cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Large scale ecosystem modeling using parameters derived from imaging spectrometer data

The capability to predict the response of ecosystems to change relies on our ability to understand and model the effective functioning of biotic processes at large scales and the transport functions of the atmospheric/hydrospheric processes. To successfully evaluate changes in ecological processes at the required spatial and temporal scales remote sensing technology and ecosystem theory must be considered jointly. A review of developments in remote sensing analysis using high spectral resolution sensors has led to the selection of a potential set ofparameters to be used in ecosystem models. These parameters quantify the light interception properties that scale from leaf to landscape. Spectral mixture analysis forms a framework for the systematic separation of both vegetative and non-vegetative components at sub-pixel spatial resolution. The spectral concentrations of the vegetative components defined by the spectral mixture analysis are then used to drive canopy radiative transfer models from which the ecosystem parameters are inferred. 1.© (1990) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Can Low-Risk, Early-Stage Patients with Hodgkin Lymphoma Be Spared Radiotherapy?

Advances in the treatment of Hodgkin lymphoma since about 1970 have led to a remarkable improvement in the long-term outcomes of what was once considered an incurable disease. The prolonged survival of cured patients has revealed new issues concerning the toxicity of successful therapy, however, including an increased risk of secondary malignancies and end-organ damage such as heart disease. This concern has led to the clinical research question of whether the de-escalation of treatment intensity could allow high cure rates to continue with less long-term toxicity. In young patients with favorable early-stage disease, the challenge has been to use systemic therapy while omitting radiation therapy as part of the initial treatment. This review briefly summarizes past data and updates readers regarding recent publications on this topic.
Interaction of the absorbable hemostatic agent (IP760) with aminoglycosidic antibiotics.

The linear, crosslinked amylose-succinate hemostatic agent, IP760, has been evaluated for its interaction with aminoglycosidic antibiotics. The highly structured polymer appears to act as a cationic exchange resin which binds the basic aminoglycosides. Binding of these agents to IP760 is reversed by increased pH and/or increased ionic strength. Dialysis experiments demonstrated that 85 and 90% of the bound gentamicin was released at pH 7.5 and 8.0, respectively, over a period of 36 hr. Formation of the IP760-antibiotic complexes suggests potential medicinal use for hemostasis and slow release of the antibiotic for prophylaxis of postsurgical contamination or infection.
Basis of lethality in C. elegans lacking CUP-5, the Mucolipidosis Type IV orthologue.

Abstract Mutations in MCOLN1 , which encodes the protein h-mucolipin-1, result in the lysosomal storage disease Mucolipidosis Type IV. Studies on CUP-5, the human orthologue of h-mucolipin-1 in Caenorhabditis elegans , have shown that these proteins are required for lysosome biogenesis. We show here that the lethality in cup-5 mutant worms is due to two defects, starvation of embryonic cells and general developmental defects. Starvation leads to apoptosis through a CED-3-mediated pathway. We also show that providing worms with a lipid-soluble metabolite partially rescues the embryonic lethality but has no effect on the developmental defects, the major cause of the lethality. These results indicate that supplementing the metabolic deficiency of Mucolipidosis Type IV patients may not be sufficient to alleviate the symptoms due to tissue degeneration.
The kinetic stabilizer: Issues and opportunities

Five decades of fusion research have resulted in a solid base of understanding of the physics of plasma confinement by magnetic fields, including documentation of the role of the topology of the magnetic fields, i.e., “open” or “closed” field lines, in determining the confinement. Without known exception, closed systems, such as tokamaks, stellarators, or reversed-field pinches, have confinement times that are dominated by turbulence. As a result, to produce net fusion power, closed systems must be so large in size as to raise questions as to their practicality. By contrast, there are examples of open (mirror-based) systems where turbulence, if present at all, was at such low levels as to have a negligible influence on the confinement. Specifically, members of a subset of open systems, those with axisymmetric fields, have demonstrated cross-field transport rates that agree with classical predictions, opening up the possibility of fusion power systems that would be much smaller than their closed-field counterparts. Standing in the way of implementing axisymmetric mirror-based fusion systems is the MHD-unstable nature of their equilibria. The kinetic stabilizer represents a proposed way to overcome this difficulty, one based on theory that has been confirmed in the gas dynamic trap (GDT) axisymmetric mirror experiment in Novosibirsk, Russia. MHD-stabilization in the GDT arises from the presence of a sufficient density of effluent plasma on the outwardly expanding field lines outside the mirrors. However, in those mirror-based fusion systems, such as tandem-mirrors, that would operate at lower plasma collisionalities than the GDT, the effluent plasma density would be too low for this stabilization method to be effective. The kinetic stabilizer overcomes this difficulty by using ion beams injected from ion sources located far out on the expanding field lines beyond the outer mirror. These ion beams, aimed at small angles to the field lines, are compressed, stagnated, and reflected by the inwardly converging field, forming a localized plasma that accomplishes the stabilization. In previous papers, theory was developed and examples were given of mirror and tandem-mirror systems using kinetic stabilizers to achieve fusion-relevant plasma regimes. In this paper, some of the special issues that must be faced in pursuing the kinetic-stabilizer approach to fusion power will be discussed, together with some perceived opportunities for optimizing such systems.
Application of l-differencing schemes to hypersonic inviscid flows

