cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Facet-Dependent Photoelectrochemical Performance of TiO2 Nanostructures: An Experimental and Computational Study

The behavior of crystalline nanoparticles depends strongly on which facets are exposed. Some facets are more active than others, but it is difficult to selectively isolate particular facets. This study provides fundamental insights into photocatalytic and photoelectrochemical performance of three types of TiO2 nanoparticles with predominantly exposed {101}, {010}, or {001} facets, where 86–99% of the surface area is the desired facet. Photodegradation of methyl orange reveals that {001}-TiO2 has 1.79 and 3.22 times higher photocatalytic activity than {010} and {101}-TiO2, respectively. This suggests that the photochemical performance is highly correlated with the surface energy and the number of under-coordinated surface atoms. In contrast, the photoelectrochemical performance of the faceted TiO2 nanoparticles sensitized with the commercially available MK-2 dye was highest with {010}-TiO2 which yielded an overall cell efficiency of 6.1%, compared to 3.2% for {101}-TiO2 and 2.6% for {001}-TiO2 prepared und...
Determination of Dermal Permeability Coefficient (Kp) by Utilizing Multiple Descriptors in Artificial Neural Network Analysis and Multiple Regression Analysis

Aims: The permeability coefficient, or Kp, is an important descriptor for assessing dermal absorption of medicaments utilized for clinical treatment of various dermal accessible diseases. Determination of Kp by multiple descriptors by artificial neural network (ANN) and multiple regression is compared. Study Design: The calculation of Kp utilizing multiple descriptors, and comparison of ANN and multiple regression is achieved.
Why Percentages Matter -- And Why We Should Ignore Them

This post addresses the common use of the phrase uttered at thousands of military events every year, from purple heart ceremonies, to redeployment welcome-home events, to promotions and retirements: "you are part of the one percent of Americans who choose to serve" in the military, and argues that this self-reverence -- when proclaimed by uniformed leaders back to their own troops, undermines our constitutional servitude to the American public and risks fracturing a carefully-structured balance in our civil-military relations. This phrase has become a part of our own internal "strategic branding" that segregates and elevates us above and apart from our fellow citizens. Doing so, repeatedly over the course of the last fourteen years of continuous combat operations, sends an detrimental signal to our troops (and to the public) about our sense of relative worth to our society, the oaths that we take, and the evolving meaning of sacrifice and service.
TISSUE INFORMATION FROM ULTRASOUND SCATTERING

Medical ultrasound is now progressing beyond its initial, and successful, phase, wherein its principal purpose was to provide adequately high resolution (in both space and time) images of tissue structure. Increasing emphasis is now being placed on the widely accepted notion that tissue probing with either pulsed or continuous wave ultrasound fields potentially provides more information than is currently displayed in the pulse-echo image. Much justification for this viewpoint (which is commonly stated, without adducing firm evidence) stems from the realization that conventional medical ultrasound images are constructed from a data base which is only a subset of the full data ensemble that is, in fact, measured. Moreover, the measurements, in turn, comprise only a subset of the data that are, in principle, practicably addressed with present day technology. In this sense, ultrasound imaging is probably unique amongst medical imaging modalities. Of course, the mere realization that not all measured data are used for image construction does not, in itself, guarantee that the discarded data contain new, or non-redundant, information. Occasionally, there is also an understandable confusion between the achievement of a “better” (e.g. higher resolution, more displayed dynamic range, etc) image, and the development of techniques that generate perhaps even rather poor images with an intrinsically different (tissue) information content.
Long-Term Follow-Up of Renal Transplantation—Chronic Rejection and Recurrence of Nephritis

Graft loss in long-term (>10 years) surviving recipients occurs at a rate of 3%–5% annually. The most frequent cause of graft loss is chronic rejection. Unfortunately, no current therapeutic intervention is uniformly successful in forestalling the inevitable decline in graft function. The proposal that hyperfiltration is a significant factor contributing to nephron loss in long-term surviving grafts is interesting; however, controlled clinical trials of protein restricted diets, with concomitant accurate serial measurements of graft function are required before such an approach can be recommended.
Electric field biased Faraday Effect in Cr-doped BiFeO3 thin film

Multiferroics, materials which possess multiple ferroic orders, have seen a revival of interest in recent years as the need for multifunctional and multitunable devices has increased. These particular materials are of interest due to the potential to control and tune devices by both electric and magnetic fields. Examining how an external electric field alters the magneto-optic response of the well-known multiferroic, BiFeO 3 (BFO), could provide useful insight into how these multiferroics would function in optical devices. The Faraday rotation of a 10% Cr-doped BFO (111) thin film on an MgO substrate was measured for three conditions using an ac magnetic field technique: no biasing electric field, a positive 2 kV/m electric field, and a negative 2 kV/m electric field. The Verdet constant for these three conditions at an optical wavelength of 632.8 nm was 20.48 ± 1.96 °/kOe-cm, 21.25 ± 3.33 °/kOe-cm, and 2.01 ± 0.5 °/kOe-cm respectively. These results demonstrate the possibility to manipulate the magneto-optic response of the thin film with an external dc electric field. Future work to both overcome the deficiencies exhibited by BFO and investigate how precisely the magneto-optic response can be controlled by an external field is presented and discussed.
The first black Miss Colombia and the limits of multiculturalism

