cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Designing Green Communication Systems for Smart and Connected Communities via Dynamic Spectrum Access

Smart and connected communities (SCCs) are emerging as a novel paradigm that allows the community residents to be connected with surrounding environments through smart technologies. However, there remain important challenges to fully exploit the potential of SCCs in improving societal well-being and prosperity. In particular, there is a need for designing green communication systems that are also capable of providing high quality of service (QoS) to distribute and collect information to and from SCCs. However, simultaneously satisfying both of these criteria is difficult due to varying demands posed by heterogeneous sensing modalities, lack of dedicated infrastructure in rural/sub-urban areas, and certain sustainability constraints. While low-power short-range technologies often fail to achieve high QoS, using 3G or 4G technologies (LTE, LTE-A, GSM) for SCCs will eventually face spectrum scarcity and cross technology interference. In recent times, Dynamic spectrum access (DSA) has been proposed as a solution to overcome policy constraints and improve spectrum scarcity by spectrum sharing. In this article, we show that harnessing DSA in the context of SCCs can also achieve notable benefits in terms of energy efficiency and sustainability. Specifically, we propose a novel architecture for designing sustainable SCCs using a small-scale DSA-enabled overlay network that improves end-to-end energy efficiency of the network while guaranteeing QoS. We also propose a dynamic spectrum band selection approach that intelligently matches any message requirement to a suitable band type by exploiting distinct electro-magnetic characteristics of various bands. Since data generated in SCCs are typically valuable only when delivered within a certain hard (or soft) deadline, we formulate a linear optimization problem for determining the most energy-efficient path that ensures a delivery time within the hard deadline. After proving that such a problem is NP-Hard, we propose an exact pseudo-polynomial time dynamic programming algorithm to solve it followed by a polynomial time greedy heuristic. Additionally, we formulate a non-linear optimization problem to find the optimal path when the message delivery time is defined as a soft deadline and extend our greedy heuristic to handle soft deadlines. Compared to the homogeneous band access approaches that opportunistically access free channels within a given spectrum band, our extensive simulation study shows that the proposed dynamic multi-band selection approach significantly improves the achievable energy efficiency while meeting various hard and soft deadlines.
DynaTest and beyond: From dynamic testing to automated error-prevention and error-detection

DynaTest, which stands for Dynamic Tester, is a macro-language software-testing and validation system that verifies programs, subroutines, and interrupt-handler routines written in assembly language. A scriptwriter writes a DynaTest test driver in a test-script language that specifically supports the development of test scripts. DynaTest uses comparative analysis of a combination of automatically generated pseudo-random test cases and handpicked test cases against a known, working solution. The current version of DynaTest executes on specific hardware platforms. The documented results speak for themselves. Using DynaTest has improved error detection tremendously while dramatically decreasing test-preparation time. Unfortunately, no matter how impressive DynaTest is, it always faces the limited-resource constraints of small microprocessors in embedded systems. With the ever-increasing performance of today's personal computers, a simulated embedded-processor environment opens the way for numerous possible error-prevention and error-detection tools. By wrapping these tools around a simulated embedded-processor environment, we can completely control and analyze the execution phase of a software system. Many tools for high-level languages work by incorporating themselves into the target program, affecting the memory layout and timing of the code. With our tools, we do not modify the target program, and the simulated environment keeps the timing and the memory map unchanged.
Minimum cost edge blocker clique problem

Given a graph with weights on its vertices and blocking costs on its edges, and a user-defined threshold $$\tau >0$$ , the minimum cost edge blocker clique problem (EBCP) is introduced as the problem of blocking a minimum cost subset of edges so that each clique’s weight is bounded above by $$\tau $$ . Clusters composed of important actors with quick communications can be effectively modeled as large-weight cliques in real-world settings such as social, communication, and biological systems. Here, we prove that EBCP is NP-hard even when $$\tau $$ is a fixed parameter, and propose a combinatorial lower bound for its optimal objective. A class of inequalities that are valid for the set of feasible solution to EBCP is identified, and sufficient conditions for these inequalities to induce facets are presented. Using this class of inequalities, EBCP is formulated as a linear 0–1 program including potentially exponential number of constraints. We develop the first problem-specific branch-and-cut algorithm to solve EBCP, which utilizes the aforementioned constraints in a lazy manner. We also developed the first combinatorial branch-and-bound solution approach for this problem, which aims to handle large graph instances. Finally, computational results of solving EBCP on a collection of random graphs and power-law real-world networks by using our proposed exact algorithms are also provided.
Double-effect Reasoning Defended: A Response to Scanlon

