cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Yam-Strength Index of Cotton Blended with Synthetics in the 50-Gram Spinning Test

A small-scale spinning test for cottons may be used for blends with synthetics by allowance for the respective differences in fiber length. The methodology developed shows that from the yarn strength of the respective fibers, yarn strength of the blends at optimum twist may be estimated through use of a measured noncooperation factor Φ and a simple trigono metric relation.
Carotid Artery Stenting in Octogenarians: Is It Too Risky?

Recent clinical trials have shown that the safety of carotid angioplasty and stenting (CAS) is equivalent to that of carotid endarterectomy (CEA) in high-risk patients. Despite this, the beneficial outcome in octogenarians has come under scrutiny in light of the interim results of the Carotid Artery Revascularization versus Stent Trial (CREST). We report on a single-center experience of patients ≥80 years of age compared to younger cohorts treated with CAS. CAS procedures, performed exclusively by vascular surgeons, from April 2001 to December 2004 were retrospectively reviewed. Mechanical cerebral protection with either a distal balloon occlusion system or a distal filter device was used in 140 cases and in all patients ≥80 years of age. Patients were divided into age categories: <60, 60-69, 70-79, and ≥80 years old. Data analysis included patient demographics, perioperative death, myocardial infarction, stroke, and other major complications. Statistics were derived using the SPSS program. A total of 158 procedures were performed on 151 patients. There were no statistical differences among the four groups with respect to mean stenosis or the presence of preoperative symptoms. Rates of stroke were 1 of 16 (6.25%) <60 years old, 0 of 54 (0%) age 60-69, 2 of 59 (3.4%) age 70-79, and 1 of 29 (3.4%) ≥80 years old. Preoperative symptoms were present in 6 of 29 (21%) patients ≥80 years old. Myocardial infarction and mortality rates were 0% for all groups. There were no statistical differences in stroke, death, or nonneurological complication rates among the four groups. Vascular surgeons facile at CAS should expect 30-day results comparable to CEA in all age groups. Octogenarians, whether symptomatic or asymptomatic, should not be denied this form of treatment.
Coupled dynamics of interfacial waves and bed forms in fluid muds over erodible seabeds in oscillatory flows

Recent field investigations of the damping of ocean surface waves over fluid muds have revealed waves on the interface between the thin layer of fluid mud and the overlying much thicker column of clear water, accompanied by bedforms on the erodible seabed beneath the fluid mud. The frequencies and wavelengths of the observed interfacial waves are qualitatively consistent with the linear dispersion relationship for long interfacial waves, but the forcing mechanism is not known. To understand the forcing, a linear model is proposed, based on the layer-averaged hydrostatic equations for the fluid mud, together with the Meyer-Peter-Mueller equation for the sediment transport within the underlying seabed, both subject to oscillatory forcing by the surface waves. If the underlying seabed is non-erodible and flat, the model indicates parametric instability to interfacial waves, but the threshold for instability is not met by the observations. If the underlying seabed is erodible, the model indicates that perturbations to the seabed elevation in the presence of the oscillatory forcing create interfacial waves, which in turn produce stresses within the fluid mud that force a net transport of sediment within the seabed toward the bedform crests, thus causing growth of both bedforms and interfacial waves. The frequencies, wavelengths, and growth rates are in qualitative agreement with the observations. A competition between mixing created by the interfacial waves and gravitational settling might control the thickness, density, and viscosity of the fluid muds during periods of strong forcing. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Long-Wavelength IR Imaging System to Scuba Diver Detection in Three Dimensions

Port surveillance and especially the monitoring of small vessels within a port has been an important focus in port security, whereby today video-based systems are the main candidates for the surveillance despite their apparent inherent limitations at night. This paper presents the results in our experiments in the Hudson River Estuary utilizing a long-wavelength IR imaging system for the detection of a submerged SCUBA diver in three dimensions. During the experiments, the SCUBA diver was in different diving conditions as well as at different depths. Further data analysis shows the correlation of the diver's IR signature to the diver's depth, which may be used to develop a model to detect the diver's depth.
Photostimulator allowing independent control of rods and the three cone types.

This report describes a second-generation photostimulator with four primary lights that allows independent control of the stimulation of the four receptor types in the human eye. The new design uses LEDs (with light levels controlled by eight drivers that include voltage-to-frequency converters that provide 1-μs pulses at frequencies up to 250 kHz), with four center channels being combined by use of a fiber optic assembly, and likewise for four surround channels. Four fiber optic bundles are merged into a single bundle whose output is fed into a spatial homogenizer terminated by a diffuser. An interference filter is sandwiched between each LED and the fiber optic bundle. Two camera lenses collimate light from the diffusers, one for center and one for surround. The center-surround field configuration is formed by a photometric cube with a mirrored ellipse on the hypotenuse. A field lens places images of the diffusers in the plane of an artificial pupil. The fields are highly uniform. Following alignment and calibration, the center and surround fields are indistinguishable. An observer calibration procedure, designed to compensate for prereceptoral filtering, is shown by calculation to correct also for normal observer receptoral spectral sensitivity variation. With the instrument calibrated for the individual observer, a peripherally fixated 200-ms 40% contrast rod center field pulse, highly conspicuous under dark adaptation, is invisible following light adaptation.
Tracing the Path: New Model and Algorithms for Collaborative Filtering

