the system improves performance when visual information is degraded and also improves performance under normal conditions in large, com-
Flexible nanomembrane photonic-crystal cavities for tensilely strained-germanium light emission

Flexible photonic-crystal cavities in the form of Si-column arrays embedded in polymeric films are developed on Ge nanomembranes using direct membrane assembly. The resulting devices can sustain large biaxial tensile strain under mechanical stress, as a way to enhance the Ge radiative efficiency. Pronounced emission peaks associated with photonic-crystal cavity resonances are observed in photoluminescence measurements. These results show that ultrathin nanomembrane active layers can be effectively coupled to an optical cavity, while still preserving their mechanical flexibility. Thus, they are promising for the development of strain-enabled Ge lasers, and more generally uniquely flexible optoelectronic devices.
"Aurora González Roldán, Risa y llanto en los tratados de Gracián. De «El héroe» a la «Agudeza y arte de ingenio». Universidad de Valladolid, Valladolid, 2014; 278 pp."

Resena del libro Risa y llanto en los tratados de Gracian. De «El heroe» a la «Agudeza y arte de ingenio».
Historical and Legal Overview of Special Education Overrepresentation: Access and Equity Denied

The history of the denial of equal education opportunities to Black children is a long one, whether through racial segregation or overrepresentation in special education. No other group is as overreferred, overidentified, and overrepresented in special education as Black students, specifically Black males. The authors present an historical and legal overview of special education and critique in the 2015 report by Morgan, Farkas, Hillemeier, Mattison, Maczuga, Li, and Cook. Based on their analysis of limited criteria rather than comprehensive criteria, Morgan and colleagues claim that Blacks were not overrepresented in special education and that more should have been identified. This study created a swelter of discussion and debates that are not new but that the authors find to be biased, polemic, and deficit-oriented assertions. The potential impact of Morgan et al.'s work (arguments, findings, and conclusions) must be interrogated rather than discounted.
Adult learners use both entrenchment and preemption to infer grammatical constraints

Learners acquire grammatical constraints (e.g., the knowledge that giggle's use in The joke giggled me is ungrammatical) in part through statistical learning. The entrenchment and preemption hypotheses claim that correlated statistics are relevant. This makes it difficult to find unambiguous evidence in favor of one or the other. The present work circumvents this issue by orthogonalizing effects of entrenchment and preemption in a learning task with a novel verb. We find evidence that both entrenchment and preemption have significant independent effects in adult learners.
Compound heterozygosity with PRRT2: Pushing the phenotypic envelope in genetic epilepsies

PRRT2 pathogenic variants have been described in benign familial infantile epilepsy, episodic ataxia, paroxysmal kinesigenic dyskinesia, and hemiplegic migraines. We describe a patient with compound heterozygous variants, infantile epilepsy with status epilepticus, paroxysmal dyskinesia and episodic ataxia. Testing revealed a pathogenic PRRT2 duplication (c.649dupC), and a likely pathogenic missense variant (c.916G>A). His presentation meets the severe phenotypic category with a combination of at least 3 neurological symptoms: seizures and status epilepticus, prolonged episodic ataxia, and paroxysmal dyskinesia. This further expands the clinical findings related to PRRT2, and suggests that compound heterozygous variants could confer a severe phenotype.
Goal-Based Systems and Cheating: Decomposing the Role of Goal Targets, Social Comparison Framing and Financial Pay

Research has shown that goal-based incentive systems lead to cheating. However, goal-based systems contain many distinct components, including the assignment of the target, justification of the target through information such as social comparisons, and monetary rewards for meeting the target. Existing research has not decomposed which of these elements induce cheating. We run two experiments to test which elements, either on their own or when used together, lead to cheating. Using a task from previous experiments, Study 1 detects increased cheating (and especially blatant forms of cheating) in response to social comparison framing. Merely assigning a target had no detectable effect unless social comparisons were simultaneously implemented. In Study 2, we pay participants based on performance and equate marginal financial returns to cheating between goal and non-goal conditions. We find that paying for performance increases cheating, but assigning a target again had no detectable effect unless implemented alongside pay for performance. Together, both studies suggest that, while goal-based systems may cause cheating, elements other than goal targets appear to drive this cheating. These results emphasize that incentive systems such as those using goals are inherently complex, and research and incentive system design must carefully consider the underlying components of the system.
Salmacida Spolia: The Last Masque of the Caroline Period and the English Civil War

