cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Mixing behavior of a model cellulosic biomass slurry during settling and resuspension

Thorough mixing during biochemical deconstruction of biomass is crucial for achieving maximum process yields and economic success. However, due to the complex morphology and surface chemistry of biomass particles, biomass mixing is challenging and currently it is not well understood. This study investigates the bulk rheology of negatively buoyant, non-Brownian α-cellulose particles during settling and resuspension. The torque signal of a vane mixer across two distinct experimental setups (vane-in-cup and vane-in-beaker) was used to understand how mixing conditions affect the distribution of biomass particles. During experimentation, a bifurcated torque response as a function of vane speed was observed, indicating that the slurry transitions from a “settling-dominant” regime to a “suspension-dominant” regime. The torque response of well-characterized fluids (i.e., DI water) were then used to empirically identify when sufficient mixing turbulence was established in each experimental setup. The predicted critical mixing speeds were in agreement with measured values, suggesting that secondary flows are required in order to keep the cellulose particles fully suspended. In addition, a simple scaling relationship was developed to model the entire torque signal of the slurry throughout settling and resuspension. Furthermore, qualitative and semi-quantitative agreement between the model and experimental results was observed.
Rural agriculture: Where do poor women farmers stand?

abstract This briefing interrogates ways in which approaches to reduce rural poverty through agriculture in what has been called the ‘second green revolution’ will affect rural farmers, especially women. As African governments face pressure to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), there are growing fears that the proposed technological approaches to poverty reduction may be implemented too hastily, without taking into account lessons learnt during the ‘first green revolution’. Experts fear that irreversible harm will be caused to both the environment and farmers, especially due to the expected accelerated use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in rural agriculture. This briefing suggests that introduction of changes to rural agriculture should take cognisance of the fact that rural communities are socio-cultural systems in which farmers have extensive knowledge of their ecosystems and developed farming techniques accordingly. External factors may not necessarily bring positive change to rura...
Irrationality, Asset Pricing, and Financial Intermediaries

We model irrational investors who can impact prices to cause predictability in returns and rational investors who are wealth-constrained in their attempts to arbitrage mispricing. We show that rational investors relax wealth constraints by forming financial intermediaries which leverage the wealth of the irrational investors. Surprisingly, financial intermediation is facilitated by the learning ability of irrational investors. Irrational investors attribute the superior trading profits of rational investors to superior information. They delegate the intermediary to invest on their behalf because they think it has better information, even though the source of its trading profits is its rationality. This helps the intermediary mitigate the predictability in prices the irrational investors create in the first place, despite the fact that it possesses no informational advantage over anybody. The intermediary does not eliminate equilibrium mispricing because it strategically limits the size of its funds to maximize its profit. A large financial intermediary is shown to be more profitable than multiple small intermediaries. Empirical implications are drawn about the profitability of intermediaries, predictability in prices, and wealth transfers between rational and irrational investors.
Colonies of the fire coral Millepora platyphylla constitute scleractinian survival oases during Acanthaster outbreaks in French Polynesia

Outbreaks of the predator crown-of-thorns starfish Acanthaster planci cause widespread coral mortality throughout the Indo-Pacific. Identifying mediating processes that promote coral survival during Acanthaster outbreaks can help support reef resilience. During surveys in French Polynesia, large colonies of the calcifying hydrozoan Millepora platyphylla appeared to be avoided by the starfish, providing predator-free sanctuaries to scleractinian corals in their proximity during an intense Acanthaster outbreak. Such refuges particularly benefited susceptible taxa such as Acropora and Pocillopora, whose populations were normally targeted by the starfish. These biological sanctuaries provided by Millepora to scleractinians are newly identified forms of associational refuges that can increase coral resistance to predation by Acanthaster. Our observations thus identify a key ecological role in reef resilience for Millepora, which is a ubiquitous component of tropical reefs usually seen as a strong competitor of scleractinians.
Damage potential of Loma Prieta ground motions

Abstract This article focuses on an engineering evaluation of the ground motions recorded during the Loma Prieta earthquake. Regression analysis is employed to evaluate the attenuation characteristics of the elastic and inelastic strength demands imposed by rock and alluvium ground motions on bilinear single degree of freedom (SDOF) systems. Several records are used to illustrate the large seismic demands generated by soft soil ground motions. Strength capacities of modern code-designed structures are compared to the strength demands in order to assess the damage potential of the Loma Prieta ground motions. The Cypress structure is used as an example to illustrate the application of simple demand / capacity concepts for an evaluation of structural performance.
The NIH condom report: the glass is 90% full.

