cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Thoracic Duct Cannulation and Differential Diagnosis of Obstructive Jaundice

Thoracic duct cannulation was performed prior to exploratory laparotomy in 23 patients with obstructive jaundice caused by diverse factors. High flow of hemorrhagic lymph, usually under increased pressure, distinguished patients with hepatic cirrhosis from those with extrahepatic biliary obstruction and cholangiolitic hepatitis. Very low flows were observed only in patients with widespread malignancy involving the extrahepatic biliary tract. Information concerning the flow, pressure, and composition of thoracic duct lymph is helpful in understanding and distinguishing whether obstructive jaundice arises from a stone in the common bile duct, metastatic cancer, the use of a cholestatic drug, or excessive intake of alcohol.
The concept of trifascicular intraventricular conduction: Historical aspects and influence on contemporary cardiology

The efforts of Mauricio Rosenbaum and his co-workers in putting together the anatomic and electrocardiographic correlations that led to the development of the concept of trifascicular intraventricular conduction have had a major impact on electrocardiography. Perhaps the greatest testimony to their contributions is the large number of related publications by many authors since the printing of Los Hemibloqueos more than 10 years ago.
A model for the headward erosion of submarine canyons induced by downslope-eroding sediment flows

A simple, physically based computer model of continental slope evolution is used to investigate the sequence of submarine canyon formation. The model simulates submarine canyons as evolving under the influence of sedimentation, slope failure, sediment flow erosion, and topography. Interactions between these factors are modeled as being governed by local sea-floor slope, which in the model determines the extent of sea-floor failures, directs the downslope path of sediment flows triggered by the failures, and scales the amount of sea-floor erosion caused by the sediment flows. Based on these interactions, the model simulates a three-stage sequence for submarine canyon formation: (1) the erosion of pre-canyon rills by sediment flows initiated at sites on the upper slope oversteepened by sedimentation; (2) localized slope failure of the walls and/or floor of the rills at one or more mid- to lower-slope sites destabilized by sediment flow erosion; and (3) evolution of the failure into a headward-eroding canyon that advances upslope along the rills by sediment-flow-driven retrogressive failure. Through this sequence, the model simulates canyon and intercanyon morphology that successfully reproduces crosscutting relations observed between Lindenkohl Canyon and adjacent erosional slope rills on the passive-margin New Jersey continental slope, and between slope failures and long, narrow dendritic tributaries that enter into the Aoga Shima Canyon on the convergent-margin Izu-Bonin fore arc. These results suggest that the model may be applicable in explaining submarine canyon formation along a variety of continental margins. More significantly, in illustrating how sediment flows might repeatedly trigger retrogressive failures, the model presents a new explanation for submarine canyon formation that reconciles morphologic evidence for headward canyon erosion by mass wasting with the stratigraphic evidence for canyon inception by downslope-eroding sediment flows.
Yeast killer dsRNA plasmids are transcribed in vivo to produce full and partial-length plus-stranded RNAs

Abstract In vivo transcripts of the L (4.5 kb) and M (1.9 kb) dsRNA plasmids were examined in type I killers of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Transcripts for both plasmids include full-length (l,m) and partial-length (la,ma) single-stranded species. Both L-dsRNA transcripts (l,la) have in vitro mRNA activity for L-P1, previously shown to be identical to ScV-P1, the 88,000 dalton major capsid protein of the virus-like particles containing L- and M1-dsRNAs. 1, but not 1a, is bound to poly(U)-sepharose and may be polyadenylated. Other L-dsRNA gene products and their transcripts may exist. For M1-dsRNA, both species (m, ma) have in vitro mRNA activity for M1-P1, the 32,000 dalton pre-protoxin encoded by M1-dsRNA. Both m and ma are bound to poly(U)-Sepharose and ma is probably a 5' terminal fragment of m. A functional model for M1-dsRNA killer plasmid structure is presented.
In vitro antiproliferative, apoptotic and antioxidant activities of punicalagin, ellagic acid and a total pomegranate tannin extract are enhanced in combination with other polyphenols as found in pomegranate juice

Pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) fruits are widely consumed as juice (PJ). The potent antioxidant and anti-atherosclerotic activities of PJ are attributed to its polyphenols including punicalagin, the major fruit ellagitannin, and ellagic acid (EA). Punicalagin is the major antioxidant polyphenol ingredient in PJ. Punicalagin, EA, a standardized total pomegranate tannin (TPT) extract and PJ were evaluated for in vitro antiproliferative, apoptotic and antioxidant activities. Punicalagin, EA and TPT were evaluated for antiproliferative activity at 12.5-100 microg/ml on human oral (KB, CAL27), colon (HT-29, HCT116, SW480, SW620) and prostate (RWPE-1, 22Rv1) tumor cells. Punicalagin, EA and TPT were evaluated at 100 microg/ml concentrations for apoptotic effects and at 10 microg/ml concentrations for antioxidant properties. However, to evaluate the synergistic and/or additive contributions from other PJ phytochemicals, PJ was tested at concentrations normalized to deliver equivalent amounts of punicalagin (w/w). Apoptotic effects were evaluated against the HT-29 and HCT116 colon cancer cell lines. Antioxidant effects were evaluated using inhibition of lipid peroxidation and Trolox equivalent antioxidant capacity (TEAC) assays. Pomegranate juice showed greatest antiproliferative activity against all cell lines by inhibiting proliferation from 30% to 100%. At 100 microg/ml, PJ, EA, punicalagin and TPT induced apoptosis in HT-29 colon cells. However, in the HCT116 colon cells, EA, punicalagin and TPT but not PJ induced apoptosis. The trend in antioxidant activity was PJ>TPT>punicalagin>EA. The superior bioactivity of PJ compared to its purified polyphenols illustrated the multifactorial effects and chemical synergy of the action of multiple compounds compared to single purified active ingredients.
Functional Characterization of Poplar Wood-Associated NAC Domain Transcription Factors

Wood is the most abundant biomass produced by land plants. Dissection of the molecular mechanisms underlying the transcriptional regulation of wood formation is a fundamental issue in plant biology and has important implications in tree biotechnology. Although a number of transcription factors in tree species have been shown to be associated with wood formation and some of them are implicated in lignin biosynthesis, none of them have been demonstrated to be key regulators of the biosynthesis of all three major components of wood. In this report, we have identified a group of NAC domain transcription factors, PtrWNDs, that are preferentially expressed in developing wood of poplar (Populus trichocarpa). Expression of PtrWNDs in the Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) snd1 nst1 double mutant effectively complemented the secondary wall defects in fibers, indicating that PtrWNDs are capable of activating the entire secondary wall biosynthetic program. Overexpression of PtrWND2B and PtrWND6B in Arabidopsis induced the expression of secondary wall-associated transcription factors and secondary wall biosynthetic genes and, concomitantly, the ectopic deposition of cellulose, xylan, and lignin. Furthermore, PtrWND2B and PtrWND6B were able to activate the promoter activities of a number of poplar wood-associated transcription factors and wood biosynthetic genes. Together, these results demonstrate that PtrWNDs are functional orthologs of SND1 and suggest that PtrWNDs together with their downstream transcription factors form a transcriptional network involved in the regulation of wood formation in poplar.
Analysis of Interference Effects in MB-OFDM UWB Systems

The inter-modulation and cross-modulation products of interferences introduced by nonlinearities of the receiver could significantly degrade system performance, and should be properly estimated when determining system design specifications. In MB-OFDM UWB systems, the traditional two- tone technique is still widely used to estimate nonlinear effects. However, this technique is not accurate enough. In this paper, we analyze the interference effects and propose a statistical approach to estimate the interference distortion products accurately. The analytical expressions for various interference scenarios are derived and then validated by simulation. Based on this analysis, we demonstrate how to adjust the two-tone technique to provide accurate distortion estimations for MB-OFDM UWB systems.
Actuarial Perspectives on Defined Benefit Pension Risk - Modeling Emerging Issues

This paper reviews documentation provided on the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation’s (PBGC’s) Pension Insurance Modeling System (PIMS). It also discusses priorities for future development of the system, based on emerging issues in pension plan design and environment, and it suggests particular emphasis be placed on improvements in refining the modeling of the multiemployer program.
Toward a Practical Scheme for Binary Broadcast Channels with Varying Channel Quality Using Dirty Paper Coding

We consider practical schemes for binary dirty-paper channels and broadcast channels (BCs) with two receivers and varying channel quality. With the BC application in mind, this paper proposes a new design for binary dirty paper coding (DPC). By exploiting the concept of coset binning, the complexity of the system is greatly reduced when compared to the existing works. Some design challenges of the coset binning approach are identified and addressed. The proposed binary DPC system achieves similar performance to the state-of-the-art, superposition-coding-based system while demonstrating significant advantages in terms of complexity and flexibility of system design. For binary BCs, achieving the capacity generally requires the superposition of a normal channel code and a carefully designed channel code with non-uniform bit distribution. The non-uniform bit distribution is chosen according to the channel conditions. Therefore, to achieve the capacity for binary BCs with varying channel quality, it is necessary to use quantization codes of different rates, which significantly increases the implementation complexity. In this paper, we also propose a broadcast scheme that generalizes the concept of binary DPC, which we term soft DPC. By combining soft DPC with time sharing, we achieve a large percentage of the capacity for a wide range of channel quality with little complexity overhead. Our scheme uses only one fixed pair of codes for users 1 and 2, and a single quantization code, which possesses many practical advantages over traditional time sharing and superposition coding solutions and provides strictly better performance.
Discovery of permuted and recently split transfer RNAs in Archaea

