cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Potential role of copper availability in nitrous oxide accumulation in a temperate lake

Denitrifying bacteria require copper for the synthesis of nitrous oxide reductase. In the absence of sufficient bioavailable Cu, nitrous oxide (N 2 O) may accumulate in natural waters during denitrification. Cultures of Paracoccus denitrificans and natural bacterial assemblages collected from a mesotrophic lake (Linsley Pond) were grown at varying Cu concentrations to determine the Cu speciation that results in elevated N 2 O accumulation. P. denitrificans experienced Cu limitation beginning at inorganic Cu concentrations of 0.6 fmol L -1 (-log of inorganic Cu, pCu', = 15.2). The natural community did not show an effect until pCu' was reduced to 23.7 with 8-hydroxyquinoline, resulting in an approximate 10-fold increase in N 2 O concentrations during denitrification. Additions of ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid alone to natural communities did not affect N 2 O concentrations. Natural copper-binding ligands detected with competitive ligand exchange-cathodic stripping voltammetry occurred at concentrations of 6 to 25 nmol L -1 with conditional stability constants (K Cu2+L ) between 10 14.4 and 10 15.1 . Although more than 99% of total Cu in Linsley Pond was bound to these ligands, inorganic Cu concentrations remained 10 orders of magnitude above those found to increase N 2 O accumulation during denitrification incubations. Measurements of nitrogen species, dissolved oxygen, and sulfide in the water column of Linsley Pond over the spring growing season revealed that N 2 O was produced by assimilatory nitrate reduction and nitrification in addition to denitrification, with nitrification generating most of the N 2 O found in the surface waters of the lake. The results suggest that inorganic Cu concentrations in Linsley Pond are sufficient to support denitrification. Moreover, some denitrifying bacteria may be able to access organically bound Cu, reducing the potential for this metal to affect N 2 O production in other aquatic environments.
ALCAM Regulates Motility, Invasiveness, and Adherens Junction Formation in Uveal Melanoma Cells

ALCAM, a member of the immunoglobulin superfamily, has been implicated in numerous developmental events and has been repeatedly identified as a marker for cancer metastasis. Previous studies addressing ALCAM’s role in cancer have, however, yielded conflicting results. Depending on the tumor cell type, ALCAM expression has been reported to be both positively and negatively correlated with cancer progression and metastasis in the literature. To better understand how ALCAM might regulate cancer cell behavior, we utilized a panel of defined uveal melanoma cell lines with high or low ALCAM levels, and directly tested the effects of manipulating these levels on cell motility, invasiveness, and adhesion using multiple assays. ALCAM expression was stably silenced by shRNA knockdown in a high-ALCAM cell line (MUM-2B); the resulting cells displayed reduced motility in gap-closure assays and a reduction in invasiveness as measured by a transwell migration assay. Immunostaining revealed that the silenced cells were defective in the formation of adherens junctions, at which ALCAM colocalizes with N-cadherin and s-catenin in native cells. Additionally, we stably overexpressed ALCAM in a low-ALCAM cell line (MUM-2C); intriguingly, these cells did not exhibit any increase in motility or invasiveness, indicating that ALCAM is necessary but not sufficient to promote metastasis-associated cell behaviors. In these ALCAM-overexpressing cells, however, recruitment of s-catenin and N-cadherin to adherens junctions was enhanced. These data confirm a previously suggested role for ALCAM in the regulation of adherens junctions, and also suggest a mechanism by which ALCAM might differentially enhance or decrease invasiveness, depending on the type of cadherin adhesion complexes present in tissues surrounding the primary tumor, and on the cadherin status of the tumor cells themselves.
Innovative behavior of firms in a developing country: An empirical study

Abstract It is a widely held notion that innovation is of critical importance for developing countries to achieve industrial progress and economic prosperity. Although this issue has often been tapped in macro-economic studies micro-level examinations have been rather limited. This study explores the influence of the various contextual variables on a firm's innovative behavior. The data are based on 61 medium-to-large firms in Turkey.
Cardiomyocyte imaging using real-time spatial light interference microscopy (SLIM).

Spatial light interference microscopy (SLIM) is a highly sensitive quantitative phase imaging method, which is capable of unprecedented structure studies in biology and beyond. In addition to the π/2 shift introduced in phase contrast between the scattered and unscattered light from the sample, 4 phase shifts are generated in SLIM, by increments of π/2 using a reflective liquid crystal phase modulator (LCPM). As 4 phase shifted images are required to produce a quantitative phase image, the switching speed of the LCPM and the acquisition rate of the camera limit the acquisition rate and, thus, SLIM's applicability to highly dynamic samples. In this paper we present a fast SLIM setup which can image at a maximum rate of 50 frames per second and provide in real-time quantitative phase images at 50/4 = 12.5 frames per second. We use a fast LCPM for phase shifting and a fast scientific-grade complementary metal oxide semiconductor (sCMOS) camera (Andor) for imaging. We present the dispersion relation, i.e. decay rate vs. spatial mode, associated with dynamic beating cardiomyocyte cells from the quantitative phase images obtained with the real-time SLIM system.
Lightweight Hardware Return Address and Stack Frame Tracking to Prevent Function Return Address Attack

