cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Sewall Wright, shifting balance theory, and the hardening of the modern synthesis

The period between the 1940s and 1960s saw the hardening of the modern synthesis in evolutionary biology. Gould and Provine argue that Wright's shifting balance theory of evolution hardened during this period. But their account does not do justice to Wright, who always regarded selection as acting together with drift. This paper presents a more adequate account of the development of Wright's shifting balance theory, paying particular attention to his application of the theory to the geographical distribution of flower color dimorphism in Linanthus parryae. The account shows that even in the heyday of the hardened synthesis, the balance or interaction of evolutionary factors, such as drift, selection, and migration, occupied pride of place in Wright's theory, and that between the 1940s and 1970s, Wright developed the theory of isolation by distance to quantitatively represent the structure of the Linanthus population, which he argued had the kind of structure posited by his shifting balance theory. In the end, Wright arrived at a sophisticated description of the structure of the Linanthus population, where the interaction between drift and selection varied spatially.
An Attempt to Forecast the Future Trend of Farm Prices

1. The quantity of money. 2. Cycles of over and under-production. 3. Cycles of high and low demand. 4. Long-time changes in ease of production or in demand. 5. Season of year. 6. The weather and other accidental causes. In this discussion, attention will be given to the first three of these only. On a gold basis the general price level in Europe is much below prices in America, and is likely to continue so. For this reason those countries are very anxious to get into a position where they will not have to buy from us. They are bending every effort to become self-sufficient as to food supplies. Agriculture has recovered from the war much more fully than has city industry. The world supplies of farm products are high compared with world demand. World supplies of manufactured goods particularly of equipment and permanent improvements are low compared with world demand. This makes prices of farm products low compared with other things. Agriculture is being depressed at the same time when manufacturing is stimulated. Temporarily the growth of population was retarded and the world was made poor by the war. This has checked the demand for farm products. With gradual recovery of purchasing power and growth of population it is to be expected that a time will come in ten to twenty years when the supply of farm products will be low relative to demand. Since many years are required to make striking changes in agriculture, a period of agricultural prosperity may be expected. While the general price level of America will doubtless remain high relative to Europe for some years, the prices of farm products which we export to Europe must be low relative to prices in Europe for these same things. The problems that have caused this subject to be placed on the program are due to the quantity of money. The basic reason for the present mal-adjustments are great financial 28
Measuring Rather Than Imagining Somatic Cell Selection and Clonal Evolution

Selection in biology is often imagined to be like gravity in physics—an invisible but reliable omniscient force that acts whenever and wherever opportunities arise. Although it is easy to imagine how selection acts during tumorigenesis, it is very difficult to measure selection, especially because selection may be positive, negative, or neutral. This chapter introduces how somatic cell selection may be measured from somatic genome variation. The greater the genomic variation between cells, the greater the time since a last clonal expansion. The high genomic diversity present in some human cancers suggests that there is little natural selection or clonal evolution after transformation.
Design of Time-Frequency Distributions: Adaptive Time-Frequency Analysis

This chapter discusses the design of time frequency distribution (TFD). One of the first TFDs constructed on this basis is the Gaussian kernel distribution, a TFD designed for its reduced interference properties. To better adapt to the signal under analysis and achieve higher resolution and concentration performance, adaptive TFDs can be designed using optimization theory. TFDs can also be designed and adapted to a specific class of signals such as polynomial frequency modulation (FM) signals, leading to the formulation of polynomial WVDS. The design of such methods can be related mathematically to the theory of polynomial derivatives, thus allowing for a revised design procedure. Another example of TFDs adapted to a particular class of signals is that of TFDs adapted to signals with dispersive group delay. Another step by step methodology for the design of a specific TFD is provided using separable kernels. In addition, the class of generalized marginal TFDs is related to the fractional Fourier transform, allowing further design possibilities.
Impacts of building geometry modeling methods on the simulation results of urban building energy models

Abstract Urban-scale building energy modeling (UBEM)—using building modeling to understand how a group of buildings will perform together—is attracting increasing attention in the energy modeling field. Unlike modeling a single building, which will use detailed information, UBEM generally uses existing building stock data consisting of high-level building information. This study evaluated the impacts of three zoning methods and the use of floor multipliers on the simulated energy use of 940 office and retail buildings in three climate zones using City Building Energy Saver. The first zoning method, OneZone, creates one thermal zone per floor using the target building’s footprint. The second zoning method, AutoZone, splits the building’s footprint into perimeter and core zones. A novel, pixel-based automatic zoning algorithm is developed for the AutoZone method. The third zoning method, Prototype, uses the U.S. Department of Energy’s reference building prototype shapes. Results show that simulated source energy use of buildings with the floor multiplier are marginally higher by up to 2.6% than those modeling each floor explicitly, which take two to three times longer to run. Compared with the AutoZone method, the OneZone method results in decreased thermal loads and less equipment capacities: 15.2% smaller fan capacity, 11.1% smaller cooling capacity, 11.0% smaller heating capacity, 16.9% less heating loads, and 7.5% less cooling loads. Source energy use differences range from -7.6% to 5.1%. When comparing the Prototype method with the AutoZone method, source energy use differences range from -12.1% to 19.0%, and larger ranges of differences are found for the thermal loads and equipment capacities. This study demonstrated that zoning methods have a significant impact on the simulated energy use of UBEM. One recommendation resulting from this study is to use the AutoZone method with floor multiplier to obtain accurate results while balancing the simulation run time for UBEM.
Infectious Diseases, Religion, and Spirituality