Abstract The application of λ-differencing algorithms to three dimensional inviscid hypersonic flows is illustrated for both time-dependent and steady problems. Specific examples are provided to demonstrate the advantages of the λ-differencing approach relative to non-characteristic based differencing schemes for realistic problems. Using body-oriented computational coordinate systems based on conformal mapping grid generation techniques, the λ-differencing algorithm is shown to produce improved results for bodies with curvature discontinuities or regions of high curvature.
The preparation and crystal structures of a covalent tetrafluoroborato complex, (CO)3(dppfe)MnFBF3, and of a related ionic complex, [(CO)4(dppfe)Mn]BF4 [(dppfe) = bis-(1,1′-diphenylphosphino)ferrocene]

The titled covalent tetrafluoroborato dppfe complex was prepared by treating the precursor hydride, (CO)3(dppfe)MnH, with tetrafluoroboric acid. Similar treatment of analogous hydrido complexes with other chelating phosphines always gave ionic tetrafluoroborates, presumably via similar intermediate FBF3 covalent complexes, which however could not be isolated. Crystal structures for the covalent complex (CO)3(dppfe)MnFBF3.3/2CH2Cl2, 3, and the ionic complex [(CO)4(dppfe)Mn]BF4.CH2Cl2, 4, were determined. Crystal data for 3, monoclinic crystal system, space group = P21/n, a = 11.458(2) A, b = 19.348(3) A, c = 17.810(3) A, β = 104.410(4)∘, V = 3823.9(12) A3, Z = 4; for 4, monoclinic crystal system, space group = P21/n, a = 15.6521(2) A, b = 14.3107(4) A, c = 17.0933(5) A, β = 95.075(1)∘, V = 3813.8(2) A3, Z = 4.
A novel radioimmunoassay for human erythropoietin using a synthetic NH2-terminal polypeptide and anti-peptide antibodies

Antibodies prepared by immunizing rabbits with a synthetic polypeptide representing the first 26 amino acids of the proposed NH2-terminal sequence of human erythropoietin cross-react with peptide, highly purified 125I-labeled erythropoietin and biologically active erythropoietin. We have now developed a rapid and convenient radioimmunoassay for the hormone using 125I-labeled peptide and anti-peptide antibodies. This peptide/anti-peptide approach completely circumvents the relative lack of availability of highly purified 125I-labeled erythropoietin and of erythropoietin for immunization purposes and makes a radioimmunoassay for the hormone universally available to investigators. This concept may be applied as a general method for designing radioimmunoassays of molecules available in severely restricted quantities.
Trimethylsilylated Allyl Complexes of Nickel. The Stabilized Bis(π-allyl)nickel Complex [η3-1,3-(SiMe3)2C3H3]2Ni and Its Mono(π-allyl)NiX (X = Br, I) Derivatives

Reaction of 2 equiv of K[1,3-(SiMe3)2C3H3] with NiBr2(dme) in THF at −78 °C produces the orange π-allyl complex [1,3-(SiMe3)2C3H3]2Ni (1). Unlike the pyrophoric (C3H5)2Ni, the trimethylsilylated derivative only slowly decomposes in air (from hours to days). Both eclipsed (1a) and staggered (1b) conformations are found in solution; the eclipsed form irreversibly converts to the thermodynamically more stable staggered conformation when heated above 85 °C. Single-crystal X-ray structures obtained for both 1a and 1b confirm that the allyl ligands are bound in a trihapto manner to the metals and that trimethylsilyl substituents are in syn, anti arrangements. Density functional theory calculations performed on the bis(allyl)nickel complexes indicate that the substituents exert little effect on the basic metal−ligand geometries. Trimethylphosphine is converted to tetramethyltetraphosphane, (MeP)4, on reaction with 1. In toluene, 3-bromo-1,3-bis(trimethylsilyl)propene reacts with (COD)2Ni to produce the dimeric p...
Accelerating corporate research in the development, application and deployment of human language technologies

IBM Research has over 200 people working on Unstructured Information Management (UIM) technologies with a strong focus on HLT. Spread out over the globe they are engaged in activities ranging from natural language dialog to machine translation to bioinformatics to open-domain question answering. An analysis of these activities strongly suggested that improving the organization's ability to quickly discover each other's results and rapidly combine different technologies and approaches would accelerate scientific advance. Furthermore, the ability to reuse and combine results through a common architecture and a robust software framework would accelerate the transfer of research results in HLT into IBM's product platforms. Market analyses indicating a growing need to process unstructured information, specifically multi-lingual, natural language text, coupled with IBM Research's investment in HLT, led to the development of middleware architecture for processing unstructured information dubbed UIMA. At the heart of UIMA are powerful search capabilities and a data-driven framework for the development, composition and distributed deployment of analysis engines. In this paper we give a general introduction to UIMA focusing on the design points of its analysis engine architecture and we discuss how UIMA is helping to accelerate research and technology transfer.
Kaon energies in dense matter.

