cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Detection of Explosives by Terahertz Imaging

Publisher Summary This chapter describes detection of explosives by terahertz Imaging (TM). There has been an amplified interest in terahertz (THz) detection for imaging of covered weapons, explosives, chemical and biological agents. THz radiation is readily transmitted through most nonmetallic and nonpolar mediums. This process enables the THz systems to see through concealing barriers, which includes packaging, corrugated cardboard, clothing, shoes, book bags, and such others to find potentially dangerous materials concealed within. Apart from many materials of interest for security applications, which include explosives, chemical agents, and other such biological agents that have characteristic THz spectra which can be used for fingerprint testing and identify concealed materials. The Terahertz radiation poses either no or minimal health risk to either a suspect being scanned by a THz system or the system's operator. As plastic explosives, fertilizer bombs, and chemical and biological agents increasingly become weapons of war and terrorism, and the trafficking of illegal drugs increasingly develops as a systemic threat, effective means for rapid detection, and an identification of these threats are required. One proposed solution for locating, detecting, and characterizing concealed threats is to use THz electromagnetic waves to spectroscopically detect and identify concealed materials through their characteristic transmission or reflectivity spectra in the range of 0.5–10 THz.
Correlates of self-reports of being very depressed in the months after delivery: results from the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System.

Objective: This study identified correlates of self-reports of being very depressed in the months after delivery in a population-based sample of women. Methods: We analyzed data on 14,609 recent mothers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS). The sample included mothers who delivered a live birth in Colorado, New York State, and North Carolina from 1996 (New York only) to 1999. We assessed risk factors for self-reports of being very depressed in the months after delivery using logistic regression. Results: Overall, 5.9% (95% CI = 5.3, 6.4) of new mothers reported being very depressed in the months after delivery. Women who reported that their pregnancy was a “very hard time” or “one of the worst times of my life” had the highest prevalence of reporting being very depressed in the months after delivery (24.9%, 95% CI = 21.3, 28.5) and, when all risk factors were adjusted for simultaneously, were 4.6 times (95% CI = 3.1, 6.3) more likely to report being very depressed in the months after delivery than other women. Other significant risk factors for self-reports of being very depressed in the months after delivery included experiencing partner-associated stress (OR = 1.9, 95% CI = 1.5, 2.5), physical abuse during pregnancy (OR = 1.6, 95% CI = 1.1, 2.4), and not breast-feeding (OR = 1.4, 95% CI = 1.1, 1.8). Conclusions: The highest prevalence for self-reports of being very depressed in the months after delivery was in women who reported that their pregnancy was a “very hard time” or “one of the worst times of my life.” Clinicians need to be aware of the needs of some women for mental health services both during and after pregnancy.
Revised Cardiac Risk Index versus ASA Status as a Predictor for Noncardiac Events After Posterior Lumbar Decompression

Background The Revised Cardiac Risk Index (RCRI) was designed to predict risk for cardiac events after noncardiac surgery. However, there is a paucity of literature that directly addresses the relationship between RCRI and noncardiac outcomes after posterior lumbar decompression (PLD). The objective of this study is to determine the ability of RCRI to predict noncardiac adverse events after PLD. Methods The American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program was used to identify patients undergoing PLD from 2006 to 2014. Multivariate and receiver operating characteristic analysis was used to identify associations between RCRI and postoperative complications. Results A total of 52,066 patients met the inclusion criteria. Membership in the RCRI=1 cohort independently predicted unplanned intubation, ventilation >48 hours, progressive renal insufficiency, acute renal failure, urinary tract infection (UTI), sepsis, septic shock, and readmission. Membership in the RCRI=2 cohort independently predicted for superficial surgical site infection, pneumonia, unplanned intubation, ventilation >48 hours, bleeding transfusion, progressive renal insufficiency, acute renal failure, UTI, sepsis, septic shock, and readmission. Membership in the RCRI=3 cohort independently predicted unplanned intubation (odds ratio [OR], 11.8), ventilation >48 hours (OR, 23.0), acute renal failure (OR, 84.5), and UTI (OR, 3.6). RCRI had a poor discriminative ability (DA) (area under the curve = 0.623), and American Society of Anesthesiologists status had a fair DA (area under the curve = 0.770) to predict a composite of noncardiac complications. Conclusions RCRI was predictive of a wide range of noncardiac complications after PLD but had a diminished DA to predict a composite of any noncardiac complication than did American Society of Anesthesiologists score. Consideration of the RCRI as a component of preoperative surgical risk stratification can minimize patient morbidity and mortality after lumbar decompression.
Local heating of metallic objects from switching magnetic gradients in MRI

