cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
A Review of Ethical Issue Considerations in the Information Systems Research Literature

A Review of Ethical Issue Considerations in the Information Systems Research Literature summarizes the treatment of ethical considerations that have been made by information systems researchers. When examined in this fashion, one finds that information systems research over the years that incorporates an ethical perspective has transitioned from a focus on codes of ethics and general notions of behavior to more sophisticated models of piracy, privacy, and security. There has been a steady focus on theory development over the last ten years, as well as constant scrutiny on the obligations of information system researchers to both the subjects of studies and the consumers of the research results. The monograph begins with a brief introduction and review of major ethical theories. This is followed by the category summaries, which are listed in alphabetical order to enable a reader to jump to a specific topic. The last sections address future research opportunities and the conclusions drawn.
Luneburg-lens-like structural Pauli attractive core of the nuclear force at short distances

Abstract A recent paper Ohkubo (2017) [1] found that the measured S 0 1 phase shifts can be reproduced using a deeply attractive nucleon–nucleon potential. We find that the deuteron would decay strongly via pion emission to the deeply bound state arising in this potential. Therefore the success of a deeply attractive potential in describing phase shifts must be regarded only as an interesting curiosity.
The impacts of monetary policies on US agriculture

The increased integration of the U.S. farm sector with the nonfarm sector, during the past decade, both domestically and internationally, led to significant implications for farm product prices, input costs, and farm income from developments in international and/or domestic economies. This is true, especially in light of the effects of exchange rates, interest rates, and inflation, all of which are influenced by macroeconomic policies and capital markets, on the farm sector. However, much of the literature in the area of macroeconomics of agriculture mainly focused on the linkage between exchange rates and agricultural commodity trade; relatively little attention has been given to other macrointerconnections such as interest rates, inflation, and income linkages;This study examines the interrelationships between the macrosector and agriculture by incorporating exchange rates, interest rates, inflation, and income linkages in a general equilibrium macroeconometric model. Using this model, the effects of changes in U.S. monetary policies on the U.S. farm sector (particularly on crop prices, livestock product prices, crop production and demand, exports, inventories, livestock production and demand, and farm incomes) are examined through these four linkages;Since the exchange rate is an important monetary factor that influences the agricultural commodity trade, in this study, the exchange rate is endogenized by following the monetary approach to exchange rate determination. The sample period of the study is 1950-1982. The estimated model has good statistical properties. In particular, all the coefficients related to the four macrolinkages are consistent with a priori expectations and, thus, provide evidence for the hypothesis that macroeconomic developments are very important for the hypothesis that macroeconomic developments are very important for U.S. agriculture;The results indicate that the effect of money supply changes on agricultural trade and prices would be magnified if a more complete set of linkages are specified rather than specifying only the exchange rate linkage. Furthermore, the simulation results show that an expansionary monetary policy has a positive impact on the farm sector, since such a policy increases the farm prices and income through the above-mentioned four linkages. On the other hand, a contractionary monetary policy has an adverse effect on the farm sector by decreasing farm prices and incomes.
A Deformation Analysis of a Polyethylene Crystal Subjected to End Forces of Stretching and Lattice Expansion

In a recent study by Hoffman1,2 on a theory of flow-induced fibril formation in polymer solutions, it was proposed that each crystallite could be idealized as a rectangular parallelepiped of length l and a square cross-section of side a, and that the four lateral surfaces could each assume the usual lateral surface free-energy density σ (~ 14 ergs/cm2 for polyethylene). The end surface free-energy density σe, however, was assigned a much larger value, because, according to Hoffman1, each end of the crystallite was subjected to two unique types of microstructure-induced forces of unknown magnitudes, namely, a longitudinal stretching due to the handling of the crystallite, and an equally biaxial expansion due to the crowding of the cilia at the crystal ends.
Etiology-dependent impairment of relaxation kinetics in right ventricular end-stage failing human myocardium.

Abstract Background In patients with end-stage heart failure, the primary etiology often originates in the left ventricle, and eventually the contractile function of the right ventricle (RV) also becomes compromised. RV tissue-level deficits in contractile force and/or kinetics need quantification to understand involvement in ischemic and non-ischemic failing human myocardium. Methods and results The human population suffering from heart failure is diverse, requiring many subjects to be studied in order to perform an adequately powered statistical analysis. From 2009-present we assessed live tissue-level contractile force and kinetics in isolated myocardial RV trabeculae from 44 non-failing and 41 failing human hearts. At 1 Hz stimulation rate (in vivo resting state) the developed active force was not different in non-failing compared to failing ischemic nor non-ischemic failing trabeculae. In sharp contrast, the kinetics of relaxation were significantly impacted by disease, with 50% relaxation time being significantly shorter in non-failing vs. non-ischemic failing, while the latter was still significantly shorter than ischemic failing. Gender did not significantly impact kinetics. Length-dependent activation was not impacted. Although baseline force was not impacted, contractile reserve was critically blunted. The force-frequency relation was positive in non-failing myocardium, but negative in both ischemic and non-ischemic myocardium, while the β-adrenergic response to isoproterenol was depressed in both pathologies. Conclusions Force development at resting heart rate is not impacted by cardiac pathology, but kinetics are impaired and the magnitude of the impairment depends on the underlying etiology. Focusing on restoration of myocardial kinetics will likely have greater therapeutic potential than targeting force of contraction.
Connections between sources of health and beauty information and indoor tanning behavior among college women