ABSTRACTTen years after the 1991 Constitution recognized Colombia’s ethnic diversity, the National Beauty Pageant crowned Vanessa Mendoza, the first black beauty queen in the pageant’s 65-year history. Mendoza won the 2001 crown as the representative of the Choco, one of Colombia’s poorest and predominantly black departments. In this paper, I draw from critiques of neoliberal multiculturalism to discuss the terms under which a black queen was understood to represent Colombia. Drawing from pageant documents and the national press, I analyze how pageant affiliates, Mendoza supporters, and Mendoza herself understood the pageant victory. Mendoza supporters debated the race of the queen and whether she represented a mestizo or multicultural nation. Journalists and pageant affiliates reconfigured racial hierarchies and upheld Mendoza’s victory as proof of the absence of racism. In contrast, a group of journalists and academics used ideals of multicultural diversity and regional solidarity to emphasize the persi...
Do Local Governments Site Nuisance Activities Along Borders? An Empirical Strategy Applied to Wind Turbines

The ability of communities to realize Pareto efficient outcomes may potentially be realized through the practice of fiscal zoning. A common concern to this theory is the prospect that political boundaries may undermine this process. If nuisance entities produce negative externalities that decay over distance and the host fee compensation is completely internalized, then host fee compensation need not reflect the full external damages if the nuisance is sited along a political border. Furthermore, if a nuisance entity can credibly commit to being sited on either side of the border, host fee compensation can fall to zero. This paper presents a simple theoretical model that describes an empirical strategy for testing the political boundary hypothesis among local governments in an important environmental context. The strategy is applied to wind turbines in the continental United States across 1,230 local governments. The results are not supportive of the concerns and actually indicate that land near political boundaries is less likely to be used for nuisance siting.
Automated Estimation of Extreme Steady-State Quantiles via the Maximum Transformation

We present Sequem, a sequential procedure that delivers point and confidence-interval (CI) estimators for extreme steady-state quantiles of a simulation-generated process. Because it is specified completely, Sequem can be implemented directly and applied automatically. The method is an extension of the Sequest procedure developed by Alexopoulos et al. in 2014 to estimate nonextreme steady-state quantiles. Sequem exploits a combination of batching, sectioning, and the maximum transformation technique to achieve the following: (i) reduction in point-estimator bias arising from the simulation’s initial condition or from inadequate simulation run length; and (ii) adjustment of the CI half-length to compensate for the effects of skewness or autocorrelation on intermediate quantile point estimators computed from nonoverlapping batches of observations. Sequem’s CIs are designed to satisfy user-specified requirements concerning coverage probability and absolute or relative precision. In an experimental evaluation based on seven processes selected to stress-test the procedure, Sequem exhibited uniformly good performance.
The safer chemical design game. Gamification of green chemistry and safer chemical design concepts for high school and undergraduate students

ABSTRACTGreen chemistry can strongly attract students to chemistry. We, therefore, developed a green chemistry educational game that motivates students at the undergraduate and advanced high school...
Synergistic and Compensatory Roles of CD4+, CD8+ T-Lymphocytes and Natural Killer Cells in Resistance to Toxoplasma Gondii

Cell-mediated immunity has long been recognized to play a crucial role in resistance to Toxoplasma gondii. Nevertheless, it is only within recent years that the events involved in cellular control of acute and chronic infection have begun to be defined. An important breakthrough occurred when Suzuki and Remington [Suzuki et al 1988] discovered the central role played by IFN- γ in resistance to new infection as well as in the control of re-activation. While the key effector function of this cytokine has now been confirmed, its mechanism of action remains poorly understood.
A highly sensitive co-resonant cantilever sensor for materials research: Application to nanomaterial characterization

Dynamic-mode cantilever sensors are used in many different applications but especially in materials research to study properties of novel (nano)materials. Decreasing sample sizes require an increase in sensitivity of the analysis tools. For cantilever-based methods that is achieved through a reduction in cantilever dimensions. However, the increase in sensitivity has to be balanced with the detectability as also for a small cantilever a reliable detection of its oscillatory state has to be ensured. A recently introduced co-resonant measurement principle for cantilever sensors addresses this challenge by coupling and eigenfrequency matching of a micro- and a nanocantilever. Here, the sensor concept is reviewed with focus on the application in materials research by the instructive example of an iron-filled carbon nanotube, giving insight into the features and benefits of the sensor concept and demonstrating the reliable derivation of magnetic sample properties.
Phase-sensitive photothermal imaging of ultrahigh-Q polyoxide toroidal microresonators

