cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Genetic Contributions to Addiction

Even the most extreme environmentalists along the nature-nurture continuum in psychology now acknowledge that genes often contribute to individual differences in behavior. Behavioral traits are complex, reflecting the aggregate effects of many genes. These genetic effects are interactive, inter se and with the environments in which they are expressed. Human studies of addictive behaviors have clearly implicated both environmental and genetic influences. This review selects drug dependence as a paradigmatic addiction, and further, concentrates on the extensive literature with genetic animal models. Both traditional studies with inbred strains and selected lines and studies exploiting the new molecularly based technologies of the genomics era are discussed. Future directions for further contribution of animal models studies to our understanding of the brain dysregulations characteristic of addictions are identified.
Comparing Schedule Generation Schemes in Resource-Constrained Project Scheduling Using Elitist Genetic Algorithm

An issue has arisen with regard to which of the schedule generation schemes will perform better for an arbitrary instance of the resource-constrained project scheduling problem (RCPSP), which is one of the most challenging areas in construction engineering and management. No general answer has been given to this issue due to the different mechanisms between the serial scheme and the parallel scheme. In an effort to address this issue, this paper compares the two schemes using a permutation-based Elitist genetic algorithm for the RCPSP. Computational experiments are presented with multiple standard problems. From the results of a paired difference experiment, the algorithm using the serial scheme provides better solutions than the one using the parallel scheme. The results also show that the algorithm with the parallel scheme takes longer to solve each problem than the one using the serial scheme.
The Diabetic Brain During Hypoglycemia: In the Midst of Plenty of Lactate

Many factors impact the fluctuating rates of glucose flux and clearance in one’s daily life (meal size and composition, gastric emptying rate, physical activity, etc.). With this constantly changing need for circulating insulin abundance, it is challenging for the treatment strategy to be entirely successful in individuals with type 1 diabetes (T1D), and transient periods of hypoglycemia occur. Humans have evolved metabolic strategies to cope with hypoglycemia, and these include counter-regulatory endocrine responses to increase hepatic glucose production as well as selection of alternative fuels for mitochondrial respiration. The central nervous system can use glycolytic end products that were produced by other tissues (circulating lactate) as well as ketones to some extent. The ability to take up and oxidize these alternative fuels is likely critical for tolerance of and survival through hypoglycemia. The traditional view was that glycolysis makes pyruvate and that only under anaerobic conditions would lactate be generated. It is now recognized that glycolysis makes lactate even under fully aerobic conditions because of the intrinsic kinetic properties of lactate dehydrogenase, which rapidly interconverts pyruvate and lactate and favors lactate on a mass basis. Thus, lactate can be considered the major product of glycolysis even when the fate of glycolytic carbon is primarily mitochondrial oxidation. The basal lactate concentration in tissues and arterial circulation is at least 10 times greater than pyruvate and even higher under stresses that increase the glycolytic rate (1,2), so lactate is the primary shuttling form of glycolytic end products through the cytoplasm and through the circulation from one organ to another. The liver releases glucose to share its carbohydrate fuel depot with other tissues. …
THE USE OF VERSION SPACE CONTROLLED GENETIC ALGORITHMS TO SOLVE THE BOOLE PROBLEM

The Version Space Controlled Genetic Algorithms (VGA) uses the structure of the version space to cache generalizations about the performance history of chromosomes in the genetic algorithm. This cached experience is used to constrain the generation of new members of the genetic algorithms population. The VGA is shown to be a specific instantiation of a more general framework, Autonomous Learning Elements (ALE). The capabilities of the VGA system are demonstrated using the Boole problem suggested by Wilson [Wilson 1987]. The performance of the VGA is compared to that of decision trees and genetic algorithms. The results suggest that the VGA is able to exploit a certain set of symbiotic relationships between its components, so that the resulting system performs better than either component individually.
Programmer's Workbench for the Block Data Flow Architecture

An increasing number of papers and technical reports have been published to reflect the effort of developing highly efficient architectures with linear speed-up and high system throughput for multidimensional signal processing and image processing algorithms. As a result, there is an increasing demand for software tools to aid users to map algorithms to these architectures. We are developing a programmer's work bench in X Windows and Motif using Sun's Open Look interface to implement the data flow requirements for the Block Data Flow Architecture.
Improving communication using an electronic bulletin board

Q: How can communication be improved within a large pharmacy department that provides continuous pharmaceutical services and includes full-time, part-time, and as-needed staff? A: Communication is critical in today’s world. Computers have changed the way we communicate. Although some innovations
Kinetic profile of the rat CYP4A isoforms: arachidonic acid metabolism and isoform-specific inhibitors.

