cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Pattern width at a given angle

That the pattern feature “width as a function of angle” possesses several possible interpretations is demonstrated in this paper, which is a review of the width concept in pattern recognition and the geometrical concept itself.The object of the work is to clarify how the word description can be made precise so that computer algorithms for feature extraction may be obtained; the focus is on theoretical subject matter. The results consist of a set-theoretic definition of width-at-angle, a theorem relating it to the pattern boundary radius vector, and descriptions of alternate widths. All widths are calculated for an illustrative example; graphical and tabular comparisons are given. Substantial variation in width-at-angle magnitude is found. The principal conclusion is that the set-theoretic width-at-angle is a useful pattern feature when it can be easily computed. Further investigation of the information contained in only part of a width function is recommended for cases where computation of width-at-angle is difficult.
Phylogenetic analysis of Anisota (Insecta: Lepidoptera: Saturniidae) based on scolus size and structure of mature larvae.

Abstract A phylogenetic analysis of 13 species of the genus Anisota was carried out using morphological data from mature larvae. Based on quantitative traits, length, and structure of scoli, 18 characters from 3 thoracic and 4 abdominal segments were characterized and coded. The phylogenetic analysis using the larval scoli yielded results in conjunction with previously proposed taxonomic relationships. For instance, the eastern North American species A. consularis, A. fuscosa, and A. manitobensis were found to share a close relationship. Similarly, A. discolor, A. virginiensis, and A. pellucida, three other eastern North American species, were found to be most closely related. However, discrepencies between expected and actual results were also observed: A. stigma and A. leucostygma fell out as sister species to all other Anisota species. This disassociation of the two species from their nearest relatives is believed to be due to the longer branched scoli found on both species and the designated outgroup,...
Evidence for a Chromatographic Model of Olfaction

The gradient of activity produced along the olfactory mucosa by odorant stimulation was measured by the ratio (the LB/MB ratio) of the summated neural discharges recorded from two branches of the olfactory nerve, a lateral branch (LB) supplying a mucosal region near the internal naris and a medial branch (MB) supplying a region near the external naris. Twenty-four frogs "sniffed" sixteen different odorants, each odorant at four concentrations and two flow rates. Increases in concentration and flow rate produced statistically reliable increases in the ratios; the magnitude of these increases was considerably smaller than the magnitude of the statistically significant changes that could be achieved by shifting the odorants themselves. Even the small change due to concentration depended upon the odorant presented. Thus, even at the highest physiologically possible concentrations and flow rates, the general level of the activity gradient along the mucosa appeared to be determined mainly by the particular odorant used. The relative retention time of each of these 16 different odorants was measured in a gas chromatograph fitted with a Carbowax 20M column. In general, the longer the odorant's retention time the smaller its LB/MB ratio. This suggests that the different mucosal gradients of activity are established for different odorants by a chromatographic process. The data further suggest that the mucosa behaves like a polar chromatographic column.
Promising Practices for Meeting the Multiple Needs of Low-Income Families in Poverty Neighborhoods

This review of promising practices for meeting the multiple needs of low-income families in poverty neighborhoods reveals four main themes: (1) The challenges facing low-income families living in poverty neighborhoods are not discrete-but are multidimensional; (2) Integrated family and neighborhood strengthening practices, such as the Making Connections (MC) Initiative (funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation), and the Harlem Children's Zone (HCZ), represent innovative strategies to address the multifaceted issues facing low-income families living in poverty neighborhoods; (3) The organizational structure, challenges and successes of the MC and HCZ provide insight into the nature of integrated family and neighborhood approaches; (4) A framework for the design of an integrated family and neighborhood program includes a focus on internal organizational processes, neighborhood processes, and external processes. This framework can assist social service agencies in moving their services toward a more integrated family and neighborhood approach.
Investment Dependence and Political Conflict in Third World Countries

This research investigates the effect of international forces upon domestic political conflict by examining the relationship between foreign investment and political protest in underdeveloped states. Three conceptions of the association between foreign investment and conflict are considered. The first two focus on foreign investment as creating conflict by exacerbating deprivation. The basic difference between these views centers around whether the effects are felt most in poorer or in richer societies. In general, scholars who maintain that deprivation occurs see it as resulting from the impact of a large foreign presence on the strength of the host government and on its increased use of repression. The third, or liberal, conception sees foreign investment as reducing conflict by enhancing resource availability. The findings from the cross-national analysis of a sample of underdeveloped countries indicate that a high level of foreign investment is associated with less conflict in poorer societies and with more conflict in wealthier countries. The increased conflict in wealthier states, however, is not a product of the effect of foreign investment on governmental strength and repression, as deprivation theorists argue.
The promoter for intestinal cell kinase is head-to-head with F-Box 9 and contains functional sites for TCF7L2 and FOXA factors.

