cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Picosecond Vibrational Dynamics of Hydrogen Bonded Solids: Phonons and Optical Damage

variety of simple and complex biological molecules form H-bonded solids. We have studied vibrational dynamics in amino acid, peptide, and protein crystals [1]. Ps CARS used to measure the lifetime of various optical phonons (ω = 30 – 1500 cm−1) in H-bonded crystals, and in a number of cases surprisingly long phonon lifetimes (many ns) were observed. Because there are many long-lived phonons in these crystals, we can study how the phonon dynamics are altered by the phonon frequency, the crystal structure, the temperature, or the presence of impurities [1].
The structure of the Ctf19c/CCAN from budding yeast.

Eukaryotic kinetochores connect spindlemicrotubules to chromosomal centromeres. A group of proteins called the Ctf19 complex (Ctf19c) in yeast and the constitutive centromere associated network (CCAN) in other organisms creates the foundation of a kinetochore. The Ctf19c/CCAN influences the timing of kinetochore assembly, sets its location by associating with a specialized nucleosome containing the histone H3 variant Cse4/CENP-A, and determines the organization of the microtubule attachment apparatus. We present here the structure of a reconstituted 13-subunit Ctf19c determined by cryo-electron microscopy at ~4 A resolution. The structure accounts for known and inferred contacts with the Cse4 nucleosome and for an observed assembly hierarchy. We describe its implications for establishment of kinetochores and for their regulation by kinases throughout the cell cycle.
Measuring burden of care after catastrophic illness or injury

Burden of care (BoC) is the amount of time a patient requires direct, daily assistance from another person to meet basic needs in the home; it is based on a patient's functional level, obtained using the Functional Independence Measure. Inpatient BoC is a patient's projected resource utilization during a stay at an inpatient facility, assessed using the Northwick Park Dependency Scale. At the outpatient level, function and BoC can be assessed using the LIFEware System. Measuring and monitoring outcomes of all care result in reduced health care expenditures, more streamlined patient care, and improved quality of life for patients and families.
Introduction: Cold War–Era News Maps in Historical Context

The onset of the Cold War in 1945 brought significant changes to global geopolitics. Great Britain and the United States felt compelled to reexamine their relationship with their former ally, the Soviet Union, and, by 1949, with newly communist China. The postwar division of Europe, the advent of the Air Age, the decline of the British Empire, and the Containment Doctrine highlighted differences between British and American foreign policies. The future of the famed “special relationship” between England and the United States was uncertain. In this pivotal era, maps appearing in British and American national news journals served as valuable tools to relate “new realities” of the Cold War to millions of readers. This map imagery was often powerful, even more so than the printed word. The news journals in which the maps appeared were extensions of national political parties that promoted specific ideas about the political world with cartographic imagery. But British and American news maps often depicted the early Cold War world in very different ways. A study of these maps reveals differences, both obvious and subtle, in how American and British societies viewed global geopolitics in the early years of the Cold War. Moreover, serial news journal maps provide a sort of chronology of political opinion on enduring Cold War crises. British and American cartographic portrayals of the Cold War world over time can be tracked and compared alongside contemporary texts. And if the axiom about journalism being the “first draft of history” is true for the Cold War era, then news maps provided the first historical map imagery of the period.
Temperature-Dependent Friction of Gemini Hydrogels

Discussion and hypotheses regarding the dominant dissipation mechanisms in Gemini hydrogel sliding have often implicated viscous dissipation through shear rate and mesh size—essentially, if the dissipation is simply a result of viscous shear through a single mesh dimension at the surface, increasing viscosity, increasing sliding speed and decreasing mesh size will all increase the frictional shear. Based on the measurements of gel shrinking coupled with increasing viscosity with decreasing temperature, the expectation is that the friction will increase dramatically with decreasing temperature. Potential frictional dissipation mechanisms in hydrogel sliding were investigated by measuring friction coefficients over a range of temperature from − 20 °C (253 K) to + 20 °C (293 K). The gels were run in the Gemini configuration and were made from 7.5 wt% polyacrylamide (PAAm) formulations swollen in water. After casting, the hydrogel solvent (water) was exchanged with a 40:60 dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO)–water solution by volume, which permitted experiments to be conducted below the freezing point of water alone (0 °C). The hydrogels were found to shrink as the temperature decreased, and measurements suggest that the mesh size changed from roughly ξ = 16 nm at + 20 °C to ξ = 10 nm at − 20 °C. The viscosity of the 40:60 DMSO–water solution was measured on a parallel plate rheometer over the range in temperature and found to increase from η = 1 mPa-s at + 20 °C to η = 12 mPa-s at − 20 °C. Experiments were conducted with 2-mm-radius spherical probes on flat sheets under reciprocating contact at a normal load of 2 mN, sliding speeds of either V = 10 µm/s or V = 1 mm/s and over a temperature range of − 20 °C to + 20 °C, at 5 °C increments. The entire system was allowed to equilibrate at each temperature, and the friction coefficients and associated uncertainties are reported. The friction behavior at V = 10 µm/s increased in proportion to the changes in viscosity and mesh size following the models, and had friction coefficients of µ = 0.01 at + 20 °C that increased to µ = 0.16 at − 20 °C. The high-speed sliding experiments at V = 1 mm/s were in the soft elastohydrodynamic lubrication regime, and the friction coefficient increased in proportion to the ratio of the viscosity changes, µ = 0.01 at + 20 °C to µ = 0.09 at − 20 °C. In the high-speed experiments, there was a dramatic shift in behavior from low to high friction around T = − 3 °C (270 K). Following the hypotheses of thermally activated friction, plots of the natural log of normalized friction (ln(µ/µo)) versus 1/RT were analyzed for both data sets and give activation energies of Ea = 16 ± 2 kJ/mol at V = 1 mm/s and Ea = 20 ± 2.5 kJ/mol at V = 10 µm/s. These activation energies are within the range of the activation energy of the viscosity for the DMSO–water solution, Ea = 15.9 ± 0.3 kJ/mol. Overall, these experiments clearly demonstrate that Gemini hydrogel friction increases with decreasing temperature and suggest that both viscosity and mesh size contribute to friction under direct contact sliding.
Practical Design of an Octave-band Stacked Patch Antenna Phased Array

