cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
High prevalence of GB virus-C/hepatitis G virus infection in liver transplant recipients.

Background.To determine the prevalence of GB virus-C/hepatitis G virus (GBV-C/HGV) infection in liver transplant recipients transplanted for non-hepatitis C virus indications, 44 patients transplanted for cryptogenic, autoimmune, hepatitis B, or cholestatic liver disease and 91 non-liver transplantation (LT) patients with similar diagnoses seen in the same study period (control group) were studied. Methods. HGV RNA was detected by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction with primers from the 5'-untranslated region. Results. GBV-C/HGV RNA was commonly detected in post-LT patients compared with the control group (28/44 [64%] vs. 13/91 [14%]; P<0.001). GBV-C/HGV infection was not related to the number of blood products transfused, a particular surgeon, or a specific liver disease. GBV-C/HGV infection also had no significant impact on the post-LT clinical profile. Conclusions. We conclude that GBV-C/HGV infection is very common in LT recipients, but that it has minimal clinical impact in this population.
Large resonant Stokes shift in CdS nanocrystals

The electronic spectrum of CdS colloidal quantum dots (QDs) with a radius of 1.0−2.3 nm is studied by low-temperature photoluminescence excitation spectroscopy. CdS QDs are found to exhibit a resonant Stokes shift of ∼20−70 meV, which is ∼4 times larger than similarly sized CdSe QDs. This effect can be reproduced by an effective-mass theoretical calculation, which reveals that the hole ground state (or highest occupied molecular orbital, HOMO) in CdS QDs is a P state and the ground-state exciton is an optically passive state. Compared to CdSe, in CdS, the smaller spin−orbit splitting causes the orbital-symmetry-forbidden dark exciton in a QD and its larger resonant Stokes shift. The band-edge photoluminescence in CdS QDs exhibits a lifetime of ∼200 ns at 10 K, which is consistent with the dark exciton mechanism.
Consequences of competitive bidding in project-based production

Abstract This paper discusses the consequences competitive bidding have on lead time in project-based production, such as construction. Earlier studies argued that competitive bidding may significantly increase resource consumption and generate waste in the delivery process, which this paper supports. However, the relation between competitive bidding and lead time has been less discussed. Lead time reduction has long been considered a fundamental objective for overall business improvement. An objective of our study was to understand what contributes to long lead times. The reported findings are from a 4-year study on the delivery process of power distribution equipment, a type of engineered-to-order (ETO) product. The paper concludes by suggesting procurement practices that reduce lead times for ETO products.
Improving interfaces for managing applications in multiple-device environments

Productive collaboration in a multiple-device environment (MDE) requires an effective interface for efficiently managing applications among devices. Though many interfaces exist, there is little empirical understanding of how they affect collaboration. This paper reports results from a user study comparing how well three classes of interfaces; textual, map, and iconic, support application management during realistic, collaborative activities in an MDE. From empirical results, observations, and an analysis of how users interacted with each interface, we produced a set of design lessons for improving management interfaces. The lessons were demonstrated within the iconic interface, but they are just as applicable to other interfaces. This work contributes further understanding of how to design effective management interfaces for MDEs.
Peak Efficiency of NaI(Tl) Crystals for Gamma Rays from 0.150 to 7.5 Mev

The peak efficiencies of cylindrical 1-1/2 X 1-inch, 3 X 3-inch and 3 X 3-inch bevelled crystals have been determined by the multiplication of the theoretical total efficiency for a particular energy gamma ray by the experimentally determined ratio of the areas under the full energy peak and under the total pulse height spectrum for the gamma ray. Care was taken to eliminate spurious effects in the pulse height spectrum such as scattering, bremsstrahlung, and other interfering gamma radiation from the source, etc., in the experimental measurements. The peak efficiencies have also been determined at certain energies by s-? coincidence experiments and yield the same results within 5 per cent for energies to 2.76 mev. The intensities of gamma rays determined in this way have been compared to the disintegration rates obtained from 4? s-counting techniques from sources with known decay schemes, and the results agreed within the limits given above. The extension of these efficiencies to crystals of different composition or to crystals with the same shapes but different dimensions will be discussed.
Reliability for extreme value distributions

In the area of stress-strength models there has been a large amount of work as regards estimation of the reliability R = Pr(X"2 < X"1) when X"1 and X"2 are independent random variables belonging to the same univariate family of distributions. The algebraic form for R = Pr(X"2 < X"1) as been worked out for the majority of the well-known distributions in the standard forms. However, there are still many other distributions (including generalizations of the well-known distributions) for which the form of R is not known. We have identified at least some 30 distributions with no known form for R. In this paper, we consider the class of extreme value distributions (including the Pareto distributions) and derive the corresponding forms for the reliability R. The calculations involve the use of special functions.
Analysis of eligibility criteria representation in industry-standard clinical trial protocols

