cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Chemostratigraphic age model for the Tornillo Group: A possible link between fluvial stratigraphy and climate

Abstract The expression of global climate trends (10 6 to 10 7 years) and events (10 5 years) in terrestrial sedimentary sections can only be assessed from long, continuous continental records. Such records are rare due to the paucity of well-dated terrestrial deposits covering millions of years. This study uses isotope chemostratigraphy to develop an age model for fluvial sedimentary rocks of the Tornillo Group (Tornillo Basin, TX) and to decipher the potential expression of global climate variations in this sub-tropical paleo-fluvial system. The carbon isotope ratio (δ 13 C) of Tornillo Group pedogenic carbonate correlates well with δ 13 C variations from benthic foraminifera and suggests deposition between ~ 69 Ma and ~ 52 Ma for the studied stratigraphic interval. Higher sediment accumulation rates occurred in the greenhouse period of the early Eocene than during the cooler middle Paleocene. Carbon isotope excursions associated with Eocene hyperthermals were not identified, but their predicted stratigraphic positions coincide with thick sand bodies. We interpret the long-term sediment accumulation rates and rapid shifts in facies distribution as reflecting change in sediment supply in the basin, possibly driven by fluctuations in precipitation seasonality and intensity driven associated with global temperature changes. Carbon and oxygen isotope ratios from pedogenic carbonates display a strong correlation throughout the section, interpreted as an expression of coupling between the hydrological cycle and soil processes. Those observations suggest that global climate variations, along with tectonic and eustatic sea-level changes, may be an important control of stratigraphic variations of the Tornillo Group at multiple timescales.
Vicarious Trauma in Child Welfare Workers: A Study of Organizational Responses

Child welfare is provided within an organizational context that both supports and thwarts the efforts of workers and administrators to meet the myriad of goals established by federal, state, and local regulation and professional bodies. As the field moves toward trauma-informed services for children and families (Ko et al., 2008), the effect of trauma on workers has received less agency attention (Middleton & Potter, 2015). This exploratory, qualitative study examines the level of knowledge administrators have regarding vicarious trauma and probes the organizational responses of public child welfare agencies to the vicarious trauma experienced by workers.
Epidemiology of Sleep

The epidemiology of sleep refers to the study of patterns of sleep and sleep disorders across the population. Under the broad heading of the epidemiology of sleep, there are numerous specific questions to be asked about sleep hygiene practices, sleep architecture, sleep duration, and any one of a set of disorders. This chapter focuses on what is known about patterns of sleep duration, sleep apnea, insomnia, and restless legs syndrome (RLS) in the general US population and how they relate to three important epidemiological categories: sex, race, and age.
Variance-Constrained Risk Sharing in Stochastic Systems

This paper proposes a new continuous-time first best contract framework that has the ability to explicitly limit the agent's risks. This limitation of risk is achieved by formulating the contract design problem as a mean-variance constrained stochastic optimal control problem. To obtain a globally optimal contract even when system dynamics are nonlinear, we develop a dynamic programming-based solution approach. The major theoretical challenge arises from the variance inequality constraint. To overcome this difficulty, we track and limit the agent's risk using a new stochastic system, whose state value can be interpreted as the agent's remaining budget for risks. We also propose an approximately decoupled contract design approach for multiple agents to resolve the scalability issue inherent in dynamic programming. The procedures in this contract design for multiple agents can be completely parallelized. We show that this approximate contract satisfies each agent's individual rationality condition and has a provable suboptimality bound. The performance and usefulness of the proposed contract method and its application to demand response are demonstrated using data on the electric energy consumption of customers in Austin, Texas, and the locational marginal price data from the Electricity Reliability Council of Texas.
Manage My Condition: A Standard Framework for the Development of Cloud-Based Medical Condition Management Applications

Given the increasing availability and accessibility of mobile devices, there is enormous potential to transform how healthcare is administered through the creation of highly customized smartphone-based applications for effective medical condition management. Such platforms can offer improvements for both patients and healthcare systems. For patients, advantages include improved health management as well as satisfaction, enabling them to better understand their medical condition and improve their compliance with medication regimes. For healthcare systems, advantages include more effective patient management and increased pay-for-performance reimbursements, enabling real time tracking of critical patient specific data to provide comprehensive, effective medical condition management. However, a critical barrier to achieving these tantalizing benefits in healthcare management is the current paradigm of medical software design. Development and deployment of enterprise-wide applications is generally slow and expensive. Furthermore, each application is developed independently, even if several functionalities overlap between different applications. In this paper, we present ManageMyCondition, a framework for the rapid creation and standardization of medical condition management applications. The framework defines different building blocks for the creation of cloud-based mobile applications, defines a common format for data acquisition and presentation, and is easily customizable and extendable to meet the needs of different medical conditions. Finally, we present three mobile applications for medical condition management developed using the ManageMyCondition framework.
On lattice event probabilities for Levin-Robbins-Leu subset selection procedures

