cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Interrogation of accrued damage and remaining life in field-deployed electronics subjected to multiple thermal environments of thermal aging and thermal cycling

Field deployed electronics may accrue damage due to environmental exposure and usage after finite period of service but may not often have any macro-indicators of failure such as cracks or delamination. A method to interrogate the damage state of field deployed electronics in the pre-failure space may allow insight into the damage initiation, progression, and remaining useful life of the deployed system. Aging has been previously shown to effect the reliability and constitutive behavior of second-level leadfree interconnects. Prognostication of accrued damage and assessment of residual life can provide valuable insight into impending failure. In this paper, field deployed parts have been extracted and prognosticated for accrued damage and remaining useful life in an anticipated future deployment environment. A subset of the field deployed parts have been tested to failure in the anticipated field deployed environment to validate the assessment of remaining useful life. In addition, some parts have been subjected to additional know thermo-mechanical stresses and the incremental damage accrued validated with respect to the amount of additional damage imposed on the assemblies. The presented methodology uses leading indicators of failure based on micro-structural evolution of damage to identify accrued damage in electronic systems subjected to sequential stresses of thermal aging and thermal cycling. Damage equivalency methodologies have been developed to map damage accrued in thermal aging to the reduction in thermo-mechanical cyclic life based on damage proxies. The expected error with interrogation of system state and assessment of residual life has been quantified. Prognostic metrics including a-X metric, sample standard deviation, mean square error, mean absolute percentage error, average bias, relative accuracy, and cumulative relative accuracy have been used to compare the performance of the damage proxies.
Urbanization as a major cause of biotic homogenization

Abstract When measured by extent and intensity, urbanization is one of the most homogenizing of all major human activities. Cities homogenize the physical environment because they are built to meet the relatively narrow needs of just one species, our own. Also, cities are maintained for centuries in a disequilibrium state from the local natural environment by the importation of vast resources of energy and materials. Consequently, as cities expand across the planet, biological homogenization increases because the same “urban-adaptable” species become increasingly widespread and locally abundant in cities across the planet. As urbanization often produces a local gradient of disturbance, one can also observe a gradient of homogenization. Synanthropic species adapted to intensely modified built habitats at the urban core are “global homogenizers”, found in cities worldwide. However, many suburban and urban fringe habitats are occupied by native species that become regionally widespread. These suburban adapters typically consist of early successional plants and “edge” animal species such as mesopredator mammals, and ground-foraging, omnivorous and frugivorous birds that can utilize gardens, forest fragments and many other habitats available in the suburbs. A basic conservation challenge is that urban biota is often quite diverse and very abundant. The intentional and unintentional importation of species adapted to urban habitats, combined with many food resources imported for human use, often produces local species diversity and abundance that is often equal to or greater than the surrounding landscape. With the important exception of low-income areas, urban human populations often inhabit richly cultivated suburban habitats with a relatively high local floral and faunal diversity and/or abundance without awareness of the global impoverishment caused by urbanization. Equally challenging is that, because so many urban species are immigrants adapting to city habitats, urbanites of all income levels become increasingly disconnected from local indigenous species and their natural ecosystems. Urban conservation should therefore focus on promoting preservation and restoration of local indigenous species.
GAARP: a power-aware GALS architecture for real-time algorithm-specific tasks

Reducing the energy consumption of a real-time system has emerged as an important design concern. In this paper, we propose GAARP, an adaptive scalable architecture targeted toward algorithm-specific tasks for just-in-time performance using the right amount of power. The architecture consists of Globally Asynchronous and Locally Synchronous (GALS) building blocks, where the processing hardware is realized by a set of smaller slices of similar structure, each running synchronously with independent clocks. We demonstrate that, for different real-time commercial applications with algorithm-specific jobs like online transaction processing, digital filtering, Fourier transform, etc., the proposed architecture allows dynamic load-balancing and adaptive intertask voltage scaling based on the load in each of the processing units. Compared to a synchronous implementation of the same functionality, we show that the proposed hardware can achieve higher efficiency in terms of power and performance by exploiting the flexibility to balance the load and change the supply voltage. The architecture also lends itself to process tolerance since it can detect process-shifts for the individual processing units and determine the appropriate operating voltage/frequency for each unit. Simulation results for two representative applications show that, for a modest system configuration and random job distribution, we obtain up to 67 percent improvement in MOPS/W (millions of operations per second per watt) over a fully synchronous implementation.
Marine reserves have rapid and lasting effects

