cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Confirmation of quantitative trait loci using a low-density single nucleotide polymorphism map for twinning and ovulation rate on bovine chromosome 5,

Traditional genetic selection in cattle for traits with low heritability, such as reproduction, has had very little success. With the addition of DNA technologies to the genetic selection toolbox for live- stock, the opportunity may exist to improve reproduc- tive efficiency more rapidly in cattle. The US Meat An- imal Research Center Production Efficiency Population has 9,186 twinning and 29,571 ovulation rate records for multiple generations of animals, but a significant number of these animals do not have tissue samples available for DNA genotyping. The objectives of this study were to confirm QTL for twinning and ovulation rate previously found on BTA5 and to evaluate the ability of GenoProb to predict genotypic information in a pedigree containing 16,035 animals when using geno- types for 24 SNP from 3 data sets containing 48, 724, or 2,900 animals. Marker data for 21 microsatellites on BTA5 with 297 to 3,395 animals per marker were used in conjunction with each data set of genotyped ani- mals. Genotypic probabilities for females were used to calculate independent variables for regressions of addi- tive, dominance, and imprinting effects. Genotypic re- gressions were fitted as fixed effects in a 2-trait mixed model analysis by using multiple-trait derivative-free REML. Each SNP was analyzed individually, followed by backward selection fitting all individually significant SNP simultaneously and then removing the least sig- nificant SNP until only significant SNP were left. Five significant SNP associations were detected for twinning rate and 3 were detected for ovulation rate. Two of these SNP, 1 for each trait, were significant for imprint- ing. Additional modeling of paternal and maternal al- lelic effects confirmed the initial results of imprinting done by contrasting heterozygotes. These results are supported by comparative mapping of mouse and hu- man imprinted genes to this region of bovine chromo- some 5.
Electrolytes and Blood Pressure Levels in Childhood Hypertension: Measurement and Change

Research into the relationship between dietary electrolytes and the primary cause and treatment of hypertension has now reached the stage where long-term, detailed, controlled, randomized, clinical trials of intervention need to be carried out among those at high risk, including children. Such trials must incorporate methods for estimating “sensitive” responders. The designs should also include precise measures of change in dietary electrolyte intake and allow for analysis of interaction of the effects of individual electrolytes.We have sketched the unforeseen errors, that now must be avoided, from earlier studies and given an outline of a current study that sets out to meet optimum requirements. It is to be hoped that many similar studies will soon be initiated in multiple population groups.
The Shrinking Jewish Middle

In all the reactions to the Pew Research Center’s A Portrait of Jewish Americans, one critical observation has received scant attention: The coming shrinkage of what may be termed the “Jewish Middle,” those located in the central region of the Jewish identity spectrum, roughly encompassed by those affirming a Jewish denominational identity other than Orthodoxy.
Stuttering and Stammering

Stuttering is a disorder characterized by intermittent difficulty in producing a smooth flow of speech. Stutterers may repeat or prolong sounds or may sometimes be unable to utter any sound without a great deal of effort. The disorder usually begins a year or two after the child has first learned to speak. The earliest symptoms are usually repetitions of parts of words. Signs of the problem may gradually progress, in a matter of months or during a period of several years, from these minor repetitions to prolongations of sounds, longer hesitations, and complete blockings of speech. Accessory signs and symptoms such as facial squeezing, tremors of the speech musculature, and eye blinks, as well as fear and avoidance of particular words and situations, often occur in more severe cases. At times stuttering may be "internal," ie, apparent only to the child involved, or manifested only by pauses in speech. TERMINOLOGY Stuttering v Stammering "Stammering" is a term no longer in common usage in the United States. It is still used in Europe, as it was once used here, to denote tense blockages of speech, as opposed to "stuttering," which was applied to the repetition of sounds and syllables. Current usage in this country favors the term "stuttering" for all forms of the disorder.
MINING CREATIVITY RESEARCH TO INFORM DESIGN RATIONALE IN OPEN SOURCE COMMUNITIES

Design rationale can act as a creativity support tool. Recent findings from the field of creativity research present new opportunities that can guide the implementation and evaluation of design rationale's ability to foster creative processes and outcomes. By encouraging the exploration of failure through use of analogy, design rationale can foster creative transfer and enable progress in new directions. Open source communities offer an opportunity to observe a form of intrinsically motivated ad hoc design rationale, exhibiting formal and informal information transfer links within forums and allowing access to common tools, expertise, and mentorship. A discussion of a spectrum of implementations of design rationale informs strategies to mitigate conflicts and advance inherent synergies between design rationale and creativity.
Lack of nephrotoxicity of gadodiamide in unselected hospitalized patients.

