cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Electrospun nanofibers for neural tissue engineering

Biodegradable nanofibers produced by electrospinning represent a new class of promising scaffolds to support nerve regeneration. We begin with a brief discussion on the electrospinning of nanofibers and methods for controlling the structure, porosity, and alignment of the electrospun nanofibers. The methods include control of the nanoscale morphology and microscale alignment of the nanofibers, as well as the fabrication of macroscale, three-dimensional tubular structures. We then highlight recent studies that utilize electrospun nanofibers to manipulate biological processes relevant to nervous tissue regeneration, including stem cell differentiation, guidance of neurite extension, and peripheral nerve injury treatments. The main objective of this feature article is to provide valuable insights into methods for investigating the mechanisms of neurite growth on novel nanofibrous scaffolds and optimization of the nanofiber scaffolds and conduits for repairing peripheral nerve injuries.
Sulpiride-Induced Increases in Serum Prolactin Levels in Female Rats Exposed Prenatally to Alcohol

Abstract We examined the impact of prenatal alcohol exposure on serum prolactin levels and on the ability of the D 2 dopamine antagonist sulpiride to stimulate prolactin release in Long-Evans rats. Pregnant rats were intubated with alcohol (0, 3, or 5 g/kg/day) from gestational day 8 (GD8) to GD20. Adult female offspring were screened for estrous cycle stage. At diestrus, the rats were challenged with a single dose of sulpiride (0, 10, or 40 μg/kg) and trunk blood was collected 20 min later. After prenatal exposure to either dose of alcohol, mean basal serum levels of prolactin were about 65% less than the 0 g/kg group, and the 35–40% mean differences from an untreated control group were not significant. Sulpiride produced dramatic dose-dependent increases in serum prolactin levels in all prenatal treatment groups. Across all doses of sulpiride, the group given the higher dose of prenatal alcohol (5 g/kg/day) had significantly lower serum prolactin levels than all other groups. There was no significant interaction between prenatal treatment and sulpiride dose. Neither prenatal alcohol exposure nor sulpiride injections had significant effects on serum corticosterone levels in this study. Although the current results are unclear regarding a baseline decrease in prolactin levels after prenatal alcohol exposure, the overall results suggest that prenatal alcohol exposure decreases prolactin levels but there is no evidence that it does so by altering dopaminergic tone in hypothalamus of female rats.
Cloth and Curing: Continuity and Change in Oaxaca

Cloth and Curing: Continuity and Change in Oaxaca. Edited by Grace Johnson and Douglas Sharon. San Diego Museum Papers, No. 32. San Diego: Museum of Man, 1994. + 90pp. illustrations, bibliography, inventory.
A Philosopher's View of Values and Ethics.

Counseling is the practical art of making rational decisions about values; thus it is part science and part philosophy. As a professional activity it falls midway between science and philosophy and partakes of the characteristics of both. Counseling readily recognizes its dependence on professional science for empirical knowledge about fact and theory but tends to ignore the analytic contributions of professional philosophy for understanding the nature of value and value theory. Counseling will be a better art when counselors are as concerned with what philosophy says about values as they are with the contributions of the social sciences.
The curious case of Judge Aaron: the race, the law, and the protection of white supremacy

In 1957, six white men were investigated, prosecuted, and convicted by their peers for the crime of mayhem against Judge Edward Aaron, a black handyman. On the one hand, it could be argued that thi...
Reconsidering Peers and Delinquency: How do Peers Matter?

This paper examines the contribution of peer relations to delinquency from the perspective of two sociological traditions: socialization/normative influence and opportunity. Earlier studies have likely overestimated normative influence by relying on respondents' reports about their friends' behaviors rather than obtaining independent assessments and by inadequately controlling for the tendency to select peers who are similar to oneself. Using detailed social network data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we find support for both the socialization and opportunity models. Adolescents engage in higher rates of delinquency if they have highly delinquent friends and if they spend a great deal of time in unstructured socializing with friends. Yet our results also indicate that (1) the normative influence of peers on delinquency is more limited than indicated by most previous studies, (2) normative influence is not increased by being more closely attached to friends or spending more time with them, (3) the contribution of opportunity is independent from normative influence and of comparable importance, and (4) influences from the peer domain do not mediate the influences of age, gender, family or school.
Prenatal exposure to cocaine: Effects on aggression in sprague‐dawley rats

Social/aggressive behavior in adult rat offspring (beginning at postnatal Day 180) prenatally exposed to saline, cocaine, or amfonelic acid (AFA) was examined. Pregnant rats received injections of 15 mg/kg of cocaine, or 0.9% saline twice daily, s.c., or on 2 consecutive days at 4-day intervals, or 1.5 mg/kg amfonelic acid daily throughout gestational Days 1-20. Frequency, duration, and latency of 11 social/aggressive behaviors were recorded for two 15-min sessions during which a smaller male intruder replaced an ovariectomized female in the resident's home cage. Subjects received a s.c. saline injection before Session 1 and 2.0 mg/kg of gepirone, a 5HT1a partial agonist, prior to Session 2. Prenatal cocaine treatment resulted in alterations of aggressive behavior. Aggressive behavior was reduced by gepirone in all groups but to a lesser extent in the AFA group.
Effect of the confinement-layer composition on the internal quantum efficiency and modulation response of quantum-well lasers

