cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Dielectric fluid flow generation in meso-tubes with micro-scale electrohydrodynamic conduction pumping

Fluid flow generation in micro-scale is becoming increasingly important as two-phase flow thermal management devices at the micro-scale are being widely developed. These devices are currently being used to cool high heat flux sources with small surface areas, found in various electronic, computer and aerospace applications. Limitations in space and power call for a simple yet effective flow generation method that is reliable. In this respect, electrohydrodynamic (EHD) conduction pumping shows great potential as a flow generation technique at the micro-scale. This paper presents the results of an experimental study of EHD conduction pumping of a dielectric liquid in a tube of 1 mm inner diameter, resulting in a maximum mass flux level of 100 kg/m2 s. The pump electrode spacing is on the order of 120 µm. Pressure generation in single phase flow resulting in the above mass flux indicates the effectiveness of the technique. Moreover, this paper demonstrates the practicality of using EHD pumping due to an exceedingly low power requirement and relative ease of implementation.
Performance measurement techniques for simple Fourier transform lenses

The use of simple off-the-shelf lenses as Fourier transform elements in an optical computer is considered. Several schemes for measuring those lens parameters that determine the performance of such simple lenses as Fourier transform elements are provided with emphasis on lens phase errors. It is assumed that no lens design data are available for the lens under test.
Integrated maintenance and production control of a deteriorating production system

We consider a make-to-stock production/inventory system consisting of a single deteriorating machine which produces a single item. We formulate the integrated decisions of maintenance and production using a Markov Decision Process. The optimal dynamic policy is shown to have a rather complex structure which leads us to consider more implementable policies. We present a double-threshold policy and derive exact and approximate methods for evaluating the performance of this policy and computing its optimal parameters. A detailed numerical study demonstrates that the proposed policy and our approximate method for computing its parameters perform extremely well. Finally, we show that policies which do not address maintenance and production control decisions in an integrated manner can perform rather badly.
Alterations in Apoptosis of Cord and Adult Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells Induced by In Vitro Infection with Respiratory Syncytial Virus

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), a major cause of morbidity in children, results in severe lower respiratory tract infections. With an in vitro infection system of isolated cord or adult peripheral blood mononuclear cells, addition of virus to cell cultures resulted in significant reductions in cell deaths, as measured by 2 independent assays: quantitation of cells with subdiploid levels of DNA and cells with DNA strand breaks. Decreased cell death was observed in lymphocytes and monocytes of cord and adult samples, with more dramatic effects evident in cells from cord blood. This may be linked to the increased virulence observed in infants with RSV infection. These data suggest that RSV may be equipped with some mechanism to prevent apoptosis, which is a major component of the host defense system used to eliminate virally infected cells.
Electromechanical Investigation of 2G HTS Twisted Stacked-Tape Cable Conductors

Various cabling methods for HTS flat tapes have been developed in the past few years. We have been developing a REBCO tape cabling method twisting a stack of tapes (TSTC). TSTC conductors were recently tested at high magnetic fields 4 T-20 T. The test results have shown some significant degradations during high current and high field tests. This paper investigates the mechanical characteristics of a TSTC conductor. Effects of transverse loads on single tapes and TSTC conductors were studied to evaluate and compare their mechanical behaviors. A device was designed to measure the critical currents of tapes and cables at 77 K as a function of transverse load. YBCO tapes from two different suppliers were examined. The mechanical transverse load was applied to TSTC conductors to simulate a load similar to the one caused by the natural electromagnetic load during operations. Taking into account the unique geometrical structure of a TSTC conductor, the effects of localized and uniform transverse loading conditions on a TSTC conductor were investigated. Several TSTC samples including single tapes and cables were tested. The experimental results are presented and discussed in the context of use of this type of conductor for high field magnets applications.
Perinatal choline supplementation attenuates behavioral alterations associated with neonatal alcohol exposure in rats.

Children exposed to alcohol prenatally suffer from a variety of behavioral alterations, including hyperactivity and learning deficits. Given that women continue to drink alcohol during pregnancy, it is critical that effective interventions and treatments be identified. Previously, we reported that early postnatal choline supplementation can reduce the severity of learning deficits in rats exposed to alcohol prenatally. The present study examined whether choline supplementation can reduce the severity of behavioral alterations associated with alcohol exposure during the third trimester equivalent brain growth spurt. Male neonatal rats were assigned to one of three treatment groups. One group was exposed to alcohol (6.6 g/kg/day) from postnatal days (PD) 4–9 via an artificial rearing procedure. Artificially reared and normally reared control groups were included. One half of subjects from each treatment received daily subcutaneous injections of a choline chloride solution from PD 4–30, whereas the other half received saline vehicle injections. On PD 31–34, after choline treatment was complete, activity level was monitored and, on PD 40–42, subjects were tested on a serial spatial discrimination reversal learning task. Subjects exposed to alcohol were significantly hyperactive compared to controls. The severity of ethanol-induced hyperactivity was attenuated with choline treatment. In addition, subjects exposed to ethanol during the neonatal period committed a significantly greater number of perseverative-type errors on the reversal learning task compared to controls. Exposure to choline significantly reduced the number of ethanol-related errors. Importantly, these behavioral changes were not due to the acute effects of choline, but were related to long-lasting organizational effects of early choline supplementation. These data suggest that early dietary interventions may reduce the severity of fetal alcohol effects.
Power allocation and spectral efficiency in multirate DS-CDMA systems without channel state information at transmitters