Automated recommendation systems have emerged in the past decade as a useful tool to reduce the information overload faced by users at e-commerce sites. Recently Drineas et al. Kleinberg and Sandler, and others have introduced algorithms with pivvable performance guarantees. In this work we expand the mixture model introduced by Hoffman and Puzicha to include extra information often readily available to the algorithm designer. We show how this additional information leads to fast and simple algorithms with recommendation guarantees. We then begin the study of algorithms that work when the sampling step in the mixture model is done without repetition. This version of the problem often serves as a better-model for situations occurring in practice (e.g.. few of us own multiple copies of the same book), but has not been rigorously analyzed in the context of recommendation systems.
Micafungin for the prophylaxis and treatment of Candida infections

Invasive fungal infection is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. The incidence of these infections is steadily increasing. In addition, strains resistant to many commonly used antifungal agents are becoming more prevalent. Many new antifungals have become commercially available in recent years, which have vastly improved the ability to treat these infections effectively. Micafungin is one of three commercially available echinocandins available for use in the USA. This class of agents possess a unique mechanism of action that helps to reduce toxicity while maintaining potent antifungal activity. Micafungin is currently approved for the treatment of esophageal candidiasis in adults and is the only in its class approved for the prophylaxis of Candida infection in patients who have undergone hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. It was also recently approved in the USA for the treatment of candidemia and other forms of invasive candiaisis (acute disseminated candiaisis, Candida peritonitis and abscess). In general, micafungin is well tolerated and has favorable safety and drug-interaction profiles.
Metformin Attenuates Salt-Induced Hypertension in Spontaneously Hypertensive Rats

Metformin, an antihyperglycemic agent used for treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus, lowers blood pressure in humans and experimental animals. We recently demonstrated that short-term administration of metformin may lower blood pressure by reducing sympathetic neural outflow. The present studies were initiated to determine whether long-term administration of metformin blunts salt-induced hypertension, a condition characterized by elevated sympathetic activity. Male spontaneously hypertensive rats, in which radiotelemeters had been implanted for continuous monitoring of heart rate and blood pressure, were randomly assigned to groups that received vehicle (drinking water) or metformin (500 mg/kg per day) and ate a normal 0.3% NaCl diet and to groups that received vehicle or metformin and ate a high 8.0% NaCl diet for a period of 4 weeks. Although metformin did not affect blood pressure in the animals that ate the normal-salt diet (vehicle, 130+/-3 mm Hg; metformin, 133+/-5 mm Hg; mean+/-SEM), drug treatment blunted the rise in pressure caused by a high-salt diet (vehicle, 153+/-4 mm Hg; metformin, 140+/-5 mm Hg; P<0.001). In agreement, during direct pressure recordings in anesthetized rats, the animals that ate the high-salt diet had higher pressures (136+/-13 mm Hg) than those in the control (98+/-5 mm Hg, P<0.01), metformin (100+/-7 mm Hg, P<0.01), and metformin/high-salt groups (92+/-3 mm Hg, P<0.01). Finally, metformin lowered heart rate in rats that ate the normal- and high-salt diets (310+/-3 and 305+/-4 bpm) compared with rats that ate normal- and high-salt diets given vehicle (332+/-3 and 324+/-2 bpm, P<0.01). These data indicate that the chronic depressor actions of metformin are enhanced in animals with hypertension exacerbated by a high-salt diet.
A Dynamic Principal-Agent Model with Hidden Information: Sequential Optimality Through Truthful State Revelation

This paper proposes a general framework for a large class of multiperiod principal-agent problems. In this framework, a principal has a primary stake in the performance of a system but delegates its control to an agent. The underlying system is a Markov decision process, where the state of the system can only be observed by the agent but the agent's action is observed by both parties. This paper develops a dynamic programming algorithm to derive optimal long-term contracts for the principal. The principal indirectly controls the underlying system by offering the agent a menu of continuation utility vectors along public information paths; the agent's best response, expressed in his choice of continuation utilities, induces truthful state revelation and results in actions that maximize the principal's expected payoff. This problem is meaningful to the operations research community because it can be framed as the problem of optimally designing the reward structure of a Markov decision process with hidden states and has many applications of interest as discussed in this paper.
Warm dust in the terrestrial planet zone of a Sun-like Pleiades star: Collisions between planetary embryos?

