cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The risks of advancing parental age on neonatal morbidity and mortality are U- or J-shaped for both maternal and paternal ages

The biologic implications of delayed parenthood have been blamed for a major public health crisis in the United States, that includes high rates of neonatal morbidity and mortality (NMM). The objective of this study was to evaluate the risk of parent age on NMM and to provide results that can serve as a starting point for more specific mediation modeling. Data containing approximately 15,000,000 birth records were obtained from the United States Natality database for the years 2014 to 2018. A Bayesian modeling approach was used to estimate the both the total effect and the risk adjusted for confounding between parent ages and for mediation by chromosomal disorders including Down syndrome. Outcomes included intra-hospital death and nine measures of neonatal morbidity. For paternal age, seven NMM (preterm birth, very preterm birth, low Apgar score, treatment with antibiotics, treatment with surfactant, prolonged ventilation, intra-hospital death) had U-shaped risk patterns, two NMM (small for gestational age, admission to neonatal intensive care) had J-shaped risk patterns, one NMM (seizures) was not significantly related to paternal age. For maternal age, three NMM (low Apgar score, treatment with antibiotics and intra-hospital death) had U-shaped risk patterns, four NMM (preterm delivery, very preterm delivery, admission to neonatal intensive care, treatment with surfactant) had J-shaped risk patterns, one NMM (small for gestational age) had a risk declining with age, one NMM (prolonged ventilation) had a risk increasing with age and one NMM (seizures) was not significantly related to maternal age. Both advancing maternal and paternal ages had U- or J-shaped risk patterns for neonatal morbidity and mortality.
Skeletal screening IMPC/KOMP using μCT and computer automated cryohistology: Application to the Efna4 KO mouse line

Abstract The IMPC/KOMP program provides the opportunity to screen mice harboring well defined gene-inactivation mutations in a uniform genetic background. The program performs a global tissue phenotyping survey that includes skeletal x-rays and bone density measurements. Because of the relative insensitivity of the two screening tests for detecting variance in bone architecture, we initiated a secondary screen based on μCT and a cryohistolomorphological workflow that was performed on the femur and vertebral compartments on 220 randomly selected knockouts (KOs) and 36 control bone samples over a 2 1/2 year collection period provided by one of the production/phenotyping centers. The performance of the screening protocol was designed to balance throughput and cost versus sensitivity and informativeness such that the output would be of value to the skeletal biology community. Here we report the reliability of this screening protocol to establish criteria for control skeletal variance at the architectural, dynamic and cellular histomorphometric level. Unexpected properties of the control population include unusually high variance in BV/TV in male femurs and greater bone formation and bone turnover rates in the female femur and vertebral trabeculae bone compartments. However, the manner for maintaining bone formation differed between these two bone sites. The vertebral compartment relies on maintaining a greater number of bone forming surfaces while the femoral compartment utilized more matrix production per cell. The comparison of the architectural properties obtained by μCT and histomorphology revealed significant differences in values for BV/TV, Tb.Th and Tb.N which is attributable to sampling density of the two methods. However, as a screening tool, expressing the ratio of KO to the control line as obtained by either method was remarkably similar. It identified KOs with significant variance which led to a more detailed histological analysis. Our findings are exemplified by the Efna4 KO, in which a high BV/TV was identified by μCT and confirmed by histomorphometry in the femur but not in the vertebral compartment. Dynamic labeling showed a marked increase in BFR which was attributable to increased labeling surfaces. Cellular analysis confirmed partitioning of osteoblast to labeling surfaces and a marked decrease in osteoclastic activity on both labeling and quiescent surfaces. This pattern of increased bone modeling would not be expected based on prior studies of the Ephrin-Ephrin receptor signaling pathways between osteoblasts and osteoclasts. Overall, our findings underscore why unbiased screening is needed because it can reveal unknown or unanticipated genes that impact skeletal variation.
Retrospective economic judgments predict individual-level changes in vote preference in the US

While many studies have investigated what predicts citizens’ vote preferences, less is known about what predicts change in citizens’ vote preferences over time. This paper focuses on the role of judgments about national economy in the recent past (i.e., “sociotropic economic retrospections”). Two longitudinal studies show that sociotropic economic retrospections (along with partisanship, ideology, and whether incumbent is running for re-election) at a given time point predict within-person changes in vote choice over time. Furthermore, cross-lagged panel analyses found that sociotropic economic retrospections and political preferences may have reciprocal effects on each other. Together, these results illustrate the temporal dimension of economic voting by suggesting that sociotropic economic retrospections not only predict votes at single points in time, but also individual-level shifts in vote preference over time. As such, the association between sociotropic economic retrospections and vote preference is more dynamic than past literature suggests.
Drugs and Drug Classes Involved in Overdose Deaths Among Females, United States: 1999-2017.

