cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Characterization of phosphatidic acid phosphatase activity in the oleaginous yeast Yarrowia lipolytica and its role in lipid biosynthesis.

Phosphatidic acid phosphatase (PAP) catalyses the committed step of triacylglycerol (TAG) biosynthesis and thus regulates the amounts of TAG produced by the cell. TAG is the target of biotechnological processes developed for the production of food lipids or biofuels. These processes are using oleaginous microorganisms like the yeast Yarrowia lipolytica as the TAG producers. Thus manipulating key enzymatic activities like PAP in Y. lipolytica could drive lipid biosynthesis towards TAG production and increase TAG yields. In this study, PAP activity in Y. lipolytica was characterized in detail and its role in lipid biosynthesis was addressed. PAP activity increased 2.5-fold with the addition of Mg2+ (1 mm) in the assay mixture, which means that most of the PAP activity was due to Mg2+ -dependent PAP enzymes (e.g. Pah1, App1). In contrast, N-ethylmaleimide (NEM) potently inhibited PAP activity, indicating the presence of NEM-sensitive PAP enzymes (e.g. App1, Lpp1). Localization studies revealed that the majority of PAP activity resides in the membrane fraction, while the cytosolic fraction harbours only a small amount of activity. PAP activity was regulated in a growth-dependent manner, being induced at the early exponential phase and declining thereafter. PAP activity did not correlate with TAG synthesis, which increased as cells progressed from the exponential phase to the early stationary phase. In stationary phase, TAG was mobilized with the concomitant synthesis of sterols and sterol esters. These results provide the first insights into the role of PAP in lipid biosynthesis by Y. lipolytica. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The MPE XL data management system exploiting the HP precision architecture for HP's next generation commercial computer systems

A description is given of the Hewlett Packard precision architecture, which provides the basis for low-overhead, high-throughput data management under the commercial MPE XL operating system. Large address spaces and large main memories obviate the need of sophisticated disk I/O subsystems of the system software. The performance advantages and file system architecture of the precision architecture are discussed. >
The State of ICSE

In this state of the conference I want to share a short reflection about my four years as steering committee chair, some highlights of the upcoming ICSE operational guidelines, and a quick update on the next ICSEs.
Effects of Ultra-Fast Cooling After Hot Rolling and Intercritical Treatment on Microstructure and Cryogenic Toughness of 3.5%Ni Steel

A novel process comprised of ultra-fast cooling after control rolling, intercritical quenching and tempering (UFC-LT) was applied to 3.5%Ni steel. In addition, quenching and tempering (QT) treatment was conducted in comparison. The present study focuses on the relationship between the microstructure and cryogenic toughness of 3.5%Ni steel. Results show that the microstructure of steel treated by UFC-LT consisted of tempered martensite, intercritical ferrite and two types of reversed austenite (RA) (needle shape and blocky). Compared to the QT sample, the UFC-LT sample’s ultimate tensile strength decreased slightly, while its elongation increased from 32.3 to 35.7%, and its Charpy absorption energy at −135 °C increased from 112 to 237 J. The ductile-brittle transition temperature of UFC-LT sample was lower than that of the QT sample by 18 °C. The superior cryogenic toughness after UFC-LT compared to QT treatment can be attributed to the dissolution of cementite, approximately 3.0% increase in RA and the decrease in effective grain size.
Shock Response of Commercial Purity Polycrystalline Magnesium Under Uniaxial Strain at Elevated Temperatures

In the present paper, results of plate impact experiments designed to investigate the onset of incipient plasticity in commercial purity polycrystalline magnesium (99.9%) under weak uniaxial strain compression and elevated temperatures up to melt are presented. The dynamic stress at yield and post yield of magnesium, as inferred from the measured normal component of the particle velocity histories at the free (rear) surface of the target plate, are observed to decrease progressively with increasing test temperatures in the range from 23 to 500 °C. At (higher) test temperatures in the range 500–610 °C, the rate of decrease of dynamic stress with temperature at yield and post-yield in the sample is observed to weaken. At still higher test temperatures (617 and 630 °C), a dramatic increase in dynamic yield as well as flow stress is observed indicating a change in dominant mechanism of plastic deformation as the sample approaches the melt point of magnesium at strain rates of ~105/s. In addition to these measurements at the wavefront, the plateau region of the free surface particle velocity profiles indicates that the longitudinal (plastic) impedance of the magnesium samples decreases continuously as the sample temperatures are increased from room to 610 °C, and then reverses trend (indicating increasing material longitudinal impedance/strength) as the sample temperatures are increased to 617 and 630 °C. Electron back scattered diffraction analysis of the as-received and annealed pre-test magnesium samples reveal grain coarsening as well as grain re-orientation to a different texture during the heating process of the samples.
“The Office Is One Thing, and Private Life Is Another”: Social Networking with the Victorians

