cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
A Study of Yttrium Iron Garnet (YIG) Prepared by Sol-gel Method

The yttrium iron garnet,Y3Fe5O12,has been prepared by the sol-gel method using citric acid as the chelating agent. The XRD spectra showed that the formation of YIG begins at 700℃ and ends at about 900℃,which is in 100℃ lower than that of the common YIG prepared by ceramics method. The data of specific magnetization σsp and the ratio of σsp/σss consist with the XRD results. The shrinkage data evidenced that the densification is in more than 400 ℃ postpone to the solid reaction. The particle sizes of the powder increase with increasing heat temperature from 13nm (700℃) to 60nm (950℃). The SEM photograph and the sintering behaviors of density,porosity and shrinkage of the samples were presented and discussed. The dependence of ferromagnetic resonance linewidth △H and spin wave linewidth △Hk were given on the sintering temperature. At optimum sintering temperature of 1240℃,properties are obtained with the linewidth △H of 4.5kA/m (57Oe),and △Hk of 0.33kA/m (4.1Oe),which is two times that of the common YIG. The sintering temperature of this method,1240℃ is 200℃ lower than that of common YIG.
The influence factors and current status on appropriate health technologies promotion for health

With the trial and promotion of many appropriate technologies for health in China,its progress and results are remarkable,which has achieved the goals of reducing farmer's burden,promoting group health and helping economic development.Factors and experiences which influence appropriate health technologies in China and abroad have been reviewed to give references for policy optimization and promotion appropriate health technologies application in China.
The prevalence of phenotypic silver resistance in clinical isolates.

UNLABELLED Research has shown silver to be an effective antimicrobial agent against bacteria, virus, yeast, and fungi. Due to the increased use of silver-based wound products during the past decade, concerns of widespread silver resistance have been raised.1 The purpose of this study was to assess the prevalence of phenotypic silver resistance in clinical isolates. METHODS A total of 130 different microorganism strains were collected from patients admitted to a tertiary care hospital. To determine phenotypic silver resistance, a corrected zone of inhibition (CZOI) test was used. The isolate (0.1 mL) was streaked on nutrient agar in 3 directions to form a confluent lawn. A silver dressing and a control gauze dressing were placed on the lawn and incubated for 24 hours. The CZOI was determined by averaging the zone of clearance in both directions across the dressing and then subtracting the dressing size. Corrected zone of inhibition tests were conducted in duplicate. To confirm the silver dressing killed the microorganism and did not simply hinder bacterial growth, a culture was taken from underneath each silver dressing and plated separately. RESULTS All of the isolates showed no growth when tested against the silver-based dressing. The CZOI values ranged between 0.0 mm and 7.25 mm. No growth was observed in the secondary culture from underneath the dressing, indicating the silver dressing was bactericidal for all 130 isolates tested and not simply bacteriostatic. The control gauze dressing did not show any antimicrobial properties. CONCLUSION The threat of widespread silver resistance in clinical isolates remains low. However, continued monitoring for silver resistance should be maintained.
International Perspectives on the Delivery of Health Care

Since the publishing of the second edition of this text, significant advances in the practice and delivery of health care to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities have occurred across the world. In support of this work, international organizations and alliances have emerged as thriving networks for knowledge and information exchange. However, health disparities experienced by people with intellectual and developmental disabilities persist. In the following chapter, a host of recent and emerging global innovations are offered for review, comparison and practical use.
The Common School Controversy

“The importance of the common school as an Americanizing influence can scarcely receive too much emphasis. There have been many communities, however, where this institution has not been able to exert its full measure of influence, having to compete with the parochial schools which for the most part taught in Norwegian. Our community was loyal to the common school; but even there its influence was closely limited.”1
How much clinical evidence is enough: regulation of medical devices?

In a recent publication, Marcus and colleagues questioned the adequacy of the amount of high level clinical evidence obtained under the current legal framework for U.S. regulation of medical devices (1). Based on a cross-sectional literature review covering the years 2000 through 2004, they identified clinical research publications for 218 unique medical devices of which 99 (45%) were cleared or approved for marketing in the U.S. The clinical studies associated with the 99 devices were mostly case series or level 4 evidence. In addition to several critical methodological flaws of the study, the authors fail to fully appreciate the current legal framework under which medical devices are regulated in the U.S (2,3).
Effects of Eccentric Exercise-Induced Muscle Damage on Endothelial Function and Skeletal Muscle Microvascular Deoxygenation

Unaccustomed eccentric exercise has been shown to result in muscle damage (EIMD) and to decrease maximal aerobic exercise capacity (VO2max). Central and peripheral cardiovascular function mediates ...
Ultrasonic Beam Sensitivity Profile Changes in Mammalian Tissue

