cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Nitrogen-doped Carbon-coated SnxOy (x = 1 and y = 0 and 2) Nanoparticles for Rechargeable Li-Ion Batteries

Abstract Polyacrylonitrile was used as a precursor to coat N-doped carbon (NC) on SnxOy (x = 1 and y = 0 and 2) nanoparticles. The effect of NC coating on electrochemical performance of SnxOy anodes was investigated. Fine dispersion of metal nanoparticles coated with carbon was observed from microscopic analysis. Systematic studies were performed to understand the electrochemical behavior as well as Li-ion battery performance of the prepared materials. Noticeable capacity improvements for NC-SnO2 and NC-Sn were achieved over carbon-coated particles reported previously in the literature. Among the investigated materials, 50 wt% NC-SnO2 nanoparticles exhibited the best reversible capacity of 621 mA h g−1 while 60 wt% NC-Sn exhibited the highest capacity of 450 mA h g−1 at 100 mA/g after 50 cycles. Electrochemical studies revealed that the carbon shell can effectively increase the stability of the active materials and improve the cycling performance for lithium-ion batteries. NC-protected Sn nanoparticles were also synthesized using poly(vinylpyrrolidone) as a precursor and this material exhibited a significantly high discharge capacity of 650 mA h g−1 at 100 mA/g after 50 cycles. The studies performed on the Sn-based anodes show the potential of carbon content/coating level and metal particle size for improved Li-ion battery performance.
An Exact and Efficient Algorithm for the Constrained Dynamic Operator Staffing Problem for Call Centers

Call center managers are facing increasing pressure to reduce costs while maintaining acceptable service quality. Consequently, they often face constrained stochastic optimization problems, minimizing cost subject to service-level constraints. Complicating this problem is the fact that customer-arrival rates to call centers are often time varying. Thus, to satisfy their service goals in a cost-effective manner, call centers may employ permanent operators who always provide service, and temporary operators who provide service only when the call center is busy, i.e., when the number of customers in system increases beyond a threshold level. This provides flexibility to dynamically adjust the number of operators providing service in response to the time-varying arrival rate. The constrained dynamic operator staffing (CDOS) problem involves determining the number of permanent and temporary operators, and the threshold value(s) that minimize time-average hiring and opportunity costs subject to service-level constraints. We model the CDOS problem as a constrained Markov decision process (MDP) and seek the optimal nonrandomized policy. The only exact method in the literature to obtain the optimal nonrandomized policy for a constrained MDP is enumeration, which is often computationally prohibitive. We provide a novel exact and efficient solution method, the modified balance equations disjunctive constraints (MBEDC) algorithm, yielding a mixed-integer program formulation; the computation times of this algorithm for sample problems are lower than enumeration by up to a factor of 200, and by a factor of 10 on average. Using our algorithm, we quickly solve diverse instances of the CDOS problem, generating managerial insights into the effects of temporary operators and service-level constraints.
Syphilitic cardiovascular disease and bacterial endocarditis

Abstract This study was undertaken in order to ascertain the frequency with which syphilitic heart disease and bacterial endocarditis are associated with each other and also the importance of syphilis as a predisposing factor in the development of superimposed bacterial endocarditis. A review of 4,000 consecutive autopsies at the Institute of Pathology of the University Hospitals of Cleveland revealed five cases in which there was a diagnosis of both cardiovascular syphilis and bacterial endocarditis. However, four of these hearts also revealed stigmata of rheumatic fever, and this altered the significance of the syphilis in relation to the bacterial lesion. The results are at variance with several recent reports dealing with coexistent syphilis and bacterial endocarditis. 1–3
The Forcing of Antarctic Katabatic Winds

Abstract The temporal and spatial development of katabatic winds along an idealized slope representative of Anmtarctic terrain is examined using a hydrostatic, two-dimensional primitive equation model with explicit longwave radiation parameterization. A detailed diagnosis is made of a simulation in which katabatic flow develops from rest due to the strong radiational cooling of the underlying surface. Significant thermodynamic and dynamic differences are seen between the gravity-driven flows over the gently-sloping interior and over the steep ice slopes near the coast. The strongest temperature inversions and largest static stabilities are found over the interior of the continent, although the net cooling of the katabatic layer and magnitude of the downslope-directed horizontal pressure gradient force are greatest at the coast. The interior is characterized by low Rossby number, quasi-geostrophic type flows, while more intense, near-antitriptic winds occur at the coast. Model results are in reasonable agr...
White House Staff Size: Explanations and Implications

This article explores issues related to the size and complexity of the White House Office (WHO). Overall numbers from the Roosevelt through the Carter administrations show uneven growth (and decline) in the White House staff and point to the need for more disaggregated analysis. Attention focuses on three offices (congressional relations, speechwriting, and public liaison) in the Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations as illustrations of the varying patterns in and explanations of changes in staff size. One implication of this analysis is that efforts to restrict the size of the WHO may undermine presidential capacity and accountability.
America and the world of intelligence liaison

(1996). America and the world of intelligence liaison. Intelligence and National Security: Vol. 11, No. 3, pp. 523-560.
Parent-Child Discrepancies in Reports of Parental Monitoring and Their Relationship to Adolescent Alcohol-Related Behaviors.

