cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Evaluation of COVID-19 Vaccine Attitudes among Arab American Healthcare Professionals Living in the United States.

Background: Vaccine hesitancy is the next great barrier for public health. Arab Americans are a rapidly growing demographic in the United States with limited information on the prevalence of vaccine hesitancy. We therefore sought to study the attitudes towards the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine amongst Arab American health professionals living in the United States. Methods: This was a cross sectional study utilizing an anonymous online survey. The survey was distributed via e-mail to National Arab American Medical Association members and Arab-American Center for Economic and Social Services healthcare employees. Respondents were considered vaccine hesitant if they selected responses other than a willingness to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. Results: A total of 4000 surveys were sent via e-mail from 28 December 2020 to 31 January 2021, and 513 responses were received. The highest group of respondents were between the ages of 18–29 years and physicians constituted 48% of the respondents. On multivariable analysis, we found that respondents who had declined an influenza vaccine in the preceding 5 years (p < 0.001) and allied health professionals (medical assistants, hospital administrators, case managers, researchers, scribes, pharmacists, dieticians and social workers) were more likely to be vaccine hesitant (p = 0.025). In addition, respondents earning over $150,000 US dollars annually were less likely to be vaccine hesitant and this finding was significant on multivariable analysis (p = 0.011). Conclusions: Vaccine hesitancy among health care providers could have substantial impact on vaccine attitudes of the general population, and such data may help inform vaccine advocacy efforts.
An Introduction to Myxozoan Evolution, Ecology and Development

Cnidarians are familiar invertebrates that are widely recognised as typical representatives of marine and freshwater environments. Yet, until recently, all cnidarians were regarded as free-living animals. It is now clear, however, that a clade of cnidarians diverged in ancient times to become endoparasites that today comprise the Myxozoa—common and occasionally highly problematic parasites of fish known since the 1800s. This chapter introduces our volume that focuses on the evolution, ecology and development of myxozoans in light of their cnidarian origin and comprises the first comprehensive book on the group. In this introductory chapter we briefly describe myxozoan biology and highlight milestones in myxozoan research. We then summarise our contributing chapters that review and synthesise recent research and which collectively provide insights on: myxozoan origins, evolutionary trends and diversification, development and life cycles, interactions with hosts, and disease ecology. Key areas for future research commonly identified in our chapters include: improved knowledge of myxozoan diversity, resolution of life cycles and the implications of environmental change for disease risk. We explore how new technologies (particularly, environmental DNA and-omics approaches) will contribute to understanding these and other issues, such as identifying and linking myxozoan developmental stages with those of free-living cnidarians and identifying virulence factors and other adaptations to parasitism. We conclude that myxozoans now merit broad recognition as a clade exhibiting comparable patterns of species richness and host exploitation to those of macroparasites (cestodes and even trematodes) but which has converged on strategies of microparasites (parasitic protists) for host exploitation.
Atoms vs. Extended Simples: Towards a Dispositionalist Reconciliation

There are four main theories concerning the ultimate constitution of matter: atomism version 1 (matter has as fundamental constituents unextended point-particles), atomism version 2 (matter has as fundamental constituents extended but indivisible particles), the theory of gunk (on which every material object is composed of actual proper parts that are themselves material objects composed of actual proper parts that are themselves material objects…etc. ad infinitum), and the theory of extended simples (matter bottoms out in objects that are spatially extended and divisible but lacking in actual proper parts). These four theories are usually seen as diametrically opposed. Here I take a stab at ecumenism, and argue that atomism version 1 and the theory of extended simples can be reconciled and rendered compatible by reference to the reality of dispositions.
Deep neural network acoustic models for spoken assessment applications

DNN-HMMs outperform GMM-HMMs by a large margin for all spoken assessment tasks.Open-ended tasks benefit far more than constrained tasks from the use of DNN-HMMs.For open-ended tasks, DNN-HMMs can take full advantage of increasing training data.The performance of constrained tasks saturates at around 25h of training data.Constrained tasks require only a few hours of data to build well-performing models. In this paper, we investigate the effectiveness of applying deep neural network hidden Markov models, or DNN-HMMs, for acoustic modeling in the context of educational applications. Specifically, we focus on spoken responses from non-native and child speech that tend to show great acoustic variability. We perform comprehensive experiments to compare the performance between traditional Gaussian mixture model (GMM)-HMMs and DNN-HMMs in three large language assessment datasets that contain various spoken tasks, classified broadly as constrained and open-ended tasks. Our experimental results suggest useful conclusions that can help guide the design of real-life educational applications. DNN-HMMs outperform conventional GMM-HMMs by a large margin for all spoken tasks commonly used in spoken assessment applications. In our experiments, DNN-HMMs trained using 25h of data can outperform GMM-HMMs trained with 6.7-9 times data. Specifically regarding overall performance, when all available training data were used (175, 227, 169h respectively), we achieved a relative word error rate decrease of 20.4% for adult English and 29.3% for child English, and a relative character error rate decrease of 14.3% for adult Chinese, when switching from GMMs to DNNs. In comparing between types of tasks, we notice that the more challenging open-ended tasks benefit significantly more than constrained item types by the use of DNN-HMMs. For open-ended tasks, having large amounts of training data is the key, as DNN-HMMs can take full advantage of the added training data and further push performance. In contrast, the performance of constrained spoken tasks saturates at around 25h of training data. At the same time, constrained spoken tasks require only a few hours of data (1 or 5h) to build well-performing acoustic models. This is an encouraging observation, that indicates the potential to build reliable spoken assessment applications based on constrained tasks, when few domain specific training data are available.
Synthetic lethality and cancer chemotherapy: Selective prevention of AG2037-induced toxicity through the methylthioadenosine phosphorylase (MTAP) purine salvage pathway

