cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Atomic-scale dielectric permittivity profiles in slabs and multilayers

A recently developed theory of atomic-scale local dielectric permittivity has been used to determine the position dependent permittivity profiles of a few nanoscale insulator surfaces and multilayers. Specifically, slabs containing single-component (Si, polymer, and ${\mathrm{SiO}}_{2}$) and two-component ($\mathrm{Si}\text{\ensuremath{-}}{\mathrm{SiO}}_{2}$ and polymer-${\mathrm{SiO}}_{2}$) systems of technological importance have been studied. The present approach indicates that the local permittivity is generally enhanced at the surfaces and/or interfaces, and that it approaches the corresponding bulk values in the interior of each component. This simple method of determining the position-dependent dielectric permittivity profiles can be used to study the impact of atomic level disorder and defects on dielectric properties.
Alicia de Colombí-Monguió. Petrarquismo peruano: Diego Dávalos y Figueroa y la poesía de la Miscelánea Austral. London: Tamesis Books, 1985. 217pp. £22, 5000 ptas

(1988). Alicia de Colombi-Monguio. Petrarquismo peruano: Diego Davalos y Figueroa y la poesia de la Miscelanea Austral. London: Tamesis Books, 1985. 217pp. £22, 5000 ptas. Romance Quarterly: Vol. 35, No. 1, pp. 120-122.
Regulatory and structural motifs of chicken gizzard myosin light chain kinase

The amino acid sequence for chicken smooth muscle myosin light chain kinase (smMLCK) was deduced from a full-length cDNA. This has allowed definition of both the complete sequence of the inactive 64-kDa proteolytic fragment, which contains the pseudosubstrate autoregulatory sequence, and of the active 61-kDa Ca2+/calmodulin-independent fragment, which lacks the autoregulatory domain. Comparison of the two sequences shows that the autoregulatory domain extends from Asn-780 to Arg-808. The peptide Leu-774 to Ser-787 does not inhibit smMLCK, whereas peptides of similar or shorter length from the pseudosubstrate region (Ser-787 to Val-807) are potent inhibitors. These data define the autoregulatory region as being contained within and probably identical to the pseudosubstrate domain. The catalytic and regulatory regions are flanked by several copies of 100-amino acid segments containing one of two consensus motifs. These motifs are absent from mammalian skeletal muscle MLCK or from Dictyostelium discoideum MLCK but are present in the Caenorhabditis elegans unc-22 gene product and the titin molecule of skeletal muscle myofibrils. These results indicate that the amino acid sequence of smMLCK encodes multiple functional motifs in addition to the catalytic domain.
Nonlinear conductance for the two channel Anderson model.

Using the integral equations of the noncrossing approximation, the differential conductance is computed as a function of voltage for scattering from a two channel Kondo impurity in a point contact. The results compare well to experimental data on Cu point contacts by Ralph and Buhrman. They support a recently proposed scaling hypothesis, and also show finite temperature corrections to scaling in agreement with experiment.
Multilevel attributable risk in cross-sectional studies

Applications such as public interventions on risk factors associated with the disease necessitate the inference of population attributable risk, especially when multiple risk levels with confounders appear in a cross-sectional data set. For case control studies, inference procedures for multiple exposure levels are available in the literature. However, corresponding procedures for survey-type data are not available. In this paper, we propose two estimation procedures. The first one is based on the Wald statistic and the second one is based on a logarithmic transformation. Simulation studies show that the confidence interval estimates of the attributable risk based on the Wald statistic perform equally well with the logarithmic transformation procedure. When the sample size is small, the large sample approximation is not plausible, so we discuss an exact test procedure. A data set regarding the impact of body mass index on diastolic blood pressure and the cardiovascular disease is included for illustration.
A Double Resonance Approach to Submillimeter/Terahertz Remote Sensing at Atmospheric Pressure

The remote sensing of gases in complex mixtures at atmospheric pressure is a challenging problem and much attention has been paid to it. The most fundamental difference between this application and highly successful astrophysical and upper atmospheric remote sensing is the line width associated with atmospheric pressure broadening, ~ 5 GHz in all spectral regions. In this paper, we discuss quantitatively a new approach that would use a short pulse infrared laser to modulate the submillimeter/terahertz (SMM/THz) spectral absorptions on the time scale of atmospheric relaxation. We show that such a scheme has three important attributes. 1) The time resolved pump makes it possible and efficient to separate signal from atmospheric and system clutter, thereby gaining as much as a factor of 106 in sensitivity. 2) The 3-D information matrix (infrared pump laser frequency, SMM/THz probe frequency, and time resolved SMM/THz relaxation) can provide orders of magnitude greater specificity than a sensor that uses only one of these three dimensions. 3) The congested and relatively weak spectra associated with large molecules can actually be an asset because the usually deleterious effect of their overlapping spectra can be used to increase signal strength.
Trans-sphenoidal and sphenoethmoidal encephalocele: report of two cases and review of the literature.

