cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Nodal marginal zone B-cell lymphoma with a novel t(X;5)(q28;q22): conventional and molecular cytogenetic analysis

Cytogenetic studies provide important information for the diagnosis and classification of malignant lymphomas that in some cases also has prognostic significance. Furthermore, the investigation of isolated novel cytogenetic findings in malignant lymphoma has led to the discovery of many important oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes. For this reason, a case of nodal marginal zone B-cell lymphoma in a 72-year-old woman is described in which analysis by conventional and molecular cytogenetic techniques demonstrated the presence of a t(X:5)(q28;q22) as the sole chromosomal abnormality. This translocation has not been previously reported in the literature.
Exercise increases soluble vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Receptor-1 (sFlt-1)in circulation of healthy volunteers.

BACKGROUND: Physical inactivity increases the risk of cancer and atherosclerosis; the impaired regulation of angiogenesis is often associated with the development of these diseases. We hypothesize that exercise increases circulating sFlt-1, an endogenous VEGF inhibitor, which may functionally decrease plasma levels of free VEGF. MATERIAL/METHODS: 5 healthy male adults were assigned to a treadmill exercise study. The peak speed and the time spent at peak speed on the treadmill were 4.8+/-1.0 miles/h and 6.8+/-2.6 minutes, respectively. Plasma levels of sFlt-1 and VEGF were determined using ELISA (RD P<0.01). Basal plasma levels of unbound VEGF were 37.3+/-7.7 pg/ml, then decreased to 28.2+/-6.3, 17.5+/-2.5, and 26.6+/-6.4 pg/ml, at 0.5, 2, and 6 h, respectively, after exercise. There was a significant increase in basal plasma levels of sFlt-1 after repeated exercise for 2 weeks. CONCLUSIONS: We have demonstrated that circulating sFlt-1 is significantly increased by exercise in healthy volunteers, which is functionally associated with a transient decrease in circulating free VEGF. This data may provide new insight into the molecular links between physical inactivity and risk of cancer and atherosclerosis.
Effect of indomethacin on coronary vascular response to increased myocardial oxygen consumption

We tested the hypothesis that arachidonic acid metabolites mediate the coronary vascular response to changes in cardiac activity. Isoproterenol was administered intravenously to five chloralose-anesthetized, open-chest dogs. Left anterior descending coronary artery blood flow, systemic arterial blood pressure, and great cardiac vein O2 content were continuously measured, and blood gas determination (including O2 content) were made before and after infusions. From these data, coronary vascular conductance, coronary O2 delivery, and myocardial O2 consumption were calculated. Isoproterenol increased conductance, O2 delivery, and O2 consumption. Indomethacin, a blocker of prostaglandin synthesis, was administered, and the isoproterenol infusions were repeated. The changes in conductance, O2 delivery, and O2 consumption associated with isoproterenol were not different after indomethacin was administered than before indomethacin was administered. Neither were the relations between conductance or O2 delivery and O2 consumption affected by indomethacin. We conclude that, in this preparation and with this stimulus, prostaglandins do not appear to mediate or modulate the coronary vascular response to changes in cardiac activity.
The Search for the Minor Composer: The Case of Pierre Rode

Researching a minor composer's biography and music can be a difficult proposition. A case in point is the violinist-corn-poser Pierre Rode. Not all published accounts of his life agree, and while a sort of urtext may be constructed from often published works, some editions show a heavy editorial hand. The life of the minor composer, like every minor historical figure, is sometimes a matter for speculation rather than fact.
Post-Lymphangiography Fine Needle Aspiration Lymph Node Biopsy in Staging Carcinoma of the Prostate: Preliminary Report

AbstractFive cases of clinical stage B carcinoma of the prostate are reported. Bipedal lymphangiography showed unequivocal involvement of the pelvic nodes in 3 patients and was equivocal in the other 2. Percutaneous transabdominal fine needle aspiration biopsy of abnormal or suspicious iliac nodes was performed and a positive cytological diagnosis of metastasis was obtained in all 5 patients. Therefore, staging lymphadenectomy and an extensive radical operation were avoided. Percutaneous fine needle biopsy is a reliable, easy and safe technique that should be used in staging prostatic carcinoma whenever there is evidence of metastatic nodal involvement by lymphangiography.
Manual and Cognitive Dual-tasks Contribute to Fall-Risk Differentiation in Posturography Measures.

