cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Integration of survival data from multiple studies.

We introduce a statistical procedure that integrates datasets from multiple biomedical studies to predict patients' survival, based on individual clinical and genomic profiles. The proposed procedure accounts for potential differences in the relation between predictors and outcomes across studies, due to distinct patient populations, treatments and technologies to measure outcomes and biomarkers. These differences are modeled explicitly with study-specific parameters. We use hierarchical regularization to shrink the study-specific parameters towards each other and to borrow information across studies. The estimation of the study-specific parameters utilizes a similarity matrix, which summarizes differences and similarities of the relations between covariates and outcomes across studies. We illustrate the method in a simulation study and using a collection of gene expression datasets in ovarian cancer. We show that the proposed model increases the accuracy of survival predictions compared to alternative meta-analytic methods.
Seeing the entanglement wedge

We study the problem of revealing the entanglement wedge using simple operations. We ask what operation a semiclassical observer can do to bring the entanglement wedge into causal contact with the boundary, via backreaction. In a generic perturbative class of states, we propose a unitary operation in the causal wedge whose backreaction brings all of the previously causally inaccessible ‘peninsula’ into causal contact with the boundary. This class of cases includes entanglement wedges associated to boundary sub-regions that are unions of disjoint spherical caps, and the protocol works to first order in the size of the peninsula. The unitary is closely related to the so-called Connes Cocycle flow, which is a unitary that is both well-defined in QFT and localised to a sub-region. Our construction requires a generalization of the work by Ceyhan & Faulkner to regions which are unions of disconnected spherical caps. We discuss this generalization in the appendix. We argue that this cocycle should be thought of as naturally generalizing the non-local coupling introduced in the work of Gao, Jafferis & Wall.
Jupiter’s Dynamical Love Number

Recent observations by the {\it Juno} spacecraft have revealed that the tidal Love number $k_2$ of Jupiter is $4\%$ lower than the hydrostatic value. We present a simple calculation of the dynamical Love number of Jupiter that explains the observed "anomaly". The Love number is usually dominated by the response of the (rotation-modified) f-modes of the planet. Our method also allows for efficient computation of high-order dynamical Love numbers. While the inertial-mode contributions to the Love numbers are negligible, a sufficiently strong stratification in a large region of the planet's interior would induce significant g-mode responses and influence the measured Love numbers.
Wave maps on (1+2)-dimensional curved spacetimes

Author(s): Gavrus, Cristian; Jao, Casey; Tataru, Daniel | Abstract: In this article we initiate the study of 1+ 2 dimensional wave maps on a curved spacetime in the low regularity setting. Our main result asserts that in this context the wave maps equation is locally well-posed at almost critical regularity. As a key part of the proof of this result, we generalize the classical optimal bilinear L^2 estimates for the wave equation to variable coefficients, by means of wave packet decompositions and characteristic energy estimates. This allows us to iterate in a curved X^{s,b} space.
CloudReg: automatic terabyte-scale cross-modal brain volume registration.

Abstract Quantifying terabyte-scale multi-modal human and animal imaging data requires scalable analysis tools. We developed CloudReg, an open-source, automatic, terabyte-scale, cloud-based image analysis pipeline that pre-processes and registers cross-modal volumetric datasets with artifacts via spatially-varying polynomial intensity transform. CloudReg accurately registers the following datasets to their respective atlases: in vivo human and ex vivo macaque brain magnetic resonance imaging, ex vivo mouse brain micro-computed tomography, and cleared murine brain light-sheet microscopy.
Communication Efficient Parallel Reinforcement Learning

We consider the problem where $M$ agents interact with $M$ identical and independent environments with $S$ states and $A$ actions using reinforcement learning for $T$ rounds. The agents share their data with a central server to minimize their regret. We aim to find an algorithm that allows the agents to minimize the regret with infrequent communication rounds. We provide \NAM\ which runs at each agent and prove that the total cumulative regret of $M$ agents is upper bounded as $\Tilde{O}(DS\sqrt{MAT})$ for a Markov Decision Process with diameter $D$, number of states $S$, and number of actions $A$. The agents synchronize after their visitations to any state-action pair exceeds a certain threshold. Using this, we obtain a bound of $O\left(MSA\log(MT)\right)$ on the total number of communications rounds. Finally, we evaluate the algorithm against multiple environments and demonstrate that the proposed algorithm performs at par with an always communication version of the UCRL2 algorithm, while with significantly lower communication.
Physical Wireless Resource Virtualization for Software-Defined Whole-Stack Slicing

