cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Optimization of Gradient Index Lenses Using Quasi-Conformal Contour Transformations

Transformation electromagnetics (TE) has been used to predict many unconventional and potentially game-changing electromagnetic devices, but they are often left unimplemented due to the complexity of the required material properties. Restricting transformations to quasi-conformal mappings allows all-dielectric gradient-index (GRIN) lens implementations using approaches familiar to optical system designers. We demonstrate spherical-aberration-corrected lenses with spherical surface profiles by mimicking the optical behavior of aspherical lenses using quasi-conformal mappings. Several approaches for mapping aspherical to spherical contours are described and contrasted, including the use of bulk GRIN regions throughout the entire lens as well as layered designs where the GRIN profiles are restricted to thin laminar layers at the surface of the otherwise homogeneous lens. Hence, the proposed methodology provides engineers with a powerfully intuitive means to design, compare, and contrast various equivalently performing GRIN lenses, adding new modeling capabilities to the existing, well-known remedies for optical system optimization. Furthermore, such an approach facilitates straightforward monitoring and manipulation of material gradients and overall change in refractive index.
Effect of Surface Energetics of Substrates on Adhesion Characteristics of Poly (p-xylylenes)

Abstract In investigating the effect of the surface energetics of substrate materials on the adhesion characteristics of poly(p-xylylene) and poly(chloro-p-xylylene) by the “Scotch Tape” method, it was found that if the substrates had not been preconditioned (treated with argon or a methane plasma), the adhesion was poor. The characteristics of water resistant adhesion that were observed when coated substrates were boiled in 0.9% sodium chloride solution were found to vary from excellent (when the polymer did not peel from the substrate after three cycles of 8 hours of boiling and 16 hours at room temperature) to poor (when the polymer peeled off almost immediately). It was noticed that water resistant adhesion depends on the hydrophobicity of the substrate material (the greater the hydrophobicity, the greater the adhesion) and is not related to the dry adhesive strength of poly(p-xylylene). The oxygen glow discharge treatment of the substrates decreased both the dry and wet adhesive strength of the polym...
Developmental delay in P300 production in children at high risk for developing alcohol-related disorders.

Abstract Background: Reduction of P300 amplitude in children and adolescents at high risk for developing alcoholism has frequently been reported. It has been hypothesized that this reduction represents a developmental delay in reaching age-appropriate levels in P300 amplitude. Using latent growth analysis of longitudinal data obtained at yearly intervals, this study seeks to define normal growth, and determine if the pattern seen in high-risk children differs from that obtained in normal low-risk controls. Methods: A total of 156 children from either high or low-risk families have been assessed multiple times (two-thirds more than 4 times) using both a clinical assessment (K-SADS) and ERP evaluation performed on the same day. A total of 635 separate assessments were available for modeling. Results: Quadratic growth curves revealed a slower rate of change in P300 amplitude in high-risk than low-risk males. High-risk girls showed reduced visual P300 amplitude only when the presence of a K-SADS diagnosis was considered. No differences were seen for P300 latency. Conclusions: This study confirms the hypothesis that when reduction of P300 amplitude is seen in males at high risk for developing alcoholism, it is due to a developmental delay.
Equivariance and invariance properties of multivariate quantile and related functions, and the role of standardisation

Equivariance and invariance issues arise as a fundamental but often problematic aspect of multivariate statistical analysis. For multivariate quantile and related functions, we provide coherent def...
Distress and quality of life characteristics associated with seeking surgical treatment for stress urinary incontinence

Current research focuses on three variables in evaluating the impact of stress urinary incontinence (SUI) on daily living: severity of incontinence, distress or bother resulting from incontinence, and effect on health related quality of life (HRQoL). Understanding the impact of these variables is important as they are the driving force behind women seeking surgical treatment. Given the importance of HRQoL in determining need for treatment, as well as evaluating treatment success, this review provides an assessment of the degree to which HRQoL is impaired in women seeking surgical treatment. PubMed searches for the terms "quality of life and distress and urinary incontinence" and "quality of life and bother and urinary incontinence" were performed with limits of English, human and female subjects through May 2008. All studies using validated instruments were included. No time limit was placed on the search. Of 178 articles retrieved, 21 met the inclusion criteria, and 17 reported methods of scoring. The studies used the Urogenital Distress Inventory (UDI) and the Incontinence Impact Questionnaire (IIQ). Wide ranges of mean and individual levels of severity of symptoms, UDI and IIQ scores were seen among women seeking surgical treatment. Fourteen studies reported baseline and post-surgical treatment distress and QoL data. Statistically significant improvements between baseline and post-surgical UDI and IIQ scores were reported in 12 studies. Reported cure rates ranged from 46% to 97%. Satisfaction with the procedure was reported in 4 studies and ranged from 84% to 91%. A minority of studies reported the relationship between reduction in symptoms and change in HRQoL. HRQoL is the main reason women seek surgical treatment for incontinence and surgical treatment leads to a significant improvement in mean HRQoL scores. Assessment of HRQoL has proved less useful in identifying why individual women seek treatment for incontinence. Preliminary work has begun to characterize the interaction between severity of symptoms, distress or bother resulting from these urinary symptoms, impact on HRQoL, and treatment seeking behavior, but further research is needed. Greater standardization in the reporting of results of distress or bother and HRQoL would allow for comparison across studies.
Absolute lymphocyte count predicts therapeutic efficacy and survival at the time of radioimmunotherapy in patients with relapsed follicular lymphomas.

