cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Experimental study of nonlinear harmonic generation by internal waves incident on a pycnocline

Internal waves propagating in variable stratification exhibit nonlinear generation of harmonics. Here, synthetic schlieren is used to study a laboratory internal wave beam propagating from a uniformly stratified layer into a region of increased stratification (pycnocline) below a mixed layer. The results demonstrate the formation of harmonic (double-frequency) internal waves as the beam refracts into the pycnocline layer. For beam incidence angles <30° to the horizontal, harmonic internal waves are radiated back to the uniformly stratified layer. The harmonic wavenumber is approximately double the incident wavenumber, while its amplitude increases with the pycnocline buoyancy frequency gradient. Beams with larger incidence angles generate harmonics that are trapped within the pycnocline layer. In this case, the specific wavenumber of the trapped harmonic is determined by the normal modes of the stratification profile.
Arbitrarily tight PBE bounds for optical CDMA communications

Arbitrarily tight upper and lower bounds on the probability of bit error (PBE) for direct-detection avalanche photodiode detector (APD) based code-division multiple-access (CDMA) communication systems are presented. Previously, only the Chernoff upper bound (CB), modified Chernoff upper bound (MCB), and Gaussian approximation (GA) of the PBE have been available. The MCB is calibrated. >
An automated image processing routine for segmentation of cell cytoplasms in high-resolution autofluorescence images

The heterogeneity of genotypes and phenotypes within cancers is correlated with disease progression and drug-resistant cellular sub-populations. Therefore, robust techniques capable of probing majority and minority cell populations are important both for cancer diagnostics and therapy monitoring. Herein, we present a modified CellProfiler routine to isolate cytoplasmic fluorescence signal on a single cell level from high resolution auto-fluorescence microscopic images.
Dispositional Optimism as a Predictor of Health Changes among Cardiac Patients

Abstract We examined in a longitudinal study whether dispositional optimism (as measured by the Life Orientation Test) predicts success in making health changes associated with lower risk of coronary heart disease. Subjects were 22 patients participating in an 18 week cardiac rehabilitation program. As part of the program all patients were assigned goals (e.g., reduce weight by 20 lbs) designed to decrease the risk of a cardiac event. Optimism measured at the outset of the program was associated with greater success in achieving lower levels of saturated fat, body fat, and global coronary risk, and with greater success in increasing aerobic capacity by the end of the program. Moreover, these effects were significant after controlling for the magnitude of the goal, the number of health changes, and negative affect.
Stranded Gaussian mixture hidden Markov models for robust speech recognition

Gaussian mixture (GMM)-HMMs, though being the predominant modeling technique for speech recognition, are often criticized as being inaccurate to model heterogeneous data sources. In this work, we propose the stranded Gaussian mixture (SGMM)-HMM, an extension of the GMM-HMM, to explicitly model the dependence among the mixture components, i.e., each mixture component is assumed to depend on the previous mixture component in addition to the state that generates it. In the evaluation over the Aurora 2 database, the proposed 20-mixture SGMM system obtains WER of 8.07%, 10% relative improvement over the baseline GMM system. The experiments demonstrate the discriminating power that would be possessed by the mixture weights in their advanced form.
Improving Engineering Education Outreach in Rural Counties through Engineering Risk Analysis

Hands-on engineering education is an upcoming trend among K-12 schools throughout the United States to stimulate interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). This study used unconventional methods to stimulate interest in STEM fields among high school students in a rural county of Tennessee. First, the study began by assessing enrollment data from each of Tennessee’s 95 counties to determine the factors that influenced the decision by high school applicants to choose engineering at Tennessee Technological University (TTU). The findings revealed that, while there were no significant differences between the aptitude scores of applicants from rural and urban counties, TTU had a higher representation of freshmen from urban areas. This indicated that motivational programs targeted at counties with low population, income level, and education level were needed to boost enrollment from rural counties. As a response, we introduced next a hands-on engineering class at Jackson County High Sc...
Through-Flow Drying of Tufted Textile Materials

It is shown in this investigation that by forcing heated air through the material, tufted carpet can be dried in approximately one-fifth the time required in present industrial dryers. An experimental study showed that the variables which influence the pressure drop across the carpets tested can be correlated with two dimension-less groups. This correlation can then be used to predict the drying time for the constant-rate period.
A Transparent Penetrating Microelectrode Array for in-vitro Hippocampus Recording

A novel penetrating microelectrode array was designed and fabricated for the purpose of recording activity in the hippocampus of mice. The array allows two dimensional recording of 64 simultaneous sites of the hippocampus, in vitro. Traditional surface electrode arrays, although easy to fabricate, do not penetrate to the active tissue of hippocampus slices and thus theoretically have a lower signal/noise ratio and lower selectivity than a penetrating array. Furthermore, the structure of the hippocampus slice preparation results in dead tissue in closest proximity to these traditional electrodes and the cell bodies of the CA1 region are obscured by them, degrading activity-based optical imaging techniques as well. An array of 64 electrode posts was fabricated in silicon and bonded to a clear glass substrate. The impedance of the electrodes was measured to be approximately 1.5M Ohms + -500Ohms. The signal to noise ratio was measured and found to be 19.4 +/-3 dB compared to 3.9 +/-0.8 dB S/N for signals obtained with voltage sensitive dye RH414. These data suggest that the penetrating electrode array is superior to that of the voltage sensitive dye technique for two-dimensional recording.
Concentration of Electron Dense Granules in the Rabbit Ovarian Surface Epithelium During Ovulation

