cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Wide field of view swept-source optical coherence tomography for peripheral retinal disease

Background/aims To assess peripheral retinal lesions and the posterior pole in single widefield optical coherence tomography (OCT) volumes. Methods A wide field of view (FOV) swept-source OCT (WFOV SSOCT) system was developed using a commercial swept-source laser and a custom sample arm consisting of two indirect ophthalmic lenses. Twenty-seven subjects with peripheral lesions (choroidal melanomas, choroidal naevi, sclerochoroidal calcification, retinitis pigmentosa, diabetic retinopathy, retinoschisis and uveitis) were imaged with the WFOV SSOCT. Volumes were taken in primary gaze. Using the optic nerve to fovea distance as a reference measurement, comparisons were made between the lateral FOV of the WFOV SSOCT, current generation spectral-domain OCT (SDOCT) and widefield scanning laser ophthalmoscopy (SLO) of the same eyes. Results Peripheral pathologies were captured with WFOV SSOCT in 26 of the 27 subjects. The one not captured was in the far nasal periphery and was not seen in the primary gaze volume. Posterior pole associated pathologies were captured in all subjects. Current generation SDOCT had a mean lateral FOV of 2.08±0.21 optic nerve to fovea distance units, WFOV SSOCT had an FOV of 4.62±0.62 units and SLO had an FOV of 9.35±1.02 units. Conclusions WFOV OCT can be used to examine both peripheral retinal pathology and the posterior pole within a single volume acquisition. SLO had the greatest FOV, but does not provide depth information. Future studies using widefield OCT systems will help further delineate the role of WFOV OCT to quantitatively assess and monitor peripheral retinal disease in three dimensions.
Designing Effective Curricula with an Interactive Collaborative Curriculum Design Tool (CCDT).

Guided by the principles of the Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation (ADDIE) instructional design (ID) model, this creative instructional product presents a learning/teaching approach that is fundamentally constructivist. For the purposes of designing effective instruction in an academic preparation course, a Collaborative Curriculum Design Tool (CCDT) was chosen as the major educational technology tool. The target audience includes adult English as a second language (ESL) students preparing for undergraduate and/or graduate schools in the U.S. Based on this specific learner group in this academic preparation course, the primary learning objective of this design is to help students improve their academic English skills in various domains. Technological tools selected to achieve this learning goal consist of those that promote the development of each competency in the language. There are numerous software programs employed to support students’ vocabulary, reading, and writing skills development, in addition to assisting with their improvement in listening and speaing fluency.
Toward an Understanding of Development of Learning to Solve Ill-Defined Problems in an Online Context: A Multi-Year Qualitative Exploratory Study.

The case study is a classic tool used in several educational programs that emphasizes solving of ill-defined problems. Though it has been used in classroom-based teaching and educators have developed a rich repertoire of methods, its use in online courses presents different challenges. To explore factors that develop skills in solving ill-defined problems, I present results of a seven-year study seeking to develop tools for facilitating and assessing skills for case studies in an online graduate class. This study began with the introduction of a classroom-based case method into an online graduate class. Over the following years, I used three sources of data to make changes to the design of the course with respect to case studies: feedback from students, feedback from colleagues, and measurement of student performance. Findings suggest the following general approaches may work better in online classes involving case studies in particular, and more broadly in courses that teach solving of ill-defined problems: 1) immersion (or the use of drills) to support trial and error learning especially given the additional distractions of an online setting as compared to attending classes on campus; 2) structure to facilitate learning as it involves building skills based on absorptive capacity that students acquire from skills learned earlier; 3) social learning to enhance trial and error learning; 4) inductive learning that may be more appropriate to online teaching as compared to deductive learning; 5) provision of structure instead of participation by the instructor may encourage self-discovery of methods to solve ill-defined problems in an online context.
Examination of glycosylated alpha 2u-globulin-containing medium for steroid-binding activity.

AbstractThe function of α2u-globulin, the major urinary protein of adult male rats, is unknown. These studies are an attempt to probe the role that glycosylated α2u-globulin may play in the binding and transport of steroid hormones. Under the conditions of the experiments reported herein, glycosylated α2u-globulin, secreted into the culture medium by primary monolayer cultures of hepatocytes, does not bind dihydrotestosterone, estradiol, or dexamethasone in vitro. These results do not preclude the possibility that α2u-globulin binds steroids in other situations or that it has high affinity for other types of molecules.
Interfaces and Composition Profiles in Metal–Sulfide Nanolayers Synthesized by Atomic Layer Deposition

The sharpness of interfaces in multilayer metal–sulfide thin films synthesized by atomic layer deposition (ALD) is virtually unexplored. Presented here are some first results that indicate metal–sulfide multilayer thin films deposited by ALD are in an entirely different regime than metal–oxides in terms of their composition profile. We propose a mixing number to characterize interfacial sharpness. The mixing number is the diffusion distance of mobile atomic species during layer deposition divided by the layer thickness in which the mobile species is diffusing. Ultrathin metal–sulfide multilayers with the structure ZnS/SnS2/Cu2S/Si substrate were synthesized by ALD because of the relevance of these binaries for formation of the photovoltaic alloy Cu2ZnSnS4 (CZTS). The composition profiles were measured by time-of-flight secondary-ion mass spectrometry (TOF SIMS) with high depth resolution, both as deposited and after annealing at different temperatures in argon. Diffuse interfaces between layers containing...
Intratracheal myriocin enhances allergen-induced Th2 inflammation and airway hyper-responsiveness.

