cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
A Technological Approach to Reforming Japan's Consumption Tax

Significant change has been forecast for the Japanese Consumption Tax. Revenue needs are pressing, and the Consumption Tax appears to be underutilized. Should the rate be doubled from 5% to 10%, or more? If so, will rate increases necessitate further structural changes – recasting this annual credit-subtraction levy into a European style credit-invoice VAT? These options have not proven to be politically palatable, but they are directions that have been under active consideration.On October 1, 2013 the Japanese Cabinet Office announced that the Consumption Tax would rise from 5% to 8% effective April 1, 2014. The rate will increase again to 10% on October 1, 2015. Details will be incorporated into the 2014 budget, and the expectation is that the tax increase will be offset by investment incentives. The reforms should be based on the Tax Reform Proposal to Stimulate Non-governmental Investment drafted by the Liberal Democratic Party Tax Commission. If this proposal goes forward Japan’s Consumption Tax would remain largely unchanged. The suggestions to move toward a European VAT will be rejected. Although the tax rate increase to 8% may not be difficult to implement, the further increase to 10% may necessitate some exemptions for the elderly and handicapped. This paper proposes technology-based solutions.
Harming as making worse off

A powerful argument against the counterfactual comparative account of harm is that it cannot distinguish harming from failing to benefit. In reply to this problem, I suggest a new account of harm. The account is a counterfactual comparative one, but it counts as harms only those events that make a person (rather than merely allow him to) occupy his level of well-being at the world at which the event occurs. This account distinguishes harming from failing to benefit in a way that accommodates our intuitions about the standard problem cases. In laying the groundwork for this account, I also demonstrate that rival accounts of harm are able to distinguish harming from failing to benefit only if, and because, they also appeal to the distinction between making upshots happen and allowing upshots to happen. One important implication of my discussion is that preserving the moral asymmetry between harming and failing to benefit requires a commitment to the existence of a metaphysical and moral distinction between making and allowing.
Use of antimicrobial agent pocket irrigation for cardiovascular implantable electronic device infection prophylaxis: Results from an international survey.

PURPOSE Survey the usage and application protocol of antimicrobial agent pocket irrigation for cardiovascular implantable electronic device (CIED) infection prophylaxis. BACKGROUND Local antibiotic usage for CIED infection prophylaxis, in particular pocket irrigation, is a well-known strategy but with little data on its clinical effectiveness. METHODS An anonymous voluntary online survey was sent to a total of 2,092 arrhythmia-oriented cardiologists in 51 countries (1,490 from the United States). RESULTS There were 487 responses (response rate 23.3%: U.S. 28.2%, outside of the U.S. 11.1%). Eighty-seven percent of respondents use intraoperative antimicrobial agent pocket irrigation and/or an antimicrobial eluting pouch to reduce CIED infection. Fifty-four percent of respondents believe that it is effective to use an antimicrobial agent pocket irrigation to reduce CIED infection; 33% of respondents are uncertain; a few consider this strategy ineffective (13%) or offered no opinion. Significant differences exist in the practice patterns and beliefs between the U.S. and non-U.S. countries (P < 0.05). Ninety-eight percent of respondents report using the same pocket irrigation protocol for permanent pacemaker versus implantable cardioverter defibrillator. Bacitracin (48%), vancomycin (39%), and a cephalosporin (29%) are the most commonly chosen antibiotics. A majority of the respondents are unaware of the cost of using antimicrobial agent pocket irrigation (69%) and neither are they concerned (67%). CONCLUSION This international survey suggests that, while there are little clinical data to support or discourage such practice, the usage of antimicrobial agent pocket irrigation for CIED infection prophylaxis is widely used in current practice.
Best Practices in the Use of Augmented and Virtual Reality Technologies for SLA: Design, Implementation, and Feedback

Recent advances in technology have made it possible to add immersive interactive dimensions to nearly any learning environment. This immersive technology provides students with active control and more authentic experiences; thus, helping them learn more effectively and increase their retention. In this view, these technologies seem to be an ‘ideal’ instrument for language instruction, as they combine visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learning styles. While their digital capabilities are almost limitless, their use in language learning remains limited due to technological and methodological challenges. This chapter provides methodological recommendations for the design and use of augmented and virtual technologies in language classroom settings. At the core of these recommendations is the collaborative research conducted at Indiana University which investigated the impact of mobile immersive technology for foreign language teaching and learning. Based on the findings, this chapter suggests several immersive tools and applications suited for the use in foreign language classroom (Aurasma, ThingLink, and Google Cardboard), which were evaluated by both students and instructors by means of self-assessment, technical feedback, and usage statistics.
Rapid enantioselective catalyst optimization

Optimization of catalytic stereoselectivity for new substrates often requires a time consuming experimental process, and high-accuracy molecular modelling remains intractable for comprehensive virtual screening. Now, highly enantioselective rhodium hydrogenation catalysts have been identified using a rapid computational transition-state analysis protocol and then experimentally verified.
Integrin-alpha-6+ Stem Cells (ISCs) are responsible for whole body regeneration in an invertebrate chordate

