cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Poetry and History: Reflections on Stanley Diamond's "Arbeit Macht Frei"

Historical phenomena such as genocide and holocaust continue to haunt our secularized lives. Simply understanding the chronological, statistical and sociological aspects of World War II and the Holocaust in Germany does not satisfy the deep need to restore significance to these dehumanizing events. Novelists and poets,1 on the other hand, have undertaken to create the multi-dimensionality and particularity of a historical experience that attempted to reduce human beings to simple abstractions. They ask us as readers to enter history as if it were happening in its immediacy. This quasi-mystical approach to history may not be useful to the secular historian but it fulfills several essential functions that secular history does not. It expresses how people felt about dying or how they coped with death on the complex level of the individual in his/her daily life. Stanley Diamond's "Arbeit Macht Frei" is an example of such a poetry of history. "Arbeit Macht Frei" enters the history of the Holocaust by using imaginary voices, moving into the consciousness of participants, and addressing the reader/listener from the historical past. It thus privileges the imagination as a mode of historical interpretation. Such a poetic endeavor attempts to restore human understanding and sensibility to a devastating and still-unresolved historical past. The poetic attempt to write a history which silenced millions of voices is itself the subject of "Arbeit Macht Frei." Like that of Simon Ortiz, Stanley Diamond's poetry reels from the loss of thousands of ancestors and particular cultural experiences due to modern genocide. Indeed, much of Diamond's poetic work, as well as his anthropology,2 revolves around the question of the disappearance of whole cultures, and of the individuals who constituted those cultures. Going West, his book of poetry on the
Muscle A-kinase-anchoring protein-β-bound calcineurin toggles active and repressive transcriptional complexes of myocyte enhancer factor 2D.

Myocyte enhancer factor 2 (MEF2) transcription factors are key regulators of the development and adult phenotype of diverse tissues, including skeletal and cardiac muscles. Controlled by multiple post-translational modifications, MEF2D is an effector for the Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent protein phosphatase calcineurin (CaN, PP2B, and PPP3). CaN-catalyzed dephosphorylation promotes the desumoylation and acetylation of MEF2D, increasing its transcriptional activity. Both MEF2D and CaN bind the scaffold protein muscle A-kinase–anchoring protein β (mAKAPβ), which is localized to the nuclear envelope, such that C2C12 skeletal myoblast differentiation and neonatal rat ventricular myocyte hypertrophy are inhibited by mAKAPβ signalosome targeting. Using immunoprecipitation and DNA-binding assays, we now show that the formation of mAKAPβ signalosomes is required for MEF2D dephosphorylation, desumoylation, and acetylation in C2C12 cells. Reduced MEF2D phosphorylation was coupled to a switch from type IIa histone deacetylase to p300 histone acetylase binding that correlated with increased MEF2D-dependent gene expression and ventricular myocyte hypertrophy. Together, these results highlight the importance of mAKAPβ signalosomes for regulating MEF2D activity in striated muscle, affirming mAKAPβ as a nodal regulator in the myocyte intracellular signaling network.
A national assessment of the utilization, quality and cost of laparoscopic liver resection.

Abstract Background Despite recent enthusiasm for the use of laparoscopic liver resection, data evaluating costs associated with laparoscopic liver resections are lacking. We sought to examine the use of laparoscopic liver surgery, and investigate variations in cost among hospitals performing these procedures. Methods A nationally representative sample of 12,560 patients who underwent a liver resection in 2012 was identified. Multivariable analyses were performed to compare outcomes associated with liver resection. Results Among the 12,560 patients who underwent liver resection, 685 (5.4%) underwent a laparoscopic liver resection. The proportion of liver resections performed laparoscopically varied among hospitals ranging from 4.6% to 20.0%; the median volume of laparoscopic liver resections was 10 operations/year. Although laparoscopic surgery was associated with lower postoperative morbidity (aOR = 0.60, 95%CI: 0.36–0.99) and shorter lengths of stay [(LOS) aIRR = 0.83, 95%CI: 0.70–0.97], it was not associated with inpatient mortality (p = 0.971) or hospital costs (p = 0.863). Costs associated with laparoscopic liver resection varied ranging from $5,907 (95%CI: $5,140-$6,674) to $67,178 (95%CI: $66,271-$68,083). The observed variations between hospitals were due to differences in morbidity (coefficient: $20,415, 95%CI: $16,000-$24,830) and LOS (coefficient: $24,690, 95%CI: $21,688-$27,692). Conclusions Although laparoscopic liver resection was associated with improved short-term perioperative clinical outcomes, utilization of laparoscopic liver resection remains low.
Security Vulnerabilities, Attacks, Countermeasures, and Regulations of Networked Medical Devices—A Review

