cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The effect of diet on performance, digestibility, blood composition and intestinal microflora of weaned pigs.

Good evaluation variables are needed to study postweaning lag in early weaned pigs. In this study, performance, digestibility, concentration of blood components and aerobic fecal microflora under different dietary regimens from weaning at 3 wk of age to 35 d of age are reported. Treatment 1 (T1) consisted of a corn-soybean meal starter diet. Pigs in treatment 2 (T2) received a steamed, rolled oat groats-casein starter diet. Pigs in treatment 1 and 2 were weaned at 3 wk of age while those in treatment 3 remained with the sow. Treatment 1 pigs had lower average daily gains for the 2-wk trial as compared with T2 pigs (P less than .05). Three of the four animals consuming the corn-soybean meal diet were observed to have diarrhea during the experiment as compared with an occasional loose stool from the pigs fed oats-casein. There were no significant differences in digestibility of dry matter, crude protein or ether extract among pigs in T1 and T2. Digestibilities of ash and crude fiber were higher (P less than .05) in T1 pigs, while there was an increase (P less than .05) in digestibility of N-free extract by pigs in T2. Serum protein, Na, CO2 and blood hematocrit were not significantly different among treatments. Blood chloride was higher, whereas glucose was lower for pigs in T1 and T2 than T3 (P less than .05). Blood urea N was higher for pigs in T1 as compared with pigs in T2 or T3. Potassium was higher (P less than .05) for pigs in T1 as compared with those in T2 or T3.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Population Health and Paid Parental Leave: What the United States Can Learn from Two Decades of Research

Over the last two decades, numerous studies have suggested that dedicated time for parents to be with their children in the earliest months of life offers significant benefits to child health. The United States (US) is the only wealthy nation without a formalized policy guaranteeing workers paid time off when they become new parents. As individual US states consider enacting parental leave policies, there is a significant opportunity to decrease health inequities and build a healthier American population. This document is intended as a critical review of the present evidence for the association between paid parental leave and population health.
An Analysis of Larval Cranial Architecture and Mandibular Geometry of Dytiscus carolinus Aubé, 1838 (Coleoptera: Dytiscidae)

Abstract An analysis of larval cranial architecture and mandibular geometry supports a hypothesis that larvae of Dytiscus carolinus Aube, 1838 preferentially feed on active immature vertebrates and invertebrates. Encased caddisfly larvae are probably only coincidental components of its prey regime. Ontogenetic changes in cranial and mandibular morphology are described and interpreted as indications that first instars exploit in situ prey regimes with characteristics different from those exploited during the third and possibly second stadium. Pronounced developmental changes in temporal curvature are indicative of increases in the mass and volume of adductor muscles but without corresponding changes in gear ratios. Intermandibular distances increased at a constant rate, but significant differences between intermandibular distance and head length and width ratios occurred between first and second instars and first and third instars. Significant variation in mandibular morphology and geometry during larval d...
Vibrations of Timoshenko Beams and Frameworks

A general matrix formulation suitable for a use of the digital computer is presented for dynamic analysis of frameworks composed of prismatic members. The dynamic stiffness coefficients are derived in the form of nondimensional parameters corresponding to the effects of rotatory inertia, shear deformation, and of bending deformation. The individual parameter may be dropped when the appropriate effect is not considered; hence, the stiffness coefficients can be applied to a problem with various considerations of Timoshenko theory, Rayleigh theory, bending and shear, and of Bernoulli-Euler theory. Input data for the computer include the configurations of the framework and the elastic properties of constituent members. The method may be applied to irregular frameworks composed of sloping members with and without sidesway. Numerical examples presented indicate that the effect of rotatory inertia and of shear deformation on the frequencies of frameworks without sidesway is more significant than that of swayed structures.
Oxidation kinetics of Wolfcamp light oil

ABSTRACTAir injection has been used for decades as an enhanced oil recovery method. An oxidation kinetics study is important for the application of air injection. Low-temperature oxidation is more feasible in light oil reservoirs. Although an experiment using a small batch reactor has been conducted before, the reaction order with respect to the oxygen partial pressure was not well studied. The authors use a small batch reactor to study the effect of temperature and pressure on the oxygen consumption rate of the Wolfcamp light oil. The reaction order, the activation energy, and Arrhenius constant are calculated.
Mood induction effects on motor sequence learning and stop signal reaction time.

