cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Bursty data over CDMA: MAI self similarity, rate control and admission control

We study bursty data communications in the downlink in code division multiple access (CDMA) systems. We first present a new model that simultaneously takes into account the traffic burstiness and time-varying fading for studying the multi-access interference (MAI), and characterize the MAI from a stochastic process perspective. This new approach enables us to understand the temporal correlation structure. Our finding reveals that the MAI exhibits scale-invariant burstiness and is "self similar" across multiple time scales. The MAI self similarity indicates the existence of a nontrivial predictive MAI structure, which we exploit to conduct resource allocation for interference management. In particular, we utilize the MAI temporal structure to construct a multiple time-scale interference predictor, which is used to predict the MAI level. Rate adaptation is then carried out based on the predicted MAI. Our results show that this rate control scheme achieves better performance than that of the packet-level predictor, and can yield significant performance gain. We also devise a joint rate control and admission control scheme. Specifically, observation time windows are divided into slots, and rate control based on interference prediction is conducted in each slot. Then, the corresponding throughput in each observation window is used for admission control. We also investigate the impact of feedback delay and data burstiness on the system performance.
Diabetes mellitus in the era of proteomics.

Diabetes mellitus is a disease that has been known to exist for thousands of years and that afflicts 6% of the population. Because of its prevalence, chronicity, and propensity to cause end-organ damage, diabetes and its complications engenders about 100 billion dollars in health care costs each year in the United States. Most individuals with diabetes have type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). 1 These patients may have elevated, normal, or slightly decreased insulin levels. They have variable degrees of insulin resistance, in association with an inability of the beta cell to compensate for this resistance, and are not ketosisprone under basal conditions. The age of onset of this disease is usually after age 40 but it often also occurs at age 20 or 30, or even at a younger age. Most, but not all, individuals with this form of diabetes are obese. Many also have hypertension, hyperlipidemia, heart disease, and peripheral vascular disease, exhibiting the so-called dysmetabolic syndrome. Furthermore, with the aging of our population and as a consequence of sedentary life styles, the incidence of T2DM will continue to increase. Alarmingly, T2DM is also afflicting younger individuals more frequently than ever before, and this progression into the youthful segment of the population is independent of a specific type of diabetes termed maturity onset diabetes of the young or MODY. Thus, MODY is distinct from T2DM and represents, instead, an interesting group of monogenic forms of diabetes in which specific genetic alterations have been clearly delineated (1). Another major form of diabetes mellitus is type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM). These patients frequently have very low or undetectable insulin levels, are dependent on exogenous insulin for survival, and are ketosis-prone. The onset of the disease usually occurs before age 20, but may occur at any age. This review will focus on the molecular alterations in T2DM and on several findings in cell lines and in animal models of diabetes that are based on proteomics-driven technology. TYPE 2 DIABETES MELLITUS
Symptomatic vasospasm diagnosis after subarachnoid hemorrhage: evaluation of transcranial Doppler ultrasound and cerebral angiography as related to compromised vascular distribution.

ObjectiveTo evaluate the reliability of transcranial Doppler ultrasound in detecting symptomatic vasospasm in patients after aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage and monitoring response after hypertensive and endovascular treatments.DesignRetrospective chart review.SettingNeurosciences critical care u
Participant characteristics and the effects of two types of meditation vs. quiet sitting

Randomly assigned 61 undergraduate volunteers to Clinically Standardized Meditation (CSM), quiet sitting (SIT), or wait list' and 19 others to Open Focus (OF) or wait list2. Ss were tested before training and again 8 weeks later. All groups but wait list2 decreased significantly on Spielberger's trait anxiety. All groups became nonsignificantly more internal on Rotter's locus of control. On the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, meditation volunteers were more introverted than extraverted, intuitive than sensing, feeling than thinking, and perceiving than judging. All groups became more intuitive, approaching signicance for CSM only. OF became significantly more extraverted than both CSM and SIT, and CSM significantly more so than wait list'. Practice time correlated with anxiety reduction for the combined treatment groups. More evidence was found for correlations of practice time and outcome with growth motivation than with either new experience motivation or expectancy of benefit.
Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors, metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular disease

Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a constellation of risk factors including insulin resistance, central obesity, dyslipidemia and hypertension that markedly increase the risk of Type 2 diabetes (T2DM) and cardiovascular disease (CVD). The peroxisome proliferators-activated receptor (PPAR) isotypes, PPARα, PPARδ/s and PPARγ are ligand-activated nuclear transcription factors, which modulate the expression of an array of genes that play a central role in regulating glucose, lipid and cholesterol metabolism, where imbalance can lead to obesity, T2DM and CVD. They are also drug targets, and currently, PPARα (fibrates) and PPARγ (thiazolodinediones) agonists are in clinical use for treating dyslipidemia and T2DM, respectively. These metabolic characteristics of the PPARs, coupled with their involvement in metabolic diseases, mean extensive efforts are underway worldwide to develop new and efficacious PPAR-based therapies for the treatment of additional maladies associated with the MetS. This article presents an overview of the functional characteristics of three PPAR isotypes, discusses recent advances in our understanding of the diverse biological actions of PPARs, particularly in the vascular system, and summarizes the developmental status of new single, dual, pan (multiple) and partial PPAR agonists for the clinical management of key components of MetS, T2DM and CVD. It also summarizes the clinical outcomes from various clinical trials aimed at evaluating the atheroprotective actions of currently used fibrates and thiazolodinediones.
Men at the heart of mothering: finding mother in Finding Nemo

After years of perpetuating myths of the subservient, ever-cheerful woman (or killing a maternal figure off at the start of a movie), Disney explored new ground in its blockbuster, Finding Nemo. Building on previous Disney critique by Elizabeth Bell and others, I argue that this film provides an expanded notion of who ‘mother’ is and what ‘mothering’ means. Firstly, I provide a brief review of social ‘mothering’, summarizing maternal functions as discussed by various feminist scholars. Secondly, I create a typology that assists our understanding of how Disney traditionally defines mothering in its discourse. Using elements of this typology, I then explore the ways in which Marlin, the father in Nemo, is engaged in mothering. Finally, I discuss the potential impact on viewers of portraying men as mothers and what has occurred in Disney films post-Nemo with regards to images of mothering.
Quantifying the Influence of Ground Motion Duration on Structural Collapse Capacity Using Spectrally Equivalent Records

This study examines the influence of ground motion duration on the collapse capacities of a modern five-story steel moment frame and a reinforced concrete bridge pier. The effect of duration is iso...
Social‐cognitive correlates of adjustment to prostate cancer

This study examined whether social support might enhance health-related quality of life in men (n=89) treated for localized prostate cancer by improving their ability to cognitively process their cancer experience. Data were collected using two, structured in-person interviews and abstracting medical records. The baseline interview was within several months (T1) after treatment for cancer, and follow-up was 3 months later (T2). Most men (61.8%) were treated by radical prostatectomy. Results showed that T1 social support was positively related to T2 mental functioning, and this relation appeared to be mediated by T1 indicators of cognitively processing, intrusive thoughts and searching for meaning. These findings suggest that supportive social relations may improve mental functioning by helping men cognitively process their prostate cancer experience.
Beyond translation: the renal phosphate census. Focus on “Large-scale phosphoproteomic analysis of membrane proteins in renal proximal and distal tubule”

the addition of a single phosphate group to a protein can cause dramatic and varied changes in its function: it can change an ion channel's open probability ([31][1]), trigger the activation of an entire signaling cascade ([17][2]), or cause a protein to translocate to the cell surface ([30][3]).
The Sociocultural Context of Mexican-Origin Pregnant Adolescents’ Attitudes Toward Teen Pregnancy and Links to Future Outcomes

Given the negative developmental risks associated with adolescent motherhood, it is important to examine the sociocultural context of adolescent mothers’ lives to identify those most at risk for poor outcomes. Our goals were to identify profiles of Mexican-origin pregnant adolescents’ cultural orientations and their attitudes toward teen pregnancy, and to investigate how these profiles were linked to adolescents’ pregnancy intentions, family resources, and short-term family, educational, and parenting outcomes. With a sample of 205 Mexican-origin adolescent mothers, we identified three profiles based on cultural orientations and attitudes toward teen pregnancy: Bicultural-Moderate Attitudes, Acculturated-Moderate Attitudes, and Enculturated-Low Attitudes. The results indicated that enculturated pregnant adolescents had the least favorable attitudes toward teen pregnancy, and the lowest levels of family income, pregnancy intentions, pregnancy support, and educational expectations compared to acculturated and bicultural pregnant adolescents; acculturated adolescents (with the highest family income and high levels of pregnancy support) had the highest levels of parenting efficacy 10 months postpartum. Our findings suggest that enculturated adolescent mothers (with less positive attitudes toward teen pregnancy) may benefit from educational support programs and enculturated and bicultural adolescent mothers (with moderately positive attitudes toward teen pregnancy) may benefit from programs to increase parenting efficacy. Such targeted interventions may, in turn, reduce the likelihood of adolescent mothers experiencing negative educational and parenting outcomes.
‘The Institutions and Governance of Economic Reform’1: Theoretical Extensions and Applications

This articls uses the reform of New Zealand's state-owned enterprises from 1984–1995 to highlight two lessons for public sector reform from New Institutional Economics. First, failure to apply agency, property rights and transaction cost theory in tandem can lead to time-consuming pauses and policy shifts in a reform programme. Second, a discriminating alignment between the institutional environment and the regulatory governance structure chosen is crucial for successful privatization in industries characterized by economies of scale, large non-redeployable investments and extremely political output such as telecommunications and electricity.
Affairs and Ephemeral Relations with Lasting Consequences

