cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Early childhood lung function is a stronger predictor of adolescent lung function in cystic fibrosis than early Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection

OBJECTIVE Pseudomonas aeruginosa has been suggested as a major determinant of poor pulmonary outcomes in cystic fibrosis (CF), although other factors play a role. Our objective was to investigate the association of early childhood Pseudomonas infection on differences in lung function in adolescence with CF. METHODS Two populations of subjects with CF were studied: from the Gene Modifier Study (GMS), 346 F508del homozygotes with severe vs. mild adolescent lung disease, and from the Colorado Newborn Screen Study (NBS) 172 subjects diagnosed with CF by newborn screening. Associations of Pseudomonas infection and lung function in early childhood with lung function in adolescence were investigated using multivariate linear regression analyses. RESULTS Among GMS subjects, those with severe adolescent lung disease had worse lung function in childhood (FEV1 25 percentage points lower) compared to subjects with mild adolescent lung disease, regardless of early childhood Pseudomonas status. Among NBS subjects, those with lowest adolescent lung function had significantly lower early childhood lung function and faster rate of decline in FEV1 than subjects with highest adolescent lung function; early Pseudomonas infection was not associated with rate of FEV1 decline. The strongest predictor of adolescent lung function was early childhood lung function. Subjects with a higher percentage of cultures positive for Pseudomonas before age 6 or a lower BMI at 2-4 years old also had lower adolescent lung function, though these associations were not as strong as with early childhood lung function. CONCLUSIONS In separate analyses of two distinct populations of subjects with CF, we found a strong correlation between lower lung function in early childhood and adolescence, regardless of early childhood Pseudomonas status. Factors in addition to early Pseudomonas infection have a strong impact on lung function in early childhood in CF. Further exploration may identify novel underlying genetic or environmental factors that predispose children with CF to early loss of lung function.
Rapid development of scientific virtual reality applications

Visualizing and working with large scale scientific image data can benefit greatly from advances in consumer Virtual Reality and game development tools, but presently only limited applications have leveraged these. We present a set of techniques for mapping scientific images and data manipulation tasks into virtual reality applications with an emphasis on short development time and high quality user experience. Existing techniques often require large teams to develop applications that suffer in quality or require extensive development time. Using off the shelf Virtual Reality hardware and freely available development tools we present a set of techniques for making immersive and interactive data visualization and manipulation applications. We demonstrate these techniques with a series of Virtual Reality apps to produce high quality immersive applications in incredibly short periods of time. These applications show large datasets and extracted high level information geared towards image understanding. We illustrate that these techniques can be integrated into existing data acquisition, image processing and machine learning work flows. With these techniques we hope to encourage future development of scientific applications for emerging Virtual Reality platforms.
Ellipsoidal mixed-integer representability

Representability results for mixed-integer linear systems play a fundamental role in optimization since they give geometric characterizations of the feasible sets that can be formulated by mixed-integer linear programming. We consider a natural extension of mixed-integer linear systems obtained by adding just one ellipsoidal inequality. The set of points that can be described, possibly using additional variables, by these systems are called ellipsoidal mixed-integer representable. In this work, we give geometric conditions that characterize ellipsoidal mixed-integer representable sets.
Navigating Community Development Conflicts: Contested Visions of Poverty & Poverty Alleviation

This article explores an ethical dilemma that arose from the author's involvement in a project intended to identify and address the needs of seven batey communities in the Dominican Republic. In the summer of 2014, the author conducted a large-scale needs assessment to inform strategic planning for a foundation that was invested in community development work in those communities. Through a collaborative process, the author worked with the foundation, representatives of the migrant communities, and other researchers to develop survey and focus group tools that were administered to 1,360 and 54 people, respectively. Data collection, analysis, and dissemination proceeded as planned. The conflict and resulting ethical dilemma emerged at the point of data interpretation and strategic planning, processes that revealed that the different parties held conflicting theories of poverty. The ideological conflicts related to why poverty exists, who is responsible for it, and what should be done about it made proceeding with the project ethically tenuous for the author. The author describes the values and theories of ethics on which she relied to navigate this challenge, as well as reflections on her continued participation in the community development process.
What Story Circles Can Do for Mathematics Teaching and Teacher Education

This chapter conceptualizes and illustrates StoryCircles, a form of professional education that builds on the knowledge of practitioners and engages them in collective, iterative scripting, visualization of, and argumentation about mathematics lessons using multimedia. The drive to invent and study new forms of professional education for mathematics teachers, such as StoryCircles, is predicated on the need to improve mathematics instruction. While many such efforts aim to support teachers in making broad sweeping changes, few take into account the actual predicaments of practice that make such changes difficult. StoryCircles aims to support teachers in making incremental improvements to practice by eliciting teachers’ practical wisdom and enabling participants to use each other’s knowledge and experience as resources for professional learning. In this chapter we outline critical characteristics of the StoryCircles practice and illustrate how they are connected to seminal anchors in the professional development literature. We also illustrate those features with examples from various instantiations of StoryCircles. We close by providing some considerations for the affordances we see for the practice—both for the profession and for individual groups of teachers.
Feasibility of Performing Radiofrequency Catheter Ablation and Endomyocardial Biopsy in the Same Setting.

