cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Games, Stories and Language: Motivating Second Language Acquisition With Play

This paper reports a design case for a story-driven language learning game called Arena. Arena was developed in the design science tradition, where purpose-built artifacts are used as a springboard for scientific inquiry. As such, Arena is a vehicle for designers and researchers to study the effectiveness of story-based games for engaging learners, as well as to explore some of the various challenges that manifest when designing and implementing gameful educational experiences. In this design case, we—myself, as author, and by extension, my design team of 14 undergraduate developers and researchers—report on the theoretical underpinnings of Arena and then draw contrasts between these and our experiences as practical designers. The contrasts we note include: (a) second language storytelling as a wicked challenge, (b) managing competing requirements for ease-of-use versus meaningful learning and engagement, (c) making playful connections between play and work, (d) the subtle impact of player point of view, and (e) designing for our target demographic of young male gamers.
Epitranscriptomic Control of Selenoprotein Synthesis, Senescence, Mitochondrial Bioenergetics and Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma

Maintenance of the GSH redox cycle is reliant on the activities of selenocysteine-containing GSH metabolizing enzymes. Selenocysteine (SEC) is the 21 st amino acid and does not contain a dedicated codon. SEC incorporation during translation requires UGA-stop-codon recoding, which uses specifically modified tRNA for accurate decoding. We have shown that the stress-induced translation of many SEC containing ROS detoxifying enzymes is dependent on the Alkbh8 tRNA methyltransferase. Alkbh8 enzymatically methylates the uridine wobble base on tRNA SEC to promote UGA-stop codon decoding. In cells from Alkbh8 -/- mice, the absence of the tRNA methyltransferase Alkbh8 decreases the levels off many GSH metabolizing selenoproteins, promotes increased ROS and DNA damage levels, and confers enhanced sensitivity to oxidizing agents. Surprising to us was the ability of the Alkbh8 -/- MEFs and mice to thrive with the functional absence many key SEC containing proteins. Thus, we performed focused gene arrays and biochemical analysis that demonstrated dramatic alterations in both senescence and mitochondrial function. Senescence engagement and bioenergetic reprogramming are commonly observed during carcinogenesis, oncogenic transformation and metastatic disease. Thus, we next evaluated whether the adaptive gene responses that accompany Alkbh8 deficiency may be of prognostic significance. Analysis for the Alkbh8 adaptive genes of illumineseq gene expression data from 37 cancer types in The Cancer Genome Atlas revealed a significant decrease in survival percentage of only patients with the kidney cancer, clear cell renal cell carcinoma and increase of the adapt gene signature with tumor grade. Our observation that global selenoprotein suppression can accelerate the senescence phenotype and bioenergetics function, suggests that SEC-dependent regulation of these processes may be critical for limiting insults that drives tumor development or age related tissue degeneration.
Azacitidine as induction therapy of elderly patients with acute myelogenous leukemia.

6620 Background: Effective alternative treatment of elderly patients (aged ≥ 60 years) with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) remains challenging. Elderly patients with AML respond poorly to standard induction regimens and have high treatment related mortality. In a prior retrospective analysis of elderly patients with AML performed at our institution, azacitidine (AZA) showed an overall response rate (ORR) of 60% with limited toxicity. Methods: This is a prospective, phase II open-label study using AZA in patients ≥60 years with AML. Inclusion criteria: Newly-diagnosed non-M3 AML and ECOG ≤ 2. Patients with circulating blast count ≥30,000/mcl were treated with hydroxyurea until < 30,000/mcl. AZA was administered at 100 mg/m2 subcutaneously for 5 consecutive days every 28 days until disease progression or significant toxicity. Results: In all, 15 patients were enrolled last follow-up being 8/2/11. The mean age of patients is 74 years (range: 64–82). Mean ECOG score was 1. Mean baseline bone marrow blast co...
A chronology of post-glacial landslides suggests that slight increases in precipitation could trigger a disproportionate geomorphic response

Large, deep-seated landslides are common throughout the southeastern San Juan Mountains of Colorado and New Mexico, but their timing and initiation are not well understood. Determining when the landslides occurred would aid in clarifying the mechanisms for initiating landslides in the region and would help us to understand post-glacial landscape evolution. We studied seven prehistoric landslides located within the Tertiary volcanic rocks of the San Juan Volcanic Field. The landslides range in area from ~0.8 km2 to ~11.3 km2 and most are located in areas that were previously mapped as having been ice-covered during the last glaciation. Landslide deposits were dated using a variety of methods including surface-exposure dating (36Cl), radiocarbon dating of basal bog sediments and organic material buried in soils, and relative soil development. The resulting limiting ages range from approximately 14 ka to 2 ka and show that deep-seated landsliding has occurred throughout the post-glacial period. This broad range in ages is inconsistent with our initial hypothesis, which proposed that landslides were likely the result of debuttressing of glacial walls during glacial retreat. Furthermore, the timing of landslides does not seem to correlate with documented post-glacial climatic shifts. Therefore, we conclude that landsliding in the region was the result of wetter than normal periods lasting months to years acting on weak bedrock pre-conditioned to failure and prepared by glacial debuttressing. Our findings suggest that the study area is likely still susceptible to deep-seated landsliding and may become even more prone to large-scale slope failure if future climate change increases precipitation in the San Juan Mountains.
Opening Commentary: The Permanence of Racism, Critical Race Theory, and Expanding Analytic Sites

