cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Fluoxetine Treatment Seems to Reduce the Beneficial Effects of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy in Type B Alcoholics

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that, because of abnormalities in serotonergic neurotransmission that may underlie craving and impulsive behavior, fluoxetine treatment differentially affects drinking among type B alcoholics, who are characterized by high levels of both premorbid vulnerability and alcohol-related problems. METHODS Using a k-means clustering procedure, alcohol-dependent subjects from a placebo-controlled trial of fluoxetine were grouped into low-risk/severity (type A: n = 60) and high-risk/ severity (type B: n = 35) groups. Multivariate analysis of covariance (with pretreatment measures as covariates) evaluated the effects of Alcoholic Subtype, Medication Group, Treatment Completion, and their interactions on measures of drinking, both during the 12-week treatment period and a 6-month follow-up period. RESULTS Although there were no main effects of Alcoholic Subtype or Medication Group, subjects who completed the treatment trial showed significantly better drinking-related outcomes. There was also an interaction of Alcoholic Subtype by Medication Group during treatment. Among type B subjects, fluoxetine treatment resulted in poorer drinking-related outcomes than placebo treatment. Among type A subjects, there was no effect of Medication Group. This interactive effect did not persist during the 6-month follow-up period. CONCLUSIONS Alcoholic subtypes identified by cluster analysis seem to be differentially responsive to the effects of fluoxetine treatment on drinking-related outcomes. Serotonergic abnormalities previously identified among a subgroup of alcoholics who are also characterized by impulsivity and severity of alcohol dependence may help to explain the differential medication effect. Based on these findings, it is recommended that, in the absence of a comorbid mood or anxiety disorder, fluoxetine not be used to maintain abstinence or reduce drinking in high-risk/severity alcoholics.
Relations Among Divisors on the Moduli Space of Curves with Marked Points

Abstract In this paper we describe the space spanned by the divisors of curves and points satisfying certain ramification conditions on ℳ¯ g,n , the moduli space of n-pointed stable curves of genus g. This generalizes work of Eisenbud, Harris, and Mumford for the cases n ≤ 1.
Nonthermal escape of hydrogen and deuterium from Venus and implications for loss of water

As the dominant nonthermal mechanism for the escape of hydrogen in past Venus atmospheres, the charge exchange of H(+) with H would have provided an escape flux close to the diffusion-limiting value for H-mixing ratios up to 0.002 at the homopause, which also marks the onset of hydrodynamic flow. Charge exchange therefore represents a viable mechanism through which Venus could have lost up to an earth-equivalent ocean of water from its atmosphere over geologic time. Present Venus atmosphere estimates are based on in situ Pioneer Venus mission measurements, and assumptions in the course of extrapolation to past atmospheres have been with respect to the nature of the bulge, circulation pattern, and ion temperature.
MUPPATS — a multiparticle 3D imaging detector system

Abstract It has long been recognized that the foil-induced dissociation of fast molecular ions is a potentially powerful method to determine the stereochemical structures of molecular projectiles. We have recently developed a detector system specifically designed for such experiments. The MUPPATS detector is a large-area multistep low-pressure gas counter. The requirements of multiparticle detection with good position and time resolutions leads to a rather complex data-readout and reduction scheme. The system relies on several state-of-the-art techniques, developed in high-energy physics during recent years. Preliminary results for several polyatomic molecular ions have already been obtained. Some new avenues of research opened up by this detector are also described.
Ice Shapes on a Tail Rotor

Testing of a thermally-protected helicopter rotor in the Icing Research Tunnel (IRT) was completed. Data included inter-cycle and cold blade ice shapes. Accreted ice shapes were thoroughly documented, including tracing, scanning and photographing. This was the first time this scanning capability was used outside of NASA. This type of data has never been obtained for a rotorcraft before. This data will now be used to validate the latest generation of icing analysis tools.
Enumeration of isomorphism classes of extensions of p-adic fields

Abstract Let Ω be an algebraic closure of Q p and let F be a finite extension of Q p contained in Ω . Given positive integers f and e, the number of extensions K/F contained in Ω with residue degree f and ramification index e was computed by Krasner. This paper is concerned with the number I (F,f,e) of F-isomorphism classes of such extensions. We determine I (F,f,e) completely when p 2 ∤e and get partial results when p 2 || e . When s is large, I ( Q p ,f,e) is equal to the number of isomorphism classes of finite commutative chain rings with residue field F p f , ramification index e, and length s.
Proper Field Quantization in Black Hole Spacetimes

Abstract Canonical quantization of local field theories in classical black hole spacetimes with a single horizon leads to a particle number density with a thermal distribution in equilibrium at the Hawking temperature. A complete treatment including nonlocal quantum gravity effects has shown, however, that the full "thermal vacuum" of the theory is the false vacuum. In this work, we find the true vacuum consistent with the complete semiclassical analysis of quantum black holes. The theory is described by a "microcanonical" quantum field theory with fixed total energy E = M, the mass of the black hole. Considerations making use of the microcanonical density matrix as well as the idempotency condition show that particles in black hole backgrounds are described by pure states, unlike the canonical formulation.
VARIABLE STARS IN THE OPEN CLUSTER NGC 7142

