cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Physical Reality, Corpuscular Models, Continuum Models

One view of physical reality is that the matter commonly perceived as filling space in fact consists principally of empty space, with an occasional bit of matter. Such a bit may be called an elementary particle. The distance between the bits of matter and the structure in which they are arranged, as well as their particular arrangement, dictates whether the gross material is perceived as a solid, as a liquid, or as a gas. A bit of matter may itself have a very rich structure, in which case the bit is no longer an elementary particle, but rather is in itself composed of elementary particles. This kind of structure is worthy of study. The scale of such structures is such that they are not accessible for purposes of describing the behavior of materials normally encountered in everyday experience. Neither is such structure interesting for most such purposes. The exceptions are, for example, that a solid is perceived as amorphous or as having a particular crystalline structure based on the symmetry of the arrangement of the matter in it. This affects its gross symmetry, that is, the mechanics of the macroscopic body reflects the arrangement of the bits of matter. The difficulty of scaling such theories up to the size of a body that interests us here makes it desirable to search for an alternative to description at this level of detail. Moreover, theories of such small structures are often revised, because they are not yet completely understood, and both deeper theoretical understanding and more sophisticated experimental work continue to appear. On the other hand, our experience of the gross behavior of the materials of everyday life, such as steel or water, is quite constant. Thus it is extremely rare for us to revise its mathematical description. The result is, for the purposes of modeling phenomena on the scales ordinarily perceived, it is appropriate to devise models that are independent of modern theories of atomic and subatomic physics. Two types of such models are corpuscular models and continuum models.
‘Defect-irrelevant’ behavior of a no-insulation pancake coil wound with REBCO tapes containing multiple defects

A no-insulation (NI) pancake coil was wound with a 23 m long REBCO tape containing multiple 'defects', at which local critical currents are substantially lower (<80%) than the tape's lengthwise average. During a charging test up to 60 A in a bath of liquid nitrogen at 77 K, the test coil showed 'defect-irrelevant' behaviors, i.e. coil terminal voltages and center fields in steady-state operations were barely discernible from those of an ideal 'defect-free' coil. Also, the critical current (I c) of the coil was measured to be 68 A, close to 72 A estimated from the measured I c angular dependency data of a defect-free sample tape that was used for construction of the coil. The results demonstrate a potential to build a pancake coil with REBCO tapes regardless of their defects, which may lead to a substantial reduction in the construction cost of high field NI REBCO magnets.
Growth Curve Modeling to Studying Change: A Comparison of Approaches Using Longitudinal Dyadic Data With Distinguishable Dyads

Although methodology articles have increasingly emphasized the need to analyze data from two members of a dyad simultaneously, the most popular method in substantive applications is to examine dyad members separately. This might be due to the underappreciation of the extra information simultaneous modeling strategies can provide. Therefore, the goal of this study was to compare multiple growth curve modeling approaches for longitudinal dyadic data (LDD) in both structural equation modeling and multilevel modeling frameworks. Models separately assessing change over time for distinguishable dyad members are compared to simultaneous models fitted to LDD from both dyad members. Furthermore, we compared the simultaneous default versus dependent approaches (whether dyad pairs’ Level 1 [or unique] residuals are allowed to covary and differ in variance). Results indicated that estimates of variance and covariance components led to conflicting results. We recommend the simultaneous dependent approach for inferring...
Evaluating the Performance of College Presidents in the Age of Disruption and Corruption

This paper discusses a paradigm for rating college presidents that stresses factors that provide long-term value such as vision, faculty engagement, building a learning organization, providing ethical leadership, increasing student satisfaction, and enhancing the reputation of the organization. We are in a knowledge economy where creativity, skills, adaptability, and character are what matter; the old ways of running a college, that might have worked half a century ago, simply do not work today. What can really destroy a college is making changes for the purpose of padding the CVs of administrators rather than improving educational quality.
Reactive wetting and filling of boron nitride nanotubes by molten aluminum during equilibrium solidification

Interactions between long boron nitride nanotube (BNNT) fibrils and molten aluminum (Al) pool are probed in this study to assess the feasibility of fabricating composite materials by solidification route. BNNTs were found to survive high temperature and reactive conditions present in molten aluminum. Very limited interfacial reaction was observed, resulting in the formation of AlN, AlB2 and AlB10 in trace amounts. AlN was the principal reaction product, resulting in improved interfacial wetting. Calculations based on surface energies revealed improved work of interfacial adhesion due to AlN formation. BNNTs were found to be well integrated in the aluminum matrix, signifying AlN induced excellent wetting. We also report capillarity-induced high temperature filling of BNNT by molten Al. The filling was promoted by AlN formation. In addition, formation of B-rich AlB10 phase inside the nanotube was observed. Nanotube filling by metal and subsequent reaction to form nano-ceramic phases is expected to alter mechanical properties of the cast Aluminum-BNNT composites. This study establishes the suitability of solidification route for developing high strength Al-BNNT composites in future.
Foundationalism with infinite regresses of probabilistic support