Radio access network (RAN) virtualization is gaining more and more ground and expected to re-architect the next-generation cellular networks. Existing RAN virtualization studies and solutions have mostly focused on sharing communication capacity and tend to require the use of the same PHY and MAC layers across network slices. This approach has not considered the scenarios where different slices require different PHY and MAC layers, for instance, for radically different services and for whole-stack research in wireless living labs where novel PHY and MAC layers need to be deployed concurrently with existing ones on the same physical infrastructure. To enable whole-stack slicing where different PHY and MAC layers may be deployed in different slices, we develop PV-RAN, the first open-source virtual RAN platform that enables the sharing of the same SDR physical resources across multiple slices. Through API Remoting, PV-RAN enables running paravirtualized instances of OpenAirInterface (OAI) at different slices without requiring modifying OAI source code. PV-RAN effectively leverages the inter-domain communication mechanisms of Xen to transport time-sensitive I/Q samples via shared memory, making the virtualization overhead in communication almost negligible. We conduct detailed performance benchmarking of PV-RAN and demonstrate its low overhead and high efficiency. We also integrate PV-RAN with the CyNet wireless living lab for smart agriculture and transportation.
Deception Detection and Remote Physiological Monitoring: A Dataset and Baseline Experimental Results

We present the Deception Detection and Physiological Monitoring (DDPM) dataset and initial baseline results on this dataset. Our application context is an interview scenario in which the interviewee attempts to deceive the interviewer on selected responses. The interviewee is recorded in RGB, near-infrared, and long-wave infrared, along with cardiac pulse, blood oxygenation, and audio. After collection, data were annotated for interviewer/interviewee, curated, ground-truthed, and organized into train / test parts for a set of canonical deception detection experiments. Baseline experiments found random accuracy for micro-expressions as an indicator of deception, but that saccades can give a statistically significant response. We also estimated subject heart rates from face videos (remotely) with a mean absolute error as low as 3.16 bpm. The database contains almost 13 hours of recordings of 70 subjects, and over 8 million visible-light, near-infrared, and thermal video frames, along with appropriate meta, audio and pulse oximeter data. To our knowledge, this is the only collection offering recordings of five modalities in an interview scenario that can be used in both deception detection and remote photoplethysmography research.
Porous Medium Equation with a Drift: Free Boundary Regularity

We study regularity properties of the free boundary for solutions of the porous medium equation with the presence of drift. We show the $$C^{1,\alpha }$$ regularity of the free boundary when the solution is directionally monotone in space variable in a local neighborhood. The main challenge lies in establishing a local non-degeneracy estimate (Theorem 1.3 and Proposition 1.5), which appears new even for the zero drift case.
ATRIA: A Bit-Parallel Stochastic Arithmetic Based Accelerator for In-DRAM CNN Processing

With the rapidly growing use of Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) in real-world applications related to machine learning and Artificial Intelligence (Al), several hardware accelerator designs for CNN inference and training have been proposed recently. In this paper, we present ATRIA, a novel bit-pArallel sTochastic aRithmetic based In-DRAM Accelerator for energy-efficient and high-speed inference of CNNs. ATRIA employs light-weight modifications in DRAM cell arrays to implement bit-parallel stochastic arithmetic based acceleration of multiply-accumulate (MAC) operations inside DRAM. ATRIA significantly improves the latency, throughput, and efficiency of processing CNN inferences by performing 16 MAC operations in only five consecutive memory operation cycles. We mapped the inference tasks of four benchmark CNNs on ATRIA to compare its performance with five state-of-the-art in-DRAM CNN accelerators from prior work. The results of our analysis show that ATRIA exhibits only 3.5% drop in CNN inference accuracy and still achieves improvements of up to 3.2× in frames-per-second (FPS) and up to 10× in efficiency (FPS/W/mm2), compared to the best-performing in-DRAM accelerator from prior work.
Split representation of adaptively compressed polarizability operator

The polarizability operator plays a central role in density functional perturbation theory and other perturbative treatment of first principle electronic structure theories. The cost of computing the polarizability operator generally scales as $${\mathcal {O}}(N_{e}^4)$$ where $$N_e$$ is the number of electrons in the system. The recently developed adaptively compressed polarizability operator (ACP) formulation [L. Lin, Z. Xu and L. Ying, Multiscale Model. Simul. 2017] reduces such complexity to $${\mathcal {O}}(N_{e}^3)$$ in the context of phonon calculations with a large basis set for the first time, and demonstrates its effectiveness for model problems. In this paper, we improve the performance of the ACP formulation by splitting the polarizability into a near singular component that is statically compressed, and a smooth component that is adaptively compressed. The new split representation maintains the $${\mathcal {O}}(N_e^3)$$ complexity, and accelerates nearly all components of the ACP formulation, including Chebyshev interpolation of energy levels, iterative solution of Sternheimer equations, and convergence of the Dyson equations. For simulation of real materials, we discuss how to incorporate nonlocal pseudopotentials and finite temperature effects. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our method using one-dimensional model problem in insulating and metallic regimes, as well as its accuracy for real molecules and solids.
Am I my brother’s keeper? Can duty to intervene policies save lives and reduce the need for special prosecutors in officer-involved homicide cases?

