cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Cell Cycle Dysregulation by Human Cytomegalovirus: Influence of the Cell Cycle Phase at the Time of Infection and Effects on Cyclin Transcription

Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) infection inhibits cell cycle progression and alters the expression of cyclins E, A, and B (F. M. Jault, J.-M. Jault, F. Ruchti, E. A. Fortunato, C. Clark, J. Corbeil, D. D. Richman, and D. H. Spector, J. Virol. 69:6697–6704, 1995). In this study, we examined cell cycle progression, cyclin gene expression, and early viral events when the infection was initiated at different points in the cell cycle (G0, G1, and S). In all cases, infection led to cell cycle arrest. Cells infected in G0 or G1 phase also showed a complete or partial absence, respectively, of cellular DNA synthesis at a time when DNA synthesis occurred in the corresponding mock-infected cells. In contrast, when cells were infected near or during S phase, many cells were able to pass through S phase and undergo mitosis prior to cell cycle arrest. S-phase infection also produced a delay in the appearance of the viral cytopathic effect and in the synthesis of immediate-early and early proteins. Labeling of cells with bromodeoxyuridine immediately prior to HCMV infection in S phase revealed that viral protein expression occurred primarily in cells which were not engaged in DNA synthesis at the time of infection. The viral-mediated induction of cyclin E, maintenance of cyclin-B protein levels, and inhibitory effects on the accumulation of cyclin A were not significantly affected when infection occurred during different phases of the cell cycle (G0, G1, and S). However, there was a delay in the observed inhibition of cyclin A in cells infected during S phase. This finding was in accord with the pattern of cell cycle progression and delay in viral gene expression associated with S-phase infection. Analysis of the mRNA revealed that the effects of the virus on cyclin E and cyclin A, but not on cyclin B, were primarily at the transcriptional level.
Toxicity of selenium to developing Xenopus laevis embryos

Se in the form of sodium selenite is toxic to Xenopus laevis embryos and tadpoles continuously exposed to concentrations above 1 ppm. Concentrations of 2 ppm and above result in severe developmental abnormalities and increased mortality. Uptake and loss of radioactive Se from water are rapid, but depuration is not complete, indicating that some Se can remain bound by the organism. The facts that Se is toxic at low levels to Xenopus embryos and tadpoles, can cause developmental abnormalities, and accumulates in tissues suggest that increased release of Se compounds into the environment poses a potential threat to aquatic organisms. This research was sponsored by the Division of Biological and Environmental Research, U.S. Department of Energy, under contract W‐7405‐eng‐26 with the Union Carbide Corporation. C. L. Browne is a postdoctoral investigator supported by subcontract 3322 from the Biology Division of Oak Ridge National Laboratory to the University of Tennessee.
Performance Analysis of Combining Multistage Interconnection Networks

Concurrent access to a shared variable may cause network saturation in parallel computers. This problem, commonly termed as hot spot contention, can be alliviated by combining requests destined to the hot memory module. In this paper, we propose an analytical model to predict performance of combining multistage interconnection networks. The model considers realistic assumptions like finite length buffers in the switches, deterministic service time, finite degree of combining. Simulation results are used to validate the analytical model.
Hodges, Joseph Lawson, Jr

This entry provides a short biography of Joseph Lawson Hodges, Jr., who made pioneering contributions to mathematical statistics, statistical inference, and nonparametric statistics.
Bacterial Survival, Lymph Node Pathology, and Serological Responses of Bison (Bison bison) Vaccinated with Brucella abortus Strain RB51 or Strain 19

From August 1993 to June 1994, 3 month-old bison (Bison bison) were vaccinated with Brucella abortus strain RB51 (SRB51, n = 6), strain 19 (S19, n = 3), or with saline (n = 1) and serologic responses and persistence of vaccine strains within lymph nodes were monitored. Bison vaccinated with S19 had granulomatous lymphadenitis and greater peak numbers of B. abortus than those vaccinated with SRB51. Bison vaccinated with RB51 had similar histological lesions and B. abortus were still present in lymph nodes at 16 weeks. Although antibodies against RB51 were produced, standard tube agglutination test responses of RB51-vaccinates remained negative. The histological lesions of B. abortus infections in bison were similar to those observed in cattle, but bison did not clear SRB51 as rapidly as cattle.
Accurate modeling of high frequency composite transistors for nonlinear circuits

A technique is described for developing accurate models capable of predicting small-signal scattering parameters and nonlinear operating behavior for high-frequency composite transistor circuits. This technique makes use of optimization of linearized networks for the determination of the parameters as well understood nonlinear models used in modern CAD programs. Following an explanation of the modeling technique, a flow diagram is presented which summarizes the process. Then, to demonstrate its effectiveness, the results of an application of the technique to an integrated Darlington pair which operates in the 500- to 5000-MHz range are presented. >
Parental Divorce, Marital Conflict, and Offspring Well-being during Early Adulthood

