cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Vapour is the principal source of water imbibed by seeds in unsaturated soils

The assumption that seeds imbibe most of the water required for germination as liquid through seed-to-soil contact has been a dominant theme in germination research and seeding technology. Under most conditions, seeds are also exposed to water vapour during imbibition, but the relative contributions of liquid and vapour are difficult to assess. In water uptake models that include vapour, procedures used to estimate potential vapour imbibition have underappreciated the effect of distance on diffusion rate. At the same time, the amount of seed-to-soil contact and the liquid bridge from soil water to the seed tend to be greatly overestimated, considering the soil water contents often found in the field. Most researchers have recorded an approximately equal time to germination at soil water contents ranging from field capacity to nearly permanent wilting point, and little response to bulk density, soil type or seed-soil contact. While hydraulic conductivity decreases by several orders of magnitude as soil water content, bulk density and seed-contact decrease, relative humidity remains near 100%. There are several experiments demonstrating timely germination in water vapour alone. The combined evidence contradicts the assumption that seed-soil contact is important for imbibition of water by seeds. Water vapour should be considered the primary source of water for seeds in unsaturated soils.
Examining student work for evidence of teacher uptake of educative curriculum materials

The purpose of this study was to identify evidence in student work of teachers' uptake of educative features in educative curriculum materials. These are features in curriculum materials designed with the specific intent of supporting teacher learning and enactment. This study was prompted by previous work on educative curriculum materials and the need to determine how teachers' use of educative curriculum materials can influence student learning. Student work from two fourth-grade teachers' enactment of an electric circuits unit was analyzed for evidence of teachers' uptake of educative features, which included characteristics of quality for particular science practices. Findings from the student work revealed that the teachers used many of the supports in the educative curriculum materials, especially those that could be used directly with students. The student work also reflected characteristics of high-quality science practices, which were only supported within the educative features. This study supports and extends other work related to how teachers' use of educative curriculum materials may influence student learning and has implications for supporting teachers' productive engagement in teaching that supports the integration of science content and scientific practices, as emphasized in current reform efforts. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 52: 816–846, 2015.
Inconsistent blood brain barrier disruption by intraarterial mannitol in rabbits: implications for chemotherapy

The novel ability to quantify drug and tracer concentrations in vivo by optical means leads to the possibility of detecting and quantifying blood brain barrier (BBB) disruption in real-time by monitoring concentrations of chromophores such as Evan’s Blue. In this study, experiments were conducted to assess the disruption of the BBB, by intraarterial injection of mannitol, in New Zealand white rabbits. Surgical preparation included: tracheotomy for mechanical ventilation, femoral and selective internal carotid artery (ICA) catheterizations, skull screws for monitoring electrocerebral activity, bilateral placement of laser Doppler probes and a small craniotomy for the placement of a fiber optic probe to determine tissue Evan’s Blue dye concentrations. Evans Blue (6.5 mg/kg) was injected intravenously (IV) just before BBB disruption with intracarotid mannitol (25%, 8 ml/40 s). Brain tissue concentrations of the dye in mannitol-treated and control animals were monitored using the method of optical pharmacokinetics (OP) during the subsequent 60 min. Hemodynamic parameters, heart rate, blood pressure, and EKG remained stable throughout the experiments in both the control and the mannitol-treated group. Brain tissue concentrations of Evan’s Blue and the brain:plasma Evan’s Blue partition coefficient progressively increased during the period of observation. A wide variation in brain tissue Evan’s Blue concentrations was observed in the mannitol group. The experiments demonstrate the feasibility of measuring tissue concentrations of Evan’s Blue without invading the brain parenchyma, and in real-time. The data suggest that there are significant variations in the degree and duration of BBB disruption induced with intraarterial mannitol. The ability to optically monitor the BBB disruption in real-time could provide a feedback control for hypertonic disruption and/or facilitate dosage control for chemotherapeutic drugs that require such disruption.
The asgE locus is required for cell-cell signalling during Myxococcus xanthus development.

Summary In response to starvation, Myxococcus xanthus undergoes a multicellular developmental process that produces a dome-shaped fruiting body structure filled with differentiated cells called myxospores. Two insertion mutants that block the final stages of fruiting body morphogenesis and reduce sporulation efficiency were isolated and characterized. DNA sequence analysis revealed that the chromosomal insertions are located in open reading frames ORF2 and asgE ,w hich are separated by 68 bp. The sporulation defect of cells carrying the asgE insertion can be rescued phenotypically when co-developed with wild-type cells, whereas the sporulation efficiency of cells carrying the ORF2 insertion was not improved when mixed with wild-type cells. Thus, the asgE insertion mutant appears to belong to a class of developmental mutants that are unable to produce cell‐cell signals required for M. xanthus development, but they retain the ability to respond to them when they are provided by wildtype cells. Several lines of evidence indicate that asgE cells fail to produce normal levels of A-factor, a cell density signal. A-factor consists of a mixture of heat-stable amino acids and peptides, and at least two heat-labile extracellular proteases. The asgE mutant yielded about 10-fold less heat-labile A-factor and about twofold less heat-stable A-factor than wild-type cells, suggesting that the primary defect of asgE cells is in the production or release of heat-labile A-factor.
Allometric growth of the sulcus in Cynoscion spp. (Sciaenidae)

