cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Stress, strain, and pregnancy outcome in postpartum cows

Stress affects the productivity and fertility of cattle. Stress causes strain and individual animals experience different amounts of strain in response to the same amount of stress. The amount of strain determines the impact of stress on fertility. Typical stresses experienced by cattle include environmental, disease, production, nutritional, and psychological. The effect of stress on the reproductive system is mediated by body temperature (heat stress), energy metabolites and metabolic hormones (production and nutritional stresses), the functionality of the hypothalamus-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axis and (or) the activation of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. The strain that occurs in response to stress affects uterine health, oocyte quality, ovarian function, and the developmental capacity of the conceptus. Cows that have less strain in response to a given stress will be more fertile. The goal for future management and genetic selection in farm animals is to reduce production stress, manage the remaining strain, and genetically select cattle with minimal strain in response to stress.
A Simple Electric Soft Robotic Gripper with High-Deformation Haptic Feedback

Compliant robotic grippers are more robust to uncertainties in grasping and manipulation tasks, especially when paired with tactile and proprioceptive feedback. Although considerable progress has been made towards achieving proprioceptive soft robotic grippers, current efforts require complex driving hardware or fabrication techniques. In this paper, we present a simple scalable soft robotic gripper integrated with high-deformation strain and pressure sensors. The gripper is composed of structurally-compliant handed shearing auxetic structures actuated by electric motors. Coupling deformable sensors with the compliant grippers enables gripper proprioception and object classification. With this sensorized system, we are able to identify objects’ size to within 33% of actual radius and sort objects as hard / soft with 78% accuracy.
Molecular Dynamics Simulation Analysis of Anti-MUC1 Aptamer and Mucin 1 Peptide Binding

Aptasensors utilize aptamers as bioreceptors. Aptamers are highly efficient, have a high specificity and are reusable. Within the biosensor the aptamers are immobilized to maximize their access to target molecules. Knowledge of the orientation and location of the aptamer and peptide during binding could be gained through computational modeling. Experimentally, the aptamer (anti-MUC1 S2.2) has been identified as a bioreceptor for breast cancer biomarker mucin 1 (MUC1) protein. However, within this protein lie several peptide variants with the common sequence APDTRPAP that are targeted by the aptamer. Understanding orientation and location of the binding region for a peptide-aptamer complex is critical in their biosensor applicability. In this study, we investigate through computational modeling how this peptide sequence and its minor variants affect the peptide-aptamer complex binding. We use molecular dynamics simulations to study multiple peptide-aptamer systems consisting of MUC1 (APDTRPAP) and MUC1-G (APDTRPAPG) peptides with the anti-MUC1 aptamer under similar physiological conditions reported experimentally. Multiple simulations of the MUC1 peptide and aptamer reveal that the peptide interacts between 3' and 5' ends of the aptamer but does not fully bind. Multiple simulations of the MUC1-G peptide indicate consistent binding with the thymine loop of the aptamer, initiated by the arginine residue of the peptide. We find that the binding event induces structural changes in the aptamer by altering the number of hydrogen bonds within the aptamer and establishes a stable peptide-aptamer complex. In all MUC1-G cases the occurrence of binding was confirmed by systematically studying the distance distributions between peptide and aptamers. These results are found to corroborate well with experimental study reported in the literature that indicated a strong binding in the case of MUC1-G peptide and anti-MUC1 aptamer. Present MD simulations highlight the role of the arginine residue of MUC1-G peptide in initiating the binding. The addition of the glycine residue to the peptide, as in the case of MUC1-G, is shown to yield a stable binding. Our study clearly demonstrates the ability of MD simulations to obtain molecular insights for peptide-aptamer binding, and to provide details on the orientation and location of binding between the peptide-aptamer that can be instrumental in biosensor development.
A Longitudinal Curriculum for Quality Improvement, Leadership Experience, and Scholarship in a Family Medicine Residency Program.

Background and objectives The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) requires all residents be trained in quality improvement (QI), and that they produce scholarly projects. While not an ACGME requirement, residents need leadership skills to apply QI knowledge. We developed the Skills-based Experiential Embedded Quality Improvement (SEE-QI) curriculum to integrate training in QI, leadership, and scholarship. Methods The University of Utah Family Medicine Residency Program began using the novel curriculum in 2012. The aim of the curriculum is to tie didactic teaching in quality improvement, leadership, and scholarship with skills application on multidisciplinary QI teams. Coaching for resident leaders is provided by faculty. Third-year resident leaders prepare academic presentations. Results of the ACGME Practice-Based Learning and Improvement (PBLI) 3 scores and number of scholarship presentations are described as a measure of efficacy. Results Two cohorts of residents completed the curriculum and all competency assessments. The average initial and final competency scores for competency PBLI-3 showed improvement and the average final competency for each cohort was above the proficient level. The residency requirements for QI scholarship did not change with introduction of the curriculum, but the amount of optional curricular QI scholarship and independent QI scholarship increased. Conclusions The SEE-QI curriculum resulted in a high level of resident QI competency, opportunity for leadership training, and an increase in scholarship. We studied the results of this curriculum at one institution. Efforts to tie QI, leadership, and scholarship training should be evaluated at other programs.
A Legal ‘Jurisdictional Trainwreck’

