cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Numeric score‐based conditional and overall change‐in‐status indices for ordered categorical data

Planned interventions and/or natural conditions often effect change on an ordinal categorical outcome (e.g., symptom severity). In such scenarios, it is sometimes desirable to assign a priori scores to observed changes in status, typically giving higher weight to changes of greater magnitude. We define change indices for such data based upon a multinomial model for each row of a c × c table, where the rows represent the baseline status categories. We distinguish an index designed to assess conditional changes within each baseline category from two others designed to capture overall change. One of these overall indices measures expected change across a target population. The other is scaled to capture the proportion of total possible change in the direction indicated by the data, so that it ranges from −1 (when all subjects finish in the least favorable category) to +1 (when all finish in the most favorable category). The conditional assessment of change can be informative regardless of how subjects are sampled into the baseline categories. In contrast, the overall indices become relevant when subjects are randomly sampled at baseline from the target population of interest, or when the investigator is able to make certain assumptions about the baseline status distribution in that population. We use a Dirichlet-multinomial model to obtain Bayesian credible intervals for the conditional change index that exhibit favorable small-sample frequentist properties. Simulation studies illustrate the methods, and we apply them to examples involving changes in ordinal responses for studies of sleep deprivation and activities of daily living. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Schottky Barriers on GaAs

The forward current of Schottky barriers on n-type GaAs is investigated as a function of electron concentration in the range of 8×10^17 to 8×10^18 cm^−3 at temperatures 297-4.2°K. Both vacuum-cleaved and chemically polished surfaces are used. The majority of the junctions studied are gold Schottky barriers, but tin and lead contacts are also examined. The predominant current mechanism is field emission at liquid-nitrogen temperature and below for the range of electron concentrations used. These data are in excellent quantitative agreement at 77°K with the field-emission analysis of Padovani and Stratton if one uses a two-band model for the imaginary wave number kn. At 297°K, thermionic field emission predominates, but for an electron density above 3×1018 cm−3 the field-emission mechanism with a two-band model still gives reasonable agreement.
Environmental Justice, Native Rights, Tourism, and Opposition to Military Control: The Case of Kaho'olawe

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, pilots of American F-4 Phantom fighter-bombers training for the Vietnam War repeatedly swept down on targets placed on Kaho'olawe, the smallest of the eight major islands of the Hawaiian archipelago and the only one being used as a bombing range. Between 1968 and 1970, the warplanes dropped twenty-five hundred tons of bombs on Kaho'olawe; in the latter year alone, they bombarded the island for 315 days, solidifying its reputation as "the most bombed island in the Pacific." The American military had used Kaho'olawe as a target range since the 1930s, and even earlier, goats, sheep, cattle, and horses introduced by westerners had overgrazed the island, degrading its environment. The ground was severely eroded, and with much of its original vegetation gone, Kaho'olawe became home to alien plant species. Unexploded bombs made traveling on the island and fishing in nearby waters unsafe. Sediment carried to sea in runoffs killed nearshore reefs.
Harnessing Catastrophe to Promote Resource Recovery and Eco-industrial Development

Summary Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, causing widespread damage to industry, housing, and infrastructure. The area of New Orleans East was particularly devastated, including a cluster of industries, such as a major foodprocessing plant, manufacturing facilities, and bulk material and gas processors. Although this area was well suited for resource recovery and eco-industrial linkages, little progress has been made in implementation. This article explores New Orleans as a case study in the application of industrial ecology to disaster management. Hurricane Katrina’s damage to New Orleans resulted in a significant increase in the amount of waste flowing into New Orleans East, which precipitated a massive expenditure of federal funds toward debris management. Those circumstances created an unprecedented opportunity to capitalize a resource recovery program and to establish ecoindustrial relationships, both of which would have resulted in new jobs and environmental improvement. Yet straightforward opportunities for resource recovery and eco-industrial linkage were overlooked or dismissed, in spite of antilandfill activism from the environmental community and formal recommendations for recycling from scientists and other professionals. We describe the specific resource recovery and eco-industrial opportunities that were available to New Orleans East, especially those that were magnified by Hurricane Katrina, and analyze the barriers that prevented their actualization. We also provide recommendations for overcoming barriers to resource recovery and eco-industrial progress with the goal that future postcatastrophe scenarios may benefit from more effective use of relief and recovery funding.
OPTIMIZING LIGHT COLLECTION FROM THIN SCINTILLATORS USED IN A BETA-RAY CAMERA FOR SURGICAL USE

The authors are developing a 1-2 cm/sup 2/ area camera for imaging the distribution of beta-emitting radiopharmaceuticals at the surface of tissue exposed during surgery. The front end consists of a very thin continuous or segmented scintillator sensitive to betas (positrons or electrons) of a few hundred keV, yet insensitive to gamma rays. The light from the scintillator is piped through clear fibers to the photon detector (PD). This approach requires that a sufficient number of scintillation photons be transported from the scintillator, through the fibers to the PD. The scintillator, reflector, surface treatments, geometry, fiber light guides, and optical couplings must be optimized. The authors report here on efforts made to optimize the light collection from <3 mm thick plastic and CaF/sub 2/(Eu) scintillators into clear fibers using experimental measurements and computer simulations. The authors measured that with a 1.25 cm diameter, 0.5 mm thick optimized CaF/sub 2/(Eu) disk coupled to a 5 cm long bundle of clear optical fibers, on average, /spl sim/250 photoelectrons are produced at a PMT photocathode for a /sup 204/Tl beta flood source (E/sub max/=763 keV). This corresponds to a sufficient number of photoelectrons for <1 mm resolution imaging capabilities for the proposed camera.
Current 10-year atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease risk threshold for statin eligibility is cost-effective for primary prevention.