4000 Synthetic lethality refers to the induction of cell death due to the inactivation of a pathway when all compensatory pathways have already been inactivated. Identifying loss of function mutations in cancer that lead to synthetic lethality when redundant gene function is inhibited by an anticancer agent could be an effective cancer drug development strategy. Selectivity could be achieved by increased activity through a pathway that is functioning in the host but not in the tumor. The loss of purine salvage, e.g. the MTAP salvage pathway, in a tumor due to genetic or epigenetic changes combined with the chemical inhibition of de novo purine synthesis, e.g. by AG2037, may provide an exploitable example of synthetic lethality. AG2037 is a potent antifolate inhibitor of GARFT, the first folate-requiring step of the de novo purine biosynthetic pathway. MTAP, a key enzyme in normal tissues involved in the biosynthesis of methionine and the salvage of the purine adenine, is absent in many primary cancers, making them more reliant on de novo synthesis to fulfill their purine requirements. The purpose of this work was to investigate whether methylthioadenosine, the substrate of MTAP, can selectively reduce the toxicity of AG2037 in MTAP-containing cells and tissues in vitro and in vivo. In vitro, with simultaneous exposure MTA reduced the growth inhibitory activity of AG2037 3- to >50-fold in MTAP-competent human lung (H460, SK-Mes-1), colon (HCT-8, HCT-116) and melanoma (A2058) cell lines but had no effect on the growth inhibitory activity of AG2037 in human pancreatic (BxPC-3, PANC-1) and fibrosarcoma (HT-1080) cell lines lacking MTAP. In MTAP-competent and -deficient isogenic pairs of human pancreatic and fibrosarcoma cell lines, MTA reduced the growth inhibitory activity of AG2037 only in the MTAP-competent cell lines. In vivo adding MTA to the administration of AG2037 on a daily x4 to mice on a folate-deficient diet decreased the toxicity of AG2037 4-fold. In xenograft experiments, MTA lessened the toxicity of AG2037 without affecting its antitumor activity. Thus, these proof-of-principle experiments show that it is possible for methylthioadenosine to reduce the toxicity of AG2037, and thereby improve the therapeutic index of AG2037 against tumors deficient in methylthioadenosine phosphorylase.
Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG)

Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group ECOG) is an NCI-funded cooperative group that conducts clinical trials in oncology. Over many years, ECOG has developed efficient systems for conducting high-quality clinical trials with limited funding. Because ECOG runs many studies in the same network of institutions, a key factor is that quality control procedures focus on the performance of the sites across studies rather than on the individual study. ECOG has also achieved efficiencies through standardization of data elements and evaluation criteria and through use of a single data monitoring committee for the Group's entire portfolio of Phase III trials, while ensuring patient safety through an aggressive program of adverse-event monitoring. These procedures have enabled ECOG to make major contributions advancing the treatment of cancer patients within the funding constraints of the NCI's Cooperative Group program. Keywords: oncology; adverse event; data quality control; data monitoring committee; cooperative group
Survival Analysis, Nonparametric

Survival analysis was one of the first areas where Bayesian nonparametric priors were utilized to enhance the flexibility of standard parametric models. Bayesian nonparametric methods are very well suited for survival data analysis, enabling flexible modeling and rich inference for the survival function or hazard function, providing techniques to handle censoring, and allowing incorporation of prior information. In this article, we provide a review of Bayesian nonparametric and semiparametric approaches, based on mixture models, to the analysis of univariate survival data. We discuss mixture models for survival distributions in a fully nonparametric setting as well as for error distributions in semiparametric accelerated failure time regression settings. Keywords: accelerated failure time model; Bayesian nonparametrics; censoring; Dirichlet process; hazard function; Markov chain Monte Carlo; survival function
Gas Turbine Engines: Inlets

The inlet is the part of the aircraft that brings air into the propulsion system. The inlet design affects the performance of the propulsion system. In turn, the varying airflow demands of the engine affect the performance of the inlet and the flight envelope of the aircraft. A “good” inlet design allows the engine to produce high thrust and low fuel usage over a wide range of flight conditions and throttle conditions. A “poor” inlet design limits the operating range of the engine and aircraft. The chapter discusses the fundamental parameters of performance, compatibility, and integration that characterize an inlet, and then presents some of the recent trends and future directions in inlet design. Keywords: inlets; intakes; pressure recovery; spillage drag; inlet distortion; inlet integration; unstart; buzz; nacelle; cowl; boundary layer bleed; inlet bypass; external compression inlet; mixed compression inlet
StreamFitter: a real time linear regression analysis system for continuous data streams

