cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Nested threshold cell discarding with dedicated buffers and fuzzy scheduling

This paper deals with overload control in asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) networks via priority cell discarding mechanisms. In the traditional nested threshold cell discarding (NTCD) mechanism a single queue is logically partitioned by a number of non-decreasing threshold levels. The number of threshold levels is equal to the number of traffic classes. Cell discarding depends on the class of a cell and the occupied queue length. As a result, only the highest class of traffic has its dedicated buffer at the tail of the queue. In the proposed mechanism, we allow each class to have a small portion of the dedicated buffer, thus achieving better performance in the cell loss rate for all classes of traffic. Adaptive scheduling using a fuzzy logic technology is also proposed to optimize the cell services sequence and reduce cell losses.
10 Reaction mechanisms

Computational studies of pericyclic reaction mechanisms have greatly enhanced our understanding of, and predictions regarding, reaction mechanisms. In recent years, the importance of non-statistical effects in pericyclic reactions, as studied using dynamics trajectory calculations, has been recognized. Some examples are the electrocyclic ring opening of the cyclopropyl radical, the Cope rearrangement of hepta-1,2,6-triene, and the rearrangement of bicyclo[n.1.0]polyenes. High quality mechanistic studies, though becoming less common, were also carried out. For example, two studies were published on vinylcyclobutane derivatives, one focusing on the thermal stereomutations and cycloreversions, and the other on the [1,3] sigmatropic reactions. The strength of the interplay between experiment and theory is demonstrated in studies of the intramolecular [4+2] cycloaddition of cyclobutadiene with tethered alkenes, in the use of isotope effects to determine the mechanism of an electron-transfer catalyzed Diels–Alder reaction, and in the degenerate interconversions of bicyclo[3.1.0]hex-2-ene.
Comparison of the Structures of Ammonium Myristate, Palmitate, and Stearate by X-ray Diffraction, Infrared Spectroscopy, and Infrared Hole Burning

X-ray diffraction studies of ammonium myristate and palmitate show crystals that belong to space group P21/n with the methylene groups packing in a triclinic subcell. The infrared spectra of the palmitate and stearate are similar as expected, but the bands of the myristate salt show additional splitting in the methylene rocking and twisting bands. A number of other factors of the myristate spectrum and of the infrared hole burning are unique as well. The differences show that the myristate salt has two molecules per spectroscopic unit cell, which are postulated to differ by small rotations of the polar carboxyl groups relative to the plane of the chain. A second form of ammonium myristate is found by crystallizing under different conditions.
Oral Communication Skills: Are the Priorities of the Workplace and AACSB-Accredited Business Programs Aligned?

Our purpose in this study was to assess the alignment of oral communication (OC) skills between the workplace and business schools. Drawing on theory related to communication interactivity, we diff...
Spatiotemporal Pattern Mining: Algorithms and Applications

With the fast development of positioning technology, spatiotemporal data has become widely available nowadays. Mining patterns from spatiotemporal data has many important applications in human mobility understanding, smart transportation, urban planning and ecological studies. In this chapter, we provide an overview of spatiotemporal data mining methods. We classify the patterns into three categories: (1) individual periodic pattern; (2) pairwise movement pattern and (3) aggregative patterns over multiple trajectories. This chapter states the challenges of pattern discovery, reviews the state-of-the-art methods and also discusses the limitations of existing methods.
Strain-Specific Differences in the Mechanisms of Progesterone Regulation of Murine Mammary Gland Development

Progesterone (P) is required for normal mammary gland development, and is implicated in the etiology of mammary cancer in rodents and humans. We analyzed mammary gland developmental responses to P and estrogen (E) in two strains of mice (BALB/c and C57BL/6) that exhibit differences in ductal development at sexual maturity and alveologenesis during pregnancy. C57BL/6 mice exhibited reduced proliferative and morphological responses to P. Analysis of known mediators of sidebranching and alveologenesis revealed that reduced P-induced expression of P receptor isoform B and receptor activator of nuclear factor-kappaB ligand (RANKL), as well as altered expression and regulation of cyclin D1, CCAAT/enhancer binding protein beta, and the downstream effectors of RANKL, nuclear Id2 and p21, contribute significantly to the reduced P responsiveness of the C57BL/6 mammary gland. In contrast, E responsiveness was greater in C57BL/6 than in BALB/c glands. E may play a compensatory role in C57BL/6 alveologenesis through its effect on the induction and activation of signal transducer and activator of transcription 5a, a known regulator of RANKL. These observations suggest that in human populations with heterogeneous genetic backgrounds, individuals may respond differentially to the same hormone. Thus, genetic diversity may have a role in determining the effects of P in normal mammary development and tumorigenesis.
What do we expect in magnetic activity in the current solar cycle