This article confronts Constitutional separation of power under U.S. law and what was called a “Jurisdictional Trainwreck” by a top Obama Administration official. This article analyzes several recent Supreme Court decisions constraining and restricting traditional court deference to executive branch regulation - including a recent Supreme Court de novo decision mandating a new quantitative cost consideration as a regulatory prerequisite, another Court decision limiting executive branch ‘tailoring’ of law, and another recent Court order which, for the first time in judicial history, enjoined an entire regulation before any lower court challenge to a particular part of the regulation was on appeal before the Supreme Court.
Fragments of Locusta migratoria apoLp-III provide insight into lipid binding

Abstract Apolipophorin III (apoLp-III) from Locusta migratoria is an exchangeable apolipoprotein with a critical role in lipid transport in insects. The protein is composed of a bundle of five amphipathic α-helices which undergo a large conformational change upon lipid binding. To better understand the apoLp-III lipid binding interaction, the protein was cleaved by cyanogen bromide upon introduction of a S92M mutation, generating an N-terminal fragment corresponding to the first three helices (NTH1-3) and a C-terminal fragment of the last two helices (CTH4-5). MALDI-TOF analysis of the HPLC purified fragments provided masses of 9863.8 Da for NTH1-3 and 7497.0 Da for CTH4-5 demonstrating that the intended fragments were obtained. Circular dichroism spectra revealed a decrease in helical content from 82% for the intact protein to 57% for NTH1-3 and 41% for CTH4-5. The fragments adopted considerably higher α-helical structure in the presence of trifluoroethanol or phospholipids. Equimolar mixing of the two fragments did not result in changes in helical content or tryptophan fluorescence, indicating recombination into the native protein fold did not occur. The rate of protein induced dimyristoylphosphatidylcholine vesicle solubilization increased 15-fold for NTH1-3 and 100-fold for CTH4-5 compared to the intact protein. Despite the high activity in phospholipid vesicle interaction, CTH4-5 did not protect phospholipase-treated low-density lipoprotein from aggregation. In contrast, NTH1-3 provided protection to lipoprotein aggregation similar to the intact protein, indicating that specific amino acid residues in this part of apoLp-III are essential for lipoprotein binding interaction.
Discipline and Empower: The State Governance of Migrant Domestic Workers:

How do states manage their populations? Some scholars see the state as primarily governing through punishment, but how might the state engage in other forms of disciplining subjects? I address thes...
Iran in the American Cultural and Political Imagination

This chapter examines representation of Iran and Iranians in American popular culture. It delineates the broader interpretative framework through which audiences make sense of Iran and the geopolitical world. It offers an expansive view across a range of genres that includes discussions of popular film, memoires, and television entertainment. It explains how geopolitics of resurgent America, hostage crisis, axis of evil, and war on terror and narratives of popular culture play co-constitutive roles in the formation of that interpretative framework as they relate to Iran. The chapter returns to some of the empirical findings regarding the coverage of the Iran Deal to place them within this interpretative framework. The chapter ultimately aims to reveal the place Iran occupies in the American political and cultural imagination.
A Reinforcement Learning Approach to Optimal Execution

We consider the problem of execution timing in optimal execution. Specifically, we formulate the optimal execution problem of an infinitesimal order as an optimal stopping problem. By using a novel neural network architecture, we develop two versions of data-driven approaches for this problem, one based on supervised learning, and the other based on reinforcement learning. Temporal difference learning can be applied and extends these two methods to many variants. Through numerical experiments on historical market data, we demonstrate significant cost reduction of these methods. Insights from numerical experiments reveals various tradeoffs in the use of temporal difference learning, including convergence rates, data efficiency, and a tradeoff between bias and variance.
War and state formation in ancient China and early modern Europe

The Eurocentric conventional wisdom holds that the West is unique in having a multi-state system in international relations and liberal democracy in state-society relations. At the same time, the Sinocentric perspective believes that China is destined to have authoritarian rule under a unified empire. In fact, China in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods (656–221 BC) was once a system of sovereign territorial states similar to Europe in the early modern period. Both cases witnessed the prevalence of war, formation of alliances, development of the centralized bureaucracy, emergence of citizenship rights, and expansion of international trade. This book, first published in 2005, examines why China and Europe shared similar processes but experienced opposite outcomes. This historical comparison of China and Europe challenges the presumption that Europe was destined to enjoy checks and balances while China was preordained to suffer under a coercive universal status.
Mapping internet sensors with probe response attacks

