cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
A decentralized real-time electricity market mechanism for autonomous microgrids

The emergence of new technologies has led to the development of modern power grids and the explosion of “smarter” power grids in which the electricity generation is getting more decentralized. In this paper, we propose a real-time electricity marketing mechanism for the autonomous micro-grids. Our model is designed to meet the local energy demands while being self-sufficient and achieving high social satisfaction level of its associated producer/consumers (prosumers). To achieve this goal, in our proposed mechanism, the prosumers are clustered and represented by one high-level representative that is called the aggregator. Each aggregator is responsible to participate in the real-time market and make the decision on energy trading to meet the local power consumption demands, maintain the local financial stability, and maximize the satisfaction level of its associated prosumers. Our proposed marketing mechanism leverages a variation of the El-Farol bar problem to model the strategy of the aggregators. Furthermore, to evaluate the satisfaction of the prosumers toward the policy of the local electricity marketing, our proposed mechanism also defines and implements a social sensing model. In our simulations, we evaluate the performance of our electricity marketing mechanism by using a microgrid consisting of eight clusters of prosumers. The simulation results illustrate the effectiveness of our mechanism in achieving self-sufficiency and relative optimality in terms of load shedding and cumulative financial profit and residential customers' satisfaction.
Re-Conceptualizing Social Value: Applying the Capability Approach in Social Enterprise Research

In an effort to develop a unified perspective of the term social value, this paper argues that it should be viewed through the lens of the capability approach. A sample of 34 empirical research art...
Illness, poverty, and the invisible patient.

The editor introduces an issue on the relationship between poverty and illness by suggesting that children, men, and women from low socioeconomic backgrounds are often marginalized in the current health care system. Virtual Mentor is a monthly bioethics journal published by the American Medical Association.
Perceptions of emotions in expressive storytelling.

Whereas experimental studies on emotional speech often control for neutral semantics, speech in naturalistic speech corpora is characterized by contextual cues and non-neutral semantic content. Moreover, the target emotion of an utterance is generally unknown and must be inferred by the listener. Within the context of having child-directed expressive text-to-speech synthesis as goal, we describe a perceptual study based on an expressive spoken corpus of children’s stories with unknown emotional targets, and report on interannotator agreement in a forced-choice discrimination task. Moreover, a threshold of high agreement was used to establish subsets of confident exemplar utterances for emotional classes, comprising 35% of the initial corpus. The exemplars were clustered based on the differences from the default mean neutral for 11 global acoustic features, yielding clusters cutting across emotion boundaries, some of which reflected arousal levels, with the neutral exemplars showing particularly complex distributions. Moreover, the mean features for four emotional exemplar categories were contrasted against the default, finding both expected and contradictory tendencies, compared to previous reports. The results indicate that semantic and prosodic cues collaborate to express and reinforce emotional contents, while emotional sequencing seems likely to be another factor which contributes to emotional perception in this domain.
Kinematics: measuring terrane displacements

The Kinematics of terranes generally refers to relative motions among terranes or between one or more terranes and a specified continent. In order to discuss terranes and the measurements of their relative displacements, several words warrant defining. Allochthonous is an adjective that denotes that a terrane, rock body, sand grain (or any other entity) has moved from its place of origin. The actual body that has moved is the allochthon, and the relative amount of movement is its allocthoniety. Autochthonous is an adjective that requires that the body (autochthon) in question has not moved from its place of origin with respect to the adjoining craton. Parautochthonous, as used here, implies relatively small displacements that are always in the domain of the continent within which the crustal fragment was formed (a parautochthon generally implies a fragment indigenous to the continent, with or without crystalline basement). Exotic implies that part of the history of a given terrane was in a foreign setting, spatially separate from the continent to which it is now attached. Thus, a collage of suspect terranes consists of allochthonous crustal fragments, but the allochthoneity of the individual terranes may vary considerably from one terrane to another, and not all terranes in a collage are necessarily exotic. For example, in the western Tethyan foldbelt involving the Pyrenees and European Alps, the terranes (nappes) are not likely to be exotic, because the ocean basins that lay between Africa and Europe were relatively small; whereas from about the modern Aegean Sea eastward, the ancient Tethyan Sea widened enough to afford the likelihood that many terranes in the eastern Tethyan foldbelt are truly exotic.
Participatory Transaction in Dance/Movement Therapy

This article has two purposes: (a) to describe the intersections among dance/movement therapy, transpersonal participatory theory, and experiential education; and (b) to discuss the practice insights that arose from the creation of a conference workshop in relation to this theoretical integration. The author presented a workshop in Prague, Czech Republic, at the International Transpersonal Conference (ITC) in September 2017. This workshop involved an exploration of the transformational aspects of movement, intersubjectivity, and cocreated meaning elicited in dance/movement therapy, and the formation and performance of group narrative. This paper explores the theoretical underpinnings that guided the construction of this conference workshop in dance/movement therapy, integrating theory from multiple disciplines. The paper will also explore the value of, and issues pertaining to, conference workshop construction. The term participatory transaction will be introduced, defining a phenomenon whereby all members of an educational experience, in the act of cocreation, receive benefits therein.
Simultaneous Bilateral Knee Dislocation During Weight Training: A Case Report and Review of the Literature.

