cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Context suggestion: empirical evaluations vs user studies

Recommender System has been successfully applied to assist user's decision making by providing a list of recommended items. Context-aware recommender system additionally incorporates contexts (such as time and location) into the system to improve the recommendation performance. The development of context-aware recommender systems brings a new opportunity - context suggestion which refers to the task of recommending appropriate contexts to the users to improve user experience. In this paper, we explore the question whether user's contextual ratings can be reused to produce context suggestions. We propose two evaluation mechanisms for context suggestion, and empirically compare direct context predictions and indirect context suggestions based on a movie data that was collected from user studies. The experimental results reveal that indirect context suggestion works better than the direct context prediction, and tensor factorization is the best approach to produce context suggestions in our movie data.
Integration or Building Resilience: What Should the Goal Be in Refugee Resettlement?

ABSTRACTThe article presents a qualitative study of 110 providers and administrators of refugee services from four countries: United States, Switzerland, Germany, and Iceland. Of the total particip...
Prescriptions for Growth for US Textile and Apparel Firms

Based on the empirical findings from Chap. 9 and an overview of the institutional history of the US textile and apparel industries, policy prescriptions for the growth of the US industry are suggested. Namely, we suggest the formation of a textile extension program (TEP) and/or an apparel extension program (AEP) might be able to inform firm principals which universities or research institutes have greater expertise to solve specific manufacturing or production issues. TEP and/or AEP hubs might also point firm principals to regional or national research programs that are aligned well with their manufacturing or production needs.
Expression of Interferon-inducible Genes is Influenced by Sex Hormones in SLE

SLE is a female-biased disease with female to male ratio of 9:1. Accumulating evidence suggests the existence of a nexus between inflammatory pathways and 17b-estradiol, resulting in increased interferon stimulated genes (ISGs), autoantibodies and dysregulation of immune cells in SLE. However, the mechanisms by which 17b-estradiol interacts with IFN and T cells, B cells and antigen presenting cells (APC) in SLE is poorly understood. Women may be more susceptible than men to SLE and other autoimmune diseases in part because many healthy women have higher interferon regulated genes. Similarly, female BWF1 lupus mice have increased expression of interferon genes compared to age and sex- matched males. We found that plasma estradiol levels positively correlated with levels of serum/plasma IL-6, and 21/IL-23 in SLE patients. Plasma 17b-estradiol levels are significantly increased in female SLE patients compared to healthy females (p
Neural-Endocrine Control of Secretory Component Synthesis by Lacrimal Gland Acinar Cells: Specificity, Temporal Characteristics and Molecular Basis

The ocular surface appears to be protected from bacterial and viral pathogens by polymeric IgA antibodies.1 These antibodies, which are produced by plasma cells in the lacrimal gland, bind to secretory component (SC) in the basolateral membrane of acinar epithelial cells, and are then transported to the apical membrane and secreted into tears.2 Of interest, the lacrimal secretion of sIgA, as well as free SC, appears to be significantly influenced by gender and hormones from the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis.2 Thus, almost 10 years ago, it was found that the concentrations of free SC and IgA in the tears of male rats were 2 to 5-fold higher than those in tears of female rats. These gender-associated differences in tear SC and IgA were shown to be caused by androgens.2 For example, castration led to a significant reduction in SC levels in tears of males, while having no impact on SC content in tears of females. In addition, administration of testosterone for 4 days to castrated male or female rats significantly increased tear SC levels. These studies showed that exposure of castrated rats to androgens resulted in alterations of lacrimal SC production.2 Moreover, later experiments demonstrated that this androgen control of SC, as well as IgA, is modulated by factors from the hypothalamus and pituitary.2 However, this research did not address whether androgens act directly on lacrimal tissue to change SC or IgA, or indirectly via an androgen-sensitive site, which in tum acts to modulate lacrimal SC and IgA.
Antifungal Drug Resistance: Pumps and Permutations

In a recent survey, Candida albicans infections were recognized as the fourth leading cause of nosocomial infections in hospital settings (Rangel Frausto et al. 1999). This is just one indication that fungal infections have risen dramatically in the last 10–20 years. These infections are usually opportunistic infections associated with immune dysfunction and are frequently identified in immune-compromised patients including Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) patients, solid organ and bone marrow transplant (BMT) patients, and patients receiving aggressive cancer chemotherapy. As modern medicine extends the life spans of immune-compromised individuals, and as the numbers of these patients increase, fungal infections will continue to be a significant problem in these populations.
The Tail Wagging the Dog (Or the Challenges Faced When the Financing of Medicine Gets Ahead of the Science of Medicine)

