cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
A Distributed Stack Implementation and an Abstract Machine for And-Or Parallel Execution of Logic Programs on Shared Memory Multiprocessors

We present a practical run-time system for a distributed stack implementation of and-or parallelism based on an Extended And-Or Tree. Our distributed stack model is a generalization of the sequential stack model for executing logic programs. We describe in detail the various runtime operations of the model—forward and backward execution, trailing and untrailing variables, work scheduling and memory management—the problems that are faced in implementing them and our proposed solutions. We also present detailed design of an abstract machine, an extension of the Warren Abstract Machine (WAM), to realize the distributed stack model on multiprocessor architectures. This abstract machine allows efficient compiled parallel execution of logic programs.
Fixed-Ratio Combinations.

Combination treatment with basal insulin and a glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist targets different aspects of the pathophysiology of type 2 diabetes to achieve glycemic control. In November 2016, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved two titratable fixed-ratio combinations (FRCs) of basal insulin and a GLP-1 receptor agonist: insulin glargine/lixisenatide 3:1 ratio (iGlarLixi [Soliqua]) and insulin degludec/liraglutide 1:0.036 ratio (IDegLira [Xultophy]) (1,2). Both agents are indicated to improve glycemic control in adults with type 2 diabetes inadequately controlled on basal insulin or the respective GLP-1 receptor agonist along with diet and exercise (1,2). Use of these agents is not recommended for patients with type 1 diabetes, diabetic ketoacidosis, gastroparesis, or a history of pancreatitis. Additionally, these agents should be avoided in patients using another GLP-1 receptor agonist or prandial insulin (1,2). Insulin glargine and insulin degludec improve glycemic control through stimulation of glucose uptake in the body and inhibition of glucose production in the liver (1,2). Lixisenatide and liraglutide mimic the action of GLP-1 through stimulation of glucose-dependent insulin release, suppression of glucagon production, and slowing of gastric emptying (1,2). A main advantage of FRCs, as single daily injections of two glycemic control medications, is regimen simplification to promote treatment adherence with less potential for clinical inertia. Greater efficacy in glycemic control is …
Early Feeding Practices and Development of Childhood Obesity

Early child feeding practices, defined as the ways in which caregivers interact with their children around food and eating, have been implicated in children’s risk of obesity. Early child feeding practices can be conceptualized as beginning with the choices parents make about breastfeeding in early infancy and extending to choices about how mealtimes are structured and which foods are made available in the home environment. Parent feeding practices across these contexts and developmental periods have also been conceptualized as differing with respect to pressure, monitoring, and restriction, as well as with regard to sensitivity to the child’s hunger and satiety cues. Emerging work has increased the understanding of individual differences in appetitive traits, such as a child’s propensity to eat in the absence of hunger, eat in response to stress or emotion, or eat in response to food cues in the environment. These child behavioral predispositions likely require individualized parenting approaches. In this chapter, we review current best evidence regarding the associations between child feeding practices and obesity, starting from infancy through early childhood. Overall, evidence for a causal role of different parenting approaches in conferring child obesity risk is modest at best.
Computer-aided discovery of debris disk candidates: A case study using the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) catalog

Abstract Debris disks around stars other than the Sun have received significant attention in studies of exoplanets, specifically exoplanetary system formation. Since debris disks are major sources of infrared emissions, infrared survey data such as the Wide-Field Infrared Survey (WISE) catalog potentially harbors numerous debris disk candidates. However, it is currently challenging to perform disk candidate searches for over 747 million sources in the WISE catalog due to the high probability of false positives caused by interstellar matter, galaxies, and other background artifacts. Crowdsourcing techniques have thus started to harness citizen scientists for debris disk identification since humans can be easily trained to distinguish between desired artifacts and irrelevant noises. With a limited number of citizen scientists, however, increasing data volumes from large surveys will inevitably lead to analysis bottlenecks. To overcome this scalability problem and push the current limits of automated debris disk candidate identification, we present a novel approach that uses citizen science results as a seed to train machine learning based classification. In this paper, we detail a case study with a computer-aided discovery pipeline demonstrating such feasibility based on WISE catalog data and NASA’s Disk Detective project. Our approach of debris disk candidates classification was shown to be robust under a wide range of image quality and features. Our hybrid approach of citizen science with algorithmic scalability can facilitate big data processing for future detections as envisioned in future missions such as the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST).
Solution-processed broadband polymer photodetectors with a spectral response of up to 2.5 μm by a low bandgap donor–acceptor conjugated copolymer

