cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Correlating structure and photophysics in erbium-doped silicon nanocrystals

Silicon's position as the semiconductor of choice in micro/nanoelectronics hinges on its ability to shift to new design paradigms such as opto-electronics. Strategies to produce silicon-based light emitters remain limited, however, relying either on quantum confinement effects or optically-active dopants. We are actively studying the effects of incorporating optically-active Erbium centers into discrete crystalline Si nanocrystals. Such nanocrystals have been prepared via the pyrolysis of disilanein the presence of a suitable Er source. Two rather different types of doped materials have been synthesized to date: one involving a random distribution of erbium centers throughout the nanocrystal; the other forces erbium into a location preferentially-enriched near the surface. This work entails the structural characterization of such materials and their photophysical properties, including spectroscopic measurements under the conditions of high pressure.
The Effect of Prevailing Wage Regulations on Contractor Bid Participation and Behavior: A Comparison of Palo Alto, California with Four Nearby Prevailing Wage Municipalities

This sample of bids by union and nonunion contractors on and off municipal prevailing wage projects in the San Francisco Bay area of California provides the first empirical evidence examining the effects of prevailing wage regulations on contractor participation and bidding behavior. The data show that the presence of prevailing wage regulations does not decrease the number of bidders nor alter the bidding behavior of contractors relative to the engineer's estimate of the value of the project. Furthermore, in this heavily unionized area during an upswing in the business cycle, the presence of prevailing wage regulations did not discourage the participation of nonunion contractors nor reduce their chances of winning work.
Time-Resolved PIV Measurements of Non-Reacting Flow Field in a Swirl-Stabilized Combustor Without and With Porous Inserts for Acoustic Control

Combustion noise and thermo-acoustic instabilities are of primary importance in highly critical applications such as rocket propulsion systems, power generation, and jet propulsion engines. Mechanisms for combustion instabilities are extremely complex because they often involve interactions among several different physical phenomena such as unsteady flame propagation leading to unsteady flow field, acoustic wave propagation, natural and forced hydrodynamic instabilities, etc. In the past, we have utilized porous inert media (PIM) to mitigate combustion noise and thermo-acoustic instabilities in both lean premixed (LPM) and lean direct injection (LDI) combustion systems. While these studies demonstrated the efficacy of the PIM concept to mitigate noise and thermo-acoustic instabilities, the actual mechanisms involved have not been understood. The present study utilizes time-resolved particle image velocimetry to measure the turbulent flow field in a non-reacting swirl-stabilized combustor without and with PIM. Although the flow field inside the annulus of the PIM cannot be observed, measurements immediately downstream of the PIM provide insight into the turbulent structures. Results are analyzed using the Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD) method and show that the PIM alters the flow field in an advantageous manner by modifying the turbulence structures and eliminating the corner recirculation zones and precessing vortex core, which would ultimately affect the acoustic behavior in a favorable manner.Copyright © 2014 by ASME
Assessment of Handy−Cohen Optimized Exchange Density Functional (OPTX)

In this paper we present a systematic assessment of the Handy−Cohen optimized exchange density functional (OPTX), comparing results from OLYP and O3LYP with those from BLYP and B3LYP. We find that OPTX significantly outperforms Becke88 in the calculations of the atomic exchange energies, and O3LYP leads to the best total atomic energies (H to Ar) among these four functions. We find OLYP and O3LYP are competitive or even better than BLYP and B3LYP in the predictions of ionization potentials, electron affinities, and proton affinities against the extended G2 set of 75 atoms and molecules. For thermochemistry of the extended G2 set of 148 molecules, we find that the mean absolute deviation (in kcal/mol) follows the order BLYP (7.10) > OLYP (4.66) > O3LYP (4.13) > B3LYP (3.14). Thus OLYP is the best pure DFT, but B3LYP is the best overall. The histogram of error distribution of the G2 set indicates that O3LYP has more predictive power than B3LYP, although O3LYP has a tendency for overbinding. OLYP and O3LYP significantly outperform BLYP and B3LYP in describing van der Waals interactions, but OLYP and O3LYP underestimate hydrogen bond strengths even more than BLYP and B3LYP and, hence, cannot be recommended for studying hydrogen bond systems.
Potato responses to calcium application on several soil types

