cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Runtime Support for Out-of-Core Parallel Programs

In parallel programs with large out-of-core arrays stored in files, it is necessary to read/write smaller sections of the arrays from/to files. We describe a runtime method for accessing sections of out-of-core arrays efficiently. This method, called the extended two-phase method, uses collective I/O in which processors cooperate to read/write out-of-core data in an efficient manner. The I/O workload is divided among processors dynamically, depending on the access requests. Performance results on the Intel Touchstone Delta show that the extended two-phase method performs considerably better than a direct method for different access patterns, array sizes, and number of processors. We have used the extended two-phase method in the PASSION runtime library for parallel I/O.
Influence of offshore outsourced structural design processes on construction operations

This manuscript reports the findings of a research endeavor that has characterized the process to deliver detailed workshop and erection design documents for steel structures when outsourced to offshore design service providers, and has assessed the influence of these design processes on construction operations. The study has considered all aspects (organizational, transactional, and resource-based) of the structural design process among the key participants, i.e. owner, contractor, designer, and manufacturer. However, only the findings at the interface between design and construction are presented in this manuscript due to space constraints. An exploratory case study methodology was undertaken and ethnographic data from US client and Indian vendor companies was collected. As part of this ethnographic data collection, interview data comprising 23,000 words was coded to identify the constructs that characterize offshore outsourced structural design processes. Several shortcomings currently characterize these design processes. For instance, the inefficient use of design technologies penalizes the communication of design information between the involved participants. These inefficiencies frequently result in undetected clashes between the structural members and facility/building components (such as building services) that need to be identified and resolved at the job site at the expense of increased construction costs and extended completion times. In addition, the inefficient exchange of design information among participants result in excessive and time consuming design revisions that frequently extend design and construction schedules. To this date, past research efforts have investigated primary (architectural) offshore outsourced design processes but have, for the most part, omitted offshore outsourced structural design processes.
Simulation Management Systems Developed by the Northern Gulf Coastal Hazards Collaboratory (NG-CHC): An Overview of Cyberinfrastructure to Support the Coastal Modeling Community in the Gulf of Mexico

Given the significance of natural and built assets of the Gulf of Mexico region, the three states of Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi, leveraged their unique partnerships, proximity, and significant prior investments in cyberinfrastructure (CI) to develop the Northern Gulf Coastal Hazards Collaboratory (NG-CHC). This collaboratory was established to catalyze collaborative research via enhanced CI to reduce the regions vulnerability to natural and human disasters by facilitating high performance modeling to test hypotheses focused on engineering design, coastal system response, and risk management of coastal hazards. The objective of the NG-CHC is to advance research and inspire collaboration through highly available innovation-enabling CI, with a particular focus on geosciences and engineering from the watershed to the coast. An integrated CI capable of simulating all relevant interacting processes is needed to implement a system that captures the dynamic nature of coastal surface processes. The NG-CHC has implemented CI to locate appropriate data and computational resources, create necessary workflows associated with different simulation demands, and provide visualization tools for analysis of results. Three simulation management systems, SIMULOCEAN, SULIS, and ASGS, were implemented, each with a defined suite of hypotheses and institutional participants to run collaborator experiments. The NG-CHC focused on developing suites of CI tools centered on handling the functional needs of each simulation management system in a collaborative environment. The NG-CHC also developed curriculum units, computer games and simulations to extend the knowledge of coastal hazards to students from middle school to college. Education and outreach activities were developed to increase public understanding and support for sustainable coastal practices. The elements of the CI tool box within NG-CHC describe generic tools needed to promote a ‘collaborative modeling environment’ in other coastal systems.
Comparative Life Cycle Assessment of Remanufacturing and New Manufacturing of a Manual Transmission

A newly manufactured 5-speed manual transmission is compared with a genuine remanufactured transmission of identical design. The Life Cycle Assessment covers the entire product life cycle from production through to disposal. In all the environmental impact categories considered, the remanufactured transmission performs significantly better than the newly manufactured unit. The environmental improvements are attributable to the substantial reduction in material and energy consumption. Transport of used transmissions to the remanufacturing facility accounts for only a small fraction of total life cycle environmental impacts. Energy consumption is reduced by 33 % for the remanufactured transmission compared with a newly manufactured transmission.
Multi-valued logics

A great deal of recent theoretical work in inference has involved extending classical logic in some way. I argue that these extensions share two properties: firstly, the formal addition of truth values encoding intermediate levels of validity between true (i.e., valid) and false (i.e., invalid) and, secondly, the addition of truth values encoding intermediate levels of certainty between true or false on the one hand (complete information) and unknown (no information) on the other. Each of these properties can be described by associating lattice structures to the collection of truth values involved; this observation lead us to describe a general framework of which both default logics and truth maintenance systems are special cases.
The Future of Verbal Behavior: Together Is Better

Prior editorials have addressed the question "Where do we go from here?" This is a reasonable query as an incoming editorial team considers new perspectives and initiatives that may further benefit the journal. I will address two important highlights of the revised mission statement of The Analysis of Verbal Behavior aimed at actively encouraging diversity of thought in publications and focusing on narrowing the gap between applied research and practice.
Communication with general practitioners: a survey of spinal cord injury physicians' perspectives.