We discuss the role of kaon-nucleon and nucleon-nucleon correlations in kaon condensation in dense matter. Correlations raise the threshold density for kaon condensation, possibly to densities higher than those encountered in stable neutron stars.
A double-filter design of deblocking filter for H.264/AVC macroblock adaptive frame field coding

In this paper, a double-filter design of deblocking filter is proposed to support the macroblock adaptive frame field (MBAFF) coding of H.264/AVC main and high profiles. Without using SRAM for local memory, the proposed design adopts register arrays with a novel data exchange mechanism to efficiently reuse the intermediate data while filtering picture coded in MBAFF format. Cooperated with the proposed parallel filtering orders for double-filter design, the proposed filter takes 147 cycles per macroblock in average. When operated at 250 MHz, synthesized under 0.13µm CMOS technology at the cost of 55.2K gates with 0 byte SRAM, the proposed design achieves the throughput of 1,700,680 MB/sec. Thus, it meets the requirement of 1920×1080 at 120 fps for multiview video applications.
Optical proximity correction with principal component regression

An important step in today's Integrated Circuit (IC) manufacturing is optical proximity correction (OPC). In model based OPC, masks are systematically modified to compensate for the non-ideal optical and process effects of optical lithography system. The polygons in the layout are fragmented, and simulations are performed to determine the image intensity pattern on the wafer. Then the mask is perturbed by moving the fragments to match the desired wafer pattern. This iterative process continues until the pattern on the wafer matches the desired one. Although OPC increases the fidelity of pattern transfer to the wafer, it is quite CPU intensive; OPC for modern IC designs can take days to complete on computer clusters with thousands of CPU. In this paper, techniques from statistical machine learning are used to predict the fragment movements. The goal is to reduce the number of iterations required in model based OPC by using a fast and efficient solution as the initial guess to model based OPC. To determine the best model, we train and evaluate several principal component regression models based on prediction error. Experimental results show that fragment movement predictions via regression model significantly decrease the number of iterations required in model based OPC.
Intergenerational Conflict Reconsidered: County Demographic Structure and the Demand for Public Education.

Abstract The observation that the elderly may be less willing to support K-12 education than other voters raises the specter of decreasing support for schools as the US population ages. In this article, we examine that support using a national panel of counties over time. Building on earlier models estimated for state level data, we conclude that the direct differential effect within each county of the presence of elderly households is not distinguishable from zero but that the elderly have the potential to affect spending on education indirectly through where they live. To the extent that the elderly live in counties with low proportions of children, the tax price of education in other counties is higher which could in turn reduce financial support for education in those counties. Thus one cannot predict the impact of an increasing share of the elderly on education spending without paying attention to how the elderly are likely to be distributed among counties relative to children.
EEG sleep in African‐American patients with major depression: A historical case control study

This study was designed to evaluate the effect of race, specifically African-American, on electroencephalographic (EEG) sleep and clinical symptom profile in unipolar major depression. A clinical research database was used to identify appropriate subjects and a double-matched historical case-control design was implemented. African-American depression patients were double matched within protocol to Euro-American depressed patients. Age, sex, and protocol of origin were matching variables. African-American depressed patients had less total sleep, less slow wave sleep, more stage 2 sleep, longer rapid eye movement (REM) sleep latency, less REM sleep, and lower REM density than Euro-American depressed patients. African-American depressed patients did not differ from Euro-American patients in symptom severity, age of onset, number of episodes, socio-economic status, and, as planned, did not differ in age and sex distribution. Depressive symptom constellation also did not distinguish the two groups. African-American depressed patients demonstrated differences in EEG sleep profile, with less total sleep, overall lighter nonREM sleep, and relatively preserved REM sleep, despite a clinical symptom profile that did not differ from Euro-American depressed patients. The sleep profile appeared to be consonant with the sleep findings in chronic insomnia. The pathological implications of these differences remained to be explored in careful prospective studies of African-American depressed patients and in well-characterized, racially matched normal control comparisons. Depression and Anxiety 8:58–64, 1998. © 1998 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
Microstructures and Magnetism of Silicon co-implanted with Manganese and Carbon ions