for the workshop. In addition, a panel of 28 people was chosen from a spectrum of backgrounds and ideologies to help craft the report. The workshop itself was attended by 180 interested individuals. The ground rules for the report were made clear from the outset. The panel examined only those peer-reviewed, published articles included in the presentations at the workshop. This limitation ensured that the independent scientific evaluation that occurs prior to publication was inherent in all of the data considered. While this approach allowed a certain quality control, it meant that several bodies of data (e.g., those available but unpublished, or those published but deemed unacceptable by the speakers) were not included in the full set of information considered by the panel. Nonetheless, an impressive array of 138 peer-reviewed articles that had been published by the time of the workshop were the basis for the NIH report. The report was limited to evaluating the effectiveness of male latex condoms used during penile-vaginal intercourse. It examined evidence on eight STIs—HIV, gonorrhea, chlamydia, syphilis, chancroid, trichomoniasis, genital herpes and genital human papillomavirus. The evaluation methodology was extensive, considering both the efficacy (ideal use) and the effectiveness (typical use) of the condom. The quality of the study design, the ascertainment of exposure (e.g., consistent condom use), the laboratory measures of outcome (e.g., STIs) and the adequacy of statistical analytic approaches were examined.
Rosenet: a remote server-based network emulation system

Network emulation has been widely used to aid in the development and evaluation of real-time applications. Many of today's applications and protocols need to be tested and evaluated in large scale network environments such as the Internet, which requires emulation tools that meet the requirements of scale, accuracy, timeliness. Due to physical resource constraints in network emulators, existing emulation tools fail to meet these requirements as they are either limited to small and static networks, use simplified network models, or fail to deliver timely emulation results. If more physical resources are devoted to network emulation by utilizing high performance computing facilities, the accuracy and scalability of network emulation can be greatly improved. However, for many users, high performance computing facilities may not be readily available in a local laboratory environment, and co-locating application code with a remote high performance computing facility may be cumbersome and inconvenient. This thesis proposes a network emulation approach called ROSENET (RemOte SErver-based Network EmulaTion) that utilizes a distributed server-based architecture in which local low-fidelity emulators provide real-time QoS predictions to distributed applications, coupled with a remote large scale high-fidelity simulator that continuously updates and calibrates the local low-fidelity emulators. A library-based modeling approach based on online simulation data collection is proposed and a system identification modeling technique is presented. Experimental results examining emulation end-to-end delay and loss show that ROSENET provides a promising approach to network emulation supporting accuracy and scale while meeting real-time constraints. Challenges faced in applying ROSENET to real world applications are addressed through two case studies including applying synthetic workload on DARPA's NMS network topology for large scale network simulation and a contemporary real-time distributed VoIP application Skype.
SP0160 What?s new in rehabilitation of systemic sclerosis?

In patients with systemic sclerosis, physical disability may be a result of fibrosis in the internal organs as well as the musculoskeletal system. In recent years clinical studies evaluating effectiveness of rehabilitation demonstrated promising results (1). Rehabilitation modalities aiming to improve musculoskeletal impairment include heat application, range of motion and stretching exercise, massage and joint manipulation and splints. In order to improve functional capacity other brehabilitation programs contained aerobic exercise and strength or resistive exercises (2,3). This lecture aims to provide an overview of the safety and effectiveness of rehabilitation regiments in systemic sclerosis. References Poole JL. Musculoskeletal rehabilitation in the person with scleroderma. Curr Opin Rheumatol 2010; 22(2):205-12. Pinto AL, Oliveira NC, Gualano B, Christmann RB, Painelli VS, Artioli GG et al. Efficacy and safety of concurrent training in systemic sclerosis. J Strength Cond Res 2011; 25(5):1423-8. Schouffoer AA, Ninaber MK, Beaart-van de Voorde LJ, van der Giesen FJ, de JZ, Stolk J et al. Randomized comparison of a multidisciplinary team care program with usual care in patients with systemic sclerosis. Arthritis Care Res (Hoboken) 2011; 63(6):909-17. Disclosure of Interest None Declared
A Study to Measure the Effect of Framing a Robot as a Social Agent or as a Machine on Children's Social Behavior

Framing or priming a situation can subtly influence how a person reacts to or thinks about the situation. In this paper, we describe a recent study and some preliminary results in which the framing of a robot is manipulated such that it is presented as a social agent or as a machine-like entity. We ask whether framing the robot in these ways influences young children's social behavior during an interaction with the robot, independent of any changes in the robot itself. Following the framing manipulation, children play a fifteen-minute game with the robot. Their behavior, such as the amount of conversation, mimicry of the robot, and various courteous, prosocial actions will be coded and compared across conditions.
Analysis of inter-articulator correlation in acoustic-to-articulatory inversion using generalized smoothness criterion

