cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Differences between polymer/salt and single ion conductor solid polymer electrolytes

PEO/salts and PEO-based ionomers have been previously investigated for battery applications. Although both contain a PEO backbone, reports so far show different polymer dynamics, cation solvation, and ion conduction mechanisms. The different properties may be attributed to their lattice energy, ion content, molecular weight, and molecular structure. As the ion identities from which this information has been obtained differ, we have used molecular dynamics simulation to study a PEO/salt system that has identical cations and anions as a PEO-based ionomer previously studied in our group. This enables us to isolate the effect of covalent bonding of the anion to the backbone. Our study shows that the ionomer structure reduces PEO flexibility, PEO mobility, and cation solvation. In the PEO/salt, PEO segments crosslinking via ion aggregation does not occur because the anions are not incorporated in the polymer. The absence of ionic crosslinking results in PEO mobility evenly distributed along the polymer backbone in contrast to the gradient mobility exhibited in the PEO-based ionomer. Due to the more mobile PEO chains in the PEO/salt, ion transport is controlled by the dynamics of the polymer matrix, whereas ion hopping is more important within more rigid ionomer systems. To improve cation mobility in the PEO/salt, the focus should be on polymer dynamics. For the PEO-based ionomer, additional attention should be focused on attaining cation states that promote cation hopping.
The Role of Clouds, Water Vapor, Circulation, and Boundary Layer Structure in the Sensitivity of the Tropical Climate

Abstract The physical mechanisms that affect the tropical sea surface temperature (SST) are investigated using a two-box equilibrium model of the Tropics. One box represents the convecting, warm SST, high humidity region of the Tropics, and the other box represents the subsidence region with low humidity, boundary layer clouds, and cooler SST. The two regions communicate by energy and moisture fluxes that are proportional to the strength of the overturning circulation that couples the two regions. The boundary layer properties in the subsiding region are predicted with a mixing line model. Humidity above the inversion in the subsiding region is predicted from moisture conservation. The humidity above the inversion in the subsiding region increases rapidly with temperature, but this has less effect on the sensitivity than expected, because the inversion lowers as the humidity above the inversion is increased. Some of the increased greenhouse effect of the free troposphere can be offset by decreased greenho...
Do Bisexual Girls Report Higher Rates of Substance Use than Heterosexual Girls? A Failure to Replicate with Incarcerated and Detained Youth

Prior research suggests that sexual minority females, particularly bisexuals, report greater rates of substance use than heterosexuals. However, to our knowledge, no study has compared alcohol/drug use between bisexual and heterosexual incarcerated or detained female youth. The current study pools data from three prior treatment studies with incarcerated or detained adolescent girls that self-identify as bisexual or heterosexual (N=86). Hierarchical regression models were conducted to determine whether 12-month prevalence of alcohol, cigarettes, marijuana, or other drug use differed between bisexual and heterosexual participants. In contrast to most prior work, no differences were observed. Findings are considered in light of the recruitment setting, which drew a sample with high levels of substance use prevalence.
Abdominal wall perforation caused by left ventricular assist device driveline insertion: Potential lethal complication.

Continuous flow left ventricular assist devices (LVADs) such as the HeartMate II (HM2; Thoratec, Pleasanton, CA) and HeartWare HVAD (HeartWare, Framingham, MA), are used to support patients with end-stage heart failure. The number of these devices implanted has been growing steadily. Several complications arising from the devices have been reported. However, complications related to driveline insertion have not been well defined. This report examines abdominal perforation caused by LVAD driveline insertion.
Binomial Option Pricing

This note is designed to introduce the binomial option-pricing model. It covers the basic concepts using a one-period model and then provides an example of a two-period model. The note focuses on a conceptual approach to binomial option pricing rather than formulas.
Deaths: Inherited Metabolic Disease and Sudden Unexpected Death – Pathology

Inborn errors of metabolism are caused by inherited defects in the enzyme protein or cofactors that metabolize proteins, carbohydrate, and fat. Between 3% and 6% of sudden infant death syndrome, sudden unexpected death in infancy and sudden unexpected death in childhood are likely due to inherited metabolic conditions. Some clinical presentations can mimic non-accidental injury. The most frequently implicated disorders include defects of fatty acid oxidation and ketogenesis, congenital lactic acidosis, urea cycle disorders, organic acidurias and carbohydrate disorders. Appropriate samples should be collected and stored when death is imminent or at postmortem in order to reach an accurate diagnosis.
The roles of collagen genes in skeletal development and morphogenesis.

