cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Wisconsin Stillbirth Service Program: analysis of large for gestational age cases.

Since its inception in 1983, the Wisconsin Stillbirth Service Program (WiSSP) has reviewed over 2,600 referrals. Among 2,451 with fetal weight and gestational age recorded, 186 (7.6%) were large for gestational age (LGA), which is more than expected. We reviewed these cases to identify factors causing or contributing to fetal death as well as increased fetal size. LGA losses tended to occur later in pregnancy than non-LGA losses. The most common cause of death in LGA fetuses was fetal (43.5%), followed by placental (22.6%), and maternal (11.2%), which contrasts with previous studies involving the same database, but unselected for fetal weight, in which 21.5%, 40.0%, and 12.7% had fetal, placental, and maternal causes, respectively. The most common fetal cause was hydrops (60 cases/32.4%), which was most frequently idiopathic (16/26.6%), followed by cardiac (11/18.3%), Turner syndrome (8/13.3%), and twin–twin transfusions (6/10.0%). Placental causes, most commonly abruption and infarct, were more frequent in diabetic mothers, accounting for 33% versus only 18% in the entire LGA group. In the LGA group overall, 21% of mothers were diabetic, and most stillbirths in diabetic mothers occurred after 28 weeks. Despite large placentas (>95th centile) in 71.8% of the LGA cohort compared to 11% previously reported in the entire database, the most extreme LGA cases had a high fetoplacental ratio. We recommend pathologic evaluation of placentas from all stillbirths, close follow-up of pregnancies complicated by diabetes, and continued research into causes and pathophysiology of hydrops. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
A High-Frequency Secondary Event During the 2004 Parkfield Earthquake

By using seismic records of the 2004 magnitude 6.0 Parkfield earthquake, we identified a burst of high-frequency seismic radiation that occurred about 13 kilometers northwest of the hypocenter and 5 seconds after rupture initiation. We imaged this event in three dimensions by using a waveform back-projection method, as well as by timing distinct arrivals visible on many of the seismograms. The high-frequency event is located near the south edge of a large slip patch seen in most seismic and geodetic inversions, indicating that slip may have grown abruptly at this point. The time history obtained from full-waveform back projection suggests a rupture velocity of 2.5 kilometers per second. Energy estimates for the subevent, together with long-period slip inversions, indicate a lower average stress drop for the northern part of the Parkfield earthquake compared with that for the region near its hypocenter, which is in agreement with stress-drop estimates obtained from small-magnitude aftershocks.
An examination of the Validity of the Elemental Psychopathy Assessment: Relations with Other Psychopathy Measures, Aggression, and Externalizing Behaviors

The Elemental Psychopathy Assessment (EPA) is a new self-report measure of psychopathy designed to assess the personality traits associated with psychopathy from a Five Factor Model perspective. The current study examined the validity of the EPA in sample of undergraduates by examining the relations between the EPA scales and three validated self-report psychopathy instruments, as well as assessments of aggression, substance use, and antisocial behavior. The EPA scales manifested strong convergent validity with the extant psychopathy measures and an expected pattern of relations with measures of externalizing behaviors. Overall, the EPA appears to be a promising measure of psychopathy which provides new opportunities to explore the underlying structure of this construct and parse its relations with constructs central to its nomological network.
MafA and MafB activity in pancreatic β cells

Analyses in mouse models have revealed crucial roles for MafA (musculoaponeurotic fibrosarcoma oncogene family A) and MafB in islet β cells, with MafB being required during development and MafA in adults. These two closely related transcription factors regulate many genes essential for glucose sensing and insulin secretion in a cooperative and sequential manner. Significantly, the switch from MafB to MafA expression also appears to be vital for functional maturation of β cells produced by human embryonic stem (hES) cell differentiation. This review summarizes the discovery, distribution, and function of MafA and MafB in rodent pancreatic β cells, and describes some key questions regarding their importance to β cells.
Are CEOs Rewarded for Luck? The Ones Without Principals Are

The contracting view of CEO pay assumes that pay is used by shareholders to solve an agency problem. Simple models of the contracting view predict that pay should not be tied to luck, where luck is defined as observable shocks to performance beyond the CEO's control. Using several measures of luck, we find that CEO pay in fact responds as much to a lucky dollar as to a general dollar. A skimming model, where the CEO has captured the pay-setting process, is consistent with this fact. Because some complications to the contracting view could also generate pay for luck, we test for skimming directly by examining the effect of governance. Consistent with skimming, we find that better governed firms pay their CEO less for luck.
Release of L-glutamate from the excitatory nerve terminals of the crayfish neuromuscular junction.

