cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Strategic bidding for multiple units in simultaneous and sequential auctions

A buyer may be interested in buying a bundle of items, where any one item in the bundle may not be of particular interest. The emergence of online auctions allows such users to obtain bundles by bidding on different simultaneous or sequentially run auctions. Because the number of auctions and the number of combinations to form the bundles may be large, the bundle bidding problem becomes intractable and the user is likely to make suboptimal decision given time constraints and information overload. We believe that an automated agent that can take user preferences and budgetary constraints and can strategically bid on behalf of a user can significantly enhance user profit and satisfaction. Our first step to build such an agent is to consider bundles containing many units of a single a item and auctions that sell only multiple units of one item type. We assume that users obtain goods over several days. Expectations of auctions and their outcome in the future allow the agent to bid strategically on currently open auctions. The agent decides how many items to bid for in the current auctions, and the maximum price to bid for each item. We evaluate our proposed strategy in different configurations: number of items sold, number of auctions opened, expected closing prices, etc. The agent produces greater returns in situations where future auctions can provide better profit, and where not too many agents use our proposed strategy.
40Ar/39Ar age spectra for biotite and hornblende from plutonic rocks in the Victorville region, California

40Ar/39Ar data from plutonic rocks in the Mojave Desert near Victorville, California, provide preliminary insight into the complex thermal history of this region and suggest that some plutons here may be significantly older than any plutons in the Sierra Nevada to the north. Near Victorville, multiple deformation and metamorphism of platform-miogeoclinal strata is inferred to postdate deposition of Permian rocks and predate intrusion of monzonite plutons. Monzonite that intrudes multiply deformed Paleozoic marble and that is unconformably overlain by the Mesozoic (Triassic or Jurassic) Fairview Valley Formation has hornblende with an age spectrum typical of severe 40Ar loss. We interpret the age of the highest temperature increment (fusion), 233 ± 14 m.y., as a minimum age for this pluton. The total gas age for the hornblende is only 169.9 m.y. Biotite from the same rock exhibits a plateau age of 76.59 ± 1.24 m.y. The Fairview Valley Formation is overlain by volcanic rocks of the Sidewinder sequence. These rocks were folded and intruded by quartz monzonite that postdates all penetrative deformation in the region. Biotite-hornblende tonalite at Quartzite Mountain is part of one of these younger quartz monzonite plutons, and its biotite yields a plateau age of 73.16 ± 1.11 m.y. This age is the same at the 95% confidence level as the age of biotite from the older monzonite; thus, this younger thermal event was at least the partial cause for the argon loss pattern displayed by the monzonite hornblende. Hornblende gabbro that intrudes Paleozoic marble at Sidewinder Mountain and is in turn contact metamorphosed by later plutonic rocks has hornblende with a disturbed 40Ar/39Ar age spectrum. The 1025, 1050, and 1075 °C steps contain 44.64% of the total argon and yield a common age of 119.2 ± 3.4 m.y., which we interpret as the best estimate for the age of the hornblende.
High-Energy Proton Spallation of Argon

The cross sections for production of $^{39}\mathrm{Cl}$, $^{38}\mathrm{Cl}$, $^{37}\mathrm{S}$, $^{34m}\mathrm{Cl}$, $^{29}\mathrm{Al}$, $^{28}\mathrm{Al}$, $^{28}\mathrm{Mg}$, $^{27}\mathrm{Mg}$, $^{24}\mathrm{Na}$, $^{22}\mathrm{Na}$, $^{18}\mathrm{F}$, and $^{7}\mathrm{Be}$ from the proton spallation of argon at 310, 425, and 578 MeV are reported. Experimental production rates and experimental production ratios of the various radioisotopes to $^{38}\mathrm{Cl}$ are compared to theoretical spallation yield calculations. Applications of the cross sections to health physics problems associated with high-energy accelerators and to studies of atmospheric processes are discussed.
Comparison and evaluation of urinary biomarkers for occupational exposure to spray adhesives containing 1-bromopropane.

Three metabolites of 1-bromopropane (1-BP) were measured in urine samples collected from 30 workers exposed to 1-BP at two facilities making furniture seat cushions and evaluated for use as biomarkers of exposure. The mercapturic acid metabolite, N-acetyl-S-(n-propyl)-l-cysteine (AcPrCys), 3-bromopropionic acid (3-BPA), and bromide ion levels (Br−) were quantitated for this evaluation. The high exposure group consisted of 13 workers employed as adhesive sprayers who assembled foam cushions using 1-BP containing spray adhesives and the low exposure group consisted of 17 non-sprayers, who worked in various jobs without spraying adhesives. All workers’ urine voids were collected over the same 48 h period at work, and at home before bedtime, and upon awakening. Urinary AcPrCys and Br− levels were elevated in the sprayers compared to that of non-sprayers. Following HPLC-MS/MS analysis of mercapturic acid metabolite levels, 50 urine samples having the highest levels of AcPrCys were analyzed for 3-BPA. No 3-BPA ...
Software reuse strategies and component markets