In this demo, we present the StreamFitter system for real-time linear regression analysis on continuous data streams. In order to perform regression on data streams, it is necessary to continuously update the regression model while receiving new data. In this demo, we will present two approaches for on-line, multi-dimensional linear regression analysis of stream data, namely Incremental Mathematical Stream Regression (IMSR) and Approximate Stream Regression (ASR). These methods dynamically recompute the regression model, considering not only the data records of the current window, but also the synopsis of the previous data. Therefore, the refined parameters more accurately model the entire data stream. The demo will show that the proposed methods are not only efficient in time and space, but also generate better fitted regression functions compared to the traditional sliding window methods and well-adapted to data changes.
An integrated traction and compressor drive system for EV/HEV applications

This paper presents an integrated traction and compressor drive to reduce the HVAC compressor drive cost in electric and hybrid electric vehicle (EV/HEV) applications. The drive system employs a five-leg inverter to drive a three-phase traction motor and a two-phase compressor motor. The common terminal of the two-phase motor is tied to the neutral point of the three-phase traction motor to eliminate the requirement of a third phase leg. The cost of the compressor drive can be significantly lowered due to the elimination of one phase leg and additional part count reduction made possible by sharing the switching devices, DC bus filter capacitors, gate drive power supplies, and control circuit. Simulation and experimental results are included to verify that speed control of the two motors is independent from each other.
Present and Future Possibilities for the Deconstruction and Utilization of Lignocellulosic Biomass

Current technologies for the deconstruction of lignocellulosic biomass rely on physical−chemical pretreatment processes followed by enzymatic hydrolysis. These technologies, while able to efficiently produce sugars, also allow the formation of degradation products that are inhibitory to microbes such as yeast or bacteria which are used for fermentation. The status of current deconstruction technologies and the role of genomics and the “New Biology” for producing feedstocks and tailor-made microbes with characteristics that make them more amenable to fermentation-based processes are discussed.
Counting Forests by Descents and Leaves

A descent of a rooted tree with totally ordered vertices is a vertex that is greater than at least one of its children. A leaf is a vertex with no children. We show that the number of forests of rooted trees on a given vertex set with i +1 leaves and j descents is equal to the number withj +1 leaves andi descents. We do this by flnding a functional equation for the corresponding exponential generating function that shows that it is symmetric.
Phosphatidylethanolamine is not essential for the N-acylation of apolipoprotein in Escherichia coli.

It has been postulated that the N-acyl fatty acid attached to the amino terminus of the major Escherichia coli lipoprotein is derived from the fatty acid at the 1-position of phosphatidylethanolamine (PtdEtn) (Jackowski, S., and Rock, C.O. (1986) J. Biol. Chem. 261, 11328-11333). To ascertain the role of PtdEtn in the conversion of apolipoprotein to the mature lipoprotein, the lipoprotein from E. coli strain AH930 (pss::kan) containing a null mutation in the phosphatidylserine synthase gene (pss) was studied. Pulse labeling with [35S]methionine for 30 s or 5 min revealed the formation of mature lipoprotein in both wild-type (W3110) and mutant (AH930) cells. [3H]Palmitate-labeled lipoproteins from both the mutant and wild-type cells were found to contain nearly identical amounts of alkali-resistant (amide-linked, 41-42%) and alkali-labile (ester-linked, 58-59%) fatty acids. Edman degradation and dansylation of the immuno-affinity-purified [35S]cysteine-labeled lipoprotein showed that the NH2 terminus of the lipoprotein in the mutant was blocked as in the wild type. In vitro assay of apolipoprotein N-acyltransferase using membranes either from the mutant or the wild-type strain as the source of both the enzyme and the acyl donor revealed that both membranes were equally active in the conversion of [35S]methionine-labeled apolipoprotein to lipoprotein. These data strongly suggest that PtdEtn is not essential for the N-acylation of apolipoprotein to form lipoprotein, and other major phospholipids such as phosphatidylglycerol and cardiolipin can serve as the donor of fatty acid in the N-acylation of apolipoprotein.
The Margin of Appreciation and the Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights: Threat to the Rule of Law

The European Court of Human Rights has increasingly relied on the "margin of appreciation" as a tool for interpreting the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The article describes the history and development of this doctrine. It then illustrates why the doctrine endangers the rule of law - and to some degree the protection of human rights - in Europe.
Mutual Fund Investor Behavior Across the Business Cycle

Mutual fund investor behavior changes across the business cycle. In economic expansions, investors strongly display the documented behaviors of chasing returns and searching for managerial skill. Expansion investors earn higher returns and alphas by pursuing this strategy, but this result is partially explained by the momentum effect. In contrast, recession investors do not chase returns and exhibit a weaker tendency to seek alpha. Even before controlling for momentum, no smart money effect exists in recessions. Instead of chasing performance, recession investors make investment decisions to change their exposure to aggregate risk factors. Investors tend to avoid funds with exposure to the market and book-to-market factors during recessions, while they show the opposite pattern in expansions.
Learning multispectral texture features for cervical cancer detection

We present a bottom-up approach for automatic cancer cell detection in multispectral microscopic thin Pap smear images. Around 4,000 multispectral texture features are explored for cancer cell detection. Using two feature screening measures, the initial feature set is effectively reduced to a computationally manageable size. Based on pixel-level screening results, cancerous regions can thus be detected through a relatively simple procedure. Our experiments have demonstrated the potential of both multispectral and texture information to serve as valuable complementary cues to traditional detection methods.
Development of a novel method for synthesis of a polymeric ultrasound contrast agent.

