cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Processing queries aganist database procedures: a performance analysis

A database procedure is a collection of queries stored in the database. Several methods are possible for processing queries that retrieve the value returned by a database procedure. The conventional algorithm is to execute the queries in a procedure whenever it is accessed. A second strategy requires caching the previous value returned by the database procedure. If the cached value is valid at the time of a query, the value is returned immediately. If the cached value has been invalidated by an update, the value is recomputed, stored back into the cache, and then returned. A third strategy uses a differential view maintenance algorithm to maintain an up-to-date copy of the value returned by the procedure. This paper compares the performance of these three alternatives. The results show that which algorithm is preferred depends heavily on the database environment, particularly, the frequency of updates and the size of objects retrieved by database procedures.
The effect of l-asparaginase on antithrombin, plasminogen, and plasma coagulation during therapy for acute lymphoblastic leukemia

Hemostatic function was studied sequentially in 12 children receiving L-asparaginase, vincristine, and prednisone as remission induction chemotherapy for acute lymphoblastic leukemia. The three-week period of L-asparaginase therapy was characterized by progressive decreases in plasma antithrombin, plasminogen, and fibrinogen concentrations, and by progressive increases in plasma clotting times (prothrombin time, partial thromboplastin time, thrombin time). Platelet counts rose rapidly during the third and fourth weeks of therapy as bone marrow remission was achieved. Factor V levels increased steadily during a five-week period, perhaps related to vincristine or prednisone therapy. Recent reports of thrombosis and hemorrhage in children and adults receiving L-asparaginase may be explained by this complex set of abnormalities in coagulation and coagulation control.
Radial Growth Rates of Two Co-Occurring Coniferous Trees in the Northern Rockies During the Past Century

We examined radial growth rates of locally co-occurring Douglas-Fir (PSME e Pseudotsuga menziesii var. glauca) and ponderosa pine (PIPO e Pinus ponderosa var. ponderosa) trees growing within the Northern Rockies to determine if there are differential growth and climatic responses between these species and whether these responses are consistent among topographically and climatologically diverse sites. We developed standardized tree-ring chronologies from seven sites, with each site a matched pair of PSME and PIPO. For each chronology we examined the climate response of radial growth by comparing the standardized ring widths to a suite of climatic variables. We examined temporal changes by comparing 1905e1950 and post-1950 growth rates and climatic conditions. Both conifers experience increased radial growth post-1950. A combination of spring/summer moisture conditions related positively to radial growth and the primary climatic drivers were consistent both between species and within the region. The primary climatic drivers of radial growth remain unchanged during the last century or have trended toward drier conditions unfavorable for growth. We conclude that increases in standardized radial growth rates are unlikely climatically-driven. Other potential vectors of radial growth change, such as atmospheric CO2 enrichment, have affected these co-occurring species on a largely equal basis and positively.
Evaluating forecasts: a look at aggregate bias and accuracy measures

In this paper an investigation is made of the properties and use of two aggregate measures of forecast bias and accuracy. These are metrics used in business to calculate aggregate forecasting performance for a family (group) of products. We find that the aggregate measures are not particularly informative if some of the one-step-ahead forecasts are biased. This is likely to be the case in practice if frequently employed forecasting methods are used to generate a large number of individual forecasts. In the paper, examples are constructed to illustrate some potential problems in the use of the metrics. We propose a simple graphical display of forecast bias and accuracy to supplement the information yielded by the accuracy measures. This support includes relevant boxplots of measures of individual forecasting success. This tool is simple but helpful as the graphic display has the potential to indicate forecast deterioration that can be masked by one or both of the aggregate metrics. The procedures are illustrated with data representing sales of food items. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
On-chip optofluidic grating spectrograph for biomedical applications

This paper presents a liquid metal based on-chip optofluidic grating spectrograph integrated with polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microfluidics for biomedical applications such as handheld fluorescence-actuated cell sorting, fluorescence immunosensing and Raman spectroscopy. We designed a Czerny-Turner spectrograph with 1.4nm spectral resolution, 300nm FSR and a footprint of 1cm by 2cm. The spectrograph structure was fabricated in PDMS using conventional replica molding soft lithography, and then filled with room temperature liquid metal, Gallium-Indium-Tin Alloy. The material and fabrication method is fully compatible with PDMS microfluidics, which allowed us to integrate a sheath flow based microfluidic cell focusing system with the spectrograph on the same substrate. This integration represents an important step towards a handheld flow cytometer. In addition, as a new class of on-chip optofluidic components, liquid metallic optical elements such as mirrors, gratings and pinholes will likely find other applications for building miniaturized optofluidic systems.
A Key to the Castle

Understanding and providing incentives for good security behavior can be more effective and welcome than disruptive or constraining technology.
Immunological comparison of cholesterol esterases.