Background: Drug overdose deaths among U.S. women have risen steadily from 1999 to 2017, especially among certain ages. Various studies report involvement of drugs and drug classes in overdose deat...
The Spoken Language Checklist: A User-Friendly Normed Language Acquisition Checklist

There are many variables having an impact on the spoken language acquisition of deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) children; therefore, it is critical for parents and professionals to have appropriate tools to monitor language acquisition. The Spoken Language Checklist (SLC) was developed to monitor and identify developmental milestones in a user-friendly checklist format that includes norms. The availability of the SLC will help parents and professionals to monitor the spoken language development of DHH children and provide interventions that should any delays be observed. Recognizing these delays early could prevent any insurmountable effects for cognitive development and further language development.
Variational Inference at Glacier Scale

We characterize the complete joint posterior distribution over spatially-varying basal traction and and ice softness parameters of an ice sheet model from observations of surface speed by using stochastic variational inference combined with natural gradient descent to find an approximating variational distribution. By placing a Gaussian process prior over the parameters and casting the problem in terms of eigenfunctions of a kernel, we gain substantial control over prior assumptions on parameter smoothness and length scale, while also rendering the inference tractable. In a synthetic example, we find that this method recovers known parameters and accounts for mutual indeterminacy, both of which can influence observed surface speed. In an application to Helheim Glacier in Southeast Greenland, we show that our method scales to glacier-sized problems. We find that posterior uncertainty in regions of slow flow is high regardless of the choice of observational noise model.
A Needs Assessment of Persons With Sickle Cell Disease in a Major Medical Center in North Carolina

BACKGROUND Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a complex disease associated with many complications and a shortened lifespan. In 2016, the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute funded 8 centers in the United States to form the Sickle Cell Disease Implementation Consortium, with the goal of improving SCD care. The aim of our study was to describe SCD self-efficacy, pain interference, and barriers to care from the perspective of persons with SCD in the North Carolina center.METHODS Persons with SCD, aged 15 and older were recruited from a large SCD center in North Carolina. Surveys, focus groups, and interviews were completed.RESULTS Fifty-one people completed a survey, and 14 people completed an interview or focus group. Barriers identified in the survey included self-care barriers, misconceptions related to hydroxyurea (an oral medication that reduces rates of pain crisis), limited provider knowledge, and stigma. Concerning self-efficacy, participants reported that they were able to manage their pain symptoms most of the time. Pain interfered most with the ability to participate in social and day-to-day activities.Common themes from the focus groups and interviews included misconceptions about hydroxyurea, pain, provider knowledge, stigma, co-management, transportation, and insurance. Recommendations to improve care included the use of case managers, utilization of treatment guidelines, individualized pain protocols, and effective co-management by providers.LIMITATIONS Participants were recruited from 1 SCD center and may not be representative of the entire SCD population in North Carolina.CONCLUSIONS Participants described many perceived barriers to care, and their responses suggest a need for improvements in patient hydroxyurea education, provider knowledge, and care coordination.
Buchsbaum Curves and Liaison Addition

One of the goals of this book is to show how much information one can get about a scheme from knowledge of its deficiency modules. This is especially true for curves in ℙ3 (for instance see Rao’s theorem, Theorem 1.2.7.) As an illustration of this connection, in this chapter we consider the case of Buchsbaum curves. Recall that a Buchsbaum curve is one whose deficiency module structure is trivial, i.e. it is annihilated by all linear forms (cf. page 40)
Pharmacotherapy of UES Spastic Disorder

Botulinum toxin injections have been used in upper esophageal dysfunction since 1994, currently with several hundred reported cases of swallowing improvement. Several themes are present in the majority of the published case series, relative ease of injection technique, high reported success rates and very low complication rates. The final consistent theme was a call for large series and prospective research to guide clinical care. The combination of low complication rate combined with the relative ease of performing the procedure compared to a surgical cricopharyngeal myotomy makes botulinum toxin injection an appealing therapeutic option in appropriate patients.
CDE: using system call interposition to automatically create portable software packages

It can be painfully hard to take software that runs on one person's machine and get it to run on another machine. Online forums and mailing lists are filled with discussions of users' troubles with compiling, installing, and configuring software and their myriad of dependencies. To eliminate this dependency problem, we created a system called CDE that uses system call interposition to monitor the execution of x86-Linux programs and package up the Code, Data, and Environment required to run them on other x86-Linux machines. Creating a CDE package is completely automatic, and running programs within a package requires no installation, configuration, or root permissions. Hundreds of people in both academia and industry have used CDE to distribute software, demo prototypes, make their scientific experiments reproducible, run software natively on older Linux distributions, and deploy experiments to compute clusters.
Rogue access point detection using temporal traffic characteristics

