cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Motion analysis and removal in intensity variation based OCT microangiography

In this work, we demonstrated that bulk motion could lead to increased background in OCT microangiography image. Based on our motion analysis, we developed an adaptive thresholding method to reduce artifact in OCT microangiography caused by transient bulk motion. Motion artifact reduced microangiography was demonstrated in a 1.3μm spectral domain OCT system using graphic processing unit (GPU) for real-time signal processing. We conducted in vivo microvasculature imaging on human skin. Our results clearly show that the adaptive thresholding is highly effective in motion artifact removal.
Metal complexation reactions of quinolone antibiotics in a quadrupole ion trap.

We have undertaken a systematic study of the nature of quinolone metal complexes formed by electrospray ionization and laser desorption/ion−molecule reactions to evaluate the analytical utility of metal complexation as an alternative to conventional ionization via protonation. Metal ionization with laser-desorbed copper and nickel ions results in addition products of the form (L + Cu+) and (L + Ni+), respectively, where L is the quinolone, whereas addition−elimination products of the form (L + Co+ − 28) are observed when cobalt is used. The elimination of CO in order to form this unusual latter product seems to be favored by the formation of a cyclized structure that is stabilized by intramolecular hydrogen bonding. The CAD patterns of the Ni+ complexes prove to be the most structurally informative, more so than the fragmentation patterns of the protonated quinolones. Quinolone−metal complexes of the type [MII(L − H+)(dipy)]+, where M is either Cu, Co, or Ni and dipy is 2,2‘-dipyridine, are generated by e...
Development of a pediatric hospitalist sedation service: training and implementation.

OBJECTIVE: There is growing demand for safe and effective procedural sedation in pediatric facilities nationally. Currently, these needs are being met by a variety of providers and sedation techniques, including anesthesiologists, pediatric intensivists, emergency medicine physicians, and pediatric hospitalists. There is currently no consensus regarding the training required by non-anesthesiologists to provide safe sedation. We will outline the training method developed at St. Louis Children's Hospital. METHODS: In 2003, the Division of Pediatric Anesthesia at St. Louis Children's Hospital approached the Division of Pediatric Hospitalist Medicine as a resource to provide pediatric sedation outside of the operating room. Over the last seven years, Pediatric Hospitalist Sedation services have evolved into a three-tiered system of sedation providers. The first tier provides sedation services in the emergency unit (EU) and the Center for After Hours Referral for Emergency Services (CARES). The second tier provides sedation throughout the hospital including the EU, CARES, inpatient units, Ambulatory Procedure Center (APC), and Pediatric Acute Wound Service (PAWS); it also provides night/weekend sedation call for urgent needs. The third tier provides sedation in all of the second-tier locations, as well as utilizing propofol in the APC. RESULTS: This training program has resulted in a successful pediatric hospitalist sedation service. Based on fiscal year 2009 billing data, the division performed 2,471 sedations. We currently have 43 hospitalists providing Tier-One sedation, 18 Tier-Two providers, and six Tier-Three providers. CONCLUSIONS: A pediatric hospitalist sedation service with proper training and oversight can successfully augment sedation provided by anesthesiologists. Journal of Hospital Medicine 2012;. © 2011 Society of Hospital Medicine
Quantitative computed tomography in assessment of osteoporosis

Computed tomography (CT) has been widely investigated and applied in recent years as a means for noninvasive quantitative bone mineral determination. The usefulness of computed tomography for measurement of bone mineral lies in its ability to provide a quantitative image and, thereby, measure trabecular, cortical, or integral bone, centrally or peripherally. For measuring the spine, the potential advantages of quantitative computed tomography (QCT) over dual-photon absorptiometry (DPA) are its capability for precise three-dimensional anatomic localization providing a direct density measurement, and its capability for spatial separation of highly responsive cancellous bone from less responsive compact bone. Currently, QCT vertebral mineral determination has been implemented at over 800 sites encompassing a wide geographic distribution and a wide array of commercial scanners. With a world-wide distribution of approximately 8,000 advanced CT body scanners, the capability now exists for widespread application of vertebral bone mineral determination by quantitative computed tomography. These QCT techniques for vertebral mineral determination have been used to study skeletal changes in osteoporosis and other metabolic bone diseases. Longitudinal and cross-sectional bone mass measurements have been obtained at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) in over 3,000 patients seen clinically or on research protocols. The results presented here illustrate the use of QCT spinal mineral measurement in the delineation of normal age-related bone loss, in the evaluation of estrogen effects on bone, in the assessment of fracture threshold and risk, and in the study of the effects of various exercise regimens on bone mineral and the determination of relationships to other techniques of bone mineral measurement. The laboratory and clinical results presented herein indicate that QCT provides a reliable means to evaluate and monitor the many forms of osteoporosis and the various interventions aimed at ameliorating this condition. The greatest advantages of spinal QCT for noninvasive bone mineral measurement lie in the high precision of the technique, the high sensitivity of the vertebral trabecular measurement site, and the potential for widespread application.
Synthesis of imidazolate bridged dinuclear Cu(II)Fe(III) porphyrins

