cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Glycemic Metrics and Targets in Kidney Disease

While intensive glycemic management has been shown to delay the onset and progression of kidney disease, optimal glycemic targets in the setting of diabetic kidney disease (DKD) remain controversial. A variety of factors associated with kidney disease and/or the uremic state can impact the accuracy and interpretability of currently available glycemic measures. Alterations in erythrocyte survival time, hemoglobin concentrations, and other factors likely bias glycated hemoglobin (A1C) values to lower levels in people with DKD, yet A1C remains a key monitoring parameter recommended to inform the glycemic management of people with DKD. The optimal A1C target for patients with DKD, however, remains controversial. Evidence suggests that overly aggressive A1C targets in advanced DKD may contribute to increased risk of mortality. Several observational studies have reported a “U-shaped” relationship between A1C and mortality, with current epidemiological data suggesting that relatively conservative A1C targets may be desirable. Patients with DKD are additionally known to be at particular risk for hypoglycemia, and hypoglycemia avoidance is an important priority when establishing glycemic targets. Given the emphasis on individualized glycemic targets in all people with diabetes, and when considering the interpretive difficulties at play in the setting of DKD, patient-derived glucose data obtained via self-monitoring of blood glucose remains a crucial tool to consolidate therapeutic goals. With additional study and experience, other current and evolving methods of glycemic assessment may prove beneficial in the management of overall glycemic control in the setting of kidney disease.
Behavioral Model of Silicon Photonics Microring with Unequal Ring and Bus Widths

Microring resonators (MRR) with non-identical ring and bus waveguide widths are easier to fabricate as they allow for larger gaps. For effective design exploration, we propose a new behavioral model for the directional coupler of an MRR with non-identical ring and bus widths, which can be used to calculate the MRR design performace. The analysis shows that the proposed modeling technique matches the corresponding 3D FDTD simulations well.
P567 Leukaemia cutis: a rare manifestation of acute lymphoblastic leukemia

Leukaemia cutis is a broad term used to describe any cutaneous presentation of leukaemia. It is the infiltration of neoplastic leukocytes or their precursors into the epidermis, the dermis, or the subcutis. The appearance of these lesions is variable and may include flesh–coloured to violaceous papules, plaques, or nodules. We present the case report of a 4-year-old Caucasian girl who presented with a cutaneous lesion which ultimately led to the diagnosis of leukaemia (ALL). Our patient first presented to the Emergency Department of her local unit with complaints of right ankle pain and swelling which persisted after a minor injury. She was treated conservatively, and pain resolved over a month. FBC was normal, and she had a CRP of 31 and an ESR of 83, which were normal on repeat bloods after 2 weeks. She represented 4 months later complaining of painful wrists. There was a well-demarcated soft tissue swelling above the right supraorbital ridge, which was raised, had a bluish hue and measured approximately 3 × 1 cm. Parents had initially noticed an area of hypopigmentation which subsequently developed into the swelling described. There was no history of weight loss, pallor, easy bruising, night sweats or excessive fatigue. She was a previously healthy child. She was admitted for medical investigations to out rule connective tissue disorders and malignancy. Blood investigations were normal and abdominal ultrasound showed no masses or hepatomegaly. Cranial CT imaging revealed a 3 × 1 cm soft tissue swelling with no attachment to the underlying bone. A biopsy of the rapidly enlarging lesion revealed blasts cells, consistent with a diagnosis of precursor B-cell leukaemia. Subsequent blood tests confirmed the presence of circulating blasts, despite serial full blood counts over the previous 7 months being normal. She was commenced on UK ALL Regimen A Protocol. The skin lesion involuted with treatment. The annual incidence of leukaemias in children is 4.5 cases per 100,000 children. Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia accounts for approximately 77% of cases. The common presentations in this age group are pallor, irritability and bone pain. Leukaemia cutis can be a rare presenting sign of ALL (3% of cases).
Progress with interferometric fiber optic gyro at Honeywell

Interferometric fiber optic gyroscopes (IFOGs) have been in production for many years and for a given size, weight and power it has demonstrated higher performance than other sensors technologies. This is due to the use of relatively long fiber optic coils with small diameter, providing high performance and small size. Several IFOG developers, including Honeywell, are using new error-reduction techniques and improved component technologies to advance the technology. A review of the reported performance advancements will be presented, as well as a discussion of IFOG long life reliability. With new component technologies that are stable performance over life, compensation techniques can be used to further improve gyro performance capability.
Deep reinforcement learning approach for autonomous vehicle systems for maintaining security and safety using LSTM-GAN

