cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Selective enhancement of [3H]opiate agonist binding by divalent cations.

Manganese ions enhance binding of the tritiated opiate agonists dihydromorphine and levorphanol 78% and 64%, respectively, while binding of the tritiated antagonists naloxone, levallorphan, and diprenorphine is unaffected. Magnesium and nickel ions also selectively enhance [3H]dihydromorphine binding with no effect on [3H]naloxone binding. By contrast, cupric and ferrous ions lower the binding of [3H]dihydromorphine far more than that of [3H]naloxone. Manganese ions also enhance the ability of unlabeled agonists to inhibit the binding of [3H]naloxone. All these effects are most pronounced in the presence of sodium chloride. Ethylenediaminetetracetic acid inhibits the binding of [3H]dihydromorphine 50% without altering [3H] naloxone binding, while ethylenebis[(oxyethylenenitrilo)]tetraacetic acid and magnesium and manganese complexes of EDTA are ineffective. The EDTA effect can be reversed by subsequent addition of either manganese or magnesium ions. The divalent cations which enhance opiate agonist binding appear to counteract the ability of sodium ions to inhibit agonist binding selectively. The potency of sodium in inhibiting [3H]dihydromorphine binding is reduced 5-fold by the addition of manganese ions. There is a good correlation between the sensitivity of opiate receptor binding to sodium and manganese.
The Multiplicity of the Social Sciences

It has become customary to explain the existence of a number of social sciences from the complexity of our society and to assume that they all deal with different aspects of the societal structure. The origin and growth of these sciences in periods which showed an increasing integration and diversity in our social processes lends a certain support to this theory which, however, needs a critical examination.
Progress lies in precision.

Too often, I feel as though I live in two worlds. One is populated by scientists working on advanced tools, such as big data, sequencing, and data-based disease surveillance. The other is populated by public health professionals working on the demanding challenges of combating infectious diseases, empowering women and girls, and ensuring that more children survive and thrive. If we want to achieve the ambitions set out by the United Nations for global health and development by 2030, we need to bring these two worlds closer together through a new concept—precision public health.
Influences of Gene–Environment Interaction and Correlation on Disruptive Behavior in the Family Context

Developmental behavioral genetic approaches have facilitated important advances in understanding the transactional associations between parents’ and children’s behaviors in the establishment and exacerbation of child disruptive behavior disorders. In this chapter we provide a brief review of the behavioral genetic approach and review relevant findings from quantitative and molecular genetic research illustrating gene–environment correlation and interaction influences on the development of disruptive behavior, focusing on the role of the family environment. The literature demonstrates multiple mechanisms by which genetic and environmental influences exert transactional influences on each other and on family members’ behaviors: (1) parents pass genes and environments consistent with those genes to their children which can result in a higher probability that the child develops disruptive behavior disorders, (2) the genetically and environmentally influenced disruptive behaviors of the child can impact parenting behaviors, (3) parenting can diminish or exacerbate genetic and environmental influences on child disruptive behaviors, and (4) genes can diminish or exacerbate children’s responses to parenting influences which may serve to exacerbate or attenuate disruptive behavior disorders. Finally, we offer suggestions for how findings from other models of the development of disruptive behavior can inform future research on gene–environment correlation and interaction influences on the development of disruptive behavior, including creative extensions of data collection and analytic techniques, novel developmental behavioral genetic techniques, and collaboration across multiple disciplines.
Re-envisioning the annotated bibliography assignment

BRIEF SESSION DESCRIPTION: This session will provide an alternative to the traditional annotated bibliography assignemnt that requires students to integrate and analyze their scholarly resources in a more productive and effective manner. ________________________________________________________________ FULL ABSTRACT: Developing a literature review requires students to not only review their scholarly sources, but also to integrate and critically analyze them. However, students often dump an annotated bibliography into their literature review without the necessary integration and critical analysis. This session presents an alternative assignment and tool that addresses these issues. It includes: 1) an introduction and review of the goals and learning outcomes of the assignment, 2) reviews and gives examples of how the tool scaffolds the learning process and addresses the challenges of integration and critical thinking in the development of the analysis, and 3) reviews the assessment rubric for the assignment. This alternative approach is adaptable to any course which requires the development of a research paper or project based on a scholarly literature review for one, or multiple, disciplines. They will be able to include this assignment in their courses as a replacement for the traditional annotated bibliography. Handouts will be available to those who attend the session. For more information about assignment design: https://stearnscenter.gmu.edu/teaching/assignment-design
Enhancing QoS in spatially controlled beamforming networks via distributed stochastic programming

