cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
GHANAIAN AND KENYAN ENTREPRENEURS: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THEIR MOTIVATIONS, SUCCESS CHARACTERISTICS AND PROBLEMS

Three hundred and fifty-six entrepreneurs from Kenya and Ghana were surveyed to determine their motivation for business ownership, variables contributing to their business success, and the problems they encountered. Kenyan and Ghanaian entrepreneurs indicated that increasing their income and creating jobs for themselves were leading factors motivating them to become business owners. Hard work and good customer service were cited by both Kenyan and Ghanaian business owners as critical for their success. But, compared to the Kenyan entrepreneurs, Ghanaians weighed support from family and friends and external relationship building as more important. A weak economy is the most important problem preventing entrepreneurs of both countries from achieving their goals. Ghanaian entrepreneurs were more concerned about the inability to obtain capital, while Kenyan entrepreneurs were more concerned about government regulations and problems related to business location.
Life Without Father: The Role of the Paternal in the Opening Chapters of Huckleberry Finn

Critics have argued for generations about the failure of the ending of Huckleberry Finn. Ernest Hemingway began the debate by characterizing the escapades at Silas Phelps' farm as “cheating” his statement was soon followed by rhetorical volleys between Eliot, Trilling, Marx, and others whose writings, taken together, form a miniature canon all their own. While the ending has been variously defended on formal, political, aesthetic, and moral grounds, the very presence of a debate sustained for more than sixty years bears witness to the “problem” of those closing chapters. Perhaps the most simple, and ultimately unanswerable, criticism of the ending is that the characters have grown inexplicably younger – that is, they appear to behave in ways which disregard or “undo” their earlier, more maturing experiences. It seems inconceivable that Huck would go along so easily with Tom's Count of Monte Cristo escapades after witnessing the Grangerfords' feud, just as Jim's childlike acquiescence to the escape plan cannot be reconciled with the wisdom and dignity he had earlier shown as Huck's surrogate parent. Despite the ingenuity of even the most brilliant supporters, no reading can provide the characters in the closing chapters with those psychological qualities they so palpably lack; instead, supporters are left in the more awkward position of arguing that the failure of the ending constitutes an ironic success.
Human Herpesvirus 8: Current Issues

Although human herpesvirus 8 (HHV-8) is the etiologic agent of Kaposi sarcoma (KS), there are no formal guidelines for the clinical management of HHV-8 infection. In patients infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) is the best tool for the prevention of KS. In patients who have undergone transplantation, KS is often managed by curtailing immunosuppressive therapies, despite the potential adverse consequences for graft survival. Interventions related to HHV-8 infection might improve the management of KS in immunocompromised patients. However, knowledge from HHV-8 research cannot yet be translated into clinically useful interventions. Achieving clinical utility will require the commercial development of diagnostic tools currently available only in research settings and the evaluation of potential interventions. Such interventions might include the use of HHV-8 diagnostics to identify patients at high risk and to aid in the early detection of KS, prophylaxis with antiherpes drugs to prevent KS, treatment of KS with antiherpes drugs, and donor/recipient screening for organ transplantation.
Physical subthreshold MOSFET modeling applied to viable design of deep-submicrometer fully depleted SOI low-voltage CMOS technology

An insightful study of the subthreshold characteristics of deep-submicrometer fully depleted SOI MOSFET's, based on two-dimensional numerical (PISCES) device simulations, shows that the gate swing and off-state current are governed by gate bias-dependent source/drain charge sharing, which controls back-channel as well as front-channel conduction. The insight from this study guides the development of a physical, two-dimensional analytic model for the subthreshold current and charge, which is linked to our strong-inversion formalism in SOISPICE for circuit simulation. The model is verified by PISCES simulations of scaled devices. The utility of the model in SOISPICE is demonstrated by using it to define a viable design for deep-submicrometer fully depleted SOI CMOS technology based on simulated speed and static power in low-voltage digital circuits. >
The action of leptin in the ventral tegmental area to decrease food intake is dependent on Jak-2 signaling

Recent evidence suggests that leptin reduces food intake via actions in the brain circuitry of food reward, such as the ventral tegmental area (VTA), as leptin receptors are present in the VTA, and...
Globalization, state transformation, and educational re-structuring: why postmodern diversity will prevail over standardization

Over the past two decades the educational policies of neo-liberal nation states have exhibited contradictory tendencies, promoting both bureaucratic stan- dardization of curriculum and standardized evaluation on the one hand, and post- modern diversification on the other. Despite recent increases in bureaucratic standardization, I argue that the economic, social and cultural effects of globaliza- tion will pressure these states towards postmodern diversification of educational arrangements to strengthen their perceived legitimacy.
Linking-Media Syntax in Children's Sentence Comprehension.