Black-box reuse with component markets could be the silver bullet solution that makes software reuse a reality, and advances software development to a robust industrial process---but only if market makers address the growing pains plaguing this immature industry.
Biotin–avidin interaction-based screening assay for Alzheimer’s β-peptide oligomer inhibitors

Abstract In vitro testing for inhibitors of oligomer formation of pathologically misfolded proteins such as Alzheimer’s β-peptide (Aβ) has been limited by the lack of a suitably sensitive high-throughput method for measuring oligomers. Even with the development of oligomer-specific antibodies and a single-site antibody assay, there are multiple controls required to rule out false positives due to compound interactions with the epitopes on the peptide that are recognized by the antibodies or with the antibodies themselves, and the immunoreagents are expensive. A non-radioactive non-immunological method for the measurement of subnanomolar concentrations of Alzheimer’s β-peptide residues 1–42 [Aβ(1–42)] oligomers incorporating the biotin–avidin interaction that has been a workhorse for screening assays is applied here in a single-site NeutrAvidin capture/labeled streptavidin detection configuration to specifically recognize multimeric (>20 kDa) oligomers of N-α-biotinyl-Aβ(1–42) (bio-Aβ42) but not monomeric bio-Aβ42. The high affinity and specificity of the biotin interaction with NeutrAvidin and streptavidin obviate interference by non-biotin-containing compounds. The reagents are inexpensive and can be applied to any misfolding/oligomerizing peptide or protein that can be biotinylated at a single site.
Learning k-term DNF formulas with an incomplete membership oracle

We consider the problem of learning k-term DNF formulas using equivalence queries and incomplete membership queries as defined by Angluin and Slonim. We demonstrate that this model can be applied to non-monotone classes. Namely, we describe a polynomial-time algorithm that constructs a k-term DNF formula representationally equivalent to the target using incomplete membership queries and equivalence queries from the class of DNF formulas.
Prolonged depression of thermoregulation after xylazine administration to cats

Xylazine administered subcutaneously (s.c.; 1–4 mg/kg) or intravenously (i.v.; 0.5-2 mg/kg) to cats consistently caused dose-related decreases in body temperature which were maximal 3–4 h after injection and lasted for at least 12 h. Otherwise the animals appeared to have recovered fully from the central nervous system effects of the drug within 1.5–3.5 h. Xylazine-induced hypothermia developed more rapidly in cats placed in a 4°C environment and, in contrast, was replaced by a hyperthermic response in cats placed in a 32°C environment. These changes in body temperature were not opposed by compensatory thermoregulatory effector activity such as shivering or tachypnea. This pattern of responses at varied environmental temperatures is indicative of a general depression of the thermo-regulation. Thus, animals given xylazine should not be exposed to extreme heat or cold for several hours to avoid development of hyper- or hypothermia.
Gravitational Field of a Global Monopole

We present an approximate solution of the Einstein equations for the metric outside a monopole resulting from the breaking of a global O(3) symmetry. The monopole exerts practically no gravitational force on nonrelativistic matter, but the space around it has a deficit solid angle, and all light rays are deflected by the same angle, independent of the impact parameter.
The Power of the Street-Level Bureaucrat in Public Service Bureaucracies:

The difficulties of controlling the daily behavior of low level bureaucrats has been widely appreciated by both administrators and academic students of bureaucracy. This article provides a theoreti...
Scaling Pulse Generators for Lasers

A type-A pulse forming network is used to simulate a pulse generator for the leading edge of an electrical pulse to drive a load. Various scaling relationships are developed which indicate laser design trade-offs in relationship to the state of the art in switching capabilities. It is concluded that dielectric materials are the primary factor limiting technology in fast, low impedance pulse generation.
Are myelin proteins synthesized in retinal ganglion cells

—We studied the incorporation of radioactivity into individual proteins of myelin by sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis after the injection of [3H]tryptophan into the right eye of developing rabbits. We found that the specific activity of basic protein (c.p.m./mg of basic protein) and the specific activity of DM-20 and proteolipid protein (c.p.m./mg total myelin protein applied to the gel) did not approach the ratio predicted by decussation of the fibres of the rabbit optic nerve. The specific activity of Wolfgram protein, however, approached an expected ratio of 15:1. We therefore concluded that myelin basic protein, DM-20 and proteolipid protein were probably not synthesized in retinal ganglion cells.
Parasites as weapons of mouse destruction.

