cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Child Pornography Sentencing in the Sixth Circuit

This Symposium Essay explores and analyzes the Sixth Circuit’s approach to child pornography sentencing. It critiques the Sixth Circuit’s decision to apply heightened scrutiny to below-Guideline sentences for child pornography possession. In addition to presenting a critique of the Sixth Circuit’s cases, the Essay also provides guidance for defense attorneys seeking a below-Guidelines sentence. It notes that there are particular strategies those attorneys should follow in order to secure not only a more lenient sentence from a district court judge, but also a sentence that is more likely to be upheld by the Sixth Circuit on appeal.During the course of this discussion, the Essay identifies and criticizes three significant features of the Sixth Circuit’s cases in this area. First, it notes that the Sixth Circuit is the only circuit to have adopted heightened appellate review of below-Guideline sentences for child pornography possession. Second, it explains that the Sixth Circuit appears to be developing a common law of sentencing in child pornography cases; such a common law is contrary to the language and the logic of the Supreme Court’s Sixth Amendment sentencing cases. Finally, it explains that the Sixth circuit has failed to give appropriate deference to district court decisions to sentence below the Guidelines based on facts and circumstances of particular cases.
Dose and linear energy transfer distributions of primary and secondary particles in carbon ion radiation therapy: A Monte Carlo simulation study in water

The factors influencing carbon ion therapy can be predicted from accurate knowledge about the production of secondary particles from the interaction of carbon ions in water/tissue-like materials, and subsequently the interaction of the secondary particles in the same materials. The secondary particles may have linear energy transfer (LET) values that potentially increase the relative biological effectiveness of the beam. Our primary objective in this study was to classify and quantify the secondary particles produced, their dose averaged LETs, and their dose contributions in the absorbing material. A 1 mm diameter carbon ion pencil beam with energies per nucleon of 155, 262, and 369 MeV was used in a geometry and tracking 4 Monte Carlo simulation to interact in a 27 L water phantom containing 3000 rectangular detector voxels. The dose-averaged LET and the dose contributions of primary and secondary particles were calculated from the simulation. The results of the simulations show that the secondary particles that contributed a major dose component had LETs 600 keV/µm contributed only <0.3% of the dose.
DFT+U study of ultrathin α-Fe2O3 nanoribbons from (110) and (104) surfaces

We present a systematic study of the geometric, electronic, and magnetic properties of hematite nanoribbons (α-Fe2O3NRs) using density functional theory. The hematite nanoribbons were generated by cutting atomically thin hematite nanosheets from the (110) and (104) surfaces along their [100] and [010] directions. All nanoribbon types are energetically feasible to synthesize. Nanoribbons obtained from the (110) surface show definite tunable semiconducting character. One type of nanoribbons obtained from the (104) surface shows surface modifications or bending nature indicating pseudo-Jahn-Teller effect, while the other type showed built-in oxygen vacancy on one edge despite preserving the stoichiometry, wherein the built-in oxygen vacancy introduces a half-metallicity into the nanoribbons at larger widths. The results indicate that α-Fe2O3NRs with the appropriate width and type are promising future materials in solar energy conversions and spintronics-based devices.
Effects of Smoking on Body Mechanisms

(1971). Effects of Smoking on Body Mechanisms. School Health Review: Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 5-7.
Factors that affect adherence to surveillance colonoscopy in patients with inflammatory bowel disease.

BACKGROUND Patients with extensive ulcerative colitis or Crohn's disease of the colon have an increased risk of colon cancer and require colonoscopic surveillance. This study explores factors that affect adherence to surveillance colonoscopy. METHODS Three hundred and seventy-eight patients with ulcerative colitis or Crohn's disease of the colon for at least 7 years and at least one-third of the colon involved participated in this cross-sectional questionnaire study performed at 3 tertiary referral inflammatory bowel disease clinics. RESULTS Two hundred and eight patients were female and 189 had ulcerative colitis. The mean age was 49.9 years and mean disease duration 22.9 years. The total number of surveillance colonoscopies performed was 1529, and the mean number per patient was 4.01. The mean interval between surveillance colonoscopies was 2.71 years; 282 patients had a mean interval of 3-year intervals on average. Significant categories of reasons for nonadherence included logistics, health perceptions, stress, and procedure problems.
Effect of Increased Weight on Ankle Mechanics and Spatial Temporal Gait Mechanics in Healthy Controls

Background: Ankle osteoarthritis has been associated with trauma, instability, and inflammatory arthritis. Limited literature exists examining the effect of body weight on ankle joint loading. The ...
Development of a Test Battery and Rating Scale for Morse Intercept Operators

