cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
A method to extend the low frequency operation of load commutated inverters

A novel method for extending the range of thyristor-based load-commutated inverters (LCIs) is proposed. Using conventional single- and three phase LCI topologies, voltage and current waveforms are generated containing a dominant higher-frequency (leading power factor) switching component. A lower-frequency load component is concurrently produced, enabling an LCI to supply lagging power factor and even DC loads. A state-space model is used to apply methods of optimal control in order to improve three-phase LCI operation. Both simulation and experimental results are presented. >
A low power and high picture quality H.264/MPEG-4 video codec IP for HD mobile applications

We have developed an H.264/MPEG-4 video codec IP for mobile applications such as digital still cameras (DSCs) and digital video cameras (DVCs) The codec is capable of encoding/decoding HD sized moving pictures (1280 pixels by 720 lines at 30 fps) in real-time at an operating frequency of 144 MHz, and SD sized at 54 MHz. The original algorithms employed in the codec realize low power of 64 mW for encoding HD with high picture quality equivalent to JM reference encoder.
S-band ocean reflectometry in high winds

Reflected S-band digital communication satellite signals were collected over 12 days of flights around and into developing hurricanes. Cross correlation with the direct signal was used to generate a power vs. delay waveform which was then fit to a forward scattering model to estimate the mean square slope (MSS) of the ocean surface. The existing L-band (GNSS) empirical model function was applied to produce estimates of wind speed. We present a preliminary look at these results, showing the sensitivity of S-band reflectometry measurements to surface winds up to 40–45 m/s. Flight level winds (FLW) were used for the comparison.
Multilevel Analysis of Student Civics Knowledge Scores.

ABSTRACTCompositional effects of scholarly culture classroom/school climate on civic knowledge scores of 9th graders in the United States were examined using the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) 1999 Civic Education Study data. Following Evans et al. (2010, 2014), we conceived that the number of books at home, referred to as the home literacy score by IEA, can be an index of scholarly culture of the student's home, and its aggregated average constitutes scholarly culture of the classrooms/schools. The results obtained through multilevel analysis indicated that there were indeed large unique compositional effects and its effect size was comparable to that of mean parent education, individual level scholarly culture, and parent education. Implications of the results in terms of educational policy were discussed.
Diajet Use in an Environmental Application

In order to treat and remediate ground contaminated with hazardous materials, long horizontal wells are often beneficial around the contaminated sites. While it is possible to drill and case these holes using existing technology, it is difficult and expensive to install perforated liners to give access to the formations. A procedure has been developed and is described wherein a DIAjet system is used to feed through the drill pipe and to perforate this at regular intervals, thereby allowing access to the formation along the length of the horizontal well. The relative benefits of this approach and indicators of its performance are discussed.
DsbA is a switchable mechanical chaperone

In bacteria, many toxins and virulence factors pass through a translocon pore as unfolded polypeptides en route to the periplasm where they first encounter DsbA, a ubiquitous bacterial oxidoreductase enzyme that introduces disulphide bonds into nascent proteins. Here, using magnetic tweezers based single molecule force spectroscopy, we demonstrate for the first time that DsbA can also accelerate folding of cysteine-free proteins by using the globular domain of the protein L super-antigen as a substrate. This chaperone activity is tuned by the oxidation state of DsbA: oxidized DsbA is a strong promoter of folding, but the effect is weakened by reduction of the catalytic CXXC motif. We further localize the chaperone binding site of DsbA using a seven residue peptide which effectively blocks the foldase activity. DsbA assisted folding of proteins in the periplasm generates enough mechanical work to decrease the ATP consumption needed for periplasmic translocation by up to 33%. In turn, pharmacologic inhibition of this chaperone activity may open up a new class of anti-virulence agents.
Optical properties of Nd3+ in lead phosphate glasses

Abstract Measurements of optical absorption and emission spectra of Nd3+ in lead phosphate glasses at 295 K are compared with results reported earlier for various metaphosphate glasses. The Judd-Ofelt intensity parameters for high-lead-content phosphate glasses are the smallest observed thus far for metaphosphate glasses with divalent network modifier cations.
Reconnecting the music-making experience through musician efforts in instrument craft:

Musical settings that require consumers to construct their own musical instruments serve as potential sites of reconnection between musicians, the musical instruments they make, the natural resourc...
Cardiovascular Diagnosis and Therapy (CDT): yet another journal?