SUMMARY Basal encephaloceles are the least common form of encephalocele. Due to the critical position of the bony defect, visual and endocrinological abnormalities are frequently associated with basal encephaloceles. There is significant confusion in the classification of basal encephaloceles, particularly among trans-sphenoidal, sphenoethmoidal and intrasphenoidal subtypes. Two cases of basal encephaloceles are presented (one trans-sphenoidal and one sphenoethmoidal), along with a review of the literature. The relationship between the basal encephaloceles and endocrinological abnormalities is also emphasized.
Simulation of the interaction of compressor valves with acoustic back pressures in long discharge lines

A methematical model is presented which includes the simulation of discharge valve response and discharge plenum pressure oscillations. Two methods are given for coupling a highly non-linear mathematical model for the valve with an acoustic wave equation model employed for the discharge pressure simulation. With the first method, a classical finite difference scheme is employed to reduce the wave equation in the plenum into a number of first order differential equations which may then be integrated with the valve equations. With the second method, a steady state solution for the acoustic impedance at the valve is coupled with the non-linear valve model to obtain a solution. Emphasis is placed on the generality and computational efficiency of this latter method. Comparisons between theory and experiment are given.
American Stroke Association Stroke Council Update

This new feature in the journal Stroke is intended to update readers at least yearly about activities within the AHA/ASA. Although clinical and laboratory science are the focus of ASA’s flagship journal, Stroke , there are many other critical issues related to stroke and the mission of the ASA/AHA, such as improving cardiovascular and brain health, public education, delivery and access to stroke care in the United States and worldwide, advocacy and funding for research, and political and societal engagement, which are all critical to accomplishing our goals. The American Heart Association/American Stroke Association (AHA/ASA) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to reducing the burden of death and disability from heart disease and stroke. It advocates, funds research, and provides professional and community education to accomplish these goals. There are 2 distinct arms of the AHA/ASA: local and national. Both have ample opportunities for physician volunteerism and require that involvement to be successful. The local chapters are engaged in community education, fundraising for research, policy implementation (eg, stroke systems of care), and local implementation of quality programs such as Get With the Guidelines. The National organization provides peer review for research grants, hosts the International Stroke Conference and other national conferences, and sets the policy and advocacy agenda. All of these functions require physician and allied health engagement, which is provided through the Scientific Councils. The Stroke Council is 1 of 16 Councils in the AHA/ASA. It is unique among the councils owing to its enormous scope ranging from basic and clinical research to clinical efforts for stroke prevention, treatment, and recovery. In addition, the pathogenesis of stroke is diverse. As a consequence, it is probably the most diverse council in terms of different medical specialties and allied health professionals. It is one of the largest councils with >4700 members. The …
Immunodeficiency virus rev trans-activator modulates the expression of the viral regulatory genes.

The pathogenic human retrovirus human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) encodes two trans-acting nuclear proteins, tat and rev, whose functional expression is essential for viral replication in vitro1–6. The tat protein greatly enhances the expression of both structural and regulatory genes of HIV-1 (linked to the viral long-terminal-repeat promoter element)6–13, whereas the rev gene product (previously termed art or trs14) has only been shown to be required for the synthesis of structural proteins15,16. Here, we demonstrate that rev also moderates the expression of regulatory genes of HIV-1. It decreases the expression of messenger RNAs that encode the full-length form of the viral tat gene product or the rev protein itself, and induces the synthesis of a previously unreported, truncated tat protein. These actions of rev are mediated by a dramatic shift in the ratio of spliced to unspliced cytoplasmic HIV-1 mRNA. Therefore rev not only activates the synthesis of the viral structural proteins, but also modulates the level and quality of HIV-1 regulatory gene expression.
Resonance production in RHIC collisions

Short lived resonances are sensitive to the properties of the medium produced in heavy ion collision, in particular the temperature, density and expansion velocity. Thermal models underpredict the yield of K(892) and Λ(1520) in Au+Au collisions which allows us to conclude that an extended hadronic interaction phase exists between chemical and thermal freeze-out. During this time the decay particles of resonances will re-scatter and coalesce to regenerate resonances. These mechanisms affect the resonance yield mostly in the low momentum region below 1 GeV/c. Therefore the nuclear suppression factor RAA of resonances with more re-scattering than regeneration will be suppressed compared to stable particles in that pT range. It is interesting to study the RAA of resonances at higher momenta where the spectra of non-resonant particles exhibit effects such as enhancement through constituent quark recombination and quenching in the dense partonic medium. In addition the RAA’s of strange particles show the effect of canonical suppression on the nuclear suppression factor which leads to a significant difference between RAA and RCP, in particular for strange baryons. Therefore the RAA and the elliptic flow v2 for strange resonances in comparison to strange particles are investigated.
Visibility of structured and unstructured images.

