cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Votebox: a tamper-evident, verifiable voting machine

This thesis details the design and implementation of V OTEBOX, a new software platform for building and evaluating secure and reliable electronic voting machines. Current electronic voting systems have experienced many high-profile software, hardware, and usability failures in real elections. Recent research has revealed systemic flaws in commercial voting systems that can cause malfunctions, lose votes, and possibly even allow outsiders to influence the outcome of a national election. These failures and flaws cast doubt on the accuracy of elections conducted with electronic systems and threaten to undermine public trust in the electoral system. While some consequently argue for total abandonment of electronic voting, VOTEBOX shows how a combination of security, distributed systems, and cryptographic principles can yield trustworthy and usable voting systems. It employs a pre-rendered user interface to reduce the size of the runtime system that must be absolutely trusted. VOTE BOX machines keep secure logs of essential election events, allowing credible audits during or after the election; they are connected using the Auditorium, a novel peer-to-peer network that replicates and intertwines secure logs in order to survive failure, attack, and poll worker error. While the election is ongoing, any voter may choose to challenge a VOTEB OX to immediately produce cryptographic proof that it will correctly and faithfully cast ballots. This work uniquely demonstrates how these disparate approaches can be used in concert to increase assurance in a voting system; the resulting design also offers a number of pragmatic benefits that can help reduce the frequency and impact of poll worker or voter errors. VOTEBOX is a model for new implementations, but its component techniques can be practically applied to existing systems. VOTEBOX ideas should therefore find their way into commercial electronic voting machines as well as other problem domains in which tamper-evidence, robustness, and verifiability are crucial.
Community and hospital-based physicians' attitudes regarding pediatric hospitalist systems.

Objective. Pediatric hospitalist systems are being implemented widely. Their implementation may be influenced by physician attitudes, which may vary according to practice type (eg, community or hospital-based practice) and personal characteristics (eg, age and practice location). Little evidence exists to describe factors relevant to pediatric systems. The objective of this study was to determine physicians9 attitudes regarding hospitalists and associated physician and practice characteristics. Methods. We used a cross-sectional survey of all physicians with admitting privileges at a tertiary-care, pediatric, teaching hospital in the Intermountain West in April 2002. Outcomes included survey responses indicating attitudes toward the effects of the hospitalist system on quality of care, patient satisfaction, and teaching. Results. A total of 313 of 368 physicians (85%) responded, 191 of whom (61%) were community physicians; 224 respondents (72%) spent the majority of their time in outpatient care. Community physicians more often characterized inpatient care as an inefficient use of time (45% vs 25%) but were less likely to think that hospitalists would improve the quality of care (49% vs 68%) or increase patient satisfaction (10% vs 30%). In multivariate models examining predictors of overall attitudes toward hospitalists, being a community physician (6.4 points more negative) and admitting patients at >1 hospital (3.3 points more negative) were associated with less favorable attitudes. Being 13 miles from the hospital (4.3 points more positive) were associated with more positive attitudes. Conclusions. Attitudes regarding hospitalist systems differ between physician groups and are influenced by practice characteristics. Understanding these differences and tailoring hospitalist systems to address them will be important as pediatric hospitalist systems are implemented nationwide.
Requiem for a Regulator: The Office of Thrift Supervision's Performance During the Financial Crisis

We evaluate evidence reflecting the stability of our multi-regulator, charter-competitive system of financial regulation during the financial crisis in this symposium essay. Specifically, we compare thrifts to banks, charter-switchers to other thrifts and banks, and bailout recipients to non-bailout recipients to discover if any of these institutions did poorly when compared to their peers during the financial crisis. First, we compare publicly traded thrifts to publicly traded banks during 2008 - the critical year of the crisis - and find that thrifts fared only marginally worse than banks, if at all, during that year. This result modestly suggests that the multi-regulator regime, however illogical, did not concentrate instability in a particular industry subject to a weak regulator. Second, to evaluate the impact of competition for charters, we compare thrift and bank performance to those institutions that chose to switch regulators immediately before and during the financial crisis. We find no significant differences in returns among either institutions that converted their federal bank charters to federal thrift charters, or institutions that converted federal thrift charters to bank charters, although our samples of these institutions are small. Third, we examine the bailout propensity of these charter-switchers. Our results suggest that although institutions switching to thrift charters were big enough to receive bailout money from the government, they did not. Conversely, we find that institutions switching away from thrift charters received more bailout money than their size would suggest. Our final finding may suggest some (possibly misplaced) dissatisfaction with the performance of the federal thrift regulator among federal government officials, which may have contributed to the decision to eliminate it in the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act passed in the wake of the crisis.
Observations on the Zak Cholesterol Reaction: Glacial Acetic Acid Purity, a More Sensitive Absorbance Peak, and Bromide Enhancement

