cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Steel Corrosion in Submerged Concrete Structures—Part 2: Modeling of Corrosion Evolution and Control

A predictive model that simulates the sequence of events leading to the development of a stable corrosion distribution pattern in the submerged zone of a reinforced concrete column in a marine environment is described. The model incorporates potential dependent threshold (PDT) features that update the corrosion projection as additional parts of the system begin to actively corrode. Results are consistent with field observations reported in Part 1 and supported the interpretation that the passive state of a large portion of the steel can be preserved in the presence of high chloride concentration at rebar depth, even if typically assumed chloride threshold values were exceeded. In contrast, severe localized corrosion may take place elsewhere in the submerged region despite limited oxygen availability there. The calculations indicated that high concrete resistivity, which is typical in low-permeability concrete chosen for achieving long service life in the above water region, may under some circumstances pr...
Comparative Administration: Ontology and Epistemology in Cross-Cultural Research

A review of methodological inquiry shows that, from its inception, comparative public administration (CPA) scholarship brushed over important epistemological and ontological questions in favor of searching for broad-based, generalizable theories that subscribed to only objectivist ontologies. This article traces these problematic methodological assumptions in contemporary CPA research back to the mischaracterization of the terms idiographic and nomothetic in CPA research. Revisiting this history is important because the recognition of this distinction allows room in the field for research that highlights the uniqueness of different cultural contexts and constructs.
Hyperfine Structure of the 3 2 P and 4 2 P States of Lithium and Lifetime of the 3 2 P State

Low field and high field hyperfine structure and lifetimes of excited P states of Li using level crossing spectroscopy
Case-based Fast Optimization Design for Complex Products

Optimization design for complex products is of great difficulty because of its multidisciplinary characteristics. Multidisciplinary design optimization( MDO) can better deal with this issue,but there are still some flaws in implementing this technology. The exploration of the laws from previous cases can enhance the efficiency and quality of product design. Unlike the traditional methods of MDO,a fast design optimization is proposed from the perspective of knowledge application. Based on the key parameters extracted from design versions,the weights of vector are acquired by the calculation of the relationship between input parameters and output parameters. Rapid clustering is performed based on expert experience and design objectives,parameters are designed by the extension and re-sampling of cluster members,experiments are designed to provide high-quality initial solutions to the optimization designs with computational constraint,and the other samples from the same cluster are given knowledge-based evaluation and simulated with fast sampling optimization scheme. The results showed that this method is of great effectiveness and feasibility.
Evaporation-flame atomic absorption spectrometry determination of iron,manganese,copper,zinc,lead,cadmium in water

Objective:To use the evaporation of water and a variety of simultaneous determination of heavy metals,to increase analysis speed and save reagents.Methods:Evaporation-flame atomic absorption spectrometry determination of iron,manganese,copper,zinc,lead,cadmium.Results:The effective expansion of the direct inhalation-flame atomic absorption spectrometry measurement range,can fully meet the low concentration of surface water,groundwater and other water sample testing.
Pynchon’s Bequest

Although Thomas Pynchon has famously avoided the spotlight, he and his work—especially Gravity’s Rainbow —nevertheless cast a large shadow over contemporary American fiction. In a Bloomian anxiety of influence, a subsequent generation of fiction writers—I’m thinking of writers like the late David Foster Wallace, William T. Vollmann, Rick Moody, Bradford Morrow, Mary Caponegro, Michael Chabon, A. M. Homes, Colson Whitehead, and the subject of the collection of essays under review, Richard Powers—has been inspired to write by Pynchon’s great novels but has also sought to find a way out from under their shadow. This anxiety is made more acute by the concomitant sense that the postmodernism exemplified by Pynchon and his fellow experimental writers of the sixties and seventies (Barth, Coover, Sorrentino, Gaddis, Barthelme, Reed, and so on) has reached something of a dead end. That is, postmodernism’s consciousness of language, its iconoclasm, and its questioning of all master narratives, which in the 1960s played an important role in exposing and debunking many long-held social conceits and hypocrisies, by the late 1980s and 1990s had devolved into an all-purpose irony, the rolling of the eye and the nudging in the ribs that mocks any assertion that eschews irony’s game and aspires to sincerity. As Wallace explained in a 1993 interview with Larry McCaffery, “Irony’s useful for debunking illusions, but most of the illusion-debunking in the U.S. has now been done and redone. . . . All we seem to want to do is keep ridiculing the stuff. Postmodern irony and cynicism’s become an end in itself, a measure of hip sophistication and literary savvy. . . . Irony’s gone from liberating to enslaving” (147).
Barriers to Timely Medical Care for Older Adults by Disability Status and Household Composition

