cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Providing user service for an integrated computing network

Microcomputers have become the single most important desktop tool — aside from the telephone — in higher education. The emergence of integrated computing networks, where all types of users are connected to the same backbone, has created a new phenomenon in computer user support. In many cases, the same microcomputer hardware (and often the same software) is used in both administrative and academic areas. At the same time, academic demand is growing for access to data once considered the sole domain of administrative users. One result of this literal revolution is that where computer support issues could once be clearly divided between academic and administrative users, the delineating lines have become increasingly blurred.Consequently, there is emerging a new breed of campus computer user consultants, and a variety of new offices aimed at providing microcomputer support to campus computing users. Most of these support organizations have evolved in obvious ways; for example, out of the traditional academic or administrative computing departments. Others have become extensions or integral parts of Information Centers or MIS departments.In all cases, a series of new challenges must be addressed in some way: Guiding the transition from a “machine-centered” to a “user-centered” computing environment,Making all campus computer users citizens (or potential citizens, of an integrated data network,Dealing with the issues of hardware and software standards,Managing technological change with some semblance of rationality,Meeting user education and training needs, andMaintaining effective support sub-groups (for example, network user groups, computer stores, computer maintenance shops, special interest groups, etc…This paper describes a Computer User Services department, completely separate from administrative computing, academic computing and the information center/MIS department, created to focus on these issues. This new unit was created at Florida Atlantic University in an effort to provide a source of “application-neutral” user support in an integrated computing network environment. Problems and solutions are discussed, including the benefits of the approach and recommendations for those interested in pursuing a similar course.
Radiant ignition of a combustible solid with gas-phase exothermicity

Abstract An asymptotic analysis is presented for the ignition of a solid fuel that gasifies endothermically then reacts exothermically in the gas phase through a one-step Arrhenius process. The endothermic gasification was analyzed in an earlier paper; the present paper employs those results in treating the gas-phase reaction. It is shown that depending on values of the chemical parameters, the gas-phase ignition reaction may begin either at the time that gasification begins or during the later stage of transport-controlled gasification. In the former case, results for the gas-phase ignition time are similar to those for condensed-phase ignitions. In the latter case, a mixing layer develops in the gas-phase and moves away from the surface, the exothermic reaction being negligible until thermal runaway occurs somewhere within the mixing layer. Both early-time and late-time ignitions within the mixing layer are analyzed by solving partial differential equations derived from perturbations for large activation energies and a small ratio of gas to solid thermal responsivity. The theory serves to indicate how ignition by gas-phase reactions may be distinguished experimentally from ignition by condensed-phase or heterogenous reactions.
Stress-strain relationship in human cadaveric plantaris tendon: A preliminary study

As a part of a major experimental study of forces in muscles and tendons it became necessary, as a preliminary step, to know the stress-strain relationship in human tendon. The studies reported herein give data from thirty tests on cadaveric human plantaris tendon in three states, i.e., moist, air dried and oven dried. Results are correlated with previously published results on tendon and with published strengths of human muscle and bone. Considerable new information on tendon strength is presented and several important deductive conclusions are given. The equipment and methods are described and illustrated and an appendix is given, showing results of the individual tests.
Polishing performance of polycrystalline diamond produced by explosive shock synthesis

Abstract Controlled laboratory polishing experiments on a number of substrates, including ferrite, sapphire, cemented carbide, and cubic zirconia, were carried out using three different types of 1 μm diamond powders. Diamond types used for the comparison tests were (a) polycrystalline explosive shock synthesized, (b) monocrystalline synthetic, and (c) monocrystalline natural diamond. Results showed that in all cases polycrystalline shock synthesized diamond gave either much faster polishing action and substantially higher material removal rates or a better surface quality than the other two types of diamond. This is attributed to the unique structure of polycrystalline shock-synthesized diamond, which is characterized by the presence of a multitude of tiny cutting edges on each particle.
Modeling mechanical response and texture evolution of α-uranium as a function of strain rate and temperature using polycrystal plasticity

Abstract We present a polycrystal plasticity model based on a self-consistent homogenization capable of predicting the macroscopic mechanical response and texture evolution of α-uranium over a wide range of temperatures and strain rates. The hardening of individual crystals is based on the evolution of dislocation densities and includes effects of strain rate and temperature through thermally-activated recovery, dislocation substructure formation, and slip-twin interactions. The model is validated on a comprehensive set of compression tests performed on a clock-rolled α-uranium plate at temperatures ranging from 198 to 573 K and strain rates ranging from 10 −3 to 3600 s −1 . The model is able to reproduce the stress–strain response and texture for all tests with a unique set of single-crystal hardening parameters. We elucidate the role played by the slip and twinning mechanisms and their interactions in large plastic deformation of α-uranium as a function of strain rate and temperature.
Top-down Targeted Proteomics for Deep Sequencing of Tropomyosin Isoforms

