cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The American Mineralogist crystal structure database

A database has been constructed that contains all the crystal structures previously published in the American Mineralogist. The database is called “The American Mineralogist Crystal Structure Database” and is freely accessible from the websites of the Mineralogical Society of America at http://www.minsocam.org/MSA/Crystal_Database.html and the University of Arizona. In addition to the database, a suite of interactive software is provided that can be used to view and manipulate the crystal structures and compute different properties of a crystal such as geometry, diffraction patterns, and procrystal electron densities. The database is set up so that the data can be easily incorporated into other software packages. Included at the website is an evolving set of guides to instruct the user and help with classroom education. parameters; (5) incorporating comments from either the original authors or ourselves when changes are made to the originally published data. Each record in the database consists of a bibliographic reference, cell parameters, symmetry, atomic positions, displacement parameters, and site occupancies. An example of a data set is provided in Figure 1. The first part of each data set contains identifying information, bibliography and notes, while the second part contains the crystallographic parameters. The first line of a data file contains an identifier, such as the name of the mineral or formula of the chemical species. The next line(s) contain the names of the authors, each separated by a comma. This is followed by the journal reference, title of the paper, and additional notes. The crystallographic data begins with a listing of the cell parameters and space group. If the data is given with respect to a non-standard space group origin then an asterisk precedes the space group symbol and the next line contains the translation vector from the standard origin. The 1952 edition of the International Tables for X-ray Crystallography are used to define the standard origin. The rest of the data set is a fixed-formatted listing of the atoms, their positional and displacement parameters, and occupancies. A header is provided that defines rightjustified columns. The name of each atom identifies the occupying elements, with additional identifiers added when appropriate. For instance, “Oco” identifies a particular oxygen atom in the albite structure. Some data sets report a crystallographic site occupied by molecular species rather than elemental, such as OH, water or methane. In most of these cases the atom name is denoted by molecular formula. For example, “CH4” denotes methane, and “Wat” denotes water. The displacement factors are tabulated in one of two formats, U’s or b’s
Air Bridge and Vertical Carbon Nanotube Switches for High Performance Switching Applications

Carbon nanotubes are attractive for switching applications since electrostatically-actuated CNT switches have low actuation voltages and power requirements, while allowing GHz switching speeds that stem from the inherently high elastic modulus and low mass of the CNT. Our first NEM structure, the air-bridge switch, consists of suspended single-walled nanotubes (SWNTs) that lie above a sputtered Nb electrode. Electrical measurements of these air-bridge devices show well-defined ON and OFF states as a dc bias of a few volts is applied. The switches were measured to have switching times down to a few nanoseconds. Our second NEM structure, the vertical CNT switch, consists of nanotubes grown perpendicular to the substrate. Vertical multi-walled nanotubes (MWNTs) are grown directly on a heavily doped Si substrate, from 200 – 300 nm wide, ~ 1 µm deep nano-pockets, with Nb metal electrodes to result in the formation of a vertical single-pole-double-throw CNT switch architecture.
Isolating the Effects of Active Responding in Computer-Based Instruction.

This experiment evaluated the effects of requiring overt answer construction in computer-based programmed instruction using an alternating treatments design. Four college students worked through an instructional program that alternated between presenting frames with blanks requiring overt responses and complete frames without blanks. All students produced a higher percentage of correct posttest answers corresponding to program segments that required overt answer construction.
Inhibition by Lysozyme of Growth of the Spherule Phase of Coccidioides immitis In Vitro

Development of mature endosporulating spherules from an endospore inoculum was markedly inhibited by human or hen egg-white (HEW) lysozyme at 5 mug/ml. Mature spherules formed in medium containing 5 mug per lysozyme per ml (3.3 x 10(-7) M) were approximately 50% smaller than control spherules. In addition, lysozyme induced a large portion of the endospore inoculum to revert to the mycelial growth phase. Increasing lysozyme concentrations to 10 or 20 mug/ml prompted a nearly complete reversion of the inoculum to the mycelial phase. Mature endosporulating spherules removed from growth medium and resuspended in a solution of human or HEW lysozyme at 18 mug/ml in distilled water prompted leakage of four to five times as much of materials absorbing maximally at 260 nm into the supernatant as untreated control spherules during 90 min of incubation. This four- to fivefold increase in nucleotide loss was evident at 4, 25, and 37 C. The permeability of 1-day-old immature spherules and 8-day-old endospores was considerably altered by lysozyme treatment of cells suspended in distilled water. Large amounts of potassium and nucleotides were rapidly lost by each type of cell when treated with 20 mug of lysozyme per ml. After 270 min of exposure to lysozyme, 98% of the immature spherules and 25% of the endospores were nonviable. Lysozyme adsorption by formalin-killed spherules in the presence of varying concentrations of calcium ion and the rapid alteration of permeability seen after lysozyme treatment suggested that the cell membrane was damaged as a result of binding lysozyme.
Identification of a cyclic adenosine 3',5'-monophosphate-response element in the rat aromatase promoter that is required for transcriptional activation in rat granulosa cells and R2C leydig cells.