It is my pleasure to introduce the inaugural issue of our new journal entitled ‘Cardiovascular Diagnosis and Therapy (CDT)’ (www.amepc.org/cdt). CDT is published in English quarterly by AME Publishing Company. This first issue contains a collection of articles written by an international group of authors, covering a wide spectrum of topics in the diagnosis and therapy of cardiovascular disease. In addition one article introduces our feature called ‘Art and Medicine’ (1).
Preparation and Characterization of Amorphous SiC Film by a Liquid Route

Advanced ceramics like carbides and nitrides can be obtained by the pyrolysis of metal-organic polymers. An intermediate amorphous phase is obtained after the removal of the organics and before crystallization. They can be considered as a new family of disordered materials called Amorphous Covalent Ceramics (ACC). By this polymer process, amorphous SiC films have been deposited on different substrates using metal-organic solutions with certain firing schedules. Some of the properties have been studied and compared with the previous data of a-SiC from vapor routes. The structural evolution has also been studied. By the liquid route, mixed carbides systems such as SiC/TiC, SiC/ZrC can be prepared by mixing polycarbosilane with alkoxides.
Decision Support Markets: An Innovative Business Intelligence Tools

The spirit of business intelligence lies at the heart of information markets. This paper advocates the use of information markets as business intelligence tools for decision support. It highlights the market promising potentials, and the business need for collective intelligence in decision making. Market forecasts can reduce uncertainty surrounding business decisions and improve the quality of input into the decision making process, and thus allow managers to make better informed decisions. Further, this paper presents a heuristic for traders’ forecasts of events probabilities. This heuristic extracts additional information from market transactions by incorporating posted, but not yet executed trades. Utilizing pending transactions is hypothesized to generate a more accurate representation of traders’ beliefs than other commonly used measures. It might also boost decision makers’ confidence in the market forecasts, and as a result, encourages them to embrace it, and make the best out of this invaluable tool.
Referencias al matrimonio morganático en algunas de las versiones pictóricas de Matrimonio de don Martín de Loyola con Ñusta Beatriz Clara Coya

A closer, and alternative, look at the set of colonial Peruvian paintings depicting the marriage of a Spanish captain and the Royal Governor of the Captaincy General of Chile to a princess, heiress to the deposed Inca throne, in 1572 reveals that while in the earliest known versions –created between 1675 and 1718– the groom firmly holds with his left hand the bride’s right hand, a later version, made around 1750, represents both spouses holding each other’s right hands. Morganatic marriages, or “marriages of the left hand,” were those celebrated between a privileged man and a woman of inferior status, and only rarely the other way around. In this study, certain iconographical aspects of four of the several pictorial versions known to once have existed, as well as the social, historical, and religious context in which they were created and exhibited, are analysed in detail, in order to suggest the hypothesis that the earliest pictorial interpretations of this celebrated alliance understood it intentionally as a morganatic union, with the goal of stressing the submission of the Andeans, especially of their elite –personified by the Inca princess– to the Christians, whereas a later representation interpreted it as a betrothal between equals, in order to convey that the indigenous elite had successfully come to perform a more prominent role in the colonial system.
Energy Recovery and Nitrogen Management from Struvite Precipitation Effluent via Microbial Fuel Cells

AbstractEngineered struvite precipitation (ESP) is now a common procedure to recover phosphorus and nitrogen from waste streams such as wastewater-treatment-plant sidestreams, urine, landfill leach...
Differences in Egg and Milk Food Challenge Outcomes Based on Tolerance to the Baked Form

P Capcuilli, A Cianferoni, J Fiedler. Ann Allergy Asthma Immunol. 2018;121(5):580–587 To determine if a history of tolerance versus avoidance of baked egg or cow’s milk influenced the outcomes of an oral food challenge to egg or whole cow’s milk. The study included 569 pediatric patients who underwent egg or cow’s milk oral challenges at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia from 2012 to 2015. This was a retrospective chart review of pediatric patients who underwent whole egg and cow’s milk oral food challenges. More patients passed …
Code Localization in Programming Screencasts

Programming screencasts are growing in popularity and are often used by developers as a learning source. The source code shown in these screencasts is often not available for download or copy-pasting. Without having the code readily available, developers have to frequently pause a video to transcribe the code. This is time-consuming and reduces the effectiveness of learning from videos. Recent approaches have applied Optical Character Recognition (OCR) techniques to automatically extract source code from programming screencasts. One of their major limitations, however, is the extraction of noise such as the text information in the menu, package hierarchy, etc. due to the imprecise approximation of the code location on the screen. This leads to incorrect, unusable code. We aim to address this limitation and propose an approach to significantly improve the accuracy of code localization in programming screencasts, leading to a more precise code extraction. Our approach uses a Convolutional Neural Network to automatically predict the exact location of code in an image. We evaluated our approach on a set of frames extracted from 450 screencasts covering Java, C#, and Python programming topics. The results show that our approach is able to detect the area containing the code with 94% accuracy and that our approach significantly outperforms previous work. We also show that applying OCR on the code area identified by our approach leads to a 97% match with the ground truth on average, compared to only 31% when OCR is applied to the entire frame.
Millennials and the New Penology: Will Generational Change in the U.S. Facilitate the Triumph of Risk Rationality in Criminal Justice