Toroidal optical microresonators are powerful platforms for quantum optics and label-free sensing and imaging. Although these microresonators are generally fabricated from thermal oxide on silicon wafers, many benefits arise from greater flexibility for fabrication of resonators on substrates other than single-crystal silicon. The ability to perform fabrication with easily deposited polysilicon while matching the superlative optical properties of thermal-oxide would address this need. In this work, toroidal microresonators were fabricated using thermal oxide grown from polysilicon (polyoxide). These resonators possess comparable quality factors to their counterparts fabricated with oxide thermally grown from single-crystal silicon (crystalline oxide). Photothermal imaging and spectroscopy showed evidence of residual silicon and adsorbed water. Phase sensitive imaging and finite-element simulation show how subtly different thermal pathways are taken in the two material systems. Polysilicon is shown to be a viable precursor for making ultrahigh-Q toroidal microresonators.
Supporting Collaboration Among Cyber Security Analysts Through Visualizing Their Analytical Reasoning Processes

When a cyber-attack occurred, cyber-defense analysts are faced with large amounts of complex multimedia data in various forms of modality that comes from network monitoring systems and multimedia databases. A real-time response requires analysts to quickly exchange their findings and effectively divide the tasks amongst each other. We proposes a cyber analysis collaboration support system that captures and integrates the analytical process of analysts based on a cognitive model. The system uses a semi-structured representation with a visualization map that visualizes and integrates the analytical process of analysts. The map is designed with usability, accessibility, and User Experience (UX) measures in mind to enable analysts to access each others actions, observations of suspicious network events, and hypotheses about potential cyber-attacks. We evaluated the system with human subjects. The results show that the system enabled the subjects to branch off their hypotheses about possible attacks and to divide their tasks efficiently.
Santiago de la Nación Guachichil: law and the re-emergence of a disappeared identity in eighteenth-century San Luis Potosí

AbstractAfter half a century of Spanish colonial presence in San Luis Potosi, the local Guachichil population vanished from all historical documentation. It resurfaced in the early eighteenth centu...
Emergency department visits for prescription and synthetic opioid overdoses among patients with cancer.

6579Background: Patients with cancer may be at high risk of opioid dependence due to physical and psychosocial factors, although little data exists to inform providers and policymakers. Our aim is ...
When someone you know is living in a Dementia care community: words to say and things to do

The decisions confronting families of loved ones living with dementia are complex and emotional charged. This book, When Someone You Know Is Living in a Dementia Care Community, offers support, gui...
Parameter estimation of Autoregressive-Exogenous and Autoregressive models subject to missing data using Expectation Maximization

Missing observations may present several problems for statistical analyses on datasets if they are not accounted for. This paper concerns a model-based missing data analysis procedure to estimate the parameters of regression models fit to datasets with missing observations. Both autoregressive-exogenous (ARX) and autoregressive (AR) models are considered. These models are both used to simulate datasets, and are fit to existing structural vibration data, after which observations are removed. A missing data analysis is performed using maximum-likelihood estimation, the expectation maximization (EM) algorithm, and the Kalman filter to fill in missing observations and regression parameters, and compare them to estimates for the complete datasets. Regression parameters from these fits to structural vibration data can thereby be used as damage-sensitive features. Favorable conditions for accurate parameter estimation are found to include lower percentages of missing data, parameters of similar magnitude with one another, and selected model orders similar to those true to the dataset. Favorable conditions for dataset reconstruction are found to include random and periodic missing data patterns, lower percentages of missing data, and proper model order selection. The algorithm is particularly robust to varied noise levels.
First-Year College Students’ Behaviors and Characteristics of Those Who Stay and Those Who Go:

This study examined the differences between first-year students who continued to Year 2 and first-year students who did not return to the second year at a mid-size, public, research university in t...
Research on PID parameter tuning of coordinated control for ultra-supercritical units based on Ziegler Nichols method

Around all kinds of existing PID parameter tuning methods and their development trend, aiming at the various methods of PID tuning in the coordinated control system of ultra-supercritical units, this paper improves the traditional trial-and-error method of parameter tuning, and realizes the PID tuning algorithm based on Ziegler Nichols method. The operation experiments on 1000MW ultra-supercritical units show the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Examining K–12 students’ perceptions of student teacher effectiveness

Student ratings are a valid source of data for measuring teacher effectiveness. Students observe teachers more hours than administrators and are rather perceptive at measuring teachers’ instruction...
Civil Service Management in Devolved Government: Reconciling Local Accountability and Career Incentives in Pakistan

This paper looks at the case of Pakistan’s decentralization reform of 2001– 09 and its impact on civil service management. A key point made in this paper is that the relationship between organizational change and civil service is, by no means, unidirectional. The issues are viewed in the context of decentralization, its opportunities, and outcomes for efficiency and equity. We then evaluate whether administrative decentralization has enhanced or diminished the potential for political and fiscal decentralization for service delivery in Pakistan.
Effect of composition and phase diagram features on printability and microstructure in laser powder bed fusion: Development and comparison of processing maps across alloy systems