In an effort to reduce attrition during basic morse code training required for the Military Occupational Speciality 05H (Morse Code Intercept Operators), new measures are being sought to improve present selection methods used at the US Army Intelligence School, Ft. Devens. A test battery was used to evaluate whether certain psychological attributes (e.g. musical ability, short-term memory, attention, perceptual speed) are related to job performance. A likert-type rating scale, using 05H critical behaviors, was developed to assess on-the-job operator performance. Results revealed that (1) portions of the test battery were correlated with successful 05H performance as measured by the rating scale, and (2) some tests which did not predict performance discriminated between 05H operators and the general population. Identification of potentially predictive tests from this effort will provide the basis for the construction of a test battery to supplement current selection techniques.
SURVEY ON SANITARY CONDITIONS OF THE VENTILATION SYSTEM OF CENTRAL AIR CONDITIONING SYSTEM IN THE STAR HOTELS IN A DISTRICT OF HANGZHOU

Objective To understand the pollution of central air conditioning and ventilation systems in star hotels in a district of Hangzhou so as to provide the scientific basis for health management.Methods Field sampling and detection methods were used to do hygiene investigation of central air conditioning system in summer and autumn each year of three to five-star hotels in the district.Results The indoor air of the star-hotel rooms in the district was detected.The exceeded rate of average total number of bacteria was 5.6%;the exceeded rate of average carbon dioxide was 50.8%;the exceeded rate of total number of bacteria in the central air-conditioned air supply was 58.5%,the exceeded rate of total number of fungal was 27.7%.The average detection rates of legionella pneumophila in cooling water and condensate water of central air conditioning system were 42.2% and 26.7% respectively.Conclusion The pass rates of the important indicators of the sanitary quality of the air conditioning and ventilation systems of the star-hotel in the district are low.The detection rates of legionella pneumophila are high,so risks of infection spreading exist.
Food Nostalgia Writing in Contemporary Chinese Literature:A Case Study on Lu Wenfu

This article uses "Gourmet Writer"Lu Wenfu(1930-2005) as a case study to examine the evolution of "food nostalgia"in 20 th Century's Chinese literature.It scrutinizes the gendered,male-centered historical narrative that food nostalgia has helped to produce in the process of Chinese cultural modernization.
Promoting soil science in the urban environment—partnerships in New York City, NY, USA

To remain relevant in a changing world, soil survey and soil science need to look beyond the traditional to urban applications. Urban and suburban areas generally have the highest population densities and land values and arguably the greatest need for the ecosystem services that soil can provide. The urban environment poses a distinctive set of challenges for soil scientists. The description, classification, and mapping of soils in human-altered and human-transported materials is the charge of the field soil scientist, extending above and beyond the urban setting. Environmental professionals, planners, educators, and students in urban areas are often unfamiliar with soil survey and soil science in general. This paper discusses a successful approach to establishing a soil survey or soil science program in the urban community. For over 20 years, the United States Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service (USDA-NRCS) and the New York City Soil and Water Conservation District (NYCSWCD) have conducted a soil survey program in New York City, producing multiple soil surveys at different scales, culminating in a 1:12000 scale survey posted on the Web Soil Survey site in 2014. The multifaceted program has also included onsite investigations, research projects, and an education and outreach component including lectures, training sessions, and workshops, as well as volunteer and internship opportunities. New and innovative approaches in soil survey methods, product design and delivery, and outreach have been used, as appropriate, to best fit the needs of the urban environment. The NYC Soil Survey program has built a succession of partnerships with government agencies, colleges, universities, and community and commercial groups, resulting in a variety of products and services to meet local soil science needs. Over time, the program has successfully been able to raise awareness of soil science in the urban environment, establish a USDA-NRCS presence in the City, and provide useful soil information to an underserved segment of the population. Making the local connection, listening to local needs, offering a multifaceted and wide array of soil science-related services, exploring innovative approaches, and creating partnerships have shown to be successful components of establishing a soil survey program in the urban environment.
Serotype Distribution of Isolates of C. jejuni subsp. jejuni, C. jejuni subsp. doylei, C. coli, and C. upsaliensis from Paediatric Enteritis Patients

Gastroenterits associated with Campylobacter infection is a serious problem at the Red Cross Children’s Hospital. Since 1977 over 7,000 strains of Campylobacter and related organisms have been isolated from the diarrhoeic stools of our paediatric patients. Also, during this period, 221 isolates of Campylobacter or Helicobacter have been isolated from the blood cultures of our patients. The object of this study was to compare and contrast the serotypes of the various species of Campylobacter isolated from the stools and blood cultures isolates of our paediatric patients.
Electronic Gradiometer using High Tc SQUIDs under Unshielded Environment

