cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Transition planning for youth with traumatic brain injury: findings from the National Longitudinal Transition Survey-2.

BACKGROUND Despite of a growing body of research on vocational and educational difficulties for students with traumatic brain injury (TBI), only limited empirical studies specifically examined how school transition services facilitate later employment outcomes. OBJECTIVE This exploratory, prospective longitudinal study examined the prevalence of employment and characteristics of transition planning practices that promoted positive school-to-work transition for students with TBI. METHOD The participants (n = 200) was drawn from the National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 (NLTS-2), a ten-year study which followed a large nationally representative sample of youth with disabilities through secondary education in into young adulthood. Logistic regression was used to investigate the associations between student, school, and collaborative engagement in the planning process and employment outcomes up to 8 years after high school. RESULTS Among youth with TBI, 51% held current employment at the time of interview and 73% had been employed at any time after high school. Findings showed that students with TBI who had transition goals for postsecondary education were more likely to be employed at some point since leaving high school. The findings also support active student engagement and leadership in the transition planning process, and the inclusion of outside organizations and individuals. CONCLUSIONS Findings indicate the impact of student, school and adult service agency engagement in transition planning processes. Implications for educational practices and future research are discussed.
Inter‐Indigenous development aid: markets, corporations, and biases

The Canadian government and the Meadow Lake Tribal Council sponsored a forest extraction corporation in eastern Nicaragua that restructured 16 Miskitu and Mayangna villages and transformed local human-environment interactions. The Central American aid project demonstrated paternalistic and interventionist tendencies and exposed biases in inter-Indigenous aid that rendered it inseparable from conventional aid. This case encourages reflection on social and ecological impacts from the marketing of collective resources, the creation of Indigenous development corporations, and the decision-making criteria and processes driving foreign aid. The case study demonstrates how foreign aid programs targeting Indigenous Peoples may actually thwart the self-determination that they set out to encourage. Aid agencies and business partners, who had limited knowledge of local cultures and institutions, created externally defined rules that instigated resource conflicts and undermined the authority of customary leaders without resolving poverty or uneven development. L’aide au developpement entre indigenes : Marches, societes, et prejuges A l’est du Nicaragua, seize villages Miskitu et Mayangna ont ete restructures par une societe forestiere parrainee par le gouvernement canadien et le Meadow Lake Tribal Council, ce qui a entraine des transformations des institutions locales et des interactions homme-environnement. En Amerique centrale, ce projet d’aide internationale a fait decouvrir des tendances paternalistes et interventionnistes et revele des prejuges qui empechent de distinguer l’aide entre indigenes de l’aide conventionnelle. Cette etude de cas motive une reflexion a propos des effets sociaux et ecologiques de la commercialisation des ressources collectives, de la creation de corporations indigenes pour le developpement, et des criteres de decision lies a l’assistance transnationale pour le developpement. Elle montre comment l’aide etrangere qui cible les peuples autochtones peut compromettre leur autonomie, alors meme qu’elle vise a l’encourager. Les agences d’aide et les partenaires d’affaires, qui ont une connaissance limitee des cultures locales et des institutions, ont applique des regles definies de l’exterieur, ce qui a provoque des conflits de ressources et sape l’autorite des leaders traditionnels, sans resoudre les problemes de pauvrete et d’inegalite de developpement.
MUTANT TRYPTOPHAN APOREPRESSORS WITH ALTERED SPECIFICITIES OF COREPRESSOR RECOGNITION

The Escherichia coli trpR gene encodes tryptophan aporepressor, which binds the corepressor ligand, L-tryptophan, to form an active repressor complex. The side chain of residue valine 58 of Trp aporepressor sits at the bottom of the corepressor (L-tryptophan) binding pocket. Mutant trpR genes encoding changes of Val58 to the other 19 naturally occurring amino acids were made. Each of the mutant proteins requires a higher intracellular concentration of tryptophan for activation of DNA binding than wild-type aporepressor. Whereas wild-type aporepressor is activated better by 5-methyltryptophan (5-MT) than by tryptophan, Ile58 and other mutant aporepressors prefer tryptophan to 5-MT as corepressor, and Ala58 and Gly58 prefer 5-MT much more strongly than wild-type aporepressor in vivo. These mutant aporepressors are the first examples of DNA-binding proteins with altered specificities of cofactor recognition.
Results of conservative surgery and radiation therapy for multiple synchronous cancers of one breast

