cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Genomic stability in response to high versus low linear energy transfer radiation in Arabidopsis thaliana

Low linear energy transfer (LET) gamma rays and high LET HZE (high atomic weight, high energy) particles act as powerful mutagens in both plants and animals. DNA damage generated by HZE particles is more densely clustered than that generated by gamma rays. To understand the genetic requirements for resistance to high versus low LET radiation, a series of Arabidopsis thaliana mutants were exposed to either 1GeV Fe nuclei or gamma radiation. A comparison of effects on the germination and subsequent growth of seedlings led us to conclude that the relative biological effectiveness (RBE) of the two types of radiation (HZE versus gamma) are roughly 3:1. Similarly, in wild-type lines, loss of somatic heterozygosity was induced at an RBE of about a 2:1 (HZE versus gamma). Checkpoint and repair defects, as expected, enhanced sensitivity to both agents. The “replication fork” checkpoint, governed by ATR, played a slightly more important role in resistance to HZE-induced mutagenesis than in resistance to gamma induced mutagenesis.
A Multiple Time Series Approach to Modeling the Manufacturing Job-Shop as a Network of Queues

The behavior of a uniformly sampled network of job-shop queues is characterized and interpreted using multiple time series. An analysis of actual queue data for a network of five functionally related machine centers shows that queue behavior is adequately described as a first order vector valued autoregressive model. This model describes the stochastic nature of each queue in the shop and its relationship to the other queues comprising the network. A network of queues obtained from simulating this job-shop under a composite dispatching rule is also modeled and interpreted as a first order, multivariate autoregressive process.
CMOS-Compatible SOI MESFETs With High Breakdown Voltage

The authors demonstrate that silicon-on-insulator (SOI) MESFETs can be fabricated alongside SOI CMOS with no changes to the foundry process flow. The MESFETs operate in depletion mode with a threshold voltage of -0.6 V for a gate length of 0.6 mum. The breakdown voltage of the MESFETs greatly exceeds that of the CMOS devices and varies in the range of 12-58 V depending upon the channel access length, i.e., the distance from the edge of the gate to the edge of the drain region. For MESFETs with a gate length of 0.6 mum and an access length of 0.6 mum, the peak cutoff frequency exceeds 7 GHz. The maximum available gain increases with drain bias and values of fmax range from 17 GHz at VDD = 2 V to 22 GHz at VDD = 8 V
Digital High-Voltage Electrophotographic Measures of the Fingertips of Subjects Pre- and Post-Qigong

of the human biofield; namely, various calculated parameters of finger corona discharge patterns produced by high-voltage electrophotography. Methods: The Gas Discharge Visualization (GDV) camera was used to assess subjects before and after performing Dayan (wild goose) qigong in workshop settings. Sixteen adults (48–80 years old), seven diagnosed with chronic disease, were studied. Subjects ranged from qigong novices to those having had 8 years of practice. Measurements were made on all ten fingertips of 16 subjects pre- and post-qigong. The patterns of light emitted from the subjects’ fingertips were digitally recorded and computer analysed. Parameters including normalised area, brightness, density, fractality form coefficient, fractality dimension, and right- and left-hand integrals were calculated and statistically compared. Results: The uniformity of the density of the circles of light emitted from the fingertips increased post-qigong. A trend was observed for the variability in the fractal form coefficient to decrease post-qigong. Subjects with chronic health problems increased in fractal dimension post-qigong, while those without health problems showed a decrease. There was a trend for the light emitted by the fingertips of qigong-experienced subjects to decrease in brightness, whereas inexperienced subjects had increased brightness. The right integral increased post-qigong in experienced subjects, whereas the left integral increased in inexperienced subjects. Conclusions: Qigong practice influenced some of the GDV parameters of the finger emission patterns significantly but the data supported only some of our hypotheses. The GDV technique may be a valuable tool in assessing changes in parameters of the human biofield both clinically and in investigating mechanisms of action of complementary and alternative medicine interventions.
Stabilization of the wheel running phenotype in mice.