Abstract The success of autonomous vehicles ( A V h s ) depends upon the effectiveness of sensors being used and the accuracy of communication links and technologies being employed. But these sensors and communication links have great security and safety concerns as they can be attacked by an adversary to take the control of an autonomous vehicle by influencing their data. Especially during the state estimation process for monitoring of autonomous vehicles' dynamics system, these concerns require immediate and effective solution. In this paper we present a new adversarial deep reinforcement learning algorithm (NDRL) that can be used to maximize the robustness of autonomous vehicle dynamics in the presence of these attacks. In this approach the adversary tries to insert defective data to the autonomous vehicle's sensor readings so that it can disrupt the safe and optimal distance between the autonomous vehicles traveling on the road. The attacker tries to make sure that there is no more safe and optimal distance between the autonomous vehicles, thus it may lead to the road accidents. Further attacker can also add fake data in such a way that it leads to reduced traffic flow on the road. On the other hand, autonomous vehicle will try to defend itself from these types of attacks by maintaining the safe and optimal distance i.e. by minimizing the deviation so that adversary does not succeed in its mission. This attacker-autonomous vehicle action reaction can be studied through the game theory formulation with incorporating the deep learning tools. Each autonomous vehicle will use Long-Short-Term-Memory (LSTM)-Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) models to find out the anticipated distance variation resulting from its actions and input this to the new deep reinforcement learning algorithm (NDRL) which attempts to reduce the variation in distance. Whereas attacker also chooses deep reinforcement learning algorithm (NDRL) and wants to maximize the distance variation between the autonomous vehicles.
Outdoor Auditory Wearable Interfaces: Bone Conduction Communication

Our senses not only connect us to the world around us but also protect us from harm. On any given day, we are involved in numerous activities and communication tasks but we are also exposed to a wide range of potential dangers. Whether it be hazardous toxins, slippery roads, or reckless acts that place us in such situations, our senses allow us to perceive threats in advance and provide us the opportunity to defend ourselves. However, technological advances created to make our lives better have frequently become double-edged swords limiting the effectiveness of our sensory shield by absorbing our attention and distracting us from receiving environmental warnings. Such situations recently became more prevalent and dangerous due to the wide-spread use of computers and digital technology in all aspects of our lives. For example, the use of smartphones with cellular, texting and media player capabilities, and portable computers with related visual and audio contents frequently detract us from hearing surrounding activities, which becomes especially dangerous in outdoor and hostile environments. However, in such situations, the utilization of active or open-ear wearable interfaces, such as bone conduction systems, can enable users to attend to streams of technology-based communication and/or entertainment (e.g., directions, phone conversations, music) without compromising their ability to sense the natural world and all of its salient beauty and danger. This chapter provides an introduction to auditory wearable devices, with a specific focus on bone conduction hearing and bone conduction head-mounted devices, while discussing auditory wearable device applications in outdoor environments in the context of human-computer interactions.
Microbiology and Physiology of the Rumen and Its Response to Different Feeding Strategies

The rumen is inhabited by a complex and highly competitive microbial population composed predominantly of strictly anaerobic bacteria (1010 to 1011/g ruminal contents) and protozoa (HP to 107/g) with smaller numbers (~104/g) of anaerobic fungi and facultatively anaerobic bacteria. These microorganisms are responsible for the degradation of ingested feedstuffs to fermentation acids (primarily the volatile fatty acids: acetate, propionate and butyrate) which are absorbed by the host through the ruminal epithelium and serve as the dominant carbon and energy sources for growth, maintenance and production. The ruminant animal then is a symbiotic association between mammal and microorganisms which evolved to enable the animal to live on high fiber diets (19). The ruminal regulatory systems developed by the animal were intended to cope with the microbial fermentation of forage-based rations and they operate very effectively for this purpose. These regulatory systems include temperature control, ruminal pH control through the buffering action of saliva, provision of extra nutrients such as urea or phosphate which enters the rumen also via the saliva, removal of inhibitory soluble (end) products through absorption, and removal of indigestible solids through passage to the lower tract (28). The animal can regulate the activities of the ruminal microorganisms only in so far as it can vary these processes. For the rest, the microorganisms are controlled only by the limitations of their growth physiology and by synergism and competition between species. With the practice of high grain feeding, the ruminal fermentation has become a liability to the host animal. When diets high in readily fermentable carbohydrates, i.e., diets high in starchy cereal grains, are fed to ruminants, caloric intake and substrate availability are no longer controlled by physical constraints such as fiber particle size and ruminal volume. The animal can now ingest more calories in a shorter time because of the smaller sized, energy-dense nature of cereal grains compared to cellulosic materials. As a result, members of the microbial community are released from substrate limitation restraints. For example, the activities of the amylolytic (starch-degrading) and the saccharolytic (sugar-degrading) bacteria are no longer limited by the relatively slow degradation of fibrous polymers to fermentable oligomers and thus starch degradation and fermentation can occur at very rapid rates.
Making Italians, Making Southerners

This chapter lays bare the “meridionist” lenses and the Mediterranean point of view that Fogu brings to bear on the formation of the Italian nation. The author exposes the logic of territorialization, which resulted in a systematic repression of Mediterranean forms of belonging that had for centuries characterized the lives of those who were made into “southerners.” Fogu thereby shows that the sociocultural construction of the “Southern Question” and the “making of Italians” were joined at the hip by the suppression of the Neapolitan kingdom as a Mediterranean “middle ground,” and the attempt to isolate the making of Italians from the Mediterranean continent that had nourished the collective identity of the people who had inhabited that middle ground for centuries.
A tractable covalent linker strategy for the production of immunogenic antigen-TLR7/8L bioconjugates.

