cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Selective Responsiveness of Human Breast Cancer Cells to Indole-3-carbinol, a Chemopreventive Agent

Background Indole-3-carbinol (I3C), a compound found in cabbage, broccoli, and brussels sprouts, inhibits the growth of mammary tumors when fed to certain strains of mice. The chemopreventive and antitumor effects of I3C depend on the species and tissue type. The mechanism of action and specific human cell types that respond to I3C are not known. Purpose Our purpose was to study the mechanism of action of I3C in estrogen-responsive (MCF-7) and estrogen-nonresponsive (MDA-MB-231) human breast cancer cell lines. Methods Estrogen responsiveness was determined by the ability of estradiol to stimulate the growth of breast cancer cells deprived of estrogen. The effect of I3C was measured on cell growth, estradiol metabolism, and level of cytochrome P-4501A1. Growth was measured by cell counts and soft-agar assay, estrogen metabolism was examined by a radiometric assay, and the level of cytochrome P-4501A1 was measured by Western blots with a polyclonal antibody. Results I3C inhibits the growth of estrogen-responsive cell line MCF-7 but has little effect on estrogen-nonresponsive cell line MDA-MB-231. Specific C-2 hydroxylation of estrogen and induction of cytochrome P-4501A1 was enhanced by I3C in the MCF-7 but not in the MDA-MB-231 cells. Conclusion I3C has specific antigrowth effects in human breast cancer cells. The inhibitory effects of I3C may involve selective induction of estradiol metabolism and the related cytochrome P-450 system that may be limited to estrogen-sensitive cells.
Critical Literature Review of the Evidence for Unpalatability of Amphibian Eggs and Larvae

We examined 142 papers, which contained 603 separate predator-prey trials, to investigate whether unpalatability is an important defense against predation for amphibian eggs and larvae. Although unpalatability is often cited as an antipredator defense, it was rarely demonstrated that 89% of the trials that we reviewed found prey to be palatable. The most extensively studied taxa, the genera Bufo and Rana, were diagnosed unpalatable at rates comparable to all other taxa. Diagnoses of unpalatability were not always consistent for a prey species across different predators and were influenced by experimental method. Despite these limitations and our conservative definition of unpalatability, several patterns emerged. First, across all taxonomic groups, eggs and hatchlings were unpalatable more often than mobile larval stages. Second, species that breed in temporary ponds were more likely to be palatable to fish predators than those that breed in permanent habitats. Third, fish and caudates were more likely to find amphibian prey unpalatable than insect predators. We conclude that unpalatability is rare, but when it occurs, it is a property of an ensemble (predator, prey, and alternative prey) and a life-history stage in a particular circumstance but is not a species- specific attribute. We suggest methods of experimentation that could strengthen future research on the palatability of amphibian eggs and larvae.
Self-aligned 1.14-GHz vibrating radial-mode disk resonators

A new fabrication methodology that allows self-alignment of a micromechanical structure to its anchor(s) has been utilized to achieve vibrating radial-contour mode micromechanical disk resonators with record resonance frequencies up to 1.14 GHz and measured Q's at this frequency >1,500 in both vacuum and air. In addition, 733-MHz versions have been demonstrated with Q's of 7,330 and 6,100 in vacuum and air, respectively. For these resonators, self-alignment of the stem to exactly the center of the disk it supports allows balancing of the resonator far superior to that achieved by previous versions (where separate masks were used to define the disk and stem), allowing the present devices to retain high Q while achieving frequencies in the GHz range for the first time.
Tensiones y distensiones en torno a la ciudadanía y formación ciudadana: comparación de los significados de profesores y estudiantes secundarios en la Región de Valparaíso

Resumen es: El presente estudio tiene por objetivo comprender los significados que poseen profesores y estudiantes de establecimientos secundarios de la region de Va...
Dynalign II: common secondary structure prediction for RNA homologs with domain insertions.

Homologous non-coding RNAs frequently exhibit domain insertions, where a branch of secondary structure is inserted in a sequence with respect to its homologs. Dynamic programming algorithms for common secondary structure prediction of multiple RNA homologs, however, do not account for these domain insertions. This paper introduces a novel dynamic programming algorithm methodology that explicitly accounts for the possibility of inserted domains when predicting common RNA secondary structures. The algorithm is implemented as Dynalign II, an update to the Dynalign software package for predicting the common secondary structure of two RNA homologs. This update is accomplished with negligible increase in computational cost. Benchmarks on ncRNA families with domain insertions validate the method. Over base pairs occurring in inserted domains, Dynalign II improves accuracy over Dynalign, attaining 80.8% sensitivity (compared with 14.4% for Dynalign) and 91.4% positive predictive value (PPV) for tRNA; 66.5% sensitivity (compared with 38.9% for Dynalign) and 57.0% PPV for RNase P RNA; and 50.1% sensitivity (compared with 24.3% for Dynalign) and 58.5% PPV for SRP RNA. Compared with Dynalign, Dynalign II also exhibits statistically significant improvements in overall sensitivity and PPV. Dynalign II is available as a component of RNAstructure, which can be downloaded from http://rna.urmc.rochester.edu/RNAstructure.html.
A Novel Cell Permeant Peptide Inhibitor of MAPKAP Kinase II Inhibits Intimal Hyperplasia in a Human Saphenous Vein Organ Culture Model

