cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Comprehensive description of J/ψ production in proton-proton collisions at collider energies.

We employ a small x Color Glass Condensate + Non-Relativistic QCD (NRQCD) formalism to compute J/ψ production at low p⊥ in proton-proton collisions at collider energies. Very good agreement is obtained for total cross-sections, rapidity distributions and low momentum p⊥ distributions. Similar agreement is obtained for ψ' production. We observe an overlap region in p⊥ where our results match smoothly to those obtained in a next-to-leading order (NLO) collinearly factorized NRQCD formalism. The relative contribution of color singlet and color octet contributions can be quantified in the CGC+NRQCD framework, with the former contributing approximately 10% of the total cross-section.
Incorporating Diabetes Care Into a Health Maintenance Organisation Setting

This article describes 3 approaches to improving diabetes care in a health maintenance organisation (HMO) setting. The first approach was to identify which patients had not received a dilated eye examination in the past year, notify both them and their physician, and provide each with information concerning its importance, as well as providing the physician with the means to easily communicate with the patient. The results were a disappointing modest and transient increase in dilated eye examinations, which returned to the baseline rate after a few months.
Involvement of 5-HT2 receptors in chronic endothelial dysfunction after balloon injury of porcine coronary arteries.

BACKGROUND Endothelium-dependent, pertussis toxin-sensitive relaxation to 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) is impaired selectively after balloon injury of porcine coronary artery, followed by regeneration of the endothelial cells. The present study was designed to test the hypothesis that 5-HT, released from aggregating platelets, affects the progression of the endothelial dysfunction. METHODS AND RESULTS Yorkshire pigs were assigned randomly to three groups: control group (standard diet), denudation group (high-cholesterol diet plus balloon denudation of the endothelium of coronary artery under fluoroscopy), and DV-7028-treated group (denudation group plus chronic treatment with the selective 5-HT2 receptor antagonist DV-7028, given from the first day on after balloon denudation). Four weeks after the denudation, quantitative angiography revealed that 5-HT injected into the coronary artery decreased the luminal diameter of the left anterior descending coronary artery at the denuded site in the denudation group but not in the control or the DV-7028-treated group. Then, animals were killed so we could study the endothelium-dependent responses of their coronary arteries in conventional organ chambers. The arteries from the denudation group exhibited less relaxation to 5-HT and sodium fluoride (a stimulant of G proteins) than those of the control group. Relaxations to 5-HT and sodium fluoride were greater in arteries from the DV-7028-treated group than in those from the denudation group. In contrast, the endothelium-dependent, pertussis toxin-insensitive relaxations to bradykinin and thrombin and the endothelium-independent relaxations to sodium nitroprusside and isoproterenol were not affected significantly by chronic treatment with DV-7028. CONCLUSIONS These results suggest that 5-HT2 receptors are involved in the chronic progression of endothelial dysfunction after balloon denudation in the porcine coronary artery.
Use of thermocouple psychrometry in field studies of soil-plant-water relationships

Use of Spanner thermocouple psychrometers to measure soil water potentials and internal water potentials of woody plants was studied using honey mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa var. glandulosa) growing under two soil water regimes.
Convergent and Discriminant Validity of Measures: Employee Problem Appraisal Form

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the convergent and discriminant validity of counselor and client ratings of common presenting problems at a counseling center for unviersity employees. Each subject was asked to complete the Employee Problem Appraisal Form (EPAF) at three points in time: during the intake interview (N = 306); after eight weeks of counseling (N = 114); and at termination after 16 or more counseling sessions (N = 80). The counselor for each client also completed a parallel form of the EPAF at each time interval. Five scales on the EPAF were selected for multitrait-multimethod analysis on the basis of internal-consistency estimates. Non-zero convergent validity values (correlations between independent measures of the same trait) ranged from .27 to .66. That four of these non-zero convergent validity values were higher than correlations between independent measures of different traits (heterotrait-heteromethod values) provided some evidence of discriminant validity. Elevations of corr...
Cortico-cortical connections of somatic sensory cortex (areas 3, 1 and 2) in the rhesus monkey.