Abstract Reaction of octaethylporphyriniron(III) perchlorate, Fe(oep)ClO 4 , or an iron capped porphyrin perchlorate, Fe(C 2 cap)ClO 4 , with a copper(II) imidazolate complex, CuIm, gives the imidazolate bridged dinuclear monoadducts, [Fe(oep)CuIm]ClO 4 or [Fe(C 2 cap)CuIm]ClO 4 , which are characterized by variable temperature magnetic susceptibility as spin coupled intermediate spin and admixed intermediate spin systems, respectively.
Tris(2,2'-bipyridine)ruthenium(II) cations as photoprobes of clay tactoid architecture within hectorite and laponite films

The adsorption and intercalation of the cationic luminescence probe, tris(2,2‘-bipyridine)ruthenium(II) complex ([Ru(bpy)3]2+ or Rubpy), into hectorite and Laponite host clay films were investigated. Because the photophysical properties of Rubpy are strongly influenced by the lamellar nanospace of the smectite host, Rubpy serves as a unique photoprobe of host−guest and guest−guest interfaces within inorganic−organic nanocomposites. The stacking patterns of the host tactoids influence guest luminescence through direct mediation of ion clustering and self-quenching phenomena. Spectral red shift of emission wavelengths and decreased lifetimes were observed with increased guest loading. The extent of red shift in the Rubpy/Laponite films indicated a more fluid guest microenvironment. Rubpy/Laponite films exhibit enhanced potential for photonic and sensor applications with increased optical transparency, intense luminescence, and longer luminescence lifetimes. Cointercalation of the cationic surfactant, trimet...
Emplacement and Displacement: Perceiving the Landscape Through Aboriginal Australian Acrylic Painting

Aboriginal Australian acrylic paintings have long been considered representations of mythologically invested landscape. This understanding has been made problematic by recent writings on ‘dwelling’. As common usage of the term ‘landscape’ seems to prioritize vision, to suggest that the acrylic paintings are landscapes only strengthens the suspicion that they are artifacts of displacement or distancing, rather than examples of the emplacement emphasized in this ‘dwelling perspective’. However, this paper will demonstrate that the relationship between acrylic painting and the land is more complex than such an interpretation. It will argue that the Aboriginal objectification of their relationship to the land is not inherently a distancing of the land.
Targeting histone lysine demethylases — Progress, challenges, and the future

N-Methylation of lysine and arginine residues has emerged as a major mechanism of transcriptional regulation in eukaryotes. In humans, Ne-methyllysine residue demethylation is catalysed by two distinct subfamilies of demethylases (KDMs), the flavin-dependent KDM1 subfamily and the 2-oxoglutarate- (2OG) dependent JmjC subfamily, which both employ oxidative mechanisms. Modulation of histone methylation status is proposed to be important in epigenetic regulation and has substantial medicinal potential for the treatment of diseases including cancer and genetic disorders. This article provides an introduction to the enzymology of the KDMs and the therapeutic possibilities and challenges associated with targeting them, followed by a review of reported KDM inhibitors and their mechanisms of action from kinetic and structural perspectives. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: Methylation: A Multifaceted Modification — looking at transcription and beyond.
Role of the error-free damage bypass postreplication repair pathway in the maintenance of genomic stability

The postreplication repair pathway (PRR) is composed of error-free and error-prone sub-pathways that allow bypass of DNA damage-induced replication-blocking lesions. The error-free sub-pathway is also used for bypass of spontaneous DNA damage and functions in cooperation with recombination pathways. In diploid yeast cells, error-free PRR is needed to prevent genomic instability, which is manifest as loss of heterozygosity (LOH) events of increased chromosome loss and recombination. Homologous recombination acts synergistically with the error-free damage avoidance branch of PRR to prevent chromosome loss. The DNA damage checkpoint gene MEC1 acts synergistically with the PRR pathway in maintaining genomic stability. Integration of the PRR pathway with other cellular pathways for preventing genomic instability is discussed. In diploid strains, the most dramatic increase is in the abnormality of chromosome loss when a repair or damage detection pathway is defective.
Recent and Historic Red Spruce Mortality: Evidence of Climatic Influence

A period of declining growth and extensive mortality of red spruce (Picea rubens Sarg.) has been in progress for the past two decades in the montane forests of New York, Vermont and New Hampshire, Those areas are subject to particularly high levels of pollutant input and there is concern that airborne chemicals have destabilized the forest ecosystems. Field reports indicate that major episodes of mortality also occurred prior to the era of widespread industrial pollution, particularly in the 1870’s and 1880’s. The present and past periods of mortality have similarities as well as differences, and whether the primary causes are the same cannot be confidently determined with the information currently available. One similarity is that recent and past episodes of red spruce mortality tended to occur during or immediately after periods which are climatically unfavorable for this species.
Epigenetic regulation of differential HLA-A allelic expression levels

