cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Host Tumor Suppressor p18INK4c Functions as a Potent Cell-Intrinsic Inhibitor of Murine Gammaherpesvirus 68 Reactivation and Pathogenesis.

Gammaherpesviruses are common viruses associated with lifelong infection and increased disease risk. Reactivation from latency aids the virus in maintaining infection throughout the life of the host and is responsible for a wide array of disease outcomes. Previously, we demonstrated that the virus-encoded cyclin (v-cyclin) of murine gammaherpesvirus 68 (γHV68) is essential for optimal reactivation from latency in normal mice but not in mice lacking the host tumor suppressor p18INK4c (p18). Whether p18 plays a cell-intrinsic or -extrinsic role in constraining reactivation remains unclear. Here, we generated recombinant viruses in which we replaced the viral cyclin with the cellular p18INK4c gene (p18KI) for targeted expression of p18, specifically within infected cells. We find that the p18KI virus is similar to the cyclin-deficient virus (cycKO) in lytic infection, establishment of latency, and infected cell reservoirs. While the cycKO virus is capable of reactivation in p18-deficient mice, expression of p18 from the p18KI virus results in a profound reactivation defect. These data demonstrate that p18 limits reactivation within latently infected cells, functioning in a cell-intrinsic manner. Further, the p18KI virus showed greater attenuation of virus-induced lethal pneumonia than the cycKO virus, indicating that p18 could further restrict γHV68 pathogenesis even in p18-sufficient mice. These studies demonstrate that host p18 imposes the requirement for the viral cyclin to reactivate from latency by functioning in latently infected cells and that p18 expression is associated with decreased disease, thereby identifying p18 as a compelling host target to limit chronic gammaherpesvirus pathogenesis. IMPORTANCE Gammaherpesviruses are ubiquitous viruses associated with multiple malignancies. The propensity to cycle between latency and reactivation results in an infection that is never cleared and often difficult to treat. Understanding the balance between latency and reactivation is integral to treating gammaherpesvirus infection and associated disease outcomes. This work characterizes the role of a novel inhibitor of reactivation, host p18INK4c, thereby bringing more clarity to a complex process with significant outcomes for infected individuals.
A red emissive donor-acceptor fluorophore as protein sensor: Synthesis, characterization and binding study

Abstract The rational design of environmentally sensitive small molecule fluorophores with superior photophysical properties is critical for fluorimetry based biosensing. Herein, we have developed a new donor-acceptor fluorophore for quantitative detection of Human Serum Albumin (HSA) in aqueous samples. The fluorophore was easily prepared by Knoevenagel condensation, and showed excellent photophysical properties and positive solvatochromism. The design of the fluorophore was based on a nitrogen donor—π-conjugation—nitrile acceptors (D—π—A) to preserve efficient intramolecular charge transfer and long-wavelength emission. The fluorophore showed remarkable “turn-on” fluorescence in presence of HSA, which led to quantitative determination of the protein in aqueous buffer samples. Structure and electronic properties of the fluorophore played important roles on the superior HSA sensing ability. The findings indicate that minor changes in design strategy can be advantageous while developing long-wavelength (far red or near infrared) emitting fluorophores for biosensing and bioimaging.
Elastohydrodynamic Collision and Bouncing of Spherical Particles

The conditions which govern the bouncing of spherical particles subsequent to a collision in a viscous fluid are discussed. The effect of the elastic deformation of the solid surfaces as well as the molecular nature of the fluid and the surface roughness are considered. The experiments support the recent theories based on hydrodynamic lubrication which require significant elastic deformation to occur during collisions between smooth spherical surfaces in order for a rebound to occur. This fundamental work finds applications in inertial filtration, lubrication, sedimentation, and erosion.
Vas Deferens and Vasectomy

Upon leaving the cauda epididymidis the spermatozoa enter the vas deferens (deferent duct). A considerable amount of information concerning this duct system has accumulated in relation to a variety of animal species, but especially man, owing to increasing application of bilateral vasectomy and vasovasostomy in andrological practice; the literature on these relatively new problems has been reviewed several times (Alexander 1976; Holstein 1972; Hulka and Davis 1972; Neaves 1975a).
Parasite Proteases as Targets for Therapy

Parasitic diseases represent some of the world’s greatest health problems. As many as 500 million people are infected with malaria, 250 million with schistosomiasis, and 40 million with various species of trypanosomes (WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION 1993). The problem is now compounded by the emergence of parasite resistance to traditional chemotherapy. New drugs are desperately needed but because these are primarily diseases of poor people in poor countries, investment in research and drug development by industry has been minimal or absent.
Dunaliella salina (Chlorophyta) with small chlorophyll antenna sizes exhibit higher photosynthetic productivities and photon use efficiencies than normally pigmented cells

