cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Dietary l-Arginine Supplementation Enhances Endothelial Nitric Oxide Synthesis in Streptozotocin-Induced Diabetic Rats

This study tested the hypothesis that dietary arginine supplementation increases endothelial tetrahydrobiopterin (BH(4)) availability for nitric oxide (NO) synthesis in diabetic rats. Streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats either were given unrestricted access to a casein-based diet (Expt. 1) or were pair-fed the diet on the basis of the food intake per kg of body weight of nondiabetic rats (Expt. 2). Beginning 1 d after vehicle or streptozotocin injection, arginine-HCl (1.51%) or alanine (isonitrogenous control, 2.55%) was added daily to the drinking water for nondiabetic rats, whereas concentrations were adjusted (0.43% arginine-HCl and 0.73% alanine) in the drinking water for diabetic rats (which consumed more water) to ensure isonitrogenous provision. At 2 wk after the initiation of arginine supplementation, coronary endothelial cells and plasma were obtained for the measurement of NO synthesis and metabolites. In both experiments, plasma and endothelial concentrations of N(G)-monomethylarginine, asymmetric dimethylarginine, and symmetric dimethylarginine increased, but those of arginine as well as endothelial BH(4) availability and NO synthesis decreased in diabetic rats, compared with nondiabetic rats. In both diabetic and nondiabetic rats, arginine supplementation increased plasma concentrations of arginine and insulin, endothelial concentrations of arginine and BH(4), and endothelial NO synthesis, but did not affect plasma and endothelial concentrations of methylarginines or plasma concentrations of homocysteine. Dietary arginine supplementation or provision of a BH(4) precursor normalized endothelial NO synthesis in diabetic rats. Arginine supplementation did not affect plasma glucose levels in nondiabetic rats, but reduced body weight loss and plasma glucose levels in diabetic rats. Thus, dietary L-arginine supplementation stimulates endothelial NO synthesis by increasing BH(4) provision, which is beneficial for vascular function and glucose homeostasis in diabetic subjects.
Correlating kinetic data in reactors: Application to tertiary Butanol dehydration

The reactor-unit concept proposed by Hurt is extended in this paper to include fractional-order reactions and to show the effect of volume change on the system. Equations defining the reactor unit for homogeneous and heterogeneous reactions are derived. The catalytic dehydration of tertiary butanol was chosen as a means of studying the validity of the extended reactor-unit concept. The experimental investigation was conducted over a wide range of flow rates, catalyst bed heights, and temperatures. The result of the application of this modified reactor-unit expression to the correlation of the data was excellent.
A Formal Specification in JML of Java Security Package

The Java security package allows a programmer to add security features to Java applications. Although the package provides a complex application programming interface (API), its informal description, e.g., Javadoc comments, is often ambiguous or imprecise. Nonetheless, the security of an application can be compromised if the package is used without a concrete understanding of the precise behavior of the API classes and interfaces, which can be attained via formal specification. In this paper, we present our experiences in formally specifying the Java security package in JML, a formal behavior interface specification language for Java. We illustrate portions of our JML specifications and discuss the lessons that we learned, from this specification effort, about specification patterns and the effectiveness of JML. Our specifications are not only a precise document for the API but also provide a foundation for formally reasoning and verifying the security aspects of applications. We believe that our specification techniques and patterns can be used to specify other Java packages and frameworks.
Workload Interpretation for Brownian Models of Stochastic Processing Networks

Brownian networks are a class of stochastic system models that can arise as heavy traffic approximations for stochastic processing networks. In earlier work we developed the “equivalent workload formulation” of a generalized Brownian network: denoting by Z(t) the state vector of the generalized Brownian network at time t, one has a lower dimensional state descriptor W(t) = MZ(t) in the equivalent workload formulation, where M is an arbitrary basis matrix for a linear space M that is orthogonal to the space of so-called “reversible displacements.” Here we use the special structure of a stochastic processing network to develop a more extensive interpretation of the equivalent workload formulation associated with its Brownian network approximation. In particular, we (i) characterize and interpret the notion of a reversible displacement, and (ii) show how the basis matrix M can be constructed from the basic optimal solutions of a certain dual linear program. The latter provides a mechanism for reducing the choices for M from an infinite set to a finite one (when the workload dimension exceeds one). We illustrate our results for an example of a closed stochastic processing network.
Moving beyond end-to-end path information to optimize CDN performance