Over the last few years, healthcare administrations have been digitizing their provision of care that led to an increased number of networked medical devices and medical telemetry. Due to such digitization, medical devices have made phenomenal strides in the course of the last half-century. These networked medical devices have enhanced the quality and accessibility of health treatments by achieving pervasive healthcare vision. Moreover, these devices have transformed the canvas of medical treatments and improved the lives of the masses. Such innovation, as a result, assisted in paving the way for reliable healthcare facilities through the introduction of new areas of therapeutic and diagnostic treatments. Medical devices, nowadays, are portable, networked, and capable enough to facilitate human lives. The refined quality and variety of these devices put forward a promising future. However, on the other hand, the healthcare sector is experiencing the greatest amount of security breaches due to the presence of security flaws in medical devices. As these devices are no longer standalone systems and are network-connected, the attack surface has increased profoundly. Actually, devices in practice were designed, developed, and disseminated long ago. Therefore, they were not developed from the ground up with security as a vital design constraint. The flaws present in these devices have acquired the consideration of researchers from both industry and academia. In this paper, we studied security vulnerabilities present in state-of-the-art medical devices by studying security tests and the attacks demonstrated by the researchers on more than a hundred devices. Finally, some state-of-the-art solutions and countermeasures along with applicable regulations in literature were also studied and analyzed. Since these devices are life-critical and can even cause the death of a patient, therefore, this survey is significant as it can assist researchers to get an overview of loopholes present in medical devices and existing countermeasures. We concluded this survey paper with some open research areas that should be properly considered in order to secure these life-critical medical devices.
Correlation of radiosensitivity of lung carcinoma to CD137L endogenous expression levels.

e14229Background: Radiation therapy is a cornerstone in the management of cancer. Preclinical and clinical evidence indicate the therapeutic efficacy of radiation therapy can be augmented by immuno...
Different Vibratory Conditions Elicit Different Structural and Biological Vocal Fold Changes in an In-Vivo Rabbit Model of Phonation.

Summary Objective Vibration of the vocal folds can disrupt the tissue and induce structural, functional, and molecular changes; the presence or absence of contact between the vocal folds during vibration can affect the type and extent of these changes. The purpose of this study was to characterize vocal fold changes following 2 hours of contact phonation or phonation without vibratory contact. Methods Six New Zealand white breeder rabbits underwent 120 minutes of phonation with or without vibratory contact, and four served as nonphonated controls. The larynx was exposed and current was applied to the cricothyroids bilaterally to achieve vocal fold adduction while humidified airflow was delivered to induce vocal fold vibration. Laryngeal position, airflow, and stimulation levels were adjusted to obtain phonation with or without contact, and phonation was elicited for 120 minutes. Following excision, larynges were stained using Hematoxylin & Eosin, Elastica van Gieson, and Grocott's Methenamine Silver, or labeled with immunofluorescent markers for E-cadherin, CD31, CD11b, and Vimentin. All images were captured using a Nikon 90i microscope and analyzed using ImageJ. Results Differences between vibratory conditions and control samples were observed. There was more extensive epithelial thinning, reduced epithelial integrity and increased vascularity in the contact phonation group, while both phonatory groups demonstrated a decreased presence of mucous on the luminal surface and a decrease in elastin band thickness and lamina propria depth. Neither condition showed differences in inflammatory cell presence compared to control tissue. Conclusions By showing that these two vibratory conditions result in structural changes of different types and magnitude, we have provided the first empirical evidence that vocal fold tissue is sensitive to differences in forces, and that changes in vibratory pattern can elicit different downstream biological changes within the tissue. The differences described herein are an important step toward understanding the vocal folds’ potential for differential response to phonotraumatic damage following different vibratory behaviors.
A Student's Guide to Lagrangians and Hamiltonians: Hamilton–Jacobi theory

In the previous chapter it was mentioned that there is no general technique for solving the n coupled second-order Lagrange equations of motion, but that Jacobi had derived a general method for solving the 2 n coupled canonical equations of motion, allowing one to determine all the position and momentum variables in terms of their initial values and the time. There are two slightly different ways to solve Hamilton's canonical equations. One is more general, whereas the other is a bit simpler, but is only valid for systems in which energy is conserved. We will go through the procedure for the more general method, then solve the harmonic oscillator problem by using the second method. Both methods involve solving a partial differential equation for the quantity S that is called “Hamilton's principal function.” The problem of solving the entire system of equations of motion is reduced to solving a single partial differential equation for the function S . This partial differential equation is called the “Hamilton–Jacobi equation.” Reducing the dynamical problem to solving just one equation is quite satisfying from a theoretical point of view, but it is not of much help from a practical point of view because the partial differential equation for S is often very difficult to solve. Problems that can be solved by obtaining the solution for S can usually be solved more easily by other means.
Impact of Perioperative Stroke on Midterm Outcomes After Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement.

