cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Layer-by-layer assembly of ferrocene-modified linear polyethylenimine redox polymer films

Herein, both electrostatic and covalent layer-by-layer assembly were used for the construction of multicomposite thin films using a ferrocene-modified linear poly(ethylenimine) redox polymer (Fc-C6-LPEI) as the cationic polyelectrolye, and poly(acrylic acid) (PAA), poly(glutamic acid) (PGA), or glucose oxidase (GOX) as the negative polyelectrolyte. The assembly of the multilayer films was characterized by cyclic voltammetry (CV), UV/Vis spectroscopy, and ellipsometry with the enzymatic response of the films containing GOX being characterized via constant potential amperometry. CV measurements suggested that the successful buildup of multilayer films was dependent upon the nature of the anionic polyelectrolyte used. Electrostatic assembly of films composed of Fc-C6-LPEI and either PAA or PGA produced large oxidation peak current densities of 630 and 670 μA cm(-2), respectively, during cyclic voltammetry. Increased measured absorbance by UV/Vis spectroscopy and increased measured film thicknesses (400-600 nm) by ellipsometry provided additional evidence of successful film formation. In contrast, the films incorporating GOX that were electrostatically assembled surprisingly produced significantly lower electrochemical responses (12 μA cm(-2)), low absorbance values, and reduced film thicknesses (~15 nm), and glucose electro-oxidation current densities less than 1 μA cm(-2), which all suggested unstable or minimal film formation. Subsequently, we developed a covalent layer-by-layer approach to fabricate films of Fc-C6-LPEI/GOX by covalently linking the amine groups of Fc-C6-LPEI to the aldehyde groups of periodate-oxidized glucose oxidase. Covalent assembly of the Fc-C6-LPEI/GOX films produced oxidation peak current densities during cyclic voltammetry of 40 μA cm(-2) and glucose electro-oxidation current densities of 220 μA cm(-2). These films also showed an increase in their thicknesses (~140 nm) relative to the electrostatic GOX films. For the films containing either PAA or PGA, the pH of the polymer solutions used for construction was found to have a significant effect on the response of the multilayer films, and the electrochemical response of the Fc-C6-LPEI/PAA, Fc-C6-LPEI/PGA, or covalently assembled Fc-C6-LPEI/GOX films could be tuned by varying the number of bilayers (n=1-16) in the film. These results are important because this is the first report of the use of the novel Fc-C6-LPEI redox polymer in the successful development of multicomposite layer-by-layer films. The electrochemical response achieved with the covalently assembled Fc-C6-LPEI/GOX films demonstrates that this redox polymer and layer-by-layer assembly technique can be used for possible biosensor and biofuel applications, and the success of multiple anionic polyelectrolytes could lead to additional applications with other enzyme systems.
BAYESIAN ANALYSIS OF DIAGNOSTIC TEST ACCURACY WHEN DISEASE STATE IS UNVERIFIED FOR SOME SUBJECTS

Studies of the accuracy of medical tests to diagnose the presence or absence of disease can suffer from an inability to verify the true disease state in everyone. When verification is missing at random (MAR), the missing data mechanism can be ignored in likelihood-based inference. However, this assumption may not hold even approximately. When verification is nonignorably missing, the most general model of the distribution of disease state, test result, and verification indicator is overparameterized. Parameters are only partially identified, creating regions of ignorance for maximum likelihood estimators. For studies of a single test, we use Bayesian analysis to implement the most general nonignorable model, a reduced nonignorable model with identifiable parameters, and the MAR model. Simple Gibbs sampling algorithms are derived that enable computation of the posterior distribution of test accuracy parameters. In particular, the posterior distribution is easily obtained for the most general nonignorable model, which makes relatively weak assumptions about the missing data mechanism. For this model, the posterior distribution combines two sources of uncertainty: ignorance in the estimation of partially identified parameters, and imprecision due to finite sampling variability. We compare the three models on data from a study of the accuracy of scintigraphy to diagnose liver disease.
Community Support of Ethanol Plants: Does Local Ownership Matter?*

Drawing on data from six communities in Kansas and Iowa, we explore the factors that are related to community members' current levels of overall support for local ethanol plants. What are residents' opinions about the benefits and drawbacks of local ownership of ethanol plants? How does that awareness lead to overall support of plants? Our interest is to understand how perceptions of the negative effects of the plant on the local infrastructure and environment and positive effects on the local economy influence the relationship between local versus absentee ownership and people's overall support of the plant. We use chi-square to test whether respondents' overall support is associated with the ownership of the plant (local versus absentee), and cumulative logit mixed-effects models to explore the factors that explain the association between ownership and overall support. Findings suggest that community members are less likely to show high support for locally owned plants, and that the greater perceived negative effects of locally owned plants on the local infrastructure and environment helps explain residents' lower support of locally owned ethanol plants in their communities. We posit several explanations for why this might be the case.
Parental Divorce, Parental Religious Characteristics, and Religious Outcomes in Adulthood