We address the problem of enhancing Quality-of-Service (QoS) in power constrained, mobile relay beamforming networks, by controlling the motion of the relaying nodes. We consider a time slotted system, where the relays update their positions before the beginning of each time slot. Adopting a spatiotemporal stochastic field model of the wireless channel, we propose a novel 2-stage stochastic programming formulation for specifying the relay positions at each time slot, such that the QoS of the network is maximized on average, based on causal Channel State Information (CSI) and under a total relay transmit power budget. Via the Method of Statistical Differentials, the motion control problem considered is shown to be approximately equivalent to a set of simple subproblems, which are solved in a distributed fashion, one at each relay. Numerical simulations are also presented, corroborating the efficacy of the proposed approach.
Major League Soccer Provides a Captive Audience for Promoting Bystander CPR and AED Use Among Hispanics

Abstract Objective Rates of bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and automated external defibrillator (AED) use are lower in Hispanic compared to non-Hispanic white communities. Novel instructional methods that focus on population subgroups most likely to benefit must be explored. The purpose of this study was to determine the feasibility, efficiency, and participant demographics of 10-minute educational intervention on bystander CPR and AED use delivered at a pre-match festival for Major League Soccer (MLS) fans. Methods Results are reported with descriptive statistics. The primary outcomes included: (1) Training efficiency index for cardiac arrest (TEICA) defined as persons trained/volunteer hours; (2) cardiac arrest training yield (CATY) defined as percent participation by the target audience; and (3) percent of participants of Hispanic origin. Our secondary outcome was average post intervention knowledge survey score. Results CATY was 16% and TEICA was 3.81. Survey participation was 48.3% and 38.9% of survey participants were Hispanic. Average knowledge score post training was 87.5%. Conclusion Soccer matches may be a suitable setting for provision of CPR and AED training to Hispanics. This intervention gives insight into a novel way of providing health education to Hispanics that can be applied to other behaviors.
Patient and Physician Perspectives on Public Reporting of Mortality Ratings for Percutaneous Coronary Intervention in New York State.

Background—Public reporting of physician-specific outcome data for procedures, such as percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), can influence physicians to avoid high-risk patients who may benefit...
A dynamic model-aided sensor fusion approach to aircraft attitude estimation

Attitude is an important consideration for aircraft due to its necessity for control and other purposes such as remote sensing. Sensor fusion techniques are a popular approach to attitude estimation since low-cost and lightweight sensors such as inertial sensors can be utilized. However, an additional source of information that has been mostly overlooked is the control inputs. This information is typically known, and when coupled with an aircraft dynamic model, can predict the aircraft states. This information when fused with other sensor measurements through Kalman filtering techniques offers a reasonable method for using all available information to predict aircraft attitude. This work presents the procedure for implementing this sensor fusion idea with some simulation results from a known aircraft dynamic model.
Revving the motor of multiple organ dysfunction syndrome. Gut dysfunction in ARDS and multiorgan failure

Despite its initial description as primarily a pulmonary disorder, the acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) has been recognized as one component of a systemic disorder associated with microvascular permeability and widespread organ involvement that often afflicts the gastrointestinal tract. Although a healthy gut is an important defense for the body, its unique vascular anatomy and its predisposition toward ischemia and mucosal hypoxia put the gastrointestinal tract at high risk of injury during the course of the systemic inflammatory response syndrome. Once the mucosa is damaged and host defenses break down translocation of bacteria and bacterial toxins is likely to contribute to the inflammation associated with sepsis and ARDS. Gastric tonometry offers a potentially useful mechanism to monitor regional perfusion and oxidative metabolism in the splanchnic vascular bed. Many studies have shown that tonometry can assist the clinician on prognostic assessment of patients. Several studies also have demonstrated improved patient outcome when therapies aimed to protect the GI tract are aggressively pursued with tonometric guidance.
A semantic-based, distance-proportional mutation for stock classification

Abstract Decision making in the field of financial management is a very complicated and dynamic process. How to incorporate domain knowledge into evolutionary computing to solve financial decision-making problems has long been an interest of researchers. This paper investigates the use of domain knowledge in an evolutionary process, especially in the mutation process. A semantic network of financial attributes is created and used to measure the variation between parents and offspring introduced in the mutation process. The proposed distance-proportional mutation (DPM) constrains the mutation size to be a) small enough that the searching proceeds gracefully, while b) large enough to avoid being trapped into local optima. The hypothesis is that the DPM outperforms a random mutation or a constrained mutation in which only the component that is the closest to the one being mutated can be selected, and provides a better decision-making support for the stock classification problem. Experiments were implemented to test the hypothesis. DPM is also compared with other classifiers, such as decision trees. The results support the hypothesis and shed light on future directions to further delineate the theory of how evolutionary computation can gradually build on the body of human knowledge.
Progressive left ventricular dysfunction and long-term outcomes in patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy receiving cardiopulmonary therapies.