Living arrangements are often influenced by disability status, and co-resident caregivers may facilitate access to health care, especially for community-dwelling older adults with disabilities. Despite this, we know very little about how disability status and household composition work together to affect health services use. Using data from the National Health Interview Survey (2009–2011; n = 16,720), this study investigates (a) how access to medical care varies by disability status and household composition and (b) whether the relationship between household composition and health care access differs by disability status. We find that the risk of delayed care due to cost or lack of transportation is highest for older adults living alone or with non-spousal others. Older adults living alone without disabilities have lower odds of delayed care due to difficulty making a timely appointment than older adults living with a spouse. Furthermore, we find that older adults living alone with disabilities have eleva...
Dampening, Positive Rumination, and Positive Life Events: Associations with Depressive Symptoms in Children at Risk for Depression

Blunted positive affect is characteristic of depression. Altered positive affect regulation may contribute to this blunting, and two regulation strategies, dampening positive affect and positive rumination, have been implicated in depression. However, the conditions under which these strategies impart risk/protective effects prior to onset of depression are unknown. The current study examined 81 healthy children (age 7–10) at low and high risk for depression on the basis of maternal history of depression and tested how dampening and positive rumination interacted with the experience of recent positive life events to predict depressive symptoms. Children at high and low risk did not differ in their use of dampening or positive rumination. However, elevated use of dampening in the context of many positive life events predicted current depressive symptoms, and specifically anhedonic symptoms, in children at low-risk for depression. These findings held when controlling for negative rumination and negative life events. Positive rumination did not interact with positive life events but was associated with higher depressive symptoms in high-risk children. Results indicate that prior to the onset of depression, positive life events may impart risk when dampening positive affect is utilized in this context, while positive rumination may increase risk for depressive symptoms.
Smooth moves Shooting performance is related to efficiency of rifle movement

Software innovations at our laboratory have made novel measures of shooting performance available to researchers, even when the data comes from a fielded military firearms training simulator not designed for research. This study analyzed specific patterns of rifle handling and control to determine how they affected reaction time and accuracy among shooters of differing skill levels. The results indicated the skilled shooters employed smoother and more efficient rifle movement while aiming than less-skilled shooters. While shooters know that trigger control and sight picture are important, this study confirms that skilled shooting is also influenced by the efficiency of the rifle movements that immediately precede the shot.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Cognitive Behavior Therapy

Researchers at University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Duke University, Brown, Michigan, and University of Massachusetts, Worcester, as members of the Pediatric-OCD Treatment Study II (POTS II) Randomized Controlled Trial, examined effects of augmenting serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SRI) treatment with short-term cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) in 124 pediatric outpatients, 7 to 17 years of age, with a primary diagnosis of OCD.
Multiscale brain-machine interface decoders

Brain-machine interfaces (BMI) have vastly used a single scale of neural activity, e.g., spikes or electrocorticography (ECoG), as their control signal. New technology allows for simultaneous recording of multiple scales of neural activity, from spikes to local field potentials (LFP) and ECoG. These advances introduce the new challenge of modeling and decoding multiple scales of neural activity jointly. Such multi-scale decoding is challenging for two reasons. First, spikes are discrete-valued and ECoG/LFP are continuous-valued, resulting in fundamental differences in statistical characteristics. Second, the time-scales of these signals are different, with spikes having a millisecond time-scale and ECoG/LFP having much slower time-scales on the order of tens of milliseconds. Here we develop a new multiscale modeling and decoding framework that addresses these challenges. Our multiscale decoder extracts information from ECoG/LFP in addition to spikes, while operating at the fast time-scale of the spikes. The multiscale decoder specializes to a Kalman filter (KF) or to a point process filter (PPF) when no spikes or ECoG/LFP are available, respectively. Using closed-loop BMI simulations, we show that compared to PPF decoding of spikes alone or KF decoding of LFP/ECoG alone, the multiscale decoder significantly improves the accuracy and error performance of BMI control and runs at the fast millisecond time-scale of the spikes. This new multiscale modeling and decoding framework has the potential to improve BMI control using simultaneous multiscale neural activity.
Great Institutions in Cardiothoracic Surgery: The University of Minnesota

With the loyal support of the chair of Surgery, Dr. Owen H. Wangensteen, the University of Minnesota cardiac surgery program led the way at the dawn of cardiac surgery when Dr F. John Lewis performed the first open heart surgery in the world using hypothermia while repairing an atrial septal defect on September 2, 1952. Soon after, Dr C. Walt Lillehei performed the first repair of a ventriculoseptal defect in the world using cross-circulation on March 26, 1954. Collaborating with Dr Richard DeWall in 1955, they developed the DeWall-Lillehei bubble oxygentor which was used at the University of Minnesota and many other centers worldwide for years to come, making open heart surgery safe and tractable. Dr Vincent Gott, a resident working in the laboratory of Lillehei, developed a method to treat complete heart block using ventricular pacing with a Grass physiological stimulator, and this led to a collaboration with Earl Bakken, founder of the Medtronic Corporation, to develop a temporary pacemaker. The program was fertile ground for many notable trainees, including Dr Norman Shumway, the "Father of Heart Transplant", and Dr Christiaan Barnard who performed the first heart transplant in the world. The collegial and forward thinking nature of the cardiac surgery program continues in the current training program today.
Membrane Fusion and Infection of the Influenza Hemagglutinin