Falls occur in 33% of older adults each year, some leading to moderate to severe injuries. To reduce falls and fall-related injuries, it is important to identify individuals with subtle risk factors elevating their likelihood of falling. The objective of this study was to determine how postural sway measures differed between fallers and nonfallers under standard and dual-task conditions. Quietstanding posturography measures were collected from 150 older adults during standard, cognitive, manual, and cognitive+manual tasks, and analyzed through traditional and nonlinear analyses. Of the traditional measures, M/L sway range and 95% confidence ellipse sway area showed statistically significant differences in all 4 test conditions between fallers and nonfallers. Although the manual dual task showed the most stable balance, effect sizes demonstrated larger differences between fallers and nonfallers. Nonlinear analysis revealed M/L sample entropy and M/L α-scaling exponent differentiating between fallers and nonfallers, with the cognitive task demonstrating larger differences. Based on the results, it is recommended to: (1) apply M/L sway range and 95% confidence ellipse area, (2) use the manual task to differentiate between fallers and nonfallers when using traditional analyses, and (3) use the cognitive task and M/L alpha and M/L sample entropy when using nonlinear analyses.
Frequency modulated electrostatically coupled resonators for sensing applications

This work presents a proof-of-concept for a frequency modulated output MEMS sensor based on electrostatic coupling of two resonators. Change in the gap between a single resonator and a movable capacitive electrode can modulate the electrostatic force acting on the resonator, and therefore, alter its resonance frequency. A second resonator is used as the movable electrode to facilitate displacement amplification in response to the external force at resonance. In this work, clamped-clamped beams are used for both resonators. Three devices are fabricated with different dimensions, and a DC magnetic field is used to actuate the second beam at resonance frequency, while the frequency of the first beam is monitored. It is shown that by actuating the movable electrode at its resonance, sensitivity is enhanced by more than 3 orders of magnitude compared to DC actuation, and sensitivity of 8Hz/mAmT is achieved for a device with 100μm × 5μm and 2μm × 3 μm beams and a capacitive gap of 1.5μm. While Lorentz force is used to actuate the beam in this work, the concept is not limited to magnetic field sensing.
Uniform symbolic topologies in normal toric rings

Abstract Given a normal toric algebra R, we compute a uniform integer D = D ( R ) > 0 such that the symbolic power P ( D N ) ⊆ P N for all N > 0 and all monomial primes P. We compute the multiplier D explicitly in terms of the polyhedral cone data defining R, illustrating the output for Segre–Veronese algebras.
Fault Localizations Through Feature Selections

We introduce a novel application of feature ranking methods to the fault localization problem. We envision the problem of localizing causes of failures as instances of ranking program’s elements where elements are conceptualized as features. In this paper, we define features as program’s statements. However, in its fine-grained definition, the idea of program’s features can refer to any traits of programs. This paper proposes feature ranking-based algorithms. The algorithms analyze execution traces of both passing and failing test cases, and extract the bug signatures from the failing test cases. The proposed procedure extracts possible combinations of program’s elements when executed together from bug signatures. The feature ranking-based algorithms then order statements according to the suspiciousness of the combinations. When viewed as sequences, the combination of program’s elements produced and traced in bug signatures can be utilized to reason about the common longest subsequence. The common longest...
Hybrid Open Minimally Invasive Transcatheter Mitral Valve Replacement

We describe a hybrid surgical interventional technique for minimally invasive implantation of a transcatheter aortic valve in the mitral position. This technique does not require circular mitral annular calcification and minimizes the risk of left ventricular outflow tract obstruction. We believe this technique represents a useful approach for surgeons and interventional cardiologists until specialized transcatheter mitral valve devices become available.
Biological Enhancement of X-Ray Effects

This chapter discusses a new concept in X-ray nanochemistry – biological enhancement of X-ray effects using nanomaterials. Two types of biological enhancement are described here, and the rationale and principles of these two types are explained, followed by examples that provide the evidence for the existence of biological enhancement.
Random Survival or Fertility: Exact Results

A model which ought to be simple is one with 2 age classes and random survival or fertility. In this chapter we will see that this is only sometimes true depending on the question one asks. The examples should breathe some life into the general theory.
Transposable Neomycin Phosphotransferases

Transposable genetic elements are discrete DNA segments with the capacity to move between independent DNA replicons within the cell. The recent discoveries that certain plasmid-borne genes, which confer resistance to antibiotics and to heavy metals, are components of transposable elements has improved our understanding of how plasmids might pick up genes from nonhomologous DNA molecules during their evolution and during the spread of antibiotic resistant infections in hospitals. Table 1 illustrates that many determinants of resistance have already been found in transposable elements. Considerable diversity is seen in this collection of elements: they vary in their DNA sequence arrangement, in the frequency and specificity of transposition, and in the stability of the transposed genes. Some contain known insertion sequences.
The Long Shadow of Standard Oil: Policy, Petroleum, and Politics at the Federal Trade Commission