In their article in this issue of the Journal of Clinical Microbiology, S. R. Dominguez et al. (J Clin Microbiol 56:e00632-18, 2018, https://doi.org/10.1128/JCM.00632-18) describe the performance of PCR detection of herpes simplex virus (HSV) DNA versus viral culture in skin and mucosal samples from 7 neonates with HSV disease. This is a significant contribution to our understanding of the optimal diagnostic approach in babies being evaluated for neonatal HSV disease. Many diagnostic laboratories already have made the change to molecular diagnostics for skin and mucosal swab testing, however, in large part due to the labor costs associated with viral cultures. Thus, important studies such as this one are being conducted to support a decision that has already been made in many locations on mostly economic grounds. This small case series supports the decision to use molecular testing for samples from skin and mucosal sites, but larger studies are needed to more fully define the performance characteristics of PCR in this population. Since a false-positive result would commit a baby to months of management that would be unnecessary and have potential harm, it is critical to base diagnostic decision making on data that support the use of a specific test.
Information and Referral Services in IDD: Toward Integrated and Comprehensive Services?

Abstract Faced with the difficulties that most everyone has in accessing needed social services, information and referral (I&R) services have arisen and gained prominence across the United States. This need for I&R services would seem even more pronounced when dealing with disability services, as disability service-systems are notoriously complex and hard to navigate, with families and individuals experiencing difficulties in learning about, becoming eligible for, applying for, and receiving disability services. In this review, we first describe the numerous disability-related services available in education, health, law, employment, adult services, and family support, before examining the nation's I&R movement and how I&R services operate. We then detail one disability-related I&R service, Tennessee Disability Pathfinder, before exploring the future promise and challenges facing such disability-related I&R services. Although woefully under-developed, disability-related I&R services would seem a critical, almost necessary service for parents, individuals, and agencies as they navigate our country's complex and changing disability service systems.
Predicting Brain Age Using Structural Neuroimaging and Deep Learning

Early detection of age-related diseases will greatly benefit from a model of the underlying biological aging process. In this paper, we develop a brain-age predictor by using structural magnetic resonance imaging (SMRI) and deep learning and evaluate the predicted brain age as a marker of brain-aging in Alzheimer9s disease. Our approach does not require any domain knowledge in that it trains end-to-end on the SMRI image itself, and has been validated on real SMRI data collected from elderly subjects. We developed two different models by using convolutional neural network (CNN) based regression and bucket classification to predict brain ages from SMRI images. Our models achieved root mean squared errors (RMSE) of 5.54 and 6.44 years in predicting brain ages of healthy subjects. Further analysis showed that there is a substantial difference between the predicted brain ages of cognitively impaired and healthy subjects with similar chronological ages.
Historical perspectives on evolving operational definitions of concussive brain injury: From railway spine to sport-related concussion

AbstractObjective: Concussion is a clinical syndrome of biomechanically induced alteration in brain function. The historical derivation of current operational definitions of uncomplicated concussiv...
Psycho-physiological response to pain among individuals with comorbid pain and opioid use disorder: Implications for patients with prolonged abstinence.

Background: Individuals with comorbid opioid addiction and pain (COAP) relapse 3-5 times more often than patients with opioid use disorder (OUD) but without pain. However, psychophysiological responses to pain among a COAP population are unknown. Objectives: We hypothesized that those on Medications for Opioid Use Disorder (MOUD) with chronic pain, relative to opioid-naive chronic pain individuals, would show greater psycho-physiological pain reactivity and slower recovery when exposed to acute pain. Methods: Four groups with chronic pain were recruited (N = 120; 60% Female): 1) MOUD-methadone; 2) MOUD-buprenorphine; 3) history of completed MOUD with prolonged opioid abstinence (PA; Mabstinence = 121 weeks; SD = 23.3); and 4) opioid-naive. We assessed heart rate (HR), galvanic skin conductance (GSC), peripheral temperature, and frontalis electromyography (EMG) during a cold pain task. Results: MOUD subjects had delayed HR reactivity to pain compared to those not on MOUD (PA & opioid-naive; F(3,119) = 2.87, p < .04). The PA group showed a normal HR reactivity pattern, but had higher HR compared to the opioid-naive group. The GSC group x time analysis showed the PA group had greater baseline levels and pain reactivity than the other groups (F(3,119) = 3.84, p < .02). The opioid-naive group had lower reactivity on peripheral temperature compared to other groups (F(3,119) = 9.69, p < .001). Conclusion: Greater psychophysiological reactivity to pain was experienced by co-morbid OUD/chronic pain subjects who had been opioid abstinent for an extended period, possibly due to the lack of a buffering effect of opioid agonists. These subjects may develop coping skills to tolerate pain distress, thereby avoiding relapse in response to pain triggers. Understanding how pain creates more intense psychophysiological responses among COAP patients may lead to better treatments.
Subspace Selection for Projection Maximization With Matroid Constraints