Objective: This study tested how media, family, and peer sources of health and beauty information predict indoor tanning (IT) beliefs and behavior. Participants: 210 undergraduate women at a state ...
The association of preoperative cardiac stress testing with 30-day death and myocardial infarction among patients undergoing kidney transplantation.

Background Although periodic cardiac stress testing is commonly used to screen patients on the waiting list for kidney transplantation for ischemic heart disease, there is little evidence to support this practice. We hypothesized that cardiac stress testing in the 18 months prior to kidney transplantation would not reduce postoperative death, total myocardial infarction (MI) or fatal MI. Methods Using the United States Renal Data System, we identified ESRD patients ≥40 years old with primary Medicare insurance who received their first kidney transplant between 7/1/2006 and 11/31/2013. Propensity matching created a 1:1 matched sample of patients with and without stress testing in the 18 months prior to kidney transplantation. The outcomes of interest were death, total (fatal and nonfatal) MI or fatal MI within 30 days of kidney transplantation. Results In the propensity-matched cohort of 17,304 patients, death within 30 days occurred in 72 of 8,652 (0.83%) patients who underwent stress testing and in 65 of 8,652 (0.75%) patients who did not (OR 1.07; 95% CI: 0.79-1.45; P = 0.66). MI within 30 days occurred in 339 (3.9%) patients who had a stress test and in 333 (3.8%) patients who did not (OR 1.03; 95% CI: 0.89-1.21; P = 0.68). Fatal MI occurred in 17 (0.20%) patients who underwent stress testing and 15 (0.17%) patients who did not (OR 0.97; 95% CI: 0.71-1.32; P = 0.84). Conclusion Stress testing in the 18 months prior to kidney transplantation is not associated with a reduction in death, total MI or fatal MI within 30 days of kidney transplantation.
Recent Developments in the Structural Problem of Cellulose

Although a proper definition of “pure cellulose” has not yet been found, the term “cellulose”, as commonly used by chemists, is restricted to a product which may be obtained from raw cotton by removal of fat, wax, pectin and other impurities. It is tacitly assumed that the necessary operations of purification involving treatment with hot dilute alkali, often followed by bleaching with hypochlorite, do not cause deep-rooted changes in the chemical structure of native cellulose. The resulting product, termed “standard cellulose”, is now usually employed as the starting material in structural investigations. During the last one hundred years an enormous mass of experimental data has accumulated from which conflicting views and opposing conceptions have emerged, each of them offering evidence as to the true chemical constitution of cellulose. Many of these suggestions, however, have been based on data interpreted by several workers in support of their favorite theories which reveal only part of the picture and fail to allow a comprehensive generalization.
An image-based method to measure joint deformity in inflammatory arthritis: development and pilot study.

Quantifying joint deformity in people with rheumatoid (RA) and psoriatic arthritis (PsA) remains challenging. Here, we demonstrate a new method to measure bone erosions and abnormal periosteal grow...
The Challenge and Hope of System Change

This chapter includes a comprehensive case study on system change. It introduces the reader to community supervision and core practices that undergird its existence. Further, it expounds on “how” to approach a system with the objective of impacting it for change. In this case, Multnomah County Department of Community Justices’ (DCJ) adjustment in their community supervision model is highlighted. The phases of change are clearly outlined in this case study. It is concluded that the phases of change (and principles attached to each phase) DCJ matriculated through can be applied to and by systems (which are many) that serve youth, i.e., education, healthcare, for impactful change.
Two Can Play This Game: Visual Dialog with Discriminative Question Generation and Answering

Human conversation is a complex mechanism with subtle nuances. It is hence an ambitious goal to develop artificial intelligence agents that can participate fluently in a conversation. While we are still far from achieving this goal, recent progress in visual question answering, image captioning, and visual question generation shows that dialog systems may be realizable in the not too distant future. To this end, a novel dataset was introduced recently and encouraging results were demonstrated, particularly for question answering. In this paper, we demonstrate a simple symmetric discriminative baseline, that can be applied to both predicting an answer as well as predicting a question. We show that this method performs on par with the state of the art, even memory net based methods. In addition, for the first time on the visual dialog dataset, we assess the performance of a system asking questions, and demonstrate how visual dialog can be generated from discriminative question generation and question answering.
Evaluation of Winkler Model and Pasternak Model for Dynamic Soil-Structure Interaction Analysis of Structures Partially Embedded in Soils