Case We describe the clinical course and treatment of a patient who sustained simultaneous bilateral knee dislocation under low-velocity atraumatic conditions, and provide a review of the literature. Dislocations of the native knee joint are uncommon orthopaedic injuries but they are true emergencies because of the concern for concomitant neurovascular injury; therefore, they may be limb-threatening injuries. Conclusion To our knowledge, there are few reports of simultaneous bilateral knee dislocation and no reports of this occurring during weight training. The risk of knee dislocation can be reduced by avoiding locking and hyperextension of the knees during any type of leg press or squatting exercise.
Abstract WP278: Demographic Disparities in Extended Use of Tissue Plasminogen Activase in Acute Stroke Patients Treated via Telestroke

Introduction: Disparities have been demonstrated in acute ischemic stroke (AIS) treatment between age, gender, and racial/ethnic groups. Telestroke (TS) has been noted to decrease disparities in AIS care. As AIS management via TS increases and the inclusion criteria for tPA expands, it is crucial to evaluate differences among patients of various age, gender, and race/ethnicity with extended use of tPA (EU-tPA). EU-tPA was defined as patients with relative contraindications as per 2016 AHA/ASA scientific statement, and who have consented to receive EU-tPA. Hypothesis: We hypothesized that EU-tPA is administered at similar frequencies among patients of different age, gender, and racial/ethnic groups via TS. Methods: From 9/2015-3/2016, we identified 136 suspected AIS patients with reported relative contraindications to tPA in our TS registry who were evaluated by video consultation at one of 17 spoke hospitals. We compared the likelihood of receiving EU-tPA among patients of different age, gender, and racia...
The impact of queue length rounding and delayed app information on Disney world queues

Many service systems provide queue length information to customers to aid their decisions of what queue to join. One example is at Walt Disney World (WDW), where waiting times are posted to customers via an app. However, it has been observed that the real waiting times are not posted in the app. In fact, WDW rounds the waiting time up to nearest five minute interval. In this paper, we build a simulation model to study the impact of rounding this information and when the information is lagged. We show that rounding or delaying information can result in oscillations in the queue length process. Moreover, increasing the rounding parameter or the delay in information causes oscillations to increase. We also demonstrate that our queueing model can mimic the observed dynamics in the data seen in WDW. Thus, we show the importance of understanding the impact of rounding or delaying information.
Interlayer excitons in bilayer transitional metal dichalcogenide (Conference Presentation)

Van der Waals semiconductors provide a platform for creating two-dimensional crystals layer-by-layer and engineering excitonic states therein with exceptional properties. We discuss here a few interesting opportunities enabled by interlayer excitons in bilayer transitional metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), including high valley polarizations, lasing in 2D cavities, and tunable interlayer excitons in homo-bilayers. Monolayer TMDs feature spin-valley locking, enabling valleytronic phenomena and applications. However, strong inter-valley scattering due to electron hole exchange interactions leads to rapid valley depolarization in picoseconds, making it difficult to achieve a high degree of valley polarization. The electron-hole exchange interaction becomes suppressed for interlayer excitons in heterobilayers with type II band alignment. We show highly polarized interlayer excitons with a long valley lifetimein in both spin singlet and brightened triplet states in hetero-bilayers. TMDs have also garnered intense interest as an active medium, for they feature very strong exciton-photon interactions in a monolayer. However, the rapid radiative decay makes it challenging to establish population inversion. Interlayer excitons decay much more slowly, comparable to excitons in quantum wells of conventional semiconductors. When the interlayer exciton are integrated on a cavity, lasing was established at the cavity resonance accompanied by increased temporal and spatial coherence. Lastly, due to the strong intra-layer localization of the carriers in 2D materials, interlayer excitons co-exist with intra-layer excitons as meta-stable states even in homo-bilayers without artificial interfaces. These interlayer excitons also feature oscillator strengths between intra-layer excitons and inter-layer ones in hetero-structures, offering a potentially highly tunable system for 2D optoelectronics.
Shifting cervical lymphadenopathy in Hashimoto’s disease

Hashimoto's disease typically presents with hypothyroidism due to lymphocytic infiltration of the thyroid. Cervical lymphadenopathy has rarely been reported in Hashimoto's disease. We report the unusual association of shifting cervical lymphadenopathy with Hashimoto's disease.
Insights on usability and user feedback for an assistive robotic health companion with adaptive linguistic style

Socially assistive robots help the human in everyday tasks. In particular, they can also provide assistance with regard to health and wellbeing, which is an important opportunity to support the independence of the elderly. Since spoken language often carries the essential information, the robot's verbal communication style is of special interest. In order to explore individual user's preferences with regard to the robot's linguistic style we built an autonomous, assistive health companion. It is operated with a custom hardware control panel and offers games, jokes, health-related recommendations, applications for information retrieval and communication. This paper reports on insights from the in-situ user study with regard to the system's usability and participants' feedback.
Comparison Between Information Provided by Radar and AIS in The Integrated Vessel Traffic Systems