Abstract Stimulation of the excitatory nerve to the crayfish neuromuscular junction resulted in an 87% increase of the rate of release of 14C-U-L-glutamate above resting levels. The extra release was abolished by stimulating the inhibitory fibers or by addition of GABA to the perfusing fluid. These results argue for the synaptic release of L-glutamate at this junction.
Ion-induced dipole clusters: Be2+He2

Abstract Near Hartree-Fock calculations, with a gaussian basis, show that Be 2+ He 2 is stable against dissociation into Be 2+ He and He with dissociation energy D = 17.7 kcal/mole. The binding mechanism involves an ion-induced dipole interaction. The minimum energy E = −19.3888 au, occurs for a symmetric linear molecule with the Be 2+ -He internuclear distance R = 2.72 au. Results for Be 2+ He, He 2+ 3 , He 2+ H 2 , He 2+ H 4 and H + 5 are also discussed.
Heterogeneity of strategy use in the Iowa gambling task: A comparison of win-stay/lose-shift and reinforcement learning models

The Iowa gambling task (IGT) has been used in numerous studies, often to examine decision-making performance in different clinical populations. Reinforcement learning (RL) models such as the expectancy valence (EV) model have often been used to characterize choice behavior in this work, and accordingly, parameter differences from these models have been used to examine differences in decision-making processes between different populations. These RL models assume a strategy whereby participants incrementally update the expected rewards for each option and probabilistically select options with higher expected rewards. Here we show that a formal model that assumes a win-stay/lose-shift (WSLS) strategy--which is sensitive only to the outcome of the previous choice--provides the best fit to IGT data from about half of our sample of healthy young adults, and that a prospect valence learning (PVL) model that utilizes a decay reinforcement learning rule provides the best fit to the other half of the data. Further analyses suggested that the better fits of the WSLS model to many participants' data were not due to an enhanced ability of the WSLS model to mimic the RL strategy assumed by the PVL and EV models. These results suggest that WSLS is a common strategy in the IGT and that both heuristic-based and RL-based models should be used to inform decision-making behavior in the IGT and similar choice tasks.
A Note on Weak Convergence of Density Estimators in Hilbert Spaces

In this note the impossibility of weak convergence of the density estimator in L ^{2}({\Bbb R}) is established. On the other hand a class of non-trivial transforms of the estimator is specified that do yield a Gaussian limiting measure on L ^{2}({\Bbb R}) . As a corollary we obtain a result for weak convergence of certain quadratic functionals that in a sense complements a result by Bickel and Rosenblatt (1973).
To B or Not to B: PIP2 Answers the Question

In a recent issue of Molecular Cell, Papayannopoulos et al. (2005) show that N-WASP activation of actin-related protein2/3 (Arp2/3) is ultrasensitive to PI(4,5)P2 concentration. We discuss how interactions between basic regions in proteins and negatively charged membranes can produce sharp on-off switches that may regulate biological activity.
Multidisciplinary Child Protection Decision Making About Physical Abuse: Determining Substantiation Thresholds and Biases

The current study examined the threshold at which multidisciplinary child protection team (CPT) professionals substantiate physical abuse allegations and the extent that they utilize potentially biased constructs in their decision making when presented with the same case evidence. State legal definitions of child maltreatment are broad. Therefore, the burden of interpretation is largely on CPT professionals who must determine at what threshold physical acts by parents surpass corporal discipline and constitute child physical abuse. Biased or subjective decisions may be made if certain case-specific characteristics or CPT professionals' personal characteristics are used in making physical abuse determinations. Case vignettes with visual depictions of inflicted injuries were sent to CPT professionals in Florida and their substantiation decisions, personal beliefs about corporal discipline, and coercive discipline were collected. Results of the study demonstrated relatively high agreement among professionals across vignettes about what constitutes physical abuse. Further, CPT professionals strongly considered their perceptions of the severity of inflicted injuries in substantiation decisions. Although case specific characteristics did not bias decisions in a systematic way, some CPT professional characteristics influenced the substantiation of physical abuse. Practice implications and future directions of research are discussed.
Competition in political and economic markets

Do anomalies play an important role in explaining economic and political choices? Are political decisions more prone to anomalies, irrationality, and inefficiency than economic decisions? In their integration of results derived from experimental psychology and applied political economy, Frey and Eichenberger (1990) argue that social scientists ought to answer these questions in the affirmative. After examining a large body of choice data, Frey and Eichenberger conclude that individuals deviate from the axioms of rational choice. In their view, the resultant "anomalies" in individual behavior are unaffected by the aggregation which occurs in the economic marketplace. They conclude that political decision-making systems correct no larger a proportion of these anomalies than are corrected by the economic market. In many institutional settings outlined in their paper, decision making systems can be expected to magnify individuals' deviations from rational behavior. System-wide irrational behavior will then produce less frequent trading and a less efficient allocation of resources. In this note we examine two components of Frey and Eichenberger's argument. First, we reconsider their evidence for irrational behavior in light of a larger body of experimental data which includes choices made in market settings. Second, we argue that competition in political markets will tend to eliminate aggregate anomalies just as it does in economic markets. Experimental economists often generate data which distinguish between choices individuals indicate in unstructured environments and transactions individuals consummate in markets. Initial statements regarding choices are often inconsistent with subsequent trading behavior. These data indicate that the economist's maximization paradigm, based on tenets of rational choice, is
Rab25 Mediates Integrin Recycling for Tumor Cell Migration in 3D