Marine reserves are becoming a popular tool for marine conservation and resource management worldwide. In the past, reserves have been created with little understanding of how they actually affect the areas they are intended to protect. A few recent reviews have evaluated how reserves in general affect the density and biomass of organisms within them, but little work has been done to assess temporal patterns of these impacts. Here we review 112 independent measurements of 80 reserves to show that the higher average values of density, biomass, average organism size, and diversity inside reserves (relative to controls) reach mean levels within a short (1–3 y) period of time and that the values are subsequently consistent across reserves of all ages (up to 40 y). Therefore, biological responses inside marine reserves appear to develop quickly and last through time. This result should facilitate their use in the management of marine resources.
MeV gamma ray detection algorithms for stacked silicon detectors

By making use of the signature of a gamma ray event as it appears in a stack of N=5 to 20 lithium-drifted silicon detectors and applying smart selection algorithms, gamma rays in the energy range of 1 to 8 MeV can be detected with good efficiency and selectivity. Examples of the types of algorithms used for different energy regions include the simple sum mode, the sum-coincidence mode used in segmented detectors, unique variations of sum-coincidence for an N-dimensional vector event, and a new and extremely useful mode for double escape peak spectroscopy at pair-production energies. The latter algorithm yields a spectrum similar to that of the pair spectrometer, but without the need for the dual external segments for double escape coincidence, and without the large loss in efficiency of double escape events. Background events due to Compton scattering are largely suppressed. Monte Carlo calculations were used to model the gamma ray interactions in the silicon in order to enable testing of a wide array of different algorithms on the event N-vectors for a large-N stack. >
Fast number-theoretic transforms for digital filtering

A special number-theoretic transform that can be computed, using a high-radix fast Fourier transform, is defined on primes of the form (2n ? 1) 2n +1. Methods for finding these primes and the primitive dth roots of unity in a field modulo such primes are also included.
Assessing change with longitudinal and clustered binary data.

▪ Abstract Investigators often gather repeated measures on study subjects to directly measure how a subject's response changes with changes in explanatory variables. This paper focuses on several statistical issues related to assessing change with longitudinal and clustered binary data. Many popular approaches for analyzing repeated binary outcomes measure cross-sectional or between-subject, rather than within-subject, effects of covariates. The class of models known as cluster specific measures within-subject effects of covariates on responses but are subject to additional statistical complications. It is useful to decompose covariates into between- and within-cluster components. This paper describes several approaches that yield consistent estimates of the within-subject covariate effects of interest. Example data from three studies illustrate the results.
Night temperature and source-sink effects on overall growth, cell number and cell size in bell pepper ovaries.

Background and Aims Ovary swelling, and resultant fruit malformation, in bell pepper flowers is favoured by low night temperature or a high source–sink ratio. However, the interaction between night temperature and source–sink ratio on ovary swelling and the contribution of cell size and cell number to ovary swelling are unknown. The present research examined the interactive effects of night temperature and source–sink ratio on ovary size, cell number and cell size at anthesis in bell pepper flowers.
Novel Near-Field Microwave and Millimeter Wave Differential Probe Using a Dual-Modulated Single Aperture

A novel differential probe design is introduced in this paper for near-field microwave and millimeter wave non-destructive testing (NDT) and imaging applications. In such applications, the variations in the distance between the probing antenna and the structure under inspection, i.e., standoff distance, can potentially mask the signal of interest, and hence, adversely impact the detection capability of the probe. Differential near-field probes and compensation methods were developed in the past to null out the standoff distance variation effect from the measured signal. The available methods, however, suffer from some limitations such as using two balanced apertures or offering limited range of compensation. While the differential probe proposed here exhibits an excellent immunity against standoff distance variation, it overcomes the limitations of the aforementioned methods. The proposed probe is based on electronically modulating the aperture of a rectangular waveguide using PIN diode-loaded dipoles placed symmetrically in the aperture region. It will be shown that the adverse effect of standoff distance variation can be eliminated, or otherwise, significantly reduced by non-coherently subtracting the signals measured at two different aperture modulation states.
Syntheses with stable isotopes: Thymine‐2,6‐13C2

A three-step synthesis of thymlne-2,6-13C2 from urea-13C, sodium cyanide-13C, and α-bromopropionic acid is described. The last reaction involves hydrogenation of α-cyano-13C-propionylurea-13C in aqueous acetic acid and produces thymine-2,6-13C2 in 50–60% yield. The mechanism of this reaction is discussed.
Satellite remote sensing of primary production

Leaf structure and function are shown to result in distinctive variations in the absorption and reflection of solar radiation from plant canopies. The leaf properties that determine the radiation-interception characteristics of plant canopies are directly linked to photosynthesis, stomatal resistance and evapotranspiration and can be inferred from measurements of reflected solar energy. The effects of off-nadir viewing and atmospheric constituents, coupled with the need to measure changing surface conditions, emphasize the need for multitemporal measurements of reflected radiation if primary production is to be estimated.
A 2.4-GHz LC-Tank VCO with Minimum Supply Pushing Regulation Technique