An online questionnaire. To gauge spinal cord injury (SCI) specialists’ assessment of their communications with general practitioners (GPs). To determine whether economic or health-care system-related factors enhance or inhibit such communication. A collaboration of co-authors from a health-care system. An online survey interrogating a number of aspects of communication between SCI specialists and GPs was developed, distributed, and made available for 4 months. Responses were analyzed for the entire cohort then according to descriptions of participants’ home nations’ economies and the type of health-care delivery systems in which they work. A total of 88 responses were submitted. The majority (64%) were from nations with developed economies, a plurality (47.1%) were from countries that offer universal health coverage, and half used a combination of paper and electronic health records. A majority of respondents (61.8%) reported routinely communicating with their patients’ GPs, but most (53.4%) rated those communications as only “fair”. The most commonly listed barriers to communication with GPs were lack of time (46.3%) and a perceived lack of receptivity by GPs (26.9%). Nearly all respondents (91.6%) believed that the care they provide would be enhanced by improved communication with GPs. Participants who used electronic means of communication were more likely to communicate with GPs and to describe those interactions as “positive”. Although there are a number of barriers to communication between SCI specialists and GPs, most SCI specialists are eager for such inter-physician communication and believe it would enhance their care they deliver.
New species of Lepidodactylus (Squamata: Gekkonidae) from New Guinea and adjacent islands

I describe five new species of Lepidodactylus from New Guinea or adjacent islands that are members of Brown Parker's (1977) phenetic Groups I and II and belong to the clades identified as the L. orientalis, L. pumilus, and L. novaeguineae groups of Oliver et al. (2018a). One of the new species is restricted to an isolated mountain range on New Guinea; the remainder inhabit offshore islands ranging from 3-250 km from New Guinea. These species are distinguished from their congeners primarily by unique combinations of toe lamellar numbers and shape, numbers and distribution of enlarged precloacal/femoral scales and pores, toe webbing, toe width, and color pattern. These clades are ancient, and the ancestor of one of them has been on the East Papuan Composite Terrane for at least 28 MY, highlighting the long-term importance of that former large island in generating regional biodiversity. At least one, and probably three, of the new species are inhabitants of forest interiors; one occupies disturbed coastal areas; and the habitat of the last is currently unsurmisable. All of the new species likely have restricted geographic distributions, with four of them being limited to one or a few small islands. As a result of their small ranges, rapid habitat conversion in the ranges of some of these species, and the threat of further habitat loss in the others, most of these species are of conservation concern although it is uncertain if any of them is under immediate threat.
Investigating the effect of AQP1 on growth and migration of glioblastoma multiforme cell lines

1365 Glioblastoma Multiformae (GBM), the highest grade (IV) of astrocytic tumor, is a lethal disease with median survival time of around one year, despite aggressive combinations of tumor resection, radiotherapy, and adjuvant chemotherapy. We used high-throughput DNA and expression microarrays to identify three genetic subgroups - mesenchymal, proliferative, and proneural - that correspond to survival (Phillips H. S., et al. Cancer Cell 9(3): 157-173 (2006); Nigro, J. M., et al. Cancer Res 65(5): 1678-1686 (2005)). The analysis yielded several genes overexpressed in GBM patients with poor survival. The water channel Aquaporin1 (AQP1) is one such gene. AQP1 is believed to increase cellular motility and may contribute to the infiltrativeness of these tumors. To study the biological effects of AQP1 overexpression in GBM, we have developed a stable GBM cell line that constitutively overexpresses AQP1, as verified by Real-Time, Quantitative Reverse Transcriptase PCR (qRT-PCR) and Western blotting. Our experiments suggest that the overexpression does not affect cell growth. We are now characterizing the effect(s) of AQP1 over-expression on cell survival, cell cycle distribution, apoptosis rate, migration and invasion, and genomic instability in this model system. Supported by the NIH (NS42927 and CA85799), National Brain Tumor Foundation, the Barrow Neurological Foundation, and the Brain Tumor Resource and Information Network
Microcrystal electron diffraction methodology and applications

Microcrystal electron diffraction (MicroED) is a cryo-electron microscopy technique that utilizes three-dimensional nano- and microcrystals for high-resolution structure determination. These extremely small crystals are several orders of magnitude smaller than what is used in conventional x-ray diffraction experiments. MicroED is capable of providing high-quality data from samples that would otherwise be considered useless for diffraction measurements. Since its initial implementation, MicroED has been used in the fields of structural biology, chemistry, and materials science. In this article, we provide an overview of the MicroED methodology as well as examples of how MicroED in cryo-electron microscopy has been used for structure determination of a variety of samples.
Educational Mobility in the Global South—A Study of African Students in China