Radioimmunotherapy (RIT) delivers radiation to tumor cells using antibodies as carriers of radionuclides. There are two radioimmunoconjugates that have been approved for use in B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma – 131I-tositumomab (Bexxar, GlaxoSmithKline, Research Triangle Park, NC, USA) and 90Y-Ibritumomab tiuxetan (Zevalin, BiogenIdec, Cambridge, MA, USA).1 Besides the cytotoxic radiation delivered to the tumor cells via antibody binding to a tumor-specific or tumor-associated antigen, several immunologic-related mechanisms have been attributed to RIT, including complement-mediated lysis (complement-dependent cytotoxicity (CDC) and antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC)).1 Peripheral blood absolute lymphocyte count (ALC) recovery following autologous stem cell transplantation has been reported to be an independent prognostic factor for survival in various hematologic malignancies.2 Recently, ALC before rituximab therapy was reported to predict better response rates and clinical outcomes in patients with follicular lymphomas (FL) treated with single-agent rituximab.3 The role of ALC before RIT has not been evaluated previously. We hypothesized that the presence of a competent immune system would translate into a better response and longer survival to RIT.
Cinromide in the Treatment of Absence Seizures

Cinromide (BW-122U) was evaluated in an open pilot study of absence seizures in three naive (previously untreated for absence seizures) patients (one male and two females, 7 to 8 years of age). In these naive patients, cinromide was found to be well tolerated but ineffective in reducing generalized spike-and-wave discharges on the telemetered EEG during the 1-week duration of the study.
HELP:// Hypertext In-Emergency Leveraging Protocol

This paper proposes HELP://, a simple light-weight protocol that runs over HTTP and is used to disseminate information from a server(s) to its clients during the time of a crisis. HELP runs on an architecture that is a hybrid mix between a pure client/server architecture and a Peer-to-Peer architecture. Its resemblance to one versus the other is dynamically decided based on load. In particular, under light load, HELP operates in a client/server mode, where all clients are served directly from the server. Under high load, however, HELP picks one client in every n clients to help the server in serving its content. The value of n is chosen dynamically to optimize the performance of HELP and to ensure that clients receive their requested content with a very high probability, even in the presence of uncooperative clients. We assess the performance of HELP through analysis, simulation experiments and real implementation in Linux. We envision HELP to be installed as a plug-in in common browsers.
Estrus and luteal function in suckled beef cows that were anestrous when treated with an intravaginal device containing progesterone with or without a subsequent injection of estradiol benzoate.

The objectives in this study were to determine whether treatment with progesterone (P 4 ) via an intravaginal device would induce estrus and development of corpora lutea (CL) with typical life spans and whether treatment with estradiol benzoate (EB) following device removal would enhance the responses. At treatment initiation (d 0), suckled beef cows (n = 362) that were anestrous received one of the following: 1) an intravaginal device containing P 4 for 7 d plus an injection of 1 mg of EB 24 to 30 h after device removal (P 4 + EB), 2) an intravaginal device containing P 4 for 7 d (P 4 ), 3) a sham device for 7 d plus an injection of 1 mg of EB 24 to 30 h after device removal (EB), or 4) a sham device for 7 d (control). Progesterone treatment increased the proportion of cows that formed CL with a typical lifespan (P <.001) and exhibited behavioral estrus (P <.05). Treatment with EB in combination with P 4 increased (P <.001) the proportion of cows that exhibited estrus. Treatment with P 4 alone had no effect, but the combination of P 4 and EB increased (P <.01) the proportion of cows that formed short-lived or typical lifespan CL by the end of the experiment compared with untreated cows. In summary, treatment with P 4 increased the incidence of estrus and the proportion of cows that formed CL with a typical lifespan. Treatment with P 4 resulted in resumption of luteal function in suckled beef cows that were anestrous, with most cows developing CL with a typical lifespan, whereas EB enhanced the expression of estrus.
Estimates of statistical significance for comparison of individual positions in multiple sequence alignments

Background Profile-based analysis of multiple sequence alignments (MSA) allows for accurate comparison of protein families. Here, we address the problems of detecting statistically confident dissimilarities between (1) MSA position and a set of predicted residue frequencies, and (2) between two MSA positions. These problems are important for (i) evaluation and optimization of methods predicting residue occurrence at protein positions; (ii) detection of potentially misaligned regions in automatically produced alignments and their further refinement; and (iii) detection of sites that determine functional or structural specificity in two related families.
Algorithms for variable length subnet address assignment