ABSTRACTThe Levin-Robbins-Leu (LRL) family of sequential subset selectionprocedures admits of a simple formula that provides a lower bound for the probability of various types of subset selection events. Here we demonstrate that a corresponding lower bound formula holds for lattice events when using the nonadaptive family member with binary outcomes. Lattice events are more general than the type of events that we previously considered in demonstrating that the nonadaptive LRL procedure selects “acceptable” subsets with an arbitrarily large prespecified probability irrespective of the true population parameters. Interestingly, the proof of the lower bound formula for lattice events that we present here simplifies the methods previously used and sheds additional light on why the lower bound formula holds. As for acceptable subset selection, we conjecture that the other LRL family members, which allow for adaptive elimination of inferior candidates and/or recruitment of superior candidates, obey the same low...
Astrocyte Structural and Molecular Response to Elevated Intraocular Pressure Occurs Rapidly and Precedes Axonal Tubulin Rearrangement within the Optic Nerve Head in a Rat Model

Glaucomatous axon injury occurs at the level of the optic nerve head (ONH) in response to uncontrolled intraocular pressure (IOP). The temporal response of ONH astrocytes (glial cells responsible for axonal support) to elevated IOP remains unknown. Here, we evaluate the response of actin-based astrocyte extensions and integrin-based signaling within the ONH to 8 hours of IOP elevation in a rat model. IOP elevation of 60 mm Hg was achieved under isoflurane anesthesia using anterior chamber cannulation connected to a saline reservoir. ONH astrocytic extension orientation was significantly and regionally rearranged immediately after IOP elevation (inferior ONH, 43.2° ± 13.3° with respect to the anterior-posterior axis versus 84.1° ± 1.3° in controls, p<0.05), and re-orientated back to baseline orientation 1 day post IOP normalization. ONH axonal microtubule filament label intensity was significantly reduced 1 and 3 days post IOP normalization, and returned to control levels on day 5. Phosphorylated focal adhesion kinase (FAK) levels steadily decreased after IOP normalization, while levels of phosphorylated paxillin (a downstream target of FAK involved in focal adhesion dynamics) were significantly elevated 5 days post IOP normalization. The levels of phosphorylated cortactin (a downstream target of Src kinase involved in actin polymerization) were significantly elevated 1 and 3 days post IOP normalization and returned to control levels by day 5. No significant axon degeneration was noted by morphologic assessment up to 5 days post IOP normalization. Actin-based astrocyte structure and signaling within the ONH are significantly altered within hours after IOP elevation and prior to axonal cytoskeletal rearrangement, producing some responses that recover rapidly and others that persist for days despite IOP normalization.
Prevalence of hormonal and endocrine dysfunction in patients with lichen planopilaris (LPP): A retrospective data analysis of 168 patients

Background Studies on the pathophysiology and comorbidities associated with lichen planopilaris (LPP) and frontal fibrosing alopecia (FFA) are limited. Objective The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of androgen excess in the postmenopausal LPP population, in relation to demographics and comorbidities. Methods A retrospective data analysis of 413 patients with LPP, FFA, and LPP/FFA seen in the Department of Dermatology at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Ohio between 2005 and 2015 was conducted. Of this cohort, 168 patients met the inclusion criteria. Results Androgen excess was identified in 31.5% (n = 53) of the 168 patients with LPP and all subtypes ( P P P Limitations This study was limited by being retrospective. Conclusion Our study demonstrated that LPP is associated with androgen excess, and FFA is associated with androgen deficiency.
Trauma-informed juvenile justice systems: A systematic review of definitions and core components.

Objective The U.S. Department of Justice has called for the creation of trauma-informed juvenile justice systems in order to combat the negative impact of trauma on youth offenders and frontline staff. Definitions of trauma-informed care have been proposed for various service systems, yet there is not currently a widely accepted definition for juvenile justice. The current systematic review examined published definitions of a trauma-informed juvenile justice system in an effort to identify the most commonly named core elements and specific interventions or policies. Method A systematic literature search was conducted in 10 databases to identify publications that defined trauma-informed care or recommended specific practices or policies for the juvenile justice system. Results We reviewed 950 unique records, of which 10 met criteria for inclusion. The 10 publications included 71 different recommended interventions or policies that reflected 10 core domains of trauma-informed practice. We found 8 specific practice or policy recommendations with relative consensus, including staff training on trauma and trauma-specific treatment, while most recommendations were included in 2 or less definitions. Conclusion The extant literature offers relative consensus around the core domains of a trauma-informed juvenile justice system, but much less agreement on the specific practices and policies. A logical next step is a review of the empirical research to determine which practices or policies produce positive impacts on outcomes for youth, staff, and the broader agency environment, which will help refine the core definitional elements that comprise a unified theory of trauma-informed practice for juvenile justice. (PsycINFO Database Record
SPIRIT: a framework for creating distributed recursive tree applications