This chapter extends the notion of Farber’s permanent availability to include couples in committed relationships who become sexually involved with others of either gender. Affairs have been a reality since antiquity. Depending on culture, affairs have been either accepted or punished. Today, in the United States the attitudes have softened, and some scholars even argue that infidelity has its benefits. In general, infidelity anywhere in the world tends to be more harmful to women. In the United States, affairs are often the main reason for termination of marriage, and they are a challenge for marital therapists. This chapter offers affinograph methods of assessment that can help researchers, teachers, and therapists visualize varied manifestations of parallel, sexual relations.
Effect of observation on lower limb prosthesis gait biomechanics: Preliminary results.

Background:The Hawthorne effect, a subcategory of reactivity, causes human behavior to change when under observation. Such an effect may apply to gait variation of persons with prosthetics or orthotics devices.Objectives:This study investigated whether the presence of observers directly affects the gait pattern of users of lower limb prostheses.Study design:Within-subject intervention study.Methods:Primary outcome measures were gait parameters of initial double support time and upper body lateral tilt angle, which were collected with a mobile sensor attached to the subjects’ back. To make subjects feel unwatched, a certain amount of deception was necessary, and two different conditions were created and statistically compared against each other: one in which the subjects were initially unaware of the attention of observers and another one in which the same subjects were aware of a group of observers.Results:Data from two subjects using trans-femoral prosthesis are reported. Findings included a change in st...
Smart Use of Computer-Aided Sperm Analysis (CASA) to Characterize Sperm Motion

Computer-aided s perm a nalysis (CASA) has evolved over the past fifteen years to provide an objective, practical means of measuring and characterizing the v elocity a nd pattern of sperm motion. CASA instruments use video frame-grabber boards to capture multiple images of dozens of spermatozoa as they swim across the microscope’s field of view. The computer digitizes the sperm tracks for real time or later analysis of various motion parameters (reviewed by Boyers et al., 1989; Mortimer, 1997).
Counting the Costs of Acquisitions: Using Cost-Benefit Analysis in a Seminary and University Library

This essay considers how cost-benefit analysis may be used in a small to mid-sized library to identify cost-savings in the acquisitions of monographs. The essay highlights parallel studies conducted at Luther Seminary Library and Bethel University Library which compared prices, discounts, and time costs across a range of vendor types to identify whether searching for the best price per item is cost-effective, and how much this strategy could save yearly in acquisitions. Both libraries found that substantial potential savings were identified through this study.
BK Polyomavirus Tubulointerstitial Nephritis With Urothelial Hyperplasia in a Kidney Transplant

Polyomavirus nephropathy is characterized histopathologically by evidence of viral replication and acute tubular injury with interstitial inflammation, tubulitis, and intranuclear inclusions. Polyomavirus nephropathy typically develops in the kidney transplant as a combination of the unique nature of the transplanted tissue and the immunomodulated status of the patient. We present a case in which a patient had lingering BK viremia and declining kidney function following receipt of lung and kidney transplants. A kidney biopsy was performed, which demonstrated BK polyomavirus tubulointerstitial nephritis, resultant cytopathic changes and tubular/ductal injury, associated urothelial hyperplasia with foci of squamous metaplasia, suspected membranous glomerulopathy, and moderate arterial/arteriolar sclerosis. There was also evidence of more proximal nephron viral involvement, with glomerular parietal epithelium infection and injury present. This case shows impressive BK polyomavirus–associated urothelial hyperplasia in the kidney, which to our knowledge has not been previously illustrated in the literature. There have been numerous studies attempting to show the association of polyomaviruses with the development of carcinoma, and this case report is significant because it is an example of viral-induced changes that are concerning and hold potential for malignant transformation.
An empirical characterization of cellular network performance

With the proliferation of smartphones and the growth of cellular technology (e.g., 4G LTE), individuals are constantly accessing the Internet on the go. But, there is limited understanding of the variation in cellular network performance (i.e., throughput, latency, packet loss) for various wireless service providers. In this paper, we perform an empirical characterization of cellular network performance based on a large scale measurement study of the major wireless service providers in California. We describe the system and software application (CalSPEED) used to measure various network parameters such as TCP download/upload throughput, latency and packet loss for the different wireless service providers. Six rounds of measurement are conducted for a period of approximately three years in California, (referred to as field tests) starting from spring 2012. During each field test, personnel drove with mobile clients to different parts of the state and collected data by executing the software. Data is collected over approximately 1500 locations in the state during each field test1. Our data analysis demonstrates quantitatively that i) cellular network performance varies considerably with location and is poor overall — a large number of locations in our study report low network throughput, high latency and high loss rates ii) all cellular providers are not the same — network performance varies considerably among the different providers iii) on average, cellular network performance is improving over time iv) cellular network performance depends on a number of factors such as download/upload, server location and type of device used.
The effect of leukopenia (by nitrogen mustard) and reticulo-endothelial blockade (by thorium dioxide) on tuberculin cutaneous sensitivity.