Abstract Purpose Increased physical activity is well known to improve health and wellness by modifying the risks for many chronic diseases. Rodent wheel running behavior is a beneficial surrogate model to evaluate the biology of daily physical activity in humans. Upon initial exposure to a running wheel, individual mice differentially respond to the experience, which confounds the normal activity patterns exhibited in this otherwise repeatable phenotype. To promote phenotypic stability, a minimum seven-day (or greater) acclimation period is utilized. Although phenotypic stabilization is achieved during this 7-day period, data to support acclimation periods of this length are not currently available in the literature. The purpose of this project is to evaluate the wheel running response in C57BL/6j mice immediately following exposure to a running wheel. Methods Twenty-eight male and thirty female C57BL/6j mice (Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor, ME) were acquired at eight weeks of age and were housed individually with free access to running wheels. Wheel running distance (km), duration (min), and speed (m ∙ min − 1 ) were measured daily for fourteen days following initial housing. One-way ANOVAs were used to evaluate day-to-day differences in each wheel running character. Limits of agreement and mean difference statistics were calculated between days 1–13 (acclimating) and day 14 (acclimated) to assess day-to-day agreement between each parameter. Results Wheel running distance (males: F = 5.653, p = 2.14 × 10 − 9 ; females: F = 8.217, p = 1.20 × 10 − 14 ), duration (males: F = 2.613, p = 0.001; females: F = 4.529, p = 3.28 × 10 − 7 ), and speed (males: F = 7.803, p = 1.22 × 10 − 13 ; females: F = 13.140, p = 2.00 × 10 − 16 ) exhibited day-to-day differences. Tukey's HSD post-hoc testing indicated differences between early (males: days 1–3; females: days 1–6) and later (males: days > 3; females: days > 6) wheel running periods in distance and speed. Duration only exhibited an anomalous difference between wheel running on day 13 and wheel running on days 1 through 4 in males. In females, duration exhibited anomalous differences due to abnormally depressed wheel running on day 6 and abnormally elevated wheel running on day 14. Limits of agreement and mean difference statistics indicated stable phenotypic variability with an up-trending daily mean for distance and speed that stabilized within the first three days in males and within eight days in females. Duration exhibited stable variability after nine days in males and after seven days in females. Conclusion Although it is common practice to allow a prolonged (≥ seven day) acclimation period prior to recording wheel running data, the current study suggests that phenotypic stabilization of all three indices is achieved at different times with distance and speed exhibiting stability by day three in males and day eight in females. Duration exhibits stability by day nine in males and day seven in females.
Parallel Simulated Annealing with MRAnneal

Simulated annealing algorithms, which repeatedly make small changes to candidate solutions to find approximately optimal ones, are a common method for approximating solutions to computationally expensive optimization problems. While using multiple machines to perform such computations in parallel is attractive as a means to reduce the running time, execution in a cluster environment requires substantial software infrastructure to cope with the challenges of a distributed system. In this paper, we introduce MRAnneal, a framework that simplifies the implementation of parallel simulated annealing algorithms. MRAnneal allows users to explicitly trade-off running time and the quality of approximate solutions by supplying only a small number of automatically tuned parameters. Our experimental results demonstrate that implementing applications using MRAnneal is straightforward and that such implementations yield approximate solutions quickly, even for applications without intuitive serial approximation heuristics.
The International Contracting Practices Survey Project: An Empirical Study of the Value and Utility of the United Nation's Convention on the International Sale of Goods (CISG) and the Unidroit Principles of International Commercial Contracts to Practitioners, Jurists, and Legal Academics in the United States

In an era of globalization it is perplexing that so many U.S. practitioners, jurists, and legal academics continue to view contract issues as governed exclusively by state common law and the Uniform Commercial Code. In essence, a significant number of lawyers may be defaulting to the wrong law, in the absence of an effective choice of law clause, when trying to determine the rights and responsibilities arising out of international commercial transactions. The object of the International Commercial Contracting Practices Survey Project was to learn more about how and why this occurs. While particular emphasis was placed upon obtaining responses from three top exporting states, California, Florida, and New York, and two at the bottom of the U.S. Census Bureau's list of exporting states, Hawaii and Montana, the survey was open to other participants as well. Accordingly, responses were received from 23 U.S. jurisdictions and 15 foreign countries or regions by the time the survey was closed.
Vertex-Transitive Graphs That Are Not Cayley Graphs

It is shown that if a graph is vertex- and edge-transitive of odd valence, has at least 5 vertices, and is not bipartite, then its derived (line) graph is not a Cayley graph. One is thus able to construct a wide variety of vertex-transitive graphs, both finite and infinite, that are not Cayley graphs. The infinite examples may have either one or uncountably many ends, for we show that every 2-ended vertex- and edge-transitive graph has even valence.
ROS-activated calcium signaling mechanisms regulating endothelial barrier function

Increased vascular permeability is a common pathogenic feature in many inflammatory diseases. For example in acute lung injury (ALI) and its most severe form, the acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), lung microvessel endothelia lose their junctional integrity resulting in leakiness of the endothelial barrier and accumulation of protein rich edema. Increased reactive oxygen species (ROS) generated by neutrophils (PMNs) and other inflammatory cells play an important role in increasing endothelial permeability. In essence, multiple inflammatory syndromes are caused by dysfunction and compromise of the barrier properties of the endothelium as a consequence of unregulated acute inflammatory response. This review focuses on the role of ROS signaling in controlling endothelial permeability with particular focus on ALI. We summarize below recent progress in defining signaling events leading to increased endothelial permeability and ALI.
Feature-based registration of historical aerial images by Area Minimization

