cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Ubiquity symposium: Is the Symposium Question Harmful?: Consideration of the Question 'What is Computation?' Considered Harmful

Editor's Introduction In this fifteenth piece to the Ubiquity symposium discussing What is computation? Peter A. Freeman considers the theoretical and practical aspects of the question. Peter J. Denning - Editor
Relocating Maji Maji: The Politics of Alliance and Authority in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania, 1870-1918

In the memory of older residents of the southern highlands of Tanzania, the term 'Maji Maji' embraces an extended period of conflict and population dispersal. Maji Maji is remembered as a complex of political interactions that extended from the late precolonial period through the rebellion's aftermath. These narratives relocate the history of Maji Maji in the larger context of political alliances and authority in the southern highlands. African leaders had used strategic alliances throughout the nineteenth century to establish mutual obligations for military assistance and trade. As territorial politics expanded after 1860, alliances acquired further importance as leaders sought to establish and protect their emerging authority. When European traders and explorers began to travel into this region, they entered into alliance relationships with local leaders. German missionaries and military authorities continued to pursue alliances during the establishment of colonial rule. This larger context for the study of Maji Maji illuminates the role of ethnicity and gender in the rebellion and its aftermath. The groups which reacted to German rule were not consolidated or bounded entities. Their cohesion was determined by internal tensions of allegiance as well as the external politics of alliance. The experience of conflict in the southern highlands was also gendered. Women were centrally important to the politics of alliance and authority as their labor formed the foundation for the expansion of kinship and agrarian accumulation in the later nineteenth century. The aftermath of Maji Maji was characterized by famine, the result of the 'scorched earth' policy of the German troops. The politics of famine realigned the landscape of authority and alliance in the southern highlands. Mission stations, government headquarters and the settlements of loyalist chiefs became new centers of protection and patronage for dispersed populations.
Sympatho-adrenal activation by chronic intermittent hypoxia

Recurrent apnea with chronic intermittent hypoxia (CIH) is a major clinical problem in adult humans and infants born preterm. Patients with recurrent apnea exhibit heightened sympathetic activity as well as elevated plasma catecholamine levels, and these phenotypes are effectively recapitulated in rodent models of CIH. This article summarizes findings from studies addressing sympathetic activation in recurrent apnea patients and rodent models of CIH and the underlying cellular and molecular mechanisms. Available evidence suggests that augmented chemoreflex and attenuated baroreflex contribute to sympathetic activation by CIH. Studies on rodents showed that CIH augments the carotid body response to hypoxia and attenuates the carotid baroreceptor response to increased sinus pressures. Processing of afferent information from chemoreceptors at the central nervous system is also facilitated by CIH. Adult and neonatal rats exposed to CIH exhibit augmented catecholamine secretion from the adrenal medulla. Adrenal demedullation prevents the elevation of circulating catecholamines in CIH-exposed rodents. Reactive oxygen species (ROS)-mediated signaling is emerging as the major cellular mechanism triggering sympatho-adrenal activation by CIH. Molecular mechanisms underlying increased ROS generation by CIH seem to involve transcriptional dysregulation of genes encoding pro-and antioxidant enzymes by hypoxia-inducible factor-1 and -2, respectively.
Practice and Hospital Economics

There has been a significant effort over the past 10 years to attempt to control the rate of increase in the cost of medical care. However, as is true of any economic system, there are multiple stakeholders involved and often competing motivations. The single largest source of medical inflation is the cost of pharmaceuticals; however, this topic is not directly discussed in this article Similarly, the cost of medical insurance products is not included as these issues cannot be directly addressed by physician behavior. The body of this discussion focuses on costs directly experienced by or potentially controlled by physicians. These areas include practice expense and margin and hospital direct costs and margin. It is essential for physicians to understand fully factors they can potentially control and areas they may be able to influence in this troubling era of cost containment.
Feminism, families, and family sociology

In the mid-1980s, in Silicon Valley just south of San Francisco, and, a coast away, in the Boston area, and, halfway in between, in the city and suburbs of Chicago, three major studies of the American family were being conducted by three generations of American sociologists: Of Human Bonding: Parent-Child Relations Across the Life Course (Aldine deGruyter, 1990) by Alice S. and Peter H. Rossi, Brave New Families: Stories of Domestic Upheaval in Late Twentieth Century America (Basic Books, 1990) by Judith Stacey, and Feeding the Family: The Social Organization of Caring as Gendered Work (University of Chicago Press, 1991) by Marjorie L. DeVault. Alice and Peter Rossi, the oldest generation among the authors of these books, learned sociology in post-World War II Columbia University. There Robert Merton, who shaped post-Parsonian, American functionalism, and Paul Lazarsfeld, who developed and disseminated the potential of survey research, dominated the sociological scene. Judith Stacey, a member of the second generation being discussed here, was taught in the sociological ambience of Brandeis University in the late 1960s and early 1970s. There the sociological atmosphere was oppositional-oppositional, perhaps, to the Columbia model of middle-range theory, functionalism, and survey research as well as to the politics of race, class, war and gender of the time. It was a department supportive of qualitative methods, of currents in European social thought, of radical politics, and of feminism as a social movement and intellectual agenda (Thorne, 1987). The third generation of sociologists, as represented here by Marorie DeVault, got her training as a sociologist in the 1980s in an atmosphere different from either of the preceding two generations. At Northwestern University, where DeVault re-
Oblivious Digital Watermarking Scheme with Blob-Oriented and Modular-Arithmetic-Based Spatial-Domain Mechanism

