cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The History and Historiography of Teacher Preparation in the United States: A Synthesis, Analysis, and Potential Contributions to Higher Education History

Although one of higher education’s oldest functions, teacher preparation is peripheral in scholarship on the history of colleges and universities. This chapter highlights the collective richness of and identifies gaps that remain in the historiography of three distinct time periods in the history of teacher preparation: “Beginnings” from the 1820s through the 1880s, “Transitions” from the 1890s through the 1930s, and “Upgrading Amid Disfavor” from the 1940s into the twenty-first century. The chapter then interrogates the marginal position of teacher education in the historiography of higher education, demonstrating that looking seriously at teacher preparation is essential for advancing scholarship on underrepresented groups of students, and on the roles of the variety of nineteenth-century institutions and the twentieth-century institutional hierarchy in American higher education. Teacher education has been a core element of higher education since its inception in the USA; it must come in from the historiographical periphery.
Constipation: Endemic in the Elderly?

Chronic constipation in the elderly is most likely a consequence of lifelong patterns of bowel and dietary habits and laxative use along with the interaction of pathophysiologic (from chronic diseases) and, perhaps, senescent changes in gut motility. Gerontopathophysiologic changes of gut motility, the evaluation of, and a step-care approach to the management of constipation are discussed.
Banning Progress: Suspension Bans and Schoolwide Academic Growth

The past decade has seen a burgeoning practical and theoretical interest in reforming how schools manage discipline. A growing number of states and school districts have banned or limited suspensions for all but the most serious offenses. This paper analyzes a natural experiment: the 2013 suspension ban in Los Angeles Unified School District. The ban led to a substantial, 0.2 standard deviation decrease in academic growth among middle schools that had previously issued the banned suspensions. Four subsequent suspension bans – in San Francisco, Pasadena, Oakland, and (grades K-3) all of California – also appear to have harmed academic growth. Education leaders considering a suspension ban should carefully weigh this trade-off; other policy options may decrease suspension rates without harming academic growth.
Hydrodynamic analysis and optimization of the Titan submarine via the SPH and Finite–Volume methods

Abstract This work presents a numerical analysis of the hydrodynamics of a conceptual submarine designed by NASA to operate in the liquid hydrocarbon seas of Titan, the largest Saturnian moon. Operational conditions of the “Titan submarine” include navigation at the free surface as well as deeply submerged. For the former, a numerical flow analysis is conducted using Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH), one of the most advanced particle methods with high suitability for the simulation of free-surface flow. The open-source SPH code adopted in this research is benchmarked against results of flow past a boat on Earth from experimental and numerical work of other authors. This validation study corroborates the effectiveness of SPH in modeling flow past marine vehicles. In the deeply-submerged regime, a mesh-based approach is adopted, i.e. the Finite–Volume method (FVM), using well-established commercial software. Preliminary calculations of drag, thrust and power for the Titan submarine are then obtained for both surfaced and submerged conditions. The estimation of the total drag acting on the submarine allows to identify an upper bound for thrust and power requirements for efficient navigation. Results from this study also include flow visualization around the hull and final design recommendations, as well as an assessment of the necessary power requirements for an efficient exploration of Titan’s seas.
Evaluation of transportation and economic impact of short line railroads in Texas

This research proposed an analytical methodology to examine transportation and economic impacts for Texas short line railroads, which provide services to communities that have a few significant ind...
A cyberGIS-enabled multi-criteria spatial decision support system: A case study on flood emergency management

ABSTRACTWith the increased frequency of natural hazards and disasters and consequent losses, it is imperative to develop efficient and timely strategies for emergency response and relief operations...
Utilizing Data to Modify Standard Operating Procedures and Improve Outcomes: Evaluating Complications after Donor Lymphocyte Infusions in Allogeneic Stem Cell Transplant Recipients

