cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Transmembrane electropotential changes in amphibian eggs at ovulation, activation and first cleavage†

Electropotential differences between the cell interior and the external medium have been studied with intracellular microelectrodes in ovarian oocytes, ovulated unfertilized eggs and fertilized eggs of R. pipiens. In ovarian oocytes the cytoplasm was 50 to 80 mV negative, relative to isotonic Ringer's solution. In contrast, electrode penetration of the oocyte nucleus in situ indicated that the nucleoplasm was about 25 mV positive, relative to the cytoplasm. After ovulation, the cortical cytoplasm became 20 to 50 mV positive with regard to an external solution of 0.1 strength Ringer's solution (ca. pond water). Penetration of the cytoplasm at levels from 0.3 to 0.6 mm below the egg surface revealed an inner zone with a potential which was about 15 mV negative, relative to the cortical cytoplasm. A slow hyperpolarization of the cortical membrane occurred at activation, with the potential returning to that of the ovulated unfertilized egg within ten minutes. After fertilization, the egg cytoplasm remained positive until the first cleavage. As division proceeded, the cytoplasm slowly depolarized and became 50 to 60 mV negative, relative to 0.1 strength Ringer's solution.
Applications of Geographical Information Systems in Understanding Spatial Distribution of Asthma

Geographical Information Systems (GIS) are becoming useful tools in making strategic decisions whenever data are found to have spatial distribution. Federal, state, and local governments are using GIS for assessment and planning in such areas as housing, healthcare, land use, natural resources, environmental monitoring and transportation. Companies are also using it to expand and consolidate existing businesses, perform market analysis, and to find optimum delivery routes. In this paper, we illustrate the usefulness of GIS in the analysis and presentation of spatially distributed asthma prevalence among school children (13-17 years) in the New York City area. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first presentation of asthma survey results distributed over the zip codes of a large city. Preliminary results show good correlation between asthma and poverty. They also correlate well with the spatial distribution of asthma hospitalization data. Results reveal an overall asthma prevalence of ~ 16% as compared to the national average of ~ 12% for a similar age group (5-17 years). When comparing asthma rates among the predominant racial groups of the city – Blacks and Hispanics are found to have a higher prevalence than Whites or Asians. The inner-city population shows a significantly higher asthma prevalence than those in the suburbs. This study shows our understanding of asthma prevalence in a dimension that could not have been possible prior to the availability of GIS. The results will help us making further decisions in planning for asthma research.
A Type VI Secretion System of Pseudomonas aeruginosa Targets a Toxin to Bacteria

The functional spectrum of a secretion system is defined by its substrates. Here we analyzed the secretomes of Pseudomonas aeruginosa mutants altered in regulation of the Hcp Secretion Island-I-encoded type VI secretion system (H1-T6SS). We identified three substrates of this system, proteins Tse1-3 (type six exported 1-3), which are coregulated with the secretory apparatus and secreted under tight posttranslational control. The Tse2 protein was found to be the toxin component of a toxin-immunity system and to arrest the growth of prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells when expressed intracellularly. In contrast, secreted Tse2 had no effect on eukaryotic cells; however, it provided a major growth advantage for P. aeruginosa strains, relative to those lacking immunity, in a manner dependent on cell contact and the H1-T6SS. This demonstration that the T6SS targets a toxin to bacteria helps reconcile the structural and evolutionary relationship between the T6SS and the bacteriophage tail and spike.
Late Clinical Problems with Beall Model 103 and 104 Mitral Valve Prostheses: Hemolysis and Valve Wear

The purpose of this study was to determine the influence on hemolysis of the spatial orientation of the struts in the Beall mitral valve prosthesis, Models 103 and 104. Thirteen pairs of patients were selected to match struts oriented parallel and perpendicular to the left ventricular outflow tract axis. The average time after operation was 3.73 years. Complete blood counts and relative serum chemistry values were determined.
Object-based Land Cover Classification and Change Analysis in the Baltimore Metropolitan Area Using Multitemporal High Resolution Remote Sensing Data

Accurate and timely information about land cover pattern and change in urban areas is crucial for urban land management decision-making, ecosystem monitoring and urban planning. This paper presents the methods and results of an object-based classification and post-classification change detection of multitemporal high-spatial resolution Emerge aerial imagery in the Gwynns Falls watershed from 1999 to 2004. The Gwynns Falls watershed includes portions of Baltimore City and Baltimore County, Maryland, USA. An object-based approach was first applied to implement the land cover classification separately for each of the two years. The overall accuracies of the classification maps of 1999 and 2004 were 92.3% and 93.7%, respectively. Following the classification, we conducted a comparison of two different land cover change detection methods: traditional (i.e., pixel-based) post-classification comparison and object-based post-classification comparison. The results from our analyses indicated that an object-based approach provides a better means for change detection than a pixel based method because it provides an effective way to incorporate spatial information and expert knowledge into the change detection process. The overall accuracy of the change map produced by the object-based method was 90.0%, with Kappa statistic of 0.854, whereas the overall accuracy and Kappa statistic of that by the pixel-based method were 81.3% and 0.712, respectively.
Performance of parallel concatenated space-time codes

