cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Southern California Edison: Renewable Energy

SCE has been researching and investing in renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, geothermal, and hydropower since the 1970s. This commitment to renewables stemmed from federal and state regulations aimed at reducing air pollution and—more recently—greenhouse gas emissions as well as the need to meet the growing capacity requirements of California’s population, which has grown steadily for decades. SCE sees competitive pressures, new technologies, and aggressive environmental policies where the energy sector is expected to contribute significantly to the reduction of greenhouse gases as prominent drivers of industry change in the coming years. The company will continue to adapt its business strategy to navigate through these changes, leveraging its experience and skill in pioneering new technologies to re-envision a flexible, resilient grid that enables customer choice and clean, sustainable energy.
George H.W. Bush: Interventionism Unbound

The author states that the Persian Gulf War defines Bush’s presidency in an engagement cycle. Saddam Hussein’s invasion into Kuwait forced Bush to mount an impressive multinational diplomatic and military coalition against Iraq. The Desert Storm operation went well with the use of Nintendo-type arms. Complying with the United Nations resolutions, Washington ejected Hussein’s army; it did not invade Iraq or topple its dictator. Bush let stand a large US military presence in the Gulf, set up no-fly zones in Iraq, and regularly bombed ground targets. He left the United States a major player in the Middle East. Before departing office, Bush intervened into Somalia for humanitarian reasons to feed a destitute population. But he refused to be drawn into the bleeding Balkan wars.
Multi-group and hierarchical confirmatory factor analysis of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children—Fifth edition: What does it measure?

Abstract The purpose of this research was to test the consistency in measurement of Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Fifth Edition (WISC-V; Wechsler, 2014) constructs across the 6 through 16 age span and to understand the constructs measured by the WISC-V. First-order, higher-order, and bifactor confirmatory factor models were used. Results were compared with two recent studies using higher-order and bifactor exploratory factor analysis (Canivez, Watkins, & Dombrowski, 2015; Dombrowski, Canivez, Watkins, & Beaujean, 2015) and two using confirmatory factor analysis (Canivez, Watkins, & Dombrowski, 2016; Chen, Zhang, Raiford, Zhu, & Weiss, 2015). We found evidence of age-invariance for the constructs measured by the WISC-V. Further, both g and five distinct broad abilities (Verbal Comprehension, Visual Spatial Ability, Fluid Reasoning, Working Memory, and Processing Speed) were needed to explain the covariances among WISC-V subtests, although Fluid Reasoning was nearly equivalent to g. These findings were consistent whether a higher-order or a bifactor hierarchical model was used, but they were somewhat inconsistent with factor analyses from the prior studies. We found a correlation between Fluid Reasoning and Visual Spatial factors beyond a general factor (g) and that Arithmetic was primarily a direct indicator of g. Composite scores from the WISC-V correlated well with their corresponding underlying factors. For those concerned about the fewer numbers of subtests in the Full Scale IQ, the model implied relation between g and the FSIQ was very strong.
Platelets: killers of parasites or patients?

In this issue of Blood, Gramaglia et al1 have provided valuable data on whether platelets are protective in malaria infection by directly killing Plasmodium parasites, or deleterious by driving adverse immune responses. Platelets are the cellular mediators of thrombosis. Although this is a very important biologic role, platelets are also the most numerous circulating cell with an inflammatory and immune modulatory function. The first, and still the best understood, disease context for platelet-driven inflammation is atherosclerosis. More recently, platelets have been shown to have important, largely adverse roles, in infectious disease processes such as sepsis, bacterial infections, viral infections, and parasitic infections, including infections with the malaria causative agent Plasmodium. With an increased appreciation for the immune and inflammatory functions of platelets in many diseases, there have been an increased number of studies, including study into platelets in malaria infection. There have been conflicting conclusions on whether platelets are “good or bad” players in malaria infection. Although there is a broad sense that platelets are proinflammatory and initiate or accelerate immune cell responses to infection in general, some reports have indicated a potential direct anti-Plasmodium parasite-killing role for platelets (see figure). This paper by Gramaglia et al provides a further understanding of whether platelets directly kill Plasmodium parasites, and if they do, does it actually limit the in vivo parasite burden.
Modeling contagion in policy systems

Abstract Scholars of the policy process offer compelling explanations for patterns in the aggregate-level attention of policymakers. Yet, we have little systematic understanding of the day-to-day behavior of these individuals. Why does a given policymaker, on a given day, decide to focus on one pressing issue while ignoring many others? I approach this question from a cognitive systems perspective and argue that policymakers are highly interdependent actors who are subject to cognitive limits and have incentives to closely monitor the political environment. These tendencies contribute to the emergence of widespread herd behavior in their individual attention to policy issues, a phenomenon I conceptualize as ‘issue contagion.’ I then utilize the methods of computational social science to build an agent-based simulation model of policymakers’ issue attention over time. I also outline three empirical expectations regarding the density of communication ties between actors, the presence of segmented groups (e.g. political parties and coalitions), and the rate at which actors take cues from one another. Through a series of sensitivity tests, I document the internal validity of the model and show that incremental changes in network density, segmentation, and cue-taking all generate clear and visible trends in the frequency of issue contagion events.
Long‐Term Afterslip of the 2004 M 6.0 Parkfield, California, Earthquake—Implications for Forecasting Amount and Duration of Afterslip on Other Major Creeping Faults