Background As in eukaryotes, precursor transfer RNAs in Archaea often contain introns that are removed in tRNA maturation. Two unrelated archaeal species display unique pre-tRNA processing complexity in the form of split tRNA genes, in which two to three segments of tRNAs are transcribed from different loci, then trans-spliced to form a mature tRNA. Another rare type of pre-tRNA, found only in eukaryotic algae, is permuted, where the 3' half is encoded upstream of the 5' half, and must be processed to be functional.
2,3,4,6‐Tetra‐O‐acetyl‐β‐d‐gluco­pyran­osyl azide

The structure of the title compound, C14H19N3O9, has been determined at 100 K. The six-membered ring exhibits a chair conformation, and all non-H substituents are found in equatorial positions.
Effect of SEC Financial Reporting Release No. 48 on Derivative and Market Risk Disclosures

This study compares the disclosures about derivatives and market risk made by 25 SEC registrants in the years before (1996) and after (1997) the adoption of Financial Reporting Release No. 48 (SEC 1997) (FRR No. 48). FRR No. 48 requires firms to disclose how they account for derivatives and provide quantitative and qualitative disclosures about exposure to market risk. Market risk disclosures, encouraged but not required under FAS No. 119, improved greatly under FRR No. 48 but varied widely in detail and clarity. The majority of registrants provided quantitative and qualitative disclosures of market risk; however, only about half of these firms discussed the details and limitations of their risk measurement models and disclosures. Further, certain required or strongly recommended contextual disclosures were almost completely absent. Firms appear to prefer relatively complicated but more discreet disclosure formats to simpler but more revealing disclosure formats. Overall, while registrants greatly increas...
New Goodness-of-Fit Tests for Pareto Distributions

A new approach to goodness-of-fit for Pareto distributions is introduced. Based on Euclidean distances between sample elements, the family of statistics and tests is indexed by an exponent in (0,2) on Euclidean distance. The corresponding tests are statistically consistent and have excellent performance when applied to heavy-tailed distributions. The exponent can be tailored to the particular Pareto distribution. The goodness-of-fit statistic measures all types of differences between distributions, hence it is also applicable as a minimum distance estimator. Implementation of the test statistics is developed and applied to estimation of the tail index in three well known examples of claims data, and compared with the classical EDF statistics.
Subpopulation-specific confidence designation for more informative biomedical classification

Objective: Although classification algorithms are promising tools to support clinical diagnosis and treatment of disease, the usual implicit assumption underlying these algorithms, that all patients are homogeneous with respect to characteristics of interest, is unsatisfactory. The objective here is to exploit the population heterogeneity reflected by characteristics that may not be apparent and thus not controlled, in order to differentiate levels of classification accuracy between subpopulations and further the goal of tailoring therapies on an individual basis. Methods and materials: A new subpopulation-based confidence approach is developed in the context of a selective voting algorithm defined by an ensemble of convex-hull classifiers. Populations of training samples are divided into three subpopulations that are internally homogeneous, with different levels of predictivity. Two different distance measures are used to cluster training samples into subpopulations and assign test samples to these subpopulations. Results: Validation of the new approach's levels of confidence of classification is carried out using six publicly available datasets. Our approach demonstrates a positive correspondence between the predictivity designations derived from training samples and the classification accuracy of test samples. The average difference between highest- and lowest-confidence accuracies for the six datasets is 17.8%, with a minimum of 11.3% and a maximum of 24.1%. Conclusion: The classification accuracy increases as the designated confidence increases.
SMPL, a Specification Based Framework for the Semantic Structure, Annotation and Control of SMIL Documents

In this paper we describe the design and implementation of a framework for declarative XML languages - SMPL. The framework is intended to support the semantic structure, annotation and control of SMIL documents. SMPL is supported by all browsers de-facto. Unlike perhaps other web standards, where adding functionality has to be included in a release of a new version for a plug-in or a web browser, SMPL is extendable and yet requires no specific changes to the implementation of a plug-in or the browser, beyond it's support for SMIL. We envision SMPL as the framework for the next generation semantic Multimedia document management languages. It supports the creation of different languages that facilitate different requirements for the semantic structuring, annotation or control of SMIL synchronized multimedia documents. We evaluate SMPL in the context of a distant learning environment and a drill replay and management application.
Identifying pulmonary tuberculosis in patients with negative sputum smear results.