Epidemiological models illustrate that parasites can drive fluctuations in host populations, but small-mammal ecologists have tended to reject parasitism as an important factor. In one of the few experimental tests of the impact of parasites on wildlife population dynamics, Pedersen and Greives reduced prevalence of intestinal nematodes in free-ranging populations of Peromyscus mice with and without access to supplemental food. In isolation, parasite removal and food addition reduced rates of population decline only modestly, but the two factors acted synergistically to strongly alleviate declines. It is tempting to disregard factors that, in isolation, have weak effects, but the results from Pedersen and Greives' multifactor experiment remind ecologists that complex factor interactions pervade real ecosystems.
The great symphony orchestra--a relatively good place to grow old.

The retired musicians of one of America's great symphony orchestras were interviewed. Their careers, which began in the 1930s and 1940s, were long, with retirement sometimes occurring when they wer...
Links that speak only some languages

Ronen et al. (1) raise an intriguing question concerning how to define quantitatively “the global influence of languages.” Unfortunately, the limitations and flaws in their datasets raise questions concerning the validity of their maps of global language networks.
Studying the recovery procedure for the time-dependent transmission rate(s) in epidemic models

Determining the time-dependent transmission function that exactly reproduces disease incidence data can yield useful information about disease outbreaks, including a range potential values for the recovery rate of the disease and could offer a method to test the “school year” hypothesis (seasonality) for disease transmission. Recently two procedures have been developed to recover the time-dependent transmission function, β(t), for classical disease models given the disease incidence data. We first review the β(t) recovery procedures and give the resulting formulas, using both methods, for the susceptible-infected-recovered (SIR) and susceptible-exposed-infected-recovered (SEIR) models. We present a modification of one procedure, which is then shown to be identical to the other. Second, we explore several technical issues that appear when implementing the procedure for the SIR model; these are important when generating the time-dependent transmission function for real-world disease data. Third, we extend the recovery method to heterogeneous populations modeled with a certain SIR-type model with multiple time-dependent transmission functions. Finally, we apply the β(t) recovery procedure to data from the 2002–2003 influenza season and for the six seasons from 2002–2003 through 2007–2008, for both one population class and for two age classes. We discuss the consequences of the technical conditions of the procedure applied to the influenza data. We show that the method is robust in the heterogeneous cases, producing comparable results under two different hypotheses. We perform a frequency analysis, which shows a dominant 1-year period for the multi-year influenza transmission function(s).
Self-training for brain stimulation in the medial forebrain bundle of rats: A comparison of saline with amphetamine

Abstract Rats were implanted with stimulating electrodes in the medial forebrain bundle-lateral hypothalamus (MFB-LH). Following recovery from surgery, they were placed in 3 groups prior to brain self-stimulation training. This consisted of one 15-min session on each of 5 consecutive days. Animals in the first group (controls) were placed in a conventional, single lever operant chamber without any additional manipulation. There were no priming stimuli, there was no experimenter intervention of any kind, and no exteroceptive cues in the chamber to indicate the availability or otherwise of the reinforcement. Animals in the second group (saline-injected) were treated similarly to the first group except that they were weighed and injected subcutaneously with saline (1 ml/kg) immediately before being placed in the chamber. Animals in a third group ( d -amphetamine-injected) were weighed and administered d -amphetamine (0.5 mg/kg in saline) immediately before being placed in the chamber. The number of lever-presses made per 15-min session was recorded. In addition, the time taken to achieve a lever-pressing rate of 10 presses per min was recorded. There were no significant differences between groups in the number of presses per 15-min session. Animals administered d -amphetamine reached the rate of 10 presses per min significantly more rapidly than animals administered saline, but the latter did so significantly more rapidly than controls. These results demonstrated that the simple manipulation, and perhaps the mild stress, associated with a saline injection strongly affected the acquisition of a brain self-stimulation task.
Active and passive smoking are associated with increased carotid wall thickness. The Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study.

Background: Active cigarette smoking has been established as a potent risk factor for carotid atherosclerosis in clinical populations; however, neither the role of active smoking in general populations nor the impact of environmental tobacco smoke has been well described. Methods: The association between carotid artery wall thickness and cigarette smoking was studied in 12 953 black and white men and women, aged 45 to 65 years, examined in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study. Participants were classified as current smokers (n=3525), past smokers (n=4315), never smokers reporting weekly exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS or "passive smoking") of at least 1 hour (n=3339), or never smokers reporting no weekly exposure to ETS (n=1774). Carotid artery intimal-medial thickness (IMT) was measured by B-mode ultrasound. Results: Increased IMT was observed in each category, in order from smallest to greatest increase: never smokers not exposed to ETS, never smokers exposed to ETS, past smokers, and current smokers. The larger IMT observed in the nonsmoking group exposed to ETS compared with the nonsmokers not exposed persisted after control for diet, physical activity, body mass index, alcohol intake, education, and major cardiovascular risk factors. Among past and current smokers, increased packyears of exposure was associated with increased IMT. Among nonsmoking men exposed to ETS, there was a significant increase in IMT with increasing number of hours per week of ETS exposure. Conclusions: These data confirm the strong relationship between active smoking and carotid artery IMT and provide initial evidence that passive smoking exposure is related to greater IMT. Increasing exposure to cigarette smoke (either pack-years of active smoking or hours of ETS) was significantly related to increased IMT. (Arch Intern Med. 1994;154:1277-1282)
Sex Differences in Love-Attitudes of Black University Students