The sulcus of Cynoscion spp. exhibited strong positive allometric growth relative to the medial surface of the otolith, and the ratio between the area of the sulcus and the otolith (S:O) increased dramatically with size. The S:O ratios of larger specimens are the highest that have so far been reported.
DOMAIN STRUCTURES AND PHASE TRANSITIONS IN LANGMUIR MONOLAYERS

A variety of recent measurements has shown that the phase diagrams of Langmuir monolayers of relatively simple amphiphiles such as fatty acids and their methyl and ethyl esters are remarkably complex. Nine condensed phases have been identified; their structures can be related to those of known smectic phases. A key distinction between phases is the orientation of the molecular tilt azimuth with respect to the local hexagonal order of the head groups. When monolayers are examined by fluorescence microscopy, regions of uniform tilt can be observed if the exciting radiation is polarized with respect to the surface normal. The tilt regions form patterns similar to those observed in freely suspended films of smectic liquid crystals. The patterns can be changed by compressing the film and by changing the temperature. Transitions between different phases can be observed.
A Model of African Indigenous Economy and Society

certain elements of African life which have bearing on an economic approach. These include in particular the matters of the role of livestock, the relation between people and livestock, the nature of rights in people, the nature of so-called corporate groups, and the nature of food production and exchange. In making this reassessment, I am drawing heavily upon the results of my study of the Wanyaturu or Turu of central Tanganyika in 1959 and 1960 and on an extension of the conclusions to other pastoral societies, based upon the feeling that there is sufficient evidence from ethnographic sources to warrant such an hypothetical extension, even though it is oversimplified. One of the most distressing barriers to the development of a comparative economics with the sophistication of Western economics is often said to be the lack of precise pricing of values in non-Western societies. Prices represent values and by means of them values can be accurately compared. But I do not believe that such a barrier exists in studying the economics of pastoral Africa simply because it is now apparent that livestock fill the role of money. Livestock in pastoral Africa have various uses of which the most important are those of food, production of young and repositories of value whereby they are utilizable as money. As money, livestock are graded in value and precise ratios of value are established between the types so that various combinations of animals can be equated with each other, just as various denominations of money can be. Few single societies possess the full range of types of livestock, which over the whole of pastoral Africa includes horses, camels, cattle, goats and sheep as well as some less important ones, like chickens. However it seems clear that taken all together the values of these animals are in the rank just listed, i.e., horses are the most valuable and goats and sheep least valuable. Otherwise, female animals are more valuable than males (except in some societies, like Turu, where the sex of goats and sheep is ignored), and mature animals are more valuable than immature ones. A heifer is less valuable than a cow, or at least than a young cow, because the chief value of a female animal is her reproductive capacity and a cow has proven her ability to re-
A study of physical and mechanical properties of poly(hydroxybutyrate-co-hydroxyvalerate) during composting

Changes in physical and mechanical properties of poly(hydroxybutyrate-co-hydroxyvalerate) (PHBV) during degradation in a composting medium were studied. Effect of composting of up to 50 days was studied. Specimen weight loss, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), capillary viscometry, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy with accessory for attenuated total reflectance (FTIR-ATR), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and tensile testing were performed to characterize the changes in the physical and mechanical properties of PHBV during its degradation in the composting medium. The results from the analysis of weight loss, SEM, molecular weight, FTIR, DSC and tensile testing, particularly the physical and mechanical properties, suggest that the degradation of PHBV in compost medium is enzymatic rather than hydrolytic and occurs from surface and the degraded material leaches out.
Time and area efficient pattern matching on FPGAs

Pattern matching for network security and intrusion detection demands exceptionally high performance. Much work has been done in this field, and yet there is still significant room for improvement in efficiency, flexibility, and throughput. We develop a novel linear-array string matching architecture using a buffered, two-comparator variation on the Knuth-Morris-Pratt(KMP) algorithm. For small (16 or fewer characters) patterns, it competes favorably with the state-of-the-art while providing better scalability and reconfiguration, and more efficient hardware utilization. The area efficiency compared to other approaches improves further still as the pattern size increases because only the tables increase in size.KMP is a well-known, efficient string matching technique using a single comparator and a precomputed transition table. We add a second comparator and an input buffer, allowing the system to accept at least one character in each cycle and terminate after a number of clock cycles at maximum equal to the length of the input string plus the size of the buffer. The system also provides a clean, modular route to reconfiguring the patterns on-the-fly and scaling the system to support more units, using several rows of linear array elements. In this paper, we prove the bound on the buffer size and running time, and provide performance comparisons against other approaches.
A Hepadnavirus Regulatory Element Enhances Expression of a Type 2 Bovine Viral Diarrhea Virus E2 Protein from a Bovine Herpesvirus 1 Vector

