cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Late-successional and old-growth forest carbon temporal dynamics in the Northern Forest (Northeastern USA)

Abstract Comprehensive data on the capacity and rates of change for carbon pools in managed and unmanaged forests is essential for evaluating climate change mitigation options being considered by policy makers at regional and national levels. We currently lack real and long-term data on forest carbon dynamics covering a wide range of forest management practices and conditions. Because of this, selecting the best policies for conserving forest carbon must rely on forest growth and yield models such as US Forest Service (USFS) Forest Vegetation Simulator (FVS) to predict the future forest carbon impacts of management actions. FVS may underestimate the capacity of older stands to accumulate carbon because the model relies on USFS Forest Inventory and Analysis data that lack data from late-successional and old-growth (LSOG) stands. Improving these models will increase the likelihood of selecting policies that successfully use forests to reduce atmospheric carbon. From 1995 to 2002, Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences conducted research on 65 10 m by 50 m permanent plots to evaluate forest structure (standing live and dead trees, and down coarse woody material) in LSOG stands across northern Maine. We re-measured these plots in 2011 to assess long-term carbon sequestration trends in LSOG stands of common forest types in the Northern Forest region for above ground alive, standing dead, and coarse woody material carbon pools. Late-successional (LS) and Old-growth (OG) aboveground live carbon (C) stocks were very high relative to regional mean C stocks (2.0–2.5 times the mean), LS plots were accumulating aboveground live C at a positive rate (0.61 Mg ha −1 year −1 ), while C stocks on OG plots are declining (−0.54 Mg ha −1 year −1 ). This change is driven by the presence of beech bark fungus ( Nectria sp.) that is leading to mortality in larger diameter American beech ( Fagus grandifolia ) trees. We also found that the Northeast Variant of the Forest Vegetation Simulator is not a reliable predictor of aboveground live carbon accumulation rates in Northeastern LS and OG stands. This work provides important baselines for understanding the role of older forests and forest management within climate change mitigation strategies in the northeastern US. Late-successional and old-growth forests can play an important role in mitigating climate change, but understanding and quantifying natural disturbance risk to forest carbon stocks is critical for successful implementation of mitigation strategies. Further, regional forest carbon models will need calibration to accurately predict carbon accumulation rates in older forests.
An axiomatic approach to soft learning vector quantization and clustering

This paper presents an axiomatic approach to soft learning vector quantization (LVQ) and clustering based on reformulation. The reformulation of the fuzzy c-means (FCM) algorithm provides the basis for reformulating entropy-constrained fuzzy clustering (ECFC) algorithms. According to the proposed approach, the development of specific algorithms reduces to the selection of a generator function. Linear generator functions lead to the FCM and fuzzy learning vector quantization algorithms while exponential generator functions lead to ECFC and entropy-constrained learning vector quantization algorithms. The reformulation of LVQ and clustering algorithms also provides the basis for developing uncertainty measures that can identify feature vectors equidistant from all prototypes. These measures are employed by a procedure developed to make soft LVQ and clustering algorithms capable of identifying outliers in the data set. This procedure is evaluated by testing the algorithms generated by linear and exponential generator functions on speech data.
Forward-backward modeling in statistical natural concept generation for interlingua-based speech-to-speech translation

Natural concept generation is critical to statistical interlingua-based speech-to-speech translation performance. To improve maximum-entropy-based concept generation, a forward-backward modeling approach is proposed, which generates concept sequences in the target language by selecting the hypothesis with the highest combined conditional probability, based on both the forward and backward generation models. Statistical language models are further applied to utilize word-level context information. The concept generation error rate is reduced by over 20% in our speech translation corpus within limited domains. Improvements are also achieved in our experiments on speech translation.
Overview of clinical trials of cholesterol lowering in relationship to epidemiologie studies

The results of clinical trials have produced convincing evidence of the direct relationship between total plasma cholesterol lowering and reduction in coronary heart disease risk. Quantitative overviews suggest efficacy in primary and secondary prevention of coronary heart disease, both in pharmacologie and dietary trials. Within-treatment group analyses (as observational epidemiologic studies) of the clinical trials and overview analyses of the aggregate outcome of the trials (as proper randomized experiments) are consistent with the results of population-based epidemiologic surveys: they disclose a continuous decrease in coronary heart disease risk with decreasing levels of total plasma cholesterol over a wide range of values. Integrated with knowledge of the distribution of plasma cholesterol levels in populations, these results indicate that there is a major potential for control of the contemporary epidemic of coronary heart disease by a combined high-risk individual and general population intervention approach to the reduction of plasma cholesterol levels.
Nonvascular, Nontraumatic Mediastinal Emergencies in Adults: A Comprehensive Review of Imaging Findings

