cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Patient Selection for Intra-Arterial Therapy in Acute Ischemic Stroke: Concordance between Prior Practice Patterns at Strong Memorial Hospital and Current Evidence from Randomized Clinical Trials (P2.317)

Objective: To compare prior practice and current evidence in patient selection for intra-arterial therapy (IAT) in acute ischemic stroke (AIS). Background: Until recently, IAT had not been shown to be more effective than intravenous tissue plasminogen activator (IV tPA) in AIS. Despite the lack of evidence, many centers continued to offer IAT, with patient selection guided by expert opinion and physician discretion. Since December 2014, five randomized trials have confirmed a benefit from IAT compared to IV tPA alone in selected AIS patients. While the trials differ in their patient selection criteria, they generally included patients with good premorbid functional status, confirmed proximal vessel occlusion, and favorable imaging, presenting soon after symptom onset. Methods: We determined the level of concordance between our prior practice and the current evidence by applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria of these trials retrospectively to a prospectively collected cohort of 90 consecutive AIS patients who presented to our institution with a proximal vessel occlusion before December 2014. Results: Thirteen of these patients (14[percnt]) were treated with IAT. Patient selection for IAT was most concordant with MR CLEAN and EXTEND-IA in the subgroup treated with IAT and IV tPA (100[percnt]), and with ESCAPE in the subgroup treated with IAT alone (71[percnt]). Of note, a significant subset of our 13 patients treated with IAT would have been found ineligible to participate in these trials. Specifically, 3 (23[percnt]) would have been excluded from ESCAPE, 4 (31[percnt]) from MR CLEAN, and 7 (54[percnt]) from EXTEND-IA. Conversely, 12 of our 77 patients not treated with IAT (16[percnt]) would have been eligible for ESCAPE, 31 (40[percnt]) for MR CLEAN, and 7 (9[percnt]) for EXTEND-IA. Conclusions: Further analysis of the outcomes in these patient groups and improvement of our door-to-groin puncture times will maximize the benefit of IAT in our AIS population. Disclosure: Dr. Noto has nothing to disclose. Dr. Damania has nothing to disclose. Dr. Kung has nothing to disclose. Dr. Chandler has nothing to disclose. Dr. Liew has nothing to disclose. Dr. Finley has nothing to disclose. Dr. Mangla has nothing to disclose. Dr. Jahromi has nothing to disclose. Dr. Miranpuri has nothing to disclose. Dr. Sahin has received personal compensation for activities with Medtronic, Inc.
Theoretical status of baryon magnetic moments

This talk given at the Eighth International Symposium on High‐Energy Spin Physics in Minneapolis, Minnesota (September 12–17, 1988), is a short summary of theoretical results for baryon magnetic moments. Results from the static bag model and pion exchange effects are summarized and compared with experimental data. A list of references for various models and properties effecting the baryon magnetic moments is given at the end of the article. (AIP)
Shifting Practices in Digital Workplace Learning: An Integrated Approach to Learning, Knowledge Management, and Knowledge Sharing

No one can dispute the impact that technology innovation, especially the rapid development of information technology (IT), has on our work and life. It has not only created performance improvement ...
A Century of Adjustments in a New Hampshire Back Area

This paper undertakes to present a study of a back country area in which agriculture has declined for many years until it has now almost disappeared. The first section briefly relates to adjustments from 1800 to date, the middle part to a description of present conditions, and the last to certain aspects of future adjustments. In the land-utilization study for which the data were collected, the New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station has emphasized a description of present problems in this area with a view to the formation of state land policies. The historical aspects have received attention only incidentally, but they become intriguing as one works on the problems involved in this back area of an old settled country. The area under consideration is located in western New Hampshire in southern Grafton County and has been declining in agricultural importance and in population for nearly a hundred years. Adjustments are still in process. A present land-use map of the state indicates many areas in which no commercial agriculture appears. Some of these areas, such as the large one in the north, are mountainous and were never cleared and settled. Other sections were once thickly populated and farmed, but have declined greatly in population and farming activity since the Civil War. Such an area is the rather large space in southern Grafton County, back from the Connecticut River and comprising portions of fourteen towns. Data taken from H. F. Walling's map printed in 1860 indicate the roads and location of farmsteads at that time. The roads pierced nearly every section, and farmsteads were fairly evenly distributed. Only rough mountainous areas were untouched. Abandonment of certain locations had begun as early as 1840, and probably the roads and farm-
Stereotype content and social distancing from employees with mental illness: The moderating roles of gender and social dominance orientation