There is a long-standing debate in epistemology on the structure of justification. Some recent work in formal epistemology promises to shed some new light on that debate. I have in mind here some recent work by David Atkinson and Jeanne Peijnenburg, hereafter “A&P”, on infinite regresses of probabilistic support. A&P show that there are probability distributions defined over an infinite set of propositions {\(p_{1}, p_{2}, p_{3}, {\ldots }, p_{n}, {\ldots }\}\) such that (i) \(p_{i}\) is probabilistically supported by \(p_{i+1}\) for all i and (ii) \(p_{1}\) has a high probability. Let this result be “APR” (short for “A&P’s Result”). A&P oftentimes write as though they believe that APR runs counter to foundationalism. This makes sense, since there is some prima facie plausibility in the idea that APR runs counter to foundationalism, and since some prominent foundationalists argue for theses inconsistent with APR. I argue, though, that in fact APR does not run counter to foundationalism. I further argue that there is a place in foundationalism for infinite regresses of probabilistic support.
Agile Development Offers the Chance to Establish Automated Quality Procedures

In large enterprises, it is not a trivial feat to establish well-defined quality processes and procedures. Agile development needs automated procedures to realize the iterative product development. This automation demand can be a starting point to setup automated quality procedures for product testing during the continuous integration of the product development. This work shows the way to a testing as a service environment for a private cloud infrastructure. The service environment is motivated by up-coming challenges, agile teams are developing cloud applications with a focus on product specific quality assurance.
Pore-scale Considerations on Ostwald Ripening in Rocks

Abstract Residually trapped CO 2 is often assumed to be stable when simulating its long-term fate in geological storage reservoirs. Ostwald ripening is a mechanism that could potentially cause remobilization. We compare the case of bubbles of gas in a free liquid to that of a solid porous matrix. Using a new continuous pore network model, we gain insights on Ostwald Ripening in rocks and estimate time scales of evolution of multi-ganglia systems. Evolution is found to be highly dependent on system initialization as well as on pore structure. For residually trapped CO 2 in homogeneous rocks, a stable equilibrium is conceptually possible.
Being undone by research: an ethical obligation to togethering

I interviewed 24 women who participated in self-defense and handgun training classes who revealed lives that had been intentionally hidden, sharing the unspeakable experiences of incest, rape, chil...
Using multivariate mixed-effects selection models for analyzing batch-processed proteomics data with non-ignorable missingness

In quantitative proteomics, mass tag labeling techniques have been widely adopted in mass spectrometry experiments. These techniques allow peptides (short amino acid sequences) and proteins from multiple samples of a batch being detected and quantified in a single experiment, and as such greatly improve the efficiency of protein profiling. However, the batch-processing of samples also results in severe batch effects and non-ignorable missing data occurring at the batch level. Motivated by the breast cancer proteomic data from the Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium, in this work, we developed two tailored multivariate MIxed-effects SElection models (mvMISE) to jointly analyze multiple correlated peptides/proteins in labeled proteomics data, considering the batch effects and the non-ignorable missingness. By taking a multivariate approach, we can borrow information across multiple peptides of the same protein or multiple proteins from the same biological pathway, and thus achieve better statistical efficiency and biological interpretation. These two different models account for different correlation structures among a group of peptides or proteins. Specifically, to model multiple peptides from the same protein, we employed a factor-analytic random effects structure to characterize the high and similar correlations among peptides. To model biological dependence among multiple proteins in a functional pathway, we introduced a graphical lasso penalty on the error precision matrix, and implemented an efficient algorithm based on the alternating direction method of multipliers. Simulations demonstrated the advantages of the proposed models. Applying the proposed methods to the motivating data set, we identified phosphoproteins and biological pathways that showed different activity patterns in triple negative breast tumors versus other breast tumors. The proposed methods can also be applied to other high-dimensional multivariate analyses based on clustered data with or without non-ignorable missingness.
Toward an ACT-R General Executive for Human Multitasking.

While cognitive models of complex tasks have begun to incorporate increasingly sophisticated models of human multitasking, most models have utilized customized executives (Kieras et al., 2000) that fine-tune specific multitasking mechanisms for particular applications. This paper proposes a general executive for multitasking that facilitates the integration of separate task models and subsequent prediction of the effects of multitasking and task interaction. Developed in the ACT-R cognitive architecture, the general executive is specified as a new goal module that orders goals by urgency and their own requested running times. The paper demonstrates the predictive power of the general executive in the driving domain by integrating separate models of control and monitoring and predicting drivers’ gaze distributions across various regions of the driving environment.
Sampling with memoization

Memoization is a fundamental technique in computer science, providing the basis for dynamic programming. This paper explores using memoization to improve the performance of rejection sampling algorithms. It is shown that reusing values produced in previous samples and stored in a cache is beneficial. The paper goes on to explore the idea of recursive memoization, in which values are aggressively reused from the cache even in the process of computing a value to store in the cache. This leads to the values in the cache becoming dependent on each other, and therefore produces a biased sampler. However in practice this seems to be quite beneficial. Furthermore, we show that the error in the cache tends to zero in the long run. We demonstrate the usefulness of memoized sampling in a duplicate bridge simulation, and in experiments with probabilistic grammars.
Professional development improves geriatric focused oncology activities in settings across the nation.

