cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Performance and Power Characteristics and Optimizations of Hybrid MPI/OpenMP LULESH Miniapps under Various Workloads

Energy efficient execution of scientific applications requires insight into how HPC system features affect the performance and power of the applications. In this paper, we analyze and model performance and power characteristics of hybrid MPI/OpenMP LULESH (Livermore Unstructured Lagrange Explicit Shock Hydrodynamics) miniapps under various workloads using MuMMI (Multiple Metrics Modeling Infrastructure). Output from these models is then used to guide code optimizations of performance and power. Our optimization methods result in performance improvement and energy savings of up to approximately 10%. Further, based on the insight learned from our models and measurements under various workloads, applying DCT (Dynamic Concurrency Throttling) to the optimized codes results in the energy savings by 43.12% to 58.30% for different problem sizes compared with the baseline results on 27 nodes with 32 threads per node on a 36-node Intel Haswell testbed cluster Shepard.
Vacuolar Protein Sorting 26C encodes an evolutionarily conserved large retromer subunit in eukaryotes that is important for root hair growth in Arabidopsis thaliana

The large retromer complex participates in diverse endosomal trafficking pathways and is essential for plant developmental programs, including cell polarity, programmed cell death and shoot gravitropism in Arabidopsis. Here we demonstrate that an evolutionarily conserved VPS26 protein (VPS26C; At1G48550) functions in a complex with VPS35A and VPS29 necessary for root hair growth in Arabidopsis. Bimolecular fluorescence complementation showed that VPS26C forms a complex with VPS35A in the presence of VPS29, and this is supported by genetic studies showing that vps29 and vps35a mutants exhibit altered root hair growth. Genetic analysis also demonstrated an interaction between a VPS26C trafficking pathway and one involving the SNARE VTI13. Phylogenetic analysis indicates that VPS26C, with the notable exception of grasses, has been maintained in the genomes of most major plant clades since its evolution at the base of eukaryotes. To test the model that VPS26C orthologs in animal and plant species share a conserved function, we generated transgenic lines expressing GFP fused with the VPS26C human ortholog (HsDSCR3) in a vps26c background. These studies illustrate that GFP-HsDSCR3 is able to complement the vps26c root hair phenotype in Arabidopsis, indicating a deep conservation of cellular function for this large retromer subunit across plant and animal kingdoms.
Soft snake robots: Mechanical design and geometric gait implementation

Soft robots are compliant and durable, and thus potentially better-suited for swimming or crawling over rough terrain than conventional rigid robots. Biomimetic locomotion strategies are often implemented on soft robots, but are difficult to tune because of the complexity of mapping nonlinear mechanical systems to specific gait patterns. We propose an approach to soft robot control in which the robot is designed to physically realize a shape space (mechanically predefined body poses) to follow a theoretically optimal gait. Specifically in this paper we present an entirely soft snake robot designed to implement the prerequisite shape space for slithering gaits. When coupled with a geometric mechanics model relating serpentine shape sequences to displacement, appropriate gait patterns can be selected analytically based on the system's Lie bracket. We developed a modular, two-link soft robot and used the geometric mechanics model to identify several cyclic gait patterns for producing forward displacement. The gait patterns were tested on the soft robot and observed with a motion capture system to measure displacement and monitor shape sequences. Relative performance of the gait patterns is consistent with the geometric “soap-bubble method” as a heuristic for gait optimization, which demonstrates the applicability of this approach to soft robot control and coordination.
The physical environment in family childcare homes and children's physical activity

Background Family childcare homes (FCCHs) are the second largest provider of childcare in the United States, yet little is known about how this setting influences children's physical activity, particularly related to the physical environment. Thus, the purpose of this study was to determine what aspects of the FCCH physical environment facilitate or hinder children's physical activity. Methods Data were collected from 166 FCCH providers and 496 preschool-aged children in 2013-2014 as part of the Keys to Healthy FCCHs study. Children's moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) was measured using Actigraph GT3X+ accelerometers. Wear data from the childcare day were isolated, and cut-points were applied in order to calculate children's minutes of MVPA per hour. FCCH-level estimates of child MVPA per hour were calculated. Indoor and outdoor physical environment characteristics were assessed during a 2-day observation using the Environment and Policy Assessment and Observation modified for FCCHs. General linear models were used to examine the relationship between indoor, portable play equipment, and outdoor FCCH physical environment characteristics and children's MVPA per hour. Results Only indoor play space was significantly associated with children's MVPA (β = 0.33; p = .034), indicating that when provided with more indoor space for active play, children were more physically active. No significant associations were noted between portable play equipment or the outdoor environment and children's MVPA. Conclusions Indoor space was the only physical environment characteristic associated with children's MVPA, suggesting that teaching FCCH providers how to best utilize their indoor play space for active play may be a way to promote children's physical activity. Futures studies should explore the impact of other environmental characteristics of the FCCH (e.g., provider practices and policies) on children's physical activity.
Developmental expression of the syndecans: possible function and regulation.