The present paper contains comparison between the oncoming information from shore based radar and AIS in the integrated vessel traffic management and information system of Bulgaria (VTMIS). The experiments are based on using records of real traffic from the coverage area of the system. Comparison between positions, courses and speeds of moving and anchored targets provided by the radar and AIS subsystems respectively, are presented in this paper. The accuracy of both data is estimated and compared with the accuracy required by IALA.
Properties of Nb3Sn films fabricated by magnetron sputtering from a single target

Abstract Superconducting Nb3Sn films were fabricated on sapphire and fine grain Nb substrates by magnetron sputtering from a single stoichiometric Nb3Sn target. The structural, morphological and superconducting properties of the films annealed for 24 h at temperatures of 800–1000 °C were investigated. The effect of the annealing time at 1000 °C was examined for 1, 12, and 24 h. The film properties were characterized by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, and Raman spectroscopy. The DC superconducting properties of the films were characterized by a four-point probe measurement down to cryogenic temperatures. The RF surface resistance of films was measured over a temperature range of 6–23 K using a 7.4 GHz sapphire-loaded Nb cavity. As-deposited Nb3Sn films on sapphire had a superconducting critical temperature of 17.21 K, which improved to 17.83 K when the film was annealed at 800 °C for 24 h. For the films annealed at 1000 °C, the surface Sn content was reduced to ~11.3% for an annealing time of 12 h and to ~4.1% for an annealing time of 24 h. The Raman spectra of the films confirmed the microstructural evolution after annealing. The RF superconducting critical temperature of the as-deposited Nb3Sn films on Nb was 16.02 K, which increased to 17.44 K when the film was annealed at 800 °C for 24 h.
A Case Report of Splenic Rupture Secondary to Underlying Angiosarcoma.

Primary splenic angiosarcoma is a rare type of cancer that has not been well-illustrated due to infrequency and variability in patient presentation. Limited systemic therapy regimens for splenic angiosarcoma make early detection preferable, as management focuses on monitoring for recurrence and metastatic spread or preventing hemorrhagic complications of tumor burden such as splenic rupture. This cancer, in particular, is aggressive, and metastasis is common. Here, we discuss a 68-year-old female who presented with a splenic laceration caused by an underlying primary splenic angiosarcoma. The purpose of this article is to describe a patient who presents with noteworthy clinical features and a rare complication of splenic angiosarcoma to aid in the treatment and diagnosis of future patients.
Risk factors for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection in pregnant women.

Background: Risk factors for SARS-CoV2 infection in pregnancy remain poorly understood. Understanding populations at heightened risk of acquisition is essential to more effectively target outreach and prevention efforts. Objective: To compare sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of pregnant women with and without SARS-CoV2 infection and, among those with SARS-CoV2, to compare characteristics of those who reported COVID-19 symptoms and those who were asymptomatic at diagnosis. Study Design: This retrospective cohort study includes pregnant women who delivered or intended to deliver at Northwestern Memorial Hospital after initiation of a universal testing protocol on admission (April 8, 2020 - May 31, 2020). Women were dichotomized by whether they tested positive for SARS-CoV2. Among women who tested positive, women were further dichotomized by whether they endorsed symptoms of COVID-19. Bivariable analysis, and non-parametric tests of trend were used for analyses. Logistic regression was used to control for potential confounders as well as to examine effect modification between race and ethnicity and any other identified risk factors. Results: During the study period, 1,418 women met inclusion criteria, of whom 101 (7.1%) tested positive for SARS-CoV2. Of the 101 women who tested positive, 77 (76.2%) were symptomatic at the time of diagnosis. Compared to women who tested negative for SARS-CoV2, women who tested positive were younger and were more likely to have public insurance, to identify as Black/African-American or Latina, to be unmarried, to be obese, have pre-existing pulmonary disease, and have living children. An increasing number of living children was associated with an increasing risk of SARS-CoV2 infection and this finding persisted after controlling for potential confounders. There was no effect modification between race or ethnicity and having living children with regard to the risk of infection. There were no significant differences identified between women who were symptomatic and asymptomatic. Conclusion: Many risk factors for SARS-CoV2 infection in pregnancy are similar to the social and structural determinants of health that have been reported in the general population. The observed association between SARS-CoV2 infection and having children raises the possibility of children themselves as vectors of viral spread or behavior patterns of parents as mediators of acquisition.
An Error Has Crept In

With respect to my letter to SCIENCE (114, 332 [1951]), entitled "How Does the Ivy Grow?" I regret that either in the composition of this note for publication or in a typographical error in the ori...
Civilization-Saving Science for the Twenty-First Century

Geoscientists have generally been at the leading edge of predicting the challenges society faces from hazards both natural and anthropomorphic. As geoscientists, we have been less successful in dev...
Nutritional and Alcoholic Neuropathies