We define a grain modulation transfer function (MTF) using unstructured grain images. This MTF is found to be similar in shape to the sine-wave MTF, but about 1/25 as sensitive. The higher sensitivity of the one-dimensional sine-wave grating is due to its highly structured pattern. In a second experiment, the results show that no simple unichannel linear model of vision can explain the visibility of the grain images. However, the results are consistent with a simple multichannel linear model.
The structure of the FMRFamide receptor and activity of the cardioexcitatory neuropeptide are conserved in mosquito.

Abstract Numerous peptides are structurally related to the cardioexcitatory tetrapeptide FMRFamide. One subgroup of FMRFamide-related peptides (FaRPs) contains an FMRFamide C terminus. Searches of the Drosophila melanogaster genome database identified the first invertebrate FMRFamide G-protein coupled receptor (GPCR), DrmFMRFa-R ( Cazzamali and Grimmelikhuijzen, 2002 ; Meeusen et al., 2002 ). In order to explore molecular mechanisms involved in FMRFamide signal transduction we identified a receptor from the malaria mosquito Anopheles gambiae genome ( Holt et al., 2002 ), AngFMRFa-R, and compared its structure to DrmFMRFa-R. The cytoplasmic loops, extracellular loops, and transmembrane regions are highly conserved between these two FMRFamide receptors. Another subgroup of FaRPs is the sulfakinins which are represented by the consensus structure –XDYGHMRFamide, where X is D or E ( Nichols, 2003 ). We compared AngFMRFa-R and DrmFMRFa-R to the A. gambiae sulfakinin receptors, ASK-R1 and ASK-R2 ( Duttlinger et al., 2003 ), and the D. melanogaster sulfakinin receptors, DSK-R1 and DSK-R2 ( Brody and Cravchik, 2000 ; Hewes and Taghert, 2001 ). The cytoplasmic loops, extracellular loops, and the transmembrane regions are not highly conserved between the FMRFamide and sulfakinin receptors. In order to explore the role of FMRFamide in mosquito biology we measured the effect of the tetrapeptide on in vivo heart rate. The tetrapeptide increased the frequency of spontaneous contractions of the larval mosquito heart and, thus, increased heart rate. These data support the conclusion that the structure of the FMRFamide receptor and activity of the cardioexcitatory FMRFamide neuropeptide are conserved in mosquito.
Channel access scheduling in Ad Hoc networks with unidirectional links

A new family of collision-free channel access protocols for ad hoc networks with unidirectional links is introduced. These protocols are based on a distributed contention resolution algorithm that operates at each node based on the list of direct contenders (one-hop neighbors or incident links) and indirect interferences (two-hop neighbors and related links). Depending on the activation scheme (node activation or link activation), a network node uses the identifiers of its neighbors one and two hops away to elect deterministically one or multiple winners for channel access in each contention context (e.g., a time slot or a frequency band). The protocols are shown to be fair and capable of achieving maximum utilization of the channel bandwidth. The delay and throughput characteristics of the channel access protocols is studied by simulations.
It's the psychology stupid: how heuristics explain software vulnerabilities and how priming can illuminate developer's blind spots

Despite the security community's emphasis on the importance of building secure software, the number of new vulnerabilities found in our systems is increasing. In addition, vulnerabilities that have been studied for years are still commonly reported in vulnerability databases. This paper investigates a new hypothesis that software vulnerabilities are blind spots in developer's heuristic-based decision-making processes. Heuristics are simple computational models to solve problems without considering all the information available. They are an adaptive response to our short working memory because they require less cognitive effort. Our hypothesis is that as software vulnerabilities represent corner cases that exercise unusual information flows, they tend to be left out from the repertoire of heuristics used by developers during their programming tasks.To validate this hypothesis we conducted a study with 47 developers using psychological manipulation. In this study each developer worked for approximately one hour on six vulnerable programming scenarios. The sessions progressed from providing no information about the possibility of vulnerabilities, to priming developers about unexpected results, and explicitly mentioning the existence of vulnerabilities in the code. The results show that (i) security is not a priority in software development environments, (ii) security is not part of developer's mindset while coding, (iii) developers assume common cases for their code, (iv) security thinking requires cognitive effort, (v) security education helps, but developers can have difficulties correlating a particular learned vulnerability or security information with their current working task, and (vi) priming or explicitly cueing about vulnerabilities on-the-spot is a powerful mechanism to make developers aware about potential vulnerabilities.
Presence of Acinetobacter species among the predominant bacteria found in a contaminated metal-working fluid

The distribution of Acinetobacter species among the bacteria isolated from an unusually heavily contaminated petroleum-based water-soluble metalworking fluid used in a large North American automotive machining operation was investigated. It had been found previously ~ that, in laboratory cultures with metal-working fluids as the sole carbon source, these species grew more rapidly and to much higher densities than any other types of bacteria isolated from this system. Thus, it was expected that they would dominate the population and would be difficult to control. It is shown here that, contrary to expectation, over a one-year period Acinetobacter species usually accounted for only a few Percent of the total population. Factory fluids did not contain substances that selectively inhibited the growth of these species. In mixed-cultures grown in the laboratory with metal-working fluid as the carbon source, Acinetobacter species accounted for less than 1% in the initial inoculum, nearly 70% during the mid-exponential-phase, and only a few percent in the stationary-phase. These experiments suggest, as a working hypothesis, that the Acinetobacter species 'govern' the contamination in the sense that they first colonize the fluid and their presence is necessary to maintain the other strains.
Starting insulin in type 2 diabetes: Overcoming barriers to insulin therapy.

