cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
A GARCH model of the implied volatility of the Swiss market index from option prices

Abstract This paper estimates the implied stochastic process of the volatility of the Swiss market index (SMI) from the prices of options written on it. A GARCH(1,1) model is shown to be a good parameterization of the process. Then, using the GARCH option pricing model of Duan (1991) , the implied volatility process is estimated by a simulation minimization method from option price data. We find the persistence of volatility shocks implied by options on the SMI to be very close to that estimated from historical data on the index itself. Comparing the performances of the implied GARCH option pricing model to that of the Black and Scholes model it appears that the overall pricing performance of the former is superior. However, the large sample standard deviations of the out-of-sample pricing errors suggest that this result should be taken with caution.
Do Alcohol-Related AMPA-Type Glutamate Receptor Adaptations Promote Intake?

Ionotropic glutamate receptors (AMPA, NMDA, and kainate receptors) play a central role in excitatory glutamatergic signaling throughout the brain. As a result, functional changes, especially long-lasting forms of plasticity, have the potential to profoundly alter neuronal function and the expression of adaptive and pathological behaviors. Thus, alcohol-related adaptations in ionotropic glutamate receptors are of great interest, since they could promote excessive alcohol consumption, even after long-term abstinence. Alcohol- and drug-related adaptations in NMDARs have been recently reviewed, while less is known about kainate receptor adaptations. Thus, we focus here on functional changes in AMPARs, tetramers composed of GluA1–4 subunits. Long-lasting increases or decreases in AMPAR function, the so-called long-term potentiation or depression, have widely been considered to contribute to normal and pathological memory states. In addition, a great deal has been learned about the acute regulation of AMPARs by signaling pathways, scaffolding and auxiliary proteins, intracellular trafficking, and other mechanisms. One important common adaptation is a shift in AMPAR subunit composition from GluA2-containing, calcium-impermeable AMPARs (CIARs) to GluA2-lacking, calcium-permeable AMPARs (CPARs), which is observed under a broad range of conditions including intoxicant exposure or intake, stress, novelty, food deprivation, and ischemia. This shift has the potential to facilitate AMPAR currents, since CPARs have much greater single-channel currents than CIARs, as well as faster AMPAR activation kinetics (although with faster inactivation) and calcium-related activity. Many tools have been developed to interrogate particular aspects of AMPAR signaling, including compounds that selectively inhibit CPARs, raising exciting translational possibilities. In addition, recent studies have used transgenic animals and/or optogenetics to identify AMPAR adaptations in particular cell types and glutamatergic projections, which will provide critical information about the specific circuits that CPARs act within. Also, less is known about the specific nature of alcohol-related AMPAR adaptations, and thus we use other examples that illustrate more fully how particular AMPAR changes might influence intoxicant-related behavior. Thus, by identifying alcohol-related AMPAR adaptations, the specific molecular events that underlie them, and the cells and projections in which they occur, we hope to better inform the development of new therapeutic interventions for addiction.
Is Reasoning about Values Viciously Circular

L'A. mesure la validite rationnelle, l'homogeneite thematique et la rigueur demonstrative du jugement de valeur. Par analogie avec l'argumentation factuelle, l'A. met en evidence un parallelisme entre les processus systematiques des operations cognitives et evaluatives.
The Biopsychosocial Approach to the Assessment and Intervention for People with Musculoskeletal Disorders

A hallmark of musculoskeletal disorders is the presence of persistent pain. In 2007–2009, 21 % (50 million) of the US adults aging 18 and older had doctor-diagnosed arthritis (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2010). About 25 % of those with arthritis report severe pain (Hootman, Helmick, & Brady, 2012). In 2008, there were over 7.3 million emergency department visits and more than 2.3 million hospital inpatient stays that were related to back problems in 2008 (Agency for Health Research and Quality, 2011). Overall, chronic pain, which is primarily musculoskeletal, is a prevalent problem that transcends national boundaries and age. One recent large-scale survey (18 countries, 42,249 respondents) found that the 12-month prevalence of chronic pain was 37.3 % in developed countries and 41.1 % in developing countries (Tsang et al., 2008). According to estimates in the recent report of the Institute of Medicine (2011), 100 million American adults have some form of chronic pain. Chronic pain is a common occurrence among children and adolescents, as well, affecting up to 25 % of children and adolescents (Perquin et al., 2000). This makes chronic pain more common than heart disease, diabetes, and cancer combined. Chronic pain also has a negative impact on health and quality of life. It is consistently shown to be associated with negative mood and physical dysfunction, and there is strong evidence that it contributes to depression (Banks & Kerns, 1996) and decreased activity levels (Long, Palermo, & Manees, 2008; van den Berg-Emons, Schasfoort, de Vos, Bussmann, & Stam, 2007).
ENCOUNTER WITH SOUL

