cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Tree island pattern formation in the Florida Everglades

Abstract The Florida Everglades freshwater landscape exhibits a distribution of islands covered by woody vegetation and bordered by marshes and wet prairies. Known as “tree islands”, these ecogeomorphic features can be found in few other low gradient, nutrient limited freshwater wetlands. In the last few decades, however, a large percentage of tree islands have either shrank or disappeared in apparent response to altered water depths and other stressors associated with human impacts on the Everglades. Because the processes determining the formation and spatial organization of tree islands remain poorly understood, it is still unclear what controls the sensitivity of these landscapes to altered conditions. We hypothesize that positive feedbacks between woody plants and soil accretion are crucial to emergence and decline of tree islands. Likewise, positive feedbacks between phosphorus (P) accumulation and trees explain the P enrichment commonly observed in tree island soils. Here, we develop a spatially-explicit model of tree island formation and evolution, which accounts for these positive feedbacks (facilitation) as well as for long range competition and fire dynamics. It is found that tree island patterns form within a range of parameter values consistent with field data. Simulated impacts of reduced water levels, increased intensity of drought, and increased frequency of dry season/soil consuming fires on these feedback mechanisms result in the decline and disappearance of tree islands on the landscape.
Effects of Hardiness and Years of Military Service on Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms in U.S. Army Medics

We examined the effects of hardiness on symptoms of posttraumatic stress (PTS) in postdeployed U.S. Army medics (N = 322). Medics endure a high level of work-related stress on and off the battlefie...
Confounding in General Factorial Experiments

In this chapter discusses confounding in single replicate experiments in which at least one factor has more than two levels. First, the case of three-levelled factors is considered and the techniques are then adapted to handle m-levelled factors, where m is a prime number. Next, pseudofactors are introduced to facilitate confounding for factors with non-prime numbers of levels. Asymmetrical experiments involving factors or pseudofactors at both two and three levels are also considered, as well as more complicated situations where the treatment factors have a mixture of 2, 3, 4, and 6 levels. Analysis of an experiment with partial confounding is illustrated using the SAS and R software packages
No evidence of compensatory drug use risk behavior among heroin users after receiving take-home naloxone

Abstract Introduction Some fear that distribution of naloxone to persons at risk of experiencing an opioid overdose may reduce the perceived negative consequences of drug use, leading to riskier patterns of use. This study assessed whether participation in naloxone/overdose training altered drug use frequency, quantity or severity among heroin users in and out of treatment. Methods Clinical interviews were performed assessing patterns of heroin and other drug use prior to, and at multiple timepoints after overdose education and naloxone training. This study compared baseline drug use to that at 1 and 3 months post training. Results Both current heroin users ( n = 61) and former users in agonist maintenance ( n = 69) typically showed decreases in heroin and polydrug use at both 1 and 3 months after training. The Addiction Severity Index drug composite score also decreased at follow up. Conclusions This analysis found no evidence of compensatory drug use following naloxone/overdose training among two groups of heroin users. These findings support the acceptance and expansion of naloxone distribution to at-risk populations and may assist in allaying concerns about the potential for unintended negative consequences on drug use.
Ecology of Microorganisms in Freshwater

Freshwaters are defined as natural waters containing less than 1,000 mg per liter of dissolved solids, most often salt. Globally, freshwaters are scarce commodities and make up only 0.009% of the earth’s total water. Although they generate only about 3% of the earth’s total primary biological productivity, they contain about 40% of the world’s known fish species. Natural freshwaters are classifiable into atmospheric, surface, and underground waters each type having a unique microbial ecology. Atmospheric waters lose their microorganisms as they fall as rain or snow. Surface freshwaters are found in rivers and lakes, and contain large and diverse groups of microorganisms. Using molecular methods such as 16S rRNA analysis, which enables the study of unculturable microorganisms, new information regarding freshwater microbial ecology has emerged in recent times: There are more phylogenetic groups of bacteria than are observed by cultural methods; there is a unique and distinct bacterial group, which can be termed “typical freshwater bacteria”; contrary to previous knowledge when aquatic bacteria were thought to be mostly Gram-negative bacteria, Gram-positive bacteria are in fact abundant in freshwaters; finally, marine-freshwater transitional populations exist in coastal waters. Ground waters suffer contamination from chemicals and less from microorganisms; the deeper the groundwater, the less likely it is to contain microorganisms, which are filtered away by soil.
Transcatheter bicuspid aortic valve replacement in Turner syndrome: A unique experience of interventional cardiologist.

