cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Endoscopic and stroboscopic presentation of the larynx in male-to-female transsexual persons.

Background Male-to-female transsexual (MFT) persons often attempt to produce a female-sounding voice as part of the transition process. Endoscopic and stroboscopic data about how they accomplish this with an anatomically male larynx are lacking. Objectives To describe vocal fold activity in MFT persons producing their feminine voice and identify signs of vocal misuse or hyperfunction in MFT speakers, if any. Study Design Prospective, nonrandomized, descriptive study of a convenience sample of MFT persons. Methods All MFT persons had endoscopic and stroboscopic procedures completed. Images were rated on a range of parameters by two experienced voice therapists to derive the descriptions. MFT participant self-report of voice use/symptoms and listener identifications of speaker gender from a perceptual task were also obtained. Results Incomplete glottal closure was common with a posterior glottal gap predominating. Phase closure ratios also were skewed toward more “open” time for nearly half of the group. Supraglottic constriction was seen to varying degrees in all, and voice complaints were reported by 67% of the group. Conclusions MFT speakers who reported a “passing” feminine voice had glottal gap configurations more similar to anatomic females than males and tended toward more open phase closure ratios, perhaps consistent with breathy or soft voice production. Indications of vocal hyperfunction were present for all participants either by self-report or on the laryngeal examination.
The promise and perils of 'targeted therapy' of advanced ovarian cancer.

For several reasons, ovarian cancer is an excellent malignancy to consider the use of ‘targeted’ therapeutic strategies. However, to date, despite considerable effort, there remains limited evidence t
Epidemiology of hepatitis C in the United States.

Although hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is the most common chronic blood-borne infection in the United States, the annual incidence of new infections has decreased by more than 80% since 1989 to approximately 36,000 new infections by 1996. The Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III) revealed that an estimated 3.9 million US citizens (1.8%) have been infected with HCV. Of these, approximately 2.7 million persons are chronically infected with HCV. Population-based studies indicate that 40% of chronic liver disease is HCV related. Chronic hepatitis C results in an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 deaths each year. Because the prevalence of HCV infection is approximately threefold higher among persons now between 30 and 49 years of age, the number of deaths resulting from HCV-related liver disease could increase substantially during the next 10 to 20 years, as this cohort reaches the ages at which complications from chronic liver disease typically occur. Most people who develop chronic infection may not even be aware that they have been infected, because acute disease is commonly benign. However, infected persons can transmit the disease to others and are at risk for developing chronic liver disease. HCV is transmitted primarily through direct percutaneous exposures to blood. In the United States, blood transfusion accounted for a substantial proportion of HCV infections before 1990, when routine testing began, but now accounts for only a small percentage. Injection drug use is currently the major risk factor for acute HCV infection. Prevention and control of HCV infection in the United States must focus not only on reduction of transmission in groups at high risk of infection (e.g., injection drug users) but also on the early identification of persons with chronic infection.
Utilizing resource-rich nodes in Ad hoc networks

In wireless ad hoc networks heterogeneity is inherent; each node has different characteristics, resources and purpose. Current ad hoc routing protocols do not take node heterogeneity into account when making routing decisions; they consider each node indentical in capabilities. We propose a simple way to modify the route discovery phase of an on-demand routing protocol to choose the "best" route, considering heterogeneity. The Ad hoc On-Demand Distance Vector Routing protocol (AODV) [1] is modified and the performance validated in experimental tests. It is shown that by considering heterogeneity during route discovery, paths that contain more capable nodes are utilized, thereby avoiding resource-poor nodes.
Action of the Thiamine Antagonist Bacimethrin on Thiamine Biosynthesis

Bacimethrin is an analog of the 4-amino-5-hydroxymethyl-2-methylpyrimidine (HMP) moiety of thiamine and inhibits the growth of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium on a defined medium. Two classes of mutants that had increased bacimethrin resistance were isolated and characterized. Results showed that overexpression of the thi operon or specific lesions in thiD resulted in a bacimethrin-resistant phenotype. Phenotypic analyses of the thiD mutants suggested that they had a specific defect in one of the two kinase activities associated with this gene product and, further, that ThiD and not PdxK was primarily responsible for salvage of HMP from the medium.
The Rhetoric of the Hanging Chair Presence, Absence, and Visual Argument in the 2012 Presidential Campaign

The empty chair used by actor-director Clint Eastwood during his headline-grabbing speech at the Republican National Convention is a particularly compelling example of a widely circulated image that resonated for the balance of the 2012 presidential campaign. Eastwood had criticized and mocked the empty chair as if the Democratic president were sitting in it. Following the convention, at least two incidents were reported where an empty chair was hung from a tree by a rope, interpreted by many as racially offensive displays meant to symbolize the lynching of President Barack Obama. Analyzing publicly recognizable images is an important endeavor for rhetorical scholars because images have the capability of embodying public identity and contributing to the formation of public culture. This study investigates how the circulation of particular images, such as the empty chair, during a political campaign may develop verbally unspoken arguments and provide additional insight about American identity as it relates...
Nitric oxide inhibition of soot oxidation by oxygen atoms at 298K

