cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Gastrostomy port assisted full-thickness gastric resection by using the peroral SurgASSIST introduced via an oroesophageal overtube in a porcine model

Background Intralumenal full-thickness gastric resection (FTGR) could be useful as a biopsy technique or in the management of gastric neoplasms. SurgASSIST is a cutting and stapling device delivered on a steerable shaft to which interchangeable stapling units are affixed. Objective This feasibility study assessed the applicability of the SurgASSIST to perform intralumenal FTGR in a swine model. Design Descriptive analysis; no statistical tests were applied. Setting Animal laboratory. Methods Four nonsurvival swine under general anesthesia were studied. An oroesophageal overtube was placed. A balloon trocar was inserted into the stomach under endoscopic guidance and served as a port for instruments and imaging. Under direct visualization, the SurgASSIST with a 55-mm straight-linear cutter and stapler unit (SLCS55) was advanced via the overtube into the stomach. We evaluated the safety and efficacy of overtube placement, SLCS55 insertion and maneuverability in the stomach, parallel versus perpendicular optics, and various tissue grasping devices to achieve FTGR. Results Overtube insertion produced limited esophageal mucosal tears in 2 subjects and a severe tear in 1 subject. Maneuverability of the SLCS55 was limited. Endoscopic guidance for FTGR via both peroral (parallel) and per gastrostomy port (perpendicular) orientations was satisfactory. FTGR was successful in 2 of 4 subjects. Resected specimens measured 6.0 × 0.6 cm and 6.0 × 0.7 cm. There were no operative complications. In the remaining 2 subjects, the depth of resection was submucosa. Limitations Animal model. Conclusions Peroral intralumenal FTGR is feasible. A gastrostomy port facilitates triangulation for optics and tissue manipulation. Further refinements are needed to yield reliable results.
Airway resistance as an index of effectiveness of bronchodilating drugs

Abstract Metaproterenol, a new bronchodilator chemically related to isoproterenol, was administered in a controlled study in the nebulized or oral form to 33 patients with asthma or emphysema. The benefit of the drug by each route of administration was clearly demonstrated by reduction in airway resistance and, to a lesser degree, by improvement of spirometric performance. Improvement in airway resistance was more closely correlated with individual symptomatic relief as reported by each patient than was improvement in spirometric levels. Airway resistance is a superior index of bronchodilating efficacy because it measures directly the bronchodilating effect of the drug, while spirometric measurements are only indirectly related to the influence of the drug on the bronchial tree.
Arthur Andersen: Training for Global IMPACT

The training programme organised by Arthur Andersen is described, which was designed to bring together and train together those personnel from their offices worldwide, who were engaged on the management consulting side of the business. The course was seen to be a success, particularly with respect to the global team‐building goal.
Loss of Body Fat and Associated Decrease in Leptin in Early Lactation Are Related to Shorter Duration of Postpartum Anovulation in Healthy US Women

Background:The mechanisms regulating postpartum anovulation (PPA) are not well understood, although poor nutritional status and “intense” breastfeeding behaviors are associated with longer durations.Objectives:This study was designed primarily to investigate the hypothesis that higher body fat and leptin concentrations are related to shorter PPA in healthy, lactating US women. Nutrient intake, breastfeeding behaviors, prolactin, and insulin levels were also evaluated.Methods:Fasting serum was collected during the third trimester of pregnancy, at 2 and 4 weeks postpartum, and every 4 weeks until the occurrence of the first postpartum menses. Body composition and breastfeeding behaviors were assessed at the same times postpartum. Women (n = 13) were categorized based on initial percentage body fat and timing of first postpartum menses.Results:There were no consistent relationships between body composition, leptin, or breastfeeding behaviors and duration of PPA. However, there was an interaction (P = .005) b...
Measuring the overall incoherence of credence functions

Many philosophers hold that the probability axioms constitute norms of rationality governing degrees of belief. This view, known as subjective Bayesianism, has been widely criticized for being too idealized. It is claimed that the norms on degrees of belief postulated by subjective Bayesianism cannot be followed by human agents, and hence have no normative force for beings like us. This problem is especially pressing since the standard framework of subjective Bayesianism only allows us to distinguish between two kinds of credence functions—coherent ones that obey the probability axioms perfectly, and incoherent ones that don’t. An attractive response to this problem is to extend the framework of subjective Bayesianism in such a way that we can measure differences between incoherent credence functions. This lets us explain how the Bayesian ideals can be approximated by humans. I argue that we should look for a measure that captures what I call the ‘overall degree of incoherence’ of a credence function. I then examine various incoherence measures that have been proposed in the literature, and evaluate whether they are suitable for measuring overall incoherence. The competitors are a qualitative measure that relies on finding coherent subsets of incoherent credence functions, a class of quantitative measures that measure incoherence in terms of normalized Dutch book loss, and a class of distance measures that determine the distance to the closest coherent credence function. I argue that one particular Dutch book measure and a corresponding distance measure are particularly well suited for capturing the overall degree of incoherence of a credence function.
Deterministic screened growth models

