cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
A multi-issue negotiation protocol among competitive agents and its extension to a nonlinear utility negotiation protocol

Multi-issue negotiation mechanisms have been studied very widely and represent a promising field because most negotiations in the real world are multi-issue negotiations. We model multi-issue negotiation with competitive agents. This reflects the real world in which people have to make agreements on constraints. A combinatorial winner determination mechanism is employed for solving a constraint satisfaction problem with competitive agents. The features of our protocol include Pareto efficiency on constraints. Our experimental results show that our proposed protocol is scalable with the number of agents, and that a heuristic method can achieve good utility. The above protocol is designed for linear utility domains. We also extend our protocol so that we can handle nonlinear utilities.
Motivational Responses to Fitness Testing by Award Status and Gender

Fitness testing is a prominent element in many physical education programs, but there has been limited investigation concerning motivation constructs associated with the testing. This study investigated the relationships among physical education students' award status and gender to achievement goals, intrinsic motivation, and intentions. After they had completed a battery of fitness tests, 123 fifth-grade physical education students were classified into two groups: those who received awards and those who did not. They completed a series of questionnaires assessing motivational constructs. Analyses of variance revealed that students who received a fitness award reported higher levels of task-involvement, perceived competence, effort, enjoyment, and future intention than those who did not. Boys reported higher levels of ego-involvement than girls, but no other gender differences were evident. The findings from this study can be used to inform practitioners, test designers, and researchers about the ways fit...
Reasons for Working and Their Relationship to Retirement Attitudes, Job Satisfaction and Occupational Self-efficacy of Bridge Employees.

Although the Baby Boomers are the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population and they are quickly approaching retirement age, research has widely neglected to look at the reasons as to why many of them intend on opting for bridge employment as opposed to completely retiring. This study examined the relationships among four reasons for working (social, personal, financial, and generative) and three attitudinal responses to bridge employment (job satisfaction, retirement attitudes, and occupational self-efficacy). In a sample of 108 recent retirees holding bridge employment positions, it was found that generativity served as a reliable predictor of job satisfaction and attitudes toward retirement, whereas the social reason for work was only a reliable predictor of attitudes toward retirement.
Developing instruction in oral history: A new avenue for speech communication

This article suggests that the field of speech communication should consider developing course work in oral history and indicates how oral history can be developed into a systematic program of study wherein students of speech communication can discover unique educational opportunities and benefits. An instructional program in oral history should be explored because: (1) oral history shapes the historical record in ways that cannot be achieved by written sources; (2) oral history is shaped by the memory of lived‐through experience; and (3) oral history is shaped by the process of dyadic communication.
An Efficient Formulation of the Improved Visual Assessment of Cluster Tendency (iVAT) Algorithm

The VAT algorithm is a visual method for determining the possible number of clusters in, or the cluster tendency of a set of objects. The improved VAT (iVAT) algorithm uses a graph-theoretic distance transform to improve the effectiveness of the VAT algorithm for “tough” cases where VAT fails to accurately show the cluster tendency. In this paper, we present an efficient formulation of the iVAT algorithm which reduces the computational complexity of the iVAT algorithm from O(N3) to O(N2). We also prove a direct relationship between the VAT image and the iVAT image produced by our efficient formulation. We conclude with three examples displaying clustering tendencies in three of the Karypis data sets that illustrate the improvement offered by the iVAT transformation. We also provide a comparison of iVAT images to those produced by the Reverse Cuthill-Mckee (RCM) algorithm; our examples suggest that iVAT is superior to the RCM method of display.
Composition of larval, juvenile, and small adult fishes relative to changes in environmental conditions in Florida Bay

We compared (1) ichthyoplankton composition and (2) basin and channel habitat ichthyofauna and seagrass densities between 1984–1985 and 1994–1996 in Florida Bay. Stations and sampling techniques employed in 1984–1985 were duplicated in the 1994–1996 study.Thalassia testudinum, Halodule wrightii, andSyringodium filiforme densities within most of the basin and channel strata sampled in 1994–1996 had decreased by as much as 100%. We did not observe changes in the total density of juvenile and small adult fishes coincident with the reductions in seagrass densities except in the deep-water channel habitats. There was an increase in the proportion of the total ichthyofauna represented by pelagic atherinids, engraulids, and clupeids, particularly the engraulidAnchoa mitchilli, and a concomitant decrease in the proportion represented by canopy-dwelling and morebenthic-dwelling seagrass inhabitants. This suggested a shift toward a planktonic-feeding community. We observed an increase in the density and frequency of engraulid larvae, particularly in the western and Gulf of Mexico portions of Florida Bay, but no significant changes in densities of the commonly collected ichthyoplankton that are demersal as adults (i.e., Gobiidae, Callionymidae, and Blennioidei).Lucania parva, Eucinostomus spp.,Lagodon rhomboides, Floridichthys carpio, Haemulon plumieri, andSyngnathus floridae represented nearly 86% of the juvenile and small adult fish collected in 1984–1985 but represented only 29% of the ichthyofauna a decade later. The distribution of juvenile spotted seatrout had expanded into the central and northeastern basins of our sampling area, perhaps in response to reduced salinities or to the availability of food resources.
Single spins in quantum dots and impurities

