cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
General applications 1: a simulation architecture with distributed controllers for cell-based manufacturing systems

A number of manufacturing systems are categorized into Cell-Based Manufacturing Systems (CBMSs), which have similar physical configurations typically composed of manufacturing cells, transporters and their controllers. However, since the control modules are not separable from the model in conventional simulation frameworks, it is difficult to develop a generic high-fidelity simulator for CBMSs with flexibility in control structure.We propose a generic simulation architecture for CBMSs, "CellSim", using the concept of Controller-In-Loop (CiL), in which all supervisory controllers are separated from simulation models, and developed as individual controller modules. CellSim has three sub-architectures, i.e., the design/modeling architecture, the simulation execution architecture, and output analysis architecture. CellSim has distinctive features and advantages for flexible, high-fidelity, and integrated manufacturing system design and modeling, compared to the conventional simulation frameworks. In this paper, we present distinctive features and architecture of CellSim for CBMSs as well as the concept and implementation of CiL.
Usability testing for the rest of us: the application of discount usability principles in the development of an online communications assessment application.

Background : Usability evaluation provides developers and educators with the means to understand user needs, improve overall product utility, and increase user satisfaction. The application of “discount usability” principles developed to make usability testing more practical and useful may improve user experience at minimal cost and require little existing expertise to conduct. We describe an application of discount usability to a high-fidelity online communications assessment application developed by the University of Washington for the American Board of Internal Medicine. Evaluation : Eight internal medicine physicians completed a discount usability test. Sessions were recorded and the videos analyzed for significant usability concerns. Concerns were identified, summarized, discussed, and prioritized by the authors in collaboration with the software developers before implementing any changes to the interface. Description : Thirty-eight significant usability issues were detected and four technical proble...
Role of interleukins in atherogenesis

Increasing evidence suggests that atherosclerosis may be a chronic inflammatory condition involving a complex multifactorial process, resulting in a fibroproliferative response to various forms of injurious stimuli to the arterial wall. The changes in the arterial wall lead to a clinically significant event when the atherosclerotic plaque ruptures and the thrombosis takes place. The potential interactions of cells, cytokines, and growth regulatory molecules in the atherosclerotic lesion present numerous opportunities for modulating lesion formation and progression. This article reviews the role interleukins that are released from both immune and non-immune cells of vascular wall may play on the process of atherogenesis. It is speculated that these may serve as potential targets for therapeutic intervention.
The occurrence and distribution of trace metals in the Mississippi River and its tributaries

Abstract Quantitative and semiquantitative analyses of dissolved trace metals are reported for designated sampling sites on the Mississippi River and its main tributaries utilizing depth-integrated and width-integrated sampling technology to collect statistically representative samples. Data are reported for three sampling periods, including: July–August 1987, November–December 1987, and May–June 1988. Concentrations of Al, As, Ba, Be, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, Li, Mn, Mo, Pb, Sr, Tl, U, V, and Zn are reported quantitatively, with the remainder of the stable metals in the periodic table reported semiquantitatively. Correlations between As and V, Ba and U, Cu and Zn, Li and Ba, and Li and U are significant at the 99% confidence level for each of the sampling trips. Comparison of the results of this study for selected metals with other published data show generally good agreement for Cr, Cu, Fe, and Zn, moderate agreement for Mo, and poor agreement for Cd and V.
Development of dual-acting agents for thromboxane receptor antagonism and thromboxane synthase inhibition. 2. Design, synthesis, and evaluation of a novel series of phenyl oxazole derivatives

Synthesis and initial in vitro evaluation of a novel series of phenyl oxazole derivatives are described. An SAR study of the novel dual-acting TRA/TSI agent has revealed that the lipophilicity of the oxazole amide substituents greatly influences the TRA activity but not the TSI. The chain length of the alkenoic acid side chain affects both TRA and TSI. The optimal chain length for the combined activities was found to be n = 4 (heptenoic acid).
Television Violence and Violent Crime: An Aggregate Analysis

In this paper, I examine the relationship between levels of exposure to television violence and rates of violent crime for samples of population aggregates. My primary hypothesis is that population aggregates with high levels of exposure to violent television content will exhibit high rates of criminal violence. The results of a series of multivariate, crosssectional analyses fail to provide any support for this hypothesis. Contrary to expectations, aggregate levels of exposure to television are consistently related to rates of violent crime in an inverse direction. Analyses based on differing specifications and alternative measures of television exposure all yield highly similar results. I suggest that the theory of "criminal subcultures" and the "routine activities" approach offer possible explanations for these seemingly anomalous findings. Television is one of the most important media of mass communications in the United States. National Commissions have concluded that "almost everyone" in the United States watches television (National Institute of Mental Health, 1982:1), and surveys suggest that the television in an average household is turned on for about seven hours everyday (Comstock, 1980:30). Given the pervasiveness of television in U.S. society, it is not surprising that this medium has been, and continues to be, at the center of controversy and public debate. Perhaps the most intense and enduring controversy concerns the consequences of viewing television violence. Critics of the industry have charged that violence on television is a cause of many of the more important social ills of society, while representatives of the industry and a number of social scientists have disputed
On the Importance of Random Error in the Study of Probability Judgment. Part II: Applying the Stochastic Judgment Model to Detect Systematic Trends