In patients with unexplained cardiomyopathy, electroanatomical mapping can identify abnormal tissue to target during electrophysiology-guided endomyocardial biopsy (EP-guided EMB). The objective of this study is to determine whether catheter ablation performed in the same setting as EP-guided EMB increases procedural risk. Sixty-seven patients (mean age 54.4 ± 13.8, 57% male) undergoing EP-guided EMB were included. Radiofrequency catheter ablation was performed in 17 patients (25%) for ventricular arrhythmias and in 2 (3%) for typical atrial flutter. Femoral arterial access was obtained in 90% ablation patients and 40% biopsy-only patients; vascular access complications were more common in the ablation group than in the EMB-only group (p = 0.02). There were no significant differences in rate of tricuspid regurgitation, thromboembolism, or pericardial effusion, whether procedural anticoagulation was used. In conclusion, catheter ablation and procedural anticoagulation can be combined with EP-guided EMB with an increased risk of vascular access complications, but no significant increase in intracardiac complications.
Automated Spacecraft Communications Service Demonstration Using NASA's SCaN Testbed

The traditional paradigm for space mission operations relies on inefficient, highly scripted pre-planned activities between space communications and navigation service providers and user ground mission operations centers. Typically there is limited or non-existent automation capabilities on the user spacecraft for requesting space communications services, and on the provider network for request dispositioning and service provisioning. In the past, using these processes for space networks was sufficient with the relatively small number of user spacecraft requesting services. However, with an ever increasing number of satellites being launched to orbit, more complex event-driven science objectives, exploration missions involving collaborative platforms, and more distant missions, approaches that improve automation, flexibility and efficiency are needed. This paper describes NASA's recently completed on-orbit demonstration results of a new space communications service concept called User Initiated Service, and a discussion for infusing this innovation into operations.
Electrophilic fatty acid nitroalkenes regulate Nrf2 and NF-κB signaling:A medicinal chemistry investigation of structure-function relationships

Fatty acid nitroalkene derivatives (NO2-FA) activate Nrf2-regulated antioxidant gene expression and inhibit NF-κB-dependent cytokine expression. To better define NO2-FA structure-function relationships, a series of 22 new chemical entities (NCEs) containing an electrophilic nitroalkene functional group were synthesized and screened for both Nrf2- and NF-κB activities using luciferase-based assays. The structural variables were acyl chain length (11 to 24 carbons) and position of the electrophilic nitroalkene group. In luciferase-based reporter assays, Nrf2 was maximally activated by omega-12 nitroalkene fatty acids while TNFα stimulated NF-κB-inhibition was maximal for omega-5 nitroalkenes. The top pathway-modulating NO2-FAs were a) evaluated for an ability to activate Nrf2-dependent signaling and inhibit NF-κB-dependent inflammatory responses of RAW264.7 cells and b) compared to electrophilic compounds in clinical development. These findings revealed that 8/9-nitro-eicos-8-enoic acid (NCE−10) was collectively the most effective NCE and that both the α and ω acyl chain lengths influence nitroalkene activation of Nrf2 and inhibition of NF-κB signaling. This insight will guide development of more effective non-natural homologs of endogenously-detectable fatty acid nitroalkenes as anti-inflammatory and anti-fibrotic drug candidates.
Unity, ontology, and the divine mind

In his landmark book on philosophical theology, Saving God: Religion After Idolatry, Mark Johnston develops a panentheistic metaphysic of the divine that he contends is compatible with ontological naturalism. On his view, God is the universe, but the ‘is’ is the ‘is’ of constitution, not identity. The universe and God are coinciding objects that share properties but have different essential modal properties and, hence, different persistence conditions. In this paper, I address the problem of accounting for what it is about the organization or structure of the universe that makes it sufficient to constitute the Divine Mind. Specifically, I consider what kind of unity the universe exhibits in virtue of which it constitutes the Divine Mind. I consider how Johnston’s hylomorphic account of the unity of composite objects might be applied to provide a solution and offer an alternative that emends the Johnstonian proposal I present by exploiting a variant of a neo-Aristotelian ontology of causal powers that takes properties to be powerful qualities. On the framework I defend, we can understand the universe as a constellation of powers that displays the sort of unity sufficient to truthfully described it as a Divine Mind. The approach I recommend will, however, ultimately lend itself to a pantheistic metaphysic of the divine rather than Johnston’s preferred panentheism.
Cognitive Aspects of Ape Language Experiments

