cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
A Concise Description of the Bulk Structure of Vanadyl Pyrophosphate and Implications for n-Butane Oxidation

Abstract The evolution of the structure of vanadyl pyrophosphate from its vanadyl hydrogen phosphate precursors occurs with a change in point group symmetry and a transition through an amorphous phase. Based on the crystal structures of these materials, there are no simple topotactic pathways between the precursor and product. An idealized model of the solid-state structure of vanadyl pyrophosphate is introduced and the notion of polytypism discussed with respect to the preparation of vanadium-phosphorus-oxide (VPO) based catalysts. Periodic ab initio Hartree-Fock calculations have been used to compute energy differences between various polytypical vanadyl pyrophosphate crystal structures. These calculations indicate that the experimentally determined structures for emerald-green and red-brown crystals of vanadyl pyrophosphate are expected to be among the most stable for this material. Implications to catalysis relate to the method of synthesis and equilibration of VPO catalysts, and to variation in the expected surface structures for vanadyl pyrophosphate.
Bell, Daniel (1919–2011)

Daniel Bell's books on social theory, cultural criticism, and political affairs included The End of Ideology (1960), The Coming of Post-Industrial Society (1973), and The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976). A world-renowned sociologist, he was also recognized as a leader of ‘the New York intellectuals,’ who began their careers in left-wing movements of the 1930s and achieved prominence by the 1950s as proponents, mostly, of liberal anticommunism. Bell's support of Cold War containment policy and political moderation, alongside his critique of countercultural hedonism, made his work the target of left-wing criticism, which often obscured his actual long-standing social-democratic convictions.
Stress-Induced Proliferation and Cell Cycle Plasticity of Intracellular Trypanosoma cruzi Amastigotes.

ABSTRACT The mammalian stages of the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, the causative agent of Chagas disease, exhibit a wide host species range and extensive within-host tissue distribution. These features, coupled with the ability of the parasites to persist for the lifetime of the host, suggest an inherent capacity to tolerate changing environments. To examine this potential, we studied proliferation and cell cycle dynamics of intracellular T. cruzi amastigotes experiencing transient metabolic perturbation or drug pressure in the context of an infected mammalian host cell. Parasite growth plasticity was evident and characterized by rapid and reversible suppression of amastigote proliferation in response to exogenous nutrient restriction or exposure to metabolic inhibitors that target glucose metabolism or mitochondrial respiration. In most instances, reduced parasite proliferation was accompanied by the accumulation of amastigote populations in the G 1 phase of the cell cycle, in a manner that was rapidly and fully reversible upon release from the metabolic block. Acute amastigote cell cycle changes at the G 1 stage were similarly observed following exposure to sublethal concentrations of the first-line therapy drug, benznidazole, and yet, unlike the results seen with inhibitors of metabolism, recovery from exposure occurred at rates inversely proportional to the concentration of benznidazole. Our results show that T. cruzi amastigote growth plasticity is an important aspect of parasite adaptation to stress, including drug pressure, and is an important consideration for growth-based drug screening. IMPORTANCE Infection with the intracellular parasite Trypanosoma cruzi can cause debilitating and potentially life-threatening Chagas disease, where long-term parasite persistence is a critical determinant of clinical disease progression. Such tissue-resident T. cruzi amastigotes are refractory to immune-mediated clearance and to drug treatment, suggesting that in addition to exploiting immune avoidance mechanisms, amastigotes can facilitate their survival by adapting flexibly to diverse environmental stressors. We discovered that T. cruzi intracellular amastigotes exhibit growth plasticity as a strategy to adapt to and rebound from environmental stressors, including metabolic blockades, nutrient starvation, and sublethal exposure to the first-line therapy drug benznidazole. These findings have important implications for understanding parasite persistence, informing drug development, and interpreting drug efficacy.
Morpholino Antisense Oligomers as a Potential Therapeutic Option for the Correction of Alternative Splicing in PMD, SPG2, and HEMS.

DNA variants of the proteolipid protein 1 gene (PLP1) that shift PLP1/DM20 alternative splicing away from the PLP1 form toward DM20 cause the allelic X-linked leukodystrophies Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease (PMD), spastic paraplegia 2 (SPG2), and hypomyelination of early myelinating structures (HEMS). We designed a morpholino oligomer (MO-PLP) to block use of the DM20 5′ splice donor site, thereby shifting alternative splicing toward the PLP1 5′ splice site. Treatment of an immature oligodendrocyte cell line with MO-PLP significantly shifted alternative splicing toward PLP1 expression from the endogenous gene and from transfected human minigene splicing constructs harboring patient variants known to reduce the amount of the PLP1 spliced product. Additionally, a single intracerebroventricular injection of MO-PLP into the brains of neonatal mice, carrying a deletion of an intronic splicing enhancer identified in a PMD patient that reduces the Plp1 spliced form, corrected alternative splicing at both RNA and protein levels in the CNS. The effect lasted to post-natal day 90, well beyond the early post-natal spike in myelination and PLP production. Further, the single injection produced a sustained reduction of inflammatory markers in the brains of the mice. Our results suggest that morpholino oligomers have therapeutic potential for the treatment of PMD, SPG2, and HEMS.
The Effects of a Compression Garment on Lower Body Kinematics and Kinetics During a Drop Vertical Jump in Female Collegiate Athletes

