cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
In Vitro Approaches to Disease Resistance

In this age of biotechnology, genetic engineering, and the computer, a broad array of technologies is available to agricultural scientists to help them meet the most urgent problem of our time that approximately 450 million to 1 billion people are hungry and malnourished today, and that most of them live in countries where populations are destined to grow (1). At projected growth rates, the world’s population could reach 10 billion by 2030. Of this growth, 90% will occur in the poorest countries that already have a problem feeding their people (2). Although world food production is projected to increase more rapidly than the human population, most of the projected population increase will be in the developing countries where the population is increasing at the greatest rate and food production is either expected to remain the same or decline (3).
Migração e educação: perspectivas socioculturais

The world is witnessing an era of unprecedented human mobility: International migrants grew from 100 million in 1960 to 155 million in 2000, and to 214 million in 2010 (UNDESA). However, there is insufficient attention to how migration and education interact to influence social and economic mobility. This article considers the relationship between migration and education. In the first section, we draw upon anthropological theorizing of mobility and citizenship to propose a conceptual framework for the topic. We then examine research from three migration flows: youth of Haitian descent living in the Dominican Republic, Colombians in Ecuador, and children of Mexican mothers who have migrated to the United States. The analyses of these cases emphasize the importance of access and inclusion, schools as key sites for governing subjects, and the strategies developed by migrants to secure schooling. In the conclusion, we outline directions for future research that would enable a stronger analysis of the relationships between education and migration and the development of Migration and Education as a field of inquiry.
Guide to the littoral zone vascular flora of Carolina bay lakes (U.S.A.)

BACKGROUND Carolina bays are elliptic, directionally aligned basins of disputed origin that occur on the Atlantic Coastal Plain from the Delmarva Peninsula to southern Georgia. In southeastern North Carolina, several large, natural, lacustrine systems (i.e., Carolina bay lakes) exist within the geomorphological features known as Carolina bays. Within the current distribution of Carolina bays, Bladen and Columbus counties (North Carolina) contain the only known examples of Carolina bay lakes. The Carolina bay lakes can be split into two major divisions, the "Bladen Lakes Group" which is characterized as being relatively unproductive (dystrophic - oligotrophic), and Lake Waccamaw, which stands alone in Columbus County and is known for its high productivity and species richness. Although there have been several studies conducted on these unique lentic systems, none have documented the flora comprehensively. NEW INFORMATION Over the 2013-2014 growing seasons, the littoral zone flora of Carolina bay lakes was surveyed and vouchered. Literature reviews and herbarium crawls complemented this fieldwork to produce an inventory of the vascular plant species. This survey detected 205 taxa (species/subspecies and varieties) in 136 genera and 80 vascular plant families. Thirty-one species (15.2%) are of conservation concern. Lake Waccamaw exhibited the highest species richness with 145 catalogued taxa and 26 species of conservation concern. Across all sites, the Cyperaceae (25 spp.), Poaceae (21 spp.), Asteraceae (13 spp.), Ericaceae (8 spp.), Juncaceae (8 spp.), and Lentibulariaceae (6 spp.) were the six most species-rich vascular plant families encountered. A guide to the littoral zone flora of Carolina bay lakes is presented herein, including dichotomous keys, species accounts (including abundance, habitat, phenology, and exsiccatae), as well as images of living species and vouchered specimens.
Ca2+ storage in Trypanosoma brucei: the influence of cytoplasmic pH and importance of vacuolar acidity.

Abstract The hypothesis that changes in cytosolic pH effect the release from intracellular compartments of stored calcium in Trypanosoma brucei was addressed by the use of procyclic and bloodstream trypomastigotes of T. brucei loaded with the fluorescent reagents 2',7'-bis-(2-carboxyethyl)-5(and 6)-carboxyfluorescein (BCECF) to measure intracellular pH (pHi), or fura 2 to measure intracellular free calcium ([Ca2+]i). Experiments were performed in EGTA-containing buffers, so increases in [Ca2+]i reflected release of stored calcium rather than Ca2+ entry. Nigericin reduced pHi and increased [Ca2+]i in loaded cells, whilst propionate reduced pHi, but did not affect [Ca2+]i, and NH4Cl increased both variables, so there appears to be no correlation between pHi and [Ca2+]i. Treatment of the cells with the calcium ionophore ionomycin under similar conditions (nominal absence of extracellular Ca2+) resulted in an increase of [Ca2+]i which was greatly increased by addition of either NH4Cl, nigericin or the vacuolar H(+)-ATPase inhibitor bafilomycin A1. Similar results were obtained when the order of additions was reversed or when digitonin-permeabilized cells were used with the Ca2+ indicator arsenazo III. The results suggest that more Ca2+ is stored in this acidic compartment in procyclic than in bloodstream forms. Taking into account the relative importance of the ionomycin-releasable and the ionomycin-plus-NH4Cl-releasable Ca2+ pools, it is apparent that a significant amount of the Ca2+ stored in T. brucei trypomastigotes is present in the acidic compartment thus identified.
Orientalism and empire

