cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Frequency of spontaneous resolution of vasa previa with advancing gestational age

Background Vasa previa is a serious obstetric complication that can result in fetal hemorrhage and death on spontaneous labor. Suggested management for vasa previa is elective hospitalization and cesarean delivery before spontaneous labor. There is little reported evidence of the rate of vasa previa resolution over the course of gestation. Identification of the resolution rate and of factors predictive of resolution potentially could improve clinical management and patient counseling. Objective The purpose of this study was to identify the resolution rate of vasa previa across gestation and to determine clinical and sonographic factors that are associated with vasa previa resolution. Study Design We conducted a retrospective cohort study of all women who were diagnosed with vasa previa in a single ultrasound unit between 2005 and 2018. Vasa previa was defined as a fetal vessel within 2 cm of the internal cervical os on transvaginal sonography. The primary outcome was vasa previa resolution, defined as migration of the vasa previa to >2 cm away from the internal os. Results One hundred women with vasa previa that had been diagnosed at a mean gestational age of 22.8±4.9 weeks were included. Thirty-nine women (39.0%; 95% confidence interval, 30–49%) had resolution of vasa previa at a mean gestational age of 28.6–4.7 weeks. Factors that were associated with vasa previa resolution were an earlier gestational age at diagnosis (adjusted odds ratio, 6.10; 95% confidence interval,1.92–19.40), vasa previa did not cover the internal os at diagnosis (adjusted odds ratio, 8.29; 95% confidence interval, 2.79–24.62), and vasa previa was not the result of a resolved placenta previa (adjusted odds ratio, 2.85; 95% confidence interval, 1.01-–8.03). One woman with a dichorionic twin pregnancy and vasa previa resolution (at 31 weeks gestation; fetal vessels located 2.8 cm from the internal os) presented at 33 weeks with massive bleeding and fetal death of twin A. It was unclear whether the death was related to vasa previa or placental abruption. Conclusion Thirty-nine percent of vasa previas in our population resolved over the course of pregnancy. Earlier gestational age at diagnosis, vasa previa not covering the internal os, and not having a resolved placenta previa all are associated independently with an increased likelihood of vasa previa resolution. Women with vasa previa should be observed serially to assess for vasa previa resolution, because many will resolve in the third trimester.
A look into developer intentions for app compatibility in Android

Android apps have become a primary domain of software applications. However, various causes (e.g., fragmentation and SDK evolution) have led to growing compatibility issues in Android, as especially experienced by end users as these issues causing installation/execution failures of apps. Toward systematically understanding the compatibility issues in the Android ecosystem, this paper looks into developers' intentions for achieving compatibility of apps and/or preventing potential compatibility issues. We characterized such intentions as reflected via relevant app attributes, in 100,925 benign and malicious apps developed in years 2010--2017. We observed that, among many other findings, there were always developers whose intentions were clearly against Android's compatibility recommendations. Generally, malware developers' intentions were significantly and largely different from those of benign apps. The intentions were also constantly evolving, gradually moving to target newer platforms yet with years of delay, with a slower pace in malware. The compatibility intentions, however, were not always fulfilled as expected, despite the specific platform versions intended for.
Cloning and interspecies comparisons of three newt (Notophthalmus viridescens) fibroblast growth factor receptor sequences

We report the nucleotide sequences of two fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR) cDNAs, FGFR1 and FGFR3, from the newt species Notophthalmus viridescens. These two cDNA sequences and a previously published newt FGFR cDNA, FGFR2, were used to derive the amino acid sequences which were then compared with their homologues from other species. This comparison shows that the intracellular tyrosine kinase domain is highly conserved across the species examined with the second half of the domain slightly more conserved than the first half. The 3′ portion of the carboxyl terminal tail is not very highly conserved. The comparison of the extracellular portion of FGFR2 shows a high degree of conservation among the Ig-like domains and a low degree of conservation in the region that links the third Ig-like domain with the transmembrane domain. (Mol Cell Biochem 175: 11–19, 1997)
THE INFLUENCE OF LONELINESS AND RURAL RESIDENCE ON DEPRESSION IN LATER LIFE

Loneliness is associated with depression among older adults. Limited research has examined the role of rurality in relationship to loneliness and depression; the extant research has mixed findings. The socioemotional selectivity theory states that as people age the quality of relationships become more important than the quantity (English & Carstensen, 2016). Individuals in rural areas may have a low quantity of relationships but deeper social ties within the community; thus, they may be less likely to become depressed over time. The association between loneliness and depression may be amplified for people in non-rural areas because they are surrounded by other people but lack close relationships that are most important during the aging process. This study examines the effect of living in rural areas on loneliness on predicting baseline depression and loneliness, as well as changes in these outcomes over time. Data are from the 2006-2014 waves of Health Retirement Study. Regression models examine the relationship between depression loneliness and rural residence controlling for health conditions and demographic characteristics. Latent curve models examine the disparity in trajectories of loneliness and depressive symptoms by urban and rural residence. Older adults who feel lonely (p<.001) and in urban areas (p<.0.05) are more likely to be depressed. Furthermore, the effect of loneliness on depression is weakened by rural residence (p<.05). It is salient to understand the protective effect of rural residency on depression among older adults in the U.S. We discuss implications for policy.
Using auto-generated materials to facilitate instructors' offline preparation and improve students' learning outcomes