Predictions by some in the early 1990s that United States criminal justice was dominated by a “new penology” of rational risk management (Feeley and Simon, Criminology 30.4: 449–474, 1992; The Futures of Criminology 173: 174, 1994) proved at best premature, as the nation adopted extreme penal policies and aggressive policing tactics with no particular basis in scientific evidence and rejected proposals to moderate penal severity by risk. Since the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, however, signs abound that the risk paradigm is gaining ground in the name of “criminal justice reform” (Kohlher et al. 2018). While reservations about risk remain significant, many of them express concern about racial justice consequences of risk management instruments that will carry over the criminalization patterns of recent decades into the future. This chapter argues that the delayed arrival of risk rationality reflects the initial stages of a slow but inexorable shift in generational political criminology as the influence of “Baby Boomers” (Boomers), born between 1946 and 1964, crests and that of “Millennials,” born between 1981 and 1996, rises (PEW, Defining Generations: Where Millennials End and Generation Z Begins, 2019). I offer a historical-cultural hypothesis for why Baby Boomers rejected rational risk logics when it came to crime and why Millennials are more open to it. Looking at “period effects” on generational imaginaries points to striking differences in the political landscape in which crime was experienced by these distinct cohorts as they entered young adulthood, a phase that sociologists have long viewed as having enduring influence across the life course (Mannheim, Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1927). Specifically, I argue that Boomers and Millennials have been influenced by “signal crimes” (Innes, Signal Crimes: Social Reactions to Crime, Disorder and Control, Oxford University Press, 2014) that point in very different directions, with very different implications about both behavior and the meaning of crime for social organization. This is especially clear when we consider these highly publicized crimes against two contexts that have long been drivers of punitive turns in crime policy in America: Black communities and central cities. Boomer signal crimes, experienced against a background of racialized violence and urban crisis, made Boomers receptive to penal populism (Pratt, Penal Populism, Routledge, 2007). I offer the hypothesis that Millennial signal crimes, decoupled largely from Black communities and decentered from urban landscapes, have laid the groundwork for a generation more receptive to rational risk logics about crime. Baby Boomers came to think about crime through a broader “culture of fear” that led to an angry, hot, penal populism. Millennials are not immune to crime fear, but are much more exposed to sources of anxiety or dread like climate change and economic inequality, against which crime is perceived as one more problem to manage.
Gene editing and CRISPR in the clinic: current and future perspectives

Genome editing technologies, particularly those based on zinc-finger nucleases (ZFNs), transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs), and CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat DNA sequences)/Cas9 are rapidly progressing into clinical trials. Most clinical use of CRISPR to date has focused on ex vivo gene editing of cells followed by their re-introduction back into the patient. The ex vivo editing approach is highly effective for many disease states, including cancers and sickle cell disease, but ideally genome editing would also be applied to diseases which require cell modification in vivo. However, in vivo use of CRISPR technologies can be confounded by problems such as off-target editing, inefficient or off-target delivery, and stimulation of counterproductive immune responses. Current research addressing these issues may provide new opportunities for use of CRISPR in the clinical space. In this review, we examine the current status and scientific basis of clinical trials featuring ZFNs, TALENs, and CRISPR-based genome editing, the known limitations of CRISPR use in humans, and the rapidly developing CRISPR engineering space that should lay the groundwork for further translation to clinical application.
Recovery Rate of Cells of the Seven Regulated Serogroups of Shiga Toxin-Producing Escherichia coli from Raw Veal Cutlets, Ground Veal, and Ground Beef from Retail Stores in the Mid-Atlantic Region of the United States.

ABSTRACT A total of 482 veal cutlet, 555 ground veal, and 540 ground beef samples were purchased from retail establishments in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States over a noncontiguous 2-year period between 2014 and 2017. Samples (325 g each) were individually enriched and screened via real-time PCR for all seven regulated serogroups of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC). Presumptive STEC-positive samples were subjected to serogroup-specific immunomagnetic separation and plated onto selective media. Up to five isolates typical for STEC from each sample were analyzed via multiplex PCR for both the virulence genes (i.e., eae, stx1 and/or stx2, and ehxA) and serogroup-specific gene(s) for the seven regulated STEC serogroups. The recovery rates of non-O157 STEC from veal cutlets (3.94%, 19 of 482 samples) and ground veal (7.03%, 39 of 555 samples) were significantly higher (P 0.05) but were associated with brand and fat content (P < 0.05). Pulsed-field subtyping of the 270 viable and confirmed STEC isolates from the 64 total samples testing positive revealed 78 pulsotypes (50 to 80% similarity) belonging to 39 pulsogroups, with ≥90% similarity among pulsotypes within pulsogroups. Multiple isolates from 43 (67.7%) of 64 samples testing positive had an indistinguishable pulsotype. STEC serotypes O26 and O103 were the most prevalent serogroups in beef and veal, respectively. These findings support related findings from regulatory sampling studies over the past decade and confirm that recovery rates for the regulated STEC serogroups are higher for raw veal than for raw beef samples, as was observed in the present study of meat purchased at food retailers in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. HIGHLIGHTS
Abstract TP89: Reactive Gliosis Improves Outcome in an Aged Rat Model of Embolic Stroke

Introduction: Ischemic damage after stroke results in reactive gliosis leading to formation of the glial scar. Controversy exists whether reactive gliosis promotes or impedes recovery after stroke....
Liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method for measuring vitamin E acetate in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid.

