cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The Challenge of Helping the Programmer during Debugging

Programmers spend considerable time debugging their systems. They add logging statements and use debuggers to run their systems in a controlled environment all in an attempt to understand what is happening as their program executes. Our hypothesis is that visualization tools can significantly improve the debugging process. A wide variety of tools have been developed for visualizing and understanding the dynamics of program execution. These tools can provide lots of information about executions. However, most tools are not designed to be used with a debugger. What is needed are tools that can work while the programmer is debugging a system and that provide the information the programmer needs to understand and assist the debugging process. We have started to develop such tools within the context of the Code Bubbles development environment. However, there is much room for improvement and we call upon the software visualization community to think about and develop practical tools that will improve the debugging process.
Depositional Environments of Marine Pleistocene Deposits in Southeastern North Carolina

Outcropping marine, fossiliferous Pleistocene beds in southeastern North Carolina (Neuse Formation) consist of four facies, each facies having distinct lithologic and faunal characteristics: (1) bay facies—clay to fine-grained quartz sand, Retusa-Nuculana molluscan assemblage, and Elphidium-Ammonia foraminiferal assemblage; (2) shallow shelf facies—fine-grained quartz sand, Donax-Spisula molluscan assemblage, and Elphidium-Ammonia-Hanzawaia foraminiferal assemblage; (3) lagoonal facies—very fine-grained quartz sand and sand-silt-clay, Crassostrea-Gemma molluscan assemblage, and Elphidium-Ammonia foraminiferal assemblage; (4) high-energy facies—coquina, Donax-Mercenaria molluscan assemblage, and Quinqueloculina foraminiferal assemblage. The bay facies seems to have been deposited in a body of water in which polyhaline and marine salinities prevailed and which was moderately exposed to the open ocean. The shallow shelf facies probably formed in the sublittoral zone in the open ocean. The lagoonal facies seems to have formed in a body of water where mesohaline and polyhaline salinities were dominant. The high-energy facies was probably deposited in inlets between barrier bars or in shoal areas near the littoral zone. The water temperature during deposition of the Neuse Formation seems to have been slightly higher than that now found in North Carolina coastal waters. Changes in temperature and shoreline configuration after Neuse deposition seem to have had a marked effect on molluscan latitudinal migration.
Improvement of Sponge Cake Baking Test Procedure for Simple and Reliable Estimation of Soft White Wheat Quality

ABSTRACT The sponge cake baking test is accepted and routinely used as a standard quality evaluation tool of soft white wheat for Asian markets, but its lengthy and laborious procedure makes it unsuitable for the routine evaluation of a large number of wheat breeding lines. We simplified the sponge cake baking procedure in the egg-whipping step and improved its consistency by replacement of the hand mixing of cake batter with mechanical mixing, using a wire whisk or a BeaterBlade paddle. Egg whipping and mechanical batter mixing conditions were optimized by comparing foam density, sponge cake volume, and crumb grain to those obtained by the conventional procedure. Foam density, sponge cake volume, and crumb grain comparable to the conventional 100 g flour procedure were obtained with modifications, including extension of whipping time without heat input using a 5 L KitchenAid mixer, one-time water addition at 3 min before the completion of egg whipping instead of twice, as in the conventional procedure, a...
Designing Reusable Mission Operations Center Software Components: The Dependency Inversion Principle Applied to Satellite Command and Control

The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL) Ground Applications Group (SIG) develops Mission Operations Center software systems for all satellite missions supported by the JHU/APL Space Department. For efficiency, SIG designs these ground software systems to maximize reuse of existing software components, components include Commercial Off-The-Shelf satellite command and control products, Government Off-The-Shelf software, Open Source Software, and JHU/APL custom libraries and applications from previous missions. SIG has collected and successfully reused existing software components for over a decade, but experience has shown that coupling among the components can make reuse difficult. This paper presents a case study illustrating how the Dependency Inversion Principle can be applied to ground software component design to make it easier to reuse components in the future.
Spatial Distribution of Chemical Components in Aerosol Particles as Determined from Secondary Electron Yield Measurements: Implications for Mechanisms of Multicomponent Aerosol Crystallization

Abstract Secondary electron yield measurements were used to determine the distribution of chemical components in multicomponent aerosol particles formed by crystallization from aqueous solution droplets. Yield measurements were made by measuring the charge acquired by a beam of particles as they passed through an electron beam (100–600 eV energy) inside a high-vacuum apparatus. Yields were sufficiently different for certain compounds that measurements made on two-component particles could be used to obtain information on the spatial distribution of components. Variations in chemical composition as a function of depth beneath the particle surface were ascertained from the energy dependence of the measured yields, since the electron penetration depth, and therefore the probe depth, increases with electron energy. The results for mixed NaCl–NH 4 Cl particles indicate that the distribution of components within these particles is relatively homogeneous, while measurements made on mixed NaCl–NaNO 3 particles are indicative of particles having a heterogeneous core–shell morphology. Results for mixed Na 2 SO 4 –(NH 4 ) 2 SO 4 particles are ambiguous, probably because of the complexity of the phase diagram of this system. It appears that the mechanism by which aerosol particles crystallize, and therefore the resulting distribution of chemical components within particles, is strongly dependent on particle composition and environmental variables.
Thermal analysis of silver nanoparticles for flexible printed antenna fabrication

