cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
EVALUATION OF FIDAP ON SOME CLASSICAL LAMINAR AND TURBULENT BENCHMARKS

The numerical accuracy of the fluid-dynamics code FIDAP is investigated by means of test computations on two-dimensional flows. The theoretical basis of the algorithm is briefly reviewed, and results for laminar flow in a wall-driven cavity and for both laminar and turbulent flows over a backward-facing step are presented in extensive tables and graphs and characterized in detail. Good agreement with published experimental data and previous computations is obtained for laminar flows using a version of FIDAP without streamlined upwinding (STU). For turbulent flows, the addition of STU is found to be useful, although it causes separation-zone reattachment length to be underpredicted.
Magnetic form factor of iron in SrFe 2 As 2

The iron magnetic form factor in ${\text{SrFe}}_{2}{\text{As}}_{2}$ has been determined by neutron diffraction and by density-functional theory (DFT). As noted previously, the magnitude of the calculated moment using DFT is sensitive to the Fe-As distance. However, the shape of the calculated form factor is practically insensitive to the Fe-As distance, and further we show that the form factor closely resembles that of bcc iron, and agrees well with experiment. The spin density exhibits some anisotropy due to geometry and As hybridization.
If a polynomial identity guarantees that every partial order on a ring can be extended, then this identity is true only for a zero-ring

In his classical 1963 book on partially ordered algebraic systems, L. Fuchs formulated the following problem (No. 29). It is known that if an abelian groupG (i.e., a group that satisfies an identityxy=yx) can be linearly ordered, then every partial order onG can be extended to a linear order. Fuchs asked whether there exists a similar polynomial identityP=0 for (associative) rings. In other words, does there exist a polynomialP with a following property: if a ringR satisfies the identityP=0, andR can be linearly ordered, then every partial order onR can be extended to a linear order? We prove that no such non-trivial polynomial identity is possible. Namely, we prove that every ringR that satisfies such an identity is a zero-ring (i.e.,xy=0 for allx, y eR).
Evaluation of Automatic Atlas-Based Lymph Node Segmentation for Head-and-Neck Cancer

Purpose To evaluate if automatic atlas-based lymph node segmentation (LNS) improves efficiency and decreases inter-observer variability while maintaining accuracy. Methods and Materials Five physicians with head-and-neck IMRT experience used computed tomography (CT) data from 5 patients to create bilateral neck clinical target volumes covering specified nodal levels. A second contour set was automatically generated using a commercially available atlas. Physicians modified the automatic contours to make them acceptable for treatment planning. To assess contour variability, the Simultaneous Truth and Performance Level Estimation (STAPLE) algorithm was used to take collections of contours and calculate a probabilistic estimate of the “true” segmentation. Differences between the manual, automatic, and automatic-modified (AM) contours were analyzed using multiple metrics. Results Compared with the “true” segmentation created from manual contours, the automatic contours had a high degree of accuracy, with sensitivity, Dice similarity coefficient, and mean/max surface disagreement values comparable to the average manual contour (86%, 76%, 3.3/17.4 mm automatic vs. 73%, 79%, 2.8/17 mm manual). The AM group was more consistent than the manual group for multiple metrics, most notably reducing the range of contour volume (106–430 mL manual vs. 176–347 mL AM) and percent false positivity (1–37% manual vs. 1–7% AM). Average contouring time savings with the automatic segmentation was 11.5 min per patient, a 35% reduction. Conclusions Using the STAPLE algorithm to generate “true” contours from multiple physician contours, we demonstrated that, in comparison with manual segmentation, atlas-based automatic LNS for head-and-neck cancer is accurate, efficient, and reduces interobserver variability.
Rational protein modification leading to resistance of enzymes to TiO2-UV irradiation-induced inactivation.

Photoexcited TiO2 degrades biomolecules such as nucleic acids, cell membrane proteins, and enzymes. Stabilization of enzyme activity against the deactivation caused by the combination of TiO2−UV is essential if we are to develop novel hybrid materials exhibiting photocatalytic and biocatalytic activities useful for decontamination applications. In this paper we describe the stabilization of a model enzyme, chymotrypsin, against TiO2−UV-induced deactivation by conjugating the enzyme with UV-absorbing, carboxyl-terminated oligo[2-[3-(2H-benzotriazol-2-yl)-4-hydroxyphenyl]ethyl methacrylate] [oligo(HBMA)-COOH]. Chymotrypsin was completely deactivated within 3 h, whereas the chymotrypsin−oligo(HBMA) conjugate retained >50% activity even after 5 h of exposure to TiO2−UV (λmax 365 nm). The degree of enzyme stabilization induced by the conjugated UV absorber was 2-fold higher than that from the equivalent number of conjugated PEG chains. Spectroscopic characterizations revealed that chymotrypsin−oligo(HBMA) abso...
Canine distemper encephalomyelitis: variation with virus strain.

