cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Comparison of glass transition measurements between carrimed rheometer and differential scanning calorimetry using methylacrylate‐vinylidene chloride copolymer

The potential of the Carrimed CSL 500 rheometer for the thermal analysis of methylacrylate-vinylidene chloride (MA-VDC) random copolymer was evaluated by comparing the glass transition temperature (Tg) of the copolymers with the value obtained from the differential scanning calorimeter. The major relaxation phenomenon in amorphous polymers, namely the glass transition temperature, could be identified clearly using the Carrimed rheometer. Samples of varius contents of methylacrylate in methylacrylate-vinylidene chloride copolymer were prepared as solvent cast films. Small amplitude oscillatory measurements showed as a function of temperature, that methylacrylate-vinylidene chloride copolymer between 12% and 70% methylacrylate (MA) content showed glass transition temperatures between 48°C and 63°C. For the methylacrylate content ranging from 4% to 70%, the saran copolymers had glass transition temperatures between 12°C and 56°C. Both techniques showed the Tg of the methylacrylate-vinylidene chloride copolymer first increased and then decreased with increasing methylacrylate content. Both methods show a peak in the Tg vs. percent methylacrylate content of the copolymer at around 50% methylacrylate content. Small angle amplitude measurements also showed that it is very sensitive to the frequency. The Tg obtained using the Carrimed CSL 500 rheometer is very reproducible and is comparable with that obtained using the standard DSC.
Front address structure for high luminous efficacy and low address voltage in ACPDPs

— 8-in. AC plasma display panels with front address (FA) structures were developed. Deep barrier ribs, high-Xe-content gas, and long sustain gaps were applied to FA structures to achieve high luminous efficacy. The FA structures have several advantages over conventional structures. Because address electrodes are closer to sustain electrodes, FA PDPs can be driven at lower address voltages, under the condition of deep barrier ribs or high-Xe-content gas, than conventional PDPs. A disadvantage of FA PDPs is relatively high capacitance between the sustain electrodes and address electrodes compared to that of conventional PDPs.
Adding machines and logarithms: Franklin H. Giddings and computation for the exact science of sociology

Sociologists of earlier eras had much more limited computational tools available, but even in the founding era, there were slide rules and printed tables of mathematical functions, mechanical calculators were becoming more common, and punched card tabulating equipment was being developed. This article focuses on one particular founder, Franklin H. Giddings, and the kind of computations he did or did not do, using or not using various computational devices then available. Giddings's reputation, as the leading quantitative sociologist among the founders of the discipline, is compared with his published work. Giddings himself, although a prolific author, did very little original quantitative research. His main contribution to quantitative sociology consisted of his programmatic statements, which helped provide legitimation for subsequent scholars who actually performed quantitative research.
Concerted formation of macromolecular Suppressor–mutator transposition complexes

Transposition of the maize Suppressor–mutator (Spm) transposon requires two element-encoded proteins, TnpA and TnpD. Although there are multiple TnpA binding sites near each element end, binding of TnpA to DNA is not cooperative, and the binding affinity is not markedly affected by the number of binding sites per DNA fragment. However, intermolecular complexes form cooperatively between DNA fragments with three or more TnpA binding sites. TnpD, itself not a sequence-specific DNA-binding protein, binds to TnpA and stabilizes the TnpA–DNA complex. The high redundancy of TnpA binding sites at both element ends and the protein–protein interactions between DNA-bound TnpA complexes and between these and TnpD imply a concerted transition of the element from a linear to a protein crosslinked transposition complex within a very narrow protein concentration range.
What connections exist between panic symptoms, shyness, type i hypersensitivity, anxiety, and anxiety sensitivity?

Abstract Panic attacks have recently been connected to behavioral inhibition, or extreme shyness. Rather than a direct correlation between shyness and panic attacks, three indirect pathways were found in this structural modeling study. A structural model was derived empirically from 168 subjects and then subsequently tested on 167 new subjects. The three pathways reflect diverse conceptual positions current in the panic literature: 1) One indirect pathway identified shyness — hay fever — panic; 2) The second indirect pathway was composed of shyness — anxiety — anxiety sensitivity — panic; and 3) The third indirect pathway occurred between shyness — anxiety — panic, omitting anxiety sensitivity. The term “panic” in these pathways refers to panic symptoms.
Effective faculty feedback: The road less traveled

