cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Economic costs of CO2 emissions reduction for non-Annex I countries in international shipping

Abstract The differences between the Common but Differentiated Responsibility (CBDR) principle and the Equal Treatment for All Ships principle create a stalemate for future policy progress in vessel-based CO 2 emissions reduction negotiations. This paper investigates the economic costs of CO 2 emissions reduction with and without considering the CBDR under two separate regulatory scenarios, evaluates the impact on trade cost, and discusses the real policy concerns of developing countries insisting that the CBDR be applied by the International Maritime Organization (IMO). This paper shows that the cost increases to large developing countries are small even using a very stringent estimate. However, a policy that requires all ships to reduce CO 2 emissions increases international trade costs for small-island nations significantly, presenting an equity issue to be resolved. The current proposal to rebate money to developing countries has merit, especially for small countries. It does not address some fundamental concerns of major developing countries, however. To engage these countries, their interests have to be secured and some new policies should be created. This paper proposes some policy options that may involve these countries and consolidate an international effort in the IMO to reach binding agreements to reduce ship-based CO 2 in the future.
Histopathology and the detection of avian bornavirus in the nervous system of birds diagnosed with proventricular dilatation disease

Avian bornavirus (ABV) is currently considered a probable etiologic agent of proventricular dilatation disease (PDD) of psittacines. We tested 24 stored avian brain samples, processed for histopathology and retained following their submission for necropsy or histopathology to the Schubot Exotic Bird Center diagnostic laboratory in 1992. Thirteen of these samples were from birds diagnosed at that time as suffering from PDD. The remaining 11 samples were diagnosed as suffering from diseases other than PDD. Immunohistochemistry was performed using an antiserum directed against the ABV nucleoprotein (N-protein). Stained slides were read by an investigator unaware of their prior histopathology results. Cells containing ABV N-protein were present in the nervous tissues of all 13 PDD cases. One bird not previously diagnosed with PDD also had ABV N-protein in its brain. A review of this bird's necropsy report indicated that it was, most probably, also suffering from PDD. The remaining 10 non-PDD birds had no detectable N-protein in their brains. The N-protein was present in the cerebrum, cerebellum and spinal cord. These findings support other studies that indicate that ABV is an etiological agent of PDD.
3-D ultrasound guidance of surgical robotics using catheter transducers: Feasibility study

The goal of this study was to test the feasibility of using a real-time 3-D (RT3D) ultrasound scanner with matrix array catheter probes to guide a surgical robot. We tested the accuracy of using 3-D catheter transducers with the 3-D measurement software of the scanner to direct automatically a robot arm that touched two needle tips together within a water tank and inside a vascular graft. RMS measurement error ranged from 2.4 to 3.4 mm for two catheter designs.
Fish tissue lipid‐C:N relationships for correcting δ13C values and estimating lipid content in aquatic food‐web studies

RATIONALE Normalizing δ(13) C values of animal tissue for lipid content is necessary to accurately interpret food-web relationships from stable isotope analysis. To reduce the effort and expense associated with chemical extraction of lipids, various studies have tested arithmetic mass balance to mathematically normalize δ(13) C values for lipid content; however, the approach assumes that lipid content is related to the tissue C:N ratio. METHODS We evaluated two commonly used models for estimating tissue lipid content based on C:N ratio (a mass balance model and a stoichiometric model) by comparing model predictions to measure the lipid content of white muscle tissue. We then determined the effect of lipid model choice on δ(13) C values normalized using arithmetic mass balance. To do so, we used a collection of fish from Lake Superior spanning a wide range in lipid content (5% to 73% lipid). RESULTS We found that the lipid content was positively related to the bulk muscle tissue C:N ratio. The two different lipid models produced similar estimates of lipid content based on tissue C:N, within 6% for tissue C:N values <7. Normalizing δ(13) C values using an arithmetic mass-balance equation based on either model yielded similar results, with a small bias (<1‰) compared with results based on chemical extraction. CONCLUSIONS Among-species consistency in the relationship between fish muscle tissue C:N ratio and lipid content supports the application of arithmetic mass balance to normalize δ(13) C values for lipid content. The uncertainty associated with both lipid extraction quality and choice of model parameters constrains the achievable precision of normalized δ(13) C values to about ±1.0‰.
DNA-Binding Activities of the HilC and HilD Virulence Regulatory Proteins of Salmonella enterica Serovar Typhimurium

