cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Search Engine Optimization: Getting to Google’s First Page

You’ve got an established business, or perhaps, are just starting one. Or you’re a professional with highly sought-after talents and you produce successful outcomes for your clients. In either of these scenarios, to market you or your business (they could be the same thing) effectively, in 2017 you’re going to have to build a great website. It’s pretty much expected—if your customer base/clients can’t find you online either using their desktop computer or their mobile device, they’re going to assume you don’t know what you’re doing, and they’ll search out someone else.
Use of Inferior Vena Cava Filters in the Trauma Setting

This review focuses on the usefulness of inferior vena cava (IVC) filters in the setting of trauma by examining the scientific literature on this specific use for IVC filters, as well as in other situations that can be extrapolated to the trauma setting. Recent research overall has indicated that IVC filters are not as benign as they were once thought to be, and that use of them should be more carefully considered given the risks associated with the device. With regards to using IVC filters in trauma, recently published meta-analysis conclude that the data is inconclusive for using IVC filters in the setting of trauma. New devices such as the Angel catheter may help alleviate the risks associated with IVC filter use. Further data being collected by the ongoing Predicting the Safety and Effectiveness of Inferior Vena Cava Filters (PRESERVE) trial will assist in improving the scientific understanding of the benefits and risks to IVC filters. Overall, the literature supporting the use of IVC filters in trauma patients is limited; however, there seems to be slight evidence which suggests that these devices are likely beneficial in patients who cannot receive anticoagulation for DVT prophylaxis, but fall into a high-risk trauma category (severe brain or spine injury, long bone injury, or the elderly).
Removal of thyroid remnant for cancer in the previously operated central neck

Reoperative central neck dissection requires a concise set of steps to complete a comprehensive dissection of recurrent lymphadenopathy seen in thyroid cancer. The main considerations take into account the recurrent laryngeal nerve and the parathyroid glands. This chapter specifies those steps from a preoperative evaluation to the pearls during dissection to ensure a complete reoperative dissection that removes all residual thyroid tissue and lymphadenopathy while ensuring the best outcomes.
Networked heirlooms: the affective and financial logics of digital estate planning

This article outlines the emergence of digital estate planning, a new way of managing post-mortem data, considering its cultural history and political stakes. I argue that Web 2.0 logics of interac...
Phage peptide display.

Molecular imaging is at the forefront in the advancement of in-vivo diagnosis and monitoring of cancer. New peptide-based molecular probes to facilitate cancer detection are rapidly evolving. Peptide-based molecular probes that target apoptosis, angiogenesis, cell signaling and cell adhesion events are in place. Bacteriophage (phage) display technology, a molecular genetic approach to ligand discovery, is commonly employed to identify peptides as tumor-targeting molecules. The peptide itself may perhaps have functional properties that diminish tumor growth or metastasis. More often, a selected peptide is chemically synthesized, coupled to a radiotracer or fluorescent probe, and utilized in the development of new noninvasive molecular imaging probes. A myriad of peptides that bind cancer cells and cancer-associated antigens have been reported from phage library selections. Phage selections have also been performed in live animals to obtain peptides with optimal stability and targeting properties in vivo. To this point, few in-vitro, in-situ, or in-vivo selected peptides have shown success in the molecular imaging of cancer, the notable exception being vascular targeting peptides identified via in-vivo selections. The success of vasculature targeting peptides, such as those with an RGD motif that bind αvβ3integrin, may be due to the abundance and expression patterns of integrins in tumors and supporting vasculature. The discovery of molecular probes that bind tumor-specific antigens has lagged considerably. One promising means to expedite discovery is through the implementation of selected phage themselves as tumor-imaging agents in animals.
Deep inelastic scattering and final state hadrons

In the period of two years since the last Summer Institute at Louvain, the subject of deep inelastic scattering has continued to attract the attention of a sizeable proportion of both experimental and theoretical high energy physicists. During that time our experimental knowledge has not only increased in terms of further measurements with greater accuracy over the previously explored kinematical range, but access to two new areas has opened. These are inelastic muon and neutrino scattering experiments at NAL energies and electron-positron annihilation into hadrons at center-of -mass energies above 3 GeV. Furthermore, the scanty information available two years ago on final state hadrons has now been remedied by many experiments which, taken together, give a fairly complete picture of the nature of the final state hadrons in electroproduction for moderate virtual photon energies and momentum transfers.
A critical review of fault modeling of HVAC systems in buildings