AbstractBackground: The nephrotoxicity of gadolinium-based magnetic resonance contrast media has not been adequately studied. Methods: We evaluated the nephrotoxicity of gadolinium-based contrast media in hospitalized patients who underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as part of routine clinical care. Subjects who had a serum creatinine measurement during the 7 days before MRI and at least 1 other measurement 2 to 3 days after MRI were included. Patients who underwent noncontrasted MRI served as controls. Results: There were 162 subjects (mean age, 57.8 ± 16.9 years; 91 men and 71 women) and 125 controls (mean age, 64.6 ± 18 years; 62 men and 63 women). All contrast-enhanced MRI studies utilized gadodiamide (Omniscan™; GE Healthcare, Waukesha, WI). Subjects who received gadodiamide showed no difference in the incidence of acute renal insufficiency compared with controls (increase in serum creatinine ⩾ 25%, 11.1% vs 12.9%, respectively; P = 0.6; increase in serum creatinine by 0.5 mg/dL, 5.6% vs 3.2%,...
Effect of the Local Disorder in a-Si on the Electronic Density of States at the Band Edges.

We have systematically investigated the formation of electronic states in the region of the conduction and valence band edges of a. Si as functions of variations in the bond angle distributions. Local Density of States (LDOS) for Si atoms in disordered environments have been calculated using the cluster Bethe lattice method with a tight-binding Hamiltonian containing both first and second nearest neighbor interaction terms. LDOS for atoms with bond angle dis ortions in the nearest neighbor and second neighbor shells are compared and contrasted, both showing an influence on the LDOS near the gap. We also consider the role of the second neighbor term in the Hamiltonian by comparing the DOS for a distoned infinite Bethe lattice using Hamiltonians with and without the second neighbor interactions. It is found that in this case the second neighbor interaction terms cause greater conduction band tailing than using the nearest neighbor interaction terms alone.
Local Representations in Crisis: Governance, Citizenship Regimes, and UK TECs and Ontario Local Boards

In this paper I critically examine new forms of state–civil-society arrangements via a case study of non business stakeholder representation in UK Training and Enterprise Councils and in Local Boards for Training and Adjustment in Ontario, Canada. Drawing on insights from both poststructural and regulationist approaches, I situate their development and crises in what Jenson and Phillips term ‘citizenship regimes’. Local representation of labour and equity groups could be effective and reflected struggles over both recognition and redistribution. However, representation often depended on resources drawn from other scales and especially on the relationship of stakeholders with the provincial and national state. Local representation has some autonomy from macroshift in citizenship regimes, but in both cases there is strong evidence that the state is able to incorporate stakeholder representation into what Jessop terms ‘metagovernance strategies’, although it cannot necessarily control it.
Molecular dynamics simulations of vibrational lifetimes in amorphous silicon

Abstract Recent theoretical and time resolved Raman studies disagree on the lifetime of high energy vibrational modes in amorphous silicon. The latter suggests that the lifetime increases with increasing frequency and is of the order of 10 ns for the highest frequency modes, while the former predicts a picosecond timescale that follows the two-phonon density of states. Here we present the results of molecular dynamics simulations which are complementary to the perturbative calculations. At different temperatures, kinetic energy is put into selected modes of vibration in 216 and 4096 atom systems with periodic boundary conditions and the Stillinger—Weber potential. The lifetime of medium and high frequency modes is found to be of the order of 1 ops at 5, 10 and 30 K, in qualitative agreement with the perturbative calculations.
Dynamic visualization of transient data streams

We introduce two dynamic visualization techniques using multidimensional scaling to analyze transient data streams such as newswires and remote sensing imagery. While the time-sensitive nature of these data streams requires immediate attention in many applications, the unpredictable and unbounded characteristics of this information can potentially overwhelm many scaling algorithms that require a full re-computation for every update. We present an adaptive visualization technique based on data stratification to ingest stream information adaptively when influx rate exceeds processing rate. We also describe an incremental visualization technique based on data fusion to project new information directly onto a visualization subspace spanned by the singular vectors of the previously processed neighboring data. The ultimate goal is to leverage the value of legacy and new information and minimize re-processing of the entire dataset in full resolution. We demonstrate these dynamic visualization results using a newswire corpus and a remote sensing imagery sequence.
Elasticity of Random Multiphase Materials: Percolation of the Stiffness Tensor

Topology and percolation effects play an important role in heterogeneous materials, but have rarely been studied for higher-order tensor properties. We explore the effective elastic properties of random multiphase materials using a combination of continuum computational simulations and analytical theories. The effective shear and bulk moduli of a class of symmetric-cell random composites with high phase contrasts are determined, and reveal shortcomings of classical homogenization theories in predicting elastic properties of percolating systems. The effective shear modulus exhibits typical percolation behavior, but with its percolation threshold shifting with the contrast in phase bulk moduli. On the contrary, the effective bulk modulus does not exhibit intrinsic percolation but does show an apparent or extrinsic percolation transition due to cross effects between shear and bulk moduli. We also propose an empirical approach for bridging percolation and homogenization theories and predicting the effective shear and bulk moduli in a manner consistent with the simulations.
Solar Spectral Proxy Irradiance from GOES (SSPRING): a model for solar EUV irradiance

