cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Extrusion Process Parameters, Sensory Characteristics, and Structural Properties of a High Moisture Soy Protein Meat Analog

ABSTRACT: Soy protein isolate and wheat starch at 9:1 ratio were extruded at 60%, 65%, and 70% moisture contents and 138, 149 and 160 °C cooking temperatures. The results indicated that moisture content was a more important factor than cooking temperature for both extrusion process parameters and product sensory characteristics. Extrusion at a lower moisture content resulted in a higher product temperature and higher die pressure. The resultant products were tougher, chewier, and more cohesive and had a more layered and fibrous structure. Water absorption capacity increased with both higher extrusion moisture and higher cooking temperature.
New capability of laser ablation in failure analysis

Uniformity and planarity are always a challenge and be co me more important in package-level failure analysis with the increase in substrate's complexity. This work highlights novel approach of substrate de-layering by extending laser ablation capability to achieve greatly enhanced de-layering quality and better efficiency relatively to conventional manual lapping methodology.
Making Space for Islam: Religion, Science, and Politics in Contemporary Malaysia

In October 2007, Malaysia celebrated sending its first astronaut into space, as part of a cooperative venture on board a Russian space mission. As Malaysia's first astronaut was a Muslim, the Malaysian government commissioned, through its Department of Islamic Development, a project to create a definitive set of guidelines for the practice of Islam in outer space, specifically on board the International Space Station. What may on the surface appear to be a practical exercise in clarifying religious practice reveals upon closer examination to be a complex restructuring of Malaysia's domestic and international politics, with the role of Islam as the catalytic and somewhat controversial centerpiece.
Uncovering hidden profiles: advocacy in team decision making

Purpose – Research shows that teams often fail to surface and use unique information to evaluate decision alternatives. Under a condition known as the hidden profile, each member uniquely possesses a critical clue needed to uncover the superior solution. Failure to share and adequately evaluate this information will result in poor decision quality. The aim of this paper is to examine the impact of the devil's advocacy technique on the decision quality of hidden profile teams.Design/methodology/approach – In order to mitigate this team decision‐making bias, the present study utilizes experimental research to examine the impact of the devil's advocacy technique on the decision quality of hidden profile teams.Findings – Results show that devil's advocacy groups achieved higher decision quality than groups under free discussion. However, devil's advocacy teams also had higher levels of affective conflict. As a result, while they selected the best solution, devil's advocacy introduced conditions that may hinde...
ON HOMOGENEOUS ANTIGENS AND ANTIBODIES. III. THE PREPARATION AND PROPERTIES OF THE UNIVALENT HAPTEN‐PROTEIN CONJUGATE PAPAIN‐S‐DNPL*

SUMMARY Karl Landsteiner's introduction of the systematic study of hapten-protein conjugates and antihapten antibodies was a great milestone in immunology and immunochemistry. His work, and the work of others following his lead, have illuminated the character of the antigen-antibody interaction, and have provided antibodies whose specificities could be systematically varied and used in a wide variety of structural studies. It is important to recognize, however, that while conventionally prepared hapten-protein conjugates are extraordinarily useful as model antigens for certain types of immunochemical studies, they may not be as simple immunogens as has generally been assumed. An adequate appreciation of the two structural considerations: a) that antibody-combining sites are, generally, considerably larger than simple haptenic groups; and b) that hydrophobic haptens will tend to be immobilized on patches of the surface of the carrier molecule, leads to the realization that from an antigenic point of view, hapten-protein conjugates may be, in fact, at least as complex and heterogeneous as are protein antigens themselves. Studies with such conjugates that ignore their complexities may come to erroneous conclusions about important immunological phenomena. The use of less heterogeneous or homogeneous hapten conjugates in these experiments may avoid, or at least minimize, such difficulties, and may also lead to the production of homogeneous antibodies useful for detailed chemical and structural studies.
Enteral Nutrition Support in Acute Pancreatitis

OBJECTIVE:To review the controversies surrounding the use of nutritional interventions, particularly enteral support, in patients with acute pancreatitis.DATA SOURCES:Articles were obtained through a MEDLINE search (1966–June 1999). Additionally, several textbooks containing information on the diagnosis and management of acute pancreatitis were reviewed. The bibliographies of retrieved publications and textbooks were reviewed for additional references.STUDY SELECTION:All original investigations in humans pertaining to the use of enteral nutritional support in acute pancreatitis were reviewed for inclusion. Studies that investigated parenteral nutrition in acute pancreatitis were also reviewed, with preference given to controlled comparisons with enteral regimens or no nutritional support.DATA EXTRACTION:The primary outcomes extracted from the literature were time to oral feeding tolerance, complications (e.g., infection) associated with nutritional support, and length of stay.DATA SYNTHESIS:The duration o...
Free Radicals in Pyrimidines: E.S.R. of Gamma-irradiated Single Crystals of Alloxantin

