cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Recession and Expected Retirement Age: Another Look at the Evidence

Purpose: This article expands on earlier analyses that assessed whether the recent recession influenced retirement expectations. Design and Methods: Acknowledging that planning for retirement is a complex process influenced by personal preferences, resources, economic factors, institutional policies, and social norms, we test more comprehensive models than those used in previous studies, using data from the 2006 and 2008 waves (Waves 8 and 9) of the Health and Retirement Study. Results: Our results confirm that economic changes impinge on retirement expectations, but they also show stronger influences of other factors such as debts and the work environment. Implications: As the baby boom cohorts approach retirement age, it will be important to better understand how workers consider macro factors such as the state of the economy and firm-level factors and personal finances when planning for retirement.
Collective Design: Remixing and Visibility

Creative work can be performed by thousands of people who interact through collective design systems. The designers modify and combine each other’s work in a process called remixing. Remixing can catalyze innovation by allowing designers to build on each other’s ideas. For those designing collective design systems, decisions to be made about remixing are intertwined with decisions to be made about the visibility of work in the system – that is, the extent to which designers can see each other’s work. Visibility can be universally shared, or can be partitioned according to teams or interest groups. Even if all designs are made visible, some designs are more likely to be seen than others, depending on the methods of display. The interactions between remixing and other features of collective design systems are described, and suggestions are made towards improving these systems.
Transthyretin and the brain re-visited: Is neuronal synthesis of transthyretin protective in Alzheimer's disease?

Since the mid-1990's a trickle of publications from scattered independent laboratories have presented data suggesting that the systemic amyloid precursor transthyretin (TTR) could interact with the amyloidogenic β-amyloid (Aβ) peptide of Alzheimer's disease (AD). The notion that one amyloid precursor could actually inhibit amyloid fibril formation by another seemed quite far-fetched. Further it seemed clear that within the CNS, TTR was only produced in choroid plexus epithelial cells, not in neurons. The most enthusiastic of the authors proclaimed that TTR sequestered Aβ in vivo resulting in a lowered TTR level in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of AD patients and that the relationship was salutary. More circumspect investigators merely showed in vitro interaction between the two molecules. A single in vivo study in Caenorhabditis elegans suggested that wild type human TTR could suppress the abnormalities seen when Aβ was expressed in the muscle cells of the worm. Subsequent studies in human Aβ transgenic mice, including those from our laboratory, also suggested that the interaction reduced the Aβ deposition phenotype. We have reviewed the literature analyzing the relationship including recent data examining potential mechanisms that could explain the effect. We have proposed a model which is consistent with most of the published data and current notions of AD pathogenesis and can serve as a hypothesis which can be tested.
Extension of brain tolerance to hyperbaric O2 by intermittent air breaks is related to the time of CBF increase

Intermittent air breaks during hyperbaric oxygen (HBO2) exposures protect against pulmonary and central nervous system (CNS) toxicity. The mechanisms of this beneficial effect from intermittency are not known. In this study, we examined if release of vasoconstriction during HBO2 exposure indicates a threshold for toxic dose of HBO2 and how it may be related to tolerance by intermittency. Awake rats instrumented for EEG and cerebral blood flow (CBF) measurement were exposed to 100% O2 at 6 ATA (absolute pressure). Air breaks of 3 or 10 min were given at different times after CBF increase. Following the air break, animals were exposed to 100% O2 until seizure and total O2 time was used to calculate benefit/toxicity. The most beneficial schedule was then used to assess the role of the multiple air breaks in extension of HBO2 tolerance. A significant increase in seizure latency was observed in animals with a single 3- or 10 min air break given 5-10 min after CBF increase. No change in seizure latency was observed when air breaks were given beyond (>10 and <5 min) this window. The duration of total O2 time to seizures was doubled with multiple 3 min air breaks, and quadrupled with 10 min air breaks compared with continuous HBO2 exposures. With more time spent on O2, the duration of air breaks was not sufficient for recovery from O2 toxicity and for CBF to return to baseline. Results show that an "optimal window" of HBO2 exposure is required for benefits by intermittent exposure to air.
Current lineations and sand waves on the inner shelf, Middle Atlantic Bight of North America

ABSTRACT Elongate bedforms of less than one meter relief are abundant on the North Atlantic shelf floor. Spacing between features, and width of solitary forms, ranges from 15 to 50 m. Length-to-width ratios observed by side-scan sonar are in excess of 10:1. The most common form consists of a band of coarse sand or shelly gravel that is depressed slightly below the level of the finer sand on either side. In some cases these bedforms appear to be erosional windows exposing the basal coarse sand or gravel of the Holocene Transgression; elsewhere they are merely localized lag concentrates. Bedforms on the shore face and adjacent inner shelf tend to be nearly shore-normal with slightly acute angles opening to the northeast. Further seaward most bedforms are parallel to the coast, and to the generalized trend of the isobaths. These relationships lead to the inference that the nearshore features are the troughs of low amplitude, flow-transverse sand waves, and that they are probably responses to the intense, downwelling, along-coast flows that occur during northeaster storms. The offshore bedforms may also be responses to storm flow, but their orientation suggests that they are flow-parallel current lineations, perhaps responses to longitudinal vortices in the flow. The bedforms indicate that the shelf floor is responding to the modern hydraulic regime. Time-averaged bed l ad transport is directed downshelf, to the south and west. On the inner shelf there is also an offshore transport component.
South Asian Legal History