An examination of the absorbance spectrum of the Zak cholesterol reaction, made with two brands of commercially available reagent-grade glacial acetic acid, showed not only the expected peak at 560 mµ, but an additional, higher peak at about 490 mµ. A specially purified glacial acetic acid did not show this 490 mµ peak. Conversely, increasing the ratio of color reagent to glacial acetic acid from 0.8 to 1.2 (v/v) greatly increased the height of the absorbance peak at 480 mµ and eliminated the 560 mµ peak. Under optimum conditions of time and color-reagent concentrations, the 480 mµ peak affords approximately double the sensitivity for cholesterol as compared to the 560 mµ peak. Finally, it was observed that the reported interference of bromide and iodide ions in the Zak reaction results almost entirely from an enhancement effect on the color by the cholesterol itself, and that the addition of about 100 µg. NaBr per milliliter of glacial acetic acid prior to reaction produced the full enhancement of 50 per cent greater color, and virtually eliminated interference at 560 mµ from additional amounts of bromide or iodide salts.
Increased daily physical activity and fatigue symptoms in chronic fatigue syndrome

Individuals with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) have been shown to have reduced activity levels associated with heightened feelings of fatigue. Previous research has demonstrated that exercise training has beneficial effects on fatigue-related symptoms in individuals with CFS. The aim of this study was to sustain an increase in daily physical activity in CFS patients for 4 weeks and assess the effects on fatigue, muscle pain and overall mood. Six CFS and seven sedentary controls were studied. Daily activity was assessed by a CSA accelerometer. Following a two week baseline period, CFS subjects were asked to increase their daily physical activity by 30% over baseline by walking a prescribed amount each day for a period of four weeks. Fatigue, muscle pain and overall mood were reported daily using a 0 to 100 visual analog scale and weekly using the Profile of Mood States (Bipolar) questionnaire. CFS patients had significantly lower daily activity counts than controls (162.5 ± 51.7 × 103 counts/day vs. 267.2 ± 79.5 × 103 counts/day) during a 2-week baseline period. At baseline, the CFS patients reported significantly (P < 0.01) higher fatigue and muscle pain intensity compared to controls but the groups did not differ in overall mood. CFS subjects increased their daily activity by 28 ± 19.7% over a 4 week period. Overall mood and muscle pain worsened in the CFS patients with increased activity. CFS patients were able to increase their daily physical activity for a period of four weeks. In contrast to previous studies fatigue, muscle pain, and overall mood did not improve with increased activity. Increased activity was not presented as a treatment which may account for the differential findings between this and previous studies. The results suggest that a daily "activity limit" may exist in this population. Future studies on the impact of physical activity on the symptoms of CFS patients are needed.
“We'll dress him up in voices”: The rhetoric of disjunction in Troilus and Cressida

Disjunctions in Troilus are rhetorical strategies used to demonstrate what happens when language and ideals obscure human motivation and falsify people's understanding of their own and others' actions.
Achievable rates for queue-based timing stegocodes

This paper studies stegocodes for covert communication over timing channels. In a timing channel, the information resides in the packet interdeparture times as opposed to the packets themselves. The encoding procedure should preserve the statistics of the packet interarrival process. Our steganographic codes are based on two novel ideas namely, queue-based codes and Shannon's encoding functions for channels with causal side information at the transmitter. The embedding of information bits is done by a Geo/Geo/1 queue servicing the interarrival times. Shannon's theory of coding with causal side information at the transmitter is then used to study the queue-based stegocodes and their information-theoretic limits. Evaluating these limits for the Geo/Geo/1 queue is a formidable computational problem. An efficient algorithm is proposed to compute the maximum achievable rate of the queue-based stegocode and the optimal encoding functions.
The metabolism of 3-hydroxytyramine-1-C14 in brain tissue homogenates.

Homogenate aus Gehirn wurden mit 3-Hydroxytyramine-1-C14 inkubiert. Als Stoffwechselprodukt wurde aus der sauren Fraktion radioaktive 3,4-Dioxyphenylessigsaure isoliert. Aus der basischen Fraktion wurden drei radioaktive Zonen papierchromatographisch isoliert. Die erste Zone konnte noch nicht identifiziert werden. Die zweite wurde als 3-Hydroxytyramin und die dritte als 3-Methoxytyramin erkannt. Die mogliche Rolle der Stoffwechselprodukte von 3-Hydroxytyramin beim Parkinson-Syndrom wird diskutiert.
The pemphigus antigens

Abstract Pemphigus antigens are normal squamous epithelial tissue constituents that are identified by their reaction with autoantibodies found in the serum of patients with active pemphigus vulgaris or any of the other types of pemphigus ( i.e. , vegetans, erythematosus, and foliaceous). The characteristic lesion of pemphigus is epidermal suprabasilar cell-cell detachment (acantholysis). It is important to note that pemphigus antigens are present in the intercellular substance (ICS) of stratified squamous epithelia where this process of acantholysis occurs. There is increasing evidence that pemphigus antigens are heterogenous, but whether this heterogeneity is due to the existence of different antigen molecules or different antigenic determinants on the same molecule is not yet clear. The use of the word antigens in this article does not imply commitment or rejection of any of these alternative explanations.
A model for teaching and learning spinal thrust manipulation and its effect on participant confidence in technique performance.