Results from the ape language projects can be interpreted as revealing cognitive abilities. Some of the work begins to deal with the issue of meaning. Does the ape use individual lexical items in “word-like,” conceptual ways, and can he combine the words in meaningful ways, utilizing some simple grammatical rules? The distinction is raised between the animal’s “knowing how” to obtain a reward through instrumental learning and “knowing that” he is requesting a reward. An intensional analysis of meaning, a logical analysis describing the complexity of mental states, is also suggested as an alternative approach. Are the apes engaged in intentional (purposeful) communication? Experiments on deception begin to investigate that issue. Observations from field research may suggest fruitful improvements of ape language studies.
Analysis of Sans Data from Dense Microemulsions

Measurements of AOT/D2O/n-decane microemulsions containing comparable volumes of water, oil, and surfactant have been obtained with the small-angle scattering (SANS) technique. Each intensity spectrum exhibits a clear diffraction maximum. As the surfactant volume fraction Ψs increases, the peak position moves to higher values of Q, while the peak height diminishes. Attempts were made to interpret the intensity spectra using the following models: simple bicontinuous phase, lamellar structure, a dispersion of hard spheres, and spherical droplets interacting through a square--well attraction. These models proved to be unsatisfactory for understanding the SANS data. However, by assuming a phase consisting of spherical droplets with a very well-defined nearest-neighbor ordering, it is possible to successfully describe the shift in peak position Qmax. In particular, for microemulsions with equal volumes of water and oil, such a model predicts that $$ {{\rm{Q}}_{\max }} = {{2.25} \over }{{{\phi _{\rm{s}}}} \over {{{(1 - {{\rm{\varphi }}_{\rm{s}}})}^{2/3}}}} $$ where Δ is the length of the surfactant molecule.
Genomic and Proteomic Approaches in the Diagnosis of Male Infertility

Idiopathic male infertility has been postulated to be due to unrecognized genetic aberrations that, using current diagnostic techniques, remain mostly unknown. In the current chapter, we detail the basics underlying long standing genetic tests including detection of chromosomal abnormalities via karyotype and fluorescence in situ hybridization. Specific detectable gene mutations such as those in cystic fibrosis as well as Y-chromosome microdeletions are discussed alongside advanced genetic techniques such as array comparative genomic hybridization and epigenetic modifications via DNA methylation. Proteomics, the study of the function of proteins in the context of the expressed complement of the human genome, is also detailed in relation to the quest for potential male infertility biomarkers.
Parallel Distributed Hydrology Soil Vegetation Model (DHSVM) Using Global Arrays

Abstract The Distributed Hydrology Soil Vegetation Model (DHSVM) code was parallelized for distributed memory computers using the Global Arrays (GA) programming model. To analyze parallel performance, DHSVM was used to simulate the hydrology in two river basins of significant size located in the northwest continental United States and southwest Canada at 90 m resolution: the (1) Clearwater (25,000 km2) and (2) Columbia (668,000 km2) River basins. Meteorological forcing applied to both basins was dynamically down-scaled from a regional reanalysis using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model and read into DHSVM as 2D maps for each time step. Parallel code speedup was significant. Run times for 1-year simulations were reduced by an order of magnitude for both test basins. A maximum parallel speedup of 105 was attained with 480 processors while simulating the Columbia River basin. Speedup was limited by input-dominated tasks, particularly the input of meteorological forcing data.
Primary polygyny in the ant Atta texana : Number and weight of females and colony foundation success in the laboratory

Inseminated females of the leafcutting antAtta texana (Buckley) may cooperate during colony foundation. Cooperative efforts in the laboratory lead directly to large stable polygynous colonies, which is an uncommon pattern in ants.
A Receptor Model With Binding Affinity, Activation Efficacy, and Signal Amplification Parameters for Complex Fractional Response Versus Occupancy Data.

In quantitative pharmacology, multi-parameter receptor models are needed to account for the complex nonlinear relationship between fractional occupancy and response that can occur due to the intermixing of the effects of partial receptor activation and post-receptor signal amplification. Here, a general two-state receptor model and corresponding quantitative forms are proposed that unify three distinct processes, each characterized with its own parameter: (1) receptor binding, characterized by Kd, the equilibrium dissociation constant used for binding affinity; (2) receptor activation, characterized by an (intrinsic) efficacy parameter e; and (3) post-activation signal transduction (amplification), characterized by a gain parameter γ. Constitutive activity is accommodated via an additional eR0 parameter quantifying the activation of the ligand-free receptor. Receptors can be active or inactive in both their ligand-free and ligand-bound states (two-state receptor theory), but ligand binding alters the likelihood of activation (induced fit). Because structural data now confirm that for most receptors in their active conformation the small-molecule ligand-binding site is buried inside, straightforward binding to the active form (direct conformational selection) is unlikely. The proposed general equation has parameters that are more intuitive and better suited for optimization by nonlinear regression than the operational (Black and Leff) or del Castillo-Katz model. The model provides a unified framework for fitting complex data including (a) fractional responses that do not match independently measured fractional occupancies, (b) responses measured after partial irreversible inactivation of the “receptor reserve” (Furchgott method), (c) fractional responses that are different along distinct downstream pathways (biased agonism), and (d) responses with constitutive receptor activity. Furthermore, unlike previous models, the present one can be reduced back for special cases of its parameters to consecutively nested simplified forms that can be used on their own when adequate (e.g., eR0=0, no constitutive activity; γ=1: Emax model for partial agonism; e=1: Clark equation).
Prevalence of Previously Undiagnosed Abdominal Aortic Aneurysms in Patients with Intracranial Aneurysms: From the Brain and Aortic Aneurysms Study (BAAS).