Since the late 1990s, there has been an explosion of scholarship on South Asian legal history. This article situates the new literature within the longer tradition of postcolonial South Asian legal studies, focusing on work written by lawyers and historians. The first wave of South Asian legal studies emerged in what historians would call the long 1960s from a group of American lawyers and social scientists working on the legal profession and the experience of dispute resolution in India. The second wave, which has concentrated on the themes of gender and religion in British India, has been shaped by different influences, namely developments in the Indian women's movement and in Indian legal education during the 1980s and 1990s. The survey considers whether the new scholarship is overly focused on elites, the state, the colonial period, and English-language sources. It also identifies regional crosscutting themes that have generated research on South Asia beyond India, particularly constitutionalism, stat...
Content composition and antioxidant activity of isoflavones in commercial and homemade soymilk and tofu

BACKGROUND: Isoflavones, found in soymilk and tofu, are one of the phytochemicals in soy-based products that may promote good health. Homemade tofu and various homemade soymilk samples were made using different soaking, grinding, and cooking methods. The homemade samples were compared to commercial tofu and soymilk for total isoflavone content and composition as well as their antioxidant capacity. All samples were freeze-dried and extracted with a 58% acetonitrile solution which was subsequently used to determine the isoflavone content by reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography. The antioxidant activity of extracts was determined using a modified 2,2-azino-bis-(3-ethylbenzthiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) method and total antioxidant capacity was reported as ascorbic acid equivalents. RESULTS: The total isoflavone, aglycone, and antioxidant levels were significantly higher in homemade soymilk and tofu (1571 µg) than in commercial samples. Homemade soymilk made by the extended boiling method yielded the highest total isoflavone (2567 µg) and glucoside (1525 µg) content. A strong positive correlation was observed between the total isoflavone, aglycone conjugates, and genistein series concentration and antioxidant capacity of soymilk. CONCLUSION: Increased moist heating time yielded the highest concentration of total isoflavones as well as aglycone conjugates and the genistein series. Increasing the duration of boiling can increase the isoflavone content of both homemade and commercial soymilk and tofu. Copyright © 2007 Society of Chemical Industry
THE PENTAPEPTIDE MOTIF OF HOX PROTEINS IS REQUIRED FOR COOPERATIVE DNA BINDING WITH PBX1, PHYSICALLY CONTACTS PBX1, AND ENHANCES DNA BINDING BY PBX1

The vertebrate Hox genes, which represent a subset of all homeobox genes, encode proteins that regulate anterior-posterior positional identity during embryogenesis and are cognates of the Drosophila homeodomain proteins encoded by genes composing the homeotic complex (HOM-C). Recently, we demonstrated that multiple Hox proteins bind DNA cooperatively with both Pbx1 and its oncogenic derivative, E2A-Pbx1. Here, we show that the highly conserved pentapeptide motif F/Y-P-W-M-R/K, which occurs in numerous Hox proteins and is positioned 8 to 50 amino acids N terminal to the homeodomain, is essential for cooperative DNA binding with Pbx1 and E2A-Pbx1. Point mutational analysis demonstrated that the tryptophan and methionine residues within the core of this motif were critical for cooperative DNA binding. A peptide containing the wild-type pentapeptide sequence, but not one in which phenylalanine was substituted for tryptophan, blocked the ability of Hox proteins to bind cooperatively with Pbx1 or E2A-Pbx1, suggesting that the pentapeptide itself provides at least one surface through which Hox proteins bind Pbx1. Furthermore, the same peptide, but not the mutant peptide, stimulated DNA binding by Pbx1, suggesting that interaction of Hox proteins with Pbx1 through the pentapeptide motif raises the DNA-binding ability of Pbx1.
Bayesian consistent belief selection

A subjective expected utility agent is given information about the state of the world in the form of a set of possible priors. She is assumed to form her beliefs given this information. A set of priors may be updated according to Bayes' rule, prior-by-prior, upon learning that some state of the world has not obtained. In a model in which information is completely summarized by this set of priors, we show that there exists no decision maker who obeys Bayes' rule, conditions her prior only on the available information (by selecting a belief in the announced set), and who updates the information prior-by-prior using Bayes' rule.
Limb regeneration revisited

The investigation of vertebrate limb regeneration, a favorite topic of early developmental biologists, is enjoying a renaissance thanks to recently developed molecular and genetic tools, as indicated in recent papers in BMC Biology and BMC Developmental Biology. Classical experiments provide a rich context for interpreting modern functional studies.
Small-diameter blood vessels by weaving: prototyping and modelling