Abstract The registration of historical images plays a significant role in assessing changes in land topography over time. By comparing historical aerial images with recent data, geometric changes that have taken place over the years can be quantified. However, the lack of ground control information and precise camera parameters has limited scientists’ ability to reliably incorporate historical images into change detection studies. Other limitations include the methods of determining identical points between recent and historical images, which has proven to be a cumbersome task due to continuous land cover changes. Our research demonstrates a method of registering historical images using Time Invariant Line (TIL) features. TIL features are different representations of the same line features in multi-temporal data without explicit point-to-point or straight line-to-straight line correspondence. We successfully determined the exterior orientation of historical images by minimizing the area formed between corresponding TIL features in recent and historical images. We then tested the feasibility of the approach with synthetic and real data and analyzed the results. Based on our analysis, this method shows promise for long-term 3D change detection studies.
Introduction of the 16α-Hydroxyl Group into Œstrogens by Streptomycetes

PAPERS concerned with the microbiological transformation of steroids have appeared frequently in the past seven years; however, no examples of the hydroxylation of steroids with a benzenoid A ring have been observed. We have been able to introduce a hydroxyl group into the 16α-position of œstrone and œstradiol with two strains of Streptomyces halstedii (ATCC 13,499 and NRRL B-2138) and Streptomyces mediocidicus ATCC 13,278.
Theoretical Study of O-Assisted Selective Coupling of Methanol on Au(111)

We report the first systematic theoretical study of the oxidative self-coupling of methanol to form the ester, methylformate, on atomic-oxygen-covered Au(111) using density functional theory calculations. The first step in the process—dissociation of the O−H bond in methanol—has a lower barrier for transfer of the proton to adsorbed oxygen than for transfer of H to gold, consistent with experimental observations that O is necessary to initiate the reaction. The computed barrier for formation of methoxy (CH3O) and OH is 0.41 eV, compared with 1.58 eV calculated for the transfer of H to the clean Au surface. Several different pathways for the ensuing β-H elimination in CH3O(ads) to form formaldehyde have been considered, namely, attack by adsorbed O, OH, or a second CH3O, and transfer to the Au metal. Methoxy attacked by surface oxygen has the lowest calculated barrier, 0.49 eV, and leads to adsorbed H2C═O and OH. Subsequent coupling of methoxy and formaldehyde has no apparent barrier in the calculation, co...
An experimental and clinical evaluation of lens transparency and aging.

The normal human lens is a precisely formed structure containing about 65% water and 35% organic matter, the latter being mainly (greater than 90%) structural proteins. The lens becomes encapsulated at the 13 mm embryonic stage and is consequently divorced from a direct blood supply for life. It provides the investigator with an organ that exists in an environment analogous to a single-cell type of tissue culture system and can be reproduced in vitro. Since the cornea and lens are transparent one can directly monitor morphologic and biochemical aging changes in vivo. Recent developments now permit us to monitor certain molecular changes as well. Thus this organ can serve as a unique model for studying in vivo aging parameters. In vivo UV slit lamp densitography to monitor lens fluorescence provides us with a useful diagnostic and prognostic screening method to identify lens photodamage due to excess UV exposure (occupational or accidental), photosensitizers (e.g. psoralens) as well as the normal age related increase in lenticular fluorescence. Cortical opacities are also a common finding in older individuals. In vitro NMR (human and animal lenses) and in vivo (animal experiments) currently in progress are rapidly elucidating the physicochemical basis for the development of light scattering areas in the aging lens cortex. This review demonstrates the feasibility of utilizing biophysical methods, in particular, optical spectroscopy and NMR analyses to delineate and monitor specific age related parameters in the ocular lens, in vivo as well as in vitro.
Determination of Benzo(a) Pyrene in Edible Vegetable Oils by Gel Permeation Chromatography

A gel permeation chromatography(GPC) method for sample clean-up, followed by high performance liquid chromatography(HPLC) with fluorescence detection was developed for the determination of benzo(a)pyrene(Ba P) in edible vegetable oils. The samples were cleaned up by GPC, evaporated under vacuum atmosphere and then determined by HPLC. The results showed this method was sensitive and had a good linearity within the concentration range of 0.21–52.50 ng/m L. The limit of detection was 0.2 μg/kg and the limit of quantization was 0.7 μg/kg. The mean recoveries of standard additions in different kinds and grades of edible vegetable oils were between 98.6% and 103.5%, with relative standard deviations(RSDs)(n = 6) in the range of 2.98%–4.69%. The average of ten repeated determinations of Ba P in one positive sample during the years 2011 to 2013 was 10.94 μg/kg with a RSD of 2.12%, suggesting good repeatability of this method. This GPC-HPLC method is simple, sensitive and reliable for the determination of benzo(a)pyrene in edible vegetable oils.
Human T-cell leukemia virus type II infection frequently goes undetected in contemporary US blood donors