Several currently operating instruments are able to measure the full EUV spectrum at sufficient wavelength resolution for use in upper-atmosphere modeling, the effects of space weather, and modeling satellite drag. However, no missions are planned at present to succeed the Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics (TIMED) and Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) missions, which currently provide these data sources. To develop a suitable replacement for these measurements, we use two broadband EUV channels on the NOAA GOES satellites, the magnesium core-to-wing ratio (Mg II index) from the SOlar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE) as well as EUV and Mg II time averages to model the EUV spectrum from 0.1 to 105 nm at 5-nm spectral resolution and daily time resolution. A Levenberg-Marquardt least squares fitting algorithm is used to determine a coefficient matrix that best reproduces a reference data set when multiplied by input data. The coefficient matrix is then applied to model data outside of the fitting interval. Three different fitting intervals are tested, with a variable fitting interval utilizing all days of data before the prediction date producing the best results. The correlation between the model results and the observed spectrum is found to be above 95% for the 0.1–50 nm range, and between 74% and 95% for the 50–105 nm range. We also find a favorable comparison between our results and the Flare Irradiance Spectral Model (FISM). These results provide a promising potential source for an empirical EUV spectral model after direct EUV measurements are no longer available, and utilize a similar EUV modeling technique as the upcoming GOES-R satellites.
Investigating cross-linked peptides in bovine aortic lysyl oxidase (LB129)

Lysyl oxidase (LOX) isolated from bovine aorta contains five disulfide bonds and the lysyl tyrosyl quinone (LTQ) cross-link. In attempting to locate the inhibitor-modified amino acid residues resulting from addition of various suicide inhibitors, which may be in cross-linked regions of the protein, we have been optimizing procedures for mass spectrometric identification of cross-linked peptides produced during proteolysis of the enzyme. To covert the reactive quinone group of the LTQ to an invariant structure, LOX was reacted with phenylhydrazine before proteolysis. Recombinant human and purified bovine lysyl oxidase were first subjected to various proteolyses and mass spectrometry acquisition methods to determine optimal experimental conditions. Proteolytic procedures must produce peptides of manageable size and with termini that can be at least partially sequenced; chymotrypsin proved to be more suitable than trypsin. Optimizing conditions significantly increased the sequence coverage of LOX from 60% to...
Rice–Ramsperger–Kassel–Marcus Simulation of Hydrogen Dissociation on Cu(111): Addressing Dynamical Biases, Surface Temperature, and Tunneling

The effects of dynamics, surface temperature, and tunneling on the dissociative chemisorption of hydrogen on Cu(111) are explored using a dynamically biased precursor-mediated microcanonical trapping (d-PMMT) model. Transition state vibrational frequencies were taken from recent generalized gradient approximation density functional theory (GGA-DFT) electronic structure calculations, and the model’s few remaining parameters were fixed by optimizing simulations to a limited number of quantum-state-resolved associative desorption experiments. The d-PMMT model reproduces a diverse variety of dissociative chemisorption and associative desorption experimental results and, importantly, largely captures the surface temperature dependence of quantum-state-resolved dissociative sticking coefficients. Molecular translational energy parallel to the surface was treated as a spectator degree of freedom. The efficacy of molecular rotational energy to promote dissociation, relative to normal translational energy, varied ...
Characterization of ZrO2-Al2O3 composites sintered in a 2.45 GHz electromagnetic field

The microwave heating process has shown potential for uniform material heating with rapid heating rates possible. The ceramic composite 80 wt % ZrO2 (+3 mol % Y2O3) 20 wt % Al2O3 was sintered in a Cober S6F microwave oven operating at 2.45 GHz even though it was considered to be microwave transparent at room temperature. The microwave-sintered sample was densified more rapidly and in a short time and lower temperature than the conventionally sintered sample. The fracture of the conventionally sintered sample was intergranular, but one of the microwave-sintered samples was transgranular. The fraction of the monoclinic-phase zirconia was different in the conventionally and microwave-sintered samples. The unusual microstructure of microwave-processed materials is explained by a microwave heating theory.
Effect of autolyzed yeast, yeast nucleic acid and related substances on body-temperatures of rats.

SummarySubcutaneous injection of 2 cc of a “15%” yeast autolysate in rats produced a significant rise in body-temperature. Intraperitoneal injection of the same material produced a significant fall in body-temperature. Both qualitatively and quantitatively similar results were produced by the injection of 2.5 cc of a 0.1% solution of the magnesium salt of yeast nucleic acid. Slight lowering of the body-temperature occurred in some animals after intraperitoneal injection of guanine. Subcutaneous injection of guanine had no effect on body-temperature. Adenine, uracil, xanthine, and allantoin had no effect on the body-temperature of rats by either route of administration.
Analysis on Epidemic Situation of Japanese B Encephalitis in Lingshan County of Guangxi during 2000-2009

