cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Social Interaction: The Frequency of Use and Valuation in the United States, England, and Ghana

A field study was conducted in the United States, England, and Ghana assessing the frequency of use and rated value of social interaction. Twenty-two American, twenty-six English, and nineteen Ghanaian workers from similar manufacturing plants participated in the study. Behavioral observations of the frequency of engaging in social interaction over a 14-day period as well as a survey of the importance of social interaction to the workers served as the dependent variables. The results confirmed the hypothesis that the frequency of use and rated importance of social interaction is culturally dependent. The role of societal norms and values is discussed within the framework of Organizational Behavior Modification.
Location of a protein of the fodrin-spectrin-TW260/240 family in the mouse intestinal brush border

We have determined that a protein of the fodrin-spectrin-TW260/240 (FST) family is a component of the thin fibrils (approximately 5 nm wide, 100-200 nm long) that cross-link bundles of actin filaments to adjacent actin bundles and to the plasma membrane in the terminal web of the brush border of the intestinal epithelium. When isolated brush borders were incubated with anti-fodrin antibodies and prepared for electron microscopy by the quick-freeze, deep-etch technique, these approximately 5 nm fibrils were specifically decorated with the antibody. In addition, these cross-linking fibrils disappeared when the anti-fodrin-reactive proteins were extracted from the brush border. We conclude that FST is a component of a cross-linking system composed of approximately 5 nm fibrils that are morphologically distinct from the approximately 8 nm myosin-containing fibrils which were identified by anti-myosin decoration. In addition to linking actin bundles to adjacent actin bundles and to the plasma membrane, these FST fibrils may mediate actin-vesicle, actin-intermediate filament and vesicle-plasma membrane linkages.
Predictive yield modeling of VLSIC's

This paper presents a comprehensive methodology for predictive modeling of yield losses in modern VLSI technologies. The in-line defect detection and characterization methods are discussed and a new electrical characterization vehicle (CV) methodology is introduced. A complete chip level yield model that takes into account all the defect mechanisms (random and systematic) is presented. We show that extremely good prediction accuracy is achievable if the micro-level yield models are developed taking into account the available redundancy schemes, and the defect density and size distributions are properly extracted from the inline and CV data. Several examples of practical applications of this comprehensive yield methodology are also given.
Mechanics and scaling of thin part assembly at a fluidic interface

This paper presents an experimental and theoretical study of a high yield self-assembly process with a programmable template. An analysis of the fluidic assembly method at an air–water interface is presented with an emphasis on the combined effect of a substrate tilting angle and part size. For 1 × 1, 3 × 3 and 5 × 5 mm2 parts with 100 µm thickness, the maximum substrate tilting angles are experimentally determined and the surface tension induced torques are derived from the developed model. The result indicates that there is a limit on the lateral size of the parts that can be assembled when we use just one substrate tilting angle. Based on our analysis, we also propose a novel method that is capable of assembling parts of higher lateral dimensions using parametric changes in the substrate tilting angle.
Effects of Aureo-S-700R on sporulation, viability and infectivity of ovine coccidial oocysts.

Sporulation rates of normal oocysts and oocysts isolated from lambs infected with coccidia and fed Aureo-S-700R for 25 days were studied at different temperatures. The viability and infectivity of the latter were also investigated.Temperatures of 5 and 10 °C inhibited sporulation of oocysts, but when the same oocysts were subsequently incubated at 25 °C, they sporulated. At 35 and 40 °C, sporulation was initially fast, but death and degeneration of oocysts occurred at these temperatures after 3 days.Normal oocysts sporulated faster and in greater numbers than oocysts isolated from medicated lambs; both kinds of oocysts sporulated best between 20 and 25 °C.Lambs inoculated with oocysts from medicated lambs passed fewer oocysts for a shorter period of time than lambs inoculated with normal oocysts. The former lambs gained more weight, passed better formed faeces, ate better and had higher PCV and haemoglobin values than the latter.
Automatic rate adaptation

Rate adaptation is a fundamental primitive in wireless networks. Since wireless channel strength varies quickly and unpredictably, senders have to constantly measure the channel and correspondingly adapt the bitrate so that the transmitted packet gets correctly decoded. Prior approaches to this problem can be divided into two classes: those that require constant and expensive feedback from the receiver about channel strength, or those that use coarse and often inaccurate inference based on packet losses to measure channel strength and decide what bitrate to use.In this paper we take the opposite approach. Instead of actively adapting the bitrate based on receiver or packet loss feedback, we present a technique where the sender does no measurement or adaptation, yet the receiver manages to receive packets at a bitrate corresponding to whatever channel conditions exist at that point. The technique works with existing coding and modulation techniques (e.g. convolutional codes in WiFi), and requires no changes to them. Our preliminary evaluation shows that our proposed feedback-free technique achieves a performance that is nearly as good as if the sender knew exactly what the channel strength was in advance.
Laggard strategy: Why a firm is sometimes better off lagging the technology frontier

