cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Crime and Punishment, Changing Attitudes Toward

Attitudes toward crime and punishment historically have been informed by prevailing ideas about class, gender, race, and nation. They have rarely reflected strict legal definitions of crime, but rather have been influenced by political discourses, economic conditions, ideological circumstances, and the means by which ideas are publicly disseminated. In the late twentieth century, representations of crime through the mass media have encouraged an uncritical attitude of fear toward racially- and class-defined communities as the main perpetrators of crime, deflecting attention away from corporate, white-collar, government, and police crime, as well as domestic violence against women. The history of the prison reveals that this institution, which has emerged as the dominant mode of punishment, has been unable to solve the problem of crime, but rather has become a site for violence, assaults on human rights, and the perpetuation of racism. Nevertheless, it has expanded in the industrialized countries – especially in the United States – to the extent that we now can speak of an emergent prison industrial complex. Oppositional attitudes toward penal systems have emerged in transnational organizations, including abolitionist perspectives toward both prisons and the death penalty.
Broadening the measurement of situation awareness through cognitive engineering methods

Situation awareness (SA) and team SA are popular concepts, yet vaguely defined and inadequately measured. They involve representations of the current situation, performance resulting from those representations, and cognitive structures and processes leading to those representations. Current measures of individual and team SA focus on the assessment of performance or the accuracy of the resulting situation model at the expense of other aspects of SA, such as situation assessment, mental models, and team process behaviors. As a result, these measures fail to capture the richness of the constructs of individual and team SA, critical for applications involving training and team SA. We propose that a cognitive engineering approach to measuring SA which focuses on the elicitation of the cognition underlying SA, can extend measurement by overcoming many of the current limits. As an illustration, the measurement of situation models using this approach is presented.
Modeling the hygrothermal creep behavior of wood plastic composite (WPC) lumber made from thermally modified wood

The viscoelastic behavior of an extruded wood plastic composite (WPC) made from thermally modified wood under hygrothermal treatment was studied and modeled. Multiple three-point bending creep/reco...
Soft anomalous dimensions for single-top production at three loops

I present results for soft anomalous dimensions in single top-quark production processes through three loops. I first discuss the cusp anomalous dimension with one massive and one massless line at three loops. I then calculate the three-loop soft anomalous dimension for $tW$ production and for related processes with new physics such as $tZ$, $t\ensuremath{\gamma}$, and $t{H}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ production. This is followed by results at two and three loops for the soft anomalous dimension matrix in $s$-channel single-top production and, finally, in $t$-channel single-top production. These new results are needed for soft-gluon resummation at next-to-next-to-next-to-leading-logarithm accuracy and for calculations of soft-gluon corrections at next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order.
Thermal Analyses of Polymers. IX. First order Phenomena in Polystyrene

Linear expansion and dilatometric measurements illustrate the occurrence of a first order transition following the normal Tg at 75°C. The first order transition for polystyrene depends upon its thermal history and the way in which the polymer is synthesized. First order transitions usually occur in the range 90° to 120°C, and the occurrence of this first order transition is independent of molecular weight and molecular weight distribution. Depolarized light measurements have been used to illustrate the changes in the first order phenomenon of polystyrene for several commercial samples as well as isothermal crystallization behavior. Annealing for even short times at 85°C changes the depolarized light trace to indicate the fusion of a second type of morphology.
Anesthesia-administered sedation for endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography: monitored anesthesia care or general endotracheal anesthesia?

Purpose of reviewThe decision to undertake monitored anesthesia care (MAC) or general endotracheal anesthesia (GEA) for patients undergoing endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) is influenced by many factors. These include locoregional practice preferences, procedure complexity, pati
Sample size considerations for stratified cluster randomization design with binary outcomes and varying cluster size

Stratified cluster randomization trials (CRTs) have been frequently employed in clinical and healthcare research. Comparing with simple randomized CRTs, stratified CRTs reduce the imbalance of baseline prognostic factors among different intervention groups. Due to the popularity, there has been a growing interest in methodological development on sample size estimation and power analysis for stratified CRTs; however, existing work mostly assumes equal cluster size within each stratum and uses multilevel models. Clusters are often naturally formed with random sizes in CRTs. With varying cluster size, commonly used ad hoc approaches ignore the variability in cluster size, which may underestimate (overestimate) the required number of clusters for each group per stratum and lead to underpowered (overpowered) clinical trials. We propose closed-form sample size formulas for estimating the required total number of subjects and for estimating the number of clusters for each group per stratum, based on Cochran-Mantel-Haenszel statistic for stratified cluster randomization design with binary outcomes, accounting for both clustering and varying cluster size. We investigate the impact of various design parameters on the relative change in the required number of clusters for each group per stratum due to varying cluster size. Simulation studies are conducted to evaluate the finite-sample performance of the proposed sample size method. A real application example of a pragmatic stratified CRT of a triad of chronic kidney disease, diabetes, and hypertension is presented for illustration.
Larval Transport Modeling Support for Identifying Population Sources of European Green Crab in the Salish Sea

