cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The SOS Error-Prone DNA Polymerase V Mutasome and β-Sliding Clamp Acting in Concert on Undamaged DNA and during Translesion Synthesis.

In the mid 1970s, Miroslav Radman and Evelyn Witkin proposed that Escherichia coli must encode a specialized error-prone DNA polymerase (pol) to account for the 100-fold increase in mutations accompanying induction of the SOS regulon. By the late 1980s, genetic studies showed that SOS mutagenesis required the presence of two “UV mutagenesis” genes, umuC and umuD, along with recA. Guided by the genetics, decades of biochemical studies have defined the predicted error-prone DNA polymerase as an activated complex of these three gene products, assembled as a mutasome, pol V Mut = UmuD’2C-RecA-ATP. Here, we explore the role of the β-sliding processivity clamp on the efficiency of pol V Mut-catalyzed DNA synthesis on undamaged DNA and during translesion DNA synthesis (TLS). Primer elongation efficiencies and TLS were strongly enhanced in the presence of β. The results suggest that β may have two stabilizing roles: its canonical role in tethering the pol at a primer-3’-terminus, and a possible second role in inhibiting pol V Mut’s ATPase to reduce the rate of mutasome-DNA dissociation. The identification of umuC, umuD, and recA homologs in numerous strains of pathogenic bacteria and plasmids will ensure the long and productive continuation of the genetic and biochemical journey initiated by Radman and Witkin.
Region-Level Functional and Effective Network Analysis of Human Brain During Cognitive Task Engagement

Mental disorders are a major source of disability, with few effective treatments. It has recently been argued that these diseases might be effectively treated by focusing on decision-making, and specifically remediating decision-making deficits that act as “ingredients” in these disorders. Prior work showed that direct electrical brain stimulation can enhance human cognitive control, and consequently decision-making. This raises a challenge of detecting cognitive control lapses directly from electrical brain activity. Here, we demonstrate approaches to overcome that challenge. We propose a novel method, referred to as maximal variance node merging (MVNM), that merges nodes within a brain region to construct informative inter-region brain networks. We employ this method to estimate functional (correlational) and effective (causal) networks using local field potentials (LFP) during a cognitive behavioral task. The effective networks computed using convergent cross mapping differentiate task engagement from background neural activity with 85% median classification accuracy. We also derive task engagement networks (TENs): networks that constitute the most discriminative inter-region connections. Subsequent graph analysis illustrates the crucial role of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) in task engagement, consistent with a widely accepted model for cognition. We also show that task engagement is linked to prefrontal cortex theta (4-8 Hz) oscillations. We, therefore, identify objective biomarkers associated with task engagement. These approaches may generalize to other cognitive functions, forming the basis of a network-based approach to detecting and rectifying decision deficits.
Lagniappe: Open Educational Resources Initiatives among North Carolina’s Community Colleges

This article describes early cooperative efforts among North Carolina's Community Colleges to provide open educational resources for campus programs and encourage their adoption.
Exploring the needs of urban producers in a rural state: A qualitative needs assessment

Urban farming is a phenomenon rising in popular­ity across the United States. Investigating the needs of urban farmers in a predominately rural state is important in informing future programming and technical assistance for these clients. This qualita­tive study used semi-structured, in-depth interviews that investigated the perceptions, needs, and expe­riences of Arkansas urban farmers and their inter­actions with the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture Cooperative Extension Service. Inter­views were conducted with 16 urban farmers in Northwest and Central Arkansas. The interview data revealed highly individualized needs based on the operation size, years in operation, and mission of each urban farmer interviewed. While needs var­ied, some were consistent, such as market pricing, co-ops, and access to appropriate equipment. Par­ticipants also revealed a positive perception of Extension, though they cited that the organization did not always have resources specific to small-scale, sustainable farming. Building from the Com­munity Food System Development Framework for Change and informed by the AgroEcological-Educator theory, this study provides urban farm­ers’ insights and contextualizes urban farming in a predominately rural, southern state. Potential remains for increased collaboration and communi­cation between Arkansas urban farmers and Exten­sion. This article demonstrates the diverse needs of Arkansas urban farmers, which can be used by Extension and sustainable agriculture experts to inform research about urban and sustainable farmers in their respective states.
Monitoring Autophagy in Yeast

