cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Oversight, Charter Schools, and a Thorough and Efficient System of Public Education

What does accountability mean in the context of public education? Many charter school advocates often argue that charters are superior to traditional public schools because they are more accountable. Yet those same advocates do not identify how they are accountable or to whom. This article interrogates the meaning of “accountability” in the conversation about charter schools, particularly in the context of Philadelphia, where over one third of the public school population is enrolled in charters and charter funding comprises over 30 percent of the Philadelphia School District budget. I argue that accountability should not be limited solely to market accountability. Charters’ effectiveness cannot be measured only by the number of parents will to opt for their services. Oversight of charters is essential if states like Pennsylvania are to provide a thorough and efficient system of public education to their residents, as guaranteed explicitly by their state constitutions. To the extent those in state governments decide to include charters in those public education systems, they owe their citizens thoughtful review of charter costs and operations. This article takes the charter application process in Philadelphia as a case study, based on an extensive review of each application – research that has yet to be conducted until now. The article reveals that careful oversight and evaluation of these applications must be done in order to prevent flawed applicants from opening flawed schools, that fail to educate their students and waste public funds. There have been inroads toward oversight reform. The Philadelphia School District’s Charter Schools Office (CSO) has developed best practices for oversight which have increased the information available to the public about the education, finances, governance, and regulatory compliance of the charters it oversees. It carefully and extensively evaluates applications for new charters and requests for renewal. But this oversight has been met with hostility from supporters of privatization and charters who assert that market discipline is the only oversight needed; if parents want a school, that desire alone justifies public funds going to the school. True accountability demands careful oversight of the public money entrusted to charter school operators. The efforts of authorizers, like the CSO, should be supported through dedicated funding to make sure oversight happens to protect public funds.
Technologies to Support Victims of Sexual Assault

Sexual assault is pervasive on college and university campuses in the United States. Individuals and organizations have undertaken various efforts in response to this issue, including the development of mobile applications to promote campus and community safety. However, many of these apps charge a fee or are closed source, restricting the ability to regularly improve them. To address these limitations, this paper presents a free and open source mobile application to provide students with information on community services for victims of sexual assault and basic education. Professional developers are welcome to contribute and mentor students. A web-based data interface that will allow other schools to submit similar information is under development. The present project seeks to grow a diverse community that can effectively channel technology in order to promote campus and community safety at home and abroad.
The Speaker Authority Problem for Context-Sensitivity (Or: You Can’t Always Mean What You Want)

Context-sensitivity raises a metasemantic question: what determines the value of a context-sensitive expression in context? Taking gradable adjectives as a case study, this paper argues against various forms of intentionalist metasemantics, i.e. that speaker intentions determine values for context-sensitive expressions in context, including the coordination account recently defended by King (Philos Perspect 27:288–311, 2013; Nous 48(2):219–237, 2014a; in: Burgess, Sherman (eds) Metasemantics: New essays on the foundations of meaning, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 97–118, 2014b). The paper argues that all intentionalist accounts face the speaker authority problem, that speaker intentions are just the wrong sorts of things to determine the standards for gradable adjectives in context. The problem comes to light when we look at cases in which speakers have idiosyncratic, false beliefs that cause their proper communicative intentions to come apart from the non-intentional features of context like the question under discussion, facts about the world, practical goals, and prior linguistic discourse.
A Study on Rate of Convergence Increase Due to Time Delay for a Class of Linear Systems

This paper characterizes fully how time delay affects the rate of convergence of a class of linear time-delayed systems. Contrary to the prevailing intuition that links time delay with system sluggishness, we show that for specific ranges of time delay, faster response can be achieved in the presence of delay. Specifically, we determine exactly for what values of delay the rate of convergence of our system of interest increases with delay. We also prove that the ultimate bound on the maximum achievable rate of convergence via time delay is $\mathbf{e}$ (Euler's number) times the delay free rate. We demonstrate our results by studying the convergence rate of the Laplacian static average consensus algorithm in the presence of time delay.
Exposures Through Breast Milk: An Analysis of Exposure and Information Calls to U.S. Poison Centers, 2001–2017

Abstract Introduction: We described calls to U.S. poison centers (PCs) related to potential exposure to substances through breast milk. Materials and Methods: We analyzed National Poison Data Syste...
Study of wavelength-resolved light-induced metastable defects in (Ag,Cu)(In,Ga)Se 2 thin-films using capacitance based methods

Metastable defects created in silver alloys of copper indium gallium diselenide (ACIGS) are studied using admittance spectroscopy and drive level capacitance profiling (DLCP). Admittance spectroscopy is used to extract the activation energy of the defects and DLCP is used to extract the density and spatial distribution of the defects. The study confirms that addition of silver reduced the drive level density – defined as the sum of the carrier concentration and the defect density – by over two orders of magnitude. The mechanism of formation of light-induced defects in these chalcogenides is probed further by activating the defects using spectrally-resolved light with energy both below and above the device bandgap.
How Corporate Social Advocacy Affects Attitude Change Toward Controversial Social Issues