Abstract Additive manufacturing (AM) has gained considerable academic and industrial interest due to its ability to produce parts with complex geometries with the potential for local microstructural control. However, due to the large number of material and process variables associated with AM, optimization of alloying compositions and process parameters to achieve desired properties is an arduous task. There is a fundamental gap in understanding how changes in process variables and alloy composition and thermodynamics affect additively manufactured parts. The present systematic study sheds light on the effects of alloying composition and corresponding phase diagram features on the printability and solidification microstructures of four binary nickel-based alloys, namely, Ni-20 at% Cu, Ni-5 at% Al, Ni-5 at% Zr, and Ni-8.8 at% Zr. These compositions are selected to represent binary isomorphous, weak solute partitioning, strong solute partitioning, and eutectic alloying conditions, respectively. Single track and bulk experiments are conducted to quantify the effects of varying material thermodynamic properties such as solidification temperature ranges, alloy melting temperatures, and other solidification conditions on resultant microstructures across the laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF) parameter space. A simple framework for developing processing maps detailing porosity formation and microsegregation across the laser power – scan speed parameter space is established and validated for each of these alloys to determine how material properties affect printability and microstructure in L-PBF. This knowledge will be vital in optimizing alloy chemistry and process parameters to design alloys specifically for additive manufacturing, as well as to provide a path toward local microstructure control.
Functional remodeling of adrenal steroidogenic tissue by food deprivation in the lizard, Sceloporus undulatus.

Abstract The present study examined how food availability interacts with age to modulate lizard adrenal steroidogenic function at the cellular level. Adult male and juvenile male and female Eastern Fence Lizards (Sceloporus undulatus) underwent a period of food deprivation with or without a shorter re-feeding period. Lizards maintained on a full feeding regimen served as the controls. Across the feeding regimens, plasma corticosterone of adult lizards was unchanged whereas that of food-deprived juvenile lizards was increased nearly 7 times and this increase was normalized by a short re-feeding period. Freshly dispersed adrenocortical cells derived from these lizards were incubated with ACTH and the production of selected steroids was measured by highly specific radioimmunoassay. Net maximal steroid rates of juvenile cells were 161% greater than those of adult cells. Adult and juvenile progesterone rates were consistently suppressed by food deprivation (by nearly 48%) and were normalized by a re-feeding period, whereas divergent effects were seen with corticosterone and aldosterone rates. Food deprivation suppressed corticosterone rates of adult cells by 43% but not those of juvenile cells. In a reciprocal manner, food deprivation had no significant effect on aldosterone rates of adult cells, but it suppressed those of juvenile cells by 52%. A short re-feeding period normalized most rates in both adult and juvenile cells and further augmented the adult aldosterone rate by 54%. The effect of the feeding regimens on ACTH sensitivity varied with life stage and with steroid. The overall sensitivity of adult cells to ACTH was nearly three times that of juvenile cells. Collectively, the data presented here and data from previous work indicate that food restriction/deprivation in Sceloporus lizard species causes a functional remodeling of the adrenocortical tissue. Furthermore, life stage adds more complexity to this remodeling.
Cognitive and Linguistic Issues in the Study of Children with Specific Language Impairment

Publisher Summary This chapter presents a group of children whose difficulties with language cannot be attributed to problems with hearing, neurological impairment, or serious cognitive limitations. This apparent discrepancy among language and other abilities offers an interesting test case for theories of language development, as does the most common profile seen in specific language impairment (SLI), a deficit in tense/agreement morphology that is more serious than problems in other areas of language. Children with SLI are two or three times more likely than typical children to have siblings with language problems or parents with a history of language problems. Twin studies show that the concordance rates for children with SLI and their identical (monozygotic) twins are substantially higher than those seen for children with SLI and their same-sex dizygotic twins. Although the evidence for a genetic as opposed to primarily environmental basis for SLI is rather convincing, the prominent areas of linkage uncovered thus far by molecular genetic studies suggest that much more research is still needed before a clear picture emerges. Indeed, the cause of SLI may well prove to be multifactorial.
The number of K m,m -free graphs

A graph is called H-free if it contains no copy of H. Denote by f n (H) the number of (labeled) H-free graphs on n vertices. Erdős conjectured that f n (H) ≤ 2(1+o(1))ex(n,H). This was first shown to be true for cliques; then, Erdős, Frankl, and Rodl proved it for all graphs H with χ(H)≥3. For most bipartite H, the question is still wide open, and even the correct order of magnitude of log2 f n (H) is not known. We prove that f n (K m,m ) ≤ 2O (n 2−1/m ) for every m, extending the result of Kleitman and Winston and answering a question of Erdős. This bound is asymptotically sharp for m∈{2,3}, and possibly for all other values of m, for which the order of ex(n,K m,m ) is conjectured to be Θ(n 2−1/m ). Our method also yields a bound on the number of K m,m -free graphs with fixed order and size, extending the result of Furedi. Using this bound, we prove a relaxed version of a conjecture due to Haxell, Kohayakawa, and Łuczak and show that almost all K 3,3-free graphs of order n have more than 1/20·ex(n,K 3,3) edges.
The Asian Monetary Fund Reborn?: Implications of Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralization

Relations at Boston University, and a Research Associate of the National Asia Research Program. He is the author of Currency and Contest in East Asia: The Power Politics of Financial Regionalism (2009) and Unmaking the Japanese Miracle: Macroeconomic Politics, 1985–2000 (2001). He can be reached at . The Asian Monetary Fund Reborn? Implications of Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralization
Tariffs, capital export and immiserizing growth

This note attempts to prove that tariff-induced capital export will not cause immiserizing growth if exporters of capital earn abroad an amount equal to the value of domestic marginal product of capital at world prices, irrespective of the repatriated profit being transferred in terms of home exportables or home importables.
EMPIRICAL SCHOLARSHIP IN CONTRACT LAW: POSSIBILITIES AND PITFALLS

Professor Korobkin examines and analyzes empirical contract law scholarship over the last fifteen years in an attempt to guide scholars concerning how empiricism can be used in and enhance the study of contract law. After defining the parameters of the study, Professor Korobkin categorizes empirical contract law scholarship by both the source of data and main purpose of the investigation. He then describes and analyzes three types of criticisms that can be made of empirical scholarship, explains how these criticisms pertain to contract law scholarship, and considers what steps researchers can take to minimize the force of such criticisms. This article provides a critical analysis of empirical scholarship in contract law. Its primary goal is to help contracts scholars determine whether they wish to add an empirical component to their academic work and how they might do so, but the observations and conclusions will hopefully be of interest to empiricists or would-be empiricists interested in any area of the law. The article analyzes empirical contract law scholarship from two very different perspectives. First, in order to provide scholars with a menu of the empirical approaches available to them, the article categorizes empirical contract law scholarship according to two criteria: the sources of the empirical data relied upon, and the use—or purpose—of the empirical inquiry. This portion of the analysis is based on a review of the body of empirical contract law scholarship published over the last fifteen years. Second, in order to help scholars determine whether their research efforts would be used most productively in the pursuit of empirical analysis, the article describes and analyzes a series of conceptual
5‐Methyl‐5‐Hexen‐2‐One

5-Methyl-5-hexen-2-one reactant: Eastman Organic Chemicals practical grade methallyl chloride reactant: Union Carbide Chemicals Co. 2,4-pentanedione product: 5-Methyl-5-hexen-2-one product: 4-Phenyl-2-butanone product: 4-(o-Bromophenyl)-2-butanone product: 4-(m-Bromophenyl)-2-butanone product: 4-(o-Chlorophenyl)-2-butanone product: 4-(m-Chlorophenyl)-2-butanone product: 4-(p-Chlorophenyl)-2-butanone product: 4-(m-Fluorophenyl)-2-butanone product: 4-(m-Nitrophenyl)-2-butanone product: 4-(α-Naphthyl)-2-butanone product: 1-Phenyl-1,4-pentanedione product: 2-Heptanone Keywords: alkylation, C-alkylation; cleavage, ketonic
Diminished Inflammation and Nociceptive Pain with Preservation of Neuropathic Pain in Mice with a Targeted Mutation of the Type I Regulatory Subunit of cAMP-Dependent Protein Kinase

To assess the contribution of PKA to injury-induced inflammation and pain, we evaluated nociceptive responses in mice that carry a null mutation in the gene that encodes the neuronal-specific isoform of the type I regulatory subunit (RIβ) of PKA. Acute pain indices did not differ in the RIβ PKA mutant mice compared with wild-type controls. However, tissue injury-evoked persistent pain behavior, inflammation of the hindpaw, and ipsilateral dorsal horn Fos immunoreactivity was significantly reduced in the mutant mice, as was plasma extravasation induced by intradermal injection of capsaicin into the paw. The enhanced thermal sensitivity observed in wild-type mice after intraplantar or intrathecal (spinal) administration of prostaglandin E2 was also reduced in mutant mice. In contrast, indices of pain behavior produced by nerve injury were not altered in the mutant mice. Thus, RIβ PKA is necessary for the full expression of tissue injury-evoked (nociceptive) pain but is not required for nerve injury-evoked (neuropathic) pain. Because the RIβ subunit is only present in the nervous system, including small diameter trkA receptor-positive dorsal root ganglion cells, we suggest that in inflammatory conditions, RIβ PKA is specifically required for nociceptive processing in the terminals of small-diameter primary afferent fibers.
You’re an Austen Heroine! Engaging Students with Past and Present