Introduction Despite major advances in hematopoietic cell transplant (HCT), 10-50% of patients relapse following allogeneic HCT. Donor lymphocyte infusion (DLI) is one treatment strategy for relapse that potentially provides a graft versus malignancy therapeutic effect. A major complication of DLI is graft versus host disease (GVHD), with incidences ranging from 40-60%. Risk of developing GVHD is related to multiple factors with DLI cell dose speculated to have the strongest correlation. Conversely, too small of a dose can allow disease progression. The literature is quite heterogeneous regarding dosing and consensus data are lacking. The University of North Carolina Bone Marrow Transplant and Cellular Therapy Program (BMT CTP) has a standard operating policy surrounding DLI dosing and timing. As part of our quality audit, we evaluated policy compliance and outcomes to determine if policy changes were needed. Methods We evaluated HCT recipients with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) and myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) who received at least one DLI between 2001 and 2016. During these 15 years, 282 patients received an allogeneic HCT for AML and MDS. 42 patients with AML (15%) received at least 1 DLI for a total of 59 DLIs and 14 patients with MDS (5%) received at least 1 DLI for a total of 21 DLIs. 4 patients with AML and 1 with MDS received a DLI for reasons not included in the policy and were excluded. The final population included 38 AML patients receiving 54 DLIs and 13 MDS patients receiving 15 DLIs for a total of 51 patients receiving 69 DLIs. The BMT CTP DLI policy outlines the recommended cell dose to be administered (Figure 1). Data collected included disease, donor type, recipient age, graft, reason for DLI, cell dose infused, survival, cause of death, GVHD occurrence after DLI, and if DLI algorithm was followed. Results Figure 2 shows patient characteristics and outcomes following DLI. Time from HCT to first DLI for AML patients was a median of 176.5 days (range 71 days – 10 years) and for MDS, 137 days (range 78 days - > 3 years). DLI dosing ranged from 1 × 106 to 5 × 107 CD3 cells/kg for AML and 1 × 106 to 1.2 × 107 CD3 cells/kg for MDS. For those with follow-up data, 50% (25/50) developed GVHD following DLI and 28.6% (14/49) were alive at a median of 6.2 years after last DLI. For both cohorts, dosing algorithm was followed about 50% of the time. Conclusion While our GVHD occurrence following DLI is within published data range, AML relapse remains high. Heterogeneity in dose and disease precludes precise identification of prognostic factors for successful outcomes, yet these data support the role of DLI in contributing to the survival of a subset of patients following HCT. However, improved uniformity in dosing may aid in understanding appropriate dosing. We have recently made modifications to our current algorithm with a goal that increased consistency will allow systematic evaluation of outcomes and improved care.
The nonsurgical management of upper tract urothelial carcinoma: A role for active surveillance?

485Background: Approximately 7% of patients with localized upper tract urothelial cancer (UTUC) are treated without definitive therapy. Understanding outcomes and alternative therapy would aid in c...
A per-protocol initiation of sacubitril/valsartan in an advanced heart failure disease management programme in the Middle East Gulf Region.

Aims The aim of this study is to evaluate the utilization and success in therapy intensification after initiation of sacubitril/valsartan using a specified protocol within an advanced heart failure and transplant programme in the Middle East Gulf Region. Methods and results We studied a single-centre, retrospective cohort in a 364-bedded multi-speciality hospital located in the United Arab Emirates (February 2016 to July 2017). The advanced heart failure and transplant programme formulated an institutional protocol for initiation of sacubitril/valsartan with defined criteria for switching from angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor (ACEI) and angiotensin II receptor blocker (ARB). Prescribing this drug is intended for patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction with left ventricular ejection fraction ≤40%. We excluded patients (i) with age below 18 years or (ii) initiated on sacubitril/valsartan from an outside hospital with or without follow-up in our outpatient clinic. We included 102 patients with an average initial dose of 78.9 ± 44.2 mg twice daily. Only 17 patients were on target doses of ACEI or ARB prior to switching to sacubitril/valsartan. Up-titration was successful in 55 patients during the follow-up period. In addition, 6.9% patients were hospitalized with heart failure exacerbation. In patients with elevated baseline serum potassium prior to initiating this medication, the serum potassium levels decreased post-initiation by 0.5 ± 0.3 mmol/L (P = 0.0008). Conclusions Initiating sacubitril/valsartan through a defined protocol selects for appropriate candidates and guides starting dose and titration. Overall, significant success can be achieved in replacing ACEI or ARB by sacubitril/valsartan in symptomatic heart failure with reduced ejection fraction patients.
What causes the asymmetric correlation in stock returns

Abstract The literature indicates that the correlations between the returns of individual stocks and the aggregate market are significantly larger during negative market-wide movements than during positive market-wide movements. In this study we examine the underlying cause(s) of this asymmetric correlation in stock returns. We find that firms’ cash flow news and other indicators of firm operating performance have asymmetric correlations that mimic that of stock returns. We also find that other potential causes of asymmetric correlation, such as trading activities, arbitrage constraints, conditional conservatism, and earnings management, exhibit insignificant (or marginally significant at best) asymmetric correlations. We further find that the asymmetric correlation observed in stock returns is significantly related to those in firm operating performance. Finally, there is some evidence that a firm’s ability to innovate explains the increases in individual firms’ operating performance during bull markets while the firm’s distress risk explains the aggregate decreases in firm performance during bear markets.
Microbial source tracking: characterization of human fecal pollution in environmental waters with HF183 quantitative real-time PCR

Abstract Human waste can harbor disease-causing pathogens that can compromise public health and lead to economic burdens for any community that relies on clean and safe water resources. Regulators and public health officials rely on general fecal indicator microorganisms (e.g., Escherichia coli and enterococci) to monitor fecal pollution levels. Methodologies to detect and quantify these microorganisms are designed to measure the total level of fecal pollution in water. However, these assays are unable to discriminate between human and other potential animal sources thus limiting rapid identification and remediation of human pollution sources. Recent advances in molecular biology have led to the development of human fecal source identification tools with the potential to dramatically improve water quality and safety management. This chapter describes the development, validation, and implementation of the human-associated HF183 quantitative real-time PCR technology for water quality and public health protection applications.
Conceptual Design and Performance Considerations for Superconducting Magnets in the Material Plasma Exposure eXperiment