Abstract A 69-year-old short-statured Turner syndrome (TS) patient with a history of poliomyelitis in childhood and moderate bicuspid aortic stenosis (BAS) reported worsening dyspnea and fatigue over six months. A repeat transthoracic echocardiogram revealed progression to severe aortic stenosis with dilated ascending aorta (AA). As part of the work-up for aortic valve replacement, the patient underwent cardiac catheterization, which revealed a severely calcified AV with an area of 0.5 sq. cm and a mean gradient of 37 mmHg. On coronary angiography, there was 70% stenosis of the proximal left anterior descending artery (LAD). Due to poor rehabilitation potential, she was deemed high-risk for surgical aortic valve replacement. A recommendation for transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) with stenting of the proximal LAD was made. Dilated AA was managed conservatively with serial noninvasive imaging. The patient underwent TAVR with Edwards-Sapien valve (23 mm S3) and stenting of proximal LAD. The procedure was successful without complications. To our knowledge, our patient is the first case of TAVR in BAS with aortopathy in TS.
Response error and the Medicaid undercount in the current population survey.

Objective To measure the Medicaid undercount and analyze response error in the 2007-2011 Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS ASEC). Data sources/study setting Medicaid Statistical Information System (MSIS) 2006-2010 enrollment data linked to the 2007-2011 CPS ASEC person records. Study design By linking individuals across datasets, we analyze false-negative error and false-positive error in reports of Medicaid enrollment. We use regression analysis to identify factors associated with response error in the 2011 CPS ASEC. Principal findings We find that the Medicaid undercount in the CPS ASEC ranged between 22 and 31% from 2007 to 2011. In 2011, the false-negative rate was 40%, and 27% of Medicaid reports in CPS ASEC were false positives. False-negative error is associated with the duration of enrollment in Medicaid, enrollment in Medicare and private insurance, and Medicaid enrollment in the survey year. False-positive error is associated with enrollment in Medicare and shared Medicaid coverage in the household. Conclusions Survey estimates of Medicaid enrollment and estimates of the uninsured population are affected by both false-positive response error and false-negative response error, and these response errors are non-random.
Successful Teachers of the Gifted

The purpose of this study was to analyze selected characteristics of high school teachers who were identified as successful by intellectually gifted high achieving students, and to discover what di...
Verilog-A compatible recurrent neural network model for transient circuit simulation

This paper presents a method for data-driven behavioral modeling of electronic circuits using recurrent neural networks (RNNs). The RNN structure is adapted based on known characteristics of the system being modeled. The discrete-time RNN is transformed to a continuous-time model and then implemented in Verilog-A for compatibility with general-purpose circuit simulators.
The Effects of Risk and Role on Users’ Anticipated Emotions in Safety-Critical Systems

Users of safety-critical systems often need to make risky decisions in real-time. However, current system designs do not sufficiently take users’ emotions into account. This lack of consideration may negatively influence a user’s decision-making and undermine the effectiveness of such a “human-computer collaboration.” In a two-way, 2 (role: operator/system administrator) \(\times \) 3 (risk level: high/medium/low) factorial study, we investigated the intensity of 44 emotions anticipated by 296 Mechanical Turk users who imagined being the (1) operator or (2) administrator of a drone system identifying (a) enemies on a battlefield, (b) illegal immigrants or (c) whale pods. Results indicated that risk level had a significant main effect on ratings of negative individualistic and negative prosocial emotions. Participants assigned to the high risk scenario anticipated more intense negative individualistic (e.g., nervous) and negative prosocial (e.g., resentful, lonely) emotions and less intense positive (e.g., happy, proud) emotions than participants assigned to the medium and low risk scenarios. We discuss the implications of our findings for the design of safety-critical systems.
Spin-Spin Correlation Functions for the Two-Dimensional Ising Model

We give a simplified derivation of an exact expression for the spin-spin correlation function of the two-dimensional Ising model suitable for studying large spin separation for T<TC.
The Blood-Brain Barrier in Brain Injury: An Overview

The blood-brain barrier functionally resides in the cerebral vascular endothelium which creates a dynamic regulatory interface between the blood and brain tissue front. As has been long recognized, the cerebral vascular endothelium, unlike endothelial cells found in other vascular beds, lacks numerous fenestrae and vesicles and further adjacent endothelial cells are joined by tight junctions creating a continuous endothelial membranous interface between the blood and brain tissue. As would be anticipated, this continuous endothelial sheet permits the passage of only those solutes that are lipid soluble, of low molecular weight and not highly ionized. Nutrients, on the other hand, which are polar compounds cannot easily cross through such a continuous membrane. This potential problem, however, has been obviated by tlie existence of multiple carrier systems that allow for the facilitated diffusion of the various nutrients from blood to brain front. To date, seven carrier-mediated systems have been identified allowing for the passage of glucose, monocarboxylic acids, neutral amino acids, basic amino acids, purine bases, amines and nucleosides (Pardridge, 1985). These carriers are believed to exist on both the luminal and abluminal endothelial membranes, allowing for effective flux of nutrients from blood to brain and brain to blood. In addition to these facilitated transport mechanisms, active transport has also been demonstrated in relation to the blood-brain barrier. However, in this case, this energy requiring process is believed confined to the abluminal endothelial surface. Here it is envisioned that active transport functions to remove potassium against a concentration gradient from the brain microenvironment to the blood front. Similarly, it has also been speculated that damaging excitatory amino acids such as glutamate are selectively sequestered and moved from the brain to blood front via such active transport mechanisms (Pardridge, 1979).
Life history and population dynamics of kinbergonuphis simoni polychaeta onuphidae