The influenza virus is a major health concern associated with an estimated 5000 to 30,000 deaths every year (Reed et al. 2015) and a significant economic impact with the development of treatments, vaccinations and research (Molinari et al. 2007). The entirety of the influenza genome is comprised of only eleven coding genes. An enormous degree of variation in non-conserved regions leads to significant challenges in the development of inclusive inhibitors for treatment. The fusion peptide domain of the influenza A hemagglutinin (HA) is a promising candidate for treatment since it is one of the most highly conserved sequences in the influenza genome (Heiny et al. 2007), and it is vital to the viral life cycle. Hemagglutinin is a class I viral fusion protein that catalyzes the membrane fusion process during cellular entry and infection. Impediment of the hemagglutinin’s function, either through incomplete post-translational processing (Klenk et al. 1975; Lazarowitz and Choppin 1975) or through mutations (Cross et al. 2001), leads to non-infective virus particles. This review will investigate current research on the role of hemagglutinin in the virus life cycle, its structural biology and mechanism as well as the central role of the hemagglutinin fusion peptide (HAfp) to influenza membrane fusion and infection.
Site fidelity and movement of humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) in the western Gulf of Alaska as revealed by photo-identification

We describe feeding-site fidelity in terms of the rate of annual return by individual humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae (Borowski, 1781)) to Kodiak Archipelago and Shumagin Islands feeding areas and the rate of exchange between these Gulf of Alaska feeding aggregations. Individual whales were photo-identified in both regions between 1999 and 2015 during vessel surveys, either throughout the feeding season (Kodiak region) or in brief 7- to 10-day windows (Shumagin Islands). Feeding-site fidelity was assessed in terms of individuals’ annual return rate, sighting interval, total number of years sighted, and movement between feeding areas. We found similarly high degrees of site fidelity in both regions and limited movement of individuals between them, suggesting that the Shumagin Islands and Kodiak Archipelago represent distinct feeding aggregations. Results did not appear affected by temporal differences in sampling strategy in these study areas.
Assemblies of Chairs: The Politics of Spectatorship in Post-Traumatic Times

ABSTRACTWhat modalities of spectatorship and performance are emerging today, and why? How do we gather in the face of crisis—ordinary and extraordinary—and violence—traumatic and not-quite-traumatic? What might be gleaned from contemporary performance for other genres of response to crisis, whether clinical, critical, or political? To what extent are psychoanalytic theories of trauma helpful for describing modalities of historical violence in the present? This essay approaches questions such as these by turning to 3 disparate yet resonant sites of recent performance: Combatant Status Review Tribunal, pp. 002954-003064: A Public Reading by Andrea Geyer et al. (2012); Thomas Hirschhorn’s Gramsci Monument (2013); and Rashid Johnson’s production of LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka’s play, Dutchman, at the East Village’s Russian and Turkish Baths (2013).
Thermal Decomposition of the Solid Electrolyte Interphase (SEI) on Silicon Electrodes for Lithium Ion Batteries

Thermal behavior of the solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) on a silicon electrode for lithium ion batteries has been investigated by TGA. In order to provide a better understanding of the thermal decomposition of the SEI on silicon, the thermal decomposition behavior of independently synthesized lithium ethylene dicarbonate (LEDC) was investigated as a model SEI. The model SEI (LEDC) has three stages of thermal decomposition. Over the temperature range of 50–300 °C, LEDC decomposes to evolve CO2 and C2H4 gases leaving lithium propionate (CH3CH2CO2Li) and Li2CO3 as solid residues. The lithium propionate decomposes over the temperature range of 300–600 °C to evolve pentanone leaving Li2CO3 as a residual solid. Finally, the Li2CO3 decomposes over 600 °C to evolve CO2 leaving Li2O as a residual solid. A very similar thermal decomposition process is observed for the SEI generated on cycled silicon electrodes. However, two additional thermal decomposition reactions were observed characteristic of LixPOyFz at 30...
How’s the Weather? Severe Weather Classifications in Syndromic Surveillance

