cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Feature-cost sensitive learning with submodular trees of classifiers

During the past decade, machine learning algorithms have become commonplace in large-scale real-world industrial applications. In these settings, the computation time to train and test machine learning algorithms is a key consideration. At training-time the algorithms must scale to very large data set sizes. At testing-time, the cost of feature extraction can dominate the CPU runtime. Recently, a promising method was proposed to account for the feature extraction cost at testing time, called Cost-sensitive Tree of Classifiers (CSTC). Although the CSTC problem is NP-hard, the authors suggest an approximation through a mixed-norm relaxation across many classifiers. This relaxation is slow to train and requires involved optimization hyperparameter tuning. We propose a different relaxation using approximate submodularity, called Approximately Submodular Tree of Classifiers (ASTC). ASTC is much simpler to implement, yields equivalent results but requires no optimization hyperparameter tuning and is up to two orders of magnitude faster to train.
Characterization of the Wtm Proteins, a Novel Family of Saccharomyces cerevisiae Transcriptional Modulators with Roles in Meiotic Regulation and Silencing

Transcription is regulated by the complex interplay of repressors and activators. Much of this regulation is carried out by, in addition to gene-specific factors, complexes of more general transcriptional modulators. Here we present the characterization of a novel family of transcriptional regulators in yeast. Wtm1p (WD repeat-containing transcriptional modulator) was identified as a protein present in a large nuclear complex. This protein has two homologs, Wtm2p and Wtm3p, which probably arose by gene duplications. Deletion of these genes affects transcriptional repression at several loci, including derepression of IME2, a meiotic gene normally repressed in haploid cells. Targeting of these proteins to DNA resulted in a dramatic repression of activated transcription. In common with a mutation in the histone deacetylase RPD3, wtm mutants showed increased repression at the silent mating-type locus, HMR, and at telomeres. Although all three Wtm proteins could act as transcriptional repressors, Wtm3p, which is the least homologous, appeared to have functions separate from those of the other two. Wtm3p did not appear to be complexed with the other two proteins, was essential for IME2 repression, and could not efficiently repress transcription in the absence of the other Wtm proteins. These data suggested that Wtm1p and Wtm2p are repressors and that Wtm3p has different effects on transcription at different loci.
Central tower concentrating solar power (CSP) systems

Abstract: In this chapter we first address the conception, design and construction of central receiver tower systems, including a summary of commercial plants operating or in construction. We then discuss a variety of issues affecting the design and performance of central receiver systems. These include initial considerations, elements of cost and performance, characteristics of the heliostat, characteristics of the receiver, and any external constraints on the design such as flux density limitations or land constraints. Finally, several variants on the simple configuration are critically discussed.
Effects of post-anthesis fertilizer on the protein composition of the gluten polymer in a US bread wheat

Abstract Both genetic and environmental factors influence the types and amounts of wheat proteins that link together to form polymers essential for flour quality. To understand how plant growth conditions might influence gluten polymer formation, protein fractions containing small and large polymers were separated from flour from the US wheat Butte 86 grown in the absence or presence of post-anthesis fertilizer. Proteins in the polymer fractions were analyzed by quantitative two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE). The ratio of high molecular weight glutenin subunits (HMW-GS) to low molecular weight glutenin subunits (LMW-GS) increased in both fractions in response to fertilizer, due in part to small increases in the proportions of individual HMW-GS. There were also changes within the LMW-GS. In particular, omega and alpha chain terminators increased in proportion in both polymer fractions, but changes were more pronounced in the large polymer fractions. Serpins also increased in both polymer fractions. Additionally, the study revealed differences in the proportions of traditional LMW-GS in small and large polymer fractions. LMW-s type proteins were more abundant in the large polymers while LMW-i type proteins were more prevalent in the small polymers, suggesting that these proteins may play different roles in the gluten polymer.
The Metropolitan Philadelphia Indicators Project: Measuring a Diverse Region

The Metropolitan Philadelphia Indicators Project (MPIP) is a multidisciplinary research initiative that gathers and makes available data describing the Philadelphia Metropolitan Region. Comprised of 353 municipalities in nine counties that span Pennsylvania and New Jersey, the region is a rich and diverse area that has benefitted from the creation and growth of a social indicators project. To accurately characterize the region, identify changes and trends, and predict how the region might look in the future, MPIP gathers social indicators from an array of subject areas that include the economy, health, criminal justice, housing, and others. In efforts to see that its data are used effectively to benefit the region and influence policy, MPIP actively engages in partnerships with regional organizations by providing data, developing research methodology, and conducting analyses. This chapter describes the conception of MPIP, the composition of the region it serves, and the data and services provided by the Project. Additionally, the challenges encountered by MPIP are discussed, along with the projected future directions of the Project.
Demonstrating an Order-of-Magnitude Sampling Enhancement in Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Complex Protein Systems

Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations can describe protein motions in atomic detail, but transitions between protein conformational states sometimes take place on time scales that are infeasible or very expensive to reach by direct simulation. Enhanced sampling methods, the aim of which is to increase the sampling efficiency of MD simulations, have thus been extensively employed. The effectiveness of such methods when applied to complex biological systems like proteins, however, has been difficult to establish because even enhanced sampling simulations of such systems do not typically reach time scales at which convergence is extensive enough to reliably quantify sampling efficiency. Here, we obtain sufficiently converged simulations of three proteins to evaluate the performance of simulated tempering, a member of a widely used class of enhanced sampling methods that use elevated temperature to accelerate sampling. Simulated tempering simulations with individual lengths of up to 100 μs were compared to (previously published) conventional MD simulations with individual lengths of up to 1 ms. With two proteins, BPTI and ubiquitin, we evaluated the efficiency of sampling of conformational states near the native state, and for the third, the villin headpiece, we examined the rate of folding and unfolding. Our comparisons demonstrate that simulated tempering can consistently achieve a substantial sampling speedup of an order of magnitude or more relative to conventional MD.
Ideological Extremism, Public Preferences, and Federal Judicial Review in the U.S. Supreme Court

With the recent anniversary of Marbury vs. Madison, our national fixation with judicial review celebrated its 200th birthday. The roots of that obsession are straightforward: the practice of judicial review - by which often unelected and largely politically unaccountable courts review and decide upon the constitutionality of duly-enacted state and federal statutes - appears on its face to be patently undemocratic, a state of affairs exacerbated by courts' seemingly frequent adventures into striking down laws which are longstanding, widely popular, or (occasionally) both. As with many obsessions, however, this one has often produced more heat than light, particularly when it takes on its more partisan forms. In this paper, I hope to begin to change that, by offering an overview of the practice of judicial review over the past five decades. I focus on the most prominent example of judicial review: constitutional review of federal laws by the U.S. Supreme Court. I do so for reasons of tractability, and in doing so, I don't wish to minimize the significance of judicial review in other contexts, including the uniquely problematic questions surrounding federal judicial review of state statutes. Rather, my hope is to point out how little in fact we know, empirically speaking, about the operation of judicial review at the level of the U.S. Supreme Court, and in doing so to examine some of the common understandings (and potential misunderstandings) about its occurrence. More important, my goal is to provide a more solid empirical footing for the ongoing (and increasingly heated) ideological debates about the role of judges and courts - particularly the U.S. Supreme Court - in shaping American society and law. It is also important to recognize at the outset what I am not endeavoring to accomplish here. I offer neither a theoretical critique nor a defense of judicial review per se; that is well-trod ground. Nor am I interested in waging an attack on the use of judicial review by any particular Court, past or present; the fact that my analysis encompasses a period from the earliest days of the Warren Court to the the Rehnquist Court's zenith in the late 1990s serves only to broaden the generality of my empirical conclusions. Perhaps most important, the paper is not an attempt to wrestle - at least, not directly - with the counter-majoritarian difficulty (cf. Friedman 2002). At the same time, the work here should illuminate debates in all these areas, particularly those over the existence of an intrinsic political bias to the use of judicial review that has been suggested by many scholars and pundits.
Utility of Meckel's scan: Retrospective review of 368 cases

535 Objectives Abdominal pertechnetate scintigraphy has been used for over 40 years to identify functioning ectopic gastric mucosa in a Meckel’s diverticulum in children with lower gastrointestinal bleeding. The objectives of this study are to evaluate the use of this test in a large tertiary children’s hospital and analyze the diagnostic utility of the test. Methods Retrospective review was performed of patients (age 1m-22 y) who underwent one or more Tc-99m pertechnetate scans (0.1 mCi/kg) between 2000-2012. Study results were correlated with surgical, endoscopic, and pathologic findings and with clinical follow-up. False negative (FN) and false positive (FP) cases were randomized with a sample of true negative (TN) and true positive (TP) cases, and reevaluation by 2 blinded readers confirmed the FN studies. Results Of 360 patients (368 studies), 45 patients underwent surgery. There were 22 TP cases (age 3m-16y) with gastric mucosa in 21 Meckel’s diverticuli and 1 duplication cyst. 4 of the 22 TP cases had mixed gastric and nongastric (pancreatic or duodenal) tissue. There were 4 FP cases (2 surgically proven, 2 clinically). Of 12 surgically proven FN studies (12 studies, 10 patients), all had gastric mucosa, but 3 patients had mixed ectopic tissue, 2 had only a small focus of gastric mucosa, and 1 had acute cryptitis. These findings demonstrate 99% specificity, 65% sensitivity, 85% positive predictive value, 96% negative predictive value and 1% false positive rate. Augmentation with pharmacological agents was not routinely used. SPECT was used in 3 of 4 FP, 1 of 12 FN and 2 of 22 TP cases. Conclusions Meckel’s scan is highly specific, with a low false positive rate and high negative predictive value, and is a valuable preoperative imaging test to prevent unnecessary surgery in pediatric patients with gastrointestinal bleeding. However, the test may be less sensitive in some patients, such as those with small amounts of ectopic gastric mucosa.
What is “New” about a New Product?:

Why do some new products require heavy resources to establish, whereas others gain immediate acceptance? Why do some innovators fail, only to see others pick up the same product to achieve spectacu...
Structures and CO2 Reactivity of Zinc Complexes of Bis(diisopropyl-) and Bis(diphenylphosphino)amines

The bis(phosphino)amines (R2P)NH(PR′2) (R = R′ = isopropyl; R = R′ = phenyl; R = isopropyl, R′ = phenyl) react with ZnEt2 to form complexes with two different structural motifs, either the homoleptic monomeric P,P-chelates Zn[N(i-Pr2P)2]2 and Zn[N(i-Pr2P)(Ph2P)]2 or the heteroleptic dimeric Zn2N2P2 heterocycles {EtZn[N(PPh2)2]}2 and {EtZn[N(PPh2)(i-Pr2P)]}2. In two cases, CO2 reacts with these complexes to give adducts Zn[O2CP(i-Pr2)NP(i-Pr2)]2 and Zn[O2CP(i-Pr2)NPPh2][Ph2PN(i-Pr2P)]ZnEt2, similar to adducts formed from the reaction of CO2 with frustrated Lewis pairs (FLPs). In the other two cases, reaction with CO2 results in cleavage and rearrangement of the N–P bonds to give either N(PPh2)3 or Ph2P(iPr2P)NPPh2. The zinc complexes and their CO2 products were characterized with a combination of single crystal X-ray diffraction and multinuclear NMR spectroscopy.
Switchable conductivity at the ferroelectric interface: Nonpolar oxides

We investigate theoretically the interface between a ferroelectric $\mathrm{BaTi}{\mathrm{O}}_{3}$ film and a nonpolar insulating $\mathrm{SrTi}{\mathrm{O}}_{3}$ substrate. We find that thin $\mathrm{BaTi}{\mathrm{O}}_{3}$ (under 5 nm) can stabilize a nonpolarized state, and an additional metastable polarized state. While the nonpolarized state is insulating, for the polarized heterostructure, we discover the existence of two-dimensional charge carrier gases. In this case, the heterostructure undergoes an electronic reconstruction in order to prevent the polar catastrophe. The two-dimensional gases, formed as a result, screen the polarization, leading to a substantially reduced potential drop across the ferroelectric film. We emphasize that the two-dimensional electron and hole gases are created by the polarization of the sample, and are not due to the polar nature of the material or to doping.
In vitro effects of melatonin and serotonin on adrenal steroidogenesis.

SummaryThe effects of melatonin and serotonin on adrenal steroidogenesis were studied. Adrenals were obtained from 42-day-old intact female Long-Evans rats maintained under a photoperiod of 12-hr light: 12-hr dark. Tissue slices and homogenates were incubated in the presence of 45 nmole/ml of melatonin or serotonin. Melatonin stimulates reductase activity. As a consequence secretion rates of dihydrocor-ticosterone and tetrahydrocorticosterone increase with a concomitant decline in proportionate secretion of corticosterone. Serotonin does not alter any of these parameters of adrenal steroidogenesis. ACTH, prolactin, GH, testosterone, and estradiol have long been known to inhibit 5α-reductase activity. The stimulatory influence of melatonin stands in striking contrast to the effects of these hormones.
Optimized Electric Vehicle Charging With Intermittent Renewable Energy Sources

Renewable energy and Electric Vehicles (EVs) are promising solutions for energy cost savings and emission reduction. However, integration of renewable energy sources into the electric grid could be a difficult task, because of the generation source intermittency and inconsistency with energy usage. In this paper, we present results of our study on the problem of allocating energy from renewable sources to EVs in a cost efficient manner. We have assumed that the renewable energy supply is time variant and in many ways unpredictable. EVs' charging requests should be satisfied within a specified time frame, which may incur a cost of drawing additional energy (possibly non-renewable energy) from the power grid if the renewable energy supply is not sufficient to meet the deadlines and may also reduce energy efficiency. We have formulated a stochastic optimization problem based on queuing model to minimize the time average cost of using non-renewable energy sources. The proposed approach fully considers the individual charging rate limit and deadline of each EV. The Lyapunov optimization technique is used to solve the problem. The developed dynamic control algorithm does not require knowledge of the statistical distribution of the time-varying renewable energy generation, EV charging demand, or extra energy pricing. Simulation results using different wind power generation profiles were performed and analyzed in the study. The results show that our EV charging scheduling method based on Lyapunov optimization can reduce both charging cost and mean delay time of fulfilling EV charging requests.
John Mackay’s Missional Vision:

Although the language of “missional church” emerges in American missiological discussion at the turn of the twentieth to the twenty-first century, its basic themes and concerns are anticipated in d...
Facilitating Learning Disabled Students' Acquisition of Science Classifications

Thirty-six learning disabled junior-high school students were randomly assigned to three experimental conditions to learn three dichotomous classifications for each of eight minerals: hardness level (hard-soft), color (pale-dark), and common use (home-industry). In the direct-instruction condition, students were taught the mineral classifications according to the principles of direct instruction (i.e., student participation with repeated practice and reinforcement). In the mnemonic-instruction condition, students were shown thematic illustrations that integrated each of the minerals and its symbolized attribute classifications. Finally, in the free-study condition, students were instructed to learn the eight minerals using whichever method they chose. Results showed that students who learned via mnemonic instruction outperformed those who were allowed free study. The latter group, in turn, outperformed the direct-instruction subjects. Implications for classroom instruction are drawn.
Observation of Effect of Inhalation of Fluticasone Propionate in Treatment of Asthma in Infants and Young Children

Objective To find the long effects and side effects of inhalation fluticasone propionate in treating infants and young asthmatic children.Methods Seventy infants and young asthmatic children were randomly divided into 2 groups,the children in the treated group inhaled fluticasone propionate by spacer and face mask,and the control group did not inhale steroid.Results The frequency of asthma attack,days of cough and wheezing of asthmatic children in treated group were significantly less frequent than that in control group(P0.05,P0.01),and no significant side effects were found.Conclusion Treating infants and young children with inhalation fluticasone propionate by spacer and face mask is effective and safety.
Determination of deltamethrin in blood of toxic patients by gas chromatograpghy

Objective:To establish a method for determination of deltamethrin in blood of toxic patients by gas chromatograpghy.Methods: The samples were qualitated by retention time and quantified by external standard method after acetonitrile was added,mixed by vortex,extracted ultrasonically,purified with Florisil solid phase extraction column and dried-up under nitrogen flow.DB-17 fused silica capillary column(30 m×0.32 mm×0.25 μm) and GC-ECD detector were employed for separation and detection.Results: The detection limit of the method was 0.01 ng/ml,and the recoveries were 80.1%～94.5% with RSDs of 2.3%～4.8%.Conclusion: The method was simple,rapid,sensitive,accurate,with low detection limit,it was suitable for the detection of deltamethrin in blood of patients.
A study on the basis for determining food poisoning caused by Vibrio parahaemolyticus

Objective To study the basis for determining food poisoning caused by Vibrio parahaemolyticus.Methods Data were obtained by field epidemiology and a hygiene survey,and survey data were analyzed using descriptive statistical analysis.Causality was surmised by experts.Results Seven cases of food poisoning were confirmed.Nausea,vomiting,and diarrhea were evident in all of the patients.V.parahaemolyticus was found in 2 fecal samples.The incident was characterized as food poisoning by V.parahaemolyticus as indicated by comprehensive investigation of suspicious foods,an on-site hygiene survey,surmising of factors for exposure,and laboratory results.Conclusion An epidemiological investigation provided confirmation during study of incidents of food poisoning.Results of a field epidemiological investigation should be legally sanctioned as the main basis for determining food poisoning.
Resilience in Palestinian Adolescents Living in Gaza.

[Correction Notice: An Erratum for this article was reported in Vol 9(1) of Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy (see record 2016-36102-001). There were grammatical errors to the Method section of the abstract and the Method subsection Participants. Corrected versions are provided.] Objective: The pathogenic impact of ongoing political conflict on children and adolescents has been well-documented in the literature. The present study, by contrast, examined the factors that support adolescent health and utilized a salutogenic model to examine prevalence of depression and anxiety and predictors of resilience in a group of adolescents attending secondary school in Gaza. METHOD There were 335 Palestinian adolescents (n = 335) enrolled in 11th and 12th grades in secondary schools in Gaza refugee camps completed the Beck Depression Inventory, the Beck Anxiety Inventory, and self-report measures assessing coping skills, self-regulation, optimism, parenting style, family sense of coherence, national identity, ethnic identity, and other demographic variables. RESULTS Participants with stronger national identity, stronger family sense of coherence, greater self-regulation, and more optimism reported less depressive and anxious symptoms. In a logistic regression analysis, significant predictors of resilience (minimal to no anxiety and depression, n = 135) were age, optimism, family sense of coherence, ethnic identity, self-regulation, and coping skills. CONCLUSION These findings indicate that older age, optimism, perception of family seeing the world as comprehensible, manageable, and meaningful, stronger Arab ethnic identity, greater self-regulation and stronger coping skills promote adolescent adaptation and health. Salutogenesis frames information about how resilient youth living in high threat environments may respond to preventative community-based behavioral health interventions as well as treatment of depression, anxiety, and other psychological distress among adolescents living with ongoing violence. (PsycINFO Database Record
Positive results for mechanism design without money

