cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The Hypocretin Story

The main topic of this book stems from the discovery of two neuropeptides derived from the same precursor, conducted in parallel by two different groups (de Lecea et al. in Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 95:322–327, 1998; Sakurai et al. in Cell 92:573–585, 1998). Here is the account of the discovery of the hypocretin peptides, which was the result of a larger effort to characterize patterns of gene expression in the brain. The original hypothesis leading to the discovery of the peptides was that new mechanisms underlying the many functions of the hypothalamus (e.g. feeding, thermoregulation, circadian rhythmicity, sexual behavior and arousal) could be unraveled by identifying the expression patterns of hundreds of “cell-type” specific transcripts. This hypothesis ended up converging with a reverse pharmacology approach followed by Yanagisawa and colleagues, which is described in detail in other chapters. With the hypocretin story in the background, I also describe here the first implementation of optogenetic methods in a freely moving animal, which has led to a revolution in systems neuroscience.
Financial Distress and Emerging Markets

The United States' adoption of chapter 11 in the late 1970s began a process of world-wide reevaluation of the mechanisms for resolving financial distress. Especially following a series of financial shocks in the 1990s, corporate reorganization procedures have become vital parts of the new commercial laws of developing economies. At the same time, the United States and other developed economies have recently enacted procedures that suggest an increased willingness to respect and support reorganization in emerging markets. As signs of convergence, albeit at the most general of levels, begin to emerge with regard to the resolution of private-sector financial distress, the reality of global financial integration has greatly complicated the resolution of sovereign financial distress. In short, the general financial distress framework in emerging markets is still a work in progress, leaving gaps for regulators to address and investors to exploit.
How Air Transportation May Affect Marketing and Product Development

THE EXPANSION of air transportation in the past three years marks the beginning of a new era for marketing men. During that time we have come to a complete recognition of the military power of the airplane and an appreciation of its advantages and possibilities for passenger and cargo transportation, things which were perhaps only dimly seen before the war was upon us. We have become truly air minded. The developments of the past 20 months alone have crammed years of aviation progress into that short period and beyond the vast military needs of the present we can see the promise of a new and tremendous peacetime industry. The war will have advanced the science of aviation by at least fifty years. Experiments of such magnitude that they could not have been undertaken in peacetime by private capital will have pointed the way to new achievements in air transportation. Industries and persons not previously familiar with the uses and advantages of air transportation will have been introduced to those advantages and under the pressure of war economy will have formed new shipping and travel habits. The world is shrinking and will continue to do so. Already any important city on the globe can be reached well within a week, about half the time it took to journey from Boston to Savannah some hundred and fifty years ago. The world is now actually smaller, measured in travel time than were the thirteen original States. This means much in terms of markets. Visualize, for example,
Conformal Transformation Charts used by Electrical Engineers

(1963). Conformal Transformation Charts used by Electrical Engineers. Mathematics Magazine: Vol. 36, No. 1, pp. 25-30.
Prediction of impact-induced damage accumulation in a composite using a macromolecular polymer model

Polymers and their composites are increasingly sought for applications where impact resistance constitutes an important design specication. One example of practical significance is the use of polymer-based composites in novel designs of fan blade containment cases (BCCs) of jet engines. During a blade-out event, a failed blade may penetrate the BCCs, but damage has to be contained within the composite. Here, we develop the basic ingredients of a multiscale modeling methodology with focus on the scale of the basic structural unit, where polymeric matrix and reinforcements are explicitly modeled. The polymer model accounts for nonlinear behavior, nite strains, intrinsic softening, tensioncompression asymmetry, rate-sensitivity, thermal softening and kinematic-like hardening associated with macomolecular mechanisms of chain reorientations. In addition to the polymer model, models of matrix cracking and b er debonding are used. The material parameters entering the macromolecular model are identied based on tests conducted on an untoughened epoxy resin for a wide range of temperatures and strain rates. Results from unit-cell calculations are presented to discuss damage initiation and progression as well as competition between modes of failure.
fNIRS: An Emergent Method to Document Functional Cortical Activity during Infant Movements

The neural basis underlying the emergence of goal-directed actions in infants has been severely understudied, with minimal empirical evidence for hypotheses proposed. This was largely due to the technological constraints of traditional neuroimaging techniques. Recently, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) technology has emerged as a tool developmental scientists are finding useful to examine cortical activity, particularly in young children and infants due to its greater tolerance to movements than other neuroimaging techniques. fNIRS provides an opportunity to finally begin to examine the neural underpinnings as infants develop goal-directed actions. In this methodological paper, I will outline the utility, challenges, and outcomes of using fNIRS to measure the changes in cortical activity as infants reach for an object. I will describe the advantages and limitations of the technology, the setup I used to study primary motor cortex activity during infant reaching, and example steps in the analyses processes. I will present exemplar data to illustrate the feasibility of this technique to quantify changes in hemodynamic activity as infants move. The viability of this research method opens the door to expanding studies of the development of neural activity related to goal-directed actions in infants. I encourage others to share details of techniques used, as well, including analyticals, to help this neuroimaging technology grow as others, such as EEG and fMRI have.
The ‘preparatory’ and ‘argumentation’ stages of police interrogation: A linguistic analysis of a criminal investigation