The neurobiological theory of positive affect proposes that positive mood states may benefit cognitive performance due to an increase of dopamine throughout the brain. However, the results of many positive affect studies are inconsistent; this may be due to individual differences. The relationship between dopamine and performance is not linear, but instead follows an inverted “U” shape. Given this, we hypothesized that individuals with high working memory capacity, a proxy measure for dopaminergic transmission, would not benefit from positive mood induction and in fact performance in dopamine-mediated tasks would decline. In contrast, we predicted that individuals with low working memory capacities would receive the most benefit after positive mood induction. Here, we explored the effect of positive affect on two dopamine-mediated tasks, an explicit serial reaction time sequence learning task and the stop signal task, predicting that an individual’s performance is modulated not only by working memory capacity, but also on the type of mood. Improvements in explicit sequence learning from pre- to post-positive mood induction were associated with working memory capacity; performance declined in individuals with higher working memory capacities following positive mood induction, but improved in individuals with lower working memory capacities. This was not the case for negative or neutral mood induction. Moreover, there was no relationship between the change in stop signal reaction time with any of the mood inductions and individual differences in working memory capacity. These results provide partial support for the neurobiological theory of positive affect and highlight the importance of taking into account individual differences in working memory when examining the effects of positive mood induction.
Serum Prolactin and Neonatal Seizures

Serum prolactin (PRL) levels were studied in 28 newborn infants with acute encephalopathy (6 with seizures and 22 without) at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and St Christopher’s Hospital for Children, Philadelphia, PA.
Two Dimensional Adaptive Equalizer For Voiceband Data Transmission

A fully integrated single chip monolithic 2400 bits/s voiceband modem that meets CCITT V.22 bis recommendation is under development. A critical subcircuit within this integrated circuit (IC) which will be described is the "Adaptive Equalizer". Both analog switched capacitor and digital circuit techniques are employed to achieve the required performance and the efficient utilization of chip area. Such circuit will be integrated using an established 3um silicon gate, double-poly CMOS technology.
Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Receptors

Vascular endothelial growth factor receptors (VEGFRs) are a set of three homologous transmembrane receptor tyrosine kinases that bind vascular endothelial growth factors (VEGFs). VEGFRs are expressed throughout the vascular and lymphatic systems and by some cells of the immune and nervous systems. Dimeric VEGF binding to the VEGFR extracellular domains promotes receptor dimerization and mutual receptor subunit tyrosine transphosphorylation of the intracellular domains. Specific proteins bind these receptor phosphotyrosine residues initiating a signaling cascade that culminates in cellular migration, mitosis, and survival promoting the growth of blood and lymphatic vessels, respectively, termed ‘angiogenesis’ and ‘lymphangiogenesis’. Alternative splicing generates soluble VEGFRs that can sequester VEGF ligands and inhibit VEGFR activation.
Resolving Schedule Failures in Multi-Modal Transport Networks for Movement of Time-Sensitive Shipments

Support for this research was provided by the McIntire School of Commerce, Center for the Management of Information Technology. The author wished to acknowledge Joe Croghan, Graduate Student in sys...
The role of sulfenic acids in cellular redox signaling: Reconciling chemical kinetics and molecular detection strategies

The reversible oxidation of protein cysteine residues is well recognized as an important regulatory mechanism in redox-dependent cell signaling. Cysteine oxidation is diverse in nature and involves various post-translational modifications (sulfenic acids, disulfides, etc.) and the specific functional or structural impact of these specific oxidative events is still poorly understood. The proximal product of protein cysteine oxidation by biological reactive oxygen species (ROS) is sulfenic acid (Cys-SOH), and experimental evidence is accruing for the formation of Cys-SOH as intermediate in protein cysteine oxidation in various biological settings. However, the plausibility of protein Cys-SH oxidation by ROS has often been put in question because of slow reaction kinetics compared to more favorable reactions with abundant thiol-based reductants such as peroxiredoxins (Prx) or glutathione (GSH). This commentary aims to address this controversy by highlighting the unique physical properties in cells that may restrict ROS diffusion and allow otherwise less favorable cysteine oxidation of proteins. Some limitations of analytical tools to assess Cys-SOH are also discussed. We conclude that formation of Cys-SOH in biological systems cannot always be predicted based on kinetic analyses in homogenous solution, and may be facilitated by unique structural and physical properties of Cys-containing proteins within e.g. signaling complexes.
Promoting the contributions of multilingual preschoolers

Abstract This study analyzed the use of Instructional Conversation (IC) in a multilingual preschool context. It sought to identify scaffolding strategies that promoted the contributions of multilingual children to IC. Twenty-seven hours of video data from seven classrooms were analyzed. Only three sequences emerged in which multilingual children actively contributed to the conversations. Educators in these sequences promoted children's contributions by: (a) using multimodal resources, (b) responding to the actions and words of the children, and (c) focusing on shared meaning-making or intersubjectivity. Translanguaging emerged as an important strategy to encourage the involvement of multilingual children in IC. Results provide invaluable exemplars of effective IC in preschool classrooms with multilingual children. The results demonstrate alternative ways of talking with young multilingual children and indicate a need for a pedagogical focus away from teacher-directed practices to joint activities and responsiveness to children's contributions.
Replacement of Skeletal Tissues

Injury to the musculoskeletal system is caused by traumatic injury as well as the end-stage of diseases such as osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. These processes lead to impaired locomotion and high levels of pain and therefore must be surgically corrected. Tissue grafts and synthetic polymeric materials are used to repair damaged tendons and ligaments while joint replacement is achieved using primarily metals and polymeric materials. Fixation devices including bone plates and screws are used to reinforce bone fractures. These devices are made of metals, although some polymeric materials have been studied experimentally.
Co-designing for Co-listening: Conceptualizing Young People’s Social and Music-Listening Practices