China’s extraversion (“invite in” and “go out”) does not only reflect in the field of trade and investment but also in the education field. As knowledge economy impacts on China’s domestic development, the nation’s foreign policy toward South–South cooperation is influenced by the policy. Especially with the establishment of the Forum on China–Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in October 2000, China’s engagement with African countries has gradually extended from commercial to social and cultural related sectors. This chapter examines African students’ experiences in China, new trends in educational mobility within the global South, China’s role in international education, and both opportunities and challenges which the African students and the Chinese society face in the changing dynamics of global education. Through interviews with 20 African students in a Chinese university, the study analyzes African students’ motivations, opinions about living in China, and plans after graduation. The findings show various trends in international mobility through higher education exchange and cooperation, evaluate current China–Africa relations, and provide suggestions for future implementations at different levels.
Disk Formation by Asymptotic Giant Branch Winds in Dipole Magnetic Fields

We present a simple, robust mechanism by which an isolated star can produce an equatorial disk. The mechanism requires that the star have a simple dipole magnetic field on the surface and an isotropic wind acceleration mechanism. The wind couples to the field, stretching it until the field lines become mostly radial and oppositely directed above and below the magnetic equator, as occurs in the solar wind. The interaction between the wind plasma and magnetic field near the star produces a steady outflow in which magnetic forces direct plasma toward the equator, constructing a disk. In the context of a slow (10 km s-1) outflow (10-5 M☉ yr-1) from an asymptotic giant branch star, MHD simulations demonstrate that a dense equatorial disk will be produced for dipole field strengths of only a few Gauss on the surface of the star. A disk formed by this model can be dynamically important for the shaping of planetary nebulae.
Time and Dynamic Volume-Volatility Relation

This paper examines volume and volatility dynamics by accounting for market activity measured by the time duration between two consecutive transactions. A time-consistent vector autoregressive model (VAR) is employed to test the dynamic relationship between return volatility and trades using intraday irregularly spaced transaction data. The model is used to identify the informed and uninformed components of return volatility and to estimate the speed of price adjustment to new information. It is found that volatility and volume are persistent and highly correlated with past volatility and volume. The time duration between trades has a negative effect on the volatility response to trades and correlation between trades. Consistent with microstructure theory, shorter time duration between trades implies higher probability of news arrival and higher volatility. Furthermore, bid-ask spreads are serially dependent and strongly affected by the informed trading and inventory costs.
Renalase: A Multi-Functional Signaling Molecule with Roles in Gastrointestinal Disease

The survival factor renalase (RNLS) is a recently discovered secretory protein with potent prosurvival and anti-inflammatory effects. Several evolutionarily conserved RNLS domains are critical to its function. These include a 20 aa site that encodes for its prosurvival effects. Its prosurvival effects are shown in GI disease models including acute cerulein pancreatitis. In rodent models of pancreatic cancer and human cancer tissues, increased RNLS expression promotes cancer cell survival but shortens life expectancy. This 37 kD protein can regulate cell signaling as an extracellular molecule and probably also at intracellular sites. Extracellular RNLS signals through a specific plasma membrane calcium export transporter; this interaction appears most relevant to acute injury and cancer. Preliminary studies using RNLS agonists and antagonists, as well as various preclinical disease models, suggest that the immunologic and prosurvival effects of RNLS will be relevant to diverse pathologies that include acute organ injuries and select cancers. Future studies should define the roles of RNLS in intestinal diseases, characterizing the RNLS-activated pathways linked to cell survival and developing therapeutic agents that can increase or decrease RNLS in relevant clinical settings.
Sociolinguistics as a pathway to global citizenship: critically observing ‘self’ and ‘other’

In this article, we discuss how sociolinguistics can serve as an entryway into conversations about diversity, equity, and social justice, as part of education for global citizenship. Our approach, ...
Vector competence of human-biting ticks Ixodes scapularis, Amblyomma americanum and Dermacentor variabilis for Powassan virus.