We present new discoveries of variable stars near the turnoff of the old open cluster NGC 7142. Contrary to previous studies, we detect eight contact or near-contact eclipsing binaries (including three near the cluster turnoff), and most of these have good probability of being cluster members. We also identified one long-period variable that resides far to the red of the cluster giant branch, and four new detached eclipsing binaries. We have re-examined the question of distance and reddening for the cluster and find that the distance is larger and the reddening lower than in most previous studies. In turn this implies that NGC 7142 is probably slightly younger than M67, and is about 3 Gyr old. With an age of this size, NGC 7142 would be one of a small group of clusters with main-sequence turnoff stars at the transition between convective and radiative cores.
Estimating the Properties of Hard X-Ray Solar Flares by Constraining Model Parameters

We wish to better constrain the properties of solar flares by exploring how parameterized models of solar flares interact with uncertainty estimation methods. We compare four different methods of calculating uncertainty estimates in fitting parameterized models to Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager X-ray spectra, considering only statistical sources of error. Three of the four methods are based on estimating the scale-size of the minimum in a hypersurface formed by the weighted sum of the squares of the differences between the model fit and the data as a function of the fit parameters, and are implemented as commonly practiced. The fourth method is also based on the difference between the data and the model, but instead uses Bayesian data analysis and Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) techniques to calculate an uncertainty estimate. Two flare spectra are modeled: one from the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite X1.3 class flare of 2005 January 19, and the other from the X4.8 flare of 2002 July 23.We find that the four methods give approximately the same uncertainty estimates for the 2005 January 19 spectral fit parameters, but lead to very different uncertainty estimates for the 2002 July 23 spectral fit. This is because each method implements different analyses of the hypersurface, yielding method-dependent results that can differ greatly depending on the shape of the hypersurface. The hypersurface arising from the 2005 January 19 analysis is consistent with a normal distribution; therefore, the assumptions behind the three non- Bayesian uncertainty estimation methods are satisfied and similar estimates are found. The 2002 July 23 analysis shows that the hypersurface is not consistent with a normal distribution, indicating that the assumptions behind the three non-Bayesian uncertainty estimation methods are not satisfied, leading to differing estimates of the uncertainty. We find that the shape of the hypersurface is crucial in understanding the output from each uncertainty estimation technique, and that a crucial factor determining the shape of hypersurface is the location of the low-energy cutoff relative to energies where the thermal emission dominates. The Bayesian/MCMC approach also allows us to provide detailed information on probable values of the low-energy cutoff, Ec, a crucial parameter in defining the energy content of the flare-accelerated electrons. We show that for the 2002 July 23 flare data, there is a 95% probability that Ec lies below approximately 40 keV, and a 68% probability that it lies in the range 7-36 keV. Further, the low-energy cutoff is more likely to be in the range 25-35 keV than in any other 10 keV wide energy range. The low-energy cutoff for the 2005 January 19 flare is more tightly constrained to 107 +/- 4 keV with 68% probability.
Young Stellar Objects and Triggered Star Formation in the Vulpecula OB Association

The Vulpecula OB association, VulOB1, is a region of active star formation located in the Galactic plane at 2.3 kpc from the Sun. Previous studies suggest that sequential star formation is propagating along this 100 pc long molecular complex. In this paper, we use Spitzer MIPSGAL and GLIMPSE data to reconstruct the star formation history of VulOB1, and search for signatures of past triggering events. We make a census of young stellar objects (YSOs) in Vul OB1 based on IR color and magnitude criteria, and we rely on the properties and nature of these YSOs to trace recent episodes of massive star formation. We find 856 YSO candidates, and show that the evolutionary stage of the YSO population in Vul OB1 is rather homogeneous—ruling out the scenario of propagating star formation. We estimate the current star formation efficiency to be ~8%. We also report the discovery of a dozen pillar-like structures, which are confirmed to be sites of small scale triggered star formation.
Extremal optimization for Sherrington-Kirkpatrick spin glasses

Extremal Optimization (EO), a new local search heuristic, is used to approximate ground states of the mean-field spin glass model introduced by Sherrington and Kirkpatrick. The implementation extends the applicability of EO to systems with highly connected variables. Approximate ground states of sufficient accuracy and with statistical significance are obtained for systems with more than N=1000 variables using ±J bonds. The data reproduces the well-known Parisi solution for the average ground state energy of the model to about 0.01%, providing a high degree of confidence in the heuristic. The results support to less than 1% accuracy rational values of ω=2/3 for the finite-size correction exponent, and of ρ=3/4 for the fluctuation exponent of the ground state energies, neither one of which has been obtained analytically yet. The probability density function for ground state energies is highly skewed and identical within numerical error to the one found for Gaussian bonds. But comparison with infinite-range models of finite connectivity shows that the skewness is connectivity-dependent.
Inhibition of urinary calculi-a spectroscopic study

