cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Lutein and Zeaxanthin Are Positively Associated with Visual–Spatial Functioning in Older Adults: An fMRI Study

Lutein (L) and zeaxanthin (Z) are two xanthophyll carotenoids that have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Previous work has demonstrated their importance for eye health and preventing diseases such as age-related macular degeneration. An emerging literature base has also demonstrated the importance of L and Z in cognition, neural structure, and neural efficiency. The present study aimed to better understand the mechanisms by which L and Z relate to cognition, in particular, visual–spatial processing and decision-making in older adults. We hypothesized that markers of higher levels of L and Z would be associated with better neural efficiency during a visual–spatial processing task. L and Z were assessed via standard measurement of blood serum and retinal concentrations. Visual–spatial processing and decision-making were assessed via a judgment of line orientation task (JLO) completed during a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scan. The results demonstrated that individuals with higher concentrations of L and Z showed a decreased blood-oxygen-level dependent (BOLD) signal during task performance (i.e., “neural efficiency”) in key areas associated with visual–spatial perception, processing, decision-making, and motor coordination, including the lateral occipital cortex, occipital pole, superior and middle temporal gyri, superior parietal lobule, superior and middle frontal gyri, and pre- and post-central gyri. To our knowledge, this is the first investigation of the relationship of L and Z to visual–spatial processing at a neural level using in vivo methodology. Our findings suggest that L and Z may impact brain health and cognition in older adults by enhancing neurobiological efficiency in a variety of regions that support visual perception and decision-making.
What Is Wrong With International Advertising Research

While the past several years have seen an increased number of academic studies on international advertising, our collective body of knowledge on the subject is not advancing as rapidly as it could be. Recent literature falls short both in terms of advancing our theoretical understanding of international advertising and in providing information that might help managers make better decisions. This article identifies common problems that have hindered advancement of knowledge in this area and provides suggested directions for future research on international advertising topics.
Undiagnosed Diabetes in Patients Admitted to a Clinical Decision Unit from the Emergency Department: A Retrospective Review

Objectives Diabetes is a debilitating disease that affects the way the body uses or produces insulin. Research evaluating the usefulness in screening patients admitted to a clinical decision unit (CDU) from the emergency department (ED) has been limited. Methods A retrospective chart review of patients admitted to a CDU from the ED was performed. Patients included were > 18-year-old who were observed in the CDU, had blood glucose drawn greater than eight hours after admission, and who had not been previously diagnosed with diabetes. Age, sex, and fasting glucose level were collected. The analysis was done to evaluate the percentage of patients undiagnosed and at risk for diabetes mellitus by assessing fasting blood glucose the morning after admission. Results Study revealed that 27.8% of the patients analyzed in this study had fasting blood glucose levels meeting or exceeding the diagnostic threshold of 126 mg/dL and could potentially have undiagnosed diabetes. Conclusion Screening patients admitted to a CDU from the emergency department identified that 27.8% had fasting plasma glucose levels ≥ 126 mg/dL. Consideration should be made to obtain a fasting blood glucose level in those without a previous diagnosis of diabetes who are observed overnight in a CDU.
The educational experiences of DACA recipients

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) policy has given unauthorized immigrants access to many opportunities, specifically education. While DACA has improved the lives of many undocumente...
BEAUTY “THERAPY”: THE EMOTIONAL LABOR OF COMMERCIALIZED LISTENING IN THE SALON INDUSTRY

The concept of personal image is ubiquitous in culture, and hairstyling as a subset serves as a tool for self-expression. Salons, as a venue for this image self-expression, offer insight into a uni...
Modulation of Cathepsin L Expression in the Coronary Arteries of Atherosclerotic Swine

Abstract Introduction Neointimal hyperplasia (NIH) and restenosis after percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) and intravascular stenting remain a problem on a long-term basis by causing endothelial denudation and damage to the intima and media. Vascular sterile inflammation has been attributed to the formation of NIH. Cathepsin L (CTSL), a lysosome protease, is associated with diet-induced atherogenesis. Vitamin D regulates the actions and regulatory effects of proteases and protease inhibitors in different cell types. Objectives of this study are to evaluate the modulatory effect of vitamin D on CTSL activity in post-PTCA coronary arteries of atherosclerotic swine. Methods Yucatan microswine were fed with high-cholesterol atherosclerotic diets. The swine were stratified to receive three diets: (1) vitamin D–deficient diet, (2) vitamin D–sufficient diet, and (3) vitamin D–supplement diet. After 6 mo, PTCA was performed in the left circumflex coronary artery (LCx). After 1 y, angiography and optical coherence tomography imaging were performed, and swine was euthanized. Coronary arteries were embedded in paraffin. Tissue sections were stained with hematoxylin and eosin. Expression of Ki67 and CTSL were evaluated by immunofluorescence. Results Increased number of Ki67 + cells were observed in the postangioplasty LCx in vitamin D–deficient compared with vitamin D–sufficient or vitamin D–supplemented swine. Notably, the expression of CTSL was significantly increased in postangioplasty LCx of vitamin D–deficient swine compared with the vitamin D–sufficient or vitamin D–supplemented animal groups. Conclusions Increased expression of CTSL correlates with the formation of NIH in the PTCA-injured coronary arteries. However, in the presence of sufficient or supplemented levels of vitamin D in the blood, CTSL expression was significantly reduced.
Tail redundancy and its characterizations of universal compression