Peripheral polyneuropathies due to nutritional deficiency are often associated with pernicious anemia, sprue, and malabsorption syndromes. This chapter reviews many of the important polyneuropathies attributed to nutritional deficiency including alcoholic polyneuropathy.
Planning Consultants and Local Planning

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Planning consultants are a vital part of the local government planning process. We explore who hires consultants, the types of tasks that they typically perform, and differences in the values of planning consultants and their clients. We conduct parallel surveys of planning consultants and local government officials, and find that the use of consultants is widespread: They are hired primarily to reduce the costs of maintaining in-house planning staff and to provide as-needed technical expertise. Both planning officials and consultants agree on the priority given to well–accepted planning principles, even though each group thinks they hold planning principles in higher esteem than the other. Yet, we find that the actual differences between the self-professed values of the two groups are negligible. Takeaway for practice: This study suggests that both consultants and their clients believe that the advantages of hiring consultants, including supplementing in-house st...
Clinical evaluation of testosterone propionate and methyl testosterone in dysmenorrhea and menometrorrhagia

Abstract Eighteen patients with dysmenorrhea and 9 patients with menorrhagia and menometrorrhagia were treated with testosterone propionate and methyl testosterone. Complete relief of symptoms was experienced by 4 and improvement by 8 of the dysmenorrhea patients and complete relief by 6 and improvement by 2 of the menometrorrhagia patients. Thus, androgen therapy was completely or partially effective in 67 per cent of the dysmenorrhea cases and in 88 per cent of the menometrorrhagia cases. Practically, in all instances there was a recurrence of the original ailment after discontinuation of treatment at varying intervals. Oral androgenic therapy, if administered in adequate dosage, yields the same result as parenteral therapy.
The dark side of alliances

Abstract This article explores sources of failure in strategic alliances drawing on field research into one of the most prominent alliance collapses in recent years. The alliance of Volvo and Renault married the two largest enterprises in their respective countries for economic objectives that virtually all industry experts applauded. Three years after its founding, the allies split apart in a bruising argument that left observers reassessing the future of alliances and of European integration. We believe that an explanation of the paradox of `good motive–unhappy outcome' here is to be found in the `dark side' of alliances that invites managers to make fatal errors. We identify six factors that undermined the Volvo–Renault alliance: misalignment of senior and operating managers, path dependence, alliance recontracting, leadership style, cultural differences, and time. Alliances are vulnerable to these and other errors. Lessons about them are relevant to all alliance managers and senior executives of corporate allies.
A Fallibilistic Response to Thyer’s Theory of Theory-Free Empirical Research in Social Work Practice

Empirical clinical social work practice (one of the current scientific paradigms of the profession) has too narrow an understanding of how science is done. That perspective maintains that science is an inductive, positivist, often atheoretical process, which can lead to credible, justified knowledge. By reviewing Bruce Thyer's article, “The Role of Theory in Research on Social Work Practice,” through a Popperian falsificationist lens the difficulties of that approach are highlighted. An alternate approach, “Critical Rationalism,” a fallibilistic noninductive trial-and-error testing of conjectured theories and methods, is described. It is contentded that this approach better advances professional knowledge and resolves the problems unresolved by the current methodology.
Follow-up findings for women with human papillomavirus-positive and atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance screening test results in a large women's hospital practice.

Abstract Context.—Reflex human papillomavirus (HPV) testing has been designated in consensus guidelines as “preferred” for women with atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance (ASC-US) liquid-based cytology (LBC) results, and colposcopy is currently recommended for patients with HPV-positive ASC-US results. Data from large clinical practices using newer screening methods and current cytology terminology are limited. Objectives.—We analyzed data from patients with ASC-US LBC and positive HPV test results. We also assessed the impact of the presence or absence of an endocervical cell/ transformation zone sample (EC/TZS) on biopsy diagnoses. Design.—The information system of a large women's hospital serving an older-than-average population was searched over a 21-month period between July 1, 2005, and March 31, 2007, for HPV-positive cases interpreted as ASC-US (Bethesda System 2001) using computer-imaged LBC. Histologic diagnoses, patient ages, and presence or absence of an EC/TZS were analyzed. T...
Multi-value-functions: efficient automatic action hierarchies for multiple goal MDPs

If you have planned to achieve one particular goal in a stochastic delayed rewards problem and then someone asks about a different goal what should you do? What if you need to be ready to quickly supply an answer for any possible goal? This paper shows that by using a new kind of automata caily generated abstract action hierarchy that with N states, preparing for all of N possible goals can be much much cheaper than N times the work of preparing for one goal. In goal-based Markov Decision Problems, it is usual to generate a policy π(x) mapping states to actions, and a value function J(x) mapping states to an estimate of minimum expected cost-to-goal, starting at x. In this paper we will use the terminology that a multipolicy π*(x, y) (for all state-pairs (x, y)) maps a state x to the first action it should take in order to reach y with expected minimum cost and a multi-valuefunction J*(x, y) is a definition of this minimum cost. Building these objects quickly and with little memory is the main purpose of this paper, but a secondary result is a natural, automatic, way to create a set of parsimonious yet powerful abstractactions for MDPs. The paper concludes with a set of empirical results on increasingly large MDPs.
High-affinity, equilibrative nucleoside transporter of pig kidney cell line (PK-15)