Photodetectors (PDs) with infrared (IR) response have extensive industrial and scientific applications. Broadband polymer PDs that operate at room temperature have drawn the greatest attention in the past years. In this study, solution-processed polymer PDs with a spectral response ranging from 350 nm to 2500 nm are reported. The low bandgap donor–acceptor (D–A) conjugated copolymer contributes to the IR photo-response. Implementation of a bulk heterojunction device structure with polypyrrole as an interfacial layer to match the energy level of the low bandgap D–A conjugated copolymer and the Ba/Al bi-cathode to compress dark current gave rise to a large photocurrent to dark current ratio, which resulted in detectivities greater than 1011 Jones (1 Jones = 1 cm Hz1/2 W−1) at wavelengths ranging from 350 nm to 2500 nm. Thus, our finding of utilization of bulk heterojunction composite consisting of a D–A low bandgap polymer blended with a fullerene derivative provides a facile way to detect IR radiation, indicating that broadband polymer PDs are promising for photoelectronic technology in the future.
Untangling the role of selection and drift in population divergence via transcriptional network simulations: Extended analysis of Ghalambor et al. (2015)

A long-standing question in evolutionary biology is whether phenotypic plasticity influences adaptive evolutionary change (e.g. Waddington 1961; Price et al. 2003; Ghalambor et al. 2007; Lande 2009; Wund 2012). The same genotype can produce different phenotypes in response to different environments, but whether such plasticity constrains or facilitates evolutionary change remains an unresolved and controversial problem (Ghalambor et al. 2007). Theoretical models to date have made diverse predictions on the role of plasticity in evolutionary divergence (e.g. Ancel 2000; Paenke et al. 2007; Thibert-Plante and Hendry 2011), and empirical studies have largely been limited to retrospective approaches that infer the role of plasticity long-after populations and species have diverged (e.g. Losos et al. 2000; Wund et al. 2007; Scoville and Pfrender 2010). Field and lab studies that combine transcriptomic methods with recently diverged population comparisons provide a potentially powerful framework for quantifying patterns of plasticity for large numbers of molecular phenotypes within a generation, and how these phenotypes evolve across generations in response to either natural or artificial selection (e.g. Yampolsky et al. 2012; Ghalambor et al. 2015; Huang and Agrawal 2016). However, the high dimensionality of transcriptomic data imposes some computational challenges when attempting to infer the role of various evolutionary processes.
A Computer Project for the Collection and Handling of Data in Forest Fire Control

The factors which affect forest fire-fighting operations are numerous and include the meteorological conditions, timeliness of communications, efficiency of the equipment and availability of personnel.
Diversity of the immunoglobulin gene superfamily.

Publisher Summary The physical nature and organization of particular genetic information establish the limits and possibilities of its variation. The multigene organization and recombinogenic nature of much of the family establishes particular diversifying potentialities on many of the members. New functional possibilities arise primarily through the duplication of the various informational units involved, for example, nucleotides, exons, genes, and entire multigene families. Duplication of a multigene family and the attendant cis-acting control mechanisms can in a single event create the genetic basis of a complex new phenotype, suggesting the possibility of rapid evolutionary change. Interestingly, the number of the identified single-gene IgGSF members that are expressed in both the brain and the immune system suggests the possibility of shared cell surface recognition functions and that the related molecules may be involved in some of the intriguing phenomena linking the mental states and immune response. It seems likely that the fruitful strategies of somatic diversification, employed by well-characterized members of the IgGSF, will also be used by other receptor families, perhaps involved in the morphogenesis or neuronal development.
Applications of DDPIV to Studies Associated with Road Vehicles

The quantification of experimental flows is a problem that poses several challenges, the most obvious of which is how to extract motion from an “invisible” phenomenon. In general, flows can be analyzed through a sequence of still images (Singh 1991). For example, the motion of patterns generated by dye, clouds or particles can be used to obtain such a time sequence of still images. The main problem with using a continuous-intensity pattern, generated by scalar fields (e.g., dye patterns), is that it must be somehow discretized and contain variations of intensity at all scales before mean and turbulent velocity information can be obtained (Pearlstein and Carpenter 1995). In this respect, the discrete nature of images generated by seeding particles has made particle tracking the method of choice for whole field velocimetry. Displacement and, thus, velocity information can be extracted through statistical methods and other methods such as particle tracking. The spatial resolution of this method depends on the number density of the particles.
Quantitation of Bacterial Adhesion to Biomaterials Using Radiolabeling Techniques

Infection is recognized as a major concern with temporary as well as permanent medical implants.6,13,24 Clinical experience suggests that bacterial adhesion followed by colonization and biofilm formation may be critical in the sequence of events that lead to device infection. Biofilm may form a barrier and prevent effective penetration of antibiotics, and bacteria sequestered in the biofilm may evade phagocytic cells thus dodging the hostile immune system. Device-associated infections are also difficult to resolve with antimicrobial therapy, and, in many instances, force the removal or replacement of the infected device.
Severe Symptomatic Hyponatremia Secondary to Escitalopram-Induced SIADH: A Case Report with Literature Review