In Great Expectations, the lawyer’s clerk Wemmick tells Pip, “the office is one thing, and private life is another.” That distinction between the professional and the personal remains as crucial to twenty-first-century students as it was to the Victorians. To explore the difference, each student creates two profiles, on Facebook and on LinkedIn, for a character from an assigned novel. Basing their profiles on evidence from the text builds their literary analysis skills, while learning the expectations of LinkedIn will get students ready to prepare their own digital resumes. The assignment thus both teaches students about Victorian culture and prepares them for their post-college lives.
Holey 2D Nanomaterials for Electrochemical Energy Storage

2D nanomaterials provide numerous fascinating properties, such as abundant active surfaces and open ion diffusion channels, which enable fast transport and storage of lithium ions and beyond. However, decreased active surfaces, prolonged ion transport pathway, and sluggish ion transport kinetics caused by self-restacking of 2D nanomaterials during electrode assembly remain a major challenge to build high-performance energy storage devices with simultaneously maximized energy and power density as well as long cycle life. To address the above challenge, porosity (or hole) engineering in 2D nanomaterials has become a promising strategy to enable porous 2D nanomaterials with synergetic features combining both 2D nanomaterials and porous architectures. Herein, recent important progress on porous/holey 2D nanomaterials for electrochemical energy storage is reviewed, starting with the introduction of synthetic strategies of porous/holey 2D nanomaterials, followed by critical discussion of design rule and their advantageous features. Thereafter, representative work on porous/holey 2D nanomaterials for electrochemical capacitors, lithium-ion and sodium-ion batteries, and other emerging battery technologies (lithium-sulfur and metal-air batteries) are presented. The article concludes with perspectives on the future directions for porous/holey 2D nanomaterial in energy storage and conversion applications.
Taming the Memory Demand Complexity of Adaptive Vision Algorithms

With the demand for utilizing Adaptive Vision Algorithms (AVAs) in embedded devices, serious challenges have been introduced to vision architects. AVAs may produce huge model data traffic while continuously training the internal model of the stream. This traffic dwarfs the streaming data traffic (e.g. image frames), and consequently dominates bandwidth and power requirements posing great challenges to a low-power embedded implementation. In result, current approaches either ignore targeting AVAs, or are limited to low resolutions due to not handling the traffics separately. This paper proposes a systematic approach to tackle the architectural complexity of AVAs. The main focus of this paper is to manage the huge model data updating traffic of AVAs by proposing a shift from compressing streaming data to compressing the model data. The compression of model data results in significant reduction of memory accesses leading to a pronounced gain in power and performance. This paper also explores the effect of different class of compression algorithms (lossy and lossless) on both bandwidth reduction and result quality of AVAs. For the purpose of exploration this paper focuses on example of Mixture-of-Gaussians (MoG) background subtraction. The results demonstrate that a customized lossless algorithm can maintain the quality while reducing the bandwidth demand facilitating efficient embedded realization of AVAs. In our experiments we achieved the total bandwidth saving of about 69% by applying the Most Significant Bits Selection and BZIP as the first and second level model data compression schemes respectively, with only about 15% quality loss according to the Multi-Scale Structural Similarity (MS-SSIM) metric. The bandwidth saving would be increased to 75% by using a custom compressor.
Activity Recognition Using Graphical Features from Smart Phone Sensor

We develop a graphical feature-based framework that collects data from different kinds of sensor networks, represents the sensor network data as a graph, extracts graphical features from the graph representation, and adds those features to a set of non-graphical features that are typical for the application. Our hypothesis is that the addition of a structural representation and transitional features will improve performance for the corresponding prediction tasks of different networks. We apply our graphical feature-based approach on smart phone GPS sensor data to predict activities performed by phone users. We represent the location category corresponding to each GPS value as a node and movement of users from one GPS location to another as an edge in graph. Then we extract graphical features such as existence of nodes and edges from the graph representation and add them to basic sensor data features coming from the smart phone. We find that using this augmented feature set improves activity recognition accuracy by 7.27% compared to using only basic non-graphical features with feature set augmented with existence of nodes performing the best.
The revisit of QoS routing based on non-linear Lagrange relaxation: Research Articles

The development of efficient quality of service (QoS) routing algorithms in a high-speed networking or the next generation IP networking environment is a very important and at the same time very difficult task due to the need to provide divergent services with multiple QoS requirements. Recently, a heuristic algorithm HlMCOP, which is based on a non-linear Lagrange relaxation (NLR) technique, has been proposed to resolve the contradiction between the time complexity and the quality of solution. Even though HlMCOP has demonstrated outstanding capability of finding feasible solutions to the multi-path constrained (MCP) problem, it has not exploited the full capability that an NLR-based technique could offer. In this paper, we propose a new NLR-based heuristic called NLRlMCP, in which the search process is interpreted from a probability's perspective. Simulation results indicate that NLRlMCP can achieve a higher probability of finding feasible solutions than HlMCOP. We also verify that the performance improvement of a MCP heuristic has a tremendous impact on the performance of a higher level heuristic that uses a MCP heuristic as the basic step. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Nitrogen for Biodeterioration Control on Museum Collections

