cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Improved oil recovery sensor

Abstract A new type of sensor was developed to measure oil content in seawater or other highly saline waters for offshore oil spill recovery operations. Currently responders do not have a quantitative method for knowing in real time how much water they are collecting with their oil. The sensor combines two measurement principles: a dielectric measurement and an eddy current loss measurement. The dielectric measurement is used for high oil content mixtures and emulsions that are of water-in-oil type, leading to a relatively low electrical conductivity. The eddy current measurement is used for low oil content mixtures and emulsions, that are of oil-in-water type, and have high electrical conductivity. Both measurements are carried out at high frequencies, in the 10–50 MHz range, which makes the measurement insensitive to the type of oil and its dispersion, as well as polarization effects, while maintaining sufficiently large skin penetration depths. The sensor was demonstrated in laboratory tests as well as at the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement’s (BSEE’s) Ohmsett testing facility using mixtures of several crude and refined oils with water salinities in the 1–5% range. In all cases, the sensor provided a reliable oil content measurement with average errors of about 3% in a laboratory setting and about 7% during Ohmsett testing, which is sufficient for offshore oil recovery operations. Having this information will allow a responder to make on-the-spot adjustments to maximize recovery efficiency. In addition, the sensor will provide data on overall oil/water collection during a response. Other uses include oil and gas industry applications, where oil-water mixtures need to be evaluated for oil content or, equivalently, for water cut, and where high-water salinity prevents use of traditional sensors based on the dielectric principle alone.
Peptides and Slow Synaptic Potentials

Publisher Summary This chapter compares and contrasts the actions of neuropeptides with “classical” neurotransmitters to discuss how cells are organized to respond to different messages. The number of known (or suspected) transmitters, and of known (or suspected) cellular actions of transmitters, is increasing without apparent limit. It is important to see whether any unifying principles are emerging from the chaos. The bullfrog sympathetic ganglion is emphasized as a model system containing synaptic responses on rapid (millisecond) and slow (seconds to minutes) time scales. In the bullfrog ganglion, fast excitatory postsynaptic potential (EPSP) is terminated by the dissociation of acetylcholine (Ach) from the receptor (with a time constant of a few milliseconds); the slow excitatory postsynaptic potential (EPSP) and inhibitory postsynaptic potential (IPSP) reflect the time course of the second messengers involved; and the late, slow EPSP is terminated only upon the removal of the peptide transmitter from the extracellular space. The paravertebral sympathetic ganglia of the bullfrog, particularly the most caudal ones (ninth and tenth), were among the first neuronal preparations to be used for intracellular recording. The ganglia are innervated by sympathetic preganglionic neurons, which have their cell bodies in the spinal cord. There are two classes of preganglionic inputs, distinguished on the basis of conduction velocity: C fibers, coming from the seventh and eighth spinal nerves, and the more rapidly conducting B fibers, which enter the ganglion chain at higher levels.
Forest inventory sensivity to UAS-based image processing algorithms.

Frequent and accurate estimation of forest structure parameters, such as number of trees per hectare or total height, are mandatory for sustainable forest management. Unmanned aircraft system (UAS) equipped with inexpensive sensors can be used to monitor and measure forest structure. The detailed information provided by the UAS allows tree level forest inventory. However, tree identification depends on a variety of parameters defining the image processing and tree segmentation algorithms. The objective of our study was to identify parameter combinations that accurately delineated trees and their heights. We evaluated the impact of different tree segmentation and point cloud generation algorithms on forest inventory from imagery collected with a UAS over a mature Douglas-fir plantation forest. We processed the images with two commonly used commercial software packages, Agisoft PhotoScan and Pix4Dmapper, both implementing image processing algorithms called Structure from Motion. For each software we generated photogrammetric point clouds by varying the parameters defining the implementation. We segmented individual trees and heights using three tree algorithms: Variable Window Filter, Graph-Theoretical, and Watershed Segmentation. We assessed the impact of image processing algorithms on forest inventory by comparing the estimated trees with trees manually identified from the point clouds. We found that the type of tree segmentation and image processing algorithms have a significant effect in accurately identifying trees. For tree height estimation, we found strong evidence that image processing algorithms had significant effects, whereas tree segmentation algorithms did not significantly affect tree height estimation.These findings may be of interest to others that are using high-resolution spatial imagery to estimate forest inventory parameters.
Transfer learning approach to multiclass classification of child facial expressions

