cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
College Women Mentoring Adolescent Girls: The Relationship between Mentor Peer Support and Mentee Outcomes

In this study, we examined the effectiveness of peer support for college women mentors who engaged in one-to-one and group mentoring with at-risk adolescent girls. Using data from 162 mentoring pairs, results suggested that mentor support positively predicted mentees’ self-reported improvement after a year of mentoring. An examination of mentees’ self-esteem outcomes revealed that mentor peer support was associated with higher outcomes only for those mentees who had higher pre-program scores; for those with below average pre-scores, mentor support was associated with lower self-esteem. Taken together, these results indicate that mentor support may serve as an important function beyond ongoing training, though its effectiveness may vary based on mentee characteristics. Implications are discussed.
Effects of Length Limits on Muskellunge in Bone Lake, Wisconsin

Abstract Minimum length limits are a commonly used management tool for protecting fisheries from exploitation and for improving population size structure. However, little is known about the effects of minimum length limits on populations of muskellunge Esox masquinongy. We monitored changes in the muskellunge population in Bone Lake, a 1,781-acre lake in northwest Wisconsin over a 31-year period (1964–1995) during which time length limits were changed from 30 in to 34 in and from 34 in to 40 in. These changes were compared with population changes in nearby Deer Lake (807 acres), where the length limit remained at the statewide minimum of 32 in. Mean length of adult muskellunge in Bone Lake increased from 31.3 in in 1964 to 36.0 in in 1995. Adult (≥30-in) muskellunge abundance in Bone Lake increased more than five-fold during the study and reached a density of 0.99 fish/acre. Abundance of larger (≥38-in) muskellunge increased 269% following minimum length limit increases between 1982 and 1995. Relative wei...
RhoA is down-regulated at cell–cell contacts via p190RhoGAP-B in response to tensional homeostasis

Breast epithelial cells cultured in three-dimensional (3D) collagen gels undergo ductal morphogenesis when the gel is compliant and they can achieve tensional homeostasis. We previously showed that this process requires down-regulation of Rho in compliant collagen gels, but the mechanism remains undefined. In this study, we find that p190RhoGAP-B, but not p190RhoGAP-A, mediates down-regulation of RhoA activity and ductal morphogenesis in T47D cells cultured in compliant 3D collagen gels. In addition, both RhoA and p190RhoGAP-B colocalize with p120-catenin at sites of cell–cell contact. The association between p190RhoGAP-B and p120-catenin is regulated by matrix compliance such that it increases in compliant vs. rigid collagen gels. Furthermore, knockdown of p120-catenin disrupts ductal morphogenesis, disregulates RhoA activity, and results in loss of p190B at cell–cell contacts. Consistent with these findings, using a RhoA-specific FRET biosensor (RhoA-FLARE.sc), we determined spatial RhoA activity to be significantly decreased at cell–cell contacts versus cell–ECM adhesions, and, of importance, spatial RhoA activity is regulated by p190B. This finding suggests that RhoA exists as an inactive pool at cell–cell contacts and is recruited to cell–ECM contacts within stiff matrices. Overall, these results demonstrate that RhoA is down-regulated at cell–cell contacts through p190RhoGAP-B, which is localized to cell–cell contacts by association with p120-catenin that is regulated by tensional homeostasis.
The effect of collusion in congestion games

In this paper we initiate the study of how collusion alters the quality of solutions obtained in competitive games. The price of anarchy aims to measure the cost of the lack of coordination by comparing the quality of a Nash equilibrium to that of a centrally designed optimal solution. This notion assumes that players act not only selfishly, but also independently. We propose a framework for modeling groups of colluding players, in which members of a coalition cooperate so as to selfishly maximize their collective welfare. Clearly, such coalitions can improve the social welfare of the participants, but they can also harm the welfare of those outside the coalition. One might hope that the improvement for the coalition participants outweighs the negative effects on the others. This would imply that increased cooperation can only improved the overall solution quality of stable outcomes. However, increases in coordination can actually lead to significant decreases in total social welfare. In light of this, we propose the price of collusion as a measure of the possible negative effect of collusion, specifying the factor by which solution quality can deteriorate in the presence of coalitions. We give examples to show that the price of collusion can be arbitrarily high even in convex games. Our main results show that in the context of load-balancing games, the price of collusion depends upon the disparity in market power among the game participants. We show that in some symmetric nonatomic games (where all users have access to the same set of strategies) increased cooperation always improves the solution quality, and in the discrete analogs of such games, the price of collusion is bounded by two.
A Video Ethnography Approach to Assessing The Ecological Validity of Neurocognitive and Functional Measures in Severe Mental Illness: Results From A Feasibility Study

