cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Contact and Concepts: Educating Students at Jesuit Law Schools

This article responds to an article by Professor John Breen entitled Justice and Jesuit Higher Education: A Critique published in the Loyola University Chicago Law Journal. In his article, Breen asserts that Jesuit law schools lack a distinctive quality that they should possess given the Society of Jesus' emphasis on intellectual formation and commitment to promoting justice. A necessary part of developing a distinctive approach, according to Breen, is a mandatory course on the concept of justice. Breen's describes this course as including a serious encounter with the prime thinkers of the Roman Catholic intellectual tradition. This course, he asserts, is not an attempt at proselytizing law students, but a way of promoting critical thinking about contemporary social and moral issues that they may confront as lawyers. In response, I contend that such a class is not likely to achieve Professor Breen's goals. An explicit attempt at shaping students' philosophical or moral views may easily be disregarded as peripheral to the professional training they are receiving. Secondly, in spite of intentions to the contrary, such a course could become akin to proselytizing given that Breen asserts the need for the course is rooted in the students' lack of understanding about justice. Although he uses the language of dialogue, such a course will not be a give and take on equal footing. Some students may not simply dismiss such a course but find it offensive. My counter-proposal involves a two-pronged approach. First, I recommend weaving justice issues into the existing law school curriculum. This should be done by making students aware of the conversion process they will go through as they learn the analytical thinking approach that is demanded of lawyers. I suggest using the actual doctrine of the courses to raise issues and prompt reflection. But perhaps the most effective way to promote a focus on justice is requiring students to have a direct service experience. The Superior General of the Society of Jesus, Peter Hans Kolvenbach stated that it is contact rather than concepts that shape students' worldviews. However, it is not simply contact with the marginalized and disempowered that Jesuit legal education should provide, but also a course that allows students to integrate that experience with their emerging identity as a future lawyer. Then students may begin to deeply consider issues of justice and their role in shaping a more just world.
On-Chip Strong Coupling and Efficient Frequency Conversion between Telecom and Visible Optical Modes.

A new device that can potentially be scaled up for quantum computing converts visible light to infrared light suitable for fiber-optic transmission without destroying the light's quantum state.
The pedicled TRAM as preference for immediate autogenous tissue breast reconstruction

Immediate breast reconstruction using the pedicled TRAM flap in properly selected patients is safe and reliable. With this procedure, a realistic breast mound can be created within a matter of hours that will provide significant psychological benefits and predictable long-term results, with a complications rate that compares favorably with other techniques. There is no evidence to date that immediate reconstruction with the pedicled TRAM flap interferes with chemotherapy or masks detection of a local recurrence.
Healthcare system-wide implementation of opioid-safety guideline recommendations: the case of urine drug screening and opioid-patient suicide- and overdose-related events in the Veterans Health Administration

This study provides an example of how healthcare system-wide progress in implementation of opioid-therapy guideline recommendations can be longitudinally assessed and then related to subsequent opioid-prescribed patient health and safety outcomes. Using longitudinal linear mixed effects analyses, we determined that in the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) healthcare system (n = 141 facilities), over the 4-year interval from 2010 to 2013, a key opioid therapy guideline recommendation, urine drug screening (UDS), increased from 29 to 42 %, with an average within-facility increase rate of 4.5 % per year. Higher levels of UDS implementation from 2010 to 2013 were associated with lower risk of suicide and drug overdose events among VA opioid-prescribed patients in 2013, even after adjusting for patients’ 2012 demographic characteristics and medical and mental health comorbidities. Findings suggest that VA clinicians and healthcare policymakers have been responsive to the 2010 VA/Department of Defense (DOD) UDS treatment guideline recommendation, resulting in improved patient safety for VA opioid-prescribed patients.
Conclusion: Transition in Totagadde from 1964 to 2011

The seismic shift from a ritually-based so parallels performance-based society occurred with the advent of female education which led to the inclusion of women as leaders and decision-makers. Uneducated or poorly educated elders, regretting their limitations, encouraged the youth to develop their own skills. This 50-year study of one society illustrates the potential of education for the empowerment of an ignored populace and its impact on the entire culture.
Breast dose reduction with organ-based, wide-angle tube current modulated CT

This study aimed to estimate the organ dose reduction potential for organ-dose-based tube current modulated (ODM) thoracic computed tomography (CT) with a wide dose reduction arc. Twenty-one computational anthropomorphic phantoms (XCAT) were used to create a virtual patient population with clinical anatomic variations. The phantoms were created based on patient images with normal anatomy (age range: 27 to 66 years, weight range: 52.0 to 105.8 kg). For each phantom, two breast tissue compositions were simulated: 50/50 and 20/80 (glandular-to-adipose ratio). A validated Monte Carlo program (PENELOPE, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain) was used to estimate the organ dose for standard tube current modulation (TCM) (SmartmA, GE Healthcare) and ODM (GE Healthcare) for a commercial CT scanner (Revolution, GE Healthcare) using a typical clinical thoracic CT protocol. Both organ dose and CTDIvol-to-organ dose conversion coefficients (h factors) were compared between TCM and ODM. ODM significantly reduced all radiosensitive organ doses (p<0.01). The breast dose was reduced by 30±2%. For h factors, organs in the anterior region (e.g., thyroid and stomach) exhibited substantial decreases, and the medial, distributed, and posterior region saw either an increase of less than 5% or no significant change. ODM significantly reduced organ doses especially for radiosensitive superficial anterior organs such as the breasts.
How can molecular abnormalities influence our clinical approach.