Recent work has made clear that heparan sulfate at the cell surface is essential for a wide variety of interactions of cells with their microenvironment , including the action of growth factors, extracellular matrix, proteases and protease inhibitors. A major source of this cell surface heparan sulfate is a multigene family of proteoglycans, the syndecans that are expressed developmentally in association with changes in tissue organization and morphology and induced during wound repair. In this review, we describe mechanisms underlyin g the differential expression of the syndecans, focusing on syndecan-1. The induction of syndecan-1 can result from soluble extracellular factor(s) acting at multiple levels of cellular regulation. At the transcriptional level, the promoter of the murine syndecan-1 gene contains potential recognition sites for several well-known regulatory genes, including Hox and MyoD family members. Because changes in syndecan expression enable cells to become more or less responsive to their microenvironment, understanding these regulatory mechanisms can lead to an improved understanding of how cellular behavior is controlled during development and wound repair.
Multidisciplinary Decision Making Methods in an Information Driven Product Development Framework

New paradigms and accompanying software systems are necessary to support the integration of system level design and discipline level analysis activities for the implementation of product lifecycle management. An information driven product development framework has been developed to integrate these activities using product information model to represents the associativities among design requirements, product models and design parameters. In this paper, product information model is used to not only integrate all the activities and software packages, but also enable formulating and solving design problems using appropriate solution methods. Two engineering examples are solved using three different methods, Genetic Algorithm, Game Based Decision Making method, and Collaborative Decision Making method. The three methods are compared by the numbers of calls to discipline level analysis models. It was shown that collaborative decision making method is capable of finding satisfying solutions with the least number of calls to the computing expensive analysis models.Copyright © 2014 by ASME
Flexible strategy learning: analogical replay of problem solving episodes

This paper describes the integration of analogical reasoning into general problem solving as a method of learning at the strategy level to solve problems more effectively. Learning occurs by the generation and replay of annotated derivational traces of problem solving episodes. The problem solver is extended with the ability to examine its decision cycle and accumulate knowledge from the chains of successes and failures encountered during its search experience. Instead of investing substantial effort deriving general rules of behavior to apply to individual decisions, the analogical reasoner compiles complete problem solving cases that are used to guide future similar situations. Learned knowledge is flexibly applied to new problem solving situations even if only a partial match exists among problems. We relate this work with other alternative strategy learning methods, and also with plan reuse. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the analogical replay strategy by providing empirical results on the performance of a fully implemented system, PRODIGY/ANALOGY, accumulating and reusing a large case library in a complex problem solving domain.
“Dynamite Talk”: William Dean Howells, Racial Socialism, and a Legal Theory of Literary Complicity

Jesse W. Schwartz, “‘Dynamite Talk’: William Dean Howells, Racial Socialism, and a Legal Theory of Literary Complicity” (pp. 522–550) In the wake of the 1886 Haymarket bombing in Chicago, William Dean Howells famously stood alone among his peers and against nearly all public opinion by defending the accused, denouncing the court, and appealing for clemency. Scholars ever since have found it difficult to explain Howells’s transition from the often hidebound “Dean of American Letters” into an ardent—if provisional—activist. However, as Howells made clear from the start, his sympathies were not with the anarchists themselves but against the “civic murder” committed by the court. Taking the writer at his word, this essay returns to the transcript of the Haymarket trial in order to identify the catalyst behind Howells’s unlikely conversion. By linking the defendants’ tracts and speeches with subsequent political acts allegedly committed by their sympathizers, the prosecution had manufactured a juridical reconciliation that successfully collapsed all conceptual space between word and deed, thereby leaving every writer potentially liable for the social lives of their texts. In A Hazard of New Fortunes (1889), Howells’s literary response to both the bomb and the trial, the beleaguered author would attempt to unstitch this legal contiguity by appraising characters for their susceptibility to radical speech. Yet, by linking the degree of this complicity to ethnicity rather than politics, the novel ultimately upholds the legal logics that Howells had so vigorously opposed.
Predictors of Successful HIV Care Re-engagement Among Persons Poorly Engaged in HIV Care

The Data to Care (D2C) strategy uses HIV surveillance data to identify persons living with HIV (PLWH) who are poorly engaged in care and offers assistance with care re-engagement. We evaluated HIV care re-engagement among PLWH in Seattle & King County, Washington after participation in a D2C program and determined whether variables available at the time of the D2C interview predicted subsequent re-engagement in care. We defined successful re-engagement as surveillance evidence of either continuous care engagement (≥ 2 CD4 counts or HIV RNA results ≥ 60 days apart) or viral suppression (≥ 1 HIV RNA < 200 copies/mL) in the year following the D2C interview. Predictor variables included client characteristics, beliefs about HIV care, and scores on psychosocial assessment scales. Half of participants successfully re-engaged in care. We did not find any significant predictors of re-engagement except viral suppression at the time of the D2C interview. Close follow-up is needed to identify which D2C participants need additional assistance re-engaging in care.
Identification of a candidate gene for a QTL for spikelet number per spike on wheat chromosome arm 7AL by high-resolution genetic mapping