Intestinal cell kinase (ICK; GeneID 22858) is a conserved MAPK and CDK-like kinase that is widely expressed in human tissues. Data from the Cancer Genome Anatomy Project indicated ICK mRNA is increased in cancer, and that its expression correlated with expression of mRNA for an uncharacterized F-box protein, FBX9 (GeneID: 26268). ICK and FBX9 genes are arranged head-to-head on opposite strands, with start sites for transcription separated by ~3.3 kb. We hypothesized ICK and FBX9 are potentially important genes in cancer controlled by a bidirectional promoter. We assessed promoter activity of the intergenic region in both orientations in cancer cell lines derived from breast (AU565, SKBR3), colon (HCT-15, KM12), and stomach (AGS) cancers, as well as in embryonic human kidney (HEK293T) cells. The intergenic segment was active in both orientations in all of these lines, and ICK promoter activity was greater than FBX9 promoter activity. Results from deletions and truncations defined a minimal promoter for ICK, and revealed that repressors and enhancers differentially regulate ICK versus FBX9 promoter activity. The ICK promoter contains consensus motifs for several FOX-family transcription factors that align when mouse and human are compared using EMBOSS. FOXA1 and FOXA2 increase luciferase activity of a minimal promoter 10-20 fold in HEK293T cells. Consensus sites for TCF7L2 (TCF4) (Gene Id: 6934) are also present in both mouse and human. The expression of β-catenin increased activity of the minimal promoter ~10 fold. ICK reference mRNAs (NM_014920.3, NM_016513) are expressed in low copy number and increased in some breast cancers, using a ten base tag 5'-TCAACCTTAT-3' specific for both ICK transcripts. ICK and FBX9 are divergently transcribed from a bidirectional promoter that is GC-rich and contains a CpG island. A minimal promoter for ICK contains functional sites for β-cateinin/TCF7L2 and FOXA. These data are consistent with functions that have been proposed for ICK in development and in proliferation or survival of some breast and colon cancers.
Development of New Ionomers With Novel Gas Permeation Properties

Ethylene ionomers, such as Surlyn® from DuPont, have been the premium sealant materials for packaging applications due to their excellent seal strength and process robustness. The ethylene ionomers exhibit their unique property characteristics because they form a network morphology. In this article new ethylene ionomers will be discussed. Their versatile compositions and the unique morphology will be described together with enhanced gas permeability properties.
Key ingredients for your next semantics elevator talk

2012 brought a major change to the semantics research community. Discussions on the use and benefits of semantic technologies are shifting away from the why to the how. Surprisingly this more in stakeholder interest is not accompanied by a more detailed understanding of what semantics research is about. Instead of blaming others for their (wrong) expectations, we need to learn how to emphasize the paradigm shift proposed by semantics research while abstracting from technical details and advocate the added value in a way that relates to the immediate needs of individual stakeholders without overselling. This paper highlights some of the major ingredients to prepare your next Semantics Elevator Talk.
Rubric Use in Technical Communication: Exploring the Process of Creating Valid and Reliable Assessment Tools

Assessing the quality of student efforts and products is a continual necessity for academics and practitioners in technical communication; however, the process of constructing valid and reliable rubrics remains an underexplored topic in the field. This paper first addresses some of the assessment concerns and then describes a case study that documents the development and implementation of one holistic and five analytic rubrics to evaluate undergraduate projects. The discussion focuses on identifying site-specific criteria and training effective raters and is intended to help academics respond to their required accreditation mandates and offer practitioners alternatives for evaluating products and services.
Application of material balance to determine ultimate recovery of a San Juan Fruitland coal well

Volumetric methods to determine original-gas-in-place (OGIP) of coal bed methane reservoirs (CBM) are well established and documented. These methods differ from those used for conventional reservoirs in that they incorporate initial adsorbed gas content and/or methane isotherms to account for the fact that gas is adsorbed on the coal surface. In practice, there are a number of factors which combine to create a great deal of uncertainty in volumetric calculations. Specifically, they are: 1) Measurements of initial gas content is subject to several errors and frequently shows a wide variation within a given well. In many cases the only source of initial gas content measurement in from drill cuttings, which are known to give inaccurate results. 2) Gas content may be derived from methane isotherms, but they require core and are typically available for only a limited number of intervals in a limited number of wells. There is often a wide variations in the character of these isotherms. 3) Net pay is highly dependent on coal density. While density can be measured with logs, there is disagreement within the industry on what density cutoff should be used to determine net pay. 4) In San Juan Fruitland Coal, CO 2 content is often a high fraction of total absorbed gas and much greater than the produced CO 2 fraction. Methane isotherms can be adjusted to account for CO 2 , but a pure CO 2 isotherm is required something which is difficult and expensive to obtain. A material balance procedure proposed by G.R. King for coal seam reservoirs can be used to get independent OGIP estimates and can be programmed using a Lotus spreadsheet. If abandonment pressure is known, it provides a practical means for determining estimated ultimate recovery (EUR). Moreover, sensitivities can quickly be run to find the critical variables. An example of this process is presented for a well producing from the San Juan Fruitland Coal, including analyses of pressure transient tests to determine reservoir pressure. A cumulative frequency distribution of methane isotherms from San Juan Fruitland Coal is also presented. The results are compared to a history match with an Eclipse reservoir simulator.
Interference management: A new paradigm for wireless cellular networks