For success in vascular surgery involving small-diameter ( 6 mm) applications, where the requirements are flexible, a vein from the body continues to be preferred for small-vessel repair. The objective of this study is to develop an understanding of the material and the construction factors that affect the values of a woven tube's diameter, pore size, elastic recovery and transverse compliance. This information is largely absent in literature. By varying yarn size and fabric structure, seamless tubes (1.5–7 mm diameter) were constructed. These were heat set for circular shapes and characterised for size, geometry and radial elasticity. Property–structure correlation models are presented. Grafts of desired size can be engineered and their properties predicted.
A Case of Schizophrenia in a Hypogonad Man

The schizophrenic psychosis presents numerous features suggestive of psychosexual immaturity. Usually, however, the patients are not remarkable for evidences of somatic sexual abnormality. Likewise, attempts to treat the psychosis with androgens have not, in our hands at least, given consistently favorable results. Possibly the failures in the treatment may be due to reduced reactivity to the hormone. Since eunuchs and eunuchoids are notably more responsive to androgens than are normal individuals, it was a matter of interest when opportunity arose to study an individual who was both eunuchoid and schizophrenic—a rare combination. case report The patient, H.J., was an unmarried, 44-year-old man of Scotch-Irish extraction, who entered the Worcester State Hospital on first admission Dec. 31, 1941. The family history was scanty and not relevant to the current problem. As to personal history, the patient was born by normal delivery after a normal pregnancy.
The phonetic potential of nonhuman vocal tracts: comparative cineradiographic observations of vocalizing animals.

For more than a century it has been noted that the adult human vocal tract differs from that of other mammals, in that the resting position of the larynx is much lower in humans. While animals habitually breathe with the larynx inserted into the nasal cavity, adult humans are unable to do this. This anatomical difference has been cited as an important factor limiting the vocal potential of nonhuman animals, because the low larynx of humans allows a wider range of vocal tract shapes and thus formant patterns than is available to other species. However, it is not clear that the static anatomy of dead animals provides an accurate guide to the phonetic potential of the living animal's vocal tract. Here I present X-ray video observations of four mammal species (dogs Canis familiaris, goats Capra hircus, pigs Sus scrofa and cotton-top tamarins Sagunius oedipus). In all four species, the larynx was lowered from the nasopharynx, and the velum was closed, during loud calls. In dogs this temporary lowering was particularly pronounced. Although preliminary, these results suggest that the nonhuman vocal tract is more flexible than previously supposed, and that static postmortem anatomy provides an incomplete guide to the phonetic potential of nonhuman animals. The implications of these findings for theories of speech evolution are discussed.
Development of a department of defense focused graduate program in systems engineering

The Air Force Institute of Technology has responded to a need for a significant revision of its graduate degree program in systems engineering. The need was brought on by several factors, including a move towards a capability based acquisition system, the emergence of system architecture as a means for insuring interoperability, and the recognition that sound system engineering principles were not being uniformly applied across AF and DoD programs. The first year revision of the program concentrated on a new line-up of core courses to insure a common body of knowledge for all students going through the degree program. These core courses, together with a project application are also offered as a stand alone graduate certificate program. The second year revision continues to fine tune the core courses, but also adds an elective sequence that can take students through the front end systems engineering process for a current AF mission area. This sequence has the students perform a mission area analysis, concept definition, analysis of alternatives, program formulation and the development of test and risk management plans for their concepts. Progress of the program revision is discussed and future initiatives can be mentioned.
Disaccharidase activities and fat assimilation in pediatric patients after intestinal transplantation.

Background. Intestinal transplantation has become an accepted therapy for short bowel syndrome and other types of intestinal failure. In order to assess digestive capabilities and feeding practices in a group of 22 pediatric patients after intestinal transplantation, we assessed mucosal disaccharidase activities and assimilation of total dietary lipid and vitamin E. Twelve of the patients had undergone contemporaneous liver transplantation. Methods. Mucosal biopsies were assayed for disaccharidase activities between 15 and 412 days after transplantation in 7 of the 22 when all were receiving some enteral nutrition and were free of rejection. Coefficients of lipid absorption were determined in those patients receiving total enteral feeding (two-thirds polymeric/one-third elemental) between 43 and 1032 days after transplantation; oral vitamin E tolerance tests were done at about the same time. Results. Activities of lactase, sucrase, maltase, and palatinase consistently exceeded reference ranges (P<0.05). Mean coefficient of lipid absorption equaled 86±12% and was not influenced by duration of time after transplantation. No patient required dietary lipid restriction. No significant absorption of vitamin E was demonstrated until 160 days after transplantation. Vitamin E absorption did correlate with length of time elapsed after surgery (r=0.64, P<0.0011). Conclusions. The results of this investigation show that, in the absence of histologic or clinical indications of allograft rejection, pediatric intestinal transplant recipients do not have primary disaccharidase deficiencies. Similarly, absorption of usual dietary lipid content is adequate once weaning from parenteral nutrition is complete. In contrast, early assimilation of vitamin E is poor. Vitamin E absorption subsequently improves, but the mechanism is obscure.
Declining Reproductive Parameters Highlight Conservation Needs of Loggerhead Turtles (Caretta caretta) in the Northern Gulf of Mexico

