cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Computer-aided desing of a greenhouse waste heat utilization system

Abstract The objective was to design a prototype greenhouse heating system utilizing warm water from a specific electric power generating station. To take into account the effects of changes in factors affecting greenhouse energy requirements, computer simulation was extensively used to evaluate a number of possible designs. Site-specific information was available on the weather and the temperature of the power plant's condenser discharge water at hourly intervals over the entire year. The computer simulation program was used to compare different design options and to explore the interactions between heating systems, power plant water and outside ambient temperatures, and temperature control strategies. Using the results of the computer studies a 1.1-ha prototype was designed and constructed. It operated successfully throughout the 1980–81 heating season. In the fall a poinsettia crop was produced and in the spring there were lilies, pot mums, other potted plants and a bedding plant crop of tomatoes.
Mechanism of potassium-channel selectivity revealed by Na+ and Li+ binding sites within the KcsA pore

How potassium channels select intracellular K+ over Na+ and Li+ is investigated, using experimental and theoretical approaches. The results indicate that selectivity is not due to higher affinity for K+ binding, but rather to an energy barrier blocking Na+ and Li+ entry in the presence of K+.
Targeting binge eating through components of dialectical behavior therapy: Preliminary outcomes for individually supported diary card self-monitoring versus group-based DBT.

The current study examined two condensed adaptations of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) for binge eating. Women with full- or sub-threshold variants of either binge eating disorder or bulimia nervosa were randomly assigned to individually supported self-monitoring using adapted DBT diary cards (DC) or group-based DBT, each 15 sessions over 16 weeks. DC sessions focused on problem-solving diary card completion issues, praising diary card completion, and supporting nonjudgmental awareness of eating-related habits and urges, but not formally teaching DBT skills. Group-based DBT included eating mindfulness, progressing through graded exposure; mindfulness, emotion regulation, and distress tolerance skills; and coaching calls between sessions. Both treatments evidenced large and significant improvements in binge eating, bulimic symptoms, and interoceptive awareness. For group-based DBT, ineffectiveness, drive for thinness, body dissatisfaction, and perfectionism also decreased significantly, with medium to large effect sizes. For DC, results were not significant but large in effect size for body dissatisfaction and medium in effect size for ineffectiveness and drive for thinness. Retention for both treatments was higher than recent trends for eating disorder treatment in fee-for-service practice and for similar clinic settings, but favored DC, with the greater attrition of group-based DBT primarily attributed to its more intensive and time-consuming nature, and dropout overall associated with less pretreatment impairment and greater interoceptive awareness. This preliminary investigation suggests that with both abbreviated DBT-based treatments, substantial improvement in core binge eating symptoms is possible, enhancing potential avenues for implementation beyond more time-intensive DBT.
Latest results from RHIC

Some of the most recent results from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) are reported. Exciting new experimental features have been observed in data from all four experiments. These new observations indicate the creation of a new form of ‘hot dense matter’ at RHIC energies, the properties of which are now beginning to be determined. PACS: 25.75.-q Relativistic heavy-ion collisions – 25.75.Nq Quark-gluon plasma production
Juxtaposition in Environmental Health Rhetoric: Exposing Asbestos Contamination in Libby, Montana

This essay argues that juxtaposition is an important rhetorical convention for overcoming uncertainty and institutional inertia in relation to environmental health hazards. The essay illustrates the rhetorical dynamics of this convention in the public discourse that exposed the problem of asbestos contamination in Libby, Montana, and contends that the dichotomous moral framing of this problem was an effective and morally appropriate example of "ecospeak."
Hyperbaric oxygen for the management of radionecrosis of bone and cartilage

Objectives: To review the use of hyperbaric oxygen in the management of radionecrosis of the head and neck. Study Design: A retrospective analysis of patients utilizing chart review and telephone interviews. All patients diagnosed with osteoradionecrosis and chondroradionecrosis of the head and neck and treated with hyperbaric oxygen at the University of Virginia are included. Methods: Demographics, pretreatment data, and precipitating events were recorded. Outcomes were evaluated using a grading scale of symptomatology and physical examination as determined by the patient and physician. Results: Sixteen patients with osteoradionecrosis and five with chondroradionecrosis were reviewed. All patients showed clinical improvement with decreased pain following HBO therapy. None of the patients with chondroradionecrosis required laryngectomies, and two of the four who were tracheotomy dependent were successfully decannulated. The patient and physician grading scores demonstrated moderate to significant improvement in both groups following therapy. Conclusion : The successful use of hyperbaric oxygen for the management of radionecrosis of the head and neck is supported. The unusual prevalence of chondroradionecrosis may be an early reflection of changes in treatment protocols for patients with head and neck cancer.
Changing the Electronic Spectrum of a Quantum Dot by Adding Electrons