Abstract Rat pancreas cholesterol esterase has been immunologically compared with rat intestinal cholesterol esterase. Monospecific precipitating antisera against purified rat pancreas cholesterol esterase were produced in rabbits. Immune IgG, isolated from the antisera, crossreacted with the cholesterol esterase of intestine in the immunodiffusion assay with a pattern of complete identity. Titration of the pancreatic and intestinal enzyme with immune IgG revealed a maximum precipitation (99 and 98%) and maximum inhibition of enzyme activity (66 and 65%) when the ratio of enzyme activity (units) to immune IgG (mg) was 4.1 and 4.0, respectively. The immunological identity demonstrated in these studies lend support to the concept that intestinal cholesterol esterase is derived from the pancreatic enzyme. In additional studies, the immune IgG was employed in the immunodiffusion assay to test for cross-reaction with cholesterol esterases prepared from rat aorta, adrenal, and liver and with cholesterol esterases prepared from the pancreas of rabbit, dog, cow, and guinea pig. There was no evidence of cross-reaction in any case. Further, cholesterol esterase prepared from the pancreas of rabbit, dog, and cow retained full enzymatic activity when titrated with immune IgG.
Sex, Risk and Responsibility: Provider Attitudes and Beliefs Predict HIV Transmission Risk Prevention Counseling in Clinical Care Settings

We examined factors associated with the frequency of HIV “prevention with positives” (PwP) counseling delivered by providers participating in demonstration projects at 26 clinics. Three hundred and fifteen primary care and support service providers completed a survey assessing the frequency of PwP delivered at initial medical care visits and at regular care visits. Providers reported delivering PwP counseling to more patients at initial visits (67%) than to those returning for regular care (53%; t = 11.8, p < 0.001). During initial and regular care visits, providers reporting a sense of responsibility for conducting PwP and those regularly discussing the risk of reinfection with patients reported significantly more frequent PwP counseling. Providers expressing a belief that no matter how much counseling was delivered, some HIV-infected patients would still infect others (prevention fatalism) reported significantly less frequent counseling at all visits. To improve the quality and quantity of HIV PwP counseling, providers training should address attitudinal barriers and facilitators to counseling and the importance of addressing risk routinely.
The tug of war over the status of Jerusalem: Leaders, strategies and outcomes

This analysis of the Middle East negotiations on Jerusalem has two purposes. First it forecasts and analyzes the potential settlement over the future status of Jerusalem. Second it uses this issue ...
Protein histidine kinases and signal tranduction in prokaryotes and eukaryotes

During the past several years, it has become apparent that prokaryotic organisms process much of their sensory information through families of similar proteins that make up two-component signal transducing systems. Biochemical and genetic analyses have clarified our understanding of how these proteins mediate the signaling circuitry necessary to allow an appropriate response. Recent advances in this field suggest that 'primitive' signaling systems may involve molecular strategies and mechanisms that are conserved in more complex organisms.
Contact Stresses Between Layered Elastic Cylinders

Etude du contact statique sans frottement. On tient compte de la courbure locale des surfaces de contact. Calcul de la fonction de Green qu'on utilise pour reduire le probleme de contact a une equation integrale de Fredholm de premiere espece avec comme inconnues la largeur du contact, la distribution de pression et la vitesse d'approche normale
Development of historical exposure estimates of cosmic radiation and circadian rhythm disruption for cohort studies of Pan Am flight attendants.

Background The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health is conducting cohort studies of flight crew employed by the former Pan American World Airways company (Pan Am) as part of an effort to examine flight crew workplace exposures and health effects. Flight crew are exposed to elevated levels of cosmic radiation and to disruption of circadian rhythm when flying across multiple time zones. Methods exist to calculate cosmic radiation effective doses on individual flights; however, only work histories which provided an employee's domicile (home base) history rather than a record of every flight flown were available. Methods/Results We developed a method for estimating individual cumulative domicile-based cosmic radiation effective doses and two metrics for circadian rhythm disruption for each flight attendant: cumulative times zones crossed and cumulative travel time during the standard sleep interval. Conclusions The domicile-exposure matrix developed was used to calculate exposure estimates for a cohort mortality study of former Pan Am flight attendants. Am. J. Ind. Med. 52:751–761, 2009. Published 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
Kinetics of Surface Roughening and Smoothing During Ion Sputtering

We have measured the kinetics of roughness evolution during low energy ion sputtering of SiO{sub 2} surfaces using in situ x-ray reflectivity. Sputtering with heavy ions (Xe) leads to rapid roughening of the surface that can not be explained by a simple random removal process. Subsequent bombardment with light ions (He,H) leads to an exponential decrease in the surface roughness. These kinetics are explained quantitatively by a linear model that contains a balance between smoothing by surface diffusion and viscous flow and roughening by sputter removal of material. A curvature dependent sputter yield leads to amplification of a limited range of spatial frequencies on the surface and the formation of a ripple topography.
Multivariate calibration applied to the quantitative analysis of infrared spectra

