cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Sustainable Competitive Advantage In Service Operations: An Empirical Examination

This paper empirically examines the impact of environment friendly practices on restaurants in attracting customers. The restaurant industry is witnessing the green movement. Restaurant owners adopt green practices to their properties with the purpose of creating a distinctive image that can differentiate them from their competitors. Therefore, restaurateurs strive to get this competitive advantage by introducing green practices into their restaurants. However, little research has been done in the service sector to prove whether or not organic and sustainable service businesses such as restaurants can have a competitive advantage based on the organic and sustainability factors alone. The purpose of this research is to unfold these relationships through empirical analysis. The results of this research show that the dimension Sustainability is easily identified by the customers and does bring customers back to the restaurants. The results also indicate that restaurant industry need to do better job in creating awareness among their customers about the environment friendly practices used in their businesses.
Enhanced light extraction from organic light-emitting devices using a sub-anode grid (Presentation Recording)

We demonstrate a method for extracting waveguided light trapped in the organic and indium tin oxide layers of bottom emission organic light emitting devices (OLEDs) using a patterned planar grid layer (sub-anode grid) between the anode and the substrate. The scattering layer consists of two transparent materials with different refractive indices on a period sufficiently large to avoid diffraction and other unwanted wavelength-dependent effects. The position of the sub-anode grid outside of the OLED active region allows complete freedom in varying its dimensions and materials from which it is made without impacting the electrical characteristics of the device itself. Full wave electromagnetic simulation is used to study the efficiency dependence on refractive indices and geometric parameters of the grid. We show the fabrication process and characterization of OLEDs with two different grids: a buried sub-anode grid consisting of two dielectric materials, and an air sub-anode grid consisting of a dielectric material and gridline voids. Using a sub-anode grid, substrate plus air modes quantum efficiency of an OLED is enhanced from (33±2)% to (40±2)%, resulting in an increase in external quantum efficiency from (14±1)% to (18±1)%, with identical electrical characteristics to that of a conventional device. By varying the thickness of the electron transport layer (ETL) of sub-anode grid OLEDs, we find that all power launched into the waveguide modes is scattered into substrate. We also demonstrate a sub-anode grid combined with a thick ETL significantly reduces surface plasmon polaritons, and results in an increase in substrate plus air modes by a >50% compared with a conventional OLED. The wavelength, viewing angle and molecular orientational independence provided by this approach make this an attractive and general solution to the problem of extracting waveguided light and reducing plasmon losses in OLEDs.
Disentangling the effects of drought, salinity, and sulfate on baldcypress growth in a coastal plain restored wetland

Because of their dominance in swamps of the southeastern United States, baldcypress (Taxodium distichum) trees are commonly used in wetland restoration. Though baldcypress are known to tolerate moderate flooding and salinity, their growth has been shown to decrease when they experience drought and high salinity. This study examined the effects of drought and elevated salinity on the growth of baldcypress seedlings and saplings. In a restored wetland in North Carolina, we examined the growth of 8-year-old baldcypress by measuring height and diameter at breast height (DBH) along salinity, nutrient, and flooding gradients. In a greenhouse, we placed 1-year-old baldcypress seedlings in either drought or saturated conditions and applied different water treatments: fresh water, sulfate, and artificial salt water (5 ppt [parts per thousand]). Over 26 weeks, we measured diameter at root collar, height, and biomass. In the field, chloride concentrations in soil solution had a negative effect on DBH and height (51 and 36% decrease, respectively); high water levels had a negative effect on height (47% decrease) and DBH (46% decrease). In the greenhouse, both drought and salinity decreased diameter growth (43 and 61% decline, respectively) and height (64 and 43% decline, respectively). Sulfate did not have a significant effect on diameter growth, but caused a 14% decrease in height. Our results suggest that both drought and salinity (even as low as 1 ppt) can lead to a 20–60% decline in baldcypress growth. Restoration practitioners should consider the negative consequences of both drought and increased salinity on baldcypress growth when planning for wetland restoration.
Governance of International Institutions: A Review of the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation's Citizen Submissions

The number of international institutions has increased dramatically in recent years. This is true in the arena of environmental protection, among others. One of the important issues associated with the creation of these institutions involves the allocation of responsibility for their management and implementation. Specifically, a central question involves the roles that non-State actors play in the operation of such institutions. Some commentators suggest that the roles of such actors in international governance has expanded in recent years. The allocation of authority for the implementation of international regimes is obviously of considerable importance as we experiment with new forms of global governance. This article reviews this allocation of authority or jurisdictional boundaries question through a review of the structure and experience of a relatively new international institution, the North American Commission for Environmental Conservation (CEC). The CEC has been termed a brave experiment in institution-building. Among other things, the CEC: 1) is the first international organization created to address the environmental aspects of economic integration; 2) has innovative tools and almost unlimited jurisdiction to address regional environmental problems; and 3) provides unprecedented opportunities for participation by civil society at the international level. The CEC's citizen submissions process, an aspect of the CEC that has been called its most innovative and substantial mechanism for fostering transparency and public participation, is the particular focus of this article. Based on its review of the experience of the CEC, with particular attention to the issue of jurisdictional boundaries, the article offers some thoughts concerning the possible future of the citizen submissions process, including the possibility that particular actions by the State actors may undermine the credibility of the process and the interest of non-governmental organizations in continuing to use it. The article also identifies some of the issues the CEC experience raises for regional and global governance more generally.
The Effects of Clinorotation on the Host Plant, Medicago truncatula, and Its Microbial Symbionts