Sex differences on love-attitudes as assessed on the MunreAdams LoveAttitude Scale ( 2 ) were examined. Data were collected from 72 women and 34 men at a state university in Texas historically attended by black students. Their ages ranged from 17 to 32 yr., with a mean age of 23 yr. for men and women. Table 1 presents the means and SDs for men and women black students on each of three subscales and the total scale. Very similar means were obtained for the total scale score for both men and women, indicating no significant difference. Similar means were found for men and women on Romantic Power. Men scored slightly higher on Romantic Idealism than women, but this difference was nonsignificant.
Ventilatory behavior and carotid body morphology of Brown Norway and Sprague Dawley rats.

Abstract Differences in acute ventilatory behavior are associated with carotid body (CB) structural and immunohistologic profiles in some, but not all, reports. Brown Norway (BN) rats exhibit lower acute ventilatory responses to hypoxia and hypercapnia compared to Sprague Dawley (SD) rats. We hypothesized that BN rats possess CB with fewer glomus cells. Ventilation was recorded in 6-month-old BN and SD rats exposed to hypoxia–reoxygenation and hypercapnia. Extracted CBs were examined using HE p p = 0.01). Hence, respiratory phenotype does not correlate intuitively with these anatomic features.
Cerenkov radiation from a finite-length path in a gas

Measurements of microwave \ifmmode \check{C}\else \v{C}\fi{}erenkov radiation in air show that the \ifmmode \check{C}\else \v{C}\fi{}erenkov cone angle is broadened as predicted in earlier work. Extension of previous theory shows that for small \ifmmode \check{C}\else \v{C}\fi{}erenkov angles, the broadening is asymmetric, giving an increase in the effective cone angle to a value in agreement with the experimental results. The shift in the radiation peak can be understood as a diffraction effect arising from the linearly varying phase of the radiation along the beam interaction length.
On Brauer stars

This paper contains some results on how representations in the principal p-block of a finite group with a cyclic Sylow p-subgroup yield information on the structure of the group. Throughout the paper, G denotes a finite group, p a fixed odd prime dividing 1 GI, P a Sylow p-subgroup of G with ]P] = p”, and B,(p) the principal p-block of G. If P is cyclic, then the ordinary and modular irreducible characters in any p-block of G can be described in terms of a graph, called the Bruuer tree belonging to the block (as in [5, VII.61). A tree is called a star if there are no paths with more than two edges, i.e.,
Voluntary environmental programs at an alpine ski area: visitor perceptions, attachment, value orientations, and specialization.

Abstract This article examines visitor perceptions of voluntary environmental programs (VEPs) at the Mt. Bachelor ski area in Oregon, USA by examining what they know about VEPs, how these programs influence motivations to visit this area currently and in the future, and how place attachment, value orientations, and specialization influence these motivations and knowledge associated with VEPs. Data from an onsite survey of skiers and snowboarders (n = 429, 89.7% response rate) showed that few were knowledgeable of VEPs at this ski area or motivated to visit on their current trip because of these programs, but many intended to visit more often in the future if this area increases and promotes its VEPs. Respondents who were motivated to visit because of VEPs were more attached to this area and biocentric or environmentally oriented. Those who are likely to visit more often in the future if VEPs at this area increase were also more biocentric. Visitors who were knowledgeable about VEPs at this ski area were more biocentric, specialized in their activity, and attached to this area. Implications for management and future research are discussed.
Early molluscan evolution: Evidence from the trace fossil record

Abstract Trace fossils extend the history of early molluscan evolution because they have a higher preservation potential in siliciclastic strata, where body fossils are rare or absent, and also because they better record the activities of soft-bodied animals. The earliest mollusks are recorded by fan-shaped scratch arrays associated with death masks of the Ediacaran animal Kimberella. Cambrian traces––Climactichnites, Musculopodus, Radulichnus––and fecal pellets record giant, but shell-less mollusks that intermittently left the water to graze the biofilms of intertidal sand flats. After the Cambrian, these traces become progressively restricted. Their subsequent disappearance results from closure of a taphonomic window, rather than from extinction of these animals or their grazing behavior. Other Paleozoic groups of shell-less mollusks may have responded to increasing predation pressures by becoming infaunal. Unlike surface trails, their backfilled burrows––Psammichnites, “Aulichnites-Olivellites,” Dictyo...
The two sides of perception.

