cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Unfinished Business: Otto Pflanze's Biography of Bismarck

to be more enduring than the first volume of Bismarck and the Development of Germany by Otto Pflanze. The book has received, as it has deserved, glowing reviews from the critics. They have stressed the skillful and reliable use of a massive documentation; the economy and clarity of style; the excellent introductory summary of "the Bismarck problem"; the deft interweaving of foreign and domestic affairs; the admirably lucid recounting of such complex controversies as the Schleswig-Holstein affair and the Hohenzollern candidacy; and the disabused yet understanding portrait of Bismarck as a man and a statesman. This is history conceived on a grand scale and executed with an expert hand. Pflanze cannot be said to have a simplistic central thesis about the period of unification; rather, he develops throughout the volume a leitmotiv which he identifies as "the strategy of alternatives." Bismarck was never one to mistake probability for inevitability, or to pursue a single purpose without recognizing a multitude of possibilities. As Pflanze puts it, Bismarck's favorite garment was a reversible overcoat, not a straitjacket. Whereas so many biographers have discoursed at length about Bismarck's objectives, Pflanze concentrates on his technique. The key to Bismarck's diplomacy as well as his politics, Pflanze argues, lay in his method?a method so subtle and flexible as to exclude in advance an unalterable commitment to definite goals. At each crucial moment up to and including 1870 Bismarck had "more than one pos? sibility in view." Pflanze is not the first to suggest such an interpretation, but he has illustrated it more thoroughly and more convincingly than ever before.
The C-terminal Domain of the Largest Subunit of RNA Polymerase II Is Required for Stationary Phase Entry and Functionally Interacts with the Ras/PKA Signaling Pathway

The Saccharomyces cerevisiae Ras proteins control cell growth by regulating the activity of the cAMP-dependent protein kinase (PKA). In this study, a genetic approach was used to identify cellular processes that were regulated by Ras/PKA signaling activity. Interestingly, we found that mutations affecting the C-terminal domain (CTD), of Rpb1p, the largest subunit of RNA polymerase II, were very sensitive to changes in Ras signaling activity. The Rpb1p CTD is a highly conserved, repetitive structure that is a key site of control during the production of a mature mRNA molecule. We found that mutations compromising the CTD were synthetically lethal with alterations that led to elevated levels of Ras/PKA signaling. Altogether, the data suggested that Ras/PKA activity was negatively regulating a protein that functioned in concert with the CTD during RNA pol II transcription. Consistent with this prediction, we found that elevated levels of Ras signaling caused growth and transcription defects that were very similar to those observed in mutants encoding an Rpb1p with a truncated CTD. In all, these data suggested that S. cerevisiae growth control and RNA pol II transcription might be coupled by using the Ras pathway to regulate CTD function.
Counter-ion effects in partition chromatography

Abstract The inorganic counter-ion of an ion-exchange resin affects retention of organic solutes in several ways, such as the formation of co-ordination complexes, ion-dipole interaction, ionic hydration and hydrogen bonding. To study these effects the retention of sugars and sugar alcohols, amino acids and hydroxy acids has been measured on a column of polystyrene-based cation-exchange resin, carrying these counter-ions: Li + , K + , Ca 2+ , La 3+ . The eluent was water or, in some cases, a salt solution. To correlate retention with complex stability the solubility of calcium sulfate was measured in solutions of the ligands mannitol, sorbitol, glycine, α- and β-alanine. We concluded that the calcium complexes are about as stable in the ion-exchange resin as in aqueous solution.
Comparative effectiveness of surgical interventions aimed at treating underlying venous pathology in patients with chronic venous ulcer

Objective Chronic venous ulcers (CVUs) remain the leading causes for nonhealing wounds in the lower extremities. Although multilayer compression dressing remains the treatment gold standard, there are various surgical procedures aimed at healing CVUs with little or no evidence on the efficacy of these treatment methods. We conducted a systematic review of the effects of various surgical treatments for CVUs, in terms of ulcer healing rates, complete time to heal, recurrence rates, mortality, pain, and quality of life. Methods We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, the Cochrane Central Register for Controlled Trials, and the Cumulative Index for Nursing and Allied Health Literature databases from January 1980 through July 2012. We included studies that compared a surgical procedure with multilayer compression therapy or another surgical procedure among patients with CVUs. We also included studies without a comparison group if they were of sufficient quality. Two independent reviewers screened titles, abstracts, and articles for eligibility. Two reviewers extracted data on study design, applicability, results, and quality. Results We identified 10,676 citations, of which 22 studies (23 publications) were included. Eight studies (six randomized controlled trials, two cohorts) compared a surgical procedure with compression. Fourteen studies evaluated different surgical interventions. Adding superficial vein ligation and stripping to compression did not improve wound-healing rate. However, the recurrence rate was 50% reduced when surgery corrected the underlying superficial venous pathology (moderate to high strength of evidence [SOE]). Adding subfascial endoscopic perforator surgery with superficial vein surgery to compression does not improve the healing rate of venous ulcers or reduce the recurrence rate except for medial and large ulcers (high SOE). The SOE was insufficient to support a conclusion about the effects of sclerotherapy when added to compression in healing CVUs. There was insufficient evidence on the surgical treatment of CVUs secondary to deep venous reflux and venous obstruction. We are unable to draw conclusions about the effects of surgical procedures on mortality, pain, and quality of life. Conclusions Our ability to draw conclusions on most surgical techniques is limited due to poorly designed and executed studies, with no uniformity of treatment methods, follow-up or reporting, and lack of randomization. We found some evidence to suggest superficial vein ligation and stripping may reduce the risk of wound recurrence, but these surgical techniques are infrequently performed. The newer minimally invasive techniques lack evidence. Randomized controlled trials for the endovenous procedures used today for treating CVUs are needed.
Survivable waveband switching in WDM mesh networks under dedicated path-protection