Abstract Disease induced by 3 virulent strains of Canine Distemper Virus (CDV) was compared in specific pathogen-free Beagle dogs. All strains produced an encephalomyelitis but variation was observed in the severity, clinical course and resulting neuropathology. Infection with Snyder Hill strain of CDV was consistently acute; dogs either succumbed 14 to 19 days post-inoculation (PI) or recovered. Lesions in the neuraxis were those of a polioencephalomyelitis. In contrast, CDV strain A75-17 produced subacute to chronic disease in which demyelination was the predominant finding. Some dogs succumbed, generally around 28 to 42 days PI. Total recovery was again recorded for some members of the group. Others developed persistent central nervous system (CNS) infection but remained clinically stable until electively killed with barbiturate, up to 62 days PI. CDV strain R252 also induced delayed, predominantly white matter disease with a mixed pattern of mortalities, persistent infections and recoveries, similar to A75-17. Neutralizing antibody responses correlated with the disease course. Dogs which died had low serum titres or lacked serum antibody. Recovering dogs had the earliest and highest titres. A few dogs with persistent CNS infection had antibody in the cerebrospinal fluid also. Current concepts of the pathogenesis of canine distemper encephalomyelitis (CDE) are discussed and a basis for the strain-dependent clinical and pathological expression of CDE is proposed. Viral strain appears to be an important factor in this common disease of the canine CNS.
Understanding the Role of Private Speech in Children's Emotion Regulation.

Abstract Self-regulation includes both cognitive and affective components, but few researchers have investigated how these components interact to better explain self-regulation. The purpose of this study was to investigate how children's private speech, which is typically related to cognitive ability, was utilized during an emotion-eliciting task. By examining the social and private speech that occurred as children coped with a frustration task, a better understanding of how children regulate their emotional displays can be achieved. Children's speech, emotional expressions (sadness and anger), and emotion regulation strategies (distraction and self-comforting) were coded during a frustration task completed by preschool-aged children ( N = 116). Children's social speech to mothers and private speech were transcribed. Children's private speech was categorized according to five mutually exclusive categories: vocalizations, inaudible muttering, task-irrelevant, negatively valenced task-relevant, or facilitative task-relevant. Sadness was associated with more social speech and negatively valenced task-relevant private speech, whereas anger was associated with less distraction and facilitative task-relevant private speech and more vocalizations and negatively valenced task-relevant private speech. Additionally, private speech predicted unique variance beyond that explained by the emotion regulation strategies and moderated the relations of emotion regulation strategies to both anger and sadness. These empirical findings support theoretical propositions that language is a factor in children's emotion regulation. The implications of these findings include support for the encouragement of private speech in the classroom because of its relation to emotional, in addition to cognitive, regulatory functions.
Size, activity and catabolic diversity of the soil microbial biomass in a wetland complex invaded by reed canary grass

Reed canary grass (Phalaris arundinacea, L.) invasion of wetlands is an ecological issue that has received attention, but its impact on soil microbial diversity is not well documented. The present study assessed the size (substrate-induced respiration), catabolic diversity (CLPP, community level physiological profiles) and composition (selective inhibition) of the soil microbial community in invaded (>95% P. arundinacea cover) and in non-invaded areas of a wetland occupied by native species grown either as a mixed assemblage (22 species) or as quasi-monotypic stands of Scirpus cyperinus (74% cover). The study also tested the hypothesis that decomposition of lignin- and phenolics-rich plant tissues would be fastest in soils exhibiting high catabolic diversity. Results showed that soil respiration, microbial biomass and diversity were significantly higher (P < 0.03; 1.5 to 3 fold) in P. arundinacea-invaded soils than in soils supporting native plant species. Fungal to bacterial ratios were also higher in invaded (0.6) than in non-invaded (0.4) plots. Further, canonical discriminant analysis of CLPP data showed distinct communities of soil decomposers associated with each plant community. However, these differences in microbial attributes had no effect on decomposition of plant biomass which was primarily controlled by its chemical composition. While P. arundinacea invasion has substantially reduced plant diversity, this study found no parallel decline in the size and diversity of the soil microbial community in the invaded areas.
Evolutionary dynamics of finite populations in games with polymorphic fitness equilibria

The hawk-dove (HD) game, as defined by Maynard Smith [1982. Evolution and the Theory of Games. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge], allows for a polymorphic fitness equilibrium (PFE) to exist between its two pure strategies; this polymorphism is the attractor of the standard replicator dynamics [Taylor, P.D., Jonker, L., 1978. Evolutionarily stable strategies and game dynamics. Math. Biosci. 40, 145-156; Hofbauer, J., Sigmund, K., 1998. Evolutionary Games and Population Dynamics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge] operating on an infinite population of pure-strategists. Here, we consider stochastic replicator dynamics, operating on a finite population of pure-strategists playing games similar to HD; in particular, we examine the transient behavior of the system, before it enters an absorbing state due to sampling error. Though stochastic replication prevents the population from fixing onto the PFE, selection always favors the under-represented strategy. Thus, we may naively expect that the mean population state (of the pre-absorption transient) will correspond to the PFE. The empirical results of Fogel et al. [1997. On the instability of evolutionary stable states. BioSystems 44, 135-152] show that the mean population state, in fact, deviates from the PFE with statistical significance. We provide theoretical results that explain their observations. We show that such deviation away from the PFE occurs when the selection pressures that surround the fitness-equilibrium point are asymmetric. Further, we analyze a Markov model to prove that a finite population will generate a distribution over population states that equilibrates selection-pressure asymmetry; the mean of this distribution is generally not the fitness-equilibrium state.
Saturated semiconductor optical amplifier phase modulation for long range laser radar applications