Understanding the outcome of the plant-microbe symbiosis in altered gravity is vital to developing life support systems for long-distance space travel and colonization of other planets. Thus, the aim of this research was to understand mutualistic relationships between plants and endophytic microbes under the influence of altered gravity. This project utilized the model tripartite relationship among Medicago truncatula ¬– Sinorhizobium meliloti – Rhizophagus irregularis. Plants were inoculated with rhizobial bacteria (S. meliloti), arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (R. irregularis), or both microbes, and placed on a rotating clinostat. Vertical and horizontal static controls were also performed. Clinorotation significantly reduced M. truncatula dry mass and fresh mass compared to the static controls. The addition of rhizobia treatments under clinorotation also altered total root length and root-to-shoot fresh mass ratio. Nodule size decreased under rhizobia + clinorotation treatment, and nodule density was significantly decreased compared to the vertical treatment. However, inoculation with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi was shown to increase biomass accumulation and nodule size. Thus, clinorotation significantly affected M. truncatula and its symbiotic relationships with S. meliloti and R. irregularis. In the long term, the results observed in this clinostat study on the changes of plant-microbe mutualism need to be investigated in spaceflight experiments. Thus, careful consideration of the symbiotic microbes of plants should be included in the design of bioregenerative life support systems needed for space travel.
An analysis of the nonmatching components of the stimulus matching paradigm

Two pigeons were trained on a simultaneous split-field single-key stimulus-matching procedure. The decline of keypecking during nonmatching stimuli was examined. Observations during nonmatching conditions indicated that as keypecking declined discrete overt patterns of behavior emerged to each of the two nonmatching compounds. The decline in keypecking and the emergence of discrete overt patterns of behavior was observed to occur first to one nonmatching compound and then to the second combination.
Cooling Towers as Supplemental Heat Rejection Systems in Ground Source Heat Pumps for Residential Houses in Texas and Other Semi-Arid Regions

Simulation results from a hybrid ground source heat pump model are presented for a residential home that integrates a compact cooling tower into an existing ground source heat pump model. The tower is introduced to assess its impact on the operational and economic performance over that of a GSHP alone. Metrics include initial and lifetime operational costs, ground heating effects, heat pump efficiency, and ability to control the temperature of the conditioned space. A single story, 195 m2 house located in Austin, Texas is used as a cooling-dominated test case. Simulations spanning 10-years of operation show that adding the cooling tower is cost effective, but more importantly, it extends the lifetime of the borehole system and maintains the heat pump efficiencies at high levels.© 2012 ASME
Attack Patterns of Ips avulsus and I. grandicollis (Coleoptera: Scolytidae) on Four Species of Southern Pines

Shortleaf pine, Pinus echinata Mill., was attacked the first day after felling by both Ips avulsus (Eichhoff) and I. grandicollis (Eichhoff) and was the only host attacked by I. avulsus in large numbers. Loblolly pine, P. taeda L., and longleaf pine, P. palustris (Mill.), were attacked in 5–7 days, but attack on slash pine, P. elliottii Engelm., was delayed 10–14 days. I. grandicollis successfully attacked all 4 pine species. Attack patterns showed a concentrated, 5–7 day attack by I. avulsus and a much longer, less intense attack by I. grandicollis . Sex ratios were 1.10 males/female for I. avulsus and 0.59 males/female for I. grandicollis . The attack patterns and sex ratios appeared to be consistent with the habits of each species. Hymenopterous parasite arrival patterns showed definite relationships to the Ips spp. attack patterns. Three parasites, Coeloides pissodis (Ashmead), Heydenia unica Cook & Davis, and Roptrocerus eccoptogastri (Ratzeburg) accounted for 90% of the parasite complex.
The effects of shocks on international networks: Changes in the attributes of states and the structure of international alliance networks

We study the effects of shocks – such as major wars that change states’ strategic environments – on alliance networks. This has important implications for the structure of security cooperation netw...
DEMOCRACY, SCIENCE, AND INSTITUTIONALIZED DISSENT: Toward a Social Justification for Academic Tenure

Tenure seems to be essential for sustaining intellectual dissent-a foundationstone of both science and democracy. In order to grasp the significance of tenure and of academic freedom we need a fuller understanding of the sociological foundations of freedom. This freedom rests on the objective possibility of criticizing authority relations and of creating alternative courses of action. We also find that freedom and dis- sent are central for facing up to large and powerful organizations in mod- ern society and for resolving social issues through scientific investigation.
REM Sleep Behavior Disorder: a Prodromal Synucleinopathy

Rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder (RBD) is an abnormal condition that constitutes dream enactment behavior occurring during rapid eye movement (REM) phase sleep with loss of normal muscular atonia. Idiopathic RBD is a recognized risk factor for the development of alpha-synuclein neuropathology, often referred to as Lewy body disorders (LBD) like Parkinson disease, multiple system atrophy and dementia with Lewy bodies, with conversion rates of 80–90 % over a lifetime. In the past decade, studies have described multiple features of idiopathic RBD subjects that resemble patients with alpha-synucleinopathies, with specific abnormalities in olfaction, vision, gait, cognition, autonomic dysfunction, impaired cortical activity, and dopaminergic abnormalities in neuroimaging, leading to the idea that idiopathic RBD is a prodromal synucleinopathy that can precede neurodegenerative disease by decades.
Non-01 Vibrio cholerae bacteremia--complication of a LeVeen shunt.

Abstract Vibrio cholerae bacteremia occurred in a patient with cirrhosis after placement of a LeVeen shunt. At the time of bacteremia, cultures of peritoneal fluid were negative and fluid dynamics did not suggest spontaneous bacterial peritonitis. Despite apparent successful treatment of the bacteremia, relapse and death occurred with culture positivity of peritoneal fluid for V. cholerae. Simultaneously, blood cultures were positive for Klebsiella pneumoniae. Agglutination studies demonstrated the V. cholerae to be a non-01 strain. Insertion of a LeVeen shunt, which bypasses the hepatic clearance mechanisms, appeared to have allowed bacteremia to occur with this bacterium that is rarely isolated from blood. In patients with LeVeen shunts, bacteremia with noninvasive pathogens may occur, and in coastal areas, Vibrios should be considered when bacteremia occurs.
Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) cross-linked coatings with phototunable swelling.

A series of terpolymers were synthesized comprising the following monomers: N-isopropylacrylamide (NIPAAm), a stimuli-responsive structural unit that swells and collapses in response to temperature; methacryloxybenzophenone (MaBP), a photo-cross-linking unit that is activated at a wavelength of 365 nm; and phenacyl methacrylate (PHEm), a photolabile protected carboxyl group that can be deprotected at a wavelength of 254 nm. It is shown that the terpolymers can be photo-cross-linked at long UV wavelength light (λ = 365 nm) to establish surface-attached, cross-linked coatings and subsequently photochemically cleaved at short UV wavelength light (λ = 254 nm), which is found to be consistent with first-order kinetics. The photocleavage reaction produces free carboxylic groups, which can be used to locally tune the swelling characteristics and transition temperature of the coating, which depends on both the irradiation exposure and the overall PHEm content. For instance, for a terpolymer with 7.1 mol % PHEm, t...
Hallmarks of Hypochromic Anemias

When red blood cells mature faster than hemoglobin is synthesized, an anemia with small pale red cells often results. It may be an iron-deficiency or sideroblastic anemia or thalassemia. In iron-deficiency anemia plasma iron is low and plasma iron-binding capacity increased. In thalassemia, increased hemoglobin A2 or hemoglobin F levels are present, and in sideroblastic anemia, plasma iron values go up, iron-binding capacity decreases, and “ring sideroblasts” appear in the marrow.
The Evaluation on the Clinical Application of Bedside Chest Radiographs After Cardiovascular Surgery

Objective:To evaluate the value and limitation of the clinical aplication of bedside chest radiographs after cardiovascular surgery.Methods:The bedside anteroposterior chest radiographs by portable X-ray equipmento in 206 patients who underwent cardiovascular surgery were evaluated retrospectively in the new abnormalities on postoperative radiographes.Results:There was total 60.7%(125/206)incidence of new abnormalities on postoperative chest radiographyes,35.4%(73/206) of them involved the left thoracic,among them,pleural effusions atelectasis and pneumothorax were 36.4%,27.7% and 9.2% respectively. Conclusion:The bedside chest radiographs after cardiovascular surgery is a valuable procedure for detecting overall cardiopulmonary abnormalities,but there are some limitations.
Posterolateral dislocation of the knee: Recognizing an uncommon entity

Posterolateral dislocations of the knee are rare injuries. Early recognition and emergent open reduction is crucial. A 48-year-old Caucasian male presented with right knee pain and limb swelling 3 d after sustaining a twisting injury in the bathroom. Examination revealed the pathognomonic anteromedial "pucker" sign. Ankle-brachial indices were greater than 1.0 and symmetrical. Radiographs showed a posterolateral dislocation of the right knee. He underwent emergency open reduction without an attempt at closed reduction. Attempts at closed reduction of posterolateral dislocations of the knee are usually impossible because of incarceration of medial soft tissue in the intercondylar notch and may only to delay surgical management and increase the risk of skin necrosis. Magnetic resonance imaging is not crucial in the preoperative period and can lead to delays of up to 24 h. Instead, open reduction should be performed once vascular compromise is excluded.
Stool DNA testing: a new, noninvasive option for colorectal cancer screening.