On low cation exchange capacity, sandy soils where soil test Ca is low, potato tuber (Solanum tuberosum L.) Ca levels may not be optimal for maximum yield or quality; therefore, this study evaluated the effect of several levels of applied Ca on potato yield and quality on four soil types in Wisconsin. Calcium was applied to a Plainfield loamy sand, a Keiner loamy sand, a Pence sandy loam, and an Antigo silt loam at five rates in 1984 (0, 84, 252, 420, and 588 kg Ca ha−1) and at six rates in 1985 (0, 56, 112, 168, 224, and 336 kg Ca ha−1) as a band of CaSO4 in the hill. In 1984, on the Plainfield soil, three rates of sidedress Ca(NO3)2 (0, 84, and 168 kg Ca ha−1) were factorially combined with the five CaSO4 treatments to evaluate the efficacy of Ca(NO3)2 as a concomitant Ca and N source. In general, total yield was not affected by CaSO4 additions; however, the addition of approximately 100 kg Ca ha−1 as Ca(NO3)2 increased total yield 3.6 Mg ha−1. On the low-CEC, low-Ca soils (Plainfield and Kelner), improved tuber grade and/ or US1A size grade were detected with the addition of up to approximately 300 kg Ca ha−1 as CaSO4. The percent of US1A tubers increased 5 to 10% and the yield of US1A prime size (170–370 g) tubers increased 3.4 to 8.4 Mg ha−1 above control values. These improvements were accompanied by increased periderm Ca concentrations, even though leaflet Ca concentrations were not affected by Ca applications. The use of 100 kg Ca ha−1 asCa(NO3)2 in combination with CaSO4 was more effective than CaSO4 alone. On higher soil test Ca soils (Pence and Antigo), responses were inconsistent and periderm Ca was generally not increased.
Depression as an Antecedent of Frequency of Intravenous Drug Use in an Urban, Nontreatment Sample

The present study examined the relationship between depressive symptoms and frequency of drug use in 91 low income nontreatment intravenous drug users in Baltimore, Maryland. The majority of participants were injecting both heroin and cocaine. Scores on the depression scale at both waves were correlated with frequency of injection at wave two. Depression at wave one had a higher correlation with frequency of injections at wave two than did concurrent depression at wave two. Even after accounting for several confounds between depression and frequency of injection, depression at wave one remained highly correlated with frequency of injection at wave two.
Ethical beliefs' differences of males and females

This study investigates the differences in ethical beliefs between males and females. One hundred and seventy five business students were presented with four scenarios and given the Reidenbach-Robin instrument measuring their ethical reactions to these scenarios. Contrary to previous research, the results indicate that the two groups have similar ethical beliefs, and they process ethical information similarly.
Innocence Lost: A Gender-Based Study of Parricide Offender, Victim, and Incident Characteristics in a National Sample, 1976–2003

ABSTRACT The act of parricide is one of the least understood and most underresearched acts of family violence. Work to date suggests adolescent parricide is often an extreme response to intolerable abuse. Drawing on Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHR) from 1976 to 2003, this work examines a large national sample of reported parricide incidents (N = 2,599) with an offender 21 years of age or younger. A gender-based study of offender, victim, and incident characteristics was undertaken using bivariate and multivariate techniques. Results suggest that incidents of parricide are decreasing over time. Offenses are predominantly intraracial with white male offenders peaking in late adolescence and white females peaking in mid-adolescence. White biological fathers are at greatest risk of victimization with girls significantly more likely than boys to kill a stepfather. Results both corroborate and contrast extant works, providing new baseline data and insight into this complex and dynamic crime.
Evaluation of a Challenge‐based Human Metabolism Laboratory for Undergraduates

This paper discusses an effort to enhance the learning and affective experience of students in a laboratory module in metabolism through the use of the “How People Learn” framework, which is grounded in educational theory and research. The laboratory, which was a component of a systems physiology course in biomedical engineering, was modified such that some students had educational experiences informed by How People Learn principles while other students encountered a more traditional laboratory. Students were compared on a number of dimensions including knowledge acquisition, ability to use information to solve problems, transfer, and perceptions of their course experience. Several differences were observed between groups, with students in the “How People Learn” group out-performing controls on measures that required a deeper ability to use the material, but not differing in basic acquisition of information. Implications for the development of similar laboratories are discussed.
Fast Monitoring Proximity and Centrality on Time-evolving Bipartite Graphs

Large bipartite graphs that evolve and grow over time (e.g. new links arrive, old links die out, or link weights change) arise in many settings, such as social networks, co-citations, market-basket analysis, and collaborative filtering. How do we monitor (i) the centrality of an individual node (e.g. which is the most important conference), or (ii) the proximity of two nodes or sets of nodes (e.g. who are the most influential authors with respect to a particular conference)? How can we do this efficiently and incrementally? How can we provide ‘any-time’ answers to interesting queries, with respect to node centrality or proximity? In this paper we propose pTrack and cTrack, which are based on RWR, together with some important modifications to adapt these measures to a dynamic, evolving setting. Additionally, we develop techniques for fast, incremental updates of these measures that allow us to track them continuously as link updates arrive. In addition, we discuss variants of our method that can handle batch updates, as well as place more emphasis on recent links. We demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of our methods on several real datasets. Copyright © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Statistical Analysis and Data Mining 1: 000-000, 2008
The Child and Adolescent Services Assessment (CASA): Description and Psychometrics