Power allocation and spectral efficiency of multirate and single code (SC) direct-sequence code division multiple access (DS-CDMA) systems without channel state information at transmitters in frequency flat fading channels are discussed. An explicit expression is found for the optimal power allocation under some mild assumption. An interference cancelling and minimum-mean-square-error detection scheme is shown to achieve the optimal power consumption. Spectral efficiencies of both SC and multiple code (MC) schemes are obtained, and numerical results show that MC outperforms SC due to the former's utilization of user diversity.
Efficient recovery from false state in distributed routing algorithms

Malicious and misconfigured nodes can inject incorrect state into a distributed system, which can then be propagated system-wide as a result of normal network operation. Such false state can degrade the performance of a distributed system or render it unusable. For example, in the case of network routing algorithms, false state corresponding to a node incorrectly declaring a cost of 0 to all destinations (maliciously or due to misconfiguration) can quickly spread through the network. This causes other nodes to (incorrectly) route via the misconfigured node, resulting in suboptimal routing and network congestion. We propose three algorithms for efficient recovery in such scenarios and prove the correctness of each of these algorithms. Through simulation, we evaluate our algorithms – in terms of message and time overhead – when applied to removing false state in distance vector routing. Our analysis shows that over topologies where link costs remain fixed and for the same topologies where link costs change, a recovery algorithm based on system-wide checkpoints and a rollback mechanism yields superior performance when using the poison reverse optimization.
Control of nitrogen species in helicon plasmas

There are several possible reactions for both growth and decomposition of GaN layers in stable plasma conditions. A greater understanding of the plasma processes involved in the creation of the different N2 species is required before many growth related problems can be resolved. A plasma source capable of selecting different active nitrogen species could be used to study the different reactions related to the growth process. In this paper, we present a spectroscopic study of a helicon plasma source. Five different nitrogen species in the plasma are monitored, namely: N II (atomic ion), N I (atomic neutral), N + (molecular ion) and two different excited states of the N2 molecule as a function of the filling pressure. We show that by simply changing one plasma parameter (operating pressure), the plasma undergoes a transformation from an essentially atomic nature at low pressure to a dominantly molecular nature at higher pressure. The line intensity variations as a function of electron temperature are consistent with expectations based on the published formation rates for each species.
Carbon Monoxide and Bilirubin Production in Neonates

Jaundice is a common neonatal syndrome. Neonatal hyperbilirubinemia is a complex biologic phenomenon resulting from increased production and limited elimination of bilirubin during the transitional time after birth. Bilirubin production is 2 to 3 times higher in normal term newborns compared with adults, and is greatly exacerbated by hemolysis from any cause, the breakdown of extravascular blood, the shorter red cell life span associated with prematurity, maternal diabetes, cholestasis, unknown factors associated with ethnicity, and many other conditions. Thus, increased bilirubin production is an important contributing cause of all kinds of neonatal jaundice. The ability to predict the degree of jaundice based on the rate of bilirubin production is limited because bilirubin elimination varies greatly from individual to individual in the transitional time after birth. Nonetheless, identifying high producers of bilirubin is important for the diagnosis of hemolysis or the recognition of other risk factors associated with increased bilirubin production. Such risk factors have been identified in the new AAP practice parameter on the management of hyperbilirubinemia in the healthy term neonate1 as important exclusions for a neonate enrolled into the recommended management algorithm. Moreover, information about bilirubin production provides an accurate means of targeting individuals or populations for treatment with heme oxygenase (HO) inhibitors or for assessing the treatment efficacy of a particular HO inhibitor in an individual patient, monitoring directly the mechanism of action of the drug and evaluating dose response. Because carbon monoxide (CO) and biliverdin are produced in equimolar amounts and biliverdin is quantitatively reduced to bilirubin, the measurement of CO in breath or blood can be used as an index of heme degradation and bilirubin production in vivo. The validity of this approach has been well-established.2 The association of increased CO production with kernicterus and death related to hyperbilirubinemia in jaundiced Nigerian infants …
The Coxiella burnetii Dot/Icm System Creates a Comfortable Home through Lysosomal Renovation