Abstract Nucleoside transport was determined in the cloned porcine kidney cell line PK-15 which exhibits properties of tubular cells. The cells did not express any Na+-dependent, concentrative nucleoside transport. They exhibited only nitrobenzylthioinosine-sensitive equilibrative nucleoside transport. Their transport activity, however, was only about 10% of that observed in many other mammalian cell lines. This low transport activity correlated with a relatively low number of high-affinity nitrobenzylthioinosine binding sites (5·103 /cell). Furthermore, although the equilibrative transporter of PK-15 cells exhibited a similar broad substrate specificity as the equilibrative nucleoside transporters of other mammalian cells, it exhibited a much higher affinity for certain nucleosides, especially cytidine and uridine, than the latter. The Michaelis-Menten constants for zero-trans transport and equilibrium exchange of uridine in ATP-depleted cells were about the same (about 40 μM), indicating equal mobility of the nucleoside-loaded and empty carrier. Concentrative nucleoside transport was detected in one set of PK-15 cultures, but was found to be due to mycoplasma contamination.
Unwelcomed Immigrants: Experiences With Immigration Officials and Attachment to the United States

In this article, we argue that efforts at increased immigration control have consequences for immigrants' affective attachments to the United States. Based on data from the Immigrant Transnationalism and Modes of Incorporation (ITMI) Survey that was administered to a random sample of South Florida immigrants (N = 1,268), we examine qualitatively and quantitatively how immigrants' negative experiences in the United States with immigration officials, at the point of entry and during their residency in the country, impact their affective attachments to the United States. Examining the effects of negative experiences with immigration officials, both isolated incidents and patterns of treatment, reveals that immigrants with negative experiences are less attached to the United States. We suggest that how immigrants are treated in their countries of destination is likely to affect their approaches to other government officials and more broadly, their patterns of incorporation into U.S. society.
Finding Discriminating Structural Features by Reassembling Common Building Blocks

We present a new method for constructing discriminating substructures by reassembling common medicinal chemistry building blocks. The algorithm can be parametrized to meet differing objectives: (1) to build features that discriminate for biological activity in a local structural neighborhood, (2) to build scaffolds for R-group analysis, (3) to construct cluster signatures that discriminate for membership in the cluster and provide a graphical representation for its members, and (4) to identify substructures that characterize major classes in a heterogeneous compound set. We illustrated the results of the algorithm on a literature dataset is of 118 compounds with in vitro inhibition data against recombinant human protein tyrosine phosphatase 1B (PTP-1B).
Laboratory Experiments of Stellar Jets from the Perspective of an Observer

It has been two decades since astronomers first discovered that accretion disks around young stars drive highly collimated supersonic jets. Thanks to concerted efforts to understand emission line ratios from jets, we knowthat velocity variations dominate the heating within these flows, and motions in stellar jets, now observed in real time, are primarily radial. The fluid dynamics of the cooling zones can be complex, with interacting shocks, clumps, and instabilities that could benefit from insights into the physics that only experiments can provide. Recent laboratory experiments have reproduced jets with velocities and Mach numbers similar to those within stellar jets, and the field seems poised to make significant advances by connecting observations and theories with experiments. This article points out several aspects of stellar jets that might be clarified by such experiments.
SU-GG-I-129: Impact of Varying the Number of Projection Images Used in Digital Tomosynthesis on the Effective Slice Thickness of the Tomograms

Purpose: To investigate the effect of changing the number of projections within set tomosynthesis angles on the final effective slice thickness of the reconstructed tomograms. Method and Materials: For several tomosynthesis angles, varying numbers of images were sampled from a set of projections of a phantom acquired for CTreconstruction. These images were used with the simultaneous algebraic reconstruction technique to reconstruct digital tomosynthesis tomograms with a slice thickness of 5 mm. For each dataset, the effective slice thickness was determined and compared to the known slice thickness of tomograms reconstructed using all the images (basically a CTreconstruction).Results: As expected, the effective slice thickness decreased with decreasing tomosynthesis angle, being almost three times the value of a CT‐reconstructed slice when the tomosynthesis angle was 10 degrees. However, when the tomosynthesis angle was kept constant, the effective slice thickness did not vary much. Conclusion: Since the out‐of‐plane spatial resolution seems to depend only on the tomosynthesis angle, this opens up the option of using fewer projections for digital tomosynthesis. This approach would be beneficial since it would decrease the patient's imaging dose.
E-commerce implementation challenges: small to medium-sized versus large organisations

E-commerce offers business organisations significant operational and strategic opportunities. However, the implementation of effective e-commerce-based business models is not without serious organisational technological challenges. Some of these challenges tend to hinder the implementation of e-commerce in small to medium-sized organisations. The objective of this research is to shed some light on these challenges. Based on the results of this study, some lessons learned and their practical implications are underscored.
Cloning of DLM-1, a novel gene that is up-regulated in activated macrophages, using RNA differential display.

