cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
How selective are V1 cells for pop-out stimuli?

Many neurons in visual area V1 respond better to a pop-out stimulus, such as a single vertical bar among many horizontal bars, than to a homogeneous stimulus, such as a stimulus with all vertical bars. Many studies have suggested such cells represent neural correlates of pop-out, or more generally figure-ground segregation. However, preference for pop-out stimuli over homogeneous stimuli could also arise from a nonspecific selectivity for feature discontinuities between the target and the background, without any specificity for pop-out per se. To distinguish between these two confounding scenarios, we compared the responses of V1 neurons to pop-out stimuli with the responses to “conjunction-target” stimuli, which have more complex feature discontinuities between the target and the surround, as in a stimulus with a blue vertical bar among blue horizontal bars and yellow vertical bars. The target in conjunction-target stimuli does not pop out, which we psychophysically verified. V1 cells in general responded similarly to pop-out and conjunction-target stimuli, and only a small minority of cells (∼2% by one measure) distinguished the pop-out and conjunction-target stimuli from each other and from homogeneous stimuli. Nevertheless, the responses of approximately 50% of the cells were significantly modulated across all center-surround stimuli, indicating that V1 cells can convey information about the feature discontinuities between the center and the surround as part of a network of neurons, although individual cells by themselves fail to explicitly represent pop-out. In light of our results, unambiguous pop-out selectivity at the level of individual cells remains to be demonstrated in V1 or elsewhere in the visual cortex.
The Evidence for Generation We and Against Generation Me

This article addresses the question of whether today’s emerging adults are excessively “narcissistic” as claimed by Jean Twenge and others. The answer is a decisive “no.” There is no persuasive evidence that scores on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) have risen among college students in recent decades. In any case, the NPI is a dubious measure of narcissism, and college students are a dubious sample of emerging adults. There is evidence that today’s emerging adults have high expectations and are confident in their abilities, but these qualities should be seen as psychological resources during a life stage that is often difficult. If it were true that their narcissism was rising and that narcissism leads to impulsive behavior, then impulsive behavior would also be rising, but in fact it is diminishing across multiple indicators. As a society, we can and should do more to support emerging adults, beginning with a halt to the negative stereotypes.
Outcomes for Patients Receiving Antiretroviral Therapy in the Developing World Appear to Be Not Much Different from Those in the Developed World

During the first decade of the AIDS epidemic the outcome for nearly every person infected with HIV around the world was virtually the same: most of those who became infected with HIV eventually died as a result of AIDS. However this began to change in 1996 with the advent of protease inhibitors and HAART. In a very short time we saw dramatic decreases in the morbidity and mortality associated with HIV infection throughout the developed world and as a result the gap between outcomes for HIV-infected persons in the developed world and outcomes for those in the developing world began to widen. This unacceptable inequity between the countries that bear the greatest burden of disease and those that benefit the most from therapy is now beginning to change thanks largely to the efforts of nongovernmental organizations such as Medecines Sans Frontieres (MSF) and initiatives such as the President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief and the “3 by 5” strategy of the World Health Organization (WHO). The WHO estimates that as a result of such programs the estimated number of people receiving antiretroviral therapy in the developing world increased from 400000 to 700000 during the second half of 2004. However this number still represents only ~12% of the nearly 6 million people who are in dire need of antiretroviral treatment. (excerpt)
Information availability and information use in ballot proposition contests: Are voters over-burdened?

Whether- and how-voters are able to cope with the information demands of direct democracy are long-standing questions of interest within the literature on direct democracy. Critics of direct democracy argue that voters are often over-whelmed by the decisions they are asked to make and – in consequence – dislike the process itself. Using evidence from the ‘hard’ case of California, we show that critics over-state these difficulties. Most voters are able to understand most issues and are able to offer reasons for their choices, even without the use of cue-taking. What we also show, however, is that a share of the population has little interest in politics of all kinds and that critics often pick up on this group and muddle this group's disaffection from politics with problems attributable to the information demands of direct democracy.
Supereulerian graphs in the graph family C2(6,k)

For integers l and k with l>0, and k>=0, C"h(l,k) denotes the collection of h-edge-connected simple graphs G on n vertices such that for every edge-cut X with [email protected]?|X|@?3, each component of G-X has at least (n-k)/l vertices. We prove that for any integer k>0, there exists an integer N=N(k) such that for any n>=N, any graph [email protected]?C"2(6,k) on n vertices is supereulerian if and only if G cannot be contracted to a member in a well-characterized family of graphs. This extends former results in [J. Adv. Math. 28 (1999) 65-69] by Catlin and Li, in [Discrete Appl. Math. 120 (2002) 35-43] by Broersma and Xiong, in [Discrete Appl. Math. 145 (2005) 422-428] by D. Li, Lai and Zhan, and in [Discrete Math. 309 (2009) 2937-2942] by X. Li, D. Li and Lai.
A hybrid intrusion detection and visualization system