Prior to the publication of this report, the importance of endocytotic and exocytotic recycling of integrins was just beginning to be recognized. However, the findings in this report provided significant new insights into the mechanisms mediating integrin recycling and the critical importance of spatially regulated recycling in controlling specific aspects of cell migration and invasion. The Rab family GTPase RAB25, which has been implicated in tumor progression, was found to bind directly to β1 integrin and, through this interaction, specifically deliver α5β1-containing vesicles to the tips of pseudopodial extensions. This RAB25-integrin interaction was found to be critical for directional invasion of tumor cells in 3D extracellular matrix environments. I liked this report not only for the elegance of the experiments and fundamental insights into matrix receptor recycling, but also because it provided mechanistic insights into how aberrant vesicle trafficking and receptor recycling could contribute to tumorigenesis. This PaperPick refers to "Rab25 associates with α5β1 integrin to promote invasive migration in 3D microenvironments," by P.T. Caswell, H.J. Spence, M. Parsons, D.P. White, K. Clark, K.W. Cheng, G.B. Mills, M.J. Humphries, A.J. Messent, K.I. Anderson, M.W. McCaffrey, B.W. Ozanne, and J.C. Norman, published in October 2007. Video Abstract Jim Norman and Pat Caswell discuss their 2007 paper, in which they found that an interaction between a Rab GTPase and an integrin is important for cell migration and tumor metastasis.
Human factors considerations during operations and maintenance

An effort is made to provide guidance to the preparers and reviewers of O&M (operations and maintenance) methods. Concepts of human factors engineering are introduced, and the application of a checklist in the preparation and review of clear operations and maintenance procedures which result in fewer human errors is discussed. >
The Ablation of Atrial Fibrillation with the Loop Catheter Design: What We Have Learned From the Animal Model

AVITALL, B., et al.: The Ablation of Atrial Fibrillation with the Loop Catheter Design: What We Have Learned From the Animal Model. Ablation of chronic atrial fibrillation (AF) with the use of transcutaneous catheter ablation is yet to become a clinical tool. This article summarizes the development of the technology and the technique for the ablation of AF that was tested on the rapidly paced AF dog model. The current ablation technology using the standard ablation technique used in humans is not suitable for the creation of transmural contiguous linear lesions, and such technology is subjecting the patient to the prolonged procedures with considerable risk of complication. The use of the loop catheter design or other designs of ablation technology, which is specifically targeted for the creation of linear lesions, should be developed if the catheter approach for the ablation of AF is to succeed. This article describes the data available for the loop catheter design that is currently undergoing human feasibility studies.
Development of Non-stiff Reduced Mechanisms for Direct Numerical Simulations

A systematic approach was developed to derive non-stiff reduced mechanisms for direct numerical simulations (DNS) with explicit integration solvers. The stiffness reduction was achieved through on-the-fly elimination of short time scales induced by two features of fast chemical reactivity, namely quasi steady state (QSS) species and partial equilibrium (PE) reactions. The sparse algebraic equations resulting from QSS and PE approximations were utilized such that the efficiency of the on-the-fly stiffness reduction is high compared to the general methods of timescale reduction based on Jacobian analysis. Based on a previous 55-species reduced mechanism for n-heptane oxidation, developed from an LLNL detailed mechanism with 561 species, a non-stiff mechanism with 52-species mechanism was obtained. This mechanism was first validated for ignition and extinction applications over the parameter range of equivalence ratio 0.5~1.5, pressure 10~50atms, and initial temperature 700~1600K for ignition, showing a worst case error of about 30%, and then applied in 0-D and 1-D unsteady flows with fixed integration time step of 10ns. It was demonstrated that the chemical stiffness was successfully removed, the integration was numerically stable, and the error induced by the stiffness removal procedure was small.
New Cholesterol Guidelines: Has Godot Finally Arrived?

In November 2013, the ACC/AHA issued long-awaited clinical guidelines on assessment of cardiovascular risk and cholesterol treatment. This commentary discusses the controversial guidelines, applaud...
The Satellite Channel

Communication between points is achieved by analog or digital modulation of information onto carriers, and by transmission of the carriers as an electromagnetic field from one point to the other. As we discussed in Chapter 2, the amount of received carrier power invariably determines the ability of the receiver to demodulate or decode the information. In satellite systems it is extremely important to know the key parameters that directly determine this received power so that proper trade-off in system design between spacecraft and earth stations can be achieved. In this chapter we examine the basic power flow equations associated with satellite channels.
Is This a Game or a Learning Moment

Examinations often serve as the primary means to assess student learning within a classroom environment. To increase the probability of success in examinations, many instructors will employ a review session to prepare their students. The type of review session may vary from a laundry list of potential test topics to mock examinations. In order to provide the clarity that a student needs, instructors must structure their review session to enable their students to not only understand the material, but also be able to apply the material to new situations that they may encounter on the examination and even beyond the classroom. One interesting way that we used to review material that provided insight and interaction and even injected some fun into learning was by using a variation of the “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire ” television game show to conduct midterm and final review sessions in both undergraduate and MBA operations management courses. The Web site http://condor.depaul.edu/∼greinhar/ wwtbam.html contains the complete set of downloadable files necessary to conduct the review session (shown in Table 1).
GPU-Based Volume Visualization from High-Order Finite Element Fields