Background:The use of compression garments has spread rapidly among athletes, largely because of marketing and perceived benefits. Upon review, it is unclear whether compression garments have a sig...
Teaching the Neurological Examination in a Rapidly Evolving Clinical Climate

The neurological examination remains the essence of neurology. It allows symptoms to be assessed, diagnoses to be made, and dynamic functions to be followed. Skill in the neurological examination has faced increasing challenges from the encroachment of diagnostic imaging, but has maintained its clinical utility. It has also encountered the battle for the precious time within a medical curriculum. This review considers how the neurological examination can best be taught into the future. It does so by considering factors related to the examination, the learner, the teacher, and the modern clinical environment.
Dynamic behavior of nanoscale liquids in graphene liquid cells revealed by in situ transmission electron microscopy

Recent advances in graphene liquid cells for in situ transmission electron microscopy (TEM) have opened many opportunities for the study of materials transformations and chemical reactions in liquids with high spatial resolution. However, the behavior of thin liquids encapsulated in a graphene liquid cell has not been fully understood. Here, we report real time TEM imaging of the nanoscale dynamic behavior of liquids in graphene nanocapillaries. Our observations reveal that the interfaces between liquid and gas bubble can fluctuate, leading to the generation of liquid nanodroplets near the interfaces. Liquid nanodroplets often show irregular shape with dynamic changes of their configuration under the electron beam. We consider that the dynamic motion of liquid-gas interfaces might be introduced by the electrostatic energy from transiently charged interfaces. We find that improving the wettability of graphene liquid cells by ultraviolet-ozone treatment can significantly modify the dynamic motion of the encapsulated liquids. Our study provides valuable information of the interactions between liquid and graphene under the electron beam, and it also offers key insights on the nanoscale fluid dynamics in confined spaces.
Local Debates, International Partnerships: Garborg, Benzon, and Grieg’s Idea of Cosmopolitanism

Grieg famously collaborated with the Norwegian poet Arne Garborg (1851–1924) to create his song cycle Haugtussa (1895). Paradoxically, only five years later at the height of Norway’s fight for independence, Grieg drew inspiration from the Danish poet Otto Benzon (1856–1927) to compose his last published songs, Opp. 69 and 70. These creative partnerships expose a persistent source of tension in Grieg’s fin-de-siecle career: how could the composer appeal to the masses while avoiding fanatical steams of nationalism? His answers to this problem are manifested in his correspondence wherein he takes these writers to task for cultivating a narrow appeal as he simultaneously experimented with methods for engaging universalism in music. Therefore, this chapter offers a closer examination of the motives behind their affinities and disagreements while providing for an analysis of the modes by which Grieg’s cosmopolitan discourse developed as a reaction to a broad array of literary stimuli.
Learning the ideal observer for joint detection and localization tasks by use of convolutional neural networks

In medical imaging, task-based measures of image quality (IQ) have been commonly employed to assess and optimize imaging systems. To evaluate task-based measures of IQ, the performance of an observer on a relevant task is quantified. For a binary signal detection task, the Bayesian Ideal Observer sets an upper performance limit in a sense that it maximizes the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC). When a joint signal detection and localization (detection-localization) task is considered, the modified generalized likelihood ratio test (MGLRT) has been advocated as an optimal decision strategy to maximize the area under the localization ROC (LROC) curve (ALROC). However, analytical computation of likelihood ratios employed in the MGLRT is generally intractable. In this work, a supervised learning-based method that employs convolutional neural networks (CNNs) is developed and implemented for approximating the Ideal Observer that maximizes the area under the LROC curve for signal detection-localization tasks. A background-known-exactly (BKE) case was considered. The resulting LROC curve and ALROC value are compared to those produced by an analytical calculation.
Robust Dynamic Event-Triggered Coordination With a Designable Minimum Inter-Event Time

This paper revisits the classical multi-agent average consensus problem for which many different event-triggered control strategies have been proposed over the last decade. Many of the earliest versions of these works conclude asymptotic stability without proving that Zeno behavior, or deadlocks, do not occur along the trajectories of the system. More recent works that resolve this issue either: (i) propose the use of a dwell-time that forces inter-event times to be lower-bounded away from zero but sacrifice asymptotic convergence in exchange for practical convergence (or convergence to a neighborhood); (ii) guarantee non-Zeno behaviors and asymptotic convergence but do not provide a positive minimum inter-event time guarantee; or (iii) are not fully distributed. Additionally, the overwhelming majority of these works provide no form of robustness analysis on the event-triggering strategy. More specifically, if arbitrarily small disturbances can remove the non-Zeno property then the theoretically correct algorithm may not actually be implementable. Instead, this work for the first time presents a fully distributed, robust, dynamic event-triggered algorithm, for general directed communication networks, for which a desired positive minimum inter-event time can be chosen by each agent in a distributed fashion. Simulations illustrate our results.
Targeted Gold Nanoparticle⁻Oligonucleotide Contrast Agents in Combination with a New Local Voxel-Wise MRI Analysis Algorithm for In Vitro Imaging of Triple-Negative Breast Cancer