Consider the problem of allocating multiple divisible goods to two agents in a strategy-proof fashion without the use of payments or priors. Previous work has aimed at implementing allocations that are competitive with respect to an appropriately defined measure of social welfare. These results have mostly been negative, proving that no dictatorial mechanism can achieve an approximation factor better than 0.5, and leaving open the question of whether there exists a non-dictatorial mechanism that outperforms this bound. We provide a positive answer to this question by presenting an interesting non-dictatorial mechanism that achieves an approximation factor of 2/3 for this measure of social welfare. In proving this bound we also touch on the issue of fairness: we show that the proportionally fair solution, a well known fairness concept for money-free settings, is highly competitive with respect to social welfare. We then show how to use the proportionally fair solution to design our non-dictatorial strategy-proof mechanism.
Comparing Preliminary and Final Neuroradiology Reports: What Factors Determine the Differences?

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Trainees9 interpretations of neuroradiologic studies are finalized by faculty neuroradiologists. We aimed to identify the factors that determine the degree to which the preliminary reports are modified. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The character length of the preliminary and final reports and the percentage character change between the 2 reports were determined for neuroradiology reports composed during November 2012 to October 2013. Examination time, critical finding flag, missed critical finding flag, trainee level, faculty experience, imaging technique, and native-versus-non-native speaker status of the reader were collected. Multivariable linear regression models were used to evaluate the association between mean percentage character change and the various factors. RESULTS: Of 34,661 reports, 2322 (6.7%) were read by radiology residents year 1; 4429 (12.8%), by radiology residents year 2; 3663 (10.6%), by radiology residents year 3; 2249 (6.5%), by radiology residents year 4; and 21,998 (63.5%), by fellows. The overall mean percentage character change was 14.8% (range, 0%–701.8%; median, 6.6%). Mean percentage character change increased for a missed critical finding (+41.6%, P CONCLUSIONS: A missed critical finding, critical finding flag, MR imaging technique, trainee level, faculty experience level, and non-native-trainee status are associated with a higher degree of modification of a preliminary report. Understanding the factors that influence the extent of report revisions could improve the quality of report generation and trainee education.
Long-term regulation of arterial pressure, glomerular filtration and renal sodium reabsorption by angiotensin II in dogs.

1. This study was designed to quantify the role of angiotensin II in determining the chronic relationships between arterial pressure, renal haemodynamics and sodium excretion. 2. In six control dogs sodium balance was achieved during chronic increases in sodium intake from 5 to 495 mmol/day with small increases in arterial pressure (7mmHg), moderate increases in glomerular filtration rate (19%) and decreases in filtration fraction. Similar increases in sodium intake in dogs whose circulating levels of angiotensin II were fixed, due to a constant intravenous infusion of 4.85 pmol of angiotensin II min−1 kg−1, caused large increases in arterial pressure (42%), glomerular filtration rate (31%), filtration fraction and calculated renal sodium reabsorption above control. In six dogs whose angiotensin II formation was blocked by SQ 14 225, sodium balance at intakes of 5–80 mmol/day occurred at reduced arterial pressure, glomerular filtration rate, filtration fraction and sodium reabsorption although plasma aldosterone concentration was not substantially different from that in control dogs. At sodium intakes above 240 mmol/day arterial pressure was not altered by SQ 14 225. 3. These data indicate that during chronic variations in sodium intake angiotensin II plays a major role, independently of changes in plasma aldosterone concentration, in allowing sodium balance without large fluctuations in glomerular filtration rate or arterial pressure. The mechanism whereby angiotensin II conserves sodium chronically is through increased sodium reabsorption, since steady-state sodium reabsorption was increased by angiotensin II and decreased by SQ 14 225.
To Epenthesize or Not? Adaptations of English Coda [m] in Standard Mandarin Loanwords

This study investigates how English coda [m] is adapted into Standard Mandarin (SM) loanwords both in the existing corpora and in perceptual similarity adaptation data from monolingual SM and bilingual SM-English speakers. The nasal [m] in coda position is prohibited in SM. Deletion, nasal place change ([m]-->[n]/[ŋ]) and vowel epenthesis are the possible repair strategies. The generalizations identified in the corpora indicate that deletion never occurs (cf. Preservation Principle from Paradis 1996, Paradis & Lacharite 1997). Vowel epenthesis appears in SM when English coda [m] is in word-medial and word final positions. Nasal place change appears when English coda [m] is followed by a labial obstruent. Variable adaptations happen when English coda [m] is followed by an obstruent. The experimental results show that (i) the bilingual experimental strategies for nonce word adaptations are similar to the patterns observed in the SM loanwords corpora and (ii) monolinguals’ adaptation patterns are more variable due to greater dependence on perceptual cues. The fact that monolinguals and bilinguals differ in the extent to which they employ perceptual cues and phonological features/constraints for loanword adaptations challenges a pure perception-based account of loanword adaptation.
The amnesia of the Wirtschaftswunder: Essen’s ‘House of Industrial Design’