Although herbal medicine is widely employed in inhibition of urinary calculi as an alternative and complementary curative method, the lack of detailed scientific studies that could provide insights into this complex process weakens its validity. The present work targets multitechnique spectroscopic investigations by Raman, infrared absorption, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and photoluminescence on the effects of the herb Rotula Aquatica Lour (RAL) on the growth of synthetically prepared magnesium-based calculi. In addition to the standard magnesium phosphate-based sample, two other samples were prepared with incorporation of 1 and 2wt% RAL herbal extract. Both, Raman and infrared data show a newberyite structure for the crystals without and with inhibitor. The XPS measurements reveal an unexpected presence of Zn in the sample with bfRAL inhibitor, which, as suggested in the literature, may initiate rapid stone formation, and consequently, contribute to the inhibition process. Furthermore, the existence of metallic Zn can explain the reflectance of the incident light observed in the infrared transmission studies of the unground crystals. A significant increase in magnesium with addition of herbal extract is observed in the XPS data. Also, evidence for MgO binding between the inhibitor and the phosphate units of urinary calculus is found in XPS and Raman results. Similarity between our photoluminescence measurements and those of in vivo chlorophyll a corroborates to provide additional evidence of Mg-related inhibition. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Gas transport in polybutadiene treated with aqueous bromine

Diffusion, solubility, and permebility coefficients were measured for He, Co2, Ar, and CH4 in polybutadiene (PB) and in polybutadiene reacted in the solid state to various extents with aqueous bromine. Analysis of the sorption curves and X-ray emission spectra showed that the bromination created a heterogeneous membrane with an outer brominated skin and an unreacted core. At relatively low extent of bromination, the diffusion and permeability coefficients for CO2, Ar, and CH4 decreased by two orders of magnitude, while the transport coefficients for He were virtually unchanged. The permeability coefficients for CO2, Ar, and CH4 became immeasurably small after about 3% bromination. The ideal separation factor for gas pairs with different molecular size increased with bromination, suggesting applications in gas separation processes. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Some irreducible free group representations in which a linear combination of the generators has an eigenvalue

We construct irreducible unitary representations of a finitely generated free group which are weakly contained in the left regular representation and in which a given linear combination of the generators has an eigenvalue. When the eigenvalue is specified, we conjecture that there is only one such representation. The representation we have found is described explicitly (modulo inversion of a certain rational map on Euclidean space) in terms of a positive definite function, and also by means of a quasi-invariant probability measure on the combinatorial boundary of the group.
ML and beyond

ML is a successful programming language that reconciles theoretical principles with pragmatic requirements. However, there are many shortcomings of the current language and implementations. This short note outlines some promising directions for future work.
Radar astronomy and the special theory of relativity

The measurements of Planetary Radar and Lunar Laser Ranging provide a complete experimental foundation of the Lorentz-group of the Special Theory of Relativity.
Vision guided navigation for a nonholonomic mobile robot

Theoretical and analytical aspects of the visual servoing problem have not received much attention. Furthermore, the problem of estimation from the vision measurements has been considered separately from the design of the control strategies. Instead of addressing the pose estimation and control problems separately, we attempt to characterize the types of control tasks which can be achieved using only quantities directly measurable in the image, bypassing the pose estimation phase. We consider the task of navigation for a nonholonomic ground mobile base tracking an arbitrarily shaped continuous ground curve. This tracking problem is formulated as one of controlling the shape of the curve in the image plane. We study the controllability of the system characterizing the dynamics of the image curve, and show that the shape of the image curve is controllable only up to its "linear" curvature parameters. We present stabilizing control laws for tracking piecewise analytic curves, and propose to track arbitrary curves by approximating them by piecewise "linear" curvature curves. Simulation results are given for these control schemes. Observability of the curve dynamics by using direct measurements from vision sensors as the outputs is studied and an extended Kalman filter is proposed to dynamically estimate the image quantities needed for feedback control from the actual noisy images.
Homological realization of Nakajima varieties and Weyl group actions

We give a realization of Nakajima varieties and the action of the Weyl group on them using certain canonical structures of homological algebras and their natural generalization, which we develop in this paper. We consider in detail the case of an affine quiver, where we present a simple homological characterization of Nakajima varieties and its relation to moduli of sheaves on the projective plane.
Interfacial Contact Resistance of Single-Crystal Ceramics for Solar Concentrators