Network attacks have become the fundamental threat to today's largely interconnected computer systems. Unauthorized activities and unauthorized access account for a large proportion of these networks. Unauthorized accesses and misuse of critical data can be catastrophic to businesses, emergency services, and even threaten the defense and security of a nation. Intrusion detection system (IDS) is indispensable to defend the system in the face of increasing vulnerabilities. This paper proposes a hybrid intrusion detection and visualization system that leverages the advantages of current signature-based and anomaly detection methods. The hybrid instruction detection system deploys these two methods in a two-staged manner to identify both known and novel attacks. When intrusion is detected, autonomous agents that reside on the system automatically take actions against misuse and abuse of computer system, thus protecting the system from internal and external attacks.
Wave atoms and sparsity of oscillatory patterns

We introduce \wave atoms" as a variant of 2D wavelet packets obeying the parabolic scaling wavelength (diameter) 2 . We prove that warped oscillatory functions, a toy model for texture, have a signicantly sparser expansion in wave atoms than in other xed standard representations like wavelets, Gabor atoms, or curvelets. We propose a novel algorithm for a tight frame of wave atoms with redundancy two, directly in the frequency plane, by the \wrapping" technique. We also propose variants of the basic transform for applications in image processing, including an orthonormal basis, and a shift-invariant tight frame with redundancy four. Sparsity and denoising experiments on both seismic and ngerprint images demonstrate the potential of the tool introduced.
Transposable elements and host genome evolution.

Abstract Several recent reports have challenged the idea that transposable elements (TEs) are mainly ‘selfish' or ‘junk' DNA with little importance for host evolution. It has been proposed that TEs have the potential to provide host genomes with the ability to enhance their own evolution. They might also be a major source of genetic diversity, allowing response to environmental changes. Because the relationships between TEs and host genomes are highly variable, and because the selfish, junk and beneficial DNA hypotheses are by no means mutually exclusive, a single label for these relationships appears to be inappropriate and potentially misleading.
Hydrothermally derived water-dispersible mixed valence copper-chitosan nanocomposite as exceptionally potent antimicrobial agent

We report, for the first time, a one-step hydrothermal (HT) process to design and synthesize water-dispersible chitosan nanoparticles loaded with mixed valence copper. Interestingly, this HT copper-chitosan biocompatible composite exhibits exceptionally high antimicrobial properties. A comprehensive characterization of the composite indicates that the hydrothermal process results in the formation of monodispersed nanoparticles with average size of 40 ± 10 nm. FT-IR and Raman spectroscopic studies unveiled that the hydrolysis of the glycoside bonds as the origin of the depolymerization of chitosan. Furthermore, X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy measurements confirmed the presence of mixed valence copper states in the composite, while UV–Vis and FT-IR studies revealed the chemical interaction of copper with the chitosan matrix. Hence, the extensive spectroscopic data provide strong evidence that the chitosan structure was rearranged to capture copper oxide nanoparticles. Finally, HT copper-chitosan composite showed a complete killing effect when tested against both Gram negative (E. coli) and Gram positive (S. aureus) bacteria at metallic copper concentration of 100 μg/ml (1.57 mM). At the same concentration, neither pure chitosan nor copper elicited such antimicrobial efficacy. Thus, we show that HT process significantly enhances the synergistic antimicrobial effect of chitosan and copper in addition to increasing the water dispersibility.
Load Shedding for Temporal Queries over Data Streams

Enhancing continuous queries over data streams with temporal functions and predicates enriches the expressive power of those queries. While traditional continuous queries retrieve only the values of attributes, temporal continuous queries retrieve the valid time intervals of those values as well. Correctly evaluating such queries requires the coalescing of adjacent timestamps for value-equivalent tuples prior to evaluating temporal functions and predicates. For many stream applications, the available computing resources may be too limited to produce exact query results. These limitations are commonly addressed through load shedding and produce approximated query results. There have been many load shedding mechanisms proposed so far, but for temporal continuous queries, the presence of coalescing makes theses existing methods unsuitable. In this paper, we propose a new accuracy metric and load shedding algorithm that are suitable for temporal query processing when memory is insufficient. The accuracy metric uses a combination of the Jaccard coefficient to measure the accuracy of attribute values and PQI interval orders to measure the accuracy of the valid time intervals in the approximate query result. The algorithm employs a greedy strategy combining two objectives reflecting the two accuracy metrics (i.e., value and interval). In the performance study, the proposed greedy algorithm outperforms a conventional random load shedding algorithm by up to an order of magnitude in its achieved accuracy. Categories: Ubiquitous computing
The Use of Immediate Bone Grafting in Reconstruction of Clinically Infected Mandibular Fractures: Bone Grafts in the Presence of Pus