Cytochrome P450 aromatase, which converts testosterone to estradiol, is transcriptionally induced by FSH and cAMP during ovarian follicular development. At least one promoter element [-82/-31 base pairs (bp)] required for stimulation of the rat gene in granulosa cells binds steroidogenic factor-1, an orphan steroid receptor. In this paper, we demonstrate that an additional region, -161/-138 bp is required for cAMP regulation. This region shares homology with promoter sequences in the bovine 21-hydroxylase and mouse 11 beta-hydroxylase genes that are also induced by cAMP, yet each binds different proteins in granulosa cell nuclear extracts. The aromatase -161/-138 bp region contains a cAMP-response element (CRE)-like sequence, TGCACGTCA. Deletion or mutation of this sequence reduces promoter activity of chimeric chloramphenicol acetyl transferase (CAT) reporter constructs that are transiently transfected into granulosa cells and R2C Leydig cells. Granulosa cell nuclear proteins and R2C cell nuclear protein...
UNSETTLING IMMIGRANT GEOGRAPHIES: US IMMIGRATION AND THE POLITICS OF SCALE

Investigations of immigration politics usually focus on national scale debates and policy initiatives. Immigrant settlement, however, is often highly concentrated in select regions and cities and it is in these places that immigration politics is most contentious. This paper examines these subnational politics of immigration in the United States and explores their relation to national immigration politics. The concentrated geography of immigrants in the United States intersects with a federalised system for dispersing welfare and other social costs of immigration. This creates tension between a central government with the responsibility for controlling admission and state/local governments who pay the social costs of immigrant incorporation. This dynamic of conflict has been exacerbated in recent years by the neoliberal governance strategy of downloading. Geographic concentration has other consequences for the ways in which immigration politics develops, specifically the challenges that visible difference in the landscape poses to national identity. In regard to the latter, the paper echoes Vron Ware by suggesting that an important challenge for diverse immigrant societies is to reimagine all of the nation's territory as multiethnic/multicultural, not just the locations where immigrants cluster.
Transformations and Critical Moments in Negotiations

Transformation is not a new concept in the conflict literature. It forms the foundation for a particular school of thought in mediation and plays a major role in the analysis of international conflicts. More-over, it shapes the goals and processes for managing public conflicts through dialogue and democracy. Although transformation surfaces in a variety of conflict management arenas, this concept has received only a modicum of attention in the negotiation literature. This article centers on the definition and features of critical moments in negotiation that might foster conflict transformation. It draws from the literature on conflict transformation and applies this work to negotiations. First, the author explores the definitions, characteristics, and types of shifts that set up transformations. Then she examines internal and external factors that contribute to transformative moments. Finally, the essay concludes with a discussion of distinctions between transformation and related constructs, suggestions for conducting research, and implications of this work for negotiation research.
Cupping artifact correction and automated classification for high-resolution dedicated breast CT images

Purpose: To develop and test an automated algorithm to classify the different tissues present in dedicated breast CT images. Methods: The original CT images are first corrected to overcome cupping artifacts, and then a multiscale bilateral filter is used to reduce noise while keeping edge information on the images. As skin and glandular tissues have similar CT values on breast CT images, morphologic processing is used to identify the skin mask based on its position information. A modified fuzzy C-means (FCM) classification method is then used to classify breast tissue as fat and glandular tissue. By combining the results of the skin mask with the FCM, the breast tissue is classified as skin, fat, and glandular tissue. To evaluate the authors’ classification method, the authors use Dice overlap ratios to compare the results of the automated classification to those obtained by manual segmentation on eight patient images. Results: The correction method was able to correct the cupping artifacts and improve the quality of the breast CT images. For glandular tissue, the overlap ratios between the authors’ automatic classification and manual segmentation were 91.6% ± 2.0%. Conclusions: A cupping artifact correction method and an automatic classification method were applied and evaluated for high-resolution dedicated breast CT images. Breast tissue classification can provide quantitative measurements regarding breast composition, density, and tissue distribution.
Diversity of rotifers from northeastern U.S.A. bogs with new species records for North America and New England