Over the course of the nineteenth century, Europeans and Americans would increasingly come to see the Orient as divided into two distinct units: a “Near East” comprising southeastern Europe, the Levant (as I mentioned in Chapter 2, the lands along the eastern shores of the Mediterranean and their hinterlands) and other parts of western Asia nearer to Europe, and a “Far East” encompassing India, southeast Asia, China and Japan. By the latter part of the nineteenth century, the term “Oriental” had in popular usage in the United States come to refer largely to people from East Asia, especially the Chinese whose arrival as immigrants was often met by considerable hostility. Nonetheless, the Orient remained a powerful category in nineteenth century European popular and scholarly culture. It was in this period that the term Orientalism actually entered French, English and other European languages as (among other things) the special name for the scholarly field which focused on the Orient, including the predominantly Muslim lands of Asia, reflecting the dramatic expansion and institutionalization of scholarship in the field over the course of the nineteenth century. Over the previous century or two the study in Europe of the languages, histories, religions and cultures of the Orient had been sustained by a scattered handful of scholars. But a revival took place in the nineteenth century which would for a time feed into what a French scholar called “the Oriental renaissance,” with a powerful impact on several arenas of European thought and culture. However, the nineteenth century also witnessed a new stage in the lengthy and uneven process of extending European hegemony over most of the planet that had begun three centuries earlier.
Fertility Preservation in Male Cancer Patients

Men with cancer rendered infertile by surgery, chemotherapy, radiation and hormone therapy that are needed to control or cure their disease are increasingly being offered the chance to preserve their reproductive potential through artificial reproductive technologies. Cryopreservation of sperm and testicular tissue have increasingly helped boys and men preserve their fertility. There is a growing subspecialty within reproductive medicine aimed at fertility preservation in this population. Furthermore, strategies are being developed that may in the future revolutionize the approach to such patients. Written by international authorities in the field of fertility preservation, this comprehensive book is aimed at clinicians dealing with male cancer patients, in particular, urologists, andrologists, oncologists, pediatricians and nursing staff as well as clinicians in reproductive endocrinology. The text reviews the impact of cancers and their treatment on male fertility, the available fertility preservation strategies and post-treatment management.
Osteoblast/Osteoclast Development and Function in Osteogenesis Imperfecta

The major health consequences in osteogenesis imperfecta (OI) arise from functionally compromised bone. OI is a polygenic disease with a variable phenotype spanning mild to lethal. The majority of mutations associated with OI occur in the type I collagen encoding genes and give rise to an autosomal dominant form of the disease. Novel mutations in seven other genes involved in collagen assembly and processing and in two genes involved in cellular differentiation have recently been associated with autosomal recessive forms of OI. In this review of cellular development and function in OI, we discuss the cells relevant to the OI phenotype, their crosstalk and coupling, mutations and their consequences, and potential molecular pathways underlying the translation of genotype to phenotype.
Tools and applications in synthetic biology

Advances in synthetic biology have enabled the engineering of cells with genetic circuits in order to program cells with new biological behavior, dynamic gene expression, and logic control. This cellular engineering progression offers an array of living sensors that can discriminate between cell states, produce a regulated dose of therapeutic biomolecules, and function in various delivery platforms. In this review, we highlight and summarize the tools and applications in bacterial and mammalian synthetic biology. The examples detailed in this review provide insight to further understand genetic circuits, how they are used to program cells with novel functions, and current methods to reliably interface this technology in vivo; thus paving the way for the design of promising novel therapeutic applications.
Incorporating Companion Dogs into Cancer Rehab: Dog-Themed Exercise Program for Cancer Patients

Exercise should be modified for individual patient capabilities, with additional adjustments on treatment days and when symptoms are more severe. This chapter provides dog-themed stretching and strength exercises for cancer patients, along with patient educational handouts including exercise tips and an exercise log. Walking, including dog walking, can be an ideal aerobic exercise that is easy to modify, based on symptoms, physical limitations, and treatment. Exercising should be performed with well-behaved dogs to avoid accidental injuries from disobedient dogs pulling or jumping.
E. Merrick Dodd & the Rise and Fall of Corporate Stakeholder Theory