We completely characterize the asymptotic per-symbol average case redundancy of any collection $\mathcal{P}$ of i.i.d. distributions over a countably infinite alphabet. We prove that universal compression of length-n i.i.d. sequences from a class $\mathcal{P}$ is characterized by how well the tails of of the single letter marginals of $\mathcal{P}$ can be universally described. We capture this notion by the tail redundancy of a class $\mathcal{P}$ of distributions, and develop on the properties of tail redundancy.
A neural network enhanced system for learning nonlinear constitutive law and failure initiation criterion of composites using indirectly measurable data

Abstract A neural network enhanced system containing a subsystem with one or multiple neural networks is proposed. Instead of defining the loss function as the direct output of a neural network model, the proposed method uses the system output, which can be measured from experiments, to define the loss function. The loss function is contributed by the outputs from one or multiple neural network models through a subsystem. As a result, the direct output of the ANN model is not required to be measurable from experiments. A set of new back-propagation equations have been derived for this system. Two examples are given using the proposed system: learning the nonlinear in-plane shear constitutive law and learning the failure initiation criterion of fiber-reinforced composites (FRC). The neural network models in both examples are trained at the lamina level using the measurable experimental responses of laminates. The results obtained from the learned neural network models agree well with the corresponding analytical solutions. The proposed method can be used to train neural network models in a subsystem when only the input and output of the system is measurable.
Adoption of Multi-society Guidelines Facilitates Value-Based Reduction in Screening and Surveillance Colonoscopy Volume During COVID-19 Pandemic.

COVID-19 has caused a backlog of endoscopic procedures; colonoscopy must now be prioritized to those who would benefit most. We determined the proportion of screening and surveillance colonoscopies appropriate for rescheduling to a future year through strict adoption of US Multi-Society Task Force (USMSTF) guidelines. We conducted a single-center observational study of patients scheduled for “open-access colonoscopy”—ordered by a primary care provider without being seen in gastroenterology clinic—over a 6-week period during the COVID-19 pandemic. Each chart was reviewed to appropriately assign a surveillance year per USMSTF guidelines including demographics, colonoscopy history and family history. When guidelines recommended a range of colonoscopy intervals, both a “conservative” and “liberal” guideline adherence were assessed. We delayed 769 “open-access” screening or surveillance colonoscopies due to COVID-19. Between 14.8% (conservative) and 20.7% (liberal), colonoscopies were appropriate for rescheduling to a future year. Conversely, 415 (54.0%) patients were overdue for colonoscopy. Family history of CRC was associated with being scheduled too early for both screening (OR 3.9; CI 1.9–8.2) and surveillance colonoscopy (OR 2.6, CI 1.0–6.5). The most common reasons a colonoscopy was inappropriately scheduled this year were failure to use new surveillance colonoscopy intervals (28.9%), incorrectly applied family history guidelines (27.2%) and recommending early surveillance colonoscopy after recent normal colonoscopy (19.3%). Up to one-fifth of patients scheduled for “open-access” colonoscopy can be rescheduled into a future year based on USMSTF guidelines. Rigorously applying guidelines could judiciously allocate colonoscopy resources as we recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Advances in Understanding Rational Behavior

It will be argued that economic theory, decision theory and some recent work in game theory, make important contributions to a deeper understanding of the concept of rational behavior. The paper starts with a discussion of the common-sense notion of rational behavior. Then, the rationality concepts of classical economics and of Bayesian decision theory are described. Finally, some (mostly fairly recent) advances in game theory are briefly discussed, such as probabilistic models for games with incomplete information; the role of equilibrium points in non-cooperative games, and the standard game-theoretical approach to the prisoner’s dilemma problem; the concept of perfect equilibrium points; the use of non-cooperative bargaining models in analyzing cooperative games; and the Harsanyi-Selten solution concept for non-cooperative games.
Continued Validation of Ultrasound Guidance Targeting Tasks: Relationship with Procedure Performance.