The first geographically extensive survey of rotifers in New England (U.S.A.) bogs is presented. Rotifers were collected during the summers of 1999 and 2000 from 31 bogs occurring throughout Vermont and Massachusetts, and in northwestern Connecticut. The survey incorporates three microhabitats within bogs: the bog ponds, interstitial (pore) water, and water-filled leaves of the northern pitcher-plant, Sarracenia purpurea L. Species similarity of these three habitats was low (Jaccard indices of similarity <0.25). During the survey over 50 000 individuals in 38 species were collected including Cephalodella anebodica Berzins and Colurella obtusa clausa (Hauer) which are reported for the first time from North America. Fifteen new species records for New England, 5 for Connecticut, 26 for Massachusetts and 20 for Vermont are also reported. Species richness of rotifers increased significantly with bog elevation but not with latitude, longitude, or bog area. The current known North American distribution of the rotifers we found in these bogs is presented for comparison.
Loss and Birefringence for Arbitrarily Bent Optical Fibres

We present a calculation to determine the radiation losses for arbitrarily bent, weakly guiding optical fibres. Our results are derived for the full set of vector Maxwell's equations, and show that the rate of energy loss due to radiation differs for the various modes
Age-related changes in brain activation during a delayed item recognition task.

To test competing models of age-related changes in brain functioning (capacity limitation, neural efficiency, compensatory reorganization, and dedifferentiation), young (n = 40; mean age = 25.1 years) and elderly (n = 18; mean age = 74.4 years) subjects performed a delayed item recognition task for visually presented letters with three set sizes (1, 3, or 6 letters) while being scanned with BOLD fMRI. Spatial patterns of brain activity corresponding to either the slope or y-intercept of fMRI signal with respect to set size during memory set encoding, retention delay, or probe stimulus presentation trial phases were compared between elder and young populations. Age effects on fMRI slope during encoding and on fMRI y-intercept during retention delay were consistent with neural inefficiency; age effects on fMRI slope during retention delay were consistent with dedifferentiation. None of the other fMRI signal components showed any detectable age effects. These results suggest that, even within the same task, the nature of brain activation changes with aging can vary based on cognitive process engaged.
Uterine Lysosomal Enzyme Activity during Ovum Implantation and Early Decidualization

Changes in lysosomal enzyme activities were measured during early pregnancy in implantation and nonimplantation uterine segments. Increases in arylsulfatase B and acid phosphatase activity some 48 h after initial blastocyst contact with the endometrium appeared to result from decidualization of the endometrial stroma. In contrast to the decrease previously observed in cathepsin D activity, no change was observed in cathepsin B,, another lysosomal protease. The diversity of changes in lysosomal enzyme activities suggests the involvement of these enzymes in early stromal differentiation rather than in ovum implantation.
Improving the temporal resolution of tomographic images using a PI-line based backprojection filtration algorithm

The fan-beam backprojection filtration (BPF) algorithm is unique in that the temporal resolution of a given pixel within a region-of-interest (ROI) image is related directly to the location of the PI-line segment used to reconstruct this pixel. In particular, a pixel within a PI-line segment crossing the edge of the field-of-view (FOV) exhibits a better temporal resolution than a pixel within a PI-line segment crossing the center of the FOV. This unique property of the BPF algorithm can be exploited by acquiring projection data with the object shifted towards the edge of the FOV and then reconstructing an ROI covering the object with the BPF algorithm. This study demonstrates that this technique, termed off-center object positioning, can be used to suppress motion artifacts. A dynamic ball phantom undergoing contractile motion during 80% of its temporal cycle was given six cycle rates ranging from 60 to 120 cycles per minute (cpm). At each cycle rate, projection data were acquired at five different elevations. These elevations, which represented the distance from the bottom of the phantom to isocenter, ranged from 0 to 15 cm. Mean absolute difference MAD, root mean square error RMS, and correlation CORR metrics were applied over the same ROI reconstructed from motion-contaminated and motion-free data. Our results show that quantitative metrics for BPF reconstructions improved with increasing object elevation over a wide range of cycle rates
A performance study of some transient detectors

We present a simulation study of several different statistics applied to the detection of unknown transient signals in white Gaussian noise. The results suggest that relatively unsophisticated tests based on temporal localization of power, such as the Page (1954) test and a test based on a new statistic due to Nuttall (see NUWC-NPT Tech. Rep. 11123, 1996, and NUWC-NPT Tech. Rep. 10822, 1997), give reliable results.
Land application of poultry manure and its influence on spectrofluorometric characteristics of dissolved organic matter

Abstract Land application of manure is a common practice that is used to supplement nutrients from fertilizers as well as to reuse and recycle waste in agricultural watersheds. Excess application of manure can however result in elevated exports of organic and inorganic nutrients in runoff. We evaluated the concentration and composition of dissolved organic matter (DOM) in runoff from cropland (corn) receiving poultry manure. Manure was applied once every three years at the rate of 9 Mg ha−1 in early spring and was incorporated into the soil during application. Surface runoff and soil water sampling was performed for eight natural storm events with one storm event prior to manure application. Samples were collected from the field edge, upland and lowland riparian zones and a receiving stream. Concentrations of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) were highest at the field edge (mean: 94 mg L−1) and then declined sharply for the riparian and stream locations. Temporally, DOC concentrations in field runoff were highest for the first storm event following manure application and then declined quickly over the next 1–3 weeks. DOM composition in runoff following manure application had low aromaticity and a microbial/tryptophan-like character. These characteristics evolved with time toward more aromatic, more humic, and a terrestrial-like DOM composition. The decrease in runoff DOM was attributed to sorption and microbial degradation. Our observations suggest that while concentrations of DOM can be low in manure runoff, a short period (1–3 weeks) following manure application could be an environmentally sensitive and vulnerable period for runoff water quality.
Morbid complications of otitic hydrocephalus.