Common morality endorses some form of an exceptionless prohibition against killing innocents. Natural lawyers employ double-effect reasoning (DER) to address hard cases involving deaths of the innocent. Current deontologists (Scanlon and Thomson) criticize DERproponents as conflating actwith agent-evaluations. Scanlon develops this critique extensively. I respond to his criticism. He maintains that the DER-advocate tells a badly-motivated agent to refrain from an obligatory act. Thus, he asserts, the natural lawyer who employs DER errs. Instead, Scanlon proposes, one ought to assess the act as permissible while blaming the agent. I argue that DER does not succumb to this critique. Moreover, Scanlon’s particular criticism nicely shows the reasonableness of the approach the DER-thinker takes, namely, that defective agents produce defective acts. Thus, employing DER does not lead to a confusion of actwith agentevaluations. Rather, it results in coherent assessments of both. “The denial of any distinction between foreseen and intended consequences, as far as 2 responsibility is concerned, was not made by Sidgwick in developing any one ‘method of ethics’; he made this important move on behalf of everybody and just on its own account; and I think it plausible to suggest that this move on the part of Sidgwick explains the difference between old-fashioned utilitarianism and that consequentialism, as I name it, which marks him and every English academic philosopher since him. By it, the kind of consideration which formerly would have been regarded as a temptation, the kind of considerations urged upon men by wives and flattering friends, was given a status by moral philosophers in their theories. It is a necessary feature of consequentialism that it is a shallow philosophy.” –G. E. M. Anscombe, Modern Moral Philosophy
Ethics, Body Politic, and Neuroscience

This chapter, Ethics, Body Politic, and Neuroscience, is about moral sentiments, judgement, and the brain; the larger body politic as Holmes figures in all these considerations. There is no special region of the brain for moral sentiments or judgments. There are critical features of human experience sized down to human proportion that are essential.
Reduction of defect generation and development of sinks at nanocluster boundary in oxide dispersion-strengthened steel

The radiation resistance mechanisms of nanoclusters (NCs) in oxide dispersion-strengthened (ODS) steels have been investigated. Molecular dynamics simulation has been used to investigate defect generation during the primary damage state of a displacement cascade in ODS steels for NCs of various radii and a range of primary knock-on atom (PKA) energies. Y2O3 NCs considerably enhance the radiation resistance of ODS steels by reducing the peak defect generation during the cascade within the Fe matrix. The NC also affects the morphology of the collision cascades, depending on PKA energy. At lower energies, the NC’s outer circumference act as a cessation point forming a dampened shockwave compared to a pure Fe system. At higher energies, the PKA energy is able to transfer through the NC, thus causing two smaller shockwaves in the Fe matrix. Along with the alteration of the cascade morphology, the NC boundary acts as a strong defect sink to absorb defects and defect clusters, leading to significant recombination of interstitials and vacancies away from the NC. The interfacial energy of the NCs with the Fe matrix increases with increasing diameter of the oxide NCs. The evolution of the NC is tracked through the primary damage state of a cascade, and the effects of ballistic dissolution play a key role in this evolution, most evident in the 2 nm NC.The radiation resistance mechanisms of nanoclusters (NCs) in oxide dispersion-strengthened (ODS) steels have been investigated. Molecular dynamics simulation has been used to investigate defect generation during the primary damage state of a displacement cascade in ODS steels for NCs of various radii and a range of primary knock-on atom (PKA) energies. Y2O3 NCs considerably enhance the radiation resistance of ODS steels by reducing the peak defect generation during the cascade within the Fe matrix. The NC also affects the morphology of the collision cascades, depending on PKA energy. At lower energies, the NC’s outer circumference act as a cessation point forming a dampened shockwave compared to a pure Fe system. At higher energies, the PKA energy is able to transfer through the NC, thus causing two smaller shockwaves in the Fe matrix. Along with the alteration of the cascade morphology, the NC boundary acts as a strong defect sink to absorb defects and defect clusters, leading to significant recombinatio...
Link-Renaming Technique for Efficiently Increasing Similarity among SDN Entries

Software-defined networking (SDN) is an evolved concept to network's architecture with a centralized form of network controlling. The centralized nature of SDN has raised concerns regarding the high demand for communication on a single controller, which requires high performance to operate the entire network. Some previous studies have addressed these concerns by utilizing the similarities among SDN entries. In this study, we propose a renaming technique for the communication links that aims to increase similarities among SDN entries in order to improve the results of the previously proposed techniques. This model aims to continuously analyze the traffic status and rename input and output ports in a way that positively impacts the content of the entries produced by the controller. According to our preliminary experiments, the proposed renaming technique has the potential to increase the similarities across SDN entries by up to 57% with the amount of incoming traffic of 17,000, which can eventually improve the results of the related techniques.
Immunoglobulin Light Chain Use and Characteristics in the Chlamydophila Psittaci negative MALT Lymphomas of the Ocular Adnexa