This chapter reviews theories and empirical evidence on relations between religion and spirituality (R/S) and infectious diseases, issues especially relevant to the laboratory-based field of concentration of 2%–3% of public health students nationwide. We discuss six lines of R/S-health evidence pertaining to immune competence , immunization, infection risk behavior, rates of infection, adherence to treatments for infections, and programs for prevention or treatment.
The Changing Burden of HIV Attributable to Methamphetamine Among Men Who Have Sex with Men in King County, Washington.

Abstract Methamphetamine use is a key driver of HIV transmission among men who have sex with men (MSM). We evaluated trends in incident HIV diagnosis rates among methamphetamine using and nonusing ...
Pooled Aquablation Results for American Men with Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms due to Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia in Large Prostates (60-150 cc).

To present short-term safety and efficacy data of men with lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) secondary to benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) treated with Aquablation. Men with LUTs secondary to BPH (60–150 cc) underwent Aquablation treatment from February 2016 to December 2017 across 17 investigational sites in the USA from two contemporary investigational device exemption (IDE) studies called WATER (NCT02505919) and WATER II (NCT03123250). One hundred seven males with mean age of 67.3 ± 6.5 years were treated with Aquablation; mean prostate volume was 99.4 ± 24.1 cc. The pooled results show that large prostates have an average procedure time of less than 36 min and discharge on average 1.6 ± 1 days. The IPSS decreased by 16.7 ± 8.1 points at 3 months and Qmax increased by 11.2 ± 12.4 ml/s. The Clavien-Dindo (CD) grade 2 or higher event rate at 3 months was 29%. A non-hierarchical breakdown for CD events yielded 18% grade 2 and 19% grade 3 or higher. Men with LUTS secondary to BPH (60–150 cc) in a pooled analysis were treated safely and effectively with Aquablation up to 3 months postoperatively. ClinicalTrials.gov identifiers, NCT02505919 and NCT03123250. PROCEPT BioRobotics.
Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop: Abortion in China, Germany, South Africa and International Human Rights Law

Feminists involved in international human rights law have long recognized that reproductive rights are an essential part of any larger struggle for women's human rights. As noted at the World Conference on Population in Cairo in 1994 and reiterated at the World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995, control over their own reproduction is a prerequisite for any meaningful conception of women's human rights. At the same time, feminists have recognized that reproductive rights, in fact, involve a range of related but distinct rights -- from access to birth control for minors to environmental safeguards that protect women from involuntary sterilization from industrial pollutants. These rights play out in an equally broad range of contexts -- from intimate decision making within the nuclear family to state family-planning policy making. This paper focuses on the right to abortion and the inability of feminists to generate consensus regarding that right on the international level, despite widespread agreement as to its basic importance. This inability can be traced partly to the different functions abortion serves in different countries and partly to the different strategies that feminists have employed at the national level to safeguard or limit the right to abortion. This paper examines the political and social constructions of abortion in China, Germany, and South Africa -- states that have all reformed their abortion laws within the last ten years -- to show how subversions of national abortion policies have effectively subverted attempts to produce an intelligible international position.
Random Vibration of One- and Two-Dimensional Structures

Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on statistical relations between excitation and response processes for a broad range of structural elements including beams, cables, arches, plates, membranes, and shells. The analysis of the dynamic response of continuous structures under random excitation was initiated in connection with Brownian motion (Van Lear and Uhlenbeck, 1931). More recent developments arose out of work on aerospace problems connected with jet-noise excitation. The chapter presents general formulations and a number of solution procedures. It focuses on approximate procedures. The chapter highlights experimental procedures and presents a few comparisons between measurements and analytical predictions. Special consideration is given to stationary wide-band excitation of uniform structures. Under certain circumstances, the random response distributions exhibit patterns that become asymptotically very simple as the number of responding modes increases.
Emulsifying Properties of Proteins

Emulsification is the most important process in the manufacturing of many formulated foods. Food emulsions are classified as macroemulsions with droplet size of 0.2 to 50 µm. Emulsion represents a heterogeneous mixture of fat globules. Food emulsions can be of the oil in water (O/W) or water in oil (W/O) type. The difference between O/W and W/O emulsions is that an O/W emulsion commonly exhibits a creamy texture, while a W/O system has greasy textural properties.
Icosahedral Tailed dsDNA Bacterial Viruses