An oblivious and robust digital watermarking scheme with a blob-oriented and modular-arithmetic-based spatial-domain mechanism is presented. It is oblivious in the sense that no original image is required for watermark extraction. By a blob-oriented and modular-arithmetic-based embedding?extracting mechanism, which slightly and unevenly perturbs the intensities of the pixels within a blob through the entire image except the exact edges and their 3*3 neighboring pixels so that the mean intensity of the marked blob equals a preset value, the scheme achieves robustness against JPEG compression, filtering, noise, and scaling in addition to keeping the embedded watermark transparent and tamper-resistant. The uniqueness and the fusion of the watermark before embedding further increase the difficulties of collusion attack. The experimental results demonstrate that such an oblivious scheme is indeed robust and is superior to some existing oblivious schemes with respect to JPEG compression and filtering.
Trajectories of Organized Activity Participation Among Urban Adolescents: An Analysis of Predisposing Factors.

Organized activity participation provides important opportunities for adolescents to develop assets and resources related to positive youth development. Predisposing factors, in addition to sociodemographics and self-selection factors, may influence how youth participate over time. In this study, we used growth mixture modeling with longitudinal data from African American adolescents attending urban high schools in Flint, MI to identify subgroups of participation trajectories (Wave 1 N = 681, mean age at Wave 1 = 14.86 years, 51 % female). We measured activity participation using psychological and behavioral engagement across multiple contexts over the 4 years of high school. We examined how predisposing risk and promotive factors were related to these trajectories, accounting for sociodemographic and self-selection factors. The results indicated three participation trajectories: a low group decreasing over time (74 %), a moderate, consistent participation group (21 %) and a moderate, increasing group (5 %). More substance use was associated with lower odds of being in the moderate/consistent versus low/decreasing participation group. More parental support was associated with lower odds of being in the moderate/increasing versus the moderate/consistent group. Our results suggest that addressing predisposing factors such as substance use may help facilitate participation over time.
A simple compact model for carrier distribution and its application in single-, double- and triple-gate junctionless transistors

We propose a very simple compact model that accurately reproduces the carrier profiles in multiple-gate junctionless transistors. The threshold voltage is easily derived from the carrier distribution. The model takes into account the interaction of the various gates and provides the maximum body size of single- and double-gate transistors enabling full depletion (off-state). TCAD simulations validate the accuracy of our model.
Response Surfaces for Key Controlled Variables in a Hybrid Solid Oxide Fuel Cell/Gas Turbine System

Hybrid generation systems have been extensively modeled as a first step toward the development of automatic controls for the system. In most cases, it is impossible to validate mathematical models against real hardware because only a handful of hardware systems exist in the world. Data taken from the existing hardware has demonstrated significant nonlinearity, complex coupling between controlled variables, and sometimes non-intuitive behavior. This work exploits the capability of the HyPer hardware test bed at the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) to generate data from a real recuperated gas turbine coupled with hardware simulations of a fuel cell cathode and appropriate ancillary equipment. Prior work has characterized the system only over a limited range of its operating envelope, due to the inability to manipulate multiple control inputs simultaneously. The work presented here fills the gaps using data from a 34 factorial experiment to generate quasi-continuous response surfaces describing the operating state space of the HyPer system. Polynomial correlation functions have been fitted to the data with excellent agreement. Relationships between the control inputs and critical state variables such as cathode mass flow, cathode temperature, turbine inlet and exhaust temperatures and other key system parameters are presented.Copyright © 2011 by ASME
Survival and Growth in Joint-Stock Banking Oligopolies. Lessons from the Crises of 1917–1923 on the Role of Competitors and Politics

Abstract The Italian joint-stock banking system has faced three main crises: in 1897, with the demise of Societa Generale Italiana di Credito Mobiliare (Pantaleoni, 1936); in 1921–1923, with the crisis of two of the four main joint-stock banks, Banca Italiana di Sconto (Falchero, 1990) and Banco di Roma (De'; Stefani, 1960; De Rosa, 1982–1983); and, in 1931–1933, with the disappearance of both the renewed Banco di Roma and the remaining two joint-stock banks, Banca Commerciale Italiana and Credito Italiano (De Rosa, 1982–1983; Confalonieri, 1994). After a brief examination of the nature of the Italian banking system on the eve of the First World War and the post-war economic situation, this paper examines in detail the crisis of the ‘mixed’ banking system in Italy of 1921–1923. The problems faced by the Banca Italiana di Sconto and the Banco di Roma are interpreted from the perspectives of oligopoly theory and the influence of politics. This approach is informed by a new reading of the documentary evidenc...
Research directions in RAIC