11003Background: Although older adults represent the majority of patients with cancer, oncology nurses receive little training in the care of older patients. In an effort to bridge this knowledge g...
Systemic levels of anti-PAD4 autoantibodies correlate with airway obstruction in cystic fibrosis.

Abstract Cystic fibrosis (CF) airway disease is characterized by the long-term presence of neutrophil granulocytes. Formation of neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) and/or autoantibodies directed against extracellular components of NETs are possible contributors to neutrophil-mediated lung damage in CF. The goal of this study was to measure their levels in CF adults compared to healthy controls and subjects with rheumatologic diseases known to develop NET-related autoantibodies and pathologies, rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Sera were analyzed from the following number of subjects: 37 CF, 23 healthy controls (HC), 20 RA, and 21 SLE. CF had elevated serum myeloperoxidase (MPO) concentrations (347.5±56.1 ng/ml, mean+/-S.E.M., p = .0132) compared to HC (144.5±14.6 ng/ml) but not of neutrophil elastase (NE) complexed with alpha-1-antitrypsin, cell-free DNA or NE-DNA complexes. The peptidylarginine deiminase 4 (PAD4) enzyme is required for NET formation and associated DNA release in neutrophils. Serum levels of anti-PAD4 antibodies (Ab) were elevated in CF (p = .0147) compared to HC and showed an inverse correlation with a measure of lung function, FEV1% predicted (r = −0.5020, p = .015), as did MPO levels (r = −0.4801, p = .0026). Anti-PAD4 Ab levels in CF sera associated with lung infection by P. aeruginosa, but not that by S. aureus, age, sex, CF-related diabetes or the presence of musculoskeletal pain. Serum levels of anti-citrullinated protein Abs (ACPAs) and anti-nucleosome Abs were not elevated in CF compared to HC (p = .7498, p = .0678). In summary, adult CF subjects develop an autoimmune response against NET components that correlates with worsening lung disease.
Avoiding Special Education Litigation in Rural School Districts

The major purpose of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and its legislative predecessors has shifted in the past 25 years from simply providing access to educational services to an emphasis on providing meaningful, measurable, and accountable programs to students with disabilities (Katsiyannis, Yell, & Bradley, 2001). These changes have resulted in more students seeking services and legal protection under IDEA. These changes have also made school districts and particularly rural districts more vulnerable to parent initiated due process proceedings. A qualitative case study was conducted using data from several rural school districts in Kansas. Data were triangulated and summarized into five key principles. These five principles are offered to guide rural school districts in avoiding special educational due process proceedings.
Isolation, structure elucidation, and immunostimulatory activity of polysaccharide fractions from Boswellia carterii frankincense resin.

Abstract Frankincense has a long history in religious, cultural, and medicinal use. In this study polysaccharides were extracted from frankincense from Boswellia carterii. The polysaccharides were purified by anion exchange chromatography on a DEAE-Sepharose Fast Flow 16/10 FPLC column. Six fractions were obtained and the three most active immunomodulatory fractions were further purified by size exclusion chromatography on a Superdex-200 column. The composition showed the monosaccharides present were predominantly galactose, arabinose, and glucuronic acid along with small amounts of rhamnose and glucose. The monosaccharide composition and glycosyl linkage analysis revealed the polysaccharides belong to the type II arabinogalactans. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy and bicinchoninic acid assay showed that the amount of protein in the samples was
Characterization of the Reaction Products of Laser-Ablated Lanthanide Metal Atoms with Molecular Hydrogen. Infrared Spectra of LnH, LnH2, LnH3, and LnH4 Molecules in Solid Argon

Infrared spectra of representative LnH1-4 lanthanide hydride molecules are observed in solid argon following reactions of the laser-ablated metal atoms with H2. The LnH2 dihydride is the major product and a stable (H2)LnH2 complex is observed for Ce and Pr. In addition, bands are also assigned to bridging hydrogen motions of several (LnH)2 dimers. Supplementary density functional calculations of the lanthanide hydride reaction products reproduce general features of the spectra. Spectra of isolated molecular EuH2 and solid stoichiometric EuH2 reveal close correspondence, lending support to the molecular assignment and, by extrapolation, providing benchmark infrared frequencies for other lanthanide hydride solids based on their respective molecular vibrational modes.
A Low-Cost Beam-Scanning Second Harmonic Generation Microscope with Application for Agrochemical Development and Testing.