Abstract Nitric oxide is observed to inhibit the rate of soot oxidation by oxygen atoms at 298K. Small amounts of added NO reduce the rates of production of CO 2 and CO by up to 35%. We show experimentally that NO is not reducing the gas phase O atom concentration. Thermal desorption mass spectrometry shows a small adsorption of NO on the soot; this NO adsorption corresponds to 1.5% of the carbon atoms on the surface of the individual soot spheres. This inhibition is interpreted in terms of a relatively small number of reactive sites on the soot at which soot gasification occurs and which are effectively blocked by NO. When considered together with our previously reported work on oxidation of soot by oxygen atoms at 298K, these results allow a partial mechanism to be formulated for this soot oxidation process.
Evaluation of children with multiple endocrine neoplasia type IIb following thyroidectomy.

Abstract Medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) develops in all patients with multiple endocrine neoplasia type IIb (MEN IIb), a rare syndrome that either occurs sporadically or is inherited in an autosomal dominant pattern. The MTC in patients with MEN IIb has been reported to be biologically aggressive with onset at a young age and rapid progression as evidenced by widespread metastases and death, frequently in the teenage years. Seven children, aged 2 to 11 years (mean, 7 years), from three kindreds with MEN IIb were evaluated for evidence of tumor recurrence 3 to 10 years following thyroidectomy. In one child, age 11, a thyroid mass was palpable preoperatively. However, in the remaining six children (aged 2 to 10 years), the diagnosis of MTC was established by an increased concentration of plasma calcitonin (CT), either basally or following pentagastrin (Pg) stimulation. All patients underwent total thyroidectomy with removal of central lymph nodes from the neck. At the time of surgery, six children were found to have bilateral macroscopic MTC, five without and one with cervical metastases. One child (age 2 years) had C-cell hyperplasia, a premalignant precursor of MTC. Currently, five of the seven children are without evidence of recurrent disease clinically and have normal plasma CT levels (less than 0.3 ng/mL) following calcium (Ca) and Pg stimulation 3, 3, 10, 10, and 10 years after thyroidectomy. Two of the seven children have biochemical evidence of residual MTC. The patient with a palpable nodule preoperatively has a stimulated plasma CT level of 20 ng/mL 10 years postoperatively and one child who presented with occult MTC (age 7 years at surgery) has a stimulated plasma CT level of 0.3 ng/mL 3 years after surgery. In contrast to previous published reports and our prior experience, these data indicate that early thyroidectomy in children with MEN IIb may be curative because five of these seven patients have not developed clinical or biochemical evidence of recurrent MTC from 3 to 10 years after thyroidectomy. This observation emphasizes the importance of early diagnosis of affected children by biochemical testing and their treatment by total thyroidectomy.
Mechanisms of aural encoding: I. Distinctive features for consonants

To examine the importance of distinctive features that are used to encode consonants (following Wickelgren’s analysis) in an immediate recall task, sequences of 5 consonants, all paired with the vowel /a/ were constructed and presented aurally for recall. The middle three items in each sequence all had either the same place of articulation (front, middle, or back of the vocal apparatus), orthe same manner of articulation (voiced, unvoiced, or nasal), or were unrelated in either place or manner (control). It was shown that, in comparison with the control sequences, consonants imbedded among others articulated similarly were recalled less accurately, suggesting that these distinctive features are important in encoding and memory maintenance. A comparison of the 3 manner and 3 place features showed that the greatest difficulty in recall occurred for the similar manner sequences (especially voiced and unvoiced, implicating manner of articulation as the critical distinctive feature in aural encoding. Some discussion is also presented of a distinction between articulation and acoustic factors in encoding processes.
Low-dose Methotrexate Therapy for Ocular Inflammatory Disease

Background: Methotrexate is a second-line anti-inflammatory agent used in the treatment of rheumatic diseases. At low doses (12.5 mg/week), it is associated with few serious side effects. Methods: Twenty-two patients (5 men, 17 women) with chronic noninfectious ocular inflammatory disease, who had not responded to or who had become intolerant of corticosteroid or alternate cytotoxic agents, were treated weekly with oral low-dose, pulse methotrexate. Treated diseases included chronic uveitis-vitreitis (9), scleritis (4), inflammatory pseudotumor (3), orbital myositis (3), and retinal vasculitis (3). Results: Follow-up ranged from 2 to 39 months (mean, 11 months). Response time ranged from 3 to 9 weeks (mean, 5 weeks) after implementation of methotrexate therapy. Sixteen of 22 patients had reduction of inflammatory activity. Fourteen of these 16 patients were able to taper or discontinue corticosteroid therapy. Five patients had complete remission of their disease; six patients did not respond to methotrexate. Conclusion: Treatment with low-dose methotrexate appears to be effective therapy for steroid-resistant ocular inflammatory disease.
The nature of quasicleavage fracture in tempered 5.5Ni steel after hydrogen charging