The HilC and HilD proteins of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium are members of the AraC/XylS family of transcription regulators. They are encoded on Salmonella pathogenicity island 1 (SPI1) and control expression of the hilA gene, which encodes the major transcriptional activator for many genes encoded on SPI1 and elsewhere that contribute to invasion of host cells. Gel electrophoretic shift and DNase footprinting assays revealed that purified HilC and HilD proteins can bind to multiple regions in the hilA and hilC promoters and to a single region in the hilD promoter. Although both HilC and -D proteins can bind to the same DNA regions, they showed different dependencies on the sequence and lengths of their DNA targets. To identify the binding-sequence specificity of HilC and HilD, a series of single base substitutions changing each position in a DNA fragment corresponding to positions −92 to −52 of the hilC promoter was tested for binding to HilC and HilD in a gel shift DNA-binding assay. This mutational analysis in combination with sequence alignments allowed deduction of consensus sequences for binding of both proteins. The consensus sequences overlap but differ so that HilC can bind to both types of sites but HilD only to one. The hilA and hilC promoters contain multiple binding sites of each type, whereas the hilD promoter contains a site that binds HilC but not HilD without additional binding elements. The HilC and HilD proteins had no major effect on transcription from the hilA or hilD promoters using purified proteins in vitro but changed the choice of promoter at hilC. These results are consistent with a model derived from analysis of lacZ fusions stating that HilC and HilD enhance hilA expression by counteracting a repressing activity.
Evaluation of the ESP Culture System II for Testing Susceptibilities of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Isolates to Four Primary Antituberculous Drugs

The reliability of the ESP Culture System II (herein referred to as ESP II) for testing susceptibilities of Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates to isoniazid, rifampin, ethambutol, and streptomycin was evaluated by comparing results to those of the method of proportion (MOP), which was considered the reference method, for 20 clinical isolates and 30 challenge strains provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Clinical isolates also were tested with the BACTEC TB 460 system; these results agreed with those obtained by the MOP for all isolates and all drugs, except the high concentration of isoniazid, for which agreement was 95%. After resolution of discrepancies, levels of agreement between ESP II and MOP for the clinical isolates were 95 and 100%, respectively, for the low and high concentrations of isoniazid, 100% for rifampin and ethambutol, and 95% for streptomycin. For the 30 challenge isolates, ESP II results for both concentrations of isoniazid agreed with the expected results in all cases, whereas agreement was 93% for both rifampin and streptomycin and 90% for ethambutol. All discrepancies with the CDC isolates were due to failure of ESP II to correctly classify resistant strains. By testing isolates yielding discrepant ethambutol and streptomycin results with a lower concentration of both drugs in the ESP II system, agreement increased to 93% for ethambutol and 100% for streptomycin. For the clinical isolates, the times to an ESP II result of susceptible (means ± standard errors of the means) were 8.47 ± 0.12 days (range, 7 to 10 days) and 8.73 ± 0.29 days (range, 5 to 11 days) when the inoculum was prepared from a McFarland equivalent and from a seed bottle, respectively. The time to an ESP II result of resistant varied by drug and method of inoculum preparation, ranging from 5.50 ± 0.22 days for ethambutol with the inoculum prepared from a McFarland standard to 8.0 days for ethambutol with the inoculum prepared from a seed bottle. These data suggest that the ESP II system is a rapid and reliable method for testing susceptibilities of M. tuberculosis isolates to isoniazid and rifampin. Performance, however, may be suboptimal for ethambutol and streptomycin. Testing additional ethambutol-resistant and streptomycin-resistant strains with two concentrations of both drugs is necessary.
The Faintest Speck of Dirt Disgust Enhances the Detection of Impurity

Purity is commonly regarded as being physically embodied in the color white, with even trivial deviations from whiteness indicating a loss of purity. In three studies, we explored the implications of this “white = pure” association for disgust, an emotion that motivates the detection and avoidance of impurities that threaten purity and cleanliness. We hypothesized that disgust tunes perception to prioritize the light end of the light-dark spectrum, which results in a relative hypersensitivity to changes in lightness in this range. In Studies 1 and 2, greater sensitivity to disgusting stimuli was associated with greater ability to make subtle gray-scale discriminations (e.g., detecting a faint gray stimulus against a white background) at the light end of the spectrum relative to ability to make subtle gray-scale discriminations at the dark end of the spectrum. In Study 3, after viewing disgusting images, disgust-sensitive individuals demonstrated a heightened ability to detect deviations from white. These ...
High‐Temperature Deformation of Hypostoichiometric 239PuO2

The high-temperature deformation of hypostoichiometric 239PuO2 was investigated using constant-displacement-rate compression tests. Considerable ductility (10 to 25% true strain) was observed at 800° to 1500°C. Yield stresses decreased with increasing temperature and decreasing strain rate. Strain-rate sensitivity values increased from 0.011 at 800° to 0.205 at 1500°C, whereas deformation activation energies were 121 to 157 kcal/mol. Deformed microstructures showed no evidence of grain-boundary cracking, suggesting that dislocation motion is the dominant high-temperature deformation mechanism.
Empirical Studies on the Behavior of Resource Availability in Fine-Grained Cycle Sharing Systems