In this study, the temperature assisted decomposition/desorption behavior of short-chain single and mixed carboxylic acid encapsulants from the core of silver nanoparticles was investigated using thermogravimetric analysis and differential scanning calorimetry, and these particles were used to fabricate a flexible printed antenna. The decomposition temperatures of the single encapsulant particles increased with increasing chain length of encapsulants, whereas the decomposition temperatures for mixed encapsulant particles are close to the average of the corresponding decomposition temperatures of single encapsulant nanoparticles. These experimentally identified decomposition temperatures were utilized for sintering the printed antenna on a flexible substrate. The printed antenna showed a significantly low return loss of 22 dB. The antenna performance and radiation pattern are similar to a reference prototype antenna made of copper.
PEGylated gold nanorod separation based on aspect ratio: characterization by asymmetric-flow field flow fractionation with UV-Vis detection

The development of highly efficient asymmetric-flow field flow fractionation (A4F) methodology for biocompatible PEGylated gold nanorods (GNR) without the need for surfactants in the mobile phase is presented. We report on the potential of A4F for rapid separation by evaluating the efficiency of functionalized surface coverage in terms of fractionation, retention time (tR) shifts, and population analysis. By optimizing the fractionation conditions, we observed that the mechanism of separation for PEGylated GNRs by A4F is the same as that for CTAB stabilized GNRs (i.e., according to their AR) which confirms that the elution mechanism is not dependent on the surface charge of the analytes and/or the membrane. In addition, we demonstrated that A4F can distinguish different surface coverage populations of PEGylated GNRs. The data established that a change in Mw of the functional group and/or surface orientation can be detected and fractionated by A4F. The findings in this study provide the foundation for a complete separation and physicochemical analysis of GNRs and their surface coatings, which can provide accurate and reproducible characterization critical to advancing biomedical research.
A Summary of Environmental Legislation Targeting Disposable Diapers and Review of Related Literature

In recent years state and local governments, as well as private citizens, have become very concerned about the mounting solid waste disposal problem facing our nation. Special concern has been expressed over the presence of disposable diapers in the solid waste stream. Responding to the concerns, legislators in at least 25 states proposed actions regarding disposable diapers between 1990 and 1992. Several factors contributed to the number of legislative proposals regarding disposable diapers over the past few years. First was the public's and legislators' misconception about the contribution of disposable diapers to the solid waste stream. Second was an erroneous assumption held by the public and some legislators that biodegradation readily occurs in landfills. Third was the desire to increase demand for agricultural products by requiring the use of “degradable” products. These contributing factors and other issues surrounding the proposal and passage of environmental legislation pertaining to disposable diapers are presented in this paper and the relevant literature is summarized. To provide the necessary context, the paper contains a review of the literature concerning disposable diapers, their composition and usage; and their environmental impact and fate and a comparison of their performance and cost to those of cloth diapers.
Models for n-tuples of noncommuting operators

Abstract This paper proves versions of the Rota model theorem, the de Branges-Rovnyak model theorem, and the coisometric extension theorem for n -tuples of not necessarily commuting operators. This generalizes the work of A. E. Frazho ( J. Funct. Anal. 48 (1982), 1–11) for pairs of operators. The methods involve applying the single operator results to matrices of operators.
IPV Among Adolescent Reproductive Health Patients: The Role of Relationship Communication

Population-specific data on factors that affect intimate partner violence (IPV) are needed on female adolescents and young adults, a cohort at greatest risk of IPV in the United States (Rennison, 2001). Studies have frequently overlooked the role of relationship communication as a gatekeeper to IPV (Ridley & Feldman, 2003). To address this gap, negative binomial regression was conducted with data from a 2004 survey of 618 women aged 15 to 24 seeking care at an urban reproductive health facility. Findings suggest that, within the previous year, verbal aggression by either partner was associated with physical violence by either or both partners, and verbal reasoning was negatively correlated with physical violence. Bidirectional and unidirectional IPV relationships may employ communication strategies differently.
Progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy in patients with human immunodeficiency virus

Abstract Lesions of progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML) in patients infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) often have mononuclear cell infiltrates so intense that they obscure the nature of the lesion. This response may be especially prominent in stereotactic biopsies of constrast-enhancing areas. Of 10 consecutive PML lesions biopsied stereotactically, three were markedly, two were moderately, and five were mildly inflamed. There were few to no enlarged oligodendrocytic nuclei with inclusions in the markedly and moderately inflamed lesions. We investigated all biopsies with immunoperoxidase, DNA in situ hybridization, polymerase chain reaction, and Southern immunoblot methodologies for toxoplasmosis and the following viruses: JC, cytomegalovirus, herpes simplex viruses I and II, and human T-cell lymphotropic viruses I, II, and III. We confirmed the presence of JC virus in each lesion; polymerase chain reaction revealed HIV genome only in one. Inflammatory PML lesions in HIV + patients do not reflect coinfection with toxoplasmosis or viruses commonly seen in these patients. The mononuclear cells are primarily T lymphocytes. Patients with severely inflamed PML lesions, whether HIV + or not, often show stabilization of symptoms with or without antiviral treatment and have longer lengths of survival than patients with less inflamed lesions.
Acute exposure to formaldehyde induces hepatic metallothionein synthesis in mice.