The Child and Adolescent Services Assessment (CASA) is a self- and parent-report instrument designed to assess the use of mental health services by children ages 8 years to 18 years. The CASA includes 31 settings covering inpatient, outpatient, and informal services provided by a variety of child-serving providers and sectors. This instrument collects information on whether a service was ever used and more detailed information (length of stay/number of visits, focus of treatment) on services used in the recent past. A description of the instrument, information on interviewer training and coding of data, psychometric data on clinical samples, and a case study are presented.
Electro‐optical properties of holographically patterned polymer‐stabilized cholesteric liquid crystals

Electro‐optical properties of cholesteric liquid crystals (LCs) with holographically patterned polymer stabilization were examined. It is hypothesized that increasing the LC domain size in a single dimension, relative to a random three‐dimensional network of LC pockets separated by polymer strands, will allow enhanced electro‐optical properties of the final device. Prior to holographic patterning, polymer stabilization with large elastic memory was generated by way of high irradiation intensities and optimized material choices. High irradiation intensities are required for the holographic patterning process to maintain polymer layer formation. At optimized conditions, polymer patterning of the stabilization allowed for an approximate 20% increase in the clear state transmission of the device, and allowed for an approximate 3 V µm−1 reduction in the overall switching voltage as compared to an analogous floodlit irradiated sample. Switching times were increased at most threefold with holographic patterning,...
A LEAP Forward for Quantitative Literacy

The Association of American College and Universities’ Learning Education and America’s Promise (LEAP) initiative has identified quantitative literacy (QL) as one of its Essential Learning Outcomes and classified it amongst five other Intellectual and Practical Skills such as inquiry and analysis, critical and creative thinking, and written and oral communication. This brings to mind a spreadsheet in which these transdisciplinary intellectual and practical skills are rows and academic disciplines are columns. With the view that the learning outcome QL is a row crossing mathematics and other disciplinary columns, this editorial considers how the papers in this and previous issues of Numeracy distribute into the imaginary spreadsheet. The analysis shows that papers in Numeracy have been expanding from the journal’s cell of origin, where QL crosses mathematics, as well as growing in number. The editorial closes by asking about the uniformity of principles of QL from one cell to another in the row, and whether there are levels of QL within the row as a whole. A sidebar notes that downloads are passing the 15,000 mark and the monthly rate now is about 2/3 higher than it was six months ago.
Performance Implication of Environmental Mobility in Wireless Networks

Environmental mobility refers to the ambient motion of people, vehicles and other objects in the vicinity of wireless communication. Whereas the effect of mobility of transmitting and receiving radios has been widely researched, the impact of environmental mobility has been relatively unexplored in wireless networks. In this paper, we present a systematic study to analyze the effect of environmental mobility on wireless link behavior and protocol performance using measurement, analysis, and simulations. Measurement data from channel traces was collected to isolate and quantify the effects of environmental mobility on the channel performance. Efficient models were developed to explain the observed behavior and integrated with network simulation to enable protocol level analysis under such dynamics. We found that the class of protocols that maintain state or have memory but are otherwise agnostic of the channel operations fare poorly by acquiring incorrect information about the channel and are not able to adequately exploit durations where channel conditions are good. Two case studies at different layers of protocol stack are used to quantify such behavior to show that protocol perform maybe as much as 20-50% below their expected performance. To remedy this situation we present a cross layer optimization scheme, called Recovery from Earlier Good State (REGS), that allows protocols to become aware of the underlying channel operations. We show that use of REGS together with existing optimizations can improve throughputs in the presence of EM by more than 100%.
Error propagation analysis of V-BLAST with channel-estimation errors

In this letter, expressions are given for the symbol-error rate (SER) of the Vertical Bell Laboratories Layered Space-Time (V-BLAST) system, taking into account error propagation due to channel-estimation errors. In addition to error propagation, suboptimal substream ordering due to imperfect channel estimates is accounted for. First, the conditional SER is determined using the distribution of the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio of each substream, conditioned on the channel estimate. Then, the average SER as a function of the channel estimation error-to-signal ratio (ESR) is upper bounded by averaging over the distribution of the channel estimates. The upper bound on the SER is tighter than previous bounds in the literature. Comparisons with exact simulations demonstrate the accuracy of the SER expressions for a large range of ESRs.
The Methods of J. B. Schneewind

J. B. Schneewind's Sidgwick's Ethics and Victorian Moral Philosophy was the single best philosophical commentary on Henry Sidgwick's Methods of Ethics produced in the twentieth century. Although Schneewind was primarily concerned to read Sidgwick's ethical theory in its historical context, as reflecting the controversies generated by such figures as J. S. Mill, F. D. Maurice, and William Whewell, his reading also ended up being highly neo-Kantian, reflecting various Rawlsian priorities. As valuable as such an interpretation of Sidgwick surely is, Schneewind's approach has always been in some key respects too narrowly conceived in its construction of Sidgwick's philosophical and cultural context, failing to grapple with such troubling, philosophically relevant issues as the possible racism of Sidgwick's ethical and political views, or the sexual politics manifest in his collaboration with such figures as John Addington Symonds.
The Double-Edged Sword of Pedagogy: Instruction Limits Spontaneous Exploration and Discovery