Rationale and Objectives To determine if deliberative practice with novel ultrasound guidance targeting tasks improves simulated procedural skill. Materials and Methods In a nonrandomized interventional trial first year medical students practiced the previous described dowel and straw targeting tasks 1 hour a week for 4 weeks (training group) or had no training (controls). Afterward, they each performed a simulated amniocentesis (AMN) and chorionic villus sampling (CVS) procedure. Procedures were scored using a global rating scale (GRS) and compared between groups with Mann-Whitney U tests. Two-way random effects intraclass correlation coefficients for the inter- and intra-rater variability were calculated for each item in both GRS's. Results The training group (n = 22) had higher scores on several aspects and overall performance of AMN compared to controls (n = 15). There were no differences between groups for CVS. The inter-rater and intra-rater reliability of the GRS's for both AMN and CVS ranged from 0.16 to 0.89 with most values demonstrating good to excellent agreement. Conclusion This study demonstrates validity evidence in the content and internal structure domains for the AMN and CVS simulators and their accompanying GRS's. Repetitive practice of the targeting tasks improved student performance in simulated AMN, but modifications are needed for it to be relevant to other procedures such as CVS.
Disparities Between Messages Heard at Home and Messages Sent Out by African Refugees in LAC “Safe Haven” Countries

Every two seconds, one person flees his or her home country. One major source of those refugees is the continent of Africa. As European countries have tightened their borders, most Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) countries have implemented friendly immigration reforms. This makes it more practical and feasible for African refugees to migrate to, live in, and trek across the region by foot, bus, and boat. The news of the immigration reforms, which also provides faster track and greater opportunities for refugees to migrate to the Mexican-US border, has immensely increased the flow of refugees in the region.
Certificates of Appealability as Rubber Stamps

This article conducts an empirical study of habeas cases involving Certificates of Appealability ("COA") in the Fifth and Eleventh Circuit. Notably, the study provides critical insight into the standard being used to resolve and the reasons for denying these applications. Two trends emerge in the data that are arguably a product of AEDPA deference: the tendency for courts to interpret §§ 2254(d) and (e) as calling for merits analysis at the COA stage and the tendency for courts to issue brief COA orders that rely principally on deference to lower court findings. After identifying AEDPA deference at the COA stage as the main culprit of systematic COA denials, this article proposes a doctrinal shift that may achieve a more limited inquiry that encourages further review of constitutional claims.
Clinical features and management of pediatric patients presenting with new onset acute leukemia and concomitant COVID-19

Background: Infections represent a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in pediatric patients undergoing treatment for hematologic malignancies. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection has led to a worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and pediatric patients with cancer appear to be at higher risk of severe disease than reported in the general pediatric population. Data are limited on the optimal management of children infected with SARS-CoV-2 and a new diagnosis of leukemia. The objective of this study was to describe our experience of six children who presented with a new diagnosis of acute leukemia and concurrent COVID-19.
Cyberinfrastructure support for engineering virtual organization for cyberdesign

Integrated Computational Material Engineering (ICME) is an emerging discipline transforming materials science. Computational engineering accelerates materials development, integrates design and manufacturing, and unifies these with the engineering design optimization process, as well as efficiently employs greater accuracy in simulation-based design. Efforts to realize this enormous and complex goal have catalyzed the development of the Engineering Virtual Organization for Cyber Design (EVOCD), which provides a cyberinfrastructure to accumulate and protect the intellectual property pertaining to selected aspects of materials science and engineering that is generated by the participants of the organization, to enforce the quality of that information, and to manage its complexity. The intellectual property includes experimental data, material models and constants, computational tools and software artifacts, and the knowledge pertaining to multiscale physics-based models for selected properties and processes. EVOCD has been developed using open source components augmented with custom modules such as a secure data repository integrated with online model calibration tools. EVOCD is available at http://icme.hpc.msstate.edu
Questioning the Sole-Trader Rule in the Barrister Profession

In Ireland, no barrister may enter into a partnership with another. A controversial report by the Competition Authority in 2006 concluded that this sole-trader edict is antithetical to Irish society, by virtue of its foreclosing the emergence of an efficient market structure in the industry. The Authority’s recommendation that barristers be permitted to form partnerships encountered stiff resistance from the Bar Council and a number of leading Irish lawyers. These commentators questioned the efficiencies that would supposedly be facilitated by partnerships, warned that anticompetitive concentration within the profession would ensue, challenged the assertion that entry barriers into the profession are currently significant, argued that the emergence of a two-track system of sole practice and partnerships would degrade the prestige of the former route and ultimately lead to its demise, and contended that the abolition of the sole-trader rule would frustrate the attainment of efficiencies embodied in the Law Library. The most central overarching theme, however, was that the efficiency model underlying economics renders that mode of analytic inquiry ill-suited to the intricate social question of justice. In short – proponents of the status quo submit – competition economics is in tension with the larger values at play in the legal industry. In this, the first of two papers addressing the role of law and economics in Irish legal matters, the author contends that the sole-trader rule should be abolished. With respect to the normative quality of this rule, economic analysis is indeed fully commensurate with notions of justice. Bringing that analysis to bear on the arguments promoted by defenders of the status quo reveals their case to be of merely superficial appeal. Permitting barristers to form partnerships would significantly curtail the difficulties faced by promising law graduates who aspire to join the bar. It would also facilitate greater levels of competition at the top of the profession. The formal pooling of income and diversification of practice – two features inherent in a partnership – would reduce the otherwise systemic financial risk facing barristers. Cross-subsidization would yield considerable benefits by enhancing the provision of pro bono services. The formal combination of lawyers possessing expertise in complementary areas of law would induce axiomatic efficiency benefits in complex cases. As explored below, the objection that sole practice may become second tier is without significance, as is the worry that efficiencies found in the Law Library would be diluted. Finally, the fear that large-scale consolidation would foster tacit collusion and undesirably reduce the choices open to solicitors ought not to be countenanced. In this last regard, it must not be forgotten that the barrister profession will continue to be subject to the competition laws, which will foreclose combinations that yield monopoly or excessive concentration in certain fields of practice. Since the sole-trader rule stands on so insecure a foundation, it ought to be jettisoned.
Game Design as an Interactive Learning Environment for Fostering Students' and Teachers' Mathematical Inquiry.