We introduce a new interference management technique for wireless cellular networks when the base station (BS) has K antennas and there are M mobile stations (MS), each with a single antenna. Our interference management scheme takes advantage of multiuser diversity to transmit K independent data streams to K out of M mobile stations. The new approach achieves the dirty paper coding (DPC) capacity of K log log(M) as M tends to infinity. Surprisingly, the new scheme does not require full channel state information (CSI) and needs only close to K integers related to CSI are fed back to the transmitter. Moreover, the encoding and decoding of the new scheme is significantly simpler than existing MIMO schemes and is similar to point-to-point communications.
Income Inequality and Market Fragility: Some Empirics in the Political Economy of Finance

A venerable line of thinking associated with 19th and early 20th century political economy suggests that income and wealth concentration are not only unjust in some circumstances, but also can operate as significant sources of systemic fragility in decentralized market economies. The guiding intuition is that relative losses below the top of the distribution can impede the clearing of consumer goods markets. That in turn deprives the macroeconomy of growth-underwriting consumer demand, thereby lowering employment and feeding back in to the goods-clearing problem itself. Such is the classical theory of feedback-fed “crisis.” A subsequent line of thinking associated with the 20th century Keynesian and Kaleckian schools effectively identifies (a) the marginal propensity to consume’s inverse relation to wealth, and (b) the recursive structure of decentralized investment behavior as additional links in the political economists’ crisis dynamic. Factor (a) renders aggregate demand stability ever more investment-dependent, while factor (b) leaves investment markets prone to feedback dynamics and consequent underemployment equilibria of their own. Such is the Keynes-Kalecki account of inequality-induced or -exacerbated crash and depression. In a modern market economy with a developed financial sector, one would expect the Keynes-Kalecki update of the political economists’ crisis dynamic to work through the medium of ever more sophisticated consumer- and mortgage-debt products and associated derivative contracts. These would respond to both heightened demand for investment yield at the top of the increasingly skewed distribution, and heightened borrowing needs below the top of the distribution. In such an economy one would also expect leverage-fueled asset price bubbles and busts and their Fisher-style debt-deflationary sequels to be larger and longer, respectively, than in times past, owing to mortgage debt’s tending to lengthen the leverage cycle. Using autoregressive filtering, time-lagged cross-correlations, and cognate statistical methods on large sets of data that include income inequality, debt and investment trends, consumption and price indices, current account balances and other indicators of macroeconomic performance, we find strong support for the proposition that our “financialized” rendition of the Keynes-Kalecki-supplemented political economists’ crisis dynamic links significant income and wealth inequality to market fragility. This goes a long way toward explaining, among other things, a remarkably rich set of parallels that we find between the paired inequality and market calamity of 1928-29 on the one hand, and that of 2008-09 on the other hand. Our results also bear implications for the project of financial regulation. While gathering income and wealth inequality do not render that project futile, they do seem, ironically, to render it simultaneously more urgent and more difficult.
Gender and Cultural Considerations in the Workplace

Rapid and continual changes in technology, and an aggressive and competitive business climate, are often noted as some of the more decisive forces that have directly impacted the modern workplace.
770-6 Effect of Ischemic Preconditioning and Udocaine Pretreatment on [Ca2+]i in Rat Hearts

Recent data suggest that preconditioning attenuates the increase in free intracellular calcium ([Ca2+]i), [Na+]i and [H+]i during ischemia by reducing the stimulation of Na+-H+ and Na+-Ca2+ exchange. We evaluated the effects of 3 episodes of 5 minutes global ischemia followed by 5 minutes recovery on [Ca2+]i during control perfusion (Co) and during suppression of the sodium influx (5 × 10-6 M lidocaine; L) with surface fluorometry in Indo-1/AM-loaded isolated ferfused rat hearts. During the first ischemia. systolic and enddiastolic [Ca2+]i were 130% higher in Co as compared to L. The lower [Ca2+]i concentration in L-treated hearts resulted in better recovery of contractile function during recovery (left ventricular developed pressure Co vs L: p = 0.01). During repeated ischemia-recovery cycles peak [Ca2+]i decreased significantly in Co and remained stable in L (Fig.1). mean % ± SEM; ★ : p = 0.05 vs systolic [Ca2+]i during Co. Download : Download high-res image (100KB) Download : Download full-size image Conclusion Short cycles of ischemic preconditioning resulted in less [Ca2+]i accumulation and improved hemodynamic recovery. Lidocaine pretreatment induced also calcium influx, mimicking the first episode of ischemic preconditioning.
Predicting high-school students' bystander behavior in simulated dating violence situations

