cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The effect of impurities, particularly hydrogen, on the lattice parameters of the “ABAB” rare earth metals

Abstract The common methods presently used to prepare samples of the heavy rare-earth metals for lattice parameter determinations were shown to give high results due to contamination by interstitial impurities, especially hydrogen. Two methods to produce fine-grained homogeneous samples in the form of wires were established. Both methods have the advantage of not requiring further heat treatment after preparation of the surface to be X-rayed. The lattice parameters of Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, Tm, Lu, Y and Sc were determined on well-characterized samples. The density, mole atomic volume, atomic radius for CN12, and c a ratios were calculated based on the lattice parameters determined. The effect of hydrogen on the lattice parameters of these metals was determined.
Improving oral presentation skills with a clinical reasoning curriculum: a prospective controlled study

Abstract Purpose The oral case presentation is an essential part of clinical medicine, but teaching medical students to present clinical data remains difficult. Presentation skills depend on the ability to obtain, process, and organize patient data. Clinical reasoning is fundamental to the development of these skills. We compared a clinical reasoning curriculum with standard ward instruction for improving presentation skills and clinical performance. Subjects and methods Between October 1998 and May 1999, 62 third-year medical students at three hospitals were assigned to a 4-week clinical reasoning curriculum (n = 27) or a control group (n = 35) that underwent routine instruction. The curriculum consisted of four 1-hour group sessions and 1 hour of individual videotaped instruction, and taught students to use the principles of clinical reasoning, such as generation and refinement of diagnostic hypothesis, interpretation of diagnostic tests, and causal reasoning, to determine data for inclusion in the oral presentation. We videotaped students presenting two standardized case histories; one at baseline and a second 4 weeks later. Two independent evaluators who were blinded to the group assignments reviewed the videotapes and scored them for presentation quality and efficiency, and general speaking ability. Results Mean (± SD) presentation times at baseline were similar in the two groups (intervention group: 8 ± 2 minutes; control group: 8 ± 2 minutes; P = 0.74). Presentation time in students who were taught clinical reasoning decreased by 3 ± 2 minutes, but increased by 2 ± 2 minutes in control students. The difference in the changes between the groups was statistically significant (mean difference=4 minutes; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 3 to 5 minutes; P P = 0.11). Students who were taught the clinical reasoning curriculum had an improvement of 9 ± 6 points in the quality of their presentations, while control students had an improvement of 2 ± 7 points (on a scale of 4–36). The difference in the changes between the groups was statistically significant (mean difference=4 points; 95% CI: 1 to 7 points; P = 0.04). Conclusion A clinical reasoning curriculum, in combination with video-based individual instruction, improves the efficiency and quality of oral presentations, and may augment clinical performance.
Radiative decay of benzophenone low pressure gas

Abstract The radiative decay of benzophenone low pressure gas was studied subsequent to pulse excitation at several wavelengths. Estimates of the emission rates and quantum yields for the fast and slow decay processes lead to models for the isolated molecule radiationless processes; both somewhat different from that recently proposed by Busch et al. We propose that it is the very rapid intersystem crossing process that produces the non-stationary mixed singlet-triplet levels.
Interpreting Youth Baseball: Players' Understandings of Fun and Excitement, Danger, and Boredom

(1984). Interpreting Youth Baseball: Players' Understandings of Fun and Excitement, Danger, and Boredom. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport: Vol. 55, No. 4, pp. 379-382.
Heavy metal leaching from coal fly ash amended container substrates during Syngonium production.

Coal fly ash has been proposed to be an alternative to lime amendment and a nutrient source of container substrates for ornamental plant production. A great concern over this proposed beneficial use, however, is the potential contamination of surface and ground water by heavy metals. In this study, three fly ashes collected from Florida, Michigan, and North Carolina and a commercial dolomite were amended in a basal substrate. The formulated substrates were used to produce Syngonium podophyllum Schott ‘Berry Allusion’ in 15-cm diameter containers in a shaded greenhouse. Leachates from the containers were collected during the entire six months of plant production and analyzed for heavy metal concentrations. There were no detectable As, Cr, Hg, Pb, and Se in the leachates; Cd and Mo were only detected in few leachate samples. The metals constantly detected were Cu, Mn, Ni, and Zn. The total amounts of Cu, Mn, Ni, and Zn leached during the six-month production period were 95, 210, 44, and 337 μg per container...
RiverLand: An Efficient Procedural Modeling System for Creating Realistic-Looking Terrains

Generating realistic-looking but interesting terrains quickly is a great challenge. We present RiverLand, an efficient system for terrain synthesis. RiverLand creates a realistic-looking terrain by first generating river networks over the land. Then, the terrain is created to be consistent with the river networks. In this way, the terrains created have a proper drainage basin, an important feature lacking in many existing procedural terrain methods. The terrains generated by RiverLand are also widely varied, with rolling hills, river valleys, alpine mountains, and rocky cliffs, all seamlessly connected in the same terrain. Since RiverLand does not use complex fluid simulations, it is fast, and yet is able to produce many of the erosion features generated by the simulation methods.
Chronokinetics of Liposomal Encapsulated Ampicillin in Fasting and Nonfasting Rats