Objective To report the results of the application of New Jersey’s Severe Weather Classifier in New Jersey’s syndromic surveillance system during two extreme weather events. Introduction Hurricane ‘Superstorm’ Sandy struck New Jersey on October 29, 2012, causing harm to the health of New Jersey residents and billions of dollars of damage to businesses, transportation, and infrastructure. Monitoring health outcomes for increased illness and injury due to a severe weather event is important in measuring the severity of conditions and the efficacy of state response, as well as in emergency response preparations for future severe weather events. Following the experience with Hurricane Sandy, NJDOH initiated a project to develop a suite of 19 indicators, known as the Severe Weather Classifier (SWC) in EpiCenter, an online system which collects emergency department chief complaint data in real-time, to perform syndromic surveillance of extreme weather–related conditions. NJDOH has since used these classifiers in more recent events to monitor for weather-related visits to storm-affected area emergency departments (ED’s). In June, 2015, a squall line of damaging thunderstorms, known as a “bow echo,” caused downed wires and multi-day power outages in Camden and Gloucester counties in southern New Jersey. Almost exactly seven months later, in January, 2016, Winter Storm Jonas dropped more than a foot of snow over New Jersey. These events provided an opportunity to assess the indicators within SWC. Methods The impact of these storms on ED visits was assessed in EpiCenter by using the SWC sub-classifications for disrupted outpatient medical care (dialysis and oxygen needs, and medication refills). Rates per 1,000 ED visits were calculated on two weeks of ED visits by classification for each storm. For the June 2015 bow echo storm, this assessment focused on Gloucester and Camden counties, the two hardest hit by the storm. For Winter Storm Jonas, rates per 1,000 ED visits were calculated statewide since all counties were impacted. Results After the June, 2015 bow echo storm, both Camden and Gloucester county ED’s experienced increases in disrupted medical care, the most notable being for oxygen needs (Figures 1 and 2). During and after Winter Storm Jonas, ED visits for oxygen assistance and medicine refills were the most impacted (Figure 3). It is speculated that ED visits for dialysis were not noticeably higher since the storm occurred over a weekend when, generally, treatments take place during weekdays. Conclusions While not every classification in the suite that makes up the SWC would be relevant in every extreme weather event, having the 19 various elements available provides tools for state and local users to monitor storm impacts both locally and at the state level.
A study to assess whether fixed-width beam walking provides sufficient challenge to assess balance ability across lower limb prosthesis users.

Objective:To evaluate the feasibility of fixed-width beam walking for assessing balance in lower limb prosthesis users.Design:Cross-sectional.Setting:Laboratory.Subjects:Lower limb prosthesis users.Methods:Participants attempted 10 walking trials on three fixed-width beams (18.6, 8.60, and 4.01 wide; 5.5 m long; 3.8 cm high).Main measures:Beam-walking performance was quantified using the distance walked to balance failure. Heuristic rules applied to each participant’s beam-walking distance to classify each beam as “too easy,” “too hard,” or “appropriately challenging” and determine whether any single beam provided an appropriate challenge to all participants. The number of trials needed to achieve stable beam-walking performance was quantified for appropriately challenging beams by identifying the last inflection point in the slope of each participant’s trial-by-trial cumulative performance record.Results:In all, 30 unilateral lower limb prosthesis users participated in the study. Each of the fixed-width ...
Special session: Learning design thinking using engineering case studies

The dominant mode for teaching engineers about design thinking is project-based learning. We give students things to design — individually or in teams, and then evaluate the products they produce. But another way to learn about engineering design is to study real-world examples. Case studies provide one way to do so. Cases have been used in schools of business for many years; the case study method is the primary approach for MBA programs at schools like Harvard Business School and the Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia. In this special session, we will examine several case studies used in a course Fundamentals of Design Thinking taught at the University of Virginia. These focus on individual engineers and architects as well as the companies they have founded: Dave Kelley (IDEO), Dean Kamen (DEKA), Oliver Kuttner (Edison 2), Bill McDonough (William McDonough + partners), and Evan and Eric Edwards (Kaleo). The cases concern the personalities and motivations of the key players in each organization, the structure and culture of the organization, the types of products designed, and their impact on contemporary society. We will illustrate the use of cases with two examples: one focused on a successful company and the other on a particular product design. Then we will briefly discuss cases concerned with ethical issues, product liability and intellectual property.
Antiviral treatment of childhood influenza: an update.

Purpose of reviewInfluenza virus can cause severe or life-threatening infection in children. This review provides an update on antiviral medications available to treat and prevent influenza in both healthy children and children with underlying medical conditions, and recommendations on their appropr
Vitamin K1 (Phylloquinone): Function, Enzymes and Genes

Abstract Phylloquinone (2-methyl-3-phytyl-1,4-naphthoquinone) is a conjugated isoprenoid that serves as a cardinal redox cofactor in plants and some cyanobacteria. In humans and other mammals, it is required as a vitamin (vitamin K1) for blood coagulation and bone metabolism. Until recently, the biosynthesis of phylloquinone in plants was considered identical to that of menaquinone (vitamin K2) in facultative anaerobic bacteria. It resulted that most of the plant research on phylloquinone focused historically on the study of its function, while very little was done on its metabolism per se. There is today, tough, compelling evidence that plants have evolved an unprecedented metabolic architecture to synthesize phylloquinone, including extraordinary events of gene fusion, highly divergent enzymes and a separated compartmentalization in chloroplasts and peroxisomes. Phylogenetic reconstructions also demonstrate that the plant genes involved in the formation of phylloquinone display a high degree of evolutionary chimerism owing to multiple events of horizontal gene transfer and gene losses. Plant phylloquinone biosynthesis is also connected via shared intermediates to the metabolism of salicylate, tocopherols, chlorophylls, and in some species to anthraquinones.
On Scene Reconstruction from Spatial Coherence Measurements

We determine the positions and dimensions of obscurants and apertures from coherence measurements of partially coherent light by leveraging the authors’ recent closed-form approximation formula for the coherence of propagated field in the Fresnel regime.
Areas of decrement in health-related quality of life (HRQL): comparing the SF-12, EQ-5D, and HUI 3.