MIT Lincoln Laboratory is developing a planar ultra-wideband phased array antenna. The radiator is required to operate over an octave of bandwidth and provide up to 55° of scanning in elevation and azimuth with dual polarization capability. Although these requirements are easily met using state of the art designs such as a PUMA or Vivaldi array, the design requires co-located phase centers for the unit cell. A detailed description of the probe-fed stacked patch radiator design will be reviewed and results discussed. Measurements will be presented for the prototype that was fabricated.
Neurological Aspects of Coronavirus Infectious Disease 2019 (COVID-19)

Background. Coronavirus infectious disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spread rapidly around the world and has been declared a pandemic by World Health Organization. Neurological manifestations are being reported in patients with COVID-19 but clinical guidelines and effective treatments remain unclear. Objective: In this brief review, the authors examine the latest available evidence to date regarding the neurological implications of COVID-19 and how the novel coronavirus might possibly impact patients with pre-existing neurological conditions. COVID-19-specific recommendations from the American Academy of Neurology and and other neurologic disease-specific organizations are summarized. Results: Current retrospective case series and cohort studies from Wuhan, China, are indicating that almost one-third of the patients with COVID-19 have shown neurological manifestations; older age and comorbid conditions are associated worsened outcomes. Abnormal laboratory findings are being reported in acute cases of patients with COVID-19. Summary: Understanding the spectrum of neurological manifestations of COVID-19 and the impact of COVID-19 on patients with underlying neurological conditions might help to improve outcomes.
The Attentive Body: How the Indexicality of Epigenetic Processes Enriches Our Understanding of Embodied Subjectivity:

Drawing on research in posthumanism, science and technology studies and biosemiotics, this essay analyses the challenges epigenetic processes pose for our understanding of embodied subjectivity. It...
Lockdowns don't kill women, abusive men do.

Bavli and colleagues report that public health interventions against covid-19 are associated with increased rates of domestic violence.1 To tackle issues around the murder of women at the hands of men we need a wider change of narrative across society and the media. We need to change how women are portrayed when they are murdered by men. Headlines must stop trying to provide context (“he murdered her after she . . .”). This apportions blame to the …
When Models Learn Too Much

Statistical machine learning uses training data to produce models that capture patterns in that data. When models are trained on private data, such as medical records or personal emails, there is a risk that those models not only learn the hoped-for patterns, but will also learn and expose sensitive information about their training data. Several different types of inference attacks on machine learning models have been found, and methods have been proposed to mitigate the risks of exposing sensitive aspects of training data. Differential privacy provides formal guarantees bounding certain types of inference risk, but, at least with state-of-the-art methods, providing substantive differential privacy guarantees requires adding so much noise to the training process for com¬plex models that the resulting models are useless. Experimental evidence, however, suggests that inference attacks have limited power, and in many cases a very small amount of privacy noise seems to be enough to defuse inference attacks. In this talk, I will give an overview of a variety of different inference risks for machine learning models, talk about strategies for evaluating model inference risks, and report on some experiments by our research group to better understand the power of inference attacks in more realistic settings, and explore some broader the connections between privacy, fair-ness, and adversarial robustness.
What Is the Role of the Cytosolic DNA Response in Neurodegeneration