Serologic screening for human T-cell leukemia virus type I (HTLV-I) infection was begun in US blood banks with the licensure of enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) in December 1988. We examined the donation histories of the first 60 Western blot (WB)-confirmed HTLV-I/II positive donors to one blood center and found 8 had made 16 previous donations that scored negative on the screening ELISA. All 16 donations had ELISA absorbance below the cutoff for a positive assay, but still well above that of the average donation (17.6% +/- 5.7% of the cutoff). In a more extensive study, 17 donations from a total of 61,752 at six blood centers were both ELISA-positive and WB-positive for HTLV-I (4) or HTLV-II (13), and 218 samples had ELISA absorbance greater than 50% of the ELISA cutoff. One hundred seventy-eight of the 218 were tested further by WB and 11 were found positive. All 11 positives were confirmed by polymerase chain reaction; 10 had HTLV-II and 1 had HTLV-I. Thus, the HTLV-I-based screening ELISA missed at least 10 of 23, or 43% (95% confidence interval, 23% to 66%), of HTLV-II infections, compared with 1 of 5, or 20%, of HTLV-I infections.
Maternal concerns during pregnancy.

Pregnancy is usually portrayed as a wonderful time of joy and anticipation, yet it has been well established that all women experience an increase in anxiety during pregnancy. What causes this maternal anxiety? A questionnaire was administered to 202 randomly selected maternity patients during their hospital confinement following childbirth in three hospitals in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, and Fargo, North Dakota. The purpose of the study was (1) to determine specific categories of concern in pregnant women and (2) to identify relationships between these concerns and (a) the number of pregnancies a woman has had and (b) her level of education. Over half of the subjects expressed concern in the categories of baby, childbirth, subsequent pregnancies, and self. Highly significant differences were found to exist between primiparas and multiparas and among women of various educational levels.
Changes in Disparity in County-Level Diagnosed Diabetes Prevalence and Incidence in the United States, between 2004 and 2012.

Background In recent decades, the United States experienced increasing prevalence and incidence of diabetes, accompanied by large disparities in county-level diabetes prevalence and incidence. However, whether these disparities are widening, narrowing, or staying the same has not been studied. We examined changes in disparity among U.S. counties in diagnosed diabetes prevalence and incidence between 2004 and 2012. Methods We used 2004 and 2012 county-level diabetes (type 1 and type 2) prevalence and incidence data, along with demographic, socio-economic, and risk factor data from various sources. To determine whether disparities widened or narrowed over the time period, we used a regression-based β-convergence approach, accounting for spatial autocorrelation. We calculated diabetes prevalence/incidence percentage point (ppt) changes between 2004 and 2012 and modeled these changes as a function of baseline diabetes prevalence/incidence in 2004. Covariates included county-level demographic and, socio-economic data, and known type 2 diabetes risk factors (obesity and leisure-time physical inactivity). Results For each county-level ppt increase in diabetes prevalence in 2004 there was an annual average increase of 0.02 ppt (p<0.001) in diabetes prevalence between 2004 and 2012, indicating a widening of disparities. However, after accounting for covariates, diabetes prevalence decreased by an annual average of 0.04 ppt (p<0.001). In contrast, changes in diabetes incidence decreased by an average of 0.04 ppt (unadjusted) and 0.09 ppt (adjusted) for each ppt increase in diabetes incidence in 2004, indicating a narrowing of county-level disparities. Conclusions County-level disparities in diagnosed diabetes prevalence in the United States widened between 2004 and 2012, while disparities in incidence narrowed. Accounting for demographic and, socio-economic characteristics and risk factors for type 2 diabetes narrowed the disparities, suggesting that these factors are strongly associated with changes in disparities. Public health interventions that target modifiable risk factors, such as obesity and physical inactivity, in high burden counties might further reduce disparities in incidence and, over time, in prevalence.
ARN – anticoagulant related nephropathy: Lessons from patients and experimental animals

W have recently identified a new clinical syndrome in patients receiving warfarin for anticoagulation. This syndrome has been named warfarin-related nephropathy (WRN) and patients with Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) appear to be particularly susceptible. WRN is defined as an acute increase in INR to greater than 3.0, followed by evidence of Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) within a week of the INR increase, defined as a sustained increase in serum creatinine of greater than or equal to 0.3 mg/dl. The AKI cannot be explained by any other factors and the kidney biopsy demonstrates extensive glomerular hemorrhage with tubular obstruction by red blood cells. Beyond AKI, WRN is a significant risk factor for mortality within the first two months of diagnosis and it accelerates the progression of CKD. CKD is the most important risk factor for WRN and in CKD patients on warfarin who experience an increase in INR to >3.0, WRN is seen in 33–37% of the patients. Recent evidences suggest that WRN-like syndromes are not confined to anti-coagulation with warfarin, but may be seen with the newer oral anticoagulants coming into clinical use. We have thus coined the term Anticoagulant-Related Nephropathy (ARN) to encompass the possibility that other anticoagulant drugs may put patients at risk. We developed an animal model to study ARN. 5/6 nephrectomy rats treated with warfarin or dabigatran showed increase in serum creatinine and morphology in the kidney similar to humans. Nephrologists and renal pathologists should be aware about this serious complication of anticogulation therapy.
Unidirectional Eph/ephrin signaling creates a cortical actomyosin differential to drive cell segregation