The rabbit ovary was examined to determine the distribution of electron dense granules in the cells of the surface epithelium during ovulation. The granules in the epithelial cells covering mature follicles increase from a mean frequency of 1.83 ± 1.96 per cell in the unmated animal to a mean of 3.88 ± 2.02 at 9 h after mating. (The cross-sectional area of the surface epithelial cell remains constant to 9 h.) The concentration of the granules remains elevated until rupture of the follicles (i.e. approx. 9.5 h postcoitum). Within 2.5 h after ovulation the granule concentration decreases to the level of unmated mature follicles. Dense granules are also present in the surface epithelial cells which cover the ovarian stroma, indicating they are not restricted just to the apex of mature follicles. In addition, some follicles proceeded to rupture even after the surface epithelium had been removed by scraping the surface of the ovary. These results suggest that the accumulation of electron dense granules in the surface epitheium of the rabbit ovary is not essential to ovulation. The increase in their concentration during ovulation may reflect a physiological response of the ovarian surface to the traumatic changes which occur in a mature follicle as it approaches rupture.
The any-combiner for multi-agent target classification

The any-combiner is a classifier combination approach for target classification problems in which the target class can be naturally decomposed into multiple subclasses. This kind of classification problem can often occur in sensor-based system applications, such as biometric user verification, biosurveillance or underwater mine detection, in which the system goal is to identify a test exemplar as belonging to a category of objects of interest to the exclusion of all other exemplars (clutter). We propose an approach to the target classification problem in which an ensemble of classifier agents are trained to distinguish individual target subclasses from clutter. The any-combiner is then trained by optimizing the multi-agent ensemble for maximum recognition performance across all target subclasses over a range of acceptable operating points. Once deployed, the any-combiner classifies a test example as a target if any of the agents indicates a true positive classification for its target subclass. Experiments show that the any-combiner yields excellent performance on the tasks of biometric verification using face images and underwater object classification using acoustic features.
Effects of Two Years of Growth Hormone Treatment in Short Children with Renal Disease

The effect of 1-2 years of growth hormone (GH) treatment (28-30 IU/m2/week) on growth rate, bone age, renal function and metabolic parameters was studied in 61 short, slowly growing children with chronic renal disease (20 with preterminal chronic renal failure (CRF), 24 with end-stage renal failure (ESRF) and 17 with functioning renal transplants). Height velocity (2-year data) significantly increased in children with preterminal CRF from a baseline median of 4.1 cm/year to 9.2 cm/year after 1 year and to 6.6 cm/year after 2 years of treatment. In patients with transplants, the corresponding values were 2.6 cm/year before GH treatment and 8.6 and 7.2 cm/year after 1 and 2 years, respectively. This resulted in normalization of height in 8 of the 16 children who completed 2 years of treatment. The growth response after 1 year in children with preterminal CRF was significantly higher than that in children with ESRF. Bone maturation was in proportion to the increase in chronological age; the expected final height of the children therefore increased by approximately 8-10 cm. In children with preterminal CRF, the decrease in glomerular filtration rate was not affected by 2 years of treatment with GH. The incidence of acute rejection in children with transplants was low; however, a slight stimulatory effect of GH could not be excluded. The major metabolic change induced by exogenous GH was an increase in serum levels of insulin in the three treatment groups, though all glucose tolerance tests remained stable over the 2-year period.
Transgene delivery using poly(amino ether)-gold nanorod assemblies.

Gold nanorods (GNRs) have emerged as promising nanomaterials for biosensing, imaging, photothermal treatment and therapeutic delivery for several diseases, including cancer. We have generated poly(amino ether)-functionalized gold nanorods (PAE-GNRs) using a layer-by-layer deposition approach; polymers from a poly(amino ether) library recently synthesized in our laboratory were employed to generate the PAE-GNR assemblies. PAE-GNR assemblies demonstrate long-term colloidal stability as well as the capacity to bind plasmid DNA by means of electrostatic interactions. Sub-toxic concentrations of PAE-GNRs were employed to deliver plasmid DNA to prostate cancer cells in vitro. PAE-GNRs generated using 1,4C-1,4Bis, a cationic polymer from our laboratory demonstrated significantly higher transgene expression and exhibited lower cytotoxicities when compared to similar assemblies generated using 25 kDa poly(ethylene imine) (PEI25k-GNRs), a current standard for polymer-mediated gene delivery. The roles of polyelectrolyte chemistry and zeta-potential in determining transgene expression efficacies of PAE-GNR assemblies were investigated. Our results indicate that stable and effective PAE-GNR assemblies are a promising engineered platform for transgene delivery. PAE-GNRs also have the potential to be used simultaneously for photothermal ablation, photothermally enhanced drug and gene delivery, and biological imaging, thus making them a powerful theranostic platform.
11 MILLION YEARS OF OLIGOCENE GEOMAGNETIC FIELD BEHAVIOUR