Abstract Tumors interact with their environment, reprogramming host cells to induce responses such as angiogenesis, inflammation, immunity and immune suppression. To understand these processes, it is important to identify and isolate new genes whose expression is induced in host tissues in response to tumors. Ascites tumors offer an attractive model for isolating such genes, because responding host peritoneal lining tissues can be cleanly separated from tumor cells growing in suspension within the peritoneal cavity. We here report the cloning by differential display of a novel gene, DLM-1, that is highly up-regulated in the peritoneal lining tissue of mice bearing MOT ascites tumors. Mouse peritoneal macrophages, stimulated by IFN-γ or LPS, also expressed significant amounts of DLM-1. Up-regulation of DLM-1 became evident by 4 h after stimulation with IFN-γ and was not blocked by cycloheximide, suggesting the presence of IFN responding elements in its transcription regulation region. DLM-1 RNA was detected at significant levels in normal mouse lung, intestinal epithelium, liver and thymus by Northern blot analysis. In situ hybridization of MOT and HT-29 mouse subcutaneous transplanted solid tumors revealed strong DLM-1 expression in the host reactive stromal cells, but not the tumor cells. Sequence analysis of the full-length cDNA clone revealed that it encodes a protein of approx. Mr 44 330 with multiple potential protein kinase C and casein kinase II phosphorylation sites. Our data suggest that DLM-1 plays a role in such important processes as host response in neoplasia.
Research Spotlight: No tipping point for Arctic Ocean ice

[1] Declines in the summer sea ice extent have led to concerns within the scientific community that the Arctic Ocean may be nearing a tipping point, beyond which the sea ice cap could not recover. In such a scenario, greenhouse gases in the atmosphere trap outgoing radiation, and as the Sun beats down 24 hours a day during the Arctic summer, temperatures rise and melt what remains of the polar sea ice cap. The Arctic Ocean, now less reflective, would absorb more of the Sun's warmth, a feedback loop that would keep the ocean ice free. However, new research by Tietsche et al. suggests that even if the Arctic Ocean sees an ice-free summer, it would not lead to catastrophic runaway ice melt. The researchers, using a general circulation model of the global ocean and the atmosphere, found that Arctic sea ice recovers within 2 years of an imposed ice-free summer to the conditions dictated by general climate conditions during that time. Furthermore, they found that this quick recovery occurs whether the ice-free summer is triggered in 2000 or in 2060, when global temperatures are predicted to be 2°C warmer. (Geophysical Research Letters, doi:10.1029/2010GL045698, 2011)
Prognosis After Myocardial infarction

A substantial number of patients die in the first year after myocardial infarction. The major determinants of risk during this period appear to be the extent of either damaged or potentially ischemic myocardium and the degree of electrical instability. Anterior infarction, early left ventricular failure, late significant arrhythmias, and markedly reduced radionuclide left ventricular ejection fraction are the major clinical markers of risk.
Aldosterone receptor assay in rat kidney cytosol.

Abstract A method has been developed to measure aldosterone receptors using rat kidney cytosol preparations. Addition of 0.1 M Na molybdate to homogenization buffer markedly diminished receptor inactivation, allowing for more accurate assessment of affinity and total number of receptors. Statistical analysis of Scatchard plots was used to resolve curvilinear plots into high affinity (type I) and a low affinity (type II) components. Aldosterone and deoxycorticosterone compete most effectively for binding to type I sites, whereas dexamethasone competes most effectively for binding to type II sites. Molybdate does not alter the location of the 8.0S peak on density gradient analysis. Assay of type I sites revealed 47.7 ± 1.7fmol/ml cytosol protein in male adrenalectomized rats. Constant of dissociation (KD) was measured at 5.08 × 10−10 M. Non-adrenalectomized male rats had 24.4 ± 3.0 fmol/mg protein type I sites. Addition of molybdate to homogenization buffer combined with statistical analysis of curvilinear Scatchard plots allows for accurate and reproducible measurement of high affinity aldosterone receptors in rat kidney cytosol.
Closed-cavity solutions with partially coherent fields in the space-frequency domain