Molecular genetic analyses of osteochondrodysplasias in mice and humans have recently led to the identification of mutations in genes encoding structural proteins growth factor receptors and sulphate transporters. Further analyses of such inherited disorders, using rapid techniques for gene mapping, positional cloning and mutation detection, will undoubtedly uncover other genes that are important for skeletal development. Together with studies of transgenic mice, in which specific genes that are expressed in the skeleton are mutated, these analyses will provide insight into genes that are essential for skeletal morphogenesis.
Characters of Finite Groups: Some Uses and Mathematical Applications

(1981). Characters of Finite Groups: Some Uses and Mathematical Applications. The American Mathematical Monthly: Vol. 88, No. 9, pp. 639-646.
Dislodgement of a right atrial thrombus and subsequent pulmonary thromboembolism following tracheal stent deployment in a dog.

Objective To report the management of a dog that required 2 treatments with mechanical ventilation; firstly for severe tracheal collapse and secondly following deployment of a nitinol tracheal stent that immediately preceded a nonoxygen responsive pulmonary thromboembolism (PTE), suspected to have originated from the right atrium. Case Summary A 9-year-old female spayed Shetland Sheepdog was presented for management of a gallbladder mucocoele. Pertinent history included iatrogenic hyperadrenocorticism and tracheal collapse. The dog became clinical for tracheal collapse following laparoscopic cholecystectomy. Thoracic radiographs revealed moderate to severe tracheal collapse at the level of the thoracic inlet. Arterial blood gas was consistent with hypoventilation and mechanical ventilation was instituted. Given the severity of tracheal collapse, self-expanding nitinol tracheal stent placement was elected. Immediately following tracheal stent placement, the dog developed nonoxygen responsive hypoxemia requiring mechanical ventilation. Additional diagnostic tests revealed changes consistent with a PTE and a large thrombus in the right atrium. The dog was humanely euthanized. New or Unique Information Provided Dislodgement of a preexisting atrial thrombus has not been described as a complication following tracheal stent deployment. Additionally, although PTE is frequently considered to be oxygen responsive, it may not be if the embolism is severe enough.
Taxonomy: Species can be named from photos.

As an international group of taxonomists who study a range of taxa, we consider that you misconstrued the case of a new insect species that was described on the basis of photographs (see Nature 535, 323–324; 2016).
Professional Development Opportunities on Social Media

Professional development occurs on social media sites such as Twitter in a wide variety of ways. Educators at all levels connect online with others in their field (Carpenter & Krutka, 2014; McCarroll & Curran, 2013; Warlick, 2009). In these online settings, educators share resources and participate in education chats with goals such as “combating isolation and finding community” (Carpenter & Krutka, 2014, p. 428).
Empirically supported psychological treatments and the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC).

Abstract Background The Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) has been developed as an alternative approach to studying psychiatric disorders. The RDoC constructs and units of analysis, from genes up through paradigms, are intended to describe a hierarchy of priority measurements. Several of these have been investigated in the context of empirically-supported treatments, as either moderators or mediators of outcome. Method This review considers the available research on the moderating and mediating role of genes, molecules, circuits and physiology in cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT) outcome studies for negative valence system conditions. Findings Based on the review, research has aspired to identify candidate genes, molecules, circuits and physiological moderators or mediators of treatment, but no definitive tests have been conducted. Instead, several candidate variables have been found that deserve further investigation. Limitations The available research is based on diagnoses from the DSM, whereas the RDoC initiative endeavors to determine empirically valid taxonomic signs. Conclusions The results of this review are discussed in the joint context of developments in empirically-supported psychological therapy and the specific aims of the RDoC initiative, and conclude with recommendations for future research.
Doctoral Student Socialization: Educating Stewards of the Physical Education Profession

ABSTRACTIn preparing the future stewards of the physical education profession, the occupational socialization and professional development of physical education doctoral students is important to consider. To date, there has been scant scholarly inquiry into doctoral education in physical education. However, there is an abundance of research related to doctoral training in the higher education literature more generally. Drawing upon this larger body of work, this article expands occupational socialization theory to address the socialization of physical education doctoral students and faculty members. The case is made that effective doctoral training in physical education is essential to securing the future of the profession. Provided is an overview of the existing literature, presentation of an adaptation to occupational socialization theory that explains doctoral physical education socialization, and a discussion of key professional development issues that academic leaders and student support personnel sh...
Abortion and contemporary hip-hop: a thematic analysis of lyrics from 1990–2015☆☆☆

Abstract Objective To evaluate the representation of abortion in contemporary hip-hop music, gaining insight into the myriad of attitudes of abortion in the black community. Study design We used Genius, an online storehouse for lyrical content, to identify songs by querying the database for search terms related to family planning, including slang terms. We then cross-referenced identified songs using an online list of songs about abortion. We analyzed eligible songs using grounded theory in order to identify key themes. Results Of 6577 songs available, a total of 101 songs performed by 122 individual artists met inclusion criteria. The majority of artists were Black men; five artists were Black women. Key themes were: use of abortion as braggadocio; equating abortion with sin, genocide, or murder; male pressure for women to seek abortion; and the specific association of Planned Parenthood services with abortion. Conclusions The moral and ethical themes surrounding abortion in hip-hop lyrics reveal a unique perspective within a marginalized community. The overall negative context of abortion in hip-hop lyrics needs to be reconciled with the gendered, economic, historical, political, racial and ethnic background of hip-hop and rap music in America. Implications This study is the first to evaluate lyrical content from contemporary popular music in relation to abortion and family planning. Examining the intersection of reproductive rights and popular culture can provide a unique insight into the limited knowledge of the perspectives of abortion in the black community.
Clustering from general pairwise observations with applications to time-varying graphs