Erev, Wallsten, and Budescu (1994) and Budescu, Erev, and Wallsten (1997) demonstrated that over- and underconfidence often observed in judgment studies may be due, in part, to the presence of random error and its effects on the analysis of the judgments. To illustrate this fact they showed that a general model that assumes that overt responses representing (perfectly calibrated) true judgments perturbed by random error can replicate typical patterns observed in empirical studies. In this paper we provide a method for determining whether apparent overconfidence in empirical data reflects a systematic bias in judgment or is an artifact due solely to the presence of error. The approach is based, in part, on the Wallsten and Gonzalez-Vallejo (1994) Stochastic Judgment Model (SJM). The new method is described in detail and is used to analyze results from a new study. The analysis indicates a clear overconfidence effect, above and beyond the level predicted by a model assuming perfect calibration perturbed by random error. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Hearing Decline Predicted by Elders' Stereotypes

Although age-related hearing loss is one of the most prevalent conditions affecting older individuals, little research has been conducted on the social-psychological factors that might contribute to it. The present study examines whether older individuals' age stereotypes predict screened hearing over time. The sample consisted of 546 community-dwelling persons, aged 70 to 96 years old. Participants with more negative and more external (i.e., related to physical appearance) age stereotypes demonstrated worse screened hearing at 36 months, after adjusting for baseline-screened hearing, age, and other relevant variables. These findings suggest that age stereotypes influence older individuals' sensory perception.
Revisiting data acquisition issues

The data sets we have examined are real, the problems are common and the results of the experiments are diminished by subtle data acquisition errors. It should be recognized that some of the problems discussed occur simply because we tend to visually scan plots and experimental results in a cursory fashion often ignoring the scales. We tend to look for gross trends and then jump to conclusions based on those trends. Careful analysis and presentation of results, properly scaled and processed can mitigate some of the original acquisition errors. The real solution is experimental preplanning and set-up prior to data acquisition.
Analytical voltage dependence of an unsaturated MESFET's gate capacitance

Using a one-dimensional gradual channel analysis, the authors derive an analytical expression for the gate-source capacitance of an unsaturated MESFET as a function of the applied drain and gate voltages. Experimental measurements of the dependence of the gate-source capacitance on drain voltage show good agreement with theory when the device is biased below saturation. As the MESFET is biased into saturation the measured capacitance decreases with increasing drain voltage at a slightly faster rate than that predicted by the gradual channel theory due to high-field effects. These results show that the derived analytical expression may be useful for the analysis of the characteristics of MESFET's that are biased in the linear region. >
CONTINUING SEA OTTER POPULATION DECLINES IN THE ALEUTIAN ARCHIPELAGO

Recently published data demonstrated a sea otter population collapse across theAleutian archipelago (Doroff et al. 2003). This assessment, undertaken in responseto earlier reports of precipitous declines at several islands (Estes et al. 1998), wasbased on archipelago-wide aerial surveys conducted in 1965, 1992, and 2000, andskiff surveys of particular islands or small island groups during various years fromthe early 1990s through 2000. To summarize the main ﬁndings: (1) aerial countsdeclined by about 70% from 1992 to 2000, (2) populations at those islandsthought by Kenyon (1969) to be at or near carrying capacity in 1965 had declined88% by 2000, (3) most of the overall decline occurred after the late 1980s or early1990s, and (4) sea otters had reached a uniformly low population density (numbersper unit length of shoreline) throughout the Aleutian archipelago by 2000. Doroffet al. (2003) interpreted this latter ﬁnding to mean that the factors responsible forthe decline were density-dependent, thus implying that a steady state may havebeen attained between killer whale predation, the purported cause of the decline(Estes et al. 1998), and the reduced availability of sea otters. If that conjecture is
Anterior regeneration in the hemichordate Ptychodera flava

Ptychodera flava is a hemichordate whose anterior structures regenerate reproducibly from posterior trunk pieces when amputated. We characterized the cellular processes of anterior regeneration with respect to programmed cell death and cell proliferation, after wound healing. We found scattered proliferating cells at day 2 of regeneration using a proliferating cell nuclear antigen antibody. On day 4, most proliferating cells were associated with the nerve tract under the epidermis, and on day 6, a small proboscis derived from proliferated cells was regenerated, and a mouth had broken though the epidermis. TUNEL (terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated deoxyuridinetriphosphate nick end-labeling) detected elevated levels of apoptosis in the endoderm that began furthest away from the region of wound healing, then moved anteriorly over 8 days. Posterior to anterior apoptosis is likely to remove digestive endoderm for later differentiation of pharyngeal endoderm. We hypothesize that P. flava regeneration is nerve dependent and that remodeling in the gut endoderm plays an important role in regeneration.
Elites and Collective Protest