Modern stakeholder theory, born of the Great Depression and the writings of Merrick Dodd, has captured the enthusiasm and fervent support of numerous academic theorists and corporate practitioners throughout the decades. Its visceral appeal is unmistakable. Unfortunately, its popular appeal has vastly overstepped its ultimate viability. It is flawed in both its creation by Dodd and its ultimate application. Dodd’s subordination of the equity-holders through a time-based diminution of equity value is an unsupportable and inexplicable assault on fundamental property rights. It conflicts with such basic and fundamental concepts of property and incentives that it cannot be correct. And should this element of the Dodd thesis fail, Dodd’s whole approach must fall. His subordination of the equity holders then becomes a taking that has constitutional and practical problems and implications. But, more importantly, the corporate and investment world that Dodd recognized and attempted to reorder, has changed dramatically in the last eighty years. First, the road to shareholder profitability is built by stakeholder recognition and acceptance. Shareholder primacy and stakeholder protection are not mutually exclusive, but mutually dependent. Second, and more dramatic, the stakeholders are in reality no longer in conflict. With the rise of the large-scale retirement and pension funds, labor and the public are now the very equity investors with whom Dodd assumed such conflict. To adopt the stakeholder approach that Dodd espoused would diminish equity values and make it much more difficult to raise equity capital in the future. Stakeholder advocates neglect to consider the importance of periodic capital infusions into corporations to ensure long-term growth and success. Additionally, the changes in voting systems that corporate stakeholder theory may necessitate are highly problematic and ultimately unworkable. The public’s best hope is an active and vital corporate sector — and it is they who provide the capital to make the corporations in which they invest successful. The stakeholder approach, which diminishes equity value and availability, harms the very group it was designed to protect.
Low Voltage and High-Speed Niobium Heterostructure Resistance Switching Memory Devices Integrating Ferro-Electric Enhanced Aluminum–Hafnium–Chromium–Aluminum Oxide

Novel niobium heterostructure devices that integrate aluminum, hafnium, and chromium oxide are designed and constructed by sputtering and atomic layer deposition. The devices are examined for use in resistive switching (RS) memory cells. Specifically, Nb–AlOx–HfOx–AlOx–Nb is directly compared with Nb–AlOx–HfOx–CrOx–AlOx–Nb. Stable RS is observed in both cases and the conduction mechanisms are analyzed in detail. There are profound differences in the current (I–V) and capacitance (C–V) versus voltage characteristics with the insertion of CrOx, including enhanced RS at reduced voltage and current and increased non-linearity in the C–V. The I–V characteristics are fitted to established conduction models and excellent agreement is obtained considering a Poole Frenkel emission and a Fowler Nordheim tunneling component that emerges strongly with increasing voltage. Direct quantum mechanical tunneling and ionic conduction currents are apparent, but weaker as expected with 6–8 nm film. The changes subsequent to RS, are captured with significant modification of the effective trap energy level, and density of the trap states’ parameters and a small change in the electrode barrier height, supporting primary physical change in the properties of the bulk of the film stack and a minor change to the electrodes. Evidence of RS processes that involve both positively charged chromium and negatively charged oxygen ionic effects that effectively modify the current conduction are apparent. The plausible physical mechanisms that contribute to the RS are discussed in terms of changes to the bonding configuration and the active roles of ions and vacancies/defects in driving the formation and growth of conduction filaments. The impacts of ferro-electric like enhancements for devices that integrate CrOx interfaced with HfOx are considered and corroborated by measurements of the ferro-electric hysteresis loops that provide direct evidence of partial ferro-electric switching. Targeting low voltage and high speed operation, pulse measurements of Nb–AlOx–HfOx–CrOx–AlOx–Nb devices, demonstrate capability to SET/RESET with <50 ns pulses and potential for excellent endurance and nonvolatile retention times. With liquid nitrogen cooling, RS properties are retained with a consistent reduction of the thermally dependent current conduction components as compared to the tunneling.
Diabetic Retinopathy: Focus on Minority Populations.

Diabetic retinopathy is a major cause of blindness in the United States. With rise of the epidemic of obesity and diabetes in the USA and around the globe, serious and common diabetic complications are evolving as a major public health problem, particularly among minority populations.
William H. Seward, el vapor, y el imperialismo estadounidense, 1850-1875

This essay examines how William H. Seward adapted the imperial vision and policies of the United States in light of the steam revolution of the mid-nineteenth century. Historians rightly have viewed Seward as his era's most significant U. S. architect of U. S. empire. But what they have not appropriately emphasized is how his legacy lay less in continuity with his predecessors and successors, than in how he sought to reconfigure U. S. policy in relation to one of the revolutionary developments of his time - the emergence of steam transport.
Tobacco Regulation or Litigation

Cigarettes kill hundreds of thousands of people every year, yet until recently litigation against the tobacco industry constantly failed. In case after case judges and juries found that smokers understood the risks of smoking and thus could not hold the tobacco industry legally responsible for the consequences. When states brought suits claiming that the tobacco industry owed them reimbursement for Medicaid expenses attributable to care for tobacco-related illnesses, observers expected the suits to go nowhere. The state suits appeared to be parasitic on the individual tort suits that had failed, for the states would not appear to have a claim unless the tobacco industry wronged the smokers who benefited from Medicaid. Yet the tobacco industry agreed to a settlement worth hundreds of billions of dollars, and to curb advertising and marketing practices. This Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) is just one brick in the regulatory edifice that houses the smoking policy of the United States. The federal government imposes an excise tax on cigarettes; regulates warning labels, advertising, and product characteristics; and forbids sales to minors. The state governments have their own excise taxes on cigarettes; they also regulate advertising and sales practices in ways that go beyond the requirements of the MSA, and restrict smoking in workplaces, restaurants, and other public spaces. Municipalities impose yet another layer of regulation.
Cortical lenticular opacification: distribution and location in a longitudinal study.