[Objective]To learn the epidemic situation of Japanese B Encephalitis(JE) in Lingshan county of Guangxi,provide the scientific basis for effective control and prevention of JE.[Methods]The epidemic data of JE in Lingshan county during 2000-2009 were collected,and epidemiological characteristics of JE were analyzed.[Results]From 2000 to 2009,the annual incidence of JE was 0~1.01/lakh in Lingshan county,the average annual incidence of JE was 0.51/lakh,and the incidence showed a decreasing trend.64.79%(16 cases) of patients were scattered children,76.06% of patients were were children under 6 years old.There was an obvious peak season in summer and autumn,which the cases occurred from June to July accounted for 91.55% of the total cases.[Conclusion]Most JE cases are scattered children,and the high risk population is children under 15 years old.In order to prevent and control JE,it is important to carry out the routine immunization of JE among scattered children in rural and remote mountain areas,and implement anti-mosquito measures.
Discussion and case analysis of clinical development strategy of small-molecule targeted anti-cancer drugs

Small molecule targeted anti-cancer drugs have been a worldwide focus of research and development of innovative drug currently.In recent years,new drug products have got into the market in succession and hundreds of new compound are still in developing phase.Because of different mechanisms of action,the profiles of efficacy and safety of small molecule targeted anti-cancer drugs are different from traditional cytotoxic agents as well as their clinical development modes and trial designs.We reviewed some typical cases of clinical development such as gefitinib,critizonib and icotinib in this paper,and discussed the development strategies for different types of small molecule targeted anti-cancer drugs in order to provide useful reference for related researchers in this area.
Oral Respiration: Facial Maldevelopment And Corrective Dentofacial Orthopedics

Abstract No Abstract Available. Read at the reunion meeting of the University of Illinois Orthodontic Association, March 1980.
Familial Double Testicular Tumors: Identical Chromosome Changes in Seminoma and Embryonal Carcinoma of the Same Testis

AbstractAn identical abnormal chromosome, i(12p), and a marker chromosome of unknown origin were seen in 2 tumors of different histology (seminoma and embryonal carcinoma) in the same testis. A younger brother of the patient also had undergone orchiectomy for 2 seminomas in the left testis 2 years previously. These findings are discussed in relation to the possible cellular background of testicular tumors and their genetic parameters.
Corporate Social Responsibility in a Globalizing World: Global corporate resistance to public pressures: corporate stakeholder mobilization in the United States, Norway, Germany, and France

The global diffusion of practices of Corporate Social Responsibility has drawn attention to a renegotiation of the interface between business, civil society, and the state. This changing context has led to increased pressures on business emerging from social movement groups and NGOs and, to a lesser extent, by governments through regulatory actions. Although CSR is one possible outcome of these pressures, an alternative – or, at times, complementary – outcome is corporate resistance through pro-corporate advocacy efforts in civil society. Often facilitated with the support of consultants, such campaigns are a type of costly signaling in which a company resists pressures in its sociopolitical environment by facilitating displays of popular support for the company’s political preferences. How should we understand these strategies of corporate resistance in cross-national context? This study finds that corporate grassroots mobilization efforts are shaped most strongly by the institutional design of the state – especially in a polity’s degree of statism and corporatism – and how these structures shape both the scale of the interest group system and the channels of corporate influence in politics. Statist systems without corporatist bargaining (e.g. France) tend to have very small interest group systems and anti-corporate protest tends to be directed at the state; these systems are among the least likely to facilitate corporate mobilization. Statist systems with corporatist bargaining (e.g. Germany) see a small to moderate amount of pro-business campaigning done primarily by trade groups. Liberal polities (e.g. the U.S., the U.K., Canada, and to a lesser extent Australia) see a high amount of corporate grassroots campaigning, whereas others with a history of both corporatism and associationalism (e.g. Norway) have a moderate amount of pro-corporate mobilization. The implications of this study suggest that the state is a central actor in shaping both the social responsibility of business and also in providing political opportunities for business resistance to stakeholder pressures.
Ectopic Single Ureter and Severe Renal Dysplasia: An Unusual presentation

An ectopic single ureter in the male subject is a rare anomaly, which commonly drains a dysplastic kidney to the prostatic urethra or the seminal vesicle. The further the ureteral orifice is located from the trigone of the bladder, the more severe is the ipsilateral renal dysplasia. A case is described in which an ectopic ureter and ectopic and dysplastic kidney were found at the time of inguinal herniorrhaphy. The ureter was connected to the epididymis of the testicle. This is the most severe form of ureteral ectopia and it has not been reported previously.
Microelectronic Packaging: Electrical Interconnections

The importance and development of wirebonding technology in the first-level microelectronic packaging have been the focus of this review article. This article begins with the discussion of other existing first level packaging methods in comparison with wirebonding technique. The formation and reliability of wirebonding interconnects through various methods have been described. Materials required for wirebonding are discussed in relation to bonding wire, pad metallization, and pad cleaning. Advanced interconnection techniques and future development in the field of wirebonding technology have also been described.
Statistics for Sleep and Biological Rhythms Research: Longitudinal Analysis of Biological Rhythms Data

This article is part of a Journal of Biological Rhythms series exploring analysis and statistical topics relevant to researchers in biological rhythms and sleep research. The goal is to provide an ...
Somatosensory Cortex Plays an Essential Role in Forelimb Motor Adaptation in Mice.