Autophagy is an ubiquitous degradative process in eukaryotic cells. It is involved in various developmental programs and is also implicated in human pathophysiology. The basic process involves the formation of a cytosolic double membrane vesicle, termed an autophagosome. The autophagosome sequesters bulk cytosol, and after completion its outside membrane fuses with the limiting membrane of the lysosome/vacuole. The fusion event releases the inner single-membrane vesicle into the lysosome/vacuole lumen where the vesicle is now termed an autophagic body. The autophagic body and its cargo are typically degraded, and the resulting micromolecules are recycled for subsequent use in the cytosol. Autophagy is the only pathway with the capacity to degrade entire organelles. Accordingly, it may play a critical role in preventing pathologies that results from damaged organelles including the mitochondria, or from the accumulation of large protein aggregates, such as occur in certain types of neurodegenerative diseases. This article describes an assay to monitor bulk autophagy in yeast. The marker protein is a cytosolic derivative of the vacuolar enzyme alkaline phosphatase, Pho8. Following uptake into the vacuole, the precursor enzyme is cleaved at the C terminus to generate the active form. Cells expressing the cytosolic form of Pho8, Pho8Delta60, are assayed for alkaline phosphatase activity before and after shifting to conditions that induce autophagy.
Education for the medical care team.

(1971). Education for the Medical Care Team. School Health Review: Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 15-17.
Lysophosphatidic Acid Stimulation Does Not Induce a Lymphatic Identity along Blood Vessels in Intact Microvascular Networks Ex Vivo

The design of therapies aimed at manipulating microvascular growth requires understanding the relationships between angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis. A critical question remains whether blood and...
A synthesis of constraint satisfaction and constraint solving

This paper offers a critique of the framework of Constraint Satisfaction Problems. While this framework has been successful in studying search techniques, and has inspired some constraint programming languages, it has some weaknesses that leave it not directly applicable to the study of complex constraints (including so-called global constraints) in constraint programming languages. In particular, it deals poorly with semantic relations whose consistency can be determined algorithmically. In this paper the philosophy of the CLP Scheme is applied to extend the CSP framework to a form more suitable for addressing complex constraints, where both constraint satisfaction and constraint solving have a role. Some rough principles for local consistency conditions in the extended framework are developed, and appropriate notions of local consistency are formulated. These can be used as a coarse measure of the degree of constraint propagation achieved by implementations of complex constraints.
On the new era of zipping and zapping: the need for research on how advertisers deal with an Era of time-shifted television program viewing on a variety of devices

Dating back to the invention of the video cassette recorder (VCR or VTR depending on where you are from), there has been a significant concern about how advertisers can cope with opportunities for ...
Spectators, a Joy to Watch

The tennis game that is described in the xml is a double, thus there are four tennis players on the court. There is a handful of spectators that are really excited about the game. The spectators have different preferences about the teams that they favor or are neutral. To vary the mood-states, each spectator has an euphoria factor that determines how much a change in the mood-state will affect it. The mood-state of a spectator is shown with expressive facial expressions and some typical animations. Additionally to the animations and expressions the mood-state is expressed by speech as well.
The Good of the Few: Reciprocity in the Provision of a Public Bad

People have been shown to engage in favor-trading when it is efficiency-enhancing to do so. Will they also trade favors when it reduces efficiency, as in a series of wasteful public projects that each benefits an individual? We introduce the "Stakeholder Public Bad" game to study this question. In each round, contributions to a common fund increase the earnings of one person (the "Stakeholder") but reduce the earnings of the rest of the group so much that overall efficiency is reduced. The Stakeholder position rotates through members of the group and the promise of the high reward associated with this position may enable subjects to behave reciprocally. We hypothesize that some people will help a current Stakeholder by contributing in hopes of being rewarded later with a reciprocal gift. In a lab experiment, we find evidence of such favor trading. We also find that Stakeholders in this situation seem perfectly willing to sacrifice the good of the group to reap their own personal rewards, and this is true even when their contribution decisions are public. While the revelation of information about others' actions and roles has previously been shown to enable efficiency-increasing reciprocity, we show that it also enables efficiency-decreasing reciprocal acts. Subjects who are more risk-averse behave in a way that is more myopically self-interested as compared to less risk-averse people when information conditions preclude favor trading, and subjects who identify with the Democratic Party show more restraint when they are Stakeholder than those who do not.
A multiple‐realizations chance‐constrained model for optimizing nutrient removal in constructed wetlands

[1] High nutrient loads in surface waters are a cause of hypoxia in coastal ecosystems. Constructed wetlands offer a means of nutrient removal, but their design is complicated by environmental fluctuations. In the present work, a chance-constrained model is developed on the basis of satisfying performance constraints for a subset of the period of hydrologic and meteorological record. The model incorporates a nonsteady state wetland model and is used to determine the most cost-efficient wetland design given the nutrient removal requirements. Three candidate wetlands are considered. For two of them a comparison is made between operating the wetlands individually versus operating them concurrently. Results show that the factors limiting wetland performance are low flow availability and low inflow nutrient concentrations. Further, for the case considered, a two-wetland design is found to be more cost-effective than a single-wetland design. On average, wetlands have huge potential for nutrient removal but have a higher risk of failure than conventional treatment and could, under unfavorable conditions, be more expensive.
Lean Burn Natural Gas Fueled S.I.Engine and Exhaust Emissions