Background: Different measures of health status and health-related quality of life (HRQL) have been advocated for different purposes at the clinical and population level. Relatively little is known about how these measures function in relationship to one another. We examined the relationship between the Short-Form 12 (SF-12), EQ-5D, and Health Utilities Index (HUI) Mark 3 for overall scores and in analogous domains of health. A convenience sample was obtained through surveying patients at an inner-city community health center. Measurements and main results: The sample was comprised primarily of low-income racial/ethnic minorities; 393 patients were approached and 301 patients (77%) participated. The three measures had correlations between overall scores that ranged from 0.41 to 0.69 and correlations between similar domains from different measures that ranged from 0.42 to 0.59. For the HUI 3, 'any' impairment most frequently was noted with pain, vision, cognition, and emotion. For the EQ-5D, pain/discomfort and anxiety/depression were reported as impaired most often. Compared to published population scores, participants reported impairments with increased frequency and at a greater level. Conclusions: Participants demonstrated consistency with responses to similar types of items and correlations between related aspects of health were moderate to strong. Domains of health most often reported as impaired resembled those noted in national surveys. Despite differences in the structure of the measures, all three instruments capture information about decrements in broadly analogous domains of health.
Experiences with a Floating Point Systems Array Processor

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the floating point systems array processors (AP). It presents a report of the experiences at Cornell with an AP-190L attached to an IBM 370-168 host computer. The current floating-point systems compiler AP-FORTRAN has fewer restrictions as compared to APTRAN. However, an advantage of APTRAN over AP-FORTRAN is that, integers in APTRAN are stored in 38-bit floating format, allowing integers of size up to 100 million. In AP-FORTRAN, integers are stored and manipulated as 16-bit integers, which leads to problems for integers greater than 30,000. The AP has a good set of logical operations, which act in a sensible manner on floating-point words. These logical operations are useful for packing and unpacking. The traditional procedure for using the combination of a host computer and an array processor is to have a program that runs in the host computer, and subroutines or sets of subroutines, which run in the AP. Subroutines that run in the AP are called by ordinary subroutine calls.
Migration, Selection Pressure, and Superlinear Speedups

The choice of migrants and the replacement of individuals are not often considered important parameters of parallel GAs. However, this chapter used two different methods to show that choosing the migrants or replacements according to their fitness increases the selection pressure. Some migration policies may cause the algorithm to converge significantly faster. The migration policy that accelerates convergence the most is to choose both the migrants and the replacements according to their fitness, which is also the most common policy.
Noncovalent, Electrostatic Interactions Induce Positively Cooperative Binding of Small Molecules to Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Disease-Related Amyloids.

Amyloids are self-assembled protein aggregates that represent a major hallmark of many neurologic and systemic diseases. Among the common features of amyloids is the presence of a high density of multiple binding sites for small molecule ligands, making them an attractive target for design of multimeric binding agents. Here, we demonstrate that noncovalent, intermolecular interactions between a 1:1 mixture of oppositely charged benzothiazole molecules enhances their binding to two different amyloid aggregates: Alzheimer’s-related amyloid-β (Aβ) peptides or Parkinson’s-related α-synuclein (αS) proteins. We show that this mixture leads to positively cooperative binding to amyloid targets, with up to 10-fold enhancement of binding compared to the uncharged parent compound. The observed enhancement of amyloid binding using noncovalent interactions was similar in magnitude to a benzothiazole dimer to aggregated Aβ. These results represent a novel strategy for designing amyloid-targeting molecules with enhanced...
John Brewin's Tracts: The Written Word, Evangelicalism, and the Quaker way in mid Nineteenth Century England

This study explores seven volumes of tracts collected between 1827 and 1850 by John Brewin, a Cirencester Quaker. This period was a critical one for the Religious Society of Friends, notably in its relationship with Evangelicalism. The collection allows us to test something of the nature and extent of change at grassroots level, by providing an insight into the range of issues that were of interest to provincial English Quakers, the means by which ideas were disseminated, and how they might have been received by readers. The conclusion is that, while Evangelical influence was clearly growing, Quakers remained deeply attached to processes that kept them at odds with much of the Evangelical movement.
Constructing Explanations in an Active Learning Preparatory Chemistry Course

Active learning pedagogical approaches and methodologies have been shown to increase undergraduate student success. Specifically, the flipped classroom approach pushes course content outside of the...
Pro-kidney transplantation should be considered in patients with multiple myeloma:

Multiple myeloma is the most frequent malignant monoclonal gammopathy and the second most common hematological malignancy after non-Hodgkin lymphoma. There continues to be evolving therapies in the...
Aerosolized 5 alpha-androst-16-en-3-one reduced agonistic behavior and temporarily improved performance of growing pigs.