Redundant arrays of independent components (RAIC) was a technology developed to use groups of similar software components to build reliable applications. The principles of RAIC, however, can be applied to other types of components. This paper briefly introduces RAIC and discusses future research directions in RAIC.
Mid-term supply chain planning under demand uncertainty: customer demand satisfaction and inventory management

Abstract This paper utilizes the framework of mid-term, multisite supply chain planning under demand uncertainty to safeguard against inventory depletion at the production sites and excessive shortage at the customer. A chance constraint programming approach in conjunction with a two-stage stochastic programming methodology is utilized for capturing the trade-off between customer demand satisfaction (CDS) and production costs. In the proposed model, the production decisions are made before demand realization while the supply chain decisions are delayed. The challenge associated with obtaining the second stage recourse function is resolved by first obtaining a closed-form solution of the inner optimization problem using linear programming duality followed by expectation evaluation by analytical integration. In addition, analytical expressions for the mean and standard deviation of the inventory are derived and used for setting the appropriate CDS levels in the supply chain. A three-site example supply chain is studied within the proposed framework for providing quantitative guidelines for setting customer satisfaction levels and uncovering effective inventory management options. Results indicate that significant improvement in guaranteed service levels can be obtained for a small increase in the total cost.
Fourth-generation model for corticosteroid pharmacodynamics: a model for methylprednisolone effects on receptor/gene-mediated glucocorticoid receptor down-regulation and tyrosine aminotransferase induction in rat liver.

A fourth-generation pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic (PK/PD) model for receptor/genemediated effects of corticosteroids was developed. Male adrenalectomized Wistar rats received a 50 mg/kg i.v. bolus dose of methylprednisolone (MPL). Plasma concentrations of MPL, hepatic glucocorticoid receptor (GR) messenger RNA (mRNA) and GR density, tyrosine amino-transferase (TAT) mRNA, and TAT activity in liver were determined at various time points up to 72 hr after MPL dosing. Down-regulation of GR mRNA and GR density were observed: GR mRNA level declined to 45-50% of the baseline in 8-10 hr, and slowly returned to predose level in about 3 days; GR density fell to 0 soon after dosing and returned to the baseline in two phases. The first phase, occurring in the first 10 hr, entailed recovery from 0 to 30%. The second phase was parallel to the GR mRNA recovery phase. Two indirect response models were applied for GR mRNA dynamics regulated by activated steroid-receptor complex. A full PK/PD model for GR mRNA/GR down-regulation was proposed, including GR recycling theory. TAT mRNA began to increase at about 1.5 hr, reached the maximum at about 5.5 hr, and declined to the baseline at about 14 hr after MPL dosing. TAT induction followed a similar pattern with a delay of about 1-2 hr. A transcription compartment was applied as one of the cascade events leading to TAT mRNA and TAT induction. Pharmacodynamic parameters were obtained by fitting seven differential equations piecewise using the maximum likelihood method in the ADAPT II program. This model can describe GR down-regulation and the precursor/product relationship between TAT mRNA and TAT in receptor/gene-mediated corticosteroid effects.
Anesthetic technique for cesarean delivery and neonatal acid–base status: a retrospective database analysis

Abstract Introduction A previous meta-analysis reported lower umbilical artery pH with spinal anesthesia for cesarean delivery compared to general or epidural anesthesia. Ephedrine was used in the majority of studies. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of anesthetic technique on neonatal acid–base status now that phenylephrine has replaced ephedrine in our institution. Methods We retrospectively reviewed our database to identify patients who underwent cesarean delivery and had umbilical artery pH available. We decided a priori to test separately cases where cesarean delivery was performed emergently (category I and II) or non-emergently (category III and IV). Multivariable models were constructed to detect significant predictors of lower umbilical artery pH. Results One thousand sixty-four cases were included (647 emergent, 417 non emergent). In emergent cesarean delivery, anesthesia type was a significant predictor of lower umbilical artery pH ( P Conclusions Spinal anesthesia was not associated with lower umbilical artery pH compared to other types of anesthesia. This might be due to the use of phenylephrine in our practice.
A Cyclophilin-Dependent Mechanism for α7 Neuronal Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptor Maturation

The neuronal nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) subunit α7 forms a principal neuronal α-bungarotoxin binding site that is thought to have a neuromodulatory and developmental role. Here we present evidence that the expression of α7 homo-oligomeric receptors in Xenopus oocytes is dependent on the activity of the peptidyl prolyl isomerase (PPIase) cyclophilin. We show further that the expression of the hetero-oligomeric muscle nAChR is devoid of such a requirement, and that the muscle receptor non-alpha subunits relieve the α7 receptor from this requirement. We conclude that cyclophilin might be uniquely required as a PPIase or a molecular chaperone in the folding and assembly of α7 homo-oligomers.
Undercover Drug-Use Evasion Tactics: Excuses and Neutralization