Our motor outputs are constantly re-calibrated to adapt to systematic perturbations. This motor adaptation is thought to depend on the ability to form a memory of a systematic perturbation, often called an internal model. However, the mechanisms underlying the formation, storage, and expression of such models remain unknown. Here, we developed a mouse model to study forelimb adaptation to force field perturbations. We found that temporally precise photoinhibition of somatosensory cortex (S1) applied concurrently with the force field abolished the ability to update subsequent motor commands needed to reduce motor errors. This S1 photoinhibition did not impair basic motor patterns, post-perturbation completion of the action, or their performance in a reward-based learning task. Moreover, S1 photoinhibition after partial adaptation blocked further adaptation, but did not affect the expression of already-adapted motor commands. Thus, S1 is critically involved in updating the memory about the perturbation that is essential for forelimb motor adaptation.
A Concise Tool for Measuring Care Coordination from the Provider’s Perspective in the Hospital Setting

Background To support hospital efforts to improve coordination of care, a tool is needed to evaluate care coordination from the perspective of inpatient healthcare professionals. Objectives To develop a concise tool for assessing care coordination in hospital units from the perspective of healthcare professionals, and to assess the performance of the tool in measuring dimensions of care coordination in 2 hospitals after implementation of a care coordination initiative. Methods We developed a survey consisting of 12 specific items and 1 global item to measure provider perceptions of care coordination across a variety of domains, including teamwork and communication, handoffs, transitions, and patient engagement. The questionnaire was distributed online between October 2015 and January 2016 to nurses, physicians, social workers, case managers, and other professionals in 2 tertiary care hospitals. Results A total of 841 inpatient care professionals completed the survey (response rate = 56.6%). Among respondents, 590 (75%) were nurses and 37 (4.7%) were physicians. Exploratory factor analysis revealed 4 subscales: (1) Teamwork, (2) Patient Engagement, (3) Handoffs, and (4) Transitions (Cronbach's alpha 0.84-0.90). Scores were fairly consistent for 3 subscales but were lower for patient engagement. There were minor differences in scores by profession, department, and hospital. Conclusions The new tool measures 4 important aspects of inpatient care coordination with evidence for internal consistency and construct validity, indicating that the tool can be used in monitoring, evaluating, and planning care coordination activities in hospital settings.
Reconciling God and Green

Jay Wexler’s book, When God Isn’t Green: A World-Wide Journey to Places Where Religious Practice and Environmentalism Collide, offers three insights that inform our ongoing discussions of environmental protection and religious freedom. First, the book confirms the value of travel scholarship. Second, it affords an insight into some surprising religious practices and how they affect the natural environment. Third, Wexler’s journeys convince him that we need to balance religious practices and environmental protection. Wexler demonstrates that in a surprising context, in disparate societies around the world, we have found a way to accommodate longstanding religious beliefs with a modern awareness of the changing world in which we live.
Tensor-based vs. matrix-based rank reduction in dynamic brain connectivity

The spatio-temporal information associated with dynamic connectivity from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data can be fully represented using a multi-modal tensorial structure. Following a correlation analysis using a sliding-window, the dynamic connectivity data is represented by a 3rd-order tensor with three modes: 1-2) connectivity and 3) time. In typical dynamic connectivity analysis of fMRI data, the tensor is often flattened into matrix format resulting in mixed information embedded within the different modes. If a tensor-based data analysis is used, the information underlying the data structure is preserved rather than mixed. In this study, data dimension reduction was performed on dynamic brain networks from two fMRI datasets processed using tensor-based higher-order singular value decomposition (HOSVD) and regular matrix-based SVD. In the first dataset, brain networks were used to predict walking speed in a population of older adults enrolled in a weight loss study. For the second dataset, fMRI networks were collected from moderate-heavy alcohol consumers and classification was performed to identify networks associated with resting state vs. an emotional stress task. We hypothesized that the reduced-rank dynamic connectivity from the HOSDV would result in superior classification compared to matrix-based SVD using the same linear support vector machine with a 50 random-sampling cross-validation procedure. Results demonstrated that HOSVD (accuracy > 90% for both datasets) significantly outperformed regular SVD that failed to correctly identify the grouping status (accuracy ~ 50%).
Using Default Options and Other Nudges to Improve Critical Care.