As the cost of IEEE 802.11 hardware continues to fall, the appeal of inserting unauthorized wireless access into enterprise networks grows. These rogue access points (AP) expose the enterprise network to a barrage of security vulnerabilities in that they are typically connected to a network port behind the firewall. Most of the current approaches to detecting rogue AP are rudimentary and are easily evaded by hackers. We propose the use of temporal traffic characteristics to detect rogue AP at a central location. This detection is independent of the wireless technology (IEEE 802.11a, 802.11b, or 802.11g), is scalable, does not possess the inefficiencies of the current solutions, and is independent of the signal range of the rogue AP.
Metabolites of arachidonic acid acting in the small intestine mediate systemic and vascular inflammation in LDLR null mice (832.13)

We previously reported that a Western Diet increased levels of free arachidonic acid (AA) and its metabolites in the small intestine and plasma of LDLR null mice and increased plasma levels of serum amyloid A (SAA). To determine the role of AA metabolites in initiating inflammation, LDLR null mice on a chow diet were or were not administered 15-hydroxyeicosatetraenoic acid (15-HETE) at a dose of 5 μg/day (mixed into the chow) or the mice received 5 μg/day subcutaneously (SQ). After two weeks the mice were bled, perfused with saline to remove any remaining blood and the heart was harvested. Plasma levels of SAA were determined by ELISA and levels of free AA and its metabolites were determined in plasma by LC-ESI-MS/MS. Plasma SAA levels increased from 6.4 ± 1.9 ug/mL on chow without 15-HETE to 15 ± 7 ug/mL with oral 15-HETE (p<0.0001) and 15 ± 8 µg/mL with SQ (p = 0.0004). Plasma levels of free AA increased from 2435 ± 420 ng/mL on chow to 3274 ± 517 ng/mL with oral 15-HETE (p<0.0001) and 2712 ± 479 ng/mL ...
Limits on static shape control for space structures

This paper deals with correction of shape distortion due to zero-mean normally distributed errors in structural sizes. The concept of ideal actuators - actuators that can produce any desired displacement field - is introduced. Using this concept, a bound on the possible improvement in the expected value of the root-mean-square shape error is obtained. The shape correction associated with the ideal actuators is also characterized. An actuator effectiveness index is developed by comparing the displacement field generated by the actuator to the ideal. The results are specialized to a simple form for truss structures composed of nominally identical members. The bound and effectiveness index are tested on a 55-m radiometer antenna truss structure. It is found that previously obtained results for optimum actuators had a performance close to the bound obtained here. Also, it is found that large numbers of actuators are needed for large reductions in shape errors. Furthermore, the actuators associated with the optimum design are shown to have high effectiveness indices. Since only a small fraction of truss elements tend to have high effectiveness indices, the use of the effectiveness index can greatly reduce the number of truss members that need to be considered actuator sites.
The mixing mechanism by organised turbulence structures in a plane jet excited by a novel method

A plane subsonic turbulent jet was subjected to controlled periodic oscillations of high amplitude at the nozzle exit. The oscillations produced considerable jet spreading and entrainment. Vortex dynamics played a significant role in this process and the amplification of the applied periodic disturbances was associated with a fairly well defined Strouhal number. Three distinct phases in the flow could be observed during excitation, namely, (a) flapping motion near the exit region, (b) formation of vortices at a critical Strouhal number and their amplification, and (c) breakdown of large vortices into smaller components with the flow becoming fully turbulent. The jet when operated with a simple straight duct-diffuser ejector system increased the thrust augmentation ratio by a factor of 1.20.
Cleaning up Lake River

A casebook favorite for exploring the liquidated damage-penalty clause distinction is Lake River v. Carborundum in which Judge Posner found a minimum quantity clause to be an unenforceable penalty clause. In this paper I argue that the case was framed improperly. Had the litigators recognized that the contract afforded one party an option, the result should have been different. The contract was for the provision of a service - setting aside capacity - which was valuable to the buyer and costly to provide for the seller. The primary purpose of the minimum quantity clause was the pricing of that service. The case raised indirectly a significant damages issue: if there is an anticipatory repudiation of a contract that is take-or-pay or has a stipulated damage clause, should the promisee's ability to mitigate be taken into account when reckoning damages?
Premise Acceptability, Deontology, Internalism, Justification

Acceptability is a thoroughly normative epistemic notion. If a statement is acceptable, i.e. it is proper to take it as a premise, then one is justified in accepting it. We also hold that a statement is acceptable just in case there is a presumption of warrant in its favor. We thus see acceptability connected to epistemic normativity on the one hand and to warrant on the other. But there is a distinct tension in this dual connection. The dominant tradition in modern epistemology sees epistemic justification as an internalist notion. We are justified in holding a belief just in case certain conditions are fulfilled of which we have privileged access. Warrant is an externalist notion. We have no privileged access to the conditions of warrant. Is our understanding of acceptability as both normative and definable in terms of presumption of warrant philosophically coherent? We shall argue that it is a philosophically coherent notion. Presumption of warrant, unlike warrant, is an internalist notion. Our position can be characterized as an externalist internal ism. It avoids the charge brought against externalism of allowing one to be justified in accepting some claim even if one has no evidence for it. We meet the classical internalist challenge that acceptance is normatively proper only if one has done one's epistemic duty and thus one is aware of the normative propriety of the acceptance by providing a non-deontological definition of epistemic justification, and arguing that this is still a sufficiently normative notion for acceptability.
Stephen Mumford. Dispositions. . Oxford: Oxford university press, 1998. 261 pp.