Despite the ease of production and improved safety profiles of recombinant vaccines, the inherently low immunogenicity of unadjuvanted proteins remains an impediment to their widespread adoption. The covalent tethering of TLR agonists to antigenic proteins offers a unique approach to co-deliver both constituents to the same cell—enhancing vaccine efficacy while minimizing reactogenicity. However, the paucity of simple and effective linker chemistries continues to hamper progress. Here, we present a modular, PEG-based linker system compatible with even extremely lipophilic and challenging TLR7/8 agonists. To advance the field and address previous obstacles, we offer the most straightforward and antigen-preserving linker system to date. These antigen-adjuvant conjugates enhance antigen-specific immune responses in mice, demonstrating the power of our approach within the context of modern vaccinology.
Effects of Compounded Nonnormality of Residuals in Hierarchical Linear Modeling

While hierarchical linear modeling is often used in social science research, the assumption of normally distributed residuals at the individual and cluster levels can be violated in empirical data....
What about Ethics in Design Bioethics

Design bioethics, as defined by Pavarini et al. (2021) is “purpose-built, technology-driven research tools” (1) that provide “the chance to leverage technological advances at the interface of engin...
Passive High Power RF Comb Filters Using Epitaxial GaN/NbN/SiC HBARs

This report presents the first demonstration of passive RF comb filters made using epitaxial GaN/NbN/SiC high overtone bulk acoustic resonators (epi-HBARs). The two-port device is fabricated on electronic-grade GaN, electrically transduced, and acoustically coupled. The multi-mode epi-HBAR comb filter demonstrated here has 158 sharp filter passbands periodically distributed between 1 and 4 GHz (L–S-bands) with a free spectral range (FSR) of 17 MHz. The individual passbands of the epi-HBAR comb filter demonstrate transmission bandwidths (BWs) up to 800 kHz, ${f} {\times } {Q}$ values of up to $7\times 10^{{14}}$ Hz, and an average ${k}_{ {\text {eff}}}^{ {{2}}} {\times } {Q}$ figure of merit of 41.2 at room temperature. The GaN/NbN/SiC epi-HBAR comb filter is capable of operating at high RF power levels, with linear and distortion-free performance seen up to at least 1 W of continuous wave (CW) power and up to at least 10 W of pulsed power. The compact epi-HBAR comb filters can be co-fabricated with GaN-based electronics and could potentially replace larger, off-chip or discrete-component comb filters. They can be used for spectrum sensing and as signal processing elements for remote sensing and pulsed radar.
The vascular niche in next generation microphysiological systems

In recent years, microphysiological system (MPS, also known as, organ-on-a-chip or tissue chip) platforms have emerged with great promise to improve the predictive capacity of preclinical modeling thereby reducing the high attrition rates when drugs move into trials. While their designs can vary quite significantly, in general MPS are bioengineered in vitro microenvironments that recapitulate key functional units of human organs, and that have broad applications in human physiology, pathophysiology, and clinical pharmacology. A critical next step in the evolution of MPS devices is the widespread incorporation of functional vasculature within tissues. The vasculature itself is a major organ that carries nutrients, immune cells, signaling molecules and therapeutics to all other organs. It also plays critical roles in inducing and maintaining tissue identity through expression of angiocrine factors, and in providing tissue-specific milieus (i.e., the vascular niche) that can support the survival and function of stem cells. Thus, organs are patterned, maintained and supported by the vasculature, which in turn receives signals that drive tissue specific gene expression. In this review, we will discuss published vascularized MPS platforms and present considerations for next-generation devices looking to incorporate this critical constituent. Finally, we will highlight the organ-patterning processes governed by the vasculature, and how the incorporation of a vascular niche within MPS platforms will establish a unique opportunity to study stem cell development.
Youth Programs Are Important Spaces for Emotional Learning

Emotional skills are now widely recognized to be essential skills for young people to survive and thrive across all aspects of their lives. Teens become able to develop powerful new skills for understanding and managing their emotions. They also are able to learn skills for using the valuable functions of emotions. But this learning isn’t automatic; it depends on experience. In this commentary, we highlight key elements of youth programs that make them important contexts for youth’s active engagement in emotional learning. We present examples from research on how program staff facilitate youth development of skills to manage and use emotions. We conclude with suggestions on practices and policies that support emotional learning.
Working at Home

More women are gainfully employed than at any other period of U.S. history. There has been a particularly rapid growth in the labor force participation rate of women with children. In fact, the labor participation rate for women with children under the age of 6 has doubled since 1970. By 1991, 60% of these mothers were gainfully employed, compared to 30% in 1970 (Institute for Women’s Policy Research, 1992, p. 3).
Effect of Heat on the Antimicrobial Activity of Brilliant Green Dye

