cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Coal log pipeline technology: an overview

Abstract Coal log pipeline (CLP) technology, invented and patented in the United States in 1990, has undergone extensive research and development at the Capsule Pipeline Research Center, University of Missouri-Columbia. Areas explored thoroughly involve capsule flow hydrodynamics, compaction of coal logs, wear of coal logs in the pipeline, automatic control of the CLP, cost of coal log transportation through the pipeline, treatment of CLP effluents at power plants, and legal research concerning coal pipelines. This paper gives a brief review of some of these areas, and the state of development of this emerging technology. Implications for electric utilities, coal companies and the general public are also discussed.
Multi-beam scheduling for unmanned aerial vehicle networks

In this paper, we consider the design of an optimum beamforming and scheduling scheme at a multi-antenna UAV central node (UAV-C), which collects information from several other single-antenna distributed UAV nodes (UAV-D). When the channels between UAV-C and UAV-D are both perfectly known, the optimum strategy is to employ minimum mean-square-error (MMSE) beamforming in conjuction with a computationally efficient combinatorial approach. For the case where the channels between UAV-C and UAV-D are subject to channel estimation errors, a stochastic robust design approach is proposed. In this case, it is shown that the optimum strategy is to use robust MMSE beamformers in a combinatorial but efficient manner. Simulation results show that robust beamforming plus scheduling provides significant gains in average throughput over non-robust beamformers with scheduling, and the robust and non-robust beamformers without scheduling. It is observed that, although multi-beam beamforming with scheduling outperforms beamforming without scheduling, the importance of the robust beamformer should not be overlooked as the beamformer and scheduler designed with the assumption of perfect channel knowledge result in significant reduction of throughput in cases where channel estimation is erroneous.
Controlling the structural organization of regenerated bone by tailoring tissue engineering scaffold architecture

Scaffold architecture has exhibited significant impact on bone tissue regeneration; however, few studies have tried to address the relationship between scaffold architecture and structural organization of newly generated bones. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of scaffold architecture on the structural organization of a newly formed bone using a two-hole mouse calvarial defect model. Evaluation of bone formation indicated although the new bone was formed in both types of scaffolds, their structure was closely related to the microstructure of scaffolds. Both micro-CT and histology data have shown that, morphologically, cortical-like bone was formed in the lamellar scaffold (LS) group while trabecular-like bone was found in the cellular scaffold (CS) group. This finding expands the understanding of the role of scaffold architecture during bone regeneration. Moreover, early stage bone formation was observed in defects filled with LS regardless of donor cell types at day 14 while no bone formation was found in the CS group. In addition, when calvarial osteoprogenitor cells (OPCs) and bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs) were used as the donor cells respectively, it was found that BMSCs not only induced better host integration by recruiting more host cell infiltration, but also better supported bone marrow and vascularization reconstruction in the defects. These results collectively suggest that the scaffold structure design strongly dictates the structural organization of the new bone which may eventually influence the bone healing outcome.
Longitudinal study of achievement related to anxiety and extraversion.

The High School Personality Questionnaire was administered to over 300 sixth and seventh grade children and 3 mo. later these same children completed standardized achievement tests in social studies, science, mathematics, and reading. Treating the achievement scores as dependent variables and various personality scales as independent variables, analyses of variance were performed for each achievement area. Results indicated several significant main effects and interactions but perhaps most important was the finding that extreme scores on either end of the extraversion or anxiety dimensions were related to high achievement. Possible implications for teachers, counselors, or researchers are discussed.
Lansoprazole heals erosive reflux oesophagitis in patients with Barrett's oesophagus

Background: Barrett's oesophagus is thought to be a complication of severe gastro-oesophageal reflux. Aim: To determine whether the proton pump inhibitor, lansoprazole, is effective in healing erosive reflux oesophagitis in patients with Barrett's oesophagus. Methods: An 8-week, randomized, double-blind study was conducted using patients with both erosive reflux oesophagitis and Barrett's oesophagus. Erosive reflux oesophagitis was defined as grades 2–4 oesophagitis; Barrett's oesophagus, as specialized columnar epithelium obtained by biopsy from the tubular oesophagus; and healing, as a return to grade 0 or 1 oesophageal mucosa (complete re-epithelialization). One-hundred and five (105) patients from one centre were randomized to receive either lansoprazole 30 mg daily or ranitidine 150 mg twice daily. Unhealed or symptomatic lansoprazole patients at week 4 were randomized to receive the same 30 mg dose daily or an increased dose of 60 mg daily. Endoscopy was performed at baseline and at weeks 2, 4, 6 and 8. Results: The treatment groups were similar in regards to baseline characteristics, erosive reflux oesophagitis grades and length of Barrett's oesophagus. At each 2-week interval, lansoprazole patients had significantly greater healing rates and less day and night heartburn and regurgitation than ranitidine patients. There were no significant differences between treatment groups in antacid use, quality of life parameters, or rate of reported adverse events. Median values for fasting serum gastrin levels remained within the normal range for both groups. Conclusion: In patients with both Barrett's oesophagus and erosive reflux oesophagitis, lansoprazole is significantly more effective than ranitidine in relieving reflux symptoms and healing erosive reflux oesophagitis.
iShadow: the computational eyeglass system