This paper describes a new volume rendering system for spectral/hp finite-element methods that has as its goal to be both accurate and interactive. Even though high-order finite element methods are commonly used by scientists and engineers, there are few visualization methods designed to display this data directly. Consequently, visualizations of high-order data are generally created by first sampling the high-order field onto a regular grid and then generating the visualization via traditional methods based on linear interpolation. This approach, however, introduces error into the visualization pipeline and requires the user to balance image quality, interactivity, and resource consumption. We first show that evaluation of the volume rendering integral, when applied to the composition of piecewise-smooth transfer functions with the high-order scalar field, typically exhibits second-order convergence for a wide range of high-order quadrature schemes, and has worst case first-order convergence. This result provides bounds on the ability to achieve high-order convergence to the volume rendering integral. We then develop an algorithm for optimized evaluation of the volume rendering integral, based on the categorization of each ray according to the local behavior of the field and transfer function. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our system by running performance benchmarks on several high-order fluid-flow simulations.
Expected Sequence Similarity Maximization

This paper presents efficient algorithms for expected similarity maximization, which coincides with minimum Bayes decoding for a similarity-based loss function. Our algorithms are designed for similarity functions that are sequence kernels in a general class of positive definite symmetric kernels. We discuss both a general algorithm and a more efficient algorithm applicable in a common unambiguous scenario. We also describe the application of our algorithms to machine translation and report the results of experiments with several translation data sets which demonstrate a substantial speed-up. In particular, our results show a speed-up by two orders of magnitude with respect to the original method of Tromble et al. (2008) and by a factor of 3 or more even with respect to an approximate algorithm specifically designed for that task. These results open the path for the exploration of more appropriate or optimal kernels for the specific tasks considered.
Posterior Urethral Valves

Posterior urethral valves (PUVs) can be a urologic emergency for newborns. Most of these patients are diagnosed prenatally. The urethral obstruction is initially relieved with a pediatric feeding tube as a catheter. Patients can present through adolescence with hypertension, renal disease, weak urinary stream, hematuria, or urinary incontinence. Endoscopic valve ablation, vesicostomy, or supravesical diversion can all be used for definitive treatment depending on the patient’s characteristics and medical comorbidities.
FLASHBACK CHARACTERISTICS OF SYNGAS-TYPE FUELS UNDER STEADY AND PULSATING CONDITIONS

The objective of this project was to improve understanding and modeling of flashback, a significant issue in low emissions combustors containing high levels of hydrogen. Experimental studies were performed over a range of fuel compositions, flow velocities, reactant temperatures, and combustor pressures to study the factors leading to flashback. In addition, high speed imaging of the flashback phenomenon was obtained. One of the key conclusions of this study was that there existed multiple mechanisms which lead to flashback, each with different underlying parametric dependencies. Specifically, two mechanisms of 'flashback' were noted: rapid flashback into the premixer, presumably through the boundary layer, and movement of the static flame position upstream along the centerbody. The former and latter mechanisms were observed at high and low hydrogen concentrations. In the latter mechanism, flame temperature ratio, not flame speed, appeared to be the key parameter describing flashback tendencies. We suggested that this was due to an alteration of the vortex breakdown location by the adverse pressure gradient upstream of the flame, similar to the mechanism proposed by Sattelmayer and co-workers [1]. As such, a key conclusion here was that classical flashback scalings derived from, e.g., Bunsen flames, were not relevant for some parameter regimesmore » found in swirling flames. In addition, it was found that in certain situations, pure H2 flames could not be stabilized, i.e., the flame would either flashback or blowout at ignition. This result could have significant implications on the development of future high hydrogen turbine systems.« less
Crystal Growth in the System FeO-MgO-Fe2O3

Well-characterized single crystals of the double-oxide magnetic ferrites are of considerable interest to investigators concerned with the basic properties of these materials—particularly since they permit studies of the influence of possible cationic arrangements on magnetic characteristics. As a result, much effort has been devoted to obtaining reasonably large, pure crystals of these materials, primarily by the use of fusion techniques. Although frequent claims have been made for the growth of single crystals, unfortunately, except for a few compounds, careful examination reveals the presence of two phases, excessive ferrous iron contents, or both. The lack of phase-diagram information at the liquidus for the systems of interest reduces single-crystal growth attempts to an almost empirical approach.
Uniform risk functionals for characterization of strong earthquake ground motion