Antimicrobial activity of brilliant green dye in Trypticase soy broth (BBL) is reduced and ultimately destroyed by prolonged autoclaving at 121 C. Loss of antimicrobial activity is accompanied by decolorization of the dye. This is consistent with other evidence that antimicrobial activity of brilliant green resides in the colored dye ion. The dye is not decolorized when heated in distilled water or peptone, but is decolorized by heating in glucose, glycine, or sodium dodecyl sulfate, showing that decolorization results from reaction with components of the medium. To ensure optimal results, it is recommended that bacteriological media be sterilized by heat prior to addition of brilliant green dye.
Collective artificial intelligence: simulated role-playing from crowdsourced data

Collective Artificial Intelligence (CAI) simulates human intelligence from data contributed by many humans, mined for inter-related patterns. This thesis applies CAI to social role-playing, introducing an end-to-end process for composltlng recorded performances from thousands of humans, and simulating open-ended interaction from this data. The CAI process combines crowdsourcing, pattern discovery, and case-based planning. Content creation is crowdsourced by recording role-players online. Browser-based tools allow non-experts to annotate data, organizing content into a hierarchical narrative structure. Patterns discovered from data power a novel system combining plan recognition with case-based planning. The combination of this process and structure produces a new medium, which exploits a massive corpus to realize characters who Interact and converse with humans. This medium enables new experiences in videogames, and new classes of training simulations, therapeutic applications, and social robots. While advances in graphics support incredible freedom to interact physically in simulations, current approaches to development restrict simulated social Interaction to hand-crafted branches that do not scale to the thousands of possible patterns of actions and utterances observed in actual human interaction. There is a tension between freedom and system comprehension due to two bottlenecks, making open-ended social interaction a challenge. First is the authorial effort entailed to cover all possible inputs. Second, like other cognitive processes, imagination is a bounded resource. Any individual author only has so much imagination. The convergence of advances in connectivity, storage, and processing power is bringing people together in ways never before possible, amplifying the Imagination of individuals by harnessing the creativity and productivity of the crowd, revolutionizing how we create media, and what media we can create. By embracing data-driven approaches, and capitalizing on the creativity of the crowd, authoring bottlenecks can be overcome, taking a step toward realizing a medium that robustly supports player choice. Doing so requires rethinking both technology and division of labor in media production. As a proof of concept, a CAI system has been evaluated by recording over 10,000 performances in The Restaurant Game, automating an AI-controlled waitress who interacts in the world, and converses with a human via text or speech. Quantitative results demonstrate CAI supports significantly open-ended interaction with humans, while focus groups reveal factors for improving engagement. (Copies available exclusively from MIT Libraries, libraries.mit.edu/docs - docs@mit.edu)
Melanocortins and body weight: a tale of two receptors

The phenotypes of mice lacking melanocortin-3 (Mcr3) and melanocortin-4 receptors (Mc4r) demonstrate that these isoforms reduce body weight through distinct and complementary mechanisms. Mc4r regulates food intake and possibly energy expenditure, whereas Mc3r influences feed efficiency and the partitioning of fuel stores into fat.
Carotid body dopaminergic mechanisms during acclimatization to hypoxia.

Increased carotid body sensitivity to hypoxia has been found to be an important component of the mechanism of ventilatory acclimatization to chronic hypoxia. Considerable attention has been focused on the potential role of dopamine in the mechanism of increased carotid body sensitivity to hypoxia. This is related to the likely important role dopamine plays in carotid body function. Dopamine has a well-established role as having an inhibitory modulatory effect on the carotid body. For example, dopamine infusion inhibits carotid body responses to hypoxia and dopamine D2 receptor blockade causes an increased response of the carotid body to hypoxia. Thus, it has been hypothesized that a down-regulation of dopaminergic inhibition could be occurring within the carotid body making it more responsive to hypoxia during ventilatory acclimatization to prolonged hypoxia. A study in cats [1] supported this hypothesis. The investigators used domperidone, a peripheral dopamine D2 receptor antagonist, and found that it was no longer effective in increasing the ventilatory and carotid body responses to hypoxia after acclimatization, suggesting that dopamine inhibition had been abolished. However, similar studies failed to support this finding in goats [2] or human subjects [3]. In goats and dogs dopamine has a biphasic effect on carotid body activity, eg a bolus intra-carotid infusion of dopamine causes a burst of excitation followed by prolonged inhibition of afferent discharge frequency. A low affinity excitatory carotid body dopamine receptor has been postulated [4]. We made the hypothesis that there could be a facilitated dopaminergic excitation within the carotid body during acclimatization to hypoxia. This hypothesis would be compatible with the greatly increased metabolism of dopamine that occurs in the carotid body during chronic hypoxia [5]. If the dopamine-mediated excitation could be blocked, then one could test this hypothesis. After an extensive search of dopaminergic antagonists, we found that the dopamine excitatory activity was mediated by the serotonin type 3 receptor (5HT3) and that this excitatory activity could be blocked by specific 5HT3 antagonists such as tropisetron.Tropisetron blocked not only the excitatory activity induced by serotonin, but also that produced by dopamine and by the specific 5HT3 agonist, chlorophenylbiguanide, in the goat carotid body. Carotid sinus nerve recording studies showed that the response of the goat carotid body to acute hypoxia was significantly attenuated by tropisetron. Further studies in awake goats were carried out in order to test the hypothesis that 5HT3 antagonists could block ven- tilatory acclimatization to hypoxia. Blockade with tropisetron failed to modify the time-dependent increase in ventilation that occurs in goats during ventilatory acclimatization. Our data provide no evidence to support the hypothesis that carotid body dopamine acting via either dopaminergic or 5HT3 receptors mediates ventilatory acclimatization to hypoxia in the goat.
Fundamental Limits in Confocal Microscopy