This paper considers the problem of dedicated path-protection in wavelength-division multiplexed (WDM) mesh networks with waveband switching functionality under shared risk link group (SRLG) constraints. Two dedicated path-protection schemes are proposed, namely the PBABL scheme and the MPABWL scheme. The PBABL scheme protects each working waveband-path through a backup waveband-path. The MPABWL scheme protects each working waveband-path by either a backup waveband-path or multiple backup lightpaths. Heuristic algorithms adopting random optimization technique are proposed for both the schemes. The performance of the two protection schemes is studied and compared. Simulation results show that both the heuristics can obtain optimum solutions and the MPABWL scheme leads to less switching and transmission costs than the PBABL scheme
Erasing blackness: the media construction of ‘race’ in Mi Familia, the first Puerto Rican situation comedy with a black family:

This article analyzes some of the ways in which media professionals involved in Mi Familia’s production re-articulate Puerto Rico’s mestizaje and racial democracy discourses. The essay argues that ...
Longitudinal Trajectories of Self-System Processes and Depressive Symptoms Among Maltreated and Nonmaltreated Children

This study used latent growth modeling to investigate longitudinal relationships between self-system processes and depressive symptoms among maltreated (n=142) and nonmaltreated children (n=109) aged 6–11 years. On average, self-esteem and self-agency increased and depressive symptoms decreased over time. Multivariate growth modeling indicated that, regardless of gender, physical abuse was negatively related to initial levels of self-esteem, and physical abuse and physical neglect were positively associated with initial levels of depressive symptoms. Emotional maltreatment was predictive of changes in self-esteem and changes in depressive symptoms. Initial levels of self-esteem were negatively associated with initial levels of depressive symptoms. The findings contribute to enhancing our understanding of the developmental processes whereby early maltreatment experiences are linked to later maladjustment.
Permeation Eccentricities of He, Ne, and D-T from Soda-Lime Glass Microbubbles

Permeation of 3He, Ne, and D-T (deuterium-tritium) was studied through batches of several million glass microbubbles. Although the calculated permeabilities agree roughly with literature data, the bubbles show several vagaries. Isothermal outgassing is not exponential but shows “tails” that become more pronounced at lower temperatures. An isotopic disproportionation effect occurs in the bubble loading at 698 K. Gas that has permeated the glass walls is more deuterium-rich and the effect is increased by large amounts of 3He in the feed gas. Finally, a slow and unexplained leakage occurs when loaded bubbles are stored for many months at 243 K. Data are also presented on bubble size distributions and mean wall thicknesses.
Rigid perfectly plastic two-dimensional polycrystals

We consider rigid perfectly plastic polycrystals in the two–dimensional anti–plane shear context. The yield sets of the grains are identified with rectangles in the plane centred at the origin whose sides have length 2 and 2 M . The limit M → ∞ corresponds to the grains being rigid in one direction and ductile in the orthogonal direction. We show that for large values of M there exist polycrystals whose effective yield sets are large in all directions. More precisely, for each value of M , we construct a polycrystal whose yield set contains the set [– f , f ] × [– f , f ], where f = √ M –O(1). We also show that the yield set of any isotropic polycrystal is contained in the ball of radius 4√ M /π centred at the origin. This bound results as an application of the div–curl lemma. The new component of our analysis, which allowed us to obtain sharper results, is that we consider simultaneously not only two but an infinite number of admissible stress fields whose averages have different directions.
How effective could laser-based approaches be in assisting dendritic cell immunotherapy?

Author for correspondence: Wellman Center for Photomedicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Department of Dermatology, Harvard Medical School, 50 Blossom Street, Edwards 222, Boston, MA 02114, USA and Harvard–MIT Division of Health Sciences & Technology, Cambridge, MA 02115, USA Tel.: + 1 617 726 1298 Fax: +1 617 726 1208 mwu2@partners.org How effective could laser-based approaches be in assisting dendritic cell immunotherapy?
Vergence Dynamics Predict Fixation Disparity