Cell segregation is the process by which cells self-organize to establish developmental boundaries, an essential step in tissue formation. Cell segregation is a common outcome of Eph/ephrin signaling, but the mechanisms remain unclear. In craniofrontonasal syndrome, X-linked mosaicism for ephrin-B1 expression has been hypothesized to lead to aberrant Eph/ephrin-mediated cell segregation. Here, we use mouse genetics to exploit mosaicism to study cell segregation in the mammalian embryo and integrate live-cell imaging to examine the underlying cellular and molecular mechanisms. Our data demonstrate that dramatic ephrin-B1-mediated cell segregation occurs in the early neuroepithelium. In contrast to the paradigm that repulsive bidirectional signaling drives cell segregation, unidirectional EphB kinase signaling leads to cell sorting by the Rho kinase-dependent generation of a cortical actin differential between ephrin-B1- and EphB-expressing cells. These results define mechanisms of Eph/ephrin-mediated cell segregation, implicating unidirectional regulation of cortical actomyosin contractility as a key effector of this fundamental process.
Multi-photon absorption and second harmonic generation saturation in GaAs-filled nanoplasmonic arrays

Second harmonic generation (SHG) based on the enhancement of the local fields of nanoscale periodic, GaAs-filled holes in a metal film is presented. The highest SHG conversion efficiency achieved was 10−5 at 8 GW/cm2 input peak power, limited by multi-photon absorption and the resultant free-carrier absorption.
MIMO Radar Medical Imaging: Self-Interference Mitigation for Breast Tumor Detection

In this paper, an application of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar techniques to medical imaging is investigated. MIMO radar, which can be viewed as a form of microwave tomography for medical imaging geometries, offers an alternative to current X-ray technology. Of particular interest is the detection of cancerous tumors in breast tissue. Previously, ultrawideband radar techniques have been considered. Here, an intermediate bandwidth is assumed, which enables the digitization of the entire baseband signal. However, this comes with the cost of self-interference because of transmitting and receiving simultaneously. Because the scattering response of tumors is weak compared to self-interference, mitigation of the direct transmitter-to-receiver signal is important to detection. In this application, three interference suppression techniques are considered: temporal mitigation, receive-array mitigation, and transmit-waveform optimization. Mitigation residuals, caused by calibration errors and signal nonlinearities, are included in the analysis. A system concept is introduced, and results from simulations using a simplified physical model are presented.
Relating Geophysical and Hydrologic Properties Using Field-Scale Rock Physics

Understanding how the parameters estimated in a geophysical investigation are related to hydrologic properties of interest is an important part of a hydrogeophysical study. This problem is often tackled using rock physics to determine how the pore-scale properties of a medium, such as mineralogy, fluid content, and grain geometry, affect the geophysical response of a rock or sediment. It is then often assumed that these pore-scale rock physics insights can be used to interpret field-scale data. However, upscaling rock physics information is not straightforward. For example, the data obtained from an individual geophysical measurement in the field represents an average of local variations in pore-scale properties. Preferential sampling in heterogeneous environments can cause the field-scale relationship between geophysical and hydrological parameters to shift away from that determined at the pore scale, particularly in cases where property variations occur on spatial scales between the pore scale and the geophysical measurement scale. In addition to the sampling physics of individual measurements, spatial variations in the resolution of a geophysical survey can also impact the relationship between geophysical and hydrologic properties at the field scale; resolution is impacted by a number of factors, including the parameters defining the design and inversion of a field-scale geophysical survey. As a result, there is a need for methods that integrate variations in pore-scale rock properties with an understanding of geophysical sampling at the field-scale. To address this problem, we are using numerical analog models as tools to build field- scale rock physics relationships. Our approach allows for the flexible analysis of how factors like variations in geologic heterogeneity, changes in survey design, and uncertainty in subsurface properties and processes impact the relationship between geophysical and hydrologic properties. In this work we place an emphasis on describing how increasing non-linearity of geophysical estimation problems affects our ability to predict field-scale rock physics relationships. Specific examples discussed include the use of cross-borehole radar tomography for estimating water content and electrical resistivity tomography for monitoring the migration of a saline plume.
Evolution of word meanings through metaphorical mapping: Systematicity over the past millennium.

Abstract One way that languages are able to communicate a potentially infinite set of ideas through a finite lexicon is by compressing emerging meanings into words, such that over time, individual words come to express multiple, related senses of meaning. We propose that overarching communicative and cognitive pressures have created systematic directionality in how new metaphorical senses have developed from existing word senses over the history of English. Given a large set of pairs of semantic domains, we used computational models to test which domains have been more commonly the starting points (source domains) and which the ending points (target domains) of metaphorical mappings over the past millennium. We found that a compact set of variables, including externality , embodiment , and valence , explain directionality in the majority of about 5000 metaphorical mappings recorded over the past 1100 years. These results provide the first large-scale historical evidence that metaphorical mapping is systematic, and driven by measurable communicative and cognitive principles.
Fast Low-Rank Kernel Matrix Factorization through Skeletonized Interpolation