Introduction Ceramide is the central substrate of sphingolipid metabolism and plays a key role in cellular signal transduction pathways, regulating apoptosis, differentiation, and chemotaxis. Alterations in airway ceramide levels are observed in multiple pulmonary diseases and recent human genetic association studies have linked dysregulation of sphingolipid regulatory genes with asthma pathogenesis. Methods Utilizing myriocin, a potent inhibitor of sphingolipid synthesis, we evaluated the immune regulatory role of de novo ceramide generation in vitro and in vivo. Intratracheal myriocin was administered alone or during house dust mite sensitization (HDM) of BALB/C mice and airway hyper-responsiveness (AHR) was evaluated by invasive plethysmography followed by bronchial lavage (BAL) cytology and cytokine quantification. Results Myriocin inhibits and HDM exposure activates de novo ceramide synthesis in bone marrow-derived dendritic cells. Mice receiving intratracheal myriocin developed a mild airway neutrophilic infiltrate without inducing a significant increase in AHR. CXCL1 was elevated in the BAL fluid of myriocin-treated mice while the neutrophilic chemotactic factors anaphylatoxin C5a, leukotriene B4, and IL-17 were unaffected. HDM treatment combined with myriocin led to a dramatic enhancement of AHR (63% increase over HDM alone, p < 0.001) and increased granulocyte pulmonary infiltrates versus HDM or myriocin alone. Elevated Th2 T cell counts and Th2 cytokines/chemokines (IL5, IL13, CCL17) were observed in mice treated with combined HDM/myriocin compared to HDM alone. Myriocin-treated pulmonary CD11c+ cells stimulated with HDM secreted significantly more CXCL1 than cells stimulated with HDM alone while HDM stimulated airway epithelial cells showed no change in CXCL1 secretion following myriocin treatment. Conclusions Intratracheal myriocin, likely acting via ceramide synthesis inhibition, enhances allergen-induced airway inflammation, granulocyte and Th2 lymphocyte recruitment, and allergen-induced AHR. Sphingolipid pathways may represent novel targets for possible future anti-inflammatory asthma medications.
A Nuclear Renewable Oil Shale System for Economic Dispatchable Low-Carbon Electricity and Liquid Fuels

AbstractThe authors propose the development of a Nuclear Renewable Oil Shale System (NROSS) to economically provide dispatchable electricity and liquid fossil fuels with low carbon dioxide emissions. High-capital-cost low-operating-cost nuclear, wind, and solar systems operate at full capacity. When excess electricity production causes low electricity prices, heat from the light water reactors (LWRs) and excess electricity from wind and solar systems produce shale oil.Oil shale contains kerogen, a solid organic material trapped in sedimentary shale, which upon slow heating is converted into a high-quality light crude oil. Recoverable oil in U.S. oil shale deposits exceeds conventional global oil reserves. Oil shale is preheated using heat (delivered as steam) from LWRs to about 220°C and then further heated using electricity from the LWRs and the electric grid to raise shale temperatures to ~370°C to decompose kerogen into light crude oil, natural gas, and char.The NROSS results in a zero-carbon electrici...
Integrating Pig with Harp to support iterative applications with fast cache and customized communication

Use of high-level scripting languages to solve big data problems has become a mainstream approach for sophisticated machine learning data analysis. Often data must be used in several steps of a computation to complete a full task. Composing default data transformation operators with the standard Hadoop MapReduce runtime is very convenient. However, the current strategy of using high-level languages to support iterative applications with Hadoop MapReduce relies on an external wrapper script in other languages such as Python and Groovy, which causes significant performance loss when restarting mappers and reducers between jobs. In this paper, we reduce the extra job startup overheads by integrating Apache Pig with the high-performance Hadoop plug-in Harp developed at Indiana University. This provides fast data caching and customized communication patterns among iterations for data analysis. The results show performance improvements of factors from 2 to 5.
POSSIBILITIES OF EXPERIMENTS TO MEASURE NEUTRON-ANTINEUTRON MIXING

The neutron and antineutron have quantum numbers which differ only by the baryon number. The masses are believed to be identical, but they can be separated by a magnetic field which will act in opposite ways on the neutron and antineutron magnetic moments and in ordinary matter by the differences between the neutron-nucleus potential and antineutron-nucleus potential.
Study of Reactions Producing Vibrationally-Excited Nitrogen

