cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
A neural network ensemble method with jittered training data for time series forecasting

Improving forecasting especially time series forecasting accuracy is an important yet often difficult task facing decision makers in many areas. Combining multiple models can be an effective way to improve forecasting performance. Recently, considerable research has been taken in neural network ensembles. Most of the work, however, is devoted to the classification type of problems. As time series problems are often more difficult to model due to issues such as autocorrelation and single realization at any particular time point, more research is needed in this area. In this paper, we propose a jittered ensemble method for time series forecasting and test its effectiveness with both simulated and real time series. The central idea of the jittered ensemble is adding noises to the input data and thus augments the original training data set to form models based on different but related training samples. Our results show that the proposed method is able to consistently outperform the single modeling approach with a variety of time series processes. We also find that relatively small ensemble sizes of 5 and 10 are quite effective in forecasting performance improvement.
Characteristics and Risk Factors of Cancer Associated Venous Thromboembolism

Abstract Introduction The objective of this study was to examine the differences in commonly associated characteristics and risk factors of venous thromboembolism (VTE) between patients with and without cancer in a VTE population. Materials and Methods Uniform data were collected for patients with a diagnosis of VTE obtaining care at CDC funded Thrombosis Network Centers. Patient characteristics and risk factors were compared in VTE patients with and without cancer. Logistic regression was used to calculate the unadjusted and adjusted odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) to assess patient characteristics and thrombotic risk factors more frequently identified among VTE patients with cancer compared to those without cancer. Results Between August 2003 and April 2011, 3,115 adult patients with a diagnosis of VTE including 189 (6.1%) patients with active cancer participated in the multi-site thrombosis registry. VTE patients with cancer had a higher prevalence of PE and DVT in unusual sites compared to those without cancer. Thrombophilia was more common among VTE patients without cancer than those with cancer (25.1% vs 10.6%, p Conclusion The study identified several thrombotic risk factors more likely to be found with cancer associated VTE, which may help to characterize at risk cancer patients and to develop prevention and management strategies in this population.
Current challenges in statistics: large-lecture courses

Each semester approximately 80% of the students taught by the Florida State University Department of Statistics are enrolled in STA 3014: Fundamental Business Statistics. During the academic year this course is taught in large lecture sections of 250 students each. It is either the only statistics course or one of two statistics courses taken in their undergraduate career for probably 90% of these students. A similar situation exists in many statistics departments around the nation. These large introductory courses offer us the opportunity to introduce the power of statistics to a large fraction of our future business leaders. In the past it appears that this opportunity has often been missed. In fact, some suggest that these courses help contribute to the general public's negative attitude toward statistics courses, the discipline of statistics, and statisticians. Hence, I propose that one of the current challenges in statistics is the challenge of improving the quality of these courses so that statistic...
Recurrent anterior glenohumeral instability with onset after forty years of age: the role of the anterior mechanism.

Recurrent instability in patients over forty years of age is felt to occur primarily as a result of an associated rotator cuff tear. This is often referred to as the "posterior mechanism." We reviewed our patients over the age of forty who under- went an anterior shoulder repair to identify the incidence of capsulolabral detachments and the role of an "anterior mechanism" in this patient population. A retrospective review of all patients from 1985 to 2000 was performed to identify patients who had surgery for recurrent instability that began after forty years of age. Of the 265 patients re- cords reviewed, 11 patients were identified who fulfilled the inclusion criteria. Of the 11 patients identified, 9 patients underwent anterior capsulolabral reconstruction for recur- rent instability; the remaining two patients underwent repair of large rotator cuff tears. All 9 patients had a capsulolabral detachment, 4 had a rotator interval defect, 2 had anterior and inferior capsular redundancy, 1 had a small rotator cuff tear and 1 had an anterior capsular avulsion from the humeral head. At minimum follow-up of 32 months none of the patients reported episodes of instability. The reported incidence of rotator cuff tears in patients over the age of forty following an initial traumatic anterior glenohumeral dislocation ranges from 35% to 100%. When recurrent instability occurs, it is postulated to occur via a "posterior mechanism" (i.e., secondary to a significant full-thickness rotator cuff tear). However, all of our patients had an an- terior capsulolabral detachment as the "common lesion" associated with recurrent instability. Although small, this series emphasizes the role of the "anterior mechanism" in patients who develop recurrent instability after the age of forty. A high rate of success was achieved by addressing the pathoanatomic changes identified.
“We Always Think You’re Here Permanently”: The Paradox of “Permanent” Housing and Other Barriers to Recovery-Oriented Practice in Supportive Housing Services