Objective The present study was aimed at developing a new cell-permeant peptide inhibitor (MK2i) of the kinase that phosphorylates and activates heat-shock protein (HSP)27 (MAPKAP kinase II), and evaluating the ability of this peptide to inhibit HSP27 phosphorylation and intimal thickening. Methods The ability of MK2i to reduce HSP27 phosphorylation and cell migration was evaluated in A7R5 cells stimulated with arsenite or lysophosphatidic acid. Stable isotopic labeling using amino acids in cell culture, in combination with liquid chromatography mass spectrometry, was used to characterize the effect of MK2i on global protein expression in fibroblasts. The effect of MK2i on intimal thickening and connective tissue growth factor expression was evaluated in human saphenous vein (HSV) rings maintained with 30% fetal bovine serum for 14 days by light microscopy and immunoblotting. Results Pretreatment of cells with MK2i (10 μM) prior to arsenite or lysophosphatidic acid stimulation decreased phosphorylation of HSP27 (36% ± 9% and 33% ± 10%, respectively) compared with control (not pretreated) cells. MK2i also inhibited A7R5 migration, and downregulated the transforming growth factor-induced expression of collagen and fibronectin in keloid cells, two major matrix proteins involved in the development of intimal hyperplasia. Treatment of HSV segments with MK2i enhanced relaxation, reduced HSP27 phosphorylation (40% ± 17%), connective tissue growth factor expression (17% ± 5%), and intimal thickness (48.2% ± 10.5%) compared with untreated segments. On the other hand, treatment with a recombinant fusion protein containing a cell-permeant peptide attached to the HSP27 sequence increased intimal thickness of HSV segments by 48% ± 14%. Conclusion Our results suggest that HSP27 may play a role in the development of processes leading to intimal hyperplasia in HSV, and reduction of HSP27 phosphorylation by MK2i may be a potential strategy to inhibit the development of intimal hyperplasia in HSV to prevent the autologous vascular graft failure.
Suspected Brown Recluse Envenomation: A Case Report and Review of Different Treatment Modalities

Abstract Background: The Loxosceles reclusa , commonly known as the brown recluse spider, is responsible for virtually all cases of spider bites leading to a significant necrosis. Case Report: We report the case of a 72-year-old man who presented to the Emergency Department complaining of back pain, weakness, and diarrhea. The patient stated that he sustained a bug bite 1 week before presenting to the hospital. His wound was necrotizing in nature and after an exhaustive work-up, the most likely etiology was found to be envenomation by a brown recluse spider, Loxosceles reclusa . Conclusion: This is an endemic cause of a necrotizing wound bite in areas of the Midwestern and Southern United States, but it is rarely reported in the Northeast.
Interaction of method and theory in cognitive neuroscience

We divided the many diverse comments on our book into categories. These are: theory, scope and goals of our project, methods, comments on specific anatomical areas, the concept of attention, consciousness and cognitive control, and finally other issues. Although many of the points of the critics are certainly well taken, we believe studies that have emerged since our book provide strong evidence that the general approach taken in our book is now yielding important new data on the relation of cognitive processes to underlying brain activity.
Energy dissipation in general purpose microprocessors

In this paper we investigate possible ways to improve the energy efficiency of a general purpose microprocessor. We show that the energy of a processor depends on its performance, so we chose the energy-delay product to compare different processors. To improve the energy-delay product we explore methods of reducing energy consumption that do not lead to performance loss (i.e. wasted energy), and explore methods to reduce delay by exploiting instruction level parallelism. We found that careful design reduced the energy dissipation by almost 25%. Pipelining can give approximately a 2/spl times/ improvement in energy-delay product. Superscalar issue, however, does not improve the energy-delay product any further since the overhead required offsets the gains in performance. Further improvements will be hard to come by since a large fraction of the energy (50-80%) is dissipated in the clock network and the on-chip memories. Thus, the efficiency of processors will depend more on the technology being used and the algorithm chosen by the programmer than the micro-architecture.
Altered srf Expression in Bacillus subtilis Resulting from Changes in Culture pH Is Dependent on the Spo0K Oligopeptide Permease and the ComQX System of Extracellular Control

