cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Why We Move: Social Mobility Behaviors of Non-Disabled and Disabled Children across Childcare Contexts

Background: Social mobility is defined as the co-occurrence of self-directed locomotion and direct peer interaction. Social mobility is a product of dynamic child-environment interactions and thus likely to vary across contexts (e.g., classroom, gymnasium and playground). Purpose: The purpose of the present study was to examine differences in children’s social mobility (1) across contexts by age, and (2) between non-disabled and disabled children. Method: Participants (n = 55 non-disabled and 3 disabled children; Mage = 3.1 years, SD = 1.4) were video-recorded within a university-based early learning center. Children were recorded for 20 minutes in each context: classroom, gymnasium, and playground. A 15-second momentary time sampling method was used to code social mobility, the simultaneous occurrence of self-directed locomotion and direct peer interaction. This variable was calculated as percent time within each context. Results: A planned Friedman’s rank ANOVA (n = 55, stratified by age, indicated that older children (3-5 years old) differed across contexts in their social mobility (χ2 (2) ~ 7.3 – 10.5, p < 0.025), whereas younger children (1-2 years old) were similar across contexts. Social mobility was significantly lower in the classroom compared to the playground and gymnasium (with no difference between the latter contexts) for older children. Visual analysis confirmed that disabled children (n = 3) engaged in substantially less time in social mobility (average 0% - 1%), compared to non-disabled, age-similar peers (2-3 year olds average 1% -12%) across all contexts. Conclusion: A substantial gap exists between non-disabled and disabled children for social mobility. There is an increase in magnitude and variability of social mobility around age 3 that suggests the gap between non-disabled and disabled children will continue to widen.
Quantitative Determination of Iron in Limonite Using Spectroscopic Methods with Senior and General Chemistry Students: Geology-Inspired Chemistry Lab Explorations

Limonite is the field term for a mixed assemblage of ferric oxyhydroxides, often containing nonferric silicate impurities. It is abundant on Earth’s surface, possesses variable iron content, and is easily recognized by distinctive yellow and ochre hues. Limonite is a unique centerpiece for undergraduate chemistry laboratories because each sample represents a true unknown to faculty and students alike, and because limonite does not digest readily with common methods. Senior students were guided through a primary literature review to assess and establish an appropriate digestion method. Students then constructed the procedure for determining the iron content in limonite using atomic absorption spectroscopy. A final report, produced in the style of this Journal, completed the start-to-finish process used by scientists, helping students learn how novel problems are solved in the laboratory. General chemistry students were provided with limonite extracts and used UV–vis spectroscopy to determine their iron con...
Predictive Biopharmaceutics and Pharmacokinetics: Modeling and Simulation**The opinions expressed in this report by the authors do not reflect the views or policies of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Scientists have made great discoveries concerning human physiology and gained tremendous knowledge during drug development efforts. Modeling and simulation are the tools used to integrate previously obtained knowledge to make predictions for the future that have benefited the entire drug development program. The objective of this chapter is to introduce quantitative models that are used to predict biopharmaceutical in vivo performance for orally administered drug products. Both conventional and mechanism-based pharmacokinetic (PK) models will be discussed. Specifically, quantitative prediction of absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion using biopharmaceutics and PK modeling and simulation will be discussed in detail. The application of modeling and simulation in both drug product development and regulatory assessment will be introduced.
Human cytomegalovirus interleukin-10 enhances matrigel invasion of MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells.

While some risk factors for breast cancer are well-known, the influence of other factors, particularly virus infection, remains unclear. Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is widespread in the general population, and both molecular and epidemiological evidence has indicated links between HCMV and breast cancer. The HCMV protein cmvIL-10 is a potent suppressor of immune function that has also been shown to promote proliferation and migration of breast cancer cells. In this study, the impact of cmvIL-10 on tumor cell invasion through a simulated basement membrane was investigated. MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells exhibited invasion through a matrigel layer that was significantly enhanced in the presence of either purified cmvIL-10 or supernatants from HCMV-infected cells containing secreted cmvIL-10. Transcriptional profiling revealed that cmvIL-10 altered expression of several genes implicated in metastasis. Exposure to cmvIL-10 resulted in higher MMP-3 mRNA levels, greater protein expression, and increased enzymatic activity. Treatment with cmvIL-10 also increased expression of both urokinase plasminogen receptor (uPAR) and plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1), which can stimulate MMP-3 activity and have previously been identified as poor prognostic markers in breast cancer patients. Finally, MDA-MB-231 cells treated with cmvIL-10 showed significant downregulation of metastasis suppressor 1 (MTSS1), a scaffolding protein that regulates cytoskeletal rearrangements and is frequently lost in metastatic tumors. HCMV, and in particular the secreted viral cytokine, cmvIL-10, can induce cellular changes that facilitate cell migration and invasion. These findings indicate that HCMV may be associated with promoting the malignant spread of breast cancer cells and suggest that antiviral treatment may be a useful complement to chemotherapy in some patients.
Infectious complications after prostate needle biopsy: Predictors of bacteremia and sepsis.

