cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Aspects of Personality and Peer Relations of Extremely Talented Adolescents.

Exceptionally gifted students may be at risk for problems in social and emotional development. To discover if peer relations are affected by type and/or amount of giftedness, extremely mathematically or verbally talented 13 year-olds (top 1 in 10,000) were compared to modestly gifted students (top 1 in 20) of similar age on measures of popularity and peer acceptance, participation in group activities, and personality traits. The verbatly or mathematically talented students were also contrasted on the same measures. Virtually no differences in group activities or personality traits were found. In their ratings of peer perceptions, the modestly gifted group exceeded the extremely gifted, especially the verbally gifted, in being considered athletic and popular, and in social standing. The modestly gifted also rated themselves as more extroverted, socially adept, and uninhibited. Perceptions of peer ratings of importance and acceptance were higher for the mathematically than the verbally gifted. Thus, extreme...
Einstein and relativistic thermodynamics in 1952: a historical and critical study of a strange episode in the history of modern physics

Over forty years after the foundations of the special theory of relativity had been securely laid, a heated debate, beginning in 1965, about the correct formulation of relativistic thermodynamics raged in the physics literature. Prior to 1965, relativistic thermodynamics was considered one of the most secure relativistic theories and one of the most simple and elegant examples of relativization in physics. It is, as its name apparently suggests, the result of the application of the special theory of relativity to thermodynamics. The basic assumption is that the first and second laws of thermodynamics are Lorentz-invariant, and, as a result, a set of Lorentz transformations is derived from thermodynamic magnitudes, such as heat and temperature.
Development of Hypertension in a Rat Model of Diet-Induced Obesity

Although obesity is a risk factor for hypertension, the relationship between these 2 conditions is not well understood. Therefore, we examined some parameters of hypertension and cardiovascular disease in a dietary model of obesity. Male Sprague-Dawley rats were provided either a control diet (C) or a diet containing 32% kcal as fat (similar to a Western diet) for 1, 3, or 10 weeks. Rats in the latter group diverged based on body weight gain into obesity-prone (OP) and obesity-resistant (OR) groups. Systolic blood pressure in OP rats was significantly higher after 10 weeks of the diet (149+/-4. 8 mm Hg) compared with both OR and C groups (131+/-3.7 and 129+/-4.5 mm Hg, respectively). The aortic wall area of OP rats was significantly increased, indicating arterial hypertrophy, and a 2-fold increase in plasma renin activity was found in OP rats compared with OR and C rats. The lipid profile showed a significant increase in plasma and VLDL triglycerides of OP versus OR and C groups as early as 3 weeks on the diet. Plasma and LDL-cholesterol levels were increased in the OP group versus the OR and C groups after 3 weeks of the diet, but the difference was blunted after 10 weeks. Lipid peroxidation (thiobarbituric acid-reactive substances) in OP rats was increased 2-fold in LDL and 1.5-fold in aortic wall compared with OR rats, suggesting an increased oxidative stress in these animals. Periodic acid-Schiff staining of the kidney showed mesangial expansion and focal sclerosis that were more prominent in OP rats than in OR rats. The results suggest that hypercholesterolemia, but not hypertriglyceridemia, is linked to the diet; that hypertension and renin-angiotensin system activation are associated with obesity; and that lipid peroxidation and renal damage are the results of both factors.
Gonadal steroids regulate dendritic spine density in hippocampal pyramidal cells in adulthood

Gonadal steroids are known to influence hippocampal physiology in adulthood. It is presently unknown whether gonadal steroids influence the morphology of hippocampal neurons in the adult intact rat brain. In order to determine whether female sex hormones influence hippocampal morphology in the intact adult, we performed Golgi impregnation on brains from ovariectomized rats and ovariectomized rats which received estradiol or estradiol and progesterone replacement. Removal of circulating gonadal steroids by ovariectomy of adult female rats resulted in a profound decrease in dendritic spine density in CA1 pyramidal cells of the hippocampus. Estradiol replacement prevented the observed decrease in dendritic spine density; progesterone augmented the effect of estradiol within a short time period (5 hr). Ovariectomy or gonadal steroid replacement did not affect spine density of CA3 pyramidal cells or granule cells of the dentate gyrus. These results demonstrate that gonadal steroids are necessary for the maintenance of normal adult CA1 hippocampal pyramidal cell structure. The short time course required to observe these effects (3 d for the estradiol effect and 5 hr for the progesterone effect) implies that CA1 pyramidal cell dendritic spine density may fluctuate during the normal (4-5 d) rat estrous cycle.
Chemical effects of microwave discharges

An introduction to chemical phenomena associated with microwave plasmas is given. Specifically, the generation, the identification, and the reactions of microwave plasma species are discussed. Some applications of microwave plasmas are also presented.
Online public health preparedness training programs: an evaluation of user experience with the technological environment.

