cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Seismic activity on neighbouring faults as a long-term precursor to large earthquakes in the San Francisco Bay area

Activity in moderate-size earthquakes accelerated in the several decades before the large California earthquakes of 1989, 1906 and 1868. This type of precursor seems to require the presence of several major faults in close enough proximity to one another that moderate-size shocks are selectively triggered on surrounding faults during the latter stages of the cycle of strain buildup to large earthquakes. It may be possible to use quantitative aspects of similar seismic precursors to make predictions of large earthquakes on timescales of a few years to one decade.
The course scheduling problem as a source of student projects

The course scheduling problem is simple to understand, yet complex enough to admit a wide range of solutions at varying levels of difficulty in implementation. In this work, we outline four types of student projects based on this problem, discuss how these projects can be approached and how they might integrate into a computer science curriculum, and describe two example projects that we have used.
Demographic and psychosocial factors in acute illness reporting.

Abstract Navy and Marine Corps personnel aboard three U.S. Navy cruisers ( N = 2684) were followed during a 6–8-month oversea deployment in terms of all reported illnesses of the men, with special reference to illness type and severity. One-third of the crew had no dispensary visits during the cruise, one-quarter reported a single illness episode, and the remainder experienced multiple illnesses during their time at sea and in port. The great majority of illnesses reported were minor in severity. Respiratory, gastro-intestinal, genito-urinary, demal, and musculo-skeletal disorders accounted for four-fifths of all dispensary visits. Illness reporting was seen to be greater for younger sailors than for older men; it was higher among Negroes as compared to Caucasians, and was the lowest for Filipinos; and it was higher for men with lower than average educational attainment. Illness reporting varied according to the man's occupation and showed a negative, linear correlation with job satisfaction. The timing of illness reporting was seen to vary according to the ship's operational schedule—reaching its peak during times when ships approached and took part in combat operations. Times of lowest illness reporting were seen when the men were relaxed and experiencing light work-loads, and also during periods where they were meeting a new and challenging situation. A positive and roughly linear relationship was suggested between the number and/or intensity of subjects' pre-cruise life changes and their cruise period illness rates. This higher illness reporting seen in high life change subjects was consistent regardless of the ship's schedule of operations and regardless of the organ system of illness considered.
Metal physiology and accumulation in a Medicago truncatula mutant exhibiting an elevated requirement for zinc

Summary • A novel, metal accumulating mutant of Medicago truncatula was characterized for tissue metal concentrations, plant growth, percent leaf loss, and leaf-cell metal influx capacity relative to wild-type plants. • Growth, mineral parameters, and functional analyses were determined using plants grown hydroponically in complete nutrient solutions with varying levels of Zn and Mn. • Depending on the growth regime, the mutant exhibited leaf necrosis, and was found to have elevated concentrations of Zn, Mn, and Cu in most tissues, along with elevated Fe concentrations in roots. General growth was reduced, and percent leaf loss was elevated relative to nutritionally replete wild-type plants, but was similar to Zn-deficient wild-type plants. Growth of the mutant on moderately elevated Zn levels, in combination with lowered Mn, reduced leaf necrosis in new leaves. • We have named the mutant and its recessive mutation raz, for requires additional zinc, because leaf necrosis is reduced when plants contain elevated Zn levels. Due to its similarities to Zn-deficient wild-type plants, the raz mutant should serve as a useful model to study micronutrient metal homeostasis.
A comment on a conjecture of N. Wiener

N. Wiener conjectured that a necessary and sufficient condition for a stationary process to be representable as a one-sided function of a sequence of independent, identically distributed random variables and its shifts is that its backward tail field be trivial. Here it is shown that the condition is not sufficient for such a representation.
Limits on the Gibbs Free Energy of Formation of Intermetallic Compounds Containing Pt-Group Elements

Upper limits on the standard-state Gibbs free energy of formation (δF°f) are presented for intermetallic compounds AnBm. The A elements include Li, Be, Mg, Ca, Sr, Ba, Al, Si, Y, Sc, La, Ti, V, Nb, Ta, Cr, Sm, Eu, Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, Tm, Yb, and Lu, and the B elements include Pt, Pd, Ir, Rh, Ni, Co, Ru, and Fe. Many of the A elements are used as glass constituents and many of the B elements as container materials for glass at high temperatures. Experiments performed by Bronger and co-workers are the data source.
Identification of the probable coding region for exon 2 of cytochrome oxidase polypeptide I from aspergillus nidulans mitochondrion