A small number of patients with early stage breast cancer are found on presentation to have two or more separate carcinomas within the breast. To assess the effectiveness of conservative surgery and radiation therapy in these patients we compared treatment outcome among 10 patients with multiple lesions (21 cancers) and 707 patients with single lesions, treated at the Joint Center for Radiation Therapy between 1968-1981. Median follow-up was 64 months and 75 months for the multiple and single lesion groups, respectively. In each patient with multiple lesions, both (or all 3) lesions had similar histologic features. Eight of these ten patients (80%) had an infiltrating ductal carcinoma (IDC) compared to 72% of patients with single lesions. Six of these 8 patients with IDC had at least 1 lesion with an extensive intraductal component (EIC), compared to a 33% incidence of an EIC in solitary lesions. All lesions were grossly excised. Radiotherapy was given to the entire breast in all patients, with the majority also receiving a boost dose to the tumor bed site. Four of the 10 patients with multiple lesions recurred in the treated breast (40%) compared to 77 of the 707 patients (11%) with single lesions (p = 0.019, Fisher exact test). In the six patients with multiple lesions who had an EIC, three developed a local failure. In comparison, 43 of 167 patients (26%) with a single lesion with EIC developed a local failure. In patients with multiple lesions, 0 of 2 with IDC without an EIC, and 1 of 2 with histologies other than IDC had recurrence in the treated breast compared to 19 of the 342 (6%) and 15 of the 198 (8%) patients with single lesions with similar histologic features, respectively (p = NS). These results suggest that the presence of 2 or more separate primary tumors in the breast is associated with a high likelihood of local recurrence after treatment with conservative surgery and radiation therapy, even when all identified tumors are grossly resected. This may reflect the common finding of an EIC in these tumors. We conclude that the use of conservative surgery and radiation therapy for patients with more than one primary cancer in the breast should be considered with caution.
Proportional loading of thick-walled cylinders

Abstract A generalized solution for small plastic deformation of thick-walled cylinders subjected to internal pressure and proportional axial loading is developed. The solution has been shown to reduce to the well-known Lame's elastic solution and Nadai's general plane strain solution under appropriate assumptions. The influence of proportionality factor (ratio of axial strain to hoop strain) and hardening exponent on the induced strain, deformation fields and thickness reduction is systematically investigated. The formulation yields a singularity when the axial strain to hoop strain ratio is equal to ‘−2’. Based on the employed material parameters, power law constitutive model and proportionality factor, the maximum effective stress may occur at either the inside or outside of a tube shell. An equation to estimate ultimate internal pressure based on proportionality factor, material properties and tube geometry was derived. It is shown that maximum thickening occurs when the proportionality factor approaches ‘−2’.
Scalable and energy efficient data dissemination in wireless sensor networks

Data dissemination in wireless sensor networks is a key problem that acts as a bottleneck to its wide application in real world. In this paper, a novel data dissemination scheme ? logarithmic spiral data dissemination (LSDD) ? is proposed. In LSDD, data advertisements are disseminated following a parametric spiral-like path, which involves only a small fraction of nodes in a dense sensor network. By exploiting the nice feature of spiral, the scheme scales well for large sensor networks while saving much energy in the data dissemination process. By both numerical analysis and simulations, we show the distinct merits of LSDD as lower dissemination cost, better scalability, and better fault tolerance when compared to flooding-based schemes.
Early versus late dexamethasone treatment in preterm infants at risk for chronic lung disease: a randomized pilot study.

The purpose of this controlled, prospective pilot study was to compare the short-and long-term efficacy of early versus late treatment with dexamethasone (Dex) in preterm infants at risk for chronic lung disease (CLD). Thirty ventilated premature infants with a birth weight ≤ 1250 g were randomized to receive Dex either from day 7 or from day 14. Dex was administered over 16 days tapering from 0.5 mg/kg per day to 0.1 mg/kg per day. The infants of the early treatment group could be weaned significantly earlier from the ventilator – after 14 days (median; range 9–24) versus 24 days (median; range 8–44) in the late treatment group. The need for supplemental oxygen was shorter if Dex was started early – 24 days (median; range 10–57) versus 40 days (median; range 10–74). Oxygen dependency at 28 days of age was similar between the groups – 6 out of 14 infants (42.9%) versus 10 out of 16 patients (62.5%).
The Equivalence of Three Statistical Packages for Performing Hierarchical Cluster Analysis.

Three different software programs which contain hierarchical agglomerative cluster analysis procedures were shown to generate different solutions on the same data set using apparently the same options. The basis for the differences in the solutions was the formulae used to calculate Euclidean distance. Users of statistical software were warned of terminological confusion concerning cluster analysis.
Sven Beckert, The Monied Metropolis: New York City and the Consolidation of the American Bourgeoisie, 1850–1896. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. 492 pp. $35.00 cloth; $22.00 paper.

