cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Complexes Made between Microtubules, Motor Proteins, and Antiparallel Crosslinkers Produce Dynamic Interactions

Microtubules constitute the rigid, yet dynamic, network of the cytoskeleton, and are responsible for creating tracks for cargo transport. Important processes of the cell, such as cell division, cell motility, cell homeostasis, and cell signaling are driven by interactions between microtubules, motor proteins, and microtubule associated proteins. Using in vitro reconstitution of microtubules bundled by MAP65, an antiparallel crosslinker, in kinesin gliding assays, we seek to explore how complex, active biological networks self-organize. We systematically changed the concentration of kinesin, MAP65, and microtubules and observed dynamic motility activities of the condensed states. Networks of microtubules with low MAP65 concentrations can be pulled apart completely by kinesin motors. In contrast, we observe inhibition of motility in high crosslinker concentrations. Cell-like networks that can mimic types of cell motility are observed with intermediate MAP65 concentrations. We quantified the motion by tracking the edge of the condensed state over time and find that it spreads with a velocity proportional to the amount of crosslinker in the system. When the microtubule concentration is varied, we find an interesting regime where the velocity is negative, indicative of contraction, which is rarely observed for microtubule-kinesin active matter systems.
The Reality of Technology

Technology has been with us since human beings first used fire or stones as tools. It extends our abilities and our power over the natural world, not to mention human beings. When we think of technology today, digital devices and the Internet come to mind first, but it includes tools and machines, in general, as well as organizational methods and bureaucratic procedures. At the core of all technology lies the principle of efficiency. Modern technology has become a huge, complex, interconnected system which has grown beyond our full control. It is now so fully integrated into our lives that it structures our world. Technology is central to our experience of reality and even to our conception of ourselves.
The Types and Choice of the Model for the Legal Regulation of FDI

One of the main reasons for codifying laws regarding foreign investment is to send a positive signal to potential investors and to place on record a host country’s newly formulated policy towards FDI. The passage of clear and supportive foreign investment legislation conveys the message that investment is welcome,1 which explains the necessity for implementation and the importance of special legislation on FDI in the newly emerged post-Soviet states, and the absence of such legislation in most industrialized countries. However, an analysis of current laws regulating foreign investment, including those that are designed specifically for the regulation of foreign investment as well as those provisions that are dispersed throughout other parts of domestic legislation, is unlikely to be helpful if it lacks any clear understanding of the sociopolitical and economic underpinnings. Waelde has noticed that in this regard: In every country, but particularly in ex-Soviet countries like Kazakhstan, a qualified lawyer will have to look behind official documentation to see things as they are. A prospective businessman would be less interested in official data, and more concerned to look behind the veil: What are the issues and the rules of the game? There is almost no understanding and reporting of these very complex — and for an investor most significant — issues.2
The Cyberethics, Cybersafety, and Cybersecurity at Schools

The 2006 Megan Meier case, where a teenage girl who was bullied on the Internet through e-mail and Myspace which was said to ultimately lead to her suicide, shed light on the cyber bullying issue in schools. This article uses a case study approach to describe how a number of school institutes were grappling with the loss of confidential information and protecting students on the WWW, each through a unique set of circumstances. It will reveal potential reactions of the institutions and possible ways to deal with the cyber threats. With experiences, school districts take measures to offer value education by improving students' knowledge and awareness of Cyberethics, Cybersafety, and Cybersecurity C3 concepts to provide them with the means to protect themselves, and to enhance the safety and security of national infrastructure.
What is CEO Talent Worth

The topic of executive compensation elicits strong emotions among corporate stakeholders and practitioners. On the one hand are those who believe that chief executive officers in the United States are overpaid. On the other hand are those who believe that CEOs are simply paid the going fair-market rate.Much less effort, however, is put into determining whether total compensation is commensurate with the value of services rendered. We examine the issue and explain how such a calculation might be performed. We ask: How much value creation should be attributable to the efforts of the CEO? What percentage of this value should be fairly offered as compensation? Can the board actually perform this calculation? If not, how does it make rational decisions about pay levels?Topics, Issues and Controversies in Corporate Governance and Leadership: The Closer Look series is a collection of short case studies through which we explore topics, issues, and controversies in corporate governance. In each study, we take a targeted look at a specific issue that is relevant to the current debate on governance and explain why it is so important. Larcker and Tayan are co-authors of the book Corporate Governance Matters, and A Real Look at Real World Corporate Governance.
A 48-Year-Old Man With Leukopenia, Jaundice, and Skin Rash After Lung Transplantation.

