cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Reduced Order Controller Design for Nonlinear Systems With Periodic Coefficients

This study provides a methodology for reduced order controller design for nonlinear dynamic systems with time-periodic coefficients. System equations are represented by quasi-linear differential equations in state space, containing a time-periodic linear part and nonlinear monomials of states with periodic coefficients. The Lyapunov-Floquet (L-F) transformation is used to transform the time-varying linear part of the system into a time-invariant form. Eigenvalue decomposition of the time-invariant linear part can then be used to identify the dominant/ non-dominant dynamics of the system. The non-dominant states of the system are expressed as a nonlinear, time-periodic, manifold relationship in terms of the dominant states. As a result, the original large system can be expressed as a lower order system represented only by the dominant states. A reducibility condition is derived to provide conditions under which a nonlinear order reduction is possible. Then a proper coordinate transformation and state feedback can be found under which the reduced order system is transformed into a linear, time-periodic, closed-loop system. This permits the design of a time-varying feedback controller in linear space to guarantee the stability of the system. The proposed methodology is illustrated by designing a reduced order controller for a 4-dof, inverted pendulum subjected to a periodic follower force. Treatment for the time-invariant case is also included as a subset of the problem.Copyright © 2009 by ASME
Three reactions of Ru25+ compounds of the paddlewheel type that lead to cleavage of the RuRu bond

Abstract Three reactions leading to the cleavage of the metal-metal bond in Ru25+ complexes are described. The reaction of [Ru2(O2CMe)4-(thf)2][BF4] with CNC6H11 leads to the formation of [Ru(CNC6H11)6][BF4]2 (1), reacting the same Ru2 compound with [N-nBu4]-[SCN] leads to the isolation of [N-nBu4]3]Ru(NCS)6] (2), and the reaction between [Ru2(chp)4(thf)][CF3SO3] and PMe3 leads to the isolation of [Ru(O,N-chp)(PMe3)4][CF3SO3] (3). Products 1 and 3 were structurally characterized and have the following crystallographic parameters; crystals of 1 are triclinic, space group P l (No. 2), with a=9.649(1), b=10.547(2), c=12.778(2) A , α=109.55(3), β=102.716(9), γ=98.74(2)°, Z=1; those of 3 are orthorhombic, space group P212121 (No. 19) with =9.790(2), b=10.134(4), c=29.722(4) A , Z=4 .
Subunit structure of glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase

The molecular weight of glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase isolated from both pig and rabbit muscle has been determined from short-column sedimentation equilibrium experiments, giving 145,000 ± 6000 for both species. Velocity sedimentation, viscosity and sedimentation equilibrium studies of the enzyme in aqueous 5 M -guanidine-HCl solutions reveal that in this solvent glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase is dissociated into monodisperse sub-units of molecular weight 36,300 ± 1500.
The United States Territory of Hawaii

DR. J. STANLEY GARDINER, in his appreciative notice of “Fauna Hawaiiensis,” in NATURE of September 25, just received, has used a name against which I must enter protest. I thought it a possible misprint, but it appears several times as Hawaiia.
Strength calculation of composite single lap joints with Fiber-Tear-Failure

Abstract The Fiber-Tear-Failure (FTF) is a common mode of failure in the adhesively bonded single lap joint having continuous fiber reinforced composite. Within single lap joints, presence of material and geometric discontinuities restrict the applicability of strength of material based approach for failure load prediction. Zone based approach appears promising in tackling discontinuity issues provided the right failure criterion and critical zone size are known. In this paper, a right failure prediction criterion is identified that can be used for the Fiber-Tear-Failure load prediction using zone based approach. Using a carbon fiber composite and an epoxy paste adhesive, failure modes were generated experimentally using different dimensions of lap joints. Several stress/strain based failure criteria for composite were tested. Critical zone size was calculated by performing the finite element analysis on a single lap joint with known failure load. For other joints, failure loads were calculated by adjusting the input loads in the analysis such that the failed zone size became the same as the critical zone size. The result reveals that Azzi–Tsai (Norris) criterion is capable of predicting failure loads of single lap joints with FTF.
From ideas to market applications: dynamics of knowledge transfer and the role of champions

Technology transfer is a significant effort of the federal government and the intent of this effort is to transfer technologies developed in federal laboratories to the private sector for commercial use. The Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer is a clearing-house for technologies developed through federal research laboratories. In addition, universities and other institutions use various mechanisms for transferring the technologies or knowledge to the private sector for civilian use. In this paper, the transfer of experimental and conceptual knowledge from research environment to civilian sector, covering aspects of engineering and social science is emphasized. The engineering examples deal with alleviating the nitrate pollution of rural domestic wells (a conceptual knowledge) and phytoremediation of hazardous wastes (an experimental knowledge). The social science examples deal with a culture assimilator for improving race relations (a conceptual knowledge) and a multimedia assimilator for global managers (an experimental knowledge). In each case, mechanisms and shortcomings involved in transfer-ring the knowledge for civilian use are demonstrated. We present a framework for knowledge transfer, and discuss the role of champions in knowledge transfer. We take the position that, though the attributes of the technology itself are important, knowledge transfer does require champions.
In pubertal girls, naloxone fails to reverse the suppression of luteinizing hormone secretion by estradiol