Many learning environments, computer-based or not, have been developed for either students or teachers alone to engage them in mathematical inquiry. While some headway has been made in both directions, few efforts have concentrated on creating learning environments that bring both teachers and students together in their teaching and learning. In the following paper, we propose game design as such a learning environment for students and teachers to build on and challenge their existing understandings of mathematics, engage in relevant and meaningful learning contexts, and develop connections among their mathematical ideas and their real world contexts. To examine the potential of this approach, we conducted and analyzed two studies: Study I focused on a team of four elementary school students designing games to teach fractions to younger students, Study II focused on teams of pre-service teachers engaged in the same task. We analyzed the various games designed by the different teams to understand how teachers and students conceptualize the task of creating virtual game learning environment for others, in which ways they integrate their understanding of fractions and develop notions about students' thinking in fractions, and how conceptual design tools can provide a common platform to develop meaningful fraction contexts. In our analysis, we found that most teachers and students, when left to their own devices, create instructional games to teach fractions that incorporate little of their knowledge. We found that when we provided teachers and students with conceptual design tools such as game screens and design directives that facilitated an integration of content and game context, the games as well as teachers' and students' thinking increased in their sophistication. In the discussion, we elaborate on how the design activities helped to integrate rarely used informal knowledge of students and teachers, how the conceptual design tools improved the instructional design process, and how students and teachers benefit in their mathematical inquiry from each others' perspectives. In the outlook, we discuss features for computational design learning environments.
ER Stress Sensor XBP1 Controls Anti-tumor Immunity by Disrupting Dendritic Cell Homeostasis

SUMMARY Dendritic cells (DCs) are required to initiate and sustain T cell-dependent anti-cancer immunity. However, tumors often evade immune control by crippling normal DC function. The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress response factor XBP1 promotes intrinsic tumor growth directly, but whether it also regulates the host anti-tumor immune response is not known. Here we show that constitutive activation of XBP1 in tumor-associated DCs (tDCs) drives ovarian cancer (OvCa) progression by blunting antitumor immunity. XBP1 activation, fueled by lipid peroxidation byproducts, induced a triglyceride biosynthetic program in tDCs leading to abnormal lipid accumulation and subsequent inhibition of tDC capacity to support anti-tumor T cells. Accordingly, DC-specific XBP1 deletion or selective nanoparticle-mediated XBP1 silencing in tDCs restored their immunostimulatory activity in situ and extended survival by evoking protective type 1 anti-tumor responses. Targeting the ER stress response should concomitantly inhibit tumor growth and enhance anti-cancer immunity, thus offering a unique approach to cancer immunotherapy.
Development of current squared - Time curves for simplified wire size selection for electric traction systems in automotive applications

Three models are implemented to study the behavior of DC current-carrying wires under steady (continuous) and transient (peak) conditions. Each model uses an energy balance. The steady state model provides the initial temperature for the transient models. I2t curves are developed with the transient models to guide and simplify the wire sizing process for peak current in design of DC electric traction systems. The main results of this work are focused on the temperature versus time solution from a general transient energy balance thermal model.
Sigma-Delta Converters in Communication Systems

The Sigma-Delta (Σ-Δ) converter is a source coding process that forms an enhanced-resolution representation of a sampled data time series from a sequence of over sampled, low-resolution measurements. The process employs three fundamental concepts, specifically, over sampling to obtain correlated samples, feedback around the quantizer to shape the noise power spectrum, and filtering to suppress the out-of band shaped noise spectrum. The process can be applied to the task of quantizing an input analog signal, to the task or re-quantizing an existing digital signal, or as a pre-processor in the task of converting a digital signal to an analog signal. These tasks are commonly referred to as analog-to-digital conversion (A-to-D or ADC), digital-to-digital conversion (D-to-D or DDC), and digital-to-analog conversion (D-to-A or DAC). The Σ-Δ converter is incorporated in many systems to enhance various signal processing and signal conditioning tasks commonly present in modern modem designs. In this section we present the fundamentals of the sigma-delta converter, introduce a variety of implementation options, and demonstrate typical performance curves. We also illustrate a number of standard and unconventional applications of the Σ-Δ converter in contemporary communication systems. Keywords: sigma-delta Converters; Σ-Δ; noise shaping; noise feedback converters; noise transfer function (NTF); band-pass converters; sigma-delta stability
Understanding and Addressing Barriers to Implementation of Environmental and Policy Interventions to Support Physical Activity and Healthy Eating in Rural Communities