DA Although mortality rates have fallen with screening, CRC remains the second leading cause of cancer death in the United States. Conventional screening approaches are hampered by a number of factors. First, accuracy is less than optimal—although colonoscopy is highly accurate when done well, its quality is variable and operatordependent. Second, participation rates are relatively low—only about half of the population is regularly screened. Many people are unable to take the typically uncompensated 1 to 2 days off from work or do not have convenient local access, or else they are unwilling to undergo this procedure because it is invasive and requires bowel preparation. Finally, the recommended screening frequency of every 10 years may result in missed aggressive interval lesions, particularly in the proximal colon. An ideal test for population screening would noninvasively and accurately detect early-stage cancer and the subset of polyps most likely to progress; would not require bowel preparation, dietary changes, medication restrictions, or time away from work; and would be widely available.
Beyond Academic Performance: The Effects of an Evolution-Informed School Environment on Student Performance and Well-being

While education has the narrow goal of teaching subject matter, schools are also charged with the broad goal of fostering behavioral, social, and cultural development. Yet, as many students fail to achieve proficient scores on academic exams, education policymakers respond by narrowing their focus—accentuating content instruction over other developmental achievements. With an emphasis on grades over all else, the narrow goals of education become even narrower and broad goals are sacrificed altogether. This chapter shows how the narrow and broad goals of education can be achieved simultaneously. We continue a report on the Regents Academy (RA), a program for at-risk high school students in Binghamton New York that was designed to create an optimal cooperative learning environment. In a previous publication (Wilson, Kauffman & Purdy, 2011), we showed that the RA had a powerful effect on academic performance (grades and pass rates on the state-mandated exams) in a randomized controlled trial. In this chapter, we show that the RA also had a powerful effect on general developmental assets such as individual well-being, interest in learning, family support, and school support. Our study, along with other success stories in the literature, shows that the broad and narrow goals of education can be achieved together when education is viewed as a form of cooperation.
Performance Impact of Magnetic and Thermal Attack on STTRAM and Low-Overhead Mitigation Techniques

In this paper, we analyze the fundamental vulnerabilities of Spin-Torque-Transfer RAM on magnetic field and temperature that can be exploited by adversaries with an intent to trigger soft performance failures. We present novel attack vectors and their impact on memory performance (i.e., read, write and retention). We propose a novel low-overhead clock frequency-adaptation technique to mitigate the attack. Our analysis indicate slowing the clock frequency by 85% restores 170 mV of sense margin under 300 Oe DC magnetic field. In addition, 66% operating clock slowdown allows STTRAM to tolerate over 300 Oe AC magnetic field.
Fire in the belly : Aristotelian elements, organisms, and chemical compounds

Etude de l'analyse hylemorphique des organismes vivants developpee par Aristote a differents niveaux de la matiere (corps) et de la forme (âme). Examinant la these de la concurrence des constituants organiques defendue par M. Gill et F. Lewis, l'A. mesure l'indetermination de l'analyse compositionnelle d'Aristote, fondee sur les notions de composant chimique, agregat, presence et capacite
Design and implementation of a highly efficient UHF energy harvesting antenna

This article presents the design and implementation of a novel and highly efficient UHF folded dipole meandering antenna with a grounded parasitic loop and associated circuitry for energy harvesting at 915 MHz. The antenna is implemented on FR4 board with a dimension of 41.3mm × 17.5mm. The conversion efficiency of the harvesting circuit is measured 0.005% at a distance of 1.5m from the radiation source. In the test, a commercial UHF RFID reader was used as the radiation source.
The scientometrics of successful women in science

This paper examines the effects of gender differences in collaboration on research outcomes. We analyzed network characteristics of seventeen medical research institutions that are Clinical and Translational Science Awardees (CTSA) to determine if network connectivity characteristics have the potential to help mitigate the performance gap between the sexes. We determined betweenness centrality to identify well-connected researchers. Then we used clustering coefficient to determine how tightly connected their collaborators were with each other. We correlate these scores with productivity (number of total publications for each author), and h-index (the number of papers h for which an author has h citations). We also provide data on how network characteristics vary by role for each gender studied. Our results indicate that being well connected is more highly correlated with success for women than men for most of the institutions we studied. We believe these results can be leveraged to improve success rates for women in the future.
Thermal Decomposition Kinetics of Polyol Ester Lubricants