A relationship between intracranial and abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA) has been appreciated through genome-wide association studies suggesting a shared pathophysiology. However, the actual prevalence of AAA in patients presenting with ruptured intracranial aneurysms is not known. Our aim was to estimate the prevalence of previously undiagnosed AAA in patients presenting with aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH) to see if it may be high enough to justify formally testing the utility of screening. A prospective, observational inception cohort study of 81 consecutive patients presenting to Mayo Clinic Florida with aSAH was performed from August 14, 2011 to February 10, 2014. These individuals were then screened using an abdominal ultrasound technique for an AAA. Our primary end point was detection of AAA. Our secondary end points were 30-day good-to-fair functional status (modified Rankin scale < 4) and all-cause mortality. We detected an AAA in 10 patients (rate: 12%; 95% CI 6–22%) with aSAH. The mean diameter of these AAA was 3.4 ± 1.0 cm. Among these 10 patients, there was one death within the first month of aSAH hospitalization. There were no significant differences in demographic or clinical characteristics based on AAA detection status. Mean follow-up time was 4.7 years. The rate of good-to-fair functional status at 30-days was 79%. All-cause mortality during follow-up at 1-year was higher for patients with AAA (36%; 95% CI 0–61%) compared to patients without AAA (7%; 95% CI 1–14%) (log-rank p = 0.045). The co-prevalence of AAA in patients presenting with ruptured brain aneurysms may be sufficiently high such that screening for AAA among likely survivors of aSAH might be appropriate. Larger studies would be needed to establish a net clinical benefit from screening AAA and then treating newly identified large AAAs in this morbid population.
Reseña de Félix Lope de Vega Carpio, «El príncipe inocente», ed. Tania de Miguel Magro y Erin Cowling, Valladolid, Editorial Agilice Digital, 2018, 129 pp. ISBN: 978-8416178841

Resena de Felix Lope de Vega Carpio, El principe inocente , ed. Tania de Miguel Magro y Erin Cowling, Valladolid, Editorial Agilice Digital, 2018, 129 pp. ISBN: 978-8416178841
Opioid‐related overdose deaths among African Americans: Implications for research, practice and policy

Opioid-related overdose deaths among African Americans have only recently received national attention despite evidence of increase in death rates among this population spanning the past decade. Numerous authors have highlighted how the 'opioid epidemic' has largely been portrayed as a problem mostly affecting White America. The purpose of this commentary is to provide a synthesis spotlighting the unique structural and cultural considerations involved in research, practice and policy related to opioid use and treatment for opioid use disorders among African Americans. The commentary concludes with considerations for future research and practice intended to reduce deaths among this group.
Detecting Active Sites in Protein 3D Structures

Active sites in proteins are three dimensional structures appear on the surface of proteins. Drug designers often look for certain active sites that can be used to inhibit some specific pathway. Detecting active sites of proteins has been a very popular research area. Previous research efforts in this area often use the one dimensional sequence of the protein. Many approaches have been developed to identify a potential active site representing as a segment in the protein sequence. However, an active site can function only in its 3D structure when folded appropriately. In other words, a potential active site detected in the sequence still needs to be verified in the 3D structure. In this paper, we introduce an approach that takes the three dimensional structure of a protein and discovers potential active sites from the 3D structure directly.
Tired of Failing Students? Improving Student Learning Using Detailed and Automated Individualized Feedback in a Large Introductory Science Course

Providing students with timely, targeted, and useful feedback regarding their understanding of course topics is generally accepted as a good educational practice. However, when classes are very large there are challenges that prevent many instructors from accomplishing this goal. This study explores the perceived helpfulness to students and the instructor of implementing a relatively new method of automated scoring and feedback in a large section of an organic chemistry course. Prior research has shown this method to be helpful in other STEM classes. In the current study, students in two different offerings of a stand-alone organic chemistry course completed an anonymous survey in which they were asked to provide feedback about their perceptions of the new methodology. The faculty member who taught the course was also asked to respond to a series of questions regarding the feedback system. Both students and the instructor provided favorable comments about the helpfulness of the methodology and the feedback provided by it. The instructor found it helpful for providing individual feedback to students, which had previously not been possible due to the number of students enrolled in the course. Students reported that the feedback helped them to identify course topic strengths and challenge areas and that they planned to study the material differently going forward. The results indicate that this intervention can help improve student understanding of course topics and necessary actions for improving future performance in the course.
The Influence of Social Distancing on COVID-19 Mortality in US Counties: Cross-sectional Study.