When an ultrasonic beam passes through tissue, it undergoes a complex series of interactions with the medium. These serve to attenuate, scatter and oftentimes refract the beam from its initial path. Attenuating regions and scattering sites or interfaces are usually not distributed uniformly throughout the tissue, or for that matter, may not be intercepted to the same degree by all sections of the beam. Scatter of the ultrasonic beam, both diffuse and specular, as well as local nonuniformities in attenuation and refractive index throughout the beam volume could result in an ultrasound beam profile quite different from that predicted using only the frequency, diameter, and focal properties of the transducer itself. The present study was undertaken to investigate changes in such ultrasonic beam sensitivity profiles brought about by transmission and reflection of the beam through normal and abnormal mammalian tissue for a variety of clinically-used transducers.
Making a Case for Emotion in the Common Core Understanding of Close Reading

This article argues that close reading is a more authentic, relevant, and powerful practice for students when we treat emotion in readers and in texts as a rhetorical category of analysis. Both building off of the Common Core State Standards’ focus on close reading and critiquing its limiting definition, this article both models and analyzes a type of close reading that puts rhetorical analysis of emotion at its center. The text under consideration is a reading response composed by a student in a sophomore English class in an urban public school in the South. Ultimately, the article argues that by privileging emotion as a rhetorical category of analysis, emotions gain significance beyond the individual, pointing to stances on the world and to relationships with others. By considering the rhetorical force of emotion along with scholarship on emotion in literacy and cultural studies, I offer this article as one way of troubling the CCSS from within.
SeqAnt: Cloud-Based Whole-Genome Annotation and Search

Describing, prioritizing, and selecting alleles from large sequencing experiments remains technically challenging. SeqAnt (https://seqant.emory.edu) is the first online, cloud-based application that makes these tasks accessible for non-programmers, even for terabyte-sized experiments containing thousands of whole-genome samples. It rapidly describes the alleles found within submitted VCF files, and then indexes the results in a natural-language search engine, which enables users to locate alleles of interest in milliseconds using normal English phrases. Our results show that SeqAnt decreases processing time by orders of magnitude and that its search engine can be used to precisely identify alleles by phenotype, genomic structure, and population genetics characteristics.
Timing of oceans on Mars from shoreline deformation

Widespread evidence points to the existence of an ancient Martian ocean. Most compelling are the putative ancient shorelines in the northern plains. However, these shorelines fail to follow an equipotential surface, and this has been used to challenge the notion that they formed via an early ocean and hence to question the existence of such an ocean. The shorelines' deviation from a constant elevation can be explained by true polar wander occurring after the formation of Tharsis, a volcanic province that dominates the gravity and topography of Mars. However, surface loading from the oceans can drive polar wander only if Tharsis formed far from the equator, and most evidence indicates that Tharsis formed near the equator, meaning that there is no current explanation for the shorelines' deviation from an equipotential that is consistent with our geophysical understanding of Mars. Here we show that variations in shoreline topography can be explained by deformation caused by the emplacement of Tharsis. We find that the shorelines must have formed before and during the emplacement of Tharsis, instead of afterwards, as previously assumed. Our results imply that oceans on Mars formed early, concurrent with the valley networks, and point to a close relationship between the evolution of oceans on Mars and the initiation and decline of Tharsis volcanism, with broad implications for the geology, hydrological cycle and climate of early Mars.
Alterations in anterior cingulate cortex myoinositol and aggression in veterans with suicidal behavior: A proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy study.

Abstract Studies investigating the neurochemical changes that correspond with suicidal behavior (SB) have not yielded conclusive results. Suicide correlates such as aggression have been used to explore risk factors for SB. Yet the neurobiological basis for the association between aggression and SB is unclear. Aggression and SB are both prevalent in veterans relative to civilian populations. The current study evaluated the relationship between brain chemistry in the anterior (ACC) and the posterior cingulate cortex (POC), as well as the relationship between aggression and SB in a veteran population using proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-MRS). Single-voxel MRS data at 3 Tesla (T) were acquired from the ACC and POC voxels using a 2-dimensional J-resolved point spectroscopy sequence and quantified using the ProFit algorithm. Participants also completed a structured diagnostic interview and a clinical battery. Our results showed that the myoinositol (mI)/H2O ratio in the ACC and POC was significantly higher in veterans who reported SB when compared to veterans who did not. The two groups did not differ significantly with regard to other metabolites. Second, verbal aggression and SB measures positively correlated with mI/H2O in the ACC. Finally, verbal aggression mediated the relationship between mI/H2O in the ACC and SB.
Separation of current density and electric field domains caused by nonlinear electronic instabilities