A uniform risk functional (e.g., Fourier spectrum, response spectrum, duration, etc.) is defined so that the probability that it is exceeded by some earthquake during a selected period of time is independent of the frequency of the seismic waves. Such a functional is derived by an independent calculation, at each frequency, for the probability that the quantity being considered will be exceeded. Different aspects of the seismicity can control the amplitude of a uniform risk functional in different frequency ranges, and a uniform risk functional does not necessarily describe the strong shaking from any single earthquake. To be useful for calculating uniform risk functionals, a scaling relationship must provide an independent estimate of amplitudes of the functional in several frequency bands. The scaling relationship of Trifunac (1976) for Fourier spectra satisfies this requirement and further describes the distribution of spectral amplitudes about the mean trend; here, it is applied to find uniform risk Fourier amplitude spectra. In an application to finding the uniform risk spectra at a realistic site, this method is quite sensitive to the description of seismicity. Distinct models of seismicity, all consistent with our current level of knowledge of an area, can give significantly different risk estimates.
Suppression of Autophagy by FIP200 Deletion Impairs DNA Damage Repair and Increases Cell Death upon Treatments with Anticancer Agents

Autophagy is a lysosomal bulk degradation process for intracellular protein and organelles. FIP200 (200 kDa FAK-family interacting protein) is an essential component of mammalian autophagy that is implicated in breast cancer in recent studies. Here we show that inactivation of FIP200 resulted in deficient repair of DNA damage induced by ionizing radiation and anticancer agents in mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs). The persistent DNA damage correlated to increased apoptosis and reduced survival of FIP200 knockout (KO) MEFs after treatments with camptothecin (CPT), a topoisomerase I inhibitor and chemotherapeutic agent. Re-expression of FIP200 in FIP200 KO MEFs restored both efficient DNA damage repair and cell survival. Furthermore, knock-down of the increased p62 expression in FIP200 KO MEFs rescued the impaired DNA damage repair and CPT-induced cell death. In contrast, treatment of cells with N-acetyl-cysteine did not affect these defects in FIP200 KO MEFs. Lastly, FIP200 KO MEFs also showed deficient DNA damage repair and increased cell death compared to control MEFs, when treated with etoposide, a topoisomerase II inhibitor and another anticancer agent. Together, these results identify a new function for FIP200 in the regulation of DNA damage response and cell survival through its activity in autophagy, and suggest the possibility of FIP200 or other autophagy proteins as a potential target for treatment to enhance the efficiency of cancer therapy using DNA damage-inducing agents.
Parallel computation and the mind-body problem

The position in the philosophy of mind called functionalism claims that mental states are to be understood in terms of their functional relationships to other mental states, not in terms of their material instantiation in any particular kind of hardware. But the argument that material instantiation is irrelevant to functional relationships is computationally naive. This paper uses recent work on parallel computation to argue that software and hardware are much more intertwined than the functionalists allow. Parallelism offers qualitative as well as quantitative advantages, leading to different styles of programming as well as increased speed. Hence hardware may well matter to the mental: only by further empirical investigations of the relation between the mind and brain and between artificial intelligence software and underlying hardware will we be able to achieve a defensible solution to the mind-body problem. The major disadvantage of parallel systems is the need to coordinate their subprocesses, but recent proposals that consciousness provides a serial control for parallel computation are implausible.
Image denoising using a local contextual hidden Markov model in the wavelet domain

Wavelet domain hidden Markov models (HMMs) have been proposed and applied to image processing, e.g., image denoising. We develop a new HMM, called local contextual HMM (LCHMM), by introducing the Gaussian mixture field where wavelet coefficients are assumed to locally follow the Gaussian mixture distributions determined by their neighborhoods. The LCHMM can exploit both the local statistics and the intrascale dependencies of wavelet coefficients at a low computational complexity. We show that the LCHMM combined with the "cycle-spinning" technique can achieve state-of-the-art image denoising performance.
Power Dissipation in the Subtectorial Space of the Mammalian Cochlea Is Modulated by Inner Hair Cell Stereocilia

The stereocilia bundle is the mechano-transduction apparatus of the inner ear. In the mammalian cochlea, the stereocilia bundles are situated in the subtectorial space (STS)—a micrometer-thick space between two flat surfaces vibrating relative to each other. Because microstructures vibrating in fluid are subject to high-viscous friction, previous studies considered the STS as the primary place of energy dissipation in the cochlea. Although there have been extensive studies on how metabolic energy is used to compensate the dissipation, much less attention has been paid to the mechanism of energy dissipation. Using a computational model, we investigated the power dissipation in the STS. The model simulates fluid flow around the inner hair cell (IHC) stereocilia bundle. The power dissipation in the STS because of the presence IHC stereocilia increased as the stim- ulating frequency decreased. Along the axis of the stimulating frequency, there were two asymptotic values of power dissipation. At high frequencies, the power dissipation was determined by the shear friction between the two flat surfaces of the STS. At low frequencies, the power dissipation was dominated by the viscous friction around the IHC stereocilia bundle—the IHC stereocilia increased the STS power dissipation by 50- to 100-fold. There exists a characteristic frequency for STS power dissipation, CFSTS, defined as the frequency where power dissipation drops to one-half of the low frequency value. The IHC stereocilia stiffness and the gap size between the IHC stereocilia and the tectorial membrane determine the characteristic frequency. In addition to the generally assumed shear flow, nonshear STS flow patterns were simulated. Different flow patterns have little effect on the CFSTS. When the mechano-transduction of the IHC was tuned near the vibrating frequency, the active motility of the IHC stereocilia bundle reduced the power dissipation in the STS.
SILYLPHOSPHINE - ALKENE REACTION ROUTES TO ACYCLIC AND CYCLIC ORGANOPHOSPHINES