Design of low drop-out (LDO) supply regulated 2.4 GHz low phase noise LC-tank voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) is presented. Low-frequency supply noise sensitivity of the VCO phase noise is derived, and output noise and power supply rejection (PSR) profile of the LDO is optimized for minimum supply pushing. The LDO PSR and output noise is optimized by shaping the LDO AC response and tuning the equivalent-series resistance (ESR) of the bypass capacitor, while achieving maximum LDO current efficiency. To verify the results, two 2.4 GHz LC-tank VCOs, with a PMOS and an NMOS switching pair respectively with associated PMOS supply regulators are designed and fabricated in a 0.18 mum, 7-layer metal CMOS process. The implemented VCOs achieve less than 95 dBc/Hz phase noise at 100 kHz offset with a current consumption of 2.2 mA. By utilizing the proposed regulator AC loop shaping, the VCO phase noise sensitivity to supply noise is improved by 30 dB for offset frequency up to 10 MHz with no phase noise peaking.
Implementing community-based provider participation in research: an empirical study

Since 2003, the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH) has sought to restructure the clinical research enterprise in the United States by promoting collaborative research partnerships between academically-based investigators and community-based physicians. By increasing community-based provider participation in research (CBPPR), the NIH seeks to advance the science of discovery by conducting research in clinical settings where most people get their care, and accelerate the translation of research results into everyday clinical practice. Although CBPPR is seen as a promising strategy for promoting the use of evidence-based clinical services in community practice settings, few empirical studies have examined the organizational factors that facilitate or hinder the implementation of CBPPR. The purpose of this study is to explore the organizational start-up and early implementation of CBPPR in community-based practice. We used longitudinal, case study research methods and an organizational model of innovation implementation to theoretically guide our study. Our sample consisted of three community practice settings that recently joined the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) Community Clinical Oncology Program (CCOP) in the United States. Data were gathered through site visits, telephone interviews, and archival documents from January 2008 to May 2011. The organizational model for innovation implementation was useful in identifying and investigating the organizational factors influencing start-up and early implementation of CBPPR in CCOP organizations. In general, the three CCOP organizations varied in the extent to which they achieved consistency in CBPPR over time and across physicians. All three CCOP organizations demonstrated mixed levels of organizational readiness for change. Hospital management support and resource availability were limited across CCOP organizations early on, although they improved in one CCOP organization. As a result of weak IPPs, all three CCOPs created a weak implementation climate. Patient accrual became concentrated over time among those groups of physicians for whom CBPPR exhibited a strong innovation-values fit. Several external factors influenced innovation use, complicating and enriching our intra-organizational model of innovation implementation. Our results contribute to the limited body of research on the implementation of CBPPR. They inform policy discussions about increasing and sustaining community clinician involvement in clinical research and expand on theory about organizational determinants of implementation effectiveness.
A 50-Year-Old Woman With Bilateral Vocal Cord Paralysis and Hilar Mass

(CHEST 2005; 128:1028–1031) A 50-year-old, white woman presented with a 5-month history of failure to thrive and hoarseness. The patient described a progressive decline in her voice, resulting in inability to speak. Concurrently, dysphagia, nausea, and alternating episodes of diarrhea and constipation developed, which resulted in the loss of 35 lb. Vertigo and dizziness became so severe that the patient was eventually unable to stand without falling. She also described headaches, anxiety attacks, an inability to move her eyes, and loss of visual acuity. The patient presented to an outside hospital where otolaryngologic evaluation revealed bilateral vocal cord paralysis. The patient underwent tracheostomy, and a gastrostomy tube was placed for severe weight loss. The patient was transferred to our institution for further evaluation. During the 4 years prior to her hospitalization, the patient had been seen for multiple somatic and psychiatric complaints, including paresthesias, intermittent vertigo, anxiety, and depression. Based on serologic markers and the presence of mediastinal adenopathy on chest radiography, the patient received a diagnosis of sarcoidosis and/or lupus. The patient’s other medical history was significant for congestive heart failure, hypertension, and gastroesophageal reflux disease. The patient had a 100-pack-year history of tobacco use. She had no occupational exposures or pets. The patient’s family history was remarkable for a mother with breast cancer and a grandfather with colon cancer. On physical examination, the patient’s supine BP was 114/74 mm Hg with a pulse of 74 beats/min. Her upright BP was 90/62 mm Hg, with a pulse rate of 85 beats/min. Her temperature was 37.2°C, respiratory rate was 16 breaths/min, and oxygen saturation was 92% on 1Lo foxygen. Generally, the patient appeared cachectic, chronically ill, and older than her stated age. The pupils were accommodating but nearly unreactive to light. There were three to four beats of vertical nystagmus. The patient had marked temporal wasting and tongue fasciculations. There were no oral lesions or cervical, occipital, or supraclavicular lymphadenopathy. A tracheostomy was in place. The lung fields had poor air exchange, and occasional wheezes were heard. The heart examination revealed regular rate and rhythm without murmurs, rubs, or gallops. The abdomen was remarkable for the presence of a gastrostomy tube and was diffusely tender and slightly distended without hepatomegaly. Neurologic examination was remarkable for global proximal muscle weakness (4/5) and pathologically brisk patellar, biceps, and brachioradialis reflexes. The patient had mild dysmetria. She had normal tone, normal sensation to pin prick, and down-going toes bilaterally. Laboratory examination revealed a hemoglobin of 9.9 g/dL (normal range, 12.0 to 15.5 g/dL), mean cell volume of 100 femtoliters (normal, 80 to 98 femto
ESP: a driving interface for Expression Synthesis