Internet sensor networks, including honeypots and log analysis centers such as the SANS Internet Storm Center, are used as a tool to detect malicious Internet traffic. For maximum effectiveness, such networks publish public reports without disclosing sensor locations, so that the Internet community can take steps to counteract the malicious traffic. Maintaining sensor anonymity is critical because if the set of sensors is known, a malicious attacker could avoid the sensors entirely or could overwhelm the sensors with errant data. Motivated by the growing use of Internet sensors as a tool to monitor Internet traffic, we show that networks that publicly report statistics are vulnerable to intelligent probing to determine the location of sensors. In particular, we develop a new "probe response" attack technique with a number of optimizations for locating the sensors in currently deployed Internet sensor networks and illustrate the technique for a specific case study that shows how the attack would locate the sensors of the SANS Internet Storm Center using the published data from those sensors. Simulation results show that the attack can determine the identity of the sensors in this and other sensor networks in less than a week, even under a limited adversarial model. We detail critical vulnerabilities in several current anonymization schemes and demonstrate that we can quickly and efficiently discover the sensors even in the presence of sophisticated anonymity preserving methods such as prefix-preserving permutations or Bloom filters. Finally, we consider the characteristics of an Internet sensor which make it vulnerable to probe response attacks and discuss potential countermeasures.
Preparation and Evaluation of Butter Culture Flavor Concentrates

Abstract Synthetic butter culture concentrates, based on the analyses of natural high-quality products, were prepared for butter, Cottage cheese, sour cream, and buttermilk. Flavor compounds included in the formulations were diacetyl, acetaldehyde, dimethyl sulfide, acetic acid, and lactic acid. Products flavored with the culture flavor concentrates were found to possess a culture flavor very similar to that produced by natural butter cultures. A student preference panel showed equal preference for high-quality naturally cultured products and artificially flavored products.
Fish as a Natural Category for People and Pigeons1

Publisher Summary This chapter describes and compares the result of three experiments, one on human subjects and the other on pigeons, and draws conclusions about categorization in light of the results. The chapter establishes rankings of the photographs for human subjects, using reaction time to quantify the discriminability or acceptability of the fish or non-fish in a collection of 35-mm slides. Twelve human subjects responded to 160 underwater photographs to indicate whether they saw a fish or not. Four pigeons rapidly learned to sort underwater photographs being seen for the first time according to the presence or absence of fish in them. For a quasi-concept, a set of instances sorted according to the presence or absence of fish divided randomly, with as many fish in the negative class as in the positive. Pigeons learned to sort 80 stimuli into two categories. They learned quicker when the categories corresponded to fish versus non-fish than when the same stimuli divided into two arbitrary categories. Seven out of seven pigeons in two experiments learned to sort underwater photographs on the basis of the presence or absence of fish.
Economic incentives and the epidemiological indicators can contribute to the reduction of occupational hazards

This article intends to discuss the interfaces of Decree No. 6042 and the adoption of its guidelines as a strategy to reduce the occupational hazards.
International Fragmented Production: Conceptualization, Measurement and Policy across Disciplines

International fragmented production – the de-verticalization, de-agglomeration and internationalization of firms and industries – poses serious challenges to our ability to accurately measure and conceptualize the international economy. Studied across many disciplines, including economics, sociology, geography and international business, it has generated a variety of empirical and conceptual approaches, oftentimes incongruous, and each with its own policy implications. Due to inter-disciplinary differences and infrequency of communication, there has been no explicit attempt either to delineate the principal junctures of differentiation between literatures, or the emerging areas of overlap and collaboration. This paper identifies three important analytic dimensions by which international fragmentation is differentiated in data collection, measurement, conceptualization and policy prescription: the status of firms, industrial sector organization, and the scope of inter-firm relationships. It finds many important instances of disciplinary literatures relaxing underlying assumptions and adapting new methodologies, thereby opening important areas of inter-disciplinary convergence.
Cognitive assessment for CI therapy in the outpatient clinic.

Objective To evaluate in a preliminary fashion whether several standard cognitive assessments predict treatment outcomes on real-world functional activities following Constraint-Induced Movement therapy (CI therapy) for either the upper extremity (UE) or the lower extremity (LE) for chronic stroke hemiparesis in the outpatient therapy clinic. Methods 15 UE and 14 LE patients in the clinic underwent a short battery of cognitive assessments that evaluated sustained attention, episodic memory, executive control abilities, and general cognitive function. Spearman correlation analysis was used to evaluate whether each cognitive test predicted treatment outcome on the limb-specific Motor Activity Log (MAL). Results Two assessments (delayed verbal memory and Trail Making Test form B) significantly correlated with LE MAL change that followed therapy. Conclusions We tentatively conclude from this exploratory and preliminary study that cognitive performance may predict treatment changes in response to CI therapy for the LE. Moderate to large correlations that we observed between other cognitive assessments and CI therapy outcomes recommend replicating this study with a larger and more cognitively diverse sample of stroke patients to learn if these findings are generalizable.
Common-sense Realism and the Unimaginable Otherness of Science