We have investigated an electronic gradiometer using high Tc SQUIDs. In a shielded environment the maximum uniform field rejection factor of 110 was achieved. To demonstrate the performance of electronic gradiometer, the magnetic field signal from the quartz watch was detected under an unshielded environment. Clear noise reduction by 1/8 and the increase of signal to noise ratio were demonstrated. Next we investigated the critical static and ac magnetic fields at which SQUID noise increases to clarify the cause of noise increase and deterioration of the reduction factor under an unshielded environment. It is shown that earth’s ambient field is the largest factor for the increase of SQUID noise.
Long-Term Outcome of Mitochondrial Diseases

The clinical spectrum and long-term outcome of 73 children diagnosed with mitochondrial diseases between 1985 and 2005 were investigated at the Universities of Montreal and Toronto, Canada.
The Library Innovation Toolkit: Ideas, Strategies, and Programs: edited by Anthony Molaro and Leah L. White, Chicago, IL, ALA Editions, 2015, 194 pp., $57.00 (paperback), ISBN-13: 9780838912744.

Five years after the last Harry Potter movie, librarians still find his wizarding world to be a useful way to frame library services. In this book, in a chapter entitled “Innovation Wizardry,” two ...
Imaging Moving Objects Hidden in Arbitrarily Heavily Scattering Media

We show an image of a moving object (π-shaped mask) embedded in heavily scattering media using a coherent imaging approach. Spatial speckle intensity correlation measurements in relation to object position are used to reconstruct the π-shaped mask.
Comprehensive Three-Dimensional Gas Chromatography with Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry

Development of comprehensive, three-dimensional (3D) gas chromatography with time-of-flight mass spectrometric detection (GC3/TOFMS) is described. This instrument provides four dimensions (4D) of chemical selectivity and includes significant improvements to total selectivity (mass spectrometric and chromatographic), peak identification, and operational temperature range relative to previous models of the GC3 reported. The new instrumental design and data output are evaluated and illustrated via two samples, a 115-component test mixture and a diesel fuel spiked with several compounds, for the purpose of illustrating the chemical selectivity benefits of this instrumental platform. Useful approaches to visualize the 4D data are presented. The GC3/TOFMS instrument experimentally achieved total peak capacity, nc,3D, ranging from 5000 to 9600 (x = 7000, s = 1700) for 10 representative analytes for 50 min separations with component dimensional peak capacities averaging 406, 3.6, and 4.9 for 1D, 2D, and 3D, resp...
Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Energy Consumption of Ironmaking Processes

The emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG), mainly carbon dioxide, and energy consumption levels of a number of ironmaking processes including several new technologies that are currently under development worldwide are analyzed and compared. In terms of total emissions of greenhouse gas, energy consumption is important because the production of fuels and energy indirectly adds to the total amount of emissions. The relevant levels of emissions and energy requirements are compared with those of an average blast furnace, which is currently the dominant ironmaking process. The article will also discuss the needs for alternate ironmaking processes and present the descriptions of major alternate ironmaking processes, including important novel technologies under development. Finally, different methods for calculating process energy vs total energy requirement in ironmaking will be discussed.
Phase Response Curves to Measure Ion Channel Effects on Neurons

In this chapter, we explore how different common ionic currents change the shape of the PRC using several well-known conductance-based models. By also studying the simplest possible network – two pulse coupled neural oscillators – we can use the shape of the PRC to quantify the degree of synchrony in such a pair. We find a number of qualitative effects that include changing the sign of the PRC during certain phases and altering the skew of the PRC. Using bifurcation theory, we trace these effects back to the underlying dynamics that govern the onset of repetitive firing as the neuron is depolarized by a constant current. The key bifurcation involves the so-called Takens-Bogdanov bifurcation. We show that many of the shape changes of the PRC can be understood by examining the dynamics of the neuron near this bifurcation.
354 A comparative analysis of gut microbiota between systemic lupus erythematosus patients and non-autoimmune controls: a single centrecenter cohort experience

Background and aims Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is the prototypical systemic autoimmune disease, and is characterised by hyperactive immune cells and antibody production. Change in gut microbiota is associated with autoimmune diseases in animal and humans models.We hypothesised that similar changes would be seen in patients with lupus, and may be future therapeutic targets. Methods 21 patients with SLE and 12 controls with no autoimmune disease were enrolled. Stool samples obtained, homogenised and the cells lysed with 0.1 mm sterile zirconia beads and a bead-beater. The DNA was extracted; V4 region of 16S rRNA gene was amplified using PCR. The purified amplicons were sequenced bi-directionally. High-quality reads with Phred score of ≥20 were obtained by using Quantitative Insights into Microbial Ecology. Chimeric sequences were identified with USEARCH and removed from analysis. Taxonomy was assigned by using a naive Bayes classifier trained with the Greengenes taxonomy. Results In the SLE patients, Proteobacteria phylum was up regulated. The Lachnospiraceae family was not significantly different based on 16S rRNA sequencing. It was however significantly up regulated on quantitative PCR analysis. The genera of Blautia, Dorea and, Ruminococcus in the Lachnospiraceae family were also significantly up regulated in the lupus. The bacterial family of Erysipelotrichaceae was also significantly up regulated. Rikenellaceae, Odoribacteraceae, Christensenellaceae and Peptococcaceae families were all significantly down regulated in Lupus. Conclusions There were significant changes in gut microbiota between SLE and the control patients. The findings are similar to those reported in animal and human models with lupus and other autoimmune diseases.
Performance and efficiency of a biogas CHP system utilizing a stirling engine