Abstract Grading papers may be one of the most stressful, most time consuming, and least rewarding activities in which professors engage. Although effective grading techniques for papers have been widely researched, especially within the “Writing” or “English” scholarly arenas, has this information been put into practice? The goals of this paper are two-fold: (1) to replicate and extend Connor and Lunsford's [Connors, R. J., & Lunsford, A. A. (1993). Teachers’ rhetorical comments on student papers. College Composition and Communication, 44, 200–223] analysis of faculty comments, and (2) to review some of the tips for effective grading practices and see if the comments reflected these effective practice advice. A content analysis was conducted on faculty comments from 598 graded papers written for hundreds of courses from 30 different departments in the university. Results indicate that most comments were technical corrections that addressed spelling, grammar, word choice, and missing words. Macro- and mid-level comments that addressed paper organization and quality of the ideas contained in it were surprisingly absent. The lack of these larger idea and argument centered comments may prevent students from improving the quality of the larger issues in writing and refocus them on the smaller, albeit important, technical issues of writing.
DENTISTRY AND HYPERTENSION

The author monitored the systolic and diastolic blood pressure, or BP; mean arterial pressure, or MAP; and heart rate, or HR, of hypertensive and normotensive patients once each minute during dental procedures. He found statistically significant differences in the means of the initial five and final five systolic BP and diastolic BP, MAP and HR readings. Exceptions were the HR in 18- to 45-year-old normotensive patients and the systolic BP in hypertensive patients. The author concluded that the time at which BP is monitored during a dental procedure may be significant.
Development and testing of a magnetic position sensor system for automotive and avionics applications

A magnetic sensor system has been developed to measure the 3-D location and orientation of a rigid body relative to an array of magnetic dipole transmitters. A generalized solution to the measurement problem has been formulated, allowing the transmitter and receiver parameters (position, orientation, number, etc.) to be optimized for various applications. Additionally, the method of images has been used to mitigate the impact of metallic materials in close proximity to the sensor. The resulting system allows precise tracking of high-speed motion in confined metal environments. The sensor system was recently configured and tested as an abdomen displacement sensor for an automobile crash-test dummy. The test results indicate a positional accuracy of approximately 1 mm rms during 20 m/s motions. The dynamic test results also confirmed earlier covariance model predictions, which were used to optimize the sensor geometry. A covariance analysis was performed to evaluate the applicability of this magnetic position system for tracking a pilot's head motion inside an aircraft cockpit. Realistic design parameters indicate that a robust tracking system, consisting of lightweight pickup coils mounted on a pilot's helmet, and an array of transmitter coils distributed throughout a cockpit, is feasible. Recent test and covariance results are presented.
Known Unknowns: An Analysis of Twitter Censorship in Turkey

Twitter, widely used around the world, has a standard interface for government agencies to request that individual tweets or even whole accounts be censored. Twitter, in turn, discloses country-by-country statistics about this censorship in its transparency reports as well as reporting specific incidents of censorship to the Chilling Effects web site. Twitter identifies Turkey as the country issuing the largest number of censorship requests, so we focused our attention there. Collecting over 20 million Turkish tweets from late 2014 to early 2015, we discovered over a quarter million censored tweets - two orders of magnitude larger than what Twitter itself reports. We applied standard machine learning / clustering techniques, and found the vast bulk of censored tweets contained political content, often critical of the Turkish government. Our work establishes that Twitter radically under-reports censored tweets in Turkey, raising the possibility that similar trends hold for censored tweets from other countries as well. We also discuss the relative ease of working around Twitter's censorship mechanisms, although we can not easily measure how many users take such steps.
A linear scattering problem in magnetohydrodynamics: Transmission resonances in a magnetic slab

The reduced linearized equations of ideal magnetohydrodynamics which are highly nonlinear in the eigenvalue parameter, are linearized about a prescribed value of that parameter, enabling the equation to be expressed as a Schrodinger equation with piecewise uniform coefficients. Reflection and transmission coefficients are obtained using standard techniques, and in addition to the possibility of total transmission of an incident wave occurring (together with complex-valued resonance energies), the magnetic field introduces other total transmission energy levels which have no counterpart in the absence of a magnetic field.
An isomerization—claisen rearrangement route to olefinic dicarbonyl starting materials for conjugate cyclization

Abstract Unsaturated dicarbonyl compounds which are useful in conjugate cyclization processes are synthesized by a route which makes use of a sequential isomerization and Claisen rearrangement of the allyl ether of a substituted allyl alcohol.
Can perforated appendicitis Be diagnosed preoperatively based on admission factors

