cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Patterns of substance use initiation among young adolescents in a Northern Plains American Indian tribe.

Background: Substantial evidence documents problematic substance use in Northern Plains American Indian communities. Studies suggest that disparities can be traced to disproportionate rates of early substance use, but most evidence comes from the retrospective reports of adults or older adolescents. Objective: To use a prospective longitudinal design to examine substance use initiation patterns as they emerge among young American Indian adolescents. Methods: Four waves of data were collected across three consecutive school years from middle school students on a Northern Plains reservation (N = 450). Discrete-time survival analyses were used to estimate risks of initiation of cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana from age 10 to 13. Results: Risk for cigarette initiation was relatively high at age 10 and stable until age 13. Marijuana risk was low at age 10 but increased sharply by age 12. Alcohol initiation lagged, not surpassing risk for cigarette initiation until age 13 and remaining below risk for marijuan...
Near-Best Approximation by Averaging Polynomial Interpolants

Definition des projections Mn-1, a ppliquant la famille A(C) des fonctions analytiques dans le disque-unite et continues sur la frontiere dans l'espace des polynomes de degre n-1 au plus. Construction d'un polynome image typique par homogeinisation de m polynomes induits par interpolation. Expression exacte de la norme d'operateur de Mn-1,m. Caracterisation du comportement asymptotique de ∥M n−1,m ∥ ∞ pour m→∞ et n→∞
The movement of soil materials during a rainy season in Western Nigeria

Abstract The relation between slope properties, precipitation, movement of soil materials and are examined in western Nigeria during a single growing season. During the first two years after the ground cover was cleared for agriculture, a prior study using the same twenty-two runoff plots, indicated that loss increases as slope gradient increases. Results from this investigation indicate that losses of soil materials, five years after the land was cleared, are greatest not on the steepest slopes but on the 5-percent slopes. This occurs even though a thick weathered layer of soil materials still exists on the steeper slopes. Additionally, significant loss occurs in only a few rain events per wet season. The majority of rain events cause soil-particle movement by rainsplash, but only rains having intensities greater than about 2.5 cm/h result in actual loss. For individual storms, the maximum movement of soil particles is about 4 m. Thus, soil materials appear to move downslope in a conveyor-belt progression for high-frequency rains. No relation is found between plot length and loss. Finally, a method for determining textural changes resulting from erosion over short time periods is presented. This method which requires minimal equipment, appears useful for areas where soils are comprised of a wide range of particle sizes.
Flexibility-based large increment method for analysis of elastic-perfectly plastic beam structures

This paper presents the derivation and implementation of a flexibility-based large increment method (LIM) for solving nonlinear structural problems. The finite element displacement and force approaches have been developed for solving nonlinear structural problem. The displacement-based finite element method requires a step-by-step approach for material nonlinear analysis that depends on flow theory. Furthermore, significant mesh refinement is often required in plastic zones. The main advantage of the LIM is that it separates the usage of the three-system equation into two stages, global linear stage and local nonlinear stage. Here LIM formulations are developed for two-dimensional beam elements controlled by an elastic-fully plastic material model. These new formulations are demonstrated using simple nonlinear problems and the results are compared to those obtained from the displacement method. The examples highlight the accuracy and the computational efficiency of the flexibility-based large increment method for this class of structural problems.
Modeling and applications of new piezoelectric actuator technologies

Traditional piezoelectric actuators have been a mainstay in numerous applications such as precision positioning systems, sonar and medical ultrasound imaging. More recently, new types of piezoelectric actuators have been developed, including transverse mode actuators such as THUNDER and flexible actuators like Micro-fiber composites (MFC). Yet, many aspects of these actuators are still not well understood and have not been adequately modeled. We will present some Finite Element models that represent the manufacturing process of THUNDER actuators as well as their response to DC electric fields and compare the model to experimental results. In addition, we will present experimental results of THUNDER response to AC fields at or near the fundamental resonance frequency. We will compare the results to a nonlinear theory originally developed for piezodriven cantilevers for atomic force microscopes (AFM). Finally, we will briefly mention an aeronautical application of MFC actuators.
Synergistic activation of protein kinase Calpha, -betaI, and -gamma isoforms induced by diacylglycerol and phorbol ester: roles of membrane association and activating conformational changes.

