cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Flux-mediated syntheses, structural characterization and low-temperature polymorphism of the p-type semiconductor Cu2Ta4O11

Abstract A new low-temperature polymorph of the copper(I)-tantalate, α-Cu2Ta4O11, has been synthesized in a molten CuCl-flux reaction at 665 °C for 1 h and characterized by powder X-ray diffraction Rietveld refinements (space group Cc (#9), a=10.734(1) A, b = 6.2506(3) A, c=12.887(1) A, β = 106.070(4)°). The α-Cu2Ta4O11 phase is a lower-symmetry monoclinic polymorph of the rhombohedral Cu2Ta4O11 structure (i.e., β-Cu2Ta4O11 space group R 3 c (#167), a = 6.2190(2) A, c=37.107(1) A), and related crystallographically by ahex=amono/√3, bhex=bmono, and chex=3cmonosinβmono. Its structure is similar to the rhombohedral β-Cu2Ta4O11 and is composed of single layers of highly-distorted and edge-shared TaO7 and TaO6 polyhedra alternating with layers of nearly linearly-coordinated Cu(I) cations and isolated TaO6 octahedra. Temperature dependent powder X-ray diffraction data show the α-Cu2Ta4O11 phase is relatively stable under vacuum at 223 K and 298 K, but reversibly transforms to β-Cu2Ta4O11 by at least 523 K and higher temperatures. The symmetry-lowering distortions from β-Cu2Ta4O11 to α-Cu2Ta4O11 arise from the out-of-center displacements of the Ta 5d0 cations in the TaO7 pentagonal bipyramids. The UV–vis diffuse reflectance spectrum of the monoclinic α-Cu2Ta4O11 shows an indirect bandgap transition of ∼2.6 eV, with the higher-energy direct transitions starting at ∼2.7 eV. Photoelectrochemical measurements on polycrystalline films of α-Cu2Ta4O11 show strong cathodic photocurrents of ∼1.5 mA/cm2 under AM 1.5 G solar irradiation.
INTERACTIONS BETWEEN RADIATION FIELDS FROM RADIOISOTOPE THERMOELECTRIC GENERATORS AND SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENTS ON SPACECRAFT.

Spacecraft radioisotope thermoelectric generator interference in onboard instrument operation, using analytical models to determine necessary shielding
The effect of a homework grade cap in an introductory finance class

ABSTRACTThe authors used data collected from various sections of principles of finance classes at a private university to examine the effect of utilizing a homework grade cap policy. The results indicate that the homework grade cap policy increased the homework scores and that an increase in homework scores improved performance of the students on exams. An increase in homework scores triggered by the cap policy resulted in an increase of overall exam performance by about 0.4%. The results are robust to the inclusion of demographic variables and other factors likely to affect exam outcomes.
Employment Protection: Tough to Scrap or Tough to Get?

Difierences in employment protection across countries appear to be quite persistent over time. One mechanism that could explain this persistence is the so called constituency efiect: high employment protection creates a mass of workers in favor of maintaining high protection because deregulation would mean that they would lose their jobs. To the extent that this mechanism is at work, employment protection would appear to be a policy that is di‐cult to deregulate once it has been introduced. In this paper I consider an alternative mechanism generating persistence that makes employment protection a policy that is di‐cult to introduce. If a legislative process is initiated to introduce employment protection, it is reasonable to assume that flrms have an opportunity to lay ofi workers before employment protection becomes efiective. Firms would have an incentive to do so in order to avoid the cost associated with stringent employment protection in the future. Anticipating this, workers whose situation is already precarious may not flnd it in their best interest to support the legislative process to introduce employment protection in the flrst place. The main result of the paper is that the ability of flrms to adjust employment before an increase in employment protection becomes efiective may give rise to situations in which both low and high employment protection are stationary political outcomes.
Sexual health behaviors and outcomes among current and former foster youth: A review of the literature

Abstract This review examines literature related to pregnancy, sexual health outcomes, and sexual risk behaviors for foster youth and youth who are aging/have aged out of foster care. Using the search terms foster youth, aging out, pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, sexually transmitted infections, sexual risk, sexual behavior, and sexual health, 26,376 sources were initially identified. After removing duplicate sources and those that did not meet inclusion criteria and adding others identified through the references of identified sources, 53 sources were included in the review. Outcome measures were grouped into broad categories of pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections, and risky sexual behaviors, with each having several subparts. Implications for social work practice and policy are presented and directions for future research are highlighted.
Arousal and economic decision making

Previous experiments have found that subjecting participants to cognitive load leads to poorer decision making, consistent with dual-system models of behavior. Rather than taxing the cognitive system, this paper reports the results of an experiment that takes a complementary approach: arousing the emotional system. The results indicate that exposure to arousing visual stimuli as compared to neutral images has a negligible impact on performance in arithmetic tasks, impatience, risk taking in the domain of losses, and snack choice although we find that arousal modestly increases risk-taking in the gains domain and increases susceptibility to anchoring effects. We find the effect of arousal on decision making to be smaller and less consistent then the effect of increased cognitive load for the same tasks.
Glycosylation of Nucleosides