The optimal initial treatment for selected patients with perforated appendicitis may be nonoperative. For this reason it is important to be able to diagnose perforated appendicitis preoperatively. The purpose of this study was to determine the accuracy of diagnosing perforated appendicitis using only admission factors. The study population was comprised of 366 adult patients who underwent appendectomy for presumed appendicitis during 1997. Admission factors associated with perforated appendicitis were determined using univariate and multivariate analyses. These variables were then used to formulate a rule for the diagnosis of perforated appendicitis. Sensitivity and specificity were calculated for this rule. The admission factors analyzed were sex, race, age, days of pain, temperature, heart rate, symptoms, physical examination findings, and laboratory findings. Multivariate regression analysis revealed days of pain, temperature, and localized tenderness outside the right lower quadrant to be significant (P 101° F (38.3° C), or localized tenderness outside the right lower quadrant as criteria to indicate perforation, we achieved a sensitivity of 86% and a specificity of 58% for distinguishing perforated from nonperforated appendicitis. We concluded that (1) perforated appendicitis cannot reliably be distinguished from nonperforated appendicitis based on admission factors, and (2) two or more days of pain, localized tenderness outside the right lower quadrant, and a temperature of ±101° F (38.3° C) define a group of patients with appendicitis who have a high incidence of perforation.
On the sharpness of theorems concerning zero-free regions for certain sequences of polynomials

In this paper, we establish the sharpness of a theorem concerning zero-free parabolic regions for certain sequences of polynomials satisfying a three-term recurrence relation. Similarly, we establish the sharpness of a zero-free sectorial region for certain sequences of Pade approximants toe z .
U.S. MONETARY POLICY AND THE BALANCE OF PAYMENTS, 1950–60*

SINCE THE WORLD-WIDE revival of flexible monetary policy in the early 1950's, European nations have used the state of the balance of payments as a major determinant of monetary policy. They have employed a restrictive policy when reserves were low, to curb imports, divert production to exports, and encourage capital inflows. In the period under study, 1950-60, the United States experienced a chronic balance-of-payments deficit, yet its monetary policy was oriented to domestic considerations. In addition, United States business cycles differed in timing and intensity from European cycles. These factors led at times to wide differentials between United States and foreign interest rates. These interest-rate differentials caused persistent outflows of shortterm capital and lending on foreign dollar bonds. The net outflow from these two sources was $4.6 billion in the years 1951-59, about one-third of the net balance-of-payments deficit over the nine-year period. Interest rates more nearly in line with those of other countries would have prevented at least some of this outflow, which was greatest during periods of widest interest-rate differentials. However, one major component of United States capital flows-direct investment-fluctuated with the domestic business cycle and consequently was not sensitive to interest-rate differentials. Foreign capital in this country showed less direct sensitivity to interest rates than did United States capital. Interest rates affected foreign short-term capital indirectly by influencing other elements in the balance of payments, but these capital movements did not generally react independently of interest-rate differentials. Interest-rate changes did, however, cause shifts between foreign and official holders of dollars and among different types of dollar assets. Gold movements were also affected only indirectly by monetary policy, through its influence on other balance-of-payments items in determining the side of the deficit. Foreign long-term capital in the United States showed some direct sensitivity to interest rates, but the magnitudes of these flows were small.
Teenage fertility and infant mortality: Reply

Geronimus and Korenman challenge the finding that teenage fertility raises infant mortality yet they fail to present the cross-national data necessary to support their arguments. The figures they present differ vastly from the sample and type of data used by Pampel and Pillai yet are in some ways consistent with the conclusion. Pampel and Pillai attempted to test the applicability of broad demographic transition theories of mortality change to advanced industrial nations over recent decades and also evaluated alternative hypotheses claiming that distributional processes and government policies had replaced economic and demographic development as the primary source of the decline in infant mortality. A broad and diverse sample of 18 nations over a 25-year time period was used. Geronimus and Korenman falsely attribute to Pampel and Pillais paper claims that welfare spending fails totally to influence infant mortality and teenage fertility has stronger effects on infant mortality than on welfare spending. No such statements were made. In the results section it was noted that both welfare spending and teenage fertility have modest effects on infant mortality the former primarily on postneonatal mortality and the latter on neonatal mortality. Further it was suggested that income distribution and government policy do not replace or dominate standard economic and demographic variables as determinants of infant mortality among the study sample. Pampel and Pillai suggested that these economic and demographic variables including teenage fertility among others may be useful in lowering infant mortality. When Geronimus and Korenman accurately present the findings of Pampel and Pillai i.e. that teenage fertility influences patterns of infant mortality across the nations and time points in the sample the criticisms they make are vague and unsubstantiated. The evidence they present - cross sectional analysis of individual-level data for 3 status in the US -- also is insufficient to invalidate the aggregate cross-national and longitudinal analysis presented.
Detection of ΔF508 mutation of the cystic fibrosis gene by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry

The most common mutation of the cystic fibrosis gene is characterized by the deletion of three nucleotides that code phenylalanine in the 508 position of the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator. We report the first measurements by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) time-of-flight mass spectrometry for the delta F508 mutation in cystic fibrosis carriers and patients. Furthermore, in a blind test, results from the normal and delta F508 mutant alleles in 30 clinical samples based on MALDI mass spectrometry and on conventional gel analysis of the DNA were in total agreement. These results demonstrate the utility of MALDI mass spectrometry in the molecular diagnosis of mutant alleles and point to its potential use for ultra-fast detection in large-scale screening of DNA mutations.
Low-cost virtual rehabilitation games: House of quality to meet patient expectations

