cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Complex carbon cycle responses to multi-level warming and supplemental summer rain in the high Arctic.

The Arctic has experienced rapid warming and, although there are uncertainties, increases in precipitation are projected to accompany future warming. Climate changes are expected to affect magnitudes of gross ecosystem photosynthesis (GEP), ecosystem respiration (ER) and the net ecosystem exchange of CO2 (NEE). Furthermore, ecosystem responses to climate change are likely to be characterized by nonlinearities, thresholds and interactions among system components and the driving variables. These complex interactions increase the difficulty of predicting responses to climate change and necessitate the use of manipulative experiments. In 2003, we established a long-term, multi-level and multi-factor climate change experiment in a polar semidesert in northwest Greenland. Two levels of heating (30 and 60 W m(-2) ) were applied and the higher level was combined with supplemental summer rain. We made plot-level measurements of CO2 exchange, plant community composition, foliar nitrogen concentrations, leaf δ(13) C and NDVI to examine responses to our treatments at ecosystem- and leaf-levels. We confronted simple models of GEP and ER with our data to test hypotheses regarding key drivers of CO2 exchange and to estimate growing season CO2 -C budgets. Low-level warming increased the magnitude of the ecosystem C sink. Meanwhile, high-level warming made the ecosystem a source of C to the atmosphere. When high-level warming was combined with increased summer rain, the ecosystem became a C sink of magnitude similar to that observed under low-level warming. Competition among our ER models revealed the importance of soil moisture as a driving variable, likely through its effects on microbial activity and nutrient cycling. Measurements of community composition and proxies for leaf-level physiology suggest GEP responses largely reflect changes in leaf area of Salix arctica, rather than changes in leaf-level physiology. Our findings indicate that the sign and magnitude of the future High Arctic C budget may depend upon changes in summer rain.
How many more discoveries in the Universe

It is generally assumed that the potential scope of any scientific discipline is quite incalculable. Yet the discovery of the Earth's major rivers, mountains and seas, an enterprise that may have seemed endless to Ptolemy's contemporaries, is now essentially complete. The same may soon be said about the discovery of new plants and animals on Earth1. Harwit2,3 has put forward a procedure for estimating the number of observational phenomena remaining to be discovered in astronomy. Here we describe a statistical approach which supports the conclusion that the number of phenomena already discovered represents an appreciable fraction of those that can can be found.
Relating information technology investment to organizational performance: a causal model analysis

Corporations have invested billions of dollars in information technology (IT) over the last 20 years. There is much debate regarding the benefits accruing from these expenditures. Direct linkage between technology investment and increases in organizational performance and productivity has been extremely elusive. This research investigates the relationship between IT investment and organizational performance so that managers may better evaluate IT expenditures. With data on IT investment and organizational performance from 350 public companies over 4 years, this study uses structural equation analysis to empirically test a theoretical model composed of five IT investment variables and five organizational performance variables. The study found that the variable used to measure the extent to which users have access to IT was significantly and positively related to sales by employee, an organizational measure of labor productivity. Two other IT investment variables, the value of supercomputers, mainframes, and minicomputers and the percentage of IT budget spent on IT staff, were significantly and negatively associated with the sales by employee measure. Another IT variable, the IT budget as a percentage of revenue, was significantly and negatively associated with sales by total assets, a traditional measure of capital productivity. The last IT variable, the percentage of IT budget spent on IT staff training, was not related to any performance variable. Implications of these findings are discussed and, from a management perspective, postulations relating IT investment to organizational performance are stated. Researchers are provided with suggestions and encouraged to use these results to probe deeper into the relationship between IT investment and organizational performance.
Older Adults' Pain Communication: The Effect of Interruption

The effect of interrupting older adults as they talk about their osteoarthritis pain was examined in a secondary analysis using a nonrandomized two-group design. Participants were part of a study in which older adults orally responded to a series of three pain questions asked by a videotaped practitioner presented on a computer screen. The initial 96 participants were given visual and auditory cues to touch the computer screen to continue to the next question. The remaining 216 participants received only the visual cue after the auditory cue was noted to interrupt participant responses. Older adults' pain communication was audiotaped, transcribed, and content analyzed using 16 a priori criteria from the American Pain Society's (2002)Guidelines for the Management of Pain in Osteoarthritis, Rheumatoid Arthritis, and Juvenile Chronic Arthritis. Older adults in the uninterrupted group responded with significantly more pain information, M=6.3 (SD=3.69), than the interrupted group, M=5.3 (SD=3.22); F(1,300)=4.49, p=.04, chi(2)=0.004. Adjusting for sample size differences, older adults in the interrupted group described 56% less information about the source of their pain, 41% less about the quality of their pain, 29% less about their pain treatments, 24% less about the timing of their pain, and 15% less about their pain intensity. The brief, innocuous interruption diminished the amount of important pain information communicated by the older adults. Deliberate interruptions by practitioners might further reduce communication of important pain information.
Prenatal ethanol exposure alters the postnatal development of the spontaneous electrical activity of dopamine neurons in the ventral tegmental area