Nucleoside O-glycosylation represents an archetypal problem in chemical selectivity, inasmuch as the nucleobase (an undesired site of reaction) is usually more nucleophilic than the hydroxyl (the desired site of reaction). Optimized reaction conditions have been developed for the efficient O-glycosylation of nucleoside hydroxyls. Both thioglycoside and Schmidt imidate donors (1.5 equiv) have been employed successfully. Interference by the nucleobase is minimized by the use of indium(III) triflate as the donor activating reagent; the In(OTf)3 serves to promote apparent transfer of the donor glycosyl moiety from nucleobase to hydroxyl. Glycosylation of uridine triacetate gives products resulting from O- and N-glycosylation of the pyrimidine ring.
Functional Encryption for Turing Machines

In this work, we construct an adaptively secure functional encryption for Turing machines scheme, based on indistinguishability obfuscation for circuits. Our work places no restrictions on the types of Turing machines that can be associated with each secret key, in the sense that the Turing machines can accept inputs of unbounded length, and there is no limit to the description size or the space complexity of the Turing machines. Prior to our work, only special cases of this result were known, or stronger assumptions were required. More specifically, previous work implicitly achieved selectively secure FE for Turing machines with a-priori bounded input based on indistinguishability obfuscation STOC 2015, or achieved FE for general Turing machines only based on knowledge-type assumptions such as public-coin differing-inputs obfuscation TCC 2015. A consequence of our result is the first constructions of succinct adaptively secure garbling schemes even for circuits in the standard model. Prior succinct garbling schemes even for circuits were only known to be adaptively secure in the random oracle model.
Efficient probabilistically checkable debates

Probabilistically checkable debate systems (PCDSs) are debates between two competing provers, in which a polynomial-time verifier inspects a constant number of bits of the debate. It was shown by Condon, Feigenbaum, Lund, and Shor that every language in PSPACE has a PCDS in which the debate length is polynomially bounded. Using this result, they showed that the approximation versions of some natural PSPACE-complete problems are also PSPACE-complete. We give an improved construction of these debates: for any language L that has an ordinary debate system definable by uniform circuits of size s = s(n), we give a PCDS for L whose debate is of total bitlength: O(s), with a verifier that uses only log2 s+log2(polylog(s)) bits of randomness. This yields a much tighter connection between the time complexity of natural PSPACE-complete problems and the time complexity of their approximation versions. Our key ingredient is a novel application of error-resilient communication protocols, as developed by Schulman; we use the more recent protocol of Braverman and Rao. We show that by requiring ordinary debates to be encoded in an error-resilient fashion, we can endow them with a useful "stability" property. Stable debates can then be transformed into PCDSs, by applying efficient PCPPs (as given by Dinur). Our main technical challenge in building stable debates is to enforce error-resilient encoding by the debaters. To achieve this, we show that there is a constant-round debate system, with a very efficient verifier, to debate whether a communication transcript follows the Braverman-Rao protocol.
Racial Sorting and the Emergence of Segregation in American Cities

Residential segregation by race grew sharply during the early twentieth century as black migrants from the South arrived in northern cities. Using newly assembled neighborhood-level data, we provid...
Towards vast libraries of scaffold-diverse, conformationally constrained oligomers

There is great interest in the development of probe molecules and drug leads that would bind tightly and selectively to protein surfaces that are difficult to target with traditional molecules, such as those involved in protein–protein interactions. The currently available evidence suggests that this will require molecules that are larger and have quite different chemical properties than typical Lipinski-compliant molecules that target enzyme active sites. We describe here efforts to develop vast libraries of conformationally constrained oligomers as a potentially rich source of these molecules.
Dissociation of the Gonococcus

Dissociation of the gonococcus has been implied in the work of Herzog1 and Warden2 as early as 1913. However, very recently two contemporary schools of thought have appeared in the literature; the French (represented by Ramsine,3 Milochevich,4 and Lavrinowicz5) and the German (represented by Kandyba6 and Delbanco-Lorentz7) who are convinced that changes in the morphology of the gonococcus exist in vitro and in vivo, while to the contrary, the Italian school (represented by Porcelli,8 Sechi,9 and Debiasi10) firmly believes that such changes have very little in common with the gonococcus and are due to errors in technique and interpretation. In view of the conflicting literature the present report, as well as more detailed results to appear later, may prove significant.Dissociation was attempted and accomplished with 4 stock strains of the gonococcus. During the entire study a modification of Hitchen's semi-solid medium was found satisfactory. Dissociation was produced by ageing and the use of immune serum....
Do data breach disclosure laws reduce identity theft