Only a few solar-type main-sequence stars are known to be orbited by warm dust particles; the most extreme is the G0 field star BD +20 307 that emits ~4% of its energy at mid-infrared wavelengths. We report the identification of a similarly dusty star HD 23514, an F6-type member of the Pleiades. A strong mid-IR silicate emission feature indicates the presence of small warm dust particles, but with the primary flux density peak at the nonstandard wavelength of ~9 μm. The existence of so much dust within an AU or so of these stars is not easily accounted for given the very brief lifetime in orbit of small particles. The apparent absence of very hot (≳1000 K) dust at both stars suggests the possible presence of a planet closer to the stars than the dust. The observed frequency of the BD +20 307/HD 23514 phenomenon indicates that the mass equivalent of Earth's Moon must be converted, via collisions of massive bodies, to tiny dust particles that find their way to the terrestrial planet zone during the first few hundred million years of the life of many (most?) Sun-like stars. Identification of these two dusty systems among youthful nearby solar-type stars suggests that terrestrial planet formation is common.
Treatment guidelines for major depressive disorder

Treatment guidelines represent attempts to describe a set of best practices based on the available empirical evidence and current clinical consensus. The American Psychiatric Association has recently revised its guideline for the treatment of major depression. The revised guideline clearly improves upon the original in many respects and is more closely tied to the empirical literature. It provides an excellent overview of the nature of depression and its pharmacological treatment. It also does a better job than the original of differentiating between those psychosocial interventions that have done well in empirical trials (like the cognitive behavioral interventions and interpersonal psychotherapy) versus those that have not, like the more traditional dynamic interventions. Nonetheless, it still understates the case for the empirically supported psychosocial interventions, which compare favorably to drugs in the reduction of acute distress and may have broader and more enduring effects.
Stabilization of chemostats using feedback linearization

Stabilization via feedback linearization of two-species competition models based in the chemostat is considered. Competition is for a single growth-limiting resource in the first model, and for two perfectly substitutable resources in the second. The dilution rate and the input concentration of one nutrient are taken as input controls in each model. The main issues we investigate are limitations on stabilizable states and stabilizer design due to the structure of the linearized system. It is shown that determination of feasible stabilizable states requires computation of an equilibrium submanifold in the state space. Once this is accomplished, the potential exists for failure of a proportional-derivative stabilizer strategy due to singular structure in the resulting closed-loop dynamics caused by failure of the linearizing coordinate transformation to be a global diffeomorphism. This is exhibited explicitly in the three-dimensional model, and it is shown numerically that similar phenomena persist in four dimensions.
Chlamydomonas chloroplasts can use short dispersed repeats and multiple pathways to repair a double‐strand break in the genome

Certain group I introns insert into intronless DNA via an endonuclease that creates a double-strand break (DSB). There are two models for intron homing in phage: synthesis-dependent strand annealing (SDSA) and double-strand break repair (DSBR). The Cr.psbA4 intron homes efficiently from a plasmid into the chloroplast psbA gene in Chlamydomonas, but little is known about the mechanism. Analysis of co-transformants selected using a spectinomycin-resistant 16S gene (16S spec ) provided evidence for both pathways. We also examined the consequences of the donor DNA having only one-sided or no homology with the psbA gene. When there was no homology with the donor DNA, deletions of up to 5 kb involving direct repeats that flank the psbA gene were obtained. Remarkably, repeats as short as 15 bp were used for this repair, which is consistent with the single-strand annealing (SSA) pathway. When the donor had one-sided homology, the DSB in most co-transformants was repaired using two DNAs, the donor and the 16S spec plasmid, which, coincidentally, contained a region that is repeated upstream of psbA. DSB repair using two separate DNAs provides further evidence for the SDSA pathway. These data show that the chloroplast can repair a DSB using short dispersed repeats located proximally, distally, or even on separate molecules relative to the DSB. They also provide a rationale for the extensive repertoire of repeated sequences in this genome.
Development of an environmentally friendly protective coating for the depleted uranium-0.75 wt.% titanium alloy Part II: Coating formation and evaluation

Abstract Molybdenum oxide based coatings have been formed on the surface of the depleted uranium–0.75 wt.% titanium alloy. Surface activation prior to coating formation has been examined using fluorides and concentrated nitric acid. The electrochemical characteristics of the coating formation processes were studied using open circuit potential measurements. Residual fluoride from the activation process has been found to interfere with coating formation and surface activation by nitric acid yields a relatively thinner but more robust coating. The corrosion protection characteristics of the coatings were evaluated by potentiodynamic polarization testing in quiescent 0.05 M sodium chloride. The coatings have been studied using scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive spectroscopy and optical microscopy.
Research, Identities, and Praxis: The Tensions of Integrating Identity into the Field Experience

Scientists seek to participate in the collective process of cumulative knowledge building. As scientists, we are bound to the principle of objective neutrality in the assessment of our data and in the formulation of our inferences and conclusions. However, the production of knowledge does not need to be, and some would say cannot be, a valueless process, devoid of opinion. The imperatives for the investigator are intellectual honesty, transparency in research, and objectivity in the assessment of data. If value judgments are accepted as permissible it is then worthwhile to discuss the relationships between the investigator's identity, those value judgments, and the design and conduct of research. Indeed, investigators possess multiple identities; these multiple identities may, at various times and places, aid or impede the research process. Moreover, these intersectional identities, and the inconsistency with which these identities are granted status in various environments, leave the researcher well positioned to explore social stratification, hierarchies of power, and inequality.
The benefits of maintenance exercises in project-based courses in software engineering