Understanding the molecular pathogenesis of Coxiella burnetii, the causative agent of human Q fever, has historically been hindered by the technical difficulties of genetically manipulating obligate intracellular bacteria. The recent development of culture conditions suitable for axenic propagation of C. burnetii has paved the way for the application of a range of genetic tech- niques to address key questions within the field. Recent studies using mutational analysis have revealed that the C. burnetii Dot/ Icm type 4 secretion system (T4SS) is an important virulence determinant that is essential for renovation of a lysosome into a mature Coxiella-containing vacuole (CCV) permissive of intracellular replication. Interestingly, a mutant of C. burnetii deficient in Dot/Icm function was found to be capable of replicating within the parasitophorous vacuole created by Leishmania ama- zonensis, which indicates that C. burnetii replication is not dependent on the cohort of Dot/Icm effector proteins per se but rather that the collective actions of effectors are required to create the specialized niche supportive of replication. Thus, a role for the Dot/Icm T4SS during the intracellular life cycle of C. burnetii has been more clearly defined by these studies, which demon- strate that advances in genetic analysis should allow future studies to focus on the intricacies of Dot/Icm effector functions that facilitate development of the unique CCV.
Phenotypic and biomass yield variations in natural populations of prairie cordgrass (Spartina pectinata Link) in the USA.

Prairie cordgrass (Spartina pectinata Link) is a productive warm-season, C4 perennial grass native to most of North America having tolerance to wet, cold, and saline growing conditions. Excellent stress tolerance, along with high biomass yields, makes prairie cordgrass a good candidate as a dedicated energy crop on marginal land. However, there is little information available on genetic variation, including yield potential, of native populations in the USA. The objectives of this study were to evaluate biomass yield and to identify the nature and extent of genetic variation in natural populations of prairie cordgrass by comparing endemic strains collected throughout the USA. Forty-two prairie cordgrass populations were collected from prairie-remnant sites in 13 states and evaluated at the University of Illinois in Urbana, IL. The 4-year field study of prairie cordgrass revealed extensive variations in biomass yield and phenotypic traits associated with biomass yield among these populations. Strong correlations were observed between the phenotypic values and origins of the populations. Path coefficient analysis indicated that tiller mass, tiller density, heading date, plant height, and phytomer number positively affected biomass yield directly or indirectly. However, the phenotypic traits including biomass yield showed significant variation among years except for phytomer number and heading date. With the extensive genetic variability and high biomass yield potential demonstrated in this experiment, prairie cordgrass could become a highly productive bioenergy crop by developing a well-planned breeding program.
Stage of lung cancer in relation to its size: part 2. Evidence.

Objective To assess the relationship between tumor size and disease stage at the time of diagnosis in non-small cell lung cancer Methods From the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results registry, we identified all cases of primary non-small cell lung cancer diagnosed prior to autopsy. Among these, we focused on 84,152 cases diagnosed in 1988 or later and documented as to tumor size and disease stage at diagnosis. The distribution of disease stage within categories of tumor size was determined Results The smaller the tumor was, the more likely the disease was stage I. For tumors 45 mm, with all of these proportions being very precise Conclusions Tumor size has substantial bearing on disease stage in non-small cell lung cancer
Competitive Organization of the Soft-Bottom Macrobenthic Communities of Southern California Lagoons

The sandy-bottom macrobenthic community of Mugu Lagoon, a relatively pristine southern California (USA) marine lagoon, demonstrated (1) nearly constant community composition over 37 months of observation, (2) relatively little temporal variability in the population densities of the most abundant species over 37 months, and (3) a pattern of depth stratification in which very little vertical overlap existed among the six most abundant species. The only two species whose vertical distributions overlapped broadly showed horizontal spatial segregation, each abundant in different areas within the sand habitat. These community characteristics imply the importance of biological factors in structuring the sand benthos. The relatively large volume required for living space by these macrofauna suggests that competition for space may be the biological factor most important in determining the observed temporal and spatial abundance patterns. The muddy-sand community and the mud community of Mugu Lagoon also revealed similar patterns of stratification: new abundant species replaced species at the same sedimentary level while not greatly affecting species populations at other non-overlapping levels. In the sand community of Tijuana Slough, two of the abundant species of Mugu Lagoon's sand community were nearly absent as an apparent result of human over-exploitation. Probably in response, densities of species living at the sedimentary levels normally occupied by the missing species were much higher than would be predicted if competition for space were unimportant. In field experiments, removal of the deposit feeder Callianassa californiensis resulted in high recruitment of Sanguinolaria nuttallii, whereas control areas showed no S. nuttallii recruitment. Experiments also suggest that negative intraspecific interactions between Cryptomya californica individuals may explain the observed rapid emigration from areas of artificially high density. Perhaps the relatively great environmental predictability of southern California lagoons has permitted competitive interactions to play a singnificant role in determining the temporal and spatial abundance patterns of the soft-bottom macrobenthos.
Active control of approach-oriented posture is influenced by emotional reactions.