In the Expression Synthesis Project (ESP), we propose a driving interface for expression synthesis. ESP aims to provide a compelling metaphor for expressive performance so as to make high-level expressive decisions accessible to non-experts. In ESP, the user drives a car on a virtual road that represents the music with its twists and turns; and makes decisions on how to traverse each part of the road. The driver's decisions affect in real-time the rendering of the piece. The pedals and wheel provide a tactile interface for controlling the car dynamics and musical expression, while the display portrays a first person view of the road and dashboard from the driver's seat. This game-like interface allows non-experts to create expressive renderings of existing music without having to master an instrument, and allows expert musicians to experiment with expressive choice without having to first master the notes of the piece. The prototype system has been tested and refined in numerous demonstrations. This paper presents the concepts underlying the ESP system and the architectural design and implementation of a prototype.
Negotiating a Fair Value under Accounting Uncertainty: A Laboratory Experiment

ABSTRACT: Using two free-communication bargaining games, this study examines bargaining behavior in a setting analogous to one in which a manager and a verifier negotiate a fair value for an asset over a range of possible values. In the renewable-contract game, the manager and the verifier are allowed to form a long-term relationship and are offered mutually beneficial payoffs. In the one-period contract game, the negotiation pair has to part after each negotiation and the verifier’s payoff does not rely upon the cooperation from the manager. The results show a 90 percent agreement rate for the renewable-contract game and a 65 percent agreement rate for the one-period contract game. The terms of agreement in the renewable-contract (one-period contract) game favor the manager (verifier), resulting in agreed-upon values overstating (understating) actual asset values. Additional analyses suggest that the fair value context affects bargaining behavior in some unique ways. The results of this study have broad ...
Molecular filter-based diagnostics in high speed flows

The use of iodine molecular filters in nonintrusive planar velocimetry methods is examined. Detailed absorption profiles are obtained to highlight the effects that determine the profile shape. It is shown that pressure broadening induced by the presence of a nonabsorbing vapor can be utilized to significantly change the slopes bounding the absorbing region while remaining in the optically-thick regime.
A COMPLETE ALGORITHM FOR SEARCHLIGHT SCHEDULING

This article develops an algorithm for a group of guards statically positioned in a nonconvex polygonal environment with holes. Each guard possesses a single searchlight, a ray sensor which can rotate about the guard’s position but cannot penetrate the boundary of the environment. A point is detected by a searchlight if and only if the point is on the ray at some instant. Targets are points which move arbitrarily fast. The objective of the proposed algorithm is to compute a schedule to rotate a set of searchlights in such a way that any target in an environment will necessarily be detected in finite time. This is known as the Searchlight Scheduling Problem and was described originally in 1990 by Sugihara et al. We take an approach known as exact cell decomposition in the motion planning literature. The algorithm operates by decomposing the searchlights’ joint configuration space and the environment, and then by constructing a so-called information graph. Searching the information graph for a path between desired states yields a search schedule. We also introduce a new problem called the φ-Searchlight Scheduling Problem in which φ-searchlights sense not just along a ray, but over a finite field of view. We show that our results for searchlight scheduling can be directly extended for φ-searchlight scheduling. Proofs of completeness, complexity bounds, and computed examples are presented.
Carmen Montana, the General Education Diploma, and her Social Network

This case study focuses on the experience of a Black woman who returned to school for her General Education Diploma (ged) certificate after 32 years away from formal schooling. Through the reflections of Montana and her social network, six women who supported her during and after the ged exam, we are able to see the way in which Montana changes the network and herself over time. We are also able to see some of the ways in which Montana positively affects her children and husband through her pursuit of the ged. The 11 interviews reveal the themes of improved literacy skills, heightened confidence, community activism, and youth leadership, as Montana circulates in her community and congregation a year after the ged. It is also possible to glean from the study the kind of opportunities that adult literacy educators may create by involving a students social network in the active support of increased literacy skills at the ged level.
Supreme Court Brief of Dr. Ananda Chakrabarty as Amicus Curiae in Support of Petitioners in Bilski

