cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Quantum Chemical Benchmarking, Validation, and Prediction of Acidity Constants for Substituted Pyridinium Ions and Pyridinyl Radicals.

Sensibly modeling (photo)electrocatalytic reactions involving proton and electron transfer with computational quantum chemistry requires accurate descriptions of protonated, deprotonated, and radical species in solution. Procedures to do this are generally nontrivial, especially in cases that involve radical anions that are unstable in the gas phase. Recently, pyridinium and the corresponding reduced neutral radical have been postulated as key catalysts in the reduction of CO2 to methanol. To assess practical methodologies to describe the acid/base chemistry of these species, we employed density functional theory (DFT) in tandem with implicit solvation models to calculate acidity constants for 22 substituted pyridinium cations and their corresponding pyridinyl radicals in water solvent. We first benchmarked our calculations against experimental pyridinium deprotonation energies in both gas and aqueous phases. DFT with hybrid exchange-correlation functionals provide chemical accuracy for gas-phase data and...
Effects of Choline on DNA Methylation and Macronutrient Metabolic Gene Expression in In Vitro Models of Hyperglycemia

Choline is an essential nutrient that plays an important role in lipid metabolism and DNA methylation. Studies in rodents suggest that choline may adversely affect glycemic control, yet studies in humans are lacking. Using the human hepatic and placental cells, HepG2 and BeWo, respectively, we examined the interaction between choline and glucose treatments. In HepG2 cells, choline supplementation (1 mM) increased global DNA methylation and DNA methyltransferase expression in both low-glucose (5 mM) and high-glucose (35 mM) conditions. Choline supplementation increased the expression of peroxisomal acyl-coenzyme A oxidase 1 (ACOX1), which mediates fatty acid β-oxidation, especially in the high-glucose condition. High-glucose exposure increased the transcription of the gluconeogenic gene phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase (PEPCK), while choline supplementation mitigated such increase. Compared to HepG2 cells, the placenta-derived BeWo cells were relatively unresponsive to either high-glucose or -choline treatment. In conclusion, choline and glucose interacted to affect macronutrient metabolic genes, yet there was no indication that choline may worsen glycemic control in these in vitro human cell culture models.
Mass Marketing and Warranty Liability

How do decisions by marketing managers and advertising executives influence court decisions pertaining to the law of products liability?Manufacturers face an increasing number of damage claims from...
Relative lack of myelin in optic tracts as result of underfeeding in the young albino rat.

Summary and ConclusionsQuantitative limitation of food intake sufficient to account for average body-weight differences of 55% between underfed and litter-mate control rats, has also resulted in statistically significant differences in myelination of the optic tracts and nerves. The concentration of myelin in the optic tracts of the underfed rats has averaged 20% less than that in the control animals. Since myelination of the optic tracts, as shown by spectrophotometric determinations in litter-mate rats at successively older ages, is not complete until sometime between the 40th and 50th days, the conclusion seems justified that the relative lack of myelin observed in the underfed animals is due to partial or complete arrest of the process of myelination.
Abstract 1841: Dissecting gene expression programs that define tumor aggression and patient outcome in pancreatic cancer

By the year 2020, pancreatic cancer (PDAC) is projected to be the second leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States. Current systemic therapies offer limited survival advantages in subgroups of patients, suggesting underlying biological differences in this deadly cancer. Our lab has recently identified keratin-17 (K17) gene expression as a prognostic and predictive biomarker in PDAC. Furthermore, we found that K17 acts as an oncoprotein by promoting degradation of tumor suppressor p27 KIP1 , while knockdown of K17 limits tumor size and sensitizes cancer cells to chemotherapy agents. Together, these findings suggest that targeting K17 expression in PDACs may increase patient survival and response to treatment. The factors that lead to increased K17 gene expression in only a subset of PDAC cases, however, are unknown. K17 is expressed in embryonic ectoderm and aberrantly induced in keratinocytes from psoriasis patients through paracrine signaling from the microenvironment. To determine how K17 gene expression is upregulated in PDAC, we tested the effects of two major contributing factors in PDAC pathogenesis: driver mutations and inflammatory mediators present in tumor microenvironment. Using in vitro and in vivo loss- and gain-of function approaches, we modulated oncogene expression in and performed acute cytokine treatments on cells to test for changes in K17 gene expression. K17 expression was evaluated by qRT-PCR and western blot. We found that forced expression of oncogenes like KRAS G12D , Q61K or TP53 R248W significantly increase K17 expression, yet these cell-autonomous factors are not sufficient to explain K17 gene expression in PDACs. In addition, we found that pro-inflammatory cytokines, typically released by helper T cells, induce a strong increase in K17 gene expression. Together these findings suggest that K17 gene expression across otherwise clinically identical PDAC cases may be explained by early transformation events and maintained by positive feedback loops associated with patient specific adaptive immune response. Ongoing studies are seeking to test the combined effects of genetic and paracrine events in K17 expression, and understand the signaling pathways and transcription factors downstream of these inducing factors. Ultimately, insight into the mechanisms that mediate K17 overexpression in PDACs could help guide future research to develop K17 as a potential therapeutic target. Citation Format: Danielle J. Fassler, Luisa F. Escobar-Hoyos, Kenneth R. Shroyer. Dissecting gene expression programs that define tumor aggression and patient outcome in pancreatic cancer. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr 1841.
Natriuretic peptide hormones in congestive heart failure: challenges, clinical interpretation and review of studies.