We study a channel turbo-coding scheme that consists of parallel concatenated systematic space-time codes and is referred to as turbo space-time coded modulation (turbo-STCM). The scheme features full rate and simulation results shows that it also provides full diversity. Performance with recursive versus nonrecursive space-time constituent codes is investigated. The advantage of recursive component codes is demonstrated by simulations for a four state 4-PSK turbo-STCM scheme operating over a Rayleigh block-fading channel. It is also shown that the turbo-STCM performs better than conventional space-time codes of similar complexity.
Alkanes of four related moth species, Helicoverpa and Heliothis

Comparison of the presence and quantities of cuticular hydrocarbons has been used successfully for identifying sibling species and races of several groups of insects. This approach has been extended to four species of moths previously regarded as belonging to the same genus, Heliothis. Gas chromatography was used to quantify the numerous high-molecular weight alkanes found on the cuticle of two pairs of closely related species: Helicoverpa zea and Helicoverpa armigera, and Heliothis virescens and Heliothis subflexa. Both sexes of H. zea and H. armigera contained different quantities of several alkanes that could be used for unambiguous identification. Similar comparisons of H. subflexa and H. virescens showed four peak ratios that were different for each species. Sexual dimorphism was minor in H. subflexa and H. virescens.
Modelling of mechanical properties of electrospun nanofibre network

Electrospun nanofibres are widely investigated as extra-cellular matrix for tissue engineering and biomedical applications. Little is understood on the deformation mechanics of spun fibre mats. A model is developed to predict the deformation behaviour of randomly-oriented electrospun nanofibre network/mats with the fibre-fibre fusion and van der Waals interaction. The nanofibres in the mat are represented by chains of beads; the interactions between the beads are described by bonded (stretch, bending and torsion) and non-bonded (van der Waals) potentials. Stress-strain curves and dynamics fracture are predicted by this model. The results show that the fibre-fibre fusion has a significant effect on the tensile strength of the mats. Increasing the number of fusion points in the mat results in an increase in strength, but over-fusion may lead to lower fracture energy. The predicted stress-strain relationships are consistent with the experimental results.
Response of Northern bats (Myotis septentrionalis) to Prescribed Fires in Eastern Kentucky Forests

Prescribed fire is becoming a common management tool for restoring forests of North America; however, effects of prescribed fire on forest-dwelling bats remain unclear. During 2006 and 2007, we monitored prey availability, diet, foraging behavior, and roost selection of adult female northern bats (Myotis septentrionalis) before and after 2 prescribed fires in dissected terrain of the Red River Gorge on the Daniel Boone National Forest in eastern Kentucky. Size of home ranges and core areas did not vary between bats radiotracked before and after fires. Bats foraged more often in the vicinity of pine stands than hardwood or mixed stands, and along ridges and midslopes than lower slopes, regardless of burn condition. Home ranges were closer to burned habitats following fires than to unburned habitats. Abundance of coleopterans, dipterans, and all insects combined captured in blacklight traps increased following prescribed fires. Fecal samples of bats demonstrated lepidopterans, coleopterans, and dipterans to be the 3 most important groups of insect prey, with consumption of dipterans increasing after burning. Bats chose roosts that were taller in height and in earlier stages of decay than random snags, and after prescribed fires chose roosts in trees with a greater number of cavities and a higher percentage of bark coverage. More roosts were observed in burned habitats (74.3%; n 5 26) after fires than in unburned habitats (25.7%; n 5 9). The results of this work suggest that northern bats are tolerant to prescribed fire on the landscape pattern and scale observed in this study. Northern bats responded to habitat alterations resulting from prescribed fires through shifts in the location of foraging areas as bats tracked changes in insect availability, and through shifts in the selection of roost trees by occupying trees and snags possessing more potential roosting microsites.
Bandpass delta-sigma data converters

A standard (lowpass) delta-sigma converter uses a sampling frequency which must be many times greater than the highest signal frequency of interest. In contrast, a bandpass delta-sigma data converter needs a sampling rate which is only a few times greater than the highest frequency of interest. Bandpass data converters facilitate high precision analog-to-digital conversion of narrowband bandpass signals in the MHz range. They find application in digital communication systems, spectrum analyzers and special-purpose instrumentation. This paper describes some of the theory behind the technique and summarizes results reported in the literature.
Implementing ACL-Based Policies in XACML