Mental illness is increasingly prevalent among employees, but little is known about how these individuals are perceived at work. Using the stereotype content model as a framework, we investigated warmth and competence stereotypes associated with employees with anxiety, depression, and bipolar disorder. Employees with these disorders were perceived to be low in warmth and competence, and stereotypes about individuals with anxiety were relatively more positive than those with depression or bipolar. This study also proposed and tested the extent to which stereotypes predicted work-related social distancing intentions. We found that two characteristics moderated this relationship: gender and social dominance orientation. We discuss practical and theoretical implications as they pertain to improving the experiences and well-being of employees with mental illness.
Growing season warming and winter freeze–thaw cycles reduce root nitrogen uptake capacity and increase soil solution nitrogen in a northern forest ecosystem

Northern forest ecosystems are projected to experience warmer growing seasons and increased soil freeze–thaw cycles in winter over the next century. Past studies show that warmer soils in the growing season enhance nitrogen uptake by plants, while soil freezing in winter reduces plant uptake and ecosystem retention of nitrogen, yet the combined effects of these changes on plant root capacity to take up nitrogen are unknown. We conducted a 2-year (2014–2015) experiment at Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in New Hampshire, USA to characterize the response of root damage, nitrogen uptake capacity, and soil solution nitrogen to growing season warming combined with soil freeze–thaw cycles in winter. Winter freeze–thaw cycles damaged roots, reduced nitrogen uptake capacity by 42%, and increased soil solution ammonium in the early growing season (May–June). During the peak growing season (July), root nitrogen uptake capacity was reduced 40% by warming alone and 49% by warming combined with freeze–thaw cycles. These results indicate the projected combination of colder soils in winter and warmer soils in the snow-free season will alter root function by reducing root nitrogen uptake capacity and lead to transient increases of nitrogen in soil solution during the early growing season, with the potential to alter root competition for soil nitrogen and seasonal patterns of soil nitrogen availability. We conclude that considering interactive effects of changes in climate during winter and the snow-free season is essential for accurate determination of the response of nitrogen cycling in the northern hardwood forest to climate change.
The benefits of early care and education for child welfare-involved children: Perspectives from the field.

Abstract Increasing access to early care and education (ECE) for children in the child welfare system (CWS) remains a critical issue in the United States, as the numbers of young children entering this system steadily increases. Mounting evidence suggests that participation in at least some types of ECE can mitigate the need for child welfare supervision. Moreover, ECE participation has been linked to positive developmental and school readiness outcomes, lower rates of foster placement, and greater placement stability for children in the CWS. Despite this research, ECE is not widely used by this population. This study informs recent local and federal efforts to increase ECE utilization among children in the CWS by exploring the perspectives of three stakeholder groups (child welfare caseworkers, ECE providers, and parents/caregivers) regarding the benefits of CWS-supervised children’s participation in ECE for 1) the children themselves, 2) their parents/caregivers, and 3) their caseworkers. A total of ten focus groups were conducted with these stakeholders in a large urban area in the western U.S. ( n = 79). Meeting transcripts were analyzed with Atlas TI software to identify themes. Results highlight multiple ways in which participants perceived ECE as being beneficial for CWS-supervised children, as well as for their parents/caregivers, and caseworkers. These findings offer suggestions for ways to motivate caseworkers and parents/caregivers to enroll CWS-supervised children in ECE by educating them about benefits, not only for the children, but also for themselves.
How to Help Them ‘Figure It Out on Their Own’

When used effectively, feedback from coaches helps athletes develop the skills needed to independently recognize what matters and adjust when necessary. This article presents are some simple things...
Tissues Acted Upon by Insulin

This chapter focuses on the tissues acted upon by insulin. One of the principal functions of insulin is to enable the mammalian organism to store rapidly and efficiently the foodstuffs which are presented to it. The tissues responsible for storing the majority of endogenous food materials are adipose tissue, muscle, and liver, and it is these tissues that exhibit the most drastic metabolic alterations under conditions of insulin deprivation or excess. Other tissues may also display changes in relation to insulin availability. Insulin stimulates transport of glucose from plasma into the aqueous humor of the rabbit eye. The glucose uptake of rat lens in vitro has been measured. It is not increased by addition of insulin in vitro ; it is apparently decreased in lenses from diabetic rats and stimulated by injection of insulin into the donor rat 1 hour before sacrifice. Insulin stimulates the hexosemonophosphate (HMP) pathway, and the production of TPNH.
Dynamic Firewall Configuration Optimization