Estradiol (E2) negative feedback on LH secretion was examined in 10 pubertal girls, testing the hypothesis that E2 suppresses LH pulse frequency and amplitude through opioid pathways. At 1000 h, a 32-h saline infusion was given, followed 1 week later by an E2 infusion at 13.8 nmol/m2·h. During both infusions, four iv boluses of saline were given hourly beginning at 1200 h, and four naloxone iv boluses (0.1 mg/kg each) were given hourly beginning at 1200 h on the following day. Blood was obtained every 15 min for LH determination and every 60 min for E2 determination from 1200 h to the end of the infusion. E2 infusion increased the mean serum E2 concentration from 44 ± 17 to 112 ± 26 pmol/L (P < 0.01). The mean LH concentration between 2200–1200 h decreased from 3.19 ± 0.89 to 1.99 ± 0.65 IU/L (P = 0.014), and LH pulse amplitude decreased from 3.4 ± 0.6 to 2.6 ± 0.5 IU/L (P = 0.0076). Although there were 1.2 fewer pulses during E2 infusion compared to saline infusion, differences did not reach significance...
Kinetics of epoxy resin polymerization using differential scanning calorimetry

The kinetic parameters of the polymerization of diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A with hexahydrophthalic anhydride and benzyldimethylamine as catalyst were determined using differential scanning calorimetry. The reaction was found to be first order with some variation with temperature, and the activation energy and natural log of the frequency factor were 25 kcal/mole and ∼25 sec−1, respectively. These results are discussed with respect to a steady-state mechanism of the polymerization and compared with results reported for other epoxide–anhydride reactions.
Spectral Sensitivity of Stable, Face, and Horn Flies and Behavioral Responses of Stable Flies to Visual Traps (Diptera: Muscidae)

Compound eyes of laboratory-reared and field-collected stable and horn flies, and laboratory- reared face flies have peak visual sensitivities from 360 to 490 nm. Horn and stable flies have a visual sensitivity plateau at 625 nm that was not detected in laboratory-reared face flies. Clear fiber glass and ultraviolet reflectors were the most efficient materials for trapping stable flies. Traps were more efficient when exposed to full sunlight which enhances reflection of ultraviolet light. In comparative tests, materials with poor ultraviolet reflection were less effective for capturing stable flies.
The fit of elder abuse with the family violence paradigm, and the implications of a paradigm shift for clinical practice.

Elder abuse is one of the most complex, difficult, and frustrating problems that practicing public health nurses face. In part this frustration is related to the lack of fit between the family violence paradigm (the explanatory base most commonly used to guide case identification and intervention) and the types of abuse most commonly encountered. Several issues are raised when this paradigm serves as the exclusive basis for concepts about elder abuse. A more comprehensive view is possible when this problem is placed in the context of a family caregiving paradigm.
On the GI / M /∞ queue with batch arrivals of constant size

In this note, the GI/M/∞ queue with batch arrivals of constant sizek is investigated. It is shown that the stationary probabilities that an arriving batch findsi customers in the system can be computed in terms of the corresponding binomial moments (Jordan's formula), which are determined by a recursive relation. This generalizes well-known results by Takacs [12] for GI/M/∞. Furthermore, relations between batch arrival- and time-stationary probabilities are given.
Bioequivalence for locally acting nasal spray and nasal aerosol products: standard development and generic approval

Demonstrating bioequivalence (BE) for nasal spray/aerosol products for local action has been very challenging because the relationship between the drug in systemic circulation and the drug reaching the nasal site of action has not been well established. Thus, the current BE standard for these drug/device combination products is based on a weight-of-evidence approach, which contains three major elements: equivalent in vitro performance, equivalent systemic exposure, and equivalent local delivery. In addition, formulation sameness and device similarity are evidences to support BE. This paper presents a comprehensive review of the scientific rationale of the current BE standard and their development history for nasal spray/aerosol products, as well as the Food and Drug Administration’s review and approval status of generic nasal sprays/aerosols with the application of these BE standard.
Long-term outcomes of single paediatric vs. ideal adult renal allograft transplants in adult recipients.

