cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Modeling time-dependent obscuration for simulated imaging of dust and smoke clouds

Time and spatial variations in atmospheric aerosol plumes can be factors in the effectiveness of electro-optical (EO) systems. Of particular interest are obscuration statistics including the frequency and duration of optically thick and optically thin cloud regions that intermittently affect sensor operation. Related to this problem is an increasing use of modern visualization techniques in simulations and computer graphics to portray realistic looking clouds. It is obviously important that such visualizations accurately model obscuration statistics if they are to be used in EO design and evaluation. Most plume models in use are either based on well-established, physical descriptions of mean aerosol transport and diffusion, buoyancy and radiative transfer, or they are based on modern artistic computer image texturing to provide variations in cloud appearance. The former, traditional methods visualize aerosol plumes as smooth distributions resulting from time-averaged contributions of turbulence to the mean flow. The latter computer graphics techniques visualize instantaneous spatial and time variations. However, the graphics techniques are usually devoid of much physics, using only a subjective criteria of 'looking realistic' as a validation basis. This paper begins a process of reconciling the two approaches. A method for texturing the mean plume concentrations is examined that has much in common with fractal- based texturing in computer graphics. The method also includes time-dependent evolution of eddy phases within the plume. Results of actual transmittance measurements of smoke and dust plumes are presented that show an apparent measured change in fractal dimension or Hurst parameter with increasing distance or time separations. This behavior is discussed in terms of contributions from different eddy sizes to the path integrated concentration. It is then shown that the fixed fractal dimension of the concentration texturing scheme can be reconciled with the changing dimension in the transmittance data if one is careful to modify the texture model to account for the fact that we see real plumes by the transmittance of the background radiance through the cloud and from the path radiance produced by scattering or emission from the cloud itself. Additional efforts to analyze images to include the scattering and emission contributions to cloud statistics are briefly discussed.© (1991) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Trust in Citizen Science Research: A Case Study of the Groundwater Education Through Water Evaluation & Testing Program1

Thornton, Teresa and Jessica Leahy, 2012. Trust in Citizen Science Research: A Case Study of the Groundwater Education Through Water Evaluation & Testing Program. Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) 48(5): 1032-1040. DOI: 10.1111/j.1752-1688.2012.00670.x Abstract: Data collected by citizen scientists, including K-12 students, have been validated by the scientific community through quality assurance/quality control tests and publication of results in peer-reviewed journal articles. However, if citizen science data are to be used by local communities, research is needed to determine which factors contribute to local community member trust in citizen science data, and how to increase the benefits and use of citizen science programs. This article describes the Groundwater Education Through Water Evaluation & Testing (GET WET!) program that employs middle and high school students, state and local government employees, environmental nongovernmental organization leaders, business representatives, college faculty and students, and other volunteers as citizen scientists to create a database of groundwater quality for use as a baseline for local water resources management. Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews pre- and post-involvement from 40 participants in this citizen science program conducted in five states in the northeastern United States. Results indicate that factors of trust are largely based on interpersonal trust and familiarity. We conclude with recommendations and future research that may improve local community member willingness to trust citizen science data generated by students.
Micro-views, or on how to protect privacy while enhancing data usability: concepts and challenges

The large availability of repositories storing various types of information about individuals has raised serious privacy concerns over the past decade. Nonetheless, database technology is far from providing adequate solutions to this problem that requires a delicate balance between an individual's privacy and convenience and data usability by enterprises and organizations - a database which is rigid and over-protective may render data of little value. Though these goals may seem odd, we argue that the development of solutions able to reconcile them will be an important challenge to be addressed in the next few years. We believe that the next wave of database technology will be represented by a DBMS that provides high-assurance privacy and security. In this paper, we elaborate on such challenges. In particular, we argue that we need to provide different views of data at a very fine level of granularity; conventional view technology is able to select only up to a single attribute value for a single tuple. We need to go even beyond this level. That is, we need a mechanism by which even a single value inside a tuple's attribute may have different views; we refer them as micro-views. We believe that such a mechanism can be an important building block, together with other mechanisms and tools, of the next wave of database technology.
Eliciting Empathy for Adults in Chronic Pain through Autobiographical Memory Sharing