A particular justification for teaching software maintenance is presented. Specifically, it is pointed out that, when an instructor assigns maintenance exercises in a project-based course in software engineering, and when the assignment includes a carefully organized management model, students learn far more than they would from a traditional from-scratch development project. >
Movement patterns and trajectories of ovigerous blue crabs Callinectes sapidus during the spawning migration

Female blue crabs (Callinectes sapidus Rathbun) migrate from low salinity estuarine regions to high salinity regions near the ocean to release larvae. During this migration, ovigerous females use ebb-tide transport, a vertical migratory behavior in which they ascend into the water column during ebb tides, to move seaward to larval release areas. In order to determine the relationship of ebb-tide vertical migrations to local currents and the influence of these vertical migrations on the horizontal transport of blue crabs in the estuary, ovigerous females with mature embryos (w1–3 days from hatching) were tracked near Beaufort Inlet, North Carolina (USA), in July and August 2001 and 2002. Crabs were tagged and tracked using ultrasonic telemetry, and currents near the crabs were measured simultaneously with a shipboard acoustic Doppler current profiler. During the two seasons, eight crabs were successfully tracked for periods ranging from 3.9–37.0 h and for distances ranging from 1.9–10.6 km. All crabs migrated seaward during the tracking periods. Crabs moved episodically during all tidal phases with periods of movement on the order of minutes to an hour. They moved with local currents in terms of both speed and direction during ebb tides, consistent with ebb-tide transport, and moved down-estuary (seaward) in opposition to local currents during flood tides. The percentage of time that crabs were active was higher during night ebb tides than during day ebb tides or flood tides and increased with increasing ebb-tide current speed. Mean migratory speeds were 0.11, 0.04, 0.08 and 0.02 m s � 1 during night ebb, night flood, day ebb and day flood tides, respectively, and net migratory speeds were on the order of 5 km day � 1 . Due to the episodic nature of the crabs’ movements, the total distances that crabs traveled during ebb tides ranged from 10–40% of the distances that passive particles could have traveled under the same conditions. � 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
A Survey of Online Harassment at a University Campus

This exploratory study of 339 students at the University of New Hampshire found that approximately 10% to 15% of students reported receiving repeated e-mail or Instant Messenger (I-M) messages that “threatened, insulted, or harassed,” and more than half of the students received unwanted pornography. Approximately 7% of students reported online harassment to an authority. Messages originated from strangers, acquaintances, and significant others. No difference in online harassment was found based on demographic variables except sexual orientation. Sexual minority students were more likely to receive online harassment from strangers than were heterosexual students. Implications for further research and for policy/program development are discussed.
Morphological Stability during Electrodeposition I. Steady States and Stability Analysis

We develop a formalism for predicting morphology evolution during electrodeposition as a function of the deposition parameters, composition of the electrolyte, and the species being deposited. Our model explicitly couples the electrostatic fields and the metal cations and spectator ions of arbitrary concentrations. We first perform a mixed asymptotics analysis to predict the self-consistent, uniform, steady-state electrostatic, and concentration fields. Morphology evolution is analyzed within the framework of perturbation theory, where we linearize around the uniform, steady-state fields. We find that the surface is unstable at long length scales due to a diffusional instability, in agreement with previous results. Furthermore, we find that both increasing the deposition rate and the spectator ion concentration within the electrolyte at fixed deposition rate increases surface roughness, also in agreement with common experience. We provide an approximate analytical formula for the perturbation growth rates as a function of the spectator ion concentration. The formalism developed here provides a rigorous, self-consistent foundation upon which the effects of additives on surface morphology are analyzed in a companion paper.
Two modes of searching for new neutrino interactions at MINOS

The Super-Kamiokande atmospheric neutrino measurements leave substantial room for nonstandard interactions (NSI) of neutrinos with matter in the ${\ensuremath{\nu}}_{e}\mathrm{\text{\ensuremath{-}}}{\ensuremath{\nu}}_{\ensuremath{\tau}}$ sector. Large values of the NSI couplings are accommodated if the vacuum oscillation parameters are changed from their standard values. Short and medium baseline neutrino beams can break this degeneracy by measuring the true vacuum oscillation parameters with the ${\ensuremath{\nu}}_{\ensuremath{\mu}}$ disappearance mode, for which the matter effects are negligible or subdominant. These experiments can also search for the ${\ensuremath{\nu}}_{e}\mathrm{\text{\ensuremath{-}}}{\ensuremath{\nu}}_{\ensuremath{\tau}}$ flavor-changing effects directly, by looking for ${\ensuremath{\nu}}_{\ensuremath{\mu}}\mathrm{\text{\ensuremath{-}}}{\ensuremath{\nu}}_{e}$ conversion caused by the intervening matter. We discuss both of these methods for the case of MINOS. We find that, while the present MINOS data on ${\ensuremath{\nu}}_{\ensuremath{\mu}}$ disappearance induce only minor changes on the constraints on the NSI parameters, the situation will improve markedly with the planned increase of the statistics by an order of magnitude. In that case, the precision will be enough to distinguish certain presently allowed NSI scenarios from the no-NSI case. NSI per quark of about 10% the size of the standard weak interaction could give a ${\ensuremath{\nu}}_{\ensuremath{\mu}}\mathrm{\text{\ensuremath{-}}}{\ensuremath{\nu}}_{e}$ conversion probability of the order $\ensuremath{\sim}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}2}$, measurable by MINOS in the same high statistics scenario. In this ${\ensuremath{\nu}}_{\ensuremath{\mu}}\mathrm{\text{\ensuremath{-}}}{\ensuremath{\nu}}_{e}$ channel, the small effects of NSI could be comparable or larger than the vacuum contribution of the small angle ${\ensuremath{\theta}}_{13}$. The expected ${\ensuremath{\theta}}_{13}$ bound at MINOS should be more properly interpreted as a bound in the ${\ensuremath{\theta}}_{13}$-NSI parameter space.
An Isoparametric Finite Element Model for Large-Strain Elastostatics.