Purpose Current approaches to the treatment of infected mandibular fractures include antibiotics, drainage, immobilization of the segments, and debridement followed by secondary bone grafting of residual defects once the infection is resolved and the wound healed. Over the past 30 years, the time from debridement to grafting has diminished from several months to a few weeks. We present our experience with a treatment model managing clinically infected fractures of the mandible with antibiotics, debridement, rigid internal fixation, and immediate autogenous bone grafting. Materials and Methods In this retrospective study, we present a series of 43 patients who demonstrated clinical/laboratory findings consistent with infection in one or more mandibular fractures (50 infected fractures). These patients underwent a combination of incision and drainage, fracture debridement, rigid internal fixation, and immediate bone grafting of the resulting defect in a single stage. Both transoral and transfacial approaches were used. Results Of the 50 fractures, 43 showed both resolution of infection and bony union of fractures with long-term follow-up of 2 months to 4 years. Four fractures developed recurrent infection but proved to have bony union and were successfully treated by hardware removal only. Three other patients were deemed failures with persistent infection, loss of graft, nonunion, and need for retreatment. Each of these patients was afflicted with underlying immunocompromise. Conclusions Although careful patient selection is a must, immediate bone grafting of infected mandibular fractures, when used in conjunction with rigid internal fixation and appropriate intraoperative debridement, is an effective treatment modality which allows a single surgical procedure and dramatically shortens the course of treatment.
Responses of Desert Bighorn Sheep to Removal of Water Sources

Abstract In arid regions of the southwestern United States, water is often considered a primary factor limiting distribution and productivity of desert ungulates, including desert bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis mexicana). Thus, wildlife management agencies and sportsmen's organizations have invested substantial time and resources in the construction and maintenance of water catchments. Although the availability of freestanding water sources is believed to influence many aspects of the ecology of desert bighorn sheep, the efficacy of these water sources has been questioned and has not been examined experimentally. We used a before-after–control-impact study design to determine if removal of water catchments changed diet, characteristics of foraging areas used by female desert bighorn sheep, home-range size, movement rates, distance to catchments, adult mortality, productivity, or juvenile recruitment in 2 mountain ranges on the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, Arizona, USA. During pretreatment (2002...
Human Immunodeficiency Viruses Types 1 and 2

Human immunodeficiency viruses types 1 and 2 (HIV-1 and HIV-2) are retroviruses that attack and destroy cells essential to the regulation of immune function, primarily the CD4-bearing lymphocytes. Of the two viruses, HIV-1 accounts for the vast majority of infection, morbidity and mortality in the world. Some newly infected individuals experience a mononucleosis-like syndrome, and all undergo a deterioration of cell-mediated immunity. Although the rate of loss is highly variable, in the absence of treatment the loss is eventually profound enough to produce a fatal acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) consisting of a spectrum of opportunistic infections and neoplasms. Since the emergence of AIDS in 1981, HIV-1 has spread by sexual, parenteral, and perinatal routes to reach pandemic proportions. Some 35 million people worldwide are currently infected with HIV-1, but the affected populations vary greatly by geographic, socioeconomic and behavioral factors. Men who have sex with men were initially and still are at high risk, but the infection has had huge numerical impact on heterosexuals in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia and on injection drug users in Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia and urban areas elsewhere. Numerous alternative therapeutic antiretroviral agents combined in increasingly simpler and less toxic regimens have proved capable of suppressing viremia to undetectable levels and often essentially halting the disease process. However, HIV-1 mutates easily and establishes seemingly permanent reservoirs from which the virus has proved difficult to dislodge entirely with even the most aggressive therapy. Nevertheless, international organizations have accepted the challenge of mobilizing to deliver those agents in concerted intervention programs tailored to local epidemiologic and socioeconomic conditions. Primary prevention HIV-1 infection at the population level has depended heavily on implementation of programs for screening of blood supplies, behavioral risk reduction, male circumcision, and administration of vaginal microbicides or systemic suppression of ulcerative genital co-infections. Success has been mixed and slow in coming. Vaccine development has been frustratingly slower. Discovery of a correlate of broadly protective immunity has eluded the most intense vaccinologic research, and trials of early prototype vaccines have been largely disappointing. A more promising preventive strategy has been a byproduct of widespread therapeutic intervention: treat infected individuals to prevent transmission to their uninfected partners, i.e., treatment as prevention. Whether expansive application of this strategy will prove to be the turning point in the battle against HIV/AIDS remains to be seen.
Language Ideologies and The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: Evidence from Motive, Structure, and Design