Prenatal ethanol exposure causes a persistent reduction in the spontaneous electrical activity of dopamine (DA) neurons in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) in adult animals. Because DA neuron activity matures into adult pattern during postnatal development, it is possible that reduced activity in VTA DA neurons after prenatal ethanol exposure is caused by impaired postnatal development. This possibility was investigated in the present study using the in vivo extracellular single-unit recording and brain stimulation techniques. The results show an age-dependent decrease in the number of spontaneously active VTA DA neurons from 2 to 4 weeks of age in both the control and prenatal ethanol-exposed animals. In ethanol-exposed animals, the age-dependent decrease was more prominent after 3 weeks of age, resulting in lower numbers of spontaneously active VTA DA neurons in 4-week-old and adult animals. In both the control and ethanol-exposed animals, there were age-dependent increases in the firing rates and burst firing activity of VTA DA neurons after 2 weeks of age. Ethanol exposure led to slightly lower firing rates in 4-week-old and adult animals and did not impact the burst firing pattern in any age groups. There were no changes in axon conduction velocity and antidromic spike characteristics of VTA DA neurons. These results indicate that reduced activity of VTA DA neurons during adulthood after prenatal ethanol exposure does not begin prenatally. Instead, it is a result of impaired postnatal development manifested only when animals reach 4 weeks of age. These results suggest that early intervention may be an effective treatment strategy for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, a behavioral dysfunction related to the abnormalities of DA systems and often observed in children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder.
Anticonvulsant actions of fominoben: Possible involvement of benzodiazepine receptors

Abstract The purpose of this study was to examine the benzodiazepine-like activity of fominoben-HCl, a compound with prominent antitussive and respiratory stimulant actions. Towards this end we examined the anticonvulsant actions of fominoben as well as its ability to displace benzodiazepine (BDZ) binding from brain membranes. Scatchard analysis of binding data demonstrated that fominoben displaced 3 H-flunitrazepam binding from rat cortical membrane preparations. Furthermore when tested against 3 H-ethyl-β-carboline-3-carboxylate, the addition of GABA resulted in a mean (±SE) shift of the IC 50 from 4.05 ± 0.10 μ M to 2.2 ± 0.05 μ M, a characteristic of benzodiazepine agonists. Seizures were induced in male, Swiss Webster mice with pentylenetetrazol (PTZ) or 3-mercaptoproprionic acid (3-MP). Fominoben (50 and 100 mg/kg) completely protected mice from seizures induced by 50 mg/kg PTZ and elevated the seizure latency against 75 mg/kg of PTZ. The anticonvulsant effects of fominoben were less pronounced against 3-MP-induced seizures. The benzodiazepine antagonist Ro 15-1788 antagonized the anticonvulsant action of fominoben against both convulsants. Taken together, these data suggest that the anticonvulsant action of fominoben may be mediated by agonistic actions at benzodiazepine binding sites.
Increasing treatment acceptability through video

The effects of a video vignette on the treatment acceptability ratings of four behavioral interventions were evaluated. Two interventions involved positive reinforcement (DRO and DRI) and two negative consequences (contingent physical restraint and contingent electric shock). Seventy-four undergraduate psychology students were randomly assigned into two groups. The experimental group (n=36) viewed a video vignette of a self-abusive individual whereas the control group (n=38) did not. Acceptability ratings prior to the video showed no differences between the experimental and control groups. The post video ratings indicated significant acceptability increases for physical restraint for the experimental group. There also was a significant group by testing effect because the means for the experimental group rose whereas the control group's means were stable. These results replicated and extended Foxx, McHenry and Bremer (in press) who showed that treatment acceptability is alterable through video.
A parametric study of the behavior of the angular momentum vector during spin rate changes of rigid-body spacecraft

During a spinup or spindown maneuver of a spinning spacecraft, it is usual to have not only a constant bodyfixed torque about the desired spin axis, but also small undesired constant torques about the transverse axes. The undesired torques cause the orientation of the angular momentum vector to change in inertial space. Since an accurate approximate analytic solution is available for the angular momentum vector as a function of time, this behavior can be studied for large variations of dynamic parameters such as the initial spin rate, the inertial properties, and the torques. As an example, the spinup and spindown maneuvers of the Galileo spacecraft were studied, and as. a result very simple heuristic solutions were discovered which provide very good approximations to the parametric behavior of the angular momentum vector orientation.
The Amyloid Precursor Protein in Ischemic Brain Injury and Chronic Hypoperfusion

We studied changes in the spatial and temporal distribution of the beta amyloid precursor protein (APP) of Alzheimer's disease (AD) in experimental ischemic brain injury. Rats with repeated reversible occlusions of one middle cerebral artery showed striking APP reactivity in astrocytic processes in perifocal regions and adjacent white matter. APP reactive dystrophic axons and neurons were also evident in the cortex and hippocampus ipsilateral to the MCA occlusion. Such changes were similarly apparent in animals subjected to partial forebrain ischemia induced by bilateral occlusion of the carotid arteries. Our studies suggest that focal ischemic insults or chronic hypoperfusion leads to increased accumulation or induction of APP in surviving cellular elements that may relate to the processes involved in beta amyloid deposition in AD.
Game theoretic formulations for network-assisted resource management in wireless networks