BACKGROUND: Several barriers to insulin therapy are encountered by both the providers and the patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. These barriers include the fear of the needles i.e. number of injections as well as number of times of self blood glucose monitoring, fear of hypoglycemia and weight gain as well as the convenience, compliance and the cost. However, most of these patients are likely to require insulin therapy with increasing duration of the disorder because of the progressive cell failure. Therefore the most important aspect of insulin therapy must revolve around the regimen most suitable and acceptable because of its ability in overcoming these barriers while being effective in attaining and maintaining desirable glycemic control. METHODS: Recently published studies using different regimens with combinations of various oral agents and insulins in patients with type 2 DM and manifesting lapse of glycemic control when treated with various oral agents are discussed. SpeciÞ c attention is paid to the capacity of each individual regimen in overcoming aforementioned barriers. RESULTS: Comparative analysis amongst various insulin regimens shows that combination of metformin, and glimeperide with SC administration of basal insulin Lantus required the least daily dose of insulin with least consequential hypoglycemia as well as weight gain. Moreover, the number of injections as well as the number of times of self blood glucose monitoring, were lesser with this regimen with better compliance and more convenience in comparison to other combination insulin regimens. CONCLUSION: The insulin regimen with fewest barriers consists of one SC injection of basal insulin lantus in combination with oral agents. However, to be effective, oral agents must include a secretogogue i.e. glimeperide in addition to a sensitizer i.e. metformin and not multiple sensitizers without a secretogogue. Moreover, this regimen apparently is also the most preferred by the patients, and is cost effective.
Inoculating the electorate: a qualitative look at American corporatocracy and its influence on health communication

This research examines the profit-driven agendas, non-branded marketing strategies, and commercialized propaganda that influence citizen trust in health communication messages. Specifically focusing on Rick Perry’s 2007 human papilloma virus vaccination mandate, we highlight the role that corporate funding plays in legislation, regulation, and voter/consumer behavior. Emergent findings from in-depth interviews with Texas residents, in combination with US media reports, illustrate the questionable communications contaminating consumer trust and public health. Our critical analysis of health promotion reflects the commodification of health consciousness in the United States.
The Progression of “Evolving Standards of Decency” in U.S. Supreme Court Decisions

The non-static interpretation of the Eighth Amendment was first introduced by the U.S. Supreme Court in Weemsv.United States. It was further named “evolving standards of decency,” in Tropv.Dulles. ...
Stimulation by Formate of Antimicrobial Activity of Lactobacillus bulgaricus in Milk

When sodium formate was added to skim milk at concentrations of 0.15 mM prior to fermentation by Lactobacillus bulgaricus, the antimicrobial activity of the milk fermented for 5 hr increased by 66% over control samples. Maximum stimulation was attained at 0.45 mM concentration and further increase was less stimulatory. The stimulatory effect of formate was neutralized in the samples incubated for 24 hr. Formate addition did not affect the pH of the fermented milk.
The Operative Management of Recurrent Ureteropelvic Junction Obstruction

AbstractPurpose: Surgical repair of ureteropelvic junction obstruction is successful in 98% of cases. We evaluated children undergoing repeat pyeloplasty and discuss the etiology of recurrent ureteropelvic junction obstruction, surgical approach and outcome.Materials and Methods: Between 1982 and 1996, 366 children with ureteropelvic junction obstruction were surgically treated at our institution, including 16 who presented with recurrent ureteropelvic junction obstruction and required surgery.Results: Repeat repair was successful in all 16 patients, including ureterocalicostomy in 3 and dismembered pyeloplasty in the remainder. No nephrectomy was necessary. Anteriorly elongated flank incisions were made in all cases. Dense scar tissue around and obstructing the ureteropelvic junction was noted in the majority of cases. In 7 patients a redundant pelvis resulted in a kink at the ureteropelvic junction. A nephrostomy tube was placed in all cases and an additional transanastomotic stent was used in all but 2...
Neural Network Correction of PM3-Predicted Infrared Spectra

We describe the application of neural networks to a theoretical problem: the correction of inaccuracies in infrared spectra as predicted by the PM3 semiempirical method. Twenty-eight “peak-correcting” back-propagation neural networks were trained to predict the location of a characteristic infrared peak when given a scaled topological map of one of 1116 literature spectra. The infrared spectra of 200 aliphatics were then calculated using PM3, displayed graphically in Infrared Spectrum Comparison, and submitted to the appropriate “peak-correcting” neural network(s) based on a rule set implemented via an interface to HyperCube's HyperChem software. Results show an average 8-fold decrease in prediction error between PM3-predicted and neural network-corrected peak locations.
Pupillary Motility: Bringing Neuroscience to the Psychiatry Clinic of the Future