AbstractThis paper reports a comprehensive study including detailed experimental, theoretical, and numerical analyses to evaluate the performance of two predominant soil-structure interaction model...
The addition of metformin to progestin therapy in the fertility-sparing treatment of women with atypical hyperplasia/endometrial intraepithelial neoplasia or endometrial cancer: Little impact on response and low live-birth rates

Abstract Objective Our objectives were 1) to compare the efficacy of progestin therapy combined with metformin (Prog-Met) to Prog alone as primary fertility sparing treatment in women with atypical hyperplasia/endometrial intraepithelial neoplasia (AH/EIN) or early-stage endometrioid carcinoma (EC), and 2) to analyze the proportion of women achieving live birth following treatment. Methods A retrospective cohort study of all reproductive-aged women with AH/IN or EC treated with Prog ± Met from 1999–2018 was conducted. Complete response (CR) was assessed and Kaplan-Meier analysis used to calculate time to CR. Comparison of potential response predictors was performed with multivariable Cox regression models. Results Ninety-two women met criteria; 59% (n = 54) were treated for AH/EIN and 41% (n = 38) for EC. Their median age, body mass index, and follow up time was 35 years, 37.7 kg/m2, and 28.4 months, respectively. Fifty-eight women (63%) received Prog and 34 (37%) received Prog-Met. Overall, 79% (n = 73) of subjects responded to treatment with a CR of 69% (n = 63). There was no difference in CR (p = 0.90) or time to CR (p = 0.31) between the treatment cohorts. Overall, 22% experienced a disease recurrence. On multivariable analysis, EC histology was the only covariate associated with a decreased Prog response (HR 0.48; p = 0.007). Only 17% of the cohort achieved a live-birth pregnancy, the majority of which required assisted reproductive technologies (81%) and occurred in the Prog treatment group. Conclusions Our study does not support the use of Prog-Met therapy for treatment of AH/EIN or EC. Additionally, fewer than 20% of women achieved a live-birth pregnancy during the study period, with most requiring ART.
Influential Language, Imagery, and Claims in Print Advertising: An Abstract

Despite the ubiquity and importance of print advertisements in business-to-business (B2B) marketing, academic research on the content of current B2B ads is limited. Researchers have acknowledged that B2C marketers often value content design of print advertisement more than their B2B counterparts (Bellizzi and Hite 1986). With notable exceptions (Bellizzi and Hite 1986; Bellizzi et al. 1994; Lohtia et al. 1995; Lohtia et al. 2003; Turley and Kelley 1997; Clark and Honeycutt 2000; Baack et al. 2016), the investigation of content design elements in B2B advertising has received less attention.
Byzantine-Resilient Multiagent Optimization

We consider the problem of multiagent optimization wherein an unknown subset of agents suffer Byzantine faults and thus behave adversarially. We assume that each agent $i$ has a local cost function $f_i$ , and the overarching goal of the good agents is to collaboratively minimize a global objective that properly aggregates these local cost functions. To the best of our knowledge, we are among the first to study Byzantine-resilient optimization where no central coordinating agent exists, and we are the first to characterize the structures of the convex coefficients of the achievable global objectives. Dealing with Byzantine faults is very challenging. For example, in contrast to fault-free networks, reaching Byzantine-resilient agreement even in the simplest setting is far from trivial. We take a step toward solving the proposed Byzantine-resilient multiagent optimization problem by focusing on scalar local cost functions. Our results might provide useful insights for the general local cost functions.
Mapping of 30-meter resolution tile-drained croplands using a geospatial modeling approach.

Tile drainage is one of the dominant agricultural management practices in the United States and has greatly expanded since the late 1990s. It has proven effects on land surface water balance and quantity and quality of streamflow at the local scale. The effect of tile drainage on crop production, hydrology, and the environment on a regional scale is elusive due to lack of high-resolution, spatially-explicit tile drainage area information for the Contiguous United States (CONUS). We developed a 30-m resolution tile drainage map of the most-likely tile-drained area of the CONUS (AgTile-US) from county-level tile drainage census using a geospatial model that uses soil drainage information and topographic slope as inputs. Validation of AgTile-US with 16000 ground truth points indicated 86.03% accuracy at the CONUS-scale. Over the heavily tile-drained midwestern regions of the U.S., the accuracy ranges from 82.7% to 93.6%. These data can be used to study and model the hydrologic and water quality responses of tile drainage and to enhance streamflow forecasting in tile drainage dominant regions. Machine-accessible metadata file describing the reported data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.12668234
The N400 indexes acquisition of novel emotion concepts via conceptual combination.