An important step toward the advent of nuclear fusion as a future power source is the development of plasmafacing materials that can function as designed for a long period of time. While ITER and other devices including Wendelstein 7-X and the Joint European Torus will provide insight into divertor and first wall performance, a dedicated device to advance the understanding of material performance in the representative plasma environments is needed. The Material Plasma Exposure eXperiment has been proposed as a linear plasma device to generate and to direct fusion reactor-like plasma energy and particle flux at the target materials with electron temperatures of 1-15 eV and electron densities of 10 20 -10 21 m -3 . Given that the requirements for radio frequency (RF) heating on-axis field are no greater than 2.5 T and the warm bore diameters must be between 60 cm and 1.5 m, the conceptual design was developed for the experiments on a set of superconducting magnets carried out using commercially available NbTi superconductors. This conceptual design evaluated the cryogenic heat loads, mechanical loads, and quench protection to ensure that the current design is compatible with current technologies. In addition, an alternative evaluation of this design relative to ReBCO high-temperature superconducting magnets determined the conditions under which these technologies could be advantageous.
The Number of Gröbner Bases in Finite Fields (Research)

In the field of algebraic systems biology, the number of minimal polynomial models constructed using discretized data from an underlying system is related to the number of distinct reduced Grobner bases for the ideal of the data points. While the theory of Grobner bases is extensive, what is missing is a closed form for their number for a given ideal. This work contributes connections between the geometry of data points and the number of Grobner bases associated to small data sets. Furthermore we improve an existing upper bound for the number of Grobner bases specialized for data over a finite field.
Personalization of Hearing Aid Compression by Human-in-the-Loop Deep Reinforcement Learning

Existing prescriptive compression strategies used in hearing aid fitting are designed based on gain averages from a group of users which may not be necessarily optimal for a specific user. Nearly half of hearing aid users prefer settings that differ from the commonly prescribed settings. This paper presents a human-in-the-loop deep reinforcement learning approach that personalizes hearing aid compression to achieve improved hearing perception. The developed approach is designed to learn a specific user’s hearing preferences in order to optimize compression based on the user’s feedbacks. Both simulation and subject testing results are reported. These results demonstrate the proof-of-concept of achieving personalized compression via human-in-the-loop deep reinforcement learning.
Religious Authority in the Mishnah: Social Science Perspectives on the Emerging Role of Scholars

The systematic social constructions of societies include an analysis of authority/power within the community to identify the basics of social control, social organization, equilibrium, and continuity. This chapter focuses on politics and religious authority presented in the Mishnah, outlines some key social science questions posed in part by Max Weber and Emile Durkheim, and applies them to the explication of Mishnaic texts. The Mishnah directly dealt with what the Rabbis thought should be the source of religious authority in a changed social/political context. Underlying the Mishnaic conception of religious authority is a fundamental question: How did the orally transmitted Mishnah, when organized in written form around the end of the second century and beginning of the third century, respond to the absence of a central religious sanctuary and confront the social challenges of an altered political and administrative control system? Replacing priests and prophets, the role of religious authority shifted to the Rabbis/scholars, the authors of the emergent written text. They became the preservers and interpreters of Judaism. In turn, religious authority as portrayed in the Mishnah had to confront several critical issues: the emergence of disputes and disagreements in the absence of a central authority; the multiple paths to political legitimacy; the generational transmission of authority. These issues are reviewed with attention to evidence in the multiple volumes of the Mishnah.
GPU-based simulation of echocardiography volumes using quantitative fiber-angle-to-backscatter measurements

The intensity of backscattered ultrasound signal from heart tissue is known to be related to the angle between cardiac fibers and the insonification direction. In this work, we use optical ray tracing, fast convolutions with the system point spread function, and an empirically derived relationship between backscatter intensity and fiber orientation to simulate plane wave echocardiography on the GPU. First, we simulate grayscale images of a rotating fiber phantom, and validate that the angle-to-backscatter relationship is accurately reflected by the simulated radiofrequency data. Second, we use our method to simulate view-dependent echocardiography images of human heart tissue from diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging (DT-MRI) data. Simulated backscatter intensity measurements show excellent agreement with the underlying angle-to-backscatter relationship, and echocardiography images exhibit view-dependent speckle with a realistic appearance. Our GPU-based simulation method is fast and generates biologically realistic images, making it particularly useful for fiber orientation quantification and many other ultrasound imaging studies.
The grammar of proposals for joint activities

Abstract The action of proposing has been studied from various perspectives in research on talk-in-interaction, both in mundane as well as in institutional talk. Aiming to exemplify Interactional Linguistics as a drawing together of insights from Linguistics and Conversation Analysis, we explore the grammar of proposals and the stances displayed by participants in making proposals in the context of joint activities, where a future or hypothetical activity is being put forth as something the speaker and recipient(s) might do together. Close examination of interactions among American English-speaking adults reveals four recurrent grammatical formats for issuing proposals: Let’s, Why don’t we, Modal Declaratives, and Modal Interrogatives. We argue that these four formats for doing proposing within a joint activity are used in socially distinct environments, contributing to a growing understanding of the fit between entrenched linguistic patterns and the social work they have evolved to do.
Epidemiology, Clinical Features, and Outcomes of Hospitalized Adults with COVID-19: Early Experience from an Academic Medical Center in Mississippi.