The photon use efficiencies and maximal rates of photosynthesis in Dunaliella salina (Chlorophyta) cultures acclimated to different light intensities were investigated. Batch cultures were grown to the mid-exponential phase under continuous low-light (LL: 100 μmol photon m-2 s-1) or high-light (HL: 2000 μmol photon m-2 s-1) conditions. Under LL, cells were normally pigmented (deep green) containing ∼500 chlorophyll (Chl) molecules per photosystem II (PSII) unit and ∼250 Chl molecules per photosystem I (PSI). HL-grown cells were yellow-green, contained only 60 Chl per PSII and 100 Chl per PSI and showed signs of chronic photoinhibition, i.e., accumulation of photodamaged PSII reaction centers in the chloroplast thylakoids. In LL-grown cells, photosynthesis saturated at ∼200 μmol photon m-2 s-1 with a rate (Pmax) of ∼100 mmol O2 (mol Chl)-1 s-1. In HL-grown cells, photosynthesis saturated at much higher light intensities, i.e. ∼2500 μmol photon m-2 s-1, and exhibited a three-fold higher Pmax (∼300 mmol O2 (mol Chl)-1 s-1) than the normally pigmented LL-grown cells. Recovery of the HL-grown cells from photoinhibition, occurring prior to a light-harvesting Chl antenna size increase, enhanced Pmax to ∼675 mmol O2 (mol Chl)-1 s-1. Extrapolation of these results to outdoor mass culture conditions suggested that algal strains with small Chl antenna size could exhibit 2–3 times higher productivities than currently achieved with normally pigmented cells.
Trafficking Is Problematic

This chapter establishes that human trafficking is a contested concept—that its meaning is neither straightforward nor unproblematic, and that constructions of trafficking reflect constellations of competing interests and values. The chapter ties the poor quality of quantitative data on human trafficking to its conceptual fluidity and contentious politics, and then goes on to explain why there is no technical or apolitical solution to this problem. Next, it provides an overview of the book’s aims and arguments, and a justification for the US case. Finally, the chapter introduces its methodology, and concludes with a preview of the plan for the book.
Introduction to Tiva C MCU LaunchPad™—TM4C123G

This chapter provides a fundamental and basic introduction to one of the updated microcontroller units (MCU) LaunchPad™, Tiva™ C Series TM4C123G made by Texas Instruments™. Both theoretic introductions about modern control technologies with simulations and hands-on techniques with actual control programming codes are provided in this chapter. This combination will enable students to easily and successfully implement theoretic knowledge to real process (DC motors) to build a complete control system.
Effects of pre-starter and starter diets varying in amino acid density given to broiler chickens that received coccidiosis vaccination at hatch

ABSTRACT An experiment was conducted to evaluate broilers vaccinated against coccidiosis fed combinations of pre-starter and starter diets varying in digestible amino acid (dAA) density from 1 to 19 d of age on subsequent growth performance and meat yield. A total of 1,800 Yield Plus Ross × Ross 708 male broilers were allocated to 60 floor pens and assigned to 1 of the 6 treatments. Four pre-starter diets varying in dAA density [1.15% dLys, 1.25% dLys, 1.35% dLys, and Positive Control (1.15% dLys + Diclazuril)] were fed until 9 d of age. Then, 3 starter diets varying in dAA density [1.15% dLys, 1.25% dLys, and PC (1.15% dLys + Diclazuril)] were given from 10 to 19 d of age. All diets were formulated to similar dAA ratios to dLys; hence, resulting in increasing amino acid (AA) density among the dietary treatments. Birds were given common grower and finisher diets for the remainder of the experiment. At 19, 27, and 40 d of age, broilers that received the 1.35% and 1.25% dLys density pre-starter and 1.25% dLys density starter diets had increased BW gain (P ≤ 0.006) compared with broilers fed the 1.15% dLys density diets. Broilers that received the 1.15% dLys density pre-starter diet had a lower cumulative BW gain (P = 0.007) than those fed the 1.35% and 1.25% dLys density pre-starter diets. Broilers that received the 1.35% and 1.25% dLys density pre-starter and 1.25% dLys density starter diets had the heaviest (P ≤ 0.008) total breast weights. Increasing the pre-starter dAA density enhanced (P ≤ 0.03) total breast weight by 28 g (1.25% dLys density) and 51 g (1.35% dLys density). Results from this study indicated that increasing dAA density from 1 to 19 d of age enabled a 1 to 19 d dAA intake increase of 4.8 g, which enhanced cumulative growth and meat yield of broilers vaccinated against coccidiosis.
Elevated temperature, high cycle fatigue behavior of carbon-containing single crystal Ni-Based superalloys