The icosahedral, tailed double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) bacterial viruses, or bacteriophages of order Caudovirales, are a diverse group that includes three morphologically distinguished families, the Myoviridae, the Siphoviridae, and the Podoviridae. The Myoviridae have contractile tails (e.g., phage T4). The Siphoviridae have long noncontractile tails (e.g., phage λ). The Podoviridae have shorter, stubby, or stump-like tails (e.g., phages P22 and T7). The virions are built in parts using a series of converging assembly pathways; complete capsids, tails, and tail fibers are made separately and then joined together. Empty precursor capsids, or procapsids, are made and then filled with genomic DNA by an active process that packs the DNA to very high density. Tails function to correctly identify a host and deliver the phage genome to the host cell interior where replication begins. Caudovirales may be virulent or temperate. Virulent phages infect, replicate, and release progeny. Temperate phages are also able to infect, replicate, and release progeny, but they can also go into a dormant state, called lysogeny, and remain silent within the host, usually integrated into the host chromosome, where they are silently replicated until their replication and outgrowth is triggered by a stress to the host.
Nonmedical benzodiazepine use in adults with alcohol use disorder: The role of anxiety sensitivity and polysubstance use.

Background and objectives The nonmedical use of benzodiazepines-defined as use without a prescription or at a dose or frequency higher than prescribed-is increasing among adults in substance use disorder treatment and is associated with risk for overdose. The aim of the current study was to characterize the prevalence of nonmedical benzodiazepine use among adults seeking treatment for alcohol use disorder and to examine whether nonmedical benzodiazepine use was associated with: (1) polysubstance use and (2) greater anxiety sensitivity. Methods A sample of 461 treatment-seeking adults with alcohol use disorder who were recruited for a cross-sectional study were included in this analysis. Results A total of 89 participants (19%) reported nonmedical benzodiazepine use in the previous 30 days. Results of a logistic regression indicated that polysubstance use (number of substances used in the past month) was associated with nonmedical benzodiazepine use. The association between anxiety sensitivity and nonmedical benzodiazepine misuse was moderated by gender; anxiety sensitivity was associated with benzodiazepine use among women, but not men. Discussion and conclusions These results replicate findings from research on opioid use disorder suggesting that anxiety sensitivity is associated with nonmedical benzodiazepine use in women and not men. Scientific significance Targeted intervention to those with polysubstance use-including education on overdose risk when benzodiazepines are combined with other substances-is indicated in men and women with alcohol use disorder. Anxiety sensitivity may be a potential therapeutic target to reduce nonmedical benzodiazepine use among women with alcohol use disorder. (Am J Addict 2018;27:485-490).
Secondary Headaches in Children and Adolescents: What Not to Miss.

Headaches are a common occurrence in childhood and adolescence. Most children presenting with a chief complaint of headache have a self-limited infectious disorder or primary headache syndrome that should not require extensive workup. Differentiating these conditions from other more serious causes of headache in children can sometimes be difficult. This article aims to provide information regarding “red flags” that should indicate a need for concern for disorders that require more urgent evaluation. Long-held beliefs about specific “red flags” that have been analyzed in recent years as to their validity and new criteria for the diagnosis of idiopathic intracranial hypertension have been elaborated based on study. These publications are reviewed in this article. Knowledge of past and current literature on secondary headache in children, combined with thorough history taking and examination, should help determine when there is concern for a serious secondary cause for headache in children and adolescents and direct workup.
Message Passing Based Distributed Learning for Joint Resource Allocation in Millimeter Wave Heterogeneous Networks

Millimeter wave (mmWave) provides an enormous spectrum for future broadband cellular communications. The corresponding challenging characteristics of radio propagation, and the use of highly directional transmission and the dense deployment, lead to more complex and critical resource allocation problems than in traditional cellular systems, where the channels are better tamed. In this paper, we study the joint power control and user association problem in heterogeneous networks (HetNets) by considering the dynamics of links as a Markov Decision Process (MDP). A reinforcement learning framework is proposed to study the problem. The large state/action space is handled by decomposing the large scale problem into multiple local problems, based on the topology of mmWave HetNet, which is motivated by the celebrated belief propagation (BP) algorithm in probabilistic graphical models. The decomposed problem is solved with a distributed message passing method and accelerated by the prior knowledge of the mmWave dynamics. Two categories of learning frameworks are proposed for time sensitive and power sensitive conditions. The real-world measurements in the 60GHz band are collected and used in the simulation of the proposed framework.
Think tanks should come out of the shadows

This week we reveal a worrying network of links between the Institute of Economic Affairs, a UK think tank, and leading Conservative politicians. The IEA is a vocal opponent of public health initiatives, dismissing as “nanny state” interventions such policies as alcohol controls and sugar taxes. It is also an organisation that has taken money from the very companies whose products are widely held to be responsible for ill …
Age- and Sex-Specific Increases in Stimulant Prescribing Rates-California, 2008-2017.