Two experiments were conducted to determine the effect of aerosolized 5 alpha-androst-16-en-3-one (androstenone) on pig aggressive and submissive behaviors and on pig performance. In Exp. 1, twenty-four 5-wk-old pigs were randomly regrouped in a two-pig bioassay. A solution of either isopropyl alcohol or .5 mg androstenone in isopropyl alcohol per pig was aerosolized on both pigs in the observation pens. Summarization of video records from the 90-min bioassay showed that pens of pigs aerosolized with androstenone spent 58% less time engaged in aggressive behavior (P less than .05) and 96% less time engaged in submissive behavior (P less than .01). In Exp. 2, a performance trial was conducted with finishing pigs from 57 to 91 kg body weight. Factorially arranged treatments included aerosolized androstenone (.5 mg/pig) or the vehicle isopropyl alcohol and regrouping into uniform body weight blocks or no regrouping. Regrouping depressed average daily feed consumption (P less than .05) and average daily gain (P less than .05) for the first 7 d of the trial. Pigs reveiving the androstenone aerosol had improved average daily gain (P = .01) and gain:feed ratio (P less than .01) for the first 28 d of the trial. Performance of all treated pigs was similar for the entire finishing period. This olfactory stimulant reduced pig agonistic behavior and transiently improved performance of regrouped and non-regrouped finishing pigs.
The US Educational Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

This paper examines the United States federal and state educational responses to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as states’ plans for reopening schools. The virus entered the United States in January 2020. As the virus spread, most school districts began to close in March. At the end of June, the United States has experienced the highest number of cases and deaths due to COVID-19 in the world, and infection rates appear to be rising once again. Given the great physical and socioeconomic diversity of the United States, the federal and state response to COVID-19 and plans to reopen schools in the autumn have emphasized flexibility and adaptation. However, the implementation of remote (online) learning has highlighted and exacerbated long-standing racial and economic inequalities in US society related to technology access, school engagement, and school-parent relationships. These inequalities may be exacerbated as schools attempt to reopen and students continue to face inconsistent access to learning, learning loss during the spring semester and summer, and COVID-19 spread among the most at-risk population groups. Further research and practical interventions, such as tutoring, should be implemented to address educational equality issues and improve access, whether to in-person or remote instruction.
A Shared Memory Cache Layer across Multiple Executors in Apache Spark

Memory caches are being widely adopted in today’s data-intensive computing frameworks to maximize the benefit of in-memory access. Various memory architectures, designs and management algorithms have been well explored so that application performance can witness speedup by orders of magnitude. For example, Apache Spark provides intermediate data consistency in memory between computation tasks, eliminating a significant amount of disk I/Os and dramatically reducing data processing times. However, the memory space of individual executors is isolated so far in vanilla Spark and apparently inefficient given the fact that these memory demands of different executors vary a lot over tasks, jobs and applications. In this work, we propose a new shared in-Memory cache layer, i.e., iMlayer, among these parallel executors, which are co-hosted on the same slave machine in Apache Spark. It aims to improve the overall hit rate of data blocks by caching and evicting these blocks uniformly across multiple executors. The critical insight of iMlayer is to develop a novel eviction strategy to efficiently manage the shared cache space among executors to maximize the cache hit rate as well as application performance. We evaluate iMlayer based on the three representative workloads from HiBench. Our results demonstrate that iMlayer with the new eviction strategy improves the cache hit rate by 45%, 16% and 27%, effectively reducing the overall job runtime 47%, 43% and 38% compared to vanilla Spark, respectively.
Insomnia Severity and Degree of Dysfunction: What Is to Be Learned When These Domains are Discordant?

Objective/Background: Illness severity and resultant dysfunction are often linearly related and tightly coupled (concordant). Some percentage of individuals, however, exhibit discordant association...
Constitutional Norms--Erosion, Sabotage and Response

Respect for informal norms is essential to the integrity and effective functioning of constitutional democracies. Such norms have remarkable resilience but also are fragile in ways that we may not fully appreciate. Concern about sabotage of constitutional norms lies at the very heart of current widespread worries about the viability of democracy. This article seeks to explain the importance of constitutional norms and sources of their resilience and fragility, and to explore ways of responding to challenges that threaten their viability. After sketching a familiar and compelling conception of democracy and the rule of law, this article analyzes the nature of the social norms underlying democratic constitutions arguing that they are rooted in fundamentally discursive normative practices. It distinguishes three types of challenges to norms—those of norm infringers, those of norm entrepreneurs and those of norm saboteurs—and a repertoire of responses defenders can deploy against such breaches. The main principles of the analysis and articulated responses to norm sabotage are illustrated in an extended discussion of the recent highly partisan debate in the United States over reform of the Supreme Court.
Passing the Baton: Building Student Autonomy and Democracy in the Large Ensemble Setting:

The purpose of this study was to explore the phenomena of participation in a democratic large ensemble experience in a secondary public school setting. Specific research questions included (a) Do h...
Contrasting Customer Preceived Store Image with Management’s Self Perception: A Diagnostic Approach

Recent work indicates the desirability of studying managers’ store image as well as their customers’ store image. There has also been interest in using multiattribute models instead of the semantic differential approach to measuring store image. This paper reports on the usefulness of the multiattribute approach in assessing possible differences between the customer perceived store image and management’s self perceived store image.
Storage protein precursor polypeptides in cotyledons of Pisum sativum L. Identification of, and isolation of a cDNA clone for, an 80000-Mr legumin-related polypeptide.