20-Hydroxyeicosatetraenoic acid (HETE), the cytochromeP-450 (CYP) 4A ω-hydroxylation product of arachidonic acid, has potent biological effects on renal tubular and vascular functions and on the co...
'No War No Peace': Mapping the 'Post-Conflict' Environment in Cote D'Ivoire

Cote d'Ivoire is emerging from a 12-year period of on-again, off again conflict. The period began in 2002 with a rebellion that effectively cut the country in half and ended in 2011 when rebel forces (with international assistance) took the city of Abidjan and removed Laurent Gbagbo from power. I argue that present circumstances fit the no war no peace framework (Richards 2005; MacGinty 2017. This paper seeks to map the post-conflict environment with a view to exploring the implications of the no war no peace environment for Cote dIvoires most vulnerable populations. It is based on 2012 field research carried out in Abidjan, Bouake and multiple sites in the West.
Acute tear of the rotator cuff masked by simultaneous palsy of the brachial plexus. A case report

Orthopaedic surgeons perform a variety of procedures where life-threatening or limb-threatening clinical scenarios or complications are relatively rare. Because these devastating complications and disaster presentations are infrequent, the occurrence can lead to concerns regarding training and preparedness. This chapter will provide a general knowledge base of common intraoperative disasters as well as life-threatening and/or limb-threatening conditions related to the upper extremity, pelvis, and lower extremity. Fundamental clinical and surgical management strategies are explored with respect to these conditions to provide a level of preparedness to help any orthopaedic surgeon control a potentially devastating complication or emergency.
Pre-Operative Cerebral Hemodynamics in Infants with Critical Congenital Heart Disease

We quantified pre-operative cerebral hemodynamics with non-invasive optical spectroscopies in infants with congenital heart disease. We find that cerebral hemodynamics change from birth until surgery and depend on the type of heart defect.
Professional Salaries: Salaries and the Cost of Living in Twenty-Seven State Universities and Colleges 1913—1932

(1933). Professional Salaries: Salaries and the Cost of Living in Twenty-Seven State Universities and Colleges 1913—1932. The Journal of Higher Education: Vol. 4, No. 5, pp. 275-276.
Topology Optimization of Thermoelastic Structures using Stress-based Design Criteria

The design of thermal structures in the aerospace industry, including exhaust structures on embedded engine aircraft and hypersonic thermal protection systems, poses a number of complex design challenges that can be particularly well addressed using the material layout capabilities of structural topology optimization. However, no topology optimization methods are readily available with the necessary thermoelastic design capabilities as a significant portion of work in the topology optimization field is focused on cases of maximum stiffness design for structures subjected to externally applied mechanical loads. In addition, in the limited work on thermoelastic topology optimization, a direct treatment of thermal stresses, which are a primary consideration in thermal structures design, has not been demonstrated. Thus, in this paper, we present a method for the topology optimization of structures with combined mechanical and thermoelastic (temperature) loads that are subject to stress constraints. We present the necessary steps needed to address both the design-dependent thermal loads and accommodate the challenges of stress-based design criteria. A modern stress relaxation technique is utilized to remove the singularity phenomenon in stresses and the large number of constraints that result in the optimization problem are handled using a scaled aggregation technique that is shown to satisfy prescribed stress limits. Finally, the stress-based thermoelastic formulation is applied to two numerical example problems to demonstrate its effectiveness.
Guder WG, Narayanan S, eds. Pre-Examination Procedures in Laboratory Diagnostics: Preanalytical Aspects and Their Impact on the Quality of Medical Laboratory Results .

Guder WG, Narayanan S, eds. Pre-Examination Procedures in Laboratory Diagnostics: Preanalytical Aspects and Their Impact on the Quality of Medical Laboratory Results . Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter, 2015, also available as eBook, $140, 409 pages. Over the past several decades, impressive strides have been made in the analytical aspects of laboratory medicine. Sophisticated measurement technologies have been developed, supported by rigorous quality control procedures, good metrological practices including traceability, and good laboratory practices enforced by governmental and voluntary accrediting agencies. It is widely recognized, however, that useful test results require much more than analytical accuracy. The preanalytical phase of testing, although also benefiting from modern technology, has only grown more challenging in …
Extracellular HSPs: The Complicated Roles of Extracellular HSPs in Immunity.

Extracellular heat shock proteins (HSPs) interact with the immune system in a very complex manner. Many such HSPs exert powerful effects on the immune response, playing both stimulatory and regulatory roles. However, the influence of the HSPs on immunity appears to be black or white in nature - rarely neutral. Thus the HSPs can act as dominant antigens and can comprise key components of anti-tumor vaccines. They can also function as powerful immunoregulatory agents and, as such are employed to treat inflammatory diseases or to extend the lifespan of tissue transplants. Small modifications in the cellular milieu have been shown to flip the allegiances of HSPs from immunoregulatory agents towards a potent inflammatory alignment. These mutable properties of HSPs may be related to the ability of these proteins to interact with multiple receptors often with mutually confounding properties in immune cells. Therefore, understanding the complex immune properties of HSPs may help us to harness their potential in treatment of a range of conditions.
EVALUATION ON IOR BY GAS INJECTION IN LOW PERMEABILITY OIL RESERVOIR