This paper proposes game-theoretic formulations for addressing resource management issues in GSM/GPRS/EGPRS-based and CDMA/HDR-CDMA-based wireless networks. Network-assisted resource management is used, with minimal inter-base signaling costs, to transfer the intelligence and control needed from the terminal to the network. Both non-cooperative and coalitional games are used to address resource management issues such as link adaptation with power control, channel re-allocation, channel re-assignment, and, hard and soft handoffs with power control.
Barriers to progress in information system design: technological or not

The Gorry-Morton framework (Gorry and Morton, 1971) has helped clear up much fuzzy thinking about management decisions and decision support systems. Formerly, there was a tendency to equate Simon's (Simon, 1961) notion of Programmability with Anthony's (Anthony, 1965) analysis of decision making level, the not-so-tacit assumption being that decisions at the Strategic Planning level are almost completely Non-Programmable, while those at the Operations Control level are more Programmable. (See Anthony himself.) Counter-examples abound: the vice presidents who engage in annual budgeting and long-range planning find these activities just as routine and tedious (for which read "Programmable") as the foreman's shop loading tasks; the dispatcher faced with the after-math of a fire has a problem as Unprogrammable as a president faced with Ralph Nader.
Gender, Media and Leader Emergence: Examining the Impression Management Strategies of Men and Women in Different Settings

This study examined the impact of media (face -to -face versus computer -mediated communication) on the process of leadership emergence by females and males. Specifically, we adapt ed the literature associated with impression management to investigate whether there are any differences in terms of two key impression management behaviors - self -promotion and supplication - between males and females who emerge d as l eaders in face -to -face and technology -mediated settings. Our findings challenge conventional gender -related findings. The results indicated that self -promotion plays an important role in influencing leadership emergence while supplication negatively impact s leadership emergence. In a face -to -face context, females who emerged as leaders were found to employ more self -promotion tactics than male leaders while female leaders and male leaders did not differ with respect to the amount of supplication tactics use d. Females who emerged as leaders in a face -to -face context were also found to engage in greater self -promotion and more supplication tactics than females who emerged as leaders in a Cm C context. Interestingly, there was no significant impact of media on t he extent of self -promotion and supplication strategies displayed by male leaders. Future research avenues and implications are discussed.
Performance in review

Churchill, Caryl. Fen. Directed by Les Waters. Performed by London's Joint Stock Theatre and produced by Joseph Papp at the Public Theatre, New York City, June, 1983. Blitzstein, Marc. The Cradle Will Rock. Directed by John Houseman. The Acting Company, Douglas Fairbanks Theatre, New York, July, 1983.
Division of prostatic anterior fibromuscular stroma reduces urethral resistance in an ex vivo human prostate model.

Objectives To establish the contribution of the anterior fibromuscular stroma to the urethral resistance in an ex vivo human prostate model. The anterior fibromuscular stroma constitutes the anterior portion of the prostatic surgical capsule. Methods An intact bladder and prostate were obtained from 10 patients who had undergone cystoprostatectomy. The bladder was filled at a predetermined flow rate through a catheter inserted into the bladder dome. The incoming flow was allowed to drain freely through the urethra. The bladder pressures were recorded after a steady state had been reached. The prostatic anterior fibromuscular stroma was incised longitudinally from the prostatic base to its apex. The bladder pressures were recorded before and after the incision was made and again after suture approximation of the cut edges of the anterior fibromuscular stroma. Results The median patient age was 72 years (range 52-81). The median prostatic volume was 46 cm3 (range 30-260). A statistically significant decrease in bladder pressure was observed after division of the anterior fibromuscular stroma. The mean pressure decreased from 12.5 cm H2O to 10.6 cm H2O, with a flow rate of 6 mL/s, and from 16.4 cm H2O to 13.7 cm H2O, with a flow rate of 12 mL/s (P < .0001). This corresponded to a 15% reduction in bladder pressure. A return to the baseline pressure or greater than baseline was recorded after approximation of the anterior fibromuscular stroma. Conclusions The anterior fibromuscular stroma plays a significant role in maintaining urethral resistance. Its longitudinal division reduced the bladder pressure an average of 15% across flow rates of 6-12 mL/s.
The NPOESS Preparatory Project Science Data Segment (SDS) Data Depository and Distribution Element (SD3E) System Architecture

