cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
SU-DD-A4-01: Phantom Study of Cone Beam Computed Tomography Setup Accuracy in Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy for Lung Cancer Treatment

Purpose: To evaluate the accuracy of cone beam computed tomography(CBCT) guided positioning in the case of motion patterns associated with regular and irregular breathing for lungcancer stereotactic body radiation therapy(SBRT).Methods and Materials: Five irregular motion patterns have been used in phantom‐simulated cases using a solid ball to create four‐dimensional (4D) CT datasets. Images are transferred to the Pinnacle Planning System 8.0m (Phillips) where a planning treatment volume (PTV) is constructed for planning. Subsequently the same phantom simulated cases are imaged with a CBCT (Elekta XVI) in volumetric reconstruction mode. Images defining the PTV using CBCT are compared with PTV determined from 4DCT images. Breathing motion patterns used in these phantom studies were from actual patients' data taken at random. For comparisons regular breathing motion data have been also used for reference in PTV matching derived from 4DCT and CBCT. The actual time dependant target position was known in each phantom‐simulated case from the driver files associated with the motion generator. Results For regular motion, CBCT exhibited up to 2mm shift between 4DCT derived PTV and CBCT defined PTV. For irregular motion, the CBCT derived PTV exhibited up to3.7mm shift relative to 4DCT derived PTV. However, we found that neither the 4DCT nor the CBCT accurately reflect of the actual PTV motion and geometry (up to 4.9mm) derived from known target dimensions and knowledge of motion data. Dosimetric impact of this error will be reported. Conclusions The setup of target for SBRTtreatment of lungtumor based on CBCT derived PTV is consistent with treatment plan based on 4DCT. This clinically positive result is not based, however, on accurate representation of clinically used PTV with true geometrical representation of PTV target derived from known target dimensions and known pattern of target motion in the phantom.
A stochastic programming approach to planning of offshore gas field developments under uncertainty in reserves

Abstract In this work we consider the optimal investment and operational planning of gas field developments under uncertainty in gas reserves. The resolution of uncertainty in gas reserves, and hence the shape of the scenario tree associated with the problem depends on the investment decisions. A novel stochastic programming model that incorporates the decision-dependence of the scenario tree is presented. A decomposition based approximation algorithm for the solution of this model is also proposed. We show that the proposed approach yields solutions with significantly higher expected net present value (ENPV) than that of solutions obtained using a deterministic approach. For a small sized example, the proposed approximation algorithm is shown to yield the optimal solution with more than one order of magnitude reduction in solution time, as compared to the full space method. “Good” solutions to larger problems, that require up to 165,000 binary variables in full space, are obtained in a few hours using the proposed approach.
Modeling the effects of compositional context on promoter activity in an E. coli extract based transcription-translation system

One of the fundamental challenges in implementing complex biocircuits is understanding how the spatial arrangement of biological parts impacts biocircuit behavior. We develop a set of synthetic biology parts for systematically probing the effects of spatial arrangement on levels of transcription. Our initial experimental assays prove that even the rearrangement of two biocircuit parts (comprised of a promoter, coding sequence, and terminator) into three spatially distinct orientations (convergent, divergent, and tandem orientation) can exhibit significantly different levels of transcription. These findings motivate the need for mathematical models to describe these spatial context effects. We pose a novel nonlinear massaction kinetics based model that enables the integration of knowledge about spatial or compositional context and canonical descriptions of transcriptional dynamics. Our findings suggest that compositional context plays a role in biocircuit part performance and comprise an important piece of biocircuit interconnection theory.
Limitations on Firm Size in a Tarascan Pueblo

This paper examines the factors limiting the size and degree of specialization of furniture producing firms in Cuanajo, Michoacan, Mexico, where rapid modernization and mechanization of the furniture industry has resulted in a proliferation of small unspecialized firms rather than the growth of either a few large firms or small, highly specialized firms. A study of the internal rates of return on investment demonstrates that it is economically worthwhile to invest in some machinery; it is not worthwhile to add much capital and labor to mechanized shops. Thus it is impossible for owners to increase their incomes simply by adding labor and capital to their existing firms. A number of social and cultural constraints limit the options open to owners of these firms. They cannot attract and keep skilled labor due to the emphasis placed on independence. They lack managerial skill. The firms face an inefficient final product market and a relatively inefficient intermediate product market. The owners' "Indian stat...
Distribution of tritiated dihydromicrocystin in swine