The use of Raman scattering to measure the production of vibrationally-excited, infrared-inactive diatomic molecules in chemical reactions is described. Examples based upon the observation of nitrogen anti-Stokes scattering are given.
The ASEAN Charter: A Commentary by W. Woon: (2015). Singapore: NUS Press. Softcover, $46.00 SGD ($34.00 USD), 296 pages

For those interested in Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) history and the laws and rules associated with it, the newly published book The ASEAN Charter: A Commentary by Professor Walte...
Design and benchmarking of ferroelectric FET based TCAM

We consider how emerging transistor technologies, specifically ferroelectric field effect transistors (or FeFETs), can realize compact and energy efficient ternary content addressable memories (TCAMs). As Moore's Law-based performance scaling trends slow, and many computational tasks of interest are now more data-centric than compute-centric, researchers are looking to improve performance/save energy by integrating efficient and compact logic/processing elements into various levels of the memory hierarchy. Potential benefits include reduced I/O traffic, energy/delay from data transfers, etc. A TCAM is an example of a logic-in-memory element that is ubiquitous in routers, caches, databases, and even neural networks. Not surprisingly, researchers continue to study how emerging technologies could lead to improved TCAMs. Recent work has considered how non-volatile (NV) memory technologies (e.g., resistive random access memory (ReRAM) or magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs)) could best be used to construct low energy, NV TCAMs. However, acceptable R on -R off ratios and the two terminal nature of these devices introduce energy and area overheads. Due to hysteresis in a device's I-V curve, an FeFET-based NV TCAM, offers low area overhead, as well as search energies and search speeds that are superior to other TCAM designs (i.e., based on MTJ, ReRAM and CMOS in array- and architectural-level evaluations.)
Concepts and Method in Social Science: The Tradition of Giovanni Sartori (Introduction)

Careful work with concepts is a cornerstone of good social science methodology. This book, Concepts and Method in Social Science, demonstrates the crucial role of concepts, drawing on both the classic contributions of Giovanni Sartori and the writing of a younger generation of scholars. Part 1 includes selections from Sartori’s writing on concepts and method. These chapters discuss concept formation, conceptual stretching, the necessary logical steps in moving from conceptualization to measurement, and relationships among meanings, terms, and observations. Part II presents work of scholars who extend the Sartori tradition, including chapters on five key concepts employed political research: revolution, culture, democracy, peasants, and institutionalization. Part III offers a broader picture of Sartori and his contributions. It includes an autobiographical essay by Sartori himself — in which he explores the role of “Chance, Luck, and Stubbornness” in his career — as well as reflections by five former students on Sartori as a teacher and mentor. The final chapter is a comprehensive bibliography of his work.
Introduction to the Mathematical Modeling of Social Relationships

Mathematics has been used to describe the assumptions and determine their consequences in the physical sciences over the last three centuries. More recently, mathematics has been used to develop a deeper understanding of complex biological phenomena and data. We are now witnessing the expansion of mathematical methods into the social sciences. In this chapter, we trace that trail of mathematics from the physical sciences, to the biological sciences, to the social sciences and review mathematical methods that provide new tools to understand social relationships.
New Ways to Look at Old Proteins

Protein chemistry has evolved in stages, and like all experimental sciences, each stage was set by fundamental innovations in methodologies. The exploration of the macromolecular structure of proteins depended on several innovative methods: the ultracentrifuge and boundary electrophoresis proved that proteins had uniform molecular mass and, charge; amino acid analysis demonstrated their unique chemical compositions. Ion exchange chromatography and gel filtration, in conjunction with the fraction collector facilitated the fractionation and isolation of pure proteins and peptides. The systematic determination of protein and peptide sequences had to await the Edman method of stepwise degradation and its subsequent automation by liquid, solid or gas phase sequencers. On another front, the development of computers facilitated the application of X-ray crystallography to the determination of the three-dimensional structure of proteins.
"Double elevator palsy" eye supraducts during stage II general anesthesia supporting hypothesis of (supra)nuclear etiology.