Security policies play a critical role in many of the current network security technologies such as firewalls, IPSec and IDS devices. The configuration of these policies not only determines the functionality of such devices, but also substantially affects their performance. The optimization of filtering policy configuration is critically important to provide high performance packet filtering particularly for firewalls. Current packet filtering techniques exploit the characteristics of the filtering policies, but they do not consider the traffic behavior in optimizing their search data structures. This often results in high space complexity, which undermines the performance gain offered by these techniques. Also, these techniques offer upper bounds for the worst case search times; nevertheless, the more common average case scenarios are not necessarily optimized.In this chapter, we first classify, describe and compare the existing dynamic firewall policy configuration techniques based on-line and off-line traffic analysis.Second, we present a novel technique that utilizes Internet traffic characteristics to dynamically optimize the rule ordering (DRO) of firewall policies dynamically. The proposed technique timely adapts to the traffic conditions using actively calculated statistics to dynamically optimize the ordering of packet filtering rules. The rule importance in traffic matching as well as its dependency on other rules are both considered in our optimization algorithm. Through extensive evaluation experiments using simulated and real Internet traffic traces, the proposed mechanism is shown to be efficient and easy to deploy in practical firewall implementations.
Abstract 2623: CHP-IL12 combined with surgery suppresses tumor metastasis and prolongs survival

Interleukin 12 (IL-12) is the most promising cytokine for treating tumors by itself or arming immunogenic cells but its toxicity and moderate response limit its clinical use. To avoid or minimize the toxicity issue and boost the anti-tumor immune response, our lab has discovered a comprehensive tumor-targeting carcinoma homing peptide (CHP). Fusion of this peptide encoding DNA sequence to IL12 encoding sequence in frame yields the proprietary product—CHP-IL12 (US patent 9,657,077 B2), or tumor-targeting IL12, which increased the accumulation of IL12 in tumor environment and decreased liver toxicity compared to wild-type IL12 (wt-IL12) gene therapy. Here, we report the therapeutic efficacy of this CHP-IL12 on metastasis and to comprehend the underlying mechanism description between CHP-IL12 and wildtype (wt)-IL12 for boosting anti-tumor response, two orthotopic and spontaneous tumor metastasis models (one adult and one pediatric tumor) were utilized. CHP-IL12 gene therapy showed greater efficacy in controlling growth of established tumors compared to wt-IL12. CHP-IL12 gene therapy, in combination with surgery, reduced number of metastatic nodules in lungs, livers and bones. CHP-IL12, compared to wt-IL12, conferred a potential immunostimulatory effect involving 1) reduction of T-reg cells, myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSC) and tumor associated macrophages (TAM); 2) recruitment of activated CD8+ T cells to the tumor. Moreover, CHP-IL12 increased IL12, IFNγ level in tumor environment and decreased IL12, IFNγ level in serum, which is the major cause of toxicity. Furthermore, in combination with surgery, CHP-IL12 gene therapy led to long-term survival and enhanced immunological memory development of tumor bearing mice compared to wt-IL12 gene therapy. These results collectively indicate that CHP-IL12 fusion gene therapy coupled with surgery has a powerful potency in inhibition of tumor metastasis and prolonging survival and a low potency in inducing toxicity. Therefore, CHP-IL12 fusion gene therapy in combination with surgery may translate into clinic as a promising anti-tumor strategy for both adult and pediatric tumors. Citation Format: Qingnan Zhao, Jiemiao Hu, Jeffry J. Cutrera, Abhisek Mitra, Xueqing Xia, Shulin Li. CHP-IL12 combined with surgery suppresses tumor metastasis and prolongs survival [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2018; 2018 Apr 14-18; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2018;78(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 2623.
Hybrid Stochastic Gradient Descent Algorithms for Stochastic Nonconvex Optimization

We introduce a hybrid stochastic estimator to design stochastic gradient algorithms for solving stochastic optimization problems. Such a hybrid estimator is a convex combination of two existing biased and unbiased estimators and leads to some useful property on its variance. We limit our consideration to a hybrid SARAH-SGD for nonconvex expectation problems. However, our idea can be extended to handle a broader class of estimators in both convex and nonconvex settings. We propose a new single-loop stochastic gradient descent algorithm that can achieve $O(\max\{\sigma^3\varepsilon^{-1},\sigma\varepsilon^{-3}\})$-complexity bound to obtain an $\varepsilon$-stationary point under smoothness and $\sigma^2$-bounded variance assumptions. This complexity is better than $O(\sigma^2\varepsilon^{-4})$ often obtained in state-of-the-art SGDs when $\sigma < O(\varepsilon^{-3})$. We also consider different extensions of our method, including constant and adaptive step-size with single-loop, double-loop, and mini-batch variants. We compare our algorithms with existing methods on several datasets using two nonconvex models.
Design and Analysis of a Bidirectional Notch Joint for a Robotic Pediatric Neuroendoscope

In this paper, we propose the design of a novel joint particularly for a tendon-driven continuum robot, which is feasible for use in the tip of a robotic neuroendoscope. We detail the functionality of this joint, and by varying geometric parameters of the joint, we analyze its bending capabilities in a simulated environment. Analysis, simulation and experiment show that the joint achieves higher bending flexibility in comparison to other types of joints used in this application, while retaining its stiffness towards external forces. A prototype of the joint has been developed using a superelastic material by milling, in order to validate the claims. The results we obtained are satisfactory and match with the proposed analysis and simulation.
Toward Predicting the Spatio-Temporal Dynamics of Alopecia Areata Lesions Using Partial Differential Equation Analysis

