cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Simulation of nerve block by high-frequency sinusoidal electrical current based on the Hodgkin-Huxley model

Nerve conduction block induced by high-frequency sinusoidal electrical current was simulated using a lumped circuit model of the unmyelinated axon based on Hodgkin-Huxley equations. Axons of different diameters (1-20 /spl mu/m) can be blocked when the stimulation frequency is above 4 kHz. At higher frequency, a higher stimulation intensity is needed to block nerve conduction. Larger diameter axons have a lower threshold intensity for conduction block. High-frequency sinusoidal electrical currents are less effective in blocking nerve conduction than biphasic square pulses of the same frequency. The activation of potassium channels, rather than inactivation of sodium channels, is the possible mechanism underlying the nerve conduction block of the unmyelinated axon induced by high-frequency biphasic (sinusoidal or square pulse) stimulation. This simulation study, which provides more information about the axonal conduction block induced by high-frequency sinusoidal currents, can guide future animal experiments, as well as optimize stimulation waveforms for electrical nerve block in possible clinical applications.
CD40 Ligand Promotes Mac-1 Expression, Leukocyte Recruitment, and Neointima Formation after Vascular Injury

High levels of circulating soluble CD40 ligand (sCD40L) are frequently found in patients with hypercholesterolemia, diabetes, ischemic stroke, or acute coronary syndromes, predicting an increased rate of atherosclerotic plaque rupture and restenosis after coronary/carotid interventions. Clinical restenosis is characterized in part by exaggerated neointima formation, but the underlying mechanism remains incompletely understood. This study investigated the role of elevated sCD40L in neointima formation in response to vascular injury in an atherogenic animal model and explored the molecular mechanisms involved. apoE−/− mice fed a Western diet developed severe hypercholesterolemia, significant hyperglycemia, and high levels of plasma sCD40L. Neointima formation after carotid denudation injury was exaggerated in the apoE−/− mice. In vivo, blocking CD40L with anti-CD40L monoclonal antibody attenuated the early accumulation of Ly-6G+ neutrophils and Gr-1+ monocytes (at 3 days) and the late accumulation of Mac-2+ macrophages (at 28 days) in the denudated arteries; it also reduced the exaggerated neointima formation at 28 days. In vitro, recombinant CD40L stimulated platelet P-selectin and neutrophil Mac-1 expression and platelet-neutrophil co-aggregation and adhesive interaction. These effects were abrogated by anti-CD40L or anti-Mac-1 monoclonal antibody. Moreover, recombinant CD40L stimulated neutrophil oxidative burst and release of matrix metalloproteinase-9 in vitro. We conclude that elevated sCD40L promotes platelet-leukocyte activation and recruitment and neointima formation after arterial injury, potentially through enhancement of platelet P-selectin and leukocyte Mac-1 expression and oxidative activity.
Citizenship and Property Rights: A New Look at Social Contract Theory

Social contract thought has always contained multiple and mutually conflicting lines of argument; the minimalist contractarianism so influential today represents the weaker of two main constellations of claims. I make the case for a Kantian contract theory that emphasizes the bedrock principle of consent of the governed instead of the mere heuristic device of the exit from the state of nature. Such a shift in emphasis resolves two classic difficulties: traditional contract theory’s ahistorical presumption of a pre-political settlement, and its impossibly high demands on citizens seeking to practice self-rule. Kant’s solutions to these problems of property rights and citizenship are found in his political works, rather than the ethical works through which Kant’s political theory is usually interpreted. and political scientists interested in game theory sometimes take their grounding assumptions from this body of work (Morris and Oppenheimer 2004). The social contract forms the central idea of John Rawls’s 1971 A Theory of Justice ,a book widely credited with the revival of academic political philosophy in the United States. Ye t none of these contributors, popular or scholarly, has been able to provide a satisfactory response to two persistent complaints about social contract theory’s application to imperfect political conditions. First, how can political authority derive from contract theory’s frankly hypothetical, ahistorical description of pre-political human agents agreeing to leave the state of nature and submit to government? Second, how can authoritative consent be granted by realworld citizens subject to conditions ranging from imperfect to utterly disabling? Sugden, in the introduction to a collection of essays celebrating David Gauthier’s minimalist contractarianism, glosses the two questions as “baseline” and “reciprocity” problems, adding that their persistence makes “even the most committed contractarians uneasy” (Sugden 1993). 2 Frustration with contract theory’s failure to answer such questions has led some theorists to
A boundary kernel for local polynomial regression

We define and compute a boundary kernel for local polynomial regression, We prove that the new kernel provides improvement over the existing kernels, Simulations show the improvement in finite samples.
Applications of Independent Component Analysis in Endmember Extraction and Abundance Quantification for Hyperspectral Imagery