Objective To describe the natural history of cardiomyopathy in patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) who are receiving contemporary therapies. Methods This is a single-institution retrospective cohort study of 57 patients aged >15 years with DMD. Serial digital echocardiograms were performed over a median follow-up of 8 years. Left ventricular dysfunction (LVD) was defined as shortening fraction (SF) Results The SF declined progressively in 53/57 patients (93%). LVD occurred in 40 of 57 patients (70%), with variable age at onset (median 18 years, IQR 14–21.5 years). Rate of SF decline (–1.51%±1.16%/year) was variable and unrelated to genotype. However, survival was shorter for patients with LVD onset at age Conclusion Despite contemporary therapies, SF declined progressively in almost all patients. Age at onset of LVD and age at death were variable and unrelated to genotype; however, survival was shortened for patients with LVD onset at age
Basic properties of eutectic chloride salts NaCl-KCl-ZnCl2 and NaCl-KCl-MgCl2 as HTFs and thermal storage media measured using simultaneous DSC-TGA

Abstract Concentrated solar power (CSP) technologies tend to work at high temperatures for better energy efficiency, which need high temperature heat transfer fluids (HTF) and thermal storage. A good HTF should have low melting point and be thermally stable at high temperatures. A thermal storage medium needs a high heat capacity in order to store more energy in per unit of mass or volume. The objective of this work is to study the basic thermophysical properties of several eutectic molten salts for HTF and thermal storage media, which can work at upper limit temperatures of 850 °C. The eutectic salts are mixtures by NaCl-KCl-ZnCl2, and by NaCl-KCl-MgCl2, respectively. The heat capacity, melting point, and heat of fusion of the eutectic salts at different temperatures were measured using Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) and Thermal Gravimetric Analysis (TGA) simultaneously. Details of the measurements and obtained experience of operating the equipment are provided in the work. For each of the eutectic salts multiple samples were tested to check repeatability and to minimize random errors. In theoretical analysis, mixing rules from literature was used to estimate the heat capacity of the new HTFs, which showed good agreement with experimental data.
Design and development of an autonomous robotic wheelchair for medical mobility

Autonomous vehicle technology in the field of medical mobility is a means by which wheelchair users can improve their locomotion with intelligent human-machine interface. The research focuses on the design of such robotic wheelchair which is a multifaceted task incorporating hardware and software with sensor technology, computer processing and power distribution. The paper describes the design and development of a prototype of a smart wheelchair for autonomous path planning and high performance computing for real time data processing. Results from the performance testing demonstrate its functionality detecting obstacles.
Directional Halley and Quasi-Halley Methods in N Variables

Directional Halley and Quasi-Halley Methods in n Variables Yuri Levin ∗ and Adi Ben-Israel RUTCOR–Rutgers Center for Operations Research, Rutgers University, 640 Bartholomew Rd, Piscataway, NJ 08854-8003, USA. E-mail: ylevin@rutcor.rutgers.edu RUTCOR–Rutgers Center for Operations Research, Rutgers University, 640 Bartholomew Rd, Piscataway, NJ 08854-8003, USA. E-mail: bisrael@rutcor.rutgers.edu A directional Halley method for functions f of n variables is shown to converge, at a cubic rate, to a solution. To avoid the second derivative needed in Halley method we propose a directional quasi-Halley method, with one more function evaluation per iteration than the directional Newton method, but with convergence rates comparable to the Halley method.
DIA-SIFT: A Precursor and Product Ion Filter for Accurate Stable Isotope Data-Independent Acquisition Proteomics.

Quantitative mass spectrometry-based protein profiling is widely used to measure protein levels across different treatments or disease states, yet current mass spectrometry acquisition methods present distinct limitations. While data-independent acquisition (DIA) bypasses the stochastic nature of data-dependent acquisition (DDA), fragment spectra derived from DIA are often complex and challenging to deconvolve. In-line ion mobility separation (IMS) adds an additional dimension to increase peak capacity for more efficient product ion assignment. As a similar strategy to sequential window acquisition methods (SWATH), IMS-enabled DIA methods rival DDA methods for protein annotation. Here we evaluate IMS-DIA quantitative accuracy using stable isotope labeling by amino acids in cell culture (SILAC). Since SILAC analysis doubles the sample complexity, we find that IMS-DIA analysis is not sufficiently accurate for sensitive quantitation. However, SILAC precursor pairs share common retention and drift times, and ...
Measurement of Streaming Potentials Generated During Laboratory Simulations of Unconfined Aquifer Pumping Tests

The streaming potential method has emerged as a promising hydrogeophysical technique for indirect acquisition of spatially dense measurements of the hydraulic response of aquifers to pumping or other system forcings. The method relies on measurements of electric potentials generated by groundwater flow. They arise due to the existence of the electric double layer at the rock–water interface. Mathematical solutions describing the transient electric potentials associated with pumping tests conducted in confined and unconfined aquifers have been recently developed and demonstrated to yield reasonable estimates of hydraulic parameters when applied to tests conducted at the field-scale. We present results of laboratory experiments conducted to investigate the applicability of the unconfined aquifer model under controlled conditions in a sand tank instrumented with pressure transducers for direct measurement of the hydraulic system state, and nonpolarizable electrodes for measurement of the associated electric field. Measurements show unambiguous transient streaming potential responses to groundwater flow in a bounded cylindrical system. Parameters estimated from streaming potential data are compared to those from drawdown data.
Feminist supervision and supervisee nondisclosure: The mediating role of the supervisory relationship

ABSTRACTIn this study, the authors investigated the predictive relationship between a feminist supervisory approach and supervisee nondisclosure, along with the potential mediating effect of the supervisory relationship. Among a sample of master’s-level counseling interns (N = 111), supervisees who perceived more feminist behaviors from their supervisor were more likely to rank the supervisory relationship as stronger and were less likely to report withholding information from their supervisor. Furthermore, the supervisory relationship partially mediated the link between feminist supervision and supervisee nondisclosure. Implications for supervisors and researchers are discussed.
Screening umbilical cord blood for congenital Iron deficiency.