Abstract Radical reactions of Me3SiPH2, (Me3Si)2PH, Me2Si(PH2)2 and PH3 with selected alkenes have been examined as routes to new organo(silyl)phosphines. The Me3SiPH2/1,5-hexadiene reaction initiated by AIBN yields the phosphepane Me3SiP(CH2)6 (11a) and acyclic Me3SiP[(CH2)4CH=CH2]2 (12); the Me3SiPH2/1,3-butadiene reaction yields only acyclic butenyl phosphines Me3SiP(H)C4H7 (14a - C) and Me3SiP(C4H7)2 (15a - D). Reactions of Me3SiPH2 with P(CH=CH2)3 and MeSi(CH=CH2)3 yield the vinyl-substituted cis- and trans-phosphorinanes (CH2=CH)P(C2H4)2PSiMe3 (18a/18b) and Me(CH2=CH)Si(C2H4), PSiMe3 (20a/20b). (Me2Si)2PH/Me2Si(CH=CH2)2 reaction produces only the acyclic (CH2=CH)Me2SiC2H4P(SiMe3)2 (22) and Me2Si[C2H4P(SiMe3)2]2 (25). The Me2Si(PH2)2/1,4-pentadiene reaction yields phosphorinanyl derivatives Me2Si(PH2)[P(CH5] (27) and Me2Si[P(CH2)5]2 (28): no large-ring products form. The AIBN initiated reaction of CH2=CHCH2PH2 has been reinvestigated; the known bicyclic [(CH2)3]2P2 is obtained instead of the previous...
A 14-Year Study of Blarina brevicauda Populations in East-Central Illinois

Short-tailed shrew, Blarina brevicauda , populations in east-central Illinois displayed annual population cycles within bluegrass ( Poa pratensis ), tallgrass, and alfalfa ( Medicago sativa ) habitats. There was no indication of multiannual population fluctuations in any habitat. Amplitudes of annual fluctuation were relatively consistent within each habitat type. Population density was significantly higher in bluegrass than in the other two habitats, and higher in alfalfa than in tallgrass from February to July. The annual peak in tallgrass occurred 3 months later (October) than in the other two habitats (July). Males were reproductively active January–July and females, March–September. Survival was highest in bluegrass, intermediate in tallgrass, and lowest in alfalfa. January–August precipitation >24% below the mean was followed by lower peaks in B. brevicauda populations in bluegrass and alfalfa; ≥9% above-normal precipitation was followed by higher populations in alfalfa and bluegrass. There was no correlation between precipitation and population density in tallgrass. There was no correlation between summer temperatures and numbers of B. brevicauda .
Adaptive optics self-calibration using differential OTF (dOTF)

We demonstrate self-calibration of an adaptive optical system using differential OTF [Codona, JL; Opt. Eng. 0001; 52(9):097105-097105. doi:10.1117/1.OE.52.9.097105]. We use a deformable mirror (DM) along with science camera focal plane images to implement a closed-loop servo that both flattens the DM and corrects for non-common-path aberrations within the telescope. The pupil field modification required for dOTF measurement is introduced by displacing actuators near the edge of the illuminated pupil. Simulations were used to develop methods to retrieve the phase from the complex amplitude dOTF measurements for both segmented and continuous sheet MEMS DMs and tests were performed using a Boston Micromachines continuous sheet DM for verification. We compute the actuator correction updates directly from the phase of the dOTF measurements, reading out displacements and/or slopes at segment and actuator positions. Through simulation, we also explore the effectiveness of these techniques for a variety of photons collected in each dOTF exposure pair.
Thermoelastic Stress Analysis: A NDE Tool for Residual Stress Assessment of Metallic Alloys

The primary objective of this report involves studying and developing various experimental techniques for accurate measurement of the mean stress effect in Thermoelastic Stress Analysis (TSA, also recognized as SPATE: Stress Pattern Analysis by Thermal Emission). The analysis of cyclic mean stresses at the coupon level directly relates to the measurement of residual stresses in structures. In a previous study by the authors1, it was shown that cyclic mean stresses significantly influenced the TSA results for titanium and nickel based alloys, although, difficulties were encountered concerning the quantification of the mean stress effect because of large test-to-test variations. This study continues the effort of accurate direct measurements of the mean stress effect by implementing various experimental modifications. In addition, a more in-depth analysis is included which involves analyzing the second harmonic of the temperature response. By obtaining the amplitudes of the first and second harmonics, the stress amplitude and the mean stress at a given point on a structure subjected to a cyclic load can be simultaneously obtained. The rather complex analysis of the temperature response involves obtaining the first and second harmonic amplitudes for 16384 infrared detectors (128 × 128 focal plane array). Upon establishing a protocol for mean stress measurements in the laboratory using the TSA technique, the next step is to utilize the method to assess residual stress states in complex structures during manufacturing and life.Copyright © 2000 by ASME
Medical Marketing in the United States: A Prescription for Reform

