cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Conscientiser les individus au droit : la construction sociale des besoins et demandes juridiques

Si la socialisation juridique et la conscience du droit des individus font l’objet de nombreuses etudes contemporaines en psychologie sociale comme en sociologie du droit, peu de travaux portent sur la construction sociale complexe des besoins et demandes de services juridiques. Loin d’etre une question rhetorique, elle renvoie a plusieurs definitions concurrentes des rapports entre les juristes et leur public et justifie par l a meme l’offre de services juridiques en place. Dans cet article, je montrerai que les politiques d’acces au droit et a la justice ambitionnent aujourd’hui, en France, de replacer l’usager au cœur du dispositif, ce qui implique que celui-ci soit en mesure de qualifier en termes juridiques la situation qu’il vit et de formuler une demande de droit. La conscientisation des individus au droit se trouve ainsi interrogee dans un contexte de liberalisation croissante des politiques sociales.
APPROXIMATION BY PIECEWISE CONSTANT FUNCTIONS IN A BV METRIC

We study the approximation properties of piecewise constant functions with respect to triangular and rectangular finite elements in a metric defined on functions of bounded variation. We apply our results to a thin film model for martensitic crystals and to the approximation of deformations with microstructure.
Lake EUTROPHICATION?A Natural Process

Lake eutrophication is an economic, recreational, and aesthetic problem that affects every lake of the world. Eutrophication is the natural process of lake aging, and progresses irrespective of man's activities. Pollution, however, can hasten the natural rate of aging and shorten the life expectancy of a body of water. The eutrophication of a lake consists of the gradual progression from one life stage to another based on the degree of nourishment or productivity. The extinction of a lake is attributed to enrichment by nutritive materials, biological productivity, decay, and sedimentation. Presently used methods for retarding eutrophication are the abatement of cultural enrichment, treatment of eutrophic symptoms, and control of fundamental causes.
Improved Woodward's Panel Method for Calculating Edge Suction Forces

A new technique to improve Woodward's (1968) unified subsonic and supersonic panel method is described. The pressure prediction is improved based on a new two-dimensional theory. The method used by Lan (1977) is then used to calculate the leading-edge and side-edge suction forces by direct use of the predicted pressure distribution. The method is applicable to both subsonic and supersonic flow. It is shown that the improved Woodward panel method is capable of accurately predicting leading-edge and side-edge suction forces in subsonic and supersonic flow. Therefore, the method can be used not only to predict the vortex lift of complex planforms through the method of suction analogy, but also to calculate some lateral-directional stability derivatives.
The Moderating Role of Involvement on Salesmen Credibility and Accent: Impact on Consumer Purchase Intentions

This study explores three variables affecting consumer purchase intentions: salesman credibility, salesman accent, and the moderating role of product involvement. The sample for the study consisted of 1,162 respondents, who viewed a video tape of salesmen with varied accent and credibility attributes. After listening to the messages, the respondents were then asked to complete a questionnaire. Contrary to the predictions of the Petty and Cacioppo ( 1979) Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), the results show that salesman credibility acts like both a peripheral and informational cue, thus impacting consumer purchase intentions in not only low involvement situations, but also high-involvement situations. Furthermore, the high involvement situation actually enhanced the impact of salesman credibility on consumer purchase intentions. However, salesman accent only had a significant impact on consumer purchase intentions for the high involvement situation, thus confirming ELM prediction for the role of an informational cue.
Pharmacological Activities of Purified Toxins from Gymnodinium Breve and Prymnesium Parvum

Biologically active natural products may be considered to be fully characterized only when the relationship between their chemical identity and a specific activity is clearly established. This goal has been achieved with but a few of the toxins obtained from marine organisms, the most notable being saxitoxin1 and tetrodotoxin2. Many of the bioactive compounds obtained from phytoplankton “blooms” in “red tides” have not been fully characterized nor has their action been defined in terms of a specific activity against a well defined physiological system. This situation arises not from the lack of experimental acuity or resourcefulness of the investigators, but largely from the erratic occurrence of the redtide outbreaks and the chemical complexity of the toxins themselves, which occur as mixtures of several natural products3. The strategy that is most often followed is to proceed with purification schemes of one kind or another while refining the bioassay, which hopefully will reveal the exact structure-function relationship of the toxin being isolated. We hope to show that this is probably the most fruitful approach, since it guides the chemist pursuing his isolation pathways while it demands of the physiologist a clearer definition of the cellular activity with which the toxin is interacting.
Exceeding Our Boundaries: Transnational Employment Law Practice and the Export of American Lawyering Styles to the Global Worksite