The expression of the srf operon of Bacillus subtilis, encoding surfactin synthetase and the competence regulatory protein ComS, was observed to be reduced when cells were grown in a rich glucose- and glutamine-containing medium in which late-growth culture pH was 5.0 or lower. The production of the surfactin synthetase subunits and of surfactin itself was also reduced. Raising the pH to near neutrality resulted in dramatic increases in srf expression and surfactin production. This apparent pH-dependent induction of srf expression required spo0K, which encodes the oligopeptide permease that functions in cell-density-dependent control of sporulation and competence, but not CSF, the competence-inducing pheromone that regulates srf expression in a Spo0K-dependent manner. Both ComP and ComA, the two-component regulatory pair that stimulates cell-density-dependent srf transcription, were required for optimal expression of srf at low and high pHs, but ComP was not required for pH-dependent srf induction. The known negative regulators of srf, RapC and CodY, were found not to function significantly in pH-dependent srf expression. Late-growth culture supernatants at low pH were not active in inducing srf expression in cells of low-density cultures but were rendered active when their pH was raised to near neutrality. ComQ (and very likely the srf-inducing pheromone ComX) and Spo0K were found to be required for the extracellular induction of srf-lacZ at neutral pH. The results suggest that srf expression, in response to changes in culture pH, requires Spo0K and another, as yet unidentified, extracellular factor. The study also provides evidence consistent with the hypothesis that ComP acts both positively and negatively in the regulation of ComA and that both activities are controlled by the ComX pheromone.
Scattering by an infinite wedge with tensor impedance boundary conditions-a moment method/physical optics solution for the currents

Plane wave scattering by an infinite, two-dimensional wedge whose faces are characterized by impedance tensors is discussed. A combination of the moment method (MM) and physical optics (PO) is used to obtain a solution for the equivalent electric currents. The currents near the edge on each face are expanded with a set of basis functions consisting of pulse functions, defined on a meshed region, plus a function spanning the whole face. The currents outside the meshed region are taken to be the sum of physical optics currents, taken to be known, plus the whole-face basis function current. Expressing the equivalent magnetic currents in terms of the electric currents through the impedance tensors, the expansion coefficients for the electric current expansion are determined through an MM solution of the magnetic field integral equation. Sample results for wedges with isotropic and anisotropic face impedances are presented. >
Risk Factors for Incident Dementia After Stroke Role of Hypoxic and Ischemic Disorders

Background and Purpose Stroke significantly increases the risk of dementia in the elderly, yet the risk factors for incident dementia after ischemic stroke are not well understood. We attempted to determine whether hypoxic-ischemic (HI) disorders, which may result from comorbid medical conditions (eg, seizures, cardiac arrhythmias, pneumonia), would be an independent risk factor for the development of new dementia after stroke. Methods We prospectively followed 185 initially nondemented patients with ischemic stroke (age, 70.3±7.7 years) for a maximum of 52.8 months. We diagnosed the presence of dementia at annual examinations based on neuropsychological testing and modified DSM-III-R criteria. HI disorders were identified by record review or examination during hospitalization. We used Kaplan-Meier analysis to determine the cumulative proportion of patients with and without HI disorders who survived free of dementia and used Cox models to estimate the relative risk of dementia associated with HI disorders...
Properties of guinea pig 7S antibodies. II. Identification of antibodies involved in passive cutaneous and systemic anaphylaxis.

Guinea pig 7Sγ1 antibodies were demonstrated to mediate passive systemic or cutaneous anaphylaxis; guinea pig 7Sγ2 antibodies were unable to mediate these reactions. Gamma-2 antibodies specifically inhibited passive cutaneous anaphylactic reactions provoked by gamma-1 antibodies by competing for antigen. However, gamma-2 antibodies were unable to inhibit passive cutaneous sensitization of guinea pigs by a heterologous antibody system. Guinea pig 7Sγ2 antibodies appear to lack receptors for fixation to guinea pig tissues and do not compete with sensitizing antibody for receptor sites.
Atmospheric Monitoring at the Pierre Auger Observatory - Status and Update

Calorimetric measurements of extensive air showers are performed with the fluorescence detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory. To correct these measurements for the effects introduced by atmospheric fluctuations, the Observa- tory operates several instruments to record atmospheric conditions across and above the detector site. New developments have been made in the study of the aerosol optical depth, the aerosol phase function and cloud identification. Also, for cosmic ray events meeting certain criteria, a rapid monitoring program has been developed to improve the accuracy of the reconstruction. We present an updated overview of performed measurements and their application to air shower reconstruction.
Calpain inhibition rescues troponin T3 fragmentation, increases Cav1.1, and enhances skeletal muscle force in aging sedentary mice

Loss of strength in human and animal models of aging can be partially attributed to a well-recognized decrease in muscle mass; however, starting at middle-age, the normalized force (force/muscle cross-sectional area) in the knee extensors and single muscle fibers declines in a curvilinear manner. Strength is lost faster than muscle mass and is a more consistent risk factor for disability and death. Reduced expression of the voltage sensor Ca(2+) channel α1 subunit (Cav1.1) with aging leads to excitation-contraction uncoupling, which accounts for a significant fraction of the decrease in skeletal muscle function. We recently reported that in addition to its classical cytoplasmic location, fast skeletal muscle troponin T3 (TnT3) is fragmented in aging mice, and both full-length TnT3 (FL-TnT3) and its carboxyl-terminal (CT-TnT3) fragment shuttle to the nucleus. Here, we demonstrate that it regulates transcription of Cacna1s, the gene encoding Cav1.1. Knocking down TnT3 in vivo downregulated Cav1.1. TnT3 downregulation or overexpression decreased or increased, respectively, Cacna1s promoter activity, and the effect was ablated by truncating the TnT3 nuclear localization sequence. Further, we mapped the Cacna1s promoter region and established the consensus sequence for TnT3 binding to Cacna1s promoter. Systemic administration of BDA-410, a specific calpain inhibitor, prevented TnT3 fragmentation, and Cacna1s and Cav1.1 downregulation and improved muscle force generation in sedentary old mice.
Role of the information infrastructure and intelligent agents in manufacturing enterprises