Background Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) has evolved as an alternative therapy to open aortic valve replacement in most patients with aortic stenosis. Stroke associated with TAVR can be a devastating complication in the short term; however, little is known regarding midterm outcomes. Methods All patients undergoing TAVR at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from 2011 to 2018 were included. Modified Rankin Scale values as a measurement of stroke-related disability were extracted for patients who had neurologic deficits. Results Neurologic events (NEs) developed in 51 (4.3%) of the 1193 patients during the study period (32 [2.7%] had disabling strokes; 19 [1.6%] had nondisabling strokes, including 5 [0.4%] transient ischemic attacks). Patients who had TAVR-related NEs were older (85.8 ± 4.2 years vs 81.5 ± 7.9 years; P Conclusions Stroke increases short-term and midterm mortality after TAVR. Risk prediction for neurologic events in TAVR could aid the framework for patient selection and further improve outcomes.
A prospective study of the association between rate of nicotine metabolism and alcohol use in tobacco users in the United States

Abstract Background Rate of nicotine metabolism has been identified as a biochemical risk factor for nicotine use and dependence; however, its role in alcohol consumption and related outcomes is not well understood. The current research examined nicotine metabolism rate as a risk factor for alcohol use among current tobacco users. We also examined sex differences in these associations. Method Data were taken from Waves 1 and 2 of the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) study, a national longitudinal study of tobacco use and associated health outcomes. The nicotine metabolite ratio (NMR) was calculated as the ratio of trans-3’ hydroxycotinine to cotinine in urine samples provided at wave 1. Alcohol use outcomes included past 30-day NIAAA-defined hazardous drinking status, total drinks, and alcohol-related consequences. All analyses controlled for alcohol use at Wave 1. Results NMR at Wave 1 predicted increased odds of meeting hazardous drinking criteria, adjusted odds ratio (aOR) = 1.14, 95 % CI = 1.06; 1.23, p = 0.001, greater total alcohol consumption amount, adjusted rate ratio (aRR) = 1.21, 95 % CI = 1.12; 1.30, p Conclusions NMR may be a shared risk factor for harmful nicotine and alcohol use that contributes to their co-occurrence.
A Stress Model for Dealing with the Elderly Substance Abuser

A review of mental health prevention programs across the country revealed that less than 10% were directed to the elderly and that only 5% dealt with substance abuse in geriatrics. The majority of existing programs rely on one of three primary approaches: 1) self awareness; 2) consumer education; or 3) community referral following recognition of a defined problem.
Chemical tools for dissecting cell division.

Components of the cell division machinery typically function at varying cell cycle stages and intracellular locations. To dissect cellular mechanisms during the rapid division process, small-molecule probes act as complementary approaches to genetic manipulations, with advantages of temporal and in some cases spatial control and applicability to multiple model systems. This Review focuses on recent advances in chemical probes and applications to address select questions in cell division. We discuss uses of both enzyme inhibitors and chemical inducers of dimerization, as well as emerging techniques to promote future investigations. Overall, these concepts may open new research directions for applying chemical probes to advance cell biology. This Review summarizes recent progress in small-molecule probes used to address questions in cell division and appraises some emerging techniques that can be adapted to cell division studies.
Measuring spatio-textual affinities in twitter between two urban metropolises

With increasing growth of both social media and urbanization, studying urban life through the empirical lens of social media has led to some interesting research opportunities and questions. It is well-recognized that as a ‘social animal’, most humans are deeply embedded both in their cultural milieu and in broader society that extends well beyond close family, including neighborhoods, communities and workplaces. In this article, we study this embeddedness by leveraging urban dwellers’ social media footprint. Specifically, we define and empirically study the issue of spatio-textual affinity by collecting many millions of geotagged tweets collected from two diverse metropolises within the United States: the Boroughs of New York City, and the County of Los Angeles. Spatio-textual affinity is the intuitive hypothesis that tweets coming from similar locations (spatial affinity) will tend to be topically similar (textual affinity). This simple definition of the problem belies the complexity of measuring it, since (re-tweets notwithstanding) two tweets are never truly identical either spatially or textually. Workable definitions of affinity along both dimensions are required, as are appropriate experimental designs, visualizations and measurements. In addition to providing such definitions and a viable framework for conducting spatio-textual affinity experiments on Twitter data, we provide detailed results illustrating how our framework can be used to compare and contrast two important metropolitan areas from multiple perspectives and granularities.
Electrical Resistivity Changes in Wet and Dry Side of Optimum Moisture Content for Soils with Low to High Fines Content

Compacted soil is an essential element in the construction of geo-structures as not any soil site on its own is ideal for the intended construction. This research is an experimental study that investigates the interactional effect of moisture and fines contents on electrical resistivity (ER) of compacted soils. The soil type used in this study is sand with 0%, 30%, and 60% fines content. A non-conductive standard proctor mold is built and modified for measuring the electrical resistivity of soil samples with different dry densities and moisture contents. The electrical resistivity measurements are conducted using four electrodes; two electrodes for injecting the current and two electrodes for measuring the electrical potential difference. The soil specimens are tested under the same electrical setup in both dry and wet sides of the soil compaction curve. The results show that there is an inverse relationship between the electrical resistivity amount and both soil density and moisture content. The plot of electrical resistivity versus moisture content indicates that even though the electrical resistivity decreases with increasing the moisture content, the rate of electrical resistivity changes is different in wet and dry sides of optimum moisture content (OMC). In the dry side of OMC, the electrical resistivity decreases with a steep slope because of an increase in both soil density and moisture content. However, on the wet side of optimum moisture content, the soil density starts to decrease and electrical resistivity moves with a milder slope just because of an increase in moisture content.
Backward-Design Model for an Astronomy Course Using RSpec

