cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Location location location: an exploration of disparities in access to publicly listed pre-exposure prophylaxis clinics in the United States

Abstract Purpose HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is highly effective in preventing HIV transmission. Finding a PrEP provider, however, can be a barrier to accessing care. This study explores the distribution of publicly listed PrEP-providing clinics in the United States. Methods Data regarding 2094 PrEP-providing clinics come from PrEP Locator, a national database of PrEP-providing clinics. We compared the distribution of these PrEP clinics to the distribution of new HIV diagnoses within various geographical areas and by key populations. Results Most (43/50) states had less than one PrEP-providing clinic per 100,000 population. Among states, the median was two clinics per 1000 PrEP-eligible men who have sex with men. Differences between disease burden and service provision were seen for counties with higher proportions of their residents living in poverty, lacking health insurance, identifying as African American, or identifying as Hispanic/Latino. The Southern region accounted for over half of all new HIV diagnoses but only one-quarter of PrEP-providing clinics. Conclusions The current number of PrEP-providing clinics is not sufficient to meet needs. In addition, PrEP-providing clinics are unevenly distributed compared to disease burden, with poor coverage in the Southern divisions and areas with higher poverty, uninsured, and larger minority populations. PrEP services should be expanded and targeted to address disparities.
Pliocene erosional pulse and glacier-landscape feedbacks in the western Alaska Range

Abstract Pliocene–Pleistocene glaciation modified the topography and erosion of most middle- and high-latitude mountain belts, because the evolution of catchment topography controls long-term glacier mass balance and erosion. Hence, characterizing how erosion rates change during repeated glaciations can help test hypothesized glacier erosion-landscape feedbacks across a range of settings. To better understand how glaciations and landscapes coevolve on geologic timescales, I quantify erosion rates in the glaciated western Alaska Range with low-temperature thermochronometric data and modeling. Zircon (U–Th)/He and apatite fission track data suggest mountain-building was underway by the early Miocene. In contrast, lower-temperature apatite (U–Th)/He age-elevation and grain age-kinetic data indicate that erosion accelerated coincident with regional Pliocene glaciation ca. 4 Ma. Furthermore, erosion rates calculated within an eroding half-space indicate slow erosion at a rate ≤0.3 km/m.y. before 4.2 Ma, an initial pulse of rapid erosion at a rate of 1.0–1.6 km/m.y. during 4.2–2.9 Ma, and more moderate erosion at a rate of 0.4–0.7 km/m.y. since 2.9 Ma. The initial erosion pulse suggests a significant transient landscape adjustment to the introduction of efficient glacial erosion. The subsequent decrease in Pleistocene erosion rates is consistent with a negative feedback between continuing glaciation and glacier size/erosivity: If glacial erosion outpaces rock uplift, glacier erosion decreases over time as topography, mass balance, valley gradients, and ice flux are reduced. These findings imply that in areas of moderate rock uplift rates, the onset of local Plio–Pleistocene glaciation may have been punctuated by an initial pulse of rapid landscape change, after which change became more gradual.
Neo-Colonial Adaptation or Neo-Sovereignty: Oklahoma Cherokee/African Ancestry Freedmen Conflict

A five-year legal battle between the Cherokee Nation and the descendants of African Heritage Freedmen ended on August 22, 2011 with the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court ruling against the Freedmen who had sought to have their status as citizens of the Cherokee Nation validated. The ruling upheld a 2007 Cherokee Nation Constitutional amendment that requires the nation’s citizens to have at least one Indian ancestor on the Dawes Rolls, the primary document used to determine Cherokee Nation eligibility. That amendment was passed after the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that the Freedmen could qualify for tribal citizenship. After intense political pressure by members of the Congressional Black Caucus and the Obama administration threatening to not accept the upcoming Cherokee Principal Chief elections and suspend release of federal BIA funds to the Nation, the leadership of the 300,000 member Cherokee Nation agreed to reinstate the 2800 Freedmen as Nation voting members. This situation is not an isolated incident. Several other American Indian Nations have attempted or precipitated similar citizenship issues with their African heritage Indians. Cherokee and other American Indian leaders rationalize their action as an exercise of their rights as sovereign nations to determine their citizenship qualifications. The African ancestry Cherokee and other Indians of African heritage, accuse the Nations of immoral and illegal neo-colonial racism. This thesis examines the historical, cultural identity and political determinants impacting the social-political relationship between the two races in order to reveal the root causal factor(s) precipitating this racial/cultural fissure within some Native American Nations.
Genetic Diseases in Iraq

Iraq occupies the northeastern corner of the Arab world; Iran lies to the East and Turkey lies to the North (Fig. 10.1). Its total land surface is 438,000 km2. The northern part is mountainous; the central region is occupied by the Tigris–Euphrates Plain; the south is characterized by marshes; and deserts predominate in the west.
Meaning in Bereavement