Continuous, real-time tracking of eye gaze is valuable in a variety of scenarios including hands-free interaction with the physical world, detection of unsafe behaviors, leveraging visual context for advertising, life logging, and others. While eye tracking is commonly used in clinical trials and user studies, it has not bridged the gap to everyday consumer use. The challenge is that a real-time eye tracker is a power-hungry and computation-intensive device which requires continuous sensing of the eye using an imager running at many tens of frames per second, and continuous processing of the image stream using sophisticated gaze estimation algorithms. Our key contribution is the design of an eye tracker that dramatically reduces the sensing and computation needs for eye tracking, thereby achieving orders of magnitude reductions in power consumption and form-factor. The key idea is that eye images are extremely redundant, therefore we can estimate gaze by using a small subset of carefully chosen pixels per frame. We use a sparse pixel-based gaze estimation algorithm that is a multi-layer neural network learned using a state-of-the-art sparsity-inducing regularization function which minimizes the gaze prediction error while simultaneously minimizing the number of pixels used. Our results show that we can operate at roughly 70mW of power, while continuously estimating eye gaze at the rate of 30 Hz with errors of roughly 4 degrees.
Wide-angle radio tail QSOs as members of clusters of galaxies. II - Direct optical observations and spectroscopy of QSO fields

Deep, direct observations are obtained for the fields of 19 QSOs (redshift values 0.3-1.5) whose 'excess' galaxy counts in 1.17-sq arcmin fields centered on the QSOs confirm QSO redshift cosmological interpretations at the 99-percent confidence level. It is in addition indicated with 97-percent confidence that wide angle radio tail QSOs lie in richer concentrations of galaxies than undistorted QSOs. The results obtained also confirm that the 'excess' galaxies detected in the QSO fields have the same redshifts as the QSOs. These observations indicate that deep CCD observations of the fields of radio tail QSOs would provide a sample of distant clusters of galaxies at known redshifts (those of the QSOs).
Growth, Intake, and Digestibility from Formic Acid Silage versus Hay

Abstract Three experiments have been conducted by harvesting forage from a common source and preparing hay and unwilted silage preserved with 0.5% formic acid at ensiling. In each experiment digestibility was measured in 4 × 4 Latin-square trials, while feed intake and growth were measured simultaneously in continuous trials with dairy heifers. Mean daily gains on formic silage were 692 g versus 620 g on control hay. The more rapid gains were made from equal digestible energy intake, which implies a greater efficiency of utilization of digestible energy. The digestibility of energy from the formic silage was 67.1, while that of control hays was 59.4. Although two of the hays incurred some rain damage, the third undamaged hay had a lower digestibility of energy than did its corresponding formic silage. In comparison with previous experiments with animals fed untreated, unwilted silages, these animals fed formic silages consumed more digestible energy, gained more weight, and used the digestible energy more efficiently on a net or gross basis. The formic silages were lower in pH, butyric acid, acetic acid, and am-moniacal nitrogen and higher in lactic acid than untreated, unwilted silages.
Melanoma Antigen Gene Protein MAGE-11 Regulates Androgen Receptor Function by Modulating the Interdomain Interaction

Gene activation by steroid hormone receptors involves the recruitment of the steroid receptor coactivator (SRC)/p160 coactivator LXXLL motifs to activation function 2 (AF2) in the ligand binding domain. For the androgen receptor (AR), AF2 also serves as the interaction site for the AR NH2-terminal FXXLF motif in the androgen-dependent NH2-terminal and carboxyl-terminal (N/C) interaction. The relative importance of the AR AF2 site has been unclear, since the AR FXXLF motif interferes with coactivator recruitment by competitive inhibition of LXXLL motif binding. In this report, we identified the X chromosome-linked melanoma antigen gene product MAGE-11 as an AR coregulator that specifically binds the AR NH2-terminal FXXLF motif. Binding of MAGE-11 to the AR FXXLF α-helical region stabilizes the ligand-free AR and, in the presence of an agonist, increases exposure of AF2 to the recruitment and activation by the SRC/p160 coactivators. Intracellular association between AR and MAGE-11 is supported by their coimmunoprecipitation and colocalization in the absence and presence of hormone and by competitive inhibition of the N/C interaction. AR transactivation increases in response to MAGE-11 and the SRC/p160 coactivators through mechanisms that include but are not limited to the AF2 site. MAGE-11 is expressed in androgen-dependent tissues and in prostate cancer cell lines. The results suggest MAGE-11 is a unique AR coregulator that increases AR activity by modulating the AR interdomain interaction.
Information assessment on predicting protein-protein interactions