SUMMARY An 11 million year long record of the Oligocene geomagnetic field has been obtained from pelagic sediments of DSDP Hole 522. An average sample spacing of 4 cm yielded approximately one specimen per 4 to 8 kyr. The rock magnetics are remarkably consistent across the entire interval. Previous work demonstrated a magnetic mineralogy dominated by magnetically stable magnetite. The natural remanent magnetism (NRM ) carries an Oligocene polarity timescale that is in excellent agreement with the Oligocene reversal record as determined from marine magnetic anomalies ( MMAs), including many of the so-called ‘crypto-chrons’. Normalized NRM intensities from the undisturbed portions of the record yield a time series of variations with features consistent with a number of other palaeointensity time series derived from both sedimentary and lava sequences. These features include consistent, major decreases in palaeointensity (DIPs) at reversal boundaries, and occasional DIPs between reversal boundaries that could correspond to lineated ‘tiny wiggles’ in the MMA records. The data set suggests that the overall field strength was 40 per cent higher in the first half of the Oligocene when the average reversal frequency was 1.6 Myr-l than in the second half when the reversal frequency was 4Myr-’. There is also a weak dependence of average field strength on length of polarity interval. Finally, in the three cores suited to spectral analysis (of coherent polarity and relative intensity independent of lithological contamination), there is a persistent ca. 30-50 ka periodicity in the variations of the relative intensity, suggesting that the geomagnetic field ‘pulses’ at about this frequency, not only during the Brunhes (as demonstrated by Tauxe & Shackleton 1994), but in the Oligocene as well.
Overexpression of AtCSP4 affects late stages of embryo development in Arabidopsis

Eukaryotic cold shock domain proteins are nucleic acid-binding proteins that are involved in transcription, translation via RNA chaperone activity, RNA editing, and DNA repair during tissue developmental processes and stress responses. Cold shock domain proteins have been functionally implicated in important developmental transitions, including embryogenesis, in both animals and plants. Arabidopsis thaliana cold shock domain protein 4 (AtCSP4) contains a well conserved cold shock domain (CSD) and glycine-rich motifs interspersed by two retroviral-like CCHC zinc fingers. AtCSP4 is expressed in all tissues but accumulates in reproductive tissues and those undergoing cell divisions. Overexpression of AtCSP4 reduces silique length and induces embryo lethality. Interestingly, a T-DNA insertion atcsp4 mutant does not exhibit any morphological abnormalities, suggesting that the related AtCSP2 gene is functionally redundant with AtCSP4. During silique development, AtCSP4 overexpression induced early browning and shrunken seed formation beginning with the late heart embryo stage. A 50% segregation ratio of the defective seed phenotype was consistent with the phenotype of endosperm development gene mutants. Transcripts of FUS3 and LEC1 genes, which regulate early embryo formation, were not altered in the AtCSP4 overexpression lines. On the other hand, MEA and FIS2 transcripts, which are involved in endosperm development, were affected by AtCSP4 overexpression. Additionally, AtCSP4 overexpression resulted in up-regulation of several MADS-box genes (AP1, CAL, AG, and SHP2) during early stages of silique development. Collectively, these data suggest that AtCSP4 plays an important role during the late stages of silique development by affecting the expression of several development-related genes.
Could the Parachute™ ventricular partitioning device be a winner in the fight against heart failure?

Heart failure imposes one of the largest patient and societal burdens of any medical condition, with an estimated 23 million patients suffering from this condition worldwide. Contributing to this h...
Contribution of Voltage-Gated Ca2+ Channels to Homosynaptic Long-Term Depression in the CA1 Region In Vitro

Christie, Brian R., Lalania K. Schexnayder, and Daniel Johnston. Contribution of voltage-gated Ca2+ channels to homosynaptic long-term depression in the CA1 region in vitro. J. Neurophysiol. 77: 16...
Fracture patterns in clasts of diamictites (? tillites)

Fracture patterns in some of the clasts of the Gowganda Formation, Ontario, are inconsistent with aqueous deposition and suggest that locally the diamictites are tillites. Similar fracture patterns have been found in the clasts of modern tills in the Cascade Mountains. Rare examples were also seen on the Garvellachs, Scotland. Laboratory experiments indicate that such patterns can be developed by the impaction of one clast against another while surrounded by a compliant matrix. The stresses which induced cracking were of the same order of magnitude as those which can be expected to occur in a sub-glacial environment.
Sodium polyanethol sulfonate sensitivity of anaerobic cocci.