The Federal Trade Commission has investigated the structure and competitiveness of the petroleum industry many times over the past 100 years. Some of the Commission’s most intensive investigations were initiated in response to Congressional inquiries, most notably the enormously expensive and ultimately fruitless attempt to dismember the industry vertically in the 1970s. Since that case ended in 1981, the FTC has attempted to limit the influence of “political antitrust” on the petroleum industry despite intense political interest in the price of gasoline. Although the agency has conducted several substantial investigations of the industry without finding evidence of illegal conduct, and appears to apply strict standards in its review of petroleum industry mergers (suggesting the continued influence of political considerations), on balance, the FTC has succeeded in limiting the influence of politics on its antitrust enforcement decisions. We seek both to acknowledge and to begin to explain the FTC’s recent success, drawing primarily from incidents over the last fifteen years. We focus on three areas of intense political interest in which the FTC has avoided implementing what we think are extreme and unnecessary suggestions from congressional and local enforcement officials: (1) merger enforcement; (2) scrutiny of certain business practices, such as zone pricing; and (3) retail prices. The FTC has largely succeeded in recent years in avoiding Congressional control over its petroleum industry agenda through five steps: (1) continuity across administrations in the standards used to challenge mergers and identify problematic conduct; (2) a commitment to transparency; (3) engaging its critics and a willingness to subject itself to self-criticism through the use of retrospective reviews of its enforcement decisions; (4) a robust research agenda conducted by the FTC’s Bureau of Economics; and (5) an affirmative, pro-competition program, illustrated by the FTC Office of Policy Planning’s comments on state proposals that would limit or restrict competition in the petroleum industry.
Introduction: Governments and the Marketplace in Economic Analysis

As the deficiencies of intervention became more evident during the 1970s, criticism of the excesses of government in the leading industrialized economies became more fashionable. The traditional economic concern with excesses of government received more attention in policy debates. Economists led the attack.
Fight under uncertainty: restraining misinformation and pushing out the truth

While online social networks (OSNs) have become an important platform for information exchange, the abuse of OSNs to spread misinformation has become a significant threat to our society. To restrain the propagation of misinformation in its early stages, we study the Distance-constrained Misinformation Combat under Uncertainty problem, which aims to both reduce the spread of misinformation and enhance the spread of correct information within a given propagation distance. The problem formulation considers the competitive diffusion of misinformation and correct information. It also accounts for the uncertainty in identifying initial misinformation adopters. For competitive propagation with major-threshold activation, we propose a solution based on stochastic programming and provide an upper-bound in the presence of uncertainty. We propose an efficient Combat Seed Selection algorithm to tackle general-threshold activation, in which we define a measure, "effectiveness", to evaluate the contribution of nodes to the fight against misinformation. Through extensive experiments, we validate that our algorithm outputs high-quality solution with very fast computation.
Density and Temperature Uniformity of a conical Section of a Spherically Imploding Plasma Liner

Spherically imploding plasma liners 1 are a proposed reactorfriendly magneto-inertial-fusion (MIF) driver for compressing magnetized plasma targets to fusion conditions. The Plasma Liner Experiment–ALPHA (PLX-α) is aiming to demonstrate the formation of such liners via dozens of merging supersonic plasma jets (with ion density $\sim 10 ^{16}$ cm$^{-3}$, velocity $\approx 50$ km/s, mass $\sim 1$ mg, and various species). In the ongoing, first set of PLX-α experiments, we are merging 6 and 7 plasma jets to form a conical section of a spherically imploding plasma liner in order to assess the shock heating (and associated Mach-number degradation) and uniformity of the liner upon jet merging and during further convergence. Diagnostics include single- and multi-frame fast-gated ICCD cameras, visible survey spectrometer, high-resolution spectrometer, 12-chord visible interferometer, and visible photodiodes. Presented here will be the first results of the density and electron temperature uniformity of 6- and 7-jet merging using several gas species (argon, nitrogen, neon, krypton, xenon). Several 12-chord laser interferometry configurations are fielded with both end-on and crosssectional laser chord paths to determine density distribution and evolution. Results presented here will be compared to synthetic data from 3D simulations run using both smoothedparticle-hydrodynamics and the FronTier codes.
The Paradox of Persistence: Explaining the Black-White Gap in Bachelor’s Degree Completion

Bachelor’s degree (BA) completion is lower among black students than among white students. In this study, we use data from the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 and the Integrated Postsecondary ...
Evaluating the Feasibility of Public Projects

Abstract Best waste management practice requires that projects be evaluated for both scientific credibility and economic feasibility. Waste management often relies on public projects. This chapter applies engineering economics to this evaluation, including techniques for selecting the optimal project from alternatives, determining when and how to replace equipment, and improving projects by applying life cycle tools.
Latent Representation Learning for Alzheimer’s Disease Diagnosis With Incomplete Multi-Modality Neuroimaging and Genetic Data