Hyponatremia is a well-known medication related side effect of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors; despite its association with escitalopram, the newest SSRI is very rare. We did a review of literature and came across only 14 reported case of this rare association of SIADH with escitalopram. We hereby report a case of a 93-year-old female who presented with generalized tonic-clonic seizure and was diagnosed with severe hyponatremia due to escitalopram-induced syndrome of inappropriate antidiuretic hormone secretion (SIADH). With this article, we want to emphasize clinicians about this rare side effect of escitalopram use and look for the risk factors leading to SIADH.
Extracting weather information from a plantation document

Abstract. The authors introduce a method for extracting weather and climate data from a historical plantation document. They demonstrate the method on a document from Shirley Plantation in Virginia (USA) covering the period 1816–1842. They show how the resulting data are organized into a spreadsheet that includes direct weather observations and information on various cultivars. They then give three examples showing how the data can be used for climate studies. The first example is a comparison of spring onset between the plantation era and the modern era. A modern median final spring freeze event (for the years 1943–2017) occurs a week earlier than the historical median (for the years 1822–1839). The second analysis involves developing an index for midsummer temperatures from the timing of the first malaria-like symptoms in the plantation population each year. The median day when these symptoms would begin occurring in the modern period is a month and a half earlier than the median day they occurred in the historical period. The final example is a three-point temperature index generated from ordinal weather descriptions in the document. The authors suggest that this type of local weather information from historical archives, either direct from observations or indirect from phenophase timing, can be useful toward a more complete understanding of climates of the past.
Long-term oral administration of Exendin-4 to control type 2 diabetes in a rat model.

Abstract Exendin-4 is a glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist and potent insulinotropic agent for type 2 diabetes patients; however, its therapeutic utility is limited due to the frequent injections required. Long-acting agonists reduce the number of injections, but they can compromise potency. In this study, chondroitin sulfate-g-glycocholic acid-coated and Exendin-4 (Ex-4)-loaded liposomes (EL-CSG) were prepared for oral administration of Ex-4. The Ex-4 loading efficiency was 77% and the loading content in the nanoparticles was 1 wt-%. In rat models, a single oral dose (200 μg/kg) of EL-CSG showed a relative oral bioavailability of 19.5%, compared with subcutaneous administration (20 μg/kg), and sustained pharmacokinetics for up to 72 h. The overall long-term pharmacodynamic effects, assessed by hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), body weight, and blood lipid concentrations, of daily oral EL-CSG (300 μg/kg) for four weeks were equivalent to or better than daily subcutaneous injections of free Ex-4 solution (20 μg/kg).
Predictive sentence comprehension during story-listening in autism spectrum disorder

ABSTRACTIndividuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) show a range of language production deficits, however, language comprehension in ASD remains under-studied in part because co-morbid social deficits affect behavioural compliance. This challenge can be overcome by engaging participants in a naturalistic task while passively collecting neural signals. To test predictive processing with naturalistic language, we collect MEG data while 16 8–12-year-old high-functioning participants with a clinical diagnosis of ASD and 16 age- and gender-matched typically developing peers listen to an audiobook story. The neuromagnetic signals are correlated with word-by-word states from a computational model that quantifies incremental sentence predictions in terms of surprisal. Consistent with prior eye-tracking work, our results are compatible with predictive parsing that is equivalent between high-functioning individuals with ASD and TD peers.
Biosystematic studies inErythronium (liliaceae-tulipeae)

The floral anatomy ofErythronium japonicum has been investigated, and its major features include a pedicel with a central core of major bundles surrounded by numerous smaller ones from which all traces arise. Each perianth member receives three bundles: a median from the central region and two laterals from the peripheral region. Episepaly and epipetaly of the filaments occur basally around a slightly stipitate ovary. The two cycles of stamens which have different filaments lengths are positioned by the differently lobed auricles of the mature sepals and petals which also form an inverted trap-lid nectary. The six stamen bundles have a double fusion origin, as do the three carpel dorsals and three carpel laterals. The derivation of the six single ventrals are from the fused carpel dorsals. THe dorsals which branch laterally and anastomose with the ventral supply are continuous from the base of the gynoecium to the stigmatic region, while the fused laterals terminate without any branching in the upper, inner septal regions. The common, hollow stylar canal is continuous with the three locules. The gynoecium shows no signs of either septal glands or raphides. The bitegmic, anatropous ovules have aFritillaria-type of embryo sac development.
Quantum confinement in few layer SnS nanosheets

Orthorhombic tin monosulfide (SnS) consists of layers of covalently bound Sn and S atoms held together by weak van der Waals forces and is a stable two-dimensional material with potentially useful properties in emerging applications such as valleytronics. Large-scale sustainable synthesis of few-layer (e.g., 1-10 layers) SnS is a challenge, which also slows progress in understanding their properties as a function of number of layers. Herein we describe solvothermal synthesis of SnS in water or ethylene glycol. The latter yields a flower-like morphology where the petals are SnS nanoplates and sonication and separation of these flowers via differential centrifugation yields 1-10 layer SnS nanoplates. The direct optical absorption edges of these SnS nanoplates blue-shift due to quantum confinement from 1.33 to 1.88 eV as the thickness (number of layers) is decreased from ∼5 nm (10 layers) to ∼2 nm (4 layers).
(Photo) electrochemical water oxidation at anodic TiO2 nanotubes modified by electrodeposited NiFe oxy-hydroxides catalysts