Nearly all geomagnetic perturbations that are of origin external to the earth are directly or indirectly caused by the sun. Therefore one would expect that, in general, geomagnetic activity would be high when the sun becomes active. While this may be true so far as the overall impressions from visual inspection of magnetograms are concerned, the relation between solar activity and geomagnetic activity is by no means simple. This is in part because the geomagnetic field undergoes many different types of variations which have vastly different magnitudes, time scales, and scale sizes. For instance, global effects of a severe magnetic storm may last for several days, or substorms that mainly disturb polar regions typically last from one to a few hours. At another extreme, magnetic pulsations that have periods from a fraction of 1 second to a few tens of minutes may sustain their activity more or less continuously or intermittently for several hours, or even days, or they may have isolated occurrences. Magnetic perturbations that are associated with large-scale disturbances have magnitudes from several tens to a few thousand nanoteslas (1 nT = 1γ), while magnetic pulsations have amplitudes from the order of picotesla (1 pT = 1 mγ) to tens of nanotesla. Thus one can define several different kinds of geomagnetic activity that represent diversely different disturbance phenomena. However, by the term ‘geomagnetic activity’ we usually mean large-scale disturbances that are mainly caused by magnetic storms and substorms, and we follow this convention here.
Poroviscoelastic cartilage properties in the mouse from indentation

A method for fitting parameters in a poroviscoelastic (PVE) model of articular cartilage in the mouse is presented. Indentation is performed using two different sized indenters and then these data are fitted using a PVE finite element program and parameter extraction algorithm. Data from a smaller indenter, a 15 mum diameter flat-ended 60 deg cone, is first used to fit the viscoelastic (VE) parameters, on the basis that for this tip size the gel diffusion time (approximate time constant of the poroelastic (PE) response) is of the order of 0.1 s, so that the PE response is negligible. These parameters are then used to fit the data from a second 170 mum diameter flat-ended 60 deg cone for the PE parameters, using the VE parameters extracted from the data from the 15 mum tip. Data from tests on five different mouse tibial plateaus are presented and fitted. Parameter variation studies for the larger indenter show that for this case the VE and PE time responses overlap in time, necessitating the use of both models.
Dependency of Renal Blood Flow on Prostaglandin Synthesis in the Dog

Inhibition of prostaglandin synthesis in chloralose-anesthetized dogs reduced renal blood flow, and this reduction closely correlated (r=0.92, P<0.01) with a decline in the renal efflux of a substance having the properties of PGE2. We used solvent extraction and thin-layer chromatography coupled with parallel bioassay to identify and assay the PGE- and PGF-like substances (expressed as PGE2 and PGF2α equivalents). Either of two antiinflammatory acids, indomethacin or meclofenamate, that inhibited conversion of 14C-arachidonic acid to prostaglandins in renal homogenates decreased the basal concentration of a PGE-like substance in renal venous blood to 0.06 ± 0.02 ng/ml from a mean control value of 0.34 ± 0.10 ng/ml (P<0.01). This change was associated with a mean reduction in renal blood flow of 45% in spite of increased renal perfusion pressure. Femoral blood flow and cardiac output were variably and insignificantly affected. Changes in the renal efflux of a PGF-like substance induced by indomethacin were...
Review: Corticosteroids reduce mechanical ventilation and ARDS in inpatients with community-acquired pneumonia

Source Citation Siemieniuk RA, Meade MO, Alonso-Coello P, et al. Corticosteroid therapy for patients hospitalized with community-acquired pneumonia: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Ann Inter...
Query-based Text Normalization Selection Models for Enhanced Retrieval Accuracy

Text normalization transforms words into a base form so that terms from common equivalent classes match. Traditionally, information retrieval systems employ stemming techniques to remove derivational affixes. Depluralization, the transformation of plurals into singular forms, is also used as a low-level text normalization technique to preserve more precise lexical semantics of text. Experiment results suggest that the choice of text normalization technique should be made individually on each topic to enhance information retrieval accuracy. This paper proposes a hybrid approach, constructing a query-based selection model to select the appropriate text normalization technique (stemming, depluralization, or not doing any text normalization). The selection model utilized ambiguity properties extracted from queries to train a composite of Support Vector Regression (SVR) models to predict a text normalization technique that yields the highest Mean Average Precision (MAP). Based on our study, such a selection model holds promise in improving retrieval accuracy.
Collective cognitive epidemiology: Introducing subjective parameters into disease spread models