The 21st century is the natural gas century with the increase of natural gas reserve and production on a large scale. On the other hand, the proportion of the reserve hard to develop due to low permeability increases as the oil and gas exploration and development furthers in depth. It is estimated that there are around 1.8-billion-ton oil left in underground due to low permeability within CNPC. Because of low permeability, water flooding and normal EOR methods are greatly limited. Fortunately, a large number of gas resources has been found, which provide gas enough to carry out gas-injection to enhance oil recovery. In this paper, the characteristics of low permeability reservoir and the present situation of gas-injection to enhance oil recovery in the low permeability reservoir in our country and abroad are analyzed in detail. Then, the points and suggestions when conducting gas-injection are presented, which have significant guidance in developing low permeability reservoirs in our country.
The Lifetimes of Chloride Ion and Water Molecules in the First Coordination Sphere of Ferric Ion as Measured by Nuclear Magnetic Resonance

The several ferric chloride complexes existing in solutions containing chloride ion exchange both their coordinated waters and coordinated chloride ions with waters and chloride ions in the bulk of the solution. Under favorable conditions it is possible to ascertain the rates of such exchange reactions by NMR measurements.
Blogging Together: An Examination of Group Blogs.

This paper presents the first examination of the growing phenomenon of multi-author, or group blogs. Using a large collection of blog posts gathered over an eight month period, we conducted some quantitative assessments. Multi-author blogs were found to differ significantly from single-and-two author blogs on several quality metrics, including having longer posts on average and being ranked higher according to an inlink metric. Visualization of patterns of posting revealed that individual authors often dominate the posts in multi-author blogs, and that in some cases tags are shared, but usually not extensively.
The Principle of Community

There remains an important sphere of possible legal interference not clearly affected by the foregoing principles. When the law intervenes to prevent harm to oneself or others, the intervention is justified, if at all, because it serves to protect a person in a legitimate way. However, sometimes actions pose no threat to persons sufficient to warrant intervention. What persons do with things other than persons is an example. May coercive law ever be used to interfere with what persons do with things (where there is no direct threat to persons)?
Pictorial Review of False-Positive Results on Radioiodine Scintigrams of Patients with Differentiated Thyroid Cancer

Radioiodine has served an important role in the diagnostic workup and treatment of patients with differentiated thyroid cancer for more than 6 decades. The interpretation of radioiodine scintigraphic studies should be performed in conjunction with a comprehensive history, histopathologic correlation, and pertinent laboratory values, as well as correlation with available anatomic images and the findings from physical examination. A thorough understanding of the physiology and biodistribution of radioiodine is critical when interpreting radioiodine scintigraphic studies to avoid misinterpretation of physiologic and nonthyroid pathologic variants as thyroid cancer metastases. Differentiating a false-positive finding from a true metastasis on pretherapy radioiodine scintigrams is important to determine the appropriate radioiodine treatment dose. The correct interpretation of posttherapy radioiodine scintigraphic studies is also important to determine if repeat radioiodine treatment will be necessary and for the future clinical and imaging followup of the patient. A variety of different factors, such as the presence of the sodium-iodide symporter and the passive diffusion or retention of radioiodine in normal and pathologic structures, can result in false-positive results on radioiodine scintigrams. Numerous false-positive findings have been reported in the literature and are further demonstrated with the increasing availability of single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) integrated with computed tomography (CT) as true dual-modality imaging (SPECT/CT). SPECT/CT has been documented to be of incremental value in the accurate anatomic localization and characterization of radioiodine uptake as false-positive findings, particularly in cases with discordant findings of a low serum thyroglobulin level but positive findings on radioiodine whole-body planar scintigrams. The objectives of this review are to describe the physiology and biodistribution of radioiodine and to provide examples of false-positive results on radioiodine scintigrams, with clinical and anatomic correlation, in the following categories of radioiodine uptake: functional uptake secondary to sodium-iodide symporter expression, radioiodine retention, nonthyroid neoplasms, inflammatory or infectious uptake, contamination, and other causes. ©RSNA, 2017.
Men on Top? The Farmer, the Minister, and Marriage in Early New England