In 2016, the invasive European green crab (Carcinus maenas) was observed for the first time east of Vancouver Island in the Salish Sea. Because there are many established green crab populations in the Pacific Northwest region, the invaders’ origin was unclear. Understanding likely source populations for the Salish Sea is critical to developing management strategies for the current green crab invasion and future invasion threats. To that end, this study used ocean models to investigate the likelihoods that larvae released from four potential source locations on the West Coast could be successfully transported into the eastern Salish Sea in particle tracking experiments, and then examined the roles of particle release timing and oceanographic processes (i.e., flow reversals in the Strait of Juan de Fuca) in the probability of successful transport. The potential source locations tested were Sooke Basin (British Columbia, Canada), Barkley Sound (British Columbia, Canada), Willapa Bay (Washington, USA), and Coos Bay (Oregon, USA). Model results indicate that during 2014 and 2015 particles released from as far south as Oregon and as far north as the coast of Vancouver Island could have reached the eastern Salish Sea, suggesting that multiple populations on the Pacific coast might be viable sources for the observed eastern Salish Sea invasion in 2016. Flow reversals in the Strait of Juan de Fuca co-occurred with successful invasions from Barkley Sound and Willapa Bay but not from Sooke Basin or Coos Bay. Incursions of particles into the eastern Salish Sea were episodic. Nevertheless, these results suggest that oceanographic patterns and meteorological events could be useful for identifying periods of likely green crab recruitment, particularly during years with high El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) indices.
Opioid-sparing effects of cannabinoids on morphine analgesia: participation of CB 1 and CB 2 receptors.

Background and purpose Much of the opioid epidemic arose from abuse of prescription opioid drugs. This study sought to determine if the combination of a cannabinoid with an opioid could produce additive or synergistic effects on pain, allowing reduction in the opioid dose needed for maximal analgesia. Experimental approach Pain was assayed using the formalin test in mice and the carrageenan assay in rats. Morphine and two synthetic cannabinoids were tested: WIN55,212-2 (WIN), which binds to both CB1 and CB2 receptors, and possibly TRPV1 channels; and GP1a, which has activity at CB2 receptors and is reported to inhibit fatty acid amide hydrolase, thus raising levels of endogenous cannabinoids. Key results Morphine in combination with WIN in the formalin test gave synergistic analgesia. Studies with selective antagonists showed that WIN was acting through CB1 receptors. Morphine in combination with GP1a in the formalin test was sub-additive. In the carrageenan test, WIN had no added effect when combined with morphine, but GP1a with morphine showed enhanced analgesia. Both WIN and Gp1a used alone had analgesic activity in the formalin pain test, but not in the carrageenan pain test. Conclusions and implications The ability of a cannabinoid to produce an additive or synergistic effect on analgesia when combined with morphine varies with the pain assay and may be mediated by CB1 or CB2 receptors. These results hold the promise of using cannabinoids to reduce the dose of opioids for analgesia in certain pain conditions.
Living and Leading with the Eightfold Path

Keeping the noble eightfold path in mind is always a good idea. The eight treads of this path are interrelated. For instance, right intentions emerge from right views, and incite right efforts and right actions. This chapter brings it all together by briefly evaluating the common qualities and characteristics the individuals discussed in this book have. It emphasizes the role of kindness in our lives, and encourages us to connect heart and mind in all our leadership endeavors, while also ensuring that we remain mindful by living in the here and now.
Incorporating observed data into early design energy models for life cycle cost and carbon emissions analysis of campus buildings

Abstract As energy prices increase along with a societal desire for reducing the impact of global warming, it is common for campus decision-makers to consider the life cycle and carbon emissions of future and existing buildings. This work proposes a technique for leveraging observed energy and weather data to represent internal loads for heating, cooling, and occupancy of different building types to simplify the analysis of multiple buildings. Template energy profiles and modular energy models simulate the operation and energy usage of buildings with different HVAC equipment types. This approach makes it possible to evaluate multiple buildings from a broader campus-level perspective. This work proposes a discrete multi-objective optimization framework to select the optimal HVAC system for each building to minimize life cycle cost and emissions. A case study for the University of Utah campus demonstrates the application of the proposed framework to consider a group of new buildings with different principal building activity and size with five different HVAC systems. Results show it is possible to reduce overall carbon emissions of the buildings by 15% while only increasing the life cycle cost by 2.4% by considering a combination of systems rather than a single HVAC system type.
Effects of Uniqueness, News Valence, and Liking on Personalization of Company News:

Many online information systems are delivering personalized news to users today. The essence of this personalization process is to match a news article to the reader’s self-identity. However, prior...
Introducing Offsets to the Virtual Phase-link Street Traffic Model for Arterial Traffic Control