For Americans in the new Millennium, there is a revival of interest in spiritual matters. Simultaneously, attention to spirituality in the social work profession is a cutting edge theme. Social work has a holistic focus on person-in-environment, acknowledging the psychological, emotional, physical and social aspects of the individual. The spiritual is also a defining aspect of each individual. Bidden or unbidden, therapists are confronted daily with the manifestations of the spiritual yearning of their clients while also being confronted with their own spiritual attitudes. The endeavor to understand the human dilemma must include the spiritual dimensions of both therapist and client. This article defines the author's therapeutic attitude as it is informed by social work training, personal life experience, and spiritual religious beliefs. Several case examples are included.
Whisker Mitigation Mechanisms in Indium-Doped Tin Thin Films: Role of the Surface

The effect of indium doping on whisker mitigation in tin electroplated on copper has been investigated. Whisker growth studies show that indium addition to Sn effectively mitigates whisker growth. Cross-section images showed predominantly columnar grains in the thin film. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy studies of the oxide revealed a mixture of In2O3 and SnO2, along with a stoichiometrically defective oxide that can serve as a vacancy source at the metal-oxide interface. In addition, Auger electron spectroscopy showed In segregation at the grain boundaries as well as In enrichment just below the oxide layer. Cyclic voltammetry tests showed that the anodic behavior of the thin films exhibits active/passive transition where the passive current increases significantly upon doping Sn with In. We interpret these surface-related results in terms of a less tenacious oxide that permits reduction of in-plane compressive residual stress, thereby minimizing the driving force for whisker formation and growth.
Gout Due to Tacrolimus in a Liver Transplant Recipient

Patients taking tacrolimus have an increased predisposition to hyperuricemia. Although literature has widely established the risk of gout in patients taking cyclosporine, the widespread use of tacrolimus in patients following liver transplantation necessitates further investigation into the potential connection between the drug’s use and gout. Moreover, hyperuricemia in the context of liver transplants is associated with increased morbidities and mortalities. We describe a case of gout in a liver transplant patient taking the calcineurin inhibitor tacrolimus.
Finite Element Method withPiecewise Linear Function for Solving NanoscaleInAs⁄GaAsQuantum RingStructures

In this paper concerned with the solution of the nanoscale structures consisting of the with an effective mass envelope function theory, the electronic states of the quantum ring are studied.In calculations, the effects due to the different effective masses of electrons in and out the rings are included. The energy levels of the electron are calculated in the different shapes of rings, i.e., that the inner radius of rings sensitively change the electronic states. The energy levels of the electron are not sensitively dependent on the outer radius for large rings. The structures of quantum rings are studied by the one electronic band Hamiltonian effective mass approximation, the energy-and position-dependent on electron effective mass approximation, and the spin-dependent on the Ben Daniel-Duke boundary conditions. In the description of the Hamiltonian matrix elements, the Finite elements method with different base piecewise linear function is adopted. The non-linear energy confinement problem is solved approximately by using the Finite elements method with piecewise linear function, to calculate the energy of the one electron states for the quantum ring. The results of numerical example are compared for accuracy and efficiency with the finite element method of linear triangular element. This comparison shows that good results of numerical example.
Judges, bribes, and verdicts: How court experience reshapes attitudes about judicial corruption among Morocco’s most marginalized

When do citizens believe in corruption’s effectiveness? Using an original, nationally representative survey of 1201 Moroccan respondents, this article highlights the conditions under which citizens...
S1-equivariant Chern–Weil constructions on loop space

Abstract We study the existence of S 1 -equivariant characteristic classes on certain natural infinite rank bundles over the loop space L M of a manifold M . We discuss the different S 1 -equivariant cohomology theories in the literature and clarify their relationships. We attempt to use S 1 -equivariant Chern–Weil techniques to construct S 1 -equivariant characteristic classes. The main result is the construction of a sequence of S 1 -equivariant characteristic classes on the total space of the bundles, but these classes do not descend to the base L M . Nevertheless, we conclude by identifying a class of bundles for which the S 1 -equivariant first Chern class does descend to L M .
Fall-related emergency department visits and hospitalizations among community-dwelling older adults: examination of health problems and injury characteristics.

Fall injuries and related healthcare use among older adults are increasing in the United States. This study examined chronic illnesses, sensory and memory problems, and injury characteristics that were associated with ED visits and hospitalizations among older adults who received medical attention for fall injuries within a 91-day reference period. Data were from the publicly available 2013–2017 US National Health Interview Survey files (unweighted N = 1840 respondents aged > 60 years with fall injuries). We first described socioeconomic, health/mental health, healthcare utilization, and injury characteristics among three groups: those who neither visited an ED nor were hospitalized for their fall injury, those who visited an ED only, and those who were hospitalized. Then, using multinomial logistic regression analysis, we examined associations of healthcare utilization (ED visit only and hospitalization vs. no ED visit/hospitalization) with chronic illnesses, other health problems, and injury characteristics, controlling for socioeconomic factors. Of older adults who received medical attention for fall injuries, a little more than one-third had an ED visit only and a little less than a fifth had an overnight hospital stay. Multivariable analysis showed that lung disease and memory problems were associated with higher risk of ED visit only; hip and head injuries, facial injuries, and broken bones/fractures (from any type of injury) were more likely to result in hospitalization than other injuries. Fall injuries sustained inside the home, falls from loss of balance/dizziness, and living alone were also more likely to result in hospitalization. These healthcare utilization findings indicate the significant toll that fall injuries exact on older adults and healthcare systems. Fall prevention should target risk factors that are specific to serious injuries requiring costly care. Strategies for implementing scalable, adaptable, and measurable fall prevention models by primary care and emergency medical service providers and ED staff are needed.
Remote Sensing and Ecosystem Health: An Evaluation of Time-Series AVHRR NDVI Data