Efforts to explain collective protest have increasingly stressed the causal significance of elite structure and behavior. This trend is an unexamined manifestation of the broader and widely discuss...
Online Clustering of Moving Hyperplanes

We propose a recursive algorithm for clustering trajectories lying in multiple moving hyperplanes. Starting from a given or random initial condition, we use normalized gradient descent to update the coefficients of a time varying polynomial whose degree is the number of hyperplanes and whose derivatives at a trajectory give an estimate of the vector normal to the hyperplane containing that trajectory. As time proceeds, the estimates of the hyperplane normals are shown to track their true values in a stable fashion. The segmentation of the trajectories is then obtained by clustering their associated normal vectors. The final result is a simple recursive algorithm for segmenting a variable number of moving hyperplanes. We test our algorithm on the segmentation of dynamic scenes containing rigid motions and dynamic textures, e.g., a bird floating on water. Our method not only segments the bird motion from the surrounding water motion, but also determines patterns of motion in the scene (e.g., periodic motion) directly from the temporal evolution of the estimated polynomial coefficients. Our experiments also show that our method can deal with appearing and disappearing motions in the scene.
Dual-process morality and the personal/impersonal distinction: A reply to McGuire, Langdon, Coltheart, and Mackenzie

Abstract A substantial body of research supports a dual-process theory of moral judgment, according to which characteristically deontological judgments are driven by automatic emotional responses, while characteristically utilitarian judgments are driven by controlled cognitive processes. This theory was initially supported by neuroimaging and reaction time (RT) data. McGuire et al. have reanalyzed these initial RT data and claim that, in light of their findings, the dual-process theory of moral judgment and the personal/impersonal distinction now lack support. While McGuire and colleagues have convincingly overturned Greene et al.’s interpretation of their original RT data, their claim that the dual-process theory now lacks support overstates the implications of their findings. McGuire and colleagues ignore the results of several more recent behavioral studies, including the study that bears most directly on their critique. They dismiss without adequate justification the results of a more recent neuroimaging study, three more recent patient studies, and an emotion–induction study. Their broader critique is based largely on their conflation of the dual-process theory with the personal/impersonal distinction, which are independent.
Review essay: “The truest belief is compulsion”: Othering, the unconscious, and ethnographic inquiry

The Cunning of Recognition: Indigenous Alterities and the Making of Australian Multiculturalism. Elizabeth Povinelli. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002. xi + 338 pp., illustrations, photographs, notes, bibliography, index. The Promise of the Foreign: Nationalism and the Technics of Translation in the Spanish Philippines. Vicente Rafael. Durham, NC: Duke University Press 2005. xviii + 231 pp., photographs, notes, references, index. The Puerto Rican Syndrome. Patricia Gherovici. New York: Other Press, 2003. xviii + 296 pp., bibliography, index. Naming the Witch. James Siegel. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006. xiii + 253 pp., photographs, illustrations, notes.
Kames's Legal Career and Writings as Precedents for Elements of Criticism.

This is the publisher's version, also available electronically from ‘Caliber’ (http://caliber.ucpress.net/) or ‘AnthroSource’ (http://www.aaanet.org/publications/anthrosource/).
Efficient second, third, fourth, and fifth harmonic generation of a Yb-doped fiber amplifier

We report generation of the second, third, fourth, and fifth harmonics of the output of a Yb-doped fiber amplifier seeded by a passively Q-switched Nd:YAG microchip laser. We obtained high conversion efficiencies using a simple optical arrangement and critically phase-matched nonlinear crystals. Starting with 320 mW of average power at 1064 nm (86 μJ per pulse at a 3.7 kHz repetition rate), we generated 160 mW at 532 nm, 38 mW at 355 nm, 69 mW at 266 nm, and 18 mW at 213 nm. The experimental results are in excellent agreement with calculations.
Occupational performance needs of adolescents in alternative education programs.

OBJECTIVE. Alternative education programs are schools that accept students who have not been successful in the general education setting. This study focuses on developing a better understanding of the needs of students in three area alternative education schools. METHODS. A needs assessment was created and distributed to the staff of each school regarding the problem areas of alternative education students. Data were analyzed descriptively. RESULTS. Thirty-nine of 47 surveys were returned resulting in an overall return rate of 83%. The staff identified several potential deficit areas faced by the students in these alternative education programs. The most frequently identified deficits included poor time management skills, decreased healthy participation in hobbies and leisure activities, and a lack of healthy lifestyle behaviors. In addition, the staff reported that many students had cognitive deficits including reduced ability to follow multistep directions, impaired higher-level thinking skills, reduced attention span, and limited memory. CONCLUSION. The results of this study are consistent with literature that suggests the students in alternative education settings may have underlying deficits that interfere with learning and produce misbehaviors. The alternative education programs should be further explored as a potential practice area for occupational therapists.
Morphogenesis in Relation to Chromosomal Constitution in Long-term Plant Tissue Cultures