Modern pupillometry has expanded the study and utility of pupil responses in many new domains, including psychiatry, particularly for understanding aspects of cognitive and emotional information processing. Here, we review the applications of pupillometry in psychiatry for understanding patients’ information processing styles, predicting treatment, and augmenting function. In the past year pupillometry has been shown to be useful in specifying cognitive/affective occurrences during experimental tasks and informing clinical diagnoses. Such studies demonstrate the potential of pupillary motility to be used in clinical psychiatry much as it has been in neurology for the past century.
Primary cardiac tumors: Experience with 30 consecutive patients since the introduction of two-dimensional echocardiography

Experience with 30 consecutive patients who had a total of 32 primary cardiac tumors and who underwent two-dimensional echocardiography examinations between January 1977 and June 1983 was reviewed. Most of the tumors were atrial myxomas (20 left and 4 right), and 30 were identified on echocardiography. Twenty-five patients, including 21 of 22 with atrial myxoma, underwent surgical resection on the basis of the echocardiographic examination, without preoperative angiocardiography. When the morphologic characteristics of the left atrial myxomas were studied statistically in relation to clinical abnormalities, large tumor size was most closely related to the number and type of associated clinical and laboratory abnormalities. The single exception was embolization, which correlated with echocardiography tumor consistency. Since the introduction of two-dimensional echocardiography, the yearly incidence of cardiac tumor diagnosis at this clinic has increased several fold and the incidence of unexpected intraoperative diagnosis has been very low (one case). Echocardiography is the method of choice for clinical diagnosis. It has replaced angiocardiography for routine preoperative assessment, permits early diagnosis of cardiac neoplasms and provides insight into the pathophysiology of primary cardiac tumors.
Moments of distributions attracted to operator-stable laws

Abstract Bounds on the norming operators for distributions in the domain of attraction of an operator-stable distribution are found. These bounds are used to establish the existence and nonexistence of moments of distributions in the domain of attraction of an operator-stable distribution. Similar results for stochastically compact sequences are obtained.
Keratinocyte cell-mediated mutagenesis assay: Correlation with in vivo tumor studies

A murine keratinocyte cell-mediated mutagenesis assay was characterized and examined as an in vitro model system for studying the biotransformation of promutagens/procarcinogens by mouse skin. The assay used living cultured newborn SENCAR keratinocytes for the metabolic activation of promutagens and Chinese hamster lung V-79 fibroblasts for detection of resulting mutagens. Mutations at, or affecting, the hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase locus were scored by resistance to 6-thioguanine. The relative mutagenicities of several polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the cell-mediated assay correlated with the in vivo skin tumorigenicity of the PAHs determined in a two-stage carcinogenesis protocol. Metabolic activation of the promutagenic PAHs to ultimate mutagens was dependent upon the presence of the cultured keratinocyte feeder layer. 7,8-Benzoflavone, a potent inhibitor of 7,12-dimethylbenz[a]anthracene (DMBA)-dependent initiation in mouse skin, inhibited DMBA-dependent mutagenesis in the cell-mediated assay in a concentration responsive manner. The non-PAH promutagens, dimethylnitrosamine (DMN) and sterigmatocystin (STC) were both activated by cultured keratinocytes to cytotoxic derivatives. DMN was neither mutagenic in the cell-mediated assay nor tumorigenic in mouse skin when tested in a two-stage carcinogenesis protocol. STC was weakly mutagenic and tumorigenic in mouse skin.
Black, Hispanic, and White Women's Knowledge of the Symptoms of Acute Myocardial Infarction

Objective: To examine Black, Hispanic, and White women's knowledge of the symptoms of acute myocardial infarction. Design: Descriptive, nonexperimental design. Setting: Detroit, Michigan, and San Antonio, Texas, metropolitan areas. Participants: A convenience sample of 78 ethnically diverse women. Hispanics (n = 26) were recruited from San Antonio, Texas; Blacks (n = 26) were recruited from Detroit, Michigan; and Whites were recruited from San Antonio, Texas (n = 13), and Detroit, Michigan (n = 13). Main Outcome Measures: Participants ranked 10 acute symptoms they believed represented a myocardial infarction: anxiety, arms ache, change in thinking, chest pain, cough, fatigue, decreased appetite, headache, indigestion, and shortness of breath. Next, participants assigned a likelihood score for each acute symptom as representing a myocardial infarction. Results: Hispanic women were more likely than Black women to perceive the symptom of headache as indicative of a myocardial infarction. Women older than age 45 were more likely to assign a higher likelihood score to the symptom of shortness of breath than were women age 45 or younger. Conclusions: Age and ethnic differences were noted in women's perception of the signs and symptoms indicative of a myocardial infarction.
THE EFFECTS OF $gamma$ RADIATION ON THE FERTILITY AND LONGEVITY OF HIPPELATES PUSIO