e16035 Background: Transrectal ultrasound guided biopsy of the prostate (TRUSBX) remains as the gold standard for the diagnosis of prostate cancer. Recent studies have reported that 3-5% of men wil...
Online Scheduling and Interference Alleviation for Low-Latency, High-Throughput Processing of Data Streams

Data Streams occur naturally in several observational settings and often need to be processed with a low latency. Streams pose unique challenges: they have no preset lifetimes, the traffic on these streams may be bursty, and data arrival rates on these streams can be quite high. Furthermore, stream processing computations are generally stateful where the outcome of processing a data stream packet depends on the state that builds up within the computation over multiple, successive rounds of execution. As the number of streams increases, stream processing computations need to be orchestrated over a collection of machines. Achieving timeliness and high throughput in such settings is a challenge. Optimal scheduling of stream processing computations is an instance of the resource constrained scheduling problem, and depending on the precise formulation of the problem can be characterized as either NP-Complete or NP-Hard. We have designed an algorithm for online scheduling of stream processing computations. Our algorithm focuses on reducing interference that adversely impacts performance of stream processing computations. Our measure of interference is based on stream packet arrivals at a particular machine, the accompanying resource utilization encompassing CPU, memory and network utilization, and the resource utilization at machines comprising the cluster. Our algorithm performs continuous, incremental detection of interference experienced by computations and performing migrations to alleviate them.
VARIATION OF POISSON'S RATIOS OF THE AORTIC TISSUE

ABSTRACT Uniaxial tests were carried out on 185 circumferential and longitudinal strips from seven porcine aortic segments. Axial strain as well as one of the two transverse strains were measured at several levels of deformation. The second transverse strain was computed from the requirement of tissue incompressibility. Four Poisson's ratios were computed at several values of axial strains as the negatives of the ratios of the averaged transverse strains and the axial strains. The results indicate that (1) the four Poisson's ratios were distinct and in general unequal at the corresponding levels of the axial strains, (2) two Poisson's ratios decreased and two increased with increasing axial strains, and (3) the values of the four Poisson's ratios ranged from 0.12 to 0.75 approximately. These findings are consistent with the accepted picture of the aortic tissue as a nonlinear orthotropic material capable of undergoing large deformations.
Chapter 43 – Osteoporosis in Childhood and Adolescence

Publisher Summary Pediatric bone research has opened a Pandora's box to reveal skeletal deficits in myriad chronic disorders. Not surprisingly, bone mineral accrual is compromised in the face of risk factors such as malnutrition, immobilization, glucocorticoid therapy, and other endocrinopathies. The list of disorders linked with early osteopenia is likely to expand and will encompass seemingly healthy youth. Children and adolescents screened because of forearm fractures have significantly lower bone density at all skeletal sites than those who have not broken a bone. Further investigation of these youth may help to identify key risk factors for early bone fragility in children without chronic disease. To date, research on acquisitional osteopenia has been largely descriptive, cross-sectional, and limited to small cohorts of patients. In many cases, dual energy X-ray absorptiometry results have not been corrected for all confounding factors such as bone size and skeletal or pubertal delay. Without longitudinal data, little is known about the natural history of childhood osteopenias. Despite recent progress, further studies are needed to develop effective treatment strategies for pediatric osteopenias. Larger cohorts must be studied longitudinally to define the natural history of childhood osteopenias and the reversibility of bone mineral deficits with general measures such as improved nutrition, increased activity, and correction of endocrine deficits or excesses.
Mechanisms of Action and Resistance of Trastuzumab in Breast Cancer

Breast cancer affects approximately 1 in 8 women. It is estimated that over 252,710 women in the United States will be diagnosed with breast cancer in 2017. Breast cancer-related deaths have declined over the last two decades as a result of early detection and improved treatment, particularly targeted therapies, such as trastuzumab that targets human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2), which is frequently overexpressed in breast cancer. However, resistance to trastuzumab, either de novo or acquired resistance, presents a major clinical challenge. Here, we summarize the mechanisms of action and resistance of trastuzumab in breast cancer and discuss potential strategies to overcome resistance.
Cumulative Prospect Theory and the Representative Investor