Abstract Background Despite improvements in diagnostics and treatment, the clinical outcome of epithelial ovarian cancer remains poor over the last three decades. Recent high-throughput genomic studies have demonstrated ovarian cancer as a highly heterogeneous entity with distinctive molecular signatures among different or even within the same histotype. In this article, we review the molecular genetics of epithelial ovarian cancer and how they have been translated into modern clinical trials, as well as their implications in patient stratification for more targeted and personalized approaches. Patients and methods Multiple genomic studies were collected to summarize the major advances in understanding ovarian cancer-associated molecular abnormalities with emphasis on their potential clinical applicability to rationalize the design of recent clinical trials. Results The clinical management of ovarian cancer can significantly benefit from comprehensive molecular profiling studies, which have uncovered the distinctiveness of ovarian cancer subsets bearing characteristic genomic aberrance and consequentially dysregulated genes and pathways underlying the tumor progression and chemoresistance. Genomics studies have demonstrated a powerful tool to delineate the molecular basis responsible for diverse clinical behaviors associated with tumor histology and grade. In addition, molecular signatures obtained by integrated ‘omics’ analyses have promised opportunities for novel therapeutic or stratification biomarkers to tailor current clinical management as well as novel predictive tools of clinical end points including patient prognosis and therapeutic efficacy. Conclusions Recent progress in understanding the molecular landscape of ovarian cancer has profoundly shifted the design of clinical trials from empirical, unitary paradigms to more rationalized and personalized regimes. Correspondingly, a promising prospective has emerged for ovarian cancer patients to have considerably improved outcome upon careful alignment of patient characteristics, therapeutic biomarkers and targeting approaches. Nevertheless, extensive validation and inference of potential biomarkers are pressing demands on both bioinformatic and biological levels to warrant sufficient clinical relevance for potential translation, so that the performance of related clinical trial can be well predicted and achieved.
Behavior of Marine Bacteria in Clean Environment and Oil Spill Conditions

Alcanivorax borkumensis is a bacterial community that dominates hydrocarbon-degrading communities around many oil spills. The physicochemical conditions that prompt bacterial binding to oil/water interfaces are not well understood. To provide key insights into this process, A. borkumensis cells were cultured either in a clean environment condition (dissolved organic carbon) or in an oil spill condition (hexadecane as the sole energy source). The ability of these bacteria to bind to the oil/water interface was monitored through interfacial tension measurements, bacterial cell hydrophobicity, and fluorescence microscopy. Our experiments show that A. borkumensis cells cultured in clean environment conditions remain hydrophilic and do not show significant transport or binding to the oil/water interface. In sharp contrast, bacteria cultured in oil spill conditions become partially hydrophobic and their amphiphilicity drives them to oil/water interfaces, where they reduce interfacial tension and form the early ...
Retinal degeneration in a rat model of Smith-Lemli-Opitz Syndrome: thinking beyond cholesterol deficiency.

Smith-Lemli-Opitz Syndrome (SLOS) is a recessive hereditary disease caused by a defect in the last step in cholesterol biosynthesis – the reduction of the Δ7 double bond of 7-dehydrocholesterol (7DHC) – resulting in the abnormal accumulation of 7DHC and diminished levels of Chol in all bodily tissues. Treatment of rats with AY9944 – a drug that inhibits the same enzyme that is genetically defective in SLOS (i.e., DHCR7, 3β-hydroxysterol-Δ7-reductase) – starting in utero and continuing throughout postnatal life, provides a convenient animal model of SLOS for understanding the disease mechanism and also for testing the efficacy of therapeutic intervention strategies. Herein, the biochemical, morphological, and electrophysiological hallmarks of retinal degeneration in this animal model are reviewed. A high-cholesterol diet partially ameliorates the associated visual function deficits, but not the morphological degeneration. Recent studies using this model suggest that the disease mechanism in SLOS goes well beyond the initial cholesterol pathway defect, including global metabolic alterations, lipid and protein oxidation, and differential expression of hundreds of genes in multiple ontological gene families. These findings may have significant implications with regard to developing more optimal therapeutic interventions for managing SLOS patients.
APPROPRIATE MATERIAL SOFTENING AND FAILURE MODELS FOR NUMERICAL CALCULATIONS