An important set of applications, from diverse domains such as cosmological simulations, data mining, and computer graphics, involve repeated, depth-first traversal of trees. As these applications operate over massive data sets, it is often necessary to distribute the trees to process all of the data. In this paper, we introduce SPIRIT, a framework to ease the writing of distributed tree applications. SPIRIT automates the challenging tasks of tree distribution, optimizing communication and parallelizing independent computations. The common algorithmic pattern in tree traversals is exploited to effectively schedule parallel computations and improve locality. As a result, we identify systematic ways of exploiting pipeline parallelism in these applications and show how this parallelism can be complemented by selective application of data parallelism to provide greater speed-ups without requiring excessive data replication. SPIRIT is packaged into a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) that developers can use to create scalable applications. Evaluation of SPIRIT on various tree traversal algorithms shows a scalable system. We also find that SPIRIT implementations perform substantially less communication and achieve significant performance improvements over implementations in other distributed graph systems, and are competitive against state-of-the-art, hand-tuned, application-specific implementations.
Faith’s Country Primitives: An Excel Project In Flexible Budgeting And Standard Cost Analysis

Cost accounting textbooks typically contain extensive technical coverage of standard costing and variance analysis in a manufacturing context. Covering the material adequately usually requires multiple class lectures, due to the complexity of the material. The calculations involved are detailed, multi-step, and can be numerically intensive. In order to make the material accessible to the learner, most textbook problems focus on the individual steps inherent in the budgeting, calculation, analysis, and interpretation process of standard costing and variance analysis. This simplification makes it feasible to deliver the material efficiently in the classroom. However, this pedagogical efficiency occurs at a cost, in that students may fail to understand the overall process and how the individual steps are interrelated. This case has been used over the course of 10 semesters with over 500 students in a junior level Cost Accounting class for accounting majors. It has proven to be an effective tool for both reinforcing the variance analysis content that is delivered in the classroom, as well as for giving students an opportunity to practice and extend their Excel skills.
"Mission-Based Objectives, Market-Based Funding: The Relationship between Earned Revenue & Service"

This paper addresses the relationship between earned revenue activities and organizational performance as it relates service-level outcomes. Past studies have examined earned revenue as aggregate m...
Nutrition at the End of Life

Nutritional support during the final phase of life is an important and sensitive issue that must be addressed through careful discussion between patients, the patient’s loved ones, and the health care team. Because food is an integral part of day-to-day life, the loss of interest in or the inability to partake in this activity often causes great distress for caregivers. Furthermore, caregivers view provision of food and hydration as basic care and not medical treatment, and as such they frequently struggle to determine which feeding options to choose for their loved ones. In the final weeks of an individual’s life, the issues central to decisions about nutritional support shift to a cautious weighing of its burdens and benefits. Therefore, health care providers need to be well versed in the issues surrounding nutrition and hydration in terminal illness in order to assist patients and their families in treatment decisions. This chapter will focus on the benefits and limitations of nutritional support in the final weeks to months of life. The principles presented in this chapter may not be generalizable to populations with a longer life expectancy, even if the underlying disease process is similar.
Minimally Invasive Versus Open Esophagectomy for Cancer

Despite advances in medical and radiation oncology, esophagectomy continues to remain the cornerstone of therapy for esophageal cancer when cure is the goal. The surgical approaches to esophagectomy, however, vary by institution. In many cases patients with esophageal cancer are older with significant comorbid diseases. Open approaches to esophagectomy can often carry significant morbidity and mortality for these compromised patients. Minimally invasive strategies, bolstered by improving techniques and technology, have made minimally invasive esophagectomy (MIE) a feasible operative strategy for esophageal cancer surgery. Minimally invasive surgery offers the potential for faster postoperative recovery and fewer pulmonary complications. Much like open surgery, MIE approaches and techniques differ based on institution and surgeon. The goal, however, regardless of the approach, is complete resection of all cancer.
Complications of Blepharoptosis Repair and Their Solutions

When performed correctly, blepharoptosis correction can be one of the most rewarding procedures to the patient and to the surgeon. However, for the inexperienced surgeon and even the most experienced surgeon, it is a procedure fraught with potential for complications. Given that most ptosis surgeries are not technically difficult, complications are infrequently due to an intraoperative failure. Instead, the most common reason for complications is poor preoperative assessment of the patient. Without a thorough evaluation, an inappropriate surgical procedure may be selected for the patient such as performing a maximal levator resection when a frontalis sling was indicated or resecting only 6.5 mm of Muller’s muscle in a mullerectomy when 9.5 mm resection would have been preferred.
Decision Making Around Reinnveration