Fine-grained cycle sharing (FGCS) systems aim at utilizing the large amount of computational resources available on the Internet. In FGCS, host computers allow guest jobs to utilize the CPU cycles if the jobs do not significantly impact local host users. Such resources are generally provided voluntarily and their availability fluctuates highly. Guest jobs may fail unexpectedly, as resource becomes unavailable. We present empirical studies on the detection and predictability of resource availability in FGCS systems. A multi-state availability model is derived from a study of resource behavior. The model combines generic hardware-software failures with domain-specific resource behavior in FGCS. To understand the predictability, we traced resource availability in a production FGCS system for three months. We found that the daily patterns of resource availability are comparable to those in recent history. This observation suggests the feasibility of predicting future resource availability, which can be applied for proactive management of guest jobs
ON-LINE MICRODIALYSIS DESALTING FOR ELECTROSPRAY IONIZATION-MASS SPECTROMETRY OF PROTEINS AND PEPTIDES

A novel method has been developed for the rapid desalting of proteins and peptides for electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS). Protein and peptide solutions having high salt concentrations were infused into a microdialysis tube which was directly interfaced with a micro-ESI source. The microdialysis tube was surrounded by a counter-current flow of a buffer solution consisting of 10 mM ammonium acetate. Desalting was completed in one to four minutes for samples containing up to 250 mM NaCl, which would otherwise have required several hours using alternative off-line desalting schemes. The on-line desalting method also increased the signal-to-noise ratio by a factor of more than 40 compared with that obtained without desalting. Detection of subpicomole samples of apomyoglobin having a high salt concentration was also achieved. Initial results for apomyoglobin, albumin and angiotensin I indicate broad applicability of the method.
Adhesive strength of atherosclerotic plaque in a mouse model depends on local collagen content and elastin fragmentation

Atherosclerotic plaque rupture is a major cause of myocardial infarction and ischemic stroke. The adhesive strength of the bond between a plaque and the vascular wall, measured as local energy release rate, G, is used for quantitative plaque stability estimation. We tested the hypothesis that adhesive strength varies with plaque composition. Matrix metalloproteinase-12 (MMP12) deficiency was previously reported to alter lesion composition. To estimate G values, peeling experiments are performed on aortic plaques from apolipoprotein E knockout (apoE KO) and apoE MMP12 double knockout (DKO) male mice after 8 months on high-fat diet. For plaques in apoE KO and apoE MMP12 DKO mice, experimental values for G differ significantly (p<0.002) between genotypes, averaging 19.2 J/m2 and 12.1 J/m2, respectively. Histology confirms that plaques delaminate along their interface with the underlying internal elastic lamina (IEL) in both genotypes. Quantitative image analysis of stained tissue sections demonstrates a significant positive correlation (p<0.05) between local collagen content of lesions and G values in both genotypes, indicating that adhesive strength of plaques depends on local collagen content. Surprisingly, macrophage content of aortic plaques is neither significantly correlated with G values nor significantly different between genotypes. The IEL underlying plaques in apoE KO mice is significantly more fragmented (number of breaks and length of breaks) than in apoE MMP12 DKO mice, suggesting that elastin fragmentation also influences adhesion strength of plaques. Overall, our results suggest that plaques adhere more strongly to the underlying IEL in apoE KO mice than in apoE MMP12 DKO mice.
Proxy-based Grid Information Dissemination

Resource scheduling in large-scale, volatile desktop grids is challenging because resource state is both dynamic and eclectic. Matching available resources with requests is not always possible with existing approaches. Partial dissemination protocols, such as gossiping, may provide efficient schedules when resource requesters are located near providers that can meet their needs. However, when requesters are distant from available resources, regular information dissemination techniques can waste communication bandwidth with futile messages. Thus, it may be advantageous to attempt to advertise to select remote regions of the grid, without necessarily also going through all intermediate nodes. This paper proposes dissemination proxies to increase coverage footprints and reduce dissemination overhead. We incorporate selecting and adjusting the amount of proxy nodes into an adaptive dissemination algorithm, and show that dissemination proxies are able to reduce dissemination overhead, and handle available resource distribution scenarios where regular information dissemination approaches may not produce efficient protocols. We also report initial results that indicate that randomly selecting nodes to serve as proxies can perform as well as strategies that select seemingly better-qualified proxies.
Genetics of melanoma

Genomic variation is a trend observed in various human diseases including cancer. Genetic studies have set out to understand how and why these variations result in cancer, why some populations are predisposed to the disease, and also how genetics affect drug responses. The melanoma incidence has been increasing at an alarming rate worldwide. The burden posed by melanoma has made it a necessity to understand the fundamental signaling pathways involved in this deadly disease. Signaling cascades such as MAPK and PI3K/AKT have been shown to be crucial in the regulation of processes that are commonly dysregulated during cancer development such as aberrant proliferation, loss of cell cycle control, impaired apoptosis and altered drug metabolism. Understanding how these and other oncogenic pathways are regulated has been integral in our challenge to develop potent anti-melanoma drugs. With advances in technology and especially in next generation sequencing, we have been able to explore melanoma genomes and exomes leading to the identification of previously unknown genes with functions in melanomagenesis such as GRIN2A and PREX2. The therapeutic potential of these novel candidate genes is actively being pursued with some presenting as druggable targets while others serve as indicators of therapeutic responses. In addition, the analysis of the mutational signatures of melanoma tumors continues to cement the causative role of UV exposure in melanoma pathogenesis. It has become distinctly clear that melanomas from sun exposed skin areas have distinct mutational signatures including C to T transitions indicative of UV-induced damage. It is thus necessary to continue spreading awareness on how to decrease the risk factors of developing the disease while at the same time working for a cure. Given the large amount of information gained from these sequencing studies, it is likely that in the future, treatment of melanoma will follow a highly personalized route that takes into accou
Dense Iodoapatite Ceramics Consolidated by Low‐Temperature Spark Plasma Sintering