Gold nanoparticles (GNPs) have tremendous potential as cancer-targeted contrast agents for diagnostic imaging. The ability to modify the particle surface with both disease-targeting molecules (such as the cancer-specific aptamer AS1411) and contrast agents (such as the gadolinium chelate Gd(III)-DO3A-SH) enables tailoring the particles for specific cancer-imaging and diagnosis. While the amount of image contrast generated by nanoparticle contrast agents is often low, it can be augmented with the assistance of computer image analysis algorithms. In this work, the ability of cancer-targeted gold nanoparticle-oligonucleotide conjugates to distinguish between malignant (MDA-MB-231) and healthy cells (MCF-10A) is tested using a T1-weighted image analysis algorithm based on three-dimensional, deformable model-based segmentation to extract the Volume of Interest (VOI). The gold nanoparticle/algorithm tandem was tested using contrast agent GNP-Gd(III)-DO3A-SH-AS1411) and nontargeted c-rich oligonucleotide (CRO) analogs and control (CTR) counterparts (GNP-Gd(III)-DO3A-SH-CRO/CTR) via in vitro studies. Remarkably, the cancer cells were notably distinguished from the nonmalignant cells, especially at nanomolar contrast agent concentrations. The T1-weighted image analysis algorithm provided similar results to the industry standard Varian software interface (VNMRJ) analysis of T1 maps at micromolar contrast agent concentrations, in which the VNMRJ produced a 19.5% better MRI contrast enhancement. However, our algorithm provided more sensitive and consistent results at nanomolar contrast agent concentrations, where our algorithm produced ~500% better MRI contrast enhancement.
Face-time with TAR: Portraits of an HIV-1 RNA with diverse modes of effector recognition relevant for drug discovery.

Small molecules and short peptides that potently and selectively bind RNA are rare, making the molecular structures of these complexes highly exceptional. Accordingly, several recent investigations have provided unprecedented structural insights into how peptides and proteins recognize the HIV-1 transactivation response (TAR) element, a 59-nucleotide-long, noncoding RNA segment in the 5′ long terminal repeat region of viral transcripts. Here, we offer an integrated perspective on these advances by describing earlier progress on TAR binding to small molecules, and by drawing parallels to recent successes in the identification of compounds that target the hepatitis C virus internal ribosome entry site (IRES) and the flavin-mononucleotide riboswitch. We relate this work to recent progress that pinpoints specific determinants of TAR recognition by: (i) viral Tat proteins, (ii) an innovative lab-evolved TAR-binding protein, and (iii) an ultrahigh-affinity cyclic peptide. New structural details are used to model the TAR–Tat–super-elongation complex (SEC) that is essential for efficient viral transcription and represents a focal point for antiviral drug design. A key prediction is that the Tat transactivation domain makes modest contacts with the TAR apical loop, whereas its arginine-rich motif spans the entire length of the TAR major groove. This expansive interface has significant implications for drug discovery and design, and it further suggests that future lab-evolved proteins could be deployed to discover steric restriction points that block Tat-mediated recruitment of the host SEC to HIV-1 TAR.
Forcing single-chain nanoparticle collapse through hydrophobic solvent interactions in comb copolymers

We introduce a novel synthetic strategy in which high molecular weight comb copolymers with aliphatic side chains can collapse into single-chain nanoparticles (SNCPs) via photodimerization of anthracene under ultraviolet (UV) irradiation. By deliberately selecting hydrophobic comonomers with disparate solvency, we demonstrated that we could control chain collapse. We attribute these results to the formation of pseudo-unimicellar structures, whereby polyisobutylene (PIB) side chains are preferentially solvated, thereby compressing anthracene moieties to form a denser crosslinked core. The control of hydrophobic interactions is a common occurrence in proteins and we believe that our approach can be further extended to achieve multi-compartment SCNPs whereby each section is responsible for a given function.
Surgineering: curriculum concept for experiential learning in upper-level biomedical engineering.