In her book, Beyond the Big House, Ladson-Billings (2005) explained that as social scientists, our charge is to explore and advance new scholarship and/or to study and contribute to an old (or exis...
Visual, Perceptual, and Cognitive Measures as Predictors of Collision Detection in Older Drivers:

This experiment examined whether visual, perceptual, or cognitive measures predicted the ability to detect vehicle collisions in intersections. Sixty subjects, comprised of three age groups balance...
Identification and Characterization of Molecular Bonding Structures by ab initio Quasi-Atomic Orbital Analyses

The quasi-atomic analysis of ab initio electronic wave functions in full valence spaces, which was developed in preceding papers, yields oriented quasi-atomic orbitals in terms of which the ab initio molecular wave function and energy can be expressed. These oriented quasi-atomic orbitals are the rigorous ab initio counterparts to the conceptual bond forming atomic hybrid orbitals of qualitative chemical reasoning. In the present work, the quasi-atomic orbitals are identified as bonding orbitals, lone pair orbitals, radical orbitals, vacant orbitals and orbitals with intermediate character. A program determines the bonding characteristics of all quasi-atomic orbitals in a molecule on the basis of their occupations, bond orders, kinetic bond orders, hybridizations and local symmetries. These data are collected in a record and provide the information for a comprehensive understanding of the synergism that generates the bonding structure that holds the molecule together. Applications to a series of molecules...
Mechanisms and regulation of TSH glycosylation.

Thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) is a glycoprotein composed of two noncovalently linked subunits, α and β. The structure of TSH from a variety of species has been well characterized, including the amino acid sequence and carbohydrate composition (Pierce and Parsons, 1981). The α-subunit of bovine TSH has a molecular weight of 13,600, of which 10,800 is composed of a protein core of 96 amino acids and 2,800 (21%) represents two oligosaccharide units linked to asparagine residues. Bovine TSH-β has a molecular weight of 14,700, of which 13,100 is comprised of a protein core of 113 amino acids and 1,600 (12%) represents one asparagine-linked oligosaccharide unit.
The spatial and temporal distribution of young-of-the-year Osmerus mordax in the Great Bay Estuary

Juvenile smelt, Osmerus mordax, were collected from four eelgrass, Zostera marina, beds in the Great Bay Estuary, two within Great Bay and two located nearer the coast. Lapillar otoliths were used to estimate the ages of the smelt and to calculate daily somatic growth based on the widths of otolith increments. Smelt collected from the Bay sites were consistently younger and shorter in total length than smelt collected from the coastal sites. A repeated measures analysis of variance found significant differences among growth trajectories of smelt grouped by their dates of ‘birth’.
Competition or cooperation: a case study of the 2005 'employee discount pricing' promotions in the US automobile industry

This paper considers the widely successful employee discount pricing (EDP) promotional program of 2005 to uncover the nature of competition in the US automobile industry, with a specific focus on the big three automakers. In contrast to previous research on automobile competition, this paper uses quarterly average dealer-level transaction price data to capture the short term nature of inter-firm competition that might be embedded in such promotional programs. In doing so, a structural oligopoly model of differentiated products is setup explicitly incorporating the nature of competitive interactions. Results imply that the overall nature of competitiveness in the US automobile industry is consistent with a static model of Bertrand behaviour without any changes in conduct among the big three during the EDP promotion period. These results corroborate the problems of inventory backlog faced by the big three in recent years and indicate that the EDP program has been more of a novel marketing intent on part of the big three to clear up such backlogs.
Microfluidic devices for disease modeling in muscle tissue

Microfluidic devices have advanced significantly in recent years and are a promising technology for the field of tissue engineering. Highly sophisticated microfabrication techniques have paved the way for the development of complex ex vivo models capable of incorporating and measuring the real-time response of multiple cell types interacting together in a single system. Muscle-on-a-chip technology has drastically improved and serves as a drug screening platform for many muscular diseases such as muscular dystrophy, tendinosis, fibromyalgia, mitochondrial myopathy, and myasthenia gravis. This review seeks to communicate the gaps in knowledge of current muscular disease models and highlight the power of microfluidic devices in enabling researchers to better understand disease pathology and provide high throughput screening of therapeutics for muscular myopathies.
Security Issues for Distributed Fusion in Coalition Environments