Abstract by Richard B. Ivry and Lynn C. Robertson, MIT Press, 1998. $55.00 (315 pages) ISBN 0 262 09034 1
Hydrolysis of flavin-adenine dinucleotide by rat liver lysosomes

Abstract An enzyme that hydrolyzes pure FAD and mitochondrial FAD was found to be present in rat liver lysosomes; it exhibited latency and had optimum activity at pH 4. The enzyme was purified 800-fold from the homogenate, and was separated from acid phosphatase by gel filtration on Sephadex G-100. A number of nucleotides and pyrophosphate derivatives inhibited the enzyme, but its activity was not affected by EDTA or Mg++. Results of Chromatographic analysis show that the enzyme is a pyrophosphatase which hydrolyzes FAD to FMN and AMP. l (+)-tartrate does not inhibit FAD hydrolysis but does prevent hydrolysis of FMN and AMP by acid phosphatase in the same reaction mixtures.
Delayed stenting of a thrombotic saphenous vein graft after intravenous tirofiban pretreatment.

Percutaneous intervention of thrombus containing lesion carries a high risk of periprocedural complications [1]. If the culprit lesion is a saphenous vein graft, thrombus burden is usually large [2]. Optimal treatment strategy for such situation is still not well-defined. We describe a staged approach with intravenous tirofiban infusion prior to stent implantation for the management of a large thrombus in a stenosed old vein graft. A 66-year-old man with a history of previous inferior MI, was admitted to our hospital because of recurrent episodes of chest pain at rest. Risk factors were hypertension, non-insulin-dependent diabetes and smoking. Eight years earlier he underwent a coronary angiography that revealed severe three-vessels disease. Coronary artery bypass graft was performed with a sequential saphenous vein graft to first diagonal and first marginal branch and a left internal mammary artery to left anterior descending coronary artery; the right coronary artery of small caliber, was not grafted. After four years the patient had a non ST-elevation myocardial infarction and underwent stenting of the circumflex artery. He remained asymptomatic for four years under medical therapy up to the current admission. On admission the ECG showed T wave inversion in lateral leads. There was a mild increase in total creatine kinase up to 270 IU/l. At coronary angiography the left internal mammary artery graft was patent with diffuse disease in the distal left anterior descending, the right coronary artery was occluded proximally with moderate in-stent restenosis of the
Closed-form analytical solutions of flow and heat transfer for an unsteady rear stagnation-point flow

Abstract In this paper, flow and heat transfer characteristics of an unsteady rear stagnation-point flow over a moving wall with transpiration are studied. The flow solution is an exact solution to the unsteady Navier–Stokes equations. By ignoring the viscous dissipation terms, analytical solutions of the boundary layer energy equation are obtained for the cases with a constant wall temperature and a prescribed time-dependent wall heat flux. The effects of the controlling parameters on the solution domain, the velocity distribution and the temperature distribution in the fluids are analyzed. With certain given values of the controlling parameters, two solution branches are found for both the flow and the heat transfer problems. These closed-form solutions are rare and can be used as a benchmark problem for numerical code validation.
On the air classified light fraction of shredded municipal solid waste I. Composition and physical characteristics

Using an average composition of municipal solid waste (MSW), a model of the air-classified light fraction (LF) of shredded MSW is proposed wherein the weight fraction of inorganic fines contained in the LF is proportional to V1.3, where V is the velocity of the transport air. The LF model is used to compute calorific and ash content as a function of air classification and shown to be proportional to V−1,3 for V < 16 m/sec. The values calculated this way are consistent with limited available data. An important feature of the model is that the amount of inorganic fines in the LF is quantitatively expressed as a function of the effective air speed in an air classifier. The present LF model is applicable over a range of air-classifier speeds of practical interest and should be useful in future development and design for resource recovery processing.
Selective salient feature based lane analysis

Lane analysis involves data-intensive processing of input video frames to extract lanes that form a small percentage of the entire input image data. In this paper, we propose lane analysis using selective regions (LASeR), that takes advantage of the saliency of the lane features to estimate and track lanes in a road scene captured by on-board camera. The proposed technique processes selected bands in the image instead of the entire region of interest to extract sufficient lane features for efficient lane estimation. A detailed performance evaluation of the proposed approach is presented, which shows that such selective processing is sufficient to perform lane analysis with a high degree of accuracy.
Practical constraints pertinent to the design of neural networks

in designing a feedforward neural network for numerical computation using the backpropagation algorithm it is essential to know that the resulting network has a practical global minimum, meaning that convergence to a stationary solution can be achieved in reasonable time and using a network of reasonable size. This is in contrast to theoretical results indicating that any square-integrable (L2) function can be computed assuming that an unlimited number of neurons are available. A class of problems is discussed that does not fit into this category. Although these problems are conceptually simple, it is shown that in practice convergence to a stationary solution can only be approximate and very costly. Computer simulation results are shown, and concepts are presented that can improve the performance by a careful redesign of the problem.
Systematization of metrics in intrusion detection systems

