cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Caring for Patients with Obesity: Knowledge, Attitudes, and Barriers among Pediatric Residents

Background: Previous studies have identified attending physicians’ perceptions regarding screening for and managing pediatric obesity, but less is known about resident physicians’ perspectives and perceived barriers. Identifying barriers to effective counseling on obesity prevention and management can help direct resident education and will be beneficial for both residents and their patients. The objective of this study was to assess pediatric residents’ knowledge on obesity screening, their comfort discussing obesity with families, their self-efficacy regarding obesity prevention and management, and the barriers …
Characteristics, Comorbidities, Complications, and Outcomes Among 802 Patients With Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 in a Community Hospital in Florida

Objectives: Coronavirus disease 2019 continues to increase throughout the United States. Despite the rapid progression of the disease, there is limited information of the factors associated with mortality in Florida. This study aims to review the demographics, characteristics, comorbidities, complications, and outcomes of hospitalized patients, and their association with mortality. Design: Cohort study. Setting: A community-based tertiary-care hospital of Orlando Health, Orlando Regional Medical Center. Patients/Subjects: Data of hospitalized patients who tested positive for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 between March 1, 2020, and August 31, 2020, at the Orlando Regional Medical Center. Interventions: None. Measurements and Main Results: Main data assessed included patient demographics, clinical characteristics, comorbidities, complications, outcomes, and inhospital mortality. The median age for hospitalized patients was 61 years;among them, 56% were males. Most were of African American (n = 288, 35.9%), Hispanic (n = 237, 29.6%), and Caucasian (n = 217, 27.1%) descent. More patients presented with symptoms developing at home (n = 589, 75.9%) than from skilled nursing and long-term acute care facilities. The most common comorbidities were diabetes mellitus (42.8%), obesity (39.2%), lung disease (23.3%), coronary artery disease (20.2%), and congestive heart failure (18.3%). Complications with higher odds of mortality were mechanical ventilation (odds ratio, 148.00, p < 0.001), coinfections (odds ratio, 56.42, p < 0.001), acute kidney injury (odds ratio, 84.01, p < 0.001), atrial fibrillation (odds ratio, 28.30, p < 0.001), acute myocardial infarction (odds ratio, 23.29, p < 0.001), and acute venous thromboembolism (odds ratio, 26.43, p < 0.001). Conclusions: We identified an increase of severity of coronavirus disease 2019 within older patients of African American and Hispanic descent with comorbidities such as diabetes, coronary artery disease, congestive heart failure, chronic kidney disease, cancer, liver disease, or cerebrovascular disease. Noninvasive positive-pressure ventilation and high-flow nasal cannula oxygen may have helped avert mechanical ventilation, and this may have improved patient outcomes over the course of the study period.
Thermodynamics of Elastic Materials

We identify the body B with the compact regular region in E that it occupies is a fixed reference configuration. A part P of B is a regular subregion of B.
The Need for Collaboration in Planning Efforts during Natural Disasters: An Evaluation of the City of Richmond, Virginia

This thesis evaluates whether or not information data sharing is effectively used between federal, state, and local government agencies and non-governmental agencies in a metropolitan area during and immediately after a major natural disaster. Also, whether vulnerable populations were identified and considered during emergency management. The chosen study area is the City of Richmond, VA, and the disaster response is based on flooding episodes that occurred in the city over the last decade following hurricanes and tropical depressions. Questionnaires were administered to representatives of federal, state, and local agencies and NGOs. The questionnaires consisted of a Likert-style series of 10 questions and a group of more broadly based and open ended questions that were administered in person or by phone and included four questions designed to identify progress made since the last disaster. The self-administered Likert-style of questions consisted of identifying agency planning and operational activity, interaction with other agencies, means for data collection, use of FEMA’s Partnership Guides, and communication with the public. These questions were also designed to identify the agency activity in each of the four major areas of emergency management, namely mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery. In general there appears to be good lines of communication, co-operation, and interaction between agencies based on the concept that disaster management is a local issue and only involves the state and federal governments in cases of very severe disasters. Consistent with this was the fact that there was essentially no use of the FEMA Partnership Guide by state and local agencies. GIS capacity is generally good, as is data sharing via a number of methods, including regular meetings. A variety of methods are used to inform the general public, including reverse 911, radio, television and social networks although vulnerable populations may have difficult accessing some of these. viii
Designing a private industry: Government auctions with endogenous market structure

Abstract This paper considers government mechanisms for auctioning production rights in which both the winners and the market structure, doupoly (dual-sourcing), monopoly (sole-sourcing), or government-owned production, are a function of the bids. In designing the optimal mechanism, the government considers the tradeoffs among consumer surplus, producer surplus, and revenue. Under incomplete information, doupoly is implemented less frequently, and government production more frequently, than under complete information. When bidders are symmetric, the optimal mechanism can be implemented as a modified second-price auction. Applications to privatization, deregulation, and defense procurement are discussed.
American Board of Professional Neuropsychology