The ability to learn new emotion concepts is adaptive and socially valuable as it communicates culturally held understandings about values, goals, and experiences. Yet, little work has examined the underlying mechanisms that allow for new emotion concepts and words to be integrated into the conceptual system. One such mechanism may be conceptual combination, or the ability to form novel concepts by dynamically combining previously acquired conceptual knowledge. In this study, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate the electrophysiological correlates of novel emotion concept acquisition via conceptual combination. Participants were briefly trained on 30 novel emotion combinations, each consisting of two English emotion words (the components; e.g., "sadness + fatigue") and a pseudoword (the target; e.g., "despip"). Participants then completed a semantic congruency task while ERPs were recorded. On each trial, two components were presented serially, followed by a target; participants judged whether the target was a valid combination of the preceding components. Targets could be correct or incorrect trained pseudowords, or new untrained pseudowords. Furthermore, components could be presented in reversed order (e.g., "fatigue" then "sadness") or as synonyms (e.g., "exhaustion" for "fatigue"). Consistent with our main hypotheses, we found a main effect of target, such that the correct combinations showed reduced N400 amplitudes when compared to both incorrect and untrained pseudowords. Critically, this effect held regardless of how the preceding components were presented, suggesting deeper semantic learning. These results extend prior findings on conceptual combination and novel word learning, and are congruent with predictive processing accounts of brain function.
MCC-EKF for Autonomous Car Security

This work attempts to answer two problems. (1) Can we use the odometry information from two different Simultaneous Localization And Mapping (SLAM) algorithms to get a better estimate of the odometry? and (2) What if one of the SLAM algorithms gets affected by shot noise or by attack vectors, and can we resolve this situation? To answer the first question we focus on fusing odometries from Lidar-based SLAM and Visual-based SLAM using the Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) algorithm. The second question is answered by introducing the Maximum Correntropy Criterion - Extended Kalman Filter (MCC-EKF), which assists in removing/minimizing shot noise or attack vectors injected into the system. We manually simulate the shot noise and see how our system responds to the noise vectors. We also evaluate our approach on KITTI dataset for self-driving cars.
Efficacy of gaseous chlorine dioxide in reducing Salmonella enterica, E. coli O157:H7, and Listeria monocytogenes on strawberries and blueberries

Abstract Gaseous chlorine dioxide, a strong oxidizing agent can be utilized as an effective alternative sanitizing agent. This study evaluated the efficacy of low concentration (≤5 mg/L) gaseous chlorine dioxide (ClO₂) treatment with gas permeable sachets in reducing the levels of Salmonella, E. coli O157:H7, and Listeria monocytogenes on strawberries and blueberries. Strawberries and blueberries were spot inoculated (107 CFU/g) with multi-strain cocktails of each pathogen and dried for 120 min inside a biosafety cabinet. A treatment chamber was successfully designed to sanitize inoculated samples in sealed 5 gallon chambers containing gaseous ClO₂ sachets. The gaseous ClO₂ overhead concentration was maintained within the range of 3.32 ± 1.73 to 4.95 ± 2.19 mg/L for up to 3 h of treatment. Gaseous ClO₂ treatments reduced pathogen levels significantly (P
On the Regulative Functions of Constitutive Rules

John Searle’s distinction between regulative and constitutive rules is an enduringly important contribution to our understanding of rules, of language, and of rule-based or rule-bounded institutions. It is important to add to Searle’s account, however, by pointing out the regulative function of constitutive rules. Many human activities and goals can be pursued in multiple ways, but constituting the approved or official way of doing things, as is so common in law, has the effect of making alternatives less eligible, less available, or less permitted, all of which can be seen as the regulative overhang of constitutive rules.
A Behavioral Analysis of Two Strategies to Eliminate Racial Bias in Police Use of Force

Structural racism is rooted in American social systems that were supposedly designed to promote citizens’ right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Social systems like policing, for example, are built on a foundation of discriminatory practices designed to disenfranchise Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC). One of the most recent visible examples of racially biased policing is the excessive use of force by officers toward BIPOC. In response, advocates, policy makers, and researchers have sought solutions. Police use-of-force reforms such as body-worn cameras (BWCs) and implicit bias training (IBT) have become popular and are currently being applied in many police departments across the country. However, evidence supporting the effectiveness of these reform strategies to reduce the use of force is mixed, and further evaluations are needed to understand why these strategies are purported to be an effective solution. The purpose of the current review is to ignite future empirical evaluations of use-of-force reform. Following a summary of the research conducted to date on BWCs and IBT, we will conclude with a brief discussion of how behavior analysts might improve and foster strategies that are efficacious. Our ultimate goal is to leave the reader with an understanding of where the data have taken us thus far and how behavior analysts and others can contribute to the reduction and eradication of the discriminatory practices present in policing and other social systems.
The effect of body mass index on post-vaccination maternal and neonatal pertussis antibody levels.