Background: Previous studies on the impact of social distancing on COVID-19 mortality in the United States have predominantly examined this relationship at the national level and have not separated COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes from total COVID-19 deaths. This approach may obscure differences in social distancing behaviors by county in addition to the actual effectiveness of social distancing in preventing COVID-19 deaths. Objective: This study aimed to determine the influence of county-level social distancing behavior on COVID-19 mortality (deaths per 100,000 people) across US counties over the period of the implementation of stay-at-home orders in most US states (March-May 2020). Methods: Using social distancing data from tracked mobile phones in all US counties, we estimated the relationship between social distancing (average proportion of mobile phone usage outside of home between March and May 2020) and COVID-19 mortality (when the state in which the county is located reported its first confirmed case of COVID-19 and up to May 31, 2020) with a mixed-effects negative binomial model while distinguishing COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes from total COVID-19 deaths and accounting for social distancing– and COVID-19–related factors (including the period between the report of the first confirmed case of COVID-19 and May 31, 2020; population density; social vulnerability; and hospital resource availability). Results from the mixed-effects negative binomial model were then used to generate marginal effects at the mean, which helped separate the influence of social distancing on COVID-19 deaths from other covariates while calculating COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 people. Results: We observed that a 1% increase in average mobile phone usage outside of home between March and May 2020 led to a significant increase in COVID-19 mortality by a factor of 1.18 (PP<.001). Conclusions: As stay-at-home orders have been lifted in many US states, continued adherence to other social distancing measures, such as avoiding large gatherings and maintaining physical distance in public, are key to preventing additional COVID-19 deaths in counties across the country.
A Reexamination of Yardstick Competition

This paper shows that yardstick competition does not assist a regulator when lump-sum transfers are not costly and the regulator does not care about the distribution of income. Yardstick competition may discourage investment that would make efficient operation possible. The paper characterizes optimal regulatory schemes in a simple model and demonstrates that it may be optimal to limit the amount of information available to the regulator.
The effects of blood in self-injurious cutting: Positive and negative affect regulation.

Objective Seeing one's own blood may be a factor in affect regulation in nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI). This study examined changes in a negative (NA) and positive affect (PA) in response to a finger prick eliciting a small drop of participants' blood. Methods Two groups (NSSI; N = 56 and Control; N = 70) of undergraduate students were randomly assigned to receive a finger prick and look at blood, receive a finger prick and not look at blood, or receive a sham finger prick. Following a mood induction, participants completed the PANAS three times: Time 1 (pre mood-induction, baseline), Time 2 (post-mood induction), and Time 3 (post-finger prick condition), and a Pain Severity Scale. Results A significant three-way interaction revealed that the NSSI: Blood Group had an increased positive effect between Time 2 and Time 3. Conclusion Blood serves an important function in NSSI and requires additional research to fully understand the relationship.
A learning-based approach for evaluating scene recognizability of a view

It is important to understand which view is better recognizing and reconstructing a scene for many robotic applications, cially in a cluttered environment, where objects ract and may occlude one another in all views. In this paper, we introduce a novel, learning-based approach to evaluate scene recognizability from a view based on the quality and quantity of recognized objects, the recognition uncertainty, and the background recognizability, rather than the visibility. Our study shows that increasing visibility does not guarantee better recognizability of objects. The introduced view evaluator can better characterize which view is more useful for the purpose of autonomous object recognition and scene reconstruction. The approach is validated through experiments, and the effects of many factors to scene recognizability are discussed based on the experimental results.
Distance Education Technologies (DET): Assessment & Evaluation!

The race is on to survive the competitive educational market which nearly everyone can now access with the click of a mouse. Many institutions are turning to DETs to tap into this market. The difficulty is evaluating the effectiveness of these tools and the education that is provided by them. Implementing a new DET is neither a simple matter nor a light decision-making burden. There is a great deal of hype surrounding DETs, and making an informed decision is not an easy task. Caution must be exercised, especially when contracting with a relatively new “.com” company.
Studies on the Kinetics and Radiation Sensitivity of Dendritic Macrophages

The dendritic macrophages located in the lymphoid follicles of the rat spleen are fundamentally different from other types of macrophages. In the present experiments, we have studied the process by which material is taken into dendritic macrophages, the effects of X-radiation on this process, and the relationship between the amount of antigen retained by the dendritic macrophages and the peak titer of antibody produced. These experiments support the growing body of evidence that the small fraction of antigen retained by the dendritic macrophages plays an important part in the stimulation and/or maintenance of IgG antibody production.
Classification and properties of symmetry-enriched topological phases: Chern-Simons approach with applications to Z 2 spin liquids