This qualitative study examines the views and practices of frontline providers working in supportive housing for adults with serious mental illness and how frontline workers understand their work as it relates to consumer mental health recovery. Utilizing 84 interviews with providers (N = 35) and 106 hours of observation of provider practice, a grounded theory of frontline practice in supportive housing is provided. Analyses revealed distinct differences between providers working within transitional versus permanent housing programs in their orientation to recovery. Implications for the design of the supportive housing continuum of care are discussed.
A latent variable model for discovering bird species commonly misidentified by citizen scientists

Data quality is a common source of concern for large-scale citizen science projects like eBird. In the case of eBird, a major cause of poor quality data is the misidentification of bird species by inexperienced contributors. A proactive approach for improving data quality is to discover commonly misidentified bird species and to teach inexperienced birders the differences between these species. To accomplish this goal, we develop a latent variable graphical model that can identify groups of bird species that are often confused for each other by eBird participants. Our model is a multi-species extension of the classic occupancy-detection model in the ecology literature. This multi-species extension requires a structure learning step as well as a computationally expensive parameter learning stage which we make efficient through a variational approximation. We show that our model can not only discover groups of misidentified species, but by including these misidentifications in the model, it can also achieve more accurate predictions of both species occupancy and detection.
The Importance of Shifts in Market to Book Value for Explaining the Earnings-Return Relation

The relation between accounting earnings and security returns is not stable, either cross-sectionally or intertemporally. This study demonstrates that the relation is associated with companies' market to book value of common equity ratios. The pricing of current period earnings is functionally related to the price of the book value of common equity during periods in which there are no major shifts in the market to book relation. This functional relation holds when expected market model returns, changes in systematic risk, dividend yield, and size are included in a regression model in which security returns are the dependent variable. The earnings-return relation is shown to be particularly sensitive to intraperiod shifts in market to book value. These shifts, which occur in almost three-fourths of the firm-years included in this study from 1975- 1989, have an important systematic effect on the regression coefficient relating earnings with returns. Incorporating this effect results in regression models that explain almost 50 percent of the cross-sectional variation in annualized returns.
Spatiotemporal brain network analysis of healthy humans based on magnetoencephalography and functional MRI in the resting state

Modern graph theory provides powerful quantitative tools and measures for the analysis of complex networks. The network measures are critical for creating metrics that allow for the comparison of connectivity patterns and neural interactions across subjects and brain measurements. In addition, these measures provide a framework for the characterization of network structure by identifying local contributions of individual nodes and connections, as well as the network's global capacity to integrate information. Since neural communication is the basis of brain function, assessing the dynamic status of the brain as a network is important. However, a major challenge is how to reliably measure and assess the network, and evaluate its utility. For that purpose, we used resting-state magnetoencephalography (MEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) recordings from 65 cognitively healthy women to reliably assess the brain as a dynamic network. MEG time series were prewhitened using ARIMA(50,1,1) and fMRI time series were prewhitened using ARIMA(15,1,1) to yield practically white noise innovations. For MEG, nodes were defined to be the individual sensors (n = 248); for fMRI, a modified functional template [1] was used to define nodes equaling those used for MEG in order to compare networks across the two modalities. Connectivity matrices were then calculated using pairwise Pearson correlations between the processed (1) whole time series, and (2) windowed time series (fMRI = 6 s window, MEG = 50 ms window) of all nodes. Weighted graphs of each of these connectivity matrices were evaluated using the following metrics: (a) local connectivity (strength, diversity), (b) global connectivity (mean correlation coefficient), (c) local network properties (degree, clustering coefficient, local efficiency, betweenness centrality), and (d) global network properties (smallworldness, centrality, global efficiency, path length, assortativity, transivity). For the whole series, this analysis yielded MEG and fMRI "static" networks for each subject, characterized by the set of the values obtained for the parameters above. The effect of age was assessed by performing a multivariate regression where the network parameters were the dependent variables and age was the independent variable. Through an iterative, stepwise procedure those parameters that varied systematically with age were detected and retained. This analysis was performed for both the MEG and fMRI data, and the resulting MEG- and fMRI-based network parameters were compared. Similarly, for the windowed series, the same analyses were performed per time window to yield a "dynamic" network variation and the variation/stability of network structure over time was assessed. This provided an additional temporal network measure for evaluating the effect of age on brain network structure. We believe that this approach is at the heart of assessing brain networks at varying time scales, at different states in health and disease, and during performance of different tasks.
The History of Indian Voting Rights in Arizona: Overcoming Decades of Voter Suppression