Abstract Growth of Peptostreptococcus anaerobius was shown to be totally inhibited by sodium polyanethol sulfonate (SPS). Other anaerobic cocci grew in the presence of SPS although some strains of Peptococcus prevotii and Peptococcus magnus showed delayed growth. A SPS disk assay for the presumptive identification of P. anaerobius is described.
Generalized Stability Analyses of Asymmetric Disturbances in One- and Two-Celled Vortices Maintained by Radial Inflow

The dynamics of both transient and exponentially growing disturbances in two-dimensional vortices that are maintained by the radial inflow of a fixed cylindrical deformation field are investigated. Such deformation fields are chosen so that both one-celled and two-celled vortices may be studied. The linearized evolution of asymmetric perturbations is expressed in the form of a linear dynamical system dx/dt 5 Ax. The shear of the mean flow results in a nonnormal dynamical operator A, allowing for the transient growth of perturbations even when all the modes of the operator are decaying. It is found that one-celled vortices are stable to asymmetric perturbations of all azimuthal wavenumbers, whereas two-celled vortices can have low-wavenumber instabilities. In all cases, generalized stability analysis of the dynamical operator identifies the perturbations that grow the fastest, both instantaneously and over a finite period of time. While the unstable modal perturbations necessarily convert mean-flow vorticity to perturbation vorticity, the perturbations with the fastest instantaneous growth rate use the deformation of the mean flow to rearrange their vorticity fields into configurations with higher kinetic energy. Also found are perturbations that use a hybrid of these two mechanisms to achieve substantial energy growth over finite time periods. Inclusion of the dynamical effects of radial inflow—vorticity advection and vorticity stretching—is found to be extremely important in assessing the potential for transient growth and instability in these vortices. In the two-celled vortex, neglecting these terms destabilizes the vortex for azimuthal wavenumbers one and two. In the one-celled vortex, neglect of the radial inflow terms results in an overestimation of transient growth for all wavenumbers, and it is also found that for high wavenumbers the maximum transient growth decreases as the strength of the radial inflow increases. The effects of these perturbations through eddy flux divergences on the mean flow are also examined. In the one-celled vortex it is found that for all wavenumbers greater than one the net effect of most perturbations, regardless of their initial configuration, is to increase the kinetic energy of the mean flow. As these perturbations are sheared over they cause upgradient eddy momentum fluxes, thereby transferring their kinetic energy to the mean flow and intensifying the vortex. However, for wavenumber one in the one-celled vortex, and all wavenumbers in the two-celled vortex, it was found that nearly all perturbations have the net effect of decreasing the kinetic energy of the mean flow. In these cases, the kinetic energy of the perturbations accumulates in nearly neutral or unstable modal structures, so that energy acquired from the mean flow is not returned to the mean flow but instead is lost through dissipation.
Putting Social Movements in their Place: From Not in My Backyard to Not in Anyone’s Backyard

In the previous two chapters we took up issues – movement emergence and outcomes – to which scholars have devoted a great deal of attention. By contrast, in this chapter, we focus on a topic about which we know comparatively little. We refer to “scale shift,” or the geographic expansion or contraction of contention. In a 2005 article, McAdam and colleagues lament what they see as the “distorting lens” of social movement scholarship. More specifically, they fault movement scholars for continuing to propound a stylized view of social movements rooted in the field’s early preoccupation with the New Left/New Social Movements of the 1960s and 1970s. This “stylized view,” they contend, equates movements with the following four features: Disruptive protest in public settings, Urban and/or campus-based movement activities, Contentious claim making by disadvantaged minorities, and Loosely coordinated national struggles over political issues. They go on to present data from their time-series analysis of “protest events” in Chicago between 1970 and 2000 in an effort to show that all of these features are wildly atypical of movement activity, especially during the most recent period. In this chapter we focus on the last of these stylized elements. McAdam and colleagues (2005) frame their discussion of the element in the following way: “National movements tend to be the modal object of study for movement analysts. So, for example, for the U.S. we have extensive literatures on such national struggles as: African-American civil rights, women’s, environmental, pro-choice, pro-life, among others. Does the empirical attention accorded [these] national movements match their actual proportion in the population of all contentious events?” (10). Based on their data, the answer is unambiguous. “A scant six percent of all . . . events were coded as ‘national’ in their focus . . .. In contrast . . . nearly three-quarters of the total were judged to be focused on ‘city’ . . . or neighborhood issues” (10–11).
Inelastic Earthquakes Response of Tall Steel Frames

A procedure for evaluating the lateral response of unbraced multistory building frames subjected to a prescribed base motion was developed for use on a digital computer. A Ramberg-Osgood type moment-curvature function was used to describe the inelastic hysteresis behavior of girders, while the columns were assumed to behave elastically. Representative frames of 10, 25, and 40 stories were analyzed. Recorded accelerograms of El Centro 1940, Taft 1952, and Alameda Park, Mexico 1962 earthquakes were used with modified intensities. The results indicate that the shape and intensity of the velocity response spectrum of the earthquakes and the elastic fundamental period of the structures have a marked influence upon their inelastic response. While the elastic behavior of columns is well documented by the results, the hysteresis behavior of girders alone may be a potential source of energy dissipation during a severe earthquake.
Toward Alternative Decentralized Infrastructures

