cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The Rediscovery of Ferdinand Christian Baur: A Review of the First Two Volumes of His Ausgewählte Werke

The appearance of the first two volumes of a reprint edition of some of Ferdinand Christian Baur's most important writings marks an important event in contemporary historical theology: the rediscovery of a man whom Emanuel Hirsch has called “the greatest and at the same time the most controversial theologian to be produced by German evangelical Christianity since Schleiermacher.” Baur's greatness consists in his recognition of the radically historical quality of the Christian Church and Christian faith, and in his concomitant development of an historical method appropriate to a critical and theological study of the Church and its founding events, a study which he understood to be an intrinsically proper and necessary theological discipline. The controversy over Baur has been generated partially with respect to the extent of his alleged “Hegelianism,” and partially with respect to the validity of his attempt to discover the “truth” of Christianity by means of historical-critical theology. Criticism of him has arisen more often out of misunderstanding, but sometimes precisely out of recognition of what he was trying to achieve theologically. This new edition of some of his major works will help to base both acclaim and criticism on the latter rather than the former ground; and it surely will enhance our appreciation of the greatness and originality of this strangely neglected man, who stands as such an essential link between Schleiermacher at the beginning of the nineteenth century and the Ritschlians at the end, but who belongs to neither.
Robot-Vision Signal Processing Primitives [Applications Corner]

Recent advances in vision algorithms and increases in computer performance have made new capabilities available in autonomous robotics for real-time applications. In general, computer-vision-based solutions to robotics problems employ a high-level system architecture that makes use of low-level processing blocks. While the high-level system architecture is still an active area of research, many of the underlying low-level processing blocks and their associated methods have begun to stabilize, yielding a set of operators that has been found useful in a wide variety of tasks. In this article, we will briefly review these operators, which we call robot-vision signal-processing (SP) primitives, and their associated classes of methods. Although our taxonomy is quite general and related to those used in image processing and pattern recognition, we focus on the specific use of these primitives and associated classes in robot vision for SP purposes before presenting a robot-vision example- the Stanley robot racing car.
Pollen–Pistil Interactions in Nicotiana tabacum

Pollination involves a series of interactions between the surface of the male gametophyte and the extracellular matrix of several distinct sporophytic tissues in the pistil. Pollen germinates on the stigmatic surface and develops a tube that elongates in the transmitting tract of the style to transport the male gametes to the embryo sac inside the ovary. Pollen tube growth is fuelled by cytosolic activities within the pollen, but female tissues facilitate this process to ensure that pollen tubes arrive at the ovary when the ovules are the most receptive for maximum reproductive success. Interactions between pollen and pistil factors, probably both physical and biochemical, must be transmitted to the pollen cytosol to elicit the appropriate pollen cellular activities. Our research focuses on identifying the molecules that are involved in these interactions, understanding their biochemical and cellular bases, transmittal of these interactive signals into the pollen cytosol and the pollen cellular responses.
Enthalpy of dissociation and hydration number of carbon dioxide hydrate from the Clapeyron equation

Abstract The enthalpies of the reactions in which carbon dioxide hydrate is dissociated to carbon dioxide vapor and either water or ice are determined by an analysis with the Clapeyron equation. The most important feature of the new analysis is the direct use of the Clapeyron equation rather than the Clausius-Clapeyron equation. The analysis takes into account the finite volumes of the condensed phases, the nonideality of the vapor phase, and the solubility of carbon dioxide in water. New data for the solubility in the vicinity of the (water + hydrate + vapor) coexistence curve are employed. The enthalpy change of the reaction CO2 · nH2O(s)=CO2(g)+nH2O(l) is found to vary from (63.6 ± 1.8) kJ · mol−1 to (57.7 ± 1.8) kJ · mol−1 between quadruple points Q1 and Q2, and the hydration number varies from (6.6 ± 0.3) to (5.6 ± 0.3) over the same range. The results are compared to values reported in the literature that were determined by various techniques.
Learning from hackers [open-source programming]

The author describes how the open-source movement can teach project managers a lot. Unlike the troublesome computer vandals about whom we read in the mainstream press, open-source hackers are people who "solve problems and build things". Most engineers would be proud to be described that way. So would most project managers.
Creating Facts and Values

Moral sceptics maintain that there are no objective moral values, or that there is no moral knowledge, or no moral facts, or that what looks like a statement which makes a moral judgment is not really a statement and does not have a truth-value. All of this is rather unclear because all of it is negative. It will be necessary to remove some of this unclarity because my aim in this paper is to establish a proposition which may be summarized by saying: even if there are no objective moral values in one sense, there are objective moral values in another sense, and the latter values are good enough to do some of the jobs that objective values in the first sense would have done. A useful analogy might be that of a person who has lost her hand and has been given a prosthesis. In one sense the prosthesis is not as real (because man-made) as the hand, in another sense it is just as real (both are physical objects); most importantly, the person can do with the prosthesis enough of what she could do with the hand to make do.
Caffeine impairs resection during DNA break repair by reducing the levels of nucleases Sae2 and Dna2