Background: Identifying protein-protein interactions is fundamental for understanding the molecular machinery of the cell. Proteome-wide studies of protein-protein interactions are of significant value, but the high-throughput experimental technologies suffer from high rates of both false positive and false negative predictions. In addition to high-throughput experimental data, many diverse types of genomic data can help predict protein-protein interactions, such as mRNA expression, localization, essentiality, and functional annotation. Evaluations of the information contributions from different evidences help to establish more parsimonious models with comparable or better prediction accuracy, and to obtain biological insights of the relationships between protein-protein interactions and other genomic information. Results: Our assessment is based on the genomic features used in a Bayesian network approach to predict protein-protein interactions genome-wide in yeast. In the special case, when one does not have any missing information about any of the features, our analysis shows that there is a larger information contribution from the functional-classification than from expression correlations or essentiality. We also show that in this case alternative models, such as logistic regression and random forest, may be more effective than Bayesian networks for predicting interactions. Conclusions: In the restricted problem posed by the complete-information subset, we identified that the MIPS and Gene Ontology (GO) functional similarity datasets as the dominating information contributors for predicting the protein-protein interactions under the framework proposed by Jansen et al. Random forests based on the MIPS and GO information alone can give highly accurate classifications. In this particular subset of complete information, adding other genomic data does little for improving predictions. We also found that the data discretizations used in the Bayesian methods decreased classification performance.
Interfaces for coached apprenticeship systems

A scheme is being developed for student modeling that can be helpful in pursuing links between neural network and symbolic approaches to training system development. The approach has two problems. First, it is not possible to have a certainty about whether a particular piece of knowledge is present in a student. A second problem is that microlevel detail may not be the only useful level for student modeling. The authors' approach to dealing with both of these problems is to layer a lattice of what they call student modeling variables on top of direct overlay information. >
Paying for Water: The 83rd Legislative Session and the $2 Billion Water Infrastructure Bank

The current drought has been hanging over Texas for three years. Meteorologists have predicted that it could last for another five years and could become worse than the infamous 1950s drought of record, which “reshaped Texas, ruining thousands of farmers and ranchers and pushing rural residents to migrate out of the country and into the cities.”Among Texas leaders, there is a general consensus that the state must act now to ensure its longterm water security, and as the legislature convened for its 2013 session, many observers predicted water would emerge as a marquee issue. And it did, with lawmakers introducing numerous water-related bills.Three of these bills are aimed at financing enough water infrastructure projects to assure longterm water supplies for the state: H.B. 4, H.B. 1025 and S.J.R. 1. These bills could have a profound and long-lasting impact on Texas water law and water resources. H.B. 4 revamps the agency that provides state financing for water infrastructure, the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB). Together with H.B. 1025 and S.J.R. 1, it creates two new funds to be used by TWDB, contingent upon voters Texas approving Proposition 6 (as authorized by S.J.R. 1) in the November 5 special election.The new funds are the State Water Implementation Fund for Texas (SWIFT) and the State Water Implementation Revenue Fund for Texas (SWIRFT). If Proposition 6 passes, SWIFT will receive a $2 billion appropriation from the Economic Stabilization Fund (“Rainy Day Fund”). TWDB may disburse money from SWIFT through a “bond enhancement agreement” to certain other TWDB funds, which may then provide approved forms of financial assistance to applicants for state aid. Sister fund SWIRFT provides TWDB with new revenue bonding authority and provides an additional mechanism for distributing SWIFT money.While H.B. 4 sets broad parameters for SWIFT and SWIRFT, it delegates significant responsibility for creating, designing and operating those funds to TWDB. Many of the questions that a politically high-profile and financially high-dollar bill such as H.B. 4 raises – which projects will benefit, how exactly will the money be used, and how long will the money last – will remain unanswered until TWDB promulgates regulations to implement its statutory commands.In anticipation of the November 5 special election, and of the extensive rulemaking processes that will follow if Proposition 6 succeeds, the Center for Global Energy, International Arbitration and Environmental Law has prepared this white paper. It explains the key provisions in H.B. 4 and Proposition 6. It explores the contours and inflection points in complex legislation that – aside from a salient few details – remains relatively unfamiliar to the general public and even to those who work regularly on water policy issues.
The TASTY locus on chromosome 1 of Arabidopsis affects feeding of the insect herbivore Trichoplusia ni.