PURPOSE: To examine the distribution of cortical opacification of the lens by lens quadrant in a longitudinal study. METHODS: In 1990, a follow-up assessment of a cohort of Chesapeake Bay watermen, initially studied in 1985, was performed. Four hundred thirty-seven subjects (834 eyes) had gradable cortical photographs for at least one eye in both 1985 and 1990. Cortical photographs were graded by both estimating total area and determining the quadrant with the greatest degree of cortical opacification. RESULTS: The prevalence and severity of cortical opacification increased with age with a high degree of concordance (84%) between eyes. For the 47 eyes with cortical opacification > or = 1/8 at baseline, the principal locations of opacification were: inferonasal 63.8%, inferotemporal 17.0%, superonasal 6.4%, and superotemporal 12.8% (P < 0.001, compared with equal distribution by quadrant). Five-year development of new cortical opacification and five-year progression of existing cortical opacification showed even greater preferential occurrence in the inferonasal quadrant of the lens. CONCLUSIONS: In this population, the inferonasal quadrant of the lens is the principal site of cortical opacification in both cross-sectional and longitudinal assessment. This finding is consistent with the hypothesis that sunlight exposure is a significant risk factor for cortical opacification.
Identifying and Managing Brain and Behavior Conditions

There is increasing recognition of the need for an integrated approach between pediatric neurologists and child psychiatrists to effectively care for children with neurological disorders. The consultation-liaison providers are increasingly called on to identify psychiatric manifestations of neurological disorders and to help manage the emotional and behavioral effects of the illness, its treatment, and longer-term neuropsychiatric sequelae. This chapter reviews common childhood neurological illness and highlights relevant psychiatric considerations in their presentation, assessment, and treatment.
Translating a clade based classification into one that is valid under the international code of zoological nomenclature: the case of the lizards of the family Dactyloidae (Order Squamata)

In a tour-de-force for anole biology, Poe et al . (2017) provide the most complete phylogenetic analysis of members of the family Dactyloidae yet attempted. The contribution is remarkable in the completeness of sampled taxa and breath of included characters. It is equally remarkable in the concordance of their consensus tree with the topology of previous phylogenetic inferences. Thus, the creation of a near-complete data matrix of extant taxa demonstrates that an asymptote in tree topological stability likely was reached in previous studies with more limited sampling (e.g. Alfoldi 2011, Jackman et al . 1999, Nicholson et al . 2012). Such a result provides hope that major lineages within the anole radiation can be examined consistently by scientists interested in parsing evolutionary patterns emerging within and among them.
Radar Target Detection Using Target Features and Artificial Intelligence

A new type of radar target detection approach based on target features and artificial intelligence techniques is proposed and investigated in this work. Traditional radar target detection in clutter and interference is achieved by removing clutter and interference through filtering prior to target detection. The novel approach, keeping both targets and interferences, recognizes and detects targets using artificial intelligence techniques based on distinguishable target and interference features. The proposed approach is equally effective and more robust to environmental changes and could replace the traditional filtering-based detection methods for all radar platforms.
Dual Sourcing and Joint Replenishment of Hospital Supplies

In response to increasing supply chain costs, hospitals are investing in new technology to improve inventory visibility and control at the point of use. This poses new inventory optimization opportunities and challenges for hospital management. The technology-enabled increased inventory visibility allows hospitals to implement more sophisticated inventory policies to reduce costs and improve availability. One such policy, implemented at a large Midwest hospital, is a dual-source hybrid inventory system that combines periodic and continuous order-placement epochs under a single-item setting, in which different items are treated independently. In this paper, we extend the dual-source hybrid policy to a two-item setting. We propose different joint replenishment policies that take advantage of increased inventory visibility to coordinate periodic and continuous replenishments across items. We develop a simulation-based search engine and test the benefits of these different policies under different parameter settings. We find that more benefits can be obtained using simple joint replenishment policies than are obtained using just the hybrid policy without coordinated replenishments.
CHANNEL PATTERN CHANGES ALONG THE LOWER OCONEE RIVER, GEORGIA, 1805/7 to 1949

Historical maps and aerial photographs of a stretch of the Oconee River channel above its junction with the Ocmulgee indicate that as erosive land use in the basin changed following European settlement so did the pattern of the river channel. Between 1805/7 and 1910, as erosive land use increased, channel sinuosity increased from 1.24 to 1.55, the number of islands in the river increased from 1 to 21, and meander wavelengths, amplitudes, and radii of curvature all decreased. The decrease in erosive land use in the period 1910 to 1949 was accompanied by a slight decrease in channel sinuosity to 1.50, a reduction in the number of islands to 9, and a slight increase in meander wavelengths and radii of curvature. The channel pattern changes may have been a response to changing river discharge and sediment transport characteristics brought about in part by land use changes in the basin. Higher peak and annual discharges in the late 1800s and early 1900s together with higher concentrations of suspended sediment...
Educators’ construction of mainstreaming policy for English learners: a decision-making theory perspective