There are a variety of methods available for confining and manipulating single spins in solid state systems. While heterostructures can be engineered to the requirements of the problem, their variability is a disadvantage compared to identical impurities. I will discuss theoretical calculations of electronic states in both quantum dot heterostructures and bound to impurities. These include calculations of the spin state itself, the effective coupling to a magnetic field, the response to an electric field, and include both electrons and holes.
Identification of deep radiative levels in VPE ZnSe

Abstract The defect centers responsible for both the shallow and deep level emissions commonly seen in the photoluminescence spectra of high purity vapor phase epitaxially grown ZnSe have been investigated. The donor-acceptor pair emission at 2.681 eV has been associated with hole traps at 90 and 130 meV above the valence band edge as measured by optical transient capacitance spectroscopy. From the analysis of low temperature photoluminescence the traps are attributed to sodium. Photoluminescence emission at 1.94 eV has been correlated with a deep level at E c - 2.25 eV as observed by steady state photocapacitance spectroscopy. Electron irradiation of the ZnSe thin films support the association of the defect centers responsible for 1.94 eV emission with the self-activated complex.
Relative economic efficiency of banking systems in a developing country

Abstract Duality between profit functions and transformation functions is applied to a subset of the banking system in the Philippines. By estimating the restricted profit functions of two groups of banks, hypothesis testing of their relative economic efficiency is carried out. By duality a complete characterization of the transformation function representing the two banking systems studied is obtained. Cobb-Douglas and quadratic profit functions are estimated. The mathematical properties of the functions allow a derivation of systems of supply functions for bank services, bank demand functions for resources, and measures of long-term profitability of banking. The regulatory environment's impact on bank efficiency may also be assessed.
Vibration frequencies using least squares and neural networks for 50 new s and p electron diatomics

Abstract Least-squares forecasts for vibration frequencies of diatomic molecules, most with 10–12 valence electrons, are combined with those obtained from neural networks, both trained on critical data. It is required that the standard deviation bounds of the one prediction lie within the bounds of the other; this requirement results in 69 molecules, 50 of which may not have been studied before. The composite standard deviations of the composite predictions average 5.9%, so there is a 68% chance that each of these 50 predictions will prove to be within 5.9% of its ultimately correct value. As a test, 28 literature values, for 12 of the molecules, were found; of these 28 values, 78.6% fall between the lower and upper composite standard deviation limits.
Evaluation of InSpectra UV Analyzer for measuring conventional water and wastewater parameters

Abstract A relatively new analytical instrument for the measurement of 5-day biochemical oxygen demand (BOD 5 ), chemical oxygen demand, total suspended solids (TSS), total organic carbon (TOC), nitrates and surfactants has been developed commercially. It is based on the use of ultraviolet spectrophotometry and a deterministic approach to analyze the sample's spectrum by comparing it with a series of historical reference spectra. Using standard methods for the measurement of BOD 5 , TSS and TOC as true values, the use of this instrument was evaluated. The samples tested were obtained from both wastewater and water treatment facilities. Results indicate that the BOD 5 measurement performed best. There was no correlation found for TSS or TOC.
Cytokine dysregulation in activated cystic fibrosis (CF) peripheral lymphocytes

Recent studies demonstrate in vivo and in vitro cytokine dysregulation in CF epithelial cells. To see if these abnormalities may be generalized to other cells expressing cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) but not directly exposed to local inflammation, we studied mRNA transcription, intracellular protein production and extracellular secretion of IL-2, IL-4, IL-5, IL-10 and interferon-gamma (IFN-γ) from freshly isolated blood mononuclear and CD4+ T cells from CF patients and controls. Cells were activated by phorbol myristate acetate (PMA) and anti-CD3, PMA–ionomycin, or lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and assessed for cytokine mRNA transcription by semiquantitative reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction, intracellular protein production by flow cytometry, and secretion by supernatant ELISA. Cytokine expression was highly stimulus-dependent. CF cells showed higher IL-10 transcription than control cells after maximal activation by LPS (P = 0·01); despite this, cytokine production and secretion were equivalent to controls. CF cells showed lower cellular IL-10 production after PMA-anti-CD3 activation (P = 0·002). CF cells secreted less IFN-γ than control cells after maximal activation by PMA-anti-CD3 (1836 ± 273 pg/ml versus 9635 ± 3437 pg/ml, P = 0·04). IL-2, IL-4 and IL-5 regulation was similar to controls. We conclude that CF mononuclear cells show selective cytokine dysregulation after maximal activation, namely reduced IFN-γ secretion and increased IL-10 mRNA without increased production or secretion. These findings extend defects described in respiratory epithelial cells to circulating immunoregulatory cells, suggesting a link between CF genotype and cytokine dysregulation.
Liquid chromatography ion trap mass spectrometric analysis of oligosaccharides using permethylated derivatives