A Stirling engine utilizes external combustion to produce heat and electricity. Due to the external combustion chamber, the engine can utilize a multitude of fuels including biogas or natural gas. The system used in this study is capable of producing about 7 kW of heat and 1 kW of electricity. Nitrogen is used as the “working fluid” in the engine. The heat from the combustion chamber is circulated through a cooling system making use of the thermal energy. The system includes a battery bank for energy storage and has been equipped with various instruments used to measure temperatures, pressures and flow rates of the fuel, the combustion air and the coolant. The engine is operated using natural gas as well as biogas and the engine characteristics for each are compared. The data collected is used to determine the system performance, thermal and electrical power outputs, individual and overall efficiencies, as well as exhaust emissions (O2, CO, CO2, NOx and HC). This paper will present a detailed description of the CHP system, the instrumentation, the test procedures, the test data, analysis of the results and comparison of the biogas and natural gas test results.
Abstract 539: Lipogenesis Regulates the Response of Cardiac Muscle to Ischemic Stress Through Sarcoplasmic Reticulum Calcium Atpase

Dysfunctional calcium homeostasis is a hallmark of heart failure, a sequela of myocardial infarction (MI). Previous research has shown that mice deficient in cardiac fatty acid synthase (FAS), the rate-limiting enzyme for de novo lipogenesis, have dysfunctional calcium signaling and a predisposition to heart failure. Yet the mechanisms linking endogenous lipid synthesis, myocardial calcium homeostasis, and cardiac function remain poorly understood. A major step in calcium handling is the transport of cytosolic calcium back into the sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) by sarcoplasmic reticulum calcium ATPase (SERCA), and recent evidence suggests that SR lipid composition can affect SERCA function. To determine whether FAS plays a role in SERCA activity in the heart, we evaluated FASKard (FAS Knockout in the Myocardium) mice in the setting of experimental myocardial infarction (MI). Deletion of heart FAS caused a decrease in SERCA activity in younger adult (4 months) and aged (12 months) mice when compared to control (Ctrl) mice of the same age. Lipidomic analysis of the SR showed the reduced SERCA activity in FASKard mice was due to an altered SR phospholipid composition, leading to an imbalance of SR phosphatidylcholine to phosphatidylethanolamine phospholipid ratios. This altered ratio of SR phospholipids was due to a decrease in the abundance of specific phosphatidylethanolamine phospholipid species. MI caused a decrease in SERCA activity in both Ctrl and FASKard mice hearts. FASKard mice after MI had impaired survival with concomitantly decreased SERCA activity compared to Ctrl mice after MI. FASKard MI mice also had a perturbed ratio of SR phosphatidylcholine to phosphatidylethanolamine phospholipids compared to Ctrl MI mice, due to a decrease in certain phosphatidylethanolamine phospholipids. Additionally, MI induced FAS expression in the myocardium. These findings suggest that myocardial de novo lipogenesis is critical to the maintenance of the SR phospholipid composition, SR-mediated calcium homeostasis, and blunting the development of heart failure, particularly ischemic cardiomyopathy. Furthermore, FAS regulation of the SR lipid composition represents a novel therapeutic strategy in the treatment of heart failure.
Engaging a Digital Health Behavior Audience: A Case Study

The majority of public health challenges, including infectious diseases like HIV as well as drug addiction, can be prevented through behavioral modification. New technologies may help to address these challenges and improve behavior change interventions. Much of the research in this area has been corporate-sponsored (i.e., external to the field of public health). For example, advertisers have shown tremendous progress in persuading consumers to act upon triggers embedded within technology platforms, specifically smartphone apps and websites. Consumer market research firms have studied and advocated for a variety of tactics to help their clients convert ad viewers into product buyers. When consumer behavior fails to meet market research expectations, advertisers are quick to adapt their own approaches and messages. Indeed, corporations have been armed with significant investment capital and profits to fuel this body of research for the past 50 years. Public health researchers and organizations, on the other hand, have fewer resources and therefore need to focus on research and behavior change “best practices” that are highly cost-effective and scalable. In this chapter, we explore two potential methods of using social media sites to engage people and seek to use data from an academic Twitter handle to study whether they can be successfully applied to engage an audience in public health research. The two methods used are: (1) combining Twitter text with pictures to garner more engagement, and (2) inclusion of hashtags with text that is relevant and timely.
The Identification and Significance of Substructural Domains