Duty to intervene (DTI) policies impose an obligation on peer officers to prevent or terminate unreasonable force occurring in their presence. But policing suffers from an organizational culture th...
CLEDGE: A Hybrid Cloud-Edge Computing Framework over Information Centric Networking

In today's era of Internet of Things (IoT), where massive amounts of data are produced by IoT and other devices, edge computing has emerged as a prominent paradigm for low-latency data processing. However, applications may have diverse latency requirements: certain latency-sensitive processing operations may need to be performed at the edge, while delay-tolerant operations can be performed on the cloud, without occupying the potentially limited edge computing resources. To achieve that, we envision an environment where computing resources are distributed across edge and cloud offerings. In this paper, we present the design of CLEDGE (CLoud + EDGE), an information-centric hybrid cloud-edge framework, aiming to maximize the on-time completion of computational tasks offloaded by applications with diverse latency requirements. The design of CLEDGE is motivated by the networking challenges that mixed reality researchers face. Our evaluation demonstrates that CLEDGE can complete on-time more than 90% of offloaded tasks with modest overheads.
Differential Effects of Received Trade Credit and Provided Trade Credit on Firm Value

With over half a trillion dollars in trade credit flowing between firms in the United States, it is critically important for managers to understand how the trade credit that their firm receives and provides affect its value. Trade credit is a strategic investment in supply chain relationships that allows the recipient to make payment later rather than at the time of the sale. A firm provides trade credit to its downstream business customers and also receives trade credit from its upstream suppliers. Although research has shown that provided trade credit builds a firm’s shareholder value, it has not examined what effect, if any, received trade credit has on the firm’s value. As a result, one might assume that received trade credit affects firm value in the same manner as provided trade credit. We argue otherwise and show that received trade credit and provided trade credit have differential effects on firm value. Received trade credit has a negative direct effect and a positive indirect effect (through profit), whereas provided trade credit has a positive direct effect and a negative indirect effect. The difference in direct effects hinges on the disparate nature of dependence in the supply chain. Provided trade credit increases customers’ dependence on the firm, building the firm’s value. In contrast, received trade credit increases the firm’s dependence on its suppliers, destroying the firm’s value. Empirical results using a sample of 2804 firms from 1986 to 2017 provide robust support for the hypotheses. They show that managers risk overestimating the value of a 1 SD increase in received (provided) trade credit by $284.74 ($74.95) million, on average, if they do not consider both the direct and indirect effects it has on their firm’s value.
A Spectrum Consumption Model-based Framework for DSA Experimentation on the COSMOS Testbed

This paper describes a wireless experimentation framework for studying dynamic spectrum access mechanisms and an experiment that showcases its capabilities. The framework was built on COSMOS, an advanced wireless testbed designed to support real-world experimentation of next generation wireless technologies and applications. Our deployed framework supports experimentation over a large number of wireless networks, with a PUB-SUB based network interaction structure, based on the Collaborative Intelligent Radio Networks (CIRN) Interaction Language (CIL) developed by DARPA for the Spectrum Collaboration Challenge (SC2). As such, it enables interaction and message exchanges between the networks for the purposes of coordinating spectrum use. For our experiment, the message exchanges are aimed primarily for, but not limited to, Spectrum Consumption Model (SCM) messages. RF devices/systems use SCM messages which contain detailed information about their wireless transmission characteristics (i.e., spectrum mask, frequency, bandwidth, power and location) to determine their operational compatibility (non-interference) with prior transmitters and receivers, and to dynamically determine spectrum use characteristics for their own transmissions.
Quantum Space, Quantum Time, and Relativistic Quantum Mechanics

We treat space and time as bona fide quantum degrees of freedom on an equal footing in Hilbert space. Motivated by considerations in quantum gravity, we focus on a paradigm dealing with linear, first-order Hamiltonian and momentum constraints that lead to emergent features of temporal and spatial translations. Unlike the conventional treatment, we show that Klein-Gordon and Dirac equations in relativistic quantum mechanics can be unified in our paradigm by applying relativistic dispersion relations to eigenvalues rather than treating them as operator-valued equations. With time and space being treated on an equal footing in Hilbert space, we show symmetry transformations to be implemented by unitary basis changes in Hilbert space, giving them a stronger quantum mechanical footing. Global symmetries, such as Lorentz transformations, modify the decomposition of Hilbert space; and local symmetries, such as U(1) gauge symmetry are diagonal in coordinate basis and do not alter the decomposition of Hilbert space. We briefly discuss extensions of this paradigm to quantum field theory and quantum gravity.
Collaging Class-specific GANs for Semantic Image Synthesis

We propose a new approach for high resolution semantic image synthesis. It consists of one base image generator and multiple class-specific generators. The base generator generates high quality images based on a segmentation map. To further improve the quality of different objects, we create a bank of Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) by separately training class-specific models. This has several benefits including -- dedicated weights for each class; centrally aligned data for each model; additional training data from other sources, potential of higher resolution and quality; and easy manipulation of a specific object in the scene. Experiments show that our approach can generate high quality images in high resolution while having flexibility of object-level control by using class-specific generators.
An improved fluorescent noncanonical amino acid for measuring conformational distributions using time-resolved transition metal ion FRET