To rein in overspending caused by medical marketing, Congress should pass stringent legislation banning the provision of gifts and free meals. This Note analyzes the scale and operation of medical marketing, proposes the Medical Marketing Act for Congress’s consideration, and defends it against legal attack. A comprehensive ban on the drug and device industries’ most troublesome marketing activities would lower spending on prescription drugs and medical devices by substantially reducing doctors’ tendencies to prescribe more expensive and unnecessary branded drugs and medical devices.This Note begins, in Part I, by describing how medical marketing impacts doctors’ decisionmaking and how this shift affects drug and device spending. Part II examines the common shortcomings of the many medical marketing proposals put forth by industry organizations, state legislatures, and Congress. Part III responds to the most likely challenge to the Medical Marketing Act – the accusation that restrictions on medical marketing impermissibly curtail commercial speech in violation of the First Amendment. Finally, Part IV proposes the Medical Marketing Act for Congress’s consideration.
Speaker verification based on fusion of acoustic and articulatory information

We propose a practical, feature-level fusion approach for combining acoustic and articulatory information in speaker verification task. We find that concatenating articulation features obtained from the measured speech production data with conventional Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCCs) improves the overall speaker verification performance. However, since access to the measured articulatory data is impractical for real world speaker verification applications, we also experiment with estimated articulatory features obtained using acoustic-to-articulatory inversion technique. Specifically, we show that augmenting MFCCs with articulatory features obtained from subject-independent acoustic-to-articulatory inversion technique also significantly enhances the speaker verification performance. This performance boost could be due to the information about inter-speaker variation present in the estimated articulatory features, especially at the mean and variance level. Experimental results on the Wisconsin X-Ray Microbeam database show that the proposed acoustic-estimatedarticulatory fusion approach significantly outperforms the traditional acoustic-only baseline, providing up to 10% relative reduction in Equal Error Rate (EER). We further show that we can achieve an additional 5% relative reduction in EER after score-level fusion. Index Terms: speech production, speaker verification, articulation features, acoustic-to-articulatory inversion, biometrics
Optimal scale of carbon-negative energy facilities

Abstract Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) may be one of the few cost-effective carbon-negative electricity technologies, but little work has focused on design of such systems. BECCS, like other bioenergy facilities, will likely exhibit economies of scale in capital costs, but diseconomies of scale in biomass transportation and supply costs. In this paper we develop a spatially explicit optimization framework to characterize the drivers of optimal sizing for potential BECCS facilities in Illinois. The approach leverages county-level biomass supply data, detailed road transportation networks, existing technology cost estimates, and previous geologic characterizations of long-term CO2 storage. Optimal scales are an order of magnitude larger than proposed scales found in existing literature. Biomass supply, scaling exponents, and technology costs are large drivers of optimal scale, while facility location, pretreatment options, and transportation costs are less important. When choosing between multiple facility locations, economies of scale support a centralized BECCS infrastructure. Deviations from optimal scaled size have little effect on overall systems costs – suggesting that other factors, including regulatory, political, or logistical considerations, may ultimately have a greater influence on plant size than the techno-economic factors we consider here.
The role of political exclusion and state capacity in civil conflict in South Asia

ABSTRACTExtant literature on intrastate conflict independently explores terrorism and civil war. However, both terrorism and civil war are probably parts of a continuum of intrastate conflict with the former at one end and the latter at the other end in terms of intensity. I argue that two factors play important roles in rebels’ decision-making calculus, namely, the size of their support base and state strength. Terrorism, as a strategy of the weak, is optimal when the rebel groups have little support among their audience and the state is strong. On the other hand, guerrilla warfare is an ideal strategy when such groups have a greater support base and the state is weak. The theoretical argument is tested on a dataset of Myanmar and six countries of South Asia and for 1970–2007.
Dental Homologies and Possible Relationships of Recent Talpidae

A dental homologization among living moles of the family Talpidae is presented, utilizing, in as far as possible, the basic premise that the normally unreplaced antemolar possessed by many placentals always occupies the ancestral eutherian first premolar position. Evolutionary loss of the first premolar has apparently occurred in only the shrew-mole, Neurotrichus , and the fossorial Scalopus , both of North America, although this evidence is not necessarily considered grounds for closely relating these two genera. No incisors appear to have been lost in Recent Nearctic talpids although one or more of these teeth are missing in certain living Palearctic moles. These and other tooth loss patterns suggest no close phylogenetic relationship of the two New World talpids possessing incomplete antemolar dentitions to any of the Old World talpids lacking various combinations of anterior teeth.
Predicting DNA–intercalator binding: the development of an arene–arene stacking parameter from SAPT analysis of benzene-substituted benzene complexes