Free radical formation in irradiated pyrimidines from ESR spectrum analysis of gamma irradiated single crystals of alloxantin, confirming radical stability
Stress model for research into preterm delivery among black women

The disparity between black and white infant mortality rates increased over the last decade, despite overall improvement in infant survival. Because most black infant deaths are related to preterm delivery, the discovery of the cause of premature birth in general and excess premature birth for black infants in particular is of paramount importance for reproductive health research. Substantial theoretic support exists for maternal stress as a risk factor for preterm birth. Traumatic events early in life may sensitize the adult to contemporary stresses and increase her vulnerability to stress-induced neuroendocrine or infection/inflammatory pathways to early parturition. In addition, an individual may prematurely age as a result of cumulative stress or a major traumatic event. This "stress age," which is synonymous with the concept of weathering and similar to the concept of allostatic load, may affect parturition through chronic conditions (such as hypertension) and in poorly understood pathophysiologic mechanisms that are related to increased chronologic age. One potential measure of stress age is maternal serum dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate. Maternal stress is a potential explanatory factor for excess preterm delivery among black women because of their exposure to racism-associated stress. However, few studies have addressed this question, and results are mixed. Future etiologic research must take into account the complexities of the measurement of stress age and past and current exposures to stress, which includes internalized racism and interpersonal racism.
Combining optimism limiting schemes in time warp based parallel simulations

The time warp protocol is considered to be an effective synchronization mechanism for parallel discrete event simulation (PDES). However, it is widely recognized that it suffers over-optimistic behavior on the part of the simulation processes that may be very harmful for performance. In current literature, two techniques have been used to counteract this problem: throttling of over-optimistic processes; and scheduling or load balancing. However, the study of these techniques has been primarily done in isolation. We demonstrate using a parameterized simulation model of time warp that an appropriate combination of throttling and global scheduling using LP migration can be very beneficial for performance compared to any one of these schemes acting in isolation. This study forms the basis of the design of more powerful control schemes that use a combination of multiple techniques.
Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer. Part I: Instrument Design

A ground-based Fourier transform spectrometer has been developed to measure the atmospheric downwelling infrared radiance spectrum at the earth’s surface with high absolute accuracy. The Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer (AERI) instrument was designed and fabricated by the University of Wisconsin Space Science and Engineering Center (UW-SSEC) for the Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program. This paper emphasizes the key features of the UW-SSEC instrument design that contribute to meeting the AERI instrument requirements for the ARM Program. These features include a highly accurate radiometric calibration system, an instrument controller that provides continuous and autonomous operation, an extensive data acquisition system for monitoring calibration temperatures and instrument health, and a real-time data processing system. In particular, focus is placed on design issues crucial to meeting the ARM requirements for radiometric calibration, spectral calibration, noise performance, and operational reliability. The detailed performance characteristics of the AERI instruments built for the ARM Program are described in a companion paper.
INFLUENCE OF AIR POLLUTION ON FOREST ECOSYSTEMS: ECOLOGICAL IMPACT OF HEAVY METALS

In the last decades, there were carried out numerous studies to determine the causes of forest decline phenomenon, the factors which determined it and the mechanisms of action. One of the factors considered responsible for the current state of health of forests is air pollution. Another potential factor is the soil acidification stress. Air pollutants (gases, acid rain) increase soil acidification and contribute to increase the solubility of many heavy metals. In this regard, the question arises if heavy metals are stressful factors to trees. Growth of roots, water and nutrients absorption processes are influenced by toxics presence and if any change of heavy metals as stressful factor of forest ecosystems within these processes is well studied then the soil quality evolution and processes are well known. Heavy metal pollution of forest ecosystems is an important aspect of pollutants input, especially in areas near emission sources. In this context this article aims to present the impact of air pollution on forest ecosystems from Vaslui County, and to assess the environmental impact the conventional methods are applied.
Solids Transport and Handling

Solid transport and handling is a crucial part of any process that involves solids. This topic sometimes is forgotten until the very end of the process design and retrofits are needed and decisions are made which will not be optimum for the overall process. There are many types of techniques that can be employed for the transport and handling of solids and the basic decision is one that depends intimately on the process and materials being processed. Unfortunately there is not an overall economic strategy that could be employed to guide the designer on which technique for transport and handling is appropriate and best. Sometimes, several procedures can be employed and the process will operate without problems. Often, however, an arbitrary choice of equipment leads to severe problems. This chapter gives an overview of the types of transport and handling operations and consideration that are available. A more in depth analysis is given for the pneumatic transport operation since this mode of transport is probably the most common spanning both long and short distance and small and large capacity operations. The topics of electrostatic generation, dust explosions, segregation, mixing and flow measurements are included in this chapter.
Effect of sera from fed and fasted pigs on proliferation and protein turnover in cultured myogenic cells.