As a second-year medical resident rotating through the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania’s Medical ICU, I was struck by a seeming disconnect. Attending physicians instructed us to ensure that the heads of beds were elevated 30–45° for all mechanically ventilated patients, based on the
METABOLISM OF -DOPA BY RATS AFTER COMPLETE HEPATECTOMY

ABSTRACT The disposition and metabolism of -[3- C] dihydroxyphenylalanine (DOPA) were studied in control rats and in rats after complete hepatectomy. [14C]Dopamine ([14C]DA) formation was greater, but [14C]norepinephrine ([14C]NE) formation was less, in most tissues of the operated animals.
Analyzing the Link Between Compensation and the Quit Decisions of Civil Service Employees

Federal civilian managers must compete in the same labor markets as do private employers. Federal managers, however, have far less freedom than do their counterparts in the for-profit sector in offering the compensation necessary to attract and retain qualified workers. Detailed civil service guidelines stipulate the grade, or rank, that any person can receive for the training and experience required for any particular job. Similarly, each grade is limited to a fairly narrow salary range. Where someone falls within this range depends on his years of experience and, for supervisors under “merit pay,” his performance. As a consequence, even the most talented inexperienced person must start at the bottom before climbing the ladder to higher paying jobs in the career Federal service. For experienced workers, rewards for outstanding achievement are, with a few exceptions, a small percentage of regular salary.
Welcome to the Occupation: Collective Memory, Displaced Nostalgia, and Dislocated Knowledge in Southern Song Ambassadors’ Travel Records of Jin-dynasty Kaifeng

Aside from the few envoys dispatched to the Jin court in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, Southern Song subjects seldom experienced the occupied north after the Jurchen conquest of 1127. Passing through the former Northern Song capital of Kaifeng, ambassadors found a neglected, depopulated, and impoverished city, and described its destroyed and reconstructed urban spaces as metaphors for the Jurchen occupation of the homeland. Their private travel records transposed their experiences of Jin Kaifeng into a pre-existing textual framework of Northern Song geographical knowledge. These authors shared a collective diasporic memory of Kaifeng’s lost spaces, recognizing its rebuilt cityscape and ruined sites from pre-conquest accounts rather than from direct experience. In their accounts, Kaifeng’s urban spaces became legible not only for their survival under Jurchen rule, but for how far they deviated from textual representations of the pre-conquest past, evoking homelessness and nostalgia for a lost time and place. En dehors des quelques ambassadeurs envoyes a la cour des Jin a la fin du xiie et au debut du xiiie siecle, rares sont les sujets des Song du Sud ayant pu visiter le nord sous occupation depuis la conquete Jurchen en 1127. Lorsqu’ils traversaient Kaifeng, l’ancienne capitale des Song du Nord, les ambassadeurs trouvaient une ville negligee, depeuplee et appauvrie ; les sites urbains demolis ou reconstruits qu’ils decrivent etaient comme une metaphore de l’occupation de leur patrie par les Jin. Les recits de voyage qu’ils ont laisses integrent leur experience de Kaifeng sous les Jin a un ensemble textuel de savoir geographique remontant aux Song du Nord. Participant de la memoire collective d’une diaspora, ils identifient le cadre reconstruit de Kaifeng et ses sites en ruine a partir de recits anterieurs a la conquete plutot que sur la base d’une experience directe. L’espace urbain de Kaifeng devient lisible non seulement pour avoir survecu a la domination des Jin, mais aussi dans la mesure de ses deviations par rapport aux representations ecrites d’avant la conquete, d’ou le sentiment de deracinement et la nostalgie pour une epoque et un lieu disparus.
Reusing microarrays within closely related species: experimental validation through phylogenetic inference.

Microarrays are generally designed for a specific set of organisms, and this poses a limitation for researchers wanting to conduct investigations on gene expression in organisms that are, in some sense, not ‘popular’ enough. In this article, we demonstrate that microarrays may in fact be reusable for aggregate expression analysis for species that are evolutionarily related. Our validation approach is based on this assumption and draws a phylogenetic conclusion that is deemed to be true only if the assumption of reusability is valid. This article demonstrates that microarrays developed using the human transcriptome are reusable for aggregate expression analysis of primates in general.
Standardization of an Encapsulation System: A Method to Remove Fragile Cells

Erythrocytes have been proposed and utilized as carriers for drugs, enzymes and pharmacological agents.1–13 Carrier erythrocytes have the capacity to enhance drug efficacy, extend the pharmacological life span of the drug, and reduce toxic side effects. Hypotonic dialysis has been used to prepare carriers that have a high percentage of encapsulation and cell recovery, and a normal survival when they are reinjected into the animal.1,2
Defect engineering using crystal symmetry