Buildings consumed about 40% of primary energy and 70% of the electricity in the U.S. It is well known that most buildings lose a portion of their desired and designed energy efficiency in the years after they are commissioned or recommissioned. Majority of the Heating, Ventilation, and Air-Conditioning (HVAC) systems have multiple faults residing in the systems causing either energy, thermal comfort, or indoor air quality penalties. There are hundreds of fault detection and diagnostics (FDD) algorithms available, but there is lacking a common framework to assess and validate those FDD algorithms. Fault modeling is one of the key components of such a framework. In general, fault modeling has two purposes: testing and assessment of FDD algorithms, and fault impacts analysis in terms of building energy consumption and occupants’ thermal comfort. It is expected that fault ranking from the fault impact analysis can facilitate building facility managers to make decisions. This paper provides a detailed review of current state-of-the-art for the fault modeling of HVAC systems in buildings, including fault model, fault occurrence probability, and fault simulation platform. Fault simulations considering fault occurrence probability can generate realistic faulty data across a variety of faulty operating conditions, and facilitate testing and assessment of different FDD algorithms. They can also help the fault impact study. Three research gaps are identified through this critical literature review: (1) The number of available fault models of HVAC systems is still limited. A fault model library could be developed to cover all common HVAC faults for both traditional and non-traditional HVAC systems. (2) It is imperative to include the fault occurrence probability in fault simulations for a realistic fault impacts analysis such as fault ranking. (3) Fault simulation platforms need further improvements to better facilitate the fault impact analysis.
Service Guarantees Have a Place in Health Care

The author of this commentary discusses service guarantees and how they could be used in the field of health care to strengthen an organization's culture of service excellence and elevate individua...
The Bad Sixties: Hollywood Memories of the Counterculture, Antiwar, and Black Power Movements

The 1960s hold a unique place in US popular imagination because the baby boomers, the first generation raised entirely on television, came of age during the decade. Television has proven to be the ...
The Affordable Care Act and Access to Care for Reproductive-Aged and Pregnant Women in the United States, 2010–2016

Objectives. To estimate the association between the Affordable Care Act (ACA), health insurance coverage, and access to care among reproductive-aged and pregnant women.Methods. We performed an obse...
Design optimization of a small-scale hydropower harvesting device

This paper presents a semi-analytical model that facilitates the optimum design of small-scale hydropower systems, so that maximum possible energy can be harvested under low head and streamflow conditions in run-of-the-stream settings. The hydropower harvesting model developed and tested at the University of Connecticut (Malla et al., Renewable Energy 36(5):1568–1577, 2011) comprises a rotating cylinder attached to a piston producing reciprocating motion when placed in moving water. Taking this model as the base, the semi-analytical model employs genetic algorithm–based optimization and develops optimal dimensions for the system, with the objective to minimize the time period while at the same time maximizing the stroke of the piston. The semi-analytical model is tested in steps: first with single-objective optimization for the time period and the stroke of the piston separately and then using multi-objective optimization to produce a set of Pareto optimal solutions. As many energy harvesting approaches are based on the reciprocating motion of the mechanical/structural system, which is greatly affected by the geometric dimensions of the system, optimization of the system geometry becomes crucial for energy harvesting. Compared to the hydropower harvesting model tested before (Malla et al., Renewable Energy 36(5):1568–1577, 2011), the semi-analytical model is able to reduce the arms’ dimensions while obtaining a much higher stroke of piston for much lower time period. The model has some limitations but is able to produce optimization results comparable to laboratory experimental data and applicable to actual flow data from Shetucket River in Willimantic, CT, USA.
Generative Machine Learning for Robust Free-Space Communication

Realistic free-space optical communications systems suffer from turbulent propagation of light through the atmosphere and detector noise at the receiver, which can significantly degrade the optical mode quality of the received state, increase cross-talk between modes, and correspondingly increase the symbol error ratio (SER) of the system. In order to overcome these obstacles, we develop a state-of-the-art generative machine learning (GML) and convolutional neural network (CNN) system in combination, and demonstrate its efficacy in a free-space optical (FSO) communications setting. The system corrects for the distortion effects due to turbulence and reduces detector noise, resulting in significantly lowered SERs and cross-talk at the output of the receiver, while requiring no feedback. This scheme is straightforward to scale, and may provide a concrete and cost effective technique to establishing long range classical and quantum communication links in the near future.
Food Crop Irrigation with Oilfield-Produced Water Suppresses Plant Immune Response

Oil and gas extraction in the western United States generates significant volumes of produced water (PW) that is typically injected into deep disposal wells. Recently, crop irrigation has emerged as an attractive PW reuse option, but the impact on plant immune response is not known. In this study, we conducted a 3-month greenhouse pot study. Spring wheat (Triticum aestivum) was irrigated 3 times a week with 150 mL (∼80–100% of soil water holding capacity) with one of four irrigation treatments: tap water control, 10% PW dilution, 50% PW dilution, and salt water (NaCl50) control containing the same amount of total dissolved solids as PW50 to determine the effect on disease resistance. The wheat leaves were inoculated with either bacterial or fungal pathogens and changes in pathogenesis-related PR-1 and PR-5 gene expression were measured from the leaf tissue. PW50 experienced the largest relative suppression of PR-1 and PR-5 gene expression compared to noninfected wheat, followed by PW10, NaCl50, and the ta...
Experimental Evaluation of Cold Spray FeCrAl Alloys Coated Zirconium-alloy for Potential Accident Tolerant Fuel Cladding