Independent component analysis (ICA) has shown success in many applications. This paper investigates a new application of the ICA in endmember extraction and abundance quantification for hyperspectral imagery. An endmember is generally referred to as an idealized pure signature for a class whose presence is considered to be rare. When it occurs, it may not appear in large population. In this case, the commonly used principal components analysis may not be effective since endmembers usually contribute very little in statistics to data variance. In order to substantiate the author's findings, an ICA-based approach, called ICA-based abundance quantification algorithm (ICA-AQA) is developed. Three novelties result from the author's proposed ICA-AQA. First, unlike the commonly used least squares abundance-constrained linear spectral mixture analysis (ACLSMA) which is a second-order statistics-based method, the ICA-AQA is a high-order statistics-based technique. Second, due to the use of statistical independency, it is generally thought that the ICA cannot be implemented as a constrained method. The ICA-AQA shows otherwise. Third, in order for the ACLSMA to perform the abundance quantification, it requires an algorithm to find image endmembers first then followed by an abundance-constrained algorithm for quantification. As opposed to such a two-stage process, the ICA-AQA can accomplish endmember extraction and abundance quantification simultaneously in one-shot operation. Experimental results demonstrate that the ICA-AQA performs at least comparably to abundance-constrained methods
Characterization and design of sequential circuit elements to combat soft error

This paper performs analysis and design of latches and flip-flops while considering the effect of event upsets caused by energetic particle hits. First it is shown that the conventional analysis of this effect in sequential circuit elements (SCEs) tends to underestimate the threat posed by such events. More precisely, there exists a timing window close to the triggering edge of the clock during which a SCE is more vulnerable to the particle hit. This phenomenon has been ignored by previous work, resulting in false negatives. Next the paper explains how to size transistors of a familiar SCE i.e., a clocked CMOS latch, to make it more robust to such events. Experimental results to validate the characterization and transistor sizing steps are provided and discussed.
Aβ peptide conformation determines uptake and interleukin-1α expression by primary microglial cells

Abstract Microglia clear amyloid beta (Aβ) after immunization. The interaction of Aβ with the microglial cell surface also results in cytokine expression. Soluble oligomers and protofibrils of Aβ may be more neurotoxic than Aβ fibrils. We investigated the effects of oligomeric, protofibrillar and fibrillar Aβ40 and Aβ42 peptides on uptake and IL-1α expression by primary microglia. Aβ peptide assemblies were extensively characterized. Primary microglial cells were exposed to different Aβ40 and Aβ42 assemblies and IL-1α expression was quantified. To study uptake, microglial cells were exposed to different assemblies of Cy3-labeled Aβ. We found that Aβ42 and Aβ40 oligomers and fibrils induced IL-1α expression, but protofibrils did not. We also observed that all forms of Aβ42 (oligomer, protofibril and fibril) and Aβ40 fibrils were taken up by the microglial cells. These results demonstrate that microglial cells can take up non-fibrillar Aβ and that oligomeric peptide induces an inflammatory response. The uptake of oligomeric and protofibrillar Aβ by microglia merits further investigation as a potential means for removing these neurotoxic species from the brain.
A generalization of chang transformation for Linear Time-Varying systems

Chang transformation was introduced for decoupling the slow and fast dynamics of a singularly perturbed Linear Time Invariant (LTI) system, and it was subsequently extended to Linear Time-Varying (LTV) systems under the slowly-varying assumption by way of frozen-time eigenvalues. This paper extends Chang transformation from slowly-varying LTV systems to LTV systems, when the singularly perturbed system has a semi-proper coefficient matrix A 22 (t) and LTV system w(t) = A 22 (t)w(t) is exponentially stable. Instead of using frozen-time eigenvalues based on slowly time-varying conditions, PD-eigenvalues for LTV systems are employed to characterize the exponential stability, thereby circumventing the slowly-varying constraint. Our results provide a larger bound on epsilon, which is a gauge on the validity of the Chang transformation, in some situations than using previous techniques. We have also recast the original Chang transformation so as to provide more insight into the decoupled subsystems. The insight will be useful in subsequent investigation on estimate of the Singular Perturbation Margin (SPM) for LTV systems. An equivalence relationship has recently been established for LTI system between the SPM and the Phase Margin (PM). The new results in this paper will facilitate the development of a PM-type stability margin metric for LTV systems, and for nonlinear, time-varying systems in the future.
Cigarette smoking as a risk factor for uveitis