Abstract This paper examines from a conversation analysis perspective how police officers manage police-suspect exchanges during the ‘argumentation stage’ of police interrogation while using the accuser's police interview as a basis for formulating questions during the ‘preparatory stage’. Analyzing the audio recorded police interrogation of a suspect and the investigative interview of his accuser, this paper shows how the ‘preparatory stage’ of police interrogation plays a key role in constructing the discourse themes of confrontation and self-interest that seem to shape police-suspect exchanges in United States custodial settings. The results of the paper suggest that police officers often use turn-taking and topic management strategies, such as those embedded in the popular Reid method of interrogation, to pressure the suspect into cooperating with the police.
‘I am studying in the US but’: observations and insights from Caribbean college students

ABSTRACTThis paper examines the experiences and views of 12 Caribbean students studying at four Liberal Arts colleges and one large university in the Northeast, USA. The purpose of the study was to ascertain how young educated potential immigrants to the US today are thinking about race, identity, and homeland. The data were gathered through a 12-item open-ended questionnaire electronically administered through Google Forms. Among other issues, the researcher wanted to learn about participants’: decision to study in the US, experiences with race, identity and attitudinal shifts, feelings about being assigned racial labels, and current thinking about returning to their home countries. The findings highlight the acceptance of racial labels except for ‘African American’, a dogged adherence to national identity, the challenge of adjusting to the US racialized space, the view of the US as an education and economic transitional point for migrants on their return journey to their home countries, the formulation ...
Use of a Dermal Regeneration Template in Complicated Craniotomy Wounds: Review of a Series.

Background Surgical wounds after craniotomy heal with primary closure in most cases; however, significant comorbidities, multiple procedures, and history of tumor increase the risk of wound breakdown. Craniotomy wounds often require sophisticated coverage by a plastic surgeon using regional or microvascular flaps to address exposed intracranial contents. Unfortunately, timely treatment of craniotomy wounds may be difficult as a result of limitations of plastic surgery consultation, specialized operating room staffing, and operating room time. Infected wounds may need serial debridement and antibiotic therapy before definitive closure, and patients with dehisced or infected craniotomy wounds may need medical and nutritional optimization. Objective To present the first case series of 7 neurosurgical patients with craniotomy wound complications who underwent closure with dermal regeneration template (DRT) at the time of urgent surgical debridement. Methods Seven adult patients underwent placement of DRT for dehisced or infected craniotomy wounds after treatment for tumor or trauma. Patients had an average of 5.5 operations before definitive closure. Six patients ultimately underwent delayed free flap transfer after DRT placement, and 1 patient had DRT as definitive coverage. Results All patients had healed craniotomy wounds. Conclusion DRT has a role in treating complicated craniotomy wounds in patients with cancer or trauma either as a bridge or as definitive coverage. Its ease of application does not require advanced or time-consuming techniques. In some cases, it may even be used as a definitive means of closure in surgical wounds.
Monistat® 7 (Ortho Pharm.)

Monistat 7 is a vaginal preparation. The compound has a broad antifungal spectrum. The pharmacologic mode of action is permeation of the chitin of the fungal cell walls.
Virtual Symmetric Charge Transfer Superconducting Pairing Excitations in C60

The recent discovery of superconductivity in the alkali-fullerides has focused intense interest on the origin of the superconductivity in these new cluster materials. These materials’ narrow conduction bands, short coherence lengths, and unusually high T c ’s suggest that electron-electron interactions are potentially important in explaining their superconductivity. We have examined the character of the lowest energy, most retarded, virtual charge transfer excitations of a single C60 molecule. We find that these excitations produce identical intermediate polarizations on opposite sides of the C60 molecule leading to a pairing interaction that operates across the equatorial plane of the C60 molecule. These excitations arise from local field effects and, in contrast to more usual dynamic polarization mechanisms, are not dipole active. To the extent that this mechanism proves important, it begins to provide a cogent framework for the design of other cluster- and molecular-based superconductors.
Do Recipients of an Association-Sponsored Quality Award Program Experience Better Quality Outcomes Compared With Other Nursing Facilities Across the United States?