Native Americans “have experienced a long history of disenfranchisement as a matter of law and of practice.” This comes from a complicated and contradictory history of laws and policy that has recognized tribes as separate sovereigns, reduced tribal status to that of domestic dependent nations, sought to remove, relocate, or assimilate tribal citizens, terminated numerous indigenous nations, and has now moved to a policy of tribal self-government. Unfortunately, the right to vote for Arizona’s first people has only recently been achieved, and there are continuing threats to the electoral franchise. Voter suppression has been used to discourage or prevent Indian people from voting in Arizona. Voter qualifications such as literacy tests were used to prevent Indians from participating in elections for approximately fifty years. Once Native Americans started voting, redistricting and vote dilution were used to reduce the effectiveness of the Native vote. This article will review the history of Indian voting rights in Arizona. The author begins by reviewing the history of Native American voting rights and the history of voting discrimination against Native Americans in Arizona. The Voting Rights Act turned the corner for Native people to participate in the state and federal election processes. The article then discusses the current challenges faced by Native American voters and specifically discuss the voter ID law passed in 2004. The voter ID law is a roadblock that impedes full participation by all Arizona Indians. The last part of the article focuses on strategies to protect Indian voting rights. Notwithstanding the Supreme Court’s invalidation of the Section 5 coverage formula in Shelby County, tribes should consider proactive measures to ensure that tribal citizens can participate in elections.
Asynergy of right ventricular wall motion in man.

Canine studies have shown a correlation between instantaneous segmental lengths in the right ventricular free wall and chamber volume, pressure, and stroke work. To determine whether such correlations exist in intact man, we studied the temporal relationships between chord dynamics in various regions of the right ventricle in 21 heart transplant recipients with apparently normal right ventricular function. Patients were examined by biplane radiography while performing various maneuvers (eg., Valsalva maneuver). Computer-aided analysis of biplane radiograms of five surgically inserted radiopaque tantalum right ventricular myocardial markers was used to calculate interpoint chord lengths at 33 msec sampling intervals. Two patterns of right ventricular chord asynergy were defined: (1) An akinetic chord had an amplitude of less than 2.0 mm during the course of at least one beat; (2) an out-of-phase chord was more than a quarter period out of phase from the average curve (derived from all concurrently measured marker pairs during each maneuver) for at least one beat Considering all chords (n = 978), 60 chords (6.1%) were akinetic and nine chords (0.9%) were out of phase. Excluding the outflow tract markers (n = 581), 33 chords (5.7%) were akinetic and five chords (0.9%) showed out-of-phase movement During some maneuver, at least one akinetic chord occurred in 57% of patients and out-of-phase chords in 33% of patients. Most right ventricular regions were implicated in asynergic motion, including the right ventricular free wall, acute margin, and outflow tract The frequency and distribution of asynergy in right ventricular chord dynamics observed in mis study suggests that changes in a single right ventricular dimension may not accurately reflect global right ventricular events.
Lateral Elbow Pain

The diagnosis of lateral elbow pain can be challenging to the examiner, due to the large number of diagnoses that are geographically located in this region. The lateral elbow can be defined proximally by the lateral aspect of the distal third humerus, distally by the proximal radius (head, neck, and bicipital tuberosity), anteriorly by the lateral trochlea ridge, and posteriorly by the crista supinatoris of the ulna. Of the many pathologies that exist in this region, the common differential diagnoses include lateral epicondylitis, radial/posterior plica impingement, osteoarthritis, loose bodies, fractures, rheumatoid arthritis, instability, and radial nerve entrapment [2, 11].
Development of Government Support for the Arts

The years between 1966 and 1976 witnessed approaches to support for the arts never before attempted in our nation’s history. For the first time, the federal government became substantially committed to the preservation and advancement of artists, arts organizations, and cultural opportunities for its citizens. Moreover, it accomplished these tasks with active cooperation from private, business, and foundation sectors. Through imaginative granting procedures which, in effect, extended federal dollars by matching them, the government was enabled to encourage artistic expression of quality, varied arts activities, improvements in arts education, and development of existing and future arts consumers.
Violent Conjunctures in Democratic India: Rajasthan: Two Phases of Party-Movement Relations

Hindu nationalists are deeply embedded in Rajasthan's cultural and political life. They have identified with the socially conservative Rajput community as well as with the rural poor, especially tribals. The BJP, one of the two parties in the state, alternates in office with the Congress party. As in many other states, the movement is more militant than the party. However, unlike in UP, the movement has not subsided when the party has achieved office. Nor has the movement become weaker over time. To the contrary, the party was better able to control movement militancy until 1998 than it was thereafter. The most obvious explanation for the difference between the two phases is the nature of BJP leadership, in particular between Chief Minister Bhairon Singh Shekhawat (1977–80, 1990–2, and 1993–8) during the first, and Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje (2003–8, 2013 to the present) during the second. Raje herself believed that the strength of the BJP in Rajasthan, unlike other states, rested on the character of its leaders. Shekhawat earned the title of “the tallest leader” in Rajasthan, a reference to both his height and stature. His governing style is often compared to that of his mentor, Congress Chief Minister Mohan Lal Sukhadia. Both leaders centralized power in the state government and cultivated patronage relations but were considered nonpartisan. Clearly Raje did not command as much respect as her mentor and predecessor, Shekhawat. However, while Shekhawat and Raje had different leadership styles, their ideologies were similar. They both supported Hindu nationalist goals while personally rejecting Hindutva militancy. Nor do their different leadership styles adequately explain their responses to militant activists. Relations among the party, movement, and state differed during these two phases. In the first, some party members and movement activists engaged in protests defending sati , the immolation of Hindu widows on their husbands' funeral pyres. The BJP as a whole supported the VHP's Ayodhya movement and some of its members participated in anti-minority violence. However, the party controlled the movement.
CHO cell cytotoxicity and genotoxicity analyses of disinfection by-products: An updated review