When New York's World Trade Center was destroyed on September 11, 2001, the reverberations of the attack highlighted the city's enormous importance to the nation's economic, political, cultural, and social life. How New York City came to function as both the symbolic and actual “capitol” of American capital is a story that has been researched and written about from many different angles. Good history always contains one or both of two elements: either a corrective to accepted historical knowledge or the filling of a void in the historical record. Sven Beckert attempts both elements and succeeds. Beckert fills the historical void with a comprehensive analysis of the formation of a diverse urban merchant and industrial sector into a class, the bourgeoisie of the title. His goal is to provide “an adequate study of the political attitudes of northern industrialists” (11). He provides his corrective by showing how this class coalesced around social and cultural issues, avoiding a purely economic explanation. While steering clear of American exceptionalism, Beckert illustrates what is unique in New York's bourgeois class formation and explains its vital role in the history of the city and of the nation.
First European GaN Workshop (EGW-1)

Abstract The preparations for the First European GaN Workshop are complete. A full complement of roughly 100 invited scientific participants and an additional 25 exhibitors will convene at the Swiss Alp mountaintop resort of Rigi this June 2–4 to discuss the rapidly moving field of the GaN-based semiconductors. Full and up to date information for attendees and those interested in the concurrent vendor exhibition is available at http://www.zurich.ibm.com/pub/Other/EGW-1.
The SSX gene family: characterization of 9 complete genes

Human SSX genes comprise a gene family with 6 known members. SSX1, 2 and 4 have been found to be involved in the t(X;18) translocation characteristically found in all synovial sarcomas. Four (SSX1, 2, 4 and 5) are known to be expressed in a subset of tumors and testis, and anti-SSX antibodies have been found in sera from cancer patients. SSX antigens are thus typical cancer-testis (CT) antigens. To identify additional SSX family members, we isolated and characterized human genomic clones homologous to a prototype SSX cDNA. We also searched public databases for sequences similar to SSX. This identified 3 additional SSX genes, SSX7, 8, 9, and also completed the sequence of the formerly partially defined SSX6 gene. In addition to these novel SSX genes, several SSX pseudogenes were identified. With the exception of 1 pseudogene, all SSX genomic SSX sequences map to chromosome X. Among normal tissues, SSX7 mRNA was present only in testis, whereas SSX6, 8 and 9 were not detected in any normal tissue. SSX6 and 7 were expressed in 1 of 9 melanoma cell lines tested, whereas SSX8 and 9 expression was not detected in any tumor tissue or cell lines tested. SSX1, 2, 4 and 5 mRNA expression can be induced in cell lines by 5-aza-2-deoxycytidine or Trichostatin A. These agents also induce SSX6, but not SSX3, 7, 8 or 9 in the tumor cell lines tested, indicating that mechanisms other than methylation or histone acetylation may be responsible for the repressed state of some SSX genes.
Energy detector's performance evaluation in a relay based cognitive radio network: Area under the ROC curve (AUC) approach

In this paper, energy detector's performance is analyzed for the two-hop relay network using the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC) in contrast to the ROC based analysis. AUC provides summary measures for the performance of a system. It provides meaningful performance analysis as it varies only from 0.5 to 1. In the worst case scenario, the practical detector's performance can be no less than 0.5 and the best can be 1. A simple generalized AUC framework is developed based on the canonical series representations of the generalized Marcum Q-function of real order in conjunction with the kth order derivative of the moment generating function (MGF) of signal to noise ratio (SNR) of the channel. The framework is then applied to analyze the energy-detection performance for single and multiple two-hop relay networks. For multiple two-hop relay networks, the receiver combining techniques are analyzed in particular maximum ratio combining (MRC) and square-law combining (SLC) as the representative of various combining techniques. Different factors such as the sampling number, number of relays and fading severity influencing the energy sensing have been analyzed. Proposed approach is simple in terms of computation and performance analysis and the results can be used readily for selecting proper cognitive radio operating parameters. Also the solution is capable of handling the half odd-integer bandwidth-time product (u) and the half odd-integer Nakagami-m fading severity index (m).
Applying Information Technology to Financial Statement Analysis for Market Capitalization Prediction

Determining which attributes may be employed for predicting the market capitalization of a business firm is a challenging task which may benefit from research intersecting principles of accounting and finance with information technology. In our approach, information technology in the form of decision trees and genetic algorithms is applied to fundamental financial statement data in order to support the decision making process for predicting the direction of the value of a company with value defined as the market capitalization. The decision process differs from year to year; however, the amount of variation is crucial to a successful decision making process. The research question posed is “how much variation occurs between years?” We hypothesize the amount of variation is smaller than half the number of financial statement attributes that may be employed in the decision making process. We develop a system which tests the amount of variation between years measured as the amount of generations required to reach a target level of fitness. The hypothesis is tested using data filtered from Compustat’s global database. The results support the research hypothesis and advance us toward answering the research question. The implications of this research are the possibility to improve the decision process when employing financial statement analysis as applied to the market capitalization and financial valuation of business firms.
Fat homeomorphisms and unbounded derivate containers