In 1963 Ridley postulated that under certain bias conditions circuit elements exhibiting a current- or voltage-controlled negative differential resistance will separate into coexisting domains with different current densities or electric fields, respectively, in a process similar to spinodal decomposition of a homogeneous liquid or disproportionation of a metastable chemical compound. The ensuing debate, however, failed to agree on the existence or causes of such electronic decomposition. Using thermal and chemical spectro-microscopy, we directly imaged signatures of current-density and electric-field domains in several metal oxides. The concept of local activity successfully predicts initiation and occurrence of spontaneous electronic decomposition, accompanied by a reduction in internal energy, despite unchanged power input and heat output. This reveals a thermodynamic constraint required to properly model nonlinear circuit elements. Our results explain the electroforming process that initiates information storage via resistance switching in metal oxides and has significant implications for improving neuromorphic computing based on nonlinear dynamical devices.
Assessment of Problem Solving and Executive Functions

The assessment of problem solving and executive functions is one of the most challenging tasks facing clinicians involved in the evaluation of behavior. Although there are numerous neuropsychological measures to examine these abilities, no single test captures their full complexity. The skills necessary for performing behaviors such as planning, hypothesis testing, and self-monitoring are interrelated and often subtle. Successful performance depends not only on the integrity of these specific skills, but on other domains such as language, attention, and memory. The ability to use feedback, for example, may be disrupted because the patient has forgotten a previous response rather than being insensitive to environmental contingencies. Motivational level also influences whether the patient is willing to formulate strategies and to select behaviors necessary to achieve goals. Assessment requires a comprehensive approach that employs an array of methods and includes careful analysis of the underpinnings of impairments.
Challenges and opportunities in integration of 2D materials on 3D substrates: Materials and device perspectives

In recent years, large investments into the research of semiconducting two-dimensional (2D) materials such as graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have elucidated interesting device related physical phenomena such as valleytronics [1], 2D superconductivity [2], 2D excitonic effects [3] and vertical tunneling [4]. TMDs offer layer-dependent chemical tunability of electronic and optoelectronic properties governed by interlayer van der Waals (vdW) forces [5]. Because of their layered nature, these low-dimensional materials can be combined to form multifunctional heterostructure materials exhibiting entirely new physical systems offering new degrees of flexibility in designing electronics, optoelectronics and other novel devices [6], [7]. In the last couple of years, the focus in the 2D materials research have shifted from exploration of proof-of-concept devices using mechanically exfoliated materials to more advanced device processing using high-quality large-scale growth based on advanced scalable vdW-epitaxy techniques such as powder vapor deposition (PVD) and chemical vapor deposition (CVD).
Hemorrhagic Highs from Synthetic Cannabinoids - A New Epidemic.

Reports of clusters of persons with severe side effects from synthetic cannabinoid use are not new and often occur when new synthetic cannabinoids with different side-effect profiles are introduced...
Genomes, 2nd ed. T.A. Brown. Oxford, United Kingdom: Wiley-Liss, 2002, 600 pp., $97.50, cloth. ISBN 0-471-25046-5.

T.A. Brown first published his textbook Genomes in 1999, just before the draft sequences of fruit fly, mustard weed, and human genomes appeared in Science and Nature . The first edition reflected the author’s conviction that molecular biology has evolved beyond a preoccupation with the activities of individual genes and must now embrace functional analysis of all the genes in a species’ repertoire. Three years later, he has produced a second edition to incorporate new developments in genome science and to make the …
SARS-CoV-2 Detection Using an Isothermal Amplification Reaction and a Rapid, Inexpensive Protocol for Sample Inactivation and Purification

Abstract As the current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic spreads, the need for more diagnostic capabilities is great. In order to address this need, we have developed a highly sensitive RT-LAMP assay compatible with current reagents, that utilizes a colorimetric readout in as little as 30 minutes. In addition to this, we have developed an inexpensive pipeline to further increase sensitivity without requiring highly specialized equipment. A rapid inactivation protocol capable of inactivating virions, as well as endogenous nucleases, was also developed to increase sensitivity and sample stability. This protocol, combined with our RT-LAMP assay, has a sensitivity of at least 50 viral RNA copies per microliter in a sample. To further increase the sensitivity, a purification protocol compatible with this inactivation method was developed. The inactivation and purification protocol, combined with our RT-LAMP assay, brings the sensitivity to at least 1 viral RNA copy per microliter in a sample. We hope that this inactivation and purification pipeline, which costs approximately $0.07 per sample and which uses readily available reagents, will increase the availability of SARS-CoV-2 testing, as well as expand the settings in which this testing can be performed.
Resonance Frequency Assessment: The Challenge of Standardizing Heart Rate Variability Biofeedback Research

The resonance frequency (RF) is the rate at which a system, like the cardiovascular system, can be activated or stimulated for maximal variability. Precise RF measurement is needed to standardize t...
Brain Aromatase and the Regulation of Sexual Activity in Male Mice