In response to chromosomal double-strand breaks (DSBs), eukaryotic cells activate the DNA damage checkpoint, which is orchestrated by the PI3 kinase-like protein kinases ATR and ATM (Mec1 and Tel1 in budding yeast). Following DSB formation, Mec1 and Tel1 phosphorylate histone H2A on serine 129 (known as γ-H2AX). We used caffeine to inhibit the checkpoint kinases after DSB induction. We show that prolonged phosphorylation of H2A-S129 does not require continuous Mec1 and Tel1 activity. Unexpectedly, caffeine treatment impaired homologous recombination by inhibiting 5' to 3' end resection, independent of Mec1 and Tel1 inhibition. Caffeine treatment led to the rapid loss, by proteasomal degradation, of both Sae2, a nuclease that plays a role in early steps of resection, and Dna2, a nuclease that facilitates one of two extensive resection pathways. Sae2's instability is evident in the absence of DNA damage. A similar loss is seen when protein synthesis is inhibited by cycloheximide. Caffeine treatment had similar effects on irradiated HeLa cells, blocking the formation of RPA and Rad51 foci that depend on 5' to 3' resection of broken chromosome ends. Our findings provide insight toward the use of caffeine as a DNA damage-sensitizing agent in cancer cells.
SERIAL POLYANDRY AND ALLOPARENTING IN LONG-EARED OWLS

Abstract We used DNA fingerprinting to document serial polyandry in a double-brooded female Long-eared Owl (Asio otus) in western Montana. We also determined that an extra male that helped provision offspring at a nest was a close relative of the female parent. The nest had split paternity, and it is not clear whether the helper was the sire or brother of two of the four nestlings. These data constitute the first known cases of serial polyandry and alloparenting in Long-eared Owls and leave open the question of whether cooperative polyandry also occurs in this species. Poliandria en Serie y Alopaternidad en Asio otus Resumen. Empleamos huellas dactilares geneticas (i.e., DNA fingerprinting) para documentar poliandria en serie en una hembra de Asio otus que presento dos nidadas, en el oeste de Montana. Tambien determinamos que un macho extra-pareja que ayudo a abastecer a los pichones en un nido era un pariente cercano de la madre. El nido presento paternidad compartida y no esta claro si el ave que ayudab...
Epidemiology of lifetime work-related eye injuries in the U.S. population associated with one or more lost days of work.

Purpose: Eye injuries are one of the most common types of work-related injuries. This study examined the lifetime prevalence rate of eye injuries at work and associated factors in the general population of the United States. Methods: The data from the 2002 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) were analyzed for individuals aged 18 years or older (n = 28,913). Lifetime prevalence rates of work-related eye injuries were determined by different factors, calculated as the percentage of the weighted number of people who reported to have an eye injury at work divided by the weighted total number of people in the corresponding category. Results: The overall lifetime prevalence rate of work-related eye injuries was 4.4%. The lifetime age-specific prevalence rates of work-related eye injuries ranged from 2%, 3.8%, 4.9%, 6.0%, 5.4%, 4.0%, and 3.1% for ages 18–24, 25–34, 35–44, 45–54, 55–64, 65–74, and 75+ years, respectively, with the highest rate in the age of 45–54 years. Men had a more than four-times higher r...
Supplementary Material: Proof of Theorem 1 Without Cheap Talk

Supplementary material to "Folk Theorem in Repeated Games with Private Monitoring" available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1789775.
The Trouble with City of Boerne, and Why It Matters for the Voting Rights Act As Well

The Supreme Court's test for the constitutionality of state action and its test for the constitutionality of congressional legislation enforcing the Fourteenth Amendment are out of synch with one another. When a plaintiff challenges state action under the Fourteenth Amendment, the degree of scrutiny varies with the type of claim. Racial classifications, for example, are examined under "strict" scrutiny. Most classifications, such as disability, age, or socioeconomic status, are examined on a "rational basis." When Congress acts pursuant to its Section 5 powers under the Fourteenth Amendment to protect rights, however, the Court has no corresponding spectrum of degrees of scrutiny. In this paper I argue that the Court should adopt the "mirror image" spectrum of scrutiny for congressional enactments pursuant to its Section 5 powers. For example, if Congress seeks to protect people from age discrimination or discrimination based on disability by permitting individuals to sue states without their consent in federal court, the plaintiff should have to show that he or she actually suffered a constitutional violation in the case at bar. If Congress seeks to protect people from race discrimination, the plaintiff should have to show only that there is a rational, "means-end" relationship between the congressional remedy and the targeted discrimination. Applying this test to the Fifteenth Amendment, which prohibits race discrimination in voting, the courts should apply rational, "means-end" scrutiny to statutes such as the Voting Rights Act, including the preclearance condition that is likely to come before the Supreme Court in the near future.
Superlubricity in Gemini Hydrogels

Gemini hydrogels have repeatedly produced low friction under conditions generally not thought to be favorable to superlubricity: low sliding speeds, low contact pressures, macroscopic contact areas, and room temperature aqueous environments. A proposed explanation for this unique behavior is that thermal fluctuations at the interface are sufficient to separate the surfaces, with solvent (water) shearing in this region being the main source of dissipation. In this paper, we demonstrate that very soft and correspondingly large mesh size Gemini hydrogels show superlubricity with the lowest measured friction coefficient being μ = 0.0013 ± 0.0006.
Phase II trial of 6-thioguanine administered as 120 hour continuous infusion for refractory or recurrent small cell lung cancer. A Southwest Oncology Group study.