The conservation and preservation of biodeteriorated art materials is one of the most critical problems in museum collections. Recently, an increasing number of methods have been used to identify and eliminate biological contamination on valuable ancient objects (Polacheck, 1988).
Light and electron microscopic studies of Escherichia coli-coliphage interactions: I. Preparative method. Comparative light and electron microscopic cytology of the E. Coli B-T2 system

Preparative methods are described by which young colonies of E. coli B on collodion overlying nutrient agar are infected with T2 phage, fixed at selected time intervals following infection, dialyzed for removal of obscuring impurities and studied electron microscopically. One-step growth curves of phage replication under these conditions have been essentially similar to those in broth. Light cytological preparations, in sequence of time following infection, stained by the Feulgen and DeLamater procedures, have essentially confirmed earlier studies by Luria and Palmer8, Luria and Human9, and Murray, Gillen and Heagy10. The nuclear chromatin loses its characteristic configuration and position during the first half of the latent period and is reduced to granular residues along the periphery of the infected cells. During the second half of the latent period the infected cells fill up with finely dispersed Feulgen-positive material. The disintegration of the nucleus is in agreement with biochemical data indicating breakdown of the nuclear DNA and transfer of its components to the phage progeny51–55. The filling up of the cells with Feulgen-positive material is in agreement with the synthesis of new DNA by the infected cells, utilizing materials from the external medium53–57.
Hyperspectral, hybrid continuous wave and frequency domain diffuse optical tomography in a handheld reflectance geometry for breast cancer diagnostics

Reflectance-based, handheld diffuse optical tomography (DOT) uses multi-spectral frequency-domain (FD) and/or continuous-wave (CW) discrete wavelength sources. During DOT reconstruction, spectral constraints are commonly applied assuming a limited number of chromophores in the tissue in order to more accurately recover chromophore concentrations and scattering parameters. However, there are cases where spectral recovery cannot be applied, such as for the quantification of unknown tissue absorbers, where the chromophore extinction spectra are not known a priori. Therefore, we have worked toward a hyperspectral, hybrid FD and CW-DOT approach that can accurately recover tissue absorption and scattering spectra without needing a spectral constraint. Our approach increases the number of recoverable chromophores continuously across a 650 - 1050 nm spectrum. We have implemented and evaluated this technique in a prototype handheld probe for reflectance-mode breast imaging. Currently, no handheld portable DOT probe has this broadband hyperspectral capability. We simulated the accuracy of optical property recovery, showing that hybrid DOT successfully recovers the absorption spectra with average of 10% error across 650 − 1000 nm spectrum. We have also validated this technique by successfully imaging an inhomogeneous physical phantom with optical properties mimicking breast tissue. The methodology for the probe design along with the results of simulations and phantom studies are presented.
Benefits of Beta-Blockade in Sepsis and Septic Shock: A Systematic Review

Sepsis and septic shock are inflammatory disorders associated with high rates of mortality. Patients with sepsis and septic shock frequently become tachycardic as a result of the utilization of vasopressor therapy and cardiac overcompensation owing to hypotension, predisposing patients to an increased risk of atrial fibrillation. Previously, it was thought that beta-blocker therapy in patients with sepsis would exacerbate hypotension; however, recent studies have shown that may not be the case. This review aims to ascertain whether beta-blocker therapy reduces heart rate in patients with sepsis without a corresponding decrease in blood pressure, and if beta-blockade has a beneficial effect on mortality. Several databases including Cochrane, EMBASE, PubMed, SCOPUS, and Web of Science were scoured for trials pertaining to the utilization of beta-blockers in sepsis and septic shock, and trials that were either prospective or controlled were included in this review. In the initial search, 1839 articles were found, and those were subsequently reduced to 14 trials (five randomized controlled trials, nine non-randomized trials) that were deemed appropriate for inclusion in this review. All included trials displayed beneficial effects on heart rate without any detriments to blood pressure. Of the six trials that assessed mortality, four showed substantial benefits. The majority of the trials assessed in this review displayed beneficial results for beta-blocker use in patients with sepsis. However, owing to the deficit of large-scale randomized controlled trials addressing this topic, further research is needed to ensure the veracity of these results.
Cervical spinal dural fistulas leading to remote thoracolumbar myelopathy: A diagnostic pitfall.

Purpose of review Spinal dural arteriovenous fistulas (SDAVFs) are abnormal connections between 1 or more radiculomeningeal arteries and a single radiculomedullary vein draining into the perimedullary venous system. SDAVFs present in older patients with a progressive myelopathy caused by diffuse spinal venous hypertension. The discrepancy between the focal nature of the arteriovenous shunt and the extent of the induced myelopathy is a classic feature of SDAVFs related to the coexistence of diffuse spinal venous drainage impairment. Recent findings We describe 3 cases of cervical SDAVFs (at C1, C4, and C7) presenting with a myelopathy that spared the cervical spinal cord and, in 2 instances, the upper thoracic cord. This is to our knowledge the first observations of cervical SDAVFs with MRI showing absent or subtle flow voids and presenting remote thoracolumbar myelopathy without cervical cord involvement. Summary A considerable distance may separate low-flow spinal arteriovenous fistulas from the spinal cord damage they produce. These observations emphasize the importance of performing a complete spinal angiogram when investigating a vascular myelopathy of any location and extent.
Can Language Be Tested