Recently, the possibility of using virus vectors to immunize cattle against selected bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV) genes has gained widespread interest. However, when we attempted to express the E2 protein from type 2 (890 strain) BVDV in a bovine herpesvirus 1 (BHV1) vector, we observed that expression was poor. This often happens when genes from a cytoplasmic virus are expressed in the cell nucleus. To counter this effect, we attempted to enhance expression by a strategy employed by viruses. RNAs of retroviruses and hepadnaviruses contain cis-acting elements that facilitate expression of RNAs that otherwise are degraded or retained within the nucleus. In Mason-Pfizer monkey virus, the required RNA sequence element is known as a constitutive transport element (CTE). A related element from woodchuck hepatitis virus is known as the woodchuck posttranscriptional regulatory element (WPRE). We tested the ability of the CTE, the WPRE, and introns to enhance expression of E2. All three elements stimulated expression of E2 from plasmids. The combination of the WPRE and an intron yielded the highest level of E2 expression in plasmids. However, when E2 was expressed from a BHV1 vector, the presence of an intron was inhibitory. In contrast, the WPRE was very efficient at stimulating E2 expression from a BHV1 vector. This result represents the first expression of a type 2 BVDV E2 protein from a mammalian virus vector and raises the possibility that the WPRE may provide a general method of enhancing foreign gene expression from BHV1 and other herpesvirus vectors.
Automated Data Mining from Web Servers Using Perl Script

Data mining from the Web is the process of extracting essential data from any web server. In this paper, we present a method called Ethernet Robot to extract information/data from a web server using perl scripting language and to process the data using regular expressions. The procedure involves fetching, filtering, processing and presentation of required data. The resultant HTML file consisting of the required data is displayed for the perusal of users. Future enhancements to our ethernet robot include optimization to improve performance and customization for use as a sophisticated client-specific search agent.
Leadership for Social Justice: Authentic Participation in the Case of a Community Center in Caracas, Venezuela

This is a case study of a leader who fosters authentic participation for advancing social justice in an urban community center in Caracas, Venezuela, located in the midst of poverty, marginality, a...
A Coming of Age Story: Chlamydia in the Post-Genetic Era

Chlamydia spp. are ubiquitous, obligate, intracellular Gram-negative bacterial pathogens that undergo a unique biphasic developmental cycle transitioning between the infectious, extracellular elementary body and the replicative, intracellular reticulate body. The primary Chlamydia species associated with human disease are C. trachomatis, which is the leading cause of both reportable bacterial sexually transmitted infections and preventable blindness, and C. pneumoniae, which infects the respiratory tract and is associated with cardiovascular disease. Collectively, these pathogens are a significant source of morbidity and pose a substantial financial burden on the global economy. Past efforts to elucidate virulence mechanisms of these unique and important pathogens were largely hindered by an absence of genetic methods. Watershed studies in 2011 and 2012 demonstrated that forward and reverse genetic approaches were feasible with Chlamydia and that shuttle vectors could be selected and maintained within the bacterium. While these breakthroughs have led to a steady expansion of the chlamydial genetic tool kit, there are still roads left to be traveled. This minireview provides a synopsis of the currently available genetic methods for Chlamydia along with a comparison to the methods used in other obligate intracellular bacteria. Limitations and advantages of these techniques will be discussed with an eye toward the methods still needed, and how the current state of the art for genetics in obligate intracellular bacteria could direct future technological advances for Chlamydia.
A Comparison of Lung Nodule Segmentation Algorithms: Methods and Results from a Multi-institutional Study

