cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Identification of chicken Bu-1 alloantigens using the monoclonal antibody AV20

Abstract The genetically polymorphic chicken antigen Bu-1 (chB6) has been identified by alloantisera raised against RPL line 63 (Bu-1a) and line 72 (Bu-1b) birds and subsequently by monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) which identify individual alloantigens. We have produced a monoclonal antibody, AV20, which recognises a monomorphic determinant on the antigen Bu-1. AV20 identifies a marker on both bursal and peripheral B cells. Staining characteristics on bursa, spleen, thymus and peripheral blood lymphocytes are similar to those of the allotypic antibodies which identify Bu-1a and Bu-1b. However, AV20 identified B cells in partially inbred birds as well as inbred lines including line 61 and line 72, indicating that it recognises a monomorphic determinant. AV20 immunoprecipitated an antigen with a Mwr of 150 kDa under non-reducing conditions and 70–75 kDa under reducing conditions indicating it is a homodimer. Serial immunoprecipitations of bursal-cell lysates from line 61 or line 72 confirmed that AV20 recognised the same antigen as mAbs against Bu-1a and Bu-1b in the respective lines.
Finite element computations for the Reissner–Mindlin plate model

SUMMARY We consider the finite element (FE) approximation of the Reissner‐Mindlin (RM) plate model, and indicate how to design meshes that yield accurate results when the p/hp version of the standard FE method is used. These guidelines allow quantities of engineering interest to be predicted numerically with great confidence near the boundary. We illustrate this through numerical computations in the case when both boundary layers and corner singularities are present. #1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Attentional cuing in math word problems for girls at-risk for ADHD and their peers in general education settings

Abstract The purpose of this theoretically-based study was to examine the effects of yellow-highlighting ‘relevant’ words and units within math word problems. Initial differences were documented between 10 girls at-risk for ADHD and 10 comparisons on the performance of group and individual assessments of math computations and word problems, as had previously been reported for boys. To address these deficits (faster speed and lower accuracy) for the at-risk group, these fourth-grade girls were randomly assigned word problems under two experimental conditions (highlight vs. nohighlight) within a counterbalanced condition- and form-order design. Intervention gains were (a) slower rate of performance, (b) decreased off-task behavior, and (c) improved problem solving performance, differentially for girls at-risk for ADHD when their materials were first presented with highlighting – the effects of which carried over to a non-highlight condition. The theoretical, practical, and future research implications of this study are addressed.
A Simulation Environment for Automatic Managed Pressure Drilling Control

Abstract Drilling automation initially gained acceptance in the oil & gas industry as a solution to increase rigsite safety. While safety-related drilling automation has been implemented, many companies are beginning to recognize that drilling automation offers possibilities of performance enhancement also. There has been a rapid increase in the number of wells being drilled, primarily in unconventional reservoirs with the diminishing of easy oil. In unconventional plays, managed pressure drilling has been gaining importance because of its many advantages. Pressure balance through a choke manifold is the principle of Managed Pressure Drilling. Automatic choke control, as opposed to manual operation on field, provides better control on the operations. Different control methodologies (viz. PID, MPC etc.) can be designed to implement the control system. It is important to test the designs on a simulator to determine the optimal methodology before implementing it on the field. A Drilling Simulator designed in LabVIEW with in-built control design and simulation functions solves this purpose.
Preventive strategies in VAP: Focus on silver-coated endotracheal tubes

Introduction: Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) is problematic because of its frequency, morbidity, and mortality. Many strategies have been studied in an attempt to reduce the rate of VAP. This chapter provides a comprehensive review of silver-coated endotracheal tubes in the prevention of VAP.
Planting Clams in New Jersey

In his article "The Agent as Analyst" (Journal of Cooperative Education, 1967), Art Gallaher emphasized the importance of extension agents' roles as analysts as well as their roles as advisors, advocates, and innovators. He was addressing people whose profession is agricultural extension, and he was trying to underscore the importance of their analytic skills in interpreting the situation of clients. My situation is different in that I am an "analyst" by profession—an anthropologist and member of a teaching and research faculty at a state—university who took on the role of extension agent. The question I pose is the obverse of Gallaher's observation: does being an agent help the analyst (namely myself) as much as being an analyst helps the agent?
Retrograde Effects of Target on Motoneurones and Muscle Afferents

Alpha motoneurones and muscle spindle sensory neurones are closely linked functionally. Here we present evidence from cat that they share also a common dependency on target innervation: their functional properties are altered when they are deprived of target tissue, and these properties are in large measure rescued when the neurones regenerate into either hairy skin or into muscle.
Economic Reasoning or Experience-Based Capabilities? Effects of Alliance Experience on Governance Structure Design