In a deep sense, language can never be really tested. Serious questions can be raised as to whether “language tests” actually test language ability, or something else altogether. Chomsky's distinct...
A Coarse Grid Projection Method for Accelerating Free and Forced Convection Heat Transfer Computations

Coarse grid projection (CGP) methodology is used to accelerate the computations of sets of decoupled nonlinear evolutionary and linear static equations. In CGP, the linear equations are solved on a coarsened mesh compared to the nonlinear equations, leading to a reduction in central processing unit time. The accuracy of CGP has been assessed for the advection–diffusion equation along with the pressure Poisson equation. Here we add another decoupled equation to this set: the energy equation. In this article, we examine the influence of CGP methodology for the first time on thermal fields. CGP is validated with two different test cases: first, natural convection induced by a hot circular cylinder located in the center of a cold square cylinder, and second, the flow over a circular cylinder with the condition of constant cylinder temperature. For the first test case, the velocity and temperature fields as well as the local Nusselt number on the surface of the inner hot cylinder calculated by CGP reveal good agreement with the non-CGP data. For the second test case, the Nusselt number and the spatial structure of the temperature field obtained by CGP are in a good agreement with the non-CGP data for different Prandtl numbers. In general, CGP is able to maintain excellent to reasonable accuracy of the temperature filed, while achieves speedup factors ranged approximately from 1.7 to 3.7.
Financial Constraints, Auditing, and External Financing

This paper investigates whether financially constrained firms use costly audit signals to facilitate their access to external financing. We document that when facing higher financial constraints, firms pay higher audit fees and have their audit opinion reports completed sooner. The higher audit fees observed in this case do not seem to be driven by greater reporting risk of financially constrained firms because these firms are associated with lower restatement likelihood and fraud risk. We then test whether paying higher audit fees and having shorter audit lags enable financially constrained firms raise more financing in the equity and debt markets. We find that costlier and timelier audits facilitate equity-seeking constrained, but not debt-seeking constrained, firms’ access to financing. Our findings suggest that while financially constrained firms feel pressure to make cuts across various expenditure categories, negotiating lower audit fees in the face of higher financial constraints may not be a wise strategy.
Identification of Food Waste through Object Recognition

The goal of the paper is to design and implement a system to measure food waste in Pierce Dining Hall on the campus of Stevens Institute of Technology. The system would likely utilize a camera to identify types of food waste based on a database containing several varieties of food. Some important variables to consider are the amount of food made initially, the amount of food waste after disposal (potentially determined through weight, density, etc.), and the amount of food taken from the serving line. These data values can be analyzed and compared to promote efficiency of food production and the minimization of food waste in the future. To achieve this, the team utilized machine learning to train a convolutional neural network to identify food items, a Raspberry Pi with connected sensors to collect images and run them through the trained model, and a remote database server to collect data. The team was successful in assembling and testing the hardware and training the neural network, but, due to the global health situation, the ability to test the system as a whole was limited.
Teaching Note—Challenging Monocentricity in Social Work Education: Creating Critical Counterspaces of Multiraciality

Multiracial individuals and families is one of the fastest growing racial groups in the United States, and social workers are undoubtedly seeing increases in the number of multiracial clients and f...
Compositional Data Analysis is necessary for simulating and analyzing RNA-Seq data

*Seq techniques (e.g. RNA-Seq) generate compositional datasets, i.e. the number of fragments sequenced is not proportional to the total RNA present. Thus, datasets carry only relative information, even though absolute RNA copy numbers are often of interest. Current normalization methods assume most features are not changing, which can lead to misleading conclusions when there are large shifts. However, there are few real datasets and no simulation protocols currently available that can directly benchmark methods when such large shifts occur. We present absSimSeq, an R package that simulates compositional data in the form of RNA-Seq reads. We tested several tools used for RNA-Seq differential analysis: sleuth, DESeq2, edgeR, limma, sleuth and ALDEx2 (which explicitly takes a compositional approach). For these tools, we compared their standard normalization to either “compositional normalization”, which uses log-ratios to anchor the data on a set of negative control features, or RUVSeq, another tool that directly uses negative control features. We show that common normalizations result in reduced performance with current methods when there is a large change in the total RNA per cell. Performance improves when spike-ins are included and used by a compositional approach, even if the spike-ins have substantial variation. In contrast, RUVSeq, which normalizes count data rather than compositional data, has poor performance. Further, we show that previous criticisms of spike-ins did not take into account the compositional nature of the data. We conclude that absSimSeq can generate more representative datasets for testing performance, and that spike-ins should be more broadly used in a compositional manner to minimize misleading conclusions from differential analyses.
Case Report: The Association of Wilson Disease in a Patient With Ataxia and GLUT-1 Deficiency.