Background Clinicians need to decide whether to begin empiric therapy for patients who are suspected of having tuberculosis (TB) but have negative sputum smear results. Culture results may take weeks, and delaying treatment may allow further transmission of disease. Study objective To identify the clinical, demographic, and radiographic characteristics that identify smear-negative patients who have TB, and to create a TB prediction rule. Design Retrospective chart review. Setting University-affiliated public hospital in San Francisco, CA, between 1993 and 1998. Patients Forty-seven patients with TB and 141 control patients who were hospitalized with a suspicion of pulmonary TB; all had negative sputum smear results. Measurements and results Demographic, clinical, and radiographic variables were determined by chart review. In multivariate analysis, a positive tuberculin skin test result (odds ratio [OR], 4.8; 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.0 to 11.9) was independently associated with an increased risk of a positive TB culture finding. A radiographic pattern not typical of pulmonary tuberculosis (OR, 0.3; 95% CI, 0.1 to 0.7) and expectoration with cough (OR, 0.3; 95% CI, 0.1 to 0.6) were predictive of a decreased risk. An interaction between HIV seropositivity and mediastinal lymphadenopathy on the chest radiograph was also associated with a positive TB culture result (OR, 7.2; 95% CI, 1.4 to 36.0). The TB prediction score (TPS) was created with widely ranging likelihood ratios that could affect the posterior probability of TB by 30-fold. Conclusion The TPS put into context with the overall prevalence of TB in a given area may help clinicians decide if a patient with negative sputum smear results should start empiric antituberculous therapy or wait for culture results. These results need prospective validation.
Early Social Interaction Project for Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders Beginning in the Second Year of Life: A Preliminary Study

The Early Social Interaction (ESI) Project (Woods & Wetherby, 2003) was designed to apply the recommendations of the National Research Council (2001) to toddlers with autism spectrum disorders (ASD...
Reproductive success across the black-capped chickadee (Poecile atricapillus) and carolina chickadee (P. carolinensis) hybrid zone in Ohio

Abstract Black-capped Chickadees (Poecile atricapillus) and Carolina Chickadees (P. carolinensis) hybridize in an east-west band from New Jersey to Kansas. Within the past century, the Ohio portion of this hybrid zone and the Carolina Chickadee range to the south have been moving northward, whereas the Black-capped Chickadee range has retracted. In Ohio, we characterized the genetic composition of the hybrid zone using five diagnostic molecular loci. Although there was no evidence of assortative mating in the center of the hybrid zone, we found a relative paucity of genetically intermediate breeding females as compared with breeding males. That suggests viability selection against female hybrids, in line with Haldane’s rule. On the basis of reproductive variables (number of nestlings, reproductive success), we found a decrease in productivity of breeding pairs in the hybrid zone that is significantly and positively related to their probability of producing homozygous offspring at each autosomal or sex-lin...
The Effectiveness of a Spiritually-Based Intervention to Alleviate Subsyndromal Anxiety and Minor Depression Among Older Adults

The purpose of this study was to test the effectiveness of a spiritually-based intervention in the alleviation of subsyndromal anxiety and minor depression in an elderly population. Twenty-two residents of six continuing care communities diagnosed with minor depression participated in this study. There was a significant decrease in anxiety and a trend toward decreased depression. In addition, participants who continued to use the Prayer Wheel had a decrease in depression scores, while those who did not had an increase in depression scores. These findings suggest that use of the Prayer Wheel may promote psychological well-being among older adults.
Drug facilitation of avoidance conditioning as a function of pretraining

Rats were treated with eserine, amphetamine or saline subsequently to each of 4 blocks of 10 trials on a simple avoidance problem. Ss in each treatment group were pretrained to 1 of 2 criteria on the learning task or received no pretraining. Posttrial eserine treatment improved performance in relation to amount of pretraining and affected untrained Ss most. Amphetamine administration facilitated performance equally among all training groups. Results are interpreted in terms of differential drug involvement in trial-initiated neural processes.
MEASURING THE SOCIAL SCHEMATA OF PRESCHOOL CHILDREN

subjects freely place a representation of "self" from representations of other social stimuli. The present study explored the feasibility of using the technique with preschool children. A high correlation of .81 was found between nutseryschool children's tendency to place "self" near "teacher" on the social schemata measure and their actual tendency to "cling" to their nursery-school teacher. The authors concluded that the social schemata technique can be a useful research tool even when the subjects are quite young, i.e., between 4 and 5 yr. of age. Social schemata are investigated by means of a technique based on subjects' free placements of human figures on an unstructured field (Kuethe, 1962). A group form of the technique requires a subject to place a gumbadced representation of himself on different pages of a booklet with different figures or objects, e.g., father, teacher, school, etc., printed on the far right of each page (Kuethe, 1967). Later, the investigator measures the distance at which the subjects place themselves from the various objects and relates these scores to other parameters of interesc. The technique produces some interesting results with elementary school children. For example, Rubin (1968) observed that first and second grade children's reactions to "Mother" and to "Father" involve schemata which are a function of both subjects' sex and their achievement patterns. Male subjects achieving in arithmetic place "self" closer to the Mother figure than to the Father figure. Kidder and Kuethe (1975) found that fifth-grade girls in the lowest reading group placed "self" much further from
Experimental surface and boundary layer measurements in a hypersonicboundary layer with non-uniform blowing