Background: Despite emerging evidence to support the use of high velocity thrust manipulation in the management of lumbar spinal conditions, utilization of thrust manipulation among clinicians remains relatively low. One reason for the underutilization of these procedures may be related to disparity in training in the performance of these techniques at the professional and post professional levels.Purpose: To assess the effect of using a new model of active learning on participant confidence in the performance of spinal thrust manipulation and the implications for its use in the professional and post-professional training of physical therapists.Methods: A cohort of 15 DPT students in their final semester of entry-level professional training participated in an active training session emphasizing a sequential partial task practice (SPTP) strategy in which participants engaged in partial task practice over several repetitions with different partners. Participants’ level of confidence in the performance of th...
Recurrent backpropagation and the dynamical approach to adaptive neural computation

Error backpropagation in feedforward neural network models is a popular learning algorithm that has its roots in nonlinear estimation and optimization. It is being used routinely to calculate error gradients in nonlinear systems with hundreds of thousands of parameters. However, the classical architecture for backpropagation has severe restrictions. The extension of backpropagation to networks with recurrent connections will be reviewed. It is now possible to efficiently compute the error gradients for networks that have temporal dynamics, which opens applications to a host of problems in systems identification and control.
Zeolite ZSM-5 membranes grown on porous α-Al2O3

ZSM-5 membranes with good permeation selectivity for n-butane–isobutane are grown hydrothermally from a clear solution on horizontally-held porous α-Al2O3 disks.
The prime ideal structure of the Minkowski ring of polytopes

Abstract We examine the subrings of the Minkowski ring which are generated by finitely many polytopes. Such a ring is the homomorphic image of the ring of polynomials in a finite number of variables with coefficients in Z . We relate the prime ideal structure of this ring to the rational relations on the vertices of the polytopes.
Morphological correlates of permeability in the frog perineurium: vesicles and "transcellular channels".

Lanthanum, applied to the outside of the fixed sciatic nerve of Rana pipiens, did not enter the endoneurium, but was halted by functionally tight junctions at the inner layers of the perineurium. This component of the bloodnerve barrier consists of several concentric layers of cells interspersed with an extracellular matrix of amorphous ground substance, collagen fibrils, and fine filaments. Numerous vesicular profiles are closely associated with the surface membranes of all the cells. The application of lanthanum to fixed tissue revealed that these profiles are attached to the cell surface by narrow necks, and open to the extracellular space. The attenuated cells are filled by the vesicular structures, which often appear to overlap. Stereoscopic electron microscopy showed that these vesicles did not fuse with each other or with the apposing cell surface to form transcellular channels. Channel formation does not appear to contribute significantly to the permeability of any of the perineurial layers.
The Big Board: teleconferencing over high-res maps with Haskell

A public emergency is the ultimate example of multitasking and collaboration over a wide area. Crowd control, first aid, fire, police, and search and rescue teams all have to provide a timely and coordinated response to save lives and property. This requires situational awareness, meaning that emergency managers know what and where their resources are on the ground, and what the ground's features are. Managers who direct emergency operations centers have few technological tools to help them with these complicated, critical tasks. They are, in fact, still largely paper based.The Big Board aids in filling this technological gap by providing aerial photography, facility for dynamic, geo-referenced content creation, and a mechanism for simulcasting the content to everyone participating in the management of an emergency. The goal is that it should give emergency managers a reliable and flexible way to coordinate on their most natural medium (maps), be as easy to use as pen and paper, quick to train a new user on, and able to run in many environments, some quite technologically out of date.In The Big Board, users open a map, join a virtual conference room, and then can collaboratively mark up the map with paths, polygons, and placemarks and add content behind these using a wiki that is generated as part of every conference room. As they mark up the map, their annotations are simulcasted to everyone else in the same conference room. Additionally, web-services serving geo-referenced content can be integrated onto the map to overlay things such as real-time vehicle location and sensor data.This application has been written from the ground up in Haskell, with a PostGIS backend. Haskell was chosen for its laziness, reliability of applications written in it, rapid development, multicore scalability, and native compilation. In this presentation I will describe:•The Big Board, who's using it, and where we're going with it.•The requirements of it, and how Haskell fulfills these requirements better than the alternatives.•A high level overview of the application's structure.•The challenges and advantages of functional design in such a large application.•How the design led naturally to two reusable, publicly available libraries now in Hackage: Buster (FRP for application orchestration) and Hieroglyph (for functional 2D vector-graphics).I will also give a demonstration of the application running, showing how it can be used to coordinate a disaster response.
Genetic heuristics in optimization problems (abstract)