Manufacturing is a complex application domain, traditionally a realm of engineers and factory workers. As we are in the information age, the manufacturing domain has become more dependent on information through the use of computers and computer‐controlled machines. In the arena of advanced manufacturing, a number of concepts such as the “virtual corporation”; and “virtual factory”; have emerged, requiring that manufacturing be highly information‐intensive and knowledge‐based. This article examines the role of the information infrastructure and explores the use of intelligent agents in its implementation for advanced manufacturing enterprises. The information infrastructure forms a complex hierarchy of distributed, heterogeneous information systems. Intelligent agents play various roles at different levels of the hierarchy to provide interoperability, reliability, programma‐bility, and controllability.
Penetration Depth Measurements of YBa2Cu3O7-δ at 4 MHz

Measurements were made of the penetration depth of bulk and powder samples of YBa2Cu3O7-δ. The samples were placed in an inductor which was part of the resonant circuit of a 4 MHz tunnel diode oscillator. The oscillator was stable to at least 1 part in 106 at 77 K. Changes in the sample susceptibility were easily detected by changes in the oscillator frequency. Analysis of the smallest powders fabricated gave a value of the measured penetration depth λmea = 0.23 μm. The measurement methodology is quantitative and the value of Xmea is believed to be an upper bound of the true penetration depth.
Characterization Of Amorphous Carbon Films Based On Carbon, Nitrogen, and hydrogen*.

A series of amorphous hydrogenated carbon-nitrogen alloy films (a-CxNyHz) has been prepared via plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition from mixtures of nitrogen and acetylene. It is found that as the ratio R = N2/C2H2 is increased from zero to 100, the nitrogen incorporation into the films is increasing while the deposition rate is decreasing for 0<R<10 and is saturating at a value of about 1.0 A/sec for 10<R<100. The absorption associated with the N-H stretching mode increases while that of the C–H stretching mode decreases with increase of R. The optical constants and the energy gaps of these films have also been determined. A free energy model previously developed for the prediction of the bonding in amorphous a-CxHy alloys is extended and applied here to a-CxNyHz. Predictions are presented for the bonding of tetrahedral C(sp3), trigonal C(sp2), linear C(sp1), pyramidal N(sp3), trigonal N(sp2), and linear N(spl) atoms in the alloy, and the bonding of H to these atoms.
Mild cognitive impairment in Parkinson's disease versus Alzheimer's disease.

Abstract Introduction No known studies have compared longitudinal characteristics between individuals with incident mild cognitive impairment due to Parkinson's disease (PD-MCI) versus Alzheimer's Disease (AD-MCI). Methods We used longitudinal data from the National Alzheimer's Coordinating Center's Uniform Data Set to compare 41 PD-MCI and 191 AD-MCI participants according to their demographics, presence of ≥1 APOE e4 allele, and baseline and change over time in clinical characteristics, neuropsychological test scores, and Clinical Dementia Rating sum of boxes (CDR-SB). Multivariable linear regression models with generalized estimating equations were used to account for clustered data and to test for baseline and longitudinal differences in neuropsychological test scores. Results PD-MCI and AD-MCI participants differed by many demographic and clinical characteristics. Significantly fewer PD-MCI participants developed dementia over one year. Compared to AD-MCI participants, PD-MCI participants performed better at baseline and over time on a global measure of cognition (Mini Mental State Exam), memory measures (immediate and delayed Logical Memory), and a language measure (Boston Naming Test), and additionally performed better over time on an attention measure (Digit Span Forward), a language measure (Vegetable List), a processing speed measure (Digit Symbol), and an overall measure of memory and functional impairment (CDR-SB). Conclusion Our study provides further evidence that PD-MCI is clinically distinct from AD-MCI and requires different tools for diagnosis and monitoring clinical progression. More importantly, this study suggests that PD-MCI takes longer to convert into dementia than AD-MCI, findings that require replication by other studies.
Effect of protein on glycero1 color development during the assay of lipoprotein lipase

The inhibition by proteins of color development in the estimation of glycerol during assay of lipoprotein lipase is shown to be due to the binding of formaldehyde to protein in a form preventing subsequent color formation.
An Oligidic Diet for Sesamia inferens Optimized by Uniform Design and Successive Rearing