Abstract Purpose Dating violence among adolescents is associated with a variety of negative health consequences for victims. Bystander programs are being developed and implemented with the intention of preventing such violence, but determinants of high-school students' responsive bystander behavior remain unclear. The present study examines hypothesized determinants of high-school students' bystander behavior in simulated situations of dating violence. Methods Participants were 80 high-school students who completed self-reports of hypothesized determinants of bystander behavior (responsibility, efficacy, and perceived benefits for intervening) at a baseline assessment. A virtual-reality paradigm was used to observationally assess bystander behavior at 1-week and 6-month assessments after baseline. Results Efficacy for intervening was positively associated with observed bystander behavior at the 1-week and 6-month assessments. Moreover, efficacy predicted bystander behavior over and above feelings of responsibility and perceived benefits for intervening. Contrary to our predictions, neither responsibility nor perceived benefits for intervening were associated with observed bystander behavior. Conclusions This research advances our understanding of determinants of bystander behavior for high-school students and can inform prevention programming for adolescents. The study also introduces an innovative way to assess high-school students' bystander behavior.
A power moment reformulation of the Nikiforov–Uvarov method for exactly solvable systems

Exactly solvable (ES) systems are those for which the full, discrete spectrum can be solved in closed form. In this work, we argue that a moment’s representation analysis can generate these closed-...
Long-Term Prognosis of Pediatric Headaches

Investigators from Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada, conducted a follow-up telephone interview of patients with a history of headaches diagnosed in 1983.
Numerical simulation of stress distribution in heterogeneous solids during high pressure processing

Abstract It is generally assumed that the internal stress distribution in foods under high pressure processing (HPP) is uniform, which may not be true for solid foods with hard inclusions, like meats with bones or for particulate foods. Our objective was to simulate the internal stress distribution during HPP of a model heterogeneous solid food made with a gel and a wood inclusion and determine how mechanical properties affect the internal stress distribution. It was determined that hydrostatic pressure decreased and shear stress was generated at the interface between the soft solid and the hard inclusion. The differences in pressure and shear stresses increased as the shear modulus of the soft solid increased. Our studies suggest that a better understanding of the mechanical properties that affect the development of the internal stress field is needed, since they could affect the achieved microbial inactivation levels at different locations in HPP solid foods.
Depressive Symptoms in Parkinson Disease as Measured by Beck's Depression Scale and Its Relationship to Visual Analogue Mood Scale, Motor Symptoms and the Quality of Life Measures (P06.057)

Objective: To ascertain the relationship between depression score and visual analogue mood scale, quality of life and motor severity in Parkinson9s disease. Background Depression is the most common non-motor manifestation of Parkinson disease (PD), affecting up to 40 to 50 % of PD patients, far in excess of its prevalence of 6.7% in the general American population. Design/Methods: All patients seen at the University of Florida Movement Disorders Center, with a confirmed PD diagnosis and a recorded Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) on their first visit were included in this study. Using a cutoff of 14, we determined the prevalence of depressive symptoms in our whole population, in men versus women and in drug naive versus those treated with levodopa. Results: The depressed cohort had a mean BDI score of 19.41 whereas the mean for the non-depressed was 7.06. The HY with the last two having negative coefficients. The best predictor, not surprisingly was the SadTscore. Overall there is not a strong correlation between VAMS and BDI. Conclusions: There is a correlation between the severity of motor symptoms and the presence of depression pointing to the possibility of both organic and reactive components in PD depression. There was only poor correlation between the VAMS score and BDI, but the quality of life PDQ-39 paralleled the BDI score raising questions whether this is cause or effect. Disclosure: Dr. Salardini has nothing to disclose. Dr. Rodriguez has received personal compensation for activities with Allergan, Merz Pharmaceuticals, Lundbeck and Teva Pharmaceuticals as a consultant. Dr. Malaty has received research support from The National Parkinson Foundation. Dr. Okun has received personal compensation for activities with National Parkinson Foundation, Ask the Expert, and Neuropace Devices. Dr. Okun has received research support from the Michael J. Fox Foundation, the National Parkinson Foundation, the Parkinson Alliance and the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Fernandez has received personal compensation for activities with USF CME, Cleveland Clinic CME, Medical Communications Media, Health Professions Conferencing, Ipsen, Merz Pharmaceuticals, and US World Meds Dr. Fernandez has received personal compensation in an editorial capacity for the Movement Disorders Society Website. Dr. Fernandez has received royalty payments from Demos Publishing, Manson Publishing, and Springer Publishing. Dr. Fernandez has received research support from Abbott, Acadia, Biotie Therapeutics, EMD-Serono, Huntington Study Group, Ipsen, Merz Pharmaceuticals, Michael J. Fox Foundation, Movement Disorders Society, National Parkinson Foundation, NIH/NINDS, Novartis, Parkinson Study Group, Teva, but has no owner interest in any pharmaceutical company.
Teratogenic changes in early chick embryos following administration of antitumor agent; azaserine.