Abstract We generalize local and global inverse function theorems to continuous transformations in R n , replacing nonexistent derivatives by set-valued “unbounded derivate containers.” We also construct and study unbounded and ordinary derivate containers, including extensions of generalized Jacobians.
Analysis of Core Buckling Defects in Sheet Metal Coil Processing

The elastic stability of a wound coil comprising a central core and many layers of sheet metal is modeled and analyzed. A common failure mode resulting from unfavorable internal stresses-called v-buckling-is characterized by a section of the core buckling inward, possibly with several nearby sheet metal layers. In the present study, the core is modeled as a thin cylinder that is subjected to (i) the uniform external pressure generated by the coil's wound-in stresses and (ii) a nonuniform elastic foundation around its circumference that represents core-coil contact or loss thereof The model and an iterative numerical technique are used to predict the critical winding pressure along the core-coil interface and the core 's ensuing buckled shape. The role of geometric imperfection in the core, and the sensitivity of the buckling pressure to such initial defects, are also examined. Critical imperfection wavenumbers that facilitate the onset of significant deformations are identified with a view toward applying the results to improve quality and core inspection procedures. The predicted buckling pressure and the maximum radial stress developed in the coil, as based on a nonlinear stress model, are together used to determine factors of safety against core buckling over a range of manufacturing process parameters. Three case studies evaluate sensitivity with respect to process tension, core radius, and core thickness. The results are intended to guide the development of solutions to control the stability and quality of coils in sheet metal manufacturing.
Relationship of soil properties to parent material and landscape position in eastern Madre de Dios, Peru

Abstract Properties of soils in the eastern part of Madre de Dios, Peru, were characterized and related to landscape position and parent material texture. Level uplands, dissected side slopes and recent flood plains dominate the topography in this region. Soil textures vary from clayey to sandy, depending on the texture of sedimentary materials from which each pedon formed. Parent material textural variation is a result of differences in the energy of the meandering rivers that deposited the ancient alluvium. Fourteen soil profiles were described and sampled in the field and analyzed in the laboratory. Data for eight soil profiles representative of the region are presented here. The profiles include soils formed in both sandy and fine-textured parent materials and soils with moisture status ranging from well drained to poorly drained. Soil moisture conditions vary with position on the landscape, such that as distance from streams increases, average depth to the fluctuating water table decreases. Redoximorphic features are present in all mineral soils. The average depth to redoximorphic features is least in locations furthest from streams. Soils in landscape positions that are poorly or somewhat poorly drained contain significant amounts of plinthite. In all soils, kaolinite is the dominant mineral in the
QDC sum rules for V — A spectral functions

Abstract The Borel transformation technique of Shifman et al. is used to obtain QCD sum rules for V — A spectral functions. In contrast to the situation in the original Weinberg sum rules and those of Bernard et al., the problem of saturating the sum rules by low lying resonances is brought under control. Furthermore, the present sum rules, on saturation, directly determine useful phenomenological parameters.
Mercury's rotation period - Photographic confirmation.

Mercury rotation period determination by surface photography, correcting earlier interpretation
In the Event of Learning: Alienation and Participative Thinking in Education

This essay begins with Karl Marx's notion of alienation, and then explores a form of alienation specific to education. It examines Mikhail Bakhtin's treatment of alienation in connection with his participative thinking theory and suggests strategies for overcoming educational alienation that are based on Bakhtin's notion of the “eventness of Being.” The essay addresses the limitations of liberal and conservative critiques of education, both of which tend to ignore forms of alienation characteristic of modern schooling regardless of the issues of educational equity and efficiency. The author proposes that we can overcome the problem of event deficiency in our schools by paying serious attention to the nonacademic side of school life.
On the mechanism of photoreactivation of ultraviolet-inactivated bacteriophage.

Abstract Phage-bacterium complexes of phages T2 and T7 on Escherichia coli B were inactivated by UV, photoreactivated, and then subjected to a second UV irradiation. Photoreactivated complexes had the same sensitivity to UV as reactivated complexes at the same survival level. This result is in agreement with the hypothesis that photoreactivation is effected by a direct reversal of the primary UV damage, rather than by a by-pass mechanism which circumvents the effect of the damage.
Racism: Less is More

Racism has been in sharp decline in recent decades yet the word, as accusation, is used more than ever. The word/idea needs to be more restrictively defined and kept for when it is really needed. When almost everyone is a racist, no one is. To this end we need to distinguish more clearly between the greater comfort people often feel among familiar people and places and active hostility towards outsider ethnic groups. We also need a more discriminating language to describe the spectrum of discrimination. Prejudice, clannishness—even in some instances discrimination itself—should be regarded as sentiments and behaviours that are distinct from proper racism.
The Origins of National Identity in Shakespeare's Henry V