Abstract We investigated the suitability of isotope-dilution liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry for identifying vitamin E acetate (VEA) in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid. This new method demonstrates high accuracy, selectivity, and sensitivity, with mean recoveries higher than 90%, coefficients of variation ranging from 1.5% to 4.5%, and a limit of detection of 1.10 ng/mL. Calibration curves were linear (R2 > 0.99). The linear range and detection limit of the method were adequate for identifying VEA in 48 of 51 BAL fluid samples collected from people with lung injury resulting from e-cigarettes, or vaping, product use. We conclude that this method is an effective tool for studying VEA accumulation in lungs caused by using e-cigarettes, or vaping, products that contain VEA.
From zero to hero and back to zero: The consequences of status inconsistency between the work roles of multiple jobholders.

The surge of opportunities available through the gig economy has increased the sizeable population of people who hold multiple jobs. Many of these multiple jobholders are full-time employees who have adopted side-hustles-income-generating work performed alongside full-time work. A core and ubiquitous feature of both full-time work and side-hustles is status, or membership in a social hierarchy. Although status has traditionally been investigated as an employee's enduring position in the social hierarchy at their full-time job, employees with side-hustles hold two distinct work-related statuses: status in their full-time job and status in their side-hustle. Having two statuses necessarily creates a situation in which employees' status is either consistent or inconsistent across roles. We investigate the implications of status inconsistency between side-hustles and full-time work for employees' stress, well-being, and performance. We assert that status inconsistency between side-hustles and full-time work requires employees to navigate stress-inducing tensions, such as incongruent role expectations and confusion regarding their sense of self. By extension, we propose that status inconsistency between side-hustles and full-time work promotes more role stress than occupying consistently low-status roles. In a four-wave field study of full-time employees with side-hustles, and their supervisors, we use polynomial regression analysis to test our predictions. We find that status inconsistency diminishes performance in full-time work via role stress and emotional exhaustion. Given the burgeoning gig economy and associated changes to how work is organized, our research has important and timely implications for multiple jobholders and their full-time work organizations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
Sonic hedgehog is essential for proximal-distal outgrowth of the limb bud in salamanders

Abstract The developing forelimb has been a foundational model to understand how specified progenitor cells integrate genetic information to produce the tetrapod limb bauplan (1, 2). Although the reigning hypothesis is that all tetrapods develop limbs in a similar manner, recent work suggests that urodeles have evolved a derived mode of limb development (3-5). Here we demonstrate through pharmacological and genetic inactivation of Sonic hedgehog (Shh) signaling in axolotls that Shh directs expansion and survival of limb progenitor cells in addition to patterning the limb across the proximodistal and antero-posterior axis. In contrast to inactivation of Shh in mouse or chick embryos where a humerus, radius and single digit develop (6-9), Shh crispant axolotls completely lack forelimbs. In rescuing limb development by implanting SHH-N protein beads into the nascent limb field of Shh-crispants, we show that the limb field is specified in the absence of Shh and that hedgehog pathway activation is required to initiate proximodistal outgrowth. When the derived nature of salamander limb development is placed in a phylogenetic context, it generates a new hypothesis where the ability to regenerate an entire tetrapod limb may have evolved uniquely among urodeles. Teaser Shh is essential for salamander limb development
Fractional-N frequency synthesis

Fractional-N PLLs, particularly delta-sigma fractional-N PLLs, are some of the most popular integrated frequency synthesizers. They offer very fine grain frequency synthesis and find use in a wide range of applications such as LO synthesis, phase/frequency modulation, spread-spectrum clocking, frequency hopping, etc. While very useful, fractional-N PLLs present interesting technical challenges in the form of excess phase noise and fractional spurs. However, with the help of clever quantization noise shaping techniques and careful circuit design, phase noise and spurious tone performance close to integer -N PLLs can be achieved without sacrificing their attendant benefits.
Abdominal wall dysfunction in adult bladder exstrophy: a treatable but under-recognized problem

Bladder exstrophy is defined by urogenital and skeletal abnormalities with cosmetic and functional deformity of the lower anterior abdominal wall. The primary management objectives have historically been establishment of urinary continence with renal function preservation, reconstruction of functional and cosmetically acceptable external genitalia, and abdominal wall closure of some variety. The literature has focused on the challenges of neonatal approaches to abdominal wall closure; however, there has been a paucity of long-term followup to identify the presence and severity of abdominal wall defects in adulthood. Our goal was to characterize the adult disease and determine effective therapy. A retrospective review of a consecutive series of six patients was performed. We report and characterize the presence of severe abdominal wall dysfunction in these adult exstrophy patients treated as children. We tailored an abdominal wall and pelvic floor reconstruction with long-term success to highlight a need for awareness of the magnitude of the problem and its solvability. The natural history of abdominal wall laxity and the long-term consequences of cloacal exstrophy closure have gone unexplored and unreported. Evaluation of our series facilitates understanding in this complex area and may be valuable for patients who are living limited lives thinking that no solution is available.
Gastric dysplasia: update and practical approach