Abstract Abstract 1597 Ocular adnexal mucosa associated lymphoid tissue lymphomas (OAMALTL) are the most common lymphomas of the eye. The potential roles for specific antigens in these lymphomas are still controversial. Previously we examined the usage and mutations of the IGVH in Chlamydophila (C) psittaci-negative OAMALTL, demonstrating biased use of the IGHV4 family and IGHV4–34 gene and evidence for antigen selection (PLoS One. 2011;6(12):e29114). However, there have been no previous reports characterizing the Ig light chain (IGKV/IGLV) usage and properties in OAMALTL. Herein, we examined IGKV/IGLV gene usage and mutations in 34 C. psittaci-negative OAMALTL originating from the orbit (15), conjunctivae (14) and lacrimal gland (5). Clonal potentially functional IGKV/IGLV gene sequences were identified in 30 tumors (18 kappa and 12 lambda). Among the 7 kappa light chain families, IGKV1 (n=5, 28%), IGKV2 (n=1, 6%), IGKV3 (n=8, 44%) and IGKV4 (n=4, 22%) were observed. Among the 8 lambda chain families, IGLV2 (n=5, 42%), IGLV3 (n=1, 8%), IGLV6 (n=1, 8%), IGLV7 (n=3, 25%) and IGLV8 (n=2, 17%) were detected. In comparison with the IGKV and IGLV repertoire employed in normal peripheral blood B-lymphocytes, an overrepresentation of the IGKV4 family (P Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.
Novel Targets for the Treatment of Melanoma.

In this article, we will briefly review the current treatment landscape for metastatic melanoma and provide a comprehensive update on emerging novel treatment strategies. Over the past decade, remarkable advances in immunotherapy and targeted therapy have greatly improved outcomes for patients with advanced melanoma. Although a subset of patients is able to achieve durable responses, the majority experience eventual disease progression on existing therapies. Trials evaluating novel combinatorial strategies, checkpoint inhibitors, immune agonists, T cell–based therapies, intratumoral agents, and others are ongoing. While strides have been made in the treatment of advanced melanoma, further research is needed to identify alternative immune and molecular targets in order to overcome resistance and achieve better clinical outcomes.
Dedicated cone-beam breast CT using laterally-shifted detector geometry: Quantitative analysis of feasibility for clinical translation

Background High-resolution, low-noise detectors with minimal dead-space at chest-wall could improve posterior coverage and microcalcification visibility in the dedicated cone-beam breast CT (CBBCT). However, the smaller field-of-view necessitates laterally-shifted detector geometry to enable optimizing the air-gap for x-ray scatter rejection. Objective To evaluate laterally-shifted detector geometry for CBBCT with clinical projection datasets that provide for anatomical structures and lesions. Methods CBBCT projection datasets (n = 17 breasts) acquired with a 40×30 cm detector (1024×768-pixels, 0.388-mm pixels) were truncated along the fan-angle to emulate 20.3×30 cm, 22.2×30 cm and 24.1×30 cm detector formats and correspond to 20, 120, 220 pixels overlap in conjugate views, respectively. Feldkamp-Davis-Kress (FDK) algorithm with 3 different weighting schemes were used for reconstruction. Visual analysis for artifacts and quantitative analysis of root-mean-squared-error (RMSE), absolute difference between truncated and 40×30 cm reconstructions (Diff), and its power spectrum (PSDiff) were performed. Results Artifacts were observed for 20.3×30 cm, but not for other formats. The 24.1×30 cm provided the best quantitative results with RMSE and Diff (both in units of μ, cm-1) of 4.39×10-3±1.98×10-3 and 4.95×10-4±1.34×10-4, respectively. The PSDiff (>0.3 cycles/mm) was in the order of 10-14μ2mm3 and was spatial-frequency independent. Conclusions Laterally-shifted detector CBBCT with at least 220 pixels overlap in conjugate views (24.1×30 cm detector format) provides quantitatively accurate and artifact-free image reconstruction.
Addressing the Observability Problem in Batteries: Algorithm Design for Electrode-level Charge and Health Estimation

From real-time battery estimation viewpoint, weak observability of individual electrode states from terminal voltage measurement is a major barrier. Nevertheless, such electrode-level information can help expand usable energy/power as well as lifespan of the battery cell by enabling electrode-level limit based battery control. Motivated by these promising improvements, we present a real-time framework for estimating charge and health of individual electrodes. Essentially, the weak observability of the electrodes is addressed by decomposing the overall estimation problem into two sub-estimators that work in a cascaded manner to provide charge and health information for individual electrodes. The performance of the proposed scheme is illustrated by using an experimentally identified battery model that considers essential nonlinearities in electrodes' Open Circuit Potential (OCP) functions and resistances as well as dominant Solid Electrolyte Interphase (SEI) aging mechanism. Simulation case studies are presented based on this identified model which validate the effectiveness of the proposed framework.
Handling the Missing Data Problem in Electronic Health Records for Cancer Prediction

Electronic health records (EHRs) are the records containing the patients’ clinic information. The EHRs have been widely used in disease diagnosis and therapy due to the numerous and valuable medical information in them. However, the missing data problem of EHRs hinders the usage. Replacing the missing data with mean values is an approach of data imputation. But, that method weakens the feature importance. In this study, we use the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm to impute the missing data in EHRs. Some machine learning models, including artificial neural network, logistic regression, support vector machine, and random forests are used to evaluate the effectiveness of data imputation. The experimental results show that the prediction accuracies of cancers by using those models on the EHRs imputed by EM algorithm are higher than those by mean values, which indicates the EM algorithm is able to provide accurate estimations in data imputation of EHRs.
Closing the gap: Increasing female representation in surgical leadership.

