cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) in Biological Sciences

Research experiences provide tremendous benefits to students, such as improved learning outcomes and increased persistence in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). However, the opportunity to do research in a faculty laboratory can be limited by available resources. As a solution, national reports have called for laboratory courses that engage undergraduates in authentic research experiences. These course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) have the potential to make research experiences accessible to all students. While CUREs have been reported in the literature across STEM disciplines, many of them are in the biological sciences. Here, we present two examples of large introductory biology CUREs, where students work collaboratively on research projects that have the potential to generate novel results with broader relevance. The goal of these courses is to help students develop an understanding of research in the biological sciences by engaging in authentic research experiences. We also report data from quantitative surveys and qualitative focus groups that are used to evaluate these courses and to provide continuing feedback for improvement over many implementation cycles. While the courses described in this chapter are in biological sciences, we believe that our approach is applicable to colleagues across STEM disciplines who wish to develop their own CUREs.
[Cross-sectional surveys on the use of recreational drug nitrous-acid-ester rush-poppers in men who have sex with men, Nanjing].

Objective To investigate the situation of recreational drug nitrous acid ester inhaler-rush poppers use in men who have sex with men (MSM). Methods From April to June in 2014, October to December in 2014, April to June in 2015, three round cross-sectional surveys were conducted in MSM recruited in Nanjing by means of serum test and questionnaire survey. Results Of the 1 721 MSM surveyed in three round, 19.3% (332/1 721) had ever used rush poppers, the proportions of MSM who used rush poppers in three round surveys showed an increasing trend (liner by liner χ2= 14.879, P=0.000), which was 12.6% (86/681), 27.6% (121/439) and 20.8% (125/601) respectively. Rush poppers use was associated with HIV infection significantly (OR=1.676, 95%CI: 1.201-2.339, P=0.002). Compared with MSM without rush poppers use, the MSM with rush poppers use were mainly aged <30 years, unmarried, received college and higher education, had lived in Nanjing for less than 2 years, seek sex partners through internet and identified themselves as homosexual orientation. Multivariate logistic analysis showed that less than 30 years old, living in Nanjing for less than 2 years, with college and higher education level, more than 2 sex partners in the past 6 months, being diagnosed with STDs in the previous one year and using traditional drugs were the risk factors associated with rush poppers use. Conclusion Rush poppers use was related with HIV infection in MSM in Nanjing. Key words: Men who have sex with men; Nitrous acid ester; Cross-sectional survey
Translational Repression of G3BP in Cancer and Germ Cells Suppresses Stress Granules and Enhances Stress Tolerance

Summary Stress granules (SGs) are membrane-less ribonucleoprotein condensates that form in response to various stress stimuli via phase separation. SGs act as a protective mechanism to cope with acute stress, but persistent SGs have cytotoxic effects that are associated with several age-related diseases. Here, we demonstrate that the testis-specific protein, MAGE-B2, increases cellular stress tolerance by suppressing SG formation through translational inhibition of the key SG nucleator G3BP. MAGE-B2 reduces G3BP protein levels below the critical concentration for phase separation and suppresses SG initiation. Knockout of the MAGE-B2 mouse ortholog or overexpression of G3BP1 confers hypersensitivity of the male germline to heat stress in vivo. Thus, MAGE-B2 provides cytoprotection to maintain mammalian spermatogenesis, a highly thermosensitive process that must be preserved throughout reproductive life. These results demonstrate a mechanism that allows for tissue-specific resistance against stress and could aid in the development of male fertility therapies.
Physician-modified fenestrated endovascular repair of type 1A endoleaks from polymer-based low-profile endografts.

PurposeThere have been increasing number of endovascular aortic aneurysm repair performed in hostile necks using newer generation technology including polymer-based proximal sealing devices such as...
Engineering quantum-coherent defects: The role of substrate miscut in chemical vapor deposition diamond growth

The engineering of defects in diamond, particularly nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers, is important for many applications in quantum science. A materials science approach based on chemical vapor deposition (CVD) growth of diamond and in situ nitrogen doping is a promising path toward tuning and optimizing the desired properties of the embedded defects. Herein, with the coherence of the embedded defects in mind, we explore the effects of substrate miscut on the diamond growth rate, nitrogen density, and hillock defect density, and we report an optimal angle range for the purposes of engineering coherent ensembles of NV centers in diamond according to our growth parameters. We provide a model that quantitatively describes hillock nucleation in the step-flow regime of CVD growth, shedding insight on the physics of hillock formation. We also report significantly enhanced incorporation of nitrogen at hillock defects, opening the possibility for templating hillock-defect-localized NV center ensembles for quantum applications.
Health Outcomes Used to Determine Facets of Health-related Quality of Life for Post-9/11 Veterans Using Assistive Technology for A Combat-related Mobility Impairment: A Literature Review.