Modern instances of disease emergence have shown that human subjective reactions to a novel disease can be as important as the objective reality of the disease spread. Therefore, this work introduces human cognitive heuristics and biases into epidemiological modeling. Human subjective perception and reaction to the presence of disease is represented in the difference between the objective and subjective probability of contagion. It is assumed that humans within a disease spread situation will have either limited or full information about the objective probability of contagion. From this information, humans subjectively react, forming a subjective assessment of the probability of contagion. Although the translation from the objective to the subjective probability of contagion is rooted in a biological basis, the translation has been adequately determined by previous research in Prospect Theory as developed by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. The formulation of Lotka-Volterra epidemiology models with parameters for perceived probability of contagion was followed by numerical experimentation and sensitivity analyses that determined values of the parameters that create cyclic population behavior, whether growing or dampened, as well as acyclic behavior. The results show that the model is capable of capturing stable as well as unstable behavior, and is able to model key epidemiological disease behaviors and states, such as epidemic and endemic conditions.
Public Policy and Antisocial Testators

This Article challenges the conventional wisdom that “deadhand” control by testators in certain situations is violative of public policy and should not be enforced. Specifically, it argues that many legacies conditioned on a beneficiary acting a certain way or doing a certain thing, such as not marrying or remarrying, should be enforced. This Article argues that the modern approach of disallowing conditions or restrictions on marital freedom in legacies is a product of a bygone era and that the reasons employed for invalidating such conditions are no longer sufficient justifications in the modern day for the current approach of courts. This conclusion is reached only after an examination of Roman, English, French, German, and especially American primary and secondary sources.
Topographical and Chemical Imaging of a Phase Separated Polymer Using a Combined Atomic Force Microscopy/Infrared Spectroscopy/Mass Spectrometry Platform

In this paper, the use of a hybrid atomic force microscopy/infrared spectroscopy/mass spectrometry imaging platform was demonstrated for the acquisition and correlation of nanoscale sample surface topography and chemical images based on infrared spectroscopy and mass spectrometry. The infrared chemical imaging component of the system utilized photothermal expansion of the sample at the tip of the atomic force microscopy probe recorded at infrared wave numbers specific to the different surface constituents. The mass spectrometry-based chemical imaging component of the system utilized nanothermal analysis probes for thermolytic surface sampling followed by atmospheric pressure chemical ionization of the gas phase species produced with subsequent mass analysis. The basic instrumental setup, operation, and image correlation procedures are discussed, and the multimodal imaging capability and utility are demonstrated using a phase separated poly(2-vinylpyridine)/poly(methyl methacrylate) polymer thin film. The ...
Cardiovascular Risks in a Military Health Care Beneficiary Population with High Blood Pressure

ABSTRACT Prevention strategies for coronary artery disease among hypertensive patients require assessment of other modifiable risk factors in the target population. In this article, we describe the prevalence of other cardiovascular risk factors in military beneficiaries with high blood pressure (HBP). Baseline data from an ongoing randomized clinical trial designed to test effectiveness of a comprehensive HBP intervention are used in the analysis. A total of 147 beneficiaries from a military health system participated in this study. Findings indicate that the rate of HBP control in this sample was suboptimal (32%: blood pressure < 140/90). Other prevalent cardiovascular risk factors include high cholesterol, obesity, and diabetes. Many of these patients (31.3%) are also in the moderate-to-high danger level of developing coronary artery disease in the near future. These findings warrant a regular assessment of cardiovascular risk factors and rigorous behavioral interventions for all beneficiaries of the m...
Mendicants and Medicine: Āyurveda in Jain Monastic Texts

While early canonical Jain literature may well justify the assessment that some scholars have made about the Jains’ stoic resistance to medical aid, later post-canonical Śvetāmbara Jain texts reveal in fact a much more complex relationship to practices of healing. They make frequent references to medical practice and the alleviation of sickness, describing various medical procedures and instruments and devoting long sections to the interaction between doctors and monastics as issues that a monastic community would have to negotiate as a matter of course. The amount of medical knowledge — indeed fascination with healing human ailments — evident in these later texts invites us to pause before concluding that pre-modern Jain monastic traditions were disinterested in alleviating physical distress. It seems that, on the contrary, the question of when and how to treat the sick within the community emerged as a central concern that preoccupied the monastic authorities and commentators and left its mark on the texts they compiled. Moreover, from the early medieval period onwards, Jains enter the history of Indian medical literature as authors and compilers of actual medical treatises. In what follows, I try to trace this historical shift in Śvetāmbara Jain attitudes to medicine and healing, from the early canonical texts to post-canonical commentaries on the mendicants’ rules. Specifically, I focus on the treatment of medicine in three monastic commentaries composed around the sixth and seventh centuries CE.
Federal Support of Fundamental Research in the Biological Sciences