We investigate the use of a semiconductor optical amplifier operated in the saturation regime as a phase modulator for long range laser radar applications. The nature of the phase and amplitude modulation resulting from a high peak power Gaussian pulse, and the impact this has on the ideal pulse response of a laser radar system, is explored. We also present results of a proof-of-concept laboratory demonstration using phase-modulated pulses to interrogate a stationary target.
Direct tissue analysis using matrix‐assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry: practical aspects of sample preparation

Practical guidelines for the preparation of tissue sections for direct analysis by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) mass spectrometry are presented. Techniques for proper sample handling including tissue storage, sectioning and mounting are described. Emphasis is placed on optimizing matrix parameters such as the type of matrix molecule used, matrix concentration, and solvent composition. Several different techniques for matrix application are illustrated. Optimal instrument parameters and the necessity for advanced data analysis approaches with regards to direct tissue analysis are also discussed.
Bifurcation to strange nonchaotic attractors

Strange nonchaotic attractors are attractors that are geometrically strange, but have nonpositive Lyapunov exponents. These attractors occur in regimes of nonzero Lebesgue measure in the parameter space of quasiperiodically driven dissipative dynamical systems. We investigate a route to strange nonchaotic attractors in systems with a symmetric invariant subspace. Assuming there is a quasiperiodic torus in the invariant subspace, we show that the loss of the transverse stability of the torus can lead to the birth of a strange nonchaotic attractor. A physical phenomenon accompanying this route to strange nonchaotic attractors is an extreme type of intermittency. We expect this route to be physically observable, and we present theoretical arguments and numerical examples with both quasiperiodically driven maps and quasiperiodically driven flows. The transition to chaos from the strange nonchaotic behavior is also studied. @S1063-651X~97!10908-4#
Human intestinal epithelial cells express receptors for platelet-activating factor

The intestinal epithelium produces and responds to cytokines and lipid mediators that play a key role in the induction and regulation of mucosal inflammation. The lipid mediator platelet-activating...
AirLand battle in the 21st century

The impact of future battlefield environment on the ability to quickly repair and return critical systems to the fight is discussed. Design requirements offer the potential of reducing critical repair periods and significantly increasing the combat power available to the battlefield commander. A battlefield consideration of design criteria is discussed from the commander's perspective. >
Loss of calbindin-D28K is associated with the full range of tangle pathology within basal forebrain cholinergic neurons in Alzheimer's disease

Basal forebrain cholinergic neurons (BFCN) are selectively vulnerable in Alzheimer's disease (AD). We have shown that most of the BFCN in the human brain contain the calcium-binding protein calbindin-D28K (CB), a large proportion lose their CB in the course of normal aging, and the BFCN which degenerate in AD lack CB. Here, we investigated the relationship between CB in the BFCN and the process of tangle formation in AD using antibodies to tau epitopes that appear early, intermediate or late in the process of tangle formation. Very small percentages (0%-3.7%) of CB-positive BFCN contained pretangles and/or tangles, and very small percentages (0%-5%) of the total BFCN pretangles and/or tangles were in CB-immunoreactive neurons. The number of CB-positive BFCN which contained tau immunoreactivity was highest for the early epitope and lower for intermediate epitopes. A late appearing epitope was absent from CB-positive BFCN. Age-related loss of CB appears to coincide with tangle formation in the BFCN and is associated with the full range of tau pathology, including late appearing epitopes.
SELLING ISSUES TO TOP MANAGEMENT

The time and attention of top management in an organization are critical, but limited, resources. This article develops insights on issue selling as a process that is central to explaining how and where top management allocates its time and attention. We see issue selling as a critical activity in the early stages of organizational decision-making processes. We first clarify the value of understanding issue selling at the individual and organizational levels and from both symbolic and instrumental perspectives. We then develop a framework for describing and studying issue selling in organizations that draws on three different theoretical perspectives: issue selling as upward influence, issue selling as claiming behaviors, and issue selling as impression management. We use the different perspectives to develop a set of testable research propositions. The article concludes with a discussion of practical and theoretical implications of the issue-selling framework.
Photoreversible Patterning of Biomolecules within Click-Based Hydrogels