We demonstrate a new pedagogical approach that allows the instructors to efficiently use their offline time to prepare for their data structures and algorithms (DSAs) lectures. We will first show the audience a system that can automatically generate visualized teaching materials. After that, we will show a live demo about how an instructor uses the auto-generated materials in teaching a data structure class. In the end, we will share a summary of the course survey.
Major Career Theories: International and Developmental Perspectives

This chapter examines international and developmental issues in career and vocational guidance through three major theoretical perspectives: person-environment fit theories, self-concept theories, and theories of career decision-making and social learning. After briefly presenting the historical context and origin theories of each of these three broad schools of thought, the chapter identifies key scientific support for the application of the theories across the lifespan based on contemporary evidence and current state of theory. Research, interventions and theoretical contributions from international scholars are included, and the global impact of the theories are discussed. The chapter also identifies areas that require additional attention by career and vocational researchers, and emphasises the value of adopting a “cradle through career” approach to career theory and research.
The Great Exodus from China: Trauma, Memory, and Identity in Modern Taiwan

Dominic Meng-Hsuan Yang examines one of the least understood migrations in modern East Asia - the human exodus from China to Taiwan when Chiang Kai-shek's regime collapsed in 1949. Peeling back layers of Cold War ideological constructs, he tells a very different story from the conventional Chinese civil war historiography that focuses on debating the reasons for Communist success and Nationalist failure. Yang lays bare the traumatic aftermath of the Chinese Communist Revolution for the hundreds of thousands of ordinary people who were forcibly displaced from their homes across the sea. Underscoring the displaced population's trauma of living in exile and their poignant 'homecomings' four decades later, he presents a multi-event trajectory of repeated traumatization with recurring searches for home, belonging, and identity. This thought-provoking study challenges established notions of trauma, memory, diaspora, and reconciliation.
Directional recrystallisation processing: a review

Directional recrystallisation processing is a solid-state process in which a specimen traverses a sharp hot zone and one or a few grains grow as they pass through the hot zone. The mechanism can be...
Biotin rescues mitochondrial dysfunction and neurotoxicity in a tauopathy model

Mitochondrial and metabolic dysfunction are often implicated in neurological disease, but effective mechanism-based therapies remain elusive. We performed a genome-scale forward genetic screen in a Drosophila model of tauopathy, a class of neurodegenerative disorders characterized by the accumulation of the protein tau, and identified manipulation of the B-vitamin biotin as a potential therapeutic approach in tauopathy. We show that tau transgenic flies have an innate biotin deficiency due to tau-mediated relaxation of chromatin and consequent aberrant expression of multiple biotin-related genes, disrupting both carboxylase and mitochondrial function. Biotin depletion alone causes mitochondrial pathology and neurodegeneration in both flies and human neurons, implicating mitochondrial dysfunction as a mechanism in biotin deficiency. Finally, carboxylase biotin levels are reduced in mammalian tauopathies, including brains of human Alzheimer's disease patients. These results provide insight into pathogenic mechanisms of human biotin deficiency, the resulting effects on neuronal health, and a potential therapeutic pathway in the treatment of tau-mediated neurotoxicity.
diSBPred: A machine learning based approach for disulfide bond prediction.

Abstract The protein disulfide bond is a covalent bond that forms during post-translational modification by the oxidation of a pair of cysteines. In protein, the disulfide bond is the most frequent covalent link between amino acids after the peptide bond. It plays a significant role in three-dimensional (3D) ab initio protein structure prediction (aiPSP), stabilizing protein conformation, post-translational modification, and protein folding. In aiPSP, the location of disulfide bonds can strongly reduce the conformational space searching by imposing geometrical constraints. Existing experimental techniques for the determination of disulfide bonds are time-consuming and expensive. Thus, developing sequence-based computational methods for disulfide bond prediction becomes indispensable. This study proposed a stacking-based machine learning approach for disulfide bond prediction (diSBPred). Various useful sequence and structure-based features are extracted for effective training, including conservation profile, residue solvent accessibility, torsion angle flexibility, disorder probability, a sequential distance between cysteines, and more. The prediction of disulfide bonds is carried out in two stages: first, individual cysteines are predicted as either bonding or non-bonding; second, the cysteine-pairs are predicted as either bonding or non-bonding by including the results from cysteine bonding prediction as a feature. The examination of the relevance of the features employed in this study and the features utilized in the existing nearest neighbor algorithm (NNA) method shows that the features used in this study improve about 7.39 % in jackknife validation balanced accuracy. Moreover, for individual cysteine bonding prediction and cysteine-pair bonding prediction, diSBPred provides a 10-fold cross-validation balanced accuracy of 82.29 % and 94.20 %, respectively. Altogether, our predictor achieves an improvement of 43.25 % based on balanced accuracy compared to the existing NNA based approach. Thus, diSBPred can be utilized to annotate the cysteine bonding residues of protein sequences whose structures are unknown as well as improve the accuracy of the aiPSP method, which can further aid in experimental studies of the disulfide bond and structure determination.
THE ETHNOSEMANTICS OF SORCERY IN HOUSE MADE OF DAWN