An experimental investigation was conducted to determine the thermal conductivity and overall thermal resistance of stacks of single-crysta l alumina and magnesia, and zirconia. From these data, the interfacial thermal resistance between the ceramic materials was evaluated over a range of pressures of 70-1720 kPa, and at two temperatures of 20 and 60°C. For all three materials, the interfacial thermal resistance decreases significantly with an increase in pressure at lower pressures, beyond which it decreases more gradually. Further, the effect of temperature on the interfacial thermal resistance is negligible for the temperature range investigated. These data were used to develop an equation relating the dimensionless interfacial thermal resistance to the crystal material properties, surface characteristics, crystal thickness, apparent interface pressure, and mean interface temperature.
Reionization of Hydrogen and Helium by Early Stars and Quasars

We compute the reionization histories of hydrogen and helium caused by the ionizing radiation fields produced by stars and quasars. For the quasars we use a model based on halo-merger rates that reproduces all known properties of the quasar luminosity function at high redshifts. The less constrained properties of the ionizing radiation produced by stars are modeled with two free parameters: (i) a transition redshift, ztran, above which the stellar population is dominated by massive, zero-metallicity stars and below which it is dominated by a Scalo mass function; and (ii) the product of the escape fraction of stellar ionizing photons from their host galaxies and the star formation efficiency, fescf*. We constrain the allowed range of these free parameters at high redshifts on the basis of the lack of the H I Gunn-Peterson trough at z 6 and the upper limit on the total intergalactic optical depth for electron scattering, τes < 0.18, from recent cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments. We find that quasars ionize helium by a redshift z ~ 4, but cannot reionize hydrogen by themselves before z ~ 6. A major fraction of the allowed combinations of fescf* and ztran leads to an early peak in the ionized fraction because of the presence of metal-free stars at high redshifts. This sometimes results in two reionization epochs, namely, an early H II or He III overlap phase followed by recombination and a second overlap phase. Even if early overlap is not achieved, the peak in the visibility function for scattering of the CMB often coincides with the early ionization phase rather than with the actual reionization epoch. Consequently, τes does not correspond directly to the reionization redshift. We generically find values of τes 7%, which should be detectable by the MAP satellite.
Detection of Earth-like Planets Using Apodized Telescopes

The mission of NASA's Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF) is to find Earth-like planets orbiting other stars and characterize the atmospheres of these planets using spectroscopy. Because of the enormous brightness ratio between the star and the reflected light from the planet, techniques must be found to reduce the brightness of the star. The current favorite approach to doing this is with interferometry: interfering the light from two or more separated telescopes with a π phase shift, nulling out the starlight. While this technique can, in principle, achieve the required dynamic range, building a space interferometer that has the necessary characteristics poses immense technical difficulties. In this paper, we suggest a much simpler approach to achieving the required dynamic range. By simply adjusting the transmissive shape of a telescope aperture, the intensity in large regions around the stellar image can be reduced nearly to zero. This approach could lead to construction of a TPF using conventional technologies, requiring space optics on a much smaller scale than the current TPF approach.
The Taxonomy of Blue Amorphous Galaxies. II. Structure and Evolution

Dwarf galaxies play an important role in our understanding of galaxy formation and evolution, and starbursts are believed to aUect the structure and evolution of dwarf galaxies strongly. We have therefore embarked on a systematic study of 12 of the nearest dwarf galaxies thought to be undergoing bursts of star formation. These were selected primarily by their morphological type (blue ii amorphous ˇˇ galaxies). We show that these blue amorphous galaxies are not physically distinguishable from dwarfs selected as starbursting by other methods, such as blue compact dwarfs (BCDs) and H II galaxies. All these classes exhibit surface brightness pro—les that are exponential in the outer regions but often have a (r Z 1.5r e ) predominantly central blue excess, suggesting a young burst in an older, redder galaxy. Typically, the starbursting ii cores ˇˇ are young (D107¨108 yr) events compared to the older (D109¨1010 yr) underlying galaxy (the ii envelope ˇˇ). The ratio of the core to envelope in blue light ranges from essentially zero to about 2. These starbursts are therefore modest events involving only a few percent of the stellar mass. The envelopes have surface brightnesses that are much higher than typical dwarf irregular (dI) galaxies, so it is unlikely that there is a straightforward evolutionary relation between typical dIs and dwarf star- burst galaxies. Instead we suggest that amorphous galaxies may repeatedly cycle through starburst and quiescent phases, corresponding to the galaxies with strong and weak/absent cores, respectively. Once amorphous galaxies use up the available gas (either through star formation or galactic winds) so that star formation is shut oU, the faded remnants would strongly resemble dwarf elliptical galaxies. However, in the current cosmological epoch, this is evidently a slow process that is the aftermath of a series of many weak, recurring bursts. Present-day dEs must have experienced more rapid and intense evolution than this in the distant past. Subject headings: galaxies: evolutiongalaxies: photometrygalaxies: stellar content ¨ galaxies: starburstgalaxies: structure
Gender alters the effects of palmitate and oleate on fat oxidation and energy expenditure.