The Court should reject the Federal Circuit’s new, restrictive approach to patent eligibility because it is in conflict with the statute, the precedents of this Court, and sound public policy. The Federal Circuit’s narrow interpretation of patent eligibility strikes first at excluding patents in the area of business methods and software, in direct conflict with the Court’s decision in Diehr. Worse still, the Federal Circuit’s approach could easily cast a pall over all method claims in other areas of technology. Given the long established links between the eligibility rules for software and biotech, it is likely to spread its tentacles to biotech in particular, thereby undermining the huge boost that the Court’s decision in Chakrabarty gave to bioscience. Furthermore, the Federal Circuit’s approach will have a profound adverse effect on the public’s ability to benefit from Dr. Chakrabarty’s own research.
A new allele of the duplicated 27kD zein locus of maize generated by homologous recombination

The 27kD zein storage protein locus in many inbred lines of maize consists of a tandem duplication of 12kb, with an expressed gene in each repeat, termed A and B. A single-copy allele with only the A gene can be generated from this duplication in particular stocks of the maize inbred line A188 by a mitotic process that includes a crossover at the 3' regions of the two genes (1). Here, we characterize a second single-copy allele with only the B gene, found in different stocks of A188. This allele arises from a homologous recombination at the highly conserved 5' regions of the two repeats, and cloning and sequencing of this allele define the crossover region. The A and B genes in the duplicated allele were previously shown to be expressed at different levels; this difference remains unchanged in either recombinant allele. Therefore, the crossover points of these two recombinant alleles define the borders of cis-acting sequences responsible for the differential expression of the two genes.
Replacing pixel representations by point-function schemes for reducing discretization error in ill-posed remote sensing problems, with examples from cloud tomography

Because of their simplicity and low computational cost, discretizations based on pixels have held sway in remote sensing since its inception. Yet functional representations are clearly superior in many applications, for example when combining retrievals from dissimilar remote sensing instruments. Using cloud tomography as an example, this letter shows that a point-function discretization scheme based on linear interpolation can reduce retrieval error of cloud water content up to 40% compared to a conventional pixel scheme. This improvement is particularly marked because cloud tomography, like the vast majority of remote sensing problems, is ill-posed and thus a small inaccuracy in the formulation of the retrieval problem, such as discretization error, can cause a large error in the retrievals.
Antiepileptic Hypersensitivity Syndrome in Children

OBJECTIVE:To assess clinical features and outcomes of childhood antiepileptic hypersensitivity syndrome (AHS). AHS is an idiosyncratic reaction to aromatic anticonvulsants that can result in severe multiorgan dysfunction and death.METHODS:Children with suspected AHS (fever, rash, lymphadenopathy, liver dysfunction) were identified by an in-house computerized adverse drug event reporting system. The medical charts of children with suspected AHS were reviewed. A MEDLINE search (from 1966 to October 1999) was performed using the term antiepileptic hypersensitivity syndrome.RESULTS:Fourteen of 36 children who experienced a rash, urticaria, pruritus, fever, or hepatotoxicity associated with aromatic anticonvulsants met the criteria for AHS (mean age 10.4 ± 6.5 y; males to females 8:6, white to African-American to biracial 10:3:1). Eight patients were receiving phenytoin, six carbamazepine, and four phenobarbital alone or in combination. The mean time from exposure to development of symptoms was 23.0 ± 14.8 day...
1‐Methyl‐2(1H)‐pyridinethione

[2044-27-1] C6H7NS (MW 125.21) InChI = 1S/C6H7NS/c1-7-5-3-2-4-6(7)8/h2-5H,1H3 InChIKey = UHOAUPKGWPQNDM-UHFFFAOYSA-N (sulfur transfer; carbonyl activation) Physical Data: pale yellow leaflets; mp 89–90 °C. Preparative Method: prepared in 80–90% yield from commercially available 1-methyl-2(1H)-pyridone by treatment with Phosphorus(III) Iodide at 130 °C for 4–5 h. Purification: crystallization from water.1, 2
Guest Editorial Note

The Great Recession may have officially ended in June of 2009 according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, but for the most vulnerable among us—the homeless, jobless, hungry, disabled, an...
Nerve Sparing Clitoroplasty is an Option for Adolescent and Adult Female Patients with Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia and Clitoral Pain following Prior Clitoral Recession or Incomplete Reduction