The classification of facial expression has been extensively studied using adult facial images which are not appropriate ground truths for classifying facial expressions in children. The state-of-the-art deep learning approaches have been successful in the classification of facial expressions in adults. A deep learning model may be better able to learn the subtle but important features underlying child facial expressions and improve upon the performance of traditional machine learning and feature extraction methods. However, unlike adult data, only a limited number of ground truth images exist for training and validating models for child facial expression classification and there is a dearth of literature in child facial expression analysis. Recent advances in transfer learning methods have enabled the use of deep learning architectures, trained on adult facial expression images, to be tuned for classifying child facial expressions with limited training samples. The network will learn generic facial expression patterns from adult expressions which can be fine-tuned to capture representative features of child facial expressions. This work proposes a transfer learning approach for multi-class classification of the seven prototypical expressions including the ‘neutral’ expression in children using a recently published child facial expression data set. This work holds promise to facilitate the development of technologies that focus on children and monitoring of children throughout their developmental stages to detect early symptoms related to developmental disorders, such as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).
Preschoolers with developmental speech and/or language impairment: Efficacy of the Teaching Early Literacy and Language (TELL) curriculum

Abstract Young children with developmental speech and/or language impairment (DSLI) often fail to develop oral language and early literacy skills that are foundational for subsequent schooling and reading success. The purpose of this investigation was to examine the efficacy of the Teaching Early Literacy and Language (TELL) curriculum and associated evidence-based teaching practices. Participants included 91 preschool classroom teachers and 202 male and 87 female preschoolers with DSLI who were enrolled in their classes. Children ranged in age from 43 to 63 months. In this cluster RCT, classroom teachers were randomly assigned to implement the TELL curriculum or to continue with their business-as-usual (BAU) curriculum. Proximal outcomes were assessed with investigator developed curriculum-based measures (CBMs) administered six times over the school year. Distal tests (pre-post) of oral language and early literacy skills included an investigator-developed pre-post expressive and receptive vocabulary test, two additional standardized measures (Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-Preschool 2nd Edition, the Test of Preschool Early Literacy). A benchmarked early literacy assessment, the Phonological Awareness and Literacy Screening PreK, was also administered. Results indicated a significant TELL effect for all CBMs at later measurement points with Cohen's ds in the medium (0.43) to very large (1.25) range. TELL effects were also noted for the distal vocabulary measure with small to medium between-group effect sizes (Cohen’s f^2 range from 0.02 to 0.44). There were no significant TELL effects for the standardized distal measures. Based on progress measures, the TELL curriculum was effective for improving the oral language and early literacy skills of young children with DSLI.
Debiased Inference of Average Partial Effects in Single-Index Models: Comment on Wooldridge and Zhu

There has recently been a considerable amount of interest in developing methods for statistical inference in high-dimensional regimes with more covariates than data points (Javanmard and Montanari ...
Hyper-separation as a tool for work/life balance: Commuting in academia

Given the declining number of tenure-track positions, the academic job market has become fiercely competitive, often forcing faculty to make difficult choices, including living apart from their par...
QoS-Based Budget Constrained Stable Task Assignment in Mobile Crowdsensing

One of the key problems in mobile crowdsensing (MCS) systems is the assignment of tasks to users. Most of the existing work aim to maximize a predefined system utility (e.g., quality of service or sensing), however, users (i.e., task requesters and performers/workers) may value different parameters and hence find an assignment unsatisfying if it is produced disregarding these parameters that define their preferences. While several studies utilize incentive mechanisms to motivate user participation in different ways, they do not take individual user preferences into account either. To address this issue, we leverage Stable Matching Theory which can help obtain a satisfying matching between two groups of entities based on their preferences. However, the existing approaches to find stable matchings do not work in MCS systems due to the many-to-one nature of task assignments and the budget constraints of task requesters. Thus, we first define two different stability conditions for user happiness in MCS systems. Then, we propose three efficient stable task assignment algorithms and discuss their stability guarantees in four different MCS scenarios. Finally, we evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithms through extensive simulations using a real dataset, and show that they outperform the state-of-the-art solutions.
On Dominance-Free Samples of a (Colored) Stochastic Dataset

A point $p \in \mathbb{R}^d$ is said to dominate another point $q \in \mathbb{R}^d$ if the coordinate of $p$ is greater than or equal to the coordinate of $q$ in every dimension. A set of points in $\mathbb{R}^d$ is dominance-free if any two points do not dominate each other. We consider the problem of counting the dominance-free subsets of a given dataset in $\mathbb{R}^d$, or more generally, computing the probability that a random sample of a stochastic dataset in $\mathbb{R}^d$ where each point is sampled independently with its existence probability is dominance-free. In fact, we investigate a colored generalization of the problem, in which the points in the given stochastic dataset are colored and we are interested in the random samples that are inter-color dominance-free (i.e., any two points with different colors do not dominate each other). We propose the first algorithm that solves the problem for $d=2$ in near-quadratic time. On the other hand, we show that the problem is #P-hard for any $d \geq 3$, even if the points have a restricted color pattern; this implies the #P-hardness of the uncolored version (i.e., computing the dominance-free probability of a uncolored stochastic dataset) for $d \geq 3$. In addition, we show that even when the existence probabilities of the points are all equal to 0.5, the problem remains #P-hard for any $d \geq 7$; this implies the #P-hardness of counting dominance-free subsets for $d \geq 7$. In order to prove our hardness results, we establish some results about embedding the vertices a graph into low-dimensional Euclidean space such that two vertices are connected by an edge in the graph iff they form a dominance pair in the embedding. These results may be of independent interest and can possibly be applied to other problems.
Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease in Patients with Chronic Kidney Disease