The authors show that the transport factor X is related to the internal quantum efficiency eta /sub i/ of the quantum-well laser, and the enhancement in X contributes significantly to a reduction of eta /sub i/. It is also shown that suppression of the thermionic emission of carriers out of the quantum well is essential to prevent the degradation of the effective differential gain in high-speed quantum-well lasers. >
Effect of Antiviral Treatment on the Outcome of Secondary Bacterial Pneumonia after Influenza

Secondary bacterial pneumonia is an important cause of influenza-associated death. Although antibacterial therapy is standard, antiviral therapy has been ignored because viral infections usually resolve by the time bacterial pneumonia presents. In the present study, antiviral compounds were tested in a mouse model of secondary pneumococcal pneumonia after influenza. Treatment with oseltamivir improved survival in mice from 0% to 75%, even when therapy was delayed for up to 5 days after infection with influenza virus. In mice, treatment with rimantadine had no effect on survival. Treatment with ampicillin cleared infection but, in the absence of treatment with oseltamivir, did not improve survival. Pneumonia developed in only 7 of the 22 mice receiving oseltamivir, and subsequent treatment with ampicillin resulted in cure (100% survival). Treatment of the predisposing influenza-virus infection with inhibitors specific for the viral neuraminidase may improve the efficacy of antibiotics and increase survival in persons who are at high risk for complications and mortality during influenza.
Image restoration in sets of noisy electron micrographs

The imaging process in a transmission electron microscope (TEM) produces a number of artifacts including the contrast transfer function (CTF) and envelope functions. In addition, when electron cryomicroscopy is performed for purposes of single particle reconstruction, signal to noise ratios are very low, generally peaking between 0.1 and 1.0, and averaging 0.01 to 0.1. We apply a semi-empirical model of the microscope artifacts to optimally correct data used for 3D single particle reconstructions.
Improving Compressed Video Sign Language Conversations in the Presence of Data Loss

The goal of the MobileASL (American Sign Language) research project is to enable sign language communication over the U.S. cellular network, which is low bandwidth and lossy. Data loss can greatly impact the quality of compressed video because of temporal and spatial error propagation. We investigate techniques to minimize the effect of data loss for improving compressed video sign language conversations. As both computational power and bandwidth are limited on cellular devices, we must carefully allocate these resources. Specifically we focus on utilizing feedback to recover from data loss.
A Digital PLL With a Stochastic Time-to-Digital Converter

A new dual-loop digital phase-locked loop (DPLL) architecture is presented. It employs a stochastic time-to-digital converter (STDC) and a high-frequency delta-sigma dithering to achieve wide PLL bandwidth and low jitter at the same time. The STDC exploits the stochastic properties of a set of latches to achieve high resolution. A prototype DPLL test chip has been fabricated in a 0.13-mum CMOS process, features a 0.7-1.7-GHz oscillator tuning range and a 6.9-ps rms jitter, and consumes 17 mW under 1.2-V supply while operating at 1.2 GHz.
Novel Cellular Genes Essential for Transformation of Endothelial Cells by Kaposi's Sarcoma-Associated Herpesvirus

Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) is involved in the development of lymphoproliferative diseases and Kaposi's sarcoma. The oncogenicity of this virus is reflected in vitro by its ability to transform B cells and endothelial cells. Infection of dermal microvascular endothelial cells (DMVEC) transforms the cells from a cobblestone-like monolayer to foci-forming spindle cells. This transformation is accompanied by dramatic changes in the cellular transcriptome. Known oncogenes, such as c-Kit, are among the KSHV-induced host genes. We previously showed that c-Kit is an essential cellular component of the KSHV-mediated transformation of DMVEC. Here, we test the hypothesis that the transformation process can be used to discover novel oncogenes. When expression of a panel of KSHV-induced cellular transcripts was inhibited with antisense oligomers, we observed inhibition of DMVEC proliferation and foci formation using antisense molecules to RDC1 and Neuritin. We further showed that transformation of KSHV-infected DMVEC was inhibited by small interfering RNA directed at RDC1 or Neuritin. Ectopic expression of Neuritin in NIH 3T3 cells resulted in changes in cell morphology and anchorage-independent growth, whereas RDC1 ectopic expression significantly increased cell proliferation. In addition, both RDC1- and Neuritin-expressing cells formed tumors in nude mice. RDC1 is an orphan G protein-coupled receptor, whereas Neuritin is a growth-promoting protein known to mediate neurite outgrowth. Neither gene has been previously implicated in tumorigenesis. Our data suggest that KSHV-mediated transformation involves exploitation of the hitherto unrealized oncogenic properties of RDC1 and Neuritin.
IEEE 802.11b Complementary Code Keying and Complementary Signals Derived from Biorthogonal Sequences