Abstract The primary action of natriuretic peptide hormones is to assist the heart in responding to the status of volume overload and subsequent stretching of the ventricles. Many studies have been done in the past decades that proved how useful is measuring brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) levels in diagnosing acute dyspnoea due to heart failure (HF) and to rule out non-cardiac dyspnoea. The major focus was on determining the optimal BNP level cutoffs that would help physicians in diagnosing acute cardiac dyspnoea early.The heart produces two natriuretic peptide hormones: atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) and brain natriuretic peptide (BNP). The most important stimulus in the secretion and release of these hormones, is stretch in the cardiac myocyte, which activates proBNP gene leading to de novo myocyte peptide synthesis and secretion. The more stretch that occurs, the higher level of these hormones which correlates with the severity of symptoms and prognosis. ProBNP originates from pre-proBNP, which is s...
That Little Extra Kick: Nonadiabatic Effects in Acetaldehyde Photodissociation.

The effect of nonadiabatic transitions on branching ratios, kinetic and internal energy distribution of fragments, and reaction mechanisms observed in acetaldehyde photodissociation is investigated by nonadiabatic molecular dynamics (NAMD) simulations using time-dependent hybrid density functional theory and Tully surface hopping. Homolytic bond breaking is approximately captured by allowing spin symmetry to break. The NAMD simulations reveal that nonadiabatic transitions selectively enhance the kinetic energy of certain internal degrees of freedom within approximately 50 fs. Branching ratios from NAMD and conventional “hot” Born–Oppenheimer molecular dynamics (BOMD) are similar and qualitatively agree with experiment. However, as opposed to the BOMD simulations, NAMD captures the high-energy tail of the experimental kinetic energy distribution. The extra “kick” of the nuclei in the direction of the nonadiabatic coupling vector results from nonadiabatic transitions close to conical intersections. From a m...
Autonomy or oligarchy? The changing effects of university endowments in winner-take-all markets

This paper directs attention to important changes in the role and funding of elite private universities in the USA. At the center of these changes is the private endowment—an institution that has for much of its history been a pivotal element of innovation and autonomy, but which is recently tilting towards the production and reproduction of oligarchic institutional conditions. In the context of an explosion of wealth inequality in winner-take-all markets where elite higher education serves to provide coveted access to rare positional goods, the in perpetuity endowment—as currently configured—allows a small group of globally leading institutions to become rentiers who can support themselves nearly exclusively through the returns on their endowed capital. With that, a century-old dynamic of innovation and change of American higher education is at risk of collapsing. Where the elite private universities used to act as the head of Riesman’s snake-like procession, pulling the majority of American universities along in a process of isomorphic emulation, the emerging gulf between a handful of academic rentiers and the rest of the academic body (including many world-renowned, but not super-rich universities) threatens to cut that head off from the body, leaving the majority of the remaining institutions scrambling for survival at the mercy of the dictates of academic capitalism. We review policy options capable of taming the run-away endowment and place the issue in the larger context of the tension between Madisonian and Jeffersonian democratic imperatives.
It’s All About the Money (For Some): Consequences of Financially Contingent Self-Worth

Financial success is an important goal, yet striving for it is often associated with negative outcomes. One reason for this paradox is that financial pressures may be tied to basing self-worth on financial success. Studies 1a to 1c developed a measure of Financial Contingency of Self-Worth (Financial CSW), and found that it predicted more financial social comparisons, financial hassles, stress, anxiety, and less autonomy. In response to a financial (vs. academic) threat, higher Financial CSW participants experienced less autonomy, perceived financial problems more negatively, and disengaged from their financial problems (Study 2). When given an opportunity to self-affirm, however, Financial CSW participants did not show diminished autonomy in response to a financial (vs. academic) threat (Study 3). Finally, participants with higher Financial CSW were less likely to make extravagant spending decisions following a financial (vs. health) threat (Study 4). Together, these studies demonstrate the many consequences of staking self-worth on financial success.
Phrasal: A Statistical Machine Translation Toolkit for Exploring New Model Features

We present a new Java-based open source toolkit for phrase-based machine translation. The key innovation provided by the toolkit is to use APIs for integrating new features (/knowledge sources) into the decoding model and for extracting feature statistics from aligned bitexts. The package includes a number of useful features written to these APIs including features for hierarchical reordering, discriminatively trained linear distortion, and syntax based language models. Other useful utilities packaged with the toolkit include: a conditional phrase extraction system that builds a phrase table just for a specific dataset; and an implementation of MERT that allows for pluggable evaluation metrics for both training and evaluation with built in support for a variety of metrics (e.g., TERp, BLEU, METEOR).
Scavenging reactive oxygen species inhibits status epilepticus-induced neuroinflammation