Motivated by computational analyses, we look at how teaching affects exploration and discovery. In Experiment 1, we investigated children’s exploratory play after an adult pedagogically demonstrated a function of a toy, after an interrupted pedagogical demonstration, after a naive adult demonstrated the function, and at baseline. Preschoolers in the pedagogical condition focused almost exclusively on the target function; by contrast, children in the other conditions explored broadly. In Experiment 2, we show that children restrict their exploration both after direct instruction to themselves and after overhearing direct instruction given to another child; they do not show this constraint after observing direct instruction given to an adult or after observing a non-pedagogical intentional action. We discuss these findings as the result of rational inductive biases. In pedagogical contexts, a teacher’s failure to provide evidence for additional functions provides evidence for their absence; such contexts generalize from child to child (because children are likely to have comparable states of knowledge) but not from adult to child. Thus, pedagogy promotes efficient learning but at a cost: children are less likely to perform potentially irrelevant actions but also less likely to discover novel information.
An Integrated Framework for Measuring Product Development Performance in High Technology Industries

We present an integrated framework for measuring product development performance. The framework consists of a three stage model for exploring the relationships between metrics used by design, manufacturing, marketing functions, and overall commercial success. Using a cross-sectional survey of 383 product development professionals working on 38 product development projects in the high-tech electronic assembled goods manufacturing sector, we provide empirical evidence of the proposed framework. The findings indicate that in the high-tech manufacturing sector (1) commercial success of new product development projects is primarily determined by market share, (2) gain in market share is primarily driven by lower unit cost and not by technical performance, and (3) reduction in unit cost is primarily driven by the increased speed of new product development and not by the R&D budget. The study failed to identify any significant association between R&D budget and technical performance, and development speed and technical performance.
Approaching Fatigue in Neuromuscular Diseases

Fatigue is common in many neurologic and nonneurologic conditions, such as neuromuscular diseases, multiple sclerosis, depression, renal failure, pulmonary diseases, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer. Fatigue also is common in healthy subjects. In one study, 18% of normal healthy controls complained of fatigue. Physicians and patients often use the term fatigue without defining it, however. There are no medical criteria for fatigue. The term fatigue, when used by physicians or patients, may have a meaning ranging from mental depression to neuromuscular weakness. Physicians cannot make progress or help patients to solve their problems with fatigue until they can scrutinize the various meanings of fatigue and correlate them with an organic or psychological disease state. Since the 1990s, investigators have pursued research in seriously ill subjects (eg, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis [ALS] or other advanced neuromuscular diseases that cause immobility) that might lead to better palliation of disabling symptoms, including fatigue, pain, and dyspnea, and improve quality of life until the end of life [1]. Fatigue is highly prevalent in many serious medical conditions, including cancer, AIDS, and neurologic disorders such as multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease, and has deleterious effects on quality of life. Researchers in palliative care have focused on developing valid and reliable measures of fatigue; measuring the prevalence, incidence, and daily variation of this symptom; clarifying the relationship of fatigue to other symptoms and morbid outcomes; and testing interventions to treat fatigue.
Quality assessment of filtered smoked yellowfin tuna (Thunnus albacares) steaks.

Abstract: Filtered smoke (FS) has been used to preserve taste, texture, and/or color in tuna and other fish species. This treatment is particularly important in color preservation during frozen storage. The objective of this study was to compare changes in the quality profiles of FS-treated and untreated (UT) yellowfin tuna (Thunnus albacares) steaks stored in 3 ways: room temperature (21 to 22 °C), refrigerated (4 to 5 °C), and iced (0 °C). FS and UT steaks were processed from the same lot of fish and analyzed for chemical, microbiological, lipid oxidation, color, and sensory profiles. Similar trends were seen for microbial proliferation and accumulation of apparent ammonia and total volatile base nitrogen (TVB-N) during the storage temperatures evaluated. Notable exception in quality profile was found in lipid oxidation which was, as expected, lower for treated samples at all storage temperatures for TBARS (P < 0.05) and lower or significantly (P < 0.05) lower for POV values. FS increased the initial redness value significantly (P < 0.05). Unlike UT product, there was no loss of color value concomitant with quality changes for FS-treated tuna for all storage temperatures evaluated. Practical Application: The overall goal of this project was to evaluate filtered smoked tuna steaks as to the impact on the overall quality profile. As a color-stabilizing technology, it could mask deteriorating quality.
Exercise‐induced stress resistance is independent of exercise controllability and the medial prefrontal cortex