XACML is commonly used as a policy exchange mechanism, decision engines are available, and verification tools are under development. However, no support for legacy access control systems exists yet. To explore the feasibility to support legacy systems, we designed and implemented a mapping of the IBMreg Tivolireg Access Manager policy language into XACML. Although the Tivoli Access Manager policy language, being ACL-based, is simpler in general, it turned out to be a non-trivial task to encode the interplay of the Tivoli Access Manager policy elements and decision logic within XACML. To achieve this task, we had to come up with a novel use of XACML features.
Burst‐Swimming Performance of Larval Zebra Danios and the Effects of Diel Temperature Fluctuations

Abstract Zebra danios Danio [Brachydanio] rerio were spawned and their eggs and larvae were reared in a simulated natural thermal regime, increasing from 21 to 30°C for 7 h and decreasing to 21°C for 17 h, daily. Burst-swimming performance was provoked by electrical stimulation of larvae (mean total length = 3.6 mm). Responses were filmed at 400 frames/s at temperature intervals of 3°C. Distance travelled in a specified time (St), maximum velocity, and maximum acceleration increased with temperature. Size-specific maximum velocity was considerably higher than previously reported for larvae. A predictive model relating St to temperature was developed. In theory, the observed effects of temperature could have been due to changes in physiological rates or in water viscosity, but Reynolds numbers were too high for a substantial viscosity effect. The Q10 for St was 1.6, that for maximum velocity was 1.4. Results suggest that, other factors being equal, larvae are potentially more vulnerable to predation at sun...
Total translation of vasopressin and oxytocin in neurohypophysis of rats

There is a paucity of information about total translation rate of vasopressin and oxytocin. Because the site of synthesis of the neurohypophysial hormones is anatomically separate from the site of storage, we were able to measure total translation by blocking transport of newly synthesized hormone and measuring accumulation in the areas of synthesis in the hypothalamus. Colchicine administered into the third ventricle in doses as low as 3.5 micrograms/rat blocked transport for 18 h. The linear increase in vasopressin and oxytocin content over 18 h indicated a stable rate of synthesis, which was 1.2 and 1.9 pmol/h for vasopressin and 1.4-2.5 pmol/h for oxytocin. The molar correlation for synthesis of total neurophysin to total hormone was 1.16. Infusion of oxytocin and vasopressin into rats indicated that this level of synthesis of hormone was essential under steady-state conditions to maintain plasma levels in the low physiological range of approximately 3 pg/ml for oxytocin and 1 pg/ml for vasopressin. The data on total synthesis of the neurohypophysial hormones provide a reference for studies in which physiological replacement is required and also provide the technique and base-line data to determine how translation of vasopressin and oxytocin is regulated when neurohypophysial function is altered.
ESL Teachers as Theory Makers: A Discourse Analysis of Student Assignments in a Second Language Acquisition Course

Second Language Acquisition (SLA) knowledge is necessary in order to increase the likelihood that teachers will engage in sound practices. The purpose of this study was to discursively examine the evolving SLA knowledge as part of living educational theories in course assignments of 29 teachers in an SLA theory class. This study offers several valuable additional insights about teachers living educational theories of SLA. Specifically, preservice teachers exhibited more willingness to change their practice in the future than inservice teachers, yet preservice teachers still expressed both a confirmation of original beliefs and personal validation for extant beliefs.
Simulations of water quality and oxythermal cisco habitat in Minnesota lakes under past and future climate scenarios

A deterministic, process-oriented, dynamic and one-dimensional year-round lake water quality model, MINLAKE2010, was developed for water temperature ( T ) and dissolved oxygen (DO) simulations to study impacts of climate warming on lake water quality and cisco fish habitat. The DO model is able to simulate metalimnetic oxygen maxima in vertical DO profiles of oligotrophic lakes. The model was calibrated with profile data from the 28 study lakes in Minnesota; two-thirds of them are deep mesotrophic/oligotrophic lakes that support cisco, a coldwater fish species. The average standard error of estimate against measured data was 1.47 °C for T and 1.50 mg/L for DO. Oxythermal habitat parameter TDO3 ( T at DO = 3 mg/L) was determined from simulated daily T and DO profiles under past and future climate scenarios in the 28 study lakes. Average annual maximum TDO3 (TDO3 AM ) for the 28 study lakes is projected to increase on the average of 3.2 °C under the MIROC 3.2 future scenario, while the occurrence day of TDO3 AM is not much different under past and future climate scenarios. Both physical processes (mixing characteristics related to lake geometry ratio) and trophic status control temperature and DO characteristics and then affect cisco habitat in a lake.
Accounting for the Biogeochemical Cycle of Nitrogen in Input-Output Life Cycle Assessment