Social networking applications have come to dominate the attention of technology-users of all ages, and are seen as the quintessential application of social media. They promise to connect us to our friends and family, but there are growing concerns over their ability to achieve this. We are interested in the potential of technology to connect people, but we question the approach of social networking apps and sites. Perhaps the only activity that competes with social networks for occupying so much of people’s time is music-listening. Listening to music on personal devices is one of the most wide-spread forms of human-computer interaction. It also provides opportunities that could be characterized, positively, as privacy or, negatively, as isolation. To better understand the design space of people listening to music and their sociality, we examined the attitudes and practices of 26 semi-rural young people (9–15 years old) in the U.S. who are too young to drive and therefore cannot congregate at-will. Our study utilized semi-structured interviews, a design charrette, and user-testing of Colisten, our functional prototype. We found that the youth do not currently engage in widespread co-listening or even in the use of music recommendation systems. Indications are that the lack of co-listening is due to design gaps in sharing features rather than lack of interest. As one young person explained, co-listening would be “…more like a social thing, rather than ‘I want to listen to music’, more like, ‘I want to hang out with my friend and listen to music…’”. We present emergent design dimensions detailing how this population thinks about sociality and sharing media.
A MAXIMUM PRINCIPLE AT INFINITY AND THE TOPOLOGY OF COMPLETE EMBEDDED SURFACES WITH CONSTANT MEAN-CURVATURE

Many new examples of complete embedded constant mean curvature surfaces E C 113 have been constructed by N. Kapouleas [4] using spheres and segments of Delaunay surfaces as the basic building blocks. Each example E is the boundary of a handlebody a closed regular neighborhood ~ C R 3 of a properly embedded 1-complex or graph. In this note we show that this simple topological behavior is typical.
Intramedullary Nailing of Complete Articular Distal Femur Fractures

Complete articular distal femur fractures can provide challenges for internal fixation due to metaphyseal comminution, intra-articular involvement, osteoporotic bone, and unopposed muscle forces. While the use of lateral locked plating has improved the ability to treat these fractures, recent reports have indicated a high rate of complications using this fixation method, including nonunion rates ranging from 10%-20%. Several biomechanical studies have demonstrated superior results of retrograde intramedullary nails compared to lateral locked plating. To address the unsatisfactory results using lateral locked plating for complete articular distal femur fractures, we have shifted toward stabilization of these injuries with retrograde intramedullary nails augmented with independent screw fixation for the articular injury. Our early clinic results have been promising with regards to maintaining anatomical alignment without loss of fixation. Future long-term outcome studies will be necessary to further assess the success of this treatment method for these difficult injuries.
Structural role of osteocalcin and osteopontin in energy dissipation in bone.

Abstract Non-collagenous proteins are a vital component of bone matrix. Amongst them, osteocalcin (OC) and osteopontin (OPN) hold special significance due to their intimate interaction with the mineral and collagenous matrix in bone. Both proteins have been associated with microdamage and fracture, but their structural role in energy dissipation is unclear. This study used bone tissue from genetic deficient mice lacking OC and/or OPN and subjected them to a series of creep-fatigue-creep tests. To this end, whole tibiae were loaded in four-point bending to 70% stiffness loss which captured the three characteristic phases of fatigue associated with initiation, propagation, and coalescence of microdamage. Fatigue loading preceded and followed creep tests to determine creep and dampening parameters. Microdamage in the form of linear microcracks and diffuse damage were analyzed by histology. It was shown that OC and OPN were ‘activated’ following stiffness loss associated with fatigue damage where they facilitated creep and dampening parameters (i.e. increased energy dissipation). More specifically, post-fatigue creep rate and dampening were significantly greater in wild-types (WTs) than genetic deficient mice (p
EFFECT OF HIGH-DENSITY ORAL RABIES VACCINE BAITING ON RABIES VIRUS NEUTRALIZING ANTIBODY RESPONSE IN RACCOONS ( PROCYON LOTOR).

From 2014 to 2016, we examined the effect of distributing oral rabies vaccine baits at high density (150 baits/km2) in an area of Virginia, US that was naive to oral rabies vaccination prior to the study. We also compared the effect of baiting at high density in a naive area to baiting at standard density (75 baits/km2) in an area that had been baited annually for 12 yr. Our results suggested that rabies virus seroconversion in raccoons ( Procyon lotor) gradually increased each year under the highdensity bait treatment. However, we did not detect a difference in seroconversion between bait density treatments. Virginia opossums ( Didelphis virginiana) were abundant in the study area and were a potentially important nontarget species that competed for oral rabies vaccine baits, but the ratio of opossums to raccoons in this study did not affect rabies virus neutralizing antibody response of the raccoon populations.
Cardiopulmonary effects of dexmedetomidine, with and without vatinoxan, in isoflurane-anesthetized cats.