With the recent explosion in high-resolution protein structures, one of the next frontiers in biology is elucidating the mechanisms by which conformational rearrangements in proteins are regulated to meet the needs of cells under changing conditions. Rigorously measuring protein energetics and dynamics requires the development of new methods that can resolve structural heterogeneity and conformational distributions. We have previously developed steady-state transition metal ion fluorescence resonance energy transfer (tmFRET) approaches using a fluorescent noncanonical amino acid donor (Anap) and transition metal ion acceptor to probe conformational rearrangements in soluble and membrane proteins. Here, we show that the fluorescent noncanonical amino acid Acd has superior photophysical properties that extend its utility as a donor for tmFRET. Using maltose-binding protein (MBP) expressed in mammalian cells as a model system, we show that Acd is comparable to Anap in steady-state tmFRET experiments and that its long, single-exponential lifetime is better suited for probing conformational distributions using time-resolved FRET. These experiments reveal differences in heterogeneity in the apo and holo conformational states of MBP and produce accurate quantification of the distributions among apo and holo conformational states at subsaturating maltose concentrations. Our new approach using Acd for time-resolved tmFRET sets the stage for measuring the energetics of conformational rearrangements in soluble and membrane proteins in near-native conditions.
Preferential concentration by mechanically driven turbulence in the two-fluid formalism

Direct Numerical Simulations are employed to investigate preferential concentration of heavy inertial particles in a system in which turbulence is mechanically-driven. Using the two-fluid equations, we study this process and the resulting particle concentration enhancement for particles with $\text{St}\ensuremath{\lesssim}O(0.01)$. The results are similar to those found in previous work, where we established scaling laws to predict maximum and typical particle concentration enhancements in the context of the particle-driven convective instability.
H-ModQuad: Modular Multi-Rotors with 4, 5, and 6 Controllable DOF

Traditional aerial vehicles are usually custom-designed for specific tasks. Although they offer an efficient solution, they are not always able to adapt to changes in the task specification, e.g., increasing the payload. This applies to quadrotors, having a maximum payload and only four controllable degrees of freedom, limiting their adaptability to the task’s variations. We propose a versatile modular robotic system that can increase its payload and degrees of freedom by assembling heterogeneous modules; we call it H-ModQuad. It consists of cuboid modules propelled by quadrotors with tilted propellers that can generate forces in different directions. By connecting different types of modules, an H-ModQuad can increase its controllable degrees of freedom from 4 to 5 and 6. We model the general structure and propose three controllers, one for each number of controllable degrees of freedom. We extend the concept of the actuation ellipsoid to find the best reference orientation that can maximize the performance of the structure. Our approach is validated with experiments using actual robots, showing the independence of the translation and orientation of a structure.
MARS: Nano-Power Battery-free Wireless Interfaces for Touch, Swipe and Speech Input

Augmenting everyday surfaces with interaction sensing capability that is maintenance-free, low-cost (∼ $1), and in an appropriate form factor is a challenge with current technologies. MARS (Multi-channel Ambiently-powered Realtime Sensing) enables battery-free sensing and wireless communication of touch, swipe, and speech interactions by combining a nanowatt programmable oscillator with frequency-shifted analog backscatter communication. A zero-threshold voltage field-effect transistor (FET) is used to create an oscillator with a low startup voltage (∼ 500 mV) and current (
A Manifold Proximal Linear Method for Sparse Spectral Clustering with Application to Single-Cell RNA Sequencing Data Analysis

Spectral clustering is one of the fundamental unsupervised learning methods and is widely used in data analysis. Sparse spectral clustering (SSC) imposes sparsity to the spectral clustering, and it...
Mitochondrial phenotypes in purified human immune cell subtypes and cell mixtures

Using a high-throughput mitochondrial phenotyping platform to quantify multiple mitochondrial features among molecularly defined immune cell subtypes, we quantify the natural variation in mitochondrial DNA copy number (mtDNAcn), citrate synthase, and respiratory chain enzymatic activities in human neutrophils, monocytes, B cells, and naive and memory T lymphocyte subtypes. In mixed peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from the same individuals, we show to what extent mitochondrial measures are confounded by both cell type distributions and contaminating platelets. Cell subtype-specific measures among women and men spanning four decades of life indicate potential age- and sex-related differences, including an age-related elevation in mtDNAcn, which are masked or blunted in mixed PBMCs. Finally, a proof-of-concept, repeated-measures study in a single individual validates cell type differences and also reveals week-to-week changes in mitochondrial activities. Larger studies are required to validate and mechanistically extend these findings. These mitochondrial phenotyping data build upon established immunometabolic differences among leukocyte subpopulations, and provide foundational quantitative knowledge to develop interpretable blood-based assays of mitochondrial health.
α2δ-2 is required for depolarization-induced suppression of excitation in purkinje cells.