The generalist insect herbivore Trichoplusia ni (cabbage looper) readily consumes Arabidopsis and can complete its entire life cycle on this plant. Natural isolates (ecotypes) of Arabidopsis are not equally susceptible to T. ni feeding. While some are hardly touched by T. ni , others are eaten completely to the ground. Comparison of two commonly studied Arabidopsis ecotypes in choice experiments showed that Columbia is considerably more resistant than Landsberg erecta . In no-choice experiments, where larvae were confined on one or the other ecotype, weight gain was more rapid on Landsberg erecta than on Columbia. Genetic mapping of this difference in insect susceptibility using recombinant inbred lines resulted in the discovery of the TASTY locus near 85 cM on chromosome 1 of Arabidopsis. The resistant allele of this locus is in the Columbia ecotype, and an F 1 hybrid has a sensitive phenotype that is similar to that of Landsberg erecta . The TASTY locus is distinct from known genetic differences between Columbia and Landsberg erecta that affect glucosinolate content, trichome density, disease resistance, and flowering time.
Canonical coordinates for reduced-rank estimation of improper complex random vectors

We consider the problem of minimum mean squared error (MMSE) estimation of complex random vectors in the improper case. Accounting for the information present in the complementary covariance requires the use of widely linear transformations. Based on these, we present the eigenanalysis of improper complex random vectors. This paves the way for a study of two different rank-reduced implementations of the complex Wiener Filter that make use of canonical coordinates: one that is optimum with respect to maximizing mutual information and one that minimizes mean squared error.
Skin self-examinations and visual identification of atypical nevi: comparing individual and crowdsourcing approaches.

A B S T R A C T Purpose: Skin self-examination (SSE) is one method for identifying atypical nevi among members of the general public. Unfortunately, past research has shown that SSE has low sensitivity in detecting atypical nevi. The current study investigates whether crowdsourcing (collective effort) can improve SSE identification accuracy. Collective effort is potentially useful for improving people’s visual identification of atypical nevi during SSE because, even when a single person has low reliability at a task, the pattern of the group can overcome the limitations of each individual. Methods: Adults (N = 500) were recruited from a shopping mall in the Midwest. Participants viewed educational pamphlets about SSE and then completed a mole identification task. For the task, participants were asked to circle mole images that appeared atypical. Forty nevi images were provided; nine of the images were of nevi that were later diagnosed as melanoma. Results: Consistent with past research, individual effort exhibited modest sensitivity (.58) for identifying atypical nevi in the mole identification task. As predicted, collective effort overcame the limitations of individual effort. Specifically, a 19% collective effort identification threshold exhibited superior sensitivity (.90). Conclusions: The results of the current study suggest that limitations of SSE can be countered by collective effort, a finding that supports the pursuit of interventions promoting early melanoma detection that contain crowdsourced visual identification components.
Greening the engineering curriculum: reflections upon possibilities

Ideas on nurturing an environmental awareness in tomorrow's engineers are discussed. Topics include engineering professional codes of conduct, valuing the natural world, and connecting to nature through the creative arts.
Bistatic scattering from three-dimensional layered rough surfaces

An analytical method to calculate the bistatic-scattering coefficients of a three-dimensional layered dielectric structure with slightly rough interfaces is presented. The interfaces are allowed to be statistically distinct, but possibly dependent. The waves in each region are represented as a superposition of an infinite number of up- and down-going spectral components whose amplitudes are found by simultaneously matching the boundary conditions at both interfaces. A small-perturbation formulation is used up to the first order, and the scattered fields are derived. The calculation intrinsically takes into account multiple scattering processes between the boundaries. The formulation is then validated against known solutions to special cases. New results are generated for several cases of two- and three-layer media, which will be directly applicable for modeling of the signals from radar systems and subsequent estimation of a layered medium subsurface properties, such as moisture content and layer depths
Perceiving Crowd Attention Ensemble Perception of a Crowd’s Gaze

In nearly every interpersonal encounter, people readily gather socio-visual cues to guide their behavior. Intriguingly, social information is most effective in directing behavior when it is perceived in crowds. For example, the shared gaze of a crowd is more likely to direct attention than is a single person's gaze. Are people equipped with mechanisms to perceive a crowd's gaze as an ensemble? Here, we provide the first evidence that the visual system extracts a summary representation of a crowd's attention; observers rapidly pooled information from multiple crowd members to perceive the direction of a group's collective gaze. This pooling occurred in high-level stages of visual processing, with gaze perceived as a global-level combination of information from head and pupil rotation. These findings reveal an important and efficient mechanism for assessing crowd gaze, which could underlie the ability to perceive group intentions, orchestrate joint attention, and guide behavior.
CAN STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS ASSUME MORE OF THE COSTS OF WATER DEVELOPMENT?1