Tropomyosins (Tm) constitute a family of ubiquitous and highly conserved actin-binding proteins, playing essential roles in a variety of biological processes. Tm isoforms produced by multiple Tm encoding genes and alternatively expressed exons along with post-translational modifications (PTMs) regulate Tm function. Therefore, to gain a better understanding of the functional role of Tm, it is essential to fully characterize Tm isoforms. Herein, we developed a top-down high-resolution mass spectrometry (MS) based targeted proteomics method for comprehensive characterization of Tm isoforms. α–Tm was identified to be the predominant isoform in swine cardiac muscle. We further characterized its sequence and localized the PTMs such as acetylation and phosphorylation as well as amino acid polymorphisms. Interestingly, we discovered a “novel” Tm isoform that does not match with any of the currently available swine Tm sequences. A deep sequencing of this isoform by top-down MS revealed an exact match with mouse β–Tm sequence, suggesting that this “novel” isoform is swine β–Tm which is 100% conserved between swine and mouse. Taken together, we demonstrated that top-down targeted proteomics provides a powerful tool for deep sequencing of Tm isoforms from genetic variations together with complete mapping of the PTM sites.
Comparisons of free-flight experimental and predicted heating rates for the Space Shuttle

Experimental windward-ray heating rates measured during entry of the first Space Shuttle Orbiter mission are compared with predicted rates based on engineering and detailed equilibrium-air analyses. The experimental heating rates were reduced from temperature-time histories which are available only for the trajectory period after blackout which corresponds to a freestream Mach number and altitude of approximately 11.0 and 53 km, respectively. The experimental heating rates are computed for two measured emissivity data sets. The differences in the experimental heating rates based on the two emissivity data sets are sufficiently large that different interpretations of the STS-1 aerothermal environment may be inferred.
How to Create the Ideal Son: The unhidden curriculum in pseudo-Plutarch 'On the Training of Children'

AbstractThis article enquires into the curriculum advocated in the only ancient Greek treatise concerning education that has survived in its entirety, entitled On the Training of Children. The treatise was highly influential in Europe from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century, and thus exhibits certain assumptions concerning the purpose of curriculum that lie behind the development of western education and may still be influential today. The inquiry is conducted in three stages: the intended recipients of the curriculum are identified; its elements are enumerated and evaluated; and its aims are inferred from the text. I conclude that the curriculum was intended for wealthy, privileged boys, that philosophy (though not independent theorising) was the most valued subject of study and that the aim of the curriculum was to instil in the recipients aristocratic values and modes of behaviour. Finally, some topics are suggested for reflection, in response to these conclusions, upon existing curricula.
Pseudo-discontinuities in the isomer shift near magnetic transitions

It is shown that a relatively small non-linear behavior of the velocity drive system used in Mossbauer effect studies yields pseudo-discontinuities in the isomer shift near the critical temperatureT c of a magnetic-paramagnetic transition. The anomaly of the57Fe isomer shift in iron is attributed to this effect.
Helping system engineers bridge the peaks

In our experience at NASA, system engineers generally follow the Twin Peaks approach when developing safety-critical systems. However, iterations between the peaks require considerable manual, and in some cases duplicate, effort. A significant part of the manual effort stems from the fact that requirements are written in English natural language rather than a formal notation. In this work, we propose an approach that enables system engineers to leverage formal requirements and automated test generation to streamline iterations, effectively "bridging the peaks". The key to the approach is a formal language notation that a) system engineers are comfortable with, b) is supported by a family of automated V&V tools, and c) is semantically rich enough to describe the requirements of interest. We believe the combination of formalizing requirements and providing tool support to automate the iterations will lead to a more efficient Twin Peaks implementation at NASA.
The Bosnian Police and Police Integrity A Continuing Story

The international community has invested considerable resources in reforming the police in post-Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). This paper develops a typology of integrity problems in the BiH ...
Entropy-Based Spectral Processing on the IEEE 802.11A OFDM Waveform

The problem of non-matched filter signal detection, identification and/or characterization is of significant interest to military planners who require increased situational awareness of Radio Frequency (RF) systems operating in a given area. Situational awareness can also provide a management tool for interference avoidance by allowing the integration of new RF-based devices without affecting the performance of existing ones. This research introduces an entropy-based spectral processing technique for passively identifying and characterizing communication signals. The proposed technique is based on well-established concepts of sequence entropy or concentration occurring within a specified transformation space of the signal of interest. As demonstrated here, performance of the entropy-based spectral processing technique is dictated by input variables which partition the signal interest, transform the partitioned signal to the spectral domain, and calculate an entropy-based metric for each transformed partition. The process produces a Spectral-Entropy response for the signal of interest. A proof-of-concept demonstration was conducted by applying the proposed technique to both a simulated and an experimentally collected IEEE 802.11a OFDM waveform. Features which emerge within the Spectral-Entropy response are visually correlated with known deterministic and random components of the 802.11a waveform at different Signal-to-Noise Ratios (SNR). These components are readily identifiable through their comparatively low Spectral-Entropy response (high concentration) at SNR's approaching ?5.0 dB.
Bacillus subtilis SMC Is Required for Proper Arrangement of the Chromosome and for Efficient Segregation of Replication Termini but Not for Bipolar Movement of Newly Duplicated Origin Regions