Shakespeare's Henry V explores a feature of the emergence of national identity in the modern period that Machiavellian political thought neglects or dismisses. In particular, Machiavellian political theory cannot persuasively answer the question of why citizens of a nation-state are willing to sacrifice themselves for its sake. Henry V combines an understanding of the necessity for Machiavellian ruthlessness with a non-Machiavellian insight into the political role of eros in the modern nation-state. Imagination and language are the chief tools by which Shakespeare's Henry inspires the erotic, self-sacrificing love that forms the core of national attachment and identity.
Aphid honeydew sugars and soil nitrogen fixation

Abstract Insect honeydew stimulation of soil non-symbiotic nitrogen fixation was investigated. Microcosm experiments showed that single sugar solutions added to soils at rates approximating honeydew deposition increased N 2 fixation rates. The common honeydew sugar, melezitose, did not stimulate N 2 fixation to a greater extent than any other honeydew sugar tested.
Microelectrode and short-circuiting techniques for the study of ion transport in the lens.

Abstract Ion transport was studied by considering the lens as a composite asymmetrical system rather than a closed system. When the toad lens is isolated in a chamber, the anterior surface of the lens is 30 mV positive with respect to the posterior surface. Translenticular unidirectional fluxes of Na, Cl, and K were measured under short-circuit conditions. It was found that only Na is actively transported across the lens; the transport being in a posterior-anterior direction. A discrepancy between net Na flux and short-circuit-current is interpreted on the basis of Na being gained by the lens across its posterior surface and K being lost across its anterior surface. With the aid of a glass microelectrode the potential difference across the epithelial layer under the anterior capsule was determined and a larger short-circuit-current obtained. It is concluded that in the amphibian lens the movement of K appears to be secondary to electrical gradients created by an electrogenic Na pump.
Commentary: Diversity and Minority Faculty Perception of Institutional Climate of Planning Schools—Results from the Climate Survey:

This article analyzes the subjective perception and personal experiences of minority faculty in planning schools/programs with regard to racial/ethnic discrimination—whether minority faculty feel w...
Modified social identities: Amalgamations, attributions, and emotions

Role identities may be modified by supplementary statuses, personality traits, and mood descriptions to define particularized identities for people in social interaction. This paper reports empirical development of equations for combining sentiments attached to a role identity and a modifier in order to yield an amalgamate sentiment for the particularized identity. Amalgamate sentiments are shown to operate in event processing like sentiments for simple identities. The amalgamation equations are solved mathematically to define the modifier that an identity requires in order to generate a given particularization, and it is proposed that these equations define attribution processes, including the attribution of emotions.
Efficient data collection for wireless rechargeable sensor clusters in Harsh terrains using UAVs

Numerous applications of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) in harsh terrains are constrained by the sensors' battery-power and face the difficulties of data collection. In this paper, we propose to exploit wireless power transfer technology to replenish the energy of sensor clusters and develop an efficient data collection scheme for those wireless rechargeable senor clusters deployed in harsh terrains. In view of the harsh terrains, we employ unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to travel to the sites of sensor clusters, collect data, and recharge the sensors in corresponding clusters. With joint consideration of data collection characteristics, wireless power transfer features and travel time, we mathematically formulate the data collection in rechargeable WSNs into an optimization problem with the objective of maximizing data collection utility. Based on the matching theory, we also develop a one side matching algorithm and a greedy algorithm to solve the problem in distributed manner. Through simulations, we show that UAVs are not always matched with nearest sensor clusters, the solution of the proposed greedy algorithm is optimal, and the sensed data can be efficiently collected.
Tree failure following a windstorm in Brewster, Massachusetts, USA

While there are many ex post facto studies of tree failures due to catastrophic storms, relatively few have considered the effect of defects, and even fewer have explored the effect of tree maintenance, on the likelihood of failure. In light of the heightened climate of litigation in the United States, and the complexity of reliably predicting tree failure, additional studies are justified. A catastrophic windstorm in December 2005 on Cape Cod in Massachusetts, USA, provided an opportunity to study how structural defects and maintenance history affect the likelihood of tree failure. Species, height, diameter at breast height (DBH), the presence of defects, and whether trees had been pruned or nearby trees removed were recorded on trees at campsites in a park affected by the storm. The percentage of trees that failed varied among species, and evergreens failed more frequently than deciduous trees, which were leafless at the time of the storm. Large trees were more likely to fail than smaller trees, although this was not true of all species. The defects were more common on standing trees and trunk failures than root failures. Pruning trees had little effect on the failure, but removing trees increased the likelihood of root failure. The results are discussed in the context of managing tree risk.
Multimedia search reranking: A literature survey