Background: Wilson disease (WD) and glucose transporter type 1 (GLUT1) deficiency syndrome are two syndromes with different modes of inheritance but share certain similarities on neurological presentation. To date we have not found previous reports of an association between these two disorders. Case presentation: Here we describe a 9-year-old male with global developmental delay that presented with intermittent and sudden onset weakness that first occurred at age 3. He was diagnosed with a mutation in the SLC2A1 (Solute Carrier Family 2 Member 1) gene, which results in GLUT1 deficiency. A ketogenic diet could not be started because of unexplained elevated liver enzymes. Due to his liver enzymes' persistent elevation, further investigations demonstrated mildly decreased ceruloplasmin levels, high basal 24-hour urinary copper excretion, and an elevated hepatic parenchymal copper concentration on liver biopsy, consistent with WD. Genetic testing revealed two separate mutations in the ATP7B (ATPase Copper Transporting Beta) gene, consistent with WD. The patient was treated with a low copper diet, zinc acetate, and trientine hydrochloride. When liver enzymes normalized, he was subsequently started on a ketogenic diet with improvement in neurological symptoms. His neurological symptoms were most likely secondary to GLUT1 deficiency syndrome, as WD's neurological symptoms are primarily observed in the second decade of life. Conclusion: Recent studies have demonstrated the importance of genetic testing upon unexplained persistent elevation of liver enzymes. This case highlights the importance of carefully evaluating a patient with an unexplained liver disorder, even in the presence of primary neurological disease, as it can have significant therapeutic implications.
Fluorene Copolymer and Carbon Nanotube Interaction Modulates Network Transistor Performance

Conjugated polymer extraction (CPE)-enriched high-purity semiconducting (sc) single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) have demonstrated significant application potential as emerging electronic mater...
You Say You Want a Revolution: The Arab Spring and the Role of the Human Rights Regime

The Arab Spring has fundamentally reshaped how the world thinks about human rights and democratization. We explore how the human rights regime affects the democratic revolutionary movements of the Arab Spring and subsequently how the Arab Spring changes the nature of the human rights regime. We find that the demands for better human rights, combined with international pressure from the human rights regime, led initially to a promise of improved human rights in general, and women’s rights in particular in most countries. However, the promise of expanded rights followed by their suppression created a climate where there is a discrepancy between the expectation and the realization of rights. In previous cases where this cycle of rights expansion and contraction has occurred (Northern Ireland and the Basque Region), we argue that there is a strengthening of resolve on the part of the individual participants and the human rights regime as whole. The case of the Arab Spring provides robust support for our conclusion that the repression of human rights only increases the resiliency of the human rights regime, a regime that has traditionally be deemed as weak.
Passive Autonomous Acoustic Monitoring of Marine Mammals with Seagliders

Abstract : The U.S. Navy's use of tactical mid-frequency active sonar has been linked to marine mammal strandings and fatalities (NMFS 2001). These events have generated legal challenges to the Navy's peacetime use of mid-frequency sonar, and have limited the Navy s at-sea anti-submarine warfare training time. Beaked whales may be particularly sensitive to mid-frequency sonar. A mobile, persistent surveillance system that could detect, classify and localize beaked whales will help resolve the conflict between the Navy's need for realistic training of mid-frequency sonar operators and the Navy s desire to protect marine mammal populations worldwide. Underwater gliders equipped with appropriate acoustic sensors, processing, and detection systems passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) gliders may offer a partial solution to the problem. The acoustically-equipped Seaglide(trademark) from the Applied Physics Laboratory of the University of Washington (APL-UW) is one such platform. A Seaglider can travel about 20 km/day through the water for a period of weeks to months, dive from the surface to 1000 m and back in a few hours, and use two-way satellite (Iridium) telemetry for data and command transfer. This makes it potentially highly useful for the long-term goal of this project, mitigating impacts of Navy operations on marine mammals.
Abstract 19920: Ventricular Tachycardia in Patients with Continuous Flow Left Ventricular Assist Devices: A Single Center Experience