A 48-year-old African-American male subject presented with progressive fatigue, jaundice, and new-onset leukopenia 12 weeks after undergoing bilateral lung transplantation for advanced pulmonary sarcoidosis. His transplant surgery and immediate posttransplantation course were uneventful. Induction immunosuppression included methylprednisolone 500 mg intraoperatively and basiliximab (anti-IL-2 monoclonal antibody) on days 0 and 4 after transplantation. His maintenance immunosuppression posttransplantation was prednisone 20 mg daily, tacrolimus with target tacrolimus levels 10 to 15 ng/mL, and mycophenolate mofetil 750 mg twice daily. Both the donor and recipient were seropositive for cytomegalovirus and Epstein-Barr virus. Infectious disease prophylaxis consisted of valganciclovir, trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole, and voriconazole. Results of the surveillance bronchoscopy conducted after the lung transplant were negative for acute cellular rejection or infection at 4 and 12 weeks' posttransplantation. Findings on spirometry had continuously improved since transplantation.
Reducing Mortality in the Perioperative Period: Remote Ischemic Preconditioning

Despite the upsurge of publications on ischemic preconditioning in recent years, the concept of preconditioning an organ with ischemia is not new. In 1986, Murry et al. demonstrated short periods of regional ischemia and reperfusion resulting in protection against necrosis to a later longer period of ischemia in the canine myocardium [1]. In reperfusion injury following a brief period of ischemia, tissues begin to adapt to anaerobic metabolism. Restoration of blood flow can lead to an oxygen supply that exceeds tissue requirements, the activation of macrophages, and the generation of reactive oxygen species [2]. This can ultimately result in endothelial injury and further release of pro-inflammatory cytokines [3]. Ischemic preconditioning occurs when a tissue undergoes brief periods of ischemia to later protect against longer ischemic events and reperfusion injury.
Dietary Inflammatory Index, Bone Mineral Density, and Risk of Fracture in Postmenopausal Women: Results From the Women's Health Initiative.

Previous studies suggest that bone loss and fracture risk are associated with higher inflammatory milieu, potentially modifiable by diet. The primary objective of this analysis was to evaluate the association of the dietary inflammatory index (DII), a measure of the inflammatory potential of diet, with risk of hip, lower-arm, and total fracture using longitudinal data from the Women's Health Initiative Observational Study and Clinical Trials. Secondarily, we evaluated changes in bone mineral density (BMD) and DII scores. DII scores were calculated from baseline food frequency questionnaires (FFQs) completed by 160,191 participants (mean age 63 years) without history of hip fracture at enrollment. Year 3 FFQs were used to calculate a DII change score. Fractures were reported at least annually; hip fractures were confirmed by medical records. Hazard ratios for fractures were computed using multivariable-adjusted Cox proportional hazard models, further stratified by age and race/ethnicity. Pairwise comparisons of changes in hip BMD, measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry from baseline, year 3, and year 6 were analyzed by quartile (Q1 = least inflammatory diet) of baseline DII scores in a subgroup of women (n = 10,290). Mean DII score improved significantly over 3 years (p < 0.01), but change was not associated with fracture risk. Baseline DII score was only associated with hip fracture risk in younger white women (HR Q4,1.48; 95% CI, 1.09 to 2.01; p = 0.01). There were no significant associations among white women older than 63 years or other races/ethnicities. Women with the least inflammatory DII scores had less loss of hip BMD (p = 0.01) by year 6, despite lower baseline hip BMD, versus women with the most inflammatory DII scores. In conclusion, a less inflammatory dietary pattern was associated with less BMD loss in postmenopausal women. A more inflammatory diet was associated with increased hip fracture risk only in white women younger than 63 years. © 2016 American Society for Bone and Mineral Research.
Sleep and Synaptic Plasticity in the Developing and Adult Brain

Sleep is hypothesized to play an integral role in brain plasticity. This has traditionally been investigated using behavioral assays. In the last 10–15 years, studies combining sleep measurements with in vitro and in vivo models of synaptic plasticity have provided exciting new insights into how sleep alters synaptic strength. In addition, new theories have been proposed that integrate older ideas about sleep function and recent discoveries in the field of synaptic plasticity. There remain, however, important challenges and unanswered questions. For example, sleep does not appear to have a single effect on synaptic strength. An unbiased review of the literature indicates that the effects of sleep vary widely depending on ontogenetic stage, the type of waking experience (or stimulation protocols) that precede sleep and the type of neuronal synapse under examination. In this review, I discuss these key findings in the context of current theories that posit different roles for sleep in synaptic plasticity.
Leader Election in a Smartphone Peer-to-Peer Network