The current study reveals that a corporate statement on a controversial social issue is effective in changing an individual’s attitude toward the issue depending on how much the issue is relevant t...
Does Paracalanus feed with a leaky sieve?1

On offre a des P. des cellules de phytoplancton de differentes tailles; celles-ci ne sont pas mangees dans la meme proportion lorsque le copepode augmente de taille. Les variations dans la proportion des diverses particules dans le regime sont attribuees a des modifications de nature comportementale dans les modalites d'alimentation des copepodes
Sex, Lies, and Bigotry: The Canon of Philosophy

In “Sex, Lies, and Bigotry: The Canon of Philosophy” I explore several questions: What does it mean for our understanding of the history of philosophy that women philosophers have been left out and are now being retrieved? What kind of a methodology of the history of philosophy does the recovery of women philosophers imply? Whether and how excluded women philosophers have been included in philosophy? Whether and how feminist philosophy and the history of women philosophers are related? I also explore the questions “Are there any themes or arguments that are common to many women philosophers?” and “Does inclusion of women in the canon require a reconfiguration of philosophical inquiry?” I argue that it is either ineptness or simple bigotry that led most historians of philosophy to intentionally omit women’s contributions from their histories and that such failure replicated itself in the university curricula of recent centuries and can be remedied by suspending for the next two centuries the teaching of men’s contributions to the discipline and teaching works by women only. As an alternative to this drastic and undoubtedly unpopular solution, I propose expanding the length and number of courses in the philosophy curriculum to include discussion of women’s contributions.
Gait and Balance Assessment of Older Adults

This review will outline seminal and contemporary balance and gait measures most commonly used with geriatric clients, along with the administration procedures, clinical utility, and psychometric qualities that support their use. Ten balance and five gait performance tests were reviewed. Balance instruments range from the simple to the complex. These tools quantify older adults’ ability to maintain postural stability during tasks that manipulate sensory conditions and functional activities, and challenge their base of support. Gait assessment is common in geriatric rehabilitation. Frail clients who ambulate with an assistive device can benefit from a more basic locomotion test, whereas seniors at higher mobility levels should be challenged with tasks superimposed on the gait sequence. Recent adaptations of traditional tests include surface changes, technology application, and clinical utility with subsets of older adults such as those with lumbar surgery and postural tremor. Timed floor rise ability more thoroughly addresses the fall risk dimension. Balance and gait assessments quantify physical performance in older adults and are utilized to establish interventions to improve mobility, reduce fall risk, and increase balance confidence. A wide variety of outcome measures exists in geriatric rehabilitation, though tests should be tapered for the functional level of the client. Practitioners should consider test administration for older adults with atypical diagnoses, along with flooring changes, technology adaptation, and timed supine to stand ability. Future research should revisit commonly accepted threshold scores for fall risk.
Abrupt global shifts in ecosystem states

On the face of it, deep-time paleoecology—trying to reconstruct species interactions and the flow of matter and energy in a complex ecosystem using nothing more than the remains of long-extinct organisms—seems like folly. Fossil data are biased, time-averaged residues of once-living systems in which it is impossible to directly observe or experimentally manipulate organism interactions. This is simply the nature of historical data; what happened in the past is done and history cannot be rerun. However, just as the study of human history provides examples to understand political, social, and economic dynamics in the present day, the fossil record provides examples that have much to teach us about how modern ecosystems work. In PNAS, Aberhan and Kiessling (1) use the response of benthic marine molluscan assemblages to a severe global perturbation (the end-Cretaceous mass extinction 66 million years ago) to shed light on the complex dynamics of ecological systems.
Climate and human migrations

About 14,600 years ago, humans first appeared in south central Chile. But the arid regions of the Atacama desert in northern Chile were not populated for another 2000 years, and human occupation of this region subsequently remained intermittent. In his Perspective, Dillehay highlights the report of NAoA±ezet al., whose integrative archaeological and paleoecological study shows that climate was the key factor in these human migrations. The study illustrates the power of an integrative approach to understanding the relation between human societies and climate change.
Moving spins with heat: Prospects for thermally powered spintronics

The new field of spin caloritronics1 focuses on recently discovered spin-thermal transport effects, which can be separated into the two general areas of thermal transport due to spin, and vice versa, spin transport due to heat. Examples of the former include magnon thermal conductivity and the spin-Peltier effect, while the latter is exemplified by thermally-induced spin injection and the spin-Seebeck effect. Here, we consider the general possibility of using waste heat to power spintronic devices by incorporating thermal spin injection into a specific spin-based device.
Self-management strategies to reduce pain and improve function among older adults in community settings: a review of the evidence