Hair loss in the autoimmune disease, alopecia areata (AA), is characterized by the appearance of circularly spreading alopecic lesions in seemingly healthy skin. The distinct spatial patterns of AA lesions form because the immune system attacks hair follicle cells that are in the process of producing hair shaft, catapults the mini-organs that produce hair from a state of growth (anagen) into an apoptosis-driven regression state (catagen), and causes major hair follicle dystrophy along with rapid hair shaft shedding. In this paper, we develop a model of partial differential equations (PDEs) to describe the spatio-temporal dynamics of immune system components that clinical and experimental studies show are primarily involved in the disease development. Global linear stability analysis reveals there is a most unstable mode giving rise to a pattern. The most unstable mode indicates a spatial scale consistent with results of the humanized AA mouse model of Gilhar et al. (Autoimmun Rev 15(7):726-735, 2016) for experimentally induced AA lesions. Numerical simulations of the PDE system confirm our analytic findings and illustrate the formation of a pattern that is characteristic of the spatio-temporal AA dynamics. We apply marginal linear stability analysis to examine and predict the pattern propagation.
Land Law in Chinese History

Although land law or “real property law” is but one of several branches of what scholars commonly call “economic law,” or laws that regulate everyday economic activity, its history has drawn, over the past several decades, an unusually large amount of attention from legal theorists, economists, and comparative scholars of all methodological orientations. This has been especially true within the field of Chinese legal history: few scholars outside the field have any clear sense of pre-modern, early modern, or even modern Chinese family law, the law of personal injury, or even criminal law, but a much larger number will likely have some impression of historical Chinese land law, and may even have an educated opinion about it. This is not because land law was any more important to everyday socioeconomic life than those other bodies of law, but rather because land law has played a much larger role in theoretical and comparative scholarship, particularly in scholarship that seeks to explain global economic divergence—specifically, the divergence between China and the West in the 18th and 19th Centuries. Although this literature has perpetrated its share of myths about Chinese property institutions, much progress has been made over the past few decades, to the point where something approaching an academic consensus on core institutional features has emerged. This chapter outlines these core features of Chinese land law, focusing primarily on the late imperial era, and provides a short summary of how the field arrived at them. Whereas it was once thought that Chinese property rights were comparatively less secure or less alienable than Western European property rights, it now seems unlikely that major differences existed at this general level. They did exist, however, in the finer institutional details of tenancy law and collateralization instruments, and potentially in inheritance law as well. In these latter features, Chinese land law tended to produce institutional incentives that leveled and fractured the pattern of rural landholding, thereby reinforcing the economic dominance of household-level production throughout the late imperial era, and well into the 20th Century. The chapter then discusses relatively recent trends in the academic literature, reaching back to 1970s and 1980s, when the study of Chinese land law became deeply intertwined with debates over economic divergence. It concludes by briefly pondering the costs and benefits of such intertwinement, and what it means to study “the history of Chinese land law” as a consolidated subject.
Internal medicine paging curriculum to improve physician-nurse interprofessional communication: a single center pilot study.

Effective physician-nurse communication is critical to patient safety, yet internal medicine trainees are rarely given feedback on this skill. In order to address this gap, we developed a 4-week si...
Isolation of full-length IgG antibodies from combinatorial libraries expressed in the cytoplasm of Escherichia coli

Abstract We describe a facile and robust genetic selection for isolating full-length IgG antibodies from combinatorial libraries expressed in the cytoplasm of the genetically engineered Escherichia coli strain, SHuffle. The method is based on the transport of a bifunctional substrate comprised of an antigen fused to chloramphenicol acetyltransferase, which allows positive selection of bacterial cells co-expressing cytoplasmic IgGs called ‘cyclonals’ that specifically capture the chimeric antigen and sequester the antibiotic resistance marker in the cytoplasm. The selective power of this approach was demonstrated by facile isolation of novel complementarity-determining regions for a cyclonal that specifically recognized the basic-region leucine zipper domain of the yeast transcriptional activator protein Gcn4.
Chaos in schools and its relationship to adolescent risk behaviors