The effects of fasting on the ability of swine serum to affect proliferation, protein synthesis and protein degradation in L6 myoblast cell culture bioassays were evaluated. Barrows (15 to 20 kg) were fitted with jugular catheters. Blood samples were collected at four evenly spaced intervals between 0800 and 1700 on collection days. Prefast blood samples were obtained on d 1 and 2 of the study, after which pigs were subjected to a 5-d fast. Fasted samples were obtained on the 1st, 3rd and 5th d of the fast (d 3, 5 and 7 of the study). Serum from each collection day was pooled and tested in the proliferation bioassay for each pig. Prefast and fasted serum pools were formed by pooling prefast days (1 and 2) or fasted days (3, 5 and 7), respectively, from all pigs in a study. These pools were tested in the proliferation and protein turnover bioassays as well as in a Somatomedin-C (SmC) radioimmunoassay. Serum from the fasted collection days showed a decrease in mitogenic activity compared with serum from the two prefast days (P less than .001). At high concentrations, sera obtained from fasted pigs inhibited muscle cell proliferation (P less than .001). Additionally, adding fasted serum to control swine serum (CSS) inhibited the mitogenic activity of CSS in a dose-dependent manner (P less than .025). Therefore, fasted sera showed a decreased ability to promote muscle cell proliferation and, in addition, appeared to contain a factor(s) that inhibits muscle cell proliferation. Fasted serum also caused a 21.6% increase in protein degradation compared with prefast serum.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Teachers' Use of Assessment Data to Inform Instruction: Lessons from the Past and Prospects for the Future.

BackgroundData use has been promoted as a panacea for instructional improvement. However, the field lacks a detailed understanding of how teachers actually use assessment data to inform instruction...
Emergency Medicine and Critical Care for Nonhuman Primates

Emergency medicine and critical care are collectively defined as the care provided to patients with acute illnesses or injuries that require immediate medical attention and the intermediate follow-up care provided after the emergency has passed. It often does not signify providing long-term or continuing care, but includes the diagnosis of a variety of illnesses and undertaking of acute interventions to stabilize the patient prior to the transition to long-term care. Challenges for the veterinarian providing care to critically ill nonhuman primate species include issues related to biosafety, maintenance of access (chronic catheterization), maintaining social contact, and the unanesthetized primate’s ability to manipulate bandages, catheters, and other medical devices. Nonhuman primates living in outdoor breeding colonies often present with medical emergencies that are much different than those that are assigned to research programs and housed in indoor, controlled environments. These differences are primarily associated with the level of exposure to pathogenic agents, physical hazards, environmental hazards, housing configuration, and social grouping. Nonhuman primates are highly social and have very complex behavioral repertoires. This fact impacts the development of treatment plans for the critically ill. Fortunately, a number of strategies can be undertaken to maintain contact between ill animals receiving therapy and their compatible social partners. The chapter is structured into two major sections. The first part of the chapter focuses on the general, technical aspects of providing emergency medicine/critical care. The second part of the chapter addresses the recognition and management of commonly encountered emergency conditions observed in nonhuman primates.
Creativity in organizations : conclusions

Publisher Summary This chapter provides concluding remarks for this book. It identifies some significant factors that contribute to creativity in organizations. It focuses on importance of creativity and innovation to real-world organizations. Globalization is occurring, changes in technology are now commonplace, market competition is increasing, and economic volatility has also become more of a concern. This then leads to the point that organizations must tap into their creative potential or risk dying. Thus creativity may hold more importance to organizations now than in the past, and more in the future than in current times. It is important to consider creativity and innovation on this larger scale, with organizations providing a viable starting point. There are some limitations in the book. It fails to include economic factors, corporate willingness to invest, and a field's readiness for innovation.
Proactive Leverage Increases and The Value of Financial Flexibility

Traditional tradeoff models of corporate capital structure, although still featured prominently in finance textbooks and widely accepted by practitioners, have been criticized by financial economists for doing a poor job of explaining observed debt ratios. Moreover, the observed ratios are far less stable than what would be predicted by the standard tradeoff models. In a study published several years ago in the Review of Financial Studies, the authors of this article aimed to shed more light on the underlying forces governing capital structure decisions by analyzing a set of major changes in capital structure in which companies initiated large increases in leverage through substantial new borrowings. They then attempted to explain why these companies chose to increase leverage and how their capital structures changed during the years after the large debt issues. As summarized in this article, the authors' findings indicate, first of all, that the large debt financings were used primarily to fund major corporate investments—and not, for example, to make large distributions to shareholders. And the changes in leverage ratios that came after the debt offerings were driven far more by the evolution of the companies' realized cash flows and their investment opportunities than by deliberate or decisive attempts to rebalance their capital structures toward a stationary target. In fact, many of the companies chose to take on even more debt when faced with cash-flow deficits, despite operating with leverage that was already well above any reasonable estimate of their estimated target leverage. At the same time, companies that generated financial surpluses used them to reduce debt, even when their leverage had fallen well below their estimated targets. Taken as a whole, the findings of the authors' study support the idea that unused debt capacity represents an important source of financial flexibility, and that preserving such flexibility—and making use of it when valuable investment opportunities materialize—may well be the critical missing link in connecting capital structure theory with observed corporate behavior.
A clinically useful self-report measure of psychiatric patients’ satisfaction with the initial evaluation