Purpose: To report two cases of otitic hydrocephalus with long-term complications. Design Retrospective case reports. Participants: Two patients with otitic hydrocephalus with previously diagnosed otitis media. Methods: Review of clinical history, radiographic findings, medical and surgical management, and follow-up. Results: Two patients with previously diagnosed otitis media presented with otitic hydrocephalus. Both were found to have elevated opening pressures with lumbar puncture and radiographic evidence of sinus thrombosis. Although the patients received appropriate medical and surgical management, they both suffered long-term complications. Patient 1 is dependent on a ventriculoperitoneal shunt to control headaches and has required multiple shunt revisions. Patient 2 is dependent on a ventriculoperitoneal shunt to control headaches and has permanent decreased visual acuity and bilateral optic neuropathy. During her clinical course, she required an optic nerve sheath fenestration. Conclusions: Otiti...
The Application of Attachment Theory and Family Systems Theory to the Phenomena of Parentification

Attachment theory and family systems theory, taken together, are proffered as a potential framework to understand the adverse effects of parentification. Attachment theory helps clarify the process of parentification as it involves the relationship between child and parent and/or caregiver. Family systems theory gives clarity to the context (i.e., the family system) in which parentification takes place. Internal working models are discussed as the mechanism through which meaning making about the parentification process happens and thereby informs the opportunity for positive and negative outcomes in adulthood. The proposed framework allows for a potentially broader view of this ubiquitous phenomenon parentification.
Age at first intercourse and subsequent sexual partnering among adult women in the United States, a cross-sectional study.

Background: Concurrency and serial monogamy may increase risk for STIs when gaps fall within the infectious period. This study examined the association between early sexual debut and concurrent or serial sexual partnering among heterosexual adult women. Methods: We identified 6,791 heterosexually active women, ages 21–44, from the 2006–2010 National Survey of Family Growth, a multi-stage probability sample of women in the United States. Self-reported age at first intercourse was categorized as <15, 15–17 and ≥18 years (referent). Sexual partnering was defined as concurrency (within the same month), serial monogamy with either a 1– 3m onth, or≥4 month gap between partners, or monogamy (referent) in the year prior to interview. Polytomous logistic models provided adjusted odds ratios (aOR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI). Results: Concurrent partnerships in the year prior to interview were reported by 5.2% of women. Serial monogamy with a 1–3 month gap was reported by 2.5% of women. Compared with women whose sexual debut was ≥18 years, those <15 years at sexual initiation had 3.7 times the odds of reporting concurrent partnerships (aOR: 3.72; 95% CI: 2.46-5.62). Women <15 years of age at sexual debut had twice the odds of serial monogamy with gap lengths of 1–3 months between partners (aOR1–3 months: 2.13; 95% CI 1.15-3.94) as compared to women ≥18 years at sexual debut. Conclusions: Sexual debut at <15 years is associated with both concurrency and serial monogamy with 1– 3m onth gaps between partners in U.S. women aged 21–44.
Changes in the intraaneurysmal pressure due to HydroCoil embolization