Reversed phase liquid chromatography was combined with the multiple stage mass analysis capability of an ion trap mass spectrometer for the characterization of permethylated oligosaccharide mixtures. The new method was used to separate the components of an unlabeled permethylated maltooligomer ladder, a 2-aminobenzamide-labeled (2-AB) maltooligomer ladder, a complex mixture of 2AB-labeled bi- (B), tri- (T), and tetraantennary (Q) standards, and a mixture of recombinant glycoprotein carbohydrates from soluble CD4 with varying sialic acid (S) content. Using reversed phase HPLC, permethylated mixture components including α and β anomers were separated based on their structures. Fluorescent labeling with 2-aminobenzamide prior to permethylation was employed for off-line method development, but was not necessarily required for mass spectral analysis, as permethylation alone improved the ionization and fragmentation characteristics of the molecules. Antennae composition of permethylated derivatives was determined in MS2 where the fragmentation patterns of the Y- and B-ion series predominated, and then further evaluated in MS3, which provided additional information on branching obtained from A and X cross-ring fragmentation. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Predicting labels for dyadic data

In dyadic prediction, the input consists of a pair of items (a dyad), and the goal is to predict the value of an observation related to the dyad. Special cases of dyadic prediction include collaborative filtering, where the goal is to predict ratings associated with (user, movie) pairs, and link prediction, where the goal is to predict the presence or absence of an edge between two nodes in a graph. In this paper, we study the problem of predicting labels associated with dyad members. Special cases of this problem include predicting characteristics of users in a collaborative filtering scenario, and predicting the label of a node in a graph, which is a task sometimes called within-network classification or relational learning. This paper shows how to extend a recent dyadic prediction method to predict labels for nodes and labels for edges simultaneously. The new method learns latent features within a log-linear model in a supervised way, to maximize predictive accuracy for both dyad observations and item labels. We compare the new approach to existing methods for within-network classification, both experimentally and analytically. The experiments show, surprisingly, that learning latent features in an unsupervised way is superior for some applications to learning them in a supervised way.
Epilogue on “Corporate Personhood” and Humanity

In discussions of corporate criminal liability, the question of corporations’ moral personhood often plays a central role. These concluding remarks point out some troubling repercussions of the notion of personhood on our conception of human beings and their moral status. Humanity rather than personhood is proposed as a more appropriate category for grounding humans’ dignity and their rights. This way of framing the discussion helps distinguish the proper treatment of humans from that of other subjects, be they corporations or animals.
The feasible solution algorithm for fuzzy Least Trimmed Squares clustering

The issue of sensitivity to noise and outliers of LS minimization based clustering techniques, is addressed in this paper. A novel and robust clustering scheme based on the feasible solution algorithm that implements the Least Trimmed Squares (LTS) estimator, is developed, implemented and the results presented. The LTS estimator is known to be resistant to noise and has a high breakdown point. The feasible solution algorithm approach also guarantees convergence of the solution set to a global optima. Our experiments show the practicability of the proposed scheme in terms of computational requirements and in the attractiveness of its simplistic framework.
Exponentially smoothed control charts for the inverse-gaussian process

Exponential smoothing technique is used to obtain centrality and dispersion control charts for an Inverse-Gaussian(IG)process. The centrality and dispersion control charts use linear combinations of IG and chi-square random variables, respectively. Simulation results are used to verify the approximate distribution of the linear combinations. A method for choosing the “best” value for the weighting constant is presented. An example illustrates the computations that are involved in finding the control limits.
Review of speculative “disaster scenarios” at RHIC

This paper discusses speculative disaster scenarios inspired by hypothetical new fundamental processes that might occur in high-energy relativistic heavy-ion collisions. The authors estimate the parameters relevant to black-hole production and find that they are absurdly small. They show that other accelerator and (especially) cosmic-ray environments have already provided far more auspicious opportunities for transition to a new vacuum state, so that existing observations provide stringent bounds. The possibility of producing a dangerous strangelet is discussed in most detail. The authors argue that four separate requirements are necessary for this to occur: existence of large stable strangelets, metastability of intermediate size strangelets, negative charge for strangelets along the stability line, and production of intermediate size strangelets in the heavy ion environment. Both theoretical and experimental reasons why each of these appears unlikely are discussed. In particular, the authors know of no plausible suggestion for why the third or especially the fourth might be true. Given minimal physical assumptions, the continued existence of the Moon, in the form we know it, despite billions of years of cosmic-ray exposure, provides powerful empirical evidence against the possibility of dangerous strangelet production.
Mega-Intestine After Subtotal Colectomy for Constipation