The temperature dependence of Coulomb blockade peak height correlation is used to investigate how adding electrons to a quantum dot alters or {open_quotes}scrambles{close_quotes} its electronic spectrum. Deviations from finite-temperature random matrix theory with an unchanging spectrum indicate spectral scrambling after a small number of electrons are added. Enhanced peak-to-peak correlations at low temperature are observed. Peak height statistics show similar behavior in several dot configurations despite significant differences in correlations. {copyright} {ital 1998} {ital The American Physical Society }
Spatial majority voting equilibria and the provision of public goods

Abstract This paper develops general equilibrium conditions for urban areas where a pure public good is provided at a level decided upon by majority voting. Models with a property tax and a head tax and external land ownership are analyzed, and equilibrium solutions are compared using a specific form for the utility function. Optimal cities are characterized and compared to those emerging from the majority voting equilibria. Models where aggregate land rent is divided equally among the urban residents are also developed.
Arsanilazocarboxypeptidase A: environmentally sensitive extrinsic Cotton effects.

Abstract Coupling of carboxypeptidase A with p-azobenzenearsonate generates an absorption spectrum which gives rise to at least three extrinsic Cotton effects between 300 and 600 mμ. These, like the activity changes accompanying the chemical modifications, are consistent with covalently formed arsanilazotyrosine in the enzyme. Further, the Cotton effects are altered significantly by the binding of substrates or inhibitors, rendering the arsanilazotyrosyl chromophore an optically active probe of the active center.
RBS characterization of arsenic(III) partitioning from aqueous phase into the active layers of thin-film composite NF/RO membranes.

The main objective of this study was to apply Rutherford backscattering spectrometry (RBS) for characterizing the partitioning of arsenic(III) from aqueous phase into the active layer of NF/RO membranes. NF/RO membranes with active layer materials including polyamide (PA), PA-polyvinyl alcohol derivative (PVA), and sulfonated-polyethersulfone (SPES) were investigated. The partition coefficient was found to be constant in the investigated As(III) concentration range of 0.005−0.02 M at each pH investigated. The partitioning of As(III) when predominantly present as H3AsO3 (pH 3.5−8.0) was not affected by pH. In contrast, the partition coefficient of As(III) at pH 10.5, when it was predominantly present as H2AsO3-, was found to be approximately 33−49% lower than that of H3AsO3. The partition coefficients of H3AsO3 and H2AsO3- for membranes containing PA in their active layers were within the respective ranges of 6.2−8.1 and 3.6−5.4, while the corresponding values (4.8 and 3.0, respectively) for the membrane w...
Polish stress: looking for phonetic evidence of a bidirectional system*

This paper reports on a study of Polish stress, the only uncontested example of a bidirectional system with internal lapses (Kager 2001, McCarthy 2003). The results indicate that Polish stress is non-iterative, a finding that seriously calls into question the existence of this particular stress type. An analysis of the acoustic prominence of syllables traditionally associated with different stress levels suggests that Polish simple words exhibit only one (penultimate) prominence. The stress pattern in compounds is less uniform; they can carry one or two (penultimate) stresses, depending on their prosodic structure. I analyse the distribution of stresses in compounds as governed by clash avoidance. Specifically, compound stems are parsed into separate PWds and assigned separate stresses only if the emergent trochees are non-adjacent. Hence, four-syllable compounds like /tsuʤɔ-ˈʑemʲets/ ‘foreigner’ have one stress, while compounds like /banaˈnɔvɔ-arbuˈzɔvɨ/ ‘banana-watermelon’ have two. I ascribe this pattern to the undominated ranking of the *FtFt constraint.
Excited state electron transfer from cobalt coordination compounds anchored to TiO2

Abstract There exists an urgent need for stable, earth-abundant inorganic coordination compounds and materials that efficiently harvest sunlight and initiate electron transfer reactions that produce electrical power and/or chemical fuels. It was recently discovered that Co(I) coordination compounds do indeed harvest large fractions of solar photons and efficiently transfer electrons to the acceptor states of TiO2 from metal-to-ligand charge transfer excited states. In some cases the electron transfer quantum yield was ∼46%. Remarkably, and unlike other first row transition metal compounds, the unfilled d-orbitals do not quantitatively quench the excited states and allow for efficient excited state electron transfer. A novel feature of the Co(II/I∗) electron transfer chemistry is a large inner-sphere contribution that results from a change in the coordination number. This short review summarizes the most recent findings that suggest new opportunities for solar energy conversion with first-row transition metal compounds.
Multi-photon microscopy with a low-cost and highly efficient Cr:LiCAF laser

Multi-photon microscopy (MPM) is a powerful tool for biomedical imaging, enabling molecular contrast and integrated structural and functional imaging on the cellular and subcellular level. However, the cost and complexity of femtosecond laser sources that are required in MPM are significant hurdles to widespread adoption of this important imaging modality. In this work, we describe femtosecond diode pumped Cr:LiCAF laser technology as a low cost alternative to femtosecond Ti:Sapphire lasers for MPM. Using single mode pump diodes which cost only $150 each, a diode pumped Cr:LiCAF laser generates ~70-fs duration, 1.8-nJ pulses at ~800 nm wavelengths, with a repetition rate of 100 MHz and average output power of 180 mW. Representative examples of MPM imaging in neuroscience, immunology, endocrinology and cancer research using Cr:LiCAF laser technology are presented. These studies demonstrate the potential of this laser source for use in a broad range of MPM applications.
Method of applying bakelite to snow‐sampler