Previously it has been shown that heat induced in metallic objects due to fast switching magnetic gradients can pose a possible danger not only for patients undergoing MRI procedures, but also to medical staff present. In this study, we investigate magnetic flux changes and the effects of local heating in metallic elements by eddy currents due to fast switching magnetic gradients at several specific positions with respect to the isocenter of the gradient coils. Experiments were performed in a 3 T preclinical scanner with a 30 cm bore. To probe the induced electro motive force (EMF), which results in induced eddy currents, small pickup coils were used at various locations in the scanner. To investigate heating, metallic cylinders (12.5 mm diameter, 12.6 mm height) were prepared with a pinhole to accommodate miniature fiber optic temperature sensors. A gradient echo axial imaging sequence was applied for 4 minutes after achieving thermal equilibrium with the magnet. Three different materials were used in this study: copper, aluminum, and Ti-6AL-4V, a titanium alloy commonly used in orthopedic implants. In these experiments, a direct dependence on position and gradient strength on the induced EMF was observed. As expected, the increase of temperature depended directly on distance and material composition. Heating can be a danger during imaging of patients with conductive implants that are placed away from the isocenter. Thus, our findings are vital to patient safety and comfort during MRI procedures.
Understanding the Importance of Contact Heterogeneity and Variable Infectiousness in the Dynamics of a Large Norovirus Outbreak

Background Large norovirus (NoV) outbreaks are explosive in nature and vary widely in final size and duration, suggesting that superspreading combined with heterogeneous contact may explain these dynamics. Modeling tools that can capture heterogeneity in infectiousness and contact are important for NoV outbreak prevention and control, yet they remain limited. Methods Data from a large NoV outbreak at a Dutch scout jamboree, which resulted in illness among 326 (of 4500 total) individuals from 7 separate camps, were used to examine the contributions of individual variation in infectiousness and clustered contact patterns to the transmission dynamics. A Bayesian hierarchical model of heterogeneous, clustered outbreak transmission was applied to represent (1) between-individual heterogeneity in infectiousness and (2) heterogeneous patterns of contact. Results We found wide heterogeneity in infectiousness across individuals, suggestive of superspreading. Nearly 50% of individual infectiousness was concentrated in the individual's subcamp of residence, with the remainder distributed over other subcamps. This suggests a source-and-sink dynamic in which subcamps with greater average infectiousness fed cases to those with a lower transmission rate. Although the per capita transmission rate within camps was significantly greater than that between camps, the large pool of susceptible individuals across camps enabled similar numbers of secondary cases generated between versus within camps. Conclusions The consideration of clustered transmission and heterogeneous infectiousness is important for understanding NoV transmission dynamics. Models including these mechanisms may be useful for providing early warning and guiding outbreak response.
Examining The Role Of Leadership At An Academically Successful Girls-Only National High School In Kenya

The work of sustaining academic success in the midst of increasing accountability mandates, dwindling resource allocations, and increasing student diversity can be daunting. However, research relat...
Characterization of a Fhit protein complex suggests a novel pathway to apoptosis of cancer cells

451 The fragile histidine triad (FHIT) gene, spanning FRA3B at 3p14.2, the most active human common fragile site, shows abnormal transcripts, promoter hypermethylation and/or allelic loss in a large fraction of human cancers of various organs. Furthermore, FHIT restoration in a number of malignant cell lines triggers apoptosis in vitro and in preclinical models. However, though more than 600 publications document involvement of FHIT alterations in cancers, the mechanisms through which Fhit protein signals tumor suppression have not been defined, partially because interacting proteins have been difficult to identify. We have now used protein-protein cross-linking followed by identification of cross-llinked proteins by proteomics methods to identify a Fhit protein complex responsible for triggering apoptosis in Fhit virally-transduced lung cancer cells. Our experimental results demonstrate that Fhit localizes in both cytosol (where it interacts with Hsp60 and Hsp10) and mitochondria where it interacts with main mitochondria chain respiratory proteins. Interestingly, Fhit restoration significantly increases the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in lung and colon cancer-derived cells in response to stressful treatments. Delineation of direct downstream effectors of the Fhit suppressor pathway will lead to intensification of mechanistic studies of Fhit function that may influence future preventive and therapeutic strategies to activate the Fhit pathway. The finding that ROS generation is crucial for Fhit-mediated apoptosis emphasizes the importance of Fhit loss as a negative prognostic factor in various clinical settings; for example, assessment of Fhit status in preneoplastic or neoplastic conditions may be predictive of responses to antioxidant treatments.
Clinical Symptom Presentation of Hypercontractile Peristalsis in the Era of High-Resolution Manometry: A Single-Center Experience.