The concept of ecosystem health is one which could proceed from a positive or negative standpoint; most easily, in fact, from the latter — that is, from the absence of disease. Costanza et al. (1992) however, prefer a definition that proceeds from a more positive direction, a definition that states more positively the characteristics of healthy ecosystems. Their definition involves a set of ecologically-based criteria of sustainability within a generally hierarchical approach and defines ecosystem health as a complex of natural systems. Within this context, Costanza et al. (1992) use a broad medical model to develop the ecosystem health paradigm. Hargrove (1992), on the concept of ecosystem health writes “The notion of ecosystem health has developed on the model of human health as an aesthetic perspective. Everybody can tell if a person ‘looks’ healthy, and usually that is what is meant to ‘be’ healthy. Nevertheless, doctors can frequently determine that a person who looks healthy really is not. Seen in this way, the ability to perceive health in a person depends largely on technical knowledge”. The theme of this section is to describe the use of a technology, remote sensing, that, when used with ancillary evidence, assists in the determination of health in ecosystems.
The Limits to (Short) Arbitrage

Theoretical models often assume short selling is costless. We show that short selling is expensive precisely when arbitrage opportunities are greatest. We examine the determinants of short constraints over time and find that 94% of overpricing exists in persistently constrained stocks, which inhibits short selling as a mechanism for price efficiency. Using the dynamic determinants of these short constraints, we then develop a novel measure which allows us to quantify these short constraints monthly in each stock from 1996 to present. Our results show that the dynamic properties of short sale constraints are a crucial component of the limits to short arbitrage.
Vitamin D3 Supplementation and Stress Fractures in High-Risk Collegiate Athletes - A Pilot Study.

Introduction Vitamin D is paramount to bone health and little is known about vitamin D's role in the prevention of stress fractures in high-risk athletes. This study consists of a prospective, cross-sectional analysis accompanied by a retrospective review for control comparison of vitamin D3 supplementation in high-risk athletes. Our hypothesis is that supplemental vitamin D3 treatment will decrease the occurrence of stress fractures in high-risk collegiate athletes. Materials and Methods A total of 118 NCAA Division I athletes were recruited from 6 high-risk collegiate teams. Blood draws in August and February established baseline 25(OH)D levels. Subjects with serum 25(OH)D <30 ng/mL were supplemented with 50,000 IU of vitamin D3/week for 8 weeks. Treated subjects were re-tested to ensure serum 25(OH)D levels rose to sufficient status. All enrolled subjects were monitored for the development of stress fractures. A 5-year retrospective chart review of athletes from the same sports teams was conducted to determine the incidence of any reported stress fractures in the past. Results Prospective: 112 of the 118 enrolled subjects were tested in August. Sixty-one demonstrated vitamin D sufficiency (40.2 ng/mL ±8.28) and 51 were either insufficient or deficient (22.7 ng/mL ±4.89). Of the 118 enrolled subjects, 104 were tested in February. Fifty-six demonstrated vitamin D sufficiency (40.7 ng/mL ±9.47) and 48 were insufficient or deficient (21.6 ng/mL ±5.87). Two stress fractures were diagnosed amongst our cohort of 118 student athletes (1.69%). Retrospective: 34 stress fractures were diagnosed in 453 subjects from 01/2010-05/2015 (7.51%). Amongst our athletic teams, the cross-country team specifically demonstrated a statistically significant decrease in stress fracture incidence (p<0.05). We also found a statistically significant reduction in stress fracture incidence amongst the current overall cohort compared to our retrospective cohort (p<0.05). Conclusion In our population, almost half of the tested athletes proved to be vitamin D deficient. Hypovitaminosis D was prevalent throughout the winter months compared with the summer. With vitamin D3 supplementation, the stress fracture rate in our overall cohort demonstrated a statistically significant decrease from 7.51% to 1.65% (p=0.009).
Review of Task Analytic Leisure Skill Training Efforts: Practitioner Implications and Future Research Needs:

The authors review recreation/leisure training programs that have been conducted with moderately/severely handicapped individuals. Emphasis is placed on data based task analytic, instructional effo...
Automatic multi-catheter detection using deeply supervised convolutional neural network in MRI-guided HDR prostate brachytherapy