In a computer network that consists of M subnetworks, the L-bit address of a machine consists of two parts: A prefix s/sub i/ that contains the address of the subnetwork to which the machine belongs, and a suffix (of length L-Is/sub i/I) containing the address of that particular machine within its subnetwork. In fixed-length subnetwork addressing, Is/sub i/I is independent of I, whereas, in variable length subnetwork addressing, Is/sub i/I varies from one subnetwork to another. To avoid ambiguity when decoding addresses, there is a requirement that no s/sub i/ be a prefix of another s/sub i/. The practical problem is how to find a suitable set of s/sub i/s in order to maximize the total number of addressable machines, when the ith subnetwork contains n/sub i/ machines. Not all of the n/sub i/ machines of a subnetwork i need be addressable in a solution: If n/sub i/>2(L-|s/sub i/|), then only 2(L-|s/sub j/|) machines of that subnetwork are addressable (none is addressable s/sub i/ the solution assigns no address s/sub i/ to that subnetwork). The abstract problem implied by this formulation is: Given an integer L, and given M (not necessarily distinct) positive integers n/sub 1/,...,n/sub M/, find M binary strings s/sub 1/,...,s/sub M/ (some of which may be empty) such that (1) no nonempty string s/sub i/ is prefix of another string s/sub j/, (2) no s/sub i/ is more than L bits long, and (3) the quantity /spl Sigma/(|s/sub k/|/spl ne/0) min{n/sub k/,2(L-|s/sub k/|)} is maximized. We generalize the algorithm to the case where each n/sub i/ also has a priority p/sub i/ associated with it and there is an additional constraint involving priorities: Some subnetworks are then more important than others and are treated preferentially when assigning addresses. The algorithms can be used to solve the case when L itself is a variable; that is, when the input no longer specifies L but, rather, gives a target integer /spl gamma/ for the number of addressable machines, and the goal is to find the smallest L whose corresponding optimal solution results in at least /spl gamma/ addressable machines.
OCCURRENCE OF ENDOSYMBIOTIC BACTERIA IN MARINE DINOFLAGELLATES1,2

SUMMARY The marine dinoflagellates Gymnodinium splendens (photosynthetic) and Cryptothecodinium cohnii (heterotrophic) harbor abundant endosymbiotic bacterial floras. Some general observations are made on their characteristics, and on this symbiotic relationship in other protists.
Bayesian prediction of waiting times in stochastic models

The authors show how saddlepoint techniques lead to highly accurate approximations for Bayesian predictive densities and cumulative distribution functions in stochastic model settings where the prior is tractable, but not necessarily the likelihood or the predictand distribution. They consider more specifically models involving predictions associated with waiting times for semi-Markov processes whose distributions are indexed by an unknown parameter θ. Bayesian prediction for such processes when they are not stationary is also addressed and the inverse-Gaussian based saddlepoint approximation of Wood, Booth & Butler (1993) is shown to accurately deal with the nonstationarity whereas the normal-based Lugannani & Rice (1980) approximation cannot, Their methods are illustrated by predicting various waiting times associated with M/M/q and M/G/1 queues. They also discuss modifications to the matrix renewal theory needed for computing the moment generating functions that are used in the saddlepoint methods. Les auteurs montrent comment l'emploi de methodes de point de selle permet d'approcher de tres pres les fonctions de densite et de repartition previsionnelles bayesiennes dans des modeles stochastiques ou la loi a priori s'exprime sous une forme analytique simple, mais pas forcement la vraisemblance ou la loi marginale des observations. IIs s'interessent plus particulierement aux aspects previsionnels de modeles de temps d'attente semi-markoviens a lois indicees par un parametre θ inconnu et montrent qu'en l'absence de stationnarite 1'approximation de point de selle inverse-gaussienne de Wood, Booth & Butler (1993) se comporte mieux que l'approximation gaussiennede Lugannani & Rice (1980). IIs illustrent leurs resultats en montrant comment predire certains temps d'attente dans les files d'attente M/M/q et M/G/1. IIs montrent aussi comment la theorie du renouvellement matricielle doit ětre adaptee pour que puissent ětre calculees les fonctions generatrices des moments intervenant dans les methodes de point de selle.
Modeling Causality for Pairs of Phenotypes in System Genetics

