cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Evaluating soil microbial carbon use efficiency explicitly as a function of cellular processes: implications for measurements and models

Carbon use efficiency (CUE), the proportion of carbon (C) consumed by microbes that is converted into biomass, is an important parameter for soil C models with explicit microbial controls. While often considered as a single parameter, CUE is an emergent property of multiple microbial processes, including assimilation efficiency, biomass-specific respiration, enzyme production, and respiratory costs of enzyme production. These processes occur over variable time scales and imply different fates for C, and the same emergent CUE value can result when C is allocated in fundamentally different ways (e.g. a high investment in enzyme production vs. a high assimilation cost). We developed a model that represents the individual processes underlying emergent CUE to test how shifts in microbial allocation alter equilibrium soil C pool sizes. We found that an increase in emergent CUE that results from a change in assimilation efficiency, biomass specific respiration, or respiration costs from enzyme production causes soil organic C (SOC) to decline, while the same change in emergent CUE resulting from a change in enzyme production causes SOC to increase. We also used the model to test the sensitivity of CUE from isotopic C tracer estimates to changes in microbial allocation processes. We found that these estimates do not account for the same microbial processes represented by emergent CUE in models. We propose that considering microbial processes explicitly rather than representing CUE as a single parameter can improve data-model integration. In addition, modeling microbial processes explicitly will account for a wider range of possible outcomes from shifts in microbial C allocation, such as when increased SOC results from increasing CUE.
Predictability of North Atlantic Sea Surface Temperature and Upper-Ocean Heat Content

AbstractUnderstanding the extent to which Atlantic sea surface temperatures (SSTs) are predictable is important due to the strong climate impacts of Atlantic SST on Atlantic hurricanes and temperat...
Machine Learning Approaches for IC Manufacturing Yield Enhancement

Modern semiconductor manufacturing is highly automated and generates a large amount of data with every wafer and process step. There is an increasing interest in machine learning and data mining techniques to improve yield to take advantage of this increasing volume of data. In this chapter, we introduce machine learning yield models for integrated circuit (IC) manufacturing yield enhancement. Challenges in this area include class imbalance due to high manufacturing yield, and concept drift due to the time-varying environment. We present batch and online learning methods to tackle the imbalanced classification problem, and incremental machine learning frameworks to overcome concept drift. We consider the packaging and testing process in chip stack flash memory manufacturing as an application. By testing our methods on real data from industry, we show the possibility of packaged memory yield improvement with machine learning-based classifiers detecting bad dies before packaging. Experimental results show significant yield improvement potential. In a time-invariant environment, for stacks of eight dies, we can achieve an approximately 9% yield improvement. In a longer period of time with realistic concept drift, a naive approach using a fixed false alarm rate-based decision boundary is shown to fail to improve yield. In contrast, with optimal thresholds, our incremental learning approach achieves approximately 1.4% yield improvement in the eight-die stack case and 3.4% in the 16-die stack case.
Person Detection by Fusion of Visible and Thermal Images Using Convolutional Neural Network

In the last couple of decades, Convolution Neural Network (CNN) emerged as the most active field of research. There are a number of applications of CNN, and its architectures are used for the improvement of accuracy and efficiency in various fields. In this paper, we aim to use CNN in order to generate fusion of visible and thermal camera images to detect persons present in those images for a reliable surveillance application. There are various kinds of image fusion methods to achieve multi-sensor, multi-modal, multi-focus and multi-view image fusion. Our proposed methodology includes Encoder-Decoder architecture for fusion of visible and thermal images and ResNet-152 architecture for classification of images to detect if there is a person present in the image or not. Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) multispectral dataset consisting of 95,000 visible and thermal images is used for training of CNNs. During experimentation, it is observed that fused architecture outperforms individual visible and thermal based architectures, where fused architecture gives 99.2% accuracy while visible gives 97% and thermal gives 97.6% accuracy.
Arts and Humanities Efforts in the US Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network: Understanding Perceived Values and Challenges

Calls for interdisciplinary approaches to environmental problem-solving are common across the biophysical and social sciences. Recently, some of these collaborations have incorporated the creative arts and humanities, including projects across the 24 sites of the US Long-term Ecological Research (LTER) network. A substantial body of artistic and written work has been produced by LTER-affiliated sites. However, there has been no systematic analysis of this work. We used a cross-site, social scientific analysis to understand the extent and nature of arts and humanities inquiry in the LTER network and to assess perceptions about the values and challenges associated with it. We found that 19 of the 24 LTER sites agree or strongly agree that arts and humanities inquiry is important and relevant for the sites. Perceived values of this work include its goodness in and of itself, as well as its ability to foster outreach and public involvement and to inspire creative thinking. Contrarily, participants identified funding, available labor, and available expertise as limiting factors in the growth of arts and humanities inquiry in the LTER network. Respondents highlighted themes relevant to the relationship between ecological science and ethics, including participants’ willingness to accept fostering empathy, an identified value of arts and humanities inquiry, as pertinent to LTER network goals and research on some level. This ethical potential of arts and humanities inquiry in the LTER network provides an opportunity to bridge ecological research with arts and humanities inquiry in ways that are meaningful for Earth stewardship.
An ER CREC family protein regulates the egress proteolytic cascade in malaria parasites