The chronobiological effect on the pharmacokinetics of liposomal encapsulated ampicillin (LEA) was compared at noon (1200) and midnight (2400) after intravenous injection of 50 mg/kg of LEA in rats. The effects of fasting on the circadian rhythms of LEA were also investigated. Serial blood samples were collected for 2 h. Bile and urine were collected during the entire study. Plasma data was analyzed by noncompartmental methods. Dosing of LEA at 2400, when the animals were active, resulted in a 50% decrease in mean residence time (MRT) and a 20% increase in systemic clearance (Cltotal). The increase in Cltotal was reflected by increases in biliary (Clbile) and renal (Clrenal) clearance at 2400. In addition, the steady-state volume of distribution (Vss) at 2400 was also decreased by about 50% as compared to dosing at 1200. Interestingly, no difference in the pharmacokinetic parameters were observed in fasting animals at 1200 and 2400. Since rats consume very little food during their sleep cycle, restriction of food intake did not have any affect on the pharmacokinetics of LEA at 1200. However, fasting rats had an approximately 36% decrease in Cltotal as compared to nonfasting rats at 2400. This decrease in systemic clearance was paralleled by a 60% and 24% decrease in Clbile and Clrenal, respectively. These variations could be attributed to changes in bile composition and/ or lipoprotein concentrations in the plasma as a result of “forced” fasting at 2400 when the animals are generally more active and food intake is high.
On some implications of evolutionary psychology for the study of preferences and institutions

Abstract In many economic interactions, for instance in firms, the standard approximation of strict self-interest is inadequate to modeling human behavior. A scientific theory of preferences, grounded in evolutionary psychological and biological theory, can avoid resort to ad hoc assumptions. Evolutionary theory is supported by a growing body of data including new results in experimental economics. It holds that the evolved human nature includes an ability to solve social dilemma problems through reciprocity and punishment of cheaters. Treating realized preferences as phenotypic expressions with both environmental and genetic causes will also allow economists to study the impact of institutions on preferences.
The Value of Labeled and Unlabeled Examples when the Model is Imperfect

Semi-supervised learning, i.e. learning from both labeled and unlabeled data has received significant attention in the machine learning literature in recent years. Still our understanding of the theoretical foundations of the usefulness of unlabeled data remains somewhat limited. The simplest and the best understood situation is when the data is described by an identifiable mixture model, and where each class comes from a pure component. This natural setup and its implications ware analyzed in [11, 5]. One important result was that in certain regimes, labeled data becomes exponentially more valuable than unlabeled data. However, in most realistic situations, one would not expect that the data comes from a parametric mixture distribution with identifiable components. There have been recent efforts to analyze the non-parametric situation, for example, "cluster" and "manifold" assumptions have been suggested as a basis for analysis. Still, a satisfactory and fairly complete theoretical understanding of the nonparametric problem, similar to that in [11, 5] has not yet been developed. In this paper we investigate an intermediate situation, when the data comes from a probability distribution, which can be modeled, but not perfectly, by an identifiable mixture distribution. This seems applicable to many situation, when, for example, a mixture of Gaussians is used to model the data. the contribution of this paper is an analysis of the role of labeled and unlabeled data depending on the amount of imperfection in the model.
O-Bahn Busway: Adelaide's Experience

In 1980 the state of South Australia contracted with the German supplier of a new busway technology called O-Bahn. The project produced an 11.8-km busway alignment that was built in two phases with public operation in 1986 and 1989. Although the technology has functioned without fault and the safety record is excellent, the project has not experienced robust patronage growth or political success. During the 1990s public transit has been privatized and overall system ridership has declined by 30%. The long-term relationship between the foreign contractor and the local managers and staff failed to create a positive atmosphere for ongoing work, whether locally, nationally, or abroad. Although local and state officials provide positive public comment about their happiness with the technology, their management and policy actions suggest tepid belief in the concept.
A role for the MutL mismatch repair Mlh3 protein in immunoglobulin class switch DNA recombination and somatic hypermutation.