An experimental program has been conducted utilizing a transpiration cooling system to simulate ablation effects relative to the behavior of dissimilar materials in a re-entry environment. For this situation, ground and flight tests have shown that a necking occurs downstream of the region of material discontinuity, which is believed to be a result of this differential ablation process. It was found that a step-up in blowing causes a local disturbance on the boundary-layer characteristics and a subsequent change on the local properties, yielding increases in both heat transfer and pressure. The basic philosophy of this paper is to indicate several trends and observations concerning nonuniform blowing effects in a hypersonic boundary layer. This study represents one phase of a two-year experimental program, the objective of which was to provide detailed turbulent boundary surface and profile data on a slender cone with mass-transfer effects. Presented as Paper No. 74-699 at the AIAA/ASME Thermophysics and Heat Transfer Conference, Boston, Mass., July 15-17, 1974. This work was supported by SAMSO under Contract FO-4701-70-C-0179 and was monitored by Capt. A. Klingler and Capt. A. Hunt (RSSE). '^Consulting Engineer, Advanced Aero thermodynamics. +Manager, Advanced Aerothermodynamics and Test Engineering. 395 Purchased from American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Towards the Real-time Measurement of Mental Workload

The primary goal of this study was to explore the utility of event-related brain potentials (ERP) as real-time measures of mental workload. To this end, subjects performed two different tasks both separately and together. One task required that subjects monitor a bank of constantly changing gauges and detect critical deviations. Difficulty was varied by changing the predictability of the gauges. The second task was mental arithmetic. Difficulty was varied by requiring subjects to perform operations on either two or three columns of numbers. Two conditions that could easily be distinguished on the basis of performance measures were selected for the real-time evaluation of ERPs. A bootstrapping approach was adopted in which one thousand samples of n trials (n = 1 to 75) were classified using several measures of P300 and Slow Wave amplitude. Classification accuracies of 90% were achieved with 15 trials. Results are discussed in terms of potential enhancements for real-time recording.
Special delivery for ADAMTS13

In this issue of Blood, using a transgenic mouse model, Pickens et al describe that ectopic expression of ADAMTS13, exclusively in platelets, is able to provide effective protection in murine models of arterial thrombosis and thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP).1
First results from the Cornell high Q cw full linac cryo- module

Cornell University has finished building a 10 m long superconducting accelerator module as a prototype of the main linac of a proposed ERL facility. This module houses 6 superconducting cavities- operated at 1.8 K in continuous wave (CW) mode - with individual HOM absorbers and one magnet/ BPM section. In pushing the limits, a high quality factor of the cavities (2•1010) and high beam currents (100 mA accelerated plus 100 mA decelerated) were targeted. The design of the cryomodule and the results of components tested before assembly will be presented in this paper.
The living shunt: a tissue engineering approach in the treatment of hydrocephalus.

AbstractTissue engineering is the use of cultured cells seeded into biodegradable polymers to create custom designed, living implantable devices. As a first approach to the use of this technique in the treatment of hydrocephalus, we have prepared chondrocyte-seeded polyglycolic acid (PGA) tubes coated with polylactic glycolic acid (PGLA), implanted initially with thin silastic stents removed four weeks after shunt insertion. The use of bovine xenograft cells in athymic (nude) rats resulted in more efficient seeding with chondrocytes, stiffer tube walls, and better patency. When implanted in 6-week-old rats made hydrocephalic by cisternal injection of kaolin at 4 weeks of age, six of eight ’living shunts‘ remained patent to radio-opaque contrast injection at two weeks after stent removal. At four weeks after stent removal, all four of the shunts had occluded at the ventricular end, three of the four apparently due to growth of the animal. We conclude that polymer type, cell type, and cell density will requ...
Differences among Health Professionals in Attitudes toward Persons with AIDS

Abstract The purpose of this study was to assess the attitudes of health education professors toward persons with AIDS, and to compare findings with similar data from previous studies assessing physician and medical student attitudes toward persons with AIDS. Attitudes toward individuals described in a vignette were elicited from 256 randomly selected health education professors. Subjects received one of four vignettes plus a survey to assess prejudice, social interaction, and interpersonal characteristics. Vignettes differed only in the illness being either AIDS or leukemia, and in sexual preference, which was heterosexual or homosexual. Results indicated that health education professors considered that persons with AIDS were more responsible for their illness, more deserving of what has happened to them, more dangerous to others, and more deserving to be quarantined than persons with leukemia. The data also suggested that although the professors held negative attitudes toward persons with AIDS, they wer...
Introduction: Encircling the ocean

What stories from Asia to Oceania to the Americas make up Pacific history? Along the shores of Baja California, sixteenth-century porcelain from East Asia turns up in archeological digs, along with timbers and containers marking the resting place of great Spanish galleons that sailed with cargoes of treasure, silk, and slaves drawn from the Malabar coastline, Portuguese Macao, southern Japan, and the Philippines in transits from Manila across the Mariana Islands to the Americas.
Some Considerations in the Processing of Potato Chips