Sentence comprehension can not adequately be characterized in terms of syntactic features alone, even when considering young children's comprehension, and only simple, easily comprehended sentences. The current study describes a means of characterizing one of many semantic aspects of comprehension (referred to as “Necessity for Linking”). This semantic aspect is then used to experimentally clarify sentence processing results that are ambiguous at the syntactic level.
Effects of increasing concentrations of corn distiller's dried grains with solubles on the egg production, internal quality of eggs, chemical composition and nutrients content of egg yolk

The objective of this study was to determine the effects of feeding high levels of corn distiller’s dried grains with solubles (DDGS) on egg production, internal quality of eggs, chemical composition and important nutrients content of egg yolk. Four diets were formulated to contain 0, 17, 35 or 50% corn DDGS in a corn and soybean meal base. A total of 240 54 -week-old single-comb White Leghorn laying hens were randomly allotted with 2 birds per cage with three consecutive cages representing an experimental unit (EU). Each EU was assigned to one of the four dietary treatments according to a completely randomized design. Hens were fed for a 24-week experimental period after transition feeding to gradually increase corn DDGS inclusion over a four-week period. After the first 12-wk period, the diets were reformulated to meet amino acid requirements. Egg production was recorded daily and feed consumption was measured weekly. Egg component, yolk color, Haugh unit during storage, and shell breaking strength were measured every two weeks. Chemical composition and nutritional components in egg yolk were measured every two weeks. Chemical composition of egg yolk including protein, lipids, and moisture was determined. The nutritional components in egg yolk, including fatty acid composition, and the content of cholesterol, lutein, and choline were measured. Egg production, egg weight, egg mass, feed intake, and feed efficiency were adversely affected by the highest level of DDGS (50%) in the diet before diet reformulation. Once diets were reformulated with increased concentrations of lysine and
The Whore of Babylon and the Abomination of Abominations: Nineteenth-Century Catholic and Mormon Mutual Perceptions and Religious Identity

In 1846, Oran Brownson, the older brother of the famed Catholic convert Orestes A. Brownson, penned a letter to his brother recounting a dream Orestes had shared with him much earlier. In the dream, Orestes, Oran, and a third brother, Daniel, were “traveling a road together.” “You first left the road then myself and it remains to be seen whether Daniel will turn out of the road (change his opinion),” Oran wrote. At approximately the same period in which Orestes converted to Catholicism “because no other church possessed proper authority,” Oran joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because he believed that “proper authority rests among the Mormons.” Indeed, in an era characterized by denominational proliferation, democratization, and competition, Catholic and Mormon claims to divine authority proved appealing to some Americans, like the Brownsons, wearied by the diversity and disunity of the Protestant world. Oran cautioned Orestes to not trust polemical literature against Mormonism, but to “get your information from friends and not enemies.” Orestes could have repeated the same warning about Catholicism, given the number and intensity of nineteenth-century attacks on both Catholics and Mormons. Leaving mainstream Christianity to join the most despised religions in nineteenth-century America, the Brownson brothers embarked on spiritual quests that few contemporary Americans would have understood, much less approved.
Comparing the Power of Games on Graphs

The descriptive complexity of a problem is the complexity of describing the problem in some logical formalism. One of the few techniques for proving separation results in descriptive complexity is to make use of games on graphs played between two players, called the spoiler and the duplicator. There are two types of these games, which differ in the order in which the spoiler and duplicator make various moves. In one of these games, the rules seem to be tilted towards favoring the duplicator. These seemingly more favorable rules make it easier to prove separation results, since separation results are proven by showing that the duplicator has a winning strategy. In this paper, the relationship between these games is investigated. It is shown that in one sense, the two games are equivalent. Specifically, each family of graphs used in one game (the game with the seemingly more favorable rules for the duplicator) to prove a separation result can in principle be used in the other game to prove the same result. This answers an open question of Ajtai and the author from 1989. It is also shown that in another sense, the games are not equivalent, in that there are situations where the spoiler requires strictly more resources to win one game than the other game. This makes formal the informal statement that one game is easier for the duplicator to win.
Immune effects of chicken non-MHC alloantigens

Alloantigen systems are a broad group of molecules found on various cell types, including erythrocytes and lymphocytes. These alloantigens, identified via specific polyclonal or monoclonal antibodies or molecular methods, have demonstrated effects on immune responses. Erythrocyte alloantigens include the A, B, C, D, E, H, I, J, K, L, N, P, and R systems. Highly polymorphic alloantigen B has been identified as the chicken major histocompatibility complex (MHC). The other twelve systems have a variable degree of polymorphism as well as impact on immune measurements or responses against pathogens. Selection for immune characters altered allele frequencies for particular alloantigen systems. Three lymphocyte alloantigens, Bu-1, Ly-4 and Th-1 have more limited polymorphism but still influence responses against viral pathogens, Rous sarcoma virus and Marek's disease. Together, these erythrocyte and lymphocyte systems contribute to the overall immunity. Identification of the specific alloantigen proteins remains crucial to understanding their immune contribution.
Gender & Race Bias in the Proposed Judicial Performance Evaluations: Some Preliminary Findings