Class switch DNA recombination (CSR) and somatic hypermutation (SHM) are central to the maturation of the Ab response. Both processes involve DNA mismatch repair (MMR). MMR proteins are recruited to dU:dG mispairs generated by activation-induced cytidine deaminase-mediated deamination of dC residues, thereby promoting S-S region synapses and introduction of mismatches (mutations). The MutL homolog Mlh3 is the last complement of the mammalian set of MMR proteins. It is highly conserved in evolution and is essential to meiosis and microsatellite stability. We used the recently generated knockout mlh3−/− mice to address the role of Mlh3 in CSR and SHM. We found that Mlh3 deficiency alters both CSR and SHM. mlh3−/− B cells switched in vitro to IgG and IgA but displayed preferential targeting of the RGYW/WRCY (R = A or G, Y = C or T, W = A or T) motif by Sγ1 and Sγ3 breakpoints and introduced more insertions and fewer donor/acceptor microhomologies in Sμ-Sγ1 and Sμ-Sγ3 DNA junctions, as compared with mlh3+/+ B cells. mlh3−/− mice showed only a slight decrease in the frequency of mutations in the intronic DNA downstream of the rearranged JH4 gene. However, the residual mutations were altered in spectrum. They comprised a decreased proportion of mutations at dA/dT and showed preferential RGYW/WRCY targeting by mutations at dC/dG. Thus, the MMR Mlh3 protein plays a role in both CSR and SHM.
Cross-hole sonic logging and frequency tomography analysis of drilled shaft foundations to better evaluate anomalies locations

AbstractCross-hole sonic logging (CSL) has over recent years become the standard method for evaluating the integrity of bridge drilled shafts. The CSL method is based on measuring the speed of ultrasonic waves traveling between probes in parallel tubes placed inside the drilled shaft. Several existing studies have proposed methods that rely on the arrival time and wave speed to evaluate concrete integrity of drilled shaft foundations such as cross-hole tomography. In this study, a processing method for a three-component wide band CSL data is presented. This method named frequency tomography analysis (FTA) is based on the change of the frequency amplitude of the signal recorded by the receiver probe at the location of anomalies. The signal’s time domain data are converted into frequency domain data using fast Fourier transform (FFT); the distribution of the FTA is then evaluated. This method is employed after a CSL test has determined a high probability of an anomaly in a given area and is applied to impro...
The Problem of Social-Political Obligation for the Church of England in the Seventeenth Century

Much has been written on the political behavior of the Stuart Church of England. And much too has been written on its monotonous reiteration of the divine right of kings' doctrine—with its ancillary ideas of passive obedience and non-resistance to the commands of authority. Indeed, for this perspective on the institution there exists abundant evidence: seventeenth century sermons and treatises were filled with “church politics.” Morever, Figgis' study remains indispensable: before, and perhaps even more clearly and vehemently after the Puritan Revolution, insistence on absolute obedience to existing authority—especially to the king—reverberated in the parish churches of England. Thus, at this point in time little doubt exists as to the political attitudes of clerics; and indeed a consensus exists also on the probable motives for those clerical attitudes: they followed unavoidably upon the second great conquest in English history, the conquest of the church by Henry VIII. But the church was not unwillingly conquered: it both bound itself and was bound to the destiny of the monarchy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—its newly-granted constitutional legality protected it while it nourished the hope that the Crown would act as sponsor of reform in Christian society. In a word, the institution of the church, keenly aware of both its relative impotence and its relative strength with regard to the monarchy, made the best of circumstances by offering virtually unqualified support to Stuart kingship, with certain unintended consequences for the church. Given this perspective, it is easy to understand why, apart from special problems and issues, the thought of Anglican clerics commands little attention today. But perhaps another view of clerical thought will yield as much or more understanding than the traditional perspective has so far yielded: it is the purpose of this essay to offer another view.
Using Numerical Modeling and Direct Observation to Investigate Hypoxia in a Shallow Wind-Driven Bay

Corpus Christi (CC) Bay, Texas, USA is a shallow (average depth around 3 m) wind-driven bay that is subjected to diurnal wind variation. However, our observations suggests that this bay becomes stratified during the summer time and hypoxic (< 2 mg/l dissolved oxygen [DO]) condition develops in the southeast part of it, near the Laguna Madre and at the mouth of Oso Bay. As this system is very energetic, it is not possible to capture or fully understand the dynamic patterns of DO concentrations through spatially- or temporally-limited sampling schemes typical of discrete sampling or continuous monitoring at limited locations. Therefore, in this study, a system is being developed to measure various water quality parameters at higher spatial and temporal resolution. To get the vertical variation of different water quality parameters, a vertical profiling robot has been installed at one of our fixed monitoring platforms in the bay. Four more platforms/profilers are targeted for installation in the near future. This profiler's instrumentation suite measures DO, temperature, salinity, chlorophyll concentration and particle size. The same spectrum of environmental parameters is measured 'synchronically' over a highly-resolved spatial regime through our mobile platform equipped with an IDACC (Integrated Data Acquisition, Communication and Control) system. Short time analysis of observed data indicates the potential of these observation systems in identifying the factors that may affect hypoxia. In addition, a 2-dimensional hydrodynamic model which produces water surface elevation and depth-averaged velocity variation with time has been developed for CC Bay using the ADCIRC (ADvanced CIRCulation) model. This model will be extended into a 3-dimensional model which is then coupled to a water quality model for DO. Integrating model output with observed data will contribute into the understanding of processes that lead to the development of hypoxia and other environmental phenomena
A Protein Array Screen for Kaposi's Sarcoma-Associated Herpesvirus LANA Interactors Links LANA to TIP60, PP2A Activity, and Telomere Shortening

The Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) LANA protein functions in latently infected cells as an essential participant in KSHV genome replication and as a driver of dysregulated cell growth. To identify novel LANA protein-cell protein interactions that could contribute to these activities, we performed a proteomic screen in which purified, adenovirus-expressed Flag-LANA protein was incubated with an array displaying 4,192 nonredundant human proteins. Sixty-one interacting cell proteins were consistently detected. LANA interactions with high-mobility group AT-hook 1 (HMGA1), HMGB1, telomeric repeat binding factor 1 (TRF1), xeroderma pigmentosum complementation group A (XPA), pygopus homolog 2 (PYGO2), protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A)B subunit, Tat-interactive protein 60 (TIP60), replication protein A1 (RPA1), and RPA2 proteins were confirmed in coimmunoprecipitation assays. LANA-associated TIP60 retained acetyltransferase activity and, unlike human papillomavirus E6 and HIV-1 TAT proteins, LANA did not reduce TIP60 stability. The LANA-bound PP2A B subunit was associated with the PP2A A subunit but not the catalytic C subunit, suggesting a disruption of PP2A phosphatase activity. This is reminiscent of the role of simian virus 40 (SV40) small t antigen. Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) assays showed binding of RPA1 and RPA2 to the KSHV terminal repeats. Interestingly, LANA expression ablated RPA1 and RPA2 binding to the cell telomeric repeats. In U2OS cells that rely on the alternative mechanism for telomere maintenance, LANA expression had minimal effect on telomere length. However, LANA expression in telomerase immortalized endothelial cells resulted in telomere shortening. In KSHV-infected cells, telomere shortening may be one more mechanism by which LANA contributes to the development of malignancy.
The basis for transport across epithelial cells

This essay looks at the historical significance of two APS classic papers that are freely available online: Ingraham RC and Visscher MB. Further studies on intestinal absorption with the performanc...
Evaluation of a Backscatter Imaging LDV System and its Application to a Pilot-Scale Circulating Fluidized Bed

ABSTRACT This study focuses on the evaluation and application of a backscatter imaging LDV (laser Doppler velocimeter) system (BILS) built by TSI Inc. (Shoreview, Minn.). This nonintrusive instrument has the ability to record particle images and velocity data simultaneously. A series of validation tests was conducted prior to measuring particle velocity in a turbulent system. A set of experiments was conducted to measure terminal velocity and particle size for five different-size cuts of near-spherical, Nu-Pareil particles, and the results were compared with the standard drag curve, which showed good agreement. The imaging data were used to estimate the sphericity (Φ) of the particles. The data confirmed that Φ was close to 1 (0.98 < Φ < 0.99). The system was then used to measure particle velocity in a cold flow circulating fluidized bed at various operating conditions. The effect of operating conditions, such as superficial gas velocity and solids circulation rate, on the solids velocity was studied. The...
A triangular dielectric resonator antenna excited by a coaxial probe

A dielectric resonator antenna of triangle shape is examined numerically and experimentally. The geometry is an equilateral triangular dielectric volume over a ground plane, and is excited by a coaxial probe to provide a broadside radiation pattern. An approximate expression is used to compute the resonance frequency. Results are verified experimentally and numerically. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 30: 340–341, 2001.
Morbidity and mortality after pancreaticoduodenectomy in patients with borderline resectable type C clinical classification.

We previously described the clinical classification of patients with resectable pancreatic tumor anatomy but marginal performance status (PS) or reversible comorbidities as “borderline resectable type C” (BR-C). This study was designed to analyze the incidence and risk factors for post-pancreaticoduodenectomy (PD) morbidity/mortality in a multi-institutional cohort of BR-C patients. Elective PDs were evaluated from the 2005-10 ACS-NSQIP database. BR-C was defined as age ≥ 80, poor PS, weight loss > 10 %, pulmonary disease, recent myocardial infarction/angina, stroke history, and/or preoperative sepsis. Variables associated with 30-day postoperative major complications (PMC) and mortality were analyzed. A total of 3,033/8,266 (36.7 %) patients were BR-C. BR-C patients were more likely to suffer PMC (31.3 vs. 26.2 %) and mortality (4.1 vs. 2.3 %). BR-C patients with PMC suffered 50 % higher mortality versus non-BR-C patients with PMC (11.5 vs. 7.7 %) (all p < 0.001). For BR-C patients, multivariate analysis identified the following risk factors for PMC or mortality: albumin < 3.5 g/dL, dyspnea, preoperative sepsis, age ≥ 80, poor PS, anesthesia score ≥ 4, and intraoperative transfusion ≥ 4 units. Nationwide, one third of patients undergoing PD are medically borderline. These BR-C patients are at higher risk for and less able to be rescued from PMC. Surgeons should identify and optimize comorbidities and utilize prehabilitation to address functional deficits before elective PD.
Flexible use of symbolic tools for problem solving, generalization, and explanation