Abstract Colonial ascidians are the only chordates able to undergo whole body regeneration (WBR), during which entire new bodies can be regenerated from small fragments of blood vessels. Here, we show that during the early stages of WBR in Botrylloides diegensis, proliferation occurs only in small, blood-borne cells that express integrin-alpha-6 (IA6), pou3 and vasa. Ablation of proliferating cells using Mitomycin C (MMC) blocks WBR in vascular fragments, but can be rescued by injection of cycling cells isolated from an untreated individual. Using prospective isolation and limit dilution analyes, we found that FACS-isolated IA6+ stem cells (ISCs) could rescue WBR in MMC treated vascular fragments, even when injecting only a single cell. Lineage tracing using EdU-labeling further revealed that donor-derived ISCs directly give rise to regenerating tissues. Inhibitors of either Notch or canonical Wnt signaling block WBR and reduce proliferation of ISCs, indicating that these two pathways regulate ISC activation.
Feasibility study of nanopillar LED array for color-tunable lighting and beyond

An LED chip containing monolithically integrated red, green, and blue channels was fabricated and characterized. Using local strain engineering in gallium nitride p-i-n nanopillar structures, each color channel emits a distinct color with emission wavelength determined entirely by the diameter of the nanopillar. The crosstalk between color channels is negligible. As a result, individually addressable color channels can be integrated on the same substrate which will be suitable for color-tunable lighting applications. Optical and electrical properties were measured and discussed. Fabrication challenges which degraded power efficiency of the shorter-wavelength channel were analyzed. Potential strategies for improvements were proposed.
Spectacular Accumulation. Material Culture, Tokugawa Ieyasu, and Samurai Sociability: by Morgan Pitelka, University of Hawai’i Press, Honolulu, 2016, xiii + 221 pp.

This is a book about ‘things’ and the people, mostly famous people, who collected them in Japan in the late sixteenth and first few decades of the seventeenth century. Among the famous people Morga...
Will Mandatory Inclusionary Housing Create Mixed-Income Communities? Evidence From London, UK

Mandatory inclusionary housing, which requires market-rate housing developments to include a proportion of affordable housing units, has the potential to deliver affordable housing in more affluent...
Potential annual daylighting performance of a high-efficiency daylight redirecting slat system

While the primary role of window attachments is often to moderate glare and solar heat gains, they are also able to provide additional daylight to interior spaces. For this purpose, a variety of daylight-redirecting window systems have been developed over the past 150 years. Fixed reflective systems (slats/light shelves) or prismatic systems that rely on total internal reflection work well under specific solar conditions, but generally sacrifice performance over a much wider range of incident solar angles and sky conditions. Dynamic systems - typically reflective slats - are more responsive to sun angles but have not been able to achieve optimal performance for glare and daylight redirection efficiency. A previous investigation into an adjustable, reflective blind concept first conceived of in the late 1970s showed promise but was not reduced to practice due to lack of adequate simulation and analysis tools. In this paper, this concept is further developed and its energy and visual comfort performance evaluated for four mid-latitude, temperate climates using ray-tracing simulation techniques. Results indicate significant potential lighting energy savings when compared with conventional automated reflective blinds (2.1–4.9 kWh/(m2·a), or 14%–42%, depending on climate and orientation) or, especially, manually-operated matte white venetian blinds (1.4–7.9 kWh/(m2·a), or 9%–54%, depending on climate and orientation), while maintaining acceptable or better visual comfort conditions throughout the interior space.
Child Maltreatment during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Consequences of Parental Job Loss on Psychological and Physical Abuse Towards Children

Abstract Background Job loss resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic presents significant risk for child abuse. Protective factors, such as reframing coping, may mitigate the risk of job loss on child maltreatment. Objective The current study investigated factors associated with child maltreatment during the COVID-19 pandemic, including parental job loss, and whether cognitive reframing moderated associations between job loss and child maltreatment. Method A community sample of 342 parents (62% mothers) of 4- to 10-year-olds (M = 7.38, SD = 2.01; 57.3% male) living in the United States completed online questionnaires regarding experiences with COVID-19, the Parent-Child Conflict Tactics Scale, and the Family Crisis Oriented Personal Evaluation Scales. Results Two logistic regression analyses evaluated predictors of whether parents psychologically maltreated or physically abused their children during the pandemic controlling for maltreating history, parental depressive symptoms, financial stability, parent age, parent gender, child age, and child gender. Parents who lost their jobs (OR = 4.86, 95% CI [1.19, 19.91], p = .03), were more depressed (OR = 1.05, 95% CI [1.02, 1.08], p Conclusions Job loss during the COVID-19 pandemic is a significant risk factor for child maltreatment. Reframing coping may be an important buffer of this association on physical abuse and presents implications for maltreatment prevention.
Estimating the probability of cellular arrhythmias with simplified statistical models that account for experimentally observed uncertainty

