cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Integration and characterization of HAWAII-1RG detector with FORCAST fast-readout electronics for LMIRcam

The L/M-band Infrared Camera (LMIRcam) is a first-generation imager being constructed for the Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer, operating at 3-5 μm. Given the high sky background at these wavelengths, an FPGA-based controller provides high-speed, flexible data acquisition. Originally designed for FORCAST, a mid- IR camera/spectrograph built by Cornell University, the controller was modified to interface with LMIRcam's Teledyne HAWAII-1RG 1024×1024 array. In order to facilitate the different operating modes and increased array size, we have developed a modified version of the FORCAST device driver, reconfigured the FPGAs, altered the control software, and plan to implement a window mode.
High Power Characteristics of Lead-Free Piezoelectric Ceramics

High power characteristics of lead-free (Bi,Na)TiO3 (BNT) and BaTiO3 (BT)-based piezoceramics were investigated and compared to commercial “hard” Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 PZT materials. Acceptor-modified BNT and BT-based ceramics showed typical “hardening” characteristics, exhibiting high mechanical quality factor Qm > 800 and low dielectric loss, <0.01, comparable to “hard” PZT ceramics. Of particular significance is that BNT-based ceramics were found to exhibit minimal variation of resonance frequency shift and high Qm under high level vibration velocity, being ~0.6% and ~800 at 0.25 m/s, respectively, due to the high domain stability associated with their high coercive fields, being on the order of 35 kV/cm.
Restrictive covenants in physician contracts: an American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons' Survey.

BACKGROUND: A restrictive covenant (RC) may be a cause for concern among any physician entering into a contractual agreement. OBJECTIVE: This survey of graduates of colorectal surgery residency training programs aimed to determine whether this was an important issue among the members of this group. DESIGN: An electronic survey generated by the Young Surgeons' Committee of the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons (ASCRS) regarding employment contracts was sent to all graduates of colorectal surgery residency training programs from the preceding 10-year period. The survey included 5 questions (including an open-ended question for those who experienced an adverse effect when a RC was enforced), followed by queries designed to generate demographic data. This was an anonymous survey with an option to enter the name of the respondent. RESULTS: There were a total of 157 responses to the survey of 630 sent (25%). Of the 132 respondents to the survey who had signed a contract, 67respondents (53%) had signed a contract that contained a RC, and 24 of these 67 respondents (35%) subsequently changed employment. The RC was enforced for 15 of these 24 respondents (63%) resulting in an adverse effect for 8 of the 15 (53%). The age range of those adversely effected was 32 to 41 years (mean, 36.3 y), all but 1 had been in private practice (86%) from 1 to 6 years (mean, 2.9 y). Most were men (71%) and all were married. CONCLUSIONS: The majority of survey respondents signed an employment agreement that contained a RC. Overall, 35% of the respondents subsequently changed employment and the RC was enforced in most cases (63%), often with an adverse effect on career and life (53%). ASCRS members should consider the potentially devastating consequences of signing a contract that contains a RC, especially if they would be averse to changing geographic location should they face a change in employment.
Relativistic electron events in 2002 : Studies of pitch angle isotropization

[1] Energization of electrons to relativistic energies in the Earth's outer radiation belt is not fully understood. Recent renewed interest in the problem has resulted in a number of models which invoke a variety of physical processes ranging from diffusive particle transport to in situ acceleration. Evolution of local pitch angle distributions and global flux isotropization timescales of relativistic electrons may be important discriminators of the underlying physical processes of energization, transport, and loss. Data from SAMPEX, Polar, and LANL suite of satellites were used to study electron isotropization and pitch angle evolution for relativistic electron enhancement events during the year 2002. It was found that during electron energization events there is generally increased precipitation of electrons and rapid electron flux isotropization on a global scale. Case studies using pitch angle resolved data collected at geosynchronous distances suggest an in situ broadening of the local pitch angle distribution in agreement with the corresponding global isotropization measurements. These observations suggest that electron energization in the magnetosphere is intimately associated with rapid pitch angle scattering leading to a flattening of the pitch angle distributions of energized electrons.
Child care workers’ perception of job worth