When sensor fusion operations are conducted in coalition environments, security of the data and infrastructure used for model fusion are very important. AI enabled sensor fusion infrastructure can be attacked on many fronts, including attacks on the data used for sensor information fusion and disrupting the communication between devices and the fusion nodes, in addition to the traditional security attacks. As the infrastructure for sensor fusion becomes more automated with multiple intelligent assistants for data collection, different types of attacks are possible. AI enabled approaches can be used to improve the security and resiliency of federated networks, and the data that is shared across coalition problems. In this paper, we discuss the challenges associated with security of coalition infrastructures, and approaches to improve the security using AI and machine learning techniques
Meaningful Connections : Positive Relationships and Attachments at Work

In this chapter, the author argues that placing relationships at the center rather than at the periphery of people's experiences of work—as the figure, not the ground—throws into sharp relief the significance of positive relationships. It defines positive relationships as those that enable individuals to personally engage in their work—that is, to be authentic, present, and intellectually and emotionally available as they go about their work. The chapter begins by articulating the dimensions of meaningful connections among people at work. There are five such dimensions, drawn from various literatures across organizational studies. Individuals vary in terms of how much they each value these particular dimensions, have access to others who can and will provide these dimensions, and are able to themselves seek out and make use of others along these dimensions. The author explores these variations, and the resulting implications for people's engagements at work and the attachments they form to their work and to their group, and organizational contexts.
Brief Report: A Gene Enrichment Approach Applied to Sleep and Autism

Sleep disorders (SD) are common in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), yet relatively little is known about the potential genetic mechanisms involved in SD and ASD comorbidity. The current study begins to fill this gap with a gene enrichment study that (1) identifies risk genes that contribute to both SD and ASD which implicate circadian entrainment, melatonin synthesis, and several genetic syndromes. An over-representation analysis identified several enriched pathways that suggest dopamine and serotonin synapses as potential shared SD and ASD mechanisms. This overlapping gene set and the highlighted biological pathways may serve as a preliminary stepping-stone for new genetic investigations of SD and ASD comorbidity.
Strategic control and cost optimization of thermal energy storage in buildings using EnergyPlus

Abstract An operational strategy to optimize building operating energy costs for suppliers and consumers is an important challenge for electrical power utilities. There are various supply-side measures that utilities have to take to ensure continuous energy supply for building heating and air-conditioning. During peak energy demand, utilities are often forced to use more expensive and less efficient generation, thereby increasing the cost of energy. However, some demand-side management practices behind the consumer meter can help in meeting this challenge. One such measure is the use of thermal storage for heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning applications in commercial buildings. There is a gap of adequate knowledge of an optimal control strategy of cold storage operation in buildings adapting to applicable time of day tariffs to minimize annual energy use and annual energy cost of operation. There is also a need to use commercially available tools to avoid the use of complex mathematical models. This study demonstrates strategic controls with six operating modes for using thermal energy storage to shift peak electricity demand, using the time of day tariffs as a decision variable, and reducing operating costs, while also minimizing the size of the system. EnergyPlus was used to model a standard reference large office building for three thermal energy storage system cases: mixed chilled water storage, stratified chilled water storage, and ice storage. An annual average shifting of 25–78% of peak electricity was achieved from the simulation results. The strategy was able to achieve an annual 10–17% cost reduction for consumers using the time of use rates available from a local utility.
HSC-FPGA

The HSC-FPGA offers an intriguing feasible architecture for the next generation of configurable fabrics, which allows embracing the advantages of both CMOS and beyond-CMOS technologies without requiring significant modification to the routing structure, programming paradigms, and synthesis tool-chain of the commercial FPGAs. In the HSC-FPGA, the intrinsic characteristics of magnetic random access memory (MRAM)-look-up table (LUT) circuits are used to implement sequential logic, while combinational logic circuits are implemented by static random access memory (SRAM)-LUTs. Fabric-level simulation results for the developed HSC-FPGA show that it can achieve at least 18%, 70%, and 15% reduction in terms of area, standby power, and read power consumption, respectively, for various ISCAS-89 and ITC-99 benchmark circuits compared to conventional SRAM-based FPGAs. The power consumption values can be further decreased by the power-gating allowed by the non-volatility feature of MRAM-LUTs. Moreover, the benefits of increased heterogeneity for reconfigurable computing is extended along realizing probabilistic computing paradigms within a fabric, which is enabled by probabilistic spin logic devices. The cooperating strengths of technology-heterogeneity and heterogeneity in computing paradigm in the proposed HSC-FPGA are leveraged to develop energy-efficient and reliability-aware training and evaluation circuits for deep belief networks with memristive crossbar arrays and p-bit based probabilistic neurons.
Simulated climate change deferentially impacts phenotypic plasticity and stoichiometric homeostasis in major food crops