Supporting security features in hardware is relatively recent. Adding extra protection at the architectural-level is effective and can improve the existing software protection. In this paper, we discuss the challenges and considerations of adding a security enhancement inside hardware. We also demonstrated a light-weight architecture design change under the constraint to prevent from function return address attack by tracking the active return address and stack frame pointer, and raising a warning upon the return of a function if the return address has been modified. The idea is as effective as other hardware solutions but significantly reduces the hardware changes and performance overhead, and is transparent to software. The preliminary result showed 89% of the return address is covered by our heuristic tracking method.
Identification of novel and conserved functional and structural elements of the G1 cyclin Cln3 important for interactions with the CDK Cdc28 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Regions of the budding yeast G1 cyclin Cln3 were characterized using mutational analysis and viability assays to identify functionally relevant and novel mutant alleles of CLN3. Cyclin proteins are conserved, and Cln3 contains a region with homology to the cyclin box, which is thought to mediate physical interactions with the cyclin-dependent kinase. CLN3 was found to have characteristics similar to the conserved cyclin fold found in higher eukaryotic cyclin boxes, which consist of five α-helices. Peptide linker sequences inserted within helices 1, 2, 3 and 5 resulted in a loss of Cln3 function, showing cyclin fold structure similar to that previously observed for the G1 cyclin Cln2. A clustered-charge-to-alanine scan mutagenesis revealed two regions of Cln3 important for Cln3-dependent viability. The first region encompasses the conserved cyclin box. The second region is identified with alanine substitutions located well past the cyclin box, just prior to the C-terminal region of Cln3 important for protein stability. Cln3 with mutational changes in each of these regions are expressed at steady-state levels higher than wild-type Cln3, and show some defect in binding to Cdc28. The conserved hydrophobic patch domain (HPD) of cyclins is present within the first helix of the cyclin box. Alanine substitutions introduced into the HPD of Cln3 and Cln2 show functional defects while maintaining physical interaction with Cdc28 as measured by co-immunoprecipitation assay. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Convergence of the linear δ expansion in the critical O(N) field theory

The linear $\ensuremath{\delta}$ expansion is applied to the three-dimensional $O(N)$ scalar field theory at its critical point in a way that is compatible with the large-$N$ limit. For a range of the arbitrary mass parameter, the linear $\ensuremath{\delta}$ expansion for $⟨{\stackrel{\ensuremath{\rightarrow}}{\ensuremath{\phi}}}^{2}⟩$ converges, with errors decreasing as a power of the order $n$ in $\ensuremath{\delta}$. If the principal of minimal sensitivity is used to optimize the convergence rate, the errors seem to decrease exponentially with $n$.
Neuman Systems Model-Based Research: An Integrative Review Project

The project integrated Neuman systems model-based research literature. Two hundred published studies were located. This article is limited to the 59 full journal articles and 3 book chapters identified. A total of 37% focused on prevention interventions; 21% on perception of stressors; and 10% on stressor reactions. Only 50% of the reports explicitly linked the model with the study variables, and 61% did not include conclusions regarding model utility or credibility. No programs of research were identified. Academic courses and continuing education workshops are needed to help researchers design programs of Neuman systems model-based research and better explicate linkages between the model and the research.
Site response for Seattle and source parameters of earthquakes in the Puget Sound Region

We analyzed seismograms from 21 earthquakes ( ML 2.0-4.9) recorded by digital seismographs we deployed in urban Seattle to determine site response and earthquake stress drops. The seismometers were situated on a wide variety of geologic units, including artificial fill (e.g., Kingdome, Harbor Island), Pleistocene age soils (glacial till and outwash deposits of Seattle's hills), modified land (downtown Seattle, Space Needle), and Tertiary sedimentary rock. Two mainshock-aftershock sequences were recorded: the June 1997 Bremerton sequence (mainshock ML 4.9) and the February 1997 South Seattle sequence (mainshock ML 3.5), along with other events in the Puget Sound region. We developed a new inversion procedure to estimate site response, source corner frequencies, and seismic moments from the S -wave spectra. This inversion uses corner frequencies determined from spectral ratios of mainshock-aftershock pairs as constraints. The site responses found from the inversion are not relative to the rock site but are relative to an idealized site with a flat frequency response. The response of the rock site is also found from the inversion. The inversion results show high response for the sites on artificial fill, more moderate amplification for most sites on stiff Pleistocene soils or modified land, and low response for the rock site. Some sites display resonances, such as a strong 2-Hz resonance at our site near the Kingdome, which is caused by the surficial layers of fill and younger alluvium. The sites in West Seattle exhibit high amplification, even though they are on relatively stiff soils of glacial outwash. This may be partly caused by basin surface waves produced by conversion of incident S waves. This high response in West Seattle is consistent with damage reports from the 1949 ( mb 7.1) and 1965 ( mb 6.5) earthquakes. Stress-drop estimates for the events we recorded were generally low, between 0.4 and 25 bars, although some of the events may have had higher stress drops that could not be resolved because of the limited passband. We calculated a stress drop of 24 bars for the Bremerton mainshock and 10 bars for the South Seattle mainshock.
Fully-Implicit Interface Tracking for All-Speed Multifluid Flows