Viewing suffering following the death of a loved one from a meaning systems perspective, this chapter reviews research that links secular and spiritual struggles to find meaning in loss to prolonged and preoccupying grief, and successful sense making and benefit finding to human resilience. Across a range of bereaved groups (e.g., young adults, older adults, parents, African American survivors of a loved one’s homicide), complicated grief has been associated with or prospectively predicted by an inability to find meaning in the loss and in one’s life in its aftermath. The chapter goes on to review quantitative and qualitative measures of integration of the loss into one’s meaning system and coding procedures for identifying specific meanings made of this unwelcome life transition. The intent of such work is to pave the way for more nuanced research on the global suffering engendered by bereavement and on the effectiveness of interventions to ameliorate it.
Asteroids and Comets, Meteor Showers, Fireballs and Bolides

The Solar System is teeming with countless bits of cosmic debris, large and small. Some are left over from the formation of the Solar System – asteroids and comets – 4.6 billion years ago, while others were created in subsequent collisions between these bodies and huge impacts on planets and moons. In this chapter we’ll explore asteroids and comets and how they are responsible for streaks of light, possibly even sounds, in the sky and rocks from space.
DeepDiffuse: Predicting the 'Who' and 'When' in Cascades

Cascades are an accepted model to capturing how information diffuses across social network platforms. A large body of research has been focused on dissecting the anatomy of such cascades and forecasting their progression. One recurring theme involves predicting the next stage(s) of cascades utilizing pertinent information such as the underlying social network, structural properties of nodes (e.g., degree) and (partial) histories of cascade propagation. However, such type of granular information is rarely available in practice. We study in this paper the problem of cascade prediction utilizing only two types of (coarse) information, viz. which node is infected and its corresponding infection time. We first construct several simple baselines to solve this cascade prediction problem. Then we describe the shortcomings of these methods and propose a new solution leveraging recent progress in embeddings and attention models from representation learning. We also perform an exhaustive analysis of our methods on several real world datasets. Our proposed model outperforms the baselines and several other state-of-the-art methods.
Corporate Culture and People-Centric Leadership at Beryl: An Interview with Paul Spiegelman

In the final chapter, I exemplify the main messages in this book by taking a look at a remarkable company, Beryl, and its founder and leader, Paul Spiegelman. Beryl is a call center, yes a call center, but as a business, and with and because of their culture, has been given a Best Place to Work Award nine times in the past two decades. This reflects their strong People-Centric culture, led by a true People-Centric leader. In the interview, Paul shares how he thinks about leadership, culture, their intersection, and creating changes in both how we lead and in our culture. I end this chapter, and the book, connecting the dots between Paul’s experience and viewpoint and the main messages in this book.
Decouplings for Real Analytic Surfaces of Revolution

We extend the decoupling results of the first two authors to the case of real analytic surfaces of revolution in \({\mathbb R}^3\). New examples of interest include the torus and the perturbed cone.
Drug eruptions associated with tumor therapy: Great imitators

Many studies have investigated cutaneous reactions to antitumor drugs and found them to be quite numerous. We describe drug eruptions that may be associated with different therapies by class: antimetabolite chemotherapeutics, genotoxic agents, spindle inhibitors, signal transduction inhibitors, and immunotherapies. Methotrexate is most often associated with mucocutaneous reactions, alkylating antimetabolite agents with hyperpigmentation, and platinum antimetabolite agents with type I IgE-mediated hypersensitivity reactions. Anthracycline derivatives can induce the hand-foot syndrome in patients, and bleomycin is associated with a bleomycin-induced flagellate erythema. Taxane spindle inhibitors can result in acneiform eruptions, which may also be seen with use of epidermal growth factor receptor inhibitors. Imatinib and its derivatives can cause a truncal maculopapular eruption, whereas multikinase inhibitors can produce a hand-foot-skin reaction. Vemurafenib can result in squamous cell carcinomas and photosensitivity. First-generation mammalian target of rapamycin inhibitors may cause a maculopapular eruption initially involving the face and neck. Programmed death (PD)-1-ligand and receptor inhibitors are associated with bullous pemphigoid. Ipilimumab, targeting Cytotoxic -T- Lymphocyte- associated (CTLA-4) receptors, can cause a morbilliform reaction, whereas Interleukin -2 (IL-2) analogs can create the capillary leak syndrome. Chemotherapeutic drug eruptions classically can manifest in the aforementioned ways; however, it is important to understand that they are associated with myriad cutaneous adverse effects, which may be mistaken for organic skin disease. Oncologists prescribing these medications should be familiar with the cutaneous side effects of these medications, and so they may counsel patients to be on the lookout for them.
Simulation of Complex Biochemical Pathways in 3D Process Space via Heterogeneous Computing Platform: Preliminary Results