Graphical abstractDisplay Omitted We compare textual complexity of full-text and ClinicalTrials.gov (CT) protocols.We use cosine-similarity measures to identify clusters for standardization.We find that CT protocols are very condensed and convey lesser information.Developing a template set is feasible and could lead to efficient criteria design. Previous research on standardization of eligibility criteria and its feasibility has traditionally been conducted on clinical trial protocols from ClinicalTrials.gov (CT). The portability and use of such standardization for full-text industry-standard protocols has not been studied in-depth. Towards this end, in this study we first compare the representation characteristics and textual complexity of a set of Pfizer's internal full-text protocols to their corresponding entries in CT. Next, we identify clusters of similar criteria sentences from both full-text and CT protocols and outline methods for standardized representation of eligibility criteria. We also study the distribution of eligibility criteria in full-text and CT protocols with respect to pre-defined semantic classes used for eligibility criteria classification. We find that in comparison to full-text protocols, CT protocols are not only more condensed but also convey less information. We also find no correlation between the variations in word-counts of the ClinicalTrials.gov and full-text protocols. While we identify 65 and 103 clusters of inclusion and exclusion criteria from full text protocols, our methods found only 36 and 63 corresponding clusters from CT protocols. For both the full-text and CT protocols we are able to identify 'templates' for standardized representations with full-text standardization being more challenging of the two. In our exploration of the semantic class distributions we find that the majority of the inclusion criteria from both full-text and CT protocols belong to the semantic class "Diagnostic and Lab Results" while "Disease, Sign or Symptom" forms the majority for exclusion criteria. Overall, we show that developing a template set of eligibility criteria for clinical trials, specifically in their full-text form, is feasible and could lead to more efficient clinical trial protocol design.
Influencing audience satisfaction by manipulating expectations

Four studies examined whether people manipulate audience expectations about outcomes to influence audience satisfaction. Studies 1 and 2 revealed that waiting customers often receive overestimations of the time they must wait before they can speak to a customer service representative (Study 1) or receive a table at a restaurant (Study 2). Studies 3 and 4 revealed that restaurant staff members are acutely aware of the relationship between expectations and outcome satisfaction, and intentionally overestimated wait times to influence how customers feel. We discuss the implications of these findings, including the conditions under which people may be more or less likely to manipulate expectations and when manipulation may be more or less successful.
Snow probe for in situ determination of wetness and density

The amount of water present in liquid form in a snowpack exercises a strong influence on the radar and radiometric responses of snow. Conventional techniques for measuring the liquid water content m/sub /spl upsi// suffer from various shortcomings, which include poor accuracy, long analysis time, poor spatial resolution, and/or cumbersome and inconvenient procedures. This paper describes the development of a hand-held electromagnetic sensor for quick and easy determination of snow liquid water content and density. A novel design of this probe affords several important advantages over existing similar sensors. Among these are improved spatial resolution and accuracy, and reduced sensitivity to interference by objects or media outside the sample volume of the sensor. The sensor actually measures the complex dielectric constant of the snow medium, and the water content and density must be obtained through the use of empirical or semi-empirical relations. To test the suitability of existing models and allow the development of new models, the snow probe was tested against the freezing calorimeter and gravimetric density determinations. From these comparisons, valid models were selected or developed. Based on the use of these models, the following specifications were established for the snow probe: 1) liquid water content measurement accuracy=/spl plusmn/0.66% in the wetness range from 0 to 10% by volume and 2) wet snow density measurement accuracy=/spl plusmn/0.05 g/cm/sup 3/ in the density range from 0.1 to 0.6 g/cm/sup 3/. >
Diagnosis and Management of Bleeding Disorder in a Child

Children with symptoms of bleeding and bruising are commonly seen in clinical practice. Primary care providers should be able to decide when and whether evaluation for bleeding disorder is warranted. This decision depends on one's index of suspicion for bleeding disorder based on history, physical examination, and screening laboratory investigations. Knowledge of the hemostatic physiology is essential to be able to order appropriate laboratory investigations and their accurate interpretation. Prothrombin time (PT), activated partial thromboplastin time (aPTT), and blood platelet concentration constitute the initial diagnostic work up of any bleeding disorder. Abnormality in any of these parameters in a child with excessive bleeding should lead to presumptive diagnosis of bleeding disorder and trigger referral to a hematologist for confirmation and definitive treatment. Awareness of basic treatment principles for management of bleeding/clotting disorders may prepare the provider to develop appropriate management plans, especially in a life threatening situation.
The compact fuzzy filter design via Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy models