Abstract This paper updates neuropsychologists on the process and procedures for obtaining board certification in clinical neuropsychology through the American Board of Professional Neuropsychology (ABPN), a free-standing post-doctoral level diplomate granting certification board. ABPN has certified well over 200 professional neuropsychologists in clinical neuropsychology. This article describes the eligibility criteria, application submission requirements, examination procedures and psychometric characteristics of the essay examination, work sample and oral examination, and re-certification standards for ABPN. The purpose of the ABPN is to promote high standards of professional practice in clinical neuropsychology.
The Hospital Elder Assessment Team

Elder abuse literature shows that health care professionals are aware of elder abuse/neglect laws but do not understand the requirements nor have the skills to diagnose the problem (Clark-Daniels & Daniels, 1990). Many victims of elder abuse appear in hospital emergency rooms for medical evaluation. Although 42 of the 50 states now have mandatory elder abuse/neglect reporting laws, few hospitals have responded with interdisciplinary elder protective teams in contrast to the situation with child abuse reporting laws. One exception has been the establishment of a multidisciplinary elder assessment team at Beth Israel Hospital, Boston, MA, to address the complex issues of recognition and assesssment of elders seen in the hospital who are suspected victims of abuse. Included in the mission of the team are consultation, support, and education to hospital staff about elder abuse and neglect.
Secure Broadcast Ambients

Broadcast mechanism is prevalent in many forms of electronic networks. Modeling broadcast protocols succinctly and reasoning about how secure these protocols are is gaining importance as society increasingly comes to depend on a wide variety of electronic communications. In this work we present a modified ambient calculus where the nature of communication is broadcast within domains. We allow reconfigurable configurations of communication domains, access restrictions to domains and the capability of modeling cryptographic communication protocols in broadcast scenarios.
BLOOD PRESSURE MEASUREMENT IN THE HEMODIALYSIS SETTING

Blood pressure measurement is an important component of the care of the hemodialysis patient. Invasive methods, as used in the intensive care setting, are the most accurate. In the ambulatory setting, noninvasive methods, such as palpitation, auscultation, and oscillometry, are used. When care is taken to avoid operator error, these techniques should yield results that are sufficiently accurate for clinical use. All new devices should be validated for accuracy.
Markov Random Field Applications in Image Analysis

Image analysis, or computer vision, deals with machine processing of visual (or pictorial) information. Visual sensory data are usually obtained in the form of two-dimensional images of the physical world and consists of measurements which are dependent on factors such as the imaging geometry, illumination, and structures present in the world. The goal of any vision system is to recognize familiar structures in the system’s environment, and obtain concise symbolic descriptions of unfamiliar structures, using visual sensory data. The task of a vision system, then, can be described as a data reduction task which extracts meaningful descriptions from huge amounts of visual data. The description obtained from the visual data should remain invariant for certain changes in the physical world [3]. In many computer vision applications, invariance against the following factors is required [3]: (i) sensor noise; (ii) optical distortion; (iii) viewpoint; (iv) perspective distortion; and (v) variations in photometric conditions.
Algebraic Statistical Model for Biochemical Dynamics Inference

With modern molecular quantification methods, like, for instance, high throughput sequencing, biologists may perform multiple complex experiments and collect longitudinal data on RNA and DNA concentrations. Such data may be then used to infer cellular level interactions between the molecular entities of interest. One method which formalizes such inference is the stoichiometric algebraic statistical model (SASM) of Craciun (2009) which allows to analyze the so-called conic (or single source) networks. Despite its intuitive appeal, up until now the SASM has been only heuristically studied on few simple examples. The current presentation will provide a more formal mathematical treatment of the SASM, expanding the original model to a wider class of reaction systems decomposable into multiple conic subnetworks. In particular, it will be shown that on such networks the SASM enjoys the so-called sparsistency property, that is, it asymptotically (with the number of observed network trajectories) discards the false interactions by setting their reaction rates to zero. For illustration, the extended SASM is applied to in silico data from a generic decomposable network as well as to biological data from an experimental search for a possible transcription factor for the heat shock protein 70 (Hsp70) in the zebrafish retina.
Invited Keynote Talk: Data Mining and Statistical Methods for Analyzing Microarray Experiments

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) microarrays are part of a promising class of biotechnologies that allow the simultaneous monitoring of expression levels in cells for thousands of genes. One of important issues in microarray experiments is the classification of biological samples and predicting clinical or other outcomes using gene expression data. A closely related issue is the identification of marker genes that have good predictive power for an outcome of interest. Although classification is not a new subject in the statistical literature, the large number of genes with relatively small sample size generated by microarray experiments raises new computational challenges. In this study, the gene expressions of breast cancer tumors are investigated and the performance of several popular classification methods, including decision tree, logistic regression, linear discriminant analysis, and k-nearest neighbor are compared. The results show that certain genes are significantly differentially expressed across groups of patients, and k-nearest neighbor method achieves better performance in class prediction than the other classification methods.
Hysteresis modeling for model-based condition monitoring of lithium-ion batteries