Background: This study explores the relationship between recipients of an association-sponsored Quality Award Program and select measures of quality in U.S. nursing facilities, examined both cross-...
Catalytic deoxygenation during cellulose fast pyrolysis using acid–base bifunctional catalysis

Catalytic fast pyrolysis of cellulose was performed in a micropyrolyzer coupled with online product analysis by GC-MS/FID/TCD. Acid, base, a physical mixture of acid/base, transitional metal compounds and acid–base bi-functional catalysts were evaluated based on their deoxygenation performance. The bifunctional catalyst was prepared by acid treatment of a natural mixed metal oxide, serpentine. Using the same number of acid/base sites, all of the catalytic materials were used in pyrolysis for the deoxygenation comparison. The results showed that the bifunctional catalyst achieved the best balance between deoxygenation and yield of vapor products. It appeared that during catalysis, the acidic sites primarily promoted dehydration while the basic sites mainly promoted fragmentation reactions. Compared to a physical mixture of acid and base material, the bifunctional catalyst appeared to promote deoxygenation reactions more effectively presumably due to the presence of adjacent acid and base sites.
Fast, accurate 2D-MR relaxation exchange spectroscopy (REXSY): Beyond compressed sensing

Previously, we showed that compressive or compressed sensing (CS) can be used to reduce significantly the data required to obtain 2D-NMR relaxation and diffusion spectra when they are sparse or well localized. In some cases, an order of magnitude fewer uniformly sampled data were required to reconstruct 2D-MR spectra of comparable quality. Nonetheless, this acceleration may still not be sufficient to make 2D-MR spectroscopy practicable for many important applications, such as studying time-varying exchange processes in swelling gels or drying paints, in living tissue in response to various biological or biochemical challenges, and particularly for in vivo MRI applications. A recently introduced framework, marginal distributions constrained optimization (MADCO), tremendously accelerates such 2D acquisitions by using a priori obtained 1D marginal distribution as powerful constraints when 2D spectra are reconstructed. Here we exploit one important intrinsic property of the 2D-MR relaxation exchange spectra: the fact that the 1D marginal distributions of each 2D-MR relaxation exchange spectrum in both dimensions are equal and can be rapidly estimated from a single Carr–Purcell–Meiboom–Gill (CPMG) or inversion recovery prepared CPMG measurement. We extend the MADCO framework by further proposing to use the 1D marginal distributions to inform the subsequent 2D data-sampling scheme, concentrating measurements where spectral peaks are present and reducing them where they are not. In this way we achieve compression or acceleration that is an order of magnitude greater than that in our previous CS method while providing data in reconstructed 2D-MR spectral maps of comparable quality, demonstrated using several simulated and real 2D T2 – T2 experimental data. This method, which can be called “informed compressed sensing,” is extendable to other 2D- and even ND-MR exchange spectroscopy.
Youth Development and Extension Family and Consumer Sciences

Youth Development and Extension Family and Consumer Sciences is the theme of a special issue of the 2006 Journal of the National Extension Association of Family and Consumer Sciences. The 2006 issue includes seven peer-reviewed articles, research abstracts and resource bibliographies.
Castleman’s Disease

Castleman’s disease (CD) is a rare lymphoproliterative disorder of unknown causes, which involves the lymph nodes and less commonly the extranodal tissues.
Evaluation of the Lactate Plus monitor for plasma lactate concentration measurement in dogs.

Objective To compare the Lactate Plus handheld monitor to a reference blood gas analyzer for determining plasma lactate concentrations in canine whole blood. Design Prospective observational study. Setting University teaching hospital. Animals Ninety-four dogs hospitalized or admitted through the emergency service provided 125 blood samples. Only dogs that required a venous or arterial blood gas evaluation as a part of their diagnostic assessment or ongoing management were included. Interventions None. Measurements and Main Results Canine whole blood samples were assayed for plasma lactate concentration with a reference blood gas analyzer and the Lactate Plus monitor. Correlation and Bland–Altman analyses were used to compare results between the 2 methods. A subset of blood samples was repeatedly analyzed with the Lactate Plus to assess monitor precision. Plasma lactate measurements from the Lactate Plus monitor showed excellent correlation with those from the reference analyzer (ρ = 0.98, P 5 mmol/L. The coefficient of variation ranged from 0–26.2% (median, 3.7%) and was <15% for 50/53 samples. Conclusions The Lactate Plus provides a fast and affordable method to measure plasma lactate concentration in dogs. Results showed excellent agreement with the reference analyzer and precision of the instrument was acceptable.
Functionalized vinylsilanes via highly efficient and recyclable Pt-nanoparticle catalysed hydrosilylation of alkynes

A mild, selective and facile synthesis of vinylsilanes via a recyclable platinum nanoparticle catalysed hydrosilylation of alkynes is reported. Various functionalized alkynes are selectively hydrosilylated to furnish functional β-E vinylsilanes in high yields. The catalytic effectiveness, ease of catalyst recovery and recyclability of the polysiloxane stabilized Pt-nanoparticle catalyst are the major achievements of this work. Detailed in situ characterization using Electron Microscopy and controlled poisoning experiments supports the participation of Pt-nanoparticles as active catalysts.
Autologous blood salvage in the era of patient blood management