BACKGROUND Double Elevator Palsy (DEP) was originally given its name because the assumption was, that because the affected eye could not elevate in adduction or in abduction, there must be a paresis of both the Superior Rectus (SR) and the Inferior Oblique (IO). Later, it was thought that DEP was due to a paresis of the ipsilateral SR, since the SR is the main elevator of the eye in both adduction and abduction. Gradually, a group of observations accumulated that indicated that the SR was not paretic at all in DEP, leading to the concept that DEP is due to a unilateral deficit in a nucleus that functions to elevate one eye only, a unilateral center for upgaze. The purpose of this paper is to report a clinical case with findings that further support this last hypothesis. CASE REPORT A 15 month old girl presenting with classical signs of DEP of the left eye received a 6 mm recession of the left Inferior Rectus (IR). This was insufficient to eliminate a large chin elevation and a 9 prism diopter left hypotropia in the primary position. At the beginning of the second surgery, at which a vertical transposition of the horizontal muscles of the left eye after the technique of Knapp was planned, it was noticed during anesthesia induction that, as the child passed through stage II of the general anesthesia, both eyes briefly elevated, the DEP affected left eye (post 6 mm IR recession) more than the right. A photograph was taken to record this phenomenon. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION As of this report, there are now at least 4 distinct circumstances under which distinct elevation of eyes diagnosed with DEP have been observed. These 4 include Bell's phenomenon, Dissociated Vertical Deviation of the affected DEP eye, normal upgaze saccades recorded moving from the downgaze position into the primary position, and now elevation during Stage II of a general anesthetic induction. Further, there is no abnormal head posture (head tilt) in patients with DEP, no Bielschowsky phenomenon. All of these pieces of clinical evidence confirm that DEP is not a palsy at all. Instead, they strongly suggest that it is absence of function of a unilateral center for supraduction.
Designing Anticipatory Knowledge for Resilient and Sustainable Urban Futures

The challenge of ensuring that urban resilience agendas do not compromise sustainability and equity goals demands that our cities be capable of envisioning future pathways and anticipating trade-offs of resilience strategies and solutions. While future-thinking is a common practice in urban planning, cities will need to get more ambitious about how they factor in foresight and unintended consequences of actions at very distant temporal scales into the knowledge systems that underpin their planning and decision-making. We ask, to what extent is the knowledge coming to bear on urban resilience planning and strategies inclusive of sustainability and equity goals? What kinds of upgrades or innovations are needed to make city knowledge systems more anticipatory? We draw upon the knowledge-action systems analysis (KASA) currently implemented in multiple US and Latin America cities to explore the types and networks of knowledge shaping urban resilience in different context and how conducive they are to moving beyond risk-based knowledge systems to enhancing anticipatory capacities for cities.
Network Structures and Performance: Evidence from Post-Project Spinoff Activities of a Collaborative Public Program

Studies on networks and performance have largely focused on the direct outcomes of public projects with indifference to spinoff activities that the project recipients pursue after the completion of...
Anomaly Detection in IoT-Based PIR Occupancy Sensors to Improve Building Energy Efficiency

In this paper, we study the real-world data streams from hundreds of digital passive infrared (PIR) occupancy sensors that are integrated into LED lighting fixtures in a recent Internet-of-Things (IoT) Building Energy Management System (BEMS) deployment in a large building in California. We first develop a data-driven method to detect anomalies in these data streams. We then use the results to enhance energy efficiency in the building and also open up opportunities to offer demand response services. In addition, we provide load forecasting for the lighting load in this building using a deep neural network architecture with high accuracy. We show that our approach can result in about 30% load reduction across lighting fixtures.
Derivation and Validation of an HIV Risk Prediction Score Among Gay, Bisexual, and Other Men Who Have Sex With Men to Inform PrEP Initiation in an STD Clinic Setting.

BACKGROUND Clinicians and health departments would ideally undertake targeted efforts to promote HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and frequent HIV testing using data-based criteria to identify populations at elevated risk for HIV. We developed an HIV risk prediction score for men who have sex with men (MSM) to identify individuals at substantial risk for HIV acquisition. METHODS We created a retrospective cohort of MSM who tested HIV-negative at the sexually transmitted disease clinic in Seattle, WA, from 2001 to 2015, and identified seroconversions using HIV surveillance data. We split the cohort randomly 2:1 into derivation and validation data sets, and used Cox proportional hazards to estimate the hazard of acquiring HIV associated with behavioral and clinical predictors, and the Akaike information criterion to determine which variables to retain in our model. RESULTS Among 16,448 MSM, 640 seroconverted over a 14.3-year follow-up period. The best prediction model included 13 variables and had an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.73 (95% confidence interval: 0.71 to 0.76), 76% sensitivity, and 63% specificity at a score cutoff ≥11. A simplified model restricted to 2011-2015 included 4 predictors [methamphetamine use, condomless receptive anal intercourse (CRAI), ≥10 partners, and current diagnosis or self-reported gonorrhea/syphilis in the past year]. This model, the Seattle PrEP Score, had an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.69 (95% confidence interval: 0.64 to 0.73), 62% sensitivity, and 70% specificity. One-year incidence was 0.5% for a score of 0, 0.7% for a score of 1, and 2.1% for scores ≥2. CONCLUSIONS The Seattle PrEP Score was predictive of HIV acquisition and could help clinicians and public health agencies identify MSM who could benefit from PrEP and frequent HIV testing.
Transfusion reactions in pediatric and adolescent young adult haematology oncology and immune effector cell patients

