cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Seizure susceptibility of the pregnant mouse

The effect of pregnancy on chemically-induced seizures in mice was studied. Latencies to myoclonic and clonic seizures induced by inhalation of flurothyl were significantly reduced at days 12 through 18 of gestation. Parturition resulted in a return of seizure susceptibility to control levels. The possibility that this effect might be mediated by decreased neurotransmitter levels subsequent to the decreased vitamin B6 levels which are known to occur during pregnancy was suggested. A pregnancy-associated liver cytosolic aldehyde dehydrogenase (pi-AlDH) utilized pyridoxal as a substrate, and the peak of pi-AlDH activity was shown to coincide with the peak of seizure susceptibility. The activity of aldehyde oxidase, the major enzyme normally responsible for the metabolism of pyridoxal, was reduced in pregnant animals. The pyridoxal 5'-phosphate synthesizing enzymes, pyridoxal kinase and pyridoxamine phosphate oxidase, were marginally increased in activity during pregnancy. It was suggested that the increased activity of pi-AlDH was indirectly responsible for the increased seizure susceptibility due to increased metabolism of pyridoxal.
Structure and Function of the Chloride Cell of Fundulus heteroclitus and Other Teleosts

Teleosts, the bony fishes, inhabit both freshwater and seawater environments. Some euryhaline fish, such as Fundulus heteroclitus , alternate between the two milieux several times daily. Regardless of adaptation, the gills of these animals possess a highly specialized cell type called the chloride cell. This cell contains numerous mitochondria and exhibits a greatly amplified basolateral cell surface richly endowed with Na,K-ATPase. Recent studies on isolated opercular epithelia containing chloride cells have demonstrated active chloride secretion and passive transepithelial sodium movements, and have established the chloride secretory role of this cell type in seawater-adapted teleosts. Current models suggest that chloride transport occurs via a transcellular route. Seawater chloride cells exist in multicellular units and share simple, shallow tight junctions which are thought to be the route for passive sodium movement. Freshwater chloride cells, whose function remains to be elucidated, are generally described as existing in a unicellular configuration. However, recent observations in Fundulus heteroclitus adapted to salinities as low as 1% sea water reveal that chloride cells persist in multicellular complexes with apical crypts. Strikingly, tight junctions between chloride cells in this freshwater environment are deep
A national survey on preterm labor.

A national survey was conducted to examine the American obstetricians' approach to management of preterm labor. Multiple-choice questionnaires were mailed to all current members of the Society of Perinatal Obstetricians and 750 randomly selected diplomates of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Respondents included 249 members of the Society of Perinatal Obstetricians and 441 fellows of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Analysis of the replies reflects wide variations among American obstetricians' criteria to diagnose preterm labor, choice of tocolytic agent, use of amniocentesis, and use of corticosteroids. Significant differences were found between the two groups in many aspects of diagnosis and management of preterm labor. However, the replies reflect a high degree of awareness of and many instances of first hand experience with severe R-adrenergic therapy complications, including maternal death. These findings emphasize the need for caution in selection of patients for R-adrenergic tocolytic therapy and judicious use of these agents.
Object-Oriented System Design

The reason for a different approach to systems analysis and designed is explained in cases where an objectoriented approach is to be taken to application programming. The paradigm of the object-oriented approach is shown to be a generalization of the paradigm used in the traditional approach to application software design. A new object-oriented approach to systems analysis and design is defined and illustrated. The design of an accounts receivable system is used to illustrate the methodology. The object-oriented approach described divides the work into three phases. In the first phase, the application is defined in terms of the entity types and relationships to be included in the system. In the second phase, the business objects to be simulated are identified and categorized as permanent, event, or dependent business objects. In the third phase, the program modules for each business object are specified. A message flow diagramming technique is defined and illustrated that has proven useful in specifying the programs required for business event object classes. The need is pointed out for action diagrams to define processing logic for customized program modules if a CASE tool is to be used to generate the code. The fact that this approach does not use data flow diagrams is noted. Message flow diagrams take the place of data flow diagrams in providing an overview of the system.
Review of nonparametric methods for the analysis of crossover studies.

This paper reviews nonparametric methods for the analysis of crossover studies. Primary attention is given to crossover studies to compare two treatments for a response variable that has a metric measurement level. For this situation, one can often test hypotheses or obtain confidence intervals for parameters of interest by applying well known univariate nonparametric rank methods (e.g., the Wilcoxon rank sum test, or the Wilcoxon signed rank test) to appropriately specified functions of the data. Related extensions are also available, to some degree, for crossover studies to compare more than two treatments or those for which the measurement level of the response variable is ordinal or has a censored time-to-event nature. Methods for several specific situations along these lines are discussed in terms of principles with potentially broader applicability. Several examples are provided to illustrate the performance of some of the methods.
Serum transferrin receptor as an index of iron absorption.