Parental divorce has been linked to religious outcomes in adulthood. Previous research has not adequately accounted for parental religious characteristics or subsequent family context, namely whether one’s custodial parent remarries. Using pooled data from three waves of the General Social Survey, we examine the relationships among parental divorce, subsequent family structure, and religiosity in adulthood. Growing up in a single-parent family—but not a stepparent family—is positively associated with religious disaffiliation and religious switching and negatively associated with regular religious attendance. Accounting for parental religious characteristics, however, explains sizable proportions of these relationships. Accounting for parental religious affiliation and attendance, growing up with a single parent does not significantly affect religious attendance. Parental religiosity also moderates the relationship between growing up with a single parent and religious attendance: being raised in a single-parent home has a negative effect on religious attendance among adults who had two religiously involved parents.
Stencil: A Conceptual Model for Representation and Interaction

Existing Information Visualization models provide insufficient support to visualization programmers in creating applications. They either broad and taxonomy based, or narrowly focused on isolated aspects of the visualization problem. Taxonomy based tools are good for categorizing what has been or needs to be done, but provide little help in accomplishing those goals. Narrowly focused models allow particular aspects of the visualization problem to be efficiently solved, but leave heavy burdens for integrating many such narrow tools together to solve the over arching visualization problem. This insufficiency of visualization models is most evident where interaction is concerned: It is often left as an afterthought. In this paper, we describe the Stencil visualization model, an intermediate model that covers many visualization specific issues. We argue that the Stencil model can guide visualization program construction through several stages of common application pipelines; thereby improving the resulting visualization products and reducing significant barriers to visualization adoption.
Pressure and work analysis of unsteady, deformable, axisymmetric, jet producing cavity bodies

This work lays out a methodology for calculating the pressure distribution internal to a generic, deformable, axisymmetric body with an internal cavity region whose deformation expels/ingests finite jets of water. This work is partially motivated by a desire to model instantaneous jetting forces and total work required for jellyfish and cephalopod locomotion, both of which can be calculated from the internal pressure distribution. But the derivation is non-specific and can be applied to any axisymmetric, deformable body (organic or synthetic) driving fluid in or out of an internal cavity. The pressure distribution over the inner surface is derived by integrating the momentum equation along a strategic path, equating local surface pressure to known quantities such as stagnation pressure, and correlating unknown terms to the total circulation of characteristic regions. The integration path is laid out to take advantage of symmetry conditions, inherent irrotationality, and prescribed boundary conditions. The usefulness/novelty of this approach lies in the fact that circulation is an invariant of motion for inviscid flows, allowing it to be modelled by a series of vorticity flux and source terms. In this study we also categorize the various sources of circulation in the general cavity–jet system, providing modelling for each of these terms with respect to known cavity deformation parameters. Through this approach we are able to isolate the effect of different deformation behaviours on each of these circulation components, and hence on the internal pressure distribution. A highly adaptable, transparent, prototype jet actuator was designed and tested to measure the circulation in the cavity and the surrounding fluid as well as the dynamic forces acting on the device during operation. The circulation in both the jet and cavity regions shows good agreement with the inviscid modelling, except at the end of the refill phase where circulation is lost to viscous dissipation. The total instantaneous forces produced during actuation are accurately modelled by the pressure analysis during both expulsion and refilling phases of the jetting cycle for multiple deformation programs. Independent of the end goal, such as propulsion, mixing, feeding etc., the efficiency of the process will always be inversely proportional to the total energy required to drive the system. Therefore, given a consistent output, efficiency is maximized by the minimum required energy. Here it is observed (somewhat counter-intuitively) that, for both jetting and refilling, total work required to drive the fluid is lower for impulsive velocity programs with fast accelerations at the start and end of motion than sinusoidal velocity programs with smoother gradual accelerations. The underlying cause is that sinusoidal programs result in a peak in pressure (force) simultaneously with maximum deflection velocity of the deformable boundary driving fluid motion; for the impulsive programs these peaks are out of phase and overall energy consumption is reduced.
Motivating Quality: The Impact of Amateur Editors’ Suggestions on User-Generated Content at Epinions.com

This study examines the type of edit that amateur editors called Advisors used in their comments on Epinions.com product reviews and the extent to which their editing-related comments might have mo...
Comparative genomics: multiple genome rearrangement and effic ient algorithm development

vi CHAPTER 1. OVERVIEW 1 1.1 Problem and motivation 1 1.2 Previous algorithms 4 1.3 Proposed algorithms 6 1.4 Further work in the future 9 1.5 Dissertation organization 11 References 11 CHAPTER 2. Multiple Genome Rearrangement by Reversals 15 2.
Immunohistochemical Analysis of Proliferating Cells in a Sterile Labyrinthitis Animal Model