Protein kinase Calpha (PKCalpha) has been shown to contain two discrete activator sites with differing binding affinities for phorbol esters and diacylglycerols. The interaction of diacylglycerol with a low-affinity phorbol ester binding site leads to enhanced high-affinity phorbol ester binding and to a potentiated level of activity [Slater, S. J., Ho, C., Kelly, M. B., Larkin, J. D. , Taddeo, F. J., Yeager, M. D., and Stubbs, C. D. (1996) J. Biol. Chem. 271, 4627-4631]. In this study, the mechanism of this enhancement of activity was examined with respect to the Ca2+ dependences of membrane association and accompanying conformational changes that lead to activation. The association of PKCalpha with membranes containing 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol 13-acetate (TPA) or 1, 2-dioleoylglycerol (DAG), determined from tryptophan to dansyl-PE resonance energy transfer (RET) measurements, was found to occur at relatively low Ca2+ levels (</=1 microM). However, PKCalpha was found to be inactive even though membrane association was complete at these Ca2+ levels and further titration of Ca2+ to a concentration of approximately 100 microM was required for activation. This increase in Ca2+ concentration also led to a further increase in RET, which was due to a Ca2+-induced activating conformational change, as verified by an accompanying increase in the PKCalpha tryptophan fluorescence anisotropy. Coaddition of DAG and TPA resulted in a reduction in the Ca2+ levels required for both the conformational change and enzyme activation. Also, it was found that incubation of the enzyme with TPA alone resulted in a time-dependent increase in the Ca2+-independent PKCalpha activity, the rate and extent of which was further enhanced upon coaddition with DAG. Tauhe results suggest that the enhanced level of activity induced by coaddition of DAG and TPA involves both Ca2+-dependent and Ca2+-independent activating conformational changes which result in active conformers of PKCalpha distinct from those formed by interaction with either activator separately.
Enhancement of γ-glutamylcysteine synthetase mRNA in rat kidney by methyl mercury

Abstract Glutathione (GSH), a major cellular antioxidant, is elevated 2- to 3-fold in kidneys of rats during prolonged treatment with mercury as methyl mercury hydroxide (MMH). Increased renal GSH is accompanied by a dose-and time-related elevation in the relative abundance of mRNA hybridizable to a cDNA probe which encodes renal γ-glutamylcysteine synthetase (GCS), the rate-limiting enzyme in GSH synthesis. Renal GCS mRNA is maximally elevated 4.4-fold at 3 weeks following initiation of MMH treatment. Enhancement of GSH and GCS mRNA content corresponds to a relative sparing of renal cells from oxidative tissue damage during MMH exposure. These observations suggest that increased synthesis of GSH at the genetic level occurs as an initial adaptive response to mercury-induced oxidative stress in kidney cells.
Numerical investigation of inter-zonal boundary conditions for data center thermal analysis

Abstract The computation time for predicting optimum thermal operating conditions in data center facilities using compact thermal modeling tools is significantly reduced compared to a three dimensional, simulation-based optimization methodology. However, applying compact models to configurations outside of the geometry and operating conditions used for model development often results in inaccurate predictions. In order to model a complicated geometry, a potential remedy is to partition the room layout into a finite number of characteristic zones to which the compact models readily apply. Here, a multiple hot aisle/cold aisle data center configuration was analyzed using CFD simulations of the entire room. The room was then partitioned into two zones and the full room simulations were used to quantify the air flow across the inter-zonal partitions. The inter-zonal conditions are then used to extend the solution results from a single zone to a multiple zone configuration. Two specific room configurations are considered where the computer room air conditioning units (CRACs) are located either at the same end or opposite ends of the cold aisle. The method is found to work well when the CRACs are located at opposite ends of the cold aisles.
SAR image formation using phase-history data from nonuniform aperture

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery is formed using radar data collected from a moving platform (aircraft, vehicle, human, etc.). The radar transmits and receives backscatter signals in the down-range direction at a fixed pulse repetition interval (PRI) while the platform moves along the cross-range direction (called along-track) to generate a synthetic aperture. In the ideal situation, the platform moves at a constant speed and as a result, the radar will collect the phase-history data that are uniformly sampled along the aperture. However, in many situations the radar platform cannot be kept at a constant speed, e.g. a helicopter maneuvering over an imaging area for surveillance. The problem is even worse in the case of urban warfare with human-borne radar. A soldier moves at his own speed and creates erratic aperture sections with phase-history data that are either sparse or dense. The collected SAR data in such situation will result in SAR imagery with severe artifacts that might prevent us from detecting targets of interest. In this paper, we will present the SAR imagery of non-uniform aperture data formed using the backprojection image formation algorithm. Although the backprojection image former is well suited to an arbitrary radar aperture, the SAR image artifacts are obvious from the nonuniform aperture. Using the nonuniform aperture phase-history data, we interpolate the data using a uniform grid along the aperture. We will show the resulting imagery with reduced artifacts. We use both simulated data and the Army Research Lab BoomSAR data to illustrate the artifacts generated by nonuniform sampling and the improvement using this interpolation technique.
Prepositional Phases: The Political Effects of Art on Audience

Social realism, postmodernism, modernism, and romanticism have all been pressed to resist politically the excesses of modern industrial society. The purported political fortes of these movements ca...
Surgeon Variation in Patient Quality of Life After Radical Prostatectomy