The new normal imposed on us by the COVID-19 pandemic restricted the traditional ways we would teach high school students who are eager to participate in introductory astronomy projects on our university campus. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise as we were forced to come up with creative ways to get around this obstacle. The outcome is an outline of a pedagogically sound and even more robust instructional plan for an astronomy course using RSpec in conjunction with freely available databases. In addition to the traditional topics, the new model will allow an instructor to explore emission lines of variable Be stars like Gamma Cas and the classification of supernovae by an interpretation of their spectra. We argue that this new model should be used even if we return to the old normal.
Hemorrhoidal Disease: Postoperative Complications

“Hemorrhoids” are without a doubt the most common indication for referral to a colorectal surgeon, who will often find that less than half of the patients referred for that indication actually have hemorrhoidal disease and only a minority (~10 %) of which will require intervention more than lifestyle modification. Colorectal surgeons often are referred a combination of straightforward and complex patients with hemorrhoidal disease, as well as those who have already experienced complications. This chapter will review the approach to the work-up, diagnosis, nonoperative and operative treatment of hemorrhoidal disease with an emphasis on the results from meta-analyses and the authors’ personal experience. Common and infrequent postoperative complications, their management, and avoidance strategies will be reviewed with a focus on surgical decision-making for colorectal subspecialists.
Service Learning in Undergraduate Nursing Education: Strategies to Facilitate Meaningful Reflection

Service learning is recognized as a valuable pedagogy involving experiential learning, reflection, and reciprocal learning. Students develop critical thinking and social awareness by using the crucial activity of reflecting upon their experiential learning with community partners. The purpose of this paper is to demystify the process of reflection by identifying best practices to enhance reflection and offering suggestions for grading. By understanding "the what" and "the how" of reflection, educators can implement service learning experiences designed to include the essential component of reflection. Strategies for facilitating meaningful reflection are described including descriptions of what students should reflect upon and how to initiate reflection through writing, reading, doing, and telling. Grading rubrics are suggested to facilitate evaluation of student reflection. When properly implemented, service learning encourages students to be good citizens of the world. By using best practices associated with reflection, students can be challenged to think critically about the world and how their service can achieve community goals.
Philosophy and Computer Science

In the September 1988 issue of Communcations of the ACM, the primary publication of the Association for Computing Machinery, an article appeared in which I advanced an appraisal of the scope and limits of formal methods to guarantee the reliability of computer system performance. Although intended as a philosophical critique, the response thereby generated was not altogether “philosophical”. The debate has now moved beyond CACM to Notices of the AMS, Minds and Machines, and other journals and books and shows no signs of abating. The APA Committee on Philosophy and Computers has asked me to discuss my experiences relating philosophy and computer science. I suggest that philosophical distinctions not only make a difference to understanding this domain but that their theoretical adequacy is also thereby tested.
Virtual leak channels modulate firing dynamics and synaptic integration in rat sympathetic neurons: implications for ganglionic transmission in vivo

Key points The synaptic organization of paravertebral sympathetic ganglia enables them to relay activity from the spinal cord to the periphery and thereby control autonomic functions, including blood pressure and body temperature. The present experiments were done to reconcile conflicting observations in tissue culture, intact isolated ganglia and living animals. By recording intracellularly from dissociated neurons and intact ganglia, we found that when electrode damage makes cells leaky it could profoundly distort cellular excitability and the integration of synaptic potentials. The experiments relied on the dynamic clamp method, which allows the creation of virtual ion channels by injecting current into a cell based upon a mathematical model and using rapid feedback between the model and cell. The results support the hypothesis that sympathetic ganglia can produce a 2.4-fold amplification of presynaptic activity. This could aid understanding of the neural hyperactivity that is believed to drive high blood pressure in some patients. Abstract The excitability of rat sympathetic neurons and integration of nicotinic EPSPs were compared in primary cell culture and in the acutely isolated intact superior cervical ganglion using whole cell patch electrode recordings. When repetitive firing was classified by Hodgkin's criteria in cultured cells, 18% displayed tonic class 1 excitability, 36% displayed adapting class 2 excitability and 46% displayed phasic class 3 excitability. In the intact ganglion, 71% of cells were class 1 and 29% were class 2. This diverges from microelectrode reports that nearly 100% of superior cervical ganglion neurons show phasic class 3 firing. The hypothesis that the disparity between patch and microelectrode data arises from a shunt conductance was tested using the dynamic clamp in cell culture. Non-depolarizing shunts of 3–10 nS converted cells from classes 1 and 2 to class 3 dynamics with current–voltage relations that replicated microelectrode data. Primary and secondary EPSPs recorded from the intact superior cervical ganglion were modelled as virtual synapses in cell culture using the dynamic clamp. Stimulating sympathetic neurons with virtual synaptic activity, designed to replicate in vivo recordings of EPSPs in muscle vasoconstrictor neurons, produced a 2.4-fold amplification of presynaptic activity. This gain in postsynaptic output did not differ between neurons displaying the three classes of excitability. Mimicry of microelectrode damage by virtual leak channels reduced and eventually obliterated synaptic gain by inhibiting summation of subthreshold EPSPs. These results provide a framework for interpreting sympathetic activity recorded from intact animals and support the hypothesis that paravertebral ganglia function as activity-dependent amplifiers of spinal output from preganglionic circuitry.
Ethernet Topology Discovery: A Survey