Early after-depolarizations (EADs) are action potential (AP) repolarization abnormalities that can trigger lethal arrhythmias in, for example, Long QT Syndrome and heart failure. Simulations using biophysically-detailed cardiac myocyte models can reveal how model parameters influence the probability of these cellular arrhythmias, however such analyses often pose a huge computational burden. Here, we develop a simplified approach in which logistic regression models (LRMs) are used to define a mapping between the parameters of complex cell models and the probability of EADs. Specifically, we develop an LRM for predicting the probability of EADs (P(EAD)) as a function of slow-activating delayed rectifier current (IKs) parameters, and for identifying those parameters with greatest influence on P(EAD). This LRM, which requires negligible computational resources, is also used to demonstrate how uncertainties in experimentally measured values of IKs model parameters influence P(EAD). We refer to this as arrhythmia sensitivity analysis. In the investigation of five different IKs parameters associated with Long QT syndrome 1 (LQTS1) mutations, the predicted P(EAD) when rank ordered for 6 LQTS1 mutations matches the trend in risk from patients with the same mutations as measured by clinical cardiac event rates. We also demonstrate the degree to which parameter uncertainties map to uncertainty of P(EAD), with IKs conductance having the greatest impact. These results demonstrate the potential for arrhythmia risk prediction using model-based approaches for estimation of P(EAD).
Maxillomandibular advancement effectively treats obstructive sleep apnea in adolescents at short-term follow-up

Objective To evaluate the efficacy of maxillomandibular advancement (MMA) surgery for the treatment of malocclusion and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in an adolescent population. Study Design A retrospective cohort study was designed using electronic medical record chart review. Results Fifteen patients aged 20 years or younger (range, 14-20) were included. All patients underwent MMA surgery for the primary correction of malocclusion and secondary treatment of OSA. Mean preoperative apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) was 28.9 ± 16.0 events/h (range, 7.1-54.7), and mean postoperative AHI was 5.7 ± 4.6 events/h (range, 1.5-18.4), reflecting a reduction of 23.2 events/h, an 80.6% reduction (P Conclusions MMA surgery with or without GGA is an effective treatment option for adolescents with a malocclusion and an AHI >5.0 events/h. In this population, it is shown to decrease AHI and increase posterior airway space. More research is required to determine the ideal adolescent candidate for MMA surgery.
Integration of feedback control and run-to-run control for plasma enhanced atomic layer deposition of hafnium oxide thin films

Abstract Facilitated by the increasing importance and demand of semiconductors for the smartphone and even the automobile industry, the plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition (PEALD) has gained tremendous industrial interest as it offers a way to efficiently deposit thin-films with ultra-high conformity. A series of studies have been carried out to elucidate the mechanisms and the concept of the PEALD process. Despite the great deal of research effort, PEALD processes have not been fully characterized from the view point of process control. This study aims to use a previously developed multiscale computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation model to design and evaluate an optimized control scheme to deal with industrially-relevant disturbances. Specifically, an integrated control scheme using a proportional-integral (PI) controller and a run-to-run (R2R) controller is proposed and evaluated to ensure the deposition of high-quality conformal thin-films. The PEALD process under typical disturbances is simulated using the multiscale CFD model, and the integrated controller is applied in the process domain. Using the controller parameters determined from the open-loop results, the developed integrated PI-R2R controller successfully mitigates the disturbances in the operating pressure and the gas bubbler temperature with the combined effort of both controllers.
Federal Civil Procedure Summary (2021)

This is an attempt to boil down the basics of federal civil procedure into an easily digestible summary.
Justice and climate change

Abstract This chapter examines anthropogenic climate change through the lens of justice, highlighting issues of injustice that arise from past and ongoing contributions to climate change as well as examining how justice and equity can inform the design of cooperative responses to climate change. Based in a critical examination of normative principles expressed in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, it considers how conceptions and principles of justice can guide international burden-sharing approaches to climate change mitigation and adaptation, and applies these to controversies within international climate politics.
Examining the Status of Academic Accounting

We revisit whether the academic accounting profession is in decline. We use data gathered from Hasselback directories of accounting faculty from 1974 to 2016 and confirm prior results indicating a decrease in the number of assistant accounting professors from 1992 to 2002. However, the decrease does not appear to be as drastic as prior work suggests. Further, accounting faculty counts (including assistant professors) increased from 2002 to 2016. Accounting faculty salaries have also increased, suggesting that demand for accounting professors is increasing faster than supply, and also suggesting that there are significant opportunities for growth in the profession. These results suggest that actions and economic factors to slow and reverse the decline in the academic accounting profession have been largely successful. While future challenges remain, the academic accounting profession is no longer in decline.
The Crisis Manager : Facing Disasters, Conflicts, and Failures

Part I: Preparing For an Era of Crises 1. An Era of Crises 2. Risk Management: Preparing For the Worst 3. Crisis Communication -- The Basics 4. Image Restoration Strategies in Crisis Communication Part II: Crises of the Physical Environment 5. Natural Crises 6. Biological Crises 7. Technological Crises 8. Confrontation Crises 9. Crises of Malevolence Part III: Crises of Management Failure 10. Crises of Mismanagement 11. Crises of Skewed Management Values 12. Crises of Deception 13. Crises of Management Misconduct Part IV: Conclusions 14. Learning from Crises
Use of Computer-Assisted Information Processing in Social Work Practice