Quenched and tempered 5.5Ni steel was embrittled by hydrogen charging and broken in air at room temperature. The primary fracture mode was transgranular quasicleavage. The quasicleavage facets were studied by scanning electron fractography and by transmission electron microscopy of profile fractographic specimens. The latter were prepared by plating the fracture surface with nickel and thinning so that the fracture surface was contained within the region of the specimen that was transparent to the electron beam. The fracture surface generally followed martensite lath boundaries. In addition, interlath microcracks were frequently found in the material immediately beneath the fracture surface. These results suggest that transgranular hydrogen embrittlement in this steel is primarily an interlath cracking phenomenon. Since the lath boundary planes tend to lie in {110}, the results also explain the prevalence of {110} quasicleavage in the embrittled specimens, which contrasts with the {100} cleavage found in uncharged specimens broken below the ductile-to-brittle transition temperature.
XIOPerf: A Tool for Evaluating Network Protocols

The nature of Grid and distributed computing implies communication between heterogeneous systems over a wide and ever-changing variety of network environments. Often large amounts of data are stored in remote locations and must be transmitted in bulk. It is desirable to have the bulk data transfers be as fast as possible; however, because of the dynamic networks involved, it is often hard to predict what protocol will provide the fastest service for a given situation. In this paper we present XIOPerf, a network protocol testing and evaluation tool. XIOPerf is a command line program written on top of Globus XIO with a simple and well-defined interface to many different protocol implementations. XIOPerf was created to give users a way to quickly and easily experiment with an open-ended set of protocols over real networks to determine which will best suit their needs. We present a brief study of the overhead introduced by XIOPerf and the performance when using a variety of protocols.
Save the Bacon! Primary Sources from Fieldwork

If very long titles were still acceptable, the one for this note would read Save the evidence: A plea for fieldworkers to make the raw materials or primary evidence from their field work accessible to all scholars— Especially all recorded oral data.Ever since ethnographic monographs based on fieldwork were first published, they have raised problems of credibility. In the absence of any evidence at all to test the assertions made, readers of such works have been asked to trust the scholarly authority and integrity of their writers blindly, a stance diametrically contrary to basic tenets in all sciences. It may well be that, at the outset, early practitioners of the craft believed that their observations did not differ in any way from those made by natural scientists in the field—that they needed no evidence because their observations were wholly replicable. Anyone who cared to carry out the experiment—that is, to go to observe the same people in the same field—would find exactly the same situation as described in the monograph. For this was the age of the ethnographic present. Humans were divided into races and tribes, and, just like so many species of songbirds, every human tribe had its own invariant characteristics. A people-watcher need only to enumerate them.
Properties of 3H-cimetidine binding in rat brain membrane fractions.

Abstract In an attempt to characterize the brain histamine H 2 receptor, experiments were undertaken to study the binding properties of (N-methyl- 3 H) -cimetidine, an H 2 receptor antagonist, in rat brain membranes. Using a centrifugation assay, 3 H-cimetidine binding having a K d of 0.40μM and a Bmax of 3.9 pmoles/mg protein was detected. Of fourteen anions and cations tested, one, Cu ++ , dramatically increased specific 3 H-cimetidine binding, the increase being due mainly to a change in Bmax. Studies of substrate specificity for 3 H-cimetidine binding revealed that Cu ++ , while not significantly affecting the potency of H 2 receptor agonists and antagonists, dramatically decreases the potency of H 1 receptor substances on the 3 H-cimetidine binding site. In addition, both the relative and absolute potencies of various H 2 receptor agonistsv and antagonists in displacing the ligand in the presence of Cu ++ parallels their potencies in biological systems. These findings suggest that, under these conditions, 3 H-cimetidine may be labelling a biologically relevant H 2 binding site in brain and that Cu ++ may regulate the substrate specificity for this site. The brain regional distribution and kinetic analysis of the binding suggest that it is not localized solely to the synaptic receptor for histamine, but may also be associated with histamine receptors at other neuronal, glial or vascular sites.
Comparing two conditions of administering the six-minute walk test in people with multiple sclerosis.