In this work we investigate different heuristics for solving NP-hard problems. These heuristics explore the solution space in a parallel fashion, attempting to converge to an optimal solution by mimicking the way natural selection and genetics favor the fittest candidates. These randomized, but not directionless, search procedures were developed and labeled genetic algorithms by John Holland.We apply the heuristics to various classical optimization problems, including the knapsack problem and the maximum cut problem. The latter consists of partitioning the set V of vertices of a graph G = (V, E) into two disjoint sets V1 and V2 such that the sum of the weights of the edges from E that have one endpoint in V1 and the other in V2, is maximized.Starting with a randomly chosen initial population, the genetic algorithm will move from one generation to a better one by using the operations of reproduction, crossover and mutation. We investigate and compare different crossover techniques. The survival of well fit individuals is based on the computation of a fitness function which is closely related to the objective function in the optimization problem. This study considers and compares various fitness functions. We thus make use of a fitness function that penalizes overfilled knapsacks for instance. We conclude this work by giving a few suggestions on the use of genetic algorithms in combinatorial optimization problems.
Natural convection in a volumetrically heated fluid layer at high rayleigh numbers

Abstract A phenomenological model of eddy heat transport in natural convection with volumetric energy sources at high Rayleigh numbers is developed in this study. The model is applied to the problem of thermal convection in a horizontal heated fluid layer with an adiabatic lower boundary and an isothermal upper wall. A correlation for mean Nusselt numbers is obtained for steady heat transfer. Distributions of the mean turbulent temperature, the eddy heat flux, and production of thermal variance in the heated fluid are presented. The mechanism of turbulent thermal convection at high Rayleigh numbers is discussed. Comparison is made with existing experiments and found to be good.
Improved Nonadiabatic Ground-State Energy Upper Bound for Dihydrogen

A new, highly accurate, value for the nonadiabatic energy of the dihydrogen ground state is reported, ( $\ensuremath{-}1.1640250232$ hartree). The calculations were performed with a direct nonadiabatic variational approach using a new correlated Gaussian basis set including powers of the internuclear distance.
An integrated North Florida dairy farm model to reduce environmental impacts under seasonal climate variability

Dairies are challenged to comply with stricter environmental regulations and remain economically viable. This paper studies the potential use of ENSO-based climate forecasts to reduce N leaching without reducing profits on North Florida dairies. A model was created to perform the analyses, the Dynamic North Florida Dairy Farm Model (DyNoFlo). DyNoFlo is an integrated dynamic model that incorporates Markov-chain simulation of cow flows and crop model simulations for historical climatic years (El Nino, La Nina, and Neutral years). It also includes optimization of managerial options. It responds to dairy-specific environment (climate and soils) and management (livestock management, waste management, crop systems management). The DyNoFlo model was designed to be a tool for producers, regulatory agencies, and extension services in addition to a research tool. Analyzing a typical North Florida dairy farm, it was found that N leaching was highest during winter El Nino years. Sandy soils were substantially more prone to leach N, and perennial grasses were better to prevent N leaching. The typical farm could decrease N leaching up to 23% in an El Nino year and still maintain profit by adjusting protein in the diet, confinement time for milking cows, and combining perennial grasses and forages in pastures and sprayfields. Application of the DyNoFlo model to small, medium, and large dairy farms showed that they could decrease their N leaching by 9, 20, and 25%, respectively, without reducing profits by varying management strategies according to ENSO phases.
Observation of self-assembled periodic nano-structures induced by femtosecond laser in both ablation and deposition regimes

We observed the spontaneous formation of periodic nano-structures in both femtosecond laser ablation and deposition. The former involved 400-nm femtosecond pulses from a 250-KHz regenerated amplified mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser and periodic nanocracks and the nano-structure are in the form of periodic nanocracks in the substrate, the latter applied an 80-MHz mode-locked Ti:sapphire oscillator with pulse energy less than half nanojoule in a laser-induced chemical vapor deposition configuration and tungsten nanogratings grow heterogeneously on top of the substrates. These two observed periodic nanostructures have opposite orientations respecting to laser polarization: the periodic nanocracks are perpendicular to, whereas the deposited tungsten nanogratings are parallel to laser polarization direction. By translating the substrate respecting to the laser focus, both the periodic nanocrack and tungsten nanograting extend to the whole scanning range. The deposited tungsten nanogratings possess excellent uniformity on both the grating period and tooth length. Both the attributes can be tuned precisely by controlling the laser power and scanning speed. Furthermore, we discovered that the teeth of transverse tungsten nanogratings are self aligned along their axial direction during multiple scanning with appropriate offset between scans. We demonstrate the feasibility of fabricating large-area one-dimensional grating by exploiting such unique property. These distinct phenomena of nanocracks and tungsten nanogratings indicate different responsible mechanisms.
Giant growth-plane optical anisotropy in wurtzite InN/GaN disk-in-wire structures

Abstract Using a combination of valence force-field molecular mechanics, 20-band sp3d5s∗ atomistic tight-binding approach, and appropriate post-processing tools, we have studied the origin and nature of optical polarization anisotropy in semiconducting GaN/InN/GaN disk-in-wire structures having wurtzite crystal symmetry and varying InN disk thicknesses. True atomistic symmetry due to the presence of strong internal fields, coupled with quantum mechanical size quantization effects, results in unconventional characteristics in the electronic structure related to non-degeneracy in the excited P states and rotation (symmetry lowering) in the wavefunctions. The optical polarization ratio projected on the XY (growth) plane and, in particular, the transition rates have been shown to be strongly dependent on the crystal internal fields and the thickness of the InN disk.
Women in American Law: The Struggle Toward Equality from the New Deal to the Present