Almost 150 years after the first autologous blood transfusion was reported, intraoperative blood salvage has become an important method of blood conservation. The primary goal of autologous transfusion is to reduce or avoid allogeneic red blood cell transfusion and the associated risks and costs. Autologous salvaged blood does not result in immunological challenge and its consequences, provides a higher quality red blood cell that has not been subjected to the adverse effects of blood storage, and can be more cost-effective than allogeneic blood when used for carefully selected surgical patients. Cardiac, orthopaedic and vascular surgery procedures with large anticipated blood loss can clearly benefit from the use of cell salvage. There are safety concerns in cases with gross bacterial contamination. There are theoretical safety concerns in obstetrical and cancer surgery; however, careful cell washing as well as leucoreduction filters makes for a safer autologous transfusion in these circumstances. Further studies are needed to determine whether oncologic outcomes are impacted by transfusing salvaged blood during cancer surgery. In this new era of patient blood management, where multimodal methods of reducing dependence on allogeneic blood are becoming commonplace, autologous blood salvage remains a valuable tool for perioperative blood conservation. Future studies will be needed to best determine how and when cell salvage should be utilized along with newer blood conservation measures.
Improving Soil Quality for Urban Agriculture in the North Central U.S.

An abundance of vacant land exists in the formerly industrial cities of the north central U.S., which have seen tremendous declines in their populations over the past 50 years. Many cities are looking to utilize this land for functional greenspace to improve the overall quality of life. In Ohio, Cleveland and Youngstown contain >1,500 and >2,500 ha of vacant land, respectively, while larger Detroit, MI is estimated to contain between 2,000 and 10,000 ha. Urban agriculture (UA) has emerged as a land use that can provide food production, economic benefits and enhanced ecosystem services on vacant urban parcels. Early data suggest that urban specialty crop cultivation can be quite productive, yielding 2–7 kg m−2, depending on crop and conditions. Given the inherent variability and impact of heavy disturbance common in urban soils, an objective soil quality assessment is necessary to optimize their use for crop production and functional greenspace. Soils in many vacant lots have undergone heavy disturbances, which can lead to severe degradation of their physical, chemical and biological properties. Key constraints to agricultural productivity faced in urban soils include compaction, low levels of organic matter, altered soil moisture characteristics, and lead contamination. Numerous low cost, small-scale intensive methods of improving urban soils exist including the utilization of organic wastes and by-products. The huge quantities of organic materials produced in urban areas have the potential to be processed into high quality soil amendments. Vacant lots in the North Central US can become a valuable asset for community development and improved food security if their soil quality is adequately addressed.
Challenges in Endocrinology Testing

Abstract The concentrations of a variety of hormones are measured in the clinical laboratory typically by using immunoassays. These techniques are known to be vulnerable to a number of interferences, for example, heterophilic antibodies and macro-complexes, to name a few. In addition, there are other factors that make these measurements challenging, such as the existence of multiple isoforms of a single hormone and supplemental dietary ingestion of biotin which is a component of many immunoassay systems. This chapter reviews the interferences and analytical difficulties in measuring hormones using immunoassays.
Delta alkalinity: a simple method to measure cellular net acid-base fluxes.

Acid-base transport across cell plasma membranes is important for cell homeostasis and growth. Current techniques for quantitatively measuring net acid-base fluxes are generally limited by either a...
Solving Combinatorial Optimization Problems Via Reformulation and Adaptive Memory Metaheuristics

Metaheuristics - general search procedures whose principles allow them to escape the trap of local optimality using heuristic designs-have been successfully employed to address a variety of important optimization problems over the past few years. Particular gains have been achieved in obtaining high quality solutions to problems that classical exact methods (which guarantee convergence) have found too complex to handle effectively. Typically a metaheuristic method is crafted to suit the particular characteristics of the problem at hand, exploiting to the extent possible the structure available to enable a fruitful and efficient search process. An alternative to this problem specific solution approach is a more general methodology that recasts a given problem into a common modeling format, permitting solutions to be derived by a common, rather than tailor-made, heuristic method.
Salmonella strikes a balance.

Host cells rarely wish to admit bacterial invaders, butSalmonella has developed a clever way to get around this. It first injects a protein called SopE, which stimulates the host cell's outer membrane to form ruffles and take up the bacterium. Salmonellathen injects another protein, SptP, to reverse these effects, returning the cell to its normal state so that it will survive and can provide a comfortable home for the bacterium.
Topics in Applied Analysis

In the previous chapters, we have explored how the presence of income taxation may alter several of the neoclassical properties of consumer demand functions and labor supply functions. As of yet, however, we have not discussed how one may empirically estimate the demand and supply functions when consumers face nonlinear budget sets While the literature is now quite extensive, the interested reader may find the recent work of Hausman (1985) a most useful review of the labor supply literature.
High-Rate Solid-Liquid Separation Coupled With Nitrogen and Phosphorous Treatment of Swine Manure: Effect on Ammonia Emission