Commentary on: Pandya A, Sy S, Cho S, et al. Cost effectiveness of 10-year risk thresholds for initiation of statin therapy for primary prevention of cardiovascular disease. JAMA 2015;314: 142–50[OpenUrl][1][CrossRef][2][PubMed][3]. The American College of Cardiology American Heart Association (ACC/AHA) cholesterol guidelines replaced the National Cholesterol Education Program Adult Treatment Panel III (NCEP/ATP III) in 2013,1 a change that was accompanied by significant controversy.2 Notable among the criticisms was that the pooled cohort equations (PCE) overestimates risk and coupled with the relatively lenient risk threshold (10-year PCE ≥7.5%), would unnecessarily increase statin eligibility in the USA. The risk-benefit ratio and cost-effectiveness of this new approach, specifically for primary prevention, was questioned since statins (in addition to preventing cardiovascular disease (CVD) events) have known significant side effects. Pandya and colleagues examine the cost-effectiveness of 10-year risk thresholds for initiation of … [1]: {openurl}?query=rft.jtitle%253DJAMA%26rft.volume%253D314%26rft.spage%253D142%26rft_id%253Dinfo%253Adoi%252F10.1001%252Fjama.2015.6822%26rft_id%253Dinfo%253Apmid%252F26172894%26rft.genre%253Darticle%26rft_val_fmt%253Dinfo%253Aofi%252Ffmt%253Akev%253Amtx%253Ajournal%26ctx_ver%253DZ39.88-2004%26url_ver%253DZ39.88-2004%26url_ctx_fmt%253Dinfo%253Aofi%252Ffmt%253Akev%253Amtx%253Actx [2]: /lookup/external-ref?access_num=10.1001/jama.2015.6822&link_type=DOI [3]: /lookup/external-ref?access_num=26172894&link_type=MED&atom=%2Febmed%2F20%2F6%2F230.atom
Counterion Effects on Doublet Splittings of Chromium(III) Complexes

Splittings within the intraconfigurational doublet bands in d3 ions are sensitive to the exact metal-ligand angular geometry, but not very strongly affected by differences in the values of the ligand field splitting parameter, 10Dq, of the coordinating groups (Hoggard 1981, 1986). Since the transitions are, to the first approximation, within the \({\text{t}}_{\text{2g}}\) subshell, ligand eπ effects can be expected to dominate in determining the splittings, although we have found that eo + eπ is a better predictor of splittings calculated from a ligand field model including spin-orbit coupling (Hoggard 1981). Ligand pi anisotropy is another factor that can make large contributions to the doublet splittings, but can in principle be accounted for if the exact geometry is known (Hoggard 1986)
A Cartesian grid method for viscous incompressible flows with complex immersed boundaries

A CARTESIAN GRID -METHOD FOR VISCOUS INCOMPRESSIBLE FLOWS WITH COMPLEX IMMERSED BIOUNDAW’IES’ T. Ye’, R. Mittal* Department of Mechariictil Engineering University of Florida Gainesville, Florida, 32611 H. S. Udaykumafl and W. Shyy4 Department of Aerospace Engineering, Mechanics and Engineering Science University of Florida Gainesville, Florida. 32611 ABSTRACT A Cartesian-grid method has been developed for simulating unsteady, viscous, incompressible flows with complex immersed boundaries. A finite-volume method based on. a second-order accurate central-difference scheme is used in conjunction with a two-step fractional-step procedure. A new interpolation procedure for accurate discretization of the governing equation in cells that are’cut by immersed boundaries is presented which preserves the second-order spatial accuracy of the underlying solver. The convergence of the pressure Poisson equation is accelerated by using a preconditioned conjugate gradient method where the preconditioner takes advantage of the structured nature of the underlying mesh. The accuracy and fidelity of the solver is validated by simulating a number of canonical flows and the ability of the solver to simulate flows with very complicated immersed boundaries is demonstrated.
The Interaction of Measurement and Structure in Simultaneous Equation Models with Unobservable Variables