Defects in solids can be broadly classified based on their dimensionality (1). Zero-dimensional defects (point defects) arise as a consequence of entropy considerations (configurational entropy) and thus are thermodynamically required in any material. One-dimensional defects such as dislocations are not required by thermodynamics but arise anyway as a consequence of imperfections in the synthetic environment or due to structural constraints imposed by applied stresses from a variety of sources. Dislocations arise as a consequence of stresses imposed through thermal history, processing, or structural mismatch, as in the case of heteroepitaxial thin films, which are so prevalent in modern technology. Extended defects are known to have a profound influence in achieving or impacting the desired material performance. Complex networks of dislocations are designed into alloys to enhance their mechanical properties, such as the tensile strength in steels and other technologically relevant alloys (2). In many cases, defects, such as dislocations, are harmful to the desired performance of the device (3). Volumetric defects (such as second-phase inclusions, some of which are deliberately designed into materials such as the Guinier–Preston zones in Al–Cu alloys) (4, 5) can arise as a consequence of improper processing or through deliberate materials engineering. The characteristic length scale of such defects will depend on the physical phenomenon in question (e.g., pinning of the movement of dislocations would require second phases that are of a certain size and spacing). We now come to 2D, surface-type defects, the designing of which is the focus of the paper by Wang et al. (6). Two-dimensional defects, such as antiphase boundaries (APBs) and domain walls in certain ferroic materials, arise primarily as a consequence of symmetry mismatch in spatial coordinates, … [↵][1]1Email: rramesh{at}berkeley.edu. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1
Sexuality and Cognitive Status: A U.S. Nationally Representative Study of Home-Dwelling Older Adults

Objectives To determine patterns and prevalence of sexual behavior, problems, and attitudes in individuals with different cognitive status. Design We used data from the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project to describe the relationship between sexual behavior, function, and cognitive status (normal, mild cognitive impairment, dementia), classified using an adapted Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) (0–30 points). Setting U.S. home‐dwelling older adults. Participants Nationally representative probability sample of 3,196 adults (1,682 women, 1,514 men) aged 62 to 91 (mean 72). Measurements Cognitive status and sexual activity, problems, and attitudes. Results The weighted response rate was 74%. Mean MoCA score was 22.7. Of partnered people with dementia, 59% of men and 51% of women were sexually active, including 41% of those aged 80 to 91; 46% of all men (95% confidence interval (CI)=37.8–53.2%) and 18% of all women (95% CI=13.6–21.5%) with dementia were sexually active. The rate of sexual function problems was high across gender and cognitive groups (77%). Having sex primarily out of obligation was similar across cognitive groups for women (12%) and higher in men with dementia (17%) than other men (2–5%; P <.001). The majority of people were having sex less often than they would like. Few men (17%) or women (1%) with dementia talked with a doctor about sex. Conclusion Many home‐dwelling men and women with dementia are sexually active. Although the rate of sexual function problems was uniformly high, people with lower cognitive function infrequently discussed sex with a physician.
Interethnic Conflict and Genocide in Myanmar

This article, based on event history and a narrative analysis of reports produced by human rights groups, reveals that the genocide of Rohingyas of the Rakhine state of Myanmar is the result of the...
Intravenous immune globulin for inducing remissions in systemic lupus erythematosus

The evidence supporting the use of long-term IVIG therapy to induce remissions in SLE is unimpressive. The single extant clinical study used an open-label design with 12 patients, no placebo control, and questionable statistical methodology. The lack of definitive clinical studies, however, is tempered by case reports documenting significant improvement and apparent lack of toxicity in patients with SLE treated with IVIG. Standard first-line therapy of active SLE should consist of nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs, followed by low-dose corticosteroids and antimalarial compounds. Second-line therapeutic alternatives are the cytotoxic agents methotrexate, azathioprine, or cyclophosphamide. IVIG's primary advantage over these conventional therapies is that, unlike immunosuppressant and cytotoxic drugs, IVIG has not been reported to increase the risk of opportunistic infections. Additionally, IVIG obviates the ovarian/testicular toxicity, hemorrhagic cystitis, and carcinogenicity caused by cyclophosphamide. However, IVIG therapy is extremely expensive. (Approximate average wholesale price is $1800 per dose for a 70-kg patient). Thus, IVIG treatment consisting of 0.4 g/kg/d for 5 consecutive days on a monthly basis should be reserved for patients with active SLE resistant to the first- and second-line therapies. While IVIG-induced acute renal failure is considered rare, the serious nature of this adverse event warrants close monitoring of blood urea nitrogen and serum creatinine during and several days after treatment. Preexisting renal dysfunction should be considered a relative contradiction. Further double-blind multicenter trials are warranted to determine the long-term safety, efficacy, and cost/benefit ratio of using IVIG in SLE.
Is My Family Constitution Unconstitutional

Every high-wealth family should write a constitution, at least that’s what wealth managers say. Because, “[w]ithout careful planning and stewardship, a hard earned fortune can easily be dissipated within a generation or two.” A family constitution, as the name implies, is a governance document that high-wealth families create, setting forth the rules that family members will adhere to in order to protect the family fortune from various kinds of creditor claims, family feuds, and reckless investments. Wealth advisors recommend basing family constitutional design on political constitutions, in particular the United States Constitution. Nevertheless, the financial planning discourse never addresses one critical question: how successful is the analogy? This brief Article posits that the analogy between the two types of constitutions is imperfect in several significant ways and mainly because family constitutions largely ignore some of the core principles that animate a democratic constitution.
Privacy and Power Implications of Web Location of Personal Data Authenticators.