Pb9.85(VO4)6I1.7, a potential waste form for long-lived I-129 immobilization, experiences phase decomposition and thus iodine loss at an elevated temperature above 400°C, presenting a significant challenge for effective management of radioactive iodine. In this work, we report low-temperature consolidation of dense iodoapatite pellets with above 95% theoretical density by spark plasma sintering (SPS) at temperatures as low as 350°C for 20 min without iodine loss. Microstructure analysis indicates a nanocrystalline ceramic with an average grain size less than 100 nm. Grain growth dominates the sintered microstructure at higher temperatures and longer durations. The dense nanoceramics have significantly-improved fracture toughness as compared with bulk coarsened grain structures. The effects of sintering temperatures (350°C, 400°C, 500°C, and 700°C) and durations (0–20 min) on microstructure, density, fracture morphology, and mechanical properties including Young's modulus and hardness of bulk samples were investigated. Low temperature densified iodoapatites suggest immense potential of SPS as an advanced materials fabrication technology for the development of waste forms for immobilization of volatile radionuclides including radioactive iodine.
GROWING UP IN LAW & SOCIETY: THE PULLS OF POLICY AND METHODS

This article which will appear as the introductory essay in Volume 9 of the Annual Review of Law and Social Science begins, at the editor’s request, with a professional autobiography which traces the aspirations and training that led to Lempert’s commitment to the field of law and social science and allows him to comment on the emergence of Empirical Legal Studies and other development sin the field. Some of what is written may be of interest to those who seek to understand the history of the field’s revival, and those who were among the first generation of Law & Society Association members may see some of their own experience in Lempert’s account. But much of the article’s first portion may be of interest largely to the author’s friends and family. The second and larger portion of the article discusses uses of law and social science research in the policy arena and cautions against the possibility that a study’s policy appeal may exceed the weight that can fairly be put on it. Five studies are used as examples: James Q. Wilson and Kelling’s essay on "Broken Windows," Lawrence Sherman and Richard Berk’s work on arrest for spouse abuse, Isaac Ehrlich’s article on the deterrent effects of the death penalty, John Lott and David Mustard’s work on "right to carry" laws and Richard Sander’s mismatch critique of affirmative action. The portion discussing Sander’s work presents previously unpublished data that not only refutes published claims by Professor Sander that Michigan Law School’s minority graduates fare poorly on the bar, but also indicates in 3 recent years affirmative action eligibility appears to have had little if any relationship to bar passage success. The article also emphasizes the importance to policy of understanding mechanism, and the need for sophistication in the soft methods of study design along with a good understanding of formal statistics.
Systematic Study of the Potential Energy Surface for the Base-Induced Elimination Reaction of Fluoride Ion with Ethyl Fluoride Using Density Functional Theory

The potential energy surface for the reaction between fluoride ion and ethyl fluoride was explored using density functional theory and a high-level ab initio procedure (G2+). A wide variety of functionals and basis sets were systematically examined. Four reactions with known thermochemistry were used as benchmarks, and while the experimental results could be reproduced, no single functional or class of functionals consistently outperformed the others. Transition structures and an ion-molecule complex, F - ‚‚CH3CH2F, are discussed. The DFT barriers are consistently smaller and looser than those obtained with high-level ab initio calculations. Moreover, the anti elimination transition state is unusually sensitive to the choice of functional and basis set; in many cases the transition structure does not appear to exist on the potential energy surface. The origin of this problem may reside in the large charge inhomogeneities characteristic of transition states and/or an inadequate description of the exchange interaction. This shortcoming, clearly, demands a great deal more attention.
A family of market-based shipment methodologies for delivery supply chain

Load building is an important step to make the delivery supply chain efficient. We present a family of load makeup algorithms using market control-based strategy, named LoadMarket, in order to build efficient loads where each load consists of a certain number of finished products having destinations. LoadMarket adopts minimum spanning tree graph algorithm for generating initial endowment for load traders who cooperate to minimize either total travel distance or the variance with respect to the travel distances of loads through a spot market or double-sided auction market mechanism. For the simulated load shipment market, the efficiency of the LoadMarket algorithms is analyzed using simulation experiments.
Design and Analysis of an Ultrahigh-Speed Glitch-Free Fully Differential Charge Pump With Minimum Output Current Variation and Accurate Matching