The explosive growth and widespread accessibility of community-contributed media content on the Internet have led to a surge of research activity in multimedia search. Approaches that apply text search techniques for multimedia search have achieved limited success as they entirely ignore visual content as a ranking signal. Multimedia search reranking, which reorders visual documents based on multimodal cues to improve initial text-only searches, has received increasing attention in recent years. Such a problem is challenging because the initial search results often have a great deal of noise. Discovering knowledge or visual patterns from such a noisy ranked list to guide the reranking process is difficult. Numerous techniques have been developed for visual search re-ranking. The purpose of this paper is to categorize and evaluate these algorithms. We also discuss relevant issues such as data collection, evaluation metrics, and benchmarking. We conclude with several promising directions for future research.
Comparison of age-related decreases in the basal and carbohydrate inducible levels of lipogenic enzymes in adipose tissue and liver

Abstract An age-related decrease in the level of four lipogenic enzymes—malic enzyme (ME), fatty acid synthetase (FAS), glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G-6-PD), and 6-phosphogluconate dehydrogenase (6-PGD)—was compared in the adipose tissue and liver of rats. In adipose tissue the activity of ME per milligram of protein at one month exceeded that observed at one year by a factor of 27 or more. The bulk of the fall occurred between one and three months. Adipose FAS, G-6-PD, and 6-PGD showed a similar but less precipitous age-related decline. The extent of age-related changes in the adipose tissues consistently exceeded those observed in liver preparations from the same animal. For both fat and liver, administration of a high carbohydrate fat-free diet for four days also elicited a substantially greater incremental ME response in young rats than in old animals. The age-related changes in basal ME activity were proportional to the increments produced by dietary stimulation. Thus, as previously proposed by us for liver, the decrease in basal ME in adipose tissue may be the result of a reduced generation from dietary carbohydrate of a stimulus responsible for the induction of lipogenic enzymes. Additional experiments were performed in animals provided with 10% glucose in their drinking water and infused with high doses of insulin for 4 to 12 days. In the fat of older animals, such treatment resulted in the induction of adipose ME activity to levels almost equivalent to those achieved with similar treatment in younger animals. Whereas maximal levels of ME in the younger animals could be attained simply with the glucose in the drinking water, insulin administratin was required in the older animals. Presumably, the insulin response evoked by glucose in the younger animals elicited a maximal ME increment. In the older animals, however, the endogenous insulin response to glucose failed to achieve a comparable degree of ME induction in the fat. Since the concentrations of insulin attained in the older animals were equal to or greater than those attained in the younger rats, both in the basal and the stimulated state, the diminished ME response in the older animals can be considered to be a form of tissue insulin resistance. Diminished glucose metabolism in the adipocytes of older rats is well established even in the presence of normal plasma glucose concentrations. Therefore, the results suggest that the level of hepatic and adipose ME activity may be useful as an index of such changes.
Institutional and Economic Foundation of Entrepreneurship in Africa: An Overview

Africa is arguably the richest continent in terms of minerals and natural resources. Prior research has also found that Africa has an abundance of entrepreneurs that possess ability to identify business opportunities and to exploit them. The continent’s entrepreneurial performance, however, has been weak. Our goal in this paper is modest and is simply aimed at identifying and synthesizing the available evidence on economic and institutional factors affecting entrepreneurship in Africa. This paper also reviews various mechanisms by which foreign businesses are exploiting Africa for resources and market and examines Western response to the low level of entrepreneurial activities in Africa. Finally, this paper provides case studies of some successful entrepreneurial activities in the continent. The cases indicate that successful businesses do not necessarily have to depend on natural resources.
Ethnic Dimensions of Regional Development in Macedonia: A Research Report

An American geographer analyzes patterns and trends relating to the distribution of ethnic group populations at the level of Macedonia's 123 municipalities (major civil divisions), utilizing data reflecting the two most recent census enumerations in 1994 and 2002 and interviews in Skopje in 2002 and 2004. Geographic concentrations of ethnicity correlate with economic and political indicators that have a significant bearing on the country's development potential and underlie current tensions in the country. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: I00, J10, O15. 3 figures, 3 tables, 21 references.
Estimating Aboveground Net Primary Production in Grasslands: A Comparison of Nondestructive Methods

Abstract Aboveground net primary production (ANPP) is an important ecosystem property that is affected by environmental variability. ANPP in grasslands is typically measured by clipping peak live plant material. However, this method is time intensive (and therefore expensive), making it difficult to capture spatial and temporal variability. Additionally, it is impractical to use a destructive method to estimate ANPP in long-term, permanent plots. Thus, many double-sampling techniques have been developed to reduce costs and increase sample size. The objective of our study was to assess the accuracy and precision of nondestructive techniques to estimate ANPP as supplements to the traditional method of peak biomass harvest at two grassland sites. We harvested biomass and compared estimates from the same plots to 1) canopy interception using a point frame, 2) green cover estimates derived from a digital camera, and 3) reflectance measurements using a handheld radiometer. We calculated the optimum allocation o...
Viscous fragility of concentrated maltopolymer/sucrose mixtures.