In a lively, engaged style and from an informed feminist perspective, Judith Baer presents us with one of the most comprehensive and provocative up-to-date accounts on women's legal status in contemporary American society. This revised and expanded volume features new discussions on constitutional law (including the United States v. Virginia [VMI case]), sexual harassment (the Paula Jones case, same-sex harassment, employer responsibility, and harassment in schools), child custody (examines the shift toward presumption in favour of the primary caregiver and includes an updated treatment of the father's rights movement), advances in reproductive technology, the impact of ""new federalism"" in the Supreme Court (including the United States v. Morrison [VAWA Case]), and the effects of war and recession on women's status.
A noise induced transition in the deformation of metals

We introduce a simple stochastic model that describes the dynamics of the recovery of dislocations in dislocation cell walls in stage III deformation in fcc metals. The stage II/III transition is identified as a break between walls with well-defined populations and those with power law distributions.
Stress, NPY and vascular remodeling: Implications for stress-related diseases

Neuropeptide Y (NPY) has long been known to be involved in stress, centrally as an anxiolytic neuromodulator, and peripherally as a sympathetic nerve- and in some species, platelet-derived vasoconstrictor. The peptide is also a vascular mitogen, via Y1/Y5, and is angiogenic via Y2/Y5 receptors. Arterial injury activates platelet NPY and vascular Y1 receptors, inducing medial hypertrophy and neointima formation. Exogenous NPY, dipeptidyl peptidase IV (DPPIV, forming an Y2/Y5-selective agonist) and chronic stress augment these effects and occlude vessels with atherosclerotic-like lesions, containing thrombus and lipid-laden macrophages. Y1 antagonist blocks stress-induced vasoconstriction and post-angioplasty occlusions, and hence may be therapeutic in angina and atherosclerosis/restenosis. Conversely, tissue ischemia activates neuronal and platelet-derived NPY, Y2/Y5 and DPPIV, which stimulate angiogenesis/arteriogenesis. NPY-Y2-DPPIV agonists may be beneficial for ischemic revascularization and wound healing, whereas antagonists may be therapeutic in retinopathy, tumors, and obesity. Since stress is an underestimated risk factor in many of these conditions, NPY-based drugs may offer new treatment possibilities.
Silicon photodetector structure for direct coupling of optical fibers to integrated circuits

A novel detector structure exhibiting real-estate efficient coupling of optical fibers to semiconductor devices is described. The integrated fiber-optic coupler employs vertical insertion of a tapered single-mode fiber into a laser-etched cylindrical hole in the substrate. It features a small surface footprint, mechanical stability, and accurate alignment. Fabricated in silicon, the p-n junction detectors have typically shown responsivities of 0.23 A/W at 0.63 µm, corresponding to a quantum efficiency of 45 percent, and dark currents below 1 nA.
Protease Power Strokes Force Proteins to Unfold

ATP-dependent proteases degrade proteins in the cytosol of cells. Two recent articles, by Aubin-Tam et al. (2011) and Maillard et al. (2011 [this issue]), use single-molecule optical tweezers to show directly that these molecular machines use the energy derived from ATP hydrolysis to mechanically unfold and translocate its substrates into the proteolytic chamber.
Automatic spark counting of fast-neutron-induced recoil-particle tracks in polymer foils☆

Abstract It is shown that not only fission-fragment and alpha-particle tracks, but also heavy-recoil-particle tracks which are produced by direct fast-neutron interaction with organic foil (or foil cover) constituents can be counted automatically with the well-known automatic “spark-counting” technique. Extended etching of cellulose-nitrate and polycarbonate foils of 10 μm thickness to a point close to that at which electrical breakdown would occur in unexposed foils resulted in good counting efficiency for the recoil tracks. There is a pronounced increase in sensitivity with increasing neutron energy.
Performance of an aerodynamic particle separator

Abstract This compact, high-flow device aerodynamically separates small particles from a gas stream by a series of annular truncated airfoils. The operating concept, design and performance of this novel particle separator are described. Tests results using corn starch and post-cyclone coal fly ash are presented. Particle collection efficiencies of 90% for corn starch and 70% for coal fly ash were measured at inlet velocities of 80 ft s −1 (2700 cfm) and (6 inches) water pressure drop with particle loading up to 4 gr ft −3 in air at standard conditions. Results from computer modeling using FLUENT are presented and compared to the tests. The aerodynamic particle separator is an attractive alternative to a cyclone collector.
Managing Knowledge in a Changing Scientific Landscape: The Impact of Cyberinfrastructure