Un certain nombre d'enquetes montrent que les enfants qui ont grandi dans un univers familial ou les parents sont sans cesse en conflit manifestent une plus grande insatisfaction en matiere conjugale. Les AA. s'efforcent d'evaluer comment la situation familiale peut affecter les comportements maritaux des enfants devenus adultes. Ils presentent, dans ce but, les resultats d'une etude menee entre 1980 et 1992. Ils examinent plus particulierement l'influence que l'intensite des conflits parentaux exerce en ce domaine et cela qu'ils debouchent ou non sur un divorce
Indium tin oxide-coated glass modified with reduced graphene oxide sheets and gold nanoparticles as disposable working electrodes for dopamine sensing in meat samples

Sensitive, rapid, and accurate detection of dopamine (DA) at low cost is needed for clinical diagnostic and therapeutic purposes as well as to prevent illegal use of DA in animal feed. We employed a simple approach to synthesize reduced graphene oxide sheets (rGOS) and gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) at room temperature on indium tin oxide-coated glass (ITO) slides as disposable working electrodes for sensing DA. Graphene oxide (GO) was directly reduced on ITO to remove oxygenated species via a rapid and green process without using chemical reducing reagents. AuNPs were electrochemically deposited in situ on rGOS-ITO with fairly uniform density and size. The sensitivity of the AuNPs-rGOS-ITO sensor for DA detection is 62.7 μA mM−1 cm−2 with good selectivity against common electrochemically interfering species such as ascorbic acid (AA) and uric acid (UA), and the detection limit measured by differential pulse voltammetry (DPV), at a signal–noise ratio of 3, was 6.0 × 10−8 M. The electrochemical catalysis of DA was proven to be a surface process with an electron transfer coefficient (α) of 0.478 and a rate constant (ks) of 1.456 s−1. It correlates well with the conventional UV-vis spectrophotometric approach (R = 0.9973) but with more than thrice the dynamic range (up to 4.5 mM). The sensor also exhibited good stability and capability to detect DA in beef samples, and thus is a promising candidate for simple and inexpensive sub-nanomolar detection of DA, especially in the presence of UV-absorbing compounds.
Test Generation for Path Delay Faults

This chapter concentrates on multi-value systems and methods proposed for generating tests for single and multiple path delay faults. The robust, non-robust, validatable non-robust and functional sensitizable faults are considered as single path delay faults. These paths usually can be tested with many different tests, i.e., there are many different robust tests for a robust testable path, many different non-robust tests for a non-robust testable path, etc. Since robust tests are guaranteed to detect a faulty target path independent of whether or not there are delay faults on paths other than the target path, most test generators do not differentiate between robust tests for a given path. These test generators do not use any timing information. On the other hand, some non-robust tests have a higher probability of detecting a faulty non-robust testable path than other tests. Similar argument holds for the functional sensitizable tests. The higher quality non-robust and functional sensitizable tests can be found by including the timing information into the test generation process. This chapter presents test generation algorithms that can produce high quality tests based on using the timing information for the non-robust and functional sensitizable faults. A non-robust test for a given target path becomes invalid if certain other paths in the circuit are defective. If the faults that may invalidate the non-robust test for the target path can be robustly tested, those robust tests along with the non-robust test for the target path form a validatable non-robust test (VNR). An algorithm for automatic generation of validatable non-robust tests is outlined in this chapter.
Balancing the "me, myself, and I" in technical communication

In our communication we are often confused or deceived by our self-reinforced perspective. It is important to establish, reinforce, and utilize contacts with the outside world to balance our natural self-centered point of view. Examples are drawn from areas of life that are different from the typical technical communication experiences. This is to encourage an open examination of the processes by which we operate in our professional and personal lives and to minimize the habit of thinking, "I already know how to do that.".
Parental ADHD Symptomology and Ineffective Parenting: The Connecting Link of Home Chaos

SYNOPSIS: OBJECTIVE: This study examines links between maternal and paternal ADHD symptoms and parenting practices that require inhibition of impulses, sustained attention, and consistency; the role of home chaos in these associations is also assessed. DESIGN: ADHD symptoms, the level of home chaos, and parenting practices (involvement, inconsistent discipline, supportive and non-supportive responses to children's negative emotions, and positive parenting) were assessed through self-reports of 311 mothers and 149 fathers of middle-childhood children. Child ADHD symptoms were assessed by teachers. RESULTS: Mothers reported higher home chaos when they or their children had higher levels of ADHD symptoms; for fathers, only their own ADHD symptoms predicted higher levels of home chaos. Mothers' ADHD symptoms were positively associated with inconsistent discipline and non-supportive responses to children's negative emotions, and these associations were mediated by home chaos. Higher levels of fathers' ADHD symptoms predicted more inconsistent discipline, low involvement, and a low level of supportive and a high level of non-supportive responses to children's negative emotions. Home chaos moderated the link between paternal ADHD and inconsistent discipline and mediated the link between paternal ADHD and involvement. Overall, positive aspects of parenting, and those that require attention and ability to control one's impulses, may be compromised in fathers with high levels of ADHD symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: Effectiveness of specific parenting practices for both mothers and fathers may be compromised in parents with ADHD symptoms. In certain cases, parental ADHD symptoms translate into ineffective parenting through disorganized homes.
Using eigenposes for lossless periodic human motion imitation