Purpose: We assessed variation among surgeons in patient quality of life outcomes.Materials and Methods: A survey of standard questions used to examine current urinary and sexual function was mailed to 1,500 randomly selected patients from the Utah Cancer Registry who met certain criteria, including prostatectomy for cancer cure more than 1 year previously, current age 70 years or less and no metastatic disease or other cancer therapy. Questionnaire information was linked to cancer registry and hospital discharge abstract information. Hierarchical mixed models were used to examine whether surgeons varied with respect to risk adjusted outcomes.Results: The cooperation rate was 64%. Of the 678 qualifying responders 22% reported leaking urine more than once per day, 7% used more than 1 pad per day and 40% reported no erection without medication. Surgeon variation was significant for 3 patient outcomes, including erectile strength, urine leakage and length of hospital stay (each p <0.001). Surgeon risk adjust...
Concurrent Exposure to Heat Shock and H7 Synergizes to Trigger Breast Cancer Cell Apoptosis while Sparing Normal Cells

Most cancer therapies, including chemotherapy, kill tumor cells by inducing apoptosis. Consequently, the propensity of tumor cells to evade apoptotic signals contributes to therapeutic resistance. Here we show that breast cancer cells exhibiting a highly resistant phenotype undergo apoptosis when exposed to concurrent heat shock and H7, a potent serine/threonine kinase inhibitor. The anti-tumor effects of this combination are synergistic as neither treatment alone adversely affects breast cancer cell growth/survival. In contrast, non-malignant breast epithelial and hematopoietic progenitor cells are resistant to this combination therapy, thereby excluding non-specific cytotoxicity as the cause of tumor cell apoptosis. Heat or other cell stresses, including chemotherapy, preferentially enhance heat shock protein (hsp) synthesis, which serves to protect cells from potentially lethal consequences of heat shock stimuli. Ectopic overexpression of hsps in breast cancer cells protects against chemotherapy-induced apoptosis. Furthermore, increased hsps in primary breast cancers correlates with resistance to therapy and decreased survival. Stress-induced hsp synthesis is mediated by heat shock transcription factor 1 (HSF1). To simulate hsp overexpressing primary breast cancers, a number of breast cancer cell lines were transfected with HSF1d202-316, a constitutively activated form of HSF1 that leads to baseline overexpression of hsps in the absence of stress. Importantly, HSF1d202-316 transfected breast cancer cells undergo apoptosis following concurrent heat shock and H7. In light of its tumor selective activity against breast cancer cells that exhibit a highly resistant phenotype, concurrent H7 and heat shock warrants further investigation as a potential cancer therapy.
Simplification and Second Language Acquisition.

The role and effects of simplification in second foreign language (L2) acquisition have been a contentious issue dating back to the early 1930s (e.g., Redman, 1932). The importance of modifications made to L2 input has been underscored in second language acquisition (SLA) for its effects on facilitating L2 learners’ comprehension (e.g., Hatch, 1983; Kelch, 1985). In addition, it has been argued that, because simplified or modified input facilitates comprehension, it indirectly has an effect on acquisiton by providing learners’ developing linguistic sysems with more grammatical information (e.g., Krashen, 1985; Long, 1983, 1985). This article provides a critical review of current empirical L2 studies that have attempted to address the effects of simplification on L2 learners’ comprehension and intake in the written and aural modes. It is argued that the issue of the role and effects of simplification on learners’ comprehension and intake remains contentious and two clearly defined research areas are provided.
Methods for Mediation Analysis with Missing Data

Despite wide applications of both mediation models and missing data techniques, formal discussion of mediation analysis with missing data is still rare. We introduce and compare four approaches to dealing with missing data in mediation analysis including listwise deletion, pairwise deletion, multiple imputation (MI), and a two-stage maximum likelihood (TS-ML) method. An R package bmem is developed to implement the four methods for mediation analysis with missing data in the structural equation modeling framework, and two real examples are used to illustrate the application of the four methods. The four methods are evaluated and compared under MCAR, MAR, and MNAR missing data mechanisms through simulation studies. Both MI and TS-ML perform well for MCAR and MAR data regardless of the inclusion of auxiliary variables and for AV-MNAR data with auxiliary variables. Although listwise deletion and pairwise deletion have low power and large parameter estimation bias in many studied conditions, they may provide useful information for exploring missing mechanisms.
SIMPLE SEPARATION OF RABBIT MARROW MYELOID CELLS FROM ERYTHROID CELLS.

MEL has recently reviewed the sedimentation properties of nucleated and non-nucleated cells in normal rat bone marrow1. The complex nature of the factors that are involved in the separation of marrow cells by sedimentation technique are emphasized in his comprehensive paper. Tsuji reported a method for separation of guinea-pig bone marrow cells by using layers of gum acacia solutions of varying densities2. Myeloid cells were obtained in practically pure state. Gradient techniques involving several kinds of solutions, such as sucrose and bovine plasma albumin, have been used by others3.
Promotion of Pretend Play for Children with High-Functioning Autism Through the Use of Circumscribed Interests