Cumulative Prospect Theory has been proposed as an alternative to expected utility theory to explain irregular behavior by economic agents. In particular in Finance it has used to clarify anomalies like the equity premium puzzle. There are certainly hopes and hints that CPT can explain the anomalies, but less attention has been paid to more basic questions. This paper answers some of those. A complete market is not sufficient to guarantee that the market portfolio is efficient so prices may not be determined at the margin by a representative investor. “Over-completion” of the market (the introduction of apparently extraneous derivative assets) can restore efficiency and result in a Pareto efficient allocation of risk. Mutual fund results also obtain only under very restrictive conditions for CPT investors. But mean variance analysis and the resulting CAPM does hold with only minor additional assumptions.
Case-based planning meets the frame problem (case-based planning from the classical perspective)

The frame problem is, arguably, the central theoretical problem in classical planning. In this paper, we present an idealized model of case-based planning that includes essential aspects shared by most case-based planning systems. Using this model, which is reasonably formal and quite simple, we show how case-based planning techniques are affected by some traditional problems facing classical planners, specifically the ramification and qualification problems. Under certain assumptions, the ramification problem is largely eliminated, while the qualification problem can take on added complexity.
Maximum oxidative phosphorylation capacity of the mammalian heart

It is difficult to estimate the maximum in vivo aerobic ATP production rate of the intact heart independent of limitations imposed by blood flow, oxygen delivery, and maximum mechanical power. This value is critical for establishing the kinetic parameters that control oxidative phosphorylation, as well as for providing insights into the limits of myocardial performance. In this study, the maximum ADP-P(i)-driven heart mitochondrial respiratory rate (MV(O2 mito)) was determined with saturating levels of oxygen, substrates, and cofactors at 37 degrees C. These rates were normalized to cytochrome alpha1 alpha3 (cytochrome oxidase; Cyt a) content. To extrapolate this rate to the intact heart, the Cyt a content of the myocardium (nmol Cyt a/g wet wt myocardium) was determined in the same hearts. The maximum ADP-P(i)-driven mitochondrial respiratory rates were 676 +/- 31 and 665 +/- 65 nmol O2 x min(-1) x nmol Cyt a(-1) in the dog and pig, respectively. The Cyt a content in the two species was 43.6 +/- 2.4 and 36.6 +/- 3.1 nmol Cyt a/g wet wt, respectively. With these values, the MV(O2 mito) was calculated to be 29.5 (dog) and 24.3 (pig) micromol O2 x min(-1) x g wet wt myocardium(-1). Comparison with in vivo studies shows that the exercising heart can utilize 80-90% of its maximum oxidative capacity, implying there is little aerobic ATP production reserve in the mammalian heart.
Ozone-Induced Lung Function Changes in Normal and Asthmatic Subjects and the Effect of Indomethacin

Abstract We performed a two-part study to determine 1) the effect of 0.4 ppm of ozone on subjects with already increased airways responsiveness (asthmatics), and 2) whether indomethacin could alter the pulmonary effects of ozone in normal subjects. After 2 hours of ozone exposure, both the normal and asthmatic subjects had significant, reversible falls in lung function (FE1, FVC, FEV1%, IC) with greater decreases in FWV1-and FEV1% for the asthmatics. Both groups also had increases in airways responsiveness to methacholine after the ozone exposure but the asthmatics had increases in responsiveness after exercise in air alone. The results of the second part of the study showed that pretreatment with indomethacin partially prevented the ozone-induced changes in lung function for normal subjects. Indomethacin did not prevent the ozone-induced increase in airways responsiveness.
Becoming a Skillful Teacher

Skillful teachers attempt to find out how students experience learning and then use that information to make good pedagogic decisions. Without some knowledge of how our students are learning, the choices we make concerning how and what to teach are stabs in the dark. Teaching skillfully involves us deliberately placing ourselves in the role of student and reflecting on the experience of how we, and they, confront difficult and intimidating learning. In this speech, Stephen Brookfield will draw on his autobiography as both learner and teacher to show how this frames four core assumptions of skillful teaching: that good teaching constitutes whatever helps students learn, that the most effective teachers reflect critically on their assumptions, that the most important pedagogic knowledge we need is an awareness of how our students learn, and that context changes everything.
Implications of Frailty for Peritransplant Outcomes in Kidney Transplant Recipients

Research over the past few decades points to the importance of frailty, or the lack of physiologic reserve, in the natural history of chronic diseases and in modifying the impact of potential interventions. End-stage kidney disease (ESKD) and the intervention of kidney transplantation are no exception. We review the recent epidemiologic and cohort-based evidence on the association between frailty and kidney transplant outcomes and provide a framework of questions with which to approach future research endeavors and clinical practice. Frailty in kidney transplant candidates can be measured in numerous ways, including descriptive phenotype, description scores, functional testing, and surrogate measures. Regardless of the metric, the presence of frailty is strongly associated with inferior pre- and posttransplant outcomes compared with the absence of frailty. However, some frail patients with ESKD can benefit from transplant over chronic dialysis. Evidence-based approaches for identifying frail ESKD patients who can benefit from transplant over dialysis, with acceptable posttransplant outcomes, are lacking. Interventional trials to improve frailty and physical function before transplant (prehabilitation) and after transplant (rehabilitation) are also lacking. Frailty is increasingly recognized as highly relevant to peritransplant outcomes, but more work is needed to (1) tailor management to the unique needs of frail patients, both pre- and posttransplant; (2) define phenotypes of frail patients who are expected to benefit from transplant over dialysis; and (3) develop interventions to reverse frailty, both pre- and posttransplant.
Identification and quantification of project complexity from perspective of primary stakeholders in us construction projects