ABSTRACT SMC protein is required for chromosome condensation and for the faithful segregation of daughter chromosomes in Bacillus subtilis. The visualization of specific sites on the chromosome showed that newly duplicated origin regions in growing cells of ansmc mutant were able to segregate from each other but that the location of origin regions was frequently aberrant. In contrast, the segregation of replication termini was impaired in smcmutant cells. This analysis was extended to germinating spores of ansmc mutant. The results showed that during germination, newly duplicated origins, but not termini, were able to separate from each other in the absence of SMC. Also, DAPI (4′,6′-diamidino-2-phenylindole) staining revealed that chromosomes in germinating spores were able to undergo partial or complete replication but that the daughter chromosomes were blocked at a late stage in the segregation process. These findings were confirmed by time-lapse microscopy, which showed that after duplication in growing cells the origin regions underwent rapid movement toward opposite poles of the cell in the absence of SMC. This indicates that SMC is not a required component of the mitotic motor that initially drives origins apart after their duplication. It is also concluded that SMC is needed to maintain the proper layout of the chromosome in the cell and that it functions in the cell cycle after origin separation but prior to complete segregation or replication of daughter chromosomes. It is proposed here that chromosome segregation takes place in at least two steps: an SMC-independent step in which origins move apart and a subsequent SMC-dependent step in which newly duplicated chromosomes condense and are thereby drawn apart.
Hornblendes Formed During Progressive Metamorphism Of Amphibolites, Northwest Adirondack Mountains, New York

Hornblendes in amphibolite interlayers in the paragneiss of the northwest Adirondack Mountains undergo systematic changes in color, composition, and density during progressive metamorphism from almandine-amphibolite to hornblende-granulite facies. In contrast, indices of refraction of the hornblendes remain about constant. In the almandine-amphibolite facies the amphibolite layers have the bulk composition of a saturated basalt and consist of bluish-green hornblende, andesine, and quartz. As these layers are traced into the hornblende-granulite facies, their composition undergoes a progressive change to that of an olivine basalt with brownish-green hornblende, clinopyroxene and orthopyroxene, and calcic andesine as major constituents. Compositional changes in the hornblendes with increasing grade of metamorphism include increases in Ti, Na, K, Cr, V, and Sc. Decreases occur in the amounts of Mn, Zn, OH + F + Cl, and in the ratios Fe2O3/FeO and Fe/Mg. Density of the hornblendes increases from 3.260 to 3.278 with the increasing grade of metamorphism. These changes in the hornblendes with increasing T and P, although well denned, are less pronounced than those measured in biotites and garnets of the enclosing paragneiss. Large variations in the physical and chemical properties of hornblendes in metamafic rocks reconstituted above the epidote-amphibolite facies appear to be induced principally by critical changes in the bulk composition of the total rock, and not by the regional gradients in T, P, or by changes in kind, or composition, of the coexisting minerals.
Global comparisons of e-government environments

This research examines nation-wide as well as region-wide e-government environment that enabling e-government. First, this study objectively presents the hierarchical structure of variables that define a country's e-government environment. Second, a global comparative analysis is conducted using a panel of 133 countries and 8 regions. Cross Reference Analysis shows a significant variety of e-government levels, and accordingly, four classes of e-government are identified. Third, correlation analysis is conducted to analyse the relations among official online presences, ICT indicators, and critical human capital capacities. Fourth, relations between the e-government environment and its usages are analysed on a panel of 21 countries.
Supporting end-users in the creation of dependable web clips

Web authoring environments enable end-users to create applications that integrate information from other web sources. Users can create web sites that include built-in components to dynamically incorporate, for example, weather information, stock-quotes, or the latest news from different web sources. Recent surveys conducted among end-users have indicated an increasing interest in creating such applications. Unfortunately, web authoring environments do not provide support beyond a limited set of built-in components. This work addresses this limitation by providing end-user support for "clipping" information from a target web site to incorporate it into the end-user site. The support consists of a mechanism to identify the target clipping with multiple markers to increase robustness, and a dynamic assessment of the retrieved information to quantify its reliability. The clipping approach has been integrated as a feature into a popular web authoring tool on which we present the results of two preliminary studies.
Fe(III) Oxide Reactivity Toward Biological versus Chemical Reduction