Early to mid-twentieth-century ethnographies are consulted for the stylolinguistic interpretation of the ethnosemantics of sorcery in the native world of House Made of Dawn. Utilizing the resources of linguistic anthropology with a focus on ethnoscience, a portion of the cognitive system which reveals possible strategies for the identification of practitioners of witchcraft has been reconstructed. Article visualizations:
Long-Term Impact of Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act on the Financial Industry

Early studies of the impact of the Financial Modernization Act of 1999 on U.S. financial system reflected a short-term positive effect. However, when the research is extended to the long term effects of the said policy, it is clear that the reform created unwarranted increase in systematic and total risk in all sectors of the financial industry. The Act prompted tremendous growth of the “SIFIs“ and other large financial institutions and became a triggering event for “TBTFs” increase in size and risk; created an unhealthy degree of correlation with the broader market and presented market-wide threat. The negative consequences of such impact required a government involvement, funded by the taxpayers. The findings underscore a danger of the premature conclusions based on preliminary data as applied to the policy study.
The Life-World and the Patient’s Expectations of New Knowledge

The essays which constitute the present volume tend to raise and clarify issues from the perspectives of the physician, the biomedical researcher and even the technologist and technocrat. Problems made thematic when turning, as this volume does, to the moral uses of new knowledge in the biomedical sciences, fail to be adequately raised, however, if we ignore the patient’s perspective. It may prove useful, prior to construing persons as patients (a particular social role we should be reminded), to draw a sketch of our contemporary social world, not one depicted through the sociologist’s categories and jargon, but one penned by the philosopher’s hand which takes its point of departure from the patient’s scientifically naive standpoint.
Assessing Acquisition of and Preference for Mand Topographies During Functional Communication Training

We assessed acquisition and preference for various mand topographies in the presence of establishing operations that, historically, evoked the aggression of a child with autism. First, we implemented functional communication training (FCT) and reinforced picture exchange, iPad®, or GoTalk® activations in a multi-element format (noting differences in aggression and/or mand independence across conditions). Then, we conducted a concurrent-operant mand preference assessment. Finally, we presented assessment results to the subject’s mother and asked her to indicate her own preference. Parent and subject preferences were aligned and we completed therapy using the iPad®.
Glycinergic Inhibition Contributes to the Generation of Rostral Scratch Motor Patterns in the Turtle Spinal Cord

Cutaneous stimulation within the rostral scratch receptive field in a low spinal-immobilized turtle elicits a fictive rostral scratch reflex characterized by robust rhythmic motor output from ipsilateral hindlimb muscle nerves and weaker, alternating motor discharge in contralateral nerves. Simultaneous bilateral stimulation elicits bilateral rostral scratch motor patterns in which activity on the right and left sides alternates. We investigated the role of glycinergic inhibition in the generation and coordination of fictive rostral scratch motor patterns. Glycine (2 or 5 mm) and strychnine (5–50 μm), a glycine antagonist, were superfused over the anterior spinal hindlimb enlargement while fictive rostral scratch motor output was recorded bilaterally from hindlimb muscle nerves in the form of electroneurograms (ENGs). Although glycine reduced rostral scratch burst frequencies, strychnine tended to increase burst frequency. Strychnine also changed the shape of hip flexor ENG bursts, resulting in more abrupt burst onsets, indicating an earlier recruitment of motor neurons with large ENG spikes. During bilateral stimulation, strychnine increased the variability of interlimb phase values (left vs right hip flexor bursts) but did not abolish right-left alternation. These results indicate that glycinergic neurons in or near the anterior hindlimb enlargement contribute to the overall timing of the rostral scratch rhythm and to the recruitment timing of individual hip flexor motor neurons within each scratch burst. Our data also indicate that glycinergic mechanisms contribute to, but are not critically important for, maintaining an alternating interlimb coordination during bilateral scratch motor patterns.
A Note on the Use of County-Level UCR Data

County-level crime data have major gaps, and the imputation schemes for filling in the gaps are inadequate and inconsistent. Such data were used in a recent study of guns and crime without considering the errors resulting from imputation. This note describes the errors and how they may have affected this study. Until improved methods of imputing county-level crime data are developed, tested, and implemented, they should not be used, especially in policy studies.
Network coverage sensitive pseudo geometric broadcast protocols in wireless sensor networks