Ethernet networks have undergone impressive growth since the past few decades. This growth can be appreciated in terms of the equipment, such as switches and links, that have been added, as well as in the number of users that it supports. In parallel to this expansion, over the past decade the networking research community has shown a growing interest in discovering and analyzing the Ethernet topology. Research in this area has concentrated on the theoretical analysis of Ethernet topology as well as developing tools and methods for mapping the network layout. These efforts have brought us to a crucial juncture for Ethernet topology measurement infrastructures: while, previously, these were both small (in terms of number of measurement points), we are starting to see the deployment of large-scale distributed systems composed of hundreds or thousands of monitors. As we look forward to this next generation of systems, we take stock of what has been achieved so far. In this survey, we discuss past and current mechanisms for discovering the Ethernet topology from theoretical and practical prospective. In addition to discovery techniques, we provide insights into some of the well known open issues related to Ethernet topology discovery.
Strange quarks in the nucleon sea: Results from HAPPEX II

The HAPPEX Collaboration measured parity-violating electron scattering from 4He(e, e) and H(e, e) in 2004 and 2005 for Q 2 ≤ 0.11 GeV2. Results for the strange-quark contributions to the electromagnetic form factors of the nucleon from the 2004 data will be reviewed. Preliminary results from the 2005 data, which have significantly greater statistical precision, are G E s = 0.004 ± 0.014 stat ± 0.013 syst for Q 2 = 0.0772 GeV2 from the helium data and G E s + 0.088G M s = 0.004 ± 0.011 stat ± 0.005 syst ± 0.004 FF for Q 2 = 0.1089 GeV2 from the hydrogen data.
Fault Tolerant Schemes for Hot-Swappable and Non Hot-Swappable Mezzanine Cards

First generation, highly-available computer systems deployed a two-level physical hierarchy whereby a shelf was composed of field replaceable units (FRU) and the unit of fault detection, fault isolation, fault containment, fault recovery, fault repair, and sparing was the FRU. In 1995, IEEE introduced the non hot-swappable PCI Mezzanine Card (PMC) draft standard [1] that allows fault detection, isolation, containment, recovery, and sparing to be implemented at the mezzanine card level but requires fault repair to occur at the carrier board level. In 2005 the PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturers Group (PICMG®) introduced the hot swappable Advanced Mezzanine Card (AMC) standard [2] that extends the PMC model to allow all fault management functions, including fault repair, to be implemented at the mezzanine card level. This paper develops fault management strategies and availability models for the monolithic, non hot swap partitioned, and hot swap partitioned hardware architectures.
Tracking the Introduction of the Village Phone Product in Rwanda

This paper presents the results from a quantitative impact study of the Grameen/MTN Village Phone in Rwanda, which was conducted between June 2006 and August 2007. We find that the introduction of a Village Phone had a substantial impact on reported access to telecommunications for local entrepreneurs. While the introduction of phones did not follow the intended randomized design, we compare the changes observed in 94 study communities that received the phones to the 284 that did not. We find that the placement of a Village Phone in a community was associated with both an increased use of phones to transmit news and a greater propensity for farmers to arrange their own transit. Despite this improvement in access to telephony, the actual prices received by farmers were not affected. Impacts at the household level were muted by the relatively small size of Village Phone businesses and airtime usage rates, implying that profits must be transferred from other sources to pay off the phone in six months. Reported labor time in household enterprise increased dramatically for Village Phone operators, but positive impacts on consumption or overall business profits were not found.
Of Membrane Stability and Mosaics: The Spectrin Cytoskeleton