This paper describes a simple finite element model for large-strain elastostatics. The realization of the model in a small-scale computer-code is described. The purpose of the model is to produce test problems for research on the application of penalty techniques in nonlinear elasticity. For this reason the code must balance the requirements of reasonable flexibility with those of computational economy. The current code employs multilin­ ear isoparametric elements. The model is capable of generalization to a variety of element types. The solution method employed is that of incremental loading combined with the Newton-Raphson method. Symmetric, banded systems of equations are produced which are solved in-core. Two- and three-dimensional symmetric bodies which are isoparametric images of a reference "brick" may be modeled. An example comparing two- and three-dimensional models of a "dogbone"-shaped A.S.T.M. rubber tensile-test specimen is presented. The results shed some light on the nature of stress-concentrations which occur in specimens of this geometry.
Clinical assessment of fracture risk and novel therapeutic strategies to combat osteoporosis

Objective To review the latest tools in the clinical assessment of fracture risk and to review new and emerging options for osteoporosis therapy. Design Retrospective analysis of published studies regarding the diagnosis and treatment of osteoporosis. Result(s) Large-scale epidemiologic data were recently assembled by the World Health Organization to produce a Web-based clinical assessment tool, FRAX, which uses clinical and historical data to provide prompt assessment and quantitation of fracture risk. The FRAX models were developed from studying population-based cohorts in Europe, North America, Asia, and Australia. The FRAX algorithms indicate the 10-year probability of hip fracture and the 10-year probability of a major osteoporotic fracture (at the clinical spine, forearm, hip, or shoulder) on which to base treatment decisions. Recent progress in the study of bone metabolism including anabolic pathways that enhance bone maintenance, is anticipated to improve the ways in which skeletal health can be maintained and osteoporosis can be treated. Conclusion(s) Using FRAX, fracture risk in now easily assessed in the clinical setting. New and emerging treatment strategies for bone maintenance are reviewed. Improved assessment of fracture risk, combined with tailored therapies for at-risk patients, will increase the number of patients who receive appropriate bone-sparing therapies.
RADIATION-ENHANCED ONCOGENESIS BY SV40.

SummaryExposure of hamster and mouse embryo cells to X-irradiation prior to infection with Simian virus 40 (SV40) significantly increased the frequency of transformation in vitro. Neonatal hamsters were tested for increased sensitivity to SV40 tumorigenicity after exposure to localized, low-level X-ray at the site of virus inoculation in vivo. Results showed that irradiation of a target area prior to infection markedly decreased the time to tumor appearance and increased the frequency of tumor occurrence. No tumors occurred in irradiated animals that did not receive virus. Although low doses of localized X-ray may have resulted in modest immunologic suppression, this was not a primary factor in tumor enhancement. Tumors appearing in SV40-infected animals uniformly possessed viral neoantigens.
DISPERSION, ABERRATION AND DECONVOLUTION IN MULTI-WAVELENGTH FLUORESCENCE IMAGES

The wavelength dependence of the incoherent point spread function in a wide-field microscope was investigated experimentally. Dispersion in the sample and optics can lead to significant changes in the point spread function as wavelength is varied over the range commonly used in fluorescence microscopy. For a given sample, optical conditions can generally be optimized to produce a point spread function largely free of spherical aberration at a given wavelength. Unfortunately, deviations in wavelength from this value will result in spherically aberrated point spread functions. Therefore, when multiple fluorophores are used to localize different components in the same sample, the image of the distribution of at least one of the fluorophores will be spherically aberrated. This aberration causes a loss of intensity and resolution, thereby complicating the localization and analysis of multiple components in a multi-wavelength image. We show that optimal resolution can be restored to a spherically aberrated image by constrained, iterative deconvolution, as long as the spherical aberration in the point spread function used for deconvolution matches the aberration in the image reasonably well. The success of this method is essentially independent of the initial degree of spherical aberration in the image. Deconvolution of many biological images can be achieved by collecting a small library of spherically aberrated and unaberrated point spread functions, and then choosing a point spread function appropriate for deconvolving each image. The co-localization and relative intensities of multiple components can then be accurately studied in a multi-wavelength image.
An Update on Emerging Memory: Progress to 2Xnm