Introduction Novel rehabilitation methods, including distribution and adoption of assistive technology for lower extremity impairments, are becoming crucial to ensure positive quality of life in all individuals. The quality of life of post-9/11 combat veterans is not well understood, in comparison to research on other populations. The following essay describes a review on health outcomes used to determine health-related quality of life (HR-QoL) among combat-injured service members who require mobility-related assistive technology. Materials and methods Reviews pooled data from research on PubMed, EMBASE, CINAHL, and PsycINFO published after September 11, 2001, and included service members who sustained a mobility impairment because of involvement in a post-9/11 combat operation. Basic descriptors were extracted in addition to health outcomes used, which were then categorized and summarized by six domains for HR-QoL as defined by the World Health Organization. Results This review found health outcomes that fit in the pain and discomfort, negative emotions, mobility, social relations, access to and quality of healthcare services, and religious/spiritual/personal beliefs subdomains. The categorized results detailed their application to track and model HR-QoL health states in those with mobility impairments using mobility-based assistive technology. Conclusions The research on combat-induced mobility impairments indicates assistive technology improves otherwise poor health states. The results model these domains and subdomains to determine overall HR-QoL and the quality of a healthcare intervention, though additional research is needed as only one study was identified to be experimental in design.
Reading Reconstruction: Sherwood Bonner and the Literature of the Post- Civil War South, by Kathryn B. McKee: Louisiana State U P, 2019.

Seamlessly woven into the fabric of an in-depth case study on Southern writer Katherine “Sherwood Bonner” McDowell, Kathryn McKee’s Reading Reconstruction enriches current scholarship on the post-C...
Adaptive Self-Interference Cancellation for Full-Duplex Wireless Communication Systems

In this letter, we consider single-cell, single-user systems wherein uplink and downlink user equipment communicate with a full-duplex relay. Due to the near-far problem, the self-interference (SI) can be 100-1000x the received signal power. In this context, we consider the adaptive Least Mean Squares (LMS) algorithm to estimate the SI channel and then subtract the SI from the desired received signal before the analog-to-digital converter (ADC). We measure the robustness of this technique in terms of bit error rate (BER) and spectral efficiency.
Zombie infrastructure: A legal geography of railroad monstrosity in the California desert:

This paper proposes the concept of zombie infrastructure to understand the entangled histories of railroad colonialism, Indigenous dispossession, and corporate power in the California desert. I exa...
Evolutionary graph theory beyond pairwise interactions: higher-order network motifs shape times to fixation in structured populations

To design population topologies that can accelerate rates of solution discovery in directed evolution problems or in evolutionary optimization applications, we must first systematically understand how population structure shapes evolutionary outcome. Using the mathematical formalism of evolutionary graph theory, recent studies have shown how to topologically build networks of population interaction that increase probabilities of fixation of beneficial mutations, at the expense, however, of longer fixation times, which can slow down rates of evolution under elevated mutation rate. Here we find that moving beyond dyadic interactions is fundamental to explain the trade-offs between probability and time to fixation. We show that higher-order motifs, and in particular three-node structures, allow tuning of times to fixation, without changes in probabilities of fixation. This gives a near-continuous control over achieving solutions that allow for a wide range of times to fixation. We apply our algorithms and analytic results to two evolutionary optimization problems and show that the rate at which evolving agents learn to navigate their environment can be tuned near continuously by adjusting the higher-order topology of the agent population. We show that the effects of population structure on the rate of evolution critically depend on the optimization landscape and find that decelerators, with longer times to fixation of new mutants, are able to reach the optimal solutions faster than accelerators in complex solution spaces. Our results highlight that no one population topology fits all optimization applications, and we provide analytic and computational tools that allow for the design of networks suitable for each specific task.
#ThemToo?: Trans Women Exclusionary Discourses in the #MeToo Era

Trans women experience sexual violence at alarming rates; however, due to societal cisnormativity, people often remain unaware of such rates. As digital feminist movements, such as #MeToo, gain mom...
The Fragility of Optimized Bandit Algorithms.

Much of the literature on optimal design of bandit algorithms is based on minimization of expected regret. It is well known that designs that are optimal over certain exponential families can achieve expected regret that grows logarithmically in the number of arm plays, at a rate governed by the Lai-Robbins lower bound. In this paper, we show that when one uses such optimized designs, the associated algorithms necessarily have the undesirable feature that the tail of the regret distribution behaves like that of a truncated Cauchy distribution. Furthermore, for $p>1$, the $p$'th moment of the regret distribution grows much faster than poly-logarithmically, in particular as a power of the number of sub-optimal arm plays. We show that optimized Thompson sampling and UCB bandit designs are also fragile, in the sense that when the problem is even slightly mis-specified, the regret can grow much faster than the conventional theory suggests. Our arguments are based on standard change-of-measure ideas, and indicate that the most likely way that regret becomes larger than expected is when the optimal arm returns below-average rewards in the first few arm plays that make that arm appear to be sub-optimal, thereby causing the algorithm to sample a truly sub-optimal arm much more than would be optimal.
Introduction: Two Paths to the Future of Electricity Retailing