Given their high frequency, mediastinal emergencies are often perceived as being a result of external trauma or vascular conditions. However, there is a group of nonvascular, nontraumatic mediastinal emergencies that are less common in clinical practice, are less recognized, and that represent an important source of morbidity and mortality in patients. Nonvascular, nontraumatic mediastinal emergencies have several causes and result from different pathophysiologic mechanisms including infection, internal trauma, malignancy, and postoperative complications, and some may be idiopathic. Some conditions that lead to nonvascular, nontraumatic mediastinal emergencies include acute mediastinitis; esophageal emergencies such as intramural hematoma of the esophagus, Boerhaave syndrome, and acquired esophagorespiratory fistulas; spontaneous mediastinal hematoma; tension pneumomediastinum; and tension pneumopericardium. Although clinical findings of nonvascular, nontraumatic mediastinal emergencies may be nonspecific, imaging findings are often definitive. Awareness of various nonvascular, nontraumatic mediastinal emergencies and their clinical manifestations and imaging findings is crucial for making an accurate and timely diagnosis to facilitate appropriate patient management.
Maintenance of Tolerance by Regulation of Anti-myeloperoxidase B Cells

Anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic autoantibodies directed toward myeloperoxidase or proteinase 3 are detected in sera of patients with small vessel vasculitis and participate in the pathogenesis of this disease. Autoantibodies develop when self-reactive B cells escape the regulation that ensures self-tolerance. In this study, regulation of anti-myeloperoxidase B cells was examined in mice that express an anti-myeloperoxidase Vκ1C-Jκ5 light-chain transgene, which confers anti-myeloperoxidase specificity when combined with a variety of heavy chains. Vκ1C-Jκ5 transgenic mice have splenic anti-myeloperoxidase B cells but do not produce circulating anti-myeloperoxidase antibodies. Two groups of transgenic mice that differed by their relative dosage of the transgene were compared; high-copy mice had a mean relative transgene dosage of 1.92 compared with 1.02 in the low-copy mice. These mice exhibited a 90 and 60% decrease in mature follicular B cells, respectively. High-copy mice were characterized by a large population of anti-myeloperoxidase B cells, a preponderance of B-1 cells, and an increased percentage of apoptotic myeloperoxidase-binding B cells. Low-copy mice had similar changes in B cell phenotype with the exception of an expanded marginal zone population. B cells from low-copy mice but not high-copy mice produced anti-myeloperoxidase antibodies after stimulation with lipopolysaccharide. These results indicate that tolerance to myeloperoxidase is maintained by central and peripheral deletion and that some myeloperoxidase-binding B cells are positively selected into the marginal zone and B-1 B cell subsets. A defect in these regulatory pathways could result in autoimmune disease.
Effects of Intensive Plasmapheresis on Normal Blood Donors

Plasmapheresis was performed in normal blood donors using simple plastic equipment. Removal of plasma in amounts up to 1.0 liter at a single venipuncture proved feasible and produced no major changes in the donor’s blood counts and serum protein levels. Chronic plasmapheresis for periods up to 23 weeks with maximal rates not exceeding 1.5 liters of plasma withdrawn per week, produced no changes in formed elements and only minor changes in serum protein levels. Five donors were subjected to acute plasmapheresis with removal of 5 liters of plasma in 5 days. In this group, serum protein depletion was observed with particular depletion appearing at the end of the 5-day period. From calculations of protein replacement, the presence of a ready extravascular protein reserve, of a size somewhat less than the intravascular pool, was suggested. An average maximal protein replacement of 49 Gm. per day was observed during the most intensive plasmapheresis, and the data suggest that protein withdrawals should not exceed this amount if serum protein levels are to be maintained. Although no rebound of serum protein was observed, recovery after depletion required at least 2 to 4 weeks.
Abortions Among Israeli Women after Interruption in Contraceptive Use

Seventy-two Israeli women who underwent abortions were interviewed. Most of those interviewed had used modern contraceptives previously, but not before their most recent pregnancy. The interruption in contraceptive use resulted from adverse side effects of the contraceptives and instability in partner relationships.
Centralized gene-based HIV-1 vaccine elicits broad cross-clade cellular immune responses in rhesus monkeys

One of the major challenges that must be met in developing an HIV-1 vaccine is devising a strategy to generate cellular immunity with sufficient breadth to deal with the extraordinary genetic diversity of the virus. Amino acids in the envelopes of viruses from the same clade can differ by more than 15%, and those from different clades can differ by more than 30%. It has been proposed that creating immunogens using centralized HIV-1 gene sequences might provide a practical solution to this problem. Such centralized genes can be generated employing a number of different strategies: consensus, ancestral, or center of tree sequences. These computer-generated sequences are a shorter genetic distance from any 2 contemporary virus sequences than those contemporary sequences are from each other. The present study was initiated to evaluate the breadth of cellular immunity generated through immunization of rhesus monkeys with vaccine constructs expressing either an HIV-1 global consensus envelope sequence (CON-S) or a single patient isolate clade B envelope sequence (clade B). We show that vaccine immunogens expressing the single centralized gene CON-S generated cellular immune responses with significantly increased breadth compared with immunogens expressing a wildtype virus gene. In fact, CON-S immunogens elicited cellular immune responses to 3-4-fold more discrete epitopes of the envelope proteins from clades A, C and G than did clade B immunogens. These findings suggest that immunization with centralized genes is a promising vaccine strategy for developing a global vaccine for HIV-1 as well as vaccines for other genetically diverse viruses. This abstract was published in Cancer Immunity, a Cancer Research Institute journal that ceased publication in 2013 and is now provided online in association with Cancer Immunology Research.
Excess putrescine accumulation inhibits the formation of modified eukaryotic initiation factor 5A (eIF-5A) and induces apoptosis