Patients' willingness to play is essential for rehabilitation games. This study (1) identified patients' general expectations for rehabilitation games; and (2) evaluated two newly developed low-cost rehabilitation games through surveys. Patients were found to expect low-cost systems (<; $100), ease of use, interesting game contents, proven clinical efficiency, and access to rehabilitation games without prescription although welcoming therapists to follow their progress. House of quality analysis performed for the two developed rehabilitation games based on the patient expectations identified the need to improve reliability and precision of the low-cost hardware as well as to demonstrate clinical benefits.
Stylized facts, empirical research and theory development in management

Stylized facts matter enormously in management inquiry because such inquiry ultimately deals with the real world. But management research places much less emphasis on empirical regularities than we should expect, and that is required, for scholarship that ultimately concerns itself with the real world. Imagine grounding the study of real organizations only in theory; we ought to be laughed out of the academy for that. Yet our journals appear to insist on theory testing. In a field that seeks to understand the real world, it makes little sense to always put theory before facts. We must understand at least the broad outlines of ‘what’ a phenomenon consists of before we try to explain ‘why’ it occurs. That is, we need research directed toward uncovering empirical regularities, otherwise known as ‘stylized facts’. Only then are we in a position to build theory that in turn can serve as the basis for more refined tests and extensions.
The Cancer and Leukemia Group B Pathology Committee at 50

The Pathology Committee of the Cancer and Leukemia Group B (CALGB) is broadly and deeply integrated into the multidisciplinary clinical and scientific operations of the group. It has five major functions in CALGB. First, it insures the highest possible quality of pathologic data in tissue-based correlative science studies through comprehensive quality control of all tissues collected, banked, and distributed to investigators and of all morphology-based studies done within the CALGB. Within this context, the Pathology Committee has the goal of eliminating, to the greatest degree possible, variation in methodology, interpretation, and reporting of pathologic data that would compromise reproducibility of correlative science results and to assure accuracy, uniformity, and completeness of the pathologic data. Second, the committee provides expert pathologic consultation in the development of clinical trials and correlative science studies that involve pathologic issues and/or materials. Third, it provides high-quality tissue banking and centralized morphology-based technical support services (e.g., histologic sections for immunohistochemistry, tissue microarrays, etc.) for all CALGB investigators. Fourth, it initiates and executes high-quality pathologic research using CALGB and intergroup resources. Lastly, it provides group-wide education on pathology-related issues relevant to trial design, scientific study design, and specimen banking.
Wavelet Analyses of Turbulence in the Hurricane Surface Layer during Landfalls

Abstract Using wavelet transform (WT), this study analyzes the surface wind data collected by the portable wind towers during the landfalls of six hurricanes and one tropical storm in the 2002–04 seasons. The WT, which decomposes a time series onto the scale-time domain, provides a means to investigate the role of turbulent eddies in the vertical transport in the unsteady, inhomogeneous hurricane surface layer. The normalized WT power spectra (NWPS) show that the hurricane boundary layer roll vortices tend to suppress the eddy circulations immediately adjacent to rolls, but they do not appear to have a substantial effect on eddies smaller than 100 m. For low-wind conditions with surface wind speeds less than 10 m s−1, the contributions of small eddies (<236 m) to the surface wind stress and turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) decrease with the increase of wind speed. The opposite variation trend is found for eddies greater than 236 m. However, for wind speeds greater than 10 m s−1, contributions of both small ...
Functional morphology of the feeding mechanism in aquatic ambystomatid salamanders