An experimental study was undertaken to study exhaust emission from a lean-burn natural gas spark ignition engine. The possibility that such an engine may help to reduce exhaust emissions substantially by taking advantage of natural gas fuel properties, such as its antiknock properties and extended lean flammability limit compared to gasoline, was the main motivation behind the investigation. A four cylinder, automotive type spark ignition engine was used in the investigation. The engine was converted to operate on natural gas by replacing its fuel system with a gaseous carburetion system. A 3-way metal metrix catalytic converter was used in the engine exhaust system to reduce emission levels. The engine operated satisfactorily at an equivalence ratio as lean as 0.6, at all speeds and loads. As a result NOx emissions were significantly reduced. However, hydrocarbon emissions were high, particularly at very lean conditions and light loads. Most of these hydrocarbons were made up of methane with small concentrations of ethane and propane. Coefficient of variations in hydrocarbons were generally high at very lean operating conditions and light loads, but decreased with increasing equivalence ratio and engine speed. Methane concentrations in the engine exhaust decreased with increasing load and equivalence ratio. Atmore » lean air-to-fuel ratios and light loads oxidation of methane in the catalyst was substantially limited and no NOx reduction was achieved. In addition, the proportion of nitric oxide in oxides of nitrogen increased with increasing amount of NOx in the engine exhaust. A major problem encountered in the study was the inability of the fuel system to maintain near constant air-to-fuel ratios at steady operating conditions.« less
Measured and calculated distributions of deep defect states in hydrogenated amorphous silicon: Verification of deep defect relaxation dynamics.

The density of states in the upper half of the mobility gap of both intrinsic and n-type a-Si:H samples was determined by the modulated photocurrent (MPC) and junction capacitance methods. We conclude that the narrow defect band revealed by the MPC measurements reflects the distribution of relaxed ${\mathit{D}}^{0}$ states, while the broader and deeper defect band obtained by capacitance measurements corresponds to relaxed ${\mathit{D}}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}}$ states. Both distributions are correctly predicted by a calculation that takes into account the relaxation dynamics of deep defects in these different charge states.
‘When found, make a note of’

THE PRAYERFUL UTTERANCE, ‘May we never want a friend in need, nor a bottle to give him,’ has been widely publicized on a poster celebrating a rare Scotch whisky. The man who originated that delectable expression, however, was Captain Edward Cuttle, the delightful old mariner in Dombey and Son, who spoke in riddles and made a practice of winnowing moral precepts from the good Book for the guidance and edification of his young friend and protege, Walter Gay.
Use of experimental designs with quantitative ELISA.

Precise use of enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) as a quantitative technique depends on repeatability of color development and its measurement. Variation in measured response among wells, within and among microtiter plates, often precludes such precision. For example, plates with all wells treated uniformly exhibited unacceptable optical density differences in excess of 0.35 and 0.25 O.D. U among row and column averages, respectively. Arrangement of samples on plates according to classical experimental designs, with compact blocking features and two-dimensional control over spatial patterns, provides a possible remedy. Analysis of variations over uniformly treated plates demonstrated the potential for increased precision when such designs are used instead of random arrangements. Retrospective analysis of more than 100 tests performed with various experimental designs confirmed that this potential was realized when using Youden square and lattice square designs. Several designs appropriate for microtiter plates are presented and their conduct described.
Endothelial lipopigment as an indicator of α-tocopherol deficiency in two equine neurodegenerative diseases

Two spontaneous neurodegenerative diseases of the horse, equine motor neuron disease (EMND) and equine degenerative myeloencephalopathy (EDM), have been associated with α-tocopherol deficiency, and both were characterized by prominent accumulations of endothelial lipopigment in the small vessels of the spinal cord. These endothelial pigment deposits appear to be reversible. In EMND horses pasture-supplemented for 9 months or more after the progression of weakness and wasting had arrested, there was very little endothelial lipopigment. The origin and the potential effects of these endothelial lipopigment accumulations are discussed.
A Diagnostic Study of Baroclinic Disturbances in Polar Air Streams