A new treatment system was developed to meet multiple environmental performance standards including to substantially reduce ammonia emissions. It was tested full-scale for 2-years in a 5,145-head finishing swine farm with two anaerobic lagoons. The system combined high-rate solid-liquid separation with nitrogen and phosphorus removal processes. Both vertical radial plum mapping (VRPM) and floating static chamber techniques were used to measure NH3 emission fluxes from anaerobic storage lagoons and the total farm-level NH3 emission rates. The VRPM used an open-path tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy (TDL) and the flux chamber used a photoacoustic gas analyzer to accurately measure NH3 concentration. After the treatment system started, one of the two lagoons became inactive without receiving anymore flushed manure. The ammonia emission flux from the other lagoon with the treated effluent decreased from 43.9 to 6.8 kg-N ha-1 d-1 1.5 years after implementation of the new treatment system. The NH3 emission flux from the inactive lagoon also decreased similarly because the already stored old manure of the lagoon prior to inactivation was diluted with rainfalls and lost some NH3 via volatilization. The total farm-level NH3 emission rates decreased from 1.72 g s-1 to below detection level of the VRPM technique. Using the minimum detection level of the TDL with R2 > 90% (i.e., 8.1 8.1 µL L-1-m), the total farm-level NH3 emission rates in the second year were less than 0.04 – 0.15 g s-1. These results suggested that the impact of the new treatment system on NH3 emission reduction was equivalent to closing conventional swine lagoons while actively growing 5,145 pigs with minimal ammonia emissions from the farm.
Increased Engraftment of Bone Marrow Progenitors of Esophageal Stem Cells by Intraesophageal Administration of Manganese Superoxide Dismutase Plasmid/Liposomes (MnSOD-PL) 24 hr before Irradiation.

We hypothesized that following irradiation the esophageal microenvironment would have increased reactive oxygen species (ROS) production and that antioxidant gene therapy would decrease ROS resulting in increased engraftment of esophageal stem cells. Decreased ROS production following irradiation has been shown to result from expression of Manganese Superoxide Dismutase (MnSOD) transgene product delivered by plasmid/liposome complexes. We tested whether increased expression of MnSOD following intraesophageal administration of Manganese Superoxide Dismutase Plasmid/Liposomes (MnSOD-PL) increased engraftment of esophageal stem cells. Female C57BL/6NHsd mice which had received MnSOD-PL (100 μg plasmid DNA) intraesophageally 24 hr earlier were irradiated along with control mice to 29 Gy to the esophagus. The mice were injected intravenously with bone marrow from male ROSA (Lac-Z, G418 r transgenic mice) five days later (time of greatest esophageal basal cell apoptosis). Fourteen days later the mice (first generation) were sacrificed, esophagus removed, single cell suspensions prepared, stained with Hoescht dye and sorted by flow cytometer into side population (SP) and nonside population (NSP) cells. Half of the SP and NSP cells isolated from the MnSOD-PL treated mice were injected into a second generation of recipient MnSOD-PL treated as well as control mice. The remaining cells were grown in either methylcellulose or in 96 well plates in G418. Second generation recipient mice were sacrificed 14 days after transplant and the SP and NSP cells isolated and grown in either methylcellulose or in 96 well plates as described above. Tissue culture grown G418 r colonies were stained for donor (Lac-Z+) cells. In first generation recipient mice, those pre-treated with MnSOD-PL had increased expression of Lac-Z+ SP and NSP cells per esophagus (38.4 ± 4.2% and 21.8 ± 5.5%, respectively) compared to the control irradiated mice (21.4 ± 4.4%, p=0.0105, and 5.2 ± 2.4%, p=0.0277, respectively). Second generation MnSOD-PL treated recipient mice, transplanted with esophageal SP cells from MnSOD-PL treated mice had more Lac-Z+ SP cells per esophagus (47.9 + 3.5%) than that detected in mice injected with NSP cells from the same donors (22.3 ± 2.4%, p
Optimal Control of Parallel Queues for Managing Volunteer Convergence

Volunteer convergence refers to the influx of volunteers to affected areas after large‐scale disasters. There are not only many benefits to volunteer convergence, but it also creates significant logistical challenges that can impede relief efforts. This study examines polices for admitting volunteers into organized relief operations, and for assigning admitted volunteers to relief tasks. We represent this problem as a queueing system where, in addition to customer arrivals and departures, random server arrivals and abandonments are also present. Then, using a Markov decision process framework, we analyze server admission and assignment policies that seek to minimize relief tasks holding costs as well as volunteer holding and rejection costs. We show that the classic cμ rule, a server allocation policy that determines where to put servers based on relief tasks holding costs and processing requirements, is optimal under both collaborative and non‐collaborative service regimes and when batch server arrivals are allowed. Additionally, we find that the optimal server admission policy is a complex state‐dependent policy. As a result, we propose a class of admission heuristics that depend on the number of workers in the system and the remaining system workload. In a numerical study, we show that our heuristic policies perform well with respect to long‐run average costs, waiting times, number of volunteers in the system, and number of volunteers idling in the system over a range of parameter values and distributions that are based on real data from a case study. As such, they promise volunteer coordinators an effective and simple way to manage disaster volunteers.
Fecal microbiota transplantation therapy on Clostridium difficile infection in children