Discrepancies between parents and adolescents regarding parenting behaviors have been hypothesized to represent a deficit in the parent–child relationship and may represent unique risk factors for poor developmental outcomes. The current study examined the predictive utility of multiple methods for characterizing discrepancies in parents’ and adolescents’ reports of parental monitoring on youth alcohol use behaviors in order to inform future study design and predictive modeling. Data for the current study came from a prospective investigation of alcohol initiation and progression. The analyzed sample consisted of 606 adolescents (6th–8th grade; 54 % female) and their parents were surveyed at baseline, with youth followed up 12 months later. A series of hierarchical logistic regressions were performed for each monitoring-related construct examined (parental knowledge, parental control, parental solicitation, and child disclosure). The results showed that adolescents’ reports were more closely related to outcomes than parents’ reports, while greater discrepancies were frequently found to be uniquely associated with greater likelihood of alcohol use behaviors. Implications for future work incorporating parents’ and adolescents’ reports are discussed.
Discriminating Multiple Transient Point-Like Sources

ABSTRACT The distinguishing of point -like man made gamma ray sources from point like astrophysical or cosmological sources can be achieved by analyzing the line structure of the gamma ray spectrum in the 0.5 - 10 MeV energy range. A special computer program has been developed for this analysis and tested in Monte Carlo simulations. An application of this method has been made for burster manifestations of superconducting cosmic strings using the High Resolution Gamma Ray Telescope developed by the UTD /UCLA collaboration. 1. INTRODUCTION In this report we describe a computer system aimed at interactive studies of the indentification of point sources of radiation in a background limiting situation. The application could be for the (1) midcourse discrimination ofheavy projectiles or the detection of (2) Astrophysical sources such as bursters and binary star systems. We start with a brief discussion of the method recently proposed for (1).We proposed a scheme of midcourse discrimination of heavy projectiles from lightweight decoys based on threeprinciples in reference 1:
Diastolic Mitral Regurgitation

A67-year-old man underwent transthoracic echocardiography for the evaluation of heart failure. The echocardiographic examination demonstrated significant dilatation of all cardiac chambers with marked global left ventricular (LV) systolic dysfunction (LV ejection fraction of 10% to 15%). Color flow imaging revealed a mild-to-moderate degree of mitral regurgitation (MR). Diastolic as well as systolic MR was detected by multiple Doppler modalities (Figures 1 to 3⇓⇓⇓). Diastolic MR resulted from the combination of first-degree atrioventricular (AV) block and severe elevation of LV filling pressures. Effective ventricular contraction is mandatory for complete mitral valve closure. Diastolic MR is commonly observed during AV block of any degree, when atrial contraction is not followed by adequately synchronized LV contraction. Under these conditions, the AV pressure gradient reverses during …
Nuclear Data Sheets for A = 250, 254, 258, 262, 266

Abstract Information pertaining to the nuclear structure of all nuclei with mass numbers A=250, 254, 258, 262 and 266 is presented. Various decay and reaction data are evaluated and compared. Adopted data, levels, spin, parity and configuration assignments are given . When there are insufficient data, expectations from systematics of nuclear properties are given, results from theoretical calculations are quoted. Unexpected or discrepant experimental results are also pointed out.
Aquatic animal models of human disease

The study of disease is, at its core, the study of abnormal structure and function spanning levels of organization from molecules to cells to tissues to organisms (and including populations and ecosystems in the disciplines of epidemiology and epizootiology). Fish and invertebrates from marine and freshwater environments have long provided valuable models for the study of basic biological processes. Some of the earliest studies of non-self recognition and phagocytosis were conducted using sea urchins (leading to the 1908 Nobel prize for Mechnikov) while the principles of signal propagation in axons were elucidated from studies of the giant axon of squid (leading a Nobel prize in 1963 for Hodgkin & Huxley). Aquatic invertebrates and fishes have proved to be valuable model organisms based on specific physical features, such as giant axons, as well as by providing an evolutionary perspective on structure and function in higher vertebrate systems. Less recognized, however, are the contributions that these organisms have made to the study of disease. Historically, such studies have tended to fall into two very broad categories, natural versus laboratory experiments. Natural experiments are those in which spontaneously occurring disease states are discovered in wild or laboratory animal populations as a result of injurious environmental factors, infectious agents and/or mutations. Outbreaks, or epizootics, of these diseases often serve as a first warning of serious environmental problems, such as when flatfish with liver tumors were found in high numbers in Eagle Harbor in the Puget Sound area of Washington State, USA (Myers et al, 2003). This observation led to the detection of high levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in sediments at this site, resulting in the designation of the harbor as a “superfund site” and the eventual remediation of the toxic sediments. In laboratory experiments disease states are induced under controlled circumstances, often in an attempt to determine the causes and mechanisms of spontaneously occurring diseases or to evaluate the potential injurious effects of toxins or drugs. Disease research on aquatic animals involves a wide variety of disciplines such as physiology, pathology, toxicology, immunology, microbiology, embryology, molecular biology and genetics working and a wide phylogenetic range of organisms. To bring together investigators working in such varied fields of disease research, a series of meetings focusing on use of aquatic organisms as models of human disease was begun in 2000. This special issue of Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology contains 16 manuscripts from a conference entitled “Aquatic Animal Models of Human Disease” held from September 29 to October 2, 2005, at the University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia. This volume joins similar special issues developed from the two previous meetings in this series held in 2000 and 2003 (Walter 2001; Schmale, 2004). The studies presented in this volume demonstrate that fish models can be used to investigate a wide range of disease related questions and can provide unique models for human disease processes.
Clock-drawing in neurological disorders