The biologically active estrogen estradiol has important roles in adult brain physiology and sexual behavior. A single gene, Cyp19a1, encodes aromatase, the enzyme that catalyzes the conversion of testosterone to estradiol in the testis and brain of male mice. Estradiol formation was shown to regulate sexual activity in various species, but the relative contributions to sexual behavior of estrogen that arises in the brain versus from the gonads remained unclear. To determine the role of brain aromatase in regulating male sexual activity, we generated a brain-specific aromatase knockout (bArKO) mouse. A newly generated whole-body total aromatase knockout mouse of the same genetic background served as a positive control. Here we demonstrate that local aromatase expression and estrogen production in the brain is partially required for male sexual behavior and sex hormone homeostasis. Male bArKO mice exhibited decreased sexual activity in the presence of strikingly elevated circulating testosterone. In castrated adult bArKO mice, administration of testosterone only partially restored sexual behavior; full sexual behavior, however, was achieved only when both estradiol and testosterone were administered together. Thus, aromatase in the brain is, in part, necessary for testosterone-dependent male sexual activity. We also found that brain aromatase is required for negative feedback regulation of circulating testosterone of testicular origin. Our findings suggest testosterone activates male sexual behavior in part via conversion to estradiol in the brain. These studies provide foundational evidence that sexual behavior may be modified through inhibition or enhancement of brain aromatase enzyme activity and/or utilization of selective estrogen receptor modulators.
Thermoregulatory Strategies of Diving Air-Breathing Marine Vertebrates: A Review

The aquatic habitat of marine “air-breathing” vertebrates provides a significant thermoregulatory challenge due to the high thermal conductivity of water. In addition to temperature changes across their range, air-breathing vertebrates experience temperature changes on the timescale of seconds to minutes as they perform dives to access two critical resources: air at the surface and food at depth. In response to these challenges, air-breathing vertebrates have developed morphological and physiological adaptations that align with their life histories and phylogenies and contribute to homeostasis. However, the physiological and behavioral mechanisms used to maintain thermal balance while diving is still poorly understood. The cardiovascular system is integral to the physiological responses associated with the dive response, exercise, digestion, and thermoregulation. The adjustments required to meet one physiological demand may not be compatible with another and can result in a potential conflict between the various physiological demands imposed on air-breathing divers. We reviewed the literature on thermoregulation while diving in an effort to synthesize our current understanding of the thermoregulatory strategies of diving air-breathing marine vertebrates. Studies have demonstrated that thermoregulatory strategies can involve the temporal separation of two conflicting responses, a compromise in the performance of one response over another, or coordination of synergistic responses. We hope that a review and synthesis of both laboratory and field studies will stimulate future research efforts at the intersection of thermoregulation and diving physiology. Expanding the use of physiological biologgers, particularly to understudied species, will enhance our understanding of how these animals coordinate various physiological demands to maintain homeostasis in a thermally challenging environment.
JointFontGAN: Joint Geometry-Content GAN for Font Generation via Few-Shot Learning

Automatic generation of font and text design in the wild is a challenging task since font and text in real world exhibit various visual effects. In this paper, we propose a novel model, JointFontGAN, to derive fonts, including both geometric structures and shape contents in correctness and consistency with very few font samples available. Specifically, we design an end-to-end deep learning based approach for font generation through the new multi-stream extended conditional generative adversarial network (XcGAN) models, which jointly learn and generate both font skeleton and glyph representations simultaneously. It can adapt to the geometric variability and content scalability at the neural network level. Then, we apply it, along with the developed efficient and effective one-stage model, to text generations in letters and sentences / paragraphs with both standard and artistic / handwriting styles. The extensive experiments and comparisons demonstrate that our approach outperforms the state-of-the-art methods on the collected datasets including 20K fonts (letters and punctuations) with different styles.
Serum Mineral Concentrations and Risk of Periparturient Disease

Serum mineral concentrations are very dynamic around the time of calving as homeostatic mechanisms are altered to facilitate transition into lactation or mineral is lost to colostrum formation. If homeostatic control or reserve mobilization are unable to maintain normal physiologic mineral concentrations, a variety of periparturient metabolic diseases may occur. The objective of this study was to evaluate the relationship of serum mineral concentration around the time of calving to animal health status and specific disease conditions.
Designing Interpretable Convolution-Based Hybrid Networks for Genomics

Hybrid networks that build upon convolutional layers with attention mechanisms have demon-strated improved performance relative to pure convolutional networks across many regulatory genome analysis tasks. Their inductive bias to learn long-range interactions provides an avenue to identify learned motif-motif interactions. For attention maps to be interpretable, the convolutional layer(s) must learn identifiable motifs. Here we systematically investigate the extent that architectural choices in convolution-based hybrid networks influence learned motif representations in first layer filters, as well as the reliability of their attribution maps generated by saliency analysis. We find that design principles previously identified in standard convolutional networks also generalize to hybrid networks. This work provides an avenue to narrow the spectrum of architectural choices when designing hybrid networks such that they are amenable to commonly used interpretability methods in genomics.
Control and Communication Characteristics of Agricultural Production Systems