Objective: Because estrogen and testosterone affect transcription factors regulating mitochondrial function, we assessed the effects of gender on the metabolic response to dietary palmitic acid (PA) vs. oleic acid (OA) in subjects participating in a previously described trial. Methods and Procedures: Adults (N = 43) were studied after following a baseline diet (PA = 8.4% kcal, OA = 13.1% kcal) and after undergoing one of two experimental diets: high PA (HI PA) (PA = 16.8%, OA = 16.4% kcal) (N = 21; 11 men) or high OA (HI OA) (PA = 1.7%, and OA = 31.4%) (N = 22; 11 men). Results: Relative to baseline, the rate of fatty acid (FA) oxidation (% resting energy expenditure(REE)) (mean ± s.e.m.) increased in women on HI OA while decreasing on HI PA in the fed (+11.8 ± 5.6% vs. −6.3 ± 4.2%, P = 0.02) and fasting states (+13.4 ± 4.2% vs. −12.7 ± 6.9%, P = 0.047), but changes in men were not statistically significant. Daily energy expenditure changed only in men, increasing on HI OA and decreasing on HI PA (+66 ± 61 kcal/day or 1.2 ± 1.0 kcal/kg fat-free mass (FFM)/day vs. −266 ± 78 kcal/day or −4.2 ± 1.3 kcal/kg FFM/day, P = 0.004 and P = 0.007, respectively). Discussion: Increased dietary PA/OA caused decreased FA oxidation in women, in the fed and fasted states and decreased daily energy expenditure (DEE) in men.
Charmonium production in high energy collisions

In recent years, there have been significant developments in heavy quarkonium production, both in theory and in experiment. These developments may have important implications for the use of charmonium as a probe in heavy-ion collisions. A summary of these developments is presented below. Those interested in more details are referred to a recent review article by Braaten, Fleming, and Yuan.
Is There Ingroup Favoritism in the NBA

Gramm and Schnell (1994. Difficult choices: Crossing the picket line during the 1987 National Football League strike. Journal of Labor Economics, 12(1), pp. 41– 71. January) found that NFL strikers in 1987 were more likely to cross the picket line when their union representative belonged to a different race. This finding, in turn, raises the question of whether in a sports league dominated by black athletes, such as the National Basketball Association (NBA), a team with relatively more black players wins more games if their head coach is also black. To determine whether there is any effect of the interaction between the racial composition of a sports team and the race of the team’s coach on team performance, we examined the performance of all 29 teams in the NBA in the 2005–06 season. We regressed the team’s winning percentage against the opponents’ field-goal percentage and the team’s own field-goal percentage; the percentage of black players on the team’s roster who competed in ten or more games; a binary variable for the coach’s race; and an interaction term between the percentage of black players on the roster and the race of the team’s coach (all data as well as pictures of players and coaches are from http://www.nba.com and http://www.basketball-reference.com). As expected, the effects of opponents’ field-goal percentage and the team’s own fieldgoal percentage on team winning were negative (P=0.021) and positive (P=0.022), respectively. The percentage of black players on the team roster was not significant (P=0.407). Black coaches led typically weaker teams (P=0.049). Surprisingly, however, the estimated coefficient on the interaction term between black roster composition and the race of the team’s head coach was positive and marginally significant (P=0.056). That is, an increasingly black team played better for a black coach. Moreover, the positive coefficient on the interaction term more than offset the negative coefficient on the black coach binary variable. The results presented here for the 2005–06 NBA season suggest that employees, in general, might perform better when they can identify closer (by race) to their Int Adv Econ Res (2007) 13:118–119 DOI 10.1007/s11294-006-9073-8
SU (∞) gauge theories on asymmetric lattices

We study SU (∞) gauge theory on an asymmetric lattice using a generalisation of the twisted Eguchi-Kawai model. We show that it is possible to remove the large-N bulk transition by choosing a sufficiently asymmetric lattice and hence to study the physical deconfinement transition without being affected by the former. Results for N = 16 indicate a strong first order deconfinement transition.
Effect of large doses of subcellular fractions on skin graft survival in mice.

Summary1. The use of large doses of subcellular fractions can successfully induce tolerance across the weak sex-linked histo-compatibility difference. The transplantation
DOES IT PAY TO DISCLOSE MANAGERIAL EARNINGS INFORMATION EARLY

Does it pay to voluntarily disclose the manager's private information about the firm's earnings prospects before the mandatory announcement date? This question has been a subject of much debate because prior research establishes both benefits and costs of early information disclosure. We provide evidence on the net effect of such disclosure by examining its impact on firm value. Using a large sample and correcting for self-selection bias, we find that early disclosure of the manager's private earnings information enhances the end-of-period value of the firm.
A new class of readily available and conformationally rigid phosphino-oxazoline ligands for asymmetric catalysis