We present a general framework for graph clustering and bi-clustering where we are given a general observation (called a label) between each pair of nodes. This framework allows a rich encoding of various types of pairwise interactions between nodes. We propose a new tractable and robust approach to this problem based on convex optimization and maximum likelihood estimators. We analyze our algorithms under a general statistical model extending the planted partition and stochastic block models. Both sufficient and necessary conditions are provided for successful recovery of the underlying clusters. Our theoretical results subsume many existing graph clustering results for a wide range of settings, including planted partition, weighted clustering, submatrix localization and partially observed graphs. Furthermore, our results are applicable to novel settings including time-varying graphs, providing new insights to solutions of these problems. We provide empirical results on both synthetic and real data that corroborate with our theoretical findings.
The value of homelessness: Managing surplus life in the United States, by Craig Willse

The problem of homelessness has become an accepted feature of contemporary American society. Every mid- to large-scale U.S. city maintains a variety of social services designed to address the needs...
Principles for an ETL Benchmark

Conditions in the marketplace for ETL tools suggest that an industry standard benchmark is needed. The benchmark should provide useful data for comparing the performance of ETL systems, be based on a meaningful scenario, and be scalable over a wide range of data set sizes. This paper gives a general scoping of the proposed benchmark and outlines some key decision points. The Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC) has formed a development subcommittee to define and produce such a benchmark.
Advances in cancer immunology and cancer immunotherapeutics

The immune system plays an important role in protection against tumor growth. The theory of immune surveillance has evolved today leading to recent advancement in field of cancer immunotherapy. Here, we have revisited the basic structure of immune system with emphasis on its interaction with tumor cells. Also discussed briefly, is the landscape of current cancer immunotherapy and the future it holds.
Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy functional composite outcome measure.

Introduction We developed an evaluator-administered functional facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy composite outcome measure (FSHD-COM) comprising patient-identified areas of functional burden for future clinical trials. Methods We performed a prospective observational study of 41 patients with FSHD at 2 sites. The FSHD-COM includes functional assessment of the legs, shoulders and arms, trunk, hands, and balance/mobility. We determined the test-retest reliability and convergent validity compared to established FSHD disease metrics. Results The FSHD-COM demonstrated excellent test-retest reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient [ICC] 0.96; subscale ICC range, 0.90-0.94). Cross-sectional associations between the FSHD-COM and disease duration, clinical severity, and strength were moderate to strong (Pearson correlation coefficient range |0.51-0.92|). Discussion The FSHD-COM is a disease-relevant, functional composite outcome measure suitable for future FSHD clinical trials that shows excellent test-retest reliability and cross-sectional associations to disease measures. Future directions include determining multisite reliability, sensitivity to change, and the minimal clinically important change in the FSHD-COM. Muscle Nerve, 2018.
Necrotic Arachnidism: Brown Recluse Bites

Brown recluse spiders are known for the necrotic skin lesions they may produce. However, there is frequent misdiagnosis of brown recluse bites due to similar dermonecrotic lesions resulting from other conditions such as impetigo, decubitus ulcers, staph infections, ecthyma gangrenosum, and the like. This chapter presents facts and fables about brown recluse spiders, their bite reactions, and various treatment and control strategies.
Changes in Arsenic, Copper, Iron, Manganese, and Zinc Levels Resulting from the Application of Poultry Litter to Agricultural Soils

Twelve applications of poultry litter were made to a 2.1-ha field located in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, United States (USA), between March 1999 and August 2014. The field was planted with bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon) and used as a pasture on an active farm. Copper, iron, manganese, zinc, and arsenic concentrations in the poultry litter were measured, and the application rates of these metals were calculated. The median application rates were: Cu, 1.32 kg/ha, Fe, 5.57 kg/ha, Mn, 1.80 kg/ha, Zn, 1.39 kg/ha, and As, 0.011 kg/ha. Twelve surface and subsurface soil samples were taken from the treated field in February 2016. Twelve samples were also taken from a comparison site. The comparison site was directly adjacent to the study site, consisted of the same soil type, and had been maintained as an undisturbed forest. Extractable Cu, Fe, Mn, Zn, and As concentrations in the soil samples were determined by atomic absorption spectroscopy, and the results of the chemical analysis were analyzed by ANOVA. Fe and Mn were depleted from the soil in the treated field, while Cu and Zn levels increased over the 12 years of treatment and grazing, and arsenic levels were unchanged in both the surface and subsurface soils between the comparison and the study site. The changes observed for Cu, Fe, Mn, and Zn are within the critical deficiency level and critical toxicity level for these metals, and no arsenic remains in the soil from roxarsone feed supplements, which were added to the poultry feed when the litter was applied to the study site.
Vascular Injuries from Hernia Surgery