α2δ proteins (CACNA2D1-4) are required for normal neurological function and contribute to membrane trafficking of voltage-gated calcium channels, through which calcium entry initiates numerous physiological processes. However, it remains unclear how α2δ proteins influence calcium-mediated signalling to control neuronal output. Using whole-cell recordings of mouse Purkinje cells, we show that α2δ-2 is required for functional coupling of postsynaptic voltage-dependent calcium entry with calcium-dependent effector mechanisms controlling two different outputs, depolarization-induced suppression of excitation and spike afterhyperpolarization. Our findings indicate an important role for α2δ-2 proteins in regulating functional postsynaptic calcium channel coupling in neurons, providing new context for understanding the effects of α2δ mutations on neuronal circuit function and presenting additional potential avenues to manipulate α2δ-mediated signalling for therapeutic gain. KEY POINTS: Calcium influx, via voltage-dependent calcium channels, drives numerous neuronal signalling processes with precision achieved in part by tight coupling between calcium entry and calcium-dependent effectors. α2δ proteins are important for neurological function and contribute to calcium channel membrane trafficking, although how α2δ proteins influence postsynaptic calcium-dependent signalling is largely unexplored. Here it is shown that loss of α2δ-2 proteins disrupts functional calcium coupling to two different postsynaptic calcium-dependent signals in mouse Purkinje cell neurons, retrograde endocannabinoid signalling and the action potential afterhyperpolarization. The findings provide new insights into the control of calcium coupling as well as new roles for α2δ-2 proteins in neurons.
The decomposition of the higher-order homology embedding constructed from the $k$-Laplacian

The null space of the $k$-th order Laplacian $\mathbf{\mathcal L}_k$, known as the {\em $k$-th homology vector space}, encodes the non-trivial topology of a manifold or a network. Understanding the structure of the homology embedding can thus disclose geometric or topological information from the data. The study of the null space embedding of the graph Laplacian $\mathbf{\mathcal L}_0$ has spurred new research and applications, such as spectral clustering algorithms with theoretical guarantees and estimators of the Stochastic Block Model. In this work, we investigate the geometry of the $k$-th homology embedding and focus on cases reminiscent of spectral clustering. Namely, we analyze the {\em connected sum} of manifolds as a perturbation to the direct sum of their homology embeddings. We propose an algorithm to factorize the homology embedding into subspaces corresponding to a manifold's simplest topological components. The proposed framework is applied to the {\em shortest homologous loop detection} problem, a problem known to be NP-hard in general. Our spectral loop detection algorithm scales better than existing methods and is effective on diverse data such as point clouds and images.
Nonlinearity Attack against the Kirchhoff-Law-Johnson-Noise (KLJN) Secure Key Exchange Protocol.

This paper introduces a new attack against the Kirchhoff-Law-Johnson-Noise (KLJN) secure key exchange scheme. The attack is based on the nonlinearity of the noise generators. We explore the effect of total distortion (TD) at the second order (D2), third order (D3), and a combination of the second and third orders (D2,3) on the security of the KLJN scheme. It is demonstrated that a as little as 1% results in a notable power flow along the information channel, which leads to a significant information leak. We also show that decreasing the effective temperature (that is, the wire voltage) and, in this way reducing nonlinearity, results in the KLJN scheme approaching perfect security.
Quantifying charge state heterogeneity for proteins with multiple ionizable residues.

ABSTRACT Ionizable residues can release and take up protons and this has an influence on protein structure and function. The extent of protonation is linked to the overall pH of the solution and the local environments of ionizable residues. Binding or unbinding of a single proton generates a distinct charge microstate defined by a specific pattern of charges. Accordingly, the overall partition function is a sum over all charge microstates and Boltzmann weights of all conformations associated with each of the charge microstates. This ensemble-of-ensembles description recast as a q-canonical ensemble allows us to analyze and interpret potentiometric titrations that provide information regarding net charge as a function of pH. In the q-canonical ensemble, charge microstates are grouped into mesostates where each mesostate is a collection of microstates of the same net charge. Here, we show that leveraging the structure of the q-canonical ensemble allows us to decouple contributions of net proton binding and release from proton arrangement and conformational considerations. Through application of the q-canonical formalism to analyze potentiometric measurements of net charge in proteins with repetitive patterns of Lys and Glu residues, we determine the underlying mesostate pKa values and, more importantly, we estimate relative mesostate populations as a function of pH. This is a strength of using the q-canonical approach that cannot be replicated using purely site-specific analyses. Overall, our work shows how measurements of charge equilibria, decoupled from measurements of conformational equilibria, and analyzed using the framework of the q-canonical ensemble, provide protein-specific quantitative descriptions of pH-dependent populations of mesostates. This method is of direct relevance for measuring and understanding how different charge states contribute to conformational, binding, and phase equilibria of proteins.
DeepVASP-E: A Flexible Analysis of Electrostatic Isopotentials for Finding and Explaining Mechanisms that Control Binding Specificity