Abstract The objective was to determine if there is an association between maternal body mass index (BMI) and maternal and neonatal pertussis antibody concentrations following vaccination. This is a nested cohort study of 123 women who received the Tdap vaccine during pregnancy. Women were stratified by BMI into three groups – normal, overweight, and obese, based on first trimester or pre-pregnancy BMI. Maternal and umbilical cord serum samples were tested for post-vaccination pertussis IgG antibody. The mean maternal pertussis antibody concentration was 167.5U/mL for normal BMI ( n =29), 169.8U/mL for overweight BMI ( n =54), and 175.5U/mL for the obese BMI groups ( n =40). The mean fetal pertussis antibody concentrations were 182.3U/mL, 191.4U/mL, and 197.7U/mL for these groups respectively. Seroprotection was achieved in 89.7% of neonates (26/29) in the normal BMI group, 87.0% (47/54) in the overweight BMI group, and 97.5% (39/40) in the obese BMI group. None of these differences reached statistical significance. Maternal BMI does not affect the maternal or neonatal pertussis antibody response to the Tdap vaccine in women who receive the vaccine in pregnancy. Maternal BMI is unlikely to affect the neonatal protective effects of a standard dose of Tdap vaccine in pregnancy. Precis Maternal and umbilical cord antibody response to the pertussis vaccine is not affected by maternal body mass index.
An extension of 0‐1 laws

Let σ be a first-order sentence about graphs. For n ϵ ω let nα, α ⩾ 0, be the edge probability for the random graph on n vertices, and let pr(σ, n) be the probability that the random graph on n vertices, satisfies σ. If σ and σ satisfy certain conditons then either pr(σ,n)∼βn−γ for some β > 0 and γ ⩾0, or pr(σ,i)=o(n−γ) for all γ, In particular, this holds for all γ and irrational α. The result has implications for rapidly mixing Markov chains whose stags are finite structures. If the stationary distribution is the same as the for random graphs with edg probability n−α, then the expected waiting time unitl σ holds (as a function of n) is either bounded above by a polynomial in n, or it grows faster than any polynomical. All these results easily extend to finite structures of any relational type. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
The Structure of the Allotropic Forms of He3 and He4

In 1908 Kamerlingh Onnes first liquefied helium. He observed that it remained liquid, even when cooled as low as 0.83°K, which was his lowest obtainable temperature. He correctly supposed that, if cooled under its own vapor pressure, helium would remain liquid down to absolute zero. The question remained however, whether or not helium could be solidified. Keesom in 1926 found that freezing required a pressure of at least 25 atm. Osborne, Abraham, and Weinstock [1], who in 1951 first solidified the lighter isotope, He3, observed that a similar pressure was needed.
Heparin-modulated binding of pancreatic lipase and uptake of hydrolyzed triglycerides in the intestine.

Abstract Utilizing small intestine membranes that contain heparin (50 micrograms/mg protein), binding of triglyceride lipase (homogeneous 52 kDa, specific activity, 70 nmol/mg.h) to membranes was shown to be concentration dependent and saturable, and it was characterized by a single dissociation constant (KD = 86 +/- 16 nM) with a maximal binding capacity of 54 +/- 8 pmol/mg of vesicle protein. Specific binding was decreased in a concentration-dependent manner by the addition of exogenous heparin, and binding was virtually eliminated (less than 6% control values) by pretreatment of membranes with bacterial heparinase. Cultured intestinal epithelial cells (CaCo-2), shown to possess membrane-associated heparin, also bound pancreatic triglyceride lipase in a specific and saturable manner, with KD = 77 +/- 12 nM and Bmax = 13.7 +/- 6 pmol/10(6) cells. Soluble heparin not only decreased binding, but it also diminished the enzyme-mediated cellular uptake of [14C]oleate from [14C]triolein by over 75%. Therefore, intestinal heparin, a component of the brush border membrane, localizes pancreatic triglyceride lipase in a receptor-like manner to the plasma membrane to promote the subsequent absorption of fatty acids derived from hydrolyzed triglycerides.
Modeling influence between experts

A common problem of ubiquitous sensor-network computing is combining evidence between multiple agents or experts. We demonstrate that the latent structure influence model, our novel formulation for combining evidence from multiple dynamic classification processes ("experts"), can achieve greater accuracy, efficiency, and robustness to data corruption than standard methods such as HMMs. It accomplishes this by simultaneously modeling the structure of interaction and the latent states.
Assessing COTS Assessment: How Much Is Enough?

COTS products are now ubiquitous and clearly have become a key factor in modern software systems development. If COTS are chosen poorly, a project will likely fail. As a result, the careful assessment of COTS products has become an essential element of the development process. There are numerous approaches to COTS assessment; however none of them address the crucial question of how much assessment effort to perform. If too little assessment is done, inappropriate COTS may be used; if too much assessment is done, the effort expended may place the project at risk. It is important to achieve a satisfactory balance between COTS uncertainty risks and risks resulting from project delay. To address this, we develop a method for the strategic planning of COTS assessment by determining “how much is enough” effort (in time, cost, or quality) with respect to critical project risk factors such as project schedule, market window, and a multitude of COTS assessment attributes such as availability, ease of use, maturity, and vendor support. The method is practical, and provides valuable aid in the planning of COTS based system development.
Why the Infinite Decision Puzzle is Puzzling