Polymer-based hydrogels have emerged as a unique class of biomaterials that enable cells to be cultured in three dimensions within user-defined synthetic microenvironments.1–3 Based on the specific hydrogel formulation, the material properties of cell-laden constructs can be precisely defined to impart different moduli, chemical moieties, porosity, adhesivity, degradability, and stimuli responsiveness over nano, micro, and macroscopic scales. Cells have been engineered to proliferate within, migrate through, and undergo differentiation inside these materials by tuning the initial properties of these networks through the incorporation of physiologically relevant cues.4
The Introduction and Critical Reception of Marxist Thought in Britain, 1850–1900*

An economic theory implies an ethical system, a political purpose, and a psychological hypothesis. Throughout almost the entire nineteenth century in Britain laissez-faire capitalism, with its concomitant values of personal thrift and industry, parliamentary government, and promise of social mobility through self-improvement, was triumphant. Many, if not most, Englishmen believed that the classical political economists had discovered and formulated the ‘laws of political economy’ in the same ineluctable manner that Isaac Newton had determined the laws of physics. ‘To many’, as G. Kitson Clark has written, the political economists ‘were the best minds in the country whose teaching it was folly to question and disastrous to disobey’. However much Englishmen might deplore the social and human consequences of the operation of the ‘laws of political economy’, most were convinced that opposition to those ‘laws’ was futile.
Gender, Militarism, and Peace-Building: Projects of the Postconflict Moment

Scholars have argued for decades about the relationship between biological sex and organized violence, but feminist analysts across numerous disciplines have documented the range and variety of gendered roles in times of war. In recent years, research has brought new understanding of the rapidity with which ideas about masculinity and femininity can change in times of war and the role of militarization in constructing and enforcing the meaning of manhood and womanhood. In the post–Cold War period, “new wars” (Kaldor 1999) have mobilized gender in multiple ways, and peace-building is often managed by external humanitarian organizations. A strange disconnect exists between the massive body of scholarly research on gender, militarism, and peace-building and on-the-ground practices in postconflict societies, where essentialized ideas of men as perpetrators of violence and women as victims continue to guide much program design.
Impact of long-term political conflict on population health in Nepal

Nepal is a small Himalayan kingdom sandwiched between India and China. With a population of 25 million, of whom 90% live in rural areas, it ranks as one of the poorest countries in the world.[1][1] In 2001 Nepal's gross domestic product (GDP) was US$236 per capita, and nearly two-fifths of the
Global Shift: Reshaping the Global Economic Map in the 21st Century (4th ed.). By Peter Dicken

(2004). Global Shift: Reshaping the Global Economic Map in the 21st Century (4th ed.). By Peter Dicken. Economic Geography: Vol. 80, No. 4, pp. 411-412.
Selective Herbivore Increases Biomass of Its Prey: A Chiton‐Coralline Reef‐Building Association

The intimate association between a selective herbivore (the chiton Choneplax lata) and its primary prey (the crustose coralline alga Porolithon pachydermum) results in increased biomass and accretion of the alga. This process, over ecological and geological time scales, comprises a major component of Caribbean reef-building systems. Manipulative experiments showed that as the chiton grazes the alga it stimulates new meristematic activity and removes sporlings of the competitively superior frondose and filamentous algae, thereby increasing the survival rate of P. pachydermum on the intertidal reef crest. Furthermore, in the absence of C. lata, overgrowths of frondose and filamentous epiphytes provide an attractive food source for parrotfishes (Scaridae), which accelerates bioerosion of the coralline reef-crest structure due to the deep rasping action of feeding activity. Algal removal experiments suggest that the role of P. pachydermum is to provide a predictable food source and refuge substratum, which increases survivorship of the burrowing chiton by minimizing expenditure of energy during foraging and risk to predation. The chiton/coralline alga association is abundant throughout tropical western Atlantic islands and augments reef-building processes on the shallow algal crest portion of Caribbean reefs. Cover of the Choneplax/Porolithon association in the Belize Barrier Reef crest averages 13% (maximum to 70%) with a mean chiton density of 664 individuals/m 2 within the association. On average, the extensive networks of interconnected chiton burrows extend between 6 and 10 cm deep and contain one C. lata for every six openings, with the majority of animals (66%) ranging from 16 to 30 mm in length. Gut contents of the chiton consist predominantly of P. pachydermum (51%), followed by bacterial detritus (30%), Cyanophyta (13%), Bacillariophyta (3%), and fleshy microalgae (3%). The close SEM (scanning electron microscope) match between radular morphology of C. lata and grazing scars on the thallus surface of P. pachydermum shows how the chiton regularly feeds on the coralline alga without causing mortality. Virtually all P. pachydermum in the vicinity of C. lata burrows contain radular track scars of 10 μm in depth, whereas the photosynthetic, meristematic, and reproductive tissues of the coralline lie below 20 μm. P. pachydermum under intense chiton grazing is photosynthetically competent with 0.1 mg C fixed.g -1 organic dry mass.h -1 , which is not significantly different from ungrazed material and within the range of rates for other crustose coralline algae. The result is continuous net accretion at a mean rate of 2.3 mm/yr.
A Secret Sociotechnical System