t A male with multiple endocrine neoplasia (MEN) type 2B presented with chronic abdominal distention and onstipation. He had previously undergone total thyroidectomy or medullary thyroid carcinoma, and a subtotal colectomy with leosigmoidostomy for megacolon. Examination revealed a maranoid body habitus, neuromas on the tip of the tongue, pectus xcavatum, and severe abdominal distention. Laboratory studies ere unremarkable, including negative urine catecholamines creening for pheochromocytoma. Abdominal x-ray showed muliple dilated loops of small bowel (Figure A). At laparotomy, ilated loops of small bowel with maximum diameter of 8 cm were oted (Figure B). The patient underwent sigmoid resection with nd ileostomy. On microscopic examination, the sigmoid and erminal ileum revealed hyperplasia of the nerve plexuses and an ncreased density of ganglia, many of which showed dysplastic hanges (Figure C, inset, yellow arrow). Hyperplastic subserosal erve fibers were also identified (Figure C, inset, black arrow). Intestinal ganglioneuromatosis associated with MEN type 2B as confirmed by the identification of dysplastic ganglion cells in oth resected sigmoid and terminal ileum. Intestinal ganglioneuomatosis (gangliocytic dysplasia) is characterized by hyperplasia f myenteric or submucosal nerve plexuses with increased number nd size of dysplastic ganglia, and hyperplastic subserosal nerves.1 MEN 2B results from an autosomal dominant mutation with a high degree of penetrance. The mutation involves a gain of function of the RET (rearranged during transfection) proto-oncogene (that encodes a tyrosine kinase receptor) on chromosome 10. The mutation appears to induce growth and differentiation in several developing tissues including those derived from the neural crest.2 In a 28-patient series, 93% of patients with MEN 2B had gastrointestinal symptoms 1 to 24 years before the diagnosis of MEN 2B. Symptoms included flatulence (86%), abdominal distention or being underweight as a child (64%), abdominal pain (54%), constipation or diarrhea (43%), difficulty swallowing (39%), vomiting (14%), and 29% underwent surgery.2 In a series of 16 patients, 90% had colonic disturbances, typically chronic constipation from birth. Megacolon developed in 14 patients, and 8 required colonic surgery.3 Postoperatively, the patient received oral pyridostigmine 60 mg 4 times a day, and supplemental parenteral nutrition. One month later, he was asymptomatic, on regular (full) oral diet and pyridostigmine, and intestinal loops were not dilated on abdominal radiograph. Management of abdominal distension and constipation in MEN 2B is usually conservative with laxatives; however some patients require total colectomy and oral prokinetic agents. Our patient responded to acetyl cholinesterase inhibition (pyridostigmine). The potential efficacy of 5-hydroxytryptamine (5HT)4 agonists, other prokinetics, and stem cell therapy for intesinal ganglioneuromatosis associated with MEN 2B are unclear.
Regulation of nutrient intake and energy balance in salmon

There is a correlation between growth, adiposity and early maturity in salmonids. One strategy to avoid early maturity may be to favor muscle growth over fat accumulation. The present article discusses the regulation of food intake and fat storage under conditions of either relative over-abundance or insufficiency of energy intake in salmon. In a series of experiments with chinook salmon of equal size, food intake of fat fish was significantly less than in their lean counterparts. Furthermore, when fat and lean fish were pooled and given access to the same diet, whole body fat levels converged, suggesting a robust mechanism for regulating body fat stores. Growth of the initially fat fish was impaired relative to the initially lean fish. In separate experiments, when chinook and coho salmon were deprived of food, hypothalamic expression of neuropeptide Y (NPY)-like mRNA increased significantly compared to fed controls. Increased hypothalamic NPY mRNA and NPY secretion have been shown to be central elements of energy balance regulation in mammals. The increase in hypothalamic NPY-like gene expression in a teleost may reflect the primitive evolution a central mechanism to regulate energy intake and expenditure that has been elucidated in mammals.
Evaluation of the genomic extent of effects of fixed inversion differences on intraspecific variation and interspecific gene flow in Drosophila pseudoobscura and D. persimilis.

There is increasing evidence that chromosomal inversions may facilitate the formation or persistence of new species by allowing genetic factors conferring species-specific adaptations or reproductive isolation to be inherited together and by reducing or eliminating introgression. However, the genomic domain of influence of the inverted regions on introgression has not been carefully studied. Here, we present a detailed study on the consequences that distance from inversion breakpoints has had on the inferred level of gene flow and divergence between Drosophila pseudoobscura and D. persimilis. We identified the locations of the inversion breakpoints distinguishing D. pseudoobscura and D. persimilis in chromosomes 2, XR, and XL. Population genetic data were collected at specific distances from the inversion breakpoints of the second chromosome and at two loci inside the XR and XL inverted regions. For loci outside the inverted regions, we found that distance from the nearest inversion breakpoint had a significant effect on several measures of divergence and gene flow between D. pseudoobscura and D. persimilis. The data fitted a logarithmic relationship, showing that the suppression of crossovers in inversion heterozygotes also extends to loci located outside the inversion but close to it (within 1–2 Mb). Further, we detected a significant reduction in nucleotide variation inside the inverted second chromosome region of D. persimilis and near one breakpoint, consistent with a scenario in which this inversion arose and was fixed in this species by natural selection.
Long-term Benefits of Inhaled Tobramycin in Adolescent Patients With Cystic Fibrosis