Pulier (2000, Theory and Decision 49: 291) and Machina (2000, Theory and Decision 49: 293) seek to dissolve the Barrett–Arntzenius infinite decision puzzle (1999, Theory and Decision 46: 101). The proposed dissolutions, however, are based on misunderstandings concerning how the puzzle works and the nature of supertasks more generally. We will describe the puzzle in a simplified form, address the recent misunderstandings, and describe possible morals for decision theory.
The Nexus: Where Science Meets Society

![Figure][1] CREDITS: ALL COLLAGES: NAYOMI KEVITIYAGALA/ SCIENCE; IMAGES: PHOTOS.COM/CLIPART.COM “The nexus of science and society” is a phrase that can be interpreted in multiple ways. As participants in this meeting, some of you may have been asking yourselves: How, exactly, was this
Aeroelastic Control of Oblique-Wing Aircraft

The U.S. Navy and NASA are currently involved in the design and development of an unsymmetric-skew-wing aircraft capable of 65° wing sweep and flight at Mach 1.6. A generic skew-wing aircraft model was developed for 45° wing skew at a flight condition of Mach 0.70 and 3048 m altitude. At this flight condition the aircraft has a wing flutter mode. An active implementable control law was developed using the linear quadratic Gaussian design technique. A method of modal residualization was used to reduce the order of the controller used for flutter suppression.
Stress Classification Plane and Its Application in Finite Element Analysis

The stresses within pressure vessels and internals, etc. are categorized into membrane, bending, and peak stresses in the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Boiler and Pressure Vessel (B&PV) Code, as well as many other design codes of different countries. The total stress results calculated from a finite element analysis, which is the most commonly utilized tool in the component design, have to be classified into these categories to be compared to the design code criteria. The stress classification line (SCL) method has been developed to linearize the stresses along a line cutting through the thickness of the component. However, the SCL method tends to overestimate or underestimate the linearized stresses if the stress distribution of the cross-section is not axisymmetric. Since the design code criteria are given over a cross-section, this article proposes a stress classification plane (SCP) method in stress linearization. An SCP is defined as a cross-section that cuts through a solid 3-D finite element model. The element nodes do not need to lie on the SCP. The stresses are linearized over the entire cross-section that defines the SCP. Therefore, the linearized stresses obtained using this method are consistent with the design code definitions. The SCP approach provides an accurate and convenient tool when comparing the finite element results to the Code criteria during the component design and analysis process. As an example, the applications of the SCP method using ANSYS® are also given in this article.Copyright © 2009 by ASME
Inclusion of Preschoolers with Profound Disabilities: An Analysis of Children's Interactions.

The purpose of this study was to explore the nature of spontaneous peer interactions in a full-inclusion preschool. Three children with profound disabilities were observed for a total of 480 min each in indoor and outdoor supervised play. Three children without disabilities were observed under the same conditions for comparison purposes. Results of the study showed variation in the behavior of the children with disabilities, but also showed that the children with disabilities had many opportunities to participate in peer social interactions and engaged in interactions comparable in length to those of their peers without disabilities. Findings also indicate that particular attention may need to be paid to the encouragement of initiating interactions and to helping young children without disabilities understand and respond to the idiosyncratic behaviors of peers with profound disabilities.
Diffusion thermopower and the Fermi surface in dilute silver-gold alloys ☆

Alloying effect on diffusion thermopower in relation to Fermi surface variations in dilute silver-gold alloys
Some Observations on States, World Orders, and the Politics of Sustainability:

This article is intended to initiate a dialogue on strategies for understanding the roles of states in relation to sustainability. The contributions and shortcomings of the two most influential and...
Thermally driven hopping and electron transport in amorphous materials from density functional calculations

In this paper we study electron dynamics and transport in models of amorphous silicon and amorphous silicon hydride. By integrating the time-dependent Kohn–Sham equation, we compute the time evolution of electron states near the gap, and study the spatial and spectral diffusion of these states due to lattice motion. We perform these calculations with a view to developing ab initio hopping transport methods. The techniques are implemented with the ab initio local basis code SIESTA, and may be applicable to molecular, biomolecular and other condensed matter systems.
Stubby prostheses: An alternative to conventional prosthetic devices

Stubby prostheses offer potential advantages over conventional prosthetic devices in terms of safety, stability, and energy efficiency. Although cosmesis is compromised in the process, these short nonarticulated pylon prostheses may be a viable option to consider in bilateral A-K or knee disarticulation amputee patients under the following circumstances: (1) as a training tool to determine whether progression to full-length articulated devices is feasible; (2) as permanent prostheses for the patient whose primary need for ambulation is within his own home; (3) for the elderly bilateral amputee in whom ambulation is feasible but safety and energy efficiency are of particular importance; and (4) as a definitive device in the patient who expresses a preference for them. Two patients who have become successful users of stubby prostheses are presented to illustrate these points.
The college admissions problem with a continuum of students