It is appropriate indeed that this meeting of biological societies, sponsored by the American Institute of Biological Sciences, should be held at Minneapolis, with the University of Minnesota as host in this its centennial year. It is hardly necessary before this audience to note that this state is nationally and internationally known for its progressive record in the fields of agriculture and medicine. Led by one of the largest and greatest universities of the country, its research is notable in these and other fields of special interest to this meeting, such as botany, zoology, plant pathology, and genetics. When your Chairman invited me to address you on this occasion, I welcomed the opportunity, for it has been the plan of the National Science Foundation to initiate a strong program in fundamental research in the biological sciences.
Aberrant Behavior Checklist: Current Identity and Future Developments

Copyright: © 2012 Aman MG. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. The Aberrant Behavior Checklist (ABC) is a standardized problem behavior rating scale originally designed to assess treatment effects in people with Intellectual Disabilities (ID) [1,2]. It was developed in the early 1980s, because we, as researchers, could find no adequate instrument for assessing outcomes in individuals with ID. The upshot was a principal-components-derived tool encompassing five subscales and 58 items. The subscales were dubbed as follows: (1) Irritability, Agitation, Crying (15 items); (2) Lethargy/Social Withdrawal (16 items); (3) Stereotypic Behavior (7 items); (4) Hyperactivity/Noncompliance (16 items); and (5) Inappropriate Speech (4 items).
Epidemiological Studies of Chonorchis sinensis in the Selected Occupational Groups in Guangzhou

Objective To examine the prevalence of Chinese liver fluke Chonorchis sinensis in public servants, bank employees and medical professionals working in the regions of Dongshan, Liwan, and Yuexiu/Haizhu district in Guangzhou. Methods An improved Katov-Kato thick smear method was used to detect the eggs. Results A total of 1 204 participants were examined and 150 individuals were found to have infection of Chonorchis sinensis. The infection rate (12.46 %) was greater than the average infection rate in Guangzhou (6.59%,1988～2003) and the whole country (0.40%). Conclusion The incidence of infection by Chonorchis sinensis was high in these four regions. Therefore, we should strengthen the control programs through health education, and improvement of the living conditions.
A Hierarchical Probabilistic Model for Low Sample Rate Home-Use Energy Disaggregation.

Energy crisis and climate change have caused a global concern and motivated efforts to reduce energy consumption. Studies have shown that providing appliance-level consumption information can help users conserve a significant amount of energy. Existing methods focus on learning parallel signal signatures, but the inherent relationships between the signatures have not been well explored. This paper presents the Hierarchical Probabilistic Model for Energy Disaggregation (HPMED). We derive the discriminative features from low sample rate power readings to characterise device functional modes. The HPMED model bridges the discriminative features, working states, and aggregated consumption. To address the analytical intractable problem, an efficient algorithm is proposed to approximately infer the latent states for disaggregation task. Extensive experiments on a realworld dataset demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed
Corporate and Marketing Strategy in Health Care: How Do the Investor-Owned and Not-for-Profit Hospitals Differ?

It is clear that the for-profit, investor-owned multi-hospital systems have emulated successful business corporations with their emphasis on achieving economies of scale through consolidation and acquisition, as well as through an emphasis on marketing management. The problem facing the not-for-profit hospital is how to compete with the rapidly growing, well financed, and aggressively managed proprietaries. The only solution would seem to be cooperation in marketing programming and implementation, as well as in other shared services.
Tumors of the chest wall

Primary tumors of the chest wall are uncommon but should be considered in the evaluation of patients with persistent chest wall pain or the presence of a chest wall mass, especially when this is near the costal cartilages. Special radiographic techniques may help to define the diagnostic possibilities and the extent of local involvement. Since at least half of the primary rib tumors and virtually all of the sternal tumors are malignant, these problems demand prompt investigation, accurate tissue diagnosis, and, usually, generous surgical excision. With appropriate attention to skin, soft tissue, and skeletal involvement, resection of major chest wall tumors can be done safely, and there are a variety of reconstructive techniques available to deal with the resulting defects. Radiotherapy has little role in the treatment of chest wall tumors except for the myeloproliferative disorders and possibly some cases of Ewing's sarcoma. Chemotherapy has similarly been ineffective for the cartilaginous tumors but shows some promise in the multidisciplinary approach to osteogenic sarcoma. Surgical resection, however, remains the mainstay for the treatment of most tumors of the chest wall. Even in instances of recurrent disease there are many whose long-term survival has been achieved by multiple operative procedures.
Results of Atom Interferometry Experiments with Potassium