The bakelite employed is commercially known as Risch-Rasch used as a running base on skis. The bakelite was thinned with equal parts of acetone. Application with a rag on the end of a fishing rod did not prove very satisfactory but had to do for lack of a spray-gun or dipping apparatus. Three to four coats of Risch-Rasch should be applied at 12-hour intervals. Rubbing down with steel wool before each coat improves the finish.
Adsorption of local anesthetics on phospholipid membranes

Abstract In order to elucidate various types of adsorption modes of local anesthetics in membranes, a study of local anesthetic adsorption on lipid membranes was made by measuring electrophoretic mobility of phospholipid vesicles in the presence of local anesthetics of various concentrations in the vesicle suspension solution. The amounts of local anesthetics to be adsorbed on the membrane surface were deduced from the electrophoretic mobility of a phosphatidylcholine vesicle at various concentrations of the cationic form of local anesthetics. The order of surface adsorption of local anesthetics was dibucaine > tetracaine > procaine. A surface partition coefficient, K5 = 1/ AC5, was introduced, where A is the membrane surface area per local anesthetic molecule adsorbed and C5 the surface concentration of local anesthetics. The amounts of local anesthetic adsorbed on phosphatidylserine membrane were much greater than that of the phosphatidylcholine membrane. It was deduced that the major factor for this large adsorption was due to the enhancement of cationic forms of local anesthetic concentrations at the charged membrane surface. Divalent cations inhibited such surface adsorption of local anesthetics by reducing surface concentrations of local anesthetics where the surface potential of the negatively charged membrane surface was influenced by the presence of divalent cations in the solution as well as by the reduction of fixed surface charges due to divalent cation binding. Some association modes of local anesthetics on nerve membranes are discussed with the results obtained in the above adsorption study.
Controlling the Fate of NIK: A Central Stage in Noncanonical NF-κB Signaling

The noncanonical nuclear factor κB (NF-κB) pathway is a specific arm of NF-κB signaling that regulates important aspects of immune function. Activation of this pathway centers on the modulation of a pivotal signaling component: NF-κB–inducing kinase (NIK). Under normal conditions, NIK undergoes constitutive degradation, which keeps its abundance below the threshold required for its function, and signal-induced activation of the noncanonical NF-κB pathway is coupled with the stabilization and accumulation of NIK. A study now shows that signal-induced accumulation of NIK is subject to feedback control, which involves its phosphorylation by a downstream kinase, inhibitor of κB (IκB) kinase α (IKKα), and degradation. Thus, controlling the fate of NIK is emerging as a central mechanism in noncanonical NF-κB signaling.
Server-Directed Collective I/O in Panda

We present the architecture and implementation results for Panda 2.0, a library for input and output of multidimensional arrays on parallel and sequential platforms. Panda achieves remarkable performance levels on the IBM SP2, showing excellent scalability as data size increases and as the number of nodes increases, and provides throughputs close to the full capacity of the AIX file system on the SP2 we used. We argue that this good performance can be traced to Panda's use of server-directed i/o (a logical-level version of disk-directed i/o [Kotz94b]) to perform array i/o using sequential disk reads and writes, a very high level interface for collective i/o requests, and built-in facilities for arbitrary rearrangements of arrays during i/o. Other advantages of Panda's approach are ease of use, easy application portability, and a reliance on commodity system software.
Mass culture of coercive psychiatric confinement

In Movies on Trial [1], I examine ways in which popular legal culture (especially television, fiction, and film) helps shape American attitudes toward different aspects of legal process and legal system. Among the topics I consider are criminal law, tort law, international law, constitutional law, and comparative law. I am now writing a second book on this subject, Movies on Appeal, and I will be examining a second tier of legal topics or subjects (contract law, property law, the law of war, labor law) and how they are treated in mass culture. Specifically, I will be adding a chapter on law and psychiatry, a course which I have taught to law students for about 20 years. I wish to examine the ways in which popular legal culture helps to shape images (and perceptions) of coercive psychiatric confinement in the United States. Perhaps no other issue in the field of law and psychiatry has captured public attention or the focus of mass culture like involuntary civil commitment. I not only want to compare and contrast images of such confinement in television, fiction, and film, but I want to show concretely what connections exist between popular images and popular perception, and between the latter and professional practice in this field.
A STUDY OF AN EXTREMELY PURE PREPARATION OF RICIN