Abstract Anodic TiO2 nanotubes are potential candidates for industrial scale and stable photoelectrochemical water oxidation. Major roadblocks for the realization of this technology however are the limited light absorption, as this material usually absorbs only in the UV, and the sluggish water oxidation kinetics at the electrode/electrolyte interface. Various efforts have nonetheless demonstrated absorption and photocurrent generation with visible light while a typical solution for the slow water oxidation is electrode modification via oxygen evolution catalysts; Ni Fe (oxy) hydroxides in particular are among the highest turn-over efficiency and low-cost catalysts. Studies about loading Ni Fe (oxy) hydroxides onto anodic TiO2 nanotubes by electrodeposition methods are rarely reported and the influence of the loaded catalysts on the photoanode performance is not fully understood. In this work, Ni Fe (oxy) hydroxides are first electrodeposited on Au substrates; the as-deposited catalysts indicate enhanced oxygen evolution catalytic activity. The same deposition method is then applied at various TiO2 nanotube systems. Specifically, mouths, walls and whole bodies of anodic TiO2 nanotubes are electrodeposited with Ni Fe (oxy) hydroxides and the corresponding photo response to water oxidation are investigated. We show that at relatively low applied potential (≤1.5 V vs. RHE) the Ni Fe (oxy) hydroxides layer significantly reduces photon absorption and facilitates interfacial recombination, leading to a decreased photocurrent density. In contrast, at relatively high bias (>1.5 V vs. RHE), the oxygen evolution is enhanced due to the intrinsic electro-catalytic properties of the loaded catalysts. Synergistic effect are not found in the three Ni Fe (oxy) hydroxide films deposited at TiO2 nanotube systems.
Crossing political borders: how a grassroots environmental group influenced a change in public policy

This study is a rhetorical analysis of communication design in the Amalga Barrens wetlands controversy during the 1990s. The Bridgerland Audubon Society (Bridgerland) in Cache Valley, Utah, was able to influence a change in public policy that removed the unique wetlands from consideration as a possible reservoir site for water taken from the Bear River. The group tried two times to influence public policy. The first effort failed because the group relied too much on lobbying. The second effort succeeded when the group developed a grassroots communication design. Bridgerland led a successful grassroots effort by (1) educating the public, (2) establishing credibility, (3) proposing an alternative solution, (4) making decisions based on data, (5) recognizing common ground, (6) getting the media involved, (7) building on what has been done before, and (8) practicing civility. Bridgerland's experience may be helpful to other environmental groups that are trying to lead efforts in their own communities. Although the communication design presented cannot be generalized to fit all groups and situations, it may serve as a starting point.
An investigation of the effect of an operationally defined word on conservation-of -number responses

Xn recent years much interest has been exhibited in the problem of conservation of number. Accompanying this interest has been a sizable amount of controversy centering on the question of whether a child's apparent nonconservation of number is largely a language-caused phenomenon. From the beginning of his conservation experiments, Piaget (1952) was aware of vocabulary inadequacies and of the possibly erroneous conclusions that an investigator might reach because of these inadequacies. Consequently, Piaget offered a wide variety of examples in order to convince his readers that the phenomenon exists independently of language. Nevertheless, Flavell (1963, p. 434) reports that some critics of Piaget label many of his studies as "merely vocabulary-growth" studies. These critics take the point of view that the child initially has an imperfect or incomplete grasp of terms such as "number"; as he grows older, the child gradually approaches adult understanding and usage of such terms. They find no basis "... for assuming that the vocabulary change points to anything important other than itself . . ." and, hence, no foundation for asserting that it reflects any manner of qualitative change in cognitive structure. It is doubtful that any serious investigator of the conservation problem will fail to agree that this problem involves more than ju t growth of vocabulary. If one has experiment d widely with the types of problems used by conservation researchers, he finds it difficult not to believe that the
Combining Ikonos and Bathymetric LiDAR Data to Improve Reef Habitat Mapping in the Florida Keys

AbstractMapping reef habitat at a detailed level is a challenge when using single-source remote sensing data such as Ikonos imagery. In this study, Ikonos and bathymetric LiDAR data were combined t...
Abstract TP329: Early Initiation of Oral Antihypertensives Reduces Intensive Care Unit Stay and Hospital Cost in Patients With Hypertensive Intracerebral Hemorrhage

Background and Purpose: Intravenous nicardipine infusion is effective for intensive blood pressure (BP) control in patients with hypertensive intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH). However, its use requir...
Reflexive tension: an auto-ethnographic journey through the discipline of International Relations in Western academic training