Results of high flux atom interferometry experiments with potassium in generalized Talbot-Lou configurations are presented. The interferometer consists of a sequence of three planar vacuum-slit diffraction gratings, microfabricated from silicon nitride membranes. Interference fringes are sensed by measuring the transmission of atoms on a hot-wire as a function of grating relative position. Different spatial Fourier components in the diffraction pattern are resonant in the interferometer at different atomic velocities. When a laser cooled slow beam is incident, various different diffraction patterns are observed as a function of atomic velocity, selected via the tuning of cooling lasers. In an alternative “Heisenberg Microscope” configuration an incident thermal beam produces a velocity average over different fringe patterns that averages over and washes out the high frequency Fourier components. In this configuration AC modulated laser light passes through the interferometer. Via the Doppler shift, it is scattered only by atoms in a narrow velocity band. Since imaging of the fluorescent light could determine which slit an atom passes, the laser destroys, and thereby reveals via the AC modulation, the associated high-frequency fringe contribution.
The Contours and Limits of the Content-Neutral Cases

Chapter 6 continues my interpretive examination of cases, with a look at content-neutral laws, following the same interpretive methods I set out at the start of Chapter 5. In Chapter 4, my statistical analysis showed two patterns for content-neutral laws that are consistent with my expectations for the content-neutrality jurisprudential regime. The first is that after the content-neutrality regime was established, the justices were more likely to uphold content-neutral laws than content-based laws. Content-neutral laws were not given a free pass, however. Since 1972, such regulations of expression have been subject to intermediate scrutiny, which is a fairly demanding standard of review for the government to meet, so the second pattern is that the justices were more likely to uphold content-neutral laws prior to the content-neutrality regime being established in 1972 than they were after 1972.
C(sp3)–C(sp2) cross-coupling of alkylsilicates with borylated aryl bromides – an iterative platform to alkylated aryl- and heteroaryl boronates

The attractive field of iterative cross-coupling has seen numerous advances, although almost exclusively in the union of sp2-hybridized partners. Conspicuously absent from this useful synthetic manifold is the inclusion of sp3-hybridized pronucleophiles that can undergo transmetalation under mild conditions. Described here is the use of primary and secondary ammonium alkylsilicates, which undergo facile C(sp3)–C(sp2) cross-coupling with borylated aryl bromide partners under photoredox/nickel dual catalysis conditions. This operationally simple procedure allows the production of alkylated small molecules possessing boronate ester (BPin, Bneopentyl, BMIDA) functional handles. Because of the extremely mild reaction conditions and the innocuous byproduct generated upon fragmentative oxidation of silicates, the corresponding borylated compounds were isolated in good to excellent yields. Aryl bromides bearing unprotected boronic acids are also generally tolerated for the first time and prove useful in multistep syntheses. Unlike many previously reported photoredox/Ni dual cross-couplings, the C(sp3)–C(sp2) bonds were forged using a transition metal-free photocatalyst, allowing a substantial increase in sustainability as well as a cost reduction. Because the developed Ni-catalyzed cross-coupling does not require discrete boron speciation control, as in many popular orthogonal Pd-based methods, this protocol represents a significant advance in atom- and step-economy.
Memory, history, illness: The female body and the body politic in Ana Maria Machado's Tropical sol da liberdade

ABSTRACTThis article discusses Ana Maria Machado's 1988 novel Tropical sol da liberdade in order to examine the dialects of remembering and forgetting trauma, and the female body as the symbolic site where such dialectics takes place. The trauma in question is both personal and political, and it is a result of events that occurred during the military dictatorship in Brazil: the protagonist's indirect involvement in the fight against the dictatorship, imprisonment, exile, and loss of friends and family members. The protagonist's sick body is a symptom of the psychological trauma she incurred, and the healing process necessitates resolving the dialects of remembering and forgetting the traumatic political and personal events of the past.
Magnetic and Direct Current Stimulation for Stroke

Noninvasive brain stimulation (NIBS) is rapidly emerging as a promising neuromodulation technique to understand and enhance brain plasticity after stroke. There are two basic types of NIBS—transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). Single-pulse TMS is used to examine neurophysiological changes after stroke and after intervention-related recovery. Repetitive and patterned TMS are used to upregulate and downregulate cortical excitability in order to prime the brain for subsequent motor rehabilitation. tDCS is also shown to modulate the excitability of cortical neurons, and is associated with improvements in motor behavior in stroke survivors. In this chapter, we review the different types of NIBS, physiological mechanisms, and their application to post-stroke motor recovery. The limitations associated with these techniques are explained, along with recommendations for future use.
Photoacoustic Imaging for Cancer Diagnosis and Therapy Guidance