An ultrahigh-speed fully differential charge pump with minimum current mismatch and variation is proposed in this brief. A mismatch suppression circuit is employed to minimize the mismatch between the charging and discharging currents, which minimizes the steady-state phase error in a phase-locked loop (PLL). A variation suppression circuit is proposed to minimize output current variation with the change of output voltage, which reduces the variation of the bandwidth in a PLL. Techniques are proposed to suppress both low-speed glitches and high-speed glitches in the output current to allow glitch-free operation of the charge pump with ultrafast input pulses. The differential charge pump is designed and simulated under the power supply of 3.3 V in TSMC 0.35-mum CMOS technology to verify the effectiveness of the proposed techniques
Investigation of factors associated with paternal nondisjunction of chromosome 21.

Previous studies on relatively small samples of individuals with trisomy 21 caused by paternally derived errors have shown that: (1) advanced paternal age is not a risk factor for chromosome 21 nondisjunction (NDJ), (2) absence of recombination, but not the location of recombination is associated with paternal NDJ and (3) there is an excess of males among live-births with paternally derived trisomy 21. An excess of males is also observed among all individuals with trisomy 21. Using 128 families that had a child with trisomy 21 due to a paternally derived error, we examined: paternal age, recombination and the male/female sex ratio. We genotyped STRs along 21q to identify the origin of the error and the location of recombination on the paternal chromosome. Results showed that 32% of paternal meiotic errors occurred in meiosis I (MI) and 68% in meiosis II (MII). We confirmed the lack of a paternal age association with either type of error (mean paternal age for controls, MI, and MII errors: 31.3 ± 6.6, 32.2 ± 6.3, 30.6 ± 6.5, respectively). However, contrary to previous findings, we did not find altered patterns of recombination among paternal MI or MII errors. We found an increased male/female sex ratio among paternal (1.28, 95% CI: 0.68–1.91) and maternal (1.16, 95% CI: 1.02–1.33) meiotic errors. While the sex ratio among individuals with paternal errors was not statistically significant, these findings suggest that selection against female fetuses with trisomy 21 may contribute to the excess of males observed among all individuals with trisomy 21.
Publication Speed, Reporting Metrics, and Citation Impact of Cardiovascular Trials Supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute

Background We previously demonstrated that cardiovascular (CV) trials funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) were more likely to be published in a timely manner and receive high raw citation counts if they focused on clinical endpoints. We did not examine the metrics of trial reports, and our citation measures were limited by failure to account for topic‐related citation behaviors. Methods and Results Of 244 CV trials completed between 2000 and 2011, we identified 184 whose main results were published by August 20, 2014. One investigator who was blinded to rapidity of publication and citation data read each publication and characterized it according to modified Delphi criteria. There were 46 trials (25%) that had Delphi scores of 8 or 9 (of a possible 9); these trials published faster (median time from trial completion to publication, 12.6 [interquartile range {IQR}, 6.7 to 23.3] vs. 21.8 [IQR, 12.1 to 34.9] months; P <0.01). They also had better normalized citation impact (median citation percentile for topic and date of publication, with 0 best and 100 worst, 1.92 [IQR, 0.64 to 7.83] vs. 8.41 [IQR, 1.80 to 24.75]; P =0.002). By random forest regression, we found that the 3 most important predictors of normalized citation percentile values were total costs, intention‐to‐treat analyses (as a modified Delphi quality measure), and focus on clinical (not surrogate) endpoints. Conclusions NHLBI CV trials were more likely to publish results quickly and yield higher topic‐normalized citation impact if they reported results according to well‐defined metrics, along with focus on clinical endpoints.
Family factors and immigrant students’ academic achievement: An Asian and Hispanic comparison study

Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to examine the relationship between family-related factors and academic performance for Asian and Hispanic immigrant students. Design/methodology/approach – The study used data drawn from the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study. Data were collected from second-generation immigrant students in forms of surveys. A total of 10th to 12th grade Asian (n=3,022) and Hispanic immigrant students (n=1,664) reported their family income, father’s and mother’ education, parents’ education aspiration for them, their own education aspiration, English proficiency, family cohesion, and parent-child conflict. Their school performance indicated by grade point average demonstrated in school records was also collected. Data were analyzed with analysis of variance and regression techniques. Findings – Family income and parent-child conflict were identified as predictors of immigrant students’ grade point average. When regression analyses were conducted separately for Asian and Hispan...
Social network determinants of depression