Clock-drawing is a widely used bedside test of constructional ability, but it has never been systematically studied or standardized. We examined 87 clocks drawn by neurologically impaired patients and age-matched controls, and propose a set of criteria for scoring clocks. Patients with probable Alzheimer's disease and other dementias have gross impairments in clock-drawing. These deficits include poor spatial arrangement of numbers, incorrect numerical sequence, insertion of stray lines, and addition of extra numbers. In Alzheimer's disease, the total score on the clock-drawing test correlates with the score on the Modified "Mini-Mental State" Examination. Non-demented patients with Parkinson's disease showed only defects in the spatial organization of the numbers, and non-demented patients with other diseases perform as well as controls.
Robust and tunable circadian rhythms from differentially sensitive catalytic domains

Circadian clocks are ubiquitous biological oscillators that coordinate an organism’s behavior with the daily cycling of the external environment. To ensure synchronization with the environment, the period of the clock must be maintained near 24 h even as amplitude and phase are altered by input signaling. We show that, in a reconstituted circadian system from cyanobacteria, these conflicting requirements are satisfied by distinct functions for two domains of the central clock protein KaiC: the C-terminal autokinase domain integrates input signals through the ATP/ADP ratio, and the slow N-terminal ATPase acts as an input-independent timer. We find that phosphorylation in the C-terminal domain followed by an ATPase cycle in the N-terminal domain is required to form the inhibitory KaiB•KaiC complexes that drive the dynamics of the clock. We present a mathematical model in which this ATPase-mediated delay in negative feedback gives rise to a compensatory mechanism that allows a tunable phase and amplitude while ensuring a robust circadian period.
Competition among Institutions

Abstract Economic theory offers two different approaches to the analysis of group formation and the role of institutions. General equilibrium approach explores the influence of the economic environment on formation of coalitions. Game theory explores the influence of institutional rules on equilibrium outcomes. We introduce an integrative approach—an institution's policy depends on its membership, while its membership depends on the policies of all the institutions. We present three distinct mathematical approaches to these models, highlighting the algebraic nature of the question of existence of equilibrium. Our apparatus cover many economic and political environments, including cases with multiple dimensions and multiple institutions. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C62, D50, D71, D72, H11, H40, R13, R53.
The Protein Kinase C Pathway Acts through Multiple Transcription Factors to Repress Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone Gene Expression in Hypothalamic GT1–7 Neuronal Cells

The GnRH gene uses two well-defined regions to target expression to a small population of hypothalamic GnRH neurons: a 173-bp proximal promoter and a 300-bp enhancer localized at approximately -1800 to -1500 bp from the start site. Interaction of multiple factors with the GnRH enhancer and promoter is required to confer neuron-specific expression in vivo and in cells in culture. In addition, the expression of the GnRH gene is regulated by numerous neurotransmitters and hormones. Several of these effectors act through membrane receptors to trigger the protein kinase C pathway, and 12-O-tetradecanoyl phorbol-13-acetate (TPA), a modulator of this pathway, has been shown to suppress GnRH gene expression through the promoter. We find that TPA suppresses expression through the GnRH enhancer as well as the promoter. In the enhancer, an Oct-1 binding site, a Pbx/Prep binding site, Msx/Dlx binding sites, and a previously unidentified protein-binding element at -1793, all contribute to TPA suppression. TPA treatment leads to decreased binding of Oct-1 and Pbx1a/Prep to their sites. However, a complex formed by GT1-7 nuclear extracts on the -1793 site is not affected by TPA treatment. It is known that cooperative interaction among multiple factors is necessary for GnRH gene expression; thus, one mechanism by which TPA suppresses GnRH gene expression is to disengage some of these factors from their cis-regulatory elements.
A Phased Approach to Induced Seismicity Risk Management

This work describes strategies for assessing and managing induced seismicity risk during each phase of a carbon storage project. We consider both nuisance and damage potential from induced earthquakes, as well as the indirect risk of enhancing fault leakage pathways. A phased approach to seismicity management is proposed, in which operations are continuously adapted based on available information and an on-going estimate of risk. At each project stage, specific recommendations are made for (a) monitoring and characterization, (b) modeling and analysis, and (c) site operations. The resulting methodology can help lower seismic risk while ensuring site operations remain practical and cost-effective.
Adamantinomas of long bones.