Inflammation has been identified as an important mediator of seizures and epileptogenesis. Understanding the mechanisms underlying seizure-induced neuroinflammation could lead to the development of novel therapies for the epilepsies. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are recognized as mediators of seizure-induced neuronal damage and are known to increase in models of epilepsies. ROS are also known to contribute to inflammation in several disease states. We hypothesized that ROS are key modulators of neuroinflammation i.e. pro-inflammatory cytokine production and microglial activation in acquired epilepsy. The role of ROS in modulating seizure-induced neuroinflammation was investigated in the pilocarpine model of temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). Pilocarpine-induced status epilepticus (SE) resulted in a time-dependent increase in pro-inflammatory cytokine production in the hippocampus and piriform cortex. Scavenging ROS with a small-molecule catalytic antioxidant decreased SE-induced pro-inflammatory cytokine production and microglial activation, suggesting that ROS contribute to SE-induced neuroinflammation. Scavenging ROS also attenuated phosphorylation of ribosomal protein S6, the downstream target of the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway indicating that this pathway might provide one mechanistic link between SE-induced ROS production and inflammation. Together, these results demonstrate that ROS contribute to SE-induced cytokine production and antioxidant treatment may offer a novel approach to control neuroinflammation in epilepsy.
Analysis of global and local stress changes in a longwall gateroad

Abstract A numerical-model-based approach was recently developed for estimating the changes in both the horizontal and vertical loading conditions induced by an approaching longwall face. In this approach, a systematic procedure is used to estimate the model’s inputs. Shearing along the bedding planes is modeled with ubiquitous joint elements and interface elements. Coal is modeled with a newly developed coal mass model. The response of the gob is calibrated with back analysis of subsidence data and the results of previously published laboratory tests on rock fragments. The model results were verified with the subsidence and stress data recently collected from a longwall mine in the eastern United States.
Hepatocarcinogenesis as a problem in developmental biology.

An association of differentiation with carcinogenesis and cancer has been recognized for more than a hundred years by pathologists and oncologists alike. The “embryonal rest theory” of Cohnheim (1889) was one of the first concepts of neoplasia that depended entirely upon a relationship of the neoplastic process to embryonic development. For most of the next century pathologists recognized Cohnheim’s concepts by relating the nomenclature of malignant neoplasms to their embryonic bases (e.g., sarcoma and carcinoma) and utilized terms such as dedifferentiation, embryonal, blastoma, etc. in the description of both benign and malignant neoplasms. However, it has only been within the last two decades that some understanding of the cellular and biochemical mechanisms of the developmental biology of neoplasia has become apparent.
The Nonsolvable Group Technique

Bounded-width branching programs offer interesting connections between complexity classes and algebraic structures. Let k ≥ 2 and n ≥ 1 be integers. A width-k branching program over n-bit inputs prescribes manipulation of a pebble placed on a track of k squares. First the pebble is place d on square 1. Then a sequence of instructions is executed. Each instruction is simple: it tells you to examine an input bit and then move the pebble to another (possibly the same) square, where to which square the pebble will be moved depends on the examined bit, the current location of the pebble, and the step of the computation. The program accepts the input if and only if the pebble is not on square 1 at the end.
Single-molecule tunnel magnetoresistance of azulene

Abstract The single-molecule electric current in azulene sandwiched between ferromagnetic nickel electrodes was calculated by first-principles calculation. Varying the magnetic configuration of the electrodes provided a change in electric current to produce tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR). Compared to naphthalene, azulene had a relatively high TMR ratio in the low bias range from −0.2 V to 0.2 V. Moreover, the electric current of the oligomers of azulene was calculated. The oligomers did not significantly decrease the electric current compared to azulene and maintained the TMR ratio in the low bias range. The smaller energy gap of azulene compared to that of naphthalene increased the transmittance at the Fermi level that resulted in a steep change in the electric current upon varying the magnetic configuration of the electrodes.
Scared or Attached? Unraveling Important Links in Strain–Crime Relationships Among School Students:

Drawing on general strain theory of crime, the study employs the survey data from a random sample of 600 school students in Lviv, Ukraine, to examine how sanction risks and social bonds mediate and...
Outside the Wire: US Military Deployments and Public Opinion in Host States