In Mumford’s Dispositions, the reader will find an extended treatment of the recent debate about dispositions from Ryle and Geach to the present. Along the way, Mumford presents his own views on several key points, though we found the book much more thorough in its assessment of opposing views than in the development of a positive account. As we’ll try to make clear, some of the ideas endorsed in Dispositions are certainly worth pursuing; others are not. Following Mackie, Shoemaker, and others, 1 Mumford stresses that it’s one thing to distinguish between dispositional and categorical ascriptions and quite another to draw an ontological line between dispositional and categorical properties. The book itself can be divided roughly into those chapters that deal with the relationship between dispositional ascriptions and corresponding conditionals (like ‘is fragile’ and ‘would break if struck’); and those chapters that deal with the relationship between dispositions and their categorical bases (like fragility and having internal structure XYZ). We shall examine each cluster of issues in turn.
Antisense and Ribozymes

Antisense–ribozyme technology has evolved from being a tool in molecular biology to being used as a therapeutic agent in human disease. There is enormous potential in antisense and ribozyme therapy, but significant pitfalls and obstacles have yet to be overcome. Keywords: phosphorothioate oligodeoxynucleotides; cationic liposomes; retroviral vector; adenoviral vector; multidrug resistance; biological therapy
Genetic Selection of Alcohol Preference Can Be Countered by Conditioning Processes

Abstract Twenty-four P rats and 24 NP rats were conditioned to consume 10% w/v alcohol in daily 0.5-h limited access periods using a modified version of Samson's sucrose fading procedure. Both P and NP rats demonstrated a strikingly similar day-to-day pattern of alcohol intakes. For the most part, P rats drank more than NP rats, but by the middle of the fourth month of drinking, P and NP rats were drinking equivalent amounts of alcohol. Both P and NP rats consumed alcohol in amounts similar to two outbred strains of rats (Wistar and Sprague–Dawley) previously conditioned to drink alcohol in this laboratory.
Note-Taking Skills of Middle School Students With and Without Learning Disabilities:

For middle school students with learning disabilities (LD), one major component of learning in content area classes, such as science, involves listening to lectures and recording notes. Lecture learning and note-taking are critical skills for students to succeed in these classes. Despite the importance of note-taking skills, no research has been reported on the problems that school-age students with LD encounter when recording notes during science lectures. Using a sample size of 90 middle school students, the performance of students with LD was compared to students with no learning disabilities (NLD). Results found that students with LD performed significantly worse than students with NLD in terms of the type and amount of notes recorded and test performance.
Realms of Literacy: Early Japan and the History of Writing

Realms of Literacy: Early Japan and the History of Writing David B. Lurie Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2011 xxiii, 364 pp. + notes, bibliography, index; maps, tables, figures ISBN...
Patterns of factor-saving innovation in the industrialized world

Abstract An attempt is made in this study to empirically measure the impact of factor endowment on innovation trends. A large international sample of significant innovations was used, wherein each innovation is classified according to its perceived factor-saving impact, as seen by the innovating firm, the user and industry/market observers. Then, broad trends in labor-, material- and capital-saving innovation were measured in eight European nations, the United States, United Kingdom and Japan. International variations in these trends were correlated with international variations in relative factor cost levels. A very high degree of correlation was found, supporting the position that factor endowment significantly influences innovation trends in the industrialized world.
Recognizing suicides from photographs.

45 female and 25 male students were unable to guess from photographs with an accuracy better than chance which people had died from suicide.
Technology-based methods of dietary assessment: recent developments and considerations for clinical practice.

Purpose of reviewThe objective of this review is to provide an overview of recent findings in technology-based methods for the collection and analysis of dietary information, and explore the potential implications of these technologies for dietary assessment in a clinical setting.Recent findingsNume
Assessing accumulated solvent near a macromolecular solute by preferential interaction coefficients

Biological macromolecules are often studied in mixed solvents. To understand cosolvent-macromolecule interactions, the preferential interaction coefficient, Gamma(3), may help determine surface solvent compositions. Gamma(3) measures the amounts of water, B(1), and cosolvent, B(3), within the "local domain," the (possibly far-reaching) region surrounding the macromolecule where the solvent is non-bulk-like. The local domain's boundary is, however, vague and it is unclear which molecules are counted in B(i). It is useful to explore a simple model system to make B(i) more concrete and to understand which aspects of the surface solvent distribution, rho(x), are sampled by Gamma(3). We performed computer simulations on a two-dimensional (2D) system consisting of a hard-wall solute (the macromolecule) in a mixed solvent (hard disks of different radii). We simultaneously calculated Gamma(3) and rho(x). We found that 1) in practice, the local domain's boundary is demarked by the outer limit of the first cosolvent (not water) layer; B(i) mainly counts the solvent near the macromolecule; 2) assuming B(1) to count only the waters within the first water layer is a poor approximation; 3) when determining B(1) and B(3), water and cosolvent molecules must be counted from the same region of space. We speculate that these 2D results may serve as a first-order approximation for the dominant contributions to Gamma(3) even in three dimensions, so long as the cosolvent is not strongly excluded from the macromolecular surface and there is no significant long-ranged solvent structure.
Simultaneous measurement of body center of pressure and center of gravity during upright stance. Part II: Amplitude and frequency data