With the overuse of antibiotics, Clostridium difficile infections are increasing, and the incidence of refractory or recurrent cases increase.Increasing resistance to the traditional treatment (metronidazole and/or vancomycin), relapsing Clostridium difficile infection needs to seek new treatments.Fecal microbiota transplantation has been widely used in the treatment of adult Clostridium difficile infection, but is seldom used in children.In this paper, fecal microbiota transplantation for the treatment of Clostridium difficile infection in children related issues were reviewed. Key words: Fecal microbiota transplantation; Clostridium difficile infection; Child
South Asian Magical Realism

Kantor provides a comprehensive overview of magical realism in South Asia. Beginning with antecedents in non-realist literature of the early twentieth century, this chapter examines accounts that explain the sudden and apparent dominance of magical realism in literatures of South Asia and its diaspora after the 1981 publication of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children. It also considers explanations of Rushdie himself as a magical realist and South Asian writer par-excellence. Finally, it traces the effects of Rushdie’s magical realism on the field of South Asian Anglophone letters, the over-identification of this area and era with that particular literary mode, and the tentative reemergence of magical realism after a period of oversaturation and retrenchment. Throughout, Kantor shows how these tendencies overflow both national and postcolonial explanatory frameworks.
Intensity of anticoagulation and survival in patients hospitalized with COVID-19 pneumonia.

Abstract Background SARS-CoV-2 infection has noted derangements in coagulation markers along with significant thrombotic complications. Post-mortem examinations show severe endothelial injury and widespread thrombotic microangiopathy in the pulmonary vasculature. Early reports describing the use of prophylactic anticoagulation demonstrated improved survival, leading to the adoption of prophylactic and therapeutic anticoagulation guided by D-dimer levels. The clinical usefulness of D-dimer values, trends, and more intensive anticoagulation remains an area of clinical interest. Objectives Assess the outcomes and laboratory trends in COVID-19 patients stratified by intensity of anticoagulation at time of admission. Patients and methods Retrospectively review the differences in clinical outcomes and laboratory trends in patients hospitalized with COVID-19 in the Lifespan Health System. Results Between 27 February and 24 April 2020, 468 patients were hospitalized. Initial use of high-intensity thromboprophylaxis was associated with improved 30-day mortality (adjusted RR 0.26; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.07–0.97; p = 0.045) without a significant increased rate of bleeding (p = 0.11). In severe COVID-19, D-dimer significantly increased during hospitalization with standard thromboprophylaxis (p Conclusion Patients who received high-intensity prophylactic anticoagulation had a downtrend in D-dimer levels and improved 30-day mortality. This suggests a role in anticoagulation in mitigating adverse outcomes associated with COVID-19; however, further randomized, prospective studies are needed.
A single-period analysis of a two-echelon inventory system with dependent supply uncertainty

Abstract Disruptions and random supplies have been important sources of uncertainty that should be considered in the design and control of supply chains. There have been many real world examples in which a single catastrophic event has simultaneously degraded the capabilities of several suppliers leading to considerable erosion of profits and goodwill for a company. However, the literature on analytical models that account for the dependence nature of disruptions and its impact on supply chain performance is sparse. In this paper, we consider an m -manufacturer, 1-retailer, newsvendor inventory system with stochastically dependent manufacturing capacities, caused by random disruptions that may simultaneously inflict damages to the capacities of the manufacturers. We develop the structural/analytical properties of key performance measures and optimal inventory policies for the multi-source and assembly inventory systems. We show that stochastic dependence in disruptions can have opposite effects on system performance in the multi-source and assembly systems. While risk diversification is preferred in the multi-source system, risk concentration is preferred in the assembly system. Our results also suggest that, if the retailer ignores the effect of dependent disruptions, then in the multi-source structure, it would underestimate the cost, overestimate the fill rate, and order more units than the optimum; however, in the assembly structure, the opposite would happen. We perform a comprehensive numerical study to validate our analytical results and generate useful managerial and operational insights for effective risk management of supply chains in the presence of dependent supply uncertainty.
Direct measurements of the microstructural origin of shear-thinning in carbon black suspensions