Abstract Marine turtles in the Gulf of Mexico are at risk due to many anthropogenic threats including habitat degradation, commercial fishing, and petroleum activities. The severity of this risk was made apparent in 2010 with the occurrence of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The objectives of this study were to assess long-term trends in abundance and reproductive parameters for this genetically distinct nesting group. From 1994 to 2010, morning surveys were conducted along 3 beaches on the St Joseph Peninsula, Florida, including within our primary study site on Cape San Blas. Nest abundance on all 3 beaches declined by at least 47% (p < 0.01). Mean nesting success on Cape San Blas was 40% and also declined (p = 0.002). Mean clutch size was 108 and mean emergence success was 58%. Throughout the study there were no changes in clutch size and emergence success. We found that nesting characteristics for the northern Gulf of Mexico subpopulation appear similar to those from other loggerhead turtle nesting ...
Low Frequency Coherent Vibrations of DNA: The Role of the Hydration Shell and Phosphate-Phosphate Interactions

The vibrational modes of DNA span a range from high frequency localized vibrations, through low frequency collective modes to over-damped Brownian fluctuations. Presumably the most important motions from a biological standpoint are the lowest frequency vibrations (involving the largest units) that are not overdamped by the viscous action of the hydration shell. I describe observations of low frequency collective vibrational modes of DNA which couple to the hydration shell. The dynamics of the hydration shell becomes important in a frequency “window” between the viscoelastic transition of the primary hydration shell (roughly 4 GHz.) and the viscoelastic transition of the secondary shell (roughly 80 GHz.). The role of coupled solvent — DNA dynamics in the A to B and B to Z transition is discussed in terms of the phosphate-phosphate interactions which probably dominate conformational stability. Excitations of coupled modes of the DNA-hydration shell system may also account for the resonant microwave absorption observed in restriction fragments and plasmids.
Perinatal/Neonatal case presentation: pulmonary artery sling associated with respiratory distress

Pulmonary artery sling is a very rare cause of pediatric respiratory distress. The estimated prevalence of the disease was first determined by Yu et al. in 2008 as 59 per million school-aged children. Associated symptoms are cough, wheezing, and feeding difficulty, all of which are common in routine outpatient pediatric clinical encounters. We report a case of a premature male neonate twin who was admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit with respiratory distress and pneumothorax. His presentation, as well as the etiology of his pulmonary disease, was felt to be consistent with those of numerous other premature infants. Akin to this was his delayed discharge on account of his slow progress with oral feeding. Parents gave a history of tachypnea and feeding difficulty to his doctors. He presented twice to the emergency room in respiratory distress. At 4 months of age, while in hospital for a pulmonary infection, he had an echocardiogram that revealed a pulmonary artery sling. We review the literature on this vascular anomaly, discuss its diagnosis and management, and critique the clinical thinking that determined this child’s course from the perspective of availability heuristics.
High-Deductible Health Plans: Implications for Substance Use Treatment

Objective To examine whether high-deductible health plans are related to patient complexity, health services use, and medical care costs among substance use treatment patients. Data Source/Study Setting Electronic health record data from Kaiser Permanente Northern California; 2007–2011. Study Design Retrospective analysis of electronic health record data of substance use treatment patients (N = 31,001). We examined relationship of patient demographics, health comorbidities, and services use and cost to deductible level: none, low ($1–$999), and high (≥$1,000). Methods Demographic, membership, diagnostic, and utilization data were merged with cost data. Utilization and costs were summarized into 6-month intervals. Generalized estimation methods for repeated measures with logistic, Poisson, and linear regression were used. Principal Findings Substance use patients with deductible plans were younger and had less comorbidity than those without deductibles. Patients with high deductibles had lower emergency room and hospital use 12- to 6-month pretreatment, but rates became similar to other groups in the 6 months immediately prior to treatment; treatment costs were similar. Conclusion Immediately prior to entering treatment, substance use patients with and without high deductibles have similar patterns of health services utilization. We discuss implications for health policy and treatment, particularly in an era of health reform.
Development of the Analysis Software of Reliability Based on the Matlab

In this paper, the analysis of reliability software was developed using the MATLAB language. This software has the functions as following: creating sample data with the specify Probability distribution types and parameters, test sample data analysis, solving the reliability problem with 2 to 4 stochastic variable. Reliability function is input by user which enhances the applicability. The method of Monte Carlo is presented to verify the result. The development of this software is an application of computer to the engineering.
Update on Mechanical Moduli and Tilt Theories of Lipid Bilayers