Received for publication June 10, 1953. This investigation was supported in part by a research grant from the National Microbiological Institute of the National Institutes of Health, Public Health Service. 1. Enders, J. F. 1929, Anaphylactic shock with the partial antigen of the tubercle bacillus. J. Exper. Med. 50: 777-786. 2. Lewis, J. O. H. and Seibert, F. B. 1931, The chemical composition of the active principle of tuberculin: the anaphylactogenic action of the protein from the filtrates of acid fast bacteria. J. Immunol. 20: 201-220. 3. Middlebrook, G. and Freund, J. 1952, The Mycobacteria, in Dubos, R. J. ed., Bacterial and Mycotic Infections of Man, ed. 2, Philadelphia, Lippincott, pp. 324-357. 4. Coca, A. F. and Grove, E. E. 1925, Studies in hypersensitiveness: a study of the atopic reagins. J. Immunol. 10: 445-464. 5. Lurie, M. B. 1950, Native and acquired resistance to tuberculosis. Am. J. Med. 9: 591610.
Aligning Transactional Attributes and Organizational Design

This paper provides three contributions to the extant research literature on collective action problems. First, we join the institutional environment (North, 1990) and governance levels (Williamson...
The multicore revolution: the challenges for theory

Computer architecture is undergoing, if not another revolution, then a vigorous shaking-up. The major chip manufacturers have, for the time being, simply given up trying to make processors run faster. Instead, they have recently started shipping "multicore" architectures, in which multiple processors (cores) communicate directly through shared hardware caches, providing increased concurrency instead of increased clock speed. As a result, system designers and software engineers can no longer rely on increasing clock speed to hide software bloat. Instead, they must somehow learn to make effective use of increasing parallelism. This adaptation will not be easy. Conventional synchronization techniques based on locks and conditions are unlikely to be effective in such a demanding environment. Coarse-grained locks, which protect relatively large amounts of data, do not scale, and fine-grained locks introduce substantial software engineering problems. Transactional memory is a computational model in which threads synchronize by optimistic, lockfree transactions. This synchronization model promises to alleviate many (perhaps not all) of the problems associated with locking, and there is a growing community of researchers working on both software and hardware support for this approach. This paper surveys the area, with a focus on open research problems.
Stress Can Be a Good Thing for Blood Formation

Like politics, most developmental signals are local. However, in this issue of Cell Stem Cell, Kwan et al. (2016) and colleagues describe how a stress-induced signal that originates in the zebrafish brain promotes the formation of blood at a distant site, the dorsal aorta.
Can culling Barred Owls save a declining Northern Spotted Owl population

Data collected over the past 25 years reveal that Northern Spotted Owls (Strix occidentalis caurina) of the Oregon Coast region are being displaced by invasive Barred Owls (Strix varia). A component of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recovery plan is studying the culling of Barred Owls from Spotted Owl habitat. Using information theory to perform a model selection, we fit the most parsimonious ordinary differential equation competition model to the data. We then augment the model to incorporate Barred Owl culling and determine the minimum culling rate required to completely eliminate the Barred Owl population and the amount of time required to achieve such an elimination for various culling rates. Our analysis shows that even with culling Barred Owls, there exists no coexistence equilibrium given the current growth and competition parameters.
Sending Out an SOS: Mitochondria as a Signaling Hub.

Normal cellular physiology is critically dependent on numerous mitochondrial activities including energy conversion, cofactor and precursor metabolite synthesis, and regulation of ion and redox homeostasis. Advances in mitochondrial research during the last two decades provides solid evidence that these organelles are deeply integrated with the rest of the cell and multiple mechanisms are in place to monitor and communicate functional states of mitochondria. In many cases, however, the exact molecular nature of various mitochondria-to-cell communication pathways is only beginning to emerge. Here, we review various signals emitted by distressed or dysfunctional mitochondria and the stress-responsive pathways activated in response to these signals in order to restore mitochondrial function and promote cellular survival.
Bridging the Research Management Gap to Restore Ecosystem Function and Social Resilience