Abstract Two deterministic modifications of the two dimensional screened growth models have been investigated. In one of these models (the threshold growth probability model) all of those sites with growth probabilities greater than ƒ P max are filled at each stage in the growth process. Here P max is the maximum growth probability for any of the unoccupied perimeter sites. This model leads to clusters with a power law relationship between the radius of gyration ( R g ) and the cluster size M ( R g ≈ M β ). For this model the effective fractal are changed dimensionally D β = 1/β varies continously as the parameters in the screening function are changed. In the second model (the continuous growth model) growth is assumed to occur in each of the unoccupied surface sites at a rate proportional to their growth probabilities. These sites become occupied when the growth in them reaches a fixed value of 1. This model leads to clusters with four dense symmetric arms. In this model the effective dimensionality D β crosses over from a value of 2.0 for small clusters or small length scales to a smaller value (probably 1.0) on longer length scales. Similar results were obtained from three dimensional models.
Kinetics of ferrite to austenite transformation during welding of 1005 steel

Abstract The kinetics of ferrite to austenite phase transformation in 1005 steel during welding was quantitatively determined by a combination of phase mapping using X-ray diffraction and transport phenomena based numerical modeling. The results can be used to calculate the phase transformation rates under various thermal cycles for this steel.
The use of cytosolic enzyme increase in cerebrospinal fluid of patients resuscitated after cardiac arrest

Levels of brain creatine phosphokinase (CPK), glutamic oxalic transaminase, lactate dehydrogenase, and lactate in lumbar cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) were analyzed as an adjunctive study in a randomized clinical trial evaluating the effects of thiopental loading intravenously in comatose survivors of cardiac arrest. Three hospitals participated and a total of 62 cases of enzyme changes were studied. Enzyme levels but not lactate were higher at 48 hours than at 24 hours after restoration of spontaneous circulation. All enzymes were highly correlated with one another at 24 and 48 hours (P < .001). There was a significant negative correlation between cerebral recovery and increased CPK levels at 24 hours (P < .05), and a highly significant correlation with all three enzyme levels at 48 hours (P < .0001). The increase of cytosolic enzyme activity in lumbar CSF reflects permanent brain damage, and there is a relationship between activity levels and cerebral outcome.
Coherence–a Sticky Subject

The concept of coherence has been applied in the quantum theory of radiation and matter as well as in classical optics. We review here the meaning of the term in each case and show how these apparently different uses of the word coherence can be understood in terms of a single concept involving interference (nonzero cross terms), minimum uncertainty, and cohering (uniform variance) of the wave packet that describes the system. Self-induced transparency, superradiance, and superconductivity are discussed as dramatic examples of coherence.
The Extrapolation Method in the Electron Probe Microanalysis

From the energy dependance of the k-ratio measured for the SbLα and BiLα-lines in the alloy system Bi1–xSbx the k-ratio at the critical energy Ec is determined by extrapolation. The stopping power correction is discussed for the system investigated here on the basis of the known composition of the specimens. The mean ionization potentials J for Sb and Bi are estimated from the experiments. Die k-Verhaltnisse bei der kritischen Energie Ec werden aus der gemessenen Energieabhangigkeit der k-Werte fur die SbLα-Linie des Legierungssystems Bi1–xSbx durch Extrapolation gewonnen. Ausgehend von der bekannten Zusammensetzung der Mesproben wird die Abbremskorrektur fur dieses System diskutiert. Die Experimente erlauben es, die mittleren Ionisierungspotentiale fur Sb und Bi zu bestimmen.
Impact of DHCP churn on network characterization

We investigate the DHCP churn impact on network characterization by analyzing 18 months of DHCP, DNS, Firewall Alert, and Netflow data collected from an enterprise network of 30,000 clients. We find that DHCP churn has clear impact on network metrics.
Reactive oxygen species promote tyrosine phosphorylation and capacitation in equine spermatozoa

Abstract The objective of this study was to examine the influence of reactive oxygen species (ROS) on equine sperm capacitation. Motile equine spermatozoa were separated on a discontinuous Percoll gradient, resuspended at 10×106 ml in Tyrode’s medium supplemented with BSA (0.5%) and polyvinyl alcohol (0.5%) and incubated at 39 °C for 2 h with or without the xanthine (X; 0.1 mM)–xanthine oxidase (XO; 0.01 U/ml) system or NADPH (0.25 mM). The importance of hydrogen peroxide or superoxide for capacitation was determined by the addition of catalase (CAT; 150 U/ml) or superoxide dismutase (SOD; 150 U/ml), respectively. Following incubation, acrosomal exocytosis was induced by a 5 min incubation at 39 °C with progesterone (3.18 μM), and sperm viability and acrosomal integrity were then determined by staining with Hoechst 33258 and fluoroisothiocyanate-conjugated Pisum sativum agglutin. To examine tyrosine phosphorylation, treatments were subjected to sodium dodecyl sulfate–polyacrylaminde gel electrophoresis (SDS–PAGE) followed by Western blot analysis with the anti-phosphotyrosine antibody (α-PY; clone 4G10). Capacitation with the X–XO system or NADPH led to a significant (P
Ultrafiltration and electron microscopy of three types of poliomyelitis virus propagated in tissue culture.