Quasi-Lagrangian budgets of mass, vorticity and heat are calculated following disturbances that form within polar air streams. Observed cases are extracted from the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts analyses during the First GARP Global Experiment. Model-generated cases are extracted from the simulations of extratropical cyclogenesis by Sandgathe. These polar lows grow primarily through basic baroclinic instability processes and exhibit many features of larger maritime extratropical cyclones. Polar lows that originate on the poleward (or Cyclonic - Type C) side of the jet and have considerable midtropospheric positive vorticity advection at formation time are contrasted with lows that form on the equatorward (or Anticyclonic - Type A) side of a nearly straight upper-level jet. The midtropospheric positive vorticity advection must be present to enhance the vertical circulation when the large surface fluxes that are associated with strong outbreaks act to damp the thermal wave amplification. Although latent heat release is an important factor in both types, it is an essential energy source for the Type A low developments on the equatorward side. Although the vorticity balance is initially different for the two types of polar lows, the vorticity budgets during later stages are similar. The heat budget and the thickness tendency equation demonstrated that the self-development process that is present in larger maritime cyclones is also important for polar low intensification. The absence of favorable coupling to a jet stream is the missing factor in a model-generated Type A polar low that failed to develop. Consequently, the mid- and upper-tropospheric wind fields determine which polar lows will intensify to significant amplitudes.
A political boss and the press: The impact on democracy of two Brazilian newspapers

When Brazil’s then-president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, was implicated in a bribery scandal in 2005, Senator Antonio Carlos Magalhaes from the state of Bahia emerged as one of the president’s most...
Compensated isocurvature perturbations and the cosmic microwave background

Measurements of cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies constrain isocurvature fluctuations between photons and nonrelativistic particles to be subdominant to adiabatic fluctuations. Perturbations in the relative number densities of baryons and dark matter, however, are surprisingly poorly constrained. In fact, baryon-density perturbations of fairly large amplitude may exist if they are compensated by dark-matter perturbations, so that the total density remains unchanged. These compensated isocurvature perturbations (CIPs) leave no imprint on the CMB at observable scales, at linear order. B modes in the CMB polarization are generated at reionization through the modulation of the optical depth by CIPs, but this induced polarization is small. The strongest known constraint ≲10% to the CIP amplitude comes from galaxy-cluster baryon fractions. Here, it is shown that modulation of the baryon density by CIPs at and before the decoupling of Thomson scattering at z∼1100 gives rise to CMB effects several orders of magnitude larger than those considered before. Polarization B modes are induced, as are correlations between temperature/polarization spherical-harmonic coefficients of different lm. It is shown that the CIP field at the surface of last scatter can be measured with these off-diagonal correlations. The sensitivity of ongoing and future experiments to these fluctuations is estimated. Data from the WMAP, ACT, SPT, and Spider experiments will be sensitive to fluctuations with amplitude ∼5–10%. The Planck satellite and Polarbear experiment will be sensitive to fluctuations with amplitude ∼3%. SPTPol, ACTPol, and future space-based polarization methods will probe amplitudes as low as ∼0.4%–0.6%. In the cosmic-variance limit, the smallest CIPs that could be detected with the CMB are of amplitude ∼0.05%.
Pattern Matching of In-Vehicle Acceleration Time Series Data

This paper presents a novel approach to find patterns in vehicle x-y-z acceleration data for use in prognostics and diagnostics. In this problem, vehicles are assumed to travel on the same routes and often times as a part of convoys but their GPS and other position information has been removed for privacy reasons. The goal of the pattern matching scheme is to identify the route or convoy associations within vehicles by using the acceleration data collected onboard these vehicles. A crucial step in solving this problem is to choose the right feature vector, as raw matching of acceleration signals is inappropriate due to different velocities, driving behaviors, vehicle loading, etc. In this paper, we demonstrate the feasibility of using ‘Multi-Scale Extrema Features’ for this application. The paper also addresses implementation details to enhance performance for in-vehicle acceleration data, corrupted by different sources of noise. A novel ‘Multi-Scale Encoding’ method is also proposed for the above feature vector and it leads to a significant improvement in the performance over traditional pattern matching methods. While the main focus of the paper is towards identifying feature vectors that effectively describe in-vehicle acceleration data, the feature vector could potentially be used with acceleration data obtained from other applications.Copyright © 2012 by ASME
BuildOpt—a new building energy simulation program that is built on smooth models

Abstract Building energy simulation programs compute numerical approximations to physical phenomena that can be modeled by a system of differential algebraic equations (DAE). For a large class of building energy analysis problems, one can prove that the DAE system has unique solution that is once continuously differentiable in the building design parameters. Consequently, if building simulation programs are built on models that satisfy the smoothness assumptions required to prove existence of a unique smooth solution, and if their numerical solvers allow controlling the approximation error, one can use such programs with generalized pattern search optimization algorithms that adaptively control the precision of the solutions of the DAE system. Those optimization algorithms construct sequences of iterates with stationary accumulation points and have been shown to yield a significant reduction in computation time compared to algorithms that use fixed precision cost function evaluations. In this paper, we state the required smoothness assumptions and present the theorems that state existence of a unique smooth solution of the DAE system. We present BuildOpt, a detailed thermal and daylighting building energy simulation program. We discuss examples that explain the smoothing techniques used in BuildOpt. We present numerical experiments that compare the computation time for an annual simulation with the smoothing techniques applied to different parts of the models. The experiments show that high precision approximate solutions can only be computed if smooth models are used. This is significant because today's building simulation programs do not use such smoothing techniques and their solvers frequently fail to obtain a numerical solution if the solver tolerances are tight. We also present how BuildOpt's approximate solutions converge to a smooth function as the precision parameter of the numerical solver is tightened.
A possible cross-talk between autophagy and apoptosis in generating an immune response in melanoma