Structures exposed to loads involving high stresses and/or large deformations often fail by softening, localization, and failure in regions of load concentration or imperfections. Finite element (FEM) computer codes therefore need material models (constitutive relations) that can describe such localized behavior with internal variables. Since the material elements, represented by computational cells, often undergo large deformations, rotations, and nonelastic deformations, care must be taken to choose constitutive relations that, when combined with the equations for conservation of mass, momentum, and energy, form a well-posed problem. The constitutive relations must be cell size-independent. Furthermore, to describe the localization process, the above set of equations must be stable. Finally, the constitutive relations must use measures of stress and strain that obey the usual requirement for frame-indifference (objectivity). In this paper we review the above requirements, and describe a class of material failure models that appears to satisfy those requirements.
Outline of a Restriction-Centered Theory of Reasoning and Computation in an Environment of Uncertainty, Imprecision and Partiality of Truth

The theory which is outlined in this lecture, call it RRC for short, is a departure from traditional approaches to reasoning and computation. A principal advance is an enhanced capability for reasoning and computation in an environment of uncertainty, imprecision and partiality of truth. The point of departure in RRC is a basic premise—in the real world such environment is the norm rather than exception.
ORNSTEIN-UHLENBECK STOCHASTIC PROCESSES APPLIED TO IMMUNIZATION

The purposes of this paper are to describe some results about the term structure of interest rates as stochastic processes, and to extend to this topic some of the author’s earlier results on stochastic processes. It is assumed that the instantaneous borrowing and lending rate (the spot rate) is modelled by a stochastic process which is both Markovian and Gaussian. Among such processes, the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck stochastic process is used. It has the advantage of being able to model phenomena which react to offset excessive movements in any one direction. Probabilities that the spot rates will deviate from the long term mean by more than preassigned boundary functions during various time intervals are obtained. The boundary functions are of the form Aσ or A<(l + R)t, 0 ≤ t ≤ T. Knowledge of such probabilities is needed for some applications of immunization theory.
Comprehensive assessment of run-time hardware-supported malware detection using general and ensemble learning

Recent studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of Hardware Performance Counters (HPCs) for detecting pattern of malicious applications. Hardware-supported detectors utilize Machine Learning (ML) classifiers for malware detection by analyzing a large number of HPC features, more than the very limited number of HPC registers available in modern microprocessors. Obtaining more HPCs requires running the application (malware or benign) more than once to collect the required data, which in turn makes the solution less practical for run-time detection of malware. In response to this challenge, in this work, we first identify the critical HPC features required for malware detection. Next, we explore the use of various ML techniques to classify benign and malware applications using the selected HPCs at run-time. Further, we investigate the effectiveness of ensemble learning in improving the performance of ML classifiers. For this purpose, we apply AdaBoost on all general ML classifiers. We thoroughly compare the general and ensemble ML classifiers in terms of accuracy, robustness, performance, and hardware overhead. The experimental results indicate that ensemble learning enhances the performance of malware detection for rule-based and tree-based algorithms up to 13%. However, it diminishes the performance of neural network and Bayesian network-based detectors by 6% and 4%, respectively.
Defect sensitivity and Weibull strength analysis of monolayer silicene

Abstract This paper analyzes ultimate tensile stress results from full atomistic reactive molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of monolayer silicene in terms of reliability using the Weibull probability of failure method (e.g., Weibull strength analysis). Both vacancy and interstitial defects and randomly distributed with prescribed densities upon a finite sheet of silicene and assessed for tension in both the zigzag and armchair directions, resulting in a significant decrease of strength. We demonstrate a clear directional dependency on the effect: mechanical properties in the zigzag direction are the most affected for both defect types. A single vacancy reduces the ultimate in-plane stress by approximately 13%, and one interstitial/adatom resulted in a strength reduction on the order of 24%, compared to the pristine state. Statistical analysis for the tensile strengths of indicate a Weibull modulus (m) on the order of approximately 50–150 depending on defect type and loading direction, using a best-fit approach via a Poisson distribution of defects, suggesting relatively high flaw tolerance once defects are present. Weibull analysis provides a method for determining the reliability of strength measurements in the analysis of data from future experimental assays of silicene.
Minimally Invasive Pancreatic Surgery

As a result of the improvement in inpatient and critical care management over time, pancreatic surgery has become more feasible and is associated with less perioperative mortality. Unfortunately, postoperative complications continue to occur more frequently after pancreatic surgery than after operations for other surgical subspecialties. Seeking opportunities to improve perioperative morbidity following pancreatic resection, new minimally invasive strategies have been described and are becoming more widespread with time. The following chapter reviews the indications and minimally invasive approaches for pancreatic resection as well as important postoperative considerations including complications that an internist caring for pancreatic surgery patients postoperatively needs to be prepared to manage. As with all surgical patients, postoperative management requires involvement of the surgeon who shares intraoperative findings to best interpret clinical changes in order to guide the discussion on management strategies. Minimally invasive pancreatic surgery remains within its infancy and will likely experience further development and expansion in the years to come.
An evaluation of biomaterials and osteobiologics for arthrodesis achievement in spine surgery