Multivariate calibration methods are very useful for improving the precision, accuracy, and reliability of quantitative spectral analyses. Spectroscopists can more effectively use these sophisticated statistical tools if they have a qualitative understanding of the techniques involved. A qualitative picture of the factor analysis multivariate calibration methods of partial least squares (PLS) and principal component regression (PCR) is presented using infrared calibrations based upon spectra of phosphosilicate glass thin films on silicon wafers. Comparisons of the relative prediction abilities of four different multivariate calibration methods are given based on Monte Carlo simulations of spectral calibration and prediction data. The success of multivariate spectral calibrations is demonstrated for several quantitative infrared studies. The infrared absorption and emission spectra of thin-film dielectrics used in the manufacture of microelectronic devices demonstrate rapid, nondestructive at-line and in- situ analyses using PLS calibrations. Finally, the application of multivariate spectral calibrations to reagentless analysis of blood is presented. We have found that the determination of glucose in whole blood taken from diabetics can be precisely monitored from the PLS calibration of either mid- or near-infrared spectra of the blood. Progress toward the noninvasive determination of glucose levels in diabetics is an ultimate goal of this research.© (1992) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Characterization of Pfiesteria ichthyocidal activity.

Drgon et al. (4) concluded that the “aquarium bioassay format is unsuitable to accurately assess the ichthyocidal activity of Pfiesteria spp.” and “ichthyocidal activity of Pfiesteria spp. is mostly due to direct interactions of the zoospores with fish skin and gill epithelia rather than to soluble factors.” These conclusions are not justified, because microbial community analyses of control aquariums were not included and previous studies (5, 8) that utilized similar experimental approaches and found significant (100%) fish death attributable to soluble factors were overlooked. It is known a priori that aquariums containing fish or inoculated with whole sediment will develop a complex microbial community. This has been previously noted for the aquarium bioassay for Pfiesteria ichthyotoxicity (2). Given this complexity, a key factor in attributing fish death to Pfiesteria spp. is the difference between Pfiesteria- or sediment-inoculated aquariums and corresponding controls.
Activated Polo-Like Kinase Plx1 Is Required at Multiple Points during Mitosis in Xenopus laevis

Entry into mitosis depends upon activation of the dual-specificity phosphatase Cdc25C, which dephosphorylates and activates the cyclin B-Cdc2 complex. Previous work has shown that the Xenopus polo-like kinase Plx1 can phosphorylate and activate Cdc25C in vitro. In the work presented here, we demonstrate that Plx1 is activated in vivo during oocyte maturation with the same kinetics as Cdc25C. Microinjection of wild-type Plx1 into Xenopus oocytes accelerated the rate of activation of Cdc25C and cyclin B-Cdc2. Conversely, microinjection of either an antibody against Plx1 or kinase-dead Plx1 significantly inhibited the activation of Cdc25C and cyclin B-Cdc2. This effect could be reversed by injection of active Cdc25C, indicating that Plx1 is upstream of Cdc25C. However, injection of Cdc25C, which directly activates cyclin B-Cdc2, also caused activation of Plx1, suggesting that a positive feedback loop exists in the Plx1 activation pathway. Other experiments show that injection of Plx1 antibody into early embryos, which do not require Cdc25C for the activation of cyclin B-Cdc2, resulted in an arrest of cleavage that was associated with monopolar spindles. These results demonstrate that in Xenopus laevis, Plx1 plays important roles both in the activation of Cdc25C at the initiation of mitosis and in spindle assembly at late stages of mitosis.
Optimal speed control of an Interior Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor including cross saturation

This paper presents the methodology to design an optimal speed controller (total losses minimization) of an IPMSM for traction applications. IPMSMs have high efficiency, however to exploit that efficiency it is required to design an optimal control, with the capability to accurately calculate and command the current components for the whole range. The speed controller is optimized by calculating the optimal trajectory between two points, defined by their torque and speed. The trajectory calculation is made in two stages: current space vector calculation based on the concept of maximum torque per ampere and optimal trajectory calculation. The first stage corresponds to the calculation of the optimal magnitude and angle of the current space vector for any given torque and speed point, maximum torque per ampere is the control technique selected for the IPMSM model inversion. The second stage involves calculating the currents that define the trajectory from one point to another, with minimal copper losses. The proposed optimization is numerical, constrained, based on the steepest descent method. Simulation and experimental results are presented to validate the proposed methodology.
MaxProp: Routing for Vehicle-Based Disruption-Tolerant Networks

