cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
SOME ELEMENTARY PROBABILITY

Nearly everyone has at least some intuitive idea of probability regarding an event or outcome. Opportunities to use probability concepts in everyday life occur often. This is especially true when one is faced with a decision between two or more courses of action. Whether to continue driving an aging auto or trade it in depends in part on the likelihood of the auto needing a major repair job, or causing an accident through failure. The individual's decision on what vocation to choose, which job offer to take, or whether and whom to marry, can involve probability reasoning. In a laboratory, there can be the question of when to throw away an apparently extreme value that does not “seem” to be a part of the collection of results. Although an intuitive knowledge of probability is widespread, it is unfortunately true that misconceptions and inaccuracies in probability reasoning and results are just as widespread. In fact the dividing line between statistics and probability is nebulous, if indeed it can be drawn at all.
Abstract TP90: Casein Kinase 2 Inhibition Preserves Axonal Function Against Ischemia

Axonal injury and dysfunction are responsible for much of the disability observed following a stroke. Human brain comprises equal proportions of gray matter and white matter and white matter is injured in most strokes. Casein kinase 2 (CK2) is a protein kinase expressed in brain, including white matter, and is regulated by ischemia. We therefore hypothesized that transient CK2 inhibition would protect white matter from ischemic injury. To assess the impact of CK2 inhibition on axonal electrical activity following oxygen glucose deprivation (OGD), mouse optic nerves (MONs), a pure white matter track, from C57BL/6J were subjected to OGD (1h) while eliciting compound action potentials (CAPs) and exposed to CX-4945, a selective CK2 inhibitor, or control artificial cerebrospinal fluid (ACSF). We observed that CX-4945 preserved CAPs when applied either before or after OGD. Then to determine the impact of CK2 inhibition on glial cell survival following OGD, MONs exposed to OGD that were treated with either CX-4945 or control ACSF were processed for immunohistochemistry. We observed that CX-4945 treatment protected oligodendrocytes from OGD. And finally, to determine if CK2 inhibition protected mitochondrial from OGD, MONs from Thy-1 mito-CFP mice were similarly subjected to OGD in the presence of either CX-4945 or control ACSF. We observed that CX-4945 maintained Thy-1 mito-CFP fluorescence following OGD. In conclusion, our results suggest that CK2 inhibition preserves axonal function by preserving oligodendrocytes and mitochondrial function following ischemic injury. We propose that CK2 inhibitors, which are currently in phase II-III clinical trials for cancer therapy could be repurposed and provide a novel therapeutic target to protect white matter against ischemic injury, reducing mortality and morbidity and improving recovery following stroke.
Democracy and Individuality: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacres and the Burbs

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacre City is an audacious plan to dismantle or abandon all existing cities. Predicated on the notion that each person or family is entitled to the use of at least an acre of land, this radically egalitarian plan is the platform to achieve his overriding purpose—the nurturing of individuality. Whereas the material prerequisites attached to Broadacre City may be admirably democratic, in terms of politics, the chapter argues, Broadacres’ citizens are distressingly disempowered. In the event, the great cities of America were not leveled, but the “horizontality” of his vision, suburban sprawl, did come to pass, and, instead of Wright’s promised incubator of individuality, America more often received a built environment of mind-numbing sameness.
Case 2-2018: A 41-Year-Old Woman with Vision Disturbances and Headache

A Woman with Vision Disturbances and Headache A 41-year-old woman with systemic lupus erythematosus presented with worsening headache, pulsatile tinnitus, and transient vision loss. Ophthalmologic examination revealed bilateral optic-disk edema with splinter and subretinal hemorrhages. A diagnosis was made.
Seismic performance modeling of concrete-filled steel tube bridges: Tools and case study

Abstract Experimental research into concrete filled steel tube (CFST) bridge columns has demonstrated that they are an economical alternative to traditional RC columns used in high seismic regions for several reasons. They permit accelerated construction by eliminating internal reinforcement and formwork and incorporating the use of self-consolidating concrete. The placement of the steel is at the optimum location, thereby reducing the required diameter to meet flexural and shear strengths and stiffness; these properties reduce cost and material requirements. Finally, the initiation of tube buckling does not result in degradation of the load carrying capacity which is impacted only by tube tearing which develops in the event of continued cycling at large inelastic drift demands. This provides superior inelastic seismic performances in terms of bridge functionality and post-earthquake repair requirements. Prior work by the authors and others have developed new design expressions and construction techniques for CFST bridges; here the emphasis is on new tools for performance evaluation of CFST bridges, including nonlinear analysis and probabilistic damage assessment tool. These tools are intended to advance performance-based earthquake engineering of these systems. The nonlinear analysis tools for CFST are investigated and validated for use in line-element type models; both distributed plasticity and lumped plasticity formulations are investigated. In both cases, deformability of the connection is included. Structural damage states were identified and probabilistically related to engineering demand parameters. In combination, this set of tools links the response with the structural performance to quantify the likelihood of damage and required repair. A case study was conducted with these tools to explore and quantify the differences between RC and CFST bridges. Both tools, combined with incremental dynamic analyses, were used to evaluate damage and collapse potential. The results show that the CFST system is more resilient than the RC system for the selected case study structure.
Ventriloquism, racism and the politics of decoloniality in Ecuador