Abstract In this paper (Part II) we present amplitude and frequency data on simultaneously measured excursions of the body center of gravity (COG) and center of pressure (COP). The excursions were measured from six subjects during 10-s trials of three upright postural stances: standing on both legs or double stance with eyes open (DSEO), double stance with eyes closed (DSEC), and standing on one leg or single stance with eyes open (SSEO). This study represents the first attempt to describe the normative characteristics and stance-dependent differences between the anteroposterior and mediolateral components of both the COP and COG signals, measured from multiple individuals by the technique described in Part 1. We quantified the anteroposterior and mediolateral excursions of the COP and COG using amplitude and frequency measures, and their planar excursions using 95% confidence ellipses. Although the COP-based amplitude measures were significantly greater than their COG-based counterparts, the amplitude and frequency measures of both were highly correlated in all stances. The results support the continued use of COP-based measures to quantify impaired balance during upright stance.
A Computer System for Accessing Ambient Display and Computing Resources in Wearable Environments

We present a novel mobile computer system and network architecture that overcomes display and CPU limitations on wearable devices. The system provides access to ambient display and CPU resources through a user interface tailored for use while mobile, on performance constrained devices. A lightweight network protocol transfers data and control messages in a power-efficient manner, and an application framework integrates model, view and controller while remaining flexible enough to support diverse datatypes. Our results show improvements in user interface latency and power-efficiency versus existing methods.
Why People Cross Where They Do: The Role of Street Environment

The role of the street environment in the way people cross roads in urban settings is modeled. Respondents were placed in real traffic conditions at the curbside of street blocks in the Tampa Bay, Florida, area for 3-min observations of the street environments. Without crossing the blocks, respondents stated their crossing preference at each of six blocks. The origin and destination of each crossing were hypothetically set and varied across the blocks. So were the options available: two options for crossing at an intersection and up to four options for crossing at midblock locations. Within the framework of discrete choice models, the stated preferences are explained with the street environment, including traffic conditions, roadway characteristics, and signal-control characteristics. All three components of the street environment are considered: midblock locations, intersections, and roadside environment. The data are described; a nested logit model of pedestrian street-crossing behavior is estimated; and its implications to researchers and practitioners are discussed.
Extracolonic Cancer in Hereditary Nonpolyposis Colorectal Cancer

Published studies of families with hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer (HNPCC) frequently report the occurrence of cancers at extracolonic sites. Our purpose in this study was to compare the observed frequency of cancer at specific sites in members of 18 unrelated HNPCC kindreds with expectations based on general population incidence in order to determine whether there were specific types of cancer for which family members were at elevated risk. We were able to stratify family members according to their risk of carrying the putative HNPCC gene. We found that putative HNPCC gene carriers and their high risk relatives have been diagnosed with cancers other than uterine and colorectal more frequently than expected based on general population incidence figures. Specific sites where elevations are seen include the stomach, small intestine, biliary system (especially the bile ducts), urological system (especially the kidney and ureter), and ovary.
Linking genetic change to community evolution: insights from studies of bacteria and bacteriophage

A major goal of community ecology is to link biological processes at lower scales with community patterns. Microbial communities are especially powerful model systems for making these links. In this article, we review recent studies of laboratory communities of bacteria and bacteriophage (viruses that infect bacteria). We focus on the ecology and evolution of bacteriophage-resistance as a case study demonstrating the relationship between specific genes, individual interactions, population dynamics, community structure, and evolutionary change. In laboratory communities of bacteria and bacteriophage, bacteria rapidly evolve resistance to bacteriophage infection. Different resistance mutations produce distinct resistance phenotypes, differing, for example, in whether resistance is partial or complete, in the magnitude of the physiological cost associated with resistance, and in whether the mutation can be countered by a host-range mutation in the bacteriophage. These differences determine whether a mutant can invade, the effect its invasion has on the population dynamics of sensitive bacteria and phage, and the resulting structure of the community. All of these effects, in turn, govern the community’s response to environmental change and its subsequent evolution.
The distribution of anterior cervical hair in white and Negro males

Patterns of hair distribution of the front of the human neck are recognized. The basic patterns are supraclavicular, suprasternal and supraclaviculosuprasternal. They are correlated with the types of chest hair distribution.
Blastogenic Response of Human Lymphocytes to Antigens of Rothia dentocariosa