A clinicopathologic study of 29 adamantinomas of long bones revealed that 26 were in the tibia; 3 of these also involved the adjacent fibula. Adamantinomas occurred twice as often in males as in females. Most of the patients were in the second and third decades of life. The symptoms were remarkable for their long duration. The commonest roentgenographic finding was that of multiple lucent zones interspersed with sclerotic bone, usually with one large rarefied area in the midshaft. Histologically, islands of epithelial cells with peripheral palisading were seen in a fibrous stroma. Tissue from peripheral radiolucent zones often mimicked fibrous dysplasia. Electron microscopy in 3 tumors provided evidence that the islands of cells were epithelial. Primary treatment consisted of excision in 8 cases, resection in 10, and amputation in 8; in 2 cases, the treatment was not known, and in 1, biopsy only was done. Only 3 patients died of their disease. Sixteen patients were alive without disease from 10 months to 32 years after treatment. Our results indicate that, when technically feasible, resection of the tumor is the treatment of choice for adamantinomas of the long bones.
The near earth magnetic field of the magnetotail current

Abstract In the forward part of the magnetosphere the distant tail current system approximates a magnetic quadrupole composed of two distorted adjacent solenoids. The current in the neutral sheet at this distance is accurately approximated as an infinitesimally thin current sheet. We have calculated the magnetic field near the Earth by integrating over the entire tail current system assuming the magnetotail is a cylinder of constant radius and that the tail current decreases with distance into the tail as |x| −1 3 . The field is then represented by a scalar potential expanded into spherical harmonics which may be conveniently added to the spherical harmonic expansion of the scalar potential representing the magnetopause current system.
Going Shopping: Consumer Choices and Community Consequences . By Ann Satterthwaite. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001. Pp. 1, 386.

Adding to the growing list of retrospective studies of shopping and consumption is this engaged survey of the impact of American retail trade on community culture and social interaction. Although the author (a city planner in Washington, DC) is broadly within the tradition of Jane Jacobs and other critics of the commercialization of urban space, hers is a contemporary, well-informed, and nuanced judgment of the impact of malls, remote retail, big box stores, and other expressions of contemporary shopping. Even though this book may not meet the expectations of the professional historian, it does attempts to put very present-minded concerns about the social impact of contemporary retailing trends into a historical context.
BESC knowledgebase public portal

The BioEnergy Science Center (BESC) is undertaking large experimental campaigns to understand the biosynthesis and biodegradation of biomass and to develop biofuel solutions. BESC is generating large volumes of diverse data, including genome sequences, omics data and assay results. The purpose of the BESC Knowledgebase is to serve as a centralized repository for experimentally generated data and to provide an integrated, interactive and user-friendly analysis framework. The Portal makes available tools for visualization, integration and analysis of data either produced by BESC or obtained from external resources. Availability: http://besckb.ornl.gov Contact: [email protected]
Surgical Management of Craniopharyngiomas

Although craniopharyngiomas are commonly regarded as benign tumors, their critical location, capacity for cyst formation, and almost inevitable further growth frequently cause them to be lethal tumors. Management of recurrent or residual craniopharyngioma is often a problem of life or death for the child involved.1–4
Prostates and profits: The social construction of benign prostatic hyperplasia in American men

Benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) is clinically diagnosed in approximately three‐fourths of American men, a prevalence two to three times higher than that currently reported in Scotland and Japan. Prostatectomy is the most common operation performed on American men over 65. A critical medical anthropological analysis reveals that American urologists rely on prostatectomy to maintain their practices, and the growth of urology as a specialty is significantly related to the 50% increase in the rate of surgery since 1965. Marketing campaigns and studies funded by pharmaceutical companies promote the perception of urinary difficulties as problematic, encourage men to medicalize their symptoms, and create demand for drug therapy and urologist treatment. The social construction of BPH as a progressive age‐related disorder and the profit orientation of American medicine account for the elevated prevalence of BPH.
The impact of histology on survival for patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma undergoing cytoreductive nephrectomy.