An increasing variety of orthobiologic materials, including autologous and allogeneic bone graft, bone marrow aspirate, demineralized bone matrix, ceramics, and growth factors are available to the spine surgeon. Although autologous bone graft remains the gold standard material, concerns for failure in achieving fusion have prompted evaluation of current and new biologic materials. As such, this review attempts to summarize the available biologic materials with their pertinent characteristics, advantages, disadvantages, and primary uses.
Lung Ablation: Indications and Techniques

Lung ablation is ever more recognized since its initial report and use almost two decades ago. With technological advancements in thermal modalities, particularly microwave ablation and cryoablation, better identification of the cohort of patients who best benefit from ablation, and understanding the role of imaging after ablation, image-guided thermal ablation for primary and secondary pulmonary malignancies is increasingly recognized and accepted as a cogent form of local therapy.
Nuclear receptor Nr4a1 regulates striatal striosome development and dopamine D1 receptor signaling

The GABAergic medium-size spiny neuron (MSN), the striatal output neuron, may be classified into striosome, also known as patch, and matrix, based on neurochemical differences between the two compartments. At this time, little is known regarding the regulation of the development of the two compartments. Nr4a1, primarily described as a nuclear receptor/immediate early gene involved in the homeostasis of the dopaminergic system, is a striosomal marker. Using Nr4a1-overexpressing and Nr4a1-null mice, we sought to determine whether Nr4a1 is necessary and/or sufficient for striosome development. We report that in vivo and in vitro, Nr4a1 and Oprm1 mRNA levels are correlated. In the absence of Nr4a, there is a decrease in the percentage of striatal surface area occupied by striosomes. Alterations in Nr4a1 expression leads to dysregulation of multiple mRNAs of members of the dopamine receptor D1 signal transduction system. Constitutive overexpression of Nr4a1 decreases both the induction of phosphorylation of ERK after a single cocaine exposure and locomotor sensitization following chronic cocaine exposure. Nr4a1 overexpression increases MSN excitability but reduces MSN long-term potentiation. In the resting state, type 5 adenylyl cyclase (AC5) activity is normal, but the ability of AC5 to be activated by Drd1 G-protein-coupled receptor inputs is decreased. Our results support a role for Nr4a1 in determination of striatal patch/matrix structure and in regulation of dopaminoceptive neuronal function.
Relation between development of functions and the structure of the cerebral cortex in ontogenesis. Communication II. Histological differentiation of cortical cells of rabbits during ontogenesis

The age at which conditioned reflexes are first able to be formed coincides, in rabbits with presence of third stage (mature) neurons in all the layers of the cerebral cortex. The morphological criteria of maturity are: apperance of formed Nissl bodies, differentiation of the nucleoli, and apperance of synaptic knobs on the terminal dendrites.
Digital Greenbacks: A Sequenced 'TreasuryDirect' and 'FedWallet' Plan for the Democratic Digital Dollar

I propose means of immediately converting the Department of Treasury's existing 'TreasuryDirect' system of freely available transaction accounts into a publicly administered digital savings and payments platform. A platform of this type is an essential public utility in any commercial society such as our own. It is additionally growth-promoting inasmuch as growth-tracking GDP is a measure of transaction volume, while transaction volume is a function of more efficient and inclusive transacting. As Congress seeks means of streamlining the payments infrastructure in a time of pandemic-induced crisis, the Treasury route recommends itself as the fastest way to digitize payments for 95% of our citizens and business enterprises. I also map means of migrating the Treasury architecture to the Fed over time once the crisis is past – as the ‘Greenback’ paper dollar itself did in the late 19th and early 20th centuries – and include my draft Treasury Dollar Act as an Appendix.
Selection for increased cranial capacity in small mammals during a century of urbanization

Urbanization is a selective force that is known to drive changes in the population dynamics of wildlife. How animals adapt to changing environmental conditions is crucial to their survival in these environments. Relative brain size, or cranial capacity, is a known proxy of behavioral flexibility, and can be used to assess how well a species has adapted to a particular environment. We examined changes in cranial capacity in a time series of small mammal skulls collected from urban and rural populations in southwestern Pennsylvania. Skulls from urban populations were collected from Allegheny County, an area that experienced rapid urbanization over the past century, and skulls of rural populations from the Powdermill Nature Reserve of the Carnegie Museum, which has remained relatively unchanged forest over the same period. Our results show that Peromyscus leucopus and Microtus pennsylvanicus from urban populations had significantly greater cranial capacity than their rural counterparts, but the opposite was true for Eptesicus fuscus. We found no difference in relative cranial capacity across time in any of the small mammal species. Our results suggest that a larger cranial capacity is selected for in an urban environment and reinforces the hypothesis that behavioral flexibility is important for animals to adapt to novel environments.
Broadband diffractive optical networks