Peripheral blood lymphocytes were isolated from 20 individuals with varying degrees of periodontal health and classified as either normal, having acute gingivitis (GV), or chronic periodontitis (PD). Crude cell wall and cytoplasmic antigens were derived from Rothia dentocariosa (RD), were applied to lymphocyte microcultures, and subjected to radioactive thymidine; the resulting lymphocyte blastogenesis (LBJ was surveyed with a scintillation counter. All three groups displayed statistically similar levels of stimulation (F = 0.71), demonstrating that crude antigens of RD are not appreciably active in in vitro studies of cell-mediated immunity (CMI), as measured by LB.
FIELD DEPENDENCE-INDEPENDENCE, INTERNAL-EXTERNAL LOCUS OF CONTROL, AND IMPLEMENTATION OF FAMILY-PLANNING GOALS

Success in implementing family planning goals was studied in relation to internal-external locus of control of reinforcement and embedded-figures scores among 71 women. The embedded-figures scores were related to success in implementing goals; internal-external locus was not. It is suggested that face validy and component of attitude measured are important factors in the difference in results obtained on the 2 conceptually related measures.(AUTHORS MODIFIED)
Adaptive multiplayer approach for risk-based decision-making: 2006 Virginia Gubernatorial Inauguration

This paper introduces a multiplayer framework to collaboratively characterize sources of system risk from multiple expert perspectives, integrating several tools for holistic risk identification and risk management elicitation: the Adaptive Multiplayer Hierarchical Holographic Model (AMP-HHM), the Risk Filtering, Ranking, and Management methodology, and the Partitioned Multiobjective Risk Method. Applicable to a broad set of systems engineering risk applications, the framework is illustrated with a case study focusing on risk assessment and management for the 2006 Gubernatorial Inauguration held in Williamsburg, VA, for which 272 different areas of risk were identified by collaborative means. Management options for three scenarios were defined, and their impacts on the inauguration were evaluated through expected and upper-tail risk measures. As a final step, the analysis determined a set of noninferior options that can be used by decision-makers to craft security strategies. A computer tool was developed to assist in the AMP-HHM process, demonstrating the efficacy of the framework in collaborative work without synchronicity and regardless of geography. While the framework has been applied to a defense risk analysis in this paper, it can easily be applied to any problem where experts from disparate backgrounds, expertise, or geographies are working together to solve an unstructured, multidimensional problem. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Product distribution from fast pyrolysis of glucose-based carbohydrates

Abstract Carbohydrates are the major constituents of biomass. With the growing interest in utilizing bio-oil obtained from fast pyrolysis of biomass for fuels and chemicals, understanding the carbohydrate pyrolysis behavior has gained particular importance. The chemical composition of the bio-oil is an important consideration for its upstream and/or downstream processing. Though the classification of pyrolysis products into overall tar, char and gaseous fraction has evolved as a standard; detailed knowledge of the chemical constituents that determine the quality of bio-oil has received little attention. Furthermore, the speciation arising from primary and secondary reactions has been rarely distinguished. In this study the product distribution arising from the primary reactions during 500 °C fast pyrolysis of several mono-, di- and polysaccharides is studied with the help of micro-pyrolyzer. The study suggests that levoglucosan and the low molecular weight compounds are formed through competitive pyrolysis reactions rather than sequential pyrolysis reactions. It is also shown that the orientation or the position of glycosidic linkages does not significantly influence the product distribution except with 1,6-linked polysaccharide, which showed considerably less formation of levoglucosan than other polysaccharides.
Liberation, Salvation, Enlightenment: An Exercise in Comparative Soteriology

: This article is an exercise in what might be called “comparative soteriology.” It is both constructive and essential for Christians to examine non-Christian expressions of soteriology that challenge their own, in order to see with new eyes what salvation can and perhaps should connotate. Thus, this article intends to lead the reader to a deeper appreciation of the Christian doctrine of salvation through the exploration of three different images of salvation: from Hinduism, the Nataraja—the Dancing Shiva; from Buddhism, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, Avalokiteshvara; and from Christianity, an icon of the crucifixion, the San Damiano Crucifix.
Probing Allosteric Mechanisms of Utrophin and Dystrophin Actin-Binding Domains, using Thermal Denaturation

Dystrophin and utrophin are homologous actin-binding proteins that link actin filaments to the sarcolemmal membrane, forming crucial contacts between the two cellular structures that maintain membrane integrity in muscle filaments. In several types of muscular dystrophy, dystrophin is mutated or truncated, disrupting its structural support role leading to membrane damage and ultimately progressive muscle weakening in afflicted individuals. The binding of dystrophin and utrophin proteins is mediated by actin binding domains (ABD) and in certain subtypes of muscular dystrophy, single point mutations in the first ABD are sufficient to disrupt the entire protein's function. While it is not clear how a single point mutation disrupts function so severely, more recent binding studies point to the importance of allosteric mechanisms in the protein's interaction with actin. To gain further insights into these mechanisms, we combined differential scanning calorimetry and time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy in a thermal denaturation approach to thermodynamically dissect allostery within the ABD1 region of utrophin and dystrophin.AcknowledgementsThis work was supported by grant to DDT from the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA4322).
[3H]dopamine binds to D-1 and D-2 receptors in rat striatum.