Intrusion detection assumes paramount importance in this information era due to its capability of providing security protection to information systems. In addition to advancing the specific intrusion detection techniques, substantial efforts have been devoted to the taxonomy of existing IDSs, mostly focusing on the methodology, audit source and architecture aspects. The employed metric is another decisive factor of IDS performance, yet a systematized understanding in this aspect is still lacking. As an initial effort towards this objective, a categorization of IDS metrics is proposed in this work, where existing IDS metrics are divided into four types - information theoretic, probabilistic, proximity-based, and reliability-based metrics. Simulation studies of several intrusion detection algorithms that match the proposed categorization are also conducted based on the KDD'99 dataset.
A perspective on nutrition education research and practice

The need for unification between nutrition education research and practice has been the subject of considerable concern at both state and national levels (1). The purpose of this article is to provide a viewpoint on how this linking might occur. At a philosophical level, nutrition education research and practice are bound together because they exist to affect the same end, i.e., "to further the probability that human beings will take charge of their [nutritional] destinies ... to provide human beings with liberating alternatives" (2, p. 106). The nutrition educator is, as I see it, a person who deliberately seeks to progressively empower learners to act on food and nutrition-related issues such that the learner is gradually freed from the intervention and the materials. "Deliberately seeks" implies a planned effort; "progressively" implies that effort is a step-by-step process, each step building on the one preceding it; "empower" means to enable people to act in ways consistent with their knowledge and beliefs; and to free a person from the intervention means that in the end, we do not want the learner to rely on us or on our learning tools for direction. How many of us, as nutritionists, for example, daily check the number of personal servings from the Four (or Five) Food Groups? Probably none. Yet, we undoubtedly are competent to select a balanced diet even without a food guide in hand. That is also the position we ought to bring our learners to. The nutrition education researcher is a person who deliberately seeks out how best to perform that process, i.e., how to effectively structure, package, and deliver information to a particular audience in a particular setting at a particular point in time (3). That process requires more than dumping information, it requires that nutritionists understand their learners' needs as learners. Such understanding can be derived only through collaboration between researchers and educators, but how can each bring their oWn kind of knowledge to bear on a particular problem? The figure is a modification of Gowin's Vee heuristic (4) that illustrates what the normative relationship between theory and practice should be. The left arm rep-
Joyce and the City: The Significance of Place

Michael Begnal, ed. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2002. xx and 212 pp., bib., and index. $24.95 cloth (ISBN 0-8156-2942-7). James Joyce was principally an urban novelist whose obsession ...
Rethinking Well-Child Care: Lack of Standardization at the Beginning: In Reply

In Reply .— I thank Drs Seidel and Dubik for their thoughtful responses to my recent article.1 Dr Dubik highlights the variation he observed in how “routine” child health care is provided in his community. Each practice's approach to well-child care seemed to be home-grown, apparently based on assumptions or experiences unique to each physician. This is not a new story. Much of today's quality-improvement activities have had their roots in observations by Wennberg and Gittelsohn,2 who found that the likelihood …
Breastfeeding and subsequent maternal visceral adiposity.

Women gain visceral fat during pregnancy. Studies examining the impact of breastfeeding on maternal body composition are inconclusive. We examined the extent to which breastfeeding was associated with visceral adiposity in a sample of US women. This was a cross-sectional analysis of 351 women aged 45-58 years, who were free of clinical cardiovascular disease and had not used oral contraceptives or hormone replacement therapy in the 3 months prior to enrollment in the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation (SWAN)-Heart Study (2001-2003). History of breastfeeding was self-reported. Computed tomography was used to assess abdominal adiposity. Among premenopausal/early-peri-menopausal mothers, those who never breastfed had 28% greater visceral adiposity (95% confidence interval (CI): 11-49, P = 0.001), 4.7% greater waist-hip ratio (95% CI: 1.9-7.4, P 0.05). In contrast, premenopausal/early-peri-menopausal mothers who had never breastfed had significantly greater visceral adiposity (42% (95% CI: 17-70), P < 0.001), waist circumference (6.15 cm (95% CI: 2.75-9.56), P < 0.001), and waist-hip ratio (3.7% (95% CI: 0.69-6.8), P = 0.02) than nulliparous women. No significant relationships were observed among late peri-menopausal/postmenopausal women. In conclusion, until menopause, mothers who did not breastfeed all of their children for ≥3 months exhibit significantly greater amounts of metabolically active visceral fat than mothers who had breastfed all of their children for ≥3 months.
Complement modulation of T cell immune responses during homeostasis and disease