Suppose that there is a ground set which consists of a large number of vectors in a Hilbert space. Consider the problem of selecting a subset of the ground set such that the projection of a vector of interest onto the subspace spanned by the vectors in the chosen subset reaches the maximum norm. This problem is generally NP-hard, and alternative approximation algorithms such as forward regression and orthogonal matching pursuit have been proposed as heuristic approaches. In this paper, we investigate bounds on the performance of these algorithms by introducing the notions of elemental curvatures . More specifically, we derive lower bounds, as functions of these elemental curvatures, for performance of the aforementioned algorithms with respect to that of the optimal solution under uniform and nonuniform matroid constraints, respectively. We show that if the elements in the ground set are mutually orthogonal, then these algorithms are optimal in terms of achieving the largest projection when the matroid is uniform and they achieve at least a fraction of $1/2$ of the optimal solution when the matroid is nonuniform.
Teachers’ Attitudes and Beliefs About Code-Mixing by Bilingual Students

AbstractTeachers’ attitudes and beliefs toward student behavior can have a profound effect on how students in their classroom are viewed. This study investigated teachers’ perceptions of code-mixin...
The Debt Burden of Entry-Level Physical Therapists.

Background The growing student debt of physical therapists entering the workforce, coupled with the growth in projected need, raises concerns about where and how entry-level physical therapists will practice and if these choices will be affected by their debt burden. Objective The purpose of this study was to identify the debt profile of entry-level physical therapists and explore relationships between student debt and clinical practice setting choices. Methods This study utilized a cross-sectional survey design to identify debt profiles and explore relationships between student debt and the clinical practice choices of entry-level physical therapists. Results The mean debt-to-income ratio based on the total reported educational debt was 197% (93%). The most frequently reported debt range for doctor of physical therapy (DPT) debt and total educational debt was $100,000 to $124,999. Despite the setting itself being rated as the most important factor (83%), 28% of participants reported debt as a barrier to their desired practice setting. In addition, when considering job choice overall, 57% of the participants reported that their student debt has had an effect on their decision. Limitations This study is limited by its small sample size, originating from 1 state, and being taken by convenience from a special interest group. Data were collected via an anonymous survey, which increases the risk of selection bias. In addition, there are further personal, family, and institutional characteristics that were not collected in this study, which may influence the interaction between student debt and clinical practice choices. Conclusion The results of this study suggest that practice setting choice may be affected by physical therapist student debt, and student debt may be a barrier overall to practice and career choices in physical therapy.
Patient Engagement in a Technology-Enhanced, Stepped-Care Intervention to Address the Mental Health Needs of Trauma Center Patients.

Background Annually, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, or both, develop in the first year after injury in more than 400,000 adults treated in US trauma centers (≥20%). Yet, few trauma centers monitor and address mental health recovery, and there is limited evaluation and high structural variability across existing programs. More research is needed to guide efforts to establish such programs and to inform national standards and recommendations. Study Design This article describes patient engagement in a stepped-care service to address patients' mental health needs. Trauma-activation patients admitted to our Level I trauma center for at least 24 hours were approached before discharge. Patients were provided education in person at the bedside (step 1), symptom monitoring via a 30-day text-messaging tool (step 2), telephone screening approximately 30 days post injury (step 3), and, when appropriate, mental health treatment referrals and treatment (step 4). Results We approached and educated 1,122 patients (56%) on the floor during a 33-month period. Of these, 1,096 patients (98%) enrolled in our program and agreed to 30-day follow-up mental health screening. We reached 676 patients for the 30-day screen, 243 (36%) of these patients screened positive for post-traumatic stress disorder and/or depression. Most of the 243 patients who graduated to step 4 accepted treatment referrals (68%) or were already receiving services from a provider (7%). Home-based telemental health was preferred by 66% of patients who accepted referrals. Conclusions This work demonstrates the feasibility of an evidence-based, technology-enhanced, stepped-care intervention to address the mental health needs of trauma center patients. Strategies to reach a higher percentage of patients in follow-up are needed. We recommend trauma centers test and adopt broad-based approaches to ensure optimal long-term patient outcomes.
Chapter 35 – The Nature of Osteoporosis

Publisher Summary This chapter introduces a series of contributions dealing with osteoporosis in a wide variety of clinical settings. Its purpose is to consider the definition of osteoporosis and to discuss the nature of osteoporotic bone, its mass and distribution, its microscopic architecture, and other aspects of its quality and strength. Osteoporosis is a condition of generalized skeletal fragility in which bone strength is sufficiently weak for fractures to occur with minimal trauma—often no more than what is applied by routine daily activity. “Primary” osteoporosis is, by tradition, a skeletal disorder of postmenopausal women (“postmenopausal” osteoporosis) or of older men and women (“senile” osteoporosis). The term “secondary” osteoporosis refers to bone loss resulting from specific, defined clinical disorders, such as thyrotoxicosis or hyperadrenocorticism. This chapter discusses the limitations of a bone mass-based diagnosis of osteoporosis. A primary difficulty with such a definition is that its sensitivity to factors known collectively as “bone quality” has not been clarified, and it is tempting to attribute the diagnostic ambiguities of bone mineral density (BMD) measurements to their failure to account for these features. Although these concerns persist, the fact that information contained in the BMD estimate accounts, in part, for some of the important geometric, material, and micro-architectural properties solidifies its rationale as a diagnostic criterion. Certainly, any substantial degree of matrix under-mineralization would be reflected in a lower BMD, and data suggest that trabecular disruption of sufficient magnitude to be mechanically important would also register as a bone mineral deficit, and therefore as a lower BMD. Qualitative features that would not be included in a BMD assessment include cement lines, un-remodeled fatigue damage, and fluoride accumulation.
A Spectral Genealogy of Performance in Intercultural Communication Studies