Scientific questions surrounding the shear-dependent microstructure of carbon black suspensions are motivated by a desire to predict and control complex rheological and electrical properties encountered under shear. In this work, direct structural measurements over a hierarchy of length scales spanning from nanometers to tens of micrometers are used to determine the microstructural origin of the suspension viscosity measured at high shear rates. These experiments were performed on a series of dense suspensions consisting of high-structured carbon blacks from two commercial sources suspended in two Newtonian fluids, propylene carbonate and light mineral oil. The shear-induced microstructure was measured at a range of applied shear rates using Rheo-VSANS (very small angle neutron scattering) and Rheo-USANS (ultra-small angle neutron scattering) techniques. A shear-thinning viscosity is found to arise due to the self-similar break up of micrometer-sized agglomerates with increasing shear intensity. This self-similarity yields a master curve for the shear-dependent agglomerate size when plotted against the Mason number, which compares the shear force acting to break particle-particle bonds to the cohesive force holding bonds together. It is found that the agglomerate size scales as R g , agg ∼ M n − 1. Inclusion of the particle stress contribution extends the relevance of the Mason number to concentrated suspensions such as those relevant to the processing of carbon black suspensions for various applications.
Generation of Vortex Beam using Circularly Polarized Transmitarray

This paper presents the design of a planar transmitarray to generate a spiral phase front in the far-field radiation pattern. The transmitarray is composed of $12\times 12$ circularly polarized unit cells, which are rotated individually in order to generate the desired phase distribution. The novel presented unit cell is designed on a double-layer dielectric slab, and three identical metallic sections are positioned on top of each other in a stack. Through rotation of the unit cells a full 360-degree spiral phase progression on the transmitarray can be obtained. The simulated results for the designed spiral phase transmitarray show a desirable performance in the frequency band of 22.5-23.5 GHz ka-band.
FICOM: a framework for incremental consistency maintenance in multi-representation, structural VLSI databases

A framework for VLSI design databases which supports fine-grained incremental consistency maintenance between different views of a design is presented. The framework provides for structural views of a design such as logic or circuit schematic, symbolic layout, and physical layout, and supports representation of geometric design rule constraints between design objects. A prototype interactive design system which provides a user interface to three structural view types (gate and circuit schematics, and symbolic layouts) is presented. Features of the prototype system are automatic propagation of incremental operations between views and high-speed online generation and evaluation of geometric design rule constraints. >
Rabbit Holes and Taste Distortion: Distribution-Aware Recommendation with Evolving Interests

To mitigate the rabbit hole effect in recommendations, conventional distribution-aware recommendation systems aim to ensure that a user’s prior interest areas are reflected in the recommendations that the system makes. For example, a user who historically prefers comedies to dramas by 2:1 should see a similar ratio in recommended movies. Such approaches have proven to be an important building block for recommendation tasks. However, existing distribution-aware approaches enforce that the target taste distribution should exactly match a user’s prior interests (typically revealed through training data), based on the assumption that users’ taste distribution is fundamentally static. This assumption can lead to large estimation errors. We empirically identify this taste distortion problem through a data-driven study over multiple datasets. We show how taste preferences dynamically shift and how the design of a calibration mechanism should be designed with these shifts in mind. We further demonstrate how to incorporate these shifts into a taste enhanced calibrated recommender system, which results in simultaneously mitigated both the rabbit hole effect and taste distortion problem.
Polarization Lost: Exploring the Decline of Ideological Voting in Congress after the Gilded Age

Polarization Lost: Exploring the Decline of Ideological Voting in Congress after the Gilded Age
Whole Body PBPK Modeling of Remdesivir and its Metabolites to Aid in Estimating Active Metabolite Exposure in the Lung and Liver in Patients with Organ Dysfunction.

Remdesivir (RDV) is the first drug approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in certain patients requiring hospitalization. As a nucleoside analogue prodrug, RDV undergoes intracellular multistep activation to form its pharmacologically active species, GS-443902, which is not detectable in the plasma. A question arises that whether the observed plasma exposure of RDV and its metabolites would correlate with or be informative about the exposure of GS-443902 in tissues. A whole body physiologically-based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) modeling and simulation approach was utilized to elucidate the disposition mechanism of RDV and its metabolites in the lungs and liver and explore the relationship between plasma and tissue pharmacokinetics (PK) of RDV and its metabolites in healthy subjects. In addition, the potential alteration of plasma and tissue PK of RDV and its metabolites in patients with organ dysfunction was explored. Our simulation results indicated that intracellular exposure of GS-443902 was decreased in the liver and increased in the lungs in subjects with hepatic impairment relative to the subjects with normal liver function. In subjects with severe renal impairment, the exposure of GS-443902 in the liver was slightly increased, whereas the lung exposure of GS-443902 was not impacted. These predictions along with the organ impairment study results may be used to support decision making regarding the RDV dosage adjustment in these patient subgroups. The modeling exercise illustrated the potential of whole body PBPK modeling to aid in decision making for nucleotide analogue prodrugs, particularly when the active metabolite exposure in the target tissues is not available.
Party Size and Constituency Representation: Evidence from the 19th‐Century U.S. House of Representatives

Research on congressional parties assumes, but has not directly shown, that party size affects individual members' calculations. Drawing on a key case from the nineteenth-century House—the secession-driven Republican hegemony of 1861—this article explores the hypothesis that party voting not only declines but also becomes more strongly linked to constituency factors as relative party size increases. The analysis reveals that the jump in party size coincides with (1) a decrease in party voting among individual continuing members, (2) a strengthening association between some constituency factors and party voting, and (3) patterns of decline in individual party voting that are explained in part by constituency measures.
Matching RDF Graphs