A strong foundation in the fundamental principles of medical intervention combined with genuine exposure to real clinical systems and procedures will improve engineering students’ capability for informed innovation on clinical problems. To help build such a foundation, a new course (dubbed Surgineering) was developed to convey fundamental principles of surgery, interventional radiology (IR), and radiation therapy, with an emphasis on experiential learning, hands-on with real clinical systems, exposure to clinicians, and visits to real operating theaters. The concept, structure, and outcomes of the course of the first run of the first semester of the course are described. The course included six segments spanning fundamental concepts and cutting-edge approaches in a spectrum of surgical specialties, body and neurological IR, and radiation therapy. Each class involved a minimum of didactic content and an emphasis on hands-on experience with instrumentation, equipment, surgical approaches, anatomical models, dissection, and visits to clinical theaters. Outcomes on the quality of the course and areas for continuing improvement were assessed by student surveys (5-point Likert scores and word-cloud representations of free response) as well as feedback from clinical collaborators. Surveys assessed four key areas of feedback on the course and were analyzed quantitatively and in word-cloud representations of: (1) best aspects (hands-on experience with surgeons); (2) worst aspects (quizzes and reading materials); (3) areas for improvement (projects, quizzes, and background on anatomy); and (4) what prospective students should know (a lot background reading for every class). Five-point Likert scores from survey respondents (16/19 students) indicated: overall quality of the course 4.63 ± 0.72 (median 5.00); instructor teaching effectiveness 4.06 ± 1.06 (median 4.00); intellectual challenge 4.19 ± 0.40 (median 4.00); and workload somewhat heavier (62.5%) compared to other courses. Novel elements of the course included the opportunity to engage with clinical faculty and participate in realistic laboratory exercises, work with clinical instruments and equipment, and visit real operating theaters. An additional measure of the success of the course was evidenced by surveys and a strong escalation in enrollment in the following year. The Surgineering course presents an important addition to upper-level engineering curricula and a valuable opportunity for engineering students to gain hands-on experience and interaction with clinical experts. Close partnership with clinical faculty was essential to the schedule and logistics of the course as well as to the continuity of concepts delivered over the semester. The knowledge and experience gained provides stronger foundation for identification of un-met clinical needs and ideation of new engineering approaches in medicine. The course also provides a valuable prerequisite to higher-level coursework in systems engineering, human factors, and data science applied to medicine.
Introduction to Continuity

In this chapter the algebra of continuous functions is established. A function that is continuous at each irrational number and discontinuous at each rational number is constructed. This function is know as the Riemann function, the Thomae function, the ruler function, or the raindrop function.
Validating the Psychosocial Functioning during COVID-19 Questionnaire among a Sample of Informal Caregivers

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a dramatic impact on global economies and societies. Although social distancing policies are needed to contain the spread and impact of COVID-19, they also impose a ps...
Complications while awaiting elective inguinal hernia repair in infants: Not as common as you thought.

Abstract Background The dogma of early inguinal hernia repair in infants, especially those born prematurely, has dominated clinical practice owing to reports of a high frequency of incarceration and significant complications associated with untreated inguinal hernias. We aim to evaluate the frequency of complications after discharge with delayed surgery for inguinal hernia repair. Methods The Nationwide Readmissions Database (2010–2014) was queried to identify infants diagnosed with inguinal hernia. We compared the frequency and characteristics of inguinal hernia repair performed during the index admission, discharge from the index admission without hernia repair, and unplanned readmissions. Results We identified 33,530 infants (16,624 preterm and 16,906 full-term) diagnosed with an inguinal hernia during an index admission. For those infants diagnosed with an inguinal hernia at birth, inguinal hernia repair was performed during the birth admission for only a minority of both preterm (35%) and full-term infants (18%; P Conclusion Complications among infants awaiting inguinal hernia repair may be substantially less common than previously reported, and the occurrence of significant associated morbidity is quite rare.
Haechi: A Token-based QoS Mechanism for One-sided I/Os in RDMA based Storage System

Advances in persistent memory and networking hardware are changing the architecture of storage systems and data management services in datacenters. Distributed, one-sided RDMA access to memory-resident data shows tremendous improvements in throughput, latency and server CPU utilization of storage servers. However, the silent nature of one-sided I/O simultaneously creates new challenging problems for providing QoS in such systems. In this paper, we propose Haechi, a work-conserving, token-based QoS mechanism to guarantee reservations and limits in storage systems that provide one-sided I/O services. Haechi decouples QoS enforcement into a QoS engine at the client and a QoS monitor at the data node. It leverages adaptive token dispatch, token conversion, and silent I/O reporting to guarantee the reservations of distributed clients while maintaining high server utilization. Empirical evaluations on the Chameleon cluster, with different reservation distributions and I/O access patterns, show that Haechi is successful in providing differentiated QoS with negligible overhead for token management.
Geometric Priors for Scientific Generative Models in Inertial Confinement Fusion

In this paper, we develop a Wasserstein autoencoder (WAE) with a hyperspherical prior for multimodal data in the application of inertial confinement fusion. Unlike a typical hyperspherical generative model that requires computationally inefficient sampling from distributions like the von Mis Fisher, we sample from a normal distribution followed by a projection layer before the generator. Finally, to determine the validity of the generated samples, we exploit a known relationship between the modalities in the dataset as a scientific constraint, and study different properties of the proposed model.
Regulation of Rb Function by Noncyclin Dependent Kinases