Governance design of interfirm relationships has been primarily viewed as driven by transaction cost considerations. However, firm capabilities, in particular experience-based capabilities, have often been ignored in the decision making process of governance structures. This study proposes that firm experience from prior alliances builds capabilities and knowledge in managing interfirm relationships, thus influence choices of alliance governance modes. Drawing from the capability view and organizational learning literature, I argue that the diversity of alliance governance experience broadens the range of knowledge to manage cooperative relationships, thus reduces the need for more hierarchical governance modes in interfirm relationships. In addition, alliance experience in specific governance modes increases the likelihood that a firm chooses similar governance structures again, providing evidence for path-dependency in capability building. Hypotheses are supported by a sample of 1700 alliances formed by 152 focal companies in the US software design industry from 2001 to 2005.
447 Late Response to Desensitization Therapy

Purpose: Desensitization therapy for patients with circulating antibodies awaiting heart transplant has been performed in hopes of decreasing the time to transplant for these patients. Various forms of desensitization therapies have been used including Plasmapheresis, IVIG, Rituximab, and more recently Bortezomib. The duration of antibody suppression with the use of these therapies has not been established. We reviewed our patients who received desensitization therapy while awaiting transplant to assess the efficacy and lasting effects of these therapies. Methods and Materials: Between 2008 and 2011 we found 9 patients awaiting heart transplant who received desensitization therapy. 5 patients received combinations of Plasmapheresis, IVIG, Rituximab while 4 patients received a combination Plasmapheresis and Bortizomib. The calculated PRA (cPRA) was assessed at the end of the last therapy, two weeks after completion of this therapy and every 3 months thereafter. A time line for antibody response following therapy was recorded. Results: The mean cPRA significantly decreased from a baseline of 87 9% to 48 33% at the time of heart transplant (p 0.003). cPRA decreased in 8/9 patients with 1 patient having no change. All 9 patients eventually underwent heart transplantation. Suppression of cPRA were sustained until transplant over a mean of 192 270 days (see figure).
INFLUENCE OF TELECONNECTIONS ON SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL VARIABILITY OF EXTREME PRECIPITATION EVENTS IN FLORIDA

Two major teleconnections, AMO (Atlantic multi-decadal oscillation) and ENSO (El Nino southern oscillation) under cool and warm cycles (phases) influencing precipitation patterns in Florida are assessed in this study. Temporal shift in the occurrences of precipitation extremes and changes in the magnitudes of these extremes are evaluated in different phases. Extreme precipitation events for nine different durations are also evaluated. Assessment of spatial variability of extreme precipitation in different rain areas (meteorologically homogeneous areas), and AMO and ENSO combined influences on precipitation is also carried out. Long-term historical precipitation data from National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) are used for the statistical analyses using parametric and non-parametric methods.
Enhanced Light Extraction in OLEDs using Novel Chemical Mechanical Polishing Assisted Methods

The efficiency of OLED devices is largely limited by the out-coupling efficiency. This talk will focus on chemical mechanical polishing based techniques for surface texturing and planarization in glass substrates for out-coupling of both active layer and substrate modes.
Acid hydrolysis of erythropoietin.

SummaryPurified erythropoietin has been subjected to mild acid hydrolysis. This mucoprotein thus has been further characterized and shown to lose erythropoietic activity upon hydrolytic removal of neuraminic acid.
Differential glucocorticoid responsiveness of dialysis patients' lymphocytes.

ObjectivesTo evaluate in vitro glucocorticoid responsiveness of phytohemagglutinin (PHA)-stimulated lymphocytes from peritoneal dialysis (PO) patients compared to hemodialysis (HO) patients.DesignC...
Janus face of thrombospondin-4: impairs small artery vasodilation but protects against cardiac hypertrophy and aortic aneurysm formation.

adaptive responses of tissues to various stressors often involve expression of many proteins that play key role during the developmental phase but become undetectable in adults. Thrombospondins (TSPs) are such a family of matricellular proteins that are overexpressed in response to stress caused by
Analysis of influenza in 2013 of Danzhou

Objective:To analyze influenza status of Danzhou in 2013.Methods:Epidemic and etiological data were collected and analyze in Dazhou in 2013.Results:The analysis showed that there were case reports every month.The incidence was higher during March to April,and the peak was reached in April.It was decreased in February and June.The incidence was highest in0year old group(63.43%).It was 78.41%in15years group.Conclusions:The most susceptible people to influenza are the child.H1N1 of A type is mainly prevalent in spring,while B type and H3 are prevalent in winter.
Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers Integrated onto Si by Fluidic Self-Assembly