AbstractThis paper presents data on the effects of varying moisture contents on the dielectric properties of potato chips measured at two frequencies and at three temperature levels. It reviews some of the literature on the dielectric properties of foods and points out the difficulty in making predictions and the need for measurements on dielectric properties of foods. It points out the known facts that in this area, technology has preceded fundamental science and presents the premise thot if sufficient work on the fundamental aspects of microwaves and their interactions with foods are available, better processing equipment designed on experimentally obtained parameters could be built thus putting the industry on a much sounder fundamental basis.
Aqueous Stream Characterization from Biomass Fast Pyrolysis and Catalytic Fast Pyrolysis

Biomass pyrolysis offers a promising means to rapidly depolymerize lignocellulosic biomass for subsequent catalytic upgrading to renewable fuels. Substantial efforts are currently ongoing to optimize pyrolysis processes including various fast pyrolysis and catalytic fast pyrolysis schemes. In all cases, complex aqueous streams are generated containing solubilized organic compounds that are not converted to target fuels or chemicals and are often slated for wastewater treatment, in turn creating an economic burden on the biorefinery. Valorization of the species in these aqueous streams, however, offers significant potential for substantially improving the economics and sustainability of thermochemical biorefineries. To that end, here we provide a thorough characterization of the aqueous streams from four pilot-scale pyrolysis processes: namely, from fast pyrolysis, fast pyrolysis with downstream fractionation, in situ catalytic fast pyrolysis, and ex situ catalytic fast pyrolysis. These configurations and ...
Least laxity first scheduling of thermostatically controlled loads for regulation services

We propose a least laxity first (LLF) scheduling algorithm for a heterogeneous population of thermostatically controlled loads (TCL), aimed at providing regulation services for the power grid. TCLs periodically switch between on and off states in order to keep their monitored temperature in a certain comfort band. In our scheme, TCLs inform a central controller of their anticipated deadlines to switch states, allowing for their switching events to be scheduled. An LLF policy schedules these transitions to provide regulation with minimum deviation from the autonomous evolution of the TCLs. To manage large populations, we bundle requests with similar laxity values in a limited number of clusters, considerably reducing computational and communication costs, and preserving the privacy of participants.
The Reluctant Satirist: Theodor Haecker and the Dizzying Swindle of Nazism

Cultural critic and philosopher Theodor Haecker was arrested in 1933 in relation to an anti-Nazi essay he had published in 1932. This article tells the story of Haecker's essay, which satirizes the...
Framing fracking: scale-shifting and greenwashing risk in the oil and gas industry

In this paper, I examine corporate environmental communication on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and industry efforts to shape public perception of resource extraction and its impacts on the en...
WARP and combinatorial choice

Abstract For combinatorial choice problems, I show that the Irrelevance of Rejected Items condition is equivalent to the Weak Axiom of Revealed Preference (WARP), and is necessary and sufficient for the existence of a complete, reflexive and antisymmetric rationalization of a combinatorial choice function. I also show the equivalence of WARP to path independence and to other classical choice conditions when the choice domain is combinatorial.
Kinetics of Oxygen and Carbon Dioxide Exchange

The aim of this chapter is to compare the kinetics of gas exchange among the vertebrates and examine whether the rates of diffusion and chemical reaction pose any limitation to O2 and CO2 exchange. These kinetics have been extensively studied in mammals, and the reader seeking an overview of the literature may find it in a number of recent reviews (Klocke 1987; Meldon 1987; Kreuzer and Hoofd 1987; Baumann et al. 1987; Wagner 1977; Forster 1987). Surprisingly there has been little attention paid to non-mammalian vertebrates, despite considerable interest otherwise in their blood-gas equilibrium chemistry and cardiorespiratory structure-function relationships.
Optimal Reproductive Strategies in Annual Plants

Optimal control theory is invoked to investigate the conditions under which an annual plant exhibits two distinct reproductive strategies which result in maximum fitness by the end of a fixed-length growing season. In particular, a plant which is capable of reproducing from tubers and seeds is considered. When the plant’s photosynthesizing tissue and the reproductive tissues are subject to predation of differing intensity, then the optimal reproductive strategy results in channeling all of the plant’s photosynthetic product to the production of one tissue type (i.e., photosynthesizing tissue, or one of the reproductive tissue types) at a time. Whether the plant will exhibit one or two reproductive strategies (seeds or tubers, or both) depends on the predation rate on the three tissue types. Factors which contribute to suboptimal growth allocation are discussed.
Reputation Prediction in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks Using RBF Neural Networks

Security is one of the major challenges in the design and implementation of protocols for mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). ‘Cooperation for corporate well-being’ is one of the major principles being followed in current research to formulate various security protocols. In such systems, nodes establish trust-based interactions based on their reputation which is determined by node activities in the past. In this paper we propose the use of a Radial Basis Function-Neural Network (RBF-NN) to estimate the reputation of nodes based on their internal attributes as opposed to their observed activity, e.g., packet traffic. This technique is conducive to prediction of the reputation of a node before it portrays any activities, for example, malicious activities that could be potentially predicted before they actually begin. This renders the technique favorable for application in trust-based MANET defense systems to enhance their performance. In this work we were able to achieve an average prediction performance of approximately 91% using an RBF-NN to predict the reputation of the nodes in the MANET.
A data analytic workflow to forecast produced water from Marcellus shale