A low-cost second harmonic generation (SHG) microscope was constructed, and, for the first time, SHG microscopy was used for imaging agrochemical materials directly on the surface of common commercial crop leaves. The microscope uses a chromatically fixed (1560 nm) femtosecond fiber laser, a commercial 2D galvanometer mirror system, and a PCIe digital oscilloscope card, which together kept total instrument costs under $40 000 (USD), a significant decrease in cost and complexity from common systems (commercial and home-built) using tunable lasers and faster beam-scanning architectures. The figures of merit of the low-cost system still enabled a variety of measurements of agrochemical materials. Following confirmation of largely background-free SHG imaging of common crop leaves (soybean, maize, wheatgrass), SHG microscopy was used to image active ingredient crystallization after solution-phase deposition directly on the leaf surface, including at industrially relevant active ingredient concentrations (<0.05...
Energy Efficient Temporal Spatial Information Processing Circuits Based on STDP and Spike Iteration

In this brief, we propose a novel energy-efficient temporal-spatial information processing circuit that serves as the signal pre-processing interface for spiking neural networks. In order to transform sensory information into a highly efficient neural-like spike train, an iteration encoding scheme based temporal-spatial inter-spike interval (ISI) encoder is designed and analyzed. Moreover, a decoder is designed with the spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP) principle, which performs well in information recovery. The prototype of the proposed ISI encoder is presented, with a 3-interval encoder through the standard 180nm CMOS technology. The proposed ISI encoder could operate in $1{MHz}$ sampling frequency, and it occupies merely $0.647{m}{m}^{2}$ die area while consuming as low as $1.63{uW}$ /neuron power. A multi-level ISI decoder with spike width adaptation is also designed and evaluated through the CIFAR10 image dataset.
F42 Prevalence of psychiatric morbidity in the huntington’s disease community

Background Psychiatric morbidity is part of HD and patients experience a range of disorders and symptoms. Family members, both those at risk and not at risk, also experience psychiatric distress. The treatment of psychiatric disturbances is an essential part of HD care. Aim The overall prevalence of psychiatric morbidity in the HD community was assessed to inform clinicians about the need for support and treatment. Methods Data were analyzed from 140 participants of the Medstar Georgetown University Hospital Enroll-HD registry. Participants were categorized as family controls, genotype unknown, premanifest HD, and manifest HD. The overall prevalence of psychiatric morbidity was the summation of the presence of moderate symptoms on Problem Behaviours Assessment – Short (PBA–S), defined as a score of 4 or greater (severity × frequency), plus comorbid psychiatric history. Results Demographic data showed gender and years of education were distributed equally between groups. Family controls were the oldest in age, whereas employment rate was lowest in manifest HD. PBA-S revealed the presence of psychiatric symptoms in family control 48%, genotype unknown 74%, premanifest HD 42% and manifest HD 80%. For participants that did not meet criteria of moderate symptoms on PBA-S, there was a history of comorbid psychiatric diagnoses in the family control 19%, genotype unknown 21%, premanifest HD 25% and manifest HD 16%. The most common comorbid psychiatric diagnoses were depressive disorders and anxiety disorders. The total prevalence of active psychiatric symptoms and comorbid psychiatric history was 66% for the family controls, 95% for genotype unknown, 67% for premanifest HD, and 96% for manifest HD; these were statistically significant (p Conclusions HD families experience psychiatric symptoms and diagnosed psychiatric disorders. Though psychiatric morbidity is recognized, diagnosed, and treated in many HD families, the high prevalence of mental health disturbances speaks to the need for support and treatment.
Polymers Tribology Exposed: Eliminating Transfer Film Effects to Clarify Ultralow Wear of PTFE

PTFE composite wear rates are known to vary by 1000 × depending on the size and strength of their nanofiller aggregates. While these effects have been attributed to variations in subsurface reinforcement, debris regulation, transfer films, and filler abrasivity, the chain of causation has proven difficult to test. This study aimed to clarify these causal relationships by eliminating confounding transfer film effects on wear reduction. We conducted indexed reciprocation experiments and tracked the interfacial development for PTFE filled with 5 wt% nano-alumina aggregates of varying strength (weak, strong, or a fully dense control). Weak aggregates were broken down most by processing, created the fewest abrasions, and produced the largest wear debris (~ 10 μm). Strong aggregates were largely retained following processing, produced the densest abrasions, and radically reduced debris size (< 100 nm). Despite these key interfacial differences, the composites produced comparable wear rates (2–7 × 10–5 mm3/Nm). The results provide the first direct evidence of the following: (1) even weak nanoparticle aggregates can be extremely abrasive; (2) ultralow wear rates (10–7 mm3/Nm) require transfer film stability; (3) the wear-reducing effects of unstable transfer films and loose debris are negligible; and (4) fillers directly reduce debris size even without a protective transfer film. The results suggest that successful fillers reduce debris size directly, that small debris nucleates a stable transfer, that stable transfer films reduce transfer wear rates, and that interfacial stability provides the time for needed for tribochemical reinforcement.
Effects on time to lapse of switching menthol smokers to non-menthol cigarettes prior to a cessation attempt: a pilot study