Nineteen eligible patients with recurrent small cell lung cancer were treated with a 120 hour continuous infusion of 6-thioquanine at a starting dose of 35 mg/m2/day. There were no responses in these 19 patients. Toxicity was acceptable with the primary toxicity being hematologic. Based on this trial, 6-thioquanine is not felt to have significant antitumor activity in this patient population.
Accumulation of Elements in Fractionated Broiler Litter during Re-Utilization

Abstract Poultry litter is a mixture of broiler (chicken, Gallus gallus domesticus) excreta and bedding material. The broiler industry may produce more litter than can be locally land-applied without causing environmental degradation. Passing whole litter through 0.83- and 3.33-mm sieves separates a fine fraction that can be land-applied as fertilizer and a coarse fraction that can be mixed with bedding and re-utilized in broiler houses. A study was conducted to determine whether the coarse litter fraction could be re-utilized as a supplement for bedding in broiler houses without significant accumulation of heavy metals and other elements. Wood shavings supplemented with either stored or fresh coarse litter and a treatment of unsupplemented wood shavings were used as bedding material during a 40-day broiler growth period. Initial and final litter samples were collected and analyzed for Al, As, B, Ba, Ca, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, K, Mg, Mn, N, Na, Ni, P, Pb, Si, Sr, and Zn. Results indicated that element concentrations in wood shavings bedding supplemented with litter did not increase significantly during the final 30 days of a 40-day growth period. However, significant accumulation of several litter elements in unsupplemented wood shavings bedding during the entire 40-day growth period indicated that repeated recycling of litter as a bedding supplement may lead to significant accumulation of elements in litter.
Restoration of nonclonal hematopoiesis in chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) following a chemotherapy-induced loss of the Ph1 chromosome.

After intensive chemotherapy, marrow cells of some patients with Philadelphia chromosome (Ph1) positive chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) become partially or completely Ph1-negative. However, without a second marker for the neoplastic clone, it could not be determined if these Ph1-negative cells arose from normal progenitors or were still members of an abnormal clone. In the present study, a patient with Ph1- positive CML, also heterozygous for glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD), was studied before and after intensive chemotherapy. Prior to treatment only G6PD type B was detected in the patient9s red cells, platelets, and granulocytes, and all unstimulated marrow metaphases had Ph1. After four cycles of chemotherapy, 76% of marrow cells were Ph1- negative, and approximately 80% of the granulocytes were nonclonal by G6PD analysis. Thus, the frequency of nonclonal cells by G6PD analysis correlated closely with that of the Ph1-negative cells. The data indicate that intensive chemotherapy can restore nonclonal and presumably non-neoplastic hematopoiesis in CML.
Estimate of thymic function reconstitution after haematopoietic stem cell transplantation: TREC

Immune deficiency after stem cell transplantation is significantly correlated with disease relapse, which results in distinct morbidity and mortality. Therefore, an increased understanding of the role of the immune system in preventing relapse has highlighted the importance of the reconstitution process. TREC is a kind of DNA episodes produced during the T cell differentiation in the thymus. TREC is assumed to have high over-time stability, but they can not multiply and consequently are diluted during T cell proliferation. It was recently suggested that quantitative detection of TREC would allow for the direct measurement of thymic output. Therefore, TREC were soon be used to analyze and appraise the thymic function after all kinds of stem cell transplantation, including allogenic, autologous and cord blood transplantation.
Growth and development status among elementary and middle school students in urban and rural areas of Hangzhou in 2010

Objective To investigate the level and character about the growth and development of elementary and middle school students in urban and rural areas of Hangzhou,and to provide evidence for preventive measures.Methods We analyzed the data of Physical Fitness and Health Surveillance of Chinese School Students(2010)from Hangzhou.According to The Chinese Child and Adolescents Agespecific Height(1995)for Age Growth Retardation Reference the prevalence of growth retardation and thinness were obtained.According to The Body Mass Index Reference Norm for Screening Overweight and Obesity in Chinese Children and Adolescents the prevalence of overweight and obesity were obtained.ResultsThe malnutrition,overweight and obesity rates among students aged 7-18 in Hangzhou were 5.51%,12.51% and 5.81%,respectively in 2010.The prevalence of malnutrition was higher among girls than boys,and overweight and obesity rates were higher among boys as compared with girls and obesity rate was significantly higher in the rural students than that in the urban ones.Conclusions The malnutrition level was lower and hypernutrition was severe among elementary and middle school students in Hangzhou.
Meteorological factors and measles outbreak