AbstractThis article has two parts. The first part returns to Theodor Adorno’s seminal essay that seeks to understand the impulse to forget the past in terms of reification. Adorno characterizes late modern capitalist society as governed by the ‘law of exchange’ that reduces all things in the world to a commonality. This reductionist propensity in bourgeois society leads to forgetting insofar as any and all forms of particularity are effaced: any aspect that may make a thing distinct, such as its history, becomes forgotten by reification in the post-industrial consumerist society. The second part of the essay explores Adorno’s argument through the example of the transformation of Essen’s synagogue into an industrial exhibition of consumer goods. During the height of West Germany’s ‘economic miracle,’ city officials viewed the synagogue instrumentally as nothing other than a thing that could be repurposed to celebrate West Germany’s post-Nazi transformation into a society of consumerist wonder.
MOVING TO THE LAND OF FROSTED CAKES AND FRIED FOOD: IMMIGRANT OBESITY IN THE U.S.

The paper focuses on body weight gain among immigrants in the US. The emphasis is on disentangling different time lines that are relevant in the context of immigration and acculturation, namely length of exposure to the high obesity culture, age at immigration, year of immigration and aging. Using data from the National Latino and Asian American Study (NLAAS), we find that (1) acculturation is associated with higher BMIs for the 1st generation, but not the 1.5 generation; (2) immigration at an early age (before 12) facilitates acculturation progress and drives BMI convergence to natives; (3) the effect of sojourn length in the host country is unstable across model specifications; (4) BMI differences between Asian and Latino immigrants are partly due to effect size differences in the acculturation variables.
Orality, literacy, and the representation of thought

Oral traditions have been limited in their ability to present the full range of a character’s experiences, focusing for the most part on overt actions rather than a character’s inner thoughts. The invention of writing has given writers the ability to reach a distant and often unknown audience and the leisure to mold language in new ways. Writers have thus acquired the ability to place a reader inside a character’s thoughts, either as they are experienced from the inside with mimesis, or by commenting on them omnisciently from the outside with diegesis. Examples are provided of each method of presentation.
Tuning branch predictors to support virtual method invocation in java

Java's object oriented nature along with its distributed nature make it a good choice for network computing. The use of virtual methods associated with Java's object oriented behavior requires accurate target prediction for indirect branches. This is critical to the performance of Java applications executed on deeply pipelined, wide issue processors. In this paper, we investigate the use of a path history based predictor to accurately determine the target of these virtual methods. The effect of varying the various parameters of the predictor on the misprediction rates is studied using various Java benchmarks. Results from this study show that the execution of Java code will benefit from more sophisticated branch-predictors.
Blurring the Boundaries: The Impact of Social Media in the Higher Education Classroom

This article reports the results of a mixed methods study aimed at exploring faculty and student perceptions regarding the use of social media in the higher education classroom. Two groups of faculty n = 50 and students n = 396 voluntarily responded to an online survey consisting of a mix of close and open-ended questions pertaining to their perceptions of social media use inside and outside the classroom. Key findings revealed that among faculty 52% and students 23% see social media as a distraction. In addition, contrary to prior research indicating that interpersonal boundaries between faculty and students are shifting as people become more connected via social media, only 17% of students and 29% of faculty reported forming social media friendships outside of the classroom. These findings are discussed in light of extant research on the use of social media along with implications for the role of social media in the higher education classroom.
More Complements on Mathematics

This appendix is not self-contained, it completes the mathematical Appendix Part XXI and is built upon those topics.
Making the Case for an Open, Unified System Architecture in Response to Rapid Developments in the Natural Language Industry: Translingual Automatic Language Exploration the System (TALES)

The demand for high-throughput low-latency natural language processing (NLP) systems calls for a unified, open system architecture that allows for rapid development, deployment, and interoperation of NLP engines from different vendors. The free, open-source unstructured information management architecture (UIMA) is such a platform. We demonstrate the effectiveness of UIMA with the IBM-developed Translingual Automatic Language Exploration System (TALES). TALES is a system for multimedia monitoring and search that allows English-speaking users to monitor English and foreign-language video and Web news media in near-real time and search over stored multimedia content.
X-Ray Crystallography: A History of Ideas

In this account it is my aim to write about some of the ideas which have made possible the science of X-ray crystallography as we know it today. X-Ray crystallography, since its birth in 1912, has undergone an explosive development. This rapid growth is no doubt due in part to the fact that this science lies at the intersection of many scientific disciplines: Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, Materials Science, Biology, and the other life sciences. Not only have these sciences benefited from the rapid development of crystallography in the twentieth century but the phenomenal growth of the science of X-ray crystallography in turn was made possible through its interactions with these diverse scientific disciplines.
Growth Modes of Ice Crystals in Supercooled Water and Aqueous Solutions