The neural origin of the steady-state vergence eye movement error, called binocular fixation disparity, is not well understood. Further, there has been no study that quantitatively relates the dynamics of the vergence system to its steady-state behavior, a critical test for the understanding of any oculomotor system. We investigate whether fixation disparity can be related to the dynamics of opponent convergence and divergence neural pathways. Using binocular eye movement recordings, we first show that opponent vergence pathways exhibit asymmetric angle-dependent gains. We then present a neural model that combines physiological properties of disparity-tuned cells and vergence premotor cells with the asymmetric gain properties of the opponent pathways. Quantitative comparison of the model predictions with our experimental data suggests that fixation disparity can arise when asymmetric opponent vergence pathways are driven by a distributed disparity code.
Fast algorithm for the modulated complex lapped transform

A new algorithm for fast computation of the modulated complex lapped transform (MCLT) is presented. For a length-M MCLT, the algorithm is based on computing a length-2M fast Fourier transform plus M butterfly-like stages, without data shuffling. That reduces the number of operations and memory accesses needed to compute the MCLT when compared to previous algorithms. Compared to the original type-4 discrete-cosine-transform-based algorithm, an implementation of the new algorithm leads to 25% faster execution.
The Cumulative Cost of Additional Wakefulness: Dose-Response Effects on Neurobehavioral Functions and Sleep Physiology From Chronic Sleep Restriction and Total Sleep Deprivation

OBJECTIVES: To inform the debate over whether human sleep can be chronically reduced without consequences, we conducted a dose-response chronic sleep restriction experiment in which waking neurobehavioral and sleep physiological functions were monitored and compared to those for total sleep deprivation. DESIGN: The chronic sleep restriction experiment involved randomization to one of three sleep doses (4 h, 6 h, or 8 h time in bed per night), which were maintained for 14 consecutive days. The total sleep deprivation experiment involved 3 nights without sleep (0 h time in bed). Each study also involved 3 baseline (pre-deprivation) days and 3 recovery days. SETTING: Both experiments were conducted under standardized laboratory conditions with continuous behavioral, physiological and medical monitoring. PARTICIPANTS: A total of n = 48 healthy adults (ages 21-38) participated in the experiments. INTERVENTIONS: Noctumal sleep periods were restricted to 8 h, 6 h or 4 h per day for 14 days, or to 0 h for 3 days. All other sleep was prohibited. RESULTS: Chronic restriction of sleep periods to 4 h or 6 h per night over 14 consecutive days resulted in significant cumulative, dose-dependent deficits in cognitive performance on all tasks. Subjective sleepiness ratings showed an acute response to sleep restriction but only small further increases on subsequent days, and did not significantly differentiate the 6 h and 4 h conditions. Polysomnographic variables and delta power in the non-REM sleep EEG-a putative marker of sleep homeostasis--displayed an acute response to sleep restriction with negligible further changes across the 14 restricted nights. Comparison of chronic sleep restriction to total sleep deprivation showed that the latter resulted in disproportionately large waking neurobehavioral and sleep delta power responses relative to how much sleep was lost. A statistical model revealed that, regardless of the mode of sleep deprivation, lapses in behavioral alertness were near-linearly related to the cumulative duration of wakefulness in excess of 15.84 h (s.e. 0.73 h). CONCLUSIONS: Since chronic restriction of sleep to 6 h or less per night produced cognitive performance deficits equivalent to up to 2 nights of total sleep deprivation, it appears that even relatively moderate sleep restriction can seriously impair waking neurobehavioral functions in healthy adults. Sleepiness ratings suggest that subjects were largely unaware of these increasing cognitive deficits, which may explain why the impact of chronic sleep restriction on waking cognitive functions is often assumed to be benign. Physiological sleep responses to chronic restriction did not mirror waking neurobehavioral responses, but cumulative wakefulness in excess of a 15.84 h predicted performance lapses across all four experimental conditions. This suggests that sleep debt is perhaps best understood as resulting in additional wakefulness that has a neurobiological "cost" which accumulates over time.
Improving project planning/tracking for student software engineering projects through SOPPTS

The Student Online Project Planning and Tracking System, SOPPTS, is an online system designed and implemented to enhance the communication avenues and the project planning/tracking requirements of student projects for the Ball State University (BSU) software engineering classes. This paper presents the design and assessment of this tool SOPPTS has been designed and field-tested to provide real-time feedback from faculty on student project progress, to offer online guidance for project planning and to produce automated tracking of student projects. The tool assessment included interviews of both students at the undergraduate and graduate level and faculty. The interview was a set of specific questions chosen to document each participant's experience and impressions of utilizing SOPPTS. Data evaluation consisted of compiling the reoccurring themes during the interview process. The major themes that emerged are the increased efficiency in developing, recording and tracking of student project plans, the visibility and immediate accessibility of this information and the improved and timely communication among the student team members, faculty and client partners. With the improved access to information and facilitated communication through SOPPTS, the project planning and tracking skills for the software development teams improved. Moreover, the informal aspects of team communication and synergy, factors that can be as important as the technical aspects, were enhanced.
Further results on DCT-based linear phase paraunitary filter banks