Patient satisfaction is one component of the quality of care. Studies of satisfaction in samples of established patients are biased because dissatisfied patients are more likely to have dropped out of treatment. We, therefore, sought to develop a new instrument assessing patients' satisfaction with the initial psychiatric evaluation. In the present report from the Rhode Island Methods to Improve Diagnostic Assessment and Services (MIDAS) project we describe the development, reliability, and validity of the Clinically Useful Patient Satisfaction Scale (CUPSS). The CUPSS is a brief, self-administered questionnaire covering 3 areas: clinician's attitude and behavior, office environment and staff, and overall satisfaction. A sample of psychiatric outpatients (n=412) and partial hospital patients (n=500) completed the measure immediately after their initial meeting with the psychiatrist. The scale had high internal consistency, and all item-scale correlations were significant. All items were significantly correlated with each of the indicators of global satisfaction. There was sufficient variability in satisfaction ratings to detect differences amongst clinicians. The results of the present study of psychiatric outpatients and partial hospital patients indicate that the CUPSS was minimally to not at all burdensome to complete, it had good psychometric properties, and it can discriminate amongst clinicians.
Does Prescribed Fire Promote Resistance to Drought in Low Elevation Forests of the Sierra Nevada, California, USA?

Prescribed fire is a primary tool used to restore western forests following more than a century of fire exclusion, reducing fire hazard by removing dead and live fuels (small trees and shrubs). It is commonly assumed that the reduced forest density following prescribed fire also reduces competition for resources among the remaining trees, so that the remaining trees are more resistant (more likely to survive) in the face of additional stressors, such as drought. Yet this proposition remains largely untested, so that managers do not have the basic information to evaluate whether prescribed fire may help forests adapt to a future of more frequent and severe drought. During the third year of drought, in 2014, we surveyed 9950 trees in 38 burned and 18 unburned mixed conifer forest plots at low elevation (<2100 m a.s.l.) in Kings Canyon, Sequoia, and Yosemite national parks in California, USA. Fire had occurred in the burned plots from 6 yr to 28 yr before our survey. After accounting for differences in individual tree diameter, common conifer species found in the burned plots had significantly reduced probability of mortality compared to unburned plots during the drought. Stand density (stems ha−1) was significantly lower in burned versus un-burned sites, supporting the idea that reduced competition may be responsible for the differential drought mortality response. At the time of writing, we are not sure if burned stands will maintain lower tree mortality probabilities in the face of the continued, severe drought of 2015. Future work should aim to better identify drought response mechanisms and how these may vary across other forest types and regions, particularly in other areas experiencing severe drought in the Sierra Nevada and on the Colorado Plateau.
Reflections on “Word-of-mouth effects on short-term and long-term product judgments”

AbstractConsumer researchers have studied word-of-mouth (WOM) for decades. Herein, I comment on my paper, “Word-of-mouth effects on short-term and long-term product judgments,” which appeared in Journal of Business Research in 1995. I discuss the article’s unique theoretical and empirical characteristics. Additionally, I recognize the significant changes in consumer behavior (i.e. online posting and social media) which increased researchers’ use of the article in their own work. Finally, I identify several current developments in WOM research: factors that motivate consumers to create electronic WOM, how the WOM construct has been re-conceptualized, and how research focused on trust and authenticity is of increasing importance.
Precipitation quantity and timing affect native plant production and growth of a key herbivore, the desert tortoise, in the Mojave Desert

Deserts may be disproportionately vulnerable to changes in precipitation that accompany global climate change due to complex evolutionary relationships of species to historical conditions. Based on current and projected climate scenarios for the southwestern United States, we manipulated rainfall timing and quantity and measured the response by plants and the growth and behavior of the desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii) to precipitation in the eastern Mojave Desert. We found that winter-dominant rain – the current prevailing pattern in the eastern Mojave Desert – and greater total rainfall correlated with greater cover and species richness of plants. Winter-dominant rain also correlated with a higher proportion of native plants flowering relative to invasive plants. Juvenile tortoises grew more rapidly when they were subjected to rainfall treatments that associated with increased plant abundance and species richness, while their behavior appeared more driven by water availability. Our results suggest that precipitation timing may be as important as rainfall quantity when considering total effects of climate change on arid-adapted systems. Further research should explore how the timing of rainfall may interact with aridity or temperature to influence total effects due to climate change on arid communities.
Biomechanics of Facet Loading in the Lumbar Spine