SummaryThe substituted serine O-diazoacetyl-L-serine (azaserine) was shown to produce teratogenic changes in the chick embryo when inoculated over the blastoderm at 48 hours of incubation. Such changes, observed on gross examination of harvested specimens within 24 hours after inoculation, consisted of general growth inhibition, general developmental retardation and specific retardation in the development of the encephalon, optic cup and lens vesicle. Examination of embryos allowed to continue incubation for longer periods of time revealed that teratogenic changes were present in a high percentage of the surviving embryos. Retardation of the encephalon was less apparent on gross examination of older embryos, but retardation of the limb buds was observed in high percentage of embryos examined from 3 days after inoculation up to the time of hatching. No gross changes were observed when control inoculations were made using saline or unsubstituted L-serine. The possible application of this technic in the stud...
The New Labor History at the Cultural Crossroads

The new labor history has reached a crossroads. Perhaps the tragic passing of Herbert Gutman in 1985 marked the end of an era. The years since find practitioners and critics alike taking stock of his scholarship and its influence upon the writing of United States history in general. The new labor historians faithfully accepted the subjectivity of the working class as their major theme, Leon Fink points out, and directed their research toward evidences of distinctive patterns of behavior. That approach successfully subordinated the conventional narrative of trade-union development to the analysis of a less clearly defined subject, class formation. The path breaking scholars redefined class as a cultural, more than an economic, category and class consciousness as a collective expression not necessarily encompassed by such institutions as trade unions or political parties. In E. P. Thompson's much-quoted formulation, class became "an historical phenomenon, unifying a number of disparate and seemingly unconnected events, both in the raw material of experience and in consciousness." Thompson explained class consciousness, then, as "the way these experiences are handled in cultural terms: embodied in traditions, value-systems, ideas, and institutional forms."1 Under Thompson's aegis, American scholars emphasized the analysis of religion, rituals, kinship, and community. The resulting studies virtually transformed the traditional subjects of labor historystrikes, trade unions, and political movements into nearly equivalent "cultural terms." Such scholarly strategy, which restructured the relationship between "experience" and "consciousness" to privilege the latter, made possible the field's greatest contributions and also prefigured its current methodological dilemma.
A Commercial Structure Model for Depressed Neighborhoods

Can marketers utilize their skills and knowledge in helping the depressed neighborhoods of their community? This article presents a model for analyzing potential demand and planning the commercial ...
Market Orientation and the Marketing Strategy Process

Market orientation refers to the generation, dissemination, and responsiveness to market intelligence by organizations. The focus in this paper is on the process of strategy formulation and implementation in a market-oriented organization. Using the ‘rational’ approach to strategy formulation as a framework, and drawing on literature from the ‘incremental’ and ‘political’ approaches, an attempt is made to describe how strategy is formulated, implemented, and evaluated in an market-oriented organization. The ‘key variable’ concept is suggested as an alternative means of strategy evaluation to the marketing audit. Implications for marketing managers are discussed.
When Framing Matters How Partisan and Journalistic Frames Affect Individual Opinions and Party Identification

This monograph examines how the consistency and content of issue frames used by politicians and journalists from 1975–2008 affect preferences and partisanship. Combining our content analysis of Newsweek’s coverage of abortion and taxes with public opinion data, we show that consistent, partisan-sourced frames affect preferences and partisanship. In general, specific frames affect attitudes but not partisanship when sourced by partisan politicians, and both attitudes and partisanship when sourced by journalists. Policy-oriented liberal frames were associated with more liberal preferences and Democratic partisanship while symbolic conservative frames were associated with more conservative preferences and Republican partisanship.
A Herpesviral Lytic Protein Regulates the Structure of Latent Viral Chromatin

ABSTRACT Latent infections by viruses usually involve minimizing viral protein expression so that the host immune system cannot recognize the infected cell through the viral peptides presented on its cell surface. Herpes simplex virus (HSV), for example, is thought to express noncoding RNAs such as latency-associated transcripts (LATs) and microRNAs (miRNAs) as the only abundant viral gene products during latent infection. Here we describe analysis of HSV-1 mutant viruses, providing strong genetic evidence that HSV-infected cell protein 0 (ICP0) is expressed during establishment and/or maintenance of latent infection in murine sensory neurons in vivo . Studies of an ICP0 nonsense mutant virus showed that ICP0 promotes heterochromatin and latent and lytic transcription, arguing that ICP0 is expressed and functional. We propose that ICP0 promotes transcription of LATs during establishment or maintenance of HSV latent infection, much as it promotes lytic gene transcription. This report introduces the new concept that a lytic viral protein can be expressed during latent infection and can serve dual roles to regulate viral chromatin to optimize latent infection in addition to its role in epigenetic regulation during lytic infection. An additional implication of the results is that ICP0 might serve as a target for an antiviral therapeutic acting on lytic and latent infections. IMPORTANCE Latent infection by viruses usually involves minimizing viral protein synthesis so that the host immune system cannot recognize the infected cells and eliminate them. Herpes simplex virus has been thought to express only noncoding RNAs as abundant gene products during latency. In this study, we found genetic evidence that an HSV lytic protein is functional during latent infection, and this protein may provide a new target for antivirals that target both lytic and latent infections.
Pigs in Space: Determining the Environmental Justice Landscape of Swine Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) in Iowa.