Programming a humanoid robot to perform an action that takes the robot's complex dynamics into account is a challenging problem. Traditional approaches typically require highly accurate prior knowledge of the robot's dynamics and environment in order to devise complex control algorithms for generating a stable dynamic motion. Training using human motion capture is an intuitive and flexible approach to programming a robot but directly applying motion capture data to a robot usually results in dynamically unstable motion. Optimization using high-dimensional motion capture data in the humanoid full-body joint-space is also typically intractable. In previous work, we proposed an approach that uses dimensionality reduction to achieve tractable imitation-based learning in humanoids without the need for a physics-based dynamics model. This work was based on a 3-D “eigenpose” representation. However, for some motion patterns, using only three dimensions for eigenposes is insufficient. In this paper, we propose a new method for motion optimization based on high-dimensional eigenpose data. A one-dimensional computationally efficient motion-phase optimization method is implemented along with a newly developed cylindrical coordinate transformation technique for hyperdimensional subspaces. This results in a fast learning algorithm and very accurate motion imitation. We demonstrate the new algorithm on a Fujitsu HOAP-2 humanoid robot model in a dynamic simulator and show that a dynamically stable sidestep motion can be successfully learned by imitating a human demonstrator.
The Effect of Price Regulation on Innovation in the Pharmaceutical Industry

The empirical relationship between pharmaceutical industry revenues and pharmaceutical industry innova- tion is estimated, allowing for an exploration of the impact of the Medicaid rebate program, a form of price regulation. Using the empirical results, the opportunity cost of the Medicaid rebate program is found to be as high as four new drug approvals annually. Given the increased interest in a Medicare drug benefit, regu- lators should be aware of the hidden cost of price regulation for pharmaceuticals.
Human capital and audit independence

In 2007 the US Department of the Treasury established the Advisory Committee on the Auditing Profession "to assist the Department in evaluating the sustainability of a strong and vibrant auditing profession." In establishing the Committee, the Department expressed its concern with the quality of the 'human capital' constituting the independent audit profession, suggesting that it was not good enough. The Advisory Commission gave the work of considering the educational qualifications and needed educational improvements to the accounting profession which then organised The Pathways Commission which members were current accounting academicians and members from the practicing independent audit profession. Unremarkably, the Commission's recommendations were to not change anything, or at least, not to make any significant changes. This paper recommends that the legal profession - that is, lawyers with a financial accounting expertise - take over the independent audit profession.
Treatment of Patent Ductus Arteriosus with Cyclo-oxygenase Inhibitors beyond 2 Weeks of Age in Very Low Birth Weight Infants.

Background Cyclo-oxygenase inhibitors (COX-I) treatment of patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) in very low birth weight (VLBW) infants during the early postnatal period is well established, but their use beyond early postnatal period is not well studied. Objective The objective of this study was to determine the effectiveness of postnatal COX-I for PDA treatment beyond 2 weeks of age in VLBW infants. Study Design A retrospective cohort of VLBW infants admitted to two tertiary NICUs between 1990 and 2008 were studied. Infants with symptomatic PDA were treated with COX-I and infants with failed medical treatment were candidates for surgical ligation. Effectiveness of COX-I treatment, measured by the need for surgical ligation, was compared between early (day of life [DOL] Results Of the 1,289 infants with PDA, 1,082 (84%) were treated with COX-I; 1,046 (97%) infants were in ETG and 36 (3%) in LTG. PDA ligation rates after COX-I treatment were 15% in ETG and 14% in LTG (p-value: not significant). There were no significant differences in demographics or morbidities between the two groups. Conclusions In VLBW infants, late treatment of PDA with COX-I was as effective as early treatment. Trial of late COX-I treatment is warranted for symptomatic PDA before surgical treatment.
Elastocapillarity: Adhesion and Wetting in Soft Polymeric Systems

We have developed a generalized model of particle-substrate interactions describing both adhesion and wetting behavior. Using a combination of the molecular dynamics simulations and scaling analysis we have shown that the crossover between adhesion and wetting-like behavior for a particle with size Rp and shear modulus Gp interacting with a substrate of shear modulus Gs is determined by the dimensionless parameter β ∝ γ*(G* Rp)−2/3W–1/3, where G* = GpGs/(Gp + Gs) is the effective shear modulus, W is the work of adhesion between particle and substrate, and γ* = Wgr + γp(1–2gr) + γspgr2 is the effective surface tension of the particle/substrate system with γp and γs being surface tensions of particle and substrate, γsp − surface tension of the particle-substrate interface, and gr = Gp/(Gp + Gs). This parameter β is proportional to the ratio of elastocapillary length γ*/G* and contact radius a, β ∝ γ*/G*a. In the limit of small values of the parameter β < 1, when the contact radius a is larger than the elast...
SEDIMENT TRANSPORT IN RANDOM WAVES AT CONSTANT WATER DEPTH