Objectives: Several public health education programs and government agencies across the country have started offering virtual or online training programs in emergency preparedness for people who are likely to be involved in managing or responding to different types of emergency situations such as natural disasters, epidemics, bioterrorism, etc. While such online training programs are more convenient and cost-effective than traditional classroom-based programs, their success depends to a great extent on the underlying technological environment. Specifically, in an online technological environment, different types of user experiences come in to play—users’ utilitarian or pragmatic experience, their fun or hedonic experience, their social experience, and most importantly, their usability experience—and these different user experiences critically shape the program outcomes, including course completion rates. This study adopts a multi-disciplinary approach and draws on theories in human computer interaction, distance learning theories, usability research, and online consumer behavior to evaluate users’ experience with the technological environment of an onlinel emergency preparedness training program and discusses its implications for the design of effective online training programs. . Methods: Data was collected using a questionnaire from 377 subjects who had registered for and participated in online public health preparedness training courses offered by a large public university in the Northeast. Results: Analysis of the data indicates that as predicted, participants had higher levels of pragmatic and usability experiences compared to their hedonic and sociability experiences. Results also indicate that people who experienced higher levels of pragmatic, hedonic, sociability and usability experiences were more likely to complete the course(s) they registered for compared to those who reported lower levels. Discussion: The study findings hold important implications for the design of effective online emergency preparedness training targeted at diverse audiences including the general public, health care and public health professionals, and emergency responders. Strategies for improving participants’ pragmatic, hedonic, sociability and usability experiences are outlined. Conclusion: There are ample opportunities to improve the pragmatic, hedonic, sociability and usability experiences of the target audience. This is critical to improve the participants’ learning and retention as well as the completion rates for the courses offered. Online emergency preparedness programs are likely to play a crucial role in preparing emergency responders at all levels in the future and their success has critical implications for public health informatics.
Why cancer at the primary site and in the lymph nodes contributes to the risk of cancer death

BACKGROUND: Cancer at both the primary site and in the lymph nodes is associated with lethality, although the mechanism by which lethality arises from each site has been poorly understood. For breast carcinoma, each positive lymph node contributes an approximately 6% risk of death, and each millimeter of primary tumor greatest dimension contributes approximately 1%; whereas, for melanoma, each positive lymph node contributes an approximately 23% risk, and each millimeter of tumor thickness contributes approximately 8%: This is described by a pair of linked equations, the Size+Nodes method. METHODS: A simple expression, the ProbabilityEstimation equation, which was derived from the authors' binary-biologic model of cancer metastasis, was used to calculate the probabilities of spread of cancer cells from data on tumor size, lymph node status, and death rate. RESULTS: In this report, the authors demonstrated, that when similar masses of cancer are compared, the chance of lethal spread of a cancer cell to the periphery is approximately the same whether the spread emerges from a lymph node or from the primary site. The greater the number of cells at the primary site (tumor size) or the greater the number of cells in the lymph nodes (number of positive lymph nodes), the greater is the aggregate chance that 1 or more cells has undergone a lethal event of spread, a process captured by the Size+Nodes equations. CONCLUSIONS: The lethal contributions of cancer at the primary site and lymph nodes can be explained by a simple mechanical process of the spread of cancer cells occurring with definable probabilities per cell. The presence of cancer in the lymph nodes does not indicate an intrinsic change in a malignancy but, rather, an increased mass of cancer from which spread can emerge. Cancer 2009. © 2009 American Cancer Society.
A Study of Algorithms for Detecting Pulsed Sinusoidal Interference in Microwave Radiometry

The performance of four algorithms for detecting the presence of short pulsed sinusoidal interference in microwave radiometry is compared. The pulsed sinusoidal interference sources considered have unknown frequency, initial phase, amplitude, arrival time, and duration. Statistical properties of three of the algorithms can be determined analytically, although numerical integrations are required in some cases in order to compute the obtained probabilities of detection. The performance of the fourth algorithm was evaluated using Monte Carlo procedures. Results show that three of the algorithms have a performance that is roughly comparable for the cases considered, while the fourth yields reduced sensitivity.
Statistical Modeling of Coupled Shear-Moment Resistance for RC Bridge Girders

Many reinforced concrete bridges are posted or restricted to traffic, and repair or replacement decisions for these bridges involves both economical and safety considerations. To avoid the high costs of unnecessary replacement or repair, safety evaluation should be done with the most accurate methods available. Due to variability in material properties, geometrical properties, and methods of analysis, load carrying capacity evaluation may lead to uncertain outcomes. This paper presents a statistical model for combined shear-moment resistance of conventionally reinforced concrete bridge girders with common vintage design details and properties. New statistical data on stirrup spacing variability were developed from field measurements on in-service deck-girder bridges and these were combined with available data in the literature to model resistance uncertainty. The model offers bias factor and coefficient of variation for combined moment and shear carrying capacity per modified compression field theory. AAS...
On the morphological analysis of binary random fields