New forms of infrastructure are needed in a world characterized by the burdens of global climate change, a growing population, increasing socio-technical complexity, and natural and human stressors to our human systems. Enabling communities to transition to a more resilient configuration of infrastructures is crucial for establishing a distributed portfolio of processes and systems by which human needs may be met. This paper proposes a potential way to increase infrastructure resilience by supporting the creation of alternative, decentralized infrastructures (ADIs) composed of small-scale, heterogeneous systems and processes. We see two possible roles for these ADIs: first, they could be integrated with existing infrastructures in the industrialized world, thereby providing some redundancy during times of strain on larger centralized systems; and second, they could help developing communities leapfrog centralized and more capital intensive conventional infrastructure. We present a model for how ADI systems may be built, based on principles from software engineering. Finally, we identify some challenges that go beyond technical implementation details in the instantiation of ADIs, and offer some thoughts on how to address them.
The Dynamics of Peasant Revolt: A Conceptual Analysis of the Agbekoya Parapo Uprising in the Western State of Nigeria

On Tuesday September 16, 1969, an army of peasants (under the command of such ringleaders as Adegoke Akekuejo, Tafa Adeoye, Folarin Idowu, Mudasiru Adeniran, Tafa Popoola, and so on, all of the Agbekoya and R. Oladejo, Mustapha Okikirungbo, Rafiu Isola, Adeniyi Eda, Adeagbo Kobiowu, and Lajide Aremu of Mekunnu Parapo) recruited from Akanran, Akufo, Aransan, Egbeda, Moniya, Olode, and other villages around the city of Ibadan-Nigeria's Western State capital-marched on the city, harried government functionaries, broke into Agodi Federal Prison, and "liberated" the inmates. This event climaxed a long period of Agbekoya outrage and marked the intensification of government reaction-a furious onslaught to suppress the peasant revolt. In a special paper issued by the government on the incident (see West Africa of September 27, 1969: 1165), the Western State's Military Governor Brigadier (now Major-General)
Effect of Tenure Systems on Agricultural Efficiency

Efficiency refers to the degree of success with which a definite device is used to achieve a definite purpose. It is a measure of the appropriateness of certain specific means to a given end. Where these devices and their purposes are simple and directly measurable, their efficiency can readily be expressed in terms of input-output ratios. For instance in agriculture, the relative physical efficiencies of two dairy cows can be measured by the amount of dairy products obtained per unit of feed. The process of putting feed through livestock is the means to the end of obtaining livestock products, and the livestock is the device whose physical or technical efficiency can be measured in terms of input-output ratios. The efficiency which is measured by physical input-output ratios I shall call "technical" efficiency. Although technical efficiency does not tell us anything directly about the economic aspects of a process or enterprise, it is of central importance as a physical determinant of income and prices, and constitutes a basic concept in farm management, and the economy of the firm in general.' When the devices and their purposes become complex and heterogeneous in character, and their constituent elements are measured in economic value terms, the concept of efficiency tends to become involved. Its analytical usefulness requires a clearly defined frame of reference, a "means-end schema," which determines beyond doubt the efficiency of what means is to be measured relative to which end pursued. The efficiency of combinations of factors of production employed in a firm and valued in monetary terms, relative to the monetary income produced by them shall be called "entrepreneurial" efficiency of farming, or "farming efficiency." It refers to the combination of productive agents devised for the purpose of maximizing income over cost in an individual firm. Here, the problem of measurement, of accurate valuation of economic cost and returns, is much more intricate than in the case of technical efficiency. Equally important is it to be aware of the complexity of the empirical end of any going concern. Maximizing money-income is only one of the
Sp2n(Fq2)-invariants in irreducible unipotent representations of Sp4n(Fq)

Abstract We show that for any irreducible representation of Sp 4 n ( F q ) , the subspace of all its Sp 2 n ( F q 2 ) -invariants is at most one-dimensional. In terms of Lusztig symbols, we give a complete list of irreducible unipotent representations of Sp 4 n ( F q ) which have a non-zero Sp 2 n ( F q 2 ) -invariant and, in particular, we prove that every irreducible unipotent cuspidal representation has a one-dimensional subspace of Sp 2 n ( F q 2 ) -invariants. As an application, we give an elementary proof of the fact that the unipotent cuspidal representation is defined over Q , which was proved by Lusztig in [12] .
Characterization of a cDNA encoding the insulin gene GAGA-binding factor, Pur-I.