Disruption-tolerant networks (DTNs) attempt to route network messages via intermittently connected nodes. Routing in such environments is difficult because peers have little information about the state of the partitioned network and transfer opportunities between peers are of limited duration. In this paper, we propose MaxProp, a protocol for effective routing of DTN messages. MaxProp is based on prioritizing both the schedule of packets transmitted to other peers and the schedule of packets to be dropped. These priorities are based on the path likelihoods to peers according to historical data and also on several complementary mechanisms, including acknowledgments, a head-start for new packets, and lists of previous intermediaries. Our evaluations show that MaxProp performs better than protocols that have access to an oracle that knows the schedule of meetings between peers. Our evaluations are based on 60 days of traces from a real DTN network we have deployed on 30 buses. Our network, called UMassDieselNet, serves a large geographic area between five colleges. We also evaluate MaxProp on simulated topologies and show it performs well in a wide variety of DTN environments.
Propensity for obtaining alcohol through shoulder tapping.

Background: Underage youth often obtain alcohol from adults who illegally provide the alcohol. One method for obtaining alcohol from adults is shoulder tapping, where youth approach an adult outside an alcohol establishment and ask the adult to purchase alcohol for them. The goal of this study was to assess what percentage of the general and youth-targeted adult population approached outside of a convenience/liquor store will agree to purchase and then provide alcohol to individuals who appear under age 21. Methods: We conducted 2 waves of pseudo-underage shoulder tap request attempts, using requesters who were age 21 or older but appeared 18 to 20 years old. In both waves, requests were conducted at randomly selected liquor and convenience stores, requesters explained that the reason they were asking the adult was because they did not have their identification with them, and requesters asked the adults to purchase a 6-pack of beer. During wave 1, we conducted 102 attempts, with the requester approaching the first adult entering the store alone. During wave 2, we conducted 102 attempts where the requester approached the first casually dressed male entering the store alone who appeared to be 21 to 30 years old. Results: During wave 1, 8% of the general sample of approached adults provided alcohol to the pseudo-underage requesters. The odds of adults providing alcohol in urban areas were 9.4 times greater than in suburban areas. During wave 2, 19% of the approached young men provided alcohol to the requesters. No requester, request attempt, establishment, or community characteristics were associated with request attempt outcomes during wave 2. Conclusions: A small percentage of the general population of adults will agree to provide alcohol to underage youth when approached outside an alcohol establishment. The likelihood of underage youth obtaining alcohol through shoulder tapping increases substantially if the youth approach young men.
Cell signalling and Trypanosoma cruzi invasion

Summary Mammalian cell invasion by the protozoan pathogen Trypanosoma cruzi is critical to its survival in the host. To promote its entry into a wide variety of nonprofessional phagocytic cells, infective trypomastigotes exploit an arsenal of heterogenous surface glycoproteins, secreted proteases and signalling agonists to actively manipulate multiple host cell signalling pathways. Signals initiated in the parasite upon contact with mammalian cells also function as critical regulators of the invasion process. Whereas the full spectrum of cellular responses modulated by T. cruzi is not yet known, mounting evidence suggests that these pathways impinge on a number of cellular processes, in particular the ubiquitous wound-repair mechanism exploited for lysosomemediated parasite entry. Furthermore, differential engagement of host cell signalling pathways in a cell type-specific manner and modulation of host cell gene expression by T. cruzi are becoming recognized as essential determinants of infectivity and intracellular survival by this pathogen.
The design of signal dependent time-frequency kernels by McClellan transformation

A McClellan transformation 2-D filter design method is used for designing a signal dependent time-frequency (t-f) kernel. This method is amenable to t-f kernel constraints, which do not commonly arise when filtering signals in image and array processing applications. The two parts of the McClellan transformation method (the one-dimensional filter and the linear transformation) provide a mechanism for emphasizing the auto-terms and improve spectral resolution. The flexibility offered by the McClellan transformation method in shaping the contours in the frequency domain is used to place a unit value along the kernel axes and satisfy marginal constraints. Simulations involving chirp signals are presented. >
Evaluation of caching strategies for an Internet server

We look at a number of issues in organizing a file system cache in an Internet multimedia server. Traces from NCSA World-Wide-Web (WWW) server are used in this study. We study several caching strategies for improving the overall performance of such a server and show that request response time can be improved by some of the replacement policies that take size of the request into account. The new policies perform better as the video/audio content increases in the file system workload. We also show that previously proposed cache sharing strategies improve performance significantly in these multimedia servers.
Performance: An Alphabet of Performative Writing

In the penultimate sentence of Performance, Ronald J. Pelias writes, “It would be fun to start again, start from the beginning of the alphabet, but give myself one rule: Do not make any entries und...
Differential effect of maturation on insulin- vs. contraction-stimulated glucose transport in Zucker rats

Insulin-stimulated glucose transport has been shown to decline during maturation in lean rats. To determine whether this maturation-induced decrease occurred in the muscle of obese rats and whether...
Human Proteomic Variation Revealed by Combining RNA-Seq Proteogenomics and Global Post-Translational Modification (G-PTM) Search Strategy.