The classical Helfrich-Canham membrane continuum mechanics model is being fruitfully enriched by the inclusion of molecular tilt, even in the fluid phase of lipid bilayers. Different enrichment theories largely agree, but it has been noticed that there is considerable disagreement in one prediction; one theory postulates that the average length of the hydrocarbon chain tails increases strongly with increasing tilt and another predicts no increase. Our analysis of an all-atom simulation favors the latter theory, but it also shows that the overall tail length decreases slightly with increasing tilt. We show that this deviation from continuum theory can be reconciled by consideration of the average shape of the tails, which is a descriptor not obviously includable in continuum theory. The inclusion of tilt in the analysis of our diffuse x-ray data increases our values of the bending modulus by roughly 20%. A recent concern about the bending modulus is that it may depend strongly on the inclusion of sugars used in various other experimental methods. However, we find negligible effect of fructose, glucose, sucrose, trehalose, and maltose on our x-ray determination of the bending modulus or the tilt modulus of DOPC, SOPC, POPC and DMPC.
Possible Interaction of Anti–PD-1 Therapy with the Effects of Radiosurgery on Brain Metastases

Delayed radiation-induced vasculitic leukoencephalopathy related to stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) of brain metastases has been reported to manifest clinically 9 to 18 months after treatment. Immune-modulating therapies have been introduced to treatment regimens for malignancies with metastatic predilection to the brain. The interaction of these systemic therapies with other modalities of treatment for brain metastases, namely, SRS, has not been fully characterized. We report two patients with metastatic malignancies to the brain who received SRS followed by immunotherapy with monoclonal antibodies (mAb) to programmed death 1 (PD-1). Both patients appeared to have early clinical and radiologic progression of their treated lesions, which was highly suspicious for tumor progression. Both patients underwent surgical resection of their lesions and the material was submitted for histopathologic examination. Pathologic examination in both cases showed predominantly radiation-induced changes characterized by reactive astrocytosis and vascular wall infiltration by T lymphocytes. The accelerated response to SRS in these two patients was temporally related to the initiation of immunotherapy. We propose a possible biologic interaction between SRS and the PD-1 mAbs. Additionally, awareness of this potential occurrence is critical for accurate interpretation and proper management of clinical and radiologic findings in these patients. Cancer Immunol Res; 4(6); 481-7. ©2016 AACR.
Conserve Water: A Method for the Analysis of Solvent in Molecular Dynamics.

Molecular dynamics with explicit solvent is favored for its ability to more correctly simulate aqueous biological processes and has become routine thanks to increasingly powerful computational resources. However, analysis techniques including Markov state models (MSMs) ignore solvent atoms and focus solely on solute coordinates despite solvent being implicated in myriad biological phenomena. We present a unified framework called “solvent-shells featurization” for including solvent degrees of freedom in analysis and show that this method produces better models. We apply this method to simulations of dewetting in the two-domain protein BphC to generate a predictive MSM and identify functional water molecules. Furthermore, the proposed methodology could be easily extended for building MSMs of any systems with indistinguishable components.
Geometric algorithms for dynamic airspace sectorization

The National Airspace System (NAS) is designed to accommodate a large number of flights over North America. For purposes of workload limitations for air traffic controllers, the airspace is partitioned into approximately 600 sectors; each sector is observed by one or more controllers. In order to satisfy workload limitations for controllers, it is important that sectors be designed carefully according to the traffic patterns of flights, so that no sector becomes overloaded. We formulate and study the airspace sectorization problem from an algorithmic point of view, modeling the problem of optimal sectorization as a geometric partition problem with constraints. We evaluate our algorithms experimentally. We conduct experiments using actual historical flight track data for the NAS as the basis of our partitioning. We compare the workload balance of our methods to that of the existing set of sectors for the NAS and find that our resectorization yields competitive and improved workload balancing. In particular, our methods yield an improvement by a factor between 2 and 3 over the current sectorization in terms of the time-average and the worst-case workloads of the maximum workload sector. Further, we investigate the dynamic nature of air traffic and use that to guide sector designs that evolve over time. Depending on the time of day, demand profiles, weather changes, etc. the traffic density of various parts of the NAS changes. In such a scenario, it is more practical to have dynamic sector designs in order to accommodate the changing traffic; in fact this is a common practice even today. The goal is to automate the identification and re-configuration of these dense traffic areas. A simple solution would just compute separate sectorizations for different instances of air traffic within a sliding time window. While this method gives excellent workload balance for each time window, it does not guarantee that the change in sector design is minimal and local to dense traffic regions; a feature which is very important for dynamic sectorization. Hence, we propose an approach which involves local merging and re-partitioning of neighboring sectors in high traffic density regions.
Functional sensitivity of polar surfaces on transmembrane helix 8 and cytoplasmic loop 8-9 of the Escherichia coli GABA (4-aminobutyrate) transporter encoded by gabP: Mutagenic analysis of a consensus amphipathic region found in transporters from bacteria to mammals