Unfortunately, Clark County has a reputation for being one of America’s most preeminent "judicial hell-holes." The Elizabeth Halverson saga is just the latest embarrassing tale of judicial incompetence that threatens the independence of the judiciary. With the passage of Senate Joint Resolution 2, however, the state of Nevada is contemplating a complete overhaul of the way in which judges are selected and retained. As part of this proposed transition, a comprehensive system of state-sponsored judicial performance evaluations (JPEs) would be created. The proposed JPE program, found in Nevada Judicial Evaluation Pilot Project: Final Report (NJEPP Report) and the Nevada Judicial Evaluation Project: Supplement to the Final Report (NJEP Supplement), is the subject of the Nevada Supreme Court Article VI Subcommittee Meeting on February 21, 2010. We have found compelling evidence to suggest that the survey instrument in the proposed JPE system is likely to suffer from significant gender and race bias.
Verified Functional Programming in Agda

Agda is an advanced programming language based on Type Theory. Agda's type system is expressive enough to support full functional verification of programs, in two styles. In external verification, we write pure functional programs and then write proofs of properties about them. The proofs are separate external artifacts, typically using structural induction. In internal verification, we specify properties of programs through rich types for the programs themselves. This often necessitates including proofs inside code, to show the type checker that the specified properties hold. The power to prove properties of programs in these two styles is a profound addition to the practice of programming, giving programmers the power to guarantee the absence of bugs, and thus improve the quality of software more than previously possible. Verified Functional Programming in Agda is the first book to provide a systematic exposition of external and internal verification in Agda, suitable for undergraduate students of Computer Science. No familiarity with functional programming or computer-checked proofs is presupposed. The book begins with an introduction to functional programming through familiar examples like booleans, natural numbers, and lists, and techniques for external verification. Internal verification is considered through the examples of vectors, binary search trees, and Braun trees. More advanced material on type-level computation, explicit reasoning about termination, and normalization by evaluation is also included. The book also includes a medium-sized case study on Huffman encoding and decoding.
Chlamydia pecorum fetal and placental lesions in sporadic caprine abortion

Chlamydial abortion in small ruminants is usually associated with Chlamydia abortus infection. Although Chlamydia pecorum has been detected in aborted ruminants and epidemiological data suggests that C. pecorum is abortigenic in these species, published descriptions of lesions in fetuses are lacking. This work describes fetoplacental lesions in a caprine abortion with C. pecorum infection, and further supports the abortigenic role of C. pecorum in ruminants. A 16-month-old Boer goat aborted twin fetuses at ~130 days of gestation. Both fetuses (A and B) and the placenta of fetus A were submitted for postmortem examination and diagnostic workup. At autopsy, the fetuses had moderate anasarca, intermuscular edema in the hindquarters (A), and brachygnathia and palatoschisis (B). In the placenta, the cotyledons were covered by yellow fibrinosuppurative exudate that extended into the adjacent intercotyledonary areas. Histologically, there was severe suppurative and necrotizing placentitis with vasculitis (arteriolitis) and thrombosis, multifocal lymphohistiocytic and neutrophilic hepatitis (A), and fibrinosuppurative enteritis in both fetuses. Chlamydia antigen was detected in the placenta by the direct fluorescent antibody test and in fetal intestines by immunohistochemistry. Nested polymerase chain reaction of DNA extracted from formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded sections of placenta and intestine amplified 400 bp of the Chlamydia 16S rRNA gene that was sequenced and found to be 99% identical to C. pecorum by BLAST analysis. Other known abortigenic infectious agents were ruled out by specific testing. It is concluded that C. pecorum infection is associated with fetoplacental lesions and sporadic abortion in goats.
Qualitative Identity and Uniformity

J.S. Mill asserted ‘… what happens once, will, under a sufficient degree of similarity of circumstances, happen again’.1 The word ‘again’ was intended to be understood as ‘at any other time and at any other place’. The principle thus enunciated amounts to the famous principle of the uniformity of nature. It implies that locative properties are distinguished from standard properties, among others, in that the regularities observed in nature are invariant with respect to location in space and time, but not with respect to standard properties.
Opportunities and Challenges of Organic Highbush Blueberry Production in Washington State