Abstract We present the longest record of surface afterslip on a continental strike‐slip fault for the 2004 M 6.0 Parkfield, California, earthquake, from which we can derive critical information about the duration and predictability of afterslip relevant to urban displacement hazard applications. Surface slip associated with this event occurred entirely postseismically along the interseismically creeping (0.6–1.5 cm/yr) main trace of the San Andreas fault. Using the first year of afterslip data, the program AFTER correctly predicted the cumulative surface afterslip (maximum ∼35 cm) eventually attained. By 1 yr postearthquake, observed afterslip had accumulated to only ∼74% of its modeled final value u f in units of length. The 6‐yr data suggested final slip would be reached everywhere by ∼6–12 yrs. Parkfield’s afterslip lasted much longer (∼6–12 yrs) than afterslip following a 2014 M 6.0 event in Napa, California, where no interseismic creep was known, and its afterslip neared completion (∼97% of u f ) by 1 yr. The uncertainty in u f for the Napa event fell to ≤2 cm in only three months, versus in 2 yrs for the Parkfield event, mostly because duration of the power‐law stage of afterslip at Parkfield is much longer, ∼1000 (493–1666) days versus ∼100 (35–421) days for Napa. Because the urban Hayward fault near San Francisco, California, like the Parkfield section, exhibits interseismic creep in a similar geological regime, significant afterslip might last for up to a decade following an anticipated M ≥6.7 earthquake, potentially delaying postearthquake recovery. Electronic Supplement: Tables of afterslip observations and coefficients for computing afterslip.
Associations of mobile source air pollution during the first year of life with childhood pneumonia, bronchiolitis, and otitis media.

Background:Exposure to air pollution from motor vehicles in early life may increase susceptibility to common pediatric infections.Methods:We estimated associations between residential exposure to primary fine particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, and carbon monoxide from traffic during the first year
Classical and 3D QSAR studies of larvicidal monoterpenes against Aedes aegypti: new molecular insights for the rational design of more active compounds

Monoterpenes are compounds found on essential oils of diverse plants, with biological activities such as repellent, insecticidal and larvicidal against some organism and microorganism species. Dengue, Chikungunya, and Zika are important public health problems caused by viruses, which are transmitted by the bite of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. One of the most common strategies to combat these diseases is the control of the vector proliferation, by physical and chemical methods. Thus, the design, synthesis, and test of the compounds with larvicidal profile have emerged as an important research line. In this paper, we present the use of computational approaches to provide robust, predictive, and conveniently interpretable quantitative structure-activity relationships models, involving a series of 55 monoterpenes and structurally related compounds, which presented larvicidal activity against females of Aedes aegypti, expressed by IC50. Through the proposition and analysis of 2D and 3D molecular descriptors, consistent and easily understood molecular bases about larvicidal activity are provided, for the proposition of new molecules with more active profile. Theoretical geometry optimization of the 55 compounds was performed using the PM6 semiempirical Hamiltonian, followed by B3LYP/6-31+G(d) level of theory, using Gaussian 09W® package. A set of classical descriptors was obtained from Dragon® software for each compound and submitted to a variable selection procedure, using the Ordered Predictors Selector (OPS) algorithm, considering larvicidal (pIC50) activities previously reported. Then, a 3D quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) investigation was performed by Open3DQSAR program, using the same values of activity, for the investigation of sterical and electrostatic molecular fields. For classical QSAR, five descriptors were selected as the most important, providing a robust and predictive QSAR model via multiple linear regression (MLR). In addition, a good 3D-QSAR model was found, with a clear interpretation of the physical sense of the fields, according to the classical model. Molecules with more elongated structures contain a six-membered ring with 1,4 substitution pattern, highest lipophilicity, less volume on a central moiety, and lateral hydrophobic chain at six-membered ring, tend to be more actives.
Channel State Information Prediction for 5G Wireless Communications: A Deep Learning Approach