In our previous work, we proposed a Virtual Phase-Link street traffic model to provide optimal control of green splits. The simulations implemented the offsets which were obtained from Vistro offline. Offsets can significantly impact the performance of arterial traffic controls. This paper introduces offsets as optimization variables to the Virtual Phase-Link street traffic model. Based on the optimization results from the optimal green splits control proposed in the previous work, we derived the delay function for offsets optimization. The proposed offsets optimization were tested under two scenarios of the same arterial against their base cases in simulations. It was found that in both scenarios, the proposed method resulted in significantly less delay compared to the base cases. It was also found that the proposed offsets optimization method can identify the dominant traffic path and provide progression optimization for it.
Documentation Practices of Athletic Trainers Employed in the Clinic, Physician Practice, and Emerging Clinical Settings.

CONTEXT The documentation practices of athletic trainers (ATs) employed in the secondary school setting, including their strategies for, barriers to, and perceptions of documentation, have been characterized in previous research. The documentation practices of ATs employed in other settings have yet to be studied in depth. OBJECTIVE To examine the documentation practices of ATs employed in the clinic, physician practice, and emerging clinical settings. DESIGN Qualitative study. SETTING Web-based interviews. PATIENTS OR OTHER PARTICIPANTS A total of 22 ATs 11 employed in the clinic or physician practice setting and 11 employed in an emerging clinical setting. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS The ATs employed in the settings of interest were recruited with purposeful, convenience, and snowball sampling. Participants were interviewed using a Web-based platform so that we could learn about their behaviors and perceptions of documentation. Data were analyzed using the consensual qualitative research approach, followed by a thematic analysis. Trustworthiness was addressed using data source triangulation, multiple-analyst triangulation, and an established interview guide and codebook. RESULTS Participants described following clear guidelines for documentation established by regulatory agencies, employers, and electronic medical record templates. They were motivated to document for patient safety and to demonstrate value. Participants typically documented in real time and continuously, which was facilitated by employer requirements. The ATs described experiencing a learning curve for documentation due to the unique requirements of their settings, but learning was facilitated by employer guidance and mentorship. CONCLUSIONS Employer guidelines, training, and ongoing support facilitated effective and thorough documentation in these clinical settings. Athletic trainers and employers in a variety of settings should consider establishing clear guidelines to promote thorough and effective documentation.
Can mobility on demand bridge the first-last mile transit gap? Equity implications of Los Angeles’ pilot program

Abstract Transit agencies and advocates see removing or bridging the first-last mile gap as an important way to increase transit ridership and reduce vehicle use. Some transit agencies see the advent of ride-hail services like Uber and Lyft as an opportunity for a nimble and flexible solution to first-last mile problems able to deliver more riders to and from transit stations. While agencies across the US have piloted such programs, limited evaluation to date means the outcomes of such partnerships remain unknown. Using just over a year of trip data from the Los Angeles Metro Mobility on Demand (MOD) pilot program, we answer two related questions about ride-hailing and transit access: first, do people use ride-hailing to go to and from transit stops? And second, what are the equity implications of such a program? In other words, do such programs boost access to transit among populations historically excluded or underserved by transportation systems? Our findings suggest that the MOD program successfully delivered thousands of riders to and from transit stations during its first year. Whether these rides were delivered to vulnerable groups with limited access to the transit system, however, is less clear. Survey results suggest that compared to transit riders as whole, program users overall were whiter and more likely to own smartphones and have bank accounts. Thus while people are clearly interested and willing to use subsidized ride-hail services to access transit, the program in its current design does not appear to meaningfully increase access for disadvantaged groups. This result may stem more from the design of the pilot itself, as opposed to suggesting the limited potential of ride-hailing more broadly to solve access problems.
Presidents in Deficit: Are there Historical Rewards to Deficits?

Buchanan and Wagner (1977) pointed to an asymmetry in the political rewards of deficits and surpluses with the former being preferable to the latter. We test this claim by relying on the historical reputation surveys of American presidents. Historical reputations have long been something presidents have cared for and they constitute a reliable way to assess whether their reputations suffer or gain from having run deficits. We find evidence that the size of deficits tends to be associated with greater presidential scores.
Nutrition Management of Hypocitraturia

Hypocitraturia, or low urinary citrate, is a known risk factor for kidney stones. Increasing urinary citrate levels decreases the risk for developing nephrolithiasis. Many dietary factors may affect urinary citrate including citrate intake, magnesium intake, the potential renal acid load (PRAL) of food and beverages, and potassium intake. In general, drinking beverages with lemon or lime juice and following a diet high in fruits and vegetables, such as the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet are recommendations that promote ample urinary citrate excretion.
Strain Energy and Related Principles