Background. The ecological validity of neurocognitive and functional measures in severe mental illness is poorly understood because of a lack of validated research methods to study community life-as-lived. We describe the development of a video ethnography method that measures naturalistic behaviors with codes called community performance indicators (CPIs). The method could provide a strategy to test the ecological validity of neurocognitive and functional assessments. Methods. We gathered up to 18.5 hours of video ethnography data on each of 9 subjects with schizophrenia selected for high or low composite scores on the MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery (MCCB). We used video ethnography to capture subjects’ everyday behaviors in their usual environments. We established 4 CPIs that showed excellent inter-rater and promising test-retest reliability: (1) behavioral activity level, (2) goal pursuit, (3) social interaction, and (4) problem solving. Results. (1) High and low MCCB subjects showed statistically significantly differences on all 4 CPIs. (2) MCCB composite scores were correlated with all 4 CPIs (r = .54 to −.77, P < .01 to .07). (3) The MCCB domain scores demonstrated some specificity in their correlations with the CPIs; eg, verbal learning, reasoning/problem solving, and social cognition were correlated with CPI domains of social interaction and problem solving. Conclusions. We present a method for reliably measuring everyday functional performance in schizophrenia. Results from a small select sample suggest that CPIs capture skills associated with neurocognition, supporting their use in a larger study of ecological validity.
Impact of Juice Processing on Blueberry Anthocyanins and Polyphenolics: Comparison of Two Pretreatments

Frozen blueberries (Vaccinium corymbosum L. cv. Rubel) were pilot-plant-processed into juice and concentrate: 2 treatments (heat and SO 2 ) and a control. Pressed juice yield ranged from 74 to 83% (w/w), but only 13 to 23% of the anthocyanins and 36 to 39% of the polyphenolics were recovered in the pasteurized juice. A substantial amount of anthocyanins and polyphenolics (> 42% and > 15%, respectively of the starting material) were present in the presscakes. Measurements of total and individual flavonoids showed a great loss after the initial processing steps (thawing, crushing, and depectinization). Overall anthocyanin levels were higher in treated samples after each processing step, but polyphenolic levels remained similar to those in the control.
Measurement of impedance transformation on practical dipoles

The measured input impedance of a practical dipole antenna is shown to be related to the theoretical input impedance of a delta-gap cylindrical dipole through a bilinear transformation. In order to determine the three complex constants which specify the transformation, the impedance of a dipole in front of a ground plane is measured and compared with the theoretical impedance. The comparison is performed by a curve-fitting procedure for bilinear transformation on a complex plane. The same measurement yields also the receiving efficiency of the antenna and its feeding network. Experiments show that the input impedance of a practical folded dipole, incorporating a balun transformer, may be predicted with an accuracy of better than four percent.
Auditing a database under retention policies

Auditing the changes to a database is critical for identifying malicious behavior, maintaining data quality, and improving system performance. But an accurate audit log is an historical record of the past that can also pose a serious threat to privacy. Policies that limit data retention conflict with the goal of accurate auditing, and data owners have to carefully balance the need for policy compliance with the goal of accurate auditing. In this paper, we provide a framework for auditing the changes to a database system while respecting data retention policies. Our framework includes an historical data model that supports flexible audit queries, along with a language for retention policies that can hide individual attribute values or remove entire tuples from the history. Under retention policies, the audit history is partially incomplete. Thus, audit queries on the protected history can include imprecise results. We propose two different models (a tuple-independent model and a tuple-correlated model) for formalizing the meaning of audit queries. We implement policy application and query answering efficiently in a standard relational system and characterize the cases where accurate auditing can be achieved under retention restrictions.
A Plant-Level, Spatial, Bioeconomic Model of Plant Disease Diffusion and Control: Grapevine Leafroll Disease

Grapevine leafroll disease threatens the economic sustainability of the grape and wine industry in the United States and around the world. This viral disease reduces yield, delays fruit ripening, and affects wine quality. Although there is new information on the disease spatial-dynamic diffusion, little is known about profit-maximizing control strategies. Using cellular automata, we model the disease spatial-dynamic diffusion for individual plants in a vineyard, evaluate nonspatial and spatial control strategies, and rank them based on vineyard expected net present values. Nonspatial strategies consist of roguing and replacing symptomatic grapevines. In spatial strategies, symptomatic vines are rogued and replaced, and their nonsymptomatic neighbors are virus-tested, then rogued and replaced if the test is positive. Both nonspatial and spatial classes of strategies are formulated and examined with and without considering vine age. We find that spatial strategies targeting immediate neighbors of symptomatic vines dominate nonspatial strategies, increasing the vineyard expected net present value by 18% to 19% relative to the strategy of no disease control. We also find that age-structured disease control is preferred to non-age-structured control but only for nonspatial strategies. Sensitivity analyses show that disease eradication is possible if either the disease transmission rate or the virus undetectability period is substantially reduced.
A Behavioral Analysis of Computational Models of Visual Attention

