cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Changes in vegetation in northern Alaska under scenarios of climate change, 2003-2100: implications for climate feedbacks.

Assessing potential future changes in arctic and boreal plant species productivity, ecosystem composition, and canopy complexity is essential for understanding environmental responses under expected altered climate forcing. We examined potential changes in the dominant plant functional types (PFTs) of the sedge tundra, shrub tundra, and boreal forest ecosystems in ecotonal northern Alaska, USA, for the years 2003-2100. We compared energy feedbacks associated with increases in biomass to energy feedbacks associated with changes in the duration of the snow-free season. We based our simulations on nine input climate scenarios from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and a new version of the Terrestrial Ecosystem Model (TEM) that incorporates biogeochemistry, vegetation dynamics for multiple PFTs (e.g., trees, shrubs, grasses, sedges, mosses), multiple vegetation pools, and soil thermal regimes. We found mean increases in net primary productivity (NPP) in all PFTs. Most notably, birch (Betula spp.) in the shrub tundra showed increases that were at least three times larger than any other PFT. Increases in NPP were positively related to increases in growing-season length in the sedge tundra, but PFTs in boreal forest and shrub tundra showed a significant response to changes in light availability as well as growing-season length. Significant NPP responses to changes in vegetation uptake of nitrogen by PFT indicated that some PFTs were better competitors for nitrogen than other PFTs. While NPP increased, heterotrophic respiration (RH) also increased, resulting in decreases or no change in net ecosystem carbon uptake. Greater aboveground biomass from increased NPP produced a decrease in summer albedo, greater regional heat absorption (0.34 6 0.23 Wm � 2 � 10 yr � 1 (mean 6 SD)), and a positive feedback to climate warming. However, the decrease in albedo due to a shorter snow season (� 5.1 6 1.6 d/10 yr) resulted in much greater regional heat absorption (3.3 6 1.24 Wm � 2 � 10 yr � 1 ) than that associated with increases in vegetation. Through quantifying feedbacks associated with changes in vegetation and those associated with changes in the snow season length, we can reach a more integrated understanding of the manner in which climate change may impact interactions between high- latitude ecosystems and the climate system.
Introducing MicroBlaze as an infrastructure for performance modeling

In this paper, we propose using the Xilinx-MicroBlaze platform as an infrastructure for developing necessary skills and introducing basic concepts in performance modeling. This infrastructure is built by augmenting the MicroBlaze soft-core processor with an FPGA-based profiling mechanism allowing an easy analysis of the functional behavior of a target algorithm. Using the MicroBlaze as reference architecture for extracting functional statistics, these statistics can be employed to assist in modeling the performance of different processor architectures against a set of specific applications.
The forgotten left ventricle in right ventricular pressure overload.

In this issue of the Journal , Hardziyenka et al. (1) report that in patients with chronic pulmonary hypertension and right ventricular (RV) failure, there is a decrease in left ventricular (LV) mass that is reversible and associated with a marked decrease in RV end-diastolic volume and an
Maintenance of the biological efficacy in chicks of a cecal competitive-exclusion culture against Salmonella by continuous-flow fermentation

A competitive-exclusion culture was isolated by the continuous-flow culture of chicken cecal bacteria. The original continuous-flow culture and a continuous-flow culture derived from a lyophilized sample of it that had been stored for 180 days at -70°C were provided to day-old chicks. Experiments utilizing the original culture were performed after 5, 30, 100, and 365 days of continuous-flow conditions and the lyophilized culture after 5 days of continuous-flow culture. In all experiments chicks were challenged with 10 4 CFU of Salmonella typhimurium at 3 days of age. At 10 days of age the chicks were killed and cecal contents analyzed for fermentation parameters and for S. typhumurium colonization. Ten-day-old chicks provided with the original or the lyophilized culture had significantly increased cecal propionic acid (P < 0.05) and decreased Salmonella cecal colonization (P < 0.05 ) compared to untreated controls in all experiments. The results indicate that continuous-flow cultures can be used as a practical method to maintain competetive-exclusion cultures without loss of efficacy, and continuous-flow cultures stored in a lyophilized form can be reconstituted and still maintain efficacy.
The effect of response option order on self-rated health: a replication study

Following calls for replication of research studies, this study documents the results of two studies that experimentally examine the impact of response option order on self-rated health (SRH). Two studies from an online panel survey examined how the order of response options (positive to negative versus negative to positive) influences the distribution of SRH answers. The results of both studies indicate that the distribution of SRH varies across the experimental treatments, and mean SRH is lower (worse) when the response options start with “poor” rather than “excellent.” In addition, there are differences across the two studies in the distribution of SRH and mean SRH when the response options begin with “excellent,” but not when the response options begin with “poor.” The similarities in the general findings across the two studies strengthen the claim that SRH will be lower (worse) when the response options are ordered beginning with “poor” rather than “excellent” in online self-administered questionnaires, with implications for the validity of SRH. The slight differences in the administration of the seemingly identical studies further strengthen the claim and also serve as a reminder of the inherent variability of a single permutation of any given study.
Canonicity and Black American Literature: A Feminist View