Abstract Social work direct practice students are not receiving adequate training in the use of management information systems, evaluation procedures, and computer applications directly relevant to practice. This article presents a model that integrates this content in a combined research utilization and computer lab course. Through a combination of didactic and hands-on learning exercises, students increase their understanding of information processing concepts, gain technical mastery of computer applications, and realize how data-based decision support systems can facilitate the achievement of practice goals.
Berechenbare Nahttechniken für die Nasenspitze bei Rhinoplastik

Recontouring the nasal tip in rhinoplastic procedures has generated a wide range of surgical techniques. These range from aggressive cartilage resection, division, grafting, or suture methods. Each of these categories contains many variations described in hundreds of publications. The goal of this communication is to describe a predictable, reproducible technique that can be used in a wide variety of rhinoplasty operations. Based on pre-existing anatomy variations of this technique can be adopted. The author described the basic technique in 2004 [1].The cornerstone of the technique is a predictable method of narrowing the interdomal space utilizing a suture technique. This procedure employs a pair of permanent sutures designed to minimize distortion, valve impingement and overcorrection. It can be performed through intranasal or external approaches. This paper will define the wide interdomal space, describe the technique, and demonstrate the efficacy of the technique in 250 rhinoplasty procedures. In addition, variations of the technique for specific goals will be shown.
Rupert Murdoch: The Last Tycoon

The case examines the entrepreneurial career of Rupert Murdoch, and the growth of News Corporation from a small Australian newspaper to a global media giant. It shows how he expanded geographically to Europe, the United States, and Asia and from newspapers to the film and television industries. The case identifies the personal role of Murdoch in this growth, and the role of his family in its management. The case considers the political impact of News Corporation's newspapers and other media, and their alleged role in shaping political opinion.Learning Objective:The case is used to teach the entrepreneurial drivers of the globalization of the media over recent decades, and to enable students to understand the political and cultural consequences.
Renal function and long-term decline in cognitive function: the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging.

Background: Renal disease has been associated with greater risk of dementia and greater cognitive impairment. However, the relationship of lower renal function wi
New Wars: Urbanization, Political Conflict, and Violence in Sub-Saharan Africa

Grand interstate wars and even widespread internal conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa are diminishing as the continent enters the 21st century (Straus 2012), but new form of violence and conflict is on the rise. Well over fifty percent of the continent lives in an urban environment, often confronting issues of ethnicity, social and religious tensions on a daily basis in a confined setting. This paper explores where these new forms of political space opened by urbanization devolve into conflict. Following the trend of the micro-political studies of civil war and rebellion in political science (Weinstein 2007), I examine theories of violence in modern ‘slum-cities’ Lagos, Nigeria and Nairobi, Kenya to show the applicability of theories about the causes of civil war to the micro-political. Connecting urban studies, political science, and contemporary anthropology, the paper provides a new line of inquiry into the nature and cleavages of conflict in these spaces.
Fiberoptic microneedle device facilitates volumetric infusate dispersion during convection-enhanced delivery in the brain.

Background and Objectives: A fiberoptic microneedle device (FMD) was designed and fabricated for the purpose of enhancing the volumetric dispersal of macromolecules delivered to the brain through convection-enhanced delivery (CED) by concurrent delivery of sub-lethal photothermal hyperthermia. This study’s objective was to demonstrate enhanced dispersal of fluid tracer molecules through co-delivery of 1,064 nm laser energy in an in vivo rodent model. Materials and Methods: FMDs capable of co-delivering fluids and laser energy through a single light-guiding capillary tube were fabricated. FMDs were stereotactically inserted symmetrically into both cerebral hemispheres of 16 anesthetized rats to a depth of 1.5 mm. Laser irradiation (1,064 nm) at 0 (control), 100, and 200 mW was administered concurrently with CED infusions of liposomal rhodamine (LR) or gadolinium‐Evans blue-serum albumin conjugated complex (Gd‐EBA) at a flow rate of 0.1 ml/min for 1 hour. Line pressures were monitored during the infusions. Rodents were sacrificed immediately following infusion and their brains were harvested, frozen, and serially cryosectioned for histopathologic and volumetric analyses. Results: Analysis by ANOVA methods demonstrated that co-delivery enhanced volumetric dispersal significantly, with measured volumes of 15.8 � 0.6 mm 3 for 100 mW compared to 10.0 � 0.4 mm 3 for its fluid only control and 18.0 � 0.3 mm 3 for 200 mW compared to 10.3 � 0.7 mm 3 for its fluid only control. Brains treated with 200 mW co-delivery exhibited thermal lesions, while 100 mW co-deliveries were associated with preservation of brain cytoarchitecture. Conclusion: Both lethal and sub-lethal photothermal hyperthermia substantially increasethe rate of volumetric dispersal in a 1 hour CED infusion. This suggests that the FMD co-delivery method could reduce infusion times and the number of catheter insertions into the brain during CED procedures. Lasers Surg. Med. 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Limiting access to psychiatric services can increase total health care costs.