Inflammatory reactions within the cochlea lead to the formation of fibrotic tissue and bone. To determine which cells are involved in the proliferation of the inflammatory response within the cochlea, sterile labyrinthitis was created by inoculating keyhole limpet hemocyanin (KLH) into the scala tympani of systemically sensitized animals. Cellular proliferation was assessed immunohistochemically using the monoclonal antibody Ki-67. Proliferating cells were identified among inflammatory cells and fibroblasts within the matrix, as well as in endosteal cells lining the scala tympani. Inflammatory and potential osteoprogenitor cells were labeled as late as 6 weeks after inoculation, suggesting the absence of a strong immunosuppressive mechanism. Endosteal cells may proliferate and secrete the extracellular matrix used by the inflammatory cells to move within the cochlear scalae. They may also participate in the ossification of the inflammatory matrix.
Pharmacogenomic strategies in drug safety

Drug safety is a priority for drug developers and regulatory agencies. Pharmacogenomics is a powerful tool that can be used to manage clinical risks as well as resolve the mechanistic basis of adverse drug events. Advances in the science of drug safety, increased commitment to pharmacogenomics by drug companies, and enhanced regulatory review infrastructure at the U.S. FDA have helped to advance the application of safety pharmacogenomics in drug development and public health decision-making. This review highlights some successes in discovery and translation of pharmacogenomic biomarkers for adverse drug events and outlines future strategies to optimize the development and clinical application of pharmacogenomic information.
Dexmedetomidine as a primary sedative agent after single-stage airway reconstruction.

ObjectiveTo examine the outcomes of children receiving dexmedetomidine after single-stage airway reconstruction.Study DesignHistorical cohort study.SettingTertiary care children’s hospital.Subjects and MethodsOf 61 eligible patients, 50 children undergoing single-stage airway reconstruction were included in the study. Thirty children received dexmedetomidine (Dex) as a primary sedative agent, and 20 received a more traditional sedation protocol (no Dex). Primary outcomes included complications, intubation lengths, and lengths of pediatric intensive care unit (PICU)/hospital admission. Secondary analysis incorporating polypharmacy and age was performed using multivariate linear regression models.ResultsMedian age was 18.0 months. Age, sex, and weight were similar between the groups. Intubation length was equal in the 2 groups, and there were no statistical differences between lengths of PICU or hospital stay after extubation. Similarly, overall and individual complications were all similar, and there was n...
Phase-matching temperature shifts in blue generation by frequency doubling of femtosecond pulses in KNbO 3

We have demonstrated temperature rises that result from nonlinear absorption in single-pass frequency-doubling experiments using femtosecond pulses and a 3-mm-thick KNbO3 crystal. These temperature changes shift the phase-matching curve and must be accounted for to optimize the conversion efficiency. We obtained a maximum second-harmonic generation (SHG) efficiency of 66% at an input power of 107 mW and a slope efficiency of ∼1.5%/mW at low input powers. We have investigated, for the first time to our knowledge, the focusing dependence of the phase-matching temperature. We have also found that the temperature-dependent SHG efficiency in femtosecond SHG experiments is significantly different from that obtained for frequency doubling of continuous-wave light.
Cardiovascular applications of laser technology

Laser technology has been evaluated for the treatment of coronary artery disease, ventricular and supraventricular arrythmias, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, and congenital heart disease. Developments in laser angioplasty, laser thrombolysis, transmyocardial laser revascularization, photochemotherapy, laser treatment of arrhythmias and/or laser diagnostics are directed at improving upon conventional non-laser approaches, and providing new therapeutic and diagnostic options. This review will summarize the current status of the multiple applications of laser technology for cardiovascular diagnosis and therapy.
An architecture for highly available wide-area service composition

Service composition provides a flexible way to quickly enable new application functionalities in next generation networks. We focus on the scenario where next generation portal providers 'compose' the component services of other providers. We have developed an architecture based on an overlay network of service clusters to provide failure-resilient composition of services across the wide-area Internet: our algorithms detect and recover quickly from failures in composed client sessions. In this paper, we present an evaluation of our architecture whose overarching goal is quick recovery of client sessions. The evaluation of an Internet-scale system like ours is challenging. Simulations do not capture true workload conditions and Internet-wide deployments are often infeasible. We have developed an emulation platform for our evaluation-one that allows a realistic and controlled design study. Our experiments show that the control overhead involved in implementing our recovery mechanism is minimal in terms of network as well as processor resources; minimal additional provisioning is required for this. Failure recovery can be effected using alternate service replicas within about 1 s after failure detection on Internet paths. We collect trace data to show that failure detection itself can be tight on wide-area Internet paths-within about 1.8 s. Failure detection and recovery within these time bounds represents a significant improvement over existing Internet path recovery mechanisms that take several tens of seconds to a few minutes.
Influence of discharge parameters on the resolution of depth profiling by pulsed glow discharge atomic emission spectrometry