The National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) Preparatory Project (NPP) Science Data Segment (SDS) will make daily data requests for approximately six terabytes of NPP science products for each of its six environmental assessment elements from the operational data providers. As a result, issues associated with duplicate data requests, data transfers of large volumes of diverse products, and data transfer failures raised concerns with respect to the network traffic and bandwidth consumption. The NPP SDS Data Depository and Distribution Element (SD3E) was developed to provide a mechanism for efficient data exchange, alleviate duplicate network traffic, and reduce operational costs.
Lightweight Cryptographic Authentication in Passive RFID-Tagged Systems

The explosion in recent interest in radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags stems primarily from advances in information processing in supply chain management. Given their processing power and memory capabilities, RFID tags can be used in a wide range of applications including those where barcodes can and cannot be used. Although the potential exists, it is hampered by the relatively high unit cost of implementation and issues related to privacy and security. As with any technology, unit cost of RFID tags and their related systems is bound to come down. As for security and privacy issues, the main impediments are limited processing power, memory, and external power to operate these tags. In spite of these resource constraints, recent years have seen a plethora of new authentication protocols that promise to alleviate security and privacy concerns associated with the use of RFID tags. We evaluate a few protocols that have been suggested for use in passive RFID-tagged systems and identify vulnerabilities that may be present. When appropriate, we present modifications of existing protocols to prevent identified vulnerabilities.
The influence of estrogen and androgen on the ovarian response of hypophysectomized immature rats to gonadotropins.

The effects of human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG), pregnant mares’serum gonadotropin (PMS), and anterior pituitary gonadotropin (APG) were studied singly and in combination with each other and with diethylstilbestrol (DES) and testosterone propionate (TP) on the ovaries of the hypophysectomized immature rat. Ovarian weight and histological changes produced by these treatments were noted. DES was found to augment APG, but not HCG or PMS. This augmentation was evidenced by ovarian weight gain and corpus luteum formation. Certain similarities of te effects of PMS, HCG, and APG to those of estrogen and androgen were found. TP antagonized the follicular development produced by APG and DES. HCG caused striking thecal luteinization of the cystic follicles produced by both PMS and APG, and a substantial ovarian weight gain. DES exerted protective effects on the ova and granulosa cells in various situations. “Combination follicles,” which were partially luteinized, yet containe dhealthy granulosa cells and ova, we...
A dynamic probe strategy for quorum systems

A quorum system is a collection of sets called quorums. Any two quorums in a quorum system must have at least one element in common. Quorum systems can be used for many different applications in a distributed system. A quorum system is available, if all elements in at least one quorum ore operational. The elements are probed to determine if they are available. A probe strategy is used to determine the order in which the elements are probed. This paper studies the average case probe complexity, which is defined as the expected number of probes required to determine if a given quorum system is available. Then, two new probe strategies are presented and analyzed. The first strategy is a generalizations of the alternating color strategy, and the second strategy is based on a measure of the relative importance of each element in the system.
Mobile system for fingerprinting and mapping of blood - Vessels across a finger

We present the design of a novel, mobile, and contact-less, fingerprint line scanner and blood vessel mapper. This system provides a means for acquiring fingerprints with less than 1% distortion in extremely high resolutions, presenting an ideal technology for high-security and individual identification applications. We envision a difficult scenario where patrolling law-enforcement officers would use this miniature fingerprinting system. In this scenario, a police officer will stop a driver for a traffic violation and require the driver to put one (or a few) of his fingers on the testing equipment. The driver's fingerprint will be stored by the mobile system and instantly transferred through a wireless connection to a laptop located in the cruiser. Simultaneously, the laptop will wirelessly send the collected information to a data center. It is expected, that before the officer completes his written report he will receive on the laptop the information about the driver's criminal record (if any). The mobile fingerprinting system is compatible with AFIS and APIS system. The current study describes advantages of line scanning and challenges of the mobile, miniature design.
Computer vision for music identification: video demonstration

This paper describes a demonstration video for our music identification system. The goal of music identification is to reliably recognize a song from a small sample of noisy audio. This problem is challenging because the recording is often corrupted by noise and because the audio sample will only match a small portion of the target song. Additionally, a practical music identification system should scale (in both accuracy and speed) to databases containing hundreds of thousands of songs. Recently, the music identification problem has attracted considerable attention. However, the task remains unsolved, particularly for noisy real-world queries. We cast music identification into an equivalent sub-image retrieval framework: identify the portion of a spectrogram image from the database that best matches a given query snippet. Our approach treats the spectrogram of each music clip as a 2D image and transforms music identification into a corrupted sub-image retrieval problem.
Successful surgical repair of d-transposition of the great arteries in a separated conjoined twin

Abstract Conjoined twins are very rare examples of congenital malformations. In 75% of thoracoomphalopagus conjoined twins, the intracardiac anatomy determines outcome and long-term survival.
Airspace geometry and 4D flight proximity detection for simulation of the National Airspace System