OBJECTIVES: To describe the demographics, clinical characteristics, and outcomes of hospitalized adults with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in an academic medical center in the southern United States. METHODS: Retrospective, observational cohort study of all adult patients (18 years and older) consecutively admitted with laboratory-confirmed severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 infection between March 13 and April 25, 2020 at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. All of the patients either survived to hospital discharge or died during hospitalization. Demographics, body mass index, comorbidities, clinical manifestations, and laboratory findings were collected. Patient outcomes (need for invasive mechanical ventilation and in-hospital death) were analyzed. RESULTS: One hundred patients were included, 53% of whom were women. Median age was 59 years (interquartile range 44-70) and 66% were younger than 65. Seventy-five percent identified themselves as Black, despite representing 58% of hospitalized patients at our institution in 2019. Common comorbid conditions included hypertension (68%), obesity (65%), and diabetes mellitus (31%). Frequent clinical manifestations included shortness of breath (76%), cough (75%), and fever (64%). Symptoms were present for a median of 7 days (interquartile range 4-7) on presentation. Twenty-four percent of patients required mechanical ventilation and, overall, 19% died (67% of those requiring mechanical ventilation). Eighty-four percent of those who died were Black. On multivariate analysis, ever smoking (odds ratio [OR] 5.9, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.2-28.6) and history of diabetes mellitus (OR 5.9, 95% CI 1.5-24.3) were associated with mortality, and those admitted from home were less likely to die (vs outside facility, OR 0.2, 95% CI 0.0-0.7). Neither age, sex, race, body mass index, insurance status, nor rural residence was independently associated with mortality. CONCLUSIONS: Our study adds evidence that Black patients appear to be overrepresented in those hospitalized with and those who die from COVID-19, likely a manifestation of adverse social determinants of health. These findings should help guide preventive interventions targeting groups at higher risk of acquiring and developing severe COVID-19 disease.
RNN-based Detection for Coded Partial-Response Channels

In this paper, we investigate the use of recurrent neural network (RNN)-based detection of magnetic recording channels with inter-symbol interference (ISI). We refer to the proposed detection method, which is intended for recording channels with partial-response equalization, as Partial-Response Neural Network (PR-NN). We train bi-directional gated recurrent units (bi-GRUs) to recover the ISI channel inputs from noisy channel output sequences and evaluate the network performance when applied to continuous, streaming data. The recording system on which the experiments were conducted uses a rate-2/3, (1,7) runlength-limited (RLL) code with an E2PR4 partial-response channel target. Experimental results with ideal PR signals show that the performance of PR-NN detection approaches that of Viterbi detection in additive white gaussian noise (AWGN). Moreover, the PR-NN detector outperforms Viterbi detection and achieves the performance of Noise-Predictive Maximum Likelihood (NPML) detection in additive colored noise (ACN).
Experiment Designs for Intercropping Experiments

The following discussion pertains to intercropping experiments such as those described in the preceding chapters, as well as to the design for all comparative experiments. It should be realized that the entire subject of experiment design (the arrangement of treatments in an experiment) cannot be covered in a single chapter or even a single book. We can, however, give some guidelines for the selection and use of experiment designs for some of the simpler intercropping experiments. Some of the experiment designs with less complicated statistical analyses will be illustrated. The ideas in this chapter have been presented and discussed in more detail by Federer (1984).
The Influence of Surface Defect Sites on Chemisorption and Catalysis

Publisher Summary Modern methods of surface science offer the possibility of understanding fundamental questions about the detailed behavior of adsorbed species on metallic binding sites of various types. This chapter discusses the characterization of the surface bonding, the vibrational dynamics, and the surface reactivity of chemisorbed CO on a stepped Pt single crystal. The stepped Pt crystal contains atomic steps separated by smooth terraces, affording a convenient opportunity to witness the differing behavior of surface species on the various types of adsorption sites present. This chapter relies on the digital ESDIAD method [ESDIAD = Electron Stimulated Desorption Ion Angular Distribution], first developed as an analog method in 1974, and recently refined by digitization. The experiments discussed here have illustrated a surface science study which has been able to determine certain details about the behavior of chemisorbed CO on a stepped Pt(112) surface.
E-government attempts in ESCWA member countries