Objective: To evaluate the impact of histology on cancer-specific and overall survival for patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC) undergoing cytoreductive nephrectomy (CN). Materials and Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the data of 505 patients with mRCC who underwent CN at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA, between 1970 and 2008. All specimen were re-reviewed by a single genitourinary pathologist. Survival was estimated using the Kaplan-Meier method and compared according to histology with the log-rank test. Cox proportional hazard regression models were used to evaluate the association of histology with outcome. Results: Forty (8%) patients with non-clear cell histology and 465 (92%) patients with clear cell histology were identified. The median follow-up was 7.8 years. Metastatic non-clear cell histology was associated with a significantly older median age at nephrectomy (66 vs. 60 years; P = 0.002), larger median tumor size (11.5 vs. 9.2 cm; P = 0.02), and higher rate of lymph node involvement (50% vs. 16%; P Conclusions: Non-clear cell histology was not independently associated with adverse survival for patients with mRCC undergoing CN. As such, we advocate that surgical resection should continue to be considered in the multimodal treatment approach to these patients, while additional efforts to risk stratify and optimize management in this setting remain necessary.
The volume-loaded short dipole

This paper describes a new class of shapes for electrically-small dipole antennas. It presents some experimental results which verify the main numerically predicted properties, and numerically explores the dependence of performance parameters on shape.
Minority Perceptions of Whites’ Motives for Responding Without Prejudice: The Perceived Internal and External Motivation to Avoid Prejudice Scales

Whites' nonprejudiced behavior toward racial/ethnic minorities can be attributionally ambiguous for perceivers, who may wonder whether the behavior was motivated by a genuine internal commitment to egalitarianism or was externally motivated by desires to avoid appearing prejudiced to others. This article reports the development of a scale that measures perceptions of Whites' internal and external motives for avoiding prejudice (Perceived Internal Motivation Scale/Perceived External Motivation Scale (PIMS/PEMS)) and tests of its internal, test-retest, discriminant, convergent, and predictive validity among ethnic minority perceivers. Minorities perceived Whites as having internal and external motives for nonprejudiced behavior that were theoretically consistent with but distinct from established measures of minority-group members' concerns in interracial interactions. Tests of the predictive validity of PIMS/PEMS showed that when a White evaluator praised the mediocre essay of a minority target, minorities who were high PEMS and low PIMS were most likely to regard the feedback as inauthentic and derogate the quality of the essay.
Rethinking Multicast for Massive-Scale Platforms

A dramatic scale-up of distributed computing platforms is underway. Internet routers can contain hundreds or thousands of line cards. Cloud computing platforms may contain tens or even hundreds of thousands of machines. What is gluing all of this together? Multicast to support data replication, event streams, and coordination. Yet yesterday?s multicast protocols are poorly matched to this new generation of uses; so much so that many cloud platforms refuse to deploy multicast as such, and have instead resorted to clumsy alternatives, mapping multicast to TCP or even web services method invocations. This talk will explore inadequacies of existing protocols, early progress towards better ones, and the longer term research agenda.
Improvement of device efficiency for blue organic light emitting diodes by controlling the Cs2CO3-doped electron transport layer

The electronic transport properties of 1, 3, 5-tri(1-phenyl-1H-benzo(d)imidazol-2-yl) phenyl (TPBI) electron transporting layers (ETLs) have been investigated as a function of cesium carbonate (Cs2CO3) doping for organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). The current density-volt- age and light emission characteristics were measured as a function of the Cs2CO3-doped ETL thickness. Cs2CO3-doped TPBI decreased OLED operating voltage by 26% and increased device luminance by 17% in a wide concentration range (3.5% to 10.5%) compared to undoped devices. The effects of 7% Cs2CO3-doped ETL thickness indicated that the operating voltage continuously decreased to 37% when the ETL thickness increased to 600 A and luminance out- put continued to increase to 21% at ETL thickness 525 A. The blue OLED can be optimized by adjusting the thicknesses of Cs2CO3-doped TPBI ETL to balance the electron and hole injection.
A Note on Shareholder Oversight and the Regulatory Environment: The Japanese Banking Experience

During a period where Japanese banks operated under a less restrictive regulatory environment, 1986-88, we find positive relationships between bank risk and ownership concentration. This empirical evidence reveals shareholder activism by the largest shareholders. During the periods immediately before and immediately after this particular subperiod, which are characterized by stricter regulatory environments, we do not observe evidence of shareholder activism. Taken together, these results are consistent with the argument that restrictive regulation and shareholder oversight are substitutes for one another. Time-series results and bank performance results yield consistent evidence.
A Survey on Bifurcations of Invariant Tori

Invariant tori of dynamical systems occur both in the dissipative and in the conservative context. I focus here on the latter, where the tori are intrinsically parametrised by the actions y 1,…, y n conjugate to the angles x 1,…,x n on the torus. The distribution of maximal tori in a nearly integrable Hamiltonian system is governed by the invariant tori of co-dimension one. The different Cantor families of maximal tori shrink down to normally elliptic tori and are separated by the web formed by stable and unstable manifolds of normally hyperbolic tori. The lower dimensional invariant tori form Cantor families themselves, and occurring bifurcations in turn organize the distribution of normally elliptic and hyperbolic tori.
Hunting for oceanic island Moho