The authors present uncomplicated and well established equations that can be used in simulation or real-world applications to determine key crossing points and aircraft proximity when the trajectory and speed of aircraft pairs are known. These equations, in closed form, were developed for computing the minimum distance between two aircraft within the four-dimensional (4D) space-time domain. The 4D flight proximity information can be used in simulation to evaluate large numbers of scheduled routes over a limited airspace for controller workload assessment. Also, it can be used to detect potential separation violations and impacts of traffic flow management (TFM) strategies. An example of computing the distance between two flights in 4D is presented. Sample aircraft proximity landscape in 4D space-time simulation with MATLAB code is also provided.
Unsafe in the Camouflage Tower: Sexual Victimization and Perceptions of Military Academy Leadership

Few studies have examined sexual victimization among cadets and midshipmen at the three U.S. Military Academies. Self-report data from the 2005 Service Academy Sexual Assault Survey of Cadets and Midshipmen (n = 5,220) were used to examine the extent of unwanted sexual attention, sexual harassment, unwanted sexual contact, sexual coercion, and rape within the last academic year and their effects on cadets’ and midshipmen’s perceptions of their leadership’s morality and intolerance for sexual victimization. About 60% of cadets and midshipmen experienced at least one type of sexual victimization and 25% reported that they had experienced polyvictimization (e.g., two or more types). Eighty-six percent of female and 42% of male cadets and midshipmen were sexually victimized. Those who were sexually victimized had significantly more negative views of their leadership’s morality and intolerance for sexual victimization than nonvictims. Cadets and midshipmen who reported experiencing polyvictimization were more ...
Infiltration/Pyrolysis Processing of Fiber-Reinforced Silicon Nitride

While its high-temperature strength, resistance to oxidation, and other properties make silicon nitride an attractive candidate for many advanced structural applications, its propensity for brittle failure has hindered its widespread adoption. One approach to avoiding brittle failure is through incorporation of continuous fiber-reinforcement; however, conventional (powder-based) methods of silicon nitride fabrication can degrade fibers and are not amenable to the production of complex shapes. The Southwest Research Institute has developed a number of polymeric precursors to silicon nitride which are available as thermosetting liquids, and we have shown that these materials can be used in combination with near net-shape manufacturing techniques to produce fiber-reinforced silicon nitride composites. Mechanical property tests conducted at room temperature suggest that these polymer-derived composites exhibit fracture behavior comparable to those produced through conventional techniques; micromechanical investigations conducted at 800°C indicate that non-brittle failure is maintained at elevated temperature.
Robust inversion of seismic data using the Huber norm

The “Huber function” (or “Huber norm” ) is one of several robust error measures which interpolates between smooth (l2) treatment of small residuals and robust (l1) treatment of large residuals. Since the Huber function is differentiable, it may be minimized reliably with a standard gradient‐based optimizer. We propose to minimize the Huber function with a quasi‐Newton method that has the potential of being faster and more robust than conjugate‐gradient methods when solving nonlinear problems. Tests with a linear inverse problem for velocity analysis with both synthetic and field data suggest that the Huber function gives far more robust model estimates than does a least‐squares fit with or without damping.
Evaluation of school-based smoking-cessation interventions for self-described adolescent smokers.

OBJECTIVE: The goal was to compare the efficacy of school-based, multisession, group smoking-cessation interventions versus a single group session in increasing quit rates among adolescent smokers. METHODS: Eight schools were assigned randomly to use 1 of 2 group smoking-cessation programs previously shown to increase quit rates among adolescents (Not on Tobacco [NOT] or Kickin9 Butts). We reformatted the programs to twice-weekly 25- to 30-minute sessions delivered during lunch periods. Smoking status was assessed at end of program (EOP) and 1, 3, 6, and 12 months later. Self-reported quit status was confirmed with salivary cotinine levels. RESULTS: A total of 407 students (56% black and 52% female; mean age: 16 years) participated. Kickin9 Butts participants were no more likely to quit than control subjects. In the conservative analysis (students with missing follow-up data classified as smokers), NOT participants were 1.92 times (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.09–3.40 times) more likely to self-report quitting at 1 month. In the Bayesian analysis (missing follow-up data imputed by using all available data), NOT participants were significantly more likely than control subjects to self-report quitting at EOP (relative risk [RR]: 1.26 [95% CI: 1.10–1.43]), 1 month (RR: 2.07 [95% CI: 1.68–2.56]), and 12 months (RR: 1.58 [95% CI: 1.22–2.04]). Cotinine-confirmed quit rates were significantly greater among NOT participants, compared with control subjects, at EOP and 1 month. CONCLUSIONS: The reformatted NOT program had a modest effect on adolescents interested in quitting. Kickin9 Butts, as reformatted for this project, did not have any effect on quit rates.
Foliation-preserving maps between solvmanifolds

For i=1,2, let Γi be a lattice in a simply connected, solvable Lie group Gi, and let Xi be a connected Lie subgroup of Gi. The double cosets ΓigXi provide a foliation \(\mathcal{F}\)i of the homogeneous space Γi\Gi. Let f be a continuous map from Γ1\G1 to Γ2\G2 whose restriction to each leaf of \(\mathcal{F}\)1 is a covering map onto a leaf of \(\mathcal{F}\)2. If we assume that \(\mathcal{F}\)1 has a dense leaf, and make certain technical assumptions on the lattices Γ1 and Γ2, then we show that f must be a composition of maps of two basic types: a homeomorphism of Γ1\G1 that takes each leaf of \(\mathcal{F}\)1 to itself, and a map that results from twisting an affine map by a homomorphism into a compact group. We also prove a similar result for many cases where G1 and G2 are neither solvable nor semisimple.
Novel, ligation-dependent PCR assay for detection of hepatitis C in serum.