Summary. Recent studies indicate that serum transferrin receptor levels are a quantitative index of tissue receptor mass. To determine whether the latter plays a role in the regulation of iron absorption, we examined the relationship between serum receptor, serum ferritin and iron absorption in healthy subjects. Using radioisotopic techniques we measured absorption of inorganic iron in 174 subjects and dietary nonhaem iron in 60 subjects. With both forms of iron, the correlation with absorption was far lower for serum receptor than for serum ferritin and was no longer significant when subjects with depleted iron stores were excluded. These results indicate that in normal subjects the iron store is the main physiological determinant of iron absorption and that in the absence of iron deficiency, tissue receptor mass, reflected by serum transferrin receptor levels, has no discernible influence.
Greek Sparto: Past and Present

AbstractSparto, a perennial broom, grows wild in the mountainous and semi-mountainous regions of the Mediterranean. Throughout antiquity Greeks processed the plant for its fibers, which they hand braided and loom wove into rope and textiles. Archaeological material and ancient testimonia demonstrate the extensive use of sparto as a raw material in Greek culture over a long period. Nevertheless, scholars consistently overlook the widespread exploitation of sparto in the manufacture of everyday objects in antiquity. However, the plant's importance may be properly assessed by modern Greeks. My field research in the Western Peloponesos reveals that the utilization and processing of sparto in recent times follows that described in ancient sources. The earliest archaeological evidence from sparto comes from a late, third-century (BC) Neolithic cave in Spain and includes various articles of clothing. The earliest Greek evidence comes from Homer who refers to ships' cords as “sparto” in the Illiad. Thereafter, a ...
Displacing Epistemology: Being in the Midst of Technoscientific Practice

Interest the Erklaren–Verstehen debate is usually interpreted as primarily epistemological. By raising the possibility that there are fundamentally different methods for fundamentally different types of science, the debate puts into play all the standard issues—that is, issues concerning scientific explanation and justification, the unity and diversity of scientific disciplines, the reality of their subject matter, the accessibility of various subject matters to research, and so on. In this paper, however, I do not focus on any of these specific issues. I start instead from the fact that the very existence of the debate itself is an issue; in fact, it poses a philosophical problem that almost everyone but the hardest line logical empiricists has come to realize cannot be resolved epistemologically. In my view, however, that it cannot be resolved ontologically, either. I think the problem is at bottom hermeneutical, and its resolution requires that we focus first, not on the objects of science or the methods of studying them, but on the character of the philosophical orientation assumed by those who would try to resolve it. In this paper, I explain why I think this is so by analyzing (1) Dilthey’s contribution to the original debate, (2) Husserl’s reaction to Dilthey, and (3) Heidegger’s critical evaluation of both. This line of philosophical development—this movement of self-understanding from critiques of objectivism to hermeneutical phenomenology—is of course already a central feature of much work in continental philosophy of science. In my conclusion, however, I argue for the less well-established—even if apparently approved—idea that it ought to be a central feature of technoscience studies as well.
Investigation of intermediate steps in the biosynthesis of ecdysterone from cholesterol in Podocarpus elata

Abstract Both 4- 14 C- and 26- 14 C-cholesterol were incorporated into ecdysterone by Podocarpus elata . This demonstrates that no degradation of the side chain is involved in the biosynthetic pathway. However, three possible intermediates in ecdysterone biosynthesis, 25-hydroxycholesterol-26- 14 C, cholesterol 5α,6α-epoxide-4- 14 C, and cholesterol 5β,6β-epoxide-4- 14 C were not converted to ecdysterone. The significance of these results in the biosynthesis of ecdysterone is discussed.
The ionization equilibrium inside the RHO Ophiuchi cloud

Observational technology is now reaching the point where optical absorption-line studies of dark interstellar clouds are becoming feasible. Such studies are of great interest. In particular, it will be important to discover the degree of depletion which has occurred in dark clouds. In order to assess depletions on the basis of observations of a limited range of ionization stages, it is necessary to analyze the ionization balance. The present investigation is concerned with such an analysis. The two key parameters necessary for deducing the ionization balance are the electron density and the radiation field intensity. A summary is provided regarding the existing data on the cloud density using data from the literature, and the radiation field intensity is derived from the observed H2 rotational excitation. The implications of both the density and radiation field data for the ionization balance of several species are discussed. It is found that for all species treated the first ion is dominant in the line of sight toward HD 147889.
Maximum likelihood parameter estimation of superimposed chirps using Monte Carlo importance sampling