: Aim: To compare the outcomes of single paediatric vs. adult kidneys transplanted into adult recipients, Methods: A retrospective single-centre review of 38 single cadaver kidney transplants from donors less than five yr of age to wait-listed patients of low body mass index (BMI). Survival of grafts and quality of renal function were compared with 121 similarly low BMI recipients of grafts from donors 18–45 yr of age that were transplanted during the same period. Immunosuppression consisted of sirolimus, minimal-dose cyclosporine and prednisone. The mean age of the paediatric vs. adult donors was 2.8 ± 1.0 and 31.1 ± 9.2 yr, respectively (p<0.01) and of the recipients, 42.0 ± 12.4 and 45.7 ± 14.8 yr, respectively (p = NS). The mean BMI of paediatric vs. adult donor kidney recipients was 21.8 ± 2.9 and 22.4 ± 2.0 kg/m2 (p = NS). Sixty-six per cent of paediatric donor recipients were women compared with 44% of adult donor recipients (p = 0.03). Results: Death censored actuarial graft survivals at one and five yr for recipients of paediatric vs. adult donor grafts were 93 and 84% compared with 93 and 85% (p = NS). There were no graft losses because of technical complications in the paediatric kidney donor group. At one and five yr post-transplantation, the mean estimated creatinine clearances of the paediatric donor graft recipients were 52.9 ± 19.6 and 54.0 ± 17.8 mL/min, respectively, compared with 56.4 ± 19.8 and 49.1 ± 21.7 mL/min for recipients of adult donor grafts at the same times (p = NS). Conclusion: Transplantation of single paediatric donor kidneys into low BMI adult recipients provided equivalent outcomes to those of grafts from adult donors between the ages of 18 and 45 yr.
Implementing Viewing Spheres: Automatic Construction Of Aspect Graphs For Planar-Faced, Convex Objects

The concept of an aspect graph was described by Koenderink and van Doorn as part of their explanation of the functioning of human vision. Several researchers have subsequently proposed the use of aspect graphs in the development of computer vision systems. This paper details an algorithm for the construction of aspect graphs from boundary surface representations of convex, planar-faced, 3-D objects. Our approach is based on the creation and use of an intermediate data structure which represents the complete parcellation of space based on the geometry of the object. All information necessary for identification of object aspects and corresponding cells is obtained as a result of the parcellation. We introduce a cell numbering system that allows unique identification of each cell/aspect and provides a system for encoding information about the boundary of each cell and about the identity of each object face visible as a part of the aspect. The aspect graph created by this process is used as the basis for our viewing sphere approach to the 3-D object recognition problem.
Teaching physical diagnosis in the nursing home

Physical diagnosis has traditionally been taught in the inpatient hospital setting. Changes in hospital reimbursement, as well as a shift to outpatient directed care, has resulted in a sicker inpatient profile. These patients are less amenable to the needs of the student first learning how to take a history and perform a physical examination. The outpatient setting has not been found to be a practical setting for teaching physical diagnosis either. We have developed a program using an academic university-affiliated nursing home in the teaching of a physical diagnosis course. Nursing home patients are predesignated according to physical findings or chronic-care complaints characteristic of a specific pathologic process. Patients developing acute problems while in the nursing home are identified on a daily basis as well. These constitute the patients seen by the second-year students during the physical diagnosis course. Overall, the program was well received by both faculty and students. The spectrum of findings on both history and physical examination was broad. Many of the pitfalls found in both the inpatient and outpatient settings were minimized. We believe that the teaching nursing home can become a useful tool in the teaching of a physical diagnosis program.
PaleoSketch: accurate primitive sketch recognition and beautification

Sketching is a natural form of human communication and has become an increasingly popular tool for interacting with user interfaces. In order to facilitate the integration of sketching into traditional user interfaces, we must first develop accurate ways of recognizing users' intentions while providing feedback to catch recognition problems early in the sketching process. One approach to sketch recognition has been to recognize low-level primitives and then hierarchically construct higher-level shapes based on geometric constraints defined by the user, however, current low-level recognizers only handle a few number of primitive shapes. We propose a new low-level recognition and beautification system that can recognize eight primitive shapes, as well as combinations of these primitives, with recognition rates at 98.56%. Our system also automatically generates beautified versions of these shapes to provide feedback early in the sketching process. In addition to looking at geometric perception, much of our recognition success can be attributed to two new features, along with a new ranking algorithm, which have proven to be significant in distinguishing polylines from curved segments.
Effect of velocity structure in D″ on PKP phases

Differential travel times between various branches of PKP are used to study the P velocity structure in D″. Simple geometrical ray tests show that the ray path of the AB branch, which almost grazes the core-mantle boundary (CMB), is much more sensitive to the velocity structure in D″ than the DF and BC branches, which have small incident angles at the CMB. Thus, the differential travel times of AB and DF and AB and BC provide an effective means of studying lateral variations in D″. In a systematic search of six years of the GDSN short period data on CD-ROM, large anomalies in differential travel times of AB - DF and AB - BC were observed for different regions of D″. The scatter of BC - DF data is half the scatter of AB - DF and AB - BC data, suggesting that the lowermost mantle has more influence on AB - DF and AB - BC data than the bottom of the outer core or the top of the inner core. The mean of the AB - DF data set shows a 1 s offset relative to Preliminary Reference Earth Model (PREM) [Dziewonski and Anderson, 1981], in that (AB - DF)prem is smaller than (AB - DF)obs. Variations of the lower mantle PREM model that contain a discontinuity or a more distributed 1.5% velocity reduction in the lower 500 km can explain the discrepancy. The largest variations in the AB - DF data are associated with paths sampling beneath the mid-Pacific. The AB - DF data along the mid-Pacific paths are about 1.0 s smaller than the average of the AB - DF from other paths and the differences are as large as 2.0 s at some distances.
Waves in parallel or swirling stratified shear flows