Three‐hundred and fifty‐two child care workers from licensed facilities were surveyed regarding their perceptions of deserved job pay and perceived job status and job worth for five categories of child care work [family day care, group day care home, day care center, nursery school, and Head Start work]. Overall, child care workers agreed that society affords nursery school work the highest pay and job status. They did not concur that nursery school work contributed more to society than other child care occupations. Implications for future research and advocacy are discussed.
Un/doing Gender? a Case Study of School Policy and Practice in Zambia

This article explores an attempt to disrupt gender inequality in a unique, low-cost private school in Ndola, Zambia. It examines deliberate school policies aimed at “undoing gender” or fostering greater gender equity. These include efforts to maintain gender parity at all levels of the school and the requirement that both young men and women carry out cleaning tasks generally viewed as “women’s work”. Observations, interviews, student diaries and surveys from this school and from government schools provide the basis for a comparison, indicating how the former strives to interrupt the transmission of gender inequalities as well as how students respond to these practices. The findings suggest that the pedagogical practices deployed by this school have generally succeeded in destabilising norms of gender subordination and gender-based violence, though the replicability of these practices is interrogated given broader questions about the country’s public resources and political will.
Effects of 6-fluoro-n, N-diethyltryptamine (6-FDET) on selected rat behaviors.

Summary.-6-FDET has been shown to produce the autonomic symptoms and mood changes characteristic of hallucinogens, but not perceptual and thinking disturbances. Hence it has been tested as an active placebo in clinical studies. In the absence of behavioral information about this drug, several studies were run to assess its effect on certain rar behaviors. It was found that 6-FDET exerts a fast-acting, relatively short-lived inhibitory effect on drinking and water-motivated behaviors. No evidence was found to indicate that 6-FDET affects acquisition of conditioned suppression. Kalir and Szara ( 1963 ) developed several tryptarnine derivatives and tested their effects on human Ss. One of these compounds, 6-FDET, produced the autonomic symptoms and mood changes characteristic of hallucinogens but without perceptual and thinking disturbances. Based on these findings, the possibility of using 6-FDET as an active placebo in clinical studies was tested by Faillace, et al. ( 1967). This compound was compared with two known hallucinogens using the Linton and Langs Questionnaire and the Rockland-Pollin Scale. Results apparently confirmed the earlier findings. However, little behavioral data exist for 6-FDET. The purpose of the present study was to assess, at least tentatively, the effects of 6-FDET on certain rac behavior: (1) water incake during ad libitum drinking, (2) water intake following 23-hr. deprivation, (3) bar-pressing on a VI schedule for water, and (4) acquisition of conditioned suppression.
Rapid classification of pharmaceutical ingredients with Raman spectroscopy using compressive detection strategy with PLS-DA multivariate filters

Abstract Identifying pharmaceutical ingredients is a routine procedure required during industrial manufacturing. Here we show that a recently developed Raman compressive detection strategy can be employed to classify various widely used pharmaceutical materials using a hybrid supervised/unsupervised strategy in which only two ingredients are used for training and yet six other ingredients can also be distinguished. More specifically, our liquid crystal spatial light modulator (LC-SLM) based compressive detection instrument is trained using only the active ingredient, tadalafil, and the excipient, lactose, but is tested using these and various other excipients; microcrystalline cellulose, magnesium stearate, titanium (IV) oxide, talc, sodium lauryl sulfate and hydroxypropyl cellulose. Partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) is used to generate the compressive detection filters necessary for fast chemical classification. Although the filters used in this study are trained on only lactose and tadalafil, we show that all the pharmaceutical ingredients mentioned above can be differentiated and classified using PLS-DA compressive detection filters with an accumulation time of 10 ms per filter.
The origins of folk Psychology