Mass-spectrometry-based proteomic analysis underestimates proteomic variation due to the absence of variant peptides and posttranslational modifications (PTMs) from standard protein databases. Each individual carries thousands of missense mutations that lead to single amino acid variants, but these are missed because they are absent from generic proteomic search databases. Myriad types of protein PTMs play essential roles in biological processes but remain undetected because of increased false discovery rates in variable modification searches. We address these two fundamental shortcomings of bottom-up proteomics with two recently developed software tools. The first consists of workflows in Galaxy that mine RNA sequencing data to generate sample-specific databases containing variant peptides and products of alternative splicing events. The second tool applies a new strategy that alters the variable modification approach to consider only curated PTMs at specific positions, thereby avoiding the combinatorial...
Educating medical students about musculoskeletal problems. Are community needs reflected in the curricula of Canadian medical schools

Background: Musculoskeletal problems are a common reason why patients present for medical treatment. The purpose of the present study was to review the curricula of Canadian medical schools to determine whether they prepare their students for the demands of practice with respect to musculoskeletal problems. Methods: The amount of time spent on musculoskeletal education at each of Canada’s medical schools was reviewed by surveying the directors (or equivalents) of all sixteen undergraduate musculoskeletal programs. With use of data from this survey and the Association of American Medical Colleges’ guide to curricula, the percentage of the total curriculum devoted to musculoskeletal education was determined. The prevalence of disorders related to the musculoskeletal system among patients of primary care physicians was determined on an international basis by reviewing the literature and on a local basis by surveying all primary care physicians affiliated with the University of British Columbia’s Department of Family Medicine. Results: The curriculum analysis revealed that, on the average, medical schools in Canada devoted 2.26% (range, 0.61% to 4.81%) of their curriculum time to musculoskeletal education. The questionnaires completed by the directors of the undergraduate programs indicated widespread dissatisfaction with the musculoskeletal education process and, specifically, with the amount of time devoted to musculoskeletal education. Our literature review and survey of local family physicians revealed that between 13.7% and 27.8% of North American patients presenting to a primary care physician have a chief symptom that is directly related to the musculoskeletal system. Conclusion: There is a marked discrepancy between the musculoskeletal knowledge and skill requirements of a primary care physician and the time devoted to musculoskeletal education in Canadian medical schools.
Automatic tissue segmentation of breast biopsies imaged by QPI

The current tissue evaluation method for breast cancer would greatly benefit from higher throughput and less inter-observer variation. Since quantitative phase imaging (QPI) measures physical parameters of tissue, it can be used to find quantitative markers, eliminating observer subjectivity. Furthermore, since the pixel values in QPI remain the same regardless of the instrument used, classifiers can be built to segment various tissue components without need for color calibration. In this work we use a texton-based approach to segment QPI images of breast tissue into various tissue components (epithelium, stroma or lumen). A tissue microarray comprising of 900 unstained cores from 400 different patients was imaged using Spatial Light Interference Microscopy. The training data were generated by manually segmenting the images for 36 cores and labelling each pixel (epithelium, stroma or lumen.). For each pixel in the data, a response vector was generated by the Leung-Malik (LM) filter bank and these responses were clustered using the k-means algorithm to find the centers (called textons). A random forest classifier was then trained to find the relationship between a pixel’s label and the histogram of these textons in that pixel’s neighborhood. The segmentation was carried out on the validation set by calculating the texton histogram in a pixel’s neighborhood and generating a label based on the model learnt during training. Segmentation of the tissue into various components is an important step toward efficiently computing parameters that are markers of disease. Automated segmentation, followed by diagnosis, can improve the accuracy and speed of analysis leading to better health outcomes.
Computation of shock buffet onset for a conventional and supercritical airfoil

This is a study of recent flow and turbulence models applied to the problem of shock buffet onset. The accuracy of the interactive boundary layer and the thin layer Navier-Stokes equations solved with recent upwind techniques using similar transport field equation turbulence models is assessed for standard steady test cases, including conditions having significant shock separation. The two methods are then used a study of the shock buffet onset region of a supercritical airfoil, and airfoil having strong trailing edge separation, and found to compare well. A Reynolds scaling effect in the onset of the shock buffeting of the supercritical airfoil computed with the interactive boundary layer method is found to compare well with that observed experimentally. This is used to argue that the experimental data are of conditions very near shock buffet onset. The methods are next applied to a conventional airfoil. Steady shock separated computations are shown to compare well. Computations in the shock buffeting region using the two methods, however, do not. These findings are discussed in connection with possible mechanisms important in the. onset of shock buffet.
Rubber as it is Revealed by X-Rays