Although research has examined the corruptive influences of undercover drug operations on agents (Girodo 1991 b; Manning and Reddlinger 1977, 1978), it has not examined the processes by which these influences can be neutralized. In this paper, I address these neutralization processes through a typology of routine and non-routine drug-use evasion tactics. Routine tactics involve excuses based on greed, business constraints, and role obligations (occupational, legal, and interpersonal). Nonroutine tactics involve two components: reverse accusation and simulation. Discussion focuses on excuses where I provide a dramaturgical interpretation that accentuates their deceptive and fraudulent nature, unlike traditional interpretations (e.g., Scott and Lyman 1968) which highlight their role as a reparative technique and aligning action (Margolin 1990). Data were drawn from ethnographic interviews with 35 light undercover narcotics agents located in a moderate-sized midwestern municipality.
Commentary: The trauma of insidious racism

Race-based traumatic stress assessments are difficult because of the insidious nature of racism, the lack of scientific research, and the disregard of the nondominant cultural experience. Although there is a large body of scientific literature about the harmful psychological effects of racism, most of that literature is not directly applicable to individual assessment. Carter and Forsyth begin to correct that deficiency. Implicit in their attempt is the beginnings of defining a race-based traumatic stress syndrome. At present, the psychiatric expert can be useful to the court through a psychological description of the evaluee within a racial-cultural context.
Pegasus: A new hybrid-kinetic particle-in-cell code for astrophysical plasma dynamics

We describe Pegasus, a new hybrid-kinetic particle-in-cell code tailored for the study of astrophysical plasma dynamics. The code incorporates an energy-conserving particle integrator into a stable, second-order-accurate, three-stage predictor-predictor-corrector integration algorithm. The constrained transport method is used to enforce the divergence-free constraint on the magnetic field. A @df scheme is included to facilitate a reduced-noise study of systems in which only small departures from an initial distribution function are anticipated. The effects of rotation and shear are implemented through the shearing-sheet formalism with orbital advection. These algorithms are embedded within an architecture similar to that used in the popular astrophysical magnetohydrodynamics code Athena, one that is modular, well-documented, easy to use, and efficiently parallelized for use on thousands of processors. We present a series of tests in one, two, and three spatial dimensions that demonstrate the fidelity and versatility of the code.
The primacy of CD8 T lymphocytes in type 1 diabetes and implications for therapies

Type I diabetes (TID) is an autoimmune disease in which insulin-secreting beta cells of the pancreatic islets are destroyed by T lymphocytes. Until the 1990s, the prevailing dogma was that the attack was attributable to rogue T lymphocytes bearing CD4 markers on their surface (CD4 T helper lymphocytes). Today, the prevailing view is that rogue T cells bearing CD8 markers or cytotoxic CD8 T lymphocytes are also important and perhaps the foremost contributors to beta-cell death. Recognizing CD8 T-cell subsets as the prime culprits has helped to trace the disease's pathogenesis to abnormal T-cell education. Defective education can occur when antigen-presenting cells fail to assemble and present self-antigens to naive T cells. The failure in that process, normally designed to prevent T cells' attack on the body's own antigens, enables self-reactive T cells to escape into the circulation. Once released, the self-reactive CD8 T cells kill specific self-antigens, which, in the case of TID, include insulin and other key proteins associated with beta cell functions. Abnormalities during T-cell education have been mapped in part to genetic defects in specific gene-encoding regions of the major histocompatibility complex class I region and to proteins that assemble self-peptides into the MHC class I structure that map within the MHC class II region. Two decades of research have led to understanding of genetic and functional defects in the immune system, placing us at the threshold of finding new therapeutic strategies aimed at eliminating autoreactive CD8 T cells, while preserving healthy immune cells.
Nerve growth factor gene therapy for Alzheimer's disease.

Materials and Methods This is a Phase I clinical trial to be conducted in 8 people with early Alzheimer’s disease. Subjects with a diagnosis of probable AD undergo skin biopsies to establish culture of primary fibroblasts. The fibroblasts are then genetically modified to produce and secrete human NGF using retroviral vectors. After verifying production of NGF in vitro, cells are harvested and implanted into the Nucleus Basalis of Meynert using stereotaxic neurosurgery. Subjects are then evaluated every 2 wk to 3 mo for safety (primary end point). In addition, cognitive function is measured.
A robust adaptive parallel DFE using extended LMS

A parallel LMS-ADFE (least mean square-adaptive decision feedback equalization) scheme that allows the ADFE to adapt at every data point in parallel, so that local channel variation can be accurately tracked at a rate independent of hardware speeds, is proposed. Simulations show that this scheme displays tracking capability similar to that of the serial ADFE. Furthermore, the proposed ADFE algorithm can be parallelized with complexity linearly related to speedup. >
Impact of data transformations on memory bank locality