The disinfection of drinking water is an important public health service that generates high quality, safe and palatable tap water. The disinfection of drinking water to reduce waterborne disease was an outstanding public health achievement of the 20th century. An unintended consequence is the reaction of disinfectants with natural organic matter, anthropogenic contaminants and bromide/iodide to form disinfection by-products (DBPs). A large number of DBPs are cytotoxic, neurotoxic, mutagenic, genotoxic, carcinogenic and teratogenic. Epidemiological studies demonstrated low but significant associations between disinfected drinking water and adverse health effects. The distribution of DBPs in disinfected waters has been well defined by advances in high precision analytical chemistry. Progress in the analytical biology and toxicology of DBPs has been forthcoming. The objective of this review was to provide a detailed presentation of the methodology for the quantitative, comparative analyses on the induction of cytotoxicity and genotoxicity of 103 DBPs using an identical analytical biological platform and endpoints. A single Chinese hamster ovary cell line was employed in the assays. The data presented are derived from papers published in the literature as well as additional new data and represent the largest direct quantitative comparison on the toxic potency of both regulated and emerging DBPs. These data may form the foundation of novel research to define the major forcing agents of DBP-mediated toxicity in disinfected water and may play an important role in achieving the goal of making safe drinking water better.
Deaf Studies, Oral Tradition, and Old English Texts

Building from past work in oral theory that has productively nuanced notions of literacy and orality as multi-faceted and deeply interconnected concepts, this essay calls for an equally complex mod...
Self-Regulation in Organizational Settings: A Tale of Two Paradigms

Publisher Summary This chapter illustrates the difference between serial and parallel processing. The chapter argues that cybernetic-systems theory tends to describe humans as a system operating in parallel (TOTE is the exception). Meanwhile, the decision-making paradigm tends to describe humans as serial. Yet systems act both ways. Specifically, it appears that when in the thinking and observation mode, the cybernetic units process in series. Consistent with much of cognitive psychology, one might speculate that when the output gate is set to memory, short-term memory (STM) is used. Thus, although units can be operating in parallel, units in thinking and observation mode must share this limited resource, which forces serial processing (the attentional bottleneck). Other hypotheses should be entertained, like the limitations in physical systems (for example, time is serial, sight is unidirectional). Nonetheless, the key issue is that a description of learning can integrate the two types of processing into a single model.
Evaluating Casama: Contextualized semantic maps for summarization of lung cancer studies.

Abstract Objective It is crucial for clinicians to stay up to date on current literature in order to apply recent evidence to clinical decision making. Automatic summarization systems can help clinicians quickly view an aggregated summary of literature on a topic. Casama, a representation and summarization system based on “contextualized semantic maps,” captures the findings of biomedical studies as well as the contexts associated with patient population and study design. This paper presents a user-oriented evaluation of Casama in comparison to a context-free representation, SemRep. Materials and methods The effectiveness of the representation was evaluated by presenting users with manually annotated Casama and SemRep summaries of ten articles on driver mutations in cancer. Automatic annotations were evaluated on a collection of articles on EGFR mutation in lung cancer. Seven users completed a questionnaire rating the summarization quality for various topics and applications. Results Casama had higher median scores than SemRep for the majority of the topics (p ≤ 0.00032), all of the applications (p ≤ 0.00089), and in overall summarization quality (p ≤ 1.5e-05). Casama's manual annotations outperformed Casama's automatic annotations (p = 0.00061). Discussion Casama performed particularly well in the representation of strength of evidence, which was highly rated both quantitatively and qualitatively. Users noted that Casama's less granular, more targeted representation improved usability compared to SemRep. Conclusion This evaluation demonstrated the benefits of a contextualized representation for summarizing biomedical literature on cancer. Iteration on specific areas of Casama's representation, further development of its algorithms, and a clinically-oriented evaluation are warranted.
THE SEROLOGICAL EPIDEMIOLOGY OF TOXOPLASMOSIS AS DETERMINED IN SEVERAL NEW POPULATIONS