In this paper, we study the fundamental problem of leader election in the mobile telephone model: a recently introduced variation of the classical telephone model modified to better describe the local peer-to-peercommunication services implemented in many popular smartphone operating systems. In more detail, the mobile telephone model differs from the classical telephone model in three ways: (1) each devicecan participate in at most one connection per round; (2) the network topology can undergo a parameterizedrate of change; and (3) devices can advertise a parameterized number of bits to their neighbors in each round before connection attempts are initiated. We begin by describing and analyzing a new leader election algorithm in this model that works under the harshest possible parameter assumptions: maximum rate of topology changes and no advertising bits. We then apply this result to resolve an open question from [Ghaffari, 2016] on the efficiency of PUSH-PULL rumor spreading under these conditions. We then turn our attention to the slightly easier case where devices can advertise a single bit in each round. We demonstrate a large gap in time complexity between these zero bit and one bit cases. In more detail, we describe and analyze a new algorithm that solves leader election with a time complexitythat includes the parameter bounding topology changes. For all values of this parameter, this algorithm is faster than the previous result, with a gap that grows quickly as the parameter increases (indicating lower rates of change). We conclude by describing and analyzing a modified version of this algorithmthat does not require the assumptionthat all devices start during the same round. This new version has a similar time complexity (the rounds required differ only by a polylogarithmic factor),but now requires slightly larger advertisement tags.
Cell Biology of Cheating-Transmission of Centromeres and Other Selfish Elements Through Asymmetric Meiosis.

Mendel’s First Law of Genetics states that a pair of alleles segregates randomly during meiosis so that one copy of each is represented equally in gametes. Whereas male meiosis produces four equal sperm, in female meiosis only one cell, the egg, survives, and the others degenerate. Meiotic drive is a process in which a selfish DNA element exploits female meiotic asymmetry and segregates preferentially to the egg in violation of Mendel’s First Law, thereby increasing its transmission to the offspring and frequency in a population. In principle, the selfish element can consist either of a centromere that increases its transmission via an altered kinetochore connection to the meiotic spindle or a centromere-like element that somehow bypasses the kinetochore altogether in doing so. There are now examples from eukaryotic model systems for both types of meiotic drive. Although meiotic drive has profound evolutionary consequences across many species, relatively little is known about the underlying mechanisms. We discuss examples in various systems and open questions about the underlying cell biology, and propose a mechanism to explain biased segregation in mammalian female meiosis.
On power denials and lost energy opportunities in downsizing battery packs in hybrid electric vehicles

Abstract This paper provides a methodology and identifies opportunities for battery pack downsizing in a hybrid electric vehicle (HEV). A new term of power denial and a new metric of lost energy opportunities are introduced and analyzed in addition to utilization, temperature, life, and cost. A model-based power limiting algorithm is used in computing real-time power capability of the battery. The downsized pack with a shifted SOC window is evaluated in a light-duty HEV. A parameterized electro-thermal model is used to capture voltage, state-of-charge, and temperature. A semi-empirical ageing model is integrated to predict the capacity loss and resistance increase of the downsized pack. The battery ageing model is developed based on a set of experiments carefully designed to clarify the influence of operating SOC on battery degradation. The parametric study shows that the number of cells in the pack could be reduced from 76 to 64 while shifting nominal operating SOC from 50% to 35% without changing the pack energy throughput. This would result in a 19% increase in energy utilization per cell, a 0.5% increase in capacity fade and a 2.9% increase in internal resistance, while the pack cost will be reduced by 10%.
Physiological Monitoring for Procedural Sedation: The Routine and Beyond

Physiological monitoring of vital signs is essential for the safe practice of procedural sedation and analgesia. Oxygenation, ventilation, cortical activity, and hemodynamics can all be monitored noninvasively in spontaneously breathing patients. This chapter discusses the current guidelines and standards for patient monitoring, the essential monitoring modalities for procedural sedation and analgesia in children, and future directions in the field of monitoring.
The Completion of a Boolean Algebra

For the following let X be a topological space, and let S ⊆ X be a subspace of X with the relative topology. The topological operations -, ° and -s, os refer to X and S respectively.
Social Stratification Principles in Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy and Easter Bunny: A Content Analysis

This paper is a content analysis about social stratification principles in popular culture fairytale characters Santa Claus, Tooth fairy and Easter bunny. Specifically, this paper explores how these fairytale characters may contribute to an entitlement identification construct of the African American child. The researcher argues that there are three major components of social stratification portrayed by the fairytale characters (1) ideas about money/wealth, (2) success and (3) the processes to obtain money/wealth and success. Utilizing content analysis, three of most popular portrayed narratives (short stories and songs) Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy and Easter Bunny were analyzed. Findings indicate that each fairytale contains inferred meanings about money/wealth, success and process to obtain them.
Evolutionary Dynamics of CAR T Cell Therapy