Modeling image data by means of random fields and developing statistical techniques for the processing and analysis of these random fields is an important problem in image processing and analysis. We theoretically formulate the problem of processing binary random fields by means of mathematical morphology. This may allow us employ mathematical morphology in order to develop new statistical techniques for the processing and analysis of random shapes modeled as binary random fields. Since morphological transformations of continuous space binary random fields are not measurable in general, we employ intermediate steps which require generation of an equivalent random closed set. The relationship between binary random fields and random closed sets is thoroughly investigated. As a by-product of this investigation, a number of useful new results, regarding separability of random closed sets, are presented.
Male Sex Drive and the Maintenance of Sex: Evidence from Drosophila

The resolution of the paradoxes surrounding the evolutionary origins and maintenance of sexual reproduction has been a major focus in biology. The operation of sexual selection—which is very common among multicellular organisms—has been proposed as an important factor in the maintenance of sex, though in order for this hypothesis to hold, the strength of sexual selection must be stronger in males than in females. Sexual selection poses its own series of evolutionary questions, including how genetic variability is maintained in the face of sustained directional selection (known as the ‘‘paradox of the lek’’). In this short review, we present evidence obtained from recent comparative genomics projects arguing that 1) the genomic consequences of sexual selection clearly show that its effect is stronger in males and 2) this sustained selection over evolutionary timescales also has an effect of capturing de novo genes and expression patterns influencing male fitness, thus providing a mechanism via which new genetic variation can be input into to male traits. Furthermore, we argue that this latter process of genomic ‘‘masculinization’’ has an additional effect of making males difficult to purge from populations, as evidence from Drosophila indicates that, for example, many male sexually selected seminal fluid factors are required to ensure maximally efficient reproduction. Newly arising parthenogenic mutations would suffer an immediate reproductive rate disadvantage were these proteins lost. We show that recent studies confirm that genomic masculinization, as a result of ‘‘male sex drive,’’ has important consequences for the evolution of sexually dimorphic species.
Relationships among achievement goal motivation, impulsivity, and the music practice of collegiate brass and woodwind players

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate relationships between observed practice behaviors consistent with conceptions of deliberate practice (Lehmann & Ericsson, 1997) and the performa...
Detection of promoter hypermethylation in salivary rinses as a biomarker for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma surveillance

Purpose: Hypermethylation of tumor suppressor gene promoters has been found in head and neck squamous carcinoma (HNSCC) and other solid tumors. We evaluated these alterations in pre-treatment salivary rinses from HNSCC patients using real-time quantitative MSP (Q-MSP). Experimental Design: Pre-treatment saliva DNA samples from HNSCC patients were evaluated for patterns of hypermethylation using Q-MSP. Target tumor suppressor gene promoter regions were selected based on a previous study describing a screening panel for HNSCC in a high risk population subjects. The selected genes were: DAPK, DCC, MINT-31, TIMP-3, p16, MGMT, CCNA1. Results: We analyzed the panel in a cohort of 61 HNSCC patients. Thirty-three of the analyzed patients (54.1%) demonstrated methylation of at least one of the selected genes in the saliva DNA. Pre-treatment methylated saliva DNA was not significantly associated with tumor site (p=0.209) nor clinical stage (p=0.299). However, local disease control and overall survival were significantly lower in patients presenting hypermethylation in saliva rinses (p=0.010 and p=0.015, respectively). Multivariate analysis confirmed that this hypermethylation pattern remained as an independent prognostic factor for local recurrence (HR=12.2; 95%CI=1.8-80.6; p=0.010) and overall survival (HR=2.8; 95%CI=1.2-6.5; p=0.016). Conclusions: We were able to confirm an elevated rate of promoter hypermethylation in HNSCC patients9 saliva using a panel of gene promoters previously described as methylated specifically in HNSCC. Detection of hypermethylation in pre-treatment saliva DNA appears to be predictive of local recurrence and overall survival. This finding has potential to influence treatment and surveillance of HNSCC patients.
Bootstrapped ordination: a method for estimating sampling effects in indirect gradient analysis

Indirect gradient analysis, or ordination, is primarily a method of exploratory data analysis. However, to support biological interpretations of resulting axes as vegetation gradients, or later confirmatory analyses and statistical tests, these axes need to be stable or at least robust into minor sampling effects. We develop a computer-intensive bootstrap (resampling) approach to estimate sampling effects on solutions from nonlinear ordination. We apply this approach to simulated data and to three forest data sets from North Carolina, USA and examine the resulting patterns of local and global instability in detrended correspondence analysis (DCA) solutions. We propose a bootstrap coefficient, scaled rank variance (SRV), to estimate remaining instability in species ranks after rotating axes to a common global orientation. In analysis of simulated data, bootstrap SRV was generally consistent with an equivalent estimate from repeated sampling. In an example using field data SRV, bootstrapped DCA showed good recovery of the order of common species along the first two axes, but poor recovery of later axes. We also suggest some criteria to use with the SRV to decide how many axes to retain and attempt to interpret.
Visions of a more precise soil biology