Although the biomechanics community has now accepted the concept of facet loading, the idea took a long time to take hold. Even in the 1980s, it was necessary to continue to prove conclusively that facet loads are real. To that end, El-Bohy et al. (1989) obtained contact pressure data from the tip of an inferior lumbar facet to show that it did indeed bottom out on the lamina below in order to transmit spinal load. Other topics covered in this chapter are spinal models simulating seat ejection, a model simulating the ditching of an aircraft at sea, and a brief overview of finite element models of the spine simulating impact.
Child Abuse—Suicide Resilience Link in African American Women: Interpersonal Psychological Mediators

The interpersonal-psychological theory of suicidal behavior (IPTS) is an exemplary model for understanding the desire for suicidal behavior. As such, it is important to explore its applicability in ethnoracial minority groups at increasing risk for suicidal behavior, such as low-income African American women. Guided by the IPTS, the current study used five parallel mediation models to examine if there are links between individual types of childhood abuse (physical, sexual, emotional) and suicide resilience and between cumulative abuse (higher levels of abuse inclusive of all three types, more types of severe levels of abuse) and suicide resilience, and whether the three components of the model (thwarted belongingness, perceived burdensomeness, acquired capability for suicide) mediate these associations. In a sample of low-income, African American women (n = 179), higher levels of each of the three types of childhood abuse and cumulative abuse correlated with lower levels of suicide resilience. Parallel mediation analyses using bootstrapping techniques revealed that increased acquired capability for suicide mediated all five associations and perceived burdensomeness mediated three of the links (emotional abuse, cumulative abuse, and cumulative abuse-severe with suicide resilience). Attention is paid to the clinical implications of the findings in terms of attending to the acquired capability for suicide and suicide resilience in the assessment and treatment of low-income, suicidal, African American women.
Charitable motivations: the role of prestige and identification

ABSTRACTThe pinnacle of engagement for a nonprofit is a donation, yet as donations decline and competition increases, some nonprofits risk becoming obsolete. Why does an individual donate? What drives his or her decision? Two constructs are found to be vital in inducing action: prestige and identification. In an increasingly competitive landscape, we hypothesize that organizations can use prestige building activities as a critical strategy to an organization in achieving identification, thus increasing donations. The present study sheds light on the underlying mechanisms through which prestige effects on donation intentions materialize through the mediator of identification.
The Application of Process-Centered Environments

Process-centered environments represent a new class of software that integrates the people in the organization with the development process and with the supporting technology. Unlike compilers, editors etc., PCEs primarily affect how work is performed rather than what is produced. PCEs provide the “glue” that actively manages the flow of work between people and their tools. Thus the issues that must be addressed in their adoption are significantly different from those for standard CASE tools. Some of these issues are already known through experiences with the software factory concept [Cusumano 91], but there may be novel issues which, because of the lack of practical application of PCEs in real-world settings, we have yet to discover. In fact much of the information provided in this chapter is based on experiences in areas related to process automation; there is as yet too little actual experience in the use of process-centered environments. The primary motivations for using a PCE are improvement of quality and productivity; each of the items discussed below directly supports these goals. There are some significant advantages to using a PCE and some disadvantages. These are also discussed below.
Deregulating Collection: Must Privacy Give Way to Use Regulation?

Projected benefits of data science and the paradigm of big data are incompatible with the regulation of information collection, according to the requirements of privacy. So goes a compelling and popular position that I have labelled big data exceptionalism. My article traces the debate between those who would forgo privacy in favor of use regulation and those who continue to assert the affirmative value of constraints on collection in the name of privacy. I challenge big data exceptionalism. First, it plays suspiciously well with the business model of dominant commercial incumbants, which rankles at any effort to contain their practices. More importantly, however, big data exceptionalism relies on misconceptions and ambiguities of key terms and is propped up by grossly flawed arguments and exaggerated claims of what is at stake for the public interest. Although there is no denying the many benefits of data science as well as its perplexing and unprecedented challenges to privacy, big data exceptionalism offers no guarantee of the former while it undermines a cornerstone of individual freedom and social integrity.
Establishment and seed production of native forbs used in restoration