A new interface tracking method for all-speed multi-fluid flows is introduced. The key feature of the method is that the interface motion and fluid dynamics are fully-(non-linearly)-coupled, which allows to completely eliminate operator-splitting temporal errors. The direct benefits of this treatment are a) the method is L-stable, permitting time steps controlled only by accuracy requirements; b) the method is high-order-accurate in time; c) the method is fully-conservative, even at the interface, and robust (no pressure-velocity oscillations, in difference to previous attempts for conservative interface tracking). The keys to these advantages are the high-order sharp cut-cell-based interface treatment combined with implicit Runge-Kutta (ESDIRK) scheme within the physics-based-preconditioned Jacobian-free Newton-Krylov method (JFNK) [KK03]. Interfaces are tracked by hybridizing the Lagrangian Marker tracking with the Eulerian JFNK-based Re-Distancing/Level-Set algorithm (MRD/LS) [NKMK08]; all nonlinearly coupled with the JFNK-based “recovery Discontinous Galerkin” (rDG-JFNK) for all-speed fluid flows [NTPMK08, PNMK08].
Computer technology and knowledge workers: a pilot study of job impact

Abstract There is general agreement that the rapid spread of computing technology to ‘end-users’ across a variety of occupations will have profound impact on the future working life of almost every individual. There is however much disagreement on what the nature of that impact will be. During a pilot study on end-user computing we conducted in-depth interviews with 12 ‘knowledge workers’ about the impact of computer technology on their jobs and their working life. One objective of the research was to get a clearer understanding of how people individually feel about their jobs and their use of computers. From their experiences and drawing on the research of others, the author identifies four job impacts. These are not meant to be an exhaustive list, but rather frame the range and quality of impact as the people who work with the technology have described it. Two of these impacts seem to be unique to information or ‘intellectual technologies’ that support knowledge workers, while two appear to be more universal themes of technological change. Identifying these dominant impacts provides a more focused picture of how individuals are currently coping with the infusion of computer technology and at the same time what they speculate about the future of working life in an information-intensive age.
Modulation of human risky decision making by flunitrazepam

GABA-modulating drugs produce disinhibitory effects that increase the probability of risk-taking behavior. Previous reports suggest that the misuse of the benzodiazepine flunitrazepam is associated with several forms of harmful risky behavior, including theft, violence, and intoxication-related auto accidents. The present study examined the dose–response relationships between acute flunitrazepam administration and human decision making under conditions of risk. The analyses also examined flunitrazepam-mediated changes in decision-making processes using a computational modeling approach, the expectancy valence model (EVM). Using a laboratory measure of risky decision making designed to address acute drug effects, 12 adults were administered placebo, 0.5, 1.0, and 2.0 mg/70 kg flunitrazepam in a within-subject, repeated measures counterbalanced design. Flunitrazepam was compounded and doses were administered in an 8-oz liquid solution. Primary data analyses examined subjective effects, response rates, distribution of choices between the risky and nonrisky option, and personality correlates related to peak drug effects. Individual-subject data were submitted to a computational modeling analysis (EVM) that provided parameter estimates corresponding to components of valence; updating expectancies about alternatives (learning/memory); and consistency between choices and expected outcomes (sensitivity to learned outcomes). Flunitrazepam produced dose-related changes in subjective effects and response rates, and increased selection of the risky response option. High doses significantly changed decision-making processes related to the learning/memory and consistency parameters. At sufficiently high doses, flunitrazepam can engender increases in risky decision making. Globally, these changes appear similar to previous effects we have observed after acute administration of alcohol and alprazolam. As suggested by the EVM outcomes, the mechanisms underlying the changes in risky decision making are more similar to alprazolam than alcohol.
Rapid Evolution of β-Glucuronidase Specificity by Saturation Mutagenesis of an Active Site Loop