Hypothetical protein URFe of Aspergillus nidulans mitochondrion is homologous with the amino end of cytochrome oxidase (EC 1.9.3.1) polypeptide I. Unidentified reading frame URFe does not contain a suitable initiation codon and codes for a protein with a length of only 91 residues, corresponding to about 20% of cytochrome oxidase polypeptide I. It is proposed that this region codes for the second exon of the cox 1 gene of Aspergillus mitochondrion. Possible candidates for the 2- to 3-residue amino-terminal exon 1 are discussed.
Organization of wing formation and induction of a wing-patterning gene at the dorsal/ventral compartment boundary

The appendages of arthropods and vertebrates possess a third, proximodistal patterning axis that is established after the primary anteroposterior and dorsoventral body axes by mechanisms that are largely unknown. The vestigial gene is required for formation of the entire Drosophila wing, and the dorsal/ventral boundary is shown to organize wing formation and vestigial gene expression. Interactions between dorsal and ventral cells in the growing imaginal disc induce vestigial gene expression through a discrete, extraordinarily conserved imaginal disc-specific enhancer. The link between dorsal/ventral compartmentalization and wing formation distinguishes the development of this sheet-like appendage from that of legs and antennae.
The last moments of life: Learning to cope

A large portion of youthful death in this country is caused by the intentional self‐destructive behavior of individuals who experience helplessness, alienation, loneliness, who suffer from social neglect, and who react to the loss of significant others. Analysts of youthful suicide view such events as being associated with attempts to cope with stress and crisis. This article describes those social forces that shaped the acts of suicide and provides a partial explanation for suicidal behavior among young people. As a strategy employed by the victims to cope with problems in living, suicide is, the author suggests, a plausible response to stress prompted in part by a fatalistic attitude.
CML: the ClassSync modeling language

The ClassSync Modeling Language (CML) addresses the problem of creating a controlling overlay to classroom learning activities, or e-learning workflows. Our aim is to allow authors and teachers to generate a mapping from activity design to its implementation in a wirelessly networked classroom with ubiquitous use of handheld computers for information exchange. CML models e-learning workflows with three major components: actors, data objects, and interaction networks. Actors are the diverse performers of actions, data objects are the semantically typed information units that are made available for exchange. Interaction networks are virtual networks constructed on top of whatever network ClassSync is running on, and dictate how information may flow through the ClassSync system (from actor to actor). Activities are the processes performed via these three components, in which actors create and consume data objects and exchange them over an interaction network. The benefits of this approach for students, curriculum designers, teachers, publishers and learning sciences researchers are highlighted.
Intelligibility of selected passages from the Speech Intelligibility Rating (SIR) test.

Two experiments were conducted to examine the intelligibility of 12 of the 72 passages of connected discourse prepared by Cox and McDaniel (1984, 1989) in the development of the Speech Intelligibil...
Causal Inference in Historical Institutional Analysis: A Specification of Periodization Strategies

Although emerging streams of historical institutional (HI) analysis have generated substantial insights in the field of comparative politics, this scholarship has lacked a self-conscious approach to methodology. This article specifies the comparative historical methods that many HI scholars have implicitly used for estimating the causal effect of political institutions on key policy and other political outcomes. It demonstrates how various periodization strategies are deployed to sort out the influence of a host of hypothesized and rival explanatory factors. In addition to explicating these methods, the article critically examines recent works of HI scholarship, highlighting the analytical leverage generated through studies that might ordinarily seem to suffer from the problem of small samples. More explicit deployment of these methods would both improve the quality of HI analysis and make its findings more transparent for further evaluation and emulation.
The long‐term ecological research program

Major developments have emerged in the field of ecology as a result of taking a long-term approach to both basic and applied research [Strayer, 1986]. In recognition of both the advantages of long-term research programs and the historical difficulty of sustaining such research efforts, the National Science Foundation (NSF) instituted its Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Program in 1980 [Callahan, 1984]. The LTER Program has a number of important links with the geosciences and is likely to play a significant role in work on terrestrial, freshwater, and estuarine ecosystems within the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program (IBGP); it is thus a good time for us to begin communicating with geoscientists who are helping to shape IGBP.
Enfleshing Embodiment: ‘Falling into trust’ with the body's role in teaching and learning

Embodiment as a compelling way to rethink the nature of teaching and learning asks participants to see fundamentally what is at stake within teaching/learning situations, encountering ourselves and our relations to others/otherness. Drawing predominantly on the thinking of John Dewey and Maurice Merleau-Ponty the body's role within teaching and learning is enfleshed through the concrete experiences of one middle-school science teacher attempting to teach for greater student inquiry. Personal, embodied understandings of the lived terms of inquiry enable the science teacher to seek out the lived terms of inquiry in her classroom alongside students. Theories are taken up as working notions for the teacher to examine as philosophical/theoretical/pragmatic processes to be worked with, and concomitantly, working as dynamic practice at the core of the teacher's thinking and experiences. The theory/practice conjuncture of inquiry is thus enfleshed, gaining embodied understandings. Embodiment as the medium enhancing comprehension is evidenced as holding worthy implications for teacher education. Teacher education must fall into trust with the body's role in teaching and learning.
Stress-Strain Relationships. in Yarns Subjected to Rapid Impact Loading: Part VI: Velocities of Strain Waves Resulting from Impact