Replicating content across a geographically distributed set of servers and redirecting clients to the closest server in terms of latency has emerged as a common paradigm for improving client performance. In this paper, we analyze latencies measured from servers in Google's content distribution network (CDN) to clients all across the Internet to study the effectiveness of latency-based server selection. Our main result is that redirecting every client to the server with least latency does not suffice to optimize client latencies. First, even though most clients are served by a geographically nearby CDN node, a sizeable fraction of experience latencies several tens of milliseconds higher than other in the same region. Second, we find that queueing delays often override the benefits of a client interacting with a nearby server.To help the administrators of Google's CDN cope with these problems, we have built a system called WhyHigh. First, WhyHigh measures client latencies across all nodes in the CDN and correlates measurements to identify the prefixes affected by inflated latencies. Second, since clients in several thousand prefixes have poor latencies, WhyHigh prioritizes problems based on the impact that solving them would have, e.g., by identifying either an AS path common to several inflated prefixes or a CDN node where path inflation is widespread. Finally, WhyHigh diagnoses the causes for inflated latencies using active measurements such as traceroutes and pings, in combination with datasets such as BGP paths and flow records. Typical causes discovered include lack of peering, routing misconfigurations, and side-effects of traffic engineering. We have used WhyHigh to diagnose several instances of inflated latencies, and our efforts over the course of a year have significantly helped improve the performance offered to clients by Google's CDN.
FramePlot: a new implementation of the frame analysis for predicting protein-coding regions in bacterial DNA with a high G + C content.

FramePlot is a web-based tool for predicting protein-coding regions in bacterial DNA with a high G+C content, such as Streptomyces. The graphical output provides for easy distinction of protein-coding regions from non-coding regions. The plot is a clickable map. Clicking on an ORF provides not only the nucleotide sequence but also its deduced amino acid sequence. These sequences can then be compared to the NCBI sequence database over the Internet. The program is freely available for academic purposes at http://www.nih.go.jp/~jun/cgi-bin/frameplot.pl.
Application of Economic Analysis to School-Wide Positive Behavior Support (SWPBS) Programs.

The authors discuss how to use economic techniques to evaluate educational programs and show how to apply basic cost analysis to implementation of school-wide positive behavior support (SWPBS). A d...
Ca(2+)/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II is associated with pelvic pain of neurogenic cystitis.

Interstitial cystitis/painful bladder syndrome is a chronic bladder inflammatory disease of unknown etiology that is often regarded as a neurogenic cystitis. Interstitial cystitis is associated wit...
Representing female-friendly science and technology in fiction and film

I am developing a socio-historical and literary analysis concerning the continuing problem of under-representation of women in science and engineering education and professions. Fictional representations of women engaged with science and technology offer images reflecting and refracting historical and contemporary cultural values regarding those influencing and affected by the consequences of innovative technologies. This paper examines three fictional texts delineating the roles of women in technology-Lydia Maria Child's 1846 short story "Hilda Silfverling: A Fantasy", and two Hollywood movies: "IQ" (1994; directed by Fred Schepisi) and "Contact" (1997; directed by Robert Zemickis).
Convergence in Probability of Compressed Annealing

We consider combinatorial optimization problems for which the formation of a neighborhood structure of feasible solutions is impeded by a set of constraints. Neighborhoods are recovered by relaxing the complicating constraints into the objective function within a penalty term. We examine a heuristic called compressed annealing that integrates a variable penalty multiplier approach within the framework of simulated annealing. We refer to the value of the penalty multiplier as "pressure." We analyze the behavior of compressed annealing by exploring the interaction between temperature (which controls the ability of compressed annealing to climb hills) and pressure (which controls the height of the hills). We develop a necessary and sufficient condition on the joint cooling and compression schedules for compressed annealing to converge in probability to the set of global minima. Our work generalizes the results of Hajek (1988) in the sense that when there are no relaxed constraints, our results reduce to his.
Femoral loading mechanics in the Virginia opossum, Didelphis virginiana: torsion and mediolateral bending in mammalian locomotion

SUMMARY Studies of limb bone loading in terrestrial mammals have typically found anteroposterior bending to be the primary loading regime, with torsion contributing minimally. However, previous studies have focused on large, cursorial eutherian species in which the limbs are held essentially upright. Recent in vivo strain data from the Virginia opossum (Didelphis virginiana), a marsupial that uses a crouched rather than an upright limb posture, have indicated that its femur experiences appreciable torsion during locomotion as well as strong mediolateral bending. The elevated femoral torsion and strong mediolateral bending observed in D. virginiana might result from external forces such as a medial inclination of the ground reaction force (GRF), internal forces deriving from a crouched limb posture, or a combination of these factors. To evaluate the mechanism underlying the loading regime of opossum femora, we filmed D. virginiana running over a force platform, allowing us to measure the magnitude of the GRF and its three-dimensional orientation relative to the limb, facilitating estimates of limb bone stresses. This three-dimensional analysis also allows evaluations of muscular forces, particularly those of hip adductor muscles, in the appropriate anatomical plane to a greater degree than previous two-dimensional analyses. At peak GRF and stress magnitudes, the GRF is oriented nearly vertically, inducing a strong abductor moment at the hip that is countered by adductor muscles on the medial aspect of the femur that place this surface in compression and induce mediolateral bending, corroborating and explaining loading patterns that were identified in strain analyses. The crouched orientation of the femur during stance in opossums also contributes to levels of femoral torsion as high as those seen in many reptilian taxa. Femoral safety factors were as high as those of non-avian reptiles and greater than those of upright, cursorial mammals, primarily because the load magnitudes experienced by opossums are lower than those of most mammals. Thus, the evolutionary transition from crouched to upright posture in mammalian ancestors may have been accompanied by an increase in limb bone load magnitudes.
Cycle Slipping in Phase-Locked Loops