麻疹在我国则以寒冷的冬季较多发生流行.绍兴市地处亚热带,麻疹时有发生,该病发病以冬春季节为主,但具有由冬春季高发向春夏季高发转移趋势.为探讨影响麻疹发病季节性高峰的自然因素,笔者用单因素相关分析和多元逐步回归分析法对绍兴市1991～2001年麻疹发病资料与气象资料进行统计与分析,结果报告如下。
Dimensionality Analyses of the GRE® revised General Test Verbal and Quantitative Measures

Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of domestic data from the GRE® revised General Test, introduced in 2011, were conducted separately for the verbal (VBL) and quantitative (QNT) reasoning measures to evaluate the unidimensionality and local independence assumptions required by item response theory (IRT). Results based on data from the period immediately after the launch of the revised test and data from a year later showed that very little local item dependence was present and that a predominant single factor accounted for each of the data sets. These results provide evidence supporting the assumptions that underlie the use of the unidimensional 2-parameter IRT model for scoring and contribute evidence for the validity of GRE scores and their use.
Complex Hamiltonians: Common Features of Mechanisms for High-Tc and Slow Relaxation

The discoveries of the new ceramic superconductors La2-xAxCu4-z 1 and YBa2Cu3O7-x with Tc of about 40K and 90K respectively have given new impetus to the discussions of high-Tc mechanisms. The specific mechanism by which electrons lower their energy by pairing in these superconducting ceramics is at issue. Conventional lattice vibration mechanisms may be inappropriate in view of experimental evidence of the absence of an isotope effect3, and inadequate on theoretical grounds for the high transition temperature. For these reasons, alternative models have been seriously considered. By now, a number of mechanisms for high-Tc superconductivity have either been proposed specifically for these new materials or suggest them-selves to be possible candidates. These include the resonating valence bond(RVB), the negative-U models 5–7, the Bose condensation of bipolarons models8, 9, the d-wave pairing near a spin-density-wave instability of a positive-U Hubbard model10 surface or two-dimensional plasmon models 11, 12, acoustic plasmon models13, the excitonic models14, 15, the dynamic instability model16, and many others that possibly we are not aware of. The answer to which one of these many theoretical ideas is ultimately responsible for the superconductivity in these ceramics will have to wait for further experimental investigations of both the normal and superconducting states.
MO-A-209-02: A Tale of Two Journals: Open-Access and Subscription-Based Publications

Scientific publishing is a major endeavor of the AAPM. Although publishing requires substantial resources, it has the potential to generate both reputation and revenue to further the missions of our society. The AAPM owns and publishes two journals: Medical Physics and the Journal of Applied Clinical Medical Physics (JACMP). Medical Physics, with the tagline “The international journal of medical physics research and practice,” publishes research concerned with the application of physics and mathematics to the solution of problems in medicine and human biology, with an emphasis on theoretical and experimental approaches. The JACMP is an applied journal that publishes papers designed to help clinical medical physicists perform their responsibilities more effectively and efficiently for the greater benefit of patients. The two journals reflect two different missions, reach two different (yet often overlapping) audiences, engage two different publication approaches, and operate under two different financial models. A journal must serve both “producers” (authors who submit manuscripts to – and ultimately have their work published in – the journal) and “consumers” (readers – either individuals who access journal content or subscribing institutions that make the journal's content available to its members). Any viable publication model and cost-recovery structure must satisfy the interests of both groups without sacrificing the needs of the scientific community. The purpose of this symposium is to explore the roles of the AAPM's two journals in advancing the scientific and clinical missions of the society and to understand the complex interplay of economic factors that impact financial decisions governing the journals and the returns they bring to the AAPM. Learning Objectives: 1.Appreciate the complementary roles of Medical Physics and JACMP in advancing the scientific and clinical missions of the AAPM. 2.Understand AAPM resources committed to the two journals and the return on these investments. 3.Understand the role of the AAPM's Journals Business Management Committee in the financial stability of the two journals. 4.Explore the potential benefits and pitfalls of various economic and publication models for the two journals. J. Bourland, Member, Journals Business Management Committee, AAPM.
Historical Background for Multidimensional Item Response Theory (MIRT)

Multidimensional item response theory (MIRT) is the result of the convergence of ideas from a number of areas in psychology, education, test development, psychometrics, and statistics. Two general themes underlie the influence of these ideas on the development of MIRT. The first theme is that as our understanding of these areas increases, it becomes clear that things are more complicated than originally thought. The second theme is that the complexity can be represented by models or theories, but these theories and models are idealizations of reality. Because they are idealizations, they can likely be proven false if tested using a large number of observations. Nevertheless, the models can give useful approximations with many practical applications.
Simulation of carbon dioxide injection at the FutureGen2.0 site: Class VI permit model and local sensitivity analysis