Biological pathways typically consist of upto hundreds of reacting chemical species and reactions within a biological system. Modeling and simulation of biological pathways in explicit process space is a computationally intensive, both due to the number of interactions and time-scale of processes. Traditional stochastic or ODE based simulation of chemical processes ignore spatial and biological information. Hence there is a need for new underlying simulation algorithms as well as need for newer computing systems, platforms and techniques. Such pathways describe exhibit considerable behavioral complexity in multiple fundamental cellular processes. In this work we present a new heterogeneous computing platform to accelerate the simulation study of such complex biochemical pathways in 3D reaction process space. Several tasks involved in the simulation study has been carefully partitioned to run on a combination of reconfigurable hardware and massively parallel processor such as the GPU. This paper also presents an implementation to accelerate one of the most compute intensive tasks - sifting through the reaction space to determine reacting particles. Finally, we present the new heterogeneous computing framework integrating a FPGA and GPU to accelerate the computation over the use of a any single platform. This framework can achieve 10-times speedup over a single GPU-only platform. Besides, the extensible architecture is general enough to be used to study a variety of biological pathways in order to gain deeper insights into biomolecular systems.
Exhaled nitric oxide measurement before pediatric adenotonsillectomy: A feasibility study.

BACKGROUND Exhaled nitric oxide (eNO) is a known biomarker for the diagnosis and monitoring of bronchial hyperreactivity in adults and children. AIMS To investigate the potential role of eNO measurement for predicting perioperative respiratory adverse events in children, we sought to determine its feasibility and acceptability before adenotonsillectomy. METHODS We attempted eNO testing in children, 4-12 years of age, immediately prior to admission for outpatient adenotonsillectomy. We used correlations between eNO levels and postoperative adverse respiratory events to make sample size predictions for future studies that address the predictability of the device. RESULTS One hundred and three (53%) of 192 children were able to provide an eNO sample. The success rate increased with age from 23% (9%-38%) at age 4 to over 85% (54%-98%) after age 9. Using the eNO normal value (<20 ppb) as a cutoff, an expected sample size to detect a significant difference between children with and without adverse events is 868, assuming that respiratory adverse events occur in 29% of children. CONCLUSIONS eNO testing on the day of surgery has limited feasibility in children younger than 7 years of age. The most common reason for failure was inadequate physical performance while interacting with the testing device. The role of this respiratory biomarker in the context of perioperative outcomes for pediatric adenotonsillectomy remains unknown and should be further studied with improved technologies.
Ozone-Enhanced Flame Propagation of Methane/Ethylene/Air Mixtures at Subatmospheric Pressures

The combustion enhancement by ozone has been studied for single-component fuels in many different settings; however, the impact of ozone addition on a multicomponent fuel has been experimentally un...
Cognitive Science and Ancient Israelite Religion: New Perspectives on Texts, Artifacts, and Culture

In this book, Brett Maiden employs the tools, research, and theories from the cognitive science of religion to explore religious thought and behavior in ancient Israel. His study focuses on a key set of distinctions between intuitive and reflective types of cognitive processing, implicit and explicit concepts, and cognitively optimal and costly religious traditions. Through a series of case studies, Maiden examines a range of topics including popular and official religion, Deuteronomic theology, hybrid monsters in ancient iconography, divine cult statues in ancient Mesopotamia and the biblical idol polemics, and the Day of Atonement ritual in Leviticus 16. The range of media, including ancient texts, art, and archaeological data from ancient Israel, as well theoretical perspectives demonstrates how a dialogue between biblical scholars and cognitive researchers can be fostered.
The Polarized Spectrum of the Fe II-rich Broad Absorption Line QSO IRAS 07598+6508

We present IUE spectrophotometry and optical spectropolarimetry of the ultraluminous, extreme Fe II-emitting QSO IRAS 07598+6508. We find broad absorption troughs from high- and low-ionization species, showing that this object is a member of the class of rare low-ionization broad absorption line (BAL) QSOs. Compared with non-BAL QSOs, the spectral energy distribution is reddened by E(B - V) ~ 0.12, and the Hα/Hβ ratio is even more reddened with E(B - V) ~ 0.45. The broad emission lines are unpolarized. We see broad Na I λ5892 absorption in the unpolarized continuum, but not in the polarized continuum (at the 5-6 σ level). The polarized continuum rises smoothly toward shorter wavelengths with Fλ ∝ λ-2. We argue that a normal QSO continuum is polarized by scattering from a region within, or very near, the broad emission line region (BELR). Thus there are at least three distinct light paths to the observer: a dusty path from the BELR; a direct path traced by the unpolarized continuum, passing through dust and low-ionization gas (Na I); and another relatively unobscured path followed by scattered continuum. This provides direct evidence that a BAL region and dust only partially cover the central QSO. Ultraluminous active galactic nuclei, including IRAS 07598+6508, appear no more IR-luminous than non-IRAS-selected QSOs, and have normal LIR/Lopt ratios when the optical luminosities are corrected for reddening. BALs and reddening occur only along some sight lines, and the parent population of BAL QSOs appear to be "normal" QSOs.
A specific biomarker for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: Quantitative susceptibility mapping.