Purpose: In the past many female patients with congenital adrenal hyperplasia and atypical genitalia were surgically treated with clitoral recession or incomplete reduction of erectile bodies. We report the results of repeat clitoral surgery performed for clitoral pain or enlargement using a nerve sparing reduction clitoroplasty technique.Materials and Methods: We identified 6 female patients with congenital adrenal hyperplasia who had undergone prior clitoral recession or incomplete reduction elsewhere. They then presented to our center with clitoral pain or enlargement, where they were treated with nerve sparing clitoroplasty between 2000 and 2010. We collected patient reported data relating to clitoral sensation and sexual function outcomes.Results: Mean ± SD age at evaluation for repeat clitoral surgery was 21 ± 7 years and mean age at clitoroplasty was 22 ± 8 years. Median postoperative followup was 9 months (IQR 32–6). All patients showed improvement with resolution of clitoral pain or enlargement.C...
False-Positive Elevations of Carcinoembryonic Antigen in Patients With a History of Resected Colorectal Cancer

Routine monitoring of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) levels is standard in patients with resected colorectal cancer (CRC). The incidence of false-positives and the upper limits of false-positive elevations have not been previously well characterized. A search of medical records at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center identified 728 patients who underwent an R0 resection of locoregional CRC between January 2003 and December 2012 and who had an increase in CEA level above the normal range after a normal perioperative CEA level. Of these, 358 had a false-positive elevation of CEA level, 335 had a true-positive elevation indicative of recurrent CRC, and 35 had a true-positive elevation indicative of the development of a new, non-CRC malignancy. Of those with false elevations, 111 had a single isolated CEA level elevation (median highest CEA level of 5.5 ng/mL) with no further abnormal measurements, whereas 247 had elevations on 2 or more readings, with a median highest level of 6.7 ng/mL. Of these 247 patients with confirmed false-positive CEA level elevations, only 5 (2%) had measurements greater than 15 ng/mL, and no confirmed elevation greater than 35 ng/mL was a false-positive. False-positive CEA test results in the range of 5 to 15 ng/mL are common. Confirmation of CEA elevation in this range before initiating imaging studies may be appropriate. False-positive results greater than 15 ng/mL are rare, and all confirmed CEA levels greater than 35 ng/mL were associated with cancer recurrence.
Hypoxia enhances a cGMP-independent nitric oxide relaxing mechanism in pulmonary arteries.

Nitric oxide (NO) donors generally relax vascular preparations through cGMP-mediated mechanisms. Relaxation of endothelium-denuded bovine pulmonary arteries (BPA) and coronary arteries to the NO do...
The Influence of Some Environmental Factors Upon the Thermal Resistance of Bacterial Spores

The study of these external factors in their relation to the thermal resistance of spores has received comparatively little attention in the literature and many of the published papers on the subject are controversial. Aside from its purely theoretical interest a better understanding of the causes of heat resistance in spores is of fundamental importance to the canning industry for it is the relatively few spores exceptionally endowed with heat-resisting properties which account for most of the spoilage losses. In the light of all published studies dealing with spore-resistance, it seems reasonable to assume that heredity, environment, or a combination of these factors, may all play some part in the production of highly resistant spores. The present work is limited to a study of the relationship between certain phases of bacterial environment and the heat-resistance of spores. The organisms used were B. cereus and an aerobic spore former isolated from spoiled evaporated milk. The latter organism is referred to as Nc in the tables. The spores were produced on infusion agar slopes. After two or three weeks' incubation the growth was washed off with sterile distilled water, filtered through cotton and washed three times by centrifugation at high speed. Final suspension was made in distilled water. The suspensions were standardized by the use of a Petroff-Hausser counting chamber so as to contain 1 million spores per ml. If microscopic examination revealed the presence of spore clumps, these were broken up by vigorous shaking with sterile, washed sea sand. When the latter procedure was followed in one of a series all the test suspensions in this series were subjected to the same treat-
Flight Behavior of Corn Earworm (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) Moths Under Low Wind Speed Conditions

Studies were conducted to develop technologies to observe movement behavior, within range of visual observation (≤100 m above ground level), of newly emerged Helicoverpa zea (Boddie) adults and to describe the flight behavior of moths from 6 age or previous activity categories. Moths were released and tracked using a 4-wheel all terrain vehicle, night vision equipment, and auxiliary infrared lighting. Movement, flight behavior, and weather parameters were recorded as moths moved from the take-off site. Observations at Lane, OK, during 1988 indicated that moths tracked on the night after emergence were observable longer than other moth categories. Moths released 1 and 2 nights after emergence were lost primarily because of altitude (> 100 m above ground level). Shortly after take-off, moths exhibited spiral flight up to a mean altitude of ≍50 m, and female moths ascended at a sharper angle and faster than males. Subsequently, the angle and rate of ascent decreased and relatively straight, more oriented flight was assumed. Differences in means of observed moth and calculated moth velocity indicated moths were heading crosswise or even into the wind to counter drift (crabbing) during flight. The moths crabbed positively (mean = 8l.8 ± 18.4) to east-northeast winds on 1 night and negatively (mean = −134.2 ± 19.1) to east-southeast winds on another night to obtain a preferred direction to the west. Plots of crab angles with respect to wind speeds suggest that orientation of the moths became increasingly upwind with increasing wind speed. Changes in crab angles with respect to wind speed indicated that there was less variation among crab angles as wind speed increased.
Teaching Courses for an Engineering Student Abroad in Iraq