Detection of cytosolic DNA triggers an innate immune response that leads to neuroinflammation. The sources of such DNA include viral or bacterial pathogens as well as nuclear and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) released in pathologic conditions.1 Sensing of cytosolic DNA triggers a signal mediated by cyclic GMP-AMP synthase (cGAS) and the stimulator of interferon (IFN) genes (STING) protein, resulting in activation of type I IFNs (IFN-I) and secretion of proinflammatory cytokines.2-5 Whereas the cGAS–STING pathway mediates immunosurveillance that is often neuroprotective, for example against herpes simplex virus type 1 infection, its excessive engagement can be deleterious and promote age-related neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration.1,6 For example, mitochondrial stress due to impaired mitophagy stimulates STING-mediated IFN-I responses.7 Detection of mtDNA released from mitochondria in response to accumulation of transactivation DNA binding protein of 43 kD (TDP-43) activates the STING pathway, leading to neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).8 The cGAS-STING pathway is thus a potential target for neuroprotective therapy.1,9
Influence of the Alternative Sigma Factor RpoN on Global Gene Expression and Carbon Catabolism in Enterococcus faecalis V583.

The alternative sigma factor σ54 has been shown to regulate the expression of a wide array of virulence-associated genes, as well as central metabolism, in bacterial pathogens. In Gram-positive organisms, the σ54 is commonly associated with carbon metabolism. In this study, we show that the Enterococcus faecalis alternative sigma factor σ54 (RpoN) and its cognate enhancer binding protein MptR are essential for mannose utilization and are primary contributors to glucose uptake through the Mpt phosphotransferase system. To gain further insight into how RpoN contributes to global transcriptional changes, we performed microarray transcriptional analysis of strain V583 and an isogenic rpoN mutant grown in a chemically defined medium with glucose as the sole carbon source. Transcripts of 340 genes were differentially affected in the rpoN mutant; the predicted functions of these genes mainly related to nutrient acquisition. These differentially expressed genes included those with predicted c atabolite- r esponsive e lement (cre) sites, consistent with loss of repression by the major carbon catabolite repressor CcpA. To determine if the inability to efficiently metabolize glucose/mannose affected infection outcome, we utilized two distinct infection models. We found that the rpoN mutant is significantly attenuated in both rabbit endocarditis and murine catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI). Here, we examined a ccpA mutant in the CAUTI model and showed that the absence of carbon catabolite control also significantly attenuates bacterial tissue burden in this model. Our data highlight the contribution of central carbon metabolism to growth of E. faecalis at various sites of infection.IMPORTANCE Hospital-acquired infections account for 2 billion dollars annually in increased health care expenses and cause more than 100,000 deaths in the United States alone. Enterococci are the second leading cause of hospital-acquired infections. They form biofilms at surgical sites and are often associated with infections of the urinary tract following catheterization. Nutrient uptake and growth are key factors that influence their ability to cause disease. Our research identified a large set of genes that illuminate nutrient uptake pathways in enterococci. Perturbation of the metabolic circuit reduces virulence in a rabbit endocarditis model, as well as in catheter-associated urinary tract infection in mice. Targeting metabolic pathways that are important in infection may lead to new treatments against multidrug-resistant enterococcal infections.
Welding versus adhesive bonding strength investigation

Abstract This paper was intended to investigate the strength of adhesive and welded connections to be used in a dynamic message sign (DMS). The tensile strength and shear strength were studied for both of the adhesive and welded specimens. A number of tensile specimens and shear specimens with variations in width and temperature were tested until failure according to the ASTM D638 and ASTM D1002, respectively. The specimens with a range of width from 13 mm to 38 mm were conditioned with temperatures between −56.67 °C and 93.33 °C. The effects of temperature and width on each of the strengths were evaluated by analysing the testing data in a graphical and statistical manner. As expected, all the tests revealed that the welded specimens have significantly higher strength compared to the adhesive specimens in tensile and shear loadings. For the adhesive specimens, due to the increment of temperature, the highest increments were found to be 31.9% and 30.4%. In addition to the tests, Response Surface Metamodels (RSMs) and practical design equations were developed with regression analysis of the testing data, so as to predict tensile and shear stresses of both adhesive and welded specimens in an efficient way. 3D plots generated from the RSMs showed a higher effect of the temperature and width on the ultimate tensile and shear strength for both adhesive and welded specimens, and the practical design equations were founded to be more reliable for the overall tensile and shear stress prediction compared to the RSMs.
Flat-plate solar array project. Volume 2: Silicon material

The goal of the Silicon Material Task, a part of the Flat Plate Solar Array (FSA) Project, was to develop and demonstate the technology for the low cost production of silicon of suitable purity to be used as the basic material for the manufacture of terrestrial photovoltaic solar cells. Summarized are 11 different processes for the production of silicon that were investigated and developed to varying extent by industrial, university, and Government researchers. The silane production section of the Union Carbide Corp. (UCC) silane process was developed completely in this program. Coupled with Siemens-type chemical vapor deposition reactors, the process was carried through the pilot stage. The overall UCC process involves the conversion of metallurgical-grade silicon to silane followed by decomposition of the silane to purified silicon. The other process developments are described to varying extents. Studies are reported on the effects of impurities in silicon on both silicon-material properties and on solar cell performance. These studies on the effects of impurities yielded extensive information and models for relating specific elemental concentrations to levels of deleterious effects.
Direct Detection of Dark Matter with Space-based Laser Interferometers