Background Powassan virus (POWV; genus Flavivirus) is the sole North American member of the tick-borne encephalitis sero-complex and an increasing public health threat in the USA. Maintained in nature by Ixodes spp. ticks, POWV has also been isolated from species of other hard tick genera, yet it is unclear if these species can serve as vectors. Dermacentor variabilis and Amblyomma americanum share geographic and ecologic overlap with Ixodes spp. ticks and POWV transmission foci, raising the possibility that POWV could become established in these tick species and leading to range expansion and increased human risk. Therefore, we assessed the competency of Ixodes scapularis, D. variabilis and A. americanum for POWV lineage II (POWV II). Methods Larvae from all three species were co-infested on POWV-infected Balb/c mice. The engorged larvae were allowed to molt to nymphs and screened for the presence of POWV II RNA by reverse transcription-qPCR. Eight infected nymphs from each species were allowed to individually feed on a naive mouse. Mice were screened for the presence of POWV II RNA to determine infection status. Results The results demonstrated that larvae from all three tick species were able to efficiently acquire POWV II via feeding on viremic mice, maintain infection through molting and successively transmit POWV to naive mice at the nymphal stage at comparable rates across all three species. Conclusions Our findings reveal that non-Ixodes tick species can serve as competent vectors for POWV and highlight the potential role of these species in the ecology and epidemiology of POWV. Future studies examining the possible implications of these findings on POWV epidemiology and the adaptability of POWV in these new vectors are warranted.
On Information Rank Deficiency in Phenotypic Covariance Matrices.

This paper investigates a form of rank deficiency in phenotypic covariance matrices derived from geometric morphometric data, and its impact on measures of phenotypic integration. We first define a type of rank deficiency based on information theory, then demonstrate that this deficiency impairs the performance of phenotypic integration metrics in a model system. Lastly, we propose methods to treat for this information rank deficiency. Our first goal is to establish how the rank of a typical geometric morphometric covariance matrix relates to the information entropy of its eigenvalue spectrum. This requires clear definitions of matrix rank, of which we define three: the full matrix rank (equal to the number of input variables), the mathematical rank (the number of non-zero eigenvalues), and the information rank or 'effective rank' (equal to the number of non-redundant eigenvalues). We demonstrate that effective rank deficiency arises from a combination of methodological factors - Generalized Procrustes analysis, use of the correlation matrix, and insufficient sample size - as well as phenotypic covariance. Secondly, we use dire wolf jaws to document how differences in effective rank deficiency bias two metrics used to measure phenotypic integration. The eigenvalue variance characterizes the integration change incorrectly, and the standardized generalized variance lacks the sensitivity needed to detect subtle changes in integration. Both metrics are impacted by the inclusion of many small, but non-zero, eigenvalues arising from a lack of information in the covariance matrix, a problem that usually becomes more pronounced as the number of landmarks increases. We propose a new metric for phenotypic integration that combines the standardized generalized variance with information entropy. This metric is equivalent to the standardized generalized variance, but calculated only from those eigenvalues that carry non-redundant information. It is the standardized generalized variance scaled to the effective rank of the eigenvalue spectrum. We demonstrate that this metric successfully detects the shift of integration in our dire wolf sample. Our third goal is to generalize the new metric to compare data sets with different sample sizes and numbers of variables. We develop a standardization for matrix information based on data permutation, then demonstrate that Smilodon jaws are more integrated than dire wolf jaws. Finally, we describe how our information entropy-based measure allows phenotypic integration to be compared in dense semilandmark data sets without bias, allowing characterization of the information content of any given shape, a quantity we term 'latent dispersion'.
Monoclonal antibody treatments for paediatric severe asthma–outcomes, attitudes and adherence

Asthma prevalence in Australian children is amongst the highest in the world. Despite appropriate inhaler technique and optimally dosed inhaled steroids, approximately 5% experience sustained symptoms. Monoclonal antibody treatments (biologics) are the fifth step in the Global Initiative for Asthma guidelines to treat severe asthma. Our retrospective cohort study aimed to evaluate the treatment effect of biologics for children with severe asthma at Sydney Children’s Hospital, assess adherence to treatment and explore attitudes toward home administration using prefilled injection devices. We collected data for patients 0.05). We found no significant change in FEV1. Adherence was high. 64% of patients and carers perceived slightly/much better asthma control on biologics and 64% of carers indicated they would be slightly/much more happy with home injections. We conclude that biologic treatment leads to improved asthma control in Australian children eligible for and prescribed this therapy. Whilst adherence is high with health center based injections, carers are interested in home injections to reduce burden of care.
Area angle can monitor cascading outages with synchrophasors

We monitor the severity of multiple line outages inside an area of the power system according to the limitations on a bulk power transfer through the area when the outages occur. The monitoring combines together synchrophasor measurements around the border of the area to form an angle across the area that can be tracked in real time. This is an approach based on physical principles to extract actionable information by suitably combining synchrophasor measurements. We show the capabilities of the method on a model of the WECC system on an area with approximately 500 lines.
Development of high performance shoes to measure human walking

It is reported that the rate of elderly person in the total population of Japan is about 21.5% in 2007. Thus, the recent society of Japan is called as “Elderly Society”. In the society, many elderly people work or enjoy walking to keep health. However, some problems with respect to stumble over of elderly people are occurred. That is to say, in recent years, accidents of bone fracture with elderly people increase because of tendency to fall by a little step in a house. As one of this cause, it is considered that a center of gravity position with foot parts is changed. Therefore, in order to solve this problem, we propose a new type of high performance insole by making use of sponge-core-soft rubber actuator (SCSRA). In this study, we indicate the structure of the insole. Further, the basic characteristics of the insole are clarified through some experimental results.
Loue, S. (2011). My Nerves Are Bad: Puerto Rican Women Managing Mental Illness and HIV Risk.