The relationship between life-history characteristics and population dynamics were investigated in the onuphid polychaeteKinbergonuphis simoni (Santos, Day and Rice) between 1982 and 1987. The studied population is located in Upper Tampa Bay, Florida, USA. This worm attains sexual maturity at 5 to 10 mo of age, depending on temperature. Several consecutive broods are produced during a female's life time, with 7 to 26 young per brood. Adults die in June–July after the breeding season. Generations of breeding individuals do not overlap and the replacement of generations occurs in July–August. Only one extended breeding season is experienced per life time. Life span does not exceed 2 yr. Field population density in 1982 was high in fall and spring (2000 to 9000 individuals/m2), low in summer (1600 individuals/m2), and slightly depressed in winter (2500 to 4000 individuals/m2). Changes in population density may be explained by seasonal, temperature-controlled changes in instantaneous birth and death rates. Birth rates are high in fall and spring, while death rates are high in early summer. Death of juveniles contributes to the winter density decrease.
Cellular evaluation of the antioxidant activity of U.S. Pecans [Carya illinoinensis (Wangenh.) K. Koch]

Abstract Clinical trials show an inverse relationship between the consumption of antioxidant-rich tree nuts and the development of chronic diseases. This study examined antioxidant efficacy of U.S. pecans using a modified cellular antioxidant activity (CAA) assay with comparisons to data from in vitro antioxidant assays (hydrophilic-oxygen radical absorbance capacity {H-ORACFL} and ferric reducing antioxidant power {FRAP}). Crude phenolic extracts from both raw and roasted pecans were analyzed. In the CAA assay, pecan phenolics were taken up by human colorectal adenocarcinoma (Caco-2) cells and bestowed CAA, determined by monitoring the fluorescence of 2′,7′-dichlorofluorescein. Phenolics (25–100 μg/mL) demonstrated a reduction in fluorescence by 37–69% for raw and 26–68% for roasted pecans. The primary active phenolic constituents were determined by high-performance liquid chromatography–electrospray ionization–mass spectrometry (HPLC–ESI–MS) to be epi(catechin) dimers and trimers. These oligomeric procyanidins, ranging in size from 560 to 840 g/mol appear to be small enough for cellular uptake, showing pecans are an effective antioxidant in biological systems, regardless of roasting.
Cost Structure and the Usefulness of Earnings

We investigate the relation between the usefulness of earnings and a firm’s cost structure. We document that firms with a greater proportion of fixed to variable costs, a higher degree of operating leverage, report more volatile earnings and are more likely to aggressively recognize revenue to meet earnings thresholds. We then show that the usefulness of earnings to external users decreases in the degree of operating leverage and that this decrease stems from the effect of cost structure on earnings volatility and aggressive revenue recognition. Our results illuminate how firm fundamentals influence a firm’s information environment and the usefulness of earnings to external users.
Publisher Correction: Base editing: precision chemistry on the genome and transcriptome of living cells

The originally published article contained errors in reference numbering throughout table 1 (DNA base editors and their approximate editing windows) due to the unintended propagation of reference numbering from an earlier version of the table. The article has now been corrected online. The editors apologize for this error.
Cosmopolitan Ideas: Grieg, MacDowell, and a Tale of Weary Men

Though seldom acknowledged in existing literature, Grieg and MacDowell shared a similar goal of dismantling the label of “national artist” in favor of constructing a broader cosmopolitan identity. As their correspondence candidly acknowledges, this struggle did not occur in isolation. Each composer fostered a multilayered worldview based upon the values concurrently advanced by their literary colleagues, including Hamlin Garland and Arne Garborg. An intertextual analysis of the cosmopolitan conditions that simultaneously emerged across disciplinary boundaries will illustrate their similar methods for manufacturing new modes of heterogeneity amidst the shifting of cultural borders. This approach will permit one to better understand the process of marking and unmarking identities in an environment inundated by overlapping (and frequently competing) affiliations. Taken together, this chapter argues for the significance of negotiation over nostalgia, stylistic mixture over division, and disciplinary fusion over separation—all of which flourished within the transatlantic circles of cosmopolitanism.
Abstract 116: Mybphl is a Novel Myofilament Component Implicated in Arrhythmia and Dilated Cardiomyopathy

Dilated cardiomyopathy is under significant genetic influence. Using whole-genome sequencing, we found a premature stop variant (R255X) in the MYBPHL gene in a family with DCM and conduction system...
Programmable solid-state storage in future cloud datacenters

Programmable software-defined solid-state drives can move computing functions closer to storage.
Species occurrence and distribution of Trichoptera (caddisflies) in California