The movements of the different speech articulators are known to be correlated to various degrees during speech production. In this paper, we investigate whether the inter-articulator correlation is preserved among the articulators estimated through acoustic-toarticulatory inversion using the generalized smoothness criterion (GSC). GSC estimates each articulator separately without explicitly using any correlation information between the articulators. Theoretical analysis of inter-articulator correlation in GSC reveals that the correlation between any two estimated articulators may not be identical to that between the corresponding measured articulatory trajectories; however, based on smoothness constraints provided by the real articulatory data, we found that, in practice, the correlation among articulators is approximately preserved in GSC based inversion. To validate the theoretical analysis on interarticulator correlation, we propose a modified version of GSC where correlations among articulators are explicitly imposed. We found that there is no significant benefit in inversion using such modified GSC, which further strengthens the conclusions drawn from the theoretical analysis of inter-articulator correlation. Index Terms: acoustic-to-articulatory inversion, interarticulation correlation, generalized smoothness criterion
Basic Principles of Shock Compression

Shock waves are the ubiquitous result of matter moving at velocities faster than the speed at which adjacent material can move out of the way. Examples range in scale from the shock waves generated by the collapse of microscopic cavitation bubbles to light-year scale “collisionless shocks” in the interstellar medium. The concept of a shock wave is well illustrated by the flow of snow in front of a moving snowplow (Fig. 2.1). When a plow begins moving into fresh, loose snow, a layer of packed snow builds up on the blade. The interface between the fresh snow and packed snow moves out ahead of the blade at a speed greater than that of the plow.
Chinese Text Segmentation With MBDP-1: Making the Most of Training Corpora

This paper describes a system for segmenting Chinese text into words using the MBDP-1 algorithm. MBDP-1 is a knowledge-free segmentation algorithm that bootstraps its own lexicon, which starts out empty. Experiments on Chinese and English corpora show that MBDP-1 reliably outperforms the best previous algorithm when the available hand-segmented training corpus is small. As the size of the hand-segmented training corpus grows, the performance of MBDP-1 converges toward that of the best previous algorithm. The fact that MBDP-1 can be used with a small corpus is expected to be useful not only for the rare event of adapting to a new language, but also for the common event of adapting to a new genre within the same language.
Uncovering insider threats from the digital footprints of individuals

We present a system to detect anomalous and ultimately malevolent behavior of people from their digital footprint within an institution. Tripwire approaches based on single features cannot adequately distinguish between normal unpredictable activities and truly counterproductive behavior. For example, a sequence of copying and sending small amounts of data can easily elude a pure single-feature tripwire approach. Here, we combine semantic knowledge with data mining methods. Our system uses a multi-layer architecture in which many aspects of a person's behavior are quantified and then fused using a large-scale anomaly detection Markovian Bayesian network. Evaluation results are based on data for 5,500 assumed to be non-malicious people collected from their activities on their workstations inside a corporation. An outside team augmented this data, with some of the 5,500 individuals (the perpetrators) acting in a malicious fashion. Our system represents the 5,500 people in a ranked list, with people most likely to act maliciously at the top. Our system identifies the perpetrators within the top 2% of the ranked list, while a purely statistical method ranks them within the top 25%. Our scalable infrastructure allows for plug-and-play of different analytics and maintains provenance of results.
The Dawn of Electro-Magnetism

So far, we have explored magnetism and electricity as separate phenomena. This is the legacy of William Gilbert, who recognized that while magnets and electrically charged bodies can exert forces, they do not exert forces on each other: electrically charged bodies attract or repel other electrically charged bodies; magnetic bodies attract or repel other magnetic bodies. This simple and pleasant demarcation was upset by the work of Hans Christian Oersted (1777–1851), who was born in Rudkobing, Denmark.
Stochastic-Based Convolutional Networks with Reconfigurable Logic Fabric

Convolutional neural network (CNN), well-knownto be computationally intensive, is a fundamental algorithmicbuilding block in many computer vision and artificial intelligenceapplications that follow the deep learning principle. This workpresents a novel stochastic-based and scalable hardware architectureand circuit design that computes a convolutional neuralnetwork with FPGA. The key idea is to implement a multidimensionalconvolution accelerator that leverages the widelyusedconvolution theorem. Our approach has three advantages. First, it can achieve significantly lower algorithmic complexityfor any given accuracy requirement. This computing complexity, when compared with that of conventional multiplier-based andFFT-based architectures, represents a significant performanceimprovement. Second, this proposed stochastic-based architectureis highly fault-tolerant because the information to be processed isencoded with a large ensemble of random samples. As such, thelocal perturbations of its computing accuracy will be dissipatedglobally, thus becoming inconsequential to the final overall results. Overall, being highly scalable and energy efficient, our stochasticbasedconvolutional neural network architecture is well-suited fora modular vision engine with the goal of performing real-timedetection, recognition and segmentation of mega-pixel images, especially those perception-based computing tasks that are inherentlyfault-tolerant. We also present a performance comparisonbetween FPGA implementations that use deterministic-based andStochastic-based architectures.
Status, religion, and the "belief in a just world": Comparing African Americans, Latinos, and Whites.