Medical ultrasound is a highly valuable diagnostic tool, especially when compared with other imaging modalities. It is a noninvasive, real-time, portable, extremely safe method compared with X-ray and inexpensive relative to magnetic resonance imaging. However, ultrasound is limited in its ability to distinguish between diseased and normal tissue. This limitation has led to the development of contrast agents. We have produced novel poly (lactic-co-glycolic) acid air-filled microcapsules that work well as ultrasound contrast agents, giving up to 24 and 25 dB enhancement when insonated in the medical imaging range at 5 and 7.5 MHz, respectively. The capsules were fabricated by modifying a double emulsion method to encapsulate camphor in the oil phase and ammonium carbonate in the aqueous phase, and later sublime the encapsulated material, leaving voids capable of being filled with a gas in their place. The role of the surfactant, poly vinyl alcohol, solution temperature, was studied and found to play an important role in the morphology of the capsules, altering their acoustic response.
‘LONG SLOW BOOM’?: MANUFACTURING IN NEW ZEALAND, 1945–70

Many studies of post-war New Zealand economy are highly critical both of economic policy and of the business sector, emphasising protection, complacency and sclerosis. This article argues that such accounts are excessively simplistic and, by analysing the structure and performance of New Zealand manufacturing during 1945–70, suggests that there was considerable innovation in both technological and organisational spheres. The result was that, to a greater extent than current accounts allow, New Zealand manufacturing pursued efficiency and international competitiveness.
Improving forest aboveground biomass estimation using seasonal Landsat NDVI time-series

Spatially explicit knowledge of aboveground biomass (AGB) in large areas is important for accurate carbon accounting. Landsat data have been widely used to provide efficient and timely estimates of forest AGB because of their long archive and relatively high spatial resolution. Previous studies have explored different empirical modeling approaches to estimate AGB, but most of them only used a single Landsat image in the peak season, which may cause a saturation problem and low accuracy. To improve the accuracy of AGB estimation using Landsat images, this study explored the use of NDVI seasonal time-series derived from Landsat images across different seasons to estimate AGB in southeast Ohio by six empirical modeling approaches. Results clearly show that NDVI in the fall season has a stronger correlation to AGB than in the peak season, and using seasonal NDVI time-series can result in a more accurate AGB estimation and less saturation than using a single NDVI. In comparing these different empirical approaches, it is difficult to decide which one is superior to the other because they have different strengths and their accuracy is generally similar, indicating that modeling methods may not be the key issue for improving the accuracy of AGB estimation from Landsat data. This study suggests that future research should pay more attention to seasonal time-series data, and especially the data from the fall season.
The Quality of Education, Educational Institutions, and Cross‐Country Differences in Human Capital Accumulation

Cross-country studies of education and economic prosperity often reach conflicting results when using growth rates as the measure of economic development. However, growth rates lack persistence over time and may not accurately measure long-term economic success over relatively short economic horizons. To overcome this potential specification problem, we estimate the relationship between key education variables and the capital to physical labor ratio. Using both cross-sectional and panel specifications, we find that both the primary-pupil–teacher ratio and decentralized education finance are associated with a larger capital to physical labor ratio. The relationship between human capital and expenditures, private education, and test scores are less robust.
Accelerating financial applications on the GPU

The QuantLib library is a popular library used for many areas of computational finance. In this work, the parallel processing power of the GPU is used to accelerate QuantLib financial applications. Black-Scholes, Monte-Carlo, Bonds, and Repo code paths in QuantLib are accelerated using hand-written CUDA and OpenCL codes specifically targeted for the GPU. Additionally, HMPP and OpenACC versions of the applications were created to drive the automatic generation of GPU code from sequential code. The results demonstrate a significant speedup for each code using each parallelization method. We were also able to increase the speedup of HMPP-generated code with auto-tuning.
Photon-assisted synthesis of ultra-thin yttria-doped zirconia membranes: Structure, variable temperature conductivity and micro-fuel cell devices