As a first-year surgical resident in 1974, during one of my first hernia operations, I was personally instructed by Dr. Lloyd Nyhus on the anatomy of the iliopubic tract and its relationship to the femoral vessels. After he cautioned me about injury to the vessels and what to do if I should inadvertently penetrate the artery or vein with the needle, I promptly and confidently placed a suture to approximate the transversus abdominis aponeurotic arch to the iliopubic tract and shelving portion of inguinal ligament and was rewarded with considerable oozing of blood from the injured femoral vein. Looks (but not words) were exchanged, and I registered one of the first lessons of my clinical surgical education. Given over 500,000 hernia operations performed in the United States annually and the close proximity of the femoral and iliac vessels to the site of repair, it is surprising that, apparently, so few major vascular complications occur. It may well be that these injuries do occur with greater frequency than surgeons wish to admit but that most are recognized and properly handled at the time of injury with little fanfare and without significant morbidity for the patient. Delayed symptomatic presentation usually implies a more significant, unrecognized or initially poorly treated injury to an artery or vein. These more serious injuries may then be properly treated, but not reported. Avoidance of these accidents is a matter of constant awareness of the circumstances in which an iatrogenic vascular injury can occur and thorough understanding of the anatomical environment of the surgical field and its neighboring vascular structures.
Gender effects in the credence goods market: An experimental study

Abstract In this paper, we offer further explanation for differences in earnings across genders. We investigate difference in preferences in payment systems for credence goods. We find that women were no less likely to select variable rate payment schemes as compensation for providing credence goods than men. However, overall earnings remained higher for men than for women. Disaggregating behavior by type of payment and gender reveals that women who chose fee-for-service provided significantly fewer units of services paid for than men who chose fee-for-service. This difference accounts for the lower overall earnings for women in our experiments.
Detection of Cerebrospinal Fluid Leaks: Is There a Radiologic Standard of Care? A Systematic Review.

Introduction Diagnosis of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) leaks traditionally involves laboratory testing of markers and appropriate imaging. Surgical localization can be difficult, and the inability to accurately localize skull base defects leads to increased rates of repair failure and complications. Many imaging techniques localizing and identifying CSF leaks have been proposed. Comparisons of current and investigational imaging techniques used to localize CSF leaks are reviewed. Methods A comprehensive and systematic search through PubMed, Scopus, and reference lists from relevant articles was completed to identify literature on sensitivities of different imaging methods for localization and detection of CSF leaks. Prospective, retrospective, and case series published since 1995 that addressed imaging techniques for CSF leaks confined to the skull base were included. Sensitivities of each major imaging technique proposed were recorded and analyzed. Results In total, 133 studies initially were screened from 2125 studies on preliminary search. Of these, 38 studies were included based on inclusion criteria. Studies were segregated by imaging modality. A total of 1000 patients with CSF leaks subsequently were evaluated. Conclusions Although radionuclide cisternography has been the historical standard, recent imaging techniques have emerged considering the low sensitivity. Computed tomography cisternography with contrast also has low sensitivity, even in active leaks. Although high-resolution computed tomography is commonly the initial study of choice, magnetic resonance imaging methods, particularly 3-dimensional imaging, may prove to be a more sensitive study of choice. Computed tomography/magnetic resonance imaging combination methods may show promise in localizing CSF leaks. Stratifying by status and etiology may be an important determinant. Further studies investigating various imaging techniques for localizing CSF leaks are needed.
Poster: Evaluating Security Metrics for Website Fingerprinting

The website fingerprinting attack allows a low-resource attacker to compromise the privacy guarantees provided by privacy enhancing tools such as Tor. In response, researchers have proposed defenses aimed at confusing the classification tools used by attackers. As new, more powerful attacks are frequently developed, raw attack accuracy has proven inadequate as the sole metric used to evaluate these defenses. In response, two security metrics have been proposed that allow for evaluating defenses based on hand-crafted features often used in attacks. Recent state-of-the-art attacks, however, use deep learning models capable of automatically learning abstract feature representations, and thus the proposed metrics fall short once again. In this study we examine two security metrics and (1) show how these methods can be extended to evaluate deep learning-based website fingerprinting attacks, and (2) compare the security metrics and identify their shortcomings.
Targeting underrepresented minority and low-income girls for computing camps: early results and lessons learned