Humans risk inadvertent intraperitoneal or intravenous exposure to formaldehyde (HCHO), commonly used for disinfection of implanted or extracorporeal medical devices. Various chemical and physical stresses are known to induce hepatic metallothionein. This study examined the effect of acute parenteral administration of HCHO on induction of hepatic metallothionein synthesis. Adult male CF1 mice were administered HCHO ip and hepatic metallothionein was quantified by the cadmium-radioassay method. HCHO (50 mg/kg) increased hepatic metallothionein as early as 8 hr after dosing with maximal levels (27-fold increase) occurring at 72 hr. Metallothionein concentrations were elevated (15-fold) 24 hr after 50 or 100 mg HCHO/kg but not at lower dosages. Concomitant elevations in hepatic zinc and copper content were observed. No increases in metallothionein were observed in kidney, pancreas, or intestine 24 hr after HCHO administration (100 mg/kg, ip). Induction of metallothionein by HCHO may reflect direct de novo synthesis since the response was abolished by pretreatment with the RNA synthesis inhibitor, actinomycin D. HCHO induction of metallothionein also does not appear to be mediated by stress-induced release of corticosteroids or catecholamines from the adrenal since the response was unaltered in adrenalectomized mice. Interference with the glutathione (GSH)-dependent oxidation of HCHO by reducing hepatic GSH concentrations to 40% of control after a 2-hr pretreatment with phorone decreased the metallothionein induction response to HCHO by 33%. This result suggests that the induction may be partially due to a HCHO metabolite, e.g., formate. Confirmation of metallothionein synthesis was obtained following spectral and chromatographic analysis. Thus, HCHO and/or a metabolite produces a marked increase in hepatic metallothionein and alters hepatic zinc and copper homeostasis, all of which are transient responses. Although HCHO was only mildly hepatotoxic at the highest dose (as evidenced by an increase in plasma alanine aminotransferase activity), such changes in metallothionein synthesis and essential metal homeostasis may be part of a cellular repair mechanism operant after acute toxic cell injury.
Narratives of Peace and Progress: Atomic Museums in Japan and New Mexico

“Narratives of Peace and Progress: Atomic Museums in Japan and New Mexico” explores the way distinct cultures lay claim to vastly different remembrances of nuclear history. In his 1991 exhibit catalogue, “New Mexico’s Nuclear Enchantment,” Japanese-American artist Patrick Nagatani produced a photographic collage titled “Bradbury Science Museum, Los Alamos National Lab” that illustrates the complexities of cultural memory. The collage’s dominant image is a photograph of a museum exhibit that emphasizes the principles of fission, fusion, and radiation. Superimposed over the corner of this photograph, are the images of several pale, ghost-like Japanese children and a series of glass jars marked with Japanese characters. The jars reference sealed flasks of bodily remains on display at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in Japan, used to both shock viewers and document the dead. Nagatani’s collage juxtaposes two very different forms of national and cultural remembering. By overlaying the image of the ghostly children and glass jars onto exhibit panels charting scientific data, the narrative of human loss is placed in contrast to that of technological achievement. In this paper, I consider how varying forms of public remembrance of the atomic bomb, from science museums to peace memorials, can reinforce notions of progress, loss, and national identity. Specifically, site analyses of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and the Bradbury Science Museum in New Mexico show how sites of memory can both inspire group healing and expose lasting cultural divides and struggles with past trauma.
Prognostic value of left ventricular size measured by echocardiography in infants with total anomalous pulmonary venous drainage.