Although saturation studies suggest that [3H]dopamine binds to a homogeneous class of stereospecific sites in rat striatal membranes, pharmacologic analysis reveals two distinct sites, one with high and another with low antagonist affinities. The affinity of antagonists for the first site is correlated with their affinity for [3H]butyrophenone binding sites; affinity for the second site is correlated with inhibitory potency against the dopamine-stimulated adenylate cyclase. These result suggest that [3H]dopamine binds to D-1 and D-2 receptors.
System Performance Of A Large Deformable Mirror Using Differential Ball Screw Actuators

A multi-actuator deformable mirror and control system is described that will cancel laser wavefront phase errors caused by the quasi-static aberrations occurring in large aperture metal mirror optics. The design of the differential ball screw driven mirror, its characterization and system performance are detailed. By using a sequential dither focus irradiance sensing/optimization algorithm, the system is shown to be able to correct wavefront aberrations of up to 4 waves p-p at 10.6 µm.
Temporal tagging of attended objects.

Complex organisms in a complex world need sensors that provide the information necessary to cope with any situation they are likely to encounter. Because circumstances vary widely, at any given time the sensory periphery therefore provides much more data than is needed and can be processed in detail by the central nervous system. Selective attention is the triage process of extracting the most relevant sensory information and suppressing the remainder. In a recent issue of PNAS, through an ingenious psychophysical experiment, Bauer et al. (1) provide insight into the mechanisms underlying this cognitive function.
Do Semiclassical Zero Temperature Black Holes Exist

The semiclassical Einstein equations are solved to first order in $\ensuremath{\epsilon}\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}=\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}\ensuremath{\Elzxh}/{M}^{2}$ for the case of a Reissner-Nordstr\"om black hole perturbed by the vacuum stress energy of quantized free fields. Massless and massive fields of spin $0$, $1/2$, and $1$ are considered. We show that in all physically realistic cases, macroscopic zero temperature black hole solutions do not exist. Any static zero temperature semiclassical black hole solutions must then be microscopic and isolated in the space of solutions; they do not join smoothly onto the classical extreme Reissner-Nordstr\"om solution as $\ensuremath{\epsilon}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}0$.
Indication of Δ-hole configurations in 12C(15.11 MeV)

Abstract A strong energy dependent enhancement is seen in inelastic pion scattering from 12C to the 1+, T = 1 state at 15.11 MeV, but not to the 1+, T = 0 state at 12.71 MeV. This enhancement may be interpreted as evidence for the direct excitation of delta-hole (Δ-h) components in the wave function of the T = 1 state. The required Δ-h amplitude is estimated and found to be in agreement with calculations of Bohr and Mottelson.
Terrorism, democratization, and US foreign policy

Members of the American foreign policy establishment argue that the United States should combat transnational terrorism by encouraging democratization. Yet, empirical studies indicate that democratization may increase political violence, thereby raising the question: why would American policymakers favor democratization when the empirical record shows that this course of action is so dangerous? This study develops a game theoretic model to analyze the effect of democratization on terrorism. The model demonstrates that the United States uses the commitment problems created by democratization to solve the moral hazard problem created by supporting autocratic hosts. These empirical implications are tested using a combination of two datasets.
Polarization dependence in electromagnetic inverse problems

The complete description of electromagnetic scattering processes implies polarization since an electromagnetic scatterer acts like a polarization transformer. The main objective is to show that due to the vector nature of electromagnetic waves, electromagnetic remote sensing and inverse scattering techniques, if applied rigorously, require incorporation of polarization information into their formulation. By applying this approach to existing and some novel theories, remarkable improvements in quality and fidelity of the reconstructed profiles and/or images can be obtained. Thus there is ample justification for continuing efforts in developing methods and theories of vector inverse scattering for the electromagnetic polarization-dependent case or in the even more complicated seismic case of p - and s -wave interaction in elastic media as for example encountered in vertical seismic profiling.
Juggling Multiple Tasks: A Rational Analysis of Multitasking in a Synthetic Task Environment

Tardast (Shakeri 2003; Shakeri & Funk, in press) is a new and intriguing paradigm to investigate human multitasking behavior, complex system management, and supervisory control. We present a replication and extension of the original Tardast study that assesses operators' learning curve and explains gains in performance in terms of increased sensitivity to task parameters and a superior ability of better operators to prioritize tasks. We then compare human performance profiles to various artificial software agents that provide benchmarks of optimal and baseline performance and illustrate the outcomes of simple heuristic strategies. Whereas it is not surprising that human operators fail to achieve an ideal criterion of performance, we demonstrate that humans also fall short of a principally achievable standard. Despite significant improvements with practice, Tardast operators exhibit stable sub-optimal performance in their time-to-task allocations. Language: en
Teaching stones to talk: Using stasis theory to teach students the art of dialectic