SUMMARY The structure of the oceanic crust conforms in general to a very simple model. However, fine-scale variations of this structure in anomalous regions (such as beneath oceanic islands) remain poorly resolved. Here we examine teleseismic receiver functions (RFs) computed at four permanent broadband seismic stations on islands in the Pacific region. The RF method is ideal for examining the fine structure of the crust because it is sensitive to the interfaces between layers, though less sensitive to average wave speed. RFs at these oceanic island stations are characterized by a train of Ps conversions from shallow depths, rather than the isolated Moho conversion typically seen at continental stations. We find that a simple three-layer structure (the old oceanic crust sandwiched between an extruded volcanic layer and an underplated layer) explains the main features of the RFs. Our data indicate that oceanic islands share a common structure, a principal feature of which is crustal underplating, with a total crustal thickness of 11‐20 km.
Multiple kernel aggregation using fuzzy integrals

The so-called kernel-trick is a well-known method for mapping data in a lower dimensional space into a higher dimensional space to measure the similarity (inner product) of the data elements without ever explicitly performing the mapping. The hope is to induce an improved feature space in which to carry out pattern analysis. However, important questions remain, such as i) what is the best kernel, and ii) do some features or sensors require different kernels? One elegant way to address these problems is multiple kernel (MK) aggregation. To date, the research on MKs has predominately studied linear aggregation of kernels, namely weighted sums, e.g., conic and convex sums. In this paper, we propose a new method for kernel aggregation, fuzzy integral aggregation of MKs (FI-MK). We study different FI formulations to determine which ensures production of an aggregated kernel that is a valid Mercer kernel. We show that the Choquet integral (CI) achieves this goal for matrix-wise aggregation. We leverage our theoretical results to propose a genetic algorithm-based classification scheme called FIGA. Experiments on publicly available data sets are provided that demonstrate our FIGA algorithm produces superior results in the context of support vector machine (SVM)-based classification.
Rod-to-Hook Transition for Extracellular Flagellum Assembly Is Catalyzed by the L-Ring-Dependent Rod Scaffold Removal

ABSTRACT In Salmonella, the rod substructure of the flagellum is a periplasmic driveshaft that couples the torque generated by the basal body motor to the extracellular hook and filament. The rod subunits self-assemble, spanning the periplasmic space and stopping at the outer membrane when a mature length of ∼22 nm is reached. Assembly of the extracellular hook and filament follow rod completion. Hook initiation requires that a pore forms in the outer membrane and that the rod-capping protein, FlgJ, dislodges from the tip of the distal rod and is replaced with the hook-capping protein, FlgD. Approximately 26 FlgH subunits form the L-ring around the distal rod that creates the pore through which the growing flagellum will elongate from the cell body. The function of the L-ring in the mature flagellum is also thought to act as a bushing for the rotating rod. Work presented here demonstrates that, in addition to outer membrane pore formation, L-ring formation catalyzes the removal of the FlgJ rod cap. Rod cap removal allows the hook cap to assemble at the rod tip and results in the transition from rod completion in the periplasm to extracellular hook polymerization. By coupling the rod-to-hook switch to outer membrane penetration, FlgH ensures that hook and filament polymerization is initiated at the appropriate spatial and temporal point in flagellar biosynthesis.
Interaction between FOG-1 and the corepressor C-terminal binding protein is dispensable for normal erythropoiesis in vivo.

The hematopoietic, zinc-finger protein FOG-1 is essential for the development of the erythroid and megakaryocytic lineages. FOG-1's function in hematopoiesis is dependent on its ability to interact with the transcription factor GATA-1. FOG-1 has also been observed to interact with the corepressor molecule C-terminal binding protein (CtBP) through a peptide motif shared by all FOG family members. In this study, we confirmed that FOG-1 and CtBP interact by coimmunoprecipitation. We further demonstrate that a FOG-1 mutant unable to interact with CtBP has increased erythropoietic (but not megakaryocytic) rescue (relative to the wild type) of a FOG-1−/− cell line. To analyze further the physiological role of the FOG-1-CtBP interaction, we generated knock-in mice that express a FOG-1 variant unable to bind CtBP. Surprisingly, these mice are normal and fertile. Furthermore, erythropoiesis at all stages of development is normal in these mice. Erythrocyte production is similar in mutant and wild-type mice even under conditions of erythropoietic stress stimulated by either exogenously added erythropoietin or phenylhydrazine-induced anemia. Thus, despite conservation of the FOG-CtBP interaction site, the in vivo function of FOG-1 in erythroid development is not affected by its inability to interact with the corepressor CtBP.
Column chromatographic separations of amino acids, peptides, and protein in normal human urine

Abstract Human urine was subjected to a primary fractionation on a Sephadex G-10 column. The effluent stream was divided, 3.3% being diverted for continuous analysis by reaction with ninhydrin, 96.7% being collected in 3.38-ml portions in a fraction collector. On the basis of the ninhydrin analysis and uv absorption the collected fractions were grouped and pooled to give Sephadex Fractions I through X. Analysis of each Sephadex fraction, before and after acid hydrolysis on an ion exchange amino acid analyser showed the presence of many free and bound amino acids. This general approach led to the separation of hydroxylysine glycosides, carnosine, homocarnosine, tyrosine-O-sulfate, ethanolamine-O-phosphate, and other yet uncharacterized low molecular weight peptides. The use of a standard amino acid analyser in a split stream mode was suggested with antioxidant (thiodiglycol) and detergent (Brij 35) deleted from the developing buffers.
Common Property Externalities: Isolation, Assurance, and Resource Depletion in a Traditional Grazing Context