Abstract Background Active surveillance for transfusion reactions is critically important among pediatric patients undergoing chemotherapy. Among pediatric-adolescent-young-adult (AYA) hematology/oncology patients, who have been typically excluded from transfusion reaction studies, this profile remains poorly characterized. Methods We assessed the incidence and clinical characteristics of transfusion reactions (n = 3246 transfusions) in this population (n = 201 patients) at our center. Findings The incidence of adjudicated transfusion reactions was 2·04%. The incidence was higher for platelet (2·78%) compared to packed red blood cell transfusions (1·49%) (p = 0·0149). The majority (61·4%) of all reactions were classified as febrile non-haemolytic transfusion, while 35·7% were considered allergic, and 2·9% were classified as transfusion-associated circulatory overload. The incidence of transfusion reactions in patients who were pre-medicated was higher (2·51%) than in patients who were not (1·52%) (p = 0·0406). Sub-set analysis revealed a 3·95% incidence of adjudicated transfusion reactions among recipients of immune effector cells (IECs) (n = 3), all of which occurred during the potential window for cytokine release syndrome; two-thirds of these reactions were severe/potentially life-threatening. Interpretation The incidence of transfusion reactions among pediatric-AYA hematology/oncology patients may be lower than the general pediatric population. Patients with a prior history of transfusion reactions and those receiving platelet transfusions may be at higher risk for reaction. From our limited sample, IEC recipients may be at risk for severe transfusion reactions. Large multi-center prospective studies are needed to characterize transfusion reactions in this population. Appropriate characterization of reactions in this population may inform risk stratification and mitigate missed opportunities for prompt recognition and appropriate management. Funding None.
Predictors of Intracranial Hemorrhage in Patients Treated with Catheter Directed Thrombolysis for Deep Vein Thrombosis

Abstract Background Although acute intracranial hemorrhage (ICH) is a rare complication of catheter-directed thrombolysis (CDT), it remains a major concern associated with the use of CDT. The incidence and clinical predictors of developing ICH in the setting of CDT are not known. Methods The National Inpatient Sample database was used to identify all patients with proximal lower extremity or caval deep vein thrombosis (DVT) from January 2005 to December 2013 in the United States. Multivariate logistic regression was performed to identify the clinical predictors of ICH between patients with DVT who had received anticoagulation therapy alone and those who had been treated with CDT plus anticoagulation therapy. Results Of 138,049 patients with proximal lower extremity or caval DVT, 7119 (5.2%) had received anticoagulation therapy and CDT. Of the patients treated with anticoagulation alone, ICH had occurred in 0.2% compared with 0.7% for those treated with CDT (P 74 years (OR, 2.2; 95% CI, 1.2-4.3; P = .02), male sex (OR, 1.8; 95% CI, 1.01-3.3; P = .048). Of those patients treated with anticoagulation alone, the risk factors for the development of ICH were a history of stroke, hospital teaching status, and age >74 years. Conclusions The results from the present nationwide observational study showed that of patients with DVT treated with CDT, the independent predictors for developing ICH were a history of stroke, chronic kidney disease, male sex, and age >74 years.
Evaluation of mix design volumetrics and cracking potential of foamed Warm Mix Asphalt (WMA) containing Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement (RAP)

In this study, the mix design volumetrics and cracking potential of foamed Warm Mix Asphalt (WMA) containing various amounts of Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement (RAP) were evaluated. It was found that th...
Scope of the Second Amendment Right – Post-Heller Standard of Review

This article addresses an important issue not decided by the Court in Heller, i.e., the size or scope of the Second Amendment right identified in that case. Heller is a victory for those opposed to gun control legislation, but it could turn out to be a limited victory, depending on the standard of review adopted to decide Second Amendment challenges to gun control laws. I argue the Court should adopt a heightened rational basis standard that rewards an enlightened legislative process and gives deference to the laws that result from this process. Gun control laws serve an important governmental function, promoting safety, and there should be no presumption of either validity or invalidity. Rather, such laws should be judged on their individual merit, taking into account the extent of the problem in the jurisdiction and the match or fit between the problem and the method selected to address the problem. Legislative bodies that make a good faith effort to achieve their safety goals without unduly burdening the self-defense-related right identified in Heller are entitled to deference.
Validity and reliability of Finnish version of WHOQOL-Bref on adult population in Finland

The aim of this paper is to determine the WHOQOL–Bref population norms and describe the psychometric properties of the Finnish WHOQOL–Bref in relation to construct validity, discriminatory power and internal consistency in the general population. The data is from the Finnish HYPA survey, which combines telephone and personal visits interviews. Telephone interviews and posted questionnaires and register–based data were used for 18–79 year olds and face to face interviews with register data at age group over 79 years olds. The Cronbachs alpha, confirmatory factor and regression analysis show that the internal consistency and validity of the two general questions, and physical and psychological domain to be sufficient for research and QoL measurement purposes. The internal consistency of the domains in the sample for the physical, psychological, social relationships and environmental domains were 0.83; 0.78; 0.69; 0.67 respectively measured by alpha. The internal consistency for total scale was 0.89 which was near excellent (> 0.90).
Acute Kidney Injury Secondary to Rhabdomyolysis and COVID-19: A Case Report and Literature Review