Due to the deployment limitations of global positioning system (GPS), a pseudo geometric broadcast approach is investigated in resource constrained wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Without relying on the GPS support, a set of nodes closely located in a strategic position is judiciously searched and identified as a forwarding node. In this paper, we first propose both enhanced ad hoc broadcast protocol (AHBP) with target forwarding nodes (EBP(|N ƒ |)) and node distribution sensitive broadcast (NDS) to maximize the network coverage while minimizing the number of broadcasts. Second, we revisit prior AHBP and approximating neighbor nodes based broadcast protocol (Approx) for investigation in terms of network coverage. For performance comparison study, we modify the AHBP and broadcast protocol for sensor networks (BPS), denoted as BPS*. We conduct extensive simulation experiments using OMNeT++ and analyze the performance of protocols. Extensive simulation results indicate that the proposed EBP(|N ƒ |) and NDS protocols achieve competitive performance and can be a viable approach in WSNs.
Open architecture for a packet-optical solution

PM-QPSK 100G coherent technology based packet optical solution is creating new multilayer convergence network architecture. The black link standardization is expanding from 10G to 100G physical interfaces and leads to line side interoperability between different vendors. In addition, efforts are under way to define a network management interface. A packet optical solution is reviewed and the operation model of the new network architecture based on packet optical solution is discussed. The final goal is an open packet optical network architecture and the key ingredient is the path computation element that enables an integrated provisioning for IP/MPLS and wavelength.
Chemical influences on the specificity of tyrosine phosphorylation.

Biological tyrosine phosphorylation has become an extensively studied reaction. Little, however, is known of the chemistry involved. The acetylation of the tyrosyl phenolic hydroxyl group by N-acetylimidazole was studied as a model acylation reaction over the pH range 7.5-9.5. The reactivities of tyrosine and 3-fluorotyrosine were compared. The ratio of reactivities, kappa F-Tyr/kappa Tyr, decreases with increasing pH. Extrapolation to the state in which equivalent concentrations of the two derivatives exist indicates that, consistent with Bronsted theory, tyrosine is 17 times more reactive than fluorotyrosine. No reactivity was observed with tetrafluorotyrosine, 3-nitrotyrosine, or 3,5-dinitrotyrosine. A peptide containing fluorotyrosine was synthesized and compared with the tyrosine-containing peptide as a substrate for the insulin receptor/tyrosine kinase. In both the presence and absence of insulin, the tyrosine peptide was phosphorylated with higher Vm and Km values than the fluorotyrosine peptide was. These results suggest that ionization of the tyrosyl hydroxyl group has an effect on both the chemical and enzymatic reactivities of the tyrosyl residue in acylation reactions. A model is suggested in which deprotonation of the acceptor occurs upon binding of the substrate to the kinase and implicates a role for the substrate site microenvironment in defining substrate specificity.
Legitimate Acts and Illegal Encounters: Law and Society in Antigua and Barbuda

Mindie Lazarus-Black. Legitimate Acts and Illegal Encounters: Law and Society in Antigua and Barbuda. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994.
Energy Conservation in Terminal Airspace Through Fuel Consumption Modeling

A survey discusses mathematical fuel consumption models being studied by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration to be used for investigative calculations, simulation studies, and optimum fuel flight-planning aimed at reducing the estimated 1.66 billion gal/yr of fuel being wasted due to air traffic control delays and procedures, and at quantifying the fuel parameters that are being traded off for aviation noise and air pollution objectives.
Parental training for incarcerated fathers: effects on attitudes, self-esteem, and children's self-perceptions.

The effects of parent education programs on the parenting attitudes and abilities of 30 U.S. male inmates and on the self-perceptions of their children (aged 8-17 years) were examined. Inmates were pre- and posttested with the Adult-Adolescent Parenting Inventory and the Index of Self-Esteem. The children were administered the Self-Perception Profile for Children or the Self-Perception Profile for Adolescents. Participants in the experimental group completed a 6-week program including parental training and behavior-management training. The control group's 6-week program consisted of viewing family-related videotapes, answering questions, and discussing the contents of the videotapes. Parent education improved the attitudes of inmates toward appropriate parenting but did not significantly change their children's self-perceptions.
Consequentialist demographic norms and parenting rights.

This paper extends the author’s recent work on dynamically consistent consequentialist social norms for an unrestricted domain of decision trees with risk to trees in which the population is a variable consequence — i.e., endogenous. Given a form of ethical liberalism and ethical irrelevance of distant ancestors, classical utilitarianism is implied (provided also that a weak continuity condition is met). The “repugnant conclusion” that having many poor people may be desirable can be avoided by denying that individuals’ interests extend to the circumstances of their birth. But it is better avoided by recognizing that potential parents have legitimate interests concerning the sizes of their families.
Increasing uptake of live attenuated influenza vaccine among children in the United States, 2008-2014.