Nitrogen is indispensable for sustaining human activities through its role in the production of food, animal feed, and synthetic chemicals. This has encouraged significant anthropogenic mobilization of reactive nitrogen and its emissions into the environment resulting in severe disruption of the nitrogen cycle. This paper incorporates the biogeochemical cycle of nitrogen into the 2002 input-output model of the U.S. economy. Due to the complexity of this cycle, this work proposes a unique classification of nitrogen flows to facilitate understanding of the interaction between economic activities and various flows in the nitrogen cycle. The classification scheme distinguishes between the mobilization of inert nitrogen into its reactive form, use of nitrogen in various products, and nitrogen losses to the environment. The resulting inventory and model of the US economy can help quantify the direct and indirect impacts or dependence of economic sectors on the nitrogen cycle. This paper emphasizes the need for methods to manage the N cycle that focus not just on N losses, which has been the norm until now, but also include other N flows for a more comprehensive view and balanced decisions. Insight into the N profile of various sectors of the 2002 U.S. economy is presented, and the inventory can also be used for LCA or Hybrid LCA of various products. The resulting model is incorporated in the approach of Ecologically-Based LCA and available online.
The Suburban Transformation of American Politics: The Convergence of Reality and Research

As the millions of Americans behind the Census Bureau figures make the decisions which ultimately are reflected in cold statistical aggregates, it is apparent that the "urban crisis" focus of the past decade has become less and less applicable as a description of social reality. This is not to gainsay the very real national needs of large urban centers. At the same time the rhetoric of national priorities should not mask social reality. Table I indicates the trend.
Every Consumer Knows How to Run a Business: The Dangerous Assumptions Made When a Prior Possession Conviction is Admitted as Evidence in a Case Involving Commercial Drug Activity

This Comment provides a discussion on Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b), which for the past few decades has allowed federal prosecutors to use instances of prior possession to fulfill elements of a different crime involving commercial drug activity. This evidence has been allowed in a variety of circumstances among the federal circuits, regardless of proximity in time, relatedness, or similarity between the previous instance of possession and the new commercial drug charge at hand. This Comment contains an in-depth analysis of the evidentiary rule, procedural requirements, case law, and the present circuit split on this issue. A recent decision by the Third Circuit has shed light on this problem and has provided a framework that suggests stricter guidelines should be used when instances of prior possession are presented as evidence to fulfill elements of a commercial drug crime. Lastly, this Comment presents an argument that emphasizes the need for a uniform approach by either requiring a greater standard of relevancy or by excluding evidence of prior possession in cases concerning commercial drug activity when the events are substantially unrelated.
Social identity and arterial blood pressure in the African-American community.

It has been suggested that racism may account in part for health inequalities between African Americans and other ethnic groups in the United States. While there is a strong plausibility to this suggestion, specifying the causal pathways through which enduring patterns of prejudice and discrimination affect pathophysiologic processes has proven difficult. The aim of this paper is to suggest just such a specification of this effect, building on prior work locating this process in social interaction. It is argued that, in mundane social interaction, African-American ethnicity as a status attribute overrides the other social attributes through which individuals structure the social identities that mediate mundane social interaction. Three specific variables that influence social identity are examined: lifestyle incongruity, stressful life events, and identity accumulation. Using data collected in an African-American community in the rural South, it was found that these three variables are related to blood pressure in interaction with socioeconomic status. Additionally, each of the three variables is related to individuals' perceptions of racism in mundane interactions. This pattern of results suggests that the attribution of lower social status to African-American ethnicity within the color-conscious society of the U.S., and the subsequent effect of this attribution on social interaction, in part account for observed health inequalities.
Born This Way?: How U.S. College Students Make Sense of the Biosocial Underpinnings of Race and Other Identities.

With advances in biotechnology come potential changes in how college students may understand the nature of identity. This study explores sensemaking around the biological underpinnings of proclaimed “social” identities (e.g., race, class, gender). Based on interviews with 34 undergraduate students recruited from two large, public, research universities in the United States, a conceptual model is offered to outline the general process of how students make sense of biological and/or social explanations of identity, including the role of controllability and essentialism. We discuss implications for multicultural education and teaching the “social construction” of identity in changing contexts.
Synovial Chondromatosis of the Thumb

Synovial Chondromatosis of the Thumb: A CASE REPORT AND REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE MICHAEL LEWIS;JOHN MARSHALL;JOSEPH MIRRA; The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery
Rural Practitioner, Rural Practice

We embrace conflicting images of the traditional rural physician. On the one hand, the old-time country doctor in solo practice symbolizes the idyllic, pastoral life we associate with our nation’s agricultural past. The horse-and-buggy doctor, the dependable general practitioner who delivered babies, kept their parents healthy, and comforted dying grandparents, represents community stability and concern.
Estimation of local subgraph counts

Graphlets represent small induced subgraphs and are becoming increasingly important for a variety of applications. Despite the importance of the local subgraph (graphlet) counting problem, existing work focuses mainly on counting graphlets globally over the entire graph. These global counts have been used for tasks such as graph classification as well as for understanding and summarizing the fundamental structural patterns in graphs. In contrast, this work proposes an accurate, efficient, and scalable parallel framework for the more challenging problem of counting graphlets locally for a given edge or set of edges. The local graphlet counts provide a topologically rigorous characterization of the local structure surrounding an edge. The aim of this work is to obtain the count of every graphlet of size k for each edge. The framework gives rise to efficient, parallel, and accurate unbiased estimation methods with provable error bounds, as well as exact algorithms for counting graphlets locally. Experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed exact and estimation methods on various datasets. In particular, the exact methods show strong scaling results (11–16x on 16 cores). Moreover, our estimation framework is accurate with error less than 5% on average.
Impact of Prolonged Absence of Low Temperature on Adult Eclosion Patterns of Western Cherry Fruit Fly (Diptera: Tephritidae).