Photoacoustic imaging uses light as an excitation source and ultrasound imaging to detect sound waves generated by the optically-excited targets and to form images of optical absorption. With the nonionization nature of light waves and the well-established, portable, and cost-effective ultrasound imaging devices, photoacoustic imaging is capable of real-time imaging and is especially suitable for continuous and repetitive imaging of disease sites for long-term monitoring of disease progression or therapeutic outcome. This imaging technique typically offers the submillimeter imaging resolution of tissue at centimeter depths, although, by sacrificing imaging depth, the resolution could be further scaled down to the submicrometer range to reveal the organelle. Because of these advantages, photoacoustic imaging is capable of monitoring blood flow speed, detecting metabolic blood oxygen level of tumors, producing angiography of tumor vasculature networks, and tracing molecular probes to visualize the molecular pathology of cancer in vivo. Furthermore, it can also be used to noninvasively map the change of temperature distribution during thermal cancer therapy. This chapter introduces the physical mechanisms of photoacoustic signal generation in both homogenous and heterogeneous mediums, discusses the recent development of photoacoustic imaging, highlights its abilities to provide functional and molecular information about the tissue, and reviews its diagnostic use in thermal imaging. Finally, the applications of photoacoustic imaging in cancer therapies are reviewed and future outlooks for this promising translational imaging modality are considered.
An investigation of the association between foster care, body image, and BMI: A propensity score analysis

Abstract Research suggests body image can be related to physical, mental, and sexual health. Youth in foster care experience disparities in all three of these areas. However, research exploring body image among foster youth is scant. This study assessed the association between foster care, BMI, and body image among a matched sample from a nationally representative dataset. In bivariate analysis, youth in foster care had significantly higher BMI and reported more frustration with their appearance than the matched sample of non-foster care youth. However, in models controlling for BMI, foster care had non-significant associations with body image. Implications are discussed.
Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy (DRS) of radiation-induced re-oxygenation in sensitive and resistant head and neck tumor xenografts

Currently, anatomical assessment of tumor volume performed several weeks after completion of treatment is the clinical standard to determine whether a cancer patient has responded to a treatment. However, functional changes within the tumor could potentially provide information regarding treatment resistance or response much earlier than anatomical changes. We have used diffuse reflectance spectroscopy to assess the short and long-term re-oxygenation kinetics of a human head and neck squamous cell carcinoma xenografts in response to radiation therapy. First, we injected UM-SCC-22B cell line into the flank of 50 mice to grow xenografts. Once the tumor volume reached 200 mm 3 (designated as Day 1), the mice were distributed into radiation and control groups. Members of radiation group underwent a clinical dose of radiation of 2 Gy/day on Days 1, 4, 7, and 10 for a cumulative dose of 8 Gy. DRS spectra of these tumors were collected for 14 days during and after therapy, and the collected spectra of each tumor were converted to its optical properties using a lookup table-base inverse model. We found statistically significant differences in tumor growth rate between two groups which is in indication of the sensitivity of this cell line to radiation. We further acquired significantly different contents of hemoglobin and scattering magnitude and size in two groups. The scattering has previously been associated with necrosis. We furthermore found significantly different time-dependent changes in vascular oxygenation and tumor hemoglobin concentration in post-radiation days.
Is Economics a Science? Social or Biophysical?

We start with a review of the basic ideas of some important economists as given in Chap. 2. Economies exist independently of how we perceive or choose to study them. For more or less accidental reasons, we have chosen over the past 140 years to consider and study economics as a social science. The present social science focus, however, was not particularly the case with earlier economists, before, say, 1880, who were more likely to ask «where does wealth come from?» than are most mainstream economists today. In general, these earlier economists started their economic analysis with the natural biophysical world, probably simply because they had common sense but also because they deemed inadequate the perspective of earlier mercantilists who had emphasized sources of wealth as «treasure» (e.g., precious metals) derived from mining or trade or plunder. In the first formal school of economics, the French physiocrats (e.g., Quesnay 1758; see Christensen [1, 2]) focused on land as the basis for generating wealth.
Between the devil and the deep blue sea(m) : a case study exploring the borders between work and life domains described by women in the U.S. apparel industry

The study explored the border management between work and life domains as described by women working in the U.S. fashion industry. Clark’s (2000) work-family border theory lent to the study a framework for how people manage and negotiate their work and family domains and the borders between domains. The interpretation from a qualitative case study approach, which triangulated semi-structured interviews and field observations of five women working in the fashion industry in New York City and Philadelphia revealed two theme categories: (a) grand view triggering events and effects and (b) every day triggering events and effects. Implications derived from the results offer several important opportunities. Corporate human resource departments may want to utilize the study’s findings to cultivate a work environment that may be more sustainable in the long term with reasonable work expectations and more supportive role models.
Girls, Media, and Sexuality: The Case for Feminist Ethics

The analysis of media representations of female sexuality has sparked ongoing scholarly debates in which the harms of sexualization are counterpoised against the notion of a “moral panic” over girls’ sexual expression. However, the polarized terms of the debate fail to account for the importance of radical contextualization in analyzing the mediation of girls’ sexuality. Using the Aristotelian concept of Eudaimonia, or the ideal of a “flourishing life,” and its basis in the material conditions of existence, it is proposed here that issues of power, vulnerability, and the politics of location must be taken into account in feminist media studies such that sexual representation’s connections with gendered social inequalities and injustices are recognized and redressed.
Internet Markets and Algorithmic Competition: The Rest of the Story