Inactivation of the retinoblastoma tumor suppressor protein, Rb, is necessary for the normal progression of the mammalian cell cycle.[1] Studies over the past fifteen years have shown that Rb protein is inactivated by kinases associated with cyclins, especially cyclins D and E, which facilitate the entry of cells from the G1 to S phase.[1]–[3] Though the cyclin/cdk mediated inactivation of Rb has been well studied, the role of other kinases in regulating Rb function is relatively less understood.[4] It has been shown that components of the MAP kinase cascade, including ERK kinases as well as the Raf-1 kinase can phosphorylate Rb efficiently in response to proliferative signals.[5],[6] A physiological role for Raf-1 in inactivating Rb during cell cycle progression has been established.[7] These kinases seem to work in conjunction with the cyclin-cdks, facilitating phosphorylation by the latter; at the same time, over-expression of Raf-1 could inactivate Rb as efficiently as cyclin-cdks. [6],[7] Similarly, it has been shown that Rb is inactivated upon apoptotic signaling as well.[8]–[10] Such inactivation events appear to be mediated by the p38 kinase in a human T-cell leukemia system as well as a neuronal system.[11],[12] The inactivation of Rb upon apoptotic signaling seems to be totally independent of cyclins and cdks and occurring on different sites on the Rb protein.[13] In addition to the p38 kinase, the stress-induced kinase JNK1 has been shown to affect Rb and E2F functions in certain apoptotic situations.[11],[14] Recently, the apoptosis signal regulating kinase, ASK1, was found to interact with Rb and overcome its anti-apoptotic activities.[15] These studies suggest that while cyclin dependent kinases are the predominant regulators of Rb, especially during cell cycle progression, other kinases are capable of functionally inactivating Rb in response to multiple stimuli. Since inactivation of the Rb protein is widespread in a wide array of human tumors,[10],[16],[17] understanding the mechanisms that inactivate Rb in response to normal physiological stimuli would be valuable in developing novel therapeutic strategies to combat cancer.
Superlinear Convergence of a Stabilized SQP Method to a Degenerate Solution

We describe a slight modification of the well-known sequential quadratic programming method for nonlinear programming that attains superlinear convergence to a primal-dual solution even when the Jacobian of the active constraints is rank deficient at the solution. We show that rapid convergence occurs even in the presence of the roundoff errors that are introduced when the algorithm is implemented in floating-point arithmetic.
Verifying Multi-threaded C Programs with SPIN

A key challenge in model checking software is the difficulty of verifying properties of implementation code, as opposed to checking an abstract algorithmic description. We describe a tool for verifying multi-threaded C programs that uses the SPIN model checker. Our tool works by compiling a multi-threaded C program into a typed bytecode format, and then using a virtual machine that interprets the bytecode and computes new program states under the direction of SPIN. Our virtual machine is compatible with most of SPIN's search options and optimization flags, such as bitstate hashing and multi-core checking. It provides support for dynamic memory allocation (the malloc and free family of functions), and for the pthread library, which provides primitives often used by multi-threaded C programs. A feature of our approach is that it can check code aftercompiler optimizations, which can sometimes introduce race conditions. We describe how our tool addresses the state space explosion problem by allowing users to define data abstraction functions and to constrain the number of allowed context switches. We also describe a reduction method that reduces context switches using dynamic knowledge computed on-the-fly, while being sound for both safety and liveness properties. Finally, we present initial experimental results with our tool on some small examples.
Security in stochastic control systems: Fundamental limitations and performance bounds

This work proposes a novel metric to characterize the resilience of stochastic cyber-physical systems to attacks and faults. We consider a single-input single-output plant regulated by a control law based on the estimate of a Kalman filter. We allow for the presence of an attacker able to hijack and replace the control signal. The objective of the attacker is to maximize the estimation error of the Kalman filter - which in turn quantifies the degradation of the control performance - by tampering with the control input, while remaining undetected. We introduce a notion of e-stealthiness to quantify the difficulty to detect an attack when an arbitrary detection algorithm is implemented by the controller. For a desired value of e-stealthiness, we quantify the largest estimation error that an attacker can induce, and we analytically characterize an optimal attack strategy. Because our bounds are independent of the detection mechanism implemented by the controller, our information-theoretic analysis characterizes fundamental security limitations of stochastic cyber-physical systems.
Special Districts and Local Public Services

This article examines the role of special districts in the efficient provision of local public services. Many public administrators, political scientists, and urban planners have long held that the proliferatian of special districts in urban areas leads to an increase in the cost ofproviding local public services and a decline in the degree to which service provision is responsive to the demands of consumer-taxpayers. In contrast, this article evaluates special districts on the basis of economic theory and deduces that they can be conducive to both production and consumption efficiency. Furthermore, it is hypothesized that restrictions on the growth of special districts diminish competition in the provision of local public services and lead to rising costs. This hypothesis is tested using data from California and Oregon, two states which have severely restricted the growth of special districts. It is found that, ceteris paribus, such restrictions are likely to have increased the cost of providing local pu...
A beam condenser for infrared spectrophotometers.