The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is thought to play an essential role during egress of malaria parasites because the ER is assumed to be the calcium (Ca2+) signaling hub and required for biogenesis of egress-related organelles. However, no proteins localized to the parasite ER have been shown to play a role in egress of malaria parasites. In this study, we generated conditional mutants of the Plasmodium falciparum Endoplasmic Reticulum-resident Calcium-binding protein (PfERC), a member of the CREC family. Knockdown of PfERC shows that this gene is essential for asexual growth of P. falciparum. Analysis of the intraerythrocytic lifecycle revealed that PfERC is essential for parasite egress but not required for protein trafficking or Ca2+ storage. We found that PfERC knockdown prevents the rupture of the parasitophorous vacuole membrane. This is because PfERC knockdown inhibited the proteolytic maturation of the subtilisin-like serine protease, SUB1. Using double mutant parasites, we show that PfERC is required for the proteolytic maturation of the essential aspartic protease, Plasmepsin X, which cleaves SUB1. Further, we show that processing of substrates downstream of the proteolytic cascade is inhibited by PfERC knockdown. Thus, these data establish the ER-resident CREC family protein, PfERC, as a key early regulator of the egress proteolytic cascade of malaria parasites.
Octogenarians with Multiple Sclerosis: Lessons for Aging in Place.

Les facteurs de protection retrouves chez des octogenaires atteints de sclerose en plaques (SP) vivant a domicile ont ete compares a ceux d'individus sans SP du meme groupe d'âge et de personnes moins âgees atteintes de SP. Les donnees provenant des octogenaires atteints de SP (n = 23) et d'un groupe de repondants plus jeunes avec cette maladie (n = 61) ont ete tirees d'une enquete canadienne sur le vieillissement avec SP. Les donnees des groupes avec SP ont ete comparees aux statistiques nationales d'octogenaires de la population generale. Les octogenaires avec SP presentaient plus d'incapacites et une prevalence plus elevee de troubles de l'humeur, mais etaient physiquement plus actifs que la population d'octogenaires de l'enquete canadienne. Les octogenaires avec SP ont declare eprouver moins de stress et de fatigue que le groupe d'individus plus jeunes avec SP. Bien que la difference d'âge entre les deux groupes avec SP soit d'une dizaine d'annees, ces groupes ont rapporte des niveaux similaires de soutien social, d'aisance financiere, d'incapacite physique et de participation. Le maintien d'appuis solides (sociaux et financiers), d'une attitude positive, la pratique d'activite physique et la participation aux activites quotidiennes peuvent contribuer au vieillissement dans la collectivite chez les individus avec SP, malgre les defis amenes par cette maladie. We aimed to determine protective factors distinguishing octogenarians with multiple sclerosis (MS) living at home from others their age and younger people with MS. Data from MS octogenarians (n = 23) and a matched group of MS young-old respondents (n = 61) were extracted from a Canadian MS aging survey. The MS groups were compared, along with a group of octogenarians from the general population, using national statistics. MS octogenarians lived with greater disability and higher prevalence of mood disorders but were more physically active than Canadian octogenarians without MS. MS octogenarians reported less stress and fatigue than the MS young-old group, and despite being more than a decade older, they reported similar levels of social support, financial flexibility, physical disability, and participation. Even when challenged by MS, maintenance of strong supports (social and financial), positive attitude, and participation in physical activity and life roles may contribute to aging in place.
Paths to non-deterministic autonomy: practical and qualitative considerations towards a Hawking-Musk-esque nightmare

Current computational approaches, such as Artificial Intelligence, artificial neural networks, expert systems, fuzzy logic, fuzzy-cognitive maps, other rule-based approaches, etc., fundamentally do not lend themselves to building nondeterministic autonomous reasoning systems. Especially for AI, high hopes were raised more than 50 years ago, but AI has largely failed to deliver on its promises and still does. As such, the paper discusses different ingredients and approaches towards completely non-deterministic autonomous systems that are based on and exhibit critical capabilities, such as, but not limited to, self-organization, self-configuration, and self-adaptation. As such, any two initially identical autonomous systems will exhibit diverging and ultimately completely unpredictable developmental trajectories over time, once exposed to the same or similar environment, and even more so, once exposed to different environments.
Social security: less socially connected marmots produce noisier alarm calls