Objective: To describe trends in prevalent and incident stimulant prescribing between 2008 and 2017 in California. Method: Statewide trends were estimated by age and sex category for prevalent (any...
Examining the Influence of Financial Assistance and Employment Services on the Criminal Justice Outcomes of Women on Probation

Although low income is common across the U.S. probation population, women offenders experience it more than men. However, despite the connection between income and probation outcomes, limited resea...
Introspect: Be Humble

For 16 years, Tom Ashbrook was the popular and successful host of the nationally syndicated NPR radio program “On Point,” through which he reached 2 million daily listeners. The show was born in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and became a platform for serious investigation of political, social, and cultural issues. In early 2018, Ashbrook was fired following an investigation of complaints from people who worked for him about an abusive work environment. As many as 23 employees reported that Ashbrook had engaged in intimidating and demeaning behavior. One news account of the climate on the show said people were coached to, “never interrupt Ashbrook, never challenge him, and only answer yes, no or I’ll check on that” [1].
The Pandemic Challenge: Reflections on the Social Justice Dynamic

The outbreak of the 2019 novel coronavirus, or SARS-CoV-2, and the disease caused by it, COVID-19, has disrupted life around the world Typically living in medically underserved and impoverished situations, the profoundly disparate health conditions marking these populations have been magnified in the wake of COVID-19 in keeping with persistent social inequalities and inequities Basic topics include how COVID-19 - and future health disasters - can affect the individual, group, and place-specific health and general wellbeing, and how related factors can contribute to or help ameliorate health disparities and inequities, including issues of preparedness and planning, particularly in terms of resource distributions [Extracted from the article] Copyright of World Medical & Health Policy is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use This abstract may be abridged No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract (Copyright applies to all Abstracts )
Association of ABO blood group type with cardiovascular events in COVID-19.

Cardiovascular complications have been reported in patients with COVID-19. We sought to examine the association of ABO blood group type with cardiovascular complications in COVID-19. We examined 409 individuals enrolled in the COVID-19 Registry to Assess Frequency, Management, and Outcomes of Arterial and Venous Thromboembolic Complications (CORONA-VTE) who had ABO blood group data available. Multiple logistic regression was used to assess the association of ABO blood group types with three primary outcomes: major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE), major arterial and venous thrombosis and all-cause mortality. 201, 121, 61 and 26 individuals had blood group O, A, B and AB, respectively. In multivariable analysis, blood group A was associated with a 2.5-fold higher odds of MACE than blood group O (OR 2.47[1.18-5.18]). There was an effect suggesting a 2-fold higher odds of major thrombotic events in blood group A vs. O that did not reach statistical significance (OR 2.15 [0.89-5.20]). No association between blood group type and all-cause mortality was found. Compared with the other blood group types, blood group A was associated with an increased odds of MACE(ORA/non-A 2.18[1.11-4.29]), while blood group O was associated with lower odds of MACE(ORO/non-O 0.50[0.26-0.97]). In conclusion, blood group A was associated with an increased odds of MACE, whereas blood group O was associated with a reduction in the odds of MACE in patients with COVID-19. These findings may inform risk stratification of COVID-19 patients for cardiovascular complications. Additional studies are needed to validate our findings.
FINANCIAL REPORTING CHOICES, GOVERNANCE, AND STRATEGIC ASSETS: A TRANSACTION COST PERSPECTIVE

We integrate the governance and measurement branches in transaction cost economics to highlight how differences in performance measurement choices influence the governance of strategic assets, ther...
Switchable β-alkylation of Secondary Alcohols with Primary Alcohols by a Well-Defined Cobalt Catalyst

β-alkylation of secondary alcohols with primary alcohols to selectively generate alcohols by a well-defined Co catalyst is presented. Remarkably, a low catalyst loading of 0.7 mol % can be employed...
Merit Principles Merit Further Investigation: The Influence on Employee Perception of Whistleblowing

Merit principles have been fundamental to managing human resources for several decades in public administration. However, the meaning of merit and its relationship with other values needs more atte...
Move from Coerced to Consented Urban Transformation in İstanbul: Absence of Collective Mobilisation and Framing of Complicity

The existing literature on Turkey’s authoritarian neoliberal urban landscape has so far paid attention to urban transformation projects enacted through a top-down mechanism that involves forced evictions and displacement. This has usually resulted in local resistance on the one hand, and the generation of revenues for the government’s political constituencies on the other, in turn providing popular and economic support for the government. This chapter demonstrates what the existing literature cannot adequately account for: How and why local residents and institutions standing against and outside of the government’s redistribution mechanisms consent to urban transformation in their communities. It discusses the mechanisms through which the government’s authoritarian neoliberal politics are leveraged and reproduced by a local community in Istanbul, for whom the execution of urban transformation is an economic mechanism of maintaining elite status by channelling capital investment into the region, while condemnation of the urban transformation is a cultural mechanism of signalling elite status by self-distancing from the government’s authoritarian neoliberal urban policies.
A Synthesis of the Elements of Blood Pressure Control

Much is still to be learned about the control of blood pressure. Certain features have emerged, however, that distinguish short-term control from long-term control.
Liquid and Solid Metal Embrittlement