Abstract Although first removed from single crystal alloys, alloy developers have added carbon back into single crystal alloys for improved castability, cleanliness and defect tolerance. However, in this study, the fatigue properties of model third generation (i.e., 6 wt% Re) single crystal Ni-base superalloys containing carbon additions were found to be greatly influenced by the carbon additions. All of the samples were tested at 850 °C in load controlled high cycle fatigue with a stress range of 690 MPa. The addition of a small amount of carbon (~0.01 wt% carbon) resulted in an increase in the volume fraction of carbides and porosity which caused a greater amount of scatter and, on average, a slight decrease in fatigue properties. However, further additions of carbon (>0.05 wt% carbon) resulted in significant reductions in both the amount of scatter and a reduction in the average fatigue life. Porosity, which were much larger in size than carbides, were observed to be fatigue crack initiation sites and as the volume fraction of porosity and carbides increased the fatigue lives were observed to decrease. Interestingly, as the carbon content increased, and the volume fraction of carbides and porosity increased the average size of the carbides and porosity slowly decreased preventing the application of Kitagawa-Takahashi diagrams.
Re(tBu-bpy)(CO)3Cl Supported on Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes Selectively Reduces CO2 in Water.

The selective electrochemical reduction of CO2 to CO in water by a Re(tBu-bpy)(CO)3Cl catalyst incorporated into multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) was investigated. Current densities of ∼4 mA/c...
Perspectives on electrical neural recording: a revisit to the fundamental concepts.

Objective. This paper aims to promote understanding on the fundamental concepts and mechanisms of extracellular electrical neural recording. Approach. First, the electrode-electrolyte interface is reviewed to clarify some of the frequent misunderstandings. Second, analytical solutions to the extracellular field potential and recorded signal are derived based on equivalent electrical circuit models, using a planar substrate microelectrode as a particular example. And third, factors affecting the recording quality are thoroughly assessed. Main results. Passive neural recording electrodes function as a pure capacitor. The extracellular field potential has two phases, with its subthreshold depolarization phase proportional to the first time derivative of the membrane depolarization and its action potential phase proportional to the negative first time derivative of the intracellular action potential. The recorded signal represents a portion of the extracellular field potential with both amplitude attenuation and phase distortion according to a voltage-divider circuit formed between the recording electrode and amplifier. A larger cell, a larger cell-substrate junctional membrane area, and a tighter membrane-substrate seal all help to improve the recording quality, while the effective electrode impedance should be minimized and the effective amplifier's input impedance maximized. Significance. This paper develops in-depth insights to offer a clear image on the recording mechanism, nature of the signal, and interplays between key interface parameters. This work will make a foundational contribution to the field by providing such an in-depth understanding on this topic to clear the widespread ambiguities and confusions and inform rational neural electrode designs and proper interpretations of neural recordings.
Lessons from l’École Polytechnique

Following the brutal Reign of Terror, an emergency council was set up in Paris. Its main task was the creation of a new engineering school called the Ecole centrale des Travaux publics, which had the objective to train engineers, both civilian and military.
PCR identification of genes of resistance to black rot in white cabbage using SSR-markers

The present study revealed the polymorphism of SSR loci by the resistance of white cabbage to black rot in contrasting isogenic samples of white cabbage. 2 informative SSR markers were selected: Ol10-C01 and Ol11-H06 for ranking breeding samples based on resistance to Xanthomonas campestris pv. campestris Dows. The microsatellite marker Ol10-C01 was tested on breeding samples and reveals polymorphism between them; therefore, it can be recommended for practical breeding for programs to develop black rot-resistant hybrids of cabbage, which will solve the problem of import substitution and healthy food (environmentally friendly products, grown without the use of means of chemical protection).
Using Skip Graphs for Increased NUMA Locality

High-performance simulations and parallel frameworks often rely on highly scalable, concurrent data structures for system scalability. With an increased availability of NUMA architectures, we present a technique to promote NUMA-aware data parallelism inside a concurrent data structure, bringing significant quantitative and qualitative improvements on NUMA locality, as well as reduced contention for synchronized memory accesses. Our architecture is based on a data-partitioned, concurrent skip graph indexed by thread-local sequential maps. We implemented maps and relaxed priority queues using such technique. Maps show up to 6x higher CAS locality, up to a 68.6% reduction on the number of remote CAS operations, and an increase from 88.3% to 99% on the CAS success rate compared to a control implementation (subject to the same optimizations, and implementation practices). Remote memory accesses are not only reduced in number, but the larger the NUMA distance between threads, the larger the reduction is. Relaxed priority queues implemented using our technique show similar scalability improvements, with provable reduction in contention and decrease in relaxation in one of our implementations.
Staffing many‐server queues with autoregressive inputs