Transcriptional regulation of the insulin gene is complex, in that it involves a variety of DNA sequence elements in the promoter which bind to proteins in vitro. Binding of proteins, called transcription factors, to their cognate nucleotide sequences is thought to affect transcription of the gene, either positively or negatively. Mutation of the insulin promoter has revealed regions important for transcription in vivo, and DNA-protein binding analyses have identified proteins which bind to these sequences in vitro [l-41. Both approaches have yielded considerable information regarding islet-specific transcription of the insulin gene. Among several important transcriptional control elements is a purine-rich region (GAGA box) located just upstream of the rat insulin I TATA box, between 57 and 40. Mutation of this region results in a 60% loss of activity in hamster insulinoma cells (HIT) [ 1 ], and a greater than 80% loss in fetal rat islets (M. S. German and W. J. Rutter, unpublished work). We have shown previously that the rat insulin I GAGA box binds to at least four distinct nuclear factors, and furthermore, that the same mutation which showed decreased transcriptional activity in vivo also failed to bind to these four proteins in vitro [ 51. These experiments suggest that binding of one or more of these four factors to the insulin GAGA box is necessary for transcriptional activity. We set out to isolate clones for one or more of these DNA-binding proteins so that we might understand their role in insulin gene transcription. We used the rat insulin I GAGA sequence to screen a HIT cell ilgtl 1 library and identified a cDNA encoding a sequence-specific GAGA binding protein [5]. This protein, which we designate Pur-1 (for its ability to bind to purine-rich sequences), binds strongly to the rat insulin GAGA sequence, but binds poorly to a mutated GAGA oligonucleotide, a cyclic AMP-response element (CRE), or the DNA-binding site for the transcription factor C/ERP. Sequence analysis of Pur-1 reveals the presence of six putative zinc fingers and several alanine-rich stretches [5, 61. We show here that Pur-1 fails to bind DNA in the absence of zinc;
SU-F-T-301: Planar Dose Pass Rate Inflation Due to the MapCHECK Measurement Uncertainty Function

Purpose: To quantify the effect of the Measurement Uncertainty function on planar dosimetry pass rates, as analyzed with Sun Nuclear Corporation analytic software (“MapCHECK” or “SNC Patient”). This optional function is toggled on by default upon software installation, and automatically increases the user-defined dose percent difference (%Diff) tolerance for each planar dose comparison. Methods: Dose planes from 109 IMRT fields and 40 VMAT arcs were measured with the MapCHECK 2 diode array, and compared to calculated planes from a commercial treatment planning system. Pass rates were calculated within the SNC analytic software using varying calculation parameters, including Measurement Uncertainty on and off. By varying the %Diff criterion for each dose comparison performed with Measurement Uncertainty turned off, an effective %Diff criterion was defined for each field/arc corresponding to the pass rate achieved with MapCHECK Uncertainty turned on. Results: For 3%/3mm analysis, the Measurement Uncertainty function increases the user-defined %Diff by 0.8–1.1% average, depending on plan type and calculation technique, for an average pass rate increase of 1.0–3.5% (maximum +8.7%). For 2%, 2 mm analysis, the Measurement Uncertainty function increases the user-defined %Diff by 0.7–1.2% average, for an average pass rate increase of 3.5–8.1% (maximum +14.2%). The largest increases in pass rate are generally seen with poorly-matched planar dose comparisons; the MapCHECK Uncertainty effect is markedly smaller as pass rates approach 100%. Conclusion: The Measurement Uncertainty function may substantially inflate planar dose comparison pass rates for typical IMRT and VMAT planes. The types of uncertainties incorporated into the function (and their associated quantitative estimates) as described in the software user's manual may not accurately estimate realistic measurement uncertainty for the user's measurement conditions. Pass rates listed in published reports or otherwise compared to the results of other users or vendors should clearly indicate whether the Measurement Uncertainty function is used.
Changes in cortico-subcortical and subcortico-subcortical connectivity impact cognitive control to emotional cues across development

The capacity to suppress inappropriate thoughts, emotions and actions in favor of appropriate ones shows marked changes throughout childhood and adolescence. Most research has focused on pre-frontal circuit development to explain these changes. Yet, subcortical circuitry involving the amygdala and ventral striatum (VS) has been shown to modulate cue-triggered motivated behaviors in rodents. The nature of the interaction between these two subcortical regions in humans is less well understood, especially during development when there appears to be heightened sensitivity to emotional cues. In the current study, we tested how task-based cortico-subcortical and subcortico-subcortical functional connectivity in 155 participants ages from 5 to 32 impacted cognitive control performance on an emotional go/nogo task. Functional connectivity between the amygdala and VS was inversely correlated with age and predicted cognitive control to emotional cues, when controlling for performance to neutral cues. In contrast, increased medial pre-frontal-amygdala connectivity was associated with better cognitive control to emotional cues and this cortical-subcortical connectivity mediated the association between amygdala-VS connectivity and emotional cognitive control. These findings suggest a dissociation in how subcortical-subcortical and cortical-subcortical connectivity impact cognitive control across development.
Using Relevance Prompts: An Exploratory Study to Promote Eighth Graders’ Comprehension and Retelling of Narrative Text