Until very recently, one almost never heard mention of international issues among labor and employment law practitioners in the United States. Conventional wisdom considers this practice area quintessentially local. Identifying a trend that unseats this taken-for-granted notion, the article details the birth of a new employment law sub-specialty: international labor and employment law. Some U.S. management attorneys, working with transnational legal teams comprised of lawyers from foreign firms, are beginning to coordinate multinational clients' employment law projects across multiple national jurisdictions. While the world's legal regimes that regulate labor markets are remarkably culturally specific, the formation of transnational networks of employment practitioners creates the opportunity for the transfer across borders of ideas about how workplace law and legal practice should operate. That possibility is explored by describing the results of an ethnographic study of how one U.S. law firm is building its international employment law practice, and how the foreign lawyers it encounters react to the firm's distinctly American style of employment lawyering. The study of 23 lawyers practicing in 14 different countries reveals that our understanding of employment law and lawyering as firmly rooted to its domestic borders is in subtle but significant ways beginning to change. In fact, an incipient form of global practice already appears to exist. If commonalities in lawyering style, and perhaps a few substantive areas like employment discrimination law, ultimately emerge, the intriguing and obviously as yet unanswerable question is whether and how those changes may in turn affect the functioning and efficacy of employment law regimes outside U.S. borders.
n d scattering and the A y puzzle to next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order

Polarization observables in neutron-deuteron scattering are calculated to next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order $({\mathrm{N}}^{3}\mathrm{LO})$ in pionless effective field theory $({\mathrm{EFT}}_{\ifmmode\neg\else\textlnot\fi{}\ensuremath{\pi}})$. At ${\mathrm{N}}^{3}\mathrm{LO}$ the two-body $P$-wave contact interactions are found to be important contributions to the neutron vector analyzing power, ${A}_{y}(\ensuremath{\theta})$, and the deuteron vector analyzing power, $i{T}_{11}(\ensuremath{\theta})$. Extracting the two-body $P$-wave ${\mathrm{EFT}}_{\ifmmode\neg\else\textlnot\fi{}\ensuremath{\pi}}$ coefficients from two-body scattering data and varying them within the expected ${\mathrm{EFT}}_{\ifmmode\neg\else\textlnot\fi{}\ensuremath{\pi}}$ theoretical errors provides results that are consistent (at the ${\mathrm{N}}^{3}\mathrm{LO}$ level) with ${A}_{y}$ experimental data at low energies. Cutoff dependence of the ${\mathrm{N}}^{3}\mathrm{LO}$ correction of the doublet $S$-wave $nd$ scattering amplitude suggests the need for a new three-body force at ${\mathrm{N}}^{3}\mathrm{LO}$, which is likely one that mixes Wigner-symmetric and Wigner-antisymmetric three-body channels.
Mobility of positive and negative ions in superfluid /sup 3/He

The mobility of positive and negative ions has been studied as a function of temperature, electric drift field, and (in the $A$ phase) magnetic-field direction in superfluid $^{3}\mathrm{He}$; the $A$-phase mobility is observed to be anisotropic with ${\ensuremath{\mu}}_{\ensuremath{\perp}}g{\ensuremath{\mu}}_{\ensuremath{\parallel}}$ for both positive and negative ions.
Determining the Regioregularity in Alkyne Polycarbodiimides and Their Orthogonal Modification of Side Chains To Yield Perfectly Alternating Functional Polymers

To understand the structure–property relationship in functional macromolecules through side chain modulation, both the accurate determination of the position of modifiable groups along the polymer chain and their subsequent modifications using high fidelity methods are crucial. In this report, the polymer microstructure of a helical alkyne polycarbodiimide has directly been probed through 15N NMR spectroscopy on isotopic labeled poly(N-(3-ethynylphenyl)-15N′-hexyl)carbodiimide and found to be a highly regioregular polymer structure. This polymer undergoes facile and quantitative CuAAC “click” chemistry, yielding perfectly alternating functional polymers. Advances have been made through the synthesis of new optically active alkyne polycarbodiimides with two independently modifiable pendant groups per repeat unit of polymers. Orthogonal postmodifications of the pendant groups were then performed to incorporate two different sets of small molecules in the repeat unit of polymers in a controlled manner and un...
Situation and Assessment on the Medical Device Registration System in China

The situation and recent progress in medical device registration system in China were reviewed,the existing weakness and challenges were assessed,and the future trend was discussed.
Nascent Proteins Interact with Key Regions of the Outer Surface of the Ribosome

The initial stages of a protein's life in the cell are crucial for the proper balance between folding, misfolding and aggregation. While an appreciable amount of information is known about protein folding/unfolding after biosynthesis, we lack a clear understanding of how ribosome bound nascent chains (RNCs) acquire any degree of structure and dynamics. Previous studies in the Cavagnero group showed that RNCs of the intrinsically disordered protein PIR (i.e., the phosphorylated insulin receptor) and its highly negatively charged mutant PIR 1.2.3 exhibit significant spatial bias towards the ribosomal surface. We now present findings that pinpoint the presence of well-defined interactions between RNCs of PIR, PIR 1.2.3, as well as the foldable proteins bacterial flavohemoglobin apoHmpH and sperm whale apomyoglobin, with specific ribosomal proteins and the co-translationally active chaperone trigger factor (TF). RNC-ribosome contacts were probed by chemical crosslinking followed by mass spectrometry analysis, and nascent protein local and global dynamics were assessed by time-resolved fluorescence depolarization. Initial results indicate that under physiologically relevant conditions RNCs of both PIR and apoHmpH crosslink to TF in a strategic manner. In addition to interactions with TF, multiple populations of apoHmpH RNCs were observed to transiently bind to specific proteins located on the outer surface of the ribosome, both near and far from the exit tunnel. We are currently exploring the implications of these specific interactions on the balance between protein folding and aggregation. Interestingly, these interactions are strongly Mg2+ concentration-dependent. The solubility profile of apoHmpH upon release from the ribosome is not Mg2+ concentration-dependent, suggesting that the above interactions may play a yet-unidentified regulatory role in translation.
Soil Erosion by Water