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to measure the changes in the intraaneurysmal fluid pressure and parent vessel flow characteristics resulting from packing the aneurysmal sac with hydrogel-coated coils. METHODS: Platinum coils coated with an expansible hydrogel were used to embolize a silicone model of the basilar tip aneurysm. The intraaneurysmal fluid pressure was measured with a NeuroCare Camino Pressure Micro-Probe at various packing ratios. A programmable pulsatile pump was used to input a physiologically relevant pulsatile flow in the parent artery. RESULTS: The intraaneurysmal fluid pressure did not increase when packing the aneurysm with hydrogel-coated platinum coils, even with a coil density up to 93%. CONCLUSION: Packing the aneurysm with hydrogel-coated coils at a density up to 93% did not increase the intraaneurysmal fluid pressure. Endovascular treatment for intracranial aneurysms has been developed over the past decade as an alternative to surgery. The Guglielmi detachable coil (GDC) system is extensively used. There are, however, potential problems associated with endovascular therapy using bare platinum coils, such the risk of aneurysmal recurrence or coil compaction. MicroVention has introduced the HydroCoil Embolic System (HES; MicroVention, Aliso Viejo, CA), which has been designed to fill the aneurysm cavity and potentially diminish the observed rates of aneurysmal recanalization by the means of an expansible hydrophilic polymer coating on platinum helical coils. It has been previously reported that placing noncoated coils (either a single coil [1], or multiple coils [2, 3]) with complete filling of the aneurysmal sac) does not change the mean intraaneurysmal fluid pressure. There is some uncertainty about the possibility that the expansible hydrogel coating the coils might increase the intraaneurysmal fluid pressure when fully expanded, extrude into the parent vessel, or exert pressure on the aneurysm wall. The aim of our study was to evaluate and measure the effect of the fully hydrated gel on the intraaneurysmal fluid pressure for different degrees of aneurysmal packing. We also evaluated the possibility of parent vessel compromise in a particular aneurysm model. After the hydrocoils were placed, measurements of the velocity field were taken to characterize the effect of aneurysmal packing on the flow in the parent vessel and to ensure that no hydrogel has extruded into the vessel. We did not attempt to measure an exerted pressure on the aneurysm wall in the present study.
Master curves based on time integration of thermal work in particulate materials

Thermal cycle designs for sintering and thermal decomposition processes are one of the most critical steps to produce quality components using any of the several particulate materials processing options. Recently, researchers have been applying the concept of time integration of thermal work to sintering and thermal decomposition processes for analysing and optimising thermal processes. This concept provides a master curve for a given material system, which is very useful in real application. This paper provides the theoretical background and applications in these master curve approaches: Master Sintering Curves (MSC) for grain growth and densification; and Master Decomposition Curve (MDC) for thermal debinding/delubrication processes.
Posterior vs Parameter Sparsity in Latent Variable Models

We address the problem of learning structured unsupervised models with moment sparsity typical in many natural language induction tasks. For example, in unsupervised part-of-speech (POS) induction using hidden Markov models, we introduce a bias for words to be labeled by a small number of tags. In order to express this bias of posterior sparsity as opposed to parametric sparsity, we extend the posterior regularization framework [7]. We evaluate our methods on three languages — English, Bulgarian and Portuguese — showing consistent and significant accuracy improvement over EM-trained HMMs, and HMMs with sparsity-inducing Dirichlet priors trained by variational EM. We increase accuracy with respect to EM by 2.3%-6.5% in a purely unsupervised setting as well as in a weakly-supervised setting where the closed-class words are provided. Finally, we show improvements using our method when using the induced clusters as features of a discriminative model in a semi-supervised setting.
Low Rates of Hepatitis B Virus Screening at the Onset of Chemotherapy

Purpose: Patients with hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection are at risk for reactivation after chemotherapy. Effective prophylaxis is available but depends on detection of prior infection. Previous studies have shown low screening rates, but no large-scale US studies have been conducted. We sought to determine predictors of screening and positive HBV test results in patients receiving chemotherapy. Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of patients with newly diagnosed cancer who received chemotherapy between January 2004 and September 2007 at a comprehensive cancer center. We determined rates and predictors of screening for HBV infection with HB surface antigen (HBsAg) and antibody to hepatitis B core antigen (anti-HBc) tests as well as the prevalence and predictors of positive results. We explored rates of acutely elevated liver function tests and liver decompensation after chemotherapy. Results: Of 10,729 new patients who received chemotherapy, 1,787 (16.7%) underwent HBsAg or anti-HBc screening. Less than 20% of patients with HBV risk factors were screened, even though their odds of HBV infection were increased four-fold compared with those without risk factors. The prevalence of chronic HBV infection was 1.5%. whereas 7.4% had positive anti-HBc only. The strongest predictors of HBV screening were having a history of HBV infection, hematologic malignancy, and rituximab treatment (P .001). Asian ethnicity was not a significant predictor of screening, despite being a strong and highly significant predictor of positive test results (P .001). Conclusion: HBV screening among patients with cancer is low, especially among those known to be at high risk for HBV infection. Future research directed toward identifying best screening methods and HBV risk tools will be necessary to reduce the risk of reactivation of HBV infection after chemotherapy.
Can Visual Field Progression be Predicted by Confocal Scanning Laser Ophthalmoscopic Imaging of the Optic Nerve Head in Glaucoma? (An American Ophthalmological Society Thesis)