Background Hypercontractile motility of the esophagus is occasionally noted on high-resolution manometry (HRM), but its clinical correlations are unclear. We compared symptom severity and clinical presentation of patients with hypercontractile motility of the esophagus. Methods This was a retrospective cohort study. We queried a prospectively maintained database for patients who underwent esophageal function testing from October 1, 2016, to October 30, 2018. We included patients with jackhammer esophagus (JE; ≥2 swallows with distal contractile integral [DCI] ≥8,000 mm Hg∙cm∙s), nutcracker esophagus (NE; mean DCI 5,000-8,000 mm Hg∙cm∙s without meeting JE criteria), or esophagogastric junction outflow obstruction ([EGJOO]: abnormal median integrated relaxation pressure (>15 mm Hg) without meeting achalasia criteria, with JE [EGJOO-h], or normal motility [EGJOO-n]). HRM, endoscopy, barium esophagram, ambulatory pH studies, and symptom questionnaires were reevaluated for further analysis. Clinical parameters were analyzed using Spearman Rho correlation. Categorical variables were assessed with Fisher exact or chi-square test. Results Altogether, 85 patients met inclusion criteria. They were divided into 4 subgroups: 28 with JE, 18 with NE, 15 with EGJOO-h, and 24 with EGJOO-n. Patients with EGJOO-h were the most symptomatic overall. No correlation was seen between symptoms and mean DCI (p ≥ 0.05 all groups) or number of hypercontractile swallows (≥8,000 mm Hg∙cm∙s, p ≥ 0.05). A significant correlation was noted between dysphagia and lower esophageal sphincter pressure (LESP) and LESP integral (p ≤ 0.05). Conclusion The number of hypercontractile swallows and mean DCI were not associated with patient-reported symptoms. Elevated LESP may be a more relevant contributor to dysphagia.
The 1st ACM SIGSPATIAL International Workshop on Geospatial Data Access and Processing APIs (SpatialAPI 2019): Chicago, IL, USA - November 5, 2019

With the increasing amounts of geospatial data, there is a growing demand on by developers and researchers to analyze geospatial data efficiently. The SIGSPATIAL community is both a provider of new systems with cutting edge technology on maintaining and processing geospatial data, and a user for all these systems. The SpatialAPI workshop is designed to help the SIGSPATIAL community by growing the knowledge of the existing well-established systems that are available for accessing and processing geospatial data. This includes, but is not limited to, web APIs, programming libraries, database systems, and geospatial extensions to existing systems.
The future of rheumatic fever

Futurology is a dangerous vocation; dangerous, that is, to the reputation of futurologists. Nevertheless, the temptation is irresistible to look, however briefly, into the crystal ball.
Exact seismic response of smooth rigid retaining walls resting on stiff soil

The assessment of forces exerted on walls by the backfill is a recurrent problem in geotechnical engineering, owing to its relevance for both retaining systems and underground structures. In particular, the work by Arias and colleagues, and later also the one by Veletsos and Younan, among others, becomes pertinent when considering pressure increments on underground structures triggered by seismic events. As a first step, they studied the response of a rigid retaining wall resting on rigid bedrock subjected to SV waves, introducing some simplifying assumptions. This paper presents the exact solution to this reference problem. The solution is given in horizontal wavenumber domain; hence, it comes in terms of inverse Fourier transforms, which can be approximated numerically in Mathematica , which in turn are verified against finite‐element simulations. Specific features of this exact solution that were not captured by prior engineering approximations are highlighted and discussed.
Description of a pharmacist-driven safety algorithm in Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia: Compliance, interventions, and good saves

Objective:To evaluate the impact of a pharmacist-driven Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia (SAB) safety bundle supported by leadership and to compare compliance before and after implementation.Design:Retrospective cohort study with descriptive and before-and-after analyses.Setting:Tertiary-care academic medical center.Patients:All patients with documented SAB, regardless of the source of infection, were included. Patients transitioned to palliative care were excluded from before-and-after analysis.Methods:A pharmacist-driven safety bundle including documented clearance of bacteremia, echocardiography, removal of central venous catheters, and targeted intravenous therapy of at least 2 weeks duration was implemented in November 2015 and was supported by leadership with stepwise escalation for nonresponse. A descriptive analysis of all patients with SAB during the study period included pharmacy interventions, acceptance rates, and escalation rates. A pre–post implementation analysis of 100 sequential patients compared bundle compliance and descriptive parameters.Results:Overall, 391 interventions were made in the 20-month period following implementation, including 20 “good saves” avoiding potentially major adverse events. No statistically significant differences in complete bundle compliance were detected between the periods (74% vs 84%; P = .08). However, we detected a significant increase in echocardiography after the bundle was implemented (83% vs 94%; P = .02) and fewer patients received suboptimal definitive therapy after the bundle was implemented (10% vs 3%; P = .045).Conclusions:This pharmacist-driven SAB safety bundle with leadership support showed improvement in process measures, which may have prevented major adverse events, even with available infectious diseases (ID) consultation. It provides a critical safety net for institutions without mandatory ID consultation or with limited antimicrobial stewardship resources.
Can We Securely Use Approximate Computing