Abstract Two FeCrAl alloy coatings with different Cr and Al contents were deposited on Zr-alloy substrates via the cold spray deposition method to study the efficacy of these coatings to improve the accident tolerance of Zr-alloy fuel cladding in light water reactors (LWRs). First, the coatings were tested in a 400 °C steam autoclave for 72 h as an accelerated method to simulate the normal LWR operating conditions. In these tests, both coatings resulted in notable improvements in oxidation resistance compared to the Zr-alloy, with the higher Cr containing coating exhibiting a thinner oxide layer. Both coatings provided good oxidation resistance when tested in 1200 °C ambient air environment; however, the formation of a low melting point eutectic (~928 °C) between Fe and Zr resulted in significant melting associated with inter-diffusion between Fe in the coating and the Zr in the substrate. Therefore, to take advantage of the superior oxidation resistance that FeCrAl coatings can provide, a Mo interlayer was deposited, also by the cold spray process, in-between the protective FeCrAl coating and the Zr-alloy substrate, thus creating a dual cold spray layer accident tolerant coated cladding concept. The wear resistance of the FeCrAl coating was superior to the Zr-alloy substrate based on pin-on-disk wear tests, providing an indication of the benefits of such coatings to reduce grit-to-rod fretting (GTRF) damage. The feedstock powders, microstructure, phases, hardness of coatings, as well as oxide and inter-diffusion layers of oxidized coatings were examined using SEM, XRD, and XPS characterization techniques.
Cardiovascular Toxicity and Clinical Outcomes Following Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-Cell Infusion (CART) for Lymphoid Malignancies

Introduction CART-cell therapy is associated with dramatic efficacy in patients with relapsed/refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and B-acute lymphoblastic leukemia. However, the efficacy of CART therapy is limited by potentially fatal toxicities including cytokine release syndrome (CRS) and neurotoxicity. Increasingly, emerging reports have suggested the potential for significant hemodynamic collapse following CART therapy. Yet, whether the occurrence of these hemodynamic shifts or any other cardiovascular disease (CVD) events have bearing on clinical outcomes after CART initiation is unknown. Methods We evaluated all patients treated with CART therapy for lymphoid malignancies at The Ohio State University James Comprehensive Cancer Center between 2016-2019 and assessed the incidence of CVD events and severe hemodynamic collapse [systolic blood pressure (SBP) cutoff of less than 80 mmHg]. We also evaluated the relationship of CVD events, hemodynamic collapse, and the presence of preceding CVD on overall survival (OS) and progression-free-survival (PFS) following infusion of CART cells utilizing univariate log-rank comparison. Results We evaluated 66 patients with 62% male and 38% female with an average age of 60 years (range 23-80). 49 (74%) patients received Yescarta and 17 (26%) patients received Kymriah. With a median follow-up time of 21 months, OS and PFS at 1 year were 72% and 43%, respectively, in concordance with previously reported ZUMA1 and JULIET survival rates. Overall, from 66 CART-treated patients, 14 (21.2%) developed incident CVD events, including 11 patients with arrhythmias and 2 with CHF. The median decrease in peak systolic blood pressure after infusion was 32 mmHg (IQR 22-47 mmHg), noted at a median of 4 days post-CART. Furthermore, after infusion, 17 (25.8%) saw falls in systolic pressure to Conclusion The development of significant early hypotension is associated with a marked decrease in survival among patients receiving CART therapy. Further understanding of this finding, and its relation to CRS is urgently needed in order to maximize the effectiveness of this novel anticancer therapy.
Repeated readings and Chinese immersion students’ reading fluency, comprehension and character recognition

Although reading fluency instruction has been identified as an important literacy focus for English proficient students, little research has examined its role in foreign language settings, and it has not been studied in Chinese immersion education. The current research compared two seventh grade Chinese immersion classes. One class did repeated timed readings in student pairs, while the other class spent more time on comprehension activities. Both groups increased their correct Chinese characters per minute rates over the treatment period, but the repeated readings group outperformed the other group on reading fluency, character recognition, and reading comprehension measures. In addition, the students who engaged in repeated readings were better able to generalize reading fluency gains to new, but related, reading materials; they also reported more confidence and enjoyment when reading Chinese. Suggestions for integrating peer reading fluency procedures into language arts instruction are proposed.
A Multimodal Study of the Contributions of Conduction Velocity to the Auditory Evoked Neuromagnetic Response: Anomalies in Autism Spectrum Disorder