At the beginning of A Bride-Bush, or a Wedding Sermon, William Whately expresses his frustration that the fashion in reformed preaching was to base a sermon on a biblical text, for "no one place of Scripture doth either directly containe, or plainely expresse the full dutie of the married couple." Marriage was a complicated subject, and like most of his contemporaries, Whately cataloged the mutual duties of spouses as well as the separate duties of husbands to their wives, and of wives to their husbands. While no single verse or selection from the Bible would do justice to this complexity, Whately nevertheless cited a text he called "the ground of all my speech, those words of the Apostle Paul, Ephesians. 5.23. where he saith, "The Husband is the Wives head, " (emphasis Whately 's)1 He chose well, for this one verse aptly communicates the essence of Anglo-American marriage in the early and mid-seventeenth century. As the source of all moral, legal, political, and economic authority, men were on top. This rather bald statement of the essence of early modern marriage, and many others like it, have been forgotten or obscured by modern notions of marriage and gender roles that put women as wives and mothers at the heart of family life. The changes wrought by industrialization and the subsequent separation of work (male) and home (female) spaces have shaded our perceptions of the early modern family. Despite our better efforts, we have relied on these newfangled definitions of mens and women's proper (and separate) spheres instead of working to uncover early modern gender identities. In short, our poverty of imagination for the preindustrial world has warped our understanding of the early modern era. We thus produce studies of women that regard them only or primarily as wives and mothers, and studies that portray men only or primarily as workers and actors in the public sphere.2 While we have started to put women's work back into the household economy, we do not seriously entertain the proposition that men were also husbands and fathers bound legally and emotionally to their households.3 This is curious, because men in the early modern era profited much more from marriage than women ever did. Marriage was the defining event in a man's life. As we will see, marriage is what made a man a man. This essay attempts to put aside modern assumptions about household and family life?that men were autonomous actors and women wholly identified with marriage and the family?and tries to look at family history with men at the center of it, something ministers like William Whately insisted
The missing explanation of the false-belief advantage in bilingual children: a longitudinal study

Bilingual preschoolers often perform better than monolingual children on false-belief understanding. It has been hypothesized that this is due to their enhanced executive function skills, although this relationship has rarely been tested or supported. The current longitudinal study tested whether metalinguistic awareness was responsible for this advantage. Further, we examined the contributions of both executive functioning and language ability to false-belief understanding by including multiple measures of both. Seventy-eight children (n = 40 Spanish-English bilingual; age M = 49.29, SD = 7.38 and, n = 38 English monolingual; age M = 47.75, SD = 6.86) were tested. A year later the children were tested again (n = 22 bilingual, n = 25 monolingual). The results indicated that language and executive function (inhibitory control) at time 1 were related to false belief in monolinguals at time 2. In contrast, bilinguals' metalinguistic performance at time 1 was the sole predictor of false belief at time 2. The different linguistic and cognitive profiles of monolinguals and bilinguals may create different pathways for their development of false-belief understanding. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at: https://youtu.be/vILn2gKjFxw.
Topophilia and economic value of lifestyle travellers

This study examines quest for everydayness, topophilic bonds and economic value of snowbirds in the south-western part of the United States. The data are collected from Wickenburg, a rural ...
Octahedral tilting instabilities in inorganic halide perovskites

Dynamic instabilities, stabilized by anharmonic interactions in cubic and tetragonal halide perovskites at high temperature, play a role in the electronic structure and optoelectronic properties of halide perovskites. In particular, inorganic and hybrid perovskite materials undergo structural phase transitions associated with octahedral tilts of the metal-halide octahedra. We investigate the structural instabilities present in inorganic $\mathrm{Cs}M{X}_{3}$ perovskites with Pb or Sn on the metal site and Br or I on the $X$ site. Defining primary order parameters in terms of symmetry-adapted collective displacement modes and secondary order parameters in terms of symmetrized Hencky strain components, we unravel the coupling between octahedral tilt modes and macroscopic strains as well as the role of $A$-site displacements in perovskite phase stability. Symmetry-allowed secondary strain order parameters are enumerated for the 14 unique perovskite tilt systems. Using first-principles calculations to explore the Born-Oppenheimer energy surface in terms of symmetrized order parameters, we find coupling between octahedral tilting and $A$-site displacements is necessary to stabilize $Pnma$ ground states. Additionally, we show that the relative stability of an inorganic halide perovskite tilt system correlates with the volume decrease from the high-symmetry cubic phase to the low-symmetry distorted phase.
Antonin Artaud by David A. Shafer (review)

Shafer’s biographical study of Antonin Artaud is a major contribution to modern theatre-history studies. Shafer explores how Artaud became a theatre icon by tracing his search for a non-western tot...
Using ecological momentary assessment to examine the relationship between craving and affect with opioid use in a clinical trial of clonidine as an adjunct medication to buprenorphine treatment

ABSTRACTBackground: In a recent clinical trial (NCT00295308), we demonstrated that clonidine decreased the association between opioid craving and moderate levels of stress and affect in patients receiving buprenorphine-based opioid agonist therapy. Objectives: To examine the relationship between illicit opioid use and craving and affect during the evaluation of clonidine as an adjunct medication in buprenorphine treatment for opioid use disorder. Secondarily, to examine whether those relationships are driven by within- or between-participant factors. Methods: This was a secondary data analysis from our original trial. Participants (N = 108, female: n = 23, male n = 85) receiving buprenorphine were randomized to receive adjunct clonidine or placebo. Participants used portable electronic devices to rate stress, mood, and craving via ecological momentary assessment (EMA) four times randomly each day. To associate the EMA data with illicit opioid use, each EMA report was linked to participants’ next urine dru...
Evaluation of near infrared spectroscopy in patients with traumatic brain injury.