Abstract Left ventricular size may be a determinant of survival in infants with total anomalous pulmonary venous drainage. Right and left ventricular size were measured by M-mode and 2-dimensional (2-D) echocardiography in 13 patients aged 1 day to 4 months (mean weight 4.3 ± 0.42 kg [standard error of the estimate]) who underwent surgery before age 4 months because of severe cyanosis or cardiac failure. Seven patients had venous drainage to a vertical vein, 4 had drainage to the right atrium, and 2 had drainage to the inferior vena cava. Patients were divided into 2 groups: survivors (Group A, n = 8) and nonsurvivors (Group B, n = 5). Death was not statistically related to pulmonary artery pressure, pulmonary venous obstruction, age, or weight at the time of surgery. Right and left ventricular sizes at end-diastole measured from M-mode traces and 2-D echocardiographic 4-chamber views were compared with those from 15 weight-matched control infants. On M-mode and 2-D echocardiography, nonsurvivors had significantly larger right ventricles and smaller left ventricular dimensions than did either control subjects or surviving patients with total anomalous pulmonary venous drainage. The ratio of right to left ventricular size on M-mode and 2-D echocardiography also differed among the 3 infant groups (p
On the mean accuracy of statistical pattern recognizers

The overall mean recognition probability (mean accuracy) of a pattern classifier is calculated and numerically plotted as a function of the pattern measurement complexity n and design data set size m . Utilized is the well-known probabilistic model of a two-class, discrete-measurement pattern environment (no Gaussian or statistical independence assumptions are made). The minimum-error recognition rule (Bayes) is used, with the unknown pattern environment probabilities estimated from the data relative frequencies. In calculating the mean accuracy over all such environments, only three parameters remain in the final equation: n, m , and the prior probability p_{c} of either of the pattern classes. With a fixed design pattern sample, recognition accuracy can first increase as the number of measurements made on a pattern increases, but decay with measurement complexity higher than some optimum value. Graphs of the mean accuracy exhibit both an optimal and a maximum acceptable value of n for fixed m and p_{c} . A four-place tabulation of the optimum n and maximum mean accuracy values is given for equally likely classes and m ranging from 2 to 1000 . The penalty exacted for the generality of the analysis is the use of the mean accuracy itself as a recognizer optimality criterion. Namely, one necessarily always has some particular recognition problem at hand whose Bayes accuracy will be higher or lower than the mean over all recognition problems having fixed n, m , and p_{c} .
Visualization of Antigen Presentation by Actin-Mediated Targeting of Glycolipid-Enriched Membrane Domains to the Immune Synapse of B Cell APCs

Glycolipid-enriched membrane (GEM) domains, or lipid rafts, function in signaling in immune cells, but their properties during Ag presentation are less clear. To address this question, GEM domains were studied using fluorescence cell imaging of mouse CH27 B cells presenting Ag to D10 T cells. Our experiments showed that APCs were enriched with GEM domains in the immune synapse, and this occurred in an actin-dependent manner. This enrichment was specific to GEM domains, because a marker for non-GEM regions of the membrane was excluded from the immune synapse. Furthermore, fluorescence photobleaching experiments showed that protein in the immune synapse was dynamic and rapidly exchanged with that in other compartments of CH27 cells. To identify the signals for targeting GEM domains to the immune synapse in APCs, capping of the domains was measured in cells after cross-linking surface molecules. This showed that co-cross-linking CD48 with MHC class II was required for efficient capping and intracellular signaling. Capping of GEM domains by co-cross-linking CD48 and MHC class II occurred with co-capping of filamentous actin, and both domain capping and T cell-CH27 cell conjugation were inhibited by pretreating CH27 cells with latrunculin B. Furthermore, disruption of the actin cytoskeleton of the CH27 cells also inhibited formation of a mature immune synapse in those T cells that did conjugate to APCs. Thus, Ag presentation and efficient T cell stimulation occur by an actin-dependent targeting of GEM domains in the APC to the site of T cell engagement.
The effect of time on safety incentive programs in the US construction industry

Recently, safety incentive programs have been under scrutiny by the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration for their effectiveness to improve construction safety performance. Most of the previous research on construction safety incentives focused on anecdotal evidence examining the merits and demerits of safety incentives. Meanwhile, the long‐term effect of safety incentive programs on construction safety remains uncertain. This research examined how key safety performance indicators changed over time in the presence of safety incentive programs in the US construction industry using primary survey data. The paper's key finding is that the effectiveness of safety incentive programs does diminish with time, as suspected by earlier experts and managers in the US construction industry.
The Influence of Rainfall on Scatterometer Backscatter Within Tropical Cyclone Environments—Implications on Parameterization of Sea-Surface Stress

The use of satellite scatterometers to probe the winds in and near strong tropical cyclones (TCs) is a valuable tool for both numerical weather prediction and weather forecasters. The presence of widespread rain in these storms impedes the estimation of surface winds from the radar cross section measurements, when using a Ku-band radar. This paper seeks improvements in the methodology to infer surface winds and stresses from the satellite radar cross section data, by removing the effects of rain contamination at the ocean surface. The findings provide insights into improvements in the modeling efforts of TC intensity. This study demonstrates the use of high-resolution rain measurements obtained from a Next-Generation Radar collocated and simultaneous with the National Aeronautics and Space Ad ministration Quick Scatterometer. Through the application of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory/Hurricane Re search Division TC wind analysis (H* WIND), we are studying the dependence of a surface normalized radar cross section (NRCS), which is related to surface stress, on the TC wind speed and rain rate. One of our findings is that, in the three TCs we have studied, the highest winds are accompanied by significant rain. Another is that the wind-driven rain can act as a roughening effect as measured by the H-pol NRCS. We also offer reasons why this can be interpreted as an additional stress on the surface. This roughening affects both the estimation of surface winds by scatterometers and the air-sea energy exchanges. This information could lead to an improved understanding of the dependence of the drag coefficient on both wind and rain.
Thread Friction Torque in Bolted Joints