The dispersion relations for infinitesimal internal gravity waves (A) and axisymmetric waves in swirling streams (B) are considered. In both cases the mainstream may be sheared and density stratified in the transverse (vertical in case A, radial in case B) direction. The following results are proved for either case: If the maximum speed W max (or minimum speed W min) (in a meridian plane in case B) of the mainstream occurs at an interior point in the fluid, then the phase speed of any mode takes all values from the W max (or W min) to +∞ ( —∞) as the overall Richardson number λ2 varies from 0 to ∞. If W max(W min) is attained at a boundary point with finite rate of strain, there is a positive non-zero critical Richardson number below which one or both branches of the dispersion relation terminate. These results employ variational methods and correct erroneous results concerning problem B stated in Chandrasekhar's treatise on hydrodynamic stability. Furthermore, bounds are given on the group velocity for both branches of the dispersion relation. From these bounds it is shown that in the absence of reversals of the mainstream (W min > 0) upstream propagation of wave energy is impossible whenever upstream propagation of constant phase surfaces is impossible.
Harvesting hardships: Educators’ views on the challenges of migrant students and their consequences on education

Abstract This exploratory study examines the hardships experienced by migrant students, most of them immigrants or children of immigrants, drawing on in-depth, semi-structured interviews conducted with 20 migrant educators employed in the public school system in Florida in 2013. We examine immigrant migrant students’ hardships and analyze the impact they have on migrant students’ education and, ultimately, social mobility. We find that migrant students face five major challenges that may adversely affect their education and social mobility: (1) cultural barriers, including language and communication and students’ and parents’ knowledge, interactions and involvement with school; (2) challenges related to family and care, such as parental absence and working conditions, family structure, children’s care responsibilities for younger siblings and other family issues; (3) material needs, especially poverty, hunger, housing, underage child labor, transportation, and health issues; (4) educational challenges as a result of students’ migratory lifestyles, lack of school supplies and teachers’ lack of knowledge about and attitudes towards migrant students; and (5) hardships related to undocumented legal status. We show how these hardships result in specific practical, physical, social, and emotional consequences that adversely affect migrant students’ education. Lastly, we discuss our findings in the context of existing scholarship and present implications for policy and future research.
Diffuse boundary extraction of breast masses on ultrasound by leak plugging

We propose a semiautomated seeded boundary extraction algorithm that delineates diffuse region boundaries by finding and plugging their leaks. The algorithm not only extracts boundaries that are partially diffuse, but in the process finds and quantifies those parts of the boundary that are diffuse, computing local sharpness measurements for possible use in computer-aided diagnosis. The method treats a manually drawn seed region as a wellspring of pixel 'fluid' that flows from the seed out towards the boundary. At indistinct or porous sections of the boundary, the growing region will leak into surrounding tissue. By changing the size of structuring elements used for growing, the algorithm changes leak properties. Since larger elements cannot leak as far from the seed, they produce compact, less detailed boundary approximations; conversely, growing from smaller elements results in less constrained boundaries with more local detail. This implementation of the leak plugging algorithm decrements the radius of structuring disks and then compares the regions grown from them as they increase in both area and boundary detail. Leaks are identified if the outflows between grown regions are large compared to the areas of the disks. The boundary is plugged by masking out leaked pixels, and the process continuesmore » until one-pixel-radius resolution. When tested against manual delineation on scans of 40 benign masses and 40 malignant tumors, the plugged boundaries overlapped and correlated well in area with manual tracings, with mean overlap of 0.69 and area correlation R{sup 2} of 0.86, but the algorithm's results were more reproducible.« less
PicoRadio supports ad hoc ultra-low power wireless networking

Technology advances have made it conceivable to build and deploy dense wireless networks of heterogeneous nodes collecting and disseminating wide ranges of environmental data. Applications of such sensor and monitoring networks include smart homes equipped with security, identification, and personalization systems; intelligent assembly systems; warehouse inventory control; interactive learning toys; and disaster mitigation. The opportunities emerging from this technology give rise to new definitions of distributed computing and the user interface. Crucial to the success of these ubiquitous networks is the availability of small, lightweight, low-cost network elements, which the authors call PicoNodes. The authors present a configurable architecture that enables these opportunities to be efficiently realized in silicon. They believe that this energy-conscious system design and implementation methodology will lead to radio nodes that are two orders of magnitude more efficient than existing solutions.
Improved visualization of aortic intima-media thickening with the use of perflutren lipid microspheres.