Global production of highbush blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum) has continuously increased since the early 1990s, with substantial growth occurring after 2000. Benefiting from this growth is the organic blueberry (Vaccinium sp.) industry, which has been strengthened by increases in organic food sales and the price premiums received for organic products. Washington State is a national and global leader in organic blueberry production, with 47% of the national organic blueberry crop harvested in 2008. As this statewide industry continues to grow, it is important to recognize both the opportunities and challenges related to organic blueberry production and marketing. This paper addresses those issues and describes trends in organic highbush blueberry production using Washington State as a case study due to its scale and distinctive regional differences within the state in regard to climate, horticultural production, and market venues. Challenges related to the introduction and management of new diseases and pests, changes in the federal organic regulations, infrastructural limitations, and climate change threaten current production capabilities in Washington State. However, the industry is still poised to capitalize on organic blueberry markets and has a lower market risk in the medium term compared with other crops.
Analysis of HIV/AIDS infection in Qujing City, Yunnan Province in 2013

Objective To analyze the status of HIV/AIDS epidemic in Qujing city in 2013, and to provide a theoretical basis AIDS control and prevention. Methods The AIDS data obtained from China information system for disease control and AIDS control and prevention information system and the data were analyzed using SPSS 19.0 software. Results In 2013,759 HIV/AIDS cases were reported including 493 HIV positives and 266 AIDS cases.The area distribution mainly in Xuanwei City(24.77%), Qilin region(19.50%), Luliang county(15.81%), Huize county(11.46%) and Fuyuan County(8.96%). The population distribution mainly in the young and middle- aged people and 75.89% of them aged 20~49 years.Male cases occupied 58.89% and female 41.11%, with sex ratio of 1.43:1. Most of the cases were farmers(65.09%) and unemployed(12.78%). Han nationality accounted for 93.68%. Sexual contact was the mainly transmission route accounting for 90.78%.Conclusion Sexual contact is the main transmission route of HIV/AIDS infection. Therefore health education and behavior intervention be conducted among the young age group and farmers to effectively control HIV/AIDS infection.
Cyanosis and left ventricular hypertrophy.

(1992). Cyanosis and Left Ventricular Hypertrophy. Hospital Practice: Vol. 27, No. 9, pp. 53-54.
Full-Stokes modeling of grounding line dynamics, ice melt and iceberg calving for Thwaites Glacier, West Antarctica

Abstract. Thwaites Glacier (TG), West Antarctica, has been losing mass and retreating rapidly in the past three decades. Here we present a two-dimensional, Full-Stokes (FS) modeling study of the grounding line dynamics and iceberg calving of TG. First, we compare FS with two simplified models, the higher-order (HO) model and the shallow-shelf approximation (SSA) model, to determine the impact of changes in ice shelf basal melt rate on grounding line dynamics. Second, we combine FS with the Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics (LEFM) theory to simulate crevasse propagation and iceberg calving. In the first experiment, we find that FS requires basal melt rate consistent with remote sensing observations to reach steady state at TG’s current geometry while HO and SSA require unrealistically high basal melt rate. The grounding line of FS is also more sensitive to changes in basal melt rate than HO and SSA. In the second experiment, we find that only FS can produce surface and bottom crevasses that match radar sounding observations of crevasse width and height. We attribute the difference to the non- hydrostatic conditions of ice near the grounding line, which facilitate crevasse formation and are not accounted for in HO and SSA. Additional experiments using FS indicate that iceberg calving is significantly enhanced when surface crevasses exist near the grounding line, when ice shelf is shortened, or when the ice shelf front is undercut. We conclude that FS yields substantial improvements in the description of ice flow dynamics at the grounding line under high basal melt rate and in constraining crevasse formation and iceberg calving.
Capturing Complexities of Relationship‐Level Family Planning Trajectories in Malawi

In a transitioning fertility climate, preferences and decisions surrounding family planning are constantly in flux. Malawi provides an ideal case study of family planning complexities as fertility preferences are flexible, the relationship context is unstable, and childbearing begins early. I use intensive longitudinal data from Tsogolo la Thanzi-a research project in Malawi that follows young adults in romantic partnerships through the course of their relationship. I examine two questions: (1) What are the typical patterns of family planning as young adults transition through a relationship? (2) How are family planning trajectories related to individual and relationship-level characteristics? I use sequence analysis to order family planning across time and to contextualize it within each relationship. I generate and cluster the family planning trajectories and find six distinct groups of young adults who engage in family planning in similar ways. I find that family planning is complex, dynamic, and unique to each relationship. I argue that (a) family planning research should use the relationship as the unit of analysis and (b) family planning behaviors and preferences should be sequenced over time for a better understanding of key concepts, such as unmet need.
Cognitive decline associated with pathological burden in primary age-related tauopathy