When a textile yarn is impacted transversely, strain waves and transverse waves which " travel outwards away from the point of impact are initiated. Each strain-wave front travels at constant veloc...
Portfolio style: Return-based attribution using quantile regression

Return-based classification identifies a portfolio's style signature in the time series of its returns. Detection is based on a regression of portfolio returns on returns of factor mimicking indices. The method is easy to apply and does not require information about portfolio composition. Classification using least squares means that style is determined by the way factor exposure influences expected returns. We introduce regression quantiles as a complement to the standard analysis. The regression quantiles extract additional information from the time series of returns by identifying the way style affects returns at places other than the expected value. This allows discrimination among portfolios that would be otherwise judged equivalent based on conditional expectations. It also provides direct information about the impact of style on the tails of the conditional return distribution. Simple examples are presented to illustrate regression quantile classification.
Cache Impacts of Datatype Acceleration

Hardware acceleration is a widely accepted solution for performance and energy efficient computation because it removes unnecessary hardware for general computation while delivering exceptional performance via specialized control paths and execution units. The spectrum of accelerators available today ranges from coarse-grain off-load engines such as GPUs to fine-grain instruction set extensions such as SSE. This research explores the benefits and challenges of managing memory at the data-structure level and exposing those operations directly to the ISA. We call these instructions Abstract Datatype Instructions (ADIs). This paper quantifies the performance and energy impact of ADIs on the instruction and data cache hierarchies. For instruction fetch, our measurements indicate that ADIs can result in 21-48% and 16-27% reductions in instruction fetch time and energy respectively. For data delivery, we observe a 22-40% reduction in total data read/write time and 9-30% in total data read/write energy.
Energetic-particle synthesis of nanocomposite Al alloys

lon implantation of O into Al and growth of Al(O) layers using electron-cyclotron resonance plasma and pulsed laser depositions produce composite alloys with a high density of nanometer-size oxide precipitates in an Al matrix. The precipitates impart high strength to the alloy and reduced adhesion during sliding contact, while electrical conductivity and ductility are retained. Implantation of N into Al produces similar microstructures and mechanical properties. The athermal energies of deposited atoms are a key factor in achieving these properties.
Altered face scanning and impaired recognition of biological motion in a 15‐month‐old infant with autism

Mounting clinical evidence suggests that abnormalities of social engagement in children with autism are present even during infancy. However, direct experimental documentation of these abnormalities is still limited. In this case report of a 15-month-old infant with autism, we measured visual fixation patterns to both naturalistic and ambiguous social stimuli: video scenes of a caregiver and point-light animations of human action. Results suggested that viewing patterns of the child with autism were driven by the physical contingencies of the stimuli rather than by their social context. If corroborated in larger studies, this observation would advance the hypothesis that mechanisms of social development which rely on preferential engagement with socially contingent conspecifics - and which emerge in the very first weeks of life in typical infants - are developmentally derailed in children with autism.
Sleep and Drug- Impaired Driving Overlap Syndrome

Driving while under the influence of zolpidem, zopiclone, and other sedative/hypnotics has been called sleep driving. Sleep driving is most often described as a variant of sleepwalking, along with sleep eating, sleep sex, and sleep violence. Sleepwalking is a well-described sleep disorder that occurs following a partial arousal from deep sleep, usually within the first 2 hours of sleep. It is not related to dreaming or prior psychological trauma. However, a recent review of the sleep-driving research concluded that most impaired driving labeled as sleep driving was instead related to misuse or abuse of sedative/ hypnotics, in particular zolpidem and zopiclone. Only 18 cases of impaired driving attributed to underlying sleepwalking pathophysiology were identified. Sleepwalking and its variants are diagnosed based on clinical history. There are no generally accepted sleep laboratory findings or other reliable biomarkers, and these are not required for diagnosis. Only 2 of these 18 cases provided any clinical history supportive of sleepwalking, and these histories are much more limited than typically required. Further, these published cases do not provide a detailed description of behavior before, during, and after the impaireddriving episode so that the context along with priming and triggering factors can be determined and understood. Rather, the case histories of
Effects of Fe(II)/H2O2 oxidation on ubiquitin conformers measured by ion mobility-mass spectrometry.