Abstract Objective Accurate and timely diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a diagnostic challenge given the lack of specific diagnostic and imaging biomarkers as well as the significant clinic overlap with mimic syndromes. We hypothesize that MR quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) can help differentiate ALS from mimic diagnoses. Methods In a blinded retrospective study of MRIs with QSM from 2015 to 2018, we compared motor cortex susceptibility along the hand and face homunculi in ALS patients and patients with similar clinical presentations. Inclusion required a confirmed ALS or a mimic diagnosis. Comparative groups included age-matched patients with MRIs performed for non-motor neuron symptoms that were reported as normal or demonstrated leukoaraiosis. Quantitative susceptibility values were compared with ANOVA and Tukey-Kramer (post-hoc). ROC analysis and Youden's index were used to identify optimal cutoff values. Results Fifty ALS, 35 mimic, and 70 non-motor neuron symptom patients (35 normal, 35 leukoaraiosis) were included. Hand and face homunculus mean susceptibility values were significantly higher in the ALS group compared to the mimic (p=0.001, p=0.004), leukoaraiosis (p Conclusions QSM has diagnostic potential in the assessment of suspected ALS patients, demonstrating very high specificity in differentiating ALS from mimic diagnoses.
Maternal Psychiatric Conditions, Treatment With Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, and Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Abstract Background This study aims to clarify relationships of maternal psychiatric conditions and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) use during preconception and pregnancy with risk of neurodevelopmental disorders in offspring. Methods We used data from the Study to Explore Early Development, a multisite case-control study conducted in the United States among children born between 2003 and 2011. Final study group classifications of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) (n = 1367), developmental delays or disorders (DDs) (n = 1750), and general population controls (n = 1671) were determined by an in-person standardized developmental assessment. Maternal psychiatric conditions and SSRI use during pregnancy were ascertained from both self-report and medical records. We used logistic regression to evaluate associations of ASD and DDs (vs. population controls) with maternal psychiatric conditions and SSRI treatment in pregnancy. To reduce confounding by indication, we also examined SSRI associations in analyses restricted to mothers with psychiatric conditions during pregnancy. Results Psychiatric conditions and SSRI use during pregnancy were significantly more common among mothers of children with either ASD or DDs than among population controls. Odds of ASD were similarly elevated among mothers with psychiatric conditions who did not use SSRIs during pregnancy (adjusted odds ratio 1.81, 95% confidence interval 1.44–2.27) as in mothers who did use SSRIs (adjusted odds ratio 2.05, 95% confidence interval 1.50–2.80). Among mothers with psychiatric conditions, SSRI use was not significantly associated with ASD in offspring (adjusted odds ratio 1.14, 95% confidence interval 0.80–1.62). Primary findings for DDs exhibited similar relationships to those observed with ASD. Conclusions Maternal psychiatric conditions but not use of SSRIs during pregnancy were associated with increased risk of neurodevelopmental disorders in offspring.
Autoequivariant Network Search via Group Decomposition

Recent works show that group equivariance as an inductive bias improves neural network performance for both classification and generation. However, designing group-equivariant neural networks is challenging when the group of interest is large and is unknown. Moreover, inducing equivariance can significantly reduce the number of independent parameters in a network with fixed feature size, affecting its overall performance. We address these problems by proving a new group-theoretic result in the context of equivariant neural networks that shows that a network is equivariant to a large group if and only if it is equivariant to smaller groups from which it is constructed. Using this result, we design a novel fast group equivariant construction algorithm, and a deep Q-learning-based search algorithm in a reduced search space, yielding what we call autoequivariant networks (AENs). AENs find the right balance between equivariance and network size when tested on new benchmark datasets, G-MNIST and G-Fashion-MNIST, obtained via group transformations on MNIST and Fashion-MNIST respectively that we release. Extending these results to group convolutional neural networks, where we optimize between equivariances, augmentations, and network sizes, we find group equivariance to be the most dominating factor in all high-performing GCNNs on several datasets like CIFAR10, SVHN, RotMNIST, ASL, EMNIST, and KMNIST.
The social and symbolic meanings of recipes in negotiating east german identity

This paper explores the social and symbolic meanings of recipes in the creation of community imagined online. Linking scholarship on the social relevance of recipes with research on food memories, ...
Archaeology in the 21st Century

The second half of the 20th century saw remarkable feats of exploration that can never be repeated, even if our species survives for thousands of millennia. During a period of fewer than 50 years, humans for the first time reached the highest point on Earth, for the first time descended to the deepest point on Earth, and then, for the first time left Earth altogether to set foot on another celestial body.
Economic Comparison of Hydrogen and Fossil Fuel Systems

The fuels most considered for the post petroleum and natural gas era, hydrogen (gaseous and liquid), and coal and coal derived synthetic fluid fossil fuels, have been compared by taking into account production costs, external costs and utilization efficiencies. The results show that hydrogen is a much more cost effective energy carrier than coal and synthetic fossil fuels, as well as being the environmentally most compatible fuel.
Small Businesses, Innovation, and Public Policy