The purpose of this paper is to describe effective methods of developing pretend play that is intrinsically motivating for young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) using the topic of circumscribed interests. Children with ASD often develop very specialized interests, known as Circumscribed Interests (CI). However, their limited and intense interests are often perceived by others, especially by parents, as interfering with their learning and social interactions with others. This paper reports how one parent fostered pretend play in her preschool child with autism based on his CI in “trains.” Four steps for promoting pretend play for preschool children with autism using their topic of interest are presented. These include (1) Creating a web, (2) Modeling pretend play through use of divergent materials, (3) Modeling verbal interaction in pretend play, and (4) Providing theme boxes and field trips/excursions. The author concludes that the four steps are useful for not only fostering their active involvement in pretend play, but also in helping their topic of special interest expand into a wide range of pretend play. In addition, creating webs based on CI may enable caregivers or teachers to intentionally provide meaningful experience with specific outcomes in mind for children with autism.
Progress in the dissection and manipulation of plant vitamin E biosynthesis

Plants contain many unique biosynthetic pathways producing a diverse array of natural products that are important for plant function, agriculture, and human nutrition. The tocochromanols define one such class of compounds, comprised of four tocopherols and four tocotrienols that are collectively termed vitamin E. Tocochromanols are synthesized only by plants and other oxygenic, photosynthetic organisms, and the eight individual compounds vary widely in their vitamin E activities. Vitamin E was recognized as an essential component in mammalian diets in the 1920s and the tocochromanol biosynthetic pathway elucidated from radiotracer studies in the mid 1980s. However, it is only recently that genetic and genomics-based approaches in model photosynthetic organisms have allowed the genes and proteins for tocochromanol synthesis to be isolated, setting the stage for targeted manipulation of tocochromanol levels and types in various crops. This article reviews advancements in our molecular and genetic understanding of the tocochromanol biosynthetic pathway in the model photosynthetic organisms Arabidopsis thaliana and Synechocystis sp. PCC6803 and highlights ongoing efforts to use this knowledge to manipulate the levels of this essential nutrient in food crops.
A work stealing based approach for enabling scalable optimal sequence homology detection

Sequence homology detection is central to a number of bioinformatics applications including genome sequencing and protein family characterization. Given millions of sequences, the goal is to identify all pairs of sequences that are highly similar (or "homologous") on the basis of alignment criteria. While there are optimal alignment algorithms to compute pairwise homology, their deployment for large-scale is currently not feasible; instead, heuristic methods are used at the expense of quality. Here, we present the design and evaluation of a parallel implementation for conducting optimal homology detection on distributed memory supercomputers. Our approach uses a combination of techniques from asynchronous load balancing (viz. work stealing, dynamic task counters), data replication, and exact-matching filters to achieve homology detection at scale. Results for 2.56?M sequences on up to 8K cores show parallel efficiencies of ~ 75 % - 100 % , a time-to-solution of 33?s, and a rate of ~ 2.0 M alignments per second. Comprehensive solution to scalable optimal homology detection.First implementation of suffix tree construction using distributed work stealing.Evaluation of many dynamic load balancing strategies for optimal homology detection.Parallel efficiency of 75%-100% for 2.56?M sequences on 8?K cores in 33?s.Peak rate of protein sequence alignments per second (PSAPS) of 2?M.
The transient outward current in mice lacking the potassium channel gene Kv1.4

1 The transient outward current (Ito) plays a prominent role in the repolarization phase of the cardiac action potential. Several K+ channel genes, including Kv1.4, are expressed in the heart, produce rapidly inactivating currents when heterologously expressed, and may be the molecular basis of Ito. 2 We engineered mice homozygous for a targeted disruption of the K+ channel gene Kv1.4 and compared Ito in wild-type (Kv1.4+/+), heterozygous (Kv1.4+/-) and homozygous ‘knockout’ (Kv1.4−/−) mice. Kv1.4 RNA was truncated in Kv1.4−/− mice and protein expression was absent. 3 Adult myocytes isolated from Kv1.4+/+, Kv1.4+/− and Kv1.4−/− mice had large rapidly inactivating outward currents. The peak current densities at 60 mV (normalized by cellular capacitance, in pA pF−1; means ± s.e.m.) were 53.8 ± 5.3, 45.3 ± 2.2 and 44.4 ± 2.8 in cells from Kv1.4+/+, Kv1.4+/− and Kv1.4−/− mice, respectively (P < 0.02 for Kv1.4+/+vs. Kv1.4−/−). The steady-state values (800 ms after the voltage clamp step) were 30.9 ± 2.9, 26.9 ± 3.8 and 23.5 ± 2.2, respectively (P < 0.02 for Kv1.4+/+vs. Kv1.4−/−). The inactivating portion of the current was unchanged in the targeted mice. 4 The voltage dependence and time course of inactivation were not changed by targeted disruption of Kv1.4. The mean best-fitting V½ (membrane potential at 50 % inactivation) values for myocytes from Kv1.4 +/+, Kv1.4+/− and Kv1.4−/− mice were -53.5 ± 3.7, -51.1 ± 2.6 and -54.2 ± 2.4 mV, respectively. The slope factors (k) were -10.1 ± 1.4, -8.8 ± 1.4 and -9.5 ± 1.2 mV, respectively. The fast time constants for development of inactivation at -30 mV were 27.8 ± 2.2, 26.2 ± 5.1 and 19.6 ± 2.1 ms in Kv1.4+/+, Kv1.4+/− and Kv1.4−/− myocytes, respectively. At +30 mV, they were 35.5 ± 2.6, 30.0 ± 2.1 and 28.7 ± 1.6 ms, respectively. The time constants for the rapid phase of recovery from inactivation at -80 mV were 32.5 ± 8.2, 23.3 ± 1.8 and 39.0 ± 3.7 ms, respectively. 5 Nearly the entire inactivating component as well as more than 60 % of the steady-state outward current was eliminated by 1 mm 4-aminopyridine in Kv1.4+/+, Kv1.4+/− and Kv1.4−/− myocytes. 6 Western blot analysis of heart membrane extracts showed no significant upregulation of the Kv4 subfamily of channels in the targeted mice. 7 Thus, Kv1.4 is not the molecular basis of Ito in adult murine ventricular myocytes.
Right hemisphere participation in reading