Low melting metals can interact with metallic substrates in several distinct ways that lead to premature fracture or surface degradation. The most spectacular, and widely studied, manifestation of metal-induced embrittlement (MIE) is the sudden fracture of stressed metals with little or no apparent inter-diffusion or chemical interaction. In this classical form of embrittlement, ductility is minimized at or near the melting point of the metallic surface film, and is then restored at some higher temperature, as shown in Fig. 1 for zinc embrittled by indium (1). Similar embrittlement may be noted when the surface film is solid, but the degree of embrittlement is reduced and then disappears as the temperature falls well below the melting point of the embrittler - 100°C or so in the case of lead on (or in) steel (2). Other manifestations of liquid metal embrittlement are connected with rapid penetration of the environment along grain boundaries (e.g. gallium on aluminum), by preferential chemical reactions (e.g. lithium on iron containing carbon or carbides), and by corrosion, perhaps aided by cavitation, in ferritic steel tubing containing mercury in a thermal gradient. In the latter case, failure of the component may occur either by thinning or ultimate penetration of the wall, or by mass transfer-caused plugging of the tube.
ENA periodicities at Saturn

[1] The Magnetospheric Imaging Instrument (MIMI) on the Cassini spacecraft has observed energetic neutral atoms (ENA) at Saturn for three years from 2004 to 2007. The 20–50 keV hydrogen and 64–144 keV oxygen neutrals were examined for periodic behavior by projecting their images onto a plane perpendicular to Saturn's equatorial plane and summing the emissions along the vertical. The resulting “strip” images were then subjected to a Lomb periodogram analyses for the period between mid-2004 to mid-2007. The hydrogens display erratic periods in the 8–13 hour range, while the oxygens exhibit a very strong, repeatable period of 10.8 ± 0.2 hours, which is close to the nominal period of Saturn kilometric radiation as well as the period of energetic particles in Saturn's outer magnetosphere.
Using Density Rather than Mass to Express the Concentration of Gastrointestinal Tract Constituents

This experiment had two objectives: to develop an analytical technique to measure the density of digesta and fecal samples; to determine whether this measurement is physiologically relevant. To address the latter question, rats were provided with one of five high-fiber diets or a fiber-free control diet, and density determinations were made on samples from the cecum, proximal and distal colon, and from a passed fecal pellet. The density of colonic contents varied with the fiber component of the diet. The fiber-free control diet produced the densest stool at all sites studied (P less than 0.01), whereas wheat bran produced the least dense stool at every site (P less than 0.01). There were also density differences among bowel positions within diet treatments: the stool from those animals consuming the fiber-free, guar and pectin diets became denser as it moved distally; wheat bran, on the other hand, produced the opposite effect--the more distal the stool traveled, the less dense it became. Since the density of colonic contents varied with respect to both diet and anatomical site, these data suggest that the traditional technique of expressing the concentration of a constituent of interest (e.g., bile acid, volatile fatty acid) per gram of digesta or fecal matter may not always be appropriate. This is particularly true if exposure of the intestinal mucosal cells to a substance in the digesta or fecal stream is of interest, since density, rather than mass, reflects the diluting potential of the diet.
Interatomic correlation in partially oriented polymer fibers

The atomic ordering in materials possessing cylindrical symmetry can be investigated by an approximation of the cylindrical distribution function in a given direction. The approximation gives correctly the extent of the interatomic correlation for a wide class of polymer fibers and reduces considerably the amount of the experimental and computational times.
Efficiency measurement in the stochastic frontier model

Abstract Deterministic models of technical efficiency assume that all deviations from the production frontier are due to inefficiency. Critics argue that no allowance is made for measurement error and other statistical noise so that the resulting efficiency measure will be contaminated. The stochastic frontier model is an alternative that allows both inefficiency and measurement error. Advocates argue that the stochastic frontier models should be used despite other potential limitations because of the superior conceptual treatment of noise. As will be demonstrated in this paper, however, the assumed shape of the error distributions is used to identify a key production function parameter. Therefore, the stochastic frontier models, like the deterministic models, cannot produce absolute measures of efficiency. Moreover, we show that rankings for firm-specific inefficiency estimates produced by traditional stochastic frontier models do not change from the rankings of the composed errors. As a result, the performance of the deterministic models is qualitatively similar to that of the stochastic frontier models.
Efficient multigrid methods for solving upwind-biased discretizations of the convection equation