This article discusses two forms of discrimination against indigenous people: ventriloquism and open racism, and argues that a transition from paternalism to open intolerance has taken plac...
Continued increase in lung transplantation for coal workers’ pneumoconiosis in the United States

Background Severe coal workers' pneumoconiosis (CWP) is increasingly common, and sometimes requires lung transplantation. Methods Using Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network data, we updated the trend for CWP-related lung transplants, described CWP patients who have been waitlisted but not transplanted, and characterized the primary payer of medical costs for CWP-related and other occupational lung disease transplants. Results There have been at least 62 CWP-related lung transplants; 49 (79%) occurred in the last decade. The rate of these procedures has also increased. Twenty-seven patients were waitlisted but did not receive a transplant. Compared to other occupational lung diseases, transplants for CWP were more likely to be paid for by public insurance. Conclusions The increase in the frequency and rate of lung transplantation for CWP is consistent with the rising prevalence of severe CWP among U.S. coal miners. Effective exposure controls and identification of early stage CWP remain essential for protecting these workers.
Fundamentals of Laparotomy Closure

Despite the increased adoption of minimally invasive techniques in all fields of surgery, the use of a laparotomy incision is still common. Knowledge of closure techniques is essential for all surgeons who perform laparotomies, because adherence to evidence-based principles can significantly decrease the incidence of incisional hernias.
Nondestructive Characterization of Kevlar Composites Using Pulsed NMR

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is a branch of spectroscopy based on the interaction between nuclear magnetic dipole moments and a magnetic field. The term “resonance” is used because a natural frequency of the magnetic system, namely, the frequency of gyroscopic precession of the magnetic moment in an applied static magnetic field, is the quantity detected. Typically, the resonance frequency falls in the radiofrequency (RF) region of the electromagnetic spectrum. To implement the NMR method, a static magnetic field is applied to the specimen to polarize the magnetic dipole system and resonance detection is accomplished by coupling a suitable electromagnetic field to the specimen by means of an RF induction coil. Although NMR has been utilized as an investigative tool for many years in physics and chemistry laboratories, only recently has it been seriously considered for NDE of materials.1
Pressure as a Probe of Vesicle Fusion

Fusion between two lipid membranes is superficially easy to understand: Two lipid bilayers come into contact and meld into one seamless membrane. But even at this basic level, one must distinguish whether fusion simply means the merging of the two membranes or whether the internal contents (of the liposomes or vesicles) must also mix. Certainly, for the case of vesicles, the requirement that “true” fusion involves the mixing of the internal volumes as well as lipid mixing is a reasonable and practical way of defining fusion. There are other situations, however, where the above definition is inadequate. For instance, in modeling exocytosis, where the internal contents of a liposome is excreted outward, there is no mixing per se of two internal volumes. In this case, the essence of membrane fusion has to be defined slightly differently. Leaving aside such interesting considerations concerning the definition of fusion, there is also much unknown about the process of fusion. Certainly there are many pathways for initiating vesicle membrane fusion; a partial listing would include induction by cations (Papahadjopoulos et al., 1977), by pH (Ellens et al., 1984), by proteins (Morero et al., 1985), by temperature (Verkleij, 1980), by electric field (Zimmermann, 1982; Sowers, 1984), or even spontaneous fusion between vesicles (Suurkuusk et al., 1976; Schullery et al., 1980; Chang et al., 1982).
Flexural Members and Beam-Column Joints

The purpose of structural analysis is to predict or explain in a rational way the response of structures to specified loads. The task of analyzing reinforced concrete frames subjected to earthquake loads is among the most difficult ones known, because the loading is highly random and the load-deformation relationships for the structure and its individual components very nonlinear, with marked stiffness and strength degradation. As a result, the choice of an appropriate analysis method is not an easy one, but it has far-reaching consequences.
The Landsat sensor's spatial responses

Based on the geometrical characteristics of the Landsat-4 and Landsat-5 Thematic Mapper (TM) and Multispectral Scanner (MSS), functions defining their spatial responses are derived, i.e., transfer functions (TF's) and line-spread functions (LSF's). These design LSF's and TF's are modified based on prelaunch component and system measurements to provide improved estimates. The two MSS instruments were comparable at their temperatures of best focus; separate calculations were performed for bands 1 and 3, band 2, and band 4. The presample nadir effective instantaneous fields of view, based on the 0.5 modulation transfer function (MTF) criteria, are 70-75 m in the track direction and 79-82 m in the scan direction. For the TM instruments, more extensive prelaunch measurements were available. LSF's derived from component measurements differed from the limited measured LSF data only in the ringing response/overshoot behavior.
Multivariate data visualization: a review from the perception aspect