The nonlinearity and fear hypothesis predicts that the structure of alarm vocalizations will be influenced by the signaller's internal state. Specifically, stressed or otherwise more aroused individuals will produce alarm calls that are relatively more nonlinear (i.e. they sound noisier). The position of an individual in a social network can influence an individual's sense of security. More centrally located individuals may feel more secure and thus we might expect that they would produce noisier calls. Building on previous research about the influence of social relationships on an individual's sense of security, we asked whether social network position explained variation in the noisiness (quantified as Wiener entropy) and goodness of pitch of alarm calls produced by trapped yellow-bellied marmots, Marmota flaviventer. More socially isolated individuals, characterized by lower instrength, produced alarm calls with higher entropy and higher goodness of pitch. These isolated individuals may be more aroused because they have fewer social partners to depend on when presented with a predatory threat; therefore, they produce both noisy and potentially louder calls. Additionally, individuals with higher outcloseness produced calls with higher goodness of pitch, which may be indicative of their ability to better inform neighbours of impending threats. Overall, this study further illustrates how an individual's social network position influences the structure of its alarm calls, which could reflect how individuals perceive their current safety levels.
How collectively organised residents in marginalised urban settlements secure multiple basic service enhancements: Evidence from Hyderabad, India:

Residents of marginalised urban settlements in low- and middle-income countries jointly experience multiple short-term basic service deficits which impair their health and broader wellbeing. A wide...
Predictors of difficult epidural placement in pregnant women: A trainees' perspective.

Background and Aims: Epidural analgesia is believed to be the most difficult technique to learn for a trainee. The reason for this is not only inexperience of the provider and the complexity of the technique but also patient factors like obesity, spinal deformity and others which makes the epidural placement difficult. The aim of this study was to evaluate some of the common risk factors for difficult epidural placement as perceived by the anesthesia providers during training, with varying level of experience. Material and Methods: This prospective observational study includes patients who received epidural placement for labor analgesia. Data recorded on these patients included age, height, weight, body mass index (BMI), ease of palpation of the spinous process, level of epidural placement, number of attempts, time taken for epidural placement and experience of the provider. The association between the variables were assessed using logistic regression for first attempt success and Cox proportional hazard ratio for time to epidural placement. Results: A total of 373 patients received epidural placement for labor analgesia. The mean BMI at the time of placement was 34. The first attempt success rate for the placement of epidural was 67% (n = 273). Women with well palpable spinous process were 3.3 times more likely to have a successful first attempt placement irrespective of the provider experience or BMI [3.39 (1.77-6.51), P Conclusion: Inability to palpate the spinous process contributes to multiple attempts at epidural placement when performed by a trainee.
Comparisons of Transcriptome Profiles from Bacillus subtilis Cells Grown in Space versus High Aspect Ratio Vessel (HARV) Clinostats Reveal a Low Degree of Concordance

Although clinostats have long been used in space microbiology studies as ground-based analogs of spaceflight, few studies to date have systematically compared -omics data from clinostats versus spa...
Deterministic incident-wave elevation prediction in intermediate water depth

Potential performance gains from optimal (non-causal) impedance-matching control of wave energy devices in irregular ocean waves are dependent on deterministic wave elevation prediction techniques that work well in practical applications. Although a number of devices are designed for operation in intermediate water depths, little work has been reported on deterministic wave prediction in such depths. Investigated in this paper is a deterministic wave-prediction technique based on an approximate propagation model that leads to an analytical formulation, which may be convenient to implement in practice. To improve accuracy, an approach to combine predictions based on multiple up-wave measurement points is evaluated. The overall method is tested using experimental time-series measurements recorded in the U.S. Navy MASK basin in Carderock, MD, USA. For comparison, an alternative prediction approach based on Fourier coefficients is also tested with the same data. Comparison of prediction approaches with direct measurements suggest room for improvement. Possible sources of error including tank reflections are estimated, and potential mitigation approaches are discussed.
A Comprehensive Review of Infections in Older Kidney Transplant Recipients

While a great deal of literature has been published in recent years on infections in kidney transplant (KT) recipients, there is a relative paucity of literature on infections and their impact on the graft and overall health of older KT recipients. We reviewed the most recent literature and guidelines in the field of kidney transplantation and summarized the current recommendations for physicians caring for older KT recipients at risk for infections. Older KT recipients are at an increased risk of infections during the first year post-KT resulting in readmission or other poor outcomes, compared to younger KT recipients. Immune senescence and frailty likely increase the risk for infections in older KT recipients during the first year post-KT when KT recipients are receiving a higher degree of immune suppressive therapy. Most common infections include urinary tract infections, bloodstream infections, cytomegalovirus reactivation or primary infection, and BK virus. A majority of older KT recipients survive and have a functioning graft at 1 year. KT can be a successful treatment for older adults on dialysis if post-transplant complications, including rejection and infection, can be appropriately managed. Despite this increased risk for infections, older KT recipients have a lower risk for all-cause mortality and death secondary to infections compared with patients on dialysis. Further studies on modification of immune suppression and prophylactic strategies are much needed in this high-risk KT population.
Evidence of adaptation, mitigation, and development co-benefits of solar mini-grids in rural Ghana