Channel state information (CSI) estimation is one of the most fundamental problems in wireless communication systems. Various methods, so far, have been developed to conduct CSI estimation. However, they usually require high computational complexity, which makes them unsuitable for 5G wireless communications due to employing many new techniques (e.g., massive MIMO, OFDM, and millimeter-Wave (mmWave)). In this paper, we propose an efficient online CSI prediction scheme, called OCEAN, for predicting CSI from historical data in 5G wireless communication systems. Specifically, we first identify several important features affecting the CSI of a radio link and a data sample consists of the information of the features and the CSI. We then design a learning framework that is an integration of a CNN (convolutional neural network) and a long short term with memory (LSTM) network. We also further develop an offline-online two-step training mechanism, enabling the prediction results to be more stable when applying it to practical 5G wireless communication systems. To validate OCEAN's efficacy, we consider four typical case studies, and conduct extensive experiments in the four scenarios, i.e., two outdoor and two indoor scenarios. The experiment results show that OCEAN not only obtains the predicted CSI values very quickly but also achieves highly accurate CSI prediction with up to 2.650-3.457 percent average difference ratio (ADR) between the predicted and measured CSI.
B(H)-Commutators: A Historical Survey

This is a historical survey that includes a progress report on the 1971 seminal paper of Pearcy and Topping and 32 years of subsequent investigations by a number of researchers culminating in a completely general characterization, for arbitrary ideal pairs, of their commutator ideal in terms of arithmetic means.
Formal Verification of n-bit ALU Using Theorem Proving

Automatic verification techniques, like automated theorem proving and model checking, cannot analyze large circuits due to the heavy requirements of memory and computational power. On the other hand, we can verify generic circuits, with universally quantified variables, using interactive theorem provers and thus overcome the above-mentioned limitations but at the cost of significant user guidance in the proof process. To facilitate this process and thus reduce the user involvement in the proofs, we recently proposed a higher-order-logic formalization of all the commonly used combinational circuits, like basic gates, adders, multiplier, multiplexers, demultiplexers, decoders and encoders, using the HOL4 theorem prover. In this project’s paper, we describe this formally verified library and illustrate its utilization by verifying an n-bit arithmetic logic unit (ALU).
Pricing Strategy for GM Food: Impact of Consumer Attitude Heterogeneity and GMO Food Labelling

We consider how a marketer of a GM food product should price it in response to the requirement of GMO food label in the near future and its effect on consumers’ heterogenous attitude. We examine how the GM food pricing is affected by different consumer attitudes toward GM-food (Like, Uninformed, and Dislike), the GMO food labelling to be enforced, and price competition. On the one hand, the GM food seller should expect to raise price after the GMO food labelling to cover the additional cost incurred on labelling. On the other hand, the seller may need to reduce price after labelling as the Uninformed consumers’ attitude may change and become negative once the labelling is available. The tradeoff of these two effects yields interesting results. For example, we find that a monopolist GM food seller may choose to charge a high price, i.e., charge a premium for the GM-traits, and maintain at this price even after the labelling is enforced. Managerial implications and future research directions are discussed.
Affordable Housing and Its Residents Are Not Pollutants

Wassmer and Wahid (2019) set out to examine the relationship between affordable housing and property values to determine whether not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) sentiments toward affordable housing are ...
Oral sazetidine-A, a selective α4β2* nicotinic receptor desensitizing agent, reduces nicotine self-administration in rats.

Abstract Sazetidine-A selectively desensitizes α4β2 nicotinic receptors and also has partial agonist effects. We have shown that subcutaneous acute and repeated injections as well as chronic infusions of sazetidine-A significantly reduce intravenous (IV) nicotine self-administration in rats. To further investigate the promise of sazetidine-A as a smoking cessation aid, it is important to determine sazetidine-A effects with oral administration and the time-effect function for its action on nicotine self-administration. Young adult female Sprague-Dawley rats were trained to self-administer IV nicotine at the benchmark dose of 0.03 mg/kg/infusion dose in an operant FR1 schedule in 45-min sessions. After five sessions of training, they were tested for the effects of acute oral doses of sazetidine-A (0, 0.3, 1 and 3 mg/kg) given 30 min before testing. To determine the time-effect function, these rats were administered 0 or 3 mg/kg of sazetidine-A 1, 2, 4 or 23 h before the onset of testing. Our previous study showed that with subcutaneous injections, only 3 mg/kg of sazetidine-A significantly reduced nicotine self-administration, however, with oral administration of sazetidine-A lower dose of 1 mg/kg was also effective in reducing nicotine intake. A similar effect was seen in the time-effect study with 3 mg/kg of oral sazetidine-A causing a significant reduction in nicotine self-administration across all the time points of 1, 2, 4 or 23 h after oral administration. These results advance the development of sazetidine-A as a possible aid for smoking cessation by showing effectiveness with oral administration and persistence of the effect over the course of a day.
Designing and Experimentally Testing a Magnetic Gearbox for a Wind Turbine Demonstrator