Males and females of Hippelates pusio Loew were treated in the adult and pupal stages with Cobalt 60 gamma radiation. A dose of 5,000 R reduced egg viability to less than 1% when adults of either sex were treated 24–36 hr after emergence. In the late pupal stage, a dose of 4,500 R was able to sterilize both sexes. Some recovery of fertility was found in males treated as pupae after about 3 weeks. The sterilizing dose levels caused no increased mortality during the test periods. Adults were treated with massive doses of radiation and death was obtained within 3 days with 135,000 R.
Isospin dependence of the microscopic optical model for nucleon scattering

New experimental data for the elastic scattering of 7--24-MeV neutrons from /sup 208/Pb are presented, and a microscopic folding-model study of neutron and proton elastic scattering data for /sup 208/Pb at energies below 60 MeV is made to examine the isospin dependence of an effective interaction derived from nuclear-matter calculations. The theoretically derived interaction yields reasonable agreement with the data if the Coulomb potential is treated properly.
Child victims: Searching for opportunities to break the cycle of violence

Abstract In 1986 I began research to address the relationship between early child abuse and neglect and later deliquent and violent criminal behavior using a prospective cohort design. The relationship is not inevitable, suggesting an opportunity for long-range violence prevention through appropriate early intervention. Here, I briefly describe how childhood victimization and violent criminal behavior are related and illustrate a number of promising strategies and opportunities to intervene. Finally, I offer five principles to guide interventions: (1) the earlier the intervention, the better; (2) don't neglect neglected children; (3) one size does not fit all; (4) surveillance—a double-edged sword; and (5) accessibility to resources. Rather than focusing on responses to child abuse or neglect in court proceedings that “treat” offenders, primary prevention efforts should target childhood victims to reduce their risk of becoming offenders in the future.
A clustering rule-based approach to predictive modeling

Recent discoveries using rule-based classifiers and pre-learning data clustering have helped improve classification accuracy in predictive modeling tasks. This research introduces a unique approach which combines the above techniques and studies its predictive effects. The algorithm presented in this research, a Clustering Rule-based Algorithm (CRA), first clusters the original training set using an Expectation Maximization (EM) algorithm. Then, a separate Classification and Regression Tree (CART) is trained on each individual cluster. To obtain an upper-bound on accuracy, each test instance is evaluated against all of the rules produced by each separate Tree, to determine if there exists a rule produced by one of the Trees which correctly classifies the test instance. This study reveals that a predictive accuracy of 100% was achievable. Moreover, this approach exploits the advantages of supervised and unsupervised learning to produce a more powerful and more accurate predictive model.
Fracture toughness in random-chopped fiber-reinforced composites and their strain rate dependence

While many scientists have investigated the fracture toughness properties in various continuous fiber-reinforced composite materials and their dependence on strain rate, there is absolutely no literature available on the fracture toughness properties of random-chopped fiber-reinforced composite materials and their strain rate dependence, which can find extensive use in a wide range of load-bearing engineering and industrial process applications primarily due to the low costs involved in their manufacture in addition to the ease of manufacture. Therefore, the primary goal of this manuscript is to determine the fracture toughness of various random-chopped carbon fiber composite material systems. The four different random-chopped carbon-reinforced epoxy composite material systems studied were P4, HexMC, CCS150, and CCS100. In addition, an attempt is made to investigate and characterize the strain rate effects on the fracture toughness of a random-chopped carbon fiber P4 composite. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 100: 695–701, 2006
Long-term management of ovarian neoplasia in two cockatiels (Nymphicus hollandicus).

Cockatiels (Nymphicus hollandicus) are commonly diagnosed with ovarian neoplasia. However, there is very little information regarding medical management of this disease condition and subsequent patient response. Long-term medical therapy of 2 cockatiels eventually diagnosed with ovarian neoplasia is described along with responses to the treatment regimens. Each bird had initial signs consistent with reproductive disease (chronic egg laying, ascites, and lethargy) and respiratory distress. The diagnosis of ovarian adenocarcinoma was confirmed on postmortem examination of both birds. The birds were conservatively managed by periodic coelomocentesis and gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) agonist administration for 9 and 25 months, respectively. A positive response to GnRH agonist therapy was documented in 1 of the 2 birds. These 2 cases demonstrate that periodic coelomocentesis with or without GnRH agonist therapy may be a viable option for the long-term management of ovarian neoplasia and reproductive-organ–associated ascites in cockatiels.
Guidelines, processes and tools for coastal ecosystem restoration, with examples from the United States

This paper presents a systematic approach to coastal restoration projects with five components: planning, implementation, performance assessment, adaptive management, and dissemination of results. Typical features of the it- erative planning process are synthesized, beginning with a vision, a description of the ecosystem and landscape, and goals. The conceptual model and planning objectives are developed, prioritization techniques are used for site selection, and numerical models contribute to preliminary designs as needed. Within the planning process, cost analysis involves budgeting, scheduling, and financing. Performance criteria and reference sites are selected during design of the moni- toring program. Particular emphasis is given to the monitoring program, used as a tool to assess project performance and identify problems affecting progression toward project goals, within an adaptive management framework. Key ap- proaches to aspects of the monitoring program are reviewed and detailed with project examples. Another important means of strengthening the restoration project or program is documentation, peer review, and the distribution of infor- mation outside the planning team prior to finalizing construction plans, during implementation, and throughout moni- toring and adaptive management.
Investigation of the exhibition of facial expressions within human computer interaction