Abstract The deployment of renewable energy can potentially offer co-benefits for rural populations in sub-Saharan Africa. However, empirical studies identifying the linkages between adaptation, mitigation, and development co-benefits of renewable energy in the region are scarce in the academic literature. This article provides evidence of adaptation, mitigation, and development co-benefits of solar mini-grids to rural Ghanaian islands. Drawing on climate compatible development framework, the study applied surveys to identify solar mini-grids' benefits. The results show that solar minigrids have delivered co-benefits to the rural islanders. The co-benefits include mediated impacts of heatwaves through use of fans, reduced harmful gases from excessive burning of wood, and reduced social vices at night. We conclude that a full recognition of broad array of co-benefits of solar mini-grids can stimulate interests in their deployment and accelerate the transition to clean energy in the region. We thus argue for continuous research in the region to identify the full range of solar mini-grid co-benefits, which may provide a new landscape for addressing climate change and development concurrently in sub-Saharan Africa.
Intraspinal pseudomeningoceles: A rare complication of spinal trauma and surgery.

Abstract We present two cases of acute and delayed presentations of intraspinal pseudomeningoceles, which is a rare complication of spinal trauma or surgery. Our goal is to discuss the pathophysiology, clinical presentation, imaging findings, and treatment of this rare entity. This diagnosis should be considered in patients with unexplained neurologic symptoms in the setting of prior cervical spine injury or surgery.
Plasma Lipolysis and Changes in Plasma and Cerebrospinal Fluid Signaling Lipids Reveal Abnormal Lipid Metabolism in Chronic Migraine.

Background Lipids are a primary storage form of energy and the source of inflammatory and pain signaling molecules, yet knowledge of their importance in chronic migraine (CM) pathology is incomplete. We aim to determine if plasma and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) lipid metabolism are associated with CM pathology. Methods We obtained plasma and CSF from healthy controls (CT, n = 10) or CM subjects (n = 15) diagnosed using the International Headache Society criteria. We measured unesterified fatty acid (UFA) and esterified fatty acids (EFAs) using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Glycerophospholipids (GP) and sphingolipid (SP) levels were determined using LC-MS/MS, and phospholipase A2 (PLA2) activity was determined using fluorescent substrates. Results Unesterified fatty acid levels were significantly higher in CM plasma but not in CSF. Unesterified levels of five saturated fatty acids (SAFAs), eight monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs), five ω-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), and five ω-6 PUFAs are higher in CM plasma. Esterified levels of three SAFAs, eight MUFAs, five ω-3 PUFAs, and three ω-6 PUFAs, are higher in CM plasma. The ratios C20:4n-6/homo-γ-C20:3n-6 representative of delta-5-desaturases (D5D) and the elongase ratio are lower in esterified and unesterified CM plasma, respectively. In the CSF, the esterified D5D index is lower in CM. While PLA2 activity was similar, the plasma UFA to EFA ratio is higher in CM. Of all plasma GP/SPs detected, only ceramide levels are lower (p = 0.0003) in CM (0.26 ± 0.07%) compared to CT (0.48 ± 0.06%). The GP/SP proportion of platelet-activating factor (PAF) is significantly lower in CM CSF. Conclusions Plasma and CSF lipid changes are consistent with abnormal lipid metabolism in CM. Since plasma UFAs correspond to diet or adipose tissue levels, higher plasma fatty acids and UFA/EFA ratios suggest enhanced adipose lipolysis in CM. Differences in plasma and CSF desaturases and elongases suggest altered lipid metabolism in CM. A lower plasma ceramide level suggests reduced de novo synthesis or reduced sphingomyelin hydrolysis. Changes in CSF PAF suggest differences in brain lipid signaling pathways in CM. Together, this pilot study shows lipid metabolic abnormality in CM corresponding to altered energy homeostasis. We propose that controlling plasma lipolysis, desaturases, elongases, and lipid signaling pathways may relieve CM symptoms.
Accelerating Encrypted Computing on Intel GPUs.

Homomorphic Encryption (HE) is an emerging encryption scheme that allows computations to be performed directly on encrypted messages. This property provides promising applications such as privacy-preserving deep learning and cloud computing. Prior works have been proposed to enable practical privacy-preserving applications with architectural-aware optimizations on CPUs, GPUs and FPGAs. However, there is no systematic optimization for the whole HE pipeline on Intel GPUs. In this paper, we present the first-ever SYCL-based GPU backend for Microsoft SEAL APIs. We perform optimizations from instruction level, algorithmic level and application level to accelerate our HE library based on the Cheon, Kim, Kimand Song (CKKS) scheme on Intel GPUs. The performance is validated on two latest Intel GPUs. Experimental results show that our staged optimizations together with optimizations including low-level optimizations and kernel fusion accelerate the Number Theoretic Transform (NTT), a key algorithm for HE, by up to 9.93X compared with the naive GPU baseline. The roofline analysis confirms that our optimized NTT reaches 79.8% and85.7% of the peak performance on two GPU devices. Through the highly optimized NTT and the assembly-level optimization, we obtain 2.32X - 3.05X acceleration for HE evaluation routines. In addition, our all-together systematic optimizations improve the performance of encrypted element-wise polynomial matrix multiplication application by up to 3.10X.
A Retrospective Study of Recent U.S. Airline Mergers: What Can We Learn from Production Data?