We address the problem of parameter estimation of superimposed chirp signals in noise. The approach used here is a computationally modest implementation of a maximum likelihood (ML) technique. The ML technique for estimating the complex amplitudes, chirping rates, and frequencies reduces to a separable optimization problem where the chirping rates and frequencies are determined by maximizing a compressed likelihood function that is a function of only the chirping rates and frequencies. Since the compressed likelihood function is multidimensional, its maximization via a grid search is impractical. We propose a noniterative maximization of the compressed likelihood function using importance sampling. Simulation results are presented for a scenario involving closely spaced parameters for the individual signals.
The lattice design of Indiana University Cyclotron Facility Cooler Injector Synchrotron

This paper reports lattice design studies of a low energy booster at the Indiana University Cyclotron Facility (IUCF). This booster will be used as an injector, which is named as Cooler Injector Synchrotron (CIS), for the existing IUCF Cooler ring. The IUCF CIS will be able to accelerate high-intensity polarized protons or deuterons coming from a RFQ linac from 7 MeV (6 MeV) to 200 MeV (105 MeV). The beam bunch then will be extracted and injected into the Cooler ring for further acceleration. The finalized lattice design for the CIS has four superperiods. Each period is composed of a drift space and a dipole magnet which has 90/spl deg/ bending angle and 12/spl deg/ edge angle at both ends. The circumference of the CIS is 17.364 meters, one fifth of that of the Cooler ring. The designed horizontal and vertical tunes are 1.463 and 0.779, respectively. Possible effects from the employment of trim quadrupoles, which will be located between dipoles, are also discussed.
An Experimental Approach to Optimizing Natural Ventilation in Public Spaces of Complex Buildings

High performance buildings such as hospitals and laboratories require intensive ventilation in order to meet operational demands. One way of reducing cooling in these types of buildings is to incorporate hybrid ventilation in public spaces. Depending on a variety of criteria such as internal and external conditions (e.g., temperature, humidity and required loads) these public spaces can be more appropriately cooled through hybrid ventilation than mechanical cooling. This research establishes an experimental approach to collect and analyze data from an occupied high performance building utilizing hybrid ventilation (HV) in public spaces. To optimize the use of HV, the research focuses on tracking three performance criteria: energy savings, occupant comfort and indoor-air quality. This experimental approach is illustrated through a case study example that recorded cooling load savings of 22Wh/m 2 per day and resulted in the selection of an ideal hybrid ventilation strategy for the particular space studied.
The application of virtual microscopy in a dermatopathology educational setting: assessment of attitudes among dermatopathologists.

Objectives Whole-slide imaging with virtual microscopy is increasingly used as a tool in resident education and training, board certification and maintenance of certification examinations, and diagnostic evaluation. The objective of this study was to determine attitudes toward virtual microscopy compared with traditional glass slide microscopy during a continuing medical education dermatopathology workshop. Methods Twenty-three board-certified, practicing or retired dermatopathologists were given 26 “advanced” cases to review using both virtual microscopy and traditional glass slides. Diagnostic accuracy was not assessed because of the complexity of the cases. Participants were surveyed on: (i) their previous experience with digital imaging; (ii) the quality, ease of use, and speed of slide review; and (iii) overall attitudes toward digital and traditional review. Results Equal proportions of participants did and did not have prior experience with digital imaging of histopathologic specimens. Most participants preferred to use both virtual microscopy and traditional microscopy together. The quality of glass slides was rated as better than that of digital images, but virtual microscopy achieved higher ratings for ease of navigation and overall satisfaction. Conclusions Virtual microscopy is a useful tool for dermatopathology workshops. Specifically, dermatopathologists with and without prior digital slide review experience responded favorably to viewing slides on a computer monitor. Overall satisfaction was high, and the majority of participants indicated that they would use virtual microscopy in the future. These results show a trend toward the acceptance of digital slide review, which supports the inevitable expansion of this practice in an increasingly digitized world.
Insomnia and emotion dysregulation: independent and interactive associations with posttraumatic stress symptoms among trauma-exposed smokers.

Introduction Traumatic event exposure is common among cigarette smokers, and elevated posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) are associated with increased smoking levels. As such, the current study examined factors that may contribute to elevated PTSS among trauma-exposed smokers. Insomnia and emotion dysregulation may be particularly relevant among smokers, and are each associated with PTSS. However, it remains unclear whether these factors are associated with PTSS after accounting for the effects of dispositional factors and each other, and whether they may interact to predict PTSS. Thus, the current study sought to test whether insomnia and emotion dysregulation are independently associated with PTSS after accounting for negative affectivity and number of traumas experienced, and to investigate the potential interactive influence of these factors on PTSS.
Qualitative independence in probability theory

Probability theory is measure theory specialized by assumptions having to do with stochastic independence. Delete from probability and statistics those theorems that explicitly or implicitly (e.g., by postulating a random sample) invoke independence, and relatively little remains. Or attempt to estimate probabilities from data without assuming that at least certain observations are independent, and little results. Everyone who has worked with or applied probability is keenly aware of the importance of stochastic independence; experimenters go to some effort to ensure, and to check, that repeated observations are independent. Kolmogorov (1933, 1950) wrote:
Endothelial dysfunction of conduit arteries in insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus without microalbuminuria