The connections of areas 3, 1 and 2 in the postcentral gyrus of the rhesus monkey are investigated using ablation-degeneration techniques following both full depth lesions and lesions which involved fewer than six cortical layers. Analysis of the topographic and laminar organization of these connections reveal that each of these areas has a differential connection pattern both within the parietal lobe and with respect to motor cortex. Area 3 projects predominantly to area 1 via a horizontal, intracortical fiber system which courses through layers III and V without entering the white matter while other efferents of area 3 to areas 2, 3a and second somatosensory cortex (SII) are less dense and course through the white matter. There is no indication that area 3 efferents terminate in areas 4 or 5. In comparison to area 3, area 1 has a wider projection field. Its primary outflow reaches area 2 via a white matter course while moderately strong connections are directed to areas 3a, S II, 4 and supplementary motor cortex (M II) and a minor projection to area 5. Lesions involving the supragranular layers of area 1 demonstrate that efferents from these layers (II-III) travel directly through the cortex to terminate in layer I of area 3 as well as entering the white matter before terminating in area 2 ventral to the tip of the intraparietal sulcus. Finally, area 2 projects primarily to area 5 via both an intracortical fiber system in layers III-V as well as through the white matter. While area 2 also has connections with areas 1, 3a, S II, 6 and M II, it was not observed to project to area 3. In addition, layers I-IV of area 2 ventral to the intraparietal sulcus send a number of horizontally oriented fibers mainly through layer IIIb to terminate in rostral area 7 (area PF of Bonin and Bailey, '47). Thus, the projections of these three subdivisions of the postcentral gyrus indicate that there is a strong and sequential outflow of connections from area 3 to areas 1 and 2, then from area 1 to area 2 and finally from area 2 to area 5 and rostral area 7. Each of these connections originates to a large extent from the supragranular layers. In contrast, connections of these areas in the opposite direction toward the central sulcus are less pronounced.
Inter-tube bonding, graphene formation and anisotropic transport properties in spark plasma sintered multi-wall carbon nanotube arrays

Abstract Millimeter long, vertically oriented, multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) arrays were pre-aligned and densified using spark plasma sintering (SPS) technique to form aligned MWCNT bulk samples. The combined results of X-ray powder diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy show that the MWCNTs largely retain their orientation and individual tubular morphology in the aligned MWCNT bulk samples, and that the SPS process induces inter- and intra-tubular bonding as well as graphene formation. In view of the one-dimensional nature of individual MWCNTs, it is particularly noteworthy that the transverse electrical resistivity ρT is slightly lower than the longitudinal resistivity ρL, whereas the transverse thermal conductivity κT is ∼50% of κL. The room temperature κL is ∼31 W/(m K), one of the highest reported in MWCNT bulk samples. In addition, the thermopower measurements show anisotropy and features of phonon drag.
Federal funding for graduate medical education.

Graduate medical education (GME), or residency training, has been a vital part of medical training for most of this century. A variety of mechanisms support this activity including subsidies from clinical revenues. However, the major sources of designated revenue for GME are payments to teaching hospitals from Medicare specifically to support GME. Congress has wrestled in recent years with the issues of appropriate levels of support and mechanisms of support for GME, and a variety of proposals are likely to be actively discussed in this session. This article will review the history of federal support for GME and current legislative proposals. Although the most recent estimates project an extension of solvency for the Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust, the long-term outlook for the program remains grim. By 2009, Medicare expenditures will account for more than 20% of the federal budget, and between 2010 and 2030 the number of elderly individuals in the country will increase by 3% annually.1 In 1970 the United States had a ratio of 151 active physicians per 100,000 population. By 1992 this ratio had increased to 245 per 100,000 population.2 There is general agreement that the nation is currently approaching a surplus of physicians and that if the current numbers of resident training positions continue this surplus will rapidly increase.3-5 Although recent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates have eased some of the urgency from Medicare reform, the underlying demographic and political realities framing the debate on federal funding for GME have not changed. As illustrated in table 1, Medicare funding represents only a portion of the federal support for GME. The Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Defense, Public Health Service, and the federal portion of Medicaid together provide approximately $2.5 billion annually to support GME.6 However, because Medicare provides …
Febrile responses of rabbits to bacterial endotoxin following incubation in homologous serum and plasma.

SummaryQuantitative febrile responses of normal and tolerant rabbits to 2 purified endotoxins and a heat-killed vaccine were examined after prior incubation in normal rabbit serum and saline. In addition, the effects on febrile responses of varying the age and source of test animals, the type of incubation media and the period of incubation were studied. No evidence of enhanced pyrogenicity of endotoxin incubated in serum was found.We are grateful to Dr. M. Landy for providing S. typhosa vaccine for these studies, to Mr. Stanley Ward and Mr. Joseph Edelin for expert technical assistance, and to Dr. David Ailing for help in calculation of statistical analyses.
The relations of generative concern and generative action to personality traits, satisfaction/happiness with life, and ego development

This research examined the relations that generative concern and generative action have to personality traits, satisfaction/happiness with life, and ego development. Generative concern is a general personality tendency or interest in caring for younger and anticipated individuals, while generative action addresses actual physical behaviors that promote the well-being of future generations. Two samples (79 and 152 adults) were employed. Generative concern scores were significantly related to scores for extraversion, openness, emotional stability (non-neuroticism), and agreeableness as well as to two agentic traits (achievement, dominance) and two communal traits (affiliation, nurturance). Generative action was significantly related to extraversion and openness. Generative concern but not generative action was found, as predicted, to be positively related to one's life satisfaction/happiness. Further, one's level of ego development determined, in part, the relation that generative concern had to satisfaction/happiness with life. Given that a subject scored high in ego development, his or her level of satisfaction/happiness varied as a function of generative concern such that those who scored low on generative concern were significantly less satisfied/happy than those that scored high on generative concern. The results are discussed within the context of the recently proposed theory of generativity.
Effect of Temperature Acclimation on the Metabolic Rate of Sea Urchins