To determine whether confocal scanning laser ophthalmoscopic imaging (Heidelberg retinal tomography [HRT]) can predict visual field change in glaucoma.The study included 561 patients with glaucoma or ocular hypertension whose clinical course was followed at the Mount Sinai Faculty practice. Humphrey visual fields (HVFs) and HRT images were collected on one randomly selected eye per patient. Glaucoma progression was determined by the presence of two sequential statistically significant negative slopes in mean deviation (MD) or visual field index (VFI) at any point during the study period. Trend-based analysis on HRT parameters was used to determine progressive changes and whether these occurred before or after HVF change. Sensitivity and specificity of HRT to predict HVF change were calculated. HVF rate of change was correlated to the rate of change detected by HRT imaging.Approximately 17% of patients progressed by either MD or VFI criteria. MD and VFI correlated highly and identified overlapping sets of patients as progressing. HRT global parameters had poor sensitivity (∼42%) and moderate specificity (∼67%) to predict HVF progression. Regional stereometric parameters were more sensitive (69%-78%) but significantly less specific (24%-27%). Sensitivity of global stereometric parameters in detecting HVF change was not significantly affected by the level of visual field damage (P=.3, Fisher exact test). HVF rate of change did not correlate with rate of change of HRT parameters.Trend-based analysis of HRT parameters has poor sensitivity and specificity in predicting HVF change. This may be related specifically to HRT imaging or may reflect the fact that in some patients with glaucoma, functional changes precede structural alterations.
LowPower CMOS Digital Circuits

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Power and Energy Definitions Power and Energy Consumption in Digital Circuits Switching Activity in CMOS Digital Systems Reduction of Energy in CMOS Digital Circuits Adiabatic Computing This chapter contains sections titled: Appendix A Appendix B References ]]>
Robust Option Pricing with Characteristic Functions and the B-Spline Order of Density Projection

This paper extends and refines the method of option pricing by frame projection of risk-neutral densities to incorporate general B-splines, including the cubic basis, and general payoff structures. We introduce a coefficient stabilization method which substantially improves convergence for higher order splines. This stabilization has subsequently provided robust implementations for exotic option extensions of the method. After demonstrating the greater robustness of a fixed-width truncation rule over generally accepted cumulant based approaches, we devise a novel Hilbert transform based approach for the selection of truncated density supports, applicable to any density approximation method, which facilitates greater control over realized pricing errors. Robustness of B-spline frame projection is demonstrated by an extensive set of experiments which guide the selection of splines of various orders and subsequent parameter decisions. Finally, we provide formulas for digital and forward starting options.
Barrier height inhomogeneity and its impact on (Al,In,Ga)N Schottky diodes

III-N materials, especially ternary and quaternary alloys, are profoundly affected by barrier height inhomogeneity as evidenced by great variability in reported barrier height and Richardson constant values for Schottky diode samples involving epilayers with identical material composition. Research into AlInGaN-based devices is gaining traction due to its usefulness for strain engineering, polarization engineering, and vertical device design. Thus it is important to characterize the Schottky barrier height between AlInGaN and technologically relevant metals like nickel. It is proposed that alloy composition fluctuations inherent to low-temperature III-N alloys result in a Schottky barrier height inhomogeneity, and that the Schottky barrier height follows a Gaussian distribution. Current vs voltage data as a function of temperature was measured for three AlInGaN samples of varying composition. Utilizing a model tailored to thermionic emission over a Gaussian distribution of barriers, both the average barrier height and the standard deviation in the distribution were extracted from experimental data via multiple linear regression. Average barrier height was found to correlate with the AlInGaN band gap, while the standard deviation in barrier height increased with aluminum and indium concentration on the group-III sublattice.
Cycloheximide inhibition of gastric secretion in the rat.

SummaryCycloheximide, at a dose (0.5 mg/kg, i.m.) which is known to inhibit incorporation of amino acids in the proteins of the stomach was found to decrease gastric secretory volume and acid and pepsin production in rats with pylorus ligation. When various stimuli to gastric secretion (alcohol, insulin, gastrin pentapeptide, and 2-deoxyglucose) were given, there were smaller absolute responses in the cycloheximide-treated rats than in controls.
Runtime System for I/O Staging in Support of In-Situ Processing of Extreme Scale Data

Our research in this project focused on creating and evaluating an I/O infrastructure and tools for extreme-scale applications and machines so that scientists can reduce their time to discovery at small cost in machine resources and consequent power consumption. We wanted to provide tools that are highly scalable, portable, and easy-to-use, so that scientists can gain control of their science, and concentrate on producing important scientific discovery in their own domain. Accelerating the rate of insight and scientific productivity, therefore, demands new solutions to managing the avalanche of data expected at extreme scale.
Adolescent binge-pattern alcohol exposure alters genome-wide DNA methylation patterns in the hypothalamus of alcohol-naïve male offspring.