Objective: Previous studies have shown that endothelial dysfunction, an early sign of atherosclerosis, occurs in animal models of diabetes mellitus and in resistance vessels of patients with insulin-dependent diabetes. In the present study we examined whether young patients with insulin-dependent diabetes without microalbuminuria present abnormal endothelial function of large peripheral arteries. Methods: Twenty-six patients with insulin-dependent diabetes without microalbuminuria were compared with 26 normal controls and 5 patients with insulin-dependent diabetes with microalbuminuria. Brachial artery diameter was measured at rest, during reactive hyperaemic flow (endothelium-dependent dilatation) and after sublingual isosorbide dinitrate (endothelium-independent dilatation). Results: Baseline artery diameter and flow as well as the degree of reactive hyperaemia were similar in all groups compared to controls. Flow-mediated dilatation was lower in patients with diabetes without microalbuminuria (5.8±7 vs 11±7%, P =0.01) as well as in patients with diabetes without microalbuminuria (0.75±2.5 vs 11±7%, P =0.003); nitrate-induced dilatation was normal in patients without microalbuminuria and attenuated in patients with microalbuminuria. In the group of diabetes patients without microalbuminuria, those with disease duration >10 years and HbA1c >6% had the worse endothelial function. Conclusions: Our results demonstrate that endothelial dysfunction of conduit arteries can be detected in patients with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus without microalbuminuria, probably contributing to the high prevalence of atherosclerosis in these patients.
Planar fluorescence imaging using normalized data

Fluorescence imaging of tissues has gained significant attention in recent years due to the emergence of appropriate reporter technologies that enable noninvasive sensing of molecular function in vivo. Two major approaches have been used so far for fluorescence molecular imaging, i.e., epi-illumination (reflectance) imaging and fluorescence molecular tomography. Transillumination is an alternative approach that has been employed for imaging tissues in the past and could be similarly beneficial for fluorescence molecular imaging. We investigate data normalization schemes in reflectance and transillumination mode and experimentally demonstrate that normalized transillumination offers significant advantages over planar reflectance imaging and over nonnormalized methods. Our observations, based on phantoms and on postmortem and in vivo mouse measurements display image quality improvement, superior depth sensitivity, and improved imaging accuracy over the nonnormalized methods examined. Normalized planar imaging retains implementation simplicity and could be used to improve on standard fluorescence reflectance imaging and as a simplified alternative to the more integrated and accurate tomographic methods.
Antibiotics for respiratory tract infections: a comparison of prescribing in an outpatient setting.

Objective To examine inappropriate antibiotic prescribing for acute respiratory tract infections (RTIs) in ambulatory care to help target antimicrobial stewardship interventions. Design and Setting Retrospective analysis of RTI visits within general internal medicine (GIM) and family medicine (FM) ambulatory practices at an inner-city academic medical center from 2008 to 2010. Methods Patient, physician, and practice characteristics were analyzed using multivariable logistic regression to determine factors predictive of inappropriate prescribing; physicians in the highest and lowest antibiotic-prescribing quartiles were compared using χ2 analysis. Results Visits with FM providers, female gender, and self-reported race/ethnicity as white or Hispanic were significantly associated with inappropriate antibiotic prescribing. Physicians in the lowest quartile prescribed antibiotics for 5%–28% (mean, 21%) of RTI visits; physicians in the highest quartile prescribed antibiotics for 54%–85% (mean, 65%) of RTI visits. High prescribers had fewer African-American patients and more patients who were younger and privately insured. High prescribers had more patients with chronic lung disease. A GIM practice pod with a low prescriber was 3.0 times more likely to have a second low prescriber than other practice pods, whereas pods with a high prescriber were 1.3 times more likely to have a second high prescriber. Conclusions Medical specialty was the only physician factor predictive of inappropriate prescribing when patient gender, race, and comorbidities were taken into account. Possible disparities in care need further study. Stewardship education in medical school, enlisting low prescribers as physician leaders, and targeting interventions to the highest prescribers might be more effective approaches to antimicrobial stewardship. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2014;00(0): 1–7
Public Service Advertising: the Advertising Council

IN THE FALL of 1945 Theodore S. Repplier, Executive Director of the War Advertising Council, contributed an article to this journal in which he described the advent of public service advertising, and suggested that it was here to stay. In the present article, an observer from outside the United States takes a bird'seye view of the Advertising Council's transition from wartime to peacetime, describes its current activities, and weighs its prospects for success and permanent endurance. The author, who is on leave from the British Civil Service, is at present making a study of public relations in the United States under a Commonwealth Fund Fellowship, and is author of several social and historical works.
Hepatocellular Exposure of Troglitazone Metabolites in Rat Sandwich-Cultured Hepatocytes Lacking Bcrp and Mrp2: Interplay between Formation and Excretion