A formal list of the caddisflies of California has not been published since 1956, at which time just over 170 species were included. Since then, the estimate of Trichoptera richness in the state has doubled. We used just under 7,000 digital records from online repositories and museum databases to compile a preliminary faunal list. To gain a broader view of the distribution of caddisflies in California, we augmented this dataset with almost 46,000 larval biomonitoring records for Trichoptera from the California Digital Exchange Network. We compared this digital species list derived from collection records to three existing literature resources: Donald Denning’s original species list from 1956, a list by Donald Burdick in 2010, and the published records documented in the Distributional Checklist of Nearctic Trichoptera by Rasmussen & Morse in 2018. The California species richness for Trichoptera based on these resources is 333 species, with another 69 taxa occurring in collections that require expert review of the material before adding to these totals. Monitoring data, although extensive, did not contribute to the species list, but highlighted differences in collection location emphasis. Digital records can be powerful tools for compiling preliminary taxa and distribution lists, but oftentimes only partial verbatim label information (i.e. not containing full localities) limits further spatial analysis.
Statistical Analysis of Survival Models Using Feature Quantification on Prostate Cancer Histopathological Images.

Background: Grading of prostatic adenocarcinoma is based on the Gleason scoring system and the more recently established prognostic grade groups. Typically, prostate cancer grading is performed by pathologists based on the morphology of the tumor on hematoxylin and eosin (H and E) slides. In this study, we investigated the histopathological image features with various survival models and attempted to study their correlations. Methods: Three texture methods (speeded-up robust features, histogram of oriented gradient, and local binary pattern) and two convolutional neural network (CNN)-based methods were applied to quantify histopathological image features. Five survival models were assessed on those image features in the context with other prostate clinical prognostic factors, including primary and secondary Gleason patterns, prostate-specific antigen levels, age, and clinical tumor stages. Results: Based on statistical comparisons among different image features with survival models, image features from CNN-based method with a recurrent neural network called CNN-long-short-term memory provided the highest hazard ratio of prostate cancer recurrence under Cox regression with an elastic net penalty. Conclusions: This approach outperformed the other image quantification methods listed above. Using this approach, patient outcomes were highly correlated with the histopathological image features of the tissue samples. In future studies, we plan to investigate the potential use of this approach for predicting recurrence in a wider range of cancer types.
Wives' Lawsuits Addressing Husband Drunkenness: Tempered by Gender Standards, 1850-1910

This Note explores wives' lawsuits in response to male drunkenness between 1850 and 1910. These suits were notable in part because of the existing common law rule of coverture that denied a woman's legal existence during marriage. The Note argues that prior to the major waves of temperance reform in the twentieth century, American courts devised creative legal solutions providing relief to wives that reflected the courts' desire to achieve a socially accepted balance between protecting women and upholding male authority within the family. It finds that the courts shaped dram shop, divorce, and dower remedies both to address the incapacity of drunken husbands and to protect male privilege to a certain extent. While scholars have studied how men enjoyed immunities from prosecution for chastisement, they have not explored the historical civil remedies available to wives for male addiction to alcohol. INTRODUCTION 142 I. ALCOHOLISM, DOMESTIC INSTABILITY, AND ABSENCE OF STATE INTERVENTION 146 A. Male Alcoholism: Financial and Social Insecurity in the Home.... 146 B. The Lack of Reform-Oriented State Programs: Courts as a Resource 147 C. Gendered Duties and Civil Remedies for Husband Drunkenness.. 148 II. THIRD-PARTY LIABILITY: DRAM SHOP STATUTES AND HUSBAND MISCONDUCT 150 A. Results: Plaintiff-Wife Standing and Significant Damages 152 f Yale Law School, J.D. expected 2016; Fordham University, B.A. 2013. 1 am very thankful to Claire Priest for her dedicated supervision and insightful suggestions during the writing process. I am also grateful to John Nann and Julie Graves Krishnaswami for their very helpful direction during the researching phase. I would additionally like to thank Robert Harrison and Noah Messing for their early and useful feedback on content and form. In particular, I express my gratitude to the members of the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism for their detailed and committed editing efforts. Copyright © 2015 by the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism Yale Journal of Law and Feminism B. Courts' Preference for Dram Shop Statute Claims: A Lighter Burden of Proof 153 C. The Limits of Dram Shop Liability 155 III. DIVORCE AS AN ALTERNATIVE 156 A. Incomplete Divorce: Infrequency of Separation from Bed and Board Suits Related to Drunkenness 156 B. Judicial Limits on Divorce: Procedural Constraints on Wives' Suits . ...... 158 C. Divorce Suits Against Wives: Uncommon, but Also Molded by the Language of Domesticity ....... 161 IV. SHAPING DOWER TO MAINTAIN FAMILIAL STABILITY .... 163 CONCLUSION: SUMMARY AND FURTHER RESEARCH ...... 164
Endocannabinoid degradation inhibitors ameliorate neuronal and synaptic alterations following traumatic brain injury