Tumor volume estimation, as well as accurate and reproducible borders segmentation in medical images, are important in the diagnosis, staging, and assessment of response to cancer therapy. The goal of this study was to demonstrate the feasibility of a multi-institutional effort to assess the repeatability and reproducibility of nodule borders and volume estimate bias of computerized segmentation algorithms in CT images of lung cancer, and to provide results from such a study. The dataset used for this evaluation consisted of 52 tumors in 41 CT volumes (40 patient datasets and 1 dataset containing scans of 12 phantom nodules of known volume) from five collections available in The Cancer Imaging Archive. Three academic institutions developing lung nodule segmentation algorithms submitted results for three repeat runs for each of the nodules. We compared the performance of lung nodule segmentation algorithms by assessing several measurements of spatial overlap and volume measurement. Nodule sizes varied from 29 μl to 66 ml and demonstrated a diversity of shapes. Agreement in spatial overlap of segmentations was significantly higher for multiple runs of the same algorithm than between segmentations generated by different algorithms (p < 0.05) and was significantly higher on the phantom dataset compared to the other datasets (p < 0.05). Algorithms differed significantly in the bias of the measured volumes of the phantom nodules (p < 0.05) underscoring the need for assessing performance on clinical data in addition to phantoms. Algorithms that most accurately estimated nodule volumes were not the most repeatable, emphasizing the need to evaluate both their accuracy and precision. There were considerable differences between algorithms, especially in a subset of heterogeneous nodules, underscoring the recommendation that the same software be used at all time points in longitudinal studies.
Survey of primary care physicians on therapeutic approaches to lung and breast cancers.

BACKGROUND Primary care physicians (PCPs) are an important part of the decision-making process in the care of patients with cancer. The survey discussed herein evaluates what percentage of academic and community PCPs recognize benefits from systemic therapy in lung and breast cancers. METHODS PCPs were surveyed regarding their beliefs toward systemic therapy in early- and late-stage lung and breast cancers and were asked to rate the importance of specific factors that influence their referral decisions. RESULTS A total of 3444 surveys were distributed, and 316 physicians (9.1%) responded: 89 academic physicians (28%) and 227 nonacademic physicians (72%). The rate of returned surveys was equal by specialty. A total of 57%, 42.1% in lung cancer and 72.6 % in breast cancer (P < 0.001) of PCPs, believe in the curative effect of systemic therapy in early stages. Sixty-six percent (58.2% in lung cancer and 75.5% in breast cancer [P < 0.001]) believe in improved disease-free survival. Although 82% believe that systemic therapy can prevent symptoms and prolong life in advanced asymptomatic disease, half (lung cancer 50.8%, breast cancer 53.1% [P = 0.5]) of the PCPs would refer symptomatic patients with advanced disease to palliative care before referral to an oncologist. The type and stage of cancer, as well as the patient's desire or reluctance to be referred to an oncologist were rated by PCPs as the most important reasons to refer patients to an oncologist (P < 0.0001). CONCLUSIONS Although a majority of PCPs in academia and the community acknowledge the positive effect of chemotherapy, the benefit of systemic therapy for early-stage lung cancer is less appreciated as compared with breast cancer. Patients' preferences influence PCPs significantly in the decision to refer patients to an oncologist.
Effect of rare earth metal on the spin-orbit torque in magnetic heterostructures

We report the effect of the rare earth metal Gd on current-induced spin-orbit torques (SOTs) in perpendicularly magnetized Pt/Co/Gd heterostructures, characterized using harmonic measurements and spin-torque ferromagnetic resonance (ST-FMR). By varying the Gd metal layer thickness from 0 nm to 8 nm, harmonic measurements reveal a significant enhancement of the effective fields generated from the Slonczewski-like and field-like torques. ST-FMR measurements confirm an enhanced effective spin Hall angle and show a corresponding increase in the magnetic damping constant with increasing Gd thickness. These results suggest that Gd plays an active role in generating SOTs in these heterostructures. Our finding may lead to spin-orbitronics device application such as non-volatile magnetic random access memory, based on rare earth metals.
Scientific visualization today

Scientific visualization is the field within computer science that focuses on the interactive display of complex data. It is a tool that can be used to compress a large amount of data into an image for a more efficient understanding. Scientific visualization can be considered a graphical process equivalent to numerical analysis. The methods used allows human to gain greater knowledge and insight into data through three increasing levels of comprehension: presentation, understanding, and prediction. Presentation graphics is the starting point (and often the ending point) in the scientific visualization process. At this level the goal is to communicate the data in ways that are easy to digest. From the presentation, researchers attempt to extract a deeper understanding of the processed data sets. Researchers can then attempts to predict behavior and form hypothesis aided by their enhanced understanding.
Language Matching Among Mother-child Dyads: Associations with Child Attachment and Emotion Reactivity

Links between mother-infant affective matching and attachment security are well-documented, but research on other types of behavioral matching and attachment security are lacking, as are studies that examine these constructs later in children's development. We examine language style matching (LSM) between mothers and their school-aged children (N = 68), using interviews with each dyad member. As predicted, regressions revealed that higher mother-child relational LSM was associated with greater child attachment security (operationalized as high security, low dismissal), and that higher LSM predicted smaller increases in children's electrodermal response to a relational probe 1.5 years later. Further, mother-child relational LSM was a mediator in the indirect path between children's attachment security and children's reactivity. We discuss the potential utility of LSM as a measure of relationship quality and future studies that could refine our understanding of parent-child language matching.
Making, not Curating, the Rhetorical Tradition: Ways through and beyond the Canon