The fusion of complementary information contained in multi-modality data [ e.g. , magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), positron emission tomography (PET), and genetic data] has advanced the progress of automated Alzheimer’s disease (AD) diagnosis. However, multi-modality based AD diagnostic models are often hindered by the missing data, i.e. , not all the subjects have complete multi-modality data. One simple solution used by many previous studies is to discard samples with missing modalities. However, this significantly reduces the number of training samples, thus leading to a sub-optimal classification model. Furthermore, when building the classification model, most existing methods simply concatenate features from different modalities into a single feature vector without considering their underlying associations. As features from different modalities are often closely related ( e.g. , MRI and PET features are extracted from the same brain region), utilizing their inter-modality associations may improve the robustness of the diagnostic model. To this end, we propose a novel latent representation learning method for multi-modality based AD diagnosis. Specifically, we use all the available samples (including samples with incomplete modality data) to learn a latent representation space. Within this space, we not only use samples with complete multi-modality data to learn a common latent representation, but also use samples with incomplete multi-modality data to learn independent modality-specific latent representations. We then project the latent representations to the label space for AD diagnosis. We perform experiments using 737 subjects from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) database, and the experimental results verify the effectiveness of our proposed method.
Parent Perspectives on Youth Sport Concussion Management

Concussions are one of the most discussed health concerns at all levels of sport. While much of this discussion focuses on football and the National Football League (NFL), there is growing awareness in the sport community that the risks of concussions extend to head injuries in all sports. Much remains unknown about youth concussions, particularly in terms of how parents feel about concussions and youth sport safety regulations. The purpose of this study was to examine parents’ perceptions and attitudes toward youth sport concussions. Results indicated that despite increased awareness and education there remain gaps in parental knowledge of concussions and the proper management of concussions. These findings led to a set of recommendations regarding parental concussion prevention and management education.
CLVSA: a convolutional LSTM based variational sequence-to-sequence model with attention for predicting trends of financial markets

Financial markets are a complex dynamical system. The complexity comes from the interaction between a market and its participants, in other words, the integrated outcome of activities of the entire participants determines the markets trend, while the markets trend affects activities of participants. These interwoven interactions make financial markets keep evolving. Inspired by stochastic recurrent models that successfully capture variability observed in natural sequential data such as speech and video, we propose CLVSA, a hybrid model that consists of stochastic recurrent networks, the sequence-to-sequence architecture, the self- and inter-attention mechanism, and convolutional LSTM units to capture variationally underlying features in raw financial trading data. Our model outperforms basic models, such as convolutional neural network, vanilla LSTM network, and sequence-to-sequence model with attention, based on backtesting results of six futures from January 2010 to December 2017. Our experimental results show that, by introducing an approximate posterior, CLVSA takes advantage of an extra regularizer based on the Kullback-Leibler divergence to prevent itself from overfitting traps.
Health Insurance Reform and the Latinx Population

This chapter addresses how health insurance reform—principally through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA)—has affected the Latinx population in the USA. Described first are issues that this population faced in obtaining insurance coverage before implementation of the ACA in 2014. Then, details are given on how the ACA improves insurance coverage for Latinx persons but also on how it falls short in achieving universal coverage. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of the uncertain future of the ACA and health insurance reform.
Structured Coding for Authentication in the Presence of a Malicious Adversary

Authentication in the presence of a malicious adversary consists of either recovering the legitimate transmission or declaring that the adversary has interfered with the transmission. In this work, we present a structured coding scheme for keyless authentication over a discrete memoryless binary-input, symmetric adversarial channel. Our scheme allows for coding rates up to the non-adversarial capacity of the underlying channel, as well as bounded-complexity decoding.
South Sudan’s Injustice System: Law and Activism on the Frontline: by Rachel Ibreck, London, Zed Books, 2019, xxvii + 270 pp.

Rachel Ibreck’s South Sudan’s Injustice System: Law and Activism on the Frontline is a fascinating account of the contours of law and justice in contemporary South Sudan that makes meaningful contr...
Fuel molecular structure effect on autoignition of highly branched iso-alkanes at low-to-intermediate temperatures: Iso-octane versus iso-dodecane

Abstract Highly branched iso-alkanes are an important class of hydrocarbons found in conventional petroleum-derived and alternative renewable fuels used for combustion applications. Recognizing that chemical kinetics for most of these iso-alkanes, especially at low-to-intermediate temperatures, has not been well studied, an experimental and modeling investigation of two selected iso-alkanes, iso-octane (2,2,4-trimethylpentane, iC8) and iso-dodecane (2,2,4,6,6-pentamethylheptane, iC12), is conducted to understand the fuel molecular structure effect on their autoignition characteristics. Using a rapid compression machine (RCM), the ignition responses of iC8 and iC12 at varying pressures, temperatures, and equivalence ratios are characterized and compared. The newly-acquired experimental ignition delay times have been compared with the literature RCM and shock tube data, demonstrating the complementary nature of the current dataset. Further comparison of the experimental pressure traces and ignition delay times illustrates the reactivity crossover between iC8 and iC12. Namely, there exists a temperature window in the negative temperature coefficient regime within which iC12 is less reactive than iC8, but iC12 becomes more reactive outside this temperature window. Furthermore, a chemical kinetic model of iso-alkanes including both iC8 and iC12 is developed. Simulated results using this model are then compared to the experimental data obtained in this study and available in the literature, showing its ability to predict the experimental trends. Chemical kinetic analyses have also been conducted to identify the important reaction pathways controlling autoignition at varying conditions, and to elucidate the underlying mechanism leading to different reactivity trends between iC8 and iC12.
Private Responses for Public Sharing: Understanding Self-Presentation and Relational Maintenance via Stories in Social Media