Abstract Teenage binge drinking is a major health concern in the United States, with 21% of teenagers reporting binge-pattern drinking behavior in the previous 30 days. Recently, our lab showed that alcohol-naive offspring of rats exposed to alcohol during adolescence exhibited altered gene expression profiles in the hypothalamus, a brain region involved in stress regulation. We employed Enhanced Reduced Representation Bisulfite Sequencing as an unbiased approach to test the hypothesis that parental exposure to binge-pattern alcohol during adolescence alters DNA methylation profiles in their alcohol-naive offspring. Wistar rats were administered a repeated binge-ethanol exposure paradigm during early (postnatal day (PND) 37–44) and late (PND 67–74) adolescent development. Animals were mated 24 h after the last ethanol dose and subsequent offspring were produced. Analysis of male PND7 offspring revealed that offspring of alcohol-exposed parents exhibited differential DNA methylation patterns in the hypothalamus. The differentially methylated cytosines (DMCs) were distinct between offspring depending on which parent was exposed to ethanol. Moreover, novel DMCs were observed when both parents were exposed to ethanol and many DMCs from single parent ethanol exposure were not recapitulated with dual parent exposure. We also measured mRNA expression of several differentially methylated genes and some, but not all, showed correlative changes in expression. Importantly, methylation was not a direct predictor of expression levels, underscoring the complexity of transcriptional regulation. Overall, we demonstrate that adolescent binge ethanol exposure causes altered genome-wide DNA methylation patterns in the hypothalamus of alcohol-naive offspring.
Key role of drug shops and pharmacies for family planning in Urban Nigeria and Kenya

Background: The Family Planning 2020 initiative aims to reach 120 million new family planning users by 2020. Drug shops and pharmacies are important private-sector sources of contraception in many contexts but are less well understood than public-sector sources especially in urban environments. This article explores the role that drug shops and pharmacies play in the provision of contraceptive methods in selected urban areas of Nigeria and Kenya as well as factors associated with womens choice of where to obtain these methods. Methods: Using data collected in 2010/2011 from representative samples of women in selected urban areas of Nigeria and Kenya as well as a census of pharmacies and drug shops audited in 2011 we examine the role of drug shops and pharmacies in the provision of short-acting contraceptive methods and factors associated with a womens choice of family planning source. Results: In urban Nigeria and Kenya drug shops and pharmacies were the major source for the family planning methods of oral contraceptive pills emergency contraceptives and condoms. The majority of injectable users obtained their method from public facilities in both countries but 14% of women in Nigeria and 6% in Kenya obtained injectables from drug shops or pharmacies. Harder-to-reach populations were the most likely to choose these outlets to obtain their short-acting methods. For example among users of these methods in Nigeria younger women (<25 years old) were significantly more likely to obtain their method from a drug shop or pharmacy than another type of facility. In both countries family planning users who had never been married were significantly more likely than married users to obtain these methods from a drug shop or a pharmacy than from a public-sector health facility. Low levels of family planning-related training (57% of providers in Kenya and 41% in Nigeria had received training) and lack of family planning promotional activities in pharmacies and drug shops in both countries indicate the need for additional support from family planning programs to leverage this important access point. Conclusions: Drug shops and pharmacies offer an important and under-leveraged mechanism for expanding family planning access to women in urban Nigeria and Kenya and potentially elsewhere. Vulnerable and harder-to-reach groups such as younger unmarried women and women who do not yet have children are the most likely to benefit from increased access to family planning at drug shops and pharmacies.
Merging opinions by social sampling of posteriors

Inspired by opinion formation models for social networks, we consider a scenario wherein a third party or external agent solicits information from agents who can sample and observe an underlying parameter. Different sharing mechanisms are natural depending on the problem parameters. We examine some of these schemes and what the external agent needs to know about the observations. We draw a connection between opinion merging and some ideas from Markov chain Monte Carlo.
Quercetin Glucoside Production by Engineered Escherichia coli

Escherichia coli strains expressing the O-glucosyltransferases UGT73B3 or UGT84B1 were compared for the production of glucosides from quercetin supplied into a defined medium. The formation of quercetin-3-glucoside (Q3G) by UGT73B3 showed a maximum at 33 °C, while the formation of quercetin-7-glucoside by UGT84B1 increased with increasing temperature to 37 °C. The highest concentrations of Q3G were attained by strains having a deletion in the pgi gene-coding phosphoglucose isomerase, which effectively blocked the entry of glucose-6P into the Embden–Meyerhof–Parnas pathway. Formation of Q3G was improved in 1-L controlled bioreactors compared to shake flask cultures, a result attributed to the greater oxygen transfer rate in bioreactors. Under batch conditions with 30 g/L glucose as the sole carbon source, E. coli MEC367 (MG1655 pgi) expressing UGT73B3 generated 3.9 g/L Q3G in 56 h.
Solubility of Fibrin Clots in Monochloroacetic Acid: A Reflection of Serum Pepsinogen Levels

Fibrin clots formed from normal plasma dissolve readily in 1% monochloroacetic acid at 37 C. However, if the clots are washed thoroughly before the acid is added, they are no longer soluble. The agent present in the serum which causes dissolution of the fibrin clot was isolated and identified as pepsinogen. Because of the low pH of monochloroacetic acid the pepsinogen is activated and the clots are digested, simulating the dispersion of a fibrin clot which occurs in the absence of fibrin-stabilizing factor (factor XIII). Because of its higher pH, urea will not activate pepsinogen and is therefore a better agent to screen factor XIII deficiencies.
Incidence and Risk Factors for Chronic Postoperative Opioid Use After Major Spine Surgery: A Cross-Sectional Study With Longitudinal Outcome.