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a common condition affecting a roughly estimated 400–850 million of the world’s population, primarily older adults. A variety of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are common in this population, mostly due to similarity of risk factors, such as age, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and dyslipidemia. But CKD also evokes a unique pathophysiology that contributes to the prevalence of CVD in this population. Primary prevention of CKD is possible and might contribute to a lower burden of CVD. Secondary prevention of progression of CKD to advanced stages, including end-stage kidney disease (ESKD), through early detection and aggressive management might also reduce the burden of CVD. Opportunities for primary and secondary prevention of the various forms of CVD seen in mild to moderate CKD will be the focus of this review, rather than treatment of CVD seen in association with advanced CKD (ESKD), treated by dialysis or transplantation.
Impact of governance on economic growth in developing countries: a case of HIDC vs. LIDC

The purpose of this study is to find whether governance contributes to positive or negative economic growth in developing countries. The connections between the Worldwide Governance Indicators were examined in 111 high- and low-income developing countries (HIDC and LIDC) between 1996 and 2018 to determine which, if any indicators, have a positive or negative effect on the per capita GDP, and therefore the economy. We use fixed effects and perform three different regressions in our analysis. One for the entire sample then another two regressions, one for HIDC and one for LIDC. We find that two governance indicators, Rule of Law and Control of Corruption have positive effects on developing countries’ GDP per capita where Voice and Accountability had a small negative effect on developing counties’ GDP per capita. We find that controlling for corruption and accounting for rule of law is of paramount importance to drive economic growth for developing economics. Within the existing literature, there is neither a theoretical consensus nor consistent empirical evidence that would lead us to believe the relationship is positive, negative or non-existent, for low- and high-income developing countries. We find strong evidence that voice and accountability exacerbate per capita income in LIDC, while it helps promote higher per capita income in HIDC.
Elizabeth Emmens-Wilson’s Life Journey and Reflections as an Upcycler

This chapter presents my personal experiences and challenges as an upcycler. From my experience and reflection, I realised two big challenges to overcome as an upcycler. One challenge is that customers do not appreciate the time, effort, and in some instances, money invested by the designer/maker in upcycling. Another challenge is access to input materials for upcycling as some material suppliers are reluctant to give away their waste materials. Despite the challenges, it has been an interesting journey I have had so far as an upcycler, exploring different waste materials and unlimited possibilities embedded in those materials. I wish other creative people could share this joy of giving a second life to waste materials. I hope to see the future in which more people appreciate what upcyclers do and bring to the world, and we, upcyclers, have a closer partnership with material suppliers and manufacturers to work together to reduce waste.
Novel Designs for Passive Elastic Lower Limb Exoskeletons

Engineers and scientists have long tried to build powered robotic lower limb exoskeletons without success (at least commercially). A major limitation has been the need for large amounts of mechanical power from the actuators. Simply put, human muscles are amazing motors. The size and mass of robotic actuators that can match human muscle limit exoskeleton hardware designs. An alternative to heavy motors that engineers have relied on throughout history has been power amplification from passive elastic mechanisms. We review examples of successful passive elastic systems that have been previously used by humans and discuss how elastic mechanisms can be incorporated into lower limb exoskeletons for assisting human locomotion.
Dysregulation of MYD88 Regulatory Isoforms in Waldenstrom's Macroglobulinemia