This paper describes research which was conducted to determine if humans exhibit facial expressions while interacting with a computer system. Fourteen college-aged subjects were chosen for the experiment. The subjects included 3 Hispanics and 11 Caucasians. Six of the subjects' were female. Each of these subjects performed five computer-based tasks which were chosen to simulate a wide range of typical applications; one of these tasks was a baseline. The subject's facial expressions were videotaped and later analyzed using the Ekman and Friesen Facial Action Coding System. The analysis revealed that the subjects did indeed exhibit facial expressions; an analysis of variance showed a significant difference between task types. In addition, an ethological analysis revealed a surprising number of facial expression maskings. >
African American Adolescents and Menthol Cigarettes: Smoking Behavior Among Secondary School Students

Abstract Purpose This paper examines the impact of smoking menthol cigarettes among secondary students, primarily African Americans, across five measures of smoking behavior. Methods Data were gathered from a 2006 survey of six secondary schools in a large urban area in the southeastern United States. Ordered logit analysis is employed to estimate race and menthol effects on cigarette consumption. Results African American youth smoke at lower rates than white adolescents; menthol smokers consume cigarettes at higher rates irrespective of race. Most importantly, there is a strong interaction effect with black menthol smokers demonstrating the highest levels of cigarette consumption. Conclusions There is a need to provide adolescent and adult African Americans accurate information on the dangers of menthol cigarettes. Any proposed legislation should consider the special problems of menthol and its relationship to high cigarette consumption, especially for African American adolescents.
Host and pathogen factors controlling the rice-Xanthomonas oryzae interaction.

Rice ( Oryza sativa ) cultivation represents a world laboratory for investigation into bacterial diseases of rice, in particular, and host-parasite interactions, in general, at the molecular, genetic, and genomic levels. The crop, in its various forms, has been under intense cultivation for more
Activation of Ras by Grb2-SOS: Demonstrating an Assembly Role of SH3 Domains

The animation shows a schematic representation of the assembly role of SH3 domain-containing proteins using Grb2 as an example. Growth factor stimulation leads to the activation of receptor tyrosine kinases and to the phosphorylation of the receptor tail and the stimulation of phosphorylation of related adaptor proteins (not shown). The resultant phosphotyrosines form docking sites for the adaptor protein Grb2 (through its SH2 domain). The Grb2 SH3 domains bind proline-rich motifs in SOS, the guanine nucleotide exchange factor for Ras, recruiting SOS to the membrane and colocalizing it with Ras. The resultant stimulation of Ras activates a mitogen-activated protein kinase cascade, leading to cell growth and differentiation. The animation could be useful in demonstrating how different protein domains allow dynamic regulation of protein activity, protein assembly, and protein recruitment, allowing cells to respond to signals from their extracellular environment. [Resource Details]
Focussing matrices for coherent signal-subspace processing

A class of focussing matrices is proposed for use in the coherent signal-subspace method (CSM) (H. Wang and M. Kaveh, ibid., vol.ASSP-33, Aug. 1985). When the directions-of-arrival of wideband sources fall into more than one group of one beamwidth each, this class leads to performance substantially better than those suggested in previous studies on direction-of-arrival estimation. New insight into the structures of various focussing matrices and their effect on the performance of CSM is presented. The performance of CSM is compared for several classes of these matrices on the simulations as well as relative sufficiency analyses. >
The complexity of computing the minimum rank of a sign pattern matrix

We show that computing the minimum rank of a sign pattern matrix is NP hard. Our proof is based on a simple but useful connection between minimum ranks of sign pattern matrices and the stretchability problem for pseudolines arrangements. In fact, our hardness result shows that it is already hard to determine if the minimum rank of a sign pattern matrix is ⁄ 3. We complement this by giving a polynomial time algorithm for determining if a given sign pattern matrix has minimum rank ⁄ 2. Our result answers one of the open problems from [LMSS07] [Combinatorica, 27(4):439{463, 2007].
Power-efficient multi-level modulation scheme for high-speed optical communications

In this paper, we propose a design for the transceiver of a new modulation scheme that is based on combining frequency and polarization modulated signals. This is referred to as hybrid frequency-polarization shift keying (FPoISK) modulation. This modulation enables representing the signal points over multidimensional constellation points space, which ensures increasing the geometric distances between signal points, and in turn, improving the system power efficiency. To demonstrate the efficiency of our proposed technique, we derive an exact expression of the symbol error probability, and conduct a performance comparison between the proposed modulation technique and previously developed ones. Our results reveal that the proposed modulation scheme performs better than L-PoISK, L-DPSK, and L-FSK modulation schemes in terms of power efficiency.
Mental health resources and the criminal justice system: Assessment and plan for integration in Charlottesville, Virginia - Phase III expansion