DH23A cells, an alpha-difluoromethylornithine-resistant variant of the parental hepatoma tissue culture cells, express high levels of stable ornithine decarboxylase. Aberrantly high expression of ornithine decarboxylase results in a large accumulation of endogenous putrescine and increased apoptosis in DH23A cells when alpha-difluoromethylornithine is removed from the culture. Treatment of DH23A cells with exogenous putrescine in the presence of alpha-difluoromethylornithine mimics the effect of drug removal, suggesting that putrescine is a causative agent or trigger of apoptosis. Accumulation of excess intracellular putrescine inhibits the formation of hypusine in vivo, a reaction that proceeds by the transfer of the butylamine moiety of spermidine to a lysine residue in eukaryotic initiation factor 5A (eIF-5A). Treatment of DH23A cells with diaminoheptane, a competitive inhibitor of the post-translational modification of eIF-5A, causes both the suppression of eIF-5A modification in vivo and induction of apoptosis. These data support the hypothesis that rapid degradation of ornithine decarboxylase is a protective mechanism to avoid cell toxicity from putrescine accumulation. Further, these data suggest that suppression of modified eIF-5A formation is one mechanism by which cells may be induced to undergo apoptosis.
Consenting to Computer Use

The federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) makes it a crime to “access[] a computer without authorization or exceed[] authorized access.” Courts and commentators have struggled to explain what types of conduct by a computer user are “without authorization.” But this approach is backwards; authorization is not so much a question of what a computer user does, as it is a question of what a computer owner allows.In other words, authorization under the CFAA is an issue of consent, not conduct; to understand authorization, we need to understand consent. Building on Peter Westen’s taxonomy of consent, I argue that we should distinguish between the factual question of what uses a computer owner manifests her consent to and the legal question of what uses courts will deem her to have consented to. Doing so allows to distinguish the different kinds of questions presented by different kinds of CFAA cases, and to give clearer and more precise answers to all of them. Some cases require careful fact-finding about what reasonable computer users in the defendant’s position would have known about the owner’s expressed intentions; other cases require frank policy judgments about which kinds of unwanted uses should be considered serious enough to trigger the CFAA.
Implications of Histogram Analysis in Radiation Therapy (HART) Software

Intensity modulation radiation therapy (IMRT) is an advanced state-of-the-art technique for radiation therapy treatment of cancer. X-ray beams with variable photon energies of 4-20 MV are fundamentally used to deliver radiation from LINAC into the tumor targets routinely based on the nature and stage of the disease. The radiation delivery process would result in the periodic death of the clonogenic cells in the malignant tumors following the treatments. Such treatments are basically planned and simulated in the treatment planning system prior to the clinical implementation in the patients. The outcome of such treatments can be evaluated by assessing the dose volume histograms (DVHs) for various tumor targets and the critical structures in IMRT treatment plans. An in-house built software called Histogram Analysis in Radiation Therapy (HART) [1] was utilized for DVH assessments, plan indices evaluations, dose response modeling for various organs, and the radiation toxicity analysis in critical organs of twenty head and neck cancer patients treated with sequential IMRT boost (SqIB) techniques at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. DVH analysis module is the most common application in HART. In addition to it, it also offers spatial DVH analysis, plan-indices evaluation tool box, and biological model based outcome analysis modules. Furthermore, HART is an useful tool for various clinical applications in radiation therapy treatment of cancer. It also provides a strong support for radiotherapy research, and it is freely available to the radiation oncology community [2].
Is It Charitable to Discriminate: The Necessary Transformation of Section 501(c)(3) intothe Gold Standard for Charities