Abstract Mutations in MYD88 are found in 95% Waldenstrom's Macroglobulinemia (WM) patients, nearly all of which correspond to the c.978T>C mutation resulting in an p.Leu265Pro substitution at the protein level. MYD88 is an adaptor protein for the Toll like receptors and IL1R signaling. Activation of these receptors triggers MYD88 homodimerization and downstream signaling to NF-kB through IRAK1/4 and BTK. Chronic MYD88 activation is associated with the increased transcription of the shorter MYD88 isoforms that lack the ability to interact with IRAK4 and serve as dominate negative regulators of MYD88 signaling (Ruland, Nature Immunol 2011). The c.978T>C mutation that is characteristic of WM corresponds to a stop loss in these regulatory isoforms. A novel mutation was recently observed in one of our patients during routine screening for MYD88 mutations that is silent in the primary transcript that encodes for p.Leu265Pro but corresponds to p.V199E in the regulatory isoforms. This isoform specific damaging mutation underscores the importance of isoform regulation in MYD88 in WM. To further study possible dysregulation within the isoforms of MYD88, we collected next generation RNA sequencing data from 55 MYD88 mutant and 22 MYD88 wild type (WT) WM patients. For comparison we also sequenced RNA from 16 healthy donor (HD) plasma cells, 9 HD CD19+CD27- peripheral blood B-cells and 9 HD CD19+CD27+ memory B-cells. Isoform transcripts per million (TpM) were calculated using Salmon (https://combine-lab.github.io/salmon/). Total MYD88 expression in TpM was used to calculate the percentage of total transcription devoted to each MYD88 isoform per patient (Figure 1). Clear differences based on MYD88 mutation status were observed even though no significant differences in MYD88 overall gene expression were observed between WM and HD B-cells. In spite of the constitutive signaling resulting for mutant MYD88, the short regulatory isoforms (ENST00000495303; ENST00000443433) were not well expressed. Both regulatory isoforms didn't present any statistically significant differences between groups, but in the first of the two regulatory isoforms (ENST00000495303) expression was lower in MYD88 WT WM patients (p=0.01). Our findings therefore provide evidence of isoform dysregulation in MYD88 WT MYD88 Mutated WM, and affirm that the somatic MYD88 mutations p.Leu265Pro and p.V199E play an important role in MYD88 isoform dysregulation in WM. Download : Download high-res image (234KB) Download : Download full-size image Disclosures Castillo: Abbvie: Research Funding; Pharmacyclics: Consultancy, Research Funding; Millennium: Research Funding; Janssen: Consultancy, Research Funding. Treon: Pharmacyclics: Consultancy, Research Funding.
Fuzzy-Engineered Multi-Cloud Resource Brokering for Data-intensive Applications

Multi-cloud resource brokering is becoming a critical requirement for applications that require high scale, diversity, and resilience. Applications demand timely selection of distributed data storage and computation platforms that span local private cloud resources as well as resources from multiple cloud service providers (CSPs). The distinct capabilities and policies, as well as performance/cost of the cloud services, are amongst the prime factors for CSP selection. However, application owners who need suitable cyber resources in community/public clouds, often have preliminary knowledge and preferences of certain CSPs. They also lack expert guidance to handle the problem of overwhelming resource choice from CSPs, and optimization to compensate for service dynamics. In this paper, we address this challenge of optimal resource selection while also leveraging limited user’s expertise and preferences towards CSPs through multi-level fuzzy logic modeling based on convoluted factors of performance, agility, cost, and security. We evaluate the efficiency of our fuzzy-engineered resource brokering in improving allocation of resources as well as user satisfiability by using case studies and independent validations of CSPs evaluation.
Political Order and Inequality: Their Foundations and their Consequences for Human Welfare

The fundamental question of political theory, one that precedes all other questions about the nature of political life, is why there is a state at all. Is human cooperation feasible without a political authority enforcing it? Or do we need a state to live together? This problem then opens up two further questions. If a state is necessary to establish order, how does it come into place? And, when it does, what are the consequences for the political status and economic welfare of its citizens? Combining ethnographical material, historical cases, and statistical analysis, this book describes the foundations of stateless societies, why and how states emerge, and the basis of political obligation. As a result of this inquiry, it explains the economic and political roots of inequality, describes the causes of the stagnation of the preindustrial world, and explores what led to the West's prosperity of the past two centuries.
Phorbol ester effect in platelets, lymphocytes, and leukemic cells (HL-60) is associated with enhanced phosphorylation of class I HLA antigens

Phorbol-12-myristate-13-acetate (PMA) is a potent tumor promoter. However, the mechanism of its effect is still unknown. In the present study we use two dimensional gel electrophoresis to show that the PMA effect on platelets is associated with enhanced phosphorylation of a series of polypeptides at 44K which migrate close to but distinct from a previously reported 47K protein. We identified these proteins as the class I molecules of the human histocompatibility antigens (HLA A,B). We further demonstrate that the PMA effect is also associated with a dramatic phosphorylation of HLA antigens in HL-60 leukemic cells and in human lymphocytes, showing that an increase in phosphorylation of HLA antigens is intimately related to the signal of PMA in various cellular systems. Immunoprecipitation of HLA proteins resulted in coprecipitation of phosphorylated myosin light chain (20K). HLA antigens are transmembrane proteins which interact with cytoskeletal elements, probably via their intracellular region, which has been previously shown to be phosphorylated. It is suggested that phosphorylation of HLA membrane proteins may represent an important mechanism in the effects induced by PMA.
The NH2-terminal Residues of Bacillus subtilis Proteins

Abstract The NH2-terminal residues of Bacillus subtilis soluble and ribosomal proteins were determined by the dinitrophenyl method. A nonrandom distribution of amino acids was observed. Alanine occurred most frequently, followed by methionine, serine, threonine, glutamic acid, and aspartic acid; smaller quantities of leucine, isoleucine, valine, and glycine were also found at the terminal position. A marked difference between these results and those obtained for Escherichia coli was noted. A slight difference in the frequency of distribution of the amino acids was also detected between log and stationary phase soluble proteins. An analysis of radioactive proteins newly synthesized by B. subtilis cells also indicated a preferential incorporation of alanine into the NH2-terminal residues.
On the theorem of Conrey and Iwaniec