In this paper, formulas are developed for the calculation of the effective thread friction radius in fasteners, in order to determine the thread friction torque component. Due to the lack of exact formulas in the literature, current practice uses the average value of the minor and major thread radii, as an approximation, for determining the thread friction torque component. Results provided by these formulas are compared with those given by the current practice that uses the average value of the minor and major thread radii, instead of the exact value. It is well known that the torque-tension relationship in threaded fastener applications is highly sensitive to the friction torque components: between threads, and under the turning fastener head or nut. Even moderate variations or inaccuracies in determining the friction torque components would significantly impact the fastener tension and the joint clamp load. High accuracy in the estimation of the friction torque components is critical, as it directly affects the reliability, safety, and the quality of bolted assemblies. This analysis focuses on the thread friction torque component. The new formulas for the thread friction radius are developed for a mathematical model of a bolted joint using five assumed scenarios of the contact pressure between male and female threads. Because of the fact that the variation in the sliding speed of various points on a thread surface is insignificant, a uniform thread friction coefficient is used in the analysts. However, a contact area weighted average value is used for the thread friction coefficient. Numerical results and error analysis are presented in terms of a single nondimensional variable, namely, the ratio between the major and minor thread radii.
Do Male Politicians Have Big Heads? Face-ism in Online Self-Representations of Politicians

Headshot portraits of all U.S. Governors, Senators, and Representatives and members of Parliament in Canada, Australia, and Norway are analyzed. In all countries, male politicians are represented with higher facial prominence than female politicians, paralleling a pervasive gender bias in media portraits. For American Congresswomen, high facial prominence is associated with a more pro-feminist voting record. Finally, anthropometric data show that gender differences in the facial prominence in portraits cannot be traced to gender differences in actual body proportions.
Water and the evolutionary geological history of Mars

Mars and Earth are the only two planets known to have long histories of dynamical cycling of water through their atmosphere, lithosphere, and cryosphere. Although we have known for thirty years that Mars had an early history with aqueous activity on its surface, exciting new results from current Mars missions are only now revealing the extensive sedimentary evidence of that history. Early Mars had extensive lakes and probably transient seas that were associated with a climate capable of generating the precipitation and runoff to sculpt its landscape and fill sedimentary basins. Well-preserved fluvial deltas show that early Mars was surprisingly Earthlike in its geological processes. The immense quantity of water implied for sequestering in the Martian permafrost (as ground ice) and beneath it (as ground water) requires an explanation as to the history of water recycling. These and other anomalous aspects of Martian geology are explained by a theory that incorporates the onset and termination of a core dynamo, associated with an early regime of plate tectonics during the first few hundred million years of the planet’s history. Rapid accretion of thickened continental crust, as modified by concurrent high impacting rates, volcanism, and denudation, ultimately resulted in the southern highlands. Following cessation of the dynamo, the plate-tectonic regime terminated with zones of focused subduction in the Tharsis and Elysium areas. The resulting high concentration of water and other volatiles in the Martian deep mantle led to the Tharsis and Elysium superplumes, the long-term persistence of which is responsible for much of the volcanism, tectonism, water outbursts, and climate change that mark the subsequent, 4 billion year geological history of Mars.
Correspondences between what infants see and know about causal and self-propelled motion.

The associative learning account of how infants identify human motion rests on the assumption that this knowledge is derived from statistical regularities seen in the world. Yet, no catalog exists of what visual input infants receive of human motion, and of causal and self-propelled motion in particular. In this manuscript, we demonstrate that the frequency with which causal agency and self-propelled motion appear in the visual environment predicts infants’ understanding of these motions. In an observational study, an infant wearing a head-mounted camera saw people act as agents in causal events three times more often than he saw people engaged in self-propelled motion. Subsequent experiments with the habituation paradigm revealed that infants begin to generalize self-propulsion to agents in causal events between 10 and 14 months of age. However, infants cannot generalize causal agency to a self-propelled object at 14 or 18 months unless the object exhibits additional cues to animacy. The results are discussed within a domain-general framework of learning about human action.
Syntrophins Regulate α1D-Adrenergic Receptors through a PDZ Domain-mediated Interaction