This article shows that the expected first-slip time of a phase-locked loop of arbitrary order can be found as the solution of a first-order linear differential equation, to which formal solutions are easily written. Computation of an exact solution involves being able to evaluate a certain conditional expectation which, for the first-order loop, is readily done and yields the exact known result. For higher order loops, an approximate evaluation of the expectation is presented and compared with experimentally obtained data of the secondorder loop. The first-slip time based on this approximation also compares favorably with measured times.
Multiscale Habitat Selection by Long-Billed Curlews (Numenius americanus) Breeding in the United States

Abstract. Long-billed Curlew (Numenius americanus) populations have declined during the past 150 years in part due to destruction and fragmentation of grasslands used during the breeding season. Here, multiscale habitat characteristics best predicting number of Long-billed Curlews, detected during range-wide surveys conducted throughout the United States in 2004 and 2005, were determined. Long-billed Curlews were most often observed in habitats classified primarily as grassland habitat and secondarily as shortgrass or pasture/rangeland, all with low vegetation heights (i.e. 4–15 cm). Numbers of Long-billed Curlews were positively associated with wetland habitats on a local scale and hay/pasture areas on a landscape scale, but negatively associated with shrub/scrub on local and landscape scales and evergreen forests on a landscape scale. The study confirmed the importance of grassland, cropland, pasture and wetland habitats for breeding Long-billed Curlews across its geographic range in the United States. ...
Calvin on Suicide

In October 1555 Jean Jourdain, twenty-six, a humble farmer living near Geneva, was distraught at having contracted venereal disease, for which he could not afford medical treatment. On a Sunday morning, rather than going to church, Jourdain went into the woods where he stabbed himself. Immediately after inflicting the wound, Jourdain heard the ringing of the church bell. Feeling remorse, he asked forgiveness from God and walked to a nearby village, where he languished another eight days before expiring. In spite of his contrition, authorities ordered that Jourdain's body be dragged on a hurdle and then impaled and left exposed outside the city as a deterrent to others. In February 1564 Julienne Berard was most upset about being convoked by Geneva's Consistory to account for a dispute she had had with her nephew. According to witnesses, Berard, so frightened by the prospect of facing the questions of Calvin and other Consistory members, took her life by throwing herself in the Rhone River. As a result of this self-inflicted death, Berard's body was also dragged through the streets of Geneva and buried at Champel which, as the site of executions, was a place of ignominy. Over a century later, the notary Jean Bardin hanged himself because he was devastated by the deaths from an explosion of three of his young children and by the subsequent burglary of his house. In spite of the entreaties of his widow on behalf of their surviving minor children, the Small Council passed an extremely harsh sentence in September 1670, enjoining that Bardin's body be dragged on a hurdle before burial and that all his assets be confiscated.
Deficiency of electron transport chain in human skeletal muscle mitochondria in type 2 diabetes mellitus and obesity

Insulin resistance in skeletal muscle in obesity and T2DM is associated with reduced muscle oxidative capacity, reduced expression in nuclear genes responsible for oxidative metabolism, and reduced activity of mitochondrial electron transport chain. The presented study was undertaken to analyze mitochondrial content and mitochondrial enzyme profile in skeletal muscle of sedentary lean individuals and to compare that with our previous data on obese or obese T2DM group. Frozen skeletal muscle biopsies obtained from lean volunteers were used to estimate cardiolipin content, mtDNA (markers of mitochondrial mass), NADH oxidase activity of mitochondrial electron transport chain (ETC), and activity of citrate synthase and β-hydroxyacyl-CoA dehydrogenase (β-HAD), key enzymes of TCA cycle and β-oxidation pathway, respectively. Frozen biopsies collected from obese or T2DM individuals in our previous studies were used to estimate activity of β-HAD. The obtained data were complemented by data from our previous studies and statistically analyzed to compare mitochondrial content and mitochondrial enzyme profile in lean, obese, or T2DM cohort. The total activity of NADH oxidase was reduced significantly in obese or T2DM subjects. The cardiolipin content for lean or obese group was similar, and although for T2DM group cardiolipin showed a tendency to decline, it was statistically insignificant. The total activity of citrate synthase for lean and T2DM group was similar; however, it was increased significantly in the obese group. Activity of β-HAD and mtDNA content was similar for all three groups. We conclude that the total activity of NADH oxidase in biopsy for lean group is significantly higher than corresponding activity for obese or T2DM cohort. The specific activity of NADH oxidase (per mg cardiolipin) and NADH oxidase/citrate synthase and NADH oxidase/β-HAD ratios are reduced two- to threefold in both T2DM and obesity.
Taming the Goldstone contributions to the effective potential