Robots often incorporate computational models of visual attention to streamline processing. Even though the number of visual attention systems employed on robots has increased dramatically in recent years, the evaluation of these systems has remained primarily qualitative and subjective. We introduce quantitative methods for evaluating computational models of visual attention by direct comparison with gaze trajectories acquired from humans. In particular, we focus on the need for metrics based not on distances within the image plane, but that instead operate at the level of underlying features. We present a framework, based on dimensionality-reduction over the features of human gaze trajectories, that can simultaneously be used for both optimizing a particular computational model of visual attention and for evaluating its performance in terms of similarity to human behavior. We use this framework to evaluate the Itti et al. (1998) model of visual attention, a computational model that serves as the basis for many robotic visual attention systems.
Modeling meta-cognition in a cognitive architecture

This paper describes how meta-cognitive processes (i.e., the self monitoring and regulating of cognitive processes) may be captured within a cognitive architecture Clarion. Some currently popular cognitive architectures lack sufficiently complex built-in meta-cognitive mechanisms. However, a sufficiently complex meta-cognitive mechanism is important, in that it is an essential part of cognition and without it, human cognition may not function properly. We contend that such a meta-cognitive mechanism should be an integral part of a cognitive architecture. Thus, such a mechanism has been developed within the Clarion cognitive architecture. The paper demonstrates how human data of two meta-cognitive experiments are simulated using Clarion. The simulations show that the meta-cognitive processes represented by the experimental data (and beyond) can be adequately captured within the Clarion framework.
Chromatin disruption and modification

Chromatin disruption and modification are associated with transcriptional regulation by diverse coactivators and corepressors. Here we discuss the possible structural basis and functional consequences of the observed alterations in chromatin associated with transcriptional activation and repression. Recent advances in defining the roles of individual histones and their domains in the assembly and maintenance of regulatory architectures provide a framework for understanding how chromatin remodelling machines, histone acetyltransferases and deacetylases function.
Maturation of the Male Reproductive System and its Endocrine Regulation

The production of spermatozoa in the male insect and the transfer of the seminal mass to the female require significant investments of biochemical resources and the temporal coordination of development in several organs. Maturation of the gonads and the secondary reproductive systems must be synchronized with the metamorphic acquisition of energetic, sensory, motor, and central nervous adaptations for mating. The developmental hormones that commit cells to new programs and that trigger and modulate their expression in molting cycles also affect the primary and secondary reproductive systems. Many studies have addressed the endocrine regulation of female reproductive maturation and physiology. In comparison, investigations of the male insect systems have lagged. But in the past few years, more laboratories have focused their activities on analyses of male reproduction and its control (9, 57, 58). A recent chapter in this series reviewed the male accessory gland systems (9). This review discusses some of the recent studies that enlarge our knowl­ edge of the special physiology of the male. Selected examples summarize investigations that show that the major hormones that control growth and metamorphosis of the epidermis also control the growth, differentiation, and physiological modulation of the male reproductive system. In addition, male
Commentary: Lessons in Pediatric Neuropsycho-Oncology: What We’ve Learned Since Johnny Gunther

In his paper, ‘‘Lessons in Pediatric NeuropsychoOncology: What We’ve Learned Since Johnny Gunther’’, Ris (2007) successfully accomplishes a formidable task. He provides a biographical and literary anchor that allows for the succinct summary of the history of neurooncological treatment, current status and standard of care, recent innovations and advances in the treatment of pediatric brain tumors. He also presents important information on current directions in both the measurement of neurocognitive late effects, and importantly, work that is being done to reduce the neurocognitive complications associated with the treatment of many childhood brain tumors. This is a brief, concise but comprehensive presentation. I do not believe that I have ever read an article that covered so much scientific ground in such a brief presentation. In this sense, the review raises the benchmark for literature summaries. Ris’s (2007) introduction to the paper begins with a reminder of the tragedy of childhood brain tumors that was so aptly and poignantly presented in the 1949 book, Death Be Not Proud written by the father of an adolescent who died from a particularly malignant brain tumor, glioblastoma multiforme. I was immediately struck by this reference because the book was required reading in one of my junior high school English classes. I had completely forgotten about this memoir. It is a wonderful book, and I do not know if it is still required reading in grade school, but if the reader of this commentary is not familiar with the book, he/she should immediately purchase and read it. Since 1949, neuro-oncologists have made incredible advances in the treatment of childhood brain tumors, but brain tumors remain a malignancy that is associated with significant neurocognitive and psychosocial late effect complications. While treatment advances are improving long-term survival, the childhood brain tumors remain a disease process that present a daunting challenge for all medical professionals in the area of pediatric oncology. Advances in treatment have occurred with many childhood brain tumors, but as Dr Ris reminds us, glioblastoma multiforme continues to be associated with only a 4–16% incidence of long-term disease-free survival. The article begins in the time period of John Gunther Jr’s diagnosis, treatment, and death, and then proceeds to review advances in the treatment of both brain tumors and the leukemias throughout the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s and brings us up-to-date regarding the current standard of care, and also late effects research.
Dose and litter allocations in the design of teratological studies for detecting hormesis.