Technological laggards are usually majority in most industries and together they produce more innovation than the technological leader, but the laggard's innovation behavior has rarely been studied...
Personal Health Record Design: Qualitative Exploration of Issues Inhibiting Optimal Use

Personal health records (PHRs) have been purported to enhance patients’ self-management of diabetes (1). However, few studies have examined the barriers to PHR use resulting from design issues identified by actual users (2). To address this gap, interviews were conducted with 59 patients 3 to 6 months after receiving hands-on training in the use of the Microsoft Health Vault for PHRs to manage their diabetes-related health information. Health Vault was selected because of its universal accessibility and functionalities meeting the greatest number of patient desires (3). The central question guiding the interviews was “How have you used the PHR to manage your diabetes-related health information?” Data were analyzed through a process of coding, category development of similar codes, and overarching theme development. Twenty-three of the 59 participants (39%) sustained PHR use. Table 1 displays the demographic, clinical, and thematic comparisons between PHR users and nonusers. Three themes describing barriers to use from patients’ perspectives could be traced back to PHR design considerations. View this table: Table 1 Demographic characteristics …
EFFECT OF ACTIVE ACCUMULATION OF CALCIUM AND PHOSPHATE IONS ON THE STRUCTURE OF RAT LIVER MITOCHONDRIA

Rat liver mitochondria allowed to accumulate maximal amounts of Ca++ and HPO4= ions from the suspending medium in vitro during respiration have a considerably higher specific gravity than normal mitochondria and may be easily separated from the latter by isopycnic centrifugation in density gradients of sucrose or cesium chloride. When the mitochondria are allowed to accumulate less than maximal amounts of Ca++ and HPO4= from the medium, they have intermediate specific gravities which are roughly proportional to their content of calcium phosphate. Maximally "loaded" mitochondria are relatively homogeneous with respect to specific gravity. Correlated biochemical and electron microscopic studies show that Ca++-loaded mitochondria contain numerous dense granules, of which some 85 per cent are over 500 A in diameter. These granules are electron-opaque not only following fixation and staining with heavy metal reagents, but also following fixation with formaldehyde, demonstrating that the characteristic granules in Ca++-loaded mitochondria have intrinsic electron-opacity. The dense granules are almost always located within the inner compartment of the mitochondria and not in the space between the inner and outer membranes. They are frequently located at or near the cristae and they often show electron-transparent "cores." Such granules appear to be made up of clusters of smaller dense particles, but preliminary x-ray diffraction analysis and electron diffraction studies have revealed no evidence of crystallinity in the deposits. The electron-opaque granules decrease in number when the Ca++-loaded mitochondria are incubated with 2,4-dinitrophenol; simultaneously there is discharge of Ca++ and phosphate from the mitochondria into the medium.
Education for Electrical Engineering

Thirty years ago an underduate program in electrical engineering consisted chiefly of studying the design and operation of the electrical devices--then relatively few--that were in use at the time. The program included subjects on generators, motors, transmission systems, telephone and telegraph systems, radio, and electric batteries. An average graduate was considered to be adequately equipped to serve society in the entire electrical field. Whenever a new invention was reduced to practical use another subject was merely added to the curriculum. When the curriculum became too crowded for a student to finish it in four years, the concept of options was introduced. Under that concept the undergraduate specialized in one branch of electrical engineering. At graduation he was equipped to serve society in his own field, but was usually not well informed in other fields. He had a tendency to shy away from the other branches of electrical engineering. In more recent years there have been proposals to subdivide undergraduate options into even finer structures in an attempt to supply the needs of vastly diversified electrical industries.
The DARPA COORDINATORS program: A retrospective

The goal of the DARPA COORDINATORS program was to create hand-held coordination assistants that would enable military units to adapt mission plans more rapidly, more accurately, with less cognitive load and with a greater degree of coordinated action. In early 2005, three teams of researchers began a concerted effort to create a distributed cognitive system that could adapt mission plans online via task/resource timing/allocation and contingency selection. This talk will provide a brief overview of the COORDINATORS program, its design and execution, successes, and lessons learned.
A comparison of subcutaneous and intraperitoneal oxytetracycline injection methods for control of infectious disease in the rat

After receiving once daily intraperitoneal (i.p.) or subcutaneous (s.c.) injections of oxytetracycline (15 mg/100 g bodyweight) for 7 days, laboratory rats had significantly different oxytetracycline serum levels depending on the method of injection. Regardless of injection method, the biological half-life of the antibiotic was 4·25 h and serum antibiotic levels never fell below therapeutic levels for certain rat pathogens during 24 h post-injection. Severe peritonitis and cellulitis were found in rats whether injected s.c. or i.p. and some animals lost bodyweight. It appeared that either injection method would be an effective treatment for certain infectious diseases of laboratory rats but tissue damage, probably from oxytetracycline's acidity, made both methods unattractive.
A Cytokine a Day Keeps Diabetes Away