How does a literary critic talk about canon formation if she sees the literary canon not as cast in stone or proclaimed ex cathedra, but as a variable product of certain people over a specific period of time, people who are temporarily vested with the power to decide what is important to read and teach to students, based on their own priorities, needs and values? How can she discuss canonicity if the concept of permanence and sacredness usually associated with it keeps repelling her because she endorses Terry Eagleton's notion that the list of "valued" literary works is always in flux: "'Value' is a transitive term: it means whatever is valued by certain people in specific situations, according to particular criteria and in the light of given purposes" (11)? Such a critic must talk about a canon in relativist, non-exclusive, and, perhaps most important, political terms and focus on a canon's continuous expansion to reflect contingencies of the historical, economic, and social moment. Our shifting tastes, needs, and loci of power in academe also politically influence the shaping of a canon and prevent us from seeing it as a petrified, sanctified structure. John Clifford has indicated the instability of the literary canon by describing academicians as politically motivated architects of canons: "Instead of priests protecting a sacred trust, we can more modestly see ourselves situated in a complex institutional environment with varied and hardly disinterested values" (49). No longer priests, we no longer need be dogmatic about what must be included in or excluded from an ironclad canon. And in a recent panel on the Black American Literature Canon, Claudia C. Tate has agreed, describing canon formation as one of ongoing revisionism and reconstruction because major social changes continuously influence the inscribing criteria for admission into a canon. Moreover, these relativist, non-exclusive and political terms to conceptualize canonicity become even more obligatory when the critic using them is a "non-priestess" female academician, a feminist attempting to "canonize." The term itself troubles feminists for whom its bestowal of favor smacks of patriarchal power. A feminist critic and teacher meditat-
On the Number of Topologies on a Finite Set

(1966). On the Number of Topologies on a Finite Set. The American Mathematical Monthly: Vol. 73, No. 2, pp. 154-157.
Dielectric Loss in Li- and Na-Swept α-Quartz and the Effect of Irradiation

Alkali ions, which compensate for substitional Al 3+ , play an important role in the frequency stability of α-quartz crystals. In this work, low temperature dielectricloss measurements (between 2.9 and 300 K) are carried out on crystals that have been “swept” so as to introduce either Li + or Na + . High quality synthetic crystals as well as natural crystals are employed. The well known loss peaks due to Al-Na pairs are further explored and similar peaks due to Al-Li are sought after but not found. It is concluded that the Al-Li pair is oriented along the C2 -axis of the A104 distorted tetrahedron. After irradiation, large peaks are observed at very low temperatures both in Li + - and Na + -containing crystals. These peaks, which are distorted below ∼6 K due to the onset of quantum effects, may originate in alkali centers produced when alkali ions are liberated by the irradiation.
The metabolism of benzene to muconic acid, a potential biological marker of benzene exposure.

Benzene, the simplest aromatic hydrocarbon, is a ubiquitous environmental pollutant. It is a volatile compound, extensively used in industry as an important synthetic intermediate. It is also an additive in gasoline. In addition to occupational exposure, a major human exposure results from cigarette smoke (Wallace, 1989). The toxicity of benzene as a leukemogen in humans (Goldstein, 1977) and a hematotoxic and carcinogenic agent in experimental animals (Snyder and Kocsis, 1977; Maltoni et al., 1989) has been well established. It is generally accepted that benzene toxicity is mediated by metabolites (Snyder et al., 1981). The nature of the metabolite(s) responsible for benzene toxicity is at present not known.
Swarm Chemistry Evolving.

1. There are now two categories of particles, active (moving and interacting kinetically) and passive (remaining still and inactive). An active particle holds a recipe of the swarm (i.e., a list of kinetic parameter sets) in it (Fig. 1(a)). 2. A recipe is transmitted from an active particle to a passive particle when they collide, making the latter active (Fig. 1(b)). 3. The activated particle differentiates randomly into a type specified by one of the kinetic parameter sets in the recipe given to it (Fig. 1(c)). 4. Active particles randomly re-differentiate with small probability.
A Review of State Licensing Regulations to Determine Alignment with Best Practices to Prevent Human Norovirus Infections in Child-Care Centers:

Objectives.Close, frequent contact between children and care providers in child-care centers presents many opportunities to spread human noroviruses. We compared state licensing regulations for child-care centers with national guidelines written to prevent human noroviruses.Methods.We reviewed child-care licensing regulations for all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia in effect in June 2015 to determine if these regulations fully, partially, or did not address 14 prevention practices in four topic areas: (1) hand hygiene, (2) exclusion of ill people, (3) environmental sanitation, and (4) diapering.Results.Approximately two-thirds (8.9) of the 14 practices across all state regulations were partially or fully addressed, with few (2.6) fully addressed. Practices related to exclusion of ill people and diapering were fully addressed most often, while practices related to hand hygiene and environmental sanitation were fully addressed least often.Conclusion.Regulations based on guidelines for best pract...
Calculated and Observed Pumping Speeds of a Shielded Cryogenic Pumping Surface