With nearly two billion users, social media Stories-an ephemeral format of sharing-are increasingly popular and projected to overtake sharing via public feeds. Sharing via Stories differs from Feeds sharing by removing the visible feedback (e.g. "likes" and "comments") which has come to characterize social media. Given the salience of responses visibility to self-presentation and relational maintenance in social media literature, we conducted semi-structured interviews (N = 22) to explore how people understand these processes when using Stories. We find that users have lower expectations for responses with Stories and experience lower pressure for self-presentation. This fosters more frequent sharing and a sense of daily connectedness, which strong ties can find valuable. Finally, the act of viewing takes on new significance of signaling attention when made known to the sharer. Our findings point to the importance of effort and attention in understanding responses on social media.
Competitive oxidation of methane and C2 hydrocarbons discerned by isotopic labeling and laser absorption spectroscopy of CO isotopologues in shock-heated mixtures

Abstract The competitive oxidation of methane with C 2 hydrocarbons of differing functional groups (alkane, alkene, and alkyne) was examined experimentally via combustion of isotopically-labeled fuel mixtures and laser absorption spectroscopy of carbon monoxide isotopologues. Quantitative species time-histories of the 12 CO and 13 CO isotopologues were measured simultaneously and in situ using laser absorption spectroscopy behind reflected shock waves, used for near-instantaneous heating and auto-ignition of binary mixtures containing equal carbon fractions of the different fuels. A driver extension and gas tailoring were employed on the shock tube facility to extend test times up to 30 milliseconds, enabling dilute ignition of the fuel blends over a range of temperatures from 1100–1800 K. Tested fuel mixtures were primarily fuel-rich to force the competition of carbon oxidation between the fuel components. The novel dataset of multi-isotopologue species time-histories were compared to available chemical mechanisms, revealing insights on the influence of each C 2 fuel on methane ignition. The GRI-MECH 3.0 and Foundational Fuel Chemistry Model (FFCM-1) reaction models were modified to incorporate 13 C reactions and species. Detailed comparison of the measurement data with FFCM-1 simulations revealed generally good agreement at elevated temperatures ( > 1500 K), with increasing divergence at lower temperatures, particularly for mixtures involving ethane and acetylene. Reaction pathway and sensitivity analysis of the variance between data and the modified mechanisms reveal key reactions likely responsible for the disagreements.
Student Perceptions of educational handovers.

Background Educational handovers can provide competency information about graduating medical students to residency program directors post-residency placement. Little is known about students' comfort with this novel communication. Objective To examine graduated medical students' perceptions of educational handovers. Methods The authors created and distributed an anonymous survey to 166 medical students at a single institution following graduation in the spring of 2018. Within this cohort, 40 students had an educational handover sent to their future program director. The survey explored comfort level with handovers (1=very uncomfortable; 5=very comfortable) and ideal content (e.g., student strengths, areas for improvement, goals, grades received after residency application). Respondents self-reported their performance in medical school and whether a handover was sent. Correlation analyses examined relationships between performance and other variables. T-tests examined differences between students who did and did not have a handover letter sent. Results The survey response rate was 40.4% (67/166) - 47.8% of students felt comfortable with handovers, 19.4% were neutral, and 32.8% were uncomfortable. There was no correlation between self-reported medical school performance and comfort level. Respondents felt most strongly that strengths should be included, followed by goals. Those who had a handover letter sent expressed significantly higher comfort level (3.8 ± 1.0 vs. 2.6 ±1.3, p=0.003) with this communication. Conclusion Medical students reported varying levels of comfort with educational handovers; however, those who had handovers sent had more positive perceptions. In order to improve the education continuum, it is essential to engage students in the development of this handover communication.
Hair Rules: Race, Gender, and Stigmatization in Schools

As laws banning racial hair discrimination in schools are proposed across the United States, it is increasingly important to understand how grooming policies can stigmatize students. This essay engages social science theory and research on stigmatization and the case of Arnold v. Barbers Hill Independent School District to investigate the cultural constructions of male students who wear long locs. Drawing on content analysis of court documents around this Texas lawsuit involving two black male cousins who were disciplined in school because of refusing to cut their locs, I examine how school officials justified the district hair rules through associating the defendants’ hairstyle with a range of stigmatizing attributes. The conclusion considers the potential for this court case, as well as proposed hair discrimination laws in Texas and other states, to mitigate the stigmatization of boys who wear long locs, long braids, and long twists. I argue that to fully address the stigmatization of boys who wear these styles, laws and policies must be attentive to race as well as gender.
Four Transducer Ultrasonic Array for Detecting and Sizing Defects in Plate and Pipe Materials