We provide evidence that student representations can serve different purposes in the context of classroom problem solving. A strategy used expressly to solve a problem might be represented in one way, and in another way when the problem is generalized or extended, and yet in another way when the solution strategy is explained to peers or a teacher. We discuss the apparent long-term memory implications this has regarding the preferences that students have for their original versus later developed representations, and how these preferences relate to the use of representational flexibility in classroom settings.
ASICs Mediate Pain and Inflammation in Musculoskeletal Diseases

Chronic musculoskeletal pain is debilitating and affects ∼20% of adults. Tissue acidosis is present in painful musculoskeletal diseases like rheumatoid arthritis. ASICs are located on skeletal muscle and joint nociceptors as well as on nonneuronal cells in the muscles and joints, where they mediate nociception. This review discusses the properties of different types of ASICs, factors affecting their pH sensitivity, and their role in musculoskeletal hyperalgesia and inflammation.
Light scalar from deformations of the Klebanov-Strassler background

We study deformations of the Klebanov-Strassler background parametrized by the size of a dim-6 VEV. In the UV, these solutions describe the usual duality cascade of Klebanov-Strassler; however, below the scale ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{*}$ set by the dim-6 VEV they exhibit hyperscaling violation over a range of the radial coordinate. Focusing on the spectrum of scalar glueballs, we find a parametrically light state, the mass of which is suppressed by ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{*}$, becoming massless in the limit of ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{*}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\infty}$. Along the way, we clarify the choice of IR and UV boundary conditions for the fluctuations in the bulk, and find agreement with previous calculations for the spectrum of Klebanov-Strassler.
Shakedown Analysis of Some Typical One-Story Bents

Few analyses of frames subjected to variable repeated loading have been reported in the literature. This has been at least partly due to the fact that such analyses are laborious, partly to the belief that, in building work, such loadings are highly improbable. Nevertheless, theoretical and experimental evidence leaves some room for concern. Shakedown solutions for variable repeated loadings for several typical one-story frames obtained by modified linear programming method, using electronic computer are reported herein. The proportions of the selected frames were based on some realistic designs in steel. Likewise, the loading conditions considered are believed to be typical. Both the alternating plasticity and the deflection stability of frames are considered. By examining the tabulated results, comparisons between elastic, conventional plastic, and shakedown analyses for the selected frames can be readily made. It is hoped that the reported results will be found meaningful.
Efficacy of bait sticks versus pheromone traps for removing boll weevils (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) from released populations

The efficacy of bait sticks (boll weevil attract and control tubes) in removing boll weevils. Anthonomus grandis grandis Boheman, from released populations was compared with that of pheromone traps. Coating the sticks with a sticky material allowed us to determine that >3 times more boll weevils were captured on bait sticks than were captured in traps. Laboratory studies showed that nearly 100% of weevils allowed to crawl for 0.5min on bait sticks aged in the field for up to 6 wk died within 24h. During field observations 86% of native weevils spent >0.5 min on the sticks; average time was 3.2min. Considering the results of the 3 types of tests, we concluded that bait sticks are ≍3 times more effective than traps in removing weevils from the population.
Abstract 2487: CONSERTING: an accurate method for detecting focal and gross somatic copy number alterations in cancer genome by next generation sequencing

Proceedings: AACR 103rd Annual Meeting 2012‐‐ Mar 31‐Apr 4, 2012; Chicago, IL The Identification of somatically acquired DNA copy number alterations (CNA) is extremely important for finding causal genes in cancer. Although next-generation sequencing (NGS) can assay a genome at base-pair resolution, accurate identification of CNA from NGS data has been hindered by sequencing artifacts, coverage bias and paralogous genomic duplication. As a result, existing algorithms tend to generate many CNA segments that are not corroborated by an alternative assay such as SNP array, suggesting high false discovery rate. To improve CNA analysis for NGS data, we developed Copy Number Segmentation by Regression Tree in Next Generation Sequencing (CONSERTING), a novel copy number detection method that integrates read depth analysis with structural variation (SV) detection and adjustment for sequencing artifacts. Analysis of simulated data shown that CONSERTING outperforms existing methods by achieving high sensitivity of focal copy number detection (CONSERTING: 0.80, CNV-Seq: 0.26, SegSeq: 0.19, FREEC: 0.02) at a low false discovery rate (CONSERTING: 0.09, CNV-Seq: 0.19, SegSeq: 0.46, FREEC: 0.07). When applied to matching tumor/normal samples of hematopoietic malignancies and solid tumors, CONSERTING showed a high concordance with SNP array, with a mean of 18 uncorroborated CNA segments compared with 104 by CNVSeq, 182 by SegSeq and 63 by FREEC. In addition, CONSERTING is able to discover bona fide focal CNAs in genes of biological importance that were not detectable by SNP array, such as a 36 kb homozygous deletion in SH2B3 and a 20 kb deletion in CDK6. Finally, CONSERTING is able to find CNAs and SVs present in tumor subclone that are missed by SNP array or SV analysis of NGS data. The novel CNAs and SVs reported here were experimentally validated, demonstrating that the high sensitivity and accuracy of CONSERTING enable discovery of key genetic lesions in cancer. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 103rd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2012 Mar 31-Apr 4; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2012;72(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 2487. doi:1538-7445.AM2012-2487
Study on the frozen flavored food of Codonopsis lanceolata