I assess the effect of recent U.S. airline mergers on productive efficiency and market power. I recover productivity, markup, and marginal cost estimates for each airline using production and cost data. I then employ these estimates, a panel event study design, and synthetic control methods to estimate the effects of mergers on these outcomes. I find that in most cases, mergers have not significantly affected merging parties’ productive efficiency, and in a few cases, have increased marginal costs. Some mergers, such as the American-US Airways merger, have substantially increased the markups charged. The increase in markups is not explained by efficiencies, proportionally higher fixed costs, or changes in technology (i.e., a larger scale elasticity). Instead, the net profit rate has increased for these carriers after the mergers. Indirect evidence suggests that quality effects cannot account fully for the observed markup changes. Taken together, these findings point to an increase in market power.
Observational Systems and Techniques in air Pollution Meteorology

The main goals of environmental assessment are to provide answers to one or both of the following questions: What is the current state of the atmosphere in the area of concern? What changes in the state of the atmosphere are likely to result from certain actions that man might take? It follows that the principal activities in environmental assessment are (1) observation and (2) prediction. Observational activities must be considered of primary importance, because even predictions depend upon observations for input information and for techniques evaluation.
Hermeneutics and the Debate on Homosexuality in Africa

In this essay, I discuss hermeneutical approaches to the debate on homosexuality in the African context. I argue that the hermeneutics of Rudolf Bultmann offers a way of understanding the debate. I start with a general discussion of the response to homosexuality in Africa and follow that with a narration of perspectives from church leaders in Africa and proceed to discuss the work of Bultmann and in the last section apply the hermeneutical insights to point a way forward.
An unusual case of rupture of the uterus with massive hemorrhage

Abstract A case report is presented of a patient operated upon for partial separation of the normally implanted placenta. Massive hemorrhage (3,000 c.c.) occurred within a matter of three minutes after opening the uterus. The placenta had to be removed manually, and it would appear that the uterus was unknowingly ruptured during this procedure. The initial measured blood loss was in excess of one-half the estimated blood volume, and simultaneous replacement of blood and plasma by multiple transfusions during the day of operation represented eight-ninths of the estimated blood volume. The calculated blood volume of the patient at the time of operation was 6,200 cubic centimeters. The total blood loss was estimated at 5,700 cubic centimeters and the replacement of blood and plasma amounted to 7,750 cubic centimeters.
Vaginal and cervical squamous cell dysplasia in women exposed to diethylstilbestrol in utero

Two hundred and fifty patients were examined because of a history of in utero exposure to diethylstilbestrol (DES) or because of the presence of physical findings suggesting such exposure. One thousand biopsies were examined for the presence of neoplasia and then compared to the colposcopic findings. There were no cases of glandular or squamous cell carcinoma. Fifteen (6 per cent) of the patients had squamous cell dysplasia. The degree of dysplasia was mild in 11 and moderate in only 4 (1.6 per cent) of the women. The majority of the cases of dysplasia involved the cervix, whereas the vagina was involved in only four cases, with simultaneous cervical dysplasia in three of these. Patients with cervical mosaic and white epithelium had dysplasia on biopsy much more frequently as compared with patients with similar colposcopic appearances in the vagina. Our results suggest a low incidence of significant squamous precancerous change in the DES-exposed population and provide evidence that colposcopic data concerning dysplasia pertinent to the cervix cannot be applied without modification to the evaluation of dysplasia in vaginal adenosis.
High performance CMOS circuit techniques for the G-4 S/390 microprocessor

This paper describes the CMOS circuit techniques used in the design of the high performance Generation-4 S/390 microprocessor. Successful system operation at frequencies up to 400 MHz was achieved through careful static circuit design and timing optimization, along with the limited use of dynamic circuits for highly critical functions, and several different clocking/latching strategies for cycle time reduction. A variety of innovative full-custom circuit techniques were used in the dataflow design. Timing-driven synthesis of the control logic provided maximum flexibility with minimum turn-around time, while still matching the performance level set by the custom parts of the design. The on-chip LI cache was designed extensively with self-resetting CMOS (SRCMOS) circuitry to provide a 2.0 ns access time and up to 500 MHz operation.
Applications of electrochemical methods for investigations of localized corrosion of nitrogen-molybdenum stainless steels

Electrochemical methods were used to determine the localized corrosion resistance of 12 austenitic stainless steels (SS) with a composition range of 22%Cr-5%Ni-5%Mn-(1% to 5%)Mo-(0.0% to 0.7%)N-balance Fe in a deaerated 3.5 wt% sodium chloride (NaCl) solution from 10°C to 97°C. Potentiodynamic polarization was used to determine the critical pitting potential (CPP), protection potentials, and polarization resistance (Rp), and potentiostatic cyclic thermometry was used to determine the critical pitting temperature (CPT) and critical crevice temperature (CCT). The results of potentiodynamic polarization showed that all of the SS containing both N and Mo have CPP significantly higher than either Type 304 (UNS S30400) or Type 316L (UNS S31603) SS. Rp correlated with the pitting resistance equivalent (PRE) for PRE from 20 to 45; however, for PRE > 45 there was no correlation. Results obtained by potentiostatic cyclic thermometry showed that CPT and the CCT are both linear functions of PRE, and strongly dependent on both Mo and N concentration in the alloy.
Coherent structures in cellular automata