Context. Self-management strategies for pain hold substantial promise as a means of reducing pain and improving function among older adults with chronic pain, but their use in this age group has not been well defined. Objective. To review the evidence regarding self-management interventions for pain due to musculoskeletal disorders among older adults. Design. We searched the Medline and Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature databases to identify relevant articles for review and analyzed English-language articles that presented outcome data on pain, function, and/or other relevant endpoints and evaluated programs/strategies that could be feasibly implemented in the community. Abstracted information included study sample characteristics, estimates of treatment effect, and other relevant outcomes when present. Results. Retained articles (N = 27) included those that evaluated programs sponsored by the Arthritis Foundation and other programs/strategies including yoga, massage therapy, Tai Chi, and music therapy. Positive outcomes were found in 96% of the studies. Proportionate change in pain scores ranged from an increase of 18% to a reduction of 85% (median = 23% reduction), whereas change in disability scores ranged from an increase of 2% to a reduction of 70% (median = 19% reduction). Generalizability issues identified included limited enrollment of ethnic minority elders, as well as non-ethnic elders aged 80 and above. Conclusions. Our results suggest that a broad range of self-management programs may provide benefits for older adults with chronic pain. Research is needed to establish the efficacy of the programs in diverse age and ethnic groups of older adults and identify strategies that maximize program reach, retention, and methods to ensure continued use of the strategies over time.
Nineteenth-Century Collective Violence: Toward a North American Context

The study of collective violence has generally reinforced national stereotypes that Canada is a "Peaceable Kingdom" and that the United States is extraordinarily violent. This article assesses the historiography of collective violence since the1960s and offers specific suggestions for further exploration into Canada's riotous experiences. Scholars often assume that Canada's collective violence has been infrequent and less destructive than American episodes. Future research — with a focus on nativism, the social legitimacy of the crowd, religious and ethnic conflict, the entrenchment of powerful state institutions, and vigilantism —might prove otherwise. Regardless, Canadian collective violence will be better understood if it is conceptualized in a North Atlantic context. Resume L'etude des manifestations de violence collective a generalement contribue a renforcer les stereotypes nationaux selon lesquels le Canada serait un «royaume pacifique» et les Etats-Unis un pays extremement violent. Le present article jette un regard critique sur l'historiographie de la question depuis les annees 1960 et suggere des avenues specifiques en vue d'une analyse plus approfondie des experiences accumulees par le Canada en matiere d'emeutes. Les chercheurs presument souvent que les manifestations de violence collective au Canada ont ete rares et moins nefastes que celles survenues aux Etats-Unis. De plus amples recherches sur le nativisme, sur la legitimite sociale des foules, sur les conflits religieux et ethniques, sur l'avenement de puissantes institutions etatiques, et sur le phenomene des vigies privees, pourraient demontrer le contraire. Les manifestations de violence collective au Canada seront neanmoins mieux comprises lorsqu'elles seront articulees dans un perspective nord-atlantique.
“From a Distance it Looks Like Peace”: Reading Beneath the Fascist Style of Gilead in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale

Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale reveals the danger of using visual culture to create what Rey Chow calls a “glossy surface image” that oversimplifies complex ideologies and social relationships. Atwood suggests that individuals can resist visual manipulation by learning to “read beneath” images. Commentators on fascism and its use of the visual image, such as Walter Benjamin and Chow, note that people’s receptivity to visual culture makes it the perfect vehicle for propaganda, a view substantiated by Nazi Germany and Atwood’s fictional community, Gilead. In the novel, “fascist style” is associated with the eliding and/or reshaping of history, accomplished through the editing of visual scenes. The Commanders of Gilead orchestrate visual tableaux, such as a display of corpses on the Wall, in order to regulate the eyes and minds of lower social orders. More generally, Atwood uses notional ekphrasis to interrogate Gilead’s treatment of women, an exploration focalized through her protagonist, Offred.
The Role of Quantization Effects on the Operation of 50 nm MOSFETs, 250 nm FIBMOS Devices and Narrow-Width SOI Device Structures

We investigate the role of the quantum-mechanical space-quantization effects on the operation of a 50 nm MOSFET device, an asymmetric 250 nm FIBMOS device and a narrow-width SOI device structure. We find that space-quantization effects give rise to larger average displacement of the carriers from the interface proper and lower sheet electron density in both the regular and the asymmetric MOSFET device structures. The effect is even more pronounced in the narrow-width SOI device due to the presence of a two-dimensional confinement (both vertical and along the width direction). The reduction in the sheet electron density, in turn, gives rise to shift in the devices threshold voltage, on the order of 100–200 mV, depending upon the device structure being investigated. This leads to 20–40% decrease of the device on-state current which depends upon the gate bias. Hence, to properly describe the operation of future ultra-small devices it is mandatory to incorporate quantum-mechanical space quantization effects into existing classical device simulators (drift-diffusion, hydrodynamics or Monte Carlo particle-based simulators) since first-principle quantum-mechanical calculations (direct solution of the many-body Schrodinger equation, Green's functions method, etc.) are still limited to one-dimensional structures and rely on a number of approximations.
Transforms for high-rate distributed source coding