Recently, fluidic self-assembly (FSA) has been demonstrated for optoelectronic integration. [1,2] In this process, semiconductor devices are fabricated into trapezoidal blocks which are then suspended in a carrier liquid. The liquid is dispensed over a substrate in which correspondingly-shaped receptor holes have been etched. Under the resulting fluid transport, blocks rapidly self-assemble into the holes. This technique is more powerful than other integration techniques such as epitaxial liftoff (ELO). FSA is a parallel process, and has the capability for integrating thousands of devices on a single wafer with no alignment.
Manifestations of State Power

Near the end of Shakespeare’s Henry VIII Cranmer prophesies that Queen Elizabeth ‘shall be loved and feared’ (5.5.30), the ideal situation for the Machiavellian Prince (Chapter xvn); and a few lines later he affirms continuity from Elizabeth to James: ‘Peace, plenty, love, truth, terror, / That were the servants to this chosen infant, / Shall then be his, and like a vine grow to him’ (47–9). The seeming incongruity of the fifth element in this series, ‘terror,’ is explicable by demonstrating that it is not incongruous. ‘Peace’ has been much misunderstood in Elizabethan historiography and criticism as actual peace rather than domestic order guaranteed by repression and violence. Peace and terror go hand in hand in Cecilian England, and the two main tools of terror can initially be viewed as surveillance and militarism. Surveillance is not simply a network of spies
Why Asynchronous Parallel Evolution is the Future of Hyper-heuristics: A CDCL SAT Solver Case Study

Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs) are inherently parallel due to their ability to simultaneously evaluate the fitness of individuals. Synchronous Parallel EAs (SPEAs) leverage this with the intent to gain significant speed-ups when executed on multiple processors. However, many important problem classes lead to large variations in fitness evaluation times, such as is often the case in hyper-heuristics where the time complexity of executing one individual may differ greatly from that of another. Asynchronous Parallel EAs (APEAs) omit the generational synchronization step of traditional EAs which work in well-defined cycles. They can provide scalability improvements proportional to the variation in fitness evaluation times of the evolved individuals, and therefore should be considered for use in hyper-heuristics. This paper provides an empirical analysis of the improvements obtained by applying APEAs, compared to SPEAs, on a case study involving the evolution of conflict-driven clause learning Boolean satisfiability solvers, demonstrating that APEAs are the future of hyper-heuristics.
Arterial Stiffness Predicts Incident Atrial Fibrillation in the Framingham Heart Study: A Mechanistic Contribution in People With High Blood Pressure or History of Hypertension

See related article, pp 590–596 Hypertension is, due to the high prevalence in the general population, by far the most important risk factor for the development of atrial fibrillation (AF). A recent study confirmed that blood pressures even in the upper normal or prehypertensive range are associated with an increased risk of AF.1 Independently, in people with high cardiovascular risk,2 left ventricular hypertrophy, serum creatinine, history of hypertension, and history of cerebrovascular disease were highly significant predictors, as were body mass index and history of coronary heart disease. This analysis2 of populations participating in 2 large outcome trials of similar design (n=30 424) documented the connection between hypertension, or its end-organ damage as well as risk factors, and the risk of incident AF. The relationship between the history of hypertension and risk of AF persists, despite confounding by the extensive vascular disease or complicated diabetes mellitus that the participants had,2 or maybe these diseases even escalated the relationship. The dominating role of high blood pressure in the pathogenesis, pathophysiology, prediction, diagnosis, and treatment of AF has been extensively reviewed by a working group of the European Society of Hypertension.3 Perhaps the most remarkable finding was that up to ≈90% of patients with AF who participated in some of the recent large randomized clinical outcome trials of new anticoagulant or antiarrhythmic medications in people with AF had a history of hypertension3 even without baseline workup using ambulatory 24-hour blood pressure measurements to detect people with masked hypertension. This suggests that AF is in most cases a typical complication of hypertension, and even more so than stroke or heart failure. It is not entirely surprising but confirmatory in a slightly different type of population that left ventricular hypertrophy is a strong predictor of AF. In a large …
Control synthesis and delay sensor deployment for efficient ASV designs

Adaptive Supply Voltage (ASV) is a power-efficient approach to achieving resilience against process variation and circuit aging. Fine-grained ASV offers further power-efficiency gains, but entails relatively complex control circuit, which has not been well studied yet. This paper presents two control design techniques --- one is rule-based control derived from network flow optimization and the other is finite state machine control. For the FSM control, a graph-based algorithm that automates the control vector generation is proposed. To the best of our knowledge, this work is the first dedicated study on fine-grained ASV control. This paper also presents an iterative greedy heuristic for delay sensor deployment in ASV designs. The effectiveness of these techniques is confirmed by experiments performed on ICCAD 2014 benchmark circuits. The results show that our techniques achieve around 20% leakage power reduction compared to coarse-grained ASV, while maintain about the same timing yield.
A Therapist Retires: Working Through Issues of Loss and Betrayal