Sediment transport in random waves at constant water depth is analyzed by dividing the flow field into two regions—the internal region and the boundary layer region. The suspension and transport of sediment in these two regions are treated separately. The total transport is then obtained as the total of these regions through matching boundary. In the bed layer, the load concentration is assumed to be proportional to the specific weight of the sediment and to the probability that the fluctuating lifting force exceeds the weight of the sediment. The bed load is then transported by the secondary flow (which is unidirectional) in the boundary. In the internal flow region, the sediment suspension is treated as a diffusion problem with the intensity of diffusion to be proportional to the amplitude of fluid particle motion. The transport velocity is assumed to be the same as the mass transport velocity of the wave. The predominant mode of transport is found to be suspended load. The total transport in a wind-generated wave field can be expressed as a power law of wind speed. For the case tested, the power should be of the order of 4.
Abstract 290: Lower Limb Revascularization of Patients with Peripheral Artery Disease Reduces Human Enterovirus Infection of the Gastrocnemius

Introduction: Peripheral artery disease (PAD), caused by obstruction of arteries supplying the lower extremities, is characterized by leg muscle degeneration. Recently, we showed that infectious human enterovirus (HEV), which has been implicated in other myodegenerative diseases, is present in ischemic muscle of PAD patients and that viral copy numbers correlate with disease severity. Hypothesis: We tested the hypothesis that prevalence of infectious HEV and viral copy number in the gastrocnemius of patients with PAD decrease in response to revascularization. Methods: Gastrocnemius biopsies were collected from controls (N=14) and from PAD patients (N=17), before and after revascularization. Biopsies were examined for the presence of HEV RNA, viral capsid protein, viral RNA copy number, and viral infectivity and for viral sub-genotype. Results: HEV RNA was detected in biopsies of 65% (11/17) of PAD patients and in none of the controls. After revascularization, the gastrocnemius of 5 patients who were HEV p...
Tumor necrosis factor-alpha alters pulmonary vasoreactivity via neutrophil-derived oxidants

We postulated that tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF) “primes” the lung for the development of pulmonary vasoconstriction and edema by inducing the release of polymorphonuclear leukocyte (PMN)-deriv...
Epigenetics: linking social and environmental exposures to preterm birth

Preterm birth remains a leading cause of infant mortality and morbidity. Despite decades of research, marked racial and socioeconomic disparities in preterm birth persist. In the Unites States, more than 16% of African-American infants are born before 37 wk of gestation compared with less than 11% of white infants. While income and education differences predict a portion of these racial disparities, income and education are proxies of the underlying causes rather than the true cause. How these differences lead to the pathophysiology remains unknown. Beyond tobacco smoke exposure, most preterm birth investigators overlook environment exposures that often correlate with poverty. Environmental exposures to industrial contaminants track along both socioeconomic and racial/ethnic lines due to cultural variation in personal product use, diet, and residential geographical separation. Emerging evidence suggests that environmental exposure to metals and plasticizers contribute to preterm birth and epigenetic modifications. The extent to which disparities in preterm birth result from interactions between the social and physical environments that produce epigenetic modifications remains unclear. In this review, we highlight studies that report associations between environmental exposures and preterm birth as well as perinatal epigenetic sensitivity to environmental contaminants and socioeconomic stressors.
Efficient Delaunay-based localized routing for wireless sensor networks: Research Articles

Consider a wireless sensor network consisting of n wireless sensors randomly distributed in a two-dimensional plane. In this paper, we show that with high probability we can locally find a path for any pair of sensors such that the length of the path is no more than a constant factor of the minimum. By assuming each sensor knows its position, our new routing method decides where to forward the message purely based on the position of current node, its neighbours, and the positions of the source and the target. Our method is based on a novel structure called localized Delaunay triangulation and a geometric routing method that guarantees that the distance travelled by the packets is no more than a small constant factor of the minimum when the Delaunay triangulation of sensor nodes are known. Our experiments show that the delivery rates of existing localized routing protocols are increased when localized Delaunay triangulation is used instead of several previously proposed topologies, and our localized routing protocol based on Delaunay triangulation works well in practice. We also conducted extensive simulations of another localized routing protocol, face routing. The path found by this protocol is also reasonably good compared with previous one although it cannot guarantee a constant approximation on the length of the path travelled theoretically. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Application of mixed kernels function (MKF) based support vector regression model (SVR) for CO2 - Reservoir oil minimum miscibility pressure prediction