Sana Loue's book, My Nerves Are Bad: Puerto Rican Women Managing Mental Illness and HIV Risk, portrays Puerto Rican women living at the intersection of mental illness, ethnicity, and gender as they...
The military in the noosphere

Websites are often used by governments to articulate particular views on international affairs, and even to lobby for a particular position. Using work by Arquilla and Ronfeldt (1999), Castells (2001) and Chadwick (2001) as a theoretical framework for understanding the importance that cyberspace holds for governments and states, the author analyzes the efforts of the Slovenian Ministry of Defense (MoD) to adopt the Internet to communicate with publics it defined as important. Through this website, the MoD literally served as a combatant in the noosphere, while displaying tendencies that Chadwick argues serves particular purposes in maintaining domestic political legitimacy. The analysis is based on a socio-semiotic approach (Hodge & Kress 1988) dependent on a well-developed understanding of the context within which signs and symbols exist. The paper outlines the role of the military in Slovenia, incorporates interview data with public relations staff in and then links these to a descriptive analysis of we...
Not Making the Transition to College: School, Work, and Opportunities in the Lives of Contemporary American Youth

Analyzes the motives for not attending college among a nationally representative sample of high school sophomores in 2002 who had not enrolled in college by the spring of 2006.
Intimate Publics: Autoethnographic Meditations on the Micropolitics of Resistance

Summary This article is based on 18 months of fieldwork with a group of male activists who inhabit a nine-year-old protest site, blocking a controversial development project. In it, the female author grapples with the contradictions she notes between the stated intentions of the occupation and her own experiences within it. Through careful mix of her own experiences in the space and material she once discarded from her data—silences, rumors, violence—this article demonstrates that possibilities for rescuing public space are limited by interpersonal relationships between campers. By writing in an experimental mode, the author demonstrates how the act of analysis becomes entangled in the very social dilemmas it aims to uncover.
Magnetospheric dynamo processes

Three processes are examined whereby an effective electromotive force and energy input arise in circuits of magnetospheric currents, even in the absence of time-varying magnetic fields. The first involves currents on 'open' field lines, linking the ionosphere with the solar wind, and it underscores the role of polarization currents. The second may exist on the current filament observed in the vicinity of Jupiter's satellite Io. The third may operate along the high-latitude boundary of the earth's magnetic tail, from where it pumps energy into the plasma sheet.
Varieties of Anomalous Experience: Examining the Scientific Evidence

Varieties of Anomalous Experience: Examining the Scientific Evidence. Etzel Cardena. Steven Jay Lynn. and Stanley Krippner (Eds.). Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 2000. 476 pp., $39.95 (cloth).
Evaluation of the Hartford Crime Control Experiment: Some Lessons for Future Evaluations

The Hartford Residential Neighborhood Crime Control Program was a comprehensive, environmentally oriented research effort aimed at examining the process involved in successful crime prevention programming. This innovative"process approach" to crime control involved three major research activities: (a) the conduct of a detailed crime problem analysis in the target area, using comprehensive data to identify the particular features ofthe neighborhood which were creating opportunities for crime occurrence; (b) the design of a multi-strategy (environmental, police, and community) crime control program directed specifically toward the improvement ofthose conditions found to be contributing to neighborhood crime; and (c) the in-depth evaluation of this approach to crime prevention, including extensive monitoring of the implementation process and a detailed assessment of program impact on crime, fear, and the quality of life in the target area. This paper presents six major evaluation problems confronting most crime control program assessments and describes how each was resolved by Hartford Program evaluators. It is hoped that this discussion of a model program evaluation will be of help to future crime control program researchers in designing their own program evaluations.
Characteristics of full etchstop layer transfer/silicon-on-insulator (FELT/SOI) material

Summary form only given. A full etchstop layer transfer/silicon-on-insulator (FELT/SOI) material process has been developed that meets the following criteria: (1) the material quality is identical to epitaxial silicon layers; (2) the SOI layer thickness is well controlled; (3) the insulator material choice and thickness is variable; (4) the device-to-device isolation is left to customer discretion. In the FELT/SOI process, a p+ etchstop layer is fabricated on a lightly doped starting substrate followed by epitaxial layer deposition with the type and resistivity required for the final SOI layer. Next an insulator layer is either grown or deposited followed by thick polysilicon deposition as is typical in standard DI process. The original substrate is now mechanically ground up to the vicinity of p+ etchstop layer. The remaining silicon overlying the etchstop layer and the etchstop layer itself are then removed in doping sensitive etches followed by surface finish. The SOI layer thickness control over a nominally 10- mu m layer on a 4-in wafer is +or-0.5 mu m, and the layer shows no material defects. Bipolar transistors fabricated on this material and epitaxial control material show comparable performance in terms of high gain sharp junction breakdown, and good yield. >
Dynamic Fiduciary Duties