1. By following the method of Osborne, Mendel and Harris, we can obtain an extremely potent toxin from the castor bean. 2. It would appear, as a result of testing this preparation at the end of two and a half years, that the agglutinating function and the toxic function are two distinct properties. 3. This result is also borne out by the behavior under the electric current; either we are dealing with two different substances or else with a single substance with two distinct toxiphore groups, one of which is stable and the other labile.
Coronary Sinus-Ventricular Accessory Connections Producing Posteroseptal and Left Posterior Accessory Pathways: Incidence and Electrophysiological Identification

Background— The coronary sinus (CS) has a myocardial coat (CSMC) with extensive connections to the left and right atria. We postulated that some posteroseptal and left posterior accessory pathways (CSAPs) result from connections between a cuff of CSMC extending along the middle cardiac vein (MCV) or posterior coronary vein (PCV) and the ventricle. The purpose of the present study was to use CS angiography and mapping to define and determine the incidence of CSAPs and determine the relationship to CS anatomy. Methods and Results— CSAP was defined by accessory pathway (AP) potential or earliest activation in the MCV or PCV and late activation at anular endocardial sites. A CSAP was identified in 171 of 480 patients undergoing ablation of a posteroseptal or left posterior AP. CS angiography revealed a CS diverticulum in 36 (21%) and fusiform or bulbous enlargement of the small cardiac vein, MCV, or CS in 15 (9%) patients. The remaining 120 (70%) patients had an angiographically normal CS. A CSMC extension po...
The μ Switch Region Tandem Repeats Are Important, but Not Required, for Antibody Class Switch Recombination

Class switch DNA recombinations change the constant (C) region of the antibody heavy (H) chain expressed by a B cell and thereby change the antibody effector function. Unusual tandemly repeated sequence elements located upstream of H chain gene exons have long been thought to be important in the targeting and/or mechanism of the switch recombination process. We have deleted the entire switch tandem repeat element (Sμ) from the murine μ H chain gene. We find that the Sμ tandem repeats are not required for class switching in the mouse immunoglobulin H-chain locus, although the efficiency of switching is clearly reduced. Our data demonstrate that sequences outside of the Sμ tandem repeats must be capable of directing the class switch mechanism. The maintenance of the highly repeated Sμ element during evolution appears to reflect selection for a highly efficient switching process rather than selection for a required sequence element.
Analysis of RT distributions in the remember-know paradigm

Do remembering and knowing differ qualitatively (reflecting distinct underlying processes) or quantitatively (reflecting different levels of strength)? Broadly speaking, models of remember—know judgments based on these alternatives have been tested by examining the proportion of remember and know responses that are made across conditions or levels of confidence. Here, we consider reaction time (RT) data. We replicate Dewhurst and Conway’s (1994) observation that old judgments followed by remember responses are faster, on average, than those followed by know decisions, but show that this effect is largely due to differing distributions of remember and know responses across confidence levels. In addition, fits of ex-Gaussian distributions of hit RTs followed by either remember or know judgments yield similar parameter values when confidence level is controlled. Thus, these RT data do not provide strong support for the idea that remembering and knowing depend on different processes.
THALASSEMIA: Pathophysiology of Red Cell Changes

The thalassemias are extremely heterogeneous in terms of their clinical severity, and their underlying pathophysiology relates directly to the extent of accumulation of excess unmatched globin chains: alpha in beta thalassemia and beta in the alpha thalassemias. However, the accumulation of each separate globin chain affects red cell membrane material properties and the state of red cell hydration very differently. These observations presumably account for the varying extent of ineffective erythropoiesis and peripheral blood hemolysis in the major variants of thalassemia. The thalassemias are a worldwide group of inherited disorders of globin-chain synthesis that developed in multiple geographic regions, probably because they provided partial protection against malaria. In normal assembly of adult hemoglobin (HbA-alpha 2 beta 2), alpha and beta globin are synthesized by genes on different chromosomes, whereas heme is synthesized primarily on mitochondria. The synthesis of these chains is very tightly coordinated so that the ratio of alpha globin to beta globin (beta in this case including the beta-like globins delta and gamma) is normally 1 +/- 0.05. Furthermore, specific erythroid proteases are designed to attack and destroy excess alpha or beta globin chains, demonstrating the deleterious impact of the accumulation of excess unmatched globin chains. In beta thalassemia, production of beta globin decreases and excess alpha globin accumulates. In alpha thalassemia, on the other hand, this process occurs in reverse. Perhaps in these disorders more than any others, molecular biologists have documented the deletional and transcriptional events leading to diminished synthesis of specific classes of globin chains.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Latent Task Adaptation with Large-Scale Hierarchies