Abstract Water and gas production and potential water treatment facility requirements for the Marcellus formation are discussed using data analytic methods. These methods aim to handle dataset diversity and scale, and apply data analytics for statistical imputation, estimating future drilling activity, fluids production, and the optimization of water recycling facility locations and size. The objective of this study is to quantify and predict the volumes of produced fluids in the short- and medium-term for the Marcellus shale. The paper accomplishes this objective for the Pennsylvania section comprising 10,000 wells. The application of data analytics to large-scale, data-intensive, low-integrity public environmental databases is illustrated, and challenges of implementation methods are discussed and resolved. In addition, a special class of data analytic tools and workflows for spatiotemporal analysis (spatially correlated variation of parameters with time) is discussed and implemented. The results quantify the prospect of future drilling activity, and water and gas production for all Pennsylvania counties in the Marcellus. Finally, several practical problems of interest on applications of predictive analytics and management support are proposed and solved. The limitations of the proposed workflow are briefly discussed.
Transposons to V(D)J Recombination: Evolution of the RAG Reaction

Evolutionarily, how RAG endonucleases in vertebrate immune systems could shed dangerous transposon-like propensities, and instead, support the organized assembly of antigen receptor variable domains, has been unclear. Recent structural work by Schatz and colleagues (Nature, 2019) identifies features of the RAG endonuclease deemed to be key in supporting this critical change in vertebrate advancement.
Stress and consumer behavior

Although stress research has received increased attention in the behavioral and social sciences, it has been virtually ignored by marketing researchers. This paper attempts to advance the stress perspective as a useful framework in consumer research. First, the author presents theoretical and conceptual foundations of stress research. Second, the author develops a general conceptual model of the causes and consequences of stress on the basis of theory and research. The model serves as a blueprint for presenting theory and research on stress, organizing and interpreting findings of consumer studies in the context of stress theory, and developing propositions for needed research. Finally, the author provides a research agenda to guide future studies in this area.
Design concepts for the integration of bamboo in contemporary vernacular architecture

This paper discusses the development of design concepts for a row of typical bamboo houses, including the layout configuration and the function/aesthetics properties that are important from an arch...
Poly-Victimization across Time in Juvenile Justice-Involved Youth Receiving Behavioral Health Treatment

Diversion and community-based treatment for juveniles involved in the justice system is commonly used across jurisdictions as an alternative to incarceration. While evidence-based approaches to ass...
Microglia and sexual differentiation of the developing brain: A focus on ontogeny and intrinsic factors

Sexual differentiation of the brain during early development likely underlies the strong sex biases prevalent in many neurological conditions. Mounting evidence indicates that microglia, the innate immune cells of the central nervous system, are intricately involved in these sex-specific processes of differentiation. In this review, we synthesize literature demonstrating sex differences in microglial number, morphology, transcriptional state, and functionality throughout spatiotemporal development as well as highlight current literature regarding ontogeny of microglia. Along with vanRyzin et al. in this issue, we explore the idea that differences in microglia imparted by chromosomal or ontogeny-related programming can influence microglial-driven sexual differentiation of the brain, as well as the idea that extrinsic differences in the male and female brain microenvironment may in turn impart sex differences in microglia.
The chicken or the egg? The value of longitudinal research in an increasingly diverse tobacco product landscape.

The considerable progress made in reducing cigarette smoking is among the greatest public health achievements of the past century.1 In the U.S., current cigarette smoking prevalence among adults declined from nearly 43% in 1965 to approximately 14% in 2018.2 3 Moreover, current cigarette smoking prevalence among high school students has been steadily declining since the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement, from more than 30% in 2000 to approximately 8% in 2018.4 5 However, in the U.S. and globally, the tobacco product landscape has diversified in recent years to include a variety of combustible, non-combustible, and electronic products. Approximately 70% of U.S. adults who currently use tobacco products are cigarette smokers.3 In contrast, among current tobacco product users, less than half of young adults 18–24 years old (45.6%) and less than one-third of high school students (29.2%) are cigarette smokers (figure 1), with an increasing proportion of youth and young adults using novel tobacco products such as e-cigarettes.3 5 The increasing diversification of the tobacco product landscape has implications for efforts to understand how tobacco product use changes over time, including transitions within and between product types. Longitudinal data sources are particularly useful for assessing transitions between tobacco product types. In contrast to repeated cross-sectional surveys that are traditionally used for surveillance of changes in tobacco product use at the national and subnational levels, longitudinal studies afford the ability to document the temporal order of events, thus helping to answer the proverbial question, which came first, the chicken or the egg?’. Figure 1 Current cigarette and non-cigarette tobacco product use among US adults, young adults, and high school students, 2018. Source: National Health Interview Survey (current use defined as: ‘everyday’ or ‘someday’); National Youth Tobacco Survey (current use defined as: ≥1 day in past 30 days). This supplement to …
Prevalence of pectus excavatum in an adult population-based cohort estimated from radiographic indices of chest wall shape.