Agricultural production is a complex large system dealing with crops, animals, and their interactions with ecological systems. In crop production a series of production and management systems are involved for soil conservation, pest management, irrigation scheduling, and harvest, each of which targets to have the best performance to maximize the profit for the entire crop production.
Optimal Siting of Shallow Subsurface Intake Technologies

Development of subsurface SWRO intake systems along the shoreline or in the nearshore environment requires careful evaluation before they can be successfully developed. These environments are zones of high energy and changes that impact the long-term viability of subsurface intake systems. A key aspect for evaluation is a detailed analysis of the sediment budget and transport system along the beach and nearshore environments. Erosion of the shoreline or rapid deposition could cause the failure of many subsurface intake systems, especially beach and offshore gallery intakes. Both the seasonal fluctuations in shoreline profiles and the long-term trends in sedimentation must be evaluated. Large capacity subsurface SWRO intake systems, such as that proposed at Huntington Beach, California, require an optimal siting and evaluation analysis to be conducted using modern modeling and analytical methods. A detailed summary of global littoral and nearshore processes as related to the design and construction of subsurface intake systems is presented with a detailed analysis showing how the natural system was evaluated to select a stable site for a seabed gallery (infiltration) system at Huntington Beach, California, which is a high energy shoreline that creates considerable challenges in siting and construction.
The Function of Ceremonial Sexual Intercourse Among the Northern Plains Indians

Sexual intimacy as a means of transferring spiritual power appears to have been a Mandan-Hidatsa ceremonial trait borrowed by three Algonkian Plains tribes as part of the graded men’s societies com...
Impact of Nitrogen and Phosphorus on [14C]Lignocellulose Decomposition by Stream Wood Microflora

Nutritional and physical factors affecting the decomposition of [C]lignocellulose prepared from Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) were examined by incubating the labeled substrate with homogenized surface wood scrapings obtained from a Douglas fir log in a Pacific Northwest stream. Incubations were conducted in distilled water, in stream water collected from four different sources, or in a defined mineral salts solution with or without supplemental N (KNO(3)). Decomposition rates of [C]lignocellulose, as measured by CO(2) evolution, were greater in each of the four filter-sterilized sources of stream water than in distilled water alone. Decomposition experiments conducted in stream water media with the addition of defined mineral salts demonstrated that [C]cellulose decomposition was stimulated 50% by the addition of either KNO(3) or KH(2)PO(4)/K(2)HPO(4) and further enhanced (167%) by a combination of both. In contrast, [C]lignin decomposition was stimulated (65%) only by the addition of both N and P. Decomposition of [C]lignocellulose was greatest when supplemental KNO(3) was supplied in concentrations of at least 10.0 mg of N liter but not increased further by higher concentrations. The decomposition of [C]lignocellulose increased as the incubation temperature was raised and NO(3)-N supplementation further increased these rates between three-and sevenfold over the range of temperatures examined (5 to 22 degrees C). Accumulation of NH(4) (2 to 4 mg of N liter) was always observed in culture filtrates of incubations which had been supplemented with KNO(3), the quantity being independent of NO(3) concentrations >/= 10 mg of N liter. The role of supplemental NO(3) in the decomposition of [C]lignocellulose is discussed in relation to wood decomposition and the low concentrations of N found in stream ecosystems of the Pacific Northwest.
Chapter 6: Practical aspects of administration of onabotulinumtoxinA

Candidates for onabotulinumtoxinA are generally patients with overactive bladder (OAB) or neurogenic detrusor overactivity (NDO) whose disease is inadequately controlled with behavioral therapy and oral medication. All patients must be willing and able to perform clean intermittent catheterization (CIC). Before the decision to administer onabotulinumtoxinA is made, the clinician should provide counseling to the patient regarding the agent's indications, proposed benefits, risks, and mode of administration. The patient should be aware that onabotulinumtoxinA takes effect after approximately 1–2 weeks and usually lasts for 4–10 months, after which repeat injections will be necessary to maintain effect. Patient preparation may include pre-treatment antibiotics and withdrawal of antiplatelet therapy or anticoagulants. Preparation of the product involves reconstitution in sterile saline and dilution according to the planned dose. Local anesthesia (e.g., bladder instillation of lidocaine) is usually administered, although general anesthesia may be used in certain cases. The injections are performed using a flexible or rigid cystoscope, and the procedure takes approximately 15 min. The initial follow-up visit occurs within 7–14 days, when evidence of adverse effects, including urinary retention, can be evaluated. Repeat injections can be scheduled as needed, but not sooner than 3 months. Currently, the total dose of onabotulinumtoxinA should not exceed 360 U in a 3-month period for all indications, including those outside the urinary tract (i.e., cosmetic, ophthalmologic, etc.). Overall, onabotulinumtoxinA is effective, generally well tolerated, safe, and is relatively simple to provide. Neurourol. Urodynam. 33:S32–S37, 2014. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
P-Wave Duration and Dispersion Analysis: Methodological Considerations