The previous chapter described how the confocal approach developed from conventional light microscopy and outlined the basic advantages gained by the use of confocal sampling techniques, primarily that the exclusion of light by the confocal pinhole makes it possible to record data from optical sections. This chapter will discuss the fundamental considerations that limit the performance of all confocal microscopes. Though at present no commercially available equipment approaches these limits, some simple tests will be described to help the user assess how well a given instrument performs. Additional information to help the user to operate the confocal microscope in an optimal manner can be found in Chapter 35, “ATutorial on Confocal Microscopy,” and Chapter 36, “Practical Confocal Microscopy.” These also include methods for measuring resolution and other useful parameters.
A Mexican Folk Pottery Tradition: Cognition and Style in Material Culture in the Valley of Puebla

. Mexican Folk Pottery Tradition: Cognition and Style in Material Culture in the Valley of Puebla. Flora S. Kaplan. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1994. xvii. 138 pp. 16 halftones, 21 figures, 20 tables, appendix, bibliography, index. $50.00 (cloth).
Precise frequency measurements of 6s 2S1/2 -6p 2P3/2 transition in 133Cs atomic beam using a femtosecond laser frequency comb

Optical frequencies of the hyperfine components of the D2 line in 133Cs are determined using high-resolution spectroscopy and a femtosecond laser frequency comb. The achieved frequency uncertainties are <10 kHz, which is 10 times better than previous results
Pause and utterance durations and fundamental frequency characteristics of repeated oral readings by stutterers and nonstutterers

Abstract Effects of repeated oral readings on durational and fundamental frequency characteristics and number and kinds of reading errors were investigated in 11 stutterers and 11 sex- +and age-matched nonstutterers. Computer analysis of durational and fundamental frequency characteristics of the first and sixth readings demonstrated statistically significant differences in mean pause duration, speaking-time ratio, and total speaking time between the stutterers and the nonstutterers. In addition, there were significant differences in mean utterance duration and number of utterances (and pauses) between the first and sixth readings. Finally, correlational analyses indicated variable performance in the stutterers whereas the nonstutterers demonstrated highly consistent performance between the first and sixth readings. Results of reading error analysis showed more and different types of reading errors by the stutterers in comparison to the nonstutterers although both groups demonstrated a reduction in reading errors from the first to the sixth readings.
Morphological evidence for the occurrence of two electric catfish (Malapterurus) species in the White Nile and Omo–Turkana systems (East Africa)

Morphological analysis of 28 Malapterurus specimens collected from the Nile and Omo‐ Turkana basins revealed two groups. The first was characterized by low vertebral counts (41‐44) and numerous gill rakers (14‐22) situated along the entire first ceratobranchial, the second group was characterized by high vertebral counts (47‐51) and a low number of gill rakers (6‐13) situated only on the upper portion of the first ceratobranchial. Through comparison with the type specimens of three currently recognized Malapterurus species and comparison with museum collections from the Nile, Omo‐Turkana, and Chad basins, these two groups were identified as M. electricus and M. minjiriya. A principal component analysis of 27 measurements allowed partial discrimination among species. Biogeographic aspects of finding M. minjiriya in the tributaries of the White Nile and in the middle reaches of the Omo River are discussed. ? 1999 The Fisheries Society of the British Isles
Angiographic Anatomy of the Left Ventricle and Mitral Valve in Idiopathic Hypertrophic Subaortic Stenosis

The angiographic features of the left ventricle were examined in patients with idiopathic hypertrophic subaortic stenosis who had clinical and hemodynamic evidence of obstruction. Of 36 combined hemodynamic and angiographic studies considered to be technically satisfactory, 33 showed a characteristic combination of abnormalities. In the frontal projection in systole, a linear radiolucent area extended across the left ventricular outflow tract 2 to 2.5 cm below the aortic annulus, at a level corresponding to the site of intraventricular pressure change. In the left oblique and lateral projections, the mitral leaflets did not swing posteriorly in a normal fashion, but projected into the outflow tract during mid and late systole. The radiolucent line, seen in the frontal views, was considered to represent contact of the leading edge of the leaflet with the hypertrophied muscular interventricular septum. The jet of mitral regurgitation, when present, was seen immediately below the anterior mitral leaflet. Sev...
The SiH band as surface "probe"