Oxidative modifications can have significant effects on protein structure in solution. Here, the structures and stabilities of oxidized ubiquitin ions electrosprayed from an aqueous solution (pH 2) are studied by ion mobility spectrometry-mass spectrometry (IMS-MS). IMS-MS has proven to be a valuable technique to assess gas phase and in many cases, solution structures. Herein, in vitro oxidation is performed by Fenton chemistry with Fe(II)/hydrogen peroxide. Most molecules in solution remain unmodified, whereas ∼20% of the population belongs to an M+16 Da oxidized species. Ions of low charge states (+7 and +8) show substantial variance in collision cross section distributions between unmodified and oxidized species. Novel and previously reported Gaussian conformers are used to model cross section distributions for +7 and +8 oxidized ubiquitin ions, respectively, in order to correlate variances in observed gas-phase distributions to changes in populations of solution states. Based on Gaussian modeling, oxidized ions of charge state +7 have an A-state conformation which is more populated for oxidized relative to unmodified ions. Oxidized ubiquitin ions of charge state +8 have a distribution of conformers arising from native-state ubiquitin and higher intensities of A- and U-state conformers relative to unmodified ions. This work provides evidence that incorporation of a single oxygen atom to ubiquitin leads to destabilization of the native state in an acidic solution (pH ∼2) and to unfolding of gas-phase compact structures.
Yeast artificial chromosome segregation from host chromosomes with similar lengths

We propose a new method for segregation of yeast artificial chromosomes (YACs) from endogenous yeast chromosomes with similar lengths. The method is based on recently developed PNA-assisted rare cleavage (PARC) of genomic DNA. We apply the PARC procedure to YAC-containing samples of yeast DNA in such a way that host chromosomes, which electrophoretically comigrate with the chosen YACs, are selectively digested while YACs remain intact. These data demonstrate that a pool of appropriate PNAs can be used as an efficient tool for the PARC-based isolation of intact purified YACs directly from the host cells.
Searching for the goldilocks zone: trade-offs in managing online volunteer groups

Dedicated and productive members who actively contribute to community efforts are crucial to the success of online volunteer groups such as Wikipedia. What predicts member productivity? Do productive members stay longer? How does involvement in multiple projects affect member contribution to the community? In this paper, we analyze data from 648 WikiProjects to address these questions. Our results reveal two critical trade-offs in managing online volunteer groups. First, factors that increase member productivity, measured by the number of edits on Wikipedia articles, also increase likelihood of withdrawal from contributing, perhaps due to feelings of mission accomplished or burnout. Second, individual membership in multiple projects has mixed effects. It decreases the amount of work editors contribute to both the individual projects and Wikipedia as a whole. It increases withdrawal for each individual project yet reduces withdrawal from Wikipedia. We discuss how our findings expand existing theories to fit the online context and inform the design of new tools to improve online volunteer work.
Performance of a Dynamic Initialization Scheme in the Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction System for Tropical Cyclones (COAMPS-TC)

AbstractA dynamic initialization scheme for tropical cyclone structure and intensity in numerical prediction systems is described and tested. The procedure involves the removal of the analyzed vortex and, then, insertion of a new vortex that is dynamically initialized to the observed surface pressure into the numerical model initial conditions. This new vortex has the potential to be more balanced, and to have a more realistic boundary layer structure than by adding synthetic data in the data assimilation procedure to initialize the tropical cyclone in a model. The dynamic initialization scheme was tested on multiple tropical cyclones during 2008 and 2009 in the North Atlantic and western North Pacific Ocean basins using the Naval Research Laboratory’s tropical cyclone version of the Coupled Ocean–Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction System (COAMPS-TC). The use of this initialization procedure yielded significant improvements in intensity forecasts, with no degradation in track performance. Mean absolute error...
THE EFFECTS OF LOGISTICS CAPABILITIES ON FIRM PERFORMANCE: CUSTOMER- FOCUSED VERSUS INFORMATION-FOCUSED CAPABILITIES

The research presents a model that portrays customer-focused and information-focused capabilities as interrelated predictors of firm performance. Results show that customer-focused capabilities are directly related to performance, but that information-focused capabilities are not. Rather, the latter relationship is indirect: information-focused capabilities are linked to performance via the interrelationship with customer-focused capabilities.
Topic and role discovery in social networks with experiments on enron and academic email

Previous work in social network analysis (SNA) has modeled the existence of links from one entity to another, but not the attributes such as language content or topics on those links. We present the Author-Recipient-Topic (ART) model for social network analysis, which learns topic distributions based on the direction-sensitive messages sent between entities. The model builds on Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) and the Author-Topic (AT) model, adding the key attribute that distribution over topics is conditioned distinctly on both the sender and recipient--steering the discovery of topics according to the relationships between people. We give results on both the Enron email corpus and a researcher's email archive, providing evidence not only that clearly relevant topics are discovered, but that the ART model better predicts people's roles and gives lower perplexity on previously unseen messages. We also present the Role-Author-Recipient-Topic (RART) model, an extension to ART that explicitly represents people's roles.
Design of 110–152 GHz rotary traveling wave oscillators in 65 nm CMOS technology