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1969) was established as the arch-prescriptive alternative to the arch-descriptive Webster’s Third (1961), and it expressed that language ideology in innovative ways, notably in establishing a Usage Panel with which the editors would consult on disputed matters of usage in view of including Usage Notes about those matters in the dictionary’s text. It also favored standards of correctness set in edited prose, relying for much of its word list, spellings, etc., on the Brown Corpus, use of which, even in this limited way, was also an innovation. Yet the first edition included structural elements that pointed in a more descriptive direction, and successive editions, by means of structure and design, qualified the dictionary’s prescriptive tendencies and re-positioned it ideologically as neither exactly prescriptive nor descriptive but something ideologically more complex and interesting.
A longitudinal follow-up study of happiness and meaning-making

The long-term outcomes associated with happiness and meaning-making were examined by following up on participants in previous studies on experiential learning an average of 2.5 years later. Measures of happiness and meaning-making were extracted by analyzing the participants’ journals using a computerized text-analysis program. Happiness as assessed by a composite measure of positive emotionality showed weak associations with the measures of adaptive functioning, and was negatively correlated with optimism, as well as positively correlated with emotion suppression. By contrast, meaning-making as assessed by composite measures of cognitive processing and self-distancing was robustly positively correlated with almost all measures of adaptive functioning. Regression analyses revealed that the two measures of meaning and their interaction term accounted for 20–24% of the variance in predicting the outcome measures. This study revealed that there may be at times a trade-off between happiness and meaning-making...
Numerical investigation of a honeycomb liner grazed by laminar and turbulent boundary layers

Direct numerical simulations are used to study the interaction of a cavity-backed circular orifice with grazing laminar and turbulent boundary layers and incident sound waves. The flow conditions and geometry are representative of single degree-of-freedom acoustic liners applied in the inlet and exhaust ducts of aircraft engines and are the same as those from experiments conducted at NASA Langley. The simulations identify the fluid mechanics of how the sound field and state of the grazing boundary layer impact the in-orifice flow and suggest a simple flow analogy that enables scaling estimates. From the scaling estimates the simulations are then used to develop reduced-order models for the in-orifice flow and a time-domain impedance model is constructed. The liner is found to increase drag at all conditions studied by an amount that increases with the incident sound pressure amplitude.
Investigation of Welded Preforms for Use in Forging

While laser-welded preforms provide significant advantages in sheet metal stamping, similar technology has not been developed for forging. In the present paper, the case for solid-state welded preforms in forging is considered and the workability and mechanical properties of selected base metal combinations are analyzed. Results demonstrate that welded preforms have adequate workability based on upsetting and side pressing tests though flow tends to be non-uniform in bimetal preforms. Tensile tests indicate that the mechanical properties of side pressed preforms are equivalent to those of annealed base metal pieces. While work is ongoing to develop their use, results indicate that friction-welded preforms have potential for use in forging.
Dimensionless performance model for gas-fed pulsed plasma thrusters

We present a non-dimensional gas-fed pulsed plasma thruster performance model. The analysis uses a circuit element discharge description and a snow-plow mass accumulation model with two non-dimensional parameters for an outer electrode geometry contour and an exponential mass distribution. Implementing a non-dimensional scheme is shown to reduce the number of free parameters in the equations from ten dimensional parameters to five non-dimensional parameters. This simplification allows the nondimensional parameter space to be explored in terms of thrust efficiency and a defined non-dimensional thrust-to-power ratio. An electrode length providing the optimal efficiency of the discharge is determined for each configuration of non-dimensional parameters. The sensitivity of thruster performance to all five non-dimensional parameters is examined and performance scaling trends are discussed.
Pathogenicity of Clostridium Botulinum

The pathogenicity of Clostridium botulinum has been the subject of much laboratory work with variable results. Botulism in man is unquestionably a true intoxication caused by the soluble toxin elaborated by CI. botulinum under saprophytic conditions. There is a possibility, however, that the organism itself may multiply and produce this toxin within the body, since it is recognized that the temperatures employed in preparing contaminated material for consumption might be insufficient to kill the highly resistant spores of the organism, although rendering the product safe as far as the presence of any preformed toxin is concerned. Recent work on other toxin-producing organisms, such as CI. tetani, has stimulated the effort to determine whether such a condition as we find
Factors associated with the use of mosquito bed nets: results from two cross-sectional household surveys in Zambézia Province, Mozambique.