An exposition on 'Spacing of zeros of Hecke L-functions and the class number prob- lem' by Conrey and Iwaniec.
A coalition key-evolving signature scheme towards intrusion resilient mobile networks for industrial applications

Mobile networks are more vulnerable to intrusion than fixed wired networks because the connection path is dynamically forming during communication. To protect the dynamically forming mobile networks from intrusion, a coalition key-evolving scheme is proposed in this paper. The proposed scheme treats the 3 entities in a dynamic path as foreign agents (FA), home agents (HA) and mobile agents (MA) as a coalition formed by each individual agent. Each agent has a pair of private and public keys; the private key is evolving with time; and the public key is signed by a certificate authority (CA). All the private keys of the 3 agents of the coalition are needed to sign a signature. And all the messages are signed and verified. The signature is verified against a public key that is the product of public keys of all the agents that is readily generated when a new dynamic path is formed. This helps prevent adversary from impersonating using fake FA or MA. Furthermore, the key-evolving scheme prevents an adversary from forging past signatures under any circumstances. In order to forge future signatures, an adversary must compromise all MA, FA and HA simultaneously due to proactive refresh scheme. An interactive proactive synchronization scheme among the agents is proposed when a new dynamic path is formed or private keys evolve to new states. Thus the loss of a mobile device or its information will have minimal information damage.
Surfactant Replacement Therapy for Meconium Aspiration Syndrome

Objective. The pathophysiology of meconium aspiration syndrome (MAS) is related not only to mechanical obstruction of the airways and chemical injury to the respiratory epithelium but also to surfactant inactivation by meconium. A randomized, controlled study was performed to determine whether high-dose surfactant therapy improves the pulmonary morbidity of term infants ventilated for MAS. Methods. Forty term infants receiving mechanical ventilation for MAS were enrolled in this trial, in which the infants in the study group (n = 20) received up to four doses of 150 mg (6 mL)/kg beractant (Survanta), instilled every 6 hours by continuous infusion for 20 minutes via a side hole endotracheal tube adapter, and the infants in the control group (n = 20) received 6 mL/kg air placebo. Results. Mean arterial-to-alveolar Po2 ratio values increased from 0.09 to 0.11 at 1 and 6 hours with a concomitant slight decrease in oxygenation index values from 23.7 to 19.7 at 1 hour and 20.7 at 6 hours after the first dose of surfactant. Oxygenation improved cumulatively after the second and third dose of surfactant, with mean arterial-to-alveolar Po2 ratios and oxygenation indices of 0.18 and 12.1 at 6 hours after the second dose of surfactant and 0.31 and 5.9 at 6 hours after the third dose of surfactant, eliminating the need for a fourth dose in any infant in the study group. After three doses of surfactant, persistent pulmonary hypertension had resolved in all but one of the infants in the study group versus none of the infants in the control group. No air leaks developed in any of the 20 infants in the study group after surfactant therapy, and only 1 infant required extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. Air leaks developed in 5 of the 20 infants in the control group, and 6 underwent extracorporeal poreal membrane oxygenation. The duration of mechanical ventilation, oxygen therapy, and admission was significantly shorter in the surfactant group than in the control group. Conclusion. Surfactant replacement therapy, if started within 6 hours after birth, improves oxygenation and reduces the incidence of air leaks, severity of pulmonary morbidity, and hospitalization time of term infants with MAS.
The effect of letter spacing on reading speed in central and peripheral vision.

Purpose Crowding, the adverse spatial interaction due to proximity of adjacent letters, has been suggested as an explanation for slow reading in peripheral vision. The purpose of this study was to examine whether reading speed can be improved in normal peripheral vision by increasing the letter spacing. Also tested was whether letter spacing imposes a different limit on reading speed of small versus large print. Methods Six normal observers read aloud single, short sentences presented on a computer monitor, one word at a time, by rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP). Reading speeds were calculated based on the RSVP exposure durations yielding 80% correctly read words. Letters were rendered in Courier, a fixed-width font. Testing was conducted at the fovea, 5 degrees and 10 degrees in the inferior visual field. The critical print size (CPS) was first determined for each observer by measuring reading speeds for four print sizes, using the standard letter spacing (center-to-center separation of adjacent letters; standard Courier spacing: 1.16 times the width of the lowercase x). Text was then presented at 0.8 x or 1.5x CPS, and reading speed was measured for five letter spacings, ranging from 0.5 times to 2 times the standard spacing. Results As expected, reading speed was highest at the fovea, decreased with eccentricity, and was faster for the larger print size. At all eccentricities and for both print sizes, reading speed increased with letter spacing, up to a critical letter spacing, and then either remained constant at the same reading speed or decreased slightly for larger letter spacings. The value of the critical letter spacing was very close to the standard letter spacing and did not depend on eccentricity or print size. Conclusions Increased letter spacing beyond the standard size, which presumably decreases the adverse effect of crowding, does not lead to an increase in reading speed in central or peripheral vision.
Convergence and Modernisation