Background Transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) has been used to diagnose atherosclerotic disease for patients who present with systemic embolic events. The primary aim of this study was to assess the supplemental value of echocardiographic contrast to standard TEE in identifying the aortic intima-medial thickness. Methods An aorta phantom was used to validate the accuracy of border delineation with and without contrast during TEE imaging. In all, 44 patients underwent TEE imaging of the thoracic aorta with a subsequent administration of a 0.3-mL bolus of perflutren lipid microspheres (Definity). Precontrast and postcontrast images were analyzed semiquantitatively for border delineation and quantitatively for intima-medial thickness and cross-sectional area. Results Wall thickness in the aortic phantom model with contrast was smaller, more accurate, and more reproducible to the true measurement. The clinical studies reflected similar results with average contrast intima-medial thickness measured at 0.15 ± 0.08 cm and noncontrast at 0.18 ± 0.08 cm ( P P P = .01). Conclusions Contrast agents provide better aortic intima-media enhancement during TEE.
Procedural Pain Management Patterns in Academic Pediatric Emergency Departments

Objectives To describe the current state of the art for pain and sedation management for five common pediatric emergency department (ED) procedure scenarios. Methods Fellowship directors of U.S. EDs with a pediatric emergency medicine fellowship training program were surveyed by mail and asked to choose the one most commonly used pain or sedation management option for five clinical scenarios: facial laceration repair, cranial computed tomography in a toddler, closed fracture reduction, neonatal lumbar puncture, and intravenous catheter insertion. Results were analyzed by using descriptive statistics, and the differences between high and low volume departments were compared by using a chi-square test. Results Thirty-eight of 51 fellowship programs responded (75%). The majority of respondents were fellowship directors (76%). Topical anesthetics were most commonly reported as used for a simple facial laceration (84%), whereas ketamine sedation was most popular for fracture reduction (86%). Pain management for the other scenarios was more variable. More than half of the respondents (53%) would not sedate at all for cranial computed tomography, and only 38% reported use of pharmacologic pain management for intravenous catheter insertion. The majority (74%) reported use of anesthetic (topical or injected local) for neonatal lumbar puncture. High volume departments were more likely to use pain management for intravenous catheter insertions. Conclusions Pain and sedation management methods for pediatric procedures continue to evolve. Despite gains, there is still room for improvement, particularly regarding intravenous catheter insertions.
Competitive, uncompetitive, and mixed inhibitors of the alkaline phosphatase activity associated with the isolated brush border membrane of the tapeworm Hymenolepis diminuta

Several compounds were tested as inhibitors of the alkaline phosphatase (AlkPase) activity associated with the isolated brush border membrane of the tapeworm, Hymenolepis diminuta. Molybdate, arsenate, arsenite and beta-glycerophosphate (BGP) were competitive inhibitors of the hydrolysis of p-nitrophenyl phosphate, while levamisole and clorsulon were uncompetitive and mixed inhibitors, respectively. Molybdate was also a competitive inhibitor of the hydrolysis of BGP and 5'-adenosine monophosphate, and levamisole was an uncompetitive inhibitor of BGP hydrolysis. The apparent inhibitor constants (Ki') for molybdate and levamisole were virtually identical regardless of the substrate, and these data support the hypothesis that the AlkPase activity is represented by a single membrane-bound enzyme with low substrate specificity. Quinacrine, Hg2+, and ethylenediaminetetraacetate were also potent inhibitors of the AlkPase activity, but the mechanisms by which these latter three inhibitors function were not clear.
Effects of emotion on oxytocin, prolactin, and ACTH in women.

Research on both non-human mammals and humans has raised interest in the role that oxytocin may play in human attachment and attachment-related emotions. This study examined changes in plasma oxytocin, prolactin, and ACTH concentrations in response to laboratory-induced positive and negative emotions related to close, interpersonal relationships. Participants were 32 female volunteers recruited from university communities. During positive emotion induction, oxytocin decreased over time ( F (1,3)=4.41, p <0.007), prolactin increased ( F (1,3)=4.80, p <0.004) and ACTH remained constant. During negative emotion induction, prolactin levels increased ( F (1,3)=2.81, p <0.05), ACTH decreased only after the induction terminated ( F (1,3)=4.02, p <0.01) and oxytocin remained constant. While oxytocin decreased during positive emotion, this finding contrasted previous research that showed decreases in response to negative emotion. In conclusion, plasma oxytocin levels were not reliably altered by positive or negati...
Frontiers of Web site evolution

Large-scale software systems must continuously evolve to respond to shifting business requirements. Many Web sites can already be classified as legacy systems, given their age, size, and complexity. As with older legacy systems, these ldquonewrdquo legacy systems represent significant institutional value. However, leveraging this value is challenging. In many ways, a Web site contains many of the features of a traditional software system, and yet possesses several unique features of its own. Consequently, Web site evolution represents a rich research area that builds upon traditional software maintenance & evolution, but extends it in new directions as well. This paper presents an overview of the field of Web site evolution, its unique challenges, and discusses selected research frontiers in the area, focusing on accessibility issues in particular.
Three different proteins recognize a multifunctional determinant that controls replication initiation, fork arrest and transcription in Tetrahymena