Grain yield and product quality responses of major food crops to variation in resource availability continue to be important considerations in agronomic research, particularly under abiotic stresses. Indices of grain quality and phenotypic plasticity of crop cultivars with C3 or C4 metabolic pathways and producing seed with either carbohydrate, protein, oil; or a combination of carbohydrate-protein or oil-protein as their major product, were quantified for six years under two phases of single and multiple abiotic stresses. Decreasing resource availability caused by short growing season and high population density, singly or in combination, resulted in significant changes in allometric relationships among most traits under study. Temporal quantitative and qualitative differences between “heatmaps” of stress phases, partitioning and analysis of total variance due to fixed and random factors, and functional relationship at hierarchical levels of organization, indicated a shift over time of phenotypic plasticity and quality indices. Moreover, relationships of phenotypic plasticity and quality index with biomass, grain yield, macro- and micronutrients, and nutrient ratios were largely modulated by differences between crop products within metabolic pathways. However, further research is needed for in-depth understanding and insights into the interdependencies of the large number of traits that crop plants should optimize to produce economic yield combined with adequate nutritional quality under abiotic stress.
Changes in provider Fidelity after introducing a new model of intervention.

Given the impact of implementation fidelity on community-based outcomes, it is important to understand how fidelity may change over time as providers learn an intervention. Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up is an evidence-based early intervention that assesses fidelity during weekly supervision. Providers are first trained in the infant model, with toddler model training considered to be a separate, specialized opportunity. The current study examined changes in fidelity, measured by “in-the-moment” commenting, as providers moved from infant to toddler certification. An initial drop, with a subsequent increase, in commenting fidelity over the training year was expected. Results were consistent with our hypotheses, demonstrating a main effect of time, with most indices of commenting data initially decreasing and then increasing. These findings are consistent with research suggesting that fluctuation in fidelity is typical within community dissemination and suggests that ongoing supervision after the initial training is useful in facilitating successful skill development.
Mid-Infrared Emission Features in the Interstellar Medium: Feature-to-Feature Flux Ratios

Using a limited but representative sample of sources in the interstellar medium of our Galaxy with published spectra from the Infrared Space Observatory, we analyze the flux ratios between the major mid-IR emission features (EFs) centered around 6.2, 7.7, 8.6, and 11.3 μm, respectively. In a flux ratio-to-flux ratio plot of EF(6.2 μm)/EF(7.7 μm) as a function of EF(11.3 μm)/EF(7.7 μm), the sample sources form roughly a Λ-shaped locus that appears to trace, on an overall basis, the hardness of a local heating radiation field. But some driving parameters other than the radiation field may also be required for a full interpretation of this trend. On the other hand, the flux ratio of EF(8.6 μm)/EF(7.7 μm) shows little variation over the sample sources, except for two H II regions that have much higher values for this ratio because of an "EF(8.6 μm) anomaly," a phenomenon clearly associated with environments of an intense far-UV radiation field. If further confirmed on a larger database, these trends should provide crucial information on how the EF carriers collectively respond to a changing environment.
Oregon farmers' perspectives on motivations and obstacles to transition to certified organic

This exploratory study investigates perceptions of the transition to certified organic production among farmers in the U.S. state of Oregon who were actively transitioning all or part of their operation to certified organic production. It examines the influence of farmer experience with organic farming systems on motivations and obstacles to transition to certified organic farming. The analysis creates and compares three categories of farmers based on their total years of farming experience and years of farming using organic methods—Experienced Organic Farmers, Beginning Organic Farmers, and Experienced Farmers Beginning Organic—and provides insights into the economic and ideological motivations for transitioning to certified organic, as well as the economic, production, and marketing obstacles inherent to certified organic transition.
Minnesota—too late for a Sovereign Wealth Fund?

Ten states have created natural-resource-based Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWF) to allow a fraction of the wealth derived from the extraction of non-renewable resources to be available for future use. Minnesota does not have a SWF, even though companies have been mining in the state for over 100 years. Herein, we present backward and forward-looking scenarios to estimate the potential magnitude of a “what-if” extraction-based fund. A 1.5% of value tax is suggested as an SWF funding mechanism. Based on historical extraction, prices, and investment returns, a large SWF could already exist. In the forward-looking section, we begin by econometrically estimating the supply and demand of US iron ore production to better understand how an increase in mining taxes would likely effect mining output (i.e., the production effect). After accounting for an estimated 4% production loss, results suggest enough minerals could still be extracted to create a permanent fund with between $930 million (US) and $1.6 billion dollars (US) in direct contributions by 2050 (depending on price). Using reasonable assumptions of a 2% inflation rate and a 5% annual investment return, the fund size could range from $3 billion to $5 billion by 2050.
A Systematic Review of the Use of Social Media for Recruitment of Participants in Nutrition, Obesity, and Physical Activity Related Studies

Objectives To analyze the effectiveness of social media for recruitment compared to traditional methods, to calculate an average impression/reach to participant recruitment ratio from social media, and to identify the social media platforms most effective in recruiting study participants.
Polyphenylene carboxymethylene (PPCM) microbicide repurposed as antiviral against SARS-CoV-2. Proof of concept in primary human undifferentiated epithelial cells.