Increasingly across the U.S. and other industrialized democracies, teachers take dual classroom roles as both content and English language educators. Nevertheless, research on how educators actually understand and implement mainstreaming language education policies at the school and district level are sparse. This paper contributes a unique process-oriented longitudinal perspective on how educators at the local level in one small rural U.S. school district greeted a new mainstreaming English language education policy. The article applies an institutional “decision-making theory” framework that focuses on teachers as de facto local policymakers. It considers how educators vied with one another to (re)construct a usable history of and rationale for district language education policy that influenced educators’ collective sense of its fairness and appropriateness. The study also documents how teachers’ sense-making and moral judgments regarding their own and colleagues’ professional roles and identities were wielded in policy interpretation and implementation. Finally, the paper examines how the mainstreaming policy continually evolved as administrators at various levels of the school district hierarchy negotiated conflicting goals, and as teachers in each school improvised differing professional relationships and roles. In all, the paper finds that the meaning and form of mainstreaming language education policies are constantly reinstantiated by educators at the local level, and thus that local implementation of language education policies, and what “mainstreaming” means in English learner education, merit more careful scrutiny.
Syllable Contact and Emergent Lenition in Bashkir

This study examines the syllable contact phonology of Bashkir (Kipchak, southern Urals, Russia), a language which exhibits a unique variation on general Turkic syllable contact phenomena, and proposes an Optimality Theoretic analysis, drawing on previous approaches to syllable contact in Turkic (Baertsch & Davis 2001, 2004, Gouskova 2001, 2004, Washington 2010). Bashkir desonorizes affix-initial coronal sonorants (/qullar/ --> [qul.dar]) to mandate compliance with the Syllable Contact Law (Davis, 1998). This occurs even at boundaries which would otherwise exhibit falling sonority, thereby maximizing sonority fall. Bashkir also exhibits a unique continuancy alternation pattern in desonorized affixes ( taw-ðar, uram-dar, gaz-dar ). This study adopts the Syllable Contact Hierarchy analysis proposed in Gouskova (2004), with ranking of relevant faithfulness constraints below all *DIST constraints mandating maximal sonority fall. It is proposed that continuancy alternations derived from a synchronically active lenition process, otherwise dominated by relevant faithfulness constraints, which emerges when unfaithfulness is forced to satisfy constraints on syllable contact.
Study of the Effect of Sensor Location on Sonic Echo/Impulse Response Testing in Timber Piles

Nondestructive Testing (NDT) methods have been utilized to assess the conditions of civil infrastructure in the past decades. Among various NDT methods, Sonic Echo / Impulse Response (SE/IR) is a versatile method to characterize unknown bridge foundations. Numerous numerical and experimental studies have been performed regarding the effect of influencing factors such as the pile-to-soil stiffness ratio, length-to-diameter ratio of the pile, presence of defects and anomalies near the pile head, striking method, and hammer type on the success of the SE/IR method. However, there is a lack of comprehensive study regarding the effect of the sensor location on the SE/IR testing results in timber piles. In the current study, challenges about the location of the sensor are investigated by conducting SE tests on bridges with known and unknown foundations. The results obtained from two accelerometers mounted on the side of the piles showed that the measured length of the piles was more consistent from the accelerometer mounted closer to the top of the pile. The success rate of the SE tests from the top accelerometer was 21.6% greater than the bottom accelerometer. The results of this study were confirmed by numerical simulations. Finally, the Impulse Response (IR) analysis was conducted to support the results. The conducted IR analysis showed that the success rate for the top accelerometer was greater than the bottom accelerometer.
A Simple Optimization Workflow to Enable Precise and Accurate Imputation of Missing Values in Proteomic Datasets

Missing values in proteomic data sets have real consequences on downstream data analysis and reproducibility. Although several imputation methods exist to handle missing values, there is no single imputation method that is best suited for a diverse range of data sets and no clear strategy exists for evaluating imputation methods for large-scale DIA-MS data sets, especially at different levels of protein quantification. To navigate through the different imputation strategies available in the literature, we have established a workflow to assess imputation methods on large-scale label-free DIA-MS data sets. We used two distinct DIA-MS data sets with real missing values to evaluate eight different imputation methods with multiple parameters at different levels of protein quantification; dilution series data set and an independent data set with actual experimental samples. We found that imputation methods based on local structures within the data, like local least squares (LLS) and random forest (RF), worked well in our dilution series data set whereas, imputation methods based on global structures within the data, like BPCA performed well in our independent data set. We also found that imputation at the most basic level of protein quantification i.e., fragment level, improved accuracy and number of proteins quantified. Overall, this study indicates that the most suitable imputation method depends on the overall structure and correlations of proteins within the data set and can be identified with the workflow presented here.
Word autobots: Using transformers for word association in the game codenames