The design of cryogenic pumping systems for large space environment simulators involves a trade-off between refrigeration capacity requirement and pumping performance. The low-temperature (about 20°K) surfaces needed to condense nitrogen and oxygen must be shielded from thermal radiation to minimize the load on their refrigeration system, but the shielding surfaces also cause a significant reduction in pumping capability, as measured by the pumping speed of the system for “permanent” gases.
Packaged Commercial Bacterial Identification Systems

The authors attempt to provide a useful and current guide for clinical microbiologists who are seeking a review of the available packaged commercial systems for bacterial identification. Each system is outlined according to test principle, laboratory procedures, turn-around time, and limitations. Selected peer evaluations and references for many of the systems are also cited.
Are we being drowned by overhydration advice on the Internet

ABSTRACTObjective: Because inappropriate recommendations about hydration during exercise appear widespread and potentially dangerous, we assessed the quality of a sampling of information currently available to the public on the Internet.Methods: Internet searches using the Google search engine were conducted using the terms “hydration,” “hydration guidelines,” “drinking fluids” and “drinking guidelines” combined with “and exercise.” From the first 50 websites for each search phrase, duplicates were removed yielding 141 unique websites that were categorized by source and examined for specific hydration related information and recommendations.Results: Correct endorsement was as follows (reported as percent endorsing the concept relative to the number of websites addressing the issue): some weight loss should be expected during exercise (69.5% of 95), fluid consumption during exercise should be based upon thirst (7.3% of 110), electrolyte intake is not generally necessary during exercise (10.4% of 106), dehy...
Hematopoietic Stem Cells

Over two decades of research in mice has established that embryonic stem cells (ESCs) can give rise to all differentiated cell types in the adult organism, and that ESCs are thus pluripotent. In vitro, ESCs undergo spontaneous aggregation and differentiate to form cysticembryoid bodies (EBs). These teratoma-like structures consist of semi-organized tissues, including contractile cardiac myocytes, striated skeletal muscle, neuronal rosettes, and hemoglobin-containing blood islands. In the last decade and a half, this in vitro system has been exploited to study differentiation events in a number of tissues, and has begun to be used for discovery and characterization of small-molecule pharmaceuticals. The availability of ES cells from the human might make it possible to produce specific differentiated cell types for replacement cell therapies to treat a host of degenerative diseases.
Calcium Phosphate Cement Cranioplasty Decreases the Rate of Cerebrospinal Fluid Leak and Wound Infection Compared with Titanium Mesh Cranioplasty: Retrospective Study of 672 Patients.

Objective A variety of biomaterials have been developed for cranial reconstruction after craniectomy, including polyethylene titanium mesh and calcium phosphate cement. This study sought to compare complication rates of calcium phosphate cement and titanium mesh cranioplasty in patients undergoing retromastoid craniectomy. Methods The authors retrospectively reviewed clinical data from 672 consecutive patients who underwent retromastoid craniectomy at a single institution for microvascular decompression or tumor resection from July 2009 to July 2014. Of these, 336 patients received calcium phosphate cement cranioplasty and 336 underwent (polyethylene) mesh cranioplasty. Charts were abstracted for occurrence of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) leak, wound infection and/or other wound complication, and the groups were compared. Results In the mesh cranioplasty group, there were 38 complications related to the surgical site, including 18 infections (5.4%), 20 patients (6%) with CSF leak or pseudomeningocele, and no (0%) other wound complications. In the cement cranioplasty cohort, 2 patients (0.6%) experienced wound infection, no patients (0%) had CSF leak, and 2 patients (0.6%) had other wound complications (including one sterile wound dehiscence and one reoperation for removal of excess cement). There was a statistically significant decrease in the rate of wound infection and CSF leak in the patients who underwent cement cranioplasty ( P Conclusions Calcium phosphate cement cranioplasty offers an alternative to titanium cranioplasty and may reduce the risk of surgical site complication. Randomized, prospective comparisons of cement cranioplasty to traditional techniques are warranted.
Cold Injury (Frostbite)

Frostbite is freezing of the tissues by dry cold, sometimes aided by dampness and wind [5]. Children are particularly susceptible. They often do not have the intelligence to properly protect themselves or may not appreciate the significance of numbness, an early symptom of frostbite. Complications are usually found in patients who suffer initial damage from advanced stage two or three frostbite injury [7, 8]. The skeletal abnormalities are complex and unique; only the hands and feet are affected. Cold injury in children differs from that in adults in that damage to the physis may result in growth disturbance [9, 18]. The popularity of bone banks may have given a false impression of the ability of bone and cartilage to survive extreme cold [16].
Analyzing the Intersection of Transparency, Issue Management and Ethics: The Case of Big Soda