Abstract Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has infected over 200 million people throughout the world as of August 2021. There are currently no approved treatments providing high chance of recovery from a severe case of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by SARS-CoV-2, and the beneficial effect of Remdesivir and passive immunization therapies may only be seen when administered early on disease onset. The emergence of variants is also raising concerns regarding the efficacy of antibody therapies, antivirals, and vaccines. Therefore, there is still a need to develop new antivirals. Here, we investigated the suitability of primary human epithelial cells from the trachea/bronchia (NHBE) and small airway (SAEC) as lung models of SARS-CoV-2 infection to determine, whether the microbicide polyphenylene carboxymethylene (PPCM) has antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2. Both NHBE and SAEC expressed proteins required for virus entry in lung epithelial cells. However, these cells were only low to moderately permissive to SARS-CoV-2 as titers increased at best by 2.5 log10 during an 8-day kinetic. Levels of replication in SAEC, unlike in NHBE, were consistent with data from other studies using human normal tissues or air-liquid interface cultures, suggesting that SAEC may be more relevant to use than NHBE for drug screening. PPCM EC50 against SARS-CoV-2 was between 32 and 132 μg/ml with a selectivity index between 12 and 41, depending on the cell type and the infective dose used. PPCM doses were consistent with those previously showing effect against other human viruses. Finally, PPCM antiviral effect observed in SAEC was in line with reduction of inflammatory markers observed overly expressed in severe COVID-19 patients. Altogether, our data support the fact that PPCM should be further evaluated in vivo for toxicity and antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2.
3DE Assessment of the Pathological Spectrum of Mitral Prosthesis and Sewing Ring Dysfunction: Incremental Value over 2DE

Mechanisms of prosthetic valve dysfunction include sewing ring dehiscence, thrombosis, mechanical occluder malfunction, and bioprosthesis degeneration. Accurate diagnosis of prosthetic valve dysfunction can be challenging with 2D echocardiography and may require careful scanning of the prosthesis and its bed in multiple conventional and off-axis views. With 3D transesophageal echocardiography (TEE), enface views of the entire prosthesis and its bed can be obtained from a single acoustic window and the images closely simulate reality in a format that is readily appreciated by interventional cardiologists and cardiac surgeons. 3DTEE has thus emerged as the imaging tool of choice for the diagnosis and assessment of a spectrum of prosthetic valve dysfunction. In particular, 3DTEE has been found to be superior to 2DTEE for the diagnosis of prosthetic valve dehiscence including accurate localization of periprosthetic leaks (PPL), and for assessment of PPL defect anatomy, shape and size all of which are important considerations for potential transcatheter closure.
Heterotic quantum and classical computing on convergence spaces

Category-theoretic characterizations of heterotic models of computation, introduced by Stepney et al., combine computational models such as classical/quantum, digital/analog, synchronous/asynchronous, etc. to obtain increased computational power. A highly informative classical/quantum heterotic model of computation is represented by Abramsky's simple sequential imperative quantum programming language which extends the classical simple imperative programming language to encompass quantum computation. The mathematical (denotational) semantics of this classical language serves as a basic foundation upon which formal verification methods can be developed. We present a more comprehensive heterotic classical/quantum model of computation based on heterotic dynamical systems on convergence spaces. Convergence spaces subsume topological spaces but admit finer structure from which, in prior work, we obtained differential calculi in the cartesian closed category of convergence spaces allowing us to define heterotic dynamical systems, given by coupled systems of first order differential equations whose variables are functions from the reals to convergence spaces.
Flexure Design for Eight-Bar Rectilinear Motion Mechanism

This paper replaces the hinged pivots of an eight-bar linkage with flexure joints in order to achieve a flexure-connected linkage system that guides rectilinear movement of its end-effector. The goal is a linkage design that can be reduced in size to provide a suspension for the proof masses of a MEMS gyroscope. The symmetric design of the linkage and its long travel relative to other MEMS suspensions has the potential to provide a number of advantages, such as the reduction of quadrature error. The design presented yields 0.1% deviation over its range of movement. An example also presents the driving linkage of the MEMS gyroscope, which is also designed as flexure connected linkage.
A survey of multicast routing protocols for vehicular ad hoc networks

Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs) are autonomous and self-configurable wireless ad hoc networks and considered as a subset of Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs). MANET is composed of self-organizing mobile nodes which communicate through a wireless link without any network infrastructure. A VANET uses vehicles as mobile nodes for creating a network within a range of 100 to 1000 meters. VANET is developed for improving road safety and for providing the latest services of intelligent transport system (ITS). The development and designing of efficient, self-organizing, and reliable VANET are a challenge because the node's mobility is highly dynamic which results in frequent network disconnections and partitioning. VANET protocols reduce the power consumption, transmission overhead, and network partitioning successfully by using multicast routing schemes. In multicasting, the messages are sent to multiple specified nodes from a single source. The novel aspect of this paper is that it categorizes all VANET multicast routing protocols into geocast and cluster-based routing. Moreover, the performance of all protocols is analyzed by comparing their routing techniques and approaches.
Analysis of regulation of residential suburbanisation in hinterland of post-socialist 'one hundred thousands' city of České Budějovice