This chapter examines Salmacida Spolia, the last masque performed by Charles I and Henrietta Maria in the context of coming civil war and the last gasps of a monarchy. The final Caroline masque provides a lens through which to view Henrietta Maria’s relationship to the English people. Although William Davenant presents the royal couple in opposition to the forces of disorder, this juxtaposition of the queen and female representations of disorder threatens to collapse. The chapter will show that in the rhetoric leading up to civil war and continuing into the Restoration, Henrietta Maria herself increasingly becomes connected to the iconography of Discord and disorder, a position that would persist in modern scholarship.
The promise of new drugs for schizophrenia treatment.

ObjectiveTo present aspects of preclinical and clinical pharmacology of new antipsychotic drugs and to emphasize those preclinical drug characteristics which might predict desirable clinical action...
Women, Politics, and Democracy in Latin America

The past two decades have seen increasing numbers of women elected to legislative assemblies across Latin America. Such inroads into these previously predominantly male institutions are primarily a...
“Safe and Sound: Using Audio to Communicate Comfort, Safety, and Familiarity in Digital Media"

This chapter explores the reasons for which audio feedback and other sounded responses are designed for digital media technology and the ways in which these sounds communicate a sense of comfort, familiarity, or safety to users. Citing a wide range of aural experiences with technology, from sounded “states of operation assurances” on household appliances and personal computers, to the immersive sound design in video games, and “Music on hold,” this essay examines the dynamic role sound plays in forging our emotional relationship with digital media. Further, special attention is dedicated to the possible ways in which emotional communication is transmitted and heard via sound in digital media.
Synthesis and evaluation of novel dolastatin 10 derivatives for versatile conjugations.

Abstract Dolastatin 10 (1) is a highly potent cytotoxic microtubule inhibitor (cytotoxicity IC50
Umbilical Lesions: Clinicopathologic Features of 99 Tumors.

Background. Umbilical lesions are rare, and can be benign or malignant. This retrospective study was conducted to assess the epidemiological, clinical, and histologic characteristics of umbilical m...
Vibrational Motion in the Regular and Chaotic Regimes, Classical and Quantum Mechanics

There are many experiments which are related to intramolecular energy transfer. Initially, they involved primarily thermal unimolecular reactions1 and chemical activation.2 More recently, experiments which are more state-selective have also been performed in which one zeroth order mode (e.g., some bond or normal mode) has been excited. These experiments include infrared multiphoton absorption,3 reactions induced by excitation of high CH overtones,4 dissociation of vibrational state-excited van der Waals’ complexes,5 and fluorescence spectra from mode-selected vibrationally-excited substituted aromatic molecules.6
Use Of a New Agricultural Drought Index Within a Regional Drought Observatory

Drought management at a regional level necessitates the use of suitable instruments for monitoring, analysis and decisions support. A new index of agricultural drought, DTx, based on the daily transpiration deficit calculated by a water balance model has been defined and tested in three Mediterranean areas giving good results. A new module for DTx calculation has been implemented in the CRITeRIA water balance model as well as new algorithms to simulate cereals yield with the WOFOST methodology. A comparison between DTx values and the local climatology has been introduced in order to quantify the anomaly revealed by the index statistically. Therefore DTx can be associate with pluviometric and hydrological indices to better describe drought effects in different fields. Information on drought are collected in a single database and diffused by a dedicated website to support the regional management program defined with local authorities and water supply consortia. The program goals are to define the reference areas, identify an adequate system of monitors and alerts to help decisions, indicate proactive measures and spread knowledge and awareness on drought
The effect of sodium nitrite and para-aminopropriophenone administration on blood methemoglobin levels and red blood cell survival.