In the United States, identity theft resulted in corporate and consumer losses of $56 billion dollars in 2005, with up to 35 percent of known identity thefts caused by corporate data breaches. Many states have responded by adopting data breach disclosure laws that require firms to notify consumers if their personal information has been lost or stolen. Although the laws are expected to reduce identity theft, their effect has yet to be empirically measured. We use panel data from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to estimate the impact of data breach disclosure laws on identity theft from 2002 to 2009. We find that adoption of data breach disclosure laws reduce identity theft caused by data breaches, on average, by 6.1 percent. © 2011 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.
Estimating Debye Parameters from GPR Reflection Data Using Spectral Ratios

In the GPR frequency range, electromagnetic wave attenuation is largely controlled by dielectric relaxation processes. A primary relaxation commonly occurs in the 10 – 100 MHz range for many earth materials in which the GPR signal propagates effectively. This relaxation leads to strong nonlinearity in the frequency dependent attenuation and occurs in a frequency range that is often used for groundwater investigations. This non-linearity complicates data analysis but also may provide additional material property information. I investigate inversion for Debye relaxation parameters directly from GPR reflection data, including increasing the bandwidth of the signal by summing the response from 25 MHz, 50 MHz, 100 MHz, and 200 MHz radar antennas. I compute the timefrequency distribution using spectral decomposition, then use the method of spectral ratios to measure the attenuation vs frequency curve for significant reflection events. I then fit the curve with the multiparameter Debye model. Using synthetic and field data I show that this approach provides reliable estimates of the primary relaxation time for a variety of realistic subsurface models. This approach has the potential to improve our understanding of aquifer material properties.
CO2 Modeling in a Deep Saline Aquifer: A Predictive Uncertainty Analysis Using Design of Experiment

When field data are limited, stratigraphic models are used instead of detailed, fully heterogeneous models (FHM) to represent deep saline aquifers in numerical simulations of CO2 storage. This study evaluates parameter sensitivity and prediction uncertainty of three stratigraphic models of decreasing complexity (i.e., facies, layered, formation) against that of a FHM. For select simulation outcomes (i.e., CO2 mass profiles, gas plume shape, brine leakage), parameter sensitivity and associated prediction uncertainty are compared among the models, with the FHM serving as a reference. The analysis is conducted using the computationally efficient design of experiment (DoE) and response surface (RS) methodology. Results suggest that when a competent caprock exists (permeability <1 × 10−4 mD), the facies and layered models are capable of capturing the most important sensitivity parameters of the FHM, that is, residual gas saturation, heterogeneity variance, and salinity. Using the important parameters identifie...
Trading Volume Around Earnings Announcements and Other Financial Reports: Theory, Research Design, Empirical Evidence, and Directions for Future Research*

This paper reviews, synthesizes, and critiques the capital market literature examining trading volume around earnings announcements and other financial reports. Our purposes are to assess what we have learned from examining trading volume around these announcements and to suggest directions for future research. We conclude that researchers have yet to realize the potential Beaver (1968) identified for trading volume to yield unique insights regarding the nature of earnings announcements and other financial reports, and the effects of these announcements on market participants. This state of the literature is attributable to a dearth of volume theory early on, and more recently to a disconnect between theoretical development and empirical research. Thus, we begin by briefly summarizing developments in trading volume theory since Beaver (1968). We also discuss unique measurement challenges in trading volume research, including identifying appropriate proxies for abnormal trading volume and for individual investors’ beliefs. In light of theory and empirical measurement issues, we interpret the current literature and identify directions for future research. We conclude that extant research just scratches the surface of what trading volume can reveal about the characteristics of financial disclosures and the effects of these disclosures on investors.
Palladium-Catalyzed Amination of Aryl Chlorides and Bromides with Ammonium Salts

We report the palladium-catalyzed coupling of aryl halides with ammonia and gaseous amines as their ammonium salts. The coupling of aryl chlorides and ortho-substituted aryl bromides with ammonium sulfate forms anilines with higher selectivity for the primary arylamine over the diarylamine than couplings with ammonia in dioxane. The resting state for the reactions of aryl chlorides is different from the resting state for the reactions of aryl bromides, and this change in resting states is proposed to account for a difference in selectivities for reactions of the two haloarenes.
Epidemiology of Bloodstream Infections in a Multicenter Retrospective Cohort of Liver Transplant Recipients.

Liver transplantation has a 1- and 5-year graft survival rate of 90% and 70%, respectively, that has been enabled by refinements in surgical technique and advances in immunosuppressive and preventive anti-infective therapy.1 However, bloodstream infections can limit posttransplant patient survival by culminating in multiorgan failure, septic shock, and death.2-5
Scarcity of Primary Care Positions May Divert Physician Assistants Into Specialty Practice

Background: Physician assistants (PAs) are often suggested as a partial solution to predicted primary care workforce shortages, but a declining proportion of PAs are entering primary care practice. Policy efforts have focused on increasing primary care PA supply, but low labor market demand might be constricting the primary care PA pipeline. Method: In this descriptive, cross-sectional study, we compare primary care and specialty job postings to each other and to occupied PA positions. Job posting data for 2014 are from a leading labor analytics firm. Results: Only 18% of job postings were in primary care, compared with 27% of occupied PA positions. The proportion of postings that were for primary care varied widely by state (9% to 40%) and were highest in the West. Discussion: Job availability is a potential barrier to PAs practicing in primary care, especially in some locations. Other job factors are examined and policy solutions are suggested.
Unbiased Comparative Evaluation of Ranking Functions