Abstract Objective To characterize the cardiopulmonary effects of dexmedetomidine, with or without vatinoxan, in isoflurane-anesthetized cats. Study design Randomized, crossover experimental study. Animals A group of six adult healthy male neutered cats. Methods Cats were instrumented during anesthesia with isoflurane in oxygen. Isoflurane end-tidal concentration was set to 1.25 minimum alveolar concentration (MAC). Dexmedetomidine was administered using a target-controlled infusion system to achieve and maintain 10 target plasma concentrations ranging from 0 to 40 ng mL–1. Furthermore, vatinoxan or an equivalent volume of saline was administered using a target-controlled infusion system to achieve and maintain a target plasma concentration of 4 μg mL–1. Isoflurane concentration was adjusted after each change in dexmedetomidine concentration to maintain a concentration equivalent to 1.25 MAC. Heart rate (HR), arterial blood pressure, central venous pressure (CVP), pulmonary artery pressure (PAP), pulmonary artery occlusion pressure (PAOP), body temperature, cardiac output, arterial and mixed-venous blood gas and pH and drug concentrations were measured. Additional variables were calculated from the measurements. Results Dexmedetomidine alone resulted in decreased HR, cardiac index, stroke index and oxygen delivery, and increased systolic, mean (MAP) and diastolic arterial pressure, CVP, PAP, PAOP, systemic vascular resistance index, rate-pressure product, left ventricular stroke work index and oxygen extraction ratio. Vatinoxan resulted in severe hypotension at target plasma dexmedetomidine concentrations Conclusions and clinical relevance Vatinoxan, at the plasma concentration maintained in this study, attenuated the cardiovascular effects of dexmedetomidine in isoflurane-anesthetized cats. However, its administration resulted in hypotension, which may limit its clinical usefulness.
MeshSNet: Deep Multi-scale Mesh Feature Learning for End-to-End Tooth Labeling on 3D Dental Surfaces

Accurate tooth labeling on 3D dental surfaces is a vital task in computer-aided orthodontic treatment planning. Existing automated or semi-automated methods usually require human interactions, which is time-consuming. Also, they typically use simple geometric properties as the criteria for segmentation, which cannot well handle the high variation of tooth appearance across different patients. Recently, several pioneering deep neural networks (e.g., PointNet) have been proposed in the computer vision and computer graphics communities to efficiently segment 3D shapes in an end-to-end manner. However, these methods do not perform well in our specific task of tooth labeling, especially considering that they cannot explicitly model fine-grained local geometric context of teeth (although only a small portion of dental surfaces but with different shapes and appearances). In this paper, we propose a specific deep neural network (called MeshSNet) for end-to-end tooth segmentation on 3D dental surfaces captured by advanced intraoral scanners. Using directly raw mesh data as input, our MeshSNet adopts novel graph-constrained learning modules to hierarchically extract multi-scale contextual features, and then densely integrates local-to-global geometric features to comprehensively characterize mesh cells for the segmentation task. We evaluated our proposed method on an in-house clinic dataset via 3-fold cross-validation. The experimental results demonstrate the superior performance of our MeshSNet method, compared with the state-of-the-art deep learning methods for 3D shape segmentation.
The Politics of Tango: A Response to Michael Denning's Noise Uprising

In his strikingly ambitious and provocative book, Noise Uprising , Michael Denning argues that the early recording industry unleashed a worldwide sonic revolution. Focusing on the five-year period inaugurated by the invention of electric recording technology in 1925, Denning analyzes the recording
Multiparametric MRI as a Biomarker of Response to Neoadjuvant Therapy for Localized Prostate Cancer-A Pilot Study.

Rationale and Objectives To explore a role for multiparametric MRI (mpMRI) as a biomarker of response to neoadjuvant androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) for prostate cancer (PCa). Materials and Methods This prospective study was approved by the institutional review board and was HIPAA compliant. Eight patients with localized PCa had a baseline mpMRI, repeated after 6-months of ADT, followed by prostatectomy. mpMRI indices were extracted from tumor and normal regions of interest (TROI/NROI). Residual cancer burden (RCB) was measured on mpMRI and on the prostatectomy specimen. Paired t-tests compared TROI/NROI mpMRI indices and pre/post-treatment TROI mpMRI indices. Spearman's rank tested for correlations between MRI/pathology-based RCB, and between pathological RCB and mpMRI indices. Results At baseline, TROI apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) was lower and dynamic contrast enhanced (DCE) metrics were higher, compared to NROI (ADC: 806 ± 137 × 10−6 vs. 1277 ± 213 × 10−6 mm2/sec, p = 0.0005; Ktrans: 0.346 ± 0.16 vs. 0.144 ± 0.06 min−1, p = 0.002; AUC90: 0.213 ± 0.08 vs. 0.11 ± 0.03, p = 0.002). Post-treatment, there was no change in TROI ADC, but a decrease in TROI Ktrans (0.346 ± 0.16 to 0.188 ± 0.08 min−1; p = 0.02) and AUC90 (0.213 ± 0.08 to 0.13 ± 0.06; p = 0.02). Tumor volume decreased with ADT. There was no difference between mpMRI-based and pathology-based RCB, which positively correlated (⍴ = 0.74–0.81, p Conclusion Given the heterogeneity of PCa, an individualized approach to ADT may maximize potential benefit. This pilot study suggests that mpMRI may serve as a biomarker of ADT response and as a surrogate for RCB at prostatectomy.
Elucidating the Multidimensionality of Socioeconomic Status in Relation to Metabolic Syndrome in the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos (HCHS/SOL)