The standard perturbative effective potential suffers from two related problems of principle involving the field-dependent Goldstone boson squared mass, $G$. First, in general $G$ can be negative, and it actually is negative in the Standard Model; this leads to imaginary contributions to the effective potential that are not associated with a physical instability, and therefore spurious. Second, in the limit that $G$ approaches zero, the effective potential minimization condition is logarithmically divergent already at two-loop order, and has increasingly severe power-law singularities at higher loop orders. I resolve both issues by resumming the Goldstone boson contributions to the effective potential. For the resulting resummed effective potential, the minimum value and the minimization condition that gives the vacuum expectation value are obtained in forms that do not involve $G$ at all.
ANOTHER UNUSUAL ADSORPTION SITE FOR ALKALI ADSORPTION ON A METAL, FOUND BY AUTOMATED TENSOR LEED ON A NOTEBOOK COMPUTER: ${\rm{Rh}}\left( {111} \right) - \left( {\sqrt 3 \times \sqrt 3 } \right)R30^ \circ -{\rm{Na}}$

The surface structure of has been analyzed with dynamical low-energy electron diffraction (LEED) at 30 K: a simple Na overlayer is found adsorbed in the unusual hcp-hollow site. LEED theory and computer power have progressed to the point where such a detailed surface structure determination, which includes fitting many structural parameters, is routinely possible even with a portable computer, in this instance a 486/25 MHz notebook computer, using automated tensor LEED.
Research Note: Audience Perspectives on the Perceived Quality of Pure Play Distribution: A Cross-Platform Analysis

This study examines adopters and non-adopters of pure play distribution across, print, audio, video, and gaming platforms through the lens of the Consumer Based Brand Equity (CBBE) model’s seven dimensions of perceived quality. It attempts to mobilize brand management scholarship to better predict the likelihood of a consumer engaging in a pure play distribution transaction, and addresses the unique considerations associated with pure play media branding. Pure play products refer to media content sold as digital files and while the appeal for a media firm to engage in pure play distribution stems from economic efficiency, the increase in choice and availability offered to audiences has not produced a consistent level of consumer acceptance across all media platforms.
HIGH INTERSTITIAL FLUID PRESSURE REGULATES TUMOR GROWTH AND DRUG UPTAKE IN HUMAN GLIOBLASTOMA

BACKGROUND: (blind field). METHODS: We developed methodology to measure IFP in human GBM xenografts and mechanical compression in 3D-cultures. We used a cell counter and calcein-AM-loaded cells to measure cell volume following treatment with temozolomide and/or blockade of NKCC1 activity. Fluorescent MQAE-loaded cells were recorded to measure intracellular chloride levels. To study uptake of chemotherapy following IFP-reduction in GBM xenografts following AF-induction or treatment with bumetanide, we injected doxorubicin and measured fluorescent doxorubicin levels in tissue sections. RESULTS: Elevated compression increased proliferation in GBM cultures and IFP levels rapidly increased during the exponential growth phase in GBM xenografts. In contrast to Avastin that targets the vasculature, SPC diet induced AF expression only in tumor cells. In addition to reducing IFP levels, AF-induction also inhibited proliferation, induced apoptosis, and increased survival in mice xenografted with human GBM cells. SPC diet and intranasal injection of AF increased uptake of doxorubicin in GBM xenografts. In vitro, AF augmented TMZ-induced apoptosis and reduced proliferation at both baseline and increased hydrostatic compression. CONCLUSIONS: In contrast to IFP-reducing therapies targeting the vasculature, treatments that reduced osmotic pressure in GBM cells effectively reduced tumor growth and invasion in vivo. AF and bumetanide increased uptake and cytotoxic response from chemotherapies by inhibiting NKCC1 activity in GBM cells. Our studies suggest that elevated IFP promotes tumor growth, reduces drug uptake, and limits therapy-response in GBM. AF-induction represents an attractive strategy to reduce invasion, inhibit tumor growth, increase drug uptake, and ultimately improve the survival of GBM patients. SECONDARY CATEGORY: Preclinical Experimental Therapeutics.
Metabolizable Energy, and Protein and Fat Digestibility Evaluations of Fish Solubles in Diets of Young Turkeys

Abstract MATTERSON et al. (1965) reported a metabolizable energy value of a sample of condensed fish solubles of 2.094 kilocalories per gram (950 kilocalories per pound) of ingredient in chick studies. As far as the authors are aware, this report contains the only metabolizable energy value of condensed fish solubles for poultry based upon experimental results. In addition no published reports of experiments with poultry designed to determine the coefficients of digestibility of the protein and fat in condensed fish solubles have been found. Two experiments were conducted to determine the metabolizable energy value and the coefficients of digestibility of the protein and fat in condensed fish solubles for young turkeys. PROCEDURE Day-old Medium White male poults were placed in starting batteries and fed a practical-type ration (Table 1) ad libitum on June 21 and October 26, 1966. At two weeks of age, the poults were individually weighed. The largest and…
Family Relationships and Religious Identities of GLBQ Christians