A high-resolution genetic map combined with haplotype analyses identified a wheat ortholog of rice gene APO1 as the best candidate gene for a 7AL locus affecting spikelet number per spike. A better understanding of the genes controlling differences in wheat grain yield components can accelerate the improvements required to satisfy future food demands. In this study, we identified a promising candidate gene underlying a quantitative trait locus (QTL) on wheat chromosome arm 7AL regulating spikelet number per spike (SNS). We used large heterogeneous inbred families ( > 10,000 plants) from two crosses to map the 7AL QTL to an 87-kb region (674,019,191–674,106,327 bp, RefSeq v1.0) containing two complete and two partial genes. In this region, we found three major haplotypes that were designated as H1, H2 and H3. The H2 haplotype contributed the high-SNS allele in both H1 × H2 and H2 × H3 segregating populations. The ancestral H3 haplotype is frequent in wild emmer (48%) but rare (~ 1%) in cultivated wheats. By contrast, the H1 and H2 haplotypes became predominant in modern cultivated durum and common wheat, respectively. Among the four candidate genes, only TraesCS7A02G481600 showed a non-synonymous polymorphism that differentiated H2 from the other two haplotypes. This gene, designated here as WHEAT ORTHOLOG OF APO1 (WAPO1), is an ortholog of the rice gene ABERRANT PANICLE ORGANIZATION 1 (APO1), which affects spikelet number. Taken together, the high-resolution genetic map, the association between polymorphisms in the different mapping populations with differences in SNS, and the known role of orthologous genes in other grass species suggest that WAPO-A1 is the most likely candidate gene for the 7AL SNS QTL among the four genes identified in the candidate gene region.
Biogenesis of RNase P RNA from an intron requires co-assembly with cognate protein subunits.

RNase P RNA (RPR), the catalytic subunit of the essential RNase P ribonucleoprotein, removes the 5' leader from precursor tRNAs. The ancestral eukaryotic RPR is a Pol III transcript generated with mature termini. In the branch of the arthropod lineage that led to the insects and crustaceans, however, a new allele arose in which RPR is embedded in an intron of a Pol II transcript and requires processing from intron sequences for maturation. We demonstrate here that the Drosophila intronic-RPR precursor is trimmed to the mature form by the ubiquitous nuclease Rat1/Xrn2 (5') and the RNA exosome (3'). Processing is regulated by a subset of RNase P proteins (Rpps) that protects the nascent RPR from degradation, the typical fate of excised introns. Our results indicate that the biogenesis of RPR in vivo entails interaction of Rpps with the nascent RNA to form the RNase P holoenzyme and suggests that a new pathway arose in arthropods by coopting ancient mechanisms common to processing of other noncoding RNAs.
Integration of cortical population signals for visual perception.

Visual stimuli evoke heterogeneous responses across nearby neural populations. These signals must be locally integrated to contribute to perception, but the principles underlying this process are unknown. Here, we exploit the systematic organization of orientation preference in macaque primary visual cortex (V1) and perform causal manipulations to examine the limits of signal integration. Optogenetic stimulation and visual stimuli are used to simultaneously drive two neural populations with overlapping receptive fields. We report that optogenetic stimulation raises firing rates uniformly across conditions, but improves the detection of visual stimuli only when activating cells that are preferentially-tuned to the visual stimulus. Further, we show that changes in correlated variability are exclusively present when the optogenetically and visually-activated populations are functionally-proximal, suggesting that correlation changes represent a hallmark of signal integration. Our results demonstrate that information from functionally-proximal neurons is pooled for perception, but functionally-distal signals remain independent. Primary visual cortical neurons exhibit diverse responses to visual stimuli yet how these signals are integrated during visual perception is not well understood. Here, the authors show that optogenetic stimulation of neurons situated near the visually‐driven population leads to improved orientation detection in monkeys through changes in correlated variability.
The value of conducting on-farm field trials using precision agriculture technology: a theory and simulations

The objectives of this article are to examine the practicality of on-farm precision experiments to sufficiently lower the costs of acquiring the information necessary to make site-specific nitrogen (N) fertilizer management profitable, and to examine the potential value of on-farm precision experiments in uniform rate N fertilizer management. After presenting a simple economic model as theoretical background, two hypotheses are tested. Hypothesis 1 is that if on-farm precision experiments are conducted over sufficiently many growing seasons on a “flat and black” central Illinois cornfield, the information gained can be used to make site-specific N application management more profitable than uniform rate N application management. Hypothesis 2 is that conducting on-farm precision experiments on that field for only a few years will provide information that can increase profits for a farmer who otherwise would follow the N application rate recommendation of the Maximum Return to Nitrogen project. Monte Carlo simulations rejected Hypothesis 1, but failed to reject Hypothesis 2. On the modeled central Illinois field, which was characterized by relatively little spatial heterogeneity, even fifteen years of on-farm precision experiments did not provide enough information to make using site-specific N management profitable. But the information gleaned from just a few years of on-farm precision experiments provided very profitable information to improve spatially uniform N rate management.
Aspergillus fumigatus endocarditis in a splenectomized patient with no risk factors