Abstract Objectives Small for gestational age infants (SGA), infants of diabetic mothers (IDM), and very low birth weight infants (VLBW) are at risk for congenital iron deficiency. We evaluated the iron status of SGA, IDM, and VLBW neonates at birth and sought mechanistic explanations in those with iron deficiency. Methods This was a prospective study. If congenital iron deficiency was present, maternal iron studies were obtained. When neonates were two weeks old, their iron status was reevaluated. Results Sixteen of 180 neonates screened were iron deficient at birth. The Body Mass Index of the 16 mothers was high. These mothers often had mild iron deficiency and measurable hepcidin levels. Two weeks after birth, neonates had improved iron measurements. Conclusions Among SGA, IDM, and VLBW neonates, maternal obesity is a risk factor for congenital iron deficiency. We speculate that elevated hepcidin levels in obese pregnant women impede iron absorption and interfere with transplacental iron transfer.
Men's trauma, depression, and suicide in adulthood.

This chapter provides an opportunity to review mental health disparities that specifically affect men within the context of trauma, depression, and suicidal behaviors—with an eye towards understanding how age, race, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status function as social determinants of mental health for men from varying social contexts, backgrounds, and positionalities. It focuses on age, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status as several social determinants that shape men’s disparities related to trauma, depression, and suicide. The chapter proposes that gender also serves as a critical force that impacts experiences, beliefs, and perceptions of mental health, as rates of death by suicide are nearly several times higher among men than they are for women. Suicide is a leading cause of death among men worldwide, yet it remains an understudied topic across many disciplines. Thus, additional inquiry is required to critically assess nuances related to suicide ideation and attempt among men individually and collectively.
Design and Evaluation of a Low Cost Electrical Muscle Stimulator (EMS) with Biopac

The present paper is aimed towards designing a low-cost electrical muscle stimulation device and evaluating the muscle activity using high performance electromyography device, BIOPAC. The electrical muscle stimulator is essentially an electronic device which has the ability to contract the muscles via electrical current sent to the electrodes. The power of the device is provided by a 9 V battery, which ensures the portability of the device. The electrical muscle stimulation is provided mainly by two timers that are designed to carry electrical impulses and count them, a transformer, a LED that monitors the transmission of the impulse and three potentiometers which are used to change the length, the duration and the amplitude of the impulse that will be sent to the muscle via electrodes. This type of electronic device addresses patients with cervical spine pain, to increase muscle strength, warming and relaxation. By using this EMS device in certain pathologies of the neck, the patients are able to relieve neck pain without using medication. Biopac is used for evaluating and monitoring differences between a natural and an electrical stimulated contraction.
Reduction in pathogenic load of wheat by tempering with saline organic acid solutions at different seasonal temperatures.

Abstract As a raw agricultural commodity, wheat is exposed to microbial contamination; therefore, enteric pathogens may be among its microbiota creating a food safety risk in milled products. This research evaluates (1) the effectiveness of organic acids dissolved in saline solutions to reduce the counts of pathogenic microorganisms in soft and hard wheat, and also investigates the effect of seasonal temperature on (2) survivability of pathogens in wheat kernels and on (3) pathogen inactivation during tempering with saline organic acid solutions. Wheat samples were inoculated with cocktails of either 5 serovars of Salmonella enterica, 5 E. coli O157:H7 or 6 non-O157 Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) strains to achieve a concentration of ~7 log CFU/g. Inoculated samples were allowed to stand for 7-days at temperatures (2.0, 10.8, 24.2, 32 °C) corresponding to those experienced during winter, spring/fall, and summer (average and maximum) in the main wheat growing regions in the state of Nebraska, USA. Besides water, solutions containing acid (acetic or lactic 2.5% or 5.0% v/v) and NaCl (~26% w/v) were used for tempering the wheat to 15.0% (soft) and 15.5% (hard) moisture at the different seasonal temperatures. The survival of pathogenic microorganisms throughout the resting period, and before and after tempering was analyzed by plating samples on injury-recovery media. The survival rate of pathogenic microorganisms on wheat kernels was higher at temperatures experienced during the winter (2.0 °C) and spring/fall (10.8 °C) months. Regardless of tempering temperature, the initial pathogen load was reduced significantly by all solutions when compared to the control tempered with water (P ≤ .05). The combination of lactic acid (5.0%) and NaCl was the most effective treatment against Salmonella enterica, E. coli O157:H7 and non-O157 STEC, with average reduction values of 1.8, 1.8 and 1.6 log CFU/g for soft wheat and 2.6, 2.4 and 2.4 log CFU/g for hard wheat, respectively. Implementation of organic acids and NaCl in tempering water may have the potential to reduce the risk of pathogen contamination in milled products.
Recombination rates in green-yellow InGaN-based multiple quantum wells with AlGaN interlayers