A DCT-based simplified general structure for a linear phase paraunitary filter bank (LPPUFB) was developed by the pre- and post-processing of the DCT in the time domain. The new structure can be viewed as the dual of the generalized LOT (GenLOT). We generalize the result to odd-channel LPPUFB and LPPUFB with pair-wise mirror image property. Design examples and their application in image compression are presented.
COLCEMID INHIBITION OF CELL GROWTH AND THE CHARACTERIZATION OF A COLCEMID-BINDING ACTIVITY IN SACCHAROMYCES CEREVISIAE

Under restricted culture conditions, the growth and division of Saccharomyces cerevisiae was inhibited by the antimitotic drug Colcemid; in contrast, the related drug colchicine had no effect. The difference in the sensitivity of yeast to these two agents was not dependent on their ability to permeate the cell but rather reflected an inherent difference in the affinity of the two drugs for a cellular-binding site. The binding moiety was characterized by gel filtration as a macromolecule of approximately 110,000 mol wt with an affinity constant for Colcemid of 0.5 x 104 liters per mole; in addition, this macromolecule was retained by diethylaminoethyl (DEAE) ion exchangers. On the basis of these properties, the Colcemid-binding substance in S. cerevisiae cells was provisionally identified as microtubule subunits.
Low-cost protection for SER upsets and silicon defects

Extreme transistor scaling trends in silicon technology are soon to reach a point where manufactured systems will suffer from limited device reliability and severely reduced life-time, due to early transistor failures, gate oxide wear-out, manufacturing defects, and radiation-induced soft errors (SER). In this paper we present a low-cost technique to harden a microprocessor pipeline and caches against these reliability threats. Our approach utilizes online built-in self-test (BIST) and microarchitectural checkpointing to detect, diagnose and recover the computation impaired by silicon defects or SER events. The approach works by periodically testing the processor to determine if the system is broken. If so, we reconfigure the processor to avoid using the broken component. A similar mechanism is used to detect SER, faults, with the difference that recovery is implemented by re-execution. By utilizing low-cost techniques to address defects and SER, we keep protection costs significantly lower than traditional fault-tolerance approaches while providing high levels of coverage for a wide range of faults. Using detailed gate-level simulation, we find that our approach provides 95% and 99% coverage for silicon defects and SER events, respectively, with only a 14% area overhead.
Hypoxia-inducible factor-1α regulates KCNMB1 expression in human pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells.

Previously, we observed that hypoxia increases the expression of the β1-subunit (KCNMB1) of the calcium-sensitive potassium channel (BKCa). Herein, we elucidate the mechanism whereby hypoxia increa...
Human sperm carbohydrate antigens defined by an antisperm human monoclonal antibody derived from an infertile woman bearing antisperm antibodies in her serum.

The epitope structure of the human sperm antigen reacting with antibodies present in sera of infertile women has been studied using mAb H6-3C4, which produces immobilization of human sperm in the presence of complement. Another antibody, NUH2, which also induces human sperm immobilization, was used to substantiate the presence of a receptor on sperm involved in susceptibility to immobilization. Both antibodies defined type 2 chain polylactosamine structure. H6-3C4 is directed to internally located repetitive N-acetyllactosamine, i.e., sialyl-i, i, or fucosyl-i. NUH2 defines binary alpha 2----3 sialyl type 2 chain, i.e., sialyl-I. Thus, the presence of antibodies in the sera of infertile women directed to sperm lactosaminoglycan or lactosaminolipid could be the basis for infertility in these cases.
Query regarding search strategy and results

Could the authors of the article ‘‘A substantial and confusing variation exists in handling of baseline covariates in randomized controlled trials: a review of trials published in leading medical journals’’ [1] please clarify how they searched PubMed for relevant articles. Using the information provided in the article, I constructed my own search strategy but was unable to replicate their search results of 135 articles. My search retrieved 106 articles. Search run on January 7, 2010: (((‘‘British medical journal’’[Journal] OR ‘‘The New England journal of medicine’’[Journal]) OR ‘‘Lancet’’ [Journal]) OR ‘‘JAMA: the journal of the American Medical Association’’[Journal]) AND (‘‘2007/01/01’’[CRDAT]: ‘‘2007/06/30’’[CRDAT]) AND (‘‘humans’’[MeSH Terms] AND Randomized Controlled Trial[ptyp]). Many thanks.
Naming Italians in the borderland, 1926–1943

Abstract This article places the surname Italianization campaign in Italy's Adriatic borderlands from 1927 to 1943 in the broader context of fascist schemes to promote Italian nationalism and construct the Italian national community. A facet of legislative ethnic engineering, surname alteration policy was common to most successor states in the interwar period. In eastern Italy, while ethnic Slovenes and Croats bore the brunt of forcible acculturation, the measures intended to support nationalist, irredentist and imperial aspirations not to persecute Slavs. The fascist authorities' approach to minorities was more nuanced than scholars have recognized in their attentions to competition between west and east, ‘European’ and ‘Balkan’, Italian and Slav.
Matrix conditioning and adaptive simultaneous perturbation stochastic approximation method