Purpose To determine the association between tobacco smoking history and uveitis. Design Retrospective, case-control study. Participants A total of 564 patients with ocular inflammation seen in the Proctor Foundation uveitis clinic between 2002 and 2009, and 564 randomly selected patients seen in the comprehensive eye clinic within the same time period. Methods A retrospective medical record review of all cases and controls. Main Outcome Measures A logistic regression analysis was conducted with ocular inflammation as the main outcome variable and smoking as the main predictor variable, while adjusting for age, gender, race, and median income. Results The odds of a smoker having ocular inflammation were 2.2-fold that of a patient who had never smoked (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.7–3.0; P P = 0.002) for anterior uveitis, 2.7 (95% CI, 1.4–5.6; P = 0.005) for intermediate uveitis, 3.2 (95% CI, 1.3–7.9; P = 0.014) for posterior uveitis, and 3.9 (95% CI, 2.4–6.1; P P P P = 0.001) compared with patients without CME (OR 1.5; 95% CI, 0.6–3.8; P = 0.342). Patients with a smoking history were at greater odds of having infectious uveitis (OR 4.5; 95% CI, 2.3–9.0; P P Conclusions A history of smoking is significantly associated with all anatomic subtypes of uveitis and infectious uveitis. The association was greater in patients with intermediate uveitis and panuveitis with CME compared with those without CME. In view of the known risks of smoking, these findings, if replicated, would give an additional reason to recommend smoking cessation in patients with uveitis. Financial Disclosure(s) The authors have no proprietary or commercial interest in any materials discussed in this article.
Moving Forward in Structure From Motion

It is well-known that forward motion induces a large number of local minima in the instantaneous least-squares reprojection error. This is caused in part by singularities in the error landscape around the forward direction, and presents a challenge in using existing algorithms for structure-from-motion in autonomous navigation applications. In this paper we prove that imposing a bound on the reconstructed depth of the scene makes the least-squares re-projection error continuous. This has implications for autonomous navigation, as it suggests simple modifications for existing algorithms to minimize the effects of local minima in forward translation.
Daily interferon therapy for hepatitis C virus infection in liver transplant recipients

Background. Hepatitis C virus infection persists after liver transplantation and causes recurrent liver injury in the majority of patients. Standard dose interferon therapy has been largely unsuccessful for hepatitis C in transplant recipients. Methods. Twelve patients, at least 7 months posttransplant, with detectable hepatitis C virus RNA in serum and features of hepatitis C on liver biopsy were randomized to interferon-α2a, 3 mU daily for 12 months (n=8) or no treatment (n=4). The tolerability of daily interferon dosing in liver transplant recipients was evaluated and effects on hepatitis C virus RNA level, quasispecies evolution, and liver histology were studied. Results. Treated patients had an improvement in histological activity index at the end of therapy relative to controls (median reduction of 2 versus median increase of 1.5) (P =0.04). Four treated patients had a virological response (all bDNA negative, one qualitative polymerase chain reaction negative) compared with none of the untreated patients. Only two of six treated patients tested had evidence of quasispecies diversification on therapy. Seven of eight patients in the treatment group required dose reduction for fatigue and/or depression. They tolerated 1.5 mU of interferon-α2a daily. Two treated patients developed graft dysfunction, one of who had histological evidence of rejection and subsequent graft loss. Conclusions. Low daily doses of interferon were tolerated by liver transplant recipients and provided histological benefit without associated quasispecies diversification in most cases. These findings provide a rationale to study low dose daily or pegylated interferon maintenance therapy for the management of hepatitis C posttransplant.
Mitigation of Tin Whisker Growth by Dopant Addition

Due to world wide Pb-free regulation for electroplated tin, whisker formation has returned as a long term reliability problem for tin coated electronic components. In addition the exact mechanism(s) responsible for Sn whisker growth mitigation by Pb were never clearly indentified, which makes the search for an replacement of Pb a difficult process. In this work the effects of In doping on tin whisker growth were investigated. In order to maintain Sn as a single phase material only small additions of In were incorporated, approximately 5–10 wt.% In. Indium was incorporated into Sn using a 100 nm over-plate of In on 1 μm thick Sn followed by heat treatments at 125°C and 160°C to permit diffusion of In into Sn. Control samples of pure Sn in the as-plated as well as 125 C heat treated conditions were also used. Whisker density results show a dramatic decrease of almost two orders of magnitude for the 160°C HT Sn-In sample. This is a new result in whisker mitigation studies, and we interpret it as a real effect of In, although further verification including the use of control samples are required. The segregation of dopants at the grain boundaries (GB) of tin, which might lead to reduced self diffusion of Sn, was investigated by performing molecular dynamic (MD) simulations on randomly added Pb atoms. Segregation of Pb clusters to GB was observed. While simulations with In dopant has not been conducted as yet, nevertheless such segregation may be one of several mechanisms responsible for the In effect.Copyright © 2015 by ASME
A History of the Catholic Church in the American South, 1513–1900

JAMES M. WOODS, 2011 Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida 498 pp., US$69.95 ISBN 978–0–8130–3532–1 Despite a recent upsurge in scholarship on the region, the American South remains mar...
Quantum Statistics of Small Bistable Systems