PURPOSE High-dose-rate (HDR) brachytherapy is an established technique to be used as monotherapy option or focal boost in conjunction with external beam radiation therapy (EBRT) for treating prostate cancer. Radiation source path reconstruction is a critical procedure in HDR treatment planning. Manually identifying the source path is labor intensive and time inefficient. In recent years, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has become a valuable imaging modality for image-guided HDR prostate brachytherapy due to its superb soft-tissue contrast for target delineation and normal tissue contouring. The purpose of this study is to investigate a deep-learning-based method to automatically reconstruct multiple catheters in MRI for prostate cancer HDR brachytherapy treatment planning. METHODS Attention gated U-Net incorporated with total variation (TV) regularization model was developed for multi-catheter segmentation in MRI. The attention gates were used to improve the accuracy of identifying small catheter points, while TV regularization was adopted to encode the natural spatial continuity of catheters into the model. The model was trained using the binary catheter annotation images offered by experienced physicists as ground truth paired with original MRI images. After the network was trained, MR images of a new prostate cancer patient receiving HDR brachytherapy were fed into the model to predict the locations and shapes of all the catheters. Quantitative assessments of our proposed method were based on catheter shaft and tip errors compared to the ground truth. RESULTS Our method detected 299 catheters from 20 patients receiving HDR prostate brachytherapy with a catheter tip error of 0.37 ± 1.68 mm and a catheter shaft error of 0.93 ± 0.50 mm. For detection of catheter tips, our method resulted in 87% of the catheter tips within an error of less than ± 2.0 mm, and more than 71% of the tips can be localized within an absolute error of no >1.0 mm. For catheter shaft localization, 97% of catheters were detected with an error of <2.0 mm, while 63% were within 1.0 mm. CONCLUSIONS In this study, we proposed a novel multi-catheter detection method to precisely localize the tips and shafts of catheters in three-dimensional MRI images of HDR prostate brachytherapy. It paves the way for elevating the quality and outcome of MRI-guided HDR prostate brachytherapy.
The Global Lakou World-System

This work highlights the Haitian sociopolitical economic organization, Lakous, as a form of libertarian communism that must be vertically integrated at the nation-state level so that people can experience total freedom from capitalist relations of production. I conclude the work by extrapolating the lakou system to the world-system level in order to offer it as an alternative to the Protestant capitalist world-system, which threatens all life on earth.
An optic disk semantic segmentation method based on weakly supervised learning

Weakly supervised semantic segmentation has been widely used in the filed of computer vision. since it does not require expert annotations for training. Recently, some works use pseudo ground-truths which are generated by a classified network to train the model, however, this method is not suitable for medical image segmentation. To tackle this challenging problem, we use the GrabCut method to generate the coarse foreground segmentation map in this paper, and then we train the network based on a modified U-net model with the generated foreground map. Extensive experiments on the challenging RIM-ONE benchmarks strongly demonstrate the effectiveness of our algorithm. We obtain state-of-art results on RIM-ONE database.
#Catchmeinashithole: Black Travel Influencers and the Contestation of Racialized Place Myths

The travel industry and mainstream media often produce neocolonial narratives about global cultures that center the nations and people affiliated with them as exotic and even dangerous others. Toda...
Don't Work on Individual Data Plane Algorithms. Put Them Together!

Algorithms and data structures for data plane network functions have been extensively studied in the literature. Recently various compact data structures and algorithms have been used in data plane to achieve less memory cost and higher throughput. However, most of these studies only focus on individual network functions, such as packet forwarding information base (FIB), traffic measurement, and load balancing. To our knowledge no study has been conducted to design compact data structures and algorithms for multiple and co-located network functions. We argue that there is a huge space of optimization if we design algorithms and data structures considering multiple co-located network functions, compared to designing them individually. It is because many of them share similar design goals and building blocks. We use two recently published methods as examples and present a new memory-compact design that serves both FIB and traffic measurement functions by a novel integration of the two methods. The preliminary results show that the new design can achieve almost 2x throughput compared to running them individually while achieving higher accuracy of measurement using the same memory. In addition, we will discuss potential research directions and challenges.
Numerical Determination of Vacuum Electronic Device Stability

We present a new approach to the study of the stability of vacuum electronic devices (VEDs) using the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) large-signal code TESLA-Z. The approach combines a precomputed complex impedance matrix, $\hat {Z}$ , describing the structure with a TESLA-Z computed admittance matrix, $\hat {Y}_{ \boldsymbol {bt}}$ , characterizing the electron beam and beam tunnel. The gain matrix $\hat {G}$ for a given device then can be found as the product of the reduced $Z$ -matrix of the structure and admittance matrix $\hat {Y}_{ \boldsymbol {bt}}$ of the beam tunnel. Subsequent analysis of the eigenvalues of the gain matrix $\hat {G}$ using Nyquist’s method determines the stability of the device. We discuss the details of the new algorithm and illustrate its application to an experimental G-band serpentine TWT.
Long-horizon humanoid navigation planning using traversability estimates and previous experience