(1994). Teaching stones to talk: Using stasis theory to teach students the art of dialectic. Rhetoric Society Quarterly: Vol. 24, No. 3-4, pp. 88-95.
Facile activation of hydrogen by unsaturated platinum-osmium carbonyl cluster complexes

Abstract The electronically unsaturated cluster complex Os 3 Pt 2 (CO) 10 (PBu t 3 ) 2 ( 10 ) was obtained from the reaction of Os 3 (CO) 10 (NCMe) 2 with Pt(PBu t 3 ) 2 . Three side products: PtOs 3 (CO) 10 (PBu t 2 )CMe 2 CH 2 (μ-H) ( 13 ), Os 3 (CO) 10 (PBu t 3 ) 2 ( 14 ) and Pt 2 Os 3 (CO) 10 (PBu t 3 )(PBu t 2 )CMe 2 CH 2 (μ-H) ( 15 ) were also obtained from this reaction. The three osmium atoms in 10 lie in the equatorial plane of a trigonal bipyramid. The platinum atoms occupy the apical positions. When heated, compound 10 was converted to 15 by metallation of one of the methyl groups of one of the PBu t 3 ligands at the platinum atom to which it is coordinated. The platinum atom then shifted to an edge of the Os 3 triangle by cleaving one of its Pt–Os bonds. Compound 13 also contains a metallated PBu t 3 ligand attached to the platinum atom of the tetrahedral PtOs 3 cluster. Compound 10 reacts with hydrogen at 0 °C to yield the di- and tetra-hydrido compounds Os 3 Pt 2 (CO) 10 (PBu t 3 ) 2 (μ-H) 2 ( 11 ) and Os 3 Pt 2 (CO) 10 (PBu t 3 ) 2 (μ-H) 4 ( 12 ) with the hydrido ligands bridging Os–Pt and Os–Os bonds. With each addition of hydrogen, one of the platinum atoms in the cluster was shifted to an edge of the Os 3 triangle. When solutions of 12 at 25 °C were purged with nitrogen, hydrogen was eliminated and the compounds 10 and 11 were regenerated. The electronic structures of 10 and 11 were also investigated by Fenske–Hall molecular orbital theory. When compound 10 was exposed to hydrogen for 2.5 h, compound 12 was formed together with the new tetranuclear metal cluster complexes PtOs 3 (CO) 10 (PBu t 3 )(μ-H) 2 ( 16 ), PtOs 3 (CO) 9 (PBu t 3 )(μ-H) 4 ( 17 ) and PtOs 3 (CO) 8 (PBu t 3 ) 2 (μ-H) 4 ( 18 ). Compounds 16 – 18 contain tetrahedrally shaped clusters of four metal atoms with bridging hydrido ligands. All new compounds were characterized structurally by single-crystal X-ray diffraction methods.
The determination of victim credibility by adult and juvenile sexual assault investigators

Abstract Purpose Literature on sexual assault case outcomes has demonstrated that victim credibility is a critical component in criminal justice outcomes. Much of this literature has focused on prosecutors’ evaluations of victim credibility and the role of credibility in decisions to charge. Comparatively less research has examined the specific factors that impact police investigators’ evaluation of victim credibility. This study examines how sexual assault investigators determine victim credibility. Methods This study analyzes interview data collected from 44 sexual assault investigators to understand how investigators evaluate victim credibility, and victim credibility’s role in decisions to arrest and present cases to prosecutors. Results Findings indicate that extralegal characteristics including victim behavior at the time of victimization and victim moral character were important factors when evaluating victim credibility. In the absence of corroborating evidence, victim credibility was considered the most critical factor in decisions to arrest and present cases to prosecutors. Finally, important distinctions were revealed between juvenile and adult investigators regarding the evaluation of credibility. Conclusions Police investigators’ decisions are guided by their perceptions of the characteristics necessary for prosecutors to accept charges in sexual assault investigations. Among these characteristics, victim credibility appeared to be the most important.
In-Situ Raman Spectroscopy of Single Microparticle Li-Intercalation Electrodes

Modifications in the vibrational properties of a single microparticle of LiMn2O4 induced by extraction and subsequent injection of Li(+) into the lattice have been monitored in situ via simultaneous acquisition of Raman scattering spectra and cyclic voltammetry data in 1M LiC1O4 solutions in ethylene carbonate (EC):diethyl carbonate (DEC) mixtures (1:1 by volume). Statistical analyses of the spectra in the range 15 < SOD < 45%, where SOD represents the state of discharge (in percent) of the nominally fully charged material, i.e. lambda-MnO2, were found to be consistent with the coexistence of two distinct phases of lithiated metal oxide in agreement with information derived from in situ X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements involving more conventional battery-type electrodes.