MHC class I expression levels influence the strength of immune responses and represent another variable in determining outcome to disease beyond peptide binding alone. Identification of the HLA loci that vary in allelic expression levels and delineating the mechanism responsible for expression variation may provide the opportunity to modify their expression therapeutically. We have examined the expression levels of allelic lineages at the HLA-A locus in a sample of 216 European Americans using a real-time polymerase chain reaction assay, which amplifies all HLA-A lineages specifically with equal efficiency, and observed a gradient of expression that associates with HLA-A allelic lineage (R = 0.6, P = 5 × 10(-25)). DNA methylation of the HLA-A gene appears to contribute to the variation in HLA-A mRNA expression levels, as a significant inverse correlation was observed between HLA-A mRNA expression levels in untreated cells and the degree to which expression is increased after treatment of the cells with a DNA methyltransferase inhibitor (R = 0.6, P = 2.8 × 10(-6)). Further, deep-sequencing and immunoprecipitation assays revealed allelic lineage-specific methylation patterns within the HLA-A promoter region where increased DNA methylation levels correlated significantly with reduced HLA-A expression levels (R = 0.89, P = 3.7 × 10(-9)). These data demonstrate HLA-A allelic lineage-specific variation in expression levels, and DNA methylation as a likely factor in contributing to this variation.
Prevalence of Sarcoptes scabiei in the homes and nursing homes of scabietic patients

This study determined the prevalence of Sarcoptes scabiei in the home environment of 37 confirmed cases of scabies and in five nursing homes with scabietic patients. Dust samples from 44% of infested patients' homes contained scabies mites. Live mites at the time the dust samples were analyzed were present in 64% of these homes. Live mites were recovered most often from bedroom floors or overstuffed chairs and couches. The density of live and dead mites ranged from 1 to 5 mites/0.1 gm of dust or 1 to 9 mites/m2 of surface area sampled. The presence of mites in fomites coupled with survival and host-seeking behavior indicate that it is possible for a person to become infested by dislodged mites in contaminated home, school, and work environments. By contrast, only a small number of mites were recovered from beds, furniture, and floors of scabies-infested nursing homes. Mite-contaminated fomites may be less important in the transmission of scabies in nursing homes than in private homes.
Stability for a high-absorption wave: Arbitrary equilibrium as a solution of the velocity selection problem

Abstract The linear stability for an optically thick wave of high absorption is demonstrated. In the given case this solves the problem of velocity selection, which has been known for patterns of such a kind. An arbitrary parabolic front is allowed to be a state of arbitrary equilibrium.
The Vision of Woman in Classical Reform Judaism

ne of the essential tasks of a religious system is to provide its adherents with a rich and elaborate sense of self in the world. In only the last decade scholars of religion have increasingly understood that religion creates not only a sense of self, but indeed of gender. Myth, symbol, and even who occupies roles of religious leadership communicate to participants what constitute male and female. As religions undergo change, slowly or radically, the transformation of the individual and gender are also implied. Those who seek to understand the relationship between self and religion, and gender and religion, must analyze the relationship between religious change and a symbolic formulation of the self. The impact of religion on a vision of self rests at at the center of a decadelong analysis of Judaism by feminist scholars. They have critiqued the tradition's patriarchal, even misogynist formulations. Women's biological status as a prominent feature of her legal identity, and her lack of equal access to prayer and study have been demonstrated and analyzed (cf. Koltun; Baum et. al.; Priesand; "The Jewish Woman," 1971, 1973). Yet scant attention has been paid by scholars to historical experiments in Judaism in which the role of women was transformed. In particular, the mid-nineteenth-century German Jewish reformers provide an example of a reformation program overtly concerned with women's rights. In an analysis of their program one has the opportunity to observe the impact of religious change on conceptions of gender. Nineteenth-century reformers of Judaism attempted to create a religion that was, on the one hand, responsive to a vision of civility and German citizenship constructed by the Enlightenment, and on the other, an authenticity that
Studies on the biologic characterization of human gonadotropins. VII. Urinary gonadotropins of men, postmenopausal women and eunuchs.