Investigations have been performed using microsecond pulsed glow discharge atomic emission spectrometry (GD-AES) to determine the effect of the glow discharge parameters, including applied pulse voltage, pulse width, pulse frequency and gas pressure, on the resolution of depth profiling. The results indicate that a concave crater profile is obtained for low voltage, whereas the curvature is convex for high voltage. The criteria of a flat crater bottom and good depth resolution are fulfilled only with a limited range of voltages at each operating pressure. The results also imply that the pulse frequency and pulse width have little effect on the resolution of depth profiling; thus a wide dynamic range of layers from several nanometers to tens of micrometers can be analyzed by increasing or decreasing the pulse frequency and width. Under the optimized parameters, a thin coating of Cu (50 nm) on steel, an electroplated steel and a computer hard-disk with multiple thin layers were analyzed.
The serological classification of Neisseria gonorrhoeae. I. Isolation of the outer membrane complex responsible for serotypic specificity

Neisseria gonorrhoeae has been subdivided into several classes of serological distinct groups. The serotyping system is based upon the antigenic specificity of a protein serotype antigen. This protein is the major polypeptide of the outer membrane of the gonococcus and accounts for over 60% of that membrane's total protein. The serotype antigen complex was isolated by mild extraction of intact organisms in 200 mM lithium acetate buffer, pH 6.0 with 10 mM EDTA for 2 h at 45 degrees C. The extract was fractionated on Sepharose 6B and partially purified by precipitation at pH 4.2 by addition of 10% (vol/vol) acetic acid. Each serotype antigen has a unique subunit molecular size as determined by sodium dodecyl sulphate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE). Preliminary typing of a gonococcal strain may be performed by comparative SDA-PAGE. To date, 16 different serotypes, representing a diverse distribution, have been isolated.
Hypervitaminosis A and bone

Animal, human, and in vitro data all indicate that excess vitamin A stimulates bone resorption and inhibits bone formation. This combination would be expected to produce bone loss and to contribute to osteoporosis development and may occur with relatively low vitamin A intake. It is possible that unappreciated hypervitaminosis A contributes to osteoporosis pathogenesis.
Hollow beams of simple polarization for trapping and storing atoms

We propose a scheme for producing and magnifying a hollow beam, as might be desired for purposes of storing and guiding cold atoms, through the use of a simple spherically aberrating lens and a projection lens. The field is a superposition of J0 Bessel fields, so that simple (linear, circular) polarizations can be utilized. We analyze some of the beam properties through analytical approximations. Some examples of field zeros along the optical axis are given, together with some of their characteristics. Numerical calculations largely confirm the validity of the analytical expressions. For the most important zero nearly all of the beam power is contained within the first two Bessel spacings, with a resulting highly efficient trapping. Isophotes are calculated and displayed for the region surrounding this null point. They have regular shapes, for which we give an approximate expression.
Real Wages and Relative Factor Prices in the Third World Before 1940: What Do they Tell Us about the Sources of Growth?

This paper uses a new pre-1940 Third World data base documenting real wages and relative factor prices to explore their determinants. There are three possibilities: external price shocks, factor endowment changes, and technological change. While the paper lays out an explicit econometric agenda for the future, it looks like external price shocks were doing most of the work, and declining-transport-cost-induced commodity price convergence in particular. Real wages in Asia, the Middle East and Latin America never showed signs of much catching up with the European industrial leaders prior to 1914, but at least they held their own. The ratio of wages to land rents, on the other hand, declined up to World War I, and so did the ratio of wages to GDP per capita. The trend reversed thereafter. These relative factor price movements help sharpen our understanding of the sources of growth (or lack of it) in Asia and Latin America prior to 1940. They also offer strong hints about changes in income distribution there.
Brownsville Common Yellowthroats Maintain Genetic Diversity in a Fragmented Landscape

Abstract Habitat fragmentation is particularly severe in the Lower Rio Grande Valley (LRGV) of Texas, where greater than 90% of the native wetland habitat has been replaced by agriculture and urban development. The Brownsville Common Yellowthroat (Geothlypis trichas insperata), a rare subspecies of the Common Yellowthroat restricted to this area, is a good model for studying the effects of this extensive fragmentation on avian genetics and ecology. In this study, three hypotheses addressing genetics and habitat fragmentation were tested: (1) the density of Brownsville Yellowthroats is greatest along the Rio Grande rather than away from the river; (2) individuals found on or near the Rio Grande are more closely related than individuals farther away; and (3) a source-sink metapopulation model is best fit to describe the population dynamics of this subspecies. We used 15 microsatellites to examine the genetic diversity of 128 individuals from Cameron and Hidalgo Counties (Texas) sampled during 2008–2009. The...
Emergence of salivary gland cell lineage diversity suggests a role for androgen-independent epidermal growth factor receptor signaling