Ultrasonic pulse-echo techniques are widely used for detection and sizing of defects. However, studies over recent years have shown that the detection and sizing capability of many of the widely accepted ultrasonic techniques do not provide accuracy required to assure safety, reliability or maintainability. While certain types and orientations of defects can be detected, others may go undetected. Even after detection, studies have shown that the ability to size defects is far from accurate. [1,2,3]
Aminocaproic Acid versus Prednisone for the Treatment of Traumatic Hyphema: A Randomized Clinical Trial

One hundred twelve patients who sustained hyphema after blunt trauma were enrolled in a double-blind randomized clinical trial to determine the relative efficacies of aminocaproic acid (Amicar) and systemic prednisone for reducing the rate of secondary hemorrhage. Fifty-six patients received an oral dosage of 50 mg/kg of aminocaproic acid every 4 hours for 5 days, up to a maximum of 30 g daily, and 56 patients received an oral dosage of 40 mg of prednisone daily (adjusted for weight) in two divided doses. Placebo pills and liquids were given to each patient to mask the treatment schedules. There were no statistically significant differences between the patient populations for any demographic or clinical characteristic (e.g., visual acuity, intraocular pressure [IOP], initial hyphema size) measured in the study. Blacks comprised 53% of the study population, and the mean age of the patients was 23.5 years. Four patients in each of the treatment groups experienced a secondary hemorrhage; the rebleed rate was 7.1% in each group.
Influence of the terrestrial environment on the temporal and statistical characteristics of Jovian decametric radiation.

Jovian decametric pulses compared with satellite and radio star scintillations in terrestrial ionosphere
Expression of the Extracellular Domain of the Thyrotropin Receptor in the Baculovirus System Using a Promoter Active Earlier than the Polyhedrin Promoter IMPLICATIONS FOR THE EXPRESSION OF FUNCTIONAL HIGHLY GLYCOSYLATED PROTEINS

Conventional baculovirus vectors that utilize the very late polyhedrin promoter have not proved successful for expressing a thyrotropin (TSH) receptor capable of ligand and Graves' disease autoantibody binding comparable to the receptor produced in mammalian cells. Because of the clinical importance of high level expression of this protein, we reassessed the baculovirus system using a new transfer vector (pAcMP3) containing the late basic protein promoter, which functions earlier than the classical polyhedrin promoter. Maximal synthesis of the [35S]methionine-labeled TSH receptor extracellular domain, affinity-purified using a 6-histidine tag, occurred earlier (1 day after insect cell infection) than with a vector (pVL1393) containing the polyhedrin promoter. The pAcMP3-derived TSH receptor extracellular domain was larger (∼68 kDa) than the pVL1393-derived protein (∼63 kDa). Only the 68-kDa product was secreted, albeit in trace amounts detectable only by precursor labeling. Enzymatic deglycosylation reduced both 68- and 63-kDa cellular proteins to ∼54 kDa, indicating that the pAcMP3 vector generated a protein with greater carbohydrate content. However, despite its greater degree of glycosylation, most of the 68-kDa protein remained within the cell, almost entirely in the particulate fraction. Remarkably, the trace amounts of 68-kDa receptor protein affinity-purified from the soluble cytosolic fraction of infected insect cells completely neutralized TSH receptor autoantibodies in patients' sera and partly inhibited TSH binding. In conclusion, a baculovirus vector with a promoter active earlier than the conventional polyhedrin promoter generates a more glycosylated and functional TSH receptor extracellular domain protein, albeit at low levels. These data carry important implications for the expression by baculovirus vectors of functional, highly glycosylated proteins.
Analysis of planar layered structures with the locally-corrected Nystrom method

The locally-corrected Nystrom (LCN) discretization method may offer improved computational efficiency and a more systematic means of incorporating higher-order representations (and better accuracy) than traditional MoM approaches. In this research, we consider applying the LCN method to multilayer planar problems in package designs. Several examples will be used to illustrate the modeling.
Sooner or Later: The Effects of Timing on Managers’ Discretionary Weighting of Multiple Performance Measures