How do citizens within countries hosting U.S. military personnel view that presence? Most studies on this issue rely on aggregated data on public attitudes towards the U.S., or on anecdotal accounts of high-profile crimes or other incidents involving U.S. military personnel. Using new cross-national survey data from 14 countries, we examine how different forms of exposure to a U.S. military presence in a country affect attitudes towards the U.S. military, government, and people. Notably, these surveys provide nationally representative samples across traditional covariates like age, income, and gender. We find that contact with U.S. military personnel or the receipt of economic benefits from the U.S. presence increases support for the U.S. presence, people, and government. This study has profound implications for the role that U.S. installations play in affecting the social fabric of host nations, along with policy implications for the conduct of U.S. military activities outside the United States.
Answer to September 2016 Photo Quiz

Answer: Cladophialophora bantiana. Cladophialophora bantiana is the leading cause of cerebral phaeohyphomycoses. Its natural habitat is soil and rotting vegetation. Unlike other species of Cladophialophora, which tend to be geographically limited, C. bantiana has been isolated worldwide. Infection
Creating engagement with solutions visuals: testing the effects of problem-oriented versus solution-oriented photojournalism:

An increasing number of news organizations are reporting stories about responses to persistent societal problems, a reporting form known as solutions journalism. While this type of reporting practi...
A Temporal Dependency Model for Rate-Distortion Optimization in Video Coding

Video codec heavily relies on motion compensated prediction to achieve compression efficiency. The predictive scheme creates temporal dependency across frames, i.e., the quantization distortion in a current block may propagate through motion compensated prediction and affect the coding efficiency of blocks in subsequent frames. The ability to capture such dependency can potentially improve the rate-distortion optimization for coding performance gains. Prior research work builds block-based motion trajectories and uses the correlations between source pixel blocks in the same motion trajectory to estimate the distortion propagation model. This work premises on the realization that the distortion propagation is also largely related to the quantization effect. A novel temporal dependency model that accounts for both block correlation and the quantization effect is proposed. It is experimentally shown to provide considerable compression gains over the existing competitors.
Tau tubulin kinase is required for spermatogenesis and development of motile cilia in planarian flatworms

Cilia are microtubule-based structures that protrude from the apical surface of cells to mediate motility, transport, intracellular signaling, and environmental sensing. Tau tubulin kinases (TTBKs) destabilize microtubules by phosphorylating microtubule-associated proteins (MAPs) of the MAP2/Tau family, but also contribute to the assembly of primary cilia during embryogenesis. Expression of TTBKs is enriched in testicular tissue, but their relevance to reproductive processes is unknown. We identified six TTBK homologues in the genome of the planarian Schmidtea mediterranea (Smed-TTBK-a, -b, -c, -d, -e, and -f), all of which are preferentially expressed in testes. Inhibition of TTBK paralogues by RNA interference (RNAi) revealed a specific requirement for Smed-TTBK-d in postmeiotic regulation of spermatogenesis. Disrupting expression of Smed-TTBK-d results in loss of spermatozoa, but not spermatids. In the soma, Smed-TTBK-d RNAi impaired the function of multiciliated epidermal cells in propelling planarian movement, as well as the osmoregulatory function of protonephridia. Decreased density and structural defects of motile cilia were observed in the epidermis of Smed-TTBK-d(RNAi) by phase contrast, immunofluorescence, and transmission electron microscopy. Altogether, these results demonstrate that members of the TTBK family of proteins are postmeiotic regulators of sperm development and also contribute to the formation of motile cilia in the soma.
Gene identification and transcriptome analysis of low cadmium accumulation rice mutant (lcd1) in response to cadmium stress using MutMap and RNA-seq

Cadmium (Cd) is a widespread toxic heavy metal pollutant in agricultural soil, and Cd accumulation in rice grains is a major intake source of Cd for Asian populations that adversely affect human health. However, the molecular mechanism underlying Cd uptake, translocation and accumulation has not been fully understood in rice plants. In this study, a mutant displaying extremely low Cd accumulation (lcd1) in rice plant and grain was generated by EMS mutagenesis from indica rice cultivar 9311 seeds. The candidate SNPs associated with low Cd accumulation phenotype in the lcd1 mutant were identified by MutMap and the transcriptome changes between lcd1 and WT under Cd exposure were analyzed by RNA-seq. The lcd1 mutant had lower Cd uptake and accumulation in rice root and shoot, as well as less growth inhibition compared with WT in the presence of 5 μM Cd. Genetic analysis showed that lcd1 was a single locus recessive mutation. The SNP responsible for low Cd accumulation in the lcd1 mutant located at position 8,887,787 on chromosome 7, corresponding to the seventh exon of OsNRAMP5. This SNP led to a Pro236Leu amino acid substitution in the highly conserved region of OsNRAMP5 in the lcd1 mutant. A total of 1208 genes were differentially expressed between lcd1 and WT roots under Cd exposure, and DEGs were enriched in transmembrane transport process GO term. Increased OsHMA3 expression probably adds to the effect of OsNRAMP5 mutation to account for the significant decreases in Cd accumulation in rice plant and grain of the lcd1 mutant. An extremely low Cd mutant lcd1 was isolated and identified using MutMap and RNA-seq. A Pro236Leu amino acid substitution in the highly conserved region of OsNRAMP5 is likely responsible for low Cd accumulation in the lcd1 mutant. This work provides more insight into the mechanism of Cd uptake and accumulation in rice, and will be helpful for developing low Cd accumulation rice by marker-assisted breeding.
Machine learning approach to dynamical properties of quantum many-body systems