Over the last several decades, an influx of technological change has shaken retail electricity sectors around the globe. While these new technologies can provide pivotal opportunities for revenue generation, grid reliability, and energy savings, they also impose a number of new challenges on regulators, retailers, and consumers. We introduce two regulatory responses that should be considered when approaching these challenges. A reactive approach allows regulators to take action on a case-by-case basis when new technologies are observed to be impinging on electricity retailers. The alternative is a forward-looking approach where the regulator takes early action in anticipation of technological changes. The choice of whether to pursue either of these should largely depend on an individual jurisdictions resource base, sustainability goals, and existing institutions and infrastructure. In this chapter we identify the initial conditions most conducive to successful adoption of these approaches and introduce the structure and content of the remainder of the book.
Incentive delivery timing and follow-up survey completion in a prospective cohort study of injured children: a randomized experiment comparing prepaid and postpaid incentives.

Background Retaining participants over time is a frequent challenge in research studies evaluating long-term health outcomes. This study's objective was to compare the impact of prepaid and postpaid incentives on response to a six-month follow-up survey. Methods We conducted an experiment to compare response between participants randomized to receive either prepaid or postpaid cash card incentives within a multisite study of children under 15 years in age who were hospitalized for a serious, severe, or critical injury. Participants were parents or guardians of enrolled children. The primary outcome was survey response. We also examined whether demographic characteristics were associated with response and if incentive timing influenced the relationship between demographic characteristics and response. We evaluated whether incentive timing was associated with the number of calls needed for contact. Results The study enrolled 427 children, and parents of 420 children were included in this analysis. Follow-up survey response did not differ according to the assigned treatment arm, with the percentage of parents responding to the survey being 68.1% for the prepaid incentive and 66.7% with the postpaid incentive. Likelihood of response varied by demographics. Spanish-speaking parents and parents with lower income and lower educational attainment were less likely to respond. Parents of Hispanic/Latino children and children with Medicaid insurance were also less likely to respond. We found no relationship between the assigned incentive treatment and the demographics of respondents compared to non-respondents. Conclusions Prepaid and postpaid incentives can obtain similar participation in longitudinal pediatric critical care outcomes research. Incentives alone do not ensure retention of all demographic subgroups. Strategies for improving representation of hard-to-reach populations are needed to address health disparities and ensure the generalizability of studies using these results.
Dysfunction of resolution receptor trigger cardiomyopathy of obesity and signs of non-resolving inflammation in heart failure.

Heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) has been an emerging type of cardiac disease since the pseudo-left ventricle function is preserved; therefore, challenges in finding the target and treatment. Damage and pathogen-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs and PAMPs) are widely investigated in acute and chronic inflammation in heart failure; however, lifestyle-associated molecular patterns (LAMPs: diet, sleep, exercise), particularly in obesity, remains of interest due to the enormous increase of HFpEF patients. In this review, we covered obesity-related cardiomyopathy, LAMPs, and resolution receptor dysfunction in the context of heart failure with preserved ejection fraction.
Organelle-level precision with next-generation targeting technologies

Intracellular organelles are subsystems within a cell, whose activity and chemical composition reflect the metabolic state of live cells. Alterations in cellular homeostasis occurring in disease, ageing and development are also reflected at the level of organelles. By targeting organelles with pharmacological agents and genetic tools, the aim is to improve disease diagnosis and to restore cell function. In this Review, we discuss biological pathways that can be exploited to target the delivery of exogenous cargo with organelle-level precision. We investigate how these pathways can be leveraged for imaging, diagnosis and therapy at the organelle level, and highlight the potential of nucleic acids as delivery systems to target specific organelles in vivo, including the nucleus, lysosomes, secretory organelles and mitochondria. The programmability, modularity and biocompatibility of nucleic acid-based scaffolds make them well suited to accomplishing next-generation targeting with organelle-level resolution in living organisms. Organelles are compartments inside cells that play important parts in intercellular and intracellular communication, reflecting the metabolic state of the cell. This Review discusses biological pathways that can be exploited to target cargo to specific organelles in vivo, highlighting nucleic acids as suitable delivery vehicles for organelle-level imaging, diagnosis and therapy.
Determining Price Support Levels for Biofuel Crops

One of the first applications of bilevel programming dealt with the Mexican government’s efforts to establish agricultural development policies [C1]. As leader, the government’s objective was to maximize the sum of consumer and producer surplus. This was done by simulating the behavior of an atomistic market with profit—maximizing producers. Two sets of variables were defined. The first, called impact variables, included employment, farm income, the level of maize production, the level of wheat production, and the size of the government budget. Maize and wheat were singled out because of their role as basic food grains. The second set comprised the control variables and included fertilizer subsidies, subsidies on the interest rate charged against irrigation investment loans, purchases of maize and wheat at varying support prices levels, and water tax possibilities.
Spatial identification of tributary impacts in river networks