Abstract Protein engineers have widely adopted directed evolution as a design algorithm, but practitioners have not come to a consensus about the best method to evolve protein molecular recognition. We previously used DNA shuffling to direct the evolution of Escherichia coli β-glucuronidase (GUS) variants with increased β-galactosidase activity. Epistatic (synergistic) mutations in amino acids 557, 566, and 568, which are part of an active site loop, were identified in that experiment (Matsumura, I., and Ellington, A. D. (2001) J. Mol. Biol. 305, 331–339). Here we show that site saturation mutagenesis of these residues, overexpression of the resulting library in E. coli, and high throughput screening led to the rapid evolution of clones exhibiting increased activity in reactions with p-nitrophenyl-β-d-xylopyranoside (pNP-xyl). The xylosidase activities of the 14 fittest clones were 30-fold higher on average than that of the wild-type GUS. The 14 corresponding plasmids were pooled, amplified by long PCR, self-ligated with T4 DNA ligase, and transformed into E. coli. Thirteen clones exhibiting an average of 80-fold improvement in xylosidase activity were isolated in a second round of screening. One of the evolved proteins exhibited a ∼200-fold improvement over the wild type in reactivity (kcat/Km) with pNP-xyl, with a 290,000-fold inversion of specificity. Sequence analysis of the 13 round 2 isolates suggested that all were products of intermolecular recombination events that occurred during whole plasmid PCR. Further rounds of evolution using DNA shuffling and staggered extension process (StEP) resulted in modest improvement. These results underscore the importance of epistatic interactions and demonstrate that they can be optimized through variations of the facile whole plasmid PCR technique.
High-accuracy circuits for on-chip capacitive ratio testing and sensor readout

This paper presents novel CMOS switched-capacitor circuits for high-accuracy, on-chip capacitive-ratio testing and sensor readout. Using sigma-delta and correlated-double-sampling (CDS) techniques, these circuits provide accurate digitized capacitive-ratio readout. Both single-ended and fully differential circuits are presented. Simulation results show that the resolution can be as fine as 100 aF for 10 pF capacitors. Single-ended circuit and fully-differential circuits were implemented and tested. The measured standard deviation was below 20 aF when 10 pF capacitors were tested.
Imageless Refuge for All Images: Scholem in the Wake of Philosophy

I was struck by the impoverishment of what people were fond of designating as the philosophy of Judaism. The only three authors I knew—Saadia Ga’on, Maimonides, and Hermann Cohen—annoyed me, in that they saw their primary function as setting up antitheses to myth and pantheism and disproving them. It would have been more beneficial had they attempted to raise them to a higher level within which they would be negated. . . . It is not difficult to prove that myth and pantheism are mistaken. . . . It seemed to me that here [in the Kabbalah] . . . there was a realm of associations that should touch on our most human experiences.1
Automated mapping of regular communication graphs on mesh interconnects

Network contention has a significantly adverse effect on the performance of parallel applications with increasing size of parallel machines. Machines of the petascale era are forcing application developers to map tasks intelligently to job partitions to achieve the best performance possible. This paper presents a framework for automated mapping of parallel applications with regular communication graphs to two and three dimensional mesh and torus networks. This framework will save much effort on the part of application developers to generate mappings for their individual applications. One component of the framework is a process topology analyzer to find regular patterns and if found, to determine the dimensions of the communication graphs of applications. The other component is a suite of heuristic techniques for mapping 2D object grids to 2D and 3D processor meshes. The framework chooses the best heuristic from the suite for a given object grid and processor mesh pair based on the hop-bytes metric. We show performance improvements using the framework, for a 2D Stencil benchmark in MPI and the Weather Research and Forecasting model running on the IBM Blue Gene/P. We also compare our algorithms with others discussed in literature.
Fraud and abuse--an overview.

T he health care industry is changing rapidly, causing great turbulence. The current environment is becoming increasingly complex from efforts to curb fraud and abuse. According to Gatty,1 “Despite all the efforts by the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) and the publicity about its crackdown on Medicare fraud and abuse, the General Accounting Office ... noted that, of the $169.5 billion in fiscal year 1999 Medicare fee-for-service claim payments, an estimated $13.5 billion, or about 8%, was paid improperly.”
Rejection Sensitivity, Perceived Power and HIV Risk in the Relationships of Low-Income Urban Women

The psychological processes associated with HIV infection in long-term relationships differ from those operative in casual sexual encounters, and relatively little research has considered the aspects of personality applicable in the ongoing heterosexual relationships in which women are at greatest risk. Sensitivity to rejection has been linked with efforts to prevent rejection at a cost to the self and, therefore, may be relevant to the health risks that many women incur in relationships. We examined the association of rejection sensitivity with women’s sexual risk behavior in a sample of women at heightened risk for HIV exposure. Women in long-term heterosexual relationships (N = 159) were recruited for study participation in the hospital emergency room serving a low-income neighborhood in New York City, in 2001–2003. Rejection sensitivity and known HIV risk factors were assessed using verbally administered questionnaires. Rejection sensitivity was associated with lower perceived relationship power and, ...
NK Cell Function in the Human Female Reproductive Tract

Problem Uterine NK cells have a unique phenotype compared with blood NK cell subsets, yet little is known about how NK cells function as a part of the innate immune cell network in the female reproductive tract. Method of Study The expression of key receptors and function of uterine NK cells in response to cytokines, sex hormones, and pathogen associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) was analyzed. This article summarizes recent findings on the biology and function of NK cells in the female reproductive tract. Results Uterine NK cells express Toll-like receptors and respond to cytokines and PAMPs under specific conditions. Evidence indicates that NK cells play an important role in the reorganization of blood vessels during pregnancy. Conclusions Human uterine NK cells are a major population of leukocytes in the endometrium and play an important role as a component of host defense and in successful reproduction.
Capture by Fear Revisited: An Electrophysiological Investigation