We report a broadband diffractive optical network that can simultaneously process a continuum of wavelengths. To demonstrate its success, we designed and experimentally validated a series of broadband networks to create single/dual passband spectral filters and a spatially-controlled wavelength de-multiplexer that are composed of deep learning-designed diffractive layers to spatially and spectrally engineer the output light. The resulting designs were 3D-printed and tested using a terahertz time-domain-spectroscopy system to demonstrate the match between their numerical and experimental output. Broadband diffractive networks diverge from intuitive/analytical designs, creating unique optical systems to perform deterministic tasks and statistical inference for machine learning applications.
Regularized Second Order Møller-Plesset Theory: A More Accurate Alternative to Conventional MP2 for Noncovalent Interactions and Transition Metal Thermochemistry for the Same Compute Cost

Second order Moller-Plesset theory provides a remarkably simple form for the electron correlation energy with many desirable properties, e.g. it is size-consistent, free of self-interaction error, and scales with the fifth power of system size. However, MP2 exhibits well-known shortcomings including an incomplete description of dispersion interactions and sizable failures for transition metal chemistry. Herein, we first explore multiple physically justified forms of single-parameter regularization and then demonstrate that with appropriate parameter choice, regularized MP2 with Hartree-Fock reference orbitals yields high and transferable accuracy across a wide variety of noncovalent interactions (S22, S66, XB40, A24, and L7 test sets) and (mostly closed-shell) transition metal thermochemistry (metal-carbonyl dissociations and a subset of MOR41). We find that, especially for systems with interacting pi systems relevant to dispersion interactions and dative bonding, regularization serves to damp overestimated pair-wise additive contributions to the first-order amplitudes that affect correlation energy and charge-density. The optimal parameter values for the noncovalent and transition metal sets are 1.1 and 0.4 for two regularizers, $\kappa$ and $\sigma^2$, respectively. These two regularizers slightly degrade the accuracy of conventional MP2 for some small-molecule test sets which are well-known to be sensitive to charge-density distribution (radical stabilization energies, barrier heights, dipole moments, and polarizabilities), most of which have relatively large gaps. Due to the relatively straightforward implementations of nuclear gradient and other properties, we recommend $\kappa$-MP2 with $\kappa$ = 1.1 as a more accurate alternative to conventional MP2 and other related variants. Our results suggest that appropriately regularized MP2 models represent promising forms for the nonlocal correlation part of double hybrid density functionals, at no additional cost over conventional MP2.
Ergonomics Training and Evaluations in a Digital World Using Collaborative Technologies: A Bibliometric Analysis

Ergonomics training is an essential element for maintaining occupational health and safety. With the world rapidly digitizing, it is important to adopt new methods to accommodate computer-supported learning while keeping the same level of efficiency and collaboration as in-person training sessions. Emerging collaborative technologies can be a potential means to conduct training over a virtual platform. In this systematic literature review, publications for ergonomics training and collaborative technologies were analyzed using tools such as Harzing’s Publish or Perish, VOS Viewer, MAXQDA, Mendeley, CiteSpace and BibExcel. Through content and co-citation analyses, emerging trends were identified. Various databases such as Google Scholar, Web of Science, SpringerLink, and ResearchGate served as the primary sources for references. From this study, it was assessed that there was significant research on the topic of interest, however, there is immense potential for growth particularly in the context of collaborative robots and virtual reality. Performing a literature review will help bring awareness to the importance of being able to conduct ergonomics training through a virtual collaborative technology.
The thermodynamics of protein aggregation reactions may underpin the enhanced metabolic efficiency associated with heterosis, some balancing selection, and the evolution of ploidy levels

Abstract Identifying the physical basis of heterosis (or “hybrid vigor”) has remained elusive despite over a hundred years of research on the subject. The three main theories of heterosis are dominance theory, overdominance theory, and epistasis theory. Kacser and Burns (1981) identified the molecular basis of dominance, which has greatly enhanced our understanding of its importance to heterosis. This paper aims to explain how overdominance, and some features of epistasis, can similarly emerge from the molecular dynamics of proteins. Possessing multiple alleles at a gene locus results in the synthesis of different allozymes at reduced concentrations. This in turn reduces the rate at which each allozyme forms soluble oligomers, which are toxic and must be degraded, because allozymes co-aggregate at low efficiencies. The model developed in this paper can explain how heterozygosity impacts the metabolic efficiency of an organism. It can also explain why the viabilities of some inbred lines seem to decline rapidly at high inbreeding coefficients (F > 0.5), which may provide a physical basis for truncation selection for heterozygosity. Finally, the model has implications for the ploidy level of organisms. It can explain why polyploids are frequently found in environments where severe physical stresses promote the formation of soluble oligomers. The model can also explain why complex organisms, which need to synthesize aggregation-prone proteins that contain intrinsically unstructured regions (IURs) and multiple domains because they facilitate complex protein interaction networks (PINs), tend to be diploid while haploidy tends to be restricted to relatively simple organisms.
Transvenous coil embolization of an indirect, Barrow type D carotid-cavernous fistula in a 3-year-old with Down syndrome