Motivating employees to share knowledge has been an ongoing challenge for organizations. In contrast, scientific and academic organizations have built reward systems around knowledge sharing. With the implementation of information and communication technologies and large-scale cyberinfrastructure initiatives, the nature of scientific knowledge sharing is evolving. Technology enables rapid dissemination of knowledge, yet institutions continue to build reward systems based on old models. The current paper describes research-in-progress to examine the skills, cultural shifts, and mindset changes necessary to capitalize on cyberinfrastructure for sharing scientific knowledge. Open-ended interview questions will be used to uncover the factors that are uniquely important in scientific knowledge sharing. While the research is focused on plant scientists who are involved with the iPlant collaborative, an NSF-funded project to build cyberinfrastructure to support research in the plant sciences, the results should be broadly applicable to large-scale technology-enabled science.
Use of Meta-Analysis for Testing Theory

Within the context of the general superiority of meta-analytic reviews over qualitative reviews, we emphasize the fragility of meta-analytic outcomes, especially when the effects of moderator variables remain unexamined. We consider the contribution to increased theoretical understanding made by moderator analyses both of methodological and substantive variables in psychological, health, and medical research. The potential contribution of meta-analysis to understanding the process underlying established relationships and to assessment of the convergent and discriminative construct validity of previously used concepts is discussed.
Organization and Alternate Splicing of the Murine Folylpolyglutamate Synthetase Gene DIFFERENT SPLICE VARIANTS IN L1210 CELLS ENCODE MITOCHONDRIAL OR CYTOSOLIC FORMS OF THE ENZYME

The organization of the murine folylpolyglutamate synthetase (FPGS) gene has been determined by sequence analysis that also revealed an interesting complexity in the case of exon 1. The entire nucleotide sequence of the L1210 FPGS cDNA, the 3'- and 5'-untranslated regions, the mitochondrial leader sequence, and the coding region were found to be distributed on 15 exons with an overall length of 10.358 kilobases. Two splice variants of exon 1 were identified by screening of an L1210 cell cDNA library. Variant I (exons 1a + 1b plus 2-15) incorporates all of the sequence homologous to the recently reported (Taylor, S. M., Freemantle, S. J., and Moran, R. G. (1995) Cancer Res. 55, 6030-6034) human exon 1, including two ATG start codons at positions +1 and +126, and encodes both mitochondrial and cytosolic form of FPGS. The most prevalent variant, Variant II (exons 1b plus 2 to 15), incorporates only a portion (92 nucleotides at the 3' end) of this sequence, incorporates only one ATG start codon at position +126, and encodes only cytosolic FPGS. The existence of this variant is consistent with the identification of an appropriately situated internal donor/acceptor site in what was believed to be exon 1. A third related variant (Variant III) with a novel 5' termini was originally identified by screening of a mouse liver cDNA library. This variant, which occurs at moderately low frequency in the L1210 cell cDNA library, incorporates an alternate to exon 1a (exon 1c) spliced to exon 1b plus exons 2-15 and encodes a different mitochondrial leader peptide than Variant I. The identification of these variants suggests another possible mechanism, i.e. at the level of precursor mRNA splicing, for regulating synthesis of mitochondrial versus cytosolic forms of FPGS in the cell. Exon 1c is positioned in the gene upstream of exon 1a separated by an intron of 56 nucleotides within a region of DNA sequence that like the homologous human sequence is distinctly promoter-like. However, the sequence of this region differs from the human sequence in terms of the number, position, and type of putative regulatory elements, particularly in regard to the number of SP-1 binding sites and the position of multiple transcription start sites as determined by enzymatic primer extension.
Efficacy and tolerability of celecoxib and naproxen versus placebo in Hispanic patients with knee osteoarthritis.

Background Celecoxib is an effective treatment for osteoarthritis (OA). However, information on its efficacy and safety profile in different racial/ethnic groups is limited. Noticeable differences among racial groups are found in other disease states, but a thorough investigation of OA is lacking. The objective of this study was to determine if celecoxib 200 mg once daily is as effective as naproxen 500 mg twice daily in the treatment of OA of the knee in Hispanic patients. Methods Hispanic patients aged ≥45 years with knee OA were randomized to receive celecoxib 200 mg once daily, naproxen 500 mg twice daily, or placebo for 6 weeks. The primary efficacy variable was the change in Patient's Assessment of Arthritis Pain at 6 weeks compared with baseline. Secondary variables were change in Patient's and Physician's Global Assessments of Arthritis from baseline to week 6/early termination, change in Western Ontario and McMaster Universities OA Index (WOMAC) from baseline to week 6/early termination, change in American Pain Society pain score, Pain Satisfaction Scale, Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), and measurements of upper gastrointestinal tolerability. Results In total, 239 patients completed the trial (96 celecoxib, 96 naproxen, 47 placebo). Celecoxib was as effective as naproxen in reducing OA pain (least squares mean change from baseline [standard error] -39.7 [2.7] for celecoxib and -36.9 [2.6] for naproxen). Patient's and Physician's Global Assessments of Arthritis, WOMAC scores, upper gastrointestinal tolerability, Pain Satisfaction Scale, and PHQ-9 showed no statistically significant differences between the celecoxib and naproxen groups. The incidence of adverse events and treatment-related adverse events were similar among the treatment groups. Conclusion Celecoxib 200 mg once daily was as effective as naproxen 500 mg twice daily in the treatment of signs and symptoms of knee OA in Hispanic patients. Celecoxib was shown to be safe and well tolerated in this patient population.
Reconstitution of huPBL-NSG Mice with Donor-Matched Dendritic Cells Enables Antigen-Specific T-cell Activation