Modern technology, knowledge, and organization have greatly increased agricultural productivity, but management has prioritized short-term benefits from the production of food, fiber, and fuel. By not accounting for environmental and social costs, we have compromised the integrity of global ecosystems and caused negative impacts on our social environment. For humans to live sustainably, we must prevent depletion of natural resources and protect their potential for self-replenishment. To continue receiving ecosystem goods and services, we must stop counting the consumption of natural capital as income. Regenerative agriculture could help reverse these negative trends, but a different research approach is needed to understand the impacts of regenerative management. Much component research does not translate into producing sustainable results on managed landscapes. It is important to understand how cropping and grazing management can best regenerate soil and ecosystem function, while producing long-term economic returns. To this end, a framework is outlined that combines small-scale component research and whole-systems research, working in collaboration with farmers who improve the environment and excel financially. This approach addresses questions at commercial scale, and by integrating component science into whole-system responses, it identifies emergent properties that may result in synergistic positive outcomes and avoid unintended consequences.
Evaluation of Bone Fragility and Fracture Prevention

Patients with osteoporotic fractures are much more likely to sustain additional fractures; therefore, both appropriate treatment and prevention of future fractures (which takes into account the method of injury) need to be addressed. These patients are also much more likely to have underlying secondary causes for bone loss that need to be diagnosed and treated, as well as other multiple risk factors that should be uncovered and modified if possible. Finally, clinical pathways that unite orthopedic surgeons and medical specialists in osteoporosis care are necessary to target patients with osteoporotic fractures for evaluation and treatment.
Retention of duplicated long-wavelength opsins in mosquito lineages by positive selection and differential expression.

Opsins are light sensitive receptors associated with visual processes. Insects typically possess opsins that are stimulated by ultraviolet, short and long wavelength (LW) radiation. Six putative LW-sensitive opsins predicted in the yellow fever mosquito, Aedes aegypti and malaria mosquito, Anopheles gambiae, and eight in the southern house mosquito, Culex quinquefasciatus, suggest gene expansion in the Family Culicidae (mosquitoes) relative to other insects. Here we report the first detailed molecular and evolutionary analyses of LW opsins in three mosquito vectors, with a goal to understanding the molecular basis of opsin-mediated visual processes that could be exploited for mosquito control. Time of divergence estimates suggest that the mosquito LW opsins originated from 18 or 19 duplication events between 166.9/197.5 to 1.07/0.94 million years ago (MY) and that these likely occurred following the predicted divergence of the lineages Anophelinae and Culicinae 145–226 MY. Fitmodel analyses identified nine amino acid residues in the LW opsins that may be under positive selection. Of these, eight amino acids occur in the N and C termini and are shared among all three species, and one residue in TMIII was unique to culicine species. Alignment of 5′ non-coding regions revealed potential Conserved Non-coding Sequences (CNS) and transcription factor binding sites (TFBS) in seven pairs of LW opsin paralogs. Our analyses suggest opsin gene duplication and residues possibly associated with spectral tuning of LW-sensitive photoreceptors. We explore two mechanisms - positive selection and differential expression mediated by regulatory units in CNS – that may have contributed to the retention of LW opsin genes in Culicinae and Anophelinae. We discuss the evolution of mosquito LW opsins in the context of major Earth events and possible adaptation of mosquitoes to LW-dominated photo environments, and implications for mosquito control strategies based on disrupting vision-mediated behaviors.
The Coherence of Languages with Intersection Types

When a programming language has a sufficiently rich type structure, there can be more than one proof of the same typing judgement; potentially this can lead to semantic ambiguity since the semantics of a typed language is a function of such proofs. When no such ambiguity arises, we say that the language is coherent. In this paper we prove the coherence of a class of lambda-calculus-based languages that use the intersection type discipline, including both a purely functional programming language and the Algol-like programming language Forsythe.
Robust Method to Quantify the Risk of Shortage for Water Supply Systems

AbstractConditions of shortage in a water supply system (WSS) occur when the available water resources are unable to satisfy the related demand (failure). The definition of risk of shortage convent...
Joint Sparse and Low-Rank Regularized Multi-Task Multi-Linear Regression for Prediction of Infant Brain Development with Incomplete Data

Studies involving dynamic infant brain development has received increasing attention in the past few years. For such studies, a complete longitudinal dataset is often required to precisely chart the early brain developmental trajectories. Whereas, in practice, we often face missing data at different time point(s) for different subjects. In this paper, we propose a new method for prediction of infant brain development scores at future time points based on longitudinal imaging measures at early time points with possible missing data. We treat this as a multi-dimensional regression problem, for predicting multiple brain development scores (multi-task) from multiple previous time points (multi-linear). To solve this problem, we propose an objective function with a joint \(\ell _1\) and low-rank regularization on the mapping weight tensor, to enforce feature selection, while preserving the structural information from multiple dimensions. Also, based on the bag-of-words model, we propose to extract features from longitudinal imaging data. The experimental results reveal that we can effectively predict the brain development scores assessed at the age of four years, using the imaging data as early as two years of age.
Plasmonic Lithography Utilizing Epsilon Near Zero Hyperbolic Metamaterial