In her recently published volume, Forced Endings in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis: Attachment and Loss in Retirement, Anne Power explores the complex issues which arise when psychodynamic psycho...
History of Dermatologic Cosmetic Surgery

Dermatology has been one of the major disciplines that has contributed to the rapid advancement of cosmetic surgery. Various cosmetic procedures including chemical peel, dermabrasion, hair transplantation, laser surgery, soft-tissue augmentation, and liposuction have been refined or developed by dermatologists. This article describes the involvement by dermatologists in these cosmetic procedures.
Chronic Graft Versus Host Disease (cGVHD) Following Unrelated Donor Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation (HSCT): Higher Response Rate in Recipients of Unrelated Donor (URD) Umbilical Cord Blood (UCB).

The nature of chronic graft versus host disease (cGVHD) after umbilical cord blood (UCB) transplant has not been well characterized. We analyzed clinical presentation and response to treatment in 170 patients with cGVHD (123 following transplant from an unrelated donor (URD) and 47 following transplant from UCB). URD transplant recipients were significantly younger (median age 25 (0.5–57) versus 39 (0.2–61) years, p = 0.002; and were less likely to receive a transplant from an HLA mismatched donor (33% versus 90%, p
Dynamic Rollover Games with Heterogeneous Creditors

This paper proves the dynamic debt run model, developed by He and Xiong (2012), has a unique equilibrium when a firm deals with two groups of creditors of different maturities and interest rates. This task is a challenge because of the presence of both strategic complementarity and substitutability. I find our economy satisfies the following property: in any candidate equilibrium, creditors of at least one type of debt impose strategic complementarities on creditors of the other type. Specifically, those who end up choosing to run less aggressively regard the rollover strategies of those who run more aggressively as strategic complements. This weak form of strategic complementarity suffices to obtain a unique equilibrium.
Characterizing the energy output generated by a standard electric detonator using shadowgraph imaging

This paper overviews a complete method for the characterization of the explosive energy output from a standard detonator. Measurements of the output of explosives are commonly based upon the detonation parameters of the chemical energy content of the explosive. These quantities provide a correct understanding of the energy stored in an explosive, but they do not provide a direct measure of the different modes in which the energy is released. This optically based technique combines high-speed and ultra-high-speed imaging to characterize the casing fragmentation and the detonator-driven shock load. The procedure presented here could be used as an alternative to current indirect methods—such as the Trauzl lead block test—because of its simplicity, high data accuracy, and minimum demand for test repetition. This technique was applied to experimentally measure air shock expansion versus time and calculating the blast wave energy from the detonation of the high explosive charge inside the detonator. Direct measurements of the shock front geometry provide insight into the physics of the initiation buildup. Because of their geometry, standard detonators show an initial ellipsoidal shock expansion that degenerates into a final spherical wave. This non-uniform shape creates variable blast parameters along the primary blast wave. Additionally, optical measurements are validated using piezoelectric pressure transducers. The energy fraction spent in the acceleration of the metal shell is experimentally measured and correlated with the Gurney model, as well as to several empirical formulations for blasts from fragmenting munitions. The fragment area distribution is also studied using digital particle imaging analysis and correlated with the Mott distribution. Understanding the fragmentation distribution plays a critical role when performing hazard evaluation from these types of devices. In general, this technique allows for characterization of the detonator within 6–8% error with no knowledge of the amount or type of explosive contained within the shell, making it also suitable for the study of unknown improvised explosive devices.
Community College Faculty Conceptualizations of Shared Governance: Shared Understandings of a Sociopolitical Reality:

Objective: This study seeks to deepen understanding of faculty leaders’ perceptions of the concept of shared governance. Moving beyond descriptive considerations of faculty perceptions of efficacy of good or bad governance and the discourse focused on declining faculty involvement and conflict paradigms, I consider governance a co-constructed sociopolitical phenomenon in a neoliberal environment. Method: Qualitative analysis of interviews with 27 faculty from nine community colleges in five states was deconstructed to uncover common themes and understandings. Results: Themes of the importance of the faculty voice, trust and transparency, apathy and disengagement emerged. The findings support recent research which suggests that social and cultural aspects of soft governance are key variables in how faculty conceptualize shared governance. Contributions: The study addresses a gap in the literature in understanding how faculty conceptualize shared governance, and supports findings of recent research that sug...
Eyelid: Floppy Eyelid Syndrome Repair (Wedge Resection)