Abstract We report on the synthesis and functional properties of nanoscale (∼50 nm) dense Y-doped zirconia (YDZ) electrolyte thin films by photon-assisted oxidation of Zr–Y precursor alloy thin films. Crystalline zirconia films with grain size of ∼5 nm were successfully grown at room temperature by oxidation under ultra-violet (UV) photon irradiation. Microstructure of the films was characterized by transmission electron microscopy. The electrochemical conductivity of UV grown YDZ electrolytes was investigated over a broad range of temperatures using Pt electrodes as a function of yttria doping concentration. The slightly lower electrical conductivity in UV grown films at intermediate temperature range (400–550 °C) is consistent with previous reports on oxygen defect annihilation under photo-excitation. Micro-fuel cells utilizing such ultra-thin YDZ membranes yielded ∼12 mW cm −2 power density at 550 °C. The results are of potential relevance in advancing low temperature ultra-thin oxide membrane synthesis for energy applications.
N incorporation in GaNxP1 − x and InNxP1 − x using a RF N plasma source

N incorporation in GaN x P 1-x and InN x P 1-x using a RF N plasma source We report a study of N incorporation behavior into GaP and InP as a function of growth conditions. With increasing N2 flow-rate fraction (N 2 flow rate over total group-V gas flow rate), the N composition increases up to a point but then saturates. This might be due to the small solubility of N in these materials or the leveling off of the active N species at higher N 2 flow rate. At a fixed N 2 flow-rate fraction, the higher the growth temperature T s is, the less N can be incorporated, which results from the lowering of the sticking coefficient of nitrogen at higher T s . Although the general trend of the growth condition dependence is the same for N incorporation in InP and GaP, the amount of N that can be incorporated is quite different. With GaP, N as high as 16% can be obtained, while with InP, only less than 1% can be incorporated. This is considered to be due to the very high equilibrium vapor pressure of N2 over InN compared to that over GaN.
Isomeric structure distinction using energy and angular resolution: C3H6O+·

Abstract Approximate breakdown curves generated by collision-induced dissociation of C3H6O+· from dioxane show that it does not have the trimethylene oxide structure. Data obtained by varying the collision energy in the low energy range and by varying the scattering angle at kilovolt energy collisions lead to the same conclusion. These methods have more structure-discriminating power than conventional collisional activation spectra. They appear also to be less sensitive to internal energy effects. It is noteworthy that for the reactions studied here, 40 eV collisions deposit approximately the same average internal energy as 3000 eV collisions, perhaps because of different mechanisms of excitation.
Fusion curves and polymorphic transitions of the group III elements—Aluminum, gallium, indium and thallium—At high pressures

The fusion curves of aluminum and thallium to 50 kbars and of gallium to 70 kbars, were investigated by differential thermal analysis. Comparison is made with previous work and with the fusion curve of indium. A break in slope of the melting curve of gallium near 45 °C and 30 kbars led to the discovery of a new polymorph. This phase—Ga III—is slightly less dense than Ga II, both persisting to 75 kbars. Solid-solid phase boundaries for gallium and thallium were determined by changes in volume and resistance as well as with DTA. The Ga II to Ga III transition is rapid and characterized by a substantial heat as well as a drop in resistance. From the investigation of the metastability phenomena, it is tentatively concluded that Ga III is identical with Bridgman's Ga II' and that the metastable phase studied by Defrain at 1 atm. is closely related to Ga II. The existence of three polymorphs of thallium is definitely established, although the undercooling noted by Ponyatovskii for the b.c.c.-h.c.p. transition was verified. The triple point for the solid thallium phases is near 115°C and 39 kbars, with melting of the high pressure polymorph expected above 650°C and 90 kbars.
Survival after recurrence of Ewing tumors: the St Jude Children's Research Hospital experience, 1979-1999.

BACKGROUND Despite improved therapies, 30–40% of patients with Ewing tumors (ET) experience recurrence and have a poor prognosis. The authors analyzed factors prognostic of survival in patients with recurrent ET. METHODS The authors assessed the relation between postrecurrence survival (PRS) and demographic, disease, and treatment factors in 71 patients who experienced recurrent ET after treatment on one of three consecutive institutional protocols. RESULTS Thirty-four patients (47.9%) had distant recurrence, 25 patients (35.2%) had local recurrence, and 12 patients (16.9%) had both distant and local recurrence at a median of 1.7 years after diagnosis. The probability of 5-year PRS (± 1 standard error) was 17.7% ± 4.5%. Recurrence ≥ 2 years after diagnosis predicted a significantly better outcome (5-year PRS, 34.9% ± 8.5%) compared with earlier recurrence (5.0% ± 2.8%; P < 0.001). Patients who had both local and distant recurrence fared worse (5-year PRS, 12.5% ± 8.3%) compared with patients who had local recurrence alone (21.7% ± 7.8%) or distant recurrence alone (17.6 ± 6.1%). Among patients with local recurrence alone, those who underwent salvage with radical surgery had significantly higher 5-year PRS estimates (31.4% ± 11.6%) compared with the other patients (9.1% ± 6.1%; P = 0.023). Pulmonary irradiation significantly improved the outcomes of patients with isolated pulmonary recurrence (5-year PRS estimate, 30.3% ± 12.5% vs. 16.7% ± 10.8%, respectively; P = 0.018). CONCLUSIONS Although outcomes are generally poor after patients experience recurrence of ET, certain patient groups differ appreciably in their likelihood of survival. Patients who experience recurrence ≥ 2 years after diagnosis and patients who have local recurrence that can be treated with radical surgery and intensive chemotherapy have the most favorable outcomes. Cancer 2002;94:561–9. © 2002 American Cancer Society.
An exact formula for the half-plane pull-in range of a PLL