Soil erosion by water is the wearing away of the earth’s surface by the force of water and gravity, and consists of soil particle dislodgement, entrainment, transport, and deposition. This sequence of events occurs over a wide range of temporal and spatial scales, from raindrop splash moving particles millimeters in milliseconds to suspended sediment and bedload in rivers continuously moving an estimated 15.5 billion metric tonnes per year to the oceans of the world. As a matter of course, soil erosion begins in the uplands where soil is dislodged and moved downslope, progressing from splash saltation, to entrainment in microchannels, to collection in rills, concentrated flow channels, gullies, and ultimately stream channels. Deposition and re-entrainment occurs continuously from ridge top to deltas. The progression from dislodgement and entrainment to deposition can be accelerated or retarded through human manipulation of the soil resource, plant cover, or animal use. In this article, we examine how soil erosion in uplands is influenced by rainfall, climate, topography, soil characteristics, and, most importantly, human activities.
Detecting postural transitions: A robust wavelet-based approach

The ability to perform postural transitions such as sit-to-stand is an accepted metric for functional independence. The number of transitions performed in real-life situations provides clinically useful information for individuals recovering from lower extremity injury or surgery. Performance deficits during these transitions are well correlated to negative outcomes in numerous populations. Thus, continuous monitoring and detection of transitions in individuals outside of the clinical setting may provide important, clinically relevant information regarding the progression of physical impairments. In this paper, we propose a new inertial-sensor based approach to detecting transitions utilizing the wavelet transform. This approach performs robustly in both supervised laboratory settings, and in ambient settings. We evaluate the performance of our algorithm on a data set including 334 in-laboratory and 20 in-home postural transitions from individuals with and without motor impairments.
Influence of Xe and Kr impurities on x-ray yield from debris-free plasma x-ray sources with an Ar supersonic gas jet irradiated by femtosecond near-infrared-wavelength laser pulses.

Many aspects of physical phenomena occurring when an intense laser pulse with subpicosecond duration and an intensity of ${10}^{18}--{10}^{19}\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}\mathrm{W}/{\mathrm{cm}}^{2}$ heats an underdense plasma in a supersonic clustered gas jet are studied to determine the relative contribution of thermal and nonthermal processes to soft- and hard-x-ray emission from debris-free plasmas. Experiments were performed at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) Leopard laser operated with a 15-J, 350-fs pulse and different pulse contrasts (${10}^{7}$ or ${10}^{5}$). The supersonic linear (elongated) nozzle generated Xe cluster-monomer gas jets as well as jets with Kr-Ar or Xe-Kr-Ar mixtures with densities of ${10}^{18}--{10}^{19}\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}{\mathrm{cm}}^{\ensuremath{-}3}$. Prior to laser heating experiments, all jets were probed with optical interferometry and Rayleigh scattering to measure jet density and cluster distribution parameters. The supersonic linear jet provides the capability to study the anisotropy of x-ray yield from laser plasma and also laser beam self-focusing in plasma, which leads to efficient x-ray generation. Plasma diagnostics included x-ray diodes, pinhole cameras, and spectrometers. Jet signatures of x-ray emission from pure Xe gas, as well as from a mixture with Ar and Kr, was found to be very different. The most intense x-ray emission in the 1--9 KeV spectral region was observed from gas mixtures rather than pure Xe. Also, this x-ray emission was strongly anisotropic with respect to the direction of laser beam polarization. Non-local thermodynamic equilibrium (Non-LTE) models have been implemented to analyze the x-ray spectra to determine the plasma temperature and election density. Evidence of electron beam generation in the supersonic jet plasma was found. The influence of the subpicosecond laser pulse contrast (a ratio between the laser peak intensity and pedestal pulse intensity) on the jets' x-ray emission characteristics is discussed. Surprisingly, it was found that the x-ray yield was not sensitive to the prepulse contrast ratio.
Discourses of an Organizational Tragedy: Emotion, Sensemaking, and Learning After the Yarnell Hill Fire

How an organization discursively responds to a tragedy can have lasting impacts on how it makes sense of its past and plans for future actions. This study explores the organizational discourses that emerged after the Yarnell Hill Fire. We argue examining the social discourses following this fatality fire can illuminate how a high reliability organization, its crews, and members experience and make sense of an organizational tragedy. Several themes are found to be at tension with one another within the overarching discourses of emotion, sensemaking, and learning. We examine how these are negotiated and offer implications of these discursive tensions.
Depression and Anxiety Across the Age Spectrum