Through two crossed auto-ethnographic works, this paper explores the ‘reflexive tension’ coming with the African identities in diasporic contexts and in Western academic training. As the authors ha...
Modifying the Criteria for Granting Orphan Drug Market Exclusivity

Abstract Objectives To examine policy options to deny orphan drug exclusivity after drugs exceed a target population of 200 000 across all orphan indications (combined prevalence threshold) or once drugs receive a nonorphan approval (market approval threshold). Methods Retrospective analysis of drugs with 2 or more orphan approvals from 1983 to July 01, 2017 examining prevalence of orphan indications and approval years of orphan and nonorphan indications. Characteristics of drugs crossing either threshold are described. A budget impact analysis of Medicare and Marketscan® claims databases estimated potential savings from generic or biosimilar entry as a result of foregone market exclusivity periods determined by these policies. Results Out of 86 drugs with 2 or more orphan approvals, 21 drugs would be denied orphan drug exclusivity periods under the prevalence threshold and 18 drugs would be denied orphan drug exclusivity periods under the market approval threshold. Drugs with orphan approvals after 2010 were more likely to be denied orphan drug exclusivity. In 2017, Medicare could have saved about $2 billion on 8 drugs under the prevalence threshold policy and $1.3 billion on 12 drugs under the market approval threshold policy). Private insurers could have saved $814 and $919 million, respectively. Over half of the savings would come from 9 drugs that first entered the market for a nonorphan indication. Conclusions Modifying the criteria for granting orphan drug exclusivity would affect a small number of orphan drugs but could generate large savings through increased competition. Other incentives such as grants or tax credits for clinical trials could be explored to incentivize research for new orphan indications for drugs that crossed either threshold.
The Impact of Racial-Ethnic Socialization Practices on International Transracial Adoptee Identity Development

Parent involvement in racial-ethnic socialization of transracial adoptees has been studied primarily via the parent perspective. The goal of this study was to explore the adoptee’s perspective abou...
Survey of Nearby FGK Stars at 160 μm with Spitzer

The Spitzer Space Telescope has advanced debris disk science tremendously with a wealth of information on debris disks around nearby A, F, G, K, and M stars at 24 and 70 μm with the MIPS photometer and at 8-34 μm with IRS. Here we present 160 μm observations of a small subset of these stars. At this wavelength, the stellar photospheric emission is negligible and any detected emission corresponds to cold dust in extended Kuiper Belt analogs. However, the Spitzer 160 μm observations are limited in sensitivity by the large beam size which results in significant "noise" due to cirrus and extragalactic confusion. In addition, the 160 μm measurements suffer from the added complication of a light leak next to the star's position whose flux is proportional to the near-infrared flux of the star. We are able to remove the contamination from the leak and report 160 μm measurements or upper limits for 24 stars. Three stars (HD 10647, HD 207129, and HD 115617) have excesses at 160 μm that we use to constrain the properties of the debris disks around them. A more detailed model of the spectral energy distribution of HD 10647 reveals that the 70 and 160 μm emission could be due to small water ice particles at a distance of 100 AU, consistent with Hubble Space Telescope optical imaging of circumstellar material in the system.
Field Guide to Renosterveld of the Overberg: By Odette Curtis-Scott, 2020, Penguin Random House, Cape Town: www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za 489 pages, softcover, ePub, ISBN 9781775845805 (softcover), 9781775845812 (ePub), Price: R420.00 (softcover)

(2020). Field Guide to Renosterveld of the Overberg. African Journal of Range & Forage Science. Ahead of Print.
MT-clinical BERT: scaling clinical information extraction with multitask learning.

Objective Clinical notes contain an abundance of important, but not-readily accessible, information about patients. Systems that automatically extract this information rely on large amounts of training data of which there exists limited resources to create. Furthermore, they are developed disjointly, meaning that no information can be shared among task-specific systems. This bottleneck unnecessarily complicates practical application, reduces the performance capabilities of each individual solution, and associates the engineering debt of managing multiple information extraction systems. Materials and methods We address these challenges by developing Multitask-Clinical BERT: a single deep learning model that simultaneously performs 8 clinical tasks spanning entity extraction, personal health information identification, language entailment, and similarity by sharing representations among tasks. Results We compare the performance of our multitasking information extraction system to state-of-the-art BERT sequential fine-tuning baselines. We observe a slight but consistent performance degradation in MT-Clinical BERT relative to sequential fine-tuning. Discussion These results intuitively suggest that learning a general clinical text representation capable of supporting multiple tasks has the downside of losing the ability to exploit dataset or clinical note-specific properties when compared to a single, task-specific model. Conclusions We find our single system performs competitively with all state-the-art task-specific systems while also benefiting from massive computational benefits at inference.
Why Majors Matter: Occupation Specificity, Job Skills, and College Selectivity