The paper proposes a modification to the simultaneous perturbation stochastic approximation (SPSA) methods based on comparisons made between the first order and the second order SPSA (1SPSA and 2SPSA) algorithms from the perspective of loss function Hessian. At finite iterations, the convergence rate depends on matrix conditioning of the loss function Hessian. It is shown that 2SPSA converges more slowly for a loss function with an M-conditioned Hessian than the one with a well-conditioned Hessian. On the other hand, the convergence rate of 1SPSA is less sensitive to the matrix conditioning of loss function Hessians. The modified 2SPSA (M2SPSA) eliminates the error amplification caused by the inversion of an ill-conditioned Hessian at finite iterations which leads to significant improvements in its convergence rate in problems with an ill-conditioned Hessian matrix. Asymptotically, the efficiency analysis shows that M2SPSA is also superior to 2SPSA in terms of its convergence rate coefficients. It is shown that for the same asymptotic convergence rate, the ratio of the mean square errors for M2SPSA to 2SPSA is always less than one except for a perfectly conditioned Hessian.
Cryptographic Containers and the Digital Library

Today, information is distributed on the Internet and other communication infrastructures mainly for free. However, once information or digital contents is assigned some value, a means is needed to protect its copyrights and control its use.
Abstract 4767: Reaction of singlet oxygen with hydrazone prodrugs for the photochemical release of N-nitrosoamine drugs

Proceedings: AACR 103rd Annual Meeting 2012‐‐ Mar 31‐Apr 4, 2012; Chicago, IL Very few visible-light activated photocleavable groups are available for drug delivery applications. Our research was interested in assessing the visible-light photolability of hydrazone C=N bonds via a Type II (singlet oxygen) dye-sensitized oxygenation reaction. We have explored the photooxidized cleavage of N-nitrosoamine by-products from N-methylbenzophenone phenylhydrazone and methylenehydrazine model compounds. The former was studied by gas chromatography mass spectrometry and the latter by density functional theory calculations (DFT). We quantified benzophenone that arose from the phenylhydrazone photooxidation. The DFT calculations predicted a low energy route to C=N bond fragmentation via a [2+2] pathway and an 1,2,3-dioxazetidine reactive intermediate. The reaction was predicted to occur in stepwise process via zwitterionic intermediates prior to forming the dioxazetidine, and cleavage to the nitrosamine product. Further studies are underway regarding the photolytic and hydrolytic stability of the hydrazone C=N bond to give better insight including structure-activity relationships, of singlet oxygen triggered photo-release of nitrosoamines. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 103rd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2012 Mar 31-Apr 4; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2012;72(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 4767. doi:1538-7445.AM2012-4767
Pentecostalismo clássico: lições missiológicas - o que o protestantismo histórico pode aprender do pentecostalismo clássico brasileiro?

The classic Pentecostal movement, that has become autochthonous in Brazil, has changed paradigms for mission. Observing the movement, historical Protestantism can learn lessons for missions, in order to revitalize aspects of its mission praxis: the importance of lay persons; the contextualization of language and methods; the importance of relevance for the cultural context, spirituality and emotional life of the people; as a church, to be a place where the poor feel at home.
The Effect of Microcirculatory Flow on Oscillating Gradient Diffusion MRI and Diffusion Encoding with Dual‐Frequency Orthogonal Gradients (DEFOG)

Purpose We investigated the effect of microcirculatory flow on oscillating gradient spin echo (OGSE) diffusion MRI at low b-values and developed a diffusion preparation method called diffusion encoding with dual-frequency orthogonal gradients (DEFOG) to suppress the effect. Methods Compared to conventional OGSE sequences, DEFOG adds a pulsed gradient that is orthogonal to the oscillating gradient and has a moderate diffusion weighting (e.g., 300 s/mm2). In vivo MRI data were acquired from adult mouse brains (n = 5) on an 11.7 Tesla scanner, with diffusion times from 23.2 to 0.83 ms and b-values from 50 to 700 s/mm2. Results Apparent diffusion coefficients (ADCs) measured using a conventional OGSE sequence at low b-values ( 300 mm2/s), potentially due to contributions from microcirculatory flow. In comparison, OGSE ADCs measured using the DEFOG method at low b-values were comparable to those measured at moderate b-values. The effect of microcirculatory flow on diffusion signals was diffusion time-dependent, and this dependency may reflect the capillary geometry and blood flow velocity in the mouse cortex. Conclusion Microcirculatory flow affects OGSE diffusion MRI measurements at low b-values, and this effect can be suppressed using the DEFOG method. Magn Reson Med 77:1583–1592, 2017. © 2016 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine
Relationship of Weak and Electromagnetic Processes in Nuclei to Photopion Reactions

Within the context of this symposium, the present discussion is focused on how weak and electromagnetic processes in nuclei relate to photopion reactions. In a wider sense the ideas summarized here provide a general framework for describing any process which is “weak” in strength and proceeds through few-body transition operators. Nuclear matrix elements of such operators may be factored conveniently into a linear combination of terms which contain the elementary particle matrix elements of the relevant operators multiplied by numbers which contain the complexity of nuclear dynamics — the nuclear density matrix elements. It is via the density matrix that such “weak” processes can be interrelated as discussed below. First the general problem is summarized, after which two simple (but interesting) examples are presented to illustrate the method.
Creep deformation mechanism mapping in nickel base disk superalloys