The traces of performance studies that bolster intercultural communication elude strict disciplinary confinement. Despite many convergences between the two disciplines, they have been frequently ma...
On the Forensic Validity of Approximated Audit Logs

Auditing is an increasingly essential tool for the defense of computing systems, but the unwieldy nature of log data imposes significant burdens on administrators and analysts. To address this issue, a variety of techniques have been proposed for approximating the contents of raw audit logs, facilitating efficient storage and analysis. However, the security value of these approximated logs is difficult to measure—relative to the original log, it is unclear if these techniques retain the forensic evidence needed to effectively investigate threats. Unfortunately, prior work has only investigated this issue anecdotally, demonstrating sufficient evidence is retained for specific attack scenarios. In this work, we address this gap in the literature through formalizing metrics for quantifying the forensic validity of an approximated audit log under differing threat models. In addition to providing quantifiable security arguments for prior work, we also identify a novel point in the approximation design space—that log events describing typical (benign) system activity can be aggressively approximated, while events that encode anomalous behavior should be preserved with lossless fidelity. We instantiate this notion of Attack-Preserving forensic validity in LogApprox, a new approximation technique that eliminates the redundancy of voluminous file I/O associated with benign process activities. We evaluate LogApprox alongside a corpus of exemplar approximation techniques from prior work and demonstrate that LogApprox achieves comparable log reduction rates while retaining 100% of attack-identifying log events. Additionally, we utilize this evaluation to illuminate the inherent trade-off between performance and utility within existing approximation techniques. This work thus establishes trustworthy foundations for the design of the next generation of efficient auditing frameworks.
Python Package abstcal: An Open-Source Tool for Calculating Abstinence from Timeline Followback Data.

In smoking cessation clinical trials, timeline followback (TLFB) interviews are widely used to track daily cigarette consumption. However, there are no standard tools for calculating abstinence based on TLFB data. Individual research groups have to develop their own calculation tools, which is not only time- and resource-consuming but might also lead to variability in the data processing and calculation procedures. To address these issues, we developed a novel open-source Python package named abstcal to calculate abstinence using TLFB data. This package provides data verification, duplicate and outlier detection, missing-data imputation, integration of biochemical verification data, and calculation of a variety of definitions of abstinence, including continuous, point-prevalence, and prolonged abstinence. We verified the accuracy of the calculator using data derived from a clinical smoking cessation study. To improve the package's accessibility, we have made it available as a free web app. The abstcal package is a reliable abstinence calculator with open-source access, providing a shared validated online tool to the addiction research field. We expect that this open-source abstinence calculation tool will improve the rigor and reproducibility of smoking and addiction research by standardizing TLFB-based abstinence calculation.
Does Trust Always Help Gender Role Attitudes? The Role of Individualism and Collectivism

Social trust has a complex interrelationship with attitudes toward gender equality. Social trust has its origins in exchange relationships in preindustrial societies, lowering uncertainty in transactions and easing interpersonal exchanges. The degree to which this trust was extended to opportunities for women in commercial and societal roles, however, differed across cultures. Prior literature finds attitudes toward individualism and collectivism have significant implications for gender equality and patriarchal attitudes. We combine these ideas arguing that the degree to which social trust fosters gender equality depends upon the degrees of individualism and collectivism. Employing World Values Survey data across countries over time, we find that with low levels of individualism, and high degrees of collectivism, higher levels of trust are not effective in reducing the prevalence of gendered patriarchal attitudes-in fact it entrenches them further, worsening gender equality. However, as individualism rises, and collectivism falls, higher levels of trust become effective in reducing the prevalence of patriarchal beliefs. Thus, collectivistic beliefs stand as a barrier to future improvements in women's equality and economic rights in many societies; preventing social trust from being extended beyond traditional gendered roles.
Changing Demographics of NIDDK-Funded Physician-Scientists Doing Kidney Research.