Abstract THE beginning of the year of 1929 seems to be a logical time for considering critically the status of knowledge concerning the fundamental structure of rubber. Of all the contributions by various methods to the problem, those which have come as a result of the application of X-ray diffraction methods may be considered the most unique and perhaps most important in the past few years. It was known previous to 1925 that when rubber is strongly stretched it becomes warm, its specific gravity increases and it becomes doubly refracting. The name of J. R. Katz has become renowned throughout the world as a result of the experiment which he performed of causing a fine beam of X-rays to pass through a specimen of stretched rubber behind which was placed a photographic film. This experiment was one of those fortunate accidents which appear frequently in the history of science, but on the other hand, it was the result of clear thinking, rational deduction, and a keen appreciation of the possibilities of appl...
New Isotopes: 11 Li, 14 B, and 15 B

Data obtained with semiconductor detectors and a particle-identifier system on fragments ejected from uranium bombarded with 5.3-GeV protons show that $^{11}\mathrm{Li}$, $^{14}\mathrm{B}$, and $^{15}\mathrm{B}$ are particle stable, $^{10}\mathrm{Li}$ is particle unstable, and $^{13}\mathrm{Be}$ is most probably particle unstable.
The Pathophysiology of Precocious Puberty

Advances in understanding of normal puberty have clarified many of the mechanisms underlying precocity and led in several instances to better therapy. The essential diagnostic task is to determine if the normal process has been triggered prematurely or if an abnormal process (usually inappropriate sex steroid secretion) has circumvented the normal physiology.
Analgesia and Analgesic Techniques

In recent years, there has been a great increase in our understanding of pain mechanisms and our awareness of pain in small animals. Despite increased knowledge, many animals still go undertreated or untreated. Small exotic animals are a unique group of patients, and can prove challenging for the practitioner concerned with their welfare. This article reviews the process of nociception and how one can intervene in the pain pathway. Newer analgesic drugs are discussed, along with some novel administration techniques that can be adapted for small mammals. Ketamine has been regarded primarily as a chemical restraining agent, but new information reveals that it may have an important place in pain management.
Abstract 2889: Loss of 4E-BP1 function promotes EMT and metastasis via translational activation of snail

The cap-dependent translation is frequently deregulated in a variety of cancers associated with tumor progression. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying the translational activation for cancer metastatic progression remains largely elusive. Here, we demonstrate that activation of cap-dependent translation by silencing the translational repressor 4E-BP1 causes cancer epithelial cells to undergo epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), which is associated with selective upregulation of the EMT inducer snail followed by repression of E-cadherin expression and promotion of cell migration and invasion as well as metastasis. Conversely, inhibition of cap-dependent translation by a dominant active mutant 4E-BP1 effectively downregulates snail expression and inhibits cell migratory/invasive capacities and metastasis. Furthermore, dephosphorylation of 4E-BP1 by mTORC1 inhibition or directly targeting the eIF4F translation initiation also profoundly attenuates snail translation/expression and cell motility, whereas knockdown of 4E-BP1 or overexpression of snail significantly rescues the inhibitory effects. Importantly, 4E-BP1-regulated snail expression is not associated with its changes in the level of transcription or protein stability. Together, these findings reveal a novel role of 4E-BP1 in the regulation of EMT and metastasis through translational control of snail expression and activity, and suggest that targeting cap-dependent translation may provide a promising approach for blocking snail-mediated metastatic potential of cancer. Citation Format: Qing Ye, Weijia Cai, Qing-Bai She. Loss of 4E-BP1 function promotes EMT and metastasis via translational activation of snail. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr 2889.
Chemical Reaction Networks for Computing Polynomials.

Chemical reaction networks (CRNs) provide a fundamental model in the study of molecular systems. Widely used as formalism for the analysis of chemical and biochemical systems, CRNs have received renewed attention as a model for molecular computation. This paper demonstrates that, with a new encoding, CRNs can compute any set of polynomial functions subject only to the limitation that these functions must map the unit interval to itself. These polynomials can be expressed as linear combinations of Bernstein basis polynomials with positive coefficients less than or equal to 1. In the proposed encoding approach, each variable is represented using two molecular types: a type-0 and a type-1. The value is the ratio of the concentration of type-1 molecules to the sum of the concentrations of type-0 and type-1 molecules. The proposed encoding naturally exploits the expansion of a power-form polynomial into a Bernstein polynomial. Molecular encoders for converting any input in a standard representation to the frac...
Comprehensive Review of Travel Behavior and Mobility Pattern Studies That Used Mobile Phone Data

Traditional data acquisition methods, such as surveys and diaries, used in transportation studies have become burdensome and inefficient in comparison to the emerging sources of passively collected data. These newer data sources have the ability to improve data quality and accuracy and the potential to complement conventional data. This paper presents a comprehensive review of studies that have utilized passively collected data, such as data from personal or vehicle GPS devices, mobile phone network data, and—more recently—smartphone GPS data. This review focuses on the data-processing algorithms that have been used to derive travel information from trajectory traces, as well as the variety of applications that have been conducted on the basis of these data. Some applications of these data have included origin–destination estimation, real-time traffic monitoring, and human mobility pattern analysis. Although passively collected data have great potential, issues with possible sample bias and a lack of demo...
Reduced dislocation density in GaxIn1–xP compositionally graded buffer layers through engineered glide plane switch