Abstract Introduction Primary age-related tauopathy (PART) is a neuropathological diagnosis characterized by tau neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) in the absence of amyloid plaque pathology. Although most individuals over 50 years of age have evidence of NFTs, the clinical and cognitive consequences of PART are not known. Methods We evaluated 226 neuropathologically confirmed PART cases from the National Alzheimer's Coordinating Center database who participated in a total of 846 longitudinal neuropsychological assessments from the Alzheimer's Disease Center program‘s Uniform Data Set. Mixed-effects statistical models tested whether cognitive decline was associated with Braak stage NFT burden. Results Higher stages of NFT burden in PART, with no evidence or minimal evidence of amyloid pathology, were associated with more rapid decline on tasks involving episodic and semantic memory along with tests of processing speed and attention. Discussion We conclude that PART has cognitive consequences that should be considered in the context of emerging tau-targeted therapies in age-associated neurodegenerative diseases.
SparQs: Visual Analytics for Sparking Creativity in Social Media Exploration

Social media has become a fruitful platform on which to study human behavior and social phenomena. However, social media data are usually messy, disorganized, and noisy, which makes finding patterns in such data a challenging task. Visualization can help with the exploration of such massive data. Researchers studying social media often begin by reviewing related research. In this paper, we consider the idea that information from related research can be incorporated into social media visualization tools in order to spark creativity and guide exploration. To develop an effective overview of social media research with which to seed our tool, we conducted a content analysis of social media related papers and designed SparQs, a visual analytics tool to spark creativity in social media exploration. We conducted a pilot evaluation with three social media researchers as well as a participatory design workshop to explore further directions.
Sleep characteristics and risk of dementia and Alzheimer's disease: The Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study

Abstract Introduction This study tested the hypotheses that late-midlife obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and short and long sleep duration are associated with dementia for more than 15 years of follow-up. Methods A total of 1667 Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study participants underwent in-home polysomnography (1996–1998) and were followed for dementia. Dementia was defined by (1) hospitalization diagnosis codes (1996–2012) and (2) a comprehensive neurocognitive examination (2011–2013) with adjudication. Results OSA and sleep duration were not associated with risk of incident dementia. When using adjudicated outcomes, severe OSA (≥30 vs. Discussion When adjudicated outcome definitions were used, late-midlife OSA and short sleep duration were associated with all-cause and Alzheimer's disease dementia in later life.
Epigenetic Age Acceleration Assessed In White-Matter Integrity: Towards A Biomarker of Successfully Brain Aging

Background Biological age acceleration as measured by aggregate epigenetic markers has been associated with a number of phenotypes including Parkinson’s, obesity and physical fitness in the elderly. Additionally, epigenetic indices of age acceleration are touted as molecular biomarkers of brain aging, based on findings linking epigenetic age of prefrontal cortex tissue with Alzheimer’s-related phenotypes. Yet, in order to develop a clinically useful brain age acceleration biomarker, peripheral tissue, rather than neural tissue, is preferable. Likewise, in vivo neuroimaging measures are desirable. To that end, we examined the relationship between blood-derived epigenetic measures of age acceleration and white matter integrity, as indexed with diffusion weighted imaging (DWI), in a large randomly ascertained family cohort. Our goal was to investigate processes that underlie inter-individual variability in age-related changes in the white matter tracts. DWI measures of white mater integrity are among the most sensitive imaging measures of aging with demonstrated heritabilities. Methods Using blood DNA methylation data taken from a Mexican-American extended pedigree sample (n=634; mean age=49.16y, range 28.11y-97.52y), epigenetic age was estimated using the method developed by S. Horvath (2013). Epigenetic age acceleration was calculated as epigenetic age regressed upon age, sex, age x sex, age2, age2 x sex, and blood cell count estimates. 379 of these individuals had available DWI scans collected on a Siemens 3T Trio MRI located at the Research Imaging Institute, UTHSCSA. An average fractional anisotropy (FA) map was derived for each subject and skeletonized using the TBSS algorithm, providing FA measures for each of 16 white matter tracts and a global index. Variance decomposition methods were then used to investigate the interrelationship between epigenetic age acceleration and white matter integrity and identify genetic influences on these two phenotypes. Results Consistent with previous reports, both epigenetic age acceleration and white matter integrity measures are heritable in this sample. We observe significant (FDR Discussion Here we demonstrate that age acceleration, as measured via methylation profiles from peripheral blood, is significantly correlated with white matter integrity in a number of tracts within the brain. We also demonstrate evidence of shared genetic influences acting on both age acceleration and white matter integrity. These findings provide an interesting window into the neurobiology of aging processes within the brain and a potential new biomarker of normal and pathological brain aging.
ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF MILLET PRODUCTION IN GAMAWA LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF BAUCHI STATE, NIGERIA