In a country panel since 1960, the estimated annual convergence rate for GDP is 1.7%, conditional on time-varying explanatory variables. With country fixed effects, the estimated convergence rate is misleadingly high. With data starting in 1870, country fixed effects are reasonable and the estimated convergence rate is 2.6%. Combining the two estimates suggests conditional convergence close to the ‘iron-law’ rate of 2%. With post-1960 data, estimation without country fixed effects reveals positive effects of GDP and schooling on law and order and democracy – consistent with the modernisation hypothesis. With post-1870 data, estimation without or with country fixed effects indicates modernisation.
Informal Caregiving: A Reappraisal of Effects on Caregivers

For decades caregiver distress (psychological and physical) has been considered an inevitable outcome of providing care for family members, loved ones, and others who require assistance. This negative assessment of informal caregiving pervades not only peer-reviewed scientific articles, but also caregiving-relevant agency reports, fact sheets, policy recommendations, advice columns, and media discussions. Our review critically examines this assessment in light of important methodological limitations of supporting studies, and considers theory and research that suggest an alternative appraisal of caregiving. We find that the case for an overall negative evaluation of caregiver effects is, for the most part, unjustified. Indeed, recent data suggest that giving may yield beneficial health and well-being outcomes, including reduced mortality for informal caregivers. An alternative, more balanced view of caregiving has important implications for research and theory, caregiver assessment and intervention, and public policy.
Size-Frequency-Distributions of EH3 Chondrules

Size-frequency distributions of chondrules in three EH3 chondrites, namely Qingzhen, Kota-Kota and ALHA77156, are presently determined. Radial pyroxene chondrules are larger than cryptocrystalline chondrules, while nonporphyritic chondrules have a broader size-frequency distribution than the porphyritic, and porphyritic olivine-pyroxene chondrules are larger than porphyritic pyroxene chondrules. This last result is due to a reaction of fine-grained olivine with free silica to form pyroxene during mild thermal metamorphism of the whole-rocks.
Transcriptomics analyses of soybean leaf and root samples during water-deficit

Drought being a major challenge for crop productivity and yield affects multigenic and quantitative traits. It is also well documented that water stress shows a cross talk with other abiotic stresses such as high temperature and high light intensities (Tripathi et al., 2013) [1]. In this report, we documented the details of the methods and quality controls used and considered in our time course-based transcriptome profile of soybean plants under water deficit conditions using microarray technology. The findings of this study are recently published by the Rushton lab in BMC Genomics for a comparative study of tobacco and Soybean (Rabara et al., 2015) [2]. The raw microarray data set is deposited in GEO database with accession number GSE49537.
Ambient occlusion via compressive visibility estimation

There has been emerging interest on recovering traditionally challenging intrinsic scene properties. In this paper, we present a novel computational imaging solution for recovering the ambient occlusion (AO) map of an object. AO measures how much light from all different directions can reach a surface point without being blocked by self-occlusions. Previous approaches either require obtaining highly accurate surface geometry or acquiring a large number of images. We adopt a compressive sensing framework that captures the object under strategically coded lighting directions. We show that this incident illumination field exhibits some unique properties suitable for AO recovery: every ray's contribution to the visibility function is binary while their distribution for AO measurement is sparse. This enables a sparsity-prior based solution for iteratively recovering the surface normal, the surface albedo, and the visibility function from a small number of images. To physically implement the scheme, we construct an encodable directional light source using the light field probe. Experiments on synthetic and real scenes show that our approach is both reliable and accurate with significantly reduced size of input.
A comparison of short-term memory tests as predictors of reading achievement for learning-disabled and educable mentally retarded students

Poor performance' on short-term memory (STM) tasks has been associated with reading difficulties. However, little research has been devoted to delineating the STM tests that best predict this relationship. To gain insight into the relative efficacy of different STM tests to predict reading achievement, nine measures of STM frequently used by school psychologists were examined with a group of learning-disabled (n = 48) and educable mentally retarded (n = 34) students. The factor structure underlying the STM tasks was also investigated. The results indicated that not all of the STM tasks were significant (p < .05) predictors of reading. Stepwise regression analyses indicated that a sentence memory task was the best predictor for the learning-disabled students, whereas a letter sequences task was the best predictor of reading for the educable students. Factor analysis indicated that a language factor (auditory/verbal) and a non-verbal factor (visual/spatial) were the major components underlying performance on the STM measures. These findings were discussed in the context of the prediction of reading as a function of diagnostic group and the task structure of the STM tests.
Surface water–groundwater interactions in semiarid drainages of the American southwest