In this paper, a design procedure of the compact fuzzy filter by using Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy models is presented. The proposed fuzzy filter possesses the intuitive design of Mamdani fuzzy system and the efficiency of T-S fuzzy model. This architecture is very suitable to design fuzzy controller by hardware realization and software programming. The simulation result proves the great approximation between the Mamdani fuzzy system and the proposed T-S fuzzy filter. To the best of our knowledge, the design method and the result derived in this work are the most compact fuzzy filter known.
GPS and radio tracking of end-of-life products [recycling and waste disposal applications]

The fate of products after they are collected for recycling or disposal is not always well documented. We propose the use of Global Positioning System (GPS) locators and VHF radio-tracking systems to track end-of-life products from curbside collection to final destinations for recycling or disposal. We discuss the physical potential and limitations of GPS and radio in recycling collection and management. This approach could be used to track a variety of products in a range of situations. Limitations include battery lifetimes, potential interference with signal transmission and reception, environmental conditions, and the size and cost of the systems.
Identification of genes expressed with temporal-spatial restriction to developing cerebellar neuron precursors by a functional genomic approach.

Hedgehog pathway activation is required for proliferation of cerebellar granule cell neuron precursors during development and is etiologic in certain cerebellar tumors. To identify genes expressed specifically in granule cell neuron precursors, we used oligonucleotide microarrays to analyze regulation of 13,179 genes/expressed sequence tags in heterogeneous primary cultures of neonatal mouse cerebellum that respond to the mitogen Sonic hedgehog. In conjunction, we applied experiment-specific noise models to render a gene-by-gene robust indication of up-regulation in Sonic hedgehog-treated cultures. Twelve genes so identified were tested, and 10 (83%) showed appropriate expression in the external granular layer (EGL) of the postnatal day (PN) 7 cerebellum and down-regulation by PN 15, as verified by in situ hybridization. Whole-organ profiling of the developing cerebellum was carried out from PN 1 to 30 to generate a database of temporal gene regulation profiles (TRPs). From the database an algorithm was developed to capture the TRP typical of EGL-specific genes. The “TRP-EGL” accurately predicted expression in vivo of an additional 18 genes/expressed sequence tags with a sensitivity of 80% and a specificity of 88%. We then compared the positive predictive value of our analytical procedure with other widely used methods, as verified by the TRP-EGL in silico. These findings suggest that replicate experiments and incorporation of noise models increase analytical specificity. They further show that genome-wide methods are an effective means to identify stage-specific gene expression in the developing granule cell lineage.
Does gender influence outcomes from a multidisciplinary intervention for quality of life designed for patients with advanced cancer

Purpose Cancer treatment can profoundly impact the patient’s quality of life (QOL). It has been well documented that there are gender differences in the symptoms associated with cancer treatment. This study explores the impact of gender on QOL for patients with newly diagnosed advanced cancer.
On the convergence behavior of the restarted GMRES algorithm for solving nonsymmetric linear systems

The solution of nonsymmetric systems of linear equations continues to be a difficult problem. A main algorithm for solving nonsymmetric problems is restarted GMRES. The algorithm is based on restarting full GMRES every s iterations, for some integer s>0. This paper considers the impact of the restart frequency s on the convergence and work requirements of the method. It is shown that a good choice of this parameter can lead to reduced solution time, while an improper choice may hinder or preclude convergence. An adaptive procedure is also presented for determining automatically when to restart. The results of numerical experiments are presented.
cGMP stimulates renin secretion in vivo by inhibiting phosphodiesterase-3

The interaction between renin, nitric oxide (NO), and its second messenger cGMP is controversial. cAMP is the stimulatory second messenger for renin but is degraded by phosphodiesterases (PDEs). We...
Evolution of host- and habitat association in the wood-feeding cockroach, Cryptocercus

Members of the cockroach genus Cryptocercus are subsocial insects that live in temperate forests and feed on decomposing logs. At present, seven species are recognized worldwide: four in the eastern USA, one in the western USA, and one each in Russia and China. Genetic variation within and among the Nearctic species has been characterized extensively in previous studies. However, whether there has been a corresponding divergence in the host and habitat association of Cryptocercus species is not known. Here, we report on differences in host and habitat association among six of the seven Cryptocercus species, estimated from field observations, elevation data, and land cover data. Our results indicated that the eastern and western USA species differ from one another in their distribution patterns, abundance, and habitat association. The eastern USA species are associated largely with deciduous forests, whereas the western USA and the Russian species are associated with evergreen forests. Thus, the eastern USA species, which are evolutionarily the most recent ones, have adapted to a different set of tree species relative to the basal species. There were also differences in the habitat association of the various species. Specifically, in the eastern USA, Cryptocercus darwini, evolutionarily the most recent species, occupied a habitat that is predominantly at low elevation [ 400 m ASL). Mapping of the above traits on a phylogenetic tree revealed that the evolutionary trend in Cryptocercus with regard to host and habitat association has been toward the utilization of low elevation habitats dominated by deciduous forests. © 2002 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2002, 75, 163–172.
An Architecture for a Synthetic Vacuum Cleaner