Although native wildflowers are components of most native communities, their use in re-vegetation projects has been limited largely due to inadequate seed supplies (Shock et al. 2006). A critical component in the production of many native wildflower seeds is to identify the factors that determine successful establishment. The problem of many native wildflower species is slow germination, emergence, and establishment, the threat of weed competition for water(Vargas-Mendoza 1998), sunlight, and nutrients and the lack of herbicides labeled specifically for dicot weed control in these dicot crops. Therefore, testing wildflower species tolerance to pre- and post-emergence herbicides represents a necessary step to facilitate the successful establishment and seed production of native wildflowers (Norcini 2003).
Distributed Research and Scientific Creativity: Accessible Data for the Social Sciences

This chapter explores the feasibility of creating a web-based data integration and delivery system that relies on the distributed expertise and creativity of the system’s users to develop new knowledge. We use the experience of the interdisciplinary team in Spatial Structures in the Social Sciences (S4) at Brown University for illustration. We have created several research tools that facilitate and support new and creative research enterprises. These include internet mapping systems to explore Hurricane Katrina, community-level census data, public school segregation and testing outcomes, and nursing home services. All of these systems have certain features in common. 1) Unlike GIS archives, they provide GIS functionality on web browsers, so that users are required to have minimal software expertise. 2) Unlike static maps that are designed to support specific conclusions, they leave it to users to find new spatial patterns in the data. 3) By juxtaposing a limited set of variables in the same site, these tools invite users to explore a specific range of questions that reflect intellectual issues being pursued by the creators. In projects like those discussed in this chapter we count on the expertise of social scientists from a range of disciplines who can take advantage of the freedom to explore and use data related to their individual needs, but who do not need to be GIS experts to do so. New and exciting opportunities present themselves as the field of cartography embraces the Internet.
Structural Order and Dynamics of Noncrystalline Condensed Matter

Noncrystalline condensed matter exhibits a number of special structural characteristics and properties that differ from that of crystalline systems. This is a consequence of both nonperiodicity and the range of structural variations that exist locally in the amorphous or liquid system. In addition, in amorphous systems the nonequilibrium state implies that the structure is nonunique in general. The range of physical properties will thus depend on both the extent to which local structural distribution functions are themselves variable with the conditions of formation and the range of interatomic interactions. For slow cooled bulk insulating glasses such as SiO2, as well as annealed thin amorphous semiconducting films of a-Se or a-Ge, it is reasonable to assume that a relatively well defined stable, reproducible state exists. It has been suggested that these anneal stable systems correspond to situations of relative minima in the free energy for the noncrystalline state.1 It is possible, however, to modify the conditions of formation, particularly for thin film amorphous solids, so as to significantly alter the structure and its related physical properties. Such variations may be short range, i.e., correspond to changes in the first coordination sphere of the atomic constituents, or of intermediate range. The latter generally correspond to third or higher neighbor structural correlations.
Informal Learning Choices of Japanese ESL Students in the United States

This study was designed to explore possible relationships between English language learners past formal language learning experiences and beliefs about language learning on the one hand, and their informal learning choices on the other. Six Japanese English as a second language (ESL) students participated in the study. Participants were interviewed and asked to complete an English study log for one week prior to their scheduled interview. The results of the study suggested that there were likely connections between experiences, beliefs, informal learning choices. For some participants, a singular experience or belief had an effect that seemed to outweigh other experiences and beliefs. However, there were also some differences in informal learning choices among participants that might be better explained by factors outside of the interest of this study, such as personality or goal of English study. INFORMAL LEARNING CHOICES OF JAPANESE ESL STUDENTS ii Table of
Smashing the strict hierarchy: three cases of clinical decision support malfunctions involving carvedilol

Clinical vocabularies allow for standard representation of clinical concepts, and can also contain knowledge structures, such as hierarchy, that facilitate the creation of maintainable and accurate clinical decision support (CDS). A key architectural feature of clinical hierarchies is how they handle parent-child relationships - specifically whether hierarchies are strict hierarchies (allowing a single parent per concept) or polyhierarchies (allowing multiple parents per concept). These structures handle subsumption relationships (ie, ancestor and descendant relationships) differently. In this paper, we describe three real-world malfunctions of clinical decision support related to incorrect assumptions about subsumption checking for β-blocker, specifically carvedilol, a non-selective β-blocker that also has α-blocker activity. We recommend that 1) CDS implementers should learn about the limitations of terminologies, hierarchies, and classification, 2) CDS implementers should thoroughly test CDS, with a focus on special or unusual cases, 3) CDS implementers should monitor feedback from users, and 4) electronic health record (EHR) and clinical content developers should offer and support polyhierarchical clinical terminologies, especially for medications.
Tree-Ring Carbon Isotope Records from the Western Oregon Cascade Mountains Primarily Record Summer Maximum Temperatures