Abstract To find novel cytoplasmic binding partners of the α1D-adrenergic receptor (AR), a yeast two-hybrid screen using the α1D-AR C terminus as bait was performed on a human brain cDNA library. α-Syntrophin, a protein containing one PDZ domain and two pleckstrin homology domains, was isolated in this screen as an α1D-AR-interacting protein. α-Syntrophin specifically recognized the C terminus of α1D- but not α1A- or α1B-ARs. In blot overlay assays, the PDZ domains of syntrophin isoforms α, β1, and β2 but not γ1 or γ2 showed strong selective interactions with the α1D-AR C-tail fusion protein. In transfected human embryonic kidney 293 cells, full-length α1D- but not α1A- or α1B-ARs co-immunoprecipitated with syntrophins, and the importance of the receptor C terminus for the α1D-AR/syntrophin interaction was confirmed using chimeric receptors. Mutation of the PDZ-interacting motif at the α1D-AR C terminus markedly decreased inositol phosphate formation stimulated by norepinephrine but not carbachol in transfected HEK293 cells. This mutation also dramatically decreased α1D-AR binding and protein expression. In addition, stable overexpression of α-syntrophin significantly increased α1D-AR protein expression and binding but did not affect those with a mutated PDZ-interacting motif, suggesting that syntrophin plays an important role in maintaining receptor stability by directly interacting with the receptor PDZ-interacting motif. This direct interaction may provide new information about the regulation of α1D-AR signaling and the role of syntrophins in modulating G protein-coupled receptor function.
`Mean Time Between Failures': A Subjectively Meaningful Video Quality Metric

As digital communication of television content becomes more pervasive, the long-standing problem of assessing video quality becomes particularly important. This work describes some innovative guidelines for easy and reliable determination of a quality metric that is subjectively meaningful: mean time between failures (MTBF), representing how often a typical viewer observes a noticeable visual error and a related instantaneous metric relating to the fraction of viewers that find a given video portion to be within acceptable quality levels. The value of MTBF is addressed in the context of video quality, and objective measurements that correlate well with subjective evaluations of MTBF are investigated for different video clips at bit rates in the range of 1.5 - 5 Mbps. The full-reference objective metrics of PSNR and JND are found to have correlation coefficients of 0.69 and 0.88 respectively. In contrast, a reduced-reference objective metric, spatial temporal join metric (S. Wolf and M.H. Pinson, 1999) (STJM) is found to have a correlation coefficient of 0.84. A method for estimating the MTBF of a video sequence from objective measurements is also described
Optimization of acoustical compliant treatments under load

A new approach to the parametric study of acoustic materials for underwater use is presented. The effects of static load and material properties are uniquely folded into the final design parameters. Thus, the static and dynamic viscoelastic material appear the maximum allowable compression and the ratio of the dynamic to static modulus. >
Alternative stripper configurations for CO2 capture by aqueous amines

Aqueous absorption/stripping is a promising technology for the capture of CO2 from existing or new coal-fired power plants. Four new stripper configurations (matrix, internal exchange, flashing feed, and multipressure with split feed) have been evaluated with seven model solvents that approximate the thermodynamic and rate properties of 7m (30 wt %) monoethanolamine (MEA), potassium carbonate promoted by piperazine (PZ), promoted MEA, methyldiethanolamine (MDEA) promoted by PZ, and hindered amines. The results show that solvents with high heats of absorption (MEA, MEA/PZ) favor operation at normal pressure. The relative performance of the alternative configurations is matrix > internal exchange > multipressure with split feed > flashing feed. MEA/PZ and MDEA/PZ are attractive alternatives to 7m MEA. The best solvent and process configuration, matrix with MDEA/PZ, offers 22 and 15% energy savings over the baseline and improved baseline, respectively, with stripping and compression to 10 MPa. The energy requirement for stripping and compression to 10 MPa is about 20% of the power output from a 500 MW power plant with 90% CO2 removal. © 2007 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 2007
High-level power estimation

The growing demand for portable electronic devices has led to an increased emphasis on power consumption within the semiconductor industry. As a result, designers are now encouraged to consider the impact of their decisions not only on speed and area, but also on power throughout the entire design process. In order to evaluate how well a particular design variant meets power constraints, engineers often rely on CAD tools for power estimation. While tools have long existed for analyzing power consumption at the lower level of abstraction-e.g. SPICE and PowerMill-only recently have efforts been directed towards developing a high-level power estimation capability. This paper surveys the state of the art in high-level power estimation, addressing techniques that operate at the architecture, behavior, instruction, and system levels of abstraction.
DARE: A Framework for Dynamic Authentication of Remote Executions

With the widespread use of the distributed systems comes the need to secure such systems against a wide variety of threats. Recent security mechanisms are grossly inadequate in authenticating the program executions at the clients or servers, as the clients, servers and the executing programs themselves can be compromised after the clients and servers pass the authentication phase. This paper presents a generic framework for authenticating remote executions on a potentially untrusted remote server - essentially validating that what is executed at the server on behalf of the client is actually the intended program. Details of a prototype Linux implementation are also described, along with some optimization techniques for reducing the run-time overhead of the proposed scheme. The performance overhead of our technique varies generally from 7% to 24% for most benchmarks, as seen from the actual remote execution of SPEC benchmarks.
Multi-GPU Accelerated Admittance Method for High-Resolution Human Exposure Evaluation