This paper studies a novel multigrid approach to the solution for a second-order upwind-biased discretization of the convection equation in two dimensions. This approach is based on semi-coarsening and well-balanced explicit correction terms, added to coarse-grid operators to maintain on coarse grids the same cross-characteristic interaction as on the target (fine) grid. Multicolor relaxation schemes are used on all the levels, allowing a very efficient parallel implementation. The results of the smoothing analysis and numerical tests can be summarized as follows: (1) The residual asymptotic convergence rate is about 3 per cycle, which far surpasses the theoretical limit (4/3) predicted for standard multigrid algorithms with full-coarsening. (2) The full multigrid (FMG) algorithm with two V(0,2) cycles on the target grid and just one V(0,2) cycle on all the coarse grids always provides an approximate solution with the algebraic error less than the discretization error. (3) A novel algorithm for deriving a discrete solution approximating the true continuous solution with a relative accuracy given in advance is developed. The computational complexity of this algorithm is (nearly) optimal (comparable with the complexity of the FMG algorithm applied to solve the problem on the optimally spaced target grid).
Microstructural diagnosis of block copolymer nonlinear mechanical properties I. Uniaxial stress/strain

An earlier study on the linear dynamic properties of triblock copolymers was continued into the nonlinear property regime. Uniaxial tensile tests were performed on styrene-butadiene-styrene block copolymers. The three polymers, having polystyrene (PS) fractions 0.27, 0.29, and 0.48, also represented three molecular weights (0.49, 0.58, and 1.0 × 105). Specimens were prepared by casting from three solvents (methyl ethyl ketone, MEK; cyclohexane; and a 9:1 mixture of tetrahydrofuran and MEK). This wide range of variables led to a correspondingly wide spectrum of properties, including the “plastic-to-rubber” transition in some cases. Stress-strain curves were characterized by modulus, yield stress, general elevation, and fracture stress and elongation. Results were interpreted in terms of microstructural parameters obtained from the earlier linear tests, including interphase properties, and molecular features as well. Special insight emerged from comparison of first-cycle (to 300 percent elongation) and second-cycle tests, including changes in modulus, yielding, level, and the appearance of set. Additional data on sample preparation influences and PS continuity effects on sample properties were also obtained.
Association of CTLA4 polymorphism with regulatory T cell frequency

A common single nucleotide polymorphism in CTLA4 has been linked with susceptibility and outcome in autoimmune and infectious diseases, respectively. Here, we show that this polymorphism is associated with the frequency of CD4(+)CD25(+) regulatory T cells in healthy human volunteers. We further show that, on a per cell basis, such regulatory T cells appear to be functionally indistinguishable across CTLA4 genotypes. These data implicate CTLA4 in regulatory T cell development, and provide a mechanism to account for the link between polymorphisms at this locus and the biological outcome of adaptive immune responses to self and to pathogens.
The impact of physical or sexual abuse on chronic depression in adolescent mothers

Abstract This longitudinal investigation explored the impact of a childhood history of physical and sexual abuse on perinatal depressive symptomatology, suicide attempts, and maternal behavior in an ethnically diverse sample of 95 adolescent mothers. Maternal role attainment theory and the cognitive-interpersonal theory of depression provided the conceptual framework for this study. This investigation helps to expand theory on adolescent maternal role attainment by identifying a relationship between history of abuse, depressive symptoms over time, and maternal role behavior problems. Findings do not indicate that a history of childhood maltreatment alone increases a young mother's risk for maternal-child interaction problems. Copyright © 2000 by W.B. Saunders Company
Performance improvements of the intercooled reheat regenerative gas turbine cycles using indirect evaporative cooling of the inlet air and evaporative cooling of the compressor discharge

AbstractInlet air cooling and cooling of the compressor discharge using water injection boost both efficiency and power of gas turbine cycles. An innovative method of cooling the inlet air (indirect evaporative cooling) is introduced. Six different layouts of the intercooled reheat regenerative gas turbine cycle are presented. Those layouts include the effect of different methods of inlet cooling and evaporative cooling of the compressor discharge (evaporative aftercooling). A parametric study of the effect of turbine inlet temperature, ambient temperature and relative humidity on the performance of all six layouts is carried out. The results indicate that as the turbine inlet temperature increases the optimum pressure ratio increases by 1.5 per 100 K for the regular intercooled reheat regenerative cycle and by 4.2 per 100 K for the intercooled reheat regenerative cycle with evaporative aftercooling. The cycles with evaporative aftercooling have distinctive patterns of performance curves and higher values...
Use of an orientation session may help decrease attrition in a pediatric weight management program for low-income minority adolescents

This study examined predictors of attrition from a pediatric weight-control program in a low-income minority community and the potential usefulness of an orientation session to increase length of treatment. Participants were 342 children and adolescents (M age=13.0 years old; 54% female; 89% African American; M BMI=44.2, M BMI z-score=6.0) and their caregivers who attended FitMatters, a multidisciplinary cognitive-behavioral program focused on long-term participation. Those who attended an orientation session stayed in treatment significantly longer, but attrition was not affected by demographic factors, weight status, or psychological functioning. These results indicate that an orientation session that clearly delineates the structure of a program and expected attitudinal and behavioral requirements for the families may help align expectations, as well as more effectively identify families who are ready to make concerted efforts to change the family lifestyle in support of their obese children's efforts.
Effects of alpha-2-adrenoceptor agonists on induced diuresis in rats.