The present study, using a cueing paradigm, reexamined the claim of an attentional bias towards fearful faces. In Experiment 1, participants searched a target display for a letter in a specific colour. This target display was preceded by a noninformative cue display, which contained coloured boxes (one in the target colour and one in the distractor colour) or emotional faces (one fearful face and one neutral face). Each cue could appear in the same location as the target (validly cued) or different (invalidly cued). To determine whether the cues captured attention, we used an electrophysiological measure of spatial attention known as the N2pc effect. The target colour cue produced a substantial N2pc effect and a robust cue validity effect on behavioural data, indicating capture by stimuli that match what participants are looking for. However, neither effect was present for the task-irrelevant fearful face cue. These findings suggest that negative stimuli (such as fearful facial expressions) do not general...
Fault Tolerance and Load Balancing in QoS Provisioning with Multiple MPLS Paths

The paper presents approaches for fault tolerance and load balancing in QoS provisioning using multiple alternate paths. The proposed multiple QoS path computation algorithm searches for maximally disjoint (i.e., minimally overlapped) multiple paths such that the impact of link/node failures becomes significantly reduced, and the use of multiple paths renders QoS services more robust in unreliable network conditions. The algorithm is not limited to finding fully disjoint paths. It also exploits partially disjoint paths by carefully selecting and retaining common links in order to produce more options. Moreover, it offers the benefits of load balancing in normal operating conditions by deploying appropriate call allocation methods according to traffic characteristics. In all cases, all the computed paths must satisfy given multiple QoS constraints. Simulation experiments with IP Telephony service illustrate the fault tolerance and load balancing features of the proposed scheme.
Peripheral Venoconstriction During Acceleration and Orthostasis

Active peripheral venous constriction has been demonstrated in dogs by a miniature balloon technic. The magnitude of the venoconstrictor response to acceleration on the centrifuge was strongly correlated with the animal's ability to maintain arterial pressure, suggesting the importance of contraction of the venous reservoir in the support of cardiac output under a hydrostatic load.
Gradient flow adaptive beamforming and signal separation in a miniature microphone array

Gradient flow converts the problem of separating unknown delayed mixtures of sources, from traveling waves impinging on .an array of sensors, into a simpler problem of separating unknown instantaneous mixtures of the time-differentiated sources, obtained by acquiring or computing spatial and temporal derivatives on the array. The linear coefficients in the instantaneous mixture directly represent the delays, which in tum determine the direction angles of the sources. This formulation is attractive, since it allows to separate and localize waves of broadband signals using standard tools of independent component analysis (ICA), yielding the sources along with their direction angles. The technique is suited for arrays of small aperture, with dimensions shorter than the coherence length of the waves. We present gradient flow experiments on an array of four hearing aid microphones placed within a 5 mm radius, yielding 20 dB separation of joint speech in outdoors acoustic environments, and 10 dB separation indoors under mild reverberant conditions. These results suggest applications of gradient flow miniature microphone arrays to intelligent hearing aids with adaptive suppression of interfering signals and nonstationary noise.
Cold tolerance in Arabidopsis kamchatica.

UNLABELLED • PREMISE OF THE STUDY Cold tolerance is a critically important factor determining how plants will be influenced by climate change, including changes in snowcover and extreme weather events. Although a great deal is known about cold tolerance in Arabidopsis thaliana, it is not highly cold tolerant. This study examined cold tolerance and its genetic diversity in an herbaceous subarctic relative, Arabidopsis kamchatica, which generally occurs in much colder climates.• METHODS Thermal analysis and electrolyte leakage were used to estimate supercooling points and lethal temperatures (LT50) in cold-acclimated and nonacclimated families from three populations of A. kamchatica.• KEY RESULTS Arabidopsis kamchatica was highly cold tolerant, with a mean LT50 of -10.8°C when actively growing, and -21.8°C when cold acclimated. It also was able to supercool to very low temperatures. Surprisingly, actively growing plants supercooled more than acclimated plants (-14.7 vs. -12.7°C). There was significant genetic variation for cold tolerance both within and among populations. However, both cold tolerance and genetic diversity were highest in the midlatitude population rather than in the far north, indicating that adaptations to climate change are most likely to arise in the center of the species range rather than at the edges.• CONCLUSIONS Arabidopsis kamchatica is highly cold tolerant throughout its range. It is far more freeze tolerant than A. thaliana, and supercooled to lower temperatures, suggesting that A. kamchatica provides a valuable complement to A. thaliana for cold tolerance research.
Distribution of the Isopropylmalate Pathway to Leucine Among Diverse Bacteria