Three sea-urchin species were acclimated at 9° and 18°C for 30 days. Following acclimation, oxygen-consumption measurements were made over a broad temperature range (6° to 24°C). The effect of temperature acclimation on the metabolic rate-temperature relationship (R-T curve) was determined for each species. R-T curves of Strongylocentrotus purpuratus generally indicate no compensation (Precht type 4). Some inverse compensation (Precht type 5) is suggested at intermediate test temperatures. R-T curves of Strongylocentrotus franciscanus indicate inverse compensation particularly at intermediate test temperatures. R-T curves of Allocentrotus fragilis generally indicate no compensation. With two species, S. purpuratus and A. fragilis, greater levels of rate-temperature independence were generally reached by cold-acclimated forms at lower test temperatures and by warm-acclimated forms at higher. Rotational (slope) changes in these R-T curves may be more critical than translational (ordinate) changes.
The effect of salicylate medication upon the urinary excretion of vitamin C.

The urinary excretion of vitamin C may be significantly increased following the ingestion of salicylate in the presence of viral infections.
Monitoring Hydrogen Peroxide in the Extracellular Space of the Brain with Amperometric Microsensors

Interest in the detection of hydrogen peroxide in living brain tissue is growing for several reasons. Peroxide and other reactive oxygen species are implicated in neurodegenerative disorders and appear to have neuromodulatory functions in the brain. Also, there is a need to measure peroxide levels as a companion to measurements with amperometric sensors that rely on enzymes to generate peroxide for the detection of glutamate, choline, and glucose. Herein, we report on measurements performed in the brain of anesthetized rats with carbon fiber amperometric sensors coated with a cross-linked redox polymer film that contains horseradish peroxidase. Prior work with these sensors has established that they are both sensitive and selective toward hydrogen peroxide. When implanted in the striatal region of the rat brain, a biphasic response is observed upon electrical stimulation of the dopaminergic pathway that innervates the striatal tissue. No response is observed at sensors lacking HRP, which are not sensitive...
Lipid and Temperature Dependence of Membrane-Bound ATPase Activity of Acholeplasma laidlawii

Arrhenius plots (15–45 °C) of the ATPase activity of Acholeplasma laidlawii membranes enriched with either arachidoyl or saturated short-chain groups exhibited a pronounced discontinuity in slope a...
Fluconazole in the treatment of chronic pulmonary and nonmeningeal disseminated coccidioidomycosis

Purpose To determine the efficacy and safety of fluconazole as treatment for coccidioidomycosis. Patients and methods This was a multiCenter, open-label, single-arm study. Of 78 patients enrolled, 22 had soft-tissue, 42 had chronic pulmonary, and 14 had skeletal coccidioidomycosis. Forty-nine had at least one concomitant disease, 7 of whom had HIV infection. Patients were given oral fluconazole 200 mg/d. Nonresponders were increased to 400 mg/d. Treatment courses were long: a mean of 323 ±230 days at 200 mg and 433 ± 178 days at 400 mg. Predefined assessment of disease-related abnormalities was performed at the time of enrollment and repeated at least every 4 months. A satisfactory response was defined as any reduction of baseline abnormality by month 4 and at least 51% reduction by month 8. Results Among 75 evaluable patients, a satisfactory response was observed in 12 (86%) of the 14 patients with skeletal, 22 (55%) of the 40 patients with chronic pulmonary, and 16 (76%) of the 21 patients with soft-tissue disease. Five patients (7%) required modification of treatment due to toxicity. Forty-one patients who responded were followed off drug. Fifteen (37%) of them experienced reactivation of infection. Conclusion Fluconazole 200 or 400 mg/d is well tolerated and a moderately effective treatment for chronic pulmonary or nonmeningeal disseminated coccidioidomycosis. The relapse rate following therapy is high. Treatment trials with higher doses appear warranted. The relative efficacy of fluconazole versus other azoles or amphotericin B remains unknown.
Status hearings in drug court: when more is less and less is more

We examined the effects of increasing the number of times misdemeanor drug court clients appeared before a judge for judicial status hearings. Our previous findings showed no main effect of increased hearings during the first 14 weeks of the program. The present study examined participants' discharge status in the program, and also explored potential interactions between client characteristics and the frequency of judicial status hearings on outcomes. Results revealed no main effects for hearing frequency on graduation status. Drug offenders who satisfied DSM-IV criteria for antisocial personality disorder (APD) achieved more weeks of urinalysis-confirmed drug abstinence when assigned to more frequent judicial status hearings, whereas subjects without APD achieved more abstinence and were more likely to graduate successfully from the program when assigned to less frequent hearings. Additionally, clients with a history of substance abuse treatment achieved more weeks of abstinence when assigned to more frequent hearings. These findings lend useful guidance to drug courts. Status hearings are expensive and time consuming and should be targeted to clients who would benefit most from them.
Correlates of objective and subjective measures of caregiver burden among dementia caregivers: influence of unmet patient and caregiver dementia-related care needs.