ABSTRACTThis article critically analyzes the ethics of Coca-Cola’s public relations strategies through the lens of corporate social responsibility, issue management, and moral legitimacy. Corporate legitimacy is essential for corporate survival and, in today’s complex environment, expectations for legitimacy have shifted. Corporations are called on to consider their roles in the context of the greater good. These changes call for an examination of what constitutes ethical communication for public relations practitioners. While theoretical advancements in the area of ethics sketch the landscape for providing for greater transparency in what the aims of organizations should be in providing for ethical communication, more needs to be done to examine the specific content of this communication. Toward this end, the authors seek to extend conversations and draw from Habermas’s theories of communicative action and Principle U to propose a new direction for evaluating public relations ethics.
Characterization of cottonseed protein isolate as a paper additive

ABSTRACTThere is current interest in using agro-based biopolymers in industrial applications. Because cottonseed protein is abundantly available, it would be useful to explore its feasibility as a polymeric additive and possible substitute for petroleum-based materials. In this work, we studied cottonseed protein isolate as a paper additive and observed its effects on the paper’s dry and wet strength. The tensile strength of paper was found to vary with the amount of the protein applied. By application of an 11% protein solution to the paper, the dry and wet strength increased by 33 and 16% compared with the paper by itself, respectively. The combined use of cottonseed protein and an acid (acetic, adipic, aspartic, and citric acids) to promote adhesion resulted in even greater dry paper strength but not in greater wet paper strength. Thermogravimetric analysis, infrared spectroscopy, and scanning electron microscopic studies suggested that the protein interacted with acid and that both components interact...
Plasmonic detection of possible defects in multilayer nanohole array consisting of essential materials in simplified STT-RAM cell

Plasmonic nanostructures are highly used for sensing purposes since they support plasmonic modes which make them highly sensitive to the refractive index change of their surrounding medium. Therefore, they can also be used to detect changes in optical properties of ultrathin layer films in a multilayer plasmonic structure. Here, we investigate the changes in optical properties of ultrathin films of macro structures consisting of STT-RAM layers. Among the highest sensitive plasmonic structures, nanohole array has attracted many research interest because of its ease of fabrication, small footprint, and simplified optical alignment. Hence it is more suitable for defect detection in STT-RAM geometries. Moreover, the periodic nanohole pattern in the nanohole array structure makes it possible to couple the light to the surface plasmon polariton (SPP) mode supported by the structure. To assess the radiation damages and defects in STT-RAM cells we have designed a multilayer nanohole array based on the layers used in STT-RAM structure, consisting 4nm- Ta/1.5nm-CoFeB/2nm-MgO/1.5nm-CoFeB/4nm-Ta layers, all on a 300nm silver layer on top of a PEC boundary. The nanoholes go through all the layers and become closed by the PEC boundary on one side. The dimensions of the designed nanoholes are 313nm depth, 350nm diameter, and 700nm period. Here, we consider the normal incidence of light and investigate zeroth-order reflection coefficient to observe the resonance. Our simulation results show that a 10% change in refractive index of the 2nm-thick MgO layer leads to about 122GHz shift in SPP resonance in reflection pattern.
Treating Severe Problem Behavior Within Intensive Day-Treatment Programs

Intensive day-treatment units are settings with some distinct advantages, and some limitations, when it comes to treating severe problem behavior. Such settings represent a median between more intensive and costly clinical models and less intensive but potentially less comprehensive ones. The current chapter discusses issues that can lead to the effective use of this setting to treat such behaviors as aggression, self-injury, and other destructive behaviors when they are exhibited by individuals with developmental disabilities. In particular, ensuring the appropriateness of referrals, an effective intake and evaluation process, use of appropriate functional assessment methods, and incorporating caregivers in treatment planning are recommended and discussed.
Hybrid buck converter optimization and comparison for smart phone integrated battery chargers

In this work, a hybrid switched-capacitor/PWM converter is analyzed and designed for battery charging in mobile electronics. Operation of the converter is reviewed to construct a complete analytical loss model based on FET extracted parameters for an integrated circuit implementation. The model is validated with experimental results and compared with other converter topologies in the same application. The loss modeling is used to optimize the physical scaling of the power transistors to minimize total losses.
Effects of exercise on gait and motor imagery in people with Parkinson disease and freezing of gait.

Abstract Introduction Exercise improves gait in Parkinson disease (PD), but whether exercise differentially affects people with PD with (freezers) and without freezing of gait (non-freezers) remains unclear. This study examines exercise's effects on gait performance, neural correlates related to these effects, and potential neural activation differences between freezers and non-freezers during motor imagery (MI) of gait. Methods Thirty-seven participants from a larger exercise intervention completed behavioral assessments and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans before and after a 12-week exercise intervention. Gait performance was characterized using gait velocity and stride length, and a region of interest (ROI) fMRI analysis examined task-based blood oxygen-level dependent (BOLD) signal changes of the somatomotor network (SMN) during MI of forward (IMG-FWD) and backward (IMG-BWD) gait. Results Velocity (F(1,34) = 55.04, p Conclusion While all participants had significantly slower and shorter backward velocity and stride length, respectively, the exercise intervention had no effect. Similarly, BOLD signal during MI did not change with exercise; however, freezers had significantly lower BOLD signal during IMG-BWD compared to non-freezers. This suggests potential decreased recruitment of the SMN during MI of gait in freezers.
Exploring User Roles In Group Recommendations: A Learning Approach