Current efforts in systems genetics have focused on the development of statistical approaches that aim to disentangle causal relationships among molecular phenotypes in segregating populations. Reverse engineering of transcriptional networks plays a key role in the understanding of gene regulation. However, transcriptional regulation is only one possible mechanism, as methylation, phosphorylation, direct protein–protein interaction, transcription factor binding, etc., can also contribute to gene regulation. These additional modes of regulation can be interpreted as unobserved variables in the transcriptional gene network and can potentially affect its reconstruction accuracy. We develop tests of causal direction for a pair of phenotypes that may be embedded in a more complicated but unobserved network by extending Vuong’s selection tests for misspecified models. Our tests provide a significance level, which is unavailable for the widely used AIC and BIC criteria. We evaluate the performance of our tests against the AIC, BIC, and a recently published causality inference test in simulation studies. We compare the precision of causal calls using biologically validated causal relationships extracted from a database of 247 knockout experiments in yeast. Our model selection tests are more precise, showing greatly reduced false-positive rates compared to the alternative approaches. In practice, this is a useful feature since follow-up studies tend to be time consuming and expensive and, hence, it is important for the experimentalist to have causal predictions with low false-positive rates.
Chlorotri-n-butyltin. An inhibitor of photophosphorylation in isolated chloroplasts☆

Abstract 1. Chlorotri-n-butyltin was found to be a specific inhibitor of photophosphorylation in isolated chloroplasts. Only very small amounts were required for complete inhibition, and the reaction of the inhibitor with the chloroplasts appeared to be stoichiometric, requiring 1 mole of chlorotributyltin to 60–120 moles chlorophyll. 2. No direct effect of chlorotributyltin on electron transport could be observed, although it inhibited ferricyanide and NADP+ reduction indirectly in coupled chloroplasts. This inhibition could be completely reversed by the addition of an uncoupler such as NH4Cl. 3. Photophosphorylation as well as the light-dependent “pH rise” were markedly stimulated by low concentrations of chlorotributyltin in chloroplasts which were deficient in coupling factor. It was postulated that the chlorotributyltin binds to the chloroplasts close to or at the site of binding of the coupling factor and thus prevents the loss by hydrolysis of a high-energy intermediate.
Misleading Suggestions can Alter Later Memory Reports even Following a Cognitive Interview

SUMMARY: Taking an immediate recall test prior to misinformation exposure can increase eyewitness suggestibility—a finding termed retrieval-enhanced suggestibility. Here, we examined whether retrieval-enhanced suggestibility would occur when participants were administered an immediate Cognitive Interview (CI). The CI is an investigative interviewing technique that consistently elicits more correct details in memory reports than standard interviews. In this study, participants watched a video of a crime and then completed a distractor task (control condition), a free recall test, or the CI. They then heard misinformation presented in a narrative. Participants produced more accurate memory details in the CI than in free recall despite spending equal time on both tasks. However, the CI also increased the later report of misinformation relative to the control condition. These results show that initial retrieval can increase subsequent suggestibility even when such retrieval occurs under relatively ideal conditions. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Control of the lateral interactions of immobilized proteins using surface nanoporous-patterning

Abstract Protein immobilization on a solid surface is a consequence of complex physical processes at liquid–solid interfaces. Lateral interactions include these physical processes and affect the behavior of proteins at the interfaces. Protein immobilization on planar surfaces frequently produces randomly distributed and irregularly sized protein clusters having large lateral interactions that impair the biochemical functionalities of immobilized proteins. This study discusses control of lateral interactions via nanoporous-patterning of the solid surface. The size of protein clusters and lateral interactions can be controlled via nanoporous-patterning as protein immobilization on a nanoporous surface is confined to the surface that is not occupied by nanopores. Protein clusters on a nanoporous surface are more biochemically functional than clusters on a planar surface.
An Ikaros Promoter Element with Dual Epigenetic and Transcriptional Activities

Ikaros DNA binding factor plays critical roles in lymphocyte development. Changes in Ikaros expression levels during lymphopoiesis are controlled by redundant but also unique regulatory elements of its locus that are critical for this developmental process. We have recently shown that Ikaros binds its own locus in thymocytes in vivo. Here, we evaluated the role of an Ikaros binding site within its major lympho-myeloid promoter. We identified an Ikaros/Ets binding site within a promoter sub-region that was highly conserved in mouse and human. Deletion of this binding site increased the percentage of the reporter-expressing mouse lines, indicating that its loss provided a more permissive chromatin environment. However, once transcription was established, the lack of this site decreased transcriptional activity. These findings implicate a dual role for Ikaros/Ets1 binding on Ikzf1 expression that is exerted at least through its promoter.
Social network ties and mortality among the elderly in the Alameda County Study

Seventeen-year mortality data from the Alameda County Study are used to examine the relative importance of social ties as predictors of survival at different ages, ranging from 38-94 years at baseline. Previous analyses of Alameda County data by Berkman and Syme (Am J Epidemiol 1979;109:186-204) have shown that such ties are significant predictors of lower nine-year mortality risk for persons aged less than 70 years at baseline. Proportional hazard analyses indicate that social ties are also significant predictors of lower 17-year mortality risks for those aged 70 and older after adjusting for age, sex, race, baseline health status, perceived health, depression, and health practices (relative hazard = 1.49 for Berkman-Syme Social Network Index; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.09-2.05). Comparisons of the relative importance of four types of social ties reveal an interesting shift across the age groups. Marital status assumes primary importance for those aged less than 60 years at baseline (relative hazard = 1.6 and 1.4 for those aged 38-49 and 50-59, respectively; 95% CI = 1.12-2.29 and 1.02-1.91, respectively). However, ties with close friends and/or relatives assume greater importance for those aged 60 and older (relative hazard = 1.17 comparing those reporting five or more contacts per month to the more socially isolated who report less than five such contacts per month; 95% CI = 0.98-1.89).
Isolated mouse liver mitochondria are devoid of glucokinase.