Quantum-statistical theories of optical bistability were developed soon after the first experimental observation of bistability some ten years ago [1]. Various quantum-statistical effects have been predicted, including: quantum induced transitions between states [2], evidence of atomic collectivity in the transmitted spectrum [3–5], photon antibunching [5,6], and squeezing [7]. The enthusiasm shown in theoretical analysis has not been matched by experiments, however. One reason is surely that these effects are very small in a system of macroscopic size. Generally they scale inversely with the size of the system, as measured by the saturation photon number ns or the number of atoms N.
The Effects of Choice on Auditors' Intrinsic Motivation and Performance

Prior studies of the relative contributions of information choice and information processing in decision making have concentrated on the results of information choice, ignoring possible effects from the act of choosing. This paper investigates effects on auditors' intrinsic motivation and decision performance that are due only to the act of choosing information to use in the decision task. A model linking the act of choosing to intrinsic motivation and performance is proposed and tested. Results of the experiment show that auditors given a choice of information were more intrinsically motivated and predicted more accurately than auditors given equally-predictive information who had no choice of information.
Multiplication of the T3 bacteriophage against E coli.

SummaryCultures of young, rapidly growing susceptible colon bacilli obtained after hourly transplants to fresh broth appear quickly lysed by the addition of T3 bacteriophage. Electron micrographs show that the bacterial membranes rupture very soon after adsorption of bacteriophage and that colonies of new phage particles rapidly appear in the protoplasmic masses. This protoplasm from young cells is the same assemblage of spherical macromolecules seen after lysis with T2 phage. As was the case with this other phage the observed phenomena are those to be expected of particles behaving as if they were minute microorganisms multiplying by division at the expense of the bacterial protoplasm.
South American Paleo-Indian Projectile Points

(1996). South American Paleo-Indian Projectile Points. Lithic Technology: Vol. 21, No. 2, pp. 134-148.
Design and Analysis of a Flexible, Reliable Deep Space Life Support System

This report describes a flexible, reliable, deep space life support system design approach that uses either storage or recycling or both together. The design goal is to provide the needed life support performance with the required ultra reliability for the minimum Equivalent System Mass (ESM). Recycling life support systems used with multiple redundancy can have sufficient reliability for deep space missions but they usually do not save mass compared to mixed storage and recycling systems. The best deep space life support system design uses water recycling with sufficient water storage to prevent loss of crew if recycling fails. Since the amount of water needed for crew survival is a small part of the total water requirement, the required amount of stored water is significantly less than the total to be consumed. Water recycling with water, oxygen, and carbon dioxide removal material storage can achieve the high reliability of full storage systems with only half the mass of full storage and with less mass than the highly redundant recycling systems needed to achieve acceptable reliability. Improved recycling systems with lower mass and higher reliability could perform better than systems using storage.
Evaluating and Improving Real-Time Tracking of Children's Oral Reading.

1 The accuracy of an automated reading tutor in tracking the reader’s position is affected by phenomena at the frontier of the speech recognizer’s output as it evolves in real time. We define metrics of real-time tracking accuracy computed from the recognizer’s successive partial hypotheses, in contrast to previous metrics computed from the final hypothesis. We analyze the resulting considerable loss in real-time accuracy, and propose and evaluate a method to address it. Our method raises real-time accuracy from 58% to 70%, which should improve the quality of the tutor’s feedback.
Mission accomplished! The role of systems engineering & integration in the International Space Station program

The International Space Station is among the largest and most complex international cooperative science and technology projects ever undertaken. Completed in 2010, the approximately 500 metric ton, permanently crewed, full-service space platform remains safely operating today as a testament to what great nations can do through peaceful cooperation. At the turn of the 21st century, industrialized nations are forming partnerships to design and build complex, technological assets for which no nation alone can bear the cost, or the risk. By partnering together, the cost is shared, the risk distributed, and the benefits accrue to all.
A modified terminology for cervical intraepithelial neoplasia.

Recent data are consistent with the concept that human papillomavirus (HPV) is etiologically important in the causation of cervical squamous cell cancer. There appear to be certain important events in the process of HPV infection and neoplasia. It is suggested that the terminology of the HPV-related precursor lesions be modified and that two terms, rather than three, would best satisfy the requirements of both science and clinical care. The "early" lesions should be referred to as "low-grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) with HPV-related changes" and the lesions that have the features of cancer precursors as "high-grade CIN."
Faith in Contention

What explains variation in the role of religion in ethnic conflict? Although conflict involving religion is often more violent and longer lasting than other forms of conflict, to date little resear...
The Role of the Consultation-Liaison Nurse: Caring for Patients With AIDS Dementia Complex