Background Hormesis is being recognized in the field of toxicology due to the stimulating effects of some toxic compounds at low exposure levels. Therefore, it is desirable that experimental designs for toxicological studies be flexible enough to aid in the detection of hormetic effects. Current designs may still not have enough power to do this. Methods A simulation study was conducted to determine teratological study designs that would yield more power over standard designs in detecting hormesis. Developmental toxicity endpoints of interest are the number of dead/resorbed or malformed fetuses in a litter. The simulation designs mimic teratological experiments in terms of sample size and number of dose levels. Modified designs with even dose spacing at low levels and reallocated litters are investigated to determine the power of hormetic detection. Results Designs with reallocated litters (with more litters at low exposure levels than at high levels) and even dose spacing have more power than those with equal litters per group and uneven dose spacing. Conclusions Through appropriate modifications of current experimental designs, such as reallocation of litters and even dose spacing, we can better detect hormetic effects. Teratology 66:309–314, 2002. © 2002 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
Energy Efficiency and Air Quality Considerations in Airside Economized Data Centers

Many data center operators are considering the option to convert from mechanical to free air cooling to improve energy efficiency. The main advantage of free air cooling is the elimination of chiller and Air Conditioning Unit operation when outdoor temperature falls below the data center temperature setpoint. Accidental introduction of gaseous pollutants in the data center along the fresh air and potential latency in response of control infrastructure to extreme events are some of the main concerns for adopting outside air cooling in data centers. Recent developments of ultra-high sensitivity corrosion sensors enable the real time monitoring of air quality and thus allow a better understanding of how airflow, relative humidity, and temperature fluctuations affect corrosion rates. Both the sensitivity of sensors and wireless networks ability to detect and react rapidly to any contamination event make them reliable tools to prevent corrosion related failures. A feasibility study is presented for eight legacy data centers that are evaluated to implement free air cooling.Copyright © 2015 by ASME
Seasonal changes in the altitudinal distribution of nocturnally migrating birds during autumn migration

Wind plays a significant role in the flight altitudes selected by nocturnally migrating birds. At mid-latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere, atmospheric conditions are dictated by the polar-front jet stream, whose amplitude increases in the autumn. One consequence for migratory birds is that the region’s prevailing westerly winds become progressively stronger at higher migration altitudes. We expect this seasonality in wind speed to result in migrants occupying progressively lower flight altitudes, which we test using density estimates of nocturnal migrants at 100 m altitudinal intervals from 12 weather surveillance radar stations located in the northeastern USA. Contrary to our expectations, median migration altitudes deviated little across the season, and the variance was lower during the middle of the season and higher during the beginning and especially the end of the season. Early-season migrants included small- to intermediate-sized long-distance migrants in the orders Charadriiformes and Passeriformes, and late-season migrants included large-bodied and intermediate-distance migrants in the order Anseriformes. Therefore, seasonality in the composition of migratory species, and related variation in migration strategies and behaviours, resulted in a convex–concave bounded distribution of migration altitudes. Our results provide a basis for assessing the implications for migratory bird populations of changes in mid-latitude atmospheric conditions probably occurring under global climate change.
Electrogenic, proton-coupled, intestinal dipeptide transport in herbivorous and carnivorous teleosts.

In both herbivorous tilapia (Oreochromis mossambicus) and carnivorous rockfish (Sebastes caurinus) intestinal and pyloric cecal brush-border membrane vesicles (BBMV), [14C]glycylsarcosine ([14C]Gly-Sar) uptake was stimulated by a transmembrane proton gradient. A transmembrane K(+)-diffusion potential (inside negative) stimulated [14C]Gly-Sar uptake above that observed with short-circuited vesicles, whereas an inwardly directed Na+ gradient in both fishes had no effect on peptide uptake. In tilapia, [14C]Gly-Sar influx occurred by the combination of 1) a high-affinity, saturable, proton gradient-dependent carrier system [Kt [concentration that equals one-half of maximum influx (Jmax)] = 0.56 +/- 0.08 mM; Jmax = 1,945.0 +/- 174.6 pmol.mg protein-1.10 s-1]; 2) a low-affinity, nonsaturable (within 1-10 mM), proton gradient-dependent carrier system (nonsaturable carrier-mediated transport component = 4,514.0 +/- 28.1 pmol.mg protein-1.10 s-1.mM-1); and 3) a diffusional component accounting for < 10% of total influx within the concentration range tested. Influx (10 s) of 1-10 mM [14C]Gly-Sar in tilapia intestine was significantly (P < 0.01) inhibited by 10 mM diethylpyrocarbonate, a specific inhibitor of proton-coupled peptide transport systems. [14C]Gly-Sar influx into tilapia BBMV showed cis-inhibition and trans-stimulation by Gly-Pro, suggesting that [14C]Gly-Sar and Gly-Pro shared the same mucosal peptide transporter in fish. These observations strongly suggest that intestinal transport of peptides in herbivorous and carnivorous fishes is proton gradient dependent, electrogenic, sodium independent, and qualitatively resembles the peptide transport paradigm proposed for mammals.
Statistical Issues in Data Analysis