Emotions adaptively prepare the body to interact with the environment through execution of motor actions, but the extent to which emotional states modulate force control during directionally targeted movement tasks remains unknown. We sought to determine how emotions influence active control of approach-oriented posture. Participants (N 43; 25 females) stood on a force plate and displaced their center of pressure (COP) anteriorly to a target at 50% of their maximum voluntary lean. Afte r7so f real-time COP feedback, a picture representing 6 discrete categories (attack, mutilation, contamination, erotic couples, happy faces, and neutral objects) replaced the target and remained on the screen. Participants were instructed to maintain the target COP position throughout the trial. Deviation of the COP position relative to the target (root-mean-square error; RMSE) and error direction (constant error; CE) were evaluated during the feedback and picture portions of the trial. RMSE increased for all affective conditions following feedback occlusion. Following picture onset, lean error exhibited when viewing attack pictures was more anterior (i.e., greater CE) compared with the mutilation, contamination, and erotica conditions. Additionally, participants leaned more anteriorly (i.e., greater CE) during the happy faces condition compared with the mutilation and erotica conditions. Collectively, results indicate that the maintenance of an anterior COP position in the anterior direction is primarily modulated by the motivational direction of emotional stimuli.
Measurement of Circulation Time in the Retinal Vasculature Using Selective Angieography

Retinal circulation times (RCT) and mean circulation time (MCT) in the retinal vasculature have been used to determine the effect of ocular disease on retinal circulation. Both RCT and MCT are usually determined by measuring dye dilution curves during a traditional fluorescein angiogram. The authors present a variation of the dye dilution technique. The primary difference is that a fluorescent dye (carboxyfluorescein or calcein) was encapsulated in liposomes at a very high concentration. The dye was then released at a specific site in a retinal artery by the application of a laser pulse delivered through the pupil of the eye. The heat pulse produced by the laser lysed the liposomes in the targeted vessel, causing a stream of dye to be released. The time it took the dye front to pass through the artery and return through the vein (RCT) was then measured. To clarify the situation, two times were actually measured, the shortest path the dye traveled from the exposure site to a corresponding site on the vein (short RCT) and the longest path through the periphery to venous filling (long RCT). The measurements were made in both cynomolgus monkeys and squirrel monkeys. The local dye release achieved with this method was found to produce a more distinct dye front than traditional angiography while also eliminating the problem of recirculation. Choroidal background fluorescence, a factor that often obscures the dye front in traditional angiography, was minimal. Furthermore, it was possible to make individual measurements on each of the four arteries and to repeat the measurements several times.
Policing, Security Management, and Spatial Governmentality in Johannesburg after Apartheid

In Johannesburg after apartheid, city planners, policy experts, and municipal authorities have experimented with new kinds of pro-active security management strategies that involve a blending of private security and public policing. This unbundling of security services and the development of new kinds of hybrid policing reflects the worldwide trend toward the adoption of neoliberal modes of urban governance, Indeed, a number of critical observers have moved away from a narrow focus on the evolving division of labor between public and private policing, and have begun to speak instead in terms of “extended security networks” or “networked security governance.” Others have invoked such metaphors as “security quilts” and “security webs.” Unlike conventional disciplinary strategies of social control that are organized around law enforcement and the apprehension of criminal offenders, these new approaches of urban governance seek to regulate the spaces urban residents occupy through ‘risk management’ strategies that identify and minimize exposure to harm or danger. These mechanisms of spatial regulation - or what some theorists have called ‘spatial governmentality’ - represent a new kind of pre-emptive ‘crime control’, an approach which seeks to produce safe and secure environments in site-specific locations through the reduction, redistribution, and isolation of the risk of crime, rather than its prevention or its elimination altogether. ‘Risk management’ strategies look upon and analyze the urban landscape through ‘categories of menace’ where all non-monitored territories, and those who inhabit them, are classified as ‘dangerous’.
High Altitude Hot Rod - An Energy Efficient N+1 Transport

This study configures a future commercial transport aircraft for a world with expensive fuel. This aircraft was configured for minimum fuel burn, maximizing specific range over a 1000nM reference mission. The design goals align with NASA’s N+1 study objectives: low emissions, transcontinental range, and unrestricted operations from airports such as LGA, BUR or DCA. The Arizona State University aircraft employs current and near-term available technology, but through careful design choices and an unusual flight mission profile, is expected to offer a further 15% reduction in fuel burn from the advanced technology 737-MAX or Airbus 320neo. The most efficient design was found incorporating high-bypass ratio, near-stoichiometric turbofan engines into an otherwise conventional, but high-aspect-ratio wing-body-tail configuration. The minimum fuel burn objective led the team to design an aircraft that flies most efficiently very high and very fast: the design features a long-range cruise speed of Mach 0.83 at an altitude of 46,000-ft. The high thrustto-weight ratio needed to attain efficient cruise gives this aircraft exceptional field performance and low altitude climb capability.
Quantitative Indicators of Human Resource Development