Abstract The distribution of tritiated dihydromicrocystin i [ 3 H]2H-MCLR was studied in anesthetized specific-pathogen-free pig. Two doses were administered i.m. and one dose was given via an isolated ileal loop. At 4 hr after i.v. administration of the toxin at 25 μg/kg, 64.6% of the total dose (% TD) was located in the liver, with small amounts distributed to the kidneys (1.2% TD), lungs (1.75% TD), heart (0.22% TD), ileum (0.13% TD) and spleen (0.04% TD). A similar distribution was found at 4 hr postdosing in pigs given 75 μg/kg, although the liver contained a lower fraction of the total dose, at 46.99% TD, and the kidneys had somewhat more, at 2.19% TD, than the low dose. At the high dose, the fractions of the amount given accounted for by the lungs (0.55% TD), heart (0.23% TD), ileum (0.20% TD) and spleen (0.07% TD) were similar to those at the low dose. The livers of the pigs given 75 μg/kg via the ileal loop, at 5 hr postdosing, contained 49.5% TD and the ileum had 33.94% TD. Smaller amounts were distributed to kidneys (1.04% TD), lungs (0.65% TD), heart (0.81% TD) and spleen (0.16% TD). The livers of both groups dose at 75 μg/kg contained higher concentrations of toxin, but lower percentages of the total dose, than the livers of pigs dosed at 25 μg/kg. Larger increases in serum arginase in the two 75 μg/kg groups were associated with histological evidence of more severe liver damage than at the 25 μg/kg dose. Analysis of radiolabelled compounds from hepatic tissue using fast atom bombardment mass spectrometry determined that the primary constituent was [ 3 H]2H-MCLR, but two minor radioactive components were also isolated. These findings indicate that [ 3 H]2H-MCLR is rapidly concentrated in the liver of swine, whether given i.v. or via an isolated ileal loop, that at extremely toxic doses uptake is slowed, and that it is as toxicologically active as the parent compound.
A cost--utility analysis of treatment options for inguinal hernia in 1,513,008 adult patients

Background: The controversial issue of the cost-effectiveness of laparoscopic inguinal hernia repair is examined, employing a decision analytic method. Materials and methods: The NSAS, NHDS (National Center for Health Statistics), HCUP-NIS (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality) databases and 51 randomized controlled trials were analyzed. The study group constituted of a total of 1,513,008 hernia repairs. Projection of the clinical, economic, and quality-of-life outcomes expected from the different treatment options was done by using a Markov Monte Carlo decision model. Two logistic regression models were used to predict the probability of hospital admission after an ambulatory procedure and the probability of death after inguinal hernia repair. Four treatment strategies were modeled: (1) laparoscopic repair (LR), (2) open mesh (OM), (3) open non-mesh (ONM), and (4) expectant management. Costs were expressed in US dollars and effectiveness in quality-adjusted life years (QALYs). The main outcome measures were the average and the incremental cost-effectiveness (ICER) ratios. Results: Compared to the expectant management, the incremental cost per QALY gained was $605 ($4086, 9.04 QALYs) for LR, $697 ($4290, 8.975 QALYs) for OM, and $1711 ($6200, 8.546 QALYs) for ONM. In sensitivity analysis the two major components that affect the cost-effectiveness ratio of the different types of repair were the ambulatory facility cost and the recurrence rate. At a LR ambulatory facility cost of $5526 the ICER of LR compared to OM surpasses the threshold of $50,000/QALY. Conclusions: On the basis of our assumptions this mathematical model shows that from a societal perspective laparoscopic approach can be a cost-effective treatment option for inguinal hernia repair.
A case study of nursing liability: Patient transfer from one facility to another

Abstract Ongoing health care transitions include shorter hospital stays for elderly who need additional subacute care before they return to independent-patients living. When continued care will be carried out in another facility, attentiveness to transfer details is essential to complete a safe and effective move.
The rate of reaction of methyl radicals with ozone

The absolute rate constant for the reaction of methyl radicals with ozone has been measured as a function of temperature. Small concentrations of CH3 were generated by flash photolyzing CH3NO2 at 193 nm with an ArF laser. A photoionization mass spectrometer was used to follow the rate of decay of CH3 at various ozone concentrations. The resulting rate constants could be fit by the expressions over the temperature range of 243–384 K. These rate constants can be modeled by simple transition state theory using reasonable parameters for the activated complex. Use of this rate constant shows that less than 1% of the methyl radicals formed in the stratosphere react with ozone.
Low temperature ion beam mixing of bilayers and multilayers in the Ti-Cu system

The mixing rate for Ti-Cu bilayers irradiated by 600 keV Xe ions near liquidnitrogen temperature was found to be a factor of 1.6 smaller than estimated on the basis of a cylindrical thermal spike model. At room temperature radiation enhanced diffusion contributes measurably to the mixing. As was found previously for Fe-Ti and Ni-Ti samples, mixing was found to be considerably faster at the Cu-Ti interfaces of a multilayer sample.
Inter-firm complementarities in R&D: a re-examination of the relative performance of joint ventures

We compare duopoly outcomes between two alternative modes of research and development (RD the reverse holds for high spillovers. When RJVs yield higher technological improvement, they also yield higher industry profit and social welfare.
Asymptotically optimal truncated hypothesis test for a large sensor network described by a multivariate Gaussian distribution