With federal subsidies to charitable organizations exceeding $232 billion for fiscal years 2007 to 2011, the public benefit conferred by such organizations is an increasingly hot topic for Congress, the Internal Revenue Service and the entire nonprofit sector. Despite the national debate over nonprofit versus for-profit hospitals and excessive executive compensation, and the call for stricter governance and regulation, one recurring activity of charities appears to fly under the radar of reformers - discrimination. As illustrated in real-life occurrences contained in pages 3 and 4 of the article, seemingly widespread discrimination by charities exists not only with respect to employment, but more importantly in providing services or engaging in activities for which the organization was originally granted tax-exempt status (e.g., education). The primary bases for such discrimination are currently sexual orientation and marital status.This article contends that these instances of discrimination are intrinsically incompatible with such organizations' "charitable" purpose and mission, and with society's notion of what constitutes a charity. This article contends that such organizations should not continue to enjoy the benefits of tax-exempt status if they engage in discriminatory practices or maintain discriminatory policies. To combat such discrimination, this article proposes the inclusion of an expansive nondiscrimination requirement within Section 501(c)(3). Such a requirement ensures that the stream of tax-deductible dollars (generated by the charitable contributions deduction) received by charities is not used to discriminate against any member or segment of society. The proposal transforms Section 501(c)(3) into the "gold standard" for all tax-exempt organizations, ensuring that their beneficiaries are as diverse and all encompassing as the taxpaying public from whom such organizations draw their support.
The induction and elicitation of disease in human skin: personal adventures.

The skin provides a unique laboratory in which to study disease under strictly controlled experimental conditions. In this laboratory, a wide variety of diseases have been experimentally replicated over the past two hundred years. Such experimental models have added greatly to our understanding of the pathogenesis and the nature of disease in general as well as the disease under study. Specific review is made of our own experience in the field of experimental skin disease in man. This includes the controlled reproduction of miliarias, hidradenitis suppurativa, pruitus, HalowaxR acne, immune granulomas, and erythema multiforme. From these studies come a powerful awareness of individual differences in susceptibility, the hazards of initiating certain diseases for which there is no specific treatment and a new understanding of sarcoidosis and erythema multiforme.
Nuclear crisis and human frailty

While costly efforts are underway to offset physical threats to the technical management of future nuclear crises, the human component is the least analyzed or even acknowledged.
Oxide laminates with high strength and work-of-fracture

Six types of oxide laminates consisting of combinations of xenotime (YPO4) with zirconia (ZrO2), monazite (LaPO4) with ZrO2, and aluminum orthophosphate (AlPO4) with alumina (Al2O3) were studied. They were fabricated by repeatedly stacking two or three kinds of tape-cast layers, lamination, organic burnout and consolidation by hot-pressing. Two of the YPO4-containing ZrO2 laminates were stacked in a YPO4/yttria-stabilized ZrO2 (Y-ZrO2)/30 vol% Y-ZrO2-70 vol% Al2O3(YZ3-A7)/Y-ZrO2 sequence and in a YPO4/Y-ZrO2 sequence. High strength (∼360 MPa) and apparent work-of-fracture (WOF = ∼ 8.2 kJ/m2) were measured in the first laminate. This oxide laminate demonstrates high damage-tolerance without loss of strength. Both properties were comparable with those of non-oxide laminates. There was an approximately 200-fold increase in WOF, as compared with pure Al2O3. A toughening mechanism by means of the residual, interlaminar shear stress-enhanced, interface delamination is proposed for these good results. Two of the LaP04-containing ZrO2 laminates were fabricated in a LaPO4/70 vol% doped ZrO2-30 vol% Al2O3 stacking sequence and in a LaPO4/Y-ZrO2 sequence. Another two of the AlPO4-containing Al2O3 laminates are fabricated in an AlPO4/Al2O3 and in a (50 vol% AlPO4-50 vol% Al2O3)/Al2O3 stacking sequence. The fracture behavior of these multilayered laminates was also studied. The different results among the three kinds of laminates are discussed.
Toxicity of erythrosin B to the house fly (Diptera: Muscidae)

Erythrosin B, a xanthene dye, was evaluated for adult and larval house fly, Musca domestica L., toxicity. Higher dose and light intensity were found to increase toxic action; however, the concentrations required for acute adult toxicity were found to inhibit erythrosin B ingestion. No photo independent larval kill occurred when erythrosin B was incorporated in the larval medium.
Contribution of Building-Block Test to Discover Unexpected Failure Modes

While the accident rate of airplanes has decreased over decades, accidents still occur mainly due to unexpected failure modes. The objective of this paper is to model in the probabilistic design framework how unexpected failure modes affect reliability, and how post-design tests, called the Building-Block tests, contribute to discovering them. The probabilistic design approach can provide designers and decision-makers with stochastic insight on reliability, i.e., probability of failure. Designers model epistemic and aleatory uncertainties by assuming that they follow certain distributions. However, the current approach does not include the effect of unexpected failure modes, which is the major contributor to most accidents. In the paper, unexpected failure modes are modeled using a large error in epistemic uncertainty, and hierarchical design and test processes to detect them are proposed, as well as a simulation procedure to calculate the associated probability of failure. As an example problem, it is shown that ignoring the effect of unexpected failure modes yields an unconservative estimate of probability of failure by orders of magnitude. It is also shown that the Building-Block test under ultimate load conditions compensates significantly for such unexpected modes, and is effective for discovering modes associated with large errors. Nomenclature = Cross-sectional area of structural element = Designed cross-sectional area of structural element
A study of earthquakes in the Permian Basin of Texas-New Mexico