Residential suburbanisation is currently the most important urbanisation process transforming metropolitan areas in European post-socialist countries, especially in Central Europe and at Baltic states. The paper compares the statements of the mayors of the suburban municipalities situated in the hinterland of the city of Ceske Budějovice (a one-hundred-thousand city in the South-West of the Czech Republic) and also the local building officials, spatial planning officials and experts regarding the recent, currently on-going and upcoming construction of houses in the suburbs and the regulation of these constructions. Further, it discusses the possibilities of influencing the construction of the houses through the spatial plans of municipalities, settlement zones, and metropolitan areas. The interviewed mayors consider, rather uncritically, the recent large construction of houses in their suburbs in general as appropriate. One third of the mayors, however, do not want any further suburban development of this kind. Spatial planning officials and building officials do not have sufficiently powerful tools to influence the extent of the construction and the designs of houses in the individual suburban municipalities and their suburbs. Some of them, together with the experts, support the reintroduction of the metropolitan area spatial plan.
Anthropology and the Individual: A Material Culture Perspective

Reviewed Medium: book Year: 2010 Pages: 192 Publisher: Berg Publishers ISBN: 978-1-84788-495-4 (hard cover). Prices: $89.95 USD(hard cover).
Introduction of Nonindigenous Aquatic Vascular Plants in Southern New England: A Historical Perspective

Aquatic plants comprise few species worldwide, yet introductions of nonindigenous hydrophytes represent some of the most severe examples of biological invasions. Often innocuous in their indigenous regions, many aquatic plant species have caused extreme ecological and economic consequences when introduced into nonindigenous habitats. Typically, aquatic plant invasions are unnoticed or overlooked until they are perceived as problematic. By then, plants are virtually impossible to eradicate and negative ecological impacts caused by their spread into natural communities are irreparable. We present criteria to facilitate decisions whether a species should be characterized as nonindigenous or invasive. Historical data are used to clarify methods of introduction, avenues and means of dispersal, and extent of invasiveness of the following aquatic plants in southern New England: Acorus calamus, Butomus umbellatus, Cabomba caroliniana, Callitriche stagnalis, Egeria densa, Hydrilla verticillata, Limnobium spongia, Marsilea quadrifolia, Myriophyllum aquaticum, Myriophyllum heterophyllum, Myriophyllum spicatum, Najas minor, Najas guadalupensis, Nasturtium officinale, Nymphoides peltata, Potamogeton crispus, Trapa natans and Veronica beccabunga.
Use of PARADISE: a meta-tool for visualizing parallel systems

Addresses the problem of creating software tools for visualizing the dynamic behavior of parallel applications and systems. PARADISE (PARallel Animated Debugging and Simulation Environment) approaches this problem by providing a meta-tool environment for generating custom visual analysis tools. PARADISE is a meta-tool because it is a tool which is utilized to create other tools. The authors focus on the user's view of the use of PARADISE for constructing tools which analyze the interaction between parallel systems and parallel applications. An example of its use, involving the PASM Parallel Processing System, is given. >
A Degree Account of Exclamatives

(2) a. (My,) How orange Sue’s shoes were! b. (Oh,) The shoes Sue wore! c. (Boy,) Did Sue wear orange shoes! This distinction is based on the empirical observation that the latter are subject to two semantic restrictions not applicable to the former. The proposal is this: for the utterance of an exclamation to be expressively correct, itscontentmustbesalient, andthespeakermustfind thiscontentsurprising. For the utterance of an exclamative to be expressively correct, its content must additionally be about a degree, and that degree must exceed a contextually relevant standard. I account for this difference by proposing that proposition exclamations and exclamatives are expressed with two different illocutionary force operators. These operators have different domains (one is a function from propositions, the other from degree properties) but the same value (an expression of surprise). This view of exclamatives helps characterize the syntactic constructions used to express exclamatives (which on first glance do not appear to form a natural class). Exclamatives are additionally interesting because, as Milner (1978) and G´ (1980) observe, they are different from any other expression because they can receive an extreme degree interpretation in the absence of overt degree morphology. The situation is even more compelling than this: as I argue, exclamatives must receive an ‘extreme degree’ interpretation. Although the discussion here bears quite a bit on what it means for an exclamative to force an ‘extreme degree’ reading, in the end I will have little to say about how this is so.
Journal Club with a mission

hree medical reference librarians at Tompkins-McCaw Library at Medical College of Virginia/Virginia Commonwealth University, interested in trying the concept of discussing a topic of mutual interest as an alternative means of obtaining continuous education credits, formed a Medical Library Association (MLA) Journal Club group. The group settled on the topic of total quality management (TQM)
Verification by Abstraction