Recent years have witnessed the success of large-scale image classification systems that are able to identify objects among thousands of possible labels. However, it is yet unclear how general classifiers such as ones trained on Image Net can be optimally adapted to specific tasks, each of which only covers a semantically related subset of all the objects in the world. It is inefficient and sub optimal to retrain classifiers whenever a new task is given, and is inapplicable when tasks are not given explicitly, but implicitly specified as a set of image queries. In this paper we propose a novel probabilistic model that jointly identifies the underlying task and performs prediction with a linear-time probabilistic inference algorithm, given a set of query images from a latent task. We present efficient ways to estimate parameters for the model, and an open-source toolbox to train classifiers distributedly at a large scale. Empirical results based on the Image Net data showed significant performance increase over several baseline algorithms.
CONDITIONAL POLYGENIC EFFECTS IN THE STERNOPLEURAL BRISTLE SYSTEM OF DROSOPHILA MELANOGASTER

The chromosomal architecture of genotype x environment interactions was investigated in lines of Drosophila melanogaster selected for increased or decreased sternopleural bristle number at 18 degrees , 25 degrees and 29 degrees . In general, interactions were found to have a stabilizing effect upon the bristle phenotype, in the sense that the genotype x environment interaction tended to increase bristle number under conditions in which temperature alone reduced bristle number and vice versa. The polygenic modifiers of mean bristle number were often separable from modifiers of the response to temperature both at the chromosomal level and intrachromosomally. In one of the low selection lines, a temperature-dependent polygenic locus was mapped on chromosome 3. It is suggested that genotype x environment interactions be thought of in terms of conditional polygenic expression. Such conditionality may be one of the ways in which polygenic variation is maintained in a population in the face of selection for an optimum phenotype.
Changes in Oregon white oak (Quercus garryana Dougl. ex Hook.) following release from overtopping conifers

Oregon white oak or Garry oak (Quercus garryana Dougl. ex Hook.) is a shade-intolerant, deciduous species that has been overtopped by conifers during the past century in parts of its range due to an altered disturbance regime. We examined the response of suppressed Oregon white oak trees in western Washington, USA, to three levels of release from overtopping Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii [Mirb.] Franco). We treated individual oak trees with either full release from competition, partial (“half”) release from competition, or a stand-level thinning of Douglas-fir not directed toward release (control). Five years after treatment, oak trees had suffered no mortality or windthrow. Stem diameter growth was 194% greater in the full-release treatment relative to the control. Acorn production varied widely by year, but in years of higher production, acorn production was significantly greater in both release treatments than in the control. Frequency of epicormic branch formation was significantly increased for years 1 and 2 by the full release; the greatest response occurred between 2 and 6 m above ground level. The greatest number of epicormic branches formed on trees on which the majority of original limbs had died back prior to treatment. Trees with relatively less crown dieback at the time of treatment generally had greater stem growth and acorn production responses to release treatments. Our findings indicate that these released Oregon white oak trees are beginning to recover after an extended period of suppression.
Clinical-neuroimaging characteristics of dysexecutive mild cognitive impairment†

Objective Subgroups of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) have been proposed, but few studies have investigated the nonamnestic, single-domain subgroup of MCI. The goal of the study was to compare clinical and neuroimaging characteristics of two single-domain MCI subgroups: amnestic MCI and dysexecutive MCI. Methods We compared the cognitive, functional, behavioral, and brain imaging characteristics of patients with amnestic MCI (n = 26), patients with dysexecutive MCI (n = 32), and age- and education-matched control subjects (n = 36) using analysis of variance and χ2 tests. We used voxel-based morphometry to examine group differences in brain magnetic resonance imaging atrophy patterns. Results Patients with dysexecutive MCI had significantly lower scores on the majority of executive function tests, increased behavioral symptoms, and left prefrontal cortex atrophy on magnetic resonance imaging when compared with control subjects. In contrast, patients with amnestic MCI had significantly lower scores on tests of memory and a pattern of atrophy including bilateral hippocampi and entorhinal cortex, right inferior parietal cortex, and posterior cingulate gyrus when compared with control subjects. Interpretation Overall, the clinical and neuroimaging findings provide support for two distinct single-domain subgroups of MCI, one involving executive function and the other involving memory. The brain imaging differences suggest that the two MCI subgroups have distinct patterns of brain atrophy. Ann Neurol 2009;65:414–423
Characterization of the germinal and somatic activity of the Arabidopsis transposable element Tag1.

Tag1 is an autonomous transposon of Arabidopsis thaliana. The excision behavior of Tag1 during reproductive and vegetative development was examined using CaMV 35S- Tag1 -GUS constructs. Germinal reversion frequencies varied from 0 to 27% and correlated with Tag1 copy number. Southern blot and somatic sector analyses indicated that each revertant was derived from an independent excision event, and approximately 75% of the revertants had new Tag1 insertions. Revertants were obtained with similar frequencies from the male and female parents. In flowers, small somatic sectors were observed in siliques, carpels, petals and sepals while stemlike organs (filaments and pedicels) had larger sectors. No sectors encompassing entire flowers or inflorescences were observed, however, indicating that excision occurs late in flower development and rarely in inflorescence meristems. Late excision was also observed during vegetative development with 99.8% of leaves showing small sectors encompassing no more than 20 cells. Roots and cotyledons, however, showed larger sectors that included entire lateral roots and cotyledons. These results indicate that Tag1 can excise in the embryo and all the organs of the plant with the timing of excision being restricted to late stages of vegetative and reproductive development in the shoot.
System Dynamics in Distance Education and a Call to Develop a Standard Model