Humanoids’ abilities to navigate stairs and uneven terrain make them well-suited for disaster response efforts. However, humanoid navigation in such environments is currently limited by the capabilities of navigation planners. Such planners typically consider only footstep locations, but planning with palm contacts may be necessary to cross a gap, avoid an obstacle, or maintain balance. However, considering palm contacts greatly increases the branching factor of the search, leading to impractical planning times for large environments. Planning a contact transition sequence in a large environment is important because it verifies that the robot will be able to reach a given goal. In previous work we explored using library-based methods to address difficult navigation planning problems requiring palm contacts, but such methods are not efficient when navigating an easy-to-traverse part of the environment. To maximize planning efficiency, we would like to use discrete planners when an area is easy to traverse and switch to the library-based method only when traversal becomes difficult. Thus, in this paper we present a method that (1) Plans a torso guiding path which accounts for the difficulty of traversing the environment as predicted by learned regressors; and (2) Decomposes the guiding path into a set of segments, each of which is assigned a motion mode (i.e. a set of feet and hands to use) and a planning method. Easily-traversable segments are assigned a discrete-search planner, while other segments are assigned a library-based method that fits existing motion plans to the environment near the given segment. Our results suggest that the proposed approach greatly outperforms standard discrete planning in success rate and planning time. We also show an application of the method to a real robot in a mock disaster scenario.
Transorgan short-chain fatty acid fluxes in the fasted and postprandial state in the pig.

Using a multicatheterized pig model, we identified the portal-drained viscera as the main releasing compartment of the short-chain fatty acids acetate, propionate, butyrate, isovalerate, and valera...
Value Considerations in the Surgical Management of Spondylolisthesis

Value-based health care is an increasingly important priority in our health care economy and has particular relevance to the field of spine surgery. Value includes a consideration of both quality and cost—the value of a health care intervention is assessed by whether it provides an incremental benefit in outcome to justify an incremental increase in cost. To achieve optimal value, variability of care between practitioners should be minimized.
Love Actually? Dissecting the Marriage–Happiness Relationship†

Using theoretical concepts based on identity economics, the present paper empirically tests the idea that adherence to social norms to get married can provide an additional utility gain from marriage. Norms to get married should be stronger among more traditionalist individuals, so they should put more emphasis on the mere fact of getting married and put less emphasis on match quality. In the empirical analysis, we used the East Asian Social Survey to estimate and compare both OLS and instrumental variables results. In line with the theoretical predictions, there seems to be an identity-based happiness gain from marriage for traditionalist individuals. These findings can be interpreted as evidence for identity-based utility effects from marriage. The results also show important differences between OLS and instrumental variables results, confirming the importance of addressing endogeneity properly.
Synthetic laminaria for cervical dilatation prior to vacuum aspiration in midtrimester pregnancy

stable and dropped slightly after PGE2 administration in the second and third patients. The outcomes in these three cases suggest that PGEz suppositories can be used to terminate second-trimester pregnancy complicated by PIH or eclampsia when patients fail to respond to medical management or when fetal death occurs, although caution should be used since severe hypotension can occur with PGEz administration.
Case of a lung mass due to melioidosis in Mexico.

Patient: Female, 70 Final Diagnosis: Melioidosis Symptoms: Chills • fever • neck pain • night sweats Medication: — Clinical Procedure: Incision and drainage • endobronchial ultrasound guided biopsy Specialty: Infectious Diseases Objective: Rare disease Background: Melioidosis, an infection caused by the gram-negative bacterium Burkholderia pseudomallei, is an important cause of pneumonia, skin infection, sepsis, and death in Southeast Asia and Australia, but is exceedingly rare in North America. Pulmonary melioidosis typically presents as acute bacterial pneumonia or cavitary lung lesions resembling tuberculosis. Case Report: We report melioidosis in a 70-year-old active smoker from Mexico with no history of travel to disease-endemic areas. The patient presented with a left supraclavicular abscess and a non-cavitary, left lung mass encasing a pulmonary vein. Incision and drainage of the patient’s subcutaneous abscess isolated B. pseudomallei, and fine-needle aspiration of enlarged mediastinal lymph nodes revealed the presence of intracellular gram-negative bacilli with no evidence of malignancy. Biochemical tests determined that the strain the patient acquired from Mexico is identical to only 1 other isolate from Thailand. Conclusions: This report highlights the blurring epidemiological borders of this organism, its rare presentation mimicking lung malignancy, and an aggressive antimicrobial treatment that resulted in resolution of the patient’s symptoms.
Oscillation on the Ultraviolet Bound-Free Continua of Diatomic Molecular Xenon and Molecular Krypton

The initial proposal for the use of molecular bound-free transitions in laser systems was advanced by Houtermans 1 in 1960 in relation to the continua of H2 and Hg2. In spite of this early suggestion, only relatively recently has genuine stimulated emission been observed on transitions of this type on the ultraviolet molecular continua of xenon2 at ~1722 A and krypton3 at ~1457 A. We note that the rare gas molecular continua represent a subset of the much larger class of bound-free systems. Some additional members of this more extensive group are the examples4–7 Zn2, Cd2, Hg2, HeH, NeH, and LiXe. Among the simplest systems representing the general properties of molecular bound-free transitions. and for which there exists a considerable literature is He2. A partial energy level diagram representative of this class of molecular systems is illustrated in Fig. (1). The essential property is that some of the upper states have a potential minimum at an internuclear separation Ro for which the ground state curve is strongly repulsive. Provided that a kinetic mechanism exists for population of the upper bound states, the repulsive character of the ground level enhances the tendency for the production of large population inversions in the Franck-Condon region around Ro.
Silicon Valley’s Indian diaspora: networking and entrepreneurial success