We study (2+1)-dimensional phases with topological order, such as fractional quantum Hall states and gapped spin liquids, in the presence of global symmetries. Phases that share the same topological order can then differ depending on the action of symmetry, leading to symmetry-enriched topological (SET) phases. Here, we present a $K$-matrix Chern-Simons approach to identify distinct phases with Abelian topological order, in the presence of unitary or antiunitary global symmetries. A key step is the identification of a smooth edge sewing condition that is used to check if two putative phases are indeed distinct. We illustrate this method by classifying ${Z}_{2}$ topological order (${Z}_{2}$ spin liquids) in the presence of an internal ${Z}_{2}$ global symmetry for which we find six distinct phases. These include two phases with an unconventional action of symmetry that permutes anyons leading to symmetry-protected Majorana edge modes. Other routes to realizing protected edge states in SET phases are identified. Symmetry-enriched Laughlin states and double-semion theories are also discussed. Somewhat surprisingly, we observe that (i) gauging the global symmetry of distinct SET phases leads to topological orders with the same total quantum dimension, and (ii) a pair of distinct SET phases can yield the same topological order on gauging the symmetry.
Partitioning a 3–D convex polygon with an arbitrary plane

Publisher Summary Partitioning 3-D polygons is required by various graphics algorithms as a preprocessing step—such as in the radiosity method and in the BSP tree visible-surface algorithm. The implementation of many applications is simplified by dealing with only convex polygons. This chapter describes how to partition planar convex polygons by an arbitrary plane in three-space. In a linked-list form, manipulating a few pointers is tedious to code but is usually faster than block copies. The inputs are the coefficients of the partitioning plane's plane equation and the polygon to be partitioned in the linked-list format. Collinear vertices are allowed. The input polygon is divided into its negative and positive fragments with respect to the partitioning plane. Either fragment may still contain collinear vertices. Newly generated intersection vertices coincident with existing vertices are deleted. There are four basic steps to the algorithm: (1) vertex classification, (2) intersection detection, (3) intersection computation, and (4) polygon splitting, including updating pointers.
Schottky Barrier in Two-Carrier Model

Electron and hole currents in barriers are analyzed. Divergence free electron and hole currents are introduced. GR currents in Schottky barrier devices are computed. GR currents in the space charge region are evaluated. The field influence in the barrier region is shown. A definition of the carrier density at the splitting boundary is given. Minority carrier density at the metal/semiconductor surface is given. A Schottky barrier with two carriers is analyzed. The governing set of equations including the continuity equation is introduced. Example set of parameters for Ge device is given. Boundary conditions are introduced. Example solutions for a thin device are given. The carrier distribution is computed. The Boltzmann region for minority carriers is identified. Demarcation lines are identified and the Shockley-Frank-Read recombination centers are introduces. Currents in the Schottky barrier are calculated. The Quasi Fermi levels and demarcation lines are given. The electron and hole density crossing is analyzed. A carrier inversion layer with consequences on space charge is discussed. Schottky barrier devices are analyzed. Medium width devices, boundary conditions, and general solution behavior is discussed. The Schottky barrier in wider devices and a violation of the van Roosbroek approximation is pointed out. The relative contribution of the divergence free and GR currents in barrier devices are discussed.
G. E. Uhlenbeck on Paul Ehrenfest

In 1875 Professor H. A. Lorentz was appointed at the University of Leiden as Professor of Theoretical Physics, I believe the first such position in Europe. When he chose to retire in 1911, he approached Ehrenfest as his successor, after having been unsuccessful to get Einstein to succeed him in Leiden. One could wonder why a world class physicist — by many considered the leading theoretical physicist of the day — would choose someone relatively unknown as Ehrenfest to succeed him. In his beautiful book on Ehrenfest [1], Martin Klein writes that “Lorentz had decided that Ehrenfest was the one he wanted, the one ‘to dot the i’s in physics’” [2]. This was, no doubt, largely based on the very critical and yet pedagogical article Ehrenfest had published, together with his wife, Tatiana Ehrenfest, in the Enzyclopadie der Mathematischen Wissenschaften, where they critically analyzed and summarized Boltzmann’s ideas on kinetic theory and statistical mechanics [3].
Inhibition of protein synthesis and early protein processing by thapsigargin in cultured cells