ABSTRACTNonheterosexual individuals are half as likely as their heterosexual counterparts to report a religious identity. Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and queer (GLBQ) emerging adults who maintain a religious identity and affiliation throughout their adolescent and young adult years challenge dominant narratives of sexuality and religion (Pew, 2012, 2013). This study contextualizes these demographic findings and considers their impact on family life and sexual identity. The authors present data from 11 qualitative interviews with GLBQ individuals between the ages of 20 and 25. Results are presented in a model describing how participants constructed a GLBQ Christian identity, and how they perceive the acceptance of their identities in both their families and church communities.
Conditions Eliciting Aerial Dispersal Behavior Banks Grass Mite, Oligonychus pratensis (Acari: Tetranychidae)

Adult female Banks grass mite (BGM), Oligonychus pratensis (Banks), exhibited a behavior that has been associated with aerial dispersal in other small, wingless arthropods. This behavior consisted of a raised posture with a consistent orientation. When exposed to wind and light, those BGM exhibiting the aerial dispersal posture consistently oriented away from light regardless of position of the wind source in relation to the light. Mites did not exhibit the aerial dispersal behavior in absence of either wind or light. Mites held on inert arenas at 25% RH exhibited the aerial dispersal behavior with increasing frequency over a 6-h period, after which the level of response remained at ca. 12%. Increased relative humidity resulted in lengthened time to reach the maximum response; at 95% RH none of the mites exhibited the behavior within a 12-h test period. In contrast, >47% of the twospotted spider mites (TSM), Tetranychus urticae Koch, collected from corn exhibited the aerial dispersal behavior at 25% RH after 6 h, and the response curve for TSM continued to increase to a level of 62%
Predation on Voles: An Experimental Approach

We manipulated access to penned populations of voles to assess the relative importance of four different groups of predators in eastcentral Illinois. Larger carnivores (feral cats, raccoons, and foxes) generally accounted for more losses than did the other groups, particularly in winter. Losses to small carnivores (weasels) and raptors peaked in autumn, but snakes had low impact throughout the year (none at all in winter when they were not active). Large carnivores and snakes showed no consistent preference for young or adult voles of either sex, whereas small carnivores and raptors regularly took more immature voles of both sexes. The heavy use of voles by large carnivores, even when densities of voles in surrounding fields were low, supported the hypothesis that resident generalist predators can respond quickly to local increases in density of voles and may prolong periods of low densities.
Effects of cranberry components on IL-1β-stimulated production of IL-6, IL-8 and VEGF by human TMJ synovial fibroblasts.

Abstract Objective Osteoarthritis (OA) in the TMJ is characterized by deterioration of articular cartilage and secondary inflammatory changes. Interleukin-1β (IL-1β) stimulates IL-6, IL-8, and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in synovial fluid of TMJ with internal derangement and bony changes. The cranberry (Vaccinium macrocarpon) contains polyphenolic compounds that inhibit production of pro-inflammatory molecules by gingival cells in response to several stimulators. This study examined effects of cranberry components on IL-1β-stimulated IL-6, IL-8, and VEGF production by human TMJ synovial fibroblast-like cells. Design Cranberry high molecular weight non-dialyzable material (NDM) was derived from cranberry juice. Human TMJ synovial fibroblast-like cells from joints with degenerative OA and an ankylosed TMJ without degeneration were incubated with IL-1β (0.001–1 nM) ± NDM (25–250 μg/ml) (2 h preincubation). Viability was assessed via activity of a mitochondrial enzyme. IL-6, IL-8, and VEGF in culture supernatants were measured by ELISA; NF-κB and AP-1 transcription factors were measured in nuclear extracts via binding to specific oligonucleotides. Data analysis: ANOVA and Scheffe’s F procedure for post hoc comparisons. Results NDM did not affect cell viability but inhibited IL-1β stimulated IL-6, IL-8, and VEGF production in all cell lines (p Conclusion Cranberry NDM inhibition of IL-1β-stimulated IL- 6, IL-8, and VEGF production by TMJ synovial fibroblast-like cells suggests that cranberry components may be useful as a host modulatory therapeutic agent to prevent or treat inflammatory arthropathies of the TMJ.
Exploring Tree-Like and Non-Tree-Like Patterns Using Genome Sequences: An Example Using the Inbreeding Plant Species Arabidopsis thaliana (L.) Heynh