Objective: This quasi-experimental study was conducted to determine whether differences existed in the total distance walked and energy expended between two conditions of administering the 6-Minute Walk test (6MW) across different levels of disability in people with multiple sclerosis (MS). Methods: The sample comprised 160 individuals with MS. One group of participants (n = 82) completed a 6MW while wearing a portable metabolic unit (K4b2, Cosmed, Italy) in a square hallway with four corridors and performing 90° turns. Another group (n = 78) completed a 6MW while wearing the same metabolic unit in a single corridor and performing 180° turns. Main outcome measures included total distance walked (in feet) and oxygen consumption (in milliliters per minute) expressed as 30-second averages for 1 minute before the 6MW and over the entire 6MW. Disability status was assessed using the Patient-Determined Disease Steps scale. Results: Participants undertaking the 6MW in a single corridor (1412 ft) walked 37 ft (2.7%) farther than those undertaking the test in a square hallway (1375 ft), but this difference was not statistically significant (F = 0.45, P = .51). Those completing the 6MW in a single corridor expended more energy than those completing the 6MW in the square hallway with four corridors (F = 3.41, P < .01). Conclusions: Either protocol is acceptable, but researchers should be aware of the additional physiological demands when administering the 6MW in a single corridor with 180° turns.
Reducing Gender Stereotyping in Kindergartners

Children's gender stereotypes can affect their learning and performance of gender‐typed behaviors and possibly their learning in general. Perceived competency also is linked significantly with children's gender roles. The purpose of this study was to demonstrate that gender stereotyping and perceived competency could be influenced by the ‘Words Can Hurt You” anti‐bias curriculum. The participants were 36 kindergarten students from a rural Southern town. The first author implemented the program to a kindergarten class for 8 weeks. Another kindergarten class received an equal amount of experimenter attention, but did not receive the anti‐bias curriculum. Each child had his or her gender stereotyping and perceived competency tested before and after the intervention program. Scores from the Gender‐Stereotyped Attitude Scale for Children (GASC) and the Pictorial Scale of Perceived Competence and Social Acceptance for Young Children were the dependent variables. Analysis of variance demonstrated that the anti‐b...
Exile Cinema: Filmmakers at Work Beyond Hollywood, edited by Michael Atkinson. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2008

“’I had been to Europe, and I was preparing a film which didn't get made … as many of my films don't.” Monte Hellman (181) In 1971, Monte Hellman directed the 1971 drag racing classic Two Lane Blac...
Abstract PL06-03: Inflammation and cancer: Interweaving microRNA, free radical, innate immune, and p53 networks.

Infection and chronic inflammation contribute to the etiology and pathogenesis of about 1 in 4 of all cancer cases. Mediators of the inflammatory response, e.g., cytokines, free radicals, prostaglandins, non-coding RNAs, and growth factors, can induce genetic and epigenetic changes including point mutations in tumor suppressor genes, DNA methylation and post-translation modifications, causing alterations in critical pathways responsible for maintaining the normal cellular homeostasis and leading to the development and progression of cancer IL-6 and IL-8 cooperate with microRNA in the induction of cellular senescence in benign tumors and as autocrine growth factors in carcinoma. Cellular senescence is also a tumor suppressor mechanism of p53. We are studying the molecular mechanisms of cellular senescence in normal and malignant human cells and the role of the telomeric multiprotein complex, shelterin, that includes TRF2 and POT1. Our ongoing studies have revealed that p53 and its endogenous isoforms regulate both specific microRNAs and TRF2 expression as mechanisms of replicative senescence. In addition, POT1 isoforms are functionally diverse in both maintaining telomeric integrity and preventing p53-dependent senescence induced by telomeric shortening. A switch in the expression patterns of p53 isoforms Δ133Np53 and p53beta can cause cellular senescence in vitro and is also associated with the transition of benign to malignant human colon tumors in vivo. A positive feedback between p53 and TRF2 during telomere-damage signaling and cellular senescence has been discovered. Expression of microRNAs and inflammatory genes are biomarkers of cancer risk, diagnosis, prognosis, and therapeutic outcome. We are especially interested in the interaction of the innate immune pathway with environmental tobacco smoking in lung cancer risk and the interaction of inflammatory cytokines, p53 isoforms, and microRNAs as prognostic classifiers of early stage lung, esophageal, and colon cancer and their functional role in the development of micrometastases. Citation Format: Curtis C. Harris. Inflammation and cancer: Interweaving microRNA, free radical, innate immune, and p53 networks. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Fifth AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2012 Oct 27-30; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2012;21(10 Suppl):Abstract nr PL06-03.
The Ecological Basis of Hunter-Gatherer Subsistence in African Rain Forests: The Mbuti of Eastern Zaire