Abstract The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommends annual influenza vaccination for all persons in the United States aged ≥6 months. On June 25, 2014, ACIP preferentially recommended live attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV) for healthy children aged 2–8 years [1] . Little is known about national LAIV uptake. To determine uptake of LAIV relative to inactivated influenza vaccine, we analyzed vaccination records from six immunization information system sentinel sites (approximately 10% of US population). LAIV usage increased over time in all sites. Among children 2–8 years of age vaccinated for influenza, exclusive LAIV usage in the collective sentinel site area increased from 20.1% (2008–09 season) to 38.0% (2013–14). During 2013–14, at least half of vaccinated children received LAIV in Minnesota (50.0%) and North Dakota (55.5%). Increasing LAIV usage suggests formulation acceptability, and this preexisting trend offers a favorable context for implementation of ACIP's preferential recommendation.
Lepton flavor-violating transitions in effective field theory and gluonic operators

Lepton flavor-violating processes offer interesting possibilities to probe new physics at multi-TeV scale. We discuss those in the framework of effective field theory, emphasizing the role of gluonic operators. Those operators are obtained by integrating out heavy quarks that are kinematically inaccessible at the scale where low-energy experiments take place and make those experiments sensitive to the couplings of lepton flavor-changing neutral currents to heavy quarks. We discuss constraints on the Wilson coefficients of those operators from the muon conversion ${\ensuremath{\mu}}^{\ensuremath{-}}+(A,Z)\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{e}^{\ensuremath{-}}+(A,Z)$ and from lepton flavor-violating tau decays with one or two hadrons in the final state, e.g., $\ensuremath{\tau}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\ell}{\ensuremath{\eta}}^{(\ensuremath{'})}$ and $\ensuremath{\tau}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\ell}{\ensuremath{\pi}}^{+}{\ensuremath{\pi}}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ with $\ensuremath{\ell}=\ensuremath{\mu},e$. To illustrate the results we discuss explicit examples of constraining parameters of leptoquark models.
Epoxide hydrolase activity in the mitochondrial fraction of mouse liver

The intense interest in the metabolic fate of epoxidized xenobiotics is due to several factors. For instance, epoxides are often intermediates in the lipophile to hydrophile conversions necessary for the excretion of olefinic and aromatic compounds by living systems, and are widely encountered in man's diet from both natural and man-made sources. Some of these epoxidized compounds may alkylate proteins and nucleic acids and thus include some of the most potent cytotoxins, mutagens and carcinogens known. In mammals, epoxides may rearrange, deoxygenate to olefins, react with glutathione to form conjugates, or be hydrolysed by water to yield 1,2-diols with or without enzymatic catalysis. The enzymes which catalyse the formation of diols are known as epoxide hydrolases (EC 3.3.2.3), and their subcellular distribution is the subject of this report. Early data showed that styrene oxide hydrolase activity was associate with the microsomal subcellular fraction. Epoxide hydrolase activity was subsequently demonstrated on the nuclear, Golgi apparatus and plasma membranes, and in the cytosol of the cell, leaving the mitochondria as the last major cellular organelle assumed to be devoid of epoxide hydrolase activity. We now report strong evidence for the occurrence of substantial epoxide hydrolase activity in the mitochondria.
Hybrid metal mesh-dielectric mirrors for optically pumped far infrared lasers

A hybrid metal mesh-dielectrically coated mirror, highly reflecting in the near ir and partially transmitting in the far ir, for use in optically pumped molecular lasers, is described. Ge and CaF2 were used for the dielectric films, along with Ni meshes deposited on Si substrates. The dielectric dispersion properties of the CaF2 thin films were studied in the 2–15-μm range to provide design data. With a four layer dielectric coating and a metal mesh, the specular reflection of the mirror could be maintained greater than 90% over a 2-μm range in the near ir, and by choice of mesh, the transmittance in the 400–600-μm range varied from 0% to greater than 40%.
PAX2: a reliable marker for nephrogenic adenoma

Nephrogenic adenoma is a rare lesion of the urinary tract. The diagnosis usually is straightforward when characteristic microscopic and clinical findings are present, and the entity is familiar. However, misdiagnosis, in particular of adenocarcinoma of the prostate gland, may occur. Immunohistochemical stains often are needed to make such a distinction, but currently available markers offered only partial help. It recently was demonstrated that nephrogenic adenoma in renal transplant patients originated from the renal tubular epithelium. This newly proved, but long sought information may be helpful in the differential diagnosis of neophrogenic adenoma. In this study, we investigated the expression of a renal transcription factor, PAX2, in 39 nonrenal transplant-related nephrogenic adenomas, 100 adenocarcinomas of the prostate gland, and 47 urothelial carcinomas of the urinary tract. A strong and distinct nuclear staining of PAX2 was found in all 39 cases of nephrogenic adenoma (100%), but not in normal prostate tissue, normal urothelium, adenocarcinomas of the prostate gland, and invasive urothelial carcinomas. Focal CD10 was detected in six of 13 nephrogenic adenomas in the superficial papillary component and in normal prostate epithelium, normal urothelium, lymphocytes, adenocarcinoma of the prostate gland, and urothelial carcinoma. There was no uroplakins detected in nephrogenic adenoma. Therefore, these findings are suggesting that nephrogenic adenoma in nonrenal transplant patients may also arise from the renal epithelium, as did the comparable lesions after transplantation. PAX2 is a specific and sensitive immunohistochemical marker in identification and differential diagnosis of nephrogenic adenoma.
Exact fast computation of band depth for large functional datasets: How quickly can one million curves be ranked?