Human pituitary gonadotropin (HPG) was prepared by the kaolin-acetone method from large quantities of urine of normal men, postmenopausal women and eunuchs. These 3 preparations of HPG were studied by a general gonadotropin assay, by assays for FSH and LH, and by the fingerprint system for identification of gonadotropins. The ratio of gonadotropic potency of the HPG preparations from men and postmenopausal women was the same regardless of the methods of assay used, indicating that the proportions of FSH and LH in the HPG from these two sources were the same. However, the HPG from the urine of eunuchs contained more FSH than LH as compared with HPG from the urine of men or postmenopausal women. The FSH/LH ratio in HPG from eunuchs was about twice that of HPG from men or postmenopausal women.
A simulator for the analysis of neuronal ensemble activity: application to reaching tasks

Abstract A biologically based, multi-cortical computational model was developed to investigate how ensembles of neurons learn to execute a three-dimensional reaching task. The model produces outputs of spike trains that can be analyzed using a variety of multivariate analysis tools. Simulations show that after learning, the model neurons exhibit broad directional tuning that depend on the defined muscle directions of the simulated arm, and that these neurons form functional clusters within cortical areas. The utility of the model is demonstrated by testing arm movement prediction strategies using ensemble activity.
Effects of Expectations about Evaluation and Peer Recommendations on Students' Ratings

Previous research on consumer satisfaction suggests that the anticipation of providing a later evaluation leads to more negative appraisals. Within the context of higher education, the current experiment focused on the evaluation of a presentation and its presenter. College students (35 men, 59 women) were randomly assigned to six conditions regarding evaluative expectations and peer recommendations. Students watched a brief video of a lecture on an educational topic and then evaluated the speaker and presentation. Anticipation of providing evaluations did not influence the subsequent evaluations; however, peers' positive recommendations led to more positive evaluations whereas negative recommendations led to more negative evaluations.
A visual analytics approach to exploring protein flexibility subspaces

Understanding what causes proteins to change shape and how the resulting shape influences function will expedite the design of more narrowly focused drugs and therapies. Shape alterations are often the result of flexibility changes in a set of localized neighborhoods that may or may not act in concert. Computational models have been developed to predict flexibility changes under varying empirical parameters. In this paper, we tackle a significant challenge facing scientists when analyzing outputs of a computational model, namely how to identify, examine, compare, and group interesting neighborhoods of proteins under different parameter sets. This is a difficult task since comparisons over protein subunits that comprise diverse neighborhoods are often too complex to characterize with a simple metric and too numerous to analyze manually. Here, we present a series of novel visual analytics approaches toward addressing this task. User scenarios illustrate the utility of these approaches and feedback from domain experts confirms their effectiveness.
Exploration of the Cyberbullying Victim/Offender Overlap by Sex

As usage of the Internet has grown to approximately 657 million users worldwide, criminality online has become more prevalent. Termed “cybercrime,” this form of criminal behavior can occur in several different. While cybercrime in general is fairly new comparably to crimes in the physical realm, one of the most recently recognized forms of cybercrime is cyberbullying. The present study will examine the victimoffender relationship. Results indicate that both males and females with lower levels of self-control were more likely to participate in cyberbullying by posting hurtful messages or pictures to Facebook. Second, both sexes were more likely to cyerbullying via Facebook if they had been cyberbullied as well.
Elastic effects in pulsatile blood flow.

Abstract The persistence of pulsation into the microcirculation raises questions concerning the roles of the steady and oscillatory pressure components in determining blood flow. To resolve these questions, measurements have been made on precisely controlled flows in small, rigid tubes. Principal measurements are with 46% hematocrit human blood in an 0.086 cm diam, tube for steady flow, sinusoidal oscillatory flow at 2 Hz, and for the superposition of these to produce pulsatile flow. For steady flow the pressure is linearly related to the volume flow for low flows, and is followed by a nonlinear relation at higher stress levels. For oscillatory flow, the pressure is resolved into a component in phase with the volume flow (an energy dissipative component) and a one in quadrature (a recoverable energy component). For the purpose of comparison, measurements were also made with a Newtonian, viscous glycerol solution. With glycerol solution, both pressure components are linearly proportional to the volume flow amplitude, the quadrature component being inertial-like. However, with blood, both components exhibit nonlinear effects and at small flow amplitudes the quadrature component is elastic, i.e., spring-like. With increasing amplitude, this elastic component vanishes, then becomes inertial-like. These effects are moderated in pulsatile flow by the balance between the steady and oscillatory flow components. This pressure-flow behavior is explained by the viscoelastic property of blood and the shear degradation of RBC aggregates.
Pilocytic astrocytoma survival in adults: analysis of the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program of the National Cancer Institute