High-energy consumption presents a problem for sustainable clock frequency and deliverable performance. In particular, memory energy consumption of array-intensive applications can be overwhelming due to poor cache locality. One option for reducing memory energy is to adopt a banked memory architecture, where memory space is divided into banks and each bank can be powered down if it is not in active use. An important issue here is the bank access pattern, which determines opportunities for saving energy. In this paper, we present a compiler-based data layout transformation strategy for increasing the effectiveness of a banked memory architecture. The idea is to transform the array layouts in memory in such a way that two loop iterations executed one after another access the data in the same bank as much as possible; the remaining banks can be placed into a low-power mode. Our simulation-based experiments with nine array-intensive applications show significant savings in memory energy consumption.
Aggressive Infantile Embryonal Tumors

Embryonal tumors are the most common brain tumors in infants less than 36 months. Histologically characterized as undifferentiated small, round cell tumors with divergent patterns of differentiation, these include medulloblastoma, the most common form of embryonal tumor, as well as supratentorial primitive neuroectodermal tumor, medulloepithelioma, ependymoblastoma, medullomyoblastoma, melanotic medulloblastoma, and atypical teratoid/rhabdoid tumor. All are similarly aggressive and have a tendency to disseminate throughout the central nervous system. Because of efforts to avoid craniospinal irradiation in an attempt to lessen treatment-related neurotoxicity, management of these tumors in infants is unique. Outcomes remain similarly poor among all the tumor types and, therefore, identification of specific molecular targets that have prognostic and therapeutic implications is crucial. The molecular and clinical aspects of the 3 most common aggressive infantile embryonal tumors, medulloblastoma, supratentorial primitive neuroectodermal tumor, and atypical teratoid/rhabdoid tumor, are the focus of this review.
Osteoporosis Treatment and Progression of Aortic Stenosis

A decrease in bone mineral density has been reported to be associated with increased progression of aortic stenosis (AS). We hypothesized that osteoporosis treatment (OT) is associated with decreased progression of AS. We performed an observational study of patients with AS from our echocardiographic database comparing 18 patients on OT (bisphosphonates, calcitonin, or estrogen receptor modulators) with 37 patients not on OT. All patients had serial echocardiograms. Patients with mitral stenosis, aortic valve replacement, renal failure, calcium disorders, or left ventricular ejection fraction 2 and not significantly different between groups. After a mean of 2.4 ± 1.0 years, mean annual changes in AVA were −0.22 ± 0.22 cm 2 in those not on OT and −0.10 ± 0.18 cm 2 in patients receiving OT (p = 0.025). There was a graded association between AS progression rate and OT. In a multivariable analysis including age, gender, and statin use, only OT was associated with a change in AVA. In conclusion, OT is strongly and independently associated with decreased progression of AS. This association warrants investigation in a larger, prospective study.
Tethered PProDOTs: conformationally restricted 3,4-propylenedioxythiophene based electroactive polymers

Herein we report a complete family of conformationally restricted PProDOT derivatives with varying alkylene tether lengths. It was found that variation of the tether length and structure of the electropolymerizable monomer was successful in the fine-tuning of the electrochemical and optical properties of the subsequent material. It was found that the band gap of the materials could be varied between 1.94 and 2.26 eV, with the “sweet spot” for obtaining the maximum electronic band gap existing at the n = 6 tether length, while maintaining low redox potentials. It was also found that these polymers exhibited stable electrochromic behavior with colors varying from blue–purple to orange in their neutral states and transmissive in their doped states.
An indoor intelligent transportation testbed for urban traffic scenarios

This paper proposes a modular architecture for the development of an indoor testbed for intelligent transportation systems. The main focus is on repeatable, low-cost tests for urban scenarios, especially for higher-level decision making and situation awareness problems. It provides a supplement to outdoor tests and it is also used as a teaching platform. The proposed architecture has been in use at the Ohio State University Control and Intelligent Transportation Research Laboratory, as demonstrated in a number of traffic scenarios.
Lisk-Broom: A laser concept for clearing space debris

So-called space junk forced a change of plan for a recent Shuttle mission. However, ground-based lasers with atmospheric-turbulence-compensating beam directors represent a singularly effective method of de-orbiting space junk, because they use cheap Earth-based power, and because they lend themselves to rapid retargeting. Plasma physics and laser-target interaction theory dictate the laser parameters for a particular mission. We will discuss a practical laser system and beam director with 20-kW average power at 0.5-μm wavelength that is capable of clearing most low-Earth-orbit objects with mass less than 100 kg in about 4 years. This is a special application of the Laser Impulse Space Propulsion (LISP) concept, by which objects are propelled in space by the ablation jet produced on their surface by a remote laser.
Tamper detection in audit logs

Audit logs are considered good practice for business systems, and are required by federal regulations for secure systems, drug approval data, medical information disclosure, financial records, and electronic voting. Given the central role of audit logs, it is critical that they are correct and inalterable. It is not sufficient to say, "our data is correct, because we store all interactions in a separate audit log." The integrity of the audit log itself must also be guaranteed. This paper proposes mechanisms within a database management system (DBMS), based on cryptographically strong one-way hash functions, that prevent an intruder, including an auditor or an employee or even an unknown bug within the DBMS itself, from silently corrupting the audit log. We propose that the DBMS store additional information in the database to enable a separate audit log validator to examine the database along with this extra information and state conclusively whether the audit log has been compromised. We show with an implementation on a high-performance storage engine that the overhead for auditing is low and that the validator can efficiently and correctly determine if the audit log has been compromised.
Analysis of cell-mediated immune reactions to syngeneic mouse tumors in tissue culture.