Dark matter pervades the Solar System, free-streaming at the halo's local Galactic orbital velocity and density. As these objects pass through the Solar system, they perturb gravitationally, and thus very weakly, all nearby inertial masses. Making use of this, we propose an approach to the direct detection of dark matter at previously inaccessible intermediate masses (1e14 -- 1e20 gm). Such mass scales are relevant for example for dark matter made of primordial black holes or clumped matter in a sequestered sector. If such dark matter exists it will be unambiguously detectable through its inelastic gravitational interaction with the proposed Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) experiment. We demonstrate the efficacy of this approach by studying the dark matter signal in numerical simulations of the LISA data stream. A more conservative approach -- to detect dark matter in the differential acceleration power spectrum -- significantly underestimates the expected rates for LISA. Interestingly, while the space-density of 1e15 gm DM objects would be comparable to the space-density of asteroids of similar masses, such ``light matter'' contaminants are readily detectable in reflected Solar light, allowing for the elimination of the major background.
Climate change and tribal water rights: removing barriers to adaptation strategies

The effects of climate change on water resources in the United States are well-understood and likely to have profound impacts on water resources and water availability. Although the effects of climate change will be felt nationwide, their impact on Indian tribal communities may be particularly severe. Tribes’ relationship to water is not only economic, but cultural and spiritual. Water drives the economy for many tribes, supporting agriculture, energy production, fisheries, grazing, towns and communities. Water is also central to the culture of many tribes, providing habitat for the fish, wildlife, and native plant species that are important sources of food, medicines, and rituals. And water is sacred, embodying a spiritual dimension beyond its uses. Governmental responses to climate change have proceeded in two overlapping sets of strategies: the first generation of mitigation strategies and the second generation of adaptation strategies. In the context of Indian tribes and climate change, the third-generation issue is who decides what adaptation strategies should be employed. Tribal self-determination mandates that adaptation strategies for Indian country be decided by the governing tribes. Recognizing tribes as governments with the right and ability to govern means that tribes are responding to climate change “as active agents and not as victims.” Tribal adaptation to climate change to meet tribal needs, however, is more than a matter of tribal initiative and tribal institutions. Federal law must ensure that tribal adaptation is possible. To do this, to promote climate justice in Indian communities, federal law must allow Indian tribes the flexibility to design and implement adaptation strategies that meet each tribe’s needs. In the context of tribal water rights, however, too many federal Indian laws and policies are anti-adaptive. Federal approaches to tribal water rights too often stand in the way of tribes’ ability to develop adaptation strategies focused on the needs of specific reservations facing particular circumstances. This chapter identifies and discusses five barriers that federal law and policy place in the path of tribal adaptation strategies. Three of these arise primarily from a federal statute that forces most adjudication of tribal water rights into state courts. The variability of state court interpretations of federal reserved rights law, in turn, creates restrictions on the measure used to quantify tribal water rights, restrictions on the sources of water subject to tribal rights, and restrictions on the use of the tribal water right. A fourth restriction is a matter of regulatory policy: a restriction on tribes’ ability to promulgate water codes to regulate water uses. And the fifth arises both from federal law and from an approach used in negotiated water rights settlements: restrictions on tribes’ ability to engage in water marketing.
Wedding the Personal and Impersonal in West Coast Vipassana: A Dialogical Encounter between Buddhism and Psychotherapy

Numerous studies have noted that depth psychology has been one of the most prevalent frameworks for the interpretation of Buddhism in the West. Similarly, many commentators have bemoaned the assimilation of Buddhist thought and practice into western psychological discourse. This paper argues, however, that such critiques often fail to adequately distinguish between reductive approaches that reduce Buddhist phenomena to psychological states, and dialogical enterprises that utilize psychology as a tool to extend, through dialogue, the aims of Buddhism. Through a focus on what I identify as "West Coast Vipassana," a distinctive current within the American Insight Community, I examine attempts to incorporate personal life into Buddhist practice. While there are numerous incidents of the reductive approach in the Buddhist-psychology interface, I interpret West Coast Vipassana as providing a more legitimate and dialogical or "skillful means" approach to Buddhist practice in a contemporary Western climate.
Lunar meteorites from Oman