Bas van Fraassen endorses both common-sense realism – the view, roughly, that the ordinary macroscopic objects that we take to exist actually do exist – and constructive empiricism – the view, roughly, that the aim of science is truth about the observable world. But what happens if common-sense realism and science come into conflict? I argue that it is reasonable to think that they could come into conflict, by giving some motivation for a mental monist solution to the measurement problem of quantum mechanics. I then consider whether, in a situation where science favors the mental monist interpretation, van Fraassen would want to give up common-sense realism or would want to give up science.
Can Culture Save International Relations Theory in the Post–Cold War World?

tions was attracted by the holy grail of an explain-it-all theory of structural systems analysis, in which the internal dynamics of states could be ignored and attention focused solely on the pattern of power distribution within the international system. Comparative politics, particularly when presented with the dramatic emergence of a host of new states in the postcolonial era, quickly chose to devote attention to cultural differences as the key variables for explaining differing prospects for nation-building and economic development. The split is hard to fathom given that the two subfields shared a heritage based on the same towering intellectual figures of the Chicago school. The first, Charles Merriam (1934), looked behind formal structures of government and the legal basis of sovereignty and discovered the rich domains of myths, symbols, creeds, and human psychology and culture, which he insisted were equally important for both comparative politics and international relations. Merriam was followed by Harold Lasswell of world politics and personal insecurity fame. In the next generation, however, Gabriel Almond (Almond and Coleman 1960) led comparative politics in the direction of political culture analysis, whereas William T. R. Fox (1959), although a master of "Lasswell-speak," pushed international relations toward its billiard-ball theory of power interactions. Fox's new direction was vigorously advanced by the works of Kenneth Waltz (1979), Morton Kaplan (1957), Paul Seabury (1965), and later by Stephen Walt (1987),John Mearsheimer (1990), and a host of other neorealists-not to mention the anti-social science doyen of the power school: Hans Morgenthau. In Culture and Foreign Policy, Valerie Hudson, reacting to the failure of international systems theory to predict the end of the Cold War and to explain the nature of post-bipolar politics, has brought together a group of mainly young scholars committed to reintroducing culture to the subfield of international relations. In her introductory chapter, Hudson makes a strong case for a new research agenda that combines culture and foreign policy analysis, and that can thereby give new life to international relations in our current post-Cold War, post-bipolar world. She apparently arrived at the relevance of culture for many of the same reasons that led some of the most stellar figures of the rational choice school to conclude that progress for their paradigm also requires attention to culture.
Multiple sequence-specific transcription factors modulate cytomegalovirus enhancer activity in vitro

The possibility of DNA-binding proteins interacting in vitro with the polymerase II transcriptional machinery was explored by using a competition assay with individual target sequences for enhancer-binding factors. Transcription factors binding to at least five specific enhancer sequences mediate the activity of the human cytomegalovirus immediate-early 1 gene in vitro. Furthermore, our data suggest that individual DNA-bound enhancer factors can interact with the promoter transcription complex.
Integrating expert systems into an operational environment

The Communications Link Expert Assistance Resource Expert System is introduced. The experience gained in implementing this expert system is used to discuss solutions to the major problems encountered during the development of an expert system to be realized in an operational environment. Knowledge acquisition is discussed as well as user involvement, interfacing the system to the user, choosing a development environment, prototyping for success, and overcoming the transition.
The minimally-invasive thyroidectomy incision: a histological analysis.

Background Minimally invasive thyroidectomy (MIT) has gained popularity in the surgical management of benign and malignant pathology of the thyroid. One of the main benefits of utilizing this technique is the use of smaller incisions resulting in increased cosmetic satisfaction. Unfortunately, the retraction required for adequate exposure during MIT may lead to skin damage, impaired wound healing and poor cosmetic outcomes. Some have proposed that excising incision edges prior to closure may improve cosmesis. A review of the literature does not reveal any histologic evidence to support this technique.
Brazing of Carbon Carbon Composites to Cu-clad Molybdenum for Thermal Management Applications

Advanced carbon carbon composites were joined to copper-clad molybdenum (Cu/Mo) using four active metal brazes containing Ti (Cu ABA, Cusin-1 ABA, Ticuni, and Ticusil) for potential use in thermal management applications. The brazed joints were characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) and Knoop microhardness measurements across the joint region. Metallurgically sound C-C/Cu/Mo joints, devoid of interfacial cracks formed in all cases. The joint interfaces were preferentially enriched in Ti, with Cu ABA joints exhibiting the largest interfacial Ti concentrations. The microhardness measurements revealed hardness gradients across the joint region, with a peak hardness of 300-350 KHN in Cusin-1 ABA and Ticusil joints and 200-250 KHN in Cu ABA and Ticuni joints, respectively.
Mitochondrial Trafficking to Synapses in Cultured Primary Cortical Neurons