Personality, as one of the human factors, has been demonstrated as an influential factor in decision making. Particularly, personality traits can be utilized to identify decision leaders and followers in the context of group decision making. In this paper, we propose an approach to learn user roles (i.e., decision leaders and followers) to improve the performance of group recommendations. More specifically, we utilize the binary particle swarm optimization as the method to assign and learn user roles in each group. Our experimental results based on an educational data reveal that the proposed approach is able to improve group recommendations. However, the learned user roles may not present expected characteristics in terms of the personality traits.
Control of Reservoirs and Lakes

Pollution in general is a consequence of both the increased numbers of and the gregarious nature of humans. When there were only a few humans on earth, their bodily wastes were widely dispersed and created little problem. There were no concentrated industries and no industrial wastes. When an animal was killed for its food, its hide was also used for clothing, the fine bones were used as needles, the intestines and blood vessels were used as thread, the larger bones were used for weapons and tools, and any part that was not used by man was utilized by other parts of the immediate environment. This latter could include rapid consumption by other carnivorous animals or slow biodegradation by microorganisms, worms, termites, and so on.
An Introduction to Resource-Allocation Behavior

How do people make decisions about the allocation of resources? How well or how poorly can people make such decisions? How efficiently can people allocate resources? What are some of the different situations under which people make resource-allocation decisions, and will performance vary between situations? What are some of the cognitive strategies people use to make resource-allocation decisions? Is there a normative standard to which people’s performance can be compared in resource-allocation situations?
Adaptive Synchronization of Bilateral Teleoperators with Time Delay

In this chapter we develop schemes for synchronization of bilateral teleoperators. It is well known that a feedback interconnection of two passive systems is passive. We discuss an extension of this property to the case when there are heterogeneous, constant communication delays in the interconnection. If the interconnected systems are output strictly passive, we show that their feedback interconnection is passive independent of the constant delays. We exploit this property to achieve delay-independent output synchronization. This result is then used in the problem of bilateral teleoperation to synchronize the master/slave velocities in free motion. We also develop an architecture that guarantees state synchronization of the master/slave robots in free motion independent of the constant delay. Experimental results are presented to verify the efficacy of the state-synchronizing architecture.
On the use of α+α scattering to study the nucleon-nucleon interaction

An analysis of delta/sub 4/ for ..cap alpha.. + ..cap alpha.. scattering below 15 MeV (c.m.) has been made to study whether or not useful information about the direct part V/sub d/ of the nucleon-nucleon interaction can be obtained. It was expected that the peripheral nature of the l = 4 interaction would allow a relatively simple analysis to be made. However, it was found that such an analysis does not exclude any of the commonly used nucleon-nucleon potentials as being inconsistent with ..cap alpha.. + ..cap alpha.. scattering, but that proper handling of the short-range part of V/sub d/ might well result in such an exclusion. (AIP)
Tele-echocardiography: enhancing quality at the point-of-care.

Cardiac point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) has been rapidly adopted across a variety of practice settings. The popularity stems from the ability to rapidly assimilate findings at the bedside into a diagnosis and treatment plan. The focus has primary been to assess left and right ventricular function, presence of a pericardial effusion, major valvular pathology and inferior vena cava size. Utilisation of POCUS results in fewer missed cardiovascular findings of clinical importance when compared with physical examination alone.1 It also enhances diagnostic accuracy for cardiac conditions including left ventricular systolic dysfunction.2 Medical students and physicians have demonstrated a basic level of competency with as little as two or 3 hours of training.2 3 Many medical schools and post-graduate training programmes have or are in the process of developing curriculums to teach POCUS. Recently, hand-held cardiac ultrasound screening has spread to primary care.4 It can be applied in remote settings without routine access to formal ultrasonography to determine which patients may benefit from a complete echocardiogram.5 6 It is important to note that POCUS cannot supplant echocardiography to thoroughly evaluate significant cardiac pathology due to limited image quality and lack of spectral Doppler. Scan fidelity is also subject to acquisition and interpretation based on the experience of the clinical practitioner. Prior …
The pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of SGLT2 inhibitors for type 2 diabetes mellitus: the latest developments.