Pilocytic astrocytoma is a WHO grade 1 brain tumor common in children. Relatively little is known about the behavior of pilocytic astrocytomas in adult patients, largely due to the rarity of pilocytic astrocytoma in this population. Some data suggest that adults share the excellent prognosis seen in children, while other reports suggest more aggressive tumor behavior in adult patients. Patients diagnosed with pilocytic astrocytoma between 1973 and 2008 were identified in the National Cancer Institute Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program database. Age-group specific survival was analyzed with overall, expected, and cancer-specific survival rates. Further survival analyses were performed with the Kaplan–Meier method and Cox Proportional Hazards models. 3,066 patients with pilocytic astrocytoma were identified, including 865 patients aged 20 years and older. Survival rates declined significantly with age, from 96.5% 60-month survival in patients 5–19 years (95% CI 95.3–97.4) to 52.9% 60-month survival in adult patients 60+ years of age (95% CI 38.4–65.5), with a corresponding decrease in relative and cancer-specific survival rates. Gross total resection was a positive prognostic indicator in adults, while patients receiving radiation had shorter survival regardless of extent of resection. Pilocytic astrocytoma is associated with higher mortality in adult patients than in children and teens, and survival decreases with increasing age in adults. The morbidity of pilocytic astrocytoma in adults provides rationale for future trials of adjuvant treatment in high-risk patients.
Optical gap formation and localization properties of optical modes in deterministic aperiodic photonic structures

We theoretically investigate the spectral and localization properties of two-dimensional (2D) deterministic aperiodic (DA) arrays of photonic nanopillars characterized by singular continuous (Thue-Morse sequence) and absolutely continuous (Rudin-Shapiro sequence) Fourier spectra. A rigorous and efficient numerical technique based on the 2D Generalized Multiparticle Mie Theory is used to study the formation of optical gaps and the confinement properties of eigenmodes supported by DA photonic lattices. In particular, we demonstrate the coexistence of optical modes with various degrees of localization (localized, extended and critical) and show that in-plane and out-of-plane optical energy confinement of extended critical modes can be optimally balanced. These results make aperiodic photonic structures very attractive for the engineering of novel passive and active photonic devices, such as low-threshold microlasers, sensitive detectors and bio-chemical sensors.
Treatment of AIDS with drugs targeted to inhibit different stages of the HIV life cycle.

(1995). Treatment of AIDS with Drugs Targeted to Inhibit Different Stages of the HIV Life Cycle. Immunopharmacology and Immunotoxicology: Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 217-245.
Microstructure Properties of Barnett Shale Cores using GSA Inversion

Summary A detailed knowledge of microstructure properties of shale rocks is very important to help us to understand the transport behavior of fluid inside porous shale, and further the quantitative study of permeability, which is critical in exploration of the unconventional reservoir, e.g. gasbearing shale. Due to the fact that the scale of pore/crack is as small as 0.1 to 0.005 μm in shale, it’s nearly impossible to direct measure all the microstructure properties of shale, including porosity, aspect ratio, pore connectivity and fluid type, assuming the pore and crack geometry is arbitrary ellipsoid. How could we get the microstructure properties of shale from rock physics model? Given mineralogy of a rock, General Singular Approximation (GSA) method can take into account all the microstructure properties to apply the numerical rock physics modeling to obtain the effective stiffness, which can be used to calculate the anisotropic P and S wave velocities with regard to angle. Therefore, the optimized anisotropic microstructure properties can be obtained from solving an inverse problem of GSA modeling, by minimizing the objective function, which is defined as the difference of anisotropic P and S velocities between ultrasonic measurement and the GSA calculation.
Chromatographic Techniques for Pollution Analyses

Pollution studies of air and water samples have been greatly enhanced by the use of chromatographic techniques. The selection of the proper detectors coupled with the various column types and substrates have broadened the capabilities of environmental analyses. Proper care in sampling protocols and sample treatment has steadily improved the sensitivity of these measurements. The recommended methods for air, wastewater, drinking water and solid waste samples all utilize some type of chromatographic analysis for the determination of organic contaminants. Three complimentary techniques: i.e., headspace sampling (dynamic and static methods), microextractions (liquid-liquid and/or liquid-solid) and solid-phase extractions have expanded the capabilities of such studies to permit the analytical chemist to perform fast in-the-field monitoring, concentrate low levels of analytes and determine solubilities of toxic substances. A discussion of other environmental areas which should be studied, along with the changes and/or modifications in analytical technology which should be investigated, will be presented.
New limits on the electron electric dipole moment from cesium.

The electric-dipole moment (edm) of the ground state of cesium has been measured using a two-laser method that does not require the presence of an external B field. The measured value ${\mathit{d}}_{\mathrm{Cs}}$=(-1.8\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}6.7\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}1.8)\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}${10}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}24}$ e cm implies that the electron EDM is ${\mathit{d}}_{\mathit{e}}$=(-1.5\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}5.5\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}1.5)\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}${10}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}26}$ e cm. This result represents more than an order-of-magnitude improvement over all previous limits.
Immediate effects of atlas manipulation on cardiovascular physiology