The authors report the results of some theoretical investigations of interactions that occur in the simultaneous estimation of parameters. Under the assumptions of a perfectly specified model for a set of non-overlapping indicators and no sampling fluctuations, an overall consistency criterion is developed showing that though measurement and structure can be evaluated independently of each other, in general, they should not be. The proposed consistency criterion clearly shows that the internal and external consistency criteria prescribed by Anderson and Gerbing are not sufficient; that is, there are correlation matrices for which the criteria of internal and external consistency both can be satisfied, yet the matrix as a whole is inconsistent. Implications of the interaction between measurement and structure are also discussed.
Electronic Phase Transitions of δ-AgxV2O5 Nanowires: Interplay between Geometric and Electronic Structures

Vanadium oxide bronzes, with the general formula MxV2O5, provide a wealth of compositions and frameworks where strong electron correlation can be systematically (albeit thus far only empirically) tuned. In this work, we report the synthesis of single-crystalline δ-Ag0.88V2O5 nanowires and unravel pronounced electronic phase transitions induced in response to temperature and applied electric field. Specifically, a pronounced semiconductor–semiconductor transition is evidenced for these materials at ca. 150 K upon heating, and a distinctive insulator–conductor transition is observed upon application of an in-plane voltage. An orbital-specific picture of the mechanistic basis of the phase transitions is proposed using a combination of density functional theory (DFT) and near-edge X-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS) spectroscopy. Structural refinements above and below the transition temperature, angle-resolved O K-edge NEXAFS spectra, and DFT calculations suggest that the electronic phase transitions in ...
A NEET Way to Impair Mitochondrial Function in α- and β-Cells.

Glucose homeostasis requires a carefully orchestrated balance between the release of insulin and glucagon by β- and α-cells, respectively, in pancreatic islets. During fasting, the rate of insulin secretion falls to slow glucose utilization, whereas that of glucagon secretion rises to promote gluconeogenesis, thereby preventing hypoglycemia. After a mixed meal, glucose stimulates insulin secretion while inhibiting glucagon secretion. This “yin and yang” pattern of β- and α-cell activation and inhibition is very important for the regulation of glucose homeostasis, and dysregulation of pancreatic hormones is a prominent feature of diabetes. It has been appreciated for some time that mitochondrial dysfunction is observed in the β-cells of patients with diabetes (1,2) and that mitochondrial DNA mutations in humans or targeted disruption of mitochondrial genome maintenance in mice are sufficient to drive β-cell dysfunction (3,4). However, the primary mitochondrial defects studied in β-cells to date have generally been severe, and neither the cause nor the consequences of the milder mitochondrial dysfunction observed in the majority of patients with diabetes have been firmly established. Moreover, the consequences of mitochondrial dysfunction in α-cells are relatively unexplored. In this issue of Diabetes , Kusminski et al. (5) introduce tetracycline-inducible expression mitochondrial protein mitoNEET in α- or β-cells as a model of graded mitochondrial dysfunction. MitoNEET (named for its COOH-terminal Asn-Glu-Glu-Thr amino acid sequence) is a mitochondrial outer membrane protein that is oriented toward the cytoplasm and binds iron–sulfur clusters (6,7). Its …
The rapid flow of cerebrospinal fluid from ventricles to cisterns via subarachnoid velae in the normal rat.

14C-sucrose in 0.5 µl of buffered saline was infused over 30 sec into one lateral ventricle, and its subsequent distribution was determined in brain, meninges, cerebral blood vessels, and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) by quantitative autoradiography. Within 3.5 min, infused radiotracer had moved into the third ventricle, the velum interpositum (an extension of the subarchnoid system that contains many blood vessels), the aqueduct, the mesencephalic and fourth ventricles, and the superior medullary velum (a part of the subarachnoid system that touches the mesencephalic and fourth ventricles). The CSF within both of these velae appears to empty into the quadrigeminal and ambient cisterns. Within 5 min radioactive sucrose was also found in the interpeduncular cistern. About 15% of the injected sucrose quickly left the ventricles and entered these large cisterns. In contrast to most CSF-brain interfaces, little sucrose moved from CSF into the medulla next to the lateral recesses and tissues such as the superior colliculus that lie adjacent to the large CSF cisterns. A thick, multilayered glia limitans visible on electron micrographs seemed to form a CSF-brain barrier at these interfaces. Some of the infused 14C-sucrose persisted in the perivascular spaces and walls of arteries and arterioles for more than 3.5 hr. These findings suggest that CSF may function to deliver various agents and factors to pial and parenchymal arteries and arterioles.
Involvement of aberrant cyclin-dependent kinase 5/p25 activity in experimental traumatic brain injury