Melanoma is the most aggressive form of skin cancer, responsible for the majority of skin cancer related deaths. Thus, the search for natural molecules which can effectively destroy tumors while promoting immune activation is essential for designing novel therapies against metastatic melanoma. Here, we report for the first time that a natural triterpenoid, Ganoderic acid DM (GA-DM), induces an orchestrated autophagic and apoptotic cell death, as well as enhanced immunological responses via increased HLA class II presentation in melanoma cells. Annexin V staining and flow cytometry showed that GA-DM treatment induced apoptosis of melanoma cells, which was supported by a detection of increased Bax proteins, co-localization and elevation of Apaf-1 and cytochrome c, and a subsequent cleavage of caspases 9 and 3. Furthermore, GA-DM treatment initiated a possible cross-talk between autophagy and apoptosis as evidenced by increased levels of Beclin-1 and LC3 proteins, and their timely interplay with apoptotic and/or anti-apoptotic molecules in melanoma cells. Despite GA-DM's moderate cytotoxicity, viable cells expressed high levels of HLA class II proteins with improved antigen presentation and CD4+ T cell recognition. The antitumor efficacy of GA-DM was also investigated in vivo in murine B16 melanoma model, where GA-DM treatment slowed tumor formation with a significant reduction in tumor volume. Taken together, these findings demonstrate the potential of GA-DM as a natural chemo-immunotherapeutic capable of inducing a possible cross-talk between autophagy and apoptosis, as well as improved immune recognition for sustained melanoma tumor clearance.
Unmyelinated fibers in the cervical and lumbar ventral roots of the cat.

Ventral spinal roots at all spinal levels in humans contain many unmyelinated axons, as do all spinal roots of the cat which have been examined. Rats, however, have fewer unmyelinated fibers in cervical and certain lumbar ventral roots. To determine if unmyelinated fibers are distributed uniformly in ventral roots of the cat, cervical and lumbar ventral roots were examined by light and electron microscopy, and axons were counted. Lesions were made to determine the origin of unmyelinated fibers in ventral root L6. From 5 to 15% of the axons in cervical ventral roots are unmyelinated. This distribution of unmyelinated fibers in the cat is similar to the distribution in humans, although the cervical ventral roots of the cat contain relatively fewer unmyelinated fibers than the cervical ventral roots of humans. Approximately 24% of the axons in ventral root L6 are unmyelinated. More than 90% of these axons degenerate proximal to, but not distal to, a ventral rhizotomy and ipsilateral to a dorsal root ganglionectomy. Thus, most unmyelinated axons in ventral root L6 appear to arise from dorsal root ganglion cells. Much variation in the number and percent of unmyelinated axons in ventral roots at the same spinal level exists between individual cats and between opposite sides of the same cat.
Fermi statistics of weakly excited granular materials in a vibrating bed: molecular dynamics simulations

Abstract Molecular dynamics simulations were carried out to test the thermodynamic theory of weakly excited, two-dimensional, granular systems [Hayakawa and Hong, Phys. Rev. Lett. 78 (1997) 2764], where granular materials are viewed as a collection of spinless Fermions. We first determine the global temperature T by fitting the steady-state density profile to the Fermi distribution function, and then measure the center of mass, 〈 z ( T )〉, and its fluctuations, 〈(Δ z ( T )) 2 〉 as a function of T . We find a fairly good agreement between theory and simulations, in particular, in the estimation of the temperature and the scaling behavior of 〈 z ( T )〉 and 〈(Δ z ( T )) 2 〉.
Chromosomal nosology in referred populations

Specific chromosomal abnormality are related to over 70 clinical syndromes representing 0.5-0.7 percent in live births. For the past three years, we were referred 986 individuals with various clinical problems including: congenital malformation, mental retardation, neurodevelopmental disability, infertility, sexual differentiation (male), hermaphroditism, defect in pubertal development and miscarriage etc. There were 125 (12.7%) individuals that were found to have a variety of chromosomal abnormalities. Most of the cases were referred to rule out Down syndrome. Various types of chromosomal abnormalities producing recognizable syndromes were identified, however, none of them was clinically identified prior to chromosomal abnormalities. Utmost caution should be exercised when relating specific clinical features with chromosomal segments. Patients with complex chromosomal abnormalities were further evaluated using loci and whole chromosome painting probes. Clustering of breaks on various chromosomes are being tabulated and their clinical significance with respect to the chromosomal pathology is presented.
Solar biomass energy: an overview of u.s. Potential.