A real-time battery model capable of accurately predicting the battery hysteresis effect is critical for a model-based battery conditional monitoring algorithm in advanced battery management systems. Battery condition monitoring involves tracking changes in physical parameters and operational states such as state of charge (SOC) and state of health (SOH) to ensure the optimal operation and safety of a battery system. This paper investigates and models the hysteresis behavior of lithium-ion battery cells and incorporates the hysteresis model in the real-time battery model to improve the accuracy of the SOC estimation in both charge and discharge modes over the entire operating SOC range and environmental temperature range of the cells. This also leads to accurate maximum capacity estimation to determine the SOH of the battery cells. In addition, a method for extracting the hysteresis model parameters is proposed. Experimental results for a cylindrical lithium-ion cell are provided to validate the proposed model and method.
Application of X-Ray CT for Investigation of CO 2 and WAG Injection in Fractured Reservoirs

Fractured reservoirs have always been considered poor candidates for enhanced oil recovery. This is mainly due to the complexities involved in predicting performance in such reservoirs. A good understanding of multiphase flow in fractures is important to reduce oil bypass and increase recovery in these reservoirs. This paper presents CO2 flooding experiments in homogeneous and fractured rocks with in-situ saturation and porosity measurements using an X-Ray CT scanner. We found that injection rates played an important role in the recovery process, more so in the presence of fractures. At high injection rates we observed faster CO2 breakthrough and higher oil bypass than at low injection rates. But very low injection rates are not attractive from an economic point of view. Hence we injected viscosified water to reduce the mobility of CO2, similar to the WAG process. Breakthrough time reduced significantly and a much higher recovery was obtained. Saturation measurements were made from the CT scans and were found to be in good agreement with those obtained from effluent data.
oreChem ChemXSeer: a semantic digital library for chemistry

Representing the semantics of unstructured scientific publications will certainly facilitate access and search and hopefully lead to new discoveries. However, current digital libraries are usually limited to classic flat structured metadata even for scientific publications that potentially contain rich semantic metadata. In addition, how to search the scientific literature of linked semantic metadata is an open problem. We have developed a semantic digital library oreChem ChemxSeer that models chemistry papers with semantic metadata. It stores and indexes extracted metadata from a chemistry paper repository Chemx Seer using "compound objects".We use the Open Archives Initiative Object Reuse and Exchange (OAI-ORE) (http://www.openarchives.org/ore/ standard to define a compound object that aggregates metadata fields related to a digital object. Aggregated metadata can be managed and retrieved easily as one unit resulting in improved ease-of-use and has the potential to improve the semantic interpretation of shared data. We show how metadata can be extracted from documents and aggregated using OAI-ORE. ORE objects are created on demand; thus, we are able to search for a set of linked metadata with one query.We were also able to model new types of metadata easily. For example, chemists are especially interested in finding information related to experiments in documents. We show how paragraphs containing experiment information in chemistry papers can be extracted and tagged based on a chemistry ontology with 470 classes, and then represented in ORE along with other document-related metadata. Our algorithm uses a classifier with features that are words that are typically only used to describe experiments, such as "apparatus", "prepare", etc. Using a dataset comprised of documents from the Royal Society of Chemistry digital library, we show that the our proposed methodperforms well in extracting experiment-related paragraphs from chemistry documents.
Chapter 30 The Khubsugul Group, Northern Mongolia

Abstract The Khubsugul Group of northern Mongolia contains diamictites in the Ongoluk and Khesen formations that are succeeded by a stratiform phosphorite deposit and >2 km of early Cambrian dolomite. The stratigraphy of the Khubsugul Group, including the two diamictites, can be correlated with that of the Dzabkhan platform in southern Mongolia. By correlation, the Ongoluk diamictite is an early Cryogenian glacial deposit. A glaciogenic origin is inferred from the presence of striated clasts and bed-penetrating dropstones. The younger Khesen diamictite consists predominantly of a massive carbonate-clast diamictite, but also contains bed-penetrating dropstones in rare stratified facies, and is inferred to be end Cryogenian in age. The two diamictites are separated by as much as 250 m of allodapic carbonate. The phosphorite in the upper Khesen Formation (Fm.) is likely latest Ediacaran to early Cambrian in age and is separated from the glacial deposits by a major hiatus. Consequently, no links can be made between the phosphogenesis and the glacial deposits. Only limited geochemical, geochronological and palaeomagnetic results from the Khubsugul basin have been reported to date, but work is ongoing and there is strong potential for future studies.
Critical unit operations of the aqueous processing of fresh coconuts

An aqueous process was investigated for the recovery of oil and food grade protein from fresh coconuts. Efficient recovery of oil, which is very important for economical reasons, was related to three critical unit operations: separation of oil from the fiber, destabilization of an oil-in-water emulsion, and recovery of a protein product that is low in oil content. The material balance is reported for a laboratory process that satisfactorily separates oil and breaks the emulsion, and data are shown which has led to a process for recovery of a protein with low oil content.
STAT5 signaling is required for the efficient induction and maintenance of CML in mice.