Amino acids that play a role in binding specificity can be identified with many methods, but few techniques identify the biochemical mechanisms by which they act. To address a part of this problem, we present DeepVASP-E, an algorithm that can suggest electrostatic mechanisms that influence specificity. DeepVASP-E uses convolutional neural networks to classify an electrostatic representation of ligand binding sites into specificity categories. It also uses class activation mapping to identify regions of electrostatic potential that are salient for classification. We hypothesize that electrostatic regions that are salient for classification are also likely to play a biochemical role in achieving specificity. Our findings, on two families of proteins with electrostatic influences on specificity, demonstrate that large salient regions can identify amino acids that have an electrostatic role in binding, and that DeepVASP-E is an effective classifier of ligand binding sites.
Anesthesia, Computers in

Computer technology has played an essential role in improving anesthesia patient care and reducing healthcare costs. This article provides a synopsis of computer applications in the areas of anesthesia monitoring, anesthesia information systems, computer simulations of human patients, computer anesthesia control, computer-assisted diagnosis and decisions, and telemedicine in anesthesia. Keywords: computer technology; anesthesia information systems; patient models; human patient simulators; anesthesia control; computer-assisted anesthesia decisions; anesthesia diagnosis; telemedicine in anesthesia
Is the superstring weakly coupled

We argue that if the superstring is to describe our world, it is probably strongly coupled. Several other (unlikely) possibilities are discussed.
A Legal Chameleon: An Examination of the Doctrine of Good Faith in Chinese and American Contract Law

When China promulgated its first comprehensive contract law a decade ago, it adopted the doctrine of good faith as a basic principle of contract law. The Contract Law of the People’s Republic of China (“Chinese Contract Law”) currently requires that parties observe good faith as a general principle. United States contract law has also generally recognized the doctrine of good faith as a “fundamental concept of modern contract jurisprudence.” Advocates on both sides of the Pacific praise the doctrine for its elasticity and adaptability, which allow courts to use the doctrine to fill in legislative and doctrinal gaps when necessary. Critics on both sides of the Pacific criticize the doctrine for these same qualities, which they believe render the doctrine open to abuse by courts and parties. With the same criticisms and praises being levied both in China and the US, one US legal scholar has suggested that the Chinese doctrine of good faith is “identical to the American doctrine,” while noting generally that “non-trivial differences” exist between the two countries’ application of the doctrine. Other scholars, when comparing the two bodies of contract law, have commented that the Chinese Contract Law requirement of the good faith performance standard “parallels the [Uniform Commercial Code’s] requirement of good faith.” This article seeks to add to the current scholarship on the doctrine of good faith in China and the US by examining the doctrine in both countries from both a theoretical and practical perspective. This article concludes that the doctrine of good faith in China is anything but “identical” to its counterpart in the US.
A bioinformatic filter for improved base-call accuracy and polymorphism detection using the Affymetrix GeneChip® whole-genome resequencing platform

DNA resequencing arrays enable rapid acquisition of high-quality sequence data. This technology represents a promising platform for rapid high-resolution genotyping of microorganisms. Traditional array-based resequencing methods have relied on the use of specific PCR-amplified fragments from the query samples as hybridization targets. While this specificity in the target DNA population reduces the potential for artifacts caused by cross-hybridization, the subsampling of the query genome limits the sequence coverage that can be obtained and therefore reduces the technique's resolution as a genotyping method. We have developed and validated an Affymetrix Inc. GeneChip® array-based, whole-genome resequencing platform for Francisella tularensis, the causative agent of tularemia. A set of bioinformatic filters that targeted systematic base-calling errors caused by cross-hybridization between the whole-genome sample and the array probes and by deletions in the sample DNA relative to the chip reference sequence were developed. Our approach eliminated 91% of the false-positive single-nucleotide polymorphism calls identified in the SCHU S4 query sample, at the cost of 10.7% of the true positives, yielding a total base-calling accuracy of 99.992%.
Purine Mutants of Mammalian Cell Lines. I. Accumulation of Formylglycinamide Ribotide by Purine Mutants of Chinese Hamster Ovary Cells

Mutants unable to perform de novo biosynthesis of purines have been isolated from cultures of mutagen-treated Chinese hamster ovary cells using bromodeoxyuridine selection techniques. Accumulation of C14-labeled formylglycinamide ribotide by suspension cultures of mutant cells incubated with glycine-C14 suggested that the defect leading to auxotrophy most probably involves the gene coding for formylglycinamide amidotransferase, (E.C. 6.3, 5.3), the fourth enzyme in the de novo purine biosynthetic pathway. Direct assay of formylglycinamide amidotransferase activity in cell-free extracts prepared from mutant and parental cells has demonstrated the absence of amidotransferase activity in mutant derived extracts.
The tensile properties of a graphite-fiber-reinforced Al-Si alloy