Functional synapses require mitochondria to supply ATP and regulate local [Ca2+]i for neurotransmission. Mitochondria are thought to be transported to specific cellular regions of increased need such as synapses. However, little is known about how this occurs, including the spatiotemporal distribution of mitochondria relative to presynaptic and postsynaptic sites, whether mitochondria are dynamically recruited to synapses, and how synaptic activity affects these trafficking patterns. We used primary cortical neurons in culture that form synaptic connections and show spontaneous synaptic activity under normal conditions. Neurons were cotransfected with a mitochondrially targeted cyan fluorescent protein and an enhanced yellow fluorescent protein-tagged synaptophysin or postsynaptic density-95 plasmid to label presynaptic or postsynaptic structures, respectively. Fluorescence microscopy revealed longer dendritic mitochondria that occupied a greater fraction of neuronal process length than axonal mitochondria. Mitochondria were significantly more likely to be localized at synaptic sites. Although this localization was unchanged by inhibition of synaptic activity by tetrodotoxin, it increased in dendritic synapses and decreased in axonal synapses during overactivity by veratridine. Mitochondrial movement and recruitment to synapses also differed between axons and dendrites under basal conditions and when synaptic activity was altered. Additionally, we show that movement of dendritic mitochondria can be selectively impaired by glutamate and zinc. We conclude that mitochondrial trafficking to synapses is dynamic in neurons and is modulated by changes in synaptic activity. Furthermore, mitochondrial morphology and distribution may be optimized differentially to best serve the synaptic distributions in axons and dendrites. Last, selective cessation of mitochondrial movement in dendrites suggests early postsynaptic dysfunction in neuronal injury and degeneration.
Mechanistic aspects of the DNA strand exchange activity of E. coli recA protein

Abstract The recA protein Escherichia coli catalyses a reaction that is unique in nucleic acid enzymology: it can promote the exchange of single strands of DNA between different duplex DNA molecules with sequence complementarity. The DNA strand exchange reaction comprises several distinct biochemical steps, requires ATP hydrolysis, and is stimulated by the E. coli single-stranded DNA binding (SSB) protein. The molecular mechanism of each of these steps is discussed.
Planning Consultants’ Influence on Local Comprehensive Plans

Many planners work at private consulting firms, and many local governments use their services, but we have little idea of how consultant involvement affects plans. Analyzing data from a survey of local officials who engage planning consultants, we find that while engaging consultants does not appear to nudge local officials in a policy direction different from their preferences, it does appear to yield plans with a policy focus more oriented toward smart growth. This raises questions about the kind and degree of consultants’ impact on the legitimacy of the planning process.
THE UNDERLYING CAUSE OF POLYHYDRAMNIOS DETERMINES PREMATURITY

The preterm delivery rate in polyhydramnios is higher than in the normal population. We conducted this study to determine if different aetiologies for polyhydramnios have different frequencies of preterm delivery. Three hundred and forty women with a singleton pregnancy and polyhydramnios were included in the study group. A delivery was considered premature if it occurred before 37 weeks' gestation. Preterm deliveries occurred in 14.1 per cent of patients with unexplained polyhydramnios, 27.7 per cent of patients with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM), and in 36 per cent of pregnancies with congenital malformations. The prevalence of preterm delivery was significantly greater for the subgroups with IDDM (P = 0.02) and congenital malformations (P = 0.001), when compared with patients with idiopathic polyhydramnios. The prevalence of preterm delivery in patients with gestational diabetes mellitus was no greater than for the population at large. The underlying cause of polyhydramnios is a major factor in determining when delivery will occur.
Content-based image exploitation for situational awareness

Image exploitation is of increasing importance to the enterprise of building situational awareness from multi-source data. It involves image acquisition, identification of objects of interest in imagery, storage, search and retrieval of imagery, and the distribution of imagery over possibly bandwidth limited networks. This paper describes an image exploitation application that uses image content alone to detect objects of interest, and that automatically establishes and preserves spatial and temporal relationships between images, cameras and objects. The application features an intuitive user interface that exposes all images and information generated by the system to an operator thus facilitating the formation of situational awareness.
The Dilemma of the Peace-Seekers