The idea of the rhetorical tradition continues to trouble scholars, in part because it is often conflated with the Western rhetorical canon. The current way we use the word tradition is tied to nineteenth-century ideas of inheritance and continuity, which reinforce the canon. Using folklore scholarship to redefine tradition as something we continuously make and take responsibility for moves away from the canon while still allowing for creative use of past rhetorical practices and theories. Redefining tradition as something we make and pass on responsibility for should inform our teaching and reform the syllabi we create for our rhetoric courses.
A New System Development Framework Driven by a Model-Based Testing Approach Bridged by Information Flow

As complexity increases, model-based approaches have become standard in the systems engineering community. However, engineers from different domains approach the system/component development at different levels of abstraction. Information gaps are created because of their different perspectives. In addition, although systems have become more complex, requiring more attention to testing, system methodologies have not kept up. A new framework is needed to bridge the information gaps between the different domains. To take full advantage of both model-based approaches and testing, we propose a new framework, in the form of a new design structure matrix, for complex system development (CSD) that more effectively utilizes information flow from model-based testing (MBT). Toward the goal of being broadly applicable, the framework was designed to be fundamental, flexible, and scalable. A case study of a powertrain design demonstrates how the proposed framework bridges gaps in early development stages. The analysis of both simulation and field testing results has shown that utilization of feedback from MBT refines requirements by closing information gaps earlier. All the information loops in the framework match the information loops in the case study. Furthermore, the framework, because of CSD's iterative nature, has potential in improving information reuse.
Synthesis and Electron Spin Relaxation of Tetracarboxylate Pyrroline Nitroxides

We report the design, synthesis, and electron spin relaxation properties of hydrophilic tetracarboxylate ester pyrroline nitroxides 1 and 2, which serve as models in the search for new spin labels for DEER distance measurement at room temperature. The nitroxides are designed to have the methyl groups further away from the N–O spin site to decrease the inequivalent couplings of the unpaired electron to the methyl protons that shorten Tm at T > 70 K in currently used labels. The key step in the synthesis of 1 and 2 is the reaction of the dianion of pyrrole-1,2,5-tricarboxylic acid tert-butyl ester dimethyl ester with electrophiles such as methyl chloroformate and methyl bromoacetate. Structures of 1 and 2 are confirmed by X-ray crystallography. Studies of electron spin relaxation rates in rigid trehalose/sucrose matrices reveal approximately temperature independent values of 1/Tm for 1 and 2 up to about 160 K and modest temperature dependence up to 295 K, demonstrating that increasing the distance between t...
Genetic Risk Factors for Radiation Vasculopathy.

Purpose The purpose of this study was to perform a genome-wide scan for polymorphisms associated with risk of vision loss from radiation complications in patients treated with proton beam irradiation for choroidal melanoma. Methods We identified a cohort of 126 patients at high risk of radiation complications due to tumor location within 2 disc diameters of the optic nerve and/or fovea who provided a blood sample to the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Uveal Melanoma Repository. Controls (n = 76) were defined as patients with visual acuity 20/40 or better 3 years after treatment. Cases (n = 50) were selected as patients with visual acuity 20/200 or worse due to radiation damage 3 years after treatment. Genotyping of these samples was performed using the Omni 2.5 chip (Illumina, Inc.). Results Hypertension (odds ratio [OR] = 3.749, P = 0.0009), visual acuity at diagnosis of choroidal melanoma (OR = 1.031, P = 0.002), tumor distance to fovea (OR = 0.341, P = 6.52E-05), tumor distance to optic disc (OR = 0.481, P = 5.41E-05), and height of tumor (OR = 1.704, P = 0.0069) were associated with poor vision (20/200 or worse). Individual single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) analysis was performed controlling for the risk factors identified using stepwise regression and the first principal component. Although this analysis determined that there were 74,529 nominally significant SNPs (P < 0.05), there were no SNPs that reached genome-wide significance (P < 5E-08). The SNP reaching the highest significance level (P < 1E-04) was rs11678387, located on chromosome 2, intergenic between EPB41L5/RALB (P = 4.43E-05). Conclusions Visual loss from radiation vasculopathy after treatment for choroidal melanoma is not only related to tumor location but may be influenced by hypertension and possibly genetic factors.
Diastereoselective silylene transfer reactions to chiral enantiopure alkenes: effects of ligand size and substrate bias