Abstract Gastric epithelial dysplasia (GED), which is universally accepted as an epithelial neoplastic process confined to the basement membrane, has been the subject of numerous studies especially because of the significant differences in the prevalence, nomenclature, and diagnostic criteria across the continents. This review concisely summarizes current controversies, and discusses the updated guidelines and newly recognized subtypes of gastric dysplasia as they relate to the diagnosis and patient management. Establishing the correct diagnosis of GED is not only important for predicting the risk of malignant transformation in the biopsied lesion but is also critical in determining the risk of metachronous gastric cancer.
Abstract 18776: Could Early Direct Detection of Left Ventricular Assist Device Thrombus Reduce Thrombotic Complications

Background: Treatment of advanced heart failure with implantable LVADs continues to increase. However, LVADs can be associated with serious complications: bleeding, infection, and thrombosis. Objective: To develop a sensitive image-guided approach to localize and quantify early thrombus accumulation in titanium LVADs permitting earlier clinical intervention to minimize thrombotic events. Materials: A monomeric bifunctional ligand with a fibrin-specific peptide, a short spacer, and 99mTc chelating amino acid sequence (F1A) was developed and compared with a tetrameric (PEG2000) analogue (F4A). Results: 99mTc attenuation by the LVAD titanium (1mm) was 23%. 99mTc-F1A affinity to fibrin was Kd~10 nM. The 99mTc-F4A probe could not be competitively displaced by F1A up to 120,000:1. In vitro 99mTc-F1A binding to fibrin clot was interfered heavily by plasma (p 0.05). The pharmacokinetic half-life of 99mTc-F4A was faster (124±41min, p Conclusion: 99mTc-F4A is a high-avidity prototype probe to localize thrombus in LVADs. This may allow earlier clinical intervention to minimize thrombotic complications and the need for pump exchange.
Radiometric Observations Of Cloud Liquid Water During Fire

An experimental study of the characteristics of marine stratocumulus clouds was conducted off the coast of southern California in July 1987. extensive array of both remote and in situ sensors located on the the ground, aircraft, tethered balloons and satellites were utilized in this work. This paper presents ground-based observations of liquid water made by a microwave radiometer.
Case Inference in Resolution-Based Languages

Informally, case inference is a type of inference that inherently involves disjunctions in deriving definite consequences. We show that a difficulty with efficient implementation of case inference in resolution-based languages stems from the fact that case inference always requires derived clauses to be reused as side clauses: in general, the number of derived clauses is quite large, and storing all of them seems unacceptably inefficient in programming language settings. However, our results also show that in retrieving definite information, this use of derived clauses is necessary only when case inference is required. This in turn leads to our next finding that storing a relatively small class of derived clauses, which is characterized in terms of certain properties of case inference, is sufficient for proving all definite consequences. We then show that a conservative approximation of this class can be, in effect, precomputed for clause sets not containing purely negative clauses.
To Pay or Not to Pay: Managerial Decision Making and Wage Withholding in Russia

In this paper we investigate the decisions of Russian managers in distributing wage non-payment in Russia during the 1994-96 period. Using a longitudinal survey of households, we identify a pattern of wage arrears across regions and industries which suggests that managers allocated non-payment among workers so as to minimize the real wage declines experienced by higher productivity workers. This finding suggests that post-Soviet managers were responding more strongly to market incentives than to equity considerations in their wage withholding allocation decisions.
Decrease of Ferromagnetic Transition Temperature in Nonstoichiometric SrRu 1− v O 3 Perovskites

We have discovered that synthesis at high-pressure oxygen of 600 atm at 1100°C produces nonstoichiometric SrRu1−v O3 perovskites with randomly distributed vacancies on the Ru-sites. The increased amount of Ru vacancies rapidly suppresses the ferromagnetic T C from 162 to 86K for Δv ∼ 0.06. We associate the decrease of T C with an increased formal valence of Ru and the induced structural disorder.
Exploring the mineralogical heterogeneities of the Louisville Seamount Trail