In this work, a special hyperbolic metamaterial (HMM) metamaterial is investigated for plasmonic lithography of period reduction patterns. It is a type II HMM (ϵ∥ 0) whose tangential component of the permittivity ϵ∥ is close to zero. Due to the high anisotropy of the type II epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) HMM, only one plasmonic mode can propagate horizontally with low loss in a waveguide system with ENZ HMM as its core. This work takes the advantage of a type II ENZ HMM composed of aluminum/aluminum oxide films and the associated unusual mode to expose a photoresist layer in a specially designed lithography system. Periodic patterns with a half pitch of 58.3 nm were achieved due to the interference of third-order diffracted light of the grating. The lines were 1/6 of the mask with a period of 700 nm and ∼1/7 of the wavelength of the incident light. Moreover, the theoretical analyses performed are widely applicable to structures made of different materials such as silver as well as systems working a...
Training Joint Attention Skills and Facilitating Proactive Interactions in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Loosely Coupled Collaborative Tabletop-Based Application in a Chinese Special Education Classroom:

Joint attention skills, broadly speaking, refer to the ability to share experiences and interests about objects and events with others in a social environment. Due to their impairment in joint atte...
Individually grown cobalt nanowires as magnetic force microscopy probes.

AC electric fields were utilized in the growth of individual high-aspect ratio cobalt nanowires from simple salt solutions using the Directed Electrochemical Nanowire Assembly method. Nanowire diameters were tuned from the submicron scale to 40 nm by adjusting the AC voltage frequency and the growth solution concentration. The structural properties of the nanowires, including shape and crystallinity, were identified using electron microscopy. Hysteresis loops obtained along different directions of an individual nanowire using vibrating sample magnetometry showed that the magnetocrystalline anisotropy energy has the same order of magnitude as the shape anisotropy energy. Additionally, the saturation magnetization of an individual cobalt nanowire was estimated to be close to the bulk single crystal value. A small cobalt nanowire segment was grown from a conductive atomic force microscope cantilever tip that was utilized in magnetic force microscopy (MFM) imaging. The fabricated MFM tip provided moderate qua...
“The Banks are Our Stages”: Flo6x8 and Flamenco Performance as Protest in Southern Spain

In May 2011, a widespread protest movement known as 15M emerged in Spain, emphasizing the sustained and purposeful occupation of public spaces. Based in Seville, the performance collective Flo6x8 p...
Comprehension and application of design patterns by novice software engineers: an empirical study of undergraduate software engineering and computer science students

Although there has been a large body of work cataloguing design patterns since their introduction, there is a limited amount of detailed, empirical evidence on pattern use and application. Those studies that have collected experimental data generally focus on experienced, professional software engineers or graduate-level computer science and software engineering students. Although the value of design pattens in general is still widely debated, many experts have concluded that the use of design patterns is beneficial for experienced software engineers and architects. But it is still unclear if the benefits of design patterns translate equally to young, inexperienced software engineers. To assess this, we conducted a controlled experiment to evaluate the comparative performance in targeted tasks of novice software engineers, which are represented by software engineering undergraduate students about to earn a bachelors degree in an ABET-accredited computer science or software engineering program. We assessed the ability of subjects to recognize, comprehend, and refactor software containing a number of design patterns. We also collected subjective data measuring the subjects' preferences for or against pattern use. Although experiment results are mixed, depending on the complexity of the pattern involved, we observe that novice software engineers can recognize and understand software containing some design patterns, but that benefits of pattern use, in terms of refactoring time, are dependent on the complexity of the pattern. We conclude that, while simpler patterns show benefits, more complex design patterns may be an impediment for novice developers.
Interpersonal Teleconferencing in an Organizational Context

Communication in organizations functions primarily to reduce uncertainty (Galbraith, 1973). Because of increasingly turbulent environments (Emery and Trist, 1965; Terreberry, 1968), many organizations today, be they health service delivery, legal, educational, or manufacturing, are confronted with the necessity of dealing with increased uncertainty and thus with growth in the volume and complexity of communications. Employing new communications technologies is one means of coping with this problem. This paper is concerned with identifying the appropriateness of employing interpersonal teleconferencing modes—audio, video, or computer—for that purpose.
STQL — A Spatio-Temporal Query Language

Integrating spatio-temporal data as abstract data types into already existing data models is a promising approach to creating spatio-temporal query languages. Based on a formal foundation presented elsewhere, we present the main aspects of an SQL-like, spatio-temporal query language, called STQL. As one of its essential features, STQL allows to query and to retrieve moving objects which describe continuous evolutions of spatial objects over time. We consider spatio- temporal operations that are particularly useful in formulating queries, such as the temporal lifting of spatial operations, the projection into space and time, selection, and aggregation. Another important class of queries is concerned with developments, which are changes of spatial relationships over time. Based on the notion of spatio-temporal predicates we provide a framework in STQL that allows a user to build more and more complex predicates starting with a small set of elementary ones. We also describe a visual notation to express developments.
Mechanical Properties of a Shock Consolidated Steel Powder