ABSTRACTThis exploratory study investigated the effects of modifying eighth grade students’ purposes for reading through a prompt designed to increase engagement with the text. The current study was conducted using a randomized between-subjects design, with a relevance prompt as the between-subjects factor and reader proficiency as a covariate. A sample of eighth grade students (N = 32) were stratified as proficient or struggling and randomly assigned to either the relevance (n = 16) or no relevance (n = 16) condition. Students in the relevance prompt condition were asked to make personal connections to a narrative text as they read. Results indicated statistically significant differences favoring the relevance prompt condition when reader proficiency was considered. These preliminary results suggest that prompting adolescent struggling readers to make connections with text can increase comprehension.
Determination of total, saturated, and monounsaturated fats in foodstuffs by hydrolytic extraction and gas chromatographic quantitation: Collaborative study

Using gas chromatography (GC), 10 collaborating laboratories measured total, saturated, and monounsaturated fats in 8 blind duplicate pairs of foodstuffs. The method involves a hydrolysis/ether extraction of fat followed by quantitative GC analysis versus an internal standard. Calculations were designed to comply with federal regulations as specified in the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990. The range of fat contents was about 1-50%. Collaborators received and analyzed (in triplicate) a pre-collaborative sample of known fat content as a practice sample. After satisfactory results were obtained, participants received the 16-sample set. The repeatability standard deviations (RSDr) for total fat ranged from 2.04 to 10.6%; the reproducibility standard deviations (RSDR) for total fat ranged from 3.74 to 15.8%. The hydrolytic extraction-GC method for determination of fat (total, saturated, and monounsaturated) in foodstuffs has been adopted first action by AOAC INTERNATIONAL.
Short-run price forecast performance of individual and composite models for 496 corn cash markets

ABSTRACTUsing daily prices from 496 corn cash markets for July 2006–February 2011, this study investigates short-run forecast performance of 31 individual and 10 composite models for each market at horizons of 5, 10, and 30 days. Over the performance evaluation period September 2010–February 2011, two composite models are optimal across horizons for different markets based on the mean-squared error. For around half of the markets at the horizon of 5 days and most of them at 10 and 30 days, the mean-squared error of a market's optimal model is significantly different from those of at least other 23 models evaluated for it. Root-mean-squared error reductions through switching from non-optimal models to the optimal are generally around 0.40%, 0.55%, and 0.87% at horizons of 5, 10, and 30 days.
Cold as a Fish on Ice

After the February 1993 bombing of New York’s World Trade Center, both law enforcement and the medical community began preparing for further potential terrorist attacks. National programs were developed to prepare healthcare facilities to respond to victims of biological and chemical terrorist activities. Although this particular event occurred a few years before the World Trade Center attack of 2001, it was several years after the Aum Shinrikyo sarin attack in Tokyo. The belief that there might someday be a biological or chemical terrorist attack in the United States led to the development of training programs for emergency responders and healthcare workers in dealing with such terrorist attacks and with substances which might be used. At the time of this incident, training had already been completed for all emergency medical service providers about the potential use of nerve agents as terrorist weapons. First responders and emergency department providers all were required to attend educational programs and to develop protocols to both respond to the victims and to protect themselves and their facilities from the effects of such agents of mass destruction.
A battery model that fully couples mechanics and electrochemistry at both particle and electrode levels by incorporation of particle interaction

Abstract This paper develops a multi-scale mechanical-electrochemical model which enables fully coupled mechanics and electrochemistry at both particle and electrode levels. At the particle level, solid diffusion is modeled using a generalized chemical potential to capture the effects of mechanical stress and phase transformation. At the electrode level, the stress arising from particle interaction is incorporated in a continuum model. This particle interaction stress is in addition to the traditional concept of intercalation stress inside isolated particles. The particle and continuum electrode levels are linked by the particle interaction stress as loads on the particle surface, and by consideration of stress on the electrochemical reaction rate on the particle surface. The effect of mechanical stress on electrochemical reaction results in a stress-dependent over-potential between particle and electrolyte. Stress gradient in an electrode leads to inhomogeneous intercalation/deintercalation currents for particles depending on their interaction stress with neighbors, resulting in stress gradient induced inhomogeneous state of charge. Conversely, non-uniform intercalation/deintercalation currents in an electrode lead to stress between particles. With this model we have an important finding: an electrochemically inactive region in an electrode causes stress built-up. This model provides a powerful tool to address various problems such as fracture in-between particles.
Using lower extremity muscle activity to obtain human ankle impedance in the external–internal direction