Dilute magnetic semiconductors based on transition metal doped silicon have attracted intense interest in recent years due to their compatibility with current silicon technology. Here we present transmission electron microscopy, secondary ion mass spectrometry and ferromagnetic resonance studies of silicon implanted with 1×1016 ions/cm2 of Mn ions and silicon co-implanted with both 1×1016 ions/cm2 of Mn ions and 2×1016 ions/cm2 of carbon ions at a substrate temperature of 350 °C. Afterward, the samples were annealed at temperatures between 800 and 1000°C. The SIMS results show a marked difference between the two specimens while the TEM results show similar features in terms of Mn precipitation and particle evolution. The carbon implanted specimens show additional features that appear to be amorphous silicon pockets within the crystalline implant region. Only one specimen (Mn only implant, unannealed) showed any ferromagnetic properties.
Uncertainty Analysis of the Mechanical Response of Porcine Brain at High Strain Rate Compression

The Split-Hopkinson Pressure Bar (SHPB) apparatus presents a unique capability in studying the dynamic response of a material, but it is accompanied with a moderately high noise level, giving a rather large standard deviation for the stress-strain behavior of the soft biological material being tested [1]. Compounding the errors in a SHPB setup is the uncertainty arising from sample-to-sample variability in a soft biological material. Uncertainties arise in a measured variable through a vast number of sources such as an imperfect instrument calibration process, standards used for calibration, and the influence of the measured variable due to inconsistencies in ambient temperature, pressure, humidity and vibrations.Copyright © 2011 by ASME
Managing prefetch memory for data-intensive online servers

Data-intensive online servers may contain a significant amount of prefetched data in memory due to large-granularity I/O prefetching and high execution concurrency. Using a traditional access recency or frequency-based page reclamation policy, memory contention can cause a substantial number of prefetched pages to be prematurely evicted before being accessed. This paper presents a new memory management framework that handles prefetched (but not-yet-accessed) pages separately from the rest of the memory buffer cache. We examine three new heuristic policies when a victim page (among the prefetched pages) needs to be identified for eviction: 1) evict the last page of the longest prefetch stream; 2) evict the last page of the least recently accessed prefetch stream; and 3) evict the last page of the prefetch stream whose owner process has consumed the most amount of CPU since it last accessed the prefetch stream. These policies require no application changes or hints on their data access patterns.We have implemented the proposed techniques in the Linux 2.6.10 kernel and conducted experiments based on microbenchmarks and two real application workloads (a trace-driven index searching server and the Apache Web server hosting media clips). Compared with access history-based policies, our memory management scheme can improve the server throughput of real workloads by 11-64% at high concurrency levels. Further, the proposed approach is 10-32% below an approximated optimal page reclamation policy that uses application-provided I/O access hints. The space overhead of our implementation is about 0.4% of the physical memory size.
Human monoclonal antibody recognizing an antigen associatedwith ovarian and other adenocarcinomas

Summary MS2B6, a human monoclonal antibody derived from a patient with advanced ovarian cancer, has beenused to study the distribution and characteristics of its target antigen. The MS2B6 antigen was detected by immunoperoxidase studies in 41 of 41 epithelial ovarian cancers and in the majority of nonovarian adenocarcinomas. Among normal tissues the MS2B6 antigen was found in the adult epithelia of the fallopian tube, endometrium, endocervix, colon, bronchus, breast, sweat duct, and large renal ducts. No detectable antigen was found in peritoneal epithelia, tissue stromal cells, spleen, thymus, or blood-borne cells. Immunoblotting analysis showed that the MS2B6 epitope resides on polypeptides of 38, 44, and 60 kd. The cellular location of the MS2B6 antigen was studied with immunoperoxidase and immunofluorescent staining and immunoelectronmicroscopy of ovarian cancer ascites tumor cells. The results suggest that in ascites tumor cells the MS2B6 antigen is located in a layer of the peripheral cytoplasm beginning just below the cell membrane. MS2B6 may be useful as an imaging or therapeutic agent
The relationship between HIV testing, stigma, and health service usage

We explore whether HIV stigma is associated with seeking to conceal testing interest. We examine 86,899 outpatient visits in a 1993-1997 national survey and compare HIV testing to four non-stigmatized tests: spirometry, allergy testing, mammography, and colonoscopy. We explore whether people testing for HIV, compared to people receiving control services, listed reasons for visit (RFV) less related to the test performed, listed their interest in testing more frequently as a non-primary RFV, and received more services unrelated to testing. A total of 48.7% of people tested for HIV listed a reason unrelated to testing as their primary RFV (spirometry: 8.9%; allergy testing: 29.3%), and 69.9% of people asking to test requested HIV testing as a secondary RFV (spirometry: 52%; allergy testing: 0%). People who tested for HIV received more services (M=1.83 additional services) than non-testers (M=0.95) on an index of seven services. We did not find this association for spirometry, allergy testing, colonoscopy, or mammography. We interpret these results to indicate that stigma may have behavioral correlates and that people may attempt to avoid HIV stigma by seeking a psychological cover for HIV testing. To our knowledge, this is the first study to attempt to use observational data on health service usage for assessing stigma and people's attempts to deal with HIV testing stigma.
Cytosine arabinoside induced gastrointestinal toxic alterations in sequential chemotherapeutic protocols. A clinical-pathologic study of 33 patients