Summary Objective The aims of this study were (1) to determine if there were any statistically significant immediate effects of atlas Chiropractic Manipulative Therapy (CMT) on cardiovascular physiology among normotensive individuals and (2) to quantify those responses if they were found. Design A single-blind, randomized controlled trial. Setting Human physiology lab. Subjects Forty-eight college students (age = 25.9 ± 3.4 years, height = 1.70 ± 0.10 m, body mass = 76.2 ± 20.1 kg: mean ± SD) were sampled in this study. Methods Participants were equally randomized into four study groups: left head-turn control, no contact control, left atlas manipulation, and right atlas manipulation. The CMT provided was a cervical break. Electrocardiogram (ECG), bilateral pulse oximetry, and bilateral blood pressure measurement were performed at baseline, post 1-min intervention, post 10-min intervention, and approximately post 24-h (±1 h) intervention. Between-group dependent variables were analyzed through one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) at each time point. Results No statistically significant difference was shown among any between-group cardiovascular dependent variables in this study. Conclusions The results of this research suggest cardiovascular physiology is not affected by CMT of the atlas in normotensive individuals. These findings in relation to existing research suggest future cervical spine CMT studies should be performed focusing on hypertensive patients.
Using Light To Guide the Motion of Nanorods in Photoresponsive Binary Blends: Designing Hierarchically Structured Nanocomposites

One of the challenges in creating high-performance polymer nanocomposites is establishing effective routes for tailoring the morphology of both the polymer mixture and the dispersed nanoparticles, ...
Targeting the right regulatory T-cell population for tumor immunotherapy

Regulatory T cells (Tregs) that suppress tumor-specific T cell-mediated immune responses are the subject of an intense wave of investigation. We recently reported that a subset of Tregs, namely effector/memory CD25low cells, are responsible for suppressing high avidity tumor-specific T cells in mouse mammary tumors. Here, we discuss additional findings that clarify this mechanism of Treg-mediated immunosuppression.
Abraham Kuyper en die reg op selfbeskikking van bevolkingsgroepe

Abraham Kuyper and the right to self-determination of peoples Sphere sovereignty as a principle that regulates the mutual relationships among different social institutions originated from the philosophy of John Althusius, and this idea is found again in one form or another in the theories of various German political and legal philosophers. However, the descriptive name of this principle derives from the Dutch politician, Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer, who under the influence of Julius Stahl, confined the principle to church-state relationships. The special contribution of Abraham Kuyper was to extend sphere sovereignty to relationships among other social institutions. However, Kuyper did not distinguish precisely between the kinds of “circles” which in principle qualify for sphere sovereignty, and in the process he also included social communities among those with sphere sovereignty. An accurate distinction among social institutions that do qualify for sphere sovereignty and (unstructured) social communities that do not, derived from the philosophy of the cosmonomic idea of Herman Dooyeweerd. Kuyper’s perception of sphere sovereignty of social communities does correspond with the right to self-determination of ethnic, religious and linguistic communities as currently defined in international law. This right, however, does not include the right to secession from an existing state, but affords to the communities concerned the right to promote their culture, to testify to and practise their religion and to speak and apply their language without state interference.
The entity system architecture and its application in an undergraduate game development studio

This paper reports on the software architecture, methodology, and student learning experience from the development of Morgan's Raid, an educational game designed to teach fourth-graders about Indiana's Civil War history. The game was designed and developed during the 2010-2011 academic year and involved a multidisciplinary undergraduate team. The team used industrial best-practices of game development, including continuous integration, distributed version control, test-driven development, and Scrum. This methodology was supported by an entity system architecture, a software architectural design pattern that addresses many shortcomings of inheritance-based game engine architectures. Detailed definitions of the entity system architecture and methodology are presented along with the experience report. This combination of methodology and architecture directly contributed to the success of the project, both software development exercise and learning experience.
TCP Performance over OBS Networks with Multiple Flows Input

In this paper, we evaluate TCP performance in optical burst switched (OBS) networks with multiple TCP flows. Several performance metrics are studied, which include TCP throughput, fairness, retransmission ratio and stableness the OBS network with multiple TCP connections. The study is also extended to burst TCP (BTCP) proposed for OBS networks in particular. Our work provides a more comprehensive understanding of the congestion control and stableness of current existing TCP in OBS networks and sheds lights on the better TCP design for the OBS networks.
The Lorenzian Theory of Aggression and Peace Research: A Critique:

P'ractically all the significant theories of war and peace in Western political thought have been postulated either implicitly or explicitly on certain images of human nature. The Hobbesian image of man as homo homini lupus a vicious and cruel animal with no compassion for his fellows has been shared in varying degrees by St. Augustine, Machiavelli, Luther, Malthus, Jonathan Swift, Dean Inge, Spinoza, Bismarck, Freud, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Hans Morgenthau in their attempts to explain societal defects or evils in terms of the allegedly innate nastiness in human nature (Waltz, 1959). Even the struggle for power among nations has been explained by some 'realists' in terms of aniimus dominandi, the notion that Homo sapiens, viewed as individuals or as nations, act like beasts of prey, driven by an insatiable lust for power. The contemporary version of Hobbesianism is presented, however, in a 'scientific' wrapper. In fact, its most eloquent spokesman, Konrad Z. Lorenz, is widely recognized as 'the founder of modern ethology' (EiblElibesfeldt and Wickler, 1968: 186). Lorenz's scientific stature has been further enhanced since he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine in 1973. When Sigmund Freud revised his conception of aggression in the aftermath of World War I,1
Isolation of gliovictin from the marine deuteromycete Asteromyces cruciatus