Abstract Numerical simulation was conducted to evaluate supercritical CO2 (scCO2) storage in the Mt. Simon sandstone at the FutureGen 2.0 site in Morgan County, Illinois. The simulations illustrate the recent modeling effort conducted to successfully obtain a Class VI permit under the Underground Injection Control Program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The scCO2 was injected into a highly stratified reservoir, distributed among four lateral wells. Results show that each of the multiple reservoir layers with low permeability traps a fraction of the scCO2 beneath it so that the injected scCO2 does not reach the top of the reservoir by the end of the simulation period. Hence, all of the injected scCO2 is considered to be safely trapped by the stratified structure within the reservoir. A local sensitivity analysis (LSA) was conducted for injectivity and plume size at the end of the 20 year injection period. The LSA indicates that the imposed initial conditions and the hydraulic properties of the injection layer contribute the most to the sensitivity. Overall, the simulation outputs are very sensitive to only a small fraction of the inputs. However, the parameters that are important for controlling CO2 injectivity are not the same as those controlling the plume area. The three most sensitive inputs for injectivity are the horizontal permeability and the residual aqueous saturation of the injection layer, and the initial fracture-pressure gradient. For the plume area, the most sensitive inputs are the horizontal permeability of the injection layer and the residual aqueous saturation of the two adjacent layers above the injection layer. The advantages of requiring just a single set of simulation results, scalability to the proper parameter errors, and straightforward calculation of the composite sensitivities make the proposed analysis attractive for guiding site characterization, injection well design, estimating Area of Review uncertainty and, and monitoring network design.
The Twenty-five Joys of Our Lady: An English Marian Rosary of the Fifteenth Century from Bodleian Library MS Don. d. 85

“The Twenty-five Joys of Our Lady” is a study, examination, and critical edition of an unpublished fifteenth-century Middle English prose devotion preserved in Bodleian Library MS Don. d. 85. It is here associated with twenty-five “Joys of Our Lady” and presented as a vernacular Marian rosary, the first such to be identified in the period. The introduction to the edition considers early liturgical influences upon what became the tradition of Our Lady's Joys, their late-medieval development both across Europe and across England, and the circumstances that usually indicated fewer in number than is present in the devotion printed here. The introduction also concerns itself with the presence and practice of the rosary itself in late-medieval England and elsewhere and the limited evidence that has come down to us for its presence and circulation in England, including woodcut evidence in Caxton and allusions in other Latin devotions. It further indicates an ambiguity in this devotion's treatment of Christ's passion and concludes by considering the role and importance of joy as a pervasive, if often ignored, Christian attitude present in late-medieval English devotion.
The Value of Doubt

Doubt is key to becoming a good programmer. If you don't doubt the correctness of your work, you have no incentive to look for the hidden spoilers that are always there.
Regulation and Contract Design: The Impact of Relationship Specific Investment

A primary explanation for variation in contract structure is the extent to which contracting parties make investments specific to their transaction. Investment decisions are typically endogenous in contract choice, however, frustrating attempts at causal verification. I analyze the impact of a major environmental regulation, the Clean Air Act Amendment of 1990, on coal procurement strategies of U.S. utilities. I exploit a key feature of the Amendment's design to define a difference-in-difference model that is arguably less susceptible to endogeneity concerns. I find wide support for the theoretical prediction: reduced specificity leads to shorter length, fixed price contracts.
A pilot intervention addressing sexual dysfunction after risk-reducing oophorectomy.

9644 Background: Women at high risk for ovarian cancer due to BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation or family history are recommended to undergo prophylactic bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy (PBSO) after age 35 o...
Role of Heteromeric GPCR Interactions in Pain/Analgesia

The mammalian response to pain is extremely complex, involving multiple nervous pathways in the brain and spinal cord as well as in the periphery. The chemical signaling that links individual neurons in these pathways makes use of a great variety of neurotransmitters and neuromodulators, most of which act at G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). In fact, most of the known GPCR types have been shown to play some role in pain processing (1,2).
Prosurvival long noncoding RNA PINCR regulates a subset of p53 targets in human colorectal cancer cells by binding to Matrin 3

Thousands of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been discovered, yet the function of the vast majority remains unclear. Here, we show that a p53-regulated lncRNA which we named PINCR (p53-induced noncoding RNA), is induced ~100-fold after DNA damage and exerts a prosurvival function in human colorectal cancer cells (CRC) in vitro and tumor growth in vivo. Targeted deletion of PINCR in CRC cells significantly impaired G1 arrest and induced hypersensitivity to chemotherapeutic drugs. PINCR regulates the induction of a subset of p53 targets involved in G1 arrest and apoptosis, including BTG2, RRM2B and GPX1. Using a novel RNA pulldown approach that utilized endogenous S1-tagged PINCR, we show that PINCR associates with the enhancer region of these genes by binding to RNA-binding protein Matrin 3 that, in turn, associates with p53. Our findings uncover a critical prosurvival function of a p53/PINCR/Matrin 3 axis in response to DNA damage in CRC cells.
Democracy in history: deliberation, pluralism, and reciprocity: a reply to Hugo Drochon