An oligidic diet for larvae rearing of the pink stem borer(PSB),Sesamia inferens(Walker),was optimized by using the uniform design.The formulation of the optimized diet was as follows: agar powder 3 g,soybean powder 8 g,water bamboo powder 11 g,yeast powder 16 g,sucrose 6 g,rice powder 3 g,corn powder 11 g,wheat germ powder 5 g,casein 7 g,vitamin C 0.8 g,sorbic acid 0.64 g,aureomycin 0.54 g,cholesterol 0.04 g,Wesson's salt 1.5 g,and distilled water 200 g.PSB had been reared on the diet for more than ten successive genenrations,much more than that previously reported.The rate of the 1st instar PSB larvae that developed to pupae on the optimized diet reached 87.5%,significantly higher than that on the benchmark diet.As for the ten generations' succesive rearing,the average of pupation rate,emergence rate,egg hatching rate and fecundity of PSB on the optimized diet was 42.5%-87.5%,79.7%-95.8%,90.0%-94.9% and 95-252 eggs per female,respectively.There was no significant difference between the 10th genenation and the 1st of PSB reared on the diet,except the significantly longer male larval stage.
Pulsatile oxytocin administered to ewes at 120 to 140 days gestational age increases the rate of maturation of the fetal electrocorticogram and nuchal activity.

Spontaneous, long lasting epochs of myometrial contractility, contractures, occur throughout the majority of pregnancy in sheep. Contractures are temporally related to a switch in fetal electroencephalogram (ECoG) patterns from low to high voltage. In late gestation, fetal ECoG increases in voltage. We have previously suggested that contractures may influence fetal ECoG maturation. In the present study, we hypothesized that a sustained increase in the frequency of myometrial contractures in pregnant sheep at 120-140 days gestation would accelerate maturation of the fetal ECoG. Five pregnant ewes were pulsed with oxytocin 600 microU.kg-1.min-1 intravenously for five minutes in every 30 minutes from 127.8 +/- 1.5 days gestational age for a minimum of six days. Six control ewes received pulses of saline. Fetuses of all eleven ewes were instrumented with bilateral electrodes to record fetal ECoG and nuchal muscle activity. Fetal high voltage (HV) ECoG increased in amplitude in both groups but the rate of increase was faster in the fetuses of ewes receiving oxytocin. There were no differences between the two groups in the duration of HV ECoG. The percentage increase in the amount of time the fetal nuchal muscles were active compared with the baseline day before infusion was only significant in the oxytocin infused group on the first day of oxytocin infusion. These findings support the hypothesis that myometrial activity during pregnancy has the capacity to influence fetal neural development.
GROWTH PHASE IN RELATION TO THE LETHAL ACTION OF TAMOXIFEN ON CANDIDA ALBICANS

Tamoxifen, a drug used to treat breast cancer, might have antifungal potential. The fungicidal activity of tamoxifen against Candida albicans surpassed that of the most active of the imidazole-type drugs. At 15-20 microM, tamoxifen rapidly killed yeast cells in stationary phase as well as in logarithmic phase, whereas imidazoles at this level generally do not exert significant lethal activity against stationary phase organisms.
Games as an Artistic Medium: Investigating Complexity Thinking in Game-Based Art Pedagogy.

This action research study examines the making of video games, using an integrated development environment software program called GameMaker, as art education curriculum for students between the ages of 8-13. Through a method I designed, students created video games using the concepts of move, avoid, release, and contact (MARC) to explore their understanding of complexity thinking. From this process of making games, students learned systems, deconstructing systems, and reconstructing systems using game-based art pedagogy. The findings of this study indicate that creating games expands the content of making in art education by being inclusive of the personal worlds and lives of students. Using the concept of MARC encourages students to think about the complexity of systems and how they work, identifying meaningful associations between students’ understanding of their worlds and games.
Old English Prose

(1990). Old English Prose. ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews: Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 56-59.
The Quarries of Mount Taygetos in the Peloponnesos, Greece

Labels which accompany Greek and Roman works of marble, the world over, quite often venture or even declare, a source for the stone. Parian, Pentalic, Proconnesian, Naxian, Thasian, Carrara, pretty much represent the full range of options to the curator. Never have I seen the name Tainaron appear either in a museum caption or in a catalogue entry for a corpus of ancient sculpture. Yet, the Tainaron quarries and those of Mount Taygetos were famous enough in antiquity to deserve explicit mention by Greek and Roman writers. Though travellers through the Peloponessos, especially those of the nineteenth century, have reported an outcrop variegated marble, less frequently has the same traveller actually sighted an ancient quarry. In 1981 I went to Tainaron in quest of the source for the white marbles used in the temple of Apollo at Bassai. In those reconnaissances of Cape Tainaron, a goodly number of additional quarries were discovered. This paper gives locations and descriptions to the outcrops of marbles and quarries, and outlines a long history of their exploitation.
UDE-Based Robust Droop Control of Inverters in Parallel Operation

Conventional droop control methods cannot achieve accurate proportional reactive power sharing, due to the mismatch of components, system disturbances, etc. In this paper, an uncertainty and disturbance estimator (UDE)-based robust droop controller is proposed to address these problems. As a result, the model nonlinearity and uncertainty (e.g., power angle and uncertain output impedance) and system disturbances (e.g., variations of output impedance, load change, and fluctuating dc-link voltage) can be estimated and compensated. Experimental results from a single-phase system with two inverters are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed strategy. In order to further demonstrate the advantage and flexibility of the proposed UDE-based control strategy, simulation results from a three-phase system with two inverters are presented with comparison to a robust droop control strategy reported.
Defining Exurban Areas for the Analysis of Urban Patterns Over Time