Band depth is an important nonparametric measure that generalizes order statistics and makes univariate methods based on order statistics possible for functional data. However, the computational burden of band depth limits its applicability when large functional or image datasets are considered. This paper proposes an exact fast method to speed up the band depth computation when bands are defined by two curves. Remarkable computational gains are demonstrated through simulation studies comparing our proposal with the original computation and one existing approximate method. For example, we report an experiment where our method can rank one million curves, evaluated at fifty time points each, in 12.4 seconds with Matlab. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Limited feedback with joint CSI quantization for multicell cooperative generalized eigenvector beamforming

Existing work on limited feedback for cooperative multicell beamforming quantizes the desired and interfering channel state information (CSI) using separate codebooks. In this paper, it is shown that comparatively higher sum-rates can be obtained by jointly quantizing the desired and interfering CSI using a single codebook. A selection criterion is developed for random vector quantization (RVQ) to show that joint quantization with RVQ yields higher sum-rates than those obtained using separate codebooks. The generalized Lloyd algorithm is then used to generate codebooks using the codeword design strategy proposed in this paper. Simulations are used to show that the proposed joint quantization approaches perform almost as well as the full CSI case.
Implicit Lyapunov control for Schrödinger equations with dipole and polarizability term

We analyze in this paper finite dimensional closed quantum systems in interaction with a laser field. The characteristic of the problem is that the interaction laser-system is modeled by a first order term (dipole coupling) and a second order term (polarisability coupling), that appear in the Hamiltonian of the Schrodinger equation. In order to determine the control, an implicit Lyapunov trajectory tracking procedure is applied when there is no direct coupling between the target state and the eigenvectors of the internal hamiltonian. The method is applied for the difficult case of degenerate systems too. The controlled Lyapunov function is defined by an implicit equation and its existence is shown by a fix point theorem. The convergence is analysed using the LaSalle invariance principle. The performance of the feedbacks is illustrated by numerical simulations.
Survey of RFID and Its Application to International Ocean/Air Container Tracking

“Internet of Things” (IoT) requires information to be collected from “anything”, “anytime”, and “anywhere”. In order to achieve this, wireless devices are required that have (1) automatic data acquisition capability, (2) small size, (3) long life, and (4) long range communication capability. One way to meet these requirements is to adopt active Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) systems. Active RFID is more advantageous than passive RFID and enables higher data reading performance over longer distances. This paper surveys active RFID systems, the services they currently promise to provide, technical problems common to these services, and the direction in which research should head in the future. It also reports the results of EPCglobal (EPC: Electronic Product Code) pilot tests conducted on global logistics for tracking ocean/air container transportation using active RFID systems for which we developed several new types of active RFID tags. The test results confirm that our active RFID tags have sufficient capability and low power consumption to well support ocean/air transportation and logistics service.
Collisional redistribution and saturation of near-resonance scattered light

This paper reports on our studies of near-resonant scattering of laser light in a collisional environment. A pulsed dye laser with a peak power of 55 MW/${\mathrm{cm}}^{2}$ was tuned near the 460.73-nm resonance line of strontium and the side emission was observed from an oven containing both strontium vapor and argon buffer gas. The emission was composed of three spectral components: Rayleigh scattering at the frequency of the laser ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{L}$, fluorescence at the resonance frequency ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{0}$ of strontium, and a third component at $2{\ensuremath{\omega}}_{L}\ensuremath{-}{\ensuremath{\omega}}_{0}$. These three components have been studied as a function of the frequency and intensity of the laser and also as a function of the argon buffer gas pressure. While the Rayleigh emission was found to vary as ${\ensuremath{\Delta}}^{\ensuremath{-}2}$ ($\ensuremath{\Delta}={\ensuremath{\omega}}_{0}\ensuremath{-}{\ensuremath{\omega}}_{L}$), the fluorescence component, which was produced by Sr-Ar collisions, was found to be asymmetric with the sign of $\ensuremath{\Delta}$ as predicted by line-broadening theory. By measuring the ratio of the intensities of the fluorescence and Rayleigh components, we were able to measure directly the collisional redistribution function, important in the study of radiative transfer in stellar and planetary atmospheres. At high laser intensities all three components were found to saturate. The results were compared with the theoretical predictions of Mollow's steady-state theory. Theoretical fits for the high-intensity results were obtained when the collisional cross sections were taken to be considerably smaller than in our low-intensity measurements. We believe the discrepancy lies in the use of a steady-state theory for a transient experiment. Effects of radiative trapping and spatial averaging are also discussed.
Renewed catch-up growth with increased replacement doses of human growth hormone*

D'apres l'analyse des resultats observes chez 8 enfants de 6 a 12 ans dont 7 cas de deficit idiopathique en GH (DIGH) traites durant 2 a 6 ans, le triplement des doses de GH dans les cas de DIGH a ete bien tolere, sans effets secondaires metaboliques fâcheux; il a entraine une acceleration nette de la croissance qui laisse esperer un rattrapage du potentiel statural genetique
ERM effects on currency spot and futures markets