The human ankle has a critical role in locomotion and estimating its impedance is essential for human gait rehabilitation. The ankle is the first major joint that regulates the contact forces between the human body and the environment, absorbing shocks during the stance, and providing propulsion during walking. Its impedance varies with the level of the muscle activation. Hence, characterizing the complex relation between the ankle impedance and the lower leg’s muscle activation levels may improve our understanding of the neuromuscular characteristics of the ankle. Most ankle–foot prostheses do not have a degree of freedom in the transverse plane, which can cause high amounts of shear stress to be applied to the socket and can lead to secondary injuries. Quantifying the ankle impedance in the transverse plane can guide the design for a variable impedance ankle–foot prosthesis that can significantly reduce the shear stress on the socket. This paper presents the results of applying artificial neural networks (ANN) to learn and estimate the relation between the ankle impedance in the transverse plane under non-load bearing condition using electromyography signals (EMG) from the lower leg muscles. The Anklebot was used to apply pseudorandom perturbations to the human ankle in the transverse plane while the other degrees of freedom (DOF) in the sagittal and frontal planes were constrained. The mechanical impedance of the ankle was estimated using a previously proposed stochastic identification method that describes the ankle impedance as a function of the applied disturbances torques and the ankle motion output. The ankle impedance with relaxed muscles and with the lower leg’s muscle activations at 10 and 20% of the maximum voluntary contraction were estimated. The proposed ANN effectively predicts the ankle impedance within 85% accuracy (±5 Nm/rad absolute) for nine out of ten subjects given the root-mean-squared (rms) of the EMG signals. The main contribution of this paper is to quantify the relationship between lower leg muscle EMG signals and the ankle impedance in the transverse plane to pave the way towards designing and controlling this degree of freedom in a future ankle–foot prosthesis.
Trajectories of Unintended Fertility

Having an unintended birth is strongly associated with the likelihood of having later unintended births. We use detailed longitudinal data from the Add Health Study (N = 8300) to investigate whether a host of measured sociodemographic, personality, and psychosocial characteristics select women into this “trajectory” of unintended childbearing. While some measured characteristics and aspects of the unfolding life course are related to unintended childbearing, explicitly modeling these effects does not greatly attenuate the association of an unintended birth with a subsequent one. Next, we statistically control for unmeasured time-invariant covariates that affect all birth intervals, and again find that the association of an unintended birth with subsequent ones remains strong. This persistent, strong association may be the direct result of experiencing an earlier unintended birth. We propose several mechanisms that might explain this strong association.
Teachers as Victims: An Interactional Analysis of the Teacher's Role in Educating Atypical Learners:

Research examining teachers' standards and tolerance is reviewed with respect to an interactional model of teacher-student relationships. Because interactional models suggest that participants in behavioral interchanges influence each other reciprocally, the implications of teacher characteristics research relative to the mainstreaming of difficult-to-teach students is considered. In particular, the application of coercion theory to the relationships between teachers and students suggests that, just as mothers are often victims in coercive relationships with their problem children, teachers may also become victims of their students and the systems that hold them responsible for educating atypical learners. Finally, the implications of emerging research on teacher characteristics are discussed in light of the increased attention that calls for reform have focused on issues surrounding the integration of handicapped students into regular education settings.
Basic Control Architecture

This chapter introduces the common alternative structures of control systems, with emphasis on feedback control. Error-correcting feedback plays a central role in robust control systems. The classic example of proportional, integral, and derivative control is used to illustrate the sensitivities of control systems and the design tradeoffs that arise between alternative performance goals.
EFFECTS OF CONVECTION ON CRYSTAL GROWTH UNDER TERRESTRIAL AND SPACE CONDITIONS

In crystal growth, thermal convection supports mass transport from the melting to the growing interface. It also causes oscillations in temperature and concentration, which result in constitutional striations of the growing crystal. The origin and frequency of these oscillations are discussed. A horizontal Rayleigh number is proposed, which is derived from the ratio of convective heat transfer to conductive heat transfer. Under space conditions, the striations are expected to vanish together with thermal and constitutional convection. However, in order to support mass transport and to avoid growth fluctuations due to gravity jitter, a slow laminar convection is still desirable. The different modes of convection and the corresponding growth conditions are discussed.
Products of the dissociation of lipopolysaccharide by Streptomyces griseus extracellular enzyme

Abstract The toxic fraction of the cell walls of gram negative bacteria has been characterized as a complex lipopolysaccharide of high molecular weight. Kim and Watson (1) demonstrated that LPS was detoxified when treated with activated preparations of papain. Mergenhagen and Martin (2) reported that treatment of phenol-extracted LPS from Escherichia coli with lysozyme led to dissociation of the LPS yielding a product with increased toxicity. In a previous paper (3), it was reported that an extracellular enzyme from Streptomyces griseus is capable of degrading LPS from a variety of microorganisms. The present investigation is concerned with some characteristics of the products of this enzymic dissociation.
PALEOBIOLOGY OF STROMATOLITES

Most of our understanding of evolutionary events before the appearance of Metaphyta and Metazoa is based on the detailed study of microfossils found in cherts. These cherts, though rare in pre-Phanerozoic sediments, are yielding a rich and diverse microbiota from which a story of increased diversity and morphologic complexity with time is unfolding. Very little has been added to this understanding using the other great class of pre-Phanerozoic fossils–the stromatolites. Stromatolites are organosedimentary macrostructures produced by sediment trapping, binding, and precipitation activity of microorganisms–predominantly blue-green algae. The vast majority of stromatolites found in the pre-Phanerozoic is found preserved as carbonates, rarely as cherts. Consequently, due to the low preservation potential of nonskeletal microorganisms in carbonates, most stromatolites are barren of microfossils. What kind of biological information can we obtain from stromatolites that will add to our understanding of the pre-Phanerozoic?