I would like to thank Hugo Drochon for his generous response to my book Toward Democracy: The Struggle for Self-Rule in European and American Thought. Likening my book to the work of a copywriter f...
Embedded Crack Tip Opening Displacement Sensor for Concrete

Development of a fiber optic sensor (FOS) for embedment in concrete is described. The sensor transduction mechanism is based on the measurement of the normalized intensity variation of the speckle pattern (SIV) generated at the output end of the optical fiber. The fiber optic sensors with different gauge lengths were calibrated with the cantilever beam test to determine the optimal combination of sensitivity and dynamic range of the sensing system. Fiber optic sensors were employed for measurement of the crack tip opening displacements (CTOD) in notched three-point bend concrete beams, and results are compared with the analytical prediction based on effective-elastic crack approach.
Cardiac conduction abnormalities in a mouse model of Lyme borreliosis.

Background: Borrelia Burgdorferi(BB) induces cardiac conduction abnormalities in infected humans. Mice models of Lyme disease have been developed, however their electrophysiologic (EP) properties of conduction are unknown. Methods: Seventy-six C3H/J mice (BB infected and age- and gender-matched controls) underwent blinded in vivo EP studies. In a first phase of the study, 40 male C3H/J mice were divided into 2 groups: Group (A) mice were infected at age 3 (weeks) and studied at 5, and Group (B) mice were infected at 9 and studied at 11. In a second phase, 36 female mice were divided into 2 groups: Group (C) mice were infected at 3 weeks and studied at 5, and Group (D) mice were infected at 3 and studied at 11. Results: Infected mice of group (A) and (C) had wider QRS complexes (21.0±1.6 versus 17.3±1.3[emsp4 ]ms, p≤0.0001 and 20.3±2.1 versus 18.5±1.7, p = 0.05, respectively) compared to the healthy controls (HC). Infected mice of group (B) and group (D) were similar to the HC. In all groups, the presence of conduction abnormalities correlated very closely with the amount of inflammation on pathology. Conclusion: This study describes the first EP mouse model of Lyme carditis. C3H/J mice exhibit conduction abnormalities that are reversible 8 weeks after inoculation, closely paralleling the resolution of inflammation on pathology. This model can be a valuable tool in the developing and testing of new modalities for the prevention and treatment of Lyme carditis.
Non-Rapid Eye Movement Parasomnias

Publisher Summary Parasomnias are disorders in which undesirable physical and mental events occur mainly or exclusively during non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, often accompanied by skeletal muscle activity and autonomic arousal. Mental phenomena may also occur, including emotions, thoughts, and images. The paroxysmal events that occur with many parasomnias share similarities with daytime spells, but they present a special challenge because patients, who are usually asleep at the onset of the event, are rarely able to describe the physical or mental phenomena accurately. The phenomena, characteristic of many parasomnias, are associated with central nervous system activation, skeletal muscle activity, and signs of autonomic arousal. For young children with primary sleep enuresis, education and patience are often sufficient to determine if the child will “outgrow” the bed-wetting problem. In dissociative disorder, the major symptom is a disruption of consciousness, identity, memory, or perception that has a psychogenic basis. Tooth damage is a function of the forcefulness, frequency, direction, and duration of bruxing. Emotional stress is the most commonly reported precipitant of bruxism.
Parametric Models And Stochastic Integrals

Solutions of linear and nonlinear stochastic differential equations describing the response of dynamic systems with random input can be expressed as stochastic integrals involving the input and the system state vector. The stochastic integrals can be defined in the Ito or the Stratonovich sense [16]. These integrals become ordinary Stieltjes integrals in some cases if the input can be described by parametric models. Parametric models can also be used efficiently in Monte Carlo simulation studies [6,14].
The Impact of Emergency Medical Helicopters on Prehospital Care

Emergency medical helicopter services have grown exponentially over the past seventeen years. These services offer rapid transport by flight crews to tertiary care centers with a higher level of medical capabilities. An impact because of helicopters on survival has been well-documented for trauma patients. Assessing usage for other critical care patients remains to be delineated further. Language: en
Methods of Gait Analysis

This chapter discusses the methods of gait analysis. Observing the gait and noting the abnormalities is of little value. This needs to be followed by gait assessment, which is the synthesis of these observations with other information about the subject, obtained from the history and physical examination, combined with the intelligence and experience of the observer. Visual gait analysis is subjective, and the quality of the analysis depends on the skill of the person performing it. It can be an interesting exercise to perform visual gait analysis on people walking past in the street, but without knowing the clinical details, it is easy to misinterpret an abnormality completely. One thing that must be borne in mind, when performing any type of gait analysis is that one is observing the effects and not the causes. The observed gait pattern is not the direct result of a pathological process, but the net result of a pathological process and the subject's attempts to compensate for it. The observed gait pattern is what is left after the available mechanisms for compensation have been exhausted.
Energy-Efficient Memristive Analog and Digital Electronics