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that influence the success of entrepreneurial ventures started by members of the Indian diaspora in Silicon Valley. Design/methodology/approach – It is based on survey data collected from Indian-born high-tech entrepreneurs living in Silicon Valley, and uses Bayesian estimation to test hypotheses aimed at understanding entrepreneurial growth. Specifically, the paper examines the linkages between prior startup experience, participation in diasporic networks, and new venture growth. Findings – It finds that entrepreneurs with prior startup experience displayed more active participation in diasporic networks, and were more likely to have co-founders. Active network participation over a length of time was positively related to new venture growth. The findings contribute toward the understanding of the value of startup experience in leveraging social networks, and the relationship between diasporic network participation and entrepreneurship. Researc...
Skeletal muscle-derived stem cells differentiate into hepatocyte-like cells and aid in liver regeneration.

The liver is unique for its ability to regenerate after injury, however, critical injuries or disease cause it to lose this quality. Stem cells have been explored as a possibility to restore the function of seriously damaged livers, based on their self-renewability and multiple differentiation capacity. These experiments examine the ability of muscle derived stem cells (MDSCs) to differentiate into hepatocyte-like cells in vitro and acquire functional liver attributes for repairing damaged livers. In vitro experiments were performed using MDSCs from postnatal mice and mouse hepatocyte cell lines. Our data revealed that MDSCs differentiated into hepatocyte-like cells and expressed liver cell markers, albumin, hepatocyte nuclear factor 4α, and alpha feto-protein, both at the RNA and protein level. Additionally, in vivo studies showed successful engraftment of MDSCs into hepatectomized mouse livers of mice. These results provide evidence suggesting that MDSCs have the capacity to differentiate into liver cell-like cells and may serve as potential candidates to aid in liver regeneration.
Toward a Comprehensive Computational Model of Emotions and Feelings.

We describe a computational framework for emotions and feelings that combines biological, cognitive, and social influences. The framework, Soar-Emote, combines ideas from Damasio and Gratch & Marsella. From Damasio we include physiological influences, ideas about the differences between emotions and feelings, and the direction of causality. From Gratch we include cognitive and social influences, appraisal theory and coping. We give results that show that these systems influence agent behavior for a simple interactive game.
Time course for the induction and maintenance of tolerance to Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol in mice

The time course for the development of tolerance to delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (Delta(9)-THC) was studied in an effort to determine the role that length of dosing may have in the onset and maintenance of tolerance. Mice were chronically treated with either vehicle or 10 mg/kg of Delta(9)-THC subcutaneously twice a day. The mice were tested 24 h after the last injection for tolerance as assessed by the production of antinociception and suppression of spontaneous activity. Tolerance was first observed after three injections of Delta(9)-THC (1.5 days) resulting in a 7-fold and 23-fold decrease in potency for the measures of antinociception and hypoactivity, respectively. Seven injections of Delta(9)-THC (3.5 days of dosing) resulted in a 12-fold and 36-fold decrease in potency, respectively, while 13 injections of Delta(9)-THC (6.5 days of dosing) produced a 6.2-fold and 9.8-fold degree of tolerance. The time course for the recovery from Delta(9)-THC-induced tolerance was also determined with a separate group of animals. Mice were dosed for 6.5 days with 10 mg/kg of Delta(9)-THC and were not tested until 4.5, 7.5, and 11.5 days after cessation of drug treatment. After 4.5 days without drug treatment the mice exhibited a 7.5-fold and 2.3-fold degree of tolerance as measured by antinociception and hypoactivity, respectively. After 7. 5 days without drug treatment a 3.4-fold degree of tolerance remained for the measure of antinociception, while no tolerance was detected for the measure of hypoactivity. No tolerance was observed for the measure of antinociception after 11.5 days without drug treatment. This time course indicates that the mechanisms responsible for either the production or maintenance of tolerance differ between the measures of antinociception and suppression of spontaneous activity.
Studies on single oral doses of a high gel point methylcellulose

Abstract A high gel point methylcellulose (Methocel HG) was given in single doses to normal healthy young adults. Only minor symptoms were reported, e. g., mild laxative effect, mild constipating effect, and a few instances of commonplace symptoms such as cramping, flatus, headache, and tenesmus which apparently were not related to the ingestion of Methocel HG. Essentially all of the ingested Methocel HG was eliminated in the feces within ninety‐six hours following administration.
New Survival Record of Southern Cattle Tick1 in Subfreezing Temperatures