A student soldier assigned to go overseas was able to continue his education while abroad by taking key courses in an engineering program online. Using a course management system (CMS) software package and the internet, the courses were taught online in parallel with the normal semester courses. Generally, students take a leave of absence from the university when deployed with the military. This time away from study (called a “stopout”) lengthens the time required to complete a degree program. However, sometimes it will actually preclude the completion of the program. Offering these distance learning courses was an effort to avoid that outcome. The tools included in the CMS allowed for the exchange of information and assignments in support of guided self-study. The faculty were able to control the student access to the information to maintain course integrity. The result has generally been satisfactory, however possible improvements are discussed.© 2005 ASME
Envisioning the Invisible: Nonstate Actors in International Affairs

Post-Treaty Politics: Secretariat Influence in Global Environmental Governance . By Sikina Jinnah. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2014. 272 pp., $26.00 (paperback), ISBN-13: 978-0-262-52655-5. An exciting, growing body of work demonstrates that nonstate actors matter in international affairs. This work surmounts significant obstacles: states and their coercive powers are conspicuous, but nonstate actors and their softer powers are subtler, at times almost invisible. And some nonstate actors—such as people working within the secretariats of intergovernmental organizations (IGOs)—prize invisibility (Mathiason 2007). In Post-Treaty Politics , Sikina Jinnah examines secretariats of environmental treaties to pierce both the state-centric assumptions of international relations and the invisibility of international bureaucrats. Recognizing not only the importance but also the limitations of state-based explanations in international affairs, she seeks conditions under which secretariats are likely to influence political outcomes (Bierman and Siebenhuber 2009). She proposes two entwined conditions: state preferences are weakly solidified (for example, because states disagree about what should be done) and secretariat functions enjoy low substitutability (for example, because the secretariat possesses specialized expertise). If both factors are in place, secretariats have the greatest likelihood of altering power relations between states by shaping ideas, relationships, and institutions. Cleverly, these conditions incorporate and circumvent demands of state-centrism, for influence can exist even if secretariats do not oppose states’ interests or thwart states’ plans. Rather, their influence includes shaping the ways in which states understand their own interests or altering the context in which states interact (Johnson 2014). By promoting particular norms, rebalancing states’ relative capabilities, or designing new rules and institutions, secretariats … tana.johnson{at}duke.edu
Correlation between Cold Tolerance and Main Traits of Weedy Rice Offspring

By using F2 systems obtained from long red arista weedy rice crosses Longjing 11 rice cultivars,the genetic variability of the cold tolerance at the booting stages of weedy rice filial generation and its correlation with cold-water response index(CRI) of several main agronomic traits were analysed.The results showed that the cold tolerance at the booting stages of F2 system showed near-normal continuous distribution,which was controlled by multiple quantitative trait genes.Weedy rice had a unresponsive response to the cold water,and the advantage lied in high seed setting rate,strong high spike rate and fast ripening under cold water irrigation.Through the use of weedy rice,the generation materials for stronger cold tolerance could be selected at the booting stages.In cold tolerance breeding,the traits of higher narrow-sense heritability as plant height,grain weight and seed setting rate in cold water irrigation,etc.It was easy to expect from the offspring by the choice of parents,low generation selection was effective.The plant height of materials was unresponsive in cold-water response,generally the setting rate and panicle neck length of the cold response was unresponsive too;peduncle long of materials was unresponsive in cold-water response,generally its setting rate was unresponsive too.On traits selection of cold tolerance breeding,while we focused on high seed setting rate,we should pay attention to selecting combination and single plant,its plant height and panicle neck length had higher cold water response index.
Effects of reducing river flow on pulse residence time in Little Manatee River, USA

Residence time is an important indicator for river environmental management. In this paper, a 3D hydrodynamic model has been successfully applied to Little Manatee River to characterize the mixing and transport process and residence time. The model employs horizontal curvilinear orthogonal grids to represent the complex river system that consists of branches and bayous. The model has been satisfactorily calibrated and verified by using two continuous data sets. The data sets consist of hourly observations of all forcing boundaries, including freshwater inputs, tides, winds, salinity and temperatures at bay boundary, and air temperatures for model simulations. The data sets also consist of hourly observations of water levels, salinity, and temperature at several river stations. The calibrated and verified hydrodynamic model was used to predict residence time in the Little Manatee River. Under the minimum flow of 0.312 m3/s, the pulse residence time (PRT) is 108 days. Model simulations were also conducted for 17 flow scenarios. Empirical regression equations have been satisfactorily derived to correlate PRT to freshwater inflow. Correlation coefficient R2 is 0.982 for PRT.
Corneal topography and optical zone location in photorefractive keratectomy