Abstract (−)Gliovictin, a diketopiperazine isolated from terrestrial fungi of the genera Helminthosporium and Penicillium, has been isolated from culture broths of the marine deuteromycete Astermyces cruciatus.
Salmonellae in Poultry Feeds

Abstract INTRODUCTION THE poultry industry continues to be plagued by problems caused by paratyphoid and other related enteric infections. The presence of Salmonellae in feed ingredients as well as in finished feeds has been reported in the United States and Europe. During the past thirty years, over 100 different Salmonellae serotypes have been isolated from the avian species in the United States. The source of the Salmonellae continues to be a mystery in many of the cases. REVIEW OF LITERATURE The contamination of poultry feeds and feed ingredients with Salmonellae has been reported by a number of workers. An English report by the Ministry of Health (1959) reported that the bacteriological examination of 1,262 samples of animal feeding meals and organic fertilizers resulted in the isolation of 88 Salmonellae serotypes. Boyer et al. (1958) was able to isolate 9 serotypes from meat scraps and turkey feed. Watkins et al. (1959) isolated . . .
Distributed reception of fading signals in noise

A multiple antenna diversity scheme is investigated for digital wireless communications. In this scheme the antenna observations are immediately quantized and only the quantized values are sent to a fusion center to decide which symbol was transmitted. The case where fine quantization is impractical is considered, so that distributed detection principles apply. The optimum reception scheme is described for the case where frequency shift keying is employed. Multiple bit quantization schemes are considered for cases where the observations at each antenna are influenced by slow Rayleigh fading and Gaussian additive noise. Some numerical results are provided.
Functional morphology, ecology, and evolution of the Scaphitaceae Gill, 1871 (cephalopoda)

Scaphitids are heteromorph ammonites exhibiting morphological trends counter to of those of the other main heteromorph ammonite groups. These trends include the shortening of the body chamber, lateral compression of the whorl, closure of the coil, and more regular, spiral coiling. Scaphitid-like morphologies may have appeared in other heteromorphs, but the Scaphitaceae are monophyletic. The most primitive scaphitids are known from the Albian, but an important radiation occurred in the Western Interior Seaway of North America from the Santonian to Maastrichtian, some of which spread to the Old World. The scaphitid morphology is consistent with improved swimming abilities, but scaphitids remained associated with the seafloor and are best considered to have been nektobenthos similar to modern nautiluses.
The complete mitochondrial DNA sequence of the bichir (Polypterus ornatipinnis), a basal ray-finned fish: ancient establishment of the consensus vertebrate gene order.

The evolutionary position of bichirs is disputed, and they have been variously aligned with ray-finned fish (Actinopterygii) or lobe-finned fish (Sarcopterygii), which also include tetrapods. Alternatively, they have been placed into their own group, the Brachiopterygii. The phylogenetic position of bichirs as possibly the most primitive living bony fish (Osteichthyes) made knowledge about their mitochondrial genome of considerable evolutionary interest. We determined the complete nucleotide sequence (16,624 bp) of the mitochondrial genome of a bichir, Polypterus ornutipinnis. Its genome contains 13 proteincoding genes, 22 WAS, two rRNAs and one major noncoding region. The genome’s structure and organization show that this is the most basal vertebrate that conforms to the consensus vertebrate mtDNA gene order. Bichir mitochondrial protein-coding and ribosomal RNA genes have greater sequence similarity to ray-finned fish than to either lamprey or lungfish. Phylogenetic analyses suggest the bichir’s placement as the most basal living member of the ray-finned fish and rule out its classification as a lobefinned fish. Hence, its lobe-fins are probably not a shared-derived trait with those of lobe-finned fish (Sarcopterygii).
An Ontological Framework for Retrieving Environmental Sounds Using Semantics and Acoustic Content

Organizing a database of user-contributed environmental sound recordings allows sound files to be linked not only by the semantic tags and labels applied to them, but also to other sounds with similar acoustic characteristics. Of paramount importance in navigating these databases are the problems of retrieving similar sounds using text- or sound-based queries, and automatically annotating unlabeled sounds. We propose an integrated system, which can be used for text-based retrieval of unlabeled audio, content-based query-by-example, and automatic annotation of unlabeled sound files. To this end, we introduce an ontological framework where sounds are connected to each other based on the similarity between acoustic features specifically adapted to environmental sounds, while semantic tags and sounds are connected through link weights that are optimized based on user-provided tags. Furthermore, tags are linked to each other through a measure of semantic similarity, which allows for efficient incorporation of out-of-vocabulary tags, that is, tags that do not yet exist in the database. Results on two freely available databases of environmental sounds contributed and labeled by nonexpert users demonstrate effective recall, precision, and average precision scores for both the text-based retrieval and annotation tasks.
Toward inquiry-based education through interacting software agents