The recombination rates in InGaN/AlGaN/GaN multiple quantum wells (MQWs) emitting in the green-yellow and grown with different Al compositions in the AlGaN interlayer (IL) are shown. By transforming measurements on radiative efficiency, absorption, and differential carrier lifetime, the radiative and nonradiative rates are determined. The IL Al composition controls lattice relaxation of the MQWs, as determined by X-ray reciprocal space mapping, and, therefore, defect formation. For the most pseudomorphic MQWs, the Shockley-Read-Hall (SRH) A coefficient is minimized and is similar to reports at shorter (blue and green) wavelengths. It is an order of magnitude smaller than a conventional InGaN/GaN MQW and is the most significant factor behind the improvement in radiative efficiency using the IL. The radiative B coefficient is also reduced and a minimum for the most pseudomorphic MQWs due to a reduction in the electron-hole wavefunction overlap. However, the decrease in A is more significant and leads to an overall improvement in the radiative efficiency. These recombination rate measurements confirm that if the SRH recombination is controlled, then the severe reduction of radiative recombination with an increased emitting wavelength is one of the main challenges in realizing high efficiency, long-wavelength InGaN-based MQW emitters operating at low to moderate current densities.
6.02 – Cardiovascular Development*

Formation of a functional cardiovascular system is arguably the most fundamental process in embryogenesis, perhaps second only to gastrulation. Underlying its essential role in the exchange of respiratory gases and delivery of nutrients throughout the embryo is a carefully orchestrated temporal and spatial pattern of events whereby cells become specified, determined then differentiated. This chapter outlines some of the key aspects of heart morphogenesis, with emphasis on the genesis of progenitor populations that lead to the formation and remodeling of transitory tissues. The goal is to impart a general understanding of potential developmental targets of chemical or biological agents that engender cardiovascular defects in the newborn.
Respiratory Microbial Co-infection With SARS-CoV-2

Co-infection with additional pathogens is a well-known feature of pandemics. We determined the prevalence and type of a wide variety of respiratory pathogens in 12,075 United States subjects tested for SARS-CoV-2 infection in March and April 2020. Infections with other respiratory pathogens, which on their own produce at least some SARS-CoV-2 symptoms including mortality, were present in both SARS-CoV-2 + and SARS-CoV-2- subjects. Non-SARS-CoV-2 infection rates were significantly higher in SARS-CoV-2 + (86%) patients than SARS-CoV-2- patients (76%) (p < 0.0001). Among the co-pathogens present in both subject groups were K. pneumoniae and M. catarrhalis which can produce serious respiratory illness on their own, Advanced age and nursing home status were associated with higher SARS-CoV-2 + and co-infection rates. Testing for the presence of co-pathogens going forward will assist in the diagnosis and optimal treatment of suspected SARS-CoV-2 respiratory infections in the current pandemic.
SpeechStew: Simply Mix All Available Speech Recognition Data to Train One Large Neural Network

We present SpeechStew, a speech recognition model that is trained on a combination of various publicly available speech recognition datasets: AMI, Broadcast News, Common Voice, LibriSpeech, Switchboard/Fisher, Tedlium, and Wall Street Journal. SpeechStew simply mixes all of these datasets together, without any special re-weighting or re-balancing of the datasets. SpeechStew achieves SoTA or near SoTA results across a variety of tasks, without the use of an external language model. Our results include 9.0\% WER on AMI-IHM, 4.7\% WER on Switchboard, 8.3\% WER on CallHome, and 1.3\% on WSJ, which significantly outperforms prior work with strong external language models. We also demonstrate that SpeechStew learns powerful transfer learning representations. We fine-tune SpeechStew on a noisy low resource speech dataset, CHiME-6. We achieve 38.9\% WER without a language model, which compares to 38.6\% WER to a strong HMM baseline with a language model.
A hierarchical Bayesian model for background variation in radiation source localization

Abstract In this paper, we apply a new model to account for varying background radiation in radiological source localization. We present a hierarchical Bayesian model that simultaneously infers background and source location parameters without requiring separate estimation of the background radiation at each detector location. We employ a simplified photon transport model to reduce the computational expense of Bayesian model calibration. We demonstrate the model accuracy by localizing a cesium-137 source in a simulated city block, and we analyze experimental field measurements with varying background. In both cases, the model provides sufficient fidelity that we can locate the source while simultaneously estimating background radiation.
Local duality predictions for x {approx} 1 structure functions