Sequential chemotherapeutic regimens, primarily used in the treatment of hematopoietic malignancies, and employing ara-C as a basic antineoplastic agent induce mucosal alterations in the entire gastrointestinal tract. These are characterized by surface and glandular epithelial atypia, immaturity, and necrosis. Glandular regeneration is characteristically delayed leading to a state of intestinal aproliferative cytopenia. Other toxic intestinal changes include telangiectasia of blood vessels and the formation of intramural hematomas. Intestinal infections develop frequently and are complicated by peritonitis, liver abscesses, pneumatosis cystoides in testinalis and sepsis. These intestinal lesions are accompanied by a predictable clinical syndrome which begins concomitantly with ara-C infusions and is characterized by diarrhea, ileus, abdominal pain, hematemesis and melena, severe hypokalemia, hypocalcemia and a protein-losing enteropathy. Additional toxic manifestations induced by ara-C include transient weight gains, fever elevations and severe bone marrow depression. The genesis of the intestinal lesions is linked to the three day dose schedule of ara-C infusions which insures both arrest of the cycling intestinal cells in the S-phase and a high cytotoxic index. The severity of these lesions is markedly augmented by prior treatment with ara-C and cyclophosphamide which causes synchronization and probable recruitment of intestinal stem cells, respectively.
Coefficient problem for alpha-convex univalent functions

Let {ie205-01} be an α-convex univalent function in the open unit disk. In this paper we shall determine sharp bounds for the moduli ¦an} of the coefficients.
Efficient Shadows for Sampled Environment Maps

This paper addresses the problem of efficiently calculating shadows from environment maps in the context of ray tracing. Since accurate rendering of shadows from environment maps requires hundreds of lights, the expensive computation is determining visibility from each pixel to each light direction. We show that coherence in both spatial and angular domains can be used to reduce the number of shadow rays that need to be traced. Specifically, we use a coarse-to-fine evaluation of the image, predicting visibility by reusing visibility calculations from four nearby pixels that have already been evaluated. This simple method allows us to explicitly mark regions of uncertainty in the prediction. By only tracing rays in these and neighboring directions, we are able to reduce the number of shadow rays traced by up to a factor of 20 while maintaining error rates below 0.01%. For many scenes, our algorithm can add shadowing from hundreds of lights at only twice the cost of rendering without shadows. Sample source ...
Lemon oil solubilization in mixed surfactant solutions: Rationalizing microemulsion & nanoemulsion formation

Abstract Lipophilic functional ingredients are usually incorporated into aqueous-based foods and beverages in the form of colloidal dispersions. In this study, we investigated the rate and extent of solubilization of emulsified lemon oil in mixed non-ionic surfactant solutions (buffer: propylene glycol = 2:1): sucrose monopalmitate (SMP) and/or Tween 80 (T80). The influence of surfactant concentration, type, and mixing ratio on lemon oil solubilization was investigated, with the aim of identifying suitable conditions for preparing stable microemulsions and nanoemulsions. Solubilization was monitored by measuring changes in light scattering by lemon oil droplets after they were dispersed in surfactant solutions (pH 7). The solubilization process was rapid ( C sat ) was reached, after which it remained as nanoemulsion droplets. The value of C sat increased with increasing surfactant concentration and was higher for SMP than Tween 80. The impact of storage at pH 3.5 on the physical stability of microemulsions and nanoemulsions was examined. Acid stable colloidal dispersions could not be formed using SMP alone. However, relatively stable nanoemulsions and microemulsions could be formed when ≥75 or 50 wt% Tween 80 was incorporated into the surfactant phase, respectively. This study provides important information for the rational design of food-grade colloidal delivery systems for encapsulating and delivering functional lipids for food and beverage applications.
Analysis of a Stall-and-Spin Accident Using Recorded Avionics Data

On August 28, 2006, a Cirrus Design SR22 was destroyed when it impacted a water retention pond located about 2.4 miles from the Eagle Creek Airpark (EYE), Indianapolis, Indiana, after a loss of control during cruise climb. The personal flight departed EYE en route to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. The pilot received fatal injuries, and the three passengers received serious injuries. Instrument meteorological conditions prevailed at the time of the accident, and the flight was on an instrument flight plan. During the final three minutes of the flight, the airplane decelerated from 118 KIAS to about 90 KIAS over about 30 seconds, and then slowly decelerated to about 74 KIAS over about 2 minutes. At about 74 KIAS, the angle of attack of the airplane exceeded the stall angle of attack of the wing, the airplane banked to the left, and started to descend. Over the next 25 seconds, the airplane continued to “wallow” in a stalled condition, with erratic oscillations in the pitch and roll angles, and with the descent rate rapidly increasing. Finally, about 15 seconds prior to impacting the ground, the airplane entered a left spin and continued descending. About four seconds prior to impact, a large decrease in the longitudinal load factor was recorded, which could be consistent with the deployment of the Cirrus Airframe Parachute System (CAPS) parachute. This accident is still under investigation by the NTSB, and the probable cause of the accident has not yet been determined. To date, however, the investigation has benefitted greatly from flight data recorded by the airplane’s avionics systems. This data has enabled investigators to determine and analyze the motion of the aircraft throughout the accident flight, and the physical forces that produced that motion. In addition, investigators have been able to compare the airplane performance during the accident to the nominal, expected performance of the SR22, as determined from flight tests performed during the investigation. For the flight tests, the test airplane’s standard avionics system was used to collect and record data; consequently, the data recording system, and the data analysis techniques, for both the flight-test airplane and the accident airplane were identical. The lift and drag coefficients of the accident and flight test airplanes were computed from the recorded data, and indicate that the performance of the accident airplane was consistent with the nominal performance of the SR22. This case demonstrates how the data recording capabilities of modern avionics systems can assist accident investigations and contribute to aviation safety, extending to the general aviation population the safety benefits that flight data recorders have brought to the transport category fleet.
Optical adaptive multipath canceler for surveillance radar