Abstract– Sixty named lunar meteorite stones representing about 24 falls have been found in Oman. In an area of 10.7 × 103 km2 in southern Oman, lunar meteorite areal densities average 1 g km−2. All lunar meteorites from Oman are breccias, although two are dominated by large igneous clasts (a mare basalt and a crystalline impact-melt breccia). Among the meteorites, the range of compositions is large: 9–32% Al2O3, 2.5–21.1% FeO, 0.3–38 μg g−1 Sm, and <1 to 22.5 ng g−1 Ir. The proportion of nonmare lunar meteorites is higher among those from Oman than those from Antarctica or Africa. Omani lunar meteorites extend the compositional range of lunar rocks as known from the Apollo collection and from lunar meteorites from other continents. Some of the feldspathic meteorites are highly magnesian (high MgO/[MgO + FeO]) compared with most similarly feldspathic Apollo rocks. Two have greater concentrations of incompatible trace elements than all but a few Apollo samples. A few have moderately high abundances of siderophile elements from impacts of iron meteorites on the Moon. All lunar meteorites from Oman are contaminated, to various degrees, with terrestrial Na, K, P, Zn, As, Se, Br, Sr, Sb, Ba, U, carbonates, or sulfates. The contamination is not so great, however, that it seriously compromises the scientific usefulness of the meteorites as samples from randomly distributed locations on the Moon.
A systematic review and meta-analysis of animal-type melanoma.

Background Animal-type melanoma is a rare subtype of melanoma with heavily pigmented dermal epithelioid and spindled melanocytes. Its classification as a subtype of melanoma versus a borderline melanocytic tumor is debated. Objectives Our primary objective was to characterize the demographics, clinical presentation, histopathology, management, and outcomes of patients with animal-type melanoma. Methods We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of the English-language literature on animal-type melanoma. Results We identified 190 cases of animal-type melanoma. They occurred equally in men and women, with Caucasians (53.7%) most commonly affected. The median Breslow depth was 3.8 mm; ulceration was reported present in 15.8%; and dermal mitoses greater than or equal to 1/mm 2 was reported in 27.4%. The most common initial management was wide local excision with sentinel lymph node biopsy (55.7%). In all, 78 patients underwent sentinel lymph node biopsy with 41.0% positivity rate. A total of 32 patients underwent completion lymph node dissection with 34.4% positivity rate. Locoregional recurrence was reported in 15 patients, recurrence with distant metastases in 6 patients, and death in 5 patients. Limitations Data were obtained from small studies with limited follow-up. There is no universally accepted definition of animal-type melanoma. Conclusion Prospective studies with complete staging information and molecular profiling may allow further characterization of this tumor.
Socioeconomic predictors of smoking cessation in a worldwide online smoking cessation trial

Abstract Objective This article studies the impact of country level and individual level socioeconomic factors as predictors of smoking cessation from a worldwide online smoking cessation participant preference study conducted from 2008 to 2011. Method We collected data through the San Francisco Stop Smoking Internet website. A total of 13,620 adult smokers from 109 countries and territories entered the study. Participants were able to choose from among nine components. Once selected, participants had access to their customized homepage that displayed a navigation bar with only the selected elements. The intervention was designed to take up to 8 weeks to complete. Participants received emails to complete follow-up assessments at 1, 3, 6, and 12 months after enrolling in the study. Results Of those who provided data at any follow-up (n = 4678), 38.3% reported quitting smoking for at least seven days at one of the follow-ups. Multilevel logistic regression models demonstrated that greater gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, higher level of individual education, and subjective socioeconomic status, significantly predicted the likelihood of quitting at 1-month follow-up. Conclusions Higher socioeconomic status at country and individual levels are associated with greater success in online smoking interventions. Future studies should address this disparity.
A biochemical mechanism for bacterial chemotaxis.

Abstract Peritrichous bacteria alternately swim and tumble (thrash about with little forward progress). By selective modulation of tumbling frequency, these bacteria carry out chemotaxis, which is migration to higher concentrations of attractant or lower concentrations of repellent. A model for chemotaxis is presented in which tumbling frequency is regulated by concentration of Ca 2+ ion at the switch that controls tumbling and swimming. Attractants cause decreased levels of free cytoplasmic Ca 2+ ion due to binding of Ca 2+ ion by specific proteins. This Ca 2+ ion is released when these proteins become methylated. An alternative model. involving a cytoplasmic metabolite “compound X”, is discussed.
Measurements of the curves-of-growth of hot water vapor

The curves-of-growth of water vapor were measured in the temperature range from 1000 K to 3000 K at a total pressure of 1 atm with a strip burner 6 m long. The fuel was gaseous hydrogen and oxygen. The statistical band model with exponential line intensity distribution was used to reduce the experimental data to yield spectral absorption coefficients (line strength/line spacing) and fine structure parameters (line width/line spacing), averaged over 25-cm−1 spectral intervals, in the region from 1 μ to 10 μ. Because of the fuels used, the foreign gas broadener was oxygen. An expression is given which permits the calculation of the spectral emission as a function of total pressure, partial pressure of water vapor, and foreign gases and path length. The range of total pressures is limited to the region in which collision broadening is predominant (~0.1 atm to several atm). The results are compared with previous results and with independent laboratory studies. The agreement is excellent.
Effects of Moisture Released during Forest Burning on Fog Formation and Implications for Visibility