Background This study examines the relationship of unmet dementia-related care needs of community-dwelling persons, and their caregivers (CGs), to measures of caregiver burden.
Women, Spinal Cord Injury, and Domestic Violence: A Review

Women represent an underreported segment of the spinal cord injury (SCI) community. A majority of the literature written on SCI deals with its impact from the male point of view. Very few articles acknowledge or address the social problems that women with SCI encounter. This article will address the specific social issue of domestic violence and will offer a number of recommendations for the rehabilitation community.
Speech processing and synthesis for assessing vocal disorders

Techniques for the quantitative assessment and classification of vocal disorders are described. Models for vocal disorders using speech synthesis are examined. Methods for characterizing the electroglottography (EGG) waveform and the assessment of vocal quality using acoustic and EGG signal features are discussed. >
Association Between Childhood School Segregation and Changes in Adult Sense of Control in the African American Health Cohort

Objective. Cross-sectional associations between childhood school segregation and adult sense of control and physical performance have been established in the African American Health (AAH) cohort. Here we extend that work by estimating the association between childhood school segregation and 2-year changes in adult sense of control. Method. Complete data on 541 older AAH men and women were used to estimate the association between childhood school segregation and changes in the sense of control. Exposure to segregation was self-reported in 2004, and the sense of control was measured in 2008 and 2010 using Blom rank transformations of Mirowsky and Ross’ 8-item scale. Declining subjective income and experiencing major life stressors between 2008 and 2010, as well as traditional covariates (demographic factors, socioeconomic status, self-rated health, racial attitudes and beliefs, and religiosity) were included for statistical adjustment. Multiple linear regression analysis with propensity score reweighting was used. Results. Recei ving the majority of one’s primary and secondary education in segregated schools had a significant net positive association (d = 0.179; p = .029) with 2-year changes in adult sense of control. Conclusion. AAH participants recei ving the majority of their primary and secondary educations in segregated schools appeared to have been protected, in part, from age-related declines in the sense of control.
Enhancing Generalized Teaching Strategy Use in Daily Routines by Parents of Children With Autism

Purpose The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of facilitating generalized use of teaching strategies by parents of children with autism within daily routines. Method Five preschool c...
Job Satisfaction and Retention of Rural Community Health Nurses in North Dakota

A correlation between job satisfaction and employment longevity has been demonstrated by a number of researchers. However, the measurable aspects of job satisfaction only partially explain an individual's tenure at a particular job. Information about the relationship between job satisfaction and retention of community health nurses in a rural state was provided by 258 community health nurses in North Dakota who responded to a mailed questionnaire. Job satisfaction assessment included measures of autonomy, task requirements, salary, benefits, rewards, professional status, organizational climate, and interpersonal interactions. Job satisfaction was analyzed by taking into account the individual importance of each component. While the majority (61%) of the responding nurses indicated that they expected to stay in their current jobs for a period of five years or more, they were dissatisfied with various aspects of their jobs. The greatest factor influencing the nurses' choice of current position was job availability, followed by preferences for the particular health care agencies or communities. These findings indicate that retention of rural nurses should focus on strategies that go beyond improving job satisfaction.
Foreign labor and German industrial capitalism 1871–1978: the evolution of a migratory system

This article traces the historical development of Germany's use of foreign labor since the founding of the Reich in 1871. Contrary to official proclamations that intra-European migration is a mutually beneficial exchange of regional resources, this study demonstrates — historically and ethnographically — that labor migration functions to feed growth in the European “core” while stimulating socioeconomic decay or maintenance of the status quo in the “periphery.” The social scientific “equilibrium model” of regional interaction is thus seriously questioned.
Improving classification accuracy by identifying and removing instances that should be misclassified

Appropriately handling noise and outliers is an important issue in data mining. In this paper we examine how noise and outliers are handled by learning algorithms. We introduce a filtering method called PRISM that identifies and removes instances that should be misclassified. We refer to the set of removed instances as ISMs (instances that should be misclassified). We examine PRISM and compare it against 3 existing outlier detection methods and 1 noise reduction technique on 48 data sets using 9 learning algorithms. Using PRISM, the classification accuracy increases from 78.5% to 79.8% on a set of 53 data sets and is statistically significant. In addition, the accuracy on the non-outlier instances increases from 82.8% to 84.7%. PRISM achieves a higher classification accuracy than the outlier detection methods and compares favorably with the noise reduction method.
Effectiveness of narrative pedagogy in developing student nurses’ advocacy role