Abstract Background Female medical students outnumber males with increasing representation in the workforce. However, women remain underrepresented in surgical leadership. Suggested reasons for this discrepancy are lack of female role models, mentorship, and gender discrimination. Thus, we set out to examine the change in leadership over time in our Department. Methods Leadership data was gathered from a Department of Surgery in 2016 and 2020. Demographics including gender, age, and leadership position were compared using chi-squared testing. Results Female representation in leadership roles increased from 2016 to 2020 at each professor rank(professor 0–100%, p Conclusions Female leadership in the Department has increased since 2016. Promoting females to leadership roles provides role models for upcoming female surgeons. Resources should be allocated to promote gender equity in surgical leadership.
Emergency department visits among people with cancer: Frequency, symptoms, and characteristics.

Objective People with cancer are increasingly more likely to visit an emergency department for acute care than the general population. They often have long wait times and more exposure to infection and receive treatment from staff less experienced with cancer-related problems. Our objective was to examine emergency department (ED) visits among people with cancer to understand how often and why they seek care. Methods We conducted a retrospective study of ED visits using the National Syndromic Surveillance Program BioSense Platform. Cancer reported during an ED visit was identified using International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision codes for any cancer type, including bladder, breast, cervical, colorectal, kidney, liver, lung, ovary, pancreas, prostate, or uterine cancers. Symptoms prompting the visit were identified for people with cancer who visited EDs in the United States from June 2017 to May 2018 in ≈4500 facilities, including 3000 EDs in 46 states and the District of Columbia (66% of all ED visits during a 1-year period). Results Of 97 million ED visits examined, 710,297 (0.8%) were among people with cancer. Percentages were higher among women (50.1%) than men (49.5%) and among adults aged ≥65 years (53.6%) than among those ≤64 years (45.7%). The most common presenting symptoms were pain (19.1%); gastrointestinal (13.8%), respiratory (11.5%), and neurologic (5.3%) complaints; fever (4.9%); injury (4.1%); and bleeding (2.4%). Symptom prevalence differed significantly by cancer type. Conclusions The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services encourages efforts to reduce acute care visits among people with cancer. We characterized almost 70% of ED visits among this population.
Quantitative In Vitro-to-In Vivo Extrapolation for Mixtures: A Case Study of Superfund Priority List Pesticides.

In vitro cell-based toxicity testing methods generate large amounts of data informative for risk-based evaluations. To allow extrapolation of the quantitative outputs from cell-based tests to the equivalent exposure levels in humans, reverse toxicokinetic (RTK) modeling is used to conduct in vitro-to-in vivo extrapolation (IVIVE) from in vitro effective concentrations to in vivo oral dose equivalents. IVIVE modeling approaches for individual chemicals are well-established; however, the potential implications of chemical-to-chemical interactions in mixture settings on IVIVE remains largely unexplored. We hypothesized that chemical co-exposures could modulate both protein binding efficiency and hepatocyte clearance of the chemicals in a mixture, which would in turn affect the quantitative IVIVE toxicokinetic parameters. To test this hypothesis, we used 20 pesticides from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) Substance Priority List, both individually and as equimolar mixtures, and investigated the concentration-dependent effects of chemical interactions on in vitro toxicokinetic parameters. Plasma protein binding efficiency was determined by using ultracentrifugation, and hepatocyte clearance was estimated in suspensions of cryopreserved primary human hepatocytes. We found that for single chemicals, the protein binding efficiencies were similar at different test concentrations. In a mixture, however, both protein binding efficiency and hepatocyte clearance were affected. When IVIVE was conducted using mixture-derived toxicokinetic data, more conservative estimates of Activity-to-Exposure Ratios (AERs) were produced as compared to using data from single chemical experiments. Because humans are exposed to mixtures of chemicals, this study is significant as it demonstrates the importance of incorporating mixture-derived parameters into IVIVE for in vitro bioactivity data in order to accurately prioritize risks and facilitate science-based decision-making.
An Active Palm Enhances Dexterity of Soft Robotic In-Hand Manipulation

In-hand manipulation is challenging for soft robotic hands, especially in the real world where robots encounter a variety of object sizes and shapes. As such, the role of the palm is crucial, providing stabilizing contact to objects during grasping and manipulation, and controlling the position of objects with respect to the fingertips. We demonstrate an actuated palm capable of enhancing the in-hand manipulation capabilities of a soft hand by better-utilizing limited finger dexterity. With a combination of physical and virtual experiments, we explore the effects of palm diameter and height on in-hand manipulation performance over a variety of object shapes and sizes, and three key manipulation primitive motions. The results of these experiments show that maintaining manipulation capabilities over a large range of object sizes requires the palm’s diameter to decrease as a function of its height to prevent interference between the fingers and palm. Based on these insights, we design an actuated palm mechanism that achieves the desired relationship between palm height and diameter using one actuated degree of freedom. Finally, we show that this adjustable palm enables the hand to manipulate a larger range of object sizes and aspect ratios, and its utility is demonstrated in a mid-air shelving in-hand manipulation task.
Kant's doctrine of transcendental illusion