A novel rotary traveling wave oscillator (RTWO) is proposed to be an alternative architecture to generate THz signals for long distance high speed communication. As a preliminary work, the design of 110-152 GHz RTWO as the fundamental oscillators is reported in this paper. The transmission line ring, the n-transistor-only cross-coupled inverter pair (CCIP), and the bias-T for the oscillation have been investigated. RTWO with 113 GHz oscillation frequency is designed and layout in TSMC 65 nm CMOS process.
Non-robotic fabrication of packaged microsystems by shape-and-solder-directed self-assembly

The non robotic fabrication of packaged microsystems that contain non-identical parts has been accomplished by a directed self-assembly process. The self-assembly process uses geometrical shape recognition to identify different components and subsequent bond formation between liquid solder and metal coated areas to form mechanical and electrical connections. We applied this concept of shape recognition and subsequent formation of contacts to assemble and package microsystems that contained three building blocks: a silicon carrier, a semiconductor device segment, and a glass encapsulation unit. As semiconductor device segments, we tested 200 micrometer sized light emitting diodes. The microsystems self-assembled by sequentially adding parts to the assembly solution. Six hundred AlGaInP/GaAs light emitting diode segments self-assembled onto device carriers in 2 minutes without defects. Encapsulation units self-assembled onto the LED carrier assemblies to form a three-dimensional circuit path to operate the final device.
Birds of a Feather Flock Conjointly (?): Rhyme as Reason in Aphorisms

We explored the role that poetic form can play in people's perceptions of the accuracy of aphorisms as descriptions of human behavior. Participants judged the ostensible accuracy of unfamiliar aphorisms presented in their textually surviving form or a semantically equivalent modified form. Extant rhyming aphorisms in their original form (e.g., “What sobriety conceals, alcohol reveals”) were judged to be more accurate than modified versions that did not preserve rhyme (“What sobriety conceals, alcohol unmasks”). However, the perceived truth advantage of rhyming aphorisms over their modified forms was attenuated when people were cautioned to distinguish aphorisms' poetic qualities from their semantic content. Our results suggest that rhyme, like repetition, affords statements an enhancement in processing fluency that can be misattributed to heightened conviction about their truthfulness.
Frank J. Rafalko, MH/ CHAOS: The CIA's Campaign Against the Radical New Left and the Black Panthers

The CIA's Operation MHCHAOS – a secret program of the 1960s–70s targeting radical student activists, African-Americans, and others abroad as well as domestically to determine whether they had forei...
Temperature of the plume layer beneath the Yellowstone hotspot

Recent studies show that the Yellowstone hotspot is associated with a plume-like lowvelocity pipe that ascends from the transition zone to the lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary, where the plume is sheared to the southwest by North American plate motion. Rayleigh wave tomography shows this plate-sheared plume layer has an extremely low S wave velocity of 3.8 ± 0.1 km/s at 80 km depth, ~0.15–0.3 km/s lower than the velocity observed beneath normal mid-ocean ridges. To constrain the temperature of the plume layer, a grid search with respect to grain size and temperature is performed to fi observed Rayleigh wave phase velocities. This search fi nds that the excess temperature of the plume layer is >55–80 °C at 95% confi dence for two different temperature-velocity and two different melt-velocity models , confi rming that a thermal mantle plume exists.
The Response of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to the Obesity Epidemic

The recognition of the obesity epidemic as a national problem began in 1999 with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's) publication of a series of annual state-based maps that demonstrated the rapid changes in the prevalence of obesity. Increasing rates of obesity had been noted in earlier CDC studies, but the maps provided evidence of a rapid, nationwide increase. The urgent need to respond to the epidemic led to the identification of state targets and the first generation of interventions for obesity prevention and control. The CDC's role was to provide setting- and intervention-specific guidance on implementing these strategies, and to assess changes in targeted policies and behaviors. The CDC's efforts were augmented by Congressional funding for community initiatives to improve nutrition and increase physical activity. Complementary investments by Kaiser Permanente, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Institute of Medicine improved the evidence base and provided policy recomm...
Health Seeking Behavior for Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms in Black Men

Purpose: The clinical manifestations of benign prostatic hyperplasia that are more likely to bring black men in for care have not been well characterized. We examined associations between lower urinary tract symptom severity measures and subsequent health care seeking behavior in a population based sample of black men.Materials and Methods: In 2000, 165 black men from Genesee County, Michigan who were 40 to 79 years old without a history of prostate cancer/surgery provided information on lower urinary tract symptoms and health care seeking behaviors. The associations between physician visits regarding lower urinary tract symptoms and symptom frequency, perceived bother, impact on daily activities and quality of life were examined, controlling for age and sociodemographic characteristics.Results: Overall 22.2% of men sought medical advice for lower urinary tract symptoms. Men with moderate/severe symptom severity and associated bother had 4.9 and 3.0-fold increased odds, respectively, of having sought medi...
Adaptive self-configuring computer vision system for quality evaluation of fresh-cut radicchio