Purpose Rural residents are at greater risk of obesity than urban and suburban residents. Failure to meet physical activity and healthy eating recommendations play a role. Emerging evidence shows the effectiveness of environmental and policy interventions to promote physical activity and healthy eating. Yet most of the evidence comes from urban and suburban communities. The objectives of this study were to (1) identify types of environmental and policy interventions being implemented in rural communities to promote physical activity or healthy eating, (2) identify barriers to the implementation of environmental or policy interventions, and (3) identify strategies rural communities have employed to overcome these barriers. Methods Key informant interviews with public health professionals working in rural areas in the United States were conducted in 2010. A purposive sample included 15 practitioners engaged in planning, implementing, or evaluating environmental or policy interventions to promote physical activity or healthy eating. Findings Our findings reveal that barriers in rural communities include cultural differences, population size, limited human capital, and difficulty demonstrating the connection between social and economic policy and health outcomes. Key informants identified a number of strategies to overcome these barriers such as developing broad-based partnerships and building on the existing infrastructure. Conclusion Recent evidence suggests that environmental and policy interventions have potential to promote physical activity and healthy eating at the population level. To realize positive outcomes, it is important to provide opportunities to implement these types of interventions and document their effectiveness in rural communities.
Controls on Petroleum Accumulation in Upper Pennsylvanian Cyclic Shelf Carbonates in Western Kansas, Usa, Interpreted by Space Modeling and Multivariate Techniques

Techniques of “regionalized classification” have been applied to problems of oil exploration in Paleozoic strata of the western Kansas shelf. Well locations, each described by a set of geological data, are hierarchically classified. Kriging is used to map the results of well classification across the entire area of investigation, subdividing it into homogeneous subareas termed “regions.” The reliability of the regionalization is expressed by a Bayesian probability as a function of the plane. Applying this methodology to stratigraphic data from western Kansas results in a regionalization of the Paleozoic (Pennsylvanian to Permian) sequences. These results are compared to oil productivity and its regional separation. The Bayesian probability of correct allocation to each class can be used as well for the detection of zones of tectonic instability and for assessing exploration risk because the classes reflect oil productivity.
Theory of 2-rotation symmetric cubic Boolean functions

A Boolean function in $$n$$ n variables is $$2$$ 2 -rotation symmetric if it is invariant under even powers of the cyclic permutation $$\rho (x_1,\ldots ,x_n)=(x_2,\ldots ,x_n,x_1)$$ ? ( x 1 , ? , x n ) = ( x 2 , ? , x n , x 1 ) of the variables, but not under the first power (ordinary rotation symmetry); for brevity, we call such a function a $$2$$ 2 -function. A $$2$$ 2 -function is said to be monomial rotation symmetric (MRS) if it is generated by applying powers of $$\rho ^2$$ ? 2 to a single monomial. This paper develops the theory of cubic MRS $$2$$ 2 -functions in $$2n$$ 2 n variables generated by a monomial $$x_1 x_r x_s$$ x 1 x r x s with $$1 $$ > 2. An exact count of the equivalence classes is given and their number is proved to be very small, in fact $$O(n^{\epsilon })$$ O ( n ∈ ) for any $$\epsilon > 0.$$ ∈ > 0 . It is proved that the sequence of Hamming weights $$\{wt(2 \text {-}(1,r,s)_{2n}):~2n \ge s\}$$ { w t ( 2 - ( 1 , r , s ) 2 n ) : 2 n ? s } satisfies a linear recursion with integer coefficients. A similar result for ordinary cubic MRS functions was proved recently (papers by Bileschi, Cusick and Padgett, and by Brown and Cusick), but this paper uses a new method for the $$2$$ 2 -functions proof. Unlike the ordinary MRS function case, both the orders of the recursions for the $$2$$ 2 -functions and the precise values of the roots of the corresponding recursion polynomials can be given explicitly. Finally, a precise value for the weights of the $$2$$ 2 -functions is proved, using a 2011 formula of Cusick and Padgett. These weights are connected to powers of members of the well known Lucas sequence, and so the weights can be found without computing initial values for the recursions.
What's in a representation, why do we care, and what does it mean? Examining evidence from psychology