Several quite independent lines of evidence provide increasingly forceful arguments for the importance of substructural domains in the biological function of proteins. Models based on these arguments describe independently folded domains with unique binding capacities. Interactions between these domains offer opportunities for synergism and regulation.
Skin Effects in System on a Chip Interconnects

Skin effect makes interconnect resistance and inductance frequency dependent. This paper addresses the problem of efficiently estimating the signal haracteristic of any RLC network when skin effect is significant, which complicates interconnect simulation. In this paper, a new type of moments is defined that simplifies the interconnect simulation, namely, the square root ents. The time to calculate the square root moments is similar to the time to calculate the traditional moments, and the new moments preserve the recursive roperties of the traditional moments. Hence, the method introduced here can handle the more complex problem of interconnect simulation with skin effect at almost no overhead compared to constant element interconnect simulation. Using the square root moments, higher order approximations can be reached as compared to traditional moments. This method is applied to a sample circuit with high accuracy
Archaeologies of empire and environment

Abstract This paper promotes an explicit study of archaeologies of empire and environment, and advances theories and methods in environmental archaeology that demonstrate that environmental practices articulate people's relationships to imperial authority. While many studies of empire take for granted that centralized organization and surplus production lead to political control and social inequity, in the papers assembled for this special issue, the very relationship between human-environment interactions and political power becomes the object of study. In this introduction, we review established archaeological approaches to empire, explain how environmental frameworks productively recast our understandings of imperialism, and proffer a number of avenues for continued research on the subject, including those provided by the articles in this issue. We present three overarching themes for the study of empire and environment—scale, legacy, and resilience and resistance—and discuss their implementation with the papers that follow. Ultimately, we argue that imperialism entails the management of heterogeneous peoples and environments, and therefore, archaeologies of empire require the integrated study of humans, landscapes, and biota.
Implicit biases in monolingual and bilingual speech perception

Accented speech shows a great deal of variation from the “native” norms that can lead to processing difficulty. Previous research on listeners’ performance on accented speech shows that the more varieties of accented speech the listeners are exposed to, the better their processing is (Baese-Berk, Bradlow, & Wright, 2013). Since many bilingualism studies suggest that bilinguals have advantages in allocating different resources such as attention during language processing (Costa, Hernandez, & Sebastian-Galles, 2008), there is a necessity to investigate bilingual listeners' processing of accented speech. In this pilot experiment, we will measure intelligibility and perceived degrees of accentedness of Tamil and British English presented in noise among American English monolinguals, and American English and Spanish Bilinguals. We will also perform different cognitive tests as well as an Implicit Association Test to see if prior implicit biases towards South Asian individuals affect the listeners’ intelligibility and accentedness rating scores. We hypothesize that bilinguals will be more accurate in the intelligibility task compared to monolinguals due to their exposure to more than one language. However, it remains to be seen whether this advantage will be equally realized in both varieties of English accented speech. Accented speech shows a great deal of variation from the “native” norms that can lead to processing difficulty. Previous research on listeners’ performance on accented speech shows that the more varieties of accented speech the listeners are exposed to, the better their processing is (Baese-Berk, Bradlow, & Wright, 2013). Since many bilingualism studies suggest that bilinguals have advantages in allocating different resources such as attention during language processing (Costa, Hernandez, & Sebastian-Galles, 2008), there is a necessity to investigate bilingual listeners' processing of accented speech. In this pilot experiment, we will measure intelligibility and perceived degrees of accentedness of Tamil and British English presented in noise among American English monolinguals, and American English and Spanish Bilinguals. We will also perform different cognitive tests as well as an Implicit Association Test to see if prior implicit biases towards South Asian individuals affect the listeners’ intelligibil...
Proteostasis in Viral Infection: Unfolding the Complex Virus–Chaperone Interplay

Viruses are obligate intracellular parasites that rely on their hosts for protein synthesis, genome replication, and viral particle production. As such, they have evolved mechanisms to divert host resources, including molecular chaperones, facilitate folding and assembly of viral proteins, stabilize complex structures under constant mutational pressure, and modulate signaling pathways to dampen antiviral responses and prevent premature host death. Biogenesis of viral proteins often presents unique challenges to the proteostasis network, as it requires the rapid and orchestrated production of high levels of a limited number of multifunctional, multidomain, and aggregation-prone proteins. To overcome such challenges, viruses interact with the folding machinery not only as clients but also as regulators of chaperone expression, function, and subcellular localization. In this review, we summarize the main types of interactions between viral proteins and chaperones during infection, examine evolutionary aspects of this relationship, and discuss the potential of using chaperone inhibitors as broad-spectrum antivirals.
MU-MIMO and CSI Feedback Performance of NR/LTE