Diversity of cell lineages within glandular organs is generated postnatally by differentiation of committed progenitor cells. Fundamental regulatory aspects of this process are not understood. The mouse submandibular salivary gland (SSG) served as model to assess the role of epidermal growth factor (EGF) receptor signaling during emergence of cell lineage diversity. Temporal fluctuations in EGF receptor mRNA levels coincident with crucial differentiative cell lineage transitions were revealed by RNase protection analyses. Between days 2 and 5, when proacinar cells are maturing and striated duct cells emerge, EGF receptor mRNA levels were highest and all differentiating cells exhibited EGF receptor immunoreactivity. EGF receptor mRNA levels then declined sharply and immunoreactivity became confined to ductal cells. At day 11 in male mice, and days 11 and 16 in females, a second increase in EGF receptor mRNA was detected coincident with emergence of granular convoluted tubule (GCT) cells. With completion of androgen-dependent GCT cell differentiation at the onset of puberty, EGF receptor mRNA levels and intensity of immunoreactivity decreased. Androgen effects on EGF receptor mRNA or immunoreactivity could not be detected. These temporally distinct patterns of EGF receptor expression suggest that this signaling pathway is a mechanism of potential importance in emergence of cell lineage diversity in a glandular organ.
Artificial intelligence for artificial artificial intelligence

Crowdsourcing platforms such as Amazon Mechanical Turk have become popular for a wide variety of human intelligence tasks; however, quality control continues to be a significant challenge. Recently, we propose TURKONTROL, a theoretical model based on POMDPs to optimize iterative, crowd-sourced workflows. However, they neither describe how to learn the model parameters, nor show its effectiveness in a real crowd-sourced setting. Learning is challenging due to the scale of the model and noisy data: there are hundreds of thousands of workers with high-variance abilities. This paper presents an end-to-end system that first learns TURKONTROL's POMDP parameters from real Mechanical Turk data, and then applies the model to dynamically optimize live tasks. We validate the model and use it to control a successive-improvement process on Mechanical Turk. By modeling worker accuracy and voting patterns, our system produces significantly superior artifacts compared to those generated through nonadaptive workflows using the same amount of money.
Neruda ante la crisis del 56

espanolEste ensayo sostiene que Estravagario (1958) representa un desahogo personal y politico de Neruda frente a las revelaciones de Jruschov en el XX Congreso del PCUS en 1956. Es una especie de “muerte simbolica” que enfrenta Neruda, de la que no encuentra salida en este momento dado pero que sobrevive gracias al respaldo de Matilde Urrutia y la naturaleza. EnglishThis essay holds that Estravagario (1958) was a personal and political vent of Neruda after Jruschov’s revelations at the 20th Congress of the CPSU in 1956. According to Greg Dawes, it was a sort of “symbolic death” that Neruda faced and from which he found no way out at that given moment and time, but which he survived thanks to the support of Matilde Urrutia and nature.
Tail Autotomy as an Anti-Predator Weapon in Neotropical Plethodontid Salamanders of the Genus Bolitoglossa

We have examined the morphology of the skeletal elements involved in constricted-based tail autotomy in Neotropical plethodontid salamanders of the genus Bolitoglossa. Observed variation in the transverse processes of the first caudal vertebra ranges from a relatively generalized condition, similar to that seen in North American species, to morphologically specialized structures found only in tropical species. Here we present evidence that most species of Bolitoglossa have evolved hypertrophied, reversed transverse processes whose shape and size go beyond what is necessary for structural support in constricted-based tail autotomy and allow the autotomized tail to be used as an anti-predator weapon. We discuss the evolutionary implications of this mechanism.
Effects of a Carbon Surface Environment on the Decomposition Properties of Nanoparticle LiBH4: A First-Principles Study

We present a first-principles study of small clusters of LiBH4 supported on graphene sheets in order to address the experimentally observed effects of the nanoconfinement of LiBH4 in hard carbon nanoframeworks prepared from low-temperature pyrolysis of phenolic resins, where a fullerene-related structure with significant sp2 character is known to exist. Our results indicate that the wetting of carbon by LiBH4, as observed in experiments, is not energetically favorable without the introduction of boron substitution defects in the graphene sheet. The simplest defect, consisting of a carbon vacancy, introduces favorable wetting energies via the partial decomposition of LiBH4. Heteroatom boron in place of the carbon vacancies interacts with lithium and small clusters of the remaining LiBH4, making wetting of these clusters favorable. It is also predicted that the desorption product LiH will be ejected from the framework, in agreement with recent in situ TEM work.
Antihypertensive Medications and the Prevalence of Hyperkalemia in a Large Health System