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses a study examining the serological epidemiology of toxoplasmosis as determined in several new populations. The sera of 2,844 U.S. military recruits inducted in the summer of 1962 were tested. They represent a defined sample of the continental United States. The subjects were all males in the age range 17–26 years, although most were less than 22. Titers of less than 1:4 were noted in 81%, 6% were positive at 1:4, 7% at 1:16, 5% at 1:64, 1% at 1:256 and 0.1% at 1:1024. When divided into the nine major sections of origin, the incidence of positive reactors was essentially the same (about 18%) throughout the entire Atlantic seaboard, but showed a drop in the north and south central areas. There was a precipitous decrease of positive reactors to 3% in the Mountain states. This increased only to 8% along the Pacific Coast. Overall, the percentage of positives was 14%.
Ventilatory 133Xenon Distribution Studies in the Duck(Anas platyrhynchos)

The distribution of an inspired bolus of the 133Xe in air was measured in lightly anesthetized, spontaneously breathing ducks using a scintillation camera. Inspired gas enters the avian lungs and airsacs nearly simultaneously. The respiratory dead space appeared initially preferentially distributed to the posterior (abdominal) sacs. The pathway of gas from the posterior thoracic airsac during expiration was observed by injecting radioactive gas into this sac at end-inspiration. The posterior thoracic sac contents entered the lung during expiration which supports the unidirectional airflow hypothesis of avian respiration in so far as the lungs fill during inspiration and expiration.The relative compartmental ventilation rates were measured by determining at 0.1-s intervals the disappearance of 133Xe when breathing room air. The lungs and posterior thoracic sac cleared more rapidly than the other compartments.
Neurobiological Bases of Self-Reference and Deliberate Processing in Tailored Health Communication

In this chapter, we aim to provide a theoretical framework with empirical evidence to understand psychological and neural mechanisms involved in tailored health communications. We will first describe the primary psychological mechanisms, self-reference and deliberate processing, that are necessary for making health communications effective in driving behavioral changes. Then, we will describe the underlying neurobiological mechanisms in the context of a web-based tailored health communication. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technique, we have identified in the past key midline brain structures, namely medial prefrontal cortex and precuneus, underlying self-reference processing that can predict the outcomes of a web-based tailored smoking cessation program. In addition to these brain regions, we will in this chapter describe the neural mechanisms associated with deliberate processing capacity that were identified using eye movements and neuroimaging technique. Integrations of information technology and cognitive-based training that improve skills involving self-referential and deliberate processing are recommended for applications.
IMMUNOLOGICAL STUDIES OF THE SHOPE PAPILLOMA-CARCINOMA COMPLEX: REINFECTION WITH INFECTIOUS DNA

This chapter discusses immunological studies of the shope papilloma–carcinoma complex. Papillomas of rabbit skin, induced by the virus of Shope, might persist indefinitely and ultimately transform to the malignant state. Spontaneous regression of the papillomas occurs in some animals and appears to be caused by an antitumor immunity distinct from the antiviral immunity that protects from reinfection. In a study, DNA extracted from virus-rich Shope papillomas was inoculated into 5 sites on the skin of previously infected rabbits in several categories. Tumors appeared at the sites of DNA inoculation and grew as typical papillomas on the skin of all 6 carcinomatous rabbits, on 9 of 10 rabbits with persistent papillomas, and on none of 15 rabbits on which papillomas had regressed from 6 to 15 weeks earlier. Antiviral immunity does not interfere with infection by viral DNA, and a substantial antitumor immunity persists in regressor rabbits long after the regression of the primary tumor has occurred.
Constitutional Constructions and Constitutional Decision Rules: Thoughts on the Carving of Implementation Space

Part of symposium: The Interpretation/Construction Distinction in Constitutional Law: Annual Meeting of the AALS Section on Constitutional Law.
The Role of International Financial Institutions in International Humanitarian Law: A Report from the International Humanitarian Law Working Group

International financial institutions are increasingly involved in conflict situations and countries in which violations of international humanitarian law are widespread and devastating to the civilian population and the countries’ economic prospects. Many argue that structural and political concerns pose obstacles to the development of a role for IFIs in promoting adherence to and enforcement of international humanitarian law. Others, however, suggest that IFIs are well placed to make some contribution to the implementation and enforcement of humanitarian law. In addition, factoring humanitarian law violations into IFI decision-making processes can actually be essential to the effective implementation of their own mandates.Any policy an IFI enacts in countries marked by conflict and atrocities will send a message about the institution’s level of tolerance for or abhorrence of humanitarian law violations. Because an IFI’s influence makes the very act of engagement, even if on the basis of economic considerations alone, just as symbolic as that of disengagement, placing the financial weight of the IFIs behind international humanitarian law can help to dissuade states and other actors from committing atrocities for fear of losing much-needed financial assistance. In addition, atrocities can have significant and direct economic effects that IFIs should take into consideration, including disrupting the regular functioning of the economy and hindering the reconstruction of the economy after the conflict.A role for IFIs in the implementation and enforcement of international humanitarian law does not mean that they must always withdraw or reduce funding; rather, it requires that IFIs consider the impact of humanitarian law violations as a factor in making policy and decisions. Existing practice demonstrates that IFIs already do occasionally incorporate these concerns into their analyses and suggests several potential opportunities for IFIs to make a contribution in this area: examining the links between violations of international humanitarian law and prospects for economic growth and stability; sharing information with other international and multilateral organizations; supporting UN Security Council decisions and operations taken under Chapter VII; adopting formal conditionality policies; and applying informal conditionality in the course of daily operations.This paper is available on the website of the United States Institute of Peace.
Trust in Government and the American Public’s Responsiveness to Rising Inequality:

The United States has become increasingly unequal. Income inequality has risen dramatically since the 1970s, yet public opinion toward redistribution has remained largely unchanged. This is puzzlin...
Preoperative Predictors of Response to Hypoglossal Nerve Stimulation for Obstructive Sleep Apnea.

ObjectiveHypoglossal nerve stimulation (HGNS) is an effective treatment for patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) who fail continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP). We assessed the relation...
Validation of a Comprehensive Measure of the Family Caregiver Experience: The Caregiver Reaction Scale.

The Caregiver Reaction Scale (CRS) is a multi-dimensional measure of the family caregiving experience that assesses role conflict, challenges, and positive aspects of caregiving. The CRS has been v...
Modeling the ecosystem services of native vegetation management practices at solar energy facilities in the Midwestern United States

Abstract The increasing pressure on land resources for food and energy production along with efforts to maintain natural systems necessitates the development of compatible land uses that maximize the co-benefits of multiple ecosystem services. One such land sharing opportunity is the restoration and management of native grassland vegetation beneath ground-mounted solar energy facilities, which can both protect biodiversity and restore related ecosystem services. In this paper, we applied the InVEST modeling framework to investigate the potential response of four ecosystem services (carbon storage, pollinator supply, sediment retention, and water retention) to native grassland habitat restoration at 30 solar facilities across the Midwest United States. Compared to pre-solar agricultural land uses, solar-native grassland habitat produced a 3-fold increase in pollinator supply and a 65% increase in carbon storage potential. We also observed increases in sediment and water retention of over 95% and 19%, respectively. We applied these results to project the potential benefits of adoption of native grassland management practices in current and future solar energy buildout scenarios. Our study demonstrates how multifunctional land uses in agriculture-dominated landscapes may improve the provision of a variety of ecosystem services and improve the landscape compatibility of renewable energy and food production.
Effect of Different Fruit Peel Powders as Natural Fertilizers on Growth of Okra ( Abelmoschus esculentus L.)

Purpose : Fruit peels waste is one of the waste accumulate in huge quantity every day. It is a serious problem and need to be managed to make environment free from pollution. Fruit peels are very rich in macro and micro nutrients that are beneficial for plant growth. By using fruit peel as fertilizer we can reduce load of wastes and can get more benefits than inorganic fertilizer. Research Method : The experiment was carried out in a Completely Randomized Design with six treatments having twenty replicates. Treatments were, recommended fertilizer application at basal and topdressing (T1, control), half dose of recommended fertilizer application at basal and topdressing times with 1g of banana peel powder (T2), 1g of pomegranate peel powder (T3), 1g of orange peel powder (T4), 0.5g each of banana and pomegranate peel powders (T5) and 0.5g each of orange and banana peel powders (T6) at both times. All agronomic practices were followed as per Department of Agriculture, Sri Lanka except fertilizers. Findings : The results reveals that application of fruit peel powder at basal and top dressing had significant differences (P Originality/ Value : Application of fruit peel powder into the soil leads to improve growth and yield of okra in sandy regosol compared to recommended inorganic fertilizer and present study suggested that, among the all tested treatments, half recommended fertilizer application at basal and topdressing times with 0.5g each of orange and banana peel powders at both times would be the most suitable fruit peel powders to get higher growth and yield of okra in sandy regosol.
Dependence of the dwarf sundew ( Drosera brevifolia ) on burrowing crayfish disturbance