This multimodal imaging study used magnetoencephalography, diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) to identify and contrast the multiple physiological mechanisms associated with auditory processing efficiency in typically developing (TD) children and children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Efficient transmission of auditory input between the ear and auditory cortex is necessary for rapid encoding of auditory sensory information. It was hypothesized that the M50 auditory evoked response latency would be modulated by white matter microstructure (indexed by diffusion MRI) and by tonic inhibition (indexed by GABA MRS). Participants were 77 children diagnosed with ASD and 40 TD controls aged 7-17 years. A model of M50 latency with auditory radiation fractional anisotropy and age as independent variables was able to predict 52% of M50 latency variance in TD children, but only 12% of variance in ASD. The ASD group exhibited altered patterns of M50 latency modulation characterized by both higher variance and deviation from the expected structure-function relationship established with the TD group. The TD M50 latency model was used to identify a subpopulation of ASD who are significant "outliers" to the TD model. The ASD outlier group exhibited unexpectedly long M50 latencies in conjunction with significantly lower GABA levels. These findings indicate the dependence of electrophysiologic sensory response latency on underlying microstructure (white matter) and neurochemistry (synaptic activity). This study demonstrates the use of biologically based measures to stratify ASD according to their brain-level "building blocks" as an alternative to their behavioral phenotype. LAY SUMMARY: Children with ASD often have a slower brain response when hearing sounds. This study used multiple brain imaging techniques to examine the structural and neurochemical factors which control the brain's response time to auditory tones in children with ASD and TD children. The relationship between brain imaging measures and brain response time was also used to identify ASD subgroups. Autism Res 2020, 13: 1730-1745. © 2020 International Society for Autism Research and Wiley Periodicals LLC.
Ripple Decoupling of Modular Multilevel Converter with Flux Cancelled Three-port Converter

This paper proposes a new MMC topology with three-port converter that using customized LLC circuits to couple the SMs from same voltage level together. The fundamental and the 2nd order harmonic current ripple can be eliminated as their induced magnetic flux are cancelled in the coupled core. Thus, system power density and efficiency can be significantly improved since the capacitor size is much reduced. In addition, planar transformer design is applied due to its excellent low-profile characteristic and the related down-scale SM prototype is demonstrated. The Detailed simulation results of comparison between proposed topology and traditional MMC have been presented. Moreover, motor drive starting from zero frequency is also simulated. The SM preliminary experiments are also demonstrated and analyzed.
Exposure to new smoking environments and individual-level cigarette smoking behavior: Insights from exogenous assignment of military personnel.

Abstract Despite overall declines in cigarette smoking prevalence in the United States (U.S.) in the past several decades, smoking rates remain highly variable across geographic areas. Past work suggests that smoking norms and exposure to other smokers in one's social environment may correlate with smoking risk and cessation, but little is known about how exposure to other smokers in one's community is causally linked to smoking behavior – in part due to endogeneity and inability to randomly assign individuals to different ‘smoking environments.’ The goal of this study was to evaluate how exposure to localities with high population-level smoking prevalence affects individual-level cigarette smoking behaviors, including quitting. The study addresses key limitations in the literature by leveraging a unique natural experiment: the plausibly exogenous compulsory assignment of military personnel to installations. Logistic and multivariate regressions estimated cross-sectional associations between smoking/quitting behaviors and our proxy for social environments for smoking, county-level smoking prevalence (CSP). Across 563 U.S. counties, CSP ranged from 3.8 to 37.9%. Among the full sample, a 10 percentage point increase in CSP was associated with an 11% greater likelihood of smoking. In subgroup analyses, young adults, women, those without children in the household, and risk/sensation-seekers were more likely to smoke and less likely to quit when exposed to counties with higher CSP. Relocation to areas with high population-level smoking prevalence may increase likelihood of smoking and impede quitting, and may disparately affect some population subgroups. Findings provide novel evidence that community smoking environments affect adult smoking risk and underscore a need for sustained, targeted efforts to reduce smoking in areas where prevalence remains high.
Extraction and Dissection of the Domesticated Pig Brain

Use of the pig as a preclinical and translatable animal model has been well-documented and accepted by research fields investigating cardiovascular systems, gastrointestinal systems, and nutrition, and the pig is increasingly being used as a large animal model in neuroscience. Furthermore, the pig is an accepted model to study neurodevelopment as it displays brain growth and development patterns similar to what occurs in humans. As a less common animal model in neuroscience, surgical and dissection procedures on pigs may not be as familiar or well-practiced among researchers. Therefore, a standardized visual protocol detailing consistent extraction and dissection methods may prove valuable for researchers working with the pig. The following video showcases a technique to remove the pig brain while keeping the cortex and brainstem intact and reviews methods to dissect several commonly investigated brain regions including the brainstem, cerebellum, midbrain, hippocampus, striatum, thalamus, and medial prefrontal cortex. The purpose of this video is to provide researchers with the tools and knowledge necessary to consistently perform a brain extraction and dissection on the four-week-old pig.
SDN Security through System Call Learning