1. The administration of sodium nitrite or para-aminopropriophenone (PAPP) to rats caused a rise in the methemoglobin level with maximum concentrations of methemoglobin occurring generally after one-half to one hour. The level of methemoglobinemia gradually declined thereafter. No significant difference was observed between intragastric and subcutaneous administration either in the time-course or in the maximum level of methemoglobinemia achieved. When adminisitered at separate sites by the subcutaneous route, sodium nitrite and para-aminopropriophenone exert an additive effect in forming methemoglobin. 2. The concentration of PAPP in propylene glycol affected appreciably the course of methemoglobinemia. More concentrated solutions of PAPP caused greater methemoglobin formation, even when the total amount given was identical. 3. The dosage response curve for PAPP and sodium nitrite in rats has been defined. 4. Limited data have been obtained on the dosage response curves of human subjects without hematologic disease after the administration of sodium nitrite and PAPP. 5. No effect of red cell age on methemoglobin content of erythrocytes could be discerned using the method of differential osmotic hemolysis. 6. Stable concentrations of methemoglobin in the blood of human subjects could be achieved by chronic administration of drug every four hours. 7. The administration of 5 mgs. PAPP/Kg. body weight to rats resulted in accelerated destruction of red cells. In contrast, the administration of propylene glycol alone or the administration of 50 mgs. sodium nitrite/Kg. body weight, a quantity inducing tile same degree of methemoglobinemia, failed to accelerate red cell destruction.
In situ Degradation Monitoring of SiC MOSFET Based on Switching Transient Measurement

This paper presents an silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFET health condition monitoring method based on the switching transient measurements. Specifically, the device's turn -on time is used as the aging precursor, and a detection circuit is developed with picosecond resolution to detect the variations of the turn -on time. For this purpose, power cycles with constant junction temperature swings are applied on sample devices to accelerate their thermally triggered degradation. Over the aging process, device parameters are measured periodically using automated curve tracer to observe degradation-related changes. Also, a double pulse tester is used to evaluate devices’ switching transient changes throughout aging. Based on these results, both the theoretical discussions and experimental results imply that device turn -on time is a viable aging precursor and can be used to monitor device health at system start-up. High-resolution capture module of readily available system microcontroller is employed to measure the turn -on time through a simple auxiliary interface circuit on a buck converter. Experimental results show that onboard device aging can successfully be achieved during systems start-up in the order of microseconds.
Civic Engagement and Gentrification Issues in Metropolitan Baltimore.

Since the fall of 2006 a number of Towson University students concentrating in the discipline of anthropology have been part of a civic engagement and service-learning project focusing on an historic African American community in Baltimore. While the focus of the research project concentrates on the processes of gentrification, individual student outputs center on a variety of topics that detail the history of the community and the contemporary efforts of residents toward urban sustainability.
A Black Box Warning: The Marginalization of White-Collar Crime Victimization:

The study of white-collar crime has become a subfield of criminology receiving great attention, though victimization calls for additional research. The black box warning, used by the Food and Drug ...
Conditions and Injuries Affecting the Nerves Around the Elbow

Sports-related peripheral neuropathies account for 6% of all peripheral neuropathies and most commonly involve the upper extremity. The routes of the median, radial, and ulnar nerves are positioned in arrangements of pulleys and sheaths to glide smoothly around the elbow. However, this anatomic relationship exposes each nerve to risk of compression. The underlying mechanisms of the athletic nerve injury are compression, ischemia, traction, and friction. Chronic athletic nerve compression may cause damage with moderate or low pressure for long or intermittent periods of time.
Short-Term Dexamethasone in Sars-CoV-2 Patients