Summary Soils have often been viewed as a black box. Soil biology is difficult to study with the precision we would wish, due to the presence of considerable soil heterogeneity, a huge diversity of organisms, and a plethora of interacting processes taking place in a complex physical-chemical environment. We have isolated a tiny fraction of the known organisms, and the possible interactions of soil parent materials, landscape, land use, depth and time with the biota mean that we are to some extent still fumbling in the dark. There have been great advances, but we argue that the pace of advance could be faster. To progress, science needs new theory and concepts but also acceptable methodologies. Coherent and generally accepted theoretical knowledge exists in many areas, but there is a shortage of valid and exact methods to test new and sometimes even old hypotheses. New methods add knowledge, but they also can add to the confusion if they are not tied to the existing knowledge base. We speculate on how to improve soil biology through improving the way we perform and interpret research. Can we deal with soil variability? Can we measure the critical variables with adequate precision to test our hypotheses? Can we avoid reinventing the wheel? Can we find a balance between the freedom to test new and maybe even controversial ideas and the control and direction of research required by society?
How the iPhone became divine: new media, religion and the intertextual circulation of meaning

This article explores the labeling of the iPhone as the ‘Jesus phone’ in order to demonstrate how religious metaphors and myth can be appropriated into popular discourse and shape the reception of a technology. We consider the intertextual nature of the relationship between religious language, imagery and technology and demonstrate how this creates a unique interaction between technology fans and bloggers, news media and even corporate advertising. Our analysis of the ‘Jesus phone’ clarifies how different groups may appropriate the language and imagery of another to communicate very different meanings and intentions. Intertextuality serves as a framework to unpack the deployment of religion to frame technology and meanings communicated. We also reflect on how religious language may communicate both positive and negative aspects of a technology and instigate an unintentional trajectory in popular discourse as it is employed by different audiences, both online and offline.
On the Organizational Question

I agree with the claim that there is no such thing as a structureless group that persists for any length of time. There is also no such thing as a protest movement that masters the basic tasks of c...
Measuring the effects of internet path faults on reactive routing

Empirical evidence suggests that reactive routing systems improve resilience to Internet path failures. They detect and route around faulty paths based on measurements of path performance. This paper seeks to understand why and under what circumstances these techniques are effective.To do so, this paper correlates end-to-end active probing experiments, loss-triggered traceroutes of Internet paths, and BGP routing messages. These correlations shed light on three questions about Internet path failures: (1) Where do failures appear? (2) How long do they last? (3) How do they correlate with BGP routing instability?Data collected over 13 months from an Internet testbed of 31 topologically diverse hosts suggests that most path failures last less than fifteen minutes. Failures that appear in the network core correlate better with BGP instability than failures that appear close to end hosts. On average, most failures precede BGP messages by about four minutes, but there is often increased BGP traffic both before and after failures. Our findings suggest that reactive routing is most effective between hosts that have multiple connections to the Internet. The data set also suggests that passive observations of BGP routing messages could be used to predict about 20% of impending failures, allowing re-routing systems to react more quickly to failures.
Mobile Data Management - A Dozen Years Later

In 1999 I had the honor of presenting a Keynote talk entitled "Databases Unplugged: Challenges in Ubiquitous Data Management" at the inaugural MDM conference in Hong Kong. In that talk I spoke about the anticipated ubiquity of mobile devices and mobile applications and predicted some of the data management research challenges that could be foreseen from this sea change in the computational landscape. My views at the time were in sync with the influential Asilomar Report on Database Research [1], published in 1998, to which I contributed. The Asilomar report featured mobile devices as a "major driver" for the data management research agenda and predicted that "In ten years, billions of people will be using the Web, but a trillion "gizmos" will also be connected to the Web." Despite this optimism, The research agenda I described in my MDM talk [2] was driven in many ways by what I saw as the expected limitations of the mobile environment. Among these were: intermittent connectivity, poor battery life, and low-function user interfaces. Thus, my expectation was that technologies such as synchronization and conflict resolution, broadcast-based data dissemination, micro-kernel database systems and context-aware prefetching were technologies that would play a central role in making such devices usable as data management platforms. Rolling the clock forward twelve years, it appears that the Asilomar prediction of the number of connected devices was overly optimistic by about 3 orders of magnitude, and the technical limitations I was concerned about were substantially mitigated by tremendous innovation in mobile devices and mobile user interfaces as well as massive global investment in wireless infrastructure. On the other hand, we were both right about the huge impact of mobile computing on the way people acquire, interact with, and share information, and the fact that the ubiquity of such devices would have profound implications for data management. Undeterred by the paper trail outlined above, in this talk I plan to survey the state of the mobile data management field as it stands twelve years later. I'll review progress in areas such as sensor networks, integration with cloud computing, and location-based services. I'll also discuss what I see as a fundamental game changer brought about by mobile technology the closer integration of people into the entire data management lifecycle [3]. Social computing, crowd sourcing, and hyper-personalization are examples of ways in which the personalized nature of mobile devices is changing the way that we interact with information. I'll argue that such human-centric concerns will cause a rethinking of systems architectures and their components, and will require new ways of thinking about query processing, data quality and data-intensive applications. And if I get to do this again in 2023, we'll see how that turns out.
Instrument Psychometrics: Parental Satisfaction and Quality Indicators of Perinatal Palliative Care.