Silylenes are useful reactive intermediates for the stereoselective construction of compounds containing carbon–silicon bonds. Despite their synthetic utility, the development of either an enantioselective or diastereoselective metal-catalyzed silylene transfer reaction, in which ligands on the metal catalyst control stereoselectivity, has not been achieved. In this article, we report that the structure of the alkene is the most important for controlling stereoselectivity in these reactions. The stereochemical course of kinetically controlled silacyclopropanation reactions was not affected by the nature or chirality of the ligands on the metal. When silylene transfer reactions were reversible, however, products can be formed with a high degree of diastereoselectivity (90 : 10 d.r.).
Wrinkled mesoporous carbon supported Pd nanoparticles for hydrogenation and aerobic oxidation reactions

Wrinkled mesoporous silica (WMS) was employed as a hard template to synthesize a carbon replica. The resulting carbon materials, wrinkled mesoporous carbon (WMC), retained the main structural features from the WMS, which has conical pores that radiate from the center of the spherical particle to the outer surface in all directions resulting in wrinkled shaped pore walls. This WMC material was used as a catalyst support for Pd nanoparticles. The Pd on WMC catalyst showed superior performance over commercial Pd on activated carbon for both styrene hydrogenation and the aerobic oxidation of benzyl alcohol.
Technology use and its association with health and depressive symptoms in older cancer survivors

Acknowledging the expanding influence of technology in the promotion of health and wellness, this study assessed the role of information and communication technology (ICT) use in the lives of older cancer survivors. A community sample of cancer survivors aged 65 and older (N = 1411) was extracted from a 2011 U.S. National Health and Aging Trends Study dataset. Weighted multiple regression and multinomial logistic regression analyses were performed to explore the relationships between survey respondents’ ICT use and their self-rated health status and depressive symptoms. The majority of respondents reported rarely or never engaging in ICT use. Greater use of communication technology such as emailing or texting was associated with decreased risk for severe depressive symptoms and higher self-rated health status. Information technology use was not associated with depressive symptoms and self-rated health status. Investigation into reasons behind older cancer survivors’ apparent low rates of engagement with ICT is warranted, particularly the examination of access as a potential barrier. Findings indicated that frequent use of communication technology was positively linked with mental and physical wellness. The nature of the relationships between communication technology use and physical and mental health merits further research, helping to determine whether community-based educational efforts to improve technology access and skills may benefit the growing population of older cancer survivors.
Chemistry of Specific Antigenic Sites on Cell Surfaces

The interaction of a cell with its extracellular environment occurs at the surface of its plasma membrane. The specialized functions of differentiated cells must, in some way, be correlated with the quality, quantity, and organization of the carbohydrate, lipid, and protein components of their membranes. The highly specialized immunological functions of mammalian cells are determined by specific chemical structures, cell surface antigens, and antigen receptor sites, which are responsible for the initiation of the immune response. The chemistry of several erythrocyte antigens has been elucidated in the last decade, but little or nothing is known about the chemistry of the majority of the antigenic sites on cell surfaces. Brief consideration is given here to the already classic studies on the dominant role of carbohydrates as the specific antigenic determinants of human blood groups and to the role of lipids as stabilizers for the antigenic determinants of membrane proteins. Prime consideration is given to studies on membrane proteins, which constitute an important class of antigenic determinants on cell surfaces.
Phase 1B ventricular arrhythmia in the dog: localized reentry within the mid-myocardium.

Intramural and epicardial composite electrograms, signal-averaged orthogonal bipolar electrograms across the ischemic zone, and closely-spaced bipolar electrograms from subendocardium, mid-myocardium, and subepicardium were utilized to determine if phase 1B reentry resulted from localized reentry within ischemic mid-myocardium. During the first 10 minutes following coronary ligation, activation delays were largest in ischemic subepicardium, with continuous electrical activity in ischemic epicardium linking a ventricular extrasystole to the preceding beat. During the 15–30 minute period, activation delay observed in ischemic mid-myocardium exceeded activation delay on the epicardial surface. Ventricular extrasystoles were associated with mid-myocardial delays > 130 msec. With short-coupled extrasystoles ( 300 msec were also associated with mid-myocardial delays >130 msec, most extrasystoles (68%) demonstrated an isoelectric gap >20 msec. The data demonstrate an association between delayed activation within ischemic mid-myocardium and phase 1B arrhythmia resulting from (1) localized reentry in ischemic mid-myocardium and (2) a delay-dependent “non-reentrant” mechanism.
Overview of the CSF Dual Outflow System