In light of the recent furor over the US government's IT surveillance techniques--ignited by Edward Snowden, who gave details of ongoing operations that deal with email and telephone communications--Keith Miller explores ideas relevant to the case. In particular, he reviews issues that are important for IT professionals concerned with the ethical ramifications of their work.
Inhibition of Pseudomonas aeruginosa by Hyperbaric Oxygen: Interaction with Mouse Peritoneal Exudate Cells

Abstract High-pressure oxygen (HPO) therapy for Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections of burn wounds has not been as effective as in vitro studies predicted. Mitigation of HPO toxicity for P. aeruginosa by nutrients present at the burn site could explain the lack of in vivo success. Alternatively, HPO-induced depression of host defense mechanisms could negate beneficial effects arising from HPOs known toxicity for P. aeruginosa. Accordingly, mouse peritoneal exudate cells (PEC), preincubated for 24 h in 1 atm of air-CO2, were used to study the in vitro effects of HPO or air-CO2 on phagocytosis of P. aeruginosa or sheep erythrocytes (SRBC). Subsequent 2-h exposures of PEC to increasing numbers of bacteria, in an air-CO2 atmosphere, decreased the percentage of bacteria cleared as well as PEC viability. Similar exposures of PEC to bacteria in an HPO atmosphere prevented the loss of PEC viability and increased bacterial clearance. In control experiments, increasing the number of SRBC relative to PEC decreased the percentage of SRBC cleared without decreasing PEC viability, as determined under air-CO2; short (2 h) exposure to HPO did not affect SRBC clearance. Microscopic examination of PEC indicated that a 24-h preincubation in HPO decreased the percentage of PEC which could ingest SRBC during subsequent experimental exposures (2 h) to air-CO2 or HPO. These data suggest that short periods of exposure to HPO promote the ability of PEC to clear pseudomonads by adversely affecting the bacteria. This in turn prevents a pseudomonad-induced depression of PEC viability and function. In contrast, prolonged HPO exposure may be detrimental to phagocytic activity.
Automatic Construction of Building Footprints From Airborne LIDAR Data

This paper presents a framework that applies a series of algorithms to automatically extract building footprints from airborne light detection and ranging (LIDAR) measurements. In the proposed framework, the ground and nonground LIDAR measurements are first separated using a progressive morphological filter. Then, building measurements are identified from nonground measurements using a region-growing algorithm based on the plane-fitting technique. Finally, raw footprints for segmented building measurements are derived by connecting boundary points, and the raw footprints are further simplified and adjusted to remove noise caused by irregularly spaced LIDAR measurements. Data sets from urbanized areas including large institutional, commercial, and small residential buildings were employed to test the proposed framework. A quantitative analysis showed that the total of omission and commission errors for extracted footprints for both institutional and residential areas was about 12%. The results demonstrated that the proposed framework identified building footprints well
Approaches to, and Problems with, Ionic Liquid Electrolytes for Alkali Metal Electrochemical Devices: The Case of Low-Melting Chloroaluminate Binary Solutions

Despite many attempts to use ionic liquid media with dissolved lithium salts as the electrolyte component of electrochemical cells, there has been only limited success. Despite its small size, Li+ seems to be the slowest species in the electrolyte, so the cells polarize. As sodium batteries gain attention, the needed Na+-containing ionic liquid electrolytes are likely to encounter similar, but more serious, kinetic problems. Here we first review past attempts to use, as an alternative, inorganic salts and quasi-salts of high conductivity, where conductivity increases with alkali content. Then we provide a detailed study of one organic cation system which confirms and extends earlier work by the Wilkes laboratory that showed how the opposite trend applied for mixtures of NaAlCl4 with the ionic liquid ethylmethylimidazolium tetrachloroaluminate [EMI][AlCl4]. In the present work the depression of conductivity for the Na+ case is fully characterized and is discussed in terms of a 1983 coulomb field alkali trapping concept for low-melting mixtures. This itself is an adaptation of earlier molten salt electrostatic and ionic polarizability models. The apparent exceptionalism of lithium salts in inorganic quasi-ionic liquid solutions is reviewed and possible ways of sidestepping the identified problems for sodium ion conductors are considered. © 2014 The Electrochemical Society. [DOI: 10.1149/2.0471412jes] All rights reserved.
A parallel primal-dual simplex algorithm

Recently, the primal-dual simplex method has been used to solve linear programs with a large number of columns. We present a parallel primal-dual simplex algorithm that is capable of solving linear programs with at least an order of magnitude more columns than the previous work. The algorithm repeatedly solves several linear programs in parallel and combines the dual solutions to obtain a new dual feasible solution. The primal part of the algorithm involves a new randomized pricing strategy. We tested the algorithm on instances with thousands of rows and tens of millions of columns. For example, an instance with 1700 rows and 45 million columns was solved in about 2 h on 12 processors.
High failure rate of a constrained acetabular liner in revision total hip arthroplasty