Exercise increases resistance against stress-related disorders such as anxiety and depression. Similarly, the perception of control is a powerful predictor of neurochemical and behavioral responses to stress, but whether the experience of choosing to exercise, and exerting control over that exercise, is a critical factor in producing exercise-induced stress resistance is unknown. The current studies investigated whether the protective effects of exercise against the anxiety- and depression-like consequences of stress are dependent on exercise controllability and a brain region implicated in the protective effects of controllable experiences, the medial prefrontal cortex. Adult male Fischer 344 rats remained sedentary, were forced to run on treadmills or motorised running wheels, or had voluntary access to wheels for 6 weeks. Three weeks after exercise onset, rats received sham surgery or excitotoxic lesions of the medial prefrontal cortex. Rats were exposed to home cage or uncontrollable tail shock treatment three weeks later. Shock-elicited fear conditioning and shuttle box escape testing occurred the next day. Both forced and voluntary wheel running, but not treadmill training, prevented the exaggerated fear conditioning and interference with escape learning produced by uncontrollable stress. Lesions of the medial prefrontal cortex failed to eliminate the protective effects of forced or voluntary wheel running. These data suggest that exercise controllability and the medial prefrontal cortex are not critical factors in conferring the protective effects of exercise against the affective consequences of stressor exposure, and imply that exercise perceived as forced may still benefit affect and mental health.
Abort and retry in grasping

Iteration is often sufficient for a simple hand to accomplish complex tasks, at the cost of an increase in the expected time to completion. In this paper, we minimize that overhead time by allowing a simple hand to abort early and retry as soon as it realizes that the task is likely to fail. We present two key contributions. First, we learn a probabilistic model of the relationship between the likelihood of success of a grasp and its grasp signature—the trace of the state of the hand along the entire grasp motion. Second, we model the iterative process of early abort and retry as a Markov chain and optimize the expected time to completion of the grasping task by effectively thresholding the likelihood of success. Experiments with our simple hand prototype tasked with grasping and singulating parts from a bin show that early abort and retry significantly increases efficiency.
Negotiation with reaction functions for solving complex task allocation problems

We study task-allocation problems where cooperative robots need to perform tasks simultaneously. We develop a distributed negotiation procedure that allows robots to find all task exchanges that reduce the team cost of a given task allocation, without robots having to know how other robots compute their robot costs. Finally, we demonstrate empirically that our negotiation procedure can substantially reduce the team costs of task allocations resulting from existing task-allocation procedures, including sequential single-item auctions.
Nonlinear Dynamic Modeling of Spike Train Transformations for Hippocampal-Cortical Prostheses

One of the fundamental principles of cortical brain regions, including the hippocampus, is that information is represented in the ensemble firing of populations of neurons, i.e., spatio-temporal patterns of electrophysiological activity. The hippocampus has long been known to be responsible for the formation of declarative, or fact-based, memories. Damage to the hippocampus disrupts the propagation of spatio-temporal patterns of activity through hippocampal internal circuitry, resulting in a severe anterograde amnesia. Developing a neural prosthesis for the damaged hippocampus requires restoring this multiple-input, multiple-output transformation of spatio-temporal patterns of activity. Because the mechanisms underlying synaptic transmission and generation of electrical activity in neurons are inherently nonlinear, any such prosthesis must be based on a nonlinear multiple-input, multiple-output model. In this paper, we have formulated the transformational process of multi-site propagation of spike activity between two subregions of the hippocampus (CA3 and CA1) as the identification of a multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) system, and proposed that it can be decomposed into a series of multiple-input, single-output (MISO) systems. Each MISO system is modeled as a physiologically plausible structure that consists of 1) linear/nonlinear feedforward Volterra kernels modeling synaptic transmission and dendritic integration, 2) a linear feedback Volterra kernel modeling spike-triggered after-potentials, 3) a threshold for spike generation, 4) a summation process for somatic integration, and 5) a noise term representing intrinsic neuronal noise and the contributions of unobserved inputs. Input and output spike trains were recorded from hippocampal CA3 and CA1 regions of rats performing a spatial delayed-nonmatch-to-sample memory task that requires normal hippocampal function. Kernels were expanded with Laguerre basis functions and estimated using a maximum-likelihood method. Complexity of the feedforward kernel was progressively increased to capture higher-order system nonlinear dynamics. Results showed higher prediction accuracies as kernel complexity increased. Self-kernels describe the nonlinearities within each input. Cross-kernels capture the nonlinear interaction between inputs. Secondand third-order nonlinear models were found to successfully predict the CA1 output spike distribution based on CA3 input spike trains. First-order, linear models were shown to be insufficient
Metastatic Insulinoma in a 16-Year-Old Adolescent Male With Men-1: A Case Report and Review of the Literature

ABSTRACT Objective: Multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1 (MEN-1) is an autosomal dominant condition associated with various combinations of endocrine and nonendocrine tumors. Insulinomas are rare endocrine tumors in the pediatric age group and may be associated with MEN-1 in 10% of cases. Malignant insulinomas only constitute 5 to 10% of all the insulinomas and are exceedingly rare in children. There are only 11 cases of malignant insulinoma reported in the literature in the pediatric age group. Methods: We are reporting a 16-year-old adolescent male who presented with symptoms of hypoglycemia for the 4 months prior to referral. Results: He was diagnosed with malignant insulinoma with multiple metastases to liver and was treated with surgical resection followed by octreotide treatment. He had additional findings consistent with the diagnosis of MEN-1, including elevated prolactin levels combined with a 4 to 5 mm pituitary lesion possibly due to prolactinoma and mildly elevated calcium levels with a parathy...
Perceptions of the Benefits to Using a Secondary Admissions Process in Professional Bachelor's Athletic Training Programs.