Abstract The filter cellular automaton (CA) introduced by Park, Steiglitz and Thurston is generalized to take values in an arbitrary finite group. Interesting examples include Z n , the cyclic group of order n , and S n , the group of permutations of n elements. Thes e new CA, can support coherent periodic structures, and can be analyzed by the theory recently developed by the authors. Furthermore, several multidimensional versions of the above CA are also presented.
Abstract 2860: A critical role of bone marrow-derived cells for hedgehog-mediated carcinogenesis.

Proceedings: AACR 104th Annual Meeting 2013; Apr 6-10, 2013; Washington, DC Amounting evidence indicate that the tissue microenvironment in a developing tumor is created by the tumor to orchestrates molecular and cellular interactions. As a major pathway involved in tumorigenesis, Hedgehog (Hh) signaling is known to regulate tumor microenvironment, but the underlying molecular mechanisms in hedgehog-driven tumors remain unclear. Here we show that smoothened (SMO)-mediated tumor development is accompanied by TGFβ activation in a variety of cell types of the tumor microenvironment, such as keratinocytes, fibroblasts and myeloid-derived suppressor cells. To determine the role of TGFβ signaling for SMO-mediated tumor development, we generated cell type specific TGFβR2flp/flp mice in which SmoM2 expression is accompanied by TGFβR2 knocking out. We found that while K14cre-mediated TGFβRII knockout promoted tumor development, Mx-1cre-mediated TGFβRII knockout suppressed tumor development, indicating a tumor promoting effect of stromal TGFβ signaling. Using EGFP expressing mice for bone marrow transplantation, we determined that most stromal cells with TGFβ signaling activation are derived from bone marrow. To further determine the role of stromal TGFβ signaling for hedgehog signaling-mediated tumor development, we performed bone marrow transplantation experiments in mice that can be induced to develop basal cell carcinomas (BCC). We found that bone marrow cells with TGFβR2 knockout, but not the wild type cells, inhibited tumor development and reduced the size of developed tumors. Reduction of tumor development was associated with decreased expression of multiple inflammation stimulatory cytokines as well as the number of myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs). The tumor promoting effect of TGFβ signaling is not limited to BCC because tumor growth of B16-F10 cells was also affected by TGFβRII elimination in bone marrow-derived cells. Our data indicate that TGFβ signaling in the tumor microenvironment, not in the keratinocytes, is critical for maintaining the tumor microenvironment to foster tumor development and growth. Citation Format: Jingwu Xie, Eric Qipeng Fan, Dongsheng Gu, Hailan Liu, Xiaoli Zhang, Mark Kaplan, Merv Yoder. A critical role of bone marrow-derived cells for hedgehog-mediated carcinogenesis. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 104th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2013 Apr 6-10; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2013;73(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 2860. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2013-2860
Interpreting NCE Scores

In recent years a new score system for standardized tests has entered the scene. The new scores are called Normal Curve Equivalents (NCEs). They were named and introduced by G. Kasten Tallmadge. NCEs are used in reporting results to federal funding agencies. Some schools may use them internally in order to deal with only one kind of score from standardized tests. Several kinds of confusion are possible with NCE scores, and the following quiz and its explanations may help you avoid some of the pitfalls. The correct answers and brief explanations appear on page 3 1. This “test” may be reproduced without written permission. Please cite Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice as the source.
Technology and Corporate Scope: Firm and Rival Innovation as Antecedents of Corporate Transactions

This paper studies the role of technological innovation as an antecedent of changes in corporate scope. It argues that technological innovations prompt the firm to reconfigure its corporate portfolio—to redeploy resources to areas of new opportunity while it divests out of marginal businesses. Results from a cross-industry sample of U.S. manufacturing firms show successful innovation by a firm is followed by both expansion into new areas through complementary resource seeking acquisitions and divestment out of existing noncore businesses. This relationship is found to be moderated by the level of investible resources available to the firm, and supports the notion of scarce resources as a constraint on firm scope. In addition, firms are found to change their corporate scope in response to rival innovation. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Role Orientations of Third World Urban Planners

Although urban planners in Third World countries enjoy relatively high levels of power and autonomy, little is known about their values, attitudes, and professional role orientations. The findings ...
Biological treatment and toxicity of low concentrations of oily wastewater (bilgewater)