This paper discusses three increasingly complex definitions of the vacuum cleaning task. Each definition requires different capabilities in the vacuuming agent and hence different internal software architectures. However, the definitions suggested form a progression from reactive, to synthetic, to intelligent, and the lessons learned looking at one problem supply important insights for tackling the next. The paper then describes the Animate Agent project which defines an architecture for robot control that attempts to embody both the reactive methods of control required in simple vacuum cleaners and the symbolic methods of situation classification and plan choice required by synthetic vacuum cleaners.
Unusual case of a polar copper(II) uranyl phosphonate that fluoresces

Abstract A polar Cu(II) uranyl diphosphonate, Cu(H2O)4(UO2)3(H2O)2[CH2(PO3)2]2·5H2O, has been prepared under mild hydrothermal conditions. This compound has direct linkages between the oxo atoms of the uranyl moieties and the Cu(II) centers. Despite the presence of Cu(II) in the structure, vibronically-coupled emission is still observed, most likely because there are two crystallographically unique uranyl moieties, only one of which bonds to Cu(II).
Predicting medical complications after spine surgery: a validated model using a prospective surgical registry

Abstract Background context The possibility and likelihood of a postoperative medical complication after spine surgery undoubtedly play a major role in the decision making of the surgeon and patient alike. Although prior study has determined relative risk and odds ratio values to quantify risk factors, these values may be difficult to translate to the patient during counseling of surgical options. Ideally, a model that predicts absolute risk of medical complication, rather than relative risk or odds ratio values, would greatly enhance the discussion of safety of spine surgery. To date, there is no risk stratification model that specifically predicts the risk of medical complication. Purpose The purpose of this study was to create and validate a predictive model for the risk of medical complication during and after spine surgery. Study design/setting Statistical analysis using a prospective surgical spine registry that recorded extensive demographic, surgical, and complication data. Outcomes examined are medical complications that were specifically defined a priori. This analysis is a continuation of statistical analysis of our previously published report. Methods Using a prospectively collected surgical registry of more than 1,476 patients with extensive demographic, comorbidity, surgical, and complication detail recorded for 2 years after surgery, we previously identified several risk factor for medical complications. Using the beta coefficients from those log binomial regression analyses, we created a model to predict the occurrence of medical complication after spine surgery. We split our data into two subsets for internal and cross-validation of our model. We created two predictive models: one predicting the occurrence of any medical complication and the other predicting the occurrence of a major medical complication. Results The final predictive model for any medical complications had a receiver operator curve characteristic of 0.76, considered to be a fair measure. The final predictive model for any major medical complications had receiver operator curve characteristic of 0.81, considered to be a good measure. The final model has been uploaded for use on SpineSage.com . Conclusion We present a validated model for predicting medical complications after spine surgery. The value in this model is that it gives the user an absolute percent likelihood of complication after spine surgery based on the patient's comorbidity profile and invasiveness of surgery. Patients are far more likely to understand an absolute percentage, rather than relative risk and confidence interval values. A model such as this is of paramount importance in counseling patients and enhancing the safety of spine surgery. In addition, a tool such as this can be of great use particularly as health care trends toward pay-for-performance, quality metrics, and risk adjustment. To facilitate the use of this model, we have created a website ( SpineSage.com ) where users can enter in patient data to determine likelihood of medical complications after spine surgery.
Phytase Activity, Phosphorus and Calcium Retention, and Performance of Single Comb White Leghorn Layers Fed Diets Containing Two Levels of Available Phosphorus and Supplemented with Direct-Fed Microbials

The presence of phytase activities in condensed cane molasses solubles (CCMS) and CCMS-Lactobacillus (Lacto) were determined. Single Comb White Leghorn layers were fed .25 and .45% available P (AP) diets supplemented with CCMS and CCMS-Lacto for nine 28-d periods to determine phytase activities of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract contents and intestine, liver, and pancreatic tissues, the GI tract pH, the P and Ca retention, and layer performance. Six dietary treatments were corn-soybean (C-S) control, C-S+CCMS, and C-S+CCMS-1,100 mg Lacto/kg diet (ppm) [4.4 x 10(7) cfu/mg Lacto] each with .25 and .45% AP. The CCMS were used as a carrier for the Lacto, and the CCMS and CCMS-Lacto premix were incorporated at 2% of the diets. Phytase activity was much higher in CCMS-Lacto premix than in CCMS. Phytase activities of the crop contents were higher with the CCMS-Lacto diets regardless of the AP level. Intestinal phytase activity was higher with the .45% AP CCMS-Lacto diet than the unsupplemented .45% AP diets. Lactobacillus supplementation did not stimulate phytase activities in the intestinal contents or liver and pancreatic tissues. The pH of the crop and intestinal contents were much lower for the Lacto-fed layers than the layers fed unsupplemented diets regardless of dietary AP levels. No differences in Ca retentions were observed with Lacto supplementation regardless of the dietary AP levels. However, higher P retentions were observed with the Lacto supplementation in the .25% AP diet. Layers fed .25 and .45% AP Lacto-supplemented diets had lower hen-day egg production, poorer feed conversion value, consumed slightly more feed, produced less egg mass, and laid larger eggs than the layers fed .25 and .45% AP unsupplemented diets. Lacto supplementation to .25% AP diet produced eggs with higher specific gravity than the unsupplemented .45% AP diet, but not different from unsupplemented .25% AP diet. Layers fed the .25% AP diets had lower BW gains then layers fed the .45% AP diets regardless of lacto supplementation. Phytase activity was present in the lacto source, and the presence of phytase and Lacto supplementation to a .25% AP diet improved P retention in layers.
Watershed Pollution and Preservation: The Awareness–Appraisal Model of Environmentally Positive Intentions and Behaviors