The role of signal transducers and activators of transcription 5 (STAT5) in chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) is controversial. To clarify the role of STAT5 signaling in P210BCR/ABL leukemogenesis, P210 was introduced into primary murine STAT5A-deficient (STAT5A–/–) bone marrow (BM) cells, which, unlike STAT5A/5B double knockout BM cells, have no major intrinsic hematopoietic defects. Interestingly, only 21% of mice reconstituted with P210-transduced STAT5A–/– BM cells developed classic CML, compared with 80% to 100% of P210/STAT5A+/+ and P210/STAT5A+/–-reconstituted animals. The remainder of P210/STAT5A–/– animals died from an acute B-cell lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL)–like disease (32%) or a CML/ALL mix (47%), reflecting impairment in the induction and maintenance of CML, which normally predominates in this mouse model. Of mice that ultimately developed CML, P210/STAT5A–/– animals had prolonged survival and increased myeloid immaturity. Importantly, reconstitution of wild-type mice with BM cells coexpressing P210 and dominant-negative STAT5 also profoundly reduced the incidence of CML, without impairing the induction of ALL. Altogether, these findings indicate that STAT5 and STAT5A play an important role in the pathogenesis of the CML-like disease in mice. A greater understanding of the STAT5 target genes involved in CML induction may lead to new therapeutic targets that influence CML progenitor cell biology.
Condensation of 2,3-Dimercaptopropanol (BAL) with Oxophenarsine Hydrochloride: Toxicity and Chemotherapeutic Effect

Summary1. The condensation product of BAL and oxophenarsine hydrochloride (BAL-OXO) was studied. Its toxicity in mice and chemotherapeutic activity in T. equiperdum is reported, in comparison with similar data, for oxophenarsine hydrochloride.2. The acute toxicity of the thioarsenite, BAL-OXO is approximately 1/4 that of the arsenoxide (oxophenarsine hydrochloride) from which it was prepared.3. The BAL-OXO has less therapeutic advantage, i.e., lower LD50/CD50, in mouse trypanosomiasis than oxophenarsine hydrochloride itself.
Autophagy, protein aggregation and hyperthermia: A mini-review

Purpose: We aim to explore the role of macroautophagy in cellular responses to hyperthermia. Protein damage incurred during hyperthermia can either lead to cell death or may be repaired by polypeptide quality control pathways including: (1) the deterrence of protein unfolding by molecular chaperones and (2) proteolysis of the denatured proteins within the proteasome. A third pathway of protein quality control is triggered by formation of protein aggregates in the heat shocked cell. This is the macroautophagy pathway in which protein aggregates are transported to specialised organelles called autolysosomes capable of degrading the aggregates. The consequences for cell viability of triggering this pathway are complex and may involve cell death, although under many circumstances, including exposure of cells to hyperthermia, autophagy leads to enhanced cell survival. We have discussed mechanisms by which cells detect protein aggregates and recruit them into the macroautophagy pathway as well as the potential ...
Phytosphingosine as a specific inhibitor of growth and nutrient import in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Abstract In the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, we have demonstrated a necessary role for sphingolipids in the heat stress response through inhibition of nutrient import (Chung, N., Jenkins, G. M., Hannun, Y. A., Heitman, J., and Obeid, L. M. (2000) J. Biol. Chem. 275, 17229–17232). In this study, we used a combination of pharmacological and genetic approaches to determine which endogenous sphingolipid is the likely mediator of growth inhibition. When cells were treated with exogenous phytosphingosine (PHS, 20 μm) or structurally similar or metabolically related molecules, including 3-ketodihydrosphingosine, dihydrosphingosine, C2-phytoceramide (PHC), and stearylamine, only PHS inhibited growth. Also, PHS was shown to inhibit uptake of uracil, tryptophan, leucine, and histidine. Again this effect was specific to PHS. Because of the dynamic nature of sphingolipid metabolism, however, it was difficult to conclude that growth inhibition was caused by PHS itself. By using mutant yeast strains defective in various steps in sphingolipid metabolism, we further determined the specificity of PHS. The elo2Δ strain, which is defective in the conversion of PHS to PHC, was shown to have slower biosynthesis of ceramides and to be hypersensitive to PHS (5 μm), suggesting that PHS does not need to be converted to PHC. The lcb4Δ lcb5Δ strain is defective in the conversion of PHS to PHS 1-phosphate, and it was as sensitive to PHS as the wild-type strain. The syr2Δmutant strain was defective in the conversion of DHS to PHS. Interestingly, this strain was resistant to high concentrations of DHS (40 μm) that inhibited the growth of an isogenic wild-type strain, demonstrating that DHS needs to be converted to PHS to inhibit growth. Together, these data demonstrate that the active sphingolipid species that inhibits yeast growth is PHS or a closely related and yet unidentified metabolite.
A family of single-step Houbolt time integration algorithms for structural dynamics