Abstract The Sihalogen bands of structures on silica surfaces cannot be observed with infrared spectroscopy because the absorptions fall in a spectral region where the adsorbent is usually opaque. However, as the SiH band is affected by the electronegativity of other atoms bonded to the Si, reactions occuring at the SiCl group of a surface structure such as Si (H)Cl make themselves felt as changes in the SiH band. The utility of the SiH band as a probe of local environment is illustrated by examples involving the adsorption of NH 3 or CH 3 OH on HSiCl 3 - treated silica.
Learning Multi-level Local Phase Relationship for Single Image Resolution Enhancement

In this paper, a novel approach for image spatial resolution enhancement based on multi-level local Fourier phase features is proposed. This method uses adaptive kernel regression technique based on multi-level local covariance to estimate the high resolution image from a low resolution input. However, this concept is similar to other regression and covariance based methods, our method uses multi-level Fourier image features to learn the local covariance from geometric similarity between low resolution image and its corresponding high resolution image. For each local region, four weighted integrated directional variances are estimated to adapt the interpolated pixels. This method is tested on various natural and aerial images at higher resolution scales. The results confirm that the proposed technique performs better especially at high resolution scales in comparison with other state of art techniques.
Investigation of New Generation of Ceramic and Single Crystalline Piezo Materials for Helicopter Blade and UAV Actuation

A great amount of research is being conducted to incorporate smart material actuators in aerospace applications such as (1) turbo fan engines (2) servo flap actuators for helicopter rotor control. For example, a piezoelectric stack actuator, coupled with mechanical or hydraulic amplification could provide the actuation required for the variable pitch fan system with a potentially higher level of reliability. In addition, piezoelectric actuation system could do so at a lower overall weight. However, there are limitations with existing piezoelectric stack actuators relative to power requirements. Therefore, a new approach has been investigated to improve these characteristics in order for piezoelectric stacks to be a feasible solution for these types of large scale applications. A new configuration involving dielectric, conductor, piezoelectric material in a particular sequence of stack actuation is examined and experimented. A nonlinear lumped parameter model of a piezoelectric stack has been developed to describe the behavior for the purpose of control actuation analysis.Copyright © 2013 by ASME
Negative Contrast Experience: An Ignatian Appraisal

In the face of continual and increased human suffering in every corner of the world, good and principled people often do nothing. Edward Schillebeeckx's understanding of negative experiences of contrast begins with outrage at excessive human suffering and is followed by protest and eventual praxis to ameliorate and end the suffering. The author queries whether unconscious bias prevents human beings from seeing this suffering, and suggests that embracing a rigorous Ignatian consciousness examen may correct this impairment.
Relationship between spatial density and sensory overload, personal space, and systolic and diastolic blood pressure.

Selected effects of high spatial density were investigated with 26 boys, serving as their own controls and undergoing alternate confinements in high and relatively low spatial density. Measured eff...
Scaling of the hysteretic magnetic behavior in YBa2Cu3O7 single crystals.

We have studied the pinning force {ital F}{sub {ital p}}({ital B},{ital T}) in YBa{sub 2}Cu{sub 3}O{sub 7} crystals as a function of fluence of 3-MeV protons. For a given ion-damage level, we could reduce all {ital F}{sub {ital p}} data to a single function of reduced field {ital b}={ital B}/{ital B}{sup *}, where the scaling field {ital B}{sup *}({ital T}){much lt}{ital H}{sub {ital c}2}({ital T}) is related to the irreversibility line. This result rules out the possibility of matching effects between the vortex lattice and the distribution of pinning sites. We emphasize the influence of thermally activated relaxation in the determination of {ital F}{sub {ital p}} and compare the data with simple pinning models.
Outlier detection for multivariate skew-normal data: a comparative study

A general way of detecting multivariate outliers involves using robust depth functions, or, equivalently, the corresponding ‘outlyingness’ functions; the more outlying an observation, the more extreme (less deep) it is in the data cloud and thus potentially an outlier. Most outlier detection studies in the literature assume that the underlying distribution is multivariate normal. This paper deals with the case of multivariate skewed data, specifically when the data follow the multivariate skew-normal [1] distribution. We compare the outlier detection capabilities of four robust outlier detection methods through their outlyingness functions in a simulation study. Two scenarios are considered for the occurrence of outliers: ‘the cluster’ and ‘the radial’. Conclusions and recommendations are offered for each scenario.
SUPERCONDUCTING PROPERTIES OF TECHNETIUM.