Before proceeding to the solution of specific elasticity problems we wish to explore the associated concepts of work and energy. Boundary tractions and body forces will do work on an elastic solid and this work will be stored inside the material in the form of strain energy. For the elastic case, removal of these loadings will result in complete recovery of the stored energy within the body. Development of strain energy concepts will yield new and useful information not found by other methods. This study will also lead to some new energy methods or principles that provide additional techniques to solve elasticity problems. In some sense these methods may be thought of as replacements of particular field equations that have been derived previously. For problems in structural mechanics involving rods, beams, plates, and shells, energy methods have proven to be very useful in developing the governing equations and associated boundary conditions. These schemes have also provided a method to generate approximate solutions to elasticity problems. More recently, particular energy and variational techniques have been used extensively in the development of finite and boundary element analysis. Our presentation here will only be a brief study on this extensive subject.
Quadratrix, Rectification Property

This second set of problems of the third kind exemplifies mathematics when the problem is “linear” by nature. Props. 39–41, like Props. 35–38, belong to the second path of development for the mathematics of motion curves, the analytical track. The analysis focuses on reduction to the symptoma of the quadratrix, and to the rectification property in Prop. 26. A certain tendency for setting out the quadratrix in a separate auxiliary figure and arguing “parallel” can be detected, but with the slim observation basis we have, we cannot be certain that this is typical.
Should thyroid replacement therapy be considered for patients with treatment-refractory depression?

The information in this column is not intended as a definitive treatment strategy but as a suggested approach for clinicians treating patients with similar histories. Individual cases may vary and should be evaluated carefully before treatment is provided. To submit questions for this regular feature, please send them to the Journal of Psychiatry & Neuroscience / Revue de psychiatrie & de neuroscience, Canadian Medical Association, 1867 Alta Vista Dr., Ottawa ON K1G 3Y6, Canada; fax 613 729-9545; jpn.office/at/sympatico.ca Please include details of any relevant case and your name, address, telephone and fax numbers as well as your email address.
Managerial Ownership and Accounting Disclosures: An Empirical Study

This study examines empirically the effect of managerial ownership on firms' disclosures. Agency theory predicts that investors' information requirements increase with the agency costs of the firm. Managerial ownership mitigates agency costs and therefore should reduce investors' information needs. This study tests the hypothesis that firms with lower levels of managerial ownership provide more extensive disclosures by examining analysts' ratings of firms' disclosures. In contrast to the proxies used in prior studies that test this relationship, such as the earnings-return correlation and management earnings forecasts, these ratings provide a more direct measure of firms' overall disclosure practices. I find that the relationship between managerial holdings and disclosures depends on the type of disclosure. Consistent with the hypothesis of this study, firms with lower levels of managerial ownership are more likely to receive higher ratings for the disclosures provided in their annual and quarterly reports, even after controlling for size, performance, volatility of returns, the frequency of securities offerings and proprietary costs. The more informal and flexible aspects of disclosures, however, as measured by the investor relations rating, are not influenced by the level of managerial ownership. These results are consistent with prior research that predicts that firms lower their costs of capital by signaling a commitment to maintain a more open disclosure policy. Because annual and quarterly reports are less flexible, and therefore less likely to change, they may represent a more credible commitment to provide more informative disclosures.
Vasopressin Deficiency and Vasodilation of Septic Shock

To the Editor: The article by Landry et al entitled “Vasopressin Deficiency Contributes to the Vasodilation of Septic Shock” ( Circulation . 1997;95:1122–1125) is original and provocative in its findings of apparently low plasma vasopressin concentration in septic shock, coupled with the observation that infusion of vasopressin rapidly restored arterial pressure. Two points can be made regarding the conclusions and subsequent speculation about the reason for low vasopressin levels in this setting. First, the data obviously do not establish an actual contributing role for diminished arginine vasopressin levels in the hypotension of the syndrome, only that levels are low and infusion of vasopressin restores blood pressure. This observation may have therapeutic, not mechanistic, implications because, as noted by …
On the security of αη: response to 'some attacks on quantum-based cryptographic protocols'

Lo and Ko in [1] have developed some attacks on the cryptosystem called αη [2], claimingthat these attacks undermine the security of αη for both direct encryption and keygeneration. In this paper, we show that their arguments fail in many different ways.In particular, the first attack in [1] requires channel loss or length of known-plaintextthat is exponential in the key length and is unrealistic even for moderate key lengths.The second attack is a Grover search attack based on 'asymptotic orthogonality' andwas not analyzed quantitatively in [1]. We explain why it is not logically possible to"pull back" an argument valid only at n = ∞ into a limit statement, let alone one validfor a finite number of transmissions n. We illustrate this by a 'proof' using a similarasymptotic orthogonality argument that coherent-state BB84 is insecure for any value ofloss. Even if a limit statement is true, this attack is a priori irrelevant as it requires anindefinitely large amount of known-plaintext, resources and processing. We also explainwhy the attacks in [1] on αη as a key-generation system are based on misinterpretations of[2]. Some misunderstandings in [1] regarding certain issues in cryptography and opticalcommunications are also pointed out. Short of providing a security proof for αη, weprovide a description of relevant results in standard cryptography and in the designof αη to put the above issues in the proper framework and to elucidate some securityfeatures of this new approach to quantum cryptography.
Neuropeptide S as a novel arousal promoting peptide transmitter