Fifty-five consecutive revision total hip arthroplasties (THAs) in 51 patients in which a constrained acetabular liner was used (Duraloc Constrained Liner, DePuy, Warsaw, Ind) were reviewed. In these revisions, 41 constrained liners were placed for recurrent instability and 14 for inadequate stability at the time of revision THA. The mean age of the cohort was 62 years, and 38 of the hips were in female patients (69%). At a minimum of 2 years, 9 of the 55 hips (16%) dislocated. Of these 9 dislocations, 8 occurred in patients who had undergone revision to a constrained liner for recurrent instability without femoral or acetabular component revision. Revision THA for recurrent instability by placing a constrained liner without optimizing other aspects of the reconstruction leads to a high rate of recurrent failure.
Nonuniform sediment transport under non-breaking waves and currents

Abstract Empirical formulas have been developed to calculate the fractional bed-load and suspended-load transport rates and near-bed suspended-load concentration under non-breaking waves and currents for coastal applications. The formulas relate the bed-load transport rate to the grain shear stress, the suspended-load transport rate to the energy of the flow system, and the near-bed suspended-load concentration to the bed-load transport rate, velocity and layer thickness. Adequate methods are adopted to determine the bed shear stress due to coexisted waves and currents. The hiding and exposure mechanism in nonuniform bed material is considered through a correction factor that is related to the hiding and exposure probabilities and in turn the size composition of bed material. The developed formulas have been tested using a large database of single-sized sediment transport and several sets of multiple-sized sediment transport data collected from literature, and compared with several existing formulas. The developed formulas can provide reasonably good predictions for the test cases.
Analysis of thin beams, using the meshless local Petrov–Galerkin method, with generalized moving least squares interpolations

In this paper, the conventional moving least squares interpolation scheme is generalized, to incorporate the information concerning the derivative of the field variable into the interpolation scheme. By using this generalized moving least squares interpolation, along with the MLPG (Meshless Local Petrov–Galerkin) paradigm, a new numerical approach is proposed to deal with 4th order problems of thin beams. Through numerical examples, convergence tests are performed; and problems of thin beams under various loading and boundary conditions are analyzed by the proposed method, and the numerical results are compared with analytical solutions.
Design of a static MIMD data flow processor using micropipelines

Control-flow machines are sequential in nature, executing instructions in sequence through control of program counters, whereas data-flow machines execute instructions only as input operands are made available, a process directed at the parallelism inherent within programs. At the architecture level, data-flow machines execute instructions asynchronously. In contrast, at the implementation level, the synchronous design framework of computer systems which employs globally clocked timing discipline has reached its design limits owing to problems of clock distribution. Therefore, renewed interest has been expressed in the design of computer systems based upon an asynchronous (or self-timed) approach free of the discipline imposed by the global clock. Thus, the design of a static MIMD data-flow processor using micropipelines is presented. The implemented processor, or the micro data-flow processor, differs from processors previously reported insofar as the micro data-flow processor is wholly asynchronous at both the architectural and the implementation levels. >
Modeling social behaviors in an evacuation simulator

Building occupants perceive information about the surrounding environment and navigate for safety during emergency evacuation egress. They often choose their actions by interacting with their social groups and observing the actions of the surrounding crowd. Most egress simulators, however, ignore individuals' crowd perceptions and social interactions. This paper presents a novel platform, SAFEgress Social Agent For Egress, in which building occupants are modeled as agents who decide their evacuation actions on the basis of their knowledge of the building and their interactions with the social groups and the neighboring crowd. Results from the SAFEgress prototype show that both agents' familiarity with the building and social influence can significantly impact egress performance. By simulating different occupants' behaviors, architects and facility managers may better understand the influence of human and social factors on evacuation and consequently design safer buildings and egress procedures. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
What's Real About Virtual Reality?

Ivan Sutherland first proposed virtual reality in 1965, and in the next few years built a working system. Twenty years later, line-drawing hardware, the Polhemus tracker, and LCD tiny-TV displays made VR feasible, if costly and inadequate, for several explorers. In 1990, journalists jumped on the idea, and hype levels went out of sight. As usual with infant technologies, the realization of the early dreams and the harnessing to real work has taken longer than the wild prognostications, but it is now happening. I survey the current state-of-the-art, addressing the perennial questions of technology and applications.
Complex system design utilizing a meta-data dictionary

The design of software for complex systems requires the use of CASE tools. Meta-Data dictionaries can support the design of complex systems including design capture, conceptual tool integration, organizational learning, system architecture and re-engineering, by providing a central store for all (core) enterprise data This data can then be managed so as to be consistent and re-usable, with tools configured to store their results in the repository. Individual tools can be strongly or loosely coupled with the meta-database (as the problem warrants). In essence, the meta-database will maintain abstractions of the information existing in the individual tools. (It should be noted that we do not propose an environment in which tools are completely integrated, but rather one in which few key elements of information are shared between tool and the meta-database). In this research, a multilevel approach is taken to the design of the meta-data dictionary.
The Platform Formation Problem