Last two decades have seen the development of varieties of new methods for visualizing multivariable data and a few attempts have been made to survey and compare some of these techniques. Despite valuable reviews, they did not systematically study the perception tasks involved in these techniques which affect the efficiency of their information decoding due to limited humans' visual perception system. This paper serves to fill this gap through reviewing three well known multivariate visualization techniques apropos their associated perception tasks for three data exploration purposes. Advantages and disadvantages of each tool are discussed.
Model checking indistinguishability of randomized security protocols

The design of security protocols is extremely subtle and vulnerable to potentially devastating flaws. As a result, many tools and techniques for the automated verification of protocol designs have been developed. Unfortunately, these tools don’t have the ability to model and reason about protocols with randomization, which are becoming increasingly prevalent in systems providing privacy and anonymity guarantees. The security guarantees of these systems are often formulated by means of the indistinguishability of two protocols. In this paper, we give the first practical algorithms for model checking indistinguishability properties of randomized security protocols against the powerful threat model of a bounded Dolev-Yao adversary. Our techniques are implemented in the Stochastic Protocol ANalayzer (Span) and evaluated on several examples. As part of our evaluation, we conduct the first automated analysis of an electronic voting protocol based on the 3-ballot design.
Selective Equation Constructor: A Scalable Genetic Algorithm

Efforts to improve machine learning performance begin with defining a valuable feature set. However, datasets with copious amounts of attributes can have relevant information that is obscured by its high dimensionality, which can be caused by repetitive characteristics or irrelevant qualities. Genetic algorithms provide improvements to feature sets through dimensionality reduction and feature construction. Most genetic algorithms follow the theoretical framework of evolutionary theory where a population of features randomly evolves through generations through a series of random operations such as crossover and mutation. While successful, the randomness of feature modification operations and derived constructed features may yield offsprings that under-perform compared to their ancestors, yet their properties are utilized in future generations. We developed a new genetic algorithm called Selective Equation Constructor (SEC) that evolves constructed features selectively in order to limit the shortcomings of other genetic algorithms. The algorithm leads to faster computation and better results compared to similar algorithms. Analysis of the results indicates increases in classification accuracy, decreased run time, and reduction in attribute count.
Multiobjective Optimal Siting of Algal Biofuel Production with Municipal Wastewater Treatment in Watersheds with Nutrient Trading Markets

AbstractUsing municipal wastewater effluent as a feedstock in algae cultivation is a promising approach for increasing the commercial viability of algal biofuel production. However, differences in ...
Lights, Camera, Andragogy! Adult Learning and Development in Film:

This article will examine specific films that portray events or phenomena of adult learning and development, and how adult learning and development can be explored by studying the lives of the fict...
Connecting Dots to Bridge the Health Disparities Gap: Implementation of a Scalable Electronic Medical Record-Integrated Community Referral Intervention at the Clinic Visit.

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses an article in the issue concerning the promotion of health equity at the interface between public health and clinical medical care through the electronic medical record-integrated intervention CommunityRx which matches people with community health resources.
Assessment of Activation on Level L3 of the Tokamak Building due to the ITER Tokamak Cooling Water System

AbstractThe ITER fusion reactor is being built to demonstrate the feasibility of fusion power and will be the largest tokamak in the world. The tokamak cooling water system (TCWS) will extract the ...
Copulation induces expression of the immediate early gene Arc in mating-relevant brain regions of the male rat

The medial amygdala (MeA), bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST), and medial preoptic area (mPOA) are important for the regulation of male sexual behavior. Sexual experience facilitates sexual behaviors and influences activity in these regions. The goal of this study was to determine whether sexual experience or copulation induces plasticity in the MeA, BNST, or mPOA of male rats, as indicated by changes in levels of Arc, which is indicative of activity-dependent synaptic plasticity in the brain. To this end, sexually naive or experienced males were placed in mating arenas either alone, with an inaccessible estrus female, or with an accessible estrus female. Arc protein levels were then quantified in these three regions using immunohistochemistry. As expected, sexual experience facilitated copulation, as evidenced by a reduction in latencies to mount, intromit, and ejaculate. Copulation also increased the number of Arc-positive cells in the MeA, anterior BNST, posterior BNST, and the posterior mPOA, but not in the central-rostral region of the mPOA. Surprisingly, prior sexual experience did not impact levels of Arc, suggesting that copulation-induced Arc occurs in both sexually naive and experienced males.
Active Segregated Inductor for Code Division Multiple Access Wireless Power Transfer