Behavioral arousal requires integration of multiple neurotransmitter and neuromodulatory systems. Identifying these systems is the key to not only a better understanding of the neurobiology of sleep/wakefulness but may also lead to the discovery of potential therapeutic targets for various sleep disorders. We review here a novel arousal promoting neuropeptide system, neuropeptide S (NPS) and its receptor. Pharmacologically, NPS activates NPS receptors at low nanomolar concentration to increase concentrations of intracellular Ca(2+). Anatomically, both NPS precursor and receptor mRNAs are found predominately in the central nervous system. NPS precursor mRNA is expressed only in several discrete regions located mainly in the brainstem. In particular, it is highly expressed in a previously undescribed group of neurons localized between locus coeruleus and Barrington's nucleus. NPS receptor mRNA is widely distributed in many brain areas with high expression levels in cortex, hypothalamus, amygdala and multiple midline thalamic nuclei. Functionally, central administration of NPS increases locomotor activity in both naive and habituated mice. It also significantly increases wakefulness and decreases paradoxical (rapid eye movement) sleep and slow wave sleep in rats. In addition, NPS suppresses anxiety-like behaviors in mice exposed to different behavioral paradigms measuring responses to novelty or stress. These studies indicate that the NPS system is a newly discovered transmitter system that regulates vigilance and emotional states. NPS appears to possess a unique pharmacological profile in producing both anxiolytic-like and hypervigilant effects.
Novel scheme for rapid parallel parameter estimation of gravitational waves from compact binary coalescences

We introduce a highly parallelizable architecture for estimating parameters of compact binary coalescence using gravitational-wave data and waveform models. Using a spherical harmonic mode decomposition, the waveform is expressed as a sum over modes that depend on the intrinsic parameters (e.g., masses) with coefficients that depend on the observer dependent extrinsic parameters (e.g., distance, sky position). The data is then prefiltered against those modes, at fixed intrinsic parameters, enabling efficiently evaluation of the likelihood for generic source positions and orientations, independent of waveform length or generation time. We efficiently parallelize our intrinsic space calculation by integrating over all extrinsic parameters using a Monte Carlo integration strategy. Since the waveform generation and prefiltering happens only once, the cost of integration dominates the procedure. Also, we operate hierarchically, using information from existing gravitational-wave searches to identify the regions of parameter space to emphasize in our sampling. As proof of concept and verification of the result, we have implemented this algorithm using standard time-domain waveforms, processing each event in less than one hour on recent computing hardware. For most events we evaluate the marginalized likelihood (evidence) with statistical errors of $\ensuremath{\lesssim}5%$, and even smaller in many cases. With a bounded runtime independent of the waveform model starting frequency, a nearly unchanged strategy could estimate neutron star (NS)-NS parameters in the 2018 advanced LIGO era. Our algorithm is usable with any noise curve and existing time-domain model at any mass, including some waveforms which are computationally costly to evolve.
Weak Cayley Table Groups II: Alternating Groups and Finite Coxeter Groups

A weak Cayley table isomorphism is a bijection φ: G → H of groups such that φ(xy) ∼ φ(x)φ(y) for all x, y ∈ G. Here ∼denotes conjugacy. When G = H the set of all weak Cayley table isomorphisms φ: G → G forms a group &#x1d4b2;(G) that contains the automorphism group Aut(G) and the inverse map I: G → G, x → x −1. Let &#x1d4b2;0(G) = ⟨Aut(G), I⟩ ≤ &#x1d4b2;(G) and say that G has trivial weak Cayley table group if &#x1d4b2;(G) = &#x1d4b2;0(G). We show that all finite irreducible Coxeter groups (except possibly E 8) have trivial weak Cayley table group, as well as most alternating groups. We also consider some sporadic simple groups.
Fitness of artemisinin-resistant Plasmodium falciparum in vitro