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy is a remarkably effective immunotherapy that relies on in vivo expansion of engineered CAR T cells (after lymphodepletion by chemotherapy) to overcome the patient9s tumor burden. The quantitative laws underlying this expansion and subsequent eradication of tumors remain unknown. Still, about 60% of CAR T treated patients are likely to die of their disease; their tumors are not eradicated. There is a critical need to understand and disentangle the multiple processes that contribute to CAR expansion and tumor eradication. Our goal is a quantitative understanding and ranking of the sources of variability that determine tumor response and the ultimate success of CAR T cell therapy. We here develop a mathematical model of T cell-tumor cell co-evolution, and demonstrate that CAR T cell expansion is shaped by immune reconstitution, antigen load, and cytokine signaling after lymphodepletion. We find that success of therapy is a stochastic event. Even if durable response is highly likely, its timing can be highly variable. As a consequence, we predict that clinical interventions to decrease tumor mass before CAR T could improve likelihood and timing of durable response. Changing the composition of the CAR population toward more memory cells could also improve survival, but we predict that there are diminishing returns for such efforts. All together, we provide a cell population-based approach to model and understand CAR T cell therapy, which can be leveraged to suggest new dosing strategies, and assess the need for multiple doses and their outcomes.
What Mothers Do After Infants Vocalize: Implications for Vocal Development or Word Learning?

Purpose The goal of this study was to analyze verbal and nonverbal maternal response types following infant vocalizations in younger (ages 4–8 months) versus older (ages 10–14 months) infant groups...
Teaching Tepahtia: A Pedagogical Reflection on Knowledge and Medicine in Mexico, 1400-1600

This pedagogical article discusses sources and methods for teaching the history of imperial science and medicine in the Nahua world from 1400 to 1600, a period that ranges from the spectacular growth of the Aztec Empire through the conquest to the creation of New Spain. By providing students tools to explore non-European ontologies and world-building, this article presents several exercises in which students act as archival researchers and themselves puzzle out the complexities of information transfer in the archive of sixteenth-century Latin America. Combining European paleography workshops, linguistic tools pioneered by the IDIEZ Nahuatl program, the study of Mesoamerican archeological objects, and an engagement with Mexican medicinal plants to recreate early modern remedies, students gain access to a world of New Spanish knowledge-creation.
Blood Glucose Prediction Based on Empirical Mode Decomposition and GA-BP Neural Network

As a common endocrine disease characterized by hyperglycemia, diabetes has already threatened the health of many people. In order to avoid the occurrence of hyperglycemic, it is necessary to predict the blood glucose level of patients in advance by using appropriate prediction algorithms. In order to improve the prediction accuracy of blood glucose, this paper proposes a new method combined Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) and GA-BP neural network. Firstly, the EMD is used to decompose the blood glucose data of patients with Type 1 Diabetes (T1D). Secondly, the GA-BP neural network model is established for each component obtained after decomposition. Finally, the prediction results of each model are fused to obtain the final predicted value. The Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) of this method is 8.2095 mg/dl and the Mean Absolute Error (MAE) is 5.9750 mg/dl for Prediction Horizon (PH) = 30min. The results show that the method has high prediction accuracy for blood glucose and has a good application prospect.
Sequence Generative Adversarial Networks for Wind Power Scenario Generation

With the rapid increase in distributed wind generation, considerable efforts have been devoted to the microgrid day-ahead scheduling. The effectiveness of those methods will highly depend on the selection of the uncertainty sets. We propose a distribution-free approach for wind power scenario generation, using sequence generative adversarial networks. To capture the temporal correlation, the model adopts the long short-term memory architecture and uses generative adversarial networks coupled with reinforcement learning, which, in contrast to the existing methods, avoids manual labeling and captures the complex dynamics of the weather. We conduct case studies based on the data from the Bonneville Power Administration and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and show that the generated scenarios can better characterize the variability of wind power and reduce the risk of uncertainties, compared with those produced by Gaussian distribution, vanilla long short-term memory, and multivariate kernel density estimation. Moreover, the proposed method achieves better performance when applied to the day-ahead scheduling of microgrids.
Coming Together Through Falling Apart: Using Psychological Assessment Within a Developmental Framework to Assess Change

Abstract. Assessing change during long-term psychotherapy can be a challenging and uncertain task. Psychological assessments can be a valuable tool and can offer a perspective from outside the ther...
Target Information Trading - An Economic Perspective of Security

Ample evidence has confirmed the importance of information in security. While much research on security game has assumed the attackers’ limited observation capabilities to obtain target information, few work considers the possibility that the information can be acquired from a data broker, not to mention exploring the profit-seeking behaviors of such an information service in the shrouded underground society. This paper studies the role of information in security problem when the target information is sold by a data broker to multiple competitive attackers. We formulate a novel multi-stage game model to characterize both the cooperative and competitive interactions of the data broker and attackers. Specifically, the attacker competition with correlated purchasing and attacking decisions is modeled as a two-stage stochastic model; and the bargaining process between the data broker and the attackers is analyzed in a Stackelberg game. Both the attackers’ competitive equilibrium solutions and data broker’s optimal pricing strategy are obtained. Our results show that with information trading, the target suffers from larger risks even when the information price is too high to benefit the attackers; and the information accuracy is more valuable when the target value is higher. Furthermore, the competition may weaken the information value to the attackers but benefit the data broker. The study contributes to the literature by characterizing the co-opetitive behaviors of the attackers with labor specialization, providing quantitative measures of information value from an economic perspective, and thus promoting a better understanding of the profit-seeking underground community.
Maternal depression in Latinas and child socioemotional development: A systematic review.