1. An 80000-Mr polypeptide, which bound to anti-legumin IgG, was detected among labelled polypeptides from cotyledons at late stages of development. 2. When poly(A)-containing RNA from similar cotyledons was translated in a cell-free protein-synthesizing system, an 80000-Mr polypeptide was also detected. Immunoprecipitation of translation products with anti-legumin IgG showed that, in addition to the major legumin precursor polypeptides of Mr approximately 60000, the 80 000-Mr polypeptide was specifically immunoprecipitated. 3. A cDNA clone, pCD32, was found to select an RNA coding for an 80000-Mr polypeptide in hybrid-selection experiments. Additional minor polypeptides of Mr 63000 and 65000 were present in translation products of RNA selected by pCD32; all three polypeptides were immunoprecipitated by anti-legumin IgG. Thermal elution of RNAs bound to pCD32 showed that the affinity of pCD32 to the RNA coding for the 80000-Mr polypeptide was greater than to the RNAs coding for the 63000-Mr and 65000-Mr polypeptides. 4. In similar hybrid-selection experiments, another cDNA clone, pCD40, selected RNAs coding predominantly for polypeptides of Mr 63000 and 65000. A minor polypeptide of Mr 80000 was also detected among these products; again all three polypeptides were immunoprecipitated by anti-legumin IgG. 5. Peptide mapping revealed close similarities between the 80000-Mr polypeptide and the 63000-Mr/65000-Mr polypeptides obtained by translation of RNAs selected by pCD32. There were similarities also between maps obtained from translation products of RNA selected by pCD32 and those obtained from anti-legumin IgG immunoprecipitates of total translation products of poly(A)-containing RNA.
Managing People in Engineering and Technology

The nature of engineering management, with its multidisciplinary technology requirements, ambiguous authority definition, and complex operating environment, requires experience and sophistication for effective role performance. Tools such as the Project Maturity Model and the Six Sigma Management Process can provide the framework and tool set for analyzing and fine tuning the team development and its management process. Managerial leadership has significant impact on the work environment, affecting engineering personnel and performance. Factors that satisfy personal and professional needs such as professional interest, pride and satisfaction with the work, professional work challenge, accomplishments and recognition seem to have the most favorable impact on individual and team performance, reducing communication barriers while enhancing collaboration and the desire to succeed. Effective engineering managers are social architects who understand the interaction of organizational and behavioral variables who can foster a climate of active participation, accountability, and result orientation throughout the enterprise and its partners. Keywords: engineering management; engineering personnel; project maturity model; six sigma management process
Arylene-bridged 2,2,5,5-tetramethyl2,5-disila-1-oxacyclopentanes as precursors to non-shrinking polysiloxanes. A new route to sol-gel type polymers

Sol-gel chemistry has been the focus of much attention in the design and preparation of highly crosslinked polysiloxane gels. Preparation of sol-gel processed silica or polysilesquioxane gels is carried out by the hydrolysis and condensation of alkoxysilyl monomers, usually in the presence of catalytic acid or base and an excess of water. Removal of the alcohol and water byproducts of the condensation reactions, in addition to the alcohol needed to co-dissolve the hydrophobic monomers with water, leads to substantial shrinkage during drying of the resulting gels. This limits the utility of sol-gel processing for applications requiring net-shape casting of artifacts, crack free coatings, or low vaporous organic contaminants (VOCs). It would be advantageous to have a sol-gel process based on an organosilicon monomer that would not require water as a reactant or produce water and alcohol condensation products and still result in siloxane network polymers capable of forming gels. Here, the authors show the synthesis and preparation of a novel sol-gel monomer which can easily be polymerized by ring opening polymerization to give highly crosslinked polysiloxane gels with no condensation byproducts.
A preliminary descriptive model for the distance dependence of the spectral decay parameter in southern California

The spectral decay parameter, κ, defined by Anderson and Hough (1984) is described as a function of distance, R , and site, S , as κ( R , S ) = κ( S ) + κ˜(R). The terms κ˜(R) and κ( S ) are found by a method that is unbiased by prior assumptions about the nature of the distance dependence. Variance using this model is substantially smaller than in simpler models that do not incorporate both site effects and a distance effect. For data gathered near Anza, California, and for distances less than 100 km, κ˜(R) is very similar for both P - and S -wave windows, but κ( S ) is smaller for P than for S on average by a factor of about 2.
Effect of volatile fatty acids on blood flow and oxygen uptake by the dog colon