Background:The literature and research on nursing ethics and advocacy has shown that generally very few nurses and other clinicians will speak up about an issue they have witnessed regarding a patient advocacy concern and that often advocacy in nursing is not learned until after students have graduated and begun working.Objective:To evaluate the effectiveness of narrative pedagogy on the development of advocacy in student nurses, as measured by the Protective Nursing Advocacy Scale.Design:We tested the hypothesis that use of a narrative pedagogy assignment related to ethics would improve student nurse’s perception of their advocacy role as measured by the Protective Nursing Advocacy Scale using a quasi-experimental nonrandomized study using a pre-test, intervention, post-test design. Data collection occurred during class time from October 2012 to December 2012. The Protective Nursing Advocacy Scale tool was administered to students in class to assess their baseline and was administered again at the comple...
Effects of Nicotine on Early Pregnancy in the Rat

The effects of nicotine on preimplantation embryonic development were investigated in the rat. A high dose of nicotine (7.5 mg nicotine tartrate) was injected s.c. twice daily from the morning of proestrus (Day 0 of pregnancy) until the day of sacrifice. Rats were sacrificed at 600, 1200, 1800 or 2400 h on Days 1-5 of pregnancy and the location and stage of development of the ova were recorded. Nicotine caused a delay of approximately 12 h in ovum cleavage from the 2-cell to the 4-cell stage; each step of embryonic development after the 4-cell stage was thereby delayed. In nicotinetreated rats, ovum entry into the uterus, blastocyst formation, shedding of the zona pellucida and implantation were delayed. A single injection of 0.2 pg estradiol on Day 3 of pregnancy abolished the delay in ovum entry into the uterus. Daily injection of nicotine caused a concentration or “crowding” of implantation sites toward the tubal ends of the uterine horns. An additional injection of estrogen on the afternoon of Day 4 resulted in even greater crowding. Concentrations of progesterone (P), luteinizing hormone (LH) and prolactin (PRL) in peripheral serum during the preimplantation period were lower in nicotine-treated rats than in saline-treated rats. On the other hand, serum concentrations of estrogens and follicle stimulating hormone were higher in nicotine-treated rats as compared to those in saline-treated rats. These results suggest that delayed implantation of ova in nicotine-treated rats is due not to a decreased secretion of estrogen, but rather to a delay in the increase of P secretion which is necessary to prepare the uterus for implanting blastocysts. This disturbance in P secretion appears to be the result, at least in part, of the hormonal imbalance of the hypothalamo-pituitary axis caused by the nicotine treatment.
Inhibition of sarcolemmal carbon-centered free radical formation by propranolol.

The mechanism of propranolol-inhibited sarcolemmal membrane lipid peroxidation was investigated by electron spin resonance spin-trapping technique using 5,5-dimethyl-1-pyrroline-N-oxide (DMPO) and 2-methyl-2-nitrosopropane (MNP). Highly purified canine myocytic sarcolemma were peroxidized by a superoxide-driven (from dihydroxyfumarate) and Fe3+-catalyzed free radical-generating system. Hydroxyl radicals (.OH), identified by electron spin resonance signals as DMPO-OH adducts, were generated in the aqueous phase. Propranolol up to 500 microM did not effectively reduce the intensity of the DMPO-OH adducts. When the sarcolemma were incubated with MNP before the addition of free radicals, MNP adducts characteristic of carbon-centered radicals were produced. Pretreatment of the membranes with propranolol (3-100 microM) decreased the intensity of the MNP adducts in a log concentration-dependent manner; the EC50 is about 7 microM. D- and L-propranolol were found equally effective. When protein-depleted sarcolemmal lipids were similarly incubated with MNP and the free radical system, identical MNP adducts were observed; this finding suggests that the adducts were lipid-derived products arising from lipid peroxidation. Furthermore, their formation was also inhibited by propranolol pretreatment. Since propranolol is not an effective scavenger of oxygen radicals in the aqueous phase, the data suggest that the antiperoxidative effect of propranolol is due to its lipophilic interaction with the membrane and thus subsequent interruption of the free radical chain reactions.
Effects of Climate and Exurban Development on Nest Predation and Predator Presence in the southern Appalachian Mountains (U.S.A.)

In the eastern United States, land-use and climate change have likely contributed to declines in the abundance of Neotropical migrant birds that occupy forest interiors, but the mechanisms are not well understood. We conducted a nest-predation experiment in southern Appalachian Mountain forests (North Carolina, U.S.A.) during the 2009 and 2010 breeding seasons to determine the effects of exurban development and temperature on predator presence and the average number of days until eggs in an artificial nest were disturbed by predators. We baited artificial nests with quail (Excalfactoria chinensi) eggs and monitored them for 18 days. We used clay eggs, track plates, and motion-triggered cameras to detect and identify nest predators. The average number of days a nest was undisturbed decreased as mean temperature increased and, to a lesser extent, as the density of buildings increased. Nests on the ground were more often depredated than those in trees, likely due to increased predation by opossum (Didelphis virginiana) and other carnivores. Raccoons (Procyon lotor), opossums, corvids (Corvus brachyrhynchos and Cyanocitta cristata), chipmunks (Tamias striatus), black bears (Ursus americanus), and domestic cats (Felis catus) were the most commonly detected predators. Presence of these predators did not vary as a function of mean temperature. Domestic cats and corvids were detected more frequently in plots with high rather than low densities of buildings. Forest-interior specialists and Neotropical migrants often nest in cool, high-elevation areas with low housing density. These bird species, especially those that nest on the ground, may be most vulnerable to increased nest predation if temperature and exurban development increase at higher elevations as anticipated.
Nineteenth Century North American and Pacific Tidal Data: Lost or Just Forgotten?