Synthetic lubricants are widely used for applications that require high thermal and oxidative stability. In order to facilitate new designs and applications for these fluids, we are measuring a suite of thermophysical and transport properties for lubricant base fluids and mixtures. As part of the property measurements, here, we report the global thermal decomposition kinetics of four polyol ester lubricant base oils, in addition to a fully qualified (MIL-PRF-23699) formulation. The fluids were heated in stainless steel ampule reactors and the extent of decomposition was measured by gas chromatography coupled with flame ionization detection (GC-FID), from which pseudo-first-order rate constants were derived. The rate constants for decomposition ranged from 1 × 10–8 s–1 at 500 K to 2 × 10–4 s–1 at 675 K. Arrhenius parameters across this temperature regime are also reported. Other techniques for chemical characterization applied in this work include gas chromatography with mass spectrometry (GC-MS), nuclear ...
The Need for Deeper Roots: Making a Mission-Driven Case for Poverty-related Issues in Business Education

We begin with the argument that if universities are to form and educate future business leaders with a disciplined sensitivity to those who suffer from both material and spiritual poverty, they will be most successful when they draw upon a mission that has a deeper root system than generic values or instrumental rationality. Recognizing that mission-driven perspectives need to be particular to the university, we provide a rationale of how Catholic universities, of which there are approximately 1,800 worldwide, can organically connect business- and poverty-related issues with their deepest convictions. When rooted in the specifi c wisdom of their tradition, Catholic universities are able to provide a multidimensional notion of the good that business does (good goods, good work, and good wealth) revealing the breadth of business’s contribution through a multilayered understanding of prosperity and poverty (material/moral/spiritual). Drawing upon these insights, we connect with actual business courses in the fi elds of marketing (good goods), management/organizational behavior (good work), and finance/accounting (good wealth).
Discovering Enterprise Concepts Using Spreadsheet Tables

Existing work on knowledge discovery focuses on using natural language techniques to extract entities and relationships from textual documents. However, today relational tables are abundant in quantities, and are often well-structured with coherent data values. So far these rich relational tables have been largely overlooked for the purpose of knowledge discovery. In this work, we study the problem of building concept hierarchies using a large corpus of enterprise spreadsheet tables. Our method first groups distinct values from tables into a large hierarchical tre based on co-occurrence statistics. We then "summarize" the large tree by selecting important tree nodes that are likely good concepts based on how well they "describe" the original corpus. The result is a small concept hierarchy that is easy for humans to understand and curate. Our end-to-end algorithms are designed to run on Map-Reduce and to scale to large corpus. Experiments using real enterprise spreadsheet corpus show that proposed approach can generate concepts with high quality.
Review of Asynchronous Logic Circuits

The chapter ends with designing an important asynchronous timing block: the C (or the Mueller) element, and describes an asynchronous timing methodology that leads to a complete design using timing diagrams.
Marking the American landscape: African Muslim slave writings and the place of Islam

This paper explores the role of negotiation in identity politics, focusing on the writings of the nineteenth century African Muslim slave writings in Arabic in the United States. The writing of one...
EXPERIMENTAL STUDY ON DISCRETE TIME ADAPTIVE CONTROL OF AN INDUSTRIAL ROBOT ARM

Abstract This paper deals with an implementation of a discrete time adaptive controller for two axes of an industrial manipulator. The friction terms are shown to be detrimental to the parameter adaptation algorithm and to the stability of overall system unless they are properly included in the model. In this paper, the effect of friction is minimized by a cancellation technique based on off-line estimation of friction terms. The primary purpose of the adaptive controller is to compensate for inertia variations due to payload changes and other disturbances.
Impact of Iowa's Prescription Monitoring Program on Opioid Pain Reliever Prescribing Patterns: An Interrupted Time Series Study 2003-2014.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the impact of Iowa's prescription monitoring program (PMP), implemented in 2009, on opioid pain reliever (OPR) prescribing patterns. METHODS We conducted interrupted time series analyses using 2003-2014 health insurance claims from a private health insurer in Iowa. OPR prescriptions for all beneficiaries were included. Another data set included only OPR prescription for new opioid users required to have six months of insurance coverage. We evaluate four OPR prescribing patterns: 1) average daily dosage in morphine milligrams equivalents (MME), 2) MME per prescription, 3) average days' supply per prescription, and 4) prescription rate per 1,000 insured person-years. We examined confounding and effect measure modification of the relationship between PMP and prescribing patterns by age and sex. RESULTS During the 12 years of follow-up, 1,512,388 insured Iowans contributed 6,169,634.92 person-years of follow-up. Of these, 505,274 patients filled 2,401,818 OPR prescriptions and 360,688 new OPR users filled as many first OPR prescriptions. The increasing trend of OPR prescription rates from 2003 to 2009 declined post-PMP. Similarly, there was a large decline in MME per day and MME per prescription. The OPR days' supply kept increasing post-PMP implementation, albeit at a slightly slower rate than pre-PMP implementation. There was no confounding by age and sex; however, we observed heterogeneity by age and sex; patients aged ≥50 years and females received higher doses and more prescriptions pre-PMP and experienced the greatest declines post-PMP. CONCLUSIONS Our study suggests that Iowa PMP implementation may have resulted in declines in OPR prescribing, and this impact varies by patient age and sex.
Concerning the mechanism of iodine(iii)-mediated oxidative dearomatization of phenols