Many ESCWA member countries have felt the need to initiate egovernment applications thus making use of the latest information and communication technologies. However, none of these countries has yet achieved a well developed and fully functional e-government system, in spite of the plans put and sporadic actions taken for this endeavor. On the other hand, countries that resisted for some time the incorporation of ICT in governmental organizations and in citizen's everyday life, have felt the urgency of having national plans taking such innovations into consideration, otherwise they will be left behind in the stream of development.
Analysis of a Rollout Approach to Sequencing Problems with Stochastic Routing Applications

The paper considers sequencing problems, the traveling salesman problem being their natural representative. It studies a rollout approach that employs a cyclic heuristic as its main base algorithm. The theoretical analysis establishes that it is guaranteed to improve (at least in a weak sense) the quality of any feasible solution to a given sequencing problem. Besides other applications, the paper shows that it is well suited for applications that are embedded in dynamic and stochastic environments. The computational performance of the approach is investigated with applications to two stochastic routing problems. The dynamic version of the heuristic appears to be the first algorithm available in the literature to approximately solve a variant of one of these problems.
Transient elastography for predicting clinical outcomes in patients with chronic liver disease

There is increasing interest in developing noninvasive means to evaluate liver fibrosis in patients with chronic liver disease to determine disease severity, prognosis and optimal treatment. Transient elastography (TE) has previously been demonstrated to predict the presence or absence of advanced fibrosis. The current study was conducted to determine whether TE can identify patients with chronic liver disease at risk of clinical decompensation. A total of 667 patients underwent TE and were followed for a median of 861 days and 57 patients achieved the primary outcome, a composite of clinical endpoints including death, ascites, encephalopathy, increased Child Score ≥ 2, variceal bleed, hepatocellular carcinoma or listing for transplant. Overall, TE had an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.87 for predicting clinical outcome. Using a cut-off of 10.5 kPa, TE has a sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value (NPV) of 94.7%, 63.0%, 19.3% and 99.2%, respectively. A predictive model for clinical events was developed using generalized cross-validation for clinical endpoints considering TE, liver biopsy results and multiple other predictors. Individually, TE performed better than biopsy, or any other variable, for predicting clinical outcome [Harrell's C Statistic 0.86 for TE, 0.78 for stage]. Patients with a TE score of >12.5 kPa were found to have a relative hazard for clinical event of 18.99 compared with patients with TE score <10.5. A combined variable model including TE, aspartate aminotransferase/alanine aminotransferase ratio and model for end-stage liver disease (MELD) yielded the highest predictive accuracy with Harrell's C value of 0.93. In the subset of patients with cirrhosis, TE was not found to be independently associated with clinical outcomes in univariate or multivariate analysis although it retained a high sensitivity and NPV of 97.5% and 92.3%, respectively, at a kPa cut-off of 10.5. TE can successfully identify patients with chronic liver disease who are at low risk of clinical decompensation over a time period of 2 years.
Perception based time series data mining with MAP transform

Import of intelligent features to time series analysis including the possibility of operating with linguistic information, reasoning and replying on intelligent queries is the prospective direction of development of such systems. The paper proposes novel methods of perception based time series data mining using perceptual patterns, fuzzy rules and linguistic descriptions. The methods of perception based forecasting using perceptual trends and moving approximation (MAP) transform are discussed. The first method uses perception based function for modeling qualitative forecasting given by expert judgments. The second method uses MAP transform and measure of local trend associations for description of perceptual pattern corresponding to the region of forecasting. Finally, the method of generation of association rules for multivariate time series based on MAP and fuzzy trends is discussed. Multivariate time series are considered as description of system dynamics. In this case association rules can be considered as relationships between system elements additional to spatial, causal etc. relations existing in the system. The proposed methods are illustrated on examples of artificial and real time series.
Maternal Prenatal Smoking and Hearing Loss Among Adolescents

Importance Although smoking and secondhand smoke exposure are associated with sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) in children and adults, the possible association between prenatal smoke exposure and hearing loss has not been investigated despite the fact that more than 12% of US children experience such prenatal exposure each year. Objective To investigate whether exposure to prenatal tobacco smoke is independently associated with SNHL in adolescents. Design Cross-sectional data were examined for 964 adolescents aged 12 to 15 years from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2005-2006. Participants Participants underwent standardized audiometric testing, and serum cotinine levels and self-reports were used to identify adolescents exposed to secondhand smoke or active smokers. Main Outcomes and Measures Prenatal exposure was defined as an affirmative parental response to, “Did [Sample Person’s Name] biological mother smoke at any time while she was pregnant with [him/her]?” Sensorineural hearing loss was defined as an average pure-tone hearing level more than 15 dB for 0.5, 1, and 2 kHz (low frequency) and 3, 4, 6, and 8 kHz (high frequency). Results Parental responses affirmed prenatal smoke exposure in 16.2% of 964 adolescents. Prenatal smoke exposure was associated with elevated pure-tone hearing thresholds at 2 and 6 kHz ( P P Conclusions and Relevance Prenatal smoke exposure is independently associated with higher pure-tone hearing thresholds and an almost 3-fold increase in the odds of unilateral low-frequency hearing loss among adolescents. These novel findings suggest that in utero exposure to tobacco smoke may be injurious to the auditory system.
CHANGES IN STRATUM CORNEUM-WATER INTERACTIONS FOLLOWING BIRTH IN THE NEWBORN INFANT • 1021