Abstract-This paper will give an update on the status of emerging memory (EM) and potential markets. The more popular EM technologies will be reviewed, including PCM, RRAM, and STRAM. The biggest challenges for each technology will be highlighted.
Utilization of CT perfusion patient selection for mechanical thrombectomy irrespective of time: a comparison of functional outcomes and complications

Background Patient selection for acute ischemic stroke has been largely driven by time-based criteria, although emerging data suggest that image-based criteria may be useful. The purpose of this study was to directly compare outcomes of patients treated within a traditional time window with those treated beyond this benchmark when CT perfusion (CTP) imaging was used as the primary selection tool. Methods A prospectively collected database of all patients with acute ischemic stroke who received intra-arterial therapy at the Medical University of South Carolina was retrospectively analyzed, regardless of time from symptom onset. At presentation, CTP maps were qualitatively assessed. Selected patients underwent intra-arterial therapy. Functional outcome according to the modified Rankin scale (mRS) score at about 90 days was documented. Results 140 patients were included in the study. The median time from symptom onset to groin access was 7.0 h. Overall, 28 patients (20%) had bleeding complications, but only 10 (7.1%) were symptomatic. The average National Institute of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) score for patients treated ≤7 h from symptom onset was 17.3 and 30.2% had a mRS score of 0–2 at 90 days. Patients treated >7 h from symptom onset had an average NIHSS score of 15.1 and 45.5% achieved a mRS score of 0–2 at 90 days (p=0.104). Patients in the two groups had similar rates of symptomatic intracerebral hemorrhage (8.5% and 5.8%, respectively; p=0.745). Conclusions No difference was found in the rates of good functional outcome between patients treated ≤7 h and those treated >7 h from symptom onset. These data suggest that imaging-based patient selection is a safe and viable methodology.
Pneumocephalus leading to the diagnosis of cerebrospinal fluid leak and esophageal perforation after cervical spine surgery

Pneumocephalus is a collection of air within in the intracranial cavity, most commonly seen following traumatic injury or cranial surgeries. Esophageal injury and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) leak are rare complications that may occur following anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF). We present a novel case of pneumocephalus arising from unrestricted leakage of CSF via coincident esophageal injury and durotomy in a patient who underwent an ACDF after trauma. A 21-year-old man presented to an outside hospital with C5/C6 subluxation, complete spinal cord injury, and quadriplegia from a motor vehicle accident. He underwent an ACDF, during which a CSF leak was observed. He was then transferred to our institution for rehabilitation and tracheostomy placement 1 week after the ACDF surgery. Following the tracheostomy, the patient developed intractable fevers and nonspecific symptoms. A CT scan demonstrated frontal pneumocephalus without mass effect. Air was found in the retropharyngeal space. There were no accumulations of CSF in the neck. Extravasation of contrast around instrumentation at C5/C6 on a cine esophagogram demonstrated an esophageal perforation at that level. Pneumocephalus may form when large volumes of CSF escape from the intracranial space and air is drawn into the space by the negative pressure. In this unusual case, the esophageal perforation promoted the formation of the pneumocephalus. Treatment included closure of both defects, disrupting the suspected communication between the intracranial space and the esophagus.
Dietary K+ restriction upregulates total and Sch-28080-sensitive bicarbonate absorption in rat tIMCD

In tubules from the terminal segment of the inner medullary collecting duct (tIMCD) from rats with chronic metabolic acidosis, our laboratory has shown that bicarbonate absorption (J tCO2) is inhibited by removal of K+ from the luminal fluid or by the addition of Sch-28080 to the perfusate. The present study asked whether total and/or Sch-28080-sensitiveJ tCO2 is regulated by changes in systemic K+ homeostasis. Rat tIMCD tubules were perfused in vitro in symmetrical, HCO 3 − /CO2-buffered solutions containing 10 mM KCl + 6 mM NH4Cl. Total and Sch-28080-sensitiveJ tCO2 were measured in rats with varying K+intake. In K+-replete rats, baseline J tCO2was 2.1 ± 0.3 pmol ⋅ mm−1 ⋅ min−1(n = 6). In rats fed a K+-deficient diet for 3 days,J tCO2 was 5.4 ± 0.7 pmol ⋅ mm−1 ⋅ min−1(n = 16,P < 0.05). To determine the mechanism for the increase in HCO 3 − absorption observed with K+restriction, the Sch-28080-sensitive component ofJ tCO2 was measured in each treatment group. Following the addition of Sch-28080 (10 μM) t...
Drug poisoning deaths in the United States, 1999–2012: a statistical adjustment analysis