ABSTRACT Objective Chaos in the home is associated with worse childhood behaviors. We hypothesize chaos in the school environment might also be associated with teen risk behaviors. Methods We analyzed data from the Reducing Inequities through Social and Educational change follow up (RISE-UP) Study, a natural experiment designed to examine the impact of high performing schools on adolescent outcomes. Students reported the amount of noise, order, and control in their school environment and whether they engaged in substance use, fighting, school absenteeism and delinquent behaviors. We conducted cross-lagged panel structural equation modeling to examine the relationship between school chaos at 10th grade with risk behaviors at 11th grade while simultaneously examining the relationship between behaviors at 10th grade with chaos at 11th grade. Results Among a sample of 1114 teens, 90% were Latinx and 40% were native English speakers. Students reporting more school chaos in 10th grade were more likely in 11th grade to report recent alcohol and cannabis use, physical fighting, school absenteeism and delinquent behaviors in the last year. Cross-lagged structural equation model analyses indicate school chaos at 10th grade is linked to alcohol use and absenteeism at 11th grade, while fighting, absenteeism and any delinquent behaviors at 10th grade are associated with more chaos at 11th grade. School engagement was not a mediating factor. Conclusions Although causal relationships cannot be assumed, school chaos may be an important predictor of adolescent risk behaviors. Future studies should examine whether reducing school chaos leads to lower rates of adolescent risk behaviors.
Engaging Fathers of Young Children in Low-Income Families to Improve Child and Family Outcomes: A Preventive Intervention Perspective

Despite the benefits for children and families of fathers who are involved positively with their children, most parenting programs in the USA and globally focus on and collect evaluation data from mothers almost exclusively. Engaging fathers is still viewed as a complex endeavor that is only somewhat successful. In this chapter, we summarize what is known about engaging fathers in parenting programs and then argue that programs are most effective when coparenting is the early focus in family formation. We rely on two decades of the Supporting Father Involvement (SFI) program as an example of an initiative that has been effective at recruiting and retaining fathers and mothers in various cultural and national contexts. When programs are inclusive in content and focus on process, are sensitive to differences within and across families, and recognize parents as experts on their children, they are more successful in recruiting and retaining diverse groups of fathers and families.
Factors Impeding Replacement of Ion Exchange with (Electro)Catalytic Treatment for Nitrate Removal from Drinking Water

Nitrate (NO3–) has impacted more groundwater supplies than any other pollutant in the world. It is currently removed at water treatment plants by ion exchange, which is effective but comes at a ste...
Wave propagation through submerged granular media over a wide range of fluid viscosities

Abstract The low-velocity impact response of 2D granular crystals immersed in various fluids over a wide range of viscosities (1–106 cP) was investigated. The drag effects in the immersed crystals results in significantly higher wave attenuation as compared to dry granular crystals. In order to quantify the spatial dependence of the wave decay characteristics, the coefficients of attenuation were computed for the dry granular crystals and granular crystals immersed in various fluids. The coefficient of attenuation for immersed granular crystals was significantly larger than the coefficient of attenuation for dry granular crystals. As the viscosity increased, the coefficient of attenuation also increased due to the additional drag effects followed by an unexpected decrease for the highest viscosity fluids. The ratio of kinetic energy to strain energy for immersed granular crystals decreases initially as a function of viscosity but increases again for the fluids with the highest viscosities.
Government Information: Readily Accessible yet Also Grey Literature

Government information is a unique subset of grey literature. Often governments are the only source of information because they are the only entities that collect or create specific information, su...
Uprooting Living Trees: Enslavement in the Lower Congo During the Age of Second Slavery (Ca.1811- Ca.1867)

This paper explores a "stationary" slave frontier in the lower Congo during the first half of the 19th century and the endogenous conceptualizations of slavery and dependency created by the people it caught. Drawing from their intellectual traditions, they gave meaning to the staggering levels of violence and insecurity that marked the region during a period of reconfiguration of the South Atlantic political economy. I argue that the study of origins of enslaved Africans captured by the Atlantic economy and the forms of their enslavement in the area are better understood when the historian takes into account histories of meaning-making processes and practices grounded in the region. The semantic histories revealed by linguistic evidence and ethnographic sources suggest that the boundaries between belonging and slavery were commonly thought among lower Congo peoples by reference of an old metaphor juxtaposing men and trees, whose discursive power continued to be used by slaves in their daily resistance in southeastern Brazil. Such investigation also reveals how living and making the stationary slave frontier transformed endogenous conceptualizations of practices of slaving, modes of violence and discourses of scorning among peoples in the lower Congo. Drawing from Portuguese and Brazilian archives, as well as colonial documents, linguistic evidence and ethnographic sources, this study is an attempt in "re-imagining the archive" in order to move beyond what James Sweet called a "European-American exceptionalism" in Atlantic Studies towards a "sustained engagement with African histories and ethnographic ways of being." (Sweet, 2014)
Kinematics of gold nanoparticles manipulation in situ transmission electron microscopy

Nanostructured materials such as nanoparticles, nanotubes, and nanowires are subject to different forces regimes compared with their macroscopic counterparts. In this work, we report the experimental manipulation of an individual gold nanoparticle (96 nm) capped with PVP considering forces surrounding the nanoparticle such as adhesion, friction, and the external load in real time, and how the differences between these forces produce distinct motions. Combining a scanning probe tool within a transmission electron microscope, we manipulated a gold nanoparticle and recorded the sliding and rolling kinematic motions. Our observations show quantitatively the adhesion force, maximum rolling resistance, and friction coefficients of the probe and the surface of the capped particle as well as particle and substrate surface.
Fetal and neonatal biochemistry and Apgar scores.