Abstract This study examined whether the right hemisphere's contribution to lexical semantic processing is greatest when it is “disinhibited.” Skilled reading may require the controlled modulation of interhemispheric interaction: the left hemisphere (or some other control mechanism) may regulate the subprocesses of reading by selectively “inhibiting” and “disinhibiting” right hemisphere function. Right-handed undergraduates concurrently performed two tasks: a lateralized semantic or rhyme task and a verbal memory task. It was hypothesized that right hemisphere reading processes would be disinhibited when the left hemisphere was “occupied” with the memory task. This hypothesis was supported for a subgroup of subjects who showed evidence of inhibition of right hemisphere function (i.e., left hemisphere dominance for lexical processing) when the lateralized semantic task was performed alone. Across subjects, there was a strong correlation between the degree of left hemisphere dominance in the single-task semantic conditions and the degree of disinhibition of right hemisphere function in the dual-task semantic condition.
Influence of Pre‐drying Treatments on Quality and Safety of Sun‐dried Tomatoes. Part I: Use of Steam Blanching, Boiling Brine Blanching, and Dips in Salt or Sodium Metabisulfite

The effect of various pre-drying treatments on the subsequent quality of sun-dried tomatoes was evaluated by determining moisture, color, rehydration ratio, mold, yeast, sulfur dioxide, and/or salt content. The 4 pre-drying treatments under investigation were (1) steam blanching or (2) boiling brine blanching, followed by gas sulfuring and (3) dipping in either salt (0%, 10%, 15%, 20%) or (4) sodium metabisulfite (0%, 4%, 6%, 8%) for 0, 2.5, 5.0, and 7.5 min. Neither blanching pretreatment improved the quality of the dried product. Salt dipping resulted in significant differences in rehydration ratio, yeast, and salt. The most effective salt pretreatment conditions were a 10% or 15% salt dip for 5 min. Sodium metabisulfite dipping caused significant differences in rehydration ratio, yeast, color, and sulfur dioxide. Dipping tomatoes in 6% or 8% sodium metabisulfite for 5 min before drying established the best color. The 9 pretreatments studied were also evaluated for storage stability at 25 °C and 30% to 34% relative humidity for 3 mo.
DEVELOPMENT OF DIAZIDOALKANE FUEL ADDITIVES FOR LOX/RP-l BOOSTER ENGINES W

Rocketdyne has made significant progress in the area of advanced propellant additives. This paper will discuss the results from that work and will gated as a method to improve the performance of the LOm-1 booster engines. Compared with neat RP-1, the use of these azide additives provides for higher fuel density and an increase in theoretical specific impulse for mixture ratios below 2.6. For the initial evaluation, diazidodecane (N,(CHJloN,or DAD) was used. Four hot fie tests were performed using subscale combustor hardware to determine the effect of DAD on combustion performance. The results from the test program and and preliminary mission studies are discussed. The status of current activities is also reviewed. ion Jntroduct
Expression of the normal human sis/PDGF-2 coding sequence induces cellular transformation

The human sis proto-oncogene contains the coding sequence for one of two polypeptide chains present in preparations of biologically active human platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF). A human clone, c-sis clone 8, which contains all of the v-sis-related sequences present in human DNA, was transcriptionally inactive when transfected into NIH/3T3 cells. When placed under the control of a retrovirus LTR, the clone was transcribed at levels comparable to that observed in cells transformed by SSV DNA. However, c-sis clone 8 DNA did not express detectable sis/PDGF-2 proteins and lacked biologic activity. A putative upstream exon was identified by its ability to detect the 4.2 kb sis-related transcript in certain human cells. When this sequence was inserted in the proper orientation between the LTR and c-sis clone 8, the chimeric molecule acquired high titered transforming activity, comparable to that of SSV DNA. Transformants containing this construct expressed human sis/PDGF-2 translational products. Thus the normal coding sequence for a human growth factor has transforming activity when expressed in an appropriate assay cell.
Signal detection in the presence of weakly dependent noise--I: Optimum detection