The viral infection causing COVID-19 most notably affects the respiratory system but can result in extrapulmonary clinical manifestations as well. Rhabdomyolysis-associated acute kidney injury (AKI) in the setting of COVID-19 is an uncommon complication of the infection. There is significant interest in this viral infection given its global spread, ease of transmission, and varied clinical manifestations and outcomes. This case report and literature review describes the symptoms, laboratory findings, and clinical course of a patient who developed AKI secondary to rhabdomyolysis and COVID-19, which will help clinicians recognize and treat this condition.
Pore Water Pressures in Unsaturated Soils

A specially designed pressure plate apparatus was used to measure the residual negative pore water pressures in compacted samples of five different clays. Samples were prepared using both static and kneading compaction. Pore water pressures at the optimum water contents varied from –4 psi to –80 psi depending on the specific surface of the soil. Pore water pressures as negative as -250 psi were measured in samples compacted only 6% dry of the optimum water content. Theoretical analysis indicated that the actual pore water pressures in unsaturated soils are unlikely to become more negative than approximately –14 psi although theoretical studies in terms of vapor pressures indicate pore water pressures as negative as –140,000 psi. It was demonstrated that the actual pore water pressures in homogeneous clays at equilibrium vary between wide limits and cannot be measured with any known technique. The requirement for equilibrium of the pore water is constant head, not constant pressure; the measured pore water pressures are those in the measuring system that are applied to reduce the head in the measuring system to the head of the pore water in the soil.
Dispositional and situational sources of control: Relative impact on work‐family conflict and positive spillover

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess the relative influence of personality (locus of control) and situational control (job autonomy) on the experience of work‐to‐family conflict (WFC), family‐to‐work conflict (FWC), and positive work‐family spillover (PS).Design/methodology/approach – Using data from the 2002 National Study of the Changing Workforce (n=3,504) and from O*Net, an independent database of occupational characteristic ratings, regression analysis was used to test direct effects, relative weights analysis was used to determine the relative influence of locus of control and job autonomy on work‐family outcomes, and mediation analysis was used to examine the mediating influence of perceived job autonomy.Findings – Dispositional control (i.e. internal locus of control) was more strongly associated with the outcome variables than was situational control (i.e. objective job autonomy). As expected, internal locus of control was negatively related to WFC and FWC, and positively related to P...
On the Structure of Secret Key Exchange Protocols

Modern cryptography is fundamentally concerned with the problem of secure private communication. Suppose two parties, Alice and Bob, wish to communicate privately over a public channel (for instance, a telephone line with an eavesdropper). If Alice and Bob are able to meet, privately, beforehand, and agree on some common secret key, then it becomes easy for them to achieve such private communication. But Alice and Bob might not be able to first meet in private and agree on a key. In this case, we ask under what assumptions they can still agree on a common secret key, where their conversation is conducted entirely in public.
Preclinical models relevant to diet, exercise, and cancer risk.

Metabolic syndrome was initially described as an aggregation of risk factors for the development of coronary artery disease with insulin resistance and compensatory hyperinsulinemia as the underlying factor. In an earlier review, we suggested that hyperinsulinemia may also lead to prostate cancer (PCa), the most common male cancer in industrialized nations. Furthermore, we suggested that diet and exercise, known to be important in the development of insulin resistance, may also be important in the development of PCa. When we placed men from the United States on a low-fat diet and/or exercise program, serum levels of insulin, free testosterone, estradiol and insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-1 were reduced while sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) and insulin like growth factor binding protein (IGFBP)-1 were elevated. These in vivo serum changes directly impacted on androgen-dependent prostate cancer cell lines in vitro to reduce cell growth and induce apoptosis. The reduction in serum IGF-1 and increase in IGFBP-1 with diet and exercise appear to be the most significant, as these changes lead to an increase in tumor cell p53 protein and its down-stream effector p21, which are responsible for the reduction in cell growth and induced apoptosis. Preliminary results from a clinical study with men on “watchful waiting” indicate that the observed in vitro effects of diet and exercise on prostate cancer cell growth also occur in vivo.
A New Responsive Model for Educational Programs for Industry: The University of Detroit Mercy Advanced Electric Vehicle Graduate Certificate Program