The quantitative analysis presented in this chapter has two principal objectives. The first is to rank a large number of countries on the basis of one or more quantitative indicators of human resource development and to group them into levels of human resource development. The second is to determine whether there are significant statistical relationships among various human resource indicators and measures of economic development. If we can establish some quantitative benchmarks, these will be useful for a more detailed qualitative analysis of levels of human resource development.
Forward modeling of δ18O in Andean ice cores

Tropical ice core archives are among the best-dated and highest-resolution from the tropics, but a thorough understanding of processes that shape their isotope signature as well as the simulation of observed variability remain incomplete. To address this, we develop a tropical Andean ice core isotope forward model from in situ hydrologic observations and satellite water vapor isotope measurements. A control simulation of snow δ18O captures the mean and seasonal trend but underestimates the observed intraseasonal variability. The simulation of observed variability is improved by including amount effects associated with South American cold air incursions, linking synoptic-scale disturbances and monsoon dynamics to tropical ice core δ18O. The forward model was calibrated with and run under present-day conditions, but can also be driven with past climate forcings to reconstruct paleo-monsoon variability. The model is transferable and may be used to render a (paleo)-climatic context at other ice core locations.
Tom Regan: Animal Rights as Natural Rights

In his seminal work The Case for Animal Rights, justifiably regarded as a classic of the animal liberation movement, Tom Regan presents aforceful and, in someways, compelling account of why non-human animals should be regarded as making direct moral claims upon us. The reason, according to Regan, is that non-humans possess moral rights; and he presents an elegant and systematic theoretical underpinning for this claim. I think it is fair to regard Regan’s case as proceeding from within the framework of natural rights approaches to morality. This is for three reasons. Firstly, Regan argues that many kinds of non-human animals possess moral rights in virtue of their nature; in virtue of the fact that they are, as he puts it, subjects-of-a-life. Secondly, his argument appeals quite centrally to the concept of inherent value, viewed as an objective moral property which attaches to certain things, and which does so irrespective of whether those things happen to be valued or not. Thus, Regan views at least some non-human animals as possessors of moral rights which are objective in the sense that they do not depend on whether they are recognized as rights. Thirdly, these rights are logically prior to any contractual arrangement, since they stem from the nature of the individuals and not from the agreements such individuals might enter into.
Weight and weight changes in early adulthood and later breast cancer risk.

Obesity is a well-established cause of postmenopausal breast cancer. However, early life adiposity is inversely associated with breast cancer incidence. To understand these conflicting relations, we use validated measures to assess adiposity in childhood and late adolescence, as well as weight change, in relation to total invasive breast cancer incidence and receptor subtypes. We conducted a prospective observational study among 74,177 women from the Nurses' Health Study from 1980-2012, with updated risk factors every 2 years during which 4965 incident invasive breast cancers occurred. Overall, weight at age 18 was inversely associated with both premenopausal (HR per 30 kg = 0.52, 95% CI = 0.39 – 0.71) and postmenopausal (HR per 30 kg = 0.81, 95% CI = 0.72 – 0.92) breast cancer which was largely explained by adiposity at age 10. Long-term weight gain from age 18 both during premenopause and postmenopause were positively associated with postmenopausal breast cancer risk. However, premenopausal weight gain was not related to premenopausal breast cancer risk. Furthermore, weight gain since age 18 was positively associated with ER+/PR+ postmenopausal breast cancer (HR per 30 kg = 1.50, 95% CI = 1.36 – 1.65) but not ER+/PR- (HR per 30 kg = 0.96, 95% CI = 0.78 – 1.19) or ER-/PR- (HR per 30 kg = 1.16, 95% CI = 0.95 – 1.42) postmenopausal breast cancer. Overall, 17% of ER+/PR+ postmenopausal breast cancer and 14% of total postmenopausal breast cancer are attributable to weight gain of > 5 kg since age 18. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Fatherhood as a Transformative Process

Understanding the processes through which fathers meet the challenge of parenthood is critical to the development of policies and practices designed to support fragile families. This chapter focuses on a sample of young, high-risk fathers who made a “better than expected” adjustment to parenthood. Using both quantitative and qualitative methods we found that, despite significant individual and social disadvantages, these fathers developed relational capacities associated with positive parenting. These capacities included a growth-oriented perspective on the co-parenting relationship, a commitment to shared responsibility for taking care of the co-parenting relationship, and a willingness to empathize with their co-parenting partner. Case studies illustrate the transformation of these young fathers and underscore the role of the co-parenting relationship in the development of these critical relational capacities. Discussion focuses on the importance of studying unexpected successes for the development of effective interventions.
Do patients trust the FDA?: a survey assessing how patients view the generic drug approval process.