Approximate computing (AC) techniques bring in an alternative way to improve energy efficiency for computing systems, at the cost of acceptable reduction on accuracy. Unfortunately, recent literature indicates that approximate computing systems could be vulnerable to new security threats. Approximation mechanisms maybe leveraged to introduce more errors than the level that the AC systems can tolerate. This work analyzes the existing metrics for accuracy from attack detection point of view. A differential metric is proposed to enlarge the Trojan induced difference on accuracy, delay and power, thus easing Trojan detection. Furthermore, this work proposes a unique attack detection method for AC systems to reduce false negative rate on Trojan detection. Our case study shows that the proposed method can reduce the false negative rate by 93%.
The Room Where It Happens: Reflections on Being a Black Woman in the Academy:

The Black Lives Matter movement emerged in 2013 as a result of George Zimmerman being acquitted for the death of Trayvon Martin. Until recently, the movement was mostly limited to violence inflicte...
Tessier sequential extraction on 17 elements from three marine sediment certified reference materials (HISS-1, MESS-4, and PACS-3).

The four-step Tessier sequential extraction procedure is a well-known approach used for environmental and geochemical studies in soil and sediments. However, a lack of reference materials limits its use making implementation and quality control cumbersome. This study applied Tessier sequential extraction to three globally used marine sediment certified reference materials (CRMs) including HISS-1, MESS-4, and PACS-3 with varying levels of contamination. The study analyzed the distribution of 17 elements throughout the extraction phases. Overall, the percent recovery (sum of steps vs total metal concentration) of all analyzed elements in Tessier extraction was 92% + 40% in HISS-1, 101% + 12% in MESS-4, and 102% + 10% in PACS-3. The observed uncertainty of the individual elemental concentrations averaged at 13%, which compares favorably with the 16% target uncertainty derived from the Horwitz equation. The reference data set produced here using the Tessier sequential extraction procedure will serve as a quality control and method development tool for laboratories.
How to Integrate Language Skills through Andragogy

English language classrooms in India should facilitate learners to become skilled in English language communication. English is the international communication tool among non-native English users around the world, and with native speakers. It is seen as the language of development at personal and societal levels. Skills, therefore, acquired in EL classrooms should enable learners to use them in their majors and thereafter at workplaces in life. English is also viewed as the language of promotion. The need of the hour is not acquisition of knowledge about English, but of skills of English language communication for academic study, careers, and promotion. The National Skill Development Corporation of India aims at promoting skills development. One of the basic soft skills is English language skills. Indian economy is one of the fastest growing economies in the world with the projected GDP growth rate of 7%. India’s demographic dividend is expected to increase to 1.14 billion in 2026 and 83% of the increase is expected to be in the age group of 15-59. If this dividend is harnessed by 2025, India will have 25% of the world’s total workforce and India’s per capita income will be around $4000 and it is currently less than $1000. It is expected to go up to $9802 in 2040 and $20,836 by 2050. The United Nations Development Programme advocates for change and connects countries to knowledge, experience, and resources to help people build better life. It is in the hands of thousands of English language teachers in India to help learners of English realize their life goals by enhancing their communication power in English. This qualitative research paper argues for integrating four language skills through a shift from pedagogy to heutagogy to turn students into productive and industry-ready prospective employees and entrepreneurs.
Creativity, TV Commercial Popularity, and Advertising Expenditures

This article presents a brief discussion of creativity in advertising, along with some current views of advertisers which seem to infer that advertising agencies can be induced to be more creative through incentive programmes. One implication, of this is that creativity can be ‘bought’. The article then explores the idea that television commercial popularity—a proxy for what some advertisers consider to be creative advertising—may be related to advertising expenditures. The statistical results support such a relationship. Finally, a content analysis of the attributes of the most popular television advertisements is presented.
Selective Oxidative Dehydrogenation of Butenes on Ferrite Catalysts

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the selective oxidative dehydrogenation of butenes on ferrite catalysts. A common method for determining the existence and the densities of different active sites is selective chemisorption. A variation of the selective chemisorption technique can be used that makes use of the reactivity of the active sites. The technique is temperature programmed desorption and reaction or thermal desorption and reaction. A reactant molecule is adsorbed at low temperatures on an active site. The temperature is then raised in a controlled manner, and the evolution of the reaction products is monitored. If the various products are evolved independent of each other, they must be formed on independent sites. The separation of the two sets of desorption products may indicate that they are from different sites. As the products of the thermal desorption experiments are directly correlated with the active sites, it is possible to measure the number of active sites by measuring the quantities of desorbed products, provided that each and every active site produces only one molecule of reaction product.
Some improvements in two-dimensional gel electrophoresis of proteins: Protein mapping of eukaryotic tissue extracts