SummaryWhen the concentration of virus in stock filtrates of the tissue culture fluids was greater than 106 TCD50 per ml, membranes with an APD of 39 mμ to 44 mμ allowed a certain proportion of poliomyelitis virus particles to pass. Membranes with an APD of 36 to 39 mμ held back the virus and, according to Elford's formula, the size of all 3 types of poliomyelitis virus is estimated at 12-20 mμ. After removal of gross amorphous material by preliminary centrifugation, the tissue culture fluids yielded practically pure suspensions of virus particles which measured, on the average, 30 mμ for Type 1 (Mahoney), 27 mμ for Type 2 (Y-SK), and 41 mμ for Type 3 (Leon). The seemingly larger size of the Type 3 particles may be an artifact.
THE FORMATION OF HEAT AND ENZYME INDUCED (PLASTEIN) GELS FROM PEPSIN-HYDROLYZED SOY PROTEIN ISOLATE

A gel prepared by heating pepsin-hydrolyzed soy protein isolate (HSPI) had a higher turbidity and viscosity and less solubility than did its starting hydrolyzate. The gelling characteristics of the heated hydrolyzate were possibly due to hydrophobic interactions, as opposed to peptide bond reformation. The presence of pepsin was found to be necessary for gel formation at 37°C but could be successfully replaced by heat. Incubation of the concentrated HSPI at 95°C for 30 min was optimal for heat-induced gel formation. When soy protein isolate (SPI) was hydrolyzed with papain or bacterial protease, little gelation occurred (either by heat or enzyme induced gelation treatments).
Direct simulation of reentry flows with ionization

The Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method is applied in this paper to the study of rarefied, hypersonic, reentry flows. The assumptions and simplifications involved with the treatment of ionization, free electrons and the electric field are investigated. A new method is presented for the calculation of the electric field and handling of charged particles with DSMC. In addition, a two-step model for electron impact ionization is implemented. The flow field representing a 10 km/sec shock at an altitude of 65 km is calculated. The effects of the new modeling techniques on the calculation results are presented and discussed.
Tracking the Transcendental: Kore'eda Hirokazu'sMaboroshi

In considering the minimalist mode of filmmaking in Maboroshi (1995), directed by Kore'eda Hirokazu, critics find it hard to resist comparison with Ozu Yasujiro.1 Kore'eda's frames empty of human figures and unrelated directly to the narrative might be compared to Ozu's 'pillow shot', which is not motivated by diegesis and exists as an inserted 'still life'. His constructions of space nearly absent of living beings are certainly reminiscent of Ozu. Kurosawa Akira has also proved a common gauge for interpreting the artistic success of Japanese-born directors despite the fact that the film industry has always been highly internationalised, perhaps more than any other field of art or literature. Ozu in many ways was a product of the international film industry. He saw countless American silent comedies in Japan and regularly watched American films while overseas in Singapore that had been confiscated by the resident Japanese military.2 Kurosawa has been instrumental in integrating an international film community since the debut of his Rashomon, which won the Cannes Film Festival Prize in 1953. Yet, despite the crosscultural aspect of film and film production, national boundaries inform marketing and criticism of film. For examwas given to Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) best foreign language film? Film categories do not reflect the transnational quality of the film industry. Ang Lee has been making American-funded films for years. His cinematographer for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Peter Pau was born in Hong Kong, spent his teens in mainland China, and studied film production and photography at the San Francisco Art Institute. Ang Lee's 'thank yous' at the Academy Awards ceremony alone revealed the transnational nature of film production. There is a need to reframe film categories beyond a nationalist model. Hasumi Shigehiko, known for his film criticism influenced by continental philosophy, has written one of the most insightful essays on the 'Japanification' of Ozu called 'Sunny Skies'3. Ozu's films, he points out, have nothing but blue skies. Despite the fact that it rains two out of three days a year in Japan, Ozu's skies are never overcast. 'Existence', he writes, 'in an Ozu film means that everyone inhales the air of a clear, sunny day'.4 Thus laundry hanging on the line emphasises the clear day in the same way that the sky looms brightly in a very different scene in Tokyo Story (Tokyo monogatari, 1953) on the morning that the elderly hero's wife has just breathed her last. A widower (Ryu Chishu) stands at the edge of a wideopen garden looking out at the sea over the rooftops of clustered houses. What could the widower be
Inducing heuristics to decide whether to schedule

Instruction scheduling is a compiler optimization that can improve program speed, sometimes by 10% or more, but it can also be expensive. Furthermore, time spent optimizing is more important in a Java just-in-time (JIT) compiler than in a traditional one because a JIT compiles code at run time, adding to the running time of the program. We found that, on any given block of code, instruction scheduling often does not produce significant benefit and sometimes degrades speed. Thus, we hoped that we could focus scheduling effort on those blocks that benefit from it.Using supervised learning we induced heuristics to predict which blocks benefit from scheduling. The induced function chooses, for each block, between list scheduling and not scheduling the block at all. Using the induced function we obtained over 90% of the improvement of scheduling every block but with less than 25% of the scheduling effort. When used in combination with profile-based adaptive optimization, the induced function remains effective but gives a smaller reduction in scheduling effort. Deciding when to optimize, and which optimization(s) to apply, is an important open problem area in compiler research. We show that supervised learning solves one of these problems well.
Trust, talk and touch in Balkan folk healing.