The etiology of depression has long been thought to include social environmental factors. To quantitatively explore the novel possibility of person-to-person spread and network-level determination of depressive symptoms, analyses were performed on a densely interconnected social network of 12,067 people assessed repeatedly over 32 years as part of the Framingham Heart Study. Longitudinal statistical models were used to examine whether depressive symptoms in one person were associated with similar scores in friends, co-workers, siblings, spouses and neighbors. Depressive symptoms were assessed using CES-D scores that were available for subjects in three waves measured between 1983 and 2001. Results showed both low and high CES-D scores (and classification as being depressed) in a given period were strongly correlated with such scores in one's friends and neighbors. This association extended up to three degrees of separation (to one's friends' friends' friends). Female friends appear to be especially influential in the spread of depression from one person to another. The results are robust to multiple network simulation and estimation methods, suggesting that network phenomena appear relevant to the epidemiology of depression and would benefit from further study.
From theoretical analysis to clinical assessment and intervention: Three interactive motor skills in a virtual environment

Rehabilitation of upper extremity has successfully focused on simple reaching movements using assistive robotic devices in concert with virtual interactive displays. When commercial gaming technology is adapted to clinical use, the movements often are more complex but also less controlled. While motivating games engage the patients, the more controlled robot-assisted paradigms afford more focused quantitative assessment and intervention. Our lab has developed three experimental tasks, implemented in virtual reality environments, that combine physically controlled movements with gaming aspects: Throwing a ball, carrying a cup of coffee, and rhythmically bouncing a ball. All three paradigms are grounded in theoretical analysis of the physics of the task before their virtual implementation. On the basis of the mathematical model of the abstracted physics, novel analyses of human performance were developed that go beyond simple outcome measures and quantify essential aspects movement control: timing, variability, safety margins. Basic research on healthy subjects laid the groundwork for using these experimental platforms for (pre)-clinical assessment and intervention in patients with neurological disorders. We present three studies on Parkinson patients, children with dystonia, and older adults to exemplify the potential of these experimental tasks for assessment and targeted intervention.
Recurrent Anterior Shoulder Instability With Combined Bone Loss Treatment and Results With the Modified Latarjet Procedure

Background:Recurrent anterior glenohumeral dislocation in the setting of an engaging Hill-Sachs lesion is high. The Latarjet procedure has been well described for restoring glenohumeral stability in patients with >25% glenoid bone loss. However, the treatment for patients with combined humeral head and mild ( 25% glenoid bone loss. The hypothesis was that the 2 groups would have equivalent subjective outcomes and recurrence rates.Study Design:Cohort Study; Level of evidence, 3.Methods:Modified Latarjet was performed in 40 patients with recurrent anterior shoulder instability, engaging Hill-Sachs by examination confirmed with arthroscopy, and ≤25% anterior glenoid bone loss (group A). A second group of 12 patients were identified to have >25% glenoid...
Tertiary Structure of the Muscle Calcium Pump

The tertiary structure of the (Ca2+ + Mg2+)-ATPase between its ATP hydrolytic site and its calcium binding regions can undergo changes to effectuate true uncoupling between uptake, occlusion, and ATPase activity. Tryptic digestion at site T2 (Arg 198) has no effect on the ATPase activity while Ca2+-uptake is abolished. The loss of Ca2+-uptake appears to be due to uncoupling of uptake from ATPase and theoretical modeling of uptake data reveals that the functional enzyme may exist as a dimer. In contrast, T2 digestion has no influence on ATP-dependent calcium occlusion as measured by Eu3+ luminescence spectroscopy. The study of the synthetic peptide analogues and their binding characteristics indicate that Asp 196 and Asp 149 are important for cation binding.
Charmed by Tyranny

We may understand why intellectuals living under tyranny, jaded by the degradations of war and intimidated by a totalitarian state, would submit to regnant orthodoxy. But what accounts for tyranny’s apologists in free societies? A review of Mark Lilla, The Reckless Mind: Intellectuals in Politics (2001).
Increasing and Decreasing the Ultrastability of Bacterial Chemotaxis Core Signaling Complexes by Modifying Protein−Protein Contacts

The chemosensory signaling array of bacterial chemotaxis is composed of functional core units containing two receptor trimers of dimers, a homodimeric CheA kinase, and two CheW adaptor proteins. In vitro reconstitutions generate individual, functional core units and larger functional assemblies, including dimers, hexagons, and hexagonal arrays. Such reconstituted complexes have been shown to have both quasi-stable and ultrastable populations that decay with lifetimes of 1–2 days and ∼3 weeks at 22 °C, respectively, where decay results primarily from proteolysis of the bound kinase [Erbse, A. H., and Falke, J. J. (2009) Biochemistry 48, 6975–6987; Slivka, P. F., and Falke, J. J. (2012) Biochemistry 51, 10218–10228]. In this work, we show that the ultrastable population can be destabilized to the quasi-stable level via the introduction of a bulky tryptophan residue at either one of two essential protein–protein interfaces within the core unit: the receptor–kinase contact or kinase–adaptor interface 1. Moreo...
Alphaxalone activates a Cl- conductance independent of GABAA receptors in cultured embryonic human dorsal root ganglion neurons.

Whole cell and cell-attached patch-clamp techniques characterized the neurosteroid anesthetic alphaxalone’s (5α-pregnane-3α-ol-11,20-dione) effects on GABAAreceptors and on Cl− currents in cultured...
Canaries in a Coal Mine: Using Application-level Checkpoints to Detect Memory Failures.