Background Although substantial research exists on the debilitating effects of maternal depression on child development, little is known about Latina mothers with depression and their young children within the broader context of sociocultural and economic stressors. Objectives What is the relationship between maternal depression in Latina mothers and their children’s socioemotional outcomes through early developmental windows (0–5 years)? Methods We searched electronic databases PubMed, CINAHL, and PsycINFO in this systematic review, pre-registered via PROSPERO (CRD42019128686). Based on pre-determined criteria, we identified 56 studies and included 15 in the final sample. After extracting data, we assessed study quality with the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Quality Assessment Tool for Observational Cohort and Cross-Sectional Studies. Results We found inverse correlations between maternal depression and child socioemotional outcomes; furthermore, we found evidence of a moderating and mediating role of maternal depression between contextual stressors and child outcomes. Children of U.S.-born Latina mothers had poorer developmental outcomes than children of foreign-born Latina mothers across socioemotional domains and throughout early developmental windows. Conclusions Future research must examine underlying mechanisms for the potential Latino paradox in young Latino children’s socioemotional outcomes. Policies should support mental health of Latina mothers as early as the prenatal period.
Changes in phytoplankton concentration now drive increased Arctic Ocean primary production

Historically, sea ice loss in the Arctic Ocean has promoted increased phytoplankton primary production because of the greater open water area and a longer growing season. However, debate remains about whether primary production will continue to rise should sea ice decline further. Using an ocean color algorithm parameterized for the Arctic Ocean, we show that primary production increased by 57% between 1998 and 2018. Surprisingly, whereas increases were due to widespread sea ice loss during the first decade, the subsequent rise in primary production was driven primarily by increased phytoplankton biomass, which was likely sustained by an influx of new nutrients. This suggests a future Arctic Ocean that can support higher trophic-level production and additional carbon export.
Symptom Analysis using a Machine Learning approach for Early Stage Lung Cancer

The integration of the machine learning techniques in healthcare can be of huge benefit aimed at curing illness of millions of people. A lot of effort has been taken by researchers to detect and provide early-stage insights into cancer diagnosis. In the machine learning research community, various algorithms – KNN, SVM, Decision Trees and Random Forest have been applied to calculate the presence or decisiveness of cancer in correspondence with the symptoms shown by the patients. This paper aims to analyze the symptoms of the different age groups Youth, Working Class and Elderly. Tree-based algorithms like Decision Trees, Random Forest and XGBoost have been used to identify the underlying data patterns in order to calculate relative feature importances. It has been concluded that Coughing of Blood, Clubbing of Finger Nails, Genetic Risk, Passive Smoking and Snoring are the factors that are responsible for lung cancer in all the age groups in most of the cases.
Catalysis with a Skip: Dynamically Coupled Addition, Proton Transfer, and Elimination during Au- and Pd-Catalyzed Diol Cyclizations

Au and Pd complexes have emerged as highly effective π-bond cyclization catalysts to construct heterocycles. These cyclization reactions are generally proposed to proceed through multi-step addition-elimination mechanisms involving Au- or Pd-alkyl intermediates. For Au- and Pd-catalyzed allylic diol cyclization, while the DFT potential energy surface landscapes show a stepwise sequence of alkoxylation π-addition, proton transfer, and water elimination, quasiclassical direct dynamics simulations reveal new dynamical mechanisms that depend on the metal center. For Au, trajectories reveal that after π-addition the Au-alkyl intermediate is always skipped because addition is dynamically coupled with proton transfer and water elimination. In contrast, for Pd catalysis, due to differences in the potential-energy landscape shape, only about half of trajectories show Pd-alkyl intermediate skipping. The other half of the trajectories show the traditional two-step mechanism with the intervening Pd-alkyl intermediate. Overall, this work reveals that interpretation of a DFT potential-energy landscape can be insufficient to understand catalytic intermediates and mechanisms and that atomic momenta through dynamics simulations is needed to determine if an intermediate is genuinely part of a catalytic cycle.
Abnormal Sector Option Correlation Premiums and Predictable Changes in Implied Volatility

We examine options listed on sector ETFs that constitute the S&P 500 and nd evidence of predictability in implied volatilities associated with abnormally high or low implied correlations. We show that sector implied volatilities evolve to maintain stable relations between sector correlation premiums and the correlation premium on the S&P 500. The predictable variation in sector implied volatilities associated with changes in implied correlation forms the basis for pro table trading signals that dominate strategies based directly on sector volatility premiums.
Definition and Classification of Diffuse Cystic Lung Diseases