Construction experts believe that complexity could adversely affect construction projects’ performance. Several studies have been focused on identifying leading complexity indicators; however, the complexity indicators from the perspective of primary stakeholders (owners, contractors, and consultants) have been rarely studied. Therefore, the aim of this study is to utilize the systematic Delphi method to identify, rank and weight the complexity indicators based on the primary stakeholders’ perspectives associated with US construction projects. Additionally, the shared entity-based complexity indicators (ECIs), as well as the weighting of entity-based complexity categories were determined and analyzed. Therefore, 101 potential ECIs were identified through a comprehensive literature review. Then, thirteen senior subject matter experts (SMEs), and three academic advisors were selected and invited to participate in a workshop to determine significant ECIs and then rank and weight them. The results reveal that the ECIs associated with complexity categories “scope definition” and “project resources” received the highest aggregated complexity weights in the aspect of the primary stakeholders. Although this study has been conducted based on US construction projects, the results would provide helpful guidance for international construction projects. Moreover, this study would assist the primary stakeholders in allocating resources properly in order to manage project complexity worldwide.
Checkmate: Sources of Power in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Thanks to Disney, it is probably safe to assume that most Americans can recognize the Cheshire Cat even without having read the 1865 publication of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The cartoon adaptation is quite faithful to Carroll’s original plot: a young girl named Alice falls down a rabbit hole and finds herself in an outrageously fantastical world, Wonderland. While there she encounters food that makes her grow and shrink, animals who speak, an unceasingly outraged Queen, and much more. Ultimately, however, Alice wakes up to realize that her curious adventure was all a dream.
COTSknight: Practical Defense against Cache Timing Channel Attacks using Cache Monitoring and Partitioning Technologies

Recent studies have shown how adversaries can exploit hardware cache structures to launch information leakage-based attacks. Among these attacks, timing channels are especially worrisome since adversaries communicate simply by modulating the timing of shared resource accesses, and do not leave any physical trace of the communication. Therefore, guarding the system against such attacks is critical. Unfortunately, most existing mitigation mechanisms either require non-trivial hardware modifications and/or incur high runtime overheads.In this paper, we propose COTSknight, a new framework that guards the system against several classes of cache timing channel attacks by making novel use of Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) architectural support for cache resource monitoring and prioritization. We find that the adversary’s attempt to modulate cache access latency during attacks can be captured using cache occupancy patterns. COTSknight leverages efficient signal processing techniques on cache occupancy patterns to determine the potential for timing channel attacks. Once suspicious domains are identified, COTSknight disbands timing channels using dynamic cache partitioning schemes in hardware. We implement a prototype of our COTSknight framework on an Intel Xeon v4 server and evaluate its efficacy extensively using different spatial encoding schemes, as well as serial and parallel implementations of Last Level Cache (LLC) timing channels. Our results show that COTSknight can successfully thwart several classes of timing channel attacks by allocating disjoint LLC ways to malicious processes. Even in benign cache-intensive workloads, we observe a 6% cache partition trigger rate that results in a relatively small 5% worst-case performance degradation. Interestingly, for some benign applications, upon COTSknight’s cache partition, we observe an improved performance by up to 9.2% through eliminating cache interference.
Immediate and Persistent Effects of Temperature on Oxygen Consumption and Thermal Tolerance in Embryos and Larvae of the Baja California Chorus Frog, Pseudacris hypochondriaca