My first encounter with statistical analysis was probably typical of the experience of many of us: it was a cursory exposure to a subject that seemed opaque, arid and dull. A necessary evil to be learned quickly then confined to a backwater of the mind only to be dredged up from time to time to compute a standard deviation or two. I don’t blame my teachers, who for the most part were excellent. They too probably suffered in their youth. Then one day I found myself confronted with data for which I could find nothing sensible in any textbook I looked at[1]. I even delved into the mammoth tomes of Kendall and Stuart[2]. I scoured the bit of the statistical literature that physicists know about. But I had no success. I was forced, therefore, to go back to first principles—and the more I learned the more I came to realize that very little in statistical analysis is obvious or inevitable; there was no such thing as the “right” answer unless, first, it was specified what “right” meant. The subject was married to controversy and its handmaiden, confusion. In short, the subject was dynamic and interesting.
A two-stage approach to genetic risk assessment in primary care

Genetic risk prediction models such as BRCAPRO are used routinely in genetic counseling for identification of potential BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers. They require extensive information on the counselee and her family history, and thus are not practical for primary care. To address this gap, we develop and test a two-stage approach to genetic risk assessment by balancing the tradeoff between the amount of information used and accuracy achieved. The first stage is intended for primary care wherein limited information is collected and analyzed using a simplified version of BRCAPRO. If the assessed risk is sufficiently high, more extensive information is collected and the full BRCAPRO is used (stage two: intended for genetic counseling). We consider three first-stage tools: BRCAPROLYTE, BRCAPROLYTE-Plus, and BRCAPROLYTE-Simple. We evaluate the two-stage approach on independent clinical data on probands with family history of breast and ovarian cancers, and BRCA genetic test results. These include population-based data on 1344 probands from Newton-Wellesley Hospital and mostly high-risk family data on 2713 probands from Cancer Genetics Network and MD Anderson Cancer Center. We use discrimination and calibration measures, appropriately modified to evaluate the overall performance of a two-stage approach. We find that the proposed two-stage approach has very limited loss of discrimination and comparable calibration as BRCAPRO. It identifies a similar number of carriers without requiring a full family history evaluation on all probands. We conclude that the two-stage approach allows for practical large-scale genetic risk assessment in primary care.
Protein phosphatase 1α-mediated stimulation of apoptosis is associated with dephosphorylation of the retinoblastoma protein

Protein phosphatase 1 (PP1) plays important roles in many different aspects of cellular activities including cell cycle control. One important function of PP1 is to activate the retinoblastoma protein pRB. Here we show that pRB is one of PP1's downstream targets during apoptosis. When HL-60 cells synchronized at the G1/S boundary were treated with pro-apoptotic cytosine arabinoside (araC), PP1alpha protein increased twofold and PP1 activity about 30% within 1 h. This was followed by pRB dephosphorylation, pRB cleavage by caspases, DNA fragmentation, the appearance of cells with <2n DNA content and finally, dying and dead cells. In vitro, pRB was protected from caspase-3 digestion by prior Cdk-mediated phosphorylation, whereas PP1alpha converted phospho-pRB into an efficient substrate for caspase-3. Introduction of active PP1alpha into HL-60 cells by electroporation was sufficient to induce characteristics of apoptosis. Similarly, araC-resistant cells, normally unable to die in response to araC, initiated apoptosis when electroporated with active PP1alpha. This was also accompanied by pRB cleavage. In contrast, introduction of inhibitor-2 delayed the onset of araC-induced apoptosis, whereas concomitant introduction of PP1alpha and inhibitor-2 completely prevented PP1alpha-induced apoptosis. These results suggest that dephosphorylation of key proteins by PP1alpha may be crucial for the initiation of apoptosis and further support the concept of PP1 serving as a potential target for anti-cancer therapy.
LES studies of helicopter blade-vortex mechanism of interaction; the icing effect

The influence of icing effect on the helicopter blade-vortex mechanism of interaction is investigated using large eddy simulation (LES). The simulations were performed for a Reynolds number, Re = 1.3 x 10 6 , based on the chord, c, of the airfoil (NACA0012). Computations are carried out to investigate the influence of the icing effect on the aerodynamic coefficients and acoustic field. It was observed that the icing effect influences the aerodynamic coefficients in a specific manner. Larger amplitudes of aerodynamic coefficients were observed for the case of an iced leading edge when comp ared with the clean NACA0012 case.
Finite element analysis for round link chains of scraper conveyor based on ANSYS