The Re1–15 physical layer air-interface specifications for NR (5G) and LTE (4G) has been released by 3GPP in September 2018. This paper aims to study two principal gain mechanisms introduced in NR (compared to LTE) targeting spectral efficiency improvements -(i) high order MU-MIMO with up to 12 layer spatially multiplexed transmission and (ii) higher resolution of CSI feedback with Type II feedback mechanism. In order to perform a fair comparison between LTE and NR, we maintain the same overhead, sub-carrier spacing and antenna configurations among other parameters. Although it is known that NR can provide benefits over LTE in terms of deployment flexibility, spectral efficiency and latency using mechanisms like multiple numerology support, lower control channel and reference signal overhead or lower guard bands we believe that the gain mechanisms (i) and (ii) are fundamental and a quantification of this aspect is attractive to operators and vendors who may consider NR or LTE deployments in sub-6 GHz bands.
Evidence that the nadA motif is a bacterial riboswitch for the ubiquitous enzyme cofactor NAD .

The nadA motif is a riboswitch candidate present in various Acidobacteria species that was previously identified by bioinformatic analysis of bacterial DNA data sets. More than 100 unique representatives have been identified exclusively upstream of nadA genes, which code for an enzyme in the biosynthetic pathway of the ubiquitous coenzyme NAD+ The architecture of nadA motif RNAs suggests they use structurally similar tandem ligand-binding aptamer domains to control translation initiation. Biochemical analyses reveal that the first domain selectively binds ligands carrying an adenosine 5'-diphosphate (5' ADP) moiety, including NAD+ and its reduced form, NADH. Genetic analyses indicate that a tandem nadA motif RNA suppresses gene expression when NAD+ is abundant, and that both aptamer domains are required for maximal gene regulation. However, we have not observed selective binding of the nicotinamide moiety of NAD+ or binding by the second putative aptamer in vitro, despite sequence and structural similarities between the tandem domains.
A 0.5-to-3.5 GHz Self-Interference-Canceling Receiver for In-Band Full-Duplex Wireless

This paper proposes an in-band full-duplex self-interference canceling receiver that achieves transmitter leakage cancellation by scaling the in-phase and quadrature components of TX replica, and injecting the approximated leakage to the RX interface. More than 35 dB cancellation is measured for modulated TX samples. The receiver structure is 8-phase passive-mixer-first with high linearity and on-chip sharp rejection of out-of-band blockers. The receiver has an IB-IIP3 of 6 dBm at 1 MHz offset from 2 GHz carrier, and OB-IIP3 of 27 dBm. The NF at 5 MHz baseband frequency is 3.3 dB at TDD mode. At FD mode, i.e., RX and TX are operating simultaneously at the same frequency band, only 2-2.5 dB noise degradation is observed. The NF reaches 5.3 dB in FD mode. As a proof of concept prototype is fabricated and measured in 65 nm CMOS. The system is functional from 500 MHz to 3.5 GHz.
Ethics and Talent in Banking

This paper develops a theory of optimal ethical standards, capital requirements and talent allocation in banking wherein two types of banks, one being protected by regulatory safety nets ("depositories") and the other not so protected ("shadow banks"), innovate financial products and compete for managerial talent. Ethical violations are "mis-selling" products to customers who would not benefit from them, and they entail financial losses and regulatory penalties for the miscreant bank. Bank capital is shown to be more efficient than a penalty for implementing ethical standards. For any capital level, banks choose higher ethical standards and experience fewer ethical violations when bank managers are more talented. However, banks adopting higher ethical standards experience managerial talent migration to banks with lower standards. In equilibrium, endogenously-determined regulatory capital and ethical standards are higher in depositories than in shadow banks, and this difference is bigger with talent competition than without. Consequently, depositories hire less talented managers and innovate less, implying that prudential bank regulation has unavoidable labor market consequences in financial services.
Romosozumab for the treatment of postmenopausal osteoporosis