Abstract Here we examine climatic influences on inter-annual variation in latewood tree growth (i.e. ring-width indices, RWILW) and stable-carbon isotope discrimination (Δ13CLW) from 1950 to 2013 at two SNOTEL snowpack monitoring sites in the Oregon Cascade Mountains. Douglas-fir and mountain hemlock trees were sampled at the lower and upper elevation sites where annual peak snow water equivalent (SWE) averaged 467 and 1128 mm, respectively. RWILW chronologies were poorly correlated among sites/species (r = 0.23, P = 0.063) and neither exhibited strong correlations with monthly or seasonal climate variables. By contrast, Δ13CLW chronologies were significantly correlated (r = 0.69, P < 0.001) and exhibited stronger climate responses. Multiple regression analyses identified summertime maximum temperature (Tmax) and/or vapor pressure deficit (VPD) as the primary drivers of Δ13CLW. Secondary influences included summertime precipitation, specific humidity, cloud cover, and SWE from the previous fall and winter...
The Price of Judicial Economy in the U.S.

English Abstract: In the US, courts widely perceive that judicial scarcity is a common problem threatening the fair and timely resolution of disputes. Courts cite the attendant interest in judicial economy to justify interpreting the procedural and substantive law to reduce the judicial workload or accelerate the resolution of cases. But courts’ assumption that there are too few judges to handle the current caseload is hard to substantiate. First, it may not be possible to infer from excessive judicial backlogs or other perceived judicial deficiencies that a shortfall of judges is to blame. Second, even when one confidently perceives that a judicial backlog or other deficiency in a particular US court is attributable to a dearth of judges, one cannot fairly generalize from that example to other US courts and jurisdictions. And third, judgments about judicial deficiencies popularly attributed to the inadequacy of judicial resources may turn on contestable assumptions about judges and adjudication. Given these challenges to measuring the adequacy of judicial resources, one might be skeptical whether judicial economies are worth the costs they impose. Spanish Abstract: En EEUU, los juzgados generalmente perciben que la escasez judicial es un problema frecuente que amenaza la resolucion justa y puntual de disputas. Los juzgados mencionan el interes intrinseco a la economia judicial para justificar la interpretacion del procedimiento y del derecho sustantivo para reducir la carga de trabajo de los jueces o acelerar la resolucion de los casos. Pero es dificil justificar la creencia de los juzgados de que no hay suficientes jueces para gestionar la carga de trabajo actual. Para empezar, quiza no sea posible deducir, de los excesivos casos pendientes de atender o de otras deficiencias judiciales percibidas, que de ello se pueda culpar a una escasez de jueces. En segundo lugar, aunque se pudiera percibir de forma fiable que el atraso en la resolucion de casos u otras deficiencias de un juzgado en particular se puedan atribuir a una escasez de jueces, no se puede generalizar a partir de ese caso puntual a otros juzgados o jurisdicciones de EEUU. Y en tercer lugar, los juicios de valor sobre deficiencias judiciales comunmente atribuidas a una inadecuacion de recursos judiciales pueden dar lugar a creencias contestables sobre los jueces y el arbitraje. Con estas dificultades para medir el grado de adecuacion de los recursos judiciales, hay razones para ser escepticos sobre si la economia judicial merece la pena de los costes que supone.
Mannerisms in the Congenitally Blind Child

□ In summary: (1) Mannerisms are behaviors that the blind child uses to cope with tensions created by situations of frustration, fear, excitement, stimulation deficit, physical activity deprivation...
An Intelligent Model-Based Multi-Level Active Gate Driver for Power Semiconductor Devices

Silicon carbide (SiC) devices have the benefit of low energy losses and high operation temperature. The fast switching speed of SiC may result in serious electromagnetic interference (EMI) noise, overshoot voltage, and even false triggering. To address these issues, an intelligent cascaded multi-level active gate driver (AGD) topology is proposed to control the switching trajectory of the power device dynamically. It can flexibly adjust the switching speed by either speeding up or slowing down. Its slow turn-off mode has the advantage of short turn-off delay compared with a two-stage turn-off. The circuit has the benefits of simple-realization and cost-effectiveness. Also, a switching behavior trajectory-based model predictive control (MPC) strategy is introduced for this gate driver circuitry. The MPC strategy balances the switching energy losses, EMI noise, and switching process duration. The experimental results reveal that the proposed intelligent AGD can provide desirable performance for controlling the slew rate of the semiconductor device
Resonances in Li 7 (p, n)Be 7

An investigation of experimental data concerning the $\mathrm{Li}(p, n)$ reaction indicates that the resonance at 2.25-Mev proton energy is due to the influence of a spin 3, isotopic spin 1, even parity level of ${\mathrm{Be}}^{8}$, 19.2 Mev above the ground state, and that the background reaction intensity is predominantly the result of a spin-1 state of odd parity, and a spin-2 state of odd parity and isotopic spin 0. Cross sections, angular distributions, and neutron polarizations calculated on this basis are in good agreement with previous experimental measurements of these quantities.The neutron and proton widths of the isotropic spin-1 state in ${\mathrm{Be}}^{8}$ are related to the neutron width of the corresponding isotopic-spin-1 state of ${\mathrm{Li}}^{8}$, 2.3 Mev above the ground state, in a manner consistent with the transition probability relationships expected of a nuclear isotopic spin multiplet.
Genome-Wide profiling of viral vector integration in clinical CAR T products using comprehensive methodologies