This paper addresses the issue of defining exurban areas around 59 large urban areas from 1950 to 2010. The ideal definition would include contiguous census tracts meeting a minimum density threshold and showing integration with the urban area based on commuting. Since data on the latter are not available throughout the period, only a density criterion could be used. A density minimum was selected such that the areas of contiguous exurban density in 2010 would be largely contained within the urban area’s metropolitan area boundaries, indicating a likelihood of integration with the urban area. An assessment of the resulting exurban areas shows a high degree of containment for metropolitan areas. A brief examination of the 2010 exurban areas shows they vary greatly in terms of size.
Information Shocks and Liquidity Innovations

We examine the intraday impact of predictable and measurable public information shocks on various dimensions of liquidity in a very fast and liquid market. These information shocks resolve information asymmetry, move prices in the direction of the information, and lead investors to increase liquidity as measured by quoted spreads, volume, depth, and absolute order imbalance. Moreover, price impact and effective spread are higher as trading moves prices to reflect the new information. Our findings complement recent work of Collin-Dufresne and Fos (2015) and Foucault, Hombert, and Rosu (2016) by showing how intraday liquidity measures respond to information shocks in the presence of high frequency traders.
Effect of spa physiotherapy on the range of motion and muscle strength in women with gonarthrosis.

Introduction Degeneration arthritis is a chronic disease of undetermined progressiveness and unknown pathogenesis. It can affect one or more joints. It reveals itself most frequently between 40 - 60 years of age, and affects the lives of professionally active individuals. The aim of the presented study was to assess the impact of a 21-day stay at a rehabilitation facility on the range of motion and muscle strength of the knee in women with gonarthrosis. Materials and methods The study group consisted of 30 women aged 50-74 years diagnosed with degeneration of the knee joint. The average age of the study group was 65.9 ± 7.2 years. Patients remained in the 21-day rehabilitation facility of Rehabilitational Hospital No. 21 in Busko Zdroj SP ZOZ, Poland. We measured with the help of protractor in SFTR range the motion bending and straightening of the knee with an accuracy of 1°. The Lovett strength test was assessed of the ischio-tibial muscles, quadriceps, sartorius--acting on the knee joint of the patient. The study was carried out on the first and the last day of the stay in the rehabilitation facility. Results There was improvement in the range of flexion and strength of muscles acting on the knee joint of the afflicted women. Conclusion The study showed that 21-day rehabilitation holiday improved the range and strength of the muscles acting on the knee joint of the afflicted women. This proved that comprehensive rehabilitation improves the function of the knee joint with gonarthrosis, prevents disease progression and is an alternative to drug therapy.
Early Occupation of Southeast Asia: Dental-Skeletal Evidence

The evolution of Homo sapiens and their early human diaspora into Southeast Asia were clearly significant events in human prehistory. This chapter presents a brief review of some of the fossil/sub-fossil evidence that has been presented to date in the literature. Much of the evidence that does exist was discovered prior to modern excavation techniques, and thus their dating and context is often inferred rather than directly dated. Modern methods and novel approaches to the growing corpus of skeletal and dental materials in the region promise to raise as many questions as answers with respect to human population history in Southeast Asia.
Does Family Presence in the Trauma Bay Help or Hinder Care

Family presence during a pediatric resuscitation remains somewhat controversial. Opponents express concern that family presence would be detrimental to team performance and that exposure to such a traumatic event could put family members at risk of posttraumatic stress. Proponents argue that family presence affords families a sense of closure by easing their anxieties and assuring them that everything was done for their loved ones in addition to improving clinicians' professional behavior by humanizing the patient. This article will review the literature on the potential benefits and pitfalls of family presence during a pediatric resuscitation.
When Infamy Becomes Fame: The Positive Side of Negative Athlete Publicity

This study attempted to uncover the paradoxical effects of an athlete’s negative publicity based on the theories of negativity bias, fuzzy trace, and processing fluency. The researcher tested a boundary condition in which repeated claims about an athlete’s negative publicity interacted with the temporal delay of consumers’ evaluation, which, in turn, led to a decrease in the adverse effects of negative publicity. The results of two online experiments demonstrated that dividing attention and cognitive resources in order to encode and retrieve various types of information caused the detailed contextual memory of each account of the athlete’s negative publicity to fade over time, leaving behind merely a gist memory of the celebrities. In the current study, infamy turned into fame, and the consumer’s judgment of the athletes became more positive. The current study may help expand existing research paradigms by further developing our theoretical understanding of the negative publicity effects.
Farm to fork quantitative microbial risk assessment for norovirus on frozen strawberries