Abstract Biochemical changes during labor, delivery, and the first hour of life were evaluated in 150 high-risk pregnancies. No differences in the biochemical status of the fetus (pH, Po 2 , Pco 2 , and base deficit) were found during early labor with different groups of patients divided according to low or high Apgar scores at 1 and 5 minutes. During labor and delivery, the fetus gradually becomes acidotic, with the acidosis more marked in fetuses who subsequently had lower Apgar scores; at birth there was a momentary accentuation of the acidosis during the first few minutes of life. It is speculated that the prediction of Apgar scores may be possible by measuring the fetal pH during the course of labor and delivery and that serial biochemical measurements with guide preparation for adequate treatment of a depressed newborn infant.
Resuscitating Proportionality in Non Capital Criminal Sentencing

Although the Eighth Amendment guarantees proportionality in noncapital criminal sentencing, federal and state courts have struggled when deciding individual cases, and the Supreme Court has failed to articulate legal rules that could promote the development of a coherent jurisprudence. Working within the governing law and building on the work already done by scholars who have focused on this problem, I propose three principles: transparency, limited deference, and a "felt sense of justice," that could guide the process of proportionality review and contribute to defining a retributivist touchstone for proportionality judgments. Focusing on the required threshold inquiry, I also outline an analytical framework for examining offense gravity and sentence severity, and determining gross disproportionality. My proposal identifies four analytical factors for assessing offense gravity: harm, culpability, violence, and magnitude; and two for evaluating sentence severity: the offender's "real sentence," and likely age and life opportunities upon release from prison.
The Ironman Triathlon shifts innate/adaptive immune cell populations and increases systemic inflammation (705.3)

The Ironman Triathlon shifts innate/adaptive immune cell populations and increases systemic inflammation Colleen X. Munoz1, Jenna M. Apicella1, Shlomit Radom-Aizik2, Carl M. Maresh1, Fadia Haddad2, Dan M Cooper2, Cherryl Nugas2, Frank P Zaldivar2, Douglas J. Casa1, Elaine C. Lee1 1University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 2University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA Exercise and environmental stressors threaten cellular function and integrity. We recently showed that whole body acute stress determines the extent of measurable cellular stress. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that the profile of circulating immune cells, level of systemic inflammation, and chaperone response would reflect the whole body stress of an Ironman. To test this hypothesis, we recruited 40 race participants (29 males, 11 females) and 17 control subjects (9 males, 8 females). Blood was drawn between 2-3 days before the triathlon (baseline), and during recovery at 1-, 24-, and 48-h after completion. CBC (with differential), multi...
Following the child's lead: mothers' interactions with children with autism.

This study examined the extent to which mothers of preschool children with autism use language that is related to the child's focus of attention. Fourteen mother–child dyads involving preschool children with autism participated in this study, along with 14 matched dyads involving typically developing preschool children. Both groups were observed during 15 minutes of free play. Results revealed that the mothers of children with autism directed verbalizations to something within the child's focus of attention as frequently as the mothers of typically developing children. Thus, children with autism had as many opportunities to benefit from verbal input related to their focus of attention as did typically developing children. However, mothers of children with autism directed verbalizations to something not within the child's focus of attention more frequently than mothers of typically developing children. This non-related input may have reflected the mothers' attempts to adapt to their children's difficulties in attention and interaction.
Don Kalb, Marco van der Land, Richard Staring, Bart van Steenbergen, and Nico Wilterdink, eds. The Ends of Globalization: Bringing Society Back In. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000. vii + 403 pp.

As the European population grew after 1100 CE, bishops and princes in the thinly settled regions northeast of what we now call Germany took to generating revenue and labor power by recruiting qualified migrants to newly chartered cities and villages. Often the charters granted access to German law rather than the Slavic or Scandinavian codes and practices that had previously prevailed. German law afforded both merchants and peasants greater individual freedom and more secure claims to property than did earlier legal arrangements. Soon German-speaking cities such as Danzig and Riga were booming as crossroads in the exchange of northern goods for the manufactures of Central and Western Europe. In their hinterlands, German-speaking farmers intensified cultivation and shipped agricultural products to centers of international trade. Fairly soon, however, strengthened coercive monarchies and mercantile federations such as the Hanse extracted revenues and exerted top-down controls that increased inequality between insiders and outsiders of the newly expanding political economy. We might call the whole process Europeanization. Within Europeanization, however, what caused what? How did German law, semi-autonomous cities, intensive farming, exclusive trading federations, developmental states, and proliferating markets interact? Decades of vigorous, often vitriolic, debate among historians have not yet produced a clear-cut victory for the view that well- articulated markets did the crucial work, for the riposte that new forms of force-backed exploitation caused the transformation, or for any alternative to those competing explanations.
Photodissociation dynamics of glyoxal