Diopside phenocrysts of the Louisville Seamount Trail show an increase in Ti, Al, and Na with decreasing Mg/(Mg + Fe) as is typical for clinopyroxene in alkalic basalts. Chondrite-normalized REE patterns of calculated liquids from LA-ICPMS analyses are comparable to whole-rock and glass values. Exceptions are clinopyroxene crystals from the Rigil Seamount, the second oldest seamount drilled at the northern end of the chain. Some crystals from this site are strongly zoned with distinct compositional boundaries between cores and mantles. The cores have high Mg/(Mg + Fe) and low Al and Ti concentrations compared to the mantles and phenocrysts. Major element, clinopyroxene discrimination diagrams indicate that the clinopyroxene mantles and phenocrysts crystallized from alkalic basalts. In contrast, the Mg-rich cores have tholeiitic affinities. The REE abundances of the cores are similar to that of clinopyroxene from transitional tholeiites of the Kerguelen Archipelago. Calculated liquid La/Yb values for the cores have ratios that are similar to transitional tholeiites in Hawaii, whereas the mantles have higher La/Yb values similar to Hawaiian alkalic basalts. The major and trace element compositions of clinopyroxene cores from the Rigil seamount suggest that a transitional tholeiitic magma was present, but no evidence for Hawaiian shield-type tholeiites was found. Plagioclase crystals from the Rigil seamount have 86Sr/86Sr from 0.70306 to 0.70363, within the range of FOZO. The transitional tholeiitic signature of the Mg-rich clinopyroxene cores probably did not have a distinct source compared to other Louisville magmas, but more likely indicates a higher degree of partial melting (2–5%) of that FOZO source.
Rational discrete generalized cylinders and their application to shape recovery in medical images

Generalized cylinders (GCs) are a popular representational tool in computer vision. In medical imaging, the curved axis GC is particularly applicable to a number of elongated physical structures such as vasculature, bone and bronchi. In many of these instances, it is necessary to recover curved-axis GCs with arbitrary cross-sections. It is also vital that these structures, once recovered, can be analyzed and visualized with off-the-shelf algorithms and software packages. Such tools are usually designed to operate on the domain of polynomial or rational surfaces. Unfortunately most extant, suitably versatile GC representations do not admit rational parameterizations. We develop an entirely rational B-spline representation for generalized cylinders with curved axes and arbitrary cross-section functions. We demonstrate how our representation can be used as a deformable model by extracting a rational GC from pre-segmented spinal data using a discrete dynamic surface fit.
Computer-aided fracture mechanics life prediction analysis

The fracture mechanics analysis and computer logic used to perform design life predictions is described. Initial part-through crack defects are analyzed under the conditions of constant-amplitude loading to predict the number of loading cycles applied before breakthrough or failure. A criterion is provided to predict the transition from part-through crack growth characteristics to through crack growth characteristics. A breakthrough criterion is also provided.
Cigarette smoking as a target for potentiating outcomes for methamphetamine abuse treatment

Introduction and Aims. Cigarette smoking occurs frequently among individuals with methamphetamine (MA) dependence. Preclinical and clinical evidence has suggested that the common co-abuse of MA and cigarettes represents a pharmacologically meaningful pattern. Methods. The present study is a secondary analysis of a randomised, placebo-controlled trial of bupropion treatment for MA dependence (bupropion n = 36; placebo n = 37). A hierarchical logistic modelling approach assessed the efficacy of bupropion for reducing MA use separately among smokers and non-smokers. Among smokers, relations between cigarettes smoked and MA use were assessed. Results. Smoking status did not affect treatment responsiveness in either the bupropion condition or the placebo condition. In the placebo condition, increased cigarette use was associated with an increased probability of MA use during the same time period. This effect was not observed in the bupropion condition. Discussion and Conclusions. Initial smoking status did not impact treatment outcomes. Among smokers, results suggest that bupropion may dissociate cigarette and MA use. The effect was modest and a precise pharmacological mechanism remains elusive. Cholinergic systems may be relevant for MA use outcomes. Future studies should continue to assess the role of smoking in MA treatment outcomes.[Brensilver M, Heinzerling KG, Swanson A-N, Telesca D, Furst BA, Shoptaw SJ. Cigarette smoking as a target for potentiating outcomes for methamphetamine abuse treatment. Drug Alcohol Rev 2013;32:96–99]
Utilization of higher order moments of scrambling variables in randomized response sampling

Abstract In this paper, a new estimator for estimating the proportion of a potentially sensitive attribute in survey sampling has been introduced. The proposed estimator makes use of higher order moments of the scrambling variable at the estimation stage. The proposed estimator has been found to be more efficient than the estimator due to Kuk [1990. Asking sensitive questions indirectly. Biomerika 77(2), 436–438] and Franklin [1989. A comparison of estimators for randomized response sampling with continuous distributions from a dichotomous population. Comm. Statist. Theory Methods 18, 489–505] type estimators in randomized response sampling. Recently, Guerriero and Sandri [2007. A note on the comparison of some randomized response procedures. J. Statist. Plann. Inference 137, 2184–2190] have shown that the family of randomized response models proposed by Kuk [1990. Asking sensitive questions indirectly. Biomerika 77(2), 436–438] is better than the Simmons’ family in terms of efficiency and protection.
Ergebnisse der transperinealen Levatorplastik bei der Behandlung der symptomatischen Rectocele