Aspergillus endocarditis is a rare cause of culture-negative fungal endocarditis, after Candida endocarditis. Typical risk factors include intravenous drug use, immunosuppression, prior cardiac surgery or presence of prosthetic heart valves, hematopoietic stem cell or solid organ transplantation. Common presentations include signs and symptoms consistent with endocarditis but with negative bacterial blood cultures. Here, we present a case report of a 49-year-old male without known risk factors for fungal endocarditis who presented with a stroke and found to have Aspergillus endocarditis. Despite surgical intervention and antifungal treatment, the outcome was fatal. This underscores the difficulty in diagnosing Aspergillus endocarditis and its poor prognosis, necessitating the need for early diagnosis and intervention.
Abstract CS1-1: Origins and Clinical Implications of HER2 Heterogeneity

The presentation will describe the types of HER2 heterogeneity and how it is identified pathologically including case examples and molecular studies. The implications for treatment decisions and for its possible role in patient outcomes will also be discussed. Citation Format: A Richardson. Origins and Clinical Implications of HER2 Heterogeneity [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2019 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2019 Dec 10-14; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2020;80(4 Suppl):Abstract nr CS1-1.
Surviving Being Dark: A Pedagogy of the Sacred for Survival in a Divided Society.

Historically, Blacks have out of necessity prioritized survival in educating their younger generations for existence in the racially hostile and divided context of the U.S. This education and relig...
George Stigler’s Career Moves: The Roles of Contingency, Self-Interest, Ideology, and Intellectual Commitment

George Stigler is commonly seen as one of the central figures in the Chicago School of Economics. However, he did not actually take a faculty position at the University of Chicago until the age of 47. This essay will provide a narrative account of George Stigler’s various career transitions from graduate school through his “retirement.” This narrative structure will be employed to bring out what archival material implies about a number of general themes regarding Stigler’s career. Particular attention will be devoted to the 1946 episode in which Chicago failed to make him an offer and the 1957–1958 episode in which W. Allen Wallis successfully induced him to take charge of the Walgreen Foundation and Walgreen Professorship. A first theme considered concerns the role of contingency in Stigler’s academic appointments. A second theme concerns the intellectual diversity of the academic milieus in which Stigler operated, which runs counter to the conventional view of a monolithic Chicago School focused on free markets. A third theme concerns the extent to which Stigler was a partisan or a scientist in his academic endeavors. This aspect entails whether he viewed the economics profession as more swayed by the social environment of its times or whether it made independent scientific and intellectual contributions to social policy. A final theme will concern the extent to which Stigler, as Nik-Khah has suggested, was an empire builder, especially during his tenure as the Walgreen Professor of American Institutions and then in establishing the Center for the Study of the Economy and the State. Brief consideration is also given to the issue of how to reconcile these contrasting, if not conflicting, features of Stigler’s career.
High-specificity antibodies and detection methods for quantifying phosphorylated tau from clinical samples

The ability to measure total and phosphorylated tau levels in clinical samples is transforming the detection of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and other neurodegenerative diseases. In particular, recent reports indicate that accurate detection of low levels of phosphorylated tau (p-tau) in plasma provides a reliable biomarker of AD long before sensing memory loss. Therefore, the diagnosis and monitoring of neurodegenerative diseases progression using blood samples is becoming a reality. These major advances were achieved by using antibodies specific to p-tau as well as sophisticated high-sensitivity immunoassay platforms. This review focuses on these enabling advances in high-specificity antibody development, engineering, and novel signal detection methods. We will draw insights from structural studies on p-tau antibodies, engineering efforts to improve their binding properties, and efforts to validate their specificity. A comprehensive survey of high-sensitivity p-tau immunoassay platforms along with sensitivity limits will be provided. We conclude that although robust approaches for detecting certain p-tau species have been established, systematic efforts to validate antibodies for assay development is still needed for the recognition of biomarkers for AD and other neurodegenerative diseases.
Safety and Efficacy of Urea for Hyponatremia

Background and Objective: Urea is an alternative for treatment of hyponatremia however, its use has not been widely studied. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the safety and efficacy of ure...
Rights in Transit: Public Transportation and the Right to the City in California's East Bay

Kafui Ablode Attoh. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2019. xvi and 155 pp., figures, index. $99.95 cloth (ISBN 9780820354217); $28.95 paper (ISBN 9780820354200).Spring 2019 saw the debut bo...
Müller, J F T (Fritz)