The growth modes of ice crystals in supercooled water and various aqueous solutions were studied at different supercoolings by a motion-picture technique. ln pure water contained in plastic capillary tubes, ice dendrites formed which at supercoolings between 1 and 4°C. grew parallel to the tube axis. At supercoolings larger than 4°C. the direction of growth was inclined to the tube axis such that the dendrites hit the tube wall and afterwards proceeded growing in a new direction. As a result it appeared that the ice crystals grew in a zig-zag or screw fashion. This growth mode became enhanced when the supercooling was increased or salts were dissolved in the water. In large water drops, ice dendrites formed which at supercoolings smaller than 1°C. were co-planar with the seed crystal and between 1° and 5°C. split into two dendritic segments. At supercoolings larger than 5°C. multiple splitting of the seed crystal was observed and this became strongly enhanced when salts were dissolved in the water. Tentative explanations for these results are given.
Trajectories of perceived neighborhood quality across the life course: Sociodemographic determinants and implications for well-being.

Abstract Neighborhoods are an important social context across the life course, with implications for well-being throughout adulthood. However, the capacity to select and/or alter one's neighborhood is dependent in part upon factors such as race, class, and gender. Cumulative advantage/disadvantage and cumulative inequality theory both anticipate growing disparities between the most and least advantaged over time, yet disagree on the a/symmetry of these divergent trajectories. This study analyzes three-wave longitudinal data from the National Study of Midlife Development in the United States (1995–2014) to examine whether trajectories of perceived neighborhood quality differ according to sociodemographic characteristics over a twenty-year period, and whether neighborhood quality influences individual well-being over the same timespan. Results indicate that (1) women, Black and other nonwhite residents, and renters report worse neighborhood quality than their peers; (2) perceived neighborhood quality declines with age for Black and poorly educated residents; (3) perceived neighborhood quality improves with age for highly educated residents; (4) the overall deficit in perceived neighborhood quality among renters is weaker for Black than for White residents, while the overall deficit in perceived neighborhood quality among the poorly educated is contingent upon their having children. Moreover, (5) perceived neighborhood quality predicts both life satisfaction and negative affect over two decades, though its influence on the latter was contingent upon owning or mortgaging one's home rather than renting. Overall, findings offer support for both cumulative advantage/disadvantage and cumulative inequality theory, and suggest implications for theory and future research.
Stabilization and controlled release of micro-encapsulated hydrogen peroxide for wound treatment applications.

Aims Hydrogen peroxide (H2 O2 ) disinfection applications are limited by its rapid inactivation. The aims of this study were to (i) micro-encapsulate H2 O2 in silica hydrogels to obtain controlled release up to 72 h, (ii) test hydrogel antimicrobial activity against four common pathogens and (iii) assess H2 O2 release kinetics and antimicrobial activity in 35-65% relative humidity and 37°C to approximate bandaged wound conditions. Methods and results Hydrogels were characterized using scanning electron microscopy, nitrogen sorption porosimetry, Brunauer Emmet Teller analysis and the Barret-Joyner-Halenda method. Hydrogels formed at lower pH demonstrated increased surface area and decreased pore size, resulting in H2 O2 release lasting 72 h. Using agar well diffusion for antimicrobial activity, statistically significant zones of inhibition (as compared to controls) were seen for Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomona aeruginiosa and Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecalis. Activity remained for hydrogels aged for 72 h in humid, 37°C conditions. Conclusions Hydrogels can be synthesized to provide a continuous, controlled release of H2 O2 for up to 72 h. Significance and impact of the study Stable, controlled-release H2 O2 hydrogels have potential applications for wound treatment and disinfection of medical equipment, through bonding to bandages or materials such as catheter lumens.
Supervisory Performance Control of Concurrent Mobile Apps for Energy Efficiency

Two critical quality factors for mobile devices (e.g., smartphones, tablets) are battery life and user-perceived performance of User Interface (UI) events, e.g., responsiveness of user action events and frame rate of video playback events. Unfortunately, state-of-the-art solutions have at least one of the following three limitations: 1) they cannot efficiently handle concurrent UI events of multiple apps (either foreground or background) and so may lead to performance imbalance and high energy consumption, 2) they try to regulate UI event performance periodically and thus may not efficiently handle the aperiodicity of user action events, which can result in poor responsiveness or high overheads, and 3) they rely mainly on CPU frequency/voltage scaling and so may have limited energy savings. In this paper, we present SURF, Supervisory control of User-perceived peRFormance, which is designed to overcome the three limitations. First, it dynamically allocates resources to concurrent UI events for balanced performance. Second, SURF uses supervisory control theory to handle the aperiodicity of user action events. Third, it optimizes the allocation of UI events to CPU cores for additional energy savings. SURF features a three-level architecture design that performs the three tasks at different time scales, according to their different overheads and timing requirements. We test SURF on several mobile device models with real-world open-source apps and show that, without causing perceivable performance degradation, it can reduce the CPU energy consumption by 28-98 percent compared to state-of-the-art solutions. In particular, by optimizing the allocation of UI events to the CPU cores, SURF achieves, 28-76 percent more CPU energy savings compared to other solutions.
ASHP national survey of pharmacy practice in hospital settings: Prescribing and transcribing—2007