Software Defined Networking (SDN) has changed the way of designing and managing networks. This technology emerged from the efforts to make the networks more programmable. Programmability allows the development of various third-party applications that can be used by network administrators to implement essential networking functionalities. However, programmability also introduces security threats. In this paper we address the issue of malicious hosts running malicious applications that bypass the standard SDN based detection mechanisms. The SDN security system we are proposing periodically monitors the system calls utilization of the different SDN applications installed, learns from past system behavior using machine learning classifiers, and thus accurately detects the existence of an unusual activity or a malicious application.
Financing a Black Box: Dynamic Investment with Persistent Private Information

This paper studies the implications of persistent private information on a firm's optimal financing and investment policies. In a dynamic agency model, an investor supplies capital to an entrepreneur with an opaque production technology. The investor observes neither the true productivity of the technology nor the actual amount of the output produced. The entrepreneur can generate private benefit from misreporting productivity and diverting output, both of which bear a persistent negative effect on the long-term growth of the technology. In contrast to the predictions of standard investment models, the persistence of the agency friction rationalizes overinvestment especially among firms with a strong history of cash flow but a low Tobin's q, and reconciles the optimal financing policy with the empirical observations of a strong investment-cash-flow sensitivity and a weak or even negative investment-q sensitivity.
COVID-19: A health-care worker’s perspective

Abstract The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic took the world by surprise in 2020, rapidly overwhelming our societies, economies, and health-care systems. The health-care workers (HCWs), hospital administrators, government leaders, and public health officials all rushed to coordinate and contain its global spread. Early on, it became clear that the virus was highly contagious and had a longer latent (yet transmissible) period when compared with previous pandemics. During the early dynamics in Wuhan, China, the basic reproductive number (R0) was 2.2–2.7, suggesting a doubling time of the number of infected persons of 6–7 days. The spread of the disease has been further exacerbated by limitations in testing and medical supplies, disconcerting guidelines, conflicting media information, and whether policies are instituted and enforced to attempt to “flatten the curve” as well as the timeliness of health-related political efforts. At the same time, a swarming number of fast-track publications and interventions overwhelmed frontline HCWs with excessive and misrepresented study conclusions that needed to be implemented at the bedside. Some high-profile publications were even retracted limiting further therapeutic options. Facing these uncertainties, HCWs have been battling with immense physical and psychological stress from a surge of clinical work, staff shortage, bed crunch, potential lack of personal protective equipment and drugs, and profound ethical conflicts. Above all, HCWs grapple with the risks that exposure to the virus could have not only for themselves but for their families. The International Council of Nursing reported an estimate of 230,000 infected HCWs and over 600 nurses died based on information collected on 30 countries from national nursing associations, government figures, and media reports in June 2020. In this chapter, we explore the multitude of challenges confronting the frontline providers during this COVID-19 pandemic.
Capacitating civic engagement with deliberative democracy initiatives

Polarization in political culture and the decline of public education for civic engagement have become serious challenges to a healthy constitutional federal republic in the United States. Communic...
Dynamic Primitives and Optimal Feedback Control for the Manipulation of Complex Objects

Modern computer algorithms easily beat world champions in chess or Go, but state-of-the-art robots are still outperformed by two-year-old’s in manipulating the pieces, let alone interacting with more complex objects. This work studied human behavior when moving an underactuated object, a cup with a ball rolling inside creating internal dynamics like sloshing coffee in a cup. The objective was to develop a control model that could replicate human behavior. Human movement data were collected for transporting this cup-and-ball system, both with and without external perturbations. The existing models in the human control literature, including maximum smoothness, optimal feedback control with minimum effort, and dynamic primitives with impedance were revisited for this challenging task. As these control models were primarily developed for unconstrained reaching movements, they could replicate human trajectories when transporting a rigid object. However, they fell short when the object introduced complex interaction forces due to its internal dynamics. Therefore, this study extended the framework of dynamic primitives and used an optimal controller to generate a maximally smooth zero-force trajectory for the impedance operator when interacting with perturbations from the object or the environment. Given the challenges that robot control still faces when interacting with complex objects, these findings may inform the development of bio-inspired controllers for robotic manipulation.
INFORMÁTICA EDUCATIVA: PERSPECTIVA DE QUALIFICAÇÃO DO DIÁLOGO PEDAGÓGICO.