This chapter examines the question of the contribution of small businesses to the process of technological innovation. This complex issue has been one of the most researched topics in the empirical industrial organization literature. To summarize these discussions in a few pages in thus a daunting challenge.
Delamination of Composite Laminates Stimulated by Interlaminar Shear

Although interlaminar shear stresses become very large in composite laminates, in the literature there is no conclusive demonstration of the onset of delamination in composites due to interlaminar shear. The present work addresses the title problem by accurate stress analysis, application of an average stress failure criterion over a predominant stress component, and testing chosen laminates made of T300/1034-C graphite epoxy to the onset of delamination. The stress analysis has been used to define the laminate stacking sequence and the required loading direction to eliminate modes of failure other than that stimulated by interlaminar shear stress. The predicted strains at the onset of delamination are close to experimental values in some of the laminates, and the predicted interfaces of delamination are the same as experimentally observed delaminated interfaces. This work leads to an understanding of validity of average stress failure criterion and probable causes of difference between the predicted and experimental values.
Hek: Human Eph/Elk like kinase (vertebrates) (Etk1)

The tyrosine kinase activity of Hek has been formally demonstrated in vitro. Although the in vivo function(s) of Hek has yet to be confirmed, the expression pattern of Hek in both B and T lymphoid cell lines, and in a subset of poorly differentiated acute leukemias, suggests that the molecule may act as a growth factor receptor in normal lymphoid precursor cells, and in some hematopoietic malignancies. The isolation of the murine and avian homologues of Hek (Mek4 and Cek4, respectively) from embryonic tissues may also suggest a role for Hek in development. The predicted protein product of HEK cDNA has the features of a type lA integral membrane protein. Amino acid sequence of peptides derived from purified Hek confirmed E21 as the N-terminal residue of the mature protein. The extracellular domain of 521 residues contains five possible sites for N-linked glycosylation and comprises a Cys-rich region and two regions with homology to fibronectin type III repeats. The cytoplasmic domain contains a characteristic PTK domain. Other features include a putative autophosphorylation site and three possible PI-3-kinase binding sites.
Consistency in models for communication constrained distributed learning

Motivated by sensor networks and other distributed settings, several models for distributed learning are presented. The models differ from classical works in statistical pattern recognition by allocating observations of an i.i.d. sampling process amongst members of a network of learning agents. The agents are limited in their ability to communicate to a fusion center; the amount of information available for classification or regression is constrained. For several simple communication models, questions of universal consistency are addressed; i.e., the asymptotics of several agent decision rules and fusion rules are considered in both binary classification and regression frameworks. These models resemble distributed environments and introduce new questions regarding universal consistency. Insofar as these models offer a useful picture of distributed scenarios, this paper considers whether the guarantees provided by Stone’s Theorem in centralized environments hold in distributed settings.
Bias corrections in primary frequency standards

Primary frequency standards serve the function of calibrating the rate of International Atomic Time, TAI, and therefore play a critical role in the accuracy of the world's time. The Working Group on Primary and Secondary Frequency Standards, WGPSFS, is an advisory body to the Time Department of the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures and to the Consultative Committee for Time and Frequency on matters related to primary and secondary frequency standards that are used to determine the rate of TAI. A current issue being considered by the WGPSFS is establishing guidelines for deciding when and how to make corrections for newly discovered frequency biases in primary frequency standards. This paper is intended to generate discussions on this topic in an audience wider than just the WGPSFS.
Decoupling service and feedback trust in a peer-to-peer reputation system

Reputation systems help peers decide whom to trust before undertaking a transaction. Conventional approaches to reputation-based trust modeling assume that peers reputed to provide trustworthy service are also likely to provide trustworthy feedback. By basing the credibility of a peer’s feedback on its reputation as a transactor, these models become vulnerable to malicious nodes that provide good service to badmouth targeted nodes. We propose to decouple a peer’s reputation as a service provider from its reputation as a service recommender, making the reputation more robust to malicious peers. We show via simulations that a decoupled approach greatly enhances the accuracy of reputations generated, resulting in fewer malicious transactions, false positives, and false negatives.
Specific suppression of mutations in genes 46 and 47 by das, a new class of mutations in bacteriophage T4D.

Abstract Mutants in T4 genes 46 and 47 exhibit early cessation of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) synthesis (“DNA arrest”) and decreased synthesis of late proteins and phage. In addition, mutants in genes 46 and 47 fail to degrade host DNA to acidsoluble products. It is shown here that this complex phenotype can be partially suppressed by mutation of a T4 gene external to genes 46 and 47 which has been named das for “DNA arrest suppressor.” The das mutations were discovered as third-site mutations in spontaneous pseudorevertants of [46, 47] mutants; the pseudorevertants make small plaques on Escherichia coli B, whereas [46, 47] mutants make none. The [das, 46, 47] triple mutant exhibits increased DNA, late protein, and viable phage production compared to the double mutant [46, 47]. The [das, 46, 47] mutant also degrades more of the host DNA to acid-soluble products than does the [46, 47] mutant. The suppressor effect of the das mutation appears to be gene-specific: it suppresses both amber and temperature-sensitive mutations in genes 46 and 47 and does not suppress amber mutations in any of the other genes tested. The [das] single mutants make normal-sized plaques on E. coli B and exhibit nearly normal host DNA degradation, DNA synthesis, late protein synthesis, and viable phage production. The das mutations either define a new gene between genes 33 and 34 or are special mutations within gene 33.
The effect of plausibility on sentence comprehension among older adults and its relation to cognitive functions.