Abstract Carbon dioxide (CO2) injection into oil reservoirs is considered a mature enhanced oil recovery (EOR) technique for conventional reservoirs. The local displacement efficiency of the CO2-EOR process is highly dependent on the minimum miscibility pressure (MMP), estimating this parameter is critical to design of the CO2 injection process. Traditional empirical methods to test the CO2-oil MMP are time consuming and expensive; derived correlations are fast but not accurate. Therefore, an efficient and reliable method to determine MMP is beneficial. In this study, a mixed kernels function (MKF) based support vector regression (SVR) model was developed and used to predict the MMP for both pure and impure CO2 injection cases. Four parameters were chosen as input parameters: (1) reservoir temperature; (2) average critical temperature; (3) molecular weight of pentane plus (C5+) fraction of crude oil, and; (4) the ratio of volatile components to intermediate components in crude oil. MMP was selected as the desired output parameter to train and test this newly developed model. The performance of basic kernels function based SVR model is compared with that of this newly developed MKF-SVR model. The well-trained MFK-SVR was compared with three well-established published correlations, demonstrated the highest correlation coefficient (R of 0.9381), lowest root mean square error (RMSE of 1.9151), smallest average absolute error (AAE of 1.1406) and maximum absolute error (MAE of 4.6291). We believe that the proposed MFK-SVM model is a more reliable and stable regression model to predict MMP. In addition, a sensitivity analysis was conducted to evaluate the physical correctness. It indicates that the predicted results from the newly developed model are in excellent agreement with previous empirical work.
Cinéma-Vérité in America (II): Don't Look Back

That Monteverdi's first opera, as well as the two that preceded his initiating masterpiece, and Gluck's masterpiece a century later, which brings the aria to the musical level of the recitative…, all work from the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is almost too good to be true in establishing the myth of opera, of its origins – the story of the power of music, epitomized as the act of singing. So we might reemphasize the turn in the story, familiar but not universal, in which, after moving hell to release his wife, and despite charming tigers and stones, Orpheus at the last moment cannot redeem Eurydice for their everyday life together again; which makes the story one about the limitations of the power of voice. To draw morals from myths is an ancient practice, and which moral you draw from the Orpheus myth is apt to depend on how you understand “looking back.” A sixteenth-century Italian translator of Ovid's Metamorphoses , one of the sources of the myth, interprets it as “man's loss of the soul whenever he abandons reason and turns back: that is to pursue blameworthy and earthly concerns.” This moralism is particularly striking in view of the ease with which the moral can be seen to be about skepticism, about the loss of the world through an impossible effort to certify its existence by means of the senses, especially through looking. (Freud's observation is pertinent here, that doubt is the emotion expressive of our essential uncertainty about what is happening behind us.) – Stanley Cavell, “Opera and the Lease of Voice” (from A Pitch of Philosophy )
High order contingency selection based on particle swarm optimization and branch reordering

This paper first presents a heuristic searching method based on a modified particle swarm optimization (PSO) to select severe high order contingencies. The original PSO algorithm gives an intelligent strategy to search the feasible solution space, but tends to find the best solution only. The proposed method combines the original PSO with tabu search such that a number of top candidates will be identified. This fits the need of high order contingency screening, which can be eventually the input to many other more complicate security analyses. Next, reordering of branches based on the severity of N-1 contingencies is applied as a pre-processing to increase the convergence properties and efficiency of the algorithm. With this reordering approach, many critical high order contingencies are located in a small area in the whole searching space. Therefore, the proposed algorithm tends to concentrate in searching this area such that the number of critical branch combinations searched will increase. The proposed algorithm is tested and validated with N-2 contingency selection using a sample system modified from the original IEEE 118-bus system. Satisfying results are observed.
Changing course: comparing emerging watershed institutions in river restoration contexts.

ABSTRACTHow watershed collaborations adapt to changing conditions is an enduring question in collaborative resource management. Our research examined the goals and structure of collaborations within watersheds subject to the same federal and state regulations, but at different restoration states. We employed semistructured interviews, document analysis, and participant observation to complete our qualitative research. Our results suggest that policy stakeholders’ understandings of ecological and social attributes influence watershed goals. Within the impaired system, collaborations invested in shifting public perception to engender support for longer term biophysical restoration. Within the restored watershed, collaborations achieved dramatic biophysical improvements but were challenged in addressing social benefits of restoration. Redefining restoration to incorporate social and ecological systems at the outset provides the opportunity to set benchmarks for measuring success that incorporate social and e...
Creating a basic customizable framework for crop detection using Landsat imagery