The biodegradability and toxicity of low concentrations of oily wastewater (bilgewater) were tested under simulated sanitary wastewater treatment conditions. This was done to establish the feasibility of a combined shipboard oily and nonoily wastewater treatment system. The biodegradability of oily wastewater was determined by proxy; 14C-labeled dodecane, toluene, and phenanthrene (representing alkane, aromatic, and polyaromatic compounds, respectively) were mineralized in petroleum fuels and lubricants. We found that low concentrations of oily wastewater components were mineralized, even in the presence of more abundant substrates (such as synthetic graywater, containing vegetable oil, detergent, gelatin, and starch). The toxic effects of diesel fuel and several other components of oily wastewater (such as surfactants and a synthetic lubricant) on a naive wastewater assemblage was also tested. In concentrations much higher than would be expected under normal shipboard conditions, we found no evidence of ...
An overview of pulmonary surfactant in the neonate: Genetics, metabolism, and the role of surfactant in health and disease

Pulmonary surfactant is a complex mixture of phospholipids (PL) and proteins (SP) that reduce surface tension at the air-liquid interface of the alveolus. It is made up of about 70-80% PL, mainly dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine (DPPC), 10% SP-A, B, C and D, and 10% neutral lipids, mainly cholesterol. Surfactant is synthesized, assembled, transported and secreted into the alveolus where it is degraded and then recycled. Metabolism of surfactant is slower in newborns, especially preterm, than in adults. Defective pulmonary surfactant metabolism results in respiratory distress with attendant morbidity and mortality. This occurs due to accelerated breakdown by oxidation, proteolytic degradation, inhibition or inherited defects of surfactant metabolism. Prenatal corticosteroids, surfactant replacement, whole lung lavage and lung transplantation have yielded results in managing some of these defects. Gene therapy could prove valuable in treating inherited defects of surfactant metabolism.
Rawls's Practical Conception of Justice: Opinion, Tradition and Objectivity in Political Liberalism

In Political Liberalism, Rawls emphasizes the practical character and aims of his conception of justice. Justice as fairness is to provide the basis of a reasoned, informed and willing political agreement by locating grounds for consensus in the fundamental ideas and values of the political culture. Critics urge, however, that such a politically liberal conception of justice will be designed merely to ensure the stability of political institutions by appealing to the currently-held opinions of actual citizens. In order to evaluate this concern, I suggest, it is necessary to focus on the normative character of Rawls's analysis. Rawls argues that justice as fairness is the conception of justice that citizens of modern democratic cultures should choose in reflective equilibrium, after reflecting fully upon their considered judgments regarding justice. Since judgments in reflective equilibrium are grounded in considered judgment, rather than situated opinions, I argue that the criticism fails.
Nd and Sr isotope chemistry of metallic iron-bearing, sediment-contaminated Tertiary volcanics from Disko Island, Greenland

Abstract Nd and Sr isotopic data are reported for metallic iron-bearing volcanics from Disko Island, Greenland. These rocks are the products of contamination of mantle-derived picritic to tholeiitic magmas by Cretaceous to early Tertiary sediments through which they erupted. They offer a unique opportunity to study contamination processes because representatives of both uncontaminated parent magmas and the assimilated sediments can be sampled. The sediments include shales, mudstones and sandstones. They have uniform Nd isotopic composition, but are heterogeneous in Nd and Sr concentrations and Sr isotopic composition, and appear to be mixtures of two Sr components. A metallic iron-bearing flow at Asuk, which is one of the earliest contaminated sequences in the West Greenland basalt province, can be modelled as a simple mixture of uncontaminated olivine tholeiite and an “average” sediment composition. None of the analyzed sediments or sediment-derived xenoliths alone can represent the bulk contaminant material. A high degree of contamination (> 30%) is indicated by Nd, Sr and Mg mixing calculations. A metallic iron-bearing subvolcanic intrusive complex, the Hammers Dal Complex, can be modelled by combined assimilation and fractional crystallization (AFC), although unique solutions cannot be obtained because the exact constitution of the fractionating phases and the composition of the bulk contaminant are not known. High levels of contamination (as much as 30%) and fractionation are indicated by AFC model calculations. Important inferences from this study are: (1) even in apparently simple cases where both parents and contaminants can be directly sampled, contamination processes appear to be complex; (2) chemically and isotopically heterogeneous contaminants may be mixed and homogenized during assimilation so that the “bulk” contaminant cannot be recognized among exposed rocks; (3) in such cases it may appear that AFC is required to explain observed chemical and isotopic trends, when in fact only simple mixing occurred; (4) because processes and endmembers are different to resolve even in this apparently simple case, contamination must always be difficult to prove or disprove if it occurred much deeper than the site of final magma solidification.
Radiation Response of MOS Capacitors Containing Fluorinated Oxides

By introducing small amounts of fluorine into the gate oxide, we have been able to significantly alter the radiation response of Metal/SiO2/Si (MOS) capacitors, and their subsequent time dependent behavior. Experimentally we have observed that compared with their control capacitors, which have no fluorine introduced into the oxide, the fluorinated samples exhibit the following major differences: (1) the densities of radiation-induced oxide charge and interface traps are drastically reduced, (2) the gate-size dependence of the radiation-induced interface traps is greatly suppressed, and (3) the overall density of the radiation-induced interface traps continues to decrease with time for many hours after irradiation before a turn-around trend is observed. Possible mechanisms involving the roles that fluorine may play in relieving the oxide strain near the SiO2/Si interface and in the post-irradiation defect-reaction chemistry are discussed.
Decision pathway modeling