Abstract Background: Despite a life-limiting fetal diagnosis, prenatal attachment often occurs in varying degrees resulting in role identification by an individual as a parent. Parents recognize quality care and report their satisfaction when interfacing with health care providers. Objective: The aim was to test an instrument measuring parental satisfaction and quality indicators with parents electing to continue a pregnancy after learning of a life-limiting fetal diagnosis. Methods: A cross sectional survey design gathered data using a computer-mediated platform. Subjects were parents (n=405) who opted to continue a pregnancy affected by a life-limiting diagnosis. Factor analysis using principal component analysis with Varimax rotation was used to validate the instrument, evaluate components, and summarize the explained variance achieved among quality indicator items. The Prenatal Scale was reduced to 37 items with a three-component solution explaining 66.19% of the variance and internal consistency reli...
Prediction and Effects of Material Damage During Deformation Processing

Conventional deformation processes such as rolling, forging, wire drawing, and extrusion are continually being supplemented by newer processes like power spinning. Alloy designers are producing new and tougher materials at an accelerating rate. At the same time, there is a demand for improved product reliability at reduced costs through the use of higher speed continuous processes. The metal fabricator is therefore continually forced to reassess and readjust his processing practices. He can no longer enjoy the historical luxury of a completely empirical approach to the development of a new processing schedule with only minor extrapolations from known practices, but must use guide lines that at least limit the range of process variations to be considered.
Responses to efferent activation and excitatory response-intensity relations of turtle posterior-crista afferents.

Multivariate statistical formulas were used to infer the morphological type and longitudinal position of extracellularly recorded afferents. Efferent fibers were stimulated electrically in the nerv...
Thermalization of an Open Quantum System Via Full Diagonalization

Thermalization, the irreversible relaxation of a system to thermodynamic equilibrium, ultimately arises from the reversible dynamics of many-body quantum systems. Weakly coupling a small system to a large many-body quantum system (heat bath) results in the equilibration of the small system to the Boltzmann distribution. We solve numerically, using full diagonalization, a model in which a small system is coupled to a large quantum system, and retrieve the thermodynamic behavior from the underlying quantum mechanics. We discuss the mechanism of thermalization, and the applications of our simulation for exploring the behavior of damped quantum systems.
Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) for Safer Conception Among Serodifferent Couples: Findings from Healthcare Providers Serving Patients with HIV in Seven US Cities

Abstract Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) can reduce the risk of HIV transmission among serodifferent couples trying to conceive, yet provider knowledge, attitudes, and experience utilizing PrEP for this purpose are largely unexamined. Trained interviewers conducted phone interviews with healthcare providers treating patients with HIV in seven cities (Atlanta, Baltimore, Houston, Kansas City, Newark, Philadelphia, and San Francisco, N = 85 total). Quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed to describe experience, concerns, and perceived barriers to prescribing PrEP for safer conception. Providers (67.1% female, 43 mean years of age, 70.4% white, 10 mean years treating HIV+ patients, 56% in academic vs. community facilities, 62.2% MD) discussed both benefits and concerns of PrEP for safer conception among serodifferent couples. Only 18.8% of providers reported experience prescribing PrEP, 74.2% were willing to prescribe it under ideal circumstances, and 7.0% were not comfortable prescribing PrEP. Benef...
Increased lipid levels but unchanged atherogenic index in rheumatoid arthritis patients treated with biologic disease modifying antirheumatic drugs: published experience.