The developmental environment has significant immediate effects on phenotypes, but it may also persistently or permanently shape phenotypes across life history. This study examined how developmental temperature influenced embryonic and larval phenotypes of Baja California chorus frog (Pseudacris hypochondriaca), an abundant amphibian in southern California and northern Baja California. We collected egg clutches from native ponds in northern San Diego County within 24 h of fertilization, and clutches were separated and distributed between constant temperatures of 10, 15, 20 and 25°C for incubation. Oxygen consumption rate (VO2), developmental stage, and embryo and yolk masses were measured throughout development. Time to 50% hatch, survival at 50% hatch, and hatch duration were determined. Development rate was strongly affected by temperature, with warmer temperatures reducing time to hatch and hatch duration. Survival to hatch was high across all temperatures, > 90%. Mass-specific VO2 of embryos either remained constant or increased throughout development, and by hatching energy demand was significantly increased at higher temperatures. There were limited temperature effects on growth, with embryo and yolk dry mass similar between temperatures throughout embryonic development. To examine long-term effects of embryonic temperature, we reared hatchlings from each temperature until onset of larval feeding. Once feeding, larvae were acclimated to 20 or 25°C (>2 weeks). Following acclimation to 20 or 25°C, we measured larval mass-specific VO2 and critical thermal maximum (CTMax) at a common developmental stage (Gosner stages 32 – 36, “hindlimb toe differentiation”). Embryonic temperature had persistent effects on larval VO2 and CTMax, with warmer temperatures generally resulting in similar or higher VO2 and CTMax. This partially supported a ‘warmer is better’ effect of embryonic incubation temperature. These results suggest that in a thermally robust amphibian species, temperature may program the phenotype during early development to construct traits in thermal tolerance and energy use that may persist. Overall, P. hypochondriaca displays a thermally robust phenotype, and it is possible that amphibians that possess a wider range of phenotypic plasticity will be relatively more successful mitigating effects of climate change.
Hegel and the Origins of Art

Considerable critical attention has been devoted over the past several decades to Hegel’s pronouncement of the end of art. But Hegel was equally interested in the problem of its beginning: How did ...
The Molecular Biology of Chlamydiae as Exemplar of Bacterial Pathogenesis in the Rheumatic Diseases

As with tuberculosis and smallpox, the rheumatic diseases have a long history with the human species, and like the former, many clinical examples of the latter have an infectious origin. Among those, one common attribute is the elicitation of often severe inflammation in the synovial context by the infecting agent. In this initial chapter, we examine the molecular details involved in the genesis of an inflammatory arthritis that can serve in many ways as an exemplar of infectious bacterial origin for several arthritides. Genital Chlamydia trachomatis infections can elicit an inflammatory arthritis in some individuals, and one recent study indicated that ocular (trachoma), not genital, strains of the organism are present in the synovial tissues of patients with the disease. This observation suggests an explanation for the small proportion of genitally infected patients who develop Chlamydia-induced arthritis. Other studies summarized in this chapter provide new and important insight into the chlamydial gene products that elicit the synovial inflammatory response during both active and quiescent disease. While more study will be required to complete the understanding of that complex process of host–pathogen interaction, newly developed experimental methods and approaches for study of the process should enable identification of new therapeutic targets, and possibly strategies for prevention of the disease altogether. We suggest areas which should prove productive in the latter endeavors.
Positive Neuroplasticity : The Neuroscience of Mindfulness

This chapter provides some ideas about the intersection of three circles: neuroscience, clinical psychology, and Buddhist contemplative practice. Most of the immaterial information represented by material neural substrates is forever unconscious, but the fraction of this information that composes conscious experience is particularly influential in shaping the brain. This is what researchers call experience-dependent neuroplasticity. The brain is the organ that learns, and any form of learning—from personal growth and cultivation of loving-kindness to nonordinary states of absorption—all that learning involves alterations in brain structure or function. Since learning—in some sense a process of internalization—is turbocharged for what's in the field of focused attention, mindfulness training is vital for improving therapeutic outcomes. Obviously there are pitfalls on either approach to self-healing and transformation, whether by psychotherapy or by contemplation. As positive psychology has increasingly shown, many of the states of mind promote lasting happiness.
Bone Marrow Ablation Followed by Allogeneic Marrow Grafting During First Complete Remission of Acute Nonlymphocytic Leukemia

Of 33 patients who had undergone allogeneic bone marrow transplantation during first complete remission of acute nonlymphocytic leukemia, 21 patients have now been followed in continued complete remission for 6-64 mo (median greater than 18 mo) without maintenance chemotherapy. The median age of the surviving patients is 27 yr. Transplant-related complications occurring throughout the first year after marrow grafting were fatal in 7 patients, and leukemic recurrence led to the death of 5 patients. The actuarial long-term disease-free survival is 60% and the actuarial remission rate is 79%.
Resolution of optic disc pit-associated macular retinoschisis after topical carbonic anhydrase inhibitor treatment: Report of a case.