Este trabalho tem por objeto uma experiencia de pesquisa de interacao entre professor, estudantes e tecnologias digitais mediante o desenvolvimento de um projeto de uma escola privada da cidade de Santa Rosa-RS. O estudo objetivou verificar como se estabelecem as relacoes dialogicas entre professor e estudantes e entre estudantes diante do uso do computador/internet em atividades pedagogicas. Entende-se por dialogo pedagogico a interacao de significados entre professores e estudantes e entre estudantes a qual proporciona a emancipacao educativa, pois facilita o processo de ensino-aprendizagem. Ja as Tecnologias da Informacao e Comunicacao (TICs) necessitam de um ambiente adequado para a apropriacao pedagogica por parte dos professores e estudantes, em busca da superacao do mito da informatica na escola, em outras palavras, superar a ilusao de que a presenca de computadores resolveria os problemas pedagogicos escolares. Para tanto, realizou-se na Oficina de Informatica Educativa (OIE), composta por estudantes dos primeiro anos do Ensino Medio e pelo professor-pesquisador, uma pesquisa de campo. Tem como fundamento teorico como metodologia a dialogicidade de Paulo Freire. O procedimento esta organizado em quatro momentos: primeiro, foram realizados encontros para a definicao do projeto e planejamento das acoes; num segundo momento, foi realizada a pesquisa de campo com o recolhimento de informacoes e imagens da Sanga do Inacio e do depoimento de alguns moradores das margens; no terceiro momento, executou-se a filtragem dos dados recolhidos e foi construida uma apresentacao multimidia sobre a realidade da Sanga do Inacio; no quarto e ultimo momento, realizou-se a avaliacao do projeto atraves de um debate e de um questionario proposto pelo professor-pesquisador aos estudantes participantes do projeto. Os depoimentos apontam para a macica satisfacao das interacoes entre professor, estudantes e tecnologias digitais mediante a realizacao do projeto, o que leva a constatar que a utilizacao das TICs qualifica o dialogo pedagogico facilitando o processo de ensino-aprendizagem.
Abatement-Cost Heterogeneity and Anticipated Savings from Market-Based Environmental Policies

Policy makers and policy analysts in the environmental realm are frequently faced with situations where it is unclear whether market-based instruments hold real promise of reducing costs, relative to conventional command-and-control approaches. We develop some simple rules-of-thumb that can be employed with minimal amounts of information to estimate the potential cost savings that can be anticipated from designing and implementing market-based policy instruments. Because our analytical models are simple, yet capture key properties of pollution abatement cost functions, they can be used to predict potential cost savings through simple formulae. Our hope is that these simple formulae can aid policy analysts and policy makers in the early stages of exploring alternative policy instruments by helping them identify approaches that merit greater attention and more detailed analysis.
Impact of Medicare Part D on out-of-pocket drug costs and medical use for patients with cancer.

BACKGROUND Medicare Part D was designed to reduce out-of-pocket (OOP) costs for Medicare beneficiaries, but to the authors' knowledge the extent to which this occurred for patients with cancer has not been measured to date. The objective of the current study was to examine the impact of Medicare Part D eligibility on OOP cost for prescription drugs and use of medical services among patients with cancer. METHODS Using the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) for the years 2002 through 2010, a differences-in-differences analysis estimated the effects of Medicare Part D eligibility on OOP pharmaceutical costs and medical use. The authors compared per capita OOP cost and use between Medicare beneficiaries (aged ≥65 years) with cancer to near-elderly patients aged 55 years to 64 years with cancer. Statistical weights were used to generate nationally representative estimates. RESULTS A total of 1878 near-elderly and 4729 individuals with Medicare were included (total of 6607 individuals). The mean OOP pharmaceutical cost for Medicare beneficiaries before the enactment of Part D was $1158 (standard error, ±$52) and decreased to $501 (standard error, ±$30), a decline of 43%. Compared with changes in OOP pharmaceutical costs for nonelderly patients with cancer over the same period, the implementation of Medicare Part D was associated with a further reduction of $356 per person. Medicare Part D appeared to have no significant impact on the use of medications, hospitalizations, or emergency department visits, but was associated with a reduction of 1.55 in outpatient visits. CONCLUSIONS Medicare D has reduced OOP prescription drug costs and outpatient visits for seniors with cancer beyond trends observed for younger patients, with no major impact on the use of other medical services noted. Cancer 2014;120:3378–3384. © 2014 American Cancer Society.
Lowest Cost May Not Lower Total Cost: Using “Spackling” to Smooth Mass‐Customized Production

Consider a manufacturer who mass customizes variants of a product in make-to-order fashion, and also produces standard variants as make-to-stock. A traditional manufacturing strategy would be to employ two separate manufacturing facilities: a flexible plant for mass-customized items and an efficient plant for standard items. We contrast this traditional focus strategy with an alternative that better utilizes capacity by combining production of mass-customized and standard items in one of two alternate spackling strategies: (1) a pure-spackling strategy, where the manufacturer produces everything in a (single) flexible plant, first manufacturing custom products as demanded each period, and then filling in the production schedule with make-to-stock output of standard products; or (2) a layered-spackling strategy, which uses an efficient plant to make a portion of its standard items and a separate flexible plant where it spackles. We identify the optimal production strategy considering the tradeoff between the cost premium for flexible (versus efficient) production capacity and the opportunity costs of idle capacity. Spackling amortizes fixed costs of capacity more effectively and thus can increase profits from mass customization vis-a-vis a focus strategy, even with higher cost production for the standard goods. We illustrate our framework with data from a messenger bag manufacturer.
On the Probability Density Function of an Air Conditioner Duty Cycle