Winning the social game Codenames involves combining cooperative and language understanding capabilities. We developed six cooperative bots designed to play the Codemaster and Guesser roles in the Codenames AI Competition and tested them using the provided framework and a round-robin tournament set. The bots are based on term frequency - inverse document frequency (TF-IDF), Naive-Bayes and GPT-2 Transformer word embedding. Additionally, Transformer-based bots were assessed and compared with the concatenation of word2vec and GloVe baseline bot developed by Codenames AI Competition creators. Results from this Transformer implementation rivals the concatenated bot in terms of win rates and guess precision and outperforms it in terms of minimum and average turns taken to win the game and training data load time. Additionally, in an initial evaluation performed with 10 human players, the Transformer agent performed slightly better than the baseline as Codemaster, but worse as a Guesser.
Cognitive Authority and the Constraint of Attitude Change in Groups

Are individuals’ attitudes constrained such that it is difficult to change one attitude without also changing other attitudes? Given a lack of longitudinal studies in real-world settings, it remain...
Collectivist Discourses in Relational Intersectionality: Insights from Chinese American Christian Couples:

Intersectionality espouses progressive societal dominant discourse norms that describe persons as individuals connected to a variety of social locations (e.g., gender, socioeconomic status [SES], e...
Exploration of sub-field microclimates and winter temperatures: Implications for precision agriculture

The field of precision agriculture has brought the concept for "big data" to farming by bringing sensor technology into the field allowing growers to make more efficient management decisions. However much of the research and practice of precision agriculture has focused on soil-related issues while sub-field microclimates have been mostly unstudied despite their known importance to crop production. This study sought to explore the differences in temperature at a sub-field level during an entire season using weather microsensors recording data every minute from 11 Dec 2017 to 11 Apr 2018. Twenty-two cost-effective sensors were placed within a ~ .5 ha area satsuma orange (Citrus unshiu) grove along the Gulf Coast on Baldwin County, Alabama. The sensors were placed in aerated housings in a vertical column on the west face of eleven trees at a height of 1 and 2 m off the ground. We focus on several events where temperatures hovered near 0 °C or near - 7 °C, a temperature known to damage satsuma trees and find that temperatures can vary by as much as 1.5 to 2 °C at the same moment in the same grove. Extreme cold events were also found to be non-uniform within the grove, and the response was seen on a tree-by-tree basis where increased exposure to < - 7 °C temperatures led to increase defoliation (r2 = 0.92) and lower fruit count in the following year (r2 = 0.71). We discuss the implication of these differences in temperature and what it may mean for the future of precision agriculture.
Molecular Polarizabilities in Aqueous Systems from First-Principles

We discuss the results of first-principles calculations of molecular polarizabilities in condensed systems composed of well-defined building blocks, with a focus on water and simple aqueous solutions. We show that molecular polarizabilities are subtle fingerprints of structural changes induced in liquid water by the environment, e.g., the presence of ions and confined media, as well as by temperature and pressure. We also point out the importance of molecular polarizabilities in the calculation and interpretation of specific vibrational signatures of aqueous systems, notably Raman and sum-frequency generation spectra.
Understanding the Effect of COVID-19 on Fuel Consumption of Public Transportation: The Case Study of Chattanooga, TN

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a drastic change in traffic in the U.S and throughout the world. With the drop in traffic volume, the fuel consumption used for traveling should decline. This study focuses on the changes in fuel consumption of public transportation before and during the pandemic. The fuel consumption volumes of diesel bus fleet in Chattanooga were analyzed to identify the changes between the two periods. Our study provides preparation for future disasters.
Opioid misuse and family structure: Changes and continuities in the role of marriage and children over two decades.

Abstract Background The opioid crisis is widely felt in the United States. Scholarly attention to the crisis focuses on macro-level processes and largely neglects meso-level explanations such as family structure for opioid use behaviors. We hypothesize that married adults and adults with coresident children are at lower risk of misusing prescription pain relievers (PPR), using heroin, and using needles to inject heroin relative to adults from other family structures. Method We used National Survey on Drug Use and Health data from 2002−2018 to test our hypotheses with multivariable logistic regression. Results We found that married adults have a lower predicted probability of each opioid use behavior relative to nonmarried adults across the study period. We also found that the presence of children is associated with reductions in all three outcomes especially for never married adults. Conclusion Individuals from all family structures are vulnerable to the opioid crisis, but never married adults without coresident children (“disconnected adults”) are especially susceptible to temporal fluctuations and drive the temporal trends in PPR misuse and heroin use. These findings suggest that ongoing demographic trends where disconnected adults are a growing population may result in future rises in opioid use disorders and mortality because of divestment from U.S. social safety nets. Future research should examine the role of U.S. policies that make disconnected adults especially vulnerable to developing opioid use disorders.
A new synthesis of 2-deoxy-D-ribose.

IT has long been a matter of interest to synthesize 2-deoxy-D-ribose, a component sugar of deoxyribonucleic acid, and several methods have been reported1. We wish to communicate some results which we obtained recently.
Crystallographic characterization of rare-earth cyano-tri-phenyl-borate complexes and the cyano-borates [NCBPh3]1-, [NCBPh2Me]1-, and [NCBPh2(μ-O)BPh2]1.