Eliciting relevance judgments for ranking evaluation is labor-intensive and costly, motivating careful selection of which documents to judge. Unlike traditional approaches that make this selection deterministically, probabilistic sampling enables the design of estimators that are provably unbiased even when reusing data with missing judgments. In this paper, we first unify and extend these sampling approaches by viewing the evaluation problem as a Monte Carlo estimation task that applies to a large number of common IR metrics. Drawing on the theoretical clarity that this view offers, we tackle three practical evaluation scenarios: comparing two systems, comparing k systems against a baseline, and ranking k systems. For each scenario, we derive an estimator and a variance-optimizing sampling distribution while retaining the strengths of sampling-based evaluation, including unbiasedness, reusability despite missing data, and ease of use in practice. In addition to the theoretical contribution, we empirically evaluate our methods against previously used sampling heuristics and find that they often cut the number of required relevance judgments at least in half.
Tris(1,2-diphenylethylenediamine)cobalt(III) Complexes: Chiral Hydrogen Bond Donor Catalysts for Enantioselective α-Aminations of 1,3-Dicarbonyl Compounds.

The enantiopure salt Δ-[Co((S,S)-dpen)3]3+2Cl–B(C6F5)4– is an effective hydrogen bond donor catalyst for additions of 1,3-dicarbonyl compounds to di-tert-butyl azodicarboxylate in the presence of N-methylmorpholine (1.0:1.0:0.10) in CH3CN at 0 °C, as illustrated with educts derived from five- or six-membered ring ketones (99–88% yields, >99–91% ee) and cycloheptanone (94%, 72% ee) as well as 2-cyanocyclopentanone (92%, 45% ee) and an acyclic system (98%, >99% ee).
RETRIEVAL ANALYSIS OF SHORT-TERM ANTI-OXIDANT STABILIZED HXLPE USED IN HIP AND KNEE ARTHROPLASTY

Introduction Thermally treated 1st generation highly crosslinked polyethylenes (HXLPE) have demonstrated reduced penetration and osteolysis rates, however, concerns still remain with respect to oxidative stability and mechanical properties of these materials. To address these concerns, manufacturers have introduced the use of antioxidants to quench free radicals while maintaining the mechanical properties of the HXLPE. Two common antioxidants are α-tocopherol (Vitamin-E) and pentaerythritol tetrakis (PBHP). These may be either mixed prior to consolidation, or diffused throughout the polymer after consolidation and irradiation. In vitro studies have shown that these materials are oxidatively stable and have improved mechanical properties compared to 1st generation HXLPEs; however, few studies have investigated the in vivo performance of anti-oxidant stabilized HXLPE. The purpose of this study was to investigate the revision reasons, oxidation, and mechanical properties of retrieved short-term anti-oxidant HXLPE. Methods Between 2010 and 2015, 73 anti-oxidant HXLPE components were collected as a part of an IRB approved, multi-institutional retrieval analysis program during routine revision surgery. Of the seventy-three components, 30 (41%) were acetabular liners, whereas, 43 were tibial inserts. The components were fabricated from three different materials: Vitamin-E Diffused HXLPE (n=30; E1, Biomet), Vitamin-E Blended (n = 41; Vivacit-E, Zimmer) and PBHP blended (n = 2, AOX, DePuy). The hip and knee components were implanted for 0.7 ± 0.8 years (Range: 0.0–2.25 years) and 0.8 ± 1.1 years (Range: 0.0–4.5 years), respectively. Implantation time, patient weight, age, gender, and activity levels were similar between hip and knee components (Table 1). For oxidation analysis, thin slices (∼200μm) were taken from medial condyle and central eminence of the tibial inserts or the superior/inferior axis from hip components. The slices were boiled in heptane for six hours to extract lipids absorbed in vivo . 3-millimeter FTIR line scans were taken perpendicular to the surface of interest, according to the ASTM F2102. Mechanical properties were assessed using the small punch test (ASTM F2183). Forty-three explants were available for destructive testing. Results The predominant revision reasons were loosening, instability, and infection (Figure 1). Oxidation was low in both the hip and knee components (Mean OI≤0.1; Figure 2). For both tibial inserts and acetabular liners, there was no correlation between implantation time and oxidation indices (p>0.05). In the tibial inserts, the AP face had slightly higher oxidation indices than the articulating surface (Mean difference = 0.04; p=0.03). There was no difference in ultimate load between hips and knees at the surface (p=0.14) or the subsurface (p=0.38). Discussion This study analyzed the revision reasons, oxidative stability, and mechanical properties of short-term retrieved 2nd generation HXLPE. The observations of this study show that anti-oxidant infused HXLPE exhibited low oxidative indices (Mean OI
To Trade or Not to Trade: Analyzing how Perturbations Travel in Sparsely Connected Networks.