Variational representations of quantum states abound and have successfully been used to guess ground-state properties of quantum many-body systems. Some are based on partial physical insight (Jastrow, Gutzwiller-projected, and fractional quantum Hall states, for instance), and others operate as a black box that may contain information about the underlying structure of entanglement and correlations (tensor networks, neural networks) and offer the advantage of a large set of variational parameters that can be efficiently optimized. However, using variational approaches to study excited states and, in particular, calculating the excitation spectrum, remains a challenge. We present a variational method to calculate the dynamical properties and spectral functions of quantum many-body systems in the frequency domain, where the Green's function of the problem is encoded in the form of a restricted Boltzmann machine (RBM). We introduce a natural gradient descent approach to solve linear systems of equations and use Monte Carlo to obtain the dynamical correlation function. In addition, we propose a strategy to regularize the results that improves the accuracy dramatically. As an illustration, we study the dynamical spin structure factor of the one dimensional ${J}_{1}\ensuremath{-}{J}_{2}$ Heisenberg model. The method is general and can be extended to other variational forms.
Customer mistreatment and service performance: A self-consistency perspective

Abstract The service encounter is an important social context for hospitality service providers who strive to satisfy their need for job competence by delivering excellent customer service. Customer mistreatment may be perceived as a sign of work-related goal failure by hospitality service providers. Building on the literature of goal attainment and failure in the workplace, we propose that hospitality employees, who experience customer mistreatment, undergo diminished organization-based self-esteem (OBSE), decreasing service performance. Moreover, employees’ locus of control is proposed to interact with customer mistreatment and predict service performance through the mediation of OBSE. The results of a multi-wave and multi-source survey, administered to a sample of hotel frontline employees (N = 180) and their direct supervisors (N = 38), show that customer mistreatment has a negative influence on service performance through OBSE, but only among employees with an external locus of control.
Theoretical limits of multiple exciton generation and singlet fission tandem devices for solar water splitting.

Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting is one of the most important approaches being investigated for solar fuel generation. In this study, we determine the maximum thermodynamic power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of PEC water splitting two-bandgap tandem devices that produce multiple carriers per photon absorbed via Multiple Exciton Generation (MEG) or Singlet Fission (SF) and in the presence of solar concentration. Here, we employ a detailed balance thermodynamic analysis to determine the effects of top cell thickness, solar concentration, carrier multiplication, electrode overvoltage (VO), and water absorption on PEC power conversion efficiency for water splitting cells. We have found a maximum PEC power conversion efficiency of 62.9% in cells using two ideal tandem MEG absorbers with bandgaps of 0.3 and 1.2 eV at 1000-suns solar concentration and 0 overvoltage; the maximum PCE for two tandem SF absorbers under the same conditions is nearly the same at 59% with the same values for the absorption thresholds. A very interesting and important result was that, upon thinning the top cell, the range of viable bandgaps for both the top and bottom cells is extended by as much as 0.5–1 eV while still maintaining high maximum conversion efficiency (60–63%). The effects of imposing different solar concentrations from 1X to 1000X and having different tandem configurations of SF and MEG layers were also studied.Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting is one of the most important approaches being investigated for solar fuel generation. In this study, we determine the maximum thermodynamic power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of PEC water splitting two-bandgap tandem devices that produce multiple carriers per photon absorbed via Multiple Exciton Generation (MEG) or Singlet Fission (SF) and in the presence of solar concentration. Here, we employ a detailed balance thermodynamic analysis to determine the effects of top cell thickness, solar concentration, carrier multiplication, electrode overvoltage (VO), and water absorption on PEC power conversion efficiency for water splitting cells. We have found a maximum PEC power conversion efficiency of 62.9% in cells using two ideal tandem MEG absorbers with bandgaps of 0.3 and 1.2 eV at 1000-suns solar concentration and 0 overvoltage; the maximum PCE for two tandem SF ...
Analysis of 220 kV Switch Post Insulator Breakdown Accident

220 kV switch post insulator breakdown accident in Lishui Substation is introduced. The post insulator breakdown mechanism is analyzed. To prevent similar accident, ultrasonic inspection is recommended.
Long-Range Optogenetic Control of Axon Guidance Overcomes Developmental Boundaries and Defects