Weight gain does more than expand one’s waistline and limit one’s wardrobe. In fact, if obesity persists into the chronic phase it contributes to metabolic inflammatory disorders, such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Although members of the interleukin-1 (IL-1) cytokine family orchestrate chronic and acute proinflammatory responses, one sibling, IL-37, recently was shown to display anti-inflammatory properties in both acute and chronic models of inflammation. Whether IL-37 dampens chronic low-grade inflammation in the context of obesity is unknown. Now, Ballack et al . show that when transgenic mice that are engineering to express human IL-37 are fed a high-fat diet (HFD), they exhibit a reduction in weight gain, lower adipocyte mass and size, less adipose tissue inflammation, and less insulin resistance than do HFD-fed wild-type obese mice. Furthermore, treatment of the wild-type mice with recombinant IL-37 yielded effects similar to those observed in animals that express the human IL-37 gene. Using the IL-37 transgenic mice, the authors investigated molecular programs involved in the IL-37–mediated increase in insulin sensitivity and found that the cytokine preserved insulin receptor substrate–1 tyrosine phosphorylation, thus rescuing insulin signaling in human HepG2 hepatoma cells. Next, the authors investigated IL-37 expression in various tissues from a cohort of obese people and its connection with markers of metabolic states. ​IL-37 expression in human adipose tissue was inversely correlated with adipose tissue inflammation and the presence of insulin resistance. As humans reveal an inverse correlation between inflammation in adipose tissue and expression of IL-37, it is possible that subjects who fail to express sufficient IL-37 locally will develop higher levels of inflammation. Thus, these data support a link between ​IL-37 biology, adipose tissue inflammation, and insulin sensitivity. Although the in vivo source of IL-37 is unknown and the lack of mouse homolog makes mechanistic studies difficult, the new work highlights regulatory mechanisms involved in the maintenance of chronic metabolic diseases. More work is needed to assess whether IL-37 can serve as a therapy to reduce adipose tissue inflammation in obese people and perhaps alleviate the damaging effects of obesity-induced insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. D. B. Ballak et al. , ​IL-37 protects against obesity-induced inflammation and insulin resistance. Nat. Commun. 10.1038/ncomms5711 (2014). [[Abstract]][1] [1]: http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2014/140903/ncomms5711/full/ncomms5711.html
Private Giving Crowding Government Funding in Public Higher Education

Problem statement: Private giving and government funding are critical revenue sources for public colleges and universities. If increased priv ate giving reduces government funding, then that ty pe and extent of crowding out carries important managerial and public policy implications. Approach: The study used a government funding reaction function a nd an instrumental variable approach to empirically estimate the potential for crowding out . Results: The study examined the extent to which private giving reduces or crowds out state governme nt funding of public colleges and universities. Government free riding was at question and investig ated to determine how active it is in terms of private donations partially or wholly displacing st ate government funding. The findings suggested that the rate of crowding out was 43% on the dollar. Tha t compares to the 45% political substitution of the 1960's but is much diminished from the 1980's dolla r for dollar crowding out. Those are aggregate comparisons for all public institutions. A disaggre gated approach in this study additionally revealed that doctoral universities were victims of the same 43% crowd out but that at two other levels, master degree granting and associate degree granting colle ges, there was the opposite effect of crowding in. Those colleges received state funding augmentations of 32-92% on their dollar of privately provided donations. Conclusion/Recommendations: The study's finding of the existence of both crowd ing out and crowding in can carry important policy implicat ions for college and university funding. Future managerial and public policy decision making should take that into account. However, political sustainability and economy wide and localized effec ts over time of crowding out and in could prove fruitful avenues of inquiry for future research.
Reconfiguration of the Respiratory Network at the Onset of Locust Flight

Ramirez, Jan-Marino. Reconfiguration of the respiratory network at the onset of locust flight. J. Neurophysiol. 80: 3137–3147, 1998. The respiratory interneurons 377, 378, 379 and 576 were identifi...
Taxing Migrants: A Smart and Humane Approach to Immigration Policy

In the midst of heated debates over how tightly to secure the Southern border against an influx of unlawful migrants, businesses and consumers in the United States are relegated to the sidelines to await yet another ineffective and potentially harmful immigration reform proposal. The problem according to policymakers is that borders are porous and unlawful migrants can and do enter and occupy jobs that American citizens could have. With this problem in mind, policy solutions have centered on legalization of existing unlawful migrants and strengthening the border to stop intending migrants. Stepping away from the political fray, it becomes clear that this is not the problem at all. The real immigration problem is that protectionist laws and policies are exacerbating the existing imbalance between supply of and demand for migrant labor. The use of quotas to severely restrict skilled and unskilled migrants has made U.S. businesses less competitive than many U.S. trading partners, has maintained artificially high consumer prices, and has cost taxpayers billions of dollars in unnecessary enforcement programs. In this article, I explain why current immigration laws and reform proposals use protectionism to benefit narrow political interests that cost the U.S. economy jobs and economic growth. I propose reevaluating the need to separate immigration from other types of trade policy and regulation by legalizing and regulating labor migrants rather than criminalizing and dehumanizing them.
Minimum Energy Estimation and Moving Horizon Estimation