Two classes of complementary signal sets are compared in terms of their complementary properties and their error probabilities for channels with thermal noise and multipath interference. One class consists of the high-rate (11 Mbps and 5.5 Mbps) signals employed in the IEEE 802.11b standard, and the other class includes full-rate (11 Mbps) complex signals derived from biorthogonal sequences and half-rate (5.5 Mbps) biorthogonal signals. We examine several types of complementary properties of each class of signals and give performance comparisons for the signals when employed on channels in which thermal noise is the only disturbance and channels with thermal noise and multipath interference. For standard IEEE 802.11b complementary-code-key (CCK) modulation, we find the performance is strongly dependent on the differential multipath delay. For systems that employ binary error-control coding, the signals that are based on biorthogonal modulation are superior to the two IEEE 802.11b CCK signal sets.
Analytical Expressions for the Adsorbate Breakthrough Curve from a Fixed Bed of Adsorbent with First-order and Second-order Kinetic Models

Abstract In many batch studies, the kinetics of adsorption have demonstrated adherence to first-order (Lagergren) or second-order (Ho and McKay) models. Since practical adsorption systems generally operate in the fixed-bed mode, in this work, the first- and second-order kinetic models describing adsorbate uptake are combined with an overall adsorbate material balance to obtain simple analytical expressions for the adsorbate breakthrough curve from a fixed bed of adsorbent. These expressions can correlate some fixed-bed experimental data reported in the literature with an average error of 18%. The equations describing the breakthrough behaviour can be used for the rapid scale-up and design of fixed-bed adsorption columns for removing contaminants from water and wastewater.
Recent advances in metal hydrides for clean energy applications

Metal hydrides are a fascinating class of materials that can be utilized for a surprising variety of clean energy applications, including smart solar collectors, smart windows, sensors, thermal energy storage, and batteries, in addition to their traditional application for hydrogen storage. Over the past decade, research on metal hydrides for hydrogen storage increased due to global governmental incentives and an increased focus on hydrogen storage research for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell operation. Tremendous progress has been made in so-called complex metal hydrides for hydrogen storage applications with the discovery of many new hydrides containing covalently bound complex anions. Many of these materials have applications beyond hydrogen storage and are being investigated for lithium-ion battery separator and anode materials. In this issue of MRS Bulletin, we present the state of the art of key evolving metal-hydride-based clean energy technologies with an outlook toward future needs.
Direct carotid artery puncture access for endovascular treatment of acute ischemic stroke: technical aspects, advantages, and limitations

Background Challenging anatomy for carotid artery access can result in a delay to achieve successful recanalization in patients with acute ischemic stroke. Our objective was to study emergent direct percutaneous carotid artery puncture as an alternative access approach for acute endovascular stroke interventions. Methods We reviewed cases of acute ischemic stroke in which direct carotid artery puncture was used for access. We also reviewed current literature relevant to this subject. Results We describe the technical aspects, limits, and potential complications associated with direct carotid artery puncture for intracranial acute ischemic stroke interventions, and present cases to illustrate the utility of this access approach. Conclusions Direct carotid artery puncture is a feasible alternative to transfemoral artery access in cases of stroke with difficult anatomy, including unfavorable arch type, carotid tortuosity, or an ostial lesion.
Socioeconomic Development and Shifts in Mate Preferences

Mate preferences shift according to contexts such as temporal duration of mateship sought and ecological prevalence of parasites. One important cross-cultural context that has not been explored is ...
Angiotensins lung converting enzyme.

SummaryElevated systolic blood pressure was reduced to normal after treatment with CCl4. Histological study of liver tissue primarily showed fatty metamorphosis in all the treated animals but cirrhotic changes in only 5 animals. Injection of angiotensin I produced an immediate pressor rise in renal CCl4 treated rats showing no inhibition of lung converting enzyme. These findings indicate that lung-converting enzyme is probably not involved in the blood pressure reduction in this pathological condition.I wish to thank Dr. J. Mackrell for his histopathologic interpretations, Dr. W. Whalen for his editorial advice, and Dr. L. Skeggs, who supplied the angiotensin I.
Older Female Apparel Consumers: Have Retailers Overlooked This Market Segment?

The graying of America has led to an increasing number of women aged 55 and older who have considerable buying power and an interest in consuming women’s apparel. While several studies, reported herein, have examined older women’s attitudes toward fashion and their perception of retailer neglect, this study examines retailers’ current perceptions of older women’s shopping behavior and their marketing strategies used to attract this growing segment. Managers from retail stores carrying women’s apparel located in a major metropolitan area were interviewed. This study found that while retailers believed that older women apparel shoppers represent an important market segment with special problems, these respondents felt that these women purchased fewer clothes than other segments, and, therefore, no changes were needed in the retailing mix to better serve this age group.
Abstract B9: Long-Term Outcomes of Affected Women who Received Uninformative BRCA1/2 Results