A number of strains of callus tissues derived from 1-mm root tips of the garden pea, Pisum sativum L., cultivated on a complex medium containing yeast extract and 2, 4-D for eight years, were tested periodically for their capacity to initiate roots. Chromosomal cytological analyses accompanied each test. It was found that during the prolonged period of subculture there was a progressive loss of organ-forming Capacity in all tissue strains. At the outset all callus tissues could be stimulated to form normal diploid roots. After several years of continuous subculture, some callus tissues formed normal tetraploid roots. Still later, these callus tissues lost completely the capacity to initiate roots. This loss was paralleled by increasing abnormalities in the chromosomal constitution, including higher chromosome numbers and greater frequency of aneuploidy. Early in subculture normal diploid and tetraploid divisions were present in the callus tissues. Later, higher polyploids at 8n and 16n were more frequent, as well as aneuploids around these numbers. Some tissue strains after prolonged cultivation showed a wide range of chromosome numbers at the higher ploidy levels but completely lacked diploid divisions. It is suggested that the loss in organ-forming capacity is correlated with the increase in abnormality of chromosomal constitution. Differentiation of certain characteristic cell types was unaffected by these changes.
Loss of Heterozygosity in Benign Breast Epithelium in Relation to Breast Cancer Risk

The multistage model of breast carcinogenesis suggests that errors in DNA replication and repair generate diversity in the breast epithelium (the mutator phenotype), resulting in selection and expansion of premalignant clones with an acquired survival advantage. We measured loss of heterozygosity (LOH) in breast epithelial cells obtained by random fine-needle aspiration (FNA) biopsy from 30 asymptomatic women whose risk of breast cancer had been defined by the Gail model. Polymorphic microsatellite markers were selected on the basis of their relevance to breast cancer. Breast epithelium of 11 (37%) of 30 women had normal cytology, and that of 19 (63%) had proliferative cytology (eight with atypia and 11 without atypia). LOH was detected in two women with normal cytology and in 14 women (seven with atypia and seven without atypia) with proliferative cytology (P =.007). The frequency of LOH was associated with the cytological diagnosis, as well. The mean proportion (range) of informative markers demonstrating LOH was 0.02 (0-0.20) for the 11 women with normal cytology, as compared with 0.15 (0-0.50) for the 19 women with proliferative cytology (P =.02). Mean lifetime risk for developing breast cancer, as calculated by the Gail model, was 16.7% for women with no LOH compared with 22.9% for women with any LOH (P =.05). These observations support a multistage model of breast carcinogenesis where the initiating events are those that result in genomic instability. Accurate individualized breast cancer risk assessment may be possible based on molecular analysis of breast epithelial cells obtained by random FNA.
Dynamic Channel Assignment in IEEE 802.11 Networks

We design a dynamic channel assignment algorithm for IEEE 802.11 wireless networks. Our algorithm assigns channels dynamically in a way that minimizes channel interference generated by neighboring access points (APs) on a reference access point, resulting in higher throughput. We implement and simulate our algorithm using two versions (I: pick rand and II: pick first) and different number of APs (4, 9, 16, and 25). Analysis of our algorithm shows an improvement by a factor of 4 (by lowering the total interference on an AP by 6 dBm on average) over default settings of having all APs use the same channel. As the number of APs is increased in a given service area, dynamic channel assignment becomes crucial; otherwise overlapping channel interference becomes a limiting factor.
STORIES AND STORYTELLERS IN A CHANGING WORLD: MANLING LUO'S LITERATI STORYTELLING IN LATE MEDIEVAL CHINA

Manling Luo, Literati Storytelling in Late Medieval China. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2015. xvi + 242 pp.The heterogeneity of the anecdotes and stories that remain to us from late med...
Integral smoothness properties of some harmonic mappings

Let be a univalent mapping of the unit disk (suitably normalized) onto a strip. We prove that the analytic completion of u, is the Cauihy trdnsiorm of a mcasure on the unii circle. It is also proven that if the range of such an f is starlike then the functions are are convex in the direction of the imaginary axis for every φ.
Strategies for improving wheat grain yield

Wheat yields have steadily increased over the past 50 years, averaging approximately 1.5% per year. Demands for faster progress will be made by an ever-growing world population. The challenge for the future will focus on the abilities of wheat breeders to increase yields, at perhaps even faster rates than the previous 30 years, with fewer resources and more difficult problems. Although armed with a scientific arsenal more advanced than ever before, researchers breeding for yield still rely heavily on empirical selection and testing of elite lines in the field. Regardless of how sophisticated plant breeding may become in the next 50 years, we must continue to emphasise three basic plant breeding principles to insure continued success. Firstly, wheat breeders must continue to exchange germplasm. Intellectual property right issues must evolve to protect genotypes without restricting wheat breeders from exchanging genetic material. Secondly, it takes time to become a good plant breeder. Plant breeders become more productive the older they get. And lastly, to maintain or increase yield potential, the small plot combine will continue to be the centre-piece for future gains.
One hospital's response to the fight against domestic violence.