Little is known about the frequency and patterns of hyperkalemia in clinical settings. We evaluated the association between baseline antihypertensive medications that may affect potassium levels (angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors, angiotensin receptor blockers, β-blockers, loop/thiazide diuretics, and potassium-sparing diuretics) and hyperkalemia, defined by potassium >5 mEq/L and >5.5 mEq/L, over a 3-year time period in 194 456 outpatients in the Geisinger Health System, as well as actions taken after an episode of hyperkalemia. The proportions of patients with 0, 5 mEq/L and >5.5 mEq/L occurred in 10.8% and 2.3% of all patients over the 3-year period; among patients with ≥4 measurements per year, corresponding values were 39.4% and 14.6%. Most cases of hyperkalemia occurred only once during follow-up. The antihypertensive medication class most strongly associated with hyperkalemia was angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors. Among patients with a measurement of potassium >5.5 mEq/L, only 24% were seen by a nephrologist and 5.2% were seen by a dietician during the 3-year period. Short-term actions after a potassium measurement >5.5 mEq/L included emergency room visit (3.1% within 7 days), remeasurement of potassium (44.3% with 14 days), and change in a potassium-altering medication (26.4% within 60 days). The most common medication changes were discontinuation/dose reduction of an angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor/angiotensin receptor blocker or potassium-sparing diuretic, which occurred in 29.1% and 49.6% of people taking these medications, respectively. In conclusion, hyperkalemia is common. Future research may enable optimal renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system inhibitor use with improved management of hyperkalemia.
Study on Tracking Maximum Power Point in VSCF Wind-power Generation System

In order to utilize the wind energy most effectively and improve the efficiency of wind generation system,based on analyzing the control strategy of maximum wind energy capture for variable speed constant frequency wind turbines,a new control strategy is studied,which do not need to detect wind speed.This control strategy can not only capture the largest wind energy beyond the maximum wind allowed,but also can realize decoupled control of the active power and reactive power of DIFG.Finally,the operational performances of the wind turbine system with DFIG with wind speed variation were analyzed and compared by using Matlab/Simulink.The results have shown the correctness and feasibility of the proposed control strategy.
Concepts of Evil

This chapter will summarize some of the literature regarding concepts of evil. It will include a discussion of the works of M. Scott Peck, Erich Fromm, Philip Zimbardo and their contributions to the understanding of evil. Also discussed will be the concept of malignant narcissism and what is clinically known about this disorder and its impact upon individuals and society at large. A critical thinking exercise is also provided.
Completion and Sensitivity of the Second-Trimester Fetal Anatomic Survey in Obese Gravidas

OBJECTIVES To estimate the effect of maternal body mass index (BMI) on the completion of fetal anatomic surveys before 20 weeks' estimated gestational age (GA). METHODS We conducted a retrospective cohort study of singletons undergoing standard or detailed anatomic sonographic examinations from 2006 to 2014. Patients were categorized by ranges of BMI. The primary outcomes were completion of standard and detailed anatomic surveys before 20 weeks' estimated GA. The effect of the BMI category was assessed by the χ2 test for trends and analysis of variance. RESULTS Of 15,313 patients, 5917 (38%) were obese, and 1581 (10%) had a BMI of 40 kg/m2 or higher. Standard (P < .01) and detailed (P < .01) surveys were less likely to be completed as the BMI category increased. Suboptimal visualization of the fetal chest (P < .01), abdomen (P < .01), and extremities (P < .01) significantly contributed to the decreased standard survey completion rates. Suboptimal visualization of the fetal head (P < .01) and chest (P < .01) significantly contributed to the decreased detailed survey completion rates. There was no statistically significant difference in the sensitivity of a completed standard or detailed anatomic survey for the detection of fetal anomalies. CONCLUSIONS An increasing BMI category was associated with decreased completion of standard and detailed anatomic surveys by 20 weeks' estimated GA. Strategies to improve early visualization of the fetal head, chest, and abdomen in obese women should be investigated to promote anomaly detection and appropriate counseling.
Fertility in disorders of sex development: A review

Summary Introduction Disorders of sex development (DSD) are a heterogeneous group of complex conditions that can affect chromosomal, gonadal, and/or phenotypical sex. In addition to impacts on internal and external genitalia,these conditions can affect fertility potentialto various degrees. In this review we discuss fertility issues including gonadalpreservation and reproductive outcomes based on specific DSD conditions. Methods and Materials A systematic literature review was performed on Embase™, PubMed®, and Google Scholar™ for disordersof sex development and infertility. Original research articles and relevant reviews were examinedand a synopsis of these data was generated for a comprehensive review of fertility potential in disorders of sex development. Results While patients with some DSDs may have functioning gonads with viable germ cells but an inability to achieve natural fertility secondary to incongruent internal or external genitalia, other patients may have phenotypically normal genitalia but infertility due to abnormal gonad development. Fertility rates in females with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) depend on phenotype and are inversely proportionalto the severity of the disease. Men with classic CAH have reduced fertility and due to the presence of testicular adrenal rest tumors and to suppression of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis by high systemic levels of androgens. Infertility is seen in complete androgen insensitivity and subfertility is common in partial cases. Fertility is rare in pure or mixed gonadal dysgenesis, ovotesticular disorder, Klinefelter syndrome, and XX males. Conclusion Fertility potential appears to be the highest in patientswith XX or XY CAH, especially non-classic forms. Advancements in assisted reproduction techniques has in rare cases produced offspring in some diagnoses thought to be universally infertile. Discussion of fertility issues with the patient and family is essential to the optimal treatment of each patient and an important part of the multi-disciplinary approach to evaluating and counseling these families.
Susceptibility to high-altitude pulmonary edema is associated with a more uniform distribution of regional specific ventilation