Floppy eyelid syndrome is generally seen in obese individuals and is associated with obstructive sleep apnea. A decrease in the elastin content causes the upper eyelids to become horizontally lax. This laxity leads to eversion of the lids and chronic papillary conjunctivitis of the upper palpebral conjunctiva via mechanical irritation and/or tear film compromise. The upper eyelid may also appear elongated, thickened, and overlap over the lower eyelid laterally.
Going nuclear for climate mitigation: An analysis of the cost effectiveness of preserving existing U.S. nuclear power plants as a carbon avoidance strategy

Abstract Nuclear power plants generate over 60% of the carbon-free electricity in the U.S. Due to a decrease in electricity prices as a result of the availability of cheaper natural gas and increased low-cost renewables, many of these plants are at risk of premature retirement. If nuclear power plants retire, CO2 emissions in many U.S. states could increase, even while the states comply with EPA legislation aimed at mitigating emissions of greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. In this paper, we perform a Monte Carlo-based analysis to determine the breakeven price of electricity these plants must secure in order to avoid financial loses between 2015 and 2040, and find median breakeven electricity prices to range between $35 and $73 per MWh. Based on our estimates of future electricity prices under a low natural gas price scenario from the Energy Information Administration, our analysis suggests that U.S. nuclear plants would require between $8 and $44 per MWh (median results) on top of electric sales revenue in order to breakeven. Assuming natural gas plants would replace retired nuclear power plants, we estimate an equivalent cost of avoided CO2 emissions to be $18-$30 per metric ton of avoided CO2 (median results) for multi-reactor nuclear plants, and $47-$97 per metric ton of avoided CO2 (median results) for single-reactor plants. Preserving the existing nuclear power plant fleet, especially multi-reactor plants, is thus a cost effective carbon-avoidance strategy compared to the social cost of carbon.
Towards clustering-based device-to-device communications for supporting applications

In this paper, we address the issue of how to leverage Wi-Fi Direct (as an outband solution) to enable the Device-to-Device (D2D) communication, which can not only offload massive data traffic from the LTE (Long Term Evolution)-based cellular network, but also support the communications of Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications. Particularly, we develop a clustering-based scheme that automatically finds the best candidates to remain connected to the LTE network while the rest of the devices can be disconnected directly from the LTE-based cellular network. By doing so, we can reduce the signal interference, increase the average throughput and spectral efficiency of the network, and also reduce unnecessary data traffic that can be transmitted locally by D2D communications instead of going through the LTE-based cellular network. Devices in established clusters can indirectly communicate with the LTE network via the cluster head, which can be dynamically selected and remains connected to the LTE network directly. Using the real-world cellular data collected from a public database related to the deployment of LTE networks, and Google geo-coding APIs (Application Program Interfaces) to locate the real-world smart meters, we show the effectiveness of our proposed scheme based on an extensive study of two scenarios: the first is in traffic offloading in the cellular network, and the second is in IoT applications, specifically, smart grid communications.
THE ANALYSIS OF FACULTY NEEDS TO ENGLISH FOR ACADEMIC PURPOSES IN A MIDDLE-EASTERN CONTEXT

Needs Analysis, a process that focuses on how an English course addresses the needs of its learners, is an integral part of every ESP/EAP course. Since the emergence of English for Academic Purposes, extensive research has been conducted to specify the needs of university students to English for both educational and research purposes. However, research with a focus on the measurement of English-related needs of university professors and research staff is scarce and even non-existent in Middle-eastern contexts. Considering the fact that writing English papers and books, attending international conferences, and interacting with their colleagues around the world is crucial to the success of university professors, the aim of this paper is to analyze the needs of faculty members from various academic departments at three large universities in a Middle-eastern context. A 25-item questionnaire was completed by 138 university professors, and the findings indicate that there is a significant demand for EAP, and specifically, Academic Writing courses at Engineering and Health departments, whereas the demand is not significant for Humanities and Social Sciences despite the fact that scholars in Humanities and Social Sciences are the most detached from the global academic and research contexts. Therefore, the findings of this paper show that the increasing pressure to publish in English-medium journals has led to an alienation from the international academic platforms, especially in Social Sciences and Humanities where the non-native scholars’ English needs are placing them at a disadvantage in comparison with their native speaker colleagues in other parts of the world. The results also revealed that age was an important indicator of the professors’ English writing competence and their ability to meet the expectations of English-medium journals.
Solving Stochastic Programming Problems with Risk Measures by Progressive Hedging

The progressive hedging algorithm for stochastic programming problems in single or multiple stages is a decomposition method which, in each iteration, solves a separate subproblem with modified costs for each scenario. The decomposition exploits the separability of objective functions formulated in terms of expected costs, but nowadays expected costs are not the only objectives of interest. Minimization of risk measures for cost, such as conditional value-at-risk, can be important as well, but their lack of separability presents a hurdle. Here it is shown how the progressive hedging algorithm can nonetheless be applied to solve many such problems through the introduction of additional variables which, like the given decision variables, get updated through aggregation of the independent computations for the various scenarios.
Choice of robot morphology can prohibit modular control and disrupt evolution