A new family of implicit, single-step time integration methods is presented for solving structural dynamics problems. The proposed method is unconditionally stable, second-order accurate and asymptotically annihilating. It is spectrally equivalent to Houbolt's method but is cast in single-step form rather than multi-step form; thus the new algorithm computationally is more convenient. An explicit predictor-correcter algorithm is presented based upon the new implicit scheme. The explicit algorithm is spectraily equivalent to the central difference method. The two new algorithms are merged into an implicit-explicit method, resulting in an improved algorithm for solving structural dynamics problems composed of 'soft' and 'stiff' domains. Numerical results are presented demonstrating the improved performance of the new implicit-explicit method compared to previously developed implicit-explicit schemes for structural dynamics.
The CIRAS study: a case control study to define the clinical, immunologic, and radiographic features of aromatase inhibitor-induced musculoskeletal symptoms.

Aromatase inhibitors (AIs) are widely prescribed for post-menopausal hormone receptor-positive breast cancer; however, musculoskeletal symptoms limit their tolerability. The purpose of this study was to determine whether joint pain in women receiving AIs is associated with inflammatory arthritis as measured by the disease activity score-28 (DAS-28), and to evaluate association with tenosynovitis on ultrasound. A total of 48 postmenopausal women with stage I–III breast cancer and hand pain were recruited from the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. Those receiving AIs were cases (n = 25), and those not receiving AIs were controls (n = 23). During a single study visit, subjects underwent blinded rheumatologic evaluation, DAS-28, health assessment questionnaires, autoantibodies, inflammatory markers, hand X-ray, and hand Duplex ultrasound. There were no significant differences between cases and controls in DAS-28, or inflammatory markers. A positive ANA (titer > 1:160) was found in ten patients, four of whom met criteria for autoimmune disease (two with rheumatoid arthritis and two with Sjogren’s syndrome, equally distributed among cases and controls). This highlights the importance of considering underlying autoimmune disease in subjects with musculoskeletal complaints. Morning stiffness was more prolonged in women receiving AIs, but this did not reach statistical significance (P = 0.07). Ultrasound evidence of flexor tenosynovitis was common in both groups. Although tenosynovitis was not correlated with AI use (P = 0.26), there was a trend toward an association between tenosynovitis and morning stiffness (P = 0.089). While aromatase inhibitor-induced musculoskeletal symptoms (AIMSS) were more common in subjects receiving AIs, they were not unique to AI users. There was no association between presence of AIMSS features and other chemotherapy or medication exposures. Although the majority of subjects had been using AIs for more than 6 months, this study did not find evidence for inflammatory arthritis in women with hand pain receiving AIs. Further studies are needed to develop a case definition of AIMSS, and to confirm whether these symptoms are attributable to AI use.
A Concurrent General Purpose Operator Interface

Compact interactive control consoles are rephcing traditional control rooms as operator interfaces for physical processes. In the irust major application of concurrent programming outside the area of operating systems, this paper presents a design for a general purpose operator interface which uses a color graphics terminal with a touch-sensitive screen as the control console. Operators interact with a process through a collection of application-dependent displays generated interactively by users familiar with the physical process. The use of concurrent programming results in a straightforward and reliable design which may easily be extended to support multiple devices of varying types in the control console. An implementation of the Operator Interface in Concurrent Pascal currently in progress is also discussed.
Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers in Outmigrant Juvenile Chinook Salmon from the Lower Columbia River and Estuary and Puget Sound, Washington

Previous studies have examined the presence, distribution, and concentrations of toxic contaminants in two major waterways in the Pacific Northwest: the lower Columbia River and Estuary (LCRE thus, the potential effects of PBDEs on these salmon should be further investigated.
Grazing of ciliates on blue–green algae: Effects of ciliate encystment and related phenomena

Grazing of the ciliate Colpoda steinii on the blue–green alga Anacystis nidulans has been studied in batch and chemostat type laboratory cultures. Growth of the populations, grazing of the ciliates on the algae, hydrodynamic washout of the populations (in chemostat cultures), encystment of Colpoda, and transfer of cysts from the liquid culture to the vessel wall and their attachment thereto were all found to have significant effects on the dynamics of this system. In addition, reinoculation of the liquid with ciliates excysted from the wall and with algae detached from the wall may be important. The interaction of all of these processes produces quite complex dynamical phenomena which at present cannot be predicted by a model. The results obtained differ from those found earlier for feeding of ciliates or slime mold amoebas on bacteria in that steady states of coexistence, rather than sustained oscillations, were exhibited by the present system.
Analysis of a cocurrent membrane reactor

Etude de la deshydrogenation du cyclohexane sur Pd−Al 2 O 3 ou Pt−Al 2 O 3 , dans un reacteur a membrane a paroi permeable. Le catalyseur est situe a l'interieur du tube membranaire, et il n'y a pas de reaction du cote de l'enveloppe
Location-based service use: a metaverse investigation