ABSTRACTIntroduction: Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a complex metabolic disorder associated with high cardiovascular (CV) risk. Some of the therapeutic strategies are contraindicated in patients with concomitant heart disease. However, the newest antidiabetic medications, sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitors, have shown to significantly reduce CV mortality and heart failure (HF) hospitalizations. The mechanism behind these surprising cardiac benefits remains unclear.Areas covered: This article reviews the pharmacokinetic, pharmacodynamics, efficacy, and safety data for the different SGLT2 inhibitors. Specific attention is devoted to the postulated mechanisms of action for their benefit. The therapeutic efficacy and potential use in different indications outside T2DM such as HF, T1DM, and renal disease are also discussed.Expert opinion: SGLT2 inhibitors have an excellent pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic profile. Importantly, SGLT2 inhibitors are a safe and efficacious treatment option ...
Sporolithon mesophoticum sp. nov. (Sporolithales, Rhodophyta) from Plantagenet Bank off Bermuda at a depth of 178 m

A coralline rhodolith was collected from a depth of 178 m, the lower end of the mesophotic zone, on Plantagenet Bank offshore of Bermuda by the submersible Nomad using a mechanical armature. DNA sequence comparisons of the plastid encoded psb A and rbc L loci of this specimen to Sporolithales from the tropical western Atlantic and worldwide revealed it to be an unnamed species of Sporolithon . Sporolithon mesophoticum sp. nov. possesses tetrasporangial sori flush to slightly raised above the thallus surface and has uniquely flattened perithallial and meristematic cells. Thus far, the new species is the deepest known living marine macroalga that has been sequenced and placed into a phylogenetic context.
A quantum cognition model for simulating ethical dilemmas among multi-perspective agents

Multi-agent systems are widely used in implementing systems with autonomous behaviour, as well as simulating models that involve human behaviour. Ethical decision-making is a unique aspect of such ...
Mechanism of Glucagon-Like Peptide 1 Improvements in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus and Obesity

The purpose of this review is to emphasize the pivotal role of glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) in tackling the parallel epidemics of obesity and type 2 diabetes (T2DM). GLP-1-based therapies and in particular GLP-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RA) have proven to be effective in lowering blood glucose and decreasing weight. GLP-1 RA not only mitigate these significant medical burdens but also result in weight loss and weight loss independent factors that decrease cardiovascular disease (CVD) and microvascular complications of T2DM, such as diabetic nephropathy. GLP-1-based therapies are critical for a patient-centered approach in choosing appropriate pharmacotherapy for T2DM and obesity while also taking into consideration comorbidities, such as cardiovascular and chronic kidney diseases.
An Introduction to the Voynich Codex

The Voynich Codex is a bizarre, profusely illustrated manuscript that has been considered the most mysterious manuscript ever written. The work is encyclopedic and has been divided by convention as follows:
A 2.6 TOPS/W 16-Bit Fixed-Point Convolutional Neural Network Learning Processor in 65-nm CMOS

We present a convolutional neural network (CNN) learning processor, which accelerates the stochastic gradient descent (SGD) with a momentum-based training algorithm in 16-bit fixed-point precision. Using a new cyclic weight storage and access scheme, we use the same off-the-shelf SRAMs for nontranspose and transpose operations during feedforward (FF) and feedbackward (FB) phases, respectively, of the CNN learning process. The 65-nm CNN learning processor achieves peak energy efficiency of 2.6 TOPS/W for 16-bit fixed-point operations, consuming 10.45 mW at 0.55 V.
Resilience trajectories of cancer survivors: a meaning-making perspective

Abstract The transition from active treatment to survivorship is often a highly stressful and potentially critical juncture in determining long-term postactive treatment well-being of individuals with cancer. While decrements in well-being are often observed on average, there is tremendous variation across survivors on many different indices of well-being. During this reentry period, many survivors attempt to make sense of their cancer experience and its ultimate impact on their lives. Based on the broader trauma and coping literature and theory, this chapter considers posttrauma (cancer treatment) adjustment by examining factors that facilitate and/or impede three posttrauma trajectories: continued distress, recovery, and resilience. Influencing these trajectories are aspects of the cancer and treatment (e.g., length and intensity, time since diagnosis), psychosocial resources (e.g., social support) and appraisal and coping processes (e.g., threat vs challenge appraisals, approach vs avoidance coping). With this information, clinicians and researchers can assess and target mutable factors to help those who are distressed and potentially promote resilience during the transition from active treatment to cancer survivorship.
How Do Firms’ Dynamic Capabilities Impact their Activities in Strategic Factor Markets?

Dynamic capabilities view underlines the necessity of systematic organizational change through effective upgrade and update on resource bundles. Dynamic capabilities cannot be readily acquired from...
A new discrete pareto type (IV) model: theory, properties and applications

Discrete analogue of a continuous distribution (especially in the univariate domain) is not new in the literature. The work of discretizing continuous distributions begun with the paper by Nakagawa and Osaki (1975) to the best of the knowledge of the author. Since then several authors proposed discrete analogues of known continuous models. In this paper, we propose and study a discrete analogue of the continuous Pareto (type IV) distribution, namely the discrete Pareto (type IV) distribution (DPIV, henceforth, in short) that has three parameters. Its probability mass function can be approximately symmetric, right-skewed and left-skewed shapes, and the hazard rate function possesses decreasing and upside-down bathtub shapes. Also, the proposed discrete distribution can be under-, over- or equi- dispersion. The flexibility of the new discrete model is illustrated by means of three applications to real life data sets arising out of various domains affecting our life.
Widespread Polymodal Chemosensory Receptor Expression in Drosophila Olfactory Neurons