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is associated with adverse effects on brain functions, including sensation, language, emotions and/or cognition. Therapies for improving outcomes following TBI are limited. A better understanding of the pathophysiological mechanisms of TBI may suggest novel treatment strategies to facilitate recovery and improve treatment outcome. Aberrant activation of cyclin-dependent kinase 5 (Cdk5) has been implicated in neuronal injury and neurodegeneration. Cdk5 is a neuronal protein kinase activated via interaction with its cofactor p35 that regulates numerous neuronal functions, including synaptic remodeling and cognition. However, conversion of p35 to p25 via Ca(2+) -dependent activation of calpain results in an aberrantly active Cdk5/p25 complex that is associated with neuronal damage and cell death. Here, we show that mice subjected to controlled cortical impact (CCI), a well-established experimental TBI model, exhibit increased p25 levels and consistently elevated Cdk5-dependent phosphorylation of microtubule-associated protein tau and retinoblastoma (Rb) protein in hippocampal lysates. Moreover, CCI-induced neuroinflammation as indicated by increased astrocytic activation and number of reactive microglia. Brain-wide conditional Cdk5 knockout mice (Cdk5 cKO) subjected to CCI exhibited significantly reduced edema, ventricular dilation, and injury area. Finally, neurophysiological recordings revealed that CCI attenuated excitatory post-synaptic potential field responses in the hippocampal CA3-CA1 pathway 24 h after injury. This neurophysiological deficit was attenuated in Cdk5 cKO mice. Thus, TBI induces increased levels of p25 generation and aberrant Cdk5 activity, which contributes to pathophysiological processes underlying TBI progression. Hence, selectively preventing aberrant Cdk5 activity may be an effective acute strategy to improve recovery from TBI. Traumatic brain injury (TBI) increases astrogliosis and microglial activation. Moreover, TBI deregulates Ca(2+) -homeostasis triggering p25 production. The protein kinase Cdk5 is aberrantly activated by p25 leading to phosphorylation of substrates including tau and Rb protein. Loss of Cdk5 attenuates TBI lesion size, indicating that Cdk5 is a critical player in TBI pathogenesis and thus may be a suitable therapeutic target for TBI.
Reduction in Spring Flow Threatens Rio Grande Silvery Minnow: Trends in Abundance during River Intermittency

AbstractHabitat fragmentation and changes in flow regime can structure fish assemblages, resulting in extirpations or invasions. A guild of freshwater stream fishes that spawn semi-buoyant, nonadhesive eggs directly in the water column are particularly susceptible to extirpation in fragmented streams. The pelagic broadcast-spawning Rio Grande Silvery Minnow Hybognathus amarus was listed as endangered in 1994 and has been intensely managed since. I used mean May flows and the number of times the channel dried within a year to predict numbers of Rio Grande Silvery Minnow captured in isolated pools in the Middle Rio Grande, New Mexico. Adult Rio Grande Silvery Minnow numbers increased as previous year’s mean May discharge increased, and generally decreased with each subsequent drying event. Similarly, numbers of young-of-year Rio Grande Silvery Minnow increased with increasing mean May discharge in the current year. However, young-of-year minnow were either very abundant or nearly absent in isolated pools, d...
A Brief History of Ethnography

Once largely the purview of anthropologists and sociologists, researchers in other disciplines have taken up ethnographic methods to delve into a variety of social groups and situations. Nurse ethnographers research topics such as the work of nurse practitioners in acute-care settings (Williamson et al., 2012), or nursing education (Malinsky et al., 2010), or nurses as agents of healing and social change in the midst of political revolution (Pine, 2013).
Conclusions and What’s Next for BiH

This chapter will discuss the future of education in BiH and the future of the country moving forward from 2015, from predominantly the author’s perspective. The central finding of this book is that education in BiH during the post-war era has reflected the divided state of Bosnian politics and society. Education in BiH has many challenges, and most solutions that have been attempted or discussed are impossible to enact due to local resistance by political elites who function in the ethnic cylinders created by the DPA.
Sustainability Theory and Conceptual Considerations: A Review of Key Ideas for Sustainability, and the Rural Context

Sustainability and sustainable development have become important concepts and goals across science and society. Sustainability, connected to desirable long-term conditions, is an inherently applied...
MNTP: Enhancing Time Synchronization for Mobile Devices

Clock synchronization between Internet hosts is important in a variety of applications including gaming, finance and measurement. While clock synchronization issues in wireline networks have been well studied, mobile hosts present challenges that have not received as much attention. In this paper, we describe a study of clock synchronization in mobile hosts, which often implement a simplified version of the Network Time Protocol (NTP), known as SNTP, due to resource constraints typical of mobile devices. We begin by reporting an analysis of logs from NTP servers that highlights the significant differences in synchronization behavior of wireline vs. wireless hosts. This analysis motivates a laboratory-based study of the details of clock synchronization on mobile hosts, which reveals the causes and extent to which synchronization can become misaligned. We then describe a new protocol that we call Mobile NTP (MNTP), which is designed to be simple, efficient and easy to deploy. We implement MNTP on a wireless laptop and demonstrate its capability over a range of operating conditions. We find that MNTP maintains clock synchronization to within 25ms of a reference clock, which is over 12 times better than standard SNTP.
Decaying relevance of clinical data towards future decisions in data-driven inpatient clinical order sets