Objectives Drug resistance confers a fitness advantage to parasites exposed to frequent drug pressure, yet these mutations also may incur a fitness cost. We assessed fitness advantages and costs of artemisinin resistance in Plasmodium falciparum in vitro to understand how drug resistance will spread and evolve in a competitive environment. Methods Genotyping of SNPs, drug susceptibility assays and copy number determination were used to assess the impact of artemisinin resistance on parasite fitness. An artemisinin-resistant clone (C9) selected in vitro from an isogenic parental clone (D6) was used to conduct competitive growth studies to assess fitness of artemisinin resistance. The resistant and susceptible clones were mixed or grown alone in the presence and absence of drug pressure (dihydroartemisinin or pyrimethamine) to quantify the rate at which artemisinin resistance was gained or lost. Results We experimentally demonstrate for the first time that artemisinin resistance provides a fitness advantage that is selected for with infrequent exposure to drug, but is lost in the absence of exposure to artemisinin drugs. The best correlations with artemisinin resistance were decreased in vitro drug susceptibility to artemisinin derivatives, increased copy number of Pf3D7_1030100 and an SNP in Pf3D7_0307600. An SNP conferring an E208K mutation in the kelch gene (Pf3D7_1343700) was not associated with resistance. Furthermore, we observed second-cycle ring-stage dormancy induced by pyrimethamine, suggesting that dormancy is a fitness trait that provides an advantage for survival from antimalarial drug stress. Conclusions Artemisinin-resistant P. falciparum have a fitness advantage to survive and predominate in the population even in the face of infrequent exposure to artemisinin drugs.
Adipocyte iron regulates leptin and food intake

Dietary iron supplementation is associated with increased appetite. Here, we investigated the effect of iron on the hormone leptin, which regulates food intake and energy homeostasis. Serum ferritin was negatively associated with serum leptin in a cohort of patients with metabolic syndrome. Moreover, the same inverse correlation was observed in mice fed a high-iron diet. Adipocyte-specific loss of the iron exporter ferroportin resulted in iron loading and decreased leptin, while decreased levels of hepcidin in a murine hereditary hemochromatosis (HH) model increased adipocyte ferroportin expression, decreased adipocyte iron, and increased leptin. Treatment of 3T3-L1 adipocytes with iron decreased leptin mRNA in a dose-dependent manner. We found that iron negatively regulates leptin transcription via cAMP-responsive element binding protein activation (CREB activation) and identified 2 potential CREB-binding sites in the mouse leptin promoter region. Mutation of both sites completely blocked the effect of iron on promoter activity. ChIP analysis revealed that binding of phosphorylated CREB is enriched at these two sites in iron-treated 3T3-L1 adipocytes compared with untreated cells. Consistent with the changes in leptin, dietary iron content was also directly related to food intake, independently of weight. These findings indicate that levels of dietary iron play an important role in regulation of appetite and metabolism through CREB-dependent modulation of leptin expression.
Unmanned Aircraft Systems Used for Disaster Management

Unmanned aircraft systems (UASs) are an emerging technology with the potential to revolutionize disaster management as well as transportation, agriculture, conservation, and many other industries. Findings on UAS use in disaster management are summarized. Also included is a discussion on FAA regulations and an overview of current UAS models based on a survey conducted in the summer of 2014. Issues that need to be addressed as UAS use expands in the United States include regulations, safety, and privacy concerns. Disaster managers, transportation planners, and other UAS users must work to ensure that new FAA regulations address the role of these systems in their industries; collaborate with UAS researchers and developers to ensure that UAS cameras, sensors, and vehicles will optimize UAS use in their industries; and develop integration strategies for bringing this new technology into existing practices and procedures in each industry. The ease of use and the low cost of a small UAS model mean that local go...
Laser-induced fluorescence line-narrowing of C60-hydroquinone crystals

Abstract The low temperature optical spectroscopy of C 60 -hydroquinone (C 60 (HQ) 3 ) crystals has been studied by fluorescence line-narrowing and total luminescence spectroscopy. The spectra are characterized by sharp zero-phonon lines and phonon sidebands of neutral C 60 . Symmetric h g and a g modes and progressions in the Jahn-Teller active 260 cm −1 h g squashing mode dominate the fluorescence spectra indicating the hexagonal environment of the crystal has distorted the C 60 icosahedral symmetry. There may ae a Jahn-Teller distortion of the excited state. The line-narrowing experiments show there is substantial inhomogeneous broadening because of rotational disorder in the crystal.
Surrogate decision making for severely cognitively impaired research subjects: the continuing debate.

As research into Alzheimer's disease and other dementing disorders becomes more complex, risky, invasive, and commonplace, the need intensifies for discussion of the ethics of involving persons with dementia in research, specifically research of greater than minimal risk and of no expected direct benefit to the subject. (It is beyond the scope of this paper to consider the ethical issues related to research involvement of cognitively impaired children or children or adults with intermittent and/or reversible cognitive or psychiatric impairments. For such discussions, refer to the references in notes 1–6.) Reviewing such studies pushes our traditional analysis tools to their limits. Simply balancing and prioritizing the basic ethical principles of respect for persons, beneficence, and justice that serves us well in reviewing the vast majority of studies is inadequate when reviewing research of such ethical complexities as studies with marked risks and no expectation of direct benefit to subjects unable to consent or withdraw. Moving up to the level of theory, placing these principles within the commonly applied frameworks of consequentialism, deontology, or virtue ethics bring us no closer to reducing the tensions such research creates between upholding individual autonomy and advancing society's need to learn how to treat and cure these devastating diseases. What is needed is the introduction of more contemporary moral analyses. Specifically, we need to become more inclusive of the diversity of values perspectives of our general citizenry. In more theoretical terms, we ought to elevate to a more central role a communitarian perspective and a feminist ethics emphasis on relationships and context as we rush to keep in step, ethically, with this rapidly expanding area of medical inquiry.
Uncertainty in climate sensitivity: Causes, consequences, challenges