The frozen flavored food of Codonopsis lanceolata was processed by using Codonopsis lanceolata as the main raw material.The producing technology,the product formula and the stability of frozen storage were studied in this experiment.The product optimal formula is Codonopsis lanceolata:pork=3:1,carrot 10%,salad oil 10%,soy sauce 3%,shallot 3%,ginger 3%,salt 2%,pepper 0.5%,monosodium glutamale 0.5%.The best technological condition is:pork in 110℃ salad oil for 1 minute.The rolled cabbage of Codonopsis lanceolata cooked 15 minutes.The product can maintain good sensory quality for 6 months at-18℃.
Potential contribution of absorbed volatile fatty acids to whole-animal energy requirement in conscious swine.

Chronic cannulas were placed in the hepatic portal vein, ileal vein, and carotid artery in seven crossbred growing gilts trained to consume once daily 1.2 kg of a 16% CP corn-soybean meal diet. Eleven days after surgery, each pig (37.4 kg BW) was placed in an open-circuit calorimeter and its cannulas were connected to a system for determining portal absorption of nutrients. The whole-animal heat production and net portal absorption of gut VFA were measured simultaneously for 12 h after the pig was fed 1.2 kg of feed. Plasma concentrations of VFA, including acetic, propionic, isobutyric, butyric, isovaleric, and valeric acids, in portal and arterial samples were determined by gas chromatography after a cleanup by ion-exchange chromatography. The net portal absorption of VFA was calculated by multiplying the porto-arterial plasma concentration difference of the VFA by portal vein plasma flow. Plasma flow was estimated by the indicator-dilution technique using p-aminohippuric acid as the indicator. The energy value of absorbed VFA was the sum of products of each individual VFA multiplied by its corresponding value of the heat of combustion. The mean hourly energy value of absorbed VFA during the 12-h postprandial period was .65 +/- .03 kcal.h-1.kg BW-1. The mean hourly whole-animal heat production was 2.70 +/- .04 kcal.h-1.kg BW-1. Thus, in our 37.4-kg pigs, which were trained to consume 1.2 kg of a 16% CP corn-soybean meal diet once daily, the gut VFA absorbed into the portal vein could contribute 23.8 +/- 1.1% to whole-animal heat production if all of the absorbed VFA were combusted to CO2.
Implementation of Microtechniques to Resolve Tissue Heterogeneity

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the use of micro-techniques to resolve tissue heterogeneity. The chapter characterizes micro-technique in two areas, which are the localization of the biochemical events which occur during the cellular differentiation of Dictyostelium discoideum, biochemical characterization of human breast cancer cells, which have been separated from noninvolved cell types by micro-dissection. Dictyostelium offers a useful system for the study of cellular differentiation, which has some unique characteristics not found in other simple organisms currently being used. In a study describe din the chapter, by utilizing the micro-techniques, the activities of several key enzymes and substrate levels during the migration and subsequent differentiation of prespore and prestalk cells were followed. In neoplasia of the human breast, the inherent tissue heterogeneity demands special attention to qualitatively and quantitatively define the tumor-specific biochemical events that potentially may occur. The delineation and micro-dissection of microgram samples of histologically confirmed neoplastic cellular regions either within a duct or in heavily invaded stroma in human mammary tumor sections was used for enzyme analysis. Such an approach minimizes the contributions made from normal breast cells and excludes regions of adipose, dense stroma, and necrosis included within excised tumor lesions. One important advantage to this micro-analytical approach is that the activities of enzymes of diverse metabolic functions can be determined for specific cellular regions, both proliferative and nonproliferative in nature, by using discrete, identical loci from adjacent tissue sections.
Introduction: Living in the Atomic World

Third grader Chizue Sakai stood outside a temple in the small town of Yae-machi on the morning of 6 August 1945. It was early still, quiet and the sun was bright. ‘All of a sudden, we saw a flash of light like lightning in … the southeastern sky. Then there was a boom and the clouds turned red.’ In Hiroshima, young Shigeru Tasaka walked to his bedroom window ‘when suddenly there was a flare of bluish-white light’. It was 8.15 a.m. Other children awakened to the same awesome flash — blue pulse, white heat. Then, within a few moments, all was darkness and a great fist of wind pressed everyone and everything to the ground. Shortly, fires sprouted throughout the collapsed tinderbox houses in the center of the city. As the people poured from their homes — stunned, bleeding, frightened, burnt, bent and dying — they stepped onto an alien landscape. ‘Men covered in blood and women with skin flapping around them like kimonos were plunging into the river, screaming.’ High above, a 34-year-old American physicist surveyed the scene from inside the Great Artiste: ‘I looked in vain for the city that had been our target. The [mushroom] cloud seemed to be rising out of a wooded area devoid of population’. It looked peaceful, he recalled, ‘from seven miles up’. The buglike, swollen and blackened bodies; the flapping, flayed, shredded skin; the unquenchable thirst and unrelieved moaning of the badly burned; the lingering deaths of family members from the heavy dose of radiation — these were the images painfully recalled by the children of Hiroshima.
High degree of clonal reproduction and lack of large-scale geographic patterning mark the introduced range of the invasive vine, kudzu (Pueraria montana var. lobata), in North America.