Abstract A second-order phase-lock loop (PLL) that is based on a triangular-characteristic phase detector and imperfect-integrator loop filter is found in many applications where simplicity and economics are major considerations. For many of these applications, digital-logic-compatible reference and VCO signals are used, an exclusive-OR gate implements the phase detector, and the loop filter is constructed from passive components. When designing these loops, the half-plane pull-in range Ω 2 is of interest. Until now, this important loop parameter could only be calculated by using a computer-based technique that numerically integrated the nonlinear differential equation that describes the PLL model. This requirement/limitation is removed here by the development of an exact closed-form formula for Ω 2 , the main contribution of this paper. More generally, the value of Ω 2 is dependent on the PLL phase detector characteristic that is used, be it triangular, sinusoidal, or something else. With regard to the value of Ω 2 produced, a comparison is given of two PLLs, both described by the same linear model so that the comparison is meaningful. The first PLL is based on a triangular-characteristic phase detector; the second loop is based on a sinusoidal phase detector.
Uptake of acetylcholine by human placenta fragments and slices from guinea pig and rat placenta.

Abstract Fragments of human term placenta took up [ 3 H]acetylcholine (ACh) into the intracellular water fraction against a concentration gradient when incubated in a medium which contained 10 μM paraoxon as an inhibitor of cholinesterases. Intracellular concentrations rose to levels 3- to 4-fold over the concentration in the medium in a time- and temperature-dependent manner. The ACh uptake was saturable and followed the Michaelis-Menten equation. It required metabolic energy and was markedly reduced by drugs and conditions which decreased cell levels of ATP. Concentrative uptake was inhibited by alterations in the ionic environment as introduced by high K + , Li + , Rb + and Cs + . Slices from guinea pig placenta reached intracellular concentrations which were only equal to the concentration in the incubation medium, suggesting equilibration by diffusion, while rat placenta slices concentrated ACh more slowly than human placenta and reached ratios of 2.0. These species variations further confirm known differences of the cholinergic system in placenta and stress the need for caution in extrapolating findings from the placenta of one species to another.
Clinical and electromyographic deep tendon reflexes in polyneuropathy: diagnostic value and prevalence*.

Background – Evidence is accumulating that patients with polyneuropathy may present with normal clinical deep tendon reflexes (C-DTR). There are few studies that assessed the diagnostic utility of electromyographically recorded DTR (Er-DTR) in patients with polyneuropathy. Objectives – The objectives of this study were twofold: (i) to evaluate the prevalence of preserved C-DTR in polyneuropathy; (ii) diagnostic value of Er-DTR latency measurement in patients with polyneuropathy. Methods – We prospectively studied 38 controls and 185 patients with polyneuropathy. All subjects had evaluation of C-DTR, Er-DTR obtained from right biceps brachii (BR), right patellar (PR) and bilateral ankle reflexes (AR). Results – Of these 185 patients, 118 (63.8%) had chronic axonal neuropathy (CAN), 49 (26.5%) demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy (DPN) and 18 (9.7%) small fiber neuropathy (SFN). The C-DTR were normal in 65 patients whereas 39 of these 65 (60%) patients had abnormalities of Er-DTR at one or more sites. Er-DTR latencies in patients with polyneuropathies were prolonged at all sites compared with controls (P 150% of the normal mean) were higher in patients with DPN than that of CAN or SFN (P < 0.01). Conclusions – We conclude that C-DTR are preserved in 35.1% of the patients with polyneuropathies and Er-DTR should be performed in such patients in order to provide electrophysiological evidence of a polyneuropathy. Er-DTR are useful in distinguishing axonal from demyelinating disorders of peripheral nerve, and detection of subclinical involvement of large fibers in SFN.
Deposition of thin metal and metal silicide films from the decomposition of organometallic compounds

Abstract The deposition of metal silicide thin films can be undertaken using volatile organometallic complexes. Organometallic vapor phase epitaxy or metal-organic chemical vapor phase epitaxy has a number of potential advantages over conventional chemical vapor deposition and molecular beam epitaxy technologies, and a number of novel thin film materials may be made from organometallic compounds. Plasma-, pyrolytic- and photolytic- assisted decomposition of organometallic complexes have been undertaken in an effort to make a variety of metallic and metal silicide thin films. These efforts are comprehensively reviewed.
Embedded Tutorial ET3: Packaging Trends, Die Package Co-Design Flow and Challenges