Inhibition of bile acid transport by troglitazone (TGZ) and its major metabolite, TGZ sulfate (TS), may lead to hepatocellular accumulation of toxic bile acids; TS accumulation and hepatotoxicity may be associated with impaired TS biliary excretion. This study evaluated the impact of impaired transport of breast cancer resistance protein (Bcrp) and multidrug resistance–associated protein 2 (Mrp2) on the hepatobiliary disposition of generated metabolites, TS and TGZ glucuronide (TG). Sandwich-cultured hepatocytes (SCH) from Mrp2-deficient (TR–) rats in combination with Bcrp knockdown using RNA interference were employed. The biliary excretion index (BEI) of generated TS was not significantly altered by impaired Bcrp (20.9 to 21.1%) and/or Mrp2 function (24.4% and 17.5% in WT and TR– rat SCH, respectively). Thus, loss-of-function of Mrp2 and/or Bcrp do not appear to be risk factors for increased hepatocellular TS accumulation in rats, potentially because of a compensatory transporter(s) that excretes TS into bile. Further investigations revealed that the compensatory TS biliary transporter was not the bile salt export pump (Bsep) or P-glycoprotein (P-gp). Interestingly, TGZ sulfation was significantly decreased in TR– compared with WT rat SCH (total recovery: 2.8 versus 5.0% of TGZ dose), resulting in decreased hepatocellular TS accumulation, even though sulfotransferase activity in TR– rat hepatocyte S9 fraction was similar. Hepatocellular TG accumulation was significantly increased in TR– compared with WT rat SCH due to increased glucuronidation and negligible TG biliary excretion. These data emphasize that the interplay between metabolite formation and excretion determines hepatocellular exposure to generated metabolites such as TS and TG.
Standing-Gradient Osmotic Flow A mechanism for coupling of water and solute transport in epithelia

At the ultrastructural level, epithelia performing solute-linked water transport possess long, narrow channels open at one end and closed at the other, which may constitute the fluid transport route (e.g., lateral intercellular spaces, basal infoldings, intracellular canaliculi, and brush-border microvilli). Active solute transport into such folded structures would establish standing osmotic gradients, causing a progressive approach to osmotic equilibrium along the channel's length. The behavior of a simple standing-gradient flow system has therefore been analyzed mathematically because of its potential physiological significance. The osmolarity of the fluid emerging from the channel's open end depends upon five parameters: channel length, radius, and water permeability, and solute transport rate and diffusion coefficient. For ranges of values of these parameters encountered experimentally in epithelia, the emergent osmolarity is found by calculation to range from isotonic to a few times isotonic; i.e., the range encountered in epithelial absorbates and secretions. The transported fluid becomes more isotonic as channel radius or solute diffusion coefficient is decreased, or as channel length or water permeability is increased. Given appropriate parameters, a standing-gradient system can yield hypertonic fluids whose osmolarities are virtually independent of transport rate over a wide range, as in distal tubule and avian salt gland. The results suggest that water-to-solute coupling in epithelia is due to the ultrastructural geometry of the transport route.
Capital mobility, trade, and the domestic politics of economic policy

The conventional wisdom about the domestic political effects of economic internationalization in recent decades is overdrawn and too simple. Increasing exposure to trade and capital mobility has not led all countries to pursue the same types of economic policies. The political power of the left and the strength of organized labor still have a marked bearing on macroeconomic policy. Rather than being constrained by internationalization, the relationship between left-labor power and fiscal expansions has increased with greater trade and capital mobility. However, the political left and organized labor have had to pay a price for these expansions. With greater exposure to world market forces, left-labor power has been increasingly associated with lower levels of corporate taxation and with higher interest rates. Nonetheless, common assertions about the demise of partisan politics must be reconsidered.
Spatial models for spatial statistics: some unification

A general statistical framework is proposed for comparing linear models of spatial process and pattern. A spatial linear model for nested analysis of variance can be based on either fixed effects or random effects. Greig-Smith (1952) originally used a fixed effects model, but there are also examples of random effects models in the soil science literature. Assuming intrinsic stationarity for a linear model, the expectations of a spatial nested ANOVA and two term local variance (TTLV, Hill 1973) are functions of the variogram, and several examples are given. Paired quadrat variance (PQV, Ludwig & Goodall 1978) is a variogram estimator which can be used to approximate TTLV, and we provide an example from ecological data. Both nested ANOVA and TTLV can be seen as weighted lag-1 variogram estimators that are functions of support, rather than distance. We show that there are two unbiased estimators for the variogram under aggregation, and computer simulation shows that the estimator with smaller variance depends on the process autocorrelation.
Stocking Trends: A Quantitative Review of Governmental Fish Stocking in the United States, 1931 to 2004