BACKGROUND Chronic opioid use is a significant public health concern. Surgery is a risk factor for developing chronic opioid use. Patients undergoing major spine surgery frequently are prescribed opioids preoperatively and may be at risk for chronic opioid use postoperatively. The aim of this study was to investigate the incidence of and perioperative risk factors associated with chronic opioid use after major spine surgery. METHODS The records of patients who underwent elective major spine surgery at the University of Virginia between March 2011 and February 2016 were retrospectively reviewed. The primary outcome was chronic opioid use through 12 months postoperatively. Demographic data, medical comorbidities, preoperative pain scores, and medication use including daily morphine-equivalent (ME) dose, intraoperative use of lidocaine and ketamine, estimated blood loss, postoperative pain scores and medication use, and postoperative opioid use were collected. Logistic regression models were used to examine factors associated with chronic opioid use. RESULTS Of 1477 patient records reviewed, 412 patients (27.9%) were opioid naive and 1065 patients (72.3%) used opioids before surgery. Opioid data were available for 1325 patients, while 152 patients were lost to 12-month follow-up and were excluded. Of 958 preoperative opioid users, 498 (52.0%) remained chronic users through 12 months. There was a decrease in opioid dosage (mg ME) from preoperative to 12 months postoperatively with a mean difference of -14.7 mg ME (standard deviation, 1.57; 95% confidence interval [CI], -17.8 to -11.7). Among 367 previously opioid-naive patients, 67 (18.3%) became chronic opioid users. Factors associated with chronic opioid use were examined using logistic regression models. Preoperative opioid users were nearly 4 times more likely to be chronic opioid users through 12 months than were opioid-naive patients (odds ratio, 3.95; 95% CI, 2.51-6.33; P < .001). Mean postoperative pain score (0-10) was associated with increased odds of chronic opioid use (odds ratio for a 1 unit increase in pain score 1.25, 95% CI, 1.13-1.38; P < .001). Use of intravenous ketamine or lidocaine was not associated with chronic opioid use through 12 months. CONCLUSIONS Greater than 70% of patients presenting for major spine surgery used opioids preoperatively. Preoperative opioid use and higher postoperative pain scores were associated with chronic opioid use through 12 months. Use of ketamine and lidocaine did not decrease the risk for chronic opioid use. Surveillance of patients for these factors may identify those at highest risk for chronic opioid use and target them for intervention and reduction strategies.
Characterizing and Mitigating Output Reporting Bottlenecks in Spatial Automata Processing Architectures

Automata processing has seen a resurgence in importance due to its usefulness for pattern matching and pattern mining of "big data." While large-scale automata processing is known to bottleneck von Neumann processors due to unpredictable memory accesses, spatial architectures excel at automata processing. Spatial architectures can implement automata graphs by wiring together automata states in reconfigurable arrays, allowing parallel automata state computation, and point-to-point state transitions on-chip. However, spatial automata processing architectures can suffer from output constraints (up to 255x in commercial systems!) due to the physical placement of states, output processing architecture design, I/O resources, and the massively parallel nature of the architecture. To understand this bottleneck, we conduct the first known characterization of output requirements of a realistic set of automata processing benchmarks. We find that most benchmarks report fairly frequently, but that few states report at any one time. This observation motivates new output compression schemes and reporting architectures. We evaluate the benefit of one purely software automata transformation and show that output reporting costs can be greatly reduced (improving performance by up to 40% without hardware modification. We then explore bottlenecks in the reporting architecture of a commercial spatial automata processor and propose a new architecture that improves performance by up to 5.1x.
Endocrine Surgery in the Geriatric Population

Age must be a factor when considering endocrine surgery. Age itself is a risk factor for complications after thyroidectomy, specifically pulmonary, infectious, and cardiac complications. For this reason, in patients with nodular thyroid disease or thyroid microcarcinoma, length of observation must be measured against age and surgical risk. Outcomes of thyroid surgery in geriatric patients can be improved with several measures, including careful preoperative risk stratification based on comorbidities and frailty. In this population subset, it is imperative to have an earnest discussion with patients, their families, and any surrogate decision maker regarding potential outcomes of treatment versus observation.