The iodine(III)-mediated oxidative dearomatization of phenols has proven to be a general method for the preparation of cyclohexadienones. While this is a widely used reaction, there is still a great deal of uncertainty regarding the mechanistic pathway followed by these reactions. In part, this is due to the highly unstable nature of many of the key intermediates, which makes their direct detection extremely difficult. In order to gain some insight into these mechanistic questions, DFT calculations [M06-2X/6-31+G(d) for C, H, and O and LANL2DZdp for iodine] were used to evaluate the two most commonly proposed reaction mechanisms. These results show that unimolecular fragmentation of an oxygen-bound intermediate to give a phenoxenium ion (TS1) is preferred over direct addition of the nucleophile to the aromatic ring of the activated phenol (TS3). In addition, results are presented that suggest protonation and/or hydrogen bonding may play a key role in lowering the energy of the unimolecular fragmentation pathway.
Suitability of a Linear Model for Predicting Cohesive Soil Detachment during Jet Erosion Tests

AbstractCohesive soil detachment is a complex process that is typically simulated using simplified mathematical models such as the linear excess shear stress equation or power laws. The assumption ...
Quality Improvement in Pediatric Cardiology: The National Pediatric Cardiology Quality Improvement Collaborative

Infants with congenital heart disease (CHD) manifest broad anatomical and physiological heterogeneity, often making medical decision-making complex and variable. Clinical assessments regarding medical and surgical management in an individual patient are frequently made based on individual or group heuristics and past experience rather than solely on scientific evidence [1]. The relative paucity of patients with complex CHD and the variation in their anatomy and physiology has made it difficult to perform rigorous studies defining best practices that are associated with improved outcomes in these children. The Joint Council on Congenital Heart Disease (JCCHD) developed the National Pediatric Cardiology Quality Improvement Collaborative (NPC-QIC) is the first quality improvement collaborative in pediatric cardiology. This collaborative used a multi-site network, practice-based registry data and improvement science methodology to identify variation in management and to improve outcomes in patients with complex congenital heart disease.
The Effect of Creditor Rights on Bank Monitoring, Capital Structure and Risk-Taking

We examine the multi-faceted effect of creditor rights on the way banks monitor, operate and finance themselves. We present a simple analytical model that shows that a strengthening of creditor rights reduces the need for banks to monitor their borrowers; and that banks, as a result, tilt their capital structures away from capital that provides the strongest monitoring incentives. To determine whether this capital is deposits or equity, we use the staggered passage of legal reforms across countries as identifying variation in creditor rights, and find that banks tilt their capital structures away from equity and towards deposits when creditor rights become stronger. These results suggest that bank equity, rather than deposits, is the predominant form of monitoring-inducing capital. Next, we examine how creditor rights and the ensuing increase in bank leverage affect bank risk-taking. We find that increases in creditor rights increase bank risk-taking, but only in countries with government safety nets that encourage risk-shifting, not in countries without such perverse incentives. We also find that a strengthening of creditor rights results in an increase in banks’ cost of debt, but here too only in countries with government safety nets. These results indicate that lenders punish banks’ higher risk-shifting propensities with higher costs of debt. Overall, our study sheds light on the complex role of country-level creditor rights on the way banks within the country function, and in doing so, contrasts the effect of creditor rights on banks from that on industrial firms.
Technology tells a tale: digital games and narrative

In this paper, I discuss the debate over digital games and narrative in light of medium theory (also known as media ecology). The communicative environment created by a society’s media can favor certain kinds of cultural change. After analyzing the stories (or lack of them) in three very different games, I argue with ludologists that games are not narratives. I believe, however, that the digital medium has encouraged the transformation of what our culture thinks of as a story.
Konzepte aus der Computerarithmetik

In diesem Kapitel werden wir zwei anspruchsvolle Algorithmen aus der Computerarithmetik besprechen.
Luck or Law? The Constitutional Case Against Indeterminate Sentencing

In the majority of states indeterminate sentencing schemes prevail -- under which the decision for whether a person serves anywhere from one year to a life in prison for a given crime is left largely to the unfettered discretion of a judge. Indeed, ever since the Supreme Court decided Booker v. United States and thereby rendered the federal sentencing guidelines “effectively advisory,” many state courts have read Booker to lend an imprimatur upon their indeterminate sentencing schemes. Thus, in many jurisdictions, virtually no restraints upon judicial and/or executive discretion exist to ensure that similarly situated offenders convicted of similar criminal conduct will, within the same sovereign jurisdiction, receive punishments that are roughly similar to each other. This Article examines the case for, and the implications of, a finding that indeterminate sentencing schemes are impermissible under the federal Constitution. Looking at the history of the Framing Period and selected areas of the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence over the last forty years, this Article explicates the constitutional restraints on arbitrary and/or discriminatory distributions of penalties, and finds little persuasive basis for the continued survival of indeterminate sentencing schemes. To the extent the Supreme Court is reluctant, as a matter of institutional competence, to make that finding explicit, the Article urges legislators at the federal and state levels to shoulder their co-equal burden of implementing the Constitution’s commitment to restraining the random, arbitrary, or discriminatory imposition of substantial punishment.
Riemann problems and dispersive shocks in self-focusing media