Summary: Two studies (N=80; N=91) investigated whether sharing an autobiographical memory increases empathy for a person experiencing chronic pain. Across studies, empathy was assessed after reading a pain-related narrative of either a 25- or 85-year-old target and again after assignment to one of two recall conditions. Conditions involved recalling a pain-related autobiographical memory (Studies 1and2), oras comparisons,recallingthe target’s painnarrative (Study1) or recallingacharacter inpainfrom amovie(Study2). Looking across both studies, empathy levels appear to increase after sharing an autobiographical memory but not in the comparison conditions. Increases in empathy were related to trait-level agreeableness. When target-age differences emerged (Study 2), participants felt greater empathy for the older person. Findings are discussed in terms of the function of autobiographical memory in eliciting pro-social emotions such as empathy and implications for training empathic responding. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Whether empathizing with a family member newly diagnosed with cancer or with a friend feeling down after a rough day at work, people feel for each other through empathy. The current research focuses specifically on empathy for a person perceived to be experiencing chronic pain. Understanding when and how empathy can be elicited has applications in real-world situations including formal and informal caregiving. One aim of this research is to investigate whether sharing autobiographical memories of having experienced pain might increase one’s empathy for others in pain. Another aim is to examine whether the perceived age of the target person in pain (i.e., younger or older adult) affects the level of empathy that others feel toward them. To introduce the studies, we provide a brief definition of empathy. This is followed by an overview of the functional approach to autobiographical memory with emphasis on the social function, specifically how autobiographical memory sharing is theorized to elicit empathy. Potential effects of age stereotypes on empathy are then discussed, and some information on chronic pain is presented to highlight potential applications of this research in care-giving settings where people interact with individuals in pain.
Utopia's New-Found Space: Images of the Village Community in the Early Writings of Ananda Coomaraswamy

‘The influence of William Morris, even here.’ Stephen Potter, One-Upmanship Introduction In 1978 the village of Kukulewa, in the North Central Province of Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon), was selected for development under the Gam Udava (Village Awakening) program launched by the recently elected UNP (United National Party) government. Five years later, in 1983, I spent nine months in Kukulewa, studying the changes that had taken place since I had first done ethnographic research there from 1968 to 1970. As I examined the local impact of the Village Awakening project, in the broader context of escalating ethnic violence, I was repeatedly struck by the official priority given to the task of revitalizing the village community, not just in programs of rural development, but in the discourse of Sinhala nationalism more generally (Brow 1988, 1990a, 1990b, 1992, 1996; cf. Moore 1989, 1992; Woost 1993, 1994).
Biuret and its sulfur analogs : structures and energies

The calculations for biuret (B) and its two sulfur analogs, thiobiuret (TB) and dithiobiuret (DTB), were carried out using the ab initio LCAO-MO method at the Hartree-Fock level. The molecular structure of B was fully optimized using standard 3-21G and 6-31G * basis sets, while geometry optimizations of the TB's and DTB's were performed at the 3-21G * and 6-31G * levels. Only trans-isomers were found to be minimum structures on the HF/3-21G * potential-energy surfaces, whereas cis-forms are the first-order transition structures
The regularity of free boundaries in higher dimensions

The problem of studying the regularity of the free boundary that arises when considering the energy minimizing function over the set of those functions bigger than a given "obstacle" has been the subject of intensive research in the last decade. Let me mention H. Lewy and G. Stampacchia [14], D. Kinderlehrer [11], J. C. Nitsche [15] and N. M. Riviere and the author [5] among others. In two dimensions, by the use of analytic reflection techniques due mainly to H. Lewy [13], much was achieved. Recently, the author was able to prove, in a three dimensional filtration problem [4], that the resulting free surface is of class C 1 and all the second derivatives of the variational solution are continuous up to the free boundary, on the non-coincidence set. This fact has not only the virtue of proving that the variational solution is a classical one, but also verifies the hypothesis necessary to apply a recent result due to D. Kinderlehrer and L. Nirenberg, [12] to conclude that the free boundary is as smooth as the obstacle. Nevertheless, in that paper ([4]), strong use was made of the geometry of the problem: this implied that the free boundary was Lipschitz. Also it was apparently essential that the Laplacian of the obstacle was constant. In the first part of this paper we plan to treat the general non-linear free boundary problem as presented in H. Brezis-D. Kinderlehrer [2]. Our main purpose is to prove that if X 0 is a point of density for the coincidence set, in a neighborhood of X 0 the free boundary is a C 1 surface and all the second derivatives of the solution are continuous up to it. In the second part we will s tudy the parabolic case (one phase Stefan problem) as presented by G. Duvaut [7] or A. Friedman and D. Kinderlehrer [9]. There we prove that if for a fixed time, to, the point X 0 is a density point for the coincidence set (the ice) then in a
Regional Thrombolysis for Peripheral Arterial Occlusions: Initial Procedure of Choice? Case Reports

Five cases, representative of our larger series, are described in which grafts and lower extremities of patients with peripheral arterial occlusions were salvaged by thrombolytic therapy with catheter-directed intra-arterial urokinase. These patients were poor surgical candidates due to serious medical problems in addition to their occlusions. Intra-arterial fibrinolysis restored arterial flow and revealed lesions suitable for percutaneous angioplasty, making surgical intervention unnecessary. As vascular surgeons and interventionalists, the authors believe that thrombolysis is underutilized in patients with lysable occlusions.
Quasilinear quadratic Gaussian control for systems with saturating actuators and sensors