A simple, sensitive, and specific ligation-dependent PCR (LD-PCR) method for the detection of hepatitis C virus (HCV) RNA in serum is described. The assay uses two DNA capture probes for RNA isolation and two DNA hemiprobes for subsequent PCR. Each capture probe has a 3*sequence complementary to the conserved 5*untranslated region of HCV RNA and a biotin moiety at the 5*end capable of interacting with streptavidincoatedparamagneticbeads.Eachhemiprobecontainsasequencecomplementarytothe5*untranslatedregion in juxtaposition to one another and a common sequence for PCR primer binding. In guanidinium thiocyanate solutions, the capture probes and the hemiprobes form a hybrid with their target, and the hybrid can be isolated from serum by the binding of the capture probes to the paramagnetic beads in the presence of a magneticfield. The hemiprobes can then be linked to each other by incubation with T4 DNA ligase to form a full probe that serves as a template for a PCR. When serial 10-fold dilutions of synthetic HCV RNA (10 7 to 10 molecules) were tested, there was a good correlation between the amount of PCR product and the initial number of RNA molecules, with a sensitivity of 100 HCV RNA molecules per reaction. Twenty-four specimens that had been tested by either a branched DNA probe (bDNA) assay (13 specimens) or a reverse transcription PCR (RT-PCR) assay (11 specimens) were also analyzed by LD-PCR. The results showed a good correlation amongLD-PCR,RT-PCR,andthebDNAassay.However,bothLD-PCRandRT-PCRweremoresensitivethan the bDNA assay when the HCV titer was low.
Prolixibacter bellariivorans gen. nov., sp. nov., a sugar-fermenting, psychrotolerant anaerobe of the phylum Bacteroidetes, isolated from a marine-sediment fuel cell

A Gram-negative, non-motile, filamentous, rod-shaped, non-spore-forming bacterium (strain F2(T)) was isolated from the surface of an electricity-harvesting electrode incubated in marine sediments. Strain F2(T) does not contain c-type cytochromes, flexirubin or carotenoids. It is a facultative anaerobe that can ferment sugars by using a mixed acid fermentation pathway and it can grow over a wide range of temperatures (4-42 degrees C). The DNA G+C (44.9 mol%) content and chemotaxonomic characteristics (major fatty acids, a-15 : 0 and 15 : 0) were consistent with those of species within the phylum Bacteroidetes. Phylogenetic analysis of the 16S rRNA nucleotide and elongation factor G amino acid sequences indicated that strain F2(T) represents a unique phylogenetic cluster within the phylum Bacteroidetes. On the basis of 16S rRNA gene sequence phylogeny, the closest relative available in pure culture, Alkaliflexus imshenetskii, is only 87.5 % similar to strain F2(T). Results from physiological, biochemical and phylogenetic analyses showed that strain F2(T) should be classified as a novel genus and species within the phylum Bacteroidetes, for which the name Prolixibacter bellariivorans gen. nov., sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is F2(T) (=ATCC BAA-1284(T)=JCM 13498(T)).
Gregarious nesting of a digger wasp as a “selfish herd” response to a parasitic fly (Hymenoptera: Sphecidae; Diptera: Sacrophagidae)

Females of a digger wasp Crabro cribrellifer nested in a 234 nest aggregation covering 2x65 m in area. Variability in 3 edaphic factors (soil temperature, hardness, and per cent moisture) had no significant influence on the non-random spatial distribution of nests within the aggregation. A significant positive correlation between wasp nest density and the mean number of parasitic flies, Metopia campestris, present was shown (Fig. 1). Yet, based on 20 excavated nests, the probability of cell parasitism decreased as nest density increased (Fig. 2). This may give females nesting within a dense aggregation a selective advantage, and supports the “selfish herd” model developed by Hamilton (1971).
An interpolating sense circuit for molecular memory

Presented herein is a novel sensing circuit for multistate molecular memory technologies. The circuit employs an interpolating sensing scheme to achieve low power dissipation and high speed sensing of molecular memory cells. A novel "reference level offset reduction" circuit technique is used to reduce the current thresholder's offset to nearly zero. Our interpolating sensing circuit consists of two sense amplifiers and two interpolators. At 2.5 V, the total current for the amplifiers and interpolators is 587 /spl mu/A and 161 /spl mu/A, respectively. The sense circuit exhibits an overall rise time of 41 ns and fall time of 56 ns in TSMC 0.25-/spl mu/m process.
Tomo: Wearable, Low-Cost Electrical Impedance Tomography for Hand Gesture Recognition