As availability of funds in the federal budget for water development has decreased recently, pressure has increased for state and local governments to pay a larger share of the costs. In this situation a difficult question immediately arises-what is the capability of state and local governments to pay a larger share? Of course, there is no easy answer. Expenditures of public funds are policy outcomes of a government's political process in which political, economic, legal and other factors are involved in complex relationships. The traditional sources of capital funds for state and local governments include bond proceeds, tax revenues, and federal financial aid (state aid is also a major source of local government funds). The issuing of bonds is hampered by a variety of legal debt limitations, but there are means for circumventing the limitations. State and local governments vary widely in amounts of taxable resources available and in the extent to which these resources have been tapped. More effective use of revenue resources could be made in some cases. New sources of capital funds for water development ought to be considered-a fee on the use of water per se, for example. Costs associated with water use currently are imposed to cover development costs, but a state might impose additional use fees earmarked for a state water development fund.
Modification of cocaine self-administration by buspirone (buspar®): potential involvement of D3 and D4 dopamine receptors.

Converging lines of evidence indicate that elevations in synaptic dopamine levels play a pivotal role in the reinforcing effects of cocaine, which are associated with its abuse liability. This evidence has led to the exploration of dopamine receptor blockers as pharmacotherapy for cocaine addiction. While neither D1 nor D2 receptor antagonists have proven effective, medications acting at two other potential targets, D3 and D4 receptors, have yet to be explored for this indication in the clinic. Buspirone, a 5-HT1A partial agonist approved for the treatment of anxiety, has been reported to also bind with high affinity to D3 and D4 receptors. In view of this biochemical profile, the present research was conducted to examine both the functional effects of buspirone on these receptors and, in non-human primates, its ability to modify the reinforcing effects of i.v. cocaine in a behaviourally selective manner. Radioligand binding studies confirmed that buspirone binds with high affinity to recombinant human D3 and D4 receptors (∼98 and ∼29 nm respectively). Live cell functional assays also revealed that buspirone, and its metabolites, function as antagonists at both D3 and D4 receptors. In behavioural studies, doses of buspirone that had inconsistent effects on food-maintained responding (0.1 or 0.3 mg/kg i.m.) produced a marked downward shift in the dose–effect function for cocaine-maintained behaviour, reflecting substantial decreases in self-administration of one or more unit doses of i.v. cocaine in each subject. These results support the further evaluation of buspirone as a candidate medication for the management of cocaine addiction.
Culture and Cognition: Implications for Cognitive Design of Learning Resources

The rapid growth of computer-based learning applications has generated the need for the consideration of learning styles of culturally diverse students. However, few attempts have been made to empirically study the influence of learner's cultural backgrounds on computer-based learning. Many studies have shown that mismatches between students' cultural learning preferences and pedagogy may negatively affect their academic performance and attitudes toward learning. The primary purpose of the study was to evaluate a Web-based tutorial for global positioning systems (GPS) designed by employing culture-centered interface design guidelines that would be compatible with cultural learning preferences of two ethnic groups -African- and European-Americans. Results of the study showed that AA students preferred a Web-based tutorial designed with interface design guidelines that were compatible with their cultural learning preferences. There are several implications for culture-centered cognitive design of learning r...
Feature- and Face-Exchange Illusions: New Insights and Applications for the Study of the Binding Problem

The binding problem is a longstanding issue in vision science: i.e., how are humans able to maintain a relatively stable representation of objects and features even though the visual system processes many aspects of the world separately and in parallel? We previously investigated this issue with a variant of the bounce-pass paradigm, which consists of two rectangular bars moving in opposite directions; if the bars are identical and never overlap, the motion could equally be interpreted as bouncing or passing. Although bars of different colors should be seen as passing each other (since the colors provide more information about the bars’ paths), we found “Feature Exchange”: observers reported the paradoxical perception that the bars appear to bounce off of each other and exchange colors. Here we extend our previous findings with three demonstrations. “Peripheral Feature-Exchange” consists of two colored bars that physically bounce (they continually meet in the middle of the monitor and return to the sides). When viewed in the periphery, the bars appear to stream past each other even though this percept relies on the exchange of features and contradicts the information provided by the color of the bars. In “Face-Exchange” two different faces physically pass each other. When fixating centrally, observers typically report the perception of bouncing faces that swap features, indicating that the Feature Exchange effect can occur even with complex objects. In “Face-Go-Round,” one face repeatedly moves from left to right on the top of the monitor, and the other from right to left at the bottom of the monitor. Observers typically perceive the faces moving in a circle--a percept that contradicts information provided by the identity of the faces. We suggest that Feature Exchange and the paradigms used to elicit it can be useful for the investigation of the binding problem as well as other contemporary issues of interest to vision science.
Implantation failure: molecular mechanisms and clinical treatment