Study objective To determine the effect of long-term suppression of Pseudomonas aeruginosa on lung function and other clinical end points in adolescent patients with cystic fibrosis (CF). Design Two identical, randomized, placebo-controlled trials followed by three open-label follow-on trials. Setting Sixty-nine CF study centers in the United States. Interventions Active drug consisting of a 300-mg tobramycin solution for inhalation (TSI). Patients One hundred twenty-eight adolescent CF patients (aged 13 to 17 years) with P aeruginosa and mild-to-moderate lung disease (FEV 1 percent predicted≥ 25% and ≤ 75%). Measurements Pulmonary function, P aeruginosa colony forming unit density, incidence of hospitalization and IV antibiotic use, weight gain, and aminoglycoside toxicity were monitored. Results At the end of the first three 28-day cycles of TSI treatment, patients originally randomized to TSI and placebo treatments exhibited improvements in FEV 1 percent predicted of 13.5% and 9.4%, respectively. FEV 1 percent predicted was maintained above the value at initiation of TSI treatment in both groups. At the end of the last “on-drug” period (92 weeks), patients originally randomized to TSI and placebo treatments showed improvements of 14.3% and 1.8%, respectively. Improvement in pulmonary function was significantly correlated with reduction in P aeruginosa colony forming unit density (p = 0.0001). The average number of hospitalizations and IV antibiotic courses did not increase over time. TSI treatment was associated with increased weight gain and body mass index. P aeruginosa susceptibility to tobramycin decreased slightly over time, but this was not correlated with clinical response. Conclusions TSI treatment improved pulmonary function and weight gain in adolescent patients with CF over a 2-year period of long-term, intermittent use.
Subcycling-PCR for Multiplex Long-Distance Amplification of Regions with High and Low GC Content: Application to the Inversion Hotspot in the Factor VIII Gene

Previously we described a PCR protocol for detecting the inversion in the factor VIII gene, which is a common cause of Hemophilia A. This PCR assay is challenging due to the size of the amplification (10-12 kb), the varying GC content (30%-80%) and the multiplex PCR products involved (four for carrier female). Efficient amplification of the four segments depends on three unusual modifications to standard long-distance PCR protocols: (i) very high concentrations of dimethyl sulfoxide, (ii) addition of deaza-dGTP and (iii) high concentration of Taq and Pwo DNA polymerases. One of the segments was amplified much more efficiently than the others under standard three-temperature cycling conditions (12 s at 94 degrees C, 30 s at 65 degrees C and 14 min at 68 degrees C). To facilitate the uniform amplification of the multiple regions, subcycling-PCR (S-PCR) was developed. In S-PCR, the combined annealing/elongation step is composed of subcycles of shuttling between a low and a high temperature, e.g., shuttling four times between 60 degrees and 65 degrees C. S-PCR produces consistent robust amplification of the various segments produced by wild-type, mutant and carrier individuals. S-PCR is a simple generalization of PCR, which generally may be advantageous in three contexts: (i) amplification of long segments in which the GC content varies within the segment, (ii) multiplex amplification of long segments and (iii) multiplex amplification of short segments in which the GC content varies among the segments.
Sequencing and de novo assembly of a Dahlia hybrid cultivar transcriptome

Dahlia variabilis, with an exceptionally high diversity of floral forms and colors, is a popular flower amongst both commercial growers and hobbyists. Recently, some genetic controls of pigment patterns have been elucidated. These studies have been limited, however, by the lack of comprehensive transcriptomic resources for this species. Here we report the sequencing, assembly, and annotation of the transcriptome of the developing leaves, stems, and floral buds of D. variabilis. This resulted in 35,638 contigs, most of which seem to contain the complete coding sequence, and of which 20,881 could be successfully annotated by similarity to UniProt. Furthermore, we conducted a preliminary investigation to identify contigs with expression patterns consistent with tissue-specificity. These results will accelerate research into the genetic controls of pigmentation and floral form of D. variabilis.
Frequency-domain optical probing of coherent spins in nanocrystal quantum dots

Spin-photon interactions such as the Faraday effect provide techniques for measuring coherent spin dynamics in semiconductors. In contrast to typical ultrafast pulsed laser techniques, which measure spin dynamics in the time domain with an intense, spectrally broad probe pulse, we demonstrate a frequency-domain spin-photon resonance effect using modulated continuous-wave lasers which enables measurement of GHz-scale coherent spin dynamics in semiconductors with minimal spectral linewidth. This technique permits high-resolution spectroscopic measurements not possible with ultrafast methods. We have employed this effect to observe coherent spin dynamics in CdSe nanocrystals using standard diode lasers. By fitting the results to the expected model, we extract electron g-factors, and spin coherence and dephasing times in agreement with time-domain measurements.
Ab initio Simulations of Coupled Peptide Vibrational Circular Dichroism