Humanized mouse models provide a unique opportunity to study human immune cells in vivo, but traditional models have been limited to the evaluation of non-specific T-cell interactions due to the absence of antigen-presenting cells. In this study, immunodeficient NOD/SCID/IL2r-γnull (NSG) mice were engrafted with human peripheral blood lymphocytes alone or in combination with donor-matched monocyte-derived dendritic cells (DC) to determine whether antigen-specific T-cell activation could be reconstituted. Over a period of 3 weeks, transferred peripheral blood lymphocytes reconstituted the spleen and peripheral blood of recipient mice with predominantly human CD45-positive lymphocytes. Animals exhibited a relatively normal CD4/CD8 ratio (average 1.63:1) as well as reconstitution of CD3/CD56 (averaging 17.8%) and CD20 subsets (averaging 4.0%). Animals reconstituted with donor-matched CD11c+ DC also demonstrated a CD11c+ population within their spleen, representing 0.27% to 0.43% of the recovered human cells with concurrent expression of HLA-DR, CD40, and CD86. When immunized with adenovirus, either as free replication-incompetent vector (AdV) or as vector-transduced DC (DC/AdV), there was activation and expansion of AdV-specific T-cells, an increase in Th1 cytokines in serum, and skewing of T-cells toward an effector/memory phenotype. T-cells recovered from animals challenged with AdV in vivo proliferated and secreted a Th1-profile of cytokines in response to DC/AdV challenge in vitro. Our results suggest that engrafting NSG mice with a combination of lymphocytes and donor-matched DC can reconstitute antigen responsiveness and allow the in vivo assessment of human immune response to viruses, vaccines, and other immune challenges.
Hepatitis B virus reverse transcriptase: diverse functions as classical and emerging targets for antiviral intervention

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection remains a global health problem with over 350 million chronically infected, causing an increased risk of cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. Current antiviral chemotherapy for HBV infection include five nucleos(t)ide analog reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs) that all target one enzymatic activity, DNA strand elongation, of the HBV polymerase (HP), a specialized reverse transcriptase (RT). NRTIs are not curative and long-term treatment is associated with toxicity and the emergence of drug resistant viral mutations, which can also result in vaccine escape. Recent studies on the multiple functions of HP have provided important mechanistic insights into its diverse roles during different stages of viral replication, including interactions with viral pregenomic RNA, RNA packaging into nucleocapsids, protein priming, minus- and plus-strand viral DNA synthesis, RNase H-mediated degradation of viral RNA, as well as critical host interactions that regulate the multiple HP functions. These diverse functions provide ample opportunities to develop novel HP-targeted antiviral treatments that should contribute to curing chronic HBV infection.
Quarterwaveplate and Fresnel rhomb compared in the 10-μm CO 2 laser emission region

A comparison is made between the use of the quarterwaveplate and Fresnel rhomb over the 10-μm emission region of the CO2 laser. From 9.24 to 10.74 μm a quarterwaveplate for the 10.6-μm CO2 spectra line can give rise to a total phase shift of 97–176° for the respective lines. A Fresnel rhomb exhibits virtually no phase variation from the desired 90° phase shift over this region. Both devices exhibit phase shifts for light not normally incident on them.
Weight and Survival Depression in Rodent Bioassays with and without Tumor Decreases

It has been suggested that the decreased tumor rates (anticarcinogenicity) commonly observed in the National Toxicology Program (NTP) rodent bioassays may be caused by compound-induced decreases in body weight or decreases in survival of treated animals. In this study, weight decrement and survival depression following chemical treatment was studied for those chemicals which induce site specific decreases in tumor rates (anticarcinogens) and those which do not (non-anticarcinogens) in a database of 312 chemicals tested in the NTP bioassay program prior to 1983. There is an evident difference in weight depression and animal survival between anticarcinogens and non-anticarcinogens but it is small relative to the variability between chemicals in the two groups. We argue that weight or survival depression cannot, in a simple way, explain the difference between anticarcinogenic and non-anticarcinogenic chemicals. In fact, there are a number of chemicals that are anticarcinogenic with no evidence of weight or survival depression and many chemicals that cause significant weight or survival decreases with no apparent anticarcinogenic effects. There is a small but statistically insignificant relationship between the degree of weight depression and the number of tumor sites found to have lower tumor rates in treated animals. These analyses suggest that biological factors other than weight and survival depression are involved in decreased tumor rates in rodent bioassays. These results, and those of the companion paper (I. Linkovet al.,this issue), suggest that the anticarcinogenic responses observed in rodent cancer bioassays should be carefully considered in evaluations of the overall carcinogenic potential of chemicals.
The NOx Budget: market-based control of tropospheric ozone in the northeastern United States