Packaging has become one of the critical areas of the SoC design flow in recent years. Miniaturization of package with the ever increasing interface speeds and massive integration have opened up a lot of challenges for packaging engineers. This talk will cover different popular packages available in the industry and recent package trends. Traditionally, package design and analysis always followed SoC design, but it is becoming more and more imperative to design die and package in conjunction. Designing the die and package together in the loop to optimize die and package design and closure is popularly referred to as die package co-design. This talk will focus on the key aspects of co-design flow, package modeling/analysis aspects specifically for high performance designs. This talk will also cover some key issues and challenges from practical designs. Speaker Biography Siva Kothamasu is an elected Member Group Technical Staff at Texas Instruments (India), and leads the Package co-design, Electrical and Reliability analysis team in the TI India ARM-MPU business unit. He has more than 10 years industry experience working in various aspects of chip design covering Reliability CAD, Physical Design, Signal/Power Integrity Analysis and Package Co-Design. He has several papers in internal and external forums and is a member of IEEE. He holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree from Osmania University. 2012 25th International Conference on VLSI Design 1063-9667/12 $26.00 © 2012 IEEE DOI 10.1109/VLSID.2012.40 35
Regulation of expression of B7 by murine langerhans cells: A direct relationship between B7 mRNA levels and the level of surface expression of B7 by Langerhans cells

Cultured BALB/c epidermal Langerhans cells express high levels of the costimulatory molecule B7 on their surfaces relative to levels expressed on fresh Langerhans cells. Quantitation of relative amounts of B7 mRNA in fresh epidermal cells and cultured epidermal cells following amplification of mRNA signals via reverse transcriptase – polymerase chain reaction, hybridization of PCR products with radiolabeled internal oligonucleotide probes, resolution of hybrids in non-denaturing polyacrylamide gels, and detection by autoradiography revealed dramatically (approximately one thousandfold) higher levels of B7 mRNA in cultured epidermal cells (10-40% 1-A+) as compared with fresh epidermal cells (1 – 4% I-A+). Levels of B7 mRNA in cultured epidermal cells were also substantially greater than those detected in a reference B lymphoma cell line (CH-1). Analysis of 87 mRNA expression in subpopulations of cultured epidermal cells demonstrated that essentially all of the B7 mRNA was present in Langerhans cells; cells bearing I-A and CD45 antigens. Cultured keratinocytes did not contain appreciable amounts of B7 mRNA. These results are consistent with previous data regarding surface expression of 87 by cLC and also demonstrate that fLC are essentially devoid of B7 mRNA and surface protein.
Variation in the distribution of patient-reported outcomes based on different definitions of defining asthma severity.

SUMMARYObjectives: The purpose of this study was to observe the variation in the distribution of health-related quality of life and work performance scale scores based on using different methods of determining asthma severity.Methodology: Five methods of determining asthma severity were used, including three patient-derived measures (patient perceived severity or PPS; overall symptom-derived severity or OSS; and nocturnal symptom-severity or NSS); and 2 methods using retrospective pharmacy claims (reliever/oral steroid use or ROSU and multi-drug use or MDU). Three levels of severity were examined: mild, moderate, and severe, requiring condensing some severity categories of several methods. Data were obtained from a cross-sectional mail survey of 603 adults with asthma in a US managed care organization linked to pharmaceutical/medical claims data. Patient-reported outcomes included the Physical Component Summary Score (PCS) and the Mental Component Summary Score (MCS) of the SF-36, the summary score (AQLQ)...
Nursing of own and foster offspring by Utah prairie dogs (Cynomys parvidens)

From 1995 through 2005, I studied nursing among Utah prairie dogs (Cynomys parvidens) living under natural conditions at Bryce Canyon National Park, UT, USA. I observed 850 aboveground nursings, which involved 122 mothers and 248 juveniles from 134 litters. Most of the mothers that nursed aboveground were middle-aged, and most nursing juveniles had been coming aboveground for 1–3 weeks. Most nursings involved a single juvenile, lasted 1–10 min, and occurred between 1800 hours and 2000 hours. Seventy-five percent of nursings (598/796) involved a mother suckling her own juvenile offspring; the other 24.9% (198/796) involved a mother suckling another mother’s offspring (i.e., communal nursing). Communal nursings involved juveniles of the home territory, and many communal nursings (74/198 = 37.4%) involved close kin such as half-siblings, grandoffspring, full-nieces, and full-nephews; other communal nursings (37/198 = 18.7%) involved more distant kin such as full-second cousins and full-third cousins. Of seven hypotheses that might explain the evolution of communal nursing, evidence supports the importance of two: elevated inclusive fitness via indirect selection and communal nursing as a cost of coloniality.
Evidence for the will rogers phenomenon in migration of employees to managed care plans

Employees have increasing opportunities to enroll in managed care plans, and employers tend to favor these plans because of their lower costs. However, lower costs may be the result of selection of healthier patients into managed care plans. This study measured differences in health care utilization across an indemnity plan and a managed care plan, and for all employees together. We found that apparent increases in utilization in both indemnity and managed care plans disappeared when the plans were viewed together, reflecting the migration of sicker patients from indemnity plans to managed care plans.
Sensitivity in light element analysis by 2 MeV and 150 keV proton and photon induced X-rays