Fossil fuels supply about 85% of the world's primary energy, and future use would not appear limited by availability of reserves, especially of coal. Rather, future use of fossil fuels will likely be limited by controls on the emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that are agreed to by the nations of the world. The increase in atmospheric CO2 over the past 200 years, mainly from fossil fuel combustion, is confidently thought to have increased global temperatures and induced other changes in Earth's climate, with the prospect of much more severe consequences from projected future emissions. Limiting such changes in Earth's climate would place major constraints on the combustion of fossil fuels and/or the emission of CO2 into the atmosphere. Developing effective and cost-effective strategies for limiting CO2 emissions requires the confident ability to project the changes in climate that would result from a given increase in atmospheric CO2. However, even the change in global mean surface temperature (GMST), the single most important index of climate change, that would result from a given increase in atmospheric CO2 remains uncertain to a factor of 2 or more, largely because of uncertainty in Earth's climate sensitivity, the change in GMST per change in radiative flux. This uncertainty in climate sensitivity, which gives rise to a comparable uncertainty in the shared global resource of the amount of fossil fuel that can be burned consonant with a given increase in global mean surface temperature, greatly limits the ability to effectively formulate strategies to limit climate change while meeting the world's future energy requirements. Key limits on determining climate sensitivity are the small change in downwelling longwave irradiance, less than one percent, that would give rise to changes in climate that reach the level of concern, the complexity of cloud processes and the difficulty of representing them in climate models, and limited understanding of the processes that control the radiative influences of atmospheric aerosols. A recent empirical calculation of Earth's climate sensitivity as the quotient of the relaxation time constant of GMST upon the effective heat capacity characterizing climate change on the multidecadal time scale points to a possible alternative approach to determining Earth's climate sensitivity. While improved knowledge of Earth's climate sensitivity is essential to development of optimal energy strategies, even for climate sensitivity at the low end of the range of present estimates, substantial reductions in CO2 emissions from their present values would be required to avert dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system that would otherwise occur well before the end of the present century.
How do bicyclists intercept moving gaps in a virtual environment

Coordinating one's actions with the movements of other objects in the environments is important for both interception and avoidance tasks. Recent experiments show that performance in some interception tasks is well explained by a motion control strategy based on adjusting speed to maintain a constant bearing angle (CBA) between an individual's direction of motion and the object to be intercepted [Lenoir et al. 2002]. When the object and observer travel on intersecting, linear trajectories and the object travels with constant speed, then an observer employing the CBA strategy will move with constant speed.
Editorial Comment— Telemedicine: The Solution to Provide Rural Stroke Coverage and the Answer to the Shortage of Stroke Neurologists and Radiologists

While the world seems to get “online” at an unbelievable speed, telemedicine is slow to follow. Other than teleradiology, which has been widely accepted in practice for several years, it is puzzling that the use of 2-dimensional live images on a computer or television screen is still being studied. While direct visualization or so-called seeing is believing is in the process of getting the statistic power to prove its worthiness, the world is faced with the increased demand and task to improve stroke care. The TESS project has hopefully provided the last bits of needed information to prove to the world that telemedicine for stroke care works. As Wiborg et al report, telemedicine is easy to set up (“online” within 10 minutes) and operate. It requires a low level of training and is interactive with accurate diagnoses. Furthermore, it assists in making …
Minimax estimation with divergence loss function

Abstract We propose a class of loss functions for parameter estimation obtained by considering the discrepancy between the probability distribution p.d. with the unknown parameter and the p.d. with the parameter replaced by the estimate, the discrepancy being measured by the divergence functional. The minimax estimate of the binomial distribution is determined using the divergence loss function. The minimax estimate is Bayes with respect to a CDF F ∗ which is obtained by maximizing the conditional mutual information function. The CDF F ∗ is a staircased function. The minimax estimate is compared with other estimates, such as the maximum likelihood estimate, the minimax estimate with the quadratic loss function, etc. It is found that the estimate derived here is satisfactory both for large and small samples, unlike the maximum likelihood estimate which is satisfactory only with large samples and the minimax estimate with the quadratic loss function which is satisfactory only with small samples. The theory given here can be easily extended for estimation in multinomial distributions.
Embedded Librarian Program Insights