The author discusses the vital role his hospital plays in the fight against domestic violence--the Project Safe Refuge and the Safe Refuge Advocate. Language: en
Asynchronous Communication in Spectral Element and Discontinuous Galerkin Methods for Atmospheric Dynamics

The scalability of computational applications on current and next generation supercomputers is increasingly limited by the cost of inter-process communication. We implement non-blocking asynchronous communication in the High-Order Methods Modeling Environment for the time-integration of the hydrostatic fluid equations using both the Spectral Element and Discontinuous Galerkin methods. This allows the overlap of computation with communication effectively hiding some of the costs of communication. A novel detail about our approach is that it provides some data movement to be performed during the 5 asynchronous communication even in the absence of other computations. This method produces significant performance and
La presencia del mito clásico en la poesía española actual escrita por mujeres

This article analyzes how contemporary women poets use classical myths, particularly the more popular Homeric examples of Circe, Penelope, Nausicaa, Calypso, Penthesilea, Odysseus, and Achilles, in their poetry as part of a popular tendency to fictionalize the poetic subject in contemporary Spanish poetry. The author argues that this tendency parallels Rossi Braidotti's nomadic subjects and her feminist approach. In that sense, the use of mythical characters allows the poets to break down the rigid boundaries between the sexes and pursue the development of new literary discourses.
Normal adult performance on a temporally modified staggered spondaic word task.

Competing syllables in the Staggered Spondaic Word (SSW) test exhibit considerable variation in alignment. These alignment variations have shown discrepant effects on selected subject populations. Since Berlin et al. (1973) found that dichotic presentation of temporally off-set CV syllables may result in improved intelligibility of the trailing syllable, the same lag effect would be expected to influence performance on a staggered spondaic word identification task. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of temporal alignment of competing syllables in a staggered spondaic word identification task. Forty-eight Adults having no prior experience with or knowledge of the SSW test and no history of speech, language, hearing or reading disorders participated in the study. Each subject was administered two recorded versions of the SSW test. One recording contained items as presented on the commercially available test. The second recording contained SSW test items in which competing monosyllables were...
Numerical Study of Solder Bond Failure in Photovoltaic Modules

Abstract This study concerns deformation and fracture of solder bonds and adjacent materials in photovoltaic modules. The mismatch in coefficients of thermal expansion between different materials causes internal deformation and stress buildup, leading to structural failure. Numerical finite element analyses are performed, using layered model structures, to quantify deformation and simulate the ductile failure process in solder. Failure propensity and pattern in solder, as well as cracking tendency in silicon, are identified. The mechanical stiffness of the encapsulation material is found to play a critical role.
The Impact of a Seller's Ebay Reputation on Price

eBay provides a large amount of data – enough data to investigate how markets address the problem of asymmetric information. This study analyzes 183 auctions of Apple iPod Touches on eBay.com to fi...
Klinische Relevanz der Modulation von zytostatika durch Zytokine beim metastasierten kolorektalen Karzinom

Sowohl in der adjuvanten als auch der palliativen Chemotherapie des kolorektalen Karzinoms werden derzeit biochemische und immunologische Modulatoren auf ihre Wirkungsverstarkung von 5-Fluorouracil (5-FU) in Phase-II- und-III-Studien uberpruft. In der adjuvanten therapie des Kolonkarzinoms im Stadium Dukes C ist fur 5-FU und Levamisol ein signifikanter Uberlebensvorteil nachgewiesen worden. Eine postoperative lokale Nachbestrahlung und 5-FU-haltige Chemotherapie kann beim Rektumkarzinom die lokale Rezidivrate signifikant senken und das Uberleben verlangern. Liegen Fernmetastasen vor, wird durch eine biochemische Modulation mit 5-FU und Folinsaure eine Remissionsrate gegenuber 5-FU alleine signifikant verbessert (30% vs. 12%). Deshalb gilt diese Kombination als Therapie der 1. Wahl, wobei noch nicht gesichert ist, ob die Erhohung der Remissionsrate zu einem uberlebensvorteil und einer Erhohung der Lebensqualitat fuhrt. Durch eine intermediare Infusion von 5-FU (2 bis 4 Studen) konnen die Nebenwirkungen im Vergleich zur Bolusapplikation verringert werden. PALA, Dipyridamol, Cisplatin und Methotrexat sind biochemische Modulatoren, welche die Wirksamkeit von 5-FU nicht signifikant verbessern konnen. Die Rolle der Immuntherapie beim kolorektalen Karzinom ist noch nicht definiert. Interferon alpha, beta, gamma sowie Tumornekrosefaktor alpha und deren Kombinationen sind beim fortgeschrittenen kolorektalen Karzinom unwirksam. Durch Interferon und 5-FU wurden im Median 25% Remissionen beschrieben. Der endgultige Stellenwert dieser biochemischen und immunologischen Modulatoren in der adjuvanten und palliativen Chemotherapie des kolorektalen Karzinoms mus noch in Phase-III-Studien definiert werden.
Drug-eluting stents and drug-eluting balloons are the best strategies to treat coronary in-stent restenosis.