Socioeconomic (SES) factors underlying disparities in the prevalence of metabolic syndrome (MetSyn) and consequently, type 2 diabetes among Hispanics/Latino populations are of considerable clinical and public health interest. However, incomplete and/or imprecise measurement of the multidimensional SES construct has impeded a full understanding of how SES contributes to disparities in metabolic disease. Consequently, a latent-variable model of the SES-MetSyn association was investigated and compared with the more typical proxy-variable model. A community-based cross-sectional probability sample (2008–2011) of 14,029 Hispanic/Latino individuals of Puerto Rican, Cuban, Dominican, Central American, South American, and Mexican ancestry living in the USA was used. SES proxy’s education, income, and employment were examined as effect indicators of a latent variable, and as individual predictors. MetSyn was defined using 2009 harmonized guidelines, and MetSyn components were also examined individually. In multivariate regression analyses, the SES latent variable was associated with 9% decreased odds of MetSyn (95% confidence interval: 0.85, 0.96, P < .001) and was associated with all MetSyn components, except diastolic blood pressure. Additionally, greater income, education, and employment status were associated with 4%, 3%, and 24% decreased odds of having MetSyn, respectively (Ps < .001). The income-MetSyn association was only significant for women and those with current health insurance. Hispanic/Latinos exhibit an inverse association between SES and MetSyn of varying magnitudes across SES variables. Public health research is needed to further probe these relationships, particularly among Hispanic/Latina women, to ultimately improve healthcare access to prevent diabetes in this underserved population.
Identifying Laguerre-Gaussian Modes using Convolutional Neural Network

An automated determination of Laguerre-Gaussian (LG) modes benefits cavity tuning and optical communication. In this paper, we employ machine learning techniques to automatically detect the lowest sixteen LG modes of a laser beam. Convolutional neural networks (CNN) are trained by collecting the experimental and simulated datasets of LG modes that relies only on the intensity images of their unique patterns. We demonstrate that the trained CNN model can detect LG modes with the maximum accuracy greater than 96% after 60 epochs. The study evaluates the CNN's ability to generalize to new data and adapt to experimental conditions.
Influence of size, sex, and reproductive status on the thermal biology of endemic Florida scrub lizards

Climate change is impacting species globally, with many populations declining at an accelerated rate toward extinction. Ectothermic species are particularly vulnerable given their reproductive success is linked to environmental temperatures. Studies of the effect of temperature on reproductive success in oviparous squamates have focused mostly on nest temperatures, after eggs are deposited. However, in some species gravid females are known to thermoregulate differently than other adults to increase reproductive success. It is essential to understand what influences the thermal biology of breeding adults in a population to implement targeted conservation strategies. The Florida scrub lizard Sceloporus woodi is an endemic species listed as near-threatened due to decreasing populations. This study is the first to document the thermal biology of these breeding adults in relation to size, sex, and reproductive status. A t test was used to determine whether sexual dimorphism was present in the sampled S. woodi. Full linear mixed-effects models were used to test the influence of size, sex, and reproductive status on the thermal biology of S. woodi. Despite female-biased sexual size dimorphism, there were no sex-based differences in body temperature in the studied population. Interestingly, reproductive status influenced thermal biology of females during the breeding season, with gravid females maintaining lower body temperatures compared to nongravid females. However, gravid females did not regulate their body temperatures more precisely compared to nongravid females. These results indicate the population viability of this endemic species is potentially linked to the different thermoregulatory requirements of gravid females as compared to other adults. Lower body temperatures of gravid females, exacerbated by their lack of thermal precision, have disconcerting conservation implications in the face of climate warming. Future studies focusing on gravid females are warranted to attain effective biodiversity conservation strategies mitigating the impacts of climate warming.
Reconsidering an Appropriate Urinary Biomarker for Flame Retardant Tris(1-chloro-2-propyl) Phosphate (TCIPP) Exposure in Children

Tris(1-chloro-2-propyl) phosphate (TCIPP) is frequently applied to consumer products as a flame retardant and is commonly detected in indoor environments. Urinary bis(1-chloro-2-propyl) phosphate (...
Dream interpretation meets modern science

In When Brains Dream, sleep scientists Antonio Zadra and Robert Stickgold detail the latest research that seeks to understand what occurs in our brains when we dream, and they present theories about what purposes dreaming may serve.
Ethynylated Acene Synthesis and Photophysics for an Organic Chemistry Laboratory Course