Glucokinase is a hexokinase isoform with low affinity for glucose that has previously been identified as a cytosolic enzyme. A recent report claims that glucokinase physically associates with liver mitochondria to form a multi-protein complex that may be physiologically important in apoptotic signaling [N.N. Danial, C.F. Gramm, L. Scorrano, C.Y. Zhang, S. Krauss, A.M. Ranger, S.R. Datta, M.E. Greenberg, L.J. Licklider, B.B. Lowell, S.P. Gygi, S.J. Korsmeyer, Nature 424 (2003) 952–956]. Here, we re-examined the association of glucokinase with isolated mouse liver mitochondria. When glucokinase activity was measured by coupled enzyme assay, robust activity was present in whole liver homogenates and their 9500g supernatants (cytosol), but activity in the purified mitochondrial fraction was below detection (<0.2% of homogenate). Furthermore, addition of 45 mM glucose in the presence of ATP did not increase mitochondrial respiration, indicating the absence of ADP formation by glucokinase or any other hexokinase isoform. Immunoblots of liver homogenates and cytosol revealed strong glucokinase bands, but no immunoreactivity was detected in mitochondria. In conclusion, mouse liver mitochondria lack measurable glucokinase. Thus, functional linkage of glucokinase to mitochondrial metabolism and apoptotic signaling is unlikely to be mediated by the physical association of glucokinase with mitochondria. 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Nonparametric segmentation and classification of small size irregularly shaped stem cell nuclei using adjustable windowing

We present nonparametric methods for segmenting and classifying stem cell nuclei so as to enable the automatic monitoring of stem cell growth and development. The approach is based on combining level set methods, multiresolutionwavelet analysis, and non-parametric estimation of the density functions of the wavelet coefficients from the decomposition. Additionally, to deal with small size textureswhere the largest inscribed rectangular windowmay not contain a sufficient number of pixels for multiresolution analysis, we propose an adjustable windowing method that enables the multiresolution analysis of elongated and irregularly shaped nuclei. We illustrate cases where the adjustable windowing approach combinedwith non-parametric density models yields better classification for cases where parametric densitymodeling of wavelet coefficients may not applicable.
Transformation of Sclerotinia sclerotiorum with the green fluorescent protein gene and fluorescence of hyphae in four inoculated hosts

To obtain a genetic marker to observe and study the interaction of Sclerotinia sclerotiorum with its hosts, isolates ND30 and ND21 were transformed using pCT74 and gGFP constructs, both containing genes for the green fluorescent protein (GFP) and hygromycin B phosphotransferase. Putative transformants were obtained using polyethylene glycol-mediated transformation of protoplasts. Seven stable gfp transformants were identified and evaluated for fluorescence in vitro and in planta , pathogenicity and colonization of host tissues. Real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction detected a single copy of the gfp gene in transformants. Fluorescence was quantified directly from mycelium and protein extracted from hyphae. The seven transformants (four from ND30 and three from ND21) were pathogenic on dry bean, canola, soybean and sunflower. However, depending on the host, three transformants differed significantly ( P = 0·05) in the length of lesions formed compared to the wild-type. Hyphae fluoresced in plant tissue and could clearly be distinguished from plant cells. Infection and colonization of tissues were clearly visible with a fluorescent microscope. Transformants differed in the intensity of GFP expression both in vitro and in planta .
Efficient analog circuit modeling by Boolean logic operations

In this paper, we propose a novel symbolic analysis method for analog behavioral modeling by Boolean logic operations and graph representation. The exact symbolic analysis problem is formulated as a logic circuit synthesis problem where we build a logic circuit, which detects whether or not a given symbolic term is a valid product term from a determinant. The logic circuit is represented by binary decision diagrams (BDDs), which can be trivially transformed into zero-suppressed binary decision diagrams (ZBDDs). ZBDDs are essentially determinant decision diagrams (DDDs) representation of a determinant. The significance of the new method is that all product terms can be constructed implicitly and simultaneously, in contrast to all previous symbolic analysis methods where symbolic terms are generated explicitly and sequentially by Laplace expansion or topological methods. We further apply the logic synthesis idea to generating symbolic coefficients of s-expanded polynomials and present a method to compute coefficients individually and selectively. Our new approach demonstrates an inherent relationship between circuit simulation and logic synthesis for the first time. Experimental results show the speedup of our new method over the existing flat method and its greater capacity over both existing flat and hierarchical symbolic analyzers.
A soot map for methane-oxygen counterflow diffusion flames