The effects of volatile fatty acids on colonic hemodynamics and oxygen uptake were examined in a denervated autoperfused dog colon preparation. While measuring arterial pressure, colonic blood flow, venous pressure, and arteriovenous O2 difference, a Tyrode's solution containing acetic (75 mM), propionic (30 mM), and butyric acids (30 mM) was placed into the colon lumen. The volatile fatty acid mixture increased colonic blood flow (23.5%) and oxygen uptake (18.4%), yet did not affect oxygen extraction. Of the three fatty acids, only acetic acid (75 mM) could mimic the effects of the entire mixture on colonic hemodynamics and oxygen uptake. Butyric (30 mM) and propionic (30 mM) acids were without appreciable effects on colonic blood flow and oxygen uptake. The vehicle for the volatile fatty acids, Tyrode's did not alter blood flow, yet increased colonic oxygen uptake (18.7%) through an increase in oxygen extraction (18.3%). When compared with Tyrode's, acetic acid increased blood flow, yet did not alter oxygen uptake, while butyric and propionic acids did not alter colonic blood flow, yet inhibited colonic oxygen uptake. Close intraarterial infusion of acetic acid increased colonic blood flow and oxygen uptake. These data suggest that physiologic concentrations of volatile fatty acids (particularly acetic acid) significantly alter colonic flow.
Dietary Approaches for Reducing Fat Intake of Preschool-Age Children

STUDY OBJECTIVE The present study was conducted to determine the effects of applying different fat reduction strategies to the overall nutrient profile of diets for preschool-age children. DESIGN Computer modeling techniques were used to modify the diets of children (ages 2 through 3 and 4 through 5 years old) to meet contemporary dietary recommendations (< 30% of calories from total fat, < 10% from saturated fatty acids, and < 300 mg of cholesterol daily). Fat reduction strategies were applied to a 1-week menu that included preschoolers' favorite foods. Strategies applied were replacing high-fat meat exchanges with lean meat exchanges (+/- three high-fat meat exchanges per week), replacing higher fat milks with skim milk, replacing high-fat meat exchanges with medium-fat meat exchanges, using fat-modified products, using low-fat preparation techniques, and added fat. All diets were made isocaloric after modifications were applied. RESULTS It is more difficult to meet all recommendations for the 2- and 3-year-old children. Use of skim milk is the simplest strategy to use for the 4- and 5-year-old children, although other single strategies are effective. CONCLUSIONS When multiple strategies are effected. Some diets are very low in fat (< 20% of calories) and potentially inadequate in energy and nutrients. It is important that caregivers know the appropriate foods to choose when modifying fat in children's diets to ensure meeting energy and nutrient requirements.
Flight Telerobotic Servicer: the development test flight

The development test flight (DTF-1) is the first of two Space Shuttle flights to test operations of the Flight Telerobotic Servicer (FTS) in space and to demonstrate its capabilities in performing tasks for Space Station Freedom. The DTF-1 system is scheduled to be flown in early 1993 as an attached payload on the Shuttle. The authors discuss the design of the DTF-1 system, the tests to be performed, and the data to be gathered. >
Domestic Violence Training Policies: Influence on Participation in Training and Awareness of Abuse

Victims of domestic violence rely on various human services professionals for an assortment of needs. Consequently, professionals must be prepared to recognize the signs of domestic violence, the needs of victims, and strategies to serve victims effectively. It is believed that in-service training programs are useful in better preparing social services workers for these areas. Many workers, however, may not participate in such training. This study examined how the presence of domestic violence training policies influences participation in training programs and awareness of domestic violence. Implications for practice are provided.
Contingent Instructors and Student Outcomes: An Artifact or a Fact?

This study addresses methodological problems surrounding existing research on exposure to contingent instructors and student outcomes. By applying non-aggregated and aggregated measures of exposure to contingent instructors to the same data, this analysis demonstrates that effects of commonly used measures of exposure to contingent instructors have little to do with actual contingent instructor effects on student outcomes. Two multi-level approaches—cross-classified and multiple membership models—are applied in the single-institution analysis of faculty status effect on student outcomes—grades and first year retention. The analysis showed no variability in student retention and a significant variability in grades by faculty characteristics. Compared to their tenured and tenure-track peers, contingent instructors are more likely to assign higher grades, which may lead to lowered levels of academic challenge and student motivation to do their best work.
Nonlinear filter based decision feedback equalizer for optical communication systems

Nonlinear impairments in optical communication system have become a major concern of optical engineers. In this paper, we demonstrate that utilizing a nonlinear filter based Decision Feedback Equalizer (DFE) with error detection capability can deliver a better performance compared with the conventional linear filter based DFE. The proposed algorithms are tested in simulation using a coherent 100 Gb/sec 16-QAM optical communication system in a legacy optical network setting.