This paper describes systems dynamics, reviews the literature of uses of systems concepts in distance education (DE), presents a preliminary model, and ends in a call to researchers to contribute to the building of a standard model of DE. Keywords: systems, systems theory, systems dynamics, models, theory, research
The travelling salesman problem with neighbourhoods: MINLP solution

The travelling salesman problem TSP with neighbourhoods extends the TSP to the case where each vertex of the tour is allowed to move in a given region. This NP-hard optimization problem has recently received increasing attention in several technical fields such as robotics, unmanned aerial vehicles, or utility management. In this paper, the problem is formulated as a non-convex mixed-integer nonlinear programme MINLP having the property that fixing all the integer variables to any integer values yield a convex nonlinear programme. This property is used to modify the global MINLP optimizer Couenne, improving by orders of magnitude its performance and allowing the exact solution of instances large enough to be useful in applications. Computational results are presented where neighbourhoods are either polyhedra or ellipsoids in ℝ2 or ℝ3 and with the Euclidean norm as distance metric.
Adiposity and Diabetes

At a symposium titled “Adipose Tissue as a Secretory Organ” at the American Diabetes Association (ADA), San Francisco, June 2002, Jeffrey Flier (Boston, MA) discussed the effects of visceral obesity. While reviewing the differing components of the metabolic syndrome, which to large extent are driven by insulin resistance, he asked, “Where does the insulin resistance come from?” The existence of a common underlying factor related to visceral obesity, which is more strongly associated with the syndrome than total obesity, might be important. A role for abnormal glucocorticoid metabolism in adipose tissue as the mechanism of the syndrome would explain many of its features. Glucocorticoids regulate adipose tissue function and distribution and in excess produce Cushing’s syndrome, which is characterized by visceral obesity, insulin resistance, and diabetes. The prevalent forms of obesity, however, are not associated with increased circulating glucocorticoid levels. Flier pointed out that the adipocyte is an active endocrine cell that produces hormones, in particular leptin, cytokines, complement factors, and important enzymes, such as angiotensinogen. Cortisol, produced in the adrenal gland, acts on cellular glucocorticoid receptors but importantly shows metabolism within cells, with 11-β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (HSD)-2 degrading cortisol into the inactive cortisone, while HSD-1 is a reductase that produces cortisol from cortisone. The standard understanding of the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis is of negative feedback between cortisol and pituitary adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) production, an incomplete model that does not take into account the pathways for activation and for inactivation of cortisol in a variety of cells. In the kidney, HSD-2 is critical to protect mineralocorticoid receptors from activation by circulating glucocorticoids, while HSD-1 in liver, adipose tissue, and brain leads to increased glucocorticoid action. HSD-1 is expressed to a greater extent in visceral adipose tissue, which also express greater levels of cortisol receptors. HSD-1 in adipose tissue may in …
Optoelectronic switching for antenna networks

An optoelectronic switch with a 4.5 GHz bandwidth has been fabricated and tested in a simulated antenna network environment. The experiment demonstrated the detection of L-band FM video channels and S-band microwave BPSK channels. The measured electrical crosstalk isolation was better than 29 dB. >
A Prospective Look at the Specialty of Medical Management

Using theories of occupational boundary maintenance and expansion, the article identifies the structural conditions and resource-mobilization processes which facilitate the development of emerging occupational groups, especially specialties within the medical profession. Data from several sources, including a recent comprehensive survey of over 1,000 physicians in medical management, are presented to augment a discussion of the motivations for, and state of development of, the movement to achieve formal specialty recognition on behalf of this group.
Superconducting and charge-density wave instabilities in ultrasmall-radius carbon nanotubes

Abstract We perform a detailed analysis of the band structure, phonon dispersion, and electron–phonon coupling of three types of small-radius carbon nanotubes (CNTs): (5,0), (6,0), and (5,5) with diameters 3.9, 4.7, and 6.8 A respectively. The large curvature of the (5,0) CNTs makes them metallic with a large density of states at the Fermi energy. The density of states is also strongly enhanced for the (6,0) CNTs compared to the results obtained from the zone-folding method. For the (5,5) CNTs the electron–phonon interaction is dominated by the in-plane optical phonons, while for the ultrasmall (5,0) and (6,0) CNTs the main coupling is to the out-of-plane optical phonon modes. We calculate electron–phonon interaction strengths for all three types of CNTs and analyze possible instabilities toward superconducting and charge–density wave phases. For the smallest (5,0) nanotube, in the mean-field approximation and neglecting Coulomb interactions, we find that the charge–density wave transition temperature greatly exceeds the superconducting one. When we include a realistic model of the Coulomb interaction we find that the charge–density wave is suppressed to very low temperatures, making superconductivity dominant with the mean-field transition temperature around one K. For the (6,0) nanotube the charge–density wave dominates even with the inclusion of Coulomb interactions and we find the mean-field transition temperature to be around five Kelvin. We find that the larger radius (5,5) nanotube is stable against superconducting and charge–density wave orders at all realistic temperatures.
Multiprocessor interconnection networks using partitioned optical passive star (POPS) topologies and distributed control