The dynamical behavior resulting from an initial discontinuity in focusing media is investigated using a combination of numerical simulations and Whitham modulation theory for the focusing nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation. Initial conditions with a jump in either or both the amplitude and the local wave number are considered. It is shown analytically and numerically that the space-time plane divides into expanding domains in which the solution is described by a slow modulation of genus-0, genus-1 or genus-2 solutions, their precise arrangement depending on the specifics of the initial datum.
Osmotic Demyelination Syndrome in Children

Abstract Osmotic demyelination syndrome is an acute demyelination process that usually occurs several days following an osmotic stress. This syndrome is rare in adults (0.4% to 0.56%) and even more uncommon in children. We performed a review of all reported pediatric osmotic demyelination syndrome patients from 1960 to 2018. Among all 106 cases, 49 presented with isolated central pontine myelinolysis, 30 with isolated extrapontine myelinolysis, and 27 with combined central pontine myelinolysis and extrapontine myelinolysis. There was no gender preponderance, and the highest prevalence was noted between the ages one and five years. Magnetic resonance imaging remains the diagnostic modality of choice, and diffusion tensor imaging is now increasingly used for prognostication in osmotic demyelination syndrome. Sixty percent of the children had a complete neurological recovery. Current management of osmotic demyelination syndrome in children consists of supportive medical care, steroids, and intravenous immunoglobulin. Our review of the literature supports the hypothesis that steroids and immunoglobulins are potentially helpful, although additional controlled studies are needed.
Nonlinear Operation of Inertial Sensors

It is often assumed, and has been shown experimentally, that nonlinear operation of inertial sensors–in particular gyroscopes–can degrade or trivially improve performance. As such, the standard practice is to operate below or near the threshold where nonlinear effects become significant. The limitation with this method is that the dynamic range, or the range of excitations where the sensor behaves linearly, shrinks as the dimensions of the sensor decrease. Thus, while relatively large mechanical gyroscopes, such as hemispherical resonator gyroscopes (HRGs), can achieve navigation-grade performance, microelectromechanical system (MEMS) gyroscopes, being orders of magnitude smaller, have orders of magnitude worse performance. A relatively new class mechanical gyroscope, the frequency modulated (FM) gyroscope, is able to address long-term noise performance issues. The trade-off with FM gyroscopes, compared to the standard amplitude modulated ones, is that short-term noise can be elevated. One means of improving short-term gyroscope performance is improving short-term frequency stability. It has been shown theoretically and experimentally that while most states within the nonlinear regime of an oscillator degrade frequency stability, a select few allow operation at a lower fundamental limit. This work describes and provides some preliminary experimental work on the constructive exploitation of nonlinear operation with FM gyroscopes.
Emigration of hatchery‐reared Pallid Sturgeon, Scaphirhynchus albus (Forbes and Richardson), through a Missouri River dam

The middle Missouri River (MMR; Fort Randall Dam, SD to Gavins Point Dam, NE‐SD) is stocked with hatchery‐reared pallid sturgeon, Scaphirhynchus albus (Forbes and Richardson), from upper Missouri River broodstock to aid recovery of this federally endangered species. Emigration of these fish through Gavins Point Dam restores genetic connectivity that likely existed pre‐impoundment but could lead to outbreeding depression in the future. Recapture data of hatchery‐reared pallid sturgeon stocked in the MMR were evaluated to improve understanding of pallid sturgeon emigration. From 2004 to 2015, 219 emigrants were caught: 4 stocked at age ≥2 years and 215 stocked at age ≤1 year. Emigration of the 2001‐2007 year classes stocked at age 1 was a consistent phenomenon and appeared higher than emigration of year classes stocked at ages 2–3. Little evidence suggested emigration was associated with an unusually high‐water event in 2011. The annual emigration probability of individuals stocked at age 1 estimated from multi‐state mark–recapture models was 0.05 [95% confidence interval = 0.04–0.06] for fish ages ≥1 year. This study suggests that alterations to stocking practices (e.g. stocking age) may affect emigration rates and, therefore, connectivity among pallid sturgeon populations.
Structural Changes in the African Easterly Jet and its Role in Mediating the Effects of Saharan Dust on the Linear Dynamics of African Easterly Waves

AbstractAnalytical and numerical analyses are used to examine how structural changes to the African easterly jet (AEJ) mediate the effects of Saharan mineral dust aerosols on the linear dynamics of...
Development of Sézary syndrome following the administration of dupilumab.