This study elucidates neuronal properties altered by traumatic brain injury (TBI) in layer 5 of sensorimotor cortex, which may be implicated in post-TBI circuit dysfunction. We compared effects of ...
Camera Intrinsic Parameters Estimation by Visual–Inertial Odometry for a Mobile Phone With Application to Assisted Navigation

The increasing computing and sensing capabilities of modern mobile phones have spurred research interests in developing new visual–inertial odometry (VIO) techniques to turn a smartphone into a self-contained vision-aided inertial navigation system for various applications. Smartphones nowadays use cameras with optical image stabilization (OIS) technology to reduce image blurs. However, the mechanism may result in varying camera intrinsic parameters (CIP), which must be taken into account in VIO computation. In this article, we first develop a linear model to relate the CIP with the inertial measurement unit measured acceleration. Based on the model, we introduce a new VIO method, called CIP-VMobile, which treats CIP as state variables and tightly couples them with other state variables in a graph optimization process to estimate the optimal state. The method uses the linear model to construct a factor graph and uses the linear-model-computed values as initial CIP estimates to speed up the VIO computation and attain a better pose estimation result. Simulation and experimental results with an iPhone 7 validate the method's efficacy. Based on CIP-VMobile, we fabricated a robotic navigation aid (RNA) based on an iPhone 7 for assisted navigation. Experimental results with the RNA demonstrate CIP-VMobile's promise in real-world navigation applications.
Labeling Mathematical Errors to Reveal Cognitive States

While technology can enhance learning, ironically, many online systems occlude learners' cognitive states because instructors do not directly observe students solving problems. In this paper, we show how we utilized an online mathematics homework system where students simply provided final answers to exercises. We then asked, "What can we infer about the cognitive state of the student if they gave an incorrect response?" Through data mining techniques, we found we were able to ascribe a particular type of mechanical error or misconception to 60-75% of the incorrect responses learners made on the subset of problems we analyzed. As such, we illustrate methods for extracting this data to discover knowledge components embedded in an exercise, expose item bias, and reveal learners' cognitive states.
Long-range chromatin interactions control trophoblast-restricted HLA-G expression during pregnancy (IRM6P.657)

Human pregnancy poses an immunological paradox: at the fetal-maternal interface, semi-allogeneic fetal extravillous trophoblasts (EVT) invade the uterine mucosa without being rejected by the maternal immune system. HLA-G is a nonclassical MHC class I molecule specifically expressed on the surface of EVT and is believed to be a key to fetus-induced immune tolerance. However, the EVT-specific expression of HLA-G is still poorly understood. A novel enhancer more than 10 kb upstream of HLA- G, Enhancer L , was discovered via dissection of the HLA-G locus using a Massively Parallel Reporter Assay (MPRA). DNase I Hypersensitive Site (DHS) mapping, Chromosome Conformation Capture (3C) and reporter gene assays established Enhancer L as a cell type-specific enhancer that loops into the HLA-G classical promoter. Strikingly, deletion of Enhancer L using a CRISPR/Cas9 dual guide approach results in complete ablation of HLA-G expression. Saturation mutagenesis of Enhancer L revealed the existence of motifs for transcription factors paramount in trophoblast development. Two of them, GATA2 and CEBPB, associate with Enhancer L and the HLA-G classical promoter, and are absolutely required for HLA-G expression. Interestingly, progesterone upregulates HLA-G , as well as GATA2 , via a nonclassical membrane progesterone receptor complex in trophoblasts. These findings shed light on the mechanism by which HLA-G is specifically expressed in invasive trophoblasts during pregnancy.
Theory & Methods: Semi-parametric modelling and likelihood estimation with estimating equations

This paper proposes a semi-parametric modelling and estimating method for analysing censored survival data. The proposed method uses the empirical likelihood function to describe the information in data, and formulates estimating equations to incorporate knowledge of the underlying distribution and regression structure. The method is more flexible than the traditional methods such as the parametric maximum likelihood estimation (MLE), Cox’s (1972) proportional hazards model, accelerated life test model, quasi-likelihood (Wedderburn, 1974) and generalized estimating equations (Liang & Zeger, 1986). This paper shows the existence and uniqueness of the proposed semi-parametric maximum likelihood estimates (SMLE) with estimating equations. The method is validated with known cases studied in the literature. Several finite sample simulation and large sample efficiency studies indicate that when the sample size is larger than 100 the SMLE is compatible with the parametric MLE; and in all case studies, the SMLE is about 15% better than the parametric MLE with a mis-specified underlying distribution.
Optimal design of groundwater remediation systems using fuzzy set theory

[1] In this study we use fuzzy sets to describe uncertainty in aquifer parameters and demonstrate the use of this information in optimal design of pump-and-treat systems. On the basis of uncertainty in aquifer parameters, two optimization models are formulated, where pumping rates are represented as either deterministic or fuzzy decision variables. Both models with fuzzy constants and fuzzy variables are then transformed into computationally efficient algorithms through the application of fuzzy set theory. The resulting models are solved by optimization algorithms such as golden section search, genetic algorithm (GA), and direct comparison methods. Several examples are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the models and algorithms presented in this study. The numerical results, which are also compared with the results obtained from probabilistic analysis, show that the optimal solutions obtained from both models provide flexible and reliable pump-and-treat strategies and may increase the effectiveness of the remediation system under uncertainty.
The frequency distribution of availability