A two-factor awareness-appraisal model suggests that individuals' reactions to threatening circumstances are shaped by their awareness of the threat and their appraisal of the degree of threat the circumstances pose to them. This approach, applied to watershed conservation, predictor that individuals will be willing to clean up the rivers and streams of their watershed if they are familiar with local water features (rivers, streams, ponds, lakes) and if they consider these features of the watershed to be degraded. We tested the model by measuring watershed knowledge, appraisal of watershed quality, value assigned to protecting the watershed, and behavioral intentions regarding watershed preservation in a survey, of 1,128 residents of two urban watersheds. The results supported the awareness-appraisal model: Those residents who were aware of their watershed and considered it polluted expressed the strongest pro-preservation behavioral intentions. These relationships were held in both watersheds, but were stronger for those who resided in the more degraded watershed.
Detection of motion in SPECT using multi-head data combination

An algorithm to automatically detect and eliminate motion in projection data from triple head SPECT systems is proposed. The approach relies on a specific protocol in which each camera rotates 3 times faster than in conventional acquisitions and performs a full 360-degree orbit, instead of the usual partial 120 degrees orbit. This permits to obtain three full sets of data. The hypothesis is that by adequately combining the sets, it is possible in most eases to reconstitute a motion-free set of projection data. The motion detection consists of searching consistent frames through the study by cross-correlating the projection sets as a function of the angle. Plateaus of high correlation are estimated and matched in order to identify projections corresponding to the same position of the subject throughout the study. Different motion situations were created by manually moving a cardiac phantom at different times. In all cases, it was possible to reconstitute the evolution of the motion during the study. When no motion occurred during an interval equal to at least one third of the total acquisition time, high correlation plateaus could be identified. It was then possible to build an optimal complete set of consistent frames from the longest matching plateaus regardless of the frequency and magnitude of motion. Otherwise, an averaging of the three sets was performed, which still improved the quality of the reconstructed slices compared to conventional imaging protocol.
Functional connectivity and laterality of the motor and sensory components in the volitional swallowing network.

Functional neuroimaging has shown that multiple brain regions are active during volitional swallowing. Little is known, however, about which regions integrate motor execution and sensory feedback in the swallowing system. Although unilateral brain lesions in either hemisphere can produce swallowing deficits, some functional neuroimaging studies indicate that the left hemisphere has greater activation in certain sensory and motor-related swallowing regions. In this study, correlation coefficients were computed for five seed regions during volitional saliva swallowing to determine the functional relationships of these regions with the rest of the brain: the anterior and posterior insula, inferior frontal gyrus (BA44), primary sensory cortex (S1), and primary motor cortex (M1). A laterality index (LI) was derived that accounts for relative differences in total, positive connected voxels for the left/right hemisphere seeds. Clusters of significantly connected voxels were greater from the anterior and posterior insula than from the other three seed regions. Interactions of the insula with other brain regions were greater on the left than on the right during volitional swallowing. Group means showed laterality in the anterior insula (LI = 0.25) and the posterior insula (LI = 0.33). BA44 showed a lesser degree of difference in left versus right hemisphere interactions (LI = 0.12) while S1 did not show lateralization (LI = 0.02) and M1 showed some predominance of interactions in the right hemisphere (LI = −0.19). The greater connectivity from the left hemisphere insula to brain regions within and across hemispheres suggests that the insula is a primary integrative region for volitional swallowing in humans.
Design of a decision fusion rule for power system security assessment

An integrated decision support system is described based on sensor fusion techniques, used for assessing the security of power systems. The integrated decision support system fuses information from various approximated system performance (ASP) models to minimize the risk of making the wrong decision under changing operating conditions. It uses the classification decisions provided by different ASP models together with information about their statistical performance (e.g., probabilities of misclassifications) to synthesize the globally optimal decision in the Bayesian risk sense. This global decision is often superior (and in no case inferior) to the one obtained using any single ASP model. The design of the integrated decision support system is illustrated for detecting static voltage collapse by fusing the security information from a set of existing security indices. >
Latino Values in the Context of Palliative Care: Illustrative Cases From the Family Focused Grief Therapy Trial