In the course of adapting O'Farrell's (1975, J. Biol. Chem.250, 4007–4021) two-dimensional separation technique for proteins to eukaryotic material, we have made some modifications. During sample preparation, sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) can be included, with a resulting enhancement in reproducibility of gel patterns. However, heating in the presence of SDS leads to artifactual spots in the gels, probably as a result of protein charge modifications. Ultracentrifugation reduces the clogging at the top of the isoelectric focussing gel. For electrophoresis, some modifications of apparatus and technique are suggested. For the analysis of gels, a simple high-efficiency method for the counting of radioactivity in spots from dried gel slabs is described. In addition, an inexpensive microdensitometer option is described for the analysis of the autoradiographs. Patterns of proteins obtained from superior cervical sympathetic ganglia of rats and from other eukaryotic tissues are illustrated. Finally, a few of the proteins commonly found in mammalian tissue are identified on the gels.
Dependability Modeling and Assessment of Complex Adaptive Networked Systems

The dependability of a networked software system S is a measure of how good S meets its service-level objectives in the presence of uncontrolled external environment conditions incident on S. The dependability attribute is hard to determine due to the inherent complexity of S, i.e., how the behavior of S is affected by the external environment conditions and the network resource availability is difficult to be accurately captured with mathematical models. The complexity arises from the large dimensionality of input parameter space and the interactions between various components in S. This leads to the employment of model-based control techniques that adapt the operations of S over multiple "observe-actuate" rounds and steer S towards a reference input QoS. How close is the actual QoS so achieved to the reference QoS is a measure of the dependability of S. Our paper studies model-based engineering methods to quantify the notion of dependability, and therein enhance the dependability of S. The paper provides a management architecture to dynamically evaluate the dependability of S, and adjust the plant and algorithm parameters to control the dependability.
Effects of constellation shaping on blind equalization

All existing blind equalization algorithms rely on the non-Gaussianity of the input sequence. In recent years, a technique called shaping has been used in data transmission, in order to approach the capacity of Gaussian channels. The transmitted signal then has a Gaussian-like distribution and this will affect blind equalization algorithms. In this paper, we address the problem of blind equalization where the input of the unknown system is a shaped data signal. In particular, we demonstrate the effects of shaping on some of the widely known blind equalization schemes. Our results point to the need for more powerful blind equalization algorithms for shaped signals.© (1991) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Production of a new generation of diesel fuels by hydrotreating a mixture of petroleum and plant feedstock

Hydrotreating of mixed crude oil based on petroleum distillate of diesel fuel with a different content of unrefined cottonseed oil was investigated. The major possibility of utilizing plant feedstock in production of diesel fuels of improved quality and simultaneously increasing their supply due to this was demonstrated.
The problem of an effective mass in nuclear matter

Abstract It is shown that the existence of nuclear matter and the independent particle description of its properties implies by itself that the average potential energy is momentum dependent. If this momentum dependence is expressed in terms of an effective mass m ∗ , one gets m/m ∗ = 3 2+( 5 2 )(P/T f ) where P is the packaging fraction and Tf the Fermi kinetic energy. The Van Vleck calculation of the average potential energy in the independent particle model is discussed as an example. The photonuclear effect is discussed in terms of a velocity dependent potential.
Quiescent and synoptically-active drylines: A comparison based upon case studies

¶A comparison of various aspects of drylines that occur in quiescent and synoptically-active environments is carried out based on review of two observational case studies. Dryline motion in the quiescent case occurs over a relatively short distance compared to that in the synoptically-active case. The latter case includes formation of a synoptic-scale bulge that is diagnosed to be a result of advection of very dry air aloft above the dryline in combination with vertical mixing in the boundary layer. In both cases the dryline at times exhibits discontinuous motion (more pronounced in the synoptically-active case). In each case the total difference (cross-line) in moisture over the region occupied by the dryline is similar, and the change takes place through two or more steps rather than a single step. The along-dryline location of convective initiation is determined by processes in the dry air in both cases. These processes include along-line differences in sensible heating in the dry air leading to variations in the efficiency of vertical mixing of heat, moisture, and momentum. Consequences of these mixing and heating differences include the formation of cloud lines in the dry air and local areas of lowered pressure near the dryline. Sensible heating differences in the dry air are linked to whether precipitation recently occurred over a given region, to the natural character of the underlying surface, and to whether regional-scale irrigation is practiced in cultivated areas.
Nuclei and Ions

IT is perhaps ungracious to reply to a review. I appreciate very fully that in cases of papers like mine, which take an isolated position and are written by a man who is not infallible, the task of the reviewer is burdensome enough. But Mr. C. T. R. Wilson's summary of several years of my work (October 8, p. 548) seems to me unnecessarily captious, and I am obliged to answer in selfdefence.
BUS-VANET: A BUS Vehicular Network Integrated with Traffic Infrastructure