Acknowledgements Note on references and translations Introduction Part I. Kant's Discovery of Metaphysical Illusion: 1. Metaphysical error in the pre-critical works 2. The Inaugural Dissertation Part II. Fallacies and Illusions in the Critique of Pure Reason: 3. The transcendental employment of the understanding and the conflation of appearances and things in themselves 4. Transcendental illusion Part III. The Dialectical Influences of Pure Reason: 5. Rational psychology and the pseudo-rational idea of the soul 6. Rational cosmology and the pseudo-empirical idea of the world 7. Rational theology and the pseudo-rational idea of God Part IV. Illusion and Systematicity: 8. The regulative employment of reason Conclusion Selected bibliography Index.
TIME-PERIODIC SOLUTIONS OF QUASILINEAR PARABOLIC DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS II. OBLIQUE DERIVATIVE BOUNDARY CONDITIONS

We study boundary value problems for quasilinear parabolic equations when the initial condition is replaced by periodicity in the time variable. Our approach is to relate the theory of such problems to the classical theory for initial-boundary value problems. In the process, we generalize many previously known results.
The Taming of Democracy Assistance: Why Democracy Promotion Does Not Confront Dictators

Part I. Introduction and Argument: 1. Introduction 2. The argument: structure, agency, and democracy promotion 3. Tame democracy assistance: what it is and why it matters Part II. Testing the Argument: 4. Delegation and the allocation of democracy assistance 5. Changes in American grant-making 6. Creating the democracy establishment 7. Jordan: aid in the shadow of geopolitics 8. Tunisia: reform after revolution Part III. Conclusions: 9. Should democracy promoters be set free? Part IV. Appendices and References: A. Descriptions of categories of democracy assistance B. List of interviewee affiliations C. Major organizations in the democracy establishment D. Data appendix.
Probabilistic propositional planning: representations and complexity

Many representations for probabilistic propositional planning problems have been studied. This paper reviews several such representations and shows that, in spite of superficial differences between the representations, they are "expressively equivalent," meaning that planning problems specified in one representation can be converted to equivalent planning problems in any of the other representations with at most a polynomial factor increase in the size of the resulting representation and the number of steps needed to reach the goal with sufficient probability. The paper proves that the computational complexity of determining whether a successful plan exists for planning problems expressed in any of these representations is EXPTIME-complete and PSPACE-complete when plans are restricted to take a polynomial number of steps.
Wheat Germ Agglutinin ISOLATION AND CRYSTALLIZATION

Abstract Procedures for the isolation, purification, and crystallization of wheat germ agglutinin are described. The agglutinin was purified 184-fold to homogeneity from commercial wheat germ lipase. A molecular weight of 23,500 was estimated for the protein by means of sedimentation equilibrium and sodium dodecyl sulfate gel electrophoresis. The agglutinin is a glycoprotein. Amino acid and carbohydrate compositions are reported. The protein contains unusually high half-cystine and glycine. Glucose was found to be the major carbohydrate constituent.
Wrapped Up in the Flag: Immigration, Ethnic Studies, and Gun Legislation in Arizona

In this article, I direct an anthropological lens to the state's university campuses and to the discursive construction and marketing, as well as the accommodation, negotiation, and contestation of the state's controversial legislation around diversity education and guns. Focusing on tertiary education, I examine both the ways that the rhetoric of liberalism, that of constitutional rights, the nation state, and individualism in particular, has been employed to package and sell the state's anti-Ethnic Studies and pro-gun initiatives, and the discursive struggles in which university communities have been engaged in the attempt to rebut these political incursions. I argue that a liberal discourse has been employed to defend what otherwise might be perceived as discriminatory positions enacted on the state level in Arizona. In this border state, demarcated by ever growing racial and class-based difference, legislation promoting assimilationist pedagogy, and wider gun distribution may be desired, but it is most easily defended when wrapped up in the stars and stripes of liberalism.
Single Mothers and Social Support: The Commitment to, and Retreat from, Reciprocity

Drawing on interviews with thirty-nine single mothers living in a rural area, this paper describes the relationships of support between single mothers and those on whom they rely for assistance in daily living, and explores the extent to which these relationships are based on expectations of reciprocity. After a description of the setting and methods, this article is divided into two sections. The first section argues that single mothers hold most tightly to a narrow norm of balanced reciprocity of material goods and services in their relationships with others in similar situations, but that they stretch that norm as they broaden their support networks outward to those they view as being more fortunate than themselves. In the second section, the work involved in maintaining relationships of dependence and mutuality is analyzed.
A Review of “Walking on a Rolling Deck: Life on the Ark”

Why would one choose to live in one of L’Arche's houses? Why would a “normal” person want to live in community with others who are mentally disabled? Can the disabled truly be the “core” of a commu...
The Upper Paleolithic