Western cherry fruit fly, Rhagoletis indifferens (Curran) (Diptera: Tephritidae), is a serious pest of cherries (Prunus spp.) in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Previous research suggests that R. indifferens is unlikely to establish in commercial cherry production areas in California and in tropical export markets because cold temperatures, below 5 °C, in those regions appear insufficient to complete diapause. However, it is unclear how prolonged absence of cold exposure affects diapause termination in R. indifferens. Here, we examined this question by exposing R. indifferens pupae for 40 wk to simulated temperate and tropical conditions of 23 or 26 °C, 40 or 80% RH, and a photoperiod of 16:8 or 12:12 (L:D) h. Eclosion patterns among fly groups in the four conditions did not differ. For all groups, fly eclosion from pupae not exposed to cold exhibited a bimodal distribution. The first major peak, comprising 3.2% of the total fly emergence, occurred at 1-10 wk. The second major peak, comprising the remaining 96.8%, occurred at a mode of ∼30 wk. Based on responses to no cold and cold (3 ± 1.5 °C) exposures, there were three distinct pupal diapause groups: the first eclosion group was likely nondiapausing pupae; the second eclosion group was likely diapausing pupae; a third group that remained viable but did not produce adults after 40 wk may represent prolonged dormancy pupae. We suggest that eclosion of adults after prolonged absence of cold exposure needs to be incorporated into models for potential fly establishment in warm climates.
Combinatorial-Algebraic Cryptosystems

About twenty years ago, a combinatorial cryptosystem called the Merkle-Hellman Knapsack met with a great deal of enthusiastic acclaim [Hellman and Merkle 1978]. For message transmission it was much more efficient than its main competitor at the time, which was RSA. Moreover, it was thought to be almost provably secure. Whereas the security of RSA is based on the difficulty of factoring large integers, that of Merkle-Hellman is based on the conjecturally more difficult Subset Sum problem, which is known to be NP-complete (see Definition 4.6 of Chapter 2).
Development of Aircraft Cabin Sound Environment Reproduction Facility for Passenger Comfort Research

The Cabin Comfort and Environment Research (CCER) facility is a flexible cabin laboratory at National Research Council of Canada (NRC), which was built to investigate the effects of integrating new cabin technology and designs on passenger comfort and travel experience. The cabin sound field reproduction system is one of the capabilities being developed within the CCER in order to accurately reproduce the spatial distribution of the sound field environment within an aircraft cabin that passengers experience during flight. Sound environment reproduction in aircraft cabin mock-up can be used to demonstrate novel cabin interior technologies, and is also critical for maximizing the realism of flight experience when human subjects are used in experiments. This paper describes the progress of the current capability development to reproduce aircraft cabin interior sound field inside a full-scale cabin mock-up. A 40 channel microphone array was built and used to capture in-flight sound recordings of representative flight segments of the NRC Falcon 20 aircraft. The CCER cabin mock-up will be used to reproduce the spatial distribution of the cabin sound field using mini-actuators mounted on the cabin trim panels. Material characterization and modal analysis of the cabin trim panels were conducted through simulations on LMS VirtualLab and validated through experimental tests. The spatial distribution of the aircraft cabin sound pressure levels reproduced using the developed system will be compared with the original recorded sound field within the NRC Falcon 20 aircraft cabin.
Stem-cell biology: A move in the right direction

Stem-cell therapy is valued for its potential to restore damaged or degenerating tissues. Stem cells are now regularly used to renew blood, and it looks as if the next success could be in treating dystrophic muscle.
Opportunity Team Builder for Sales Teams

Sellers work together as a team on sales opportunities, using their expertise in different roles to increase the probability of a win. These roles include managing the relationship with the client, overall architecture support or deep knowledge of a particular product depending on the seller's expertise, and the current opportunity requirements. Forming the right team for an incoming opportunity is vital and depends on several factors including understanding the required roles for the opportunity and assigning the right person to fulfill these roles, taking into consideration the seller's social network. In this paper, we present the Opportunity Team Builder solution, which supports sellers in this work by dividing the process into the following sub-tasks; identifying the required roles for the opportunity based on the products that the client is interested in, recommending the best people to fulfill these roles, and providing a win probability figure to guide users in team formation. This supports the sellers in forming the bestfitting team for current opportunity dynamics. Each task in the solution is implemented as a model using historical data from previous sales opportunities. Models work in coordination with each other to ultimately maximize the probability of win over loss. The solution not only recommends the best person to join a team taking into account a combination of inferred skills and social relationships, but also the predicted impact the person can have on the overall performance of the team. We present how the whole solution is realized with an intelligent user interface enabling interaction with the user throughout the team formation process. Substantial experiments with real world data show that win/loss prediction is performed accurately and the Opportunity Team Builder solution can recommend teams that achieve a higher win probability.
Developing cultural competence with LDS clients: Utilizing spiritual genograms in social work practice