Recent studies reveal significant overdispersion and autocorrelation in arrival data at service systems such as call centers and hospital emergency departments. These findings stimulate the needs for more practical non‐Poisson customer arrival models, and more importantly, new staffing formulas to account for the autocorrelative features in the arrival model. For this purpose, we study a multiserver queueing system where customer arrivals follow a doubly stochastic Poisson point process whose intensities are driven by a Cox–Ingersoll–Ross (CIR) process. The nonnegativity and autoregressive feature of the CIR process makes it a good candidate for modeling temporary dips and surges in arrivals. First, we devise an effective statistical procedure to calibrate our new arrival model to data which can be seen as a specification of the celebrated expectation–maximization algorithm. Second, we establish functional limit theorems for the CIR process, which in turn facilitate the derivation of functional limit theorems for our queueing model under suitable heavy‐traffic regimes. Third, using the corresponding heavy traffic limits, we asymptotically solve an optimal staffing problem subject to delay‐based constraints on the service levels. We find that, in order to achieve the designated service level, such an autoregressive feature in the arrival model translates into notable adjustment in the staffing formula, and such an adjustment can be fully characterized by the parameters of our new arrival model. In this respect, the staffing formulas acknowledge the presence of autoregressive structure in arrivals. Finally, we extend our analysis to queues having customer abandonment and conduct simulation experiments to provide engineering confirmations of our new staffing rules.
Impact of a midband gravitational wave experiment on detectability of cosmological stochastic gravitational wave backgrounds

We make forecasts for the impact a future ``midband'' space-based gravitational wave experiment, most sensitive to ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}2}\ensuremath{-}10\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{Hz}$, could have on potential detections of cosmological stochastic gravitational wave backgrounds (SGWBs). Specific proposed midband experiments considered are TianGo, B-DECIGO, and AEDGE. We propose a combined power-law integrated sensitivity (CPLS) curve combining GW experiments over different frequency bands, which shows the midband improves sensitivity to SGWBs by up to two orders of magnitude at ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}2}\ensuremath{-}10\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{Hz}$. We consider GW emission from cosmic strings and phase transitions as benchmark examples of cosmological SGWBs. We explicitly model various astrophysical SGWB sources, most importantly from unresolved black hole mergers. Using Markov Chain Monte Carlo, we demonstrated that midband experiments can, when combined with LIGO $\mathrm{A}+$ and LISA, significantly improve sensitivities to cosmological SGWBs and better separate them from astrophysical SGWBs. In particular, we forecast that a midband experiment improves sensitivity to cosmic string tension $G\ensuremath{\mu}$ by up to a factor of 10, driven by improved component separation from astrophysical sources. For phase transitions, a midband experiment can detect signals peaking at 0.1--1 Hz, which for our fiducial model corresponds to early Universe temperatures of ${T}_{*}\ensuremath{\sim}{10}^{4}--{10}^{6}\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{GeV}$, generally beyond the reach of LIGO and LISA. The midband closes an energy gap and better captures characteristic spectral shape information. It thus substantially improves measurement of the properties of phase transitions at lower energies of ${T}_{*}\ensuremath{\sim}O({10}^{3})\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{GeV}$, potentially relevant to new physics at the electroweak scale, whereas in this energy range LISA alone will detect an excess but not effectively measure the phase transition parameters. Our modeling code and chains are publicly available.https://github.com/sbird/grav_midband
Crime, victimization, and intentions to migrate in the Northern Triangle

Migration from Central American countries to the United States has been driven to the forefront of the American political discourse. Historically, regional migration to the United States has been characterized in large part by cyclical and permanent labor migration as well as forced displacement, either due to state violence or general insecurity. More recently, attention has shifted to the role that transnational gangs play in spurring migration, specifically in the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. This analysis uses survey data collected by the Latin American Public Opinion Project from the biennial AmericasBarometer survey of the Northern Triangle countries from 2006 to 2016 to explore the relationship between the intent to migrate and different forms of violence and insecurity. We focus on the role of personal victimization and public perception of gangs as they relate to expressed intention to emigrate from the Northern Triangle. The investigation then examines the association between migration decisions, household victimization, and responses to community violence.
Optical coherence tomography for transseptal puncture procedure guidance

Transseptal puncture (TSP) is commonly conducted under the guidance of fluoroscopy and/or intracardiac echocardiography (ICE) at the fossa ovalis (FO) to gain percutaneous access to the left atrium for intracardiac procedures. Issues with traditional TSP include: additional vascular access through a sheath, and fluoroscopy exposes patients to ionizing radiation. TSP, if not done appropriately can result in serious complications. We studied the feasibility of optical coherence tomography (OCT) guidance of TSP with ex vivo and in vivo experiments. Results show that OCT can provide detailed structure information to identify FO allowing for safe TSP.
Sexual Violence and Mental Health: An Analysis of the Mediating Role of Self-Compassion Using a Feminist Lens.