Abstract Broadly based in long-term anthropological fieldwork in the Balkans (in Serbia, Macedonia and Bulgaria), this discussion of folk healing techniques illustrates how convergence in the patient/practitioner relationship is of prime importance in effecting a positive outcome. Sumadija in central Serbia is selected as an example, and treatment for erysipelas, a common health problem which villagers call ‘the red wind’, is described and analyzed. Against a sociocultural background in which the collective wisdom of the past is retained and transmitted orally to contemporary healers, especially to the bajalica , or conjurer who heals with words, it is shown how shared communicative modes of trust, talk and touch are essential to the ritual psychomancy by which the treatment ‘works’. Also considered are the ritual roles of women in this patriarchal society and peasants' perceptions of folk pharmacology as being extraneous to the eventual cure. Connections between cultural responses and physiological responses as manifested in the villages are suggested as counterparts of Western symptomatic treatments related to behavior modification.
Quantum dynamical investigation of the simplest Criegee intermediate CH2OO and its O-O photodissociation channels

The singlet electronic potential energy surfaces for the simplest Criegee intermediate CH2OO are computed over a two-dimensional reduced subspace of coordinates, and utilized to simulate the photo-initiated dynamics on the S2 (B) state leading to dissociation on multiple coupled excited electronic states. The adiabatic electronic potentials are evaluated using dynamically weighted state-averaged complete active space self-consistent field theory. Quasi-diabatic states are constructed from the adiabatic states by maximizing the charge separation between the states. The dissociation dynamics are then simulated on the diabatically coupled excited electronic states. The B ← X electronic transition with large oscillator strength was used to initiate dynamics on the S2 (B) excited singlet state. Diabatic coupling of the B state with other dissociative singlet states results in about 5% of the population evolving to the lowest spin-allowed asymptote, generating H2CO (X (1)A1) and O ((1)D) fragments. The remaining ∼95% of the population remains on repulsive B state and dissociates to H2CO (a (3)A″) and O ((3)P) products associated with a higher asymptotic limit. Due to the dissociative nature of the B state, the simulated electronic absorption spectrum is found to be broad and devoid of any vibrational structure.
Template Activity of Nuclei from Stimulated Lymphocytes

Nuclei isolated from human peripheral blood lymphocytes stimulated by phytohaemagglutinin have a greater capacity to prime for nucleotide incorporation into RNA in the presence of exogenous bacterial RNA polymerase than nuclei from unstimulated lymphocytes.
Higher-order adaptive finite-element methods for Kohn-Sham density functional theory

We present an efficient computational approach to perform real-space electronic structure calculations using an adaptive higher-order finite-element discretization of Kohn-Sham density-functional theory (DFT). To this end, we develop an a priori mesh-adaption technique to construct a close to optimal finite-element discretization of the problem. We further propose an efficient solution strategy for solving the discrete eigenvalue problem by using spectral finite-elements in conjunction with Gauss-Lobatto quadrature, and a Chebyshev acceleration technique for computing the occupied eigenspace. The proposed approach has been observed to provide a staggering 100-200-fold computational advantage over the solution of a generalized eigenvalue problem. Using the proposed solution procedure, we investigate the computational efficiency afforded by higher-order finite-element discretizations of the Kohn-Sham DFT problem. Our studies suggest that staggering computational savings-of the order of 1000-fold-relative to linear finite-elements can be realized, for both all-electron and local pseudopotential calculations, by using higher-order finite-element discretizations. On all the benchmark systems studied, we observe diminishing returns in computational savings beyond the sixth-order for accuracies commensurate with chemical accuracy, suggesting that the hexic spectral-element may be an optimal choice for the finite-element discretization of the Kohn-Sham DFT problem. A comparative study of the computational efficiency of the proposed higher-order finite-element discretizations suggests that the performance of finite-element basis is competing with the plane-wave discretization for non-periodic local pseudopotential calculations, and compares to the Gaussian basis for all-electron calculations to within an order of magnitude. Further, we demonstrate the capability of the proposed approach to compute the electronic structure of a metallic system containing 1688 atoms using modest computational resources, and good scalability of the present implementation up to 192 processors.
Sensory receptor organs of the human nasal respiratory mucosa.