Unilateral vocal fold paralysis (UVFP) occurs after injury to the laryngeal nerves and is associated with significant patient morbidity including dysphonia and aspiration. For patients with UVFP, surgical options to help address the symptoms of glottic insufficiency include multiple types of static or framework procedures and laryngeal reinnervation. The principal advantage of reinnervation over static procedures is improvement in vocal fold pliability and tone. However, reinnervation takes several months before improvements can be fully appreciated, which can make the immediate benefits from static procedures particularly attractive. This chapter details the clinical decision-making surrounding laryngeal reinnervation in patients with unilateral vocal fold paralysis. General principals of reinnervation, preoperative evaluation, laryngeal reinnervation techniques, and surgical considerations are highlighted. Published studies show that laryngeal reinnervation is a useful procedure for treating select patients with unilateral vocal fold paralysis. A detailed understanding of laryngeal reinnervation, including patient factors, surgical techniques, post-operative outcomes, advantages, and drawbacks, can help to most effectively counsel and treat patients with vocal fold paralysis.
Light-driven carbon−carbon bond formation via CO2 reduction catalyzed by complexes of CdS nanorods and a 2-oxoacid oxidoreductase

Redox enzymes are capable of catalyzing a vast array of useful reactions, but they require redox partners that donate or accept electrons. Semiconductor nanocrystals provide a mechanism to convert absorbed photon energy into redox equivalents for enzyme catalysis. Here, we describe a system for photochemical carbon-carbon bond formation to make 2-oxoglutarate by coupling CO2 with a succinyl group. Photoexcited electrons from cadmium sulfide nanorods (CdS NRs) transfer to 2-oxoglutarate:ferredoxin oxidoreductase from Magnetococcus marinus MC-1 (MmOGOR), which catalyzes a carbon-carbon bond formation reaction. We thereby decouple MmOGOR from its native role in the reductive tricarboxylic acid cycle and drive it directly with light. We examine the dependence of 2-oxoglutarate formation on a variety of factors and, using ultrafast transient absorption spectroscopy, elucidate the critical role of electron transfer (ET) from CdS NRs to MmOGOR. We find that the efficiency of this ET depends strongly on whether the succinyl CoA (SCoA) cosubstrate is bound at the MmOGOR active site. We hypothesize that the conformational changes due to SCoA binding impact the CdS NR-MmOGOR interaction in a manner that decreases ET efficiency compared to the enzyme with no cosubstrate bound. Our work reveals structural considerations for the nano-bio interfaces involved in light-driven enzyme catalysis and points to the competing factors of enzyme catalysis and ET efficiency that may arise when complex enzyme reactions are driven by artificial light absorbers.
Thoracic hyperextension injury with opening wedge distraction fracture in DISH -consideration of surgical strategy based on intraoperative pathological findings.

Abstract Diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis (DISH) is a well-recognized disease characterized by calcifications and ossifications of the entheses mainly in the spine. Patients with DISH are prone to sustaining spinal injuries even after minor trauma because of the long-lever arm mechanism induced by any type of force acting on the rigid yet brittle spine. The number of cases of trauma in DISH-affected spines is predicted to increase during the coming decades because of an increase in DISH-related comorbidities. Generally, posterior fixation with spinal instrumentation spanning three levels above and below the injured site is regarded as a standard treatment for hyperextension fractures of the thoracolumbar spine in patients with DISH. However, no consensus has been reached regarding whether additional anterior fixation is needed for hyperextension injuries with remarkable vertebral body wedge. We experienced one case of hyperextension injury at the thoracic level in patient with DISH. A remarkable remodeling phenomenon in the fractured vertebral body was intraoperatively noticed, which was pathologically confirmed. This is the first report to have confirmed pathologically new bone formation in the anterior column wedge despite the fact that only 1 month had passed since the first injury. Although whether additional anterior fixation is needed for hyperextension injuries with remarkable vertebral body wedge is controversial, this report supports that posterior fixation alone might be an adequate treatment.
Dima Africa, daily darija: im/migrant sociality, settlement, and state policy in Tangier, Morocco

During the 2018 African Nations Championship football tournament, Morocco filled new suburban stadiums around the Kingdom, boasting its capacities to host major African events. Such displays contri...
A Case of Recurrent Coronary Subclavian Steal Syndrome.