Remotely sensed crop identification is essential for countries whose economic vitality is closely tied to agriculture, such as Uruguay. It has been shown that using Normalized Difference Vegetation Index NDVI can sometimes produce spurious results when classifying land cover in certain environments. Furthermore, many current crop identification tools use NDVI in order to study and identify crop land-cover for classification techniques. In this study, we present the basic framework for a semi-automated crop identification methodology, which uses a time series analysis to identify soil and vegetation patterns for various crop-cycle scenarios by using the pixel Hue values for land cover identification, at high 30 m spatial resolution. This is accomplished by converting the Red–Green–Blue RGB colour space of a shortwave infrared SWIR, near-infrared, and red channel composite images, into a Hue-Saturation-Value colour space, then extracting the Hue pixel values that correspond to soil and vegetation over a series of images. We then combine the soil and vegetation pixels in order to create a ‘time series’ to identify which pixels match different crop-cycle scenarios and isolate them. The shapes are then further isolated to only include those that fit a specific shape area >20 ha, in order to eliminate spurious results. Our results show an 80% accuracy score between the crop identification methodology and a proposed crop plan over the years 2013–2014 and probabilities of detection of 0.76, 0.89, and 0.88 for the seasons of 2009–2010, 2010–2011, and 2011–2012 respectively, when compared to verified partial crop location maps. The proposed crop plan and the partial crop location maps were provided to us by the Instituto Nacional de Investigacion Agropecuaria INIA in Uruguay. We also quantitatively investigated the shortcomings of the crop identification methodology, which mostly came from cloud cover and low temporal resolution of the images.
Anomalous Charge Transport in Conjugated Polymers Reveals Underlying Mechanisms of Trapping and Percolation

While transport in conjugated polymers has many similarities to that in crystalline inorganic materials, several key differences reveal the unique relationship between the morphology of polymer films and the charge mobility. We develop a model that directly incorporates the molecular properties of the polymer film and correctly predicts these unique transport features. At low degree of polymerization, the increase of the mobility with the polymer chain length reveals trapping at chain ends, and saturation of the mobility at high degree of polymerization results from conformational traps within the chains. Similarly, the inverse field dependence of the mobility reveals that transport on single polymer chains is characterized by the ability of the charge to navigate around kinks and loops in the chain. These insights emphasize the connection between the polymer conformations and the transport and thereby offer a route to designing improved device morphologies through molecular design and materials processing.
Perceptions of disadvantaged youth on social and economic asymmetry: A case study in Hong Kong’s New Territories

Many social issues exist for marginalized youth in the New Territories of Hong Kong, despite Hong Kong’s high standard of living. Increasingly, attention is being paid to social mobility of Hong Kong’s younger generations. Youth in the New Territories face academic, economic, social and cultural barriers, in part due to tracking into low-ranked Band 3 schools. In order to better understand these barriers, this study took a phenomenological approach to understanding selected youth’s perceptions and perspectives on these barriers. This qualitative case study, being both exploratory and descriptive, developed thematic findings across interviews, field observations and document analysis in order to understand disadvantaged youth’s personal perceptions and attitudes of youth social mobility. Youth and teacher interview participants also took part, to varying degrees, in the programs provided by Hong Kong-based NGO, Project Share. The study attempts to further our understanding of the lived experiences and perceived social mobility barriers unique to these marginalized youth. Findings illustrate issues that NGOs, practitioners, school officials and policy makers may want to consider when approaching work with disadvantaged youth and attempting to understanding youth issues in Hong Kong from the youth perspective. The full text of the article can be found at 10.18275/fire201603031091
Determination of Absolute Material Nonlinearity with Air-coupled Ultrasonic Receivers

Abstract Quantitative evaluation of the microstructural state of a specimen can be deduced from knowledge of the sample’s absolute acoustic nonlinearity parameter, β , making the measurement of β a powerful tool in the NDE toolbox. However, the various methods used in the past to measure β each suffer from significant limitations. Piezoelectric contact transducers are sensitive to nonlinear signals, cheap, and simple to use, but they are hindered by the variability of the interfacial contact between transducer and specimen surface. Laser interferometry provides non-contact detection, but requires carefully prepared specimens or complicated optics to maximize sensitivity to the higher harmonic components of a received waveform. Additionally, laser interferometry is expensive and relatively difficult to use in the field. Air-coupled piezoelectric transducers offer the strengths of both of these technologies and the weaknesses of neither, but are notoriously difficult to calibrate for use in nonlinear measurements. This work proposes a hybrid modeling and experimental approach to air-coupled transducer calibration and the use of this calibration in a model-based optimization to determine the absolute β parameter of the material under investigation. This approach is applied to aluminum and fused silica, which are both well-documented materials and provide a strong reference for comparison of experimental and modeling results.
Patients With Ulcerative Colitis and Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis Frequently Have Subclinical Inflammation in the Proximal Colon