Pattern recognition is playing an increasingly important role in chemical and biochemical data analysis. Many of these pattern recognition applications call for the discrimination of more than two classes of objects. Decision pathway modeling is proposed as a novel pattern recognition technique for multigroup classification. Decision pathway modeling decomposes the multigroup classification problem into simpler binary discrimination tasks, which are then reassembled into a single hierarchical architecture. To minimize effects of error propagation through the hierarchical architecture, dynamic pathway selection is proposed to adaptively direct the classification of new samples. Decision pathway modeling is compared against generalized multigroup and coupled binary discriminant techniques in terms of classification accuracy. The benefit of decision pathway modeling is shown to arise from the hierarchical decomposition and by the dynamic selection of classification pathways. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Effects of Diets with 28% or 32% Protein and Meat and Bone Meal or Corn Gluten Feed on Performance of Golden Shiners in Pools

Abstract Alternative diets made without marine proteins and with more plant ingredients are being used in channel catfish Ictalurus punctatus with the goal of maintaining profitability. The potential to use similar diets for baitfish may be greater because they consume natural foods throughout production. We conducted a feeding trial in outdoor pools with golden shiners Notemigonus crysoleucas using four practical diets with 28% or 32% protein in formulas with porcine meat and bone meal (MBM) or corn gluten feed (CGF) and no animal protein. Groups of 200 fish with a total initial weight of 37.7 ± 0.9 g (mean ± SE) were stocked into each of four 4.1-m3static pools per treatment and fed daily to apparent satiation for 8 weeks. Diet effects were assessed by measuring growth, survival, feed conversion, condition index, and body composition. Chlorophyll a and zooplankton were sampled to gauge natural productivity. Individual weight and total length of golden shiners were greater in fish fed diets with 32% prot...
Strong uniqueness in Lp spaces

Abstract Let V be a finite dimensional subspace of L p , 1 p f ϵ L p / V , it is shown that the best approximation to f from V is strongly unique of order α = 2 or p . Let V be an n -dimensional Haar subspace of L 1 [ a , b ], the continuous functions on [ a , b ] with the L 1 norm. Let f ϵ L 1 [ a , b ]/ V , that is Lipschitz and so that V 1 = span{ V , f } is a Haar subspace. Then it is shown that the best approximation to f from V is strongly unique of order 2.
Transplastomic expression of bacterial l -aspartate-α-decarboxylase enhances photosynthesis and biomass production in response to high temperature stress

Metabolic engineering for beta-alanine over-production in plants is expected to enhance environmental stress tolerance. The Escherichia coli L-aspartate-alpha-decarboxylase (AspDC) encoded by the panD gene, catalyzes the decarboxylation of L-aspartate to generate beta-alanine and carbon dioxide. The constitutive E. coli panD expression cassette was co-introduced with the constitutive, selectable aadA expression cassette into the chloroplast genome of tobacco via biolistic gene transfer and homologous recombination. Site specific integration of the E. coli panD expression cassette into the chloroplast genome and generation of homotransplastomic plants were confirmed by PCR and Southern blot analysis, respectively, following plant regeneration and germination of seedlings on selective media. PanD expression was verified by assays based on transcript detection and in vitro enzyme activity. The AspDC activities in transplastomic plants expressing panD were drastically increased by high-temperature stress. beta-Alanine accumulated in transplastomic plants at levels four times higher than in wildtype plants. Analysis of chlorophyll fluorescence on plants subjected to severe heat stress at 45 degrees C under light verified that photosystem II (PSII) in transgenic plants had higher thermotolerance than in wildtype plants. The CO(2) assimilation of transplastomic plants expressing panD was more tolerant to high temperature stress than that of wildtype plants, resulting in the production of 30-40% more above ground biomass than wildtype control. The results presented indicate that chloroplast engineering of the beta-alanine pathway by over-expression of the E. coli panD enhances thermotolerance of photosynthesis and biomass production following high temperature stress.
First Ultraviolet Reflectance Spectra of Pluto and Charon by the Hubble Space Telescope Cosmic Origins Spectrograph: Detection of Absorption Features and Evidence for Temporal Change

We have observed the mid-UV spectra of both Pluto and its large satellite, Charon, at two rotational epochs using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) in 2010. These are the first HST/COS measurements of Pluto and Charon. Here we describe the observations and our reduction of them, and present the albedo spectra, average mid-UV albedos, and albedo slopes we derive from these data. These data reveal evidence for a strong absorption feature in the mid-UV spectrum of Pluto; evidence for temporal change in Pluto's spectrum since the 1990s is reported, and indirect evidence for a near-UV spectral absorption on Charon is also reported.