Feminist theories describe how women who experience sexual violence often internalize cultural narratives which can lead to self-blame and disconnection. Self-compassion has the potential to provid...
Control Structure Interaction in Long Baseline Space Interferometers

Abstract By avoiding the effects of earth's atmosphere, space interferometers offer significant improvements in optical performance over their ground based counterparts. Since the resolving power of an interferometer is proportional to the length of its baseline, very long baselines has been proposed for space flight. However, the longer the baseline the more flexible the spacecraft which in turn implies a less benign vibration environment. In this paper the problem of structural vibration is dealt with a multi-layer control approach which includes structural quieting, disturbance isolation, and active optical control. The approach is validated in the laboratory and experimental results obtained for the disturbance rejection of each control layer are presented.
Dispersion in House Price and Income Growth across Markets: Facts and Theories

Urban success increasingly has taken two different forms in the post-war era. One involves very high house price growth with relatively little population growth. The other pairs strong population expansion with mild house price appreciation. We document the heterogeneity across MSAs in the long-run house price growth rate and show that house price growth and housing unit growth tend to be inversely related. Income growth, too, varies widely across MSAs and high house price growth markets experience both high income growth and a rightshift of their entire income distribution. We then discuss four possible explanations for these relationships. One is differences the growth of urban amenities; another is changes in urban productivity; a third is differential growth in agglomeration economies; the last explanation relies on growth in the population of rich households at the national level. These households differentially sort by income into supply-constrained metropolitan areas, with the rich having to outbid other potential residents for the scarce slots available in supply-constrained metropolitan areas. The evidence suggests that this latter explanation is responsible for a significant portion of the urban outcomes we see, but it also is clear that much more work is needed to pin down the relative contributions of these basic factors. A previous version of this paper was written for the NBER Economics of Agglomeration Conference to be held in Cambridge, MA, on November 30, 2007-December 1, 2007. We appreciate the comments of Ed Glaeser and anonymous referees. Gyourko and Sinai also thank the Research Sponsors Program of the Zell/Lurie Real Estate Center at The Wharton School for financial support. Mayer thanks the Milstein Center for Real Estate at the Columbia Business School for its support.
Course Sequencing for Static Courses? Applying ITS Techniques in Large-Scale Web-Based Education

We argue that traditional sequencing technology developed in the field of intelligent tutoring systems could find an immediate place in large-scale Web-based education as a core technology for concept-based course maintenance. This paper describes a concept-based course maintenance system that we have developed for Carnegie Technology Education. The system can check the consistency and quality of a course at any moment of its life and also assist course developers in some routine operations. The core of this system is a refined approach to indexing the course material and a set of "scripts" for performing different operations.
Bastian, Henry Charlton

Henry Charlton Bastian (1837–1915) was a Victorian physician whose early neurological writings on aphasia, paralysis, and proprioception helped to establish the nascent field of neurology as an accepted scientific discipline.
Diode Pumped Solid State Lasers

In the summer of 1960 T. Maiman1 reported in Nature the first operation of an optical maser, later to be called a laser. Only one year later this solid state laser was frequency doubled into the ultraviolet in the first nonlinear optical experiment by P. Franken and his group at the University of Michigan.2 The following year, 1962, saw three independent groups demonstrate almost simultaneously the operation of the injection diode laser. After thirty years, the combination of these three areas of quantum electronics, solid state lasers, diode lasers and nonlinear optics has brought us to the treshold of a major advance in laser science and technology.
A Long-Term Scientific Survey of the Hessdalen Phenomenon

The balls of light which appear in the Hessdalen valley in Norway are exemplary of anomalous atmospheric luminous phenomena that occur frequently at some locations on Earth. The recurrence of the phenomenon and the existence of an instrumented observation station makes this area an ideal research site. The apparent correlation of luminous phenomena with magnetic perturbations, radio emission, and radar tracks, found by Norwegian researchers, led some Italian physicists and engineers of the EMBLA Project to reanalyze the Norwegian data. The second step was three explorative, instrumented, field-study expeditions. The behavior of the phenomenon was monitored with optical, radio, and radar techniques. The global picture of the phenomenon obtained so far shows that the phenomenon’s radiant power varies, reaching values up to 19 kW. These changes are caused by sudden surface variations of the illuminated area owing to the appearance of clusters of light balls that behave in a thermally self-regulated way. Apparent characteristics consistent with a solid are strongly suspected from the study of distributions of radiant power. Other anomalous characteristics include the capability to eject smaller light balls, some unidentified frequency shift in the VLF range, and possible deposition of metallic particles. A self-consistent definitive theory of the phenomenon’s nature and origin in all its aspects cannot be constructed yet quantitatively, but some of the observations can be explained by an electrochemical model for the ball-lightning phenomenon. The importance is stressed of using more sophisticated instrumentation in the future.
Visual control of grasping

Most robotic hands are either sensorless or lack the ability to accurately and robustly report position and force information relating to contact. This paper describes a system that integrates real-time computer vision with a sensorless gripper to provide closed loop feedback control for grasping and manipulation tasks. Many hand-eye coordination skills can be thought of as sensory-control loops, where specialized reasoning has been embodied as a feedback or control path in the loop’s construction. This system captures the essence of these hand-eye coordination skills in simple visual control primitives, which can be used to perform higher-level grasping and manipulation tasks. Experimental results are shown for two typical robotics tasks: the positioning task of locating, picking up, and inserting a bolt into a nut under visual control and the visual control of a bolt tightening task.
Deep holes in Reed-Solomon codes based on Dickson polynomials