Drosophila olfactory neurons have long been thought to express only one chemosensory receptor modality. Using a new genetic knock-in strategy, we targeted the four co-receptors representing the olfactory modes in Drosophila (Orco, Ir25a, Ir8a, Ir76b). Co-receptor knock-in expression patterns were verified as accurate representations of endogenous expression. We find extensive overlap in expression among the different co-receptors. As defined by innervation into antennal lobe glomeruli, Ir25a is broadly expressed in 88% of olfactory neuron classes and is co-expressed in 64% of Orco+ neuron classes, including all neuron classes in the maxillary palp. Orco, Ir8a, and Ir76b expression patterns are also expanded. Single sensillum recordings from Orco-expressing Ir25a mutant antennal and palpal neurons identify significant changes in olfactory responses. These results suggest polymodal expression and function of chemosensory receptors is common in olfactory neurons. We present a new map of the olfactory system reflecting this polymodal expression.
Radical State Constitutionalism

In "51 Imperfect Solutions: States and the Making of American Constitutional Law," Jeffrey Sutton rightly highlights the past significance and future potential of state constitutions and state courts to our system of constitutional government. But Sutton does not push his argument as far as he might. This review essay assesses and builds upon Sutton’s approach in order to offer a more radical version of state constitutionalism than Sutton himself proposes. The essay argues that almost every legal claim, whether in state or federal court, that state government has violated the federal Constitution requires determining whether the state constitution itself permits or prohibits the challenged state governmental action. That issue is relevant even if the plaintiff has not asserted a state law cause of action. For if the state constitution forbids a challenged state law or state executive conduct, and a ruling to that effect fully remedies the complained-about state action, the case can end with a judgment in the plaintiff’s favor, without a ruling on whether the federal Constitution itself was violated. Radical state constitutionalism puts state constitutions at the very center of American constitutional law.
Preparation of scFv stabilized chromatosomes for single-particle cryo-EM structure determination.

Summary The chromatosome, a nucleosome bound to a histone H1, is the structural unit of metazoan chromatin. Determination of the high-resolution structure of the chromatosome is challenging due to the dynamic nature of H1 binding. Here, we present a protocol for purifying an optimized single-chain antibody variable fragment (scFv) that can be used to stabilize the chromatosome for single-particle cryo-EM studies. This protocol facilitates high-resolution cryo-EM structure determination of nucleosomes with a natural DNA sequence, chromatosomes, and other protein nucleosome complexes. For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Zhou et al. (2021 ).
Role of mTORC2 in biphasic regulation of brown fat metabolism in response to mild and severe cold

Nonshivering thermogenesis is essential for mammals to maintain body temperature. According to the canonical view, temperature is sensed by cutaneous thermoreceptors and nerve impulses transmitted to the hypothalamus, which generates sympathetic signals to s-adrenergic receptors in brown adipocytes. The energy for heat generation is primarily provided by the oxidation of fatty acids derived from triglyceride hydrolysis and cellular uptake. Fatty acids also activate the uncoupling protein, UCP1, which creates a proton leak that uncouples mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation from ATP production, resulting in energy dissipation as heat. Recent evidence supports the idea that in response to mild cold, s-adrenergic signals stimulate not only lipolysis and fatty acid oxidation, but also act through the mTORC2-Akt signaling module to stimulate de novo lipogenesis. This opposing anabolic effect is thought to maintain lipid fuel stores during increased catabolism. We show here, using brown fat-specific Gs-alpha knockout mice and cultured adipocytes that, unlike mild cold, severe cold directly cools brown fat and bypasses s-adrenergic signaling to inhibit mTORC2. This cell-autonomous effect both inhibits lipogenesis and augments UCP1 expression to enhance thermogenesis. These findings suggest a novel mechanism for overriding s-adrenergic-stimulated anabolic activities while augmenting catabolic activities to resolve the homeostatic crisis presented by severe cold.
Computer simulation of sedimentation in the ultracentrifuge: VII. Solutes undergoing indefinite self-association

Abstract The velocity sedimentation of solutes involved in self-association equilibria of the indefinite type was simulated using a computer model. The changes in boundary shape that resulted from varying the association constant and the molecular weight of the self-associating monomer were examined. Both ideally and nonideally sedimenting solutes were considered, and several alternative treatments of the variation of the frictional ratio with molecular size were used. All of the calculated boundaries were skewed, with the leading limb of the gradient profile steeper than the trailing limb. For relatively tightly self-associating solutes, the boundaries were very broad and strongly skewed. No shoulders or subsidiary peaks were observed for any of the model solutes used.
Global Asymptotic Solution for Axisymmetric Dendrite Growth with Small Undercooling

Stationary non-isothermal growth of a needle-like crystal is considered. When the undercooling parameter is very small, the dendrite will always be slender. Hence slender body theory is applicable. We obtain a self consistent uniformly valid asymptotic solution to the problems. Our results show that as long as the surface tension parameter is small enough there always exists a smooth needle like solution for a given undercooling temperature. This non-isothermal needle is close to the Ivantsov parabaloid.
Detecting Forged TCP Reset Packets.