While recent advances have provided extremely efficient distributed methods for computing optimal test statistics for many hypothesis testing problems occurring in large sensor networks, the popular multivariate Gaussian hypothesis testing problem involving a change in both the mean vector and covariance matrix is not one of these. The difficultly is that these test statistics generally require long range communications. A truncated test is studied which only requires that each sensor shares information with 2k neighboring sensors out of a set of L total sensors. Sufficient conditions are given on the k as a function of L for a given sequence of hypothesis testing problems to ensure no loss in deflection performance as L approaches infinity when compared to the optimal untruncated detector. For several popular classes of system and process models, including observations from some wide-sense stationary limiting processes as L→∞ (after the mean is subtracted), the sufficient conditions are shown to be satisfied for k increasing very slowly compared to L even when the difficulty of the hypothesis testing problem scales in the least favorable manner. Numerical results imply the fixed-false-alarm-rate detection probability of the truncated detector converges rapidly to the detection probability of the optimal untruncated detector.
Altered Regulation of Hepatic Efflux Transporters Disrupts Acetaminophen Disposition in Pediatric Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most common chronic liver disease, representing a spectrum of liver pathologies that include simple hepatic steatosis and the more advanced nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). The current study was conducted to determine whether pediatric NASH also results in altered disposition of acetaminophen (APAP) and its two primary metabolites, APAP-sulfate and APAP-glucuronide. Pediatric patients with hepatic steatosis (n = 9) or NASH (n = 3) and healthy patients (n = 12) were recruited in a small pilot study design. All patients received a single 1000-mg dose of APAP. Blood and urine samples were collected at 1, 2, and 4 hours postdose, and APAP and APAP metabolites were determined by high-performance liquid chromatography. Moreover, human liver tissues from patients diagnosed with various stages of NAFLD were acquired from the Liver Tissue Cell Distribution System to investigate the regulation of the membrane transporters, multidrug resistance–associated protein 2 and 3 (MRP2 and MRP3, respectively). Patients with the more severe disease (i.e., NASH) had increased serum and urinary levels of APAP-glucuronide along with decreased serum levels of APAP-sulfate. Moreover, an induction of hepatic MRP3 and altered canalicular localization of the biliary efflux transporter, MRP2, describes the likely mechanism for the observed increase in plasma retention of APAP-glucuronide, whereas altered regulation of sulfur activation genes may explain decreased sulfonation activity in NASH. APAP-glucuronide and APAP-sulfate disposition is altered in NASH and is likely due to hepatic membrane transporter dysregulation as well as altered intracellular sulfur activation.
Initial conditions for simulating glass fiber orientation in the filling of center-gated disks

Abstract This work is concerned with the effect that initial conditions play in simulating long (>1 mm) glass fiber (LGF) orientation in the filling of a center-gated disk (CGD). For the CGD, most orientation simulations begin at the gate and make assumptions about the initial fiber orientation entering the mold. This paper reports on a method for simulating LGF orientation in a CGD by simulating the sprue, gate, and mold (S–G–M) as a single domain. The velocity field solution is determined using a finite element method including the advancing front. To predict LGF orientation, rigid and flexible fiber models are employed using parameters obtained from rheology. It is observed that predicting LGF orientation in systems with either model is highly sensitive to the choice of initial conditions. Furthermore, the flexible fiber model is observed to be more successful at predicting LGF orientation based on agreement with experimental results.
Language and Reading Deficits Associated With Neurofibromatosis Type 1: Evidence for a Not-So-Nonverbal Learning Disability

Neurofibromatosis Type 1 (NF1) is a common genetic disorder for which nonverbal learning disability (NLD) is frequently reported. In this study, verbal and nonverbal skills among NF1 school‐age children and their unaffected siblings were assessed. Results of matched‐paired comparisons were consistent with previous reports of visuospatial deficits in NF1. The results also indicate verbal weaknesses in NF1, including deficits in vocabulary and phonological awareness, and a positive correlation—among the NF1 group only—between performance on the Judgment of Line Orientation test (Benton, 1983) and several verbal tasks. The verbal deficits indicate that NLD may not be an accurate construct with which to describe the NF1 phenotype. Children with NF1 manifested skills deficits in mathematics and reading even though the incidence of discrepancy‐based reading disability (RD) or mathematics disability (MD) did not differ across groups. The NF1 profile illustrates the conceptual difficulty underlying discrepancy‐ba...
Dropspots: a picoliter array in a microfluidic device

We present a simple microfluidic device that uses an array of well-defined chambers to immobilize thousands of femtoliter- to picoliter-scale aqueous drops suspended in inert carrier oil. This device enables timelapse studies of large numbers of individual drops, while simultaneously enabling subsequent drop recovery.
Locally analytical prediction of the viscous aerodynamics of an oscillating flat plate airfoil