Recent data on the proton F{sub 2} structure function in the resonance region suggest that local quark-hadron duality works remarkably well for each of the low-lying resonances, including the elastic, to rather low values of Q{sup 2}. The authors discuss model-independent relations between structure functions x{approx}1 and elastic electromagnetic form factors. The x{yields}1 behavior of the nucleon polarization asymmetries and the neutron to proton structure function ratios is studied as a function of Q-squared using available data on the electric and magnetic form factors.
On an Asymptotic Distribution for the MLE

The paper presents a novel asymptotic distribution for a mle when the log--likelihood is strictly concave in the parameter for all data points; for example, the exponential family. The new asymptotic distribution can be seen as a refinement of the usual normal asymptotic distribution and is comparable to an Edgeworth expansion. However, it is obtained with weaker conditions than even those for asymptotic normality. The same technique is then used to find the exact distribution of the weighted likelihood bootstrap sampler.
A comparison of the technical efficiency of Aquaculture Stewardship Council certified shrimp farms to non-certified farms

Abstract Aquaculture will play an increasingly important role in the global seafood supply as fisheries harvests have plateaued. Shrimp are a highly valuable aquaculture commodity which are produced largely for global trade. The Aquaculture Stewardship Council's shrimp certification standard is meant to serve as a market-based tool that rewards the better actors in the industry for improved performance in areas like technical efficiency, social responsibility, and traceability. The goal of this study was to compare production methodology and efficiency of farms currently certified to the ASC shrimp standard to non-certified farms from recent field surveys in the same geographical areas. Certified farms were statistically larger on average (four times larger in Latin America and 10 times larger in Asia). While farms in Asia operate at higher production intensities, no differences were seen due to certification status. No differences were seen in the FCR of farms in Asia, but ASC farms in Latin America had the higher average FCRs than non-certified farms (1.80 vs. 1.33). ASC farms in Asia used drastically less water exchange and were more energy efficient than other farms as well. These findings were used to make recommendations for the ASC standard and certification standards in general, including a greater emphasis on requirements for limits on efficiency-based metrics beyond reporting the outcome of the calculation.
The role of sea spray in atmosphere-ocean gas exchange

Sea spray facilitates the movement of matter and energy between the ocean and the atmosphere. While many of its contributions to heat and momentum transfer are relatively well understood, the contribution to chemical exchange, particularly gas exchange, remains less well known. This study provides an estimation of sea-spray gas-exchange potential for five gases (helium, neon, argon, oxygen and nitrogen) using a chemically modified microphysical model, the Andreas Gas Exchange Spray model. This model uses the physical evolution of the sea-spray droplet and gas-exchange equilibria to estimate the potential exchange of gases attributable to spray droplets. We find that sea spray does not contribute appreciably to gas exchange of helium and neon. However, for argon, oxygen and nitrogen, at high wind speeds (above 18 m s–1), sea-spray-droplet-facilitated exchange could contribute substantially to gas flux and is on the same order of magnitude as the empirically constrained direct exchange across the interface. Sea spray, as a potential pathway for atmosphere–ocean gas exchange, may improve gas-exchange predictions in the high-wind scenarios that are particularly important in the Southern Ocean polar region. At high winds, above 18 metres per second, sea-spray droplets act as a pathway for atmosphere–ocean gas exchange, especially in regions such as the Southern Ocean, according to a chemically modified microphysical model.
Long-Term Performance of Custom Prosthetic Replacement for Neoplastic Disease of the Proximal Femur

We analyzed 84 hips in 82 patients with proximal femur prosthetic replacement as a reconstructive procedure after tumor resection. Forty-nine patients had primary disease while 37 patients had metastases. The mean follow-up time was 30.4 months in all patients; the median survival was 79 months for primary cases and 9 months for metastatic cases. The most common surgical indication was tumor size and position in primary cases and pathological fractures in metastatic cases. Nine cases had primary tumor recurrence. Overall functional scores were good and excellent in 54.7%, while only one patient required revision for femoral loosening. There were radiographic lucencies around 10 of 22 acetabular components at 5 years. Implant-related osteopenia was seen in 31 of 72 assessable femurs. There is a definite role for bipolar implants in both primary and metastatic disease.
Assessing long-term student performance in programming subjects

This paper analyzes the performance of students in Computer Science (CS) and Computer Information Systems (CIS) in the programming subjects (Principles of Programming I & II and Data Structures) of an in-house exit exam given in years 2003--2006. The student performance was measured in seventeen different categories of computer programming. The data for each category was collected based on student responses to questions related to that particular category. The data was analyzed with respect to whether a student was majoring in CS or CIS, and with respect to whether a student was a male or female. The analysis of data showed that students majoring in CS generally performed better than CIS students in most categories of computer programming. Additionally, both male and female students performed approximately at the same level. The results of the assessment analysis will be used to identify the problem areas and make necessary adjustments to both curriculum and teaching strategies in order to improve and enhance the long-term knowledge retention of students in computer programming subjects.
Advanced test system software architecture blends high speed with user friendliness