In many two-sided matching markets, agents on one side are matched to a large number of agents on the other side (e.g. college admissions). Yet little is known about the structure of stable matchings when there are many agents on one side. We propose a variation of the Gale and Shapley [3] college admissions model where a finite number of colleges is matched to a continuum of students. It is shown that, generically (though not always) (i) there is a unique stable matching, (ii) this stable matching varies continuously with the underlying economy, and (iii) it is the limit of the set of stable matchings of approximating large discrete economies.
Ultraviolet absorption studies of H2O and other species in comet comae with satellite telescope-spectrometers☆

It is noted that ultraviolet absorption by H2O and other species in the comae of comets could be detected by studying, with satellite telescope-spectrometers, the occultation of hot stars by comets. Observations of this type could produce the first detection of H2O, the fundamental parent molecule in comet comae, and give measures of molecular level populations. The capabilities of the High Resolution Spectrograph on Space Telescope, the first instrument suitable for such observations, are discussed. A Haser model is used to estimate the molecular column densities and to predict equivalent widths for lines of H2O, OH, CO, C, and O as functions of time and angular distance from a comet with a high H2O production rate. The minimum detectable equivalent widths are determined, thereby giving the maximum angular separation from such a comet at which H2O, OH, and CO could be studied. Estimated equivalent widths for CO, OH, and the resonance lines of C and O suggest that these species may also be detected.
Determining Dimensions of Reality: A Concept Mapping of the Reality TV Landscape

This research examines the dimensions underlying reality-based TV programs as a first step towards uncovering the reality programming subgroups that might exist in viewers' minds and the themes that might distinguish them. Two samples—one of students and one of city residents—engaged in a sorting task of 33 reality-based programs. Multidimensional scaling (MDS) indicated two underlying dimensions along which audiences think about reality TV (romance and competitiveness), which were supported by subsequent analyses. These findings both help frame future theoretically driven research on reality-based programming and offer insight into how research interested in the effects of programming themes might proceed.
Thriving in youth: Age-old wisdom, new to science

Cara: You’re not going to believe what's going on. Jeff: What? Cara: James has been working on a 300 piece puzzle for the past 4 hrs straight, and he's been singing the whole time while doing it. H...
Local Ecological Factors, Ultrafine Particulate Concentrations, and Asthma Prevalence Rates in Buffalo, New York, Neighborhoods

Previous to this study various healthcare utilization studies and house-to-house surveys had shown that Buffalo's west side had a high utilization rate for asthma and high asthma prevalence in comparison with neighboring communities. The relative contributions of traffic-related pollution and personal and local ecological factors to the high asthma rates were still unknown. To investigate the potential roles of personal home environmental factors and local ecological factors in variations of asthma prevalence in Buffalo neighborhoods, we conducted a cross-sectional survey of a systematic random sample of 2000 households in the city of Buffalo, New York, with a response rate of 80.4%. We found that the odds of having at least one person with asthma per household on Buffalo's west side was 2.57 times [95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.85–3.57] that of Buffalo's east side. There were no statistically significant differences in the odds of finding at least one person with asthma in households of other Buffalo ...
Structure constraints and instability leading to the post-perovskite phase transition of MgSiO3

Abstract Recent experience with Rietveld refinement of structural analogues and literature surveys, suggests anion–anion repulsion limits the stability of the perovskite phase, including in the MgSiO3 perovskite to post-perovskite transition. Assuming rigid octahedral coordination, still to be tested experimentally, the critical point where intra- and inter-octahedral anion–anion distances are equal provides a useful metric for predicting the pressure of the perovskite/post-perovskite transition and the Clapeyron slope of the phase boundary, once pressure and temperature derivatives of relevant structure parameters are known. The inter-octahedral anion–anion distances and the polyhedral volume ratio are rigorously formulated as a function of octahedral rotation in this work, assuming the orthorhombic (Pbnm) perovskite structure, where regular octahedra share each corner and conform to the in- and anti-phase rotation schemes designated by space group symmetry. These mathematical expressions are consistent with structure data from 70 perovskite-structured materials surveyed in the literature at ambient as well as extreme conditions and define structure constraints, such as the minimum polyhedral volume ratio, which must be reached before the phase transition to the post-perovskite structure-type can proceed. The formalism we present is general for perovskite (Pbnm) and dependent on the accuracy with which structures can be determined from, sometimes compromised, high pressure diffraction data.
Conceptual Errors and Social Externalism

Asa Maria Wikforss has proposed a response to Burge's thought experiments in favour of social externalism, one which allows the individualist to maintain that narrow content is truth?conditional without being idiosyncratic. The narrow aim of this paper is to show that Wikforss's argument against social externalism fails, and hence that the individualist position she endorses is inadequate. The more general aim is to attain clarity on the social externalist thesis. Social externalism need not rest, as is typically thought, on the possibility of incomplete linguistic understanding or conceptual error. I identify the unifying principle that underlies the various externalist thought-experiments.
Ultrastructural comparison between phytomitogen transformed normal and chronic lymphocytic leukemia lymphocytes.