The complement system is an ancient and critical effector mechanism of the innate immune system as it senses, kills, and clears infectious and/or dangerous particles and alerts the immune system to the presence of the infection and/or danger. Interestingly, an increasing number of reports have demonstrated a clear role for complement in the adaptive immune system as well. Of note, a number of recent studies have identified previously unknown roles for complement proteins, receptors, and regulators in T cell function. Here, we will review recent data demonstrating the influence of complement proteins C1q, C3b/iC3b, C3a (and C3aR), and C5a (and C5aR) and complement regulators DAF (CD55) and CD46 (MCP) on T cell function during homeostasis and disease. Although new concepts are beginning to emerge in the field of complement regulation of T cell function, future experiments should focus on whether complement is interacting directly with the T cell or is having an indirect effect on T cell function via APCs, the cytokine milieu, or downstream complement activation products. Importantly, the identification of the pivotal molecular pathways in the human systems will be beneficial in the translation of concepts derived from model systems to therapeutic targeting for treatment of human disorders.
Escherichia coli Genes and Pathways Involved in Surviving Extreme Exposure to Ionizing Radiation

ABSTRACT To further an improved understanding of the mechanisms used by bacterial cells to survive extreme exposure to ionizing radiation (IR), we broadly screened nonessential Escherichia coli genes for those involved in IR resistance by using transposon-directed insertion sequencing (TraDIS). Forty-six genes were identified, most of which become essential upon heavy IR exposure. Most of these were subjected to direct validation. The results reinforced the notion that survival after high doses of ionizing radiation does not depend on a single mechanism or process, but instead is multifaceted. Many identified genes affect either DNA repair or the cellular response to oxidative damage. However, contributions by genes involved in cell wall structure/function, cell division, and intermediary metabolism were also evident. About half of the identified genes have not previously been associated with IR resistance or recovery from IR exposure, including eight genes of unknown function.
Some Evidence for Interhuman Transmission of Medieval Plague

Some 300 medieval texts containing descriptions of plague were examined to determine the predominant mode of transmission of plague during epidemics in Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries. There are three major modes of transmission of plague, i.e., the rat flea, the human flea, and respiratory droplets. Each mode involves distinctive patterns of household infection, seasonality, clinical presentation, concomitant mortality among rodents, and risk from contact with infected persons. The patterns described in medieval texts are those of transmission by the human flea.
Building self-modifying multi-agent and P2P networks using WSDL and SOAP

This paper explores using WSDL and SOAP as a medium for multi-agent communication, particularly focusing on agents that can incorporate new software capabilities at runtime and autonomously provide these new capabilities to the Internet as a Web service without human involvement. Such a system should serve as a good middleware for making distributed evolutionary networks that are also fully compatible with the existing Web service architecture. We demonstrate the potential of such self-modifying Web service-enabled agents by creating a small network of agents that can cooperatively work together to solve a decomposed workflow problem.
Mechanically Stabilized Earth Reinforcement Tensile Strength from Tests of Geotextile-Reinforced Soil

Bridge abutments made of geotextile-reinforced soil have been shown to support the bridge load without the use of piles. However, current design procedures are considered to be conservative. To determine the strength, and to understand better the behavior of reinforced soil, large unconfined cylindrical soil samples reinforced with geosynthetics were axisymmetrically loaded. Samples were 2.5 ft (0.76 m) in diameter and 5 ft (1.52 m) in height. Peak strengths of 4.8 kips/ft2 (230 kPa) to 9.6 kips/ft2 (460 kPa) at 3% to 8.5% vertical strain were obtained from cylinders reinforced with geotextiles at 6-in. (152-mm) vertical spacing. A strength reduction occurred after the peak strength, but most of the loads were sustained up to at least 10% strain before yielding. Tension in the reinforcement appears to be mobilized first in the middle layers, as determined from the location of tears in the geotextile. An equation to calculate the tensile force in the reinforcement, Tmax, in a reinforced bridge abutment is ...
Experimental investigation of self-guiding using a matched laser beam in a CM scale length underdense plasma

High-intensity short-pulse laser guiding in plasma channels has extended the length over which acceleration occurs in laser wake field accelerators[1]. Recent multidimensional nonlinear plasma wave theory[2] predicts a range of optimal characteristics for self-guiding of laser pulses in the blowout regime for pulses shorter than a plasma wavelength. This theory predicts a robust, stable parameter space for self-guiding and wake production and has been verified through multidimensional particle-in-cell simulations. We experimentally explore the plasma dynamics and laser pulse propagation using a 50 fs multi-terawatt Ti:Sapphire laser in a helium plasma at plasma densities, laser powers, and spot sizes within this parameter space. Our parameters are in the range where the plasma is underdense and the laser power is much greater than the critical power for self focusing. The evolution of the laser pulse and plasma channel will be followed over several Rayleigh lengths.
Effects of Limiting Homology at the Site of Intermolecular Recombinogenic Template Switching during Moloney Murine Leukemia Virus Replication