The authors present a scalable electro-optical interconnection network architecture which is suitable for tightly coupled multiprocessors. The architecture is called a partitioned optical passive star (POPS). It is a type of multiple passive star topology in which only constant and symmetric coupler fanouts are used and in which exactly one coupler is traversed on any path through the network. Control is based on the state sequence routing paradigm which multiplexes the network between a small set of control states and defines a control operation to be a transformation of those states. These networks have highly scalable characteristics for optical power budget, resource count, and message latency. Optical power is uniformly distributed and the size of the system is not hard limited by the power budget. Resource complexity grows with asymptotic complexity O(n) for the couplers, O(n/spl radic/n) for transceivers, and O(/spl radic/n log(n)) for control. We present a static analysis and a simulation of dynamic performance which demonstrates the ability of a POPS design to support 1024 nodes using current device and coupler technology. >
Parental synchrony and nurturance as targets in an attachment based intervention: building upon Mary Ainsworth's insights about mother-infant interaction.

As an astute observer of parent–infant interaction, Mary Ainsworth described and assessed facets of maternal sensitivity, including responsiveness to conditions of infant distress and non-distress....
Synthesis of Lepadiformine Using a Hydroamination Transform

Dissection of lepadiformine by a double hydroamination transform affords a simple achiral amino diene. This reaction is accomplished in the forward sense by amine-directed hydroboration and an oxidative alkyl shift to nitrogen, both of which occur with high stereoselectivity to generate three stereogenic centers and the lepadiformine skeleton.
IP3R deficit underlies loss of salivary fluid secretion in Sjögren's Syndrome.

The autoimmune exocrinopathy, Sjogren’s syndrome (SS), is associated with secretory defects in patients, including individuals with mild lymphocytic infiltration and minimal glandular damage. The mechanism(s) underlying the secretory dysfunction is not known. We have used minor salivary gland biopsies from SS patients and healthy individuals to assess acinar cell function in morphologically intact glandular areas. We report that agonist-regulated intracellular Ca2+ release, critically required for Ca2+ entry and fluid secretion, is defective in acini from SS patients. Importantly, these acini displayed reduction in IP3R2 and IP3R3, but not AQP5 or STIM1. Similar decreases in IP3R and carbachol (CCh)-stimulated [Ca2+]i elevation were detected in acinar cells from lymphotoxin-alpha (LTα) transgenic (TG) mice, a model for (SS). Treatment of salivary glands from healthy individuals with LT α, a cytokine linked to disease progression in SS and IL14α mice, reduced Ca2+ signaling. Together, our findings reveal novel IP3R deficits in acinar cells that underlie secretory dysfunction in SS patients.
Robust feature-sample linear discriminant analysis for brain disorders diagnosis

A wide spectrum of discriminative methods is increasingly used in diverse applications for classification or regression tasks. However, many existing discriminative methods assume that the input data is nearly noise-free, which limits their applications to solve real-world problems. Particularly for disease diagnosis, the data acquired by the neuroimaging devices are always prone to different sources of noise. Robust discriminative models are somewhat scarce and only a few attempts have been made to make them robust against noise or outliers. These methods focus on detecting either the sample-outliers or feature-noises. Moreover, they usually use unsupervised de-noising procedures, or separately de-noise the training and the testing data. All these factors may induce biases in the learning process, and thus limit its performance. In this paper, we propose a classification method based on the least-squares formulation of linear discriminant analysis, which simultaneously detects the sample-outliers and feature-noises. The proposed method operates under a semi-supervised setting, in which both labeled training and unlabeled testing data are incorporated to form the intrinsic geometry of the sample space. Therefore, the violating samples or feature values are identified as sample-outliers or feature-noises, respectively. We test our algorithm on one synthetic and two brain neurodegenerative databases (particularly for Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease). The results demonstrate that our method outperforms all baseline and state-of-the-art methods, in terms of both accuracy and the area under the ROC curve.
microRNA Function Is Limited to Cytokine Control in the Acute Response to Virus Infection

With the capacity to fine-tune protein expression via sequence-specific interactions, microRNAs (miRNAs) help regulate cell maintenance and differentiation. While some studies have also implicated miRNAs as regulators of the antiviral response, others have found that the RISC complex that facilitates miRNA-mediated silencing is rendered nonfunctional during cellular stress, including virus infection. To determine the global role of miRNAs in the cellular response to virus infection, we generated a vector that rapidly eliminates total cellular miRNA populations in terminally differentiated primary cultures. Loss of miRNAs has a negligible impact on both innate sensing of and immediate response to acute viral infection. In contrast, miRNA depletion specifically enhances cytokine expression, providing a posttranslational mechanism for immune cell activation during cellular stress. This work highlights the physiological role of miRNAs during the antiviral response and suggests their contribution is limited to chronic infections and the acute activation of the adaptive immune response.
Here's an idea : knowledge sharing among competitors to build a critical mass

Knowledge sharing among competitors is counterintuitive; however, it has been found to occur in the economy under certain conditions. Recently, in the investment industry, platforms with the goal o...
Value-added animal agriculture: inclusion of race and gender in the professional formula.