Commentary on: Giacoppo D, Gargiulo G, Aruta P, et al. Treatment strategies for coronary in-stent restenosis: systematic review and hierarchical Bayesian network meta-analysis of 24 randomised trials and 4880 patients. BMJ 2015;351:h5392. Drug-eluting stents (DES) drastically improved the efficacy of percutaneous coronary intervention by reducing the risk of in-stent restenosis (ISR) and subsequent need of target lesion revascularisation (TLR). However, despite the advances in DES technology, the incidence of ISR is still significant and considering that more than five million DES are implanted each year worldwide, ISR can be considered an issue of public health magnitude. Percutaneous treatment strategies for ISR have been investigated since its first appearance in the bare-metal stent (BMS) era, however uncertainty still exists regarding the optimal therapeutic approach to implement in clinical practice. In a recent study, Giacoppo and colleagues tried to shed light on this uncertainty through a network meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) investigating …
Characterization of the Mitochondrial Genome of Clavicorona Pyxidata

A mitochondrial DNA restriction map was prepared for a strain of Clavicorona pyxidata using three enzymes, Hind III, Hpa II and Xba I. Hybridization with Suillus probes and yeast petite mutants est...
Characterizing Biomass Fast Pyrolysis Oils by 13C NMR and Chemometric Analysis

Several biomass fast pyrolysis oils were characterized by 13C and DEPT (distortionless enhancement polarization transfer) NMR analysis to determine their chemical functional group compositions as related to their energy content. Pyrolysis oils were produced from a variety of feedstocks, including energy crops, woods, animal wastes, and oil seed presscakes, and were also compared with fossil fuels (gasoline and diesel). The 13C and DEPT NMR spectra of the biofuels and the two fossil fuel samples were measured, and each spectrum was divided into distinct regions according to the chemical shift ranges appropriate for various functional groups. The spectral intensities of each region were then quantified, and the carbon proton substitution numbers were determined. This approach provided helpful information on the chemical compositions of the oils, but it was found to oversimplify the information contained in the 13C NMR spectra, resulting in a substantial loss of important details. Hence, a chemometric method...
Analysis of the epidemiological characteristics of hepatitis A in Sanming City between 1990 and 2011 and exploration of the preventive strategies against hepatitis A

OBJECTIVE Epidemiological characteristics of hepatitis A occurred in Sanming City between 1990 and 2011 were analyzed to provide a scientific reference for the prevention and control of the epidemic.METHODS Descriptive epidemiological techniques were adopted to analyze the data on the epidemiology of hepatitis A in Sanming City between 1990 and 2011.RESULTS A total of 9 186 cases of hepatitis A were reported in Sanming City between 1990 and 2011.Morbidity rate of hepatitis A has been decreasing each year,with an average yearly morbidity of 16.03 per 100 000.Cases had been reported year-round,with the number of cases reported during March to May slightly higher that that during other months of the year.Average age of the cases was 26.29 years old,and the majority of the cases(70.48%,6 474 cases) were young adults and children between the ages of 0 and 34.The number of male patients was higher than that of female patients.Most patients were farmers,students,workers,office employees,and children,with farmers accounted for the largest percentage(36.97%) of the surveyed cases.CONCLUSION Immunization is the key to the prevention and control of hepatitis A.
Electrophoretic assays of amylase isoenzymes and isoforms

Recent clinical studies have documented the importance of measuring the isoenzymes of amylase in serum. The electrophoretic methods available for estimating these isoenzymes differ in speed, sensitivity, resolution, cost and ease of use. Moreover, these methods exhibit clinically important advantages and disadvantages when compared with methods that use amylase inhibitors or monoclonal antibodies.
Chapter 20 – Lung Cancer: Etiologic and Pathologic Aspects

Chapter 20 addresses the etiologic and pathologic aspects of lung cancer—the most common cause of cancer and cancer-related death worldwide. Risk factors, including smoking, occupational exposures and genetic predisposition, are explained. Concepts of the underlying pathogenesis of lung cancer are discussed, including the potential importance of proto-oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes. Detailed descriptions of the anatomic and pathological patterns of four major categories of lung cancer, squamous cell carcinoma, small cell carcinoma, adenocarcinoma, and large cell carcinoma, are examined.
Red Baron: Near/post-silicon SoC cache coherence stress tester

Cache coherent interconnects in modern SoC designs represent a complex design verification challenge. Coherence protocols trigger complex interactions between the heterogeneous mixes of caches and other system masters that comprise these SoCs. Furthermore, most coherence bugs are very sensitive to the exact timing and sequence of operations, and hence are difficult to target. Traditional DV only covers a limited portion of the state-space before the device tapeout. Red Baron is a SoC system level cache coherence stress tester which automatically generates testcases on the fly, taking into account the behavior of the CPU's cache, IO coherence, system memory and interconnect. This auto-generation methodology allows it to scale through the entire SoC design phases, from RTL simulation, emulation to silicon. This paper presents Red Baron's design, implementation and accomplishments on TI multicore SoCs.
Political reconciliation in postcolonial settler societies