In evolutionary robotics, controllers are often represented as networks. Modularity is a desirable trait of such networks because modular networks are resistant to catastrophic forgetting and tend ...
New tools for the visualization of biological pathways

This paper presents several geometrically motivated techniques for the visualization of high-dimensional biological data sets. The Grassmann manifold provides a robust framework for measuring data similarity in a subspace context. Sparse radial basis function classification as a visualization technique leverages recent advances in radial basis function learning via convex optimization. In the spirit of deep belief networks, supervised centroid-encoding is proposed as a way to exploit class label information. These methods are compared to linear and nonlinear principal component analysis (autoencoders) in the context of data visualization; these approaches may perform poorly for visualization when the variance of the data is spread across more than three dimensions. In contrast, the proposed methods are shown to capture significant data structure in two or three dimensions, even when the information in the data lives in higher dimensional subspaces. To illustrate these ideas, the visualization techniques are applied to gene expression data sets that capture the host immune system’s response to infection by the Ebola virus in non-human primate and collaborative cross mouse.
Spontaneous Periodic Delamination of Thin Films To Form Crack-Free Metal and Silicon Ribbons with High Stretchability

Design of electronic materials with high stretchability is of great importance for realizing soft and conformal electronics. One strategy of realizing stretchable metals and semiconductors is to exploit the buckling of materials bonded to elastomers. However, the level of stretchability is often limited by the cracking and fragmentation of the materials that occurs when constrained buckling occurs while bonded to the substrate. Here, we exploit a failure mechanism, spontaneous buckling-driven periodic delamination, to achieve high stretchability in metal and silicon films that are deposited on prestrained elastomer substrates. We find that both globally periodic buckle-delaminated pattern and ordered cracking patterns over large areas are observed in the spontaneously buckle-delaminated thin films. The geometry of periodic delaminated buckles and cracking periodicity can be predicted by theoretical models. By patterning the films into ribbons with widths smaller than the predicted cracking periodicity, we demonstrate the design of crack-free and spontaneous delaminated ribbons on highly prestrained elastomer substrates, which provides a high stretchability of about 120% and 400% in Si and Au ribbons, respectively. We find that the high stretchability is mainly attributed to the largely relaxed strain in the ribbons via spontaneous buckling-driven delamination, as made evident by the small maximum tensile strain in both ribbons, which is measured to be over 100 times smaller than that of the substrate prestrain.
Infections in Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant Recipients

Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) is a well-established therapy for a number of hematologic malignancies and disorders. Infections after allogeneic HSCT occur during three well-defined time periods. The pre-engraftment period is dominated by neutropenia, compromised mucosal immunity as a result of preparative chemotherapy, and compromised skin barrier as a result of vascular access. The early post-engraftment period is characterized by impaired cell-mediated immunity due to immunosuppression and acute graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) and its treatments. Infections during the late post-engraftment period are the result of impaired cell- and humoral-mediated immunity. The degree of HLA disparity between donor and recipient correlates with the risk of infectious complications. The risk is greater for recipients who use alternative sources of stem cells such as unrelated donors, cord blood stem cells, or haploidentical donors. In addition to immunosuppressive therapy, in vitro or in vivo manipulation of the graft to prevent GvHD may lead to a greater risk of infections. Although HSCT is associated with profound immune defects, appropriate prophylactic and treatment strategies decrease significantly the infection-related morbidity and mortality.
“I'm Present, ‘A’ Please”: A Case Study Examining Grading Issues in a Recreation Curriculum

Despite extensive research, grading and the potential for grade inflation remain areas of concern within higher education. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to obtain collective unders...
Mitigating cross-site form history spamming attacks with domain-based ranking

Modern Web browsers often provide a very useful form autocomplete feature to help users conveniently speed up their form filling process. However, browsers are generally too permissive in both saving form history data and suggesting them to users. Attackers can take advantage of this permissiveness and use malicious webpages to inject a large amount of junk or spam data into the form history database of a browser, performing invasive advertising or simply making this useful form autocomplete feature almost useless to users. In this paper, we illustrate that this type of cross-site form history spamming attacks can be feasibly achieved at least on the recent versions of Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome browsers. We inspect the autocomplete feature implementations in open source Firefox and Chromium browsers to analyze how basic and advanced cross-site form history spamming attacks can be successful. Browser vendors are apparently taking active measures to protect against these attacks, but we explore a different approach and propose a domain-based ranking mechanism to address the problem. Our mechanism is simple, transparent to users, and easily adoptable by different browsers to complement their existing protection mechanisms. We have implemented this mechanism in Firefox 3 and verified its effectiveness. We make our Firefox 3 build available for download and verification.
The Digital Hormone Model for self-organization