Integral equations are commonly encountered when solving complex physical problems. Their discretization leads to a dense kernel matrix that is block or hierarchically low-rank. This paper proposes a new way to build a low-rank factorization of those low-rank blocks at a nearly optimal cost of $\mathcal{O}(nr)$ for a $n \times n$ block submatrix of rank r. This is done by first sampling the kernel function at new interpolation points, then selecting a subset of those using a CUR decomposition and finally using this reduced set of points as pivots for a RRLU-type factorization. We also explain how this implicitly builds an optimal interpolation basis for the Kernel under consideration. We show the asymptotic convergence of the algorithm, explain his stability and demonstrate on numerical examples that it performs very well in practice, allowing to obtain rank nearly equal to the optimal rank at a fraction of the cost of the naive algorithm.
Study of cryogenic propellant systems for loading the space shuttle. Part 2: Hydrogen systems

Computer simulation studies of liquid hydrogen fill and vent systems for the space shuttle are studied. The computer programs calculate maximum and minimum permissible flow rates during cooldown as limited by thermal stress considerations, fill line cooldown time, pressure drop, flow rates, vapor content, vent line pressure drop and vent line discharge temperature. The input data for these programs are selected through graphic displays which schematically depict the part of the system being analyzed. The computed output is also displayed in the form of printed messages and graphs. Digital readouts of graph coordinates may also be obtained. Procedures are given for operation of the graphic display unit and the associated minicomputer and timesharing computer.
Academic and Government Partnerships to Address Diabetes in the USA: a Narrative Review

Multi-sector partnerships are broadly considered to be of value for diabetes prevention and management. The purpose of this article is to summarize academic and government collaborations focused on diabetes prevention and management. Using a narrative review approach, we identified 17 articles describing 10 academic and government partnerships for diabetes management and surveillance. Challenges and gaps in the literature include complexity of diabetes management vis a vis current healthcare infrastructure; a paucity of racial/ethnic diversity in translational efforts; and the time/effort needed to maintain strong relationships across partner institutions. Academic and government partnerships are of value for diabetes prevention and management activities. Acknowledgment that the key priorities of government programming are often costs and feasibility is critical for collaborations to be successful. Future translational efforts of diabetes prevention and management programs should focus on the following: (1) expansion of partnerships between academia and local health departments; (2) increased utilization of implementation science for enhanced and efficient implementation and dissemination; and (3) harnessing of technological advances for data analysis, patient communication, and report generation.
Immunoprevention of KRAS-driven lung adenocarcinoma by a multipeptide vaccine

// Jing Pan 1, * , Qi Zhang 1, * , Shizuko Sei 2 , Robert H. Shoemaker 2 , Ronald A. Lubet 2 , Yian Wang 1 and Ming You 1 1 Cancer Center and Department of Pharmacology & Toxicology, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI, USA 2 Chemopreventive Agent Development Research Group, Division of Cancer Prevention, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD, USA * These authors have contributed equally to this work Correspondence to: Ming You, email: myou@mcw.edu Keywords: immunoprevention, KRAS, lung adenocarcinoma, peptide vaccine, MHC class II Received: December 06, 2016 Accepted: March 01, 2017 Published: August 01, 2017 ABSTRACT Lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer death worldwide. Mutations in KRAS are detected in up to 30% of lung cancer cases. No effective therapies specifically targeting mutant KRAS have been developed. Vaccination against KRAS mutants is one of the venues of active exploration. The present study evaluated both immunogenicity and antitumor efficacy of a newly formulated multipeptide vaccine targeting multiple epitopes of the KRAS molecule. The formulated vaccine contained top four peptides, which elicited the strongest immunologic response and showed 100% sequence homology between human and mouse. The multipeptide KRAS vaccine was tested in an inducible CCSP-TetO-KRAS G12D mouse model, where the vaccine was administered prior to activating the mutant KRAS protein. The KRAS peptide vaccine exhibited striking efficacy, reducing tumor number and tumor burden by >80% when compared with adjuvant alone. Splenocytes collected from vaccinated animals showed a robust immunologic response to the immunizing peptides. Furthermore, in vitro stimulation of these splenocytes by the vaccinated peptides resulted in the secretion of cytokines indicative of Th1 responses but with minimal secretion of Th2-related cytokines. The multipeptide KRAS vaccine was immunogenic and efficacious in the primary prevention of KRAS-induced lung cancer, indicating that the approach potentially can be used to prevent other KRAS-driven cancers, either alone or in combination with other modalities.
Consequentialism and the Standard Story of Action