Fritz Muller (1822–1897), German naturalist, was one of the great Darwinians of the nineteenth century. Educated in math and science in what was then part of Prussia, he emigrated to Brazil in 1852; in the forests and ocean of the province of Santa Catarina, he found a rich diversity of organisms for study, especially marine and freshwater Crustacea, insects and flowering plants. From original observations of morphology, development, physiology and behaviour, he documented the power of natural selection in the evolution of adaptations. He encountered Darwin's Origin of Species in its German translation in 1861, tested its salient points in the Crustacea and endorsed them. Although he and Darwin were half a world apart, they recognised many common interests through correspondence and publications, and Muller became Darwin's closest intellectual kin. Keywords: adaptation; atheism; biogenetic law; cross-fertilisation; Darwin; heterostyly; lepidopteran scent; mimicry; natural selection
Dynamic behavior of an unsteady turbulent boundary layer

This paper reports experiments on an unsteady turbulent boundary layer. The upstream portion of the flow is steady (in the mean). In the downstream region, the boundary layer sees a linearly decreasing free-stream velocity. This velocity gradient oscillates in time, at frequencies ranging from zero to approximately the bursting frequency. Considerable detail is reported for a low-amplitude case, and preliminary results are given for a higher amplitude sufficient to produce some reverse flow. For the small amplitude, the mean velocity and mean turbulence intensity profiles are unaffected by the oscillations. The amplitude of the periodic velocity component, although as much as 70% greater than that in the free stream for very low frequencies, becomes equal to that in the free stream at higher frequencies. At high frequencies, both the boundary layer thickness and the Reynolds stress distribution across the boundary layer become frozen. The behavior at larger amplitude is quite similar. Most importantly, at sufficiently high frequencies the boundary layer thickness remains frozen at its mean value over the oscillation cycle, even though flow reverses near the wall during a part of the cycle.
The Analysis of Interphase Reactions and Mass Transfer in Liquid-Liquid Dispersions

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses interphase reactions and describes the phenomenon of mass transfer in liquid–liquid dispersions. The rate of interphase mass transfer is affected by the physical and chemical characteristics of the system and the mechanical features of the equipment. The former include viscosities and densities of the phases, interfacial surface properties, diffusion coefficients, and chemical reaction coefficients. The latter include the type and diameter of the impeller, vessel geometry, the flow rate of each phase, and the rotational speed of the impeller. When slow reactions in either phase control the rate of transfer, micromixing of the dispersed or continuous phase is not important. The total interfacial surface area is important and can be related to the power expended. Micromixing and macromixing of the dispersed phase can significantly affect the extent of conversion and selectivity. Accordingly, dispersion phenomena such as coalescence and breakage of droplets, and drop size distribution take place. Mass transfer in liquid–liquid dispersions and interphase reactions analysis are presented in this chapter with the help of several useful mathematical models.
Description of a coupled atmosphere–fire model

This paper describes a coupled fire-atmosphere model that uses a sophisticated high-resolution non- hydrostatic numerical mesoscale model to predict the local winds which are then used as input to the prediction of fire spread. The heat and moisture fluxes from the fire are then fed back to the dynamics, allowing the fire to influence its own mesoscale winds that in turn affect the fire behavior. This model is viewed as a research model and as such requires a fireline propagation scheme that systematically converges with increasing spatial and temporal resolution. To achieve this, a local contour advection scheme was developed to track the fireline using four tracer particles per fuel cell, which define the area of burning fuel. Using the dynamically predicted winds along with the terrain slope and fuel characteristics, algorithms from the BEHAVE system are used to predict the spread rates. A mass loss rate calculation, based on results of the BURNUP fuel burnout model, is used to treat heat exchange between the fire and atmosphere. Tests were conducted with the uncoupled model to test the fire-spread algorithm under specified wind conditions for both spot and line fires. Using tall grass and chaparral, line fires were simulated employing the full fire- atmosphere coupling. Results from two of these experiments show the effects of fire propagation over a small hill. As with previous coupled experiments, the present results show a number of features common to real fires. For example, we show how the well-recognized elliptical fireline shape is a direct result of fire-atmosphere interactions that produce the 'heading', 'flanking', and 'backing' regions of a wind-driven fire with their expected behavior. And, we see how perturbations upon this shape sometimes amplify to become fire whirls along the flanks, which are transported to the head of the fire where they may interact to produce erratic fire behavior.
Broadening the Atmospheric Bridge Paradigm: ENSO Teleconnections to the Tropical West Pacific‐Indian Oceans Over the Seasonal Cycle and to the North Pacific in Summer