Millet is an important cereal crop grown and consumed in the drier region of Nigeria. The aim of this study is to assess the profitability and factors affecting the output of millet farmers in Gammawa Local Government Area of Bauchi State. Primary data were obtained through the use of structured questionnaire administered randomly on ninety millet farmers. The data were subjected to descriptive, gross margin and multiple regression analyses. The results show that millet production is a viable enterprise in the study area. The average cost per hectare is N8,776.69 while the average gross income per hectare is N18,920. Multiple regression analysis reveals that farm size, amount spent on hired labour and family labour (man day) are the significant factors affecting the millet farmers' output in the study area. The coefficient of determination (R2 ) shows that these variables accounted for 88% of the variations in the output of milletfarmers. Problems/acing millet farmers in the area include high cost of farm inputs, shortage of labour and poor extension services. Appropriate recommendations were given towards empowering the millet farmers for higher output
Tidbits on tunable analog filters and image demosaicing

This is a somewhat unusual paper. It combines some history of the author's personal experiences with Prof. Sanjit Mitra with a couple of examples of the author's work, in which the author feels that Prof. Mitra's work and approaches towards research and impact have had a significant influence.
Timing of Furlow Palatoplasty for Patients With Submucous Cleft Palate

Background:Submucous cleft palate (SMCP) is the most common form of cleft involving the posterior palate, resulting in variable degrees of velar dysfunction and speech disturbance. Although early s...
Dose-response relationships between internally-deposited uranium and select health outcomes in gaseous diffusion plant workers, 1948-2011.

Objective To examine dose-response relationships between internal uranium exposures and select outcomes among a cohort of uranium enrichment workers. Methods Cox regression was conducted to examine associations between selected health outcomes and cumulative internal uranium with consideration for external ionizing radiation, work-related medical X-rays and contaminant radionuclides technetium (99 Tc) and plutonium (239 Pu) as potential confounders. Results Elevated and monotonically increasing mortality risks were observed for kidney cancer, chronic renal diseases, and multiple myeloma, and the association with internal uranium absorbed organ dose was statistically significant for multiple myeloma. Adjustment for potential confounders had minimal impact on the risk estimates. Conclusion Kidney cancer, chronic renal disease, and multiple myeloma mortality risks were elevated with increasing internal uranium absorbed organ dose. The findings add to evidence of an association between internal exposure to uranium and cancer. Future investigation includes a study of cancer incidence in this cohort.
Monitoring a photovoltaic system during the partial solar eclipse of August 2017

The power output of a 4.85 kW residential photovoltaic (PV) system located in Rochester, NY is monitored during the partial solar eclipse of August 21, 2017. The data is compared with the data on a day before and on the same day, a year ago. The area of exposed solar disk is measured using astrophotography every 16 s of the eclipse. Global solar irradiance is estimated using the eclipse shading, time of the day, location coordinates, atmospheric conditions and panel orientation. A sharp decline, as expected in the energy produced is observed at the time of the peak of the eclipse. The observed data of the PV energy produced is related with the model calculations taking into account solar eclipse coverage and cloudiness conditions. The paper provides a cohesive approach of irradiance calculations and obtaining anticipated PV performance.
Alternative Pathways of Signal Transduction after Ligation of the TCR by Bacterial Superantigen

The development of mature T-cell subsets can be divided into several critical steps beginning in the thymus and continuing in peripheral lymphoid tissues. Ligation of the surface αβ receptor on CD4+8+ cells can result in survival (positive selection) (Benoist & Mathis, 1989) and further maturation along either the CD4/helper pathway or CD8/cytotoxic pathway. Clones that escape intrathymic deletion following TCR ligation by MHC/self peptide complexes on dendritic cells may migrate to the periphery, where subsequent TCR ligation can result in clonal energy or in expression of specialized T-cell function (Schwartz, R. 1990; Whiteley et al, 1990). In the case of CD4+ TH cells, ligation of the TCR may lead to alternative functional phenotypes associated with different patterns of cytokine gene expression The TCR-linked signalling events responsible for acquisition of these successive alternative phenotypes during the development of T-cells are not understood.
Pesticide Residue Regulation

Publisher Summary The chapter describes the pesticide regulatory scheme in the United States, relating to the Codex Alimentarius Commission, which is an international body concerned with the development of international food standards, including maximum limits for pesticide residues in food. In the U.S., the use of pesticides and the establishment of pesticide tolerances are governed by two laws. The use of the pesticides is governed by the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act. Under this law, all pesticides must be registered with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) prior to the distribution or sale. Pesticide residue tolerances, that is, the maximum residue concentration legally allowed for a specific pesticide are established by the EPA under the provisions of the Federal, Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. While these are two separate laws, in practical effect their provisions are intertwined for the purposes of regulating pesticide residues in food. If the use of a pesticide may reasonably be expected to result, directly or indirectly, in residues in food, a tolerance or exemption from a tolerance must have been obtained before the pesticide may be registered. In the registration process, the regulatory agency must pass upon all aspects of the use of the pesticide, including dosage rates, methods of application, and pre-harvest intervals, to ensure that any residues are within the tolerance limits.
Legal rights, national culture and social networks: Exploring the uneven adoption of United Nations Global Compact