Closed or stable optical cavities, used frequently to determine the efficiency of high performance chemical laser nozzles, are designed primarily for maximum multimode power extraction from the medium. The very large (>500) Fresnel numbers associated with such cavities have in the past necessitated their analytical modeling by representing them as plane-parallel Fabry-Perot or rooftop cavities. In this paper, a rigorous 2-D scalar diffraction formalism of the closed cavity is presented in which quasi-monochromatic partially coherent fields in the space-frequency domain are used to obtain quasi-steady state but stable solutions using a simplified gain model. Small power fluctuations in the numerical iterative solution history that displays no monotonic increasing or decreasing trends are interpreted as the redistribution of energy from one degenerate set of high-order transverse modes into another. The degree of coherence in the second-order spatial correlation function (or the mutual coherence function) required of the input fields which permit such solutions is presented. Further, it is shown that the upstream/downstream coupling in this closed cavity occurs as a natural consequence of the physical model itself rather than through some artificial geometrical means, such as that introduced in the rooftop model. The axial variation in the resulting mode width is in excellent agreement with the Hermite-Gaussian distribution predicted for the particular geometry of interest. The computed closed-cavity power variation with mode width using a simplified gain model shows qualitative agreement with experimentally observed trends; quantitative agreement is poor and is ascribed to the rudimentary nature of the gain model. In the limiting case of small Fresnel numbers (NF ∼ 1) this procedure yields, in the bare cavity, the well-known fundamental mode of the cavity when appropriate symmetry constraints are applied.
Solvation and the Excited-State Tautomerization of 7-Azaindole and 1-Azacarbazole: Computer Simulations in Water and Alcohol Solvents

Computer simulations are performed in order to investigate the role hydroxylic solvents play in catalyzing the excited-state tautomerization of 7-azaindole (7-AI) and 1-azacarbazole (1-AC). Classical Monte Carlo and molecular dynamics methods are used to test the idea that reaction rates in these systems are controlled primarily by the fraction of solutes that are “correctly” solvated. Assuming that correct solvation involves formation of a cyclic 1:1 solute−solvent complex, reactive fractions are computed for a series of eight hydroxylic solvents: methanol, ethanol, 1-propanol, 2,2,2-trifluoroethanol, 2-propanol, tert-butyl alcohol, ethylene glycol, and water. In all cases the reactive fractions so calculated are small (<2%) and are of the correct magnitude to account for the relatively slow reaction observed in neat solvents. The underlying cause for these small reactive populations can be rationalized on the basis of the weak hydrogen bonds afforded by a cyclic arrangement. In nearly all cases these f...
Ultrafast and fast bioerodible electrospun fiber mats for topical delivery of a hydrophilic peptide.

Abstract Biodegradable polymers that provide localized controlled delivery of therapeutics within hours to days may have an impact on the topical treatment of skin burns. Here we report for the first time the utility of tyrosine-derived polycarbonate terpolymer electrospun fiber mats as tunable drug delivery matrices. “Ultrafast” (
Causes and Severity of Ischemic Stroke in Patients With Symptomatic Intracranial Arterial Stenosis

Background and Purpose— There are limited data on the causes and severity of subsequent stroke in patients presenting initially with TIA or stroke attributed to intracranial arterial stenosis. Methods— We evaluated the location, type (lacunar vs nonlacunar), cause, and severity of stroke in patients who had an ischemic stroke endpoint in the Warfarin Aspirin Symptomatic Intracranial Disease (WASID) trial. Results— Of the 569 patients enrolled in the WASID trial, 106 patients (18.6%) had an ischemic stroke during a mean follow-up of 1.8 years. Stroke occurred in the territory of the symptomatic artery in 77 (73%) of 106 patients. Among the 77 strokes in the territory, 70 (91%) were nonlacunar and 34 (44%) were disabling. Stroke out of the territory of the symptomatic artery occurred in 29 (27%) of 106 patients. Among these 29 strokes, 24 (83%) were nonlacunar, 14 (48%) were attributed to previously asymptomatic intracranial stenosis, and 9 (31%) were disabling. Conclusions— Most subsequent strokes in patie...
Controlled Release from Recombinant Polymers

Recombinant polymers provide a high degree of molecular definition for correlating structure with function in controlled release. The wide array of amino acids available as building blocks for these materials lend many advantages including biorecognition, biodegradability, potential biocompatibility, and control over mechanical properties among other attributes. Genetic engineering and DNA manipulation techniques enable the optimization of structure for precise control over spatial and temporal release. Unlike the majority of chemical synthetic strategies used, recombinant DNA technology has allowed for the production of monodisperse polymers with specifically defined sequences. Several classes of recombinant polymers have been used for controlled drug delivery. These include, but are not limited to, elastin-like, silk-like, and silk-elastinlike proteins, as well as emerging cationic polymers for gene delivery. In this article, progress and prospects of recombinant polymers used in controlled release will be reviewed.
Simultaneous determination of copper and manganese with sodium diethyl dithiocarbamate

Abstract A simple, rapid, accurate, and reliable method for the simultaneous determination of copper and manganese in the presence of each other is reported. The method involves the selective formation of copper diethyl dithiocarbamate complex at pH
Consistent choice under uncertainty

Abstract Suppose ex post preferences are defined upon prizes and ex ante preferences are defined upon lotteries. Then the consistent choice of decision rules reigns whenever ex post optimality is equivalent to ex ante optimality. This essay provides a necessary and sufficient condition for consistent choice in terms of revealed preferences. Indeed, ex ante revealed preferences must be induced from ex post revealed preferences in a manner which requires them to satisfy the independence axiom from expected utility theory.
Nuclear rearrangement scattering. I. Quasifree (p, 2p) reactions

A formal theory of scattering, including rearrangement processes, is presented. This theory is based on a model using completely antisymmetrized and orthogonalized channels. A detailed discussion of the ($p,2p$) reaction which emphasizes the sequential amplitude for this process is given as an application of the formal theory. The single-hole state generated upon the first collision is discussed using an extension of the theory of intermediate structure to doorway states which are not in a space orthogonal to the space of continuum channels. The theory developed here is able to properly include off-shell and Pauli principle effects in the description of the reaction. Some of the approximations necessary to obtain the standard results for the ($p,2p$) cross sections are also exhibited in the context of our general theory.
Effects of high levels of exogenous testosterone propionate on bovine semen.