It was firmly established in the mid-twentieth century that the arachnoid villi represented an open pathway between the subarachnoid space and the dural venous sinuses. Intracellular and extracellular pathways within the villous structure provided the conduit for cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and particulate matter. The importance of the lymphatic system was established by the demonstration of CSF tracers entering the nasal lymphatic system via the perineural subarachnoid space enveloping the olfactory nerve rootlets. It appears that because of the late development of the arachnoid villus (AV) system, the lymphatic outflow system is the more dominant one in the young animal, but in the mature animal the importance of both systems appears equal. In general, the lymphatic system in lower animals appears dominant, but in the case of primates, this may not be the case. The global outflow system has a definite opening pressure of ca. 50-70 mm of water, and the balance between production of CSF and absorption occurs at a resting pressure of ca. 115 mm water. The bicompartmental CSF outflow curves obtained from hydrocephalic patients support the presence of a dual outflow system utilized in normal CSF drainage.
Efficient AV1 Video Coding Using a Multi-layer Framework

This paper proposes a multi-layer multi-reference prediction framework for effective video compression. Current AOM/AV1 baseline uses three reference frames for the inter prediction of each video frame. This paper first presents a new coding tool that extends the total number of reference frames in both forward and backward prediction directions. A multi-layer framework is then described, which suggests the encoder design and places different reference frames within one Golden Frame (GF) group to different layers. The multi-layer framework leverages the existing coding tools in the AV1 baseline, including the tool of "show_existing_frame" and the reference frame buffer update module of a wide flexibility. The use of extended ALTREF_FRAMEs is proposed, and multiple ALTREF_FRAME candidates are selected and widely spaced within one GF group. ALTREF_FRAME is a constructed, no-show reference obtained through temporal filtering of a look-ahead frame. In the multi-layer structure, one reference frame may serve different roles for the encoding of different frames through the virtual index manipulation. The experimental results have been collected over several video test sets of various resolutions and characteristics both texture- and motion-wise, which demonstrate that the proposed approach achieves a consistent coding gain compared to the AV1 baseline. For instance, using PSNR as the distortion metric, an average bitrate saving of 5.57+% in BDRate is obtained for the CIF-level resolution set, some of which has a gain of up to 13+%, and 4.47% on average for the VGA-level resolution set, some of which up to 18+%.
Penny Dreadful: The Neo-Victorian ‘Made-for-TV’ Series

Penny Dreadful (2014, 2015, 2016) is an exemplary neo-Victorian TV series that heralds the arrival of a new kind of serialised TV costume drama adaptation. Unlike the traditional, fidelity-driven ‘classic’ adaptations that dominated television screens pre-millennium, it taps into current audience desire for a more playful, less reverential adaptive treatment of canonical literature from the long nineteenth century. This chapter explores the ways in which the series breaches the boundaries of our perception of the TV costume drama genre, taking its audience into the darker realms of Gothic TV horror by wedding the transgressive elements of the canonical narratives it appropriates to its newly incepted neo-Victorian story arc.
Effects of Spatial Structure and Reduced Growth Rates on Evolution in Bacterial Populations

The evolutionary forces that create and maintain the awesome diversity observed in microbial communities and populations are not well understood. For the most part, previous studies on microbial evolution have been done using model species that are grown in well-mixed homogenous environments in which cells experience continuous or episodic periods of exponential growth. The relevance of these experimental systems to the evolution of naturally occurring populations is limited because bacterial populations in most environments reside in spatially structured heterogeneous habitats in which cell growth is slowed by nutrient limitation and cells often experience prolonged periods of stasis. Here we review and discuss how spatial structure and slow growth influence the evolution of microbial populations. We focus our discussion on microbial populations contained within biofilms, which are complex assemblages of microbial cells enclosed in self-made extracellular matrices. Biofilm-bound populations have spatial structure and contain subpopulations that are growing slowly. Studies have shown that spatial structure limits competition to a local scale thereby protracting selective sweeps. Additionally, reduced growth rates directly impact the rate at which selection can alter genotype frequencies in populations. Combined, these characteristics lead to the emergence and maintenance of genetic diversity within biofilms. We contend that the findings of studies on evolutionary processes in bacterial biofilms can readily be extrapolated to other spatially structured microbial habitats, such as soils and sediments, in which nutrient limitation causes slow growth.
The Learning Exchange, a Community Knowledge Commons for Learning Networks: Qualitative Evaluation to Test Acceptability, Feasibility, and Utility

Background: Learning Networks are distributed learning health systems that enable collaboration at scale to improve health and health care. A key requirement for such networks is having a way to create and share information and knowledge in furtherance of the work of the community. Objective: We describe a Learning Exchange—a bespoke, scalable knowledge management and exchange platform initially built and tested for improving pediatric inflammatory bowel disease outcomes in the ImproveCareNow (ICN) Network—and assess evidence of its acceptability, feasibility, and utility in facilitating creation and sharing of information in furtherance of the work of the community and as a model for other communities. Methods: Acceptability was assessed via growth in active users and activity. Feasibility was measured in terms of the percentage of users with a log-in who became active users as well as user surveys and a case study. Utility was measured in terms of the type of work that the Learning Exchange facilitated for the community. Results: The ICNExchange has over 1000 users and supported sharing of resources across all care centers in ICN. Users reported that the Learning Exchange has facilitated their work and resulted in increased ability to find resources relevant to local information needs. Conclusions: The ICNExchange is acceptable, feasible, and useful as a knowledge management and exchange platform in service of the work of ICN. Experience with the ICNExchange suggests that the design principles are extensible to other chronic care Learning Networks.
Isotopic ratios of Saturn's rings and satellites: Implications for the origin of water and Phoebe