Folk psychology is the psychology deployed by ordinary folk and by scientists in ordinary life. At its most basic level, it consists of deploying the concept of mind to explain and predict behavior. This article (i) considers how folk psychology may have begun, by considering an imaginary race of primitive folk deploying the rudimentary nucleus of the psychology, or a rudimentary concept of mind, and (ii) examines one argument for the evolutionary emergence and adaptivity of folk psychology. The crucial issue emerging from this is how primitive folk could have competently deployed the concept or the psychology in such a way as to survive and proliferate in consequence of successfully predicting behavior. Dennett and others are on the right track when they regard folk psychology as adaptive. But care and caution are needed in resolving the issue of competent deployment.
Mesozooplankton abundance in relation to the chlorophyll maximum in the Neuse River Estuary, North Carolina, USA: Implications for trophic dynamics

Estuaries often have distinct zones of high chlorophyll a concentrations, known as chlorophyll maximum (CMAX). The persistence of these features is often attributed to physical (mixing and light availability) and chemical (nutrient availability) features, but the role of mesozooplankton grazing is rarely explored. We measured the spatial and temporal variability of the CMAX and mesozooplankton community in the eutrophic Neuse River Estuary, North Carolina. We also conducted grazing experiments to determine the relative impact of mesozooplankton grazing on the CMAX during the phytoplankton growing season (spring through late summer). The CMAX was consistently located upriver of the zone of maximum zooplankton abundance, with an average spatial separation of 18 km. Grazing experiments in the CMAX region revealed negligible effect of mesozooplankton on chlorophyll a during March, and no effect during June or August. These results suggest that the spatial separation of the peak in chlorophyll a concentration and mesozooplankton abundance results in minimal impact of mesozooplankton grazing, contributing to persistence of the CMAX for prolonged time periods. In the Neuse River Estuary, the low mesozooplankton abundance in the CMAX region is attributed to lack of a low salinity tolerant species, predation by the ctenophore Mnemiopsis leidyi, and/or physiologic impacts on mesozooplankton growth rates due to temperature (in the case of low wintertime abundances). The consequences of this lack of overlap result in exacerbation of the effects of eutrophication; namely a lack of trophic transfer to mesozooplankton in this region and the sinking of phytodetritus to the benthos that fuels hypoxia.
Hydrazone- and Hydrazide-Containing N-Substituted Glycines as Peptoid Surrogates for Expedited Library Synthesis: Application to the Preparation of Tsg101-Directed HIV-1 Budding Antagonists

Replacing the Pro6 in the p6Gag-derived 9-mer “P-E-P-T-A-P-P-E-E” with N-substituted glycine (NSG) residues is problematic. However, incorporation of hydrazone amides (“peptoid hydrazones”) can be readily achieved in library fashion. Furthermore, reduction of these hydrazones to N-substituted “peptoid hydrazides” affords a facile route to library diversification. This approach is demonstrated by application to Tsg101-binding compounds designed as potential HIV budding antagonists.
Contrast-Induced Nephropathy: Nursing Implications

Contrast-induced nephropathy is a major adverse event that occurs during studies that require contrast medium. Almost 10% of all hospital-acquired instances of renal insufficiency are directly attributed to contrast material, with significantly higher mortality and morbidity than cases that do not involve contrast material. Contrast material causes an acceleration of the renal vasoconstrictive response, which results in a cascade of events that affect the vasoregulatory system. Multiple prophylactic measures must be instituted when considering a patient for a contrast study. Critical care nurses are pivotal in identifying patients' risk factors and potential nephrotoxic agents in order to avoid contrast-induced nephropathy. This article outlines the pathophysiology and definitions of normal kidney function, nephropathy, and chronic kidney disease.
Pilot Study of the Validity and Reliability of Brief Fruit, Juice and Vegetable Screeners among Inner City African-American Boys and 17 to 20 Year Old Adults