A rectocele is a herniation of the anterior rectal wall through the rectovaginal septum into the vagina. The most important risk factors are a previous hysterectomy, obstetic injuries and the descending perineum syndrome. In some patients the rectocele becomes symptomatical because of defecation disorders. The patients have to give manual vaginal or perineal help during defecation. Radiological parameters like the size of the rectocele or retention of barium only have limited value for the clinical evaluation. In a high percentage we find simultaneous symptoms of fecal incontinence. Transperineal anterior levatorplasty makes it possible to close the rectocele. This procedure has a positive influence on defecation and continence. In a prospective study we performed anterior levatorplasty in 35 female patients having a rectocele in combination with rectal outlet obstruction. Subjective improvement of the defecation disorder was found in 74%. Only 1 patient complained of deterioration. No patient needed manual vaginal help postoperatively. Patients who needed perineal help preoperatively had worse results. Patients who did not need any manual help preoperatively nevertheless reported an improvement postoperatively. Fifteen of 20 patients, who suffered from fecal incontinence preoperatively, reported a better continence postoperatively (75%). Even in patients with incontinence the anterior levatorplasty is a good method for rectocele repair, as it improves rectal emptying and simultaneously provides therapy for fecal incontinence.
Study on the dehydrating effect of the red cell Na+/K+-pump in nystatin-treated cells with varying Na+ and water contents.

Using the antibiotic Nystatin, we have developed a systematic method for the preparation of red blood cells with independently selected levels of intracellular Na+ concentrations and water content. Such cells provided an experimental model to study the effect of Na+/K+ pump stimulation on red cell water content. Even in initially dehydrated cells, stimulation of the Na+/K+ pump by elevated intracellular Na+ caused subsequent further loss of cell water. Cell water loss was reflected in decreased monovalent cation content per unit mass of hemoglobin and by a shift in the density distribution of the cell populations to higher densities on discontinuous Stractan gradients. We conclude that the 3 Na+out : 2 K+in stoichiometry of the Na+/K+ pump results in a net desalting effect with increased pump activity. Under the conditions of these experiments, the cell appears to have no effective mechanism to compensate for a net loss of ions and water.
EFFICIENCY OF SELECTED STRAINS OF FUNGI IN REDUCING CHEMICAL OXYGEN DEMAND IN WASTEWATER FROM STEAM‐PEELED POTATOES1

The use of certain selected strains of fungi to reduce the wastewater strength from steam-peeled potato effluent and the recovery of the biomass produced by the fungal mycelium was studied. The fungus Neurospora sitophila NRRL 2884 was found to be effective in reducing the Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) of the potato effluent, inducing 69 and 90% reduction of the original COD value after 24 and 48 h of fermentation, respectively. The fungal biomass produced from the wastewater was 1.30 and 1.65 g/1 (dry wt.) of mycelium, respectively, and contained a crude protein content of 39%.
Decreases in Dietary Preference Produce Increased Emotionality and Risk for Dietary Relapse

Background Obesity is a modern health epidemic, with the overconsumption of highly palatable, calorically dense foods as a likely contributor. Despite the known consequences of obesity, behavioral noncompliance remains high, supporting the powerful rewarding properties of such foods. We hypothesized that exposure to preferred diets would result in an amelioration of stress responsivity via activation of reward pathways that would be reversed during dietary withdrawal, increasing the risk for relapse and treatment failure. Methods Mice were exposed to preferred diets high in fat or carbohydrates for 4 weeks and then were withdrawn to house chow. Behavioral, physiologic, and biochemical assays were performed to examine changes in stress and reward pathways. Results These studies revealed significant changes in arousal and anxiety-like behaviors, limbic corticotropin-releasing factor expression, and expression of reward-related signaling molecules in response to the highly preferred high-fat diet that was reversed by withdrawal. In a dietary-reinstatement model, mice withdrawn from the high-fat diet endured an aversive environment to gain access to the preferred food. Conclusions Exposure to a highly preferred diet high in fat reduces stress sensitivity, whereas acute withdrawal from such a diet elevates the stress state and reduces reward, contributing to the drive for dietary relapse.
9 LINEAR GROWTH DURING PUBERTY: IMPACT OF PUBERTAL DEVELOPMENT

Short stature is a frequent complaint of adolescent males. The pediatrician's ability to interpret this concern is largely dependent upon use of standard growth curves. These curves are based only on chronological age and do not reflect the impact of sexual maturation on height. Accordingly, we undertook to revise these curves to enhance their usefulness. Using National Health Examination Survey data from 3,000 male adolescents, ages 12 to 17, we constructed height curves for each stage of sexual maturation and age. The resulting graphs depict estimated percentiles for height at each stage of sexual maturation from ages 12 to 17. Applications: a 145 cm 13 year old boy with a Sex Maturity Rating (S.M.R.) of 1, is later in sexual maturation and shorter than his age mates with his height measuring below the 10th percentile on standard height charts. When compared with other S.M. R. 1, 13 year old males, his height is at almost the 25th percentile. For the 150 cm 14 year old boy with a S.M.R. of 2, his percentile moves from 5th-10th percentile on the standard growth curve to approximately the 20th percentile on the curves adjusted for stage of sexual maturation. Our data provide pediatricians with a more precise way of evaluating adolescent male height and may offer information potentially reassuring to the short, late-maturing adolescent male and his parents.
SafeSlinger: easy-to-use and secure public-key exchange