For an n , k Reed-Solomon code C , it can be shown that any received word r lies a distance at most n - k from C , denoted d ( r , C ) ź n - k . Any word r meeting the equality is called a deep hole. Guruswami and Vardy (2005) showed that for a specific class of codes, determining whether or not a word is a deep hole is NP-hard. They suggested passingly that it may be easier when the evaluation set of C is large or structured. Following this idea, we study the case where the evaluation set is the image of a Dickson polynomial, whose values appear with a special uniformity. To find families of received words that are not deep holes, we reduce to a subset sum problem (or equivalently, a Dickson polynomial-variation of Waring's problem) and find solution conditions by applying an argument using estimates on character sums indexed over the evaluation set.
Accidental symmetries and the conformal bootstrap

We study an $$ \mathcal{N}=2 $$ supersymmetric generalization of the three-dimensional critical O(N) vector model that is described by N + 1 chiral superfields with superpotential W = g 1 X∑ i Z 1 2 + g 2 X 3. By combining the tools of the conformal bootstrap with results obtained through supersymmetric localization, we argue that this model exhibits a symmetry enhancement at the infrared superconformal fixed point due to g 2 flowing to zero. This example is special in that the existence of an infrared fixed point with g 1 , g 2 ≠ 0, which does not exhibit symmetry enhancement, does not generally lead to any obvious unitarity violations or other inconsistencies. We do show, however, that the F-theorem excludes the models with g 1 , g 2 ≠ 0 for N > 5. The conformal bootstrap provides a stronger constraint and excludes such models for N > 2. We provide evidence that the g 2 = 0 models, which have the enhanced O(N) × U(1) symmetry, come close to saturating the bootstrap bounds. We extend our analysis to fractional dimensions where we can motivate the nonexistence of the g 1 , g 2 ≠ 0 models by studying them perturbatively in the 4 − ϵ expansion.
Redressing LGBT Employment Discrimination Via Executive Order

The accompanying article rejects the notion that opponents of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act can be persuaded to support the legislation with additional substantive concessions and instead concludes that executive action is necessary to protect LGBT persons against employment discrimination. Specifically, the article proposes that President Obama amend Executive Order 11478, which prohibits the federal government from engaging in various forms of employment discrimination, and Executive Order 11246, which prohibits federal contractors from engaging in various forms of employment discrimination, to include gender identity and sexual orientation as subcategories of the existing ban on sex discrimination rather than as their own stand-alone classifications on par with race, religion, or national origin. Together, these orders would provide explicit, status-based employment protections to a significant number of LGBT workers while at the same time signaling President Obama’s support for a burgeoning movement within the federal judiciary whereby discrimination on the basis of an individual’s LGBT status is regarded as actionable sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
π-Radical to σ-Radical Tautomerization in One-Electron-Oxidized 1-Methylcytosine and Its Analogs.

In this work, iminyl σ-radical formation in several one-electron-oxidized cytosine analogs, including 1-MeC, cidofovir, 2′-deoxycytidine (dCyd), and 2′-deoxycytidine 5′-monophosphate (5′-dCMP), were investigated in homogeneous, aqueous (D2O or H2O) glassy solutions at low temperatures by employing electron spin resonance (ESR) spectroscopy. Upon employing density functional theory (DFT) (DFT/B3LYP/6-31G* method), the calculated hyperfine coupling constant (HFCC) values of iminyl σ-radical agree quite well with the experimentally observed ones, thus confirming its assignment. ESR and DFT studies show that the cytosine iminyl σ-radical is a tautomer of the deprotonated cytosine π-cation radical [cytosine π-aminyl radical, C(N4–H)•]. Employing 1-MeC samples at various pHs ranging from ca. 8 to 11, ESR studies show that the tautomeric equilibrium between C(N4–H)• and the iminyl σ-radical at low temperature is too slow to be established without added base. ESR and DFT studies agree that, in the iminyl σ-radica...
The role of the Hall effect in the global structure and dynamics of planetary magnetospheres: Ganymede as a case study

We present high-resolution Hall MHD simulations of Ganymede's magnetosphere demonstrating that Hall electric fields in ion-scale magnetic reconnection layers have significant global effects not captured in resistive MHD simulations. Consistent with local kinetic simulations of magnetic reconnection, our global simulations show the development of intense field-aligned currents along the magnetic separatrices. These currents extend all the way down to the moon's surface, where they may contribute to Ganymede's aurora. Within the magnetopause and magnetotail current sheets, Hall J × B forces accelerate ions to the local Alfven speed in the out-of-plane direction, producing a global system of ion drift belts that circulates Jovian magnetospheric plasma throughout Ganymede's magnetosphere. We discuss some observable consequences of these Hall-induced currents and ion drifts: the appearance of a sub-Jovian “double magnetopause” structure, an Alfvenic ion jet extending across the upstream magnetopause, and an asymmetric pattern of magnetopause Kelvin-Helmholtz waves.
Academic data collection in electronic environments: defining acceptable use of internet resources