During El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events, atmospheric teleconnections associated with sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies in the equatorial Pacific can influence the ocean thousands of kilometers away. We use several data sets to delineate this atmospheric bridge between ocean basins, focusing on two emerging research areas: 1) the evolution of atmosphere-ocean interactions in the tropical Indian-Western Pacific Oceans over the full ENSO cycle and 2) the formation of large amplitude SST anomalies in North Pacific in the summer before ENSO peaks. In ENSO composites [where events peak near the end ofYr(0)], an east-west SST dipole develops in the Indian Ocean during the summer-fall ofYr(0), followed by basin-wide warming through spring ofYr(1). The SST anomalies over most of the tropical west Pacific also reverse sign, from negative in summer ofYr(0) to positive in the following summer. Local air-sea interactions influence the evolution of these ENSO-induced SST anomalies and related sea level pressure (SLP) and precipitation anomalies. Over the western North Pacific, the southward displacement of the jet stream and storm track in the summer ofYr(0) changes the solar radiation and latent heat flux at the surface, which results in anomalous cooling (and deepening) of the oceanic mixed layer at ∼40°N. The potential impact of both the tropical and North Pacific SST anomalies on the broader climate is discussed.
Matsu: An Elastic Cloud Connected to a SensorWeb for Disaster Response

This slide presentation reviews the use of cloud computing combined with the SensorWeb in aiding disaster response planning. Included is an overview of the architecture of the SensorWeb, and overviews of the phase 1 of the EO-1 system and the steps to improve it to transform it to an On-demand product cloud as part of the Open Cloud Consortium (OCC). The effectiveness of this system is demonstrated in the SensorWeb for the Namibia flood in 2010, using information blended from MODIS, TRMM, River Gauge data, and the Google Earth version of Namibia the system enabled river surge predictions and could enable planning for future disaster responses.
Religious Fervor: The Development of an Open Source Religious Document

According to Robles (2004), the basic elements of open-source software include users being treated as co-developers, early releases, frequent integration, several versions, high modularization and dynamic decision making structure. Another product that neatly fits these definitions is the development of religious texts. I present the development of the sacred texts of Judaism and Christianity as a model of the open-source development of religious texts. I review three competing hypotheses for the development of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament) and compare their features to identifying attributes of open-source collaboration.
Linguistic testing during ON/OFF states of electrical stimulation in the associative portion of the subthalamic nucleus.

Introduction: Long-term studies of subthalamic nucleus (STN) deep brain stimulation (DBS) in patients with Parkinson's disease have shown potential cognitive and linguistic side-effects. In this pilot study, we examined whether direct monopolar stimulation in the ventral, associative STN would result in language effects. Methods: Three subjects participated in two linguistic tasks targeting language generation (language samples) and language composition (syntactic/grammatical structures). All subjects were tested in ON-/OFF-associative stimulation settings. The subjects' Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale scores in ON/OFF medication were taken; all subjects' scores indicated that DBS would be beneficial. Testing was conducted in the associative STN at varying stimulation settings of amplitude (80% of previously determined side-effect threshold), pulse width, and frequency. Results: Linguistic functioning was affected by electrical stimulation to the associative STN. The data reflected a general decline in linguistic functioning in the ON stimulation setting. Conclusion: Our data support previous findings implicating STN stimulation in cognitive-linguistic effects. A larger patient group with a blinded methodology is warranted.
Federal and State Authority for Broadband Regulation

Verizon’s challenge to the Federal Communications Commission’s 2010 Open Internet Order voided the substance of those rules. But even as the Commission lost the authority to enforce those rules, it gained substantial new regulatory powers. The D.C. Circuit expressly affirmed the Commission’s interpretation of section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, granting it general regulatory authority to promote the deployment of broadband infrastructure. The significance of this power can hardly be understated. The Commission has relied on this authority to preempt state statutes, to subsidize broadband deployment, and even to support, together with Title II of the Communications Act, new network neutrality rules. And the reach of section 706 extends beyond the federal commission and into state regulatory bodies: The statute explicitly vests state commissions with the authority to encourage the deployment of broadband to all Americans. Like the FCC, the states have pounced on this authority, using it to engage in substantive merger reviews, and to impose regulatory requirements on telecommunications companies.This concurrent grant of jurisdiction to the FCC and to state commissions thus has important implications for the unique brand of federalism that has dominated telecommunications regulation. Section 706’s dual grant of authority to federal and state regulators embraces an experimentalist approach to telecommunications regulation, allowing states to serve as laboratories of regulatory experiments, while empowering the FCC to generalize their successes.
The locations and amounts of endogenous ions and elements in the cap and elongating zone of horizontally oriented roots of Zea mays L.: an electron-probe EDS study