Users regularly experience a crisis of confidence on the Internet. Is that email or instant message truly originating from the claimed individual? Such doubts are commonly resolved through a leap of faith, expressing the desperation and helplessness of users. To establish a secure basis for online communication, we propose SafeSlinger, a system leveraging the proliferation of smartphones to enable people to securely and privately exchange their public keys. Through the exchanged authentic public keys, SafeSlinger establishes a secure channel offering secrecy and authenticity, which we use to support secure messaging and file exchange. SafeSlinger also provides an API for importing applications' public keys into a user's contact information. By slinging entire contact entries to others, we propose secure introductions, as the contact entry includes the SafeSlinger public keys as well as other public keys that were imported. We present the design and implementation of SafeSlinger for Android and iOS, which is available from the respective app stores. An overview video of SafeSlinger is available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFXL8fUqNKY
Emerging Certifications and Teacher Preparation

Dr. Andersen has worked as a science education professor at Indiana University, Bloomington, since 1966. He has authored six textbooks and over 100 articles on science teacher preparation, science teaching, and science curriculum. He has served as president of the Association for the Education of Teachers in Science, as chair of the Education Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and as a president of the National Science Teachers Association. Among many other honors, he has received the Distinguished Teaching Award at Indiana University and Robert E. Carlton Award for Distinguished National Leadership in Science Education (NSTA).
Evaluation of a Parameter Identification Method for Permanent Magnet AC Machines Through Parametric Sensitivity Analysis

In this paper, the effectiveness of a simplified characterization method for permanent magnet machines is evaluated through performance sensitivity analysis. Performance sensitivity analysis is a novel way to evaluate the effectiveness of any identification method, as it investigates the effects of parametric errors upon the output performance of a machine. Parametric errors are due to inaccuracies during the identification process. This evaluation tool was validated using a 10-kW SmCo interior permanent magnet machine characterized using two different identification methods. A detailed identification procedure is used as the basis for evaluating a simplified method. The performance experimental data were collected using torque controllers based on the parameters extracted with both approaches. This information is used to perform the sensitivity analysis over the operating range of the machine. Finally, the results are compared and analyzed to determine the effectiveness of the simplified characterization method and its implications on the control performance.
Strained-insulator In/sub x/Al/sub 1-x/As/n/sup +/-In/sub 0.53/Ga/sub 0.47/As heterostructure field-effect transistors

In an effort to enhance the conduction band discontinuity between channel and insulator, In/sub x/Al/sub 1-x/As/n/sup +/-In/sub 0.53/Ga/sub 0.47/As heterostructure field-effect transistors (HFETs) were fabricated with InAs mole fractions in the In/sub x/Al/sub 1-x/As gate insulator of x=0.52 (lattice matching), 0.48, 0.40, and 0.30. Decreasing the InAs mole fraction in the insulator results in reduced forward- and reverse-bias gate currents, increased reverse gate breakdown voltage, and reduced real-space transfer of hot electrons from channel to gate. Down to x=0.40, these improvements trade off with a slightly reduced transconductance, but the gain in gate bias swing results in an increase in maximum current drivability. From x=0.40 to x=0.30, there is a drastic decrease in transconductance, coincident with a high density of misfit dislocations. >
Pressure-flow relations in canine collateral-dependent cerebrum.

The pressure-flow relation has been characterized in normal cerebrum, but it has not been studied in cerebrum dependent on collateral flow. The purpose of this investigation was to examine the relation between systemic pressure, regional cerebral blood flow, and middle cerebral artery branch pressure in collateral-dependent and normal brain.In 10 anesthetized dogs, we cannulated a branch of the middle cerebral artery and identified collateral-dependent tissues using the shadow flow technique. We measured pressure in normal and cannulated branches of the middle cerebral artery and regional cerebral blood flow. The common carotid arteries were occluded, and hemorrhage reduced mean arterial pressure to 50 and 25 mm Hg.When aortic pressure was 25 mm Hg, blood flow to the collateral-dependent zone decreased from a baseline of 87 +/- 5 to 6 +/- 1 ml/100 g per minute (mean +/- SE), and pressure in the cannulated branch of the middle cerebral artery decreased from 49 +/- 4 to 2 +/- 0.4 mm Hg (p less than 0.05). S...
Incubation of anxiety: Effect on temporal generalization

Temporal generalization gradients were obtained, either immediately after training or after a 6-hr, delay, from Ss exposed to either aversive or innocuous reaction time signals. Smaller generalization decrements were found for Ss receiving delayed testing, and signal aversiveness did not affect the magnitude of the decrement. Instead of finding support for an “anxiety-incubation” hypothesis, it was concluded that non-emotional factors associated with elapsed time produce flattened generalization gradients.