Abstract We develop and test a novel framework for explaining cross-country differences in corporate participation in a prominent initiative often associated with social responsibility, United Nations Global Compact (UNGC). Drawing upon neo-institutional and cross-country comparative literatures, we explore the impact of (a) stakeholder legal rights; (b) national culture, and (c) the country's social network position, as reflected by international trade patterns. Results suggest that firms from countries with strong labor rights, collectivist cultures, and long traditions of stock trading join UNGC at higher rates. Our framework can be modified for future cross-country research on the adoption of practices.
A Service Program for Safe-Home Children

The authors describe an innovative program that provides services to women who have been battered and to their children. The program serves women and children in community-based safe homes for up t...
Distributions of MOE and MOR in a full lumber population

Reliability calculations for lumber products ultimately depend on the statistical distributions that we use to model lumber stiffness and strength. Fits of statistical distributions to empirical data allow researchers to estimate the probability of failure in service. For these fits to be useful, the theoretical statistical distributions must be good matches for the empirical lumber property populations. It has been common practice to assume that the MOE of a grade of lumber is well-fit by a normal distribution, and the MOR of a grade of lumber is well-fit by a normal, lognormal, or two-parameter Weibull distribution. Recent theoretical results and empirical tests have cast significant doubt on these assumptions. The exact implications of the theoretical results depend on the distributions of full (mill-run) MOE and MOR populations. Mill-run data have not yet appeared in the literature. Instead, studies have focused on subpopulations formed by visual or machine stress rated (MSR) grades of lumber. To better understand the implications of the recent theoretical results, we have investigated the statistical distributions of mill-run MOE and MOR data. An ungraded mill-run sample of 200 southern pine 24 s produced at a single mill on a single day was subjected to both nondestructive (transverse vibration and longitudinal stress wave) evaluation and static bending tests to determine its MOE and MOR values. Various distributions were fit to the MOE and MOR data and evaluated for goodness-of-fit. The results suggest that mill-run MOE might be adequately modeled by a normal distribution or a mixture of two normal distributions, mill-run MOR might be adequately modeled by a skew normal distribution or a mixture of two normals, and neither mill-run MOE nor mill-run MOR is well-fit by a Weibull distribution.
Quantitative trait loci mapped for TCF21 binding, chromatin accessibility and chromosomal looping in coronary artery smooth muscle cells reveal molecular mechanisms of coronary disease loci

Abstract Background To investigate the epigenetic and transcriptional mechanisms of coronary artery disease (CAD) risk, as well as the functional regulation of chromatin structure and function, we have created a catalog of genetic variants associated with three stages of transcriptional cis-regulation in primary human coronary artery vascular smooth muscle cells (HCASMC). Results To this end, we have used a pooling approach with HCASMC lines to map regulatory variation that mediates binding of the CAD associated transcription factor TCF21 with ChIPseq studies (bQTLs), variation that regulates chromatin accessibility with ATACseq studies (caQTLs), and chromosomal looping with HiC methods (clQTLs). We show significant overlap of the QTLs, and their relationship to smooth muscle specific genes and the binding of smooth muscle transcription factors. Further, we use multiple analyses to show that these QTLs are highly associated with CAD GWAS loci and correlated to lead SNPs in these loci where they show allelic effects. We have verified with genome editing that identified functional variants can regulate both chromatin accessibility and chromosomal looping, providing new insights into functional mechanisms regulating chromatin state and chromosomal structure. Finally, we directly link the disease associated TGFβ1-SMAD3 pathway to the CAD associated FN1 gene through a response QTL that modulates both chromatin accessibility and chromosomal looping. Conclusions Together, these studies represent the most thorough mapping of multiple QTL types in a highly disease relevant primary cultured cell type, and provide novel insights into their functional overlap and mechanisms that underlie these genomic features and their relationship to disease risk.
Why mentor? A validation study of the volunteer functions inventory for use in youth mentoring.

This study explores the functional motivations of volunteers in youth mentoring programs and tests the validity of the Volunteer Functions Inventory (VFI) for this population. Participants included 473 volunteer mentors matched within a one-to-one mentoring program. The study utilizes a mixed-methods approach to validate the VFI, which was administered before the match. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were employed to test for content validity and determine fit. These were complemented by an emergent theme analysis from a semi-structured interview, which included questions assessing mentor motivations. Findings suggest a five-factor structure model best captures functional motivations. In addition, results from the qualitative analysis suggest there may be previously unexplored domains to consider for contemporary volunteer populations. These include community/civic responsibility, organizational structure and reputation, and self-concept. Future research should seek to refine scales that are uniquely predictive of mentor motivations to expand practical applications for use.
Expanding the positive utility of travel through weeklong tracking: Within-person and multi-environment variability of ideal travel time