The creep deformation mechanisms at intermediate temperature in ME3, a modern Ni-based disk superalloy, were investigated using diffraction contrast imaging. Both conventional transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning TEM were utilised. Distinctly different deformation mechanisms become operative during creep at temperatures between 677–815 °C and at stresses ranging from 274 to 724 MPa. Both polycrystalline and single-crystal creep tests were conducted. The single-crystal tests provide new insight into grain orientation effects on creep response and deformation mechanisms. Creep at lower temperatures (≤760°C) resulted in the thermally activated shearing modes such as microtwinning, stacking fault ribbons and isolated superlattice extrinsic stacking faults. In contrast, these faulting modes occurred much less frequently during creep at 815°C under lower applied stresses. Instead, the principal deformation mode was dislocation climb bypass. In addition to the difference in creep behaviour and cre...
Unresolved Issues and Possible Alternative Futures

The task of this final chapter should be to assess the significance of the, Soviet-type economic system in relation to modern economic history and our ideas about economic systems. That these two perspectives are related is clear enough from the kind of questions we often ask about the Soviet system. For example, we wonder whether the Soviet model and Soviet strategy are best understood as an alternative to the kind of private-property, market-dominated system that exists in other advanced countries, or as a kind of transition system suited only to the needs of the early stages of economic development. If the latter, is it a uniquely effective and transferable approach to economic growth or only a tragic misstep in Russian history, never consciously designed for efficacy, more Russian than socialist? Can an economic system built to that design be adapted to deal with the novel challenges posed by advances in the level of output and technology, and a more open world? That is to say, is reform possible? Finally, can we get any hint from the reform experience, which has now extended over several years, about the kind of economic system it might become as it outgrows the matrix in which it originated? Will it converge to something like the western market model, or will it evolve differently?
Delta–Sigma Encoder for Low-Power Wireless Bio-Sensors Using Ultrawideband Impulse Radio

This brief presents a systematic method to reduce the power consumption of a wireless sensor node for sensing biomedical signals. The design combines the delta–sigma modulator (DSM), the ultrawideband impulse radio (UWB-IR), and the proposed xnor -delay-based encoder/decoder, which replaces the decimation filter. The encoder and decoder for both the first- and second-order DSMs are presented. The clock synchronization problem is solved by using an asynchronous UWB-IR. The effects of window length, the order of delta–sigma modulation, and the oversampling ratio are studied by simulation using neural and electrocardiography signals. Based on the simulation results, the proposed method can save power by 50% compared to the system with decimation filters, and 53% compared to the system without the proposed encoder.
Sequestered Alkaloid Defenses in the Dendrobatid Poison Frog Oophaga pumilio Provide Variable Protection from Microbial Pathogens

Most amphibians produce their own defensive chemicals; however, poison frogs sequester their alkaloid-based defenses from dietary arthropods. Alkaloids function as a defense against predators, and certain types appear to inhibit microbial growth. Alkaloid defenses vary considerably among populations of poison frogs, reflecting geographic differences in availability of dietary arthropods. Consequently, environmentally driven differences in frog defenses may have significant implications regarding their protection against pathogens. While natural alkaloid mixtures in dendrobatid poison frogs have recently been shown to inhibit growth of non-pathogenic microbes, no studies have examined the effectiveness of alkaloids against microbes that infect these frogs. Herein, we examined how alkaloid defenses in the dendrobatid poison frog, Oophaga pumilio, affect growth of the known anuran pathogens Aeromonas hydrophila and Klebsiella pneumoniae. Frogs were collected from five locations throughout Costa Rica that are known to vary in their alkaloid profiles. Alkaloids were isolated from individual skins, and extracts were assayed against both pathogens. Microbe subcultures were inoculated with extracted alkaloids to create dose-response curves. Subsequent spectrophotometry and cell counting assays were used to assess growth inhibition. GC-MS was used to characterize and quantify alkaloids in frog extracts, and our results suggest that variation in alkaloid defenses lead to differences in inhibition of these pathogens. The present study provides the first evidence that alkaloid variation in a dendrobatid poison frog is associated with differences in inhibition of anuran pathogens, and offers further support that alkaloid defenses in poison frogs confer protection against both pathogens and predators.
Comparison Between the Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire and New York Heart Association in Assessing Functional Capacity and Clinical Outcomes.