Abstract Smoke from wildland burning in association with fog has been implicated as a visibility hazard over roadways in the United States. Visibilities at accident sites have been estimated in the range from 1 to 3 m (extinction coefficients between 1000 and 4000). Temperature and relative humidity measurements were taken from 29 “smokes” during 2002 and 2003. These data were converted to a measure of the mass of water vapor present to the mass of dry air containing the vapor (smoke mixing ratio). Smoke temperatures were processed through a simple radiation model before smokes were mixed with ambient air with temperature and moisture observed during the early morning on the days following the burns. Calculations show supersaturations implying liquid water contents (LWC) up to 17 times as large as LWC found in natural fog. Simple models combining fog droplet number density, droplet size, and LWC show that the supersaturation LWC of smokes is capable of reducing visibility to the ranges observed.
Robust predetection data fusion for enhanced target detection

A robust Constant False Alarm Rate (CFAR) distributed detection system that operates in heavy clutter with unknown distribution is presented. The system is designed to provide CFARness under clutter power fluctuations and robustness under unknown clutter and noise distributions. The system is also designed to operate successfully under different-power sensors and exhibit fault-tolerance in the presence of sensor power fluctuations. The test statistic at each sensor is a robust CFAR t-statistic. In addition to the primary binary decisions, confidence levels are generated with each decision and used in the fusion logic to robustify the fusion performance and eliminate weaknesses of the Boolean fusion logic. The test statistic and the fusion logic are analyzed theoretically for Weibull and lognormal clutter. The theoretical performance is compared against Monte-Carlo simulations that verify that the system exhibits the desired characteristics of CFARness, robustness, insensitivity to power fluctuations and fault-tolerance. The system is tested with experimental target-in-clear and target-in-clutter data and its experimental performance agrees with the theoretically predicted behavior.© (1994) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Sharing Scarce Resources Group-Outcome Orientation, External Diaster, and Stealing in a Simulated Commons

In Study I, groups of three subjects participated in a commons game in which they faced the dilemma ofhow to harvest resourcesfrom a shared, slowly regenerating pool so as to maximize their individual harvests without overexploiting the pool. In half the groups, individual subjects earned their own scores, but in the other half their scores were directly tied to (were equal shares of) the group's total score. Independently, one-third of the groups experienced an externally controlled "disaster" part way through the game in which their resource earnings to that point were abruptly cancelled. In another one-third of the groups this "disaster "happened only to a single member of the group. In the final (control) one-third, there was no disaster. Subjects in all conditions were given free opportunity both to act altruistically and to steal from their groupmates. Results showed that, overall, stealing was common and about five times as frequent as altruism. In groups in which members'scores were tied to the gr...
Hormone Therapy Use in Women Veterans Accessing Veterans Health Administration Care: A National Cross-Sectional Study

The majority of women Veterans using VA (Veterans Administration) care fall in the 45–65 year-old age range. Understanding how menopause is managed in this group is of importance to optimizing their health. National population estimates showed a prevalence of hormone therapy (HT) use by women over 45 years of 4.7 % (2009–2010). Our study described the frequency of HT use among women Veterans in VA, and examined whether mental health (MH) was predictive of HT use. This was a cross-sectional analysis of national VA administrative data for fiscal year 2009. Women Veterans over the age of 45 (N = 157,195) accessing VA outpatient care were included in the analysis. Logistic regression analyses using HT use as the dependent variable. Mean age was 59.4 years (SD =12.2, range =46–110), and 16,227 (10.3 %) of all women used HT. Hysterectomy (OR 3.99 [3.53, 4.49]) and osteoporosis (1.34 [1.27, 1.42]) were the strongest medical indicators of HT use. A total of 49,557 (31.5 %) women in the sample received at least one primary diagnosis of a MH disorder and were more likely to use HT than women with no MH diagnoses (unadjusted OR 1.56, 95 % CI [1.50, 1.61]). Women Veterans with a mood disorder (depression/bipolar) or anxiety disorder [post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), other anxiety diagnoses] were more likely to use HT after controlling for demographics and medical comorbidity. The prevalence of HT use among women Veterans using VA is more than twice that of the general population. Prior work suggested that women Veterans were discontinuing HT at comparable rates, but these data demonstrate that decline in VA HT use has not kept pace with that of civilian medical care. The association of MH diagnosis with HT use suggests that MH plays an important role in VA rates. Further study is needed to understand contributing patient and provider factors.
The role of a carrier protein in cholesterol and steroid hormone synthesis by adrenal enzymes