We report on the development of a soot map that separates non-sooting from sooting regions of laminar, counterflow, methane-oxygen-nitrogen diffusion flames at atmospheric pressure. Soot formation is studied at a constant global strain rate of 20 s m 1 as a function of the amounts of methane (0-100%) in the fuel stream and of oxygen (0-100%) in the oxidizer stream. Visual evidence for incipient soot formation is obtained by increasing the mole fraction of oxygen in the oxidizer stream for a given mole fraction of methane in the fuel stream. As the percent methane in the fuel stream increases, less percent oxygen in the oxidizer stream is required for soot inception. A detailed soot model duplicates the experimentally observed soot map and suggests that soot formation under our conditions is associated with a peak flame temperature near 2550 K and a peak soot volume fraction around 1 ppm. Similarly, peak soot inception can be correlated with a temperature of ∼1750 K anywhere along the soot limit curve.
Growth of anti-parallel vorticity in Euler flows

In incompressible Euler flows, vorticity is intensified by line stretching, a process that can come either from the action of shear, or from advection with curvature. Focusing on the latter process, we derive some estimates on the maximal growth of vorticity in axisymmetric flow without swirl, given that vorticity support volume or kinetic energy is fixed. This leads to consideration of locally 2D anti-parallel vortex structures in three dimensions. We exhibit a class of line motions which lead to infinite vorticity in a finite time, with only a finite total line stretching. If the line is replaced by a locally 2D Euler flow, we obtain a class of models of vorticity growth which are similar to the paired vortex structures studied by Pumir and Siggia. We speculate on the mechanisms which can suppress the nonlinear effects necessary for the finite-time singularity exhibited by the moving line problem.
Morphological multiscale representation for boundaries and surfaces

A new shape and object representation method for binary and range images is presented in this paper. It is a multiscale representation of an object based on morphological scale transforms. It is proven that erosions and dilations with multiscale structuring elements are equivalent to distance transforms. Through morphological scale transforms (MSTs), morphological scale functions (MSFs) are constituted as the multiscale representation functions of shapes and objects. Intuitively, MSF's are weighted boundaries and surfaces of shapes and objects. Their properties are illustrated in this paper. Invariants of MSFs are applicable to shape matching under scaling and rotation. Applications of MSFs such as corner detection and range image segmentation are studied.
A fast and accurate numerical tool to model the mode properties of photonic-bandgap fibers

We present a new mode solver that models photonic-bandgap fibers /spl sim/ 1,000 times faster that existing codes. Finding the indices and fields of the modes of a fiber now takes only /spl sim/ 6 seconds per mode per wavelength on a personal computer.
On the orientation of stiff fibres suspended in turbulent flow in a planar contraction

The influence of turbulence on the orientation state of a dilute density matched suspension of stiff fibres at high Reynolds number in a planar contraction is investigated. High-speed imaging and laser-Doppler velocimetry techniques are used to quantify fibre orientation distribution and turbulent characteristics. A nearly homogeneous isotropic grid-generated turbulent flow is introduced at the contraction inlet. Flow Reynolds number and inlet turbulent characteristics are varied in order to determine their effects on orientation distribution. The orientation anisotropy is shown to be accurately modelled by a Fokker-Planck type equation. Results show that rotational diffusion is highly influenced by inlet turbulent characteristics and decays exponentially with convergence ratio. Furthermore, the effect of turbulent energy production in the contraction is shown to be negligible. Also, the results show that the flow Reynolds number has negligible effect on the development of orientation anisotropy, and the influence of turbulence on fibre rotation is negligible for rotational Peclet number 10.
Establishing standards of quality for elderly patients undergoing pancreatic resection.

Objective To evaluate pancreatic surgery as a model for high-acuity surgery in elderly patients for immediate and long-term outcomes, predictors of adverse outcomes, and hospital costs. Design Retrospective case series. Setting University tertiary care referral center. Patients Four hundred twelve consecutive patients who underwent pancreatic resection from October 1, 2001, through March 31, 2008, for benign and malignant periampullary conditions. Main Outcome Measures Clinical outcomes were compared for elderly (≥75 years) and nonelderly patient cohorts. Quality assessment analyses were performed to show the differential impact of complications and resource utilization between the groups. Results The elderly cohort constituted one-fifth of all patients. Benchmark standards of quality were achieved in this group, including low operative mortality (1%). Despite higher patient acuity, clinical outcomes were comparable to those of nonelderly patients at a marginal cost increase (median, $2202 per case). Cost modeling analysis showed further that minor and moderate complications were more frequent but no more debilitating for elderly patients. Major complications, however, were far more threatening to older patients. In these cases, duration of hospital stay doubled, and invasive interventions were more commonly deployed. Conclusions Quality standards for pancreatic resection in the elderly can—and should—mirror those for younger patients. Age-related care, including geriatric consultation, supplemental enteral nutrition, and early rehabilitation placement planning, can be designed to mitigate the impact of complications in the elderly and guarantee quality.
A Comparison of Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome Outcomes Between Military and Civilian Burn Patients