This chapter reviews recent technology trends in memristive analog and digital electronics, with particular attention to programmable analog and digital circuits, ultra-dense nonvolatile resistive memory architectures, and zero leakage nonvolatile logic gates. A reconfigurable nonvolatile computing platform that harnesses memristor properties is used to deploy massive local nonvolatile memories and advance computing capabilities with much lowered energy consumption than the conventional charge-based VLSI systems. With application of memristive devices for nonvolatile memories, programmable interconnects, stateful logic gates, and nonvolatile latches with high integration density and CMOS compatibility, combining memristor technology with the prevailing CMOS technology poses to prolong the Moore’s Law beyond the hitherto observed technological limitations.
Solid State NMR Studies of Uniformly Isotopically Enriched Proteins

Solid state NMR experiments for structure determination and functional characterization of uniformly 13C, 15N isotopically enriched proteins have undergone major advances recently. Several studies demonstrate that extensive site-specific assignments can be established for domains of 507–100 residues. For these studies, high-field instrumentation and recently developed 13C-13C and 13C-15N correlation experiments were combined to provide intra-residue and inter-residue contacts. Experimental details that influence the line-shape and resolution are discussed in this review. The assigned spectra are immediately useful for assessing secondary structure, ligand binding and conformational dynamics. Promising experiments for obtaining torsional structural constraints and tertiary contacts in uniformly labelled materials have been discussed in the recent literature. The challenge for the upcoming years will be to extend these efforts to biologically interesting targets such as intrinsic membrane proteins.
How Does Batch Normalization Help Optimization

Batch Normalization (BatchNorm) is a widely adopted technique that enables faster and more stable training of deep neural networks (DNNs). Despite its pervasiveness, the exact reasons for BatchNorm's effectiveness are still poorly understood. The popular belief is that this effectiveness stems from controlling the change of the layers' input distributions during training to reduce the so-called "internal covariate shift". In this work, we demonstrate that such distributional stability of layer inputs has little to do with the success of BatchNorm. Instead, we uncover a more fundamental impact of BatchNorm on the training process: it makes the optimization landscape significantly smoother. This smoothness induces a more predictive and stable behavior of the gradients, allowing for faster training.
Teaching and Assessing Learning About Virtue: Insights and Challenges From a Redesigned Journalism Ethics Class

Virtue ethics, a topic of growing interest in media ethics and philosophy more broadly, poses challenges for classroom instruction because it is rooted in long-term development of character. This a...
4.02 – Precipitation

Freshwater is essential for life on Earth. Thus knowing where and when it rains globally is important. Furthermore, remote sensing of precipitation is a vital component to the integrated observing of the water cycle on Earth. The information is also important on both short term, weather and long term, climate time scales. Satellites offer measurements that fill in observational voids that exist with ground networks. This article presents a summary of the vast number of methods, both past and present that are used to exploit visible, infrared, and microwave satellite measurements to retrieve precipitation information and to predict/monitor precipitation-related disasters such as floods, droughts, and landslides. In section “Visible and Infrared Methods”, visible and infrared techniques are described followed by passive and active microwave methods in section “Passive Microwave Methods”. Section “Active Microwave Methods” focuses on multisensor techniques, which have been the focus of the remote sensing community over the past decade and perhaps the most widely used data sets today. An application example of such data sets for flood and drought follows in section “Multisensor Datasets”, with a summary in final section.
Reactivity of N-Phenyl-1-Aza-2-Cyano-1,3-Butadienes in the Diels−Alder Reaction

It is found that N-phenyl-2-cyano-1-azadiene 4, prepared via a two-step, one-pot, sequence from acrylanilide, undergoes efficient [4 + 2] cycloaddition with a complete range of electron rich, electron poor, and neutral dienophiles under remarkably mild thermal conditions (90-120 degrees C for 20-48 h). Regiospecific formation of the alpha-cycloadduct wherein the dienophile substituent is alpha to nitrogen is observed for vinyl ethers and styrene, whereas the Diels-Alder reactions with methyl acrylate and methyl vinyl ketone (MVK) produce alpha/beta mixtures in which the alpha-cycloadduct is the major regioisomer (approximately 4-5:1). An essentially identical reaction pattern was observed in the Diels-Alder reaction of N-(p-methoxyphenyl)-2-cyano-1-azadiene 18 and the 4-methyl-substituted azadiene 27. For compound 19 derived from cycloaddition of 18 with ethyl vinyl ether, facile conversion to the dihydropyridine 21 through loss of EtOH on brief acid treatment was also noted. The 2,4-cis-disubstitution pattern confirmed by X-ray diffraction for the major cycloadduct 29 isolated from the reaction of 27 with styrene provides evidence for the endo mode of cycloaddition in the Diels-Alder reaction of N-phenyl(aryl)-2-cyano-1-azadienes. Calculation of the frontier orbital energies and coefficients, as well as the transition state geometries for the [4 + 2] cycloaddition of N-phenyl-2-cyano-1-azadiene 4 with methyl vinyl ether, styrene, and MVK were carried out at the RHF AM1 level (MOPAC, Version 5.0). The FMO treatment indicates that the reaction of 4 with methyl vinyl ether occurs under LUMO(diene) control, whereas in contrast, the corresponding cycloaddition with MVK occurs preferably under HOMO(diene) control. A high degree of asynchronicity is observed in the calculated transition states for reaction of 4 with the three representative dienophiles. In all cases the transition states leading to the alpha-cycloadducts are lower in energy than those giving the beta-products. However, at the AM1 level the exo cycloaddition mode is found to be the preferred, this result contrasting with experimental results for azadiene 27.
Through the restroom mirror: accessibility and visibility in public space