Summary form only given. The photodissociation dynamics of glyoxal have been of special interest in recent years because of the possibility that a single transition state leads to three molecular products: 2CO + H/sub 2/. In the present work (2+1) REMPI through the E,F state was used to characterize the rovibrational level of the H/sub 2/ product. To explore the possibility of mode selectivity in dissociation, a PHOFEX spectrum was taken by monitoring the relative amount of H/sub 2/ produced as the dissociation laser was scanned.
Evaluating body fat in girls and female adolescents: advantages and disadvantages of dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry

Background: Within the past 10 y, dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) has become one of the most widely used methods of measuring human body composition. However, DXA has not been fully evaluated against an independent criterion method of measuring body fatness in young females. Objective: Our objective was to determine the bias and agreement between DXA and a 4-compartment model in predicting the percentage of fat mass (%FM) in a multiethnic group of young females. Design: The %FM values measured by DXA of 73 white, 43 African American, 14 Hispanic, and 11 Asian females with a mean (± SD) age of 13.0 ± 1.9 y were compared with the 4-compartment values, which were based on measurements of body density, body water, and bone mineral content. Results: The %FM values measured by the 2 methods were correlated at r = 0.90 with an SEE of 3.3%; Bland-Altman analysis indicated an average bias of 3.9%. After nullification of the average bias, an individual estimate of %FM by DXA could be underestimated or overestimated by 6.7% when compared with the 4-compartment value. Conclusions: DXA is an appropriate method for estimating body composition in a group of young females because its bias and limits of agreement are independent of age, ethnicity, and body fatness. However, the limits of agreement of 6.7% could cause an individual FM value to be underestimated or overestimated by 28% relative to the 4-compartment value. Therefore, DXA may not be the optimal method of measuring the body fatness of young females.
Solitude at Grand Canyon: an application of expectancy theory

The desire for solitude and its fulfillment at Grand Canyon are examined through the framework of expectancy theory. In order to associate variations in solitude fulfillment with backcountry manage...
Localization, correlation, and visualization of electroencephalographic surface electrodes and brain anatomy in epilepsy studies

Advances in neuroimaging have enhanced the clinician's ability to localize the epileptogenic zone in focal epilepsy, but 20-50 percent of these cases still remain unlocalized. Many sophisticated modalities have been used to study epilepsy, but scalp electrode recorded electroencephalography is particularly useful due to its noninvasive nature and excellent temporal resolution. This study is aimed at specific locations of scalp electrode EEG information for correlation with anatomical structures in the brain. 3D position localizing devices commonly used in virtual reality systems are used to digitize the coordinates of scalp electrodes in a standard clinical configuration. The electrode coordinates are registered with a high- resolution MRI dataset using a robust surface matching algorithm. Volume rendering can then be used to visualize the electrodes and electrode potentials interpolated over the scalp. The accuracy of the coordinate registration is assessed quantitatively with a realistic head phantom.© (1997) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Microwave analog to light scattering measurements: a modern implementation of a proven method to achieve precise control.

Abstract The experimental determination of scattered electromagnetic radiation from a known target illuminated by a known source remains an essential tool to test new scattering theories and to investigate the scattering by particles for which a theory has not yet been devised. This article describes a modern broad-band microwave scattering facility capable of determining the elements of the scattering matrix from 0 to 168 ° scattering angle under automated control. The laboratory measurements can cover the size range from near the Rayleigh limit to geometric optics. Both phase and intensity are routinely measured at 85–501 discrete wavelengths from 2.7 to 4 mm, which allows the derivation of all elements in the scattering matrix. The unwanted background radiation can be removed through vector subtraction and the result verified using the technique of “time-gating” based on inverse Fourier transformation and time domain analysis. Measurements are shown to be repeatable and accurate. This is primarily due to the use of a “clean” mechanical and electronic design in combination with high mechanical and thermal stability.
Dissection of qTGW1.2 to three QTLs for grain weight and grain size in rice (Oryza sativa L.).