ABSTRACTBackground: The objective of this report was to compare the prevalence of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and associated mortality between military service members with burns sustained during or in support of combat operations and civilian burn patients treated at a single burn center. Methods: Demographic and physiologic data were collected retrospectively on mechanically ventilated military and civilian patients admitted to our burn intensive care unit between January 2003 and December 2011. Patients with ARDS were identified and categorized as mild, moderate, or severe using the Berlin criteria. Demographics and clinical outcomes were compared. After initial comparison, propensity matching was performed and mortality compared. Results: A total of 891 burn patients required mechanical ventilation during the study period; 291 military and 600 civilian. The prevalence of ARDS was 34% (n = 304) for the entire cohort, 33% (n = 96) for military, and 35% (n = 208) for civilians (p = 0.55). ...
The Ability of Polymorphonuclear Leukocyte Priming Agents to Overcome Influenza A Virus-Induced Cell Dysfunction

The major mortality and morbidity resulting from influenza virus infections are due to secondary bacterial infections which occur in association with virus-induced inhibition of polymorphonuclear leukocyte (PMNL) function. The present study was undertaken to determine if compounds which prime PMNL function to subsequent stimulation with N-formylmethionyl-leucylphenylalanine (FMLP) or phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA) can overcome influenza A virus (IAV)-induced inhibition of the PMNL chemiluminescence response to these stimuli. Granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF), guanosine triphosphate (GTP), and 1-oleoyl-2-acetylglycerol (OAG) were able to prime the PMNL response to FMLP and/or PMA and totally or partially overcome IAV-induced PMNL dysfunction in cells stimulated with FMLP or PMA. A direct correlation was found between the extent of PMNL priming due to GM-CSF, GTP, and OAG and the capacity of these compounds to overcome virus-induced PMNL dysfunction. The implications of these findings in regard to the mechanism by which priming agents overcome IAV-induced cell dysfunction and the potential of these compounds as therapeutic agents to treat secondary bacterial infections are discussed.
A framework for finding and summarizing product defects, and ranking helpful threads from online customer forums through machine learning

The Internet has revolutionized the way users share and acquire knowledge. As important and popular Web-based applications, online discussion forums provide interactive platforms for users to exchange information and report problems. With the rapid growth of social networks and an ever increasing number of Internet users, online forums have accumulated a huge amount of valuable user-generated data and have accordingly become a major information source for business intelligence. This study focuses specifically on product defects, which are one of the central concerns of manufacturing companies and service providers, and proposes a machine learning method to automatically detect product defects in the context of online forums. To complement the detection of product defects, we also present a product feature extraction method to summarize defect threads and a thread ranking method to search for troubleshooting solutions. To this end, we collected different data sets to test these methods experimentally. The results of the tests show that our methods are very promising. In fact, in most cases, they outperformed current state-of-the-art methods.
Institutionalizing Support for Undocumented Latino/a Students in American Higher Education.

This chapter investigates the institutionalization of support for undocumented students across states that either extend or deny in-state resident tuition (ISRT) benefits. In their review, the authors highlight promising practices.
Efficiently Managing Encrypted Data in Cloud Databases

Cloud computing has brought many advantages to organizations and computer users. It allows different service providers to distribute many applications as services in an economical way. Therefore, many users and companies have begun using cloud computing. However, they are concerned about their data when they store it on a third party server, the cloud. The private data of individual users and companies is stored and managed by the service providers on the cloud, which offers services on the other side of the Internet in terms of its users, and consequently results in privacy concerns [1]. In this paper, a technique has been explored to encrypt the data on the cloud and to execute and run SQL queries on the cloud over encrypted data. The strategy is to process the query at the service providers' site without having to decrypt the data. Also, to achieve efficiency, no more than the exact set of requested data is returned to the client. Data decryption is performed at the client site to prevent any leakage at the cloud or during transmission. Two techniques have been provided to effectively store the encrypted data. Also, an experiment evaluation has been provided to compare between the two techniques.
Design of a wide area damping controller based on partial right eigenstructure assignment

Abstract The paper demonstrates the application of partial right eigenstructure assignment for designing an output-feedback based wide area damping controller in a power system. The unique feature of the controller is that it utilizes the additional design freedom provided by right eigenvectors along with eigenvalue placement to improve the dynamic behaviour of the system. The fact that multi-input–multi-output (MIMO) systems provide more design freedom than just manipulating the eigenvalues of the system has been exploited for controller design. Supplementary loops on two static VAR compensators (SVC) have been used utilized to achieve the damping of oscillations. The first part of the paper uses a quadratic optimization based formulation to design a controller for a nominal operating point of the system. The second part demonstrates the incorporation of time delay of feedback signals in controller design. This methodology makes the designed controller robust to uncertainty in communication latency of feedback signals. The feedback signal selection for the controller is based on an input/output controllability metric specific to output feedback. An algorithm explaining the framework and the results of its implementation on the IEEE 68 bus test system has been provided. The results show the effectiveness of the controller to damp oscillations and robustification of the damping of these oscillations to time delay uncertainties.
Partisan Investment in the Global Economy: Domestic Coalitions and the Political Economy of Foreign Direct Investment