Malaria remains a major threat to some 3.2 billion persons globally. Malaria contributes heavily to the overall disease burden in Mozambique and is considered endemic. A cornerstone of Mozambique’s vector control strategy has been to strive for universal coverage of insecticide-treated nets (ITN). The study is a population-based cross-sectional survey of female heads-of-household in Zambezia Province, Mozambique conducted during August–September, 2010 and April–May, 2014. Analyses accounted for a stratified two-stage cluster sample design. Outcomes of interest included sleeping under a mosquito net during the previous night. Descriptive statistics were calculated for three oversampled districts and for the entire province. Multivariable logistic regression analysis was used to estimate factors associated with both changes over time and increased mosquito bed net usage. Of the 3916 households interviewed in 2010 and 3906 households in 2014, 64.3 % were in possession of at least one mosquito bed net. A higher proportion of households in Namacurra (90 %) reported possession of a mosquito net, compared to Alto Molocue (77 %) and Morrumbala (34 %), respectively in 2014. Of pregnant respondents, 58.6 % reported sleeping under a mosquito net the previous night in 2010 compared to 68.4 % in 2014. Fifty percent of children 0–59 months slept under a mosquito net the previous night in 2010 compared to 60 % in 2014. Factors associated with use of a mosquito net for female head-of-household respondents were higher education, understanding Portuguese, larger household size, having electricity in the household, and larger household monthly income. As travel time to a health facility increased (per 1 h), respondents had 13 % lower odds of sleeping under a mosquito net (OR 0.87; 95 % CI 0.74–1.01, p = 0.07). Pregnant women in 2014 had a 2.4 times higher odds of sleeping under a bed net if they lived in Namacurra compared to Alto Molocue (95 % CI 0.91–6.32, p = 0.002 for district). Higher maternal education, living in Namacurra, and acquisition of mosquito bed nets were associated with a child 0–59 months reporting sleeping under the net in the previous night in 2014. Intensified focus on the poorest, least educated, and most distant from health services is needed to improve equity of ITN availability and usage. Additionally, while some districts have already surpassed goals in terms of coverage and utilization of ITN, renewed emphasis should be placed on bringing all geographic regions of the province closer to meeting these targets.
Closure of the Deep Wake Hollow of High-Speed Ships

Interest has developed in recent years in the length of the "wake hollow" downstream of high-speed vessels with blunt transom sterns. Past work has shown that this wake cavity appears to increase the effective length of a vessel, and thereby reduce its effective Froude number, with the result of a reduction in wave resistance. The research presented here is development and demonstration of a simple mathematical theory for the downstream wake closure characteristics of fully ventilated wakes of fast ships with transom sterns. The theory uses the linear thin body approximations with gravity in a formulation consistent with the thin body theory of wave resistance, although wave resistance is not dealt with here. The length of the wake hollow, or "trench," predicted is compared with recent experiments. Calculations of variation of the hollow length with transom shape and Froude number are presented.
Collaborators in the Marginalization of REBT—The Use and Misuse of Three Approaches to Psychotherapy and Other Videotaped Demonstrations

Long time users of the 1965 film, Three Approaches to Psychotherapy (TAP), have fostered the marginalization of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT). For more than three decades, the counseling profession has consistently and relentlessly embraced TAP as an accurate, timely, and realistic portrayal of what RET, and now REBT, is all about—despite indications, then and now, that the demonstration was seriously flawed and the film is now hopelessly outdated. The need for accurate, timely and realistic multimedia demonstrations is essential to the training of mental health professionals.
The History of Veterinary Dentistry Part One: From the Earliest Record to the End of the 18th Century:

Dental procedures have been performed on animals, particularly horses, since earliest recorded history. In the absence of anesthesia and an understanding of physiology and pathology, treatment often was unnecessary, inappropriate or barbaric. Progress was made very slowly.
Positive Versus Normative Approaches to Life Cycle Saving and Spending

Positive household finance attempts to describe, explain, and perhaps predict behavior. Some researchers have analyzed household survey data to estimate household preferences, which then could be used as the basis for prescriptions for household behavior. In order to prescribe actions or policies for individuals (e.g., Findley & Caliendo, 2008) or evaluate whether households are making mistakes (e.g., Calvet, Campbell, & Sondini, 2007; Cocco, Gomes, & Mahenhout, 2005) it is necessary to use either analysis of actual choices or of choices between hypothetical alternatives in order to rigorously derive household preference parameters. I think that it is too challenging to model household behavior realistically, so inference of preference parameters from household decisions, e.g., from the equity premium, is not useful. Therefore I will focus on use of simple hypothetical examples to try to estimate plausible values of preference parameters to use for prescriptions for household financial decisions.
Lessons learned from the cool down of a superconducting magnet using a thermal-siphon cooling-loop

The two Michigan State University (MSU) cyclotron gas-stopper magnet superconducting-coils were designed to be cooled down and to be kept cold using three pulse-tube coolers per coil cryostat. These coolers are designed to produce from 1.3 to 1.7 W per cooler when the cooler first-stage is at 40 K. The cyclotron gas stopper coils can be separated while cold, but unpowered. The two coil cryostats were cooled down separately in 2014, and room temperature helium gas was liquefied into the coil cryostats. The magnet temperature at the end of the cool-down was 4.55 K for one coil and 4.25 K for the other with and added 1.6 W of heat. The coil-down time for the coils was three and a half times longer than expected. The time to liquefy the helium was also much longer. The reasons for the disparity between the calculated cool-down time and measured cool-down time are discussed in the paper.
At Her Majesty's Pleasure: Criminal Insanity in 19th-Century Britain