The microhardness, ultimate tensile strength, and elastic modulus of 44-74 µm AISI 9310 rapidly solidified powder, consolidated by shock waves with energies varying from 94 to 770 kJ/kg and a shock duration of 2-3 µs, are presented. The compacts produced have a variation in diamond pyramid hardness from 390 to 510, in strength from 0 to 1.4 GPa, and in elastic modulus from 66 to 181 GPa. The hardness and strength reach a maximum at 500 kJ/kg shock energy. The strength and elastic modulus results imply that 800 kJ /kg shock energy produces complete interparticle bonding.
Intent classification of voice queries on mobile devices

Mobile query classification faces the usual challenges of encountering short and noisy queries as in web search. However, the task of mobile query classification is made difficult by the presence of more inter-active and personalized queries like map, command and control, dialogue, joke etc. Voice queries are made more difficult than typed queries due to the errors introduced by the automatic speech recognizer. This is the first paper, to the best of our knowledge, to bring the complexities of voice search and intent classification together. In this paper, we propose some novel features for intent classification, like the url's of the search engine results for the given query. We also show the effectiveness of other features derived from the part-of-speech information of the query and search engine results, in proposing a multi-stage classifier for intent classification. We evaluate the classifier using tagged data, collected from a voice search android application, where we achieve an average of 22% f-score improvement per category, over the commonly used bag-of-words baseline.
Optical characterization of polystyrene and ZnO

There are numerous applications for pyroelectric composite films in the medical, military and environmental applications field. The main purpose (focus) of this research is to fabricate higher efficiency thin films that are flexible like polymers. Polystyrene has attracted the attention of scientists for its interesting features and its superior physical and chemical properties. A solution casting approach was developed to obtain flexible ZnO doped polystyrene (PS) nanocomposite thin films which were highly transparent in the visible region and exhibited excellent UV-absorbing properties. Major characteristics of this material include rigidity, transparency, high refractive index, good electrical insulation characteristics, low water absorption, and ease of processing which makes important for many applications in industry. Among the many inorganic materials, zinc oxide, ZnO, has been intensively studied as a promising material for optoelectronic devices such as light emitting diodes (LED). Optical characterization of the polystyrene think films doped with ZnO shows the reduction in the bandgap and enhancement in other optical properties.
Computational assessment of miRNA binding to low and high expression HLA-DPB1 allelic sequences.

Abstract Cell surface expression of HLA-DP is allele specific. SNP rs9277534 (A/G), located in the 3′UTR of the DPB1 gene, has been associated with either low (A) or high (G) expression of DP on the cell surface. Considering the role of miRNAs in the regulation of gene expression, we computationally identified the miRNAs of two BLCLs, PGF and COX, predicted to interact with their corresponding DPB1 transcripts, DPB1 * 04:01:01:01—low expression and DPB1 * 03:01:01:01—high expression. The identified target sequences are located primarily in intron 2 and the 3′UTR. We hypothesize that gene expression may be influenced first by nuclear pre-mRNA events involving intronic regions, followed by the usual 3′UTR–associated events in the cytoplasm. The low DP expression allele was found to interact in silico with a larger number of miRNAs than the high expression allele. This pattern holds when examining either the entire transcript unit or simply the polymorphic sites that differentiate the alleles. Interestingly, the rs9277534 A/G polymorphism appears to be in linkage disequilibrium with polymorphisms targeted by the identified miRNAs. The multiplicity of sites targeted by different miRNAs suggests that the expression of DPB1 may be a dynamic process, influenced by different miRNAs under different states of the cell.
Examining the Sport Daily Deal: An Assessment Across Industry Segments

Sport executives concerned with maximizing ticket sales often explore different communication channels to reach potential consumers. Advertising and selling discounted tickets through daily deals (...
A Boltzmann Sampler for 1-Pairs with Double Filtration

Abstract Recently, a framework considering RNA sequences and their RNA secondary structures as pairs led to some information-theoretic perspectives on how the semantics encoded in RNA sequences can...
Enrichment of Genomic Pathways Based on Differential DNA Methylation Associated With Chronic Postsurgical Pain and Anxiety in Children: A Prospective, Pilot Study.