Background and objectives Although US physician-scientists have made enormous contributions to biomedical research, this workforce is thought to be getting smaller. However, among kidney researchers, changes have not been fully quantified. Design, setting, participants, & measurements We mined National Institutes of Health RePORTER to explore demographic changes of early-career and established physician and nonphysician principal investigators doing kidney-focused research. We searched for National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK)-funded K series and R01 awards focused on the kidney that were active between 1990 and 2020 and determined if their emphasis was basic or clinical science. We then used public databases available on the internet to determine if these funded investigators were physicians or nonphysicians, the year in which they received either their MD (physicians) or their terminal graduate degree (nonphysicians), their sex, and whether they received their terminal degree from a US or international institution. Results Kidney-focused R01-funded principal investigators are aging, particularly among physicians. Moreover, the relative representation of physicians among both early-career and established principal investigators is falling, particularly among those doing basic science research. In contrast, the number and relative representation of nonphysician-scientists are increasing. There is also greater representation of women and international graduates among physician and nonphysician R01-funded, kidney-focused NIDDK investigators. However, although there are greater numbers of women physician principal investigators doing both basic as well as clinical research, women physician principal investigators are increasingly more likely to do clinical rather than basic science research. Conclusions The physician-scientist workforce is increasingly made up of women and international medical graduates. However, the physician-scientist workforce is older and represents a smaller proportion of all principal investigators, particularly among those doing basic science research.
Intrathecal Morphine for Analgesia in Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery: A Randomized, Placebo-controlled, Double-blinded Clinical Trial.

BACKGROUND Intrathecal morphine decreases postoperative pain in standard cardiac surgery. Its safety and effectiveness have not been adequately evaluated in minimally invasive cardiac surgery. The authors hypothesized that intrathecal morphine would decrease postoperative morphine consumption after minimally invasive cardiac surgery. METHODS In this randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blinded clinical trial, patients undergoing robotic totally endoscopic coronary artery bypass received either intrathecal morphine (5 mcg/kg) or intrathecal saline before surgery. The primary outcome was postoperative morphine equivalent consumption in the first 24 h after surgery; secondary outcomes included pain scores, side effects, and patient satisfaction. Pain was assessed via visual analog scale at 1, 2, 6, 12, 24, and 48 h after intensive care unit arrival. Opioid-related side effects (nausea/vomiting, pruritus, urinary retention, respiratory depression) were assessed daily. Patient satisfaction was evaluated with the Revised American Pain Society Outcome Questionnaire. RESULTS Seventy-nine patients were randomized to receive intrathecal morphine (n = 37) or intrathecal placebo (n = 42), with 70 analyzed (morphine 33, placebo 37). Intrathecal morphine patients required significantly less median (25th to 75th percentile) morphine equivalents compared to placebo during first postoperative 24 h (28 [16 to 46] mg vs. 59 [41 to 79] mg; difference, -28 [95% CI, -40 to -18]; P < 0.001) and second postoperative 24 h (0 [0 to 2] mg vs. 5 [0 to 6] mg; difference, -3.3 [95% CI, -5 to 0]; P < 0.001), exhibited significantly lower visual analog scale pain scores at rest and cough at all postoperative timepoints (overall treatment effect, -4.1 [95% CI, -4.9 to -3.3] and -4.7 [95% CI, -5.5 to -3.9], respectively; P < 0.001), and percent time in severe pain (10 [0 to 40] vs. 40 [20 to 70]; P = 0.003) during the postoperative period. Mild nausea was more common in the intrathecal morphine group (36% vs. 8%; P = 0.004). CONCLUSIONS When given before induction of anesthesia for totally endoscopic coronary artery bypass, intrathecal morphine decreases use of postoperative opioids and produces significant postoperative analgesia for 48 h. EDITOR’S PERSPECTIVE
Spatial Heterogeneity in Closed Basins

Everything varies in space and time. This truism appears to be as accurate for aquatic habitats as it is for terrestrial habitats. Whether one measures physical parameters, the concentrations of chemical species, or numbers of organisms, all are spatially and temporally heterogeneous.
Extraction of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons from Spiked Soil

A homogenization method was evaluated for extracting polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from soils. Fifteen PAHs were spiked and recovered from 2 soils at concentrations ranging from 1 to 1000 micrograms/g, using the homogenization method and a Soxhlet extraction method. Each extraction method performed well in removing the 15 PAHs from both soils over a broad range of concentrations. In general, Soxhlet extraction yielded slightly but significantly (P less than 0.05) higher recoveries than did the homogenization method. The homogenization method, however, was easy to use, and the extraction step turnaround time was less than 15 min/sample. The method should be suitable for other applications requiring the extraction of hydrophobic organic compounds from soils.
A Virtual Data Grid for LIGO

GriPhyN (Grid Physics Network) is a large US collaboration to build grid services for large physics experiments, one of which is LIGO, a gravitational-wave observatory. This paper explains the physics and computing challenges of LIGO, and the tools that GriPhyN will build to address them. A key component needed to implement the data pipeline is a virtual data service; a system to dynamically create data products requested during the various stages. The data could possibly be already processed in a certain way, it may be in a file on a storage system, it may be cached, or it may need to be created through computation. The full elaboration of this system will allow complex data pipelines to be set up as virtual data objects, with existing data being transformed in diverse ways.
Evidence for interaction between platelet fibrinogen receptors