Availability is probably the most informative indicator of performance for repairable devices. The construction and study of availability measures is usually focused on understanding the time evolution of device status-often relative to the efficiency of the repair process. It is not generally acknowledged that the resulting availability measure is actually an expected value with respect to frequency. At any point in time and with any associated value for availability, the number of copies of a device that is functioning is a random variable. The behavior of this random variable is the subject of the study described in the paper. The intuitive view that the frequency distribution of operating devices is binomial is confirmed. This is done using a combination of direct analysis and simulation for negative exponential and Weibull life distributions under the assumption of negative exponential repair time distributions. An efficient numerical strategy for computing availability in the Weibull case is constructed and provided as an ancillary result. The implications of the analysis are that more accurate models of device behavior in terms of frequency are defined including exact confidence bounds for availability at any point in time. In addition, the time evolution of the frequency distribution is described and the implications of this evolution for decision analysis are identified. The result of the analyses presented is a new perspective on availability that should prove quite useful. >
Band limited functions on quantum graphs

The notion of band limited functions is introduced on a quantum graph. The main results of the paper are a uniqueness theorem and a reconstruction algorithm of such functions from discrete sets of values. It turns out that some of our band limited functions can have compact supports and their frequencies can be localized on the time side. It opens an opportunity to consider signals of a variable band width and to develop a sampling theory with variable rate of sampling.
Crater degradation on the lunar maria: Topographic diffusion and the rate of erosion on the Moon

Landscape evolution on the Moon is dominated by impact cratering in the post-maria period. In this study, we mapped 800 m to 5 km diameter craters on >30% of the lunar maria and extracted their topographic profiles from digital terrain models created using the Kaguya Terrain Camera. We then characterized the degradation of these craters using a topographic diffusion model. Because craters have a well-understood initial morphometry, these data provide insight into erosion on the Moon and the topographic diffusivity of the lunar surface as a function of time. The average diffusivity we calculate over the past 3 Ga is ~5.5 m2/Myr. With this diffusivity, after 3 Ga, a 1 km diameter crater is reduced to approximately ~52% of its initial depth and a 300 m diameter crater is reduced to only ~7% of its initial depth, and craters smaller than ~200–300 m are degraded beyond recognition. Our results also allow estimation of the age of individual craters on the basis of their degradation state, provide a constraint on the age of mare units, and enable modeling of how lunar terrain evolves as a function of its topography.
Fictional Footnotes, Romantic Orientalism, and the Remediated Novel: Elizabeth Hamilton's Translation of the Letters of a Hindoo Rajah

Elizabeth Hamilton's Translation of the Letters of a Hindoo Rajah (1796) is a heavily-annotated orientalist epistolary novel. Many of the novel's footnotes, which offer definitions of Hindi terms or refer to works of orientalist scholarship, interrupt the letters’ first sentences. Through this intersection of epistolary address with the footnotes’ direct address to the reader, Hamilton establishes the conceptual extremes of hypermediacy and immediacy that characterize this novel's representative strategies. Hamilton's notes and core text are linked through these structures of address as well as duplicated plots of education: as the eponymous Rajah learns about British culture in the main text, the British reader learns about Hindu culture in the notes. I identify these duplicated plots as the origin of this novel's much-discussed generic hybridity. Hamilton's novel suggests that mediation offers, first, a way to reassess the hybrid novelistic forms of the Romantic period and, secondly, a new approach to l...
Anesthesia for spinal cord trauma

Objectives Review the prevalence and types of spinal cord injuries. Evaluate airway management choices in patients with spinal cord injuries. Review the implications of spinal cord injuries on intraoperative anesthetic management. Discuss the anesthetic implications of neuromonitoring in patients with spinal cord injuries. Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a common traumatic injury that often requires hospitalization and surgical intervention. As a result, the anesthesiologist encounters many patients with SCI at various stages of their hospitalization, both in and out of the operating room. There are several aspects of their care, including airway management, initial resuscitation, and intraoperative management, that require a particular understanding of their disease and for which the anesthesiologist is particularly suited. PREVALENCE AND ETIOLOGY OF SPINAL CORD INJURY Spinal column injury encompasses a wide range of pathologies, from the minor to the life-threatening. The bony structure of the spine encloses, protects, and supports the spinal cord. Injury may occur anywhere from the articulation of the cervical spine with occiput to the sacrum. It may include fractures of the bone or ligamentous injury, and it may or may not have underlying cord damage, the presence of which would define SCI. Insult to the cord comprises a spectrum of disease depending on the location of the injury and the nature of the deficit (see Chapter 13). A population-based study evaluating spinal column injury in a Canadian community demonstrated less than a 6 percent incidence of neurologic injury in persons who sustain a spinal column fracture [1].
PicFlic: Social discovery thru pictures