We extend high-rate quantization theory to distributed source coding for the case in which the rate is the conditional entropy of the quantization index given the side information. This theory is applied to orthonormal block transforms for distributed source coding. A formula for the optimal rate allocation and an approximation to the optimal transform are derived. We implement a transform-domain Wyner-Ziv video coder that encodes frames independently but decodes them conditionally. Experimental results show a rate-distortion improvement with respect to the pixel-domain coder by using the discrete cosine transform.
Axl-gas6 interaction counteracts E1A-mediated cell growth suppression and proapoptotic activity.

The adenovirus type 5 early region 1A gene (E1A) has previously been known as an immortalization oncogene because E1A is required for transforming oncogenes, such as ras and E1B, to transform cells in primary cultures. However, E1A has also been shown to downregulate the overexpression of the Her-2/neu oncogene, resulting in suppression of transformation and tumorigenesis induced by that oncogene. In addition, E1A is able to promote apoptosis induced by anticancer drugs, irradiation, and serum deprivation. Many tyrosine kinases, such as the epidermal growth factor receptor, Her-2/Neu, Src, and Axl, are known to play a role in oncogenic signals in transformed cells. To study the mechanism underlying the E1A-mediated tumor-suppressing function, we exploited a modified tyrosine kinase profile assay (D. Robinson, F. Lee, T. Pretlow, and H.-J. Kung, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 93:5958–5962, 1996) to identify potential tyrosine kinases regulated by E1A. Reverse transcription (RT)-PCR products were synthesized with two degenerate primers derived from the conserved motifs of various tyrosine kinases. A tyrosine kinase downregulated by E1A was identified by analyzing the AluI-digested RT-PCR products. We isolated the DNA fragment of interest and found that E1A negatively regulated the expression of the transforming receptor tyrosine kinase Axl at the transcriptional level. To study whether downregulation of the Axl receptor is involved in E1A-mediated growth suppression, we transfected axl cDNA into E1A-expressing cells (ip1-E1A) to establish cells that overexpressed Axl. The Axl ligand Gas6 triggered a greater mitogenic effect in these ip1-E1A-Axl cells than in ip1-E1A control cells and protected the Axl-expressing cells from serum deprivation-induced apoptosis. These results indicate that downregulation of the Axl receptor by E1A is involved in E1A-mediated growth suppression and E1A-induced apoptosis and thereby contributes to E1A’s antitumor activities.
Characterization of antibody-mediated inhibition of Pseudomonas aeruginosa adhesion to epithelial cells.

Abstract An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay system was developed and used to study adhesion of Pseudomonas aeruginosa to human epithelial cells and the abilities of specific antibodies to inhibit this process. Human buccal epithelial cells coated onto microtiter plates were incubated with P. aeruginosa suspensions, and adherent bacteria were detected by using anti-P. aeruginosa serum and a horseradish peroxidase-conjugated secondary antiserum. Adhesion, quantitated as an increase in A405, varied linearly with increasing numbers of bacterial CFU added per well in the range of 10(5) to 10(8) CFU per well. Adhesion of P. aeruginosa increased following trypsinization of buccal epithelial cells. Preincubation of bacteria with monoclonal antibodies directed against P. aeruginosa outer membrane protein H2 inhibited adhesion with all eight of the isolates tested. Preincubation of P. aeruginosa with sera from infected cystic fibrosis patients also resulted in inhibition of adhesion in the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay system. This inhibitory activity was shown to be due to two factors: P. aeruginosa-specific immunoglobulin G and a non-immunoglobulin G serum component. These data support the hypothesis that bacterial components other than pili are involved in adhesion and suggest that anti-P. aeruginosa antibodies may be of use in preventing adhesion and subsequent colonization with P. aeruginosa.
Spin dephasing as a probe of mode temperature, motional state distributions, and heating rates in a two-dimensional ion crystal

We employ spin-dependent optical dipole forces to characterize the transverse center-of-mass (COM) motional mode of a two-dimensional Wigner crystal of hundreds of ${}^{9}$Be${}^{+}$. By comparing the measured spin dephasing produced by the spin-dependent force with the predictions of a semiclassical dephasing model, we obtain absolute mode temperatures in excellent agreement with both the Doppler laser cooling limit and measurements obtained from a previously published technique [B. C. Sawyer et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 213003 (2012)]. Furthermore, the structure of the dephasing histograms allows for discrimination between initial thermal and coherent states of motion. We also apply the techniques discussed here to measure the ambient-heating rate of the COM mode of a 2D Coulomb crystal in a Penning trap. This measurement places an upper limit on the anomalous single-ion heating rate due to electric field noise from the trap electrode surfaces of $\frac{d\overline{n}}{dt}\ensuremath{\sim}5$ s${}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$ for our trap at a frequency of 795 kHz, where $\overline{n}$ is the mean occupation of quantized COM motion in the axial harmonic well.
A Global View Programming Abstraction for Transitioning MPI Codes to PGAS Languages