This study addresses four questions in vertebrate functional morphology through a study of aquatic prey capture in ambystomatid salaman- ders: 1) How does the feeding mechanism of aquatic salamanders function as a biomechanical system? 2) How similar are the biomechanics of suction feeding in aquatic salamanders and ray-finned fishes? 3) What quantitative relation- ship does information extracted from electromyograms of striated muscles bear to kinematic patterns and animal performance? and 4) What are the major structural and functional patterns in the evolution of the lower vertebrate skull? During prey capture, larval ambystomatid salamanders display a kinematic pattern similar to that of other lower vertebrates, with peak gape occurring prior to both peak hyoid depression and peak cranial elevation. The depressor mandibulae, rectus cervicis, epaxialis, hypaxialis, and branchiohyoideus mus- cles are all active for 40-60 msec during the strike and overlap considerably in activity. The two divisions of the adductor mandibulae are active in a continuous burst for 110-130 msec, and the intermandibularis posterior and coracomandibularis are active in a double burst pattern. The antagonistic depressor mandibulae and adductor mandibulae internus become active within 0.2 msec of each other, but the two muscles show very different spike and amplitude patterns during their respective activity periods. Coefficients of variation for kinematic and most electromyographic recordings reach a mini- mum within a 10 msec time period, just after the mouth starts to open. Pressure within the buccal cavity during the strike reaches a minimum of -25 mmHg, and minimum pressure occurs synchronously with maximum gill bar adduction. The gill bars (bearing gill rakers that interlock with rakers of adjacent arches) clearly function as a resistance within the oral cavity and restrict posterior water influx during mouth opening, creating a unidirectional flow during feeding. Durations of electromyographic activity alone are poor predictors of kine- matic patterns. Analyses of spike amplitude explain an additional fraction of the variance in jaw kinematics, whereas the product of spike number and amplitude is the best statistical predictor of kinematic response variables. Larval ambystomatid salamanders retain the two primitive biomechanical systems for opening and closing the mouth present in nontetrapod vertebrates: elevation of the head by the epaxialis and depression of the mandible by the hyoid apparatus. During the last half of the nineteenth and ship. Morphologists interested in the evolu- at the start of the twentieth century, the key tion of the vertebrate skull exemplified this area of active research in morphology con- approach, as the work of Allis ('17), Edge- cerned the homologies of structural systems worth ('ll), Gaupp ('04), Luther ('14) and in various taxa and patterns of structure as Vetter (1874) demonstrates. Although the ap- possible indicators of phylogenetic relation- proach taken by these early investigators
Diagnostic and control features with magnetic bearings

The authors investigate the use of a rotating force field applied to a stationary rotor to investigate the critical speeds, amplification factor, rubs and other rotor dynamic phenomena while the shaft remains stationary. A laboratory rotor is supported by magnetic bearings and the rotating force field is implemented using the magnetic bearing coils. This approach could easily be employed for diagnostic work on either new machines or machines with field problems without high-speed operation. By using various input perturbation signals, such as white noise, sine wave, or step function, and a rotating force field, knowledge of the characteristics of the magnetic bearing properties and of the overall system is obtained. Optimal setting of proportional and derivative gains, which control the stiffness and damping, critical speeds, amplitude response, clearance magnitudes, amplification factor, log decrement, damping factor and mode shapes, can all be experimentally obtained from the magnetic bearing system before the rotor is run up in speed. Diagnostic data are shown to be very similar to data obtained from actual run-up information. >
Network bargaining: algorithms and structural results

We consider models for bargaining in social networks, in which players are represented by vertices and edges represent bilateral opportunities for deals between pairs of players. Each deal yields some fixed wealth if its two players can agree on how to divide it; otherwise it yields no wealth. In such a setting, Chakraborty and Kearns (WINE 2008) introduced a simple axiomatic model that stipulates an equilibrium concept in which all players are rationally satisfied with their shares. We further explore that equilibrium concept here. In particular, we give an FPTAS to compute approximate equilibrium in bipartite graphs. We also show that equilibrium is not unique, and give conditions that ensure uniqueness on regular graphs. Finally, we explore the effect of network structure on solutions given by our model, using simulation methods and statistical analysis.
Shielded enclosure accuracy improvements for MIL-STD-461E radiated emissions measurements

Radiated emissions measurements performed in accordance with MIL-STD-461E require the use of a shielded enclosure to prevent measurement contamination by ambient environmental signals. Unfortunately, these metallic enclosures add errors due to resonant effects. A simple test procedure, validated by finite difference time domain modeling, has been developed to characterize the HF response of a shielded enclosure. This procedure was used to improve the accuracy of a typical shielded enclosure while remaining compliant to the requirements of MIL-STD-461E.
Phone-mediated word alignment for speech recognition evaluation

The authors present an algorithm that produces a word-based alignment of two text strings by postprocessing the output of a phone-based alignment procedure. The alignment is performed using an unconstrained endpoint optimization, and minimizes the readjustment of word boundaries as determined by the phone-level alignment. Although the word-level recognition performance summaries were not strikingly different from those of similar word-based alignment procedures, the actual word alignments from the phone-mediated system were better. The present level of performance of the system has proved to be acceptable for a variety of applications, including evaluation of speech recognition system performance. >
Analytical Theory of Three-Degree-of-Freedom Aircraft Wing Rock

Multiple-degree-of-freedom wing-rock cases are usually studied using numerical methods because of the complexity of the problem. Recently, a methodology combining the Multiple Time Scales method, center manifold reduction principle, and bifurcation theory has been developed for obtaining an accurate representation of the two-degree-of-freedom wing-rock dynamics in a parametric form. Such solutions offer an advantage over numerical solutions in that the interdependence of the important parameters affecting the dynamic properties of the system can be easily seen. Also, the fast and slow dynamics of the system are systematically separated, leading to more insight into the complex dynamics of the aircraft. This paper extends the methodology to the more difficult case of wing rock on an aircraft having three rotational degrees of freedom. The excellent accuracy of the analytical solution is then demonstrated by comparison with the numerical result.
Search engines and their public interfaces: which apis are the most synchronized?