Restricted access to health care services and medication is associated with overall higher utilization and higher health care costs. Although randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are regarded as the best method of determining whether a treatment strategy does more good than harm, clinical practice improvement (CPI) methods may be a more effective way of achieving superior medical outcomes for the least cost over the course of a patient's care. The Managed Care Outcomes Project, a large-scale CPI study, tracked detailed factors regarding medical care, patients, and outcomes from different managed care settings. Results showed that cost-containment strategies employed by various health maintenance organizations were associated with poor treatment outcomes for patients and in fact increased total health care costs. Psychiatric illnesses were underdiagnosed, and care ranged from patients receiving psychiatric medications without a psychiatric diagnosis to patients with a psychiatric diagnosis receiving no psychiatric treatment at all. Cost-containment strategies appeared to limit psychiatric referrals, frequency of psychiatric visits, and use of certain antidepressants (i.e., selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors). Further, the severity of the primary physical illness in the study population was associated with greater psychiatric illness. The fact that treatment was inconsistent and frequently inappropriate shows the need for better diagnostic and management protocols.
Morphological tagging: data vs. dictionaries

Part of Speech tagging for English seems to have reached the the human levels of error, but full morphological tagging for inflectionally rich languages, such as Romanian, Czech, or Hungarian, is still an open problem, and the results are far from being satisfactory. This paper presents results obtained by using a universalized exponential feature-based model for five such languages. It focuses on the data sparseness issue, which is especially severe for such languages (the more so that there are no extensive annotated data for those languages). In conclusion, we argue strongly that the use of an independent morphological dictionary is the preferred choice to more annotated data under such circumstances.
Robust state sharing for wide area distributed applications

We present the Mocha wide area computing infrastructure we are developing. Mocha provides support for robust shared objects on heterogeneous platforms, and utilizes advanced distributed shared memory techniques for maintaining consistency of shared objects that are replicated at multiple nodes to improve performance. In addition, our system handles failures that we feel will be common in wide area environments. We have used an approach that makes use of multiple communication protocols to improve the efficiency of shared object state transfers in Mocha. We also provide an empirical evaluation of our prototype implementation for local area, wide area, and home service networks and present a sample home service application that has been programmed with the system.
A Novel Fungal Protease Expressed in Endophytic Infection of Poa Species

The fungus Acremonium typhinum produces a novel endoprotease during symbiotic endophytic infection of the grass, Poa ampla. This protease is unusual because it is highly active in the presence of sodium dodecyl sulfate. The enzyme is a thiol-containing serine protease and is localized to a crude membrane fraction. Similar protease activity has been detected in endophyte-infected Poa autumnalis and Poa sylvestris plants. Expression of this protease may be important in endophytic infection of Poa spp., because similar activity has not been detected in endophyte-infected Festuca arundinacea or Lolium perenne.
Glucocorticoid receptor-DNA interactions: binding energetics are the primary determinant of sequence-specific transcriptional activity.

The glucocorticoid receptor (GR) is a member of the steroid receptor family of ligand-activated transcription factors. A long-standing question has focused on how GR and other receptors precisely control gene expression. One difficulty in addressing this is that GR function is influenced by multiple factors including ligand and coactivator levels, chromatin state, and allosteric coupling. Moreover, the receptor recognizes an array of DNA sequences that generate a range of transcriptional activities. Such complexity suggests that any single parameter—DNA binding affinity, for example—is unlikely to be a dominant contributor to function. Indeed, a number of studies have suggested that for GR and other receptors, binding affinity toward different DNA sequences is poorly correlated with transcriptional activity. As a step toward determining the factors most predictive of GR function, we rigorously examined the relationship between in vitro GR-DNA binding energetics and in vivo transcriptional activity. We first demonstrate that previous approaches for assessing affinity–function relationships are problematic due to issues of data transformation and linearization. Thus, the conclusion that binding energetics and transcriptional activity are poorly correlated is premature. Using more appropriate analyses, we find that energetics and activity are in fact highly correlated. Furthermore, this correlation can be quantitatively accounted for using simple binding models. Finally, we show that the strong relationship between energetics and transcriptional activity is recapitulated in multiple promoter contexts, cell lines, and chromatin environments. Thus, despite the complexity of GR function, DNA binding energetics are the primary determinant of sequence-specific transcriptional activity.
Efficacy and economics of fresh-market Bt transgenic sweet corn in Virginia