Abstract In a 16-month old inbred bull, supplementary testosterone propionate given at 100 mg/day for 12 wk caused a decrease in the number of tailless sperm and an increase in the number of coiled-tailed sperm. In another inbred bull 28 months of age, 200 mg/day caused the production of sperm with abnormal heads, midpieces, and tails. Both levels of the hormone disrupted and partially inhibited spermatogenesis, and caused a rise in fructose and citric acid in the semen.
Calcium regulates S-nitrosylation, denitrosylation, and activity of tissue transglutaminase.

Nitric oxide (NO) and related molecules play important roles in vascular biology. NO modifies proteins through nitrosylation of free cysteine residues, and such modifications are important in mediating NO's biologic activity. Tissue transglutaminase (tTG) is a sulfhydryl rich protein that is expressed by endothelial cells and secreted into the extracellular matrix (ECM) where it is bound to fibronectin. Tissue TG exhibits a Ca(2+)-dependent transglutaminase activity (TGase) that cross-links proteins involved in wound healing, tissue remodeling, and ECM stabilization. Since tTG is in proximity to sites of NO production, has 18 free cysteine residues, and utilizes a cysteine for catalysis, we investigated the factors that regulated NO binding and tTG activity. We report that TGase activity is regulated by NO through a unique Ca(2+)-dependent mechanism. Tissue TG can be poly-S-nitrosylated by the NO carrier, S-nitrosocysteine (CysNO). In the absence of Ca(2+), up to eight cysteines were nitrosylated without modifying TGase activity. In the presence of Ca(2+), up to 15 cysteines were found to be nitrosylated and this modification resulted in an inhibition of TGase activity. The addition of Ca(2+) to nitrosylated tTG was able to trigger the release of NO groups (i.e. denitrosylation). tTG nitrosylated in the absence of Ca(2+) was 6-fold more susceptible to inhibition by Mg-GTP. When endothelial cells in culture were incubated with tTG and stimulated to produce NO, the exogenous tTG was S-nitrosylated. Furthermore, S-nitrosylated tTG inhibited platelet aggregation induced by ADP. In conclusion, we provide evidence that Ca(2+) regulates the S-nitrosylation and denitrosylation of tTG and thereby TGase activity. These data suggest a novel allosteric role for Ca(2+) in regulating the inhibition of tTG by NO and a novel function for tTG in dispensing NO bioactivity.
Development of real-time line-scan hyperspectral imaging system for online agricultural and food product inspection

This paper reports a recent development of a line-scan hyperspectral imaging system for real-time multispectral imaging applications in agricultural and food industries. The hyperspectral imaging system consisted of a spectrograph, an EMCCD camera, and application software. The real-time multispectral imaging with the developed system was possible due to (1) data binning, especially a unique feature of the EMCCD sensor allowing the access to non-contiguous multispectral bands, (2) an image processing algorithm designed for real-time multispectral imaging, and (3) the design and implementation of the real-time application software. The imaging system was developed as a poultry inspection instrument determining the presence of surface feces on poultry carcasses moving at commercial poultry processing line speeds up to 180 birds per minute. The imaging system can be easily modifiable to solve other real-time inspection/sorting problems. Three wavelengths at 517 nm, 565 nm and 802 nm were selected for real-time fecal detection imaging. The fecal detection algorithm was based on dual band ratios of 565nm/517nm and 802nm/517nm followed by thresholding. The software architecture was based on a ping pong memory and a circular buffer for the multitasking of image grabbing and processing. The software was written in Microsoft Visual C++. An image-based internal triggering (i.e. polling) algorithm was developed to determine the start and end positions of birds. Twelve chickens were used for testing the imaging system at two different speeds (140 birds per minute and 180 bird per minute) in a pilot-scale processing line. Four types of fecal materials (duodenum, ceca, colon and ingesta) were used for the evaluation of the detection algorithm. The software grabbed and processed multispectral images of the dimension 118 (line scans) x 512 (height) x 3 (bands) pixels obtained from chicken carcasses moving at the speed up to 180 birds per minute (a frame rate 286 Hz). Intensity calibration, detection algorithm, displaying and saving were performed within the real-time deadlines.
Manufacturing wages by size of firm

Abstract This paper updates earlier work on the relationship between manufacturing wages and firm size by using a new data set.