Abstract An innovative computer vision system (CVS) that extracts color features discriminating the quality levels occurring during fresh-cut radicchio storage in air or modified atmosphere packaging was proposed. It self-configures the parameters normally set by operators and completely automates the following steps adapting to the specific product at hand: color-chart detection, foreground extraction and color segmentation for features extraction and selection. Results proved the average value of a ⁎ over the white part and the percentage of light white with respect to the whole visible surface to be the most discriminating color features to significantly separate (P ≤ 0.05) the three desired quality levels (high, middle and poor) occurring during fresh-cut radicchio storage (whose true value was verified on the base of ammonium content and human evaluated visual quality). The proposed procedure significantly simplifies the CVS design and the optimization of its performance, limiting the subjective human intervention to the minimum. Industrial relevance The non-destructive quality control represents a valuable tool to monitor fruits and vegetables along the whole chain from production to the end-user. Increased consumers' satisfaction and reduction of waste are only two examples of benefits that can come from a frequent and consistent control of food. CVS represents the most powerful and flexible way to reach these results. The current state-of-the-art makes their design strongly related to the specific product at hand. Thresholds and features are characteristics that play a critical role in determining the final performance of the system but are generally set by designers or operators using a-priori knowledge and/or trial-and-error processes. The proposed innovative procedure allows the CVS to self-configure most of these parameters and to easily adapt to different products regardless of the number and kind of colors associated to their surface. It results of practical applications in food processing, providing a non-destructive, automatic, cheap, fast and simple technology for the quality level evaluation, whose configuration requires a reduced, less critical and less technical human intervention.
Oral Neuroimmune Network and Mast Cells

Inflammation is a critical process in the oral cavity, especially in gingival inflammation and pulpitis, as seen in periodontitis and decayed tooth structure. Nevertheless, the cellular process inv...
Effects of Retinoic Acid Versus Dimethyl Sulfoxide on Friend Erythroleukemia Cell Growth. II. Induction of Quiescent, Nonproliferating Cells

Treatment of Friend erythroleukemia (FL) cells in vitro with 10(-7) to 10(-5) all-trans-retinoic acid (RA) leads to a concentration-dependent accumulation of a subpopulation of quiescent cells. This subpopulation, termed "Q-cells," contained markedly reduced RNA and protein levels and had a cell cycle distribution with a predominance of cells in G1 phase, which was nearly identical to that found in fully differentiated dimethyl sulfoxide (CAS:67-68-5; methyl sulfoxide)-induced FL cultures. The G1 cells in this RA-induced subpopulation (G1Q cells), though viable, did not enter S-phase, whereas the small percentage of Q-cells with S and G2 DNA content progressed very slowly through the cycle. While the Q-cell population did not contain the differentiation-associated chromatin protein H1 degrees, the cells did manifest a more condensed nuclear chromatin, altered sensitivity to acid denaturation, and reduced accessibility of the DNA in chromatin to acridine orange. The extent of chromatin condensation and the number of free ribosomes versus polysomes in RA-treated FL cells were intermediate between those in untreated and fully differentiated cells, whereas viral budding and the number of nucleoli remained unchanged from those seen in the untreated cell state. The non-Q-cell population in RA-treated cultures, termed "T" (transitional) cells, had an intermediate RNA and protein content and a cell cycle distribution similar to those of control cultures nearing the plateau phase of growth. In the absence of any late markers of differentiation, the Q-cell population was tentatively identified as a unique, quiescent cell population not previously described in the FL cell system.
An Exemplar-Based Random-Walk Model of Categorization and Recognition

In this chapter, we provide a review of a process-oriented mathematical model of categorization known as the exemplar-based random-walk (EBRW) model (Nosofsky & Palmeri, 1997a). The EBRW model is a member of the class of exemplar models. According to such models, people represent categories by storing individual exemplars of the categories in memory, and classify objects on the basis of their similarity to the stored exemplars. The EBRW model combines ideas ranging from the fields of choice and similarity, to the development of automaticity, to response-time models of evidence accumulation and decision-making. This integrated model explains relations between categorization and other fundamental cognitive processes, including individual-object identification, the development of expertise in tasks of skilled performance, and old-new recognition memory. Furthermore, it provides an account of how categorization and recognition decision-making unfold through time. We also provide comparisons with some other process models of categorization.
Baroreflex modulation of heart rate and initiation of atrial activation in dogs