Uneven hypoxic pulmonary vasoconstriction (HPV) is thought to incite high-altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE). We evaluated whether greater heterogeneity of ventilation is also a feature of HAPE-suscep...
Outcome Evaluation of the You Can Do It Initiative to Promote Exclusive Breastfeeding Among Women Enrolled in the New York State WIC Program by Race/Ethnicity

Abstract Objective To evaluate the effectiveness of You Can Do It at improving exclusive breastfeeding (BF) among New York State women enrolled in Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). Design Quasi-experimental study, September, 2013 through February, 2016. Setting Multicomponent intervention paired with a yearlong learning community in 12 clinics. Participants Women who were enrolled in WIC during the first trimester, intended to breastfeed or were undecided, and continued in WIC after delivery, comprised 1 baseline cohort (n = 688) and 2 intervention cohorts: Breastfeeding Attrition Prediction Tool (BAPT) (consented, n = 362) and non-BAPT (declined, n = 408). Intervention The BAPT was offered to all eligible women in the intervention enrollment period. Consenting women received multiple counseling sessions tailored to individual BAPT results throughout pregnancy and were contacted promptly after delivery. Main Outcome Measure(s) Prevalence of exclusive BF at 7, 30, and 60 days. Analysis Multivariate logistic regression, stratified by race/ethnicity. Statistical significance set at P Results Prevalence of exclusive BF at 7 and 30 days was significantly higher among BAPT women compared with non-BAPT or baseline cohorts. Non-Hispanic black and Hispanic women in the BAPT cohort achieved significantly higher exclusive BF rates at 30 and 60 days compared with those in non-BAPT and baseline cohorts. Conclusions and Implication The initiative seems to be effective at increasing exclusive BF, particularly among non-Hispanic black and Hispanic women in the New York State WIC program.
Convergence and Differentiation

The reader is probably familiar with the extensive and penetrating theory of finite-dimensional linear spaces and operators thereon. One cannot hope to obtain a similarly penetrating theory when the vector space is infinite-dimensional without additional structure in the space. A first step in civilizing a linear space for the purposes of analysis is the introduction of a convenient topology, i.e. one with respect to which relevant operations are continuous. A natural candidate for such a topology in the linear space M of all complex-valued locally measurable functions is that of sequential pointwise convergence. However, this topology may fail to have cogent structural properties. One is led rather to deal with a modification \(\tilde M\) of M which is obtained by identifying functions which agree except on local null sets; and which is given the topology it inherits naturally from that of pointwise sequential convergence in M. It will be seen in fact that \(\tilde M\) is metrizable in this topology, in the key case of a finite measure space; and that it becomes a topological linear space in the following sense.
Gathering Information for Decision-Making in the Optimization Phase: Resource Management and Practical Issues

It has been stated repeatedly in this book that the design of the optimization trial must be selected based on the resource management principle. This means that both the cost and scientific yield of a design must be evaluated and compared with that of other experimental designs under consideration. Every situation is different. In some situations, recruiting or retaining subjects may be very expensive, whereas in others, this is a relatively minor expense. Similarly, in some situations it is not difficult to implement a host of experimental conditions, whereas in others implementing a large number of conditions would be very costly. Experimental designs also differ with respect to the kind of resources they require. Some experimental designs require relatively few experimental conditions, but may require more subjects; others make very economical use of subjects, but require implementation of many experimental conditions. To add to the complexity, different experimental designs provide estimates of subtly different effects. This chapter attempts to provide the reader with the background needed to compare several different experimental designs that could be used in an optimization trial and to select the best one. Readers of this chapter should be familiar with the material in all previous chapters, particularly Chaps. 3 and 5.
Rev. of An Anthology to Feast Upon: Eating Worlds: A Norton Anthology of Food Writing, edited by Sandra M. Gilbert and Roger J. Porter

When the publishers of the Norton Anthology of Literature undertook the creation of Eating Words: A Norton Anthology of Food Writing for readers of academic and general backgrounds, it was clear th...
Dynamics of price and advertising as quality signals: Anything goes

This paper demonstrates that signaling motive may lead to many different time patterns of advertising. Therefore, it is not possible to rule out signaling as an explanation for advertising by looking solely at the time patterns of price and advertising expenditures.
Classification of Algebraic Surfaces and of Stable Bundles