The sections in this article are: 1 The Red Cell Membrane Skeleton 2 How Does the Spectrin Membrane Skeleton Stabilize the Red Cell? 3 The Trilayer Couple—Spectrin as A Membrane Organizer 4 Components of the Erythrocyte Membrane Skeleton 4.1 Spectrin 4.2 Actin 4.3 Ankyrin 4.4 Protein 4.1 4.5 Adducin 4.6 Dematin (Protein 4.9) 4.7 Pallidin (Protein 4.2) 4.8 p55 (an Erythrocyte Membrane-Associated Guanylate Kinase) 4.9 Stomatin 4.10 Tropomyosin and Tropomodulin 4.11 Dynamin 4.12 Interactions with Phospholipids 5 The Spectrin Skeleton of Non-Erythroid Cells 5.1 Spatial and Temporal Polarization 6 Proteins Interacting with Spectrin in Non-Erythroid Cells 6.1 Cytoskeletal Elements 6.2 Adhesion Proteins 7 Evolving Concepts 8 Conclusions: The Linked Mosaic Model
Teaching system and network administration in a small college environment

A course covering system and network administration is a good way to give computer science students practical and hands-on experiences with the applications of many computer science core topic areas including operating systems, programming, and networking. Although there is still concern that system and network administration may not hold sufficient academic merit, the topic can be taught with the necessary breadth and depth to make it worthwhile. Students typically find this kind of course to be fun, and their involvement often validates their interest in computing after numerous programming and theory courses.
Coherence motivated sampling and convergence analysis of least squares polynomial Chaos regression

Abstract Independent sampling of orthogonal polynomial bases via Monte Carlo is of interest for uncertainty quantification of models using Polynomial Chaos (PC) expansions. It is known that bounding the spectral radius of a random matrix consisting of PC samples yields a bound on the number of samples necessary to identify coefficients in the PC expansion via solution to a least squares regression problem. We present a related analysis which guarantees a mean square convergence using a coherence parameter of the sampled PC basis that may be both analytically bounded and computationally estimated. Utilizing asymptotic results for orthogonal polynomials, we bound the coherence parameter for polynomials of Hermite and Legendre type under each respective natural sampling distribution. In both polynomial bases we identify an importance sampling distribution which yields a bound with weaker dependence on the order of the PC basis. For more general orthonormal bases, we propose the coherence-optimal sampling: a Markov Chain Monte Carlo sampling, which directly uses the basis functions under consideration to achieve a statistical optimality among all such sampling schemes with identical support, and which guarantees recovery with a number of samples that is, up to a logarithmic factor, linear in the number of basis functions considered. We demonstrate these different sampling strategies numerically in both high-order and high-dimensional manufactured PC expansions. In addition, the quality of each sampling method is compared in the identification of solutions to two differential equations, one with a high-dimensional random input and the other with a high-order PC expansion. In all observed cases the coherence-optimal sampling leads to similar or considerably improved accuracy over the other considered sampling distributions.
Understanding the Atmospheric Degradation of Noble Metal-Plated Connector Materials

Abstract The current level of understanding of the atmospheric environmental degradation of gold-plated copper with and without a nickel underplate (and related materials) has limited the effective...
The effects of temperature on estuarine plant communities

The work carried out at Miami, though only a beginning to the study, has shown that the marine plants can be used as indicators of thermal pollution, but that a much larger field and experimental study will be necessary before any attempt can be made to set guidelines for pollution control.
Cathodoluminescence Imaging of Plasmonic Modes of Ag Nanostructures

We report cathodoluminescence spectroscopy on Ag triangular nanostructures with specially designed substrates having near-vacuum index and low luminescence. FDTD simulations were carried out to predict the role of substrate and the experimentally observed out-of-plane mode.
Application Of The Em Algorithm In Image Reconstruction And Image Processing

EM (expectation-maximization) algorithms for maximum likelihood estimation have received considerable attention in recent years due to their computational feasibility in tomographic image reconstruction. It is less widely recognized, however, that EN algorithms can be equally applicable to image processing in general. In this paper, the theoretical foundation of EM algorithms is first outlined. Applications of EN algorithms in both image reconstruction and image processing are then described, and some characteristics of these EM algorithms are discussed.
Pills and Ills: Methodological Problems in Pharmacological Research

To The Editor: Medications are the most frequently used form of therapy employed in the care of older adults. Unfortunately, the frequent exclusion of these patients from premarketing clinical trials of new medications has limited our knowledge regarding the safety and efficacy of individual medications in our aging population.1 Moreover, the most common chronic condition that older adults experience is multimorbidity, with two of every three older adults having multiple chronic conditions. Multiple chronic conditions account for 66% of the country’s overall health expenditures and more than 95% of Medicare expenditures.2 Therefore, it is critical to understand the risks and benefits of medications in the presence of multimorbidity. Despite this, a recent study showed that of 190 clinical trials that explicitly considered multiple chronic conditions in the selection process, 94% excluded older patients – i.e., the very patients who have the most to benefit from therapy and in whom we know the least about medication safety.3 Because of this gap, the role of observational data and pharmacoepidemiogic research in older adults is critical. In this letter, we summarize key points from a Methodology Workshop of the same title presented at the 2013 American Geriatrics Society Annual Scientific Meeting.
Competitiveness and Industrial Policy