An extension of the linear quadratic Gaussian control method to systems with saturating actuators and sensors is obtained. The development is based on the method of stochastic linearization, whereby the actuator and sensor saturation characteristics are replaced by their equivalent gains. Using the stochastically linearized system, a quasilinear quadratic Gaussian optimal control problem is formulated and a solution to the problem is derived by employing the Lagrange multiplier method. The solution obtained is given in terms of standard Riccati and Lyapunov equations coupled with four transcendental equations that characterize the variance of the signals at the saturation inputs and the Lagrange multipliers associated with the constrained minimization problem. Under standard stabilizability and detectability conditions, an iterative algorithm is developed to find the solution of these equations. It is shown that proposed method is a proper extension of the linear quadratic Gaussian control in the sense that these equations reduce to their standard linear quadratic Gaussian counterparts when the saturation is removed. Additional analysis results are also developed for quasilinear systems. The developed synthesis method is illustrated by an example.
Reversal of Type 1 diabetes mellitus without exogenous cells

Evaluation of : Nishio J, Gaglia JL, Turvey SE et al.: Islet recovery and reversal of murine Type I diabetes in the absence of any infused spleen cell contribution. Science 311, 1775–1778 (2006) [1].
First Report of Soybean Rust Caused by Phakopsora pachyrhizi on Kudzu (Pueraria montana var. lobata) in Illinois.

Phakopsora pachyrhizi, the causal organism of soybean rust, was first observed in the continental United States on 6 November 2004 (2). On 11 November 2005, as part a national soybean rust monitoring effort, 75 leaves of kudzu (Pueraria montana var. lobata) were arbitrarily collected from a patch growing in Princeton, Caldwell County, Kentucky (37.106650°N, 87.886120°W) that had been periodically scouted for the presence of the disease since May 2005. Upon microscopic examination of the nonincubated sample, a small (˜2.0 cm2) area of one leaf exhibited lesions, uredinia, and urediniospores characteristic of those reported for P. pachyrhizi (the Asian species) and P. meibomiae (the New World species) (2). No other infected leaves were observed despite repeated visits to the site and collection and observation of nearly 200 leaves. On 16 November 2005, one-half of the symptomatic tissue was sent by overnight courier to the USDA/APHIS/PPQ/NIS Laboratory, Beltsville, MD and the other half was sent to the Sout...
A real-time tool set for the ARTS kernel

An integrated real-time tool set is described that consists of a schedulability analyzer and a real-time monitor/debugger for the ARTS kernel, which is being built for a distributed real-time testbed. The schedulability analyzer, called Scheduler 1-2-3, is an X11 window-based interactive tool and can verify whether the given real-time tasks can meet their deadlines under a specific scheduling policy. An advanced real-time monitor, ARM, also runs on the X11 window and visualizes the target system's runtime behavior in real time. ARM can be used with Scheduler 1-2-3 to analyze simulated runs and its monitorability. >
Swarm robotic odor localization

This paper presents an investigation of odor localization by groups of autonomous mobile robots using principles of swarm intelligence. We describe a distributed algorithm by which groups of agents can solve the full odor localization task more efficiently than a single agent. We then demonstrate that a group of real robots under fully distributed control can successfully traverse a real odor plume. Finally, we show that an embodied simulator can faithfully reproduce the real robots experiments and thus can be a useful tool for off-line study and optimization of odor localization in the real world.
Fabrication and characterization of concentric-tubular composite micro- and nanostructures using the template-synthesis method

The template-synthetic method is a general approach for preparing tubular micro- and nanostructures. This method has been used to prepare micro- and nanostructures composed of metals, carbons, semiconductors, polymers, and Li{sup +}-intercalation materials. This paper describes the use of the template method to prepare composite tubular micro- and nanostructures. These composite structures consist of an outer tubule of one material surrounding inner tubules of different materials. Chemical strategies used to prepare these composite tubular structures include electroless deposition of Au, electropolymerization of conductive and insulating polymers, electrodeposition of metals and semiconductors, carbonization of polymer precursors, chemical vapor deposition synthesis, and sol-gel synthesis. {copyright} {ital 1998 Materials Research Society.}
Examination of the Seasonal Dynamics of the Toxic Dinoflagellate Alexandrium catenella at Redondo Beach, California, by Quantitative PCR