The outermost layer of the skin, the stratum corneum (SC), is a thin, flexible, polymeric envelope required for survival in a terrestrial environment. Evidence from newborn animals demonstrates that the SC manifests a range of unique water interactions at birth including a hydrophobic surface mantle, integral barrier lipid lamellae, and spontaneous proteolysis of structural proteins, such as filaggrin, to form smaller water binding molecules necessary for polymer plasticization. In the present study, we evaluated the background of these interactions by quantifying changes in SC hydration, water flux, and surface hydrophobicity (water desorption) over the first 16h of life in 86 term infants. Unit measurement of surface electrical capacitive reactance (cru) served as the primary index of hydration state(Pediatrics 96:688-692, 1995). A separate study looking at the effect of occlusion was also performed using a plastic thermal wrap to occlude the lower body after birth. The results demonstrate 1) a progressive fall in surface hydration from 2h to 16 h after birth (113±3 to 105±5 cru's, respectively, p < 0.05), 2) a decrease in transepidermal water movement measured as the slope of the continuous capacitance curves(0.96±0.12 at 2h of age to 0.32±0.09 cru's/sec at 16h, p < 0.01), 3) an increase in surface water desorption (-7±0.6 at 2h of age to -12±1 cru's/sec × 1000 at 16h, p < 0.01); 4) higher baseline hydration following occlusion of the suprapubic region at 2h of age compared to the chest (135±7 to 120±4 cru's, respectively, p<0.01); and 5) increased transepidermal water movement following occlusion(2.86±0.34 compared to 1.21±0.16 cru's/sec, p<0.01).
Is the meta-EA a viable optimization method?

Meta-evolutionary algorithms have long been proposed as an approach to automatically discover good parameter settings to use in later optimization runs. In this paper we instead ask whether a meta-evolutionary algorithm makes sense as an optimizer in its own right. That is, we're not interested in the resulting parameter settings, but only in the final result. As it so happens, this use of meta-EAs make sense in the context of large numbers of parallel runs, particularly in massive distributed scenarios. A primary issue facing meta-EAs is the stochastic nature of the meta-level fitness function. We consider whether this poses a challenge to establishing a gradient in the meta-level search space, and to what degree multiple tests are helpful in smoothing the noise. We discuss the nature of the meta-level search space and its impact on local optima, then examine the degree to which exploitation can be applied. We find that meta-EAs perform well as optimizers, and very surprisingly that they do best with only a single test. More exploitation appears to reduce performance, but only slightly.
Does α-fluorination affect the structural trans-influence and kinetic trans-effect of an alkyl ligand? molecular structures of Pd(TMEDA)(CH3)(RF) and a kinetic study of the trans to cis isomerization of Pt(TMEDA)(CH3)2I(RF) [RF = CF2CF3, CFHCF3, CH2CF3]

Reaction of Pd(TMEDA)(CH(3))(2) [TMEDA = tetramethylethylenediamine] with fluoroalkyl iodides R(F)I affords a series of square planar Pd(II) complexes Pd(TMEDA)(CH(3))(R(F)) [R(F) = CF(2)CF(3) (9), CFHCF(3) (10), CH(2)CF(3) (11)], presumably by oxidative addition followed by reductive elimination of CH(3)I. The solid-state structures of each compound have been determined by single crystal X-ray diffraction studies, allowing the effect of increasing alpha-fluorination on the structural trans-influence of alkyl ligands to be examined. In these compounds there is no significant difference observed in the trans-influence of the three fluorinated alkyl ligands toward the trans-N atom, although a significant cis-influence on the neighboring methyl ligand is apparent. Oxidative addition of the same series of fluoroalkyl ligands to the corresponding Pt(TMEDA)(CH(3))(2) affords octahedral Pt(IV) complexes trans-Pt(TMEDA)(CH(3))(2)(R(F))I [R(F) = CF(2)CF(3) (12), CFHCF(3) (13), CH(2)CF(3) (14)] as the kinetic products. In each case, subsequent isomerization to the corresponding all cis-isomers is observed; in the case of 13, the stereocenter at the alpha-carbon results in two diastereomeric cis-isomers, which are formed at different rates. The molecular structures of 13 and its more stable all cis-isomer 16b have been crystallographically determined. Kinetic studies of the trans-cis isomerization reactions show the mechanism to involve a polar transition state, presumably involving iodide dissociation, followed by rearrangement of the cation, and iodide recombination. High dielectric solvents increase the rate, but solvent coordinating ability has no effect. Dissolved salts (LiI, LiOTf) show normal accelerative salt effects, with no inhibition in the case of added iodide, consistent with the formation of an intimate ion pair intermediate. The kinetic parameters show that the trans-effects of fluoroalkyl ligands in these compounds follow the order expected from the relative sigma-donor properties of the ligands, with CF(2)CF(3) < CFHCF(3) < CH(2)CF(3).
Spectral stochastic homogenization of divergence-type PDEs