B9 Little is known about long-term behavioral and psychological outcomes following receipt of an uninformative BRCA1/2 genetic test result. The purpose of this study was to examine the behavioral, medical, and psychosocial outcomes. Specifically, we evaluated long-term bilateral prophylactic salpingo-oophorectomy (BPO) rates, current quality of life (QOL) outcomes, and predictors of distress for women affected with breast cancer who received an uninformative result. Method Participants were women with a 10% or greater likelihood of carrying a BRCA mutation who had received genetic counseling and genetic test results 4-8 years prior. All women in the present sample (N = 230) received uninformative BRCA1/2 test results and were affected with breast cancer. Women completed assessments measuring demographics, global distress (BSI), cancer-specific distress (IES), risk perceptions, surgery and surveillance behaviors, and quality of life (MOS SF-12, FACT) before and 4-8 years (M=5.8 yrs) after genetic testing. Analyses/Results In terms of surveillance for breast cancer, most women had a mammogram (84%) and a clinical breast exam (94%) within the past year. When evaluating BPO surgery outcomes, we eliminated women who had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer (n = 13). Of the women with uninformative results and no prior history of ovarian cancer, 12% (n=26) reported BPO prior to receipt of test results, 10.1% (n=22) reported BPO after receipt of test results, and 77.9% (n=169) reported never having BPO. BPO was obtained an average of 2.75 years after receipt of test results (range 0.1 to 5.0 yrs). The BPO groups (never, prior to testing, after testing) did not differ on long-term QOL outcomes (p Conclusions Previous studies have found that the uninformative group is diverse in their psychosocial outcomes and this study is among the first to report long-term behavioral and psychosocial outcomes among women who receive uninformative BRCA1/2 genetic test results. Women who opt for BPO after notification of an uninformative result appear to have higher current global distress than women who never had BPO or those who had the surgery prior to receipt of test results, with a similar trend for current cancer-specific distress. Our findings suggest that women who receive uninformative test results, mainly those with a strong family history of ovarian cancer, high cancer-specific distress prior to genetic testing, and those who opt for BPO following result notification, may benefit from routine long-term follow up from genetic counselors. Citation Information: Cancer Prev Res 2008;1(7 Suppl):B9.
Health Survey Results of Workers with CCl4 Exposure in Changshu City

[Objective]To understand the occupational hazards level of CCl4 on workers'health in Changshu City,and provide evidence for improving working condition and integrated control measures.[Methods]A total of 85 workers exposed to CCl4 from 4 enterprises were selected as observed group,229 administrative and support workers as control group,to receive occupational health surveillance,and test liver function,liver B-ultrasonic diagnosis,ECG,neurasthenia.[Results]The abnormal rate of liver diagnosed by B-ultrasonic(42.4%) was higher than that of control group(18.8%),the difference was significant(P 0.01).[Conclusion]Exposure to CCl4 has a certain damage to the liver of workers.
Research and Implementation on Platform for Electronic Agriculture with Web Application Server

Based on distributed object technology, makes a focal research on the characters of distributed component and its implement ation technologies. Under the background of the requirements of high availability and high performance on basis of large-scale distributing type application in agriculture, makes more researches on the component cluster's application management, deployment management and performance management. Based on above research, completes a developed and run platform for Electronic Agriculture with compatible J2EE standard. The platform supports development, deployment and management of Electronic Agriculture, making information exchange among different system possible. The integrated frame in the platform has satisfied each level personnel's demand in field of agriculture, helps to solve problem of bottleneck of the scientific and technical result in agricultural production process and propagate.
Research on the Construction of Interdisciplinary Coaching Teams in Advantageous Sports in China under the Integration Mechanism

In advantageous sports,the improvement of athletic abilities and competitive performance is often enforced by integrating talents working in relevant fields in the form of coaching teams and targeting at scientific training.Adopting the research methods of literature review,interviews and questionnaires, the present paper sets to study on the interdisciplinary coaching teams in advantageous sports in China. The study is divided into three parts,including the connotation,organizational structure and features,of interdisciplinary coaching teams,which work in the form of"training,scientific research,medical service and management".This study can help sports teams efficiently solve the team problem through organic integration in the forms of assembling"fragmented elements",activating"idle elements"and complementing"single elements",so as to form a situation of complementary advantages,and transform passive safeguards to active and open ones as well as extensive and quantitative safeguards to intensive and efficient ones.
Determination and confirmation of N-nitrosodimethylamine in beer

A qualitative method has been developed for the confirmation of N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) in beer by capillary gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/MS) from full mass scans after quantitation, using a gas chromatograph interfaced to a thermal energy analyzer (GC/TEA). The GC/MS method has a lower limit of confirmation of 5 ppb. In a survey of 22 imported and 42 domestic beers, NDMA was found in 60 samples by GC/TEA at levels up to 7.7 ppb, and was confirmed by GC/MS in 5 samples.
Toward reducing risks and costs of egg donation: a preliminary report *