The presence of neurotoxic species within the genus Alexandrium along the U.S. coastline has raised concern of potential poisoning through the consumption of contaminated seafood. Paralytic shellfish toxins (PSTs) detected in shellfish provide evidence that these harmful events have increased in frequency and severity along the California coast during the past 25 years, but the timing and location of these occurrences have been highly variable. We conducted a 4-year survey in King Harbor, CA, to investigate the seasonal dynamics of Alexandrium catenella and the presence of a particulate saxitoxin (STX), the parent compound of the PSTs. A quantitative PCR (qPCR) assay was developed for quantifying A. catenella in environmental microbial assemblages. This approach allowed for the detection of abundances as low as 12 cells liter 1 , 2 orders of magnitude below threshold abundances that can impact food webs. A. catenella was found repeatedly during the study, particularly in spring, when cells were detected in 38% of the samples (27 to 5,680 cells liter 1 ). This peak in cell abundances was observed in 2006 and corresponded to a particulate STX concentration of 12 ng liter 1 , whereas the maximum STX concentration of 26 ng liter 1 occurred in April 2008. Total cell abundances and toxin levels varied strongly throughout each year, but A. catenella was less abundant during summer, fall, and winter, when only 2 to 11% of the samples yielded positive qPCR results. The qPCR method developed here provides a useful tool for investigating the ecology of A. catenella at subbloom and bloom abundances. Many estuaries and coastal ecosystems are sites of occasional or recurrent algal blooms formed by species capable of producing noxious or toxic compounds that adversely affect ecosystem structure and function. These harmful algal blooms (HABs) often occur in coastal areas impacted by urbanization or agricultural activity, where their effects can cascade through food webs to negatively impact marine fauna and fishery activities and pose risks to human health (62, 74). A major concern regarding these events is that their frequency and distribution appear to be increasing in coastal environments throughout the world (3, 25, 27–29, 72) including the North American west coast (31, 38, 57, 76). Paralytic shellfish toxins (PSTs) constitute a suite of harmful neurotoxins commonly produced in marine ecosystems by several species of dinoflagellates within the genus Alexandrium (51). Transfer and accumulation of PSTs through marine food webs have been implicated in instances of mass mortality of fish, birds, and marine mammals (12, 24, 55, 59). In humans, PST poisoning manifests itself as paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP) through the consumption of contaminated seafood. The PSTs are guanidine-based alkaloids, and over 30 analogues have been identified in nature. The parent compound, saxitoxin (STX), is the most potent marine toxin identified at
Viewpoint: Entropy, concept design, and animal-unit equivalence in range management science

Abstract The animal unit has been a multiple-use concept in the natural resource sciences. This paper examines the animal unit as an example of a general process of concept design, a process involving multiple options for defining the concept, and multiple objectives and multiple applications for the concept in range management science. Based on this analysis, the animal unit is abstracted as a unit of energy demand independent of interactive considerations of forage or environment. The proposed definition optimizes the utility and universality of the concept by minimizing confounding in the concept's most important applications. The result is a simplified concept that can be used to explicitly express animal equivalences, and can be used in a web of more complex, interactive concepts and models involving human objectives, natural resources, and livestock. The animal unit and animal-unit equivalent are relatively simple examples of synthetic concepts involving communication that are central to the identit...
suMMarY report for the First NSF Workshop on Mobile Community Measurement Infrastructure

Flexible measurement infrastructure support for experimentation are critical for enabling and supporting research work with strong experimental components to help validate ideas and evaluate the design in practice. Mobile computing research work must be evaluated in as realistic network settings as possible to help researchers understand how various factors, such as signal strength, network load aff ect the performance and energy metrics of interest. Currently, there is no environment that enables network visibility from an end-to-end perspective of the cellular network protocol stack: from the end-device all the way to the network server traversing through various network elements. Th e lack of such an integrated measurement infrastructure greatly hinders the innovation in this important research field.
Lower Paleozoic Rocks of Alaska [Abstract]

ABSTRACT Cambrian rocks are presently known only from east-central Alaska where a succession of shelly fossils, ranging in age from Early through Late Cambrian, occurs in a thin (300 feet) carbonate section that grades downward into the Tindir Group, a thick (10,000+ feet) sedimentary series of Precambrian age. Ordovician rocks occur in a few separated areas and are widely different in facies. Thousands of feet of graywacke, shale, chert, and volcanic rocks in southeast Alaska contrast with thinner, predominantly carbonate sections in the Alaska Range, Seward Peninsula, and Porcupine River. The Road River Formation, a graptolitic shale less than 900 feet thick, seems to represent an intermediate facies in east-central Alaska that spans most of Ordovician and Silurian time. Silurian and Devonian rocks are generally similar in facies to the Ordovician rocks. In the Brooks Range, however, there is a thick (5,000 feet) succession of predominantly argillaceous rocks of Devonian age, and in southeast Alaska there are Silurian and Devonian limestones thousands of feet thick in an otherwise volcanic and detrital sequence. Coarse clastic rocks of Late Devonian age in the Brooks Range (Kanayut Conglomerate) and east-central Alaska (Nation River Formation) indicate uplift of the earlier geosynclinal deposits. 1 Reprinted, with permission, from Oilweek, v. 17, no. 14, p. 23-24. End_of_Record - Last_Page 603-------
Analysis of Hanford-based Options for Sustainable DOE Facilities on the West Coast