A mathematical model is developed to predict the unsteady aerodynamics of a flat plate airfoil executing harmonic torsional motion in an incompressible laminar flow at moderate values of the Reynolds number. The unsteady viscous flow is assumed to be a small perturbation to the steady viscous flow described by the Navier-Stokes equations. Solutions for both the steady and the unsteady viscous flow fields are obtained by developing locally analytical solutions. This model is then utilized to demonstrate the effects of Reynolds number, mean flow incidence angle and reduced frequency on the complex unsteady airfoil surface pressure distributions as well as airfoil stability.
Transitions and transformations: Building international cooperation

(1997). Transitions and transformations: Building international cooperation. Security Studies: Vol. 6, No. 3, pp. 154-179.
Performance of roof fasteners under simulated loading conditions

Abstract Conventionally, in North America, design loads for roof attachment systems are determined through static testing. While presenting the development of a dynamic setup, this paper compares the fastener pull-out loads under static and dynamic conditions. This has been systematically performed for steel and wooden decks under various fastening parameters. Experimental data have indicated that the fastener failure load and mode differ significantly under dynamic testing in comparison to static testing. With steel decks, the fastener pull-out resistance decreased by 30–50% under dynamic conditions, whereas results with wooden decks, the resistance decreased by 10–30%. Therefore, for the design of mechanically attached roofing systems, one should use for the fasteners the allowable design load derived from dynamic testing. Preliminary investigations have also been carried out and further research efforts are in progress on the fastener service life predictions.
Physical activity is linked to ceruloplasmin in the striatum of intact but not MPTP-treated primates

Ceruloplasmin is a protective ferroxidase. Although some studies suggest that plasma ceruloplasmin levels are raised by exercise, the impact of exercise on brain ceruloplasmin is unknown. We have examined whether striatal ceruloplasmin is raised with treadmill exercise and/or is correlated with spontaneous physical activity in rhesus monkeys. Parkinson’s disease is characterized by a loss in ceruloplasmin and, similarly, Parkinson’s models lead to a loss in antioxidant defenses. Exercise might protect against Parkinson’s disease and is known to prevent antioxidant loss in experimental models. We have therefore examined whether treadmill exercise prevents ceruloplasmin loss in monkeys treated unilaterally with the dopaminergic neurotoxin MPTP (1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine). We found that exercise raised ceruloplasmin expression in the caudate and accumbens but not the putamen of intact monkeys. However, putamen ceruloplasmin was correlated with spontaneous activity in a home pen. MPTP alone did not cause unilateral loss of ceruloplasmin but blocked the impact of exercise on ceruloplasmin. Similarly, the correlation between putamen ceruloplasmin and activity was also lost with MPTP. MPTP elicited loss of tyrosine hydroxylase in the treated hemisphere; the remaining tyrosine hydroxylase was correlated with overall daily activity (spontaneous activity plus that induced by the treadmill). Thus, treadmill activity can raise ceruloplasmin but this impact and the link with spontaneous activity are both diminished in Parkinsonian primates. Furthermore, low overall physical activity predicts greater loss of dopaminergic phenotype in MPTP-treated primates. These data have implications for the maintenance of active lifestyles in both healthy and neurodegenerative conditions.
Macrophage-mediated cytostasis of neoplastic hemopoietic cells. Cytofluorometric analysis of the reversible cell cycle block.

Abstract Nonactivated mouse peritoneal macrophages inhibit the proliferation of neoplastic hemopoietic cells in vitro . This effect is dependent upon the number of adherent macrophages present in cultures of hemopoietic tumor cells and can be documented by various parameters used as indices of cell proliferation. The two-layer soft agar culture system permits analysis of the regulatory functions of macrophage-derived diffusible substances under conditions of extremely low cell density and where macrophage-tumor cell contact is prevented by the gel matrix. The ability of the underlayers of macrophages to inhibit colony formation by hemopoietic tumor cells indicates that such an effect can be mediated by factor(s) elaborated by macrophages. Evidence that the mode of action of macrophages on tumor cell proliferation is cytostatic rather than cytotoxic is the capability of the macrophages to retard tumor cell growth in a particular phase of the cell cycle with retention of cell viability. Growth inhibition could be demonstrated to be reversible, with tumor cells entering normal cell cycle distributions shortly after being removed from macrophages or macrophage-derived factors. Cytofluorometric analysis of cell cycle inhibition correlated with viable cell counts and mitotic indices and confirms the suitability of this method for studying tumor cell proliferation.
Color transparent generalized parton distributions

The relation between generalized parton distributions (GPDs) and color transparency is explored. Computing the effective size of a hadron yields equations that relate the potential observation of color transparency with specific features of the GPD and the related form factor. Measurement of the effective size allows one to distinguish between different GPDs that yield the same form factor, and therefore provides a further test of any model of the pion form factor. It is also true that the discovery of color transparency in pionic diffractive dissociation reactions gives specific predictions for the behavior of the pion generalized parton distribution, and allows us to rule out some models.
Regenerative Therapy After Cancer: What Are the Risks?