Objective To use clomiphene citrate for ovarian stimulation of egg donors as a means of reducing the risk, discomfort, and inconvenience for egg donors and reducing costs for recipients. Design Prospective nonrandomized clinical study. Setting Private reproductive center. Patient Egg donation recipients and their anonymous donors. Interventions Clomiphene citrate was administered to egg donors rather than a GnRH agonist and gonadotropins before oocyte retrieval. Main Outcome Measure Pregnancy. Results Eleven oocyte retrievals were performed and conception occurred in four cycles, three of which delivered. Conclusions Clomiphene citrate appears to be a reasonable less expensive method of ovarian stimulation for egg donation in normospermic males and appears more acceptable to potential donors.
WE-D-204-04: Learning the Ropes: Clinical Immersion in the First Month of Residency

Speakers in this session will present overview and details of a specific rotation or feature of their Medical Physics Residency Program that is particularly exceptional and noteworthy. The featured rotations include foundational topics executed with exceptional acumen and innovative educational rotations perhaps not commonly found in Medical Physics Residency Programs. A site-specific clinical rotation will be described, where the medical physics resident follows the physician and medical resident for two weeks into patient consultations, simulation sessions, target contouring sessions, planning meetings with dosimetry, patient follow up visits, and tumor boards, to gain insight into the thought processes of the radiation oncologist. An incident learning rotation will be described where the residents learns about and practices evaluating clinical errors and investigates process improvements for the clinic. The residency environment at a Canadian medical physics residency program will be described, where the training and interactions with radiation oncology residents is integrated. And the first month rotation will be described, where the medical physics resident rotates through the clinical areas including simulation, dosimetry, and treatment units, gaining an overview of the clinical flow and meeting all the clinical staff to begin the residency program. This session will be of particular interest to residency programs who are interested in adopting or adapting these curricular ideas into their programs and to residency candidates who want to learn about programs already employing innovative practices. Learning Objectives: 1.To learn about exceptional and innovative clinical rotations or program features within existing Medical Physics Residency Programs. 2.To understand how to adopt/adapt innovative curricular designs into your own Medical Physics Residency Program, if appropriate.
Order and Chaos in Protein Structure

Our understanding is often shaped by the things that we can actually see. Science is bursting with examples of this. Galileo’s crude telescope gave a blurry image of Saturn, so he thought it had two large moons like our own moon. But the better telescope used decades later by Huygens revealed them to be something entirely new: the rings of Saturn. The first microscopes changed the way we thought about disease by revealing pathogenic organisms, launching the effort to find effective antibiotics. New techniques of seeing often lead to new insights. This is certainly the case with structural biology. Kendrew’s crystallographic structure of myoglobin opened a whole new world of understanding, revealing the atomic details of biology.
Efficient clustering for ultra-scale application tracing

Abstract Extreme-scale computing poses a number of challenges to application performance. Developers need to study application behavior by collecting detailed information with the help of tracing toolsets to determine shortcomings. But not only applications are “scalability challenged”, current tracing toolsets also fall short of exascale requirements for low background overhead since trace collection for each execution entity is becoming infeasible. One effective solution is to cluster processes with the same behavior into groups. Instead of collecting performance information from each individual node, this information can be collected from just a set of representative nodes. This work contributes a fast, scalable, signature-based clustering algorithm that clusters processes exhibiting similar execution behavior. Instead of prior work based on statistical clustering, our approach produces precise results nearly without loss of events or accuracy. The proposed algorithm combines low overhead at the clustering level with l o g ( P ) time complexity, and it splits the merge process to make tracing suitable for extreme-scale computing. Overall, this multi-level precise clustering based on signatures further generalizes to a novel multi-metric clustering technique with unprecedented low overhead.
Automatic Scoring of a Sentence Repetition Task from Voice Recordings

In this paper, we propose an automatic scoring approach for assessing the language deficit in a sentence repetition task used to evaluate children with language disorders. From ASR-transcribed sentences, we extract sentence similarity measures, including WER and Levenshtein distance, and use them as the input features in a regression model to predict the reference scores manually rated by experts. Our experimental analysis on subject-level scores of 46 children, 33 diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), and 13 with specific language impairment (SLI) show that proposed approach is successful in prediction of scores with averaged product-moment correlations of 0.84 between observed and predicted ratings across test folds.
A generative physical model approach for enhancing the stroke palette for robotic drummers

Achieving human-like musical expressivity in musical robots has been a long standing goal for roboticists and musicians who work in the emerging field of robotic musicianship. In robotic drumming, a major subfield of robotic musicianship, research toward achieving this goal has focused on the development of musical analysis and improvisational algorithms, design of robots that respond in a contextually appropriate way to music and methods to utilize gestures in collaborative music making. This research addresses the what in robotic drumming, that is, what are the notes, dynamics, inter-onset times and the rhythmic parameters that a robot should play in response to the musical analysis. Much less research has gone into how each of these notes are played and how to enrich the acoustical and timbral expressions of robotic drummers.The main technical contribution of this work is a generative model for stroke generation in robotic drummers based on the physics of the interaction between human hand and a drumstick. A wide palette of strokes such as multiple bounce, double and triple strokes can be generated using the same model by varying one single parameter, the time-varying torque applied by the thumb on the stick. We have also developed a number of post-processing tools have been developed to further modify the strokes produced by the physical model in an effort to simulate and capture the acoustic variety and richness of natural human drumming. We present results from a pilot study in which 22 subjects participated in a listening test in which they listened to 10 pairs of audio files, each consisting of a human and a robotic drummer playing multiple bounce strokes. Inferential confidence interval approach was used to determine the maximum probable difference between the data obtained from the listening test and a simulated experiment in which the robotic drummer was perceptually indistinguishable from a human drummer. The results indicate that this generative physics model marks an important step toward achieving human-like musical expressivity in robotic drummers. A generative physical model for drum stroke generation is proposed.Enhances the stroke palette and musical expressivity of robotic drummers.Time varying torque provided by the thumb results in a wide variety of drum strokes.The model is agnostic to the hardware and can be implemented on any robotic drummer.
Modeling, Optimization, and Operation of Large-Scale Air Traffic Flow Management on Spark