The design of the first stage of a 59:1 multistage magnetic gearbox for a wind turbine demonstrator is presented. The multistage magnetic gearbox (MSMG) is composed of a two stage magnetic gearbox (MG). The first stage of the MSMG has a gear ratio of 6:45. A spoke type MG rotor typology is used with a unique segmented fully laminated rotor structure. Axially segmented magnets and a unique set of radial deflection rotor support rings are utilized. Design issues with respect to losses and torque ripple are highlighted.
Isolated neutropenia as a rare but serious adverse event secondary to immune checkpoint inhibition

Compared to conventional chemotherapy, Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) are known to have a distinct toxicity profile commonly identified as immune-related adverse events (irAEs). These irAEs that are believed to be related to immune dysregulations triggered by ICI can be serious and lead to treatment interruptions and in severe cases, precipitate permanent discontinuation. Isolated neutropenia secondary to ICI has been rarely documented in the literature and needs further description. We report a case of pembrolizumab related severe isolated neutropenia in a patient with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer. We were also able to obtain serial blood and plasma-based biomarkers for this patient during treatment and during neutropenia to understand trends that may correlate with the irAE. In addition we summarize important findings from other studies reporting on ICI related neutropenia. A 74 years old Caucasian male treated with single-agent pembrolizumab for metastatic non-small cell lung cancer presented with fevers, chills, and an isolated neutrophil count (ANC) of 0 2 weeks after the fourth dose. In addition to antibiotics, due to the strong suspicion of this neutropenia being immune-mediated, he was started on 1 mg/kg of steroids and also received filgrastim to accelerate neutrophil recovery. Serial trends in C-reactive protein and certain other inflammatory cytokines demonstrated a corresponding rise at the time of neutropenia. Post recovery, his pembrolizumab was kept on hold. Eight weeks later he had a second episode of neutropenia which was again managed similar to the first episode. Despite permanent discontinuation of ICI after the first neutropenia, his disease showed an ongoing complete metabolic response on imaging. Our literature review reveals that hematological toxicities constitute < 1% irAEs with isolated neutropenia roughly accounting for one-fourth of the hematological irAEs. Based on the handful of ICI related neutropenia cases reported to date, we identified nivolumab to be the most common offender. The median number of ICI cycles administered before presenting with neutropenia was three, and the median time to recovery was approximately two weeks. All of these neutropenic episodes were ≥ grade 3 and led to permanent ICI discontinuation. Using immunosuppressive therapies in conjunction with granulocyte-colony stimulating factor was the most common strategy described to have favorable results. Neutropenia as an isolated irAE secondary to ICI is rare but represents a severe toxicity that needs early recognition and can often result in treatment discontinuations. Careful monitoring of these patients with the prompt initiation of immunosuppressive and supportive measures to promote rapid recovery as well as prevent and treat infectious complications should be part of the management algorithms. Serial monitoring of blood and plasma-based biomarkers from more extensive studies may help in identifying patients at risk for irAEs and thus guide patient selection for ICI.
Optimal Electric Stimulus Amplitude Improves the Selectivity Between Responses of ON Versus OFF Types of Retinal Ganglion Cells

Outer retinal degenerative diseases destroy photoreceptors primarily in the retina, resulting in a profound vision loss. Fortunately, surviving retinal neurons can be electrically stimulated using retinal prostheses to re-transmit visual information. Although retinal prostheses are promising for sight restoration, the best performance is still sub-optimal. For the enhanced performance, it is critical to optimize stimulation parameters. This study explored how stimulus charge and current amplitude alters responses of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs). From the isolated mouse retina, spiking activities of alpha ON, OFF sustained, and OFF transient RGCs were recorded in response to epiretinally-delivered cathodal current pulses ranging from −10 to $- 80~\mu \text{A}$ . We have found that intermediate current amplitudes (−30 and $- 40~\mu \text{A}$ ) maximize the response ratio of ON over OFF types. Also, the ON/OFF response ratio was always bigger for 10-ms-long than 5-ms-long stimuli. It was because, by the longer pulses, ON RGC responses were always significantly enhanced ( ${p} ) while OFF RGC responses were minimally changed ( ${p} >0.05$ ). Given the earlier work reporting electrically-elicited responses are more natural in ON than OFF RGCs, the present study suggests effect strategies of more selective activation of ON RGCs for improved efficacy of retinal implant.
Beyond duty hours: leveraging large-scale paging data to monitor resident workload.