Verification seeks to prove or refute putative properties of a given program. Deductive verification is carried out by constructing a proof that the program satisfies its specification, whereas model checking uses state exploration to find computations where the property fails. Model checking is largely automatic but is effective only for programs defined over small state spaces. Abstraction serves as a bridge between the more general deductive methods for program verification and the restricted but effective state exporation methods used in model checking. In verification by abstraction, deduction is used to construct a finite-state approximation of a program that preserves the property of interest. The resulting abstraction can be explored for offending computations through the use of model checking. We motivate the use of abstraction in verification and survey some of the recent advances.
Efficient multiphoton dissociation of CF3I+ in the metastable X̃ 2E1/2 excited state using cw infrared laser radiation

Evidence for the multiphoton dissociation of an electronic metastable state of CF3I+ with CO2 laser radiation is presented. Only those ions possessing sufficient internal excitation before irradiation can be dissociated. Photodissociation results primarily from resonant absorption by the nu1 vibrational mode of CF3I+ in the higher of the two, spin–orbit levels of the ground electronic state Xbar^2 E1/2. Only the lowest energy decomposition channel is observed; this yields CF + 3 and I. Spin–orbit and vibrational relaxation compete with photodissociation. At CF3I pressures below 2×10^−7 Torr, the collisional relaxation rate is proportional to CF3I pressure kc = (3.1±0.4)×10^−9 cm^3 molecule^−3 sec^−1 with a zero pressure rate of 11.3±1.3 sec^−1. The latter rate sets an upper limit on the spin–orbit relaxation rate. The photodissociation probability varies with laser frequency, exhibiting a broad, structureless peak near 960 cm^−1. The initial photodissociation rate is proportional to laser irradiance kD = 0.80±0.08 sec^−1/W cm^−2. The photoproducts and laser frequency dependence are the same using either cw or pulsed irradiation. Ions were exposed to irradiances up to 120 W cm^−2 cw and fluences up to 1.6 J cm^−2 pulsed. Ion cyclotron resonance (ICR) techniques were used to store and detect the ions.
Performance evaluation of Amazon EC2 for NASA HPC applications

Cloud computing environments are now widely available and are being increasingly utilized for technical computing. They are also being touted for high-performance computing (HPC) applications in science and engineering. For example, Amazon EC2 Services offers a specialized Cluster Compute instance to run HPC applications. In this paper, we compare the performance characteristics of Amazon EC2 HPC instances to that of NASA's Pleiades supercomputer, an SGI ICE cluster. For this study, we utilized the HPCC kernels and the NAS Parallel Benchmarks along with four full-scale applications from the repertoire of codes that are being used by NASA scientists and engineers. We compare the total runtime of these codes for varying number of cores. We also break out the computation and communication times for a subset of these applications to explore the effect of interconnect differences on the two systems. In general, the single node performance of the two platforms is equivalent. However, for most of the codes when scaling to larger core counts, the performance of EC2 HPC instance generally lags that of Pleiades due to worse network performance of the former. In addition to analyzing application performance, we also briefly touch upon the overhead due to virtualization and the usability of cloud environments such as Amazon EC2.
Post-copy live migration of virtual machines

We present the design, implementation, and evaluation of post-copy based live migration for virtual machines (VMs) across a Gigabit LAN. Post-copy migration defers the transfer of a VM's memory contents until after its processor state has been sent to the target host. This deferral is in contrast to the traditional pre-copy approach, which first copies the memory state over multiple iterations followed by a final transfer of the processor state. The post-copy strategy can provide a "win-win" by reducing total migration time while maintaining the liveness of the VM during migration. We compare post-copy extensively against the traditional pre-copy approach on the Xen Hypervisor. Using a range of VM workloads we show that post-copy improves several metrics including pages transferred, total migration time, and network overhead. We facilitate the use of post-copy with adaptive prepaging techniques to minimize the number of page faults across the network. We propose different prepaging strategies and quantitatively compare their effectiveness in reducing network-bound page faults. Finally, we eliminate the transfer of free memory pages in both pre-copy and post-copy through a dynamic self-ballooning (DSB) mechanism. DSB periodically reclaims free pages from a VM and significantly speeds up migration with negligible performance impact on VM workload.
Cyclin-dependent kinase directly regulates initiation of meiotic recombination

Meiosis is a specialized cell division that halves the genome complement, producing haploid gametes/spores from diploid cells. Proper separation of homologous chromosomes at the first meiotic division requires the production of physical connections (chiasmata) between homologs through recombinational exchange of chromosome arms after sister-chromatid cohesion is established but before chromosome segregation takes place. The events of meiotic prophase must thus occur in a strictly temporal order, but the molecular controls coordinating these events have not been well elucidated. Here, we demonstrate that the budding yeast cyclin-dependent kinase Cdc28 directly regulates the formation of the DNA double-strand breaks that initiate recombination by phosphorylating the Mer2/Rec107 protein and thereby modulating interactions of Mer2 with other proteins required for break formation. We propose that this function of Cdc28 helps to coordinate the events of meiotic prophase with each other and with progression through prophase.
Observations of self-aggregation and dissociation of E. coli ribosomes by optical mixing spectroscopy.