This Article assesses a fundamental puzzle concerning directors’ fiduciary duties. While courts have gradually refined the content of fiduciary duties, they have yet to clearly determine which parties are the beneficiaries of these duties. In the standard Delaware pronouncement, directors owe their duties to “the corporation and its shareholders.” Since the interests of the corporation and its shareholders will diverge in various settings, this is at best an indeterminate legal doctrine. In order to better understand why the courts might select ambiguity, this Article will focus on the practical effects of the existing doctrine. An underappreciated feature of the current ambiguity is that it facilitates dynamic fiduciary duties. The broad range of judicially endorsed beneficiaries gives directors a variety of legitimate interpretations among which to choose. Directors are likely to develop their own interpretations of the correct fiduciary beneficiary from within that range, and these interpretations will inevitably shift over time. In short, a key feature of fiduciary duties is that they are read differently across time and between firms. This Article will then explore whether the uncertainty of fiduciary beneficiaries could be a desirable legal feature. Two hypotheses will be considered. First, it may be that dynamic fiduciary duties follow predictable patterns, reflecting changes in the allocations of bargaining power among corporate constituencies. This would suggest that dynamic fiduciary duties provide, at least in part, a “bargain-mimicking” default rule. Under limited circumstances, this hypothesis may be accurate. In the ordinary case, however, a bargain-mimicking account would likely fail. Second, dynamic fiduciary duties may provide for variation in outcomes. This hypothesis is more promising. On this account, dynamic fiduciary duties may be a way to experiment with legal options – i.e., individual firms may be “laboratories of corporate governance.”
Longitudinal neurologic follow-up in neonatal intensive care unit survivors with various neonatal morbidities.

Objective. The purpose of this prospective longitudinal study was to examine neurocognitive and school performance outcomes of low birth weight infants with reference to neonatal morbidity and socioeconomic status. We further evaluated the cognition and school performance based on their neurologic status at the time of assessment. Methods. One hundred eighty-eight children (39 healthy full-term and 149 preterm infants) were classified into 4 subgroups based on their neonatal medical status: healthy, sick (without neurologic complications), small for gestational age, and neurologically compromised infants. Neurologic status was classified as normal, suspect, or abnormal at hospital discharge, 18 months, 30 months, 4 years, and 8 years of age. Socioeconomic status, cognitive, and school performances were assessed. Results. Neurologically, both full-term and healthy preterm groups did well during the 8-year period. There were significant fluctuations between suspect and abnormal neurologic classifications among the 3 preterm groups with neonatal complications. Preterms with neurologic abnormality during the neonatal period did the poorest with 45% of the group remaining abnormal at 8 years of age. Children who were neurologically normal had higher cognitive scores at ages 4 and 8 than those categorized as suspect or abnormal. Preterm infants with neurologic abnormality required significantly more academic resources in the school. Reading and math achievement scores were the lowest for the preterm groups classified as neurologically suspect or abnormal. Conclusions. Neonatal morbidities exert a significant impact in neurologic outcomes among preterm children during the 8 years of assessment. Compromised neurologic status adversely affects cognitive and school performances. Neonatal medical status is an important variable indicating neurocognitive and school performance outcomes in low birth weight infants.
The Effect of Ants on the Population Dynamics of a Protective Symbiont of Aphids, Hamiltonella defensa

ABSTRACT Mutualists that provide redundant services to the same organism have been shown both to coexist and compete for access to the partner. Aphids, for example, are known to receive protection against natural enemies from both heritable bacterial symbionts as well as ants, which tend aphids in exchange for sugary honeydew excretions. Little is known, however, about how ant attendance might influence interactions between aphids and their protective bacteria. Assuming costs to infection, we hypothesized that protective symbiont prevalence would decrease in the presence of ants, because of duplication of services. We surveyed natural aphid populations and found Hamiltonella defensa, a bacterium that provides resistance to aphids against parasitoid wasps in laboratory settings, among several aphid species, including Obtusicauda frigidae (Oestlund 1886). We excluded ants from protecting O. frigidae aggregations and measured the effect of ant absence on the frequency of parasitoid attack and H. defensa infe...
Effect of grassland vegetation type on the responses of hydrological processes to seasonal precipitation patterns