This article presents a theory of reconciliation for postcolonial settler societies. It asks: what are the scope, substance and limitations of a normative theory of political reconciliation for his...
Almost) President Breck

The exploits of S. Breckinridge Tushingham (“Breck” for short) have been chronicled in several prior stories. In this installment Breck describes his incredible (a carefully chosen word) accomplishments as dean of the Soso Law School and his successful run for the presidency of the Association of American Law Schools. Breck has much to say about the state of education, including legal education, today. Some of his thoughts are even worthwhile.
Recent Advances in Turbulent Mixing

Experimental, modeling, and direct-numerical-simulation (DNS) studies have advanced our understanding of turbulence and mixing. The mixing transition that occurs across a broad spectrum of flows at outerscale Reynolds numbers in the vicinity of Re δ ≈ 1−2 × 10 4 , or Taylor Reynolds numbers of Re T ≈ 100−140 will be discussed. Inflow-/initial-condition effects in high-Re shear layers will also be discussed. Comparisons between DNS studies of strained diffusion-flame regions and experiments in chemically reacting shear layers provide some new insight in the overall chemical-product formation. DNS studies of the Rayleigh-Taylor instability (RTI) between miscible fluids, with identical boundary conditions and different initial perturbations, reveal an initial-growth regime dominated by diffusion, with a subsequent nonlinear growth that depends on the details of the initial perturbations for as long as the simulations were run. Mixing in RTI flow is found even more sensitively dependent on initial conditions. The discussion concludes with some general comments on high-Re turbulence.
Health Information Technology (HIT) Adaptation: Refocusing on the Journey to Successful HIT Implementation

In past years, policies and regulations required hospitals to implement advanced capabilities of certified electronic health records (EHRs) in order to receive financial incentives. This has led to accelerated implementation of health information technologies (HIT) in health care settings. However, measures commonly used to evaluate the success of HIT implementation, such as HIT adoption, technology acceptance, and clinical quality, fail to account for complex sociotechnical variability across contexts and the different trajectories within organizations because of different implementation plans and timelines. We propose a new focus, HIT adaptation, to illuminate factors that facilitate or hinder the connection between use of the EHR and improved quality of care as well as to explore the trajectory of changes in the HIT implementation journey as it is impacted by frequent system upgrades and optimizations. Future research should develop instruments to evaluate the progress of HIT adaptation in both its longitudinal design and its focus on adaptation progress rather than on one cross-sectional outcome, allowing for more generalizability and knowledge transfer.
Quality of Life in Theory and Practice

Voters approached the polls on November 5, 2016, with the hopes of improving their quality of life just as they had done every election prior. The common election question, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” explicitly primes voters with just this thinking as well. It is clear that many voters think and view voting as a potential avenue to improve their lives. We, however, think the underlying logic they are applying to the question of who they vote for is likely much more complicated than a simple calculation of costs and benefits. In the course of this book we cover several empirical examples that demonstrate distinct modes of thought about how quality of life interacts with an individual’s decision-making.
Between Text and Context: Practical Theology and the Ministry of Equipping:

Equipping the saints for ministry is a primary work of the local church. However, the task of constructing equipping ministries requires theological and contextual reflection. This article argues t...
Probabilistic multiscale characterization and modeling of organic-rich shale poroelastic properties

A probabilistic modeling and validation for multiscale poroelastic behavior of organic-rich shale is presented. The methodology is based on the integration of microporomechanics and effective medium theory with uncertainty quantification and propagation from nano- to macroscale. The multiscale model utilizes and improves an existing structural thought model of organic-rich shale material consisting of three levels that span from the nanoscale elementary building blocks of material to the scale of the macroscopic inorganic/organic hard/soft inclusion composite. Major model parameters related to the composition and mechanical properties of shale subscale features are modeled as random variables. Probabilistic description of model input parameters are constructed using the maximum entropy principle (MaxEnt) based on available information. Special care is given to the development of probabilistic description of random elasticity tensor of clay phase exhibiting transversely isotropic symmetry properties by employing the theory of random matrix combined with MaxEnt principle. Having the probabilistic descriptions of uncertain model parameters in hand, a Monte Carlo simulation is carried out to propagate the uncertainty across different scales, which allows us to construct a prior probabilistic descriptions of model outputs. The model predictions at different scales are validated against the available experimental measurements from samples of different formations and relevant information in the literature. Furthermore, a global sensitivity analysis is performed to characterize the contribution of each source of uncertainty in the variation of model predictions with respect to different quantities of interest related to macroscale mechanical properties of shale rocks. The integration of experimental characterization, microporomechanical modeling, and uncertainty quantification and propagation proposed in this work provides valuable insights into understanding the effect of subscale compositions and their variation in the upscaled poroelastic properties of shale rocks and improves the robustness and reliability of predictive models for the shale multiscale behavior.
A new method for constructing tumor specific gene co-expression networks based on samples with tumor purity heterogeneity.