The NOx Budget is a marketable emissions allowance system currently being adopted by states in the Northeastern US to reduce tropospheric ozone concentrations to healthful levels in a cost-effective manner. Oxides of nitrogen (NOx) are currently regulated within the existing Command and Control (CAC) framework. The introduction of a market-based approach will further reduce emissions will not resolve all regulatory uncertainties. These implementation concerns are identified and discussed. Cost savings and emissions reductions patterns which will arise under several different scenarios are determined through the use of a dynamic, relaxed mixed-integer linear programming model of the NOx allowance market. Like other market-based pollution control programs, the NOx Budget is found to be more efficient than CAC options. Restrictions on the market designed to address perceived flaws are found to be expensive but ineffectual.
Placing Students with Disabilities in Inclusive Settings: Legal Guidelines and Preferred Practices.

Two federal laws have been extremely important in providing rules and regulations to guide the educational placement of students with disabilities. The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) created a detailed set of guidelines to ensure an appropriate education in the least restrictive setting for students who are eligible for special education programs. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 also addressed the placement of students with disabilities (Rehabilitation Act, 1973). These laws provide guidance in determining the appropriate placement of students; nevertheless, what constitutes an appropriate placement for an individual student has often proven to be a very difficult issue for school districts. The purpose of this article is to clarify some of the confusion and controversy surounding the placement of students with disabilities by examining its basis in the IDEA and Section 504, and subsequent legal interpretations by the U.S. Department of Education and in courts across the ...
Trimethylstannyl Group as Pivot in Cleavage of 2-Bromoethyl Esters

Abstract The recent reports1,2 on carboxyl protection with 2-trimethyl-silyl residue prompted me to disclose here some pertinent results. For some time I have addressed to developing methods for selective scission of 2-haloethyl esters with the intention of rendering them useful for protection of carboxylic acids. Among the various contemplated feasibilities was a route wherein replacement of the halogen by organometal groups, especially those of group IVA elements, is followed by fragmentation. This thought was engendered from the knowledge that electrofugal R3Si/R3Sn units tend to stabilize positive charge at a β atom, and direct the fragmentation of such species as illustrated by hydride abstractor-promoted elimination7 and regiospecific desilylative substitution of vinyl-silanes.8,9 Of course the presence of a hard base (e.g. F−) for attack at the metal is essential to the success of these reactions.
Clinical practice guideline improves the treatment of sickle cell disease vasoocclusive pain.

Background Pain is the most common complication of sickle cell disease requiring emergency department (ED) visits and hospitalization. A Clinical Practice Guideline (CPG) to manage acute sickle cell pain offers clinicians a standardized approach for the provision of evidence-based, cost-effective care. After CPG implementation, monitoring of pre-established indicators is a strategy to evaluate progress toward meeting the goal of providing rapid, effective pain relief for patients with acute sickle cell pain. Methods A retrospective chart review of patients with sickle cell disease admitted through the ED at Children's Hospital Boston with the primary diagnosis of vaso-occlusive pain was performed for a period before and after implementation of the CPG. Endpoints measured were: use of a validated pain scale, time from ED triage to first dose of analgesic, use of adequate weight-based analgesic dosing, frequency and location of PCA initiation, and time from ED triage to patient controlled analgesia (PCA) initiation. Results Two hundred sixty three sickle cell pain admissions in 93 unique subjects were analyzed, 51 pre-CPG and 212 post-CPG. Statistically significant improvements in use of pain scale, appropriate weight-based analgesic dosing, utilization of PCA, and time to initiation of PCA were observed. There was not a statistically significant improvement in the percentage of subjects who received their 1st dose of analgesic within 1 hr; however the median time to first analgesic was reduced significantly from 80 to 65 min (P = 0.003). Conclusions Implementation of a CPG to manage acute sickle cell pain in the ED improves the ability to deliver timely, effective analgesia to this patient population. Establishing and monitoring internal benchmarks provides a means for ongoing evaluation of the pre-established goals for patient care. Pediatr Blood Cancer 2009;52:369–372. © 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
Global Perspective of the Quasi-Biweekly Oscillation*

Abstract The quasi-biweekly oscillation (QBW: here defined as a 12–20-day oscillation) is one of the major systems that affect tropical and subtropical weather and seasonal mean climate. However, knowledge is limited concerning its temporal and spatial structures and dynamics, particularly in a global perspective. To advance understanding of the QBW, its life cycle is documented using a tracking method and extended EOF analysis. Both methods yield consistent results. The analyses reveal a wide variety of QBW activity in terms of initiation, movement, development, and dissipation. The convective anomalies associated with the QBW are predominant in the latitude bands between 10° and 30° in both hemispheres. The QBW modes tend to occur regionally and be associated with monsoons. Three boreal summer modes are identified in the Asia–Pacific, Central America, and subtropical South Pacific regions. Five austral summer modes are identified in the Australia–southwest Pacific, South Africa–Indian Ocean, South Ameri...