Taking 34×126 round link chains for model,the stress state of the chains is analyzed under two different work conditions severally by applying finite element method,the distribution law of stress as well.Through which the flimsy parts is identified exactly by analyzing and comparing the two results.That is:the maximum stress concentrates mainly on the inside of arc part on round link chain,upper and lower surface of arc part and transition part between bending and straight edge.The result shows that the arc part is the most brittle part in round link chain of scraper conveyor,which lays a solid foundation for optimal design of round link chain.
Ligand Binding and Activation of Rat Nicotinic α4β2 Receptors Stably Expressed in HEK293 Cells

HEK293 cells were stably transfected with rat neuronal nicotinic α4 and β2 subunits. Binding of tritiated cytisine and nicotine to cell homogenates revealed the presence of a single class of high-affinity sites (dissociation constants 0.1 nM and 0.4 nM, respectively). Activation of nicotinic receptors was studied using whole-cell patch clamp methods, and acetylcholine, nicotine, dimethylphenylpiperazinium, and cytisine all produced a conductance increase. Responses desensitized to prolonged applications, at both positive and negative membrane potentials. The conductance was strongly rectifying, and outward currents were essentially absent. Responses were maximal at about 2 mM external calcium ion concentration and were reduced by about one-half at either nominally 0 or 10 mM external calcium. Di-hydro-β-erythroidine blocked physiological responses to acetylcholine and nicotine (IC50, 2.5 nM), and reduced cytisine binding in a competitive manner (Ki20 nM). Physostigmine enhanced the response to low concentrations of acetylcholine or nicotine. The anesthetic steroid (+)-3α-hydroxy-5α-androstane-17β-carbonitrile blocked responses to acetylcholine (IC50, 1.3 μM), but had no effect on cytisine binding at a concentration of 30 μM. The binding properties of the receptors are those expected for rat neuronal nicotinic receptors composed of α4 and β2 subunits. The pharmacological properties indicate that the responsiveness of the receptors may be allosterically enhanced or inhibited.
In-Situ Observation of the Formation of MnS during Solidification of High Sulphur Steels

A Confocal Scanning Laser Microscope equipped with a gold image furnace was used to directly observe the precipitation of MnS during solidification of high sulphur steels under Isothermal conditions in the temperature region 1440 to 1480°C on the free surface of the steel melt. For the case of Al-killed steels, below 1480°C MnS particles were found to precipitate with Fe forming simultaneously around them. This MnS containing structure continued to grow rapidly (264 μm/s) as a surface film. The film gradually changed, as the level of S in the melt decreased, into a eutectic structure (with lamella spacing of 2 μm) as predicted by thermodynamics. In Si- killed steels there was significantly lower tendency to form MnS both in terms of time until precipitation occurred and growth rate.
Surgical oncology in the community hospital: can it be done safely?

Background: Many studies have documented the fact that outcomes and survival are improved when major surgical oncology cases are performed at high-volume centers. Consolidation of such cases in tertiary centers, however, is often not possible or practical, due to a number of factors. Methods: A retrospective review was performed of the operative experience of a single surgical oncologist at a community hospital in Mississippi during a noncontinuous 36-month period. Data were obtained regarding all major inpatient cancer operations, as well as complication and death rates. This review was limited to major inpatient procedures and resections performed with intent to cure. Results: A total of 171 major cancer cases were performed during the study period. This represented 23.7% of the total inpatient procedures performed and 47.5% of all major inpatient procedures. Distribution of surgical sites was as follows: liver-9; stomach-8; esophagus-3; pancreas-4; colon and rectum-76; breast-33; lung-13; intra-abdominal (sarcoma)-9; and thyroid-16. There were 5 complications within this group (2.9%); two of these resulted in death (1.2%). Conclusions: In the hands of a single surgeon operating at a community institution, major resections for cancer and major surgical oncology cases could be done safely with acceptable complication rates and results. Whether or not such major cancer cases should be done at the community level, however, depends on a number of factors and requires further evaluation of both surgeon and hospital capabilities.
Regulation of the Immune Response

The virtually limitless number of foreign antigenic determinants that the immune system must be able to distinguish among and respond to allows for only a relatively small number of cells to be committed to recognizing any one determinant. Clonal expansion is therefore necessary to achieve amplification of the appropriate recognition unit. This process must be carefully regulated because of the severe consequences of excess proliferation of a single clone responding to one foreign determinant, and of the development of clones responding to self-determinants. As a result of this requirement for both amplification and precise regulation, there are a myriad of interactions, both positive and negative, that occur among the cells of the system. The nature and number of these interactions have been extremely hard to determine, principally because insufficient markers have been found to separate the interacting individual components of the system from one another for detailed analysis. Further, even when one of the system’s components is isolated and studied, a Heisenberg-like principle of uncertainty exists: one can never be sure that the isolated component behaves in the same fashion in isolation as it does when being stimulated by signals from other parts of the interacting system.
Managing Teams of Teams: Lessons Learned