Researchers of commercial search engines often collect datausing the application programming interface (API) or by"scraping" results from the web user interface (WUI), butanecdotal evidence suggests the interfaces produce differentresults. We provide the first in-depth quantitative analysisof the results produced by the Google, MSN and Yahoo APIand WUI interfaces. After submitting a variety of queriesto the interfaces for 5 months, we found significant discrepanciesin several categories. Our findings suggest that theAPI indexes are not older, but they are probably smaller for Google and Yahoo. Researchers may use our findings tobetter understand the differences between the interfaces andchoose the best API for their particular types of queries.
The Power of Contexts: Teaching and Learning in Recently Desegregated Schools

The following critical ethnography interrogates what it means for urban students to learn in multicultural ways, given the oppressive historical and present contexts of their newly desegregated urban district. By retelling events that occurred in the district and the classroom, I present a picture of urban students who are willing to learn and engage in classroom activities when the activities do not threaten their emotional safety. Although their actions are understandable, the students' conscious decisions to disengage from school stifles learning opportunities that would allow them to empathize and connect with other students as a move toward individual and group empowerment. Using critical race theory, I problematize the possibilities for successful multicultural classrooms in urban districts with complex legacies of injustice and racial hostility.
The role of organizational culture and values in the performance of critical infrastructure systems

Civil infrastructures are vital to a nation's economy and quality of life because modern economies rely on the ability to move goods, people, and information safely and reliably. It is therefore of utmost importance that the flow of services they provide continue unimpeded despite a broad range of hazards. This linkage between systems and services is critical: for although infrastructures may be discussed in terms of hardware, it is the services they provide that are of real value to the public. Definitions of infrastructures should therefore include institutions and people in addition to technological artifacts. This paper explores linkages between physical systems and the organizations and social networks that support them. Drawing on various examples, including the loss of two space shuttles, the September 11, 2001 attacks, and the 2003 northeast power blackout, it demonstrates that organizational culture and values are critical to the reliability and resiliency of infrastructure systems
Interfaces, modularity and path lengths: the costs of implementing OSI transport

Performance of communication software is influenced both by the underlying protocol architecture and by implementation. The debate as to which of the two kinds of factors dominates the overall performance has been going on for many years. The author discusses this issue by reporting on detailed performance measurements of his experimental OSI transport system. He focuses on the analysis and classification of the path lengths involved during data transfer, obtaining insight into the relative costs of protocol functions versus system-level design and implementation choices. His main conclusion is that adherence to general-purpose protocol standards is not the true bottleneck. The desire to provide a flexible general-purpose portable implementation with open inter-layer interfaces causes most of the overhead. >
Efficient Real-Time Generation of Bit-Wise Parallel Representations of Oversampled Carrier Replicas

An algorithm has been developed that efficiently generates in-phase and quadrature carrier replicas over a range of Doppler shift frequencies and initial phase offsets. This algorithm provides a new method that aids in bit-wise parallel baseband mixing of signals in software radios, specifically targeted at GNSS radios. Bit-wise parallel correlation, of which one step is baseband mixing, provides a processing time speed-up when correlating signals that are digitized to a low number of bits, as opposed to the standard multiply-and-accumulate correlation. The new algorithm makes use of the small phase differences between a set of signals that have a large ratio of the IF to the Doppler shift frequency. It uses specially-designed look-up tables to generate carrier replicas on-the-fly. This new algorithm can efficiently generate bit-packed carrier replicas using a small look-up table (10-100 s of kBytes).
Reducing Interparental Conflict among Parents in Contentious Child Custody Disputes: An Initial Investigation of the Working Together Program.

Interparental conflict is one of the primary risk factors for negative outcomes for children whose parents separate, and it is likely to be high while parents are separating. Results are mixed regarding the effectiveness of interventions aimed at reducing interparental conflict. This study examined co-parents who were court-ordered to attend a 12-hr co-parenting intervention and completed pre-postassessments (n = 20) and 2-month follow-up assessments (n = 17). The results demonstrated increases in co-parents' relationship functioning and confidence in co-parenting. Both men and women reported decreased amounts of conflict in the presence of their children; however, only women reported decreases in general negative communication with the co-parent. These changes were generally maintained at a 2-month follow-up assessment. These findings suggest that interventions for high-conflict co-parents may increase their ability to work cooperatively.
The 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge

The presentation describes the development of an autonomous vehicle system that participated in the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge event. After a brief description of the event, the architecture, based on version 3.0 of the DoD Joint Architecture for Unmanned Systems (JAUS), and design of the system are presented in detail. In particular, the "smart sensor" concept is introduced which provided a standardized means for each sensor to present data for rapid integration and arbitration. Information about the vehicle design, system localization, perception sensors, and the dynamic planning algorithms that were used is then presented in detail. Subsequently, testing results and performance results are presented. Lastly, current activities related to the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge are presented.
The Retinoids and Cancer Prevention Mechanisms

Carcinogenesis is a multistep process that converts normal cells into malignant cells. Once transformed, malignant cells acquire the ability to invade and metastasize, leading to clinically evident disease. During this continuum from normal to metastatic cells, carcinogenic steps can be arrested or reversed through pharmacological treatments, known as cancer chemoprevention. Chemoprevention strategies represent therapeutic interventions at early stages of carcinogenesis, before the onset of invasive cancer. Effective chemoprevention should reduce or avoid the clinical consequences of overt malignancies by treating early neoplastic lesions before development of clinically apparent signs or symptoms. Preclinical, clinical, and epidemiological data provide considerable support for cancer chemoprevention as an attractive therapeutic strategy. This clinical approach was validated in the recent tamoxifen randomized trial, demonstrating that a selective estrogen receptor modulator reduces the risk of breast cancer in women at high risk for this malignancy. Derivatives of vitamin A, the retinoids, have reported activity in treating specific premalignant lesions and reducing incidence of second primary tumors in patients with prior head and neck, lung or liver cancers. Whether the retinoids will prevent primary cancers at these sites is not yet known. Notably, a carotenoid (beta-carotene) was shown as inactive in primary prevention of lung cancers in high-risk individuals. This underscores the need for relevant in vitro models to identify pathways signaling chemopreventive effects. These models should assess the activity of candidate chemoprevention agents before the conduct of large and costly prevention trials. An improved understanding of cancer prevention mechanisms should aid in the discovery of new therapeutic targets and chemoprevention agents. Ideally, these agents should have tolerable clinical toxicities suitable for chronic administration to individuals at high risk for developing primary or second cancers. This article reviews what is now known from clinical and preclinical studies about the retinoids as cancer prevention agents.
Segmentation of MR images using neural nets

A two tier system for MR image segmentation is proposed. The first stage involves probabilistically classifying the pixels of the input image based on second order grey level statistics obtained from the co-occurrence matrix. These probabilities then form the input to a multi-layer perceptron, allowing contextual constraints to be applied to local areas of the image thereby improving the spatial coherence of the classification.
Once-monthly Ibandronate for postmenopausal Osteoporosis: Review of a new dosing regimen

Abstract Background: Ibandronate, a nitrogen-containing bisphosphonate, was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in May 2003 as a daily oral regimen for the treatment and prevention of post-menopausal osteoporosis. In March 2005, the FDA approved once-monthly dosing with ibandronate for the same indications. Objective: The purpose of this article was to review the efficacy and tolerability of ibandronate 150 mg once monthly in the treatment and prevention of post-menopausal osteoporosis. Methods: A search of MEDLINE (1966-September 2005) and International Pharmaceutical Abstracts (1971-September 2005) for articles relating to the efficacy and tolerability of once-monthly ibandronate in the treatment of postmenopausal osteoporosis was conducted using the terms ibandronate and ibandronic acid . Additional searches were conducted to identify publications relevant to compliance and pharmacoeconomic considerations using the terms bispbospbonate, compliance, cost , and pharmacoeconomics . The reference lists of identified articles and presentations from recent scientific meetings also were reviewed. Selected safety information from the manufacturer was incorporated. Results: Ibandronate 2.5 mg/d and intermittent ibandronate (20 mg QOD for 12 doses every 3 months) have been shown to effectively reduce the incidence of vertebral fractures; after 3 years of therapy in a placebo-controlled clinical trial, the relative risk reductions for new vertebral fractures with daily and intermittent ibandronate were 62% and 50%, respectively (both, P P = 0.002). The overall adverse-event profile was similar between the daily and monthly regimens. Drug-related adverse events were reported in 32.4% of patients receiving ibandronate 2.5 mg/d and 36.9% of patients receiving ibandronate 150 mg monthly. Upper gastrointestinal adverse events occurred in a respective 22.8% and 22.5% of the 2 groups. After 1 year of therapy, patients receiving ibandronate 150 mg monthly reported more flulike symptoms (8.3%) compared with those receiving ibandronate 2.5 mg/d (2.8%). In a crossover study comparing preference for and convenience of monthly ibandronate and weekly alendronate in 342 ambulatory women with postmenopausal osteoporosis, significantly more patients preferred the monthly ibandronate regimen to the weekly alendronate regimen (71.4% vs 28.5%, respectively; P Conclusion: Once-monthly ibandronate is an effective and well-tolerated treatment option for postmenopausal osteoporosis.
Recognizing Complex Human Activities via Crowd Context

This chapter examines the problem of classifying collective human activities from video sequences. A collective activity is defined by the existence of the coherent behavior among individuals in a spatial and temporal neighborhood. Examples of collective activities are queuing in a line or talking. Such types of activities cannot be just defined by considering actions of individuals in isolation but rather by observing the interactions of nearby individuals in time and space. In this chapter we discuss recent methods for analyzing collective activities through the concept of crowd context. We present various solutions for modeling the crowd context and demonstrate the flexibility and scalability of the proposed framework in a number of experiments on publicly available datasets of collective human activities.
Patterns of fluid accumulation on screening ultrasonography for blunt abdominal trauma: comparison with site of injury.