Mental health issues are frequently overlooked in the geriatric population because of the overlap of medical symptoms, unfortunately resulting in failure to optimize treatment of both medical disease and mental illness. Anxiety and mood disorders, in particular, are both associated with a wide range of symptoms, with the former tending not to be readily recognized and treated and the latter sometimes mistaken for normal physiologic changes of aging or side effects of medications. Although the prevalence of mood and anxiety disorders declines with increasing age, except in the oldest old, they are still common and require preventive considerations. In addition, many may experience subclinical symptoms. In the geriatric population, attention should focus on level of functioning and quality of life, as well as safety. The biopsychosocial model for conceptualizing the reciprocal cause-and-effect pattern of chronic diseases on depressive and anxiety disorders and vice versa has now been updated to explain the link between depressive and anxiety symptoms and chronic medical conditions: it posits that depression and anxiety affect behavioral risks for chronic disease, which, in turn, lead to chronic disease. Changes to the model have occurred because many risk factors for anxiety and depression: biologic, psychological, and social, change with age. Treatment can be pharmacotherapy or psychotherapy, and most treatment occurs in primary care. Stigma is a big issue, and underreporting of mental health issues is a result. Lack of treatment of anxiety and depression in the elderly can have significant consequences for both patient and family.
Rational Design of Lithium–Sulfur Battery Cathodes Based on Experimentally Determined Maximum Active Material Thickness

Rational design of conductive carbon hosts for high energy density lithium–sulfur batteries requires an understanding of the fundamental limitations to insulating active material loading. In this work, we investigate the electrochemistry of lithium sulfide films ranging in thickness from 30 to 3500 nm. We show that films thicker than approximately 40 nm cannot be charged at local charge densities above 1 μA cm–2, and by implication, the maximum useful pore diameter is near 60 nm in a practical cathode. “Activation” overpotentials for Li2S are identified in thicker films, resulting from polysulfide generation, but are shown not to improve the fundamental areal charge limitations. We develop a model for filling of conductive pores with active material to rationally design composites based on local charge density. For low-electrolyte applications, the importance of matching micropore volume to sulfide loading and cycling rate is emphasized.
Dealing with Challenges on Gender Inequality in Cameroon

Improving the living conditions of women by promoting gender equality is part of the national policy of greater achievements steered by the Head of State, His Excellency PAUL BIYA, for a sustainable future. Thus, in most of his addresses to the nation, the President of the Republic resolves to make equality between men and women a reality. The past two decades on the millennium development goals have dealt unsuccessfully with grassroots, approach to development, especially women development. With the sustainable development goals, world leaders have been encouraging women and those that advocate for them to take ownership during the next decade of their own empowerment through effective development gender inequality strategies. In spite of these laudable goals, there is a room for improvement. In the Social Institutions and Gender Index 2014 Edition, Cameroon has high levels of discrimination against women in social institutions Concerned that the critical issues confronting African women were quickly returning to the shadows, this paper embraced the principles of the sustainable development goals and stepped up to the challenge of tracking results and demanding that long overdue attention to gender parity in Africa must not become derailed. The main goal of this paper is to enhance the implementation of African countries’ commitments related to gender equality and women’s empowerment and to support activities resulting in tangible positive change for African women at all levels. The paper discusses the issue of Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) is a cross-country measure of discrimination against women in its first part. The second part gives some statistics regarding gender inequality in Cameroon. The third part provides a roadmap for gender empowerment in Cameroon.
Neuro-ophthalmic manifestations of cerebrovascular accidents.

Purpose of reviewOcular functions can be affected in almost any type of cerebrovascular accident (CVA) creating a burden on the patient and family and limiting functionality. The present review summarizes the different ocular outcomes after stroke, divided into three categories: vision, ocular motil
Attitudes and Beliefs Effect Frequency of Eating Out in the Lower Mississippi Delta

Attitudes and beliefs reflecting cultural values can have a positive or negative influence on eating behaviors. Eating out may negatively affect diet quality. In a representative sample of the Lowe...
Towards sustainable Android malware detection

Approaches to Android malware detection built on supervised learning are commonly subject to frequent retraining, or the trained classifier may fail to detect newly emerged or emerging kinds of malware. This work targets a sustainable Android malware detector that, once trained on a dataset, can continue to effectively detect new malware without retraining. To that end, we investigate how the behaviors of benign and malicious apps evolve over time, and identify the most consistently discriminating behavioral traits of benign apps from malware. Our preliminary results reveal a promising prospect of this approach. On a benchmark set across seven years, our approach achieved highly competitive detection accuracy that sustained up to five years, outperforming the state of the art which sustained up to two years.
A Note on Mr. Easton’s Revolutions