Background & Aims Patients with primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) and ulcerative colitis (UC) have a high risk of colonic neoplasia. Neoplasia frequently develops in the proximal colon in patients with PSC. Histologic inflammation is an independent risk factor for the development of neoplasia; we investigated whether patients with UC and PSC have more subclinical disease activity than patients with UC alone. Methods We performed a retrospective analysis of data from 143 patients (205 examinations) with ulcerative pancolitis who were in clinical remission and treated at a tertiary medical center from May 2011 through May 2016. Endoscopic and histologic activity were compared between patients with PSC (from 36 examinations) and without PSC (from 169 examinations). Disease activity was scored per colonic segment using a modified Mayo endoscopic subscore and histologic assessment. In each colonic segment, differences in disease activity and the degree of discordance between endoscopic and histologic inflammation among UC patients with and without PSC were compared. Results Patients with UC-PSC had significantly more subclinical endoscopic (odds ratio [OR], 4.21; 95% CI, 1.67–10.63) and histologic activity (OR, 5.13; 95% CI, 2.25–11.68) in the right colon, as well as greater degree of histologic than endoscopic inflammation in the proximal colon (OR, 3.14, 95% CI, 1.24–7.97), compared with patients without PSC. Patients with UC-PSC had significantly less histologic activity in the rectum on multivariate analysis (OR, 0.24; 95% CI, 0.08–0.72). Conclusions Patients with UC and PSC who are in clinical remission are significantly more likely to have endoscopic and histologic inflammation in the right colon than patients with UC without PSC. Our findings provide insight into cause of colorectal cancer in UC patients with PSC.
The Size Distribution Function For Mixed-Layer Thermals in The Convective Atmosphere

A version of the theoretical design of a size distribution function for mixed-layer thermals is proposed. In the framework of this approach, classical Boltzmann statistics is supplemented with a hydrodynamic invariant that describes the motion of isolated thermals. The gamma distribution that we have derived agrees with numerous experimental data obtained earlier for size distribution of thermals in the convective boundary layer.
Intravascular Large B-Cell Lymphoma Presenting with Diffuse Gallbladder Wall Thickening: A Case Report and Literature Review

Intravascular large B-cell lymphoma is a rare subtype of extranodal diffuse B-cell lymphoma characterized by proliferation of neoplastic cells within the lumen of small and medium sized vessels. Clinical and imaging findings are nebulous as the intravascular subtype of lymphoma can involve a multitude of organs. Involvement of the gallbladder is extremely uncommon, and imaging findings can be easily confused for more prevalent pathologies. We report a case of intravascular large B-cell lymphoma in an 83-year-old male and review clinical presentation and imaging findings on CT, ultrasound, hepatobiliary iminodiacetic acid (HIDA) scan, and MRI. It is important for the radiologist to know about this disease as the imaging findings are atypical of other types of lymphoma, and this may lead to a delay in diagnosis and treatment.
Links Between Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) and Statistical Pattern Recognition

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the ways in which artificial neural networks (ANNs) differ from the well-known paradigms of statistical pattern recognition (SPR) and discusses whether there are any concepts in ANN for which no counterpart in SPR exists and vice-versa. The chapter explains the benefits that can come out of interaction between ANN and SPR researchers. It defines the advantages that ANN techniques have over SPR methods in dealing with real-world problems. For the most part, ANNs for pattern recognition are to SPR what poetry is to prose— technically a subset, based on the acceptance of certain design constraints of enormous practical utility, plus an additional source of inspiration that can be very helpful in the design process. Beyond that, the underlying concepts and paradigms are so close and the range of problems under study overlap to such a degree that greater mutual communication can minimize the duplication of effort and enrich both communities in many other ways. One area of substantive difference is that some parts of the ANN community treat pattern recognition as a subset of systems to perform dynamic system identification and control; this can lead to improvements in pattern recognition, in some cases, when the pattern to be recognized is essentially dynamic.
Use of the EM-SCAN® to Determine Body Composition in Previously Frozen Specimens

Changes in body composition between fat and lean tissue in mammals are the basis of many ecological and physiological studies, and certainly are important in assessing energy flux in hibernators. The primary means for determining flux in body composition has involved large sample sizes, sacrificing animals at various times throughout an experiment. Carcasses were then chemically analyzed for fat content. Recently, a new procedure using the EM-SCAN device has allowed determination of body composition in live animals. Thus, an animal can be repeatedly assessed during an experiment. Hydration, body temperature, movement and position of the animal in the device affect accuracy. Thus, it was felt that if an animal died during an experiment, its body composition could not be measured as were live animals because of changes in body temperature. We found that carcasses of animals previously frozen could be analyzed by the EM-SCAN with similar accuracy to determinations made on live animals. However, calibration curves are different.
Alternative Systems of Care and Consumer-Driven Health Care

The fundamental aspiration of any health-care system is to maximize the value it provides to patients. Historically, clinical advancement has been at epicenter of this aim, but skyrocketing costs and inconsistent correlations with outcomes have precipitated the search for system-wide alternatives. Any successful health-care system must ultimately integrate patients, providers, and payers in such a manner that promotes quality while containing costs. Doing so requires defining value in health care, as well as understanding the implications of moral hazards. Consumer-driven health care aims to use these concepts to alter the way patients approach health care, while accountable care organizations hope to do the same for providers. In both scenarios, the key questions include who benefits from and who bears the costs of decision making in the context of moral hazards, and how does a potential system-wide solution effectively distribute risk in order to incent innovations that maximize value?
History of Preventive Medicine