While a substantial literature on the belief in a just world exists, we know little about who actually believes that the world is just. This study (1) examines several existing explanations for just-world beliefs, and (2) compares the beliefs of African Americans, Latinos, and whites. Survey data collected in 1993 from a sample of southern Californians are used to test whether race/ethnicity, gender, SES, age, and religion shape just-world beliefs. In addition, the question of whether African Americans, Latinos, and whites differ in the effects of these variables is examined. Significant race/ethnic differences are found, with Latinos showing the strongest support for the belief in a just world and blacks, the weakest. Significant differences are also found by SES and gender, with greatest support for just-world beliefs found among men and persons of low SES; and, religious affiliation shapes the belief in a just world, but church attendance does not. Finally, race/ethnic differences are found for several determinants of the belief in a just world. This study suggests that existing knowledge of the belief in a just world reflects a white experience of the world traceable to the neglect of blacks and Latinos in past research
On efficient meta-filtering of big data

There is an explosion in the number of new approaches being developed for extracting information from biological data, creating a need for intelligent ways to utilize so many methods. We take a perspective based on viewing methods as filters which reject undesired data and which may have complementary and redundant performance. We consider approaches for efficiently combining such filters. We provide quantitative strategies for choosing which filters to use and the best order to apply them, based on viewing each filter as a coordinate transformation on performance metrics. The approach is demonstrated using a range of methods to filter sequence data for homology detection, where we show the advantages of more sophisticated strategies in terms of achieving competitive speed with significantly-improved rejection of undesired data.
SHARP: efficient loop scheduling with data hazard reduction on multiple pipeline DSP systems

Computation intensive DSP applications usually require a parallel/pipelined processor in order to achieve specific timing requirements. Data hazards are a major obstacle against the high performance of pipelined systems. This paper presents a novel efficient loop scheduling algorithm that reduces data hazards for those DSP applications. Such an algorithm has been embedded in a tool, called SHARP, which schedules a pipelined data flow graph to multiple pipelined units, while hiding the underlying data hazards and minimizing the execution time. This paper reports significant improvement for some well-known benchmarks, showing the efficiency of the scheduling algorithm and the flexibility of the simulation tool.
Update on Continent Catheterizable Channels and the Timing of their Complications

Purpose: We previously reported catheterizable channel associated outcomes and concluded that the incidence of postoperative complications was greatest in the first 2 years after surgery. At that time our followup was short. In this series we sought to determine whether complications continued to accumulate with longer followup in an updated cohort of patients.Materials and Methods: We comprehensively reviewed the outcomes in 81 consecutive patients who underwent construction of a MACE (Malone antegrade continence enema) and/or a Mitrofanoff channel in association with complex genitourinary reconstruction. Mean followup was 80.1 months. Outcomes of these 119 stomas were classified by Clavien-Dindo grade and time to complication.Results: The 48 unique, channel related events (40.3%) necessitated a total of 70 interventions with a mean 24.2 months to the first event. Difficult catheterization was the most common event, occurring in 20.1% of channels an average of 29.9 months after surgery. Stomal stenosis w...
Evolution, climate change, and extreme events.

Climatic extremes such as unusual heat waves, droughts, or exceptional rainfall have been tied directly or indirectly to the rapid increase in global atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations and resulting rise in temperature and are expected to become more frequent as the climate warms further ( 1 ). Ecologists have studied their effects on biological communities, warning of changes in the distribution of species, altered composition of communities, and impending extinctions ( 2 ). Extreme events can also bring about evolutionary changes ( 3 ), but these changes have been rarely studied because such events are cryptic, rare, and unpredictable. On page 495 of this issue, Campbell-Staton et al. ( 4 ) report an unusually detailed example of natural selection caused by an extreme event. The study shows what needs to be done to detect the evolutionary effects of rare events and offers insights into biological consequences of global warming.
Community Versus Assimilation: A Study in American Assimilation at Saint Joseph's Indian Industrial School

No govemment policy has had more of an impact on American Indians than the boarding school movement of the early to mid-twentieth century. This movement isolated American Indian children from their homes and communities and attempted to assimilate them into European-American society. This article studies the effects of this policy on children at the Saint Joseph9s Indian Industrial School in Wisconsin. It uses oral history to recapture the voices and experiences of teachers and students. The use of oral history allows a comprehensive understanding of the cultural, social and academic atmosphere of the school.
Next generation traffic event detection: a framework based on internet of vehicles (IoV)

The convergence of Vehicular Communication Systems and the Internet of Things (IoT), also known as Internet of Vehicles (IoV), has propelled remarkable advances in the design of Traffic Management Systems. This, supported by advances in their enabling technologies such as 5G Communications, Big Data Analytics, and Augmented Reality (AR), have opened up new avenues to rediscover solutions for Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). This paper presents a framework for a Next Generation Traffic Event Detection System based on these emerging technologies.
Poly(Adenosine Phosphate Ribose) Polymerase 1 Inhibition Enhances Brain-derived Neurotrophic Factor Secretion in Dental Pulp Stem Cell-derived Odontoblastlike Cells.