Coronary subclavian steal syndrome (CSSS) is one of the rare complications of coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG). This phenomenon is a potential complication after left internal mammary artery (LIMA) to left anterior descending artery (LAD) CABG. A proximal stenosis of the left subclavian artery (SA) could cause retrograde flow from LIMA to left SA, which characterizes the mechanism of CSSS. We describe a unique case of recurrent CSSS in a 64-year-old female who presented with one month of exertional dyspnea and acute onset chest pain. She had an extensive coronary artery disease history with CABG 15 years prior to presentation and CSSS treated with left SA stent placement nine years later. She also underwent percutaneous intervention with stents placed in the saphenous vein graft. Although electrocardiogram, cardiac enzymes, and stress test did not show any evidence of acute ischemic changes, perfusion scan detected large areas of partially reversible ischemia. Cardiac catheterization was performed, which showed in-stent restenosis of the left SA and retrograde flow from the LIMA to the left SA indicative of recurrence of CSSS. Left SA arteriogram confirmed in-stent restenosis of the left SA, which was treated with balloon angioplasty and stent placement.
Robust Output Feedback Control Design for Inertia Emulation by Wind Turbine Generators

Wind generation has gained widespread use as a renewable energy source. Most wind turbines and other renewables connected to the grid through converters result in a reduction in the natural inertial response to grid frequency changes. The doubly-fed induction generator (DFIG) can be controlled to compensate for this reduction and, in fact, provide faster response than traditional synchronous machines. This paper proposes to design observer based output feedback linear quadratic regulator (LQR) and $H_{\infty }$ control laws to realize the inertia emulation function and deliver fast frequency support. The aim is to track the reference speed by a diesel synchronous generator (DSG) in order to reach the desired inertia. The control signal is computed based on a reduced order model using the balanced truncation technique. A comparison with selective modal analysis (SMA) and balanced truncation model reduction techniques is presented. Comprehensive results show the effective emulation of synthetic inertia by implementing the control laws on a nonlinear three-phase diesel-wind system. The proposed technique is analyzed for different short circuit ratio (SCR) scenarios.
Surgery with Post-Operative Endoscopy Improves Recurrence Detection in Sinonasal Malignancies:

Objective:The mainstay of treatment in sinonasal malignancy (SNM) is surgery, and when combined with chemoradiation therapy, often leads to the best overall prognosis. Nasal endoscopy is essential ...
Broadband Dielectric Spectroscopy: Recent Developments in Microwave Time-Domain Techniques

Microwave broadband dielectric spectroscopy (MBDS) is generally recognized as an experimental method to characterize different materials (solids and liquids) according to their dielectric properties [1]. The dielectric properties of many materials over the RF/microwave frequency range are uniquely defined. As a result, using the MBDS technique, the complex relative permittivity of a material under test (MUT) is extracted as a function of frequency. Due to its nondestructive and real-time nature, MBDS is promising for a variety of applications, such as chemical/biological sensing, oil exploration and processing, food and drug quality control, disease diagnosis, and biothreat detection [2]-[5].
Droplet evaporation on inclined substrates

Drying of droplets on inclined surfaces is relevant to applications such as ink-jet printing, spray coating, and crime-scene reconstruction. We develop a lubrication-theory based model to investigate the effect of substrate inclination on the evaporation of pure-solvent and particle-laden droplets on smooth and rough inclined substrates. We find that the effect of inclination on evaporation mainly depends on substrate roughness and the Bond number. Our predictions qualitatively agree with previous experimental work and our model can be easily extended to more complex situations such as multiple droplets evaporating on inclined substrates.
Invisible Hurdles: Gender and Institutional Bias in the Publication Process in Economics

Tenure decisions in economics are strongly tied to the quantity and quality of publications in peer-reviewed journals. We examine whether female economists and economists at lower- ranked institutions face discrimination in the publication process. To do so, we conduct an experiment with the editors of top 100 journals in economics. Editors were tasked with evaluating the quality of abstracts for various solo-authored papers. The papers vary along the dimensions of gender and institution rank of the author. The experimental variation is whether editors observe name and/or institution of the author. We find that there is positive institutional bias for economists in the top institutions. However, once the name of the author is visible in addition to the institution information, this positive institutional bias only applies to male authors. Hence, institution serves as a signal for quality of work for men, but not for women.
Specifying Internal, External, and Predictive Software Metrics

We investigate three types of software metrics which we call internal, external, and predictive software metrics. These three types of software metrics allow for a complete classification of all software metrics. In this paper, however, our main purpose is not to classify metrics; our main purpose is to explain what the specification of a metric should include. One of the main ideas which is behind this paper but which is not fully developed here is that software metrics should be developed in much the same manner as programs are developed. This development should include requirement documents, specification documents, design documents, the definition of the metric itself, testing documents, and a user’s manual. In this paper we give a specification template for internal, external, and predictive software metrics.
Inactivation of Escherichia coli O157:H7 in Apple Juice by Irradiation