Minimum Energy Estimation is a way of filtering the state of a nonlinear system from partial and inexact measurements. It is a generalization of Gauss' method of least squares. Its application to filtering of control systems goes back at least to Mortenson who called it Maximum Likelyhood Estimation [12]. For linear, Gaussian systems it reduces to maximum likelihood estimation (aka Kalman Filtering) but this is not true for nonlinear systems. We prefer the name Minimum Energy Estimation (MEE) that was introduced by Hijab [4]. Both Mortenson and Hijab dealt with systems in continuous time, we extend their methods to discrete time systems and show how power series techniques can lessen the computational burden.
AN ANALYSIS OF A MORPH RATIO CLINE IN THE BANANAQUIT (COEREBA FLAVEOLA) ON GRENADA, WEST INDIES.

Polymorphic populations provide opportunities in which evolutionary change can be studied by both observation and experimentation (Ford, 1965). Geographic gradients in the frequencies of different morphs, such as morph ratio clines, are subject to the interacting forces of gene flow and natural selection as well as other biological and geographic factors influencing geographic variation. A theoretical framework for understanding the mathematical relationships between gene flow and selection in a cline has been provided by Haldane (1948), Fisher (1950), Slatkin (1973), May et al. (1975), Nagylaki (1975), and Endler (1977), but field measurements of the appropriate evolutionary forces are few (e.g., Bishop, 1972). Microgeographic variation within islands might be expected in small sedentary animals, but is unusual in mobile organisms such as birds (Mayr, 1963; Gill, 1973). A notable exception is the complex variation in Zosterops borbonica on Reunion Island (2,590 kM2) in the Indian Ocean (Gill, 1973), which involves clines in color morph frequencies over short distances and geographically distinct "races." Grenada, a small oceanic island with an area of 310 km2 and maximum elevation of 840 m, is considerably smaller than Reunion and is inhabited by two color morphs of the Bananaquit (Coereba flaveola), an abundant passerine bird. The purpose of this work is to report the distribution of the color morphs and to consider the factors responsible for the existing steep morph ratio cline on Grenada.
The Diffusion of Trade Association Advertising Self-Regulation:

Guided by diffusion theory, the executive directors of over 2,000 major trade associations were surveyed to determine the extent of their adoption of advertising self-regulation and the objective a...
A Survey on Relationship Among Corporate Communication CSR and Corporate Financial Performance

This article reviews issues about the relationship among corporate communication,CSR and corporate financial performance.We draw a conclusion that there are three ways of corporate communicate CSR information,such as public media,annual reports and CSR reports.When it comes to the evaluate methods of CSR,there are reputation index,content analysis and some other methods based at principals,and also methods of marketing,accounting,and survey for evaluating CFP.Therefore,the reason for different conclusion about relationship among those three issues will be improved in the future.
Chemical conversion of hydrocarbons in supercritical water

Supercritical water(SCW) is a novel chemical reaction medium.High efficiency of chemical conversion of hydrocarbons is provided in SCW.This review seeks to evaluate the progress on hydrogen production,heavy oil upgrading and oxygenates synthesis in SCW.The backgrounds of these techniques are briefly introduced.The emphasis for future studies is reviewed.The prospect of development is presented.
Clinical doctorate in laboratory science.

1. Ellis M Frohman, MA MT(ASCP)SBB CLS(NCA) 1. Director, Department of Laboratories, Barnes-Jewish Hospital,One Barnes Hospital Plaza, MailStop: 90-28-361,St Louis, MO 63110. (314) 362-1786,(314) 362-2097 (fax). (emf2222{at}bjc.org) I found the two articles concerning doctorate level clinical laboratory scientists (CLS) (Doig K, The Case for the Clinical Doctorate in Laboratory Science, Clinical Laboratory Science 2005;18(3):132-6, and Fritsma GA, A Professional Doctorate in Clinical Laboratory Science?—Not so Fast, Clinical Laboratory Science 2005;18(3):137-8), interesting and at the same time troublesome. The pros and cons of doctoral degrees in clinical laboratory science has been the subject of debate for the better part of the past 20 years. This debate is akin to the chicken vs. the egg argument—which came first? Do we create doctoral CLSs (DCLSs) and have them go forth to find a purpose within the healthcare team or do we establish a purpose and then create DCLSs to fill the void? At this time we seem to have a potential product without a market. The comparison between the role of the DCLS and the role of the PharmD is weak at best. The PharmD directly interacts with the clinician, nurse, laboratory, and patient in finding the right drug or combination of drugs to achieve a particular outcome. This is more than a consultative role. They are engaged in direct patient care. The DCLS, as described, is a purely consultative role with the clinician, advising on the best test to order or providing interpretive information pertaining to the test results. Is this not the role of the clinical pathologist? In fact, I believe it is, but unfortunately it is not done well or consistently in many facilities which has been…
Immunologic diagnosis of schistosomiasis: II. Further studies on the sensitivity and specificity of delayed intradermal reactions*