Abstract α-Isopropylmalate synthase and β-isopropylmalate dehydrogenase activities were detected in extracts of the following organisms: Chromatium D, Rhodopseudomonas spheroides, Hydrogenomonas H16, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Pseudomonas fluorescens, Vibrio extorquens, Rhizobium japonicum, Alcaligenes viscolactis, Escherichia coli B, Proteus vulgaris, Aerobacter aerogenes, Salmonella typhimurium, Micrococcus sp., Micrococcus lysodeikticus, Bacillus polymyxa, Bacillus subtilis, and Nocardia opaca. The α-isopropylmalate synthase activity in these extracts was inhibited by low concentrations of l-leucine. Taken together with other data, these results suggest that the isopropylmalate pathway is widespread among organisms that can synthesize leucine.
Incivility, retention and new graduate nurses: an integrated review of the literature

Aim To evaluate the influence of incivility on the new graduate nurse transition experience. Background Incivility in the work environment is a major source of dissatisfaction and new graduate nurses are especially vulnerable. Incivility contributes to the high levels of turnover associated within the first 2 years of new graduate nurse employment. Evaluation An integrated review of the literature was conducted using MEDLINE-EBSCOhost, PsycInfo and CINAHL databases. Relevant articles were reviewed for appropriateness related to inclusion/exclusion criteria and for quality using established criteria. Sixteen studies were included in the final analysis. Key issues Themes that emerged included workplace incivility, nurse residency programmes, mentoring through preceptors and empowerment/work environment. Findings indicated that incivility in the workplace was a significant predictor of low job satisfaction in new graduate nurses transitioning into practice. Conclusions While graduate nurse transition programmes are associated with improved satisfaction and retention, they appear to address incivility by acculturating new graduate nurses to the experience of incivility. There is little evidence that the culture of incivility has been addressed. Implications for nursing management Nurse managers have the responsibility to be aware of the prevalence of incivility, assess for its occurrence, and implement strategies which eliminate workplace incivility and tolerance for uncivil behaviours.
Can existing climate models be used to study anthropogenic changes in tropical cyclone climate

The utility of current generation climate models for studying the influence of greenhouse warming on the tropical storm climatology is examined. A method developed to identify tropical cyclones is applied to a series of model integrations. The global distribution of tropical storms is simulated by these models in a generally realistic manner. While the model resolution is insufficient to reproduce the fine structure of tropical cyclones, the simulated storms become more realistic as resolution is increased. To obtain a preliminary estimate of the response of the tropical cyclone climatology, CO2 was doubled using models with varying cloud treatments and different horizontal resolutions. In the experiment with prescribed cloudiness, the number of storm-days, a combined measure of the number and duration of tropical storms, undergoes a statistically significant increase in the doubled-CO2 climate. In contrast, a smaller but significant reduction of the number of storm-days is indicated in the experiment with cloud feedback. In both cases the response is independent of horizontal resolution. While the inconclusive nature of these experimeital results highlights the uncertainties that remain in examining the details of greenhouse gas induced climate change, the ability of the models to qualitatively simulate the tropical storm climatology suggests that they are appropriate tools for this problem.
Long-term responses of the grassland co-dominants Andropogon gerardii and Sorghastrum nutans to changes in climate and management

Understanding responses of both dominant and sub-dominant plant speciesto management regimes and climatic variables is a critical component ofunderstanding an ecosystem's potential response to local or regional changes insuch parameters. The dominant vegetation of much of the North Americantallgrassprairie is composed of C4 grasses. As the most abundant species,Andropogon gerardii has been well characterizedecologically. The second most abundant, co-dominant species,Sorghastrum nutans, has received less attention, mainlybecause it has been considered the “ecological equivalent” ofA. gerardii and is assumed to have responses similar tothose of A. gerardii. The objective of this study was toassess the validity of this assumption by examining long-term abundancepatternsand responses to climate, fire, and grazing for both species. Based on 15 years(1983–1997) of plant species composition and cover data collected atKonzaPrairie Biological Station in northeastern Kansas, USA, we were able to detectimportant differences between these two grasses. Regression analysis showedthatlong-term reductions in the cover of A. gerardii werecorrelated with decreasing summer maximum temperatures, whereas inter-annualvariations in the cover of S. nutans were related toannualprecipitation. Additionally, the cover of S. nutansincreased with increasing fire frequency, while the cover of A.gerardii was not significantly affected by fire frequency. Bisongrazing did not significantly affect the cover of either species studied. Themean cover of A. gerardii decreased significantly over the15 years, but only a slight change was noted in the cover of S.nutans. The decrease in A. gerardiicorrespondedto increased plant species diversity and evenness and has the potential toimpact the tallgrass prairie ecosystem from population through ecosystemlevels.The observed differences in these co-dominant species may prove important underclimate change scenarios predicted for the tallgrass prairie of North America.
Policies for neural prosthetic control: Initial experiments with a text interface