Abstract This article provides a quantitative review of the type, number, and estimated weight of the fish stocked by the 50 state agencies and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the United States in 2004. I examined trends in the light of data from earlier reports dating back to 1931. Among other things, this analysis shows that 1.7 billion fish were stocked by these agencies in 2004, representing 104 types of fish weighing an estimated 19.8 million kg. This was the largest number of types of fish (species, subspecies, and hybrids) and the largest total weight of fish ever stocked for those years for which information was available. Because many fish are being stocked at larger sizes, the total number of fish stocked in 2004 was in fact lower than in the first half of the twentieth century. Reflecting a long-term trend, most of the stocking was done by state agencies. The majority of the fish stocked (by estimated weight) were in western states and the most commonly stocked fish by this measure were c...
Architecting a chunk-based memory race recorder in modern CMPs

Prior work on HW support for memory race recording piggybacks time stamps on coherence messages and logs the outcome of memory races using point-to-point or chunk-based approaches. These memory race recorder (MRR) techniques are effective, but they require modifications to the cache coherence protocol that can hurt performance. In addition, prior work has mostly focused on directory coherence and considered only CMP systems with single-level cache hierarchies. Most modern CMP systems shipped today, however, implement snoop coherence and feature multilevel cache hierarchies. To be practical, a MRR must target CMPs with multilevel caches, mitigate the coherence overhead due to piggybacking, and emphasize on replay speed to broaden applicability of deterministic replay. This paper contributes three new solutions for making chunk-based MRR practical for modern CMPs. We show that MRR interactions with a cache hierarchy can degrade performance and present a novel mechanism that mitigates this degradation. We propose new mechanisms for snoop-based caches that eliminate coherence traffic overhead due to piggybacking. We finally propose new techniques for improving replay speed and introduce a novel framework for evaluating the replay speed potential of MRR designs.
A novel method of measuring microelectronic interconnect transmission line parameters and discontinuity equivalent electrical parameters using multiple reflections

This paper describes a novel technique which measures the electrical properties of transmission lines (such as microstrip) and extracts equivalent electrical parameters for discontinuities in transmission lines with remarkable precision using a modern network analyzer and newly developed de-embedding software. This technique has successfully measured the per-unit-length inductance (L'), resistance (R'), capacitance (C'), and dielectric loss conductance (G') of microstrip transmission lines made from solid copper and conductive polymer. These materials have been studied at frequencies up to 201 MHz, and higher frequencies are possible. Discontinuities, such as an opening in the ground plane under the microstrip, have also been characterized at frequencies up to 2400 MHz. Measurements of characteristic impedances and skin resistances made by this method are in agreement with theoretical models. Higher frequency measurements should be feasible using a higher frequency network analyzer.
Between the Practical and the Academic The Relation of Mode 1 and Mode 2 Knowledge Production in a Developing Country

Growing expectation that research addresses problems in the context of application has spurred theorization about a ‘‘new mode’’ of production, Mode 2, which contrasts with Mode 1 or discipline-based research production in terms of animating questions, organization, and evaluation criteria. This article examines how the proposed Mode 2 form of research production and the practical role of the intellectual that it promotes align with the career trajectories and identities of academics who simultaneously engage in Mode 1 work. It focuses on a setting that is particularly susceptible to global shifts in knowledge production: a developing country and longtime object of external intervention, Malawi. Numerous contradictions are found between Mode 1 and 2 production as well as impediments to the conversion of products generated in Mode 2 into scholarly contributions to Mode 1 development. The evidence draws from 42 interviews conducted with academics and independent researchers in Malawi during 2003 and 2004 as...
Development of catechol 2,3-dioxygenase-specific primers for monitoring bioremediation by competitive quantitative PCR.

Benzene, toluene, xylenes, phenol, naphthalene, and biphenyl are among a group of compounds that have at least one reported pathway for biodegradation involving catechol 2,3-dioxygenase enzymes. Thus, detection of the corresponding catechol 2,3-dioxygenase genes can serve as a basis for identifying and quantifying bacteria that have these catabolic abilities. Primers that can successfully amplify a 238-bp catechol 2,3-dioxygenase gene fragment from eight different bacteria are described. The identities of the amplicons were confirmed by hybridization with a 238-bp catechol 2,3-dioxygenase probe. The detection limit was 10 2 to 10 3 gene copies, which was lowered to 10 0 to 10 1 gene copies by hybridization. Using the dioxygenase-specific primers, an increase in catechol 2,3-dioxygenase genes was detected in petroleum-amended soils. The dioxygenase genes were enumerated by competitive quantitative PCR with a 163-bp competitor that was amplified using the same primers. Target and competitor sequences had identical amplification kinetics. Potential PCR inhibitors that could coextract with DNA, nonamplifying DNA, soil factors (humics), and soil pollutants (toluene) did not impact enumeration. Therefore, this technique can be used to accurately and reproducibly quantify catechol 2,3-dioxygenase genes in complex environments such as petroleum-contaminated soil. Direct, non-cultivation-based molecular techniques for detecting and enumerating microbial pollutant-biodegrading genes in environmental samples are powerful tools for monitoring bioremediation and developing field evidence in support of natural attenuation.
MATHEMATICAL MODELING AND EXPERIMENTAL IDENTIFICATION OF A MODEL HELICOPTER