An analog optical signal processor has been developed to implement the function of antenna sidelobe interference cancellation. The architecture, which includes optical correlators with Bragg cell input, an optical time modulator, and an optical spatial integrator, performs an operation which is equivalent to the multiple-loop Howells-Applebaum Least Mean Square (LMS) algorithm. This implementation offers the potential for cancelling multiple correlated interference signals (i.e., direct path and multipath interference signals) with an appropriate number of auxiliary antennas. A previous report described single frequency CW tests of such a processor. Preliminary tests with wide-band waveforms and the special test instrumentation developed to perform these tests are described in this paper.© (1990) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Laser-induced stimulated Raman scattering in the forward direction of a droplet - Comparison of Mie theory with geometrical optics

This paper uses Mie theory to treat electromagnetic scattering and to evaluate field enhancement in the forward direction of a small droplet irradiated by a high-energy beam and compares the results of calculations with the field-enhancement evaluation obtained via geometrical optics treatment. Results of this comparison suggest that the field enhancement located at the critical ring region encircling the axis in the forward direction of the droplet can support laser-induced Raman scattering. The results are supported by experimental observations of the interaction of a 120-micron-diam water droplet with a high-energy Nd:YAG laser beam.
Scheduling of a Two-machine Flowshop with Travel Time Between Machines

We consider the classical two-machine flowshop sequencing problem with the following additional constraint. When a job is completed on the first machine it must be transported to the second machine; a single transporter is available. A completed job on the first machine will block the machine if the transporter is in transit. A constructive algorithm to minimize makespan is presented in the paper.
Commentary: Neuropharmacology of hypothalamic releasing factors.

Early studies suggested that peptides from the pituitary gland might have affects on the central nervous system (CBS). Murphy and Milicr [I] and Miller and Ogawa [r’] showed that administration of corticotropin (ACTH) resulted in resistance to extinction of a conditioned avoidance response. Dc Wied [3] used this test involving electrical shock to demonstrate that mel~~nocyte-stimulating hormone (MSH) can have the same effuct as AC‘TH and that the active sequence is ACTH/MSH -l II) [AJ. Approaching the problem for the first time from a direct interest in MSH, several different behavioral tests in the rat and man as well as studies of electrical activity (EEG) in the brain of these species were initiated in I966 by Kastin and colleagues. The results from these investigations arc consistent with the hyp~~thesis that MSH results in improved visual memory and sustained levels of attention [S. h]. Thcsc studlcs differed in approach from the previous ones of Krivoy 01 al. [7,8]. who examined the spinal cord and electrical discharge. and from those of Fcrrari OT rri. 19. 10]. who tested stretching activity and yawning. In an unrelated series of iilvestig~~tiol~s, Wilson rt trl. [ 1 I] were investigating the interactions of tricyclic antidepressants and thyroid hormones. Their early findings suggested that the time of onset of antidepressant activity was shortened by the use of thyroid hormone [I 11 (T,, tri-iodothyronine) as well as thyrotropin (TSH) [I?]. a pitlti~lry hormone whose release is stimulated by TRH (thyrotropin-rel~sing hormone). Thus, the stage was sot for the next logical series of studies to dctcrmine whether the relatively newly identified and isolated hypothalamic releasing factors [ l3]. MIF--1 (melanocyte-stimulating hormone release i?lhibiting factor. Pro-L~Ll-Gly-~H~) and TRH. had direct effects in the central nervous system. Later. other hypothalamic hormones like growth hormone release inhibiting hormone (GH-RIH) and gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) were also tested.
Regulation of Resistance to Copper in Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. vesicatoria