Abstract This paper examines psychological evidence on the nature and role of representations in cognition. Both internal (mental) and external (physical or digital) representations are considered. It is discovered that both types of representation are deeply linked to thought processes. They are linked to learning, the ability to use existing knowledge, and problem solving strategies. The links between representations, thought processes, and behavior are so deep that even eye movements are partly governed by representations. Choice of representations can affect limited cognitive resources like attention and short-term memory by forcing a person to try to utilize poorly organized information or perform `translations' from one representation to another. The implications of this evidence are discussed. Based on these findings, a set of guidelines are presented, for digital representations which minimize drain of cognitive resources. These guidelines describe what sorts of characteristics and behaviors a representation should exhibit, and what sorts of information it should contain in order to accommodate and facilitate design. Current attempts to implement such representations are discussed.
Sensitivity to infant development and behavior: A comparison of adolescent and adult single mothers

The relationship of adolescent mothers' knowledge of infant development and perceptions of infant behavior to stress experienced during pregnancy were examined using a comparison group of adults of similar marital status. Relationships with maternal age across groups also were examined. Adolescents underestimated developmental rate and perceived some infant behaviors less optimally, but did not differ in levels of stress. Stress was related to several parenting subscores. Some support for a linear relationship with maternal age was found. Results suggest the need for further research to determine how level of maturity affects translation of knowledge into maternal action.
Wild bearded capuchin monkeys (Sapajus libidinosus) strategically place nuts in a stable position during nut-cracking.

Humans can use hand tools smoothly and effectively in varying circumstances; in other words, skillfully. A few other species of primates crack encased foods using hammer tools and anvils. Are they skilled? Positioning the food on the anvil so that it does not fall off when struck is a component of skilled cracking. We discovered that bearded capuchin monkeys deliberately place palm nuts in a relatively stable position on the anvil before striking them. In the first experiment, we marked the meridians of palm nuts where they stopped when rolled on a flat surface (“Stop meridian”). We videotaped monkeys as they cracked these nuts on an anvil. In playback we coded the position of the Stop meridian prior to each strike. Monkeys typically knocked the nuts on the anvil a few times before releasing them in a pit. They positioned the nuts so that the Stop meridian was within 30 degrees of vertical with respect to gravity more often than expected, and the nuts rarely moved after the monkeys released them. In the second experiment, 14 blindfolded people (7 men) asked to position marked nuts on an anvil as if to crack them reliably placed them with the Stop meridian in the same position as the monkeys did. In the third experiment, two people judged that palm nuts are most bilaterally symmetric along a meridian on, or close to, the Stop meridian. Thus the monkeys reliably placed the more symmetrical side of the nuts against the side of the pit, and the nuts reliably remained stationary when released. Monkeys apparently used information gained from knocking the nut to achieve this position. Thus, monkeys place the nuts skillfully, strategically managing the fit between the variable nuts and pits in the anvil, and skilled placement depends upon information generated by manual action.
A study of the gaseous etching of germanium by oxygen

Abstract Low energy electron diffraction and electron microscopy were used to study effects of the high temperature oxidation of (100) oriented, single crystal germanium. Attempts to thermally clean the surfaces prior to reaction were successful. Pits with (111) facets were the principal features observed on the reacted surfaces. Multiple diffraction within the pits and faceting to form (311) planes were postulated as explanations for other diffraction features observed. Roughness factors ranging from 1.00 to 1.36, determined from electron micrographs of the reacted surfaces, were observed for varying exposures to oxygen. A qualitative description of the pitting mechanism is presented.
Specific Binding of ApoA-I, Enhanced Cholesterol Efflux, and Altered Plasma Membrane Morphology in Cells Expressing ABC1

Mutations of the ABC1 transporter have been identified as the defect in Tangier disease, characterized by low HDL and cholesterol ester accumulation in macrophages. A full-length mouse ABC1 cDNA was used to investigate the mechanisms of lipid efflux to apoA-I or HDL in transfected 293 cells. ABC1 expression markedly increased cellular cholesterol and phospholipid efflux to apoA-I but had only minor effects on lipid efflux to HDL. The increased lipid efflux appears to involve a direct interaction between apoA-I and ABC1, because ABC1 expression substantially increased apoA-I binding at the cell surface, and chemical cross-linking and immunoprecipitation analysis showed that apoA-I binds directly to ABC1. In contrast to scavenger receptor BI (SR-BI), another cell surface molecule capable of facilitating cholesterol efflux, ABC1 preferentially bound lipid-free apoA-I but not HDL. Immunofluorescence confocal microscopy showed that ABC1 is primarily localized on the cell surface. In the absence of apoA-I, cells overexpressing ABC1 displayed a distinctive morphology, characterized by plasma membrane protrusions and resembling echinocytes that form when there are excess lipids in the outer membrane hemileaflet. The studies provide evidence for a direct interaction between ABC1 and apoA-I, but not HDL, indicating that free apoA-I is the metabolic substrate for ABC1. Plasma membrane ABC1 may act as a phospholipid/cholesterol flippase, providing lipid to bound apoA-I, or to the outer membrane hemileaflet.
Diagnostic approach and management of inpatient hyponatremia