Given the primacy of Iowa in pork production for the U.S. and global markets, we sought to understand if the same relationship with traditional environmental justice (EJ) variables such as low income and minority populations observed in other concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) studies exists in the relationship with swine CAFO densities in Iowa. We examined the potential for spatial clustering of swine CAFOs in certain parts of the state and used spatial regression techniques to determine the relationships of high swine concentrations to these EJ variables. We found that while swine CAFOs do cluster in certain regions and watersheds of Iowa, these high densities of swine are not associated with traditional EJ populations of low income and minority race/ethnicity. Instead, the potential for environmental injustice in the negative impacts of intensive swine production require a more complex appraisal. The clustering of swine production in watersheds, the presence of antibiotics used in swine production in public waterways, the clustering of manure spills, and other findings suggest that a more literal and figurative “downstream” approach is necessary. We document the presence and location of antibiotics used in animal production in the public waterways of the state. At the same time, we suggest a more “upstream” understanding of the structural, political and economic factors that create an environmentally unjust landscape of swine production in Iowa and the Upper Midwest is also crucial. Finally, we highlight the important role of publicly accessible and high quality data in the analysis of these upstream and downstream EJ questions.
Group I Intron Internal Guide Sequence Binding Strength as a Component of Ribozyme Network Formation

Origins-of-life research requires searching for a plausible transition from simple chemicals to larger macromolecules that can both hold information and catalyze their own production. We have previously shown that some group I intron ribozymes possess the ability to help synthesize other ribozyme genotypes by recombination reactions in small networks in an autocatalytic fashion. By simplifying these recombination reactions, using fluorescent anisotropy, we quantified the thermodynamic binding strength between two nucleotides of two group I intron RNA fragments for all 16 possible genotype combinations. We provide evidence that the binding strength (KD) between the 3-nucleotide internal guide sequence (IGS) of one ribozyme and its complement in another is correlated to the catalytic ability of the ribozyme. This work demonstrates that one can begin to deconstruct the thermodynamic basis of information in prebiotic RNA systems.
Evidence-Based Practices and Predictors: Improving Post-School Outcomes for Students with Disabilities

Post-school outcomes for individuals with disabilities have been persistently poor. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (2014) found only 18% of individuals with disabilities were active in the labor fo...
Modern Vector Control

The rapid spread of mosquito resistance to currently available insecticides, and the current lack of an efficacious malaria vaccine are among many challenges that affect large-scale efforts for malaria control. As goals of malaria elimination and eradication are put forth, new vector-control paradigms and tools and/or further optimization of current vector-control products are required to meet public health demands. Vector control remains the most effective measure to prevent malaria transmission and present gains against malaria mortality and morbidity may be maintained as long as vector-intervention strategies are sustained and adapted to underlying vector-related transmission dynamics. The following provides a brief overview of vector-control strategies and tools either in use or under development and evaluation that are intended to exploit key entomological parameters toward driving down transmission.
Mass Spectrometry with High-Performance Liquid Chromatography

Mass spectrometry (MS) is an analytical technique that provides information about the molecular weight and chemical characteristics of a compound. This technique is commonly linked to high-performance liquid chromatography (LC-MS), gas chromatography (GC-MS), inductively coupled plasma (ICP-MS), and other methods. This laboratory exercise covers the determination and identification of various phytochemicals (mainly isoflavones) in soy flour, to aid in understanding how to analyze a mass spectrum to obtain mass and structural information of a compound.
Establishing traceable radiation thermometry with in-line imaging system at the NIST AMMT facility (Conference Presentation)

The paper describes efforts to establish traceable measurements of radiance temperature on laser-induced heated metal surfaces on the NIST Additive Manufacturing Metrology Testbed (AMMT). Knowledge of radiance temperature with a well understood uncertainty budget is a necessary initial step towards an ultimate project goal of traceable emittance and true surface temperature across the heat affected zone, which is a key objective in additive manufacturing research, and the subject of another paper at this conference. Reliable measurements of radiance temperature with an imaging system require (1) calibration of its responsivity at select radiance levels, (2) establishing a calibration equation that interpolates between these levels, (3) dealing with finite spectral bandpass and spatial non-uniformity of the sensor responsivity, and (4) ability for compensate effects of imperfect optical imaging and readout electronics on spatial distribution of the target. The developed system includes an integrating sphere-based calibration source, a pyrometer for its calibration against external blackbody, and an imaging system co-axially aligned with the heating laser, each of which using identical narrow band filters. This paper describes the evaluation of an 850 nm band, with additional wavebands planned for the future. This paper presents experimental results, description of measurement equation and processing algorithm, as well as a framework for establishing an uncertainty budget, including current estimates and future performance goals.
Photoabsorption cross sections of methane and ethane, 1380-1600 A, at T equals 295 K and T equals 200 K