Copper-resistant strains of Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. vesicatoria were previously shown to carry plasmid-borne copper resistance genes related to the cop and pco operons of Pseudomonas syringae and Escherichia coli, respectively. However, instead of the two-component (copRS and pcoRS) systems determining copper-inducible expression of the operons in P. syringae and E. coli, a novel open reading frame, copL, was found to be required for copper-inducible expression of the downstream multicopper oxidase copA in X. axonopodis. copL encodes a predicted protein product of 122 amino acids that is rich in histidine and cysteine residues, suggesting a possible direct interaction with copper. Deletions or frameshift mutations within copL, as well as an amino acid substitution generated at the putative start codon of copL, caused a loss of copper-inducible transcriptional activation of copA. A nonpolar insertion of a kanamycin resistance gene in copL resulted in copper sensitivity in the wild-type strain. However, repeated attempts to complement copL mutations in trans failed. Analysis of the genomic sequence databases shows that there are copL homologs upstream of copAB genes in X. axonopodis pv. citri, X. campestris pv. campestris, and Xylella fastidiosa. The cloned promoter area upstream of copA in X. axonopodis pv. vesicatoria did not function in Pseudomonas syringae or in E. coli, nor did the P. syringae cop promoter function in Xanthomonas. However, a transcriptional fusion of the Xanthomonas cop promoter with the Pseudomonas copABCDRS was able to confer resistance to copper in Xanthomonas, showing divergence in the mechanisms of regulation of the resistance to copper in phytopathogenic bacteria.
Cell migration and chimerism after whole-organ transplantation: The basis of graft acceptance

Improvements in the prevention or control of rejection of the kidney and liver have been largely interchangeable (1, 2) and then applicable, with very little modification, to thoracic and other organs. However, the mechanism by which anti rejection treatment permits any of these grafts to be “accepted” has been an immunological enigma (3, 4). We have proposed recently that the exchange of migratory leukocytes between the transplant and the recipient with consequent long-term cellular chimerism in both is the basis for acceptance of all whole-organ allografts and xenografts (5). Although such chimerism was demonstrated only a few months ago, the observations have increased our insight into transplantation immunology and have encouraged the development of alternative therapeutic strategies (6).
Tenascin-C, tenascin-R and tenascin-X: a family of talented proteins in search of functions

"Mice develop normally without tenascin", was a shock to biologists studying the extracellular matrix. Could tenascin be a useless protein? This seems most improbable, as it is conserved in every vertebrate species. Moreover, two new proteins have been discovered in the last year that are closely related to the original tenascin, providing evidence for a tenascin family. Speculations on functions are ripe for re-evaluation.
Problems and Reforms in Mortgage-Backed Securities: Handicapping the Credit Rating Agencies

In the wake of the near economic melt-down, Congress and the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) is discussing and proposing drastic changes to the regulatory structure that governs CRAs. This article attempts to further these discussions and proposals by proposing a handicapping system that would apply to each CRA. Similar to golf, a handicap would represent the CRA’s past success or failure in rating certain types of securities. Like credit ratings themselves, the handicaps would be communicated in easy to understand alpha-numeric symbols. Above all else, these handicaps would allow market participants to compare the quality of each CRA in rating particular types of securities. By providing market participants with the means to compare each CRA, the handicaps would then in turn create large incentives for CRAs to issue accurate ratings.This article proposes the CRA handicapping system in five sections. Section I provides a general background of CRAs and their importance to the financial markets. Section II discusses how CRAs emerged as a government sanctioned gatekeeper for the financial system. It also describes the ratings process. Section III addresses the problems with CRA regulations leading up to the financial crisis and why those regulations have caused CRAs to fail. Section IV discusses recent regulatory reforms and SEC final rules. Finally, section V, proposes the handicapping system and explains why it will improve the credit rating industry.
Impacts of Updraft Size and Dimensionality on the Perturbation Pressure and Vertical Velocity in Cumulus Convection. Part II: Comparison of Theoretical and Numerical Solutions and Fully Dynamical Simulations

AbstractThis paper compares simple theoretical expressions relating vertical velocity, perturbation pressure, updraft size, and dimensionality for cumulus convection, derived in Part I, with numerical solutions of the anelastic buoyant perturbation pressure Poisson equation and vertical velocity w. A range of thermal buoyancy profiles representing shallow to deep moist convection are tested for both two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) updrafts. The theoretical expressions give similar results for w and perturbation pressure difference from updraft top to base Δp compared to the numerical solutions over a wide range of updraft radius R. The theoretical expressions are also consistent with 2D and 3D fully dynamical updraft simulations initiated by warm bubbles of varying width.Implications for nonhydrostatic modeling in the “gray zone,” with a horizontal grid spacing Δx of O(1–10) km where convection is generally underresolved, are discussed. The theoretical and numerical solutions give a scalin...
Response to Guest Editorial by Walter Bortz