Drainages are important features of semiarid landscapes because they are areas where surface water, groundwater, and terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems converge. Management of these critical ecohydrological systems requires a sound understanding of surface water–groundwater interactions. At the basin- to landscape-scale, drainage density, location, and channel characteristics are formed upon a geomorphic and geologic template that limit where and how surface water–groundwater interactions occur. At smaller scales, semiarid surface water–groundwater interactions exhibit a high degree of temporal and spatial variability that links directly to biogeochemical characteristics and ecosystem dynamics. In this paper, we review key features of interactions in semiarid drainages, and supplement the discussion with new examples from the American southwest. We conclude by presenting a series of alternative conceptual models that describe surface water–groundwater interactions within semiarid drainages and highlight areas for future research. Copyright  2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
COCAINE : THE NEWEST RISK FACTOR FOR CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE

Summary: Cocaine-related cardiovascular events escalated during the 1980s as cocaine became purer, cheaper, and easier to obtain. Cocaine abuse is a risk factor for myocardial ischemia and/or infarction, cardiac arrhythmias, pulmonary edema, ruptured aortic aneurysm, cerebral infarction, infective endocarditis, vascular thrombosis, myocarditis, and dilated cardiomyopathy. As medical and social complications of cocaine have become evident, and with the growing negative image of cocaine, the number of first-time users has begun to decline. Cocaine abuse is seen on all levels of our society and has emerged as an issue of significant medical and public health importance. All routes and forms of cocaine abuse are potentially cardiotoxic and can be lethal. Fatal cardiac complications can occur in a first-time user. All physicians should be alert for cocaine abuse when confronted with unexplained cardiac symptoms. Cocaine is the newest and sometimes unrecognized risk factor for cardiovascular disease in young individuals otherwise free of cardiovascular risk factors.
A Woman’s Place: The Gendering of Genres in Post‐revolutionary French Painting

The subject of this essay is the painter Angelique Mongez, who was a student of Jacques-Louis David. Specifically, this essay examines how Mongez negotiated a place in the all-male domain of history painting and how her contemporaries, that is the critics, responded to her claims to be a history painter. My discussion centres on the Salon of 1802, when she made her debut with a large historical composition, Astyanax taken from his Mother, but extends to the Salons of 1804 and 1806, when the issue of the woman history painter was debated more fully. Mongez’s challenge of the tradition that considered history painting an endeavour reserved for men was possible because she had access to serious instruction and to the Salons, unencumbered by the restrictive policies of the Royal Academy. For in the post-revolutionary period one could not exclude women from history painting because any outright proscription was in conflict with democratic principles. The strategy, then, adopted by those who argued against women history painters during this period, was to encourage women artists who restricted themselves to genre painting. At the Salons of 1804 and 1806 the genre painter Henriette Lorimier served as the paradigm of the woman painter and the recommended alternative to Angelique Mongez.
Aleochara tristis, a Natural Enemy of Face Fly I. Introduction and Laboratory Rearing

Aleochara tristis Gravenhorst was introduced into the United States from France in February 1965. In the laboratory, young larvae of A. tristis enter puparia of the face fly, Musca autumnalis De Geer, and feed on the pupae. Development to the adult stage is completed within the Fly puparia. The adult A. tristis inhabit cattle droppings and prey on larvae of dung-breeding insects. Laboratory rearing has been in progress 1 year, and techniques have been evolved for establishing and maintaining a colony.
Rates of dissociation of steroid and thyroid hormones from human serum albumin

A rapid filtration assay employing dextran-coated charcoal as acceptor particles for free hormone was used to measure rates of dissociation of steroid and thyroid hormones from human serum albumin. Modification of a previously described assay allowed measurements at 1-s intervals. Nevertheless, this still permitted only minimum estimates of the dissociation rate constants. The hormones studied were thyroxine, 3,5,3'-triiodothyronine, cortisol, corticosterone, testosterone, dihydrotestosterone, estradiol, progesterone, and aldosterone. The apparent dissociation rate constant of the thyroxine-albumin complex at 37 degrees C was 1.3 +/- 0.2 s-1 (t 1/2, 0.5 s). The apparent dissociation rate constants of the other hormone-albumin complexes at 37 degrees C generally exceeded 2 s-1 (t 1/2 less than 0.35 s). Apparent dissociation rate constants at 4 degrees C were only slightly lower. These findings indicate that steroid and thyroid hormones dissociate from albumin rapidly compared with the 1-s capillary transit times that characterize many tissues.
Relation of Subclinical Coronary Artery Atherosclerosis to Cerebral White Matter Disease in Healthy Subjects From Families With Early-Onset Coronary Artery Disease