The concept of preventive health care is not modern. Before the 20th-century biomedical revolution, important advances had been made in the understanding and prevention of infectious diseases and nutritional deficiency. Long before the advent of scientific investigation into disease processes, men were explaining disease and attempting to avoid illness. In surveying historical efforts to prevent communicable diseases and nutritional deficiency diseases three categories of prevention are apparent; (1) individual control over personal health through adherence to dietary and hygiene codes; (2) social control over health by means of isolating diseased individuals or protecting large groups of people from environmental dangers; (3) application of increased scientific understanding of disease.
On Mass Patent Aggregators

This Essay responds to and extends upon Mark A. Lemley & A. Douglas Melamed's article, Missing the Forest for the Trolls, 113 Colum. L. Rev. 2117 (2013). Lemley & Melamed's article provides a refreshingly balanced and nuanced view of the litigation system. Their article defends, at least partially, mass patent aggregators. However, mass patent aggregators are much more complicated than Lemley & Melamed's article describes. This Essay explains many of the complexities that surround the acquisition and enforcement of patents by mass patent aggregators. Some of these complexities cut in favor of Lemley & Melamed's conclusions, but others do not.
Connective Tissue Growth Factor in the Pathogenesis of Diabetic Nephropathy

Since its discovery in 1991, connective tissue growth factor (CCN2; formerly named CTGF), a member of the CCN family of genes, has been shown to have quite diverse biological functions. Our laboratory was among the first to provide evidence for a causal role for CCN2 in the pathogenesis of diabetic nephropathy (DN). We suggested its criticality as downstream profibrotic factor stimulated by both transforming growth factor (TGF)-βdependent and -independent mechanisms, and as such, a novel target for therapeutic intervention. Proof is now being provided for its role in the fibrosis and sclerosis that occurs in the glomerulus, and likely in the interstitium, in DN. This chapter will focus first on the evidence for a causal role, second on the recently discovered mechanisms and factors involved in regulation of CCN2, and third on the direction we envision the research heading, including possibilities for novel therapeutics and diagnostics targeting CCN.
Keeping It in the Fairway: Golf Handicap Following Total Ankle Arthroplasty

Background:Total ankle arthroplasty (TAA) provides a surgical alternative to tibiotalar arthrodesis when treating end-stage ankle arthritis. TAA preserves range of motion at the tibiotalar joint le...
Editor’s Note: Symposium on Graduate Education in Political Communication

One of the special joys of my job is training graduate students. Helping to introduce students to the field, fostering new ways of thinking, sharing methods of inquiry, and building professional sk...
Does impact assessment meet stakeholder expectation: case study of POSCO project in Odisha

ABSTRACTThe USD 12 billion steel project of POSCO in Odisha, India, conceived in 2005, was to be one of the largest investments in the country. But the project could not materialize, and in 2017 PO...
Spillover and Crossover Effects of Work-Family Conflict among Married and Cohabiting Couples:

The present study uses Wave 8 of the German Family Panel to test the spillover and crossover effects of work-family conflict on job satisfaction, relationship satisfaction, and mental health for in...
Does Lymph Node Status Prior to Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy Influence the Number of Sentinel Nodes Removed

Recent prospective trials support the use of sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) in breast cancer patients after neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) with a lower false-negative rate if three or more sentinel lymph nodes (SLNs) are identified. In this study, we investigated whether the pre-NAC axillary lymph node status influences the number of SLNs identified. Stage I–III breast cancer patients who received NAC and underwent SLNB from May 2014 to April 2016 were identified from an institutional prospective database. Clinical and pathological factors among clinically node-negative (cN−) and clinically node-positive (cN+) patients who converted to cN− post-NAC were compared. Generalized linear mixed models analyzed factors associated with the number of SLNs removed. Among 343 patients who underwent SLNB during the study period, 335 (98%) had at least one SLN identified, and subsequently comprised the study population. The median number of SLNs identified was 4 (range 1–14), which did not differ according to pre-NAC nodal status (P = 0.15). Overall, 85% of patients had three or more SLNs identified (80% cN− group vs. 89% cN+ group; P = 0.02). On univariable analysis, age < 50 years and presenting with a positive axillary node were significantly associated with identifying three or more SLNs. Our study confirms that SLNB was successfully performed in 98% of our patients after NAC, with very few failed mapping procedures. In the post-NAC setting, the median number of SLNs identified was four, and the status of the axilla prior to NAC did not negatively affect the number of SLNs identified.
Review of Pickering, Lucy (2018) Discourse Intonation: A Discourse-Pragmatic Approach to Teaching the Pronunciation of English

This article reviews Discourse Intonation: A Discourse-Pragmatic Approach to Teaching the Pronunciation of English