Abstract The alpha-2 adrenoceptor agonists, clonidine, guanabenz, and guanfacine, injected subcutaneously produced a dose-related diuresis. The maximal effect occured at 2h after administration of clonidine 192 μg/kg or 960 μg/kg of guanabenz and guanfacine. The alpha-2 antagonist, yohimbine, in doses of 1–8 mg/kg administered prior to the agonistscaused a dose- dependent decrease in urine output. The action of the three agonists at alpha-2 adrenoceptors was supported by the observation that the alpha-1 adrenoceptor agonist, prazosin (0.61–2.5 mg/kg), administered prior to each agonist caused an inconsistent decrease in the elevated urinary output caused by clonidine, guanabenz and guanfacine. These results indicate that stimulation of alpha-2 adrenoceptors causes diuresis in the rat.
Effect of Various Pretreatments on Responses to Ephedrine Isomers

Tachyphylactic tendencies of the ephedrine isomers and their interaction with cocaine, methylphenidate, pipradrol, D(−)pseudoephedrine, and guanethidine have been studied in anesthetized, vagotomized, atropinized dogs. Blood pressure and heart rate were recorded. Among the three pressor isomers, D(−)ephedrine was shown to be the isomer most resistant to the development of tachyphylaxis, L(+)pseudoephedrine was shown to have the greatest tendency, while L(+)ephedrine was the isomer with a moderate tendency to tachyphylaxis. Thirty-minute pretreatment with either cocaine, methylphenidate, pipradrol or D(−)pseudoephedrine or 24-hr. pretreatment with guanethidine was observed to produce a surmountable antagonism to the pressor activity of D(−)ephedrine. Similar pretreatment resulted in an insurmountable antagonism to the pressor activity of L (+)ephedrine and L(+)pseudoephedrine; in fact, depressor activity was observed with these isomers. With some exceptions, the pretreatments resulted in parallel antagonisms in the chronotropic effects of the ephedrine isomers.
Ion beam synthesis of buried CdSe nanocrystallites in SiO2 on (100)-silicon

Abstract Nanocrystalline precipitates of the direct band gap II–VI compound semiconductor CdSe were synthesized by sequential high dose ion implantation into thermally grown SiO 2 on (100)-silicon. The implantation doses were chosen to be 4×10 16 and 8×10 16 cm −2 , respectively. Rapid thermal annealing of the as-implanted samples at temperatures of 800 and 1100 °C led to the formation of nanocrystalline randomly oriented precipitates of CdSe buried in an amorphous matrix of SiO 2 . The concentration profile of the implanted elements and the size distribution of the finally formed crystallites were analysed by thin film X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy (RBS). High-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HTEM) cross-section images show that the nanocrystallites are defect-free. Moreover, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images provide direct information on the spatial size distribution of the nanocrystals.
Orientation asymmetry in the flanker task

Experiments 1 and 2 of this study show that when the target is either a vertical or a horizontal line, diagonal-line flankers tilted 45 degrees either to the right or to the left have the same effect as do incongruent flankers. When the target is a diagonal line tilted either to the right or to the left, vertical- or horizontal-line flankers do not have the same effect as do incongruent flankers. Experiment 3 demonstrates that this asymmetry is not caused by the temporal-dynamic aspects of the processing. Together, these experiments suggest that there is an asymmetrical relation between diagonal lines and either vertical or horizontal lines outside of the central focus of attention. Experiment 4 shows that despite this asymmetry in the flanker task, visual search for a vertical- or a horizontal-line target among diagonal-line distractors is not affected by the number of distractors. Possible explanations of this phenomenon are discussed.
Effect of Group B Streptococcal Sepsis on Diaphragmatic Function in Young Piglets

ABSTRACT: Recent studies indicate that diaphragmatic pressure generation (Pdi) is impaired by bacterial infection. However, group B streptococcus (GBS) had no effect on Pdi when infused into 4-wk-old piglets. As responsiveness to GBS is age-dependent, we therefore studied the acute effect of GBS infusion on Pdi, using a younger, 2-wk-old piglet model. Using trans-Pdi with phrenic nerve stimulation, we studied the effect of continuous GBS infusion in seven anesthetized, spontaneously breathing 2-wk-old piglets. Pdi was measured under baseline conditions (50% O2/ 50% N2) and at 1, 2, and 4 h of GBS infusion. GBS was infused at a rate which caused a doubling of the pulmonary artery pressure but which avoided hypotension or acidosis—both of which can decrease Pdi. In addition, the piglets were kept hyperoxic [PaO2 > 13.3 kPa (100 torr)], and no piglet with hypercapnia [PaCO2 > 8.7 kPa (65 torr)] was included, as hypoxia and hypercapnia can also cause respiratory muscle dysfunction. For the GBS group, diaphragmatic contractility declined significantly by 1 h at 30-, 50-, and 100-Hz stimulation frequency and, by 2 h, was significantly decreased at all frequencies. We conclude that 2-wk-old piglets, in contrast to 4-wk-old piglets, demonstrate a decline in Pdi during GBS infusion. These data demonstrate an age-related response to GBS in the piglet. This finding implies that a decline in Pdi during acute GBS infusion is not due to a secondary effect from shock (i.e. acidosis, hypercapnia, or hypoxemia) or due to the catabolic effects of a chronic infection, but is due to a direct effect of sepsis on diaphragmatic muscle function.
Methyl transfer in the reaction of IrMe3(PMe2Ph)3 with Cu(NCMe)4