The new message speaks stridently of scientific revolution and discontinuous scientific change, drowning out the older Burkean one that scientific growth is slow, cumulative, and cooperative. Mr. Easton’s paper may be viewed as an interesting attempt to harmonize the old and the new, one that defends two political scientific revolutions — the systems approach and the behaviouralistic one which apparently resulted from interdisciplinary cooperation and stimulation in, among other things, attacking the powers that were entrenched when they began. Needless to say, the paper blesses the current entrenchment of these systems, and is prepared to do battle against their detractors.
The Unevenness of Political Theology

ABSTRACTThose who agree that Carl Schmitt was correct to prefer to political theology to liberalism nonetheless need to develop an account of how an authority structure can sustain itself without i...
Examination of Extreme Rainfall Events in Two Regions of the United States since the 19th Century

A common hypothesis regarding human-induced climate change is that precipitation processes will accelerate leading to an increasing magnitude of rainfall amounts on a daily time scale as the atmosphere warms. This assertion is supported by two physically demonstrable facts, (1) warmer air accommodates more water vapor, and (2) precipitation processes become more efficient as the cloud environment warms. However, by definition, extreme events are rare, and thus statistics of their occurrence and possible long-term changes present difficult challenges, some herein addressed. In any case, the observational datasets on which hypothesis tests may be carried out should cover the longest periods possible because precipitation can naturally vary considerably on even century time scales. In this study we focus on this temporal issue by building long-term daily precipitation datasets for twenty stations, ten along or near the US Pacific Coast (PC) and ten along or near the coast in the US Southeast (SE). Observations for these stations begin between 1840 and 1890 and end in 2018, using the water year (Oct to Sep) to define the annual period. For some metrics, e.g. the annual total precipitation or the number of days per year measuring greater than 25 mm, there is no discernable change over the most recent 145 years (1874–2018). For other metrics, e.g. the magnitude of the wettest day per year or the temporal distribution of the 29 wettest 2-day events in the past 145 years (i.e. nominal 1-in-5-year occurrence), there appears to be an increase in SE and a decrease in PC. Whether these trends are significant for the relatively short climate record of 145 years will be discussed with the conclusion being the limited time frame of analysis does not lead to decisive claims that these changes are outside of the range of natural variability.
Gastrointestinal Manifestations of Rheumatological Diseases

Rheumatological diseases (RDs) represent a diverse group of diseases that are inherited or related to environmental factors. RDs frequently affect the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, and gastroenterologists are often asked to evaluate patients with symptoms thought to represent an underlying or coexisting RD. GI manifestations of RDs vary based on the organ involved as well as the extent and duration of involvement. Although most manifestations of RD are nonspecific and not life-threatening, the chronicity and severity of symptoms can be debilitating and may lead to serious injury. This narrative review discusses the most common RD encountered by gastroenterologists: systemic lupus erythematosus, systemic sclerosis (scleroderma), dermatomyositis/polymyositis, rheumatoid arthritis, Sjogren syndrome, overlap syndromes, mixed connective tissue disease, Ehlers-Danlos syndromes, and other vasculitides. Each section begins with a brief overview of the condition, followed by a discussion of the etiopathophysiology, physical examination findings, GI manifestations, diagnostic tools (i.e., serologic, imaging, endoscopic, and functional), and treatment options.
Effective Court Responses to Persons with Substance Use Disorder: Components of a Model Curriculum for Evidence-based Judicial Decision Making

Substance use disorder is a major behavioral disorder associated with cases sentenced in limited jurisdiction courts, and increasingly so in the face of the national opioid epidemic.1 In this brief...
Before the Research: A Personal Account (Or, Why I Am a Constructivist)

This personal essay presents the essentials of the qualitative methodology known as constructivism and its associated epistemology, ontology and axiology. The author makes a case for constructivism as a research paradigm based on student focused ethics.
Die Fondsgebundene Rentenversicherung mit Fondsanbindung in der Rentenbezugsphase — Produktideen und empirische Analysen

Trotz wachsender Marktanteile fondsgebundener Produkte gibt es auf dem deutschen Markt noch keine Fondsgebundene Rentenversicherung mit Fondsanbindung in der Rentenbezugsphase. Bei diesen variable annuities, wie sie im englischsprachigen Raum hei\en, hangt die Hone der Rente direkt von der Entwicklung des zugmndeliegenden Fonds ab. Die vorliegende Arbeit erklart die Funktionsweise von variable annuities, wie sie in anderen Landem auftreten. Da unseres Erachtens variable annuities in Reinform auf dem deutschen Markt keinen gro\en Erfolg haben werden, stellen wir einige Produkte vor, die teilweise fondsgebunden und teilweise traditionell sind. Wir analysieren die Entwicklung der Rentenzahlungen unter verschiedenen Marktszenarien und vergleichen insbesondere den Einfluss von Marktbewegungen auf die Rentenhohe bei den verschiedenen Produkten. In the last couple of years, unit-linked life insurance in Germany has become more and more popular, market shares in new business have risen from under five to over 25%. However, there are no variable annuities in the German market. By variable annuity, we mean unit-linked annuity contracts, where not only the savings process in the deferment period but also the payoff phase is unit-linked. Hence, the benefit payment (i.e. annuity) varies directly with the unit-price (i.e. the performance of the underlying fund). Such policies are very popular in other countries, e.g. the United States. The present paper explains the concept of variable annuities. Since we feel that pure variable annuities will not be very successful in the German market, we introduce and analyse a great variety of different products that are partly variable and partly traditional. We calculate the development of the benefit payment for our products under different market scenarios and compare the impact of market fluctuations on the annuity for the different products.
Identification and Reproducibility of Plasma Metabolomic Biomarkers of Habitual Food Intake in a US Diet Validation Study