Abstract The sensitivity of low energy proton induced X-ray emission analysis using a simple low energy accelerator has been compared with high energy proton or photon excitation for the analysis of trace elements with atomic number less than about 20. For low energy proton impact, characteristic X-ray emission cross sections are lower than those of 2 MeV protons but the bremsstrahlung from secondary electrons is much lower than that of 2 MeV proton impact in the X-ray energy range lower than about 5 keV. As a result the sensitivity of trace element analysis for Z ≦18 is higher for 150 keV than for 2 MeV proton excitation. Photon sources are considered as a competitive way of excitation for relatively large samples such as pellets.
Designing the shape of a large scientific balloon

Abstract Large scientific balloons are used to carry out research in the upper atmosphere. By Archimedes' principle, a balloon in equilibrium at a fixed altitude must displace an amount of air equal to its weight. The system that we model here includes the balloon film, reinforcing caps, load tapes and payload. We consider two mathematical models for the design shape of a balloon. One is a design in the shape of an ellipsoid-on-cone. The equilibrium condition gives rise to a cubic equation whose solution gives the unique shape for a given set of design parameters. A second model is the natural-shape design, a system of nonlinear ordinary differential equations that is commonly used for modeling the shape of large scientific balloons. In both models, caps are included as an added thickness, thus the resulting film weight density is discontinuous. The discontinuities in the natural-shape model are handled with a parallel shooting method. We present numerical solutions for various design parameters and consider issues related to the efficient design of a balloon.
Fluctuation effects on the Pauli susceptibility at a Peierls transition

The observation of a sharp cusp in the temperature derivative of the magnetic susceptibility d chi /dT is often used as a signature of a second-order structural phase transition. Such behaviour is particularly prominent in low-dimensional compounds undergoing a Peierls transition, where there is a large change in the density of states. Using general arguments borrowed from magnetism, the author shows that it is short-range order parameter fluctuations close to Tc that lead to the observed behaviour of chi ; the addition of impurities produces rounding of the d chi /dT cusp when the true phase transition is destroyed by disorder. The theory compares favourably with experiment.
Experimental thermal expansivities for single-crystal gadolinium metal near the Curie temperature

Linear thermal-expansivity results are presented for the critical region for both an $a$-axis and a $c$-axis single crystal of high-purity gadolinium metal. These results show agreement with the three-dimensional Heisenberg model for high temperatures, with a crossover to a new state occurring for $\ensuremath{\epsilon}=\frac{(T\ensuremath{-}{T}_{c})}{{T}_{c}l{10}^{\ensuremath{-}3}}$ and an enhanced increase in ordering on cooling below this temperature. Similar, although less marked, changes in behavior appear for temperatures below ${T}_{c}$. The results are highly asymmetric about ${T}_{c}$ for both crystals, in agreement with heat-capacity results, the temperature dependence of the expansivity being much smaller for $Tl{T}_{c}$. The present results are combined with other elastic-constant and heat-capacity data to obtain total, magnetic, and lattice Gr\"uneisen parameters for the two crystallographic directions. These reflect the anisotropy of the magnetic properties, with the $a$- and $c$-axis magnetic Gr\"uneisen parameters being approximately -1.0 and -4.0, respectively, at ${T}_{c}$. These magnetic Gr\"uneisen parameters each are roughly temperature independent above and below ${T}_{c}$, but with the ratio of their extrapolated values to ${T}_{c}$ being 1.3 for each crystallographic direction. This result is consistent with the conclusion that the critical thermodynamic properties of gadolinium cannot be represented by a common reduced equation of state through the critical temperature.
The nucleus paragigantocellularis and opioid withdrawal-like behavior.

Participation of the nucleus paragigantocellularis (PGi) in mediation of opioid withdrawal was examined in conscious, unrestrained, non-opioid-dependent rats, using electrical stimulation of the PGi. A characteristic series of behaviors, which resembled those seen during naloxone-precipitated withdrawal from dependence on the opioid agonist, butorphanol, was elicited during 30 min of PGi stimulation. Thus, the behavioral syndrome has been termed opioid withdrawal-like. Simultaneous microdialysis measurement of glutamate within the locus ceruleus indicated a positive correlation between extracellular glutamate concentrations and behavioral responses. Behavioral responses were inhibited by 50% during reverse dialysis perfusion of the locus ceruleus with the glutamate receptor antagonist, kynurenic acid, without any effect on glutamate concentrations. Thus, increases in locus ceruleus glutamate partially mediate opioid withdrawal-like behavior. Intracerebroventricular (i.c.v.) injections of the opioid antagonist, naloxone, or of the μ-selective (β-funaltrexamine) or the δ-selective (naltrindole) opioid antagonists decreased, but did not abolish, stimulation-induced behavioral responses. Similar i.c.v. injections of the κ-selective antagonist, nor-binaltorphimine, had no effect on behavioral responses to PGi stimulation. Activation of the PGi by electrical stimulation can elicit behaviors similar to those observed during opioid withdrawal. Moreover, additional levels of complexity are evident in the neuropharmacology of PGi stimulation-induced opioid withdrawal-like behavior.
A nonsingular universe.

The Einstein theory of gravitation breaks down at very high curvatures. We propose a modification of the theory at Planck curvatures for which all isotropic cosmological solutions (even including matter) are nonsingular. All solutions asymptotically approach de Sitter space, a solution with limiting curvature.