Abstract Objective Determine how varying longitudinal historical training data can impact prediction of future clinical decisions. Estimate the " decay rate " of clinical data source relevance. Materials and methods We trained a clinical order recommender system, analogous to Netflix or Amazon's " Customers who bought A also bought B... " product recommenders, based on a tertiary academic hospital's structured electronic health record data. We used this system to predict future (2013) admission orders based on different subsets of historical training data (2009 through 2012), relative to existing human-authored order sets. Results Predicting future (2013) inpatient orders is more accurate with models trained on just one month of recent (2012) data than with 12 months of older (2009) data (ROC AUC 0.91 vs. 0.88, precision 27% vs. 22%, recall 52% vs. 43%, all P −10 ). Algorithmically learned models from even the older (2009) data was still more effective than existing human-authored order sets (ROC AUC 0.81, precision 16% recall 35%). Training with more longitudinal data (2009–2012) was no better than using only the most recent (2012) data, unless applying a decaying weighting scheme with a " half-life " of data relevance about 4 months. Discussion Clinical practice patterns (automatically) learned from electronic health record data can vary substantially across years. Gold standards for clinical decision support are elusive moving targets, reinforcing the need for automated methods that can adapt to evolving information. Conclusions and relevancm Prioritizing small amounts of recent data is more effective than using larger amounts of older data towards future clinical predictions.
On secondary ESD event monitoring and full-wave modeling methodology

An adjustable spark gap structure is designed to generate Secondary ESD. The primary and the secondary discharge current are directly measured. The setup is modelled using CST full-wave simulation software. The goal is to predict secondary ESD induced current levels using simulation methods, to assist designers in product development in the early design stage.
Implementation of an interdisciplinary care team to create individualized care plans for high risk oncology patients: A model to decrease aggressiveness of care at the end of life and improve cost effectiveness of care.

171Background: Due to complexity of disease and treatments, oncology patients have among the highest hospitalization rate, especially towards End of Life (EOL). In our cancer institute, just 6% of all discharged patients accounted for >40% of unplanned readmissions, and continue to be highest risk of future admissions, ICU stay, ED visits, overuse of chemotherapy and under use of hospice care. We hypothesized that developing individualized care plans (ICP) for this high-utilization group will provide guidance in the complex care they require to reduce unnecessary and aggressive medical services. Methods: An Interdisciplinary Care Team (ICT) was created consisting of palliative medicine and oncology physicians, social workers, care coordinators, and nurses. On a bimonthly basis, patients with at least two unplanned hospital readmissions over the last 60 days were identified. ICPs were created using a team-based approach with parallel input from patient’s primary outpatient providers. Results: A total of 36...
What are the predictors that can help identify safe removal of drains following pancreatectomy

Abstract Background The management of a drain after Pancreaticoduodenectomy (PD) and distal pancreatectomy (DP) remains a controversial issue. Our aim in this study was to identify a safe time for drain removal. Study Design This is a retrospective study, of a prospective database, of patients who underwent a PD or DP at two tertiary care institutions. Results A total of 180 patients underwent PD and DP during the observation period. Seventeen patients developed fistulas (9.4%), with 70.6% (n = 12) developing in soft pancreatic remnants vs. 29.4% (n = 5) in firm pancreatic remnants. Patients with amylase levels greater than 173 U/L on a postoperative day three were 11.46 times more likely to form a fistula compared to those with an amylase level at or below 173 U/L (p Conclusion Fistula formation is associated with pancreas texture, duct size, and drain amylase following PD or DP. Patients with firm pancreatic texture and large ducts are less likely to develop fistulas than those with soft pancreatic texture and small ducts.
Corals and Their Microbiomes Are Differentially Affected by Exposure to Elevated Nutrients and a Natural Thermal Anomaly

Nutrient pollution can increase the prevalence and severity of coral disease and bleaching in ambient temperature conditions or during experimental thermal challenge. However, there have been few opportunities to study the effects of nutrient pollution during natural thermal anomalies. Here we present results from an experiment conducted during the 2014 bleaching event in the Florida Keys, USA, that exposed Agaricia sp. (Undaria) and Siderastrea siderea corals to 3 types of elevated nutrients: nitrogen alone, phosphorous alone, and the combination of nitrogen and phosphorus. Overall, bleaching prevalence and severity was high regardless of treatment, but nitrogen enrichment alone both prolonged bleaching and increased coral mortality in Agaricia corals. At the same time, the elevated temperatures increased the prevalence of Dark Spot Syndrome (DSS), a disease typically associated with cold temperatures in Siderastrea siderea corals. However, nutrient exposure alone did not increase the prevalence or severity of disease, suggesting that thermal stress overwhelms the effects of nutrient pollution on this disease during such an extreme thermal event. Analysis of 85 Siderastrea siderea microbial metagenomes also showed that the thermal event was correlated with significant shifts in the composition and function of the associated microbiomes, and corals with DSS had microbiomes distinct from apparently healthy corals. In particular, we identified shifts in viral, archaeal, and fungal families. These shifts were likely driven by the extreme temperatures or other environmental co-variates occurring during the 2014 bleaching event. However, no microbial taxa were correlated with signs of DSS. Furthermore, although nutrient exposure did not affect microbial alpha diversity, it did significantly affect microbiome beta-diversity, an effect that was independent of time. These results suggest that strong thermal anomalies and local nutrient pollution both interact and act independently to alter coral health in a variety of ways, that ultimately contribute to disease, bleaching, and mortality of reefs in the Florida Keys.
Rapid Peptide Mapping and Protein Analysis by HPLC