Background:Optic disc pits frequently lead to visual deterioration due to macular retinoschisis or serous retinal detachment. Here, we report a case of optic disc pit–associated macular retinoschis...
NFPA and Other Guidelines

Introduction Healthcare settings are regulated by a wide variety of groups. Some groups have direct control over operations, such as the state board of health for a hospital. Others offer voluntary guidelines to follow in order to receive insurance payments for patients treated. Some environments have only a few requirements, such as when healthcare is delivered in the home. Understanding the myriad of guidelines, recommendations, and laws is helpful in promoting compliance and supporting safe patient care. Codes and Standards The Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) and several other non- profit organizations have developed standards for best practices through consensus within the HTM profession. The standards are not legal requirements but recommendations for compliance. Some examples of AAMI standards are EQ56 Recommended Practice for a Medical Equipment Management Program and EQ89 Guidance for the Use of Medical Equipment Maintenance Strategies and Procedures. The National Fire Protection Association has established recommendations for healthcare with NFPA 99: Health Care Facilities Code. The National Fire Protection Association first established the code in 1984 “to minimize the hazards of fire, explosion, and electricity in health care facilities providing services to human beings.” Code 99 applies to healthcare and the technology used within many types of clinical settings. The entire code is available online at www.nfpa.org. Some states have adopted NFPA 99 as state law. When states adopt these standards as law, the guidelines become absolute legal requirements. The NFPA 99 code is revised from time to time. The latest version of the code was released in 2012. References to the 2012 edition code will be made in this chapter. NFPA 99 Definitions Anesthetizing locations: An area of the facility designated to be used for the administration of nonflammable inhalation anesthetic agents. (Flammable anesthetics, such as ether, are no longer used in this country. There were many precautions and regulations when flammable anesthetics were used.) Chapter 13 reviews the four types of anesthesia but only when general anesthesia is delivered is the area designated an anesthetizing location by NFPA 99. The other types of anesthesia are not subject to the requirements of anesthetizing locations.
β-Silyloxy allylboronate esters through an aldehyde borylation/homologation sequence

Abstract The areas of carbonyl borylation and the homologation of carbon–boron bonds have provided a number of fruitful methods in organic synthesis. Combining these approaches, the homologation of α-oxyboronate esters, provides pathways to access complex organoboronate esters stereoselectively. To this end, the homologation of α-silyloxyboronate esters with lithiated allyl chlorides to form β-silyloxy allylboronate esters is reported. Direct oxidation of the homologation products provides β-silyloxy allyl alcohols in good yield. The homologation provides a range of allylic alcohols, albeit with low diastereoselectivity.
Mudpoint: Evaluating Instructor Perception on a Continuous and Non-specific Feedback System

In this paper, we introduce a platform called Mudpoint. It is an educational system that: a) allows students to provide real-time, continuous and anonymous feedback on their comprehension levels using a mobile application and b) enables instructors to visualize an aggregated form of student comprehension feedback on a web dashboard in real-time. A number of studies show that real-time feedback on instructor methodologies has several benefits including improvement in teaching [1] and better communication between instructors and students [2]. Also, student response systems (SRS) in classroom teaching have been explored in several studies previously [3, 4, 5], including the effects of instantaneous and anonymous feedback. Therefore in this study, we explore the instructor’s perception of receiving student feedback that, in addition to being instantaneous and anonymous, is also continuous and non-specific. Through interviews with instructors, we found that the system resulted in significantly more feedback on student confidence in the material, improved the pace of the class, and encouraged more responsible learning behaviour for students. This work shows that, from the instructor’s perception, continuous and non-specific feedback systems can improve the classroom experience for both instructors and students.
Reconstructing Bergson’s Critique of Intensive Magnitude

In Bergson and Intensive Magnitude: Dismantling his Critique, Florian Vermeiren argues that Bergson’s critique of intensive magnitude in Time and Free Will is inconsistent with his later philosophy...
Partnering for growth in emerging markets: : Why advertising agencies need to lead, not follow.

The author offers opinions on advertising in emerging markets. The increasing amount of advertising spending in developed countries is said to require that advertising agencies and advertisers adjust their advertising and advertising media planning to account for social and economic differences in emerging markets as well as cultural differences.
Modeling protein-protein interactions in axon initial segment to understand their potential impact on action potential initiation

The axon initial segment (AIS) region is crucial for action potential initiation due to the presence of high-density AIS protein voltage-gated sodium channels (Nav). Nav channels comprise several serine residues responsible for the recruitment of Nav channels into the structure of AIS through interactions with ankyrin-G (AnkG). In this study, a series of computational experiments are performed to understand the role of AIS proteins casein kinase 2 and AnkG on Nav channel recruitment into the AIS. The computational simulation results using Virtual cell software indicate that Nav channels with all serine sites available for phosphorylation bind to AnkG with strong affinity. At the low initial concentration of AnkG and casein kinase 2, the concentration of Nav channels reduces significantly, suggesting the importance of casein kinase 2 and AnkG in the recruitment of Nav channels.
Fluxonium-Based Artificial Molecule with a Tunable Magnetic Moment