I challenge the common picture of the “Standard Story” of Action as a neutral account of action within which debates in normative ethics can take place. I unpack three commitments that are implicit in the Standard Story, and demonstrate that these commitments together entail a teleological conception of reasons, upon which all reasons to act are reasons to bring about states of affairs. Such a conception of reasons, in turn, supports a consequentialist framework for the evaluation of action, upon which the normative status of actions is properly determined through appeal to rankings of states of affairs as better and worse. This covert support for consequentialism from the theory of action, I argue, has had a distorting effect on debates in normative ethics. I then present challenges to each of these three commitments, a challenge to the first commitment by T.M. Scanlon, a challenge to the second by recent interpreters of Anscombe, and a new challenge to the third commitment that requires only minimal and prima facie plausible modifications to the Standard Story. The success of any one of the challenges, I demonstrate, is sufficient to block support from the theory of action for the teleological conception of reasons and the consequentialist evaluative framework. I close by demonstrating the pivotal role that such arguments grounded in the theory of action play in the current debate between evaluator-relative consequentialists and their critics.
Combined orbits and clocks from IGS second reprocessing

The Analysis Centers (ACs) of the International GNSS Service (IGS) have reprocessed a large global network of GPS tracking data from 1994.0 until 2014.0 or later. Each AC product time series was extended uniformly till early 2015 using their weekly operational IGS contributions so that the complete combined product set covers GPS weeks 730 through 1831. Three ACs also included GLONASS data from as early as 2002 but that was insufficient to permit combined GLONASS products. The reprocessed terrestrial frame combination procedures and results have been reported already, and those were incorporated into the ITRF2014 multi-technique global frame released in 2016. This paper describes the orbit and clock submissions and their multi-AC combinations and assessments. These were released to users in early 2017 in time for the adoption of IGS14 for generating the operational IGS products. While the reprocessing goal was to enable homogeneous modeling, consistent with the current operational procedures, to be applied retrospectively to the full history of observation data in order to achieve a more suitable reference for geophysical studies, that objective has only been partially achieved. Ongoing AC analysis changes and a lack of full participation limit the consistency and precision of the finished IG2 products. Quantitative internal measures indicate that the reprocessed orbits are somewhat less precise than current operational orbits or even the later orbits from the first IGS reprocessing campaign. That is even more apparent for the clocks where a lack of robust AC participation means that it was only possible to form combined 5-min clocks but not the 30-s satellite clocks published operationally. Therefore, retrospective precise point positioning solutions by users are not recommended using the orbits and clocks. Nevertheless, the orbits do support long-term stable user solutions when used with network processing with either double differencing or explicit clock estimation. Among the main benefits of the reprocessing effort is a more consistent long product set to analyze for sources of systematic error and accuracy. Work to do that is underway but the reprocessing experience already points to a number of ways future IGS performance and reprocessing campaigns can be improved.
Candidate gene biodosimetry markers of exposure to external ionizing radiation in human blood: A systematic review.

Purpose To compile a list of genes that have been reported to be affected by external ionizing radiation (IR) and to assess their performance as candidate biomarkers for individual human radiation dosimetry. Methods Eligible studies were identified through extensive searches of the online databases from 1978 to 2017. Original English-language publications of microarray studies assessing radiation-induced changes in gene expression levels in human blood after external IR were included. Genes identified in at least half of the selected studies were retained for bio-statistical analysis in order to evaluate their diagnostic ability. Results 24 studies met the criteria and were included in this study. Radiation-induced expression of 10,170 unique genes was identified and the 31 genes that have been identified in at least 50% of studies (12/24 studies) were selected for diagnostic power analysis. Twenty-seven genes showed a significant Spearman’s correlation with radiation dose. Individually, TNFSF4, FDXR, MYC, ZMAT3 and GADD45A provided the best discrimination of radiation dose < 2 Gy and dose ≥ 2 Gy according to according to their maximized Youden’s index (0.67, 0.55, 0.55, 0.55 and 0.53 respectively). Moreover, 12 combinations of three genes display an area under the Receiver Operating Curve (ROC) curve (AUC) = 1 reinforcing the concept of biomarker combinations instead of looking for an ideal and unique biomarker. Conclusion Gene expression is a promising approach for radiation dosimetry assessment. A list of robust candidate biomarkers has been identified from analysis of the studies published to date, confirming for example the potential of well-known genes such as FDXR and TNFSF4 or highlighting other promising gene such as ZMAT3. However, heterogeneity in protocols and analysis methods will require additional studies to confirm these results.
The ι-adic and p-adic Representations of Deuring

It was first proved by Hasse that even in characteristic p > 0, if N is an integer prime to p, then the points of order N on an elliptic curve A form a cyclic group of type Z/NZ x Z/NZ.
Priorities for Interpersonal Competence Research

The purpose of this chapter is to present some observations about the state of interpersonal competence research, and to offer some speculations about priorities for continued scholarly inquiry into this topic. Our discussion is admittedly selective and subjective. We offer what we consider to be a few of the more important “needs” that must be fulfilled if interpersonal competence research is to grow, thrive, and provide maximally useful information. Among the needs we will consider are the need for more theorizing, the need for more elaborate validation of measures, and the need for the incorporation of context in interpersonal competence theory and research.
Time, Space, Other