ABSTRACT Talke, S.A. and Jay, D.A., 2013. Nineteenth century North American and Pacific tidal data: lost or just forgotten? Tide data are the oldest and longest oceanographic records and comprise one of the few tools for understanding, quantifying, and separating century-scale human and climate impacts on the coastal zone. Our archival research indicates that continuous measurements of tides began in 1844 in the western Atlantic, 1853 in the Eastern Pacific, and 1858 in the Western Pacific. At least 50 multiyear tide series existed by the year 1900. With few exceptions, however, these 19th and early 20th century measurements have not been analyzed in more than a century and have been forgotten and neglected by the scientific community. This article describes historical tide measurements in the Pacific Ocean and North America, their current status, and ongoing efforts to recover the data. Possible uses of the data include assessing trends in sea level, tidal properties, and river flow, and reanalyzing extr...
A Framework for Building Privacy-Conscious Composite Web Services

The rapid growth of web applications has prompted increasing interest in the area of composite web services that involve several service providers. The potential for such composite web services can be realized only if consumer privacy concerns are satisfactorily addressed. In this paper, we propose a framework that addresses consumer privacy concerns in the context of highly customizable composite web services. Our approach involves service producers exchanging their terms-of-use with consumers in the form of "models". Our framework provides automated techniques for checking these models at the consumer site for compliance of consumer privacy policies. In the event of a policy violation, our framework supports automatic generation of "obligations" that the consumer generates for the composite service. These obligations are automatically enforced through a dynamic program analysis approach on the web service composition code. We illustrate our approach with the implementation of two example services.
Symphyotrichum ericoides populations from seleniferous and nonseleniferous soil display striking variation in selenium accumulation.

Summary Symphyotrichum ericoides (Asteraceae) from naturally seleniferous habitat (Pine Ridge) was shown previously to have selenium (Se) hyperaccumulator properties in field and glasshouse studies, and to benefit from Se through protection from herbivory. To investigate whether Se hyperaccumulation is ubiquitous in S. ericoides or restricted to seleniferous soils, the S. ericoides Pine Ridge (PR) population was compared with the nearby Cloudy Pass (CP) population from nonseleniferous soil. The S. ericoidesPR and CP populations were strikingly physiologically different: in a common garden experiment, PR plants accumulated up to 40-fold higher Se concentrations than CP plants and had 10-fold higher Se : sulfur (S) ratios. Moreover, roots of S. ericoidesPR plants showed directional growth toward selenate, while CP roots did not. Growth of both accessions responded positively to Se. Each accession grew best on its own soil. Rhizosphere soil inoculum from the S. ericoidesPR population stimulated plant growth and Se accumulation in both S. ericoidesPR and S. ericoidesCP plants, on both PR and CP soils. While the S. ericoidesPR population hyperaccumulates Se, the nearby CP population does not. The capacity of S. ericoidesPR plants to hyperaccumulate Se appears to be a local phenomenon that is restricted to seleniferous soil. Mutualistic rhizosphere microbes of the S. ericoidesPR population may contribute to the hyperaccumulation phenotype.
A role for RNA post-transcriptional regulation in satellite cell activation

Satellite cells are resident skeletal muscle stem cells responsible for muscle maintenance and repair. In resting muscle, satellite cells are maintained in a quiescent state. Satellite cell activation induces the myogenic commitment factor, MyoD, and cell cycle entry to facilitate transition to a population of proliferating myoblasts that eventually exit the cycle and regenerate muscle tissue. The molecular mechanism involved in the transition of a quiescent satellite cell to a transit-amplifying myoblast is poorly understood. Satellite cells isolated by FACS from uninjured skeletal muscle and 12 h post-muscle injury from wild type and Syndecan-4 null mice were probed using Affymetrix 430v2 gene chips and analyzed by Spotfiretm and Ingenuity Pathway analysis to identify gene expression changes and networks associated with satellite cell activation, respectively. Additional analyses of target genes identify miRNAs exhibiting dynamic changes in expression during satellite cell activation. The function of the miRNAs was assessed using miRIDIAN hairpin inhibitors. An unbiased gene expression screen identified over 4,000 genes differentially expressed in satellite cells in vivo within 12 h following muscle damage and more than 50% of these decrease dramatically. RNA binding proteins and genes involved in post-transcriptional regulation were significantly over-represented whereas splicing factors were preferentially downregulated and mRNA stability genes preferentially upregulated. Furthermore, six computationally identified miRNAs demonstrated novel expression through muscle regeneration and in satellite cells. Three of the six miRNAs were found to regulate satellite cell fate. The quiescent satellite cell is actively maintained in a state poised to activate in response to external signals. Satellite cell activation appears to be regulated by post-transcriptional gene regulation.
Hillion's proof of the nonexistence of certain solutions of Maxwell's equations