The diffuse cystic lung diseases (DCLDs) are a diverse group of lung disorders characterized by thin-walled parenchymal lucencies with a well-defined interface with normal lung. Emphysema, bronchiectasis, fibrotic lung disease, and cavitary lung diseases can also produce parenchymal lucencies that can mimic true DCLDs. A variety of low-grade or high-grade metastasizing neoplasms, polyclonal or monoclonal lymphoproliferative disorders or plasma cell dyscrasias, infections, autoimmune or connective tissue diseases, smoking-related lung disorders, and congenital or developmental defects can present with DCLD. The operating principle for this book is that the presentation, differential diagnosis, and management for the DCLDs differ from the interstitial lung diseases, and should be classified separately.
Genomics of Forage Quality in Alfalfa

Alfalfa is called the “Queen of Forages”, due to its adaptability in a changing environment, high digestibility and enrichment of multiple nutrients that are beneficial for animal performance and dairy products. However, the forage quality can be quite different among cultivars. In addition, alfalfa quality is affected by various environmental factors. Different methods and a series of parameters have been developed to evaluate alfalfa quality. These methods and parameters can help us quantitatively analyze and compare forage quality from digestibility, protein content, fiber content, energy, and minerals among different cultivars. Given the complexity of factors affecting forage quality, it is very difficult and time-consuming for breeding with traditional methods. Recently developed sequencing techniques combined with bioinformatic software provide the new platform to identify markers and genes associated with traits of interests. This review is focused on studies on genomics of forage quality of alfalfa to provide helpful information for breeding alfalfa with improved forage quality.
Management of the COVID-19-Infected Psychiatric Inpatients: Unique Infection Prevention Considerations and Evolving Strategies.

Reason for Review: The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the way healthcare services are provided and created challenges to the delivery of behavioral health in the inpatient setting. Here, we present our front-line experience of infection prevention for the psychiatric patient in the COVID era. Recent Findings: There are unique challenges surrounding COVID-19 precautions within inpatient psychiatric settings. The challenges presented to psychiatric care by COVID-19 begin in the emergency department and follow the patient through the continuum of care once admitted to the facility. Unit infrastructure, patient population, treatment modalities, staffing considerations, and discharge planning are distinct instances where COVID-19 protocols that are well-suited for other hospital settings necessitate revision for psychiatric settings. Summary: The purpose of this communication is to add to the current body of shared experience of infection prevention for the psychiatric patient in the COVID-19 era.
Information constrained insurance: The revelation principle extended

Abstract Private information induced incentive constraints can cause allocations to diverge from full information optimal allocations, often in the direction of limited insurance, but can bring unanticipated anomalies. Related, plausible contract exclusion restrictions can be damaging in welfare terms. More generally, private information optimal allocations can be sensitive to the information structure, suggesting that the latter be specified with an eye toward realism as well as tractability. In an effort to make tractability less of a constraint the paper shows how two apparently difficult information structures - a costly state verification environment and a multiperiod multilateral private information environment - can be handled theoretically, by revelation principle methods. The paper also shows how solutions can be generated numerically.
Reconsidering Expectations of Economic Growth After World War II from the Perspective of 2004

At the close of World War II, the future of economic development was the subject of wide-ranging debates. Historical experience has since shown that these forecasts were uniformly too pessimistic. Expectations for the American economy focused on the likelihood of secular stagnation, which continued to be debated throughout the post-war period. Concerns raised during the late 1960s and early 1970s about rapid population growth smothering the potential for economic growth in developing countries were contradicted when, during the mid- and late-1970s, fertility rates began to decline rapidly. Predictions that food production would not keep up with population growth have also been proven wrong: between 1961 and 2000, calories per capita worldwide have increased by 24 percent, despite a doubling of the global population. The high rates of economic growth in East and Southeast Asia were also unforeseen by economists. Copyright 2005, International Monetary Fund
Case study: Short-term response of greater sage-grouse habitats to wildfire in mountain big sagebrush communities

Our case study evaluated the short-term (≤11 yr) implications of wildfire on greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) breeding-season habitat (i.e., nesting and brood-rearing) and ground-dwelling arthropod abundance on Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge in northwestern Nevada, USA. Two different-aged wildfire sites were sampled in mountain big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata vaseyana) cover types in 1998 and 1999. Plant communities in burned and associated unburned areas did not differ appreciably in species composition and wildfire did not negatively impact arthropod abundance. Wildfires did not increase the frequency of exotic plant species, such as cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum), nor did wildfire have a detrimental effect on native perennial bunchgrasses. Wildfires were effective at changing the mountain big sagebrush community structure from shrub-dominated to one dominated by native grasses and forbs 2–3 yr post-burn. However, the absence of shrub cover following 2–3 yr of post-fire recovery indicates our overall estimates of vegetation structure were not consistent with published guideline requirements for managing sage-grouse breeding-season habitat. Although burning had little stimulatory effect on total forb cover 10–11 yr post-burn, the vegetation and structural components needed to maintain suitable sage-grouse nesting and brood-rearing habitats were present in the burned site. The short-term habitat response to wildfire suggests prescribed fire can be a useful tool to achieve management objectives by manipulating vegetation structure and composition of shrub-dominated landscapes. However, land managers should be cautious using prescribed fire as a management tool in big sagebrush ecosystems if the goal is to improve sage-grouse habitats. © 2014 The Wildlife Society.
Spillovers from the Rest of the World into Sub-Saharan African Countries