Previous metabolomic studies have identified putative blood biomarkers of dietary intake. These biomarkers need to be replicated in other populations and tested for reproducibility over time for the potential use in future epidemiological studies. We conducted a metabolomics analysis among 671 racially/ethnically diverse men and women included in a diet validation study to examine the correlation between >100 food groups/items (101 by a food frequency questionnaire (FFQ), 105 by 24-h diet recalls (24HRs)) with 1141 metabolites measured in fasting plasma sample replicates, six months apart. Diet-metabolite associations were examined by Pearson's partial correlation analysis. Biomarker reproducibility was assessed using intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs). A total of 677 diet-metabolite associations were identified after Bonferroni adjustment for multiple comparisons and restricting absolute correlation coefficients to greater than 0.2 (601 associations using the FFQ and 395 using 24HRs). The median ICCs of the 238 putative biomarkers was 0.56 (interquartile range 0.46-0.68). In this study, with repeated FFQs, 24HRs and plasma metabolic profiles, we identified several potentially novel food biomarkers and replicated others found in our previous study. Our findings contribute to the growing literature on food-based biomarkers and provide important information on biomarker reproducibility which could facilitate their utilization in future nutritional epidemiological studies.
A Comparison of Diagnostic Accuracy of a Rapid Antigen Detection Test in Screening for Group A Streptococcal Throat Infection Between 3- to 10-Year-Old (Children and Preadolescents) and 11- to 21-Year-Old (Adolescents)

Introduction Pharyngitis is one of the most common childhood diseases worldwide. We intended to compare the performance of one such rapid antigen detection test (RADT) using lateral flow immunoassay technique, between 3- to 10-year-old (children and preadolescent) and 11- to 21-year-old (adolescents). Methods Children and adolescents attending the pediatric ED with complaints of throat pain and signs of pharyngeal and tonsillar inflammation were tested by both the RADT and throat culture (TC) directed towards group A streptococcal (GAS) between April and June of 2016. The prevalence, sensitivity (SN), specificity (SP), positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) were calculated against throat culture, the gold standard for the diagnosis of GAS pharyngitis. Comparisons between the two age groups were made using the Chi-square test Results Of 202 patients, 123 (61%) patients were between 3-11 and 79 (39%) between 11-21 years of age. A positive throat culture was recorded in 56 patients yielding an overall prevalence of GAS pharyngitis at 28%. For the whole sample, the screening RADT had an SN, SP, PPV and NPV of 79%, 90%, 75%, and 92%, respectively. Also, there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups in terms of SN, SP, PPV and NPV. Conclusion The RADT in use at our institution, performed comparable to studies reported in the literature using a similar technique in both preadolescent and adolescent age groups.
The Impact of X-Chromosome Inactivation on Phenotypic Expression of X-Linked Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Nearly 20% of genes located on the X chromosome are associated with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDD) due to their expression and role in brain functioning. Given their location, several of these genes are either subject to or can escape X-chromosome inactivation (XCI). The degree to which genes are subject to XCI can influence the NDD phenotype between males and females. We provide a general review of X-linked NDD genes in the context of XCI and detailed discussion of the sex-based differences related to MECP2 and FMR1, two common X-linked causes of NDD that are subject to XCI. Understanding the effects of XCI on phenotypic expression of NDD genes may guide the development of stratification biomarkers in X-linked disorders.
Decentralized Heterogeneous Multi-Player Multi-Armed Bandits with Non-Zero Rewards on Collisions

We consider a fully decentralized multi-player stochastic multi-armed bandit setting where the players cannot communicate with each other and can observe only their own actions and rewards. The environment may appear differently to different players, $\textit{i.e.}$, the reward distributions for a given arm are heterogeneous across players. In the case of a collision (when more than one player plays the same arm), we allow for the colliding players to receive non-zero rewards. The time-horizon $T$ for which the arms are played is \emph{not} known to the players. Within this setup, where the number of players is allowed to be greater than the number of arms, we present a policy that achieves near order-optimal expected regret of order $O(\log^{1 + \delta} T)$ for some $0 < \delta < 1$ over a time-horizon of duration $T$. This paper is currently under review at IEEE Transactions on Information Theory.
Insar Surface Deformation Signatures Over the Oman Ophiolite