Abstract Foodborne illness outbreaks have been increasingly linked to the consumption of fresh and frozen berries that were contaminated with pathogenic viruses, such as human norovirus (NoV). Contamination of berries is assumed to take place at harvest by the use of contaminated water for pesticide dilution, irrigation water source or by shedding berry pickers in the field. A quantitative microbial risk assessment simulation model was built to replicate the largest known NoV outbreak which sickened about 11,000 people over a 3-week period. The outbreak occurred in Germany in 2012 when contaminated frozen strawberries were served at nearly 400 schools and daycare centers. The risk model explicitly assumed that all contamination would arise from NoV contamination of surface water used for pesticide dilution. Input data was collected from the published literature, observational studies and assumptions. The model starts with contamination of the berries in the field, and proceeds through transportation to processing facility, washing, sanitizing, freezing, frozen transport to cargo ship, transport view of cargo ship, transport to distribution center, frozen storage at the distribution center, transport to the catering facility, food service preparation and consumption, dose response, and predicted illnesses. A total of 21 scenarios were chosen to evaluate the impact of model parameters on the number of illness associated with NoV contamination of berries. Scenarios evaluated include the initial level of NoV in surface water, the effect of seasonality on the prevalence of NoV in surface water, the strength of the pesticide used, the volume of water used to dilute the pesticide, temperature during transportation to processing facility, washing and sanitizing conditions at processing facility and preparation (heat-treatment) of berries prior to consumption. Scenarios were compared via the Factor Sensitivity technique where the logarithm of the ratio of mean illnesses was used to compare different assumptions. The input that had the greatest effect on increasing in the number of illnesses was a high NoV concentration in the water (8 log Genome Copies/L) when compared to the baseline scenario with resulting mean illnesses of 7964 illnesses and ∼2 illnesses, respectively. This assumption about the concentration of virus in the pesticide makeup water was the only variable capable of producing an outbreak similar to that observed in Germany in 2012. Heat-treatment of the berries, use of a pesticide with strong antiviral effect, and assumption about the virus concentration in the pesticide make-up water had the largest impact on decreasing illnesses.
DIETARY SUPPLEMENTATION WITH L-TRYPTOPHAN REVERSES TOLERANCE TO ANALGESIA INDUCED BY PERIAQUEDUCTAL GRAY STIMULATION IN HUMANS

Analgesia induced in humans by stimulation of periaqueductal gray matter eventually becomes ineffective due to the development of tolerance. This analgesia is also reversed by naloxone. In three of five patients tested, tolerance to stimulation was successfully reversed by supplementation of the diet with 3 gm per day of L-tryptophan. It is postulated that chronic stimulation of the periaqueductal area induces tolerance by altering the level of serotonin in the brain or its turnover rate, and that increased tryptophan serves to restore a more normal pattern of serotonin metabolism.
Business Bluffing Reconsidered

Imagine that I walk into a car dealership and tell the salesperson that I absolutely cannot pay more than $10,000 for the car that I want. And imagine further she tells me that she absolutely cannot sell the car for less than $12,000. Assuming that neither one of us is telling the truth, we are bluffing about our reservation prices, the price above or below which we will no longer be willing to make the transaction. This is certainly a common practice and, moreover, is most likely minimally prudent whether our negotiating adversary is bluffing or not, it will always be in our interest to bluff. Discussions of bluffing in business commonly invoke reservation prices, but need not; one could misrepresent his position in any number of areas including the financial health of a company poised for merger, the authority that has been granted to him by the parties that he represents, or even one's enthusiasm about a project. The goal of bluffing is quite simple: to enhance the strength of one's position during negotiations. Bluffing has long been a topic of considerable interest to business ethicists.1 On the one hand, bluffing seems to bear a strong resemblance to lying, and therefore might be thought to be prima facie impermissible. On the other, many people have the intuition that bluffing is an appropriate and morally permissible negotiating tactic. Given this tension, what is the moral standing of bluffing in business? The dominant position has been that it is permissible and work has there fore been done to show why the apparent imper missibility is either mismotivated or illusory. Two highly influential papers have taken different approaches to securing the moral legitimacy of bluffing. The first, by Albert Carr, argued that bluffing in business is analogous to bluffing in poker and therefore should not be thought to be impermissible insofar as it is part of the way that the game is played. The second, by Thomas Carson, presented a more subtle argument wherein the author reconstrued the concept of lying to require an implied warrantability of truth and, since business negotiations instantiate a context wherein claims are not warranted to be
The ns-3 Network Simulator

As networks of computing devices grow larger and more complex, the need for highly accurate and scalable network simulation technologies becomes critical. Despite the emergence of large-scale testbeds for network research, simulation still plays a vital role in terms of scalability (both in size and in experimental speed), reproducibility, rapid prototyping, and education. With simulation based studies, the approach can be studied in detail at varying scales, with varying data applications, varying field conditions, and will result in reproducible and analyzable results.
Homicide Investigations in Context: Exploring Explanations for the Divergent Impacts of Victim Race, Gender, Elderly Victims, and Firearms on Homicide Clearances:

Studies examining factors influencing homicide clearances have produced consistent findings for child victims, arguments, and incident location. Conclusions have been far more varied regarding the ...
A criterion for evaluating the effect of shale-matrix dual-continuum flow on gas production