Context: Some athletic training program (ATP) directors use direct admit, where students are admitted into the ATP directly out of high school. Other ATP directors admit students into the program after a set time period on campus through a secondary admissions process. It remains unknown why ATP directors use various admissions practices. Objective: To determine why ATP directors use a secondary admissions process. Design: Qualitative study. Setting: Professional bachelor's ATPs. Patients or Other Participants: We asked ATP directors from all 343 professional bachelor's ATPs to participate in an online survey. We received responses from 177 (51.6%). Main Outcome Measure(s): The survey asked participants both when students are first eligible for admission into their ATP and to explain the rationale behind their specific admissions process. We used grounded theory to analyze the data and maintained the trustworthiness of the analysis via multiple-analyst triangulation, member checks, and a peer review. Resu...
Quantum Confined Electron-Hole States in ZnSe Quantum Dots

We observed the quantum confined bandedge emission from ZnSe quantum dots and the size dependence of the energy states, spin-orbit interaction, and Stokes shift. The bandedge emission occurs in the UV-blue. The energy gap = Eg + C/dn where d is the diameter and n is 1. 19 ± 0.13 and 1.21 ± 0.13 for the first and second electron-hole transitions, respectively. The separation between these transitions approaches the bulk spin-orbit splitting, while the Stokes shift decreases with particle size. Effective mass theories can not explain these results. Trap emission is observed in some samples in the green and red, resulting from Se-related traps.
Inflation and the Ω-problem

OBSERVATIONAL estimates suggest that the cosmological density parameter Ω, defined as the ratio of the density of the Universe ρo and the critical density ρcrit which divides open from closed universes, is ⩽0.5. According to the standard Friedmann models, any value of Ω¬1 diverges away from one as the Universe evolves. The cosmological Ω-problem is that, on the one hand, making the present value of Ω close to but not equal to one requires an extraordinarily precise adjustment of the initial conditions of the Universe1, but on the other hand inflationary models, which were devised in part to avoid this fine-tuning, predict that Ω should differ from one only by an exponentially small amount2. Conventional inflationary models thus appeal to the existence of 'missing' matter or a non-zero cosmological constant to make up the density deficit. Here it is shown that 'extended inflation'3,4, a recent variation on inflationary cosmology, accommodates a range of initial conditions which lead to Ω≲0.5. The parameter range is narrow, perhaps finely tuned, but non-zero.
Design of integrated monitoring system of direct-current switchgear assembly for transformer substation

In order to improve the data communication performance of lithium iron phosphate battery with DC power supply system and enhance the reliability of the monitoring system,an integrated monitor system of direct-current switchgear assembly for transformer substation was introduced in this paper.A special integrated controller was designed in the system,by which could manage the data communication of battery energy management system,direct-current switchgear assembly module and other monitor devices efficiently.Also,the special integrated controller provided convenience for the staffs to view and improved the real-time communication and reliability.
Analysis on sanitary conditions of swimming pool water in Dongcheng District of Beijing in 2013

[Objective]To understand the water quality of swimming pools in Dongcheng District of Beijing in 2013,and provide scientific evidence for improving the water quality of swimming pools.[Methods]Three different types of swimming places,which included business,hotel internal and school affiliated swimming pools,were monitored from May-October 2013 and were monitored once on February in 2014. Three samples were collected from each swimming place monthly for continuous 7 months.The test items included p H value,turbidity,urea,free residual chlorine,total bacterial count and coliform group count.[Results]A total of 210 water samples were tested,and the total qualified rate was 50.5%. The qualified rate of p H value,turbidity,total bacterial count and coliform group count were 100%,The qualified rate of free residual chlorine was 83.3%. The qualified rate of urea was 61.4%. The qualified rate of business swimming pools,hotel internal swimming pools and school affiliated swimming pools was 41.3%,52.4%,71.4%,respectively,with significant difference. [Conclusion]The sanitary indicators of swimming pools are poor in Dongcheng District of Beijing City in summer,which needs improvement. Monitoring of rree residual chlorine and urea should be enhanced.
COPD and Other Inflammatory Diseases of the Lung: Focus on AhR Signaling