Abstract In this work we develop control over dislocation glide dynamics in GaxIn1−xP compositionally graded buffer layers (CGBs) through control of CuPt ordering on the group-III sublattice. The ordered structure is metastable in the bulk, so any glissile dislocation that disrupts the ordered pattern will release stored energy, and experience an increased glide force. Here we show how this connection between atomic ordering and dislocation glide force can be exploited to control the threading dislocation density (TDD) in GaxIn1−xP CGBs. When ordered GaxIn1−xP is graded from the GaAs lattice constant to InP, the order parameter η decreases as x decreases, and dislocation glide switches from one set of glide planes to the other. This glide plane switch (GPS) is accompanied by the nucleation of dislocations on the new glide plane, which typically leads to increased TDD. We develop control of the GPS position within a GaxIn1−xP CGB through manipulation of deposition temperature, surfactant concentration, and strain-grading rate. We demonstrate a two-stage GaxIn1−xP CGB from GaAs to InP with sufficiently low TDD for high performance devices, such as the 4-junction inverted metamorphic multi-junction solar cell, achieved through careful control the GPS position. Experimental results are analyzed within the context of a model that considers the force balance on dislocations on the two competing glide planes as a function of the degree of ordering.
Segmentation and Characterization of Chewing Bouts by Monitoring Temporalis Muscle Using Smart Glasses with Piezoelectric Sensor.

Several methods have been proposed for automatic and objective monitoring of food intake, but their performance suffers in the presence of speech and motion artifacts. This paper presents a novel sensor system and algorithms for detection and characterization of chewing bouts from a piezoelectric strain sensor placed on the temporalis muscle. The proposed data acquisition device was incorporated into the temple of eyeglasses. The system was tested by ten participants in two part experiments, one under controlled laboratory conditions and the other in unrestricted free-living. The proposed food intake recognition method first performed an energy-based segmentation to isolate candidate chewing segments (instead of using epochs of fixed duration commonly reported in research literature), with the subsequent classification of the segments by linear support vector machine models. On participant level (combining data from both laboratory and free-living experiments), with ten-fold leave-one-out cross-validation, chewing were recognized with average F-score of 96.28% and the resultant area under the curve was 0.97, which are higher than any of the previously reported results. A multivariate regression model was used to estimate chew counts from segments classified as chewing with an average mean absolute error of 3.83% on participant level. These results suggest that the proposed system is able to identify chewing segments in the presence of speech and motion artifacts, as well as automatically and accurately quantify chewing behavior, both under controlled laboratory conditions and unrestricted free-living.
State of value-based-pricing survey: Perceptions, challenges, and impact

While value-based pricing remains the most talked about and taught pricing orientation, it is also the most difficult pricing orientation to deploy in organizations. For the past 5 years, scholars have continued to recommend the adoption of value-based pricing while at the same time exploring the reasons for its continued low adoption and high rate of failure. We surveyed 144 pricing professionals in 144 distinct organizations to understand the current state of the value-based-pricing practice. We explore perceptions and challenges, and further validate the impact of value-based pricing on margins. We also identify the key drivers of the impact of value-based pricing on the business unit profitability and pricing power. Our results show that we still have a long road ahead with the increased adoption of value-based pricing as a primary pricing orientation. While perceptions have improved, there remain critical difficulties in deploying this methodology in firms. With this study, we intended to continue the discussion on the necessity to pay attention to customer value and also provide additional knowledge to practitioners willing to get started on the journey toward pricing excellence.
Feeling Our Way Toward Inclusive Counter-Hegemonic Pedagogies in Teacher Education

In our work as teacher educators of inclusive education in the United States, we have come to understand the insufficiency of preparing teachers to attend to the shifting demographics of public schools without engaging with how much of formal schooling is designed upon assumptions of meritocracy, and underpinned by historically-anchored legacies of oppression with regard to disability, race, and other social differences. Accordingly, preparing teachers for enacting pedagogies that do not sort, level and label some students as superior and successful, and other students as inferior and deviant, requires teacher education pedagogies that interrogate cultural hegemony, and analyze how inclusive pedagogies are inherently counter-hegemonic. We argue, furthermore, that it is only through attention to the affective and therefore embodied aspects of these interrogations that we can most effectively support future teachers in the uptake of inclusive pedagogies, which are requisite to the construction of just and equitable classrooms and schools.
Low Cryptococcus Antigen Titers as Determined by Lateral Flow Assay Should Be Interpreted Cautiously in Patients without Prior Diagnosis of Cryptococcal Infection