While it is well established that the Mbuti pygmies, hunter-gatherers of the Ituri Forest of Zaire, trade forest products and labor for agricultural foods, it has been assumed that this is a recent development, following contact with shifting cultivators. From field investigations over a five-year period, Hart and Hart found that, while the Mbuti can identify a large number of edible plant species, they actually gather very few of them. Instead, they trade meat, which is seasonally abundant, as well as their own labor for agricultural products rich in starch and carbohydrates. While game is available throughout the year, they cannot profitably utilize protein as a main caloric intake; lean meat requires more calories to digest than it supplies, a point illustrated by what the explorer Henry Stanley called in 1890 the “starvation camps” in the middle of the Ituri: People were dying while surrounded by game. Hart and Hart found that almost all of the oil-rich plant foods collected came from secondary forests rather than from that part of the Ituri hitherto unpenetrated by cultivators. Using historical data from early travellers, archaeological evidence, and linguistic connections linking various Mbuti groups to different cultivators, Hart and Hart make the case that the great evergreen primary forests of the Ituri were probably not capable of sustaining hunter-gatherers in significant numbers prior to the coming of cultivators, about 4000 years ago. This a good illustration of complex and interdependent ties that link what might appear to be distinct adaptations. Here agriculture has made the forest a more hospitable environment for specialized hunter-gatherers by providing a reliable source of energy-rich foods as well as by producing patches of secondary forest in which to forage.
Parental Adjustment and Changes in Child Outcome Among Families of Young Handicapped Children

This study examined the relationship between parent and child characteristics and competencies, supports available to the family, and how these factors influence parent and child outcomes. The samp...
Considering the Tower of Babel: Correlates of Assimilation and Multiculturalism among Ethnic Minority and Majority Groups in the United States

Survey data collected from multiethnic samples of geographically dispersed college students and a national probability sample of US adults were utilized to examine the correlates of support for multiculturalism and assimilation—two competing interethnic ideologies, or ideals for how an ethnically diverse society should optimally function. Endorsement of multiculturalism and assimilation was related to perceived ethnic group differences, intergroup bias, and voting behavior on a number of public policies, but in opposite directions. Relative to white participants, ethnic minority participants endorsed multiculturalism to a greater extent, reported higher levels of group identification, and were more likely to support pro-diversity public policies. Discussion focuses on explanations for the variety of observed differences between ethnic minority and majority respondents, on the meaning of assimilation and multiculturalism, and on the argument that harmony between ethnic groups and dissimilarity between ethnic groups need not be thought of as mutually exclusive.
The oxidative degradation of deuteropolystyrenes

The degradation of polystyrene in the presence of oxygen in the temperature range 175–235°C. and in the presence of ozone between 65 and 154°C. has been studied. The products of the reaction, analyzed by infrared spectra, appear to be low molecular weight polystyrenes containing carbonyl groups upon O2 oxidation, while a peroxidic complex intermediate forms primarily during ozonization. Volumetric studies of the rate of oxygen uptake gave an activation energy of 25 kilocalories per mole, while spectrophotometric studies of the rate of carbonyl formation gave a value of 45 kilocalories. Identical studies on specially synthesized deuterated polystyrenes gave similar results, with rates of oxidation varying approximately in the following order:
Patient Turnover and Nursing Employment in Massachusetts Hospitals Before and After Health Insurance Reform: Implications for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

The Affordable Care Act is modeled after Massachusetts insurance reforms enacted in 2006. A linear mixed effect model examined trends in patient turnover and nurse employment in Massachusetts, New York, and California nonfederal hospitals from 2000 to 2011. The linear mixed effect analysis found that the rate of increase in hospital admissions was significantly higher in Massachusetts hospitals (p<.001) than that in California and New York (p=.007). The rate of change in registered nurses full-time equivalent hours per patient day was significantly less (p=.02) in Massachusetts than that in California and was not different from zero. The rate of change in admissions to registered nurses full-time equivalent hours per patient day was significantly greater in Massachusetts than California (p=.001) and New York (p<.01). Nurse staffing remained flat in Massachusetts, despite a significant increase in hospital admissions. The implications of the findings for nurse employment and hospital utilization following the implementation of national health insurance reform are discussed.
Signal suppression in electrospray ionization Fourier transform mass spectrometry of multi-component samples

The high resolution, mass range and sensitivity of Fourier transform mass spectrometry (FTMS) suggest that it could be a valuable tool for the quantitative analysis of biomolecules. To determine the applicability of electrospray ionization combined with FTMS to the quantitation of biomolecules in multi-component samples, mixtures of varying compositions and concentrations of cytochrome c, angiotensin II, insulin and chicken egg white lysozyme were examined. The instrument used has an electrospray source with a hexapole trap to accumulate ions for injection into an ion cyclotron resonance mass analyzer. Linear responses for single component samples of angiotensin II and insulin were in the range 0.031–3 µM and those of both cytochrome c and lysozyme were between 0.031 and 1 µM. In examining various mixtures of the proteins with angiotensin II, it was found that the presence of the large molecules suppresses the signal of the smaller molecules. This is suggested to be a result of ion–ion interactions producing selective ion loss from either the hexapole trap or the ion cyclotron resonance mass analyzer trap. More massive, more highly charged ions can collisionally transfer large amounts of translational energy to smaller, less highly charged ions, ejecting the smaller ions from the trap. Mass discrimination effects resulting from the trapping voltage were also examined. It was found that relative signal intensities of ions of different masses depend on trapping voltage for externally produced ions. The effect is most significant for spectra including masses that differ by 30% or more. This suggests that for quantitation all samples and standards be run at a constant trapping potential. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Dacite and Related Sediment from the West Mariana Ridge, Philippine Sea