ABSTRACTIn recent years, social work has increasingly focused on spirituality and religion as key elements of cultural competence. Consequently, specific strategies have been developed to provide the most appropriate interventions for religious clients. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) is the fourth largest and the fastest growing church in the United States and is one of the fastest growing churches worldwide. In an effort to facilitate cultural competence with LDS clients, a spiritual assessment tool was developed based upon the genogram. Evaluation of this tool was facilitated through a survey of 100 practitioners. Participants liked the idea of using a spiritual genogram and felt it would be a useful tool in therapy. In general, they thought the questions associated with the spiritual genogram were appropriate and consistent with LDS culture, although numerous suggestions for improvement were offered.
Comparison of viscous and structural damping models for piezoelectric vibration energy harvesters

Abstract This work compares viscous and structural damping in a lumped-parameter model of a piezoelectric vibration energy harvester. The dynamic response and power harvested are solved in closed-form for devices with combined viscous and structural damping. The results are then reduced to get expressions for isolated cases of viscous and structural damping. The conditions that maximize the power harvested are determined. These devices generally have two maxima. One maximum is not sensitive to the damping model. The other maximum, however, has meaningful differences between viscous and structural damping models. The differences between the two models increase with increasing electromechanical coupling.
Trends in depression among low-income mothers in the United States, 2005-2015.

Abstract Background Prior research has examined the association between low-income status and maternal depression; however, important questions remain in terms of trends in the prevalence of major depressive episodes (MDE) and treatment seeking among mothers in the United States. The objective of the present study is to examine trends in MDE among low-income mothers and explore perceived barriers to mental health treatment seeking. Methods Using data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH; 2005–2015), we examined the prevalence of past-year MDE among mothers living in poverty (0–99% federal poverty line [FPL]; n = 23,264) and near-poverty (100–200% FPL; n = 21,655). Consistent with the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines, we conducted survey-adjusted logistic regression analyses to examine the significance of survey year in relation to MDE while controlling for key social demographic correlates. Results The overall decreasing MDE trend was found only among mothers in near-poverty, not mothers in poverty. Only for mothers in poverty, financial (AOR = 0.70, 95% CI = 0.52–0.95) and information barriers (AOR = 0.53, 95% CI = 0.39–0.73) were associated with mental health service use. Limitations Self-reports of depressive symptoms and service receipt may have led to over or underreporting due to recall or social desirability bias. Additionally, NSDUH data are cross-sectional and thereby limit our ability to make causal inferences. Conclusions Greater attention should be paid to the prevention/treatment of depression among mothers in poverty. Efforts may include expanding financial assistance for mental health service use and educational campaigns to increase awareness of services available.
Effects of solute-SIA binding energy on defect production behaviors in Fe-based alloys

Abstract During primary damage, the fraction of produced solute interstitials in the total interstitials can be either higher or lower than the solute concentration in an alloy, depending on the solute type. To understand which alloy property governs the over- or under-production behaviors of solute interstitials, molecular dynamics simulations are conducted to simulate the cascade damage in a series of “artificial” Fe-Cr alloys with tunable binding energies between a substitutional solute (Cr) atom and a Fe self-interstitial atom (SIA). To achieve this, the Fe-Cr cross pair interaction in the interatomic potential is modified by multiplying a scaling factor so that the solute-SIA binding energy varies linearly from positive to negative values. It is found that the solute interstitial fraction has a strong correlation with the solute-SIA binding energy, and the correlation can be approximately described by a Fermi-Dirac-Distribution-like equation. The independent defect production results reported in literature are found to align well with this correlation. The correlation may be used to estimate the solute interstitial production behaviors in a wide range of Fe-based alloys simply based on the solute-SIA binding energy, without conducting laborious cascade simulations. It may also be used to improve the accuracy of predicting displacement per atom (dpa) of individual alloy constituents in the widely used SRIM software.
Visual Motion Processing And Display Design

The goal of the research described in this paper was to study the spatio-temporal properties of visual motion mechanisms and to apply the knowledge gained to the evaluation/design of visual displays. Objective measurements of an observer’s sensitivity to the order of onset of stimuli in two-point motion sequences were obtained. The basic research findings were consistent with the idea that the spatial “grain” of the retina increases with retinal eccentricity, but that the temporal, resolving power of motion mechanisms at different retinal locations remains relatively constant. There are at least two important, applied implications of the research results. First, a visual display which is updated every 16 msec (60-Hz refresh rate), as are many raster-scan systems, will “filter out” motion information capable of being perceived by a human. Second, the critical flicker frequency (cff) is not a completely adequate criterion upon which to base the design of a display intended to simulate the motion of real-world objects.
Bilingual adolescent vowel production in the Parisian suburbs