Christian E. Torgersen1, Robert E. Gresswell2, Douglas S. Bateman3 and Kelly M. Burnett4 1US Geological Survey, Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center, Cascadia Field Station, University of Washington, College of Forest Resources, USA 2US Geological Survey, Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center, USA 3Department of Forest Sciences, Oregon State University, USA 4US Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station, USA
Optimal PMU placement for power system restoration

PMU placement is important to achieve full system observability. Traditional PMU placement algorithms only work for systems in normal condition. During power system restoration, system topology and condition change in each step. Synchrophsors can help to improve the reliability and efficiency of restoration strategy. However, the original PMU placement cannot guarantee system observability in each restoration step. In this paper, a new optimal PMU placement is formulated for single and multiple islands restoration. With the aid of PMU, system operator can obtain real-time measurements of voltage (magnitude and angle) and frequency from different islands and perform the parallel restoration precisely. The proposed algorithm is tested in modified IEEE 14-bus system. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of proposed model and the advantage of PMU-aided parallel restoration.
BPX commitment to total remote maintenance

A study was undertaken to investigate how the BPX (Burning Plasma Experiment) project would be affected if the capability to recover from a coil failure were required. Potential effects including configuration changes to the machine and facility, project cost, and project operation were considered. It was revealed that it is feasible to design BPX for remote recovery from any coil failure. However, for this to be accomplished effectively, it is imperative to incorporate the necessary remote maintenance features of the components to be remotely replaced into the original design along with all of the other functional features. The remote maintenance capability cannot be retrofitted after the design is complete or the equipment is built. The cost of incorporating the capability for remote replacement would be less than 6% of the total project costs. Replacement of a failed TF coil would require approximately two years. >
Physical layer effects on MAC layer performance of IEEE 802.11 a and b WLAN on the Martian surface

The MAC layer performance of IEEE 802.11a and b WLAN standards on the Martian surface is studied. The Gusev Crater region and the Meridiani Planum (Hematite) region are chosen as example sites based on the mission science and mission success criteria. The radio frequency (RF) multipath environment is obtained using digital elevation maps (DEMs) from the Mars Global Surveyor mission, taking into account the atmosphere and other factors on the Martian surface. Two methods are presented to incorporate the physical layer effects on the Martian surface into the OP-NET modeler. Simple network configurations are considered. Three performance metrics are used: energy per successful bit, throughput per unit load and average delay. The effects of packet size, data rates, retry limits are studied and the use of RAKE receivers for 802.11b is considered. It is observed that the transmission parameters must be carefully selected in order to have acceptable performance levels. Larger packet sizes improve energy efficiency but increase delay and reduce throughput. For 802.11a, the 12 Mbps rate is found to provide acceptable results. For 802.11b, the 11 Mbps rate provides good results when a RAKE receiver is employed. Overall, the performance of 802.11a is found to be better than the performance of 802.11b.
HEAT INPUT AND POST WELD HEAT TREATMENT EFFECTS ON REDUCED-ACTIVATION FERRITIC/MARTENSITIC STEEL FRICTION STIR WELDS

Reduced-activation ferritic/martensitic (RAFM) steels are an important class of structural materials for fusion reactor internals developed in recent years because of their improved irradiation resistance. However, they can suffer from welding induced property degradations. In this paper, a solid phase joining technology friction stir welding (FSW) was adopted to join a RAFM steel Eurofer’97 and different FSW parameters/heat input were chosen to produce welds. FSW response parameters, joint microstructures and microhardness were investigated to reveal relationships among welding heat input, weld structure characterization and mechanical properties. In general, FSW heat input results in high hardness inside the stir zone mostly due to a martensitic transformation. It is possible to produce friction stir welds similar to but not with exactly the same base metal hardness when using low power input because of other hardening mechanisms. Further, post weld heat treatment (PWHT) is a very effective way to reduce FSW stir zone hardness values.
Human Carbonic Anhydrases III. IMMUNOCHEMICAL STUDIES

Abstract All human carbonic anhydrases of the B and of the C type are immunologically equivalent. No differences in the native and forms generated in vitro of the B isozymes are noted. All of the zinc in human hemolysates can be accounted for by the carbonic anhydrases and cytocuprein. Quantitative immunochemical assays of the hemolysates of normal humans show little variation in the levels of the B and of the C type enzymes.
An apoptotic signaling pathway activated by Nod1