Background Implantation is a complex initial step in the establishment of a successful pregnancy. Although embryo quality is an important determinant of implantation, temporally coordinated differentiation of endometrial cells to attain uterine receptivity and a synchronized dialog between maternal and embryonic tissues are crucial. The exact mechanism of implantation failure is still poorly understood. Methods This review summarizes the current knowledge about the proposed mechanisms of implantation failure in gynecological diseases, the evaluation of endometrial receptivity and the treatment methods to improve implantation. Results The absence or suppression of molecules essential for endometrial receptivity results in decreased implantation rates in animal models and gynecological diseases, including endometriosis, hydrosalpinx, leiomyoma and polycystic ovarian syndrome. The mechanisms are diverse and include abnormal cytokine and hormonal signaling as well as epigenetic alterations. Conclusions Optimizing endometrial receptivity in fertility treatment will improve success rates. Evaluation of implantation markers may help to predict pregnancy outcome and detect occult implantation deficiency. Treating the underlying gynecological disease with medical or surgical interventions is the optimal current therapy. Manipulating the expression of key endometrial genes with gene or stem cell-based therapies may some day be used to further improve implantation rates.
Electrodeposition of diamondlike carbon films on nickel substrates

Diamondlike carbon (DLC) films were electrodeposited on nickel substrates from a solution of acetylene in liquid ammonia at low temperature and low potential using a three-electrode cell. Raman spectra showed a shoulder D peak at 1365 cm−1 and a broad G peak at 1558 cm−1 for the films, indicating an sp 3 and sp 2 carbon mixture. The presence of a 1230 cm−1 peak also indicated some four-fold-coordinated bonds of microcrystalline diamond. Fitting of the peaks in the Raman spectra specified the electrodeposited films were hydrogenated amorphous alloys, a-C:H. X-ray photoelectron spectra also pointed to the films containing a mixture of sp 3 and sp 2 carbon. Fourier transform infrared spectra of the electrodeposited films had C-H stretching vibrations, which is consistent with hydrogenated DLC films.
Non-equilibrium transient trajectory shaping control via a three-stage switching method for a class of nonlinear systems

This paper presents a three-stage switching control method to deal with the non-equilibrium transient trajectory shaping (NETTS) control problem for a class of nonlinear systems. Through this method, the system tracking error non-equilibrium transient trajectory can be effectively shaped by constant boundaries and two pre-designed, exponentially-converging bounds. The tracking error is handled by a Barrier Lyapunov Function (BLF) in the first stage. Once the derivative of the tracking error reaches a desired negative value, the control law is switched into stage 2 where a trajectory shaping method is utilized by changing the coordinates and the trajectory of tracking error is bounded by two pre-designed, exponentially-converging boundaries. After the tracking error converging into a sufficiently small region around zero, the control law is switched to the BLF based method again for constraining the transient trajectory in the third stage. A numerical example is utilized to demonstrate the performance of the proposed three-stage NETTS switching control algorithm.
Using spatial H2 norm for sensor placement in parabolic partial differential equations

The issue of optimal sensor placement in the presence of disturbance is investigated for a class of transport-reaction processes, mathematically modeled by linear parabolic partial differential equations. Specifically, using modal decomposition to discretize the spatial coordinate, the optimal sensor location is computed through the solution of a nonlinear optimization problem in appropriate L2 space. The notions of spatial and modal observability and robustness index are employed for the definition of the objective and constraint functionals. The formulated problem is subsequently solved using standard search algorithms. The proposed method is illustrated on a representative thermal diffusion process modeled by a one-dimensional parabolic PDE, where, in the presence of disturbances with known distribution, the optimal location of a single point sensor is computed
Integration of Fuzzy ERD Modeling to the Management of Global Contextual Data

This chapter introduces the idiosyncrasies of managing the new paradigm of global contextual data, sets of context data and super sets of context data. It introduces some of the basic idea’s behind contexts and then develops a model for management of aggregated sets of contextual data and proposes methods for dealing with the selection and retrieval of context data that is inherently ambiguous about what to retrieve for a given query. Because contexts are characterized by four dimensions, those of time, space, impact and similarity they are inherently complicated to manage.
Force distribution in a semiflexible loop

Loops undergoing thermal fluctuations are prevalent in nature. Ringlike or cross-linked polymers, cyclic macromolecules, and protein-mediated DNA loops all belong to this category. Stability of these molecules are generally described in terms of free energy, an average quantity, but it may also be impacted by local fluctuating forces acting within these systems. The full distribution of these forces can thus give us insights into mechanochemistry beyond the predictive capability of thermodynamics. In this paper, we study the force exerted by an inextensible semiflexible polymer constrained in a looped state. By using a simulation method termed "phase-space sampling," we generate the equilibrium distribution of chain conformations in both position and momentum space. We compute the constraint forces between the two ends of the loop in this chain ensemble using Lagrangian mechanics, and show that the mean of these forces is equal to the thermodynamic force. By analyzing kinetic and potential contributions to the forces, we find that the mean force acts in the direction of increasing extension not because of bending stress, but in spite of it. Furthermore, we obtain a distribution of constraint forces as a function of chain length, extension, and stiffness. Notably, increasing contour length decreases the average force, but the additional freedom allows fluctuations in the constraint force to increase. The force distribution is asymmetric and falls off less sharply than a Gaussian distribution. Our work exemplifies a system where large-amplitude fluctuations occur in a way unforeseen by a purely thermodynamic framework, and offers computational tools useful for efficient, unbiased simulation of a constrained system.
PROs in the Balance: Ethical Implications of Collecting Patient Reported Outcome Measures in the Electronic Health Record