Monitoring and managing resident workload is a cornerstone of policy in graduate medical education, and the duty hours metric is the backbone of current regulations. While the duty hours metric measures hours worked, it does not capture differences in intensity of work completed during those hours, which may independently contribute to fatigue and burnout. Few such metrics exist. Digital data streams generated during the usual course of hospital operations can serve as a novel source of insight into workload intensity by providing high-resolution, minute-by-minute data at the individual level; however, study and use of these data streams for workload monitoring has been limited to date. Paging data is one such data stream. In this work, we analyze over 500,000 pages—two full years of pages in an academic internal medicine residency program—to characterize paging patterns among housestaff. We demonstrate technical feasibility, validity, and utility of paging burden as a metric to provide insight into resident workload beyond duty hours alone, and illustrate a general framework for evaluation and incorporation of novel digital data streams into resident workload monitoring.
An Analysis of Strike and Restrike Characteristics of the Exploding Film Phenomenon Under Different Temperature and Pressure Conditions

Exploding films have potential applications as fast-opening switches, current interrupters, and ignitors of explosive materials. The exploding film phenomenon is a process in which a high-voltage capacitive discharge is passed through a thin layer of metallized particles on the surface of a dielectric film. Heat generated from the increase in current forces the metallized particles from a solid to a liquid state during an initial current strike. If the metal particles experience an additional rise in current during this liquid state, a restrike may be initiated causing the particles to be liberated from the substrate itself in what is known as a flashover event. It is theorized that an increase in temperature would allow the metallized particles to reach their liquefied state at a quicker rate, resulting in an overall shorter event duration. It is also theorized that the force from the ambient pressure, in addition to the force contributed by the film’s current-induced magnetic field, would need to be overcome to achieve this particle liberation. This work experimentally investigates these hypotheses by varying pressure and temperature conditions while subjecting an aluminum metallized polypropylene film to a 2 kV capacitive discharge. The comparison of electrical characteristics of the current waveform captured during the flashover event versus the plasma’s physical transformation characteristics is presented.1
Representing “Russianness” in the Chinese-Russian Borderland

This photo-essay illustrates a study of visual representations of Russia in the Sino-Russian borderland. I suggest that what is distinctive about this region is not a particular identity of its res...
Case Report: Managing Pregnancy With Type 1 Diabetes Using a Do-It-Yourself Artificial Pancreas System

The stakes are high when pregnancies are complicated by type 1 diabetes. In addition to the maternal risks, there are numerous fetal complications that can result from diabetes, including spontaneous abortion, fetal anomalies, neonatal birth trauma, macrosomia, neonatal hypoglycemia, hyperbilirubinemia, and fetal demise (1). Consequently, the American Diabetes Association (ADA) recommends stringent glycemic targets in pregnant women with type 1 diabetes to prevent adverse maternal and fetal outcomes. Recommendations include self-monitoring of both fasting and postprandial blood glucose and a target A1C of <6% without significant hypoglycemia. Preprandial glucose testing is also recommended in women with pregestational diabetes using insulin pumps or basal-bolus therapy so that premeal rapid-acting insulin doses can be adjusted (2). The following individual glucose targets are recommended for type 1 diabetes: fasting glucose <90 mg/dL, 1-hour postprandial glucose <130–140 mg/dL, and 2-hour postprandial glucose <120 mg/dL (2). These strict glycemic targets are difficult to achieve, especially given the insulin resistance commonly observed during the second and third trimesters of pregnancy. Indeed, women with gestational and pregestational diabetes have average A1C levels ranging from 7.25 to 8.15%, values that are considerably higher than ADA targets during pregnancy (3). Despite the availability of continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) systems since 1999, none have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in pregnancy. Moreover, no insulin pumps or hybrid-closed loop (HCL) automated insulin delivery systems have been approved for use during pregnancy. The lack of FDA-approved diabetes management technologies poses a significant limitation to pregnant women with type 1 diabetes. Individuals in the type 1 diabetes community have developed open-source software and hardware to create a do-it-yourself artificial pancreas system (DIY APS) that allows for automated insulin dose adjustments. These systems include algorithms that, when coupled with an insulin pump and CGM system, mimic …
KGDAL: knowledge graph guided double attention LSTM for rolling mortality prediction for AKI-D patients

With the rapid accumulation of electronic health record (EHR) data, deep learning (DL) models have exhibited promising performance on patient risk prediction. Recent advances have also demonstrated the effectiveness of knowledge graphs (KG) in providing valuable prior knowledge for further improving DL model performance. However, it is still unclear how KG can be utilized to encode highorder relations among clinical concepts and how DL models can make full use of the encoded concept relations to solve real-world healthcare problems and to interpret the outcomes. We propose a novel knowledge graph guided double attention LSTM model named KGDAL for rolling mortality prediction for critically ill patients with acute kidney injury requiring dialysis (AKI-D). KGDAL constructs a KG-based two-dimension attention in both time and feature spaces. In the experiment with two large healthcare datasets, we compared KGDAL with a variety of rolling mortality prediction models and conducted an ablation study to test the effectiveness, efficacy, and contribution of different attention mechanisms. The results showed that KGDAL clearly outperformed all the compared models. Also, KGDAL-derived patient risk trajectories may assist healthcare providers to make timely decisions and actions. The source code, sample data, and manual of KGDAL are available at https://github.com/lucasliu0928/KGDAL.
Sea Lamprey Detection and Characterization using Interdigitated Electrode (IDE) Contact Sensor