The Resource Description Framework (RDF) describes graphs of statements about resources. RDF is a fundamental lower layer of the semantic web. This paper explores the equality of two RDF graphs in light of the graph isomorphism literature. We consider anonymous resources as unlabelled vertices in a graph, and show that the standard graph isomorphism algorithms, developed in the 1970's, can be used effectively for comparing RDF graphs. The techniques presented are useful for testing RDF software.
Understanding Perceptions of Genetically Modified Food Among Natural Food Shoppers in Southern Nevada

iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv LIST OF TABLES vii LIST OF ACRONYMS viii CHAPTER I – INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY
Acoustic realization and perception of English lexical stress by Mandarin learners

An acoustic and perception study was conducted to investigate the acquisition of English lexical stress by Mandarin learners. Mandarin Chinese is a tone language that adopts height and contour to signal lexical meaning, while English is a stress language. It was observed that the Mandarin learners are different from native English speakers in the acoustic realization. The study used fourteen disyllabic word pairs with similar segmental composition in stress location. The mean F0, max F0, intensity, duration, and F2 of stressed and unstressed vowels were compared to the native English speakers during the study. The study also observed that native English speakers utilize mean F0, max F0, intensity, and duration to signal stressed syllables in noun readings.
The beta-catenin homolog BAR-1 and LET-60 Ras coordinately regulate the Hox gene lin-39 during Caenorhabditis elegans vulval development

In C. elegans, the epithelial Pn.p cells adopt either a vulval precursor cell fate or fuse with the surrounding hypodermis (the F fate). Our results suggest that a Wnt signal transduced through a pathway involving the beta-catenin homolog BAR-1 controls whether P3.p through P8.p adopt the vulval precursor cell fate. In bar-1 mutants, P3.p through P8.p can adopt F fates instead of vulval precursor cell fates. The Wnt/bar-1 signaling pathway acts by regulating the expression of the Hox gene lin-39, since bar-1 is required for LIN-39 expression and forced lin-39 expression rescues the bar-1 mutant phenotype. LIN-39 activity is also regulated by the anchor cell signal/let-23 receptor tyrosine kinase/let-60 Ras signaling pathway. Our genetic and molecular experiments show that the vulval precursor cells can integrate the input from the BAR-1 and LET-60 Ras signaling pathways by coordinately regulating activity of the common target LIN-39 Hox.
Intracellular Records from Chronic Alumina Epileptogenic Foci in the Monkey

Summary: Neuronal records from the primate alumina focus revealed synaptic potentials with bursts of action potentials occurring on depolarizing potentials. These depolarizing potentials were not synchronous with electrocortico-graphic epileptic patterns. The configuration of the membrane potential changes was consistent with a dendritic generator for epileptic bursts. It is proposed that the genesis of these depolarizing potentials is postsynaptic. RESUME Des observations se rapportant a des neurones pris d'un foyer epileptique provoque par la creme d'alumine chez le singe re velent des potentiels synap-tiques et des salves de potentiels d'action avec des potentiels depolorisants de base. Ceux-ci ne sont pas synchrones avec des traces electro-corticographiques de l'epilepsie. La configuration des changements du potentiel de membrane temoigne une origine den-dritique des salves epileptiques. Dans ce travail on soutient que ces potentiels depolorisants ont une genese post-synaptique. RESUMEN La actividad neuronal recogide en focos de alumina en primates demostraron potenciales synapticos y paroxismos de potenciales de accion ocurriendo sobre potenciales de depolarizacion. Los potenciales de de-polarizacion eran asincronos con los trazados epilep-ticos del elecrocorticograma. La configuracion de los cambios de potencial de membrana eran consistentes con la existencia de un generador dendritico de los paroximos epilepticos. Queremos proponer que la genesis de los potenciales depolarizantes era de origen postsynaptico. ZUSAMMENFASSUNG Intrazellulare Potentiale der Neuronen wurden in epileptogenen Foci des Affen im Aluminium-Gel-Modell gemessen. Aufnahmen stellten synaptische Potentiale dar, die Depolarisationspotentiale uber-lagert sind. Diese Depolarisationspotentiale waren nicht gleichzeitig mit dem epileptiformen Muster im Elektrocorticogramm. Die Form der Veranderungen der Membranpotentiale war vereinbar mit einem den-tritischen Generator der epileptiformen Bursts. Die Moglichkeit dass der Ursprung dieser Depolarisationspotentiale postsynaptisch ist wird hier erortert.
Watching Sport: Aesthetics, Ethics and Emotions

London and New York: Routledge, 2012, p. xi +152 £24.99 Paperback ISBN 978-0-415-37790-4 A sporting contest would seem to be both complete in itself and yet, by its very nature, public and accessib...