The psychiatric consultation-liaison nurse helps the nursing staff address the complex needs of the AIDS dementia patient and assists the staff in dealing with their fears and reactions to these patients A nursing care care plan must adapt to the patient's progressively deteriorating cognitive impairment, as well as to the emotional and personality changes. Jean Watson's model ; stressing care rather than cure, can assist staff in conveying empathy and positive regard for the patient. This ensures a caring atmosphere where the patients can maintain their dignity, gain a sense of peace, and approach death without fear.
Why Do Sicker Patients Cost More? A Charge-Based Analysis of Patients Undergoing Prostatectomy

AbstractHospitals are reimbursed a greater amount for Medicare patients undergoing prostate surgery who have comorbid and complicating conditions than for patients without these conditions, since the former have been shown to have higher hospital costs and charges. We attempted to determine whether the higher hospital charges are due to duration of hospital stay and/or intensity of services. We analyzed hospital discharge data from 799 patients undergoing radical or transurethral prostatectomy during a 3-year period (1988 to 1991) at 2 major teaching hospitals by examining length of stay (duration), charges per hospital day (intensity) and total charges per stay. Mean lengths of stay were significantly longer for sicker versus healthier patients undergoing radical prostatectomy (7.4 versus 6.8 days at hospital 1 and 8.9 versus 7.8 days at hospital 2, p <0.05) and transurethral prostatectomy (3.5 versus 2.8 days at hospital 1 and 3.5 versus 2.5 days at hospital 2, p <0.05). Total hospital charges were sign...
Uncloaking the Thermodynamics of the Studtite to Metastudtite Shear-Induced Transformation

The interplay between thermodynamics and mechanical properties in the transformation of studtite, (UO2)(O2)(H2O)2·2H2O, into metastudtite, (UO2)(O2)(H2O)2, two important corrosion phases observed on the surface of uranium dioxide exposed to water, is revealed using density functional perturbation theory. Phonon calculations within the quasi-harmonic approximation predict that the standard entropy change for the (UO2)(O2)(H2O)2·2H2O → (UO2)(O2)(H2O)2 + 2H2O reaction is ΔS0 = +80 J·mol–1·K–1 for the production of water in the liquid state and +389 J·mol–1·K–1 for water vapor. Similar to bulk H2O(l), the bulk modulus of (UO2)(O2)(H2O)2·2H2O increases with temperature, contrasting with (UO2)(O2)(H2O)2 which features the typical Anderson–Gruneisen temperature dependence of oxide solids. Upon removal of interstitial H2O in studtite, the most important changes in the shear modulus, the parameter limiting the mechanical stability, arise in the planes normal to chain propagation directions. The present findings ha...
Zircon U–Pb age constraints for a Cambrian age for metasedimentary rocks at O’Brien Peak, Antarctica

ABSTRACTZircon U–Pb isotopic data provide new depositional age constraints for metasedimentary rocks in the O’Brien Peak area of the Queen Maud Mountains, Antarctica. Zircon grains from a sample of the metasedimentary succession display unabraded, euhedral-subhedral forms, oscillatory zoning and U/Th ratios ≤ 2.9, pointing to an igneous origin. A coherent group of 34 analyses yield a 520 ± 6.6 Ma (2σ) weighted mean age that is likely close to the depositional age, a result consistent with a c. 489 Ma crystallisation age for granites that discordantly cross-cut the sequence. The 520–489 Ma depositional age constraints overlap with depositional ages indicated by biostratigraphic and U–Pb zircon ages for interbedded sedimentary and volcanic rocks found elsewhere in the Ross orogen, supporting a growing body of evidence that sedimentary–volcanic successions in the Queen Maud Mountains, and elsewhere, previously thought to be Neoproterozoic and possibly exotic, are Cambrian and part of the autochthonous peri-G...
Occupational therapy in positive youth development

ABSTRACTChildhood adversity can seriously impact individuals’ immediate and later-life health and wellbeing. Physical, emotional, and social wellbeing is intricately linked to person and environmental factors, and specific behaviour choices. While some individuals are able to thrive despite difficult life circumstances, others need support to learn new behaviour patterns that bring forth resilience. Communities can play a central role in helping adolescents develop important assets that contribute to a healthy and fulfilling life. However, communities need equal support to effectively address adolescent health and development. Community capacity can be built through collaboration between community members and occupational therapists who understand how to support adolescent health and development through the active engagement in occupations. This paper highlights the process and outcomes of a positive youth development program situated in a faith-based community in Northern Poland. Implications for occupat...
Fixed-point protoype design for biorthogonal modulated filter banks