This paper, presented at the Oxford Conference "Online Markets and Offline Welfare Effects," explores two areas that were not the focus of the conference but that are quite important to how competition law will deal with Internet markets and their challenges: (1) the role of private rights of action and (2) the role of legal regimes other than the European Union and the United States. The paper argues that private actions will be needed to fill gaps in public enforcement and that regimes outside the EU and US may provide necessary perspective on Internet market issues through their consideration of "public interest" factors, as required in many of their statutes.
Characterization of Ultracapacitors for Transient Load Applications

Ultracapacitors (UCs) are of increasing interest in different application areas, such as microgrids and transportation, which demand high transient power and are growing in capability every day. New power system architectures have been proposed that may be well suited to reliably and efficiently supply power to these previously unseen applications. Among the architectures that hold a great deal of promise are hybrid energy storage modules that integrate energy dense batteries with power dense UCs into a single power supply that augments traditional generation technologies. Within such architecture, the UC is the element that may be utilized to sink and source power quickly, at the leading or falling edge of a transient event. Considerable advances have been made to increase both the power and energy density, respectively, of UCs. Significant reduction of the internal impedance has resulted in an increased power capability that makes UCs well suited for use in these applications. Hybrid UC technologies, such as lithium-ion capacitors, have been developed, which have much higher energy density with nearly the same power density. In an effort to better understand and validate the capabilities of new UC technologies, a series of experiments has been performed on cells from four different manufacturers. Novel experimental testbeds and methods have been used to measure each technology’s internal impedance and power density. The experimental testbed utilized, along with the results collected to date, will be presented.
Scalable IP Core for Feed Forward Random Networks

Feed forward random networks enable classification and regression tasks at high speed compared to networks using back propagation. In this research, a scalable and reconfigurable IP core for inference and training of one such network, known as the extreme learning machine (ELM), is proposed. The architecture utilizes a compute-lite learning rule that supports deployment on low-end mobile platforms. A representative study shows that the network achieves \({\sim }\)91% classification accuracy on the MNIST dataset with 16-bit precision and 200 hidden layer neurons. The design facilitates training an MNIST image in 70 \(\upmu \)s at 90 MHz operating frequency on a Virtex-7 (XC7VX690T) FPGA.
Design of Optimal Feedback Control with Cost Functionals of Constrained Structure

Within the framework of optimal control theory, a feedback design approach is proposed which results in explicit solutions for the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equation, and consequently, yields optimal control laws in analytical form. To exploit this advantage, the closed-loop performance measure is exclusively selected from a parametric family of cost functionals constructed with a purposeful structural constraint to inevitably produce explicit solutions for the HJB equation. This constraint indeed narrows down the scope of the proposed approach; yet, it is shown by several examples that this approach can successfully address certain classes of feedback design problems.
CryoEM Structure of the Vibrio cholerae Type IV Pilus Secretin PilQ

Natural competence is the process by which bacteria take up genetic material from their environment and integrate it into their genome using homologous recombination. In Vibrio cholerae, the Type IV pilus (T4P) is thought to mediate DNA uptake by binding DNA and retracting back toward the cell. How the DNA enters the periplasm is unclear. One hypothesis suggests that the DNA-bound T4P retracts completely so that the DNA would pass through the outer membrane secretin pore (PilQ). PilQ is a 870 kDa outer membrane pore with C14 symmetry. Here, we purify the V. cholerae PilQ secretin from V. cholerae cells in amphipols for single particle cryogenic electron microscopy (cryoEM). We solve the structure to 3.5 A and provide insight on the channel DNA may traverse through during uptake.
Instrumentation and Technique

Fundamental to the instrumentation and technique is a definition of the alignments of the bones of the lower extremity and accounting for the forces transmitted during activities. Lines or axes defined in the femur and tibia provide references for the bone cuts at the knee for component seating. Standard surgical techniques aim to restore the mechanical axis through the center of the knee with the joint line perpendicular. The guides are the intramedullary canal of the femur, and the external axis of the tibia from knee to ankle. In the sagittal view, a normal tibial slope achieves adequate flexion and avoids instability. Using mechanical instruments, a high percentage of cases are aligned to within 3 degrees, the follow-up evidence being that this is sufficiently accurate to avoid problems of abnormal force distribution. Consideration is currently being given to vary the frontal alignment to account for individual patient variations, by using kinematic alignment or other techniques. Computer-assisted surgery can produce advantages such as surgical simplicity or greater accuracy and optimal planning of component placement. Examples are patient-specific instrumentation (PSI), computer navigation, robot surgery, and inertial measurement units (IMUs) cutting guides. Soft tissue balancing is important, aided by tensors or electronic balancing devices. Studies are under way to determine if the newer techniques result in improved function.
Preparation of Mono- and Diisocyanates in Flow from Renewable Carboxylic Acids

Diisocyanates used in polyurethanes are commonly prepared by phosgenation of petroleum-sourced diamines. This involves highly toxic phosgene and produces corrosive HCl, limiting synthetic applicati...
To screen or not to screen: an interactive framework for comparing costs of mass malaria treatment interventions.