Summary Under future climate scenarios, rainfall patterns and species composition in California grasslands are predicted to change, potentially impacting soil-moisture dynamics and ecosystem function. The primary objective of this study was to assess the impact of altered rainfall on soil-moisture dynamics in three annual grassland vegetation types. We monitored seasonal changes in soil moisture under three different rainfall regimes in mesocosms planted with: (1) a mixed forb-grass community, (2) an Avena barbata monoculture, and (3) an Erodium botrys monoculture. We applied watering treatments in pulses, followed by dry periods that are representative of natural rainfall patterns in California annual grasslands. While rainfall was the dominant treatment, its impact on hydrological processes varied over the growing season. Surprisingly, there were only small differences in the hydrologic response among the three vegetation types. We found significant temporal variability in evapotranspiration, seepage, and soil-moisture content. Both Water Use Efficiency (WUE) and Rain Use Efficiency (RUE) decreased as annual precipitation totals increased. Results from this investigation suggest that both precipitation and vegetation have a significant interactive effect on soil-moisture dynamics. When combined, seasonal precipitation and grassland vegetation influence near-surface hydrology in ways that cannot be predicted from manipulation of a single variable.
Adaptive strain estimation using retrospective processing [medical US elasticity imaging]

Because errors in displacement and strain estimates depend on the magnitude of the induced strain, the strain signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) will be a function of the applied deformation. If deformation is applied at the body surface, it is difficult during data acquisition to select a single surface displacement providing the highest strain SNR throughout the image. By applying continuous deformation and capturing data in real-time, the surface displacement providing the highest strain SNR can be selected retrospectively. A method to adaptively optimize strain SNR over the image plane using retrospective processing is presented and demonstrated with experimental results.
Fenoldopam reverses cyclosporine-induced renal vasoconstriction in kidney transplant recipients.

Abstract Cyclosporine causes renal vasoconstriction and reduced renal blood flow that may contribute to chronic nephrotoxicity. This effect has not been consistently reversed by available pharmacologic agents. The efficacy of orally administered fenoldopam, a dopamine-1 (DA-1) agonist with renal vasodilator properties, was evaluated in six patients whose condition was stable 3 to 6 months following renal transplantation. Glomerular filtration rate (GFR) and effective renal plasma flow (ERPF) were measured by inulin and p-aminohippurate (PAH) clearances, respectively, at baseline, after the acute oral administration of 100 mg of fenoldopam, and following 3 weeks of chronic oral fenoldopam therapy (100 mg thrice daily). Mean ERPF increased from 3.15 ± 0.17 mL/s/1.73 m 2 (189 ± 10 mL/min/1.73 m 2 ) at baseline to 3.48 ± 0.17 mL/s/1.73 m 2 (209 ± 10 mL/min/1.73 m 2 ) 4 hours after acute administration of fenoldopam (P = 0.04). Urine flow rate and fractional excretion of sodium also increased after acute administration, but not significantly. Mean systolic (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) decreased maximally by 18 and 6 mm Hg, respectively, and mean pulse rate increased maximally by 8 bpm between 75 and 90 minutes after both acute and chronic administration. GFR was unchanged following both acute and chronic administration. The increase in ERPF was not maintained to the end of the dosing interval during chronic administration, probably due to the short half-life of fenoldopam, However, the renal vasodilatory response was still observed 3 to 4 hours after readministration of the drug following 3 weeks of oral dosing. Thus, fenoldopam significantly reverses the renal vasoconstriction caused by cyclosporine in renal transplant recipients. Further evaluation of fenoldopam in preventing cyclosporine-induced nephrotoxicity appears warranted.
Effects of disturbance by visitors on two woodland orchid species in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, USA

Abstract Two species of woodland orchid, showy orchis Orchis spectabilis, and pink lady slipper Cypripedium acaule, were surveyed for population density, clumping characteristics, and shoot morphology along sampling routes with easy, moderate and difficult access for visitors in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Showy orchis populations were denser close to trails, and there were no major differences in populations attributable to visitor disturbance. The density of lady slipper populations was not clearly related to road or trail position, but there were significant differences in plant morphology between, easy, moderate and difficult access routes and some morphological characteristics gave significant regressions against road and trail distance. There was only limited evidence that environmental factors, such as slope or elevation, were influencing shoot morphology. The results indicate that visitors to the National Park will have difficulty finding blooming plants, despite the numerous lady slipper shoots along easy access routes. Rare plant monitoring efforts and further plant poaching studies should include detailed morphological information, since density may not be an adequate measure of population condition.
Rain simulation studies for high-intensity acoustic nose cavities

Unarmed plastic projectiles can be equipped with small axisymmetric cavities for the generation of intense tones that are useful in training maneuvers. Attention is presently given to the simulation of rainfall in an airstream and the effect of rain droplet impingement on the nose of projectiles, and especially to any penetration or accumulation of water at the base of the cavity that might increase the fundamental cavity frequency and/or reduce the intensity of sound production during rain conditions.
Doing more with less for the good of all