With the development of wireless communications, Vehicular Ad Hoc Network (VANET) has received considerable attention on information sharing and data delivery services. In order to collect and control traffic conditions, Intelligent Transportations Systems (ITS) has deployed a number of Road Side Units (RSUs) along the roads to collect and deliver traffic information to the Traffic Control Center (TCC) for analyzing traffic data. Although some VANET architectures have been proposed based on the predictable routes and schedules of buses, none of them considered taking advantage of such traffic infrastructures which already been supplied by ITS and combine them with scheduled buses. In this paper, we propose a two-tier BUSVANET that is fully integrated with RSUs and TCC as traffic infrastructures. In this new architecture, the communications of vehicles, not only benefit from the existence of buses, but also consider the effects of using RSUs and TCC. RSUs are used to ensure service coverage while TCC is helpful for locating the destination vehicle quickly. We also investigate how much benefits can be obtained by taking advantage of this type of traffic infrastructure.
THE EFFECT OF BORON ON CELL‐WALL STRUCTURE IN CELERY

ONE SIGNIFICANT ASPECT of boron nutrition in plants is its relationship to carbohydrate metabolism. The review of Gauch and Dugger (1954) refers to a large body of evidence showing that under a deficiency of boron abnormally large amounts of carbohydrates accumulate in the plant. Carbohydrates become particularly high in the leaves, and large amounts are also reported in stems and roots (Dearborn, 1942; Johnston and Dore, 1929). Furthermore, a deficiency of boron may affect the type of carbohydrate that accumulates (Winfield, 1945a). Johnston and Dore (1929) were the first to report that boron may be involved in the translocation of carbohydrates. Gauch and Dugger (1953) and Sisler et al. (1956) have provided evidence that boron facilitates the translocation of sugar, possibly through the formation of an ionizable sugar-borate complex. Gauch and Dugger (1953, 1954) hypothesize that boron deficiency symptoms in regions of the plant with high metabolic activity, such as root and stem tips, flowers, and fruits, are in fact an expression of carbohydrate deficiency. Since boron is implicated in carbohydrate metabolism, a study of the cell walls of plants grown at different levels of boron is needed. In addition, at least two other aspects of boron nutrition may have a direct bearing on the composition or development of cell walls. These are the relationship of boron to (1) the metabolism of pectic substances and (2) the functioning of protoplasmic membranes. They will be considered in the discussion. The literature on boron deficiency includes a number of papers that comment briefly on the fact that the cell walls of deficient plants are thicker than those of normal plants (Alexander, 1942 ; Dearborn, 1942; Jolivette and Walker, 1943; Maier, 1951; Palser and Mcllrath, 1956; Reed, 1947; Shive, 1936; Sommer and Sorokin, 1928; Walker, 1944; Warington, 1926). Lorenz (1942), who presented somewhat more detail, found thickwalled parenchyma in boron-deficient beet roots. Liohnis (1940) reported that in turnip roots the initial disturbance of boron deficiency occurs in the cell walls. Rowe (1936) noted that callose development is more extensive in the phloem of borondeficient sugar beet roots. In some cases cell walls become thinner under boron deficiency. This was reported for vessel walls in the xylem by Palser and
Beam Coupling With Photorefractive Materials

This paper describes various beam coupling phenomena in photorefractive materials (e.g., BaTiO3, SBN, BSC)) ana their applications for wavefront control of laser beams. These beam coupling phenomena include two-wave mixing, four-wave mixing, self-pumped phase conjugation and mutually pumped phase conjugation.
Bicarbonate ion-ATPase in rat liver cell fractions

Abstract The distribution of HCO 3 − - ATPase activity was studied in cell fractions prepared from homogenates of rat liver. The level of mitochondrial contamination in the microsomal fraction depended on the fractionation procedure and on the method of homogenization. With proper care, microsomes with undetectable mitochondrial contamination could be prepared. These microsomes had no detectable HCO 3 − -ATPase activity. Approximately 85 % of the total HCO 3 − -ATPase activity of the post 6000 x g · min supernatant was recovered in the mitochondrialfraction. The properties of this mitochondrial HCO 3 − - ATPase were not distinguishable from those of the various microsomal HCO 3 − - ATPase previously described by other investigators.
Development and application of statewide Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) information systems in health services planning and evaluation

Abstract As the AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) epidemic has grown in the United States during the 1980s, state and local governments have assumed a major role in the planning, funding, provision, and evaluation of AIDS health services. Automated information systems of varying designs and sophistication are being developed across the country to assist state and local policy makers and program administrators in these activities. This paper describes characteristics of a model AIDS health services information system, factors impeding its development, and the efforts of the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to overcome these impediments. Application of the Maryland information system for a variety of program planning and evaluation activities are also described. Since the Maryland AIDS health services information system draws upon secondary data bases available in other states, this system may serve as a prototype for state and local agencies.
When and Where You Want It: Continuing Education from a Distance

Online technology is increasingly being used as a tool for delivery of continuing education to health care professionals. This paper discusses key lessons learned in developing a distance-learning program. It provides practical information on ways to enhance interactivity and overcome obstacles. Preliminary outcomes for learners in a four-state area are summarized.
Obstacle-avoidance automatic guidance - A concept-development study