In this paper, we consider optimizing the prototype filter of biorthogonal cosine-modulated filter banks in order to reduce overflow occurrence in a fixed-point implementation. We assume that the wordlength of the fixed-point implementation is constant throughout the implementation. We implement the polyphase filters in a form which is inherent to perfect reconstruction. However, the frequency response is subject to fixed-point error, most dominantly overflow. We demonstrate that the floating-point prototype filter with the lowest stopband energy does not result in the fixed-point implementation with the best performance. Based on this result, we show how the fixed-point performance can be improved by preventing amplification by large filter coefficients and by modifying the cost function of the optimization in such a way that all filters have a similar gain. Since the filter bank allows an integer-to-integer mapping with no increase in wordlength, it is well suited for lossless compression algorithms as well as a fast and inexpensive implementation on a hardware platform with fixed-point number format.
The development of the Common Factor Therapist Competence Scale for youth psychotherapy

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE COMMON FACTOR THERAPIST COMPETENCE SCALE FOR YOUTH PSYCHOTHERAPY By Ruth Christine Chanan Brown, M.A. A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Virginia Commonwealth University Virginia Commonwealth University, 2011. Major Director: Michael A. Southam-Gerow, Ph.D., Associate Professor Department of Psychology In order to continue to improve the effectiveness of psychotherapy, researchers must identify key change processes. Unfortunately, there are disparate views in the field about the relative importance and potency of specific techniques versus relationship factors. Few measures have been developed to examine the relative contribution of these factors, particularly for childfocused treatment. The Common-Factor Therapist Competence Scale for Youth Psychotherapy (COMP-CF) was developed to address this deficit. For this study, 142 video-taped sessions of child CBT for anxiety were observed and rated by independent coders using the COMP-CF. The measure demonstrated good reliability and internal consistency. Significant between-therapist and between-session differences were noted that warrant further exploration. The COMP-CF also demonstrated initial validity when compared to other observer-rater measures of therapeutic processes such as alliance, CBT-specific competence, and adherence. Recommendations for further development and refinement are discussed. Used in conjunction with adherence measures, the competence measure developed here may help improve our understanding of the therapeutic process.
Health, Chronic Conditions, and Behavioral Risk Disparities among U.S. Immigrant Children and Adolescents:

Objective.We examined differentials in the prevalence of 23 parent-reported health, chronic condition, and behavioral indicators among 91,532 children of immigrant and U.S.-born parents.Methods.We used the 2007 National Survey of Children's Health to estimate health differentials among 10 ethnic-nativity groups. Logistic regression yielded adjusted differentials.Results.Immigrant children in each racial/ethnic group had a lower prevalence of depression and behavioral problems than native-born children The prevalence of autism varied from 0.3% among immigrant Asian children to 1.3%–1.4% among native-born non-Hispanic white and Hispanic children Immigrant children had a lower prevalence of asthma, attention deficit disorder/attention deficit hyperactivity disorder; developmental delay; learning disability; speech, hearing, and sleep problems; school absence; and ≥1 chronic condition than native-born children, with health risks increasing markedly in relation to mother's duration of residence in the U.S. Imm...
My Scientific Journey: From an Agrarian Start to an Academic Setting.

This article is a combination of an autobiography and a review of outstanding research done by over 70 graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and visiting scientists along with excellent collaborators during my over-40-year career as a professor of reproductive physiology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. I have also shared thoughts on mentoring, how research has changed over the years, and the future of reproductive physiology. I provide the reader with a snapshot of the challenges faced by a woman eager to obtain a PhD under the guidance of renowned professors in the early 1970s and to be hired as the first woman, and the only permanent female faculty member, for more than 20 years on a faculty of 40 men. As a comparative reproductive physiologist, I describe the various animal models used because they were the best models to answer specific questions in reproduction. Also, my graduate students and postdoctoral fellows were given the freedom to identify their research topics, articulate...
Impact of visual and experiential realism on distance perception in VR using a custom video see-through system

Immersive virtual reality (VR) technology has the potential to play an important role in the conceptual design process in architecture, if we can ensure that sketch-like structures are able to afford an accurate egocentric appreciation of the scale of the interior space of a preliminary building model. Historically, it has been found that people tend to perceive egocentric distances in head-mounted display (HMD) based virtual environments as being shorter than equivalent distances in the real world. Previous research has shown that in such cases, reducing the quality of the computer graphics does not make the situation significantly worse. However, other research has found that breaking the illusion of reality in a compellingly photorealistic VR experience can have a significant negative impact on distance perception accuracy. In this paper, we investigate the impact of "graphical realism" on distance perception accuracy in VR from a novel perspective. Rather than starting with a virtual 3D model and varying its surface texture, we start with a live view of the real world, presented through a custom-designed video/optical-see-through HMD, and apply image processing to the video stream to remove details. This approach offers the potential to explore the relationship between visual and experiential realism in a more nuanced manner than has previously been done. In a within-subjects experiment across three different real-world hallway environments, we asked people to perform blind walking to make distance estimates under three different viewing conditions: real-world view through the HMD; closely registered camera views presented via the HMD; and Sobel-filtered versions of the camera views, resulting a sketch-like (NPR) appearance. We found: 1) significant amounts of distance underestimation in all three conditions, most likely due to the heavy backpack computer that participants wore to power the HMD and cameras/graphics; 2) a small but statistically significant difference in the amount of underestimation between the real world and camera/NPR viewing conditions, but no significant difference between the camera and NPR conditions. There was no significant difference between participants' ratings of visual and experiential realism in the real world and camera conditions, but in the NPR condition participants' ratings of experiential realism were significantly higher than their ratings of visual realism. These results confirm the notion that experiential realism is only partially dependent on visual realism, and that degradation of visual realism, independently of experiential realism, does not significantly impact distance perception accuracy in VR.
Internal Structure and Item Characteristics of the Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening in Spanish for Preschool