Purpose. Results of the 2007 ASHP national survey of pharmacy practice in hospital settings that pertain to prescribing and transcribing are presented. Methods. A stratified random sample of pharmacy directors at 1264 general and children’s medical-surgical hospitals in the United States were surveyed by mail. SMG Marketing Group, Inc., supplied data on hospital characteristics; the survey sample was drawn from SMG’s hospital database. Results. The response rate was 42.0%. The use of nearly all formulary management techniques has declined since 2001 in favor of the use of clinical practice guidelines to promote rational drug therapy. Retrospective methods to improve prescribing are being replaced by concurrent methods including the provision of drug information to prescribers by pharmacists, consultations with prescribers, and the continued gradual adoption of computerized prescriber-order-entry systems with decision support. The trends toward more electronic communication and ease of reference availability and away from resource-intensive methods continue to grow. Accreditation standards prompted the implementation of safe medication practices as shown by the rapid increase in medication reconciliation and the reading back of oral orders to improve prescribing and transcribing. Conclusion. The 2007 ASHP survey results indicate that pharmacists are responding to changes in the health care system to find appropriate ways to improve medication use at the prescribing and transcribing steps of the medication-use system.
Evolutionary genomics of gypsy moth populations sampled along a latitudinal gradient

The European gypsy moth (Lymantria dispar L.) was first introduced to Massachusetts in 1869 and within 150 years has spread throughout eastern North America. This large-scale invasion across a heterogeneous landscape allows examination of the genetic signatures of adaptation potentially associated with rapid geographical spread. We tested the hypothesis that spatially divergent natural selection has driven observed changes in three developmental traits that were measured in a common garden for 165 adult moths sampled from six populations across a latitudinal gradient covering the entirety of the range. We generated genotype data for 91,468 single nucleotide polymorphisms based on double digest restriction-site associated DNA sequencing and used these data to discover genome-wide associations for each trait, as well as to test for signatures of selection on the discovered architectures. Genetic structure across the introduced range of gypsy moth was low in magnitude (FST = 0.069), with signatures of bottlenecks and spatial expansion apparent in the rare portion of the allele frequency spectrum. Results from applications of Bayesian sparse linear mixed models were consistent with the presumed polygenic architectures of each trait. Further analyses indicated spatially divergent natural selection acting on larval development time and pupal mass, with the linkage disequilibrium component of this test acting as the main driver of observed patterns. The populations most important for these signals were two range-edge populations established less than 30 generations ago. We discuss the importance of rapid polygenic adaptation to the ability of non-native species to invade novel environments.
Short Methods of Constructing Abridged Life Tables

In recent years sociologists, public health officers, and students of population problems have been taking an increasing interest in the life table as a description of the age-variation in the chances of death and survival. As a result of this interest in the subject, attention has been focused on rapid methods of constructing abridged life tables. Some of the most interesting and useful methods have been devised by nonactuaries and, probably for that reason, have not received the attention they deserve from the actuarial profession.
Comparison of different dosage regimes of epsilon aminocaproic acid on blood loss in children undergoing craniosynostosis surgery.

BACKGROUND Open cranial vault reconstruction is frequently performed for craniosynostosis. These procedures often involve high volume blood loss that requires blood transfusion. Antifibrinolytics have been shown to decrease blood loss during these procedures but the optimal dose that maximizes benefits is not known. AIMS The primary aim was to evaluate the differences in calculated blood loss between a high infusion rate (40 mg/kg/h) and a low infusion rate (≤30 mg/kg/h) of epsilon aminocaproic acid after a 100 mg/kg loading dose. Secondary aims were to determine if a high infusion rate of epsilon aminocaproic acid was associated with decreased packed red cell transfusion volume and to determine the factors associated with blood loss. METHODS This was a retrospective study of children who underwent open cranial vault reconstruction. Using an electronic medical record, we identified patients that fit the inclusion criteria. Demographic, laboratory, transfusion, and perioperative data were collected and statistical analysis was performed. RESULTS Fifty-three patients were included into the study with twenty-three receiving higher infusion rate (40 mg/kg/h) epsilon aminocaproic acid. There was a 14.3 mL/kg (95% CI 6.6-23.9) decrease in calculated blood loss in the high-dose cohort. CONCLUSION An EACA bolus of 100 mg/kg followed by an infusion of 40 mg/kg was associated with a lower calculated blood loss compared to the group who received 100 mg/kg EACA and ≤ 30 mg/kg infusion.