Destruction of Methylcholanthrene-induced mouse sarcomas in tissue culture was mediated by lymphoid cells from syngeneic mice immunized with the same tumor. Serum or ascitic fluid from the same mouse had no effect. Complement was not required for the reaction. Target tumor cell monolayers growing on Millipore filters were destroyed by immune lymphoid cells added on the other side of the filter. The results suggest that some diffusible substance(s) elaborated by immune lymphoid cells plays an important role in ‘cell-mediated’ immune reactions in the syngeneic tumor-host system.
640 /spl times/ 512 pixel long-wavelength infrared narrowband, multiband, and broadband QWIP focal plane arrays

A 640 /spl times/ 512 pixel, long-wavelength cutoff, narrowband (/spl Delta//spl lambda///spl lambda//spl sim/10%) quantum-well infrared photodetector (QWIP) focal plane array (FPA), a four-band QWIP FPA in the 4-15 /spl mu/m spectral region, and a broadband (/spl Delta//spl lambda///spl lambda/ /spl sim/ 42%) QWIP FPA having a 15.4 /spl mu/m cutoff have been demonstrated. In this paper, we discuss the electrical and optical characterization of these FPAs, and their performance. In addition, we discuss the development of a very sensitive (NEDT /spl sim/ 10.6 mK) 640 /spl times/ 512 pixel thermal imaging camera having a 9 /spl mu/m cutoff.
A novel dialysis procedure measuring free Zn2+ in bovine milk and plasma

A dialysis method was developed for measuring free Zn2+ concentration in plasma and milk for determination of the electrochemical gradient for Zn2+ across the mammary gland. This method used the zinc content of casein after dialysis as the metal ion indicator because zinc in the calcium phosphate-citrate complex inside casein micelles is dependent on the free Zn2+ concentration of an associated aqueous phase. Zinc, calcium and magnesium distribution in milk confirmed the high zinc binding by bovine casein. Zinc in the casein, dialyzed against standards or unknowns, was measured by atomic absorption spectrophotometry. Average free Zn2+ concentrations measured by the dialysis method in plasma and milk of five cows were 0.141 and 0.331 nmol/L, respectively. The equilibrium potential of Zn2+ ions across the mammary epithelium, calculated from free Zn2+ concentrations in blood and milk measured by the dialysis method, was -11.4 mV, consistent with the mammary electrical potentials noted in previous studies. Therefore, no electrochemical gradient for zinc between the two compartments was apparent, and it is not necessary to invoke an active transport mechanism in the mammary gland to explain the higher zinc concentration in milk than in plasma of most species.
Oxidative Dehydrogenation of Light (C2 to C4) Alkanes

Publisher Summary This chapter summarizes the data and current understanding regarding the oxidative dehydrogenation reaction of alkanes. The reaction mechanism, the nature of the catalysts, and factors that determine selectivity for dehydrogenation versus formation of oxygen-containing products are discussed in the chapter. From the pattern of product distribution in the oxidation of C 2 to C 6 alkanes obtained with supported vanadium oxide, orthovanadates of cations of different reduction potentials, and vanadates of different bonding units of VO x in the active sites, it is shown that the selectivities can be explained by the probability of the surface alkyl species (or the surface alkene formed from the alkyl) to react with a reactive surface lattice oxygen. Catalysts for which this occurs with a high probability would show low selectivities. This probability increases for vanadates that have low heats of removal of lattice oxygen, which are those that contain easily reducible cations in the active sites and for vanadates whose active sites can bind the surface alkyl species (or alkene) in a way that bring the surface intermediate close to the reactive lattice oxygen. The dependence of selectivity for dehydrogenation on the conversion of alkane shows that for the more selective catalysts known, the reaction proceeds with a sequential mechanism.
Transition to sustainability with natural gas from fracking

Abstract This paper analyzes the energy requirements and cost of constructing a renewable energy system with the excess energy available from natural gas obtained by hydraulic fracturing. Using U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates of the future availability of natural gas and estimates from the literature of the energy required to build a wind power and photovoltaic (PV) electricity generation system, we develop a scenario for constructing a sustainable electricity system for the United States. A preliminary analysis is made of the cost of the renewable system. Net reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases and oxides of nitrogen are also estimated. The analysis suggests that it would be possible to build a sustainable electricity system from the excess natural gas from fracking in less than 30 years. After that, the energy produced from the renewable system is sufficient to replace obsolete equipment and construct new generation technology as required by growth in demand. Even after accounting for the emissions associated with its construction and operation, the sustainable system would reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) and nitrogen oxides emissions compared to continued use of a fossil fuel system.
Ascertaining Subjective Cognitive Decline: A Comparison of Approaches and Evidence for Using an Age-Anchored Reference Group.