A major application of vibrational circular dichroism (VCD) for structural studies has developed in the area of peptide and protein conformational analysis. 1 The primary approach to analysis of these spectra has been centered on empirical correlations of VCD spectra for systems of similar secondary structure. Each major secondary structural type yields a distinctive VCD band shape for the amide I and II bands. Ideally one would like to be able to predict the VCD band shape from a theoretical model based on the peptide geometry. Schellman and, more recently, Diem and their coworkers2 have attempted simulation of oligopeptide VCD using a simple dipole coupling (DC) models.3 While this model predicted the a-helical amide I VCD, it failed for other structures and modes.
Variations in Elastaselike Esterase Activities in Human Leucocytes during Cell Maturation

Granules of human peripheral blood leucocytes contain four well-characterized elastase isozymes and one or two slow-moving elastaselike esterases (SE) which have not been as well characterized. SE are capable of hydrolyzing typical elastase synthetic sybstrates such as N-acetyl-dl-alanine-alpha-naphthyl ester (Ac-DL-Ala-1-ONap) and N-t-butyloxycarbonyl-L-alanine-p-nitrophenyl ester (Boc-Ala-ONp), but unlike the highly basic elastase isozymes, SE barely migrate into 13% acrylamide gels during cationic electrophoresis at pH 4.3. Hydrolysis of Ac-DL-Ala-1-ONap by SE requires the presence of Triton in the gel, and hydrolysis of Boc-Ala-ONp by the same enzyme(s) is also enhanced in the presence of the detergent. Triton is not required for these activities, in the case of the elastase isozymes. Diisopropylfluorophosphate (Dip-F) inactivates both SE and the elastase isozymes, whereas Ac-(Ala)2-Pro-AlaCH2Cl (a powerful inactivator of the leucocyte elastase isozymes at 10-4 M concentration) does not inactivate SE at the same concentration. Immunochemical studies revealed antigenic cross-reaction between the rapidly migrating leucocyte elastase isozymes and SE. Two preparations of leucocyte granules from nonleukemic bone marrow cells showed no activity of the rapidly migrating elastase isozymes, but did contain SE activity. SE may be a precursor or zymogen form of the elastase isozymes, present in immature cells and partly retained through later stages of development.
The Outside and the Inside: Stability and Change of Mentalität in a Small Village

Few factors attract an historian to a certain subject as forcefully as the personal past's affinity. Because I grew up in the small village of Afers, a place in Northern Italy, aspects of village life and mentality have exerted a demanding fascination ever since I become an historian. Intellectual historians and psychologists know well that such attraction erects barriers to accuracy. One is all too readily lured into an idealized version of a past and into an unwillingness to reexamine the familiar mental landscape.' Here then is a discussion of a personal landscape which deals with changes in mentality of an eighteenth-century rural setting. In the process of this elaboration, I highlight the vigor of outside intrusions into a village mentality and its ability to adapt and survive. This examination is focused on five infusions into the history of the Alpine village of Afers. These five eighteenth-century elements are: the assignment of a priest, the installation of a church clock, the distribution of the common forests, the construction of a late baroque church, and the establishment of an elementary school. Afers is located at the northern fringe of the Dolomites, fifteen kilometers east of Brixen/Bressanone, a minor commercial center since the late Roman period and the seat of a prince bishop from the early Middle Ages until the 1970s. As an outcome of the Treaty of St. Germain, Afers now carries this name and the Italian designation of Eores. In the pre-moder period, its inhabitants had no need to concern themselves with this twentieth-century duality, that is, the seventy-yearold problem of thinking and speaking in an Old-High German dialect but living in Italy. In the earlier period, Afers was part of Austria's South Tyrol.2 The settlers arrived in the upland valley (1400-1450 meters above sea level) in the thirteenth century. From the very beginning of the village, neither climate nor soil favored the efforts of the inhabitants and their descendants. Then and now, winter starts in late October, and snow often falls until the outset of May. To this day, too, the farmers say that the ground bears rocks more readily than grass, cereals, and potatoes. My focus then is on the interaction between the Mentalitiit of an isolated village and the pressures emanating from the wider eighteenth-century European world. One of the principal parameters is the use of both the French and German versions of the word mentality. The recent literature ascribes certain qualities to the first, but the Aferers would only have understood, and today understand, the second. As a matter offact, they would have been comfortable only with the word Weltanschauung.3
Heteroaggregation Reduces Antimicrobial Activity of Silver Nanoparticles: Evidence for Nanoparticle–Cell Proximity Effects

Heteroaggregation between silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) and naturally occurring colloids is a critical process that controls the environmental impacts of AgNPs. In this study, the effect of heteroag...
Microlymphatic surgery for lymphedema.