In this chapter, we outline the major results in the classification theory of surfaces, and then proceed to fill in the details of the proofs. While the proofs given here do not rely on Mori theory, we give a brief description of the corresponding results for threefolds, whose proofs rely heavily on Mori theory. In the last section, we survey some of the known results on the structure of the moduli space of stable bundles over a surface, and try to relate these results to the geometry of the original surface.
The Effect of Organizational Tax Differences and Risk on Corporate and Limited Partnership Capital Structure

Prior studies have shown that Limited Partnerships (LPs) use less debt than corporations and conclude this is due to tax induced corporate borrowing. We suggest these observed differences result from risk differences between LPs. LPs formed around natural resource assets use less debt than LPs formed around non-natural resource assets because uncertainty over future resource prices disproportionately increases the natural resource general partners' risk of loss in the event of LP bankruptcy. Our results support this explanation and show that differences observed in prior studies are due to the differential debt use between natural resource and non-natural resource LPs. Debt use by non-natural resource LPs is not significantly different from debt use by our corporate comparison groups. Our analysis provides an alternate explanation of corporate and LP capital structure differences which should be considered in future investigations of factors affecting capital structure decisions.
[6,6′‐Bis­(chloro­meth­yl)‐2,2′‐bipyrid­yl]­dichloro­cobalt(II)

The title compound, [CoCl2(C12H10Cl2N2)], contains a Co atom coordinated in a quasi-tetra­hedral manner by two Cl atoms and two N atoms of the bipyridyl group. The five-membered CoN2C2 metallocycle has a slightly twisted envelope conformation with the Co atom at the flap.
Practical considerations in modeling the low light response of photomultiplier tubes in large batch testing

Abstract Photomultiplier tubes continue to be a reliable, cost-effective means of detecting light produced by the interaction of subatomic particles with detectors. For detectors where the expected light yield is modest, characterizing the low light response of the tube is of paramount importance. Several phenomenological models addressing this issue exist. This paper presents side-by-side comparison between three such approaches as they arose from a large scale testing of tubes to be used by a Ring Imaging Cherenkov detector at Jefferson Lab. The main characteristics of the tubes, such as the gain, were found to be consistent within the expected uncertainties for all models considered. Leveraging the extensive nature of the study, a machine learning algorithm based on an artificial neural network capable of obtaining the tube characteristics directly from the raw ADC data was developed and trained. The trained neural network produced results fully compatible with the three models considered, with substantial savings in both computation time and experimenter overhead.
Male use of chemical signals in sex discrimination of Hawaiian swordtail crickets (genus Laupala)

While the mate choice literature has focused primarily on the choices that females make, under certain circumstances males are expected to make mating decisions as well. Such circumstances include when males provide a significant energetic investment in a female or her offspring. Male orthopterans can invest considerable resources in females and have been studied for their mating investment decisions. However, while males provide acoustic information to females, females do not provide reciprocal acoustic information to males. Here, we tested the hypothesis that Laupala males use chemical signals to make mating decisions. We found that males and females have discernable differences in cuticular lipid expression when considering both whole-body and antennae-only extracts. Furthermore, access to the antennae alone resulted in males showing more courtship towards females and more aggressive behaviours towards males. Finally, males showed higher levels of association and courtship behaviour near female-exposed filter paper than they did near male-exposed and control filter paper. These results suggest that Laupala males use chemical signals when deciding whether to initiate courtship and open the possibility that chemical communication has played a role in the diversification of this genus.
Evaluating Social Comparison Targets

Social comparison is the process by which people establish, maintain, refine, or embellish their self-concepts. The early history of social comparison research emphasized the comparisons people select to evaluate their abilities and opinions (Latane, 1966). In particular, this research assessed whether people preferred to elucidate their performance outcomes by comparing with superior or inferior others. The emphasis on comparison selections as opposed to comparison outcomes derived from Festinger’s (1954) conjecture that people evaluate their abilities by comparing with targets who are similar to themselves.
Automatic solar panel recognition and defect detection using infrared imaging

Failure-free operation of solar panels is of fundamental importance for modern commercial solar power plants. To achieve higher power generation efficiency and longer panel life, a simple and reliable panel evaluation method is required. By using thermal infrared imaging, anomalies can be detected without having to incorporate expensive electrical detection circuitry. In this paper, we propose a solar panel defect detection system, which automates the inspection process and mitigates the need for manual panel inspection in a large solar farm. Infrared video sequences of each array of solar panels are first collected by an infrared camera mounted to a moving cart, which is driven from array to array in a solar farm. The image processing algorithm segments the solar panels from the background in real time, with only the height of the array (specified as the number of rows of panels in the array) being given as prior information to aid in the segmentation process. In order to “count” the number the panels within any given array, frame-to frame panel association is established using optical flow. Local anomalies in a single panel such as hotspots and cracks will be immediately detected and labeled as soon as the panel is recognized in the field of view. After the data from an entire array is collected, hot panels are detected using DBSCAN clustering. On real-world test data containing over 12,000 solar panels, over 98% of all panels are recognized and correctly counted, with 92% of all types of defects being identified by the system.