Thapsigargin, a tumour-promoting sesquiterpene lactone, selectively inhibits the Ca(2+)-ATPase responsible for Ca2+ accumulation by the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). Mobilization of ER-sequestered Ca2+ to the cytosol and to the extracellular fluid subsequently ensues, with concomitant alteration of cellular functions. Thapsigargin was found to serve as a rapid, potent and efficacious inhibitor of amino acid incorporation in cultured mammalian cells. At concentrations mobilizing cell-associated Ca2+ to the extracellular fluid, thapsigargin provoked extensive inhibition of protein synthesis within 10 min. The inhibition in GH3 pituitary cells involved the synthesis of almost all polypeptides, was not associated with increased cytosolic free Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+]i), and was not reversed at high extracellular Ca2+. The transient rise in [Ca2+]i triggered by ionomycin was diminished by thapsigargin. Polysomes failed to accumulate in the presence of the drug, indicative of impaired translational initiation. With longer (1-3 h) exposures to thapsigargin, recovery of translational activity was observed accompanied by increased synthesis of the ER protein glucose-regulated stress protein 78 or immunoglobulin heavy-chain binding protein ('GRP78/BiP') and its mRNA. Such inductions were comparable with those observed previously with Ca2+ ionophores which mobilize the cation from all intracellular sequestered sites. Actin mRNA concentrations declined significantly during such treatments. In HepG2 cells processing and secretion of the glycoprotein alpha 1-antitrypsin were rapidly suppressed by thapsigargin. Ca2+ sequestered specifically by the ER is concluded to be essential for optimal protein synthesis and processing. These rapid effects of thapsigargin on mRNA translation, protein processing and gene expression should be considered when evaluating potential mechanisms by which this tumour promoter influences cellular events.
The RNA- and DNA-targeting CRISPR–Cas immune systems of Pyrococcus furiosus

Using the hyperthermophile Pyrococcus furiosus , we have delineated several key steps in CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats)–Cas (CRISPR-associated) invader defence pathways. P. furiosus has seven transcriptionally active CRISPR loci that together encode a total of 200 crRNAs (CRISPR RNAs). The 27 Cas proteins in this organism represent three distinct pathways and are primarily encoded in two large gene clusters. The Cas6 protein dices CRISPR locus transcripts to generate individual invader-targeting crRNAs. The mature crRNAs include a signature sequence element (the 5′ tag) derived from the CRISPR locus repeat sequence that is important for function. crRNAs are tailored into distinct species and integrated into three distinct crRNA–Cas protein complexes that are all candidate effector complexes. The complex formed by the Cmr [Cas module RAMP (repeat-associated mysterious proteins)] (subtype III-B) proteins cleaves complementary target RNAs and can be programmed to cleave novel target RNAs in a prokaryotic RNAi-like manner. Evidence suggests that the other two CRISPR–Cas systems in P. furiosus , Csa (Cas subtype Apern) (subtype I-A) and Cst (Cas subtype Tneap) (subtype I-B), target invaders at the DNA level. Studies of the CRISPR–Cas systems from P. furiosus are yielding fundamental knowledge of mechanisms of crRNA biogenesis and silencing for three of the diverse CRISPR–Cas pathways, and reveal that organisms such as P. furiosus possess an arsenal of multiple RNA-guided mechanisms to resist diverse invaders. Our knowledge of the fascinating CRISPR–Cas pathways is leading in turn to our ability to co-opt these systems for exciting new biomedical and biotechnological applications.
Electron self-energy and generalized Drude formula for infrared conductivity of metals

G\"otze and W\"olfle (GW) [Phys. Rev. B 6, 1226 (1972)] wrote the conductivity in terms of a memory function $M(\ensuremath{\omega})$ as $\ensuremath{\sigma}(\ensuremath{\omega}+i\ensuremath{\eta})=(in{e}^{2}/m){[\ensuremath{\omega}+M(\ensuremath{\omega}+i\ensuremath{\eta})]}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$, where $M(\ensuremath{\omega}+i\ensuremath{\eta})=i/\ensuremath{\tau}$ in the Drude limit. The analytic properties of $\ensuremath{-}M(\ensuremath{\omega}+i\ensuremath{\eta})$ are the same as those of the self-energy $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Sigma}}$ of a retarded Green's function. In the approximate treatment of GW, $\ensuremath{-}M$ closely resembles a self-energy with differences, e.g., the imaginary part is twice too large. The correct relation between $\ensuremath{-}M$ and $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Sigma}}$ is known for the electron-phonon case and is conjectured to be similar for other perturbations. When vertex corrections are ignored there is a known relation. A derivation using Matsubara temperature Green's functions is given.
Impacts of seasonality and surface heterogeneity on water‐use efficiency in mesic grasslands