A Moloney murine leukemia virus-based single-replication-cycle assay was developed to study the effects of limiting the extent of template and primer strand complementarity on recombinogenic template switching. This system mimicked forced copy choice recombination in which nascent DNA transfers from the end of a donor template to an acceptor position on the other copackaged RNA. When acceptor target regions with different extents of complementarity to the transferring DNA were tested, efficient recombination occurred with as few as 14 complementary nucleotides. The frequencies of correct targeting, transfer-associated errors, mismatch extension, and transfer before reaching the end of the donor template were determined. All four molecular events occurred, with their proportions varying depending on the nature of acceptor/transferring DNA complementarity. When complementarity was severely limited, recombination was inefficient and most products resulted from aberrant second-strand transfer rather than from forced template switching between RNAs. Other classes of reverse transcription products, including some that resulted from template switching between virus and host sequences, were also observed when homology between the acceptor and donor was limited.
Earnings Guidance and Earnings Management Constraints

We examine how the provision of quarterly earnings guidance is affected by constraints on earnings management. We argue that costs of falling short of one’s own guidance make managers reluctant to issue guidance without sufficient flexibility in their financial reporting system to manage accruals to meet their forecast should that need arise. We find that the probability of providing guidance is inversely related to constraints on future earnings management. Earnings management constraints also decrease the number of fiscal quarters for which firms guide, the average horizon of guidance, and the willingness to provide guidance above analysts’ expectations. Relative to propensities to meet or beat prevailing analyst forecasts in non-guiding firm-quarters, we find that guiding firm-quarter earnings exhibit a greater propensity to meet or just beat and to avoid just missing management’s own forecast. Collectively, our results suggest that managers are myopically motivated to manage earnings to meet their own forecasts.
Molecular Recognition of Cyclic Urea HIV-1 Protease Inhibitors

As long as the threat of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) protease drug resistance still exists, there will be a need for more potent antiretroviral agents. We have therefore determined the crystal structures of HIV-1 protease in complex with six cyclic urea inhibitors: XK216, XK263, DMP323, DMP450, XV638, and SD146, in an attempt to identify 1) the key interactions responsible for their high potency and 2) new interactions that might improve their therapeutic benefit. The structures reveal that the preorganized, C2 symmetric scaffolds of the inhibitors are anchored in the active site of the protease by six hydrogen bonds and that their P1 and P2 substituents participate in extensive van der Waals interactions and hydrogen bonds. Because all of our inhibitors possess benzyl groups at P1 and P1', their relative binding affinities are modulated by the extent of their P2 interactions, e.g. XK216, the least potent inhibitor (Ki (inhibition constant) = 4.70 nM), possesses the smallest P2 and the lowest number of P2-S2 interactions; whereas SD146, the most potent inhibitor (Ki = 0.02 nM), contains a benzimidazolylbenzamide at P2 and participates in fourteen hydrogen bonds and approximately 200 van der Waals interactions. This analysis identifies the strongest interactions between the protease and the inhibitors, suggests ways to improve potency by building into the S2 subsite, and reveals how conformational changes and unique features of the viral protease increase the binding affinity of HIV protease inhibitors.
Multielemental Analysis of Solid Wastes and Leachates

During the past decade there has been a great emphasis on using multielemental methods to determine heavy metals in solid waste products arising from various industrial, combustion, municipal and mining activities. Furthermore, the study of the leaching characteristics of these solid wastes is of prime importance for environmental and regulatory considerations. We present an overview of neutron activation analysis (NAA), X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES) for the analysis of solid wastes and leachates. In particular we discuss several matrix problems that are usually not considered in routine NAA measurements.
Multiple-view meta-modeling of software product lines

This paper describes a multiple-view meta-modeling approach for software product lines using the Unified Modeling Language notation (UML). A multiple-view model for a software product line is an object-oriented domain model which defines the different aspects of a software product line, namely the use case model, static model, collaboration model, statechart model, and feature model, including the commonality and variability. The meta-model depicts life cycle phases, views within each phase, and meta-classes within each view. The relationships between the different views are described. Consistency checking rules are defined based on the relationships among meta-classes in the meta-model. Finally, tool support for the approach is described.
A Surgical Perspective on Targeted Therapy of Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), the second leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide, is difficult to treat and highly lethal. Since HCC is predominantly diagnosed in patients with cirrhosis, treatment planning must consider both the severity of liver disease and tumor burden. To minimize the impact to the patient while treating the tumor, techniques have been developed to target HCC. Anatomical targeting by surgical resection or locoregional therapies is generally reserved for patients with preserved liver function and minimal to moderate tumor burden. Patients with decompensated cirrhosis and small tumors are optimal candidates for liver transplantation, which offers the best chance of long-term survival. Yet, only 20%-30% of patients have disease amenable to anatomical targeting. For the majority of patients with advanced HCC, chemotherapy is used to target the tumor biology. Despite these treatment options, the five-year survival of patients in the United States with HCC is only 16%. In this review we provide a comprehensive overview of current approaches to target HCC. We also discuss emerging diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers, novel therapeutic targets identified by recent genomic profiling studies, and potential applications of immunotherapy in the treatment of HCC.