Because of the large range of pore size distribution and the chemical/mineralogical heterogeneity within shale matrix, gas flow in it may exhibit dual-continuum flow behavior even though rock matrix is not fractured. The relative importance of dual-continuum flow has considerable implications to the shale reservoir characterization and gas production. A matrix-dominant gas flow model is developed to evaluate the impacts of dual-continuum gas flow on gas production. The simulation results reveal three regimes with regard to the relative importance of the dual-continuum flow. When the mass transfer coefficient between the mobile and immobile continua is relatively high, the dual-continuum behavior becomes insignificant within the context of production rate prediction. When the mass transfer coefficient is very small, the dual continuum gas flow behavior also becomes insignificant because gas flow between the two continua is essentially negligible. Thus, the dual-continuum gas flow behavior becomes important to the long-term gas production rate only for the intermediate range of mass transfer coefficient that is shown to depend on porosity and gas adsorption properties. Based on the physical reasoning and numerical simulation results, we propose a criterion to determine the relative importance of the dual-continuum gas flow. The criterion is expressed with a dimensionless parameter that combines several parameters including the mass transfer coefficient, gas viscosity and densities and matrix porosity. The numerical simulation results show that when the dimensionless parameter is less than a critical value, the dual-continuum gas flow becomes important under a variety of different conditions.
Fault Current Control for DC Microgrid Protection Using an Adaptive Droop

Successful system protection is critical to the performance of the DC microgrid system. This paper proposes an adaptive droop based fault current control for a standalone low voltage (LV) solar-photovoltaic (PV) based DC microgrid protection. In the proposed method, a DC microgrid fault is detected by the current and voltage thresholds. Generally, the droop method is used to control the power sharing between the converters by controlling the reference voltage. In this paper, this scheme is extended to control the fault current by calculating an adaptive virtual resistance R droop , and to control the converter output reference voltage. This effectively controls the converter pulse width, and reduces the flow of source current from a particular converter which helps to increase the fault clearing time. Additionally, a trip signal is sent to the corresponding DC circuit breaker (DCCB), to isolate the faulted converter, feeder or a DC bus. The design procedure is detailed, and the effectiveness of proposed method is verified by simulation analysis.
3D-Printable Platform for High-Throughput Small-Animal Imaging.

TO THE EDITOR: There is considerable interest in preclinical imaging techniques to increase throughput and reduce costs, as evidenced by recent and former publications in the field ([1][1]–[3][2]). We write this letter to share a design for a multiple-mouse imaging platform that can be produced on
Flannery O’Connor’s Lost Cause: Desegregation in “A Late Encounter with the Enemy”

In keeping with the tendency to minimize the presence of racism in FLannery O’Connor’s works, “A Late Encounter with the Enemy” has been judged an attack on Lost Cause ideology. O’Connor’s final pu...
Border Control and Insurgent Tactics

Where cross-border sanctuary enables rebels to marshal external support, classical theories of counterinsurgency extol the strategic value of border control. By sealing borders, counterinsurgents can erode transnational rebels’ resources, degrading the quality of rebellion. Building on theories linking resources and technologies of rebellion, I posit a fortification dilemma inherent in border control strategies. Well-resourced rebels with external support can afford conventional attacks and indiscriminate violence. When counterinsurgent border control efforts interdict foreign logistics, insurgents compensate by cultivating greater local support. In turn, rebels prefer more irregular attacks and reduced civilian victimization. Because counterinsurgent border control efforts tradeoff reduced insurgent capabilities for greater competition over local hearts-and-minds, border control is best used in tandem with population-centric counterinsurgency. I illustrate this theory with archival evidence from the Algerian War of Independence, and test it using declassified microdata on border fortification and violence in a difference-in-differences setting in Iraq.
Elucidating the Role of Dissolved Organic Matter and Sunlight in Mediating the Formation of Ag–Au Bimetallic Alloy Nanoparticles in the Aquatic Environment

Elucidating the interactions between metal ions and dissolved organic matter and deciphering mechanisms for their mineralization in the aquatic environment are central to understanding the speciation, transport, and toxicity of nanoparticles (NPs). Herein, we examine the interactions between Ag+ and Au3+ ions in mixed solutions (χAg = 0.2, 0.5, and 0.8) in the presence of humic acids (HAs) under simulated sunlight; these conditions result in the formation of bimetallic Ag-Au NPs. A key distinction is that the obtained alloy NPs are compositionally and morphologically rather different from NPs obtained from thermally activated dark processes. Photoillumination triggers a distinctive plasmon-mediated process for HA-assisted reductive mineralization of ions to bimetallic alloy NPs which is not observed in its dark thermal reduction counterpart. The initial nucleation of bimetallic NPs is dominated by differences in the cohesive energies of Ag and Au crystal lattices, whereas the growth mechanisms are governed by the strongly preferred incorporation of Ag ions, which stems from their greater photoreactivity. The bimetallic NPs crystallize in shapes governed by the countervailing influence of minimizing free energy through the adoption of Wulff constructions and the energetic penalties associated with twin faults. As such, assessments of the stability and the potential toxic effects of bimetallic NPs arising from their possible existence in aquatic environments will depend sensitively on the origins of their formation.