abstract A microearthquake seismograph network has been employed to study earthquakes occurring in the Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico. The earthquakes are predominantly located on the Central Basin platform, although a few occur in the Delaware Basin. The majority of the earthquakes occur at the depths of sedimentary rocks, and the focal depths are also coincident with the depths at which hydrocarbon production and water-flood (secondary recovery) operations are conducted. Comparison of the historic earthquake activity with water-flood data shows that there was a possible increase in the number of large earthquakes ( M > 3.0) in the mid-19609s when the number of water-flood projects and their injection pressures increased. The first felt event occurred in 1966. This tentative correlation suggests that the earthquakes are related to hydrocarbon production in this area.
Environmental Federalism and Effective Regulation of Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology has been called the “Next Industrial Revolution” because of its extraordinary impact on diverse fields such as medicine and health care, energy, electronics, optics, and even environmental remediation. By 2020, nanotechnology is expected to be a multi-trillion dollar industry. Despite this staggering economic impact, no unified nanotechnology regulatory framework exists, and environmental regulators are struggling to understand and manage the potential impacts of nanotechnology on human health and the environment.This Article first analyzes the history of the general debate over environmental federalism to explore the question of whether regulation of emerging technologies should always take place at a centralized (federal) or decentralized (state and local) level. The Article concludes that in lieu of either monolithic approach, a contextual analysis is preferable because it provides the latitude to craft a regulatory approach that is customized to the variability of individual technologies.Second, the Article applies the contextual analysis to nanotechnology and concludes that it reveals significant knowledge gaps at nearly every stage of the regulatory process. Finally, the Article concludes that state and local governments can play a critical role in filling those knowledge gaps more quickly than could the federal government working alone. As an example of the role that state and local governments can play in the initial regulatory process, the article describes one city’s efforts to establish a municipal health and safety policy for nanotechnology, including provisions related to information gathering, public outreach, and technical assistance.
Lifelong·for All·Inclusiveness——On Integration of Three International Educational Thoughts inside Vocational Education

The three big international education thoughts of lifelong education,education for all and inclusive education all produced influence on vocational education in the levels of theory,practice and methodology. Through integration of the three thoughts in vocational education view,vocational education practice and vocational education system,the harmonious development between people and vocation and between people's world and vocational world can be achieved.
Analysis of laboratory test results of HFMD in Zunyi in 2011

Objective:To understand the infection status and age distribution of enterovirus causing HFMD in Zunyi in 2011,in order to provide basis for prevention and control of HFMD.Methods: One thousand and sixty-eight clinical HFMD cases,including 190 severe cases were collected for specificity RNA detection on EV,EV71 and CoxA16 by real-time fluorescence PCR technique.Results: In the 1068 HFMD specimens,the positive rate was 28.3% for EV71(302/1068),16.8% for CoxA16(180/1068),10.9% for EV(117/1068),3.7% for coinfection of CoxA16 and EV71(40/1068).While in 190 severe cases,the positive rate was 63.7% for EV71,8.4% for CoxA16,7.4% for EV,5.8% for coinfection of CoxA16 and EV71.Conclusion: In Zunyi,EV71 was the dominant pathogen of HFMD in 2011,and coinfection cases of CoxA16 and EV71 and other enterovirus cases were also found.Children under 5 years old were the high-risk population for enterovirus infection,and there was no obvious difference between boys and girls.
Worldline approach for numerical computation of electromagnetic Casimir energies: Scalar field coupled to magnetodielectric media

We present a worldline method for the calculation of Casimir energies for scalar fields coupled to magnetodielectric media. The scalar model we consider may be applied in arbitrary geometries, and it corresponds exactly to one polarization of the electromagnetic field in planar layered media. Starting from the field theory for electromagnetism, we work with the two decoupled polarizations in planar media and develop worldline path integrals, which represent the two polarizations separately, for computing both Casimir and Casimir-Polder potentials. We then show analytically that the path integrals for the transverse-electric polarization coupled to a dielectric medium converge to the proper solutions in certain special cases, including the Casimir-Polder potential of an atom near a planar interface, and the Casimir energy due to two planar interfaces. We also evaluate the path integrals numerically via Monte Carlo path-averaging for these cases, studying the convergence and performance of the resulting computational techniques. While these scalar methods are only exact in particular geometries, they may serve as an approximation for Casimir energies for the vector electromagnetic field in other geometries.
Northern ragweed ecotypes flower earlier and longer in response to elevated CO2: what are you sneezing at?