Objective : A multi-graphics processing unit (GPU) accelerated admittance method solver is presented for solving the induced electric field in high-resolution anatomical models of human body when exposed to external low-frequency magnetic fields. Methods : In the solver, the anatomical model is discretized as a three-dimensional network of admittances. The conjugate orthogonal conjugate gradient (COCG) iterative algorithm is employed to take advantage of the symmetric property of the complex-valued linear system of equations. Compared against the widely used biconjugate gradient stabilized method, the COCG algorithm can reduce the solving time by 3.5 times and reduce the storage requirement by about 40%. The iterative algorithm is then accelerated further by using multiple NVIDIA GPUs. The computations and data transfers between GPUs are overlapped in time by using asynchronous concurrent execution design. The communication overhead is well hidden so that the acceleration is nearly linear with the number of GPU cards. Results : Numerical examples show that our GPU implementation running on four NVIDIA Tesla K20c cards can reach 90 times faster than the CPU implementation running on eight CPU cores (two Intel Xeon E5-2603 processors). Conclusion : The implemented solver is able to solve large dimensional problems efficiently. A whole adult body discretized in 1-mm resolution can be solved in just several minutes. Significance : The high efficiency achieved makes it practical to investigate human exposure involving a large number of cases with a high resolution that meets the requirements of international dosimetry guidelines.
Receptor density and recycling affect the rate of agonist-induced desensitization of μ-opioid receptor

Previously, we reported that the time course for the rapid phosphorylation rate of μ-opioid receptor expressed in human embryonic kidney (HEK)293 cells did not correlate with the slow receptor desensitization rate induced by [d-Ala2,N-MePhe4,Gly-ol5]-enkephalin (DAMGO). However, others have suggested that receptor phosphorylation is the trigger for μ-opioid receptor desensitization. In this study, we demonstrated the relatively slow rate of receptor desensitization could be attributed partially to the recycling of internalized receptor as determined by fluorescence-activated cell-sorting analysis. However, the blockade of the endocytic and Golgi transport events in HEK293 cells with monensin and brefeldin A did not increase the initial rate of receptor desensitization. But the desensitization rate was increased by reduction of the μ-opioid receptor level with β-furnaltrexamine (βFNA). The reduction of the receptor level with 1 μM βFNA significantly increased the rate of etorphine-induced receptor desensitization. By blocking the ability of receptor to internalize with 0.4 M sucrose, a significant degree of receptor being rapidly desensitized was observed in HEK293 cells pretreated with βFNA. Hence, μ-opioid receptor is being resensitized during chronic agonist treatment. The significance of resensitization of the internalized receptor in affecting receptor desensitization was demonstrated further with human neuroblastoma SHSY5Y cells that expressed a low level of μ-opioid receptor. Although DAMGO could not induce a rapid desensitization in these cells, in the presence of monensin and brefeldin A, DAMGO desensitized the μ-opioid receptor9s ability to regulate adenylyl cyclase with at1/2 = 9.9 ± 2.1 min and a maximal desensitized level at 70 ± 4.7%. Furthermore, blockade of receptor internalization with 0.4 M sucrose enhanced the DAMGO-induced receptor desensitization, and the inclusion of monensin prevented the resensitization of the μ-opioid receptor after chronic agonist treatment in SHSY5Y cells. Thus, the ability of the μ-opioid receptor to resensitize and to recycle, and the relative efficiency of the receptor to regulate adenylyl cyclase activity, contributed to the observed slow rate of μ-opioid receptor desensitization in HEK293 cells.
Self-learning of inverse kinematics for feedforward control of intracardiac robotic ablation catheters

This paper investigates the self-learning of inverse kinematics for the feed-forward control of a robot to position intracardiac catheters. Cardiac ablation is routinely performed to treat Atrial Fibrillation, and requires a catheter be accurately positioned in the heart, by hand or by a robot, under feedback control. This is typically a slow process and methods to reduce procedure times are needed. To investigate our proposed method, a robotic system to manipulate a standard intracardiac catheter was constructed. To safely develop our proposed learning system, a comprehensive dataset was collected using a magnetic tracking system to measure the catheter tip positions versus robot actuator positions. Initially, the robot began with no model of its kinematics. A Genetic Algorithm was used to decide on the next actuator sequence that would reduce the uncertainty in a Feedforward Neural Network (FFNN) based inverse kinematic model. An automated iterative process was followed where the robot would perform virtual experiments, to grow its knowledge of its inverse kinematics. After 791 learning cycles the final analysis revealed that the complete inverse kinematic relationship has been explored with the given constraints. A validation dataset indicated the learned FFNN model was able to predict x, y and z positions of the catheter tip to within ±0.17 mm, ±0.73 mm and ±0.62 mm, respectively. The robot successfully self-learned its inverse kinematic model using the proposed methodology. Future work is required to investigate the influence of disturbances on positioning accuracy.
Measuring Long-Term Regressive Resource Value Caused by Climate Change and Developing an Indicator for Sustainable Growth