Axons connect neurons together, establishing the wiring architecture of neuronal networks. Axonal connectivity is largely built during embryonic development through highly constrained processes of axon guidance, which have been extensively studied. However, the inability to control axon guidance, and thus neuronal network architecture, has limited investigation of how axonal connections influence subsequent development and function of neuronal networks. Here, we use zebrafish motor neurons expressing a photoactivatable Rac1 to co-opt endogenous growth cone guidance machinery to precisely and non-invasively direct axon growth using light. Axons can be guided over large distances, within complex environments of living organisms, overriding competing endogenous signals and redirecting axons across potent repulsive barriers to construct novel circuitry. Notably, genetic axon guidance defects can be rescued, restoring functional connectivity. These data demonstrate that intrinsic growth cone guidance machinery can be co-opted to non-invasively build new connectivity, allowing investigation of neural network dynamics in intact living organisms.
Individual vocal signatures show reduced complexity following invasion

Abstract The manner in which vocal learning is used for social recognition may be sensitive to the social environment. Biological invaders capable of vocal learning are useful for testing this possibility, as invasion alters population size. If vocal learning is used for individual recognition, then individual identity should be encoded in frequency modulation patterns of acoustic signals. Furthermore, frequency modulation patterns should be more complex in larger social groups, reflecting greater selection for individual distinctiveness. We compared social group sizes and used supervised machine learning and frequency contours to compare contact call structure between native range monk parakeets (Myiopsitta monachus) in Uruguay and invasive range populations in the U.S. Invasive range sites exhibited fewer nests and simpler frequency modulation patterns. Beecher’s statistic revealed reduced individual identity content and fewer possible unique individual signatures in invasive range calls. Lower estimated social densities and simpler individual signatures are consistent with relaxed selection on the complexity of calls learned for individual recognition in smaller social groups. These findings run counter to the traditional view that vocal learning is used for imitation, and suggest that vocal learning can be employed to produce individual vocal signatures in a manner sensitive to local population size.
Analysis of the Human Connectome Data Supports the Notion of A “Common Model of Cognition” for Human and Human-Like Intelligence

Abstract The Common Model of Cognition (CMC) is a recently proposed, consensus architecture intended to capture decades of progress in cognitive science on modeling human and human-like intelligence. Because of the broad agreement around it and preliminary mappings of its components to specific brain areas, we hypothesized that the CMC could be a candidate model of the large-scale functional architecture of the human brain. To test this hypothesis, we analyzed functional MRI data from 200 participants and seven different tasks that cover the broad range of cognitive domains. The CMC components were identified with functionally homologous brain regions through canonical fMRI analysis, and their communication pathways were translated into predicted patterns of effective connectivity between regions. The resulting dynamic linear model was implemented and fitted using Dynamic Causal Modeling, and compared against four alternative brain architectures that had been previously proposed in the field of neuroscience (two hierarchical architectures and two hub-and-spoke architectures) using a Bayesian approach. The results show that, in all cases, the CMC vastly outperforms all other architectures, both within each domain and across all tasks. The results suggest that a common, general architecture that could be used for artificial intelligence effectively underpins all aspects of human cognition, from the overall functional architecture of the human brain to higher level thought processes.
Session details: ACM HotMobile 2013 posters and demonstrations

This issue of MC2R features the posters and demonstrations submitted to ACM HotMobile 2013.
Aldol Condensation Reaction Rate Demonstrates Steric and Electronic Substituent Effects in the Organic Chemistry Lab

Aldol chemistry is highlighted in many introductory organic chemistry laboratory experiments because it provides synthesis, mechanism, and experimental challenges for students. In the experiment described here, students synthesize dibenzalacetone derivatives by crossed aldol condensation, observe reaction rates using a semiquantitative rubric, and illustrate the connection between reactant structures and reaction rate through their knowledge of the reaction mechanism. By combining class data and working through a guided-inquiry questionnaire, students link reaction rates with nucleophile and electrophile characteristics of the reactant structures. Independent rate determination of the aldol addition step, using UV absorption, confirmed that student rate observations of the overall reaction are a valid approach to learning about structure–function effects.
Obstetrics and Gynecology

Dr. R. is a first year resident in obstetrics and gynecology. He is 28 years old, is married, and has two small children. His wife is an M.B. A. working in the trust department of a large bank. He insisted on coming to my office even though he was currently on a surgical schedule and I offered to meet him at his hospital, which is located five long blocks away. He was dressed casually in a golf sweater, scuffed suede shoes, and tan cords. He spoke rapidly and had little patience with the small talk that I had found useful as a warm-up or “connecting” exercise at the opening of an interview with a young colleague who might be a bit wary of chatting with a psychiatrist she or he was meeting for the first time. Dr. R. would have none of that. He was all business. It was 4 p.m., and I wondered if that wasn’t a very busy time of day for him.
Developing a Success Model for Assessing the Impact of Wearable Sensing Devices in the Construction Industry

AbstractIn a bid to optimize jobsite safety, wearable sensing devices (WSDs) are slowly emerging as a class of viable tools with strong potential to improve safety measurement and monitoring. While...
Developing and Validating a Computer-Based Training Tool for Inferring 2D Cross-Sections of Complex 3D Structures.