Isothermal magnetization measurements are reported for technetium in the superconducting state from 1.5\ifmmode^\circ\else\textdegree\fi{}K to the transition temperature after various stages of heat treatment up to 2000\ifmmode^\circ\else\textdegree\fi{}C. The purer sample studied ($\ensuremath{\Gamma}=120$, where $\ensuremath{\Gamma}$ is the ratio of resistance at 295\ifmmode^\circ\else\textdegree\fi{}K to the resistance at 9\ifmmode^\circ\else\textdegree\fi{}K) was found to have a transition temperature of 7.73\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.02\ifmmode^\circ\else\textdegree\fi{}K, and was destroyed in an early attempt at annealing, while the second sample ($\ensuremath{\Gamma}=97$), which had a transition temperature of 7.77\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.02\ifmmode^\circ\else\textdegree\fi{}K, was studied more thoroughly. The magnetic behavior of this material is characteristic of a type-II superconductor, and the experimental temperature dependence of ${H}_{c2}$, the upper critical field, is compared with existing theories. Upper limits to the thermodynamic critical field ${H}_{c}(t)$, which have been obtained by integrating under the nonreversible magnetization curves observed after the 2000\ifmmode^\circ\else\textdegree\fi{}C heat treatment, lead to an extrapolated value of ${H}_{c}(0)$ =1410 Oe, and a Ginzburg-Landau parameter of ${\ensuremath{\kappa}}_{1}(1)=0.92$. The data suggest that technetium is a weak-coupling superconductor of the BCS type, and the results are examined for self-consistency.
Risk of Liver Abscess Formation in Patients with Prior Biliary Intervention Following Yttrium-90 Radioembolization

Patients without a competent sphincter of Oddi due to prior surgical or endoscopic therapy are at high risk for liver abscess following chemoembolization despite aggressive antimicrobial prophylaxis. We examined a cohort of such patients undergoing Y-90 resin radioembolization and compared them to a cohort of chemoembolized patients. Review of our quality-assurance database identified 24 radioembolizations performed in 16 patients with prior biliary intervention. An aggressive prophylactic regimen of oral levofloxacin and metronidazole 2 days pre-procedure continuing for 14 days after, oral neomycin/erythromycin bowel prep the day before, and IV levofloxacin/metronidazole the day of treatment was prescribed. Patients underwent resin microsphere radioembolization dosed according to the BSA method. Patients had clinical, imaging, and laboratory assessment 1 month after each treatment, and then every 3 months. The chemoembolization cohort consisted of 13 patients with prior biliary intervention who had undergone 24 chemoembolization procedures. No radioembolization patient developed an abscess. In the cohort of chemoembolized patients who received the same prophylaxis, liver abscess occurred following 3 of 24 (12.5 %) procedures in 3 of 13 (23 %) patients, one fatal. This preliminary experience suggests that the risk of liver abscess among patients with prior biliary intervention may be lower following radioembolization than chemoembolization, which could potentially expand treatment options in this high-risk population.
Carbon-supported bimetallic Pd–Fe catalysts for vapor-phase hydrodeoxygenation of guaiacol

Abstract Carbon-supported metal catalysts (Cu/C, Fe/C, Pd/C, Pt/C, PdFe/C, and Ru/C) were characterized and evaluated for vapor-phase hydrodeoxygenation (HDO) of guaiacol (GUA), aiming at the identification/elucidation of active catalysts for high-yield production of completely hydrodeoxygenated products (e.g., benzene). Phenol was found to be the major intermediate on all catalysts. Saturation of the aromatic ring is the major pathway over the precious metal catalysts, forming cyclohexanone and cyclohexanol, followed by ring opening to form gaseous products. Base metal catalysts exhibit lower activity than the precious metal catalysts, but selectively form benzene along with small amounts of toluene, trimethylbenzene (TMB), and cresol without forming ring-saturated or ring-opening products. Compared with Fe/C and Pd/C, PdFe/C catalysts exhibit a substantially enhanced activity while maintaining the high selectivity to HDO products without ring saturation or ring opening. The enhanced activity of PdFe/C is attributed to the modification of Fe nanoparticles by Pd as evidenced by STEM, EDS, EXAFS, TPR, and theoretical calculations.
Histologic impact of dual-modality intracorporeal lithotripters to the renal pelvis

Objective To test the hypothesis that dual-modality intracorporeal lithotripters used during percutaneous nephrolithotomy create a degree of tissue trauma in the dual-modality mode (ballistic and ultrasonic) similar to that in the single-modality mode (ultrasonic). Materials and Methods The lithotripter devices tested were the Cyberwand and Swiss LithoClast Select. The activated probes, in both single- and dual-modality modes, were applied directly to the renal pelvis of 11 fresh nephrectomy specimens. The treated tissue sites were then processed for light microscopy and reviewed by a single genitourinary pathologist. Results Microscopic examination of the renal pelvis after 2 seconds of direct contact showed minimal denudation of the urothelium, with no changes noted in the subepithelial or muscle layers for the 2 devices evaluated. Direct contact for 4 seconds showed urothelial denudation and subepithelial changes (n = 13 of 23). Muscle injury was observed in some dual-modality specimens (n = 6 of 12). Increasing the contact time to 8 seconds resulted in fragmentation of the muscle layers more frequently with both settings (n = 15 of 22), except for when the Cyberwand was used at the small stone setting (n = 0 of 7). Conclusion In the ex vivo setting, minimal differences were noted in the degree of histologic trauma between the Cyberwand and Swiss LithoClast Select at 2 seconds. However, both dual-modality devices resulted in muscle damage at 4 and 8 seconds of contact time. Care should be taken during clinical procedures to avoid prolonged contact with the renal pelvis to minimize the potential for tissue trauma.
Notoedric Mange in an Ocelot (Felis pardalis) from Southern Texas