Dupilumab is a monoclonal antibody that inhibits interleukin-4 and interleukin-13 signaling. It is the first biologic agent to demonstrate efficacy in treating moderate-to-severe refractory atopic dermatitis [1, 2]. Although dupilumab provides promise for the treatment of atopic and allergic conditions, clinicians should take into account its novelty and the potential for unexpected adverse events. We present a patient who developed Sezary syndrome following the initiation of dupilumab.
Zum Konzept der Therapeutischen Landschaft

Das Konzept der Therapeutischen Landschaften beschreibt, wie Landschaften und generell Orte als Gesundheitsressource beschrieben, erklart und konstruiert werden.
Power Modulations of Gamma Band in Sensorimotor Cortex Correlate with Time-Derivative of Grasp Force in Human Subjects

Grasping objects of different size and weight is one of the most important hand functions in our daily lives. For this reason, a hand neuroprosthetic needs to be able to perform it with high accuracy. Previous brain-machine interface (BMI) studies often focused on decoding the kinematic part of the grasp such as individual finger position or velocity. Less is known about the kinetic part such as the generation and maintenance of grasp force. In this study, we recorded intraoperative high-density electrocorticography (ECoG) from the sensorimotor cortex of four patients while they executed a voluntary isometric hand grasp during awake surgeries. They were instructed to squeeze a hand-held dynamometer and maintain the grasp for 2–3 s before relaxing. We studied the power modulations of the neural oscillations during the whole time-course of the grasp including onset, hold, and offset phases. Phasic event-related desynchronization (ERD) in the low-frequency band (LFB) from 8 to 32 Hz and event-related synchronization (ERS) in the high-frequency band (HFB) from 60 to 200 Hz were observed at grasp onset and offset. However, during the holding period, the magnitude of LFB-ERD and HFB-ERS decreased near or at the baseline level. More importantly, we found that the fluctuations of HFB-ERS primarily, and of LFB-ERD to a lesser extent, correlated with the time-course of the first time-derivative of force (yank), rather than with force itself. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that establishes such a correlation. These results have fundamental implications for the decoding of grasp in brain oscillatory activity-based neuroprosthetics.
Auditory and visual category learning in musicians and non-musicians

Across three experiments, we compare the ability of amateur musicians and nonmusicians in learning artificial auditory and visual categories that can be described as either rule-based (RB) or information-integration (II) category structures. RB categories are optimally learned using a reflective reasoning process, whereas II categories are optimally learned by integrating information from two stimulus dimensions at a reflexive, predecisional processing stage. We found that musicians have selective advantages for learning auditory RB categories, specifically when they are instructed about the dimensions that define the categories. In Experiment 1, musicians enrolled in a music college demonstrated advantages over nonmusicians in learning auditory RB categories defined on frequency and duration dimensions but did not demonstrate differences in learning auditory II categories or either visual RB or II categories. In Experiment 2, a broader online sample of musicians who were not instructed about the dimensions did not demonstrate any advantage in auditory or visual learning. In Experiment 3, an online sample of musicians when given dimension instructions demonstrated early advantages over nonmusicians for auditory RB but not visual RB categories. Musicians do not demonstrate a global categorization advantage. Musicians' category learning advantage is limited to their modality of expertise, is enhanced with dimension instructions, and is specific to categories that can be described with verbalizable rules. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
Linking Practitioner Dilemmas and Research Metrics Across an Integrated Marketing Curriculum

Observations from faculty who teach marketing indicate that a relatively small percentage of students have strong interest in quantitative analysis and many come into the marketing major out of the...
Risk-Reducing Bilateral Salpingo-Oophorectomy for Ovarian Cancer: A Review and Clinical Guide for Hereditary Predisposition Genes

Pathogenic germline variants underlie up to 20% of ovarian cancer (OC) and are associated with varying degrees of risk for OC. For mutations in high-penetrance genes such as BRCA1/2, the role of ri...
Transdifferentiation occurs continuously in adult hydra.

Publisher Summary In a mature animal or plant, the differentiated state of a cell is generally quite stable. The cell has a distinct morphology—a characteristic set of macromolecules that are involved in a particular physiological function—and usually does not undergo cell division. This state persists throughout the lifetime of the cell, which can coincide with the life-span of the organism as with a muscle cell, or be much shorter, as in the red blood cell. This pattern suggests that a cell once having traversed a differentiation pathway and having reached the end state is now fixed in its structure and function. However, ablation experiments have revealed that this is not always the case. For a number of cell types the stability of the differentiated state is not fixed, but is only metastable. In some tissues, such as the liver, partial ablation results in the resumption of cell division of the remaining cells. Here, quiescent cells do not alter their cell type, but undergo a behavior not usually associated with the final differentiated state. The existence of cell type conversion, or transdifferentiation, in which a cell undergoes a change in its physiological function with accompanying structural changes clearly demonstrates that the differentiated state is not always immutable.