Near infrared spectroscopy provides a continuous noninvasive measure of changes in regional cerebral oxygen (rSO2) and quantifies these changes into a single index (Somanetics, Corporation). McCormick et al1 originally validated this index from gas analysis studies of normal adults where they found that the rSO2 index represented a summation of differential weighting of arterial O2 saturation (SaO2) (20%), jugular venous O2 saturation (SvjO2) (75%), and extracranial O2 saturation (5%).
Particle physics with celestial accelerators

X-ray binary systems emit high energy photons and neutrinos. Experimental data indicate an unexpected excess of muons in showers correlated with the binaries. We suggest that the muon excess can be understood in terms of a substructure of leptons and quarks.
Neonatal Septic Shock

Group B Streptococcus (GBS) continues to be a leading infectious cause of neonatal morbidity and mortality in the United States [1]. Overall, the incidence of GBS early onset disease (EOD) over the last 3 decades has decreased from 1.7 to 0.4 per 1,000 live births, a 70% reduction [2]. This success has largely been attributed to the institution of intrapartum prophylaxis. Since implementation of Group B streptococcal (GBS) prophylaxis, there has been a reduction in GBS EOD from 5.9 to 1.7 per 1000 live births of infants weighing 401–1500 g, but a concomitant increase in the rate of Escherichia coli sepsis from 3.2 to 6.8 per 1000 live births [3].
Models for the Game of Liar’s Dice

An explicit multimove game of competition where a player must occasionally lie and the other must detect the lie is solved.
Reconstruction of Two-Dimensional Refractive Index Distribution Using the Born Iterative and Distorted Born Iterative Method

The Born iterative method and the distorted Born iterative method (DBIM) are used to solve two-dimensional acoustic inverse scattering problems. These methods were developed to solve the two-dimensional imaging problem when the Born and the Rytov approximations break down. Numerical simulations are performed using the both methods. Both of them give good reconstructed profiles when the first-order Born approximation fails. Meanwhile, the results show that each method has its advantages. The distorted Born iterative method shows faster convergence rate compared to the Born iterative method, while the Born iterative method is more robust to noise contamination compared to the distorted Born iterative method.
Effects of Sildenafil on Nigrostriatal Dopamine Neurons in a Murine Model of Parkinson's Disease

The objective of this study was to determine if the phosphodiesterase 5 (PDE-5) inhibitor, sildenafil, could be used as a neuroprotective agent in a chronic 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP) murine model of Parkinson's disease. The underlying hypothesis of these studies is that blockade of PDE-5 catabolism of cGMP will attenuate the loss of nigrostriatal dopamine (NSDA) neurons following chronic neurotoxin exposure. Chronic MPTP-treated mice were administered sildenafil using three different regimens. Animals were: 1) treated with sildenafil and then exposed to chronic MPTP; 2) treated concurrently with sildenafil and MPTP; and 3) first exposed to MPTP and subsequently treated with sildenafil. End points of neurotoxicity included dopamine (DA) and tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) concentrations in NSDA axon terminals in the striatum, and stereological cell counts of TH immunoreactive neurons in the substantia nigra. Results reveal that sildenafil did not prevent neurotoxicity produced by chronic MPTP exposure regardless of the treatment paradigms employed. On the other hand, sildenafil did not produce any deleterious effect on NSDA neuron function nor did it potentiate the neurotoxic effects of MPTP. These results suggest that sildenafil would not accelerate DA cell loss when used as a treatment for erectile dysfunction in men diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.
Modulation of Forebrain Electroencephalographic Activity and Behavioral State by the Locus Ceruleus-Noradrenergic System: Involvement of the Medial Septal Area

Publisher Summary This chapter summarizes a series of studies in the halothane-anesthetized rat to directly assess the causal relationship between locus coeruleus (LC) neuronal discharge activity and forebrain electroencephalographic activity (EEG) state. The chapter demonstrates substantial tonic excitatory actions of the LC noradrenergic system on electroencephalographic activity. The results indicate that the LC-noradrenergic system is a potent modulator of forebrain EEG state via actions of β receptors in the halothane-anesthetized rat. Under these experimental conditions, noradrenergic efferents, presumably arising from LC, modulate forebrain EEG state via actions at MS β receptors. However, to obtain a clearer understanding of the behavioral functions of the LC-noradrenergic system additional studies have been conducted. Based on these observations and those of others, it is posited that one function of LC is to facilitate the induction of a behavioral state appropriate for acquisition of sensory information. This is proposed to be dependent on changes in the tonic activity of LC neurons associated with changes in behavioral state and, at least in part, involves actions of norepinephrine (NE) at β receptors located within the MS. Superimposed on these actions may be facilitatory actions on state-dependent cognitive processes that may, in part, involve phasic fluctuations in LC neuronal activity and possibly actions of NE within cortical and thalamic terminal fields. Combined, these actions would serve to facilitate appropriate behavioral responding to sensory information.
Abstract P183: Maternal Obesity is Associated With Altered Cardiovascular Remodeling During Pregnancy