The ability to monitor invasive sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus) populations in the Laurentian Great Lakes is critical to protecting the region’s $7 billion USD fishing industry and preserving its biodiversity. Monitoring these invaders requires considerable fieldwork and human power, making remote lamprey detection systems attractive for their continuous monitoring capabilities and potential for workload reduction. However, a lack of available methods for detecting sea lamprey hampers development of such systems. Here we present a sensor composed of two exposed planar interdigitated electrodes (IDE) along with a DC measurement system for the detection of lamprey attachment underwater. Measuring voltage instead of impedance, reduces cost and signal processing complexity, making the device more attractive for field deployment. The system is calibrated to a baseline output voltage and deviations from this baseline occur when objects touch the IDE. Validation was done through testing on live adult sea lampreys using video recordings to correlate lamprey attachments to the sensor response. Three response types were identified corresponding to different attachments: sustained, short and sliding-sustained. Sensor response to sustained and sliding-sustained attachments showed a characteristic exponential decay whereas the response due to short attachments was indistinguishable from measurement noise. Lamprey size was found to have a weak linear correlation with both response parameters, positive for the voltage drop and negative for the time constant of voltage drop. A representative circuit for the lamprey-sensor interaction is proposed and simulated using element values calculated from the response parameters. The response of the model shows agreement with experimental data.
Mating, cross-mating and related behaviours of Neoseiulus californicus and Neoseiulus fallacis (Acari: Phytoseiidae)

The pairings of Neoseiulus californicus (McGregor) and Neoseiulus fallacis (Garman) from western North America were monitored for tending by adult males, males in the mating position and oviposition and the activity of female deutonymphs and adults. The N. fallacis × N. californicus (♂ × ♀) tests had fewer males tending the deutonymphs but more in the mating position with new females than the reciprocal test. Afterwards, most of the females appeared gravid and approximately 20% produced an egg. Some eggs did not hatch but others became adult males, which mated with their mothers, but no eggs were produced. F1 males tended and mated with new N. fallacis females which had normal offspring. When held with new N. californicus females, F1 males tended the deutonymphs but were not seen mating and no eggs were laid. The pairings of N. californicus× N. fallacis had more males tending, less in the mating position and the females appeared non-gravid and produced no eggs. When same-species males were added to females held with F1 males for 15–20 days, normal levels and sexes of the progeny were produced. The female and male adults of N. fallacis were more active (ambulatory) than those of N. californicus. In within-species tests, the males had a high activity except while tending and mating, the female deutonymphs were inactive and the just mated females were more active than the ovipositing females. The timing of the tending and mating differed in the cross-pairings. Overall, these and other life-history data show that these two mites are distinct species, but that their males are promiscuous in tending and mating.
Biphasic effect of extracts of Lithospermum ruderale on the uptake of 32P by testes and thyroids of cockerels.

A polyphenolic fraction of the plant Lithospermum ruderale was injected into White Leghorn cockerels at various time intervals and the effect on testes and thyroids was measured by the uptake of 32P. The 32P uptake 8 hours after lithosperm2 injection was markedly depressed and 12 hours after administration was notably increased. It is suggested that the hypothalamic regulation of the testes and thyroids is altered by lithosperm interference of the hypothalamic feedback system and/or the binding of receptor sites in the two glands.
Integrating Program Optimizations and Transformations with the Scheduling of Instruction Level Parallelism

Code optimizations and restructuring transformations are typically applied before scheduling to improve the quality of generated code. However, in some cases, the optimizations and transformations do not lead to a better schedule or may even adversely affect the schedule. In particular, optimizations for redundancy elimination and restructuring transformations for increasing parallelism are often accompanied with an increase in register pressure. Therefore their application in situations where register pressure is already too high may result in the generation of additional spill code. In this paper we present an integrated approach to scheduling that enables the selective application of optimizations and restructuring transformations by the scheduler when it determines their application to be beneficial. The integration is necessary because information that is used to determine the effects of optimizations and transformations on the schedule is only available during instruction scheduling. Our integrated scheduling approach is applicable to various types of global scheduling techniques; in this paper we present an integrated algorithm for scheduling superblocks.
Conditional Power in Clinical Trial Monitoring

For ethical, economical, and scientific reasons, clinical trials may be terminated early for treatment efficacy or the lack thereof. In addition to group sequential tests and type I error-spending functions, another approach is to ask more directly whether the accumulated evidence is sufficiently convincing for efficacy. Or, if evidence is lacking, one would ask whether the trial should continue to the planned end and whether the conventional fixed sample (nonsequential) test should be employed. Conditional power is one way to quantify this evidence. It is the power of the conventional nonsequential test conditional on interim data. This article introduces the versatile conditional power and related stochastic curtailment approaches in the monitoring of clinical trials. Keywords: stochastic curtailing; discordance probability; group sequential test; interim analysis
Kolmogorov–Smirnov Tests