A 3-year-old girl with trisomy 21 presented with progressive proptosis, scleral injection, and pulsatility of her right eye 1 month following minimal blunt head trauma. Computed tomography suggested a carotid cavernous fistula (CCF), which was confirmed by digital subtraction angiography and further classified as an indirect, Barrow type D CCF. Treatment was proposed because of vision-threatening elevated intraocular pressures. Transvenous coil embolization of the CCF was successfully performed. The patient was discharged to home 2 days after the procedure with immediate clinical improvement of her proptosis and normalization of her intraocular pressures on follow-up ophthalmologic visit 2 wk later.
Requirements for Group Independent Linear Threshold Secret Sharing Schemes

In a t out of n threshold scheme, any subset of t or more participants can compute the secret key k, while subsets of t - 1 or less participants cannot compute k. Some schemes are designed for specific algebraic structures, for example finite fields.Whereas other schemes can be used with any finite abelian group. In [24], the definition of group independent sharing schemes was introduced. In this paper, we develop bounds for group independent t out of n threshold schemes. The bounds will be lower bounds which discuss how many subshares are required to achieve a group independent linear threshold scheme. In particular, we will show that our bounds for the n - 1 out of n threshold schemes are tight for infinitely many n.
Gene Expression Analysis via Multidimensional Scaling

Expression profiling of biological samples using microarray technologies has proven to be a powerful tool for molecular classification and biomarker identification. Visualization of similarities between biological samples from their molecular signatures is essential in forming new hypotheses. Multidimensional scaling is one of the methods that converts the structure in the similarity matrix to a simple geometrical picture: the larger the dissimilarity between two samples (evaluated through gene expression profiling), the further apart the points representing the experiments in the picture should be. In this unit, we will discuss the mathematical fundamentals of this method, along with step-by-step procedures that allow users to quickly obtain the results, provided that all necessary resources are ready. Examples of applying the MDS program and the interpretation of these results are also provided in this unit Keywords: Microarray; Gene Expression Profiling; Similarity, Multidimensional Scaling (MDS); Visualization
Blood urea nitrogen and serum creatinine. Physiology and interpretations.

Abstract Any elevations in levels of blood urea nitrogen and/or serum creatinine do not necessarily indicate structural renal disease. Conversely, blood urea nitrogen or serum creatinine values, which appear to be within the range of normal, do not by themselves rule out significant reduction in glomerular filtration rate. Any interpretation of the blood levels of these two substances must be done with the awareness that a variety of extrarenal factors can affect them. The blood urea nitrogen to serum creatinine ratio can be a valuable tool in the determination of renal functional and structural integrity.
Peacock and Wiseman on the growth of public expenditure

The late nineteenth century view of the growth of the public sector, enuciated by Adolph Wagner (1890), now known as Wagner's Law, accorded well with the doctrine of comparative advantage. With the growth of the industrial economy, a complementary demand was set up, alongside industrial and manufacturing expansion, for transport and communication services, energy and waste disposal. Central and local governments were viewed as having a comparative advantage in providing such services, justifying Wagner's Law that government expenditure would continuously increase as a percentage of gross domestic product in a growing economy. In 1961, as part of their seminal study of the growth of public expenditure in the United Kingdom, Alan T. Peacock and Jack Wiseman1 questioned the generality of Wagner's Law and introduced their now famous displacement effect hypothesis to explain the time path of the growth of government in democratic countries. Writing before the public choice research program was at all well-established, Peacock and Wiseman nevertheless rejected Wagner's reliance upon the organic state, and relied instead on political propositions that
Models of Programming Language Concepts

Various features of high-level programming languages are discussed and ways of providing definitions are proposed. The definitions given are denotational.
The physics of ice - Some fundamentals of planetary glaciology

Selected properties of ice, particularly those that may be useful for remote sensing in the planetary system or understanding the behavior of ice there, or that will help to predict properties that planetary scientists need, are reviewed. Among them are the phase diagram, including a new easy transformation of ice Ih at 77 K near the extrapolated melting line, the microwave spectrum of ice Ih as determined from an extrapolation of the far-infrared spectrum and used to determine the thickness of ice in Saturn’s rings, and the use of halos to detect crystals of hexagonal and cubic ice. Many properties of ice that are needed for planetary studies may need to be calculated from molecular potential functions. These can be tested by predicting the energies of the phases of ice at zero temperature, which can be evaluated from experimental measurements.
Public Officials and a “Private” Matter: Attitudes and Policies in the County Sheriff Office Regarding Violence Against Women