Aims and objectives:The study examines how bilingualism and adolescent identity interact to influence acoustic vowel patterns. This is examined in students at a secondary school in the socially and...
The Role of Default Counseling for Mortgage Borrowers in Financial Distress

This chapter assesses the role of mortgage default counseling and reviews evaluations of counseling’s efficacy, including data from one leading default counseling agency. There remain several salient rationales for providing default counseling, especially for mortgage borrowers who are unfamiliar with the mortgage market and those who face severe resource constraints. Counseling can connect borrowers to public services and lender-provided alternatives to foreclosure. Furthermore, counseling can provide an external review of a consumer’s budget in order to identify cash flow for mortgage loan repayment. Program evaluations suggest that default counseling has positive impacts on loan performance, although the impacts are relatively small in magnitude. Nevertheless, existing evaluations have failed to measure outcomes that are not directly related to loan performance, including reduced household stress or changes in the costs of exiting homeownership.
A METHOD FOR PRESERVATION OF VIABLE PLATELETS: COMBINED EFFECTS OF SUGARS AND DIMETHYLSULFOXIDE.

Rat platelets were frozen in liquid nitrogen (-195 C.) without losing their morphologic integrity and their ability to circulate in thrombocytopenic recipient animals. The simultaneous presence of two preservative agents—a sugar and dimethylsulfoxide—was instrumental in this respect. The use of single agents was only slightly or not at all effective. The combination of 5 per cent Dextrose and 5 per cent DMS in plasma permitted in individual experiments a circulating yield of frozen platelets as high as 70 to 87 per cent of the numbers observed when fresh platelets were given. The bleeding time was reduced to normal whenever the platelet levels were increased to more than 300,000/mm3.
Will There Be a Science of Law in the Twenty-First Century?

The skepticism of the American Legal Realists and their heirs threatens to make a politically neutral science of law impossible and thus to undermine the liberal polity which needs such a science. Ronald Dworkin attempts to refute the skeptics and defend both legal theory and liberalism. However, the author points out, Dworkin and liberalism are themselves skeptics when it comes to moral principles, and, therefore, they cannot wholly escape from similar skepticism with regard to legal principles. Both Anglo-American and Continental legal history are examined in the course of these arguments.
Scaling of quasibrittle fracture : hypotheses of invasive and lacunar fractality, their critique and weibull connection

Considerable progress has been achieved in fractal characterization of the properties of crack surfaces in quasibrittle materials such as concrete, rock, ice, ceramics and composites. Recently, fractality of cracks or microcracks was proposed as the explanation of the observed size effect on the nominal strength of structures. This explanation, though, has rested merely on intuitive analogy and geometric reasoning, and did not take into account the mechanics of crack propagation. In this paper, the energy-based asymptotic analysis of scaling presented in the preceding companion paper in this issue [1] is extended to the effect of fractality on scaling. First, attention is focused on the propagation of fractal crack curves (invasive fractals). The modifications of the scaling law caused by crack fractality are derived, both for quasibrittle failures after large stable crack growth and for failures at the initiation of a fractal crack in the boundary layer near the surface. Second, attention is focused on discrete fractal distribution of microcracks (lacunar fractals), which is shown to lead to an analogy with Weibull's statistical theory of size effect due to material strength randomness. The predictions ensuing from the fractal hypothesis, either invasive or lacunar, disagree with the experimentally confirmed asymptotic characteristics of the size effect in quasibrittle structures. It is also pointed out that considering the crack curve as a self-similar fractal conflicts with kinematics. This can be remedied by considering the crack to be an affine fractal. It is concluded that the fractal characteristics of either the fracture surface or the microcracking at the fracture front cannot have a significant influence on the law of scaling of failure loads, although they can affect the fracture characteristics.
Mental Health Help-Seeking in Adolescence: An Exploration of Variables Associated with Help-Seeking Intent in Schools

Mental health challenges (including mood, anxiety, and behavioral disorders) affect up to one-fifth of adolescents ages 13–18. Although these disorders are associated with impairments in psychological, academic, social, and family domains, they are often left untreated. Schools have great potential to address this service-underutilization gap by identifying those students at risk through mental health screening tools and by providing treatment at no cost for students. However, at the secondary level, school personnel partly expect high school students to initiate support for themselves. The present study advances research by exploring the variables related to adolescent mental health help-seeking intentions within the school setting. Specifically, this study assesses the utility of the theory of planned behavior in an effort to identify what factors relate to high school students' willingness to seek help at school. A secondary aim of this study was to examine why adolescent boys are consistently less willing to seek help for mental health problems than adolescent girls. Results of this study highlight important factors to target when developing interventions to increase help-seeking intent in high school students.
A delicate universe: compactification obstacles to D-brane inflation.