Abstract A new class of conformationally rigid phosphino-oxazoline ligands 3 were synthesized via an efficient ortho -substitution of phenyl glycinol as the key step. Divergent synthetic routes for easy ligand modulation, as well as a procedure suitable for scale-up synthesis, were established. The catalytic potential of ligands 3 has been demonstrated in the highly enantioselective Ir-catalyzed hydrogenation of alkenes and Pd-catalyzed allylic substitution and intermolecular Heck reactions.
Comparison of hazard functions with duration dependence and stayer-mover structure with an application to divorce

Abstract Performances of hazard functions with an implicit stayer-mover structure are examined in Monte Carlo samples. The results are then applied to data on duration of first marriages.
The structures of some small molecules. Ab initio molecular orbital calculations versus low temperature neutron diffraction crystal structure analyses

Abstract The results of ab initio MO calculations of fully optimized molecular geometries at the HF/3-21G level of approximation are compared with the results of single crystal neutron diffraction structure analyses, carried out between 9 and 23 K. The molecules discussed are acetamide, monofluoroacetamide, thioacetamide, formamide oxime, N , N ′-diformylhydrazide, glyoxime, and 1,2,4-triazole. The theoretical results are corrected for basis-set deficiency and electron correlation by consideration of more extensive calculations on simpler molecules. The experimental results are corrected for thermal and zero-point energy motion by segmented-body thermal motion analysis. Allowance for hydrogen-bonding effects is made by means of calculations on simpler model systems at the HF/STO-3G level. After applying these corrections, the disagreement between the theoretical and experimental bond lengths ranges between 0 and 0.028 A, depending upon the type of bond. With one exception, the difference between the experimental and theoretical bond angles does not exceed 2.6° and the mean difference is 1.4°. The phenomenon of π-bond anisotropy leading to pyramidalization of the C sp 2 atoms is calculated and observed in the acetamide and thioacetamide molecules.
Tellurolate-induced deprotection of 2,2,2-trichloro-tert-butyloxycarbonyl (TCBOC) derivatives

Abstract Sodium-2-thiophenetellurolate efficiently regenerates amines from their 2,2,2-trichloro-tert-butyloxycarbonyl (TCBOC) and 2,2,2-trichloroethoxycarbonyl derivatives.
New Challenges for the Archiving of Digital Writing

In his article "New Challenges for the Archiving of Digital Writing" Heiko Zimmermann discusses the challenges of the preservation of digital texts. In addition to the problems already at the focus of attention of digital archivists, there are elements in digital literature which need to be taken into consideration when trying to archive them. Zimmermann analyses two works of digital literature, the collaborative writing project A Million Penguins (2006-2007) and Renee Tuner's She... (2008) and shows how the ontology of these texts is bound to elements of performance, to direct social interaction of writers and readers to the uniquely subjective reading process, and to real-time access to data. Zimmermann posits that these features of the digital text pose further challenges for digital archiving and libraries. Heiko Zimmermann, "New Challenges for the Archiving of Digital Writing" page 2 of 10 CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 16.5 (2014): Special Issue New Work on Electronic Literature and Cyberculture. Ed. Maya Zalbidea, Mark C. Marino, and Asuncion Lopez-Varela
Influence of weathering on physical properties of clearcoats

Abstract In this paper investigations concerning the weatherability performance of different clearcoat systems (1K, 2K) with various aromatics concentration in the polyol components will be presented. The analyses resulted after each 100 h accelerated weathering in a period of total 1000 h. Chemical degradation processes were analysed by means of FT-IR spectroscopy. For the physical investigations were used: dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), investigation of the surface topography, contact angle measurements to determine the surface tension and gloss measurements. Especially, the mechanical investigations proved the changes in properties as remarkably suited. Already after a short exposure time these methods yielded information about the weathering behaviour of the investigated clearcoat systems.
Discriminative Topic Modeling Based on Manifold Learning

Topic modeling has become a popular method used for data analysis in various domains including text documents. Previous topic model approaches, such as probabilistic Latent Semantic Analysis (pLSA) and Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), have shown impressive success in discovering low-rank hidden structures for modeling text documents. These approaches, however do not take into account the manifold structure of the data, which is generally informative for nonlinear dimensionality reduction mapping. More recent topic model approaches, Laplacian PLSI (LapPLSI) and Locally-consistent Topic Model (LTM), have incorporated the local manifold structure into topic models and have shown resulting benefits. But they fall short of achieving full discriminating power of manifold learning as they only enhance the proximity between the low-rank representations of neighboring pairs without any consideration for non-neighboring pairs. In this article, we propose a new approach, Discriminative Topic Model (DTM), which separates non-neighboring pairs from each other in addition to bringing neighboring pairs closer together, thereby preserving the global manifold structure as well as improving local consistency. We also present a novel model-fitting algorithm based on the generalized EM algorithm and the concept of Pareto improvement. We empirically demonstrate the success of DTM in terms of unsupervised clustering and semisupervised classification accuracies on text corpora and robustness to parameters compared to state-of-the-art techniques.
Ageing of black carbon along a temperature gradient.