The objectives of this study were to define where fluid accumulation is shown on screening ultrasonography after blunt abdominal trauma and to determine how fluid accumulation patterns are associated with the site of injury. From 1994 to 1998, 2,693 screening examinations for blunt abdominal trauma were performed, in which 7 regions were examined for fluid. On the basis of a preliminary analysis of patients with solitary injuries, all 194 patients with sonographically detected fluid were grouped by fluid accumulation pattern. Fluid patterns were compared with sites of injury. The patterns differed between hepatic and splenic injuries. Fluid in the left upper quadrant, in both upper quadrants, or diffusely distributed suggested splenic injury, whereas fluid in the right upper quadrant or the right upper quadrant and lower recesses suggested hepatic injury (P < .0001). Fluid accumulation was random after enteric injury. Patients with extraperitoneal injury had no fluid or had fluid focally at the injury site. The ability to predict the injury site on the basis of fluid patterns should expedite treatment of hemodynamically unstable patients with blunt abdominal trauma.
Res Extensa and the Space-Time Continuum

In the following pages I propose to suggest, rather than to demonstrate, the relevance of the philosophical perspective of Benedictus de Spinoza to a view of the current state and future progress of physical theory. To what extent these suggestions can be made more concrete or more firmly grounded is a task which cannot be fruitfully explored in a short exposition, but perhaps the desirability of further thought and exploration concerning these matters can be indicated.
Molecular Staging of Sentinel Lymph Nodes Identifies Melanoma Patients at Increased Risk of Nodal Recurrence

Background Molecular staging of sentinel lymph nodes (SLNs) may identify patients who are node-negative by standard microscopic staging but are at increased risk for regional nodal recurrence; such patients may benefit from completion lymph node dissection (CLND). Study Design In a multicenter, randomized clinical trial, patients with tumor-negative SLNs by standard pathology (hematoxylin and eosin [H and E] serial sections and immunohistochemistry [IHC]) underwent reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis of SLNs for melanoma-specific mRNA. Microscopically negative/PCR+ patients were randomized to observation, CLND, or CLND with high-dose interferon (HDI). For this post-hoc analysis, clinicopathologic features and survival outcomes, including overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS), were compared between PCR+ patients who underwent CLND vs observation. Microscopic and molecular node-negative (PCR-) patients were included for comparison. Results A total of 556 patients were PCR+: 180 underwent observation, and 376 underwent CLND. An additional 908 PCR- patients were observed. Median follow-up was 72 months. Disease-free survival (DFS) was significantly better for PCR+ patients who underwent CLND compared with observation (p = 0.0218). No statistically significant differences in OS or distant disease-free survival (DDFS) were seen. Regional lymph node recurrence-free survival (LNRFS) was improved in PCR+ patients with CLND compared to observation (p = 0.0065). The PCR+ patients in the observation group had the worst DFS; those with CLND had similar DFS to that in the PCR- group (p = 0.9044). Conclusions Patients with microscopically negative/PCR+ SLN have an increased risk of nodal recurrence that was mitigated by CLND. Although CLND did not affect OS, these data suggest that molecular detection of melanoma-specific mRNA in the SLN predicts a greater risk of nodal recurrence and deserves further study.
The immune response of channel catfish. I. Basic responsiveness to soluble and viral antigens.

Channel catfish (Ictalurus punctatus) were immunized with bovine serum albumin (BSA) or vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV). Groups of catfish, housed in cages in a pond, were immunized by intramuscular (IM) injection of single doses of BSA or VSV or 2 doses of BSA or VSV given 1 week apart. Other groups of catfish were immunized with 1 IM injection of BSA or VSV incorporated in Freund's complete adjuvant (FCA). The antibody responses were measured at weekly intervals. Passive hemagglutination was used for detection of anti-BSA antibodies, and serumneutralization was used for detection of anti-VSV antibodies. A significant antibody response occurred in those catfish immunized with either BSA or VSV incorporated in FCA. One injection of BSA or VSV in physiologic saline induced little or no detectable antibody production. Two injections of BSA or VSV in physiologic saline induced a slight transcient antibody response between the third and fourth week post-injection.