The design and performance of a beam condenser for ir spectrophotometers such as the Beckman model IR-11 is described. The instrument has an image size of 4 mm × 8 mm and permits the use of samples mounted in the tail of a cryostat whose outside dimension is as large as 7 cm square. Applications to negative light flux spectroscopy are described, in particular, the direct measurement of the longitudinal optical frequency of lattice vibration for AgBr and AgCl.
Precision low-frequency inverter for aircraft

THE purpose of this paper is to detail the power supply requirements for a mass rate fluid flowmeter; to examine various methods of driving the impeller of the flowmeter; and to describe the power supply for the drive method selected with its performance characteristics.
Concentrating laser pulses in space and time

Projecting high peak power laser pulses to a specific location in space and time can significantly improve laser weapons, secure optical communications, and remote spectroscopy. Current laser systems send a pulsed beam from laser to target causing collateral damage to objects in the path for a laser weapon system, opportunities for compromising security in communications, and averaging of measurements along the path for spectroscopy. We analyze and simulate a system that beamforms M mode-locked lasers, each having N modes, to achieve a peak power at a target in space and time that is NM times greater than that for M non-mode-locked non-beamformed lasers. In low atmospheric turbulence, a peak power of 10kW can be projected to a point in space and time by a 10 × 10 array of 2W laser diodes, each having 50 modes. Effects of atmospheric turbulence are discussed and were investigated in our previous papers.
Industrial Invention: Heroic, or Systematic?

I. Purpose of this paper: to survey the literature, to examine current practice, and to classify the facts needed for a tenable theory, 233. — II. The heroic explanation, commonly found in biographies, 237. — Inventive abilities not so rare as commonly supposed, 241. — III. Theories of successive increments, 242. — Cumulative character of contribution and discovery, 243. — This intensified by our greater willingness both to accept and to give, 251. — IV. Organized industrial research and invention on the part of large corporations, 253. — Methods by which new devices are developed, 255. — Cooperative character of the procedure, 258. — V. Materialistic explanations, 260. — The profit motive not so essential in some instances as in others, 266. — The real question: what proportion of usable inventions comes from professional inventors? 268. — VI. Conclusion: what sort of inductive study is needed, 269.
Analysis of a Nilgiri langur (Presbytis johnii) home range change

Little published information exists detailing home range changes among nonhuman primates. Resulting from human destruction of the habitat, one of the observed Nilgiri langur troops was forced to relocate its home range, during which several interesting behavioral patterns emerged. Most important was the observation that the animals were very reluctant to desert the home range, even when the last trees in the core area were being destroyed. Adult males and adult females responded differently to the destruction and resultant shift. The males appeared less nervous than the females and deserted the home range prior to them. The reaction of surrounding troops to the shift of troop A, strongly suggests territorial behavior among Nilgiri langurs. Finally, this shift, along with other observations reported elsewhere, demonstrates that Nilgiri langurs are quite adaptable and appear to possess the ability to survive in an ecology being rapidly destroyed by the human population.
Vocational Interests and Needs of Unemployed, Low-Education Adults with Severe Substance Abuse Problems in Anchorage, Alaska

Vocational assessment data were collected from 94 low-education adults with severe substance abuse problems not currently in treatment. Participants completed the My Vocational Situation (MVS), Self-Directed Search (SDS), and Reading-Free Vocational Interest Inventory (R-FVII). Lower scores than the normative sample were revealed on all MVS scales, with scores for men being significantly lower than the normative sample. These findings indicate that these participants, particularly the men, lack a clear and stable view of their occupational future, need information to clarify their occupational options and goals, and perceive multiple barriers in attaining employment. SDS and R-FVII results provide detailed information about these participantsâ€™ occupational interests and vocational likes and dislikes. These findings highlight vocational counseling and guidance as critical needs for individuals with severe substance abuse problems who are unable or unwilling to seek treatment. Providing vocational services to this out-of-treatment population may be an essential pathway for their long-term recovery.
Three lectures on case–control genetic association analysis

The purpose of this review is to focus on the three most important themes in genetic association studies using randomly selected patients (case, affected) and normal samples (control, unaffected), so that students and researchers alike who are new to this field may quickly grasp the key issues and command basic analysis methods. These three themes are: elementary categorical analysis; disease mutation as an unobserved entity; and the importance of homogeneity in genetic association analysis.
Developmental sequence for the copulatory organs of Kontikia mexicana with remarks on taxonomic significance (Turbellaria: Tricladida: Geoplanidae)

Five specimens, presumably representing different developmental stages of the land planarian Kontikia mexicana (Hyman, 1939), were used to reconstruct the development of the copulatory apparatus in this species. The results support the notion that Kontikia differs from the closely related Caenoplana in its possession of a penis papilla. In the earliest stage available, a penis papilla was absent and other components were not differentiated. In a late-juvenile condition, the gonopore, seminal vesicle, and ejaculatory duct were present. The short penis papilla appeared to arise in this stage by elongation of the terminal tissue around the ejaculatory duct and its separation from the antral wall. The female canal was guarded by an epithelial fold and the glandular duct was present. In the mature condition, the penis papilla was more elongate, and the secretory (prostatic) region of the ejaculatory duct was functional. The female canal, guarded by an epithelial fold, was well-developed with enlarged glandular duct but lacking the posterior diverticulum and the sperm storage system associated with the ovovitelline ducts known in Kontikia orana Froehlich, 1955.
A comparison of three colonoscopy cleansing preparations