We investigate whether explicit models of warped D-brane inflation are possible in string compactifications. To this end, we study the potential for D3-brane motion in a warped conifold that includes holomorphically embedded D7-branes involved in moduli stabilization. The presence of the D7-branes significantly modifies the inflaton potential. We construct an example based on a very simple and symmetric embedding due to Kuperstein, ${z}_{1}=\mathrm{const}$, in which it is possible to fine-tune the potential so that slow-roll inflation can occur. The resulting model is rather delicate: inflation occurs in the vicinity of an inflection point, and the cosmological predictions are extremely sensitive to the precise shape of the potential.
Back to the Futures: When Short Selling is Banned

We examine the effect of single-stock futures (SSFs) trading on the price discovery and market quality of underlying stocks during the 2008 short-selling ban. We find a significant increase in SSFs trading volume for banned stocks during the ban period. We show that the contribution of SSFs trading to underlying stock price discovery also increased significantly. Moreover, we find that SSFs trading helped mitigate the negative effect of the short-selling ban on market quality. Given that SSFs trading in US still lags behind other countries, our findings project an increasingly important role of SSFs in the US financial market.
Constraints on Pulsar Evolution: The Joint Period-Spin-Down Distribution of Millisecond Pulsars

We calculate the joint period-spin-down (P-) distributions of millisecond radio pulsars (MSRPs) for the standard evolutionary model in order to test whether the observed MSRPs are the unequivocal descendants of millisecond X-ray pulsars (MSXPs). The P- densities implied by the standard evolutionary model compared with observations suggest that there is a statistically significant overabundance of young/high magnetic field MSRPs. Taking biases due to observational selection effects into account, it is unlikely that MSRPs have evolved from a single coherent progenitor population that loses energy via magnetic dipole radiation after the onset of radio emission. By producing the P- probability map, we show with more than 95% confidence that the fastest spinning millisecond pulsars with high magnetic fields, e.g., PSR B1937+21, cannot be produced by the observed MSXPs within the framework of the standard model.
A Comprehensive High-Efficiency Protocol for Isolation, Culture, Polarization, and Glycolytic Characterization of Bone Marrow-Derived Macrophages.

Macrophages are among the most important antigen-presenting cells. Many subsets of macrophages have been identified with unique metabolic signatures. Macrophages are commonly classified as M1-like (inflammatory) and M2-like (anti-inflammatory) subtypes. M1-like macrophages are pro-inflammatory macrophages that get activated by LPS and/or pro-inflammatory cytokines such as INF-γ, IL-12 & IL-2. M1-like polarized macrophages are involved in various diseases by mediating the host's defense to a variety of bacteria and viruses. That is very important to study LPS induced M1-like macrophages and their metabolic states in inflammatory diseases. M2-like macrophages are considered anti-inflammatory macrophages, activated by anti-inflammatory cytokines and stimulators. Under the pro-inflammatory state, macrophages show increased glycolysis in glycolytic function. The glycolytic function has been actively investigated in the context of glycolysis, glycolytic capacity, glycolytic reserve, compensatory glycolysis, or non-glycolytic acidification using extracellular flux (XF) analyzers. This paper demonstrates how to assess the glycolytic states in real-time with easy-to-follow steps when the bone marrow-derived macrophages (BMDMs) are respiring, consuming, and producing energy. Using specific inhibitors and activators of glycolysis in this protocol, we show how to obtain a systemic and complete view of glycolytic metabolic processes in the cells and provide more accurate and realistic results. To be able to measure multiple glycolytic phenotypes, we provide an easy, sensitive, DNA-based normalization method for polarization assessment of BMDMs. Culturing, activation/polarization and identification of the phenotype and metabolic state of the BMDMs are crucial techniques that can help to investigate many different types of diseases. In this paper, we polarized the naive M0 macrophages to M1-like and M2-like macrophages with LPS and IL4, respectively, and measured a comprehensive set of glycolytic parameters in BMDMs in real-time and longitudinally over time, using extracellular flux analysis and glycolytic activators and inhibitors.
Achieving Multistate Vector Scattering With Unmodified Digital Input/Output Pins

This paper studies the potential of multistate vector scattering using configurable general purpose input/output (GPIO) pins commonly present on digital devices. A low-cost EFM8BB1 microcontroller and its development board is studied to explore the possible signaling constellations. This specific microcontroller architecture is a modeled after the Intel 8051 and presents a variety of configuration options for digital GPIO pins. This work measures impedances of 32 possible GPIO configurations, and designs a quaternary over-the-air signaling scheme that transmits two bits per symbol period. This study and experimental proof-of-concept is performed at the UHF RFID band (915 MHz). This work demonstrates that multistate scattering without modification is possible, although with performance limitations that are discussed.