The ubiquity of smartphones is driving growth in the use of cameras as visual sensors of the things around us, and towards the sharing of `photos of things' as a mechanism for the social discovery of physical things. The combination of this user trend with increasing support for device-to-device protocols has the potential to rejuvenate the space of proximity-based social applications. Enabling this future requires solutions to systems issues around creating effortless and efficient sharing of media across large collocated groups. This paper enumerates the platform and user experience challenges in creating such effortless, optimized and anonymity preserving experiences for proximity-based photo sharing, with social discovery as a key user benefit. It presents our efforts building PicFlic, a photo sharing system, based on these principles.
A modular phase change heat exchanger for a solar oven

Abstract A modular energy storing heat exchanger designed to use pentaerythritol for thermal storage (solid-solid phase change at 182°C) is tested in an oven by circulating heat transfer oil which is electrically heated in a manner to simulate a concentrating solar collector. Three efficiencies for heating the system under controlled and measured power input are determined—the heat exchanger efficiency, the efficiency of the heater with distribution lines, and the total system efficiency. Thermal energy retention times and cooking extraction times are determined, and along with the efficiencies, are compared with the results previously reported for a nonmodular heat exchanger. The modular configuration provides a highly improved extraction rate for cooking due to its wrap-around character and its increased surface-to-volume ratio. A full scale glass model of the copper tubing of the system is described and flow observations reported demonstrating how uniformly the parallel pumping branches perform and how trapped air pockets affect pumping power. A technique for measuring pumping power is described and its application to our system is quantified to show that less than 1 watt is required to circulate the heat transfer oil even when the system includes the solar collector and its longer connecting tubes.
High-Performance Visualization of Multi-Dimensional Gene Expression Data

Previous application of Kohonen's self organizing map to common visualizations has yielded promising results. In this research, we extend the classic two-dimensional scatter plot visualization algorithm into the third dimension by permitting competition to occur within a three-dimensional search space. This approach takes advantage of spatial memory and increases the intrinsic dimensionality of a widely used visualization technique. We also present a method of parallelizing this novel algorithm as a method of overcoming the runtime complexity associated with it using MPI. We note that this algorithm responds extremely well to parallelization and that it leads to an effective method for knowledge discovery in complex multidimensional datasets.
Limits of Intelligibility of Accelerated Synthesized Speech by Inexperienced Sighted and Experienced Blind Listeners

People with blindness who use computer systems cannot use the standard CRT display to access information presented by the computer. The main medium for people with blindness to access computers is through electronic speech synthesizers. One of the characteristics of computer users with blindness is to increase the speech rate of the synthesizer to rates more than double normal conversational speech rates. To the casual listener the increased speech rates seem unintelligible. There have not been quantitative measurements of this observed behavior to determine the limits of speech intelligibility and behaviors at high speech rates. This study is designed to investigate the limits of speech intelligibility of accelerated synthesized speech for both inexperienced and experienced listeners. The results of this experiment show that intelligibility decreases linearly with speech rate. There is no significant difference between the percentage of words correct between the experienced and inexperienced group. There...
The unknowable audience of the Blickling Homilies

Manige men beoð þe beforan oþrum mannum hwaeethugu god begangaþ 7 raþe hie hit anforlataþ, forþan þe Crist sylfa cwaaeþ paet he nelle gehyran þaes gimleasan 7 þaes forgytenan mannes gebedraedene. Ne þaet to nahte nyt ne bið þaet man godne mete ete oþþe þaet betste win on gebeorscipe drince gif þaet gelimpeþ þaet he hit eft spiwende anforlaeteþ, þaet he aer to blisse nam 7 to lichoman nyttnesse. Swa we þonne þa gastlican lare unwaeriice ne sceolan anforlaetan, þe ure saul big leofaþ 7 feded bið. Swa se lichoma buton mete 7 drence leofian ne maeg, swa þonne seo saul gif heo ne bið mid godes worde feded gastlice hungre 7 þurste heo bið cwelmed. Forþon myccle swiþor we sceolan þencan be þaem gastlicum þingum þonne be þaem lichomlicum
Resonance Raman Studies Of Copper(II) Octaethylisobacteriochlorin

Resonance Raman spectra are reported for the copper(II) complex of trans-octaethylisobacteriochlorin with excitation in the B and Qy absorption bands. Assignments are proposed for a number of the high-frequency (above 1400 cm-1) skeletal modes of the macrocycle. Normal coordinate calculations are also performed on the complex. These calculations indicate that the normal coordinates of isobacteriochlorins bear little resemblance to those of porphyrins or chlorins.
DIBROMANTIN AS A REAGENT FOR THE AROMATIC BROMINATION OF POLYALKYLBENZENES

(1995). DIBROMANTIN AS A REAGENT FOR THE AROMATIC BROMINATION OF POLYALKYLBENZENES. Organic Preparations and Procedures International: Vol. 27, No. 6, pp. 652-656.
Stability of surface and subsurface hydrogen on and in Au/Ni near-surface alloys