We provide new evidence on the returns to college majors and institutional selectivity. Using unique resume data, we devise new groupings of majors and use these to construct five measures that characterize majors. Applying these measures to the National Survey of College Graduates, we find that majors that lead to jobs that are math-intensive or writing-intensive have higher earnings and also a higher return to selectivity. Majors that are occupationally specific also have higher earnings but have a lower return to institutional selectivity. We find that the value of selectivity relative to major increases as selectivity rises. Keywords:
Legal Issues: Lawsuit Threatens BlackBerry Shutdown

For over four years a dispute has raged between Research in Motion (RIM), the Ontario, Canada based manufacturer of the BlackBerry, and NTP, a Virginia company which holds several patents covering wireless e-mail technologies. NTP sued RIM claiming that the BlackBerry infringes on eight of NTP’s patents. A trial court agreed and awarded damages to NTP and issued and injunction preventing RIM from continuing to use the patented technology. So far, the injunction has been delayed by the courts. However, following four years of trial and appellate court decisions generally favoring NTP, a federal court in late November denied a proposed settlement. The court also agreed to consider imposing the long delayed injunction, which would prevent RIM from using the patented technology. Such an injunction could shut down the BlackBerry communications network. The lawsuit highlights the incredible complexity of patents governing the technology that we have come to take for granted. It also represents the difficulties associated with applying patent law to those patents.
How Important is Culture?: An Inside Look at Keller Williams Realty

Corporate leaders pay considerable attention to the strategy and finances of their organization but often less attention to organizational features that impact whether their strategy is successful, including the decision-making structure and the incentives, values and culture that motivate individual employees to act in the interest of the firm.How important are these elements in contributing to financial results?We examine this question in detail through the example of Keller Williams Realty. Keller Williams is the largest real estate franchise in the world, with over 115,000 agents. It is also a company with a unique economic and cultural model, embracing organizational concepts such as profit sharing, shared decision making, open books, and extensive employee training. We review the company’s operating model in detail and ask:• How important is culture as a determinant of economic outcomes?• Are culture and incentives the same, or is culture something greater?• Are some elements of culture “more important” than others?• How are the values and behaviors within an organization influenced by “tone at the top”?The Closer Look series is a collection of short case studies through which we explore topics, issues, and controversies in corporate governance and executive leadership. In each study, we take a targeted look at a specific issue that is relevant to the current debate on governance and explain why it is so important. Larcker and Tayan are co-authors of the books Corporate Governance Matters and A Real Look at Real World Corporate Governance.
The observed embryology of human single-ovum twins and other multiple births.

ONG ago it was noticed that in some cases of human twinning the two inL dividuals resemble each other very closely, whereas in other cases they differ in features and in coloring, and may be of different sex. From about 1866 to 1880, several physicians and biologists in different countries independently developed the concept that the “identical” twins come from a single fertilized egg and the nonidentical or fraternal twins from two separate eggs.l Three circumstances obviously support this conjecture, and account for the ready way in which it has been accepted as a working hypothesis by physicians, biologists, and laymen, in spite of the slowness of the embryologists to confirm it by actual specimens of early embryos in which the process of duplication can be seen. The first circumstantial evidence is that single-ovum twinning has been seen in the developing eggs of fishes and birds. The second has long been available; this is the observation by physicians and midwives that some pairs of twin babies have only a single placenta and are enclosed, before birth, in a common, single chorioamniotic membrane. From what we know about the embryology of the membranes, the presence of two embryos in one chorion is most easily explained by assuming that they originated from a single egg cell. The third kind of circumstantial evidence is that given us by the young science of genetics. From the standpoint of inheritance theory, if two individuals born at the same time are exactly alike, *The Annual Joseph L. Raer Lecture of the Chicago Gynecological Society, delivered
Rupture of the spleen in pregnancy: Report of two cases and review of the literature

Abstract All reported cases of rupture of the spleen in pregnancy and the puerperiuum are reviewed. Two additional instances of this condition are described, bringing the total of reported cases to 44. This complication is more common in multiparous women, and is more likely to occur in the last trimester of pregnancy. In some instances rupture of the spleen was associated with significant trauma, antecedent disease of the spleen, or toxemia of pregnancy. In the majority of cases, however, none of these factors was present. It is therefore inferred that normal pregnancy in itself may predispose to rupture. If rupture of the spleen in pregnancy is compared with spontaneous rupture of the spleen in various diseases, it is found that pregnancy is second only to malaria in frequency of reported cases of splenic rupture. The factors responsible for rupture of the spleen in pregnancy are not established. It is likely that a combination of factors may be responsible. A parallel may be drawn between this condition and other vascular ruptures which have been described in pregnancy. The latter category includes rupture of aneurysms of widespread distribution, rupture of vessels presumed to be normal, and rupture of vessels in subjects with toxemia of pregnancy. It is notable that vascular rupture in all these conditions occurs much more commonly during that phase of pregnancy in which increases in blood volume reach their maximum. Of the various factors which may predispose to vascular rupture in pregnancy, that of hypervolemia appears to be the most constant and the most significant. In toxemia the additional factors of hypertension and widespread angiitis are present. Finally, the hypothesis that the spleen may contain vascular anomalies such as aneurysms offers an attractive theoretical explanation for some instances of this complication. The outstanding symptoms of rupture of the spleen in pregnancy are those of intra-abdominal hemorrhage. Correct preoperative diagnosis is rarely made, this condition usually being confused with abruptio placentae, rupture of the uterus, or rupture of an extrauterine gestation. Maternal prognosis is good if splenectomy is performed. Without splenectomy, death has occurred in all reported cases. The fetal outcome appears to depend principally upon the length and severity of hypotension and hypoxia. When rupture of the spleen occurs early in pregnancy, the prompt performance of splenectomy is likely to allow the pregnancy to proceed normally to term. If rupture occurs in the latter part of pregnancy, the performance of cesarean section in conjunction with splenectomy enhances the exposure for splenectomy and affords a good chance of fetal survival. In the pregnant woman at or near term, the sudden development of signs of intra-abdominal hemorrhage should arouse the suspicion of rupture of the spleen.
Material Culture and Social History in Early Medieval Western Europe