Background/Study Context: Older adults show age-related decline in complex-sentence comprehension. This has been attributed to a decrease in cognitive abilities that may support language processing, such as working memory (e.g., Caplan, DeDe, Waters, & Michaud, 2011,Psychology and Aging, 26, 439–450). The authors examined whether older adults have difficulty comprehending semantically implausible sentences and whether specific executive functions contribute to their comprehension performance.Methods: Forty-two younger adults (aged 18–35) and 42 older adults (aged 55–75) were tested on two experimental tasks: a multiple negative comprehension task and an information processing battery.Results: Both groups, older and younger adults, showed poorer performance for implausible sentences than for plausible sentences; however, no interaction was found between plausibility and age group. A regression analysis revealed that inhibition efficiency, as measured by a task that required resistance to proactive interfer...
On Vapnik-Chervonenkis density over indiscernible sequences

In this paper, we study Vapnik-Chervonenkis density (VC-density) over indiscernible sequences (denoted VCind-density). We answer an open question in [1], showing that VCind-density is always integer valued. We also show that VCind-density and dp-rank coincide in the natural way.
Dialing in EGFR Signaling.

The ErbB family is a subfamily of receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs). In RTKs, ligand binding at the extracellular region triggers diverse cytoplasmic signaling cascades. Exactly how ligand binding is translated into specific signaling outcomes remains incompletely understood. In this issue, Doerner et al. (2015) provide insights into a role that the juxtamembrane (JM) region of a representative ErbB kinase, EGFR, plays in this process.
Evidence-based recommendations on storing and handling specimens for analyses of insect microbiota.

Research on insect microbiota has greatly expanded over the past decade, along with a growing appreciation of the microbial contributions to insect ecology and evolution. Many of these studies use DNA sequencing to characterize the diversity and composition of insect-associated microbial communities. The choice of strategies used for specimen collection, storage, and handling could introduce biases in molecular assessments of insect microbiota, but such potential influences have not been systematically evaluated. Likewise, although it is common practice to surface sterilize insects prior to DNA extraction, it is not known if this time-consuming step has any effect on microbial community analyses. To resolve these methodological unknowns, we conducted an experiment wherein replicate individual insects of four species were stored intact for two months using five different methods—freezing, ethanol, dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), cetrimonium bromide (CTAB), and room-temperature storage without preservative—and then subjected to whole-specimen 16S rRNA gene sequencing to assess whether the structure of the insect-associated bacterial communities was impacted by these different storage strategies. Overall, different insect species harbored markedly distinct bacterial communities, a pattern that was highly robust to the method used to store samples. Storage method had little to no effect on assessments of microbiota composition, and the magnitude of the effect differed among the insect species examined. No single method emerged as “best,” i.e., one consistently having the highest similarity in community structure to control specimens, which were not stored prior to homogenization and DNA sequencing. We also found that surface sterilization did not change bacterial community structure as compared to unsterilized insects, presumably due to the vastly greater microbial biomass inside the insect body relative to its surface. We therefore recommend that researchers can use any of the methods tested here, and base their choice according to practical considerations such as prior use, cost, and availability in the field, although we still advise that all samples within a study be handled in an identical manner when possible. We also suggest that, in large-scale molecular studies of hundreds of insect specimens, surface sterilization may not be worth the time and effort involved. This information should help researchers design sampling strategies and will facilitate cross-comparisons and meta-analyses of microbial community data obtained from insect specimens preserved in different ways.
Predictors of Physical Altercation among Adolescents in Residential Substance Abuse Treatment

This study tested the hypothesis that basic social information-processing components represented by family conflict, peer aggression, and pro-aggression cognitive scripts are related to aggression and social problems among adolescents in substance abuse treatment. The sample consisted of 547 adolescents in two community-based residential facilities. Correlation results indicated that more peer aggression is related to more pro-aggression scripts; scripts, peer aggression, and family conflict are associated with social problems; and in-treatment physical altercation involvement is predicted by higher peer aggression. Findings suggest that social information-processing components are valuable for treatment research.
On Adding Sound to Quiet Vehicles

Alternative energy vehicles such as hybrids and electric tend to run quieter than many hydrocarbon fueled vehicles. Their relative quietness could negatively affect pedestrian and driver safety bec...
Statistical monitoring of heteroscedastic dose-response profiles from high-throughput screening