Objective This article examines sheriffs’ attitudes and their offices’ policies concerning violence against women and assesses the connection between their attitudes and policies. Methods Using data from an original, national survey completed in the fall of 2012 of elected sheriffs (N = 553), we evaluate a battery of rape and domestic violence myths and examine the presence of various violence against women policies. Results We find that many sheriffs express belief in inaccurate myths concerning violence against women. We find strong connections between sheriffs’ attitudes about women's equality and their attitudes about violence against women. In turn, their attitudes about gender-based violence relate to training and policies for addressing these cases. Conclusion In an office like that of the sheriff, with both bureaucratic and political elements, attitudes of political leaders influence policies. Our findings suggest an important connection between elected officials’ attitudes and policy actions beyond the traditional legislative arena.
Crises of the Public in Muslim India: Critiquing ‘Custom’ at Aligarh and Deoband

This article argues that Sayyid Ahmad Khan (1817–98) and Ashraf ‘Ali Thanvi (1863–1943) were, respectively, exemplars of what I will call the liberal critique of custom on the one hand, and the Islamic legal critique of custom on the other. I argue that a range of overlapping semantic fields in their Urdu works—‘custom’ (rasm), ‘reform’ (islah), ‘decline’ (zawal, tanazzul) and ‘nation’ or ‘moral community’ (qawm), among others—opens up new lines of inquiry in comparing Aligarh and Deoband, typically treated as incommensurable in their views, as institutions and movements. I suggest, additionally, that ‘the public’ (‘amm) was a shared frame through which they envisioned implementing their respective projects. At the imagined centre of these publics, they located a new sort of Muslim: literate, self-regulating, self-fashioning, guided by rationality (‘aql) and free, above all, of the moral and social entanglements of ‘custom’.
Why chips fail: electrostatic discharge

Electrostatic discharge (ESD) is becoming increasingly important to electronics as devices become smaller and smaller. It may be the culprit in failure many more times than realized, for it can occur at many stages in the progression from device fabrication to finished equipment assembly and shipping. Many engineers, technicians, and assembly workers are almost completely ignorant of ESD and its threat to the equipment they design and build. The author reviews the subject of ESD, its cause, its effects, and the measures used to combat it. >
Choice of image attribute for automated radargrammetry

This paper discusses SAR imaging with emphasis on radar backscatter properties. In studying how planetary surfaces modulate the radar cross-section, it is determined that both the amount of and variation in backscattered microwave energy provide the necessary cues (i.e., object shading and boundary information) for stereointerpretation. While past research into automated reconstruction of topography from radar stereopairs has concentrated on the use of shading, it is shown that boundary information may also be used successfully. How these attributes can be potentially misleading are discussed. This work suggests a process for generating high-quality topography maps from SAR imagery.
Human biliary epithelial cell line Mz-ChA-1 expresses new isoforms of calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II.

Abstract Background & Aims: Calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II is a family of closely related multimeric enzymes that regulate a wide variety of cellular processes. In biliary epithelial cells, this kinase seems to regulate Ca 2+ -dependent CI − currents. The aim of this study was to identify isoforms of this kinase expressed in biliary cells. Methods: Sequencing of reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction products identified multiple isoforms in Mz-ChA-1 cells. Results: Two previously identified isoforms (γB and γC) and three new isoforms (γD, γE, and γF) of calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II were identified. Each of the novel isoforms contains a unique insert of 114 base pairs in the association region. This insert lies outside the previously identified variable region. In addition, γD and γF contained other deletions (42 and 69 base pairs, respectively) in the variable region. These isoforms are expressed in a variety of tissues, including biliary epithelial and gallbladder cells, but only γC is expressed in rat hepatocytes. Conclusions: Identification of these biliary kinase isoforms paves the way for future studies that will elucidate the role of individual isozymes in agonist-stimulated biliary CI − and fluid secretion.
Small Pancreatic and Periampullary Neuroendocrine Tumors: Resect or Enucleate?