This paper studies the notion of obstacle-avoidance guidance, and investigates the issues in automating this function by considering helicopter nap-of-the-earth (NOE) flight as an example. In particular, it considers a hierarchy of guidance components, including mission planning and obstacle avoidance. Based on this hierarchical breakdown, the functional requirements of obstacle-avoidance guidance are identified. An effort in developing automatic guidance algorithms to meet these requirements is presented, along with the necesssary simulation tools for evaluation of these algorithms.
Medical errors as a result of specialization

Errors in medicine result in over 44,000 preventable deaths annually. Some of these errors are made by specialized physicians at the time of diagnosis. Building on error frameworks proposed in the literature, we tested the experimental hypothesis that physicians within a given specialty have a bias in diagnosing cases outside their own domain as being within that domain. Thirty-two board-certified physicians from four internal medicine subspecialties worked four patient cases each. Verbal protocol analysis and general linear modeling of the numerical data seem to confirm the experimental hypothesis, indicating that specialists try to "pull" cases toward their specialty. Specialists generate more diagnostic hypotheses within their domain than outside, and assign higher probabilities to diagnoses within that domain.
Overview of Reliability Testing

This paper presents an overview of reliability testing, reliability estimation, and prediction models. It also presents approaches for the design of test plans which result in providing failure data and/or degradation data in a limited test duration. Equivalence of different test plans which result in similar reliability estimates is also discussed. Use of degradation data for reliability estimates and maintenance decisions are presented.
Solution of Chemical Master Equations for Nonlinear Stochastic Reaction Networks.

Stochasticity in the dynamics of small reacting systems requires discrete-probabilistic models of reaction kinetics instead of traditional continuous-deterministic ones. The master probability equation is a complete model of randomly evolving molecular populations. Because of its ambitious character, the master equation remained unsolved for all but the simplest of molecular interaction networks. With the first solution of chemical master equations (CMEs), a wide range of experimental observations of small-system interactions may be mathematically conceptualized.
Adjutant bot: An evaluation of unit micromanagement tactics

Constructing an effective real-time strategy bot requires multiple interlocking elements including a well-designed architecture, efficient build order, and good strategic and tactical decision-making. However even when the bot's high-level strategy and resource allocation is sound, poor battlefield tactics can result in unnecessary losses. This paper focuses on the problem of avoiding troop loss by identifying good tactical groupings. Banding separated units together using UCT (Upper Confidence bounds applied to Trees) along with a learned reward model outperforms grouping heuristics at winning battles while preserving resources. This paper describes our findings in the context of the Adjutant bot design which won the best Newcomer honor at CIG 2012 and is the basis for our 2013 entry.
Apurinic endonuclease activity remains constant during early Drosophila development.

An endonuclease activity that acts on alkali-labile lesions in x-irradiated PM2 DNA and recognizes apurinic lesions in heat/acid treated DNA has been partially purified from Drosophila melanogaster embryos and its specific activity monitored throughout early development. The enzyme activity also showed a low level of activity on UV-irradiated DNA. The saturation kinetics observed with both x-irradiated and apurinic PM2 DNA substrates were similar. The endonuclease activity exhibited a broad pH optimum between pH 6 and 8.5 and was almost completely inhibited by 100 mM NaCl, 0.1 mM EDTA, 2 mM CaCl12 and 10 mM NEM. The reaction was not completely dependent on the presence of Mg++cation, but optimum activity was obtained at a concentration of 0.1 mM; concentrations greater than 1 mM Mgs++ were inhibitory. The specific activity of the apurinic endonuclease, partially purified from several stages of embryonic and early larval development, remained the same. Unfertilized eggs exhibited a reduced level of this presumptive repair activity.
Antagonistic effects of insulin and cortisol on coordinate control of metabolism and growth in cultured fibroblasts.

A variety of metabolic and biosynthetic pathways in chick embryo fibroblasts are stimulated coordinately by many unrelated exogenous agents. Three of the best characterized components of this coordinate response are the uptake of 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2-dGlc) and of uridine and the incorporation of thymidine into DNA. Insulin stimulates and cortisol inhibits the coordinate response. In cortisol-treated cultures, as little as 10−3 units/ml of insulin may stimulate thymidine incorporation 4-fold and 10−1 units/ml may stimulate as much as 40-fold. The higher concentrations of insulin completely override the inhibitory effect of cortisol. They also cause about a 5-fold stimulation of the uptake of 2-dGlc and of uridine and a 2-fold stimulation of proline incorporation into protein. The uptake rates of 2-dGlc and uridine double within 30 minutes after addition of insulin to cortisol-inhibited cultures, but the incorporation of thymidine only begins to increase markedly after a 4-hour delay. When cortisol is added to cultures in the absence of insulin, the rates of uptake of 2-dGlc and uridine begin to decrease within two hours, but the incorporation of thymidine remains constant for two hours before beginning to decrease. Deprivation of Mg2+ inhibits the accelerated coordinate response maintained by insulin, but does not further the inhibition induced by cortisol. Results with metabolic inhibitors indicate that the stimulation of 2-dGlc and uridine uptake by insulin do not require RNA synthesis, and also suggest that they do not require protein synthesis. These and other findings can be explained by a model for coordinate control in which insulin increases and cortisol decreases the availability of Mg2+ for a wide spectrum of regulatory reactions in different metabolic pathways. In this model both hormones affect only the rates of ongoing reactions and do not instruct the cell to carry out specific new reactions unless the cell was predetermined to do so.
The influence of epinephrine on prostacyclin (PGI2) induced dissociation of adp aggregated platelets