Woody encroachment is occurring in grasslands worldwide, with largely unknown effects on local carbon and water fluxes and the energy balance. Water-use efficiency (λ) is a measure of carbon assimilation per evapotranspiration. Here, a was compared among three different grassland ecosystems in eastern KS, USA, by using the eddy covariance technique. Variation in λ was examined at multiple timescales and across different burning regimes. Site-specific variations in λ were more readily observed at seasonal and inter-annual timescales rather than daily and monthly averages. Annually burned grassland with homogeneous C4 grass cover had less negative values of λ [lower water-use efficiency (WUE)] than infrequently burned grassland that is presently undergoing woody encroachment and a transition to a shrub-dominated ecosystem. The most likely explanation for differences in λ are differences in rooting depth and source-water acquisition between encroaching woody plants and the native grass community. Reliance on a deeper water source by the woody community may buffer the negative consequences of forecasted climate variability and drought, resulting in greater landscape WUE and reduced susceptibility to water stress when compared with the coexisting grass species. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Strategies of black community groups

210 Poverty, with its attendant social 1. What intervention strategies did welfare problems, is of particular conthe leaders of the organizations claim cern to black professionals since, to prefer? throughout the United States, black 2. What strategies did they util Americans constitute one of the porize? tions of the population that is most 3. Does the age of an organiza severely affected by poverty. Efforts tion affect the strategies it prefers and to attack poverty-related problems are utilizes? often based in such community orga4. What strategies do the orga nization concepts as self-help, local nizations' leaders perceive as being autonomy, and political involvement most effective? of the local residents that aim at en
The relation between syntactic and morphological recovery in agrammatic aphasia: A case study

Background: Production of grammatical morphology is typically impaired in agrammatic aphasic individuals, as is their capacity to produce the syntactic structure responsible for licensing that morphology. Whether these two impairments are causally related has been an issue of long‐standing debate. If morphological deficits are a side‐effect of underlying syntactic ones, as has been claimed (Friedmann & Grodzinsky, 1997; Izvorski & Ullman, 1999), therapy that improves the syntactic deficit should remediate the morphological deficit as well. This paper reports a case study of one individual with such co‐occurring impairments and describes their recovery in response to linguistically motivated treatment targeting his syntactic deficits. Methods & Procedures: MD is a 56‐year‐old male diagnosed with non‐fluent Broca's aphasia subsequent to a left‐hemisphere CVA, with limited capacity to produce syntactically complex utterances and grammatical morphology. He was enrolled in therapy using Treatment of Underlying...
Effect of the number of categories systematically observed on individual and group performance ratings.

Summiwry.-The effect of the number of behavior categories systematically observed on the reliability and accuracy of judges' ratings was determined. Ss representing two gymnastic judging systems rated 24 filmed routines under standardized conditions. The results showed that the judges rating only one category had significantly less variance from absolute ratings, less inuavariance about their own mean, and higher reliability than those rating three categories. When the individual judge's ratings were combined into group ratings, no significant differences were found between observation systems on variance from absolute ratings; however, the groups rating only one category had significantly less intrnvariance than groups rating more than one category. Although syscematic observation of human behavior has been employed as a measuring technique in the social sciences since the early 19301s, little is known about the factors affecting the accuracy and reliability of the observer data. In their review of the numerous studies employing many different types of systematic observation techniques, Heyns and Lippitt (1954) were able to offer only tentative conclusions on observer techniques due to the paucity of methodological studies dealing with such factors. These investigators believed that "many of the methodological problems have been left untouched largely because most of the experimenters who have used the human instrument have been concerned with using him [the observer] effectively in their particular situation" (Heyns & Lippitt, 1954, p. 370). The present investigation is concerned with one such uninvestigated methodological problem, i.e., the effect of the number of categories systematically observed on individual and group performance ratings. It was hypothesized that observers rating only one category of behavior would provide more accurate and reliable individual and group ratings rhan observers rating three categories of behavior. In order to test the hypothesis properly, the observers had to be well-trained in the same observational unit of behavior and vary in the number of categories systematically observed and rated. The syscematic observation of human athletic performance in the sport of gymnastics provided the necessary conditions for such a test. The recognized international system of gymnastic judging, Federation International de Gymnastique [FIG] (Montpetit, 1964), required each of the four judges concurrently to assign numerical ratings for each of three categories: difficulty, composition, and execution. The FIG judges then summed
Energy scavenging for small-scale unmanned systems

Abstract Several energy scavenging concepts are reviewed and analyzed to determine their potential for supplementing the on-board energy of small electric unmanned systems to enable increases in endurance and range. Photonic (solar), kinetic-flow (wind), thermal, and electromagnetic sources of energy are considered as well as autophagous structure–power concepts that allow for energy generation through self-consumption of system structure. Notional designs for each scavenging concept are evaluated with regard to their power collection capability and multifunctional potential. Power collection levels ranging from fractions of a watt to tens of watts are possible depending on the weight and size allowed for the energy collection or autophagous storage elements and the efficiency of conversion from scavenged energy to system electrical energy. An analysis methodology is developed to link energy scavenger performance to changes in unmanned system performance. The methodology is demonstrated by analyzing solar scavenging on unmanned air vehicles as a means of extending the flight endurance time.