The author notes that P. Hillion (see ibid., vol.33, no.2, p.144-5, 1991) has greatly simplified the author's proof that Maxwell's equations have generally no solution in the case of propagation of electromagnetic signals in lossy media. He clarifies some remarks on conservation of energy and causality law. >
Learning Visual Representations using Images with Captions

Current methods for learning visual categories work well when a large amount of labeled data is available, but can run into severe difficulties when the number of labeled examples is small. When labeled data is scarce it may be beneficial to use unlabeled data to learn an image representation that is low-dimensional, but nevertheless captures the information required to discriminate between image categories. This paper describes a method for learning representations from large quantities of unlabeled images which have associated captions; the goal is to improve learning in future image classification problems. Experiments show that our method significantly outperforms (1) a fully-supervised baseline model, (2) a model that ignores the captions and learns a visual representation by performing PCA on the unlabeled images alone and (3) a model that uses the output of word classifiers trained using captions and unlabeled data. Our current work concentrates on captions as the source of meta-data, but more generally other types of meta-data could be used.
Plastic versus glass tubes: effects on analytical performance of selected serum and plasma hormone assays.

During the last decade, plastic blood collection tubes have been progressively replacing glass tubes. Plastic tubes are not only less expensive but also safer than glass tubes, because they are less likely to break. Unfortunately, it is frequently difficult or impossible for individual laboratories to obtain comprehensive data on the equivalence of replacement plastic tubes vs their original glass counterparts. This is a particularly important issue for many endocrine assays, especially peptide hormones. These often degrade rapidly and can adsorb to a variety of surfaces (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7). Changing from glass to plastic tubes can also be problematic for analytes that are regarded as stable. An example of the latter can be seen in therapeutic drug monitoring, where plastic tubes have been shown to influence the measured concentrations or stabilities of several drugs (8)(9)(10). Similar concerns may apply to low-molecular-weight hormones, such as steroid hormones and biogenic amines. These are increasingly assayed by HPLC, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, or liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. It is conceivable that low-molecular-weight organic substances released by plastic tubes could interfere in some of these assays (11) and that small changes that are not detected by immunoassays would change the results of more specific methods. Finally, in certain situations, such as serial monitoring of tumor markers, even minor discrepancies between glass and plastic tubes may gain significance during changeover from one type of collection to the other. We designed the present study to give a reasonable representation of the range of analytes and analytical methodologies used in our laboratory, with particular emphasis on peptide hormones because of their known instability. We selected the following analytes:
Phytophthora species recovered from the Connecticut River Valley in Massachusetts, USA

Little is currently known about the assemblage of Phytophthora species in northeastern North America, representing a gap in our understanding of species incidence. Therefore, Phytophthora species were surveyed at 20 sites in Massachusetts, with 16 occurring in the Connecticut River Valley. Many of the sampled waterways were adjacent to active agricultural lands, yet were buffered by mature floodplain forests composed of Acer, Platanus, Populus and Ulmus. Isolates were recovered with three types of baits (rhododendron leaves, pear, green pepper) in 2013 and water filtration in 2014. Overall, 457 isolates of Phytophthora were recovered and based on morphological characters and rDNA internal transcribed spacer (ITS), β-tubulin (β-tub) and cytochrome oxidase c subunit I (cox1) sequences, 18 taxa were identified, including three new species: P. taxon intercalaris, P. taxon caryae and P. taxon pocumtuck. In addition, 49 isolates representing five species of Phytopythium also were identified. Water filtration captured a greater number of taxa (18) compared to leaf and fruit baits (12). Of the three bait types rhododendron leaves yielded the greatest number of isolates and taxa, followed by pear and green pepper, respectively. Despite the proximity to agricultural lands, none of the Phytophthora species baited are considered serious pathogens of vegetable crops in the region. However, many of the recovered species are known woody plant pathogens, including four species in the P. citricola s.l. complex that were identified: P. plurivora, P. citricola III, P. pini and a putative novel species, referred to here as P. taxon caryae. An additional novel species, P. taxon pocumtuck, is a close relative of P. borealis based on cox1 sequences. The results illustrate a high level of Phytophthora species richness in the Connecticut River Valley and that major rivers can serve as a source of inoculum for pathogenic Phytophthora species in the northeast.
Cyclospora: Whence and Where to?