Abstract Introduction The nuclear enzyme poly(adenosine phosphate ribose) polymerase 1 (PARP-1) has been implicated in the maintenance and differentiation of several stem cells. The role of PARP-1 in dental pulp stem cell (DPSC) differentiation, especially in the context of its ability to modulate nerve regeneration factors, has not been investigated. Regeneration of neuronal components in pulp tissue is important for the assessment of tooth vitality. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is known to play an integral signaling factor during nerve regeneration. In this study, we identified the role of PARP-1 in the modulation of BDNF in DPSC differentiation into odontoblastlike cells. Methods Human DPSCs were prepared from healthy molars and cultured in regular and osteogenic media treated with PARP-1 antagonist and PARP-1 exogeneous protein. Polymerase chain reaction and immunohistochemistry analysis for BDNF and various differentiation markers were performed. Results Our polymerase chain reaction results showed that differentiated cells show odontoblastlike properties because they express odontogenic markers such as dentin sialophosphoprotein and dentin matrix protein 1. Both PARP-1 inhibitor and protein did not affect odontogenic differentiation and proliferation because the number of the differentiated cells was unaffected, and the expression of dentin sialophosphoprotein and dentin matrix protein 1 was not significantly changed. There is the possibility that PARP-1 treatment induces DPSCs into the unique cell lineage. Some differentiated cells show a very unique morphology with large irregular cytoplasm and an oval nucleus. Moreover, PARP-1 inhibition significantly increased BDNF secretion in DPSC-derived odontoblastlike cells. This observation was also confirmed by immunohistochemistry. Conclusions Taken together, our results indicate PARP-1 as a negative regulator in BDNF secretion during odontogenic DPSC differentiation, showing its potential application for translational nerve regeneration strategies to improve dental pulp tissue vitality assessments.
Spatial sampling bias in the Neotoma paleoecological archives affects species paleo-distribution models

Abstract The ability to infer paleo-distributions with limited knowledge of absence makes species distribution modeling (SDM) a useful tool for exploring paleobiogeographic questions. Spatial sampling bias is a known issue when modeling extant species. Here we quantify the spatial sampling bias in a North American packrat midden archive and explore its impact on estimating paleo-distributions. We test whether (1) spatial sampling bias inherent in this macrofossil record can influence estimates of paleo-distributions, (2) this bias can alter the ability to measure shifts in distributions and climatic niche breadth from the Northgrippian subdivision of the Holocene (8.3 ka – 4.2 ka) to present day (1950–2000 yr), and (3) bias correction methods can improve estimates of paleo-distributions and analyses of range shifts and niche breadth. We estimate spatial sampling bias for the mid-Holocene period with a three-stage statistical model, each representing a hypothesized source of bias: fossil site availability, preservation and accessibility. This approach enables the use of SDM to evaluate three separate paleo-distributions calibrated on the packrat midden archive: those without bias correction (σ-naive), those created with a standard method (σ-standard), and those created with a novel alternative (σ-modeled) incorporating the three-stage model of bias. We find that paleo-distributions modeled for the mid-Holocene without bias correction (σ-naive) provided poor estimates of hindcast paleo-distributions, and that the σ-modeled correction method improved paleo-distributions for our six species with, on average, 50% higher overlap to hindcast distributions than σ-naive paleo-distributions (σ-standard results fell between σ-naive and σ-modeled).
Acute portal vein thrombosis in a 59-year-old male with JAK2 V617F mutation .

Portal vein thrombosis is an uncommon finding that typically arises in the context of cirrhosis. In the acute setting, it may present with abdominal pain, portal hypertension, ascites, gastrointestinal bleeding, or mesenteric ischemia. Local risk factors that predispose its formation include: cirrhosis, hepatocellular carcinoma, pancreatitis, and intraabdominal infection. Systemic factors, including hypercoagulable states and sepsis, also pose an increased risk. JAK2 V617F positive myeloproliferative disorders are associated with systemic prothrombotic states and are a less frequently identified cause of portal vein thrombosis. We present a case of acute unprovoked portal vein thrombosis diagnosed in a 59-year-old male without local disease factors. Computed tomography, magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatography, and ultrasound demonstrated the presence of portal vein thrombosis with neighboring periportal and pancreatic head edema. Peripheral blood testing detected the presence of JAK2 V617F mutation. The patient was discharged on 6-month anticoagulation therapy and outpatient follow-up.
Development and Outcomes from a Translational Science Curriculum for Pre- Collegiate Students