We present Tomo, a wearable, low-cost system using Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) to recover the interior impedance geometry of a user's arm. This is achieved by measuring the cross-sectional impedances between all pairs of eight electrodes resting on a user's skin. Our approach is sufficiently compact and low-powered that we integrated the technology into a prototype wrist- and armband, which can monitor and classify gestures in real-time. We conducted a user study that evaluated two gesture sets, one focused on gross hand gestures and another using thumb-to-finger pinches. Our wrist location achieved 97% and 87% accuracies on these gesture sets respectively, while our arm location achieved 93% and 81%. We ultimately envision this technique being integrated into future smartwatches, allowing hand gestures and direct touch manipulation to work synergistically to support interactive tasks on small screens.
Effects of 6-hydroxydopamine in hypertensive adult miniature swine.

To validate a miniature swine model of sympathectomy, six swine that had chronic high blood pressures for unknown reasons and five DOCA hypertensive swine were treated with a single dose of the neurotoxin 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) (50 mg/kg i.v.). One week after 6-OHDA, conscious mean arterial pressure (MAP) had fallen by 47–49 mmHg and the pressor response to tyramine was attenuated in both groups. Norepinephrine content was significantly decreased in the kidneys (>85%) and left ventricle (>94%) in both 6-OHDA treated groups. These results indicate that 6-OHDA can be used to effectively sympathectomize adult swine. Chemical sympathectomy of swine with either unexplained high blood pressure or experimentally induced DOCA hypertension resulted in an equivalent fall in MAP in both of these populations. Further studies using 6-OHDA in miniature swine may help to elucidate the mechanisms involved in maintaining hypertension in this animal model.
Electrochemical Synthesis of Photoelectrodes and Catalysts for Use in Solar Water Splitting

This review focuses on introducing and explaining electrodepostion mechanisms and electrodeposition-based synthesis strategies used for the production of catalysts and semiconductor electrodes for use in water-splitting photoelectrochemical cells (PECs). It is composed of three main sections: electrochemical synthesis of hydrogen evolution catalysts, oxygen evolution catalysts, and semiconductor electrodes. The semiconductor section is divided into two parts: photoanodes and photocathodes. Photoanodes include n-type semiconductor electrodes that can perform water oxidation to O2 using photogenerated holes, while photocathodes include p-type semiconductor electrodes that can reduce water to H2 using photoexcited electrons. For each material type, deposition mechanisms were reviewed first followed by a brief discussion on its properties relevant to electrochemical and photoelectrochemical water splitting. Electrodeposition or electrochemical synthesis is an ideal method to produce individual components and ...
Improved Streaming Algorithms for Weighted Matching, via Unweighted Matching

We present a (4 + epsilon) approximation algorithm for weighted graph matching which applies in the semistreaming, sliding window, and MapReduce models; this single algorithm improves the previous best algorithm in each model. The algorithm operates by reducing the maximum-weight matching problem to a polylog number of copies of the maximum-cardinality matching problem. The algorithm also extends to provide approximation guarantees for the more general problem of finding weighted independent sets in p-systems (which include intersections of p matroids and p-bounded hypergraph matching).
Introducing Non-Linearity Into Cointegration

A wide class of processes is considered in which initially a persistent series and a transient series are generated separately, as unobserved components, and from them a pair of observable series are generated as a weighted combination of the components. It follows that the observable series will be persistent but have a linear combination that is transient, aud so can be considered cointegrated. From the construction, the series need not be I(1) and other linear aspects of standard theory is removable, but often error-correction models are available. Some theoretical examples are provided.
The Nutrition Program of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

FDA is part of the U.S. Public Health Service, which, in turn, is part of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW). FDA consists of two large bureaus (Foods; Drugs), four smaller bureaus (Veterinary Medicine; Radiological Health; Biologics; Medical Devices and Diagnostic Products), and its field operations for inspection and compliance. The FDA Nutrition Program is centered in the Bureau of Foods, wherein it represents one of five major activity areas: (1) compliance programs; (2) food technology, (3) basic sciences; (4) nutrition and consumer sciences; and (5) management (Table 1).
Semantic single video segmentation with robust graph representation

Graph-based video segmentation has demonstrated its influential impact from recent works. However, most of the existing approaches fail to make a semantic segmentation of the foreground objects, i.e. all the segmented objects are treated as one class. In this paper, we propose an approach to semantically segment the multi-class foreground objects from a single video sequence. To achieve this, we firstly generate a set of proposals for each frame and score them based on motion and appearance features. With these scores, the similarities between each proposal are measured. To tackle the vulnerability of the graph-based model, low-rank representation with l2,1-norm regularizer outlier detection is proposed to discover the intrinsic structure among proposals. With the "clean" graph representation, objects of different classes are more likely to be grouped into separated clusters. Two open public datasets MOViCS and ObMiC are used for evaluation under both intersection-over-union and F-measure metrics. The superior results compared with the state-of-the-arts demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
INTRASPECIFIC MOLECULAR PHYLOGENY IN THE YELLOW WARBLER (DENDROICA PETECHIA), AND IMPLICATIONS FOR AVIAN BIOGEOGRAPHY IN THE WEST INDIES