The multicore generation of scientific high performance computing has provided a platform for the realization of Exascale computing, and has also underscored the need for new paradigms in coding parallel applications. The current standard for writing parallel applications requires programmers to use languages designed for sequential execution. These languages have abstractions that only allow programmers to operate on the process centric local view of data. To provide suitable languages for parallel execution, many research efforts have designed languages based on the Partitioned Global Address Space (PGAS) programming model. Chapel is one of the more recent languages to be developed using this model. Chapel supports multithreaded execution with high-level abstractions for parallelism. With Chapel in mind, we have developed a set of directives that serve as intermediate expressions for transitioning scientific applications from languages designed for sequential execution to PGAS languages like Chapel that are being developed with parallelism in mind.
Continuing evolution of the Pacific–Juan de Fuca–North America slab window system—A trench–ridge–transform example from the Pacific Rim

Abstract Many subduction margins that rim the Pacific Ocean contain complex records of Cenozoic slab-window volcanism combined with tectonic disruption of the continental margin. The series of slab windows that opened beneath California and Mexico starting about 28.5 Ma resulted from the death of a series of spreading ridge segments and led to piecewise destruction of a subduction regime. The timing and areal extent of the resultant slab-window volcanism provide constraints on models that depict the subsequent fragmentation and dispersal of the overlying continental margin. The initial Pioneer slab window thermally weakened the overlying western Transverse Ranges and California Borderlands region starting about 28.5 Ma. A second thermal pulse occurred in the same region starting about 19 Ma during growth of the Monterey slab window. This additional heating, combined with the capture of a partially subducted Monterey plate fragment by the Cocos plate, initiated the pulling apart and rotation of the adjacent continental margin. Similarly, the capture of Guadalupe and Magdalena plate fragments by the Pacific plate and initiation of the Guadalupe–Magdalena slab window about 12.5 Ma are coeval with Baja California pulling away from the Mexico continental margin, with the break along the Comondu arc, in crust already thermally weakened by about 10 My of volcanism. In coastal California, distributed crustal extension and subsidence accompanied the new transform plate boundary, and continued until the slab windows cooled and plate motion coalesced along a through-going system of strike-slip faults. The transform boundary continues to evolve, and forward modeling predicts an instability with the current configuration as a result of convergence between the Sierra Nevada and Peninsular Ranges batholiths, starting about 2 My in the future. The instability may be resolved by a shift in the locus of transform motion from the San Andreas fault to the eastern California shear zone, or by breaking off another fragment of the Mojave or southern Sierra Nevada crustal blocks and translating it northward.
Injection molding of thermoplastic elastomers for microstructured substrates

ABSTRACT Microstructured surfaces injection molded from thermoplastic elastomers have emerging applications as superhydrobic surfaces and patterned adhesives, but there is a limited understanding of the factors affecting replication with these materials. This work investigates the interactions of the tooling aspect ratio and feature orientation (negative and positive tooling) and thermoplastic elastomer hard segment content on microfeature replication. Electroformed nickel tooling having positive and negative features with different geometries and aspect ratios of 0.02:1 to 2:1 were molded from three copolyester thermoplastic elastomers with similar chemistry and different hardness values. The tooling and part features were characterized for feature depth and height as well as feature definition using scanning electron microscopy and optical profilometry. Results were correlated with elastomer properties.
An optically-interrogated microwave-Poynting-vector sensor using cadmium manganese telluride

A single cadmium-manganese-telluride crystal that exhibits both the Pockels and Faraday effects is used to produce a Poynting-vector sensor for signals in the microwave regime. This multi-birefringent crystal can independently measure either electric or magnetic fields through control of the polarization of the optical probe beam. After obtaining all the relevant electric and magnetic field components, a map of the Poynting vector along a 50-Ω microstrip was experimentally determined without the need for any further transformational calculations. The results demonstrate that this sensor can be used for near-field mapping of the Poynting vector. Utilizing both amplitude and phase information from the fields in the microwave signal, it was confirmed for the case of an open-terminated microstrip that no energy flowed to the load, while for a microstrip with a matched termination, the energy flowed consistently along the transmission line.
The Developmental Stages of Centropages Typicus Kroyer (Copepoda, Calanoida) 1)