“Right without Might is weakness,” wrote Blaise Pascal three centuries ago. But “Might without Right is tyranny. We must therefore combine Right and Might, making what is Right mighty and what is mighty Right.” To achieve such a combination in the community of nations is, by common consent, the major problem of world politics in our time. Outside of the dwindling ranks of the anarchists, few would any longer dispute the propositions that peace among men is unattainable without the organization of men into government, possessed of effective power to enforce law, and that justice among men is unattainable without the subordination of government itself to law, reflecting men's conception of right. How these goals are to be reached among nations is still a matter of controversy. But after participating in two world wars against tyrants, dedicated to world unity through conquest, most Americans are now agreed that peace and justice among nations depend upon order and law among nations and that these, in turn, depend upon the efficacy of what has long been called “international organization” or, more optimistically, “international government.”The Great Debate of 1944–45, like that of 1919–20, is not over ends, but over means. How can an effective world organization be brought into being, and how can it be made to function for the maintenance of peace, the enforcement of law, and the achievement of justice? In an age whose slogan in grappling with its most fateful problems has too often been “too little and too late,” it is not strange that American discussion of the problem of world order has largely taken the form of old disputes as to the terms upon which the United States should assume membership in an association or league of nations to keep the peace. The tacit assumption behind the discussion is that such a partnership of sovereignties can and will keep peace, enforce law, and promote justice if only it be organized with sufficient cleverness and joined by a sufficient number of states.
Some problems associated with the puncture testing of plastics

Glassy polycarbonate specimens with different degrees of aging were tested in puncture for the purpose of determining the ductile/brittle transition temperature in biaxial tension. The results show that increasing amounts of aging increase the transition temperature from −95 to −70°C. All transitions appear too low In temperature. This was confirmed by using strip-biaxial specimens that become brittle at a significantly higher temperature. In addition to this problem, the load deflection curve also can lead to an overestimation of the load and energy to initiate cracking. A finite element model of the puncture test suggests that the compressive stress under the dart may have shifted the onset of brittleness to much lower temperatures.
On‐Wafer Tunable Deposition Rates Using Ionized Physical Vapor Deposition

The selective deposition of vapor-phase metal ions is investigated using differential, on-wafer biasing of microstructures. In this work, metal ions are generated by sputtering titanium atoms into an inductively coupled argon plasma, producing 50-80% ionization of the titanium flux to the wafer. The plasma sheath region surrounding the microstructures is modified by applying a pulsed DC bias to some of the microstructures such that plasma ions are attracted toward the most negative regions. Enhanced deposition is observed if the negative bias does not cause the impinging ion energy to exceed the sputtering threshold. Reduction of the deposition rate is observed on individual microstructures that are biased above the sputtering threshold due to resputtering of the titanium thin film by argon ions. A simple model is developed to confirm the mechanism of ion focusing, and the model also shows enhanced and then decreased net deposition rates as the ion energy increases.
Mutation Rates: How Low Can You Go?

Two recent reports combine mutation accumulation and whole-genome sequencing to measure mutation rates in microbes with unusual genome sizes and life cycles. The results are broadly consistent with the hypothesis that genetic drift plays a role in shaping genomic mutation rates across a wide range of taxa.
Operating characteristics of serial hematocrit measurements in detecting major injury after trauma

Study objectives: Assessment of occult blood loss is an essential part of the primary survey after trauma. Physical examination and imaging studies may reveal injuries that contribute to blood loss; hypovolemic shock may be difficult to diagnose in its early stages. Serial hematocrit measurements (ΔHct) are a routine part of the trauma evaluation for identifying volume loss. We designed this study to test the diagnostic performance of serial hematocrit in detecting blood loss after trauma. Methods: This retrospective review was the pilot project for an ongoing prospective study. Data were collected at Kings County Hospital Center, a Level I trauma center with annual census of 150,000 emergency department (ED) visits. Inclusion criteria were all trauma patients suspected of having major injury. Exclusion criteria were patients with known anemia, renal failure, or congestive heart failure or patients receiving blood transfusion within the first 24 hours of ED admission. Demographic information and data acquired from diagnostic procedures were recorded. Hct values at 0 hours (on patients' arrival), 4 hours, and 24 hours were recorded. Patients were classified into 1 of the 2 categories, either minor or major (Injury Severity Score >3) injury. Using receiver operating characteristic curves, the diagnostic performance of ΔHct in detecting major injury was tested. Results: The study subjects consisted of 84% men (n=402) and 16% women (n=76). The mean age was 33±15 years (range 13 to 90 years). Two hundred twenty-nine patients (48%) had major injury, and the remaining (n=249) patients had minor injury. The area under the curve for the initial Hct (0.522, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.470 to 0.574) was not significantly different ( P =.20) from that of the unity line, representing a test with no discriminating power. However, the area under the curves for ΔHct after 4 hours (0.675, 95% CI 0.585 to 0.765) and ΔHct after 24 hours (0.413, 95% CI 0.678 to 0.835) were significantly different ( P P =.07). Conclusion: ΔHct (either after 4 or 24 hours) is a valid diagnostic tool in detecting occult blood loss and could be used in conjunction with other diagnostic tests to identify patients with major injury.
Dawsonite as a daughter mineral in hydrothermal fluid inclusions

Traces of dawsonite (NaAlCO3(OH)2) are extremely common as a daughter product in fluid inclusions in gold-quartz veins and altered wallrock of the Oriental mine, Alleghany district, California. A very similar daughter salt occurs in hydrothermal inclusions in quartz from 19 other mining localities of worldwide distribution.
On the realization of reliability functions of probabilistic communication networks