Initial rates of biological (Shewanella putrefaciens strain CN32, pH 6.8) and chemical (ascorbate, pH 3.0) reduction of synthetic Fe(III) oxides with a broad range of crystallinity and specific surface area were examined to assess how variations in these properties are likely to influence the kinetics of bacterial Fe(III) oxide reduction in heterogeneous natural Fe(III) oxide assemblages. The results indicate that bacterial Fe(III) oxide reduction does not respond strongly to oxide crystal thermodynamic properties (ΔGf) which exert a significant impact on the kinetics of abiotic reductive dissolution. These findings suggest that oxide mineral heterogeneity in natural soils and sediments is likely to affect initial rates of bacterial reduction (e.g. during the early stages of anaerobic metabolism following the onset of anoxic conditions) mainly via an influence on reactive surface site density and that inferences regarding the competitiveness of bacterial Fe(III) oxide reduction as a pathway for organic ma...
Responses of Neurons in the Ventral Nucleus of the Lateral Lemniscus to Sinusoidally Amplitude-Modulated Tones

Fluctuations in the amplitude of a sound play an important role in our perception of pitch and acoustic space, but their neural analysis has not been fully elucidated. The ventral nucleus of the lateral lemniscus (VNLL) has been implicated in the processing of such temporal features of a sound. This study examines responses of neurons in the VNLL of unanesthetized rabbits to sinusoidally amplitude modulated tones, a type of stimulus that has often been used to investigate encoding of temporal information. Modulation transfer functions of responses were calculated in two ways: based on discharge rates (rMTFs) and on synchronization to the envelope (tMTFs). Among the variety of rMTFs, two types were readily identifiable: flat and band-pass. The responses of neurons exhibiting these types of rMTF differed in several ways. Neurons with flat rMTFs typically had moderate rates of spontaneous activity, sustained responses to short tone bursts, and low-pass or band-pass tMTFs. Neurons with band-pass rMTFs typically had low spontaneous activity, onset responses to short tone bursts, and flat tMTFs. The vast majority synchronized strongly to the modulation envelope. The best modulation frequencies of neurons with band-pass rMTFs extended from 14 to 283 Hz. The presence of neurons with band-pass rMTFs in the VNLL suggests that this nucleus plays a role in converting the temporal code for modulation frequency used in lower structures into a rate-based code for use higher in the auditory pathway. The substantial number of neurons with more complex modulation transfer functions indicates that the VNLL has other functions.
Service Learning and Community-Based Partnerships: A Model for Teaching Macro Practice Social Work.

This article describes an innovative project that combined service learning and community-based partnerships to teach macro practice skills to social work students and citizenship skills to primary school students. The partners, a small social work program, several primary schools, and an international ly recognized civic engagement program, coordinated the project from 2003 to 2007. A formative evaluation of the project indicated that both primary school and social work students benefited from the experience. In particular, the project helped social work students develop a wide range of macro practice skills which, according to research, many graduates fail to acquire. In fact, students used knowledge and skills from all ten competency areas listed in the Council on Social Work Education's (2008) Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards. The authors conclude that social work programs need to provide students with macro-focused, community-based, supplemental experiences, similar to this project, if programs hope to meet CSWE accreditation standards.
Two corpuses of spreadsheet errors

The widespread presence of errors in spreadsheets is now well-established. Quite a few methodological and software approaches have been suggested as ways to reduce spreadsheet errors. However, these approaches are always tailored to particular types of errors. Are such errors, in fact, widespread? A tool that focuses on rare errors is not very appealing. In other fields of error analysis, especially linguistics, it has proven useful to collect corpora (systematic samples) of errors. This paper presents two corpora of errors seen in spreadsheet experiments. Hopefully, these corpora will help us assess the claims of spreadsheet reduction approaches and should guide theory creation and testing.
Simulations of strong ground motion for earthquakes in the Mexicali—Imperial Valley region

Summary. In this paper computer modelling is used to test simple approximations for simulating strong ground motions for moderate and large earthquakes in the Mexicali–Imperial Valley region. Initially, we represent an earthquake rupture process as a series of many independent small earthquakes distributed in a somewhat random manner in both space and time along the rupture surface. By summing real seismograms for small earthquakes (used as empirical Green's functions), strong ground motions at specific sites near a fault are calculated. Alternatively, theoretical Green's functions that include frequencies up to 20 Hz are used in essentially similar simulations. The model uses random numbers to emulate some of the non-deterministic irregularities associated with real earthquakes, due either to complexities in the rupture process itself and/or strong variations in the material properties of the medium. Simulations of the 1980 June 9 Victoria, Baja California earthquake (ML= 6.1) approximately agree with the duration of shaking, the maximum ground acceleration, and the frequency content of strong ground motion records obtained at distances of up to 35 km for this moderate earthquake. In the initial stages of modelling we do not introduce any scaling of spectral shape with magnitude, in order to see at what stage the data require it. Surprisingly, such scaling is not critical in going from M= 4–5 events to the M= 6.1 Victoria earthquake. However, it is clearly required by the El Centro accelerogram for the Imperial Valley 1940 earthquake, which had a much higher moment (Ms∼ 7). We derive the spectral modification function for this event. The resulting model for this magnitude ∼ 7 earthquake is then used to predict the ground motions at short distances from the fault. Predicted peak horizontal accelerations for the M ∼ 7 event are about 25–50 per cent higher than those observed for the M= 6.1 Victoria event.
Improvement of redundant manipulator task agility using multiobjective weighted isotropy-based placement optimization