[Der Copepode Cent'ropages typicus wurde in mehreren aufeinanderfolgenden Generationen im Labor gezuchtet. Die Entwicklungsdauer vom Ei bis zum Adultus betrug 19 und 23 Tage bei einer Temperatur von 18°-19°C. Das Ei, sechs Nauplius Stadien, funf Copepodid Stadien und die Adulti beiderlei Geschlechts wurden beschrieben und illustriert. Die Geschlechter sind fruhestens im vierten Copepodid-Stadium zu differenzieren. Ei, Nauplius-Stadium und Copepodid-Stadium von C. typicus und C. hamatus wurden verglichen und deutliche Unterschiede festgestellt., Der Copepode Cent'ropages typicus wurde in mehreren aufeinanderfolgenden Generationen im Labor gezuchtet. Die Entwicklungsdauer vom Ei bis zum Adultus betrug 19 und 23 Tage bei einer Temperatur von 18°-19°C. Das Ei, sechs Nauplius Stadien, funf Copepodid Stadien und die Adulti beiderlei Geschlechts wurden beschrieben und illustriert. Die Geschlechter sind fruhestens im vierten Copepodid-Stadium zu differenzieren. Ei, Nauplius-Stadium und Copepodid-Stadium von C. typicus und C. hamatus wurden verglichen und deutliche Unterschiede festgestellt.]
The effect of heterogeneity on plane wave propagation through layered composites

When laminated composites are subjected to impact loading, the material response is critically determined by the interactions of multiple waves generated at the laminate interfaces. Due to the high complexity arising from the architectural details of composites, layered heterogeneous materials have been studied as the model system to understand the impact behavior of engineering composites. Previously, the present authors have developed an analytical solution to the problem of plate impact of layered systems; plate impact test is a standard boundary value problem used to study high velocity impact behavior both in the elastic and shock wave regimes. In this paper, we examine the various heterogeneity factors that affect the impact response of the laminated composite systems. We have identified three different heterogeneity factors (impedance mismatch, interface density and thickness ratio) and examine their effects on wave scattering. These effects are then used to explain some outstanding experimental observations in terms of shock wave structure (arrival time, sloping rise, peak stress and oscillatory pulse duration). It is shown that though the results pertain to layered systems, the observations can be qualitatively extended to real composites.
Electron gun control of smart materials

Smart material patches are currently an impractical choice in applications requiring fine spatial resolution or control of complex areas. The static nature of electrodes, the conventional choice for control signal application to many smart materials, makes them unsuitable in these instances. To address this issue the use of electron guns as charge sources for smart material control is investigated in this paper. In the electron gun control method the need for separate electrodes and wire leads is eliminated by depositing the control charges directly on the surface of the piezoelectric material. Since piezoelectric materials are dielectrics the charges remain where deposited by the electron gun. The spatial resolution of this control method is as small as the spot size of the electron beam, which in a focused beam can be as small as tens of microns. Large areas can be covered by a single electron gun simply by scanning the beam using deflection plates. Some practical aspects of electron gun control are presented in this paper. A description of an experimental test bed assembled to evaluate electron gun control of PZT-5H is presented, as are results and conceptual models of the system behavior.© (1998) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Adenosine deaminase from Metridium senile (L.), a sea anemone

Abstract 1. 1. The enzyme adenosine deaminase (E.C. 3.5.4.4) was purified from a sea anemone, Metridium senile . 2. 2. The substrate specificity and kinetic properties were similar to the calf intestine enzyme. 3. 3. The apparent molecular weight by Sephadex gel filtration was 70,000 daltons. 4. 4. No aminophosphonic acids were detected as constituent amino acids in this protein.
Theorems and unawareness

This paper provides a set-theoretic model of knowledge and unawareness, in which reasoning through theorems is employed. A new property called Awareness Leads to Knowledge shows that unawareness of theorems not only constrains an agent's knowledge, but also, can impair his reasoning about what other agents know. For example, in contrast to Li (2006), Heifetz, Meier, and Schipper (2006) and the standard model of knowledge, it is possible that two agents disagree on whether another agent knows a particular event.
Optimum Design of Flexible Mechanisms

In this paper the optimality criterion technique transplanted by Khan and his coworkers into mechanism design and the kinematical refinement technique proposed by the authors are combined into a novel procedure of optimum design of flexible mechanisms. Cross-sectional parameters are taken as the first group of design variables; a fully-stressed mechanism is obtained by using previous researchers’ recursion formulas which contain some improvements introduced by the authors. Geometrical parameters are used as the second group of design variables; a mechanism with improved criterion of kinematic performance is obtained by means of the kinematic refinement technique. The method presented is effective and steady. An example problem in the design of a four-bar path-generating mechanism is given to illustrate the procedure.
Photoinduced electron storage and surface plasmon modulation in Ag@TiO2 clusters.