This paper presents some properties and interrelationships of terminal reliability functions of probabilistic communication networks with distinct element reliabilities. Based on topological techniques a synthesis procedure as well as realizability conditions are given. In addition, a uniqueness theorem is proved.
Interference spectra induced by a bichromatic field in the excited state of a three-level atom

Abstract The interference spectra for the excited state of a three-level atom have been considered, where the strong and the weak atomic transitions leading to an electric dipole allowed excited state and to a metastable excited state are driven by resonant and nonresonant laser fields, respectively. In the low intensity limit of the strong laser field, there are two short lifetime excitations, the spontaneous one described by the weak signal field and the one induced by the strong laser field, both of which appear at the same frequency, and a long lifetime excitation induced by the weak laser field. The maximum intensities (heights) of the two peaks describing the short lifetime excitations take equal positive and negative values and, therefore, cancel each other out completely, while the long lifetime excitation dominates. This indicates the disappearance of the short lifetime excitations describing the strong atomic transition for a period equal to the lifetime of the long lifetime excitation, which is roughly equal to half of the lifetime of the metastable state. The computed spectra have been graphically presented and discussed at resonance and for finite detunings.
Quantification of the Alpha EEG Modulation and Its Relation to Cerebral Blood Flow

A novel method for quantifying the modulation features of the alpha EEG rhythm in terms of global amplitude and frequency modulation indexes has been developed. The method was used to determine the correlation between the modulation of the occipital alpha EEG rhythm and cerebral blood flow.
A 13C{1H} double resonance study of the signs of 1H19F and 13C19F spin coupling constants in fluorobenzenes and 2‐fluoropyridine

The signs of all 13C19F and 1H–19F coupling constants in fluorobenzene, some substituted derivatives, and in 2-fluoropyridine have been related using single-frequency 13C{1H} double resonance techniques. All 13C19F couplings in these compounds are shown to be positive. Direct experimental proof is given for a positive sign for the small five-bond 1H19F coupling constant (=0.2—0.3 Hz) in fluorobenzene. The positive sign for 4J(C-4, F) in fluorobenzene is in accord with a positive π-electron contribution to this coupling.
Accelerated branch exchange heuristics for symmetric traveling salesman problems

A method for accelerating the computational performance of branch exchange heuristics for symmetric traveling salesman problems (TSP's) is presented. The improvement in performance is obtained by considering only exchanges that have a good chance of producing a better solution. In the instance of the 3–optimal heuristic, the approach reduces the number of operations required to obtain a good solution to a TSP with N nodes from O(N3) to O(N2), without a corresponding degradation in the quality of the solution. Most of the results are produced for Euclidean TSP's, but evidence is presented that indicates that thes results apply equally well if not more strongly to the general symmetric TSP.
Experimental analysis of beamforming in high-speed railway communication

The demand of broadband high-mobility communication increased dramatically with the rapid development of high speed railway system. A beamforming platform through changing transmitter antenna direction base on real time receiver Global Positioning System (GPS) information was proposed to improve communication quality. Experiments were carried out over Taiwan High Speed Railway (THSR) train to analysis the tracking capability and path loss model. The results show that the received signal strength indicator (RSSI), carrier to interference plus noise ratio (CINR) and throughput were improved.
Serotonin syndrome in a patient on tramadol, bupropion, trazodone, and oxycodone.

Because of their known serotonergic activity, antidepressants are well recognized in the precipitation of serotonin syndrome (SS). Serotonergic effects of the analgesic tramadol, however, are not as well understood. Several reports detail cases of SS caused by tramadol overdose. To our knowledge, only one case report has ever raised the possibility of SS in a patient on a therapeutic dose of tramadol alone. Other reports demonstrate the development of SS on nonexcessive doses of tramadol due to interactions with other drugs, usually serotonin-specific reuptake inhibitors. Here, we describe a case of SS in a patient on a routine dose of tramadol, combined with several nonserotonin-specific reuptake inhibitor medications: bupropion, trazodone, and oxycodone.
SIRT3 and Cancer: Tumor Promoter or Suppressor?

Sirtuins (SIRT1-7), the mammalian homologues of the Sir2 gene in yeast, have emerging roles in age-related diseases, such as cardiac hypertrophy, diabetes, obesity, and cancer. However, the role of several sirtuin family members, including SIRT1 and SIRT3, in cancer has been controversial. The aim of this review is to explore and discuss the seemingly dichotomous role of SIRT3 in cancer biology with particular emphasis on its potential role as a tumor promoter and tumor suppressor. This review will also discuss the potential role of SIRT3 as a novel therapeutic target to treat cancer.
Reduction and Aerobic Oxidation of Hexaketocyclohexane (C6O6) by Reaction with Metallic Copper