The measurement and improvement of task agility, the ability of a manipulator to effectively handle multiple task types, has become increasingly important in the manufacturing industry as efforts are made to design more versatile and efficient factories. Task agility is crucial to the performance of kinematically redundant manipulators in complex manufacturing workspaces that involve several physical motion impediments and conservative dynamic actuation constraints, and which are used to complete a wide variety of manufacturing operations. Manipulator morphology and workspace layout optimizations offer robust, long term solutions to the problem of improving task agility, but the cost of redevelopment or redeployment is typically prohibitive. Manipulator placement optimization is a more economically feasible and practical solution that is amenable to short term implementation. In this paper we propose the use of a multiobjective weighted isotropy measure as a task agility metric and submit it as the basis for optimizing the placement of redundant manipulators in a complex, multitask workspaces. We describe the formulation of this measure, how it factors motion impedance into kinematic dexterity, and the advantages of this measure over previous task agility measurement methods. We demonstrate its efficacy in improving task agility by optimizing manipulator base placement to achieve collision-free motion and reduced maximum torques across an entire set of disparate manipulation tasks.
Integration of relational and hierarchical network information for protein function prediction

In the current climate of high-throughput computational biology, the inference of a protein's function from related measurements, such as protein-protein interaction relations, has become a canonical task. Most existing technologies pursue this task as a classification problem, on a term-by-term basis, for each term in a database, such as the Gene Ontology (GO) database, a popular rigorous vocabulary for biological functions. However, ontology structures are essentially hierarchies, with certain top to bottom annotation rules which protein function predictions should in principle follow. Currently, the most common approach to imposing these hierarchical constraints on network-based classifiers is through the use of transitive closure to predictions. We propose a probabilistic framework to integrate information in relational data, in the form of a protein-protein interaction network, and a hierarchically structured database of terms, in the form of the GO database, for the purpose of protein function prediction. At the heart of our framework is a factorization of local neighborhood information in the protein-protein interaction network across successive ancestral terms in the GO hierarchy. We introduce a classifier within this framework, with computationally efficient implementation, that produces GO-term predictions that naturally obey a hierarchical 'true-path' consistency from root to leaves, without the need for further post-processing. A cross-validation study, using data from the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, shows our method offers substantial improvements over both standard 'guilt-by-association' (i.e., Nearest-Neighbor) and more refined Markov random field methods, whether in their original form or when post-processed to artificially impose 'true-path' consistency. Further analysis of the results indicates that these improvements are associated with increased predictive capabilities (i.e., increased positive predictive value), and that this increase is consistent uniformly with GO-term depth. Additional in silico validation on a collection of new annotations recently added to GO confirms the advantages suggested by the cross-validation study. Taken as a whole, our results show that a hierarchical approach to network-based protein function prediction, that exploits the ontological structure of protein annotation databases in a principled manner, can offer substantial advantages over the successive application of 'flat' network-based methods.
Decreased association of HSP90 impairs endothelial nitric oxide synthase in fetal lambs with persistent pulmonary hypertension

Persistent pulmonary hypertension of newborn (PPHN) is associated with decreased nitric oxide (NO) release and impaired pulmonary vasodilation. We investigated the hypothesis that decreased associa...
Outsourcing network functionality

This paper presents an architecture for adding functionality to networks via outsourcing. In this model, the enterprise network only forwards data; any additional processing is performed by external Feature Providers (FPs). FPs provide and manage features, scaling and moving them in response to customer demand, and providing automated recovery in case of failure. Benefits to the enterprise include reduced cost and management complexity, improved features through FP specialization, and increased choice in services.Central to the model are a policy component and a Feature API (FAPI). Policy is specified with features not locations, enabling features to be located anywhere. FAPI enables communication between enterprise and FP control planes to share policy and configure features.We have built a prototype implementation of this architecture called Jingling. Our prototype system incorporates a nation-wide backbone network and FPs located in six sites around the United States.
PVSS15. Outcomes Following TEVAR for Acute and Chronic Type B Aortic Dissection