Criminal insanity cases tried in common law courts in the 19th century attracted the sustained attention of doctors, lawyers, government officials and members of the public. This intense interest was due, in part, to the drama of these cases. However, criminal insanity and the criminally insane also prompted experts and others to contemplate intractable, metaphysical questions about the limits of sanity, the existence of free will and the justification of judicial punishment. This essay argues that, while scholars working in the field of what might be called ‘forensic psychiatry studies’ are acutely conscious of the many ways in which the history of criminal insanity intersects with broader histories of the mind sciences, law and the self, criminal insanity remains largely, and regrettably, tangential to these broader literatures. The essay describes some new directions in the scholarship on criminal insanity that promise to enrich forensic psychiatry studies and also, it is hoped, related fields.
Enabling Performance-Based Navigation Arrivals: Development and Simulation Testing of the Terminal Sequencing and Spacing System

NASA has developed an advanced arrival management capability for terminal controllers, known as Terminal Sequencing and Spacing (TSAS). TSAS increases use of performance-based navigation (PBN) arri...
On the Structure-Property Relationships of Cation-Exchanged ZK-5 Zeolites for CO2 Adsorption.

The CO2 adsorption properties of cation-exchanged Li-, Na-, K-, and Mg-ZK-5 zeolites were correlated to the molecular structures determined by Rietveld refinements of synchrotron powder X-ray diffraction patterns. Li-, K-, and Na-ZK-5 all exhibited high isosteric heats of adsorption (Qst ) at low CO2 coverage, with Na-ZK-5 having the highest Qst (ca. 49 kJ mol-1 ). Mg2+ was located at the center of the zeolite hexagonal prism with the cation inaccessible to CO2 , leading to a much lower Qst (ca. 30 kJ mol-1 ) and lower overall uptake capacity. Multiple CO2 adsorption sites were identified at a given CO2 loading amount for all four cation-exchanged ZK-5 adsorbents. Site A at the flat eight-membered ring windows and site B/B* in the γ-cages were the primary adsorption sites in Li- and Na-ZK-5 zeolites. Relatively strong dual-cation adsorption sites contributed significantly to an enhanced electrostatic interaction for CO2 in all ZK-5 samples. This interaction gives rise to a migration of Li+ and Mg2+ cations from their original locations at the center of the hexagonal prisms toward the α-cages, in which they interact more strongly with the adsorbed CO2 .
Family Crime and Punishment

What response should the legal system make to intrafamily harm? Should these harms be classified as crimes and punished in the same amount and manner as other criminal acts? Or should there be some other type of response focusing not on the individuals who caused the harm but on the family to which they belong? Questions about the general justification of punishment, the amount and manner of punishment, and alternatives to punishment are central to the philosophy of law. In this chapter we discuss the debate between utilitarians who look to the future by justifying punishment on the grounds of deterrence and retributivists who look to the past by justifying punishment on the grounds of moral blame and desert. We examine this debate through the lens of the crime of sexual abuse of a child by its parent. We then turn to a discussion of therapy as an alternative to punishment in cases of intrafamily crime. Our question is whether there is something about intrafamily harm that would make therapy a more just response to those who cause such harms than the response of punishment.
Demixing sparse signals via convex optimization

We consider demixing a pair of sparse signals in orthonormal basis via convex optimization. Theoretically, we characterize the condition under which the solution of the convex optimization problem correctly demixes the true signal components. In specific, we introduce the local subspace coherence to characterize how a basis vector is coherent with a signal subspace, and show that the convex optimization approach succeeds if the subspaces of the true signal components avoid high local subspace coherence. Furthermore, we illustrate via examples that our condition for exact demixing is more fundamental than existing conditions. We then verify our theoretical finding through numerical experiments.
Is Spatial Really That Special? A Tale of Spaces

Spatial sciences have been operating under the mantra that “spatial is special.” The contention of this chapter is that this is contingent upon the implicit assumption that spatial and semantic information are fully separable. Large segments of spatial science research take space as an a priori and invariant backcloth over which events and experiences unfold. A considerable intellectual discourse on the nature and modes of existence of space has identified discordant perspectives that may undermine the universality of the innate distinctiveness of space. The chapter reviews and discusses some of the best established lines of thought on the understanding of space across disciplinary boundaries and underscores their relevance to spatially enabled research. Some of these ideas are articulated in the context of spaces reconstructed in relation to population migration in the USA.
Monitoring undergraduate student needs and activities at Experimental Biology: APS pilot survey