In global economics, nations are often faced with the opportunity to open or close new avenues of trade or to join new markets. These actions can be beneficial or harmful for a nation because entering a market exposes that nation to the perturbations caused by others in the market. However, joining a new market offers the benefit of lower prices and increased security against domestic perturbations because shocks are spread across all trading partners. This risk/benefit tradeoff is relatively straightforward for one market, but the effects are more complicated when multiple markets are introduced. We use an agent-based model to analyze how the connection pattern of markets affects perturbations that travel across networks. We find that shocks are not easily transmitted across networks unless the perturbed resource is directly traded and we discuss the tradeoffs associated with opening new international market connections.
Re-inventing and Re-implementing the Wheel - Visualization Component Reuse in a Large Enterprise.

Most information practitioners will have implemented an interactive bar chart at some point in their career. In a large enterprise like IBM, we have hundreds of bar chart implementations available, across a number of different platforms. This represents a lot of duplicated work, and a potential maintenance nightmare. Ensuring correct and consistent design across the enterprise becomes much harder as a result. Adding to this problem is that our customers sometimes require new visualization types to be added to our products, or want to existing types tweaked to suit their needs. In this talk I will talk about some of the practical problems we face in this area. I will also present an IBM rendering and mapping framework that represents a solution to some of these problems. By abstracting two key phases of the traditional information visualization pipeline, we can flexibly insert new mappings into products and facilitate deployment of previously created visualizations across different target platforms. I will outline some of the high level design constraints and present samples where possible. Biography: Frank van Ham obtained his CS and PhD in Computer Science from the University of Eindhoven, specializing in graph visualization. After his doctorate studies, he joined IBM Research where he was one of the co-creators of the Many Eyes visualization service. Since 2009, Frank is part of IBM’s Software division where he helps integrate core information visualization functionality into IBM’s software products. He is a current associate editor for IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (IEEE TVCG) and the 2012 chair of the IEEE Information Visualization conference. Frank’s current research interest revolve around visualization frameworks, collaborative visualization, network visualization and general user interface design.
Scalable procedure for the fragmentation of hydroperoxides mediated by copper and iron tetrafluoroborate salts

An improved protocol for the formal elimination of propene from organic substrates is reported. This process entails the ozonolytic conversion of an alkene to a methoxy hydroperoxide which undergoes fragmentation mediated by copper and iron. The use of soluble Cu(BF4)2 and Fe(BF4)2 results in reproducible results up to a 100 gram scale.
Vortex states in a non-Abelian magnetic field

A type-II superconductor survives in an external magnetic field by admitting an Abrikosov lattice of quantized vortices. This is an imprint of the Aharonov-Bohm effect created by the Abelian U(1) gauge field. The simplest non-Abelian analog of such a gauge field, which belongs to the SU(2) symmetry group, can be found in topological insulators. Here we discover a superconducting ground state with a lattice of SU(2) vortices in a simple two-dimensional model that presents an SU(2) ``magnetic'' field (invariant under time reversal) to attractively interacting fermions. The model directly captures the correlated topological insulator quantum well, and approximates one channel for instabilities on the Kondo topological insulator surface. Due to its simplicity, the model might become amenable to cold atom simulations in the foreseeable future. The vitality of low-energy vortex states born out of SU(2) magnetic fields is promising for the creation of incompressible vortex liquids with non-Abelian fractional excitations.
Rhodium-Catalyzed Endo-Selective Epoxide-Opening Cascades: Formal Synthesis of (−)-Brevisin

[Rh(CO)2Cl]2 is as an effective catalyst for endo-selective cyclizations and cascades of epoxy-(E)-enoate alcohols, thus enabling the synthesis of oxepanes and oxepane-containing polyethers from di- and trisubstituted epoxides. Syntheses of the ABC and EF ring systems of (−)-brevisin via all endo-diepoxide-opening cascades using this method constitute a formal total synthesis and demonstrate the utility of this methodology in the context of the synthesis of marine ladder polyether natural products.
Managed care and the next generation of mental health law.

Private sector managed care has raised new questions of professional, as opposed to corporate, liability and the knotty problem of control of access to treatment.
Emerging targets for glioblastoma stem cell therapy

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), designated as World Health Organization (WHO) grade IV astrocytoma, is a lethal and therapy-resistant brain cancer comprised of several tumor cell subpopulations, including GBM stem cells (GSCs) which are believed to contribute to tumor recurrence following initial response to therapies. Emerging evidence demonstrates that GBM tumors are initiated from GSCs. The development and use of novel therapies including small molecule inhibitors of specific proteins in signaling pathways that regulate stemness, proliferation and migration of GSCs, immunotherapy, and non-coding microRNAs may provide better means of treating GBM. Identification and characterization of GSC-specific signaling pathways would be necessary to identify specific therapeutic targets which may lead to the development of more efficient therapies selectively targeting GSCs. Several signaling pathways including mTOR, AKT, maternal embryonic leucine zipper kinase (MELK), NOTCH1 and Wnt/β-catenin as well as expression of cancer stem cell markers CD133, CD44, Oct4, Sox2, Nanog, and ALDH1A1 maintain GSC properties. Moreover, the data published in the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) specifically demonstrated the activated PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway in GBM tumorigenesis. Studying such pathways may help to understand GSC biology and lead to the development of potential therapeutic interventions to render them more sensitive to chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Furthemore, recent demonstration of dedifferentiation of GBM cell lines into CSC-like cells prove that any successful therapeutic agent or combination of drugs for GBM therapy must eliminate not only GSCs, but the differentiated GBM cells and the entire bulk of tumor cells.
Managing medical emergencies.