There is often a pressing need for reconstruction after cancer surgery. Regenerative therapy holds the promise of more natural and esthetic functional tissue. In the case of breast reconstruction postmastectomy, volume retention problems associated with autologous fat transfer could be ameliorated by augmentation with cells capable mediating rapid vascularization of the graft. Intentional placement of regenerating tissue at the site of tumor resection raises questions concerning the possibility of promoting cancer recurrence. Here we review coculture and animal models of tumor/mesenchymal stem cell interactions under regenerating conditions. Available evidence from case reports, cell lines, and clinical isolates favors the interpretation that regenerating tissue promotes the growth of active, high-grade tumor. In contrast, dormant cancer cells do not appear to be activated by the complex signals accompanying wound healing and tissue regeneration, suggesting that engineered tissue reconstruction should be deferred until cancer remission has been firmly established.
Making meaning in classrooms: Social processes in small‐group discourse and scientific knowledge building

This study analyzed student talk in working groups during four laboratory investigations. Its purpose was to understand the process by which students solve scientific problems, the difficulties students encounter in developing the requisite pieces of scientific arguments while negotiating their social roles, and the ways these roles shape task engagement and the development and articulation of the arguments themselves. The discourse of 6 groups of four students each was audiotaped and 2 groups were videotaped during the planning, execution, and interpretation of student-designed experiments in a 10th-grade interdisciplinary science class. Goals of student engagement, knowledge building within an intellectual framework, and construction of scientific arguments were used to examine conceptual difficulties and social interactions. Within-group comparisons across labs and across-group comparisons within labs were made. It was determined that: (a) students became much better at using the scientific method to construct convincing arguments, and (b) specific social roles and leadership styles developed within groups that greatly influenced the ease with which students developed scientific understanding. The results demonstrate not only that knowledge building involves the construction of scientifically appropriate arguments, but that the extent to which this knowledge building takes place depends on students learning to use tools of the scientific community: their expectations about the intellectual nature of the tasks and their role in carrying these tasks out: and the access they have to the appropriate social context in which to practice developing skills. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
In vivo and in vitro corrosion products of dental amalgam.

Corrosion products of amalgam produced in Ringer's solution were compared with products formed in vivo using scanning electron microscopy, X-ray microanalysis, and Potentiostatic anodic polarization. The corrosion products in an old amalgam were probably a mixture of tin-oxide and tin oxychloride. In vitro corrosion of fresh amalgam resulted in the buildup of similar products.
Motor Cortical Decoding Using an Autoregressive Moving Average Model

We develop an autoregressive moving average (ARMA) model for decoding hand motion from neural firing data and provide a simple method for estimating the parameters of the model. Results show that this method produces more accurate reconstructions of hand position than the previous Kalman filter and linear regression methods. The ARMA model combines the best properties of both these methods, producing reconstructed hand trajectories that are smooth and accurate. This simple technique is computationally efficient making it appropriate for real-time prosthetic control tasks
Juvenile amphibians do not avoid potentially lethal levels of urea on soil substrate

We examined the effects of a forest fertilizer (urea) on newly metamorphosed terrestrial amphibians (Western toads, Bufo boreas; Cascades frogs, Rana cascadae; long-toed salamanders, Ambystoma macrodactylum; and roughskin newts, Taricha granulosa). We examined avoidance behavior of Western toads and Cascades frogs on both paper towel and soil substrates dosed with urea (control and 100 kg N/ha and an additional treatment of 50 kg N/ha for Western toads on soil substrate) and avoidance behavior of long-toed salamanders on soil substrate dosed with urea. We further examined the survival and feeding behavior of all four species exposed to urea on soil substrate (100 kg N/ha) for 5 d. Juvenile Western toads and Cascades frogs avoided paper towels dosed with urea but did not avoid urea-dosed soil substrate. However, Western toads and Cascades frogs both suffered significant mortality when exposed to urea on a soil substrate for 5 d. Furthermore, after adjusting for weight, we found that urea-exposed juvenile Western toads and Cascades frogs consumed significantly fewer prey items (crickets) compared with nonexposed control animals. Long-toed salamanders did not discriminate against soil substrate dosed with urea, and neither long-toed salamanders nor roughskin newts died or reduced prey consumption as a result of urea exposure. Juvenile amphibians may not be able to detect and avoid harmful levels of urea fertilizer on a natural substrate. Furthermore, anthropogenic stressors such as urea fertilizer can significantly reduce the survival and prey consumption of juvenile amphibians. These effects are important to consider in light of possible threats to the conservation status of many amphibian species.
Impact of channel carrier displacement and barrier height lowering on the low-frequency noise characteristics of surface-channel n-MOSFETs