As outlined in the case description already presented, efforts to collect patient-reported outcomes (PROs) may improve the quality of health care delivery by identifying relationships between curre...
Underdevelopment of Africa: Comments on Methodology

One of the more striking recent trends in the study of African history has been the mushrooming of studies focusing on the “underdevelopment” of Africa (or some part of it) following the publication of Walter Rodney's How Europe Underdeveloped Africa in 1972. Part of the appeal of the “underdevelopment” literature is that it stands the apologists for colonialism on their heads. Barely more than a decade earlier, as the 1950s were coming to a close, one could readily find settlers, shopkeepers, colonial bureaucrats, and others arguing that the mounting pressure for independence in sub-Saharan Africa should be resisted because European rule had brought “development” to the continent. It is not surprising, therefore, that after a decade of independence there should be a ready audience for the argument that colonial rule did not “develop” African economies but, to the contrary, actually “underdeveloped” them—and perhaps we should also not be surprised that “underdevelopment” is often not defined oris defined inconsistently. The central focus of this essay will be the main difficulties of studying either “development” or “underdevelopment” and, in particular, the problems of determining the causes of either of these states at any given period in Africa's history. All the examples from the “underdevelopment” literature will be drawn from Rodney's book, primarily because the work seems representative of the growing body of literature on this subject and because it has been by far the most influential of the studies dealing with the topic in Africa. I would like to emphasize that in the following discussion my approach is more that of the economist than of the historian, a point which will be clearly reflected in the few points I have chosen for illustration.
Integrated Assessment of Risk and Sustainability in the Context of Regulatory Decision Making

Risk assessment is a decision-making tool used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and other governmental organizations to organize and analyze scientific information so as to examine, characterize, and possibly quantify threats to human health and/or ecologic resources. Sustainability evaluation is a process for organizing and analyzing scientific and technical information about nature–society interactions in order to help decision-makers determine whether taking or avoiding certain actions will make society more sustainable. Although development and application of these two methodologies have progressed along distinct and unconnected pathways, the National Research Council recently recommended that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency adopt the concept of “sustainability” as both a process and a goal, and that risk assessment be incorporated, when appropriate, as a key input into decision-making about sustainability. The following discussion briefly reviews these two analytic approaches and ...
Metal-Parylene Interconnection Systems

This paper reports the results of a study to integrate a metal-parylene interconnection system. The advantages and issues are highlighted. Fabrication steps for packaging geometries as well as proposed fabrication steps for VLSI applications are discussed. The relevant material properties for interconnection system design have been compiled.
A Half-Duplex Self-Protection Jamming Approach for Improving Secrecy of Block Transmissions in Underwater Acoustic Channels

Block transmissions are commonly used in underwater acoustic communications due to the large delay spread of the underlying channels. In this paper, we propose a novel jamming protocol based on the half-duplex nature of the underwater transceivers and the block-based transmission structure, taking advantage of the large propagation delays of underwater acoustic channels to create interference at the eavesdropper without affecting the reception of the intended user. This half-duplex jamming protocol acts like a self-protection scheme, which does not need any helpers but instead relies on the legitimate receiver itself to transmit jamming signals for the improvement of secrecy rate. The simulation results evaluate the secrecy rate improvement as a function of the eavesdropper locations.
Neutronics performance characteristics of the high power density EVOLVE first Wall/Blanket system

The neutronics performance of the EVOLVE concept was analyzed using two-dimensional calculations. The vapor fraction in the boiling blanket has a small impact on the nuclear performance parameters. For the worst case condition with the highest predicted vapor fraction distribution, all nuclear performance parameters are acceptable with a comfortable margin. The EVOLVE boiling blanket is expected to perform adequately from the neutronics point of view for any of the boiling regimes considered. Analysis was performed also for a preliminary design of the transpiration blanket option indicating that it will also have adequate nuclear performance parameters.
Design and characterization of sideband-separating SIS mixer RF hybrids for the Band 3 receiver (84-116 GHz)