Abstract. The southern cattle tick, Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus (Canestrini), is considered to be one of the most significant pests of cattle worldwide. A vector for piroplasmosis, or cattle fever, the southern cattle tick is a key target of en aggressive eradication program along the U.S.-Mexico border. Endemic to subtropical and tropical regions, southern cattle ticks are limited in range by climate and temperature. Neither adults nor larvae of southern cattle tick survive more than e few days of subfreezing temperatures. Nonetheless, in a separate study of fecundity of southern cettle tick in different field conditions, where begged samples of egg masses were allowed to hatch in the field then placed in a freezer in order to estimate egg hatch, a single southern cattle tick larva was found alive following exposure to room temperature after 20 days of cold-exposure. Although quite anomalous, this report of this outlying observation suggests the possibility that southern cattle tick can survive e...
Isolation of two cDNA clones coding for larval hemolymph proteins of Galleria mellonella

Abstract Galleria mellonella a group of four larval hemolymph proteins (LHP) (74, 76, 81 and 82 kDa), which had been earlier shown to be storage proteins, exhibit a stage-specific synthetic pattern. The 82 kDa LHP is synthesized only in day-3 to day-5 last instar larvae, while the other three LHPs are synthesized both in the penultimate (six) and the last instar larvae. None of these LHPs are synthesized in day-0 last instar. With a view to isolate one or more cDNA clones corresponding to these LHPs a cDNA library was prepared in pBR322 starting with poly(A) + RNA from day-5 last instar larval fat body. By differential screening of 714 clones with poly(A) + RNA 39 day-5 larval stage-specific clones were isolated. Two of these clones, designated as 26–38 and 17–36, had 1200–1300 base pair cDNA inserts. Their cDNA inserts did cross hybridize to each other, exhibited different restriction endonuclease digestion patterns and hybridized in northern blots to transcrips of different sizes, thereby suggesting that they represent two separate genes. In addition, the genomic fragments that hybridized in southern blots to the two cDNAs differed in their size. On translation, mRNAs hybrid selected by 26–38 and 17–36 cDNAs produced 76 and 79 kDa polypeptides respectively. Both these genes are expressed in the fat body but not in the midgut, silk glands, Malpighian tubules or carcass. While 26–38 was expressed both in the sixth and seventh (last) instars, 17–36 was expressed only in the last instar. On the basis of tissue and developmental stage specificity of their expression and the sizes of their hybrid selected translation products, these clones are tentatively identified as two LHP-specific cDNA clones. The genes coding for these LHPs appear to be single copy genes.
Gene transfer investigations of p56-LCK function in IL-2-dependent T-cell lines: implications for mechanisms of IL-2-signal transduction.

Abstract Recently, the SRC-like non-receptor protein tyrosine kinase p56-LCK has been shown to physically associate with the interleukin-2 receptor (IL-2-R) complex and to undergo rapid elevations in its tyrosine kinase activity upon stimulation of T lymphocytes with IL-2. The functional significance of p56-LCK kinase activation for IL-2-mediated lymphocyte responses, however, has never been directly assessed. Using gene transfer approaches, we have achieved markedly elevated levels of p56-LCK kinase activity in the IL-2-dependent cytolytic T-cell line CTLL-2 and the helper line HT-2. CTLL-2 and HT-2 cells that were stably transfected with expression plasmids encoding either the normal human p56-LCK or a constitutively active version of the mouse p56-LCK kinase (LCK[Y505]) contained striking elevations in the levels of tyrosine phosphorylation on several proteins (34–36, 50–60, 62–68, 77–78, 104–110 kDa), as determined by immunoblot analysis using anti-phosphotyrosine antibodies. CTLL-2 and HT-2 LCK- and LCK(Y505F)-transfected cells remained dependent on IL-2 for their growth and survival in culture despite the findings that (i) IL-2 specifically stimulated elevations in the activity of the endogenous p56-LCK in untransfected CTLL-2 cells without affecting the activities of the other SRC-like kinases in these cells (p59-FYN, p62-YES) and that (ii) IL-2-mediated regulation of p56-LCK correlated with IL-2-driven proliferation of these T cells. Specifically, no elevation in the proliferation (DNA synthesis) or growth of these T cells was found at any of the concentrations of IL-2 examined (0.01–25 U/ml), relative to untransfected and control transfected cells. Furthermore, when cultured in the absence of IL-2, transfected T cells whose relative levels of p56-LCK activity were elevated by ≈ 20–50-fold died with the same kinetics as control cells and underwent apoptosis, as defined by uptake of trypan blue dye and DNA fragmentation assays, respectively. Taken together, these data indicate that while IL-2 can up-regulate the enzymatic activity of p56-LCK, elevated levels of p56-LCK tyrosine kinase activity are insufficient to stimulate IL-2-mediated pathways required for T-cell growth and survival. These findings thus imply the existence of other signal-transducing molecules, besides p56-LCK, that physically participate in IL-2R complexes and that are necessary for initiation of the biochemical events ultimately responsible for IL-2's pleiotropic actions on lymphocytes.
Congress and the Defense Budget: 1960–1970