Introduction Menthol smokers (particularly African-Americans) have lower cessation success rates than non-menthol smokers. With bans being considered on characterising menthol flavour in cigarettes, data are needed regarding how switching to non-menthol cigarettes impacts cessation measures. Methods In this randomised pilot study, African-American menthol cigarette smokers interested in quitting smoking either continued smoking menthol cigarettes (n=60) or switched to non-menthol cigarettes (n=62) for a 1-month period prior to a cessation attempt. The primary endpoint was time to smoking lapse (ie, time from quitting until any smoking). Additional endpoints included time to smoking relapse (ie, number of days from quitting until the first of seven consecutive smoking days) and difference between groups in subjective measures. Results After attempting to quit, the non-menthol cigarette group had indications of delayed time to lapse (HR 0.82; 95% CI 0.55 to 1.22; p=0.33) and time to relapse (HR 0.67; 95% CI 0.42 to 1.06; p=0.09), although these were not statistically significant. Post hoc analyses suggest that observed differences were largely due to a smaller proportion of participants in the non-menthol group relapsing within the first day of quitting (21% vs 40%; p=0.05). Values of other measures assessed postcessation were largely similar between groups. Conclusions These data suggest that among African-American smokers, a menthol cigarette ban would not undermine short-term cessation measures and may result in some benefits. Future research is needed to assess longer term cessation rates and to identify interventions to maximise cessation success in the event of a menthol ban. Trial registration number NCT02342327.
Awakening the Sleeping Giant: A Commentary on Social Studies during the Coronavirus Pandemic.

In this essay, I highlight two ways the coronavirus pandemic to-date has influenced the teaching and learning of social studies. First, despite its marginalization and under-investment nationally, the crisis highlighted the significance of social studies by serving as a refuge for youth and families to navigate and better understand this disaster. This includes serving as a cathartic space for learners grappling with current events as they unfold. Second, curricular innovations emerged that guided informative practices. Such innovations included “Maslow Before Bloom” in this disaster, and noting the ways in which youth took informed action at home and in the community to make a difference. While in no way is the list below comprehensive or mutually exclusive (or meant to be), it does present one picture of social studies in classrooms and communities during this challenging period in our history.
Ruptured Ectopic Pregnancy with an Intrauterine Device: Case Report and Sonographic Considerations.

Author(s): Jones, Derick D.; Kummer, Tobias; Schoen, Jessica C. | Abstract: Introduction: Ectopic pregnancy carries a high morbidity and mortality; patients are at risk for rupture and life-threatening hemorrhage.Case Report: We present a rare case of ruptured abdominal ectopic pregnancy in a patient with a well-positioned intrauterine device (IUD) and discuss the diagnostic utility that transabdominal point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) can have when performed at the bedside.Conclusion: While pregnancy with an IUD in place is rare, when it is encountered the emergency provider should maintain a high degree of suspicion for extrauterine pregnancy and perform prompt evaluation for hemorrhagic shock using diagnostic POCUS.
Variational Autoencoders for Protein Structure Prediction

The universe of protein structures contains many dark regions beyond the reach of experimental techniques. Yet, knowledge of the tertiary structure(s) that a protein employs to interact with partners in the cell is critical to understanding its biological function(s) and dysfunction(s). Great progress has been made in silico by methods that generate structures as part of an optimization. Recently, generative models based on neural networks are being debuted for generating protein structures. There is typically limited to showing that some generated structures are credible. In this paper, we go beyond this objective. We design variational autoencoders and evaluate whether they can replace existing, established methods. We evaluate various architectures via rigorous metrics in comparison with the popular Rosetta framework. The presented results are promising and show that once seeded with sufficient, physically-realistic structures, variational autoencoders are efficient models for generating realistic tertiary structures.
The Impact of NAFTA on U.S. Local Labor Market Employment

This paper studies the impact of the North American Free Trade Agreement on U.S. local labor markets, based on cross-regional variation in exposure to the U.S. and Mexico's tariff liberalization. Lower U.S. tariffs led to a relative decline in the share of the working-age population employed in manufacturing (especially among low-skilled workers) in more exposed regions, and increases in unemployment and in the share of the population employed in certain low-pay non-manufacturing industries. Employment losses due to U.S. tariff liberalization were much larger among female and nonwhite workers. U.S. tariff cuts also induced changes in the task composition of employment, leading to a decline in employment in production-related routine occupations and an increase in abstract occupations. The contraction in manufacturing employment and in production-related routine employment and the rise in unemployment as a result of U.S. tariff liberalization were concentrated in parts of the South and Midwest with relatively lower human capital. Mexico's tariff cuts, in contrast, did not have a discernible impact on most U.S. local labor market employment outcomes.
Comparative insight into the genomic landscape of SARS-CoV-2 and identification of mutations associated with the origin of infection and diversity.