Black carbon (BC) is regarded as a chemically and biologically stable form of carbon and the changes of BC properties in nature are generally assumed to be minute. However, more and more observations have argued the inertness of BC. The objectives of this study were to characterize the changes of BC properties through ageing processes and to identify if these changes are associated with temperature. Our results showed that ageing of BC occurs over a temperature range from �22 Ct o 70C within a short period of 12 months. The main changes of BC properties through ageing were found in elemental composition, surface chemistry, and adsorption properties, where the aged BCs were shown to have higher oxygen concentrations, surface acidity, and negative surface charge but lower C concentrations, pH, surface basi- city, point of zero net charge, and also a lower adsorption capacity of hydroquinone, an allelopathic com- pound, than fresh BC. These ageing processes of BC were affected by temperature and changed over time, with higher temperature and longer incubation time enhancing BC ageing. Our results from a wide tem- perature range suggest that ageing of BC is likely to occur in any terrestrial regime and that the changes of BC properties through ageing should not be overlooked.
Systems Engineering: A Problem of Perception

The characterization of systems engineering as a discipline, process, procedure or a set of heuristics will have an impact on the implementation strategy, the training methodology, and operational environment The systems engineering upgrade activities in the New Mexico Weapons Development Center and a search of systems engineering related information provides evidence of a degree of ambiguity in this characterization of systems engineering. A case is made in this article for systems engineering being the engineering discipline applied to the science of complexity. Implications of this characterization and some generic issues are delineated with the goal of providing an enterprise with a starting point for developing its business environment.
The Homogeneity of Interstellar Elemental Abundances in the Galactic Disk

We present interstellar elemental abundance measurements derived from Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph echelle observations of 47 sight lines extending up to 6.5 kpc through the Galactic disk. These paths probe a variety of interstellar environments, covering ranges of nearly 4 orders of magnitude in molecular hydrogen fraction f(H2) and more than 2 in mean hydrogen sight-line density nH. Coupling the current data with Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph data from 17 additional sight lines and the corresponding Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer and Copernicus observations of H2 absorption features, we explore magnesium, phosphorus, manganese, nickel, copper, and germanium gas-phase abundance variations as a function of nH: density-dependent depletion is noted for each element, consistent with a smooth transition between two abundance plateaus identified with warm and cold neutral interstellar medium depletion levels. The observed scatter with respect to an analytic description of these transitions implies that total elemental abundances are homogeneous on length scales of hundreds of parsecs, to the limits of abundance measurement uncertainty. The probable upper limit we determine for intrinsic variability at any nH is 0.04 dex, aside from an apparent 0.10 dex deficit in copper (and oxygen) abundances within 800 pc of the Sun. Magnesium dust abundances are shown to scale with the amount of silicon in dust, and in combination with a similar relationship between iron and silicon, these data appear to favor the young F and G star values of Sofia & Meyer as an elemental abundance standard for the Galaxy.
Using dynamic analysis to generate disjunctive invariants

Program invariants are important for defect detection, program verification, and program repair. However, existing techniques have limited support for important classes of invariants such as disjunctions, which express the semantics of conditional statements. We propose a method for generating disjunctive invariants over numerical domains, which are inexpressible using classical convex polyhedra. Using dynamic analysis and reformulating the problem in non-standard ``max-plus'' and ``min-plus'' algebras, our method constructs hulls over program trace points. Critically, we introduce and infer a weak class of such invariants that balances expressive power against the computational cost of generating nonconvex shapes in high dimensions. Existing dynamic inference techniques often generate spurious invariants that fit some program traces but do not generalize. With the insight that generating dynamic invariants is easy, we propose to verify these invariants statically using k-inductive SMT theorem proving which allows us to validate invariants that are not classically inductive. Results on difficult kernels involving nonlinear arithmetic and abstract arrays suggest that this hybrid approach efficiently generates and proves correct program invariants.
Coping with irregular spatio-temporal sampling in sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks have attracted attention from a diverse set of researchers, due to the unique combination of distributed, resource and data processing constraints. However, until now, the lack of real sensor network deployments have resulted in ad-hoc assumptions on a wide range of issues including topology characteristics and data distribution. As deployments of sensor networks become more widespread [1, 2], many of these assumptions need to be revisited.This paper deals with the fundamental issue of spatio-temporal irregularity in sensor networks We make the case for the existence of such irregular spatio-temporal sampling, and show that it impacts many performance issues in sensor networks. For instance, data aggregation schemes provide inaccurate results, compression efficiency is dramatically reduced, data storage skews storage load among nodes and incurs significantly greater routing overhead. To mitigate the impact of irregularity, we outline a spectrum of solutions. For data aggregation and compression, we propose the use of spatial interpolation of data (first suggested by Ganeriwal et al in [3] and temporal signal segmentation followed by alignment. To reduce the cost of data-centric storage and routing, we propose the use of virtualization, and boundary detection.
Crime and International Tourism