Translational science is the cornerstone of biomedicine that transfers laboratory and clinical research to the hospital bedside in various forms of therapeutic interventions. This scientific branch influences public health decisions, the economy, and ongoing research endeavors. The purpose of this study was to develop a youth-friendly Translational Science course that introduced students to translational science concepts, then examine course outcomes and effects on career choices. The seminar course involved 18-contact hours with 20 high-school juniors (n=10 / Summer 2016 & Summer 2017). The curriculum encompassed the fundamentals of the five translational science phases as well as how to understand scientific readings and conduct efficient research database searches. A concluding student-presentation on a topic of the student’s choosing ensured each student had a sufficient understanding of translational science, use of PubMed for original research articles, and demonstrated the student’s ability to apply the concepts individually. Analysis of end-of-course and follow-up surveys showed that the majority of students understood the material, felt the course met their expectations and influenced long-term professional goals. These data suggest that exposing students earlier in their career (pre-collegiate) to the importance and structure of translational science could have long-term benefits towards influencing career choices in STEM.
Evidence for the Model of Gender Affirmation: The Role of Gender Affirmation and Healthcare Empowerment in Viral Suppression Among Transgender Women of Color Living with HIV

Transgender women of color are disproportionately impacted by HIV, poor health outcomes, and transgender-related discrimination (TD). We tested the Model of Gender Affirmation (GA) to identify intervention-amenable targets to enhance viral suppression (VS) using data from 858 transgender women of color living with HIV (49% Latina, 42% Black; 36% virally suppressed) in a serial mediation model. Global fit statistics demonstrated good model fit; statistically significant (p ≤ 0.05) direct pathways were between TD and GA, GA and healthcare empowerment (HCE), and HCE and VS. Significant indirect pathways were from TD to VS via GA and HCE (p = 0.036) and GA to VS via HCE (p = 0.028). Gender affirmation and healthcare empowerment significantly and fully mediated the total effect of transgender-related discrimination on viral suppression. These data provide empirical evidence for the Model of Gender Affirmation. Interventions that boost gender affirmation and healthcare empowerment may improve viral suppression among transgender women of color living with HIV.
A Bio-Inspired Approach to Design Robust and Energy-Efficient Communication Network Topologies

With the advent of Internet of Things (IoT), sensor networks are being utilized widely for data collection and dissemination. In order to ensure seamless communication, it is imperative to design topologically robust and energy-efficient networks. In this work, we introduce bio-inspired approaches for network topology construction based on the innate graph robustness of a biological network called the Gene Regulatory Network (GRN). We briefly discuss some of the topological properties of GRN, followed by its application in the design of wireless sensor network, disaster response network as well as a distributed event sensing and data collection framework for IoT and smart city applications. Finally, we demonstrate some graph experimental results that suggest that our proposed bio-inspired solutions exhibit greater robustness compared to existing graph topologies.
Review: Designing the Modern City: Urbanism since 1850, by Eric Mumford

Eric Mumford Designing the Modern City: Urbanism since 1850 New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2018, 360 pp., 125 b/w illus. $40 (cloth), ISBN 9780300207729 The expansive catalogue of recent books on global urbanization covers an array of approaches, from the political and social to the technological and environmental. Urbanization and its central object, the city, claim a priority in analyses of the modern condition, whether optimistic or pessimistic. The city also appears as a central protagonist in any number of works of architectural history, having captivated the attention of architects and architectural discourse for the past two centuries. In Designing the Modern City: Urbanism since 1850 , Eric Mumford aims to acknowledge both of these views—the city as the conceit of architects and the city as the embodiment of modernity—with a broad survey of the strategies conceived, proposed, and deployed to design the modern city in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Although compact, Mumford's book accomplishes ample coverage of salient examples distributed temporally and geographically, such that it functions as a survey textbook, one that may occupy the pedagogical positions formerly held by classic publications on city form. The influential morphological approach of publications by Leonardo Benevolo, Edmund Bacon, and Spiro Kostof has of course waned in recent decades with the ascendance of more emphatically sociocultural and technopolitical examinations of urbanization, leaving open the question of whether and how we should talk about the intentional design of cities. This is the challenge that Mumford takes up, proposing to offer “an account of how key figures in design responded to changing social, technical, and economic circumstances with design proposals and built projects” (2). The urbanism of the book's subtitle is for Mumford a field …
Data clustering for the high-resolution alignment of microstructure and strain fields