Motivation Tumor tissue samples often contain an unknown fraction of stromal cells. This problem is widely known as tumor purity heterogeneity (TPH) was recently recognized as a severe issue in omics studies. Specifically, if TPH is ignored when inferring co-expression networks, edges are likely to be estimated among genes with mean shift between non-tumor- and tumor cells rather than among gene pairs interacting with each other in tumor cells. To address this issue, we propose Tumor Specific Net (TSNet), a new method which constructs tumor-cell specific gene/protein co-expression networks based on gene/protein expression profiles of tumor tissues. TSNet treats the observed expression profile as a mixture of expressions from different cell types and explicitly models tumor purity percentage in each tumor sample. Results Using extensive synthetic data experiments, we demonstrate that TSNet outperforms a standard graphical model which does not account for TPH. We then apply TSNet to estimate tumor specific gene co-expression networks based on TCGA ovarian cancer RNAseq data. We identify novel co-expression modules and hub structure specific to tumor cells. Availability and implementation R codes can be found at https://github.com/petraf01/TSNet. Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Spicy SDS-PAGE Gels: Curcumin/Turmeric as an Environment-Friendly Protein Stain

Gel proteins are commonly stained with calorimetric/fluorescent dyes. Here, we demonstrate that heat-solubilized curcumin can serve as a nontoxic and environment-friendly fluorescent/colorimetric reversible protein stain. Curcumin, the yellow pigment found in the rhizomes of the perennial herb Curcuma longa (turmeric), is insoluble in aqueous solvents. However, heat (100°C) solubilization in water renders 1.5% of curcumin soluble. Curcumin solubilized by ethanol or alkali is ineffective in staining proteins. Heat solubilized curry spice turmeric stains proteins similarly. Staining is achieved in 30 min, with a sensitivity almost equaling that of Coomassie Brilliant Blue (CBB). Destaining is not required, and excess curcumin/turmeric can be discarded into the sink. Binding of proteins by silver inhibits curcumin binding, suggesting similarity of protein binding by silver and curcumin. It costs $1.5-2.0 to stain a mini-gel with curcumin, while turmeric costs less than 0.005 cent. CBB staining/destaining costs about 2 cents. However, CBB is toxic and its use necessitates specialized disposal efforts. Curcumin/turmeric, thus, can serve as an ideal nontoxic protein stain.
An Approach for Adaptive-Predictive Control

Abstract The Generalized Analytical Predictor (GAP) is incorporated in an adaptive control scheme which provides for superior performance with both set point and load changes. The Internal Model Control (IMC) approach forms the basis of the control law, although other techniques are possible. The adaptive GAP exhibits improved regulatory response over other adaptive controllers and exhibits robustness in the applications tested.
[4] – Gas–Liquid Chromatography of Alditol Acetates

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the use of gas–liquid chromatography (GLC) for the preparation of alditol acetates. Analysis of alditol acetates by GLC is an efficient and accurate method for the quantitative analysis of aldoses in biological materials. The alditol acetate method is used to determine aldoses in several biological materials such as oligosaccharides, polysaccharides, and glycoproteins. The response factor is determined for each aldose by repeating the alditol acetate procedure, including the hydrolysis step with known aldoses and comparing the weight to area ratio of the aldose to that of the internal standard. Response factors obtained in this manner are corrected for hydrolytic losses.
Evaluation of the impacts of hydrologic model calibration methods on predictability of ecologically-relevant hydrologic indices

Abstract Due to the significant costs associated with stream health monitoring, hydrological modeling is widely used to calculate ecologically-relevant hydrologic indices to better understand the overall condition of streams within large and diverse watersheds. However, hydrologic modeling’s ability to replicate these indices is limited, especially when calibrating models by optimizing a single objective function or when selecting a single optimal solution. Hence, this study evaluates the performance of multi-objective model calibration in representing 167 hydrologic indices of ecological interest using the median values of different Pareto-optimal solution sets. For this purpose, two strategies based on three Nash-Sutcliffe Efficiencies (NSE), and root-mean-squared error (RMSE) with explicit hydrograph partitioning, were implemented. Additionally, the k-means clustering technique was employed to define subsets of Pareto-optimal solutions representing high, medium, and low flow conditions. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was set up for the Honeyoey Creek-Pine Creek Watershed, located in Michigan, USA, and was calibrated using a single streamflow gauging station and the recently proposed multi-objective optimization algorithm – Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm III (NSGA-III). The results show that the NSE- and RMSE-based calibration strategies can represent 128 and 123 indices within a range of ±30% relative errors, respectively. In addition, the results of this study demonstrated that using different set of solutions, instead of a single optimal solution, introduces more flexibility in the predictability of different hydrologic indices of ecological interest. Moreover, it is suggested that a multi-objective calibration approach allows the systematic identification of groups of poorly represented and closely related indices. Knowing these poorly represented indices would facilitate the formulation of additional objective functions intended to improve model performance or to detect structural inadequacies.