A simple dental procedure can quickly escalate into a medical emergency. Management of six common emergencies is described.
“Transit makes you short”: On health impact assessment of transportation and the built environment

Abstract This study conducts an in-depth analysis to alert policymakers and practitioners to erroneous results in the positive impacts of transit use on health measures. We explore the correlation of transit use and accessibility by transit and walking with self-reported general health, Body Mass Index (BMI), and height. We develop a series of linear regression and binary logit models. We also depict the coefficient- p -value-sample-size chart, and conduct the effect size analysis to scrutinize the practically significant impacts of transit use and accessibility on health measures. The results indicate transit use and accessibility by transit and walking are significantly associated with general health and BMI. However, they are practically insignificant, and the power of the large sample in our particular case causes the statistically insignificant variable to become significant. At a deeper level, a 1% increase in transit use at the county level diminishes the BMI by only 0.0037% on average. The elasticity of transit use also demonstrates that every 1% increase in transit use would escalate the chance of having excellent or very good general health by 0.0003%. We show there is a thin line between false positive and true negative results. We alert both researchers and practitioners to the dangerous pitfalls deriving from the power of large samples and the weakness of p -values. Building the results on just statistical significance and sign of the parameter of interest is worthless, unless the magnitude of effect size is carefully quantified post analysis.
Isolation and genomic characterization of 'Desulfuromonas soudanensis WTL', a metal- and electrode-respiring bacterium from anoxic deep subsurface brine

Reaching a depth of 713 m below the surface, the Soudan Underground Iron Mine (Soudan, Minnesota, USA) transects a massive Archaean (2.7 Ga) banded iron formation, providing a remarkably accessible window into the terrestrial deep biosphere. Despite organic carbon limitation, metal-reducing microbial communities are present in potentially ancient anoxic brines continuously emanating from exploratory boreholes on Level 27. Using graphite electrodes deposited in situ as bait, we electrochemically enriched and isolated a novel halophilic iron-reducing Deltaproteobacterium, ‘Desulfuromonas soudanensis’ strain WTL, from an acetate-fed three-electrode bioreactor poised at +0.24 V (vs. standard hydrogen electrode). Cyclic voltammetry revealed that ‘D. soudanensis’ releases electrons at redox potentials approximately 100 mV more positive than the model freshwater surface isolate Geobacter sulfurreducens, suggesting that its extracellular respiration is tuned for higher potential electron acceptors. ‘D. soudanensis’ contains a 3,958,620-bp circular genome, assembled to completion using single-molecule real-time (SMRT) sequencing reads, which encodes a complete TCA cycle, 38 putative multiheme c-type cytochromes, one of which contains 69 heme-binding motifs, and a LuxI/LuxR quorum sensing cassette that produces an unidentified N-acyl homoserine lactone. Another cytochrome is predicted to lie within a putative prophage, suggesting that horizontal gene transfer plays a role in respiratory flexibility among metal reducers. Isolation of ‘D. soudanensis’ underscores the utility of electrode-based approaches for enriching rare metal reducers from a wide range of habitats.
Stereochemically Rich Polycyclic Amines from the Kinetic Resolution of Indolines through Intramolecular Povarov Reactions.

Under control of a chiral Bronsted acid catalyst, racemic indolines undergo intramolecular Povarov reactions with achiral aromatic aldehydes bearing a pendent dienophile. One enantiomer of the indoline reacts preferentially, resulting in the highly enantio- and diastereoselective formation of polycyclic heterocycles with four stereogenic centers. This kinetic resolution approach exploits the differential formation/reactivity of diastereomeric ion pairs.
Effect of User Mobility on the Performance of Device-to-Device Networks With Distributed Caching

We consider a distributed caching device-to-device network in which a user’s file of interest is cached as several portions in the storage of other devices in the network. Assuming that the user needs to obtain all these file portions, the portions cached farther away naturally become the performance bottleneck. This is due to the fact that dominant interferers may be closer to the receiver than the serving device. Using a simple stochastic geometry model, we concretely demonstrate that this bottleneck can be loosened if the users are mobile. Gains obtained from mobility are quantified in terms of coverage probability.
Overruns and Errors in Estimating Development Cost, Time, and Outcome