An operationally simple, reliable synthesis of ethynylated acenes suitable for an upper-division undergraduate organic chemistry laboratory course has been developed. This experiment requires students to synthesize two acene derivatives and can be completed in 6–8 laboratory sessions (3 h each); a shorter experiment could be realized in the synthesis of only one product. Synthesis is carried out by first treating a terminal alkyne with n-butyllithium in an oven-dried flask under nitrogen at 0 °C. An acene quinone is added, which produces a doubly ethynylated diol. Dehydration with SnCl2/HCl yields a bis(ethynylated) acene, which is purified via a short pad or column of silica gel. The intense colors of the products allow for great ease in determining reaction completion and following the products in chromatography. UV–vis and fluorescence spectroscopy may be used to better understand the effect of molecular structure on electronic properties.
Learning Saliency Maps to Explain Deep Time Series Classifiers

Explainable classification is essential to high-impact settings where practitioners requireevidence to support their decisions. However, state-of-the-art deep learning models lack transparency in how they make their predictions. One increasingly popular solution is attribution-based explainability, which finds the impact of input features on the model's predictions. While this is popular for computer vision, little has been done to explain deep time series classifiers.In this work, we study this problem and propose PERT, a novel perturbation-based explainability method designed to explain deep classifiers' decisions on time series. PERT extends beyond recent perturbation methods to generate a saliency map that assigns importance values to the timesteps of the instance-of-interest. First, PERT uses a novel Prioritized Replacement Selector to learn which alternative time series from a larger dataset are most useful to perform this perturbation. Second, PERT mixes the instance with the replacements using a Guided Perturbation Strategy, which learns to what degree each timestep can be perturbed without altering the classifier's final prediction. These two steps jointly learn to identify the fewest and most impactful timesteps that explain the classifier's prediction. We evaluate PERT using three metrics on nine popular datasets with two black-box models. We find that PERT consistently outperforms all five state-of-the-art methods. Using a case study, we also demonstrate that PERT succeeds in finding the relevant regions of the input time series.
Land Use Regulation: Time to Think about Fairness

After nearly three decades struggling with the problem, the U.S. Supreme Court may finally have given up the effort to formulate clear doctrinal lines to identify regulatory takings. The theoretical battle appears to be over, at least for the present, with no winners. There are definitely losers though-landowners who are victims of inequity, if not of constitutional wrongs. Why are we in this situation? Because it is an inescapable product of the land use system we have created. To promote unconstrained private initiative by landowners, we allow owners to consume limited ambient resources like open space and habitat in a version of a prior appropriation system so that nothing is left to later-developing landowners when the limits of acceptable use are finally acknowledged through late-stage regulation. We have thus created a system of winners and losers, burdening a few with obligations that should in fairness have been more equitably apportioned. We can and should do something about it as an alternative to constitutional litigation.
What You Must Know to Help Combat Youth Bullying, Meanness, and Cruelty

As a part of its collaboration with the Born This Way Foundation, the Berkman Center is publishing a series of papers that synthesize existing peer-reviewed research or equivalent scholarship and provide research-grounded insight to the variety of stakeholders working on issues related to youth empowerment and action towards creating a kinder, braver world. This series, called the The Kinder & Braver World Project: Research Series (danah boyd and John Palfrey, editors), is presented by the Born This Way Foundation & the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, and supported by the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The first set of papers, which were intended to provide insights to the new foundation, involved topics related to Youth Meanness and Cruelty.In order to empower youth to create a kinder and braver world, we must begin by making sure that youth are safe. Youth are not safe when they are being bullied, harassed, or threatened. Thus, one of the first things that we must do to help youth be safe is combat the culture of meanness and cruelty that is at the root of bullying, peer violence, and abuse.Bullying is a systems problem and many well-intended people don’t realize the complexity of the issue. The following are research-driven elements of bullying that should ground any discussion of how to address this complex issue.
The Prosecutor as "Minister of Justice"

Prosecutors' powers are enormous, and constantly reinforced by sympathetic legislatures and courts. The "awful instruments of the criminal law," as Justice Frankfurter described the system, are today supplemented with broad new crimes, easier proof requirements, heavier sentencing laws, and an extremely cooperative judiciary, from district and state judges, to the highest Court in the land.
The Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory as a Predictor of Feelings and Communication Satisfaction toward Parents among Learning Disabled, Emotionally Disturbed, and Normal Adolescents:

This study examined (1) the predictive validity of the Coopersmith Self-esteem Inventory (CSI) relative to each of the criterion measures representing communication satisfaction toward each parent ...
Restoration by Chloramphenicol of Bacteriophage Production in Escherichia coli B Infected with a Ligase-Deficient Amber Mutant