The nationwide air traffic flow management problem often encounters computational difficulty because it is generally modeled as an integer programming problem that requires computationally expensiv...
Media perceptions and constructions of race and sports: reflections on the duke lacrosse scandal

ABSTRACTThis essay offers a reflection on the 1996 Duke University rape scandal. In it, the authors argue that the media coverage of the incident followed several normative racial narratives that shaped public perceptions and regarding marginalized v. privileged individuals, and how sports in the United States can galvanize public attention in unique ways.
Modified Hiraoka TEM grid staining apparatus and technique using 3D printed materials and gadolinium triacetate tetrahydrate, a nonradioactive uranyl acetate substitute

The Hiraoka transmission electron microscopy (TEM) grid staining apparatus, which allowed multiple grids to be batch stained together on a plate, is no longer commercially available. Because the ne...
Is Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus Colonization Associated with Worse Outcomes in COPD Hospitalizations?

Background Although methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) colonization is common in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients, its effect on the course of COPD hospitalization remains unknown. Methods Records of 160 patients hospitalized at our institution January 1, 2008 to May 1, 2010 with acute exacerbations of COPD who were screened for MRSA were examined and outcomes from their hospitalizations were quantified. Results Of the 160 patients, 33 (20.6%) were MRSA colonized on screening. These patients had similar demographics, spirometry, Charlson Indexes, and APACHE-II scores when compared to patients who were not MRSA colonized (n=127), but MRSA colonized patients had more hospitalizations within the 2 years prior to admission (2 [1-4.8] versus 1 [0-3], p = 0.03). While hospitalized, MRSA colonized patients had a longer length of stay (9 [5.3-15.5] versus 5 [3-7.8] days, p = 0.01) and more antibiotic days (7 [5-10.8] versus 5 [0-7] days, p = 0.01). They were also more likely to receive intensive care (51.5% versus 23.6%, p = 0.01) and to develop respiratory failure that required noninvasive ventilation (56.3% versus 38.2%, p = 0.05). Trends towards increased use of invasive mechanical ventilation and readmission within 30 days were also present. Conclusions COPD patients colonized with MRSA have longer hospitalizations, require longer courses of antibiotics, and are more likely to require intensive care.
An x-band binary reflectarray with sub-wavelength ELC resonator elements

A binary reflectarray concept utilizing subwavelength electric LC (ELC) resonators mounted over a grounded substrate is presented. The design concept is based on a binary quantization of the array phase profile required to steer the reflected wavefront. Using a binary phase change simplifies the array element design and facilitates the development of dynamic reconfigurable reflectarrays. Subwavelength elements generate a binary phase pattern that can more accurately approximate the continuous phase pattern, reduce inter-element coupling, and maintain good performance over a wide swath of feed illumination angles. The use of ELC elements facilitates wideband operation and provides a simple means for integrating element switches at the backside of the array. Beamsteering feasibility of the binary reflectarray is demonstrated at X-band frequencies in simulations using full-wave analysis as well as field measurements of a 10×24 reflectarray.
Clearing tables, dancefloors, and record stacks: an afterword

Blastmaster KRS-One first piqued my interest in Africana Hebrewisms. The boom-bap, boom-bap, boom-bap of drum machines’ staccato incantations served as an acoustic backdrop for his poetic formulati...
The Psychotherapist as Witness for the Prosecution: The Criminalization of Tarasoff

The “duty to protect” doctrine heralded by the Tarasoff decision seeks to prevent physical harm to third parties by psychiatric patients. Recent court cases have mandated the testimony of a criminal defendant’s psychotherapist both about the Tarasoff warning itself and about confidential treatment information that was associated with the warning. One court further ruled that some clinical sessions were not psychotherapy and therefore were not afforded the protection ofpsychotherapist-patient privilege. The continuing erosion of confidentiality has resulted in psychiatrists and other mental health professionals becoming prosecution witnesses at the criminal trials of their own patients. (AmJ Psychiatry 1992; 149:1011-1015)
Coastal adaptation, government-subsidized insurance, and perverse incentives to stay