Background & Aim Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-engineered T cells have become an important cancer immunotherapy and the clinical application of these cells is increasing rapidly. For clinical CAR T-cell therapies, autologous T-cells are genetically modified to express a specific/bispecific chimeric antigen receptor. These CAR T-cells have high specificity and affinity for antigens expressed on the surface of target cells. At present, T-cells are genetically modified by introduction of the receptor by gamma- and lentiviral vectors, which integrate into the cell genome and is subsequently expressed. However, as transduction efficiency and the number of integration events increases, the risk of insertional mutagenesis also increases. In order to maintain the safety and effectiveness of clinical CAR T-cells, it is essential to monitor the insertion efficiency, accurately assess insertion sites and determine the effects of vector instertion on the CAR T-cell transcriptome profile. Methods, Results & Conclusion We developed a comprehensive methodology for evaluating the safety and effectiveness of CAR T-cells, utilizing droplet digital PCR to measure vector copy number, DNA-seq to measure vector insertion sites and RNA-seq to assess gene expression profiles. These assays were applied to 38 clinical CAR T products (18 gamma- and 20 lentiviral vector). We verified that ddPCR can reliably measure the average number of vector copies integrated into the CAR T-cell genome. CAR T products with a detectable number of vector copies were subjected to DNA-seq. The results showed that DNA-seq accurately revealed integration site maps in the whole genome and found some loci that were integration hot spots. Moreover, we found gamma-retroviral vectors resulted in more integration events than lentiviral vectors. Combining the RNA-seq and DNA-seq data revealed that most integration events within coding genes did not result in a change in gene expression. We did noticed that some gene loci both have an integration event and changed gene expression. Further studies will focus on these finding and the impact on CAR T-cell clinical outcomes. In summary, we established a series of methods to detect vector copy number, insertion sites and gene expression profiles in clincial CAR T products. These methods will be useful for exploring the risk of insertional mutagenesis of viral vector in CAR T products, the signficance of specific integration sites, and facilates improved safety in development of CAR T cell therapies.
In utero exposure to endogenous maternal polyclonal anti-Caspr2 antibody leads to behavioral abnormalities resembling autism spectrum disorder in male mice

The concept that exposure in utero to maternal anti-brain antibodies contributes to the development of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) has been entertained for over a decade. We determined that antibodies targeting Caspr2 are present at high frequency in mothers with brain-reactive serology and a child with ASD, and further demonstrated that exposure in utero to a monoclonal anti-Caspr2 antibody, derived from a mother of an ASD child, led to an-ASD like phenotype in male offspring. Now we propose a new model to study the effects of in utero exposure to anti-Caspr2 antibody. Dams immunized with the extracellular portion of Caspr2 express anti-Caspr2 antibodies throughout gestation to better mimic the human condition. Male but not female mice born to dams harboring polyclonal anti-Caspr2 antibodies showed abnormal cortical development, decreased dendritic complexity of excitatory neurons and reduced numbers of inhibitory neurons in the hippocampus, as well as repetitive behaviors and impairments in novelty interest in the social preference test as adults. These data supporting the pathogenicity of anti-Caspr2 antibodies are consistent with the concept that anti-brain antibodies present in women during gestation can alter fetal brain development, and confirm that males are peculiarly susceptible.
Association of Hearing Loss with Physical, Social, and Mental Activity Engagement.

This article aims to evaluate a hearing loss intervention versus an aging education intervention on activity engagement in the Aging and Cognitive Health Evaluation in Elders pilot (ACHIEVE-P). Forty adults (70–84 years) with hearing loss recruited from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study and de novo participated. Participants were randomized 1:1 to a best practices hearing intervention or a successful aging intervention. Hearing was measured with pure-tone audiometry. The Community Healthy Activities Model Program for Seniors questionnaire measured self-reported time engaging in activities at baseline and 6-month follow-up. At baseline, greater hearing loss was associated with reduced time per week on mental activities (−3.0 hours per 10 dB of hearing loss, 95% confidence interval: −5.8, −0.2). Mental activity engagement increased (mean: +1.3 hours, SD = 6.6) for the hearing intervention group but decreased (mean: −1.1 hours, SD = 4.8) for the aging education group (Cohen's d: 0.41). Hearing loss may be associated with reduced engagement in mental activities. Whether hearing loss treatment impacts activity will be studied in the full-scale ACHIEVE trial.