Three strains (932, Ent-C9490, and SEA13B88) of Escherichia coli O157:H7 were used to determine the effectiveness of low-dose gamma irradiation for eliminating E. coli O157:H7 from apple juice or cider and to characterize the effect of inducing pH-dependent, stationary-phase acid resistance on radiation resistance. The strains were grown in tryptic soy broth with or without 1% dextrose for 18 h to produce cells that were or were not induced to pH-dependent stationary-phase acid resistance. The bacteria were then transferred to clarified apple juice and irradiated at 2°C with a cesium-137 irradiator. Non-acid-adapted cells had radiation D values (radiation doses needed to decrease a microbial population by 90%) ranging from 0.12 to 0.21 kGy. D values increased to 0.22 to 0.31 kGy for acid-adapted cells. When acid-adapted SEA13B88 cells were tested in five apple juice brands having different levels of suspended solids (absorbances ranging from 0.04 to 2.01 at 550 nm), radiation resistance increased with increasing levels of suspended solids, with D values ranging from 0.26 to 0.35 kGy. Based on these results, a dose of 1.8 kGy should be sufficient to achieve the 5D inactivation of E. coli recommended by the National Advisory Committee for Microbiological Criteria for Foods.
What is Spirituality

Spirituality is the practice of or the experience of reconnecting with something outside of and larger than the self; something that is social, natural and/ or supernatural. This is the basic understanding of spirituality I have come to as a scholar who has studied religion and its formal constructions (theology) for the last quarter century.
Setting the Agenda

Abstract Foreign funding for women's non-governmental organizations (NGOs) during democratic transition plays a crucial role in shaping values and attitudes within civil society. Concepts of feminism, gender equality and the role of women in democratic politics are affected by the discourse established by foreign funders. In this article, the role of US and Nordic gender policies are examined in the Estonian context using a feminist constructivist framework. I explore the effects of neoliberal versus social-democratic gender policies and conclude that, while funding for women's NGOs serves to create a necessary discourse on women's equality, these policies may actually serve the funders' needs to gain geopolitical influence in the region.
CEO-Firm Match and Principal-Agent Theory∗

We study the matching problem between firms and CEOs, extending a popular version of the principal-agent model developed by Holmstrom and Milgrom (1987). In their model, the optimal pay-performance sensitivity decreases in firm risks and agent's risk aversion, and increases in agent's productivity. We show that a more productive CEO (agent) should manage a safer firm in the matching equilibrium because the effort level of such a CEO is more responsive to high pay-performance sensitivity. As a consequence, a more productive CEO and a safer firm, where pay-performance sensitivity is high, form a winning combination for circumventing the effort underprovision problem. We also find the counterintuitive result that a more risk averse CEO should run a riskier firm for reasonable parameter values. Finally, we examine if the data support the negative relation between CEO's productivity and firm risks predicted by the theory.
The cooperative action of bacterial fibronectin-binding proteins and secreted proteins promote maximal Campylobacter jejuni invasion of host cells by stimulating membrane ruffling

This study was performed to elucidate the host cell scaffolding and signaling molecules that Campylobacter jejuni utilizes to invade epithelial cells. We hypothesized that the C. jejuni fibronectin-binding proteins and secreted proteins are required for cell signaling and maximal invasion of host cells. C. jejuni binding to host cells via the CadF and FlpA Fibronectin-binding proteins activated the epidermal growth factor (EGF) pathway, as evidenced by inhibitor studies and immunoprecipitation coupled with immunoblot analysis using antibodies reactive against total and active EGF receptor. Inhibitor studies revealed maximal C. jejuni host cell invasion was dependent upon PI3-Kinase, c-Src, and focal adhesion kinase (FAK), all of which are known to participate in cytoskeletal rearrangements. Knockdown of endogenous Dock180, which is a Rac1-specific guanine nucleotide exchange factor, using siRNA revealed that C. jejuni invasion was significantly reduced compared with cells treated with scrambled siRNA. We further demonstrated that the C. jejuni Cia proteins are, in part, responsible for Rho GTPase Rac1 recruitment and activation, as judged by immunofluorescence microscopy and Rac1 activation. Based on these data, we present a model that illustrates that C. jejuni utilizes a coordinated mechanism involving both adhesins and secreted proteins to promote membrane ruffling and host cell invasion.
Calcium Oxalate Stones Are Frequently Found Attached to Randall’s Plaque

The exact mechanisms of the crystallization processes that occur during the formation of calcium oxalate calculi are controversial. Over six decades ago, Alexander Randall reported on a series of cadaveric renal units in which he observed calcium salt deposits on the tips of the renal papilla. Randall hypothesized that these deposits, eponymously termed Randall’s plaque, would be the ideal site for stone formation, and indeed in a number of specimens he noted small stones attached to the papillae. With the recent advent of digital endoscopic imaging and micro computerized tomography (CT) technology, it is now possible to inspect the renal papilla of living, human stone formers and to study the attached stone with greater scrutiny.
SIALIDASE (NEURAMINIDASE) OF CORYNEBACTERIUM DIPHTHERIAE