In pharmaceutical drug discovery and agricultural crop product discovery, in vivo bioassay experiments are used to identify promising compounds for further research. The reproducibility and accuracy of the bioassay is crucial to be able to correctly distinguish between active and inactive compounds. In the case of agricultural product discovery, a replicated dose-response of commercial crop protection products is assayed and used to monitor test quality. The activity of these compounds on the test organisms, the weeds, insects, or fungi, is characterized by a dose-response curve measured from the bioassay. These curves are used to monitor the quality of the bioassays. If undesirable conditions in the bioassay arise, such as equipment failure or problems with the test organisms, then a bioassay monitoring procedure is needed to quickly detect such issues. In this article we illustrate a proposed nonlinear profile monitoring method to monitor the variability of multiple assays, the adequacy of the dose-response model chosen, and the estimated dose-response curves for aberrant cases in the presence of heteroscedasticity. We illustrate these methods with in vivo bioassay data collected over one year from DuPont Crop Protection.
A Liminal Press

In this project we use interview data from the United States and Europe to map field dynamics within an emerging techno-journalistic space of news app design. We describe this space in terms of institutional theory and field-level studies of news production and report on a series of interviews we conducted with senior news app designers and lead programmers. Part of a larger empirical study on mobile news app design, we focus here on analyzing how designers understand their work in relation to journalism as a profession and process, and how they see themselves as like or unlike others in their field. We conclude with reflections on how these designers are helping to constitute the organizational field of news app design by creating and sustaining boundary infrastructures that constitute an emerging “liminal press.”
A Comparison of Two Methods of Evaluation of Teat Skin Pathology

A split-plot design with repeated measures was used to test the relationship between visual teat skin condition score, the degree of transepidermal water loss from the skin, and the colonization by Staphylococcus aureus on experimentally chapped and inoculated teats of 20 lactating Holstein cows. Visual teat skin chapping score and the number of S. aureus colonies obtained from a teat skin swab were correlated (r = 0.53). Transepidermal water loss and S. aureus count were not correlated (r = 0.02). Results indicated that visual teat skin evaluation is superior to measurements of transepidermal water loss in the prediction of the susceptibility of teat skin to colonization by S. aureus.
Mechanical properties of sound and fissured rice kernels and their implications for rice breakage

Mechanical properties of brown rice kernels that were thin-layer dried at 60 °C and 17% relative humidity for 0, 10, 30, 50, 70, 90 and 120 min were measured by three-point bending tests after rice kernels were cooled to room temperature. The apparent modulus of elasticity, bending strength, and fracture energy of the sound brown rice kernels increased with longer drying, while the same properties of the fissured kernels were smaller than those of the sound kernels, especially for the bending strength and fracture energy. This explains why fissured kernels are much easier to break during milling. The finding that the bending strength and the fracture energy of the fissured brown rice kernels decreased with longer drying indicated that fissures were either created or propagated during the drying process, which weakened the fissured kernels as drying proceeded. Results indicated that mechanical properties measured on the sound kernels at different drying durations would not be affected by the loss of the sound kernels to fissured or broken kernels.
Mixed boundary value problems for elliptic and parabolic differential equations of second order

On considere les problemes aux valeurs limites mixtes suivants: Lu=f 1 dans Ω, Mu=f 2 sur Σ, u=f 3 sur ∂Ω/Σ avec L operateur elliptique et Pu=f 1 dans Ω×(0,T), Mu=f 2 sur Σ×(0,T), u=f 3 sur (∂Ω\Σ)×(0,T)∪Ω×{0} pour des operateurs P paraboliques. Pour des operateurs obliques generaux M et pour des domaines ou Σ et ∂Ω\Σ se rencontrent a des angles arbitraires, on montre l'existence de solutions classiques quand les angles sont non nuls et f 3 est continue de Holder
Estimated Risk of Developing Selected DSM-IV Disorders Among 5-Year-Old Children with Prenatal Cocaine Exposure

We estimated childhood risk of developing selected DSM-IV Disorders, including Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), and Separation Anxiety Disorder (SAD), in children with prenatal cocaine exposure (PCE). Children were enrolled prospectively at birth (n = 476) with prenatal drug exposures documented by maternal interview, urine and meconium assays. Study participants included 400 African-American children from the birth cohort, 208 cocaine-exposed (CE) and 192 non-cocaine-exposed (NCE), who attended a 5-year follow-up assessment and whose caregiver completed the Computerized Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children. Under a generalized linear model (logistic link), Fisher’s exact methods were used to estimate the PCE-associated relative risk (RR) of these disorders. Our results indicated a modest but statistically robust elevation of ADHD risk associated with increasing levels of PCE (p < 0.05). Binary comparison of CE versus NCE children indicated no PCE-associated RR. Estimated cumulative incidence proportions among CE children were 2.9% for ADHD (vs 3.1% NCE); 1.4% for SAD (vs 1.6% NCE); and 4.3% for ODD (vs 6.8% NCE). Our findings suggest evidence of increased risk of ADHD (but not ODD or SAD) in relation to an increasing gradient of PCE during gestation.
Multiwavelength pulse amplification gain dynamics of a semiconductor optical amplifier