Abstract Romosozumab was approved in April 2019 for the treatment of postmenopausal women with osteoporosis at high risk for fracture. It is a monoclonal antibody, which binds and inhibits the osteocyte protein, sclerostin, producing the dual effect of stimulating bone formation and inhibiting bone resorption. Clinical data indicate that romosozumab has its unique dual effect in the first year and, thereafter, antiresorptive effects dominate. With just 1 year of treatment at 210 mg subcutaneously each month, romosozumab produces unprecedented gains in bone density of the spine and hip, averaging about 13% in the spine and 7% in the total hip. The Phase 3 program included two fracture trials in postmenopausal women. The FRAME trial enrolled 7180 women randomized to receive blinded romosozumab versus placebo for 1 year followed by open-label denosumab in all subjects. Vertebral fractures were reduced by 73%, and all clinical fractures (predominantly nonvertebral fractures) were reduced by 36% in the first year. The ARCH trial enrolled 4093 women randomized to receive blinded romosozumab versus alendronate for 1 year followed by open-label alendronate in all subjects. Romosozumab followed by alendronate reduced vertebral fractures by 50% at the 24-month primary end point and clinical fractures by 27% at the 33-month primary end point compared to alendronate alone throughout. In addition, nonvertebral fractures and hip fractures were reduced significantly by the sequence of romosozumab/alendronate compared with only alendronate. In fact, fracture risk reductions were already apparent at 12 months; new vertebral fracture incidence was reduced by 37%, clinical fractures reduced by 28%, and nonvertebral fractures reduced by 26% with romosozumab compared with alendronate. One additional Phase 3 trial (STRUCTURE), in women currently on alendronate treatment, randomized patients to romosozumab compared to teriparatide. Over 1 year, effects on bone density of the hip and hip strength were superior with romosozumab. Romosozumab was well tolerated but, in the ARCH study, there was an imbalance in cardiovascular events (2.5% vs 1.9%). Therefore patients at high risk of heart attack and stroke, such as those who have had a recent event, should not take romosozumab.
Longitudinal outcomes of body mass index in overweight and obese children with chronic kidney disease

Longitudinal changes in body mass index (BMI) among overweight and obese children with chronic kidney disease (CKD) are not well characterized. We studied longitudinal trajectories and correlates of these trajectories, as results may identify opportunities to optimize health outcomes. Longitudinal changes in age-sex-specific BMI z-scores over 1851 person-years of follow-up were assessed in 524 participants of the Chronic Kidney Disease in Children Study. A total of 353 participants were categorized as normal (BMI > 5th to < 85th percentile), 56 overweight (BMI ≥ 85th to 95th percentile) and 115 obese (BMI ≥ 95th percentile) based on the average of three BMI measurements during the first year of follow-up. Studied covariates included age, sex, race, CKD etiology, corticosteroid usage, household income, and maternal education. In unadjusted analysis, BMI z-scores decreased over time in elevated BMI groups (overweight: mean = − 0.06 standard deviations (SD) per year, 95% CI: − 0.11, − 0.01; obese: mean = − 0.04 SD per year, 95% CI: − 0.07, − 0.01). Among obese children, only age was associated with change in BMI z-score; children < 6 years had a mean decrease of 0.19 SD during follow-up (95% CI: − 0.30, − 0.09). Socioeconomic factors were not associated with change in BMI. Overweight and obese children with CKD demonstrated a significant annual decline in BMI, though the absolute change was modest. Among obese children, only age < 6 years was associated with significant decline in BMI. Persistence of elevated BMI in older children and adolescents with CKD underscores the need for early prevention and effective intervention.
A Mathematical Approach to Non-Physical Defects

While the defects studied in Chaps. 11 and 12 were physical objects that actually break the translational invariance of the host, the treatment in this chapter is of formal defects in perfectly symmetrical systems in which there are no physical defects. The defects analyzed arose from mathematical terms in the governing equations. The method was applied to the problem of calculating the scattering function in a quantum mechanical system described by the so-called stochastic Liouville equation obeyed by the density matrix. Next, the problem for which the defect technique application was originally extended in this fashion for non-physical defects, the mutual annihilation of Frenkel excitons moving on a lattice, was explained. Annihilation rates and constants computed from the theory were displayed for various dimensions and it was indicated how coherence effects in the motion are incorporated. Finally, for our third example of non-physical defects, related methods were applied on the basis of a Smoluchowski equation to the study of the transmission of infection in the spread of epidemics such as the Hantavirus and the time-dependence of the infection curve was obtained.
Modulation-slippage trade-off in resonant four-wave upconversion

Following up on a proposal to use four-wave mixing in an underdense plasma at mildly relativistic laser intensities to produce vastly more energetic x-ray pulses [Malkin and Fisch, Phys. Rev. E 101, 023211 (2020)], we perform the first numerical simulations in one dimension to illustrate amplification of a short high frequency seed through four-wave mixing. We illustrate how parasitic processes including phase modulation and spatial pulse slippage limit the amplification efficiency. Although the regimes studied were not where the optimal efficiencies were expected, these regimes do expose the basic physical processes at play, while still yielding not insignificant spectral power upshift.
3D imaging for the quantification of spatial patterns in microbiota of the intestinal mucosa