Background Dexamethasone, a synthetic glucocorticoid, has anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressive properties. There is a hyperinflammatory response involved in the clinical course of patients with pneumonia due to SARS-CoV-2. To date, there has been no definite therapy for COVID-19. We reviewed the charts of SARS-CoV-2 patients with pneumonia and moderate to severely elevated CRP and worsening hypoxemia who were treated with early, short-term dexamethasone. Methods We describe a series of 21 patients who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 and were admitted to The Miriam Hospital in Providence, RI, and were treated with a short course of dexamethasone, either alone or in addition to current investigative therapies. Results CRP levels decreased significantly following the start of dexamethasone from mean initial levels of 129.52 to 40.73 mg/L at time of discharge. 71% percent of the patients were discharged home with a mean length of stay of 7.8 days. None of the patients had escalation of care, leading to mechanical ventilation. Two patients were transferred to inpatient hospice facilities on account of persistent hypoxemia, in line with their documented goals of care. Conclusions A short course of systemic corticosteroids among inpatients with SARS-CoV-2 with hypoxic respiratory failure was well tolerated, and most patients had improved outcomes. This limited case series may not offer concrete evidence towards the benefit of corticosteroids in COVID-19. However, patients' positive response to short-term corticosteroids demonstrates that they may help blunt the severity of inflammation and prevent a severe hyperinflammatory phase, in turn reducing the length of stay, ICU admissions, and healthcare costs.
A High Efficiency DC-DC Converter Architecture with Adjustable Switching Frequency to Suppress Noise Injection in RF Receiver Front-Ends

This paper presents a high efficiency DC-DC converter architecture with adjustable switching frequency to suppress the baseband noise from a power supply for an RF receiver front-end. The system is composed of a boost converter operating in a discontinuous conduction mode (DCM), an analog frequency-to-voltage converter (FVC), and a digital control loop. To prevent the switching noise of the power supply from mixing into the intermediate frequency (IF) signal band of the mixer, the FVC senses the switching frequency of a boost converter and compares it with a reference baseband frequency. The digital control scheme changes the switching frequency of the boost converter if it is close to the baseband frequency by increasing the bias current of the regulating comparator. The complete system has been designed in a 0.13 μm CMOS process. The simulated efficiency of the boost converter is 84.5% with a 300mV input level. Its peak inductor current control has been designed for different input voltage conditions ranging from 50mV to 300mV. The output voltage of the boost converter is 1V with a 1.35% ripple. The converter was simulated with an RF mixer circuit as load, where the mixer achieved an SFDR of 60.3 dB.
Screening multi-dimensional heterogeneous populations for infectious diseases under scarce testing resources, with application to COVID-19

Abstract Testing provides essential information for managing infectious disease outbreaks, such as the COVID-19 pandemic When testing resources are scarce, an important managerial decision is who to test This decision is compounded by the fact that potential testing subjects are heterogeneous in multiple dimensions that are important to consider, including their likelihood of being disease-positive, and how much potential harm would be averted through testing and the subsequent interventions To increase testing coverage, pooled testing can be utilized, but this comes at a cost of increased false-negatives when the test is imperfect Then, the decision problem is to partition the heterogeneous testing population into three mutually exclusive sets: those to be individually tested, those to be pool tested, and those not to be tested Additionally, the subjects to be pool tested must be further partitioned into testing pools, potentially containing different numbers of subjects The objectives include the minimization of harm (through detection and mitigation) or maximization of testing coverage We develop data-driven optimization models and algorithms to design pooled testing strategies, and show, via a COVID-19 contact tracing case study, that the proposed testing strategies can substantially outperform the current practice used for COVID-19 contact tracing (individually testing those contacts with symptoms) Our results demonstrate the substantial benefits of optimizing the testing design, while considering the multiple dimensions of population heterogeneity and the limited testing capacity
The Rationality of Toleration Revisited or, Why Locke Thinks We Should Suffer Disagreement and Tolerate Division

Much of the confusion and debate surrounding the rational basis for Locke’s notion of toleration rests on the assumption that Locke seeks to convince a single, sovereign authority to tolerate disse...
“Warn Them” or “Just Block Them”?: Investigating Privacy Concerns Among Older and Working Age Adults

This research was supported by received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors
On Clusters that are Separated but Large.