Previous analysis of fibrinogen binding to human aspirin-treated gel-filtered platelets yielded upwardly concave Scatchard plots. To ascertain whether this was due to the presence of independent heterogeneous receptor populations binding fibrinogen with different affinities, the dissociation of purified 125I-fibrinogen from ADP-treated gel-filtered platelets was evaluated as a function of receptor occupancy. Dissociation of bound labeled fibrinogen was measured after 50-fold dilution with buffer containing O, 0.2, 0.8, and 2.0 mg/ml unlabeled fibrinogen. Dissociation of labeled fibrinogen increased with increasing receptor occupancy and was biphasic. With buffer alone, 76.0% +/- 5.8% (SD) of labeled fibrinogen dissociated in 30 min, with an initial rate of 0.392 +/- 0.175 min-1; with 0.2 mg/ml fibrinogen, 83.7% +/- 3.9% dissociated, with an initial rate of 0.589 +/- 0.044 min-1; with 0.8 mg/ml, 91.8% +/- 1.3% of the labeled fibrinogen dissociated, with an initial rate of 0.910 +/- 0.028 min-1; and with 2.0 mg/ml fibrinogen, 97.3% +/- 2.3% of label dissociated, with an initial rate of 1.06 +/- 0.257 min-1 (n=5). The final rates of fibrinogen dissociation were unaffected by unlabeled fibrinogen in the dilution buffer and were not statistically different from the final dissociation rate of 0.015 +/- 0.10 min-1 observed following dilution with buffer alone. These results were neither an artifact of aspirin treatment or gel filtration, as similar observations were made using non-aspirin-treated washed platelets, nor were they an artifact of the purified fibrinogen preparations, because binding studies using whole plasma as the major source of fibrinogen also yielded upwardly concave Scatchard plots. Since the data demonstrate that the initial rate and extent of fibrinogen dissociation are dependent on fibrinogen receptor occupancy, they suggest receptor interactions possibly resulting from receptor clustering or crosslinking. Because the dissociation was biphasic, the results also suggest some heterogeneity among platelet-fibrinogen interactions.
An experiment for sensing-based opportunistic spectrum access in CSMA/CA networks

Opportunistic access to spectrum and secondary allocation of spectrum are topics being studied by regulatory bodies and organizations with interest in spectrum utilization. The DARPA ATO neXt Generation (XG) Program is investigating opportunistic use of spectrum wherein users would dynamically access spectrum based on its availability. Such access may embody changes to regulatory policies governing access to the RF spectrum. Additionally, the methods studied by the XG program could be used for secondary access within a fixed portion of spectrum. Opportunistic access would open spectrum that is sparsely used (temporally and spatially) to users who otherwise would be confined to inadequate frequency bands. An XG-enabled radio would sense and characterize spectral activity, identify spectral opportunities for use, and coordinate access, with the goal of not interfering with the primary, non-XG, and users. This paper describes a sensor suite and media access control (MAC) concepts representative of XG. A prototypical experiment has been conducted with the XG MAC in an environment of 802.11b radios. Results are presented that illustrate the operation of the MAC concept and demonstrate performance parameterized by the load carried by both 802.11b and XG
Molecular Cloning of Proteoglycan Core Proteins

Recombinant DNA methods have been used to analyse core proteins of two different proteoglycans, one from a rat yolk sac tumour and the other from human fibroblasts and fetal membrane tissue. The processed core protein of the yolk sac tumour proteoglycan is a 104-amino acid polypeptide. This polypeptide contains a 49-amino acid serine-glycine repeat which clearly serves as the chondroitin sulphate attachment region. Genomic and mRNA blots suggest that this core protein is a member of a multigene family the members of which share the Ser-Gly repeat. The fibroblast/fetal membrane proteoglycan has a 329-amino acid core protein which is also processed from a larger precursor. This core protein contains three individual Ser-Gly dipeptides, one of which is known to be substituted with a chondroitin/dermatan sulphate side-chain. The availability of proteoglycan cDNA clones will facilitate gene transfer studies aimed at identifying the recognition sequences for the addition of the glycosaminoglycan. Gene transfer should also allow studies on the effects of proteoglycan expression on cellular properties such as adhesion and tumorigenicity.
Assessment of feedback variables for through the arc seam tracking in robotic gas metal arc welding

Through arc seam tracking for robotic arc welding is used by many robot manufacturers and automated arc welding system builders to compensate for weld joint location variance relative to the taught path of the robot manipulator. The method typically requires the robot manipulator to weave the weld torch assembly across the weld joint and to subsequently monitor the variation in welding arc current as a function of torch position. New weld power supply designs incorporating various proprietary control mechanisms require changes in the feedback variable selection traditionally used for through the arc sensing. Understanding and quantifying the control techniques used by the subject weld power source is required in order to provide robust seam tracking. Experiments were conducted to assess the impact of weld power source control technique on feedback values of welding current and voltage relevant to seam tracking. Several pulsed output power sources with different control philosophies were evaluated and the resulting data is presented. The results of these experiments are presented along with conclusions regarding the optimum choice of feedback variable for through arc seam tracking.
Crime prevention through social and physical environmental change.