Purpose Skepticism about the safety and effectiveness of certain generic drugs remains, particularly related to generic drugs that are approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) using product-specific bioequivalence studies that differ from the standard testing pathway. The current study was designed to assess patient knowledge and perceptions of the generic drug approval process. Methods We conducted a survey of patients with 10 different chronic diseases. We recruited survey participants from the CVS Advisor Panel, a proprietary database of 124 621 CVS customers pre-consented to participate in online research activities. We created a survey to collect data on patients' perceptions of the FDA's generic drug approval process, as well as their experiences with generic drugs approved using modified bioequivalence approaches used to treat their chronic medical conditions. Results Our survey of 753 patients with chronic diseases (65% response rate) showed that most (74%) expressed little familiarity with FDA's approval process for generic drugs, but nearly all (89%) believed that FDA approval ensures the safety and effectiveness of generic drugs. About one-fifth of respondents reported hearing concerns about their generic drugs, most commonly from physicians (35-36%) and the Internet (32-38%), but there were no differences in patients' reports of concerns about generic versions of the six study drugs approved using product-specific pathways versus comparator drugs. Conclusions Patients have little knowledge about the generic drug approval system, but positive belief in the safety and effectiveness of generic drugs. Patients do not appear to have greater concern about generic drugs approved via product-specific pathways. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Effect of Training for Amateur Wrestling on Total Proportional Strength Scores

Abstract The total proportional strength test was administered to members of a college physical education class in wrestling, to members of a college wrestling squad before and after training for six weeks, to participants in the 1960 AAU wrestling championships, and to members of the visiting 1959 Japanese champion wrestlers. No significant changes were found in the mean scores of the physical education class or the college squad before and after training. Championship-level wrestlers were stronger than nonwrestlers, but not significantly stronger than those less proficient. The Japanese did not differ significantly from the Americans in strength.
A Dialogue on Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky

In October of 2016, an international symposium was held on the campus of Indiana University, Bloomington, devoted to the belatedly emerging work of the early twentieth-century author Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky. The phenomenon of Krzhizhanovsky’s re-discovery and introduction to English readers as a major figure of European Modernist literature, hidden from the world until the last decade of the twentieth century, provides an ideal scenario for how the institutions of publishing—through selection, translation, editing, design, and marketing—help to shape our understanding of which texts are included within the category of “world literature,” along with the very idea of what “world literature” means.
The Management Nexus of Imperfect Duty: Kantian Views of Virtuous Relations, Reasoned Discourse, and Due Diligence

A nexus of imperfect duty, defined as positive commitments that have practical limits, describes business behavior toward building affable and virtuous relations, maintaining reasoned social discourse, and performing the due diligence necessary for making knowledgeable business decisions. A theory of the development and extent of the limits of these imperfect managerial duties is presented here, a theory that in part explains the activities and personnel included under the firm’s umbrella. As a result, the nexus of imperfect duty is shown to complement the perfect-duty-based nexus-of-contracts theory of the firm. The existence of flexible trade-offs involving these duties, trade-offs limited by contractual arrangements whether explicit or implicit, is shown to be one of the advantages of imperfect duty for developing business relations.
IGF-I and Brain Growth: Multifarious Effects on Developing Neural Cells and Mechanisms of Action

Numerous investigators have provided data supporting an essential role for IGF-I in growth of the brain. IGF-I contributes to multiple processes during brain development, including neural cell survival, proliferation, differentiation and maturation. The IGF type I receptor (IGF-IR) is present on all cell types in the brain, and IGF-I has known actions on neural stem and progenitor cells as well as neurons and glia. IGF-I is highly expressed throughout the brain during development, and its expression is retained in the meninges and in many cell types in the adult brain. While IGF-I has multiple actions on developing neural cells, very few studies have addressed the mechanisms or pathways by which IGF-I mediates these multiple effects. The goal of this chapter is to briefly review data on IGF-I in the developing brain and then to discuss more recent studies that focus on the mechanisms for its varied actions.
Forum: Bruno Latour on Rhetoric

It used to be that only rhetoricians of science and technology read Bruno Latour. However, Paul Lynch and Nathaniel Rivers’s 2015 collection Thinking with Bruno Latour in Rhetoric and Composition d...
Sustaining high-energy orbits of bi-stable energy harvesters by attractor selection