Disturbance is necessary for the survival of most species of carnivorous plants to reduce competition and expose bare soil for germination. Historically, fire was the most widespread form of disturbance. Today, prescribed burns and mowing are the primary anthropogenic forms of disturbance maintaining populations of carnivorous plants. Other natural forms of disturbance have received little consideration such as grazing and small-scale disturbance by burrowing crayfish. In Mississippi, burrowing crayfish are beneficial to both sundews (Drosera capillaris) and bladderworts (Utricularia juncea). Because burrowing crayfish are found throughout much of southeastern North America, they may provide a vital form of disturbance for smaller species of carnivorous plants to the point of being ecosystem engineers. In this study, we investigated if the Kentucky state-endangered dwarf sundew (D. brevifolia) benefits from bare patches of soil created experimentally by us and naturally by the endemic Bluegrass crayfish (Cambarus batchi). We observed colonization of sundews on crayfish mounds, chimneys, and eroded chimneys (= flat mounds) over 16 months. We also observed colonization of patches of soil we scraped clear of plants. We found that dwarf sundews quickly colonized bare soil, and that bare patches created by burrowing crayfish may be an essential small-scale form of disturbance for these sundews. Dwarf sundews have a life history predicted by the colonization hypothesis that being, they grow in a restricted niche space within the meadow and appear to have a disturbance-mediated coexistence with crayfish. They are small, fast growing, and short lived, and produce a seed bank. Dwarf sundews are a “fugitive species” that quickly colonize intense, small-scale disturbed sites to temporarily escape competition. We briefly discuss other potentially important, yet over-looked, disturbance that historically has been beneficial to carnivorous plants in southeastern North America.
A PV-UPS Developed For The Monitoring Of PV Systems

The monitoring systems is an important task for ensuring the reliability and stability of power generation systems operation like renewable and sustainable sources. In this research work, a PV-uninterruptible power supply is developed for monitoring and evaluating the performance of PV systems in renewable energy research unit in the Saharan region (URERMS) Adrar. This PV-UPS contain a desktop PC UPS powered by the MPPT charge controller to extract the maximum power of the PV panels. AB@The sizing procedure and the used data acquisition system to monitor the electrical parameters of this PV-UPS are detailed.
Hypoxia signaling in renal pericytes-is it safe to activate?

While excitement has grown for the use of hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) prolyl hydroxylase inhibitors for treating renal anemia, multiple preclinical studies have shown the complex and cell-type–dependent roles of HIFs in kidney disease pathogenesis, including renal fibrosis. Pan et al. now clearly show that activating the HIF signaling in the Gli1-lineage myofibroblasts restores erythropoietin production while not adversely affecting matrix production, mitigating the concerns of exacerbated fibrosis by HIF prolyl hydroxylase inhibitors.
Detecting Anomalous IoT Traffic Flow with Locality Sensitive Hashes

Widespread adoption of Internet of Things (IoT) devices increased the variety of devices connected to a network. These devices have become a primary target of cyber-attacks as they introduce unmanaged vulnerabilities into the network. On the other hand, most of the IoT devices have a limited set of functionalities. Thus, it is possible to formulate the expected traffic pattern of the device and employ the network traffic to detect anomalous activities. Existing IoT traffic anomaly detection systems require tuning the parameters of machine learning algorithms used for the traffic classification. In this paper, we introduce a novel approach to detect the anomalous IoT network traffic based on the locality-sensitive hash of the traffic flow. The proposed Locality Sensitive Anomaly Detection (LSAD) approach does not require feature extraction from the data. Evaluation on a dataset with fifteen attacks shows that it can detect anomalous flows with an accuracy above 97% and achieve the same or better performance than machine learning approaches.
The Making of Liturgy in the Ottonian Church: Books, Music and Ritual in Mainz, 950-1050

This highly original study examines the history and religious life of the Ottonian Church through its ritual books. With forensic attention to the writing and design of four important manuscripts from the city of Mainz - a musician's troper, a priest's ritual handbook, a bishop's pontifical and a copy of the enigmatic compilation now known as the 'Romano-German Pontifical' - Henry Parkes transforms liturgical sources into eloquent witnesses to the ecclesiastical history of early medieval Germany. He also presents the first comprehensive revision of Michel Andrieu's influential 'Romano-German Pontifical' theory, from the dual perspective of Mainz's cathedral of St Martin and its Benedictine monastery of St Alban. Challenging long-held assumptions about the geographies of Ottonian power, in particular the central role of Mainz and its archbishops, the book opens up important new ways of understanding how religious ritual was organised, transmitted and perceived.
Treaties and Executive Agreements a Reply

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Parallel Processing on Dynamic Resources with CARMI

In every production parallel processing environment, the set of resources potentially available to an application fluctuate due to changes in the load on the system. This is true for clusters of workstations which are an increasingly popular platform for parallel computing. Today's parallel programming environments have largely succeeded in making the communication aspect of parallel programming much easier, but they have not provided adequate resource management services which are needed to adapt to such changes in availability. To fill this need, we have developed CARMI, a resource management system, aimed at allowing a parallel application to make use of all available computing power. CARMI permits an application to grow as new resources become available, and shrink when resources are reclaimed. Building upon CARMI, we have also developed WoDi which provides a simple interface for writing master-workers programs in a dynamic resource environment. Both CARMI and WoDi are operational, and have been used on a pool of more than 200 workstations managed by the Condor batch system. Experience with the two systems has shown them to be easy to use, and capable of providing large numbers of cycles to parallel applications even in a real-life production environment in which no resources are dedicated to parallel processing.
Coherent IR Radar Technology