We used quantitative electron-probe energy-dispersive x-ray microanalysis to localize endogenous Na, Cl, K, P, S, Mg and Ca in cryofixed and freeze-dried cryosections of the cap (i.e. the putative site of graviperception) and elongating zone (i.e. site of gravicurvature) of horizontally oriented roots of Zea mays. Ca, Na, Cl, K and Mg accumulate along the lower side of caps of horizontally oriented roots. The most dramatic asymmetries of these ions occur in the apoplast, especially the mucilage. We could not detect any significant differences in the concentrations of these ions in the central cytoplasm of columella cells along the upper and lower sides of caps of horizontally-oriented roots. However, the increased amounts of Na, Cl, K and Mg in the longitudinal walls of columella cells along the lower side of the cap suggest that these ions may move down through the columella tissue of horizontally-oriented roots. Ca also accumulates (largely in the mucilage) along the lower side of the elongating zone of horizontally-oriented roots, while Na, P, Cl and K tend to accumulate along the upper side of the elongating zone. Of these ions, only K increases in concentration in the cytoplasm and longitudinal walls of cortical cells in the upper vs lower sides of the elongating zone. These results indicate that (1) gravity-induced asymmetries of ions differ significantly in the cap and elongating zone of graviresponding roots, (2) Ca accumulates along the lower side of the cap and elongating zone of graviresponding roots, (3) increased growth of the upper side of the elongating zone of horizontally-oriented roots correlates positively with increased amounts of K in the cytoplasm and longitudinal walls of cortical cells, and (4) the apoplast (especially the mucilage) may be an important component of the pathway via which ions move in graviresponding rots of Zea mays. These results are discussed relative to mechanisms for graviperception and gravicurvature of roots.
What Should Deflationism be when it Grows up

I argue that a popular brand of deflationism about truth, disquotationalism, does not adequately account for some central varieties of truth ascription. For example, given Boyle’s Law is “The product of pressure and volume is exactly a constant for an ideal gas”, disquotationalism does not explain why the blind ascription “Boyle’s Law is true” implies that the product of pressure and volume is exactly a constant for an ideal gas, and given Washington said only “Birds sing”, disquotationalism does not explain why the existentially quantified ascription “Something Washington said is true” implies that birds sing. Thus disquotationalism fails to account for all the facts about truth.
Conserved Nutrient Sensor O-GlcNAc Transferase Is Integral to C. elegans Pathogen-Specific Immunity

Discriminating pathogenic bacteria from bacteria used as a food source is key to Caenorhabidits elegans immunity. Using mutants defective in the enzymes of O-linked N-acetylglucosamine (O-GlcNAc) cycling, we examined the role of this nutrient-sensing pathway in the C. elegans innate immune response. Genetic analysis showed that deletion of O-GlcNAc transferase (ogt-1) yielded animals hypersensitive to the human pathogen S. aureus but not to P. aeruginosa. Genetic interaction studies revealed that nutrient-responsive OGT-1 acts through the conserved β-catenin (BAR-1) pathway and in concert with p38 MAPK (PMK-1) to modulate the immune response to S. aureus. Moreover, whole genome transcriptional profiling revealed that O-GlcNAc cycling mutants exhibited deregulation of unique stress- and immune-responsive genes. The participation of nutrient sensor OGT-1 in an immunity module evolutionarily conserved from C. elegans to humans reveals an unexplored nexus between nutrient availability and a pathogen-specific immune response.
Good Samaritans, Good Humanitarians

Duties of beneficence are not well understood. Peter Singer has argued that the scope of beneficence should not be restricted to those who are, in some sense, near us. According to Singer, refusing to contribute to humanitarian relief efforts is just as wrong as refusing to rescue a child drowning before you. Most people do not seem convinced by Singer's arguments, yet no one has offered a plausible justification for restricting the scope of beneficence that doesn't produce counterintuitive results elsewhere. I offer a defence of this restricted scope by introducing the notion of unique dependence, a notion that is both intuitively attractive and theoretically grounded. It explains why your reason to rescue the drowning child is more stringent than your reason to contribute to humanitarian relief, while blocking the conclusion that we have no reason at all to aid distant sufferers.
Prevalence and natural history of monoclonal and polyclonal B-cell lymphocytosis in a residential adult population†

Background: Monoclonal B-cells can be detected in the peripheral blood of some adults without B-cell malignancies, a condition recently termed monoclonal B-cell lymphocytosis (MBL). The risk of individuals with MBL progressing to a B-cell malignancy is unknown. Polyclonal B-cell lymphocytosis (PCBL) has not been systematically studied in the general population. Methods: We obtained lymphocyte subset counts on 1,926 residential adults aged 40–76 years in a series of environmental health studies between 1991 and 1994. We then conducted two follow-ups in 1997 and 2003 on consenting participants with B-cell lymphocytosis, which included nine participants with MBL. To ascertain the clinical implications of MBL, we reviewed medical records and death certificates. Results: The overall prevalence of MBL was 0.57% (11/1,926): nine cases at baseline and two additional cases identified at follow-up. Two (19%) MBL cases subsequently developed a B-cell malignancy; MBL persisted in the remaining nine cases (81%). All PCBL cases where no clone emerged regressed to normal B-cell counts over the follow-up period. MBL was significantly more frequent in residents near a hazardous waste site than in the control populations (age-adjusted OR 6.2; 95%CI 1.1–36.2). Conclusion: MBL confers an elevated risk for developing a B-cell malignancy, although it occurs only in a minority of cases. PCBL is most often a transient state, but a monoclonal population can emerge and persist. Prospective studies are needed to distinguish stable from progressive forms of B-cell lymphocytosis and to clarify the etiologic role of environmental exposures. Published 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
Determinants of outcomes for postcardiotomy VAD placement: an 11-year, two-institution study.