We investigate whether the weights managers place on multiple performance measures for the purpose of determining performance-contingent pay depend on whether weights are determined before or after employees exert effort. We propose that, while the overall purpose of determining these weights (to guide employees toward desired actions) is unaltered by timing, managers frame the weighting decision differently depending on timing. Specifically, prior to employee effort, managers frame the decision as one intended to motivate employee effort in line with firm objectives. After employee effort, managers frame the weighting decision as one intended to evaluate employee effort in a way that can be justified to the employee as fair. Thus, we expect, and find, that managers weight measures that are more congruent with firm objectives more heavily when weightings are determined ex ante (before employee effort) and weight measures that more precisely capture employee effort more heavily when weightings are determined ex post. This effect is mitigated when ex post measure outcomes indicate relatively favorable outcomes for more congruent measures. Our study contributes to academics’ and practitioners’ understanding of the factors that influence managers’ weighting of multiple performance measures, the implications of which are integral to the effectiveness and efficiency of a firm’s performance measurement and compensation system.
Estimating moisture contents in the vadose zone using cross‐borehole ground penetrating radar: A study of accuracy and repeatability

[1] Experiments have been conducted to demonstrate the accuracy and precision of moisture content estimates derived from cross-borehole ground penetrating radar (XBGPR) measurements made within the vadose zone. Both numerical simulations and field data demonstrate that although a certain amount of image smearing occurs under ideal conditions the general trends in the spatial variation of the moisture content can be estimated by a simple empirical transformation from images of electromagnetic (EM) wave velocity. The field results are verified by comparing the radar-derived images of volumetric moisture content to neutron log derived values. When an appropriate site-specific conversion from radar wave velocity to moisture content is applied, a root mean square (RMS) error of 2.0–3.1% volumetric moisture content exists between the two sets. Further comparison of the two different data sets along with analysis of plots of the ray density through each cell indicates that regions of high moisture content are better resolved than regions of low moisture and that most of the discrepancy between radar-derived and neutron-derived moisture contents occurs in regions of high moisture content. Better spatial resolution can be provided if dense station spacing is used. However, the amount of extra time required to acquire the extra data may limit the usefulness of the method. Repeatability measurements made with five data sets demonstrate that the precision error of the data acquisition system employed averages about 0.54 ns, which translates to about a 0.5% error in moisture content estimation.
Exploiting latent content based features for the detection of static SMS spams

As the use of mobile phones grows, spams are becoming increasingly common in mobile communication such as SMS, calling for research on SMS spam detection. Existing detection techniques for SMS spams have been mostly adapted from those developed for other contexts such as emails and the web without taking into account some unique characteristics of SMS. Additionally, spamming tactics is constantly evolving, making existing methods for spam detection less effective. In this research, we propose to exploit latent content based features for the detection of static SMS spams. The efficacy of the proposed features is empirically validated using multiple classification methods. The results demonstrate that the proposed features significantly improve the performance of SMS spam detection.
Generation of β cells from human pluripotent stem cells: Are we there yet?

In 1998, the landmark paper describing the isolation and culture of human embryonic stem cells (ESCs) was published. Since that time, the main goal of many diabetes researchers has been to derive β cells from ESCs as a renewable cell-based therapy for the treatment of patients with diabetes. In working toward this goal, numerous protocols that attempt to recapitulate normal pancreatic development have been published that result in the formation of pancreatic cell types from human pluripotent cells. This review examines stem cell differentiation methods and places them within the context of pancreatic development. We additionally compare strategies that are currently being used to generate pancreatic cell types and contrast them with approaches that have been used to generate functional cell types in different lineages. In doing this, we aim to identify how new approaches might be used to improve yield and functionality of in vitro–derived pancreatic β cells as an eventual cell-based therapy for type 1 diabetes.
Assessing the Evolution of the Airborne Generation of Thermal Lift in Aerostats 1783 to 1883

Lift has been generated thermally in aerostats for 219 years making this the most enduring form of lift generation in lighter-than-air aviation. In the United States over 3000 thermally lifted aerostats, commonly referred to as hot air balloons, were built and flown by an estimated 12,000 licensed balloon pilots in the last decade. The evolution of controlling fire in hot air balloons during the first century of ballooning is the subject of this article. The purpose of this assessment is to separate the development of thermally lifted aerostats from the general history of aerostatics which includes all gas balloons such as hydrogen and helium lifted balloons as well as thermally lifted balloons. Through this separation the unique developmental lineage of thermally lifted balloons is established with its own set of participants. Some of aerostatics' most famous names in history such as Blanchard, Lowe, and Lunardi will notably be missing owing to their involvement in hydrogen ballooning and their lacking any significant contribution to thermal lift balloon development. The main source for the information contained herein was the literature on the subject supplemented by a review of the patents involved. This study clearly revealed advances on the first manned aircraft as designed by the Montgolfiere brothers and credits the individuals responsible. It furthermore distinguishes the developmental history of thermally lifted aerostats from gas lifted aerostats.
Note on Neutron-Proton Exchange Interaction

The matrix elements of the interaction between a proteon with coordinates x1 and a neutron with coordinates x2 as proposed by Majorana 2 may be written as ....
Nonperturbative BRS invariance

Abstract In the context of lattice gauge theories the standard requirement of local gauge invariance is replaced by BRS invariance. The most general BRS invariant lagrangian is shown to contain as many parameters as the gauge invariant one. This is done by explicitly solving the lattice BRS cohomology problem.
Dynamic plasticity: A comparison between results from mechanical testing and machining