Most broadly expressed, the phenomenological theme investigated in the preceding chapters is: “being in the real, objective world pertaining to my mental living as transcendental mental living in the natural attitude.”1 More narrowly expressed, this theme was developed with respect to the “genesis” of the ideas of time and space as products of subscientific-philosophic thinking and experiencing that take for granted the positing of the naturalness belonging to the natural attitude2—a development that consciously set aside the “naturalistic conception” of the ideas of time and space with respect to their specifying assumptions exercised in modern philosophy and science.3 In particular there were two central specifying assumptions singled out for attention and on which the epistemic and ontic claims of modern scientific and philosophic thinking and experiencing rest (section 38ff.). The first is the idea that geometry and kinematics define space, and if space defines reality it would seem to follow that geometry and kinematics define reality.4
HIV Prevention in Youth

With increasing urgency, attention is turning to preventing HIV infection in youth. There are several reasons for this perceptible shift in policy (and allocation of program resources) from a more exclusive focus on adult homosexual and bisexual men, adult intravenous drug users and their sexual partners, female prostitutes, and women of lower socioeconomic status (Miller, Turner, & Moses, 1990). These reasons include: (1) The long incubation period required for the HIV infection to develop into AIDS. This period often lasts 8 to 10 years, indicating that many of the approximately 45,000 people with AIDS in the United States who were diagnosed in their 20s contracted HIV in their teenage years (Miller et al., 1990). (2) Epidemiological data from other countries showing the primary mode of HIV transmission is heterosexual contact. Recent reports show that 71% of AIDS cases worldwide are contracted through heterosexual transmission (Eckholm, 1992) in contrast to homosexual contact that accounted for 58% of AIDS cases in the United States (Eckholm, 1992). (3) Evidence indicating teens have not appreciably altered high-risk behaviors in this era of HIV and AIDS. For example, 80% of teens are reported to be sexually active before age 19, yet only a quarter to a third use condoms, and still fewer use condoms consistently (Pleck, Sonenstein, & Ku, 1991).
Descriptive epidemiology of varicella based on national surveillance data before and after the introduction of routine varicella vaccination with two doses in Japan, 2000-2017.

Abstract Routine childhood immunization using two doses of the varicella vaccine was introduced in Japan in October 2014. In this study, we analyzed the data extracted from national varicella surveillance, including pediatric sentinel surveillance from 2000 to 2017 and hospitalized varicella surveillance from the 38th week of 2014 to the 37th week of 2017. Compared with the 2000–2011 baseline data, the number of varicella cases per sentinel decreased substantially by 76.6% overall and by 88.2% among children aged 1–4 years in 2017. Of 997 hospitalized patients, we found a decreasing trend in the number of cases among children aged
Analyzing the impact of workers’ remittances on household consumption in Latin American and Caribbean Countries

Increasing remittance flows to developing countries continue to stimulate analytical research. We apply a model, based on the “permanent income hypothesis”, to estimate the impact of remittances on consumption in eleven Latin American and Caribbean countries for the period of 2003–2013. The independent variables are: (a) real per capita national income (exclusive of remittances), the measure of “permanent income”, (b) remittances, the measure of “transitory income”, and (c) real interest rate, the indicator of intertemporal consumption substitution. The coefficient of remittances measures the consumption-augmentation and saving effects, while the correlation between remittances and per capita income indicates the consumption-smoothing effects. The results, based on the panel data methodology, indicate: (a) both permanent income and transitory income positively impact consumption, (b) consumption responds higher to permanent income than to transitory income, (c) transitory income has augmenting, stabilizing and countercyclical effects on consumption, and (d) the significant interest rate indicates the ability of recipients to make intertemporal consumption substitution. Evidence of significant “country effect” attests to heterogeneity among countries. Strategies to stabilize remittance flows and to leverage them for financial, economic and social development should be important policy considerations.
Constraints on cosmic-ray transport in galaxy clusters from radio and γ-ray observations

The nature of cosmic rays (CRs) and cosmic ray transport in galaxy clusters is probed by a number of observations. Radio observations reveal the synchrotron radiation of cosmic ray electrons (CRe) spiraling around cluster magnetic fields. $\gamma$-ray observations reveal hadronic reactions of cosmic ray protons (CRp) with ambient gas nuclei which produce pions. To date, no such cluster-wide $\gamma$-ray signal has been measured, putting an upper limit on the density of CRp present in clusters. But the presence of CRe implies some source of CRp, and consequently there must be some CRp loss mechanism. In this paper we quantify the observational constraints on this loss mechanism assuming that losses are dominated by CR transport, ultimately deriving a minimum diffusion coefficient of $\sim10^{31}$ cm$^2$ s$^{-1}$ in the Coma cluster. This lower limit on transport may help illuminate some unknown properties of the cluster field topology. Conversely, measurements of cluster field tangling scales can constrain other model parameters, such as the relative acceleration efficiency of protons to electrons. To be consistent with the Coma observations, protons cannot be accelerated more than 15 times more efficiently than electrons of the same energy.