Drug poisoning mortality in the US has risen rapidly but the drugs involved are frequently unspecified on death certificates. Reported and adjusted proportions of specific drug types involved in fatal drug poisonings were calculated using vital statistics mortality data from 1999 to 2012. The adjusted proportions were those predicted to occur if at least one specific type of drug had been identified on the death certificates of all poisoning fatalities. Adjusted involvement rates of opioid analgesic mentions in 2012 were 54.3 % (95 % confidence interval [CI]: 53.6 %–55 %), 40.8 % higher than the reported 38.6 % rate. Adjusted rates for all narcotics, other narcotics, sedatives, or psychotropics, and multiple drug use were 81.5 % (95 % CI: 80.9 %–82.2 %), 38.4 % (95 % CI: 37.8 %–39 %), 30 % (95 % CI: 29.4 %–30.7 %), 26 % (95 % CI: 25.4 %–26.6 %) and 42.8 % (95 % CI: 42.1 %–43.5 %) in 2012, compared to reported proportions of 60.7, 27.9, 18.7, 18 and 26.9 %. The adjustments typically had similar or slightly smaller effects on the estimates in 1999, and larger impacts on subcategories of drug types such benzodiazepines and antipsychotic medications. Based on the adjusted proportions, 22,534, 15,933, 12,457, 10,798, and 17,670 drug deaths in 2012 were estimated to involve opioid analgesics, other narcotics, sedatives, psychotropic medications, and drug combinations, compared to death certificate reports of 16,007, 11,567, 7,754, 7,467, and 11,176. Death certificates substantially understate the involvement of opioid analgesics, sedatives, psychotropics, and drug combinations in fatal drug poisonings. Adjustment procedures that account for cases where only unspecified drugs are reported on death certificates provide more accurate information.
The Dance of Duplicity in Emerging Markets: Using Bank Regulation and Deposit Insurance Protection to Enrich the Elite

We seek to identify the culpability of banks in resource misallocation in Mexico, Thailand and Turkey. Specifically we provide evidence of an agency problem in the government and banking systems of the three countries. Where governments pass laws and regulations consistent with modern capitalism for the purpose of deceiving investors and others, the door is opened to the use of deposit insurance and repeated promises of regulatory reform to transfer wealth from the efficient to the corrupt.
Iron Complexes of Cyclam and Cyclam-Like Ligands as Models for Non-Heme Iron Enzymes

Metal-containing monooxygenase enzymes catalyze the oxygenation of a variety of substrates. In our models for non-heme iron enzymes we have concentrated on mimicking the reactivity of these metalloenzymes. We began our study by looking for non-heme iron complexes that catalyze the epoxidation of olefins, a reaction that is rarely seen with non-heme iron complexes. Our initial studies using the iron complex of cyclam and the oxygen donors: hydrogen peroxide, iodosylbenzene (PhIO), and meta-chloroperoxybenzoic acid (MCPBA) demonstrated that this iron complex is an efficient catalyst for the epoxidation of olefins. Although the reactions of all three of these oxygen donors with iron cyclam leads to epoxidation, further studies using a variety of substrates including cis-stilbene, styrene and para-substituted styrene, and norborene suggest that different intermediates are formed from the different oxygen donors. The nature of these intermediates is currently being explored.
Toward Income Tax Accounting Consistency: Eliminating Accrual, Depreciation, and the Existing Tax Treatment of Borrowing

The thesis here is that inconsistent tax accounting rules undermine the individual income tax, and the best available move for improving it — given the unassailability of the realization principle — is to eliminate its accrual (and quasi-accrual) features. Specifically, the agenda is to eliminate tax accrual accounting in the conventional sense, revamp the tax treatment of borrowing to (inter alia) abolish the Crane doctrine, and eliminate depreciation deductions for indivisible productive assets. The end result would be a consistent cash realization system for (at least) individual taxpayers. The proposals made herein would upset long-standing features of the income tax and therefore are highly controversial. Nevertheless, these features create structural asymmetries that are systematically exploited to the advantage of taxpayers.
Extreme Energy Efficiency by Near Threshold Voltage Operation

Technology scaling will continue providing abundance of transistors for integration, only to be limited by the energy consumption. Near threshold voltage (NTV) operation has potential to improve energy efficiency by an order of magnitude. We discuss benefits, challenges, and circuit and system design considerations for reliable operation over a wide range of supply voltage—from nominal down to subthreshold region. The system designed for NTV can thus dynamically select modes of operation, from high performance, to high energy efficiency, to the lowest power.
Genetics of Parkinson disease.

PD : Parkinson disease Parkinson disease (PD) is a degenerative disorder of the nervous system. It is characterized by loss of dopamine-producing cells which, in time, develops into motor system dysfunction. A small portion of PD cases are purely genetic. Currently, diagnosis is based on clinical
Reconsidering the Cause of Cultural Collapse in the Lillooet Area of British Columbia, Canada: A Geoarchaeological Perspective

The potential interconnections between human settlement systems, subsistence practices, and rapid, high-magnitude transformation of the physical landscape (e.g., earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and landslides) is an important issue of discussion in archaeology. This paper critically examines the argument that prehistoric abandonment of Classic Lillooet pithouse villages of south-central British Columbia, Canada, at approximately 1200-1000 B.P., was linked to one or more catastrophic landslides at Texas Creek that blocked the Fraser River, destroyed salmon resources, and caused the abandonment of this area. Examination of the location and depositional condition of several excavated archaeological sites within the Fraser Valley, as well as reflection on the expected environmental and cultural responses to a catastrophic landslide, challenge previous interpretations of the existence, location, and magnitude of such a landslide event, and indicate that archaeologists need to reconsider deterministic environmental explanations for the abandonment of pithouse villages in the interior of British Columbia.
Research on occupation health of the guard rail manufacture industry