The addition of chloramphenicol (CM) 5 min after infection of the nonpermissive host Escherichia coli B with the ligase-negative T4 amber, T4 AmH39X, allowed replication of parental deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and the production of high-molecular-weight progeny DNA, composed mostly of subunits with a D 2 /D 1 of 0.6. When CM was removed after the accumulation of a large pool of this DNA, most of the infected bacteria were able to produce viable progeny phage, with an average yield of approximately 15 bacteriophage per bacterium. This phenomenon is called CM rescue of the ligase-negative T4 Am. CsCl and sucrose gradient analyses showed both the resulting phage and DNA extracted from them to be similar to the phage and DNA produced on the permissive host. The total transfer of the parental label to progeny phages was as high as 20%. In contrast, in bacteria not treated with CM or in bacteria to which CM was added after phage-coded nucleases had already been synthesized, both parental and progeny (newly synthesized) DNA was composed of very short fragments. Phage which are produced under conditions other than those of CM rescue are dead, light in CsCl, and contain only very short fragments of DNA. Parent-to-progeny transfer in this case is below 1%. When light radio-active parental DNA was used to infect heavy bacteria, DNA replicating in the CM rescue conditions assumed only a hybrid density. After removal of CM and maturation, the parental DNA was incorporated into progeny molecules in fragments constituting approximately 7 to 10% of its mass. This pattern of distribution is essentially what is observed in similar experiments in the permissive host. The role of ligase as an enzyme which compensates for the lethal action of phage-coded nuclease and which is stringently required for the repair of single-stranded nicks is emphasized. The possibility of specific sites for a unique cutting enzyme is discussed in connection with the hypothesis of a circularly permuted assembly of sets.
Richard the Lionheart: King and Knight – By Jean Flori

The romantic figure Richard the Lionheart is one of England's most recognizable monarchs. A courageous, daring, chivalric defender of the Christian church, the Richard of popular imagination emerge...
The Effect of Pulmonary Hypertension on Tricuspid Valve Coaptation in Normal and Pathologic Valve Geometries: An In Vitro Study

Pulmonary hypertension (PHTN) is a pathological condition defined as a mean pulmonary artery pressure (mPAP) greater than 25 mmHg. PHTN can result from a number of lung and heart pathologies, including abnormalities of the pulmonary vasculature, left heart disease, chronic lung disease, and chronic thrombotic disease [1]. Regardless of the cause, the increased afterload on the right heart results in right ventricle (RV) hypertrophy and dilatation and tricuspid regurgitation (TR) [2]. RV dilatation is thought to result in the displacement of the tricuspid valve (TV) papillary muscles (PM) and dilatation of the TV annulus, negatively impacting TV function.Copyright © 2012 by ASME
Fitting an image to the eye: A conceptual basis for preprocessing radiographs

Abstract Analyses of diagnostic performance obtainable from inexperienced human interpretation of preprocessed dental radiographs demonstrate task dependent, perceptually meaningful guidelines for optimal coding of visual information. The transformations found to be most appropriate are based on essential stimuli common to the environment and containing features known to elicit visual responses.
A Numerical Study of Transient Ignition in a Counterflow Nonpremixed Methane-Air Flame Using Adaptive Time Integration

Abstract This paper presents a computational algorithm to predict highly-transient flame behavior in counter-flow situations. The first objective of the paper is to extend the transient counterflow problem to incorporate some gasdynamic compressibility effects, yet retain the desirable similarity structure. By relaxing assumptions in earlier formulations, the computational algorithms can deliver high accuracy even in periods of extremely rapid transients, like combustion ignition. The algorithms are demonstrated on two combustion-ignition problems for methane-air, counterflow, nonpremixed flames. The first concerns the ignition transient in a steady strain field. The second concerns the effects of a high-frequency oscillatory strain field on the ignition process. The results reveal that, when the mean strain rate is near the steady ignition limit, the ignition process is highly sensitive to the details of the strain-rate fluctuations.
History of Early Diet Development in Fish Culture, 1000 B.C. to A.D. 1955

Abstract This paper traces the observations and speculations of early fish culturists as they sought to define the feeds necessary to keep hatchery fish alive. Although prescientific ideas about feeding fish existed in Egypt and China over three millennia ago, it was not until the 1700s that scientific studies of feeding and digestion by fish were documented. Aside from several books that provided early anecdotal accounts of feeds and feeding, much of the technical literature up to the 1930s is found in a few journals and relatively obscure bulletins. Such was the state of knowledge regarding the feeding of fish until about 1927 when Clive McCay, a professor at Yale University, and Abram Tunison, a hatchery worker, began some part-time research on the nutritional requirements of trout at Connecticut's Burlington Fish Hatchery. In June 1932, these men founded an experimental hatchery, designed to study the nutrition, feeds, and feeding of fish, at Cortland, New York; this hatchery was operated under the au...
Media Influences on Public Perceptions of Ethnic Groups, Generations, and Individuals

America's pluralistic society is growing increasingly diverse as groups compete for media representation. This article focuses on people's perceptions of how their ethnic group is portrayed in the media, as well as the issue of media influence on the values portrayed. A cross-sectional survey in a major Midwest metro area measured perceived importance of values and their portrayal in the media, finding that TV viewing is correlated with perceived media representativeness of one's own values and TV news viewing is associated with perceptions of media portrayals of the values of one's ethnic group. Results indicate that several dimensions of values recognized in the media are linked to people's perceptions of how the media portray people like them, their generation, and their ethnic group.
Investigation of Airbrushing for Fabricating Microelectrodes in Microfluidic Devices