The law should be a critical tool in promoting and directing climate change adaptation in the USA. This should be particularly true in the nation’s extensive coastal zone, much of which is subject to increasing rates of sea level rise, coastal erosion, increasing numbers of increasingly powerful storms, and saltwater intrusion. However, significant coastal infrastructure hampers many coastal adaptation strategies by making retreat both expensive and politically unpalatable. This article examines the specific role of insurance and other financing programs in coastal adaptation strategies. Insurance operates primarily to mitigate risk. The article focuses specifically on the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), which is now driven by coastal catastrophes and is close to bankruptcy; Florida’s decision to provide state-financed insurance to coastal property owners in the wake of the 2004–2005 hurricane season; and, conversely, the decisions of other states to use state and federal financing instead to facilitate coastal adaptation, including buyouts of transitioning coastal properties.
Dietary Cholesterol, Lipid Levels, and Cardiovascular Risk among Adults with Diabetes or Impaired Fasting Glucose in the Framingham Offspring Study

Previous recommendations to limit dietary cholesterol intake have been eliminated for most adults. Questions remain about whether dietary cholesterol has adverse cardiovascular effects among individuals with impaired fasting glucose or diabetes (IFG/T2DM). We used data for 993 adults (40.9% female), ages 35–<65 years, with prevalent IFG/T2DM in the prospective Framingham Offspring Study to address this question. Dietary cholesterol was assessed using 3-day diet records at exams 3 and 5 and used to classify subjects into sex-specific tertiles of mean cholesterol intake. Outcomes included fasting lipid levels over 20 years and incident cardiovascular disease (CVD). Statistical analyses included repeated measures mixed regression models and Cox proportional hazards models to adjust for confounding. Among adults with T2DM/IFG, there was no consistent association between dietary cholesterol intake and fasting low-density lipoprotein (LDL), high-density lipoprotein (HDL), LDL/HDL ratio, or triglycerides over 20 years of follow-up. In longitudinal analyses, the adjusted hazard ratio for CVD in the highest (vs. lowest) sex-specific tertile of cholesterol intake was 0.61 (95% CI: 0.41, 0.90). These analyses provide no evidence of an adverse association between dietary cholesterol and serum lipid levels or atherosclerotic CVD risk among adults with prevalent IFG/T2DM.
Dysfunctional Tear Film in Oculoplastic Surgery: Beware or Be Sorry

The ocular surface and tear film is important in oculoplastic surgery, especially when lid dynamics have changed. Being aware of potential postoperative problems with appropriate treatment will lead to a good outcome and a happy patient.
Immunohistochemical Identification And Localization Of Endogenous Endostatin And Its Related Peptides In Murine Tumors

Endostatin, a fragment of the C-terminal domain of mouse collagen XVIII, is a recently demonstrated endogenous inhibitor of tumor angiogenesis. Although endostatin can be detected in blood and urine of tumor-bearing as well as normal mice, the exact localization of the endogenous protein and its related peptides in tumor tissues is unknown. We used immunohistochemistry and immunoblotting to identify endostatin tissue location and staining patterns in tumor, as well as to determine the differences in the levels of endostatin expression between tumor cells (in vitro) and tumor tissues (in vivo). Using a specific polyclonal antibody against murine endostatin, we quantitatively determined the levels of endostatin in five murine mammary tumors and the KHT sarcoma by Western blotting. The staining patterns for this protein in tumor sections were examined histologically by immunohistochemistry. Our results show that: 1) Endogenous endostatin and its related peptides are widely distributed in all in vivo tumor types tested, but not in most of the cultured tumor cell lines. 2) Endogenous endostatin stained most tumor stromal components, including vessel walls, basement membranes, extracellular spaces, and tumor cells. 3) Staining patterns and localization of endostatin and thrombospondin-1 were similar in these tumor sections.
EVALUATION OF MECHANICAL FATIGUE DAMAGE ACCUMULATION IN METAL MATRIX COMPOSITES USING ULTRASONIC SURFACE WAVES

This study demonstrates that an in situ nondestructive, ultrasonic surface wave technique can successfully detect the onset and extent of matrix cracking fatigue damage in a titanium metal matrix composite (MMC). A quasi-isotropic [0/±45/90]s SCS-6/Timetal®21S MMC material was used for room temperature fatigue tests and the resultant matrix cracking damage was ultrasonically monitored in situ as a function of cycle count. Damage accumulation in the material was successfully correlated with decreases in ultrasonic pitch catch amplitude and verified through the use of immersion ultrasonic C-scans and metallographic techniques. Damage initiation and progression was tracked through the use of complementary nondestructive and destructive techniques. The in situ surface wave data show that the higher the fatigue stress level, the more quickly damage occurs; conversely, the lower the stress level, the slower the damage initiation. The in situ surface wave technique proved to be more sensitive to the accumulating damage than standard load-displacement modulus measurements. The surface wave technique also indicated a change in material properties after only one fatigue cycle. The data acquired show that a better understanding of damage initiation and accumulation can be gained using the in situ surface wave technique in comparison to current load-displacement modulus measurements.
[27-OR]: Ouabain inhibits placental sFlt1 production by repressing HSP27 dependent HIF-1α pathway