In my senior seminar on Jane Austen, I seek to engage students in multiple ways. On one hand, I want them to connect with Austen’s world and to reflect on what it means to them; on the other hand, I want them to understand the very real differences of that world and how they inform her novels. One strategy for engaging students in these ways is through interactive games. Studies have shown that many modern games have features similar to those stressed by engaged learning, so game design can be adapted for pedagogical purposes. I discuss the purposes, design, and play of my PowerPoint game “You’re an Austen Heroine!” I invite interested readers to see the game in the attached file.
Merging Education and Business Models to Create and Sustain Transformational Change

In 2004, a large Midwest hospital was losing money, patients, employees, and physicians. A business consultant was hired to engage key employees in a process to improve the quality and efficiency of patient care. The improvement was negligible after the first year, so a 3-man consultancy was added in 2005 to engage all employees in an educational process with the same mission. The author was the hospital director of this experimental change project titled Transformation and worked with both the business and education consultants. The opposing models were serendipitously discovered to be parallel and resulted in positive change. The business model was the application of two Six Sigma models, DMAIC (define, measure, analysis, improvement, control) and Ten Step Kaizen. The education model was proprietary but discovered to be a learning process toward self-direction (Taylor, 1986). Interviews were conducted in this grounded theory study to understand the perceived relationship between the 2005 experiment and current realities. Significant improvements were immediate and sustained over time. The hospital is currently making money and attracting patients, employees, and physicians and the emerged theory posits that merging the models creates transformational change, but sustainability requires empowered leaders to manage the process.
Globalization and tax policy

Abstract Globalization is thought to reduce the ability of governments to collect taxes. If labor and capital can move between jurisdictions, then attempts to tax these factors will lead to a “vanishing taxpayer” as factors flee from high- to low-tax regions. More broadly, globalization suggests that there will be some convergence in tax rates across countries. This paper questions this view by examining the impact of globalization on taxation using a two-country, two-factor, two-good model. In particular, we ask how globalization, measured by increased international factor mobility, affects the ability of governments to tax factors. Our quantitative analysis indicates that, while increased mobility reduces revenues to some extent, governments still retain significant ability to collect taxes.
Early reconstruction of the abdominal wall in giant omphalocele

Omphalocele is the most common congenital defect of the abdominal wall. Mortality rate is between 20 and 70% and early closure of the abdominal wall, within 10 days of life, is vital to the successful outcome of the surgical treatment. The authors describe the use of two bipedicled flaps of abdominal skin to correct the defect of the midline as soon as the reduction of all viscera has been accomplished.
DNA-Catalyzed Hydrolysis of Esters and Aromatic Amides

We previously reported that DNA catalysts (deoxyribozymes) can hydrolyze DNA phosphodiester linkages, but DNA-catalyzed amide bond hydrolysis has been elusive. Here we used in vitro selection to identify DNA catalysts that hydrolyze ester linkages as well as DNA catalysts that hydrolyze aromatic amides, for which the leaving group is an aniline moiety. The aromatic amide-hydrolyzing deoxyribozymes were examined using linear free energy relationship analysis. The hydrolysis reaction is unaffected by substituents on the aromatic ring (ρ ≈ 0), suggesting general acid-catalyzed elimination as the likely rate-determining step of the addition–elimination hydrolysis mechanism. These findings establish that DNA has the catalytic ability to achieve hydrolysis of esters and aromatic amides as carbonyl-based substrates, and they suggest a mechanism-based approach to achieve DNA-catalyzed aliphatic amide hydrolysis.
The Volume Principle

Upon examining the proofs of these theorems as presented in several textbooks (for example [14, sect. 4.8] or [2, pp. 53-55]), we discovered that, for such beautiful results, the proofs are overly complicated, involved, and not very satisfying. This did not seem befitting for results of this type. Then we came across the work of Gr?nbaum and Shephard. In their article, Ceva, Menelaus and the Area Principle [10], they introduce a simple tool, called the Area Principle (which will be explained shortly), and use it to present deservingly elegant proofs of both Ceva's and Menelaus' Theorems. They go on to prove generalizations of these theorems to n-gons which are not necessarily convex or simple. Gr?nbaum and Shephard's paper led us to begin thinking about how to generalize the Area Principle to spherical and hyperbolic geometry. Generalizing these theorems to include other geometries is not a new endeavor. In spherical and hyperbolic geome try, the analogs of the theorems of Ceva and Menelaus involve the product of ratios of
Diabetes and risk of incident colorectal cancer in a prospective cohort of women

Objective To determine whether accounting for the time dynamics of diabetes exposure will change the risk estimates for colorectal cancer.
Health Education 2.0 The Next Generation of Health Education Practice

Social, physical, and economic environments are the greatest determinants of our individual and collective health. Inadequate or substandard environments of all types present barriers to health. Addressing these broader determinants will be the quintessential core in the next era of public health practice. The framework for health improvement is shifting to a robust and comprehensive ecological model, wherein the broader constructs of health determinants will be central issues in population health improvement practice requiring expanded partnerships, increased application of scientific evidence, and healthy policy development within and outside of the traditional health sector. Health educators are uniquely positioned to effectively engage essential partners, shape information for policy makers, leverage the evidence base to implement effective interventions and maximize beneficial health outcomes, and add to the evidence base with thorough and systematic evaluation and reporting.
Depositional Facies and Diagenetic History of Trenton Limestone in Northern Indiana: ABSTRACT