We used multidimensional item response theory to test the internal structure of the Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening in Spanish for Preschool and test for item parameter drift. The measure is aligned with the simple view of reading, which defines reading as consisting of two equally important dimensions: decoding and language comprehension. It involves 134 items grouped into nine different tasks. We administered a pilot version of the measure to 677 students in 2014 and a final version to 968 students in 2015. We did not find evidence that code-related skills and oral language are distinct but correlated dimensions among preschoolers. Rather, a single general dimension of early literacy with task-related specific dimensions fit best. A benefit of our modeling approach is that we can examine the internal structure while also evaluating the difficulty and discrimination of individual items. Results suggest a stable ordering of items within tasks and that some Spanish letters are learned more easily...
BRAIN AND NERVOUS SYSTEM | Physiology of the Mauthner Cell: Function

The Mauthner cells are a pair of resticulospinal neurons involved in fish escape behaviors that are essential for survival. These escape responses can be triggered by a variety of sensory inputs, most prominently auditory and visual. Due to the connectivity of the Mauthner cell axon at the cranial and spinal cord levels, the activation of this cell produces a tail flip, which constitutes the initial phase of the escape response. A growing body of evidence suggests that the Mauthner cells also participate in voluntary behaviors, raising the possibility that these cells could be involved in a wide range of functions.
Randomizing Dispatch Scheduling Policies

The factory is a complex dynamic environment and scheduling operations for such an environment is a challenging problem. In practice, dispatch scheduling policies are commonly employed, as they offer an efficient and robust solution. However, dispatch scheduling policies are generally myopic, and as such they are susceptible to sub-optimal decision-making. In this paper, we attempt to improve upon results of such dispatch policies by introducing non-determinism into the decision-making process, and instead using a given policy as a baseline for biasing stochastic decisions. We consider the problem of weighted tardiness scheduling with sequencedependent setups with unknown arrival times in a dynamic environment, and show that randomization of state-of-the-art dispatch heuristics for this problem in this manner can improve performance. Furthermore, we find that the “easier” the problem, the less benefit there is from randomization; the “harder” the problem, the more benefit. Our method of randomization is based on a model of the way colonies of wasps self-organize social hierarchies in nature.
Template and Messenger Activities of Mutagen-Treated Polynucleotides

The elucidation of the structure of DNA by Watson and Crick (1953) led to an immediate realization of the nature of point mutations: replacement of one purine or pyrimidine by the other or a base resembling the other in its preferred tautomeric state and thus in its hydrogen bonding pattern. Much of the data obtained with mutagenic agents acting on DNA, RNA, or polynucleotides in subsequent years supported this concept. However, other observations seemed not to be interpretable on this basis, and a feeling of uncertainty has arisen in this regard among workers in the area of chemical mutagenesis during the past decade. We believe that these seeming discrepancies and doubts were due to three principle causes: Several of the discordant results were experimentally unsound, and were not repeatable at later times or in different laboratories. Other data were misinterpreted in terms of incomplete knowledge of the chemistry of the mutagenic reaction. Finally, the properties of very extensively modified polynucleotides were studied in the assumption that these would reflect the nature of the mutagenic event, without due consideration of the infrequency of actual mutagenic reactions.
Scalable Power-Efficient Kilo-Core Photonic-Wireless NoC Architectures

As technology scales, hundreds and thousands of cores are being integrated on a single-chip. Since metallic interconnects may not scale effectively to support thousands of cores, architects have proposed emerging technologies such as photonics and wireless for intra-chip communication. While photonics technology is limited by the complexity and thermal effects, wireless technology for on-chip communication is limited by the available bandwidth. In this paper, we combine the benefits of both technologies into novel architecture that takes advantage of the communication benefits of both technologies while circumventing their limits. We discuss the scalability of the proposed architecture to kilo-core system using wireless technology. We evaluate the power consumption, throughput and latency for 256 and 1024 core architectures when compared to photonics-only, wireless-wired, wireless-photonics and wired-only architectures on synthetic traffic traces. Our simulation results indicate that the proposed architecture and design methodology can have significant impact on the overall network power and performance.
Gender Gap in Professional Entomology: Women Are Underrepresented in Academia and the U.S. Government