Significant changes in plant phenology and flower production are predicted over the next century, but we know relatively little about geographic patterns of this response in many species, even those that potentially impact human wellbeing. We tested for variation in flowering responses of the allergenic plant, Ambrosia artemisiifolia (common ragweed). We grew plants originating from three latitudes in the Northeastern USA at experimental levels of CO2 (400, 600, and 800 µL L−1). We hypothesized that northern ecotypes adapted to shorter growing seasons would flower earlier than their southern counterparts, and thus disproportionately allocate carbon gains from CO2 to reproduction. As predicted, latitude of origin and carbon dioxide level significantly influenced the timing and magnitude of flowering. Reproductive onset occurred earlier with increasing latitude, with concurrent increases in the number of flowers produced. Elevated carbon dioxide resulted in earlier reproductive onset in all ecotypes, which was significantly more pronounced in the northern populations. We interpret our findings as evidence for ecotypic variation in ragweed flowering time, as well in responses to CO2. Thus, the ecological and human health implications of common ragweed’s response to global change are likely to depend on latitude. We conclude that increased flower production, duration, and possibly pollen output, can be expected in Northeastern United States with rising levels of CO2. The effects are likely, however, to be most significant in northern parts of the region.
Estimated content percentages of volatile liquids and fat extractables in ready-to-eat foods.

Content percentages of volatile liquids and fat extractables in 340 samples of ready-to-eat foods were determined gravimetrically. Volatile liquids were determined by drying samples in a microwave oven with a self-contained balance ; results were printed out automatically. Fat extractables were extracted from the samples with mixed ethers ; extracts were dried and weighed manually. The samples, 191 nonfat and 149 fatty (containing ca 2% or more fat) foods, represent about 5000 different food items and include infant and toddler, ethnic, fast, and imported items. Samples were initially prepared for screening of essential and toxic elements and chemical contamination by chopping and mixing into homogenous composites. Content determinations were then made on separate portions from each composite. Content results were put into a database for evaluation. Overall, mean results from both determinations agree with published data for moisture and fat contents of similar food items. Coefficients of variation, however, were lower for determination of volatile liquids than for that of fat extractables.
Dealing with Rejection: Post-Event Processing in Social Anxiety and Paranoia:

Social anxiety and paranoia both involve a ‘fear of others’ and often co-occur. Post-event processing (PEP), the mental replaying of social events after their conclusion, may be related to both psy...
Cervix: adenocarcinoma and precursors, including variants

INTRODUCTION While the overall age-adjusted incidence of cervical squamous cell carcinoma has declined in countries that have implemented organized cervical Pap smear surveillance programs, the incidence of adenocarcinoma and adenosquamous carcinoma has increased considerably from 1.30 and 0.15 cases per 100 000 women, respectively, in 1970–1972, to 1.83 and 0.41 per 100 000 women in 1994–1996. Moreover, the overall increase in incidence has been observed primarily in women less than 50 years of age. Although initial increases were attributed to increasing prevalence of persistent oncogenic HPV infection (and its cofactors) as well as inherent limitations of cervical cytology in detecting precursor glandular lesions, recent data indicate that cytologic screening, if performed and interpreted properly, can detect these early lesions. In fact, the decrease in glandular lesions of the cervix observed in several countries during the latter part of the 1990s strongly suggests that cytology screening is detecting more preinvasive adenocarcinomas than in previous decades, and further suggests that screening may be starting to have a protective impact on adenocarcinoma. However, diagnostic issues concerning cervical glandular lesions continue to plague the cytopathologist and surgical pathologist. The key problematic areas revolve around (1) the diagnosis of adenocarcinoma in situ and the exclusion of benign mimics; (2) the presence of early or superficially invasive adenocarcinoma (we do not use the term “microinvasive adenocarcinoma”); (3) identification of the primary site of origin of problematic glandular proliferations in uterine samplings: that is, is it cervical, or endometrial, or metastatic; and (4) special variants.
Embeddings of W 1,p (E) into L q (E)

Let E be a bounded, open set in ℝN. An embedding from W 1, p (E) into L q (E) is an estimate of the L q (E)-norm of a function u ∈ W 1, p (E) in terms of its W1, p (E)-norm. The structure of such an estimate and the various constants involved should not depend on the particular function u ∈ W 1, p (E) nor on the size of E,although they might depend on the structure of ∂ E.
Remote Sensing of Snow Water Equivalent Using P-Band Coherent Reflection

A proof-of-concept experiment was carried out to demonstrate the feasibility of retrieving snow water equivalent (SWE) using P-band signals of opportunity. The fundamental observation is the change in the phase of the reflected waveforms as related to the change in SWE. Through theoretical modeling it was found that the change in SWE was approximately linearly dependent on the change in phase. This was verified by retrieving SWE data collected and processed from a tower-based experiment at Fraser, CO, USA. A linear regression was performed on measured phase and in situ SWE. The correlation was found to be 0.94 and root mean square deviation was found to be 7.5 mm.
Compatibility of high-Δm2 νe and ν̄e neutrino oscillation searches