We appreciate the observations by Dr. Bortz regarding our article entitled “Nonlinear Multisystem Physiological Dysregulation Associated with Frailty in Older Women: Implications for Etiology and Treatment” published on October 2009. The lines of reasoning that Dr. Bortz lays out for frailty as the manifestation of a dysregulated complex system certainly concur with our own theories. Our work offers the first empirical evidence to support this reasoning that the multiplicity of defects adds up to a whole different from the sum of the parts. The implications of this theory, however, do not necessarily suggest that frailty is distinct from aging; it could well be that there is a threshold degree of age-related dysregulation of multiple systems beyond which this aggregate phenotype is manifested. Underlying our hypothesis of a vicious cycle of frailty is our theory that energy dysregulation is a critical etiologic factor; this concords with Dr. Bortz’ statement that “frailty finds an explanatory mechanism within a thermodynamic paradigm,” and his observation that immobility, malnutrition, and catabolism (including that of catabolic diseases) are likely initiators of frailty. Furthermore, it may be that in the process of frailty, much is preventable, as Dr. Bortz suggests and work by Fiatarone, Evans, and others supports. However, it is likely that beyond a degree of severity neither prevention nor remediation are effective, frailty is no longer reversible, and the individual has entered a pre-death phase. Regardless, this evidence for frailty as a complex system problem has significant implications for appreciating the importance of early detection and prevention before this threshold is reached.
Creating opportunities for exploration by modularizing a three credit engineering course

We describe the processes of collaboration and coordination that is necessary to break a traditional three credit course into a series of three one credit courses that allow students to meet the same course requirement. Students taking the course will be able to choose from a set of one-credit options for the third course in the sequence, allowing pursue their interests while still learning a common set of skills. ME 325, Mechanical Component Design, is a foundational course in mechanical engineering that is required in every accredited engineering program. While the course contains a common core that every mechanical engineering student should know, it continues on into specialized topics. Which of those specialized topics are taught in a particular section of ME 325 currently varies from section to section, depending on the instructor's areas of expertise. Breaking ME 325 into three one credit courses and adding a set of electives allows students to broaden their knowledge or focus on a specific area of interest. Single section offering might also be of interest to people in industry and others who simply need to review specific content areas. This essay explores what processes of communication and coordination are necessary to make this course format work and how to implement these processes in a way that ensures that the course is sustainable and cohesive.
Online training methods for Gaussian Mixture Vector Quantizers

This paper presents techniques relevant to the online training of Gaussian mixture vector quantizer (GMVQ) systems. techniques for learning from quantized data are considered, which enables online training configurations wherein the training is carried out remotely from the encoder. Next, methods for recursive training are presented, which eliminate the need to store large databases of example data, and also enable adaptive operation of the GMVQ system. These techniques are demonstrated on the problem of wideband speech spectrum quantization, and the performance losses due to the use of quantized training data are experimentally quantified as a function of the bit rate.
GABA UPTAKE BY GAT1 MODULATES LONG-TERM OPTICAL CHANGES FOLLOWING ELECTRICAL STIMULATION OF THE PITUITARY GLAND NEUROINTERMEDIATE LOBE

Intrinsic optical changes that follow infundibular stalk stimulation of the neurointermediate lobe of the mouse pituitary gland exhibit three different phases that reflect three distinct physiological events. The first (E-wave) is the rapid light-scattering increase that is associated with a nerve terminal volume increase (mechanical spike), and that accompanies excitation of the neurohypophysial terminals by the invading action potential; the second (S-wave) is the slower light-scattering decrease that is tightly correlated with the secretion of the peptide hormones oxytocin and arginine vasopressin, and the third is the long-duration response (R-wave) that reflects cell volume changes in the pars intermedia. We have studied the E-wave and the S-wave in earlier publications. The R-wave, considered here, is sensitive to chloride replacement as well as to blockade of chloride channels. By blocking GABAA receptors (which are ligand-gated chloride channels) with pharmacological agents, and by applying GABA directly into the bathing solution, or evoking its release from GABAergic inputs, we have demonstrated that this long-duration optical response is sensitive to chloride movements and reflects GABA-induced changes in the intrinsic optical properties of the pars intermedia. The full time-course of this optical response takes minutes and, therefore, has to embody some other process (or processes) related to the restoration of resting physiological chloride concentrations, following the opening and closing of GABAA-receptor channels. Here we demonstrate that the shape of the R-wave, the long-lasting light-scattering signal, is indeed affected by the activity of GAT1, one of the sodium- and chloride-dependent GABA transporters.
Analysis of Non-Uniform Creation of Light-Induced Defects in Schottky Barrier Solar Cell Structures

Hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) TCO/n+/i/Ni Schottky barrier solar cells were degraded with illuminations of white and red light through both sides of the structure. Because the forward dark I-V’s are sensitive to the distribution and any spatial variation of defects in the i-layer, these measurements were used to characterize the degraded cell structures. These characteristics were analyzed using a charged defect distribution of gap states consisting of D+, D°, and D states derived from corresponding film analysis. It was found that the non-uniformities of light induced defects created in the i-layer can be represented by two regions of different defect densities. The relative densities depend on the direction of illumination and their ratio even with white light is about a factor of four. This non-uniformity is expected to be less for p-i-n cells which have higher built-in potential and hence electric fields.