Human nasal respiratory mucosa has a limited capacity for localization of stimuli and discrimination of sensory modalities. In order to obtain morphological data on its receptor organs, histochmeical and electron microscopical studies were undertaken in six individuals ranging in age from 18 to 39 years. It was found that the nasal respiratory mucosa was supplied by non-myelinated nerves which approached the mucosa in fascicles containing up to 200 axons. These fascicles were devoid of perineurial sheaths. They ramified repeatedly producing only one type of receptor organ — a simple terminal arborization. The finest terminal fascicles of the plexus ended either in the cell free zone of the lamina propria or in the spaces between the epithelial cells next to the basement membrane. The axons in the fascicles and in the endings were only partly insulated from one another by Schwann cell folds. The axoplasm of the terminal and preterminal nerve fibers contained accumulations of fine vesicles, simple granules and clusters of mitochondria. All nerve fibers gave a positive acetyl- and a negative butyro-cholinesterase reaction. The plexiform endings of the nasal respiratory mucosa are different from any receptor organ of the adult human skin. They are reminiscent of the transitory, yet functional plexiform endings of the fetal skin which are found prior to the formation of the definitive receptor organs.
Parahydrogen-Induced Polarization in the Study of Rhodium(I)-Catalyzed Alkyne Hydrogenation: An Organometallic Undergraduate Laboratory Experiment

This upper-level undergraduate chemistry experiment involves the rhodium(I)-catalyzed hydrogenation of phenylacetylene to styrene using two different catalysts, which result in two different mechanisms of hydrogenation. Students were able to determine which of two mechanisms corresponded to two different hydrogenation catalysts using parahydrogen-induced polarization (PHIP), a technique rarely studied in the undergraduate laboratory, and a more traditional kinetic study that followed the uptake of hydrogen gas over time. This experiment also exposes students to the use of Schlenk lines, high-pressure gases, and cryogenic liquids, all of which are important tools in the organometallic chemist’s toolbox.
The Purdue Visualization of Rotations Test

This paper probes the relationship between the psychometric construct known as ‘spatial ability’ and students’ performance in introductory chemistry courses. It examines some of the early literature on the evolution of the concept of spatial ability, reviews the results of research on the relationship between success (or failure) in introductory chemistry courses and students’ spatial ability, and describes a spatial ability test known as The Purdue Visualization of Rotations (ROT) test that has been shown to be among the spatial ability tests whose results are least likely to be complicated by analytical processing.
State analysis of nonlinear systems using local canonical variate analysis

Time series analysis is concerned with the evolution of univariate or multivariate time series and especially with the functional form underlying the evolution of the time series values. Key issues include the determination of state rank, Lyapunov exponents, attractor form, and prediction of future values. Numerous papers have proposed procedures for prediction of future time series values based on past response values. We propose and demonstrate a method for deriving an approximate state space model of a nonlinear system from time series data. The data may be multivariate, and may include both input and response values. The method, which we call local canonical variate analysis, estimates state rank, describes the state evolution, and predicts future response values. A detailed background of local canonical variate analysis is provided and the procedure is applied to several time series generated by nonlinear oscillatory systems.
Markers of coronary sinus accessory pathways in pediatrics.

Introduction: Coronary sinus accessory pathways (CSAPs), atrioventricular connections formed by the coronary sinus myocardial coat, have been described in adult patients, but not systematically described in pediatric patients. Methods: Patients who underwent CSAP ablation were compared to patients with right posteroseptal (RPS) pathway ablation (control group) from November 2004 to June 2007. Retrospective reviews of preablation 12-lead electrocardiogram (EKG), fluoroscopic, and intracardiac electrogram data were then performed to identify electrophysiologic markers of CSAP. Results: A total of 23 patients were identified: 13 with CSAP and 10 with RPS pathways. Preablation EKGs demonstrated preexcitation in 8/10 (80%) patients with RPS pathways versus 9/13 (69%) patients with CSAP (P = 0.66). Preexcitation with a negative delta wave in lead II was seen in 5/9 (56%) patients with CSAP versus 0/8 in RPS (P = 0.029), and preexcitation with a positive delta wave in augmented vector right (aVR) was seen in 9/9 (100%) patients with CSAP versus 3/8 (37.5%) with RPS (P = 0.009). Accessory pathway (AP) potentials were seen on the coronary sinus (CS) catheter in 6/13 (46%) of CSAP and in 0 RPS ablations (P = 0.019). Recurrence of tachycardia occurred in 5/13 (38%) of patients with CSAP and 1/10 (10%) of patients with RPS pathways (P = 0.18). Conclusions: CSAPs should be considered when preablation EKG demonstrates preexcitation with a negative delta wave in lead II and a positive delta wave in aVR, and if an AP potential is seen on the CS catheter. Recurrence of tachycardia postablation or the need for multiple ablations should raise suspicion for a CSAP.
Distributed, real-time computation of community preferences