This paper reports the experience of holding a one-day website development camp for minority and low-income middle school and high school girls, held in partnership with a local community service organization in a major metro area. The camp was sponsored by a Midwestern University with the goal of attracting more minority and low income girls to participate in the computing outreach initiatives provided by the University. Through the experience of developing the program, a camper survey, and skills assessment, the University's Information Technology (IT) faculty learned several lessons about organizing programs targeted at a specific demographic group. This paper provides camp details, results, and lessons learned.
Oral microbiome interactions with gingival gene expression patterns for apoptosis, autophagy and hypoxia pathways in progressing periodontitis

Oral mucosal tissues must react with and respond to microbes comprising the oral microbiome ecology. This study examined the interaction of the microbiome with transcriptomic footprints of apoptosis, autophagy and hypoxia pathways during periodontitis. Adult Macaca mulatta (n = 18; 12-23 years of age) exhibiting a healthy periodontium at baseline were used to induce progressing periodontitis through ligature placement around premolar/molar teeth. Gingival tissue samples collected at baseline, 0·5, 1 and 3 months of disease and at 5 months for disease resolution were analysed via microarray. Bacterial samples were collected at identical sites to the host tissues and analysed using MiSeq. Significant changes in apoptosis and hypoxia gene expression occurred with initiation of disease, while autophagy gene changes generally emerged later in disease progression samples. These interlinked pathways contributing to cellular homeostasis showed significant correlations between altered gene expression profiles in apoptosis, autophagy and hypoxia with groups of genes correlated in different directions across health and disease samples. Bacterial complexes were identified that correlated significantly with profiles of host genes in health, disease and resolution for each pathway. These relationships were more robust in health and resolution samples, with less bacterial complex diversity during disease. Using these pathways as cellular responses to stress in the local periodontal environment, the data are consistent with the concept of dysbiosis at the functional genomics level. It appears that the same bacteria in a healthy microbiome may be interfacing with host cells differently than in a disease lesion site and contributing to the tissue destructive processes.
Area minimization for general floorplans

Two methods for the area minimization problem in floorplanning are presented. These methods can be viewed as generalizations of Stockmeyer's algorithm in the sense that they reduce to Stockmeyer's algorithm for floorplans that are slicing. The present methods can also be applied to general floorplans. Compared with the branch-and-bound algorithm, which is enumerative in nature and does not have any nontrivial performance bound for general floorplans, these methods are probably better than exhaustive methods for all the floorplans studied. >
Heart Failure Primary Prevention: What Does SPRINT Add?: Recent Advances in Hypertension.

Hypertension is the most prevalent modifiable factor for the development of heart failure. However, the optimal blood pressure (BP) target for preventing heart failure remains uncertain. The SPRINT...
Digest: Macroevolutionary pattern from microevolutionary processes.

How can we bridge the gap between studies concerning microevolution and those concerning macroevolution? Taverne et al. provide a framework for how to study both intraspecific and interspecific variations simultaneously through their examination of how craniomandibular skeletal and muscle shape responds to ecological pressures in Podarcis lizards.
Occurrence of Karenia brevis near Southwest Florida coast 1971 to 2017: a geospatial analysis

The appearance of Karenia brevis red tides in the Gulf of Mexico have been studied widely in terms of its negative effects on marine life at various trophic levels. In this study, the long-term spatial and temporal patterns of Karenia brevis were analyzed along the western shelf of the Florida peninsula, where they were found to be primarily clustered. A variety of geospatial techniques were used to reveal the location dynamics of the presence of the algae. The spatial patterns of the blooms exhibited a predominantly northwest to southeast orientation along Florida’s western shelf. At the decadal scale, the spatial mean centers of the dinoflagellate were clustered along the western shelf from Tampa Bay to just south of the Caloosahatchee River Basin. In order to analyze the change in the spatial concentrations of Karenia brevis, we utilized Emerging Hot Spots Analysis. The results indicated the concentration of the bloom’s hotspots to be sporadic, meaning variable hotspots over the years, though not statistically significant. However, the results of Hot Spots Cold Spots analysis at the individual annual scale revealed the location of statistically significant hotspots along the western shelf with variable locations. In addition, we conducted all of the geospatial analysis at different depth categories. The results demonstrated substantial differences in the spatial and temporal patterns between the shallow (less than 6.831 m) and deep (greater than 6.831 m) depths. For instance, the shallow depth presence points were clustered in the Tampa Bay area, while the deep presence points were found in smaller clusters further north along Florida’s west coast. These results imply that underlying physical or biological factors are responsible for annual changes in bloom prevalence, such as the presence and origination of upwelling in the region. The presence of less frequent deep-ocean upwelling shifts nutrient acquisition in favor of faster growing phytoplankton like diatoms over slow growing dinoflagellates such as Karenia brevis, which require wind-driven upwelling to bolster blooms.
KPDrop: An Approach to Improving Absent Keyphrase Generation.