This paper presents the Digital Hormone Model (DHM) as a new computational model for self-organization. The model is a generalization of an earlier distributed control system for self-reconfigurable robots [1-3] and an integration of reaction-diffusion model with stochastic cellular automata. In this model, cells secrete hormones, and hormones diffuse into space and influence the behaviors of other cells to self-organize into global patterns. In contrast to the reaction-diffusion models, cells movements are computed not by the Turing's differential equations [4] but by stochastic rules that are based on the concentration of hormones in the neighboring space. Different from simulated annealing, the stochastic rules are not the Metropolis rule [5], which will not produce the desired results here. Experimental results have shown that the simulated cells in the DHM produce results that match to the observations made in the biological experiments where homogenous skin cells self-organize into feather buds regulated by hormones [6]. With the unique properties of being distributed, scalable, robust, and adaptive, the DHM opens opportunities for new hypotheses, theories, and experiments for further investigating the nature of self-organization.
Efficiency, Power and Freedom

Efficiency is the dominant economic concept underlying most academic and governmental studies of competition in the agrifood system, yet key issues deal with equity, fairness, economic discrimination, independence, justice, economic freedom and economic liberty. This chapter seeks to widen the economic view of the agrifood system to include ethics along with efficiency, and to include the interface between law and economics as manifested in antitrust and competition law. Antitrust law began with broad socioeconomic goals emphasizing “free and fair competition.” The original emphasis on fairness has essentially disappeared. Now aggregate economic efficiency dominates interpretation of this legislation. Without corrective legislation and a truly independent judiciary, recent legal interpretations will continue to shape the agrifood system, allowing it to become more integrated and concentrated. The need to rediscover the purposes for antitrust laws and their enforcement has never been more acute than now.
Plant Development, Genetics of

The field of genetics began with the study of plants. Recent genetic analyses using the model plant, Arabidopsis , have elucidated pathways regulating many facets of plant development. Mutations have been identified that affect embryonic, shoot, root, and floral development. Common themes emerging from the characterization of the affected genes have been the importance of transcriptional regulation and intercellular signaling as well as a central role for the plant growth regulator, auxin.
Sequence Noise Injected Training for End-to-end Speech Recognition

We present a simple noise injection algorithm for training end-to-end ASR models which consists in adding to the spectra of training utterances the scaled spectra of random utterances of comparable length. We conjecture that the sequence information of the "noise" utterances is important and verify this via a contrast experiment where the frames of the utterances to be added are randomly shuffled. Experiments for both CTC and attention-based models show that the pro-posed scheme results in up to 9% relative word error rate improvements (depending on the model and test set) on the Switchboard 300 hours English conversational telephony database. Additionally, we set a new benchmark for attention-based encoder-decoder models on this corpus.
CNT flexible membranes for energy storage and conversion systems

We have successfully employed a charge transfer mechanism to convert carbon nanotube (CNT) powder into CNT flexible membrane with no binder. We have demonstrated the use of the CNT membranes as electrode in a stacked bipolar solid-state capacitor using grafoil as current collector that showed 80% capacitance retention over 10,000 cycles at 70 °C. The CNT membranes could have potential application in catalysis, photovoltaic, thermoelectric, and many others.
Investigating the mechanism of mrp/plf gene expression by bFGF

The mitogen-regulated protein/proliferin {mrp/ptf) genes belong to the prolactin/growth hormone gene superfamily and encode at least four closely related proteins. Identified functions of these proteins include stimulation of uterine proliferation and endothelial angiogenesis. In 3T3 cells, basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) stimulates the production of mAp/p/ mRNAs with a resulting increase in the protein products. Although the three cloned mqj/plf gene promoters {mrp3, ptf42, and plf149) are over 97% identical in sequence, only mrp3 is transcriptionally activated by bFGF. We have identified a sequence in the mrp3 promoter, which we have named the "bFGF-responsive element" (FRE), that specifically binds nuclear factors from 3T3 cells. Analysis of the bFGF-responsiveness of a series of truncated mrp3 promoter sequences combined with footprint analysis, pinpointed a region of the promoter that contains a large variation in sequence between the three promoters and one base in the sequence that is unique to the mrp3. The nuclear factors bound by the FRE are present in the placenta and the fetus in which the ^Department of Biochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology and the Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology Program. Iowa State University. Ames, lA 50011 ^Currently Research Fellow in Medicine, Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA 02129
Electro-Tactile Stimulation Enhances Cochlear-Implant Melody Recognition: Effects of Rhythm and Musical Training.