It is commonly held that Congress has made only inconsequential changes in the President's requests for defense appropriations. Scholarly studies of the budgetary process, notably the work of Fenno and Wildavsky, do not include defense spending in their analyses. For nondefense spending they find that Congress has primarily a fiscal rather than programmatic orientation toward appropriations. House and Senate changes in the President's defense appropriations requests were analyzed for the fiscal years 1960 through 1970. It was found that small Congressional changes in total defense spending obscured more substantial activity in particular budget categories. The concentration of Congressional activity in two of these categories—Procurement and R&D—indicates that Congress has had a significant programmatic orientation toward defense spending. Changes in the level of Congressional activity across time confirm this hypothesis. Efforts to measure the relative influence of the House and Senate proved inconclusive. The Senate dominated the conference committee, but the Senate's influence was concentrated in the least important budget categories. The House made most of the changes in the President's budget requests, but very few of such changes were appealed by the Defense Department to the Senate.
DIRECTED WAVES IN RANDOM MEDIA : AN ANALYTICAL CALCULATION

The propagation of directed scalar waves in D+1 dimensions in a strongly disordered medium is studied. We use the model first proposed by Saul, Kardar, and Read [Phys. Rev. A 45, 8859 (1992)], where unitarity is guaranteed in each step. The beam positions 〈${\mathbf{x}}^{2}$\ifmmode\bar\else\textasciimacron\fi{}〉 and 〈x${\mathrm{\ifmmode\bar\else\textasciimacron\fi{}}}^{2}$〉 characterize the transverse fluctuations of a directed wave front, where the overbar means an average over the wave profile for a given realization of randomness, and 〈 〉 means a quenched average over all realizations. We introduce ${\mathit{G}}_{\mathit{q}}^{\mathbf{k}}$(y) as the Laplace-transformed Green function of two free random walkers with center-of-mass momentum k and relative position y. We calculate analytically the mean-square deviation of the beam center, 〈x\ifmmode\bar\else\textasciimacron\fi{} $^{2}\mathrm{〉}$, as a function of time. The results show that, for large t, 〈x${\mathrm{\ifmmode\bar\else\textasciimacron\fi{}}}^{2}$〉 behaves as (1/ \ensuremath{\surd}\ensuremath{\pi} )${\mathit{t}}^{1/2}$-1/4+O(${\mathit{t}}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}3/2}$) in 1+1 dimensions and as (lnt+4 ln2+\ensuremath{\gamma})/4\ensuremath{\pi}+O(1/t) in 2+1 dimensions and takes the finite value 1/2D[${\mathit{G}}_{\mathit{q}=1}^{\mathbf{k}=0}$(0)- \ensuremath{\surd}(27/4\ensuremath{\pi}) ${\mathrm{t}}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}1/2}$${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\delta}}}_{\mathit{D},3}$]+O(1/t) in D+1 dimensions where D\ensuremath{\ge}3, \ensuremath{\gamma} being the Euler constant. We generalize these results to a twofold random walk with any probability-flux-conserving interaction. In all cases the leading term at large t depends solely on the finite value or leading singularity of ${\mathit{G}}_{\mathit{q}}^{\mathbf{k}=0}$(0) at q=1.
Perturbation algebra of an elliptic operator

~(a) with fixed data $ (independent of a) can be obtained by quadrature from any one solution ~(a,,). This should be contrasted with the usual application of Lie groups to differential equations; namely, to the discovery of particular solutions. Some references for the latter topic are [1, 2, 8, 18-201. The group of the heat equation is derived in [l, 161; in [9], though . Incompletely; in [22], after some changes of variables. References [12-171 apply the theory to explain the phenomenon of separation of variables. We are motivated by the following trick. The heat equation,
The olivetti-INAC computer

A new computer, designed by researchers from the I.N.A.C. and from the OGE Electronic Research Laboratory, has been produced by OGE in compliance with the scientific collaboration plan drawn up between the C. N. R. and the Italian Data Processing industry. The main features of the computer are here described with special emphasis on those which are oriented toward fast and efficient compilation.
Sex differences in attributions for the performance of women of a masculine task

Sex differences in the attributions of observers for the successful or unsuccessful behavior of a female actor performing a masculine task were studied. For the perceived causes of the outcome it was found that internal attributions were emphasized more for success than for failure. In addition, female observers attributed both types of outcome more to effort than did males. The nature of the outcome and the sex of the observer also affected the perceived personality traits of the actor. More positive traits were attributed to the successful than to the unsuccessful actor. The female observers attributed more instrumental traits to the actor than did the male observers. The results were discussed in terms of Jones and Davis's theory (1965) of correspondent inferences and the fact that competence was not viewed as being incompatible with femininity.
Multifrequency modeling of a multiple-input Dc-Dc converter

A time-invariant model of the multiple-input buck- boost converter is presented and compared favorably to experimental predictions. Compared to single-input converter, this multiple-input converter has somewhat more complex waveforms and in some instances, interaction between inputs. This makes the use of conventional state-space averaging questionable. Therefore, the use of the multifrequency modeling technique has been proposed, with a modified switching function realization.
Vaccination with DNA plasmids expressing Gn coupled to C3d or alphavirus replicons expressing Gn protects mice against rift valley fever virus

Background Rift Valley fever (RVF) is an arthropod-borne viral zoonosis. Rift Valley fever virus (RVFV) is an important biological threat with the potential to spread to new susceptible areas. In addition, it is a potential biowarfare agent.