Purpose: We compared the efficacy and side effects of three colonoscopy preparations used in our clinical practice.
Anomalous cold in the Pangaean tropics

The late Paleozoic archives the greatest glaciation of the Phanerozoic. Whereas high-latitude Gondwanan strata preserve widespread evidence for continental ice, the Permo-Carboniferous tropics have long been considered analogous to today9s: warm and shielded from the high-latitude cold. Here, we report on glacial and periglacial indicators that record episodes of freezing continental temperatures in western equatorial Pangaea. An exhumed glacial valley and associated deposits record direct evidence for glaciation that extended to low paleoelevations in the ancestral Rocky Mountains. Furthermore, the Permo-Carboniferous archives the only known occurrence of widespread tropical loess in Earth9s history; the volume, chemistry, and provenance of this loess(ite) is most consistent with glacial derivation. Together with emerging indicators for cold elsewhere in low-latitude Pangaea, these results suggest that tropical climate was not buffered from the high latitudes and may record glacial-interglacial climate shifts of very large magnitude. Coupled climate–ice sheet model simulations demonstrate that low atmospheric CO 2 and solar luminosity alone cannot account for such cold, and that other factors must be considered in attempting to explain this “best-known” analogue to our present Earth.
Shanghai Refuge: A Memoir of the World War II Jewish Ghetto

The unlikely refuge of Shanghai, the only city in the world that did not require a visa, was buffeted by the struggle between European imperialism, Japanese aggression, and Chinese nationalism. Ernest G. Heppner's compelling testimony is a brilliant account of this little-known haven. Although Heppner was a member of a privileged middle-class Jewish family, he suffered from the constant anti-Semitic undercurrent in his surroundings. The devastation of "Crystal Night" in November 1938, however, introduced a new level of Nazi horror and ended his comfortable world overnight. Heppner and his mother used the family's resources to escape to Shanghai. Heppner was taken aback by experiences on the ocean liner that transported the refugees to Shanghai: he was embarrassed and confounded when Egyptian Jews offered worn clothing to the Jewish passengers, he resented the edicts against Jewish passengers disembarking in any ports on the way, and he was unprepared for the poverty and cultural dislocation of the great city of Shanghai. Nevertheless, Heppner was self-reliant, energetic, and clever, and his story of finding niches for his skills that enabled him to survive in a precarious fashion is a tribute to human endurance. In 1945, after the liberation of China, Heppner found a responsible position with the American forces there. He and his wife, whom he had met and married in the ghetto, arrived in the United States in 1947 with only eleven dollars but boundless hope and energy. Heppner's account of the Shanghai ghetto is as vivid to him now as it was then. His admiration for his new country and his later success in business do not, however, obscure for him the shameful failure of the Allies to furnish a refuge for Jews before, during, and after the war.
The effect of moisture content on the crystallinity and glass transition temperature of inulin

Abstract This paper focuses on the physicochemical characterization of inulin, an important fructooligosaccharide with dietary fiber properties, and its dependence on water sorption properties. The moisture sorption isotherm of inulin was determined at 25°C and fitted to the GAB model. Inulin's glass transition temperature ( T g ) was measured by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) as a function of water content; the Gordon–Taylor equation was used to fit the experimental data. Relative crystallinity of inulin was determined by X-ray diffraction and DSC studies. Native inulin was found to be a semi-crystalline material, which, at 25°C and storage water activity values below 0.75, was found in a glassy state. When pre-solubilized, inulin's relative crystallinity depended on moisture content: crystallinity was low at low moisture contents, while, at water activities above 0.75 (conditions above T g ), it recrystallized and reached native inulin's crystallinity level.
Car Occupant Life Expectancy: Car Mass and Seat Belt Effects

Average human life expectancies for the U.S. resident population are calculated using tabulated population and survival rate data. These life expectancies are recalculated assuming elimination of various types of motor vehicle fatalities using Fatal Accident Reporting System (FARS) data. The differences between the original and recalculated values provide estimates of life expectancy reductions due to the motor vehicle fatalities. These estimates are combined with prior work relating the likelihood of an occupant fatality to car mass, so that reductions in life expectancy are determined as a function of car mass. The estimates of life expectancy reductions are also used to determine the effect of seat belt use on life expectancy. The estimates, which are based on data for 1978, assume that survival rates remain unchanged. Estimates of the changes in life expectancy associated with switching from a large (1800 kg) car to a small (900 kg) car, and switching from not using to using a seat belt are presented as functions of the age at which an individual makes the switch.
Optical imaging of parallel fiber activation in the rat cerebellar cortex: spatial effects of excitatory amino acids.