This article presents the compatibility of experimental data from neutrino oscillation experiments with a high-{delta}m{sup 2} two-neutrino oscillation hypothesis. Data is provided by the Bugey, Karlsruhe Rutherford Medium Energy Neutrino Experiment 2 (KARMEN2), Los Alamos Liquid Scintillator Neutrino Detector (LSND), and MiniBooNE experiments. The LSND, KARMEN2, and MiniBooNE results are 25.36% compatible within a two-neutrino oscillation hypothesis. However, the point of maximal compatibility is found in a region that is excluded by the Bugey data. A joint analysis of all four experiments, performed in the sin{sup 2}2{theta} vs {delta}m{sup 2} region common to all data, finds a maximal compatibility of 3.94%. This result does not account for additions to the neutrino oscillation model from sources such as CP violation or sterile neutrinos.
Grubbs-inspired metathesis in the Moore group

Alkene metathesis has proven to be a powerful method for carboncarbon bond formation, particularly in the field of polymer and materials science. The availability of various tailor-made catalysts not only enables the synthesis of well-defined polymers but facilitates the development of functional, stimuli–responsive materials. This highlight, dedicated to Professor Robert Grubbs on his 75th birthday, focuses on the various research efforts in our group utilizing both alkene and alkyne metatheses and the interesting materials derived from them. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part A: Polym. Chem. 2017, 55, 2935–2948
A variational approach to probing extreme events in turbulent dynamical systems

Extreme events are ubiquitous in a wide range of dynamical systems, including turbulent fluid flows, nonlinear waves, large-scale networks, and biological systems. We propose a variational framework for probing conditions that trigger intermittent extreme events in high-dimensional nonlinear dynamical systems. We seek the triggers as the probabilistically feasible solutions of an appropriately constrained optimization problem, where the function to be maximized is a system observable exhibiting intermittent extreme bursts. The constraints are imposed to ensure the physical admissibility of the optimal solutions, that is, significant probability for their occurrence under the natural flow of the dynamical system. We apply the method to a body-forced incompressible Navier-Stokes equation, known as the Kolmogorov flow. We find that the intermittent bursts of the energy dissipation are independent of the external forcing and are instead caused by the spontaneous transfer of energy from large scales to the mean flow via nonlinear triad interactions. The global maximizer of the corresponding variational problem identifies the responsible triad, hence providing a precursor for the occurrence of extreme dissipation events. Specifically, monitoring the energy transfers within this triad allows us to develop a data-driven short-term predictor for the intermittent bursts of energy dissipation. We assess the performance of this predictor through direct numerical simulations.
Poster: Securing Device Inputs for Smartphones Using Hypervisor Based Approach

Smartphone device inputs, such as inputs from touchscreen, sensors, and GPS, carry sensitive user information, but are vulnerable to passive and active attacks. We present our ongoing design and implementation of SDIF, a Secure Device Input Framework for smartphones. The core components of SDIF are a small and dedicated bare-metal hypervisor built using ARM hardware virtualization support and a user-space sandbox framework. They collectively ensures SDIF's support for unmodified OSes and apps. SDIF guarantees the secure device inputs from hardware to target applications with two key designs. The first is a design of a secure path for input data to be delivered from input device drivers to target applications. The second is a design of trusted device data reading, which ensures input data generated by hardware is faithfully put to device driver memory.
A Comparison of the Influence of Anticipated Death Trajectory and Personal Values on End-of-Life Care Preferences: A Qualitative Analysis

Objectives: We examined anticipated preferences for end-of-life (EOL) care in healthy older adults in the context of various terminal disease scenarios to explore the relationship between personal ...
Prenatal alcohol exposure enhances the susceptibility to NMDA‐induced generalized tonic‐clonic seizures in developing rats

SummaryAims Prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) is associated with a higher likelihood of developing generalized tonic-clonic seizures (GTCS) in infants and children. However, experimental studies of PAE-related seizures have yielded conflicting results. Here, we investigated the effect of acute PAE on N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA)-induced seizures in developing rats. Methods Pregnant Sprague Dawley rats were given an oral dose of either ethanol (5 g/kg body weight) or vehicle on embryonic day 18. The offspring were tested for susceptibility to NMDA-induced seizures on postnatal day 7 (P7), 21 (P21), 35 (P35), and 42 (P42). Specifically, the prevalence and latency of NMDA-induced continuous wild running-like behaviors (CWR), flexion seizures (FS), wild running seizures (WRS), GTCS, and tonic seizures (TS) were recorded and analyzed. Results N-methyl-D-aspartate-induced seizures consisted of CWR, FS, GTCS, and TS in P21 rats. Thus, GTCS were consistently observed during development. PAE significantly increases the prevalence of GTCS in female and male P7-P21 rats and P7-P35 rats, respectively, but not in older rats. PAE also increases the prevalence of TS in male, but not female P21-P35 rats. Conclusions The PAE animal model of GTCS may provide a new opportunity to investigate the mechanisms that underlie neuronal hyperexcitability in developing animals prenatally-exposed to alcohol.
Experimental Echocardiographic Studies of Myocardial Ischemia: Effect of Preload and Afterload Manipulations on Regional Wall Thickening and Perfusion