The problem of designing robust systems for detecting constant signals in the presence of weakly dependent noise with uncertain statistics is considered. As in Part I of this study, which treated optimum detection in weakly dependent noise, a moving-average representation is used to model the dependence structure of the noise process, with the degree of dependence being parameterized by the averaging weights. Weak dependence is then modeled as the situation in which quantities depending to second or higher order on the averaging weights can be considered to be negligible. Uncertainty in the noise statistics is introduced within this framework by allowing a general type of uncertainty in the univariate statistics of the independent sequence that drives the moving average. To find robust detectors for signals in this type of weakly dependent noise environment, related results concerning robust location estimation in an analogous dependent situation are applied to modify a robust detection system for the corresponding independent-noise case. It is argued here that a robust detector for this dependent noise model is characterized by a least favorable noise distribution which coincides with the distribution that is least favorable for the corresponding independent-noise case. However, the resulting detector design for dependent noise differs from that for independent noise; in particular, the robust detector for dependent noise is based on a linearly corrected version of the influence curve that defines the independent-noise robust detector. The worst-case performance of the proposed robust detector relative to that of the independent-noise robust detector is also analyzed, with the conclusion that the performance of the proposed technique is better, to first order in the averaging weights, in this respect. A modification of this robust detector is also proposed which eliminates some practical disadvantages of this system while retaining equivalent performance to first order. The specific situation of contaminated Gaussian noise is treated in order to illustrate the analysis.
REVIEW OF CONFORMATION-SPECIFIC AFFINITY PURIFICATION METHODS FOR PLASMA VITAMIN K-DEPENDENT PROTEINS

There are seven known vitamin K-dependent proteins in blood. These proteins require calcium ion for expressing their full biological activities. Calcium ion also induces conformational changes in this class of proteins. Taking advantage of the ligand induced conformational changes, a number of unique approaches of affinity chromatography have been developed. These methodologies have been very useful tools for both the purification and for understanding the structure-function relationships of this class of proteins. One method is the use of metal ion dependent immunoaffinity chromatography. The antigen can be dissociated from the antibodies with either the removal or addition of calcium ion under physiological conditions. The other method is pseudoaffinity chromatography. This method uses conventional ion-exchange or hydrophobic resin and manipulates the mobilities of the proteins on these resins by the presence or absence of calcium ions. Researchers working with other calcium binding proteins or other proteins that are known to undergo ligand induced conformational changes may benefit from the experience of these unique conformation-specific affinity chromatography approaches.
The Coase Theorem and Arthur Cecil Pigou

In The Problem of Social Cost, Ronald Coase was highly critical of the work of Cambridge University Economics Professor Arthur Cecil Pigou, presenting him as a radical government interventionist. In later work, Coase’s critique of Pigou became even more strident. In fact, however, Pigou’s Economics of Welfare created the basic tools, including the transaction costs model, that Coase’s later work employed. Much of what we today characterize as the Coase Theorem was either stated or anticipated in Pigou’s work. Further, Coase’s extreme faith in private bargaining blinded him to the problems of bargaining in two-person markets that Pigou saw quite clearly and that remain with us to this day.
The relation between television exposure and theory of mind among preschoolers

This study explored the relation between preschoolers' television exposure and one important indicator of cognitive processing called theory of mind (ToM). A total of 107 preschoolers and their parents provided data on the preschoolers' television exposure (including both intentional viewing and exposure via background television), parent–child discussion of television, and preschoolers' ToM. The results indicated that preschoolers who were exposed to more background television and who had a television in their bedroom performed more poorly on ToM assessments compared with other children. Parent–child discussion of television was positively related to ToM performance, however. These results have implications for how we understand the effects of television on preschoolers.
Third-person effects on publication of a holocaust-denial advertisement

We examine the potential of third-person effects to influence editorial behavior. Two studies investigated college students' judgments about a controversial advertisement and its suitability for publication in their college newspaper. The advertisement in question, printed in many college newspapers in the early 1990s, claimed that the Nazi campaign against the Jews in the World War II was an exaggeration. Study 1 confirmed a correlation between students' third-person effect perceptions and opposition to publishing the advertisement. Jewish students produced larger third-person effects and were significantly less willing to print the advertisement. These results suggest that those with interests at stake perceived the message as especially likely to influence others, and thus dangerous. However, a closer inspection of the data, followed up experimentally in study 2, suggests that both third-person effects and publication decisions were primarily a function of variance in subjects' perceived impact of the message on themselves, not on others. We discuss the implications of these findings for future research.
Moving Beyond the Modeling of Regional Economic Growth: A Study of How Income is Distributed to Rural Households:

This article discusses the use of regional economic modeling techniques to determine the household income distribution impacts associated with various economic sectors. Determining the distribution...
Evolution of quantitative characteristics which are determined by several additive loci

For several models of polygenic traits due to equal and additive alleles the rate of change in allele frequency was estimated. With an amount of selection comparable to the present in several modern studies, evolution appears to be quite fast; so that the rapid change from Neanderthal to modern man could have been accomplished in a very short time evolutionarily speaking.
TRANSIENT SIMULATION VIA EMPIRICALLY BASED COUPLING