Background:Clinicians meet a variety of ethnicities among patients and families in hospice programs. This article focuses on Latino families.Methods:Within a controlled trial of family therapy in the context of palliative care, 17 families identified as Hispanic. Five were examined qualitatively herein.Results:A synopsis of each family’s narrative is presented here. Patterns of strong family loyalty (Familismo), the gender roles of Machismo and Marianismo, the importance of family tradition, expectations about caregiving, and the place of faith and religion emerged as prominent and able potentially to impact on the therapy.Conclusions:Family therapists need to be thoughtful about cultural issues as they strive to support families.
Context aggregation and dissemination in ubiquitous computing systems

Many "ubiquitous computing" applications need a constant flow of information about their environment to be able to adapt to their changing context. To support these "context-aware" applications we propose a graph-based abstraction for collecting, aggregating, and disseminating context information. The abstraction models context information as events, produced by sources and flowing through a directed acyclic graph of event-processing operators, then delivered to subscribing applications. Applications describe their desired event stream as a tree of operators that aggregate low level context information published by existing sources into the high-level context information needed by the application. The operator graph is thus the dynamic combination of all applications' subscription trees. We motivate and describe our graph abstraction, and discuss a variety of critical design issues. We also sketch our Solar system, an implementation that represents one point in the design space for our graph abstraction, and present the specific choices made by Solar and how its future evolution will be guided by the design discussion.
Empirical modeling of the impact of Mollisol soils variation on performance of Cuphea: A potential oilseed crop

Production potential of many soils is affected by low supply of nutrients due to adverse constraints or spatio-temporal variation of soil physico-chemical properties. New oilseed crops differ in their nutrient needs for maximum performance in different soils and may not be able to economically compete with grain crops for fertile land. Spatial variation in physico-chemical properties within and among four Mollisols during two contrasting cropping seasons accounted for significant and decreasing amounts of variation in crop performance quantified by seed yield, oil content and oil yield in Cuphea (Cuphea viscosissima Jacq. x Cuphea lanceolata W.T. Aiton; PSR23), a semi domesticated oilseed crop. Spatially demarcated 36 grids within soil series accounted for more variation in crop performance and reacted more significantly to temporal variation than soil series. Nutrient ratios of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur in seed were slightly better predictors of oil content and oil yield than those in soil. Soil chemical properties, including nutrient contents, soil pH, water, and electrical conductivity, when used as covariates or predictors in calibration and validation partial least squares regression models, provided new insights into the variation structure and prediction of crop performance. Predictive models may help design management strategies to optimize oil content and oil yield of oilseed crops on different soil types.
Fuzzy inference engine provides opportunity for testbed

In the development of a fuzzy logic implementation of a high-order, nonlinear, dynamic muscle model, opportunities continue to arise for the development and verification of other fuzzy implementations, including selected differential calculus and other classical mathematical relationships. The availability of a reliable, accessible, and powerful Generalized Fuzzy Inference Engine (GFIE), developed as part of the fuzzy modeling effort, facilitates the realization of fuzzy implementations such as low-pass filtering. This tool has also facilitated evaluation of fuzzy mathematical operations published in the literature but not always included in fuzzy systems software packages (e.g. MATLAB). Advantages of using fuzzy implementations described herein include robustness to noise and signal uncertainty (e.g. temporary signal drop-out) as well as potential reduction of sampling rates. Noise and parameter sensitivity studies are planned for quantifying these advantages in the setting of the fuzzy muscle model.
Vargula Morini, a New Species of Bioluminescent Ostracode (Myodocopida: Cypridinidae) from Belize and an Associated Copepod (Copepoda: Siphonostomatoida: Nicothoidae)

Abstract A new species of bioluminescent ostracode, Vargula morini from Carrie Bow Cay, Belize, is described on the basis of morphology and mating displays. Every night, males of V. morini produce an elaborate species-specific bioluminescent courtship display in order to attract females. These displays occur over coral or coral rubble, beginning near the sea surface and continuing as a series of rapid flashes produced in a downward direction. A nicothoid copepod was found living within the posterodorsal area of the valves of some V. morini. Scanning electron micrographs of these minute ostracode parasites are presented here for the first time.
On the Uniqueness of the Singular Value Decomposition in Meteorological Applications

Abstract The author revisits the singular value decomposition (SVD) method and shows that the nonuniqueness of the left and right singular vectors related to SVD posts limitations on applications of the method. Caution should be observed when the heterogeneous and homogeneous correlation maps are applied to interpret the relationship between two meteorological data series.
Mineralogical Applications of Crystal Field Theory: Mantle geochemistry of the transition elements: optical spectra at elevated temperatures and pressures