Today's automotive and electronics technologies are evolving so rapidly that educators and industry are both challenged to re-educate the technological workforce in the new area before they are replaced with yet another generation. In early November 2009 Ford's Product Development senior management formally approved a proposal by the University of Detroit Mercy to transform 125 of Ford's “IC Engine Automotive Engineers” into “Advanced Electric Vehicle Automotive Engineers.” Two months later, the first course of the Advanced Electric Vehicle Program began in Dearborn. UDM's response to Ford's needs (and those of other OEM's and suppliers) was not only at the rate of “academic light speed,” but it involved direct collaboration of Ford's electric vehicle leaders and subject matter experts and the UDM AEV Program faculty. In fact, before teaching each course, the UDM engineering and science professors will work for one or two months in the Ford engineering group that is directly involved in the design and development of the systems that the course focuses on (batteries, e-drive systems, power electronics, etc). The prime architects of this process and curriculum include the UDM dean, associate dean and faculty of engineering and science from UDM, and Ford Learning & Development managers and Product Development leaders from Sustainable Mobility Technologies and Research & Advanced organizations. Such a rapid and highly responsive curriculum development is not the norm in academia. To accomplish this outcome UDM had to be more customer-focused like industry and Ford needed to embrace academic priorities and provide access to its electric vehicle SME's by UDM faculty. The paper will discuss the following related issues: building the relationship and trust between Ford and UDM; collaborative development; “just in time” development and deployment of curriculum; shared investment; modularizing education (it doesn't always have to be in “degree-sized chunks”), linking suppliers and OEMs; balancing service to corporations and service to students.
Photovoice as a Pedagogical Tool in the Community Psychology Classroom

Constructivist perspectives contend that individuals actively extract and make meaning from the world around them. In the classroom this means that students are not passive recipients or repositories for our theories and empirical findings; instead, they actively redefine and relate to (or not) the concepts presented. To simultaneously stimulate and build on this process, I adopted Photovoice as a pedagogical tool to situate students as observers of their own community and create space for them to engage in participatory, community-focused meaning making activities. By employing strategically crafted framing questions, students generated Photovoice data that served as a powerful jumping off point for discussing key community psychology concepts. In addition, the Photovoice process provided students the opportunity to directly experience a participatory research process as well as engage in basic qualitative data analysis. This article presents the general process my class undertook as well as qualitative feedback from students.
Light traffic for workload in queues

General exact light traffic limit theorems are given for the distribution of steadystate workloadV, in open queueing networks having as input a general stationary ergodic marked point process {(t n ,K n )n≥0 (where tn denotes the arrival time and Kn the routing and service times of the nth customer). No independence assumptions of any kind are required of the input. As the light traffic regime, it is only required that the Palm distribution for the exogenous interarrival time converges weakly to infinity (while the service mechanism is not allowed to change much). As is already known in the context of a single-server queue, work is much easier to deal with mathematically in light traffic than is customer delayD, and consequently, our results are far more general than existing results forD. We obtain analogous results for multi-channel and infinite-channel queues. In the context of open queueing networks, we handle both the total workload in the network as well as the workload at isolated nodes.
Expectancy theory and operant conditioning predictions of performance under variable ratio and continuous schedules of reinforcement

Abstract Directionally different predictions were derived from operant conditioning and expectancy theory, and were tested in a 3 × 5 split-plot repeated measures design. Fifteen female subjects were randomly assigned to three schedule and magnitude of reinforcement conditions (25¢-CRF; 25¢-VR-2; 50¢-VR-2). Expectancy theory constructs also were measured at several points during the experiment. Neither model was clearly superior. When additional pay was contingent upon performance, performance increased significantly. However, response levels and response rates were not significantly different between the three experimental groups. Composite scores derived from an additive expectancy model accounted for significant additional increments in explained variance after controlling for baseline performance and schedule of reinforcement. These results were interpreted as indicating a need to include both environmental and perceptual variables in accounts of work behavior.
Color image segmentation—an innovative approach

In this paper we describe a color image segmentation system that performs color clustering in a color space and then color region segmentation in the image domain. For color segmentation, we developed a fuzzy clustering algorithm that iteratively generates color clusters using a uniquely defined fuzzy membership function and an objective function for clustering optimization. The fuzzy membership function represents belief value of a color belonging to a color cluster and the mutual interference of neighboring clusters. The region segmentation algorithm merges clusters in the image domain based on color similarity and spatial adjacency. We developed three different methods for merging regions in the image domain. Unlike many existing clustering algorithms, the image segmentation system does not require the knowledge about the number of the color clusters to be generated at each stage and the resolution of the color regions can be controlled by one single parameter, the radius of a cluster. The color image segmentation system has been implemented and tested on a variety of color images including satellite images, car and face images. The experiment results are presented and the performance of each algorithm in the segmentation system is analyzed. The system has shown to be both effective and efficient.
College Students’ Conceptions of Stem Cells, Stem Cell Research, and Cloning