$\renewcommand{\Re}{\mathbb{R}}$Given a set $P$ of $n$ points in $\Re^d$, consider the problem of computing $k$ subsets of $P$ that form clusters that are well-separated from each other, and each of them is large (cardinality wise). We provide tight upper and lower bounds, and corresponding algorithms, on the quality of separation, and the size of the clusters that can be computed, as a function of $n,d,k,s$, and $\Phi$, where $s$ is the desired separation, and $\Phi$ is the spread of the point set $P$.
Information Governance for the Implementation of Cloud Computing: A Review

Information governance has become gradually an important area due to the explosion of data in numerous formats at diverse levels of any organization. An information governance platform may have the capability to improve the data quality and may also support in leveraging strategic decision making. There is a growing trend to move the data from on-premise software to the new on-demand cloud-based solutions to support the growing needs of the business computing services, which has the potential to lower the costs and mitigating the risks. Cloud computing is considered as a utility that is massively scalable and can be readily modified, the way we may control the temperature in the furnace using the thermostat, which has the potential to save energy. Information governance for the implementation of cloud computing organizations is migrating applications and storage to the cloud at a faster rate. Cloud computing lets the users access and use shared data and computing services and resources via the Internet or a VPN link which is encrypted for the security purpose. Therefore, Information Technology (IT) governance is a necessary method which needs to be applied to cloud computing information security to manage the risks associated with cloud computing information security. This study develops the required knowledge by outspreading IT governance to cloud computing and information security governance. This paper offers a study on applying IT governance policies and processes for the application of a tenable cloud computing platform.
A body neutral and gender neutral modified Ferriman-Gallwey (mFG) diagram.

Abstract Background The modified Ferriman-Gallwey (mFG) diagram for scoring hirsutism uses images with traditionally Eurocentric feminine features. No reports have documented its utility in patients with other gender identities. Case A 16-year-old non-binary masculine patient, sex assigned female at birth, was seen for hyperandrogenism and irregular menses. They declined an exam citing body dysphoria, and declined self-documenting on the mFG diagram, expressing anxiety with gendered images. We subsequently developed a novel, gender-inclusive mFG diagram, which the patient was then comfortable using to document their hair pattern. Summary and Conclusion This case documents how the binary gendered characteristics of the mFG diagram can impact the care of patients. As gender expression is highly individual, we created the first gender-inclusive version of the mFG diagram to enhance care for all patients.
A speaker-based approach to aspect

The aspect of a sentence presents a situation in a certain light, contributing to the point of view conveyed by a sentence. The contrast between perfective and imperfective viewpoint is one component of sentential aspect, and another component is the type of situation talked about. It is well-known that the components interact in some way. One familiar example involves entailment: entailments differ for imperfective sentences, depending on the type of situation talked about. In spite of examples like this the relation between situation type and perspective is not very well understood. I will present an analysis which deals with the contribution of both components to sentential aspect. An essential factor of the analysis is the role of the speaker, who is responsible for the choices that indicate the point of view of a sentence.
Supported metal catalysts : Some interesting new leads in an old field

1. Abstract We report on a new approach for preparing Ru metal supported on silica. We show that partial decomposition of Ru impregnates on silica, formed using bifunctional organic additives, creates strongly interacting complexes that bond to and spread on silica. Reducing these complexes produces 12-15A Ru crystallites homogeneously distributed on the support. This homogeneous distribution leads to enhanced resistance to reductive sintering.
Disorders of Biological Functions

The need for food is such a basic survival requirement that one would hardly expect to encounter numerous problems associated with feeding in childhood. From early infancy, children’s appetites can be adversely affected by physical illnesses, overexcitement, fatigue, and emotional factors, but the majority of eating disturbances in early childhood are caused by the child’s reaction to the regulatory demands of his caretakers. The process of regulating the child’s intake begins with birth. The interval between feedings, the amount of food, and later on the nature of the nutritious material allowed or forbidden are all matters of parental choice and cultural norms. Thus the battle between rigid parents and difficult infants may begin with the feeding preferences of the child and the regulatory demands of the mother. Child care manuals have reversed their earlier advocacy of rigid timing and duration for infant feedings and ideal ages for weaning. Parents are now advised to observe their infants for cues and to allow them to regulate their own intake. However, there are general expectations as to when a child should begin to imitate the eating habits of his family and community.