This article reports on the insights gained from an embedded librarian program at MacKay Library, Union County College (Cranford, NJ) using the Angel Course Management System (CMS). The program began in order to reach out to students in online classes to market library resources and to offer assistance. Students were surveyed at the end of the semester to assess the value of the program and to suggest future revisions. Course assignments were found to play a major role in whether students reach out to the embedded librarian.
Maximum information loss from a POVM receiver

calculated analytically for fixed POVM-receiver error and inconclusive rates in the quantum cryptographic two-state protocol in the presence of an individual attack [1-3]. It was demonstrated that the maximum allowableinformation gain by the probe for fixed error rate and fixed inconclusive rate is generally less than that for fixederror rate only, and decreases with a suitably increasing inconclusive rate. Here, information gain by the probecorresponds to information loss from the POVM receiver [4,5].The maximum Renyi information gain by the eavesdropper, at fixed error and inconclusive rates, is given by
The Development and Validation of the Arts Self-Perception Inventory for Adults

The purpose of this investigation was to develop and validate an adult form of the Arts Self-Perception Inventory (ASPI), a multidimensional self-concept inventory designed to measure perceptions o...
The surface properties of barium titanate

Abstract Semiconductor thin films are used to study the ferroelectric surface. The observed n -type germanium, deposited on BaTiO 3 at elevated temperatures, is explained on the basis of the ferroelectric space-charge layer. The piezoresistance effect in semiconductors provides a tool for the study of surface strains in BaTiO 3 , particularly at crystallographic phase transitions.
Dcr2 targets Ire1 and downregulates the unfolded protein response in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Accumulation of unfolded proteins in the endoplasmic reticulum triggers the unfolded protein response (UPR). How the UPR is downregulated is not well understood. Inositol requirement 1 (Ire1) is an endoplasmic reticulum transmembrane UPR sensor in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. When the UPR is triggered, Ire1 is autophosphorylated, on Ser 840 and Ser 841, inducing the cytosolic endonuclease activity of Ire1, thereby initiating the splicing and translational de-repression of HAC1 mRNA. Homologous to Atf/Creb1 (Hac1) activates UPR transcription. Here, we report that the dose-dependent cell-cycle regulator 2 (Dcr2) phosphatase functionally and physically interacts with Ire1. We identified genetic interactions between DCR2 and genes, including IRE1, which are involved in secretory processes. Overexpression of DCR2, but not of a catalytically inactive DCR2 allele, significantly delays HAC1 splicing and sensitizes cells to the UPR. Furthermore, Dcr2 physically interacts in vivo with Ire1-S840E,S841E, which mimics phosphorylated Ire1, and Dcr2 de-phosphorylates Ire1 in vitro. Our results are consistent with de-phosphorylation of Ire1 being a mechanism for antagonizing UPR signalling.
High-pressure matrix isolation of heterogeneous condensed phase chemical reactions under extreme conditions

Abstract A new technique which combines high-pressure and thermal-shock conditions with low-temperature matrix isolation in a gem anvil cell is presented. This serves to partially quench or arrest the reaction sequence of an energetic material. New chemical species are observed which indicate that intermediates are trapped in addition to final products. This combination of high pressure and low temperature helps elucidate the complicated reaction pathways in the deflagration to detonation regime. We have applied this technique to hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane (HNIW, chemical name: 2,4,6,8,10,12-hexanitro-2,4,6,8,10,12-hexaazatetracyclo[5.5.0.0 5,9 .0 3,11 ]dodecane). Products are identified using infrared spectroscopy and comparisons are made to previously reported data taken under thermal, ambient pressure conditions.
An application of the Kohn potential to electron states of crystalline Si

Abstract An orthogonalized-plane-wave calculation for Si is carried out at Γ; this is a repetition of the calculation done by Brinkman and Goodman [1, 2], except for the fact that the Kohn exchange potential is used instead of the Slater exchange potential.
Theoretical and physical interpretation of entrainment phenomenon in capillary-driven heat pipes using hydrodynamic instability theories

Abstract The entrainment phenomenon in two-phase parallel flow has been studied from the standpoint of wave instability theories, which are related to the exponential growth of unstable waves caused by viscous interaction between the two parallel flowing fluids. Instability theories related to the Kelvin-Helmholtz and the Orr-Sommerfeld problems were reviewed and applied to predict the critical air/vapor velocity at the onset of entrainment from a capillary structure. To compare the theoretical criteria with the experimental results, entrainment observed in both air-water and steam-water situations were characterized and classified into three major categories. As results of these comparisons, a modified theoretical criterion based on the results of Miles was developed and used to investigate the effect of liquid depth on the critical air/vapor velocity or corresponding Weber number for the given temperatures, and general trends of the various criteria were examined as a function of vapor temperature.