Dredge hauls from the West Mariana Ridge recovered vesicular dacitic lava and late Pliocene sandstone from depths between 3000 and 4000 m. The sandstone, consisting of glass shards identical to the dacitic glass and pelagic foram tests, appears to have been deposited contemporaneously with the lavas. The very high vesicularity of the dacite suggests that it was erupted near sea level, implying Quaternary subsidence of the West Mariana Ridge.
The Effects of Organization Design on Media Richness in Multinational Enterprises

We provide empirical evidence regarding the effects of two organizational design parameters, divisionalization and centralization, on the media richness choices of CEOs of multinational enterprises in obtaining information from their foreign subsidiaries on strategic issues. In a sample of 86 U.S.-based multinational enterprises, formal divisional structure was found to affect CEOs' use of rich information channels for product matters but not for country matters, and centralization of decision making at corporate headquarters was found to affect their use of rich media for country issues but not for product issues. Relationships between organizational design and CEO information processing behavior, therefore, appear to be contingent on the type of strategic issue involved.
Response-guided community detection: application to climate index discovery

Discovering climate indices---time series that summarize spatiotemporal climate patterns---is a key task in the climate science domain. In this work, we approach this task as a problem of response-guided community detection; that is, identifying communities in a graph associated with a response variable of interest. To this end, we propose a general strategy for response-guided community detection that explicitly incorporates information of the response variable during the community detection process, and introduce a graph representation of spatiotemporal data that leverages information from multiple variables. We apply our proposed methodology to the discovery of climate indices associated with seasonal rainfall variability. Our results suggest that our methodology is able to capture the underlying patterns known to be associated with the response variable of interest and to improve its predictability compared to existing methodologies for data-driven climate index discovery and official forecasts.
Thermal modification of microstructures and grain boundaries in silicon carbide

Polycrystalline SiC samples hot-pressed with aluminum, boron, and carbon sintering additions (ABC-SiC) were characterized using transmission electron microscopy. The study focused on the effects of high temperature treatment on microstructure.
Fabrication and Recording of Bit Patterned Media Prepared by Rotary Stage Electron Beam Lithography

Bit patterned media (BPM) is a promising technology for hard disk drive recording at ultra-high areal densities of 1 Tbit/in2 and beyond. However, for BPM to be commercially viable, nanoscale bit patterns must be fabricated at low cost on a large scale and with low defect densities. The most likely route to realizing such criteria is through the use of high throughput nanoimprint lithography followed by direct etching of the recording media, where the bit pattern template is generated by highly accurate electron beam mastering tools. In this work, we experimentally demonstrate the merits of rotary stage electron beam mastering and the subsequent effects of direct pattern transfer on BPM and servo arrays patterned into 2.5" commercially available CoCrPt perpendicular recording media (PRM) at a density of 366 Gbit/in2. The 42 nm pitch staggered bit patterns and corresponding servo arrays were lithographically generated by a Pioneer Corporation EBR-401 rotary stage electron beam mastering system and subsequently transferred into the media using a series of reactive ion etching and ion milling processes with C/SiNx mask structures and a novel Al protection layer. The fabricated media was recorded and read back with a commercial recording head to verify pattern fidelity.
Port calling: a transformation for reducing I/O during multi-package functional partitioning

Partitioning a system among multiple input and output (I/O) pin limited packages is a widely researched and hard-to-solve problem. I previously (Proc. Int. Symp. on FPGA, pp. 27-34, 1997) described a new approach yielding large improvements, which partitioned functions rather than structure, and which used a single bus for all inter-package data transfer. In this paper, I describe an extension permitting arbitrary distribution of I/O among the packages, and highlight experiments demonstrating even further I/O reductions, as well as surprisingly improved performance, with nearly no penalty.
End-of-Life Care