Academic researchers access commercial web sites to collect research data. This research practice is likely to increase. Is this appropriate? Is this legal? Such commercial web sites are maintained to achieve business objectives; research access uses site resources for other purposes. Web site administrators may, therefore, deem academic data collection inappropriate. Is there a process to make research access more open and acceptable to web site owners and administrators? These are significant issues. This article clarifies the problems and suggests possible approaches to handle the issues with sensitivity and openness. Research access to commercial web sites may be manual (using a standard web browser) or automated (using automated data collection agents). These approaches have different effects on web sites. Researchers using manual access tend to make a limited number of page requests because manual access is costly to perform. Researchers using automated access methods can request large numbers of pages at a low cost. Therefore, web site administrators tend to view manual access and automated access very differently. Because of the number of accesses and the nonbusiness purpose, automated research requests for data are sometimes blocked by site administration using a variety of means (both technological and legal). This paper details the pertinent legal issues including trespass, copyright violation, and breech of contract. It also explains the nature of express and implied consent by site administration for research access. Based on the issues presented, guidelines for researchers are proposed to reduce objections to research activities, to facilitate communication with web site administration, and to achieve express or implied consent. These include notification to web site administration of intended automated research activity, description of the research project posted as a web page, and clear identification of automated requests for web pages. In order to encourage good research practices with respect to automated data collection, suggestions are made with respect to disclosing methods used in research papers and for self regulation by academic associations.
The National Debt in the 2012 U.S. Presidential Election

We investigate how attitudes and beliefs about the national debt were related to morality, warmth, and competence judgments of the Obama administration and voting intentions the week before the 2012 presidential election. Even after controlling for political ideology, we found that attitudes toward the debt predicted judgments and voting intentions. Additionally, ideology and beliefs about the extent to which increases in the national debt were under the Obama administration's control moderated the relationship between debt attitudes and judgments, and between debt attitudes and voting intentions. Liberals and conservatives who thought the Obama administration had control over the debt judged the administration as less moral and less competent, and reported weaker intentions to vote for Obama, when they had more negative debt attitudes. Liberals who thought the administration had little control over the debt, however, judged the administration positively and intended to vote for Obama regardless of debt attitudes.
Development and Management of Virtual Schools: Issues and Trends

Virtual schools are a result of widespread changes in knowledge about learning, in available technology and in society. This work brings together knowledge of virtual schools as a reference, and reviews best practice from concept and development, through implementation and evaluation.
Life detection experiments

Martian life-detection instruments and experiments, examining biological criteria and visual, organic, chemical and metabolic tests
Analyzing Arkansas' Economic Growth: Need for Future Rural Development Strategies

A shift-share analysis was conducted for the 75 counties of Arkansas to determine the changing structure of the states' economy for the period 1980-2000. The analysis reveals a lack of overall comparative advantage in the majority of rural counties due to their inability to obtain higher paying jobs in manufacturing and professional sectors.
EQUITY PREMIA WITH BENCHMARK LEVELS OF CONSUMPTION: CLOSED-FORM RESULTS

Abstract I calculate exact expressions for risk premia, term premia, and the premium on levered equity in a framework that includes habit formation, keeping/catching up with the Joneses, and possible departures from rational expectations. Closed-form expressions for the first and second moments of returns and for the R 2 of a regression of stock returns on the dividend-price ratio are derived under log-normality for the case that includes keeping/catching up with the Joneses. Linear approximations illustrate how these moments of returns are affected by parameter values and illustrate quantitatively how well the model can account for values of the equity premium, the term premium, and the standard deviations of the riskless return and the rate of return on levered equity. For empirically relevant parameter values, the linear approximations yield values of the various moments that are close to those obtained from the exact solutions.
Determinants of Agricultural Output: Degree Days, Yields and Implications for Climate Change

We link farmland values to climatic, soil, and socioeconomic variables for counties east of the 100th meridian, the historic boundary of agriculture not primarily dependent on irrigation. Degree days, a non-linear transformation of the climatic variables suggested by agronomic experiments as more relevant to crop yield gives an improved fit and increased robustness. Estimated coefficients are consistent with the experimental results. The model is employed to estimate the potential impacts on farmland values for a range of recent warming scenarios. The predictions are very robust and more than 75% of the counties in our sample show a statistically significant effect, ranging from moderate gains to large losses, with losses in the aggregate that can become quite large under scenarios involving sustained heavy use of fossil fuels.
From Mass Higher Education to Universal Access: The American Advantage