In recent years, cost and time overruns in military development have made the front pages of newspapers. Long before these overruns reached the headlines, economists were interested in them. For example, studies carried out by the RAND Corporation in the late fifties showed that there were substantial errors in the estimates (made prior to development) of the costs of producing various types of military hardware. When adjusted for unanticipated changes in factor prices and production lot-sizes, the average ratios of actual to estimated cost were 1.7 (fighters), 3.0 (bombers), 1.2 (cargoes and tankers), and 4.9 (missiles). The extent to which costs were understated was directly related to the extent of the technological advance. In cases where a “large” technological advance was required, the average ratio was 4.2; in cases where a “small” technological advance was required, the average ratio was 1.3.1
A sister of PIN1 gene in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) defines leaf and flower organ initiation patterns by maintaining epidermal auxin flux

The spatiotemporal localization of the plant hormone auxin acts as a positional cue during early leaf and flower organogenesis. One of the main contributors to auxin localization is the auxin efflux carrier PIN-FORMED1 (PIN1). Phylogenetic analysis has revealed that PIN1 genes are split into two sister clades; PIN1 and the relatively uncharacterized Sister-Of-PIN1 (SoPIN1). In this paper we identify entire-2 as a loss-of-function SlSoPIN1a (Solyc10g078370) mutant in Solanum lycopersicum. The entire-2 plants are unable to specify proper leaf initiation leading to a frequent switch from the wild type spiral phyllotactic pattern to distichous and decussate patterns. Leaves in entire-2 are large and less complex and the leaflets display spatial deformities in lamina expansion, vascular development, and margin specification. During sympodial growth in entire-2 the specification of organ position and identity is greatly affected resulting in variable branching patterns on the main sympodial and inflorescence axes. To understand how SlSoPIN1a functions in establishing proper auxin maxima we used the auxin signaling reporter DR5: Venus to visualize differences in auxin localization between entire-2 and wild type. DR5: Venus visualization shows a widening of auxin localization which spreads to subepidermal tissue layers during early leaf and flower organogenesis, showing that SoPIN1 functions to focus auxin signaling to the epidermal layer. The striking spatial deformities observed in entire-2 help provide a mechanistic framework for explaining the function of the SoPIN1 clade in S.lycopersicum.
Unified theory of coherence and polarization of random electromagnetic beams

Unified theory of coherence and polarization of random electromagnetic beams is presented. It makes it possible to determine changes which the degree of polarization, the degree of coherence and the spectrum of a random electromagnetic beam may undergo as the beam propagates in any linear medium, whether deterministic or random.
Performance degradation of superlattice MOSFETs due to scattering in the contacts

Ideal, completely coherent quantum transport calculations had predicted that superlattice MOSFETs (SL-MOSFET) may offer steep subthreshold swing performance below 60 mV/dec to around 39 mV/dec. However, the high carrier density in the superlattice source suggests that scattering may significantly degrade the ideal device performance. Such effects of electron scattering and decoherence in the contacts of SL-MOSFETs are examined through a multi-scale quantum transport model developed in NEMO5. This model couples the NEGF-based quantum ballistic transport in the channel to a quantum mechanical density of states dominated reservoir, which is thermalized through strong scattering with local quasi-Fermi levels determined by drift-diffusion transport. The simulations show that scattering increases the electron transmission in the nominally forbidden minigap, therefore, degrading the subthreshold swing (S.S.) and the ON/OFF DC current ratio. This degradation varies with both the scattering rate and the length of ...
Dilated Floor Functions That Commute

We determine all pairs of real numbers (α, β) such that the dilated floor functions ⌊αx⌋ and ⌊βx⌋ commute under composition, i.e., such that ⌊α⌊βx⌋⌋ = ⌊β⌊αx⌋⌋ holds for all real x.
Life Transitions and Life Satisfaction During Young Adulthood

In Sweden the overall life satisfaction trajectory between ages 22 and 40 is slightly hill-shaped and dominated by life transitions, especially those relating to one’s family situation. Among persons in their twenties, partnership formation and birth of a child typically lead to a slight increase in overall satisfaction with life. Between ages 30 and 40 average life satisfaction declines, chiefly due to the increasing strains of family life and the breakup of couples. These strains are evident in data relating to specific aspects of family life. After age 30 satisfaction with one’s partner declines, and so does satisfaction with both one’s mother and father. Also, despite rising income, satisfaction with one’s economic situation lessens. Considered as a whole, the evidence suggests that even in a welfare state the strains on young adults of balancing work and family life are substantial. The analysis is based on panel data, 1999–2009, that focus especially on family life.
Structural and functional human retinal imaging with a fiber-based visible light OCT ophthalmoscope.