Nod1 and Nod2 are two cytosolic proteins thought to play a role in innate immunity. Both detect the presence of microbes through recognition of peptidoglycan fragments but also may initiate apoptosis. The nod2 gene has been strongly associated with several autoimmune diseases and particularly Crohn's disease; in contrast, nod1 polymorphisms have not been linked to any genetic disorders. Here we provide multiple lines of evidence showing that Nod1 participates in apoptosis. Nod1-deficient breast cancer cells (MCF-7) were more resistant to tumor necrosis factor-induced cytotoxicity, and this was accompanied by a reduction in caspase signaling. Further, γTriDAP, a naturally occurring tripeptide product from peptidoglycan and a ligand for Nod1, induced cell death consistent with apoptosis in wild-type MCF-7 cells but not in Nod1-deficient cells. γTriDAP triggered processing of PARP and many caspases, including caspase 6, caspase 7, caspase 8 and caspase 9. Only caspase 9 inhibitor totally abrogated γTriDAP cytotoxicity. RIP2/RICK, a downstream protein kinase of Nod1, appears to be an essential component of the Nod1 proapoptotic pathway since expression of a dominant negative form of RIP2 abolished γTriDAP-induced cell death. This is a newly defined activity for Nod1 and suggests that Nod1-induced apoptosis may be responsible for cell injury in a variety of disease states.
Enforcing Murphy's law for advance identification of run-time failures

Applications do not typically view the kernel as a source of bad input. However, the kernel can behave in unusual (yet permissible) ways for which applications are badly unprepared. We present Murphy, a language-agnostic tool that helps developers discover and isolate run-time failures in their programs by simulating difficult-to-reproduce but completely-legitimate interactions between the application and the kernel. Murphy makes it easy to enable or disable sets of kernel interactions, called gremlins, so developers can focus on the failure scenarios that are important to them. Gremlins are implemented using the ptrace interface, intercepting and potentially modifying an application's system call invocation while requiring no invasive changes to the host machine. We show how to use Murphy in a variety of modes to find different classes of errors, present examples of the kernel interactions that are tested, and explain how to apply delta debugging techniques to isolate the code causing the failure. While our primary goal was the development of a tool to assist in new software development, we successfully demonstrate that Murphy also has the capability to find bugs in hardened, widely-deployed software.
Development and modeling of a slope insensitive combine cleaning shoe

An experimental cleaning shoe was developed to compensate for sloped land by adjustment of shake speed, fan speed, and shake geometry. Grain loss on the cleaning shoe decreased compared to a conventional cleaning shoe exposed to similar conditions. Average grain losses of 0.710% and 6.560% on 5and 10-degree side slopes in corn were reduced to 0.118% and 0.256% on the same side slopes using only modified shake geometry. Similar reductions in grain loss were seen in wheat, from 7.521% and 15.272% on both side slopes to 3.941% and 4.722% using only modified shake geometry. Grain loss prediction models were developed for each crop with R values of 0.8111 and 0.8440. Through modification of fan and shake speeds and shake geometry to field conditions, grain loss reduced from averages of 1.276% to 0.675
Demographic components of growth in white, black, and Puerto Rican female-headed families: Comparison of the Cutright and Ross/Sawhill methodologies

Abstract This study examines the methodological differences between Cutright's (1974, Journal of Marriage and the Family36, 714–721) and Ross and Sawhill's (1975, Time of Transition: The Growth of Families Headed by Women. The Urban Institute, Washington, D.C.) analyses of demographic components of growth in the number of female-headed families and replicates their procedures within a comparable time/age framework in order to resolve their contradictory findings. The analysis suggests that while changes in living arrangements and population are the two major factors accounting for changes in the number of White female-headed families between 1940 and 1970, marital instability is the major factor responsible for the increase in the number of White female-headed families between 1960 and 1970. Cutright's analysis of long-term changes for nonwhites is debatable. The relative importance of demographic factors in explaining the absolute increase in female-headed families between 1960 and 1970 clearly varies by ethnic/racial group.
High-rate CAMAC acquisition system

Abstract The High Energy Resolution Ball (HERB) consists of 21 Bismuth-germanate shielded germanium detectors, clustered in three rings. In the center of the cluster is a 40 element bismuth-germanate ball which functions as a sum spectrometer and a multiplicity filter. The purpose of the system is to measure the energy, multiplicity, and correlations of gamma rays emitted from a target located in the center of the ball. This paper describes the data acquisition hardware and software which was developed to support this apparatus. The high data rates generated are handled by two levels of FIFO buffering in CAMAC hardware. Also of interest is the method of calibrating the individual analog input channels. The software obtains calibration information from the incoming experimental data and sets up a special CAMAC module which dynamically adjusts the gain and offset of each input channel.
Concentration of membrane antigens by forward transport and trapping in neuronal growth cones