In open-chest dogs, blood pressure was regulated by titrating doses of phenylephrine and nitroprusside to determine its effect on heart rate and pacemaker location. Changes in blood pressure correlated with changes in heart rate (r = 0.86). Activation time mapping demonstrated multicentric atrial activation, with a site of origin-rate relationship. The fastest pacemakers were located in the most cranial regions and slowest in the most caudal areas. In this chloralose-morphine anesthetized model, autonomic blockade with atropine and propranolol suggests that acute baroreflex-induced changes in heart rate were mediated exclusively by either increased sympathetic or parasympathetic tone and were not associated with inhibition of the opposite system. Division of right and left thoracic cardiac nerves indicated the left sympathetics participated in the baroreflex in 50% of the animals and the left parasympathetics in 90% of the animals. Both the right sympathetics and parasympathetics were active in the baroreflex in all animals. The data demonstrate that physiological heart rate response is regulated through an extensive system of right atrial pacemakers modulated by both left and right efferent cardiac nerves.
Energy Levels in A 38 from the Cl ( α , p ) Reaction

AgCl targets containing 94 percent ${\mathrm{Cl}}^{35}$---6 percent ${\mathrm{Cl}}^{37}$ and 62 percent ${\mathrm{Cl}}^{37}$---38 percent ${\mathrm{Cl}}^{35}$ were bombarded with $\ensuremath{\alpha}$ particles. The protons resulting were observed at 90\ifmmode^\circ\else\textdegree\fi{} and 0\ifmmode^\circ\else\textdegree\fi{} to the incident beam, and establish excited states in the ${\mathrm{A}}^{38}$ nucleus at 2.13\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.04 and 3.73\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.04 Mev. No groups from ${\mathrm{A}}^{40}$ were observed.
Normal vasculature in Tc-99m RBC labeled liver SPECT with corresponding CT: All is not tumor that is hot

Hepatic tumors are often observed as hot spots on Tc-99m labeled RBC SPECT imaging. Because normal blood vessels also show increased activity, it would be important to know their location and appearance. The authors show contrast enhanced CT images with corresponding SPECT images of a patient who does not have a hepatic tumor. Additional SPECT images with different reconstruction processing are also shown to emphasize the importance of optimal processing.
Demyelination and oligodendrocytes

Although neurological sequelae are attributable to poor regeneration of the central nervous system, oligodendrocytes demonstrate robust regenerative response even in adults. Accumulating evidence indicates that the glial cells identified by surface expression of the proteoglycan NG2 are the cellular source of newly-developed oligodendrocytes following demyelination, and thereby considered adult oligodendroglial progenitor cells (OPCs). Despite their robust regenerative capability, remyelination often ends up in failure or is incomplete, particularly after recurrent neuroinflammation, which is referred to as "remyelination failure". While axonal degeneration may contribute to remyelination failure, OPCs are also affected by neuroinflammation. Indeed, various studies have indicated that gamma-interferon, a proinflammatory cytokine associated with autoimmunity, is cytotoxic to OPCs by inducing cell death, and inhibiting their proliferation and differentiation. In contrast to gamma-interferon, we confirmed that beta-interferon which is used for the treatment of relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis does not induce OPC death. Through a comprehensive analysis of gamma-interferon-inducible and beta-interferon-inducible genes in OPCs, we have identified interferon regulatory factor-1 and -8 (IRF1 and IRF8) as candidate transcription factors responsible for gamma-interferon-mediated cytotoxicity in OPCs. Validating and elaborating on these findings particularly in in vivo models may prove of importance in understanding remyelination failure and suggest therapeutic approaches to enhance remyelination.
The presence of LUTS is not a decisive tool for deciding who should be qualified for prostate biopsy.

Lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) remain one of the most common clinical complaints in adult men. The prevalence of LUTS increases with age. LUTS can be divided into storage, voiding and post–micturition symptoms. These symptoms are related to bladder outlet obstruction as a result of benign prostatic obstruction, which is commonly associated with benign prostatic enlargement resulting from the histologic condition of benign prostatic hyperplasia. Moreover, LUTS are not necessarily related to prostatic diseases [1].
An Ecological Understanding of Quorum Sensing-Controlled Bacteriocin Synthesis