Abstract The emergence of small-scale deformation mapping by a combination of scanning electron microscopy and digital image correlation (SEM-DIC) has enabled full-field investigations into the complex roles of microstructure on microscale deformation mechanisms. However, these investigations are hindered by errors in alignment between the microstructure data, generally acquired by electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD), and the microscale strain data obtained by SEM-DIC. Distortions, stitching artifacts, and spatial resolution differences between microstructure and strain fields can lead to misalignments on the order of μms. This alignment uncertainty introduces error into microstructure-strain localization analyses and precludes the examination of deformation mechanisms near grain boundaries. To improve alignment between EBSD-obtained grain boundaries and SEM-DIC strain data, an approach was created wherein a mantle was first established around the EBSD-acquired grain boundaries. Strain data was then clustered within this mantle using a k-means algorithm to identify grain boundary strain localization, and these boundary points were fit to obtain a continuous curve for each individual boundary. Clustered point outliers, such as those due to grain boundary-local dislocation slip, were statistically identified by using an absolute error threshold and removed from the grain boundary fit. The resulting identification of grain boundaries in the microscale strain data is significantly improved from EBSD-identified boundaries.
Ribosome-guided piRNA production.

The ribosome decodes messenger RNAs and constructs proteins based on the genetic blueprint. Ribosomes also associate with non-coding RNAs, such as PIWI-interacting RNA (piRNA) precursors, during the meiotic pachytene stage. Intriguingly, the ribosome mediates pachytene piRNA biogenesis by guiding endonucleolytic cleavage of piRNA precursors.
Dual Lens Electron Holography, Scanning Capacitance Microscopy (SCM), Scanning Spreading Resistance Microscopy (SSRM) Comparison for Semiconductor 2-D Junction Characterization

2-D junction characterization by dual lens electron holography, scanning capacitance microscopy (SCM), and scanning spreading resistance microscopy (SSRM) on a variety of semiconductor devices is reported, including optical modulators, regular complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) devices, and SiGe hetero-junction bipolar transistors. In most cases these techniques provide comparable results, while in some instances one technique has advantages over the other and vice versa. Advantages and disadvantages of each technique are discussed.
Some Topics in Fine Particle Magnetism

Recent progress in several areas of fine particle magnetism are discussed. These are: microstructure and morphology of particles, estimates of HK distributions in particle assemblies, intrinsic surface magnetization of γ-Fe2O3 particles, anisotropy enhancement by surface treatment, and the long range magnetization order in assemblies of nominally superparamagnetic Fe particles in granular films.
The Performance of Actively Managed International Mutual Funds

International mutual funds allow individual investors to diversify abroad at a reasonable cost. This paper tests whether international funds that actively engage in country and security selection outperform passive global benchmarks. We apply a mean-variance efficiency test that incorporates the practical prohibition against short sales of open-end mutual funds. Our tests reject the efficiency of the world equity market portfolio over the sample period, and our funds as a group outperform the inefficient world index. However, we find no evidence of security selectivity ability using a 12-country benchmark. We do find that active international funds provide global diversification benefits. Tests using the Positive Period Weight (PPW) measure of Grinblatt and Titman (1989), which is robust to nonlinearity in fund and benchmark returns, yield similar results.
Legislative Responses to Unconstitutionality: Evidence from the State Level

This paper contributes to a growing literature on legislative – court relations by incorporating the state level in the analysis. J. Mitchell Pickerill (2004) and others have examined Congressional responses to court rulings declaring federal statutes to be unconstitutional. Pickerill has classified Congressional responses into three primary categories – amending the legislation to satisfy the Court, repealing the legislation, or doing nothing in response. Extending this analysis to the state level, I have assembled a list of all Minnesota, Michigan, and Wyoming statutes declared unconstitutional since 1940 by either a state or federal court. I then determined the state legislature’s response to each ruling using Pickerill’s categories. Using the state level allows analysis of whether the level of court (federal or state) makes a difference in the legislative response, as well as the source of unconstitutionality (U.S. or state constitution.) I will compare the state responses to Congressional responses and note similarities/differences. In short, I find significant differences in the response rates between states, although not in the expected directions, and between the states and the U.S. Congress. I also find that state legislatures are significantly more likely to respond to a ruling of unconstitutionality from their own state courts than they are to a similar decision from the federal courts.
The Grammatical Basis of Linguistic Performance: Language Use and Acquisition

Written primarily from the perspective of computational theory, Grammatical Basis of Linguistic Performance presents a synthesis of some major recent developments in grammatical theory and its application to models of language performance. Its main thesis is that Chomsky's government-binding theory is a good foundation for models of both machine parsing and language learnability.Both authors are at MIT. Robert C. Berwick is Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Amy Weinberg is in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy. Their book is eleventh in the series Current Studies in Linguistics.
Privacy-preserving outlier detection

Outlier detection can lead to the discovery of truly unexpected knowledge in many areas such as electronic commerce, credit card fraud and especially national security. We look at the problem of finding outliers in large distributed databases where privacy/security concerns restrict the sharing of data. Both homogeneous and heterogeneous distribution of data is considered. We propose techniques to detect outliers in such scenarios while giving formal guarantees on the amount of information disclosed.
1.27 GHz Graphene-Aluminum Nitride nano plate resonant infrared detector