In this paper the probability density function of the duty cycle of a residential cooling unit is derived. The indoor temperature is modeled via a stochastic differential equation driven by a white Gaussian process. The state of the model is a hybrid state. The continuous part represents the indoor temperature and the discrete part of the model state represents the state of the thermostat switch (ON or OFF). The hybrid-state equation models the thermodynamics of a residential dwelling as seen by the thermostat. The density function of the duty cycle is a function of the house parameters, outside temperature, and the statistics of the driving process. It is shown that the density function of the duty cycle is a modified Bessel function of the second kind of order one. This density function reduces to a Dirac delta function whose argument is the deterministic duty cycle in the absence of the driving process.
An Interview with Lesléa Newman: A Punchy New Heather, Dolly Parton, and Orange is the New Black.

This interview with Leslea Newman took place on Monday, September 22, 2014. Newman, while quite prolific, is probably best known for her children's picture book, Heather Has Two Mommies, initially published in 1989. Heather became the cultural touchstone in discussions of not only lesbianism and children's literature, but book challenges and censorship, as well. In this interview, Newman speaks about the evolution of Heather and her various editions, new frontiers in both children's literature and representations of lesbians, identity politics and authorship, transgender issues and children's literature, and the continued need for diversity in literature for young readers.
Effects of dietary vitamin E on sow reproductive performance over a five-parity period.

A study involving 360 farrowings over a five-parity period evaluated the effects of dietary vitamin E on sow reproductive performance and the subsequent effects on serum, colostrum, and milk tocopherol contents. The 2 x 3 split-split-plot experiment was conducted at two locations that differed in the type of facility (indoor gestation pens/farrowing crates [IP/FC] or outside gestation lots/indoor farrowing pens [OL/FP]) and three dietary levels of dl-alpha-tocopheryl acetate (22, 44, or 66 IU/kg of diet), with five parities nested within sow in a repeated measure design. Sow serum alpha-tocopherol, Se, and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) activity were measured at 30 and 90 d postcoitum and at 21 d postpartum (weaning) during each parity. Colostrum and 7-, 14-, and 21-d milk samples were analyzed for alpha- and gamma-tocopherol and Se concentrations. Three pigs per litter were bled at weaning and their serum was analyzed for alpha-tocopherol and Se concentrations and GSH-Px activity. The results indicated that sow weights and daily lactation feed intakes or litter birth and weaning weights were not affected by dietary vitamin E levels provided to the sow. There was an increased number of pigs born (total, P < .01; live, P < .10) when dietary vitamin E was increased. The incidence of mastitis, metritis, and agalactia decreased (P < .05) as dietary vitamin E was increased. The incidence of mastitis, metritis, and agalactia decreased (P < .05) as dietary vitamin E increased was higher (P < .05) with first- and second-litter sows, and was higher (P < .01) at the location that had the OL/FP facility. Colostrum and milk alpha-tocopherol increased (P < .01) as dietary vitamin E increased. Milk alpha-tocopherol declined linearly (P < .01) from 7 to 21 d postpartum in a parallel manner between dietary vitamin E levels. At weaning, pig serum alpha-tocopherol increased (P < .01) as sow dietary vitamin E level increased. These results support a higher dietary level of vitamin E than currently recommended by NRC (1988) for both gestating and lactating sows.
Astrometry with O/IR Interferometers

This paper is a tutorial on astrometry with long baseline ground based interferometers. There are two types of astrometric measurements with ground based interferometers, global astrometry and narrow angle astrometry. The ultimate limits for both types of measurements are set by the atmosphere. However the instrumental considerations for the two types of measurements are quite different. This paper gives an overview of the instrumental aspects of these two different types of astrometric instruments.
Nutrition, physical activity, weight management, and health

Enfermedades cronicas no transmisibles, tales como sindrome metabolico, disfuncion cardiovascular, diabetes tipo 2 y obesidad, componen una gran proporcion de la mortalidad mundial y se estan volviendo mas prevalentes en paises en via de desarrollo. Estas enfermedades han cobrado importancia debido a que la rata de fertilidad en muchos paises subdesarrollados continua aumentando, contribuyendo a la poblacion mundial. Las enfermedades cronicas se deben generalmente a la presencia de habitos alimenticios deficientes e inactividad fisica, con una composicion corporal poco saludable como consecuencia. Sin embargo, alcanzar un peso saludable y despues sostener la perdida de peso puede reducir los trastornos relacionados con la obesidad y mejorar el perfil de riesgo para enfermedad cronica. El control de peso a traves de un estilo dietario mejorado y mayores niveles de gasto calorico tambien puede mejorar la calidad de vida de personas con diabetes, VIH/sida y enfermedad mental, aunque las recomendaciones especificas para cada trastorno pueden variar levemente. Estos beneficios seran duraderos si las modificaciones se mantienen. Comprender los efectos que tienen diversas dietas y patrones de actividad fisica sobre la manutencion de un peso saludable beneficiara a personas que de otro modo estarian en riesgo de sufrir una variedad de enfermedades cronicas
Skepticism and Rationality