Abstract Travel has been found to have a positive utility—often measured as a desire for non-zero travel time. Although past studies have found that desired travel time varies by trip attributes, they often focused on a single trip purpose (e.g., commute) or single time point (e.g., peak period of one day) and rarely captured variation within individuals and across multiple travel environments. To address these limitations, we employed a smartphone-based travel behavior survey of 186 users making 4397 trips in the Washington, DC, and Blacksburg, VA metropolitan areas. For each user, multiple trips were recorded and the user was asked to repeatedly report on the ideal travel time for each trip. We found that desired travel time varied across different trip environmental characteristics and purposes. Ideal travel time was longer for active travel trips, leisure trips, weekend trips, and when the user conducted activities during trips (e.g., talking, using the phone, looking at the landscape) and traveled with companions. Our study suggests the need for more realistic estimation of the value of travel time savings and the need for quantifying the effect of multitasking during travel on people's willingness to reduce travel time. Practitioners should also consider providing better urban infrastructure for pedestrians and bicyclists to fulfill their trips, as their ideal travel times closely match actual travel times.
Analysis on the survey results of iodine content in drinking water in Chongqing, 2017

Objective To understand the distribution of iodine content in drinking water of residents in Chongqing. Methods In 2017, according to the "Technical Plan for the Investigation of Iodine Content of Drinking Water in Chongqing", surveys on water iodine content, water source type, well depth and geographical situation were carried out in 38 districts (counties) and Wansheng Economic and Technological Development Zone in Chongqing, with township (town, street office) as a survey unit. Among them, the township (town, street office) with the median of water iodine > 10 μg/L was investigated with a administrative village (residential committee) as a survey unit. The "Method for Iodine Detection in Iodine-deficient and High-iodine Areas" recommended by the National Iodine Deficiency Disease Reference Laboratory was adopted for water iodine detection. The water iodine contents of different water source types, different well depths and different areas were compared and analyzed. Results In 2017, a total of 17 584 water samples were collected in Chongqing. The median of water iodine was 1.7 μg/L, ranging from 0.2 to 124.0 μg/L, with the content 100 μg/L accounted for 0.01% (2/17 584). Among the 1 023 townships (towns, street offices), 1 020 townships (towns, street offices) were water iodine < 10 μg/L, and 3 townships (towns, street offices) were water iodine in 10-100 μg/L, they were Anfu Street (25.8 μg/L), Qingsheng Town (11.8 μg/L) and Longji Town (31.0 μg/L) of Rongchang District. The differences of iodine content between deep well water, tap water andshallow well water (4.2, 1.5, 1.2 μg/L) were statistically significant (H=2 008.4, P < 0.01). There was a positive correlation between well depth and water iodine (r=0.298, P < 0.01). The medians of water iodine in main, northeast, southeast, and western areas were 1.8, 0.8, 1.1 and 3.7 μg/L, respectively, and the differences of water iodine content between different regions were statistically significant (H=4 080.5, P < 0.01). The water iodine contents of northeast and southeast areas (both were mountainous areas) were relatively low. Conclusions Chongqing is an iodine deficiency area. In most areas, the iodine content of drinking water is low, and the risk of iodine deficiency in mountainous areas is greater than that in other areas. Key words: Drinking water; Iodine; Deficiency diseases
Redox-active DJ-1 sustains brainstem cardiovascular regulation via maintenance of mitochondrial function during mevinphos intoxication.

Abstract DJ-1 (also known as PARK7) is a redox-active protein that protects against oxidative stress. This study evaluated the hypothesis that DJ-1 sustains brainstem cardiovascular regulation via maintaining mitochondrial function in the rostral ventrolateral medulla (RVLM), a brainstem site known to maintain blood pressure and sympathetic vasomotor tone, during cardiovascular depression elicited by the organophosphate insecticide mevinphos. In Sprague–Dawley rats, intravenous administration of mevinphos (640 μg kg−1) resulted in progressive hypotension, accompanied by an increase (Phase I) followed by a decrease (Phase II) of an experimental index for spontaneous baroreflex-mediated sympathetic vasomotor tone, alongside elevation in mitochondrial superoxide levels in the RVLM. There was concurrent activation of DJ-1 induced by oxidative stress in the RVLM, which was causally and temporally related to translocation of DJ-1 to mitochondria, reduction in mitochondrial membrane potential, increase in cytosolic apoptosis-inducing factor level, and apoptotic cell death in this brainstem site. Loss-of-function by immunoneutralization of DJ-1 in the RVLM significantly exacerbated those biochemical and cellular events, enhanced the progressive hypotension, diminished the increased and augmented the decreased spontaneous baroreflex-mediated sympathetic vasomotor tone respectively during Phases I and II, and heightened lethality during mevinphos intoxication. We conclude that DJ-1 in the RVLM sustains brainstem cardiovascular regulation induced by mevinphos via maintaining mitochondrial function.