The reversible charging and discharging effects associated with photoexcitation of a TiO2 shell in a Ag@TiO2 composite are described. The photoinduced charge separation in the TiO2 shell is followed by electron injection into the silver core. Interestingly, the charging of the silver core is associated with the shift in the surface plasmon band from 460 to 430 nm. The stored electrons are discharged upon exposure of the charged Ag@TiO2 composite to an electron acceptor. As the electrons from the silver core are discharged, the original surface plasmon absorption of the Ag core is restored.
A generalized assembly language using regular expressions

A generalized assembly language with possible applications in the areas of computer networks and software support packages is developed and discussed. The development of the language was guided by the principle that those operations in different assembly languages that are similar should have the same operation codes in this language.The major areas of difference between assembly languages are discussed and their resolution is presented. The areas of difference included different standard word lengths, a wide variety of special operations and different methods for branching. These problems were resolved, respectively, by length specification statements, creation of a superset of assembly languages and by using regular expressions as a means of branching.The use of regular expressions for branching has interesting effects on the structure of programs. The most notable effect is that it requires programs to be segmented into subprograms which consist entirely of sequentially processed instructions. This lends to easier documentation of assembly languages and to simpler programming of lookahead machines.
Utility of a Prognostic Nomogram Designed for Gastric Cancer in Predicting Outcome of Patients with R0 Resected Duodenal Adenocarcinoma

There is little information to determine prognosis or to guide clinical care for patients with duodenal adenocarcinoma. We have hypothesized that survival following resection of duodenal cancer is similar to survival following resection of distal gastric cancer. We tested the utility of a nomogram created for determining disease-specific survival (DSS) after R0 resection of gastric cancer in estimating DSS for patients with resected duodenal cancer. Review of a prospective database identified 106 patients who underwent R0 resection of duodenal cancer. Comparison was made to 459 patients with distal gastric cancer. The Student t test, Fisher exact test, Pearson chi-square test, and log-rank test were used to assess statistical significance. Concordance probabilities and calibration plots were used for nomogram validation. Duodenal cancers were more deeply invasive than gastric cancer (P < .01). The rate of lymph node positivity was not statistically different between the two tumors; however, there were differences in the rate of nodal positivity for certain depths of penetration. Younger age (P = .002), negative regional lymph nodes (P = .03), and tumors confined to the bowel wall or subserosa (P = .03) were associated with improved DSS for duodenal cancer. When applied to patients with duodenal cancer, the nomogram had a concordance probability of 0.70, and calibration appeared to be accurate. A nomogram created for determining DSS after resection of gastric cancer predicts outcome for duodenal cancer patients and may prove to be useful for research and in guiding clinical care.
Gene Dosage-Dependent Effects of Cardiac-Specific Overexpression of the A3 Adenosine Receptor

We used a genetic approach to determine whether increasing the level of A3 adenosine receptors (A3ARs) expressed in the heart confers protection against ischemia without causing cardiac pathology. We generated mice carrying one (A3tg.1) or six (A3tg.6) copies of a transgene consisting of the cardiomyocyte-specific α-myosin heavy chain gene promoter and the A3AR cDNA. A3tg.1 and A3tg.6 mice expressed 12.7±3.15 and 66.3±9.4 fmol/mg of the high-affinity G protein–coupled form of the A3AR in the myocardium, respectively. Extensive morphological, histological, and functional analyses demonstrated that there were no apparent abnormalities in A3tg.1 transgenic mice compared with nontransgenic mice. In contrast, A3tg.6 mice exhibited dilated hearts, expression of markers of hypertrophy, bradycardia, hypotension, and systolic dysfunction. When A3tg mice were subjected to 30 minutes of coronary occlusion and 24 hours of reperfusion, infarct size was reduced ≈30% in A3tg.1 mice and ≈40% in A3tg.6 mice compared with nontransgenic littermates. The reduction in infarct size in the transgenic mice was not related to differences in risk region size, systemic hemodynamics, or body temperature, indicating that the cardioprotection was a result of increased A3AR signaling in the ischemic myocardium. The results demonstrate that low-level expression of A3ARs in the heart provides effective protection against ischemic injury without detectable adverse effects, whereas higher levels of A3AR expression lead to the development of a dilated cardiomyopathy.
THE EFFECT ON SERUM-CALCIUM AND INORGANIC PHOSPHATE OF FRACTIONS OBTAINED FROM CRUDE OVARIAN EXTRACTS1

The experimental evidence of the factors and conditions responsible for the changes in blood and serum calcium levels has been reviewed in a previous article by Marlow and Koch (1). This paper discussed the effect of subcutaneous injection of a noncrystalline estrogenic preparation, ovarian extracts and male sex hormone upon the blood-calcium and inorganic-phosphate levels. For experimental animals, fowls (males and females), rats (normal and gonadectomized females, normal males) and normal rabbits (males and females) were used. The results indicate that the levels of serum Ca and inorganic P are not constant but show a daily fluctuation. This is particularly true in fowls, which have a rather wide fluctuation. None of the preparations mentioned above gave significant or consistent effects on the calcium and phosphate levels of the blood. These findings are not in agreement with Mirvish and Bosman (2), who reported a 30 per cent lowering of serum Ca 24 hours after injection of a crude ovarian extract equi...
Discrimination and liberal neutrality