One approach to crime prevention where behavior analysts can make important contributions is the modification of environmental opportunities and victim vulnerabilities that are related to higher rates of offending. Examples of environmental crime prevention are discussed in the following areas: (1) modifying physical environments in order to “harden” targets of crime, (2) training victims to be less vulnerable to victimization, (3) eliminating portrayals of certain groups of people that legitimize their victimization, and (4) organizing neighborhoods and communities to strengthen their means of social control. Two implications of environmental crime prevention—the role of individual differences and the scope of prevention—are discussed.
Development of a modified cortisol extraction procedure for intermediately sized fish not amenable to whole-body or plasma extraction methods

The corticosteroid hormone cortisol is the central mediator of the teleost stress response. Therefore, the accurate quantification of cortisol in teleost fishes is a vital tool for addressing fundamental questions about an animal's physiological response to environmental stressors. Conventional steroid extraction methods using plasma or whole-body homogenates, however, are inefficient within an intermediate size range of fish that are too small for phlebotomy and too large for whole-body steroid extractions. To assess the potential effects of hatchery-induced stress on survival of fingerling hatchery-reared Spotted Seatrout (Cynoscion nebulosus), we developed a novel extraction procedure for measuring cortisol in intermediately sized fish (50-100 mm in length) that are not amenable to standard cortisol extraction methods. By excising a standardized portion of the caudal peduncle, this tissue extraction procedure allows for a small portion of a larger fish to be sampled for cortisol, while minimizing the potential interference from lipids that may be extracted using whole-body homogenization procedures. Assay precision was comparable to published plasma and whole-body extraction procedures, and cortisol quantification over a wide range of sample dilutions displayed parallelism versus assay standards. Intra-assay %CV was 8.54%, and average recovery of spiked samples was 102%. Also, tissue cortisol levels quantified using this method increase 30 min after handling stress and are significantly correlated with blood values. We conclude that this modified cortisol extraction procedure provides an excellent alternative to plasma and whole-body extraction procedures for intermediately sized fish, and will facilitate the efficient assessment of cortisol in a variety of situations ranging from basic laboratory research to industrial and field-based environmental health applications.
Cross-linguistic Influence in Third Language Acquisition: Factors Influencing Interlanguage Transfer

In the field of Second Language Acquisition (SLA), the role of transfer has been theorized and studied to account for the influence of the native language on an interlanguage. However, stemming from behaviorist mentality, the concept of transfer has become widely associated with the direct transfer of habits and fails to take into consideration other cross-linguistic influences (CLI) that shape or are shaped by the interlanguage, such as avoidance, ‘reverse transfer’ from a learner’s second language (L2) to native language (L1), perception of linguistic distance, and interlanguage transfer. Thus, the reductionist analysis of direct L1 to L2 transfer is no longer sufficient to account for the parallel activation of languages in multilinguals.
Lessons from the Anhinga trail: Poetry and teaching

The potential of poetry for expanding possibilities in teaching, learning, and research is explored through specific examples from a poet/teacher's practice of poetry as a way of knowing and a medium for sharing knowledge.
Bäcklund transformation and the Henon-Heiles system

Abstract A Backlund transformation and linearization for an instance of the Henon-Heiles system is examined. This provides a special form of solution depending on the three parameters. In addition, a direct formulation in terms of the schwarzian derivative is defined for the Henon-Heiles system and second Painleve transcendent. This provides (1) a classification of the Henon-Heiles system as equations of “Novikov” type, and; (2) a simple method for deriving the Backlund transformations and special solutions of the second Painleve transcedent. As equations of Novikov type the integrable occurrences of the Henon-Heiles system can be completely integrated by known methods.
Is cholesterol lowering an alternative to revascularization in some patients with coronary artery disease

Cholesterol lowering has been shown to decrease the dimensions of atherosclerotic plaques in some patients with coronary artery disease. Because of this observation, there is growing discussion about whether or not cholesterol lowering might be used in place of revascularization. The available data suggest that cholesterol lowering in place of revascularization may be appropriate for patients with chronic stable angina, for patients who are asymptomatic but have provocable ischemia after myocardial infarction, and for patients at moderate risk for cardiac events as judged by exercise test or clinical variables. The available data do not justify changing current practices; further study is necessary.
VII.—LINGUISTIC NOMINALISM