Life science professional societies play important roles for undergraduates in their fields and increasingly offer membership, fellowships, and awards for undergraduate students. However, the overa...
A low cost sensor based autonomous and semi-autonomous fire-fighting squad robot

The use of robots in situations that can be too dangerous for human interventions is growing. Evolving sensor and mechanical advances, out dangers people from risk of fire hazards. This paper presents an intelligent multi sensor based autonomous & semi-autonomous robot, which rescues from fire accidents in common day-to-day life. The proposed robot can be materialized very economically, which constitutes six integral modules which includes its structure, obstacle avoidance & driver system, control system governed by a microcontroller, fire detection system, remote supervising system, Global System for Mobile communication module. In autonomous mode, when juxtaposed with a smoke detector, it takes lead as it can quench the fire at its inception than sitting tight for an object to smolder and create smoke. It voluntarily detects, navigates itself and extinguishes fire without any human aid, thus saving lives of many individuals. It also sends the emergency warning signal alerts to the security personnel in the duty and within reach fire station through the rooted GSM module. In semi-autonomous mode, this robot was designed to act upon voice commands as well as from a general user interface developed on the touch screen. This robot has added feature of operating in groups by communicating between them.
Alcohol use and hospital readmissions following stroke: A safety net hospital experience.

Abstract Objective The purpose of this study is to identify predictors of stroke-related readmissions at 30 days on a safety net hospital level and suggest interventions to reduce the number of readmissions. Background Hospital readmissions are an important measure of the quality of health care services. Readmissions indicate unresolved problems from the index admission, inadequate post-hospitalization care, or a mixture of these factors. Additionally, hospital readmissions are associated with a substantial economic burden on the health care system. The study's purpose is to identify predictors of stroke-related readmissions within 30 days on a hospital level and suggest interventions to reduce the number of readmissions. Methods We conducted a single-center retrospective study of patients admitted to Boston Medical Center (BMC) and diagnosed with ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke. Unadjusted and adjusted logistic regressions were used to evaluate possible predictors of stroke related readmissions. Results Of 352 patients admitted with a diagnosis of ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke at BMC during the study period, 44 (12.5%) patients were readmitted to BMC within 30 days. Current alcohol abuse was significantly associated with readmission (OR 95% CI 1.03–5.62). Discharge against medical advice was also associated, though the sample size was small. Conclusions These results suggest that early inpatient and post-hospitalization interventions to address alcohol abuse during the index hospital admission may reduce the rate of hospital readmission within 30 days. The results have prompted interventions on the stroke service such as early inpatient social work and addiction medicine involvement for patients with risk factors of alcohol abuse.
Reconstructive Surgery for Eyelid Defects

With a depleting ozone layer and increasing ultraviolet radiation exposure, the incidence of eyelid cancers is on the rise, and we can expect a growing need for eyelid reconstruction. Several reconstructive techniques may be appropriate for a particular eyelid defect. The choice of procedure by the surgeon depends on the patient’s age, the degree of eyelid laxity and quality of eyelid skin, the location and size of the defect, and the surgeon’s preference. Regardless of the surgical procedure chosen, the goals of the procedure should be restoration of both the anatomy and the dynamic function of the eyelid, creation of a stable eyelid margin, acceptable vertical eyelid height, adequate eyelid closure, smooth posterior epithelial surface, and maximum cosmesis and symmetry.
Resonance Self-Shielding near Zone Interfaces

A practical methodology is developed to treat the resonance self-shielding transition near zone interfaces. Based on the narrow resonance approximation, a space- and energy-dependent self-shielding factor for a single interface system is derived from the integral transport theory. Using the Wigner rational approximation, the self-shielding factor for a fine region near a zone interface is factorized into a linear combination of individual homogeneous and heterogeneous self-shielding factors. The method has been implemented in a widely used cross-section processing code that is based on the Bondarenko f-factor method. The result of the analysis was applied to a fast reactor blanket mock-up to improve the calculations near a converter-blanket interface. Comparisons of the calculation with /sup 238/U capture experimental data measured in the Purdue Fast Breeder Blanket Facility are also discussed.
Cognitive-Behavioral Strategies and Precompetitive Anxiety Among Recreational Athletes

Although cognitive-behavioral strategies have been demonstrated relatively effective in improving sport performance and regulating various affective states among highly skilled athletes, the strategy-anxiety relationship has been left largely untested within the realm of recreational sport. The present study utilized self-report data from 186 recreational league tennis players in order to describe the prevalence, types, sources, and perceived effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral strategy use among a sub-elite sample as well as to determine the extent to which each strategy contributed to changes in cognitive anxiety, somatic anxiety, and self-confidence prior to official competition. Nearly 30% of the sample reported using strategies in training and competition, comprised by relaxation, mental imagery, attention control, positive self-talk, and goal-setting. Stepwise regression analyses controlling for player characteristics revealed that attentional control and goal-setting strategies contributed to lower cognitive state anxiety, attention control and imagery/ relaxation strategies resulted in lower somatic state anxiety, and attention control and positive self-talk contributed to increased state self-confidence. The role of specific cognitive-behavioral techniques in facilitating adaptability to competitive stress among recreational athletes is discussed.
Multiple-Valued Random Digit Extraction