Code division multiple access (CDMA) is a compelling platform for developing and scaling multiple access wireless power transfer (WPT). However, the hardware implementation leads to compromises among power, efficiency and with the number of actors; the power is limited at the point of maximum efficiency and is constrained by the number of actors. We introduce an active segregated inductor (ASI) architecture to overcome these tradeoffs by increasing the effective voltage across the transmitter. Hardware prototypes with up to 4 actors demonstrate the effectiveness of ASI with two sections, increasing the power level two-fold for similar efficiencies.
The Disappearing First Amendment

The standard account of the First Amendment presupposes that the Supreme Court has consistently expanded the scope of free speech rights over time. This account holds true in some areas, but not in others. In this illuminating work, Ronald J. Krotoszynski, Jr acknowledges that the contemporary Supreme Court rigorously enforces the rules against content and viewpoint discrimination for those who possess the wherewithal to speak but when citizens need the government's assistance to speak - for example, access to public property for protest - free speech rights have declined. Instead of using open-ended balancing tests, the Roberts and Rehnquist Courts have opted for bright line, categorical rules that minimize judicial discretion. Opportunities for democratic engagement could be enhanced, however, if the federal courts returned to the Warren Court's balancing approach and vested federal judges with discretionary authority to require government to assist would-be speakers. This book should be read by anyone concerned with free speech and its place in democratic self-government.
Psychoanalysis Against WikiLeaks: Resisting the Demand for Transparency

With the intensifying demand for transparency in government has come a dramatic increase in the number of spectacular public leaks that carry dramatic public consequences. This essay reviews how tr...
Inspired Thinking: Big Ideas to Enrich Yourself and Your Community: Dorothy Stoltz with Morgan Miller, Lisa Picker, Joseph Thompson, and Carrie Willson. (2020). Chicago, IL: ALA Editions, 144 pages, $54.99, softcover, ISBN 978-0-8389-4671-8.

Big ideas connect. Big ideas unlock. Big ideas have power. Yes, big ideas inspire! Dorothy Stolz and her team of great thinkers – her coauthors – use Plato’s big ideas metaphorically as their frame...
Using informatics to improve cancer surveillance.

Objectives This review summarizes past and current informatics activities at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Program of Cancer Registries to inform readers about efforts to improve, standardize, and automate reporting to public health cancer registries. Target audience The target audience includes cancer registry experts, informaticians, public health professionals, database specialists, computer scientists, programmers, and system developers who are interested in methods to improve public health surveillance through informatics approaches. Scope This review provides background on central cancer registries and describes the efforts to standardize and automate reporting to these registries. Specific topics include standardized data exchange activities for physician and pathology reporting, software tools for cancer reporting, development of a natural language processing tool for processing unstructured clinical text, and future directions of cancer surveillance informatics.
Branched internal mammary conduit permits non-sequenced total arterial revascularization.

Recent trends in cardiac surgery have encouraged total arterial coronary revascularization, citing advantages in long-term patency and overall mortality. Often relying on sequenced, composite, and ...
Rules of General Applicability

In the context of constitutional adjudication, the concept of general applicability is commonly used to distinguish general laws being applied to regulate speech or religious activities from laws aimed specifically at those activities. In some instances, the Supreme Court has held that, despite their restrictive effect upon speech or religion, rules of general applicability are exempt from oversight under the First Amendment. In Arcara v. Cloud Books, the Court ruled that the Free Speech Clause was not violated by a rule of general applicability even where it had a restrictive effect upon expressive activity. Arcara was an isolated decision that has enjoyed little influence in subsequent decisions involving free speech. On the other hand, in Employment Division v. Smith, the Court effectuated a major doctrinal revision to the Free Exercise Clause by ruling that the Clause was not violated by a neutral law of general applicability, even where it had a restrictive effect upon religious activity. The ruling in Smith significantly reduced the scope of constitutional protection accorded to religious conduct by abandoning the use of strict scrutiny to review the regulation of religious practices under neutral laws of general applicability. This granted the government considerably more leeway to regulate religious activities than previously existed. Under the Smith calculus, as long as a law is neutral toward religion, its application to religious conduct will be accepted as constitutional with little or no justification for the law. Neutrality, however, is not to be determined simply from the text of a law. Apart from its text, the effect of a law in its actual operation may be strong evidence that the law is aimed at constitutionally protected activities. The discriminatory impact of a law may disprove its benign appearance. Moreover, legislative motive may also be relevant to the determination of neutrality. The legislative motivation underlying a law, as well as its impact in the real world, must be carefully examined to determine if the law is, in fact, neutral. The notion that general rules should be exempt from oversight under the First Amendment, even when they are used to restrict religious or expressive activities, is questionable, particularly because it disregards the reality that general rules may place severe burdens on the free exercise of religion or freedom of speech. Arcara and especially Smith are problematic decisions that retract the scope of First Amendment protection afforded to expressive and religious activities and give constitutional immunity to general laws that restrict freedom of speech and the free exercise of religion. Notwithstanding those decisions, the Supreme Court’s treatment of rules of general applicability has wavered considerably, leaving a perplexing body of constitutional doctrine.
Seán Hillen, conspiracy, and the ends of Irish Art

Sean Hillen is Ireland’s most important photocollage artist and acutely aware of how aesthetic forms interact with public discourse. To understand the latter, this article first examines Hillen and...
A Novel Soluble ACE2 Variant with Prolonged Duration of Action Neutralizes SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Human Kidney Organoids.