Neural interfaces use estimates of brain or muscle activity to generate control inputs for a prosthetic device. Most previous work focuses on estimating neural activity more accurately. This paper focuses on generating bette control inputs. It shows that changing the dynamic response of a prosthetic device can make specific tasks easier to accomplish. It also presents experimental results for which neural activity is measured using surface electromyography, the prosthetic is a 1-D cursor, and the task is to spell words from a menu of characters.
An Empirical Study of the Twenty-Year Patent Term

The new twenty-year patent term has engendered considerable controversy. A number of inventors have complained that the new patent term may reduce patent protection because some applications spend a number of years in “prosecution” before the PTO. Under the old law, delay in processing an application did not hurt the patentee, but under the new rule, each day spent in prosecuting the patent is a day of protection lost. The purpose of this study is to evaluate in a neutral and systematic way the likely effects of the new law. I conclude that on average, and for most industries, the new law gives more protection to patentees than the old law. However, there is some question as to whether the biotechnology industry will receive less protection under the new law. I conclude that there is no significant relationship between the length of time a patent spends in prosecution and whether it will be judged valid in the courts. Finally, the study produces some interesting data about the problem of “submarine patents.”
A 1.5 Ghz VLIW DSP CPU with Integrated Floating Point and Fixed Point Instructions in 40 nm CMOS

A next generation VLIW DSP Central Processing Unit (CPU) which has an integrated fixed point and floating point Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) is presented. It is designed to meet a 1.5 GHz core clock frequency in a 40nm process with aggressive area and power goals. In this paper, the benchmarking process and benefits of newly defined instructions such as complex matrix multiply is explained. Also, the CPU data path is described in detail, highlighting several novel micro-architecture features. Finally, our design methodology as well as verification methodology to ensure functional correctness utilizing formal equivalent verification is described.
Collisional Energy Transfer between Hot Pyrazine and Cold CO: A Classical Trajectory Study †

Vibrational energy transfer from hot pyrazine (E‘ = 40 322 cm-1) to cold CO is modeled using classical trajectories. Collisional energy transfer properties are studied as a function of the initial rotational state J‘ of the CO, the length of the CO, the energy E‘ in pyrazine, the relative kinetic energy, the temperature, isotopic substitution on pyrazine, and the intermolecular potential. The energy transfer probability function P(E,E‘) exhibits distinct deviation from single exponential behavior. Collisions that transfer particularly large energy are associated with large amplitude out-of-plane motion of a C−H bond, imparting a kick to the departing CO. Slower collisions are particularly effective in relaxing pyrazine; faster collisions can add energy as often as they remove it. Energy transfer properties also depend on the initial rotational state of the CO. Temperature effects on 〈E − E‘〉 are weak in the 200−500 K range; this results from an increase in the magnitudes of both 〈ΔE〉down and 〈ΔE〉up. The f...
Are marine protected areas a red herring or fisheries panacea

Chronic failures in marine fisheries management have led some to suggest that marine protected areas (MPAs) are the solution to achieve sustainable fisheries. While such systems work for certain ha...
Adding fault-tolerance to algorithms for weak consistency

As the number of processors increases, so does communication latency and the probability of component failure. A technique that addresses these problems is data replication, which provides faster access and greater availability. Its drawback is that the replicas must be kept consistent. The author describes a family of fault-tolerant algorithms for maintaining the consistency of cacheable data. Processors specify the consistency requirements, strong or weak, of their shared data. Data are kept consistent by a fault-tolerant multicast protocol. The protocol ensures the reliable delivery of operations on strongly consistent data. Weakly consistent data updates are inserted as operation prologues. Depending on the consistency policy, the execution of an operation causes cached data to be either invalidated or updated. >
Myoelectric control of the colon.

Recent myoelectric studies support an old view that the colon, like the stomach, is made up of several functionally distinct regions. Gastrointestinal electromyography has enhanced understanding of contractions and flow in the stomach and small intestine, but the colon has been neglected. Smooth muscle electrophysiology began with the study of the tenia coli of the guinea pig. The study of that muscle, however, has done little to explain contractions and flow in the colon. The term "flow," unless suitably modified, will be used in this review to mean simply the movement of luminal contents without regard to direction or pattern. Also, the term "peristalsis" will be used only to mean moving ring contractions.
Time-Resolved Modeling of Growing Carbon Nanotube Forests

A two-dimensional mechanical model of actively growing carbon nanotube (CNT) forests is developed and used to perform a parametric growth study examining the effects of CNT diameter, growth rate distribution, and orientation angle distribution on the resulting CNT forest morphology. The CNT forest alignment is quantified using the Hermans Orientation Factor (HOF). Each CNT within the forest is modeled as a series of interconnected linear elastic Euler-Bernoulli beams elements, each with six degrees of freedom corresponding to angular rotation, an axial displacement, and a transverse displacement at each of two nodes. Individual CNTs within the forest grow at a constant rate at discrete time steps. When CNTs are within sufficient proximity, a van der Waals potential is established to maintain intimate contact between adjacent CNTs. The van der Waals interaction is modeled as a linear elastic element located between nodes in close proximity. Mismatches in the growth rate and orientation of contacting CNTs leads to translation, rotation, and buckling of constituent CNTs. The resulting morphology of the simulated forests is similar in appearance to experimentally grown CNT forests. The model represents a new methodology for studying CNT forest growth kinetics, and the resultant CNT forests may be further subjected to mechanical, thermal, and electrical evaluation.Copyright © 2014 by ASME
Mass Migration of Spiny Lobster, Panulirus argus (Crustacea: Palinuridae): Synopsis and Orientation