Optical zone diameters in photorefractive keratectomy are small in order to minimize the depth of stromal tissue excision and, possible, the resultant stromal scarring. A small optical zone demands accurate placement on the corneal surface. This article reviews the principles that are important to location and measurement of the optical zone in photorefractive keratectomy. The ablated area should be centered on the cornea overlying the entrance pupil while the patient is fixating coaxially with the surgeon. An optical zone that is too small or decentered may decrease acuity, lessen contrast sensitivity, or produce glare, either on the fovea or on the perifoveal retina. The relationship between optical zone size and location and quality of vision is not yet known. Studies of this relationship will require videokeratography to locate the optical zone and its relationship to the entrance pupil, a capability that current videokeratoscopes do not possess.
The use of cannabis in the Federal Republic of Germany

Since more than 30 years cannabis is the most common illicit drug in Germany and other European countries. According to different Studies conducted in representative community samples, it can be assumed, that every fifth woman and about every third man, aged 18 to 59 years had used cannabis at least once. Epidemiologic studies also show that cannabis use is strongly associated with adolescence and young adulthood, though. Thus, cannabis consumption significantly increases from age 15, while beginning with the age 23 the proportion of cannabis consumers continuously decreases. Following the results of current studies the majority of consumers uses cannabis rather occasional. Nevertheless about 10-15% of the current consumers show patterns of cannabis dependence according to international diagnostic criteria. Although counselling centres note an increasing demand for addiction specific treatment, cannabis users still remain a small group in treatment centre statistics.
William Ellis as Economic Popularizer

While Henry Brougham played a major role in the education of the adult middle class, it was William Ellis who developed and implemented a plan to popularize classical economic ideas among middle-and working-class children. Though Ellis was the only classical economist to seriously attempt such a plan, today he is hardly remembered for this work. The few references to Ellis in current literature relate almost exclusively to his early contributions to the Westminster Review. His most significant contribution to economics, however, was his effort to popularize economic ideas through his Birkbeck schools. This chapter examines these efforts in more detail, assesses the impact of his schools and explores the reasons his attempts to popularize economic ideas have been largely overlooked.
Communication Skills and Childhood Peer Relationships: An Overview

(1986). Communication Skills and Childhood Peer Relationships: An Overview. Annals of the International Communication Association: Vol. 9, Communication Yearbook 9, pp. 143-180.
A role for Bcl-2 ongogene in modulating angiogenesis in prostate cancer

B163 We previously demonstrated that Bcl-2 overexpression enhances the resistance of PC-3 human prostate cancer cells to radiation by inhibiting apoptosis, increasing proliferation and inhibiting angiogenesis. To further elucidate the relationship between Bcl-2 expression and the angiogenic potential of the PC-3-Bcl-2 cell line, we evaluated whether Bcl-2 could be involved in not only tumorigenicity but angiogenesis as well. Bcl-2 overexpressing clone and a control transfected clone were used for in vitro and in vivo experiments. Bcl-2 overexpression enhanced the tumorigenic ability of prostate cancer xenografts, enhanced the expression and secretion of key angiogenic factors which stimulated synthesis of neovasculature (as evident by CD31 immunohistochemical staining). Specifically, the increased angiogenic potential was correlated with increased serum levels of bFGF, IL-8, and MMP-9. In vitro analysis demonstrated Bcl-2 expressing tumors to be resistant to rapamycin induced apoptosis and to secrete bFGF into culture supernatant. Microarray analysis of Bcl-2 expressing PC-3 prostate cancer cells demonstrated increased transcription of genes involved in metabolism, regulators of biologic processes, and transport factors which included interleukins, growth factors, TNF family, and peptidases. These results demonstrate that Bcl-2 overexpression can regulate tumoral angiogenesis. Targeted therapy directed at Bcl-2 expression and angiogenesis may act synergistically to modulate tumor growth. Hence this work validates Bcl-2 role in tumorigenicity and angiogenesis and support our notion that Bcl-2 is an important target in cancer therapy.
Single-strand Breaks, Strand Exchanges and Mutations in Nucleic Acid Replication

The proposal that replication of double-strand nucleic acid occurs in the stem of the Y-shaped replication fork, rather than at the juncture of the arms with the stem, has consequences that will show up in genetic experiments.