The current trend in location-based services (LBSs) research is to focus on the development and deployment of LBSs. This research examines the different uses of LBSs based on a virtual environment. It is argued that using the real world method of developing and deploying LBS restricts the types of uses being developed and that an alternative approach might yield insight into what types of uses are possible and how it might change the thinking of LBSs developers. This research surveyed the Second Life metaverse to identify and categorise the types of LBS used and deployed in the digital world. The results of the survey found that many of the LBSs in SL provided intelligence to the avatar so that they could perform an action which they could not do without the LBS. It is clear that the topic of navigation is biased based on the digital nature of the SL metaverse and its use of the teleportation concept. But the results show that LBSs are ubiquitous throughout metaverse and the types of services go beyond those found in the real world.
A fast and easy approach to the synthesis of Zeise’s salt using microwave heating

Abstract A fast and easy approach to the synthesis of Zeise’s salt, KPtCl3(C2H4), is reported using microwave heating. The reaction is complete after 15 min at 130 °C using K2PtCl4 as starting material, a 1:1:1 ratio of water:ethanol:concentrated HCl as solvent, and a loading of 50 psi of ethene.
On the Logical Justification of Conditional Tests for Two-By-Two Contingency Tables

Abstract After a half-century of debate, there still seems to be no consensus on when to treat the margins of a two-by-two contingency table as fixed when conducting significance tests. I review some examples which indicate that causal models should play a prominent role in the debate. Under certain models for causal effects, unconditional tests can lead to the absurdity of inferring that a treatment will affect some population members, even though one cannot infer that the treatment affected any sample members. In such cases, conditional tests may be justified by the need to maintain coherence between sample and population inferences; there is no need to invoke concepts such as ancillarity, conditionality, or marginal information. Nevertheless, this justification does not apply beyond the specified causal models. I suggest that characterization of the two-by-two table problem as “a comparison of independent binomial proportions” may be too incomplete to compellingly justify any single approach to testing.
Characterization of root agravitropism induced by genetic, chemical, and developmental constraints.

The patterns and rates of organelle redistribution in columella (i.e., putative statocyte) cells of agravitropic agt mutants of Zea mays are not significantly different from those of columella cells in graviresponsive roots. Graviresponsive roots of Z. mays are characterized by a strongly polar movement of 45Ca2+ across the root tip from the upper to the lower side. Horizontally-oriented roots of agt mutants exhibit only a minimal polar transport of 45Ca2+. Exogenously-induced asymmetries of Ca result in curvature of agt roots toward the Ca source. A similar curvature can be induced by a Ca asymmetry in normally nongraviresponsive (i.e., lateral) roots of Phaseolus vulgaris. Similarly, root curvature can be induced by placing the roots perpendicular to an electric field. This electrotropism increased with 1) currents between 8-35 mA, and 2) time between 1-9 hr when the current is constant. Electrotropism is reduced significantly by treating roots with triiodobenzoic acid (TIBA), an inhibitor of auxin transport. These results suggest that 1) if graviperception occurs via the sedimentation of amyloplasts in columella cells, then nongraviresponsive roots apparently sense gravity as do graviresponsive roots, 2) exogenously-induced asymmetries of a gravitropic effector (i.e., Ca) can induce curvature of normally nongraviresponsive roots, 3) the gravity-induced downward movement of exogenously-applied 45Ca2+ across tips of graviresponsive roots does not occur in nongraviresponsive roots, 4) placing roots in an electrical field (i.e., one favoring the movement of ions such as Ca2+) induces root curvature, and 5) electrically-induced curvature is apparently dependent on auxin transport. These results are discussed relative to a model to account for the lack of graviresponsiveness by these roots.
Modeling and forecasting of cooling and electricity load demand

Abstract The objective of this paper is to extend a statistical approach to effectively provide look-ahead forecasts for cooling and electricity demand load. Our proposed model is a generalized form of a Cochrane–Orcutt estimation technique that combines a multiple linear regression model and a seasonal autoregressive moving average model. The proposed model is adaptive so that it updates forecast values every time that new information on cooling and electricity load is received. Therefore, the model can simultaneously take advantage of two statistical methods, time series, and linear regression in an adaptive way. The effectiveness of the proposed forecast model is shown through a use case. The example utilizes the proposed approach for economic dispatching of a combined cooling, heating and power (CCHP) plant at the University of California, Irvine. The results reveal the effectiveness of the proposed forecast model.
Zwitterionic ring-borylated ansa-chromocene complexes.