Measurements of the diffusion coefficient of E. coli ribosomes by the technique of optical mixing spectroscopy are used to show that these ribosomes, when incubated in a 4°C cold room, undergo a slow aggregation with time. Even in the presence of this aggregation, it was possible to observe the diffusive character of the single 70s ribosome. It was found that at high (≥0.100 molar) KCl concentrations the ribosomes broke into their subunits. At moderate KCl concentrations they were relatively stable and at a very low KCl concentration (0.005 M) they were observed to dimerize. The values of the diffusion coefficients of the 50s subunits, the 70s single ribosome and the ribosome dimer determined in these measurements are consistent with currently accepted values.
Accuracy of Traditional Age, Gender and Symptom Based Pre-Test Estimation of Angiographically Significant Coronary Artery Disease in Patients Referred for Coronary Computed Tomographic Angiography

Determining the pretest probability of angiographically significant (≥50% stenosis) coronary artery disease (CAD) in symptomatic patients relies on the Diamond and Forrester (DF) classification, which was derived from a cohort referred for invasive coronary angiography. The accuracy of this approach in patients referred for noninvasive coronary angiography is not fully known. Consecutive patients without known CAD referred for coronary computed tomographic angiography (CCTA) were evaluated. Chest pain was prospectively categorized as nonanginal, atypical angina, typical angina, or asymptomatic. The pretest likelihood of angiographically significant CAD was estimated using DF classification and compared with observed rates of angiographically significant CAD on CCTA. Among 1,027 patients (41% women; mean age 50 ± 12 years), 38 (4%) had nonanginal symptoms, 643 (63%) had atypical angina, 72 (7%) had typical angina, and 274 (26%) were asymptomatic. The prevalence of angiographically significant CAD in patients with nonanginal chest pain, atypical angina, typical angina, and no symptoms was 1 (3%), 55 (9%), 14 (19%), and 25 (9%), respectively (p
A NEXAFS determination of the oxidation state of vanadium carbide on V(110): observation of charge transfer from vanadium to carbon

Abstract We have applied the near-edge X-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS) technique to investigate the electronic and structural properties of thin vanadium carbide films on a vanadium (110) single-crystal surface. The carbon K-edge features of vanadium carbides were characterized by two relatively sharp resonances at 285.5 and 287.5 eV, and by one broad peak centered at 295.0 eV. A comparison of NEXAFS data by means of measuring the fluorescence yield (bulk sensitive) and electron yield (surface sensitive) suggested that the 285.5 and the 287.5 eV resonances could be related to the bulk carbide and surface carbide, respectively, while the 295.0 eV feature was contributed from both bulk and surface carbides. Such an assignment was also supported by comparing the NEXAFS data recorded at normal and glancing incidences. Finally, we have obtained a NEXAFS calibration curve correlating the peak positions of vanadium L-edge features and the vanadium oxidation states of a series of model oxide compounds. A linear relationship, 0.68 ± 0.03 eV per oxidation state, was determined by the NEXAFS measurements. By using this calibration curve, the oxidation state of vanadium carbide was estimated to be in the range of V 1.2±0.2 . The fact that vanadium is positively charged in the carbide indicates that the direction of charge transfer is from vanadium to carbon.
Processing limits of selective attention and working memory: Potential implications for interpreting

This article summarizes recent research on working memory and attention, with an emphasis on one theoretical framework in which working memory and attention are intricately related (Cowan, 1988, 1995, 1999a). Within this framework, working memory is conceived as an activated portion of long-term memory and, within that activated portion, the focus of attention and control processes that direct it. The focus of attention presumably can link activated elements to form new chunks of information. Several basic phenomena are sketched out, along with their potential relevance for the process of simultaneous interpreting. Current controversies that are likely to be of relevance to interpreting also are discussed. Although the question of how interpreters meet difficult processing demands cannot be answered presently because few studies have examined interpreting, the evidence does point the way to a number of promising lines of research on interpreting that could be carried out.
Nitrocellulose and BKNO3 Based Igniters for Gun Systems.

Common igniters such as black powder, benite, and boron potassium nitrate (BKNO3) are routinely employed in all calibers of gun systems. Armament Research Development Engineering Center (ARDEC) has pursued efforts to improve the ignition of gun propellants which has been demonstrated to be the root cause of many tribulations for gun systems. We have developed several extrudable nitrocellulose-BKNO3 based igniter materials that are more energetic, and exhibit smaller ignition delay times than most traditional igniters. We have demonstrated this via static firing. High speed video during static testing has demonstrated significantly more consistent, intense, and rapid flame generation in comparison to Benite leading to improved ignition effectiveness of the propellant bed.