In this study, we examined 96 undergraduate non-science majors’ conceptions of stem cells, stem cell research, and cloning. This study was performed at a large, Midwest, research extensive university. Participants in the study were asked to answer 23 questions relating to stem cells, stem cell research, and cloning in an on-line assessment before and after instruction. Two goals of the instruction were to: (1) help students construct accurate scientific ideas, and (2) enhance their reasoning about socioscientific issues. The course structure included interactive lectures, case discussions, hands-on activities, and independent projects. Overall, students’ understandings of stem cells, stem cell research, and cloning increased from pre-test to post-test. For example, on the post-test, students gained knowledge concerning the age of an organism related to the type of stem cell it possesses. However, we found that some incorrect ideas that were evident on the pre-test persisted after instruction. For example, before and after instruction several students maintained the idea that stem cells can currently be used to produce organs.
Magnetophoresis and cytometry with magnetic microparticles

Abstract We are developing a bioassay technique utilizing superparamagnetic and ferromagnetic microparticles, with the aim of using these in biological labeling. The technique uses two independent pieces of instrumentation; a magnetophoresis instrument and a magnetic flow cytometer. The former consists of a microfluidic sorting chamber that incorporates standard flow techniques and a permanent magnet. The particles are deflected into different outlet collection bins, with the degree of deflection determined by the particle's magnetic moment. We report on microparticle sorting and discuss the hydrodynamics of the chamber in relation to reproducibility. Once the microparticles have been sorted, the different populations will then be sequentially analyzed both optically and magnetically (while in flow). The magnetic analysis is presently performed with the aid of a LN 2 -cooled high temperature superconducting quantum interference device (HTS SQUID) array. We are currently also evaluating the use of giant magnetoresistive (GMR) sensors. In this paper we will discuss the sorting and resorting of microparticles and present preliminary results for the magnetic detection of the microparticles both with HTS SQUID and GMR sensors.
Nodal Network Simulation of Transient Temperature Fields from Cooling Sources in Anesthetized Brain

Transient thermal gradients in the brains of anesthetized cats and rabbits due to localized cooling to 5°C with probes of two different shapes were modeled successfully to within 0.5°C by a computer program utilizing a finite difference method and thermal coefficients of water, without addition of a term for metabolic heat or blood flow. Input data to the program required temperature measurements in the brain away from the probe, although in the cylindrical case it was possible to use the probe temperature as the forcing function by assuming that the probe had a larger diameter than was actually the case. The results indicate that for the experimental conditions, metabolic heat and blood flow can be adequately accounted for by means of a rather small adjustment of the thermal diffusivity term in a general diffusion equation, without need of an explicit term for such distributed sources.
Cochaperone Binding to LYR Motifs Confers Specificity of Iron Sulfur Cluster Delivery

Iron sulfur (Fe-S) clusters, preassembled on the ISCU scaffold, are transferred to target proteins or to intermediate scaffolds by a dedicated chaperone-cochaperone system. However, the molecular mechanisms that underlie substrate discrimination and guide delivery of nascent clusters to specific subsets of Fe-S recipients are poorly understood. Here, we identified interacting partners of the cochaperone HSC20 and discovered that LYR motifs are molecular signatures of specific recipient Fe-S proteins or accessory factors that assist Fe-S cluster delivery. In succinate dehydrogenase B, two LYR motifs engage the ISCU-HSC20-HSPA9 complex to aid incorporation of three Fe-S clusters within the final structure of complex II. Moreover, we show that members of the LYR motif family which assist assembly of complexes II or III, SDHAF1 and LYRM7, respectively, are HSC20 binding partners. Our studies unveil a network of interactions between HSC20 and LYR motif-containing proteins that are key to the assembly and function of complexes I, II, and III.
Repackaging the introductory course to separate the control language

The introductory course in computer science usually covers a mixture of topics. It generally includes an introduction to algorithms and problem solving, use of a particular programming language, basic concepts about computer systems, and use of the local computer system. This paper describes an organization of the introductory course, suitable for an interactive environment, which locates the control language coverage, which is dependent on the local computer system, in a separate course.The separation has two major advantages. It eases the transition for students entering with some previous course work or experience using a different computer system. And it enables the control language to be covered in enough detail so that students can become proficient in the basic commands even under the time pressures of a quarter system.
Field Data and Numerical Modeling of Water Balance of Lysimeter versus Actual Earthen Cap

AbstractTo evaluate the differences in the hydrological performance of actual earthen cap overlying municipal solid waste (MSW) versus a lysimeter, which is commonly used to measure the hydrologic water balance, a field-scale test section (30×20×2 m) of an earthen cap made up of compacted native glacial clay was constructed and instrumented at a landfill near Detroit. A lysimeter pan was installed within the middle of the test section, and the instrumented area of the test section was expanded upslope and downslope of the lysimeter to monitor water balance parameters within and beyond the lysimeter footprint, in order to evaluate the effect of artificial drainage boundary introduced by the lysimeter. About 50 sensors were installed to monitor meteorological parameters, water content, water potentials, soil temperatures, water levels, gas pressures, percolation, and subsurface lateral flow. The water balance model called Unsaturated Soil Water and Heat Flow Model (UNSAT-H) was used to simulate the water b...