The U.S. annual biomass production for food, lumber, paper, and fiber, if used exclusively for energy, would provide 25 percent of current energy requirements. The collection of unharvested wood residues and cull trees for direct use as fuel for small nearby space-heating applications—especially for peak winter conditions—is an important near-term solar energy opportunity. Improved management of hundreds of millions of acres of productive forest land is an important opportunity for the long term. Harvest of cropland residues for energy values, new biomass production using intensive short-rotation silviculture, resubstitution of natural products for petroleum-based synthetics, and forest management for large-scale production of electricity and synthetic fuels are judged to be less appropriate directions for the U.S. energy system to take.
Extraordinary Hall effect in magnetic multilayers

The extraordinary Hall resistivity of magnetic multilayers is derived by using the Kubo formalism. It is found that the commonly used scaling relation between the extraordinary Hall resistivity and the ordinary resistivity is not valid. Hall voltages in the plane of the layers and perpendicular to the plane of the layers are quite different, just as the ordinary resistivities are different for these two geometries. Recent experimental results are discussed within this formulation.
The Good Interface: Friendly, Forgiving, and Intuitive

Discusses the barriers affected by computer interfaces that prevent users from making proper use of the programme. Argues that a poorly designed interface can be fatal to any programme – especially a Campus Wide Information Service (CWIS). Examines the design of PNN (the Princeton News Network – Princeton University′s home grown CWIS). Discusses the problems associated with designers′ intuition and finally, the need to accommodate various concepts of what is intuitive.
Stability of perfect dislocations in rare-earth intermetallic compounds: YCu, YAg and YZn

Abstract In this study, we evaluate the stability of prefect dislocations, interaction energy of kink pairs, cross-slip behavior of screw dislocations and the instability of pinned dislocations in ductile rare-earth intermetallic compounds: YCu, YAg and YZn. The results are compared to those seen for the common B2 type intermetallics, NiAl and Fe–25Al. The results indicate that the elastic anisotropy does not cause any instability of ordinary dislocations in YCu, YAg and YZn in contrast to NiAl and Fe–25Al. The cross-slip characteristics and the external driving force required for the instability of pinned dislocations differ considerably, resulting from their lower energy and the absence of negative line tension, from those seen for NiAl and Fe–25Al. The results also elucidate certain differences observed between the single crystalline deformation behavior of YCu, YAg and YZn.
Internal pressure of low-rise building—field measurements

Abstract The internal pressure fluctuations of a low-rise building with a window or door open in a wind-storm may cause serious damage to the building's elements such as roof or walls. This problem has been studied theoretically and investigated experimentally in wind tunnels (Holmes, 1979; Stathopoulos et al, 1979; Liu & Saathoff, 1981; Rhee, 1984). This paper presents a field study of building internal pressure for three different buildings to verify the previous theoretical and wind tunnel studies. However, problems exist in field studies with respect to the use of reference pressure. In this study the internal, external and ambient pressures were measured simultaneously in reference to a constant pressure air tank. The data were used to determine the internal, external and ambient pressure coefficients and their variations in reference to air tank pressure. The power spectra of these pressures were also measured and compared with earlier studies.
Software Process Synthesis in Assurance Based Development of Dependable Systems

Assurance Based Development (ABD) is a novel approach to the synergistic construction of critical software systems and their assurance arguments. In ABD, the need for assurance drives a unique process synthesis mechanism that results in a detailed process for building both software and an argument demonstrating its fitness for use in given operating contexts. In this paper, we introduce the ABD process synthesis mechanism. A key element of ABD process synthesis is the success argument, an argument which documents developers' rationale for believing that the development effort in progress will result in a system that demonstrably meets an acceptable balance of all stakeholder goals. Such goals include safety and security requirements for systems using the software as a component and time and budget constraints. We also present the details of a case study in which we used ABD to develop the control software for a prototype artificial heart pump.
Sneaker “jack” males outcompete dominant “hooknose” males under sperm competition in Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha)