Background: Ventricular tachycardia (VT) burden in patients with Left Ventricular Assist Devices (LVADs) is unclear. While LVADs are known to maintain hemodynamic stability during VT, they are paradoxically associated with increased VT post-operatively. Potential mechanisms include post-operative arrhythmogenic state, new scar formation and LVAD’s effect on calcium channels. AICD intervention increased morbidity in LVAD patients but without impact on mortality. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed VT requiring AICD intervention (iVT) with either ATP or shocks in 85 patients with durable continuous flow LVADs. Data on iVT from 1 year prior to LVAD implant until transplant or death was analyzed for shock, syncope and hospitalization. Results: Eighty five patients were identified, mean age 62.6 years (87% male) with a median follow-up of 272 days (23-1588). Results displayed in Table 1. Twenty-six (30.5%) post-LVAD patients had iVT, 12 of the 17 patients with pre-LVAD iVT (70.6%) had post-LVAD iVT and 14 of the 68 patients without pre-LVAD iVT (20.6%) had denovo iVT post-LVAD (p=0.0011). Syncope or presyncope occurred in 4 (15.38%) of these post-LVAD patients. Hospitalization for VT after 30 days occurred in 7% of LVAD patients. One patient died from protracted course of VT that decreased mixed venous oxygen, mean arterial pressure, and RV function. Discussion: iVT post-LVAD was noted in 22.3% patients and was more common in those with ischemic etiology (p value=0.15). Pre-LVAD VT was a significant risk factor for post-LVAD iVT. The prevalence of VT one year pre and post LVAD is similar (20% and 23.5%) indicating that LVADs do not prevent VT nor decrease the number of shocks delivered (p value= 0.427) or hospital admissions.Death was rare (1.1%) and likely not due to primary VT. LVAD therapy conveys a mortality advantage to patient with iVT; however, ventricular arrhythmia should be aggressively managed post-LVAD to further reduce morbidity and hospitalizations.
Improving the Exact Security of Fiat-Shamir Signature Schemes

We provide two contributions to exact security analysis of digital signatures: 1. We put forward a new method of constructing Fiat-Shamir-like signature schemes that yields better "exact security" than the original Fiat-Shamir method; and 2. We extend exact security analysis to exact cost-security analysis by showing that digital signature schemes with "loose security" may be preferable for reasonable measures of cost.
Hurst, James Willard (1910–97)

James Willard Hurst was the most influential American legal history scholar. This article examines his professional and personal life and addresses his lasting impact. Rather than focusing on the opinions of appellate courts, Hurst looked to the practical, everyday influences of law and lawyers and pioneered a new approach to American legal history.
Victim Gender and the Death Penalty

Previous research suggests that cases involving female victims are more likely to result in death sentences. The current study examines possible reasons for this relationship using capital punishment data from the state of Delaware. Death was sought much more for murders of either male or female white victims compared to murders of black male victims. Analyzing capital sentencing hearings in Delaware from 1977-2007 decided by judges or juries, we found that both characteristics of the victims and characteristics of the murders differentiated male and female victim cases. The presence of sexual victimization, the method of killing, the relationship between the victim and the defendant, and whether or not the victim had family responsibilities all predicted the likelihood of a death sentence and help to explain why cases with female victims are more likely to be punished with a death sentence.
Community-based group exercise for persons with Parkinson disease: A randomized controlled trial

The purpose of this study was to compare group boxing training to traditional group exercise on function and quality of life in persons with Parkinson disease (PD). A convenience sample of adults with PD (n = 31) were randomly assigned to boxing training or traditional exercise for 24-36 sessions, each lasting 90 minutes, over 12 weeks. Boxing training included: stretching, boxing (e.g. lateral foot work, punching bags), resistance exercises, and aerobic training. Traditional exercise included: stretching, resistance exercises, aerobic training, and balance activities. Participants were tested before and after completion of training on balance, balance confidence, mobility, gait velocity, gait endurance, and quality of life. The traditional exercise group demonstrated significantly greater gains in balance confidence than the boxing group (p < 0.025). Only the boxing group demonstrated significant improvements in gait velocity and endurance over time with a medium between-group effect size for the gait endurance (d = 0.65). Both groups demonstrated significant improvements with the balance, mobility, and quality of life with large within-group effect sizes (d ≥ 0.80). While groups significantly differed in balance confidence after training, both groups demonstrated improvements in most outcome measures. Supporting options for long-term community-based group exercise for persons with PD will be an important future consideration for rehabilitation professionals.
Multiple QSO images with arcminute splittings

1. The methodology just described is adequate to rule out the gravitational lens hypothesis if narrow forbidden lines are detected with different properties, allowing accurate redshift determinations, or if the MgII emission lines show a significant shift between the pair lines of sight. 2. When no forbidden line is observed, and the low ionization emission lines have similar properties (redshifts, profiles), the issue is logically difficult, since spectral differences are likely to be observed due to the systematic trend for high ionization broad emission lines to be shifted with respect to low ionization lines (Gaskell 1982, Wilkes 1984). Q1146+111 B and C images are a good example (Turner et al. 1986, Turner 1986). For such ambiguous cases, broad and narrow band deep CCD exposures of a few arcminute square field around the multiple QSO images may supplement efficiently the spectroscopic studies of the QSO nuclei, by searching for a candidate cluster of galaxies associated with the QSOs. 3. In addition to these observations, there is growing evidence that QSO clustering may occur over a wide range of angular separations (Bahcall et al. 1986, Djorgovski et al. 1987). Further observations on this phenomenon should provide clues to the formation of large scale structures at high redshift.
Comparison of Irradiation-Induced Shifts of K Jc and Charpy Impact Toughness for Reactor Pressure Vessel Steels