Introduction: Maternal obesity (MO) is the strongest risk factor for hypertensive disorders of pregnancy. Both, pregnancy and obesity are associated with the activation of inflammatory pathways, ho...
Realistic Explorations in Astronomical Learning (REAL)

Since the initial launch of REAL, we have implemented and researched its effectiveness with dozens of studies in over 20 middle schools in two states. We conducted professional development with 70 middle level science and/or mathematics teachers reaching more than 8000 students. These studies not only researched how students learned in a project-based instruction (PBI) environment but also compared gender differences in Earth/Space understandings. Control groups were also incorporated into our research design, and we examined differences in students’ learning by comparing the effects of business as usual (BAU) Earth/Space instruction with our PBI REAL unit. More recently we studied, at length, differences in teacher implementation (concerning the fidelity with which the curriculum was taught) and its effect on student learning outcomes (Lamar, Wilhelm, & Cole, 2018). One study examined how different gender groups and racial/ethnic groups performed on lunar content and spatial assessments within BAU and REAL classrooms (Wilhelm, Toland, & Cole, 2017).
Mind the (Participation) Gap: Vouchers, Voting, and Visibility

This study exploits the introduction of a new type of public financing of elections|campaign finance vouchers|to estimate the effects of neighborhood-level political cross pressure on citizens' decisions to participate in low-cost political activities which vary in their publicness: voting (private) and vouchering (public). For each registered voter in our sample, we measure the "participation gap" (voting minus vouchering) to assess whether local ideological outliers are less likely to use their vouchers, and, conditional on using their vouchers, more likely to distribute vouchers insincerely. We find that cross-pressured people are slightly more likely to use vouchers than matched control units who are ideologically typical of their precincts. We do find a slight effect of neighborhood cross-pressure on sincerity of voucher assignments, but, curiously, people who live in an ideologically incongruent precinct do not shade their voucher donations toward candidates who are close the precinct mean. While our study is limited to a single municipal election in a relatively liberal city (Seattle), our methods can easily be extended to future elections, and our findings raise questions about the empirical assumptions that have shaped the development of campaign finance jurisprudence since 1976.
Approximating large scale arbitrary unitaries with integrated multimode interferometers

Unitary operations using linear optics have many applications within the quantum and neuromorphic space. In silicon photonics, using networks of simple beam splitters and phase shifters have proven sufficient to realize large-scale arbitrary unitaries. While this technique has shown success with high fidelity, the grid physically scales with an upper bound of O(n2). Consequently, we propose to considerably reduce the footprint by using multimode interference (MMI) devices. In this paper, we investigate the active control of these MMIs and their suitability for approximating traditionally used unitary circuits.
Photoisomerization of Enediynyl Linker Leads to Slipped Cofacial Hydroporphyrin Dyads with Strong Through-Bond and Through-Space Electronic Interactions

Photoisomerization of 3,4-di(methoxycarbonyl)-enediyne linker in hydroporphyrin (chlorin or bacteriochlorin) dyads leads to thermally stable cis isomers, where macrocycles adopt a slipped cofacial mutual geometry with an edge-to-edge distance of ∼3.6 A (determined by density functional theory (DFT) calculations). Absorption spectra exhibit a significant splitting of the long-wavelength Qy band, which indicates a strong electronic coupling with a strength of V = ∼477 cm–1 that increases to 725 cm–1 upon metalation of hydroporphyrins. Each dyad features a broad, structureless emission band, with large Stokes shift, which is indicative of excimer formation. DFT calculations for dyads show both strong through-bond electronic coupling and through-space electronic interactions, due to the overlap of π-orbitals. Overall, geometry, electronic structure, strength of electronic interactions, and optical properties of reported dyads closely resemble those observed for photosynthetic special pairs. Dyads reported her...
When charity begins at home: How personal financial scarcity drives preference for donating locally at the expense of global concerns

Abstract Research was conducted to understand what drives individuals’ decisions to make charitable donations to local charities versus international charities that serve targets in far-away places. Six experiments using real charities were conducted: in two experiments participants donated their own money and in the other four participants dictated the allocation of money donated by the authors. Results demonstrate that when individuals perceive that their personal financial resources are scarce, their charitable allocations are weighted more heavily towards local charities. A random effects meta-analysis of effect sizes corroborates the robustness of these results. The authors discuss research on social myopia, altruism, and evolutionary psychology to explain charitable priorities, and demonstrate that financial scarcity is an activating agent that drives individuals to prioritize local charities regardless of the importance of the charity and neediness of the beneficiary. The authors further show that the individual’s implicit similarity to the target of donation further enhances the effect of personal financial scarcity. The authors present the results within the context of the broader conversation among psychologists and philosophers regarding optimal giving to achieve the greatest social good, suggesting that even a small change in donation allocation has substantial economic consequences for charities far away from home.
Economic and Social Interactions in the Piedmont Village Tradition-Mississippian Boundarylands of Southeastern North America, AD 1200–1600