Author(s): Huang, Juan; Lu, Thomas; Sheffield, Benjamin; Zeng, Fan-Gang | Abstract: OBJECTIVES:Electro-acoustic stimulation (EAS) enhances speech and music perception in cochlear-implant (CI) users who have residual low-frequency acoustic hearing. For CI users who do not have low-frequency acoustic hearing, tactile stimulation may be used in a similar fashion as residual low-frequency acoustic hearing to enhance CI performance. Previous studies showed that electro-tactile stimulation (ETS) enhanced speech recognition in noise and tonal language perception for CI listeners. Here, we examined the effect of ETS on melody recognition in both musician and nonmusician CI users. DESIGN:Nine musician and eight nonmusician CI users were tested in a melody recognition task with or without rhythmic cues in three testing conditions: CI only (E), tactile only (T), and combined CI and tactile stimulation (ETS). RESULTS:Overall, the combined electrical and tactile stimulation enhanced the melody recognition performance in CI users by 9% points. Two additional findings were observed. First, musician CI users outperformed nonmusicians CI users in melody recognition, but the size of the enhancement effect was similar between the two groups. Second, the ETS enhancement was significantly higher with nonrhythmic melodies than rhythmic melodies in both groups. CONCLUSIONS:These findings suggest that, independent of musical experience, the size of the ETS enhancement depends on integration efficiency between tactile and auditory stimulation, and that the mechanism of the ETS enhancement is improved electric pitch perception. The present study supports the hypothesis that tactile stimulation can be used to improve pitch perception in CI users.
A Quantitative Public Health Risk Assessment Tool for Planning for At-Risk Populations

The Drexel University Center for Public Health Readiness and Communication developed a quantitative public health risk assessment tool that has been used in Pennsylvania and across the United States. The tool assesses hazard impacts on health care and public health metrics and incorporates the planning needs of at-risk populations. The flexible platform using Microsoft Excel allows planners to customize hazard assessment and use jurisdiction-specific data. Findings from the risk assessment can guide planning and evaluate preparedness progress over time.
Effect of spray-drying temperature on physicochemical, antioxidant and antimicrobial properties of pectin/sodium alginate microencapsulated carvacrol

Abstract Microencapsulation has been extensively utilized in the pharmaceutical and food industries to entrap essential oils related to flavoring. Spray-drying is one of the most commonly used microencapsulation techniques in the food industry because of its low expense and readily available equipment. The spray-drying operating parameters, particularly inlet temperature, affect the physicochemical and functional properties of the microcapsules. In this research, four inlet air temperatures (100, 130, 160, and 190 °C) were applied for the encapsulation of carvacrol in a matrix composed of pectin/sodium alginate. The 100 °C treatment resulted in the highest moisture content, bulk density, and retention efficiency, but lowest dissolution time, hygroscopicity, and encapsulation efficiency. The antioxidant activity evaluated by 2, 2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging assay decreased, while the antimicrobial activity with respect to Escherichia coli K12 assessed by minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) increased with the increasing inlet temperature due to the reduced retention efficiency. The microcapsules produced at lower temperature were smaller, smoother, and more spherical. Our results indicate that an inlet temperature between 100 and 130 °C is the ideal for processing pectin/sodium alginate encapsulated carvacrol.
Parametric investigation of the transition to turbulence in Rayleigh–Taylor mixing

Abstract A database is developed consisting of highly resolved large-eddy simulations of the transition process in a Rayleigh–Taylor mixing layer. Over 300 simulations are performed with parametric variations in Grashof number, Schmidt number, Atwood number, and initial perturbation spectrum. The database is then analyzed to explore how the factors that influence the transition-to-turbulence process impact mixing evolution and growth rate prior to the development of late-time, steady-state growth. The competition between entrainment-driven mixing and diffusion-driven mixing is observed, and two different mechanisms are suggested by which the homogeneity of mixing might increase, rather than decrease, at early time. The impact of parametric variation on growth rate is additionally examined, and all variations in initial conditions are found to converge to approximately the same growth parameter around α ≈ 0 . 025 .
The Humanitarian Initiative: A Critical Appreciation

This essay offers a critical evaluation of the campaign on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons and the resulting 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. It highlights both accomplishments and limitations of the treaty. The treaty is a major achievement but is best seen as a stigmatization rather than a disarmament treaty. While the treaty may strengthen the nuclear taboo, the ultimate challenge is to undermine nuclear weapons as a currency of power. The essay reflects on four themes illustrated by the movement of civil society and non-nuclear states to achieve the ban treaty: processes of stigmatization, the democratization of disarmament politics, the advantages and disadvantages of codification, and normative strategies of disarmament more broadly.