The specificity of the delayed intradermal reaction was compared to that of the immediate response in 80 adult St. Lucians with proven schistosomiasis mansoni, using homologous and heterologous antigens. Adult worm antigens at a uniform concentration of 35 \g=m\g/ml from four geographic strains of Schistosoma mansoni (St. Lucian, Puerto Rican, Brazilian, and Egyptian) and from S. haematobium and S. japonicum were color coded and injected randomly in the skin of the upper back. The immediate reactions to all the antigens showed equal sensitivity (94 to 99% positive). The delayed reactions with the four S. mansoni strains ranged from 49 to 60% positivity, but the heterologous S. haematobium and S. japonicum antigens were significantly less sensitive, with only 20% and 30% positive reactions. In an attempt to improve the sensitivity of the delayed intradermal test, 30 of the 80 St. Lucians were retested 1 month later with different concentrations of the Puerto Rican antigen (5, 15, 35, 70 \g=m\g/ml). Immediate reactions were 100% at all but the lowest concentration (93%). Delayed reactions were at their peak (87%) at the standard concentration of antigen (35 \g=m\g/ml), the other concentrations being similar with the exception of the lowest (53%). Comparison of the results of the two series of tests performed 1 month apart in the same individuals revealed no changes in the immediate reactions, but a marked increase in both the percentage positivity and the mean lesion area in the delayed response.
Collection of NO and NO2 for Isotopic Analysis of NOx Emissions

There have been several measurements made of the nitrogen isotopic composition of gaseous NOx (NOx = NO + NO2) from various emission sources, utilizing a wide variety of methods to collect the NOx in solution as nitrate or nitrite. However, previous collection techniques have not been verified for complete or efficient capture of NOx such that the isotopic composition of NOx remains unaltered during collection. Here, we present a method of collecting NOx (NO + NO2) in solution as nitrate to evaluate the nitrogen isotopic composition of the NOx (δ15N-NOx). Using a 0.25 M KMnO4 and 0.5 M NaOH solution, quantitative NOx collection was achieved under a variety of conditions in laboratory and field settings, allowing for isotopic analysis without correcting for fractionations. The uncertainty across the entire analytic procedure is ±1.5‰ (1σ). With this method, a more robust inventory of NOx source isotopic composition is possible, which has implications for studies of air quality and acid deposition.
TU-A-206-01: Professional Liability Insurance - Protecting You and Your Practice

Professional liability insurance is an important tool to manage risks to a medical physicist's assets that can result from errors or omissions in the course of professional practice. AAPM has partnered with Mercer Consumer to offer coverage tailored to the professional activities and specific risks encountered in medical physics practice. This program has specific eligibility criteria, benefit options, exclusions, and enrollment options for both self-employed medical physicists and those who practice in an employment setting. There are important nuances to the form of coverage chosen and the determination of the coverage period for individual policies. The need for and role of professional liability insurance varies for each individual physicist, and one of the most important factors is the physicist's employment or self-employment status and involvement in consulting activities. This session will provide an overview of the AAPM-sponsored program (administered by Mercer) and the various options available to consulting and employed physicists. The fundamental concepts of professional liability insurance in general will be reviewed, and the roles of occurrence and claims-made coverage forms within the AAPM program will be explained. Information drawn from claims data from the AAPM program will be used to illustrate the role of professional liability insurance benefits in realistic cases involving losses and liabilities due to errors and omissions in medical physics practice. Learning Objectives: 1.Explain how professional liability insurance protects a medical physicist in the event of a lawsuit. 2.Understand the basic concepts of the professional liability insurance coverage forms: occurrence and claims-made. 3.Explain AAPM's professional liability insurance program for the consulting and non-consulting medical physicist. 4.Understand the recent claim/expense data from AAPM's professional liability insurance program. Graham Fuller is an employee of Mercer Consumer.
Public Interest in Mass and Serial Murder

This chapter will provide a discussion and analysis of the public’s interest in both serial and mass murder and true crime in general. This increase is demonstrated by the increase in the number of criminal television shows and movies being consumed by the public, murderabilia sales, the interest in murder homes, and persons who are attracted to violent perpetrators. Also discussed will be an analysis of the public’s growing fascination with these topics and several relevant critical thinking exercises.
Random Projections for Sparse Channel Estimation and Equalization