Hyponatremia is one of the most common electrolyte abnormalities encountered in clinical practice. The frequency of the disorder varies according to definition and clinical setting but has been reported to be present in 28% of patients upon hospital admission and in 7% of patients attending an ambulatory community clinic. Increasing age, medications, various disease states, and administration of hypotonic fluids are among the known risk factors for the disorder. The mortality rate in hyponatremic patients is approximately 3 times that of normonatremic hospitalized patients. Outcomes are particularly poor in those patients whose serum sodium (Naþ) falls during a hospitalization. In 1 prospective study the mortality rate in patients with a normal serum Naþ concentration was 0.2% in comparison to a mortality rate of 11.2% and 25% in patients with a serum Naþ concentration <130 mEq/L and <120 mEq/L, respectively. In a recent retrospective cohort study of 10,899 hospitalized patients, the incidence of hyponatremia (<135 mmol/L) at admission was 5.5%. As compared to those with normonatremia, these patients were more likely to require intensive care and mechanical ventilation within 48 hours of hospitalization. In addition, hospital mortality, mean length of stay, and costs were significantly greater among patients with hyponatremia than those without. The association with hyponatremia and adverse outcomes could be the direct result of hyponatremia, the comormidities that lead to the electrolyte derangement, or both. Whatever the mechanism, hyponatremia should not be viewed as an innocuous condition. Rather, clinicians should view this disorder with urgency and institute measures to prevent any further decline in the serum Naþ concentration and initiate appropriate therapy for its correction. This review will first briefly summarize the pathogenesis of hyponatremia and then discuss various disease states encountered in the hospital setting in which hyponatremia is frequently present.
Controllability of stochastic systems with random delay

The object of the present paper is to study the stability behavior of a nonlinear stochastic differential system with random delay of the form ẋ(t; ω), ω; u(t)) + (t, ω) ϕ(z(t — y(t; ω); ω) where ω ω, the supporting set of a probability measure space (ω, A, P), x(t, ω) in an n-dimensional random function; u(t) is an m-dimensional control vector, A(t, ω) in an n X p matrix function and o in a p-dimensional random function defined on Rp X ω and y(t, ω) is a random delay with z(t, ω) being a p-dimensional observation vector defined a specific way. Conditions are given that guarantee the existence of an admissible control u, under the influence of which the sample paths of the stochastic system can be guided arbitrarily close to the origin with an assigned probability.
Minimum protein oscillator based on multisite phosphorylation/dephosphorylation

The authors propose a novel minimum oscillator whereby a protein with multiple phosphorylation sites directly embedded in a negative feedback loop can exhibit oscillation. They demonstrate that if the fully phosphorylated substrate inhibits the first phosphorylation step in a cooperative manner, multisite substrates can exhibit oscillatory behaviour at the presence of a kinase and phosphatase. With a fixed number of sites, the non-linearity of the negative feedback and the substrate∕enzyme ratio must be above certain threshold values to generate undamped oscillation. There is an inverse relationship between the number of phosphorylation sites and the minimum non-linearity of the negative feedback required for oscillation; that is, the ultrasensitivity and time delay rooted in multisite phosphorylation compensate for the explicit non-linearity in the negative feedback. The period and amplitude of oscillation are mainly determined by the number of phosphorylation sites and the substrate∕enzyme ratio. The authors' results suggest that a multisite protein can be exploited for the construction of a synthetic protein oscillator featuring simplicity, robustness and tunability.
The impact of comet Shoemaker‐Levy 9 on the Jovian magnetosphere

By the time of the impact of comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Jupiter, the freshly-broken surfaces of the accompanying rubble will have been outgassing for about two years, and will have produced an expanding and co-moving cloud of gas hundreds of R(sub J) across. Much of this gas, escaping from the cometary fragments at low (equal to or less than 1 km/s) speed, will arrive in the Jovian magnetopshere contemporaneously with the comet and drift through the magnetosphere. This gas, as it is photoionized, will be picked up primarily in the outer magnetosphere and the resulting high-energy ions should intensify magnetospheric processes, such as Io plasma torus and auroral emissions, that are thought to be powered by outer magnetospheric mass loading. If the composition of the comet is similar to that of P/Halley, the power available from mass loading should be comparable to that driving the aurora (10(exp 14) W) and at least an order of magnitude larger than that exciting the plasma torus for several weeks or months. Measurement of these emissions during and after the cometary encounter may constrain the mechanisms for energization of magnetospheric charged particle populations and magnetospheric transport processes.
URINARY EXCRETION OF PREGNANDIOL COMPLEX BY MALES I. FOLLOWING ITS ORAL ADMINISTRATION1