To the Editor: With great interest, we have read the article of Fan and colleagues1 on the effects of biatrial pacing in the prevention of postoperative atrial fibrillation after coronary artery bypass surgery. By measuring P-wave duration from 12-lead surface ECGs and calculating P-wave dispersion, they found that biatrial pacing resulted in a more significant reduction in P-wave dispersion when compared with single-site atrial pacing. Although these results are interesting, we believe that they should be considered cautiously because of the limited accuracy of electrocardiographic measurements performed manually on paper-printed ECGs obtained at a standard signal size and paper speed. Our research group has introduced P-wave dispersion as a simple …
Organizing the Xenopus Organizer

In chordates in general and in Xenopus in particular, the animal’s body axis is organized largely as a dorsal collinear array of notochord, nerve cord, and somites, divided antero-posteriorly into head, trunk, and tail. Ventral aspects of the body axis are less obvious than dorsal, but include an antero-posterior ordering of branchial and gut regions, and heart and blood islands. This organization arises at the gastrula stage of development, through the action of a small population of cells collectively called the “gastrula organizer” which we wish to discuss in terms of its formation and function.
A 3-D time-domain finite element formulation for periodic geometries

Periodic structures have a long history of being utilized to control electromagnetic scattering and radiation for various engineering applications. A new exciting class of periodic structures is the left-handed materials for which both the effective permittivity and permeability are negative. This article presents a new promising method for analyzing these types of structures. The method is capable of a fully 3D electromagnetic analysis over a broad frequency range in a single execution. It is based on the finite-element method in the time domain (FEM-TD) over a unit cell of an infinite periodic structure.
Corporate Innovation and Spillover Effect

We examine the knowledge spillover effect of innovation in publicly traded firms during 1976-2006. We show that consistent with the contagion effect, the market rewards event firms for their innovation success and innovation has spillover effect on rival firms. However, this relationship does not hold for low citation-rank firms. This implies that it is the value of knowledge that matters not the number of patents being granted.We further confirm that the number of citations is the driving force for the market to differentiate among firms in the same industry. Nevertheless, consistent with He and Tian (2012), our results suggest that rival firms with good operating performance in the near past can be more tolerated by the market on potential innovation slack (e.g. higher citation from event firms).
Adaptive Belief Propagation

Graphical models are widely used in inference problems. In practice, one may construct a single large-scale model to explain a phenomenon of interest, which may be utilized in a variety of settings. The latent variables of interest, which can differ in each setting, may only represent a small subset of all variables. The marginals of variables of interest may change after the addition of measurements at different time points. In such adaptive settings, naive algorithms, such as standard belief propagation (BP), may utilize many unnecessary computations by propagating messages over the entire graph. Here, we formulate an efficient inference procedure, termed adaptive BP (AdaBP), suitable for adaptive inference settings. We show that it gives exact results for trees in discrete and Gaussian Markov Random Fields (MRFs), and provide an extension to Gaussian loopy graphs. We also provide extensions on finding the most likely sequence of the entire latent graph. Lastly, we compare the proposed method to standard BP and to that of (Sumer et al., 2011), which tackles the same problem. We show in synthetic and real experiments that it outperforms standard BP by orders of magnitude and explore the settings that it is advantageous over (Sumer et al., 2011).
Membrane/electrode additives for low–humidification operation

Proton exchange membrane fuel cells are limited in their potential for commercialization, since a high water content is required in the Nafion® ionomer currently used as the electrolyte. Research is currently being performed to reduce this water requirement while still maintaining high ionic conductivity. One approach that shows promise incorporates solid proton conductors such as phosphotungstic acid or zirconium (hydrogen) phosphate into the ionomer. Operating at low water content in the membrane allows cell operation at higher temperatures without cell pressurization. Higher temperature operation improves the performance of the cell, reduces the cost of the fuel cell power plant, and makes the proton exchange membrane fuel cell more attractive for the direct use of methanol as the fuel. This section presents a survey of approaches that have been used and experimental data showing the current status of performance of proton exchange membrane fuel cells operating with low water content. Keywords: Nafion; proton exchange membrane; ionic conductive solid; ionic conductivity; proton conductivity; water content; direct methanol fuel cells; proton conductors
Teenage Pregnancy: A Prospective Study of Self-Esteem and Other Sociodemographic Factors

A prospective study was undertaken to examine the relationship of self-esteem and other factors theorized to contribute to teenage pregnancy. The Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory and a questionnaire concerning demographic, attitudinal, and other factors, were administered to 874 of the 1,007 teenage women enrolled in two city high schools. During the following year, 95 of 858 teenage women followed up became pregnant, a pregnancy rate of 11.1%. The data show no significant association of self-esteem with subsequent pregnancy. Twelve of the 27 questionnaire items were associated significantly with pregnancy. However, further analysis revealed that either alone or in combination, there were no more than 57% sensitivity and 67% specificity for prediction of subsequent pregnancy from the questionnaires.
Hair: Its Power and Meaning in Asian Cultures