Skeptical hypotheses have been allowed to set the terms of the epistemological debate. They convince no one. Yet they have an enormous influence. It is often influence by provocation. They provoke epistemologists into endorsing metaphysical and linguistic positions that antecedently would have seemed to have had little appeal. Skeptical hypotheses, it is said, cannot even be meaningfully asserted, or if they can, the nature of God or the nature of objects or the nature of thought makes it altogether impossible for them to be true. There are those who refuse to be provoked, but even their epistemologies tend to be dominated by skeptical hypotheses. The hypotheses push them into an overly defensive posture from which it can seem that the test of an epistemology is how well it would fare in a hostile environment. There must be a third way. There must be a way to think about skeptical hypotheses that is neither dismissive nor submissive.
Comparison of dynamic and quasi-static measurements of thin film adhesion

Adhesive failure and the attendant delamination of a thin film on a substrate is controlled by the fracture energy required to propagate a crack along the interface. Numerous testing protocols have been introduced to characterize this critical property, but are limited by difficulties associated with applying precise loads, introducing well-defined pre-cracks, tedious sample preparation and complex analysis of plastic deformation in the films. The quasi-static four-point bend test is widely accepted in the microelectronics industry as the standard for measuring adhesion properties for a range of multilayer thin film systems. Dynamic delamination methods, which use laser-induced stress waves to rapidly load the thin film interface, have recently been offered as an alternative method for extracting interfacial fracture energy. In this work, the interfacial fracture energy of an aluminium (Al) thin film on a silicon (Si) substrate is determined for a range of dynamic loading conditions and compared with values measured under quasi-static conditions in a four-point bend test. Controlled dynamic delamination of the Al/Si interface is achieved by efficient conversion of the kinetic energy associated with a laser-induced stress wave into fracture energy. By varying the laser fluence, the fracture energy is investigated over a range of stress pulse amplitudes and velocities. For lower amplitudes of the stress wave, the fracture energy is nearly constant and compares favourably with the critical fracture energy obtained using the four-point bend technique, about 2.5 J m−2. As the pulse amplitude increases, however, a rate dependence of the dynamic fracture energy is observed. The fracture energy increases almost linearly with pulse amplitude until reaching a plateau value of about 6.0 J m−2.
Increased urinary excretion of inorganic sulfate in premature infants fed bovine milk protein

We report measurements of urinary inorganic sulfate (ISO 4 ). In 38 very low birth weight (VLBW) premature infants receiving various protein intakes in the first 2 months of life. The primary source of urinary ISO 4 is the metabolism of amino acids containing sulfur (methionine, cysteine, taurine). It was hypothesized that urinary ISO 4 excretion would be increased in VLBW infants fed the relatively high concentrations of protein in mother's own milk (HM), mother's own milk fortified with 0.85 gm/dl bovine whey (fortified HM), and a special formula for premature infants (Similac Special Care, 20 cal/oz), and that urinary ISO 4 excretion would correlate with calcium excretion. VLBW premature infants fed HM (protein intake 3.3 gm/kg day) excreted very small amounts of urinary ISO 4 compared with infants fed fortified HM (4.5 gm/kg/day protein). Similac SC (2.9 gm/kg/day protein), or Similac (2.7 gm/kg/day protein), all three of which contain bovine whey. Unlike the case in adults, there was no correlation between either total protein intake and urinary calcium excretion or urinary ISO 4 excretion. There was, however, a significant correlation between methionine intake and urinary ISO 4 excretion (r=0.48). We speculate that increased urinary ISO 4 excretion is indicative of an overload of sulfur-containing amino acids, namely methionine, present in bovine whey protein. The data also support the ability of premature infants to catabolize relatively large quantifies of sulfur-containing amino acids after 2 weeks of age.
Screening of Protein-Ligand Interactions by Affinity Chromatography

This paper examines affinity chromatography (AC) as an alternative tool for the determination of protein-ligand interactions for the particular case in which the ligand is the same protein. The methodology is less labor-intensive and more sample-efficient than traditional methods used to measure the second virial coefficient (B(22)), a parameter commonly used to evaluate protein-protein interactions. The chromatographic capacity factor (k') was studied for lysozyme and equine serum albumin for a wide range of experimental solution conditions such as crystallizing agent concentration, protein concentration and pH. Parallel experiments using AC to determine k' and static light scattering (SLS) to determine B(22) showed that the two parameters were highly correlated. Two different column volumes ( approximately 1 and approximately 0.1 mL) were tested and gave essentially the same values for k', showing the feasibility of miniaturization.