Background Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a major cause of increased mortality in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients, and it is recommended to treat risk factors for CVD in RA patients aggressively, including increased lipid levels. However, the effect of biological disease modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARD) on the lipid profile of RA patients remains under-researched, and what data exist are often contradictory. Objectives To review available data published to date on lipid profile changes in RA patients treated with biologic DMARDs. Methods We searched the PubMed database without time limits until January 31, 2008 for original clinical trials regarding the effect of biological DMARDs on the lipid profiles of RA patients, tabulating total cholesterol, LDL, HDL and atherogenic index (ratio of total cholesterol to HDL) data for RA patients treated with biologic DMARDs. Percent change values from baseline to end of study were calculated. Results Eighteen studies fulfilled our inclusion criteria. The total cholesterol levels of patients treated with biological DMARDs was reported to increase in eleven studies (mean change 14.8%). One study reported a decrease (change 4.07%), and six reported no significant change. In HDL levels, nine studies reported increases (mean change 13.1 %), two reported decreases (mean change 8.69%) and six reported no significant changes. Five studies reported an increase in LDL levels (mean change 11.2%), no studies reported a decrease, and six studies reported no significant change. The atherogenic index was reported to increase in two studies (mean change 4.27%), decrease in two studies (mean change 7.26%), and not significantly change in nine studies. Only a third of the reviewed articles reported on the LDL/HDL ratio, but of those that did, two reported an increase (mean change 4.55%), one reported a decrease (change 8.03%), and three reported no significant changes. Discussion Our data suggest increases in lipid levels between baseline and end of study in clinical trials of RA patients treated with biologic DMARDs. However, the clinical implications of this finding with regard to cardiovascular outcomes are not clear in part due to the fact that in most of the studies the atherogenic index was not significantly changed from baseline to end of study. Those studies that do provide data on effects on cholesterol rarely provide information on the complete lipid profile.
Spatial ILC for Multi-Objective Systems

Iterative learning control is an adaptive, feedforward control technique traditionally used to improve the performance of systems that execute a task repetitively. While generally applied to systems driven by temporal dynamics, there exist applications, such as additive manufacturing, for which spatial dynamics play a particularly important role in determining system behavior. To ensure high fidelity functionality for these application spaces, this paper presents a spatial learning framework for optimizing multiple performance metrics simultaneously. Utilizing a one-step optimization approach enables direct evaluation of design trade-offs over a broad range of potential solutions. The multi-objective spatial learning framework, along with stability and convergence analysis is presented. Simulation results validate the control framework.Copyright © 2014 by ASME
Using a Health Behavior Model to Inform Understanding of Therapy Engagement in Child Therapy A Qualitative Study

The present study assessed the potential of a health behavior model used to explain adherence to treatment for chronic illnesses, the Integrative Behavioral Prediction Model (IBPM), to better under...
Welfare and psychological distress : a longitudinal study of African American urban mothers

This paper examines the psychological impact of receiving welfare. The prospective longitudinal data are from a cohort of African American mothers (N = 833). Four explanations structured the analyses: social selection; chronic burdens; a failure hypothesis; and earlier life conditions of welfare recipients. Psychological distress was assessed by women's reports of depressed and anxious moods. Women were categorized into one of four welfare conditions by receipt of welfare when their children were first-graders and 10 years later. Concurrent and longitudinal relationships existed between the women's welfare status and reports of psychological distress. Welfare recipients had more chronic burdens--including perceived ill health--which helped to explain these relationships. Measures of failure did not "explain'' the greater psychological distress. Women who grew up receiving welfare were more likely to report psychological distress and lower self-esteem later in life. The women's education influenced welfare and physical and psychological well-being.
Removing the Label of “Jiānyǔ(兼语) Sentence Patterns” from Mandarin Grammar:The Construction-Chunk Approach to an Alternative

The traditional view of labeling certain syntactic structures as "Jiānyǔ(兼语) Sentence Patterns" has serious theoretical flaws,rendering it incapable of recognizing the related syntactic constructions and underlying linguistic rules.This study presents an incisive analysis on the theoretical weaknesses of this view;and proposes that the label of "Jiānyǔ(兼语) Sentence Patterns" should be removed from mandarin grammar.By implementing the construction-chunk approach,this paper introduces an alternative,demonstrating that the so-called "Jiānyǔ(兼语)" sentences,some "double object sentences" and some "verb-predicate sentences with subject-predicate phase used as an object" are indeed seven deferent constructions: Request Construction,Causative Relation Construction,Action Permission Construction,Quality Judgment Construction,Position Explanation Construction,Action Collaboration Construction,and a subtype of Existential Construction.
Research on the Internet of Things Security Threats and Countermeasures

This article describes the security threat of things presented from a technical level and management level responses and protection methods, and effectively protect the safety of things.
Quasicycles in the stochastic hybrid Morris-Lecar neural model