Mass drug administration and mass-screen-and-treat interventions have been used to interrupt malaria transmission and reduce burden in sub-Saharan Africa. Determining which strategy will reduce costs is an important challenge for implementers; however, model-based simulations and field studies have yet to develop consensus guidelines. Moreover, there is often no way for decision-makers to directly interact with these data and/or models, incorporate local knowledge and expertise, and re-fit parameters to guide their specific goals. We propose a general framework for comparing costs associated with mass drug administrations and mass screen and treat based on the possible outcomes of each intervention and the costs associated with each outcome. We then used publicly available data from six countries in western Africa to develop spatial-explicit probabilistic models to estimate intervention costs based on baseline malaria prevalence, diagnostic performance, and sociodemographic factors (age and urbanicity). In addition to comparing specific scenarios, we also develop interactive web applications which allow managers to select data sources and model parameters, and directly input their own cost values. The regional-level models revealed substantial spatial heterogeneity in malaria prevalence and diagnostic test sensitivity and specificity, indicating that a “one-size-fits-all” approach is unlikely to maximize resource allocation. For instance, urban communities in Burkina Faso typically had lower prevalence rates compared to rural communities (0.151 versus 0.383, respectively) as well as lower diagnostic sensitivity (0.699 versus 0.862, respectively); however, there was still substantial regional variation. Adjusting the cost associated with false negative diagnostic results to included additional costs, such as delayed treated and potential lost wages, undermined the overall costs associated with MSAT. The observed spatial variability and dependence on specified cost values support not only the need for location-specific intervention approaches but also the need to move beyond standard modeling approaches and towards interactive tools which allow implementers to engage directly with data and models. We believe that the framework demonstrated in this article will help connect modeling efforts and stakeholders in order to promote data-driven decision-making for the effective management of malaria, as well as other diseases.
The catalytic dwell in ATPases is not crucial for movement against applied torque.

The ATPase-catalysed conversion of ATP to ADP is a fundamental process in biology. During the hydrolysis of ATP, the α3β3 domain undergoes conformational changes while the central stalk (γ/D) rotates unidirectionally. Experimental studies have suggested that different catalytic mechanisms operate depending on the type of ATPase, but the structural and energetic basis of these mechanisms remains unclear. In particular, it is not clear how the positions of the catalytic dwells influence the energy transduction. Here we show that the observed dwell positions, unidirectional rotation and movement against the applied torque are reflections of the free-energy surface of the systems. Instructively, we determine that the dwell positions do not substantially affect the stopping torque. Our results suggest that the three resting states and the pathways that connect them should not be treated equally. The current work demonstrates how the free-energy landscape determines the behaviour of different types of ATPases. Despite the fundamental role of ATPase in catalysing ATP hydrolysis, the structural and energetic aspects of this process are not fully understood. Coarse-grained computational models have now been used to calculate the free-energy surfaces of different types of ATPases. The catalytic dwell is shown not to be crucial for movement against applied torque.
APOL1 risk variants impair multiple mitochondrial pathways in a metabolomics analysis

Background: Kidney risk variants (KRVs) in the apolipoprotein L1 gene (APOL1) are associated with mitochondrial dysfunction. However, the molecular spectrum of metabolites impacted by the G1 and G2 KRVs and the downstream mitochondrial pathways they affect remain unknown. Methods: We performed a metabolomics analysis using HEK293 Tet-on cells conditionally expressing APOL1 G0, and G1 and G2 KRVs to determine the patterns of metabolites and pathways potentially involved in nephropathy. Welch9s two-sample t-test, matched pairs t-test, and two-way repeated measures ANOVA were employed to identify differential metabolites. Random Forest, a supervised classification algorithm that uses an ensemble of decision trees, and the mean decrease accuracy (MDA) metric were applied to prioritize top metabolites. Results: Alterations in the tricarboxylic acid cycle, increased fatty acid oxidation, and compromised redox homeostasis were the major pathways impacted by overexpression of APOL1 KRVs. Conclusion: Impairment of mitochondrial membrane respiratory chain complex I appeared to account for critical metabolic consequences of APOL1 KRVs. This finding supports depletion of the mitochondrial membrane potential, as has been reported.