We describe the integration of smart digital objects with Hebbian learning to create a distributed, real-time, scalable approach to adapting to a community's preferences. We designed an experiment using popular music as the subject matter. Each digital object corresponded to a music album and contained links to other music albums. By dynamically generating links among digital objects according to user traversal patterns, then hierarchically organizing these links according to shared metadata values, we created a network of digital objects that self-organized in real-time according to the preferences of the user community. Furthermore, the similarity between user preferences and generated link structure was more pronounced between collections of objects aggregated by shared metadata values.
From “Ancient Regime” to “New Regime”: The case of the Czarist and Bolshevik repressive machinery

Looks at the reasons for the collapse of both regimes and considers the importance of repression with these developments. Contrasts the methods of Imperial Russia with the Bolsheviks looking at Court proceedings, prison conditions, education and propaganda in prison, exile and the secret police. Concludes that whilst social support is usually seen as essential for survival of a system, repression is not regarded as a positive element but can become the method for a system’s survival and stability.
Rheological Behavior of High-concentration Sodium Caseinate Dispersions

UNLABELLED Apparent viscosity and frequency sweep (G', G'') data for sodium caseinate dispersions with concentrations of approximately 18% to 40% w/w were obtained at 20 degrees C; colloidal glass behavior was exhibited by dispersions with concentration >or=23% w/w. The high concentrations were obtained by mixing frozen powdered buffer with sodium caseinate in boiling liquid nitrogen, and allowing the mixtures to thaw and hydrate at 4 degrees C. The low-temperature G'-G'' crossover seen in temperature scans between 60 and 5 degrees C was thought to indicate gelation. Temperature scans from 5 to 90 degrees C revealed gradual decrease in G' followed by plateau values. In contrast, G'' decreased gradually and did not reach plateau values. Increase in hydrophobicity of the sodium caseinate or a decrease in the effective volume fraction of its aggregates may have contributed to these phenomena. The gelation and end of softening temperatures of the dispersions increased with the concentration of sodium caseinate. From an Eldridge-Ferry plot, the enthalpy of softening was estimated to be 29.6 kJ mol(-1). PRACTICAL APPLICATION The results of this study should be useful for creating new products with high concentrations of sodium caseinate.
Gait mechanics in chronic ACL deficiency and subsequent repair.

Objective. To determine how normal gait patterns may change as a result of chronic anterior cruciate ligament deficiency and subsequent reconstructive surgery. Design. Gait testing of 10 chronic anterior cruciate ligament deficient subjects prior to and 3 months following reconstructive surgery, and 10 uninjured controls. Background. There is controversy whether persons with chronic anterior cruciate ligament deficiency develop a ‘‘quadriceps avoidance’’ pattern and how anterior cruciate ligament reconstructive surgery influences gait mechanics in these same individuals. Methods. Gait analysis was employed to determine kinematic, kinetic, and muscle Electromyographic data. Results. Prior to surgery, no anterior cruciate ligament deficient subject exhibited a quadriceps avoidance pattern. Following surgery, the subjects exhibited a significantly greater knee extensor moment during early stance as compared to the control group. Prior to and following surgery, anterior cruciate ligament deficient subjects demonstrated a significantly greater hip extensor moment possibly to reduce anterior tibial translation. Conclusions. These data suggest that (1) development of a quadriceps avoidance pattern is less common than previously reported, (2) anterior cruciate ligament deficient subjects accommodate through alterations of hip joint mechanics, (3) surgical repair significantly alters lower extremity gait patterns, and (4) re-establishment of pre-injury gait patterns takes longer than 3 months to occur.
Implementation of fast angle calculation and rotation using on-line CORDIC

The authors present several modifications to the CORDIC method to improve the speed and efficiency of its implementation when it is used for calculating angle and rotation for Given's method. The main contributions are: (i) the introduction of redundant (carry-free) addition to replace time-consuming conventional additions; (ii) the use of online arithmetic to reduce the communication bandwidth, maximize the overlap between successive operations, and replace area-expensive shifters by delays; (iii) the use of angles in decomposed forms to eliminate angle accumulation recurrences. These modifications contributed to a speedup of about 4.5 with respect to standard CORDIC. Some considerations are given with respect to the complexity of implementation; however, a more detailed analysis would require actual VLSI implementation. >
Understanding leadership skills of hospice executives

The healthcare industry is a rapidly changing environment requiring leaders to possess a high level of leadership skills. Leaders in the hospice industry have experienced the same level of change, but over the brief span of 25 years. With the aging of hospice executives and the dynamic environment of the hospice industry, the need for strong leadership is more important than ever. This research study reports on the perceived leadership skills of hospice executives and is a replication of an earlier study (Longenecker, 2006). All study participants were executives of organizations that participated in clinical and operational benchmarking activities at the national level. The study evaluated leadership skills using transformational leadership theory as the conceptual model by which leadership skills were measured. The results of the study identified that the participants perceived they displayed an ideal use of skills based on transformational leadership theory.
3-Fluoro-3-deoxy-D-galactose: A new probe for studies on sugar cataract