The current provisions for determination of the upward temperature shift of the lower-bound static fracture toughness curve due to irradiation of reactor pressure vessel steels are based on the assumption that they are the same as the Charpy 41-J shifts as a consequence of irradiation. The objective of this paper is to evaluate this assumption relative to data reported in open publications. Depending on the specific source, different sizes of fracture toughness specimens, procedures of the K{sub Jc} determination, and fitting functions were used. It was anticipated that the scatter might be reduced by using a consistent approach to analyze the published data. A method employing Weibull statistics is applied to analyze original fracture toughness data of unirradiated and irradiated pressure vessel steels. Application of the master curve concept is used to determine shifts of fracture toughness transition curves. A hyperbolic tangent function is used to fit charpy absorbed energy data. The fracture toughness shifts are compared to Charpy impact shifts evaluated with various criteria. Linear regression analysis showed that for weld metals, on average, the fracture toughness shift is the same as the Charpy 41-J temperature shift, while for base metals, on average, the fracture toughness shift at 41more » J is 16% greater than the shift of the Charpy 41-J transition temperature, with both correlations having relatively large 95% confidence intervals.« less
Power benchmark strategy for systems employing power management

The author proposes a strategy and technique for benchmarking computer energy efficiency from an end user's perspective. It is noted that performance benchmarking is complicated by the various classes of computers, even within the narrower area of personal computers and how performance benchmarks relate to the end user's expectation of the computer. This is further aggravated when the computer under scrutiny is performing with power management techniques to maximize its energy efficiency. The proposed strategy might be useful in distinguishing products on the competitive issue. >
Rootstock genotype and orchard replant position rather than soil fumigation or compost amendment determine tree growth and rhizosphere bacterial community composition in an apple replant soil

Apple replant disease (ARD) is a complex soilborne disease syndrome that often causes problems when renovating old orchard sites. Soil fumigants sometimes control ARD, but biological and cultural alternatives are needed. In this study the growth of two widely used clonal apple (Malus domestica) rootstocks (M7 and M26) were compared to three new rootstocks from the Cornell-Geneva series (CG16, CG30 and CG210 (a.k.a. CG6210)) in an orchard site with a history of ARD, in Ithaca, NY. Trees were planted in two distinguishable positions – the previous tree rows versus the old inter-row grass lanes. Additionally, we compared the effects of compost amendment and fumigation with dichloropropene plus chloropicrin on tree growth on each replant rootstock. Rhizosphere bacteria and actinobacteria were assessed using PCR-DGGE for the rootstocks M7, M26, CG30 and CG210. Tree growth on the rootstocks M7, M26 and CG16 was suppressed in the old tree rows relative to grass lanes, while trees on CG30 and CG210 rootstocks grew equally well in both positions. The species composition of rhizosphere bacteria and actinobacteria differed significantly between the planting positions and between the rootstocks M7 and M26 compared to CG30 and CG210. In contrast, the preplant compost or fumigation soil treatments had no effect on tree growth and little impact on rhizosphere bacterial community composition.
Scanning Probe Lithography. 4. Characterization of Scanning Tunneling Microscope-Induced Patterns in n-Alkanethiol Self-Assembled Monolayers

Self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) of n-alkanethiol molecules adsorbed onto Au(111) substrates act as lithographic resists, which can be selectively patterned using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). We previously provided evidence that patterning is the result of faradaic electrochemical processes. Here, we provide a more detailed model for the patterning mechanism that involves penetration of the tip into the SAM, concerted SAM disruption, and subsequent SAM removal arising from electrochemical processes. Experiments, and a detailed analysis of the patterned features, are consistent with this model. Other key results of this study include the following: (1) the electrochemical nature of the patterning process defines the resolution of STM patterning under the conditions used in this study; (2) lithographically defined patterns are dimensionally stable for several days; (3) the STM tip penetrates the monolayer and very slowly modifies it regardless of bias and tunneling current.
Speckle reduction via wavelet shrinkage with application to synthetic-aperture-radar-based automatic target detection/reduction (ATD/R)

We propose a novel speckle reduction method based on shrinking the wavelet coefficients of the logarithmically transformed image. The method is computational efficient and can significantly reduce the speckle while preserving the resolution of the original image. Wavelet processed imagery is shown to provide better detection performance for synthetic-aperture radar based automatic target detection/recognition problem.© (1994) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
A dynamic constructivist approach to culture: Lessons learned from personality psychology

Abstract The comparison of differences between cultural groups has been a dominant approach in cross-cultural psychology. This approach assumes behavioral influence of a relatively static, monolithic culture on members in a cultural group. This paper, however, calls for a dynamic constructivist approach to the study of culture. We begin by drawing a parallel between past research in cultural and personality psychology. We then highlight recent findings that attest to the value of a social-cognitive model of culture. Specifically, we discuss studies that have demonstrated how well established cross-cultural differences may appear or disappear depending on the availability, accessibility, and applicability of cultural theories. We present evidence that situational characteristics may render cultural theories more or less accessible and applicable, and propose a culture × situation interaction model for understanding inter- and intra-cultural variations.
Identification of a 95-kDa WEE1-like tyrosine kinase in HeLa cells