The estimation and equalization of highly sparse wideband channels with large delay spreads is a challenging problem. The optimal maximum likelihood solution of this problem is computationally prohibitive and we must resort to sub-optimal solutions. In this paper we study the effect of the assumed number of non-zero taps, the length of the training sequence and other parameters, on the performance of one such algorithm. We also discuss an algorithm motivated by recent results in compressed sensing, where the dimension of the problem is reduced by projecting the received data on a relatively low dimensional subspace. The subspace is randomly chosen and does not assume any prior knowledge of the channel.
Ultrasound as a Component of Medical School Curriculum/Simulation Training

The role of ultrasound as a dominant imaging modality in medicine worldwide has generated the need to provide early education and training in ultrasound for medical students and residents. This chapter summarizes the current trends in ultrasound simulation and innovations that are transforming medical education.
Can Undergraduate Computing Research Be Student-Driven? (Abstract Only)

This poster presents a potential way of promoting student driven computing educational research that may provide an alternate path or option to the traditional faculty-driven computing education research. We propose a unique model of inter-class student collaboration that motivates creativity, expands the scope of collaborative research and enables handling of conceptual gaps through inter-class peer mentoring. The proposed model engages students from an upper level class with students of a lower level class so that they can connect with each other in a peer mentor-mentee relationship to overcome conceptual gaps in learning. It provides upper level students with an exclusive opportunity to reinforce their conceptual grasps and engage in research for addressing the problems faced by lower level students. This proposed model of improvised peer collaboration promotes a new kind of service-oriented learning project in computing that inspires innovation and leads to research on finding ways to handle common conceptual limitations, thereby helping student retention by assisting lower level peer mentees. It also assists upper level peer mentors in self-driving towards research oriented thinking for inventing methods to solve authentic conceptual issues. The proposed model has been currently implemented in the UWGB computing curriculum, where CS2 students have been collaborating with CS1 students and have been participating in computing educational research as part of the process. These ongoing research experiments have analyzed the performance of the proposed model through data obtained by conducting student surveys. The collected survey data represent insightful evidences from preliminary evaluations of the proposed model.
Comparison of three assembly strategies for a heterozygous seedless grapevine genome assembly

De novo heterozygous assembly is an ongoing challenge requiring improved assembly approaches. In this study, three strategies were used to develop de novo Vitis vinifera ‘Sultanina’ genome assemblies for comparison with the inbred V. vinifera (PN40024 12X.v2) reference genome and a published Sultanina ALLPATHS-LG assembly (AP). The strategies were: 1) a default PLATANUS assembly (PLAT_d) for direct comparison with AP assembly, 2) an iterative merging strategy using METASSEMBLER to combine PLAT_d and AP assemblies (MERGE) and 3) PLATANUS parameter modifications plus GapCloser (PLAT*_GC). The three new assemblies were greater in size than the AP assembly. PLAT*_GC had the greatest number of scaffolds aligning with a minimum of 95% identity and ≥1000 bp alignment length to V. vinifera (PN40024 12X.v2) reference genome. SNP analysis also identified additional high quality SNPs. A greater number of sequence reads mapped back with zero-mismatch to the PLAT_d, MERGE, and PLAT*_GC (>94%) than was found in the AP assembly (87%) indicating a greater fidelity to the original sequence data in the new assemblies than in AP assembly. A de novo gene prediction conducted using seedless RNA-seq data predicted > 30,000 coding sequences for the three new de novo assemblies, with the greatest number (30,544) in PLAT*_GC and only 26,515 for the AP assembly. Transcription factor analysis indicated good family coverage, but some genes found in the VCOST.v3 annotation were not identified in any of the de novo assemblies, particularly some from the MYB and ERF families. The PLAT_d and PLAT*_GC had a greater number of synteny blocks with the V. vinifera (PN40024 12X.v2) reference genome than AP or MERGE. PLAT*_GC provided the most contiguous assembly with only 1.2% scaffold N, in contrast to AP (10.7% N), PLAT_d (6.6% N) and Merge (6.4% N). A PLAT*_GC pseudo-chromosome assembly with chromosome alignment to the reference genome V. vinifera, (PN40024 12X.v2) provides new information for use in seedless grape genetic mapping studies. An annotated de novo gene prediction for the PLAT*_GC assembly, aligned with VitisNet pathways provides new seedless grapevine specific transcriptomic resource that has excellent fidelity with the seedless short read sequence data.
EPR and uDCDD: A Response to Commentaries

We appreciate the thoughtful, careful, and insightful commentaries on our article (Prabhu, Parker, and DeVita 2017). The diversity of points raised and the number of commentaries received underscor...
A Runtime Workload Distribution with Resource Allocation for CPU-GPU Heterogeneous Systems