In a variety of taxa, males deploy alternative reproductive tactics to secure fertilizations. In many species, small "sneaker" males attempt to steal fertilizations while avoiding encounters with larger, more aggressive, dominant males. Sneaker males usually face a number of disadvantages, including reduced access to females and the higher likelihood that upon ejaculation, their sperm face competition from other males. Nevertheless, sneaker males represent an evolutionarily stable strategy under a wide range of conditions. Game theory suggests that sneaker males compensate for these disadvantages by investing disproportionately in spermatogenesis, by producing more sperm per unit body mass (the "fair raffle") and/or by producing higher quality sperm (the "loaded raffle"). Here, we test these models by competing sperm from sneaker "jack" males against sperm from dominant "hooknose" males in Chinook salmon. Using two complementary approaches, we reject the fair raffle in favor of the loaded raffle and estimate that jack males were ∼1.35 times as likely as hooknose males to fertilize eggs under controlled competitive conditions. Interestingly, the direction and magnitude of this skew in paternity shifted according to individual female egg donors, suggesting cryptic female choice could moderate the outcomes of sperm competition in this externally fertilizing species.
Welcome to World Peace

Why study terrorism? To many the answer might seem all too obvious, but in fact terrorist attacks are relatively rare events that kill relatively few people far fewer than civil wars, homicides or traffic accidents. The social disruptions generated by terrorist attacks are largely due to the disproportionate attention we devote to them. Indeed, a truly dispassionate costbenefit calculation might conclude that in a world of big problems and limited resources to address them, the best response to terrorism could be to ignore it. So why devote a special section of Social Forces to the issue? We propose three related reasons to take the study of terrorism seriously. One is that the form of organized, politically motivated violence that has long interested activists and scholars the most inter-state war is in decline. Students of political violence are thus shifting their attention to non-state actors, who assume a new importance in an era of relative peace and stability. Second, nonstate actors have returned over the past quarter century to terrorist methods, using seemingly random violence and the pulpit afforded by global media coverage to press their political agendas. Third, terrorism has become such a potent political issue in many countries that the academic study of terrorism has important ramifications for electoral competition and public policy.
Anatomy of coupled constitutive models for ratcheting simulation

Abstract This paper critically evaluates the performance of five constitutive models in predicting ratcheting responses of carbon steel for a broad set of uniaxial and biaxial loading histories. The models proposed by Prager, Armstrong and Frederick, Chaboche, Ohno-Wang and Guionnet are examined. Reasons for success and failure in simulating ratcheting by these models are elaborated. The bilinear Prager and the nonlinear Armstrong-Frederick models are found to be inadequate in simulating ratcheting responses. The Chaboche and Ohno-Wang models perform quite well in predicting uniaxial ratcheting responses; however, they consistently overpredict the biaxial ratcheting responses. The Guionnet model simulates one set of biaxial ratcheting responses very well, but fails to simulate uniaxial and other biaxial ratcheting responses. Similar to many earlier studies, this study also indicates a strong influence of the kinematic hardening rule or backstress direction on multiaxial ratcheting simulation. Incorporation of parameters dependent on multiaxial ratcheting responses, while dormant for uniaxial responses, into Chaboche-type kinematic hardening rules may be conducive to improve their multiaxial ratcheting simulations. The uncoupling of the kinematic hardening rule from the plastic modulus calculation is another potentially viable alternative. The best option to achieve a robust model for ratcheting simulations seems to be the incorporation of yield surface shape change (formative hardening) in the cyclic plasticity model.
Biologically relevant 3D tumor arrays: imaging-based methods for quantification of reproducible growth and analysis of treatment response

Three-dimensional in vitro tumor models have emerged as powerful research tools in cancer biology, though the vast potential of these systems as high-throughput, biologically relevant reporters of treatment response has yet to be adequately explored. Here, building on previous studies, we demonstrate the utility of using 3D models for ovarian and pancreatic cancers in conjunction with quantitative image processing to reveal aspects of growth behavior and treatment response that would not be evident without either modeling or quantitative analysis component. In this report we specifically focus on recent improvements in the imaging component of this integrative research platform and emphasize analysis to establish reproducible growth properties in 3D tumor arrays, a key consideration in establishing the utility of this platform as a reliable reporter of therapeutic response. Building on previous studies using automated segmentation of low magnification image fields containing large numbers of nodules to study size dependent treatment effects, we introduce an improvement to this method using multiresolution decomposition to remove gradient background from transmitted light images for more reliable feature identification. This approach facilitates the development of a new treatment response metric, disruption fraction (Dfrac), which quantifies dose dependent distribution shifts from nodular fragmentation induced by cytotoxic therapies. Using this approach we show that PDT treatment is associated with significant dose-dependent increases in Dfrac, while this is not observed with carboplatin treatment. The ability to quantify this response to therapy could play a key role in design of combination regimens involving these two modalities.
Taming effect of PCPA and 5-HTP in septal rats