Objective: Ventricular assist device (VAD) placement after postcardiotomy failure is associated with a high mortality. We sought to determine prognostic factors in order to help better select patients who may benefit from VAD placement. Methods: From January 1992 to January 2003, 63 patients out of approximately 30,000 cardiac surgery patients (0.21%) developed postcardiotomy failure requiring VADs. Planned VAD for bridge to transplant or bridge to recovery were excluded. Multivariate logistic regression analysis, based on pre-VAD placement parameters, was used to determine prognostic factors for in-hospital 30-day mortality. Results: Overall operative mortality was 73% (46 of 63). Multivariate logistic regression analysis identified median age ≤50 (each additional year) (OR = 0.85, 95% CI = 0.77 to 0.95, p = 0.004) and median base deficit ≥0 mEq/L (each additional mEq/L) prior to VAD placement (OR = 0.60, 95% CI = 0.48 to 0.91, p = 0.012) to be independent predictors of improved 30-day survival. Conclusions: Postcardiotomy failure is a rare event but is associated with a very poor prognosis despite salvage therapies utilizing VADs. Age ≤50 years and base deficit ≥0 (mEq/L) prior to VAD placement are associated with improved 30-day survival.
Clinical and pathological characteristics of brain metastasis resected after failed radiosurgery.

OBJECTIVE: This study evaluates the tumor histopathology and clinical characteristics of patients who underwent resection of their brain metastasis after failed gamma knife radiosurgery. METHODS: This study was a retrospective review from a prospective database. A total of 1200 brain metastases in 912 patients were treated by gamma knife radiosurgery during a 7-year period. Fifteen patients (1.6% of patients, 1.2% of all brain metastases) underwent resective surgery for either presumed tumor progression (6 patients) or worsening neurological symptoms associated with increased mass effect (9 patients). Radiographic imaging, radiosurgical and surgical treatment parameters, histopathological findings, and long-term outcomes were reviewed for all patients. RESULTS:The mean age at the time of radiosurgery was 57 years (age range, 32-65 years). Initial pathological diagnoses included metastatic non-small cell lung carcinoma in 8 patients (53%), melanoma in 4 patients (27%), renal cell carcinoma in 2 patients (13%), and squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue in 1 patient (7%). The mean time interval between radiosurgery and surgical extirpation was 8.5 months (range, 3 weeks to 34 months). The mean treatment volume for the resected lesion at the time of radiosurgery was 4.4 cm 3 (range, 0.6-8.4 cm 3 ).The mean dose to the tumor margin was 21 Gy (range, 18-24 Gy). In addition to the 15 tumors that were eventually resected, a total of 32 other metastases were treated synchronously, with a 78% control rate. The mean volume immediately before surgery for the 15 resected lesions was 7.5 cm 3 (range, 3.8-10.2 cm 3 ). Histological findings after radiosurgery varied from case to case and included viable tumor, necrotic tumor, vascular hyalinization, hemosiderin-laden macrophages, reactive gliosis in surrounding brain tissue, and an elevated MIB-1 proliferation index in cases with viable tumor. The mean survival for patients in whom viable tumor was identified (9.4 months) was significantly lower than that of patients in whom only necrosis was seen (15.1 months; Fisher's exact test, P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: Radiation necrosis and tumor radioresistance are the most common causes precipitating a need for surgical resection after radiosurgery in patients with brain metastasis.
Of Spies, Refugees and Hostile Propaganda: How Austria dealt with the Hungarian Crisis of 1956

Austrian historians have traditionally highlighted the positive effects that the Hungarian crisis of 1956 had on their country, forcing it to implement the neutrality it had won just one year earlier. Archival documents, however, reveal the negative ‘spillover’ effects of the crisis, at least in the short run. In fact, the crisis hindered Austria's ability to further the cause of Hungarian freedom. It forced Austria to seek substantial financial and logistical help from other countries. Finally, the crisis worsened Austria's relations with both Hungary and the Soviet Union, thereby undoing the progress made after the State Treaty was signed in May 1955. The Khrushchev and Kadar regimes exploited the issues of border incidents, espionage, discrimination against international organizations, delay in repatriating refugees, and anti-communist propaganda to accuse Austria of violating neutrality, thereby throwing Austria onto the defensive and reducing the negative impact of the Soviet Union's aggression against its own ally, Hungary. It was hard enough for Austria to remain neutral in the cold war period in general, let alone during an actual ‘hot war’– especially when the country was new at exercising neutrality, when the crisis was right on its border, and when the population adhered to western democratic values.