Abstract The effectiveness and cost of managing the suite of insect pests that attack sweet corn in Virginia were evaluated using multiple foliar applications of pyrethroid insecticides and Bt transgenic sweet corn in 2000 and 2002. Several Bt cultivars and their non-transgenic isolines were tested in different locations in Virginia to examine efficacy over a range of growing conditions and pest pressure. Overall, insect damage was far less in the Bt cultivars than in the non-Bt isolines that were not sprayed or sprayed with lambda-cyhalothrin up to six times. When insect pressure was low to moderate, Bt sweet corn did not require supplementary insecticide applications for a high percentage (⩾88%) of ears to be considered fresh-market quality. In contrast, when insect pressure was extremely high, Bt sweet corn required two insecticide applications for a high percentage (⩾88%) of ears to be considered fresh-market quality. Based on an economic comparison between insecticide-treated conventional sweet corn and Bt sweet corn, growers should expect a $547/ha gain by growing Bt sweet corn. If Bt sweet corn was sprayed twice with an insecticide, this gain should be approximately $1777/ha. We conclude that Bt sweet corn is an effective and economically sound pest management strategy for growers in Virginia.
Lying About Terrorism

Conventional wisdom holds that terrorism is committed for strategic reasons as a form of costly signaling to an audience. However, since over half of terrorist attacks are not credibly claimed, conventional wisdom does not explain many acts of terrorism. This article suggests that there are four lies about terrorism that can be incorporated in a rationalist framework: false claiming, false flag, the hot-potato problem, and the lie of omission. Each of these lies about terrorism can be strategically employed to help a group achieve its desired goal(s) without necessitating that an attack be truthfully claimed.
The effect of non-permissive temperature on Met-tRNA synthetase in Saccharomyces cerevisiae temperature-sensitive mutant ts 7-45

The effects of incubation of yeast spheroplasts at elevated temperature (40 degrees C) on a number of activities involved in protein biosynthesis have been examined in preparations obtained from wild-type cells (wt A364A ) and a temperature-sensitive mutant (ts 7-45) derived from it. With wild-type cells, preincubation of spheroplasts at the elevated temperature had little or no effect on the following: the ribosomal subunit-polysome pattern; the translation of exogenous natural mRNA in postpolysomal extracts devoid of endogenous mRNA; the translation of poly(U) in postpolysomal extracts; the incorporation of methionine into 40 S preinitiation and 80 S initiation complexes; the synthesis of Met-tRNA in postribosomal (cytosol) extracts; and the formation of eIF-2 X GTP X Met-tRNAf ternary complex in the cytosol. With temperature-sensitive spheroplasts that had not been preincubated at the elevated temperature, the concentration of free, native 40 S subunits appeared to be lower and that of 60 S subunits higher than in wild-type cells; translation of exogenous natural mRNA in postpolysomal extracts was somewhat lower than in wild-type preparations, but all of the other reactions and components measured were comparable to those in wild-type preparations. Preincubation of temperature-sensitive spheroplasts at 40 degrees C resulted in: a further decrease in the level of 40 S subunits; disaggregation of polysomes; loss of ability to translate natural mRNA but not poly(U); decreased ability to form 40 S preinitiation intermediates; and production of an activity, found in the cytosol, that inhibited Met-tRNA synthetase reversibly. The inhibitor had the characteristics of a protein and did not appear to be a proteinase, nuclease, or nucleotidase.
Determination of hydralazine in human whole blood.

Abstract The time required for the separation of plasma from the cellular components of blood can permit the in vitro loss of hydralazine. Thus, a high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) procedure for the measurement of hydralazine in blood has been developed. 4- Methylhydralazine was used as an internal standard. The addition of p -anisaldehyde led to the formation of the p -anisaldehyde hydrazones of hydralazine and the internal standard. HPLC on a reverse-phase cyano column provided an analytical procedure in which the average relative standard deviation over the concentration range of 1-160 ng/ml was 8.3%. Hydralazine pyruvic acid hydrazone, a known circulating metabolite of hydralazine, yielded only 0.05 mole % hydralazine when submitted to this assay procedure.
Toe Walking in Autism: Further Observations

Toe walking has been associated with language disorders and autism. To better understand the association between persistent toe walking and sensory and motor variables in children with autism, the degree of toe walking was compared with an estimate of the severity of sensory integration dysfunction symptoms and the presence of residual components of the tonic labyrinthine in supine reflex pattern in 61 children younger than 37 months of age with newly diagnosed autism. There was no association between the presence of toe walking and sensory symptoms (P = .5298) or language age (P = .6142), but there was an association between toe walking and the presence of components of the tonic labyrinthine reflex (P = .04222). These preliminary results support the contribution of subtle motor deficits to the evolution of some behaviors associated with autism.
Professional Development for Administrators in Special Education: Evaluation of a Program for Underrepresented Personnel

The Special Education Training Program (SETP) offers training for school administrators, focusing on bridging the gap between theory and practical application of knowledge needed to design, develop...
Fabrication of ultrathin SOI by SIMOX wafer bonding (SWB)