Ring borylation of [Me4C2(η5-C5H4)2CrCO] by B(C6F5)3 affords the zwitterionic complex {Me4(η5-C5H4)(η5-C4H3B(C6F5)3)}CrH(CO) (1), the first structurally characterized bent-metallocene complex of Cr(4+). This species decomposes thermally to the zwitterionic species {Me4(η5-C5H4)(η5-C4H3B(C6F5)3)}Cr (2) and the ionic species [Me4C2(η5-C5H4)2CrCO][HB(C6F5)3] (3). The molecular structure of 2 is also described.
Benthic community respiration near the Woods Hole sewage outfall

Abstract Effects of the Woods Hole, Massachusetts sewage outfall on the surrounding benthic community were examined. In situ oxygen uptake measurements of the sediment were made before and after treatment with antibiotics and formalin. Total oxygen consumption was 67·8 ml O 2 m −2 h −1 of which 15·0 ml O 2 m −2 h −1 was attributable to the chemical demand of the sediment. Community respiration was 52·8ml O 2 m −2 h −1 with bacterial respiration representing 34% of the biological demand. Total oxygen uptake, chemical demand and bacterial respiration were significantly higher than values obtained in the control area in Buzzards Bay. Macrofaunal and meiofaunal-microfloral-microfaunal respiration were estimated from structural data and the literature. Utilization and accumulation of organic enrichment is discussed.
The dissociative electronic desorption of carbon monoxide from tungsten

Abstract A tungsten surface covered with adsorbed CO molecules has been subjected to low energy electron bombardment. A current of O+ ions originating at the bombarded surface was observed but no C+ or CO+ ions were seen. The experimental structure permitted the observation of either the O+ surface ion current or the gas-phase CO+ ion current as the tungsten surface temperature was increased at a controlled rate. These thermal desorption spectra did not align with each other on the temperature axis in the expected way, and in order to explain this observation it is suggested that the electronic desorption efficiency is not a constant for CO molecules adsorbed in a specific type of site. The dependence of the O+ current on the electron energy, the electron current density, and the CO pressure has been determined. An approximate energy distribution of the O+ ions has been measured and values for the energy threshold, the minimum kinetic energy of the desorbed O+ ions, and the average efficiency for the production of an O+ ion were also obtained. An electron-bombardment-induced O+ current which increases with increasing surface temperature has been observed for surface temperatures between 1000 and 1300°K.
Analysis of Betamethasone and Its Organic Esters in Pharmaceutical Products

A rapid, quantitative analysis for betamethasone and its organic esters at room temperature is described. The method is similar to the official blue tetrazolium reaction for corticosteroids, except that methylene chloride is used as the solvent. The reaction is complete in 27-69 min, and the formazans produced are stable for at least 90 min after the addition of tetramethylammonium hydroxide. The results of the analysis of 13 different pharmaceutical formulations by the proposed method are reported. The degradation of betamethasone and its esters caused by strong bases is a pseudo-first-order reaction in methylene chloride. The average half-life of the corticosteroids studied is 56 min under the basic conditions described.
Recognition of Multi-oriented, Multi-sized, and Curved Text

Text recognition is difficult from documents that contain multi-oriented, curved text lines of various character sizes. This is because layout analysis techniques, which most optical character recognition (OCR) approaches rely on, do not work well on unstructured documents with non-homogeneous text. Previous work on recognizing non-homogeneous text typically handles specific cases, such as horizontal and/or straight text lines and single-sized characters. In this paper, we present a general text recognition technique to handle non-homogeneous text by exploiting dynamic character grouping criteria based on the character sizes and maximum desired string curvature. This technique can be easily integrated with classic OCR approaches to recognize non-homogeneous text. In our experiments, we compared our approach to a commercial OCR product using a variety of raster maps that contain multi-oriented, curved and straight text labels of multi-sized characters. Our evaluation showed that our approach produced accurate text recognition results and outperformed the commercial product at both the word and character level accuracy.
The minimum angle of resolution vs angle of regard function as measured with different targets.

Although the minimum angle of resolution (reciprocal visual acuity) may be well approximated as a linear function of angle of regard, a fresh look at past research using several target types and spanning a wide luminance range indicate that a small but distinct monotonic nonlinearity exists in the function.
Highly Selective Inorganic Crystalline Ion Exchange Material for Sr2+in Acidic Solutions

We report a novel antimony titanate ion exchange material, stable in highly acidic conditions and selective to strontium against competing cations, with possible applications at Defense Waste Sites. Its development was based on good selectivity for Cs and Sr by the CSTs and literature information on the ion exchange properties of antimony compounds. This new material has been tested for the selective removal of parts per million level concentrations of Sr{sup 2+} ions from solutions with a pH in the range of 1 M HNO{sub 3} tO 5.7 M Na{sup +}/0.6 M OH{sup -} (with the most important results in the highly acidic regimes). This doped titanate has been characterized with an array of techniques, including equilibrium distribution coefficient (K{sub d}) determinations over a wide pH range, power X-ray diffraction, TEM, BET, direct-current plasma (DCP), and thermal analyses. 13 refs., 2 figs., 2 tabs.
Behavioral Context and Coherent Oscillations in the Supplementary Motor Area