As with all of you, Instructional and Informational Technologies (IIT) at Penn State Schuylkill have been hit with budget cuts and limited staffing, while our request for services and support have grown. The response no one wants to hear to his or her request is NO, so this has called for some resourceful times. We only have a full-time staff of 4 on our campus to support approximately 1,100 students and 250 faculty and staff. This has resulted in us successfully turning to our educational departments for assistance. We have been able to turn our request and challenges into projects for our Information Science & Technology (IST) students. We have utilized them for small LAN design projects, Software Applications, testing of security on a wireless LAN and several minor projects. IST student interns are also used to supplement our staff when we know we have a large volume of work to be done. This summer we are looking at a campus wide wireless rollout, possible assumption of our ResCom network, re-cabling projects as well as our annual recycling of computers in the labs. These will all have a high utilization of student labor. These students have come away with a greater knowledge than they would normally get in a classroom environment by actually getting to do what they are learning about and we essentially double our staff size and accomplish more than we would normally be able to do. The faculty loves the idea of the hands on practice and them actually putting something into a production environment.
PIP: Privacy and Integrity Preserving Data Aggregation in Wireless Sensor Networks

With the exponential rise of pervasive computing applications, data privacy has become much more of an important issue than before. When data is aggregated at each hop in a sensor network, it becomes harder to protect its privacy. A number of privacy preserving data aggregation algorithms have recently appeared for wireless sensor networks (WSNs), very few of them however also address the issue of data integrity along with privacy. Data privacy and integrity are two contrasting objectives to achieve in general. In a privacy preserved data aggregation, it becomes easier for an attacker to inject false data hence, we suggest that both privacy and integrity of data should be treated together. In this paper, we present an energy efficient, privacy preserving data aggregation algorithm which also preserves data integrity in WSNs. We analyze the security of the algorithm and provide proofs for confidentiality and integrity. We enhance this algorithm further to localize, to a certain degree, the corrupt aggregator. We provide the results of our implementation of the algorithm on TelosB motes, illustrating that both the computational overhead and the energy consumption are very low. Finally, we compare our algorithm with other schemes having similar objectives demonstrating that our algorithm performs better in terms of band with usage and energy consumption in a WSN environment.
The Chinese Notions of Harmony, With Special Focus on Implications for Cross-Cultural and Global Psychology

Harmony is a value that is frequently associated with China as much as love is with Christianity. In both cases, misconceptions abound. This article articulates the nuanced conceptualizations of harmony in classical Chinese texts for a two-fold purpose: first, to refute the tendency in cross-cultural psychology to equate harmony with uniformity and status quo; second, to derive from harmony a model of unity that has far reaching implications for the development of global psychology.
Ethnomedicine: The “new” medical anthropology?

Horacio Fabrega, Jr., and Daniel B. Silver. Illness and Shamanistic Curing in Zinacantan: An Ethnomedical Analysis. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1973. xii + 285 pp. Tables, figures, appendixes, bibliography, and index. $10.95.
An evaluation of reciprocal peer tutoring across elementary school settings

Abstract The effects of a reciprocal peer tutoring (RPT) intervention on the arithmetic performance of 12 low-income, underachieving elementary school students across three elementary school settings were evaluated and a partial component analysis was conducted. The results indicated that merely teaming students and providing them with positive attention for constructive team activities had no clear effect on arithmetic performance. An RPT condition that involved peer-managed group contingencies yielded consistent increases in rate of accurate arithmetic performance to a level that was significantly above the rates of untreated control students. Attendance and maintenance data also supported the efficacy of the intervention.
Bond-valence methods for pKa prediction. II. Bond-valence, electrostatic, molecular geometry, and solvation effects

Abstract In a previous contribution, we outlined a method for predicting (hydr)oxy-acid and oxide surface acidity constants based on three main factors: bond valence, Me–O bond ionicity, and molecular shape. Here, electrostatics calculations and ab initio molecular dynamics simulations are used to qualitatively show that Me–O bond ionicity controls the extent to which the electrostatic work of proton removal departs from ideality, bond valence controls the extent of solvation of individual functional groups, and bond valence and molecular shape control local dielectric response. These results are consistent with our model of acidity, but completely at odds with other methods of predicting acidity constants for use in multisite complexation models. In particular, our ab initio molecular dynamics simulations of solvated monomers clearly indicate that hydrogen bonding between (hydr)oxo-groups and water molecules adjusts to obey the valence sum rule, rather than maintaining a fixed valence based on the coordination of the oxygen atom as predicted by the standard MUSIC model. However, we also show how our method for pKa prediction could be improved using ab initio molecular dynamics simulations of solvated surfaces.