Large-scale conventional energy projects result in lower costs of energy (COE). This is true for most renewable energy projects as well. The Office of Science is interested in its facilities meeting the renewable energy mandates set by Congress and the Administration. Those facilities on the west coast include a cluster in the Bay Area of California and at Hanford in central Washington State. Land constraints at the California facilities do not permit large scale projects. The Hanford Reservation has land and solar insolation available for a large scale solar project as well as access to a regional transmission system that can provide power to facilities in California. The premise of this study is that a large-scale solar project at Hanford may be able to provide renewable energy sufficient to meet the needs of select Office of Science facilities on the west coast at a COE that is competitive with costs in California despite the lower solar insolation values at Hanford. The study concludes that although the cost of solar projects continues to decline, estimated costs for a large-scale project at Hanford are still not competitive with avoided power costs for Office of Science facilities on the west coast. Further, although more » it is possible to transmit power from a solar project at Hanford to California facilities, the costs of doing so add additional costs. Consequently, development of a large- scale solar project at Hanford to meet the renewable goals of Office of Science facilities on the west coast is currently uneconomic. This may change as solar costs decrease and California-based facilities face increasing costs for conventional and renewable energy produced in the state. PNNL should monitor those cost trends. « less
In-Situ UHV Tem Investigations of the Initial Oxidation Stage of Copper Thin Films

The nucleation and growth of Cu2O due to oxidation of Cu(001) films were monitored at various temperatures and oxygen partial pressures. For all examined temperatures and pressures, Cu2O islands were observed to form epitaxially with respect to the copper film. The nucleation of these oxide islands was homogeneous –no clear evidence was observed for either steps or dislocations being preferential nucleation sites. Based on this data, we have developed a semiquantitative model of the initial oxidation stage where the dominant mechanism for transport, nucleation and growth of oxide islands is oxygen diffusion on the Cu surface. We are presently comparing our experimental data with nucleation rate theory, where the predictions qualitatively describe our observations, but not quantitatively.
Calming and Focusing: Students’ Perceptions of Short Classroom Strategies for Fostering Presence:

Purpose: Presence is the essence of professional nursing in the nurse–patient connection. Nursing students have little exposure to strategies fostering presence. This pilot study explored students’ perceptions of strategies to encourage presence in the classroom. Design: A three-question survey was distributed to students in the last week of classes. Faculty not teaching that course administered the survey. Method: Four faculty used strategies aimed at encouraging presence. These strategies included starting class with a mindfulness minute, mindful movement, singing bowl, peace and power check in, and a discussion of a current event. Each class used only one strategy consistently through the semester. Participants were undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in one of seven classes taught by these faculty. Findings: Overall the students found strategies to be beneficial. In reflecting on the experience with the strategies, four themes emerged: calming/relaxing; focusing/centering; setting aside distr...
Choice Of An Information Requirements Analysis Method: An Integrated Approach

AbstractEffective information requirements analysis (IRA) is critical for the success Of application systems. Literature has mainly defined the contingencies under which specific IRA methods are most effective for determining the content of information. This paper shows how IRA methods can supplement each other, instead of being viewed as alternatives. A process for combining IRA methods is developed. Resolving differences between Decision Analysis and Data Analysis by developing different kinds of Prototypes is presented as an integrated framework of IRA. Case studies illustrating this approach are included. The paper extends research in two areas: IRA and Prototyping.
Who Is Providing the Predominant Care for Older Adults With Dementia

Abstract Objectives To identify which clinical specialties are most central for care of people with dementia in the community and long-term care (LTC) settings. Design Cross-sectional analysis. Participants Fee-for-service Medicare beneficiaries aged ≥65 years with dementia. Measurements Specialty, categorized into primary care (internal or family medicine, geriatrics, or nurse practitioners [NPs]) versus other specialties, of the predominant provider of care (PPC) for each patient, defined by providing the most ambulatory visits. Results Among 2,598,719 beneficiaries with dementia, 74% lived in the community and 80% had a PPC in primary care. In LTC, 91% had primary care as their PPC compared with 77% in the community (P Conclusion It is unknown whether specialists are aware of their central role for many dementia patients’ care needs. In LTC, NPs play the lead role as PPCs.
Listening to learners’ voices: Qualitative aspects of pronunciation learning during study abroad

This article investigates learners’ perceptions on pronunciation learning in study-abroad contexts from a qualitative perspective. While previous research focused mainly on quantitative measurements of pronunciation gains with mixed results, this study takes a more learner-centered approach and examines the impact of socio-psychological factors on learning foreign pronunciation, which appears to be a highly individual and at times conflict-prone process with which sojourners are confronted. The study draws on the cases of five Canadian students who studied abroad at German universities for one or two semesters. The data collection involved a learning history questionnaire; semi-structured interviews pre-, mid-, and post-sojourn; and bi-weekly e-journals. The data was analyzed and interpreted within the framework of narrative analysis. The results show how sojourners’ beliefs about the importance of pronunciation, community participation, identity-related challenges, and obstacles to pronunciation learning influence and help explain individually different learning behaviors and results.
High-speed cycling intervention improves rate-dependent mobility in older adults