Bacteriocins are common antimicrobial agents that bacteria secrete to suppress the growth of competitors. Their production is often conditional, governed by underlying quorum sensing regulatory circuitry. Although the molecular underpinnings of controlled bacteriocin synthesis have been increasingly revealed, its quantitative ecological role has not been well characterized. Here, we present an integrated model of bacteriocin synthesis in the context of two-species contests where one species opposes the other for resource utilization. In a well-mixed environment, we find that bacteriocin production can contribute positively or negatively to the outcome of species competition, determined by the tradeoff between the benefit of bacteriocins in mediating competition and the fitness cost due to metabolic load. The tradeoff also determines the relative advantage between constitutive bacteriocin production and quorum sensing (QS) controlled production. Interestingly, under the naturally occurring scenario where bacteriocin production has a high cost, QS controlled synthesis outperforms constitutive, which offers a quantitative interpretation for the wide prevalence of density-related bacteriocin production in nature. Furthermore, by extending our study to include spatial dynamics of competing communities, we show that our finding, the superiority of QS controlled synthesis in the high cost regime, remains valid for complex settings. This work provides ecological insights into bacteriocin synthesis by revealing its cost and benefit during population growth, advancing our fundamental understanding of bacteriocin-mediated community organization as well as microbial ecology in general.
Consistent synchronization schemes for workload replay

Oracle Database Replay has been recently introduced in Oracle 11g as a novel tool to test relational database systems [9]. It involves recording the workload running on the database server in a production system, and subsequently replaying it on the database server in a test system. A key feature of workload replay that enables realistic reproduction of a real workload is synchronization. It is a mechanism that enforces specific ordering on the replayed requests that comprise the workload. It affects the level of request concurrency and the consistency of the replay results when compared to the captured workload. In this paper, we define the class of consistent replay synchronization schemes and study, for the first time, the spectrum they cover and the tradeoffs they present. We place the only scheme proposed so far [9], the one implemented in Oracle 11g Release 1, within the aforementioned spectrum and show that it is coarse-grained and more restrictive than necessary, often enforcing dependencies between calls that are independent. By enforcing needless waits, it decreases the level of possible concurrency and degrades performance. To overcome these drawbacks, we identify the best scheme within the spectrum; it is finer-grained than its counterparts and strikes the right balance across different tradeoffs: it enforces a partial ordering on the replayed calls that minimizes the number of required waits and maximizes the level of concurrency, without compromising consistency of the replay results. We have implemented the new scheme in Oracle 11g Release 2. Our experiments indicate that it produces better quality replays than the pre-existing one for major classes of workload.
Networks in the Machine Age: From Leonardo to Clocks to Reuleaux

We apply a network analysis to the history of kinematics theory of machine design from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries beginning with Leonardo da Vinci. As a particular example we construct a network chart for the evolution of precision marine clocks. We also look at the social network of Franz Reuleaux and other kinematics contributors of the nineteenth century. The kinematics network has links to the internal combustion network of Chap. 3.
Convex geometries in k-SAT problems

In analyzing the survey propagation algorithm, Maneva, Mossel, and Wainwright discovered a polynomial identity that holds for a Boolean formula F and a satisfying assignment a. We show that F and a give rise to a convex geometry, and that convex geometries are precisely the combinatorial objects satisfying (the multivariate analog of) that polynomial identity.
An efficient methodology to introduce o-(aminomethyl)phenyl-boronic acids into peptides: alkylation of secondary amines

Current approaches for incorporating boronic acids into peptides require one of the following: the synthesis of commercially unavailable pinacol-protected boronate ester amino acid building blocks, amidation of small-molecule amine-containing boronic acids, or reductive amination of amine residues with 2-formylphenyl boronic acid. These methods have drawbacks, such as the use of excess starting materials, the lack of reactive-site specificity, or the inability to add multiple boronic acids in solution. In addition, several of these approaches do not allow for incorporation of the critical o-aminomethyl functionality that allows for binding of saccharides under physiological conditions. In this work, we report three methods to functionalize synthetic peptides with boronic acids using solid-phase and solution-phase chemistries by alkylating a secondary amine with o-(bromomethyl)phenylboronic acid. Solution-phase chemistries afforded the highest yields, and were used to synthesize seven complex biotinylated multi-boronic acid peptides.
Searching for the low affinity ubiquinone binding site in cytochrome bo3 from Escherichia coli.

The cytochrome bo3 ubiquinol oxidase is one of three respiratory oxygen reductases in the aerobic respiratory chain of Escherichia coli. The generally accepted model of catalysis assumes that cyt bo3 contains two distinct ubiquinol binding sites: (i) a low affinity (QL) site which is the traditional substrate binding site; and (ii) a high affinity (QH) site where a “permanently” bound quinone acts as a cofactor, taking two electrons from the substrate quinol and passing them one-by-one to the heme b component of the enzyme which, in turn, transfers them to the heme o3/CuB active site. Whereas the residues at the QH site are well defined, the location of the QL site remains unknown. The published X-ray structure does not contain quinone, and substantial amounts of the protein are missing as well. A recent bioinformatics study by Bossis et al. [Biochem J. (2014) 461, 305–314] identified a sequence motif G163EFX3GWX2Y173 as the likely QL site in the family of related quinol oxidases. In the current work, this was tested by site-directed mutagenesis. The results show that these residues are not important for catalytic function and do not define the QL substrate binding site.