Why certain tissues develop lymphedema and others do not is an enigma. Some progress has been made in understanding the disease, and treatment has improved but is palliative at best. This article discusses primarily the role of lymphovenous microanastomoses in treating lymphedema.
Development of a software application for quantitative processing of nuclear renography

660 Learning Objectives: 1. Name 3 indications for performing a quantitative nuclear renographic study. 2. Describe ways to improve reproducibility in renal image analysis. 3. List 4 ways in which a computer program can perform quality control monitoring in renographic analysis. Abstract (summary): A new software application has been developed for processing nuclear renographic images, calculating clinically-relevant parameters of renal function and presenting summarized results for interpretation. The application runs on a personal computer under Microsoft Windows XP. The application can handle dynamic and static images from a baseline renal function study or a diuretic study, in interfile format. For the baseline, automatic regions of interest (ROI) are generated for the whole kidneys, renal cortices, background and prevoid and postvoid bladder. The user can manually adjust any ROI, manually draw an injection site ROI, and indicate the time of bolus arrival in the kidney. Reframed images and time-activity curves are generated, and up to 20 different renal functional parameters are calculated, including camera-based clearance. The application automatically monitors 30 different items related to image and processing quality. Processed results are presented onscreen, with normal ranges for calculated values. Options are provided for saving the results to disk as text or in graphic format. For a diuretic study, manual kidney and renal pelvis ROIs can be drawn, and up to 14 additional values related to renal obstruction are calculated. The diuretic study can be related to its baseline study. An expert system for scan interpretation (previously reported) can be accessed for decision support. Processing, review options, quality assurance functions and expert system connectivity will be demonstrated.
Genetics in cancer care: confronting a Pandora's Box of dilemmas.

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES To provide an overview of sociopolitical, bioethical, and psychological issues emerging from the application of genetic technologies in cancer care in the United States and to provoke oncology nurses to consider the impact that advances in genetics may have on their practice. DATA SOURCES Published professional articles, tests, and proceedings as well as government and lay publications. DATA SYNTHESIS This article reviews underlying sociopolitical issues and forecasts bioethical dilemmas and psychological responses likely to emerge from expanding genetic screening and treatment options in oncology. The sociopolitical issues revolve around individual rights, the role of government, and the influence of religious dogma and public perception. The bioethical dilemmas fall within a framework of five scenarios, and a range of psychological responses are described. CONCLUSIONS Significant changes will occur in cancer care as a result of advances in genetic technology. These changes will be accompanied by a new set of dilemmas in clinical practice and by as yet undescribed psychological responses. In addition to building a knowledge base relevant to these new technologies, oncology nurses must anticipate the new dilemmas and be prepared to manage the emotional responses of their patients. NURSING IMPLICATIONS Nurse are in a strategic position to make significant contributions to the genetics data base by designing and conducting research to describe the ethical dilemmas and patient/family responses engendered as genetic science is integrated into cancer care.
Volcanic Rocks from Rocas Alijos

The region offshore from southern and Baja California has an abundance of volcanic edifices. Most of the edifices are submarine seamounts or guyots but a few project above sea level. Most are small, conical volcanoes that are round or elliptical in plan view. Others are larger and more complex in shape, and some form elongated ridges (Fig. 1). Unlike many of the distinctive linear island chains of the central and southern Pacific, volcanic edifices offshore from the Californias may be isolated, clustered, or aligned in short chains. Short chains may show a NW trend compatible with direction of plate motion or they may show a variable NE to E trend that is at a high angle to the direction of plate motion.
Embodiment and Human Development

We are recognizing increasingly that the study of cognitive, social, and emotional processes must account for their embodiment in living, acting beings. The related field of embodied cognition (EC) has coalesced around dissatisfaction with the lack of attention to the body in cognitive science. For developmental scientists, the emphasis in the literature on adult EC on the role of the body in cognition may not seem particularly novel, given that bodily action was central to Piaget's theory of cognitive development. However, as the influence of the Piagetian account waned, developmental notions of embodiment were shelved in favor of mechanical computational approaches. In this article, I argue that by reconsidering embodiment, we can address a key issue with computational accounts: how meaning is constructed by the developing person. I also suggest that the process-relational approach to developmental systems can provide a system of concepts for framing a fully embodied, integrative developmental science.
A Representative Application of a Layered Interface Modeling Pattern

Model-based systems engineering (MBSE) is intended to improve how systems engineering is performed compared with a more traditional document-based approach by effectively using models to analyze, specify, design, and verify systems. The OMG Systems Modeling Language (OMG SysML™) enables the practice of MBSE by providing a robust and expressive language for representing systems.
SURGE: surface regularized geometry estimation from a single image