We live in a world of globalized markets, where goods, services, capital, and workers move across national borders with ease, albeit with different degrees of latitude depending on the type of flow. The transforming effects of this rapid process of global economic integration are subject to heated debates among scholars, pundits, and journalists. Some argue that technological innovation and changes in the patterns of production at a global level have flattened the world and forced national governments to adjust their regulatory standards to the levels acceptable to multinational businesses and institutional investors (Friedman, 2007; Strange, 1996).1 Globalization pessimists argue that the forces of market integration have led to a negative form of policy convergence: governments are forced on a race to the bottom and a consequent leveling of national regulatory standards. The territorial state, which dominated the industrial era, is increasingly becoming obsolete, and is gradually being replaced by new forms of global governance (Ohmae, 1995; Strange, 1996, 1998; Rosecrance, 1999). Moreover, the pressure from global markets have blurred the ideological differences among political parties not only in developed countries, but particularly in the developing world: to stay competitive in the global marketplace governments of the left and the right alike have become fanatical advocates of the neoliberal cause (see Edwards, 1995; Williamson, 1990; Garrett, 2000). The conclusion is that when dealing with global market forces, politics does not matter any more, if it ever did. On the opposing side of the debate we find claims that the incentives and constraints created by global economic forces lead to policy divergence
Hyperelastic compressive mechanical properties of the subcalcaneal soft tissue: An inverse finite element analysis.

Abstract Finite element (FE) foot models can provide insight into soft tissue internal stresses and allow researchers to effectively conduct parametric analyses. Accurate plantar soft tissue material properties are essential for the development of FE foot models for clinical interventions. The aim of this study was to identify the first-order and second-order Ogden hyperelastic material properties of the subcalcaneal fat using an inverse FE analysis. The cylindrical soft tissue FE model was developed based on a priori in vitro dynamic compression experiment. The model simulated a 1 Hz triangle wave displacement to apply a compressive strain up to 48%. The hyperelastic properties were identified by systematically varying the material parameters to minimize the difference between the model predicted force and the target experimental data. Optimal material properties were obtained (μ1=0.0235 kPa and α1=12.07 for the first-order Ogden model and μ1=−4.629×10−6 kPa, α1=−16.829; μ2=−1.613 kPa and α2=−1.043 for the second-order Ogden model). The second-order Ogden model was superior in capturing the highly nonlinear force–deformation response when compared to the first-order model (root mean square error (RMSE) 0.169 N vs. 0.570 N). The material sensitivity analysis indicated that the predicted force was strongly affected by the Poisson׳s ratio (12-fold increase in RMSE when reducing Poisson׳s ratio by 10% from the baseline) and the coefficient α1 (3.2-fold and 32-fold increase in RMSE for both first-order and second-order Ogden models when increasing α1 by 10% from the optimal value).
Localized aggressive periodontitis immune response to healthy and diseased subgingival plaque.

Aim The objective of this case–control study was to compare the inflammatory response of peripheral blood from localized aggressive periodontitis (LAP) patients when stimulated with healthy or diseased plaque samples. Materials and Methods Whole blood and subgingival plaque samples were collected from 13 LAP subjects, 14 siblings of LAP subjects and six periodontally healthy individuals. Whole blood was stimulated for 24 h with plaque samples generated from healthy or diseased sites. The levels of 14 cyto/chemokines were detected using multiplex technology. Results Localized aggressive periodontitis-derived cultures displayed higher levels of G-CSF, INFγ, IL10, IL12p40, IL1β, IL-6, IL-8, MCP-1, MIP-1α, and TNFα, than control cultures regardless of stimulus used. Whole blood from healthy siblings displayed higher levels of IL-6 compared to control subjects, but lower levels than those observed in cultures from LAP participants. Conclusions This study suggests that although bacteria is an important factor in eliciting the hyper-inflammatory response observed in LAP patients, the predisposition of host's response to bacterial presence may play a more significant role than the components of the stimulatory plaque.
Long-term survival consequent on the abscopal effect in a patient with multiple myeloma.

The abscopal effect is a term that has been used to describe the phenomenon of tumour regression in sites distant from targeted fields of irradiation. It has been reported in multiple malignancies and is thought to be due to a systemic immune response that radiation elicits in the treated individual. We describe the case of a female patient who originally presented with advanced multiple myeloma in 1996 at the age of 50. She failed multiple chemotherapeutic regimens including high-dose melphalan with autologous stem cell transplantation. Subsequently, the patient achieved a sustained complete remission, after receiving palliative radiotherapy to a symptomatic gastric plasmacytoma. She has remained in remission for >15 years. To the best of our knowledge, this case represents the first report of an abscopal effect against multiple myeloma.