Hair: Its Power and Meaning in Asian Cultures. Alf Hiltebeitel and Barbara D. Miller. eds. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998. 298 pp.
AN EVOLUTIONARY CONSERVED COUP-TF BINDING ELEMENT IN A NEURAL-SPECIFIC GENE AND COUP-TF EXPRESSION PATTERNS SUPPORT A MAJOR ROLE FOR COUP-TF IN NEURAL DEVELOPMENT

The COUP transcription factors (COUP-TF and ARP-1) are the most highly conserved members of the nuclear receptor superfamily throughout evolution. Previous studies indicated that COUP orphan receptors may be involved in early neurogenesis in Drosophila and zebrafish. Here we identified a neural-specific gene, arrestin, whose transcription can be regulated by endogenous COUPs through a DR-7 element (direct repeat with a 7-base pair spacer) located upstream of the transcription start site. Importantly, the COUP binding site of the arrestin gene promoter is conserved among mouse, bovine, and human. However, the mouse element is also capable of responding to retinoic acid while the element in the human gene does not. Expression of COUP-TF correlates with the known expression sites of the arrestin gene in vivo, notably during the differentiation of the retina. We also show that COUP-TF is expressed in a spatio-temporally defined pattern in the murine central nervous system during embryogenesis. It appears that...
Estimating Absolute and Relative Case Fatality Ratios from Infectious Disease Surveillance Data

Knowing which populations are most at risk for severe outcomes from an emerging infectious disease is crucial in deciding the optimal allocation of resources during an outbreak response. The case fatality ratio (CFR) is the fraction of cases that die after contracting a disease. The relative CFR is the factor by which the case fatality in one group is greater or less than that in a second group. Incomplete reporting of the number of infected individuals, both recovered and dead, can lead to biased estimates of the CFR. We define conditions under which the CFR and the relative CFR are identifiable. Furthermore, we propose an estimator for the relative CFR that controls for time-varying reporting rates. We generalize our methods to account for elapsed time between infection and death. To demonstrate the new methodology, we use data from the 1918 influenza pandemic to estimate relative CFRs between counties in Maryland. A simulation study evaluates the performance of the methods in outbreak scenarios. An R software package makes the methods and data presented here freely available. Our work highlights the limitations and challenges associated with estimating absolute and relative CFRs in practice. However, in certain situations, the methods presented here can help identify vulnerable subpopulations early in an outbreak of an emerging pathogen such as pandemic influenza.
Spectral smoothing in Fourier spectroscopy

Abstract Apodizing functions are shown which produce the lowest total square error for a specific combination of noise and spectrum. It is shown that smoothing under white-noise-limited experiments leads to the use of conventional apodizing functions, whereas background-spectral-noise-limited experiments generally require quite different techniques.
Determination of the pulmonary capillary wedge position in patients with giant left atrial V waves.

Thirteen patients with giant left atrial V waves during preoperative cardiac catheterization were admitted into the study group. While awake and breathing spontaneously, simultaneous recordings of electrocardiographic leads II and V5, radial arterial traces, and pulmonary arterial or pulmonary capillary wedge traces were obtained. Measurements were made on four consecutive cardiac cycles in the unwedged and wedged positions for the following intervals: Q wave to the radial arterial upstroke (220 ± 20 milliseconds) and peak (360 ± 10 milliseconds), Q wave to the pulmonary arterial upstroke (170 ± 20 milliseconds) and peak (350 ± 20 milliseconds), Q wave to the V wave upstroke (280 ± 20 milliseconds) and peak (570 ± 20 milliseconds), and QT interval (420 ± 20 milliseconds). These findings indicate that the radial arterial and pulmonary arterial upstrokes and peaks occur nearly simultaneously. Upon wedging, the V wave upstroke occurs significantly later in the cardiac cycle (P < .05) compared with the pulmonary arterial upstroke, and the V wave peak occurs significantly later compared with both the pulmonary arterial and the radial arterial peak (P < .05). A rapid, simple beat-to-beat method for differentiating pulmonary arterial from pulmonary capillary wedge positions in the presence of giant left atrial V waves is the superimposition of the pulmonary arterial trace on the radial arterial trace. When a wedge position is attained, there is an immediate rightward shift in the upstroke and peak of the pulmonary arterial pressure trace, which can be easily identified by observing the relationship between the pulmonary arterial and systemic arterial traces.
Monkeying around with cardiac progenitors: hope for the future.