Abstract Using optical imaging, the effects of excitatory amino acids and their antagonists on the spatial pattern of activity evoked by the stimulation of parallel fibers in the cerebellar cortex of the anesthetized rat were examined. A vermal folium was stained with the stryrl voltage-sensitive dye RH-795 and imaged with a cooled charge-coupled service system during the activation of the parallel fibers with surface stimulation. Stimulation of the cerebellar cortex produced discrete “beams” of optical activity consistent with extracellular field recordings. The signal-to-noise ratio was excellent (> 10:1), reducing the number of stimuli, exposure time, and acquisition time needed to produce images. Extracellular field potential recordings were used to assay neuronal activity as well as the effects of the various excitatory amino acid agonists. Application of several glutamate receptor antagonists reversibly blocked the optical signals as well as the synaptic components of the extracellular field potentials. Neither N-methyl- d -aspartate nor its antagonist, (±)-2-amino-7-phosphonoheptanoic acid, had any affect on the optical signals or field potentials. These results indicate that the optical signal is not due to the evoked parallel fiber activity, but is generated mainly by postsynaptic targets and the parallel fiber synaptic action is primarily mediated by non-N-methyl- d -aspartate receptors. Other excitatory amino acid agonists had a differential effect on the optical response. Glutamate and kainate increased the “on beam” optical signal evoked by parallel fiber stimulation, in amplitude and width. In contrast, quisqualate always decreased the amplitude and width of the optical beam. Also, quisqualate produced an increase in fluorescence lateral to the optical beam, possibily due to an increase in “off beam” inhibitory activity. The changes in the extracellular field potentials were in agreement with the effects on the optical signals. Two possible mechanisms are proposed to account for the inhibitory effect of quisqualate. One is that quisqualate desensitizes Purkinje cell receptors, the other is that inhibitory interneurons in the cerebellar cortex are more preferentially excited with quisqualate application which in turn inhibits Purkinje cells both “on beam” and “off beam”. In conclusion, voltage-sensitive dye optical signals evoked by stimulation of the cerebellar surface were imaged at high signal-to-noise levels using a cooled charge-coupled device system. Use of excitatory amino acid agonists and antagonists demonstrated that the optical signal was dependent on postsynaptic activity and confirmed that the parallel fiber postsynaptic action is primarily mediated by non-N-methyl- d -aspartate receptors. The reported differential action of glutamate, quisqualate and kainate indicates how different excitatory amino acid receptor classes are involved in the control of spatial activity in the cerebellar cortex.
Role of bile acid reflux in acute hemorrhagic gastritis.

A model was developed to assess the influence of bile acids on the ability of proximal canine gastric mucosa to maintain an intraluminal pH gradient and to resist acute morphologic injury. It was found that the combination of topical acid, topical bile acid, and mucosal ischemia is acutely and severely ulcerogenic. Lesion severity is a function of the absolute amount of H+; diffusing into the mucosa which is, itself, a function of the intraluminal concentrations of both bile and H+. Morphologic injury is associated with the development of a marked gastric venous acidosis. Bile acid species differ in their capacity to induce lesions. Topical application of bile acids to nonischemic mucosa is not acutely ulcerogenic because a compensatory increase in mucosal blood flow occurs which is proportional to the degree of H+ loss induced. In the present model, steroids are “cytoprotective” by virtue of this mechanism, while histamine H1 and H2 receptor antagonists, either along or in combination, are not. The clinical applicability of these findings is discussed.
Investigating vibrational anharmonic couplings in cyanide-bridged transition metal mixed valence complexes using two-dimensional infrared spectroscopy.

Using polarization-selective two-dimensional infrared (2D IR) spectroscopy, we measure anharmonic couplings and angles between the transition dipole moments of the four cyanide stretching (νCN) vibrations found in [(NH3)5RuIIINCFeII(CN)5]− (FeRu) dissolved in D2O and formamide and [(NC)5FeIICNPtIV(NH3)4NCFeII(CN)5]4− (FePtFe) dissolved in D2O. These cyanide-bridged transition metal complexes serve as model systems for studying the role of high frequency vibrational modes in ultrafast photoinduced charge transfer reactions. Here, we focus on the spectroscopy of the νCN modes in the electronic ground state. The FTIR spectra of the νCN modes of the bimetallic and trimetallic systems are strikingly different in terms of frequencies, amplitudes, and lineshapes. The experimental 2D IR spectra of FeRu and FePtFe and their fits reveal a set of weakly coupled anharmonic νCN modes. The vibrational mode anharmonicities of the individual νCN modes range from 14 to 28 cm−1. The mixed-mode anharmonicities range from 2 to 14 cm−1. In general, the bridging νCN mode is most weakly coupled to the radial νCN mode, which involves the terminal CN ligands. Measurement of the relative transition dipole moments of the four νCN modes reveal that the FeRu molecule is almost linear in solution when dissolved in formamide, but it assumes a bent geometry when dissolved in D2O. The νCN modes are modelled as bilinearly coupled anharmonic oscillators with an average coupling constant of 6 cm−1. This study elucidates the role of the solvent in modulating the molecular geometry and the anharmonic vibrational couplings between the νCN modes in cyanide-bridged transition metal mixed valence complexes.