During autumnal mass migrations of spiny lobster in the northern Bahamas, large numbers move from the shallows to the areas fringing oceanic waters (e.g., the Gulf Stream). The phenomenon involves nocturnal immigration of lobsters over several weeks into the fringe. Concurrent with the first severe autumnal squall, the population moves synchronously in queue formations often both day and night. Thermal declines caused by the storms correlate statistically with onset of hyperactivity and queuing in captive lobsters. Lobsters becoming active facilitate others to queue up; queuing behavior serves migration by reducing hydrodynamic drag on each individual. Hydrodynamic stimuli, water currents and wave surge oscillations, serve as orientational guideposts under certain conditions.
Prescribing thiamine to inpatients with alcohol use disorders: how well are we doing?

Objectives Thiamine deficiency is a potentially dangerous sequela of alcohol use disorders (AUDs). European and British guidelines recommend administering high-dose parenteral thiamine 3 times daily to avoid consequences of thiamine deficiency such as Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome (WKS), and suggest that traditional thiamine dosages are likely inadequate. Research into thiamine and WKS has lagged in the United States, and to date, no study has examined how thiamine is prescribed to inpatients with AUD in an American hospital. Methods Thiamine prescribing data (amount, route, and frequency schedule) were collected for inpatients at a large, American, teaching hospital, who were referred to the addiction psychiatry service for AUD. Data were analyzed using Statistical Product and Service Solutions. Results A total of 217 inpatients with AUD were included. A substantial percentage of them were not prescribed thiamine. Of those who were prescribed thiamine, nearly all were prescribed oral thiamine at traditional dosages, including high-risk patients. Conclusions This is the first study to report on the prescribing of thiamine to inpatients with AUD at an American teaching hospital. It serves to confirm what many already suspected: that more education is needed to improve the diagnostic challenges of WKS, the detection of risk factors for WKS, and the adequate dosing of thiamine for prevention and treatment of WKS.
Toward Representational Sovereignty: Rewards and Challenges of Indigenous Media in the A’uwẽ-Xavante Communities of Eténhiritipa-Pimentel Barbosa

Focusing on the communities of Etenhiritipa-Pimentel Barbosa of eastern Mato Grosso, Brazil, this article considers the tremendous shift that has taken place over the last twenty-five years in A’uw ẽ- Xavante peoples’ use of audio-visual media to achieve greater representational sovereignty. It discusses the adoption of video in the context of A’uwẽ - Xavante ideologies and gendered patterns of dealing with the outside and their prior use of cassette technology. This case demonstrates that, while the adoption of new media has not proven to be the final assault in a Faustian bargain with modernity, media makers face a number of significant challenges and dilemmas, specifically curating, archiving, and also securing and sustaining financial and technological support. Partnerships and collaborations are essential but their often-precarious nature presents difficulties. Dedication, persistence, creativity and adaptability are assets community members draw upon in responding to challenges. Media makers are increasingly gaining more control and are now training the next generation of youths; young people are using new social media, as well as video and film, to achieve greater representational sovereignty.
Distributed Subspace Consensus in the Presence of Dynamic In-Network Disturbance

This paper studies distributed strategies for average-consensus of arbitrary vectors in multiagent systems, when the interagent information exchange is corrupted by the agents states within the same network. In particular, each neighboring state received by an agent has an additive component that consists of projections of the states at other agents; the agents corrupting this exchange are unknown to the receiving agent and may also change over time. We model such in-network disturbance with a dynamic disturbance graph over the agents, in addition to the static graph over which consensus is implemented. The problem in its full generality is quite challenging and in an attempt to simplify, we assume two particular disturbance cases: 1) sender based and 2) receiver based . In the former case, we assume that the (null spaces of the) projection subspaces are only known at the senders; while in the latter case, we assume this knowledge only at the receivers. We provide a concrete example of static, flat-fading multiple-input multiple-output channels to support this disturbance model. In the aforementioned context, we cast an algebraic structure over the disturbance subspaces and show that the average is reachable in a subspace whose dimension is complementary to the maximal dimension of the disturbance subspaces. To develop the results, we introduce the notion of information alignment to align the intended message to the null space of the unintended disturbance. We derive the conditions under which this alignment is invertible, that is, the intended message can be recovered. A major contribution of this work is to show that local protocols exist for (subspace) consensus even when the disturbance over the network spans the entire vector space.