Nonlinear energy harvesters have the potential to efficiently convert energy over a wide frequency range; however, difficulties in attaining and sustaining high-energy oscillations restrict their applicability in practical scenarios. In this letter, we propose an actuation methodology to switch the state of bi-stable harvesters from the low-energy intra-well configuration to the coexisting high-energy inter-well configuration by controlled phase shift perturbations. The strategy is designed to introduce a change in the system state without creating distinct metastable attractors by exploiting the basins of attraction of the coexisting stable attractors. Experimental results indicate that the proposed switching strategy yields a significant improvement in energy transduction capabilities, is highly economical, enabling the rapid recovery of energy spent in the disturbance, and can be practically implemented with widely used low-strain piezoelectric transducers.
Effects of Circumferential Nonuniformity in Compressor Flow Fields Including Vane Wake Variability

Circumferential nonuniformity will always exist in a compressor flow field due to manufacturing inconsistencies, eccentricities, and slight inlet flow nonuniformities. Consequently, discrete statio...
The Conduct of Agricultural Science

This chapter discusses that majority of important research is required to be done in the class of basic science. The new mass of knowledge is still formless, incomplete, lacking the essential threads of connection, displaying misleading signals at every turn, riddled with blind alleys. If the assessment is correct for agricultural research, it portends a difficult and exciting change. It is correct to posit that the primary emphasis of agricultural research for many decades has been to increase grower's productivity and profit. It is also reasonable to assume that agricultural scientists and farmers have other goals. New goals for agriculture require a new kind of inquiry, which pursues scientific truth, but simultaneously has humane goals. It is an inquiry that is specifically value-laden. Its basic aim is to improve knowledge, and personal and global wisdom. Further, scientific objectivity should include thought about what value judgments are made or might be made, and even about those that ought to be made. Full awareness of ethical matters is an essential part of scientific progress toward objectivity. An operative philosophy, which excludes all but empirical success, has enabled agricultural scientists to produce scientific solutions rapidly to many production problems while simultaneously ignoring the problems the solutions create.
Supersaturation Potential of Ordered Mesoporous Silica Delivery Systems. Part 1: Dissolution Performance and Drug Membrane Transport Rates.

Ordered mesoporous silica materials have shown great potential as oral drug delivery systems for poorly soluble drugs. However, the ability of these delivery systems to generate drug supersaturation has not been widely investigated, and the recently noted phenomenon of incomplete drug release is not well understood. Therefore, the aim of this study was to comprehensively evaluate the release of hydrophobic drug molecules into solution from ordered mesoporous silica, focusing on the extent and duration of drug supersaturation. The dissolution and supersaturation behavior of ritonavir, following loading into mesoporous SBA-15 silica particles, was investigated by undertaking simple in vitro dissolution studies in phosphate buffer pH 6.8 and fasted state simulated intestinal fluid, as well as membrane flux studies using a side-by-side diffusion cell apparatus. It was found that supersaturated ritonavir solutions were generated from ritonavir-loaded mesoporous SBA-15 particles; however, drug release was alway...
Quantifying Sexual Orientation Among Homeless and Unstably Housed Women in a Longitudinal Study: Identity, Behavior, and Fluctuations Over a Three-Year Period

Sexual orientation has been linked to certain health conditions, and yet quantifying sexual orientation in longitudinal studies is challenging. This study examined different methods of accounting f...
The natural activation ability of subsurface media to promote in-situ chemical oxidation of 1,4-dioxane.

Abstract The ability of soils and sediments to promote in-situ activation of persulfate and persulfate combined with hydrogen peroxide was investigated for treatment of 1,4-dioxane (dioxane). Experiments were conducted with both batch-reactor and column systems to examine reaction rates and activation mechanisms. Four soils and aquifer sediments were used. ICP-MS and XRD analyses were used to characterize geochemical properties of the solutions and sediments, while EPR spectroscopy was used to characterize radical formation. For the batch experiments, degradation of dioxane was significantly greater in the presence of each of the four subsurface geomedia compared to the controls with no geomedia. This indicates that all four geomedia induced oxidant activation, thereby enhancing dioxane degradation. Dioxane degradation was significantly enhanced by the addition of peroxide to the persulfate solution. It is hypothesized that iron associated with the geomedia is primarily responsible for activation, and that the degree of degradation enhancement relates in part to dissolved-phase iron content. EPR results indicate that manganese oxides and soil organic matter may also have contributed to some degree to persulfate activation, and that manganese oxides enhanced activation of peroxide under the study conditions. Approximately 10% of dioxane was degraded in the miscible-displacement experiments, consistent with the short residence time compared to dioxane's half-life. The pseudo first-order rate coefficients obtained from the batch and column experiments were similar. The results of this study indicate that subsurface geomedia can induce activation of persulfate and peroxide to enhance in-situ chemical oxidation applications.
Rapid prototyping of proteins: Mail order gene fragments to assayable proteins within 24 hours.