The Band3 ALMA front end receiver incorporates sideband-separating (2SB) superconductor-insulator-superconductor (SIS) RF hybrid assemblies to achieve low noise temperatures. The 2SB RF hybrid assembly consists of a feedhorn to direct the RF signals, RF and IF quadrature hybrids for separating the USB and LSB signals, and two SIS mixers to down convert the 100 GHz RF signals to 4-8 GHz IF signals. These assemblies require careful matching of the phase and amplitude of the signals in the USB and LSB pathways to minimize receiver noise. The individual components undergo careful characterization and tests to build suitable 2SB RF hybrids assemblies.
A brief aviation sustainable practices attitude scale: establishing validity and reliability

Previous research has focused on transportation sustainability in other arenas, and in aviation perception scales, but to date, no researcher that we know of has developed a valid and reliable scale to measure consumer attitudes of aviation sustainability practices. A pair of aviation sustainability practices attitude (ASPA) scales were created for the purpose of measuring consumer attitudes about their experiences with airport and airline sustainable activities. The direct purpose of these scales is to aid in measuring the level that consumers would rate various sustainable practices with regard to the environment. In this paper, we outline the methodology that was used. A previous sustainable attitude scale called the SUS-TAS developed by Choi and Sirakaya (2005) was used as a foundational basis for the current scales in this paper. A total of 669 participants were solicited to help test the final two scales for validity and reliability. A factor analysis using the principal components and varimax rotation loaded strongly on one factor in each scale, providing evidence for validity. Reliability was tested via Cronbach's alpha and Guttmann's split-half tests, indicating high consistency and reliability.
“Matrices de aprendizaje” emancipadoras. OVNI (Observatorio de Video no Identificado) y el videoactivismo // Alienating and Emancipatory “Models of Learning”: An Approach to OVNI (Observatory of Non Identified Video) and its Video-activism

Resumen Partiendo de la premisa de que no estamos solo ante una crisis economica sino ante una crisis planetaria y de civilizacion marcada por la desaparicion de los derechos humanos y los derechos de la naturaleza, este ensayo revisa el concepto de colonialidad del saber o “colonialismo interno” (Rivera Cusicanqui) junto al de matriz del aprendizaje capitalista como estructura instituyente tanto de la psique colonizadora como de la subalterna y de las relaciones entre ambas y el mundo. En este contexto, propongo pensar el videoactivismo de OVNI [Observatorio de Video no identificado] como posible herramienta cultural emancipadora y de trabajo en un proceso de cambio politico. Abstract Starting from the premise that we are not dealing with only an economic crisis but also a planetary crisis marked by the disappearance of human and environmental rights, this essay looks at the concepts of colonization of knowledge or “internal colonialization” (Rivera Cusicanqui) alongside with the neo-liberal capitalist model of learning as an institutive structure of the colonizing and the colonized psyche as well as the social relationship between the two of them and the world. In this context, I propose to think the video-activism of OVNI (Observatory of Non-Identified Video) as a possible cultural emancipatory tool and one that can be used in a process of political change.
Esbozo de un teoría verbal de la comedia

Theater is constituted by a double and correlative tension between auditory and visual elements, on one hand, and verbal and factual components, on the other. Due to restrictions in staging or to aesthetic preference, in the Spanish Golden Age Comedia there is an initial preference for auditory constituents over visual elements. However, this partiality does not entail, as could be expected from the double binary, a supremacy of the verbal over the factual, but rather requires an equivalence between both dimensions. Given the original diminished role of visual action, in the Spanish Comedia the word becomes the action; both are one and the same. From this hypothesis, I propose an analytical model wherein the play’s plot appears as set of verbal incidents that could be reduced to four: utterance of a statement, silence, correct and incorrect interpretation of an utterance. To prove or test the validity and the critical fruits of this theorization of the Comedia and the analytical method derived from it, the essay reviews (or better, rehears) a corpus of representative plays: El medico de su honra, El desden con el desden, El condenado por desconfiado, and Entre bobos anda el juego.
Nonlinear Viscoelastic Behavior of the Fiber-Matrix Interphase: Theory and Experiment

In fiber-matrix bonding, which is the topic of this paper, a common method of measuring the quality of adhesion is the single fiber fragmentation test procedure [1]. Various elastic and elastic-plastic approaches have been used in the literature to study the micro-mechanics of stress transfer between fiber and matrix. The most commonly used relation assumes uniform fiber strength and expresses the adhesion strength, τc, in the form $$ {\tau_c} = \left( {{\sigma_f}\;d} \right)/\left( {2\;{l_c}} \right) $$ (1) where, τc is the shear strength at the fiber resin interface, d is the fiber diameter, l c is the critical fiber fragment size and, σf is the fiber tensile strength. For the present work single fiber tension test specimens were prepared by embedding single carbon fibers (7µm Celion G30 500 sized and unsized) in Epon 815 epoxy (Shell) cured with DETA and Armocure 100 (Akzo Chemie America) into 2 X 3 X 140 mm dog-bone tensile coupons with 50 mm gage length.