Recruiters continuously report that one of the attributes that they like about California State University (CSU), Chico graduates is that they know how to work in teams and they are good team players. In addition, every year our Industry Council (an Advisory Board to the MIS program) identifies team skills as one of the most important recruiting characteristics. They consistently vote for continued emphasis of these skills in our program. For the MIS discipline, the ability to work in teams is a given prerequisite for the competitive workplace; one that bases more and more work performance evaluation on group and team skills and less on individual accomplishment.
Clicking vs. sharing

Online news and social media are transforming the process of news production and reading. While research has shown that news media play an important role in providing information to the public in democratic societies, research investigating the impact of sharing news online on the process of public opinion formation is in a nascent stage. This study examines the impact of viewing and sharing online news on two dimensions of political knowledge: factual knowledge and structural knowledge. Results from survey data collected over 3-waves during the 2012 US Presidential Election from an online panel of 403 US adult Internet users show that reading online news is positively related to factual political knowledge. Sharing online news, in contrast, is related to structural knowledge. We discuss these findings and their implications for future research investigating the role of online news. We examined the relationship between online news behaviors and political knowledge.We collected three-wave survey data from 403 adults during the 2012 US election.People who share news online are also reading news online.Online news reading was positively related to factual political knowledge.Online news sharing was positively related to political knowledge structure density.
Formative Developments, 1520s–1720s

Catholic Christianity and its imagery broke in on Mesoamerica suddenly in the 1520s and has been a pivot point of living and dying there ever since. But there is no simple story of an early formative stage and late decline in the history of Christian image shrines in New Spain. They began in the sixteenth century, haltingly; and with many shrines eventually scattered over a vast, broken terrain, local histories of Christian practice were bound to depart from models and prescriptions in Rome, Madrid, Mexico City, or less remote capitals and style centers. The weight of the European past and present in the development of Christianity and religious practices in New Spain was great, and diffusion from Catholic Europe lends some coherence to the history of image shrines, whether following European trends or working against them. But Europe, too, is a moving target, neither uniform nor fixed and finished in its religious culture. What, then, can be said with some confidence about the impact of European beliefs and practices on the development of those shrines? What changed where and when? This chapter tracks their early development, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Most image shrines and the full range of their distinguishing features took shape later than might be expected, mainly during a “long” seventeenth century from the 1580s to the 1720s that amounted to the formative period. Chapter 2 continues into the eighteenth century, suggesting that the late colonial period was less a time of decline for shrines and enchantment than one of consolidation and growth. (See Map 1.1 for the image shrines discussed in the text.) The substantial, if gradual, developments in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries lead to consideration of long-term continuities from precolonial times on in the second part of Chapter 2, and the leading role of Marian and Christocentric shrines and images in Chapters 3 and 4. Sixteenth-Century Beginnings: European Roots and Branches Scholarship about nearly all aspects of religion in New Spain has centered on the sixteenth century rather than taking in the full sweep of the colonial period. Lines of interpretation have varied but the effect has been to treat the early years of colonization as formative for religion in the same ways that colonial institutions, imperial practices, economic activities, and labor systems were largely established then.
Learning to branch in Mixed Integer Programming

The design of strategies for branching in Mixed Integer Programming (MIP) is guided by cycles of parameter tuning and offline experimentation on an extremely heterogeneous testbed, using the average performance. Once devised, these strategies (and their parameter settings) are essentially input-agnostic. To address these issues, we propose a machine learning (ML) framework for variable branching in MIP. Our method observes the decisions made by Strong Branching (SB), a time-consuming strategy that produces small search trees, collecting features that characterize the candidate branching variables at each node of the tree. Based on the collected data, we learn an easy-to-evaluate surrogate function that mimics the SB strategy, by means of solving a learning-to-rank problem, common in ML. The learned ranking function is then used for branching. The learning is instance-specific, and is performed on-the-fly while executing a branch-and-bound search to solve the instance. Experiments on benchmark instances indicate that our method produces significantly smaller search trees than existing heuristics, and is competitive with a state-of-the-art commercial solver.
Phonon dynamics in type-VIII silicon clathrates: Beyond the rattler concept