Mirrors in a public restroom represent an esoteric facet of accessibility. Yet, looking at and through the restroom mirror from the perspective of visibility allows a critique of the ableist techni...
Survey data on perceptions of water scarcity and potable reuse from water utility customers in Albuquerque, New Mexico

Abstract The data presented in this article were collected using a large-scale public survey distributed through the mail to a random sample of 4000 water utility residential account holders in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA. The survey collected data on a variety of water-related topics, including water scarcity, climate change, water use at home, perceptions of water sources and water quality, conservation habits, level of acceptance of two potable water reuse scenarios, and level of trust in a variety of entities. The survey also collected demographic data from respondents. Account holders received one of four survey versions, three of which provided different sets of educational material to test different motivations for accepting potable water reuse, and one provided no educational material. The survey was designed and administered using the Tailored Design Method, which involved focus groups, individual debriefing sessions, and a pre-test with members of the sample population to refine the survey instrument, and included a system of five contacts mailed out over a period of several months to maximize response rate. Mail-in and electronic response options were available, and the response rate was 46% (n = 1831). The data were compiled using Survey Monkey and organized using Microsoft Excel and RStudio. The data set featured in this article provides raw survey data plus additional variables created by grouping and consolidating answer options in the raw data. This is the first and most comprehensive set of data known to the authors on public perceptions of water resources and reuse in an arid inland community, and the authors have published open access papers based on this data set, which are linked to this paper. Water managers, planners, engineers, and utilities may be interested in using the data as a point of comparison for their own study on community knowledge of water resources and acceptance of water reuse or in examining the data for relationships not yet explored in the literature.
Immunobiology of Acanthamoeba Keratitis

Acanthamoeba keratitis (AK) is remarkably rare, even though the causative agent can be isolated from virtually any environmental niche and the leading risk factor for corneal infection – contact lens wear – is practiced by over 30 million individuals in the United States. This might lead one to suspect that immunity is effective and commonplace. However, with the exception of immunoglobulin A antibodies in the tears, the adaptive immune system is incapable of preventing or eliminating corneal Acanthamoeba infections. Interestingly, primitive elements of the innate apparatus – namely macrophages and neutrophils – are first responders that effectively prevent and resolve corneal Acanthamoeba infections in experimental animals, and possibly in humans as well.
A conservative discontinuous Galerkin discretization for the chemically reacting Navier-Stokes equations

Abstract We present a detailed description and verification of a discontinuous Galerkin finite element method (DG) for the multi-component chemically reacting compressible Navier-Stokes equations that retains the desirable properties of DG, namely discrete conservation and high-order accuracy in smooth regions of the flow. Pressure equilibrium between adjacent elements is maintained through the consistent evaluation of the thermodynamics model and the resulting weak form, as well as the proper choice of nodal basis. As such, the discretization does not generate unphysical pressure oscillations in smooth regions of the flow or at material interfaces where the temperature is continuous. Additionally, we present an hp-adaptive DG method for solving systems of ordinary differential equations, DGODE, which is used to resolve the temporal evolution of the species concentrations due to stiff chemical reactions. The coupled solver is applied to several challenging test problems including multi-component shocked flows as well as chemically reacting detonations, deflagrations, and shear flows with detailed kinetics. We demonstrate that the discretization does not produce unphysical pressure oscillations and, when applicable, we verify that it maintains discrete conservation. The solver is also shown to reproduce the expected temperature and species profiles throughout a detonation as well as the expected two-dimensional cellular detonation structure. We also demonstrate that the solver can produce accurate, high-order, approximations of temperature and species profiles without artificial stabilization for the case of a one-dimensional pre-mixed flame. Finally, high-order solutions of two- and three-dimensional multi-component chemically reacting shear flows, computed without any additional stabilization, are presented.
Drag and the Aesthetics of Free Speech in the Mosaic of Mary McCarthy’s Postmodern Affinities

Author of several books, including most recently, Walking New York: Reflections of American Writers from Walt Whitman to Teju Cole,11 It is worth noting that Miller’s book, which covers roughly one...