Subsurface cores were studied petrographically to determine the facies and diagenetic history of the Trenton Limestone on a regional scale in northern Indiana. The Trenton Limestone is a yellowish olive-gray fossiliferous limestone, which is replaced by a light-gray dolostone in northern Indiana. Facies composing the Trenton are: (1) bryozoan-echinoderm packstone, (2) bryozoan-echinoderm grainstone, (3) bryozoan packstone to wackestone, (4) lime mudstone, and (5) dolostone. The bryozoan-echinoderm packstone is the major facies. As many as three muddying-upward (packstone to mudstone) sequences occur. Whether the muddying-upward sequences represent regional or local energy conditions is not known. Coarse-grained (1-4 mm) grainstones are typically 1 ft (30 cm) thick, have abrupt bases, and become muddy upward. They are considered storm deposits. Hardgrounds occur throughout the limestone facies, but they are most numerous toward the base. Thes facies indicate deposition below wave base, interrupted by periods of high energy during storms. Fossiliferous white and gray chert nodules are scattered throughout the unit. Also found in the limestone facies are prevalent stylolites and microstylolites, an indication of chemical compaction. The dolostone facies consists of coarsely crystalline (0.4 mm) idiotopic dolomite. Rhombs have cloudy centers and thin clear rims. Pyrite is associated with the dolomite. Porosity, found only in the dolostone, is discontinuous and characterized as intercrystalline, vuggy, and moldic. Porous zones are commonly oil stained or have been plugged by poikilotopic selenitic gypsum. Minor amounts of celestite are found as cavity fillings. The upper Trenton surface has high concentrations of pyrite and phosphate minerals and is interpreted to have been a submarine corrasion surface. End_of_Article - Last_Page 1919------------
Approximation numbers and Yamamoto's theorem in Banach algebras

Yamamoto's Theorem is an asymptotic relation between the singular values and eigenvalues of a matrix. There are formulations of this result involving generalized singular values (approximation numbers) of matrices and, more generally, bounded linear operators on Banach spaces. In this paper, we prove Yamamoto type theorems for Banach algebras.
Induction of hypericins and hyperforins in Hypericum perforatum in response to damage by herbivores.

Plants respond to herbivore and pathogen attack by a variety of direct and indirect mechanisms that include the induction of secondary metabolites. The phytomedicinal plant Hypericum perforatum L. produces two different classes of secondary metabolites:hyperforins, a family of antimicrobial acylphloroglucinols; and hypericins, a family of phototoxic anthraquinones exhibiting antimicrobial, antiviral, and antiherbivore properties in vitro. To determine whether these compounds are part of the herbivore-specific inducible plant defense system, we used an in vitro detached assay to assess the effects of specialist and generalist herbivore damage on the levels of hypericins and hyperforin. Greenhouse-grown H. perforatum plant sections were challenged with the specialist, Chrysolina quadrigemina, or with one of the following generalist feeders: Spilosoma virginica, Spilosoma congrua,or Spodoptera exigua. Feeding by the specialist beetle or mechanical wounding caused little change in phytochemical levels in plant tissue, whereas the small amount of feeding by the generalists caused 30–100% increases in hypericins and hyperforin as compared to control levels. Although the leaf damage index of the specialist feeding was 2.7 times greater, C. quadrigemina had little effect on H. perforatum chemical defenses in response to feeding damage in comparison to generalist feeding.
To the City: Urban Photographs of the New Deal by Julia L. Foulkes

Julia L. Foulkes. To the City: Urban Photographs of the New Deal (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2011).This book is fun. It offers 101 images drawn from more than 170,000 photographs taken ...
Models and metrics for signature strength evaluation of camouflaged targets

Camouflage is an attempt to obscure the signature of a target and also to match its background. The goal is to make the detection and recognition of the target more difficult, whether the observer is a man, a machine, or both. In this paper, we are concerned specifically with the task of target discrimination. In this context, the signature strength of a target in a sensed image is equivalent to the distinctness of the image pattern representing the target from the pattern of its specific background. We complete both first- order and second-order target signature metrics for a set of 15 test images which consist of a wide variety of naturally occurring target and background patterns. To compare the quantitative measures of target distinctness to human judgments of the same attribute, the sets images were used as stimuli in a paired comparison experiment with human observers. For each comparison, the observer was asked to choose which of the two images possesses a target pattern that is more distinct from its background. The raw judgments from 20 observers were used to estimate scale values for the stimuli, indicating relative amounts of perceived target distinctness in the images. Of the metrics considered, a second-order metric based on a model of image texture was most strongly correlated with the scale values. These results are most applicable to the areas of camouflage assessment and design.
In vivo site-specific DNA methylation with a designed sequence-enabled DNA methylase.