We report fabrication of microelectrodes by airbrushing, a technique primarily used for commercial arts. Similar to screen-printing, airbrushing enables conductive inks to be patterned onto a thin film. The film with ink electrodes is then laminated with a plastic substrate with microchannels to form a microfluidic device. The device is designed to implement enzyme-catalyzed electrochemical detection for sensing hydrogen. We found that airbrushed electrodes perform in a similar fashion with screen-printed electrodes. The cyclic voltammetric peak separation for ferrocyanide is 0.34 V, suggesting a nonreversible redox behavior as observed for the screen-printed ink electrodes. A linear calibration curve is obtained for 2 to 20 mM ferrocyanide in a flow using chronoamperometry, which is the method we previously exploited for demonstrating enzyme-catalyzed electrochemical detection in a large flow cell. The process parameters of airbrushing, including ink concentration, have been characterized. The benefits of fabricating electrodes by airbrushing include a simpler process, lower cost, and requiring less skill. This technique is especially useful in situations where a commercial screen-printing machine is inaccessible.
Assessment of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency methods for identification of hazards to developing organisms, part II: The Developmental Toxicity Testing Guideline

3Background The effects of toxins on developing animals depend not only on the nature of the chemical but also on the timing of exposure and assessment of outcomes. This complicates the task of regulatory agencies such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which must comply with the 1996 Food Quality Protection Act to ensure that their standards and policies protect infants and children from environmental toxins. For this task, the Agency relies heavily on scientific data obtained by manufacturers of industrial chemicals and pesticides following protocols collected under EPA’s Health Effects Test Guidelines. Methods and Results This article reviews the protocols included in the EPA guidelines to assess developmental toxicity, which are required for food-use pesticides under the core testing battery. We reviewed these protocols on the basis of their adequacy for identifying hazards to infants and children. Our analysis found limitations in the protocols that hinder their potential for identifying developmental hazards. Conclusions Methods that the EPA currently depends upon to identify developmental toxicity of chemicals have limitations that impede obtaining complete and reliable data on which to base regulatory decisions that protect children. Other methodological approaches need to be explored as alternatives or supplements to the current protocols. Until more accurate testing protocols become available, it may well be necessary under existing laws to employ safety factors that are more protective of the health of children at all stages of development. Am. J. Ind. Med. 35:554‐563, 1999. r 1999 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
Gradient-enhanced total field gridding

Summary This paper shows how the measured lateral gradient from a wingtip magnetometer-equipped aircraft can provide increased resolution of anomalies between flight lines. The pseudo-line method is introduced as a means of assuring that the lateral gradient, as used in the interpolation process, is scaled correctly. The method is illustrated in a step-by-step example from a recent Arctic survey and a sample of the enhanced resolution is shown for a sub-area of the survey. I point out that the process can be realized with just two
Appearance-based person reidentification in camera networks: problem overview and current approaches

Recent advances in visual tracking methods allow following a given object or individual in presence of significant clutter or partial occlusions in a single or a set of overlapping camera views. The question of when person detections in different views or at different time instants can be linked to the same individual is of fundamental importance to the video analysis in large-scale network of cameras. This is the person reidentification problem. The paper focuses on algorithms that use the overall appearance of an individual as opposed to passive biometrics such as face and gait. Methods that effectively address the challenges associated with changes in illumination, pose, and clothing appearance variation are discussed. More specifically, the development of a set of models that capture the overall appearance of an individual and can effectively be used for information retrieval are reviewed. Some of them provide a holistic description of a person, and some others require an intermediate step where specific body parts need to be identified. Some are designed to extract appearance features over time, and some others can operate reliably also on single images. The paper discusses algorithms for speeding up the computation of signatures. In particular it describes very fast procedures for computing co-occurrence matrices by leveraging a generalization of the integral representation of images. The algorithms are deployed and tested in a camera network comprising of three cameras with non-overlapping field of views, where a multi-camera multi-target tracker links the tracks in different cameras by reidentifying the same people appearing in different views.
NANOSCOPIC SURFACE ARCHITECTURE BASED ON SCANNING PROBE ELECTROCHEMISTRY AND MOLECULAR SELF-ASSEMBLY

Coplanar nanostructures consisting of two different types of organosilane monolayers have been fabricated using scanning probe microscopes (SPMs) and served as templates for the area-selective immobilization of various materials. The first organosilane monolayer, which had been uniformly prepared on a substrate, was locally degraded through electrochemistry of adsorbed water at the junction of the monolayer and the SPM probe. This probe-scanned region chemisorbed molecules of the second organosilane, resulting in the creation of a self-assembled monolayer (SAM) confined to the SPM-defined pattern. Latex nanoparticles or proteins selectively assembled onto this patterned SAM.