Several unified low-frequency noise models for MOSFETs, developed in the past, combine carrier number fluctuations and correlated mobility fluctuations. The characteristics of the physical parameters in these models are reevaluated here, considering the channel carrier density and their displacement from the oxide–semiconductor interface with applied gate and body bias. The lowering of the oxide–semiconductor tunneling barrier with increasing gate bias is also considered for noise calculations. Experimental results are reported for n-MOSFETs to compare with the calculated low-frequency noise considering these effects. Including the oxide–semiconductor barrier height lowering and average displacement of channel carriers in the conventional correlated lowfrequency noise model, the bias and geometry dependence of 1/f noise is explained quantitatively. � 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Transient epileptic amnesia: clinical report of a cohort of patients

Transient epileptic amnesia is a seizure disorder, usually with onset in the middle-elderly and good response to low dosages of antiepileptic drugs. We describe the clinical, electroencephalography (EEG), and neuroimaging features of 11 patients with a temporal lobe epilepsy characterized by amnesic seizures as the sole or the main symptom. We outline the relevance of a detailed clinical history to recognize amnesic seizures and to avoid the more frequent misdiagnoses. Moreover, the response to monotherapy was usually good, although the epileptic disorder was symptomatic of acquired lesions in the majority of patients.
Modelling clinical trials in heterogeneous samples

Individual variation in genetic, phenotypic and environmental factors could lead to significant differences in rates of drug metabolism, in clinical responses to drugs, and in drug side effects. The impact of population heterogeneity on treatment effect estimation and on assessment and application of clinical trial findings has been less than fully studied. In this paper, we studied the properties of models that reflect population heterogeneity of clinical trial samples by unmeasured covariates such as genetic susceptibility. The impact of heterogeneity on the estimation of treatment effect in a two-armed placebo or active-controlled clinical trial was quantified using logistic regression models. We also proposed a two-stage clinical trial, where the effects of individual drug-response-related covariates were estimated in a 'training data set' in the first stage of the trial. In the second stage of the trial, a subgroup of individuals with enhanced (or reduced) sensitivity to drug treatments in a heterogeneous risk cohort was identified based on information about their drug-related characteristics. Only these 'responders' were included in the subsequent efficacy test. Our simulation results showed that population heterogeneity could lead to biased estimation of treatment effect not only in the contaminated groups but also in the uncontaminated groups. A two-stage trial could greatly increase the power of an efficacy test over a 'full trial' even with fewer individuals enrolled in the trial; results would apply to a more highly specified population. The bigger the covariate effects, the more efficient the two-stage trial is compared to a 'full trial'.
Hunting and social behaviour of leopard seals (Hydrurga leptonyx) at Seal Island, South Shetland Islands, Antarctica

The hunting behaviour of leopard seals Hydrurga leptonyx was monitored opportunistically at Seal Island, South Shetland Islands, during the austral summers from 1986/87 to 1994/95. Leopard seals used several methods to catch Antarctic fur seal pups Arctocephalus gazella and chinstrap penguins Pygoscelis antarctica, and individuals showed different hunting styles and hunting success. One to two leopard seals per year were responsible for an average of 60% of observed captures of fur seal pups. Leopard seals preyed on penguins throughout the summer, but preyed on fur seal pups only between late December and mid-February. Hunting behaviour differed significantly between different locations on the island; fur seals were hunted only at one colony, and penguins were hunted in several areas. The relative abundance of prey types, size of prey in relation to predator, and specialization of individual leopard seals to hunt fur seal prey probably influence individual prey preferences among leopard seals. On five occasions, two leopard seals were seen together on Seal Island. Possible interpretations of the relationship between the inter-acting leopard seals included a mother–offspring relationship, a consorting male–female pair, and an adult leopard seal followed by an unrelated juvenile. In two incidents at Seal Island, two leopard seals were observed interacting while hunting: one seal captured fur seal pups and appeared to release them to the other seal. Observations of leopard seals interacting during hunting sessions were difficult to confirm as co-operative hunting, but they strongly implied that the two seals were not agonistic toward one another. The hunting success of individual leopard seals pursuing penguins or fur seals is probably high enough for co-operative hunting not to become a common hunting strategy; however, it may occur infrequently when it increases the hunting productivity of the seals.
Developing Production Rule Models to Aid in Acquiring Requirements from Legal Texts

Regulatory compliance is an important consideration for requirements engineering because recent regulations impose costly penalties for noncompliance. This paper details how developing production rule models can aid in acquiring software requirements from regulatory texts. Production rules enable requirements engineers to gain valuable domain knowledge of a particular legal text by providing the ability to receive precise answers to a specific query. In particular, a production rule model facilitates communication between requirements engineers and legal domain experts, supports and augments requirements elicitation, and resolves ambiguity. Prior work in this area has failed to detail a precise methodology for translating a legal text into production rules, and considered using production rule models for aiding requirements elicitation and validation. This paper introduces our Production Rule Modeling methodology, and demonstrates this methodology using examples from a production rule model for four sections of the U.S. Heath Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
Time, Cycles and Tempos in Social-ecological Research and Environmental Policy:

The execution of successful social-ecological research and the formulation of effective environmental policies crucially depend on a deep knowledge of the temporal complexity of the interactions between social and biophysical systems. To promote a keener awareness of the relevance of time, cycles, and tempos, this study assembles examples drawn from a range of disciplines to delineate the ways temporality enters into human behavior, resource management, and the conduct of social-ecological research. Anthropological and historical studies document the culturally embedded temporal subjectivities that shape the way humans exploit or conserve natural resources. Analyses of environmental policy show how temporal considerations enter into intervention strategies via such concepts as discount rates, property rights and the precautionary principle. The centrality of temporal assumptions is further evidenced by the time-dependent foundations of disciplinary specializations. The likelihood of temporal mismatches be...
Satellite Mapping of Suspended Sediment and Its Application to Reservoir Assessment

ABSTRACT Lake Thunderbird, a 2428 hectare reservoir located in Norman, Oklahoma, was studied along with 15 other lakes in south central Oklahoma over a two year period. An objective of this study was continued development and testing of satellite-based capabilities to assess the water quality variations within reservoirs. To accomplish this goal, lake measurements and water samples were obtained on each day of Landsat overpass. A mathematical model of the relationship between suspended sediment and reflectance measured by the satellite was calibrated to the 16 south central Oklahoma lakes. A series of multi-date suspended sediment maps was generated for Lake Thunderbird with this model using Landsat MSS near infrared (Band 3) data. These maps were used to quantitatively evaluate the geographic extent of suspended sediment on each date investigated. The results demonstrate the feasibility of using Landsat data to routinely monitor and assess surface water bodies impacted by suspended sediment.
On avoiding saturation in the control of vehicular platoons

We investigate some fundamental limitations and tradeoffs in the control of vehicular platoons. These systems are of considerable practical importance as they represent an example of systems on lattices in which different units are dynamically coupled only through feedback controls. We demonstrate that in very long platoons, to avoid large position, velocity, and control amplitudes, one needs to explicitly account for the initial deviations of vehicles from their desired trajectories. We further derive explicit constraints on feedback gains - for any given set of initial conditions - to achieve desired position transients without magnitude and rate saturation. These constraints are used to generate the trajectories around which the states of the platoon system are driven towards their desired values without the excessive use of control effort. All results are illustrated using computer simulations of platoons containing a large number of vehicles.
LITERARY PRACTICES AND THE SOCIAL LIFE OF TEXTS

Throughout the twentieth century, as literary texts circulated through high-school and college classrooms, reading became a specialized skill. Especially with the dominance of the “new criticism” in the 1930s, literature acquired an autonomous life as “text,” demanding intensive “close reading” of its verbal complexity and formal coherence as an aesthetic object. Beginning in the 1970s, with the proliferation of programs devoted to African-American culture, gender studies, sexuality studies, and ethnic studies programs, the literary canon became more diverse. In the mid-1980s new historicism helped push aesthetic formalism further from the agenda of literary education in the university, promoting new interest in historical contexts even as psychoanalytic, deconstructive, and reader-response approaches continued to fetishize “textuality” as their primary object of inquiry. Whatever the vagaries of theory, method, and subdisciplinary turf battles through which scholars have wandered over the last few decades, we have remained in our professional practices of reading and teaching committed to a hermeneutics of interpretation. Even as scholars developed arguments about history or culture, the teaching and criticism of literature has continued to rely on the institutional and psychological isolation of reading, as an individual exercise in mastery of the text fostered by silence and solitude.
Cálculo de riesgo en tráfico y peatón usando sistemas armónicos

Vehicle and pedestrian risks can be modelled in order to advice drivers and persons. A good model requires the ability to adapt itself to several environmental variations and to preserve essential information about the area under scope. This paper aims to present a proposal based on a Machine Learning extension for timing named Harmonic Systems. A global description of the problem, its relevance and status of the field are also included.
Compilation of optimized syntactic recognizers from Floyd-Evans productions

Floyd-Evans productions are becoming increasingly popular as the metalanguage to be used in describing the syntactic analysis phase of programming language processors. Techniques for compiling optimized syntactic recognizers from Floyd-Evans productions are presented. Such recognizers promise to yield significant gains in recognition speed with no increase in storage requirements when compared to table-driven interpretive recognizers. The compiled recognizers can be described in terms of macros that are essentially machine-independent.
Enhancing high-level control-flow for improved testability

In this study, we present a controllability measure for high-level circuit descriptions and a high-level synthesis-for-testability technique. Unlike many recent studies in the area of high-level synthesis for testability that focus on improving the testability of data paths, the objective of our approach is to improve the testability of synthesized circuits by enhancing the controllability of the control flow. Experimental results on several high-level synthesis benchmarks show that when this approach is used prior to logic synthesis, a shorter ATPG time, a smaller test set, and better fault coverage and ATPG efficiency are often achieved. Implementation of this technique requires minimal logic and performance overheads and allows test vectors to be applied at clock-speed.
Microwave resonant switched-slot probe with perpendicular coaxial feed