Keyphrase generation is the task of generating phrases (keyphrases) that summarize the main topics of a given document. The generated keyphrases can be either present or absent from the text of the given document. While the extraction of present keyphrases has received much attention in the past, only recently a stronger focus has been placed on the generation of absent keyphrases. However, generating absent keyphrases is very challenging; even the best methods show only a modest degree of success. In this paper, we propose an approach, called keyphrase dropout (or KPDrop), to improve absent keyphrase generation. We randomly drop present keyphrases from the document and turn them into artificial absent keyphrases during training. We test our approach extensively and show that it consistently improves the absent performance of strong baselines in keyphrase generation.
ANALYTICAL DESCRIPTION OF BEHAVIOR OF GRANULAR MEDIA

Normality of the plastic strain increment vector to the loading surface is not always observed for granular media. Beginning from a thermodynamic basis and considering only isothermal processes, a series of physically appealing assumptions is employed to increasingly delimit the possible directions of the plastic strain increment vector. The results of the analysis indicate that on certain portions of the loading surface normality should hold while on the remainder, envelopes or fans are possible. Finally, several alternative restrictions are offered which provide a unique stress-strain relation at every point on the loading surface.
One Flesh, Two Taxpayers: A New Approach to Marriage and Wealth Transfer Taxation

This article critically examines the estate and gift tax rules currently applicable to marital wealth transfers and proposes a new system in which all transfers between spouses will be subject to taxation. The article begins by tracing the historic development of what the author calls the one flesh, one taxpayer approach to wealth transfer taxation. Over a period of more than thirty years, the marital deduction evolved from a tool for achieving geographic uniformity into an institution based on an unreal and idealized story of proper gender roles and the economic significance of marriage. After describing the wealth transfer tax benefits of marriage under present law, the article next analyzes the jurisprudential implications of the extant one flesh, one taxpayer approach to wealth transfer taxation. Notwithstanding the law's gender neutrality, the author argues that the current estate and gift tax approach to marriage is a vestige of the common law rule of coverture that suspended a woman's legal identity during marriage. Furthermore in departure from important tax policy goals, federal wealth transfer tax laws privilege heterosexual marital relationships over other socially important relationships with economic or emotional characteristics similar to marriage. The author proposes the elimination of the marital deduction in favor of a one flesh, two taxpayer approach to marriage that would cause all gratuitous transfers to be subject to taxation, regardless of the identity of the recipient. As part of this proposal, the author advocates increasing the applicable exclusion amount to $10 million. The author argues that raising the exemption amount will increase federal tax revenue and enhance the vitality of common law and community property systems. The article concludes by connecting the estate and gift tax treatment of marriage to the larger issue of estate tax repeal and reform.
Superconductivity. Rehearsals for prime time.

Superconductivity seems to have been forever waiting in the wings. Although superconducting power cables are about to go live, will the newest material, magnesium diboride, become the class act of the future?
Long-Distance Love: The Ideology of Male-Female Spiritual Friendship in Goscelin of Saint Bertin's Liber confortatorius

Eve of Wilton first encountered Goscelin of Saint Bertin as a child at the aristocratic nunnery at Wilton. Goscelin probably served as the abbey's chaplain, and, upon first meeting Eve, he was struck by her spiritual beauty. They shared a close friendship for approximately fifteen years (ca. 1065-ca. 1080), with Goscelin acting as Eve's tutor, before the churchman fell out of favor with the bishop of Wiltshire and was banished. Before he was able to return, Eve had left England for the church of Saint Laurent du Tertre in Angers, where she became an anchoress.1 When Goscelin discovered that his beloved had left without a proper farewell, he was deeply saddened. And so he wrote his Liber confortatorius (Book of Encouragement) for his absent friend. In it he referred to himself and to Eve as possessing a joint "singular soul [unice anime]," emphasizing their shared spiritual intimacy, a theme that appears throughout the text.2 Indeed, in the Liber Goscelin articulated a fervent love, friendship, and longing that few other high medieval discourses on friendship can rival. The Liber confortatorius was written in an epistolary format meant to instruct and comfort Eve as she lived in solitude, yet the work was equally important to Goscelin himself, as it helped him come to terms with his sense of loss at Eve's unannounced departure.3 He obviously missed Eve's
The Idea of a Communitarian Morality

During the past few years, and especially since the publication of Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue in 1981, we have seen a renewed attack on the premises of liberalism.' There is nothing new about such criticism. A long list of writers-Hegel, Marx, Dewey, and many others, including several Popes-have recoiled in various ways from what seemed to be an impoverished morality and an inadequate understanding of human society. The contemporary criticism has raised some new issues and has been sparked, in no small degree, by a spate of impressive writing in legal, moral, and social philosophy-writing that has reaffirmed the liberal faith in moral autonomy and in the imperatives of rationality. I refer, of course, to the work of John Rawls, Robert Nozick, and Ronald Dworkin.
A locking protocol for multilevel secure databases using two committed versions