BACKGROUND: There is an urgent need for approaches to prevent and treat SARS-CoV-2 infection. Administration of soluble ACE2 protein acting as a decoy to bind to SARS-CoV-2 should limit viral uptake mediated by binding to membrane-bound full-length ACE2, and further therapeutic benefit should result from ensuring enzymatic ACE2 activity to affected organs in patients with COVID-19. METHODS: A short variant of human soluble ACE2 protein consisting of 618 amino acids (hACE2 1-618) was generated and fused with an albumin binding domain (ABD) using an artificial gene encoding ABDCon, with improved albumin binding affinity. Human kidney organoids were used for infectivity studies of SARS-CoV-2 in a BSL-3 facility to examine the neutralizing effect of these novel ACE2 variants. RESULTS: Whereas plasma ACE2 activity of the naked ACE2 1-618 and ACE2 1-740 lasted about 8 hours, the ACE2 1-618-ABD resulted in substantial activity at 96 hours, and it was still biologically active 3 days after injection. Human kidney organoids express ACE2 and TMPRSS2, and when infected with SARS-CoV-2, our modified long-acting ACE2 variant neutralized infection. CONCLUSIONS: This novel ACE2 1-618-ABD can neutralize SARS-CoV-2 infectivity in human kidney organoids, and its prolonged duration of action should ensure improved efficacy to prevent viral escape and dosing convenience.
Crowdsourced Assessment of Surgical Skill Proficiency in Cataract Surgery

Objective To test whether crowdsourced lay raters can accurately assess cataract surgical skills. Design Two-armed study: independent cross-sectional and longitudinal cohorts. Setting Washington University Department of Ophthalmology. Participants and Methods Sixteen cataract surgeons with varying experience levels submitted cataract surgery videos to be graded by 5 experts and 300+ crowdworkers masked to surgeon experience. Cross-sectional study: 50 videos from surgeons ranging from first-year resident to attending physician, pooled by years of training. Longitudinal study: 28 videos obtained at regular intervals as residents progressed through 180 cases. Surgical skill was graded using the modified Objective Structured Assessment of Technical Skill (mOSATS). Main outcome measures were overall technical performance, reliability indices, and correlation between expert and crowd mean scores. Results Experts demonstrated high interrater reliability and accurately predicted training level, establishing construct validity for the modified OSATS. Crowd scores were correlated with (r = 0.865, p Conclusions Crowdsourced rankings correlated with expert scores, but were not equivalent; crowd scores overestimated technical competency, especially for novice surgeons. A novel approach of adjusting crowd scores with surgery duration generated a more accurate predictive model for surgical skill. More studies are needed before crowdsourcing can be reliably used for assessing surgical proficiency.
Comparison between one and two dose SARS-CoV-2 vaccine prioritisation for a fixed number of vaccine doses

Abstract Background The swift development of vaccines targeting SARS-CoV-2, which have been shown to generate significant immune responses and offer considerable protection against disease, has been met with worldwide commendation. However, in the context of an ongoing pandemic there is an interplay between infection and vaccination. While infection can grow exponentially, potentially overwhelming healthcare resources, vaccination rates are generally limited by both supply and logistics. With the first SARS-CoV-2 vaccines receiving medical approval requiring two doses, there has been scrutiny on the spacing between doses; an elongated period between doses would allow more of the population to receive a first vaccine dose in the short-term generating wide-spread partial immunity. Methods Focusing on data from England, we investigated prioritisation of a one dose or two dose vaccination schedule given a fixed number of vaccine doses and with respect to a measure of maximising averted deaths. We optimised outcomes for two different estimates of population size and relative risk of mortality for at-risk groups within the Phase 1 vaccine priority order in England, for different amounts of available vaccine and for different vaccine efficacies. Findings We find that vaccines offering relatively high protection from the first dose (compared to the efficacy derived from two doses) favour strategies that prioritise giving more people one dose rather than a smaller number two. The optimal mix of one and two doses between the defined priority groups of Phase 1 shows a pattern of returning to give second doses to the highest risk groups as the number of available doses increases. Discussion While this work highlights that an optimal timing of first and second doses between the Phase 1 priority groups can substantially reduce the overall mortality risk to the population, there also needs to be careful consideration of the precise timing between first and second doses as well as the logistics of vaccine delivery.
Peer Prompting and Reinforcement for Supporting Positive Behavioral Development in Students With EBD

Peer-mediated interventions (PMIs) are an effective support for students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) for improving targeted behavioral skills. As one of the most important strateg...
The Effects of Chemical Bonding at Subatomic Resolution: A Case Study on α-Boron.