Heart failure is a progressive disease that affects over 5 million individuals in the United States. In addition, many of the over 1 million survivors of congenital heart disease are destined to develop heart failure as they age. Current pharmacologic therapies have limited efficacy and only slow the progression of cardiac dysfunction. Heart transplantation is often the last resort of treatment, but the limited donor pool makes this option unrealistic for the vast majority of patients. Given the disease burden and the unsatisfying therapeutic modalities for heart failure, the potential of cardiac regenerative medicine has generated tremendous interest worldwide. Approaches to regenerate functional myocardium in damaged hearts have made substantial strides in recent years. Of major importance was the identification of multiple cardiovascular progenitor cells (CPCs) that have embryonic origin and can be isolated from heart tissue, or that can be differentiated from ES or induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells (1–4). The previously characterized CPCs retain intrinsic competence to differentiate into various cardiac lineages. Among them, Flk1+ (KDR+ in human) precursors retain the capacity to differentiate into blood cells and three of the major cell types of the heart cells, namely cardiomyocytes, smooth muscle cells, and endothelial cells (5, 6). CPCs expressing the transcription factor Isl1 are also multipotent and give rise to cardiomyocytes, smooth muscle cells, and endothelial cells (7–9). Finally, CPCs marked by the transcription factor Nkx2.5 are more lineage restricted but can differentiate into cardiomyocytes and smooth muscle cells (10). Despite these advances, practical isolation of cardiac lineage-committed progenitor cells using a surface marker and introduction of such cells into a damaged heart has remained problematic.
Some problems in the assessment of handedness: Comment on Coren (1993)

The development by Coren (1993) of the Lateral Preference Inventory is an important advance for research on handedness, footedness, eyedness, and earedness. However, there are some problems in the assessment of handedness. Left-handed people live in a right-handed world and thus are deviant, relative to the majority. According to deviance theory (Eisenman, 1991), left-handed people are subject to all kinds of socially induced problems. Thus, many left-handed people will be forced, in one way or another, to use the nonpreferred right hand for a variety of tasks. Asking what hand they use may make them appear to be right-handed. Other issues are discussed, including the fact that I consider myself left-handed, yet would score right-handed on three of the four Coren (1993) handedness items.
Using SAGBI bases to compute invariants

Abstract We extend SAGBI basis theory to quotient rings and explain how the quotient ring SAGBI algorithm can be used to compute invariants. By an investigation of monomial subalgebras in quotients by binomial ideals, the algorithm is shown to terminate for computing invariants of the action of a torus or a finite abelian group.
Naked Singularities, Thin Shells, and the Reissner-Nordström Metric

The time development of a thin charged shell is studied and it is shown that it can collapse to form a naked singularity if, and only if, the matter energy density of the shell is negative.
An atomistic-based finite deformation membrane for single layer crystalline films

A general methodology to develop hyper-elastic membrane models applicable to crystalline films one-atom thick is presented. In this method, an extension of the Born rule based on the exponential map is proposed. The exponential map accounts for the fact that the lattice vectors of the crystal lie along the chords of the curved membrane, and consequently a tangent map like the standard Born rule is inadequate. In order to obtain practical methods, the exponential map is locally approximated. The effectiveness of our approach is demonstrated by numerical studies of carbon nanotubes. Deformed configurations as well as equilibrium energies of atomistic simulations are compared with those provided by the continuum membrane resulting from this method discretized by finite elements.
Three Faces of Ecosystem Management

The debate over the objectives and methods of ecosystem management has been confusing, in part because people truly mean different things when they use the term ecosystem management. These different meanings reflect differences in interests, values, and knowledge. I organized these meanings into three sets: "environmentally sensitive multiple use," an "ecosystem approach to resource management," and "ecore- gional management." Environmentally sensitive multiple use takes an anthropocentric perspective that seeks to foster multiple human uses subject to an understanding of environmental constraints that goes beyond that considered in traditional multiple-use management. An ecosystem approach incorporates a biocentric view in which ecosystems are understood as a metaphor for holistic thinking requiring an expanded consid- eration of the dynamism and complexity of ecological systems, scale phenomena, and the need for manage- ment across ownership boundaries. Ecoregional management takes an ecocentric perspective that focuses on the management of specific landscape ecosystems defined as real geographic spaces and that shifts manage- ment focus toward ecosystem processes and away from biota. Understanding these three conceptualizations as different points along a continuum of resource management paradigms helps clarify the different visions of ecosystem management held by different groups. Because different places and groups are at various points on the continuum, progress comes from moving along the continuum and not necessarily by seeking a single state called "ecosystem management." Policy prescriptions, such as changes in law, incentives, and informa- tion provision, can be targeted more effectively to the realities of different settings. Ultimately, the conceptual- ization suggests that heterogeneity of ecosystem management approaches is desirable, as long as we learn from the diverse experiences that result. Tres Caras del Manejo de Ecosistemas
Asymmetric synthesis of (+)-preussin from N-sulfinyl δ-amino β-ketoesters

Abstract The efficient asymmetric synthesis of the antifungal pyrrolidine alkaloid (+)-preussin ( 2 ) was accomplished via the stereoselective reduction of a 5-substituted 3-oxo proline. The oxo proline was prepared from an N-sulfinyl δ-amino β-ketoester, a sulfinimine derived polyfunctionalized chiral building block.