Background Pectus excavatum is the most common chest wall skeletal deformity. Although commonly evaluated in adolescence, its prevalence in adults is unknown. Methods and findings Radiographic indices of chest wall shape were analyzed for participants of the first (n = 2687) and second (n = 1780) phases of the population-based Dallas Heart Study and compared to clinical cases of pectus (n = 297). Thoracic computed tomography imaging studies were examined to calculate the Haller index, a measure of thoracic axial shape, and the Correction index, which quantitates the posterior displacement of the sternum relative to the ribs. At the level of the superior xiphoid, 0.5%, 5% and 0.4% of adult Dallas Heart Study subjects have evidence of pectus excavatum using thresholds of Haller index >3.25, Correction index >10%, or both, respectively. Radiographic measures of pectus are more common in females than males and there is a greater prevalence of pectus in women than men. In the general population, the Haller and Correction indices are associated with height and weight, independent of age, gender, and ethnicity. Repeat imaging of a subset of subjects (n = 992) demonstrated decreases in the mean Haller and Correction indices over seven years, suggesting change to a more circular axial thorax, with less sternal depression, over time. Conclusions To our knowledge, this is the first study estimating the prevalence of pectus in an unselected adult population. Despite the higher reported prevalence of pectus cases in adolescent boys, this study demonstrates a higher prevalence of radiographic indices of pectus in adult females.
Names and Selves: Transnational Identities and Self-Presentation among Elite Chinese International Students

What accounts for name choices in a transnational context? What does the choice of ethnic or English names reveal about global identities and the desire to fit into a new culture? Drawing on the sociology of culture and migration, we examine the intersection of naming, assimilation, and self-presentation in light of international student mobility. Based on 25 semi-structured interviews with mainland Chinese students enrolled in an elite Midwestern university, we find that these students make name choices by engaging in both transnational processes and situated practices. First, Chinese international students negotiate between multiple names to deal with ethnic distinctions. While ethnic names can signal distance from other ethnic communities, they also distinguish individuals from others. For these students, names are multi-layered and temporal: their name choices evolve throughout school lives, shaped by power relations in American cultural contexts and channeled by images of their home country. Second, multiple names allow these students to practice situated performance, incorporating the reflective self, the distinctive self, and the imagined self. We address “cross-cultural naming” that accounts for identity in transnational social spaces.
Genomic-based treatment of patients with head and neck cancer

Head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCC) are a heterogeneous group of malignancies which make up approximately 5% of all cancers worldwide. Molecular profiling of HNSCC tumors has identified ...
Review: A State at Any Cost: The Life of David Ben-Gurion, by Tom Segev, translated by Haim Watzman

Ernest Gellner pointed out that nationalism in general succeeds because of the functions it performs for modern societies, not because of the greatness of its leaders or the truth of its claims. On...
Performance, Achievement, and Success in Psychological Research: Towards a More Transparent Use of the Still Ambiguous Terminology:

The present study focused on the terms performance, achievement, and success that have often been used in an ambiguous manner in psychological research. The way in which the meaning of the domain-s...
Crustacean diversity in the Puget Sound: reconciling species, phylogenetic, and functional diversity

Biodiversity has critical phylogenetic and functional components, yet many prior studies of marine communities focus only on taxonomic diversity. Here, we surveyed intertidal crustacean communities across 11 sites in the Puget Sound (Washington state). We calculated taxonomic diversity (Shannon’s H), functional diversity (functional evenness and Rao’s Q), and phylogenetic diversity to examine how these indices were related and how they varied with environmental factors. A model selection approach (AIC) was used to examine which factors (habitat complexity, algal richness, salinity, and urbanization) were the best predictors for each index. Across sites, all four diversity indices were moderately correlated. Algal richness emerged as an important factor, occurring in well-supported models across all diversity indices: sites with more algal species had higher levels of taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity. Species diversity of both herbivores and non-herbivores was positively correlated with algal species richness, suggesting algae may be important for habitat as well as a food source. More species-rich algal communities had more phylogenetically diverse assemblages of herbivores, but algal richness was not correlated to non-herbivore phylogenetic diversity. Boulder size, but not other measures of habitat complexity, was positively correlated with functional diversity; most diversity in our samples was associated with boulders. Sites adjacent to higher levels of impervious surfaces (e.g., urbanization) had lower values of functional evenness. A growing number of studies have demonstrated that anthropogenic factors can have particularly strong effects on functional or phylogenetic diversity, and our study provides a number of tools for future investigations of crustacean diversity in this region.