Institutional alternatives to common property externalities are wider than argued by private exclusive property rights advocates. The "tragedy of the commons" is not a prisoners' dilemma, characterized by the strict dominance of individual strategies. The nonseparable common property externality is an "assurance problem." The assurance problem provides striking perspectives in analytical and policy terms. It redefines the problem of the commons as one of decision making under uncertainty. Institutional rules innovated by the group to reduce uncertainty and coordinate expectations can solve the problem of overexploitation. Rules come in many forms, and private property is only one.
The Stigma of Dying: Attitudes toward the Terminally Ill

The objective of this study is to explore whether the terminally ill role is conceptualized as disvalued. Using a range of semantic differential adjectives, 233 college students indicated their attitudes toward young and old people who were healthy, ill, or terminally ill. Analysis of mean scores, Pearson correlations between summary scores, and factor analyses of the underlying pattern of response, support the following conclusions. First, within both young and old categories, attitudes toward each state of health category separate into three factors: attitudes toward healthy, ill, and dying persons. Second, within each health category, attitudes separate into two factors, identified as attitudes toward the young, and attitudes toward the old. The negative attitudes toward the dying are indicative of the terminally ill as stigmatized.
Intestinal absorption and biliary secretion of cholesterol in rats with nephrotic syndrome

hypercholesterolemia; hyperlipidemia; intestinal absorption; nephrotic syndrome; proteinuria Background. Nephrotic syndrome (NS) results in hyp- ercholesterolemia which is attributed to increased pro- duction and decreased removal of cholesterol-rich lipoproteins. Adjustments in intestinal absorption are cholesterol absorption in nephrotic rats and found it Results. The NS and H-chol groups showed severe to be normal (12). In the present study cholesterol and comparable hypercholesterolemia. No significant absorption was directly measured by in vivo perfusion diVerence was found in the rate of biliary cholesterol of an isolated intestinal segment. In order to avoid the secretion among the study groups. Likewise, the rates inherent inaccuracies arising from the mixture of exo- of in vivo and in vitro cholesterol absorptions in the genous cholesterol with that entering the bowel via the NS and H-chol groups were comparable with one bile, the perfused segment was isolated from the biliary another and similar to those found in the NL and PF tract. Moreover, biliary secretion of cholesterol was groups. The rate of in vitro cholesterol absorption was directly measured by cannulating the common bile directly proportional to its concentration in the incuba- duct in rats with experimental nephrosis and the appro- tion media at low concentrations. However, the absorp- priate control animals. In an attempt to dissect the tion rate showed a pattern consistent with saturable possible eVects of NS from the associated hypercholes- transport at high cholesterol concentrations in all terolemia, a group of rats with diet-induced hypercho- groups. lesterolemia was also included. In addition, in order Conclusions. We conclude that intestinal absorption to study the kinetics of cholesterol absorption, in vitro, and biliary secretion of cholesterol are not appreciably absorption experiments were conducted at multiple influenced by either nephrotic or diet-induced hyperch- cholesterol concentrations using everted sacs. olesterolemia in rats. The data further suggest that cholesterol absorption may be a saturable process. Materials and methods
Decreased 7,12-dimethylbenz[a]anthracene-induced carcinogenesis coincides with the induction of antitumor immunities in adult female B6C3F1 mice pretreated with genistein

The objective of this study was to determine if genistein (GEN) modulation of the immune responses might contribute to the increased host resistances to tumors. A time-course study was performed in adult female B6C3F1 mice that had been exposed to GEN for 1-4 weeks at the dose level of 20 mg/kg by gavage. A significant increase in ex vivo cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) activity was observed in the periods of 2 weeks and 4 weeks. Moreover, increased activities of CTLs were associated with a decrease in the percentage of CD4 + CD25 + T cells and an increase in the production of interferon-γ and activation of STAT1 (signal transducer and activator of transcription 1) and STAT4. Additionally, exposure of mice to GEN increased the activities of in vivo CTLs. An increased activity of natural killer (NK) cells was also observed. Further study in the B16F10 tumor model suggested that GEN-mediated enhancement in host resistance to B16F10 tumor was partially related to its potentiating effect on NK cells. Finally, 7,12-dimethylbenz[a]anthracene (DMBA)-induced tumor model was employed to determine the chemopreventive effect of oral GEN treatment. Mice pretreated with GEN for 2 weeks by gavage, the time when an enhanced CTL activity had been produced, had a decreased susceptibility toward DMBA-mediated carcinogenesis, while treatment with GEN after tumor induction conferred no protection. In conclusion, pretreatment with GEN by gavage could enhance host resistances to the B16F10 tumor and DMBA-induced carcinogenesis, suggesting that GEN modulation of immune response was, at least partially, responsible for the antitumor effect of this compound.
Route Planning For Mobile Robots Amidst Moving Obstacles