Cyclic C6O6 has been reacted with metallic copper as a potential route to rhodizonate complexes of Cu(II). The product isolated under aerobic conditions has been found from crystallographic analysis to contain croconate C5O52- and oxalate C2O42- ligands bridging CuII(tmeda) centers in a linear polymer of formula [(tmeda)Cu(μ-C5O5)Cu(tmeda)(μ-C2O4)]n. Oxalate ligands are believed to result from O2 addition to a CuI(C6O6•-) species, formed initially in the reaction, in steps that give C5O52- and CO2•- radical anion by elimination and ring contraction.
Reduced order Kalman filtering without model reduction

This paper presents an optimal discrete time reduced order Kalman filter. The reduced order filter is used to estimate a linear combination of a subset of the state vector. Most previous approaches to reduced order filtering rely on a reduction of the model order. However, this paper takes the full model order into account. The reduced order filter is obtained by minimizing the trace of the estimation error covariance.
The distribution of the number of factors in a factorization

Abstract A factorization of a positive integer n, here, is a specification of m(d), the power to which d occurs in Π dm(d) = n; order is immaterial. The number of factors in a factorization has two natural interpretations: as Σ m(d) or as the number of nonzero m(d), that is, counting or not counting multiplicity. In either case, the factorizations of positive integers ≤ x into k factors number approximately ψ v (u) × ( log x) k − 1 k!(k − 1)! , where u = k(k − 1) log x , and ψv is either Γ(2 − u) or 1 Γ(1 + u) according to whether multiplicity is counted or not. In the former case, we must have u ≤ 2 − e; in the latter, u ≤ C.
Ureteric Advancement in the Treatment of Reflux

Among 91 children requiring surgical correction of major ureteric reflux, 58 had 1 or 2 ureters treated by an advancement operation. This proved to be highly effective in preventing further reflux and in no case did any ureteric obstruction develop. The indications for choosing this operation, and a suitable operative technique, are described.
Survival and projection analyses of the effect of radiation on beagle dogs.

The Cox proportional hazard model is used to identify important covariates related to survival for this beagle dog study. The Weibull and the Gompertz parametric probability models are used to fit the survival curves for 1680 beagle dogs given whole body Co-60 gamma radiation or sham irradiation and held for life-span observation. Deaths from cancer and noncancer are the primary diagnoses. Of dogs dying from cancer, female dogs showed significantly greater cancer mortality (p<0.0001) than did males, and irradiated dogs had significantly greater cancer mortality (= 0.022) than did the unexposed dogs, by either the Weibull or the Cox model. However, there were no sex and exposure differences in mortality for dogs dying from noncancer causes. The fitted Weibull and Gompertz models have been successful in projecting the actual mortality experience in this experiment and could be used for similar life-span experiences.
The Clinical Diagnosis of Microbial Keratitis

Purpose To evaluate the ability of ophthalmologists to predict the laboratory results of presumed microbial keratitis and to explore which findings may influence diagnostic prognostication. Design Prospective, cross-sectional study. Methods Fifteen ophthalmologists completed study forms at the initial presentation of patients with presumed microbial keratitis. After predicting the category of microbial recovery, clinicians submitted corneal scrapings for masked laboratory processing. The relative effects of ocular inflammatory signs on correct microbial diagnosis were explored with Poisson regression. Results Clinical examiners correctly predicted the presence or absence of microbial recovery in 79 (76%) of 104 ulcerative keratitis cases and successfully distinguished among bacterial, fungal, and amebic keratitis for 54 (73%) of 74 culture-positive infections, although only 31 (42%) were subcategorized properly. The positive predictive value of clinical diagnosis was 65% (95% confidence interval [CI], 43% to 84%) for 20 eyes with Pseudomonas keratitis cases, 48% (95% CI, 32% to 63%) for 38 other bacterial keratitis, 45% (95% CI, 17% to 77%) for 13 fungal keratitis, and 89% (95% CI, 52% to 100%) for nine Acanthamoeba keratitis cases. The recognition of Pseudomonas keratitis significantly improved by the occurrence of a larger infiltrate ( P = .02), and correctly predicting Acanthamoeba keratitis was enhanced by observing a ring infiltrate ( P P = .03) and hampered microbial recovery ( P = .004). Conclusions Established Pseudomonas keratitis and Acanthamoeba keratitis can be suspected before laboratory confirmation, but overlapping inflammatory features and recent empiric antimicrobial treatment limits etiologic recognition of most microbial corneal infections.
Small clauses in Spanish and English

I have argued (contra Williams 1983) that SCs are constituents, and (contra Chomsky 1986), Hornstein and Lightfoot 1984, and Kitagawa 1985) that they are projections of their predicates. I have suggested that the simplest version of this approach to SCs implies that S does not have an obligatory subject position, and that what we normally think of as subject of S should be reinterpreted as subject of VP. Finally, I have shown that this approach is compatible with current versions of the Null Subject Parameter, and that it makes possible an account of postverbal subjects in Spanish which is simpler than the standard account.