Discusses problems within the US economy, such as the decline of wages and standards of living, and the effect this has on the community. Examines the causes of structural change and trade deficits in an attempt to find the necessary policy measures. Considers certain problems which need to be addressed and policy changes required (reduction of the military‐ industrial complex, certain govern‐ment training programmes), before concluding that the private sector would be able to produce more effective change and be capable of managing transition.
The hyperpower iteration revisited

The hyperpower method is generalized by inseting an idempotent matrix P. It is shown that most of the iterations that can be used for computing generalized inverses can be recast in this form by suitable choice of the idempotent, the limit, or the initial values. The convergence behavior of Bqk is analyzed and the results are applied to give a detailed investigation of this iteration.
Measurement of Nonlinear Refraction Dynamics of CS2

Nonlinear refractive dynamics of CS2 are measured with the beam deflection technique. A response function model is fit, from which the pulse width dependent n2,eff is calculated and compared to Z-scan measurements.
FOUNDING AND PROCESSES OF THE INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL ON WOMEN’S HEALTH ISSUES: ATTENTIVE PARTNERING. THE FIRST 19 YEARS

I present a theoretical analysis and global influence of the first 19 years of the International Council on Women’s Health Issues (ICOWHI). To do so, I analyzed observational, documented, and casual data using the constant comparative method of classical grounded theory. All data bits were analyzed with one another, coded, categorized, and reexamined until I discovered a central category that seemed to explain most of the social scene under study. The explanatory power of the central category, attentive partnering, is presented in terms of its applicability to the interactive relationship between participants working for a common goal, and within the cultural, temporal, social, and social structural context of the relationships. Partnering can occur wherever individuals with a common purpose assemble. The conditions under which the interactive process of attentive partnering occurs seem to be the presence of determined, persuasive leaders, who foster growth-enhancing collegial relationships. When this soc...
Loss of visual placing in rats after lateral hypothalamic microinjections of 6-hydroxydopamine

Visual placing responses were completely abolished in 29 albino rats after bilateral injection of 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) into the median forebrain bundle in the anterolateral hypothalamic region. This deficit persisted and appeared to be permanent. d-amphetamine (2 mg/kg, ip) temporarily restored visual placing in one group of rats 6 mo after 6-OHDA treatment. d-amphetamine did not restore visual placing, however, in a second group of rats tested 3–5 wk after intrahypothalamic injections of 6-OHDA. The loss of visual placing was an isolated deficit because somes-thetic placing, righting, and hopping reactions were normal after 6-OHDA. The loss of visual placing was a specific result of catecholaminergic damage in the anterolateral hypothalamus because vehicle injections there and anteromedial 6-OHDA injections did not abolish visual placing. These results provide the first evidence that catecholamine axons or terminals in the anterolateral hypothalamic region are an essential part of the neurological network for visual placing.
Electroreduction of carbon dioxide on platinum single crystal electrodes: electrochemical and in situ FTIR studies

La reduction electrochimique du dioxyde de carbone sur une electrode de platine ((100) et (110)) dans l'acide perchlorique est examinee par spectrometrie IR a transformee de Fourier, d'absorption et de reflexion
Theoretical And Experimental Automatic Exposure Control Study

A study of the statistics of selected aerial photographs was made to determine the usefulness of these quantities for the control of an Automatic Exposure system. The photos typify cloud-free, heavy haze conditions; cloud-free, clear conditions; and scattered-cloud, haze-free conditions. The photographs were converted to digital tape records, using the FAIRSCAN image analyzer, a system for scanning and digitizing imagery. The tapes were then fed to an appropriately programmed computer and five statistics were derived for each photo. The first two statistics, the "mean" and the "standard deviation", proved to contain the necessary information. Higher order moments and the statistics derived from them appeared inconsistent and uninformative, at least for the small sample of three photos. In addition, it was determined that about one thousand elements per picture was adequate to determine the statistics and that the values obtained were insensitive to the elemental aspect ratio for ratios up to about 4:1.© (1972) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Analytic Review: Right Ventricular Infarction

Right ventricular myocardial infarction (RVMI) usually occurs after occlusion of a dominant right coronary artery, and the amount of right ventricular necrosis depends on whether this occlusion occurs proximal or distal along the length of the coronary artery. In patients who have a considerable amount of right ventricular necrosis, the physical examination reveals an elevated jugular venous pressure and Kussmaul's sign. Acute hemodynamic monitoring demonstrates a disproportionate elevation of the right atrial pressure (RAP) when compared with the pulmonary artery wedge pressure (PAWP). Previously validated hemodynamic criteria for identifying hemodynamically important RVMI include an RAP greater than or equal to 10 mm Hg and a RAP: PAWP ratio greater than or equal to 0.8. These hemodynamic findings can be seen in approximately 10% of patients who are seen with acute inferior transmural myocardial infarction; the findings can be produced in another 10% of patients after volume loading.Radionuclide angiogr...
Presynaptic long-term depression mediated by Gi/o-coupled receptors