The ultrastructural features of lymphocytes stimulated in vitro with phytohemagglutinin (PHA), pokeweed mitogen (PWM), and concanavalin A (Con A) from normal individuals and patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) were studied. With PHA and Con A the transformed cells had characteristics of blasts, and with PWM both blast cells and plasmacytoid cells occurred. The mean total cell area, the nuclear and cytoplasmic size, and the number of lysosomes were diminished in mitogen- transformed CLL cells as compared to transformed normal lymphocytes. Some stimulated CLL lymphocytes were indistinguishable from normal cells. The results suggest that the CLL lymphocytes which are transformed by phytomitogens could be derived from defective leukemic cells and/or a residual population of normal T and B cells.
The state of oxidation of some iron meteorites

Abstract Two iron meteorites are now known to contain chlorapatite-silicate-schreibersite assemblages. Thus, phosphorus is present in two oxidation states. Electron microprobe analytical results on the minerals present in these occurrences are combined with thermochemical data in order to examine the oxidation-reduction conditions implied by this assemblage. The silicate phases (olivine, orthopyroxene, clinopyroxene) were found to be out of equilibrium, however, it is still possible to estimate the oxidation state of these meteorites and make direct comparisons with eight other irons and pallasites which contain other phosphate minerals, calcium-free sarcopside and farringtonite, as well as ordinary equilibrated chondrite meteorites. All these metallic meteorites represent approximately the same degree of oxidation as the ordinary chondrites. Some implications regarding the size of a zoned parent body are discussed.
Effects of barium chloride on resting and action potentials of ventricular fibers of the frog.

By means of an intracellular capillary electrode the effects of barium chloride on the resting and action potentials of ventricular fibers of the frog were recorded in hearts with circulation intact and hearts isolated and perfused. The changes were essentially similar in both preparations. The major change observed was a statistically significant (p <0.01) increase in duration of the action potential. Changes were also observed in the magnitude of the resting and action potential, in the rate of depolarization, and in rhythm, but these did not occur invariably. By a series of exclusion experiments it was demonstrated that barium has a direct effect on the ventricular fibers of the frog's heart.
Maximum likelihood and minimum information estimation of allocation models with fat-tailed error distributions

Abstract The ML and MI (minimum information) approaches to the estimation of allocation models, proposed by Theil et al. (1984), are extended to models whose error vectors are fat-tailed mixtures of multinormal distributions.
Developing Leave One Out GFP Based Biosensors

The green fluorescent protein (GFP) has seen its utility expand far beyond that of a fluorophore in Aqueroia victoria. Some of the main drivers of this have been work done to increase the spectroscopic range of the protein as well as to develop GFP as a biosensor. In our study we have generated leave-one-out variants of GFP (LOO-GFPs) that have been circularly permuted with a secondary structural element omitted. Co-expression of the truncated GFP (sensor) with wt peptides (target) reconstitutes fluorescence to varying degrees depending on which strand has been omitted. We have observed that the efficiency in chromophore (CRO) maturation correlates with the strength of the CD signal and the thermodynamic stability of the sensor-target complex.Additionally, we envision that these insights can prove useful for computationally designing LOO-GFP biosensors with the ability to detect exogenous targets. Given the structure of a desired target protein, the primary sequence of the target protein is scanned to find fragments whose chemical composition are similar to that of one of the late folding β strands of GFP. These fragments can replace the corresponding β strand of GFP and the region around the new strand can be redesigned to find a set of biosensor primary sequences that best accommodates the exogenous target sequence. Initial screening of a library of biosensor sequences, even with covalent linkage of the LOO-GFP to the target, failed to produce a functional protein; suggesting that additional considerations are necessary. In particular, success depends on understanding the sequence determinants of the CRO maturation process. To this end, we are testing sequence tolerance of CRO-proximal residues using saturation mutagenesis, time lapse analysis of in vivo fluorescence and subsequent DNA sequence analysis.
Drosophila Population Dynamics: Chaos and Extinction

Earlier work in our laboratory and others suggests that the discrete population dynamics of serial transfer Drosophila systems are stable, despite observed fluctuations about the carrying capacity. To investigate the robustness of this conclusion, we have radically reduced the available food in the system (from 40 to 3 mL of media). The number of flies in such systems fluctuates to such an extent that they go extinct. To investigate whether this is due to chaotic population dynamics, as opposed to environmental or demographic stochasticity, we fitted the discrete Q—logistic growth equation to data from input—output" experiments (i.e., experiments in which we recorded survivorship and recruitment in systems at eight starting densities) and compared the calculated parameters to previous work in our laboratory. Surprisingly, the resulting parameters for the mean behavior of our thin—food systems indicated greater stability than those for previous thick—food systems. Thus, the observed fluctuations and extinc...
A fundamental identity in the theory of queues

The main result of this paper is a fundamental identity for single-server queueing processes. By using the fundamental identity it is possible to find the mathematical laws describing the behavior of a queue in continuous time if we know the mathematical laws describing the behavior of the same queue in discrete time. The case of single-server queues with recurrent input and general service times is discussed in detail.