Warren, Leonard (National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases, Bethesda, Md.) and C. W. Spearing. Sialidase (neuraminidase) of Corynebacterium diphtheriae . J. Bacteriol. 86: 950–955. 1963.—The characteristics of a sialidase produced by Corynebacterium diphtheriae were studied. The enzyme was partially purified from preparations of diphtheria toxin on a column of Sephadex G-75. By this means the lethal factor of diphtheria toxin was separated, in part, from the sialidase activity. There appeared to be a close immunological relationship between the sialidases of C. diphtheriae and clostridia, since a preparation of diphtheria antitoxin was as effective an inhibitor of diphtheria sialidase as of the sialidase of three species of clostridia. Conversely, antitoxin to clostridia inhibited diphtheria sialidase. Diphtheria antitoxin was essentially inactive toward influenza virus sialidase, and was completely inactive against purified sialidase of Vibrio cholerae . Removal of sialic acid from the proteins in a preparation of diphtheria antitoxin did not alter the inhibitory activity of the antitoxin against diphtheria sialidase. The enzyme operated optimally at pH 5.5 and did not require calcium ions for activity. The substrate specificity of diphtheria sialidase appears to be the same as that of other previously described sialidases.
Video Query and Retrieval

All video will eventually become fully digital — there seems to be no way around it. Consequently, digital video databases will become more and more pervasive and finding video in large digital video databases will become a problem just like it is a problem today to find video in analog video databases. The digital form of the video, however, opens up tremendous possibilities. Just like it is possible today to retrieve text documents from large text document databases by querying document content represented by indices, it will become possible to index digital video databases based (semi-automatically derived indices.
Function of eukaryotic initiation factor 5 in the formation of an 80 S ribosomal polypeptide chain initiation complex.

Eukaryotic initiation factor 5 (eIF-5), isolated from rabbit reticulocyte lysates, is a monomeric protein of 58-62 kDa. The function of eIF-5 in the formation of an 80 S polypeptide chain initiation complex from a 40 S initiation complex has been investigated. Incubation of the isolated 40 S initiation complex (40 S.AUG.Met.tRNAf.eIF-2 GTP) with eIF-5 resulted in the rapid and quantitative hydrolysis of GTP bound to the 40 S initiation complex. The rate of this reaction was unaffected by the presence of 60 S ribosomal subunits. Analysis of eIF-5-catalyzed reaction products by gel filtration indicated that both eIF-2.GDP binary complex and Pi formed were released from the ribosomal complex whereas Met-tRNAf remained bound to 40 S ribosomes as a Met-tRNAf.40 S.AUG complex. Reactions carried out with biologically active 32P-labeled eIF-5 indicated that this protein was not associated with the 40 S.AUG.Met-tRNAf complex; similar results were obtained by immunological methods using monospecific anti-eIF-5 antibodies. The isolated 40 S.AUG.Met-RNAf complex, free of eIF-2.GDP binary complex and eIF-5, readily interacted with 60 S ribosomal subunits in the absence of exogenously added eIF-5 to form the 80 S initiation complex capable of transferring Met-tRNAf into peptide linkages. These results indicate that the sole function of eIF-5 in the initiation of protein synthesis is to mediate hydrolysis of GTP bound to the 40 S initiation complex in the absence of 60 S ribosomal subunits. This leads to formation of the intermediate 40 S.AUG.Met-tRNAf and dissociation of the eIF-2.GDP binary complex. Subsequent joining of 60 S ribosomal subunits to the intermediate 40 S.AUG.Met-tRNAf complex does not require participation of eIF-5. Thus, the formation of an 80 S ribosomal polypeptide chain initiation complex from a 40 S ribosomal initiation complex can be summarized by the following sequence of partial reactions. (40 S.AUG.Met-tRNAf.eIF-2.GTP) eIF-5----(40 S.AUG.Met-tRNAf) + (eIF-2.GDP) + Pi (1) (40 S.AUG.Met-tRNAf) + 60 S----(80 S.AUG.Met-tRNAf) (2) 80 S initiation complex.
A coordinated multiple description scalar quantizer and error concealment algorithm for error resilient video streaming over lossy channels

Historically, multiple description coding (MDC) and post-processing error concealment (ECN) algorithms for video have evolved separately. Although multiple description coding provides a way to make the video quality degrade gracefully in the presence of packet losses, the resulting quality may be unsatisfactory when only one description is used to reconstruct the signal. This paper proposes a coordinated application of multiple description scalar quantizer (MDSQ) and error concealment, where the smoothness of the video signal helps to compensate for the loss of descriptions. This joint optimization results in significant improvements in reconstructed video quality over independent use of MDSQ.
Recent radio studies of SNR