Type I elements regulate the initiation of DNA replication, elongation of replication forks and transcription of the Tetrahymena thermophila rDNA minichromosome. Previous studies identified a 24 kDa protein, ssA-TIBF, which binds the A-rich strand of type I elements. Here we describe two additional type I element binding activities (native mol. wt approximately 65 and approximately 250 kDa) that interact with DNA via previously unidentified 32 and 110 kDa polypeptides. The 65 kDa activity was purified to homogeneity and consists of a homodimer of a 32 kDa polypeptide. In contrast to the other type I element binding factors, the 65 kDa activity partitions preferentially to the nuclear fraction during isolation. Levels of the 65 kDa activity increase dramatically in starved cells, raising the possibility that it might negatively regulate replication or transcription. By comparison, the other two binding activities were elevated slightly during macronuclear development, when the rDNA was undergoing DNA replication. Previous studies indicate that the initiation of rDNA replication is regulated by long range interactions between dispersed type I elements. Competitive DNA binding or cooperative protein-protein interactions between the factors described here may play a regulatory role in replication or expression of the rDNA minichromosome.
Identification of a gonadotropin-releasing hormone-like factor in the rabbit fetal placenta.

The biological and immunological gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH)-like activities in rabbit fetal placentas collected at Day 18 of gestation were investigated. Both crude and partially purified acid extracts of placental tissue were tested. A similarly prepared liver extract served as a control. Immunological GnRH-like activity, determined through a GnRH radioimmunoassay was 1.3-2.0 pg/mg protein for the crude placental extract, 7.1-9.2 pg/mg protein for the partially purified placental extract and was nondetectable for liver extract. Both the crude and partially
The Validity of Categorized Proficiency Test Scores

As research on standard setting has been concerned with cut score variability and reliability, issues regarding the validity of decisions based upon proficiency test applications have received relatively little attention. This study addressed the validity of using proficiency test scores to make specific educational decisions, Ninth grade mathematics proficiency test scores are analyzed in both continuous and categorized form. The relationship of the proficiency scores and student mathematics achievement was investigated for each condition, and implications for the validity of interpreting the scores are discussed. The nature of the decisions to be made is examined as a factor in determining the categorization technique.
Neonatal scrotal wall necrotizing fasciitis (Fournier gangrene): a case report

Introduction: Necrotizing fasciitis in neonates is rare and is associated with almost 50% mortality. Although more than 80 cases of neonates (under one month of age) with necrotizing fasciitis have been reported in the literature, only six of them are identified as originating in the scrotum. Case presentation: We report the case of a four-week-old, full-term, otherwise-healthy Caucasian baby boy who presented with an ulcerating lesion of his scrotal wall. His scrotum was explored because of a provisional diagnosis of missed torsion of the testis. He was found to have necrotizing fasciitis of the scrotum. We were able to preserve the testis and excise the necrotic tissue, and with intravenous antibiotics there was a successful outcome. Conclusions: Fournier gangrene is rarely considered as part of the differential diagnosis in the clinical management of the acute scrotum. However, all doctors who care for small babies must be aware of this serious condition and, if it is suspected, should not hesitate in referring the babies to a specialist pediatric surgical center immediately.
The Skills of Teaching Social Work Practice in the Generalist/Foundation Curriculum: BSW and MSW Student Views

BSW and first-year MSW students from one school of social work were surveyed to determine the impact of specific classroom teaching skills on their views of their instructor’s effectiveness. Findings show the importance of instructor knowledge about student experiences in the field and ability to help students apply their classroom learning to their field practice. The results also underscore the importance of instructors’ ability to organize student learning and serve as role models of social work professionals. Implications of the findings are discussed as well as suggestions for future study.
Evaluating the management journals: a second look.

The article reviews several U.S. business journals including “Administrative Science Quarterly,” the “Academy of Management Journal,” and the “Harvard Business Review.”
Screening and Intervention for Comorbid Substance Disorders, PTSD, Depression, and Suicide: A Trauma Center Survey.

ObjectiveFew investigations have examined screening and intervention procedures for comorbid substance use and mental disorders at trauma centers in the United States, although these disorders are endemic among survivors of traumatic injury. In 2006, the American College of Surgeons (ACS) mandated that level I and level II trauma centers screen for alcohol use problems and that level I centers provide brief intervention for those who screen positive. The ACS is expected to recommend best practice policy guidelines for screening for drug use problems and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This study examined screening and intervention procedures for the full spectrum of comorbid mental and substance use disorders at U.S. trauma centers.MethodsRespondents at all level I and level II trauma centers (N=518) in the United States were asked to complete a survey describing screening and intervention procedures for alcohol and drug use problems, suicidality, depression, and PTSD.ResultsThere were 391 (75%) res...
A comparative study of assembly planning in traditional and virtual environments