It is embarassing that the pressure experiments show the dependence of Δ upon the distance R between the metal and the ligand to be fairly close to that given by the point charge model . S. Sugano & S. Oshnishi, in Material Science of the Earth's Interior . (I. Sunagawa, ed., Terra Scientific Publ. Co., Tokyo, 1984), p. 174 Introduction Considerable interest centres on the Mantle constituting, as it does, more than half of the Earth by volume and by weight. Attention has been focussed on several problems, including the chemical composition, mineralogy, phase transitions and element partitioning in the Mantle, and the geophysical properties of seismicity, heat transfer by radiation, electrical conductivity and magnetism in the Earth. Many of these properties of the Earth's interior are influenced by the electronic structures of transition metal ions in Mantle minerals at elevated temperatures and pressures. Such effects are amenable to interpretation by crystal field theory based on optical spectral data for minerals measured at elevated temperatures and pressures. In the Mantle, temperatures range up to several thousands of degrees Kelvin and pressures may exceed 100 GPa in the deep interior, attaining 136 GPa at the Core–Mantle boundary. In the past two decades, the optical spectra of several minerals and synthetic analogues have been measured at high pressures and elevated temperatures simulating conditions in the interior of the Earth. The results of many of these high P and T spectral measurements are reviewed in this chapter and applications of the spectral data are described to transition metal-bearing Mantle minerals.
Periodic Motions of a Semi-Active Suspension System With MR Damping.

Periodic motions in a hysteretically damped, semi-active suspension system are investigated. The Magneto-Rheological damping varying with relative velocity is modeled through a piecewise-linear model. The theory for discontinuous dynamical systems is employed to determine the grazing motions in such a system, and the mapping technique is used to develop the mapping structures of periodic motions. The periodic motions are predicted analytically and verified numerically. The stability and bifurcation analyses of such periodic motions are performed, and the parameters for all possible motions are developed. This model is applicable for the semi-active suspension system with the Magneto-Rheological damper in automobiles. The further investigation on the Magneto-Rheological damping with full nonlinearity should be completed.© 2006 ASME
Intragroup Stimulation of Pheromone Release by Male Mediterranean Fruit Flies (Diptera: Tephritidae)

Ceratitis capitata Wiedemann males stimulate each other to higher levels of pheromone release when caged in groups. Ongoing stimulation is required to maintain the higher levels. Wingless males did not show the group effects. Flies separated by screening showed the group effect, but when either glass or perforated-paper barriers were placed between males, the stimulatory effect was obliterated. The reflection of the males stimulated pheromone release.
Drucker-prager elastoplasticity for sand animation

We simulate sand dynamics using an elastoplastic, continuum assumption. We demonstrate that the Drucker-Prager plastic flow model combined with a Hencky-strain-based hyperelasticity accurately recreates a wide range of visual sand phenomena with moderate computational expense. We use the Material Point Method (MPM) to discretize the governing equations for its natural treatment of contact, topological change and history dependent constitutive relations. The Drucker-Prager model naturally represents the frictional relation between shear and normal stresses through a yield stress criterion. We develop a stress projection algorithm used for enforcing this condition with a non-associative flow rule that works naturally with both implicit and explicit time integration. We demonstrate the efficacy of our approach on examples undergoing large deformation, collisions and topological changes necessary for producing modern visual effects.
The Role of Sexist Discrimination in Adult Women's Identity Development

The purpose of the current study was to examine the relationship between sexist discrimination and identity development in a sample of adult women. Participants completed a scale to indicate the extent to which sexist events had occurred in their lives and a measure of identity at 2 different data collection periods that spanned approximately 5 months. The results indicated that sexist events reported to occur within the last year at the first data collection period significantly predicted identity scores at the second data collection period. These findings are discussed in terms of how sexist discrimination may play a role in adult women's identity development and in terms of the additional psychometric data that supports the validity of the measure of sexist discrimination.
MicroRNA Regulation of Immune Cell Development and Function