This paper presents a locking protocol for secure databases which produces one-copy serializable and strict schedules. These schedules satisfy the multilevel security property-thus, the protocol is secure. The proposed protocol requires only two committed versions of the database; it executes read downs on the earlier committed version, while transactions accessing objects at their own level execute on the later committed version and are synchronized using strict 2PL. We discuss how the proposed protocol supports the execution of long-running transactions. The paper presents many useful details of snapshot maintenance for locking protocols in secure databases.
Experimental and modeled estimates of the mechanical stability of the lumbar spine

This study used an EMG-assisted biomechanical model of the lumbar spine to estimate spine stability achieved prior to a sudden trunk-unloading event. This stability was compared to spine stiffness calculated from trunk kinematics measured after unloading. For both extension and lateral bending trials, initial spine stability level was shown to account for approximately 50% of variance in subsequently exhibited trunk stiffness. These results suggest that in addition to the mechanical stability level of the spine prior to sudden loading, the reflex response of the muscles immediately after loading determines the kinematic response of the trunk and subsequent likelihood of injury.
Elaboration of Reference Models for Improving Enterprise Performance

Due to the imposition of austerity measures, enterprises are facing increased costs and overheads due to this policy at a time when the market price is decreasing because of emerging countries and globalization. This has a knock-on effect on the quality of products and enterprises look for solutions to reduce cost such as laying off staff and relocation of production to low cost countries etc. In this paper, the bases of elaboration of new models are given. For enterprise typology, reference models are defined per sector of activity and two types of solutions will be put forward. The first solution is in accordance with existing models with the progressive improvement of the system. The second solution would imply a complete transformation and the creation of new reference models adapted to the actual constraints of enterprises. This category of reference model, complete transformation, is constructed not only for enterprises but also local authorities. Present models integrating optimization around criteria such as quality, cost, and lead time by projecting themselves toward a target to be defined will undoubtedly lead us toward new models which take into account social, societal, and environmental parameters.
Rationing Is Still Rationing.

A commentary on “Why It's Not Time for Health Care Rationing,” by Peter A. Ubel, in the March-April 2015 issue.
Imaging slow slip fronts in Cascadia with high precision cross-station tremor locations

[1] We apply a new method to obtain accurate locations of tremor sources beneath southern Vancouver Island. Unlike more standard “cross-time” methods, which compare waveforms from different time windows at the same station, this “cross-station” method compares waveforms from the same time window at widely separated stations. It performs well, relative to cross-time methods, when the response to an impulsive tremor source is dominated by the main arrival rather than coda and when multiple colocated sources are active within the time window examined. We focus on a region roughly 10 km across that was monitored by the POLARIS deployment from 2003 to 2006. Relative location errors appear to be <1 km, allowing us to image in great detail rapid and small-scale tremor migrations that arise behind the main slow slip front. The secondary fronts tend to (a) start at or within about 1 km of the main tremor front, and propagate back along strike at rates of 10–20 km/h; (b) less commonly do the reverse, ending at the main front; or (c) propagate up or downdip at or within 1–2 km of the main front. Estimated stress drops in the secondary events are comparable to that in the main event, implying that their 25–50 times greater propagation speed results from a similarly greater slip speed.
The structure of acetylcholinesterase: relationship to its function and cellular disposition

Abstract Isolation of a gene encoding acetylcholinesterase and the determination of its secondary structure have revealed that this protein carries the structural features of a secreted protein rather than of an integral membrane protein. Regulatory processes designed to control the cellular location of the acetylcholinesterases have given rise to extensive structural polymorphisms.
Biological Bifocal Lenses with Image Separation

Summary Almost all animal eyes follow a few, relatively well-understood functional plans. Only rarely do researchers discover an eye that diverges fundamentally from known types. The principal eye E2 of sunburst diving beetle ( Thermonectus marmoratus ) larvae clearly falls into the rarer category. On the basis of two different tests, we here report that it has truly bifocal lenses, something that has been previously suggested only for certain trilobites [1]. Our evidence comes from (1) the relative contrast in images of a square wave grating and (2) the refraction of a narrow laser beam projected through the lens. T. marmoratus larvae have two retinas at different depths behind the lens, and these are situated so that each can receive its own focused image. This is consistent with a novel eye organization that possibly comprises "two eyes in one." Moreover, we find that in contrast to most commercial bifocal lenses, the lens of E2 exhibits asymmetry, which results in separation of the images both dorsoventrally and rostrocaudally within the layered retina. Visual contrast might thus be improved over conventional bifocal lenses because the unfocused version of one image is shifted away from the focused version of the other, an organization which could potentially be exploited in optical engineering.
Extracellular cocaine and dopamine concentrations are linearly related in rat striatum.