Demands for high-speed performance in multistation manufacturing test, and for friendly multiuser software have been met by innovative multiprocessor, communications and software techniques in a new semiconductor test system.
Advanced progress in IEEE 802.11 WLAN standardization

Today, IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN (WLAN) systems are becoming more and more important to provide last-one hop wireless access to user terminals in various scenes such as home, enterprise and public areas. WLAN systems are also quite attractive because it offers traffic offload for the explosive growing traffic of cellular networks. This paper describes recent WLAN standardization activities and their specifications. First, the technical overview of the latest “very high throughput” WLAN standard, 802.11ac is introduced. To achieve more than 1 G bit/s of the system throughput, the physical layer parameters are extended for peer-to-peer bit rate increase. In addition, downlink (DL) multiuser (MU-) MIMO technique is supported for more efficient usage of spatial resources. Then, the future forecast of the next generation WLAN standard is presented. The task group (TG) ax in the 802.11 working group is formed in May 2014 and it is now working to create the post-802.11ac standard. The most crucial problem that TGax addresses is poor throughput performance of the current WLAN systems in congested environment.
Single Daily Dosing of Aminoglycosides

To evaluate the rationale behind dosing aminoglycosides as a single daily dose versus traditional dosing approaches, we conducted a MEDLINE search to identify all pertinent articles, and also reviewed the references of all articles. Single daily dosing of aminoglycosides is not a new concept, having been examined since 1974. The advantages of this regimen include optimum concentration-dependent bactericidal activity, longer dosing intervals due to the postantibiotic effect (PAE), and prevention of bacterial adaptive resistance. Because of longer dosing intervals, toxicity may also be delayed or reduced. Costs may be reduced due to decreased monitoring and administration. Clinically, the regimen has been implemented in various patient populations with reported success. Questions remain, however, about optimum dose, peak and trough serum concentrations, and dose adjustment in patients with renal impairment or neutropenia. More clinical experience with this method in large numbers of patients has to be published. Pharmacists can be instrumental in monitoring patients receiving once-daily therapy and by educating health care professionals as to the rationale behind the therapy.
Social dominance orientation and mentorship

Mentorship programs allow organizations to implement policies and programs to pass job-related knowledge from current employees to new incumbents to increase the competitive edge of their firm (Appelbaum, Ritchie & Shapiro, 1994; DeLong, Gabarro & Lees, 2008). Mentoring is defined as: a process for the informal transmission of knowledge, social capital, and psychosocial support perceived by the recipient as relevant to work, career, or professional development; mentoring entails informal communication, usually face to face and during a sustained period of time, between a person who is perceived to have greater relevant knowledge, wisdom, or experience (the mentor) and a person who is perceived to have less (the protege). (Bozeman & Feeney, 2007)
Sex Difference in the Expression of DNA Methyltransferase 3a in the Rat Amygdala During Development

Sexual differentiation of the neonatal rat brain is regulated by dynamic processes occurring at the level of DNA, resulting in sexually dimorphic gene expression. Steroid hormone receptors act partly in the developing brain by recruiting co-activators, thereby increasing the acetylation of histones and gene expression. Recent data indicate that sexual differentiation of the brain may also result, in part, from differences in promoter methylation patterns of some steroid responsive genes. Methylation of DNA is an epigenetic process that can decrease gene expression without altering the original DNA sequence. DNA cytosine-5-methyltransferases (DNMTs) 1 and 3a are two factors that induce methylation. We investigated whether sex differences in the expression of DNMT1 and DNMT3a were apparent in the amygdala, preoptic area and medial basal hypothalamus at different time points during development. We found that females express significantly more DNMT3a mRNA and protein in the amygdala but not within the preoptic area or the medial basal hypothalamus at postnatal day 1. There were no sex differences in DNMT3a mRNA or protein at postnatal day 10. Furthermore, no sex differences were observed in the expression of DNMT1 at either time point. Because most sex differences in the brain are a result of a higher level of gonadal steroid hormone exposure in males at birth, we examined whether dihydrotestosterone or oestradiol exposure would reduce DNMT3a expression in neonatal female rats. We found that both oestradiol and dihydrotestosterone treatment significantly reduced DNMT3a, but not DNMT1, mRNA expression within the developing amygdala. Our results indicate that sex differences in DNMT3a within the developing amygdala are partly a result of steroid exposure. This suggests that steroid hormone exposures may programme lasting differences in amygdala function by altering the expression of the epigenetic factor, DNMT3a.
Protein degradation in Escherichia coli. I. Measurement of rapidly and slowly decaying components.