Formation of the nervous system requires that neuronal growth cones follow specific paths and then stop at recognition signals, sensed at the growth cone's leading edge. We used antibody-coated gold particles viewed by video-enhanced differential interference contrast microscopy to observe the distribution and movement of two cell surface molecules, N-CAM and the 2A1 antigen, on growth cones of cultured cortical neurons. Gold particles are occasionally transported forward at 1-2 microns/s to the leading edge where they are trapped but continue to move. Concentration at the edge persists after cytochalasin D treatment or ATP depletion, but active movements to and along edges cease. We also observed a novel outward movement of small cytoplasmic aggregates at 1.8 microns/s in filopodia. We suggest that active forward transport and trapping involve reversible attachment of antigens to and transport along cytoskeletal elements localized to edges of growth cones.
HLA and epidermolysis bullosa: Evidence for independent assortment of Weber-Cockayne Subtype of epidermolysis bullosa and HLA complex

The purpose of this study was to examine the genetic linkage (but not the association) between HLA complex and Weber-Cockayne Subtype of epidermolysis bullosa (EBS-WC). We HLA typed 44 members of three multi-generation families in which 24 members have the clinical evidence of EBS-WC. The patterns of inheritance of various HLA haplotypes and the disease were mathematically analyzed to estimate frequency of recombination (i.e. genetic distance) between HLA complex and the disease by calculating Lod Scores for each family separately as well as all for three families combined. Our results show that only one family had a positive Lod Score. The Lod Scores for the remaining two families as well as the combined Lod Score for all three families were negative. These data suggest that odds are against the genetic linkage between HLA complex and Weber-Cockayne Subtype of epidermolysis bullosa and in favor of independent assortment of the disease and HLA complex.
Clamped circular rigid-plastic plates subjected to central blast loading☆

Abstract Presented is a numerical algorithm for the analysis of rigid-ideally plastic circular plates subjected to central loading with an arbitrary pressure-time history. Computed results show that the residual deformation depends rather strongly on the pulse shape. In order to eliminate the influence of the pulse introduced are certain correlation parameters. Correlation proves to be very satisfactory and as a result the procedure enables a quick computation of residual deformation for an arbitrary pulse shape from already known results for, say, rectangular blasts.
Physical vapor deposition tool coatings

Abstract Physical vapor deposition (PVD) of hard coatings such as titanium nitride have been an industrial reality since the beginning of the 1980s. Two PVD processes, low voltage electron beam and cathodic arc deposition, were responsible for the early commercial success of hard coatings on high speed steel tooling. Since that time, two other PVD processes have also been prosperous in the industrial world—high voltage triode electron beam and unbalanced magnetron sputtering. There are many similarities and differences between these four PVD hard coating processes, but not all of the commonly used PVD hard coatings can be deposited well in the four systems. Titanium nitride and titanium carbonitride are the two most widely used PVD tool coatings, and they can be deposited in all four PVD systems. Titanium aluminum nitride can be deposited easily with the unbalanced magnetron process and also with the cathodic arc processes as long as cast targets are used. Uniform composition cannot be maintained with the electron beam processes because of the different vapor pressures of titanium and aluminum. New PVD hard coatings are being developed and applied. Diamond-like carbon is now being tried for some non-ferrous cutting applications, and metal-carbon films are showing promise. Polycrystalline nitride superlattice coatings made of thin alternating layers of two hard coatings such as titanium nitride and niobium nitride are showing potential for abrasive cutting situations because of the very high hardness (up to 5200 HV) of these coatings. The search continues for potentially even better tool coatings. An intense effort is underway to produce the superhard crystalline carbon nitride, which is predicted to have a hardness as hard or even harder than diamond. Similarly, cubic boron nitride (CBN) coatings are still very much in the development stage. Thin CBN coatings can now be deposited up to approximately 2000 A in thickness, but stress in the films prevents thicker films from being made. Aluminum oxide, which has been very difficult to make by PVD techniques, except in the very slow r.f. sputtering mode, can now be deposited in the d.c. magnetron mode when pulsed power is used.
Theorem Proving with Lemmas

The concern here is with proof procedures which are generalizations of input or unit deduction. The author's generalizations of input deduction involve lemmas, whereas those of unit deduction involve longer clauses and are akin to Robinson's P1 deduction. Chang's theorem, which establishes the equivalence of input and unit refutation, is extended to these generalizations. Completeness results of Henschen, Wos, and Kuehner for input or unit deduction applied to Horn sets are generalized to apply also to non-Horn sets. A key result is that any unsatisfiable set can be refuted by a lock linear resolution procedure in which the only lemmas are positive clauses composed entirely of instances of a small set of literals which can be specified in advance. In an implementation such lemmas would be generated only infrequently, thus allowing one to periodically gather the lemmas, discard other generated clauses, and restart the proof procedure.
Shock wave propagation past an ocean surface