This research seeks to understand the economic and social interaction patterns among dispersed Piedmont Village Tradition communities in the North American Southeast, AD 1200–1600. Piedmont Village Tradition communities lived adjacent to Mississippian societies and have been categorized as a peripheral society because of this spatial relationship. We examine economic behaviors by constructing fall-off curves of local versus nonlocal lithic material proportions at settlement sites and examining the reduction behaviors and tool types at sites. The results support a possible gateway model for the acquisition and distribution of nonlocal materials that linked spatially proximate communities. To examine social interaction patterns, we conducted a Brainerd-Robinson analysis of ceramic attributes from six sites and combined our results with work by Rogers (1993). The results show sites with stylistic similarities are not the same sites that share lithic resources. We conclude that these spatially non-overlapping artifact patterns result from a heterarchical social organization with a high degree of independence between economic and social interactions. Finally, we contextualize our results within the current knowledge of Mississippian and Piedmont Village Tradition societies in the region to broaden the discussion of gateways in reciprocity-based economies, societies traditionally thought of as peripheral to complex societies, and coalescence.
Adaptive Granularity in Tensors: A Quest for Interpretable Structure.

Data collected at very frequent intervals is usually extremely sparse and has no structure that is exploitable by modern tensor decomposition algorithms. Thus the utility of such tensors is low, in terms of the amount of interpretable and exploitable structure that one can extract from them. In this paper, we introduce the problem of finding a tensor of adaptive aggregated granularity that can be decomposed to reveal meaningful latent concepts (structures) from datasets that, in their original form, are not amenable to tensor analysis. Such datasets fall under the broad category of sparse point processes that evolve over space and/or time. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work that explores adaptive granularity aggregation in tensors. Furthermore, we formally define the problem and discuss what different definitions of "good structure" can be in practice, and show that optimal solution is of prohibitive combinatorial complexity. Subsequently, we propose an efficient and effective greedy algorithm which follows a number of intuitive decision criteria that locally maximize the "goodness of structure", resulting in high-quality tensors. We evaluate our method on both semi-synthetic data where ground truth is known and real datasets for which we do not have any ground truth. In both cases, our proposed method constructs tensors that have very high structure quality. Finally, our proposed method is able to discover different natural resolutions of a multi-aspect dataset, which can lead to multi-resolution analysis.
Automated Meshing of Anatomical Shapes for Deformable Medial Modeling: Application to the Placenta in 3D Ultrasound

Deformable medial modeling is an approach to extracting clinically useful features of the morphological skeleton of anatomical structures in medical images. Similar to any deformable modeling technique, it requires a pre-defined model, or synthetic skeleton, of a class of shapes before modeling new instances of that class. The creation of synthetic skeletons often requires manual interaction, and the deformation of the synthetic skeleton to new target geometries is prone to registration errors if not well initialized. This work presents a fully automated method for creating synthetic skeletons (i.e., 3D boundary meshes with medial links) for flat, oblong shapes that are homeomorphic to a sphere. The method rotationally cross-sections the 3D shape, approximates a 2D medial model in each cross-section, and then defines edges between nodes of neighboring slices to create a regularly sampled 3D boundary mesh. In this study, we demonstrate the method on 62 segmentations of placentas in first-trimester 3D ultrasound images and evaluate its compatibility and representational accuracy with an existing deformable modeling method. The method may lead to extraction of new clinically meaningful features of placenta geometry, as well as facilitate other applications of deformable medial modeling in medical image analysis.
Perceptions of nutrition education classes offered in conjunction with a community-supported agriculture intervention among low-income families.

Objective: To examine participants’ experiences with nutrition education classes that were implemented with and designed to complement a cost-offset community-supported agriculture (CSA) programme. Design: Qualitative analysis of data from twenty-eight focus groups with ninety-six participants enrolled in Farm Fresh Foods for Healthy Kids (F3HK). Transcribed data were coded and analysed by a priori and emergent themes. Setting: Rural and micropolitan communities in New York, North Carolina, Vermont and Washington (USA). Participants: Ninety-six F3HK participants. Results: Participants found recipes and class activities helpful and reported improvements in nutrition knowledge, food preservation skills and home cooking behaviours for themselves and their children; they also reported that classes promoted a sense of community. Some educators better incorporated CSA produce into lessons, which participants reported as beneficial. Other obligations and class logistics were barriers to attendance; participants recommended that lessons be offered multiple times weekly at different times of day. Other suggestions included lengthening class duration to encourage social engagement; emphasising recipes to incorporate that week’s CSA produce and pantry staples and offering additional strategies to incorporate children in classes. Conclusion: Complementing a cost-offset CSA with nutrition education may enhance programme benefits to low-income families by improving nutrition knowledge and cooking behaviours. However, future interventions will benefit from ongoing coordination between educators and local growing trajectories to maximise timely coverage of unfamiliar produce in lessons; synchronous scheduling of CSA pick-up and classes for participant convenience and creative strategies to engage children and/or provide childcare.
Quantification of Nucleic Acids