Objectives Upregulation of placental soluble fms-like tyrosine kinase 1 (sFlt1) contributes to the pathogenesis of preeclampsia. Our aim was to evaluate novel upstream pathways that regulate placental sFlt1 production. Methods We screened a library of natural compounds ( N = 502) in primary cytotrophoblasts and placental villous cultures and characterized molecules that had biological activity in the nanomolar range. sFlt1 production was assayed by ELISA. Immunoblot analysis, Co-immunoprecipitation, RT-PCR were employed in Characterizing the sFlt1, HIF AND hsp27 proteins and RNA. Pregnancy-induced hypertension rats were used as animal models. Results Here we report three compounds in the cardiac glycoside family, ouabain, gitoxigenin and digitoxin that inhibited placental sFlt1 production at nanomolar concentrations in vitro. We further characterized ouabain and demonstrate that it inhibits sFlt1 mRNA and protein expression in human placental cytotrophoblasts and explant cultures in a dose and time dependent manner. Ouabain down-regulated sFlt1 production by inhibiting hypoxia inducible factor 1 (HIF-1 α ) protein expression in the placenta. Furthermore, we found that phosphorylation of heat shock protein 27 (HSP27) was necessary for ouabain to inhibit HIF-1 α translation. In a rat model of pregnancy-induced hypertension, ouabain reduced mean arterial pressure and enhanced placental HSP27 phosphorylation without any adverse effects on pups. Conclusions Collectively we show that ouabain inhibits placental sFlt1 production through a HIF-1 α / HSP27 dependent pathway. Further studies are needed to explore the usefulness of targeting HIF-1 α /HSP27 pathway in preeclampsia. Disclosures S. Rana: None. A. Rajakumar: None. C. Geahchan: None. S. Salahuddin: None. A. Cerdeira: None. S.D. Burke: None. E. George: None. J. Granger: None. S. Karumanchi: co-inventor on multiple patents for preeclampsia markers and reports service as a consultant to Siemens Diagnostics, and has financial interest in Aggamin LLC.
POWOW: A Modular, High Power Spacecraft Concept

A robust space infrastructure encompasses a broad range of mission needs along with an imperative to reduce costs of satellites meeting those needs. A critical commodity for science, commercial and civil satellites is power at an affordable cost. The POWOW (POwer WithOut Wires) spacecraft concept was created to provide, at one end of the scale, multi-megawatts of power yet also be composed of modules that can meet spacecraft needs in the kilowatt range. With support from the NASA-sponsored Space Solar Power Exploratory Research and Technology Program, the POWOW spacecraft concept was designed to meet Mars mission needs - while at the same time having elements applicable to a range of other missions. At Mars, the vehicle would reside in an aerosynchronous orbit and beam power to a variety of locations on the surface. It is the purpose of this paper to present the latest concept design results. The Space Power Institute along with four companies: Able Engineering, Inc., Entech, Inc., Primex Aerospace Co., and TECSTAR have produced a modular, power-rich electrically propelled spacecraft design that meets these requirements. In addition, it also meets a range of civil and commercial needs. The spacecraft design is based on multijunction Ill-V solar cells, the new Stretched Lens Aurora (SLA) module, a lightweight array design based on a multiplicity of 8 kW end-of-life subarrays and electric thrusters. The solar cells have excellent radiation resistance and efficiencies above 30%. The SLA has a concentration ratio up to 15x while maintaining an operating temperature of 80 C. The design of the 8 kW array building block will be presented and its applicability to commercial and government missions will be discussed. Electric propulsion options include Hall, MPD and ion thrusters of various power levels and trade studies have been conducted to define the most advantageous options. The present baseline spacecraft design providing 900 kW using technologies expected to be available in 2003 will be described. Areal power densities of nearly 400 W/meters squared at 80 C operating temperatures and wing level specific powers of over 400 W/kg are projected. Details of trip times and payloads to Mars will be presented as well as trade studies of various electric propulsion options. Trip times compare favorably with chemical propulsion options. Because the design is modular, learning curve methodology can be applied to determine expected cost reductions. These results will also be included. This paper has not been presented at a previous meeting.
The problem of polyspermy in in vitro fertilization

Polyspermy is a potential complication of attempts at in vitro fertilization. Nine polyspermic oocytes were identified among 169 oocytes obtained from 67cycles stimulated by human menopausal gonadotropin. Cleavage to the 2-, 3-, and 4-cell stage was observed. Four polyspermic oocytes were identified among 85 oocytes obtained from 47cycles stimulated by clomiphene citrate. Cleavage was not observed. Careful dispersion of cumulus cells at 15 to 18hours and examination of the oocytes for polyspermy is essential, because the condition may not be apparent at 40hours from insemination, when normal-appearing cleavage stages may be observed.
Using the Concrete–Representational–Abstract Sequence to Teach Conceptual Understanding of Basic Multiplication and Division:

To meet increasingly complex mathematics standards in late elementary school, students must conceptually understand and be fluent in the operations of multiplication and division. This includes und...