The gab permease (GabP) catalyses transport of GABA (4-aminobutyrate) into Escherichia coli. Although GabP can recognize and transport many GABA analogues that exhibit activity at GABAergic synapses in the nervous system, the protein domains responsible for these transport and ligand recognition properties have not been studied. Here we report that an amphipathic domain extending through putative transmembrane helix 8 and into the adjoining cytoplasmic region (loop 8-9) contains a critical 20 residue zone within which mutagenesis of polar amino acids has a deleterious effect on [3H]GABA transport activity. This functionally important amphipathic domain is found to be highly conserved in the many APC family transporters that are homologous to GabP. And even though members of the GAT family of GABA transporters from the animal nervous system are not homologous to GabP, an analogous amphipathic structure is found in their loop 8-9 region. These results and observations suggest: (1) that the consensus amphipathic region (CAR) in the putative helix 8 and loop 8-9 region of GabP has functional significance, and (2) that nature has repeatedly used this CAR in transporters from bacteria to mammals.
Leakage current conduction and reliability assessment of passivating thin silicon dioxide films on n-4H-SiC

We have analyzed the mechanisms of leakage current conduction in passivating silicon dioxide (SiO2) films grown on (0 0 0 1) silicon (Si) face of n-type 4H-SiC (silicon carbide). It was observed that the experimentally measured gate current density in metal-oxide-silicon carbide (MOSiC) structures under positive gate bias at an oxide field Eox above 5 MV/cm is comprised of Fowler-Nordheim (FN) tunneling of electrons from the accumulated n-4H-SiC and Poole-Frenkel (PF) emission of trapped electrons from the localized neutral traps in the SiO2 gap, IFN and IPF, respectively at temperatures between 27 and 200 °C. In MOSiC structures, PF mechanism dominates FN tunneling of electrons from the accumulation layer of n-4H-SiC due to high density (up to 1013 cm-2) of carbon-related acceptor-like traps located at about 2.5 eV below the SiO2 conduction band (CB). These current conduction mechanisms were taken into account in studying hole injection/trapping into 10 nm-thick tunnel oxide on the Si face of 4H-SiC during electron injection from n-4H-SiC under high-field electrical stress with positive bias on the heavily doped n-type polysilicon (n+-polySi) gate at a wide range of temperatures between 27 and 200 °C. Holes were generated in the n+-polySi anode material by the hot-electrons during their transport through thin oxide films at oxide electric fields Eox from 5.6 to 8.0 MV/cm (prior to the intrinsic oxide breakdown field). Time-to-breakdown tBD of the gate dielectric was found to follow reciprocal field (1/E) model irrespective of stress temperatures. Despite the significant amount of process-induced interfacial electron traps contributing to a large amount of leakage current via PF emission in thermally grown SiO2 on the Si-face of n-4H-SiC, MOSiC devices having a 10 nm-thick SiO2 film can be safely used in 5 V TTL logic circuits over a period of 10 years.
Optical tuning of monolithic In0.53Ga0.47As/In0.52Al0.48As/InP modulation-doped field-effect transistor oscillators at X and R band

We have experimentally studied the optical control and optical tuning characteristics of monolithically integrated In0.53Ga0.47As/In0.52Al0.48As modulation-doped field-effect transistor (MODFET) oscillators operating in the X and R bands. For a 20 μW intrinsic photoexcitation on the device, the maximum frequency shift for the X- and R-band oscillators was 8.7 and 11.7 MHz, respectively.
Automated aerial refueling: Parallelized 3D iterative closest point: Subject area: Guidance and control

Vision-based automated aerial refueling requires a relative positioning solution capable of real time updates between the tanker and receiver. The processing time required for modern approaches are dominated by an iterative point alignment phase. This work presents an accelerated alignment variant which utilizes parallelization and Delaunay Triangulation to achieve real time estimates.
MP03-11 INSTITUTIONAL LEARNING CURVE ASSOCIATED WITH IMPLEMENTATION OF A MR/US FUSION BIOPSY PROGRAM USING PIRADS VERSION 2: FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE SUCCESS

Background The purpose of this study is to assess the institutional learning curve associated with adopting FB using PI-RADS Version 2 (v2) for detecting clinically significant prostate cancer (csPCa), defined as Gleason ≥ 7 in men with prior negative biopsies and to identify patient and technical factors that predict success at detecting csPCa. Methods A total of 113 consecutive patients with at least one prior negative biopsy and a multiparametric MRI (mpMRI) exam of the prostate with a PIRADS 3 or greater index lesion underwent FB at a single academic center previously naive to FB technology. Outcomes are detection rates for Gleason 6 cancer, csPCa, and any cancer. Multiple logistic regression with model selection was used to select covariates having significant effects on the outcome. Results Prostate cancers were identified in 52% of cases in patients with prior negative prostate biopsies. Among patients diagnosed with prostate cancer, 80% were clinically significant. The detection rates of csPCa using FB when a PIRADS 3, 4, or 5 index lesion was present on mpMRI were 6%, 46%, and 66%, respectively. PI-RADS v2 score had a predictive accuracy (AUC) of 0.79 for csPCa detection. Institutional experience over time, MRI-estimated prostate volume, and PI-RADS v2 score were independent predictors of csPCa using FB. Conclusions Since FB is a highly technique-driven process, development of internal quality measures to assess the institutional learning curve and the quality of PI-RADS v2 scoring is critical with adoption of this technology.
cAMP-dependent post-translational modification of neuronal nitric oxide synthase neuroprotects penile erection in rats.