This paper investigates the impact of a global slowdown on individual African countries using a series of dynamic panel regressions for countries in the region, relating real growth in domestic output to world growth in trade weighted by partner countries and several control variables: oil prices, non-oil prices, financial variables, and country fixed effects. Estimates are then applied to prepare country-specific simulations. The model, which is shown to estimate well out-of-sample spillover effects in the region, shows that countries in the region are significantly affected by lower external demand for their exports, declines in commodity prices and the terms of trade, and tighter financial conditions abroad. The last, proxied by the spread of three-month Libor to US treasury bills, is to our knowledge one of the first applications of such a measure of financial conditions for countries in the region.
Outage Performance of Multiuser Communication Systems

In this chapter, we present first a generic closed-form expression for the evaluation of the outage probability in interference-limited systems when the interferers are assumed to be subject to independent, identically distributed (i.i.d) fading. We then study multiuser systems that are not necessarily interference-limited and for which outage occurs when either the carrier-to-interference ratio (CIR) or the carrier-to-noise ratio (CNR) is less than its respective predetermined threshold value. Next, we quantify the reduction in the outage probability obtained when using low-complexity diversity combining schemes. We finally look into the combined effect of fading and cochannel interference on the outage rate and the average outage duration (AOD) of multiuser communication systems. It should be noted that the scope of our analysis in this chapter is limited to the effect of multipath fading and does not take into account the impact of lognormal shadowing.
Nonlinear photoacoustic spectroscopy of hemoglobin

As light intensity increases in photoacoustic imaging, the saturation of optical absorption and the temperature dependence of the thermal expansion coefficient result in a measurable nonlinear dependence of the photoacoustic (PA) signal on the excitation pulse fluence. Here, under controlled conditions, we investigate the intensity-dependent photoacoustic signals from oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin at varied optical wavelengths and molecular concentrations. The wavelength and concentration dependencies of the nonlinear PA spectrum are found to be significantly greater in oxygenated hemoglobin than in deoxygenated hemoglobin. These effects are further influenced by the hemoglobin concentration. These nonlinear phenomena provide insights into applications of photoacoustics, such as measurements of average inter-molecular distances on a nm scale or with a tuned selection of wavelengths, a more accurate quantitative PA tomography.
Mirror Symmetry and Moduli Spaces of Superconformal Field Theories

Mirror symmetry is the remarkable discovery in string theory that certain “mirror pairs” of Calabi-Yau manifolds apparently produce isomorphic physical theories — related by an isomorphism that reverses the sign of a certain quantum number — when used as backgrounds for string propagation [13], [19], [10], [16]. The sign reversal in the isomorphism has profound effects on the geometric interpretation of the pair of physical theories. This leads to startling predictions that certain geometric invariants of one Calabi-Yau manifold (essentially the numbers of holomorphic 2-spheres of various degrees) should be related to a completely different set of geometric invariants of the mirror partners (“period” integrals of holomorphic forms).
Peacemaking from the inside out: how South Africa's negotiated transition influenced the Mandela Administration's regional conflict resolution strategies

A common observation regarding the Mandela Administration's foreign policy is that South Africa adopted an approach to peacemaking that drew on its own recent and unique negotiated transition. While ubiquitous, this observation has rarely been seriously examined. This paper undertakes such an examination through the use of psychological theories of decision making, which explore the formative impact that a leader's domestic rise to power has on the foreign policy predilections of that leader. These theories provide a powerful link that supports the oft stated, but poorly articulated, connection between South Africa's transition and its regional peacemaking efforts. The paper then surveys the most salient lessons learned by President Mandela during South Africa's transitional negotiations and explores whether these lessons affected South Africa's regional peacemaking efforts. This analysis indicates that both Mandela's inclination to negotiate, and the style in which he did so, were directly informed by So...
Optical trapping and stretching of lipid vesicles

We demonstrate a dual-beam fiber trap for optically stretching lipid vesicles encapsulated with poly(ethylene glycol) polymer solution. Vesicle deformations exhibit ranges of linear and non-linear response for applied peak stresses of ∼7–60 mN/m2.
A statistical analysis of polysilicon etching in a chlorine argon plasma

The effects of base pressure, etch pressure, gas flow rates of HCl, Cl2, and argon, hexode temperature, DC self-bias, initial polysilicon thickness, and percent of overetch on the etch performance of polysilicon are examined. Statistical design of the experiments provided linear and quadratic models of the etch performance in terms of the aforementioned variables. These models were used to determine the relative importance of each process variable on the etch performance. Optical emission data were utilized as a means of endpoint detection and as a monitor of etch activity. The results indicate that the etch performance is more responsive to variations in physical mechanisms as opposed to chemical processes within the variable ranges used in these experiments.
Daily tympanometry in children during the cold season: association of otitis media with upper respiratory tract infections.