Background Subjective cognitive decline (SCD) is increasingly considered promising to detect preclinical Alzheimer's disease. How SCD is ascertained is critical for determining its potential utility in identifying at-risk individuals, yet SCD measures differ along several dimensions. Objective We aimed to examine the extent to which reports of SCD in healthy elderly may be influenced by the characteristics of the SCD measures. We investigated variations in rates of SCD endorsement across different measures, including an open-ended question. We also examined the association of responses across measures, and the degree to which specific SCD items were associated with objective memory performance. Methods 99 healthy elderly completed a series of questionnaires from which 10 items examining SCD for memory and other aspects of cognition were drawn. We applied Cochran's Q tests to assess differences in rates of SCD, correlation analyses to examine association of SCD responses, and regression models to determine the association between SCD items and delayed verbal memory. Results Rates of SCD varied as a function of the assessment format, ranging from 1 to 7% for memory and 5 to 20% for concentration. SCD was lower for memory versus non-memory domains. SCD items were associated both within and across domains. The most accurate predictor of memory was memory-related SCD in comparison to others the same age. Conclusion Characteristics of SCD items influence rates of endorsement. Querying SCD using an "age-anchored" question may provide the most accurate reflection of actual cognitive performance.
Prenatal and postnatal stress and asthma in children: Temporal- and sex-specific associations.

Background Temporal- and sex-specific effects of perinatal stress have not been examined for childhood asthma. Objectives We examined associations between prenatal and/or postnatal stress and children's asthma (n = 765) and effect modification by sex in a prospective cohort study. Methods Maternal negative life events were ascertained prenatally and postpartum. Negative life event scores were categorized as 0, 1 to 2, 3 to 4, or 5 or greater to assess exposure-response relationships. We examined effects of prenatal and postnatal stress on children's asthma by age 6 years, modeling each as independent predictors, mutually adjusting for prenatal and postnatal stress, and finally considering interactions between prenatal and postnatal stress. Effect modification by sex was examined in stratified analyses and by fitting interaction terms. Results When considering stress in each period independently, among boys, a dose-response relationship was evident for each level increase on the ordinal scale prenatally (odds ratio [OR], 1.38; 95% CI, 1.06-1.79; P value for trend = .03) and postnatally (OR, 1.53; 95% CI, 1.16-2.01; P value for trend = .001); among girls, only the postnatal trend was significant (OR, 1.60; 95% CI, 1.14-2.22; P value for trend = .005). Higher stress in both the prenatal and postnatal periods was associated with increased odds of receiving a diagnosis of asthma in girls (OR, 1.37; 95% CI, 0.98-1.91; P interaction = .07) but not boys (OR, 1.08; 95% CI, 0.82-1.42; P interaction = .61). Conclusions Although boys were more vulnerable to stress during the prenatal period, girls were more affected by postnatal stress and cumulative stress across both periods in relation to asthma. Understanding sex and temporal differences in response to early-life stress might provide unique insight into the cause and natural history of asthma.
Simulation of Crystal-Melt Interfaces for a System of Binary Hard Spheres

Crystal-melt interfaces of binary hard spheres are investigated using molecular-dynamics simulation. For a diameter ratio α=0.414, two crystal phases coexisting with the fluid are possible, depending on the pressure. At low pressures, the liquid coexists with a pure fcc crystal of the larger particle, while at high pressures a 1:1 binary crystal of “NaCl” type is the coexisting phase. For both of these systems, we study the structural and dynamical changes as the interface is traversed from bulk crystal to bulk fluid through the calculation of density and diffusion coefficient profiles. It is observed that the total width of the interfacial region is narrower in the “NaCl”/binary fluid interface than in the corresponding lower pressure fcc/binary fluid system.
On the Possibility of Identifying Substances by Remote Active THz Spectroscopy

This paper investigates the limit of detection of the spectral fingerprints of a material to be identified by terahertz (THz) spectroscopy, when the material is bare or concealed by clothes. We propose a theoretical study to determine the minimum observable peak amplitude versus the refractive index and the coefficient of absorption of the sample material. We discuss the case of detecting the absorption peaks from the amplitude or phase of the transmitted or reflected spectra recorded using a THz time-domain spectroscopy system. We experimentally validate our analysis by studying a pellet sample of glutamic acid, bare or hidden under a layer of various fabrics, both in transmission and reflection configuration. This allows us to investigate the influence of various radiometric responses induced by fabrics when spectra are recorded in realistic conditions. In the reflection scheme, interference effects make the identification difficult, if not impossible.
On Cultural Differences in Business Communication

Based on business activities,the paper views embarrassment and conflicts in crosscultural communications from a multiculturalist perspective.It expounds and summarizes the differences of western and Chinese cultures in their origins from five aspects so as to analyze the specific reasons and find a solution.
Brain Protection for Cerebral Aneurysm Surgery