Genome sequence data contain abundant information about genealogical history, but methods for extracting and interpreting this information are not yet fully developed. We analyzed genome sequences for multiple accessions of the selfing plant, Arabidopsis thaliana, with the goal of better understanding its genealogical history. As expected from accessions of the same species, we found much discordance between nuclear gene trees. Nonetheless, we inferred the optimal population tree under the assumption that all discordance is due to incomplete lineage sorting. To cope with the size of the data (many genes and many taxa), our pipeline is based on parallel computing and divides the problem into four-taxon trees. However, just because a population tree can be estimated does not mean that the assumptions of the multispecies coalescent model hold. Therefore, we implemented a new, nonparametric test to evaluate whether a population tree adequately explains the observed quartet frequencies (the frequencies of gene trees with each resolution of each four-taxon set). This test also considers other models: panmixia and a partially resolved population tree, that is, a tree in which some nodes are collapsed into local panmixia. We found that a partially resolved population tree provides the best fit to the data, providing evidence for tree-like structure within A. thaliana, qualitatively similar to what might be expected between different, closely related species. Further, we show that the pattern of deviation from expectations can be used to identify instances of introgression and detect one clear case of reticulation among ecotypes that have come into contact in the United Kingdom. Our study illustrates how we can use genome sequence data to evaluate whether phylogenetic relationships are strictly tree-like or reticulating. (Concordance; gene tree discordance; quartet; species concepts; TICR.)
Study on the protoplast culture of somatic embryogenesis of Lycium barbarum. L. and Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.

The sterilized seeds of "Ningqi 1" of Lycium barbarum L.and "Nongda 1" of Lycopersicon esculentum Mill were germinated on MS or 1/2MS medium to acquire aseptic seedlings,and then,using the seedlings to induce callus on MS medium supplemented.A stable cell suspension culture system was established with callus of L.barbarum L.and L.esculentum Mill after several rounds of subculture.The results showed that supplement of 1.0mg/L 2,4-D and 1.5mg/L KT for L.barbarum L.and 1.0mg/L 2,4-D and 1.0mg/L KT for L.esculentum Mill in MS solid culture medium are the best condition for inducing callus both of them,and achieved 68.45% and 64.33%induction rate respectively.Treating suspension cell of 0.5% enzyme(Pectinase),1% cellulase(Cellulase),isolated and R-10 0.2%(Macerozyme R-10),0.2%,hemicellulase(Hemicellulase) at 30℃,pH 5.0-6.0 with a 12 ~16h shaking resulted in the protoplast actvitity for 2 days.
Viewing the feasibility of developing direct air-cooling generating unit in severe cold and water-deficient area from Wyodak Power Plant

Based upon the application experiences of direct air cooling system of Wyodak Power Plant in severe cold and water deficient area and combined with the problems appearing in the other large size air cooling power plants,this paper expounds the principles to be mastered and problems needing attention in the selection and building of air cooling system in severe cold and water deficient area. In the meantime this paper also explains the feasibility and reliability of building direct air cooling generating units in the northern region of China by using facts and related data,in an attempt to clear the people's doubts and fears,to promote the development of air cooling technology in China.
Office Market Demand Analysis and Estimation Techniques: A Literature Review, Synthesis and Commentary

Judgmental or applied office demand analyses have appeared in the literature for the past forty years. First, using office demand to population ratios, researchers moved to more comprehensive forec...
Influence of rapeseed meal, whole rapeseed, and soybean meal on fatty acid composition and cholesterol content of muscle and adipose tissue from ram lambs.

Twenty-four Suffolk x Hampshire ram lambs (average 46 kg) were assigned to one of three diets containing rapeseed meal (RM), soybean meal (SBM), or whole rapeseed-soybean meal (RSSBM) as the protein source. Diets contained 75% roughage, 14% CP and 2.0 Mcal of ME/kg and lambs were allowed ad libitum access to diets for 35 d. Lipid composition of the longissimus, semimembranosus, and triceps brachii muscles and their corresponding s.c. adipose tissue was determined by gas-liquid chromatography (GLC). The total lipid content in either muscle or subcutaneous fat was not different (P greater than .01) by diet. In lean tissue, palmitic and palmitoleic acids were higher and stearic acid was lower (P less than .01) in rams fed RM than in rams fed RSSBM or SBM, regardless of anatomical location. In the s.c. adipose tissue, the amounts of myristoleic, pentadecylic, and palmitoleic acids were lower and the amount of stearic acid was higher (P less than .01) in rams fed RSSM than in those fed RM or SBM, regardless of anatomical location. The semimembranosus and triceps brachii muscles from all treatments contained 12 to 19% more polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) than the longissimus muscle. The cholesterol content of the three muscles was highest in SBM-fed lambs, lowest in RM-fed lambs, and intermediate in RSSBM-fed lambs. These results demonstrate that dietary treatments of the types used in the present study elicit changes in fatty acid composition of both adipose and muscle tissue without affecting the quantity of total lipid.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
How Do Government Employees Influence Election Outcomes: The Emergence of the Super Voter and the Development of a Strategic Electioneering Model

The number of Americans employed by the government has grown over the years both in absolute numbers and as a proportion of the population. Assuming that these people are rational voters, they have...
“A True Agent of Civilisation”: Travel and the “Educational Idea,” 1841–1861