Development of efficient microwave real-time imaging systems is of great interest for many applications. A cost-effective design of such systems utilizes a switched transmit-receive array composed of efficient antenna elements. The utilized imaging arrays are typically planner and consist of large number of closely-spaced elements. The performance of these systems depends largely on the efficiency of the array element and its feeding structure, isolation between the elements as well as the transmit-receive isolation. Implementing the required efficient feeding and high-isolation switching, in-plane with the elements of a compact array is rather challenging at high microwave frequencies, e.g., 24 GHz. In this paper, a resonant switched slot with an out-of-plane coaxial feed is introduced as an efficient element for microwave imaging arrays. The slot is loaded with a PIN Diode and hence it is switched directly. The proposed array element design involves coupling the transmitted/received signals into/from the slot using a coaxial feed perpendicular to the plane of the slot. Two design variations of this out-of-plane feeding structure are considered here, namely; electrical and magnetic coupling. Simulation and measurement results show that high radiation and switching isolation can be obtained with these feed designs.
Propagating Electric Impulses in Thin Film PV

We present a new physical phenomenon, soliton-like electric pulses traveling in the lateral directions of thin-film PV. Our model is the equivalent circuit of micro-diodes and capacitors connected in parallel through a resistive electrode. The following features are found. (1) A small signal perturbation decays. (2) Pulses of certain shape and amplitude can propagate. (3) The reciprocal soliton velocity is expressed in the terms of specific resistance, specific capacitance, and nonuniformity screening length. We verified our analytical results with PSPICE modeling and obtained supporting experimental evidence.
Field-induced instabilities in polyimide passivated lateral PNP transistors

Stress-induced shifts in the gain of lateral pnp transistors with different dielectric compositions over the base region are discussed. Two separate degradation mechanisms are analyzed. The first and predominant mechanism is the collector fringe-field-induced shift in current gain in the presence of polyimide over the base. The shift is dramatically reduced by covering the base with the emitter metal lead, which acts as a field shield. It is found that an optimized devices, the field shield need not cover the entire base to suppress punch-through and surface inversion. The second mechanism is related to hot-electron injection and trapping under the large two-dimensional field at the collector boundary covered by the field shield. Experimental results are compared with two-dimensional simulations. For the structures analyzed, the hot-electron shifts were negligible when compared to polyimide-induced shifts. Hot carrier effects must be taken into account, however, when scaling and optimizing lateral pnp transistors. >
Matched array processing for wideband passive sonar

The Matched Array Processor (MAP) is quadratic adaptive matrix filter designed to optimize detection and bearing estimation of a desired wideband target signature in the presence of interferences. It is made adaptive in the spatial domain to remove interferences entering through the beam sidelobes and it is spectrally matched to the signal of interest. In this paper, MAP performance is compared to that of a conventional processor in dynamic simulated signal and interference environments. Advantages of this technique over both conventional and competing adaptive techniques is discussed.
The influence of microclimates and fog on stable isotope signatures used in interpretation of regional hydrology: East Maui, Hawaii

Stable isotopes of precipitation, ground water and surface water measured on the windward side of East Maui from 0 to 3055 m altitude were used to determine recharge sources for stream flow and ground water. Correct interpretation of the hydrology using rainfall 18 O gradients with altitude required consideration of the influence of fog, as fog samples had isotopic signatures enriched by as much as 3‰ in 18 O and 21‰ in D compared to volume-weighted average precipitation at the same altitude. The isotopic analyses suggested that fog drip was a major component of stream flow and shallow ground water at higher altitudes in the watershed. Oxygen-18/altitude gradients in rainfall were comparable for similar microclimates on Maui (this study) and Hawaii Island (1990-95 study), however, East Maui 18 O values for rain in tradewind and high-altitude microclimates were enriched compared to those from Hawaii Island. Isotopes were used to interpret regional hydrology in this volcanic island aquifer system. In part of the study area, stable isotopes indicate discharge of ground water recharged at least 1000 m above the sample site. This deep-flowpath ground water was found in springs from sea level up to 240 m altitude, indicating saturation to altitudes much higher than a typical freshwater lens. These findings help in predicting the effects of ground water development on stream flow in the area.
Effect of posture upon sodium excretion in pre-eclampsia

Abstract The influence of posture upon renal function has been studied in normal pregnancy and in pre-eclampsia. The pre-eclamptic patients decreased sodium excretion more when they walked than the normal patients did and the hematocrit increased less. This phenomenon may underlie the favorable response of pre-eclampsia to bed rest.
Life goes by: a visual circuit signals perceptual-motor mismatch

Connections between a specific thalamic structure and the neocortex convey mismatches between internal perceptions and external events. These findings help to define the circuits controlling contextual modulation of visual-motor processing.