Abstract The rheological properties of low moisture content glass-forming solutions of a maltopolymer and sucrose were measured over a range of temperatures. The results showed near-Newtonian behaviour throughout the measureable regime. Shear and dynamic viscosity data were combined and modelled as a function of temperature by a restricted Vogel–Fulcher–Tammann (VFT) equation. The fragility parameter (F1/2) ranged from 0.6 to 0.7, which represents moderate to fragile behaviour. Fragility decreased with increased moisture content for some carbohydrate compositions, but experienced little change for others. Carbohydrate compositions with lower weight-average molecular weight and/or lower degrees of polydispersity were more fragile. Some basis for expecting a polydispersity dependence can be found in empirical relations used to model the glass transition temperature and melt viscosity of carbohydrate polymers, which employ number-average and weight-average dependencies, respectively.
Resource Use by Breast Feeding (BF) Mothers During the First 4 Weeks † 1283

Objective: To identify and characterize sources of information and support that contribute to successful breast feeding at 4 weeks. Design/Methods: Prospective 8-week cohort study of 522 women who had vaginal delivery of healthy, term singleton at 4 area hospitals. Data was obtained through chart review, and through questionnaires during personal interview in the maternity hospital and by telephone at 4 and 8 weeks post-partum. Results: 83% of participants (mean age 29.3 years, 40% primiparous, 89% white, 56% with college education, 91% commercial insurance) breast fed to 4 weeks, and 71% to 8 weeks. 55% of 387 mothers who had a home visit from a nurse classified the visit as supportive of breast feeding. 62 mothers (11.9%) had breast feeding guidance at home during the first two weeks from a relative with previous breast feeding experience. Friends and family were most frequently called and visited for breast feeding advice, followed by the lactation consultant, pediatrician, obstetrician/midwife, breast feeding support group and maternity hospital. Pattern of resource use did not predict breast feeding success.
The mechanism of E. coli aggregation by polyethyleneimine

Abstract Prior statistical mechanical treatments of absorbed polymer configuration have shown that, at low degrees of surface-site coverage, an oppositely charged polymer molecule is strongly adsorbed to a colloidal surface, with only short loops or end sequences extending into the solution phase. Although the radii of gyration of the five polyethyleneimine (PEI) species investigated were large enough in solution to form interparticle bridges, the low degree of surface-site coverage by the molecules on E. coli cells indicated that the loop extensions from the surface at optimum flocculation doses are less than 50 A in length. Adsorption experiments, together with electrophoretic mobility and refiltration rate measurements, revealed that the primary mechanism of flocculation was not polymer bridging, but adsorption coagulation. The effectiveness of the high-molecular-weight PEI species in producing rapid flocculation at small doses is attributed to the formation of a charge mosaic on the oppositely charged E. coli surfaces. The large, adsorbed, PEI molecules not only neutralize the negative surface charge at the adsorption sites, but also cause localized charge reversal because of excess cationic segments. The alignment of these positive surface patches with negative patches on approaching cells results in strong electrostatic attraction in addition to a reduction of the double-layer interaction energies. The comparative ineffectiveness of low-molecular-weight PEI species in producing E. coli flocculation is caused by the small size of the individual molecule, which is insufficient both to neutralize the negative E. coli surface and to create positive patches. Consequently, coagulation produced by low-molecular-weight species is attributed to the reduction of double-layer interaction energies via adsorption.
Real analytic Bernoulli geodesic flows on S2

We obtain a family of metrics on the two-dimensional sphere whose geodesic flow is ergodic and Bernoulli. This family includes real analytic metrics.
Insulin Capture by an Insulin-Linked Polymorphic Region G-Quadruplex DNA Oligonucleotide

Insulin capture by a G-quadruplex DNA oligonucleotide containing a two-repeat sequence of the insulin-linked polymorphic region (ILPR) of the human insulin gene promoter region is reported. The immobilized oligonucleotide was demonstrated to capture human insulin from standard solutions and from nuclear extracts of pancreatic cells with high selectivity, using affinity MALDI mass spectrometry and affinity capillary chromatography. Insulin was preferentially captured by the two-repeat ILPR oligonucleotide over another G-quadruplex-forming oligonucleotide, the thrombin-binding aptamer, as well as over a single repeat of the ILPR sequence that is not capable of forming the G-quadruplex architecture. Binding was shown to involve the β chain of insulin. The discovery raises the possibility that insulin may bind to G-quadruplex DNA formed in the ILPR in vivo and thereby play a role in modulation of insulin gene expression, and it provides a basis for design of insulin analogues to probe this hypothesis. The ava...
Does vasculitis alone cause AVN? A review of literature