Peptide mapping by reversed phase high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) has become a powerful technique that is widely applied in the structural analysis of proteins. Current methods employ columns packed with 5 to 10 µm macroporous alkyl silica sorbents and gradient elution with increasing organic solvent concentration in the eluent. Recent efforts in further development of the technique are aimed at increasing its sensitivity (Kalghatgi et al 1988, Lu et al 1986, Stone et al, 1986, Wilson et al 1986). Peptide mapping is also employed for analysis of purity and quality control of proteins produced by r-DNA technology and thus, finds applications in routine industrial analyses (Hancock 1986; Borman 1987). Recent reports from our laboratory described the use of short columns packed with 2 µm micropellicular stationary phase for rapid analysis of proteins and peptides at elevated column temperature (Kalghatgi et al 1987,1988, Maa et al 1988). As a result, the analysis can be completed in a few minutes or even in seconds. The high speed and efficiency thus obtained is associated with the pellicular configuration of the stationary phase, which allows rapid mass transfer of the eluate between the mobile phase and the sorbent, and to the use of elevated temperature which permits relatively high flow velocities of the mobile phase due to its lower viscosity. In this report we highlight main features of this approach based on the use of micropellicular reversed phase columns at elevated temperature to rapid HPLC that requires much shorter analysis times than the conventional techniques and expand its applications in protein analysis and peptide mapping.
Diversity among Modern Tomato Genotypes at Different Levels in Fresh-Market Breeding

Cultivated tomato has been in existence for about 400 years and breeding activities have been conducted for only eight decades. However, more than 10,000 tomato cultivars have already been developed. Ninety-one tomato genotypes were characterized for twenty-one morphological traits using developmental, vegetative, and fruit traits. Correlation, principal component, and cluster analysis between the traits were carried out. Higher correlations between fruit traits including fruit shape, fruit size, and fruit types were observed. These correlations indicate that specific fruit types require specific traits like branched inflorescence and a greater number of fruits per inflorescence are beneficial only for smaller fruit sizes like cherry and grape tomatoes. Contrastingly, traits like determinate growth habit and fruit maturity are preferred in all fruit types of tomato for better cultivation practices and longer production duration and hence showed lower correlations. Principal component analysis clustered tomato genotypes into three main clusters with multiple subgroups. Similar tomato genotypes were placed into one or more clusters confirming the results from correlation analysis. Involvement of private breeding programs in cultivar development has increased the competition on introgression of novel and desired traits across new cultivars. Understanding the diversity present in modern cultivars and potential traits identification in related wild species can enhance tomato diversity and improve quality and production.
Modeling Team-Development Lifecycle in Public Administration Courses

AbstractDuring the course of their academic experience, public administration students are expected to work as teams in order to complete projects and embrace a team-based philosophy for addressing...
Introduction and Overview: Principles of Reoperative Pelvic Surgery

For the abdominal surgeon, few situations pose greater potential difficulties than reoperative pelvic surgery. These challenges range from the surprisingly (relatively) easy, for example, refixation of recurrent rectal prolapse, to the nearly impossible, such as the frozen pelvis with complex chronic sepsis from a leaked low rectal anastomosis. This overview deals with reoperation for intestinal complications.
Residual bacterial contamination on reusable pulse oximetry sensors.

Background An early study demonstrated that standard cleaning techniques did not adequately disinfect reusable pulse oximetry sensors that had been intentionally contaminated with high titers of pathogenic microorganisms. This current study evaluated patient-ready sensors being used in hospitals, by testing them for bacterial contamination. Methods Reusable pulse oximetry sensors from 15 hospitals throughout the United States were tested. Each sensor was deemed by the hospital to be ready for patient use, and it had been prepared for use according to hospital procedures. Patient-contact areas of each sensor were swabbed, and the swabs were analyzed for bacterial contamination using standard testing procedures. This study had two stages, and different sensors were tested in each stage. In the "bacterial-growth stage," swabs were evaluated for bacterial contamination but organisms were not identified; in the "identification stage," bacterial species were identified. Results Forty-four sensors were evaluated, 16 in the bacterial-growth stage and 28 in the identification stage. Bacteria were cultured from 29 of the 44 sensors (66%), including 20 that had been cleaned with alcohol or an antibacterial/antiviral agent. Among the isolated organisms were Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus haemolyticus, Enterococcus faecalis, and Klebsiella oxytoca. Bacterial contamination was found on sensors from 12 of the 15 participating hospitals. Conclusions These data demonstrate the need to define effective cleaning methods for reusable sensors, and we are currently conducting such studies. The data also suggest that disposable patient-dedicated sensors may be the most appropriate choice when infection control is of particular concern.
Chapter 11 – Mitigation of Distortion in Large Additive Manufacturing Parts✶