Dissection of qTGW1.2, a minor quantitative trait locus (QTL) for 1,000-grain weight located on the long arm of rice chromosome 1, was reported here. Six sets of near isogenic lines (NILs) were developed from six BC2F9 plants of the indica rice cross Zhenshan 973/Milyang 46, respectively, segregated in a sequential order covering the region for qTGW1.2. They were tested for 1,000-grain weight, grain length, grain width and heading date. The SAS procedure GLM was used to analyze the phenotype differences among three genotypic groups in each NIL set. The qTGW1.2 was separated into three QTLs, including qTGW1.2a located in the 933.6 kb interval RM11730–RM11762, qTGW1.2b in the 418.8 kb interval RM11781–RM11800, and qTGW1.2c in the 2.1 Mb interval RM11800–RM11885. While qTGW1.2a and qTGW1.2c displayed the genetic action mode of negatively partial dominance, qTGW1.2b appeared to have a positively dominance effect as large as its additive effect. In addition, the effects of the three QTLs were consistently detected in different NIL sets. It was also shown that the effects of qTGW1.2a and qTGW1.2b on grain weight were related more to grain length than grain width, and qTGW1.2c related more to grain width than grain length. Our results indicate that the effects of minor QTLs could be steadily detected in a highly isogenic background and suggest that dominance effects of minor QTLs might play an important role in the genetic control of heterosis in rice.
Analysis of electromagnetic field variability in magnetized ionosphere plasma using the stochastic FDTD method

A stochastic finite-difference time-domain (S-FDTD) algorithm is presented for electromagnetic wave propagation in anisotropic magnetized plasma. This new algorithm efficiently calculates in a single simulation not only the mean electromagnetic field values, but also their variance as caused by the variability or uncertainty of the content of the ionosphere. By accounting for fully three-dimensional, high resolution (even cmscale) structures and uncertainty in the ionosphere, this algorithm represents a paradigm shift in our ability to analyze realistic, complex wave propagation in the ionosphere.
On Maximizing Decoupling Capacitance of Clock-Gated Logic for Robust Power Delivery

The Intrinsic capacitance of CMOS circuits provides inexpensive decoupling capacitance for power supply noise mitigation. In FinFET circuits, such capacitance has greater dependence on the logic states of gates. Consequently, when a group of gates are inactive, there exists a combination of inputs that will maximize the decoupling capacitance for the power supply. In this paper, (i) we establish the input dependence of decoupling capacitance in FinFET circuits based on simulation results and (ii) propose a pattern generation solution to find an input pattern that maximizes such capacitance. This analysis is potentially important for circuit initialization in sleep states and in design planning for power delivery networks. The exact pattern generation problem is known to be computationally intractable. To reduce the order of computation, we propose simplification to the state dependent capacitance model that preserves accuracy while greatly reducing the amount of computation. The pattern generation problem is formulated as an Integer Linear Programming (ILP) problem. We evaluate the proposed solution on ISCAS-85 benchmark circuits. This approach is shown to be superior than random pattern simulation based solution. The scalability of the solution is improved via constraint-objective model order reduction and modeling at a higher level.
Stereotyped behaviours in children with autism spectrum disorders and atypical development as measured by the BPI-01.

Objective: As repetitive behaviours in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) can significantly interfere with one's daily functioning, continued research on these behaviours is needed.Methods: This study examined the occurrence of repetitive motor movements in toddlers (17–37 months) with ASD and atypical development and the relationship between stereotypies and sensory impairment.Results: Children with ASD (n = 13) exhibited significantly more repetitive behaviours than the non-ASD group (n = 12). Greater percentages of endorsement were evident for the ASD group on nearly all items of the Behaviour Problems Inventory-01 (BPI-01) Stereotypy subscale. More repetitive behaviours tended to co-occur with other stereotypies for the ASD group. A moderate correlation was found between stereotypy severity and sensory deficits.Conclusion: These findings suggest that stereotyped behaviours can be identified at very young ages, negatively affect the behavioural presentation of those with ASDs and should be ...
Decreased Proteasome-Mediated Degradation in T Cells from the Elderly: A Role in Immune Senescence

Abstract Induction of NFκB is a highly regulated process requiring phosphorylation, ubiquitination, and proteasome-mediated degradation of the cytosolic inhibitor IκBα. Analyses of the regulation of IκBα in TNF-α-treated T lymphocytes from young and elderly donors revealed severely compromised degradation of IκBα in T cells from the elderly. Examination of activation-induced phosphorylation and ubiquitination of IκBα did not demonstrate any significant age-related alterations. However, examination of proteasome activity in these T cells using fluorogenic peptide assays revealed a significant age-related decline in chymotryptic activity. These results suggest that a decline in proteasome activity results in a failure to fully degrade IκBα in the elderly. This failure to degrade IκBα may underlie both the observed decrease in NFκB induction and the IL-2 receptor expression in TNF-treated T cells during aging. Thus, decreased proteasome-mediated degradation may be central to immune dysfunction that accompanies aging.