The Samail Ophiolite comprises ultramafic rocks, which undergo chemical processes known as serpentinization and carbonation when exposed to air and water. As a byproduct, this permanently binds atmospheric CO 2 to stable carbonate minerals and stores it underground. The intensive fracturing in the peridotites during carbon mineralization can lead to a net volume increase and observable surface uplift. Here we use 89 Sentinel-1 SAR images to measure surface displacement from January 2017 through December 2019. InSAR time series analysis shows uplift of several centimeters in mid-2017, following a significant 72 mm rainfall event in March 2016. We developed an approach to evaluate the magnitude of tropospheric noise in InSAR time series over regions with limited ground truth measurements. Our analysis shows that the observed surface deformation signals are likely well above the tropospheric noise level. Due to the absence of other localized deformation sources (e.g. hydrologic or tectonic forcings), these InSAR deformation signatures could correspond to carbon mineralization. Our results contribute to the ongoing research related to accelerating this process as a means to help reduce our carbon footprint.
Identification of a Rope by Means of a Physical Match Between the Cut Ends

A case in which a rope found at the scene of a homicide is conclusively matched to its source is reported. It demonstrates that the preliminary stereomicroscopic examination of the cut edges of cords and ropes is important.
Dual diagnosis patients in the modified therapeutic community: does a criminal history hinder adjustment to treatment?

ABSTRACT The efficacy of the drug-free therapeutic community (TC) in treating patients with chemical dependence and in rehabilitating persons with criminal histories has been extensively studied and is well established since the late 1960's. More recently, this format has been modified in order to treat individuals suffering from both addictive disorders and chronic, severe mental illness. In an indigent inner-city population, this latter group includes many patients who also have significant histories of criminal behavior. To date, there have been no systematic attempts to assess the impact of a history of criminality on the course of treatment of these patients, as they might be thought less adaptable to the milieu of a TC. In the current study, data from a sample of homeless male MICA patients were analyzed to determine if those patients with a history of criminal convictions were as likely as non-criminal patients to adjust effectively to the social milieu of a modified drug-free therapeutic community...
Trust and Discretion in Agency Contracts

We provide a theory of the role of discretion in agency. We do so by extending the standard principal-agent framework to include complex information and trust. With these two new ingredients we find that: optimal agency contracts may be incomplete; they do not necessarily use all available, payoff-relevant information (the sufficient statistic result fails); and inefficiencies may persist even though inference about the agent's action choice is perfect. We show that an optimal response to complex information in agency relationships is for the contracting parties to choose exceedingly simple contracts - a fixed wage plus a discretionary bonus, for instance. In our model, a main function of agency contracts (in addition to the provision of incentives) is to protect the agent from possible opportunistic behavior of the principal.
Gastric acid is the key modulator in the pathogenesis of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug-induced ulceration in rats.

Summary 1. In the present study, we investigated the role of gastric acid (GA) secretion on non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID)-induced ulcerogenesis in vivo. Rats were administered single oral doses of selective cyclo-oxygenase (COX)-1 (SC-560; 2.5 mg/kg), COX-2 (DFU; 25 mg/kg) or non-selective COX (indomethacin; 25 mg/kg) inhibitors. Three groups (basal, histamine-stimulated and histamine with lansoprazole) were pylorus ligated 2 h after inhibitor administration and killed 2 h later. Another group without pylorus ligation received only inhibitors and was killed after 18 h. 2. At 4 h, indomethacin increased the ulcer index (UI) and myeloperoxidase (MPO) activity in basal and histamine-stimulated states, whereas SC-560 only increased MPO activity. Histamine-stimulated, but not basal, GA was further enhanced by indomethacin and SC-560 via increased proton pump expression. Lansoprazole (10 mg/kg) reduced the UI, MPO activity and GA to basal levels with SC-560 and DFU and to near basal with indomethacin. Indomethacin and SC-560 significantly inhibited prostaglandin (PG) E2, without significantly affecting COX-1 and COX-2 expression. Although DFU inhibited PGE2 by one-third, it did not affect COX expression. 3. At 18 h, indomethacin significantly increased the UI and MPO activity, whereas PGE2 synthesis was less inhibited, indicating a return to control levels. In contrast, PGE2 synthesis was higher than control with SC-560. Furthermore, COX-2 expression was significantly elevated with indomethacin and SC-560, explaining the source of augmented PGE2 synthesis. Proton pump expression remained elevated, comparable with 4 h levels, with indomethacin and SC-560. However, DFU had no significant effect on the aforementioned parameters. 4. The data suggest that NSAID-induced ulcerogenesis is dependent on the amount of GA secretion derived from increased proton pump expression and requires inhibition of both COX-1 and COX-2.
Emergence of complex, involuntary movements after gamma knife radiosurgery for essential tremor

Gamma knife radiosurgery is generally considered a safer alternative to traditional pallidotomy or thalamotomy. We report the case of a 59-year-old patient with essential tremor who developed a complex, disabling movement disorder following gamma knife thalamotomy. This case illustrates the need for long-term follow-up to fully evaluate the potential for complications following radiosurgery.
The Demjanov and Tiffeneau-Demjanov Ring Expansions