Abstract The data from several previously published mechanical tests on steel and copper at high strains and strain rates are reviewed. These are presented in the form of true stress-true strain rate curves at various true strain levels and are corrected for the effects of adiabatic heating where appropriate. It is found that thermal softening cannot always satisfactorily account for the shape of the curves, and hence a dual deformation—heating model, in which the scale or intensity of the deformation is carefully considered, is proposed. Further data from machining tests are then examined and compared with those generated by mechanical testing. It is found that the evidence for the dual model is substantiated. It is concluded that, when strain and heating effects are operating in the bulk sense, adiabatic corrections to the stress—strain rate curves are possible. However, catastrophic shear, which may be induced under certain conditions of high strain, strain rate, hydrostatic stress and microstructure, cannot be accounted for in such a simple fashion.
Analysis of cholera epidemics with bacterial growth and spatial movement

In this work, we propose novel epidemic models (named, susceptible-infected-recovered-susceptible-bacteria) for cholera dynamics by incorporating a general formulation of bacteria growth and spatial variation. In the first part, a generalized ordinary differential equation (ODE) model is presented and it is found that bacterial growth contributes to the increase in the basic reproduction number, [Formula: see text]. With the derived basic reproduction number, we analyse the local and global dynamics of the model. Particularly, we give a rigorous proof on the endemic global stability by employing the geometric approach. In the second part, we extend the ODE model to a partial differential equation (PDE) model with the inclusion of diffusion to capture the movement of human hosts and bacteria in a heterogeneous environment. The disease threshold of this PDE model is studied again by using the basic reproduction number. The results on the threshold dynamics of the ODE and PDE models are compared, and verified through numerical simulation. Additionally, our analysis shows that incorporating diffusive spatial spread does not produce a Turing instability when [Formula: see text] associated with the ODE model is less than the unity.
Ear differences in the recall of fricatives and vowels.

Two experiments on the free recall of dichotically presented synthetic speech sounds are reported. The first shows that the right ear advantage for initial fricative consonants is not simply a function of the recognition response class, but that it is also a function of the particular acoustic cues used to achieve that response. This is true both for the whole response, and for the constituent phonetic features. The second experiment shows that when both the response class and the particular stimuli presented on certain trials are held constant, the right ear advantage for the constant stimuli can be influenced by the range of other stimuli occurring in the experiment. Vowels show a right ear advantage when, within the experiment, there is uncertainty as to vocal tract size, but they show no ear advantage when all the vowels in the experiment are from the same vocal tract. These results are interpreted as demonstrating that there are differences between the ears, and probably between the hemispheres, at s...
DEVS representation of dynamical systems: event-based intelligent control

It is shown how systems can be advantageously represented as discrete event models by using DEVS (discrete event system specification), set-theoretic formalism. Such DEVS models provide a basis for the design of event-based logic control. In this control paradigm, the controller expects to receive confirming sensor responses to its control commands within definite time windows determined by its DEVS model of the system under control. The event-based control paradigm is applied in advanced robotic and intelligent automation, showing how classical process control can be readily interfaced with rule-based symbolic reasoning systems. >
Effects of corona and spark-over in Freon

Gases are being used to an increasing extent as insulating media for high-voltage equipment; this article reports the results of tests of the chemical stability of Freon, which has been found most satisfactory in such applications. PERHAPS the most effective means of increasing the compactness of high-voltage apparatus is the use of insulating media of higher dielectric strength. With the development of ultrahigh-voltage equipment1,2 a number of gases have been examined as to their qualifications as dielectrics. Among these is Freon, CCl 2 F 2 , a gas having a dielectric strength about three times that of air at the same pressure3,4,5 and a vapor pressure of 85 pounds per square inch absolute at 20 degrees centigrade. It is nonpoisonous, nonflammable, and noncorrosive under normal conditions.
Influence of Formaldehyde and Propionic Acid on Composition and Microflora of Colostrum

Abstract Under laboratory conditions the effect of three percents of formaldehyde (.01, .05, and .1%) and three of propionic acid (.5, 1, and 1.5%) at two temperatures (21 and 37 C) on fermentation and preservation of colostrum was examined. Colostrum from second through fourth milkings postpartum was subdivided into 2.5-liter aliquots prior to addition of chemicals. Propionic acid maintained a low pH throughout the 28 days of fermentation. Formaldehyde held pH at its highest throughout fermentation. In control samples pH dropped initially and tended to increase between 7 and 14 days at both temperatures. Similar changes occurred for additions of formaldehyde at 37 C. Formaldehyde and propionic acid reduced protein degradation at 21 and 37 C compared to naturally fermented colostrum. Microbial growth, particularly coliforms, was retarded by additions of both propionic acid and formaldehyde.