Intrinsic noise arising from the stochastic opening and closing of voltage-gated ion channels has been shown experimentally and mathematically to have important effects on a neuron's function. Study of classical neuron models with stochastic ion channels is becoming increasingly important, especially in understanding a cell's ability to produce subthreshold oscillations and to respond to weak periodic stimuli. While it is known that stochastic models can produce oscillations (quasicycles) in parameter regimes where the corresponding deterministic model has only a stable fixed point, little analytical work has been done to explore these connections within the context of channel noise. Using a stochastic hybrid Morris-Lecar (ML) model, we combine a system-size expansion in K(+) and a quasi-steady-state (QSS) approximation in persistent Na(+) in order to derive an effective Langevin equation that preserves the low-dimensional (planar) structure of the underlying deterministic ML model. (The QSS analysis exploits the fact that persistent Na(+) channels are fast.) By calculating the corresponding power spectrum, we determine analytically how noise significantly extends the parameter regime in which subthreshold oscillations occur.
Detrusor-Sphincter Dyssynergia

We followed 62 patients with complete suprasacral spinal cord injuries and detrusor-sphincter dyssynergia for at least 2 years. The patients were evaluated urodynamically at regular intervals and 50 per cent were subjected to external sphincterotomy, after which they were compared for the presence of bacteriuria and upper urinary tract changes. Patients on prolonged intermittent catheterization did as well as those who achieved balanced bladder function as a result of sphincterotomy.
Modeling bone mineral metabolism, with special reference to calcium and lead.

Realistic modeling of lead kinetics requires both qualitative and quantitative understanding of bone metabolism. In this paper, bone metabolism is discussed based on the behavior of Ca, Sr, and Ra tracers. Apposition, the increase of mineral volume, is the chief feature of bone metabolism in the neonatal and young animal. Resorption, which together with apposition functions to model the growing skeleton, is also important during growth. In adulthood, with stabilization of the total bone mass, resorption balances apposition at a relatively low level. This continuing low-level resorption/apposition remodeling process maintains healthy bone and restructures the bone in response to changing functional demands. In addition to these processes, surface exchange and diffuse exchange occur in bone
My Friends Are My Estate: Friendship Experiences Mediate the Relationship Between Perceived Responses to Capitalization Attempts and Happiness

Emerging adults share the positive events in their lives with their friends, a process that is related to higher levels of happiness when they perceive their friends’ responses as more positive and less negative. What might explain this association? The four studies (N = 2997) in this research tested the proposal that positive friendship experiences mediate the relationship between perceived responses to capitalization attempts (PRCA) and happiness. Study 1 showed that same-sex friendship quality mediated the relationship between PRCA and happiness. Study 2 supported the model for cross-sex friendships. Study 3 tested the generalizability of the model for the immediate social network of emerging adults and showed that the model was only applicable to best friendships. Study 4 documented that satisfaction of basic psychological needs in a same-sex friendship was another mediator of the PRCA-happiness link. Although the friendship experiences and PRCA scores of women were higher compared to men in every study, the associations of PRCA with friendship experiences and happiness were generally similar and the model was supported for both men and women. The implications of the findings were discussed and suggestions for future research were provided.
Ontological Categorisation and Mereology

In Chapter 1, I provided a consideration of some attempts that have been made to understand complex human behaviour in both a quantitative and qualitative sense. In this chapter this understanding is enhanced by drawing upon research within the areas of philosophy, metaphysics, ontology, mereology, neuroscience, psychology and selected others. The pervasive human characteristic or predisposition of making and using categories of objects and events is considered. I review how categories are employed as a means to allow the simplification of the perceptual process, and the way in which animals (both human and non-human) understand their worlds. Facet theory and the mapping sentence are defined as category analysis procedures.
Ethics of Urban Agriculture

In as much as ethics are based on questions of how to live well, what should be of concern (and of ultimate concern), and the quality of relationships between subjects, it will involve considerations of the ways in which food mediates how we live in relation to others, our local ecologies, and the agricultural areas and farming practices upon which we depend. An ethics of urban agriculture should offer guidance about food as a system of complex, intimate, and interdependent relationships rather than as a simple product, object, or thing. After providing an overview of how environmental philosophers have and have not addressed food-related ethics, this chapter argues that urban agriculture provides an important “focal practice” for reflection, solidarity, and deliberation with others about the larger ecological and social systems upon which we depend.
A 15-year study of the association between dominance rank and reproductive success of male rhesus macaques

The reproductive success (RS) of 32 males in a captive group of rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) between 1978 and 1992 was determined using paternity exclusion analysis. Dominance rank of each male over age 4 was assessed at the end of each breeding season based on agonistic dyadic interactions. The dominance rank and RS of these males were strongly correlated whether or not subadult males were included. The high reproductive success of males that eventually reached alpha rank is primarily responsible for this outcome. These results support the theory that social dominance has evolved in genusMacaca by sexual selection but some changes in male dominance rank and RS during the 15-year period suggest that priority of access is not the sole focus for such selection.
TransFormers for lunar extreme environments: Large origami deployable solar reflectors