Using a panel data set of European countries, this paper investigates the impact of crime on international tourism. Violent crimes are negatively associated with incoming international tourists and international tourism revenue indicating that international tourists consider the risk of victimization when choosing a location to visit. This impact is smaller in magnitude in Southern European countries with a coastline which are generally more attractive tourist destinations in terms of sea tourism, suggesting that victimization risk and attractiveness of the destination may be substitutable traits.
Computational Evaluation of Adhesion and Mechanical Properties of Nanolayered Erosion-Resistant Coatings for Gas Turbines

A computational method to evaluate fracture toughness of prospective erosion-resistant coatings using a combination of first-principles density functional theory (DFT) calculations and fracture mechanics is proposed. Elastic coefficients C 11 , C 12 , and C 44 , the ideal work of adhesion W ad , bulk modulus B, shear modulus G, and Young's modulus E of transition metal nitrides with a cubic structure such as TiN, CrN, ZrN, VN, and HfN are calculated. Both the G/B ratio and Cauchy pressure C 12 ―C 44 indicate brittle behavior for TiN, ZrN, and HfN and more metallic behavior for CrN and VN. The fracture toughness K IC and interfacial fracture toughness K Int IC for bilayer combinations of these five nitrides is calculated along the [100] and [110] directions. The largest K IC value is obtained for HfN (2.14 MPa m 1/2 ) in (100) orientation and for TiN (2.16 MPa m 1/2 )in (110) orientation. The lowest fracture toughness, in both orientations, is found for CrN. Among ten coherent interfaces of the five investigated nitrides the largest value of interfacial fracture toughness K Int IC = 3.24 MPa m 1/2 is recorded for the HfN/TiN interface in the (110) orientation.
Task analysis of autonomous on-road driving

The Real-time Control System (RCS) Methodology has evolved over a number of years as a technique to capture task knowledge and organize it into a framework conducive to implementation in computer control systems. The fundamental premise of this methodology is that the present state of the task activities sets the context that identifies the requirements for all of the support processing. In particular, the task context at any time determines what is to be sensed in the world, what world model states are to be evaluated, which situations are to be analyzed, what plans should be invoked, and which behavior generation knowledge is to be accessed. This methodology concentrates on the task behaviors explored through scenario examples to define a task decomposition tree that clearly represents the branching of tasks into layers of simpler and simpler subtask activities. There is a named branching condition/situation identified for every fork of this task tree. These become the input conditions of the if-then rules of the knowledge set that define how the task is to respond to input state changes. Detailed analysis of each branching condition/situation is used to identify antecedent world states and these, in turn, are further analyzed to identify all of the entities, objects, and attributes that have to be sensed to determine if any of these world states exist. This paper explores the use of this 4D/RCS methodology in some detail for the particular task of autonomous on-road driving, which work was funded under the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) Mobile Autonomous Robot Software (MARS) effort (Doug Gage, Program Manager).
Criteria for Components of A Function Space to Be Homotopy Equivalent

We give a general method that may be effectively applied to the question of whether two components of a function space map(X, Y) have the same homotopy type. We describe certain group-like actions on map(X, Y). Our basic results assert that if maps f, g: X ? Y are in the same orbit under such an action, then the components of map(X, Y) that contain f and g have the same homotopy type.
Balanced allocations and double hashing

With double hashing, for an item x, one generates two hash values f(x) and g(x), and then uses combinations (f(x) +ig(x)) mod n for i=0,1,2,... to generate multiple hash values from the initial two. We show that the performance difference between double hashing and fully random hashing appears negligible in the standard balanced allocation paradigm, where each item is placed in the least loaded of d choices, as well as several related variants. We perform an empirical study, and consider multiple theoretical approaches. While several techniques can be used to show asymptotic results for the maximum load, we demonstrate how fluid limit methods explain why the behavior of double hashing and fully random hashing are essentially indistinguishable in this context.
Formation of small aromatic molecules in a sooting ethylene flame

Abstract The chemical route to the formation of soot and PAH is poorly understood, in part because rate constants for reactions of aromatic species at flame temperatures are largely unknown. In this work we used a quartz sampling probe to measure the concentration profiles of the single-ring aromatics benzene, phenylacetylene, and styrene in heavily sooting premixed ethylene flames. A detailed chemical kinetics model was then constructed for the purpose of explaining the flame chemistry. The model, which uses estimated rate constants for many of the reactions involving aromatic species, gives good predictions for benzene and better than order-of-magnitude predictions for styrene and phenylacetylene. A sensitivity analysis has isolated a particular chemical reaction which controls their rate of formation, and it shows that even large errors in the other aromatic rate constants have relatively little effect on the predictions. The value for this rate constant is consistent with measurements made in a low pressure flame and in shock tubes.