The beginning of the Upper Paleolithic is a watershed in European prehistory (Fig. 5.1). It is generally characterized by a number of significant changes in stone and bone technology. It also roughly coincides with the appearance of fully modern humans on the continent. However, the precise nature of both the archaeological and biological changes, as well as the relationship between the two, is much debated (Nitecki and Nitecki 1994). In order to discuss these debates and the conflicting interpretations of evidence, a simple, traditional scenario is first briefly presented.
Electron Spin Relaxation in Vanadyl, Copper(II), and Silver(II) Porphyrins in Glassy Solvents and Doped Solids

Electron spin-echo and saturation-recovery EPR were used to measure phase-memory (1/Tm) and spin–lattice (1/T1) relaxation rates for vanadyl, copper(II), and silver(II) porphyrins in glassy solution or doped solids. The temperature dependence of 1/T1increased in the order vanadyl < copper(II) < silver(II), which is the order in which spin–orbit coupling increases. For AgTTP, the linearity of a plot of log(1/T1) vs 1/Tsuggests the possibility of an Orbach-type process involving an excited state 86 cm−1above the ground state. Below about 50 K,Tmis weakly temperature dependent and values were between 2.5 and 6 μs. The limiting values are attributed to interaction of the electron spins with nuclear spins, predominantly protons. At higher temperatures, 1/Tmincreases due to increasing motion and as 1/T1approaches 1/Tm. For Cu(II), 1/T1is faster in the porphyrin plane, which is the perpendicular plane of thegtensor, and slower along thezaxis of thegtensor. The dominant factor in the orientation dependence of 1/T1appears to be modulation of spin–orbit coupling.
Operating limits of buildings as controllable loads

Demand response of building loads is often considered a building manager operated task on an as-needed basis. With fast developing advances in the communication network of interconnected power systems, buildings have arrived at a crucial point where their autonomous grid connected operation is feasible. In order to effectively participate in demand response programs, building operating limits and effect on the interconnected power system need to be evaluated. This work presents an appropriate building model and evaluates its limits of operation. The goal is to facilitate an improved understanding of grid connected building operation. Building demand response capability will be evaluated under varying ambient conditions and other applicable system parameters. The presented investigation also elucidates conditions under which buildings can be effectively utilized as controllable loads for the electric power system.
Simple analytic variable density spiral design

Variable density spirals have been proposed in a variety of applications, including MR fluoroscopy, cardiac imaging, and MR spectroscopic imaging. In this work, a simple analytic solution for designing a flexible set of variable density spiral trajectory waveforms is presented. The method enables real-time waveform prescription on scanners with limited computational power. Both slew rate-limited and amplitude-limited regimes are incorporated in the design process.
A product information modeling framework for product lifecycle management

The Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) concept holds the promise of seamlessly integrating all the information produced throughout all phases of a product's life cycle to everyone in an organization at every managerial and technical level, along with key suppliers and customers. PLM systems are tools that implement the PLM concept. As such, they need the capability to serve up the information referred to above, and they need to ensure the cohesion and traceability of product data. We describe a product information-modeling framework that we believe can support the full range of PLM information needs. The framework is based on the NIST Core Product Model (CPM) and its extensions, the Open Assembly Model (OAM), the Design-Analysis Integration model (DAIM) and the Product Family Evolution Model (PFEM). These are abstract models with general semantics, with the specific semantics about a particular domain to be embedded within the usage of the models for that domain. CPM represents the product's function, form and behavior, its physical and functional decompositions, and the relationships among these concepts. An extension of CPM provides a way to associate design rationale with the product. OAM defines a system level conceptual model and the associated hierarchical assembly relationships. DAIM defines a Master Model of the product and a series of abstractions called Functional Models-one for each domain-specific aspect of the product-and two transformations, called idealization and mapping, between the master model and each functional model. PFEM extends the representation to families of products and their components; it also extends design rationale to the capture of the rationale for the evolution of the families. The framework is intended to: (1) capture product, design rationale, assembly, and tolerance information from the earliest conceptual design stage-where designers deal with the function and performance of products-to the full lifecycle; (2) facilitate the semantic interoperability of next-generation CAD/CAE/CAM systems; and (3) capture the evolution of products and product families. The relevance of our framework to PLM systems is that any data component in the framework can be accessed directly by a PLM system, providing fine-grained access to the product's description and design rationale.
Americans with Disabilities Act - Compliance Assessment Toolkit on Smartphone

The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) and other accessibility standards specify the requirements for assessing the architectural barriers for the built environment. And, the ADA -- Compliance Assessment Toolkit (ADACAT)provides simple pass-fail assessments of those requirements. Measurement Kit is the principal component of the ADACAT, which consists of various measuring instruments like, measuring tape, sound-level meter, light-level meter, magic slope block, etc. In this essay, we show that most of the instruments in the Measurement Kit can be effectively implemented as a software application on a smartphone equipped with sensors like, accelerometer, gyroscope, and microphone. Detailed algorithms have been presented and the experimental results show that an iPhone or iPod Touch 4:0 application can serve as measuring tape, sound-level meter, as well as slope meter, making the ADACAT both cheaper and more portable.
The Process Skills Rating Scales: Assessment Instruments for Teachers, Parents, and Students.