Premise of the study Pueraria montana var. lobata, or kudzu, is an invasive species whose invasion in North America is not genetically well characterized. The clonality of kudzu introduces challenges to population genetic analyses that can bias the assessment of spatial patterns of genotypes. Assessing patterns of genetic diversity while considering clonality is necessary to understand the invasion and spread of kudzu in its invasive range. Methods We screened 1747 individuals from 87 populations across the invasive range with 15 microsatellite markers and a 789 bp chloroplast region. We performed detailed clonal analyses and tested levels of genetic diversity, population structure, and phylogeographic relationships. Key results Kudzu exhibited a clonal rate of 80%, and was more heterozygous than other long-lived perennials. We detected only 353 distinct clonal lineages, with over 60% sharing a maternal haplotype. Populations were established with few genotypes, many consisting of only a single clone. We found no isolation by distance. Despite high genetic diversity, we found little geographic patterning. Conclusions Kudzu is highly clonal with few genetically distinct lineages and haplotypes existing in the introduced range. Our data are consistent with a large single introduction, or a few at most. Introduced lineages are geographically randomly distributed but isolated, suggesting that genotypes rarely expand into already established populations. No route of expansion was detectable from an original introduction. The invasion of kudzu does not seem to have been dominated by a single genotype, thus standing genetic variation and phenotypic plasticity are more likely mechanisms explaining kudzu's invasion success.
Comparison of solar and wind power generation impact on net load across a utility balancing area

As PV and wind power penetrations in utility balancing areas increase, it is important to understand how they will impact net load. We investigate daily and seasonal trends in solar power generation, wind power generation, and net load. Quantitative metrics are used to compare scenarios with no PV or wind, PV plus wind, only PV, or only wind. PV plus wind scenarios are found to have a larger reduction in maximum net load and smaller ranges between maximum and minimum load than PV only or wind only scenarios, showing that PV plus wind can be a beneficial combination.
Seattle’s Minimum Wage Experience 2015-16

Author(s): Reich, Michael; Allegretto, Sylvia A; Godoey, Anna | Abstract: This brief on Seattle’s minimum wage experience represents the first in a series that CWED will be issuing on the effects of the current wave of minimum wage policies—those that range from $12 to $15. Upcoming CWED reports will present similar studies of Chicago, Oakland, San Francisco, San Jose and New York City, among others. The timing of these reports will depend in part upon when quality data become available. We focus here on Seattle because it was one of the early movers.Seattle implemented the first phase of its minimum wage law on April 1, 2015, raising minimum wages from the statewide $9.47 to $10 or $11, depending upon business size, presence of tipped workers and employer provision of health insurance. The second phase began on January 1, 2016, further raising the minimum to four different levels, ranging from $10.50 to $13, again depending upon employer size, presence of tipped workers and provision of health insurance. The tip credit provision was introduced into a previously no tip credit environment. Any assessment of the impact of Seattle’s minimum wage policy is complicated by this complex array of minimum wage rates. This complexity continues in 2017, when the range of the four Seattle minimum wages widened, from $11 to $15, and the state minimum wage increased to $11.We analyze county and city-level data for 2009 to 2016 on all employees counted in the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages and use the “synthetic control” method to rigorously identify the causal effects of Seattle’s minimum wage policy upon wages and employment. Our study focuses on the Seattle food services industry. This industry is an intense user of minimum wage workers; if wage and employment effects occur, they should be detectable in this industry. We use county level data from other areas in Washington State and the rest of the U.S. to construct a synthetic control group that matches Seattle for a nearly six year period before the minimum wage policy was implemented. Our methods ensure that our synthetic control group meets accepted statistical standards, including not being contaminated by wage spillovers from Seattle. We scale our outcome measures so that they apply to all sectors, not just food services.Our results show that wages in food services did increase—indicating the policy achieved its goal—and our estimates of the wage increases are in line with the lion’s share of results in previous credible minimum wage studies. Wages increased much less among full-service restaurants, indicating that employers made use of the tip credit component of the law. Employment in food service, however, was not affected, even among the limited-service restaurants, many of them franchisees, for whom the policy was most binding. These findings extend our knowledge of minimum wage effects to policies as high as $13.
OpTile: Toward Optimal Tiling in 360-degree Video Streaming