The modern management of patients undergoing surgery for intracranial aneurysm often includes temporary periods of cerebral ischemia to minimize the risks final dissection and clipping or to allow vascular reconstruction. This article reviews the concepts of ischemic thresholds and examines the effects of the physiologic variables that may affect outcome from an ischemic episode. The protective agents presently available and the agents in development that may limit the extent of ischemic injury are reviewed extensively as well.
Instabilities and Routes to Chaos in a Unidirectional, Inhomogeneously Broadened Ring Laser

Essentially all of the theoretical studies of laser instabilities in inhomogenously broadened media have been restricted to non-Doppler broadened lasers or unidirectional ring lasers to avoid the complications of the spatial variations caused by the standing wave pattern in a Fabry-Perot cavity and to avoid effects of the two holes burned in the gain profile by single mode operation [1–7]. In contrast, the reports of single-mode laser instabilities in dc-excited systems have all been for Fabry-Perot lasers, making comparisons between theory and experiments difficult at times [1,8–13]. The unidirectional ring theory is significantly simpler than the standing wave Doppler theory so there has been considerable interest in providing a suitable laser for experimental tests.
Titan weather report

Saturn's huge moon Titan is the only moon in the Solar System to have a thick atmosphere. Evidence for transient methane clouds supports the old idea that this atmosphere may support a methane cycle, akin to Earth's hydrological cycle.
Human pose estimation using two RGB-D sensors

Accurate human pose estimation plays an important role in various applications such as sports analysis, health care and gaming. Even though recent approaches have shown that 3D positions of body joints can be estimated from a single depth sensor, the depth data often suffer from sensing noise and self-occlusion. In this paper, we present a novel pipeline to estimate the pose of a human body by using two depth sensors. The two sensors simultaneously capture the front and back of the body's movement. Using a wide-baseline RGB-D camera calibration algorithm, the two 3D scans are first geometrically aligned, and then registered to a generic human template using a Gaussian-mixture-model based point set registration procedure with local structure constraints. The new pose of person is finally estimated by a rigid bone-based pose transformation. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our system in estimating the body pose over other state-of-the-arts techniques.
An XDL alternative for interfacing RapidSmith and Vivado

In recent years, the RapidSmith CAD tool [1] has been used with ISE to create custom CAD tools targeting Xilinx FPGAs. This tool flow was based on the Xilinx Design Language (XDL), a human-readable representation of a netlist that contains placement and routing information. The XDL interface also provided device representation files (XDLRC files), detailing the available resources of a given FPGA part. Using RapidSmith, a Xilinx design could be exported out of ISE at any stage of the design flow, manipulated in RapidSmith (logic modification, place, or route), and imported back into ISE to complete the remainder of implementation.
Salivary microbiomes of indigenous Tsimane mothers and infants are distinct despite frequent premastication

Author(s): Han, Cliff S; Martin, Melanie Ann; Dichosa, Armand EK; Daughton, Ashlynn R; Frietze, Seth; Kaplan, Hillard; Gurven, Michael D; Alcock, Joe | Abstract: BackgroundPremastication, the transfer of pre-chewed food, is a common infant and young child feeding practice among the Tsimane, forager-horticulturalists living in the Bolivian Amazon. Research conducted primarily with Western populations has shown that infants harbor distinct oral microbiota from their mothers. Premastication, which is less common in these populations, may influence the colonization and maturation of infant oral microbiota, including via transmission of oral pathogens. We collected premasticated food and saliva samples from Tsimane mothers and infants (9-24 months of age) to test for evidence of bacterial transmission in premasticated foods and overlap in maternal and infant salivary microbiota. We extracted bacterial DNA from two premasticated food samples and 12 matched salivary samples from maternal-infant pairs. DNA sequencing was performed with MiSeq (Illumina). We evaluated maternal and infant microbial composition in terms of relative abundance of specific taxa, alpha and beta diversity, and dissimilarity distances.ResultsThe bacteria in saliva and premasticated food were mapped to 19 phyla and 400 genera and were dominated by Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, and Bacteroidetes. The oral microbial communities of Tsimane mothers and infants who frequently share premasticated food were well-separated in a non-metric multi-dimensional scaling ordination (NMDS) plot. Infant microbiotas clustered together, with weighted Unifrac distances significantly differing between mothers and infants. Infant saliva contained more Firmicutes (p l 0.01) and fewer Proteobacteria (p l 0.05) than did maternal saliva. Many genera previously associated with dental and periodontal infections, e.g. Neisseria, Gemella, Rothia, Actinomyces, Fusobacterium, and Leptotrichia, were more abundant in mothers than in infants.ConclusionsSalivary microbiota of Tsimane infants and young children up to two years of age do not appear closely related to those of their mothers, despite frequent premastication and preliminary evidence that maternal bacteria is transmitted to premasticated foods. Infant physiology and diet may constrain colonization by maternal bacteria, including several oral pathogens.