Ultrathin silicon-on-insulator (SOI) layers of separation by implantation of oxygen (SIMOX) wafers have been transferred onto thermally oxidized silicon wafers by wafer bonding technology. Due to the technical availability and the complementary nature of SIMOX and wafer bonding approaches, SIMOX wafer bonding (SWB) solves some of the respective major difficulties faced by both SIMOX and wafer bonding for device quality ultrathin SOI mass production: the preparation of adequate buried oxide (including its interfaces) in SIMOX and the uniformly thinning one of the bonded wafers to less than 0.1 μm in wafer bonding. The effect of positive charges in the oxide on bondability of ultrathin SOI films and possible applications of SWB will also be outlined.
Surgical repair of the ruptured Achilles Tendon Analysis of 40 patients treated by the same surgeon

Forty patients with acute ruptures of the Achilles tendon were treated surgically by the same physician (T.B.Q.) during a period of 1947 to 1971. The average followup was 19 years. Ninety percent of the patients were men (average age 37.5 years) who were engaged in recreational sport activities. The majority denied a physical conditioning program. The acute ruptures were treated by a surgical procedure which consisted of a 15-cm incision on the medial aspect of the tendon with either the plantaris muscle being woven through the Achilles tendon in a clockwise fashion or a pull-out wire, supplemented with silk mattress sutures, being used to repair the ruptured tendon. The wound was closed and the patient's leg was immobilized. The wire was removed at 6 weeks. The rehabilitation plan consisted of ambulation with a heel lift and elastic stocking (the height of the lift was gradually reduced) and toe exercises. The patients began walking downstairs backwards at 3 months and continued exercises until full range of motion was attained. Subjectively, the results were excellent as graded by the patients. Objectively, there were some minor deficits but they did not impede the overall function. On a scale of 1 (poor) to 4 (excellent), the clinical results were rated excellent (42%), good (36%), fair (15%), and poor (6%). This review has supported our contention that a positive Thompson test is a reliable indicator for a rupture of the Achilles tendon and that surgical treatment of complete ruptures is a successful mode by the procedure described followed by our rehabilitation program.
Study of the interfacial structure in epoxy bilayer films using neutron reflection

The interfacial structure in thin epoxy bilayer films was investigated with neutron reflection. For each experiment, a mixture of crosslinker and deuterated resin was spun onto a chemically similar, fully cured, protonated epoxy film. The reflectivity measurements were performed before and after curing the top epoxy film. We focused on the extent of penetration of the components of the top layer into the network of the bottom layer. The effect of the cure temperature of each layer was examined. In addition, the effect of the initial molecular weight of the oligomers in the top layer was probed by the partial curing of the mixture before spinning. As deposited, the components of the top layer penetrated the bottom layer to an extent that was largely independent of the aforementioned factors. The principal observation was that an additional penetration occurred with curing. This additional penetration was dependent upon both the molecular weight of the top layer and the cure temperature of the top layer relative to the glass-transition temperature of the bottom layer. A decrease in the thickness of the top layer with curing was also observed, which likely indicates some evaporation of oligomers. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 40: 1709–1718, 2002
Long-Lead Seasonal Temperature and Precipitation Prediction Using Tropical Pacific SST Consolidation Forecasts

Abstract Objective seasonal forecasts of temperature and precipitation for the conterminous United States are produced using tropical Pacific sea surface temperature forecasts for the Nino-3.4 region in conjunction with composites of observed temperature and precipitation keyed to phases of the ENSO cycle. The objective seasonal forecasts are validated against observations for the period February–March–April (FMA) 1995 to September–October–November (SON) 2002, and compared to NOAA's Official Seasonal Forecasts issued by the Climate Prediction Center (CPC) for the same period. The objective forecasts are shown to produce skill that is comparable to (and even exceeding) that achieved by the Official Seasonal Forecasts at all leads out to 12.5 months. The forecasts are divided into high-frequency (HF) and trend-adjusted (TA) components in order to show that seasonal forecasters could achieve higher skill in both temperature and precipitation forecasts by taking full advantage of trend information, especially...
On the shift of the quasielastic peak in inelastic electron scattering

Abstract By means of a cumulant expansion the shift of the quasielastic peak from its Fermi-gas position is related to exchage parts in the nuclear two-body interaction
The next decade of Solar System discovery with Pan-STARRS

The Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) at the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy is a funded project to repeatedly survey the entire visible sky to faint limiting magnitudes (mR ~ 24). It will be composed of four 1.8m diameter apertures each outfitted with fast readout orthogonal transfer Giga-pixel CCD cameras. A single aperture prototype telescopes has achieved first-light in the second half of 2006 with the full system becoming available a few years later. Roughly 60% of the surveying will be suitable for discovery of new solar system objects and it will cover the ecliptic, opposition and low solar-elongation regions. In a single lunation Pan-STARRS will detect about five times more solar system objects than the entire currently known sample. Within its first year Pan-STARRS will have detected 20,000 Kuiper Belt Objects and by the end of its ten year operational lifetime we expect to have found 107 Main Belt objects and achieve ~90% observational completeness for all NEOs larger than ~300m diameter. With these data in hand Pan-STARRS will revolutionize our knowledge of the contents and dynamical structure of the solar system.
Fabrication of a 34 × 34 Crossbar Structure at 50 nm Half-pitch by UV-based Nanoimprint Lithography