Objective The Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire (KCCQ) has emerged as a patient-centered heart failure–specific health status measure. It currently lacks routine and widespread use in clinical practice and trials. The purpose of this study was to examine the correlation between KCCQ and cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) parameters and clinical outcomes, compared with the New York Heart Association functional classification (NYHA). Methods and Results We performed a single-centered observational analysis of 432 patients who presented to the Heart Failure Department, completed the KCCQ, and underwent CPET. The 1-year clinical outcome assessed was a composite of mortality, heart failure hospitalization, and need for heart transplantation or left ventricular assist device. In the KCCQ, the physical limitation domain had a correlation with peak VO2 similar to NYHA (r = 0.48; P < .001; and r = −0.48; P < .001; respectively), and slightly better correlation with ventilatory threshold (r = 0.42; P < .001; and r = −0.40; P < .001; respectively). According to model validation, the KCCQ physical limitation domain and NYHA were similar predictors of peak VO2 (r2 = 0.229; and r2 = 0.227; respectively). KCCQ predicted the specified 1-year clinical outcome (hazard ratio 0.75, 95% confidence interval 0.69–0.82; P < .001) and provided incremental predictive ability when added to a model that included NYHA, with a net reclassification index of 76.1% (P < .001). Conclusions KCCQ and NYHA provide similar assessment of functional capacity. KCCQ predicts 1-year clinical outcomes, providing incremental value over NYHA. These findings support its routine use in clinical care, as well as its potential to serve as a measure in clinical trials.
Multi-Scale Structure and Conformational Dynamics of Scaffolded DNA Origami Nanoparticles

Synthetic DNA can be programmed into self-assembled 3D nanoparticles using a DX design motif and the principle of scaffolded DNA origami. A top-down design procedure (DAEDALUS) (Veneziano, Ratanalert, et al., Science, 2016) facilitates the design of arbitrary DNA nanoparticle geometries on the 5 to 100 nanometer scale, which we investigate in detail here using multi-scale structural modeling. While coarse-grained modeling is useful for generating equilibrium structures of DNA nanoparticles (Pan et al., Nat. Comm., 2014), only all-atom models reveal fine structural details and mechanical properties that contribute to overall structure and conformational dynamics. Here, we first use all-atom molecular dynamics (MD) to simulate two 0.5 - 1.0 MDa DNA polyhedral nanoparticles: a tetrahedron with 63 base pair (bp) edge lengths, and an octahedron with 52 bp edge lengths. Using 150 ns trajectories, we are able to elucidate subtle structural features seen in experimental cryo-EM maps, including right-handed twisting of the vertices in the octahedron and outward bowing of the edges in the tetrahedron. Next, these results are compared with all-atom MD simulations of unconstrained vertex building blocks including the tetrahedron (3-arm vertex) and octahedron (4-arm vertex). In these simulations, a notable feature is the significant out-of-plane bending angle away from the minor groove at the vertex due to the chirality of dsDNA. Finally, equilibrium solution structures of 45 DX-based DNA origami nanoparticles are predicted by implementing an updated bulge stiffness parameter for our coarse-grained FE model CanDo (Kim et al., Nucleic Acids Res., 2012). These multi-scale structural results show the interplay between coarse-grained and all-atom models in the ab initio prediction and elucidation of complex features of DNA nanoparticles seen in experimental cryo-EM maps.
Angular distributions of 137mCe and 137gCe from the 134Ba(α, n) reaction

Abstract The angular distributions of 137m Ce and 137g Ce nuclei formed in the 134 Ba(α, n) reaction have been measured at three different energies in the range between 18 and 25 MeV. The results have been compared with a spin-dependent statistical-model calculation. Satisfactory agreement was obtained between theory and experiment at small angles. At large angles the calculated differential cross section was smaller than expected from the experimental data. The discrepancy can be attributed to a small contribution from a direct interaction mechanism. Average properties of the angular distributions were used to obtain the average values of the neutron and photon energies and the difference in the values obtained for the two isomers was interpreted in terms of angular momentum effects. An angular distribution calculation for a hypothetical nucleus suggests that it may be possible to observe striking differences in the angular distribution of (α, n) reaction isomers due to spin fractionation.
Multicenter study assessing tumor molecular profiles in advanced pediatric solid tumors.

10011 Background: The role of molecular profiling in the clinical care of children with advanced solid tumors is unknown. Key questions are: do pediatric solid tumors have a sufficient rate of acti...
Longitudinal Dielectric Phenomena of the Quantum Plasma

This didactic lecture is intended to provide an elementary introduction to some of the physical phenomena which occur in the solid state quantum plasma. In this spirit we avoid explicit discussion of the preferred tools of theoretical research in this field, namely thermodynamic Green’s functions [13, since an exposition of these elegant and powerful tools is not necessary for our present limited purpose. In fact we shall discuss many of the phenomena of the quantum plasma from a classical point of view. However, before embarking on this discussion, it is appropriate to remark briefly on an illuminating quantum mechanical formulation [2] of the problem. To start with one has the many electron Hamiltonian, $$H = \sum\limits_i {\frac{{P_1^2}}{{2m}} + \frac{1}{2}\sum\limits_{i \ne j} {\frac{{{e^2}}}{{\left| {{{}_i} - {{}_j}} \right|}} = H_{e1}^0 + H_{e - e}^{coul.}} }$$ (1) .
The domesticated sunflower in old Mexico

Although the domesticated sunflower is included in the work of Francisco Hernandez on Mexico and has been reported archaeologically from Mexico, there is no evidence that this sunflower was present in Mexico in prehistoric or early historical times. The sunflower probably first reached Europe from what is now the southeastern United States.
Machine learning approaches to the social determinants of health in the health and retirement study.