Abstract Isotopic ratios have long been used to learn about physical processes acting over a wide range of geological environments, and in constraining the origin and/or evolution of planetary bodies. We report the spectroscopic detection of deuterium in Saturn's rings and satellites, and use these measurements to determine the (D/H) ratios in their near-surface regions. Saturn's moons, Phoebe and Iapetus, show a strong signature of CO2 and the 13C component of this molecule is detected and quantified. Large averages of spectra obtained by the Cassini Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer, VIMS, were computed for the rings and icy satellites. The observed intensities of the infrared absorptions in H2O and CO2 and their isotopes were calibrated using laboratory data and radiative transfer models to derive the D/H and 13C/12C ratios. We find that the D/H in Saturn's rings and satellites is close to the Vienna Standard Mean Ocean Water (VSMOW) and bulk Earth (4% lower than VSMOW) value except for Phoebe, which is 8.3 times the VSMOW value. This is the highest value for any Solar-System surface yet measured, and suggests that Phoebe formed from material with a different D/H ratio than the other satellites in the Saturn system. Phoebe's 13C/12C ratio is also unusual: 4.7 times greater than terrestrial, and greater than values measured for the interstellar medium and the galactic center. The high 13C abundance in the CO2 suggests that Phoebe was never warm enough for the large D/H ratio in its surface to have originated by evaporative fractionation of its water ice (e.g., from heating in the inner Solar System before its eventual capture by Saturn). We also report the detection of a probable O-D stretch absorption due to OD in minerals on Phoebe at 3.62 μm. This absorption is not detected on other Saturnian satellites. Stronger signatures of bound water absorptions are found in the dark material of Iapetus and we report a new detection of bound water at 1.9 μm. The position of this absorption matches that seen in spectra of hydrated iron oxides but does not match absorptions seen in spectra of tholins. Despite the strong bound water signature in the Iapetus dark material, no 3.62 μm OD absorption is seen in the spectra, further indicating the high deuterium level on Phoebe is unusual. As such, it is likely that Phoebe originated in a colder part of the outer Solar System, relative to the prevailing temperatures at Saturn's distance from the Sun.
Chapter 14 Lupin Alkaloids

Publisher Summary This chapter describes studies focusing on lupin alkaloids. As in the case of the Senecio alkaloids, N -oxides of certain of the bases have been discovered in the lupin plants. Alkaloids with other than quinolizidine-derived nuclei have also been isolated. Certain of the compounds previously listed as lupin alkaloids are now known to be artifacts, and many new alkaloids have been identified. Nature has been remarkably indiscriminate in lupin alkaloid synthesis, as indicated by the natural occurrence of many of the possible stereoisomers represented by each gross structure. Various methods of chromatography have found increasing application in the separation of the alkaloidal amines. Adsorption chromatography on alumina has been supplemented by paper chromatography, and the R f values of the alkaloids that have been determined under comparison conditions are listed in the chapter. Filter paper disk chromatography has been applied to the leguminous alkaloids by White, and he lists R f values for thirteen lupin alkaloid and alkaloid products in four different solvent systems. Countercurrent distribution of mixed bases has been employed by Crow and Michael, while the separation of a mixture of anabasine and lupinine has been effected by utilizing Cu II complexes with the former, a bis-piperidine alkaloid.
A Subharmonic Switching Digital Power Amplifier for Power Back-Off Efficiency Enhancement

This paper presents a subharmonic switching (SHS) digital power amplifier (PA) architecture that enhances power efficiency in the power back-off (PBO) region. The proposed technique can be combined with the class-G operation. By using either SHS or dual-power supply switching, it can provide several peak efficiency points, located at 0, −3.5, −9.5, and, −13 dB PBO. By judiciously choosing the optimal operation mode between SHS and dual supplies for each PA cell at different output power levels, we can further improve the efficiency between peaks. The SHS PA prototype is implemented with a switched-capacitor PA (SCPA) architecture in 65-nm CMOS to validate the effectiveness of the proposed technique, which achieves a 26.8-dBm peak output power with a 49.3% peak drain efficiency (DE) at 2.25 GHz and a 27% DE at −13-dB PBO.