SINCE it has been shown that in the female variations in renal permeabilityalter the amount of pregnandiol complex excreted, a study of the elimination of this compound by the kidneys of the male seemed advisable. These studies were initiated prior to the appearance of the report by Buxton and Westphal (i) describing the urinary excretion ofthe pregnandiol complex following injections of progesterone in males. Because of the observations which are made upon the percentage recovery in the urine of the pregnandiol complex and upon the time required for complete urinary excretion of a single oral dose ofthe compound, these data are presented. A group of 6 healthy males, whose ages ranged from 25 to 38 years, was given by mouth single doses of sodium pregnandiol glucuronide3 amounting to either 10
Covariance and Quantum Logic

Considering the fundamental role symmetry plays throughout physics, it is remarkable how little attention has been paid to it in the quantum-logical literature. In this paper, we discuss G-test spaces—that is, test spaces hosting an action by a group G—and their logics. The focus is on G-test spaces having strong homogeneity properties. After establishing some general results and exhibiting various specimens (some of them exotic), we show that a sufficiently symmetric G-test space having an invariant, separating set of states with affine dimension n, is always representable in terms of a real Hilbert space of dimension n+1, in such a way that orthogonal outcomes are represented by orthogonal unit vectors.
FREQUENCY DOMAIN PERFORMANCE BOUNDS FOR UNCERTAIN POSITIVE REAL SYSTEMS

An important part of feedback control involves analyzing uncertain systems for robust stability and performance. In certain applications, such as collocated control of flexible structures, the plant is positive real. Hence, closedloop stability is unconditionally guaranteed as long as the controller is also positive real. Most of the performance robustness analysis results in the literature, however, will not always yield finite performance bounds for the case of closed-loop systems consisting of uncertain positive real plants controlled by strictly positive real compensators. These results are obviously conservative since this class of systems is unconditionally stable. Majorant analysis is used to develop tests that yield finite frequency-dependent performance bounds for the described case. The results are specialized to the case of static, decentralized collocated rate feedback and dynamic, collocated rate feedback. These results are compared to previous majorant performance bounds and performance bounds resulting from real structured singular value analysis.
Instabilities of chromodyons in SO(5) gauge theory

Attempts to construct chromodyons---objects with both magnetic charge and non-Abelian electric charge---in the context of spontaneously broken gauge theories have been thwarted in the past by topological obstructions to globally defining the unbroken non-Abelian ``color'' subgroup. In this paper we consider the possibility of chromodyons in a theory with SO(5) broken to $\mathrm{SU}(2)\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}\mathrm{U}(1)$, where the topological obstructions are absent. We start by constructing a monopole with only magnetic charge. By exciting a global gauge zero mode about this monopole, we obtain a chromodyonic configuration that is an approximate solution of the field equations. We then numerically simulate the time evolution of this initial state, to see if it settles down in a stationary solution. Instead, we find that chromoelectric charge is continually radiated away, with every indication that this process will continue until this charge has been completely lost. We argue that this presents strong evidence against the existence of stable chromodyons.
Synthesis and Characterization of Alternating and Multiblock Copolymers from Ethylene and Cyclopentene

The synthesis and characterization of copolymers from ethylene and cyclopentene are reported. Polymerization of ethylene and cyclopentene using a living bis(phenoxyimine)titanium catalyst yields copolymers with cis-1,2 cyclopentane units, high molecular weights, and low polydispersities. The effects of cyclopentene concentration, ethylene pressure, and reaction temperature on cyclopentene incorporation were determined; under the optimal reaction conditions 47 mol % cyclopentene was incorporated to give a nearly perfectly alternating copolymer. The glass-transition temperatures of the polymers, ranging from −27.3 °C (27 mol % cyclopentene) to 10.1 °C (47 mol % cyclopentene), were found to be linearly dependent on the mole percent cyclopentene content. Synthesis of atactic and isotactic model poly(ethylene-alt-(cis-1,2-cyclopentane))s using ring-opening metathesis polymerization allowed the assignment of the fine structure of 13C NMR spectra of atactic polymers made from ethylene and cyclopentene. Finally, ...
A hypothesis of the dimensional organization of the city construct. A starting point for city brand positioning

Abstract The ever-changing fortunes of cities across the world, along with the increasing competition between economic centers caused by globalization, has stimulated the interest and need for instruments allowing researchers to compare cities across a range of dimensions. The literature review indicates that not enough research has been devoted to develop multidimensional models for city evaluations and that the existing models are biased towards specific stakeholder interests and cultural worldviews, thereby being apt to produce inconsistent and contradictory findings. This state of affairs negatively impact marketers, ability to formulate city brand positioning strategies, which are based not only on aspiration but also on a nuanced understanding of the empirical reality of the city. Through a grounded analysis of 473 measures of a selected range of city-ranking indexes, this study identified 37 item categories and, through a grounded theory in-text verification process, a hypothesis of a total of 16 evaluative dimensions was proposed. The paper proposes this as a starting point not only for comparative research, but also for city brand positioning and the continued measurement of progress on the implementation of positioning strategies for cities.