Abstract Background Social and economic factors are important predictors of health and of recognized importance for health systems. However, machine learning, used elsewhere in the biomedical literature, has not been extensively applied to study relationships between society and health. We investigate how machine learning may add to our understanding of social determinants of health using data from the Health and Retirement Study. Methods A linear regression of age and gender, and a parsimonious theory-based regression additionally incorporating income, wealth, and education, were used to predict systolic blood pressure, body mass index, waist circumference, and telomere length. Prediction, fit, and interpretability were compared across four machine learning methods: linear regression, penalized regressions, random forests, and neural networks. Results All models had poor out-of-sample prediction. Most machine learning models performed similarly to the simpler models. However, neural networks greatly outperformed the three other methods. Neural networks also had good fit to the data (R2 between 0.4–0.6, versus Discussion Some of the machine learning methods do not improve prediction or fit beyond simpler models, however, neural networks performed well. The predictors identified across models suggest underlying social factors that are important predictors of biological indicators of chronic disease, and that the non-linear and interactive relationships between variables fundamental to the neural network approach may be important to consider.
Consequences of Intravascular Infection

The clinical features of intravascular infection are secondary to its biology. However, particularly in the early phase, the symptoms are nonspecific, and diagnosis will depend to a considerable degree upon the patient’s appreciation of his symptoms and the physician’s alertness to the diagnostic possibility. In addition, some important biological consequences may not contribute to clinical symptomatology.
Program Evaluation Theory and Practice: A Comprehensive Guide

Part 1. The Landscape of Evaluation. 1. Introduction to Evaluation: Defining Terms and Ethical Considerations. 2. Framing Evaluation: Paradigms, Branches, and Theories. Part 2. Historical and Contemporary Evaluation Paradigms, Branches, Theories, and Approaches. 3. The Postpositivist Paradigm and the Methods Branch. 4. The Pragmatic Paradigm and the Use Branch. 5. The Constructivist Paradigm and the Values Branch. 6. The Transformative Paradigm and the Social Justice Branch. Part 3. Planning Evaluations. 7. Working with Stakeholders: Establishing the Context and the Evaluand. 8. Evaluation Purposes and Questions. 9. Evaluation Designs. 10. Data Collection Strategies and Indicators. 11. Stakeholders, Participants, and Sampling. 12. Data Analysis and Interpretation. Part 4. Implementation in Evaluation. 13. Communication and Utilization of Findings. 14. Meta-Evaluation and Project Management. 15. Perennial and Emerging Issues in Evaluation.
The Acute Care of the Transplant Recipient

Early post-transplant factors including delayed graft function (DGF), acute rejection episodes, nephrotoxic agents, post-transplant hypertension, dyslipidemia, and new onset diabetes mellitus after transplantation (NODAT) have all been implicated in worsening both short- and long-term morbidity and mortality after renal transplantation. Optimal management of the transplant recipient begins in the immediate postoperative period. This chapter provides a stepwise approach to the medical and urological management of the transplant recipient in the first 3 months after transplantation. The management of transplant recipients can be divided into three periods: immediate postoperative period, first week post-transplant, and first 3 months post-transplant. Immunosuppressive therapy is discussed in Chapter 9.
Invariant Theory and the Projective Plane

Motivated by an example of Doubilet, Rota, and Stein [5], we introduce a class of expressions in a Grassmann-Cayley algebra which represent projective invariants closely related to the Theorem of Desargues and its generalizations to higher-dimensional projective space. A classification of the rank 3 indecomposable planar identities is given.
Marek's disease immunosuppression

Publisher Summary This chapter reviews the mechanisms of Marek's disease virus (MDV)-induced immunosuppression and confounding factors—such as co-infection with chicken infectious anaemia virus (CIAV) and other viruses infecting lymphoid tissues. MDV infection may interfere with the proper immunological functions by several distinct mechanisms leading to immunosuppression. However, the interactions between virus replication and the immune response are very complex, and the mechanisms causing immunosuppression are not fully understood. Infection and subsequent replication of CIAV can influence the pathogenesis of MDV by preventing the development of MDV-specific cytotoxic T-cells. Immunosuppression can also be caused by the loss of lymphocytes as well as changes in the regulation of immune responses, cytokines, and tumor cells. Several viruses such as CIAV, infectious bursal disease virus, reticuloendotheliosis virus, and reovirus also act as confounding factors in MDV-induced immunosuppression. MDV vaccines have also been reported to cause mild immunosuppression. Future studies on the pathogenesis of MD must address the ways by which MDV-induced immunosuppression influences other diseases and the general performance of commercial birds as well as the ways to monitor MDV-induced immunosuppression in a more meaningful way.
Cogentin® (Merck Sharp & Dohme)

Cogentin is an antiparkinsonism drug; it possesses both anticholinergic and antihistaminic effects, although only the former have been established as therapeutically significant in the management of Parkinson’s disease. Its anticholinergic activity resembles that of atropine.