This paper introduces an approach to regularize 2.5D surface normal and depth predictions at each pixel given a single input image. The approach infers and reasons about the underlying 3D planar surfaces depicted in the image to snap predicted normals and depths to inferred planar surfaces, all while maintaining fine detail within objects. Our approach comprises two components: (i) a four-stream convolutional neural network (CNN) where depths, surface normals, and likelihoods of planar region and planar boundary are predicted at each pixel, followed by (ii) a dense conditional random field (DCRF) that integrates the four predictions such that the normals and depths are compatible with each other and regularized by the planar region and planar boundary information. The DCRF is formulated such that gradients can be passed to the surface normal and depth CNNs via backpropagation. In addition, we propose new planar-wise metrics to evaluate geometry consistency within planar surfaces, which are more tightly related to dependent 3D editing applications. We show that our regularization yields a 30% relative improvement in planar consistency on the NYU v2 dataset [24].
New areas arising from studies of secretory immunity.

I recognize that it is more or less traditional for introductory talks at international symposia, such as this, to either review the field from a historical perspective or attempt a critical analysis of the current status and future frontiers of the area. I will leave the latter to the conference summarizers and will not dwell on history. Rather, I choose to relate to you three areas that developed in our laboratory primarily as outgrowths of our initial work on the secretory system. I hope they will be of interest to you and although two are somewhat to the side of the major theme of the conference, they do have pertinence since they relate to factors which may regulate the immune response in general and, therefore, may well affect the secretory system although this has not as yet been directly studied.
Damásio, jaźń i świadomość

Antonio Damasio’s notion of “core consciousness” suffers from serious defects. It cannot account for phenomena such as dreaming or locked-in-syndrome, which a proper theory of consciousness should explain, because it requires that the organism’s self-representation be affected by the organism’s processing of an object. This requirement cannot be met in those two states. Moreover, in many states in which the organism does take into account the effect of, say, the perception of an external object, that account is unconscious. And lastly, the close connection Damasio makes between consciousness and the self leads to a theoretically untenable division of the self: evolutionary considerations demand that even a primitive self (e.g., a proto-self) exhibit features of an “autobiographical self”.
Expertise recommendation and new skill assessment with multicue semantic information

Assessing and managing the expertise of employees in knowledge and service industries is critical because human capital is the key differentiator among companies. Moreover, professional social networks are becoming increasingly popular. Besides the well-known public professional social network site LinkedIn, enterprise social networks are also now being widely used inside corporations and companies. In this chapter, we address the critical workforce analytics problem of automatically assessing employees’ skills by mining multiple cues found in enterprise and social data. In particular, we treat the assessment of employees’ expertise as a matrix completion problem, where the rows represent individual employees and the columns represent individual skills. The multiple cues about employee expertise come from data we integrate on the existing skill assessment process within the company, the social networking and social media activity of the employees, and the semantic similarity of skills. Assessment results are evaluated as a binary classification recommendation. Extensive empirical study using a real-world data set from a large multinational Fortune 500 corporation corroborates the effectiveness of multicue analytics to improve the coverage and accuracy of skill assessment.
Cgmp-Dependent Calcium Desensitization Contributes to Vasodilator Response to Nitric Oxide in Rat Middle Cerebral Arteries

P142 We have recently reported that a cGMP-dependent mechanism as well as a cGMP-independent activation of K Ca channels secondary to a fall in 20-HETE contributes to the vasodilator response to NO in the cerebral circulation. The present study examines the mechanism for the cGMP-dependent component of the vasodilator response to NO in rat middle cerebral arteries (MCA). Administration of a NO donor, dose-dependently, increased the diameter of serotonin preconstricted MCA to 69.3±5.8% of control (n=6). 8-Br-cGMP (10 -8 to 10 -4 M) mimicked the effect of NO and increased the diameter of MCA to 58.7±3.6% of control (n=6). Blockade of K Ca channels with IBTX (10 -7 M, n=6) or depolarization with a 80 mM K + media (n=6)reduced the vasodilator response of MCA to NO by 70±6%, but they had little effect on the vasodilator response to 8-Br-cGMP. This suggests that activation of K + channels contribute to the vasodilator response to NO in MCA, but not the response to 8-Br-cGMP. We therefore examined the effects of NO and cGMP on Ca 2+ -induced contraction of rat MCAs permeablized with α-toxin (10 μg/ml) and ionomycin (10 μM). Elevations in bath Ca 2+ , from 10 -8 to 10 -5 M, decreased the diameter of these vessels by 60.9±3.7%. A NO donor, DEA-NONOate (10 -6 M, n=6)and 8-Br-cGMP (10 -4 M, n=6) both attenuated the vasoconstrictor response to elevations in bath Ca 2+ by 60%. Inhibition of guanylyl cyclase with ODQ (10 -5 M) prevented the effects of the NO donor, but not 8-Br-cGMP. These results indicate that the cGMP, PKG-dependent component of the vasodilator response of NO in rat MCA is mediated by desensitization of the contractile mechanism to calcium rather than activation of K + channels.