Nowadays, Graphic Processing Units (GPUs) have become popular as general-purpose processors; they have been used as co-processors with CPUs forming heterogeneous systems. CPUs and GPUs have different execution capabilities, energy consumption and thermal characteristics. Typically, the role of the GPU is to execute the parallel parts of the job and the role of the CPU (i.e., host) is to execute the sequential parts and manage the CPU-GPU data transfer. The host remains idle, waiting for the GPU's execution and data transfer to complete. This classic workload distribution does not fully utilize the CPU and the GPU. Thus, there is a need for an adaptive workload distributor that fully exploits the potential of the CPU and the GPU. Allocating resources (i.e., core scaling, thread allocation) is also a challenge since different sets of resources exhibit different behaviors in terms of performance, energy consumption, peak power and peak CPU temperature. Several studies have been conducted on workload distribution with an eye on performance improvement. However, few of them consider both performance and energy consumption. We thus propose our novel Workload Distributor with a Resource Allocator (WDRA) which combines workload distribution, core scaling, and thread allocation into a multi-objective optimization problem. Since resource allocation is known to be an NP-hard problem, WDRA utilizes Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). The goal is to find an efficient workload distribution in terms of both execution time and energy consumption, under peak power and peak CPU temperature constraints. To evaluate WDRA, experiments were conducted on an actual system equipped with a multicore CPU and a GPU. Compared to performance-based and other workload distributors, on average, WDRA can achieve up to a 1.47x speedup and energy savings of up to 82%. WDRA is suitable runtime algorithm for distributing a job's workload since the algorithm only takes up to 1.7% of the job's execution time.
“No Certain Way to Tell Japanese From Chinese”: Racist Statements and the Marking of Difference

After the 1941 Japanese attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, a series of articles appeared simultaneously in American magazines. A 22 December 1941 article in Time gives advice to its Caucasian readers on “How To Tell Your Friends From the Japs,” as does an article in Life magazine entitled “How To Tell Japs From the Chinese.” From the perspective of the late twentieth century, the racism of these texts seems obvious. At the time of their appearance, how did this racism remain unmarked? This paper has two purposes: the first, examining the way racist statements about people of Japanese descent become established, as well as the way those statements become connected to pre-existing racist statements about people of Chinese descent; the second, examining how articles and photographs in magazines such as Time and Life negotiate this pre-existing “network of statements.”
Passivity-based switching control in teleoperation systems with time-varying communication delay

In this paper, we address the problem of time-varying communication delay in force reflecting bilateral teleoperation. We introduce a switching-control method that makes the communication channel passive independent of the time-varying delay. The advantage of our approach is that we do not need information about the delay or the rate of change of the delay. Our controller results in master/slave position tracking in free space and bounded position and velocity errors in the contact phase. Simulation results are presented to show the performance of our method.
Shopping for Confirmation: How Disconfirming Feedback Shapes Social Networks

Many organizations employ interpersonal feedback processes as a structured means of informing and motivating employee improvement. Ample evidence suggests that these feedback processes are largely ineffective, and despite a wealth of prescriptive literature, these processes often fail to lead to employee motivation or improvement. We propose that these feedback processes are often ineffective because they represent threats to recipients’ positive self-concept. Because the self-concept is socially sustained, recipients will flee these threats, or otherwise reshape their network to attenuate the negative psychological effects of the threat. Analyzing four years of peer feedback and social network data from an agribusiness company in the Western U.S., we find that employees, in the face of feedback that is more negative than their own self-assessment in a given domain (i.e., disconfirming feedback), reshape their network in ways designed to attenuate the threat brought about by the feedback, and that this behavior is detrimental to their performance. In a laboratory study, we replicate these findings conceptually, showing that disconfirming feedback has such effects on one’s relationships and performance because it is perceived as threatening to one’s self-concept.
Ideas, Perceptions, and Power: An Examination of China's Military Strategy

This chapter explains how a broad base of national power, the prevalence of perceived maritime threats, and national narratives about the “century of humiliation” and Chinese exceptionalism combine to make regional power projection the most attractive national military strategy to Chinese leaders.
Exploratory Analysis of Driver Yielding at Low-Speed, Uncontrolled Crosswalks in Milwaukee, Wisconsin:

One of the most common circumstances contributing to pedestrian crashes is drivers failing to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks. A better understanding of driver yielding behavior can help identif...
Temporal small arterial inflammation is common in patients with giant cell arteritis

Giant cell arteritis (GCA) primarily involves medium-to-large arteries. Small-vessel inflammation is a recognized phenomenon occurring in association with GCA. However, its significance is poorly elucidated. Histologic sections and medical records of105 temporal artery specimens were retrospectively reviewed between 2008 and 2017 to examine associated clinical manifestations and laboratory data including antinuclear antibody and p-antineutrophilic cytoplasmic antibody titers. Immunohistochemical staining for CD4 and CD8 was performed in select cases to assess the nature of the inflammatory response. Seventy-eight patients meeting the diagnostic criteria of temporal arteritis were included in the analysis. Twenty-eight specimens demonstrated temporal arteritis with small arterial inflammation (SAI), and 50 specimens showed temporal arteritis without SAI. Eight (28.6%) of 28 patients with SAI presented with jaw claudication, whereas 5 (17.9%) were febrile at presentation. In contrast, in 50 patients without SAI, jaw claudication and fever were seen in 11 and 2 cases, respectively (P = .01 and P = .0047, respectively). No statistically significant difference was noted between other symptoms and laboratory indices between the 2 groups. Elevated p-antineutrophilic cytoplasmic antibody titers in GCA may be associated with concomitant polymyalgia rheumatica or treatment-resistant disease. We also identified a higher count of CD4 and CD8 T cells in SAI cases, although the ratio of CD4/CD8 T lymphocytes was within normal limits. In conclusion, simultaneous involvement of arterioles and medium- to large-sized arteries is common in GCA and may be associated with treatment-refractory disease. Documentation of small arterial involvement in GCA will help the clinicians to manage the disease more effectively.
"Work is More Fun than Fun": On the Contribution of Jerome Beker to the Emerging Profession of Child and Youth Care Work