Today’s globally competitive world of manufacturing requires participating firms to introduce an increasing number of products with shorter life span, at a lower cost, in an environment where demands are uncertain and with shorter lead times to fulfill those demands. One approach towards meeting these demands is the use of mass customization, specifically the platform based design and production strategy. This chapter presents the platform design problem in which a platform is created with the objective of producing a family of products at a minimum cost. By using the platform every product variant in the family is assembled either directly from its components or from the platform. Three methods for developing such a platform-based strategy are described: design of a single platform, design of multiple platforms, and design of a single platform while considering demand uncertainty.
acCOMICating Science: Larry Gonick’s ‘Cartoon Guides’ as Models of Science Textbooks in Comics Form

This article argues for the use of the comics form in science textbooks to address the concerns that Thomas Kuhn (1996), Paul Feyerabend (2002) and Bruno Latour (1987 raise about science education. To effectively address those concerns, this article synthesizes the arguments that each of these philosophers of science address to situate the theoretical perspectives that inform the rest of this article. Afterwards, the article goes on to describe the theoretical perspectives of comics that inform how this form opens the problem of black boxes by showing science in action. Finally, three examples from Larry Gonick‟s (2005) The Cartoon Guide to Physics present the ways in which the comics form can enhance science education. While further research may be needed, this article seeks to lay the groundwork for a science textbook in the comics form that shows (visually) science in action and partially engages students‟ awareness of scientific development, including revolutions and the black boxes of paradigms.
Penalized weighted low-rank approximation for robust recovery of recurrent copy number variations

Copy number variation (CNV) analysis has become one of the most important research areas for understanding complex disease. With increasing resolution of array-based comparative genomic hybridization (aCGH) arrays, more and more raw copy number data are collected for multiple arrays. It is natural to realize the co-existence of both recurrent and individual-specific CNVs, together with the possible data contamination during the data generation process. Therefore, there is a great need for an efficient and robust statistical model for simultaneous recovery of both recurrent and individual-specific CNVs. We develop a penalized weighted low-rank approximation method (WPLA) for robust recovery of recurrent CNVs. In particular, we formulate multiple aCGH arrays into a realization of a hidden low-rank matrix with some random noises and let an additional weight matrix account for those individual-specific effects. Thus, we do not restrict the random noise to be normally distributed, or even homogeneous. We show its performance through three real datasets and twelve synthetic datasets from different types of recurrent CNV regions associated with either normal random errors or heavily contaminated errors. Our numerical experiments have demonstrated that the WPLA can successfully recover the recurrent CNV patterns from raw data under different scenarios. Compared with two other recent methods, it performs the best regarding its ability to simultaneously detect both recurrent and individual-specific CNVs under normal random errors. More importantly, the WPLA is the only method which can effectively recover the recurrent CNVs region when the data is heavily contaminated.
Ionizing radiation modifies immune-related molecular profiles of tumor-derived exosomes

Meeting abstracts Exosomes are microvesicles (30-100nm) released from living cells that shuttle and transfer selected cellular biomolecules, including cytokines, cell surface molecules, growth factors, mRNA, and miRNA. Tumor-derived exosomes (TEX) allow for a sophisticated means of communication
Election 2008: Civic Engagement and Political Science Experiential Learning at Consortium Universities

In the hyper political environment of Washington, DC, the Washington Higher Education Secretariat (WHES) is a consortium of 50 post secondary higher education organizations. As the representative body of higher education in the Washington, DC, the WHES is comprised of organizations that are consortiums of colleges and universities. National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education is one such consortium that represents 103 Historically Black Colleges and Universities that serve primarily communities of color. With the historic election of President Barack Obama, the 1st African American elected as President of the United States of America, the questions arise was there a connection between the increase African American youth voter turnout and the students at targeted HBCUs. This research paper identifies the multiplicity of ways that a sample population of these students participated in civic engagement in the ramp up to and during the 2008 Presidential elections. It also asks and seeks to answer the question: in what ways, if any, did the students experience connectivity between in-class teaching and learning and their political experiences? From this data set, the researcher seeks to extrapolate and report out functional, effective and/or best practices for bridging experiential learning and in classroom teaching and learning, from the students’ perspective. This work should contribute to the literature on experiential learning.
Assessing student learning in software engineering