While often confused, the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test and the Smirnov test are actually distinct. Specifically, the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test is used to test the goodness of fit of a given set of data to a theoretical distribution, making this a one-sample test. In contrast, the Smirnov test is a two-sample test, used to determine if two samples appear to follow the same distribution. The intuition behind the two tests is the same, however, in that both compare cumulative distribution functions, either two empirical cumulative distribution functions for the two-sample Smirnov test, or one empirical cumulative distribution function and one known cumulative distribution function for the one-sample Kolmogorov–Smirnov test. Keywords: distribution function; exact test; nonparametric test; ranks
On generating conductivity fields with known fractal dimension and nonstationary increments

[1] Fractional Brownian motion (fBm) is a stochastic process that has stationary increments with long-range correlations and known fractal dimension. We study a multiple-dimensional extension of fBm with nonstationary increments that allows for trends in the statistical structure while maintaining the Gaussian nature and fractal dimension of fBm. Two methods for simulating this extension are employed and described in detail. One approach combines Cholesky decomposition with a generalization of random midpoint displacement. The other makes repeated use of the Cholesky decomposition. The resulting fields can be employed in various geophysical settings, e.g., as log conductivity fields in hydrology and topographic elevation in geomorphology.
An Issue of Equity: Assessing the Cultural Knowledge of Preservice Teachers in Teach for America

This literature review examines the research on the development of “cultural knowledge” for preservice teachers in Teach for America program. “Cultural knowledge” refers to a teacher’s awareness of the sociopolitical contexts of education and the development of critical consciousness about issues of educational equity. After a brief introduction to the organizational structure of TFA, I will discuss some of the recent research on the organization--much of which has focused on achievement, teacher preparation, and the public policy implications of the program. Then, I will examine themes in the research on the cultural knowledge of preservice teachers’ in traditional preparation programs, which I will contrast with an overview of the literature TFA’s evolving diversity training. Finally, I will consider possible avenues for research on the cultural knowledge of TFA teachers and discuss programmatic changes that will prepare corps members with the cultural competence necessary to work in communities of color.
Abusive supervision and nursing performance.

Purpose This is a report on a 2008 investigation of the influence of abusive supervision on nursing performance among registered nurses in an urban South Florida county. The findings suggest implications for patient satisfaction. Background Research suggests that a myriad of negative personal and workplace consequences result when a supervisor is abusive. Researchers have reported frustration, anxiety, stress, psychological distress, problem drinking, family problems, less organizational commitment, fewer organizational citizenship behaviors, and greater intention to resign. Abusive supervision affects an estimated 13.5% of U.S. workers and costs U.S. corporations an estimated $23.8 billion annually. However, there was little understanding of abusive supervision's impact on performance, including within health care. Methods This study utilized an anonymous mail questionnaire of a random sample of 6,500 registered nurses in an urban South Florida county. Descriptive statistics were used to examine the responses. The survey instrument was self-reporting. Results The study found that targeted subordinates reacted with noncompliance with significant organizational performance norms. The incidence of abusive supervision was 46.6%, with 36.6% of the nurses reporting negative influence on performance and compliance. Conclusions Supervisory abuse is a problem to the healthcare organizations because of the counterproductive behaviors that resulted. Concern is specifically suggested regarding possible negative influences to patient satisfaction. This article offers a change model and recommendations to curtail abusive supervision.
A comparison of rotor bar material of squirrel-cage induction machines for efficiency enhancement purposes

This paper provides a comprehensive analysis and comparison of different rotor bar material in squirrel-cage induction machine from electrical, physical and economic perspectives in order to explore the impacts of rotor bar material on machine efficiency with physical and economic considerations. Specifically, aluminum, copper and silver are selected in this work and studied on three machines of different ratings, where silver is proposed as a hypothetical rotor bar material to open discussion and to explore potential possibilities. To provide an overall analysis, an analytical model and a finite-element model of an induction machine are used in this work with their focus on machine efficiency and magnetic flux distribution, respectively. It shows that a silver rotor can provide the highest efficiency under all tested loads and machines with efficiency enhancement of 0.20 to 1.55 percentage points compared to the aluminum counterpart depending on the machine rating and load. Moreover, better performance, such as larger output power, smaller starting torque, more concentrated magnetic flux distribution, etc., are observed with the increase of rotor bar conductivity. However, the significantly high price of silver could impede its usage in most applications currently and copper rotor bar is believed to have the overall superiority among the three kinds of material, although it suffers from casting issues due to its high melting points. Silver rotor bars or silver alloys may be used in energy-limited areas where high efficiency is needed to compete with certain magnetic material.
A Membrane-Type Humidifier for Fuel Cell Applications: Controller Design, Analysis and Implementation