Prostacyclin (PGI2) is a powerful inhibitor of platelet function and recent studies have indicated that it can dissociate aggregated platelets in vivo. The present investigation has evaluated the mechanism involved in the dissociation of ADP aggregated platelets by PGI2, the influence of epinephrine on the process of PGI2 mediated disaggregation, and effects of the catecholamine on the refractory state of PGI2 dispersed cells. Dissociation of ADP aggregates by PGI2 was concentration and time dependent, caused complete disappearance of sensitive platelet clumps and restored platelet discoid form. The dispersed platelets were refractory to further stimulation by ADP, thrombin, arachidonate or the calcium ionophore, A23187. Measurement of cAMP revealed no change in control levels after aggregation by ADP, but a sharp increase during and after dissociation by PGI2. Epinephrine added to ADP aggregates before or after PGI2 blocked disaggregation, or stopped dissociation if already in progress, and caused a rapid fall in the high levels of cAMP stimulated by PGI2. Agents to which PGI2 dissociated platelets were refractory, including ADP, arachidonate and A23187 caused no lowering of elevated cAMP levels. Reduction of high levels of CAMP in PGI2 dispersed platelets by epinephrine did not result in reaggregation. However, epinephrine addition to refractory platelets restored in large measure their sensitivity to aggregation by arachidonate, thrombin, ADP and A23187.
Zur bestimmung der elektrochemisch-kinetische parameter des redoxysystems Co(dien)22+/Co(dien)23+ an platinelektroden

The redox potentials and exchange current densities of the Co(dien)2+3+2 Co(dien)2+3+3 redox systems were determined and compared with each other. It was demonstrated that, notwithstanding the fact that the two redox systems have approximately the same structure, there are considerable differences in the redox potentials and exchange current densities. The reason for this is to be sought in the varying thermodynamic stability of the two redox systems. This assumption is confirmed by corresponding observations of homogeneously-kinetically investigated redox systems of iron in literature on the subject. Attention was drawn in this paper to a further connexion between the thermodynamic stability and hydrolytic behaviour of the Co(III) ions in the alkaline medium of the sequestering agent.
Diffraction tomography of strongly scattering objects based on homomorphic filtering

3-D plots of the output space are shown in the lower part of Figure 1. Each 3-D plot presents the transverse intensity distribution at some z0 along the longitudinal axis. The two strong correlation peaks on planes z0 = -2 and 1 indicate the locations of the two recognized vehi­ cles, which are identical to the reference. In conclusion, our (3-D) optical correlator opens op­ portunities to process 3-D images directly and rapidly. Therefore, targets distributed in 3-D space can be recog­ nized or tracked by optical correlators in the same fast
Is the inhibition of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors by bupropion involved in its clinical actions

In this mini review we will focus on those molecular and cellular mechanisms exerted by bupropion (BP), ultimately leading to the antidepressant and anti-nicotinic properties described for this molecule. The main pharmacological mechanism is based on the fact that BP induces the release as well as inhibits the reuptake of neurotransmitters such as a dopamine (DA) and norepinephrine (NE). Additional mechanisms of action have been also determined. For example, BP is a noncompetitive antagonist (NCA) of several nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (AChRs). Based on this evidence, the dual antidepressant and anti-nicotinic activity of BP is currently considered to be mediated by its stimulatory action on the DA and NE systems as well as its inhibitory action on AChRs. Considering the results obtained in the archetypical mouse muscle AChR, a sequential mechanism can be hypothesized to explain the inhibitory action of BP on neuronal AChRs: (1) BP first binds to AChRs in the resting state, decreasing the probability of ion channel opening, (2) the remnant fraction of open ion channels is subsequently decreased by accelerating the desensitization process, and (3), BP interacts with a binding domain located between the serine (position 6') and valine (position 13') rings that is shared with the NCA phencyclidine and other tricyclic antidepressants. This new evidence paves the way for further investigations using AChRs as targets for the action of safer antidepressants and novel anti-addictive compounds.