The gain dynamics of a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) are studied for the amplification of long, short and multiwavelength pulses from an external cavity semiconductor mode-locked laser. Nonlinear effects such as carrier heating and cooling, four wave mixing, and self phase modulation are observed, and it is shown how the inherent chirp of semiconductor mode-locked laser pulses helps to avoid these nonlinear effects.
Organic Acids as Sources of Carbon for Ethylene Production

THE carbon sources in the growth media have been shown to affect the ethylene production by Penicillium digitatum. Fergus1 found mannose, mannitol, or citric acid as carbon sources resulted in good ethylene yields. Phan-Chon-Ton2 found glucose supported high ethylene production. Pyruvate also served as a carbon substrate for cultures capable of producing ethylene. While Spalding and Lieberman3 reported 0.1 M glucose superior to 0.1 M concentrations of pyruvate, malate, or citrate for ethylene synthesis, I reported4 0.119 M L-malic acid and 0.119 M potassium pyruvate superior to other carbon sources tested for ethylene production. In contrast to the previously described short-term experiments, time-course investigations lasting several days were performed. As shown below, commonly metabolized organic acids at 0.119 M were superior to glucose or mannitol, at the same molarity, in ethylene synthesis.
Food of Young-of-the-Year Lake Trout (Salvelinus Namaycush) in Presque Isle Harbor, Lake Superior

Abstract The food habits of young lake trout ( Salvelinus namaycush ) were studied by examining the digestive tracts of 293 young-of-the-year collected in Presque Isle Harbor, Lake Superior. Lake trout in the 25 to 27-mm length range started to eat food organisms before all of their yolk material was absorbed. Organisms consumed by the 25 to 27-mm young-of-the-year included Chironomidae, Copepoda (Harpacticoida, Calanoida, Cyclopoida), and Cladocerea ( Daphnia spp., Bosmina sp., Chydorus sp.). Chironomid pupae and chironomid larvae accounted for 74% and 5%, respectively, of the total volume of food eaten by the young lake trout in Presque Isle Harbor. Although copepods, cladocerans, and mysids were present in many stomachs, their contribution to the total volume of food was only 15%. Some lake trout in the 32 to 54-mm length range had consumed fry of sculpin ( Cottus spp.) or rainbow smelt ( Osmerus mordax ), but the overall contribution of fish fry to the total volume of food was only 4% (frequency of occurrence, 10%). The lake trout in Presque Isle Harbor fed heavily on planktonic organisms, sparingly on benthic organisms, and were opportunistic feeders that appeared to prey on whatever forage organisms were available in the shallow nearshore waters.
Comparison of Fick and thermodilution cardiac output determinations in standing horses

Abstract The Fick and thermodilution (TD) methods are two currently popular techniques for determination of cardiac output (CO) in adult horses. To our knowledge, a comparison of these two techniques has not been reported. Six healthy, resting, fit, adult horses of either sex and weighing 516.5 ± 33.2 kg (mean ± SD) were instrumented to enable measurement of cardiac output. Resting CO was determined by the Fick method and by thermodilution while the horses stood quietly in the stocks. Fick and thermodilution CO measurements were repeated under conditions of increased cardiac output achieved with the use of a dobutamine infusion (5 μg kg−1 min−1, IV), and again under conditions of decreased CO induced by administration of xylazine (0.5 mg/kg, IV). Fick and thermodilution cardiac outputs were compared using Bland–Altman analysis for repeated measures. The mean of the differences ± 1.96SD (bias and precision) between the two techniques was 1.88 ± 24.17 L/min. Variability between measurements with the two techniques was decreased to 3.41 ± 46.78 mL kg−1 min−1 when CO was normalized for body size by calculation of cardiac index.
Attitudes of medical students, housestaff, and faculty physicians toward euthanasia and termination of life-sustaining treatment.

ObjectivesMedical decisions concerning the prolongation of life, the right to die, and euthanasia are among the most extensively discussed decisions within medicine and law today. The responses of 360 physicians, housestaff, and medical students to a questionnaire were analyzed to identify attitudes
The Perception of Shape and Curvedness From Binocular Stereopsis and Structure From Motion

The integration of binocular stereopsis and kinetic depth was measured for two distinct aspects of 3-Dstructure: (1)shape index, which is a measure of scale-independent structure, and (2)curvedness, which is a measure of scale-dependent structure. We found that motion contributes significantly more to judged shape index than it does to judged curvedness, and stereo contributes significantly more to judged curvedness than it does to judged shape index. This suggests that the differences in the relative contribution of motion and stereo reported here occurred because these two sources do not equally specify the scale-dependent and scale-independent aspects of surface structure. Furthermore, these results seem to be inconsistent with integration models in which the different visual cues all initially contribute to the same single representation of 3-Dstructure.