Squalene and sterol carrier protein (SCP) of liver, known to be required for cholesterol synthesis by liver microsomal enzymes, functions with adrenal microsomal enzymes (Δ7-sterol Δ5-dehydrogenase and Δ5,7-sterol Δ7-reductase) catalyzing cholesterol synthesis from sterol precursors. Adrenal preparations contain a heat-stable protein which functions similarly to liver-SCP with adrenal and liver enzymes. Liver-SCP also can participate with an adrenal enzyme (solubilized from an acetone powder of mitochondria) in the conversion of cholesterol to pregnenolone. These findings indicate that an SCP-like protein not only participates in cholesterol synthesis and transport in the adrenal, but also in the initial steps of cholesterol metabolism to steroid hormones.
On OMC-1 temperatures determined from methyl cyanide observations

An analysis is performed on the J(k) = 12(k)-11(k) and 13(k)-12(k) transitions of methyl cyanide detected by other investigators in the direction of OMC-1. The original interpretation of those observations argues for the presence of two distinct temperature regions or possibly a temperature gradient within the cloud. The analysis presented here demonstrates that the observations of these particular molecular transitions are consistent with a single methyl cyanide emission region with a source kinetic temperature of 121.2 + or - 8.2 K and a molecular rotational temperature of 16.6 + or - 1.8 K.
Inhibition of granulocytic differentiation by mNotch1

Effective hematopoiesis requires the commitment of pluripotent and multipotent stem cells to distinct differentiation pathways, proliferation and maturation of cells in the various lineages, and preservation of pluripotent progenitors to provide continuous renewal of mature blood cells. While the importance of positive and negative cytokines in regulating proliferation and maturation of hematopoietic cells has been well documented, the factors and molecular processes involved in lineage commitment and self-renewal of multipotent progenitors have not yet been defined. In other developmental systems, cellular interactions mediated by members of the Notch gene family have been shown to influence cell fate determination by multipotent progenitors. We previously described the expression of the human Notch1 homolog, TAN-1, in immature hematopoietic precursors. We now demonstrate that constitutive expression of the activated intracellular domain of mouse Notch1 in 32D myeloid progenitors inhibits granulocytic differentiation and permits expansion of undifferentiated cells, findings consistent with the known function of Notch in other systems.
Testing Granger Causality in the presence of threshold effects

Abstract This paper proposes a Granger Causality test allowing for threshold effects. The proposed test can be conducted on the basis of the threshold autoregressive distributed lag model or the augmented logistic smooth transition autoregressive model. The proposed test is applied to the U.S. civilian unemployment rate, and it is shown that real investment, real GDP and real interest rate are helpful for improving the in-sample fit of unemployment.
Lewis, temporary intrinsics and momentary tropes

A 'three-dimensionalist' takes object persistence to be a matter of an object being wholly present at more than one moment. One prima facie problem for three-dimensionalism concerns intrinsic properties. Intrinsic properties hold of an object independently of what is the case elsewhere and elsewhen, independently of facts about other regions that have no causal influence on the object. A temporary intrinsic is an intrinsic property that characterizes an object during only part of the object's history. The problem of temporary intrinsics for the three-dimensionalist is just this: if object o is wholly present at both t and t' (o at t is identical with o at t'), and o has P (an intrinsic property) at t, but o has property Q at t', where Q is incompatible with P, then o is both P and Q, given the indiscernibility of identicals. One proposal for disabling this objection is to reinterpret 'at t, o has P, but Q at t" in terms of relations to a time: o stands in the P-at relation to t and Q-at relation to t', where standing in the P-at to one time is not incompatible with standing in Q-at to a different time. Thus, the 'relation to a time' reply takes it that if Lewis is bent at t and straight at t', then Lewis stands in the bent-at relation to t and the straight-at relation to t'. One relation to a time is affirmed and another relation to a different time is denied of Lewis. The key is not just that the property of being bent has been replaced by a relation. There would still be a problem if Lewis bore one relation and an incompatible relation to the same object (time). But here there is no contradiction since these relations differ with respect to their time-relata. David Lewis has objected that this 'relation to a time' proposal unacceptably turns intrinsic properties into relations: 'this is simply incredible ... If we know what shape is, we know that it is a property, not a relation.' (Lewis 1986: 204). Lewis's objection is that 'bent' is metaphysically misread as a relation on the 'relation to a time' view. The issue I would like to address in this paper is whether we can avoid this relationalist reading of 'bent' given various metaphysical conceptions of properties, but still maintain something like the 'relation to a time' reply to the problem of temporary intrinsics. I will argue that even if Lewis's objection works if properties are universals, it does not work if properties are (momentary) tropes. One metaphysical reading of properties is as universals. Taking properties to be universals, by itself, however, is certainly not enough to defuse Lewis's worry. This is so since if the 'relation to a time' view is taken at its
Damping seasonal factors: Shrinkage estimators for the X-12-ARIMA program