Artificial molecules built from superconducting circuits can potentially be used as probes of external fields that cannot be studied with devices built from naturally occurring atoms. A new study demonstrates how the magnetic moment of a molecule built from two artificial fluxonium atoms changes in response to an external magnetic field.
Repurposing the Corporation Through Stakeholder Markets

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is immensely popular. Rhetorically, nearly all public corporations have committed to it. But corporations don’t act responsibly. That is because no system exists by which their responsibility levels can be measured and rewarded or punished. Thousands of organizations worldwide are engaged in a cooperative effort to build such a system. After two decades of work, the system is almost entirely in place. It may become effective in the next two to three years. When it does, the system will continually measure and report publicly as many as a thousand audited data points on the CSR of each of thousands of participating corporations. CSR ratings and rankings will become credible. Once the system is effective, corporations will be able to claim social responsibility credibly only if they act responsibly. This Article’s main thesis is that the public availability of credible CSR information will enable the corporation’s stakeholders and potential stakeholders to repurpose the corporation. By “repurpose” I mean control the corporation and redirect its employees’ efforts to CSR. Repurposing’s mechanism will be the competitive markets in which corporations acquire resources from their potential stakeholders. The corporation’s potential stakeholders will, for the first time, know and be able to react to, a particular corporation’s responsibility level. CSR’s popularity assures that those markets will punish corporations that do not excel at CSR and reward those that do. Parallel reform efforts will contribute to the repurposing. They include mandatory CSR reporting, mandatory CSR compliance, changes to the law of corporate purpose, employee voting for directors, mutual fund pass-through voting, stewardship codes, and social norm building. Repurposing’s initial target will be the externalization of social costs. But the corporation’s potential stakeholders—including its customers—furnish all the resources corporations need to operate. By their market choices, the potential stakeholders can make the corporation’s purpose whatever they want it to be.
The Practice and Craft of Multi-Stakeholder Governance

In recent years, multistakeholderism has become something of a catchphrase in discussions of Internet governance. This follows decades of attempts to identify a system of governance that would be sufficiently flexible, yet at the same time effective enough to manage the decentralized, non-hierarchical global network that is today used by more than 3 billion people. In the early years of the Internet, the prevailing view was that government should stay out of governance; market forces and self-regulation, it was believed, would suffice to create order and enforce standards of behavior. This view was memorably captured by John Perry Barlow’s 1996 “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace,” which dramatically announced: “Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather”. However, the shortcomings of this view have become apparent as the Internet has grown in scale and complexity, and as it has increasingly entered the course of everyday life. There is now a growing sense — perhaps even an emerging consensus — that markets and self-policing cannot address some of the important challenges confronting the Internet, including the need to protect privacy, ensure security, and limit fragmentation on a diverse and multi-faceted network. As the number of users has grown, so have calls for the protection of important public and consumer interests. In this paper, we contribute to this ongoing discussion by examining current and actual instances of governance and governance bodies that at least approximate the ideal of multistakeholderism. Part I, below, examines seven institutions and fora that serve as real-world examples of multistakeholder governance on the Internet. In Part II, we assess these examples to present a number of lessons learned and more general reflections that can help us better understand the state of — and prospects for — multistakeholder governance of the Internet today.
Automatic Classification of Human Carotid Plaque Features, In Vivo, Using Multiple Forms of ARFI Data

Rupture potential of atherosclerotic plaques in carotid arteries is conferred by both composition and structure of plaques. Previous studies have shown that from in vivo collected data, carotid plaque components such as collagen, calcium, necrotic core and intraplaque hemorrhage can be automatically detected by an ARFI imaging-derived machine learning classifier. Automatic classification considered normalized cross-correlation measurements of ARFI-induced displacement, signal-to-noise ratio and cross-correlation coefficients from an on-axis ARFI acquisition. We now extend our prior work by hypothesizing that using multiple ARFI data forms improves plaque feature detection and FC thickness measurement in human carotid plaques, relative to a single form of ARFI data. Carotid plaques were imaged in vivo prior to surgery in 20 patients undergoing carotid endarterectomy (CEA), and extracted plaque specimens were harvested after CEA for histological processing. ARFI data were acquired with cardiac gating to diastole with push (DP) and to systole without push (SNP) using fundamental low (FL), fundamental high (FH), and harmonic (H) tracking frequencies. Combinations of the resulting displacement profiles were used as inputs to the SVM classifier. The classifier was evaluated by 5-fold cross-validation, with the histological samples acting as gold standards. From the output SVM likelihood matrices, ROC curves were calculated for separating collagen from calcium and lipid-rich necrotic core from intraplaque hemorrhage. For all examined plaques, DP+FH+H achieved the highest average AUC of 0.926 (Sensitivity = 0.932, Specificity = 0.915) but required 2 acquisitions. The best data combination requiring only one acquisition (DP+FH) achieved an AUC of 0.917 (Sensitivity = 0.902, Specificity = 0.880). These results suggest that using multiple forms of frequency and gating of ARFI data as inputs to an automatic classifier improves discrimination of carotid plaque components, relevant for rupture vulnerability assessment.
Ratio Analysis using Rank Transformations