Detection of Cryptococcus antigen (CrAg) is invaluable for establishing cryptococcal disease. Multiple different methods for CrAg detection are available, including a lateral flow assay (LFA). Despite excellent performance of the CrAg LFA, we have observed multiple cases of low-titer (≤1:5) positive CrAg LFA results in patients for whom cryptococcosis was ultimately excluded. To investigate the accuracy of low-titer positive CrAg LFA results, we performed chart reviews for all patients with positive CrAg LFA results between June 2014 and December 2016. During this period, serum and/or cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples from 3,969 patients were tested with the CrAg LFA, and 55 patients (1.5%) tested positive. Thirty-eight of those patients lacked a history of cryptococcal disease and were the focus of this study. Fungal culture or histopathology confirmed Cryptococcus infection for 20 patients (52.6%), and CrAg LFA titers in serum and CSF samples ranged from 1:5 to ≥1:2,560. For the 18 patients (47.4%) without culture or histopathological confirmation, the CrAg LFA results were considered true-positive results for 5 patients (titer range, 1:10 to ≥1:2,560), due to clinical improvement with targeted therapy and decreasing CrAg LFA titers. The remaining 13 patients had CrAg LFA titers of 1:2 (n = 11) or 1:5 (n = 2) and were ultimately diagnosed with an alternative condition (n = 11) or began therapy for possible cryptococcosis without improvement (n = 2), leading to an overall CrAg LFA false-positive rate of 34%. We recommend careful clinical correlation prior to establishing a diagnosis of cryptococcal infection for patients with first-time positive CrAg LFA titers of 1:2.
Large scale production of densified hydrogen to the triple point and below

Recent demonstration of advanced liquid hydrogen storage techniques using Integrated Refrigeration and Storage technology at NASA Kennedy Space Center led to the production of large quantities of densified liquid and slush hydrogen in a 125,000 L tank. Production of densified hydrogen was performed at three different liquid levels and LH2 temperatures were measured by twenty silicon diode temperature sensors. Overall densification performance of the system is explored, and solid mass fractions are calculated. Experimental data reveal hydrogen temperatures dropped well below the triple point during testing, and were continuing to trend downward prior to system shutdown. Sub-triple point temperatures were seen to evolve in a time dependent manner along the length of the horizontal, cylindrical vessel. The phenomenon, observed at two fill levels, is detailed herein. The implications of using IRAS for energy storage, propellant densification, and future cryofuel systems are discussed.
Economic Performance of Liquid-Metal Fast Breeder Reactor and Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor Radial Blankets

The economic performance of the radial blanket of a liquid-metal fast breeder reactor (LMFBR) and a gas-cooled fast reactor (GCFR) has been studied based on the calculation of the net financial gai...
Lefort as a reader of Machiavelli and Marx

This essay begins with the contention that phenomenology has taken a “hermeneutic turn,” “the things themselves” are always already interpreted. Philosophers often elaborate their own positions through a “reading” of the works of other philosophers. This is the case for Claude Lefort. Through his interpretive reading of the works of Machiavelli one sees the origin of Lefort’s idea of the autonomy and the anonymity of the political and thus his notion of political modernity. In tracing the evolution of Lefort’s relationship to Marx, we witness the process by which he disengages himself from his early “enchantment” with the works of Marx and the idea of the proletariat as a class bearing universal interest. Ultimately he criticizes Marx for his attempt to derive the political from the dimension of the social. This issues in his theory of totalitarianism as the attempt of a regime to close in on itself, thus denying any gesture to the dimension of the other.
Overview of Embedded Flash Memory Technology

This chapter is dedicated to comprehensively survey representative embedded flash-memory technologies from the memory-cell level to the system level. First, various types of embedded flash-memory cells are briefly overviewed in terms of cell structure, operation principle, and features in terms of characteristics and reliability . Then presented are the basic circuit-design techniques required in embedded flash hard macros under different design constraints from stand-alone flash memories. In addition, system-level design, which plays important roles for function enhancement to meet a wide range of requirements, is also covered. Finally, future prospects of eFlash-memory technologies are briefly summarized.
The dynamics of the coffee rust disease: an epidemiological approach using network theory

Dynamic modeling of plant pathogens has usually been accomplished with either a mean field or spatially explicit approach, searching generally for either broad generalization or precise prediction. In search of a qualitative intermediate that is able to query spatial particulars of transmission, we take an approximate approach using network theory. Some elements of network theory are applied to a specific case of the early spread of the coffee rust disease (agent = Hemileia vastatrix) on a single large shaded coffee farm in Chiapas, Mexico. We find that infection rates within connected components are more homogeneous than infection rates among components, suggesting that the initial stages of this disease show pattern that can be detected using simple ideas from network theory.