White matter disease (WMD) of the brain is associated with incident stroke. Similarly, subclinical calcified coronary artery plaque has been associated with incident coronary artery disease (CAD) events. Although atherogenesis in both vascular beds may share some common mechanisms, the extent to which subclinical CAD is associated with WMD across age ranges in subjects with a family history of early-onset CAD remains unknown. We screened 405 apparently healthy participants in the Genetic Study of Atherosclerotic Risk for CAD risk factors and for the presence of noncalcified and calcified coronary plaque using dual-source multidetector cardiac computed tomographic angiography. The presence and volumes of WMD were assessed by 3-Tesla brain magnetic resonance imaging. Participants were 60% women, 36% African-American, mean age 51.6 ± 10.6 years. The overall prevalence of coronary plaque was 43.0%. Subjects with coronary plaque had significantly greater WMD volumes (median 1,222 mm 3 , interquartile range 448 to 3,871) compared with those without coronary plaque (median 551 mm 3 , interquartile range 105 to 1,523, p
A Serial Mediation Model of Message Framing on Intentions to Receive the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Vaccine: Revisiting the Role of Threat and Efficacy Perceptions

Previous research has yielded mixed findings regarding the potential for message framing to influence HPV vaccine-related intentions. Drawing on the Extended Parallel Process Model (EPPM), the curr...
TRANSITION FROM CYTOSOLIC TO MITOCHONDRIAL THYMIDINE KINASE DURING DEVELOPMENT IN HUMAN FETAL TISSUES

Abstract The transition from cytosolic (“fetal”) to mitochondrial (“adult”) thymidine kinase, as detected by electrophoresis, was examined in six human fetal tissues of gestational ages 11–40 weeks. In all tissues there was an early period during development in which only the fetal form was detected, followed by a transitional period in which both fetal and adult forms were present, followed by a later period in which only the adult enzyme occurred. Transitional periods were 23–25 wk. gestational age for colon, 13–15 wk. for kidney, 18–20 wk. for liver, 14–18 wk. for lung, 34–36 wk. for serum, and 25–28 wk. for thyroid. In all cases, only the adult form was present by the time of birth and persisted during the first 18 months of extrauterine life. The adult form, but not the fetal form, was inhibited by dCTP.
Distributed rate control for video streaming over wireless networks with intersession network coding

In this paper, we study the problem of rate control over wireless networks with intersession network coding. We formulate the general problem as a utility maximization problem, show that it has a distributed solution and demonstrate convergence through numerical simulations. Rate control for video streaming fits naturally within this framework. However, the time-varying nature of video content implies time-varying utilities and affects the underlying network coding opportunities. A key observation is that by delaying some scenes and by optimizing the rate allocation over longer time intervals, we can create more network coding opportunities and thus achieve higher total utility.We develop distributed rate allocation schemes that exploit this observation and demonstrate the benefit through numerical simulations.
A note on theories with a minimal length

The aim of this note is to clarify the relation between three different approaches of theories with a minimal length scale: a modification of the Lorentz group in the 'deformed special relativity', theories with a 'generalized uncertainty principle' and those with 'modified dispersion relations'. It is shown that the first two are equivalent, how they can be translated into each other, and how the third can be obtained from them. An adequate theory with a minimal length scale requires all three features to be present.
Combinatorial formulae for the derivatives of Lamé functions

Lame functions play a central role in the theory of ellipsoidal harmonics and have many varied applications in mathematical physics. In this article, a generalized approach to the computation of Lame function derivatives of arbitrary order is derived and it is demonstrated how these derivatives can be expressed recursively in terms of the original Lame functions by making use of combinatorial formulae discovered by di Bruno, Girard and Waring.
A duration analysis of the role of cigarette prices on smoking initiation and cessation in developing countries

This study evaluates the impact of cigarette prices on smoking initiation and cessation among adults in two pooled samples of 6 low- to lower-middle income countries (LMICs) and 8 upper-middle income countries (UMICs). We find that, while higher prices reduce smoking across the board, this reduction occurs through different behavioral mechanisms in lower versus higher income countries. Specifically, cigarette prices reduce smoking rates by deterring initiation in LMICs while in UMICs they act primarily by promoting cessation. Because current smoking rates are relatively lower in LMICs and relatively higher in UMICs, this differential mechanism underscores the adaptability of tobacco prices as a tool for regulating tobacco use across countries at different levels of development; it shows that prices can be used to sustain the relatively low rates of smoking in LMICs by preventing entry of new smokers, and can reduce the relatively high rates of smoking in UMICs by encouraging exit of existing smokers. Using split-population duration models and controlling for fixed and time-varying unobserved country characteristics, we estimate that the price elasticity of initiation in LMICs is -0.74 and the price elasticity of cessation in UMICs is 0.51.
Automatic arc welding of propulsion system tubing in close proximity to sensitive electronic devices

The planned final assembly of the Galileo spacecraft propulsion system tubing, which involves welding in close proximity to sensitive electronics, raised significant concerns about the effects of electromagnetic coupling of weld energy on CMOS and other sensitive integrated circuits. A test program was established to assess the potential of an orbital arc welder and an RF-induction brazing machine to damage sensitive electronic equipment. Test parameters were varied to assess the effectiveness of typical transient suppression practices such as grounding, bonding, and shielding. A technique was developed to calibrate the hazard levels at the victim-circuit location; this technique is described along with the results and conclusions of the test program.