Periodic, self-consistent DFT-GGA (PW91) calculations were used to study the interaction of hydrogen atoms with the (111) surfaces of substitutional near-surface alloys (NSAs) of Au and Ni with different surface layer compositions and different arrangements of Au atoms in the surface layer. The effect of hydrogen adsorption on the surface and in the first and second subsurface layers of the NSAs was studied. Increasing the Au content in the surface layer weakens hydrogen binding on the surface, but strengthens subsurface binding, suggesting that the distribution of surface and subsurface hydrogen will be different than that on pure Ni(111). While the metal composition of the surface layer has an effect on the binding energy of hydrogen on NSA surfaces, the local composition of the binding site has a stronger effect. For example, fcc hollow sites consisting of three Ni atoms bind H nearly as strongly as on Ni(111), and fcc sites consisting of three Au atoms bind H nearly as weakly as on Au(111). Sites with one or two Au atoms show intermediate binding energies. The preference of hydrogen for three-fold Ni hollow sites alters the relative stabilities of different surface metal atom arrangements, and may provide a driving force formore » adsorbate-induced surface rearrangement.« less
BAFfled by poxviruses

Successful viruses engage in a dynamic interplay with their hosts, where both utilize diverse strategies to impose their supremacy. In this issue of Cell Host & Microbe, Wiebe and Traktman describe a novel interaction between vaccinia virus and mammalian cells. A host protein called BAF can bind ectopic cytoplasmic DNA and block viral DNA replication, whereas vaccinia in turn counteracts this inhibition with a virus-encoded serine threonine kinase that inactivates BAF.
Titanium silicide (Ti5Si3) synthesis under shock loading

Abstract Ti–Si binary system shows exothermic reactions during the formation of several line compounds, which can be used for self-propagating high temperature synthesis (SHS) of starting powders. In this research, titanium silicide (Ti 5 Si 3 ) was synthesized from high purity Ti and Si powders using shock waves in a 10 cm diameter and 14 m long gas gun. Influences of compact density, shock velocity, milling time and filler concentrations were studied. Mullite was used as an inert ceramic filler in different wt.% and mixed with ball-milled powders. Phase analysis, microstructural analysis and microhardness measurements were done on samples that were recovered after shock loading. Results indicate that powders with a lower compact density generated higher temperatures during shock consolidation. The change in velocity generated different compressive stresses in Cu target ranging 4.4–8.6 GPa, and found to have a significant effect on the reaction kinetics. Both increasing filler material amount and decreasing milling time reduced the reaction kinetics. Though the presence of mullite decreased the reaction kinetics, it also reduced residual porosity in the compacts via forming an in situ intermetallic-ceramic composite.
Source Contributions to the Mutagenicity of Urban Particulate Air Pollution

Abstract Using organic compounds as tracers, a chemical mass balance model was employed to investigate the relationship between the mutagenicity of the urban organic aerosol sources and the mutagenicity of the atmospheric samples. The fine particle organic mass concentration present in the 1993 annual average Los Angeles-area composite sample was apportioned among eight emission source types. The largest source contributions to fine particulate organic compound mass concentration were identified as smoke from meat cooking, diesel-powered vehicle exhaust, wood smoke, and paved road dust. However, the largest source contributions to the mutagenicity of the atmospheric sample were natural gas combustion and diesel-powered vehicles. In both the human cell and bacterial assay systems, the combined mutagenicity of the composite of primary source effluents predicted to be present in the atmosphere was statistically indistinguishable from the mutagenicity of the actual atmospheric sample composite. Known primary ...
Inverse-problem approach to designing photonic crystals for cavity QED experiments

Photonic band gap (PBG) materials are attractive for cavity QED experiments because they provide extremely small mode volumes and are monolithic, integratable structures. As such, PBG cavities are a promising alternative to Fabry-Perot resonators. However, the cavity requirements imposed by QED experiments, such as the need for high Q (low cavity damping) and small mode volumes, present significant design challenges for photonic band gap materials. Here, we pose the PBG design problem as a mathematical inversion and provide an analytical solution for a two-dimensional (2D) crystal. We then address a planar (2D crystal with finite thickness) structure using numerical techniques.
A critical examination of the validity of simplified models for radiant heat transfer analysis

Examination of the directional effects of the simplified models by comparing the experimental data with the predictions based on simple and more detailed models for the radiation characteristics of surfaces. Analytical results indicate that the constant property diffuse and specular models do not yield the upper and lower bounds on local radiant heat flux. In general, the constant property specular analysis yields higher values of irradiation than the constant property diffuse analysis. A diffuse surface in the enclosure appears to destroy the effect of specularity of the other surfaces. Semigray and gray analyses predict the irradiation reasonably well provided that the directional properties and the specularity of the surfaces are taken into account. The uniform and nonuniform radiosity diffuse models are in satisfactory agreement with each other.