Objectives To evaluate nNOS phosphorylation, nNOS uncoupling, and oxidative stress in the penis and major pelvic ganglia (MPG), before and after the administration of the cAMP-dependent protein kinase A (PKA) agonist colforsin in a rat model of bilateral cavernous nerve injury (BCNI) which mimics nerve injury following prostatectomy. Materials and Methods Adult male Sprague–Dawley rats were divided into BCNI and sham groups. Each group included 2 subgroups: vehicle and colforsin (0.1 mg/kg/day i.p.). After 3 days, erectile function (intracavernosal pressure) was measured and penes and MPG were collected for molecular analyses of phospho(P)-nNOS (Ser-1412 and Ser-847), total nNOS, nNOS uncoupling, binding of neuronal nitric oxide synthase (PIN) to nNOS, gp91phox subunit of NADPH oxidase, active caspase 3, PKA catalytic subunit alpha (PKA-Cα) (by Western blot) and oxidative stress (hydrogen peroxide [H2O2] and superoxide by Western blot and microdialysis method). Results Erectile function was decreased 3 days after BCNI and normalized by colforsin. nNOS phosphorylation on both positive (Ser-1412) and negative (Ser-847) regulatory sites, and nNOS uncoupling, were increased after BCNI in the penis and MPG and normalized by colforsin. Hydrogen peroxide and total ROS productions were increased in the penis after BCNI and normalized by colforsin. Protein expression of gp91phox was increased in the MPG after BCNI and was normalized by colforsin treatment. Binding of PIN to nNOS was increased in the penis after BCNI and was normalized by colforsin treatment. Protein expression of active Caspase 3 was increased in the MPG after BCNI and was normalized by colforsin treatment. Protein expression of PKA-Cα was decreased in the penis after BCNI and normalized by colforsin. Conclusion Collectively, BCNI impairs nNOS function in the penis and MPG by mechanisms involving its phosphorylation and uncoupling in association with increased oxidative stress, resulting in erectile dysfunction. PKA activation by colforsin reverses these molecular changes and preserves penile erection in the face of BCNI. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
The Celebration of Ghosts: A Postmodern Theoretical Framework of Meaning-Making in Visual Art Education.

This article explores pedagogical issues of meaning-making in Western art education, particularly for students in higher education, by analyzing Xu Bing’s exhibition, Writing Between Sky and Earth, through the competing theoretical lenses of Jacques Derrida and Karen Barad. The article discusses both theoretical and pedagogical implications generated from the reification of two contemporary theories via transnational contemporary art, arguing that the intimate interaction between art, theories, and students’ life experience grants students materialized access to the co-existing familiarity and unfamiliarity of transnational art and empowers students who are fully aware of the politics of difference under globalization to be active participants in theory development.
A Model Problem: Dielectrics Undergoing Multifield Processes

An important issue that this monograph addresses is the modeling and simulation of strongly coupled electromagnetic and thermodynamic fields that arise in particulate-doped dielectrics using an adaptive staggered FDTD (Finite Difference Time Domain) method. Of particular interest is to provide a straightforward modular approach to finding the effective dielectric (electromagnetic) response of a material, incorporating thermal effects arising from Joule heating which alter the pointwise dielectric properties such as the electric permittivity, magnetic permeability, and electric conductivity. This is important for “thermal (damage) management” of materials used in electromagnetic applications. Because multiple field coupling is present, a staggered, temporally-adaptive scheme is developed to resolve the internal microstructural electric, magnetic and thermal fields, accounting for the simultaneous pointwise changes in the material properties. Numerical examples are provided to illustrate the approach. Extensions to coupled chemical and mechanical fields are also provided. Here, we follow an approach found in Zohdi [139].
Failure probability of borosilicate glass under Hertz indentation load

The objective of this work is to test the hypothesis that the failure probability prediction model by Fischer-Cripps and Collins can be used without introducing an empirically derived parameter and therefore can serve as a predictive tool. We examined this hypothesis by Hertz cone crack initiation tests of flat borosilicate glass statically loaded through a spherical indenter. The Weibull parameters characterizing the surface flaw distribution were determined from biaxial flexure experiments using specimens with the same surface condition as in the indentation tests. Elastic moduli of the specimens were determined by using ultrasonic methods. In addition, the crack initiation was determined using stereo microscopy at 20× magnification. The results demonstrated that the model can predict the minimum critical load and cumulative failure probability for small indenters within the 90% confidence level. Therefore, the current work demonstrates that the model can be used as a predictive tool provided the parameters necessary for the model accurately reflect those of the actual sample populations that are used for the experimental setup.
Effect of Reaction Time on Phosphate Mineralization from Microalgae Hydrolysate

The development of algal biorefineries is strongly associated with the nutrient management, particularly phosphorus, which is a limited mineral resource. Flash hydrolysis (FH) has been widely applied to a variety of algae species to fractionate its constituents. This chemical-free, subcritical water technique was used to extract more than 80 wt % of phosphorus available in the Scenedesmus sp. as water-soluble phosphates in the aqueous phase (hydrolysate). The phosphate-rich hydrolysate was subjected to the hydrothermal mineralization (HTM) process at 280 °C and 5–90 min of residence time to mineralize phosphates as allotropes of calcium phosphate such as hydroxyapatite (HAp) and whitlockite (WH). In the current study, the effect of reaction time on phosphate mineralization from the hydrolysate as well as the composition, structure and the morphology of the precipitates were studied. Calcium hydroxide and commercial HAp were used as the mineralizer and seeding material, respectively. More than 97 wt % of p...
Effects of amino acid insertions in the cysteine-rich domain of the MHV-A59 spike protein on cell fusion.