In the more than 30 years since the inception of critical care units, we have seen a nearly 180 degree shift in how we care for those critically ill who die. In the earliest years of ICU care, almost all patients who died had one or more attempts made to resuscitate during dying, remained tethered to ventilators and other invasive interventions, and most families were sequestered in small waiting rooms adjacent to the ICU and did not share last moments with their loved one. Today, many patients who die in the ICU have resuscitation and other interventions withheld or withdrawn; have their physical, emotional, and existential needs addressed; and are afforded the opportunity to have their families present during their final moments. This shift in how we care for those who will die occurred in part through the efforts of the talented authors that we had the privilege to collaborate with to produce this issue of Critical Care Clinics. This issue is organized to reproduce the skill sets that are required of critical care clinicians to afford the dying ICU patient and their family with capable, comprehensive, and compassionate end-of-life care. Each article discusses what is known as well as the gaps in our scientific knowledge. The issue includes evidence-driven content about prognostication and communication about the patient’s illness and prognosis. We have also provided a synthesis of the evidence about addressing physical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual distress, and caring for the grieving family of the adult and the pediatric patient. Lastly, the role of specialized end-of-life consultants in the ICU, the benefits of interdisciplinary collaboration, and considerations for clinician self-care are addressed.
Further Validity Evidence for the Dimensions of Change in Therapeutic Community Treatment Instrument

Recent research efforts have focused on assessing the therapeutic community (TC) treatment process. The current article examines the validity of the client self-report Dimensions of Change Instrument (DCI) treatment process measure, by confirming its factor structure and examining each subscale's relationship with time in treatment, scales from an existing process assessment, and mental and physical health status. Participants were 511 adult and adolescent residential TC clients. The factor structure of the DCI replicated with satisfactory fit. The pattern of associations between DCI subscales and criterion measures was largely as expected, providing initial concurrent and discriminant validity evidence for the DCI.
Effect of platelet-activating factor-receptor antagonism on endotoxin-induced lung dysfunction in sheep.

To further define the role of platelet-activating factor (PAF) in endotoxin-induced lung dysfunction, we examined the effect of ABT-299, a specific and potent PAF-receptor antagonist, on the respon...
Using Peer-Led Team Learning to build university-community college relationships

Through support from the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT), the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) and the El Paso Community College (EPCC) began a program to collaborate on adoption of Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL) at EPCC. The NCWIT-funded effort aims to transfer this effective retention practice to the EPCC in order to establish early connections with female students, create community, and provide activities that improve students' problem-solving skills. PLTL provides an active learning experience for students and creates leadership roles for undergraduates. For the peer leaders, the experience of working with faculty and guiding their peers through a challenging course is rewarding, and they learn communication, teaching, leadership, and interpersonal skills. Peer leaders become more confident about their career path,= and many continue to be involved in the department through undergraduate research positions. This is important for retention and advancement efforts, since the peer-leading experience influences the students' motivation to attend graduate school. This paper describes how the UTEP-EPCC partnership was structured, how the practice was transferred, and the challenges that were encountered. It also presents the evaluation results.
Knowing What Our Primary Care Providers Need To Know

To The Editor: I applaud the efforts of Lynch and colleagues to further enlighten us on the crisis in musculoskeletal education in the United States. Their article “Important Demographic Variables Impact the Musculoskeletal Knowledge and Confidence of Academic Primary Care Physicians” (2006;88:1589-95) indicates that our medical providers lack a consistent basic fund of musculoskeletal knowledge, which our medical schools should be providing to every graduate. I do have several comments. As a rheumatologist who has spent his entire career educating internal medicine …
Cities, Economic Development, and the Free Trade Constitution

The role of cities and local government generally has gone unexamined by legal scholars of the constitutional common market. Yet in a highly urbanized country in which cities and large metropolitan areas dominate the national economy, much of the cross-border movement of persons, goods, and capital inside the United States is more accurately characterized as inter-municipal rather than inter-state. This Article examines the constitutional rules that govern this cross-border movement from the perspective of the city. The Article argues that judges and commentators have misapprehended the jurisprudence of the American common market because they have been looking at its operation on the wrong scale. Examining how the doctrine operates at the municipal level exposes the gaps and contradictions in the jurisprudence, reveals connections between legal doctrines that heretofore had not been considered part of the free trade regime, and highlights the Supreme Court's implicit (and under-theorized) urban economic policy. The reframing of the economic and jurisprudential place of cities in the free trade constitution sheds light on a number of important recent cases, in particular Kelo v. New London, in which the Court upheld a city's use of eminent domain for economic development purposes under the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause. The Article's city-centric approach also intervenes in a number of judicial and scholarly debates, including the appropriate reach and application of the "dormant" commerce clause, the appropriate judicial oversight of local land use regulations under the Takings Clause, and the role of courts in policing and shaping local economic development efforts more generally.
An optimization-based approach for restoring missing structures and textures in images

In this paper, we present a new automated algorithm for image completion, i.e., reconstructing the missing, damaged, or occluded parts in images in a visually non-detectable fashion. Our algorithm is capable of recovering both structural and textural information on the damaged parts, by solving several key subproblems such as determining the connections and shapes of the occluded region boundary curves, synthesizing textures, etc. Our algorithm combines structure-based and texture-based approaches and is hinged on optimization techniques. In particular, we formulate a set of key subproblems as optimization problems in graph theory, and solve them optimally in polynomial time. Previous methods for these problems either cannot ensure the topological correctness of the restored structures or rely only on heuristics.
New York's First Pari-Mutuel Law and Its Ramifications