Objective: Compare the validity and reliability of a one-week fruit, juice and vegetable (FJV) food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) that does not require averaging in response categories and one-week food recognition form (FRF) against three to four 24-hour dietary recalls (24hdr) among mostly African-American boys and 17 to 20 year-old adults for possible use in subsequent intervention studies.Design: In Study One, the FFQ was administered to 40 boys in four Boy Scout (BS) troops on two occasions separated by two weeks. The FRF was administered to 36 boys in four other BS troops after school on six school days, covering seven consecutive days. All these boys completed four 24hdr, including one Sunday. In Study Two, 56 17 to 20 year-old adults completed the FFQ during telephone interviews on two occasions two weeks apart. In between, they completed three 24hdr by telephone interview on one weekend and two weekdays.Subjects/Setting: Participants in Study One were members of eight urban BS troops, and in Stud...
Pallidotomy: a comparison of responders and nonresponders.

OBJECTIVE: We reviewed a prospective series of 32 unilateral, large-volume, microelectrode-guided posteroventral pallidotomies to determine the differences between responsive and nonresponsive patients. METHODS: Our patients underwent extensive pre- and postoperative evaluations. One year postoperatively, we correlated the outcomes of 25 patients with their histories, physical findings, neuropsychological assessments, and lesion characteristics to further understand the indications, limitations, and pitfalls of unilateral pallidotomy. Our group judged responsiveness by comparing the preoperative total Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale off-state scores with those obtained 1 year postoperatively. A score indicating greater than 20% improvement at 1-year follow-up was rated a good outcome; improvement of greater than 40% was rated an excellent outcome. RESULTS: Although most patients sustained long-term benefits, some demonstrated little or no improvement. Patient and lesion factors influenced outcome. Younger age ( 70 yr), absence of tremor, increased duration of disease, reduced responsiveness to L-dopa, frontal behavioral changes, prominent apraxic phenomena, and improper lesion placement predicted a poor response. CONCLUSION: Unilateral, large-volume pallidotomy with precise lesion control provides long-lasting benefits for carefully selected patients.
Exploring the Relationship Between Topic Area Knowledge and Forecasting Performance

The Intelligence Community (IC) is often asked to make predictions about future world events. One aspect of predicting the quality of forecasts and forecasters is the knowledge that the forecaster has about the question to be forecast. This paper explores the relationship between factual knowledge about a forecast event and eventual performance on a forecast question. The results demonstrated a significant relationship between a forecaster answering a series of factual questions correctly and answering the corresponding forecast question correctly. This relationship is enhanced when controlling for the relative difficulty of the factual question. When controlling for forecaster performance, roughly half of the impact was due to general forecaster performance and half was due to their specific knowledge about a given forecast question. Interestingly, we found that forecasters with more factual knowledge were less calibrated with respect to their probability forecast whereas forecasters who were less knowle...
Morphological and neurochemical characterization of individual retinal neurons: a combined Golgi and autoradiographic technique.

A procedure for combining morphological analysis of Golgi-impregnated neurons with the autoradiographic identification of neurotransmitter substances in the same neurons is described.
Alternating Carboplatin and Doxorubicin as Adjunctive Chemotherapy to Amputation or Limb-Sparing Surgery in the Treatment of Appendicular Osteosarcoma in Dogs

Thirty-two dogs with appendicular osteosarcoma treated by amputation or limb sparing had adjuvant chemotherapy of alternating doses of carboplatin (300 mg/m2 IV) and doxorubicin (30 mg/m2 IV) every 21 days for a total of 3 cycles. Efficacy, toxicity, and previously identified prognostic factors for osteosarcoma were evaluated. The median progression free survival was 227 days (range 180-274), and the median overall survival was 320 days (range 153-487). The 1-year survival rate was 48%, and the 2-year survival rate was 18%. Age, sex, surgical procedure, and alkaline phosphatase activity above the reference ranges were not prognostic for survival. There was minimal toxicity associated with the chemotherapy. This protocol could be useful for the adjuvant treatment of appendicular osteosarcoma of dogs.
Genetical interference in Drosophila spp.