The history of higher education since the Second World War both in the United States and Europe has been a history of the expansion of access and its consequences. In Europe, the growth was initially beyond the tiny numbers enrolled in a few European universities before the war to the 30 to 40 per cent of the age grade currently enrolled in all forms of postsecondary education. This large and rapid expansion has been in part through expansion of the elite universities, in part through the creation of non-university sectors and institutions. Both responses to the demand for places reflected the growth in all modern societies of occupations demanding more than a secondary school education, and it has been marked, especially in recent decades, by a growth in the numbers of non-traditional students - mature, employed, studying part time and aiming at employment in the rapidly growing semi-professions and knowledge-based service industries. These students, defining by their origins and aspirations the emerging systems of mass higher education, have been oriented chiefly towards gaining useful skills and knowledge rather than towards membership in a cultural elite marked by common bodies of arcane knowledge and cultivated ways of thinking and feeling. The growth of mass higher education in Europe has been the subject of most of the commentary on higher education over the past half-century. Increased numbers have occasioned a host of related problems - of funding, organisation and governance, and of quite different conditions for teaching new kinds of students with diverse aspirations and academic talents. But the focus on the enormous problems of creating systems of mass higher education has not allowed much thought on the next stage of postsecondary higher education: the extension of access beyond a third or a half of a population to a situation in which access to some form of postsecondary education is universally available throughout life and in homes and workplaces. The development of the new information technologies (IT) over the past few years creates new possibilities and problems for European systems of higher education even before they have fully solved those associated with the creation
Development and application of oligonucleotide probes for identification of Lactococcus lactis subsp. cremoris.

Abstract Lactococcus lactis subsp. cremoris is of considerable interest to the dairy industry, which relies upon the few available strains for the manufacture of cheddar cheese free of fermented and fruity flavors. The subspecies cremoris differs from related subspecies by the lack of a few phenotypic traits. Our purpose was to identify unique rRNA sequences that could be used to discriminate L. lactis subsp. cremoris from related subspecies. The 16S rRNAs from 13 Lactococcus strains were partially sequenced by using reverse transcriptase to identify domains unique to L. lactis subsp. cremoris. All five strains of the subspecies cremoris had a unique base sequence in a hypervariable region located 70 to 100 bases from the 5' terminus. In this region, all L. lactis subsp. lactis biovar diacetylactis strains examined had a sequence identical to that of L. lactis subsp. lactis 7962, which was different from other strains of the subspecies lactis by only one nucleotide at position 90 (Escherichia coli 16S rRNA structural model) (J. Brosius, J. L. Palmer, J. P. Kennedy, and H. F. Noller, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 75:4801-4805, 1978). Oligonucleotide probes specific for the genus Lactococcus (212RLa) and for the subspecies cremoris (68RCa) were synthesized and evaluated by hybridization to known rRNAs as well as fixed whole cells. Efficient and specific hybridization to the genus-specific probe was observed for the 13 Lactococcus strains tested. No hybridization was seen with the control species. All five strains of the subspecies cremoris hybridized to the subspecies-specific probe.
Global Corporate Governance: Soft Law and Reputational Accountability

In contradistinction to hard law enforcement regimes, emergent civil regulations are connected to the “rule of reputation,” which links accountability to a firm's reputational capital. Operating internationally and confronted with pressure to self-regulate, the reputation of a global business enterprise has become one of its most valuable intangible assets.
Effects of psychotropic medications on hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal regulation.

Multiple endocrine systems are dysregulated in patients with psychiatric illness; many factors have been identified that contribute to these perturbations. Using the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis as a representative model, the authors examine the effects of administration and withdrawal of psychotropic medication on the hormones associated with this endocrine system. Many of these medications affect multiple levels of the axis, which is relevant both to the clinician and the investigator studying neuroendocrine aspects of psychiatric illness.
On the security of group communication schemes

Secure group communications are a mechanism facilitating protected transmission of messages from a sender to multiple receivers, and many emerging applications in both wired and wireless networks need the support of such a mechanism. There have been many secure group communication schemes in wired networks, which can be directly adopted in, or appropriately adapted to, wireless networks such as mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) and sensor networks. In this paper we show that the popular group communication schemes that we have examined are vulnerable to the following attack: An outside adversary who compromises a certain legitimate group member could obtain all past and present group keys (and thus all the messages protected by them); this is in sharp contrast to the widely-accepted belief that a such adversary can only obtain the present group key (and thus the messages protected by it). In order to understand and deal with the attack, we formalize two security models for stateful and stateless group communication schemes. We show that some practical methods can make a subclass of existing group communication schemes immune to the attack. An extended abstract of this paper appeared as [29].
Paired t Test

This is used to compare mean differences between treatments when the observations have been obtained in pairs. The difference between the paired values is assumed to be normally distributed, and the null hypothesis that the expectation is zero is tested by Student's t test. The robustness properties are discussed, as is the asymptotic relative efficiency of nonparametric alternatives. Keywords: student; degrees of freedom; robustness; ARE ; nonparametric; distribution-free; signed rank; normal scores