Room temperature uniaxial tensile tests have shown that composites of an Al-13 wt pct Si alloy and Thornel 50 graphite fibers have strengths greater than a theoretical value that was calculated on the basis of the law of mixtures. At 28 vol pct fibers, the average uniaxial tensile strength was found to be 106,000 psi, and several values between 130,000 and 144,000 psi were obtained. The modes of deformation and failure in the composites have been studied by the microexamination of polished surfaces and fractures of tested specimens. The reasons for the high strengths and the unusual modes of fracture that were observed cannot be explained on the basis of the presented data. Specimens of the composite have been thermally cycled between −193° and +20°C twenty times and others between −193° and +500°C twenty times. Tensile tests and microexamination of these thermally cycled specimens show that thermal cycling does not degrade the tensile properties of the composites or change their microstructure.
Immigrants and Boomers

Harvest, reviewed here by Laura Maudlin, examines the social organization of the postmortality experience—in this case, the market for body parts. Finally Heather Johnson’s The American Dream and the Power of Wealth looks at American society from a different angle: how that strangely American amalgam of the hopes, ambitions, and ideas about social mobility we call ‘‘the American Dream’’ shapes American reactions to the shifts in concentration of wealth we have seen in recent decades. Reviewed here by Aaron Pallas, this book takes a look at the relationship between ideas about economic prosperity that are so deeply imbedded in American culture and today’s economic realities.
Expression of CD95(Fas) by gene transfer does not sensitize K562 to Fas-killing

CD95(Fas/Apo-1) belongs to the family of TNF receptor related molecules and is expressed on many benign and malignant types of cells. CD95 triggering is involved in the apoptotic death of lymphoid cells and may also be important in myelopoiesis. Myeloid leukemia cells are in most cases resistant to CD95 triggering despite expressing the antigen. We reasoned that myeloid leukemic cells can become sensitized to the Fas pathway of cell death if CD95 expression is restored by gene transfer. As a model, we utilized the cell line K562 which does not express CD95 on their cell surface. The gene for CD95 was introduced into K562 cells (by electroporation). As a control, the gene coding for s-galactosidase was used. The CD95 transfected K562 cells stably expressed CD95, and had a growth pattern comparable to untransfected cells, but still remained resistant to Fas-triggering (tested using recombinant Fas-ligand). Our experiment shows that antigen expression is not a critical determinant of Fas-mediated apoptosis, but further down-stream mechanisms determine the fate of the cells. The transfected cells also had a comparable susceptibility to NK-mediated lysis which shows that the expression of CD95 does not interfere with NK-mediated lysis of target cells.
Dominant Negative Selection of Heterologous Genes in Yeast

Abstract Expression of heterologous genes in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae often provides activities that interfere with the proper functioning of the endogenous yeast pathways. Such heterologous genes have been termed "dominant negative natural variant" genes. We constructed stable, highly pheromone-sensitive yeast strains to identify heterologous functions that interfere with the mating response pathway. Several genes were identified from the pathogenic yeast Candida albicans that interfered with the cell cycle arrest caused by pheromone treatment. Other investigators have identified mammalian cDNAs that interfere with Ras-mediated signal transduction in S. cerevisiae . Thus, screening for interfering activities provides an alternative to complementation as a method of identifying genes from organisms that are not as amenable to genetic analysis as yeast.
On Capacity Modeling for Production Planning with Alternative Machine Types

Analyzing the capacity of production facilities in which manufacturing operations may be performed by alternative machine types presents a seemingly complicated task. In typical enterprise-level production planning models, capacity limitations of alternative machine types are approximated in terms of some single artificial capacitated resource. In this paper we propose procedures for generating compact models that accurately characterize capacity limitations of alternative machine types. Assuming that processing times among alternative machine types are identical or proportional across operations they can perform, capacity limitations of the alternative machine types can be precisely expressed using a formulation that is typically not much larger than the basic linear programming formulation that does not admit alternative resource types. These results have important implications for industrial practice, suggesting that in the case that processing times are nearly proportional among alternatives, the prev...
The Use of Vegetable Oil as Fuel for Distributed Power Generation in Developing Countries

This study reports an ongoing effort to investigate the degradation rate of a low-speed Listeroid diesel engine running on filtered waste vegetable oil (WVO). It aims to measure the performance, wear rate, and emissions of the engine over the course of a 1,000 hour longevity test. In a consecutive arrangement, exhaust gas is used to heat the oil, reducing its viscosity close to that of diesel for the duration of the residence time in the fuel line. This reduces engine power loss, pumping losses, head losses, carbonization and coking, which ultimately increases longevity. When completed, the technical methods developed, data collected, lessons learned, and hardware used will all be incorporated into a manufacturable, stand-alone, cost-efficient, field conversion kit for the Listeroid engine. The results of this study will be beneficial in actualizing the widespread and practical use of WVO and straight vegetable oil (SVO) fuels in developing countries.Copyright © 2008 by ASME
Effects of fenofibrate on plasma oxidized LDL and 8-isoprostane in a sub-cohort of GOLDN participants