ObjectiveDeveloping and validating a novel domain-agnostic, computer-based training tool for enhancing 2D cross-section understanding of complex 3D structures.BackgroundUnderstanding 2D cross-secti...
Economic evaluation of pharmaco- and behavioral therapies for smoking cessation: a critical and systematic review of empirical research.

Economic evaluations are an important tool to improve our understanding of the costs and effects of health care services and to create sustainable health care systems. This article critically assesses empirical evidence from economic evaluations of pharmaco- and behavioral therapies for smoking cessation. A comprehensive literature review of PubMed and the British National Health Service Economic Evaluation Database was conducted. The search identified 15 articles on nicotine-based pharmacotherapies, 12 articles on nonnicotine based pharmacotherapies, no articles on selegiline, and 10 articles on brief counseling for smoking cessation treatment. Results show that both pharmaco- and behavioral therapies for smoking cessation are cost-effective or even cost-saving. The review highlights several shortcomings in methodology and a lack of standardization of current economic evaluations. Efforts to improve methodology will help make future studies more comparable and increase the evidence base so that such eval...
Smile Outcomes of an Externally Scarless, Intraoral Orthodromic Temporalis Tendon Transfer.

Background: Temporalis tendon transfer (TTT) often relies on external incisions in the nasolabial fold, temporal region, or both. Herein, we studied smile outcomes of a TTT technique via a single i...
Diffusive and capillary instabilities of viscous fluid threads in microchannels

We experimentally investigate the flow behavior of viscous oil threads in a a variety of miscible and immiscible low-molecular weight alcohols in microchannels. A comparative study is conducted between diffusive and capillary regimes using simple functional relationships for the thread characteristics, including diameter and detachment length. We develop a comprehensive classification of immiscible and miscible fluid dynamics in square microfluidic channels and provide a quantitative analysis of the evolution of multiphase flow properties across flow patterns.
Osler Apprenticeship Program: Impact of peer advising on medical student preparedness and experience in the Neurology Clerkship (P2.9-028)

Objective: To define a role for “Osler Apprentices” (OAs) as designated peer advisors for the Neurology clerkship, implement OA-led group and individual teaching sessions, and evaluate the effect of OA peer advisors on overall student experience and preparedness in the clerkship. Background: Clerkships can be a challenging experience for medical students, given limited time to prepare and the variable nature of clerkships’ workflow, clinical duties, and expectations. The Neurology clerkship can be particularly daunting, leading to “neurophobia”. Students often turn to peers for unofficial advice. A lack of an official clerkship peer advising paradigm may be a significant barrier for clerkship success. Design/Methods: Participants were Johns Hopkins medical students enrolled in the Neurology Clerkship. OAs were competitively selected senior students who completed and excelled in the clerkship. OAs developed and led a “Tips & Tricks” (T&T) teaching session during monthly clerkship orientation to provide advice on preparing for and succeeding in the clerkship. Individual peer advising sessions were also offered. Pre- and post-T&T session surveys, together with a post-clerkship survey, were used to evaluate the impact of the T&T session and the OAs overall in improving students’ preparedness and confidence during the clerkship. Results: Average attendance at T&T sessions was 86%, and average response rate on the surveys was 88%. Students reported significantly greater awareness of clerkship expectations (eg. clinical duties, workflow, and study resources), as well as significantly increased confidence in their ability to succeed in the clerkship after the T&T session and individual OA sessions (p Conclusions: Students benefit from having OAs as official peer advisors for the Neurology Clerkship. The OA model of peer advising may counteract “neurophobia” and may have a broader positive impact on medical student clerkship experience and success if implemented in other clerkships and at other institutions. Disclosure: Dr. Shrock has nothing to disclose. Dr. Mische has nothing to disclose. Dr. Gamaldo has nothing to disclose. Dr. Strowd has received personal compensation for consulting, serving on a scientific advisory board, speaking, or other activities with Innocrin Pharmaceuticals and Monteris Medical. Dr. Strowd has received personal compensation in an editorial capacity for Neurology. Dr. Strowd has received research support from American Society of Clinical Oncology Conquer Cancer Foundation. Dr. Oakley has nothing to disclose. Dr. Salas has received personal compensation for consulting, serving on a scientific advisory board, speaking, or other activities with Uptodate.
Recent Developments in the Application of Vector Coherent State Theory

In the past ten years two types of coherent state constructions have been used to great advantage to give the matrix representations of group generators and the Wigner coefficients of many higher rank symmetry groups. In both, the irreducible representations of a higher rank group are constructed by an induction process from the irreducible representations of a lower rank subgroup, the so-called core subgroup. In the more widely used first type of vector coherent state construction, [1,2,3], state vectors are mapped onto states of a multidimensional harmonic oscillator through a set of Bargmann variables, z, the so-called “collective” or “orbital” variables, and a set of “intrinsic” or “spin” variables, q i , which specify the states of the irreducible representates of the core subgroup, the full state vectors being constructed through a “vector-coupling” of the “intrinsic” and “collective” states. This VCS construction has been used for many of the mathematically natural group chains such as U(n) ⊃ U(n-1) x U(1) ⊃ U(n-2) x U(1) ⊃… for which the subgroup chain gives a complete labelling of the state vectors. The VCS construction leads to SU(n) Wigner coefficients which can be expressed in terms of recoupling (Racah or 9j) coefficients of the U(n-1) sugroup, leading to a very simple buildup process for the construction of the Wigner-Racah calculus for the full group.
Intracolonic formation of struvite crystals in a patient with congenital megacolon