Similar to classical asphericity shifts, aspherical deformations of the electron density in the atomic core region can result in core asphericity shifts in refinements using a Hansen-Coppens multipolar model (HCM), especially when highly precise experimental datasets with resolutions far beyond sin(θ)/λ ≤ 1.0 A−1 are employed. These shifts are about two orders of magnitude smaller than their counterparts caused by valence shell deformations, and their underlying deformations are mainly of dipolar character for 1st row atoms. Here, we analyze the resolution dependence of core asphericity shifts in α-boron. Based on theoretical structure factors, an appropriate Extended HCM (EHCM) is developed, which is tested against experimental high-resolution (sin(θ)/λ ≤ 1.6 A−1) single-crystal diffraction data. Bond length deviations due to core asphericity shifts of α-boron in the order of 4–6·10−4 A are small but significant at this resolution and can be effectively compensated by an EHCM, although the correlation of the additional model parameters with positional parameters prevented a free refinement of all core model parameters. For high quality, high resolution data, a proper treatment with an EHCM or other equivalent methods is therefore highly recommended.
AIDDS: A SYSTEM FOR DEVELOPING AND TESTING INCIDENT DETECTION ALGORITHMS

Abstract Incident management is a major problem in traffic control. Traffic incidents are the cause for more than half of all traffic delays. The research undertaken by the University of Minnesota has reached a point where good knowledge on different incident detection techniques has been achieved. The computer program presented in this paper is designed to assist researchers in testing incident detection algorithms. The primary gains by using this program are the reduction of time needed for algorithm testing and the flexibility on designing the test site. With this program the user can assign individual threshold sets in every section, and use multiple algorithms simultaneously. The algorithms included in the version presented in this paper are DELOS(3,3), CALIFORNIA, Alg. #7, and Alg. #8. Some of the features that make this program unique are its ability to combine measurements on the field to create “pseudo” detectors, its capability to automatically judge if a detection is valid, and its ability to combine incident detection algorithms to improve detection performance.
Muffled Price Signals: Household Water Demand under Increasing-Block Prices

In many areas of the world, including large parts of the United States, scarce water supplies are a serious resource and environmental concern. The possibility exists that water is being used at rates that exceed what would be dictated by efficiency criteria, particularly when externalities are taken into account. Because of this, much attention has been paid by policy makers and others to the use of demand management techniques, including requirements for the adoption of specific technologies and restrictions on particular uses. A natural question for economists to ask is whether price would be a more cost-effective instrument to facilitate water demand management. As a first step in such an investigation, this paper draws upon a newly-available set of detailed data to estimate econometrically the demand function for household use of urban water supplies. We analyze cross-sectional time-series data that track 1,082 single-family households served by 16 water utilities in 11 urban areas in the United States and Canada. Because of the diverse multiple-block pricing structures that abound, estimating the effects of price and price structure on residential water demand poses some challenging and interesting problems. We find that the sensitivity of residential water demand to price is quite low, and that the effect of price structure may be more influential than the magnitude of marginal price itself. The household-level data we use allow us to assess the influences on residential water demand of climate, sociodemographic factors, and characteristics of housing stock, including home vintage. Our results indicate substantial heterogeneity in likely household responses to utility demand-management policies.
Social Networks and Risk of Homicide Victimization in an African American Community

This study estimates the association of an individual’s position in a social network with their risk of homicide victimization across a high crime African American community in Chicago. Data are drawn from five years of arrest and victimization incidents from the Chicago Police Department. Results indicate that the risk of homicide is highly concentrated within the study community: 41 percent of all gun homicides in the study community occurred within a social network containing less than 4 percent of the neighborhood’s population. Logistic regression models demonstrate that network-level indicators reduce the association between individual-level risk factors and the risk of homicide victimization, as well as improve overall prediction of individual victimization. In particular, social distance to a homicide victim is negatively and strongly associated with individual victimization: each social tie removed from a homicide victim decreases one’s odds of being a homicide victim by approximately 57 percent. Findings suggest that understanding the social networks of offenders can allow researchers to more precisely predict individual homicide victimization within high crime communities.
Basal cell cancer of the vulva

Abstract A series of 15 cases of basal cell carcinoma of the vulva is described. The incidence of this kind of tumor was 2 to 3 per cent of all vulva malignancies. Metastases do not occur in the pure form of the tumor. Accordingly, the lesion can be cured by wide local excision. Unrecognized incomplete removal of the basal cell carcinoma may account for failure of therapy. Occasionally foci of mature squamous epithelia are found in the cores of the basal cell carcinoma. These are benign and in no way alter the prognosis. Infrequently other tumor of much worse prognosis such as true squamous cell carcinoma may coexist with the basal cell carcinoma. Then radical treatment is required.
Rapidly Labeled Messenger Ribonucleic Acid-Protein Complex of Rat Liver Nuclei