Abstract The effects of the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) of 1991–1993 on currency markets are examined. It is shown that the mechanism has led to a regime shift going from the 1980s to the 1990s. The floating exchange rates of the 1980s are associated with the forward premium puzzle (FPP) in spot markets. Furthermore, the futures–spot basis does have explanatory power on futures returns, which violates the expectations hypothesis. In the 1990s the FPP is diminished and uncovered interest parity holds in spot markets and futures returns cannot be explained by the basis. Therefore, the main contribution of this article is that the ERM has reduced currency risk premium volatility and thus validated the expectations hypothesis in both spot and futures markets.
Ridge crest hydrothermal activity and the balances of the major and minor elements in the ocean: The Galapagos data

Samples collected by the deep submersible “Alvin” from four hot spring fields (T = 3–13°C) on the crest of the Galapagos spreading ridge show pronounced and varied compositional anomalies. If it is assumed that these have a general significance, that they are associated with hydrothermal reactions between seawater and basalt wherever new oceanic crust is being produced then global fluxes can be computed. These are large. For Mg and SO4 they balance the river input. For Li and Rb they exceed it by factors of between five and ten. Calcium is supplied at a rate equivalent to that of non-carbonate Ca from the continents. The additions of K, Ba and Si are between one third and two thirds of the river load. There are large positive and negative anomalies for Cl and Na indicating that substantial amounts of Cl may be taken up by the newly formed crust and transported deep into the subduction zones. Where there are data in common, the field measurements agree with the experimental findings at low (<5) water/rock ratios.
Non-computable strategies and discounted repeated games

A number of authors have used formal models of computation to capture the idea of “bounded rationality” in repeated games. Most of this literature has used computability by a finite automaton as the standard. A conceptual difficulty with this standard is that the decision problem is not “closed.” That is, for every strategy implementable by an automaton, there is some best response implementable by an automaton, but there may not exist any algorithm forfinding such a best response that can be implemented by an automaton. However, such algorithms can always be implemented by a Turing machine, the most powerful formal model of computation. In this paper, we investigate whether the decision problem can be closed by adopting Turing machines as the standard of computability. The answer we offer is negative. Indeed, for a large class of discounted repeated games (including the repeated Prisoner's Dilemma) there exist strategies implementable by a Turing machine for whichno best response is implementable by a Turing machine.
Technology creation in semi-industrial economies

Abstract Technological activities in the semi-industrial economies of Latin America leading to the adaptation of imported technologies as well as the development of new products and processes, have been both an involuntary byproduct of manufacturing activities and the result of deliberate decisions to set up technological research facilities. Technological research reported by Latin American firms is shown to be largely complementary to production and carried out to reap the extra benefits of protection. External effects are thus disregarded since the benefits from industrial production suffice to induce the requisite adaptive research. The paper suggests that the as yet not well understood interaction between industrial and technological development be studied by: focusing on technology as information and engineers as its processors, looking at the learning stages from using imports to the creation of new products, and examining these processes in terms of a progression toward increasing technological complexity.
Epiphyseal Bar Resection and Fat Interposition for Clinodactyly

Clinodactyly, the angulation of a digit in the anteroposterior plane, is often due to a longitudinal epiphyseal bracket on the radial side of the middle phalanx of the little finger. Treatment options include observation, osteotomy, and epiphyseal bar resection. Epiphyseal bar resection is a simple surgery that requires neither postoperative pin fixation nor immobilization. The most appropriate indications are in children 3 to 6 years old with radial deviation of at least 25°. The procedure reliably diminishes the extent of deformity.
Cysteine 73 in Bleomycin Hydrolase Is Critical for Amyloid Precursor Protein Processing

Abstract Human bleomycin hydrolase (hBH) is a neutral cysteine protease that may regulate the secretion of soluble amyloid precursor protein (APP) and amyloid beta (Aβ), which is a major constituent of the Alzheimer's disease-associated amyloid plaques. We have now determined that APP interacts with hBH by using yeast two hybrid methods and in vitro binding studies revealed that APP interacted with a 68 amino acid region that includes the catalytic domain of hBH. Ectopic expression of hBH increased the secretion of Aβ but not of a second secreted protein, apolipoprotein A-I. Expression of hBH in which the catalytic cysteine 73 was mutated to serine failed to increase Aβ secretion. These results indicate a critical role for cysteine 73 of hBH in mediating APP processing.
Water‐soluble copolymers. VII. Cerium (IV) induced graft copolymerization of acrylamide and sodium‐2‐acrylamido‐2‐methylpropane sulfonate onto dextran