The Process Skills Rating Scales were constructed to assess the abilities of students at the elementary and secondary levels in 12 areas: Verbal Communication Skills (Speech, Group Discussion, Interviewing, and Debate); Receptive/Nonverbal Communication Skills; Written Communication Skills; Personal Growth and Human Relations Skills; Independent Study; Scientific Research Skills; Library Research; Critical Thinking and Reasoning Skills; and Creative Thinking Skills. Forms are available for students, teachers, and parents. Information on the construction of the 12 instruments and the application for their use is given.
Finite prime-field characteristic sets for planar configurations

Examples are constructed of planar matroids with finite prime-field characteristic sets (i.e. matroids representable over a finite set of prime fields but over fields of no other characteristic). In particular, for any n>3, a projectively unique integer matrix is constructed with 2lsqblog2nrsqb+6 columns which often gives nonsingleton characteristic sets and, when n is prime, has characteristic set {n}. Many finite subsets of primes are shown to be characteristic sets, including {23,59} (the smallest pair found using these methods), all pairs of primes {p, p′:67⩽p 3, AG(2,p) is shown to be a subset of PG(2, q) only for q=ps. Another general construction technique suggests that when P={p1,…,pk} are the primitive prime divisors of 2n±1 (n sufficiently large), then there is a matroid with O (log n) points whose characteristic set is P. We remark that although only one finite nonsingleton characteristic set (due to R. Reid) was known prior to this paper, a new technique by J. Kahn has shown that every finite set of primes forms a (non-prime-field) characteristic set.
Calcium Metabolism in the Laying Hen 1. Calcium Retention in the Digestive Tract of the Laying Hen

Abstract Four experiments were conducted using 301 mature egg-type hens to determine the effect of calcium source, size, and dosage level on CaCO3 retention in the digestive system. The results indicated that particle size of CaCO3 had a definite influence on CaCO3 retention in the gizzard. However, there were no significant differences in CaCO3 retention in the gizzard between hens fed hen-sized CaCO3 or between hens fed pullet-sized CaCO3 regardless of whether the calcium was derived from oyster shell or limestone. The quantity of CaCO3 dosed seemed to have little influence on the metering of CaCO3 from the gizzard. The results also indicated that 87 percent of the CaCO3 metered out of the gizzard in a single 24-hour period was metered out between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. with very little of the CaCO3 being metered out of the gizzard at night.
Comparative trust management with applications: Bayesian approaches emphasis

Trust relationships occur naturally in many diverse contexts such as collaborative systems, e-commerce, interpersonal interactions, social networks, and semantic sensor web. As agents providing content and services become increasingly removed from the agents that consume them, the issue of robust trust inference and update becomes critical. There is a need to find online substitutes for traditional (direct or face-to-face) cues to derive measures of trust, and create efficient and robust systems for managing trust in order to support decision-making. Unfortunately, there is neither a universal notion of trust that is applicable to all domains nor a clear explication of its semantics or computation in many situations. We motivate the trust problem, explain the relevant concepts, summarize research in modeling trust and gleaning trustworthiness, and discuss challenges confronting us. The goal is to provide a comprehensive broad overview of the trust landscape, with the nitty-gritties of a handful of approaches. We also provide details of the theoretical underpinnings and comparative analysis of Bayesian approaches to binary and multi-level trust, to automatically determine trustworthiness in a variety of reputation systems including those used in sensor networks, e-commerce, and collaborative environments. Ultimately, we need to develop expressive trust networks that can be assigned objective semantics.
John Seely Brown: Leveraging the Social Life of Information in the E-Age: Idea Sparkers

Presentation des theses de John Seely Brown, co-auteur de l'ouvrage The Social life of Information: l'individu est amene par le developpement des nouvelles technologies a restreindre ses contacts avec les autres; ce qui reduit la qualite de l'information qu'il recoit. En effet si l'on compare- par exemple- l'enseignement universitaire traditionnel a l'enseignement a distance, on peut remarquer que l'apprentissage s'effectue dans le cas de l'enseignement traditionnel en grande partie en dehors des salles de cours, par des discussiosn informelles dans le cadre du campus- discussions informelles qui n'existent plus ou tres peu dans l'enseignement a distance. Plutot que Je pense, donc je suis il faudrait adopter Je participe, donc je suis
Electrophysiological studies of d-lysergic acid diethylamide in the visual system☆

Experiments involving the use of LSD and observing its effects on neurons involved in the processing of visual information are reviewed. These studies typically involved either intravenous or iontophoretic application of the compound. Both modes of application appeared to block the optic afferent synapse at the level of the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus and to alter the evoked activity of visual cortical neurons. Increasing the dose of LSD regardless of the manner in which it was applied tended to produce depression of both spontaneous and visually driven activity. The receptive field properties of the neurons at all levels of the visual system appear to remain intact after LSD despite changes in spontaneous activity. The effect of LSD on non-specific afferents to the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus is depicted in relationship to two of the different kind of relay cells located in this structure. Data on LSD interaction with the effects of midbrain stimulation on "X" and "Y" neurons is presented.
Comparison of closure strategies after balloon aortic valvuloplasty: suture mediated versus collagen based versus manual.