We describe a parameterized random value extraction function for producing symbol strings based upon a user-specified radix value. The presentation of the extractor function is accompanied with a theoretical discussion that describes how the radix value, and hence the symbol set cardinality, affects the entropy of an extracted symbol string. Experimental results are provided where extracted strings with respect to different radix values are analyzed for randomness quality. The empirical data is obtained by applying our parameterized extractor function to a weakly random source that provides a set of inter-packet delay spacings observed from a network interface card in a general-purpose computer. Our results show how the quality of the extracted random strings varies for differing radix values. These results provide guidelines for choosing an appropriate radix value in an extractor function.
A Two-Stage Approach to Robust Tensor Decomposition

The rapid advance in sensor technology and computing systems has lead to the increase in the availability of multidimensional (tensor) data. Tensor data analysis have witnessed increasing applications in machine learning, data mining and computer vision. Traditional tensor decomposition methods such as Tucker decomposition and PARAFAC/CP decomposition aim to factorize the input tensor into a number of low-rank factors. However, they are prone to gross error that may occur due to illumination, occlusion or salt and pepper noise encountered in practical applications. For this purpose, higher order robust PCA (HoRPCA) and other robust tensor decomposition (RTD) methods have been proposed. These methods still have some limitations including sensitivity to non-sparse noise and high computational complexity. In this paper, we introduce a two-stage approach that combines HoRPCA with Higher Order SVD (HoSVD) to address these challenges.
Twitter Mentions and Academic Citations in the Urologic Literature

Abstract Objective To quantify the relationship between the number of Twitter mentions and the number of academic citations a urologic publication receives. Materials and Methods Two hundred and thirteen papers from 7 prominent urologic journals were examined 37 months after publication. Articles were evaluated with 2 citation based “bibliometrics” (Scopus, Google Scholar) and Twitter mentions were tracked using the Altmetric Bookmarklet. The number of article citations and Twitter mentions were compared using one-way Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and bivariate fit analysis. Results Seventy-three percent of articles had at least 1 Twitter mention. Forty-two percent of Twitter mentions occurred within the first week of the online publication date. Articles mentioned on Twitter had 2.0-fold more Scopus citations (P Conclusion The majority of urologic publications are being shared on Twitter. The number of citations a urologic publication receives up to 3 years after release is positively associated with the number of mentions it has on Twitter. Twitter activity may be an early indicator of ultimate academic impact of an academic urologic paper.
Survival songs: Conchita Piquer’s coplas and Franco’s regime of terror

This book, awarded the MLA's Katherine Singer Kovacs Prize in 2015, is one of the most compelling works of Hispanic literary and cultural studies I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading. It offers re...
“Nested Interculturality”: Dispositions and Practices for Navigating Tensions in Immersion Experiences

This chapter explores the model of “nested interculturality” (Avineri, 2015), a collective of dispositions and practices for ethical intercultural engagement that can be used to navigate tensions often experienced in cultural and linguistic immersion experiences. The conceptualization of “nests” foregrounds an ecological and dynamic view of interculturality in which both cultivation/growth and precariousness/risk are negotiated simultaneously in partnership with others. The chapter explores interculturality as an individual-in-context learning process and an “oppositional practice” (Kramsch & Nolden, 1994) negotiated through interactions across spaces, temporalities, and narratives. Ultimately, this chapter is both theoretical and model-building as well as pedagogical and practice-oriented, highlighting how interculturally-minded and relationally-oriented educators can mobilize their professional practice for societal change.
Optimization of spatially distributed soil conductivities for horizontal ground heat exchangers

Abstract Horizontal ground source heat pumps have the potential to significantly reduce the operating energy utilized for space heating and cooling thus reducing greenhouse gases and pollution. However, the amount of land required for the installation of these systems is often a drawback in widespread implementation. It follows, therefore, that any considerable increase in ground heat exchanger performance would reduce the necessary footprint thereby making these systems more attractive. This paper presents an algorithm to determine the optimal spatial distribution of heterogeneous soil conductivities to increase the performance of ground heat exchangers. The algorithm utilizes a gradient-based optimization approach. Using this algorithm, the heat extraction rate for straight pipe and slinky configurations was significantly increased for winter conditions.
Multi-dimensional Lévy processes with Lévy copulas for multiple dependent degradation processes in lifetime analysis

The analysis of multiple dependent degradation processes is a challenging research problem in the reliability field, especially for complex degradation processes with random jumps. To integrally ha...