Notoedric mange was diagnosed in a free-ranging adult male ocelot (Felis pardalis) found dead in April 1994 in southern Texas (USA). The emaciated carcass had no body fat. The heart was enlarged and flaccid. There was a nonpurulent serosanguineous pericardial and peritoneal exudate. Severe encrusted skin lesions and alopecia extended from the head posteriorly to the shoulders. The forelegs and feet were less severely affected. We observed a massive infection of Notoedres cati in skin scrapings. Epidermal lesions included hyperkeratosis and parakeratosis with necrotic debris and foci of acute inflammatory cells surrounding mites and their eggs in the stratum corneum. There was mild acanthosis and spongiosis of the stratum germativum, but no chronic inflammation in the dermis. This is the first confirmed case in the ocelot, but notoedric mange has been reported from the bobcat (Felis rufus) in southern Texas. Thus, notoedric mange could pose an additional threat to the already endangered remnant population ...
Alternative Splicing of Type II Procollagen Exon 2 Is Regulated by the Combination of a Weak 5′ Splice Site and an Adjacent Intronic Stem-loop Cis Element

Alternative splicing of the type II procollagen gene (COL2A1) is developmentally regulated during chondrogenesis. Chondroprogenitor cells produce the type IIA procollagen isoform by splicing (including) exon 2 during pre-mRNA processing, whereas differentiated chondrocytes synthesize the type IIB procollagen isoform by exon 2 skipping (exclusion). Using a COL2A1 mini-gene and chondrocytes at various stages of differentiation, we identified a non-classical consensus splicing sequence in intron 2 adjacent to the 5' splice site, which is essential in regulating exon 2 splicing. RNA mapping confirmed this region contains secondary structure in the form of a stem-loop. Mutational analysis identified three cis elements within the conserved double-stranded stem region that are functional only in the context of the natural weak 5' splice site of exon 2; they are 1) a uridine-rich enhancer element in all cell types tested except differentiated chondrocytes; 2) an adenine-rich silencer element, and 3) an enhancer cis element functional in the context of secondary structure. This is the first report identifying key cis elements in the COL2A1 gene that modulate the cell type-specific alternative splicing switch of exon 2 during cartilage development.
Examining Social Dynamics for Countering Botnet Attacks

Even though promising results have been obtained from existing research on bots and associated command and control channels, there is little research in exploring the ways on how bots are created and distributed by adversaries. Consequently, innovative methods that help determine the linkage between the rogue programs and adversaries are imperative for mitigating and combating botnet attacks. Recent study discovers that rogue programs are sold in black markets in online social networks and adversaries use online social networks to coordinate attacks. Correlation of botnet attacks and activities in online underground social networks is crucial to tactically cope with net-centric threats. In this paper, we take the first step toward adversarial behavior identification by modeling social dynamics of underground adversarial communities and tracing the origin of certain malwares and attack events in underground communities. We also describe our evaluation to demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach.
Hacking Blackboard: Customizing Access to Library Resources Through the Blackboard Course Management System

Academic libraries have long been trying to gain access to users through their favorite online spaces, such as social networking sites. In this article a project of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro's University Libraries, which integrated library resources with the campus course management system, Blackboard, is detailed. The main objective was to push the best resources to students based on their actual needs. For years, static HTML Web pages were created, but the proliferation of these pages required tremendous maintenance. In addition it is not certain that students are able to access the most relevant resources buried deep in the Web site. Because of these challenges, the Course Resources Tool and the Library Resources Portal were created to provide high levels of customization based on information that was gathered from users as they log into Blackboard. The tools have been customized so that subject specialist liaisons can integrate library resources at the major, department, course, and course section levels. Despite some difficulties in launching and promoting these projects, there has been positive feedback. There was also an increase in usage statistics that rivals the use of the library's main Web site. This article describes the tools, documents the difficulties with each phase of the project, and discusses the lessons learned. Also, a brief overview of possible expansions of the Blackboard Course Resources Tool and the Library Resources Portal is provided.
18th edition of Computer-Oriented Bibliography lists 303 new books

Although barely out pubescence, the Al/Expert Systems field begat some excellent books in 1984. Yet this category accounts for only five of the more than 300 new books in the 18th edition of the Annual Bibliography of Computer-Oriented Books, released this month by the University of Colorado.