Objectives: To review clinical outcomes of endovascular treatment of type B aortic dissection. Methods: All patients treated for type B aortic dissection between 2006-2011 were identified from a prospectively maintained registry. Health systems charts and medical correspondences were reviewed. Measured outcomes included resolution of the indication for intervention, additional procedures, and survival at 30 days and 1 year. Results: 55 patients were treated with TEVAR for type B dissection (mean age, 61 14 years), 39 (71%) for acute dissections and 16 (29%) for chronic dissections. Indications for treatment were pain (21), malperfusion (13), aneurysm (6), uncontrolled hypertension (6), expansion (5), and rupture (4). Success, defined by relief of indication and freedom from death or re-intervention at 30 days, was achieved in 87% of patients. Twenty-six additional procedures were performed in 22 patients prior to, or at the time of TEVAR. These included debranching procedures (8), renal stenting (7), Iliac stenting (5), iliac exposure or conduit creation (2), mesenteric stenting (2), thrombectomy (1), and tube thoracostomy (1). Left subclavian artery coverage was required in 23 patients. Spinal ischemia occurred in 4 patients, and lumbar drainage performed in 2 patients. Three patients required reintervention during the study period. Survival was 93% at thirty-days and 78% at one year. Conclusions: TEVAR is effective in the treatment of the complications of both acute and chronic type B aortic dissection. Additional procedures are frequently necessary, but early results indicate favorable outcomes, while reintervention is rare.
Lipase activity in stallion seminal plasma and the effect of lipase on stallion spermatozoa during storage at 5 °C

Abstract Previous studies have demonstrated a detrimental effect of seminal plasma on the maintenance of motility of cooled equine spermatozoa; however, the mechanism for the adverse effect of seminal plasma during cooled storage remains undetermined. In goats, a glycoprotein component of bulbourethral gland secretion contains lipase activity that is detrimental to sperm motility when stored in skim milk-based extenders. The objective of the current study was to determine the amount of lipase activity in stallion seminal plasma and to determine the effect of added lipase on spermatozoal motility during cooled semen storage. In the first experiment, seminal plasma (1.0 ml) was assayed for lipase activity based upon hydrolysis of triglycerides (olive oil substrate) into free fatty acids and subsequent titration of pH change (Sigma Diagnostic Lipase Kit). Lipase activity in stallion seminal plasma was 0.36±0.02 Sigma units/ml, (mean+S.E.M.; n=16 ejaculates from six stallions). In the second experiment, equine semen (three ejaculates from each of four stallions) was divided into five treatment aliquots. In Treatment 1, semen was extended 1:3 with nonfat dried skim milk extender (NFDSM). In treatment groups 2 through 5, spermatozoa were washed by centrifugation (300×g for 15 min) and resuspended in NFDSM to a final concentration of 25×106 spermatozoa/ml. Porcine pancreatic lipase (pPL) was added to Treatment 3 (10 pPL units/ml), Treatment 4 (100 pPL units/ml) and Treatment 5 (100 pPL units/ml, heat inactivated at 100 °C for 5 min), while Treatment 2 had no pancreatic lipase added and served as the control. Samples were cooled slowly to 5 °C, and stored at 5 °C until evaluation. Sperm motility was evaluated at time 0, 24, 48 and 72 h by computerized semen analysis, and data were analyzed via repeated measures ANOVA. The addition of 100 units/ml but not 10 units/ml of pPL decreased (P
Thermal management in heat assisted magnetic recording

A laser on slider system assuming a custom sized laser constructed using commercially available processes is modeled. Since the air-bearing surface (ABS) acts as one of the main paths for heat removal from the head, correctly capturing the thermal transport of this interface is essential to accurate modeling of the head temperature rise. Therefore, a thermal characterization spin stand that allows characterization of this interface have been built and employed. A conventional hard drive slider was subjected to thermal load from an infrared laser. The laser is focused through a glass medium (when present) and onto the air-bearing surface of the slider. The optical power absorbed and its effect on magnetic recording temperature were determined by measuring the reflectivity of each target location on the ABS while the thermally induced change in the magnetoresistance of the read element was simultaneously collected. As the laser spot was translated to different locations on the ABS, a thermal "map" of the slider that has been normalized to unit absorbed optical power was constructed.
Mapping a Process of Negotiated Identity Among Incarcerated Male Juvenile Offenders

Building on theories of youth identity transitions, this study maps a process of negotiated identity among incarcerated young men. Data are drawn from ethnographic study of three juvenile correctio...
Country-Specific Effects of Climate Variability on Human Migration.

Involuntary human migration is among the social outcomes of greatest concern in the current era of global climate change. Responding to this concern, a growing number of studies have investigated the consequences of short to medium-term climate variability for human migration using demographic and econometric approaches. These studies have provided important insights, but at the same time have been significantly limited by lack of expertise in the use of climate data, access to cross-national data on migration, and attention to model specification. To address these limitations, we link data on internal and international migration over a 6-year period from 9812 origin households in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Burkina Faso and Senegal to high-resolution gridded climate data from both station and satellite sources. Analyses of these data using several plausible specifications reveal that climate variability has country-specific effects on migration: Migration tends to increase with temperature anomalies in Uganda, tends to decrease with temperature anomalies in Kenya and Burkina Faso, and shows no consistent relationship with temperature in Nigeria and Senegal. Consistent with previous studies, precipitation shows weak and inconsistent relationships with migration across countries. These results challenge generalizing narratives that foresee a consistent migratory response to climate change across the globe.
Vader-Mccormick, Nancy (2011). the Engaged Teacher: What Works with Today's Students.