A series of substituted naphthalimides were synthesized and intercalated into the DNA sequence d(GCGCGCGC)2, and an experimental ΔTm value was obtained. Two-parameter QSAR analyses were performed to generate a theoretical ΔTm value. Although by no means exhaustive in terms of parameter selection, the correlations did not yield statistics that indicated the models met the threshold for significance at the 95% confidence level. Rather than continue with an exhaustive search of all possible QSAR parameters, a one-parameter QSAR analysis was performed utilizing a novel arene–arene stacking parameter, designated Ππ, developed from Symmetry-Adapted Perturbation Theory (SAPT) energy decomposition studies of calculated benzene-substituted benzene dimer binding energies. The QSAR analysis using the Ππ stacking parameter yielded statistics suggesting the model was significant at the 95% confidence level. The approach of developing a novel QSAR parameter via SAPT calculations, rather than exhaustively searching all traditional QSAR parameters, is presented both as a new approach for QSAR studies and as a unique application of SAPT. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Mattes, Kyle, and David P. Redlawsk. The Positive Case for Negative Campaigning. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2015. 256 pages. $75.00 (hardcover); $25.00 (softcover).

In The Positive Case for Negative Campaigning, Kyle Mattes and David P. Redlawsk take on the oft-heard notion that negative campaigns are bad for American democracy. As the authors acknowledge, the...
Genotyping of measles virus isolates and the levels of measles neutralization antibodies among residents in Henan,China

Objective To know the genetic characteristics of wild type measles virus isolates and their relationships with the levels of neutralization antibodies among residents in Henan province.Methods Measles viruses were isolated from the specimens collected from measles suspected cases.The fragment of 450 nucleotide acids was amplified for the carboxyl end of nucleoprotein gene by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction(RT-PCR).The PCR products were then sequenced and analyzed.The serum neutralization(NT) antibody levels to measles vaccine and wild measles virus strains were determined by trace neutralization test for healthy volunteers and measles patients.Results A total of 147 wild type measles viruses were isolated in Henan province.Among which,73 strains were identified as H1 genotype.There were no significant differences between the geometric mean titers(GMT)of NT antibodies to vaccine and to wild measles strains among 351 measles cases.However,306 healthy volunteers had significantly higher NT antibody levels to vaccine strain(1∶81.9) than NT antibody levels to the isolated wild strains(1∶55)(Z=6.861,P0.05).Conclusions H1 genotype was the predominant genotype of wild measles virus circulated in Henan province.The NT antibody to epidemic measles strain was low among residents without recent measles infection.
Head and Brain Size in Pediatric Multiple Sclerosis

Researchers at the Montreal Neurological Institute, the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada; and Department of Neurology, Rennes, France conducted MRI measurements of whole brain and regional white matter, gray matter, and deep gray matter structure volumes in 38 patients (mean age 15.2+/-2.4 years) with pediatric-onset relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (MS).
Selective Pressure for Rapid Membrane Integration Constrains the Sequence of Bacterial Outer Membrane Proteins

The Moon-Fleming hydrophobicity scale suggests that the small thermodynamic penalty for inserting a basic residue into the lipid bilayer of the bacterial outer membrane (OM) does not account for the extreme evolutionary selection against arginine residues on the lipid-facing surfaces of OM proteins (OMPs). To explain this phenomenon, we investigated the consequences of introducing lipid-facing arginine residues into the β-barrel of two E. coli OMPs, an autotransporter (EspP) and outer membrane phospholipase A (OmpLA). We found that lipid-facing arginine residues do not affect the targeting of EspP to the Bam complex, an essential hetero-oligomer that catalyzes the membrane integration of OMPs, but markedly slow the membrane integration of the β-barrel domain. OmpLA mutants that contain lipid-facing arginine residues were likewise slowly incorporated into the OM in a strain that lacks the periplasmic protease DegP. In contrast to the EspP variants, however, the OmpLA mutants were degraded before they were inserted into the OM in a wild-type strain. The OmpLA arginine variants also folded slowly into large unilamellar vesicles in vitro. Taken together, the results suggest that lipid-facing arginine residues are strongly disfavored because proteins that assemble slowly are captured by the periplasmic quality control system through a kinetic partitioning mechanism or form prolonged interactions with the Bam complex that are potentially deleterious. Our results not only explain a key constraint on the sequence of OMPs, but also reveal important differences in the early stages of assembly of distinct classes of these proteins.
A Summary of Turbulence Forecasting Techniques Used by the National Weather Service

A summary of turbulence forecasting by the US National Weather Service (NWS) is provided. This chapter begins with a historical perspective, beginning with the Wright brothers and ending with NextGen. Following the historical perspective, present-day aviation-based meteorological operations are described. This discussion covers the services provided by the NWS and its partners and includes a foundational summary of present-day (2015) forecasting techniques. This chapter closes with a narrative on current and future prediction, built around numerical models and ensemble systems. These systems will drive intelligent information extraction and decision support services provided by operational meteorologists, leading to a safer and weather-ready airspace.