Knowledge of personal data enjoys a long history of use in authentication. Given expanding personal data availability, authentication systems are at risk from sharing data online. This study explores the discoverability of the data – specifically, whether individuals tasked with finding the data were able to accurately identify it using public online sources. The location of successfully located data reveals patterns of data availability and demonstrates vulnerabilities of personal data, which inform current and future models of authentication from a human computer interaction (HCI) perspective. Data location suggests the control users exert of their personal data availability in the United States. The impact of personal control is vital to understanding privacy behaviors, human computer interaction around privacy and authentication, building usable authenticators, and providing meaningful advances in security and privacy.
Potted plants do not improve indoor air quality: a review and analysis of reported VOC removal efficiencies.

Potted plants have demonstrated abilities to remove airborne volatile organic compounds (VOC) in small, sealed chambers over timescales of many hours or days. Claims have subsequently been made suggesting that potted plants may reduce indoor VOC concentrations. These potted plant chamber studies reported outcomes using various metrics, often not directly applicable to contextualizing plants’ impacts on indoor VOC loads. To assess potential impacts, 12 published studies of chamber experiments were reviewed, and 196 experimental results were translated into clean air delivery rates (CADR, m3/h), which is an air cleaner metric that can be normalized by volume to parameterize first-order loss indoors. The distribution of single-plant CADR spanned orders of magnitude, with a median of 0.023 m3/h, necessitating the placement of 10–1000 plants/m2 of a building’s floor space for the combined VOC-removing ability by potted plants to achieve the same removal rate that outdoor-to-indoor air exchange already provides in typical buildings (~1 h−1). Future experiments should shift the focus from potted plants’ (in)abilities to passively clean indoor air, and instead investigate VOC uptake mechanisms, alternative biofiltration technologies, biophilic productivity and well-being benefits, or negative impacts of other plant-sourced emissions, which must be assessed by rigorous field work accounting for important indoor processes.
Geographic variation in a restricted-range endemic dragonfly Gomphurus ozarkensis (Odonata: Gomphidae), with description of a new subspecies

The geographic distribution of Gomphurus ozarkensis (Westfall, 1975), a species described to science only four decades ago, is confined to a four-state area in the central United States: southeastern Kansas, eastern Oklahoma, western and northern Arkansas, and southern Missouri. Its small range has led some to classify it a species of conservation concern. We examined geographic variation in the species, which despite its small range exists in three distinct subpopulations: one in the Ouachita Mountains of western Arkansas and southeastern Oklahoma; one on the Ozark Plateau of northeastern Oklahoma, southeastern-most Kansas, southern Missouri, and northern Arkansas; and one in the Osage/Flint hills of southeastern Kansas and northeastern Oklahoma. Clinal variation is evident in the extent of yellow on the terminal abdominal segments and the extent to which certain thoracic stripes are fused. A population in a separate watershed basin in the southern Osage Hills of Oklahoma is taxonomically distinct, with some phenotypic characters tending toward G. externus (Hagen, 1858). We describe this population as a new subspecies of G. ozarkensis.
First-in-human experience with integration of wireless intracranial pressure monitoring device within a customized cranial implant

Background Decompressive craniectomy is a lifesaving treatment for intractable intracranial hypertension. For patients who survive, a second surgery for cranial reconstruction (cranioplasty) is required. The effect of cranioplasty on intracranial pressure (ICP) is unknown. Objective To integrate the recently Food and Drug Administration-approved, fully implantable, noninvasive ICP sensor within a customized cranial implant (CCI) for postoperative monitoring in patients at high risk for intracranial hypertension. Methods A 16-yr-old female presented for cranioplasty 4-mo after decompressive hemicraniectomy for craniocerebral gunshot wound. Given the persistent transcranial herniation with concomitant subdural hygroma, there was concern for intracranial hypertension following cranioplasty. Thus, cranial reconstruction was performed utilizing a CCI with an integrated wireless ICP sensor, and noninvasive postoperative monitoring was performed. Results Intermittent ICP measurements were obtained twice daily using a wireless, handheld monitor. The ICP ranged from 2 to 10 mmHg in the supine position and from -5 to 4 mmHg in the sitting position. Interestingly, an average of 7 mmHg difference was consistently noted between the sitting and supine measurements. Conclusion This first-in-human experience demonstrates several notable findings, including (1) newfound safety and efficacy of integrating a wireless ICP sensor within a CCI for perioperative neuromonitoring; (2) proven restoration of normal ICP postcranioplasty despite severe preoperative transcranial herniation; and (3) proven restoration of postural ICP adaptations following cranioplasty. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first case demonstrating these intriguing findings with the potential to fundamentally alter the paradigm of cranial reconstruction.