The TransFormers for Lunar Extreme Environments Project is a NIAC study, whose purpose is to determine the design requirements for powering robotic exploration in Shackleton Crater's 70K, permanently shaded interior, using sunlight reflected from the crater's rim. An analysis of the optimum placement of two vertically collinear reflectors suggests that placement atop a 300m deployable support structure would be sufficient to provide year round illumination to points of interest in the crater below. In order to provide the 300W/m2 of sunlight necessary for the robots to operate, each solar reflector must unfold to over 1000m2 of reflective surface area, have over 95% long term directional reflectivity in the visible regime, and be flat within 1mm/m of deviation. Each reflector must also stow to less than 1m3 in volume, have less than 100kg of mass, and be less than 1mm thick. Two classes of origami crease patterns have been developed that will allow a 25μm thick aluminized biaxially-oriented polyethylene terephthalate solar reflector with 95% visible reflectivity, to be stowed within a cylinder 1m tall, 1m in diameter, with a mass of 35kg, and with up to 0.71m3 volume to spare in the center for other components. Each class of origami crease pattern can be deployed from their perimeter by an attached inflatable thermoplastic torus that heats up during deployment to maintain flexibility and cools to maintain rigidity afterward. The remainder of the 1m3 volume will be allocated to the inflatable deployment mechanism, electronics, and the deployable support structure. In order to maintain flatness, carbon fiber fabric tapes would run along the load bearing paths opposite of the reflective surface. Simulations of an elliptic solar reflector under lunar gravity show that a single carbon fiber fabric tape 40cm wide that spans the length of the reflector is sufficient to maintain the required flatness. Future work includes simulating the deployment of the solar reflectors with their support structure, building and testing larger scale prototypes, and performing field tests in relevant environments.
Second screen effects: Linking multiscreen media use to television engagement and incidental learning

Television (TV) audiences are increasingly using portable communication technologies to multitask, look up information online, check social network sites, and comment on the programs being watched....
Tracking Hole Transport in DNA Hairpins Using a Phenylethynylguanine Nucleobase.

The hole transport dynamics of DNA hairpins possessing a stilbene electron acceptor and donor along with a modified guanine (G) nucleobase, specifically 8-(4′-phenylethynyl)deoxyguanosine, or EG, have been investigated. The nearly indistinguishable oxidation potentials of EG and G and unique spectroscopic characteristics of EG+• make it well-suited for directly observing transient hole occupation during charge transport between a stilbene electron donor and acceptor. In contrast to the cation radical G+•, EG+• possesses a strong absorption near 460 nm and has a distinct Raman-active ethynyl stretch. Both spectroscopic characteristics are easily distinguished from those of the stilbene donor/acceptor radical ion chromophores. Employing EG, we observe its role as a shallow hole trap, or as an intermediate hole transport site when a deeper trap state is present. Using a combination of ultrafast absorption and stimulated Raman spectroscopies, the hole-transport dynamics are observed to be similar in systems h...
Transient Energy Efficiency Analysis of Field Oriented Induction Machines

An open loop control law for stator $d$ - and $q$ -axis currents in a rotor field oriented induction machine are derived in the form of analytical functions of time and used to study how energy losses during speed transients can be minimized. The trajectories due to the developed functions are inspired by the numerical solution of the induction machine optimal control problem. It is found that transient energy efficiency of the machine depends primarily on the initial rotor flux at the beginning of the transient interval. The influences of change in the rotor speed, rotor moment of inertia, and rotor time constant on optimal transient energy efficiency are analyzed and results are discussed.
Administrative corruption and its effects on Russian entrepreneurs: a regional aspect

This study analyzes how administrative corruption on the part of regulatory agencies in Russia impacts entrepreneurial employment at the regional level. The combination of spatial regression analys...
Recovery of butanol from Clostridium beijerinckii P260 fermentation broth by supercritical CO2 extraction

BACKGROUND Butanol is a superior biofuel to ethanol because of its blend properties and higher energy density. However, its recovery by distillation from the fermentation broth is energy intensive. For this reason, butanol recovery by supercritical CO2 extraction from simulated and actual fermentation broths was studied. Recovery of butanol by this technique has numerous advantages including being environmentally favorable, avoiding use of costly chemicals or membranes, and compatible with the microbial culture. RESULTS For the model solution extraction process, feed contained 7.00, 12.00, and 1.00 g L−1 acetone, butanol, ethanol (ABE), respectively, to mimic the actual concentrations obtained in the fermentation broth. In the extract phase, butanol concentration obtained ranged from 460.4 to 573.2 g L−1 with butanol selectivities ranging from 128 to 204.8. ABE recovery was also successfully demonstrated using actual fermentation broth of C. beijerinckii P260. CONCLUSION Supercritical CO2 extraction was successfully used for recovery of all three (ABE) components. Fermentation broth raffinate (feed depleted in ABE after recovery) was also reused for a second fermentation thus allowing process water recycle. Published 2017. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.