Photoabsorption cross sections of methane and ethane have been determined in the wavelength range from 1380 to 1600 A at room (295 K) and dry-ice (200 K) temperatures. It is found that the room-temperature ethane data are in excellent agreement with the older measurements of Okabe and Becker (1963) rather than with more recent determinations and that a small systematic blueshift occurs at the foot of the molecular absorption edges of both gases as the gases are cooled from room temperature to 200 K, a value close to the actual temperature of the Jovian atmosphere. It is concluded that methane photoabsorption will dominate until its cross section is about 0.01 that of ethane, which occurs at about 1440 A, and that ethane should be the dominant photoabsorber in the Jovian atmosphere in the region from above 1440 A to not farther than 1575 A.
Versatile Apparatus for Real-Time Profiling of Interacting Thin Films Deposited in Situ

A system has been built to permit heat treatment and real-time backscattering analysis of films which have been deposited in the same high vacuum chamber. Several items of new technology are described. The equipment will enable us to address a whole range of important thin-film interaction studies requiring minimized contamination and excellent thermal control.
Concentrated potassium carbonate/piperazine mixtures for an improved carbon dioxide capture process

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the CO2 absorption performance for blends of aqueous piperazine (PZ) and potassium carbonate (K2CO3) in traditional absorber/stripper processes. Various experiments were carried out at conditions representative of CO2 removal from flue gas with a broad range of solvent concentrations. Results show that concentrated K+/PZ mixtures increase the rate of absorption by as much as a factor of four over that of monoethanolamine (MEA). Ionic strength effects were also studied including non-reactive salts, such as NaCl and K2SO4. They enhanced the absorption rate significantly. To predict absorption rates in PZ/MEA solutions, Bishnoi developed a rigorous rate model. The model explains mass transfer across a boundary layer using the eddy diffusivity theory with the proposed kinetic mechanism to describe mass transfer and the reaction of CO2 with amines. Ionic strength has a considerable effect on the rate of CO2 absorption into aqueous PZ. At 25°C, the apparent rate constant increases by an order of magnitude at 3M ionic strength. At 60°C, a factor of two increase is observed at 2M ionic strength. Furthermore, the magnitude of the increase does not appear to be ion specific. This behavior has significant implications for existing processes.
Integrating Palliative Care Into the ICU: From Core Competency to Consultative Expertise.

Objectives:To propose a model describing levels of integration of palliative care into the care of ICU patients.Data Sources:Literature review and author opinion.Conclusions:All critical care team members should demonstrate and foster their core competencies in caring for patients with complex illne
Climatic and tectonic controls of lacustrine hyperpycnite origination in the Late Triassic Ordos Basin, central China: Implications for unconventional petroleum development: Discussion

Yang et al. (2017b) have advocated the importance of hyperpycnites by using a genetic facies model proposed for deposits of hyperpycnal flows by Mulder et al. (2003). The problem is that the authors have ignored experimental flume results and other empirical field data that discredited the model. This discussion is a rigorous evaluation of data, documentation, and the facies model.
Do cytomegalovirus-specific memory T cells interfere with new immune responses in lymphoid tissues?

In both mice and humans, the CD8 T cell compartment is expanded with age in the presence of a cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection due to an absolute increase in the CD8+ T cell effector memory (TEM) cells. It has been hypothesized that in CMV+ subjects, such accumulated TEM cells could interfere with responses to new infection by competing for space/resources or could inhibit new responses by other, undefined, means. Here we present evidence against this hypothesis. We show that MCMV-specific CD8 T cells accumulate in blood and bone marrow, but not lymph nodes (frequent sites of immune response initiation), in either persistent lifelong CMV infection or following reactivation. Moreover, adoptive transfer of effector memory T cells from MCMV positive mice into naive animals did not interfere with either humoral or cellular response to West Nile virus or Listeria monocytogenes infection in recipient mice. We conclude that MCMV infection is unlikely to inhibit new immune responses in old animals through direct interference of MCMV-specific CD8 T cells with the priming.
DNSS2: improved ab initio protein secondary structure prediction using advanced deep learning architectures