Purpose. Aldose reductase (AR) activity and flux through the polyol pathway can conveniently be monitored in dog lenses by measuring the metabolism of 3-fluoro-3-deoxy-D-glucose by 19 F nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. Since AR has broad substrate specificity and preferentially utilizes galactose over glucose as substrate, the ability of AR to utilize 3-fluoro-3-deoxy-D-galactose (3-FDGal) as substrate as well as the metabolism of 3-FDGal in intact dog lens and cultured lens epithelial cells has been investigated. Methods. The suitableness of 3FDGal as a substrate was examined by incubating 3FDGal with purified dog lens aldose reductase in the presence of an NADPH generating system or with galactitol dehydrogenase in the presence of NAD +. Dog lenses and dog lens epithelial cells were cultured in 3-FDGal medium with and without the AR inhibitor AL 1576. Metabolism was studied using 19 F NMR. Results. AR activity with 3-FDGal as substrate is higher than that with D-galactose and its Km of 4.2...
Compressive Sampling With Generalized Polygons

We consider the problem of compressed sensing and propose new deterministic low-storage constructions of compressive sampling matrices based on classical finite-geometry generalized polygons. For the noiseless measurements case, we develop a novel exact-recovery algorithm for strictly sparse signals that utilizes the geometry properties of generalized polygons and exhibits complexity that depends on the sparsity value only. In the presence of measurement noise, recovery of the generalized-polygon sampled signals can be carried out effectively using a belief propagation algorithm. Experimental studies included in this paper illustrate our theoretical developments.
A Three-Stage Manpower Planning and Scheduling Model-A Service-Sector Example

This paper presents a staff planning and scheduling model that has specific application in the nurse-staffing process in acute hospitals, and more general application in many other service organizations in which demand and production characteristics are similar. The aggregate planning models that have been developed for goods-producing organizations are not appropriate for these types of service organizations. In this paper the process for staffing services is divided into three decision levels: a policy decisions, including the operating procedures for service centers and for the staff-control process itself; b staff planning, including hiring, discharge, training, and reallocation decisions; and c short-term scheduling of available staff within the constraints determined by the two previous levels. These three planning "levels" are used as decomposition stages in developing a general staffing model. The paper formulates the planning and scheduling stages as a stochastic programming problem, suggests an iterative solution procedure using random loss functions, and develops a noniterative solution procedure for a chance-constrained formulation that considers alternative operating procedures and service criteria, and permits including statistically dependent demands. The discussion includes an example application of the model and illustrations of its potential uses in the nurse-staffing process.
Learning Preferences with Millions of Parameters by Enforcing Sparsity

We study the retrieval task that ranks a set of objects for a given query in the pair wise preference learning framework. Recently researchers found out that raw features (e.g. words for text retrieval) and their pair wise features which describe relationships between two raw features (e.g. word synonymy or polysemy) could greatly improve the retrieval precision. However, most existing methods can not scale up to problems with many raw features (e.g. English vocabulary), due to the prohibitive computational cost on learning and the memory requirement to store a quadratic number of parameters. In this paper, we propose to learn a sparse representation of the pair wise features under the preference learning framework using the L1 regularization. Based on stochastic gradient descent, an online algorithm is devised to enforce the sparsity using a mini-batch shrinkage strategy. On multiple benchmark datasets, we show that our method achieves better performance with fast convergence, and takes much less memory on models with millions of parameters.
Serum 17β-Estradiol and Estrone Levels in Postmenopausal Women With and Without Endometrial Cancer

Serum 17 beta-estradiol (E2) and estrone (E1) levels were measured before and 6-8 weeks after ovariectomy in 16 postmenopausal women with endometrial cancer, and in 10 postmenopausal women with normal endometrium (preovariectomy only). For E2, no significant difference in the mean baseline (+/-SE) level was found between the tumor (13.5 +/- 1.1 pg/ml) and non-tumor patients (11.7 +/- 1.4 pg/ml). For the same patients, the mean baseline E1 levels of 33.8 +/- 2.4 pg/ml and 28.5 +/- 4.7 pg/ml were also not significantly different. The mean body weight of the tumor patients (141.1 +/- 7.3 lbs.) was similar to the mean weight of the non-tumor subjects (137.5 +/- 6.3 lbs.). This was of importance since both E2 and E1 levels correlated significantly with body weight and excess fat in these postmenopausal women. The circulating estrogen levels did not correlate significantly with the patients' height, age, or years of menopause. In the patients with endometrial cancer the mean E2 (14.1 +/- 1.7 pg/ml) and E1 (39.5 +/- 7.3 pg/ml) levels after ovariectomy were not significantly different from the preoperative concentrations. These data are consistent with the concept that in postmenopausal women most, if not all, circulating estrogen is produced by peripheral conversion of androgens and that this conversion is influenced by obesity. Circulating estrogen levels are not significantly different in postmenopausal patients with endometrial cancer compared with women of a similar age and weight who do not have the tumor.
When Central City High School Students Speak Doing Critical Inquiry for Democracy