The University of Michigan Digital Library (UMDL) project is creating an infrastructure for rendering library services over a digital network. When fully developed, the UMDL will provide a wealth of information sources and library services to students, researchers, and educators. Tasks are distributed among numerous specialized modules called agents. The three classes of agents are user interface agents, mediator agents, and collection interface agents. Complex tasks are accomplished by teams of specialized agents working together-for example, by interleaving various types of search. The UMDL is being deployed in three arenas: secondary-school science classrooms, the University of Michigan library, and space-science laboratories. The development team expects the scale and diversity of the project to test their technical ideas about distributed agents, interoperability, mediation, and economical resource allocation.
Anatomic Aspects of Central Nervous Cardiovascular Regulation

Cardiovascular afferent information is relayed from baro- and chemoreceptors located in the aortic arch and carotid sinus to the nucleus tractus solitarius (NTS). This information is then relayed to a number of brainstem and forebrain nuclei. Two important concepts emerge from connectional studies of the NTS efferent pathways. First, the NTS projects directly to some of the brainstem and hypothalamic nuclei which give rise to direct pathways that control either vagal or sympathetic preganglionic neurons. For example, the control over the sympathetic outflow can be mediated by the A5 noradrenergic cell group, the ventral medulla which includes the C1 adrenergic cell group as well as the descending substance P pathway, the Kolliker-Fuse region of the parabrachial nucleus, and the paraventricualr nucleus. Second, the NTS can modulate the release of vasopressin by means of indirect circuits. Some of these includes pathways from the A1 and A2 cell groups as well as the lateral parabrachial nucleus.
Animated sensitivity analysis for production planning

The use of advanced computer graphics technology for animated sensitivity analysis is discussed in the context of production planning. Animated sensitivity analysis allows users to make continuous 'local' changes to the state of the system (e.g. the schedule) and simultaneously see appropriate (though not optimal) global changes. The concept is illustrated with two examples from production scheduling, though it is believed that the concept is more widely acceptable. >
WormTerminator: an effective containment of unknown and polymorphic fast spreading worms

The fast spreading worm is becoming one of the most serious threats to today's networked information systems. A fast spreading worm could infect hundreds of thousands of hosts within a few minutes. In order to stop a fast spreading worm, we need the capability to detect and contain worms automatically in real-time. While signature based worm detection and containment are effective in detecting and containing known worms, they are inherently ineffective against previously unknown worms and polymorphic worms. Existing traffic anomaly pattern based approaches have the potential to detect and/or contain previously unknown and polymorphic worms, but they either impose too much constraint on normal traffic or allow too much infectious worm traffic to go out to the Internet before an unknown or polymorphic worm can be detected.In this paper, we present WormTerminator, which can detect and completely contain, at least in theory, almost all fast spreading worms in real-time while blocking virtually no normal traffic. WormTerminator detects and contains the fast spreading worm based on its defining characteristic -- a fast spreading worm will start to infect others as soon as it successfully infects one host. WormTerminator also exploits the observation that a fast spreading worm keeps exploiting the same set of vulnerabilities when infecting new machines. To prove the concept, we have implemented a prototype of WormTerminator and have examined its effectiveness against the real Internet worm Linux/Slapper.
Fabrication of Large-Area Nanostructure Arrays Using Aperture Array Lithography

We have developed a technique for the rapid prototyping and fabrication of nanostructure arrays over large areas and with precisely controlled geometries. Our approach, aperture array lithography, uses energetic particles (typically He+, 5-30 keV) to expose resist through a stencil mask that contains a large array (108-109 openings/cm2) of circular apertures. The mask is placed in close proximity to the substrate and can be scanned over the surface with nanometer-scale displacement to change the shape, density, and size of the printed patterns. This flexibility is well-suited for rapid prototyping of a variety of structures, including bit- patterned medium, solid-liquid separation filters, infrared bandpass filters, and ion lens arrays.
Pushing using learned manipulation maps

Robot haptics ultimately consists of a set of models which interpret and predict a robot's physical interaction with the world. In this paper, we describe one approach to modeling support friction within a two-dimensional environment consisting of a single robot finger pushing objects on a table. Instead of explicitly modeling the friction distribution between the object and the table, we learn the mapping between pushes and the motion of the object using an online, memory-based model using local regression. The resulting manipulation map implicitly describes the support friction without a complex model. We also describe methods of acquiring object shape and localizing the object using a proximity sensor. Results are presented for objects with different friction distributions.