Thomas Cook, the nineteenth-century founder of the global travel agency, Thomas Cook & Son, is often celebrated as a pioneer of the modern package tour, an entrepreneur who contributed to the rationalization and democratization of travel by coordinating transport, food, and lodging before the era of nationalized railways or chain motels. Yet, as the quotation above illustrates, Cook also viewed himself as a cultural ambassador between Britain and the world, and between Britain’s past and its future. Working for “the cause of social and intellectual progress,” Cook’s excursions not only helped ordinary Britons become cosmopolites by introducing them to their continental “neighbours,” but they helped “the masses” discard the vulgar leisure attractions of a bygone era for more “elevating” pursuits such as trips to scenic sites, country estates, and art galleries.
Deciphering the Role of Bronchial Hyper-Responsiveness in Equine Pasture Asthma

Abstract Bronchial hyper-responsiveness (BHR) describes a lung abnormality in which airways are easily triggered to constrict in response to normally harmless inhaled stimuli, and is a key element of human asthma pathophysiology. BHR contributes to equine respiratory diseases including inflammatory airway disease and recurrent airway obstruction. Collectively these diseases account for over 80% of poor performance in equine athletes, and at least 10% of veterinary admissions. BHR is also a contributing factor in ‘exercise induced pulmonary hemorrhage’. Increased sensitivity to airway constriction that characterizes BHR is a documented sequel to viral respiratory infections in several species, including horses and humans. Five respiratory viruses known to circulate extensively in equine populations place the horse at risk for BHR. Despite adverse effects of BHR on equine health, there remains a gap in our fundamental understanding of how gene products coordinate in the lung to cause BHR. Leveraging the equine genome sequence, we employ systems biology including proteomics and RNA sequencing to model the complex biology of BHR in the lungs of horses with pasture asthma. Using a self controlled experimental design, gene products that segregate with seasonal asthma exacerbation in diseased horses are being identified and their relevant physiology identified to address the need for better recognition and management of BHR in equine disease.
Work-in-Progress: Reducing Cache Conflicts via Interrupts and BUNDLE Scheduling

In "BUNDLE: Real-Time Multi-Threaded Scheduling to Reduce Cache Contention" Tessler and Fisher present a positive perspective of instruction caches for hard real-time multithreaded tasks. The thread-aware scheduling algorithm limits the execution of threads to sets of instructions that cannot result in cache conflicts. Identification of these sets result in conflict free regions which are used to identify scheduling groups called bundles in the BUNDLE scheduling algorithm. Placement of a thread in a particular bundle depends on, what the authors call, "anticipating execution". However, they do not define a complete mechanism to anticipate execution. In this work, we propose a method to anticipate execution that modifies cache hardware and introduces a new interrupt raised prior to a cache conflict. This new interrupt is combined with (a slightly modified version of) the BUNDLE scheduling algorithm. The intent is to implement these hardware modifications for ARM on the gem5 simulator with the scheduling algorithm integrated into the RTEMS operating system. The hope is this work serves as further motivation to bring the positive perspective of caches to physical processors and operating systems.
Harnessing Hot Electrons from Near IR Light for Hydrogen Production Using Pt-End-Capped-AuNRs.

Gold nanorods show great potential in harvesting natural sunlight and generating hot charge carriers that can be employed to produce electrical or chemical energies. We show that photochemical reduction of Pt(IV) to Pt metal mainly takes place at the ends of gold nanorods (AuNRs), suggesting photon-induced hot electrons are localized in a time-averaged manner at AuNR ends. To use these hot electrons efficiently, a novel synthetic method to selectively overgrow Pt at the ends of AuNRs has been developed. These Pt-end-capped AuNRs show relatively high activity for the production of hydrogen gas using artificial white light, natural sunlight, and more importantly, near IR light at 976 nm. Tuning of the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) wavelength of AuNRs changes the hydrogen gas production rate, indicating that SPR is involved in hot electron generation and photoreduction of hydrogen ions. This study shows that gold nanorods are excellent for converting low-energy photons into high-energy hot electrons, which...
Motivation and research in architectural intelligent tutoring

It is well-known that personalised and adaptive training, such as from a human tutor, is dramatically more effective than traditional classroom training (Bloom, 1984; VanLehn, 2011). Due to a variety of reasons, however, tutoring systems are not yet ubiquitous within the training market. The US Army Research Laboratory is working to address this problem and has recently published a series of research vector outlines, which guide research in the various areas. The research within the architectural vector naturally exists to support the other vectors and to investigate, standardise, componentise, and commodise the processes and functions of the various tutoring system aspects. This paper serves as an expansion and companion to the similarly named 2015 International Defense and Homeland Security Simulation Workshop paper and yet-to-be-published ARL architectural research plan, expanded in order to discuss the progress made to date, clarify the role of the architecture in the research, and discuss some of the advantages of a unified system as part of measuring training effectiveness and overall system improvement.
Merging the Machines of Modern Science

Two recent projects have harnessed supercomputing resources at the US Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory in a novel way to support major fusion science and particle collider experiments. Using leadership computing resources, one team ran fine-grid analysis of real-time data to make near-real-time adjustments to an ongoing experiment, while a second team is working to integrate Argonne’s supercomputers into the Large Hadron Collider/ATLAS workflow. Together these efforts represent a new paradigm of the high-performance computing center as a partner in experimental science.
Racial/Ethnic Differences in Labor Induction in a Contemporary US Cohort: A Retrospective Cohort Study.