This paper reports on the Infrared (IR) detection capabilities of a 1.27 GHz Graphene-Aluminum Nitride (G-AlN) nano-plate resonator. For the first time we demonstrate that by using a virtually massless graphene electrode, floating at the van der Waals separation of a few angstroms from a piezoelectric nano-plate (zero interfacial strain), it is possible to implement ultra-thin (460 nm) piezoelectric nanomechanical resonant structures operating in the GHz range with improved electromechanical performance (2X improved f·Q) and IR detection capabilities (>100X improved IR absorptance) compared to conventional devices employing metal electrodes. The demonstrated achievement of low damping, efficient electromechanical transduction and high IR responsivity, in nanomechanical resonant structures with reduced volume and higher vibration frequency, addresses one of the most fundamental challenges in the NEMS field opening exciting new directions in nanotechnology.
Credit Spread Bounds and their Implications for Credit Risk Modeling

A basic requirement for a credit risk model is that it should not imply negative default probabilities. In this paper, we explore the implications of this condition for credit risk modeling. More specifically, we use the condition as a diagnostic tool to investigate if a particular model is consistent with a given set of credit spreads. We show that under this condition, each model has two credit spread boundaries which can be calculated analytically, and the model is correctly specified if and only if the observed credit spread curve lies within the two boundaries. These analytical formulas for the boundaries also allow us to derive some general properties of a large class of credit risk models. Our study also adds to the literature on pricing defaultable claims off the default probability curve, a method widely used in practice. It is well-known that negative default probabilities frequently occur in constructions of default probability curves. Our analysis provides one possible explanation of why this problem happens and also suggests how the problem may be solved (or at least alleviated).
Influence of translation on RppH-dependent mRNA degradation in Escherichia coli.

Summary In Escherichia coli, the endonuclease RNase E can access internal cleavage sites in mRNA either directly or by a 5′ end-dependent mechanism in which cleavage is facilitated by prior RppH-catalysed conversion of the 5′-terminal triphosphate to a monophosphate, to which RNase E can bind. The characteristics of transcripts that determine which of these two pathways is primarily responsible for their decay are poorly understood. Here we report the influence of ribosome binding and translocation on each pathway, using yeiP and trxB as model transcripts. Ribosome binding to the translation initiation site impedes degradation by both mechanisms. However, because the effect on the rate of 5′ end-independent decay is greater, poor ribosome binding favours degradation by that pathway. Arresting translation elongation with chloramphenicol quickly inhibits RNase E cleavage downstream of the initiation codon but has little or no immediate effect on cleavage upstream of the ribosome binding site. RNase E binding to a monophosphorylated 5′ end appears to increase the likelihood of cleavage at sites within the 5′ untranslated region. These findings indicate that ribosome binding and translocation can have a major impact on 5′ end-dependent mRNA degradation in E. coli and suggest a possible sequence of events that follow pyrophosphate removal.
Gemcitabine Plus Cisplatin Repeating Doublet Therapy in Previously Treated, Relapsed Breast Cancer Patients

PURPOSE: To determine the safety and efficacy of gemcitabine plus cisplatin for patients with relapsed adenocarcinoma of the breast. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Previously treated patients with adenocarcinoma of the breast received cisplatin (30 mg/m2) plus gemcitabine (1,000 mg/m2) on days 1, 8, and 15 of each 28-day cycle, which was changed after patient no. 12 to cisplatin (30 mg/m2) plus gemcitabine (750 mg/m2) days 1 and 8 of each 21-day cycle. RESULTS: Of 30 patients, three (10%) had complete and 12 (40%) had partial responses, for an overall response rate of 50%. Two objective responses were observed among the four patients accrued after relapse that followed high-dose/stem-cell therapies. The median time to progression was 14 weeks. The median time to progression for objective responders was 23.5 weeks, with a range of 8 to 68 weeks. Toxicities included grades III and IV neutropenia in 13%, anemia in 6%, thrombocytopenia in 31%, grade III nausea in 4%, and grade II peripheral neuropathy in 2% of 151 tre...
Modeling pollutant formation in combustion processes

The techniques of empirical modeling of pollutant formation in various practical combustiondevices are described. The elementary reactions for nitric oxide and carbon monoxide kinetics are presented. Because these basic mechanisms are well known, they have been applied to a large number of devices. The kinetics of hydrocarbons, sulfur oxides, and particulate matter, are usually modeled by global rate equations. Most attention has been given to spark-ignition engines, gas-turbine combustors, and utility boilers. The use of direct solutions of the partial-differential equations for species, mass, momentum, and energy conservation is considered. An example of the use of these equations to predict nitric oxide formation is presented, and the prospects for further applications of direct solution techniques are discussed.