Distortion mitigation techniques for large parts constructed by Additive Manufacturing (AM) processes are investigated. Unwanted distortion accumulated during deposition is a common problem encountered in AM processes. The proposed strategies include depositing equal material on each side of a substrate to balance the bending moment about the neutral axis of the workpiece and applying heat to straighten the substrate. Small finite element (FE) models are used to predict the effectiveness of the mitigation strategies in order to reduce computation time and to avoid costly experiments. The strategy of adding sacrificial material is shown to be most effective and is then applied to the manufacture of a large electron beam deposited part consisting of several thousand deposition passes. The deposition strategy is shown to reduce the maximum longitudinal bending distortion in the large AM part by 91%. The small FE models accurately predict the distortion mitigation achieved from the manufacture of the large part. Experimental observations made here, as well as FE model results, suggest that the order in which the balancing material is added significantly affects the success of the proposed distortion mitigation strategy.
FDA regulatory approach to steviol glycosides

Stevia rebaudiana (Bertoni) Bertoni, commonly known as stevia, is a plant native to South America that has been cultivated for hundreds of years. In 1995, FDA revised its import alert on stevia leaves and extracts to allow for their use as dietary ingredients in dietary supplements. In 2007, the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives established a safe level of intake and specifications for steviol glycosides that included a minimum purity of 95% of seven named steviol glycosides. In 2008, FDA responded without questions to a Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) notice for the use of highly purified steviol glycosides obtained from stevia leaves as a general purpose sweetener in food. Due to the existing import alert, FDA filed, evaluated, and has not objected to more than 50 GRAS notices for the use of various high-purity steviol glycosides as sweeteners in food. In this paper, we highlight FDA's practices for filing and evaluating GRAS notices for steviol glycosides. We also provide a summary of the data and information presented in GRAS notices for steviol glycosides in the GRAS Notification program. FDA has received a new wave of GRAS notices that include alternative biotechnological methods for production of steviol glycosides.
REPT: reverse debugging of failures in deployed software

Debugging software failures in deployed systems is important because they impact real users and customers. However, debugging such failures is notoriously hard in practice because developers have to rely on limited information such as memory dumps. The execution history is usually unavailable because high-fidelity program tracing is not affordable in deployed systems.In this paper, we present REPT, a practical system that enables reverse debugging of software failures in deployed systems. REPT reconstructs the execution history with high fidelity by combining online lightweight hardware tracing of a program's control flow with offline binary analysis that recovers its data flow. It is seemingly impossible to recover data values thousands of instructions before the failure due to information loss and concurrent execution. REPT tackles these challenges by constructing a partial execution order based on timestamps logged by hardware and iteratively performing forward and backward execution with error correction.We design and implement REPT, deploy it on Microsoft Windows, and integrate it into WinDbg. We evaluate REPT on 16 real-world bugs and show that it can recover data values accurately (92% on average) and efficiently (in less than 20 seconds) for these bugs. We also show that it enables effective reverse debugging for 14 bugs.
High Efficiency Photon Sieves by Laser Direct Writing

We show that photon sieve focusing efficiencies can be increased 7-fold without sacrificing contrast. Such sieves can be fabricated via standard laser direct writing techniques. By optimizing laser parameters, near diffraction limited performance is demonstrated.
Teaching Observational Data Collection to Early Childhood Preservice Educators

Making data-based decisions is a pervasive expectation for educators and is linked to improved outcomes for students. Observational data collection for progress monitoring, in particular, can help ...
Math and Technology Leadership Academy: Impact on Mathematics Teacher Sense of Efficacy

The Math and Technology Leadership Academy (MTLA) was a three-year initiative awarded by Toyota USA Foundation to advance elementary teachers’ instructional techniques in mathematics, leadership, and technology. Over the three years, fourteen teacher participants of grade levels spanning from kindergarten through sixth grade engaged in three mathematics pedagogy courses and monthly seminars. Teacher participants then implemented the innovative math strategies into their classrooms. This paper will discuss the design of MTLA and the research plan and results. The study found significant results from the Mathematics Teaching Efficacy Beliefs Instrument (MTEBI) in the Self-Efficacy construct. After three years of participation in MTLA, the teachers in the MTLA demonstrated significantly higher self-efficacy than their control teacher of elementary mathematics; however, both groups of teachers demonstrated similar beliefs about outcomes expectations or the belief that effective mathematics instruction can affect student learning outcomes.
Parametric and Nonparametric Statistics for Sample Surveys and Customer Satisfaction Data.