The analyses of 2325 severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) genomes revealed 107, 162, and 65 nucleotide substitutions in the coding region of SARS-CoV-2 from the three continents America, Europe, and Asia, respectively. Of these nucleotide substitutions 58, 94, and 37 were nonsynonymous types mostly present in the Nsp2, Nsp3, Spike, and ORF9. A continent-specific phylogram analyses clustered the SARS-CoV-2 in the different group based on the frequency of nucleotide substitutions. Detailed analyses about the continent-specific amino acid changes and their effectiveness by SNAP2 software was investigated. We found 11 common nonsynonymous mutations; among them, two novel effective mutations were identified in ORF9 (S194L and S202N). Intriguingly, ORF9 encodes nucleocapsid phosphoprotein possessing many effective mutations across continents and could be a potential candidate after the spike protein for studying the role of mutation in viral assembly and pathogenesis. Among the two forms of certain frequent mutation, one form is more prevalent in Europe continents (Nsp12:L314, Nsp13:P504, Nsp13:Y541, Spike:G614, and ORF8:L84) while other forms are more prevalent in American (Nsp12:P314, Nsp13:L504, Nsp13:C541, Spike:D614, and ORF8:L84) and Asian continents (Spike:D614), indicating the spatial and temporal dynamics of SARS-CoV-2. We identified highly conserved 38 regions and among these regions, 11 siRNAs were predicted on stringent criteria that can be used to suppress the expression of viral genes and the corresponding reduction of human viral infections. The present investigation provides information on different mutations and will pave the way for differentiating strains based on virulence and their use in the development of better antiviral therapy.
Optimized workflow for unknown screening using gas chromatography high‐resolution mass spectrometry expands identification of contaminants in silicone personal passive samplers

RATIONALE Silicone wristbands have emerged as valuable passive samplers for monitoring of personal exposure to environmental contaminants in the rapidly developing field of exposomics. Once deployed, silicone wristbands collect and hold a wealth of chemical information that can be interrogated using high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) to provide a broad coverage of chemical mixtures. METHODS Gas chromatography coupled to Orbitrap™ mass spectrometry (GC/Orbitrap™ MS) was used to simultaneously perform suspect screening (using in-house database) and unknown screening (using vendor databases) of extracts from wristbands worn by volunteers. The goal of this study was to optimize a workflow that allows detection of low levels of priority pollutants, with high reliability. In this regard, a data processing workflow for GC/Orbitrap™ MS was developed using a mixture of 123 environmentally relevant standards consisting of pesticides, flame retardants, organophosphate esters, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons as test compounds. RESULTS The optimized unknown screening workflow using a search index threshold of 750 resulted in positive identification of 70 analytes in validation samples, and a reduction in the number of false positives by over 50%. An average of 26 compounds with high confidence identification, 7 level 1 compounds and 19 level 2 compounds, were observed in worn wristbands. The data were further analyzed via suspect screening and retrospective suspect screening to identify an additional 36 compounds. CONCLUSIONS This study provides three important findings: (1) a clear evidence of the importance of sample cleanup in addressing complex sample matrices for unknown analysis, (2) a valuable workflow for the identification of unknown contaminants in silicone wristband samplers using electron ionization HRMS data, and (3) a novel application of GC/Orbitrap™ MS for the unknown analysis of organic contaminants that can be used in exposomics studies.
A Lazy Approach to Long-Horizon Gradient-Based Meta-Learning

Gradient-based meta-learning relates task-specific models to a meta-model by gradients. By this design, an algorithm first optimizes the task-specific models by an inner loop and then backpropagates meta-gradients through the loop to update the meta-model. The number of inner-loop optimization steps has to be small (e.g., one step) to avoid high-order derivatives, big memory footprints, and the risk of vanishing or exploding meta-gradients. We propose an intuitive teacher-student scheme to enable the gradient-based meta-learning algorithms to explore long horizons by the inner loop. The key idea is to employ a student network to explore the search space of task-specific models adequately (e.g., by more than ten steps), and a teacher then takes a ``leap'' toward the regions probed by the student. The teacher not only arrives at a high-quality model but also defines a lightweight computation graph for meta-gradients. Our approach is generic, as we verify its effectiveness with four meta-learning algorithms over three tasks: few-shot learning, long-tailed classification, and meta-attack.
Density and surface tension effects on vortex stability. Part 2. Moore–Saffman–Tsai–Widnall instability

The Moore–Saffman–Tsai–Widnall (MSTW) instability is a parametric instability that arises in strained vortex columns. The strain is assumed to be weak and perpendicular to the vortex axis. In this second part of our investigation of vortex instability including density and surface tension effects, a linear stability analysis for this situation is presented. The instability is caused by resonance between two Kelvin waves with azimuthal wavenumber separated by two. The dispersion relation for Kelvin waves and resonant modes are obtained. Results show that the stationary resonant waves for increases, the MSTW instability decays, in contrast to the curvature instability examined in Part 1 (Chang & Llewellyn Smith, J. Fluid Mech. vol. 913, 2021, A14).
An imageomics and multi-network based deep learning model for risk assessment of liver transplantation for hepatocellular cancer.