PURPOSE: The aim was to determine the feasibility of a six-week speed-based exercise program that could be used to initiate new exercise behaviors and improve rapid movement in older adults approaching frailty. METHODS: The intervention group included 14 older adults (3 males, 11 females, mean (SD) age: 70 (7.6) years, height: 1.6 (.11) m, mass: 76.8 (12.0) kg, BMI: 27.7(4.7)). The control group included 12 older adults (6 males, 6 females, mean (SD) age: 69.2 (6.9) years, height: 1.7 (.09) m, mass: 78.2 (10.9) kg, BMI: 25.3 (2.7)). Subjects included active older adults, including regular exercisers, but none were engaged in sports or exercises with an emphasis on speed (e.g. cycling spin classes or tennis). Stationary recumbent cycling was selected to minimize fall risk and low pedaling resistance reduced musculoskeletal and cardiovascular load. Two weekly 30-minute exercise sessions consisted of interval training in which subjects pedaled at preferred cadence and performed ten 20-s fast cadence intervals separated by 40-s of active recovery at preferred cadence. RESULTS: Significant Group by Time interactions (pCONCLUSION: These results demonstrate that a relatively low dose of speed-based exercise can improve neuromuscular function and tests of mobility in older adults. Such a program serves as a sensible precursor to subsequent, more vigorous training or as an adjunct to a program where a velocity emphasis is lacking. Language: en
God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty

Clergy sex abuse, polygamy, children dying from faith healing, companies that refuse to do business with same-sex couples, and residential neighborhoods forced to host homeless shelters - what do all of these have in common? They are all examples of religious believers harming others and demanding religious liberty regardless of the harm. This book unmasks those responsible, explains how this new set of rights is not derived from the First Amendment and argues for a return to common-sense religious liberty. In straightforward, readable prose, God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty sets the record straight about the United States' move toward extreme religious liberty. More than half of this thoroughly revised second edition is new content, featuring a new introduction and epilogue and contemporary stories. All Americans need to read this book, before they or their friends and family are harmed by religious believers exercising their newfound rights.
Management Is a Domain-Relative Practice

Extending Geoff Moore’s account of MacIntyre’s practice-institution schema, focus turns to the question of whether management is a practice. To do so, the conversation between MacIntyre and Joseph Dunne on the question of whether teaching is a practice is examined. To resolve the dispute, the notion of a domain-relative practice is introduced and explained. A domain-relative practice possesses internal standards of excellence identifiable to practitioners while being related to another particular domain. In addition to teaching, other examples are investigated, including coaching, writing, and public speaking. Management is a domain-relative practice with internal standards of excellence. One of the features of the manager’s task is that it is always relative to the practice or practices housed in the institution that one is charged with managing.
Changing incidence and etiology of iatrogenic ureteral injuries

In the last decade there have been major advances in endoscopic surgery including ureteroscopy and laparoscopy, both of which may cause ureteral injury. We sought to determine if increased use of these procedures affected the frequency and nature of major iatrogenic ureteral injuries managed at our medical center. From 1980 to 1984 we treated 8 patients with such injuries compared to 19 patients treated from 1985 to 1989. The most recent period corresponded to the institution of ureteroscopy and the use of more aggressive laparoscopic procedures. Of the patients 14 sustained injuries at our center while 13 were referred from other institutions. Between 1985 and 1989 the incidence of injuries per total hospital admissions at risk increased from 4 to 11 per 10,000 (p = 0.0067), the incidence of urological injuries increased from 4 to 23 per 10,000 (p = 0.0071) and the incidence of injuries occurring in gynecologic patients increased from 13 to 41 per 10,000 admissions (p = 0.0385). There was no difference in the incidence of injuries in the general surgical population. From 1980 to 1984 no laparoscopic or ureteroscopic injuries occurred. However, from 1985 to 1989, 25% of gynecologic injuries occurred during laparoscopy and 70% of urological injuries were sustained during ureteroscopic procedures. Depending on the extent of the injury, patients were initially treated with either endourological or open surgical procedures. Good results were obtained in the majority of cases. Contemporary therapeutic strategies for treating patients sustaining ureteral injuries are discussed.
Left Ventricular Mechanical Support with the Impella during Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation

Background: Venoarterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) provides systemic arterial support without directly unloading the left heart, which causes an elevated left ventricular (LV) pressure. The aim of the present study was to investigate the adjunctive application of the Impella device for LV unloading in patients during ECMO. Methods: This retrospective cohort study included patients who received Impella support in addition to venoarterial ECMO between April 2012 and December 2015. ECMO cannulation was performed peripherally or centrally, while the Impella device was surgically inserted into the femoral artery or the right axillary artery. Results: Among 62 patients, 10 (16.1%) received an Impella device during ECMO support. Following Impella support, right atrial pressure improved from a median of 18 (IQR, 14-24) mmHg to 13 (IQR, 10-15) mmHg and pulmonary wedge pressure improved from 30 (IQR, 26-35) mmHg to 16 (IQR, 12-19) mmHg in all the patients (p value < 0.001). Follow-up transthoracic echocardiograms (n = 6) showed a median decrease of 0.8 cm in LV end-diastolic volume (p value = 0.021). There were 5 (50%) in-hospital deaths due to sustained brain injury (n = 3) and refractory cardiogenic shock (n = 2). The remaining 5 patients were discharged and successfully bridged to more permanent LV assist device (n = 2) or heart transplantation (n = 3). Conclusion: The findings of the present study indicate that the application of the Impella device during ECMO support is effective in LV unloading and confers optimal hemodynamic support.
Chasing Away RAts: Semantics and Evaluation for Relaxed Atomics on Heterogeneous Systems

An unambiguous and easy-to-understand memory consistency model is crucial for ensuring correct synchronization and guiding future design of heterogeneous systems. In a widely adopted approach, the memory model guarantees sequential consistency (SC) as long as programmers obey certain rules. The popular data-race-free-0 (DRF0) model exemplifies this SC-centric approach by requiring programmers to avoid data races. Recent industry models, however, have extended such SC-centric models to incorporate relaxed atomics. These extensions can improve performance, but are difficult to specify formally and use correctly. This work addresses the impact of relaxed atomics on consistency models for heterogeneous systems in two ways. First, we introduce a new model, Data-Race-Free-Relaxed (DRFrlx), that extends DRF0 to provide SC-centric semantics for the common use cases of relaxed atomics. Second, we evaluate the performance of relaxed atomics in CPU-GPU systems for these use cases. We find mixed results -- for most cases, relaxed atomics provide only a small benefit in execution time, but for some cases, they help significantly (e.g., up to 51% for DRFrlx over DRF0).
Self-Stimulation Stimulus Duration Preferences in Rhesus Monkeys

Thirty-four electrodes were chronically implanted in various limbic system structures in four rhesus monkeys. All evoked behaviors were noted and self-stimulation rates were obtained as a function of current intensity. Self-stimulation stimulus duration preferences were then obtained also as a function of current intensity. The results showed that the effects of intensity varied from electrode to electrode but that preference times could be related to certain classes of evoked behaviors and to certain characteristics of the self-stimulation rate curves. Preference durations could also be related to lateral versus medial electrode placements.
Social accountability and education revives auxiliary nurse-midwife sub-centers in India, reduces travel time and increases access to family planning services

Background: Uttar Pradesh (UP) is the most populous state in India. The maternal mortality ratio, infant mortality rate and fertility rates, are all higher than the national average. Sixty per cent of UP inhabitants live in rural communities. Reasons behind the poor state of health and services in many areas of UP is inadequate knowledge and availability in communities of healthy behaviors and information on available government health services. Methods: World Vision Inc. implemented a three-and-half year mobilizing for maternal and neonatal health through birth spacing and advocacy project (MOMENT), partnering with local organizations in rural Hardoi and urban slums of Lucknow districts in UP. World Vision Inc. used print, audio and visual media, and house-to-house contacts to educate communities on timing and spacing of pregnancies, the benefits of seeking and using maternal and child health (MCH) including immunization, and family planning (FP) services. This paper focuses on World Vision’s Social Accountability strategy – Citizen Voice and Action (CVA) and interface meetings – used in Hardoi that helped, educate and empower Village Health Sanitation and Nutrition Committees (VHSNCs), and village leaders to access “Government Untied Funds” to improve community social and health services. Results: 40 VHSNCs were revived in 24 months. Nine local leaders accessed government untied funds. In addition, increased knowledge of the benefits of timing and spacing of pregnancies, MCH, FP services, and access to community entitlements, led the community to embrace, work together to contribute their time to rebuild and reopen 17 non-functional Auxiliary Nurse Midwife (ANM) subcenters. 17 ANMs received refresher training to provide quality care. Sub-center data showed 1,121 and 3,156 women opted for intra-uterine contraceptive device and oral pills respectively and 29,316 condoms were distributed. Conclusion: In Hardoi, UP, education, using CVA, and interface meetings are contributing to increasing the number of government sub-centers that integrate contraceptive services with others such as immunization and antenatal care, bringing care closer and more accessible to women and children, and reducing travel time and cost to families who would have otherwise sought these services from higher level facilities. Social accountability can help mobilize communities to contribute to improving services that affect them.
Tuning Cost Functions for Social Navigation