Based on a yearlong critical inquiry project in a central Los Angeles high school, the author discusses the implications of engaging students in dialogue and critique about their experiences with r...
How To Give a Cell a Heart Attack

See related article, pages 165–171 Cardiac ischemia is the leading killer in the developed world. It is a complex pathology, with myriad factors—electrical, chemical, metabolic, mechanical, and immunological—manifesting on scales ranging from the molecular to the whole organism. So it is not surprising that, despite decades of study, we cannot succinctly identify “the” injury that is central to this disorder. But, ultimately, the fate of millions of people comes down to what happens to a cardiac myocyte when it is deprived of its blood supply. It can die—by necrosis, apoptosis, or mechanical self-destruction. It isn’t always easy to decide when it is “dead.” It can lose its contractile function, its relaxation function, and/or its electrical function. It can hibernate and, if provoked by earlier nonlethal episodes of ischemia, it can “learn” to protect itself on time scales from minutes to weeks. It would make sense, then, to study cardiac ischemia at the single-cell level. This turns out to be surprisingly difficult to do. The isolated cardiac myocyte in the laboratory is normally bathed in an ocean of moving fluid. In contrast, even under the best of conditions, the myocyte in its native habitat is secluded from its sources of nutrition. The pO2 at the myocyte surface is normally no more than 20 torr. The extracellular space, in which the cell must dispose of its metabolic waste, is tiny. In the heart, it is very easy to make a myocyte ischemic. In a petri dish, it is almost impossible. When studying cardiac myocytes on a patch-clamp apparatus, it is customary to bubble the perfusing solution with oxygen. If you use nitrogen instead, you will see no change in physiology! To make matters worse, present-day methods of measuring the electrical activity of a myocyte require that it be freely accessible …
Design and implementation of a sub-threshold BFSK transmitter

Power Consumption in VLSI circuits is currently a major issue in the semiconductor industry. Power is a first order design constraint in many applications. However, a growing class of applications need extreme low power but do not need high speed. Sub-threshold circuit design can be used for these applications. Unfortunately, sub-threshold circuits exhibit an exponential sensitivity to process, voltage and temperature (PVT) variations. In this paper we implement and test a robust subthreshold design flow which uses circuit level PVT compensation to stabilize circuit performance. We design and fabricate a subthreshold BFSK transmitter chip. The transmitter is specified to transmit baseband signals up to a data rate of 32kbps. Experiments using the fabricated die, verify the functionality of the design show that the sub-threshold circuit consumes 19.4× lower power than the traditional standard cell based implementation on the same die.
Visually-guided protein crystal manipulation using micromachined silicon tools

We present a system for protein crystal micromanipulation with focus on automated crystal mounting for the purposes of X-ray data collection. The system features a set of newly designed micropositioner end-effectors we call microshovels which address some limitations of the traditional cryogenic loops. We have used micro-electrical mechanical system (MEMS) techniques to design and manufacture various shapes and quantities of microshovels. Visual feedback from a camera mounted on the microscope is used to control the micropositioner as it lowers a microshovel into the liquid containing the crystals and approaches a selected crystal for pickup. We present experimental results that illustrate the applicability of our approach.
Channel bed steps and pool shapes along Soda Creek, Three Sisters Wilderness, Oregon

Abstract Field study of bedrock step–pool systems along the upper reaches of Soda Creek in the Three Sisters Wilderness of Oregon shows strong correlation between several form variables (shape) and channel slope. Although step height and step length showed no regular spacing and variable correlation with channel slope, length to height ratios demonstrated strong negative correlations: steep slopes (20% to 80%) featured greater step height and shorter pool lengths than did flatter channel slopes. Correlations between step height to length ratios and channel slope varied between three lithologies. Explained variations ranged from 0.984 for the oldest channel steps developed in basalt, to 0.982 for steps of intermediate age developed in andesite, to 0.964 for the youngest steps developed in dacite. Sample size was 57, 40, and 33, respectively. The frequency of pool shape classes did not vary by lithology, but specific shape classes developed under differing slope conditions by rock type. All pool classes have adjusted (developed) their form to maximize resistance to flow H / L / S , and they have done so in remarkably uniform fashion.
Extreme Temperature Sensing System for Venus Surface Missions

Previous Venus landers used high temperature pressure vessels with passive thermal protection systems and protected conventional electronics, which limited their surface operation life to 127 minutes. The operating life and science return for future Venus surface missions, however, can significantly be increased through the use of high temperature electronics capable of extending the operating range of electronic systems to Venus surface temperatures (up to 480degC). Toward that end, this paper details the development and evaluation (at 480degC) of a stand-alone, high temperature, battery powered, sensor system, including a multi-sensor interface, multiplexer, signal conditioner, and amplifier, that can directly operate at the extremely high temperatures of the Venus surface. This work employs commercial, high temperature sensors, electronic devices, and packaging materials and leverages their operating margin to realize the aforementioned high temperature sensor system. As a result, the technology could rapidly rise through technology readiness level gates for future NASA missions to Venus.