Route planning for mobile robots among moving obstacles is studied. Unlike most of the work in motion planning amidst moving obstacles, our mobile robots are constrained to move in a prespecified network of roads. Given an environment containing moving obstacles, &,art and destination nodes in the network, and a start time, the method is presented to find a collision-free route in the network that takes the mobile robot from the start node to the destination time in minimum time, if there is one. The problem is divided into two subproblems: (i) one-dimensional path planning amidst dynamic obstacles and (ii) path search in the network of roads. Algorithms as well as time complexity analysis are presented.
Design of imidazole‐containing endosomolytic biopolymers for gene delivery

The development of safe and effective gene delivery agents poses a great challenge in the quest to make human gene therapy a reality. Cationic polymers represent one important class of materials for gene delivery, but to date they have shown only moderate efficiency. Improving the efficiency will require the design of new polymers incorporating optimized gene delivery properties. For example, inefficient release of the DNA/polymer complex from endocytic vesicles into the cytoplasm is one of the primary causes of poor gene delivery. Here we report the synthesis of a biocompatible, imidazole-containing polymer designed to overcome this obstacle. DNA/polymer polyplexes incorporating this polymer were shown to have desirable physico-chemical properties for gene delivery and are essentially nontoxic. Using this system, mammalian cells in vitro were transfected in the absence of any exogenous endosomolytic agent such as chloroquine.
Gene Expression Data Classification With Kernel Principal Component Analysis

One important feature of the gene expression data is that the number of genes M far exceeds the number of samples N. Standard statistical methods do not work well when N < M. Development of new methodologies or modification of existing methodologies is needed for the analysis of the microarray data. In this paper, we propose a novel analysis procedure for classifying the gene expression data. This procedure involves dimension reduction using kernel principal component analysis (KPCA) and classification with logistic regression (discrimination). KPCA is a generalization and nonlinear version of principal component analysis. The proposed algorithm was applied to five different gene expression datasets involving human tumor samples. Comparison with other popular classification methods such as support vector machines and neural networks shows that our algorithm is very promising in classifying gene expression data.
First principles optimization of mass producible microscaled linear quadrupoles for operation in higher stability regions

In recent years, there has been a desire to scale down linear quadrupoles. The key advantages of this miniaturization are the portability it enables, and the reduction of pump-power needed due to the relaxation on operational pressure. Various attempts at making linear quadrupoles on the micro-scale were met with varying degrees of success. This study was proposed to justify the work for a fully microfabricated, mass-producible, MEMS linear quadrupole mass filter. The study indicates that a MEMS quadrupole with square electrodes can function as a mass filter without significant degradation in performance if driven in higher stability regions. Successful implementation of such devices leads into arrayed configurations for parallel analysis, and aligned quadrupoles operated in tandem for enhanced resolution.
Wicking and Water Displacement by Corrosion Prevention Compounds in Simulated Aircraft Aluminum Alloy Lap Joints

Abstract Corrosion prevention compounds (CPC) are relatively inexpensive, temporary corrosion control products commonly used on commercial and military aircraft. The effectiveness of CPC in suppres...
Taxonomic revision of the family Eosentomidae (Hexapoda: Protura) from Japan

The family Eosentomidae from Japan is revised. A new genus, Osientomon, is erected and a new species is ascribed to this genus. This new genus is characterized by the short, setiform sensillum g, absence of sensilla e and b'1 on foretarsus , and S-shaped processus sternalis and duck’s head type caput processus on the female squama genitalis. Two new species are added to the genus Pseudanisentomon and 19 new species and 1 new record of the genus Eosentomon are described. As a result, 43 species belonging to 4 genera are now recognized from Japan. Taxonomic keys are provided for the identification of the genera and species from Japan.
Extracorporeal Therapy for Drug Overdose and Poisoning

Poisoning continues to be a significant cause of morbidity and mortality. The 2008 Annual Report of the American Association of Poison Control Centers (AAPCC) published information on 2,491,049 human exposure cases of poisoning, half of them being children younger than 6 years [1]. Prescription drugs, over the counter medications, illicit drugs, and common household substances can all be responsible for poisoning. As per the 2008 Annual Report, the top four most frequently involved substances in all human exposures were analgesics (13.3%), cosmetics/personal care products (9.0%), household cleaning substances (8.6%), and sedatives/hypnotics/antipsychotics (6.6%). Most (82.8%) poison exposures were unintentional, and suicidal intent was suspected in 8.7% of cases. In 10.6% of exposures (263,942 cases), poisoning resulted due to therapeutic errors such as inadvertent double-dosing, incorrect dosing, wrong medication taken or given, and inadvertent exposure to someone else’s medication.