THE thesis about meaning I want to examine has been stated most explicitly by H. P. Grice in the following way: " . . . the meaning (in general) of a sign needs to be explained in terms of what users of the sign do (or should) mean by it on particular occasions, and so the latter notion ... is in fact the fundamental one ".1 Grice's claim may be put more generally as the thesis that meaning (in general, or in a timeless sense) is to be somehow explained by reference to what speakers do on particular occasions. Following a suggestion made by Professor W. P. Alston, I shall call this theoretical orientation linguistic nominalism. I must emphasize at the outset that the sort of nominalism I shall discuss should be construed as a thesis about the analysis of specification-of-meaning statements (that is, statements of the form 'x ' means y) and as a criterion of meaningfulness, that is, an answer to the question, 'What is it for an utterance to have meaning? '. Consequently, I cannot now see that it conflicts with any theory which involves the postulation of such entities as universals, Platonic Forms, or properties as an answer to the question 'How are we justified in applying the same predicate to many things which are sensibly different? '. Linguistic nominalism needs to be examined, if for no other reason, because it is presupposed by the widely current view that the starting point in any theory of meaning must be the conventional or rule-governed act; acts (obviously) are the sort of things which get performed on particular occasions. Should anyone object that one can put forward a linguistic act theory without presupposing linguistic nominalism, on the grounds that such a theory could take the form of explaining what it is for an utterance type (not token) to have meaning by somehow relating it to a conventional act type, I should reply that in order to identify the utterance type which has a certain meaning, we must refer to the fact that tokens of this type get used by speakers of particular languages on particular occasions. In support of this, we might consider that the morpheme ' ja ' means yes in German, and I in Polish. We cannot speak of the meaning of this utterance type in general, but rather must speak of the meaning of the German and Polish utterance type 'ja'. Since the two uitterance types are sensibly indistinguishable, I can
A new synthetic route to benzodiazepines

Aus dem Diimin (I) erhalt man mit tert.-Butylat das Benzodiazepin (II), das mit I-lypochlorit uber (III) zum Benzodiazepinon (IV) oxidiert wird.
Friendships and Social Networks in Childhood and Adolescence: Fluidity, Reliability, and Interrelations

Social networks and friendships were tracked over a 3-week period for 132 students enrolled in fourth- and seventh-grade classrooms. Individual interviews were employed to collect data on friendships. Social group membership was determined by the composite social-cognitive map (SCM) procedure and by self-reports. Considerable overlap was found among the methods for establishing relational patterns (i.e., friendships, self-reported groups, composite social-cognitive maps). When loose criteria for stability were employed, high stability was found in friendships (p = .56-.75) and social group membership (p = .90) over a 3-week period. But when stringent criteria were employed, only modest social relationship stability was observed in both methods, suggesting that there is much greater fluidity in peer bonds than has been generally recognized. The relationship between friendship and social network measures, the distinctive information yielded by social networks, and gender and age differences in group structure, fluidity, and friendships are discussed.
Evidence of liquidity constraints found in theme park ticket auctions

Data from Internet auctions of unused tickets to Walt Disney World are used to establish the presence and financial impact of liquidity constraints for consumers, even when those consumers are confronted with a very short time horizon and a substantial potential monetary saving. Bidding for tickets is found to be consistent with the microeconomic consumer theory of risk and liquidity. The presence of liquidity premiums and premiums paid for variety in entertainment are separately established.
An improved isotropic—kinematic hardening model for moderate deformation metal plasticity

Abstract An experimental program has been conducted to produce a number of different types of tests on several materials. The types of tests include: tension tests, large strain compression tests, reverse loading tests, symmetric strain cyclic tests, unsymmetric strain cyclic tests (mean stress relaxation), unsymmetric stress cyclic tests (cyclic ratchetting), and large strain torsion tests. Materials which have been tested are single phase 1100-0 aluminum and 316 stainless steel, and two-phase spheroidized 1020, 1045 and 1095 plain carbon steels. These experiments represent the first collection of such a complete data base for any material. Within the framework of a phenomenological rate-independent plasticity theory with combined isotropic and kinematic hardening, specific constitutive equations have been formulated to represent our experiments and other results in the literature. An important new feature of the constitutive model is that during a reversing event the isotropic component of deformation resistance can initially soften. This softening is intended to represent an underlying dynamic recovery of the dislocation substructure. This dynamic recovery is dependent on the direction of straining, and is in addition to the usual dynamic recovery operative for monotonically increasing strains. The simple model captures key features of small strain uniaxial cyclic behavior reasonably well. Symmetric strain cycling, unsymmetric strain cycling, unsymmetric stress cycling and the additional hardening due to non-proportional strain cycling in tension-torsion are all captured by the model. Although the model predicts a monotonic increase of both the shear stress and the normal compressive stress toward saturation values in monotonic large strain torsion tests, the predicted stress levels are not in very good agreement with experiment. A modification of the constitutive equations considering a simple model for the plastic spin does not significantly affect the predictions of the model for simple torsion.