This paper presents a formulation and numerical analysis of the homogenization of stochastic PDEs. The framework of homogenization is adopted to describe an effective medium that is equivalent in some sense to a heterogeneous medium of interest. The parameters of the resulting homogeneous medium are described as stochastic processes characterized by their polynomial chaos decomposition. The formulation yields a chaos decomposition for the predicted behavior of the homogeneous medium that captures, in addition to the effect of heterogeneity, the effect of variability. Once this description has been computed, various statistics of the solution can be efficiently evaluated.
What students learn when studying physics practice exam problems

We developed a web-based tool to provide students with access to old exam problems and solutions. By controlling the order in which students saw the problems, as well as their access to solutions, we obtained data about student learning by studying old exam problems. Our data suggest that in general students learn from doing old exam problems, and that having access to the problem solutions increases their learning. However, the data also suggest the depth of learning may be relatively shallow. In addition, the data show that doing old exam problems provides important formative assessment about the student's overall preparedness for the exam and their particular areas of strength and weakness.
Electroactive Myoglobin Films Grown Layer-by-Layer with Poly(styrenesulfonate) on Pyrolytic Graphite Electrodes

Stable multilayer electroactive films were grown on rough pyrolytic graphite (PG) electrodes by alternate adsorption of layers of polyanion poly(styrenesulfonate) (PSS) and positively charged myoglobin (Mb) from their aqueous solutions. Incorporation of large amounts of electroactive Mb was facilitated by high electrode surface areas and by adsorbing coiled PSS from 0.5 M NaCl solutions. Cyclic voltammetry of {PSS/Mb}n films showed a pair of well-defined, chemically reversible peaks at about −0.25 V vs SCE at pH 5.5, characteristic of the Mb heme FeIII/FeII redox couple. Electroactivity was extended to 7 {PSS/Mb} bilayers on rough PG surfaces, in comparison to 2 electroactive layers on smooth gold coated with mercaptopropanesulfonic acid. Square wave voltammograms of {PSS/Mb}n films gave good fits by nonlinear regression analysis to a model featuring dispersion of formal potentials, providing average formal potentials and an apparent rate constant. Oxygen and trichloroacetic acid were catalytically reduce...
Tracking Human Pose by Tracking Symmetric Parts

The human body is structurally symmetric. Tracking by detection approaches for human pose suffer from double counting, where the same image evidence is used to explain two separate but symmetric parts, such as the left and right feet. Double counting, if left unaddressed can critically affect subsequent processes, such as action recognition, affordance estimation, and pose reconstruction. In this work, we present an occlusion aware algorithm for tracking human pose in an image sequence, that addresses the problem of double counting. Our key insight is that tracking human pose can be cast as a multi-target tracking problem where the ”targets” are related by an underlying articulated structure. The human body is modeled as a combination of singleton parts (such as the head and neck) and symmetric pairs of parts (such as the shoulders, knees, and feet). Symmetric body parts are jointly tracked with mutual exclusion constraints to prevent double counting by reasoning about occlusion. We evaluate our algorithm on an outdoor dataset with natural background clutter, a standard indoor dataset (HumanEva-I), and compare against a state of the art pose estimation algorithm.
Coherent blue light generation: quasi-phase-matched second harmonic generation in KTiOPO 4 waveguides

Two issues which limit continuous wave second harmonic generation in quasi phase matched KTiOPO4 periodically segmented waveguides are discussed. The first is the thermal loading caused by the fundamental and the second harmonic beams which degrades the quasi-phase matching condition and as a result corrupts the spectral quality of the second-harmonic field. We show that a carefully designed external temperature gradient leads to an enhancement of the conversion efficiency and control of the spectral lineshape of the output field. The second issue discussed is the poor optical coupling into quasi phase matched periodically segmented waveguides. We show that using optical interference, it is possible to increase th efficiency of the generated second harmonic significantly over coupling a single beam with the same total power. Finally, we show that using optical interference, it is also possible to considerably enhance the optical coupling efficiency into single mode fibers.© (2004) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Assembly of AKAP82, a Protein Kinase A Anchor Protein, into the Fibrous Sheath of Mouse Sperm