Abstract Intracolonic formation of large crystals and their subsequent rectal passage with hematochezia has not been previously described. We report the case of a patient with Hirschsprung's disease with a long history of anemia and passing crystals in his stool. These crystals were shown, by x-ray diffraction analysis, to be pure struvite (magnesium ammonium phosphate). It is likely that their sharp edges caused rectal bleeding and profound iron-deficiency anemia in this patient.
Left-to-right squarer with overlapped LS and MS parts

A radix-4 scheme is proposed for computing the square s=x/sup 2/ using left-to-right multiplication algorithm and on-the-fly conversion. The MS and LS parts are computed in parallel so that the final result is obtained with reduced extra delay compared to a carry-propagate adder required in conventional schemes. The input and the output are in the two's complement fixed-point representation. The most-significant half of the result can also be used the most-significant digit first to allow overlap with successive operations. The scheme can be adapted to compute x/sup 2/+y/sup 2/. The critical path is kept small by the use of redundant arithmetic. The proposed algorithm, its implementation and performance are discussed.
COMPARISON OF EYE FIXATIONS OF OPERATORS OF MOTORCYCLES AND AUTOMOBILES

The eye fixations were measured of two motorcyclists who drove a motorcycle and later an automobile on two-lane rural roads at about 45 mph, in daytime. The effects of road edge delineation, road geometry, oncoming vehicles, and whether the drivers were controlling a motorcycle or an automobile were evaluated in terms of the manner in which the drivers used their eyes to obtain visual information. The results indicated that most of the drivers' attention was directed within 5 degrees of the forward line of sight, but on curves, the drivers' eye fixations shifted in the direction of the curve. When an oncoming vehicle appeared, the drivers spent a substantial proportion of the viewing time looking at it periodically. The mean duration of glances were longer for these drivers when operating a motorcycle than an automobile. When operating the motorcycle there were relatively more glances made closer to the vehicle than when driving the car, suggesting that motorcyclists are more concerned with irregularities, composition and frictional characteristics of the pavement surface. The motorcycle riders also tended to view along the right side of the lane more than when driving the car. Comparisons made between the eye fixations of these motorcyclists when driving an automobile and those of other drivers of an automobile indicated considerable agreement, except that the motorcyclists attended more to oncoming vehicles. The results of the study are used to infer the type of distribution of illumination required from motorcycle headlamps for night driving. The beam pattern of motorcycle headlamps should be somewhat different than that provided automobile drivers, particularly in that good foreground illumination is required for visibility of the surface characteristics of the pavement. The beam should also emphasize the right edge of the road.
Bridging the missing link between “top-down” and “bottom-up”: a case study of Thailand's international collaboration in S&T

Success in International Collaboration in Science and Technology (ICST) depends on various factors, different players and different perspectives. Governments participate in collaboration in order to meet their country's policy goals. Scientists and researchers establish their contacts through their personal channels or scientific networks in order to pursue their own academic interest. There are two significant approaches in ICST Policy making which are “top-down” and “bottom-up” approaches. Both approaches are important. One approach can not fit all. Each approach has its own advantages and disadvantages. A balance between these two approaches is necessary. The objective of this paper is to present the application of a strategic policy model for international collaboration in S&T that bridges the gap between “top-down” and “bottom-up” approaches. An example is given with the evaluation of four ICST proposals in Thailand. A strategic policy model was developed in which the characteristics of international collaboration projects in S&T and expert judgments are quantified to determine the relative importance of Thailand's national S&T vision and objectives and NSTDA's (National Science and Technology Development Agency) target sectors, and to evaluate the proposals accordingly. Four evaluation criteria are proposed in this paper: strategic importance (SI), potential impact (PI), human resource development (HRD), and matching fund from international partners (MF). Each proposal is evaluated with respect to each criterion and related sub-criteria. The value of each ICST proposal is then calculated by incorporating all of the elements at each level of the model. The output of this model is the ranking of the ICST proposals coming from the “bottom-up
Analysis of Courses in Information Management and Network System Security and Survivability

Abstract : This report provides an overview of instructional systems design and its implications for analyzing curricula in the fields of information management and networked systems longevity. Measurable benchmarks for assessment of training and educational resources are offered in order to fully illustrate how to perform instructional gap analysis. This report also addresses issues of instructional approaches and metrics, performance objectives, educational measurement, and mission vs. learning objectives, and includes a selected listing of related coursework in the appendices.