Objective To examine labor induction by race/ethnicity and factors associated with disparity in induction. Study Design This is a retrospective cohort study of 143,634 women eligible for induction ≥24 weeks' gestation from 12 clinical centers (2002–2008). Rates of labor induction for each racial/ethnic group were calculated and stratified by gestational age intervals: early preterm (240/7–336/7), late preterm (340/7–366/7), and term (370/7–416/7 weeks). Multivariable logistic regression examined the association between maternal race/ethnicity and induction controlling for maternal characteristics and pregnancy complications. The primary outcome was rate of induction by race/ethnicity. Inductions that were indicated, non-medically indicated, or without recorded indication were also compared. Results Non-Hispanic black (NHB) women had the highest percentage rate of induction, 44.6% (p Conclusion Compared with other racial/ethnic groups, NHW women were more likely to undergo non-medically indicated induction at term. As labor induction may avoid the occurrence of stillbirth, whether this finding explains part of the increased risk of stillbirth for NHB women at term merits further research.
Time to Move to Earlier Intervention for Thoracic Aortic Aneurysm

Aortic disease is the 20th most common cause of death in the U.S. population. One of the most life-threatening complications of thoracic aortic aneurysm (TAA) is acute aortic dissection and/or rupt...
Online welding process monitoring using multi-optical sensing techniques (Conference Presentation)

The increasing need for improvement of weld quality and productivity requires advanced welding monitoring and control technologies. In our research, a multi-optical sensing approach is utilized to maximize the effectiveness of reliable weld flaw detection and real-time adaptive feedback control of welding conditions to eliminate the formation of weld defects. Weld pool characteristics and strain-stress evolution in the heat affected zone, two factors that closely related to certain weld defects are monitored. The sensing system mainly consists of a digital camera synchronized with a laser-based illumination and filtering system to suppress the strong arc light so that the weld pool and the surrounding region can be clearly visualized to measure the weld pool surface dimension and estimate the penetration depth. The strain evolution and the weld distortion in the heat affected zone can also be monitored by digital image correlation (DIC) method with the assistance of the recently developed high-temperature speckle preparation method. In additional, a procedure has been developed to determine the stress evolution in real time.
Mystic Descent: James Hillman and the Religious Imagination

No single piece of writing expresses the tension between the spiritual and the psychological as well as James Hillman’s 1975 essay, “Peaks and Vales,” where he describes the difference between the spirit’s heights and the soul’s depths. For Hillman, spirit and soul describe contrasting modes of imagination, with the former associated with the movement up and out and the latter down and in. In even approaching these themes through their accompanying metaphors and images, Hillman was “showing how soul looks at spirit, how peaks look from the vale.” For, he says, “from the soul’s point of view we can never get out of the vale of our psychic reality.” This chapter will explore the significance of this soul perspective when considering the spiritual nature of mysticism. I will argue it is not only the character of our time, but something intrinsic to the mystical vision itself that invites keeping the soul perspective close at hand. I finally suggest the mystic may be more soul-bound than we may assume, and mystical experiences may illustrate an ultimately necessary bond between spirit and soul.
Facilitators and Barriers to Oncologists' Conduct of Goals of Care Conversations.

Introduction:Goals of care (GoC) conversations optimally begin early in the course of cancer care, yet most happen near the end of life. We sought to describe oncologist-reported facilitators of an...
CONSTRUCTION PROBLEMS IN THE MINNESOTA DEMONSTRATION PROGRAM

ABSTRACT This paper will use the actual construction experience of seven projects completed under the Minnesota Solar/Earth Sheltered Demonstration Housing Program as a basis to describe the building costs and construction problems experienced in earth sheltered construction.
As ever, B.J.": The Palmer-Stoke correspondence of 1926-1952.

John H. Stoke was a 1920 graduate of the Palmer School and a loyalist among the admirers of B.J. Palmer during the turbulent 1920s in which Palmer leadership was questioned and the Neurocalometer debacle had eroded his following. Stoke, however, was a critical B.J. advocate, and engaged in sometimes detailed analysis of Palmer-Stoke correspondence and the issues which confronted the profession in those difficult times in the early years of this century.
Structure and Movement of a Dry Front

Aircraft observations taken in the course of three flights of the Tornado Research Airplane on 11 June 1956 were analyzed. These flights were made over the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains where a squall line was predicted. The analysis revealed the structure of a dry frontal surface which played an important role upon the development of the squall line.