Previous authors have separately reported that the hyperreactivity syndrome commonly found after septal lesion can be attenuated by injection of either a serotonin depletor, PCPA, or a serotonin precursor, 5-HTP. The present experiment used a factorial design to investigate these apparently discrepant results. As previously reported, each drug produced a taming effect in septal animals, and additionally, the combination of the two drugs tended to have an additive, rather than an antagonistic, effect. This suggests that the two drugs might share a common neurochemical action. Since Sloviter, Drust, and Connor (1978) have reported that PCPA has an early serotonin-releasing effect, it appears that serotonin release, not depletion, has a taming effect in septal animals.
MEACA: Mobility and Energy Aware Clustering Algorithm for Constructing Stable MANETs

Node clustering is a technique to mitigate the topology changes in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). It stabilizes the end-to-end communication paths and maximizes the path lifetime. It also improves the network scalability such that the routing overhead does not become tremendous in large-scale ad hoc networks. Its effectiveness, however, depends largely on the cluster stability which is measured by the lifetime of the cluster heads and the membership time of the cluster members. The existing clustering algorithms do not achieve this objective well. In this paper, we show that the cluster stability is fundamentally related to the mobility and the energy status of the nodes in the network and propose a new clustering algorithm using the node mobility and energy information. Our new algorithm maximizes the cluster stability by choosing the low mobility and high energy nodes to be the cluster heads and by keeping the constructed clusters unchanged to the extent of their maximum possible lifetime. In addition, the proposed clustering algorithm performs equally well in large-scale ad hoc networks as in the small ones. We also show that it is a near-optimal clustering algorithm.
Motives for Sibling Communication Across the Lifespan

The sibling bond has the distinction of being the most enduring and egalitarian connection of all family relationships. Unfortunately, although siblings play an important role in one another's lives, relatively little is known about the communication that characterizes sibling relationships. This study investigated whether the interpersonal communication motives of siblings vary as a function of age or gender. Survey data was provided by 299 respondents aged 18 to 34, 35 to 49, 50 to 64, and 65+. There were significant differences by both age and gender for several of the communication motives.
Effects of low ion dose on SE imaging and orientation dependent Ga-ion channeling

Abstract Grain contrasts produced during ion induced secondary electron imaging depend upon grain orientation and ability of Ga-ion beam to channel in it. The current study aims to investigate critical Ga-ion dose for Ni-alloy where a transition from grain surface imaging to sputtering dominated Ga-ion channeling occurs. It is observed that critical dose is in the vicinity of 1015 ions/cm2. Strong orientation dependent Ga-ion channeling effects were observed at dose values higher than 1017 ions/cm2. When a normalized orientation dependent grain transparency factor was estimated for each grain in a limited sampling volume, it was observed that despite low sampling volume for a random polycrystalline orientations and variation in Ga-ion dose, the range of sputter depth variation during Ga-ion channeling remains above 80% indicating dose or sampling volume (for randomly oriented poly-crystals) independency in the sputter dominated dose region. This study attempts to establish a correlation between high resolution imaging, applied Ga-ion dose and orientation dependent Ga-ion beam channeling effects.
Calculation of QTc duration and variability in the presence of sinus arrhythmia.

In summary, this study proposes guidelines for calculation of the QTc in the presence of SA to help identify patients with true LQTS: (1) The QT interval immediately following the shortest RR interval should be used (with Bazett's formula) to calculate the QTc in patients with SA. (2) It is rare to have LQTS with a QTc 0.04 second) with changing RR intervals also are suggestive of LQTS.
Synthesis and anti-tumor activity of alkenyl camptothecin esters.

Aim: To study the degrees of influence of changing side ester chains at position C20 of camptothecin on the anti-tumor activity of the molecules. Methods: The esterification reaction of camptothecin 1 and 9-nitrocamptothecin 2 with crotonic anhydride in pyridine gave the corresponding esters 3 and 4, respectively. The acylation of 1 and 2 with cinnamoyl chloride gave products 7 and 8. Epoxidation reaction of 3 and 4 with m-chloroperoxybenzoic acid in benzene solvent gave the products 5 and 6. Esters 3, 4, and 5 were tested for anti-tumor activity against 14 human cancer cell lines. Results: Both in vitro and in vivo anti-tumor activity studies for these esters were conducted and the data demonstrated positive results, that is, these esters were active against the tested tumor lines. Conclusion: Alkenyl esters 3 and 4 showed strong anti-tumor activity in vitro against 14 different cancer cell lines. Ester 3 was active against human breast carcinoma in mice and the toxicity of the agent was not observed in mice during the treatment, implying that this agent is effective for treatment with low toxicity.
An Exploratory Analysis of Textbook Usage and Study Habits: Misperceptions and Barriers to Success

The authors explore how and to what extent students use their textbooks. Data was collected through a survey regarding when reading is primarily done, how the textbook is used for studying, and which specific study strategies the students used. The results indicate that students know it is important to read, know the professor expects them to read, and know it will impact their grade, yet most students still do not read the textbook. Finally, we also examine what students feel would motivate them to increase their usage of the textbook.