A phylogenetic analysis of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) restriction sites was used to examine the evolutionary history of populations of yellow warbler (Dendroica petechia) sampled from North America, Central America, South America, and the West Indies. Thirty-seven hap- lotypes were identified, and only one was found in more than one of these regions. Estimated sequence divergence among haplotypes ranged from 0.14 to 3.17%, and mtDNAs from North American migratory populations clearly were differentiated from those of most tropical sedentary populations. Parsimony analysis of haplotypes suggested multiple colonizations of the West Indies archipelago and of individual Caribbean islands. The inference of multiple colonizations has important implications for studies of avian ecology and evolution in this region.
Prediction of gentamicin serum levels using a one-compartment open linear pharmacokinetic model

The accuracy of predicting serum gentamicin levels based on a one-compartment open linear pharmacokinetic model was studied. Twenty-two patients accounted for 59 serum gentamicin levels which were measured by microbiologic assay and compared with predicted serum levels determined by pharmacokinetic calculation. Seventeen serum levels were collected at peak times, 15 at trough time and 27 at times between peak and trough. Forty-nine of the levels were obtained from patients with impaired renal function. Predicated gentamicin levels correlated well with measured serum levels (r = 0.85, p less than 0.001). Of the measured levels, 56% were within +/- 1 microgram/ml of the predicted levels. Of 49 levels collected from patients with impaired renal function, 59% were within +/- 1 microgram/ml of the predicted level. In 13 patients from whom multiple serum gentamicin levels were collected and predictions based on half-life or elimination rate obtained by fitting the first level, 83% of the measured levels were within +/- 1 microgram/ml of the predicted level. The one-compartment open linear pharmacokinetic calculations can be used to adequately predict serum gentamicin levels. In patients with changing or diminished renal function, pharmacokinetic predictions may not be accurate, and actual serum level determinations may be needed to monitor gentamicin therapy.
Treatment of acute polyneuropathies

Objective To describe the treatment of a group of polyneuropathies of different aetiologies, characterized by acute onset. Development We review the treatment of the Guillain-Barre syndrome, whose mortality has been significantly reduced by the use of intensive care units. Plasmapheresis and immunoglobulin have been shown to be effective and speed clinical recovery of these patients. The use of corticosteroids is controversial, since clinical studies have not shown them to be effective in treating this disease. In this article we also describe the treatment of other neuropathies such as neuropathies secondary to vasculitis, vasculitis limited to the peripheral nervous system and vasculitis associated with infections such as HIV and hepatitis B.
Universality, quality & economics: finding a balance in Ontario and British Columbia.

National economies worldwide are in disarray, evidenced by escalating debts and growing deficits. As countries struggle with their faltering economies they are hard pressed to fulfill commitments of social programs made in more prosperous times, much less take on new government initiatives. The current experiences in health reform in the United States present an interesting example of the dilemmas governments now face when they embark on new ventures. While great political pressures have been launched and high expectations abound, the reality of American health reform quickly reveals that expanded access will come at a high price that won't be offset easily by conventional cost containment or market forces. In the search for an acceptable model for health reform, it was popular for policy makers and academics to turn their attentions to the health systems of other nations. Recommendations were made that the US should adopt a German or Canadian solution for our health problems.
Model for the Optimal Rehabilitation and Replacement of Water Distribution System Components

The objective of the model presented is to determine the minimum cost solution, given the nonlinear nature of the equations required to describe the cost and the hydraulics of a water distribution system. The model proposed in this paper is based upon combining a nonlinear optimization procedure with a hydraulic simulation procedure determine which pipes of the water distribution system should be replaced, rehabilitated, or left alone to meet specified demands and pressures and to minimize costs.
Combustion, Fission, and Fusion

As the climax of the Gulf War approached, Saddam Hussein decided on a desperate and insane move: he had the contents of five Iraqi-flagged oil tankers dumped in the Mina al Ahmadi port in Kuwait. Also, the Iraqis opened the spigots of the oil-loading terminal off the Kuwaiti coast. A new kind of weapon was unleashed on the world: environmental terrorism. The ensuing Gulf oil spill was the largest spill in history, six to eight million barrels (the previous record: 4.2 million barrels dumped after the 1979 blowout of the Ixtoc well). It damaged a precariously fragile ecosystem. The Gulf is shallow and it is nearly enclosed. The average depth is a mere 110 feet. It takes 200 years to flush out and replace the stagnant gulf water.
An attribution and emotion-focused approach to conflict’s impact on decision-making effectiveness

We review the current literature on affective and cognitive conflicts in relation to the effectiveness of strategic decision making. In particular, we draw attention to inconsistent findings regard...