The investigation of the coordination chemistry of rare-earth metal complexes with cyanide ligands led to the isolation and crystallographic characterization of the LnIII cyano­tri­phenyl­borate complexes di­chlorido­(cyano­tri­phenyl­borato-κN)tetra­kis­(tetra­hydro­furan-κO)lanthanide(III), [LnCl2(C19H15BN)(C4H8O)4] [lanthanide (Ln) = dysprosium (Dy) and yttrium Y)] from reactions of LnCl3, KCN, and NaBPh4. Attempts to independently synthesize the tetra­ethyl­ammonium salt of (NCBPh3)− from BPh3 and [NEt4][CN] in THF yielded crystals of the phenyl-substituted cyclic borate, tetra­ethyl­aza­nium 2,2,4,6-tetra­phenyl-1,3,5,2λ4,4,6-trioxatriborinan-2-ide, C8H20N+·C24H20B3O3− or [NEt4][B3(μ-O)3(C6H5)4]. The mechanochemical reaction of BPh3 and [NEt4][CN] without solvent produced crystals of tetra­ethyl­aza­nium cyano­diphenyl-λ4-boranyl di­phenyl­borinate, C8H20N+·C25H20B2NO− or [NEt4][NCBPh2(μ-O)BPh2]. Reaction of BPh3 and KCN in THF in the presence of 2.2.2-cryptand (crypt) led to a crystal of bis­[(2.2.2-cryptand)potassium] 2,2,4,6-tetra­phenyl-1,3,5,2λ4,4,6-trioxatriborinan-2-ide cyano­methyl­diphenyl­borate tetra­hydro­furan disolvate, 2C18H36KN2O6+·C24H20B3O3−·C14H13BN−·2C4H8O or [K(crypt)]2[B3(μ-O)3(C6H5)4][NCBPh2Me]·2THF. The [NCBPh2(μ-O)BPh2]1− and (NCBPh2Me)1− anions have not been structurally characterized previously. The structure of 1-Y was refined as a two-component twin with occupancy factors 0.513 (1) and 0.487 (1). In 4, one solvent mol­ecule was disordered and included using multiple components with partial site-occupancy factors.
Dynamics of Competition in On-Demand Economy: A Differential Games Approach

The viability and success of ride hailing platforms such as Uber, Lyft, depend on how they manage their demand and pool of available drivers. In this paper, we examine how ride hailing platforms can meet demand with supply in a competitive setting where the number of available drivers depends on policies of the platforms; and demand depends on current prices across multiple platforms for the current ride, perceptions of the platforms among their customers, and the expected wait times in different platforms. Prior research has studied the operation of ride hailing platforms with respect to driver dynamics, demand dynamics, and wait times. Our model is different in that we consider (i) competition (i.e., two players are modeled in the game), (ii) time dynamics (i.e., model setting is continuous in time), and (iii) consumers’ perception of the platforms in our model along with the aforementioned factors. To the best of our knowledge, our model is unique in considering all of these factors simultaneously. We develop our model in a differential game setup and consider a scenario of duopoly with two platforms. Some of our key findings include: (i) in case of increased demand, whether surge pricing is beneficial for the platforms depends on what stage of the planning horizon the platforms are in and some other characteristics of the platforms, (ii) if the customers become more demanding or sensitive to wait times, both firms become more profitable; however, they do not necessarily increase their prices after the customers become more demanding, and (iii) the platform that has a better initial perception level does not necessarily have higher prices than the other platform. We discuss several other managerial insights from our model and elaborate on the existing business practices.
Architectural considerations for accessing the post-1995 CONUS DCS/DSN: target MILDEP local information transfer networks

After establishing the need for using a functional architecture design paradigm, the author explicitly considers target MILDEP (military department) local information-transfer architectures as an important input for the design of post-1995 CONUS DCS/DSN (Defense Communications Agency/Defense Switched Network) access architectures. A synopsis of the target MILDEP local information systems indicates that the common denominator is ISDN. Representative base communication architectures are used to illustrate this, although they do not indicate the extent to which individual mission needs might force a departure from the target architectures. Access to the common user long-haul network (both private and public) is a relatively unexplored but critical area. A functional architecture approach appears necessary in order to define, standardize, and implement advanced DCS/DSN services and to develop a viable network evolution study. >
GMP synthetase from Escherichia coli B-96: Interactions with substrate analogs

Abstract GMP synthetase was studied with respect to its substrate and inhibitor specificity towards nine xanthosine 5′-phosphate (XMP) and GMP analogs. 8-AzaXMP and 6-thioXMP were found to be substrates, but were considerably less efficient than XMP. 1-Ribosyloxipurinol 5′phosphate was aminated with an efficiency of less than 1 18 000 that of XMP. The aminated products of the reactions were competitive inhibitors, with respect to XMP.
The evaporation of nearby clouds and the soft X-ray background