Microdialysis and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry were used to determine temporal cocaine concentration profiles in the rat striatum following intraperitoneal (i.p.) cocaine injection. For a 30 mg/kg i.p. dose, cocaine reached a maximum in vivo concentration of 10.1 μM within 30 min, and then rapidly declined. A non-linear fit of a kinetic model to the experimental cocaine data gave a first-order rate constant for the appearance of cocaine in the extracellular fluid of the striatum after a 30 mg/kg dose of cocaine of 0.0304/min and a first-order rate constant of 0.0386/min for the disappearance of cocaine from the extracellular fluid. When combined with previous dopamine results for a 30 mg/kg i.p. cocaine dose, cocaine concentrations were found to be highly correlated (r = 0.963) with dopamine concentrations for the same point in time. The slope was 36.8 nM dopamine/μM cocaine and the y-intercept was 29.9 nM dopamine. Maximum dopamine and maximum cocaine concentrations were also found to be linearly related to i.p. dose of cocaine for doses of 3, 10, and 30 mg/kg.
An Inverse problem for a nonlinear parabolic equation

(1986). An Inverse problem for a nonlinear parabolic equation. Communications in Partial Differential Equations: Vol. 11, No. 4, pp. 445-457.
Identification of the cellular retinoic acid binding protein (cRABP) within the embryonic mouse (CD-1) limb bud.

Retinoic acid, a physiologically active metabolite of vitamin A, is a known animal teratogen. Among other malformations, limb abnormalities are produced and are attributed to a selective inhibition of differentiating prechondrogenic mesenchyme resulting in reduced or absent cartilage elements. Evidence is available that the cellular retinoic acid binding protein (cRABP) may be important in mediating the biological effects of retinoic acid. In this study, the cRABP has been identified by sucrose gradient sedimentation analysis in the gestation day 10 (Theiler stages 16–17) mouse forelimb bud, which contains retinoic-acid-sensitive prechondrogenic mesenchyme. Saturation analysis demonstrated values for the apparent dissociation constant (Kd) of 2.0 and 2.2 × 10−9 M and for the total specific binding capacity for [3H]-trans-retinoic acid of 24.5 and 25.6 pmoles per mg cytosolic protein. The binding specificity of the forelimb bud cRABP for all-trans-retinoic acid was demonstrated in competition assays using all-trans-retinol, all-trans-retinal, and 13-cis-retinoic acid. In addition, 13-cis-retinoic acid was demonstrated to have a lower affinity for the cRABP than all-trans-retinoic acid, a result which may be related to the lower teratogenic potency of the 13-cis-retinoic acid. Thus, the cRABP was demonstrated in the mouse forelimb bud at a time of susceptibility for the production of limb malformations by retinoic acid. The role of the cRABP in the mechanism of retinoic acid teratogenicity remains to be delineated.
Faculty Perceptions of Students in Life and Physical Science Research Labs

This qualitative study involved interviews of 32 faculty principle investigators at three research institutions and explored how they view the role of students within physical and life science labs. We used socialization theory and student engagement literature to analyze faculty views, which can contribute to student investment in STEM fields. Findings relate to understanding students as workers versus learners or trainees and the tension that results from differing views of students.
Amorphous Linear Aliphatic Polyesters for the Facile Preparation of Tunable Rapidly Degrading Elastomeric Devices and Delivery Vectors

A versatile method for preparing amorphous degradable elastomers with tunable properties that can be easily fabricated into a wide variety of shape-specific devices was investigated. Completely amorphous, liquid poly(ester ether) prepolymers with number-average molecular weights between 4 and 6 x 10(3) g/mol were prepared via condensation polymerization. These liquid prepolymers were then thermally cross-linked to form degradable elastomeric structures. The ability to vary the composition of these liquid prepolymers allows for easy control of the mechanical and degradation properties of the resulting elastomeric structures. Materials can be designed to completely degrade in vitro over a range of 30 days to 6 months, while the Young's modulus can be varied over 3 orders of magnitude (G = 0.02-20 MPa). Also, the liquid nature of these prepolymers makes them amenable to a wide variety of fabrication techniques. Using traditional and modified imprint lithography techniques, we have fabricated devices that demonstrate a wide variety of biologically applicable topologies, which could easily be extended to fabricate devices with more complex geometries. Until now, no method has combined this ease and speed of fabrication with the ability to control the mechanical and degradation properties of the resulting elastomers over such a broad range.
Drop Your Tools: An Allegory for Organizational Studies.

concepts of administrative processes must be operationalized and new ones developed or borrowed from the basic social sciences. Available knowledge in scattered sources needs to be assembled and analyzed. Research must go beyond description and must be reflected against theory. It must study the obvious as well as the unknown. The pressure for immediately applicable results must be reduced. At first this sounds like standard visionary boilerplate. On closer inspection, it foreshadows values that stand up well