Systolic wall thickening of ischemic and nonischemic myocardium was measured by echocardiography in open-chest anesthetized dogs, and changes in wall thickness were related to changes in myocardial perfusion determined using radioactive labeled microspheres. Norepinephrine, methoxamine and aortic constriction raised blood pressure and transmural perfusion, and improved the thinning of acutely ischemic myocardium. Nitroglycerin and nitroprusside lowered blood pressure; neither the perfusion nor the thinning of the ischemic myocardium changed. This suggests that in acute myocardial ischemia, regional wall thickening is in large part determined by the perfusion of the involved area. Echocardiographically measured wall thickness changes may, therefore, be useful in assessing the results of preload and afterload manipulations in patients with acute myocardial ischemia.
Quality and Safety in Emergency Radiology

To review and outline problems and challenges in regard to patient safety along with solutions to overcome them. Errors and discrepancies in radiology practice are disappointingly common. The estimated rate of errors is more than 5% in many targeted studies. This requires a detailed review of different types of errors in radiology and potential strategies to prevent them. An effective health care delivery system relies heavily on high degrees of skill in professionalism and communication. Strategies to prevent errors and improve communication with physicians in the Emergency Department are helpful in providing quality patient care, thus also decreasing the chances of conflicts and litigation.
Harmonia: An Interference-Aware Dynamic I/O Scheduler for Shared Non-volatile Burst Buffers

Modern HPC systems employ burst buffer installations to reduce the peak I/O requirements for external storage and deal with the burstiness of I/O in modern scientific applications. These I/O buffering resources are shared between multiple applications that run concurrently. This leads to severe performance degradation due to contention, a phenomenon called cross-application I/O interference. In this paper, we first explore the negative effects of interference at the burst buffer layer and we present two new metrics that can quantitatively describe the slowdown applications experience due to interference. We introduce Harmonia, a new dynamic I/O scheduler that is aware of interference, adapts to the underlying system, implements a new 2-way decision-making process and employs several scheduling policies to maximize the system efficiency and applications' performance. Our evaluation shows that Harmonia, through better I/O scheduling, can outperform by 3x existing state-of-the-art buffering management solutions and can lead to better resource utilization.
Use of the IDEAL framework in the urological literature: where are we in 2018?

Objectives To assess uptake and application of the IDEAL principles in original surgical procedure- or device-related clinical research studies, as well as its reported relevance as characterized by secondary publications, editorials and reviews. Materials and methods IDEAL (Idea, Development, Exploration, Assessment, Long-term study) is a framework that provides stage-specific guidance for surgical innovation and represented a major advance towards raising evidential standards. We performed a comprehensive literature search of all urology-related publications citing one or more of seven key publications on IDEAL in The Lancet and BMJ using multiple databases up to 31 December 2017. Results We identified a total of 150 urology-related manuscripts citing IDEAL, of which 83 (55.3%) were original research and 67 (44.7%) were secondary publications. Among the original research articles, 40 (48.2%) did not explicitly apply IDEAL principles or were not surgical innovation studies. The IDEAL phases of the 43 (51.8%) remaining original research studies were IDEAL, in nine (20.9%), 27 (62.8%), four (9.3%), 0 (0%), and three publications (7.0%), respectively. Across IDEAL stages, 30 (75.0%) studies were prospective, 29 (85.3%) reported ethical oversight, and 39 (90.7%) captured treatment-related harms. None of the studies collected information on physician experience. Conclusions The IDEAL framework has found widespread adoption in the urology literature as witnessed by a large number of original manuscripts and secondary publications citing IDEAL; however, its application is largely limited to the early stages of surgical innovation, frequently with inappropriate and incomplete implementation. Further efforts are needed to guide investigators in the optimal use of the IDEAL framework as it relates to surgical innovation in urology.
Regional Spotlight: Eastern Mediterranean

The identification of the Eastern Mediterranean as a distinct geographic region has become more prevalent in recent literature. This characterization and identification is probably caused by common geopolitical factors and recent events. There is no universal agreement on the countries that should comprise the Eastern Mediterranean. However, for the purpose of this chapter and as a matter of operational definition, the following countries are included: Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, Israel, Lebanon, Libya, Palestine, Syria, and Turkey. The unique geographic location of the Eastern Mediterranean is at the junction of three continents, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Watching everyday news shows clearly and easily that these countries have common intertwining affairs affecting not only this region but extending across the globe. Obviously, conflict, war, proxy wars, invasion, migration, refugees, destruction, involvement of world powers, uncertainty, and other major events have significant impact on individual and public health. This is exacerbated by the regions’ substantial socioeconomic and health disparities at multiple levels. There is a huge need to understand this region for any person or organization contemplating healthcare volunteering.