The reaction of aminomethylcycloalkanes with nitrous acid to produce cycloalkanols in which the ring is larger by one carbon atom is known as the Demjanov rearrangement. The first example of this type of ring expansion was encountered in 1901, but was not recognized until 1903 when cyclopentanol was identified as one of the products formed from cyclobutanemethylamine. Since that time the reaction has extended to rings of many sizes. Olefins almost invariably accompany the alcohols that are formed. The Demjanov rearrangement includes within its scope the rearrangements that occur when acyclic amines are treated with nitrous acid as well as other ring expansion detailed in this chapter. The Tiffeneau-Demjanov ring expansion is used here to designate ring enlargements by pinacolic deamination. This ring expansion can be made the key step in the conversion of a cyclic alcohol or ketone into its next ring homolog. Keywords: Demjanov ring expansions; Tiffeneau -Demjanov ring expansion; ring sizes; unsaturated rings; heterocyclic rings; bicyclic systems; polycyclic systems; Experimental procedures
Crystalline Amino Acid Diet for Determining Amino Acid Requirements of Growing Guinea Pigs

Crystalline amino acid diets containing different levels of total nitrogen (TN) and essential amino acid (EAA) nitrogen were evaluated in 3-week growth trials to identify a diet for use in determining the amino acid requirements of growing guinea pigs. Four levels of TN (2.5, 2.9, 3.6, and 4.3%) with constant EAA/TN ratios were compared by measuring weight gain, hemoglobin and hematocrit, carcass weight and nitrogen retention of 3-to 6-week-old male Hartley guinea pigs. Three levels of EAA nitrogen (1.7, 2.0, 2.4%), with TN levels constant at 3.6%, were also compared. A diet containing 30% casein + 0.3% arginine served as a purified control diet. Water and diets were provided ad libitum. The results of this study indicate that a diet containing 3.6% TN and 1.7% EAA nitrogen supported performance comparable to that of animals fed the casein diet. Growth rates for this amino acid diet and the casein diet both averaged 5.8 g/day.
Cultural Evolution in Song Dialects of Yellow‐rumped Caciques in Panama

The histories of five colony-specific song dialects of yellow-rumped caciques (Cacicus cela vitellinus) were recorded for three breeding seasons in Panama. Dialects consisted of 5 to 8 song types shared among all male members of a breeding colony. The number of song types that occurred at more than one colony decreased with distance between colonies. Color-banded subadult and adult males frequently dispersed between years to other dialect areas where they adopted the local songs. About 78% of all song types were distinct from songs present the previous year at the same colony. During a breeding season some song types changed gradually, with all males adopting parallel changes. Gradual change in songs at colonies appeared to account for more new song types than did introduction of songs by dispersing males. Because song types changed gradually in constant directions, the cause of these changes may be cultural adaptation in which individuals benefit by adopting certain songs, rather than copy-error or cultural drift.
The theory of electrode matching in photoelectrochemical cells for the production of hydrogen

Abstract The problem of matching the properties of the semiconductors in a two photon photoelectrochemical cell is addressed. The effect of the semiconductor properties on the performance of the whole cell has been calculated for the first time. Calculations of the cell potential and photocurrent have been made for the first time. Computations have been made for specific combinations of electrodes, e.g., n-SrTiO3/p-GaP and n-TiO2/p-GaP. Taking different p-type semiconductors as photocathodes, calculations have been made to determine the properties of n-type semiconductors which would be expected to form efficient (>10%) light driven PECs for producing hydrogen. It was found that without electrocatalysts, no combination of oxide semiconductors will give efficiency >4.0%. However, when the effects of the deposition of submonolayer amounts of different electrocatalysts on both the semiconductor surfaces are taken into consideration, the predicted efficiencies of the conversion of light to chemical energy improve substantially. Successful n-type electrodes cannot be oxides and therefore need protective coatings. Calculations suggest that it should be possible to attain efficiency for the conversion of light up to 16% with p-InP (Pt)/n-GaAs(e) and up to 14% with p-Si (Pt)/n-InP (e), using appropriate electrocatalysts on the n-Si and on the n-InP electrodes, together with Mn-oxide protective coating.
Continuously Deformable Mirrors

Low spatial and temporal frequency correction of optical wavefronts can be achieved with continuously deformable mirrors that are being developed by the Atomic Vapor Laser Isotope Separation (AVLIS) Program at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. These devices are simple in design, low in cost, require relatively few actuators, and are capable of submicron deformation control using conventional stepper motors. The technique involves bending a mirror substrate with actuators that apply variable bending moments typically around the perimeter of the mirror. The location and orientation of these actuators and the thickness variation of the substrate determine the particular static shape that will be generated and the optical distortion that it can correct. For constant-thickness substrates the deformation will generally follow a curve that can be described by a quadratic function. However, by contouring the back surface of the substrate, higher-order deformations can be generated. Among the optical aberrations that can be generated by this technique are focus, astigmatism, coma, and spherical aberration. More complex shapes and other applications are being investigated. This method may also be useful in the manufacturing of aspherical optics.