Presents an experiment that investigated the potential benefits of virtual reality (VR) environments in supporting assembly planning. In the experiment, 15 subjects performed an assembly planning task in three different conditions: a traditional engineering (TE) environment, a nonimmersive desktop VR (DVR) environment, and an immersive CAVE (Cave Automatic Virtual Environment) VR (CVR) environment. The effects of the three conditions on the subjects' performance were analyzed. The subjects' performance time in the TE condition was significantly longer than that in the DVR condition and that in the CVR condition, whereas the difference in performance time between the DVR condition and the CVR condition was not significant. The total number of problematic assembly steps in the TE condition was significantly greater than that in the CVR condition. Specifically, the subjects' assembly sequences in the TE condition involved more reorientations than in the DVR condition. The number of difficult assembly steps in the TE condition was significantly greater than that in the DVR condition, which was significantly greater than that in the CVR condition. The number of dissimilar assembly steps in the TE condition was significantly greater than that in the CVR condition, which was significantly greater than that in the DVR condition. Hence, the results revealed advantages of the two VR environments over the TE environment in improving the subjects' overall assembly planning performance and in minimizing the handling difficulty, excessive reorientation and dissimilarity of assembly operations.
Effects of time out and S+ postponement training procedures on free operant discrimination acquisition

Rat Ss received free operant discrimination training in which: (1) imposing a time out before each S+ period and (2) an S+ postponement contingency for responding late in S-periods were used to ascertain effects of adventitious reinforcement of S- responding by the appearance of S+ (a conditioned reinforcer). Postponement training was more effective than time-out training. The effectiveness of S+ postponement training appeared to be due to a massing of extinction resulting from prolonged S- periods early in training. There was no evidence that S+ conditioned reinforcement interfered with discrimination acquisition.
Asymmetrical cross-talk between the endoplasmic reticulum stress and oxidative stress caused by dextrose.

Abstract Aims Oxidative and endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stresses are implicated in premature cardiovascular disease in people with diabetes. The aim of the present study was to characterize the nature of the interplay between the oxidative and ER stresses to facilitate the development of therapeutic agents that can ameliorate these stresses. Main methods Human coronary artery endothelial cells were treated with varying concentrations of dextrose in the presence or absence of three antioxidants (alpha tocopherol, ascorbate and ebselen) and two ER stress modifiers (ERSMs) (4-phenylbutyrate and taurodeoxycholic acid) . ER stress was measured using the placental alkaline phosphatase assay and superoxide (SO) generation was measured using the superoxide-reactive probe 2-methyl-6-(4-methoxyphenyl)-3,7-dihydroimidazo[1,2-A]pyrazin-3-one hydrochloride chemiluminescence. Key findings The SO generation was increased with increasing concentrations of dextrose. The ER stress was increased with both low (0 and 2.75 mM) and high (13.75 and 27.5 mM) concentrations of dextrose. The antioxidants inhibited the dextrose induced SO production while in high concentrations they aggravated ER stress. The ERSM reduced ER stress and potentiated the efficacy of the three antioxidants. Tunicamycin-induced ER stress was not associated with increased SO generation. Time course experiments with a high concentration of dextrose or by overexpressing glucose transporter one in endothelial cells revealed that dextrose induced SO generation undergoes adaptive down regulation within 2 h while the ER stress is sustained throughout 72 h of observation. Significance The nature of the cross talk between oxidative stress and ER stress induced by dextrose may explain the failure of antioxidant therapy in reducing diabetes complications.
Report of 67 Consecutive Post–Partum Sterilizations

Summary Sixty–seven consecutive cases of post–partum sterilizations have been reviewed. With some minor changes, the Madlener technique as reported by Adair and Brown1 has been used. The usage of local anesthesia, a transverse incision and crushing of the tube two centimeters from the cornu uteri is recommended. We believe that this is a safe procedure if done within twenty-four hours after delivery. Notwithstanding the fact we have reported fourteen cases that have had some obstetric interrention, we believe that there will be little risk with cases that deliver spontaneously. The operative procedure does not prolong the hospital stay beyond the regular post-partum stay, nor is there any increase in the puerperal morbidity.
The Future is Fabulous: Digital Fabrication, Datascaping and Design Futurism

Consumer culture maintains an ambivalent relationship with the products populating our lives; we have feelings of both alienated discomfort and sincere love and attachment for our things. Our conception of production lingers in a turn-of-the-century capitalist mythology of industrial manufacturing, a vision irreconcilable with the clean modes of production familiar to information and service workers. Self-imposed ecological disaster and increasingly apparent social inequities demand a revolution in our relationship to stuff. Yet the global outsourcing of production, along with personal and cultural identities forged through consumption, leave us without the means to understand contemporary object making.Enter “fabbing” (personal digital fabrication), a collection of intertwined - and still immature - production and information technologies. Fab promises to empower every person to design and manufacture his or her own products, though how this technology will actually accomplish such a goal remains fuzzy. The technological utopias that fab envisions project a completed futurist narrative, but offer only a few clues as to how we might get there. A development such as fab changes how we conceptualize production, and radically realigns consumer-product and designer-product relationships. Fabbing technology represents real-life science fiction, complete with Enlightenment-like progress narratives, tech fantasies, and shifting power relations.To comprehend the changes this technology offers, we turn to science fiction and futurism - discourses that imagine utopias resulting from technological innovation. We envision new relationships to the material world, like the replicator in Star Trek: The Next Generation, a favorite touch point for fab’s inventor-evangelists. But these images and rhetoric make up more than fantasies; they drive technology development. These science fictions also offer new subject positions, from which we might act fluently in a complicated, data-saturated future.“The Future is Fabulous” investigates fabbing in light of our advancing datascape (the mass of digital information modelling human behavior) and its effect on designing, buying, and interacting with products. It considers current trends such as targeted marketing and mass customization (selecting the colors and features of a Timbuk2 messenger bag, for example) as early stages in a trajectory leading to fab. The project seeks to understand the rhetorical, practical, and epistemological changes embedded in the emergence of fab, a technology that could empower both consumers and designers.
Exploiting Morphological, Grammatical, and Semantic Correlates for Improved Text Difficulty Assessment