Abstract We have reported child anxiety sensitivity (Child Anxiety Sensitivity Index [CASI]) predicts chronic postsurgical pain (CPSP). Herein, we evaluated DNA methylation profiles to understand the gene–environment interactions underlying CPSP and CASI, to identify shared, enriched, genomic pathways. In 73 prospectively recruited adolescents undergoing spine fusion, preoperative CASI and pain data over 12 months after surgery were collected. DNA from the peripheral blood of evaluable subjects with (n = 16) and without CPSP (n = 40) were analyzed using MethylationEPIC arrays. We identified 637 and 2,445 differentially DNA methylated positions (DMPs) associated with CPSP and CASI, respectively (P ≤ .05). Ingenuity pathway analysis of 39 genes with DMPs for both CPSP and CASI revealed enrichment of several canonical pathways, including GABA receptor (P = .00016 for CPSP; P =.0008 for CASI) and dopamine-DARPP32 feedback in cyclic adenosine monophosphate (P = .004 for CPSP and P =.00003 for CASI) signaling. Gene–gene interaction network enrichment analysis revealed participation of pathways in cell signaling, molecular transport, metabolism, and neurologic diseases (P Perspective Differential DNA methylation in regulatory genomic regions enriching shared neural pathways were associated with CPSP and CASI in adolescents undergoing spine surgery. Our findings support GABA hypofunction and the roles of the dopamine–DARPP32 pathway in emotion/reward contributing to behavioral maintenance of pain 10 to 12 months after surgery.
Science and Ethics in the Exploration of Mars

The scientific exploration of Mars might yield results of extraordinary importance for our own planet, particularly the search for extant or fossil Martian life, which would make it possible to understand terrestrial life in a more profound way. This potential scientific treasure places on us an ethical obligation to minimize the disruption of the Martian environment until our scientific exploration has been greatly advanced. We also have ethical obligations to the human scientific explorers of Mars, ethical obligations that require a series of scientific investigations, e.g., about how the low Martian gravitation may affect those explorers’ physiology.
Surgical Principles in Endometrial Cancer

For decades, the standard of treatment for endometrial cancer has been total abdominal hysterectomy with bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy, and the surgical assessment of lymph nodes was reported for the first time in the 1960s [1]. In 1988 the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO), following the recommendation of a seminal Gynecologic Oncology Group (GOG) study [2], replaced the clinical staging adopted in 1971 and introduced the concept of surgical staging for endometrial cancer [3]. Comprehensive surgical staging includes hysterectomy, bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy, pelvic and para-aortic lymphadenectomy, and pelvic washing [4]. Pelvic lymphadenectomy consists of the removal of iliac nodes, including common iliac, external iliac, and internal iliac, and obturator lymph nodes. Para-aortic lymphadenectomy consists of the removal of lymph nodes above and below the inferior mesenteric artery, and up to the renal vessels [5]. The current guidelines of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists [4] and the Society of Gynecological Oncology [4] recommend that “the initial management of endometrial cancer should include comprehensive surgical staging.” However, after more than 25 years, the role of lymphadenectomy is still debated and the treatment of endometrial cancer varies largely across practitioners [6–8].
A high-order conservative remap for discontinuous Galerkin schemes on curvilinear polygonal meshes

Abstract A data transfer (called later remap) of physical fields between two meshes is an important step of arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) simulations. This step is challenging for high-order discontinuous Galerkin schemes since the Lagrangian flow motion leads to high-order meshes with curved faces. It becomes even more challenging for unstructured polygonal meshes that do not have a polynomial map from the reference to a current cell. We propose and analyze a new framework to create remap schemes on curvilinear polygonal meshes based on the theory of virtual element projectors. We derive a conservative remap scheme that is high-order accurate in space and time. The properties of this scheme are studied numerically for smooth and discontinuous fields on unstructured quadrilateral and polygonal meshes.
Energy resource control via privacy preserving data

Abstract Although the frequent monitoring of smart meters enables granular control over energy resources, it also increases the risk of leakage of private information such as income, home occupancy, and power consumption behavior that can be inferred from the data by an adversary. We propose a method of releasing modified smart meter data so specific private attributes are obscured while the utility of the data for use in an energy resource controller is preserved. The method privatizes data by injecting noise conditioned on the private attribute through a linear filter learned via a minimax optimization. The optimization contains the loss function of a classifier for the private attribute, which we maximize, and the energy resource controller’s objective formulated as a canonical form optimization, which we minimize. We perform our experiment on an aggregated dataset of household consumption with solar generation and another from the Commission for Energy Regulation (CER) that contains household smart meter data with sensitive attributes such as income and home occupancy. We demonstrate on the CER data that our method is able to reduce the ability of an adversary to classify a binary income label to that of random guessing while maintaining an objective value for an energy storage controller within 10% of optimal.
Mechanisms for Absolute Instabilities in Uniform and Nonuniform Density Swirling Flows

In this paper, transitions from convective to absolute instability in post-vortex-breakdown swirling flow with nonuniform density are investigated using linear stability analysis. Addition of swirl...
Social and Psychoanalytic Perspectives on the Use of Physical Punishment among Low-Income African-Americans

Physical punishment is commonly used in low-income Africana families. It is perceived as an effective means of exerting immediate obedience within a cultural context where the child and family memb...