Studies were conducted on grafting of acrylamide (AM) and sodium-2-acrylamido-2-methylpropane sulfonate (NaAMPS) comonomers onto dextran utilizing Ce(IV) induced initiation. The effects of reaction temperature, the Ce(IV)/dextran ratio, and the AM/NaAMPS ratio on grafting yield were investigated. The graft copolymerization behavior can be explained by exchange of the AMPS anion with one of the ligands on the Ce(IV) initiator. Oxidative modification of the dextran substrate improved the yield of graft copolymer. The dextran-g-poly(acrylamido-co-sodium-2-acrylamido-2-methylpropane sulfonate) samples prepared by this method were characterized as to copolymer composition and molecular weight utilizing elemental analysis, dilute solution viscometry, and aqueous size exclusion chromatography. Relationships of molecular weight and charge density to kinematic viscosity and salt sensitivity are discussed.
Achieving Organizational Consensus with Respect to R&D Project Selection Criteria

An impact method for achieving organizational consensus was used in specifying R&D project selection criteria at four different organizations. The method consists of the repeated use of a paired comparison instrument, with group discussions and member interactions. High levels of shared values, consensus and member satisfactions were achieved at two of the four organizations. Legitimized leadership, a willingness to engage in confrontations and a high awareness of the larger needs of the total organization existed at these two. By contrast, in the other two organizations the absence of a single strong leader and a clear unity of purpose inhibited consensus. It was concluded that the impact method may be generally useful for disclosing hidden value conflicts. However, the achievement of high levels of shared values and decision consensus may be inhibited where either a strong central leader is lacking or where individuals are unclear about the nature of the larger goals of the total organization.
Structure of CdTe(111)B grown by MBE on misoriented Si(001)

Single domain CdTe(111)B has been grown on Si(001) substrates tilted 1o 2o, and 4o toward [110]. All the layers started with a double-domain structure, then a transition from a double- to a single-domain was observed by reflection high energy electron diffraction. A microscopic picture of this transition is presented. We also measured the tilt between CdTe(111)B and Si(001). The result does not follow the tilt predicted by the currently existing model. A new model of the microscopic mechanism of CdTe(111)B growth is presented. New evidence indicates that optimizing the tilt of the substrate surface is very crucial in improving the CdTe(111)B crystal quality.
Phasor state estimation from PMU measurements with bad data

The phasor measurement units (PMU) are expected to enhance state estimation in the power grid by providing accurate and timely measurements. However, due to communication errors and equipment failures, some detrimental data can occur among the measurements. The largest residual removal (LRR) algorithm is commonly used for phasor state estimation with bad data. Here, we show that this method cannot guarantee correctness unless data redundancy is very abundant. We then establish the equivalence between the approaches of bad data removal and bad data estimation and subtraction. In addition, we propose two new algorithms by exploiting the sparsity of the bad data. All algorithms are tested by simulations and our projection and minimization (PM) algorithm provides the best performance.
GLACIAL SEA LEVELS AND ANGULAR MOMENTUM

Equatorial sea levels may have risen during Pleistocene glaciations and lowered during interglacials, just the opposite of what is generally assumed.
Structural mechanics of the mitral valve: stresses sustained by the valve; non-traumatic determination of the stiffness of the in vivo valve.

Abstract In order to provide the requisite structural strength for a prosthetic mitral valve, we have analysed the stresses in the in vivo mitral valve leaflets during a cardiac cycle. The valve cusps of the mitral valve are analysed as two semi-circular membranes held along the circular (fibrous valve ring) edge and supported along the straight edge (by the chordea tendinae). The critical loading condition is just prior to opening of the aortic valve, when the distended mitral valve leaflet is subject to the pressure difference between the left ventricular and left atrial chambers. For an adverse physiological loading situation, our analysis indicates that the order of magnitude of the stress that the leaflet membrane (and hence the prosthetic valve leaflet) sustains is 2·2 × 106 dyn/cm2. A vibrational analysis of the mitral valve leaflet is performed. Expressions for the stress in the leaflet and Young's Modulus of the leaflet material are obtained in terms of the dimensions of the valve leaflet and its fundamental mode vibrational frequency. The latter can be evaluated by determining the corresponding frequency of the first component of the first heart sound. Our analysis, hence, enables us to determine the stress in the leaflet and the Young's modulus (stiffness) of the in vivo leaflet at the instant of occurence of the first heart sound. It is noted that at this instant the valve is strained up to the transition point of its typically non-linear stress/strain characteristic. Prior to this instant, in a typical heart cycle, the valve operates in the pre-transition stress/strain range and subsequent to this instant, it operates slightly above the transition point, reaching a strain of the order of 25 per cent in adverse situations.
Flourishing, Praxis, and Charm

Reponse de l'A. aux commentaires et critiques de son ouvrage intitule «Feminism and ecological communities: an ethics of flourishing» (1998), qui a fait l'objet du congres annuel de la Society for women in philosophy, qui s'est tenu a Los Angeles au printemps 1998. Reprenant les contrbutions de N. Zack, L. Code, V. Davion, K. Hall, M. Lugones et S. L. Hoagland, l'A. eclaire plusieurs point de sa reflexion sur les problemes ecologiques et sociaux que rencontre le projet politico-philosophique d'une ethique feministe, postcolonialiste et environementaliste