Memory failures in future extreme scale applications are a significant concern in the high-performance computing community and have attracted much research attention. We contend in this paper that using application checkpoint data to detect memory failures has potential benefits and is preferable to examining application memory. To support this contention, we describe the application of machine learning techniques to evaluate the veracity of checkpoint data. Our preliminary results indicate that supervised decision tree machine learning approaches can effectively detect corruption in restart files, suggesting that future extreme-scale applications and systems may benefit from incorporating such approaches in order to cope with memory failures.
Screening for gestational diabetes mellitus.

Case study: A 29-year-old woman at 20 weeks' gestation visits your office for a routine prenatal examination. This is her second pregnancy, and she has gained 15 lb (6.8 kg). According to her medical record, the patient's prepregnancy body mass index (BMI) was 27 kg per m2. She mentions that her father was recently diagnosed with diabetes, and she asks whether she should be tested for diabetes.
Of Theory and Justifications and their Uses

Development requires the instrumental use of the legal order to create institutions that serve the mass of the population. The Law of Reproduction of Institutions teaches that no matter how technically competent or morally inspired the governors, unless they use law to change the inherited institutions, their policies will not likely facilitate development. The Law of Non-Transferability of Law teaches that to copy the laws of a model country will not ensure success. No shortcut exists for determining how to employ law to change institutions. That calls for research. In turn, research requires a guide — a theory — to thread through the complex mazes of reality.
Social science: Female genital cutting under the spotlight

Variations in opinion between members of a community can be exploited to facilitate desirable changes in attitude, as exemplified by films that explore different beliefs about female genital cutting. See Letter p.506 As the world starts to feel smaller and globalization pulls those with different cultural attitudes together, navigating the inevitable social and cultural conflicts that result will increase in importance. One such contentious and controversial cultural practice is female genital cutting. Ernst Fehr and colleagues used control and treatment movies to educate societies in which cutting occurs and measured implicit attitudes towards cutting in a randomized experiment. These treatment movies raised awareness and changed attitudes towards cutting in a positive manner as compared to controls, with a modest persistent effect. Highlighting discordant views within a specific society on culturally controversial practices may allow for cultural change.
Modeling of Extended N-H Solids at High Pressures.

The formation of nitrogen−hydrogen networked compounds is a promising approach for obtaining high energy density materials. Multiple experimental reports indicate that the synthesis pressure and temperature of high-energy nitrogen networked compounds significantly decrease when adding hydrogen to nitrogen. One- and two-dimensional structures of nitrogen−hydrogen mixtures are reported to form during synthesis and have also been observed with simulations; however, the structures are not thoroughly established or well understood. Here, we present results of calculations of nitrogen−hydrogen mixtures at pressures up to 50 GPa and predict their structural transformations upon applying and releasing pressure using density functional theory and evolutionary algorithms. Improvements in the computational procedure resulted in efficient on-the-fly elimination of slowly converging structures during the geometry optimization process. This enabled the continuation of long evolution simulations of the nitrogen−hydrogen...
The Shape of Labor to Come

While financial markets have relied on topological “spheres” and “bubbles” for some time to conceptualize complex economic structures, labor has fallen behind. Such a trend was premeditated by Paulo Virno who, argues that we are missing robust “special places” from which we might base collective action in emergent economic structures. Relying directly on Aristotle’s distinctions between special and common places and well as the concept of “embodiable topoi” as articulated by Christa Olson, this chapter suggests that the notion of commonplace, in the context of sharing economies, undermines the possibility of sustained labor collectives and exacerbate the conditions of nonemployment. Using the recent examples from the sharing economy, including Uber and Lyft, this chapter demonstrates how topological constructs might productively reshape labor efforts.
Sport for the Sake of the Soul

The relationship between Christianity and sport is a long and varied one. Christian thinkers, past and present, have been highly critical of sport, for a variety of reasons. Others have been much m...
Examining Crowd Work and Gig Work Through The Historical Lens of Piecework

The internet is empowering the rise of crowd work, gig work, and other forms of on-demand labor. A large and growing body of scholarship has attempted to predict the socio-technical outcomes of this shift, especially addressing three questions: 1) What are the complexity limits of on-demand work?, 2) How far can work be decomposed into smaller microtasks?, and 3) What will work and the place of work look like for workers? In this paper, we look to the historical scholarship on piecework — a similar trend of work decomposition, distribution, and payment that was popular at the turn of the 20th century — to understand how these questions might play out with modern on-demand work. We identify the mechanisms that enabled and limited piecework historically, and identify whether on-demand work faces the same pitfalls or might differentiate itself. This approach introduces theoretical grounding that can help address some of the most persistent questions in crowd work, and suggests design interventions that learn from history rather than repeat it.
Learning by networked agents under partial information