Historians of the early Middle Ages (c. 600–c. 1050) have long used material remains and archeological evidence to learn about that era. Over the last four decades, material culture studies have become a prominent area of historical research, particularly for cultural historians. Recent early medieval studies have followed this trend. In addition, religious and economic studies of the so-called “Dark Ages” have drawn from material sources. Object-driven social history has been less popular, but recent work, especially on Francia and Anglo-Saxon England, demonstrates that such projects offer new findings on a period whose texts rarely address social relations and everyday life directly. Material culture therefore offers rich research possibilities for early medieval social history.
A Framework for Automated Reasoning in Multiple-Valued Logics

The language of signed formulas offers a first-order classical logic framework for automated reasoning in multiple-valued logics. It is sufficiently general to include both annotated logics and fuzzy operator logics. Signed resolution unifies the two inference rules of annotated logics, thus enabling the development of an SLD-style proof procedure for annotated logic programs. Signed resolution also captures fuzzy resolution. The logic of signed formulas offers a means of adapting most classical inference techniques to multiple-valued logics.
The Assisted Living Residence: A Vision for the Future by Stephen M. Golant and Joan Hyde (Eds.)

A multiple choice question: Assisted living … a. is a philosophy of residential long-term care espousing resident autonomy, choice, dignity, privacy, and the ability to “age in place.” b. provides ...
Dutt-wormall reaction

Azides from the reaction of sulfonamide and diazonium salts which may be derived from amines.
Repeat Associated Non-AUG Translation (RAN Translation) Dependent on Sequence Downstream of the ATXN2 CAG Repeat

Spinocerebellar ataxia type 2 (SCA2) is a progressive autosomal dominant disorder caused by the expansion of a CAG tract in the ATXN2 gene. The SCA2 disease phenotype is characterized by cerebellar atrophy, gait ataxia, and slow saccades. ATXN2 mutation causes gains of toxic and normal functions of the ATXN2 gene product, ataxin-2, and abnormally slow Purkinje cell firing frequency. Previously we investigated features of ATXN2 controlling expression and noted expression differences for ATXN2 constructs with varying CAG lengths, suggestive of repeat associated non-AUG translation (RAN translation). To determine whether RAN translation occurs for ATXN2 we assembled various ATXN2 constructs with ATXN2 tagged by luciferase, HA or FLAG tags, driven by the CMV promoter or the ATXN2 promoter. Luciferase expression from ATXN2-luciferase constructs lacking the ATXN2 start codon was weak vs AUG translation, regardless of promoter type, and did not increase with longer CAG repeat lengths. RAN translation was detected on western blots by the anti-polyglutamine antibody 1C2 for constructs driven by the CMV promoter but not the ATXN2 promoter, and was weaker than AUG translation. Strong RAN translation was also observed when driving the ATXN2 sequence with the CMV promoter with ATXN2 sequence downstream of the CAG repeat truncated to 18 bp in the polyglutamine frame but not in the polyserine or polyalanine frames. Our data demonstrate that ATXN2 RAN translation is weak compared to AUG translation and is dependent on ATXN2 sequences flanking the CAG repeat.
RADIOGRAPHIC ASSESSMENT OF CRANIAL CRUCIATE LIGAMENT RUPTURE IN THE DAIRY COW