Evidence based evaluation systems are critical to the analysis and improvement of programs aimed at providing consumers of mental health services with proper treatment. This paper describes enhancements to the evidence based evaluation tools used by the Crisis Intervention System (CIS), a program run by the Thomas Jefferson Area Community Criminal Justice Board, to provide a more effective approach to resolving crisis situations involving mental health consumers and law enforcement agencies in Central Virginia. Initial versions of this evaluation tool demonstrate the value of capturing and sharing information among the system of agencies engaged in the CIS. The enhancements described in this paper transformed the prototype into a fully functional, scalable, and more user friendly application that supports evaluation and decision making. Through iterative usability testing, the team was able to achieve a more efficient evaluation tool which provides the client with a more accurate and intuitive resource to make operational decisions. Enhancements targeted shortcomings in the prototype design, specifically with respect to comprehension of graphical data and efficient navigation of available functionality. Prototype and final design usability testing results, comparing time, error and user feedback metrics, prove the final tool design enables users to navigate the with less difficulty and comprehend graphical data more accurately.
Tumour-stromal interactions Reciprocal regulation of extracellular matrix proteins and ovarian steroid activity in the mammary gland

Despite the critical importance of ovarian steroids in the treatment of breast cancer, little is known about the acquisition or loss of estrogen and progesterone responsiveness in either the normal or neoplastic mammary gland. This review focuses on the interactions among mammary stroma-derived extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins, integrins and ovarian hormone-dependent proliferation in normal and neoplastic mammary cells both in vivo and in vitro. In vitro studies show that fibronectin is required for progesterone-induced proliferation of normal mammary epithelial cells and that specific ECM proteins also regulate interactions between growth factors and ovarian hormones. Studies with human breast cancer cell lines have shown that laminin inhibits estrogen-induced proliferation and estrogen-response-element-mediated transcription in vitro and also inhibits estrogen-induced proliferation in vivo. Reciprocally, ovarian steroids regulate the expression of ECM proteins and their cellular receptors, integrins, during mammary gland development in vivo. The fibronectin-specific integrin, α5β1 is regulated by ovarian steroids and its expression is positively correlated with developmental stages of peak proliferation. These studies suggest that the coordinated regulation of ovarian hormone responsiveness and ECM/integrin expression may be critical to normal mammary gland development and breast cancer growth and progression.
Effective Navigation of Query Results Based on Concept Hierarchies

Search queries on biomedical databases, such as PubMed, often return a large number of results, only a small subset of which is relevant to the user. Ranking and categorization, which can also be combined, have been proposed to alleviate this information overload problem. Results categorization for biomedical databases is the focus of this work. A natural way to organize biomedical citations is according to their MeSH annotations. MeSH is a comprehensive concept hierarchy used by PubMed. In this paper, we present the BioNav system, a novel search interface that enables the user to navigate large number of query results by organizing them using the MeSH concept hierarchy. First, the query results are organized into a navigation tree. At each node expansion step, BioNav reveals only a small subset of the concept nodes, selected such that the expected user navigation cost is minimized. In contrast, previous works expand the hierarchy in a predefined static manner, without navigation cost modeling. We show that the problem of selecting the best concepts to reveal at each node expansion is NP-complete and propose an efficient heuristic as well as a feasible optimal algorithm for relatively small trees. We show experimentally that BioNav outperforms state-of-the-art categorization systems by up to an order of magnitude, with respect to the user navigation cost. BioNav for the MEDLINE database is available at http://db.cse.buffalo.edu/bionav.
The alteration of mast cell staining due to various fixatives and demineralizing agents

— The effect of several fixatives (Carnoy's, cyanuric chloride, and formalin) and of several demineralizing agents (formic acid, nitric acid, and EDTA) on rat mast cells which were then stained with hemalum-eosin, Giemsa, methylgreen pyronin, toluidine blue, alcian blue, PAS, and acridine orange was studied. Furthermore, ultrastructure of the mast cell was investigated. In the materials which were not exposed to demineralizing agents, mast cells could be equally well demonstrated by all staining methods regardless of fixative, although the PAS reaction was weak. After exposure to demineralizing agents, the best results were obtained with cyanuric chloride fixative and EDTA; the poorest results with formalin fixative and nitric acid; however, even in the latter specimen stained with hemalum-eosin, mast cells could be recognized. Giemsa stain was well preserved regardless of fixation and demineralization, but mast cell fluorescence was totally destroyed by the acid demineralizing agents. In human material demineralized in EDTA, stained with toluidine blue, authentic mast cells were found in gingiva and periodontal ligament but not in pulp tissue in the same block. This study allowed us to evaluate the presence of mast cells in any material treated according to the methods described. It allowed the conclusion that mast cells very infrequently occur in the pulp tissue, although they are abundant in other oral tissues.