In this paper we consider the use of coupling ideas in efficiently computing a certain class of transient performance measures. Specifically, we consider the setting in which the stationary distribution is unknown, and for which no exact means of generating stationary versions of the process is known. In this context, we can approximate the stationary distribution from empirical data obtained from a first-stage steady-state simulation. This empirical approximation is then used in place of the stationary distribution in implementing our coupling-based estimator. In addition to the empirically based coupling estimator itself, we also develop an associated confidence interval procedure.
Cover Letter Appeals and Sponsorship Effects on Mail Survey Response Rates

This article presents results from a study of the effectiveness of different types of sponsorships and appeals in cover letters which accompany mail surveys. It also compares the results of the stu...
Integrating OLAP and Ranking: The Ranking-Cube Methodology

OLAP (on-line analytical processing) and ranking are currently separate technologies in the database systems. OLAP emphasizes on efficient multidimensional data analysis and ranking is good for effective data exploration in massive data. In this paper, we discuss the problem of integrating OLAP and ranking, such that ranking serves as a function block for data analysis and exploration in the OLAP environment. Towards this goal, we present the ranking cube: a semi off-line materialization and semi online computation model. This paper discusses the framework, the implementation issues and the possible extensions of the ranking cube.
Cancer Incidence among Pesticide Applicators Exposed to Alachlor in the Agricultural Health Study

The authors evaluated the incidence of cancer among pesticide applicators with exposure to alachlor in the Agricultural Health Study, a prospective cohort study of licensed pesticide applicators in Iowa and North Carolina. A total of 49,980 pesticide applicators are included in this analysis; 26,510 applicators (53%) reported use of alachlor on the enrollment questionnaire. Detailed pesticide exposure and other information were obtained from a self-administered questionnaire completed at the time of enrollment (1993-1997). Poisson regression analysis was used to evaluate the exposure-response relations between alachlor and cancer incidence controlled for the effects of potential confounding factors. A total of 1,466 incident malignant neoplasms were diagnosed during the study period, 1993-2000. Among alachlor-exposed applicators, the authors found a significant increasing trend for incidence of all lymphohematopoietic cancers associated with lifetime exposure-days (p for trend = 0.02) and intensity-weighted exposure-days (p for trend = 0.03) to alachlor. The risks of leukemia (rate ratio = 2.83, 95% confidence interval: 0.74, 10.9) and multiple myeloma (rate ratio = 5.66, 95% confidence interval: 0.70, 45.7) were increased among applicators in the highest alachlor exposure category. Our findings suggest a possible association between alachlor application and incidence of lymphohematopoietic cancers among applicators in the Agricultural Health Study.
Treating underlying attention deficits as a means for improving conversational discourse in individuals with closed head injury: a preliminary study.

BACKGROUND It is documented that individuals with closed head injury (CHI) demonstrate difficulty with narrative and conversational discourse. Effective conversational discourse requires a complex interaction of linguistic, cognitive, and social abilities [6]. Reduced attention and concentration are among the most common cognitive sequela following CHI [39]. AIMS The present study investigated whether treatment of attention would facilitate conversational discourse for individuals with CHI. Two treatment protocols were investigated, the first social skills-based, and the second attention-based. It was hypothesized that attention training would improve not only attentional skills but also conversation, however social skills training, would only facilitate conversational skills. METHODS AND PROCEDURES A single subject multiple treatments comparison design was employed with two individuals who were post-onset of CHI. Treatment effects on conversational performance were calculated using the f statistic [18] for measures of response appropriateness during conversations. OUTCOMES AND RESULTS Effect sizes suggested that both treatments were active; however, the participants' performances were variable reducing the magnitude of change observed. Results indicated minimal change from baselines, only partially supporting the research hypotheses. CONCLUSIONS Although the two treatment regimens had some effect on the participants' conversational performances it was not to the extent anticipated. The issues of candidacy for such treatments as well as the importance of incorporating natural contingencies into interventions for conversation training are discussed.
Pricing multicasting in more flexible network models

The problem of designing efficient algorithms for sharing the cost of multicasting has recently received considerable attention. In this article, we examine the effect on the complexity of pricing when two flexibility-enhancing mechanisms are incorporated into the network model. In particular, we study a model where the session is offered at a number of different rates of transmission, and where there is a cost for enabling multicasting at each node of the network. We consider two techniques that have been used in practice to provide multiple rates: using a layered transmission scheme (called the layered paradigm) and using different multicast groups for each possible rate (called the split session paradigm). We demonstrate that the difference between these two paradigms has a significant impact on the complexity of pricing multicasting.For the layered paradigm, we provide a distributed algorithm for computing pricing efficiently in terms of local computation and message complexity. For the split session paradigm, on the other hand, we demonstrate that this problem can be solved in polynomial time if the number of possible rates is fixed, but if the number of rates is part of the input, then the problem becomes NP-Hard even to approximate. We also examine the effect of delivering the transmissions for the various rates from different locations within the network. We show that, in this case, the pricing problem becomes NP-Hard for the split session paradigm even for a fixed constant number of possible rates but if layering is used, then it can be solved in polynomial time by formulating the problem as a totally unimodular integer program.
Ruth, the Model Emigrée: Mourning and the Symbolic Politics of Immigration