We have developed a single-layer UV-nanoimprint process, which was utilized to fabricate 34 × 34 crossbar circuits with a half-pitch of 50 nm (equivalent to a bit density of 10 Gbit/cm2). This process contains two innovative ideas to overcome challenges in the nanoimprint at shrinking dimensions. First, our new liquid resist formulation allowed us to minimize the residual resist layer thickness after curing and requires the relatively low imprint pressure of 20 psi. Second, by engineering the surface energy of the substrate we also eliminated the problem of trapped air during contact with the mold such that it spreads the resist and expels trapped air uniformly. Our overall process required fewer processing steps than any bilayer process and yielded high quality results at 50 nm half-pitch.
Effects of fibronectin and its peptide fragment on preimplantation mouse embryo

To investigate the involvement of fibronectin in the early development of mouse embryo, embryos at the two-cell stage were cultured in serum-free Ham F-10 medium with or without fibronectin-related substances. When antibody raised against fibronectin was added at concentrations of 0, 10− 3 , 10− 2 , and 2 × 10− 2 (vol:vol), the percentages of cells in the blastocyst stage at 72 hours were 88.5%, 67.2%, 48.1 %, and 0%, respectively. No inhibitory effects were observed with nonspecific antibody. A low concentration of exogenous fibronectin (up to 0.2 μmol/L) slightly enhanced mouse embryo development after 48 hours. However, a higher concentration (>0.4 μmol/L) of fibronectin inhibited mouse embryo development. A competitive blocker of cell membrane fibronectin receptors, oligopeptide (Gly-Arg-Gly-Asp-Ser), inhibited mouse embryo development in a dose-dependent manner. Meanwhile, control peptide (Gly-Arg-Gly-Glu-Ser-Pro), which does not contain the crucial cell binding sequence, did not show any inhibitory effects. These findings suggest the necessity of endogenous fibronectin-blastomere interaction in early mouse embryo development.
Seasonal profiles of plasma luteinizing hormone testosterone and estradiol in the ram.

Plasma profiles of luteinizing hormone (LH), testosterone (T), and estradiol (E2) have been determined in five mature rams during the primary breeding season (September) and again when breeding activity was low (May). Blood samples collected every halfh for 24 h during September or May showed that LH was released into the general circulation as distinct peaks. Although this secretory pattern was not the same for all rams and seasonal differences were noted in certain individuals, it is suggested that an inherent rhythm persists within each ram. With the exception of one ram in September, obvious T peaks were preceded by LH peaks greater than 2 ng/ml (LH-T interval <60 min). Season had no effect on die number and magnitude of LH peaks or on the mean concentrations; however, basal levels of LH were higher (P<0.01) in September than in May. Seasonal differences in peripheral T levels were more dramatic with mean, baseline, and peak concentrations elevated (P < 0.01) during the fall. The number of T peaks, li...
Thermodynamics, kinetics, and salt-dependence of folding of YopM, a large leucine-rich repeat protein

Small globular proteins have many contacts between residues that are distant in primary sequence. These contacts create a complex network between sequence-distant segments of secondary structure, which may be expected to promote the cooperative folding of globular proteins. Although repeat proteins, which are composed of tandem modular units, lack sequence-distant contacts, several of considerable length have been shown to undergo cooperative two-state folding. To explore the limits of cooperativity in repeat proteins, we have studied the unfolding of YopM, a leucine-rich repeat (LRR) protein of over 400 residues. Despite its large size and modular architecture (15 repeats), YopM equilibrium unfolding is highly cooperative, and shows a very strong dependence on the concentration of urea. In contrast, kinetic studies of YopM folding indicate a mechanism that includes one or more transient intermediates. The urea dependence of the folding and unfolding rates suggests a relatively small transition state ensemble. As with the urea dependence, we have found an extreme dependence of the free energy of unfolding on the concentration of salt. This salt dependence likely results from general screening of a large number of unfavorable columbic interactions in the folded state, rather than from specific cation binding.
Winter Catch-and-Release Hooking Mortality of Saugers below Lock and Dam 3 of the Mississippi River

Abstract We evaluated the effect of length and depth of capture of saugers Sander canadensis on winter hooking mortality below Lock and Dam 3 of the Mississippi River (i.e., Pool 4) by catching saugers using the most common recreational fishing gear in these fisheries (jig and plastic, jig and minnow, and jigging spoons) and holding the fish for 72 h in a net-pen. Sauger winter hooking mortality was 26.4% and increased with depth of capture. Thirty-three percent (56 of 172) of the saugers caught at depths of 9 to 24 m died, compared with only 2% (1 of 41) of those caught at depths of 9 m or less. There was no relationship between fish length and mortality; however, fish caught at depths of 12 m or less were significantly larger. We applied our hooking mortality estimates (26.4%) to a concurrent creel census and estimated that 2,500–2,900 kg of saugers were lost each year to winter hooking mortality. The percentage of total angling mortality (harvest and hooking) resulting from catch and release each winte...