Abstract The rate of degradation of intracellular radioactive protein of bacterial cells supported by a membrane filter has been measured directly from the appearance of radioactivity in the carrier-containing perfusate. For this purpose a perfusion apparatus has been constructed from a microsyringe filter holder. The conditions inside the apparatus are physiological and permit exponential growth up to 1 x 108 cells. Exchange of extracellular carrier leucine-12C with the intracellular leucine-14C pool is so rapid that at least 87% of the amino acid arising from protein breakdown appears in the perfusate and is not recycled into protein even in growing cultures. Only a limited portion of the cellular protein is subject to rapid degradation. It decays with a half-life of approximately 1 hour and constitutes 2 to 7% of the total cellular protein of cells growing in glucose minimal medium under various nutritional conditions (including growth and starvation). The proportion of the total protein synthesis which is directed to the synthesis of this rapidly degrading protein component increases with decreasing growth rate. At very slow growth rates 10 to 40% of the radioactivity that is incorporated into protein is incorporated into the rapidly degrading protein. Treatment which removes nonproteinaceous material and Pronase digestion of cells before and after the decay of the rapid component substantiates the conclusion that the rapidly decaying component is derived from bacterial protein. There is another radioactive component in the perfusate which is released at the very slow rate of 0.2 to 0.6% per hour for as long as the experiments are carried out (48 hours). This does not represent degradation of intracellular protein to amino acids since this process is independent of leucine exchange, and 30 to 50% of the radioactivity in the perfusate is acid-insoluble.
Specificity studies on bovine adrenal estrogen sulfotransferase.

Abstract The substrate requirements for estrogen sulfotransferase have been examined. Structural changes in all four rings of the estratriene nucleus affected sulfation. The Vmax of the reaction was increased from 1.4 to 3.2 times over that of estrone by nitro groups at positions 2 or 4, or the 6-keto function, while in the presence of a 2-amino group sulfation decreased to ⅓ and saturation of the A ring reduced sulfation to zero. The enzyme did not sulfate an OH in position 2 or 4 of estrogens but sulfated, with decreased efficiency, the phenolic-OH on 6-benzoyl-naphthol, anthraquinone, fluorenes, diphenyl, and tetraline. Examination of 60 structural variations has shown the optimal sulfation of the phenolic-OH to require (a) the presence of a lipophilic side chain (7 A long, para to the OH), and (b) in the estratriene nucleus, an oxygen atom for hydrogen bonding to an area of the enzyme within 3.72 A above ring D.
Enhancement of Population Densities of Pseudomonas putida PpG7 in Agricultural Ecosystems by Selective Feeding with the Carbon Source Salicylate

Sodium salicylate (1,000 μg/ml) was delivered through a drip irrigation system to agricultural field soils planted to tomato and infested with Pseudomonas putida PpG7, the host of the salicylate catabolic plasmid NAH7. In nonfumigated soils infested with approximately 103 CFU of PpG7 per g in the top 30 cm, population densities were increased up to 112-fold within 14 days of the initial application of salicylate compared with the densities in the respective nonamended soils. Mean season-long population densities of PpG7 in the top 30 cm of soil were significantly increased (P < 0.01) from 216 CFU/g in nonamended soils to 1,370 CFU/g in salicylate-amended soils. In the respective rhizosphere soils, mean population densities of PpG7 were significantly increased (P < 0.01) from 92 to 2,066 CFU/cm of root. Soil fumigation interacted (P < 0.01) with salicylate amendment and further increased the mean population densities of PpG7 in nonrhizosphere soil by an additional 5,689 CFU/g of soil. This fumigation effect was not detected in rhizosphere soils. The effect of salicylate in increasing population densities of PpG7 in soil also was affected by inoculum level, field site, and soil depth. Proportionate differences were greater in soils infested with approximately 103 CFU of PpG7 per g than in comparable soils infested with 105 CFU/g. In low-inoculum soils, increases from salicylate amendments were 26- and 29-fold in rhizosphere and nonrhizosphere soils, respectively, and in high-inoculum soils, the respective increases were 5.6- and 5-fold. No increases of fungi able to utilize salicylate were detected in soils amended with salicylate. However, soil fumigation with metham-sodium significantly reduced (P < 0.01) population densities of fungal salicylate utilizers in rhizosphere and nonrhizosphere soils.
Image wavelet transforms implemented by discrete wavelet chips

Both discrete wavelet transform (DWT) and inverse DWT are implemented using the lossless quadrature mirror filter (QMF) bank. The image passing through the finite impulse response QMF filtering becomes blurred and thus requires fewer number of pixels. Such a decimation amounts to the critical sampling that leads to the complexity O ( N ) for N data. The data compression comes from the permissible bits per pixel dynamic range compression of those filtered images having fewer details. The image reconstruction at a telereceiving station is accomplished by means of the inverse DWT. Thus, a complete biorthogonal basis of QMF is implemented by a fast wavelet transform chip designed with Verilog HDL and the image processing is demonstrated numerically. Adaptive DWT is sketched.
Max-min optimal investing

We solve the problem of tracking the best constant rebalanced portfolio computed in hindsight in a max-min optimal sense and relate our results to the pricing of a new derivative security which might be called the hindsight allocation option. This option pays the return of one dollar invested in the best constant rebalanced portfolio computed in hindsight.