Clathrates can form a type of guest-host solid structures that, unlike most crystalline solids, have very low thermal conductivity. It is generally thought that the guest atoms caged inside the host framework act as ``rattlers'' and induce lattice dynamics disorders responsible for the small thermal conductivity. We performed a systematic study of the lattice dynamical properties of type-VIII clathrates with alkali and alkaline-earth guests, i.e., ${X}_{8}\mathrm{S}{\mathrm{i}}_{46}$ ($X=\mathrm{Na}$, K, Rb, Cs, Ca, Sr, and Ba). The energy dependent participation ratio (PR) and the atomic participation ratio of phonon modes extracted from density functional theory calculations revealed that the rattler concept is not adequate to describe the effect of fillers as they manifest strong hybridization with the framework. For the case of heavy fillers, such as Rb, Sr, Cs, and Ba, a phonon band gap was formed between the acoustic and optical branches. The calculated PR indicated that the fillers suppress the acoustic phonon modes and change the energy transport mechanism from propagative to diffusive or localized resulting in ``phonon-glass'' characteristics. This effect is stronger for the heavy fillers. Furthermore, in all cases, the guest insertion depressed the phonon bandwidth, reduced the Debye temperature, and reduced the phonon group velocity, all of which should lead to reduction of the thermal conductivity.
Non-Covalent Hetero- and Homo-Oligomeric Protein Complexes Reassociate Differentially during MALDI-MS Analysis

MALDI-MS (matrix assisted laser desorption ionization mass spectrometry) may become a powerful tool in biochemistry in view of its accurate measurement of molecular mass of protein up to and above 300,000 Da (1). Noncovalent protein-protein interactions and subunit composition of protein multimers are the basis of molecular recognition and function in the biological world. As a result, detection of complex structure is an important problem. Conventional biochemical techniques used to detect noncovalent protein complexes include nondenaturing gel electrophoresis and size exclusion chromatography, which are useful in many cases, although neither determines molecular weight with accuracy.
Space Settlement and the Celestial Subjectivity Model: Shifting Our Legal Perspective of the Universe

When considering the idea of human settlement of outer space, the discussion evolves from research stations and small outposts to large-scale habitats and complex societies. The current international legal regime does not account for the development of civilizations and sovereignty in outer space and on celestial bodies. The reason for this lies in the principle of conflict prevention that pervades the Outer Space Treaty. This principle, righteous as it may be, does not fit the modern world scene. In fact, the very definition of outer space is centered around the Earth, archaically symbolizing a geocentric legal perspective of the universe. To allow for human settlement of outer space and celestial bodies, international law must address the concepts of civilizations and sovereignty. This can be done by redefining the human perspective of outer space according to the celestial subjectivity model, in which outer space becomes “the space outside of a celestial body’s gravity well relative to a state’s presence and perspective on that particular celestial body.” (Zach Miller, “On Celestial Subjectivity.” VAERO (2016). Available at https://www.vaeroresearch.com/single-post/2016/09/26/On-Celestial-Self-Determination.) The implications of altering the definition of outer space are both concrete and abstract, ranging from more clearly allowing national research stations to ensuring the right of self-determination within a future civilization of Mars colonists.
Quality and Demographic Investigation of ICE 2006

There have been four major experimental evaluations of iris recognition technology in recent years: the ITIRT evaluation conducted by the International Biometric Group, the Iris ’06 evaluation conducted by Authenti-Corp, and the Iris Challenge Evaluation (ICE) 2006 and Iris Exchange (IREX) conducted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. These experimental evaluations employed different vendor technologies and experimental specifications, but yield consistent results in the areas where the specifications intersect. In the ICE 2006, participants were allowed to submit quality measures. We investigate the properties of their quality submissions.
Biomarkers in Environmental Carcinogenesis

Environmental and personal monitoring does not give direct information on the action of environmental agents in the human body. Biomarkers include the human factor. A biomarker is any substance, structure, or process and its products that can be measured in the human body and that may influence or predict the incidence or outcome of disease. Biomarkers are essential tools in environmental cancer research and in molecular environmental epidemiology. They serve to explore the links among environmental exposure, genome, host factors, and cancer. This article briefly introduces environmental carcinogens. It outlines the main processes of biotransformation, the metabolic activation of environmental carcinogens. It touches on the design of biomarker studies in human populations and discusses the most widely used biomarkers of exposure, biomarkers of biological effects, and biomarkers of genetic susceptibility with reference to the main methods. It presents some broadly relevant results from typical and important molecular epidemiological studies, and deals with the interpretation of biomarker results. It also points to the advantages and future potentials of the use of biomarkers in environmental health research.
Education for the 21st Century

There is ample evidence that the warning given in 1983 by the National Commission on Excellence in Education, on which I served, is as timely today as it was in 1983. For the sake of our national security and the future of our nation we must take heed. The opening lines of our report, “A Nation At Risk” were: Our Nation is at risk. Our once unchallenged preeminence in commerce, industry, science and technological innovation is being overtaken by competitors throughout the world...the educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and as a people. What was unimaginable a generation ago has begun to occur - others are matching and surpassing our educational attainments.
No Kid Is an Island: Privacy Scarcities and Digital Inequalities:

This article examines how digital inequalities give rise to privacy practices and resource acquisition strategies among disadvantaged youths. Based on in-depth interview data, the article probes th...
Facilitating the Self-Directed Learning Efforts of Professional Meteorologists

AbstractProfessional meteorologists gain a great deal of knowledge through formal education, but two factors require ongoing learning throughout a career: professionals must apply their learning to...