This paper presents an alternate method for transforming financial ratios. Ratios are ranked and scaled into a uniform distribution with boundaries between 0 and 1. Conceptually, we suggest that this method solves a number of methodological problems associated with ratios, including constrained choice of regression models, ratio outliers, negative ratios, and non-normal distributions. Scaled ranks of financial ratios are also conceptually appealing because they appear to capture comparative ordinal data about cross-sectional relationships between firms. The study empirically tests scaled rank transformations by examining the association of the transformations with stock returns. Results show that models using relative ranked accounting ratios have more explanatory and predictive power than untransformed, log-transformed and square-root transformed ratios.
A generalization of morphological filters using multiple structuring elements

A new class of morphological filters is proposed for smoothing an image contaminated with noise. A multiple model that includes the combination of linear and nonlinear operations is used in the design of the new filter. The performance of the averaging version of this new filter is similar to that of the alpha-trimmed mean filter. The structure-preserving properties of this new filter depend on the values assigned to the coefficients in the filter. The idempotent property is obtained when a closing-min and opening-max version of the filter is used. The root structure of the output signal is also investigated. >
“Sostenibilidad ambiental”, agricultura intensiva y desarrollo de los recursos hídricos en África Subsahariana

Progress in achieving the Millenium Development Goals (MDG) in Africa has been undermined by failure to reduce under-nutrition, yet efforts to increase agricultural output are circumscribed by indicators for MDG 7, particularly with regard to maintenance of forested areas and conservation of water resources. This implies that increasing agricultural production must be sought from agricultural intensification. The paper sets out the critical role that development of water resource management will play for agricultural intensification in Africa. It argues that past failure to invest in water for agriculture is now compounded by recent trends that are intensifying competition for land and water for agriculture. The paper concludes these are likely to increase uncertainty about prospects for improved nutrition that underpins the achievement of the MDGs in Africa.
First-principle approach to functionally decomposing the JDL fusion model: Emphasis on soft target data

The paper summarizes work to date directed at defining a service-based functional decomposition of the fusion process. The resulting architecture accommodates (1) traditional sensor data, as well as human-generated input, (2) streaming and nonstreaming data, and (3) the fusion of both physical and non-physical entities. Fifteen base level fusion services are identified then utilized to construct a service-based decomposition of JDL fusion model levels 0 - 2. Concepts, such as clustering, link analysis and database mining, that have traditionally been only loosely associated with the fusion process, are shown to play key roles within this framework. A pedigree summary metric is defined that characterizes the informational distance between individual fused products and source data.
Tuboovarian abscess and the intrauterine device (Majzlin Spring).

2 case histories of severe pelvic infection and tuboovarian abcesses associated with use of the Majzlin Spring intrauterine device are presented. A 30-year-old parous white woman and a 25-year-old parous black woman were admitted to the Brooklyn-Cumberland Hospitals on separate occassions with a history of prolonged fever diarrhea pelvic pain and vomiting. After failure of antibiotic therapy exploratory laparotomies revealed severely infected ovarian cysts and tuboovarian abscesses with the Majzlin Spring device deeply implanted in the endometrium. Total abdominal hysterectomies and bilateral salpingo-oophorectomies were performed. Although preexisting disease conditions could have existed in these women before the IUD insertion a cause-and-effect relationship between the IUD as a carrier of a superimposed infection and these conditions should be considered. Much greater care should be taken in the insertion re-insertion and follow-up of these devices.
Reconciling hierarchical control and open access in the changing electric power industry

In this paper we briefly review the basic concepts and assumptions underlying hierarchical control of large-scale electric power systems. In the second part we pose the problem of open access electricity service. As the electric power industry restructures, and various disruptive technologies evolve, it becomes necessary to introduce new models for representing and managing the evolving systems. The emphasis in this paper is on basic information needs for implementing flexible and efficient open access electricity service according to well-defined objectives. In today's literature two extreme information structures are most often considered, i.e. either a fully integrated, or a fully decentralized information structures. Integrated structures do not allow for decentralized decision making, and the decentralized structures have a hard-to-predict performance. To overcome these fundamental problems, we consider in this paper a hybrid information framework which facilitates decentralized decision making by various industry layers; these decisions are then coordinated in minimal ways capable of guaranteeing performance of the system as a whole according to the desired criteria. Multilayered protocols for implementing such hybrid information framework are described. Some recent results are put in the context of the problem of interest, and further open questions are identified. The concepts presented in this paper are potentially generalizable to other network-type infrastructures.