Objectives: To compare complication rates of a collagen-mediated closure device, suture-mediated closure technique and manual compression for access site management following balloon aortic valvuloplasty (BAV). Background: Vascular complications, including perforation, limb ischemia, ateriovenous fistulas, and pseudoaneurysm, are a common source of morbidity in patients undergoing BAV with large bore femoral artery access. The available options for closure of the access site include manual compression, suture-mediated closure devices, and recently reported collagen-based closure devices. Methods: The study cohort consisted of 333 patients with severe aortic stenosis undergoing BAV. Patients were divided into four groups according to access closure method: (1) Manual compression in 64 (19.2%); (2) Proglide 6 Fr in 162 (48.6%); (3) Angio-Seal 8 Fr in 89 (26.75%); and (4) Prostar 10 Fr in18 (5.4%). Results: There were no significant differences in baseline characteristics among the groups; although the Prostar group was had more males and the Angio-Seal group reported a lower incidence of renal failure and peripheral vascular disease. The Angio-Seal group had shorter procedural duration times compared with the other groups. In the Angio-Seal group (n = 47, 52.8%), a 10 Fr sheath size was primarily used to access the femoral artery, as compared with the manual compression and Proglide groups, which used a 12 Fr sheath in 29 (45.3%) and 66 patients (40.7%), respectively. A 13 Fr sheath was used in the Prostar group (n = 11, 61.1%), P < 0.001. The device failure rate was significantly higher in the Proglide group (n = 20, 12.3%) as compared with Angio-Seal (n = 3, 3.3%) and Prostar groups (n = 1, 5.5%), P = 0.03. Serious vascular complications requiring intervention were significantly higher in the manual compression group (n = 11, 17.1%) compared with the Proglide (n = 11, 6.7%), Angio-Seal (n = 5, 5.6%), and Prostar groups (n = 5, 1%), P < 0.001. The requirement for blood transfusion in the Angio-Seal group was significantly lower (n = 7, 7.8%) as compared with the manual compression (n = 20, 31.2%), Proglide (n = 35, 21.6%), and Prostar groups (n = 5, 27.7%), P < 0.001. Conclusion: In our case series, collagen-based closure devices and suture-mediated closure devices had fewer vascular complications than manual compression for hemostasis following BAV. Patient selection for collagen-based versus suture-mediated closure requires further study. © 2011 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
Influence of dispersants on the bioavailability and trophic transfer of petroleum hydrocarbons to primary levels of a marine food chain

Abstract Use of chemical dispersants as oil spill clean-up agents, alters normal behavior of petroleum hydrocarbons (PH) by increasing functional water solubility. The bioavailable fraction may be increased through higher PH concentrations in the water column and altered interactions between dispersant, oil, and biological membranes. The objective of this research was to determine the impact of dispersing agents on PH bioavailability and trophic transfer. Uptake, bioaccumulation, depuration, and metabolic transformation of a model PH, [ 14 C]naphthalene, were measured and compared for Prudhoe Bay crude oil (PBCO) dispersed with Corexit ® 9527 (DO) and undispersed preparations of the water-accommodated fraction (WAF) of PBCO. The model food chain consisted of Isochrysis galbana , a primary producer, and Brachionus plicatilis , a primary consumer. Direct aqueous (AQ) exposure was compared with combined aqueous and dietary (AQ and D) exposure. Results showed uptake of naphthalene by rotifers was not increased significantly ( P >0.05) in the presence of dispersant. A significant ( P 14 C] recovered in AQ and D exposures and remained associated with the organism during depuration. Characterization of WAF and DO media showed aqueous concentrations of naphthalene were not significantly different. This research has demonstrated that dispersants altered uptake and depuration processes of naphthalene, independent of concentration, in representative species of primary trophic levels of the marine food chain which may in turn modify bioavailability and bioaccumulation at higher trophic levels.
Low temperature cure of vinyl ester resins

Vinyl ester resins are well known for their versatility as a composite matrix. With the development of a promising room temperature molding technology, vacuum-assisted resin transfer molding, e.g. Seemann Composite Resin Infusion Molding Process (SCRIMP), the processability of vinyl ester resins at low temperatures has attracted considerable attention from the composite industry. The objective of this paper is to provide a better understanding of the reaction kinetics of this resin system at low temperatures. In this study, a differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) coupled with a Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometer was employed to measure the reaction profile of a vinyl ester resin with different promoter and styrene contents. A kinetic model based on the free radical co-polymerization mechanism was developed for simulating the reaction rates and conversions of styrene vinyl and vinyl ester vinylene groups. The model parameters were determined from several FTIR experiments under isothermal conditions. This model, in conjunction with heat transfer analysis, was able to successfully predict the temperature profiles during curing in two SCRIMP molding cases based on groove type resin distribution system.