When I saw the quote, “Work is More Fun than Fun,” in the “On the Office Door” feature in the Child and Youth Care Forum some years ago, I smiled. I agreed with the statement, certainly. I also thought it expressed Jerry. One line of a letter from Jerry, in 1990, asking me to contribute a book chapter (Beker & Eisikovits, 1991) had said, “Doesn’t this sound like fun?” Of course it did, Jerry. That question secured my “yes” and, along with many similar activities, it was fun indeed. So the focus in this essay will be how Jerry, by stimulating fellowship, embracing new ideas, and rising to new challenges has made the profoundly serious and valuable work of professionalizing child and youth care inexorably fun. He has shaped the emerging profession of child and youth work, and he has shaped those who collaborated and connected to move the work forward. While I can hardly tell the entire story in limited space, I can at least give some highlights.
Minimax Controller Design Based on AQM $$ Scheme for TCP Network Systems

This paper proposes an active queue management (AQM) controller based on the Minimax method for a class of nonlinear TCP network congestion system in the presence of uncertain parameters and unknown external disturbances. At the same time, an output feedback controller which guarantee the queue length stability and robustness, is specially designed with considering the situation that the system got the max impact when being disturbed by Lyapunov stability theory. The restriction of assumption inequality is eliminated by introducing the Minimax method into TCP network system. The simulation results show that the proposed control strategy is effective to improve the transient stability and robustness of the system.
Global Grandparents: New Roles and Relationships

Grandparents across the world have experienced two demographic shifts: longer life spans and reduced completed family size. Some areas such as Africa are less affected by these two trends, but have other complex demographic changes. Overall the opportunity for grandparents to relate to grandchildren is expanding. This review of the interdisciplinary literature on grandparenting reports on options and changes in grandparent-grandchild relationships in many countries and notes some of the normative and structural changes occurring. Grandparents’ responses suggest that the relationships with their own children are critical to their maintaining close grandchild relationships. Commonly they report that their role involves being available, but not interfering. Several situations where grandparents are doing more comprehensive caregiving and/or heading the households with grandchildren in them are described. Intergenerational transfers appear to be happening earlier and grandchildren are often included. Some interesting research on the processes of using technology together and interacting around memory development in children and caregiver’s roles are discussed with implications for further research.
A prospective, randomized study comparing ultrasound versus fluoroscopic guided femoral arterial access in noncardiac vascular patients

Abstract Objective The aim of our prospective, single-center, randomized study was to compare the procedural outcomes and complication rates of ultrasound (US)-guided common femoral artery (CFA) access to fluoroscopic guidance in noncardiac procedures. Methods A total of 635 patients undergoing femoral access for noncardiac diagnostic or interventional procedures were randomized 1:1 to receive either fluoroscopic or US-guided access. The primary end point of the study was successful CFA cannulation. Secondary end points included the first-pass success rate, time to sheath insertion, and accidental venipunctures rate. Both short (24 hours) and midterm (30-90 days postprocedure) access complications were assessed by practitioners blinded to patient randomization. Results Successful CFA cannulation occurred in 93% of US-guided procedures compared with 86% of fluoroscopy-guided access (P = .002). US guidance was associated with increased rates of first-attempt success (74% vs 42%; P Conclusions In comparison to fluoroscopy, US-guided CFA cannulation had a higher rate of success, faster cannulation, and fewer venipunctures in the absence of increased complications.
A multigroup moment-accelerated deterministic particle solver for 1-D time-dependent thermal radiative transfer problems

Abstract We propose an efficient, robust, Lagrangian (characteristic-based) transport solver for 1-D time-dependent thermal radiative transfer (TRT) applications within the context of a moment-accelerated (High-Order/Low-Order, HOLO) algorithm. This novel transport algorithm inherits the best features of both particle methods (e.g., time accuracy, phase-space adaptivity, positivity) and deterministic, grid-based methods (e.g., no stochastic noise). Particles are evolved by the method of characteristics, with a time-dependent weight that accounts for stiff absorption and reemission process self-consistently. As a result, this approach is able to obtain accurate results while employing large time steps and a moderate number of particles (compared to Implicit Monte Carlo).