SNR can generally be recognized as extended sources of continuum radio emission with non-thermal spectra located near the galactic plane. The emission is synchrotron radiation from relativistic electrons which have either been accelerated or trapped in the expanding shell and its associated shocks. Early lists of remnants (e.g. Milne 1970) were culled from general catalogs of radio sources and confirmed by several other kinds of evidence including the presence of shell structure, significant polarization, lack of recombination line emission, strong optical [S II] lines, and soft x-ray emission. While a few efforts to detect more data on faint remnants are continuing (e.g. Bonsignori and Tomasi 1979; Reich and Braunsfurth 1981), about 150 SNR are now known in the Milky Way and most studies have turned to detailed investigation of specific objects to determine their energy sources, emission mechanisms, and interactions with their surroundings. These studies have shown that while most remnants fall within two general categories, standard shell and filled center, there is no unique evolution within a class and irregularities in the local interstellar medium dominate any statistical properties of individual remnants. A few objects, in particular Cas A and CTB80, do not fit within either category.
On the Direct Costs of REIT SEOs

This study examines the determinants of direct costs for REIT seasoned equity offerings. REIT direct costs are unrelated to information asymmetries, unlike for non-REITs. Gross spreads vary inversely with stock liquidity, price, and industry activity. Concerning REIT-specific heterogeneity, gross spreads are generally invariant to property type and operating partnership structure. Still, the findings suggest managers can exert some influence on costs as higher fees associate directly with the use of underwriting syndicates and more reputable investment banks. As a final component of our analysis we test for differences in direct costs across REIT and comparable industrials and observe significantly lower direct issuance costs for REITs.
A molecular pinwheel multicopper(I) cluster, [(LS-)6CuI13(S2-)2]3+ with μ4-sulfido, μ3-thiolato and nitrogen ligands

A copper(I) complex with new N2S thiol ligand transforms to a multicopper(I) cluster, [(LS−)6CuI13(S2−)2]3+ (1); its X-ray structure exhibiting μ4-sulfido and μ3-thiolato coordination is presented and compared to other cuprous thiolato/sulfido clusters including that observed in the copper enzyme nitrous oxide reductase.
Correction to " On Optimal Development in a Multi-Sector Economy'

Mr D. Nachane has pointed out to me that the proof of Theorem 6 of [1] is not correct as it stands. There should be absolute value signs around each of the three equal quantities on the left-hand side of inequality 7.8. The rest of the proof should then read: Since λ < 1 the terms | ut | are dominated by the terms of a convergent geometric series; hence the seriesconverges, since it converges absolutely, so in particular the partial sumsare bounded below, as was to be proved.
Relationship Economics: The Social Capital Paradigm and Its Application to Business, Politics, and Other Transaction

The views expressed in this review are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the US Air Force, the Department of Defense, or the US Government. Relation...
Comments on: Recent progress on the combinatorial diameter of polytopes and simplicial complexes

Linear programming is the workhorse of modern optimization, but despite its importance, we still face plenty of open mathematical questions about it. Dantzig’s simplex method is certainly one of the most popular algorithms for solving linear programs. Its intuitive geometry is quite simple. The simplex method searches the graph of the polyhedron, from a vertex of the one-skeleton to a better neighboring one according to some pivot rule, which selects an improving neighbor. Geometrically, the simplex method traces a path on the graph of the polytope. The diameter of the graph of a polytope is the length of the longest shortest path among all possible pairs of vertices.
Nuclear Photothermal Diffusion Dynamics Differentiates Benign and Malignant Cancer

Tissue photothermal diffusion dynamics is imaged by a custom pump-probe fullfield photothermal microscope. Thermal diffusion dynamics in nuclei probes the nuclear structure and is found to differentiate benign prostate cancer from malignant ones.
Type-II 450-550 nm InGaN-GaNAs for quantum well active region lasers and light emitters on GaN

We present and analyze a new nitride-based gain media by utilizing type-II InGaN-GaNAs quantum well (QW) on GaN. This novel III-N based type-II QW allows extension of the emission wavelength from blue regime (450-nm) to yellow regime (550-nm) with relatively-low In-content in the QW, while maintaining a large electron-hole wavefunction overlap. High electron-hole wavefunction overlap (≥ 65%-70%) can be obtained by careful energy band engineering to take advantage of the polarization-induced electric field. Our analysis shows this new type-II QW gain media offers wide emission wavelength coverage, from pure blue (~450-nm) to yellow-green (~530-nm). Design and optimization for pure blue (~450-nm), green (~515-nm) and yellow-green (~530-nm) emission structures are also presented. This method may allow realization of green laser diode on GaN, as well as paving the way to low cost, truly monolithic solid-state white light source.
Asynchronous signal detection in frequency-selective non-Gaussian channels

We present a signal detection algorithm for digital amplitude-phase modulated signals in frequency-selective fading channels with non-Gaussian noise. We consider an asynchronous scenario in which the timing (symbol transition epochs) is unknown and a symbol rate offset is present due to clock drift. A Gibbs sampling-based algorithm is proposed to estimate the unknown parameters and signal detection is performed using a maximum-likelihood procedure. The additive noise is modeled by a Gaussian mixture distribution, a well-known model for man-made and natural noise. Numerical results are presented to characterize the performance of the proposed algorithm.