A membrane-based gas humidification apparatus was employed to actively manage the water vapor entrained in the reactant gas supplied to a fuel cell stack. The humidification system utilizes a gas bypass and a series of heaters to achieve accurate and fast humidity and temperature control. A change in fuel cell load induces a reactant mass flow rate disturbance to this humidification system. If not well regulated, this disturbance creates undesirable condensation and evaporation dynamics, both to the humidification system and the fuel cell stack. Therefore, controllers were devised, tuned and employed for temperature reference tracking and disturbance rejection. The coordination of the heaters and the bypass valve is challenging during fast transients due to the different time scales, the actuator constraints, and the sensor responsiveness. Two heater controller types were explored: on-off (thermostatic) and variable (proportional integral), to examine the ability of the feedback system to achieve the control objectives with minimal hardware and software complexity. This controller tuning methodology is useful for optimizing response time versus heater parasitic losses.Copyright © 2008 by ASME
Local Markets for Payments for Environmental Services: Can Small Rural Communities Self-Finance Watershed Protection?

Payment for environmental service (PES) programs are innovative approaches for watershed and natural resources management that increasingly are being used around the world. Most well-studied PES examples rely predominately, if not entirely, on large governmental and outside non-governmental organizations for financial and management assistance. We examine the potential for using a locally-financed PES scheme in a small, agricultural community in a developing country as a means to preserve environmental services of watersheds, namely clean drinking water. A dichotomous choice, contingent valuation survey is used to examine the community’s demand for protection of the headwaters of the nearby river, the source of their drinking water. The survey results demonstrate local water users’ substantial willingness to pay for increased protection of the watershed environmental services. We find that a local-market PES scheme for watershed services, even in a relatively low-income context, may be sufficient to protect ecosystem services independent of external financial resources.
Using first principles to predict bimetallic catalysts for the ammonia decomposition reaction

The facile decomposition of ammonia to produce hydrogen is critical to its use as a hydrogen storage medium in a hydrogen economy, and although ruthenium shows good activity for catalysing this process, its expense and scarcity are prohibitive to large-scale commercialization. The need to develop alternative catalysts has been addressed here, using microkinetic modelling combined with density functional studies to identify suitable monolayer bimetallic (surface or subsurface) catalysts based on nitrogen binding energies. The Ni-Pt-Pt(111) surface, with one monolayer of Ni atoms residing on a Pt(111) substrate, was predicted to be a catalytically active surface. This was verified using temperature-programmed desorption and high-resolution electron energy loss spectroscopy experiments. The results reported here provide a framework for complex catalyst discovery. They also demonstrate the critical importance of combining theoretical and experimental approaches for identifying desirable monolayer bimetallic systems when the surface properties are not a linear function of the parent metals.
What we have learned about preeclampsia

Preeclampsia is a multisystem disorder that complicates 6% to 8% of pregnancies, with higher rates in women with preexisting hypertension, diabetes mellitus, or previous history of preeclampsia. Recent large randomized trials, including two large trials conducted by members of the Maternal-Fetal Medicine Network, have not shown a benefit in reducing the rate of preeclampsia or perinatal outcome from the use of low-dose aspirin. Secondary analysis from these trials revealed that the onset of mild gestational hypertension or mild preeclampsia at or near term was associated with minimal to low neonatal and maternal morbidities. During review of the medical records we found considerable differences among the various centers regarding the definitions of both mild and severe preeclampsia. These differences were more prevalent in those women with pre-existing hypertension or diabetes mellitus. The majority of adverse pregnancy outcomes occurred in women who developed severe gestational hypertension-preeclampsia prior to 35 weeks' gestation and in those women with previous preeclampsia and/or pre-existing vascular disease. We also found that epidural anesthesia is safe in parturients receiving low-dose aspirin in pregnancy and in women with severe preeclampsia.
Pediatric HIV infection: Neurologic and neuropsychologic findings

Neurologic and neuropsychologic findings are early and important prognostic indicators of symptomatic HIV disease among infants and young children. The most common presentations include progressive encephalopathy, loss of motor milestones, and corticospinal tract abnormalities. It is hypothesized that, in some instances, the more severe neurologic manifestations of HIV noted in infancy may reflect the consequences of in utero HIV infection, or the increased vulnerability of infants to HIV infection during a time of rapid brain growth. Current research suggests that infants with basal ganglia calcification and those with plummeting or low CD4+ counts are at particular risk of severe central nervous disease progression. In contrast to infants and toddlers, older children and adolescents appear to demonstrate only subtle neurologic dysfunction until very late in their illness. Findings seen include attentional difficulties, fine motor tremors, visual sequencing problems, and depressive affect. One of the challenges for the 1990s will be rapidly to identify those infants who are at high risk of central nervous system disease progression, and to institute effective treatments that can halt the devastating effects of HIV on the developing brain. In addition to early identification of the high-risk infants, neuropsychologic, neuroimaging and laboratory measures need to be identified that will allow effective monitoring of responses to therapy.