The book belongs to the series of “SpringerBriefs in Statistics” and is devoted to presenting the specific models developed for rating and ranking scales widely used, particularly, in customer sati...
Volcan: System Integration of HLS and HMC on FPGAs

High-Level Synthesis (HLS) is a process that translates traditional software languages (C/C++/Java) into either a hardware description language representation or a netlist representation that, ultimately, can be implemented on an FPGA device, for example. The original goal was to make advanced computing accelerators accessible to embedded computing systems programmers. However, the technology has attracted the interest of high-performance computing (HPC) programmers as well. This would be a huge benefit because labor statistics suggest that every year 10x as many software programmers graduate for every hardware designer [1]. However, HPC programmers use large in-core datasets versus the transient, streaming data sets that are common in embedded systems. Looking forward, it is appropriate to explore the behavior of HLS with next-generation memory technologies, like the Hybrid Memory Cube (HMC).
Conductive polymers

There appears to be a steady increase in the number of publications dealing with the electronic properties of organic solids in general. Conductive polymers are of particular interest since they are expected to have better mechanical properties, and are thus more suitable for technical applications, than the monomeric conducting organic materials which are mainly micro crystalline or amorphous solids.
Mechanically Programmable, Degradable & Ingestible Soft Actuators

One of the key challenges in soft robotics is the development of actuators which are truly soft and compliant, and can be adapted and tailored for different applications. In particular, the development of untethered soft actuators could enable robots to autonomously explore the world in an unrestricted manner, exploiting their compliant behavior. In this paper we present a method for creating fully soft, degradable actuators where the actuation of the system is controlled by setting physical parameters which ‘mechanically program’ the actuator determining the characteristics of the actuator. The actuation process is driven by the release of gas from a reaction between a bio-compatible acid and base. This approach allows for the creation of fully untethered actuators which could be deployed for use in agriculture, to make ingestible robots or to allow untethered exploration. This paper provides the ‘recipes’ for the development of the actuators used, and the methods for mechanically programming of the actuators.
A Cell-Type-Specific Defect in Assembly of Influenza A Virus Particles in Primary Human Macrophages

The primary target of Influenza A virus (IAV) is epithelial cells in the respiratory tract. In contrast to epithelial cells, productive virus infection of most IAV strains is either completely blocked or highly inefficient in macrophages. The exact nature of the defect in IAV replication that leads to inefficient production of progeny virus particles in human macrophages remains to be determined. In this study, we showed that primary human monocyte-derived macrophages (MDM) are inefficient in IAV release even when compared to a macrophage-like cell line, despite comparable levels of viral protein translation and expression of viral glycoproteins at the plasma membrane. Correlative fluorescence scanning electron microscopy revealed that formation of budding structures at the cell surface is inefficient in MDM even though clustering of a viral glycoprotein, hemagglutinin (HA), is observed, suggesting that a step in the assembly process is blocked in this cell type. Using an in situ proximity ligation assay, we further determined that association between HA and the viral ion channel protein M2 is defective in MDM. In contrast, HA and another glycoprotein neuraminidase (NA) associate with each other on the MDM surface efficiently. Altogether, our study shows that association between HA with M2 on the plasma membrane is a discrete step in the IAV assembly process, which is separable from the association between HA with NA. Overall, our study lends key insights into cell-type-specific molecular events important for completion of IAV assembly in host cells.
Changes in Gender Stereotypes Over Time: A Computational Analysis:

We combined established psychological measures with techniques in machine learning to measure changes in gender stereotypes over the course of the 20th century as expressed in large-scale historica...
The electron affinity of the uranium atom

The results of a combined experimental and computational study of the uranium atom are presented with the aim of determining its electron affinity. Experimentally, the electron affinity of uranium was measured via negative ion photoelectron spectroscopy of the uranium atomic anion, U−. Computationally, the electron affinities of both thorium and uranium were calculated by conducting relativistic coupled-cluster and multi-reference configuration interaction calculations. The experimentally determined value of the electron affinity of the uranium atom was determined to be 0.309 ± 0.025 eV. The computationally predicted electron affinity of uranium based on composite coupled cluster calculations and full four-component spin–orbit coupling was found to be 0.232 eV. Predominately due to a better convergence of the coupled cluster sequence for Th and Th−, the final calculated electron affinity of Th, 0.565 eV, was in much better agreement with the accurate experimental value of 0.608 eV. In both cases, the ground state of the anion corresponds to electron attachment to the 6d orbital.
Simulating coxsackievirus B3 infection with an accessible computational model of its complete kinetics.

We describe how to use a publicly available computational model for coxsackievirus B3 (CVB3) infection that we recast as a graphical user interface (GUI). The GUI-based implementation enables non-computationalists to incorporate systems-biology modeling into their research and teaching. The model simulates the full life cycle of CVB3, including the host antiviral response, and includes 44 alterable parameters. The model simplifies some viral life cycle processes to improve interpretability and utility when performing in silico experiments. For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Lopacinski et al. (2021).
The Transition Economies

With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, fifteen nations emerged to join the international economy. The Soviet Union had been a military power and one of the major producers of the world economy, and the successor states were expected to follow in its geopolitical footsteps. Four of the new nations (Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine) were nuclear powers. Each nation inherited the trained labor and production facilities left on its territory by the Soviet Union’s demise. While a transition period was expected before the sum of the parts once again equaled -- and then surpassed -- the whole, this period was expected to be short