In this study, we present a minimal template design and accompanying methods to produce assayable quantities of custom sequence proteins within 24 hr from receipt of inexpensive gene fragments from a DNA synthesis vendor. This is done without the conventional steps of plasmid cloning or cell-based amplification and expression. Instead the linear template is PCR amplified, circularized, and isothermally amplified using a rolling circle polymerase. The resulting template can be used directly with cost-optimized, scalably-manufactured Escherichia coli extract and minimal supplement reagents to perform cell-free protein synthesis (CFPS) of the template protein. We demonstrate the utility of this template design and 24 hr process with seven fluorescent proteins (sfGFP, mVenus, mCherry, and four GFP variants), three enzymes (chloramphenicol acetyltransferase, a chitinase catalytic domain, and native subtilisin), a capture protein (anti-GFP nanobody), and 2 antimicrobial peptides (BP100 and CA(1-7)M(2-9)). We detected each of these directly from the CFPS reaction using colorimetric, fluorogenic, and growth assays. Of especial note, the GFP variant sequences were found from genomic screening data and had not been expressed or characterized before, thus demonstrating the utility of this approach for phenotype characterization of sequenced libraries. We also demonstrate that the rolling circle amplified version of the linear template exhibits expression similar to that of a complete plasmid when expressing sfGFP in the CFPS reaction. We evaluate the cost of this approach to be $61/mg sfGFP for a 4 hr reaction. We also detail limitations of this approach and strategies to overcome these, namely proteins with posttranslational modifications.
Combined Neyman–Pearson chi-square: An improved approximation to the Poisson-likelihood chi-square

Abstract We describe an approximation to the widely-used Poisson-likelihood chi-square using a linear combination of Neyman’s and Pearson’s chi-squares, namely “combined Neyman–Pearson chi-square” ( χ CNP 2 ). Through analytical derivations and toy model simulations, we show that χ CNP 2 leads to a significantly smaller bias on the best-fit model parameters compared to those using either Neyman’s or Pearson’s chi-square. When the computational cost of using the Poisson-likelihood chi-square is high, χ CNP 2 provides a good alternative given its natural connection to the covariance matrix formalism.
A Mixture of U.S. Food and Drug Administration-Approved Monoaminergic Drugs Protects the Retina From Light Damage in Diverse Models of Night Blindness.

Purpose The purpose of this study was to test the extent of light damage in different models of night blindness and apply these paradigms in testing the therapeutic efficacy of combination therapy by drugs acting on the Gi, Gs, and Gq protein-coupled receptors. Methods Acute bright light exposure was used to test susceptibility to light damage in mice lacking the following crucial phototransduction proteins: rod transducin (GNAT1), cone transducin (GNAT2), visual arrestin 1 (ARR1), and rhodopsin kinase 1 (GRK1). Mice were intraperitoneally injected with either vehicle or drug combination consisting of metoprolol (β1-receptor antagonist), bromocriptine (dopamine family-2 receptor agonist) and tamsulosin (α1-receptor antagonist) before bright light exposure. Light damage was primarily assessed with optical coherence tomography and inspection of cone population in retinal whole mounts. Retinal inflammation was assessed in a subset of experiments using autofluorescence imaging by scanning laser ophthalmoscopy and by postmortem inspection of microglia and astrocyte activity. Results The Gnat1-/- mice showed slightly increased susceptibility to rod light damage, whereas the Gnat2-/- mice were very resistant. The Arr1-/- and Grk1-/- mice were sensitive for both rod and cone light damage and showed robust retinal inflammation 7 days after bright light exposure. Pretreatment with metoprolol + bromocriptine + tamsulosin rescued the retina in all genetic backgrounds, starting at doses of 0.2 mg/kg metoprolol, 0.02 mg/kg bromocriptine, and 0.01 mg/kg tamsulosin in the Gnat1-/- mice. The therapeutic drug doses increased in parallel with light-damage severity. Conclusions Our results suggest that congenital stationary night blindness and Oguchi disease patients can be at an elevated risk of the toxic effects of bright light. Furthermore, systems pharmacology drug regimens that stimulate Gi signaling and attenuate Gs and Gq signaling present a promising disease-modifying therapy for photoreceptor degenerative diseases.
School Discipline, Race–Gender and STEM Readiness: A Hierarchical Analysis of the Impact of School Discipline on Math Achievement in High School

While research on school suspensions and its impact on students is not new, scholars have not yet explored whether there is a link between school suspensions and high school students’ preparation for success in STEM. Using nationally representative data, this study explored the relationship of suspensions to math outcomes while considering race–gender intersections and school social control. Our findings confirm that both in and out-of-school suspensions significantly lower math achievement in high school even after controlling for a host of individual and school factors. More so, the effect of suspensions on math achievement persists over time. The analysis reveals that suspended students scored lower in math 2 years after the suspensions occurred after controlling for individual and school characteristics, and prior math achievement. The study also found an overrepresentation of racialized students among those suspended. The paper concludes with a discussion and implications for policies, practice and research.