Abstract The diffraction of a shock of arbitrary strength by a plane interface separating two different fluids may be calculated for the general case. The restriction encountered in earlier work on a limiting maximum difference in shock velocities in the two media has been removed by a treatment at the interface which does not depend upon Whitham's method. Instead, the shock shape at the fluid discontinuity is determined simultaneously with the local wave system to ensure continuity of both pressure and normal fluid velocity. An example is presented for the propagation of a shock front of Mach number 8 past an ocean surface. It is shown that for later times, the shock shape becomes tangent to the interface with decreasing strength there.
What If You Build It and They Still Won't Come? Addressing Student Awareness of Resources and Services with Promotional Videos

After a needs assessment exposed that even daily library users were unaware of the best resources, tools, and services, the Rider University Libraries switched gears from a focus on the creation of long step-by-step tutorials, to the creation of short promotional videos for all users, with attention on the needs of distance learners. This project was inspired by the Library Minute videos available on YouTube, with Rider University's own twist—many of the actors, directors, and scriptwriters for the videos are the college students themselves, working alongside the two School of Education liaison librarians. This paper includes some results of the assessments before and after to examine if the videos helped make students more aware of the Libraries’ resources and services. This paper also includes the creation of the videos and the publicizing of the videos in orientations, flipped classrooms, social media, and other appropriate venues.
Electronic structure theory and defect states in semiconductors

Abstract The relationships among various computational methods are pointed out, and the importance of going beyond mean-field theory to incorporate electron correlation is emphasized. The perfect-pairing approach is considered as an example of such a method which is appropriate to the description of electronic structure in semiconductors. Illustrative results for defects in silicon are presented.
Experiments and simulations show how long-range contacts can form in expanded unfolded proteins with negligible secondary structure

The sizes of unfolded proteins under highly denaturing conditions scale as N0.59 with chain length. This suggests that denaturing conditions mimic good solvents, whereby the preference for favorable chain–solvent interactions causes intrachain interactions to be repulsive, on average. Beyond this generic inference, the broader implications of N0.59 scaling for quantitative descriptions of denatured state ensembles (DSEs) remain unresolved. Of particular interest is the degree to which N0.59 scaling can simultaneously accommodate intrachain attractions and detectable long-range contacts. Here we present data showing that the DSE of the N-terminal domain of the L9 (NTL9) ribosomal protein in 8.3 M urea lacks detectable secondary structure and forms expanded conformations in accord with the expected N0.59 scaling behavior. Paramagnetic relaxation enhancements, however, indicate the presence of detectable long-range contacts in the denatured-state ensemble of NTL9. To explain these observations we used atomistic thermal unfolding simulations to identify ensembles whose properties are consistent with all of the experimental observations, thus serving as useful proxies for the DSE of NTL9 in 8.3 M urea. Analysis of these ensembles shows that residual attractions are present under mimics of good solvent conditions, and for NTL9 they result from low-likelihood, medium/long-range contacts between hydrophobic residues. Our analysis provides a quantitative framework for the simultaneous observation of N0.59 scaling and low-likelihood long-range contacts for the DSE of NTL9. We propose that such low-likelihood intramolecular hydrophobic clusters might be a generic feature of DSEs that play a gatekeeping role to protect against aggregation during protein folding.
111Indium is an unreliable in vivo label for vascular endothelial cells

We studied the retention of111Indium-labeled canine endothelial cells on 32 grafts (16 dogs). Canine endothelial cells were harvested from the external jugular veins, grown in culture, and labeled with111Indium oxine; 106 factor VIII positive cells were inoculated on fibronectin-coated, 4 mmlD Hytrel grafts and cultured 18 hours to reach confluence. An autologous seeded graft was interposed in each of the common carotid arteries and exposed to flow for six hours.111Indium label was measured pre- and postperfusion and corrected for decay. Twenty-five grafts from 13 dogs were available for study. Scanning electron microscopic planimetry was used to determine percent surface coverage by six mutually exclusive surface characteristics: endothelial cells, bare graft, white blood cells on graft, white blood cellsonendothelium, white blood cellsunderendothelium, and thrombus.111Indium retention was compared with percent coverage by scanning electron microscopy using regression analysis.111Indium labeling projected an erroneous retention of 41% at zero percent coverage (r=0.67; p<0.01). Multiple regression analysis revealed an equivalent distribution of111Indium label over nonendothelial portions of the flow surface and indicated a leak rate into the circulation of 25.6% of the initial111Indium label over six hours. We conclude that: 1)111Indium labeling data usually overestimates endothelial cell retention; 2) an average of 4.67%/hour is lost into the general circulation; 3)111Indium label can be found equally on surfaces of thrombus, white blood cells, and hydrophilic Hytrel graft; and 4)111Indium labeling is not a reliable method forin vivostudies of endothelial cell retention.
Detection and Discrimination of Land Mines in Ground-Penetrating Radar Based on Edge Histogram Descriptors and a Possibilistic $K$ -Nearest Neighbor Classifier