Covalent modification of DNA, such as cytosine methylation, can induce heritable gene silencing. If epigenetic modifications can be specifically targeted, new approaches to transcriptional therapy should result. To address this challenge we sought to design methyltransferases that would act only at a desired site by adapting the sequence-enabled assembly strategy. Our split DNA methylase performed site-specific CpG methylation in living cells without any background methylation when appropriately assembled at the target site. This is the first successful application of the sequence-enable enzyme reassembly approach in vivo. This split-enzyme reassembly strategy will allow creation of programmable zinc finger methylases that act at any specific CpG site in the mammalian genome. Programmable methylases should orchestrate heritable gene silencing and should find application in DNA tagging approaches and in nanotechnology.
The genome and transcriptomes of the anti-tumor agent Clostridium novyi-NT

Bacteriolytic anti-cancer therapies employ attenuated bacterial strains that selectively proliferate within tumors. Clostridium novyi-NT spores represent one of the most promising of these agents, as they generate potent anti-tumor effects in experimental animals. We have determined the 2.55-Mb genomic sequence of C. novyi-NT, identifying a new type of transposition and 139 genes that do not have homologs in other bacteria. The genomic sequence was used to facilitate the detection of transcripts expressed at various stages of the life cycle of this bacterium in vitro as well as in infections of tumors in vivo. Through this analysis, we found that C. novyi-NT spores contained mRNA and that the spore transcripts were distinct from those in vegetative forms of the bacterium.
Multidimensional Fechnerian scaling: regular variation version

The underlying assumptions of Fechnerian scaling are complemented by an assumption that ensures that any psychometric differential (the rise in the value of a discrimination probability function as one moves away from its minimum in a given direction) regularly varies at the origin with a positive exponent. This is equivalent to the following intuitively plausible property: any two psychometric differentials are comeasurable in the small (i.e., asymptotically proportional at the origin), without, however, being asymptotically equal to each other unless the corresponding values of the Fechner-Finsler metric function are equal. The regular variation version of Fechnerian scaling generalizes the previously proposed power function version while retaining its computational and conceptual simplicity.
Analogs of 5-methylthioribose, a novel class of antiprotozoal agents.

Abstract Since drug resistance and toxicity limit the use of available antiprotozoal agents, it is important that new drugs be developed as soon as possible. In this study, the method by which several protozoa degrade 5'-methylthioadenosine (MTA) was shown to differ from MTA catabolism in human cells. To exploit this metabolic difference, two analogs of methylthioribose (MTR), an MTA catabolite, were synthesized and found to be cytocidal to Plasmodium falciparum, Giardia lamblia, and Ochromonas malhamensis in vitro. In contrast, these analogs had no effect on cultured mammalian cells. Analogs of MTR represent a potential new class of antiprotozoal drugs.
An inducible packaging cell system for safe, efficient lentiviral vector production in the absence of HIV-1 accessory proteins.

Lentiviral vectors based on human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) possess the ability to deliver exogenous genes to both dividing and nondividing cells and to subsequently establish a stable provirus in these target cells, which can allow long-term expression of the transferred gene. Herein we describe a stable packaging cell line that is devoid of HIV-1 tat, vif, vpr, vpu, and nef. In order to avoid any risk of cytotoxicity associated with constitutive expression of HIV-1 protease or the VSV-G envelope protein, transcription of the packaging and envelope constructs was tightly controlled by employing the ecdysone-inducible system. Using this cell line, we have been able to consistently generate concentrated pseudotyped vector virus stocks with titers in the range of 10(8) IU/ml, which can efficiently transduce actively dividing and growth-arrested cells in vitro. This novel packaging cell line for lentiviral vectors facilitates the production of high-titer virus stocks in the absence of replication-competent virus and provides us with an important tool for use in future gene transfer studies.
4-Hydroxynonenal disrupts zinc export in primary rat cortical cells

Abstract Accumulating evidence implicates oxidative stress in the pathogenesis of several neurodegenerative disorders including Alzheimer's disease (AD). Increased lipid peroxidation, decreased levels of polyunsaturated fatty acids, and increased levels of 4-hydroxynonenal (HNE) have been demonstrated in AD brain. Proteins responsible for zinc export are localized on the plasma membrane and may be vulnerable to damage from lipid peroxidation. To test this hypothesis, cultured primary rat cortical neurons were incubated with 65Zn for 1 h and then treated with HNE (0–35 μM) for 4 h. Levels of 65Zn in aliquots of medium were measured at 1, 2, 4 h following treatment with HNE and intracellular 65Zn measured after 4 h using liquid scintillation counting. The amount of 65Zn in medium did not differ significantly. However, a statistically significant (p
Inducible nitric oxide synthase is crucial for plasma cell survival.

The viability of long-lived plasma cells is enhanced by the expression of inducible nitric oxide synthase, which relieves endoplasmic reticulum stress by triggering a response dependent on cGMP and protein kinase G.