Abstract Human WEE1 (WEE1Hu) was cloned on the basis of its ability to rescue wee1+ mutants in fission yeast [Igarashi, M., Nagata, A., Jinno, S., Suto, K. & Okayama, H. (1991) Nature (London) 353, 80-83]. Biochemical studies carried out in vitro with recombinant protein demonstrated that WEE1Hu encodes a tyrosine kinase of approximately 49 kDa that phosphorylates p34cdc2 on Tyr-15 [Parker, L. L. & Piwnica-Worms, H. (1992) Science 257, 1955-1957]. To study the regulation of WEE1Hu in human cells, two polyclonal antibodies to bacterially produced p49WEE1Hu were generated. In addition, a peptide antibody generated against amino acids 361-388 of p49WEE1Hu was also used. Unexpectantly, these antibodies recognized a protein with an apparent molecular mass of 95 kDa in HeLa cells, rather than one of 49 kDa. Immunoprecipitates of p95 phosphorylated p34cdc2 on Tyr-15, indicating that p95 is functionally related to p49WEEIHu, and mapping studies demonstrated that p95 is structurally related to p49WEE1Hu. In addition, the substrate specificity of p95 was more similar to that of fission yeast p107wee1 than to that of human p49WEE1. Finally, the kinase activity of p95 toward p34cdc2/cyclin B was severely impaired during mitosis. Taken together, these results indicate that the original WEE1Hu clone isolated in genetic screens encodes only the catalytic domain of human WEE1 and that the authentic human WEE1 protein has an apparent molecular mass of approximately 95 kDa.
Chromosome alignment and segregation regulated by ubiquitination of survivin.

Proper chromosome segregation requires the attachment of sister kinetochores to microtubules from opposite spindle poles to form bi-oriented chromosomes on the metaphase spindle. The chromosome passenger complex containing Survivin and the kinase Aurora B regulates this process from the centromeres. We report that a de-ubiquitinating enzyme, hFAM, regulates chromosome alignment and segregation by controlling both the dynamic association of Survivin with centromeres and the proper targeting of Survivin and Aurora B to centromeres. Survivin is ubiquitinated in mitosis through both Lys48 and Lys63 ubiquitin linkages. Lys63 de-ubiquitination mediated by hFAM is required for the dissociation of Survivin from centromeres, whereas Lys63 ubiquitination mediated by the ubiquitin binding protein Ufd1 is required for the association of Survivin with centromeres. Thus, ubiquitinaton regulates dynamic protein-protein interactions and chromosome segregation independently of protein degradation.
Cloning, expression and rapid purification of active recombinant mycothiol ligase as B1 immunoglobulin binding domain of streptococcal protein G, glutathione-S-transferase and maltose binding protein fusion proteins in Mycobacterium smegmatis

Mycothiol ligase (MshC) is a key enzyme in the biosynthesis of mycothiol, a small molecular weight thiol found in Mycobacteria spp. and other actinomycetes. Mycothiol plays a fundamental role in these organisms by helping to provide protection from the effects of reactive oxygen species and electrophiles, including many antibiotics. It has recently been demonstrated that the MshC gene and more generally the production of mycothiol are essential to Mycobacterium tuberculosis, indicating that MshC may represent a novel target for new classes of antituberculars. Because MshC cannot be expressed heterologously in Escherichia coli and isolation from Mycobacterium smegmatis is impractical, we have optimized the E. coli-M. smegmatis shuttle vector pACE for cloning and recombinant expression of MshC (under control of an acetamidase-inducible promoter). To improve expression levels and simplify purification, we further constructed three N-terminal-MshC fusion proteins where N-terminal tags included the B1 domain of streptococcal protein G (to give GB1-MshC), glutathione-S-transferase (to give GST-MshC) and maltose binding protein (to give MBP-MshC), for expression in M. smegmatis. By expressing all three fusion proteins in a mutant strain of M. smegmatis mc(2)155, namely I64 L205P MshC M. smegmatis which lacks mycothiol ligase activity, we demonstrate in vivo mycothiol ligase activity for each construct. Recombinant GST-MshC and MBP-MshC were isolated in one step by affinity chromatography in a yield of 0.7 and 1.2 mg fusion protein/L and exhibited specific activities of 9 nmolmin(-1)mg(-1) and 25 nmolmin(-1)mg(-1), respectively.
Chemical analysis of silicone outgassing

Silicone materials pose a contamination control challenge because of their ubiquity in satellite hardware, the tendency of the material and its outgassed contaminants to migrate along surfaces, and the difficulty in cleaning away the residue. To devise effective mitigation strategies, accurate knowledge of the chemical identity and properties of the outgassed species is needed. This information is critical for modeling silicone outgassing deposition processes and for developing effective cleaning methods. To this end, a chemical analysis study of several common silicone materials was conducted to identify and characterize the outgassed contaminants. Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) and other laboratory techniques were used to identify and characterize the outgassed species. In this report, the results of this study will be discussed with a particular emphasis on comparing the outgassing properties of the species collected from these materials to DC704, which is typically used to model silicone outgassing.