Objective The aim of this study was to compare the outcomes of enucleation versus resection in patients with small pancreatic, ampullary, and duodenal neuroendocrine tumors (NETs).
Studies on the chiral isomers of fonofos and fonofos oxon: II. In vitro metabolism

Abstract The in vitro metabolism of the chiral isomers of fonofos and fonofos oxon in the presence of mouse liver mixed-function oxidase and serum esterase was investigated. The metabolism of 35 S-labeled phenyl-( S ) P -fonofos mediated by mixed-function oxidase took place stereoselectively, resulting predominantly in ( R ) P -fonofos oxon. Similarly, ( R ) P -fonofos was converted to ( S ) P -oxon. In each case, however, a significant amount of racemization occurred. Other products were diphenyl disulfide and diphenyl disulfide oxide. In addition to stereospecificity, the oxidative metabolism of ( R ) P -fonofos proceeded at a rate faster than that of ( S ) P -fonofos. Stereoselective rate differences also were observed in mouse or rat serum-catalzyed degradation of the fonofos oxon enantiomers, the ( S ) P isomer being degraded about twofold faster than its enantiomer. The differences in toxicities of the isomers of fonofos and fonofos oxon were consistent with the in vitro metabolism data.
Mid-Wisconsinan stratigraphy and paleoenvironments at the St. Charles site in south-central Iowa

A sequence of loess-mantled sediments exposed along Clanton Creek provides the first evidence of fluvial, pedologic, and biotic environments before the last glacial maximum in south-central Iowa. Two fining-upward fluvial sequences, one inset into the other, are exposed. Radiocarbon ages indicate that the alluvial fills are about 34,000 yr old. Basal gravel in the oldest fill contains well-preserved mammoth ( Mammuthus ) bones. Sparse seeds from this horizon suggest weedy flood-plain conditions. The younger alluvial fill contains well-preserved pollen, plant macrofossils, and insects. The pollen is dominated by nonarboreal taxa and Pinus , suggesting a prairie border or savanna environment. Vascular-plant and bryophyte macofossils indicate a variety of aquatic and marsh environments on the flood plain. Insects are mostly sympatric in mixed conifer and hardwood forest that extends along latitude 47° to 49° between eastern North Dakota and New England, but forest beetles are rare, and the fauna is dominated by openground forms. The site is interpreted as an open flood plain dotted with marshes and oxbow lakes; it was surrounded by open woodland or savanna similar to that in north-eastern North Dakota at present. July temperatures at the St. Charles site were probably 3 to 5 C° cooler than those at present. The pre-loess stratigraphy of the site differs markedly from that of upland sites and demonstrates that correlation between upland and lowland sequences cannot be done without adequate dating.
Non-quasi-convex problems in nonlinear elastostatics

On decrit l'etude d'une classe de problemes non quasi convexes en elasticite finie. On s'interesse aux problemes d'equilibre dans lesquels les etats d'equilibre sont consideres comme des minimiseurs d'une fonctionnelle d'energie potentielle. On associe a chaque probleme un «probleme relaxe», sa quasi-convexification et on donne les conditions pour qu'il soit equivalent au probleme d'origine. On etablit dans quels cas sa solution peut etre consideree comme une solution generalisee du probleme
Fully developed electro-osmotic heat transfer in microchannels

Abstract Thermally fully developed, electro-osmotically generated convective transport has been analyzed for a parallel plate microchannel and circular microtube under imposed constant wall heat flux and constant wall temperature boundary conditions. Such a flow is established not by an imposed pressure gradient, but by a voltage potential gradient along the length of the tube. The result is a combination of unique electro-osmotic velocity profiles and volumetric heating in the fluid due to the imposed voltage gradient. The exact solution for the fully developed, dimensionless temperature profile and corresponding Nusselt number have been determined analytically for both geometries and both thermal boundary conditions. The fully developed temperature profiles and Nusselt number are found to depend on the relative duct radius (ratio of the Debye length to duct radius or plate gap half-width) and the magnitude of the dimensionless volumetric source.
Thermal diffusion in platinum

Abstract Thermal diffusion of Pt in a temperature gradient was followed by a marker motion technique. Observation of different runs with various temperatures showed a clear and reproducible effect. Marker motion of 1 μ per day was measured at about 1600°C in a temperature gradient of 400°C/cm. The heat of transport was found to be +0.68 ± 0.09 eV. This quantity is considerably larger than Em−Ef, the difference between migration and formation energy, with which the heat of transport has frequently in the past been correlated. Discrepancies in this direction are not easily explained.
First Time Myocardial Infarction in a Rheumatic Patient after Elective Arthroplasty

The management of perioperative cardiovascular risk in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is challenging due to the independent contribution to risk by high grade inflammatory mechanisms and the underestimation of risk by traditional cardiac risk factors alone. RA is associated with accelerated rates of subclinical atherosclerosis and markedly higher rates of both myocardial infarction and sudden cardiac death over non-RA controls. There is an absence of prospectively validated perioperative coronary heart disease (CHD) risk assessment tools for this unique patient population and available guidelines may fail to identify those patients most at risk. We examine a singular case of first time myocardial infarction after uncomplicated elective surgery in an adult RA patient with an unrevealing preoperative cardiac assessment. We also review the current literature for shared pathogenic mechanisms between systemic inflammation and atherosclerosis, discuss clinical and biologic markers such as C-reactive protein (CRP) in RA patients associated with heightened cardiac risk and discuss recommendations based on available evidence for cardiovascular risk management in this at risk cohort.