To the casual reader of the lay press and to the nonparasitologist, Cyclospora appears to have come "out of nowhere". A discussion of this apparently changing Cyclospora dynamic teaches about how new microbial threats to health are recognized and understood. Cyclospora was detected in fecal specimens from three unrelated individuals in Papua New Guinea in the absence of any other known diarrheal disease agents. The phylogenetic relationships between the human-associated Cyclospora and the Eimeria suggest that the former may also exhibit restricted host species range. Cyclospora is transmitted from person to person via ingestion of contaminated water and food. Water has been a consistently identified risk factor for cyclosporiasis in most regions of the world where Cyclospora is endemic, although it has rarely been detected in the incriminated water supply. Immunologically compromised hosts also appear to be at greater risk of disease from both Cyclospora and Eimeria, persons infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) are well-represented among the reported cases of cyclosporiasis. The infectious dose of Cyclospora for humans is unknown. Estimates based upon well-characterized inocula in an epidemic setting indicate that as few as 10 to 100 oocysts may be sufficient. Many investigators have emphasized the utility of epifluorescence microscopy for improving the detection of the autofluorescent Cyclospora oocysts in rapid screening of fecal samples. Ultimately, a means of propagating the human-associated Cyclospora, a reliable and relevant disease model, and a system for genetic manipulation are required.
Chaos in the Brain: Novel Methodologies for Epilepsy Diagnosis and Seizure Detection

This article is a summary of the authors’ research on the application of the chaos theory along with wavelets and neural networks for automated EEG-based epilepsy diagnosis and seizure detection. The authors developed a novel wavelet-chaos-neural network methodology for classification of EEGs into healthy, ictal, and interictal EEGs based on the premise that EEG subbands may yield more accurate information compared with EEGs about constituent neuronal activities underlying the EEG. Certain changes in the EEGs that are not evident in the original full-spectrum EEG may be amplified when each sub-band is analyzed separately. Wavelet analysis is used to decompose the EEG into delta, theta, alpha, beta, and gamma sub-bands. Three parameters are employed for EEG representation: standard deviation (quantifying the signal variance), correlation dimension, and largest Lyapunov exponent (quantifying the non-linear chaotic dynamics of the signal). It was discovered that a particular mixed-band feature space consisting of nine parameters and a Levenberg-Marquardt Backpropagation Neural Network (LMBPNN) resulted in a high classification accuracy of 96.7%. In addition, a novel principal component analysis-enhanced (PCA) cosine radial basis function neural network classifier has been developed that yields comparable classification accuracy but is more robust with a lower standard deviation to changes in training data compared to LMBPNN. These statistics are especially remarkable because even the most highly trained neurologists do not appear to be able to detect interictal EEGs more than 80% of the times.
A study of fibrinogen turnover in classical hemophilia and congenital afibrinogenemia.

The rate of disappearance from the plasma of intravenously administered I 131 -labeled fibrinogen was studied in six patients with classical hemophilia and in one patient with congenital afibrinogenemia. The six patients with hemophilia had radioiodinated fibrinogen half-lives ranging from 2.8 to 3.6 days, while the patient with congenital afibrinogenemia had a labeled fibrinogen half-life of 3.0 days. These results compare favorably with fibrinogen turnover rates measured in normal adults by others and were similar to the normal fibrinogen turnover rate determined in the patient with congenital afibrinogenemia in a previous study. This failure to demonstrate a prolongation of survival of fibrinogen in patients with hemophilia suggests that in vivo clotting, if it occurs at all normally, is not a major factor in the turnover of fibrinogen.
Laplace Transform Techniques

The Laplace transform is a powerful tool for analyzing linear differential equations that are used to model dynamic systems. These mathematical models are useful approximations of many dynamic systems including those that are:
Electrocatalytic Hydrogenation of Edible Oils

Publisher Summary The electrochemical reaction methodologies are well suited to edible oil hydrogenation, due to their mild reaction conditions. This chapter discusses the basics of organic electrochemistry, electrocatalytic hydrogenation reaction schemes, and the application of such schemes to the partial hydrogenation of edible oils. In an organic electrochemical process, heterogeneous electron transfer reactions at the anode and cathode replace chemical oxidizing or reducing agents in solution. Electrons are added to or removed from the organic species of interest at the cathode or anode surface or the electron transfer reactions at the electrodes generate anion or cation radicals, which are transported into solution where they initiate various homogeneous reactions. Most organic electrochemical reductions in a proton-containing solvent like water occur by the direct transfer of one or more electrons to the chemical reactant at the cathode surface.
Boundary Value Problems

This chapter discusses the boundary value problems. The chapter presents a few equations of mathematical physics to get an idea of the type of conditions imposed upon the solutions of differential equations. The equations are, namely, the vibrating string, the equation of a vibrating circular membrane of radius R , and the equation of heat conduction in a body. The position u ( x , t ) of an elastic homogeneous string in the xu -plane at time t, vibrating under the sole influence of an initial stretching force T is given by u u = c 2 u xx , where c 2 = T/ρ and ρ is the linear density of the string. In deriving the equation, it is assumed that the forces of gravity are negligible compared to T and that the vibrations are small, that is, u x is small for all t . The boundary conditions could be of various kinds, expressing the fact that certain parts of the boundary of the body are kept at constant temperature.