In recent years the nature of the low density clouds within the Local Bubble has been increasingly well characterized. These clouds, including the one which surrounds the solar system, are embedded in the hot gas and therefore should be evaporating via thermal conduction. If several evaporation fronts exist within the Local Bubble, the emissivity and spectrum of the hot gas is significantly different from a single temperature, equilibrium ionization plasma. We explore models in which the the temperature, density and ionization in the hot gas are influenced by cloud evaporation and compare the results with the observed Soft X-ray Background.
Grasping surfaces of revolution: Simultaneous pose and shape recovery from two views

In many scenarios, robots encounter rotationally symmetric objects for which no known 3D model exists. To be able to grasp such objects using existing grasp point computation schemes, an estimate of their 3D-pose and shape is necessary. In this paper, we address the problem of recovering 3D-pose and shape of an unknown surface of revolution from two perspective views of known relative orientation. We propose a new algorithm for simultaneous estimation of pose and shape without making use of any cross-sections or bi-tangent points needed by other approaches. Our algorithm builds upon existing single-view SOR reconstruction approaches and couples the pose estimation and reconstruction process. Pose is optimized to minimize discrepancies between reconstructed shapes from two views. Our method works even in the presence of only one of the two apparent contours of a surface of revolution. We test our algorithm by comparing to ground-truth poses and shapes as well as performing grasping experiments. We introduce a new dataset of rotationally symmetric objects in a variety of poses and backgrounds and with a measured ground-truth pose and shape.
Generalized regression neural networks for biomedical image interpolation

A neural-statistical approach to biomedical image interpolation using generalized regression neural networks is presented. These networks are basis function architectures that approximate any arbitrary function between input and output vectors directly from training samples, and with any desired degree of smoothness, and thus can be used for multidimensional interpolation. Experimental results compare favorably with other interpolation techniques. Because of their flexibility and ease of training, generalized regression networks can be used to complement existing approaches, and can be especially useful for post-registration image fusion and visualization.
Coefficient quantization noise in block digital filters

The variation of coefficient values in state variable description (SVD) block filters as a function of block length is shown to depend strongly on the basis filter structure and block length. An expression for output noise variance is derived using a statistical model of coefficient quantization, which shows a direct connection to coefficient range. Results clearly demonstrate that, contrary to widely held assumptions, coefficient quantization noise in block filters may be worse than their basis filter. The comparison of analytical results with simulations for a sample filter shows good agreement. >
Not even decoupling can save minimal supersymmetric SU(5)

We make explicit the statement that the minimal supersymmetric (SUSY) SU(5) model has been excluded by the SuperKamiokande search for the process $\stackrel{\ensuremath{\rightarrow}}{p}{K}^{+}\overline{\ensuremath{\nu}}.$ This exclusion is made by first placing limits on the colored Higgs triplet mass, by forcing the gauge couplings to unify. We also show that taking the superpartners of the first two generations to be very heavy in order to avoid flavor changing neutral currents, the so-called ``decoupling'' idea, is insufficient to resurrect the minimal SUSY SU(5). We comment on various mechanisms to further suppress proton decay in SUSY SU(5). Finally, we address the contributions to proton decay from gauge boson exchange in the minimal SUSY SU(5) and flipped SU(5) models.
Salivary endoscopy for idiopathic chronic sialadenitis.

Objectives/Hypothesis To describe the findings and therapeutic role of salivary endoscopy for idiopathic chronic sialadenitis. Study Design Retrospective case series. Methods The records of 258 patients who underwent salivary endoscopy between November 2008 and May 2012 were reviewed. Included cases presented with recurrent inflammation and swelling of a single major salivary gland, without identifiable etiology on examination and imaging. Results A total of 51 cases (20%) were identified. These patients had a mean age of 54.4 years (range, 23–75) and 57% were female. Mean duration of symptoms was 22.8 months (range, 1–102), with most cases (75%) involving the parotid gland. The primary imaging modalities used were ultrasound (62%) and computed tomography (31%). The most common findings on imaging included ductal dilation (42%), enlarged lymph nodes (23%), normal glandular imaging (15%), and possible sialoliths (14%). The most common findings on salivary endoscopy included stenosis (57%), strictures (27%), and inflammatory debris (18%). Occult stones were the cause of sialadenitis in only 4 (8%) cases. Outcomes included complete symptom resolution in 31 patients (61%), improved but occasional symptoms in 14 patients (27%), and no improvement in 6 patients (12%) after a mean follow-up time of 20.0 months (range, 4–45). Excision of the involved gland was required in 2 (4%) patients. Conclusion Salivary endoscopy is a minimally invasive technique that is effective in the management of idiopathic chronic sialadenitis refractory to medical therapy. It provides diagnostic information in most patients and offers a therapeutic intervention with gland preservation. Level of Evidence 4. Laryngoscope, 123:3016–3020, 2013
The concept of the paramessage in persuasive communication

From the standpoint of “sender,” “receiver,” “theorist,” or “critic” the concept of the “message” must be augmented if we are to give a satisfactory account of communication. This essay is an attempt to lay the groundwork for the analysis of those elements that can be referred to as the “paramessage.”