And we Americans are the peculiar, chosen people—the Israelites of our time.Herman Melville
Workers' Belief in Internal Versus External Determinants of Success

Summary In a study of correlates of belief in internal versus external determinants of success, 1131 full-time male American workers were interviewed and assessed on a variety of demographic and attitudinal dimensions. The results of discriminant analysis and ANOVAS indicated that (a) belief in external control was significantly related to overall job dissatisfaction, (b) black workers expressed greater belief in the importance of external factors as determinants of success, and (c) locus of control did not significantly moderate the relationship between job quality and job satisfaction. These findings are interpreted as extending previous findings in the locus-of-control literature to the adult labor force.
The growth and composition of the U.S. labor force

In sharp contrast with the experiences of all other industrialized nations, the size of the labor force of the United States is growing rapidly while, simultaneously, its age, gender, and ethnic composition are changing markedly. Consequently, human resource issues present an unprecedented challenge in the nation's quest to achieve a fully employed and equitable society. New public policies that focus on labor market adjustment policies will be required if these developments are to be a boon rather than a bane to the emerging postindustrial economy.
Stability of Equatorial Modes in a Simplified Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Model

Abstract The stability, periodicity, and horizontal structure of equatorial modes in a coupled ocean-atmosphere model, simplified by the assumption that zonal wind stress anomalies are proportional to sea surface temperature anomalies lagged by a zonal phase difference, are examined analytically in an unbounded basin. The gravest coupled Rossby and Kelvin modes coexist with additional westward and eastward slow modes whose phase speeds are smaller than the former. Two of these four modes, one propagating westward and the other eastward, are destabilized in each case depending upon the model parameters. For some particular parameter choices. coupled Rossby and Kelvin modes merge with westward and eastward slow modes, respectively. For other parameters, however. they separate and remain distinct from the slow modes. For all of these modes the primary modifications by coupling relative to uncoupled oceanic equatorial waves are a decrease in phase speed and an increase in meridional scale. Among the model par...
Probabilistic Hazard Detection for Autonomous Safe Landing

Future generation of landing craft will autonomously look at the surface during the terminal phase of powered descent and then, in real-time, choose and divert to a safe landing site in order to avoid hazards. Enabling technologies for such capability have been under development in recent years in the Autonomous Landing Hazard Avoidance Technology (ALHAT) project funded by NASA's Exploration Technology Development Program. ALHAT is a comprehensive system that spans the approach and landing events - from de-orbit coasting to touchdown. In this paper, we focus on ALHAT's perception task of detecting hazards in the sensed terrain and of selecting candidate safe sites for landing. This task, named Hazard Detection and Avoidance (HDA), occurs in the middle of the landing sequence. Our approach to HDA employs a probabilistic model in order to better manage the ubiquitous uncertainties associated with noisy sensor measurements and navigation. Also, we explicitly take into account the geometry of the lander and its interaction with the surface when assessing hazards. Experimental results on synthetic Lunar-like terrain show that our HDA algorithm can designate safe landing locations for a variety of terrain types and density and abundance of hazards. The complete ALHAT system is undergoing ground field-testing, and is scheduled for additional field tests on a one-hectare, lunar-like, hazard field recently constructed at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC). Although the focus of ALHAT is on autonomous planetary landings, a number of terrestrial applications can also benefit from out HDA system.
Forced vital capacity in two large outpatient populations with chronic spinal cord injury.

Objective: To determine the expected vital capacity in persons with chronic spinal cord injury (SCI) in relation to injury level, completeness of injury, smoking and duration of injury, as an aid to diagnosis and management of respiratory complications. Setting: A New York City veterans' hospital and a Los Angeles public rehabilitation hospital. Methods: Case series from the two hospitals were pooled. Participants (adult outpatients with SCI of duration >1 year, not ventilator-dependent) were evaluated by conventional forced expiratory spirometry. Cross-sectional analysis was performed, using multiple regression, on the entire population and defined subgroups. The principal outcome measure was forced vital capacity (FVC). Results: In the subjects with complete-motor lesions, FVC ranged from near 100% of normal predicted values in the group with low paraplegia, to less than 50% in those with high tetraplegia. Incomplete lesions mitigated FVC loss in tetraplegia. In subjects with paraplegia, longer duration of injury was associated with greater loss, and smoking-related loss was evident at older but not at younger ages, presumably due to greater pack years in older subjects. Conclusions: Vital capacity/SCI level relationships determined here may have diagnostic and prognostic value. Smoking-related FVC loss is important in persons with SCI as in others, although at higher levels it may be obscured by SCI-related loss. Sponsorship: Supported in part by National Institute of Disability and Rehabilitation Research, Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, US Department of Education (Grants H133N00026, H133B30029, and H133B70011); Eastern Paralyzed Veterans Association; National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (Grant 1P01ES90581-0); and US Environmental Protection Agency (Grant R826708-01-0). Spinal Cord (2001) 39, 263–268.