Abstract Introduction Liver transplantation (LT) is an effective treatment for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), the most common type of primary liver cancer. Patients with small HCC ( 5 cm), we developed a convergent artificial intelligence (AI) model that combines transient clinical data with quantitative histologic and radiomic features for more objective risk assessment of liver transplantation for HCC patients. Methods Patients who received a LT for HCC between 2008–2019 were eligible for inclusion in the analysis. All patients with post-LT recurrence were included, and those without recurrence were randomly selected for inclusion in the deep learning model. Pre- and post-transplant magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans and reports were compressed using CapsNet networks and natural language processing, respectively, as input for a multiple feature radial basis function network. We applied a histological image analysis algorithm to detect pathologic areas of interest from explant tissue of patients who recurred. The multilayer perceptron was designed as a feed-forward, supervised neural network topology, with the final assessment of recurrence risk. We used area under the curve (AUC) and F-1 score to assess the predictability of different network combinations. Results A total of 109 patients were included (87 in the training group, 22 in the testing group), of which 20 were positive for cancer recurrence. Seven models (AUC; F-1 score) were generated, including clinical features only (0.55; 0.52), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) only (0.64; 0.61), pathological images only (0.64; 0.61), MRI plus pathology (0.68; 0.65), MRI plus clinical (0.78, 0.75), pathology plus clinical (0.77; 0.73), and a combination of clinical, MRI, and pathology features (0.87; 0.84). The final combined model showed 80 % recall and 89 % precision. The total accuracy of the implemented model was 82 %. Conclusion We validated that the deep learning model combining clinical features and multi-scale histopathologic and radiomic image features can be used to discover risk factors for recurrence beyond tumor size and biomarker analysis. Such a predictive, convergent AI model has the potential to alter the LT allocation system for HCC patients and expand the transplantation treatment option to patients with HCC of the highest tumor burden.
Beliefs About the Causes of Type 2 Diabetes Among First-Generation Asian Indians in the United States.

IntroductionAsian Indians (AIs) have the highest prevalence rates (18.3%-29%) of diabetes in any minority group in the United States, yet little is known about their beliefs about what causes type ...
Scalable Species Tree Inference with External Constraints

Species tree inference under the multi-species coalescent (MSC) model is a basic step in biological discovery. Despite the developments in recent years of methods that are proven statistically consistent and that have high accuracy, large datasets create computational challenges. Although there is gener- ally some information available about the species trees that could be used to speed up the estimation, only one method, ASTRAL-J, a recent development in the ASTRAL family of methods, is able to use this information. Here we describe two new methods, NJst-J and FASTRAL-J, that can estimate the species tree given partial knowledge of the species tree in the form of a non-binary unrooted constraint tree.. We show that both NJst-J and FASTRAL-J are much faster than ASTRAL-J and we prove that all three methods are statistically consistent under the multi-species coalescent model subject to this constraint. Our extensive simulation study shows that both FASTRAL-J and NJst-J provide advantages over ASTRAL-J: both are faster (and NJst-J is particularly fast), and FASTRAL-J is generally at least as accurate as ASTRAL-J. An analysis of the Avian Phylogenomics project dataset with 48 species and 14,446 genes presents additional evidence of the value of FASTRAL-J over ASTRAL-J (and both over ASTRAL), with dramatic reductions in running time (20 hours for default ASTRAL, and minutes or seconds for ASTRAL-J and FASTRAL-J, respectively). Availability: FASTRAL-J and NJst-J are available in open source form at https://github.com/ RuneBlaze/FASTRAL-constrained and https://github.com/RuneBlaze/NJst-constrained. Locations of the datasets used in this study and detailed commands needed to reproduce the study are provided in the supplementary materials at http://tandy.cs.illinois.edu/baqiao-suppl.pdf.
New Games: Postmodernism After Contemporary Art

Foreword by Johanna Burton. Introduction: Postmodernism, an Incomplete Project. Chapter 1: Postmodernism after "The Contemporary". Chapter 2: New Games. Chapter 3: Game Show. Conclusion: Mixed Hopes, Mixed Strategies. Seminar. Index.
Application of a Solar Balloon Activity in a Course for Pre-Service Elementary Education Teachers

Education students seeking licensure at the elementary school level at St. Catherine University, must complete three hands-on, inquiry based science courses including “Engineering in Your World,” an applied physics course which emphasizes use of the Engineering Design Process. During the Fall 2013 and Spring 2014 Semesters, high altitude ballooning (HAB) was introduced into the course. Student teams built payload boxes to collect experimental data and participated in a weekend launch that included chase and recovery. Although students enjoyed the activity, the equipment and knowledge threshold is too high for these students to use HAB activities in their own future elementary education classrooms. In an effort to provide our students with a ballooning experience that they could use in their classrooms, solar balloons were introduced in the Fall 2014 Semester courses. In this activity, students applied the physics concepts of forces and buoyancy to build and launch solar balloons to meet design objectives. The use of low cost construction materials and simple construction techniques makes this ballooning activity accessible and usable in elementary and middle school classrooms.
Vietnam War on Trial: The Court-Martial of Dr. Howard B. Levy