This paper presents a new mathematical model for a model-scale helicopter. Working from first principles and basic aerodynamics, the equations of motion for full six degree-of-freedom motion are derived. The control inputs considered are the four pilot commands from the radio transmitter: roll, pitch, yaw, and thrust. The model helicopter has a fast time-domain response due to its small size, and is inherently unstable. A flybar is used to augment the stability of a model helicopter to make it easier for a pilot to fly. The main contribution of this paper is to model the interaction between the flybar and the main rotor blade; it is shown how the flapping of the flybar increases the stability of the model helicopter as well as assists in its actuation. After the mathematical model is derived, some preliminary system identification experiments and results are presented. The paper ends with conclusions and a short description of future work.
The Politics of Selling In: Black Women Re-Imagining Space and Transforming Tragedy in Newark, NJ

What are the meanings that black women activists attribute to urban space? How do identity and affect impact the range of politics black women pursue in order resist the detrimental impact of the ongoing non-crisis of the destruction, erasure and containment of black life under neoliberalism? To answer these questions, I offer a portrait of contemporary black womanhood that interweaves the self-told poetics of African American women activists with material facts about Newark’s fraught cartographic history. I expand upon earlier studies of black women’s community politics (Springer 2005, Williams 2004, Collins 2006) by exploring how space, place, memory, and affect shape black women’s contemporary political work. Using a black feminist ethnographic approach, I explore how black women transform personal and transpersonal tragedy into community resistance. I argue that black women resist neoliberalism by respatializing social capital - creating physical, symbolic and “homeplaces” (Hooks 1993) to develop trust, positive reciprocity, and solidarity with each other. I consider “selling in” as a mode of contemporary urban resistance for black women. Black women “sell in” by sacrificing extraordinary amounts of time, effort, and relationship-building with each other in order to establish community spaces that encourage the development of stable yet diverse sense of black female identity in Newark.
Unediting: Detecting Disfluencies Without Careful Transcripts

Speech transcripts often only capture semantic content, omitting disfluencies that can be useful for analyzing social dynamics of a discussion. This work describes steps in building a model that can recover a large fraction of locations where disfluencies were present, by transforming carefully annotated text to match the standard transcription style, introducing a two-stage model for handling different types of disfluencies, and applying semi-supervised learning. Experiments show improvement in disfluency detection on Supreme Court oral arguments, nearly 23% improvement in F1.
Modeling with Structures in Statistical Machine translation

Most statistical machine translation systems employ a word-based alignment model. In this paper we demonstrate that word-based alignment is a major cause of translation errors. We propose a new alignment model based on shallow phrase structures, and the structures can be automatically acquired from parallel corpus. This new model achieved over 10% error reduction for our spoken language translation task.
Trivializing 5-dimensional h-cobordisms by stabilization

It is shown that if (W5,M,M′) is an h-cobordism, then the stabilization of W formed by taking boundary connected sum with enough copies of S2×D3 is diffeomorphic to the boundary connected sum of M×I with these copies of S2×D3. When M is bounded, stabilization leads to a product structure. A key step is a proof of the stabilized 5-dimensional s-cobordism conjecture.
Kinetic characterization of human butyrylcholinesterase mutants for the hydrolysis of cocaethylene.

It is known that the majority of cocaine users also consume alcohol. Alcohol can react with cocaine to produce a significantly more cytotoxic compound, cocaethylene. Hence a truly valuable cocaine-metabolizing enzyme as treatment for cocaine abuse/overdose should be efficient for not only cocaine itself, but also cocaethylene. The catalytic parameters ( k cat and K M ) of human BChE (butyrylcholinesterase) and two mutants (known as cocaine hydrolases E14-3 and E12-7) for cocaethylene are characterized in the present study, for the first time, in comparison with those for cocaine. On the basis of the obtained kinetic data, wild-type human BChE has a lower catalytic activity for cocaethylene ( k cat =3.3 min −1 , K M =7.5 μM and k cat / K M =4.40×10 5 M −1 ·min −1 ) compared with its catalytic activity for (−)-cocaine. E14-3 and E12-7 have a considerably improved catalytic activity against cocaethylene compared with the wild-type BChE. E12-7 is identified as the most efficient enzyme for hydrolysing cocaethylene in addition to its high activity for (−)-cocaine. E12-7 has an 861-fold improved catalytic efficiency for cocaethylene ( k cat =3600 min −1 , K M =9.5 μM and k cat / K M =3.79×10 8 M −1 ·min −1 ). It has been demonstrated that E12-7 as an exogenous enzyme can indeed rapidly metabolize cocaethylene in rats. Further kinetic modelling has suggested that E12-7 with an identical concentration as that of the endogenous BChE in human plasma can effectively eliminate (−)-cocaine, cocaethylene and norcocaine in simplified kinetic models of cocaine abuse and overdose associated with the concurrent use of cocaine and alcohol.
Effects of Excimer Laser Ablation on the Surface of Hexagonal Boron Nitride