Objective To understand occupation health present situation of the guard rail manufacture industry, in order to put forward effective preventive measures of workers occupation lesion. Methods Questionnaire investigation, work sites and field investigation and occupation harm factors on 146 works in 79 guard rail processing workshop(exposure group), physical examination on exposure group and 153 administrative personnels(control group) in 54 enterprises. Results The awareness rate of occupation health knowledge and occupation protection rate of exposure group was lower, respectively 8.9% and 11.6%, noise intensity and welding fumes over standard rate of workplace were 72.2% and 32.9% respectively; the abnormal detection rate of lung X-ray manifestations, hearing, ophthalmia, fingers tremors, and blood manganese concentration of exposure group were higher than those of control group.The differences were statistically significant(P0.05). Conclusion The guard rail manufacture industry has a lot of occupation hazards, we should strengthen the occupation protection.
Detecting Pairwise Interactive Effects of Continuous Random Variables for Biomarker Identification with Small Sample Size

Aberrant changes to interactions among cellular components have been conjectured to be potential causes of abnormalities in cellular functions. By systematic analysis of high-throughput-omics data, researchers hope to detect potential associations among measured variables for better biomarker identification and phenotype prediction. In this paper, we focus on the methods to measure pairwise interactive effects among continuous random variables, representing molecular expressions, with respect to a given categorical outcome. Together with a comprehensive review on the existing measures, we further propose new measures that better estimate interactive effects, especially in small sample size scenarios. We first evaluate the performance of the existing and new methods for both small and large sample sizes based on simulated datasets that shows our proposed methods outperform previous methods in general. The best performing method for small sample size scenarios suggested by simulation experiments is then implemented to estimate interactive effects among genes with respect to the metastasis outcome in two breast cancer studies based on micro-array gene expression datasets. Our results further demonstrate that integrating detected interactive effects together with individual effects can help in finding more accurate biomarkers for breast cancer metastasis, which are indeed involved in important pathways related to cancer metastasis based on gene set enrichment analysis.
Watch it grow: Esophageal impaction with chia seeds

Esophageal obstructions are a medical emergency, due to inability to control secretions and risk of perforation. Epidemiology of esophageal foreign-body impaction has evolved to include increasing incidence of non-meat food causes as well as increasing underlying prevalence of pathologies including eosinophilic esophagitis. Chia seeds, a staple known for health benefits, have an uncanny ability to absorb large quantities of water leading to a hydrated gel-like substance which can cause an obstruction. We report the first case of chia seed impaction in a patient with likely eosinophilic esophagitis.
A SAT-based Framework for Efficient Constrained Clustering.

The area of clustering under constraints has recently received much attention in the data mining community. However, most work involves adding constraints to existing algorithms which, although being quite pragmatic, raises several difficulties. Examples of these difficulties include creating intractable constraint satisfaction sub-problems and constrained clustering algorithms that are easily over-constrained so they may not converge or converge to a poor clustering solution. In this paper we show how both instance and cluster-level constraints can be expressed as instances of the 2SAT problem and how multiple calls to a 2SAT solver can be used to construct algorithms that are guaranteed to satisfy all the constraints and converge to a global optimum for a number of intuitive objective functions. Our approach provides two additional advantages. Firstly, it leads to polynomial time algorithms for the k = 2 case for several objective functions. Secondly, one can specify large sets of constraints without fear of over-constraining the problem: if one or more solutions satisfying all constraints exist, our algorithm is guaranteed to find a best such solution. We present experimental results to show that our approach outperforms several popular algorithms particularly for large constraint sets, where these algorithms are over-constrained and fair poorly.
Sparse and scalable eigenstrain-based reduced order homogenization models for polycrystal plasticity

Abstract In this manuscript, accelerated, sparse and scalable eigenstrain-based reduced order homogenization models have been developed for computationally efficient multiscale analysis of polycrystalline materials. The proposed model is based on the eigenstrain-based reduced order homogenization (EHM) approach, and provides significant efficiency in analysis of structures composed of complex polycrystalline microstructures. The acceleration is achieved by introducing sparsity into the linearized reduced order system through selectively considering the interactions between grains based on the idea of grain clustering. The proposed approach results in a hierarchy of reduced models that recovers eigenstrain-based homogenization, when full range of interactions are considered, and degrades to the Taylor model, when all inter-grain interactions are neglected. The resulting sparse system is solved efficiently using both direct and iterative sparse solvers, both of which show significant efficiency improvements compared to the full EHM. A layer-by-layer neighbor grain clustering scheme is proposed and implemented to define ranges of grain interactions. Performance of the proposed approach is evaluated by comparing the results against the full EHM and crystal plasticity finite element (CPFE) simulations.