Abstract SCI-31 The NF-kappa B pathway is a central mediator of inflammation and plays an important role in myeloid cell development. During activation of macrophages by LPS, three microRNAs (miRNAs) were initially identified as being upregulated in an NF-kappa B dependent manner. Subsequent efforts to characterize two of these miRNAs, namely miR-155 and miR-146a, have revealed important roles not only in inflammation but also in hematopoietic development. Curiously, these two miRNAs seem to play opposing roles in promoting immune cell and progenitor proliferation, and the phenotypes induced in gain and loss-of-function contexts will be discussed in detail. Specifically, miR-155 overexpression and miR-146a deficiency lead to myeloid proliferations with pathologic consequences. These differential roles are largely explained by the targets of these microRNAs, which include signal transduction regulators: SHIP1 and SOCS1 in the case of miR-155, and TRAF6 and IRAK1 in the case of miR-146a. The roles of these miRNAs as effector and feedback regulator of the NF-kappa B pathway, respectively, will be discussed in the context of myeloid development. More broadly, these studies, as well as studies of miRNAs in B-cell development, have revealed that understanding miRNA roles in these processes will illuminate new aspects of biology and pathology. For example, the regulation of hematopoietic development by these miRNAs has revealed important interconnections between pathways that previously may have been considered disparate. Moreover, these studies have begun to underscore the importance of identifying specific targets of a miRNA in a given physiologic or pathologic context. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.
Selective Alteration of the Activity of the Multiple Forms of Adenosine 3', 5'-Monophosphate Phosphodiesterase of Rat Cerebrum

Four different peaks of cyclic 39,59-AMP phosphodiesterase activity were isolated from the supernatant fraction of rat cerebral homogenates using preparative acrylamide gel electrophoresis. These peaks of activity, designated I-IV according to the order in which they emerged from the column, were exposed to various inhibitors of phosphodiesterase and to an activator of phosphodiesterase isolated from brain. The activator stimulated peak II phosphodiesterase about 10-fold but had no effect on the other peaks. The inhibitors also had differential effects on the phosphodiesterases, the most notable being trifluoperazine, which preferentially inhibited the activated peak II. Trifluoperazine sulfoxide and promethazine had less than 10% of the inhibitory activity of trifluoperazine on peak II. The inhibitors differed not only in the specific phosphodiesterase which they inhibited but also in their mechanism of action. Thus theophylline, cyclic GMP, and low concentrations of papaverine acted as competitive inhibitors, whereas the inhibition produced by trifluoperazine was neither purely competitive nor purely noncompetitive. High concentrations of papaverine produced noncompetitive inhibition. Theophylline and papaverine inhibited the activated and unactivated peak II equally, but trifluoperazine inhibited the activated peak II by more than 90% in concentrations (40 µM) that had little effect on the unactivated enzyme. This inhibition of peak II phosphodiesterase by trifluoperazine could be prevented by increasing the concentration of activator. Our results suggest that the selectivity of phosphodiesterase inhibitors may be due to the different patterns and ratios of multiple forms of phosphodiesterase in different tissues.
A technical survey on tire-road friction estimation

Lack of driver’s knowledge about the abrupt changes in pavement’s friction and poor performance of the vehicle’s stability, traction, and ABS controllers on the low friction surfaces are the most important factors affecting car crashes. Due to its direct relation to vehicle stability, accurate estimation of tire-road friction is of interest to all vehicle and tire companies. Many studies have been conducted in this field and researchers have used different tools and have proposed different algorithms. This literature survey introduces different approaches, which have been widely used to estimate the friction or other related parameters, and covers the recent literature that contains these methodologies. The emphasize of this review paper is on the algorithms and studies, which are more popular and have been repeated several times. The focus has been divided into two main groups: experiment-based and model-based approaches. Each of these main groups has several sub-categories, which are explained in the next few sections. Several summary tables are provided in which the overall feature of each approach is reviewed that gives the reader the general picture of different algorithms, which are widely used in friction estimation studies.
Performance bounds and optimal design of randomly switching linear consensus networks

We analyze the steady-state performance of randomly switching linear consensus networks subject to an additive noise. Our focus is on a class of discrete-time linear consensus networks whose dynamics evolve in time by switching between symmetric doubly-stochastic matrices that are drawn from a given finite set of realizations, which are dictated by a discrete random variable with a known probability mass function (pmf). The mean square deviation of the output from zero is utilized as a performance measure to quantify the noise propagation across the network. The direct computation of the performance measure, however, suffers from the curse of dimensionality. The first objective of this paper is to report a rather tight lower-bound for the performance measure that requires comparably less computations. Our second goal is to design a randomly switching network by minimizing the overall performance measure with respect to the vector of switching probabilities between consecutive realizations. Indeed, we prove that the performance measure is a convex function of the vector of switching probabilities, and furthermore, the optimal network design problem can be cast as a Semi-Definite Program (SDP). Moreover, we show that the performance measure is a convex function of the link weights of all underlying graphs, which implies that one can perform a reweighting procedure to minimize the performance measure using convenient convex programming tools. Different aspects of our theoretical results are illustrated via numerous examples and simulations.
Toward a Relativistic Theory of Statevector Reduction

“For each measurement, one is required to ascribe to the ψ-function a quite sudden change… The abrupt change by measurement… is the most interesting point of the entire theory.… For this reason one can not put the ψ-function directly in place of the physical thing… because from the realism point of view observation is a natural process like any other and cannot per se bring about an interruption of the orderly flow of events.”