The design of a multi-functional fiber-based Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) system for human retinal imaging with < 2 micron axial resolution in tissue is described. A detailed noise characterization of two supercontinuum light sources with different pulse repetition rates is presented. The higher repetition rate and lower noise source is found to enable a sensitivity of 96 dB with 0.15 mW light power at the cornea and a 98 microsecond exposure time. Using a broadband (560 ± 50 nm), 90/10, fused single-mode fiber coupler designed for visible wavelengths, the sample arm is integrated into an ophthalmoscope platform, similar to current clinical OCT systems. To demonstrate the instrument’s range of operation, in vivo structural retinal imaging is also shown at 0.15 mW exposure with 10,000 and 70,000 axial scans per second (the latter comparable to commercial OCT systems), and at 0.03 mW exposure and 10,000 axial scans per second (below maximum permissible continuous exposure levels). Lastly, in vivo spectroscopic imaging of anatomy, saturation, and hemoglobin content in the human retina is also demonstrated.
Characterization of Mast Cell Activation Syndrome

Background Mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), a recently recognized nonneoplastic mast cell disease driving chronic multisystem inflammation and allergy, appears prevalent and thus important. We report the first systematic characterization of a large MCAS population. Method Demographics, comorbidities, symptoms, family histories, physical examination and laboratory findings were reviewed in 298 retrospective and 115 prospective patients with MCAS. Blood samples from prospective subjects were examined by flow cytometry for clonal mast cell disease and tested for cytokines potentially driving the monocytosis frequent in MCAS. Results Demographically, white females dominated. Median ages at symptom onset and diagnosis were 9 and 49 years, respectively (range: 0-88 and 16-92, respectively) and median time from symptom onset to diagnosis was 30 years (range: 1-85). Median numbers of comorbidities, symptoms, and family medical issues were 11, 20, and 4, respectively (range: 1-66, 2-84, and 0-33, respectively). Gastroesophageal reflux, fatigue and dermatographism were the most common comorbidity, symptom and examination finding. Abnormalities in routine laboratories were common and diverse but typically modest. The most useful diagnostic markers were heparin, prostaglandin D2, histamine and chromogranin A. Flow cytometric and cytokine assessments were unhelpful. Conclusions Our study highlights MCAS׳s morbidity burden and challenging heterogeneity. Recognition is important given good survival and treatment prospects.
Reinforcement learning with temporal logic rewards

Reinforcement learning (RL) depends critically on the choice of reward functions used to capture the desired behavior and constraints of a robot. Usually, these are handcrafted by a expert designer and represent heuristics for relatively simple tasks. Real world applications typically involve more complex tasks with rich temporal and logical structure. In this paper we take advantage of the expressive power of temporal logic (TL) to specify complex rules the robot should follow, and incorporate domain knowledge into learning. We propose Truncated Linear Temporal Logic (TLTL) as a specification language, We propose Truncated Linear Temporal Logic (TLTL) as a specification language, that is arguably well suited for the robotics applications, We show in simulated trials that learning is faster and policies obtained using the proposed approach outperform the ones learned using heuristic rewards in terms of the robustness degree, i.e., how well the tasks are satisfied. Furthermore, we demonstrate the proposed RL approach in a toast-placing task learned by a Baxter robot.
Fuzzy extractors: How to generate strong keys from biometrics and other noisy data

We provide formal definitions and efficient secure techniques for turning biometric information into keys usable for any cryptographic application, and reliably and securely authenticating biometric data.
Ion-photon entanglement and quantum frequency conversion with trapped Ba + ions.

Trapped ions are excellent candidates for quantum nodes, as they possess many desirable features of a network node including long lifetimes, on-site processing capability, and production of photonic flying qubits. However, unlike classical networks in which data may be transmitted in optical fibers and where the range of communication is readily extended with amplifiers, quantum systems often emit photons that have a limited propagation range in optical fibers and, by virtue of the nature of a quantum state, cannot be noiselessly amplified. Here, we first describe a method to extract flying qubits from a Ba+ trapped ion via shelving to a long-lived, low-lying D-state with higher entanglement probabilities compared with current strong and weak excitation methods. We show a projected fidelity of ≈89% of the ion-photon entanglement. We compare several methods of ion-photon entanglement generation, and we show how the fidelity and entanglement probability varies as a function of the photon collection optic's numerical aperture. We then outline an approach for quantum frequency conversion of the photons emitted by the Ba+ ion to the telecommunication range for long-distance networking and to 780 nm for potential entanglement with rubidium-based quantum memories. Our approach is significant for extending the range of quantum networks and for the development of hybrid quantum networks compromised of different types of quantum memories.
Are continuum predictions of clustering chaotic

Gas-solid multiphase flows are prone to develop an instability known as clustering. Two-fluid models, which treat the particulate phase as a continuum, are known to reproduce the qualitative features of this instability, producing highly-dynamic, spatiotemporal patterns. However, it is unknown whether such simulations are truly aperiodic or a type of complex periodic behavior. By showing that the system possesses a sensitive dependence on initial conditions and a positive largest Lyapunov exponent, λ1≈1/τ, we provide a tentative answer: continuum predictions of clustering are chaotic. We further demonstrate that the chaotic behavior is dimensionally dependent, a conclusion which unifies previous results and strongly suggests that the chaotic behavior is not a direct consequence of the fundamental kinematic instability, but requires a secondary (inherently multidimensional) instability.