Abstract The causal association between otitis media and viral upper respiratory tract infections (URI) suggests that early intervention during the course of a viral URI could prevent many episodes of otitis media. However, the feasibility of this approach can not be assessed at present since many aspects of the epidemiology and natural history of URI-associated otitis media are undefined. To address this deficiency, daily monitoring of middle ear status (tympanometry) and cold symptoms and weekly pneumatic otoscopy were done on a pilot cohort of 20 children. These children, between the ages of 2 and 6, were followed from November 1996 to April 1997. Compliance with symptom diaries was 85%, with tympanograms was 90%, and with weekly physician visits was 70%. During the study period, there were 53 `colds' (average 2.65 per child) and 28 new episodes of middle ear effusion (10 unilateral and 9 bilateral). Overall, 47.3% of the tympanograms were Type A, 17.2% Type C1, 9.4% Type C2, and 21.8% Type B. Children who developed MEE during the study spent more time with abnormal MEP (either MEP
The Alliance Politics of Concerted Accommodation: Entente Bargaining and Italian and Ottoman Interventions in the First World War

This article examines the challenges allies face in coordinating diplomatic efforts to accommodate and peel off their main enemy's potential allies. It elucidates the key dimensions, and the underlying coordination dynamics, of this problem of “concerted accommodation,” and it develops propositions about the conditions that shape the efficacy of such efforts. The argument links allies’ strength to their divergent or convergent assessments of the target state's ability to tip the war toward victory or defeat. Divergent assessments foster weak allied efforts that are likely to fail, but when allies agree that the target is a potential “war-tipper,” they will support their concerted accommodation policy with more robust cooperation that is more likely to work. The causal arguments and mechanisms are examined in a paired comparison analysis of two First World War cases: the Entente's efforts to induce (1) Ottoman neutrality and (2) Italian intervention.
The Infantile Female Rat: In vivo Ovarian and Adrenal Steroidogenic Responses to Exogenous Administration or to Endogenously Induced Elevations of Gonadotropins and ACTH

To investigate the role of luteinizing hormone (LU), follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) and adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) in stimulating release of sex steroids from ovaries and/or adrenals of infantile female rats, serum estradiol (E2), progesterone (P), and androgens (testosterone + dihydrotestosterone (A)] were measured in ovariectomized (OVX) or adrenalectomized (ADX) 11-day-old female rats 1 h following a single i.v. injection of various doses of LH, FSH, or ACTH. Luteinizing hormone, but not FSH or ACTH, stimulated release of P and A from ovaries of ADX rats. Likewise, a single i.v. injection of LHRH (100 ng/100 g BW) given to elevate endogenous gonadotropin levels of ADX rats resulted in a significant increase in serum levels of ovarian P and A 90 mm later. None of these treatments increased serum E2 levels of ADX rats. The release of E2 from the adrenal was stimulated only by ACTH. Surprisingly, the release of P and A from adrenals of OVX rats was stimulated by LH and FSH, as well as by ACTH. Subjecting the animals to various stressful stimuli to induce endogenous ACTH release resulted in a rise in serum levels of P and A from adrenals of OVX rats. However, an increase in endogenous serum gonadotropin levels induced by Lv. injection of LHRH or the i.v. administration of highly purified rat FSH failed to produce a significant elevation in levels of circulating P. A, or E2 in OVX rats, suggesting that the effectiveness of the LH and FSH preparations initially used may have been due to ACTH contamination. Analysis of these NIH preparations by radioimmunoassay (RIA) or bioassay, using dispersed cortico-adrenal cells in culture, revealed the presence of small, but clearly measurable amounts of ACTH. Although the ACTH values obtained with RIA were distinctly higher than those measured by bioassay (RIA, 2000 pg/Mg NIH-LH-B1O and 590 pg/Mg NIH-FSH-S12; bioassay,
Invertible amphiphilic homopolymers.

Stimuli-responsive polymers and assemblies are viable candidates for the so-called “smart” materials. In this communication, we report a new class of amphiphilic homopolymers that forms micelle-like structures in polar solvents and inverted micelle-like structures in apolar solvents. We demonstrate that these superstructures are the result of the changes in the molecular-level conformations in the monomer.