Long-term depression (LTD) of the efficacy of synaptic transmission is now recognized as an important mechanism for the regulation of information storage and the control of actions, as well as for synapse, neuron, and circuit development. Studies of LTD mechanisms have focused mainly on postsynaptic AMPA-type glutamate receptor trafficking. However, the focus has now expanded to include presynaptically expressed plasticity, the predominant form being initiated by presynaptically expressed Gi/o-coupled metabotropic receptor (Gi/o-GPCR) activation. Several forms of LTD involving activation of different presynaptic Gi/o-GPCRs as a 'common pathway' are described. We review here the literature on presynaptic Gi/o-GPCR-mediated LTD, discuss known mechanisms, gaps in our knowledge, and evaluate whether all Gi/o-GPCRs are capable of inducing presynaptic LTD.
Differential geometry of real submanifolds in a Kähler manifold

LetN be a real submanifold in a complex manifoldM. If the maximal complex subspaces of the tangent spaces ofM contained in the tangent spaces ofN are of constant dimension and they define a differentiable distribution, thenN is called a generic submanifold. The class of generic submanifold includes all real hypersurfaces, complex submanifolds, totally real submanifolds andCR-submanifolds. In this paper we initiate a study of generic submanifolds in a Kahler manifold from differential geometric point of view. Some fundamental results in this respect will be obtained.
Fort Toulouse of the Alabamas and the eighteenth‐century Indian trade

Abstract French colonization of Indian territory in the south‐eastern United States during the eighteenth century included the building of both fortresses and trading posts. Fort Toulouse in central Alabama, one of the most important garrisons for the implementation of French policy in the region, was in actuality an early French embassy to the Creek Indian Nation. Archaeological explorations of Fort Toulouse in 1972 and 1973 revealed in kind and quality the items which the French utilized for the Indian trade. In some instances the poor quality of trade goods suggests that French frontiersmen (and perhaps European manufacturers), the middlemen between the Crown and the Creek Indian chiefs, were inadequate choices for the implementation of French foreign policy through trade.
Efficient simulation of Internet worms

Simulation of Internet worms (and other malware) requires tremendous computing resources when every packet generated by the phenomena is modeled individually; on the other hand, models of worm growth based on differential equations lack the significant variability inherent in worms that sample targets randomly. This article addresses the problem with a model that focuses on times of infection. We propose a hybrid discrete-continuous model that minimizes execution time subject to an accuracy constraint on variance. We also develop an efficiently executed model of preferential random scanning and use it to investigate the sensitivity of worm propagation speed to the distribution of susceptible hosts through the network, and to the local preference probability. Finally, we propose and study two optimizations to a fluid-based simulation of scan traffic through a backbone network, observing an order-of-magnitude improvement in execution speed.
Mixing characteristics and startup of anaerobic downflow stationary fixed film (DSFF) reactors

Tests to determine the mixing characteristics of the anaerobic downflow stationary fixed film (DSFF) reactor during startup showed that mixing characteristics affected performance. Different mixing profiles were obtained by keeping the same flow distribution system and by varying the number of clay channels (1, 4, and 25) in the DSFF reactors (2-32 L). Results with a clean bed reactor indicated a plug flow pattern with a relatively large extent of dispersion. Recirculation dramatically improved the mixing and the residence time distribution (RTD) changed to that of the completely mixed type. Multiple-channel reactors exhibited a dead space of ca. 12% of the total volume, likely a result of a less than optimally designed flow distributor. A startup period of 90 days was necessary to achieve a maximum loading rate of between 10 and 15 kg COD/m(3) day, a volumetric methane production rate of up to 3 m(3) (STP)/m(3) day and a COD reduction efficiency of up to 90%. For the first 50 days of operation, the difference in achievable volumetric loading rate and volumetric methane production rate was only related to the surface-to-volume ratio of the reactors and was not affected by the number of channels present. After 90 days, the bacterial growth on the support material was sufficient to dramatically increase the amount of dead space in the reactors, especially in multiple-channel reactors (up to 55% of their volume). As a result, the performance of these reactors deteriorated and overloading characteristics were observed. Other results showed that biogas production alone was not sufficient to improve reactor mixing and that little or no shortcircuiting or channelling occurred. Furthermore, the nonmethanogenic bacterial activity in the liquid phase was not affected by the degree of mixing but acetoclastic methanogenic and hydrogenophilic methanogenic activity in the liquid phase were reduced as the fluid flow pattern in the reactor improved.
Obstruction of Left Ventricular Outlet in Association with Ventricular Septal Defect

In a pathologic collection of 722 congenital heart lesions we have observed 10 cases in which a ventricular septal defect was associated with obstruction to normal left ventricular outflow. These cases are presented in the framework of a classification relating hemodynamics to the position of the obstructing lesion and the size of the ventricular septal defect. One additional case observed clinically and at operation is also reported to make more nearly complete the classification of the anatomic arrangements in which the common denominators are ventricular septal defect and obstruction to normal ventricular outflow.