The spike protein is a key determinant in the pathogenesis of mouse hepatitis virus strain A59 (Hingley et al., 1994). The spike is a type I viral envelope glycoprotein that mediates receptor-binding and viral entry through virus-cell fusion. In addition, when present on the cell surface, the spike can also mediate cell-cell fusion between infected and neighboring cells. During maturation, the spike protein is post-translationally cleaved into two 90 kDa subunits, S1 and S2. Unlike other viral fusion proteins, fusion mediated by the spike protein does not require a cleavage step that liberates a fusion peptide on the N-terminus of the membrane bound subunit (Bos et al., 1997; Bos et al, 1995; Gombold et al., 1993). Instead, a portion of heptad repeat 1 has been suggested to serve as an internal fusion peptide (Luo and Weiss, 1998a; Luo and Weiss, 1998b). In the current model of fusion, fusion peptides are proposed to mediate lipid mixing between the outer leaflets of the viral envelope and cell membrane. This leads to an intermediate stage, termed hemifusion, in which the inner leaflets remain intact. Resolution of hemifusion is thought to be mediated by the transmembrane anchor. Among coronaviruses, there is significant sequence conservation within the spike transmembrane anchor and cysteine-rich (cys) domain. Both the transmembrane anchor and the cys domain of the spike protein have been shown to be necessary for cell-cell fusion activity (Bos et al., 1995; Chang et al., 2000). In this report, we examine how changes in the length of the transmembrane anchor and the consequent change in spacing of the cys domain affect cell fusion activity.
Arrayed Force Sensors Made of Paper, Elastomer, and Hydrogel Particles

This article presents a sensor for detecting the distribution of forces on a surface. The device with nine buttons consisted of an elastomer-based layer as a touch interface resting on a substrate of patterned metallized paper. The elastomer-based layer included a three-by-three array of deformable, hemispherical elements/reliefs, facing down toward an array of interdigitated capacitive sensing units on patterned metallized paper. Each hemispherical element is 20 mm in diameter and 8 mm in height. When a user applied pressure to the elastomer-based layer, the contact area between the hemispherical elements and the interdigitated capacitive sensing units increased with the deformation of the hemispherical elements. To enhance the sensitivity of the sensors, embedded particles of hydrogel in the elastomer-based layer increased the measured electrical responses. The measured capacitance increased because the effective dielectric permittivity of the hydrogel was greater than that of air. Electromechanical characterization verified that the hydrogel-filled elastomer was more sensitive to force at a low range of loads (23.4 pF/N) than elastomer alone without embedded hydrogel (3.4 pF/N), as the hydrogel reduced the effective elastic modulus of the composite material by a factor of seven. A simple demonstration suggests that the force-sensing array has the potential to contribute to wearable and soft robotic devices.
Automatic Passenger Counting Data: Better Schedules Improve on-Time Performance

OC Transpo has operated an Automatic Passenger Counting (APC) system for over 10 years. A major benefit of the APC system is the provision of data for the determination of correct running times for future schedules. The study of APC-produced distributions of running times along route sections have revealed the expected overall variation by different times of day but, more importantly, they have also shown wide variation within fairly narrow time-frames. The problem for schedulers is to decide the number of minutes to allocate so that the maximum benefit is achieved. Should the median time be used or should the allocated time ensure that a percentage of all trips have sufficient running times?
The ML test score: A rubric for ML production readiness and technical debt reduction

Creating reliable, production-level machine learning systems brings on a host of concerns not found in small toy examples or even large offline research experiments. Testing and monitoring are key considerations for ensuring the production-readiness of an ML system, and for reducing technical debt of ML systems. But it can be difficult to formulate specific tests, given that the actual prediction behavior of any given model is difficult to specify a priori. In this paper, we present 28 specific tests and monitoring needs, drawn from experience with a wide range of production ML systems to help quantify these issues and present an easy to follow road-map to improve production readiness and pay down ML technical debt.
First and Second Order Optimality Conditions and Perturbation Analysis of Semi-Infinite Programming Problems

In this paper we discuss finite dimensional optimization problems subject to an infinite number of inequality constraints (semi-infinite programming problems). We study such problems in a general framework of optimization problems subject to constraints formulated in a form of cone inclusions. General results on duality, and first and second order optimality conditions are presented and specified to considered semi-infinite programming problems. Finally some recent results on quantitative stability and sensitivity analysis of parameterized semi-infinite programming problems are discussed.