Program assessment plays a key role in measuring student learning and improving the program. Assessing programs is an iterative and incremental process that consists of a series of activities conducted by stakeholders such as faculty members, students and alumni. These activities include defining learning outcomes, developing assessment methods and rubrics, conducting assessment, analyzing assessment results, and recommending actions for change. Over two years, we, as the software engineering group in the Computer Science Department, assessed four student learning outcomes relating software engineering. In this paper, we describe our assessment activities for two learning outcomes: 1) Demonstrate an understanding of the principles and practices for software design and development; 2) Be able to apply the principles and practices for software design and development to real world problems.
Impact of Adjuvant Endocrine Therapy on Quality of Life and Symptoms: Observational Data Over 12 Months From the Mind-Body Study

PurposeTo examine patterns of health and symptoms associated with the initiation of adjuvant endocrine therapy (ET) for primary breast cancer treatment.Patients and MethodsThe mind-body study (MBS) observational cohort participants provided self-reported data on physical and mental health, ET-related symptoms, as well as depression, fatigue, and sleep obtained at enrollment (after primary treatment, prior to initiation of ET) and 6 and 12 months later. Longitudinal trajectories of outcome variables among three patient groups (no ET, aromatase inhibitor [AI], or tamoxifen) were compared by using linear mixed models.ResultsTwo-thirds of the 186 women initiated ET, which was evenly split between AI and tamoxifen, and no significant differences were observed in self-reported measures among the groups at baseline or in covariate-adjusted analyses. Physical health scores were below normative levels initially and improved over time, but the AI group had a significantly lower score at 12 months (P = .05); mental ...
1984 Survey of Kansas Law: Torts

During the survey period Kansas appellate courts decided more than one hundred torts cases. Not all of them can be discussed in this survey. Some will be discussed because they relate to major areas of relatively new development, such as comparative fault, products liability, and the Kansas Tort Claims Act. Others involve more limited, but important interpretations in well established areas of the law. Finally, a few cases will be included simply because I found them to be interesting.
Seventeenth-Century Science and Spinoza’s Break with Judaism

This section of Robert M. Seltzer’s book “Jewish People, Jewish Thought” centers in on a period in history known as “The Enlightenment”. Here it seems that Seltzer’s first goal is to provide a context for which to place this section’s main character, Baruch Spinoza. Thus, with broad strokes Seltzer’s paints a picture of history during it’s a period of religious strife. He points to men like Copernicus's, Isaac Newton and their ideological conflict with Aristotelian science. In other words, Aristotle’s belief that the earth was the center of the universe was being challenged by new mathematical principles combined with modern philosophy, which indicated that the sun was the center of the universe; and also suggested that reason knowledge would offer humanity a more reliable formula for salvation. Hence, a salvation not dependent on God’s actions but simply on mans intellectual progressive procession generally accepted theory of the day. Seltzer writes, “Seventeenth-century science fostered a feeling of liberation from the authority of the past” (548).
Tensile Stress—Strain Measurements for Characterization of Gum Elastomers and Filled Compounds

Abstract For a gum elastomer in its amorphous, isotropic state, shear modulus and tensile modulus are related with a factor of three. This relation is maintained in the range of temperature and time scale defining the rubbery region of the material behavior. When a large deformation is imposed, for example, in tensile stress—strain measurements, the above relation may still be preserved, if the nonlinear behavior can be linearized. The strain—time correspondence principle is the linearization scheme of this work. When a gum elastomer contains various structural constraints, the factor three relation does not apply, even after the application of the above linearization scheme. Example of constraints are excessive amounts of long branches, gel, molecular associations, and reinforcing fillers. These constraints usually make the factor larger than three. This is because the constraints make the large, elongational deformation more difficult to achieve compared to shear deformation. An example of gum elastomer...
An empirical algorithm for relative value iteration for average-cost MDPs

Infinite-horizon average-cost Markov decision processes are of interest in many scenarios. A dynamic programming algorithm, called the relative value iteration, is used to compute the optimal value function. For large state spaces, this often runs into difficulties due to its computational burden. We propose a simulation-based dynamic program called empirical relative value iteration (ERVI). The idea is very simple: replace the expectation in the Bellman operator with a sample average estimate, and then use projection to ensure boundedness of the iterates. We establish that the ERVI iterates converge to the optimal value function in the span-seminorm in probability as the number of samples taken goes to infinity. Simulation results show remarkably good performance even with a small number of samples.
Advanced Embedded Instrumentation for Gas Turbine Engines

Measurement of internal flow-field characteristics in gas turbine engines can be quite valuable in assessing engine performance, particularly during development or component improvement testing. Recent diagnostics development efforts at the Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC) have included advancements in flow-field probe miniaturization and measurement techniques for embedded applications in gas turbine engine testing. Examples of these development efforts include 1) an embedded probe that can be configured either for imaging (visual, UV, and IR) or as an optical platform (laser transmit/receive), 2) a miniature swirl probe for localized flow angularity determination, and 3) a probe-based optical system that incorporates the laser diode absorption technique for enhanced chemical species and temperature measurements. These probe configurations and other efforts in miniature probe development, including embedded sensor progress and advances in optical techniques that may be applied to internal flow-field measurements in gas turbine engines, are discussed in this paper.