Quantification of nucleic acids is an area of growing importance in the clinical laboratory. In addition to routine measurements of total nucleic acid concentrations, quantitative techniques are used to determine the number of microorganisms in samples, the level of expression of genes, or the presence of alterations in gene dosage. This article provides an overview of current methodologies for measurement of total and specific nucleic acid concentrations.
Internal Control Weakness and Cost of Equity: Evidence from SOX Section 404 Disclosures

We examine the association between cost of equity and internal control weakness (ICW) for firms that filed first‐time Section 404 reports with the SEC. Using several proxies, we find higher implied cost of equity associated with ICW firms than for a control sample of firms that disclosed no ICW. However, the higher cost of equity associated with ICW disappears after controlling for primitive firm characteristics and for analyst forecast bias. Overall, we find that, on average, ICWs are not directly associated with higher cost of equity.
Short-term nicotinamide riboside treatment improves muscle quality and function in mice and increases cellular energetics and differentiating capacity of myogenic progenitors.

Abstract Objectives Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+), an essential cofactor for mitochondrial function, declines with aging, which may lead to impaired physical performance. Nicotinamide riboside (NR), a NAD+ precursor, restores cellular NAD+ levels. The aim of this study was to examine the effects of short-term NR supplementation on physical performance in middle-aged mice and the effects on mouse and human muscle stem cells. Methods We treated 15-mo-old male C57BL/6J mice with NR at 300 mg·kg·d–1 (NR3), 600 mg·kg·d–1 (NR6), or placebo (PLB), n = 8 per group, and assessed changes in physical performance, muscle histology, and NAD+ content after 4 wk of treatment. Results NR increased total NAD+ in muscle tissue (NR3 P = 0.01; NR6 P = 0.004, both versus PLB), enhanced treadmill endurance and open-field activity, and prevented decline in grip strength. Histologic analysis revealed NR-treated mice exhibited enlarged slow-twitch fibers (NR6 versus PLB P = 0.014; NR3 P = 0.16) and a trend toward more slow fibers (NR3 P = 0.14; NR6 P = 0.22). We next carried out experiments to characterize NR effects on mitochondrial activity and cellular energetics in vitro. We observed that NR boosted basal and maximal cellular aerobic and anaerobic respiration in both mouse and human myoblasts and human myotubes. Additionally, NR treatment improved the differentiating capacity of myoblasts and increased myotube size and fusion index upon stimulation of these progenitors to form multinucleated myotubes. Conclusion These findings support a role for NR in improving cellular energetics and functional capacity in mice, which support the translation of this work into clinical settings as a strategy for improving and/or maintaining health span during aging.
A role for a micron-scale supramolecular myosin array in adherens junction cytoskeletal assembly

Epithelial cells assemble specialized actomyosin structures at E-Cadherin-based cell-cell junctions, and the force exerted drives cell shape change during morphogenesis. The mechanisms used to build this supramolecular actomyosin structure remain unclear. We used ZO-knockdown MDCK cells, which assemble a robust, polarized and highly organized actomyosin cytoskeleton at the zonula adherens, and combined genetic and pharmacological approaches with super-resolution microscopy to define molecular machines required. To our surprise, inhibiting individual actin assembly pathways (Arp2/3, formins or Ena/VASP) did not prevent or delay assembly of this polarized actomyosin structure. Instead, as junctions matured, micrometer-scale supramolecular myosin arrays assembled, with aligned stacks of myosin filaments adjacent to the apical membrane, while associated actin filaments remained disorganized. This suggested these myosin arrays might bundle actin at mature junctions. Consistent with this, inhibiting ROCK or myosin ATPase disrupted myosin localization/organization, and prevented actin bundling and polarization. These results suggest a novel mechanism by which myosin self-assembly helps drive actin organization to facilitate cell shape change. SummaryWe explored mechanisms epithelial cells use to assemble supramolecular actomyosin structures at E-Cadherin-based cell-cell junctions. Our data suggest individual actin assembly pathways are not essential. Instead, microscopy and pharmacological inhibition suggest micrometer-scale supramolecular myosin arrays help bundle actin at mature junctions.
The Impact of Cloud Management Platforms on Nonprofit Business Models

Nonprofits are increasingly using business rhetoric, practices, and systems to create sustainable business models and remain attentive to social needs and stakeholder expectations in a depleted and...