Millions of individuals worldwide are afflicted with disorders affecting the lungs, resulting in difficulty breathing. Oftentimes, these diseases occur as a result of altered immune response in the lung. The aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR), a ligand-activated transcription factor, acts as a regulator of mucosal barrier function and may influence immune responsiveness in lung diseases through changes in gene expression, cell-cell adhesion, mucin production, and cytokine expression. Of these cytokines, interleukin 22 (IL-22) signaling appears to be involved in lung inflammation and fibrosis, and both endogenous and exogenous AhR agonists promote IL-22 expression. Therefore, this chapter discusses the role of the AhR pathway and IL-22 signaling in lung diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, idiopathic fibrosis, Sarcoidosis, acute respiratory distress syndrome, and silicosis. Finally, we address the therapeutic potential of targeting the AhR—IL-22 axis in regulating immunity, inflammation, and tissue homeostasis in lung diseases.
Disorders of Elimination: Nocturnal Enuresis

Enuresis or nocturnal enuresis is the involuntary, intermittent release of urine during sleep. There are two types of nocturnal enuresis. Primary enuresis occurs in children aged 5 years or older who are neurologically and developmentally normal, but have not yet achieved 6 months or more of nighttime ­dryness. Secondary enuresis is the relapse of nighttime wetting in children who have achieved at least 6 months of nighttime dryness.
Introduction: What Good Is Philosophical Bioethics?

What ails philosophical bioethics? That may seem an odd query. No field within contemporary philosophic practice is more widely debated or more fraught with practical implications beyond the discipline’s narrow academic pursuits. Today, philosophers-cum-bioethicists serve on ethics boards, consult with advisory committees, and seek to influence public policy on a broad range of biomedical practices, from stem cell research to end-of-life care. Yet even a cursory examination of the research articles and textbooks produced by these bioethicists reveals nothing distinctively philosophical about their evaluations. Their ethical analyses emphasize the same range of practical considerations as those offered by physicians, psychologists, nurses, and even political scientists and theologians — themselves all turned would-be bioethicists. Analyses which apply a specific type of philosophical ethics — for example utilitarian, or virtue-based, or deontological, or pragmatic — too, typically involve not matters of grand philosophical import, but the more mundane and narrowly confounding questions of how to apply generic moral principles such as beneficence and justice to specific cases.
Media and the Neoliberal Agenda Within Political Socialization

The presentation of media, both in formal and informal manner, affects youth political socialization and agency. Media can include a wide range of elements, such as television, the Internet, social media, graffiti, and literature. Media can be very influential in the way youth view and perceive their world and reality. Historically, media has been discussed in a linear way, such as including only dominant news sources, without considering alternative media in the community. The multiple narratives of media have been ignored, especially when considering youth agency and political socialization. This chapter will focus on the interaction of the effect of media, both formal and informal, that is shaping the national narrative, community political discourse, and the interaction of youth political socialization. For example, one 12-year-old female participant from a city wrote about watching TV with her father and seeing children crying. The youth asked her father why the children were crying and her father responded, “the occupation expelled them from their own country, and now they don’t have water, food, or homes to sleep in.” Media as a source of political information can impact Palestinian youth’s political socialization interactions and communications.
Changes in Northern Hemisphere Winter Storm Tracks under the Background of Arctic Amplification

AbstractAn interdecadal weakening in the North Atlantic storm track (NAST) and a poleward shift of the North Pacific storm track (NPST) are found during October–March for the period 1979–2015. A significant warming of surface air temperature (Ts) over northeastern North America and a La Nina–like change in the North Pacific under the background of Arctic amplification are found to be the contributors to the observed changes in the NAST and the NPST, respectively, via modulation of local baroclinicity. The interdecadal change in baroclinic energy conversion is consistent with changes in storm tracks with an energy loss from eddies to mean flow over the North Atlantic and an energy gain over the North Pacific. The analysis of simulations from the Community Earth System Model Large Ensemble project, although with some biases in storm-track and Ts simulations, supports the observed relationship between the NAST and Ts over northeastern North America, as well as the link between the NPST and El Nino–Southern O...
Recycling the Epic: Gilgamesh on Three Continents

This essay examines the 2006 collaboration between poet Yusef Komunyakaa and dramaturg Chad Gracia, the recycling of Gilgamesh as low-budget stagings in the USA. The migration of the epic into a performance-basis genre—and into vernacular settings and grassroots organizations—constitutes a feature of epic that Mikhail Bakhtin overlooked. These downward percolations in venue are accompanied by a parallel downshift in thematics and demographics: the audience changes across time, as does the sympathy for characters. In the Komunyakaa/Gracia stage adaptation, it is not Gilgamesh, and not even Enkidu, but Humbaba, their not-quite-human adversary, who becomes the emotional focus, turning a genre once dedicated to the hubris of kings and princes into one saturated by the pathos of those who are “slaves to the gods.”
Childhood ADHD Symptoms and Future Illicit Drug Use: The Role of Adolescent Cigarette Use.