In many scenarios of interest, agents may only have access to partial information about an unknown model or target vector. Each agent may be sensing only a subset of the entries of a global target vector, and the number of these entries can be different across the agents. If each of the agents were to solve an inference task independently of the other agents, then they would not benefit from neighboring agents that may be sensing similar entries. This work develops cooperative distributed techniques that enable agents to cooperate even when their interactions are limited to exchanging estimates of select few entries. In the proposed strategies, agents are only required to share estimates of their common entries, which results in a significant reduction in communication overhead. Simulations show that the proposed approach improves both the performance of individual agents and the entire network through cooperation.
A LASER RANGEFINDER PATH SELECTION SYSTEM FOR MARTIAN ROVER USING LOGARITHMIC SCANNING SCHEME

This paper deals with a laser rangefinder path selection scheme for an autonomous Martian roving vehicle. The overall scheme consists of the following interrelated sub-systems; logarithmic scanning sub-system, obstacle detection scheme (Sonalkar and Shen (1975); Kim and Shen (1978)), terrain modeling and estimation (Shen and Stare (1977); Pawlowski (1978)), and path selection algorithm (Netch and Shen (1977)). Independent and separate studies for the last three sub-systems were performed previously. With the introduction of the logarithmic scanning, an integrated study is completed in this paper. This study serves as a possible alternate choice other than TV cameras for navigating the Martian surface. Moreover, if hybrid TV and laser systems are used, a laser-only standby system can be put to work in case the TV part of the hybrid system fails to operate.
A high capacity self-priming counter-gravity heat pipe: Modeling and experimental demonstration

Abstract We mathematically model, fabricate, and test a counter-gravity heat pipe with a unique header and artery system. The header and artery system augments the capillary limit of traditional heat pipes with homogeneous wicks by incorporating a low resistance pathway for liquid return from the condenser to the evaporator. Unlike other composite wick designs for low resistance liquid return to the evaporator, the header and artery system enables priming of the wick structure for counter-gravity start-up. We tested a stainless steel-water heat pipe with the header and artery system. This header and artery heat pipe demonstrated reliable counter-gravity start-up with a capillary limit augmentation of over four times that of the same heat pipe with a conventional homogeneous wick. This result is in agreement with a theory developed by Chisholm (1978).
INTERFERON ACTION: (A) INTERFERONS AS INDUCERS OF mRNA AND PROTEIN SYNTHESIS (B) CROSS-LINKING OF MOUSE-BETA INTERFERON TO CELL SURFACE RECEPTORS

ABSTRACT Interferons are a family of proteins exerting various antiviral, cell growth regulatory and immunomodulatory activities. Many of these activities are mediated by proteins whose levels are increased in cells exposed to interferons. The increase in the levels of these proteins (one of which is a major human histocompatibility antigen HLA-B7) appears to be a consequence of an increase in the level of particular mRNAs. Upon transfection into mouse cells the HLA-B7 gene retains its responsiveness to interferon. This makes it likely that the responsiveness depends on a DNA segment linked to the gene. The cloning of other genes responsive to interferons and their use as hybridization probes revealed that the enhancement in the level of particular mRNAs after the treatment with an interferon is only transient even in the continued presence of the interferon. (2′–5′)(A) n , a product of an enzyme induced by interferons, binds and activates a latent RNase (RNase L). A derivative of (2′-5′)(A) n can be cross-linked selectively to RNase L in a crude cytoplasmic extract. In nuclear extracts the same derivative is cross-linked to several proteins, some of which are induced by interferons. It remains to be seen if the activity of these proteins is affected by (2′-5′)(A) n . All the actions of interferons depend on an interaction of interferons with specific, high affinity cell surface receptors. Alpha and beta interferons seem to share receptors. Selective crosslinking of a labeled mouse beta interferon (size about 35,000 daltons) to a cell surface receptor on L929 and L1210 cells resulted in an interferon-receptor complex of about 125,000 daltons. After interaction with the receptor at least part of the interferon is degraded.
Sub-optimal Patterns of Information Use: A Rational Analysis of Information Seeking Behavior in Critical Care

Human information seeking is driven by their need to satisfy their various needs [1] related to specific tasks and activities. The effectiveness of information seeking is critical in achieving high throughput and efficiency. Nevertheless, given the plethora of available data it is impossible to effectively focus on specific data – cognitive barriers such as information load, memory capacity and strategies significantly affect the effectiveness of information seeking and gathering. While much is known about the information needs and sources of information that are typically used by clinicians (both physicians, nurses and other healthcare professionals) very little is known about the processes and mechanisms that underlie the clinicians’ use of the information sources. Additionally, most of the prior work on information needs and use has been conducted in primary care settings.
Stereochemical considerations for constructing α-helical protein bundles with particular application to membrane proteins

The stereochemical constraints originally used to construct two- and three-stranded alpha-helical coiled-coils were generalized for aggregates of alpha-helices containing from 4 to 14 alpha-helices in tubular bundles. Certain features of bacteriorhodopsin show excellent correlations with these stereochemical constraints.