The paper emphasises on current climate data, intervention mechanisms e.g. policy, adaptation and mitigation along with key challenges and emerging risk factors like disasters and very specifically long-term regressive resource value caused by climate change, its measuring techniques and advocating for adopting policy agenda with the theme for developing an indicator of sustainable growth.
Developmental Trajectories and Intentional Actions

The article turns a critical eye on problems arising from use of largesamples and complicated statistics to handle multilevel designs. I arguethat although these have a legitimate role to play in discovering causalrelations, valuable information can be lost or distorted in the processof their use. Exploratory classification and tree diagrams show howtransitional analyses can unpack effects of community, family, priormisbehavior, juvenile delinquency, and incarceration on adult criminalbehavior. The analyses showed that in the worst neighborhoods, disruptivebehavior had little discriminating power with regard to juveniledelinquency or adult crime. They showed also that good family interactionsserve as protection against crime in all types of neighborhoods. ConstructTheory, I suggest, is a way to understand the influences that seem toproduce criminal behavior.
Costs of abandoning the Sure-Thing Principle

Risk-weighted expected utility theory (REU theory for short) permits preferences which violate the Sure-Thing Principle (STP for short). But preferences that violate the STP can lead to bad decisions in sequential choice problems. In particular, they can lead decision-makers to adopt a strategy that is dominated – i.e. a strategy such that some available alternative leads to a better outcome in every possible state of the world.
The Movement of Seals in the Temple of Two Sons

At the Cambodian New Year celebration my father wanders off alone to browse the tables of merchants, and shifts through plastic mailroom containers, hoping to stumble upon the latest imported Khmer movie or karaoke DVD he has yet to see. We are under the sweltering sun amongst hundreds of gatherers, next to a makeshift-Buddhist temple (an old two-story urban home), in Camden, where the largest gathering of Cambodians in South Jersey and Philadelphia come to celebrate each New Year in mid- April. Upon my mother's repeated wishes, I have come home from graduate school, about a three and a half hour drive away. From my metal seat under a canopy, I study my father like a birdwatcher from a distance. While I would not say he's fashionably dressed for the festivities, he certainly looks nicer than he typically does at home, where he often struts around shirtless, revealing his hand-sized black tattoo of a Buddhist temple on his chest. I have grown so accustomed to his tattoos that I hardly notice them anymore. ...
Shock Loading of Granular Ni/Al Composites. Part 2: Shock-Induced Chemistry

We use molecular dynamics simulations to characterize the chemical processes resulting from the shock compaction of a loosely packed granular reactive composite of Ni and Al. For all of the impact strengths studied (with piston velocities up in the range 0.5–2.5 km/s), we find that reactions initiate in the vicinity of the collapsed pores. For the lowest impact velocities (up ≤ 0.75 km/s), the reactions that initiate at the collapsed pores subsequently slow down as thermal transport dissipates the initial temperature excursion and outpaces the exothermic energy release rate. At intermediate impact velocities (up ≈ 1.0 km/s), the localization of thermal kinetic energy is sufficient to establish a reaction rate that is self-sustaining in exothermic energy release, and the sample reacts within a few nanoseconds. At the highest impact velocities (up ≥ 1.5 km/s), the localization of translational kinetic energy as well as thermal energy following pore collapse drives the rapid propagation of the reaction from ...
The Power of the Periphery: Reassessing Spatial Metaphors in the Ideological Positioning of the Translator

Positionality in translation is often framed in terms of spatial metaphors, using such concepts as the “periphery,” the “in between,” and the “borderlands,” among many others. Given that the Latin root for the word “translation,” 'translatio,' means “to carry across,” this tendency to think of the translator’s position in the concrete terms of travel through physical space is not surprising. However, because the movement of information and ideas no longer requires material transportation, it may no longer be theoretically useful to approach positionality in such concrete terms, and thus a reassessment and re-contextualization of these spatial metaphors is needed. Moreover, the sociological turn’s growing awareness of the translator’s contextual embeddedness reinforces the need to re-conceptualize positionality, shifting away from notions of physical space and toward an ideological construct. Indeed, upon closer examination, these spatial metaphors often prove problematic in several ways, not the least of which being the common undertone of peripherality that readily associates translation with marginality and subjugation. This article analyzes some of the spatial metaphors commonly used in translation scholarship in order to interrogate what they can contribute to a reformulation of the translator’s position in ideological rather than spatial terms. Turning to systems theory for a more nuanced and applicable take on peripherality and centrality, translation is removed from the subordinate position associated with physical notions of the periphery and shifted instead to an ideological position as an agent of inter- and intrasystemic transfer. The translator navigates the systemic periphery, a dynamic, fluid space of intersystemic overlap and interaction, but does not remain there. The translator’s position is therefore both a shifting and powerful one, as translating the peripheral experience of confronting otherness into the centre results in the need to reformulate the Self, for the individual as well as potentially on a larger, systemic level.