Background Fenofibrate significantly reduces circulating triglyceride (TG) concentrations, particularly in individuals with elevated levels. The purpose of the current study was to determine whether fenofibrate treatment reduces markers of oxidative stress, oxidized low density lipoprotein (ox-LDL) and 8-isoprostane (8-isoP), in a manner similar to TG where those with the highest levels show the greatest reductions.
Electrochemical surface science

Abstract Surface science at electrified interfaces, specifically those encountered in electrochemical problems, displays a rich variety of interesting phenomena and some surprising similarities to vacuum surface science. During the last 30 years research in this area has evolved from primarily electrical measurements to encompass a broader range of more powerful techniques. It is now possible to handle a sample under water with very well-defined conditions, thus opening the way to detailed understanding through close links between experiment and theory. This article sketches the development of electrochemical surface research from a macroscopic to a microscopic science.
Schedule effects of noncontingent reinforcement on attention-maintained destructive behavior in identical quadruplets.

Noncontingent reinforcement (NCR), a response-independent schedule for the delivery of reinforcement, has been found to be effective in reducing behavior when the reinforcer delivered is responsible for behavioral maintenance. In this study, dense and lean schedules of response-independent attention were compared to determine whether it is necessary to begin with a dense schedule before fading to a lean schedule, or whether treatment would be as effective using a lean schedule at the outset. The subjects were 5-year-old identical quadruplets diagnosed with mental retardation and pervasive developmental disorder who displayed destructive behavior that was maintained by social attention. NCR was selected partially because it is not very labor intensive and could be implemented by a single mother simultaneously with all 4 children. Using a combination multielement and multiple baseline design, it was found that (a) a dense schedule of response-independent reinforcement (i.e., fixed-time 10 s) resulted in immediate and dramatic reductions in destructive behavior with no evidence of an extinction burst, and (b) an equivalent reduction in destructive behavior was achieved with a lean schedule of response-independent reinforcement (fixed-time 5 min) only after a systematic fading procedure was implemented. The findings suggest that the effectiveness of NCR may be dependent on the use of a dense schedule initially, and that systematic fading can increase the effectiveness of a lean schedule.
Meaning Systems of Two Identity Concepts: Acadie versus Acadien

Until now, Acadie and its representations have always been determined in academia by those of the community’s elite—its leaders. Rarely has Acadie been described through the voices of its members. The first of its kind, this article is part of a larger study (ethnographic in nature) that seeks to understand the relation between the Acadian identity of the Canadian province of New Brunswick and the French language. To do so, the meanings, similarities and differences between the concepts of Acadie and Acadien are compared and contrasted through an analysis of ideological discourse within New Brunswick’s three French-speaking communities. In doing so, regional tendencies in the role of language in the Acadian identity emerge, illustrating that the common rhetoric of previous years used in the description of Acadie and the Acadiens as poorly composed, limited, and misrepresented.
Ignition of CO/H2/N2 versus heated air in counterflow: experimental and modeling results

Nonpremixed ignition in counterflowing CO/H{sub 2} vs. heated air jets is experimentally and computationally investigated. The experiments confirm the numerical modeling observation of the existence of three ignition regimes as a function of the hydrogen concentration. In all three regimes, the authors first detect experimentally the onset of chemiluminescent glow due to excited CO{sub 2} followed by flame ignition, as the temperature of the air jet is raised gradually. The temperature extent of the glow regime, however, is progressively reduced with increasing hydrogen addition; no glow is detected for H{sub 2} concentrations in excess of {approximately}73%. The temperatures for glow onset and flame ignition are represented by the boundary air temperatures for each threshold. The variation of these temperatures with system pressure and flow strain rate is explored, for pressures between 0.16 and 5 atm, and strain rates of 100 to 600 s{sup {minus}1}. The pressure variation is found to result in three p-T ignition limits, similar to the ignition limits observed in the H{sub 2}/O{sub 2} system. This similarity is also observed on the effects of aerodynamic transport on ignition: within the second limit the ignition temperatures are found to be essentially insensitive to flow strain rate, whereas themore » other two limits are significantly affected by strain. The transport insensitivity is maintained even in the limit of very low H{sub 2} concentrations, where an analogous H{sub 2}N{sub 2} mixture would fail to ignite. This behavior is explained computationally by the replacement of the shift reaction OH + H{sub 2} {yields} H{sub 2}O + H with the reaction CO + OH {yields} CO{sub 2} + H, thereby minimizing the effect of diminishing H{sub 2} concentration. The experimental data are found to agree well with the calculated results, although discrepancies are noted in modeling the onset of chemiluminescence and its response to pressure variations.« less