AVN is caused by a disease, or severe trauma that affects the blood supply to the bone or in many cases may be idiopathic, with no known cause. AVN pathophysiology is most closely linked to SLE literature, and there is a strong cause and effect relationship between corticosteroid intake and AVN development in SLE patients, and AVN is extremely rare in the absence of steroid use. Apart from few anecdotal reports, there is no data on exact pathophysiologic mechanisms responsible for AVN in the setting of vasculitis. We saw a 69-year-old man with femoral AVN and a possibility of vasculitis as the underlying cause was raised by the radiologist, and hence we present this literature search on vasculitis per se causing AVN of the bone.
Determinants of the Death Rate from Robbery: A Detroit Time Study

RATES of criminal homicide in the United States, always high in comparison with other developed countries, have increased dramatically since the early 1960s. The aggregate U.S. homicide rate estimated by the F.B.I. more than doubled during the period 1963-1974, and homicide rates in major urban centers have increased even more substantially.' As the rate of homicide has increased, patterns of criminal homicide have also changed substantially.2 National data and studies of individual cities show that while the majority of all killings are still committed by friends or acquaintances of the victim, a substantial and increasing proportion of the "new American homicide" is the outcome of robbery-an event where victim and offender are usually strangers.3 This note reports a time series study of robbery killing in Detroit during the 13-year period extending from 1962 through 1974. The Detroit case study is of special significance for two reasons. First, information on robbery rates by weapon is not available for most cities prior to 1974; weaponspecific robbery rates are available in Detroit, making it possible to explore the pattern of weapon-specific death rates over an extended period of time. Second, the increase in robbery killing in Detroit was substantial. Despite a
Glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis: An update on effects and management

Glucocorticoids remain a cornerstone of guideline-based management of persistent asthma and allergic diseases. Glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis (GIO) is the most common iatrogenic cause of secondary osteoporosis and an issue of concern for physicians treating patients with inhaled or oral glucocorticoids either continuously or intermittently. Patients with GIO experience fragility fractures at better dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry T-scores than those with postmenopausal or age-related osteoporosis. This might be explained, at least in part, by the effects of glucocorticoids not only on osteoclasts but also on osteoblasts and osteocytes. Effective options to detect and manage GIO exist, and a management algorithm has been published by the American College of Rheumatology to provide treatment guidance for clinicians. This review will summarize GIO epidemiology and pathophysiology and assess the role of inhaled and oral glucocorticoids in asthmatic adults and children, with particular emphasis on the effect of such therapies on bone health. Lastly, we will review the American College of Rheumatology GIO guidelines and discuss diagnostic and therapeutic strategies to mitigate the risk of GIO and fragility fractures.
Managing Time in Domestic Space Home-Based Contractors and Household Work

Much research shows that paid work performed at home supports a gendered division of household labor, leaving women disproportionately responsible for unpaid domestic work. For contract professionals, however, the flexibility to manage working time outside the constraints of a standard job allows both men and women to meld paid employment with household responsibilities. Interspersing paid and unpaid work, home-based contractors—both women and men—accommodate family needs. They arrange daily schedules to be available parents and household managers, and they develop longer-term career trajectories that allow adjustment over time. For women, however, long-standing notions of domesticity make such accommodation invisible, normative, and unremarkable. For men, in contrast, home-based contracting can create the space with which to challenge gender norms. For these home workers, therefore, the same arrangement simultaneously reinforces and resists conventional constructions of gender.
Modeling the elemental mercury cycle in Pallette Lake, Wisconsin, USA

The spatial and temporal distribution of elemental Hg (Hg°) and reactive Hg (HgR has been studied on Pallette Lake, Wisconsin during May-August, 1993 and May, 1994. In general, Hg° concentrations near the lake surface greatly exceeded saturation with respect to atmospheric Hg° indicating a flux out (-) of the lake. Evasional losses were estimated using a thin film model and averaged-101 pmol m−2 d−1 during July and August,. 1993. A large portion of atmospherically deposited Hg is re-emitted. Thus, in-lake Hg° production’ and evasion to the atmosphere will significantly reduce the amount of Hg which is transported to the sediments, the principal site of methylation. Laboratory experiments were conducted to ascertain the rate of Hg° formation from Hg(II). Reduction was significantly lower in heat sterilized lakewater suggesting Hg° production was biologically mediated. The temporal distribution of epilimnetic Hg°, as measured at the lake center, was influenced by Hg° evasion, Hg° production and advective transport of water parcels of differing Hg content Spatial gradients in Hg° and HgR were identified and a transport model was employed to estimate the advective flux of Hg°. The importance of atmospheric deposition and sediment-water interaction as sources of HgR to epilimnetic waters were examined. Porewater concentrations of Hg° and HgR were determined on several occasions. During May, 1994, the depletion of lakewater HgR following a input pulse due to rain was observed and the estimated removal rate (16–20% d−1) agrees well with reduction rates obtained in the laboratory (23% d−1).