This paper examines the political philosophy of Liberalism with particular focus on the principles of liberal neutrality and value pluralism. These principles, which are advocated by the most prominent contemporary liberal theorists mark a significant departure from classical liberalism and its monistic approach to seeking truth and the good. I argue that the shift to neutrality and pluralism have done a disservice to liberalism and that the cultivation of discrimination skills is needed to deal with the complex tasks of making decisions intelligently and effectively.
Hypoxia-Inducible mir-210 Regulates Normoxic Gene Expression Involved in Tumor Initiation

Previous studies have suggested that the HIF transcription factors can both activate and inhibit gene expression. Here we show that HIF1 regulates the expression of mir-210 in a variety of tumor types through a hypoxia-responsive element. Expression analysis in primary head and neck tumor samples indicates that mir-210 may serve as an in vivo marker for tumor hypoxia. By Argonaute protein immunoprecipitation, we identified 50 potential mir-210 targets and validated randomly selected ones. The majority of these 50 genes are not classical hypoxia-inducible genes, suggesting mir-210 represses genes expressed under normoxia that are no longer necessary to adapt and survive in a hypoxic environment. When human head and neck or pancreatic tumor cells ectopically expressing mir-210 were implanted into immunodeficient mice, mir-210 repressed initiation of tumor growth. Taken together, these data implicate an important role for mir-210 in regulating the hypoxic response of tumor cells and tumor growth.
Low-usage codons in Escherichia coli, yeast, fruit fly and primates

Codon usage is compared between four classes of species, with an emphasis on characterization of low-usage codons. The classes of species analyzed include the bacterium Escherichia coli (ECO), the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae (YSC), the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster (DRO), and several species of primates (PRI) (taken as a group; includes eleven species for which nucleotide sequence data have been reported to GenBank, however, greater than 90% of the sequences were from Homo sapiens). The number of protein-coding sequences analyzed were 968 for ECO, 484 for YSC, 244 for DRO, and 1518 for PRI. Three methods have been used to determine low-usage codons in these species. The first and most common way of assessing codon usage is by summing the number of time codons appear in reading frames of the genome in question. The second way is to examine the distribution of usage in different genes by scoring the number of protein reading frames in which a particular codon does not appear. The third way starts with a similar notion, but instead considers combinations of codons that are missing from the maximum number of genes. These three methods give very similar results. Each species has a unique combination of eight least-used codons, but all species contain the arginine codons, CGA and CGG. The agreement between YSC and PRI is particularly striking as they share six low-usage codons. All six carry the dinucleotide sequence, CG. The eight least-used codons in PRI include all codons that contain the CG dinucleotide sequence. Low-usage codons are clearly avoided in genes encoding abundant proteins for ECO, YSC DRO. In all species, proteins containing a high percentage of low-usage codons could be characterized as cases where an excess of the protein could be detrimental. Low codon usage is relatively insensitive to gross base composition. However, dinucleotide usage can sometimes influence codon usage. This is particularly notable in the case of CG dinucleotides in PRI.
Association between BRAFV600E and NRASQ61R mutations and clinicopathologic characteristics, risk factors and clinical outcome of primary invasive cutaneous melanoma

Purpose Previous studies suggest that solar UV exposure in early life is predictive of cutaneous melanoma risk in adulthood, whereas the relation of BRAF mutation with sun exposure and disease prognosis has been less certain. We investigated the associations between BRAF V600E and NRAS Q61R mutations and known risk factors, clinicopathologic characteristics and clinical outcomes of melanoma in a case series of primary invasive cutaneous melanoma from the Nurses’ Health Study (NHS). Methods Somatic BRAF V600E and NRAS Q61R mutations of 127 primary invasive melanomas from the NHS cohort were determined by pyrosequencing using formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded block tissues. Logistic regression analyses were performed to detect the associations of mutations with melanoma risk factors, and Kaplan–Meier method was used to examine associations between mutations and survival. Results The odds ratios for harboring BRAF V600E mutations were 5.54 (95 % CI 1.19–25.8, ptrend = 0.02) for women residing in states with UV index C 7 versus those residing in states with UV index B5 at 30 years of age. Patients with BRAF V600E mutations tended to have shorter melanoma-specific survival when compared to patients with wild type at both loci (median survival time 110 vs. 159 months) (p = 0.03). No association was found between NRASQ61R mutation and melanoma risk factors or melanoma-specific survival. Conclusions BRAF V600E mutations in primary cutaneous melanomas were associated with residence in locations with medium and high UV indices in mid-life. BRAF V600E mutation may be associated with an unfavorable prognosis among melanoma patients.