Movements with similar physical characteristics can occur in various behavioral contexts, as when they are embedded in different sequences or when the expected outcomes of movements vary. Similarly, neurons in various sensory and motor structures in the brain commonly display modulations in their activity according to contextual factors, such as expected reward. Although these contextual signals must be combined with incoming sensory inputs to generate appropriate behaviors according to the animal's motivational state, the mechanisms by which these two signals are integrated remain poorly understood. The present study examined the effects of contextual factors on the magnitude of coherent oscillations in the activity of individual neurons recorded in the supplementary motor area (SMA) of monkeys during a serial reaction time task. In this task, the animal produced a predictable sequence of hand movements repeatedly according to visual instructions. The performance of the animal was influenced by the location of the rewarded target as well as the ordinal position of the movement. In contrast, the level of coherent oscillations in the activity of SMA neurons was affected only by the rewarded target location but not by the ordinal position of the movement sequence. In addition, changes in coherent oscillations were not accounted for by systematic changes in the mean firing rates. These results are consistent with the proposal that synchronous spikes might be used to control the flow of information and suggest that coherent oscillations in the SMA might encode contextual variables, such as expected reward.
Evaluation of optic nerve development in preterm and term infants using handheld spectral-domain optical coherence tomography.

Purpose To evaluate effects of prematurity on early optic nerve (ON) development and the usefulness of ON parameters as indicators of central nervous system (CNS) development and pathology. Design Prospective, cross-sectional, longitudinal study. Participants Forty-four preterm infants undergoing retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) screening and 52 term infants. Methods We analyzed ON from portable handheld spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) images (Bioptigen, Inc, Research Triangle Park, NC) of 44 preterm and 52 term infants. The highest-quality ON scan from either eye was selected for quantitative analysis. Longitudinal analysis was performed at 31–36 weeks and 37–42 weeks postmenstrual age (PMA). Preterm ON parameters also were assessed for correlation with indicators of cognitive, language, and motor development and CNS pathology. Main Outcome Measures Vertical cup diameter (vCD), vertical disc diameter (vDD), vertical cup-to-disc ratio (vCDR), cup depth, and indicators of neurocognitive development and CNS pathology. Results At 37–42 weeks PMA, preterm infants had larger vCD and vCDR than term infants (908 vs. 700 μm [ P P P = 0.008) and decrease of 0.05 ( P = 0.015), respectively. In preterm infants (n = 44), periventricular leukomalacia was associated with larger vCD (1084 vs. 828 μm; P = 0.005) and vCDR (0.85 vs. 0.63; P P = 0.030), and clinical magnetic resonance imaging was associated with larger vCDR (0.73 vs. 0.64; P = 0.023). In 23 preterm infants with Bayley Scales of Infant Development scores, larger vCDR was associated with lower cognitive scores ( P = 0.049). Conclusions This is the first analysis of ON parameters in premature infants using SD-OCT. It demonstrated that by age of term birth, vCD and vCDR are larger in preterm infants who were screened for ROP than in term infants. In this prospective pilot study, ON parameters in these preterm infants associate weakly with CNS pathology and future cognitive development. Future prospective studies with larger numbers are necessary before further conclusions can be made.
Strategic planning catches on in U.S. retailers

Abstract This article examines the strategic planning practices of large American retailers. Most retailers surveyed have engaged in strategic planning, almost one-third have hired employees whose main jobs are strategic planning and over two-thirds use outside consultants. Top management participation is also high, the scope of strategic planning is broad both internally and externally, and several standard strategic planning methods are used. Moreover, in spite of the rapid pace of change in retailing, over half of the retailers use long-range time frames. They recognize the value of strategic planning because almost three-quarters intend to increase their emphasis in this area.
Creep and failure of a full-size fiber-reinforced plastic pultruded frame☆

Abstract The long-term creep and the short-term failure of a plane portal frame structure, constructed entirely of pultruded fiber-reinforced plastic (FRP) components, has been investigated both experimentally and analytically. Two, 6 feet high by 9 feet wide, plane portal frames were designed and constructured using standard “off-the-shelf” glass/vinylester pultruded beams, nuts and threaded rods produced by Creative Pultrusions, Inc. One frame was subjected to a constant long-term load and analyzed for its creep characteristics while the other was tested to failure under short-term loading. The creep analysis considered both the time-dependent response of the FRP structural members and the contribution of shear-deformation effects. The use of viscoelastic moduli in conjunction with a shear-deformable beam theory is detailed. Theoretical predictions are compared with the experimental data. Design recommendations are suggested for structural applications.
Dietary status and impact of risperidone on nutritional balance in children with autism: a pilot study.

AbstractBackground Risperidone may be effective in improving tantrums, aggression, or self‐injurious behaviour in children with autism, but often leads to weight gain.Method Using a quantitative Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ), we prospectively examined the nutritional intake of 20 children with autism participating in a randomised placebo‐controlled trial of risperidone for disruptive behaviours.Results At baseline, the mean intakes for macronutrients, vitamins and minerals exceeded Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs). However there was substantial inter‐participant variability, with individual deficiencies (<80% of DRI) in the intake of calcium (9 of 20 participants), pantothenic acid (6 of 20), vitamin D (5 of 20) and vitamin K (8 of 20). For the participants for whom FFQs were available, there was an increase in weight and an increase in vitamin K intake after 2 months of risperidone treatment (n = 9) compared to placebo (n = 8). An additional 4 months of risperidone treatment (n = 8) did not result i...