Improving our understanding of host-microbe relationships in the gut requires the ability to both visualize and quantify the spatial organization of microbial communities in their native orientation with the host tissue. We developed a systematic procedure to quantify the 3D spatial structure of the native mucosal microbiota in any part of the intestines with taxonomic and high spatial resolution. We performed a 3D biogeographical analysis of the microbiota of mouse cecal crypts at different stages of antibiotic exposure. By tracking eubacteria and four dominant bacterial taxa, we found that the colonization of crypts by native bacteria is a dynamic and spatially organized process. Ciprofloxacin treatment drastically reduced bacterial loads and eliminated Muribaculaceae (or all Bacteroidetes entirely) even 10 days after recovery when overall bacterial loads returned to pre-antibiotic levels. Our 3D quantitative imaging approach revealed that the bacterial colonization of crypts is organized in a spatial pattern that consists of clusters of adjacent colonized crypts that are surrounded by unoccupied crypts, and that this spatial pattern was resistant to the elimination of Muribaculaceae or of all Bacteroidetes by ciprofloxacin. Our approach also revealed that the composition of cecal crypt communities is diverse and that bacterial taxa are distributed differently within crypts, with Lactobacilli laying closer to the lumen than Bacteroidetes, Ruminococcaceae, and Lachnospiraceae. Finally, we found that crypts communities with similar taxonomic composition were physically closer to each other than communities that were taxonomically different. Significance StatementMany human diseases are causally linked to the gut microbiota, yet the field still lacks mechanistic understanding of the underlying complex interactions because existing tools cannot simultaneously quantify microbial communities and their intact native context. In this work, we provide a new approach to tissue clearing and preservation that enables visualization, in 3D and at scales ranging from centimeters to micrometers, of the complete biogeography of the host-microbiota interface. We combine this new tool with sequencing and multiplexed labelling of the microbiota to provide the field with a platform on which to discover patterns in the spatial distribution of microbes. We validated this platform by quantifying the distribution of bacteria in the cecal mucosa at different stages of antibiotic exposure. This approach will enable researchers to formulate and test new hypotheses about host-microbe and microbe-microbe interactions.
Microbicidal Activity of Hypothiocyanite against Pneumococcus.

Infections caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumococcus, Spn) manifest in several forms such as pneumonia, meningitis, sinusitis or otitis media and are associated with severe morbidity and mortality worldwide. While current vaccines and antibiotics are available to treat Spn infections, the rise of antibiotic resistance and limitations of the vaccines to only certain Spn serotypes urge the development of novel treatments against Spn. Hypothiocyanite (OSCN-) is a natural antimicrobial product produced by the body’s own innate immune system to fight a variety of pathogens. We recently showed that OSCN- is also capable of killing Spn in vitro. OSCN- is an oxidative agent attacking microbes in a nonspecific manner, is safe for the host and also has anti-inflammatory effects that make it an ideal candidate to treat a variety of infections in humans. However, OSCN- has a short life span that makes its use, dosage and administration more problematic. This minireview discusses the antimicrobial mechanism of action of OSCN- against Spn and elaborates on the potential therapeutic use of OSCN- against Spn and other infectious agents, either alone or in combination with other therapeutic approaches.
Smart leadership blends hard and soft skills

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present the concept of smart leadership and outline how to excel as a leader.Design/methodology/approach – The paper highlights some of the challenges encountered by global leaders, to enable others to profit from their experience.Findings – Emphasizes the importance of articulating one's vision, managing uncertainty, staying calm in a crisis, taking feedback, using time effectively and developing successors, among other things.Practical implications – Stresses the importance of learning continuously and of blending soft and hard skills, to achieve leadership excellence.Social implications – Provides examples of a wide range of successful leaders, carrying out functions ranging from war leadership to nursing.Originality/value – The paper describes how to become an effective leader and outlines some of the pitfalls and blind‐alleys in the quest for success.
Characteristics of a barrier discharge in monatomic gases

Summary form only given. Experiments in a simple parallel-plate dielectric-barrier discharge show that the structure of monatomic gases is very differently from molecular gases. Time-resolved images show diffused discharge for monatomic gases and filamentary discharge for molecular gases. In addition, current waveforms also show a marked difference. Two-dimensional streamer calculation show that in a monatomic gas the discharge is diffused compared to molecular gases. The high ionization coefficient at low reduced field, the high diffusion constant and the high secondary ionization coefficient of monatomic gases can account for these differences. Also an empirical relationship for power and voltage is derived which shows good agreement with experimental results for both monatomic and molecular gases.
Academic Mergers in Social Work Programs: Autonomy or Disharmony?

Abstract Because of shrinking budgets, college and university administrators are merging many academic units, including social work programs. By analyzing data from a 1991 survey of deans and directors of social work programs, this article compares the percentages of recently merged, long-term merged (longer than 5 years), and free-standing (independent) programs that experienced increases, decreases, and stability in variables such as salaries, financial resources, promotion and tenure, staff morale, enrollment, curriculum, class size, and access to central administration. Changes at recently merged programs are emphasized. The article also summarizes respondents' views of mergers, and recommends strategies that enable programs facing a merger to preserve their autonomy.