Human-Robot Interaction literature frequently uses Gaussian distributions within navigation costmaps to model proxemic constraints around humans. While it has proven to be effective in several cases, this approach is often hard to tune to get the desired behavior, often because of unforeseen interactions between different elements in the costmap. There is, as far as we are aware, no general strategy in the literature for how to predictably use this approach. In this paper, we describe how the parameters for the soft constraints can affect the robot's planned paths, and what constraints on the parameters can be introduced in order to achieve certain behaviors. In particular, we show the complex interactions between the Gaussian's parameters and elements of the path planning algorithms, and how undesirable behavior can result from configurations exceeding certain ratios. There properties are explored using mathematical models of the paths and two sets of tests: the first using simulated costmaps, and the second using live data in conjunction with the ROS Navigation algorithms.
Transgenerational and developmental plasticity at the molecular level: Lessons from Daphnia.

Listen to the news and you are bound to hear that researchers are increasingly interested in the biological manifestations of trauma that reverberate through the generations. Research in this area can be controversial in the public realm, provoking societal issues about personal responsibility (are we really born free or are we born with the burden of our ancestors’ experience?). It is also a touchy subject within evolutionary biology because it provokes concerns about Lamarckianism and general scepticism about the importance of extra-genetic inheritance (Laland et al., 2014). Part of why the research in this area has been controversial is because it is difficult to study. For one, there is the problem of how long it takes to track changes across generations, making long-term, multi-generational studies especially tricky in long-lived species. Moreover, there are presently very few (if any) known molecular mechanisms by which environmental effects can be incorporated into the genome and persist for multiple successive generations, casting doubt on their evolutionary repercussions. Fortunately, you only have to look in your local pond to find the creatures that are teaching us a great deal about how and why the experiences of parents are passed down to their offspring. In this issue of Molecular Ecology, Hales et al. (Hales et al., 2017) illustrate the power of Daphnia (“water fleas”) for making headway in this field.
Index and topology of minimal hypersurfaces in $$\mathbb {R}^n$$

In this paper, we consider immersed two-sided minimal hypersurfaces in $$\mathbb {R}^n$$ with finite total curvature. We prove that the sum of the Morse index and the nullity of the Jacobi operator is bounded from below by a linear function of the number of ends and the first Betti number of the hypersurface. When $$n=4$$ , we are able to drop the nullity term by a careful study for the rigidity case. Our result is the first effective Morse index bound by purely topological invariants, and is a generalization of Li and Wang (Math Res Lett 9(1):95–104, 2002). Using our index estimates and ideas from the recent work of Chodosh–Ketover–Maximo (Minimal surfaces with bounded index, 2015. arXiv:1509.06724 ), we prove compactness and finiteness results of minimal hypersurfaces in $$\mathbb {R}^4$$ with finite index.
Raising Cash under Duress and the Role of Cash Value Life Insurance: An Educational Example.

Consumers face hard choices when they need cash quickly. Hard choices can lead to emotional or economically unsound decisions. Traditional classroom discussions of raising funds to pay for expenses usually focus on generating income, borrowing, or the sale of real and financial assets, if hardship is discussed at all. However, many families have additional “non-traditional” sources of cash. This article examines the use of life insurance surrenders and policy loans as a source of funds for both routine funding needs as well as a source of emergency financing. The article concludes with a review of the economic considerations of life insurance for Insurance and Financial Planning educators and students.
Review - Robin Paul Malloy, Law and Market Economy: Reinterpreting the Values of Law and Economics

Robin Paul Malloy's Law and Market Economy presents a concept of the relation between the market and the law that departs from orthodoxy. The mainstream Chicago School approach posits that the function of the law is to promote the efficient allocation of societal resources to productive activities, whether by market action or by the action of public and private institutions, in order to maximize aggregate societal wealth. Malloy uses semiotic theory as a framework for developing a concept of law and market economy in which the function of the law is to enhance societal processes of creativity in order to serve sustainable wealth formation. Although this concept is developed at a substantial level of abstraction, the consequences of Malloy's prescriptions entail the development of societal institutions, especially including the law, that engage in the ongoing redistribution of wealth toward equality. This approach differs markedly from the consequence of the prescriptions of orthodox law and economics, which inevitably drive the distribution of wealth toward substantial and growing inequality.
Connecting the Dots: Incorporating Mass Customization into the Classroom Experience

The introductory course in the Fashion Development program is a combination of lectures and laboratory exercises designed to introduce sophomore level students to the apparel industry. One of the projects of the course was refined to include a Mass Customization project. Each of the students was 3D body scanned and their measurements (or those of their fit model) were used to create their individualized fitting patterns. As each student completed the production of their garment they met with the course instructor and teaching assistant to evaluate the fit of the garment using industry fit standards. Students learned 1) how to produce a dress, 2) the relationship of sizing to fit, 3) how to evaluate fit of a garment, 4) the variables that may have an impact on fit, 5) industry methods used to meet the fit needs of their customers, and 6) problem solving techniques.