Abstract A rapidly labeled 45 S ribonucleoprotein complex has been isolated and characterized from purified rat liver nuclei. The chemical and physical characterization of the nuclear RNA-protein complex revealed the following properties. (a) An RNA component that was identified as messenger RNA on the basis of rapid incorporation of RNA precursors, molecular wieght, nucleotide base composition, and RNA-DNA hybridization. (b) A protein component, distinct from ribosomal proteins or histones with respect to its electrophoretic properties. (c) An RNA-protein complex different from ribosomal subunits with respect to its structural organization and its nucleic acid to protein ratio. These studies suggest that the 45 S ribonucleoprotein complex does not represent a precursor to cytoplasmic ribosomal subunits but represents a complex of newly synthesized mRNA and specific nuclear proteins. The formation of such a specific mRNA-protein complex within the nucleus could provide a mechanism for the release of mRNA from its DNA template, or the transport of mRNA from the nucleus to the cytoplasm, or both.
Accelerated geometric queries and physical simulation using graphics processors

Given the increasing power and usage of commodity graphics processor units (GPUs), promising potential exists for exploiting the fast growing computational power on GPUs for general-purpose computing. We present some of our recent research on fast geometric queries and interactive physical simulation using GPUs.
High‐throughput evaluation in nitrogen doping of amorphous titanium dioxide

We present an ab-initio investigation of the structural, electronic, and optical properties of substitutional nitrogen doping of a-TiO2. Through observation of multiple N-doped amorphous structures, we find additional localized tail states within the band gap. Some structures show these states nearly 1 eV above the valence band, while most structures show these states very close to the valence band edge. We also observe a general trend of increasing cohesive energy with increasing distance between nitrogen impurities, suggesting the tendency for nitrogen to form localized clusters within the material.
Autophagy in Aging and Alzheimer’s Disease: Pathologic or Protective?

Some hypothesize that aging in humans is a cumulative process of macromolecular and mitochondrial damage starting years, even decades before any symptoms arise. Aging may begin when the rate of damage exceeds the rate of continual repair and turnover. Quality control for damaged mitochondria entails cellular digestion by mitophagy, a specialized kind of autophagy. Insufficient protective autophagy could cause damaged cellular components to accumulate over many years until they affect normal function in the cell. Alternatively, aging could be the result of overactive, pathologic autophagy. Current knowledge supports both hypotheses with conflicting data, depending on which stage of autophagy is examined. To distinguish these opposite hypotheses, two criteria need to be observed. First, is there a buildup of undigested waste that can be removed by stimulation of autophagy? Or second, if autophagy is overactive, does inhibition of autophagy rescue cell, organ and organism demise. Both of these are best determined by rate measures rather than measures at a single time point. Here, we review the generalized process of autophagy, with a focus on the limited information available for neuron mitophagy, aging, and Alzheimer's disease (AD). In two mouse models, treatment with rapamycin abolishes the AD pathology and reverses memory deficits. As a working model, we hypothesize that insufficient protective autophagy accelerates both aging and AD pathology, possibly caused by defects in autophagosome fusion with lysosomes.
Application of virtual acoustics to automotive sound quality

Virtual prototyping is a powerful tool for helping automakers cut cost and reduce vehicle development time. Virtual acoustics is the part of virtual prototyping that allows an engineer or customer to experience the virtual noise environment of a virtual vehicle, and is thus make possible the application of automotive sound quality engineering without the need for costly physical hardware.
Disentangling environmental drivers of metabolic flexibility in birds: the importance of temperature extremes versus temperature variability

Examining physiological traits across large spatial scales can shed light on the environmental factors driving physiological variation. For endotherms, flexibility in aerobic metabolism is especially important for coping with thermally challenging environments and recent research has shown that aerobic metabolic scope [the difference between maximum thermogenic capacity (Msum) and basal metabolic rate (BMR)] increases with latitude in mammals. One explanation for this pattern is the climatic variability hypothesis, which predicts that flexibility in aerobic metabolism should increase as a function of local temperature variability. An alternative explanation is the cold adaptation hypothesis, which predicts that cold temperature extremes may also be an important driver of variation in metabolic scope. To determine the thermal drivers of aerobic metabolic flexibility in birds, we combined data on metabolic scope from 40 bird species sampled across a range of environments with several indices of local ambient temperature. Using phylogenetically-informed analyses, we found that minimum winter temperature was the best predictor of variation in avian metabolic scope, outperforming all other thermal variables. Additionally, Msum was a better predictor of latitudinal patterns of metabolic scope than BMR, with species inhabiting colder environments exhibiting increased Msum over their counterparts in warmer environments. Taken together, these results suggest that cold temperature extremes drive latitudinal patterns of metabolic scope via selection for enhanced thermogenic performance in cold environments, supporting the cold adaptation hypothesis. Temperature extremes may therefore be an important selective pressure driving macrophysiological trends of aerobic performance in endotherms.
Plankton biostratigraphy and paleoecology of the Eastern North Pacific Ocean: Introduction