Abstract Cu(NCMe)4BF4 reacts with fac-IrMe3(PMe2Ph)3 in THF to yield cis,mer- [IrMe2(NCMe)(PMe2Ph)3]BF4, together with an unstable copper product which could not be trapped (added PPh3) and was not further characterized. The geometry of the iridium-containing product was established by detailed multi-nuclear NMR studies, including heteronuclear decoupling. The same product results from a 1 : 1 reaction of fac-IrMe3 (PMe2Ph)3 with HBF4·OEt2 in CH3CN.
Journalism’s digital disconnect: The growth of campaign content and entertainment gatekeepers in viral political information

There is much concern about the long-tail of online political information that now competes with standard news content. Yet we know little about how successfully it does so, and why. From the 2008 US presidential campaign, I develop a rich, original meta-database to map the relationships between the top viral election videos (278 million views) and the known-universe of blogs that linked to them (13,000 links). Through a mixed-method analysis of both content and web metrics, I find that news videos compete with political, entertainment and citizen videos; journalism blogs also compete with political, entertainment, and lifestyle blogs to propagate these new genres of political information. By further analyzing the gatekeeping mechanisms between video and blog categories, I find that online audiences’ civic information preferences help explain the rise of these new participatory political information genres, as well as the ways in which legacy media are struggling to adapt.
The impact of Eastern‐Pacific versus Central‐Pacific El Niños on the North Equatorial Countercurrent in the Pacific Ocean

[1] Using a three-dimensional ocean reanalysis data product, the influence of two types of the El Ninos on the North Equatorial Countercurrent (NECC) across the Pacific basin is examined in this study. Eastern-Pacific El Ninos (EP-El Ninos) exert a significant impact on the interannual changes of the NECC, whereas Central-Pacific El Ninos (CP-El Ninos) have little influence. From the developing to mature phase of the EP-El Ninos that occursfrequently in the latter half of a calendar year, the NECC tends to intensify and shift southward. While the EP-El Nino-related position changes of the NECC is out of phase with its seasonal position changes, the EP-El Nino-related intensity variability of the NECC is in phase with its seasonal modulation. During both types of El Ninos, the El Nino-modulated wind stress curl forcing changes the upper ocean thickness, modifying the NECC intensity and central position. The weaker and shorter fluctuations of wind stress curl forcing during the CP-El Nino events induce irregular and insignificant changes of the NECC.
The full structure of the super W_3 algebra

We investigate a supersymmetric extension of the W3 algebra, which is common to a c=4 free fermion model and to the generic c<4 supersymmetric coset models based on at level (3, m). By using the so-called character technique, we identify a set of eight generating supercurrents of this algebra. For m=1, corresponding to c=10/7, the algebra reduces to the “minimal” super W3 algebra, which has been studied previously.
BMP and TGF-β pathway mediators are critical upstream regulators of Wnt signaling during midbrain dopamine differentiation in human pluripotent stem cells

Although many laboratories currently use small molecule inhibitors of the BMP (Dorsomorphin/DM) and TGF-β (SB431542/SB) signaling pathways in protocols to generate midbrain dopamine (mDA) neurons from hES and hiPS cells, until now, these substances have not been thought to play a role in the mDA differentiation process. We report here that the transient inhibition of constitutive BMP (pSMADs 1, 5, 8) signaling, either alone or in combination with TGF-β inhibition (pSMADs 2, 3), is critically important in the upstream regulation of Wnt1-Lmx1a signaling in mDA progenitors. We postulate that the mechanism via which DM or DM/SB mediates these effects involves the up-regulation in SMAD-interacting protein 1 (SIP1), which results in greater repression of the Wnt antagonist, secreted frizzled related protein 1 (Sfrp1) in stem cells. Accordingly, knockdown of SIP1 reverses the inductive effects of DM/SB on mDA differentiation while Sfrp1 knockdown/inhibition mimics DM/SB. The rise in Wnt1-Lmx1a levels in SMAD-inhibited cultures is, however, accompanied by a reciprocal down-regulation in SHH-Foxa2 levels leading to the generation of few TH+ neurons that co-express Foxa2. If however, exogenous SHH/FGF8 is added along with SMAD inhibitors, equilibrium in these two important pathways is achieved such that authentic (Lmx1a+Foxa2+TH+) mDA neuron differentiation is promoted while alternate cell fates are suppressed in stem cell cultures. These data indicate that activators/inhibitors of BMP and TGF-β signaling play a critical upstream regulatory role in the mDA differentiation process in human pluripotent stem cells.