We present a low-resource, languageindependent system for text difficulty assessment. We replicate and improve upon a baseline by Shen et al. (2013) on the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) scale. Our work demonstrates that the addition of morphological, information theoretic, and language modeling features to a traditional readability baseline greatly benefits our performance. We use the Margin-Infused Relaxed Algorithm and Support Vector Machines for experiments on Arabic, Dari, English, and Pashto, and provide a detailed analysis of our results.
Correlation of pH-dependent surface interaction forces to amino acid adsorption: Implications for the origin of life

We used an atomic force microscope (AFM) with a modified tip to measure interaction forces between a silica microsphere and surfaces of quartz, calcite, and albite over a range of pH. Minima in the magnitude of electrostatic repulsion or attraction appeared near the point of zero charge (pHpzc) values for quartz (≈2.8), calcite (9.5), albite (2.6), and silica glass (3.5). We observed small, but significant, differences in pHpzc values for the (100), (101), and (011) faces of quartz. In order to correlate mineral surface charges with ionic characteristics and corresponding isoelectric points (pI) of amino acids, we immersed quartz and calcite in solutions of six amino acids. Quartz (pHpzc ≈ 2.8) tends to adsorb amino acids most strongly when pHpzc and pI differ significantly. Thus quartz adsorbs lysine (pI = 9.74) more strongly than amino acids with lower pI. In contrast, calcite (pHpzc = 9.5) adsorbs a variety of amino acids with a range of pI. Calcite thus represents a more plausible template than quartz for prebiotic selection and organization of homochiral polypeptides.
Editorial Comment on "Vascular and Chronological Age in Men With Erectile Dysfunction: A Longitudinal Study".

In this issue of the Journal of Sexual Medicine, the novel idea of using Dage, the calculated difference between chronological age and vascular age, as a predictor for future cardiovascular events is presented. Because it is simple and costless to calculate Dage, this parameter has remarkable potential for being clinically meaningful. The authors conclude that Dage is particularly useful for identifying young men (<56 years old) who are at increased relative risk of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE). Notably, the authors conclude that Dage is a MACE predictor independent of penile duplex Doppler ultrasound (DUS) results, and suggest that Dage could replace penile DUS as a means for identifying young men who are at risk for future cardiovascular events.
Non adaptive change in early land plant evolution

Primary vascular architecture of members of the Paleozoic Aneurophytales (Progymnosper-mopsida) is described. This architecture is somewhat more complex but fundamentally similar (homologous) to that of members of the Trimerophytina, putative ancestors of aneurophytes. It is suggested that the presence of complex stelar morphology in aneurophytes was epiphenomenal, a passive result of changes in growth and development in a trimerophyte-like ancestor. Specifically, I suggest that the evolutionary transformation in primary vascular architecture from haplostele to ribbed protostele was a direct consequence of changes that affected the vertical spacing and degree of organization of lateral appendages in early vascular plants. This view is in sharp contrast to adaptationist explanations of change in stelar morphology expressed by other authors and provides an example of non-adaptive change in evolution.
Effects of Adrenal and Thyroid Hormones on Water Exchange in Hypophysectomized Rats.

SummaryThe effects of adrenal cortical and thyroid substances were studied on the water exchange and related phenomena in hypophysectomized rats during periods after the initial high postoperative d. i. had subsided. 1. Desoxycorticosterone acetate in 1 mg daily doses elevated water exchange, but not to levels characteristic of d. i., whereas whole extract of the adrenal cortex was without effect. 2. Thyroid-feeding in doses that restored oxygen consumption at least to normal elevated the water intake slightly but not the urine output. There was an associated rise in urine specific gravity. The diuretic effects of thyroid hormone under other circumstances in the rat must depend upon the presence of an anterior pituitary. 3. Non-toxic doses of thyroxin, although affecting oxygen consumption, had no effect on water exchange. 4. When desoxycorticosterone and the larger doses of thyroid were given in combination, the toxicity of the latter was overcome. Water intake was doubled, but urine volume did not incre...