Abstract Motivation Accurate prediction of protein secondary structure (alpha-helix, beta-strand and coil) is a crucial step for protein inter-residue contact prediction and ab initio tertiary structure prediction. In a previous study, we developed a deep belief network-based protein secondary structure method (DNSS1) and successfully advanced the prediction accuracy beyond 80%. In this work, we developed multiple advanced deep learning architectures (DNSS2) to further improve secondary structure prediction. Results The major improvements over the DNSS1 method include (i) designing and integrating six advanced one-dimensional deep convolutional/recurrent/residual/memory/fractal/inception networks to predict secondary structure, and (ii) using more sensitive profile features inferred from Hidden Markov model (HMM) and multiple sequence alignment (MSA). Most of the deep learning architectures are novel for protein secondary structure prediction. DNSS2 was systematically benchmarked on two independent test datasets with eight state-of-art tools and consistently ranked as one of the best methods. Particularly, DNSS2 was tested on the 82 protein targets of 2018 CASP13 experiment and achieved the best Q3 score of 83.74% and SOV score of 72.46%. DNSS2 is freely available at: https://github.com/multicom-toolbox/DNSS2.
Comparison of the radial effects of burnup on fast reactor MOX fuel microstructure and solid fission products

Abstract This work presents a comparison between the microstructural evolution of three annular fast-reactor mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel pellets irradiated to varying burnups at the Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF). Fuel pellets irradiated to 3.4%, 13.7%, and 21.3% fissions per initial metal atom (FIMA) were examined using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) techniques. The cross-section of the low burnup pellet displayed minor structural changes, but the central annulus of the pellets at 13.7% and 21.3% FIMA shrank from their starting size. The high burnup fuel pellet featured streaking and porosity migration associated with columnar grain growth. The radial fission product distribution in each of the pellets had a higher number density of metallic particles >5 μm in diameter near the fuel centerline. Solid fission products in the fuel-cladding gap were observed in the low and intermediate burnup pellets. The low burnup sample showed minor accumulation of Ba in the gap, while the volatile Cs was primarily observed at the pellet surface. The intermediate burnup pellet displayed a porous mixture of fission products, consistent with the joint-oxide gain (JOG) that has been previously observed in fast-reactor MOX fuel pellets.
Multiphoton resonance and chiral transport in the generalized Rabi model

The generalized Rabi model (gRM) with both one- and two-photon coupling terms has been successfully implemented in circuit quantum electrodynamics systems. In this paper, we examine theoretically multiphoton resonances in the gRM and derive their effective Hamiltonians. We show that all three- to six-photon resonances can be achieved by involving two intermediate states with different detunings in the system. Furthermore, we study the interplay between multiphoton resonance and chiral transport of photon Fock states in a resonator junction with broken time-reversal symmetry. Depending on the qubit-photon interaction and photon-hopping amplitude, we find that the ultrastrong-coupling system can demonstrate different short-time dynamics.
Cutaneous Manifestations of Sexually Transmitted Infections

Cutaneous manifestations of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) can be the initial indication of an important systemic disease process. Or they may be markers of advanced infection or immunocompromise. Cutaneous symptoms may disproportionately impact quality of life through pain, itch, drainage, shame/stigma, and sexual dysfunction. Importantly, cutaneous STIs may also mimic the appearance of noninfectious diseases, or vice versa, thereby delaying diagnosis and resulting in inappropriate treatment. Familiarity with the typical and atypical presentations of cutaneous STIs and their mimickers is therefore critically important for the practicing pediatrician, adolescent medicine specialist, internist, gynecologist, and infectious diseases specialist.
Improving serotonin fast-scan cyclic voltammetry detection: new waveforms to reduce electrode fouling

Serotonin is a neuromodulator implicated in depression that is often measured in real-time by fast-scan cyclic voltammetry (FSCV). A specialized "Jackson" waveform (JW, 0.2, 1.0 V, -0.1 V, 0.2 V, 1000 V s-1) was developed to reduce serotonin fouling, but the 1.0 V switching potential limits sensitivity and electrodes still foul. The goal of this study was to test the effects of extending the FSCV switching potential to increase serotonin sensitivity and decrease fouling. We compared the Jackson waveform, the dopamine waveform (DA, -0.4 V, 1.3 V, 400 V s-1), and two new waveforms: the extended serotonin waveform (ESW, 0.2, 1.3, -0.1, 0.2, 1000 V s-1) and extended hold serotonin waveform (EHSW, 0.2, 1.3 (hold 1 ms), -0.1, 0.2, 400 V s-1). The EHSW was the most sensitive (LOD = 0.6 nM), and the JW the least sensitive (LOD = 2.4 nM). With the Jackson waveform, electrode fouling was significant with repeated injections of serotonin or exposure to its metabolite, 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA). Using the extended waveforms, electrodes fouled 50% less than with the Jackson waveform for both analytes. No electrode fouling was observed with the dopamine waveform because of the negative holding potential. The Jackson waveform was the most selective for serotonin over dopamine (800×), and the ESW was also highly selective. All waveforms were useful for measuring serotonin with optogenetic stimulation in Drosophila larvae. These results provide new FSCV waveforms to measure dynamic serotonin changes with different experimental requirements, like high sensitivity (EHSW), high selectivity (ESW, JW), or eliminating electrode fouling (DA).