Several off-the-shelf products enable network operators to enforce usage restrictions by actively terminating connections when deemed undesirable. While the spectrum of their application is large—from ISPs limiting the usage of P2P applications to the “Great Firewall of China”—many of these systems implement the same approach to disrupt the communication: they inject artificial TCP Reset (RST) packets into the network, causing the endpoints to shut down communication upon receipt. In this work, we study the characteristics of packets injected by such traffic control devices. We show that by exploiting the race-conditions that out-of-band devices inevitably face, we not only can detect the interference but often also fingerprint the specific device in use. We develop an efficient injection detector and demonstrate its effectiveness by identifying a range of disruptive activity seen in traces from four different sites, including termination of P2P connections, anti-spam and anti-virus mechanisms, and the finding that China’s “Great Firewall” has multiple components, sometimes apparently operating without coordination. We also find a number of sources of idiosyncratic connection termination that do not reflect third-party traffic disruption, including NATs, loadbalancers, and spam bots. In general, our findings highlight that (i) Internet traffic faces a wide range of control devices using injected RST packets, and (ii) to reliably detect RST injection while avoiding misidentification of other types of activity requires significant care.
A network for learning kinematics with application to human reaching models

A model for self-organization of the coordinate transformations required for spatial reaching is presented. During a motor babbling phase, a mapping from spatial coordinate directions to joint motion directions is learned. After learning, the model is able to produce straight-line spatial trajectories with characteristic bell-shaped spatial velocity profiles, as observed in human reaches. Simulation results are presented for transverse plane reaching using a two degree-of-freedom arm. >
Interactive Image Segmentation Using an Adaptive GMMRF Model

The problem of interactive foreground/background segmentation in still images is of great practical importance in image editing. The state of the art in interactive segmentation is probably represented by the graph cut algorithm of Boykov and Jolly (ICCV 2001). Its underlying model uses both colour and contrast information, together with a strong prior for region coherence. Estimation is performed by solving a graph cut problem for which very efficient algorithms have recently been developed. However the model depends on parameters which must be set by hand and the aim of this work is for those constants to be learned from image data.
Nonequilibrium dynamics of arbitrary-range Ising models with decoherence: An exact analytic solution

The interplay between interactions and decoherence in many-body systems is of fundamental importance in quantum physics. In a step toward understanding this interplay, we obtain an exact analytic solution for the nonequilibrium dynamics of Ising models with arbitrary couplings (and therefore in arbitrary dimension) and subject to local Markovian decoherence. Our solution shows that decoherence significantly degrades the nonclassical correlations developed during coherent Ising spin dynamics, which relax much faster than predicted by treating decoherence and interactions separately. We also show that the competition of decoherence and interactions induces a transition from oscillatory to overdamped dynamics that is absent at the single-particle or mean-field level. These calculations are applicable to ongoing quantum information and emulation efforts using a variety of atomic, molecular, optical, and solid-state systems. In particular, we apply our results to the NIST Penning trapped-ion experiment and show that the current experiment is capable of producing entanglement amongst hundreds of quantum spins.
Biomarker identification from next-generation sequencing data for pathogen bacteria characterization and surveillance.

Aim: The purpose was to develop an analytical pipeline for specific gene analysis and biomarker discovery from next generation sequencing (NGS) data. Materials & methods: As a test case, the fliC gene reference sequences of 24 Salmonella enterica strains of 13 serotypes and NGS reads of 32 serovar Newport, 48 Montevideo and 115 Enteritidis outbreak isolates were retrieved from the National Center for Biotechnology Information database. Results: Establishment of an analytical pipeline consisting of four steps: reference sequences retrieval and template sequence determination; NGS sequence reads retrieval; multiple sequence alignments and phylogenetic analysis; data mining and biomarker discovery. Conclusion: The pipeline developed provides an effective bioinformatics tool for genetic diversity clarification and marker sequences discovery for pathogen characterization and surveillance.
Stalling Characteristics of a General Aviation Aircraft

Analytical and numerical estimates of the stalling characteristics of a small, single-engine aircraft are compared with flight test results. Analyses include nonlinear simulation and linear stability-and-control evaluation, using aerodynamic and thrust characteristics obtained from a full-scale test in the NASA Langley Research Center 30 X 60-ft Wind Tunnel as well as subscaie model test data. Flight tests include prestall calibration runs, symmetric gradual stalls, and mildly accelerated stalls in the vertical plane. These tests tend to confirm predictions based upon wind-tunnel results, and they indicate areas in which special care must be taken in collecting data for aerodynamic parameter identification.