The assembly of the mammalian sperm flagellum is a complex developmental event requiring the sequential activation of genes encoding the component parts and the coordinated assembly of these proteins during the differentiation of the haploid spermatid. In this study, the mechanism underlying the assembly of the fibrous sheath surrounding the axoneme was examined. The subject of the study was the major fibrous sheath protein of the mouse sperm flagellum, AKAP82, a member of the A Kinase Anchor Protein (AKAP) family of polypeptides that bind the regulatory (RII) subunit of protein kinase A (PK-A). Immunoelectron microscopy demonstrated that AKAP82 is present throughout the transverse ribs and longitudinal columns of the fibrous sheath. Since AKAP82 is initially synthesized as a precursor (pro-AKAP82) during spermiogenesis, an antiserum was raised against a peptide from the processed region of pro-AKAP82 (M(r) 97,000). In immunoblotting experiments, the antibody detected pro-AKAP82 in condensing spermatids but not in epididymal sperm. In addition, two other immunoreactive proteins of M(r) 109,000 (p109) and M(r) 26,000 (p26, representing the "pro" domain of the precursor) were present in epididymal sperm. Alkaline phosphatase treatment of epididymal sperm proteins demonstrated that p109 was a phosphorylated form of pro-AKAP82 that remained in sperm. By immunofluorescence, pro-AKAP82 was localized to the entire length of the principal piece in testicular sperm, while in epididymal sperm p109 and p26 were present only in the proximal portion of the principal piece. Pro-AKAP82 was solubilized when germ cells were extracted with Triton X-100. However, in sperm, both AKAP82 and p109 were almost totally resistant to these extraction conditions and remained in the particulate fraction even after extraction with Triton and dithiothreitol. Similar to pro-AKAP82, the RII subunit of PK-A was present in the Triton X-100-soluble fraction of developing germ cells. In sperm, much of the RII also became particulate, consistent with the hypothesis that AKAP82 anchors RII in the flagellum. These data indicate that pro-AKAP82 is synthesized in the cell body, transported down the axoneme to its site of assembly in the fibrous sheath, and then proteolytically clipped to form mature AKAP82.
Estimation of rainfall thresholds triggering shallow landslides for an operational warning system implementation

The Piemonte regional warning system service, managed by the Environmental Protection Agency of Piemonte (“ARPA Piemonte” as official Italian acronym), is based on an advanced meteo-hydrological automatic monitoring system, and it is integrated with forecasting activities of severe weather-related natural hazards. At present, a meteo-hydrological chain is operated to provide flood forecasting on the main river pattern. The development of a forecasting tool for shallow landslides triggered by heavy rainfall is presented. Due to the difficulties in modelling shallow landslides triggering in a large and complex area like the Piemonte region, an empirical model is developed on the basis of the correlation between rainfall and previous landslides in historical documents. The research focuses on establishing rainfall thresholds for landslides triggering, differentiating the critical rainfall values through a geological characterisation of the different territories. The period from 1990 to 2002 is considered. A total number of 160 landslides with hourly information and time of triggering are used to calibrate the system. As a first outcome, two different zones have been identified: (1) zones in alpine environments, principally characterised by a bedrock composed of metamorphic rocks, igneous rocks, dolostones or limestones that require high values of critical rainfall and (2) zones in hilly environments, principally characterised by sedimentary bedrock that require low values of critical rainfall. Verification has been performed on a total number of 429 landslides with known date of occurrence. The results show a good agreement with the model with no missed alarms and a very low number of false alarms, thus suggesting an effective operational implementation.
Expression of a bacterial gene in a trypanosomatid protozoan

A simple and reproducible assay for DNA-mediated transfection in the trypanosomatid protozoan Leptomonas seymouri has been developed. The assay is based on expression of the Escherichia coli chloramphenicol acetyl transferase (CAT) gene flanked by Leptomonas DNA fragments that are likely to contain necessary elements for gene expression in trypanosomes. After electroporation of cells in the presence of plasmid DNA, CAT activity was detected in crude cell lysates. No activity was detected when the orientation of the L. seymouri mini-exon sequence (placed upstream of the CAT gene) was reversed, or in additional control experiments. This system provides a method for defining transcriptional control elements in trypanosomes.
Geophysical characterization of the Menengai volcano, Central Kenya Rift from the analysis of magnetotelluric and gravity data

ABSTRACTIn this study, we qualitatively analyze detailed gravity and broadband magnetotelluric data in and surrounding the Menengai volcano of the East African rift in Kenya to assess geothermal potential of the region. Three-dimensional gravity models obtained by inverting residual gravity anomalies and 2D resistivity models obtained by inverting the transverse electric and transverse magnetic magnetotelluric modes show several common features. Our models show that a low-resistivity zone above a higher resistivity zone correlates with a low-density region located 1–4 km beneath the volcano. These zones may be related to a high temperature gradient or hydrothermally altered, fractured rocks. Additionally, a low-resistivity (>20 ohm-m) and a low-density region located approximately 4–6 km below the volcano may be related to molten material that is the source of heat for the geothermal system. The low-resistivity (<20 ohm-m) regions that correlated with a denser (2.8–2.9 g/cc) region within the caldera a...
The health mentors program: three years experience with longitudinal, patient-centered interprofessional education

Increased emphasis on team care has accelerated interprofessional education (IPE) of health professionals. The health mentors program (HMP) is a required, longitudinal, interprofessional curriculum...