Abstract We examine the effect of damping X-12-ARIMA's estimated seasonal variation on the accuracy of its seasonal adjustments of time series. Two methods for damping seasonals are proposed. In a simulation experiment, we generated time series data for each of 90 distinct experimental conditions that, in aggregate, characterize the variety of monthly series in the M3-competition. X-12-ARIMA consistently overestimated the actual seasonal variation by an amount consistent with statistical theory. Damping seasonals reduced X-12-ARIMA's estimation error by as much as 79% and under no conditions was estimation error increased beyond a trivial amount. Improvement depended primarily on the degree to which random variation in a series dominated seasonal variation. When the multiplicative X-12-ARIMA model did not match the data-generating model, overestimation was less for trend series than for series with no trend; otherwise the presence of trend had no discernible effect. One of the proposed methods was somewhat more accurate and robust, but more complex, than the other. In an analysis of real data—the 1428 monthly series of the M3-competition-damping X-12-ARIMA seasonals prior to forecasting (1) reduced the average forecasting MAPE by 4.9–1.4% and (2) improved forecasting accuracy for 59–65% of the series, depending on the forecasting horizon. This research suggests that damping X-12-ARIMA seasonals leads to more accurate seasonal adjustments of time series, thus providing a more reliable basis for policy-making, forecasting, and the evaluation of forecasting methods by researchers.
Short-term and long-term competition between providers of shrink-wrap software and software as a service

Abstract Software as a service (SaaS) has moved quickly from a peripheral idea to a mainstream phenomenon. By bundling a software product with delivery and maintenance service, SaaS providers can effectively differentiate their products with traditional shrink-wrap software (SWS). This research uses a game theoretical approach to examine short- and long-term competition between SaaS and SWS providers. We analyze the factors that affect equilibrium outcomes, including user implementation costs, SaaS provider’s operation efficiency, and quality improvement over time. Bundling software with service lowers software implementation cost for users, and our results suggest that it increases equilibrium prices. In providing software services, SaaS providers have to incur significant operation cost. In the long run, service operation cost may significantly affect SaaS firm’s ability to improve its software quality.
Design patterns for data structures

Design patterns provide ways to structure software components into systems that are flexible, extensible, and have a high degree of reusability. The state pattern, the null object pattern, and the singleton pattern are used to implement common data structures such as lists and trees. These patterns help narrow the gap between the abstract views of the data structures and their concrete implementations. The smaller the gap, the higher the level of abstraction. The more abstract, the less complex the coding structure. As a result, algorithms are easier to understand and more manageable. This paper advocates teaching the above design patterns in data structures courses.
Guinea pig heterophil and eosinophil peroxidase.

Abstract Guinea pig heterophil and eosinophil peroxidases were purified from bone marrow leukocytes in order to compare certain physical properties. Purified heterophil peroxidase (homogeneous in the ultracentrifuge, by immunologic test, and by gel electrophoresis) had a Soret maximum at 437 nm, an A 437 A 280 ratio of 0.79, and a mol wt of 137,000. The molecule consisted of two subunits of similar size, as assessed by its appearance in the electron microscope and by electrophoresis in SDS polyacrylamide gels. Eosinophil peroxidase required the cationic detergent cetyltrimethylammonium bromide to prevent binding to the materials used in its purification. The purified esoinophil enzyme, homogeneous by immunologic criteria, was resolved by gel filtration into two peroxidase components having mol wts of 75,000 and 150,000, respectively. Each component had the same specific activity, absorption spectrum (Soret maximum at 425 nm), and A 415 A 280 ratio (0.83). Treatment of each with SDS and mercaptoethanol produced a single component with a mol wt of about 65,000. Examination of crude bone marrow extracts resolved only one eosinophil peroxidase component with a mol wt of about 80,000, indicating that aggregation occurred during purification. The leukocyte peroxidases, therefore, have substantially different properties despite their location in analogous organelles of closely related cells.
Erratum to “Modulation of muscle spindle innervation by neurotrophin-3 following nerve injury” [Exp. Neurol. 191 (2005) 211–222]

0014-4886/$ - see front matter D 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.expneurol.2005.03.010DOI of original article: 10.1016/j.expneurol.2004.09.015.* Corresponding author.E-mail address: dwright@kumc.edu (D.E. Wright).Experimental Neurology 194 (2005) 557 – 559www.elsevier.com/locate/yexnr
Sup-norm stability for Glimm's scheme

We consider the Cauchy problem for a general N × N system of conservation laws. Existence of solutions was proved by Glimm using his celebrated random choice scheme. In this paper, we obtain a third-order interaction estimate analagous to that obtained by Glimm for 2×2 systems. By using this estimate, and identifying a global cancellation effect, we obtain L∞-stability for solutions generated by Glimm's scheme. As an immediate consequence we have L1-stability and L∞-decay, obtained by Temple for 2×2 systems. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.