The majority of professional STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) scientists are still male, despite increasing levels of female graduates in those areas. Here, I show that, consistent with this pattern, females are significantly underrepresented in entomology positions in academia and the federal government. In both employment sectors, female share of positions also significantly decreases with increasing rank, while the reverse is true for men. At the highest federal government grade level occupied by entomologists, mean salary for females is significantly lower than for males. These results show that female entomologists, despite representing between 40 and 50% of doctoral graduates in the last 10 y, are employed at levels far below their share of graduates and, as such, are underemployed.
Disease and Famine as Weapons of War in Yemen

Disease and Famine as Weapons of War in Yemen The infliction of suffering in the war in Yemen has particularly toxic characteristics that demand attention from health care providers worldwide: the destruction of health care facilities and the spread of disease and hunger as apparent means of waging war.
Animal-assisted activity improves social behaviors in psychiatrically hospitalized youth with autism:

There is preliminary research suggesting that animal-assisted activities can improve social interactions of children with autism spectrum disorder. This pilot study sought to investigate the benefi...
Competing Claims to the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands Under International Law: A Critical Evaluation

Both China and Japan lay claim in the East China Sea to a group of islands and rocky outcroppings called Diaoyu Dao or Diaoyutai in China and Senkaku Islands in Japan. Prior to 2012, the conflict was kept mostly at bay through an informal agreement between the countries to shelve the issue of sovereignty until a later date. However in September 2012, Japan unilaterally nationalized three islands of the island chain, refusing to acknowledge that a dispute and an agreement to shelve the dispute exist. The current controversy is infused with a strong Japan-driven narrative of China having a flimsy claim to the islands under international law. With this narrative taking hold, especially in the West, it is important to assess the relative strength of China’s claim against Japan’s, regardless of whether the dispute would eventually be submitted to international arbitration. This paper explores the question of which of these countries has the better right to title through analyzing critical points of contention with respect to these countries’ sovereignty claims. These are: whether China possessed a historic title at the time Japan claimed Diaoyu Dao/Senkaku Islands to be terra nullius, whether China ceded the island group in the Maguan/Shimonoseki Treaty in 1895, and which document, i.e., Japan’s signed Instrument of Surrender accepting the provisions of the Potsdam Declaration or the San Francisco Peace Treaty, is relevant to the resolution of the dispute. Evidence suggests China to have the stronger claim under precepts of international law and international case law governing territorial disputes. Japan’s assertion of having effective control is highly debatable while the imputation of China’s motive to its thirst for the potential reserves of hydrocarbon resources could be applied to Japan equally. China, on the other hand, may value the island group more for its strategic location to ensure China’s coastal defense and maritime security, in the context of the U.S. Pivot to Asia and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s avowed intention to re-write Japan’s pacifist constitution.
Impact of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease on readmission after hospitalization for acute heart failure: A nationally representative US cohort study

Abstract Background Patients hospitalized for heart failure (HF) are at high risk of readmission. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is one of the most prevalent comorbidities in this population. However, few data and only small studies describe the impact of COPD on the risk of readmission. Methods and results Hospitalizations for HF were identified in the 2012 National Readmissions Database. We compared clinical characteristics and the risk of all-cause, cardiovascular (CV) and respiratory-related readmission for patients with and without COPD. We included 225,160 patients hospitalized for HF among whom 54,953 had comorbid COPD. Patients with COPD were younger (median age 76 years COPD versus 77 years without COPD; p Conclusions In patients hospitalized for HF, most readmissions are due to a CV cause. However, patients with comorbid COPD are at a significantly elevated risk of respiratory in addition to CV-related readmission. These data stress the importance of a multidisciplinary management approach, including optimization of non-CV conditions, in order to reduce readmissions post index HF hospitalization.
Prefrontal cortex and cognitive control: new insights from human electrophysiology.

Cognitive control, the ability to regulate one’s cognition and actions on the basis of over-riding goals, is impaired in many psychiatric conditions. Although control requires the coordinated function of several prefrontal cortical regions, it has been challenging to determine how they work together, in part because doing so requires simultaneous recordings from multiple regions. Here, we provide a precis of cognitive control and describe the beneficial consequences of recent advances in neurosurgical practice that make large-scale prefrontal cortical network recordings possible in humans. Such recordings implicate inter-regional theta (5–8 Hz) local field potential (LFP) synchrony as a key element in cognitive control. Major open questions include how theta might influence other oscillations within these networks, the precise timing of information flow between these regions, and how perturbations such as brain stimulation might demonstrate the causal role of LFP phenomena. We propose that an increased focus on human electrophysiology is essential for an understanding of the neural basis of cognitive control.