The Morrill Act establishing the land grant university system created public higher education institutions and paved the way for women and racial minorities to access them. Today women are ∼50% of the undergraduate population in animal science (AS) departments at the original land grant state universities, but racial minorities lag far behind, in part because the schools created under the 1890 legislation provided a diversion away from the state universities. Demographic trends from the U.S. Census and the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicate increasing positive growth in nonwhite workforce participation, with concurrent decreases in non-Hispanic male participation; men and women will be nearly equally represented by early in the 21st Century. In the faculties of AS departments, both women and minorities are seriously underrepresented; causative factors underlying this phenomenon are similar. Although, historically, adherence to role stereotypes and divisions of labor explain some of the under-representation, these assumptions do not hold across all economic classes. Other factors contributing to the scarcity of women and faculty of color in AS include assumptions and mechanisms of scientific research itself; the very neutrality and disinterestedness of researchers, inherent in the scientific method, prevent recognition that values and personal biases affect decisions of hiring selections and mentoring effectiveness. We explore the cultural factors that underlie these values and biases that are common not only to agriculture but also to science more broadly.
Abstract 127: MicroRNA-328 is associated with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) brain metastasis and mediates NSCLC migration

Background: Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths and ∼88% of patients with primary lung malignancy have non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Brain metastasis (BM) can affect up to 25% of these patients during their lifetime. There is surely a need for improvement in patient stratification to identify lung cancer patients at higher risk of developing BM. Recently, microRNAs (miRNAs) have been studied to characterize tumors. We investigated miRNAs that may serve as biomarkers to differentiate between NSCLC patients with and without BM. Experimental Design: A miRNA brain metastasis classifier described in Nasser et al was validated on a set of 15 other patients(ref1). Following these experiments, miR-328 (one of the two markers that could successfully classify BM+ cases) was over-expressed in A549, a NSCLC cell line, using a lentiviral system. These miR-328 over-expressing cells were then used for gene expression studies using Agilent microarrays. These cells were also used for cell migration studies. Transient transfection of gene specific siRNA was used to demonstrate the role of PRKCA (gene upregulated in miR-328 over-expressing cells) in migration of NSCLC cells. Results: A miRNA classifier was built based on 12 samples from clinically matched NSCLC from patients with BM (BM+) and without BM (BM-)(ref1). This classifier consisting of miR-328 and miR-330-3p expression was able to correctly classify BM+ vs. BM- patients. It was then used on a validation cohort and correctly classified 12/15 patients. Comparison of gene expression profiles of A549 parental and A549 cells stably transfected to over-express miR-328 (A549-328) identified several significantly differentially-expressed genes. PRKCA was one of the genes upregulated in A549-328 cells. Its upregulation in A549-328 cells was confirmed at the protein level by western blotting. A549-328 cells have significantly increased cell migration compared to A549 cells, and knockdown of PRKCA by transient siRNA transfection leads to significant reduction in this migration potential. Conclusion: miR-328 has a role in conferring migratory potential to NSCLC cells working in part through PRKCA. With further corroboration, these miRNAs may be incorporated into clinical treatment decision-making to stratify NSCLC patients at higher risk for developing brain metastasis. Reference 1. Nasser S, Ranade A, Sridhar S, Haney L, Korn RL, Gotway MB, Weiss GJ, Kim S. Identifying MiRNA and Imaging Features Associated with Metastasis of Lung Cancer to the Brain. Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Bioinformatics & Biomedicine 2009:246-51. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 102nd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2011 Apr 2-6; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2011;71(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 127. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2011-127
DEVELOPMENT OF A SELF-OPTIMIZING FLEXIBLE TECHNOLOGY (SOIT) TRANSONIC WING WIND TUNNEL MODEL

The SOFT-wing concept automatically adapts the wing shape through computer control. Designing the model to meet the criteria of transonic testing required the investigation and application of innovative techniques. Major design and fabrication features of the model included rectangular hydraulic actuators machined integrally in the spar, highly accurate linear potentiometers, leading- and trailing-edge skins of composite materials, a leading-edge extension mechanism, flexible wing tips, and a selftrimming horizontal stabilizer. It was concluded that an automated model is expensive to develop; however, its productivity reduces test costs significantly, thereby offsetting increased model costs.