This paper describes an algorithm for land mine detection using sensor data generated by a ground-penetrating radar (GPR) system that uses edge histogram descriptors for feature extraction and a possibilistic K -nearest neighbors (K-NNs) rule for confidence assignment. The algorithm demonstrated the best performance among several high-performance algorithms in extensive testing on a large real-world datasets associated with the difficult problem of land mine detection. The superior performance of the algorithm is attributed to the use of the possibilistic K -NN algorithm, thereby providing important evidence supporting the use of possibilistic methods in real-world applications. The GPR produces a 3-D array of intensity values, representing a volume below the surface of the ground. First, a computationally inexpensive prescreening algorithm for anomaly detection is used to focus attention and identify candidate signatures that resemble mines. The identified regions of interest are processed further by a feature extraction algorithm to capture their salient features. We use translation-invariant features that are based on the local edge distribution of the 3-D GPR signatures. Specifically, each 3-D signature is divided into subsignatures, and the local edge distribution for each subsignature is represented by a histogram. Next, the training signatures are clustered to identify prototypes. The main idea is to identify few prototypes that can capture the variations of the signatures within each class. These variations could be due to different mine types, different soil conditions, different weather conditions, etc. Fuzzy memberships are assigned to these representatives to capture their degree of sharing among the mines and false alarm classes. Finally, a possibilistic K-NN-based rule is used to assign a confidence value to distinguish true detections from false alarms. The proposed algorithm is implemented and integrated within a complete land mine prototype system. It is trained, field-tested, evaluated, and compared using a large-scale cross-validation experiment that uses a diverse dataset acquired from four outdoor test sites at different geographic locations. This collection covers over 41 807 m2 of ground and includes 1593 mine encounters.
After the clean air mercury rule: prospects for reducing mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants.

Recent court decisions have affected the EPA’s regulation of mercury emissions from coal burning, but some state laws are helping to clear the air.
Recent changes in the most-cited scholars in criminology A comparison of textbooks and journals☆

Abstract This article reports the fifty-nine most-cited scholars in twenty-two introductory criminology textbooks published from 1994–98. Comparisons over time of the citation patterns in criminology textbooks and in leading American criminology journals show considerable changes among the most-cited scholars. These changes are attributed to trends in the coverage of various research specializations in criminology. Volatility in the lists of the most-cited scholars over time justifies further studies of citation patterns in criminology and criminal justice.
SU-F-18C-06: Prospective Patient Evaluation of Iterative Reconstruction in Radiation Oncology

Purpose: This work incorporates iterative reconstruction (IR) into a dose reduction study to characterize image quality metrics, delineation, and dosimetric assessment, with the goal of reducing imaging dose in Radiation Oncology. Methods: Three-dimensional noise power spectrum (NPS) analysis characterized noise magnitude/texture (120 kVp, 50–200 mAs, IR levels 1–6 yielding noise reduction of 0.89–0.55 compared to filtered backprojection (FBP)). Task-specific Modulation Transfer Functions (MTFtask) were characterized across varied subject contrasts. A prospective dose reduction study (500 to 150 mAs) was conducted for 12 patients (43 inter-fraction CTs) for high-dose rate brachytherapy. Three physicians performed qualitative image assessment between full-dose FBP (FD-FBP, 500 mAs), low-dose FBP (LD-FBP, 150–250 mAs), and low-dose IRL5-6 (LD-IR) scans for image noise, cuff/bladder interface detectability, spatial resolution, texture, and segmentation confidence. Comparisons between LD-FBP and LD-IR were conducted for the following metrics: delineation (bladder and rectum evaluated via overlap indices (OI) and Dice similarity coefficients (DSC)), noise, boundary changes, dose calculation, and digitally reconstructed radiographs (DRRs). Results: NPS showed ∼50% reduction in noise magnitude and ∼0.1 1/mm spatial frequency shift with IRL6. The largest MTFtask decrease between FBP and IR was 0.08 A.U. Qualitative patient image evaluation revealed LD-IR was equivalent or slightly worse than FD-FBP, andmore » superior to LD-FBP for all metrics except low contrast interface and texture. The largest CT number discrepancy from FBP occurred at a bone/tissue interface using IRL6 (−1.2 ± 4.9 HU (range: −17.6 – 12.5 HU)). No significant contour differences (OIs and DSCs = 0.85 – 0.95) and dose calculation discrepancy (<0.02%) were observed. DRRs preserved anatomical detail and demonstrated <2% difference in intensity between LD-FBP and LD-IRL6. Conclusion: While phantom analysis showed slight noise texture differences with IR, patient results revealed that image quality, contouring ability, and dosimetric parameters were not adversely affected, thus support integrating IR into treatment planning. Research supported in part by a grant from Philips HealthCare.« less