Abstract A symposium on “Eastern North Pacific Plankton Biostratigraphy and Paleoecology” was organized in order to assess the current status of plankton studies in this large region, to reconcile differing viewpoints, and to indicate areas in need of study. A review of the literature to date indicates that Upper Cretaceous strata can be zoned and correlated to the European stages by means of planktonic Foraminifera, and potentially by radiolarians and calcareous nannoplankton. The Cenozoic also could be zoned biostratigraphically using plankton, but zones have not been designated formally, although correlation between the eastern Pacific and the European Cenozoic stages is possible now. Modern oceanography and plankton biogeography in the eastern Pacific is characterized by the Transitional water mass and province, dominated chiefly by subarctic water and plankton but with admixed warmer water types. The region is biotically variable because of variable oceanographic conditions. By comparison of the modern and fossil distributional patterns, the eastern Pacific is inferred to have been influenced at least since near the end of the Cretaceous by a southward flowing current with characteristics intermediate from those of more northerly and more southerly regions.
Deshaciendo los nudos: Fetichismo y feminidad en la obra de Jasone Osoro

Yet each man kills the thing he loves. (Oscar Wilde) No siempre hay que creer lo que el espejo dice. Tu rostro verdadero puede ser cualquier mascara. (Ana Rossetti) Ella encima de el, los dos desnu...
X-ray Diffraction and X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy Studies of Sol−Gel-Processed Zirconium Titanates

ZrTiO4 samples were prepared by using a conventional hydrolytic alkoxide sol−gel route, a nonhydrolytic method, an acetic acid modified route, and by the direct reaction of the binary oxides. The local structure in the gels and its evolution upon heating was followed using EXAFS and XANES, and the crystallization of the products was examined using powder X-ray diffraction. All the solution-processed materials crystallized in the range 600−700 °C. The crystalline materials formed at 700 °C showed no evidence of any long-range cation ordering. The EXAFS data indicated that all the amorphous ZrTiO4 samples produced using the solution routes contained zirconium with a coordination number >6 and that the disordered crystalline ZrTiO4 contained six-coordinate zirconium. Both the XANES and EXAFS data showed that nearly all the amorphous ZrTiO4 samples contained titanium with a coordination number of <6. The EXAFS data clearly indicated the presence of Zr−O−Ti links in the ZrTiO4 gel produced using the nonhydroly...
Low-temperature wet-chemical synthesis of amorphous indium sulfide powders

Abstract Reagent grade inorganic salts were used to synthesize amorphous indium sulfide powders at relatively low temperatures (⩽ 50° C). It was possible to prepare amorphous indium sulfide powders using the reaction between an acidified ( pH = 1.3) solution of indium chloride and sodium hydrosulfide (NaHS). The indium sulfide powders prepared by this process give a glass transition at 330°C and a crystallization exotherm on heating at 390°C in a DSC. Results of characterization of the amorphous and heattreated indium sulfide powders using electron microscopy (SEM, TEM), electron beam microprobe (EMPA) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) are presented.
Commentary on an article by MAJ Justin Orr, MD, et al.: "The effect of immobilization devices and left-foot adapter on brake-response time".

There is in the orthopaedic community increasing interest in how to accurately determine when a patient who has undergone surgery or has recovered from a musculoskeletal condition may return to driving in a safe manner. This decision can carry major implications with regard to patient and public safety and traditionally has been based on clinical judgment rather than clinical data. Physician recommendations have been highly variable1 and have been made primarily on the basis of individual physician experience and knowledge of the patient’s limitations and injuries. Recommendations are usually offered with the implicit understanding that compliance is, ultimately, the patient’s responsibility. Furthermore, without standardized guidelines or hard clinical data to support it, the orthopaedist’s recommendation on when the patient can safely return to driving is often met with opposition by the patient and is rarely definitive, often resulting in a “negotiation” that reaches a mutually acceptable compromise between physician and patient. Recently, various factors have increased practitioner awareness of the difficulty in making the decision and the potential implications of an improper recommendation regarding when a patient can return to driving. These factors include the perception of a more uncertain medico-legal environment1,2, recognition of the highly variable legislation from state to state3, an ever-decreasing patient-physician interaction time in the clinical setting (resulting in a decreased ability to judge a patient’s ability to drive), and an expanding population of aging patients who are often reluctant to give up the freedoms afforded by …