Few learning environments are as diverse as America's community college classrooms, nor do many present the same challenges that community college professors face in motivating students to learn. T...
Intolerance of Uncertainty as a Mediator of the Relationship between Mindfulness and Health Anxiety

Health anxiety is characterized by the misinterpretation of body sensations as signs of an illness, leading to health-related worry and increased healthcare utilization. Research has demonstrated the effectiveness of mindfulness-based interventions in the treatment of severe health anxiety, yet mechanisms of this association remain unexplored. Therefore, the present investigation sought to examine the indirect effect of mindfulness on health anxiety through intolerance of uncertainty (IU) or fear of the unknown. Undergraduate psychology students completed a series of online self-report measures for course credit. Bias-corrected bootstrapping (k = 10,000 samples) was used to generate a 95 % confidence interval to test the significance of the indirect effect. There was a significant indirect effect of greater levels of mindfulness on lower levels of health anxiety through decreases in intolerance of uncertainty. Higher levels of mindfulness may lead internal experiences to be perceived as less threatening, thereby increasing one’s ability to tolerate uncertainty and decreasing the need to worry and engage in safety behaviors that maintain health anxiety.
Exploration of Talking during Smoko in Obstetrical Ward

Talking during smoko is a way of communication between patients and doctor and nurse.Adjusting measures to local conditions,trying best to do it well will do a great help to the administration of the ward.
Heuristics and Biases in Applied Settings

Twenty years ago, Tversky and Kahneman published an article in Science in which they outlined three heuristics (or cognitive short-cuts) that people use to judge probabilities and to make decisions under uncertain circumstances (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). They discussed the importance of these heuristics by reference to judgments about the guilt of a defendant, the outcome of an election, and the future value of the dollar. Their formulation spawned a “first wave” of studies on heuristic use (Kahneman, Slovic, & Tversky, 1982). Most of this research, however, employed laboratory simulations, using college undergraduates to make judgments about fictional people and events.
Arabidopsis PIP5K2 Is Involved in Salt Tolerance

Salinity is a major stress that threatens plant growth and crop production. Arabidopsis plants show rapidly increased PtdIns(4,5)P2 synthesis in response to treatments with NaCl, KCl, and sorbitol, suggesting an important role of PtdIns(4,5)P2 in plant salt tolerance. In consistence with the up-regulated expression of PIP5K2 by salt treatment, the knockout mutant pip5k2 displayed hypersensitivity to salt stress in both seed germination and primary root growth. Different from sos mutants that show hypersensitivity to Na+ and Li+, pip5k2 is hypersensitive to Na+ and K+. The function of PIP5K2 in salt tolerance is considered not to be achieved by downstream calcium signal or regulation of cytoskeleton dynamics since calcium content and response to cytoskeleton-specific drugs remain unchanged in pip5k2. Preliminary results show that salt-stress induced bulk-flow endocytosis is suppressed in pip5k2, which is recovered by exogenous PtdIns(4,5)P2. These results demonstrate that Arabidopsis PIP5K2 plays a critical role in salt tolerance and this is independent of SOS pathway or cytoskeleton regulation, but probably achieved by its product PtdIns(4,5)P2 through regulation in salt-stress induced bulk-flow endocytosis.
Detecting Fake or Deceptive Opinions

Opinions from social media are increasingly used by individuals and organizations for making purchase decisions, making choices at elections, and for marketing and product design. Positive opinions often mean profits and fame for businesses and individuals. This, unfortunately, gives strong incentives for imposters to game the system by posting fake reviews or opinions to promote or to discredit some target products, services, organizations, individuals, and even ideas without disclosing their true intentions, or the person or organization that they are secretly working for. Such individuals are called opinion spammers and their activities are called opinion spamming (Jindal and Liu, 2007, 2008). An opinion spammer is also called a shill , a plant , or a stooge in the social media environment, and opinion spamming is also called shilling or astroturfing . Opinion spamming not only can hurt consumers and damage businesses, but also can warp opinions and mobilize masses into positions counter to legal or ethical mores. This can be frightening, especially when spamming is about opinions on social and political issues. It is safe to say that as opinions in social media are increasingly used in practice, opinion spamming is becoming more and more sophisticated, which presents a major challenge for their detection. However, they must be detected to ensure that the social media continues to be a trusted source of public opinions, rather than being full of fakes, lies, and deceptions. The good news is that both the industry and the research community have made tremendous progress in combating opinion spamming. I am aware that several major review hosting sites are able to detect a good proportion of fake reviews and fake reviewers. These efforts have already acted as a deterrent to opinion spamming and made it difficult for inexperienced spammers to succeed. However, the problem is still huge and a great deal of research is needed. Spam detection in general has been studied in many fields. Web spam and e-mail spam are perhaps the two most widely studied types of spam. Opinion spam is, however, very different.
Going global by adapting local: A review of recent human adaptation