This Article examines the history of a Vietnam War-era case: the court-martial of Dr. Howard B. Levy. The U.S. Army court-martialled Dr. Levy for refusing to teach medicine to Green Beret soldiers and for criticizing both the Green Berets and American involvement in Vietnam. Although the Supreme Court eventually upheld Levy's conviction in Parker v. Levy, its decision obscures the political content of Levy's court-martial and its relationship to the war. At the court-martial Levy sought to defend himself by showing that his disparaging remarks about the Green Berets, identifying them as "killers of peasants and murderers of women and children," were true and that his refusal to teach medicine to Green Beret soldiers was dictated by medical ethics, given the ways in which the soldiers would misuse their medical knowledge. Ultimately, Levy put the war itself on trial by arguing that had he trained the soldiers he would have abetted their war crimes. This Article seeks to recapture the history of the Levy case as a case about the Vietnam War. Yet the case was also about much more. The Article shows how imagery evoking beliefs about race and racial difference, war, frontier violence, and medicine and healing all came into play in the Levy case. It also explores the manner in which the court-martial became a forum in which the Vietnam War and aspects of U.S. Army policy and conduct were debated, and in which that debate was eventually suppressed. Ultimately, this Article begins the exploration of how American legal institutions coped with the crisis of political and moral legitimacy that they confronted in the late 1960s.
Nurturing tagging communities

Member contributions power many online communities. Users have uploaded billions of images to flickr, bookmarked millions pages on del.icio.us, and authored millions of encyclopedia articles at Wikipedia. Tags—member contributed words or phrases that describe items—have emerged as a powerful method for searching, organizing, and making sense of, these vast corpora. In this thesis we explore the dynamics, challenges, and possibilities of tagging systems. We study the way in which factors influencing an individual user's choice of tags can affect the evolution of community tags as a whole. Like other community-maintained systems, tagging systems can suffer from low quality contributions. We study interfaces and algorithms that can differentiate between low quality and high quality tags. Finally, we explore tagommenders, tag-based recommendation algorithms that combine the flexibility of tags with the automation of recommender systems. We base our explorations on tagging activity in the MovieLens movie recommendation system. We analyze tagging behavior, user studies, and surveys, of 97,000 tags and 3,600 users. Our results provide insight into the dynamics of existing tagging communities, and suggest mechanisms that address challenges of, and provide extensions to, tagging systems.
Control of photosynthetic membrane assembly in Rhodobacter sphaeroides mediated by puhA and flanking sequences.

Abstract A reaction center H- strain (RCH-) of Rhodobacter sphaeroides, PUHA1, was made by in vitro deletion of an XhoI restriction endonuclease fragment from the puhA gene coupled with insertion of a kanamycin resistance gene cartridge. The resulting construct was delivered to R. sphaeroides wild-type 2.4.1, with the defective puhA gene replacing the wild-type copy by recombination, followed by selection for kanamycin resistance. When grown under conditions known to induce intracytoplasmic membrane development, PUHA1 synthesized a pigmented intracytoplasmic membrane. Spectral analysis of this membrane showed that it was deficient in B875 spectral complexes as well as functional reaction centers and that the level of B800-850 spectral complexes was greater than in the wild type. The RCH- strain was photosythetically incompetent, but photosynthetic growth was restored by complementation with a 1.45-kilobase (kb) BamHI restriction endonuclease fragment containing the puhA gene carried in trans on plasmid pRK404. B875 spectral complexes were not restored by complementation with the 1.45-kb BamHI restriction endonuclease fragment containing the puhA gene but were restored along with photosynthetic competence by complementation with DNA from a cosmid carrying the puhA gene, as well as a flanking DNA sequence. Interestingly, B875 spectral complexes, but not photosynthetic competence, were restored to PUHA1 by introduction in trans of a 13-kb BamHI restriction endonuclease fragment carrying genes encoding the puf operon region of the DNA. The effect of the puhA deletion was further investigated by an examination of the levels of specific mRNA species derived from the puf and puc operons, as well as by determinations of the relative abundances of polypeptides associated with various spectral complexes by immunological methods. The roles of puhA and other genetic components in photosynthetic gene expression and membrane assembly are discussed.
Multirate linear prediction

The problem of linear prediction for multiple channels of data sampled at different rates is considered. The prediction error filters in this case are periodically time-varying. A Levinson-type recursion is developed for the linear prediction parameters. A sliding window formulation is also developed.
NIST Manufacturing Extension Partnership Client Impact Survey: Data Overview

Created in 1988, the Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP), a program of the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), provides knowledge and problem-solving services to improve the productivity, economic competitiveness, and technological capabilities of America's manufacturers, particularly small manufacturers. Since 1996, NIST MEP has used an independent third-party organization to conduct national research with clients who have completed their first projects with local NIST MEP centers. The surveys collect aggregate information on program performance indicators to report to stakeholders, and provide center-specific program performance and impact information for center use. Download the slides at: http://papers.ssrn.com/paper=1027920 Download the audio file at: http://papers.ssrn.com/paper=1029991