This paper reviews the legislative history of New York's first pari-mutuel racing law passed in 1940.
Water-Induced Interactions between Boron-Doped Carbon Nanotubes

Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations are used to investigate the hydration, the water-induced interactions, and the dispersion behavior of boron-doped single-walled carbon nanotubes (B-CNTs) within ...
Select Optimal Chemical Detection Equipments Using Fuzzy Decision Making Method

The purpose of this research is to develop a universal model with a practical system to evaluate, identify and select an optimal system or device to perform the desired task from a large collection of available systems that have multiple objectives based on a fuzzy multiple criteria decision making model (FMCDMM). As an example, here we are using this research to identify and select an optimal detection system or device to detect hazardous chemical materials.
Vicariously Traumatized: Male Partners of Sexual Abuse Survivors

SUMMARY This article suggests that male partners of female sexual-abuse survivors may become vicariously traumatized in long term relationships with childhood abuse survivors. Drawing parallels to the symptomology of PTSD and the process of transmission, this article theorizes that highly conflictual home environments may be sufficient to cause distressing psychological and behavioral changes in family members. In these relationships, male partners suffer decrements in self-esteem, power, isolation, and sexual adequacy similar to other sufferers of PTSD. No empirical information is presented, but implications for counseling “dual trauma” couples is included.
Isolation, Structure Elucidation, and Iron-Binding Properties of Lystabactins, Siderophores Isolated from a Marine Pseudoalteromonas sp.

The marine bacterium Pseudoalteromonas sp. S2B, isolated from the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, was found to produce lystabactins A, B, and C (1-3), three new siderophores. The structures were elucidated through mass spectrometry, amino acid analysis, and NMR. The lystabactins are composed of serine (Ser), asparagine (Asn), two formylated/hydroxylated ornithines (FOHOrn), dihydroxy benzoic acid (Dhb), and a very unusual nonproteinogenic amino acid, 4,8-diamino-3-hydroxyoctanoic acid (LySta). The iron-binding properties of the compounds were investigated through a spectrophotometric competition.
REPRODUCTIVE ADAPTATIONS AMONG VIVIPAROUS FISHES (CYPRINODONTIFORMES: POECILIIDAE).

Adaptations for placing a maximum number of mature offspring in the next generation fall between the two adaptive extremes of having either high reproductive rates and low survival rates or low reproductive rates and high survival rates. Among the fishes, both extremes have been realized; for example, the ling, Molva molva may produce 20-30 X 106 eggs at a single spawning (Blaxter, 1969), whereas some species of viviparous fishes have only one to four well-developed young at a time. Among the variable reproductive adaptations in teleosts, a remarkable array is found within a single family of viviparous fishes, the Poeciliidae. All but one of the 150 species of poeciliids known (Rosen and Bailey, 1963; Bussing, 1963, 1966; Hubbs and Peden, 1969; Miller, 1975; Miller and Minckley, 1970; Rivas, 1969; Rivas and Fink, 1970; Rosen and Kallman, 1969) are viviparous. Brood sizes within the family range from a few to 315 young at a time (Krumholz, 1948). Production of small numbers of young which are born in an advanced state of development clearly places poeciliids at one end of the array of reproductive adaptations. Although poeciliids seemingly have sacrificed quantity for quality, they have not done so to the same degree nor by the same mechanism; thus a fairly wide range of productivity levels persists within the family. Once internal fertilization evolved, various modifications in the reproductive system were possible. For example, adjust-
Ground water and snow sensor based on directional detection of cosmogenic neutrons

A fast neutron detector is being developed to measure the cosmic ray neutron flux in order to measure soil moisture. Soil that is saturated with water has an enhanced ability to moderate fast neutrons, removing them from the backscatter spectrum. The detector is a two-element, liquid scintillator detector. The choice of liquid scintillator allows rejection of gamma background contamination from the desired neutron signal. This enhances the ability to reconstruct the energy and direction of a coincident neutron event. The ability to image on an event-by-event basis allows the detector to selectively scan the neutron flux as a function of distance from the detector. Calibrations, simulations, and optimization have been completed to understand the detector response to neutron sources at variable distances and directions. This has been applied to laboratory background measurements in preparation for outdoor field tests.
Environmental communication pedagogy for sustainability: Developing core capacities to engage with complex problems

ABSTRACTPedagogy informed by environmental communication can enhance collaboration within and outside the classroom. Through our collaborative, sustainability-focused work within the United States and internationally, we identified core capacities that prepare people to work together to form inclusive organizations and identify and respond to pressing socioecological problems. We describe six activities we have used in adult learner classrooms, on interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research teams, and with organizational, governmental, and business partners to improve collaborations for sustainability-related problem solving. We conclude with a reflection on opportunities for situated assessment practices.