For over 15 years Lincoln Laboratory has been engaged in developing coherent infrared radar systems and relevant technology. The first major program was the Firepond laser radar. This program was initiated in the late 1960’s and drew heavily on earlier CO2 laser and infrared detector research at Lincoln Laboratory. Primary emphasis of the program was on satellite tracking and identification. The most recent version of this system was completed several years ago and is still operational.1,2 In a subsequent section a description of the Firepond radar will be presented and its more important accomplishments will be summarized.
Caudal fourth ventricular administration of the AMPK activator 5-aminoimidazole-4-carboxamide-riboside regulates glucose and counterregulatory hormone profiles, dorsal vagal complex metabolosensory neuron function, and hypothalamic fos expression

This study investigated the hypothesis that estrogen controls hindbrain AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) activity and regulation of blood glucose, counterregulatory hormone secretion, and hypothalamic nerve cell transcriptional status. Dorsal vagal complex A2 noradrenergic neurons were laser microdissected from estradiol benzoate (E)- or oil (O)-implanted ovariectomized female rats after caudal fourth ventricular (CV4) delivery of the AMPK activator 5-aminoimidazole-4-carboxamide-riboside (AICAR), for Western blot analysis. E advanced AICAR-induced increases in A2 phospho-AMPK (pAMPK) expression and in blood glucose levels and was required for augmentation of Fos, estrogen receptor-α (ERα), monocarboxylate transporter-2, and glucose transporter-3 protein in A2 neurons and enhancement of corticosterone secretion by this treatment paradigm. CV4 AICAR also resulted in site-specific modifications in Fos immunolabeling of hypothalamic metabolic structures, including the paraventricular, ventromedial, and arcuate nuclei. The current studies demonstrate that estrogen regulates AMPK activation in caudal hindbrain A2 noradrenergic neurons during pharmacological replication of energy shortage in this area of the brain, and that this sensor is involved in neural regulation of glucostasis, in part, through control of corticosterone secretion. The data provide unique evidence that A2 neurons express both ERα and -β proteins and that AMPK upregulates cellular sensitivity to ERα-mediated signaling during simulated energy insufficiency. The results also imply that estrogen promotes glucose and lactate uptake by these cells under those conditions. Evidence for correlation between hindbrain AMPK and hypothalamic nerve cell genomic activation provides novel proof for functional connectivity between this hindbrain sensor and higher order metabolic brain loci while demonstrating a modulatory role for estrogen in this interaction.
Composite Fermions: Constraints and Tests

We review the substantial constraints and tests of models of composite leptons and quarks set by experiment and theory. New limits on the anomalous magnetic moment of the tau and of the quarks are presented.
Follow-up evaluation of oculomotor performance with fMRI in the subacute phase of concussion

Objective: To expand on our previous study by performing a follow-up testing session in the subacute phase of injury for participants recently diagnosed with a concussion. Methods: A battery of oculomotor tests were administered to participants 30 days postconcussion while simultaneous fMRI was performed. Results: Three of the 7 oculomotor tasks (antisaccade, self-paced saccade, and memory-guided saccade) administered showed significant differences between the recently concussed group compared with normal volunteers. However, performance in these 3 tasks did show improvement from the acute phase of injury. The fMRI analysis revealed significant differences in brain activation patterns compared with normal volunteers, with the concussed group still demonstrating increased and larger areas of activation. Similar to the oculomotor performance, the fMRI analysis showed that at 30 days postinjury, the concussed group more closely mirrored that of the normal volunteer group compared with at 7 days following insult. Conclusions: Even at 30 days postinjury, and despite being clinically asymptomatic, advanced techniques are able to detect subtle lingering alterations in the concussed brain. Therefore, progressive neuroimaging techniques such as fMRI in conjunction with assessment of oculomotor performance may be beneficial in clinical management of concussion.
A study of the blood loss in the third stage of labor and the factors involved

Abstract A study of the third stage of labor in 574 consecutive vaginal deliveries is presented. Seventy-four cases were excluded because the blood loss was not completely measured. In the 500 cases studied, the blood loss was measured by the method recently described by the author. The various factors responsible for excessive blood loss have been presented. A study of the puerperium has also been made. Comparison of estimated and measured blood losses revealed that estimations are erroneous and misleading. The author's method of expression of the placenta is also presented. Further study of at least 2,000 more cases is necessary to substantiate the conclusions drawn from this study.