The spread of modern humans across the globe has led to genetic adaptations to diverse local environments. Recent developments in genomic technologies, statistical analyses, and expanded sampled populations have led to improved identification and fine-mapping of genetic variants associated with adaptations to regional living conditions and dietary practices. Ongoing efforts in sequencing genomes of indigenous populations, accompanied by the growing availability of “-omics” and ancient DNA data, promises a new era in our understanding of recent human evolution and the origins of variable traits and disease risks.
[Threshold, temporal summation and impulse-response function in the cat retina: temporal receptive fields of ganglion cells].

1. Mit Hilfe der Schewellensummation fur Reize wachsender Dauer und mit zwei zeitlich getrennten Reizen wurde die Impulsreaktionsfunktion retinaler Ganglienzellen gemessen. Bei einer Reizgrose von 15′ Durchmesser und einer Hintergrundsbeleuchtung von 0.5 asb ergibt eine Exponentialfunktion eine gute Uber-einstimmung mit den Meswerten. Alle Neurone folgten dem Bloch-Gesetz (Is · T = const.) fur kurze Reize mit einem kontinuierlichen ×bergang zu einer konstanten Schwelle. 2. Die einzelnen Zeitkonstanten wurden den jeweiligen Schwellensummations-kurven entnommen. Die mittlere Zeitkonstant betragt 75 ms fur On-Zentrum-Neurone und 126 ms fur Off-Zentrum-Neurone. Das D-System der Off-Zentrum-Neurone ist gegenuber kurzen gegenuber langen Reizen unempfindlicher als das B-System der On-Zentrum-Neurone. 3. Kurze und lange Zeitkonstanten wurden sowohl in der zentralen als such in der peripheren Retina gedunden, kurze jedoch haufiger bei groser Exzentizitat. 4. Die auf die Hintergrundsbeleuchtung begozene Zentrumsempfindlichkeit fur kurze Reize ist vereinbar mit einer Schwellenerregung, die im Mittel fur alle rezeptiven Felder als gleich gros angesehen werden kann. 5. Das der aumlichen Summation analoge Zeitsummationsverhalten fuhrt zu dem Konzept eines zeitlichen rezeptiven Feldes.
The Bad Arithmetic of Active Management

There is an ongoing debate over the merits of active portfolio management. Although this article does not settle that debate, the author helps frame issues related to whether active management can make sense for a particular individual or institution. By deconstructing William Sharpe’s “The Arithmetic of Active Management,” ( Financial Analysts Journal 1991) a classic article in the active/passive debate, the author illustrates the various sources of value from active management and sheds light on the question of when active managers have a higher likelihood of outperforming or underperforming their benchmarks. Monetary policy is a key determinant; easy money can make investing hard for active managers.
One-Eyed Floyd

This brief essay, prepared for the online supplement to the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, is a critical examination of the opinion of Judge Shira Scheindlin in Floyd v. City of New York, a case examining the constitutionality of the stop-and-frisk practices of the New York City Police Department. The essay explores flaws in the opinion, and argues that judicial efforts to regulate stop-and-frisk tactics could well harm rather than help the vulnerable residents of high-crime minority communities.
Graphically dependent and spatially varying Dirichlet process mixtures

We consider the problem of clustering grouped and functional data, which are indexed by a covariate, and assessing the dependency of the clustered groups on the covariate. We assume that each observation within a group is a draw from a mixture model. The mixture components and the number of such components can change with the covariate, and are assumed to be unknown a priori. In addition to learning the “local” clusters within each group we also assume the existence of “global clusters” indexed over the covariate domain when the observations across the groups are jointly analyzed. The number of global clusters is also unknown and to be inferred from the data. We propose a nonparametric Bayesian solution to this problem, reposing on the theory of dependent Dirichlet processes, where the dependency among the Dirichlet processes is regulated by a spatial or a graphical model distribution indexed by the covariate. Our proposed model, which we refer to as the graphical Dirichlet process mixture, is capable of joint modeling and inference of both global and local clusters in a flexible and computationally efficient manner. The global clusters are supported by a Dirichlet process, while the local clusters are randomly selected using another hierarchy of Dirichlet processes. We provide an analysis of the model properties, including a stick-breaking and a Polya-urn scheme characterization. The graphical and spatial dependency are investigated, along with a discussion of the model identifiability. We present MCMC sampling methods, and discuss the computational implications of using a spatial or a graphical model distribution as the base measure in our model. Finally, the model behavior and inference algorithm are demonstrated by several data examples, including a clustering analysis of the progesterone hormone data.