Case records and radiographs of 37 dairy cows presented to the University of Illinois Veterinary Medicine Teaching Hospital with a diagnosis of cranial cruciate ligament rupture were reviewed. Signalment, history, duration of lameness prior to clinical presentation, and physical examination findings were evaluated. Survey radiographs were examined and radiographic lesions were documented. Individual cows were classified into groups (A, B, C) based on the severity of radiographic lesions, with Group A cows having minimal radiographic lesions. Cows in Groups A and B had radiographic lesions similar to Class I in beef bulls reported in another study.3,4 An attempt was made to relate the severity of radiographic lesions with age and duration of lameness. Group A animals tended to be younger cows (x= 4.58 years) with a short duration of lameness. Group B cows were older (x= 7.87 years) with a somewhat longer duration of lameness. Group C cows were slightly younger (x= 7.30 years) than Group B cows; however, their duration of lameness was much longer (x= 57.2 weeks vs 6.35 weeks for Group B and 2.54 weeks for Group A). The pathogenesis of cranial cruciate ligament rupture and its associated lameness appeared to differ in dairy cows from beef bulls. The majority of animals in this study had radiographic lesions of mild to moderate severity (Groups A and B). In contrast, based on previous work, beef bulls had a greater tendency to be similar to our Group C designation. Beef bulls became lame with cranial cruciate ligament rupture only after severe lesions of degenerative joint disease had already occurred. It has been stated that lameness associated with cranial cruciate ligament rupture in the beef bull is, therefore, secondary to degenerative joint disease. In contrast, the syndrome in dairy cows, as evidenced here, differs, since they often presented with cranial cruciate ligament rupture with little or no radiographic evidence of degenerative joint disease.
Neighborhoods of Affinity

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Planners have traditionally focused on how the physical characteristics of neighborhoods influence people's activity and travel -patterns, overlooking an equally important factor: the social nature of neighborhoods. We focus on one kind of neighborhood characterized by strong social ties: gay and lesbian -neighborhoods of affinity. Gay men living in a neighborhood of affinity—those with a high percentage of coupled gays and lesbians—take shorter work and non-work trips. The mix of local activity sites and social connections results in some gay men conducting a substantial share of their lives within these neighborhoods and nearby. These results are independent of the design or density of the neighborhood. We do not, however, find similar results for lesbians, perhaps because they have less residential mobility. Takeaway for practice: Gay and lesbian neighborhoods of affinity represent the kinds of supportive communities where local travel is possible for many acti...
CFD analysis of a Savonius Vertical axis wind turbine

Pakistan is among of the developing countries in the world that are facing energy crisis. The generation of electricity in Pakistan is shrinking due to an over reliance on fossil fuel resources and also due to the increasing demands for power and lack of efficiency. Due to this energy crisis, many countries have started the research and working in the renewable energy field. In the fields of renewable energy, wind energy is very attractive and has a very key role in the sustainable energy. The purpose of this research work is to analyze a Savonius Vertical axis wind turbine for low wind speed that is inexpensive and is made through easily available material to provide much needed electricity in Pakistan. This paper highlights the designing of the wind turbine and the effect on the blades. With the help of calculating values, 3D view of wind blades' shape has been drawn in the Solid works software. With the help of the Solid works generated file, optimization of the behavior of wind above and below the turbine blades have been analyzed.
High-fidelity low-pass finite-impulse-response filters

The paper describes a method of designing a low-pass finite-impulse response (moving-average) filter having a flat passband and an arbitrarily contoured stopband. The method effectively separates the design of the passband and the stopband, with independent control over the properties of each. The filter causes a controUably small amount of distortion when applied to a smooth input and is especially useful in connection with data rate conversion in those cases when the object is to process with precision a low-frequency signal. The method permits direct placement of stopband zeros, convenient for locating "don't care" bands in first stage data-rate-reduction filters, or suppressing large discrete sources of interference. The theory depends on the expansion of the filter weighting sequence (impulse response) as a power series of central-difference operators.
Decreased mesenteric blood flow in experimental multiple organ failure.

Abstract Disorders of mucosal blood flow may contribute to gut barrier dysfunction in multiple organ failure (MOF). We evaluated alterations of mesenteric microcirculation in a rat model of MOF. Male Wistar rats received 1 mg/g body weight of zymosan A in 4 ml of mineral oil by intraperitoneal injection and were studied on Days 1, 3, and 5 following injection. A control group received no zymosan. The experimental group also received a fluid resuscitation regimen of 0.9 N saline subcutaneously equal to 0.1 ml/g body weight on the day of zymosan injection and 0.05 ml/g body weight daily thereafter. Day 1 animals tended toward a statistically significantly lower mean arterial pressure versus controls (86.6 ± 8 mm Hg versus 106 ± 5 mm Hg, F = 0.09 by ANOVA). Significant arteriolar vasoconstriction occurred on Days 1 and 3 versus control (70 ± 4 μm and 57 ± 8 μm versus 96 ± 3 μm, F = 0.0002). Laser doppler velocity, indicating red blood cell velocity, expressed as a percentage of control paralleled this vasoconstriction (70 ± 9 and 72 ± 7%, respectively). We conclude that mesenteric arteriolar vasoconstriction occurs accompanied by decreased red blood velocity. We believe that this is indicative of decreased mesenteric perfusion in this zymosan model of MOF and that survival to Day 5 is associated with a reversal of these microcirculatory changes.