Objectives The aim of this study is to understand how early cigarette use might predict subsequent illicit drug use, especially among individuals with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms during childhood. Methods Data were drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Waves I-IV). The analysis sample involves participants who had not used illicit drugs at Wave I, with no missing responses for studied predictors (N = 7,332). Results Smoking status at Wave I (ever regular vs. never regular) and childhood ADHD symptoms predicted subsequent illicit drug use at Waves II to IV. No interaction effect of smoking status at Wave I and childhood ADHD symptoms was found. However, an indirect effect from childhood ADHD symptoms on illicit drug use was identified, through smoking status at Wave I. Similar results were observed for predicting illicit drug dependence. Conclusions The findings support the notion that smoking status during early adolescence may mediate the association between childhood ADHD symptoms and risk of later adult drug use. Interventions to prevent smoking among adolescents may be particularly effective at decreasing subsequent drug use, especially among children with ADHD symptoms.
Abstract P001: HDAC1 Plays an Important Role in the Differentiation of Embryonic Stem Cells and Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells into Cardiovascular Lineages

Despite advancements in the treatment of myocardial infarction (MI), the majority of patients are at increased risk for developing heart failure due to the loss of cardiomyocytes and microvasculature. Some of the main obstacles in the realization of the full potential of iPS/ES cells arise from incomplete and poorly understood molecular mechanisms and epigenetic modifications that govern their pluripotency and directed differentiation. Real-time array experiments revealed that HDAC1 is highly expressed in pluripotent cells. Additionally the lack of this molecule is embryonic lethal, suggesting it plays a key role in development. Thus, we hypothesized that HDAC1 plays a critical role in directing cardiovascular differentiation of mES and iPS cells in vitro. HDAC1 was knocked down in mES cells (C57BL/6) and iPS cells using a shRNA vector. Differentiation through embryoid body (EB) was induced in wild type mES cells and iPS cells and in their HDAC1-null counterparts and the ability of these cells to differentiate into three early embryonic lineages and more specifically cardiovascular lineage was monitored. EBs lacking HDAC1 differentiated slower and showed delayed suppression of pluripotent genes such as Oct4 and Sox2. ChiP experiments revealed high histone acetylation levels at the promoter regions of these genes during early differentiation. In addition cells lacking HDAC1 showed reduced expression of early markers for all three germ layers. HDAC1-null EBs also showed delayed and reduced spontaneous beating. Expression of cardiomyocite markers as well as markers of other cardiovascular lineages was repressed in HDAC1 -null cells. However, supplementation with BMP2 during early differentiation recovered the ability in the HDAC1-null cells to differentiate into endodermal and mesodermal lineages, but not ectodermal. We propose that HDAC1 plays a critical role in early development and cardiovascular differentiation of mES and iPS cells by repressing pluripotent genes and allowing for expression of early developmental genes such as SOX17 and BMP2. Further research in the molecular mechanisms involved in this process will greatly aid our understanding of the epigenetic circuitry of pluripotency and differentiation in ES and iPS cells.
Abstract 5657: Objective measurement and significance of VISTA (PD-1H) expression in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC)

Introduction: VISTA (PD-1H) is a member of the B7 family of immune co-regulatory molecules and has been proposed as a novel anti-cancer immunotherapy target. The intra- and extracellular domains of VISTA show homology to PD-1 and PD-L1, respectively, suggesting a role in anti-tumor immune evasion. The expression of VISTA, its association with PD-1 axis components and biological role in human NSCLC are unknown. Methods: Using multiplex quantitative immunofluorescence (QIF), we simultaneously measured the levels of VISTA (clone D1L2G, CST), PD-L1 (clone 405.9A11, CST) and PD-1 (clone EH33, CST) protein in 732 stage I-IV NSCLCs from 3 retrospective collections represented in tissue microarray format (cohort #1 [n=297, Yale], cohort #2 [n=329, Greece]; and cohort #3 [n=106, Yale]). To evaluate the tumor tissue distribution, VISTA was also selectively measured in cytokeratin+ tumor cells, CD3+ T-cells, CD4+ T-helper cells, CD8+ cytotoxic T-cells and CD20+ B-lymphocytes. Associations between the marker levels, clinico-pathological-molecular variables and survival were studied. Results: VISTA protein was detected in all NSCLCs, showed a membranous staining pattern and was localized predominantly in the tumor cells in 27.4% of cases; and in the stromal compartment in 98.5%. Although VISTA was detected in all major tumor infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) subsets, the signal was higher in CD20+ B-cells than in CD3+ T-lymphocytes (P Conclusion: VISTA is expressed in the majority of NSCLCs and shows differential distribution in tumor/stromal cells and TIL subsets, suggesting a complex function as a ligand and receptor. Elevated expression of VISTA in NSCLC is associated with increased PD-1 axis targets and cytotoxic T-cell density, indicating its possible modulation by pro-inflammatory signals. Our results support VISTA as a candidate target for anti-cancer immunotherapy in NSCLC alone or in combination with PD-1 axis blockers. Citation Format: Franz Villarroel-Espindola, Ila J. Datar, Vamsidhar Velcheti, David L. Rimm, Roy S. Herbst, Kurt A. Schalper. Objective measurement and significance of VISTA (PD-1H) expression in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2017; 2017 Apr 1-5; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2017;77(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 5657. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2017-5657