The laser-induced changes in the hexagonal boron nitride targets that are used in the deposition of pulsed laser-deposited cubic boron nitride films are examined. Although the structure of the hexagonal boron nitride in the irradiated areas is unaltered, the surface morphology changes considerably. Boron-rich spheroids were found to cover the irradiated area. Their origin is consistent with the hydrodynamic sputtering of the hexagonal boron nitride targets, and a liberation of nitrogen atoms to the gas phase.
Improving Social Skills through Game Jam Participation

As game jams become more popular among both game developers and people interested in becoming one, the number of jams that occur each year has grown at an astronomical pace. Given this popularity, it is clear that participants are gaining some intrinsic value from participation. This appears to come in many forms including new friends, business partnerships, portfolio pieces, development practice, skill acquisition, and improved confidence in personal abilities. This research set out specifically to explore the effects of game jam participation on personal self-efficacy related to the skills required to successfully perform at a jam. Game jams tend to be social events and participants are often times less social individuals. Putting participants in the situation of having to communicate their ideas with others and express themselves under the stress of a deadline while the entire team is acquiring new skills sounds like a recipe for disaster, however, this is not the case. A pre and post-event self-efficacy measure was administered at the 2016 Global Game Jam site in Orlando Fl. The results of this research show significant improvements in self-efficacy related to the social skills required to be successful at a game jam. It is possible that the excitement and challenge of developing a game helps facilitate breaking down of social walls and provides an opportunity to practice socialization skills with purpose that is motivating to participants.
Security Communities and the Unthinkabilities of War

Scholarship on security communities often invokes a common goal: for war to become unthinkable. Unthinkable here means impossible, and states are considered to be most secure when war is unthinkable between them. Interestingly, the term unthinkable appears in policy discourse with nearly the opposite meaning, referring to wars that are eminently possible but horrifying to contemplate, such as war with a nuclear Iran. Taking this discrepancy as my starting point, I propose that the social phenomenon of unthinkability is not well understood and that a deeper understanding of it can point toward new directions for research on security communities. I conceptualize unthinkability along two dimensions, empirical availability and normative acceptability, combining these to create four distinct types of unthinkability. I then use this typology as a heuristic device to identify research directions on security communities and on the phenomenon of unthinkable war.
Influencing Factors Analysis and Trend Forecasting of China's Carbon Emissions——Empirical Study Based on STIRPAT and GM( 1,1) Models

STIRPAT( stochastic impacts by regression on population,affluence,and technology)model is used to analyze the influencing factors of China 's carbon emissions,and gray model GM( 1,1) is applied to the prediction of emissions from 2012 to 2020. The analysis shows that urbanization,economy growth,industrial structure,energy prices,population,energy structure and foreign trade are the main factors to aggravate the emissions,while technology progress plays an important role in the inhibition of emissions. Among the factors mentioned,population and industrial structures are the two dominant factors. Based on the GM( 1,1),China ' carbon emission is predicted,showing the pressure of reducing carbon emissions is great. Therefore,the governance of carbon emission should synthetically consider the factors mentioned above.
Numerical analysis on blast-resistant capacity of masonry walls retrofitted with elastomeric polymer and CFRP

To investigate the responsive mechanism of masonry walls subjected to blast loadings,an effective analytical model of the masonry walls was firstly presented.The finite element analytical software LS-DYNA was then used to simulate the deformation and the failure modes of the blast-loaded masonry walls.The numerical results of the deformation,the failure mode,the midspan displacement and the velocity of the masonry walls unretrofitted and retrofitted with the elastomeric polymer were basically in agreement with the test data. In addition,a comparison between the elastomeric polymer and CFRP retrofitting was made.It is demonstrated that the masonry walls retrofitted with elastomeric polymer and CFRP both have a good blast-resistant capacity and the effects of retrofitting with elastomeric polymer are better than those of CFRP.
Skin cancer prevention and screening.

SUMMARY Prevention and early detection of skin cancers are crucial to reducing morbidity and mortality. Armed with the above information and with some experience, the primary care physician can understand risk factors and recognize common benign and malignant skin tumors. This allows the primary care physician to play a key role in teaching patients about skin cancer prevention and in screening patients for skin cancers.