360-degree videos are encoded for adaptive streaming by first projecting the spherical surface onto two-dimensional frames, then encoding these as standard video segments. During playback of these 360-degree videos, the video player renders the portion of the spherical surface in the direction of the user's view. These user viewports typically cover only a small portion of the 360 degree surface, causing much of the downloaded bandwidth to be wasted. Tile-based approaches can reduce the wasted bandwidth by cutting video spatially into motion-constrained rectangles. Streaming logic then only needs to download the tiles necessary to render the viewport seen by the user. Existing tile-based approaches cut 360-degree videos into tiles of fixed sizes. These fixed-size tiling approaches, however, suffer from reduced encoding efficiency. Tiling cuts away portions of the video that can be copied by the encoder from adjacent frames or within the current frame that are needed for effective video compression. In this paper, we propose a scheme called OpTile. This scheme tiles a projected 360-degree segment by first estimating per-tile storage costs, then solving an integer linear program (ILP) to obtain an optimal, potentially non-uniform tiling. The ILP objective considers both content-specific characteristics and empirical distributions over user views of the segments. Using a randomly selected training/testing set split, we show that if a streaming algorithm can perfectly predict the user head orientation, our proposed scheme can save up to 73% of downloaded data compared to the non-tiling scheme and up to 44% compared to the best-performing uniform tiling methods.
Nativity Status and Cardiovascular Disease Mortality Among Hispanic Adults.

BackgroundHispanic persons represent a heterogeneous and growing population of any race with origins in Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, South America, or other Spanish‐speaking countries. P...
Scalability comparison of SDN control plane architectures based on simulations

Software Defined Networking (SDN) is an emerging networking paradigm which separates the control plane from the data forwarding plane. To control large networks, designing a scalable control plane for SDN is one of the most significant challenges. In this paper, we focus on comparing the scalability performance of SDN control planes with different architectures. We first compare simulation and emulation approach in scalability evaluation for SDN, and conclude that simulation is the most appropriate approach for our study. To apply simulation approach, we identify two critical processes (flow setup and statistics collection) which restrict the scalability of the control plane. Based on these two processes, we abstract switches and controllers in the five existing SDN control plane architectures (i.e., centralized, P2P with local view, P2P with global view, hierarchical, and hybrid). These abstractions allow us to build simulations based on ns-3 network simulator for SDN networks with different control plane architectures. Our experiments show that the hierarchical control plane achieves the best scalability performance, while the centralized and P2P with global view control planes get the worst performance. Furthermore, our simulations demonstrate the significance of statistics collection speed in scaling the SDN network. We believe this study can give implications about control plane architecture selection for operators (developers) who want to deploy (develop) their own SDN networks (controllers).
Using optical coherence tomography to detect disturbances in coronary microvascular in a model of fetal alcohol syndrome (Conference Presentation)

Congenital coronary anomalies can result in severe consequences such as arrhythmias and sudden death. However, the etiology of abnormal embryonic coronary microvasculature development is understudied. Using a novel contrast-agent-based optical coherence tomography (OCT) technique, scatter labeled imaging of microvasculature in excised tissue (SLIME), we compared diseased and normal embryonic quail coronary microvasculature in 3D. Congenital heart defects associated with fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) were induced in a quail model by injecting 40 uL of 50% ethanol solution into eggs during gastrulation. These and saline-injected quail eggs were incubated until stage 36. SLIME contrast agent was perfused through the aortas of embryos and fixed in the vessels with a crosslinking agent. Dissected hearts were treated with a CUBIC-1 clearing agent and the scattering contrast labeled vasculature were imaged using customized spectral domain OCT systems. SLIME data revealed that coronary microvasculature of the control group was organized as parallel bundles over the left ventricle near the apex, whereas in a majority of the ethanol-treated embryos coronary microvasculature had chaotic patterns in similar regions. These differences in alignment of microvasculature have not been previously described in this disease model. Quantitative and statistical assessment will aid in evaluating the significance of this coronary defect. Future investigations will determine whether coronary mispatterning may reflect misalignment of cardiomyocytes that could lead to other negative consequences.
Integrated instruction set randomization and control reconfiguration for securing cyber-physical systems

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) have been increasingly subject to cyber-attacks including code injection attacks. Zero day attacks further exasperate the threat landscape by requiring a shift to defense in depth approaches. With the tightly coupled nature of cyber components with the physical domain, these attacks have the potential to cause significant damage if safety-critical applications such as automobiles are compromised. Moving target defense techniques such as instruction set randomization (ISR) have been commonly proposed to address these types of attacks. However, under current implementations an attack can result in system crashing which is unacceptable in CPS. As such, CPS necessitate proper control reconfiguration mechanisms to prevent a loss of availability in system operation. This paper addresses the problem of maintaining system and security properties of a CPS under attack by integrating ISR, detection, and recovery capabilities that ensure safe, reliable, and predictable system operation. Specifically, we consider the problem of detecting code injection attacks and reconfiguring the controller in real-time. The developed framework is demonstrated with an autonomous vehicle case study.