IN chromosomes II and III of D. melonogoster Owen1 found good agreement with the interference function 4u exp(− 2u) which is distributed as ¼χ2 4. In the X-chromosome the position was more doubtful, possibly due to misclassification, which tends to inflate the rare double recombinant classes in multipoint linkage tests, hence altering the estimates of the intensity of interference.
Latin American Medium-Term Import Stabilization Policies and the Adequacy of Reserves

BOTH THE LEVEL of the international monetary reserves, however defined, held by a country at any given point of time and the variations in reserves over a period of time reflect a combination of changing circumstances and a certain pattern of economic policy decisions made by the monetary and exchange authorities.' Conversely, a broad range of policy decisions is influenced by both the existing level of monetary reserves and the level which it is desired to establish in the future. A country with large reserves has a choice between a program of overinvestment or of overconsumption which results in balance of payments disequilibrium and a depletion of reserves, and policies which maintain reserves, or even increase them further-policies which imply that some consumption and/or some investment has for the time being been foregone. On the other hand, if a country insufficiently endowed with reserves engages in large programs of investment and/or of consumption, these programs can be sustained only so long as export receipts remain high. If such a country is confronted with a drastic fall in its export income, it may have to impose a large cut in imports and in employment in order to maintain some degree of equilibrium in its balance of payments. Thus the range of interactions between policy decisions and the level of reserves is very broad and full of complexities. As was pointed out in the Fund report on the adequacy of monetary reserves presented to the Economic and Social Council in 1953,2 any general discussion of the adequacy of reserves can be fruitful only if it is related to some general objective of economic policy. This paper has the limited purpose of analyzing, for countries whose "real exports" (i.e., exports of goods and services adjusted by reference to an import
Optical fiber sensors for high temperature harsh environment applications

This paper summarizes our recent research progresses in developing optical fiber harsh environment sensors for various high temperature harsh environment sensing applications such as monitoring of the operating conditions in a coal-fired power plant and in-situ detection of key gas components in coal-derived syngas. The sensors described in this paper include a miniaturized inline fiber Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) fabricated by one-step fs laser micromachining, a long period fiber grating (LPFG) and a fiber inline core-cladding mode interferometer (CMMI) fabricated by controlled CO2 laser irradiations. Their operating principles, fabrication methods, and applications for measurement of various physical and chemical parameters in a high temperature and high pressure coexisting harsh environment are presented.
A perspective for the management of variceal bleeding.

Revue de la pratique et de la philosophie menees a l'hopital universitaire Emory au cours de la derniere decade en disposant de toutes les methodes modernes de traitement
Molecular prognostic factors in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.

The treatment of patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) has been guided traditionally by clinical parameters such as the Ann Arbor Staging Classification for Hodgkin’s disease. Although the International Prognostic Index (IPI) represents the most widely accepted prognostic model, there is still a marked variability in outcome within identical IPI subgroups, reflecting the heterogeneity of this malignancy. Use of DNA microarray, real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction, and tissue array immunohistochemistry methodologies makes the development of new classifications possible based on molecular profiling. The molecular classification of DLBCL may lead to the grouping of specific disease entities sharing similar biologic features, clinical behavior, and outcome. Once tested and validated, this new generation of prognostic models should become an integral part of the daily practice, providing valuable additional information to the currently existing clinically based predictive models. To accomplish these goals and to be in a position in which existing or new prognostic models can be easily tested and validated, there is a strong need to collect frozen and paraffin-embedded material that can be used for RNA extraction and construction of tissue arrays, respectively. Such materials should be gathered as an integral part of any planned study.
Nonlinear three-point boundary value problems

In the present work, we investigate nonlinear three-point boundary value problems (second-order differential equations with boundary conditions imposed at three consecutive points) in an effort to understand the conditions that must be imposed upon nonlinear perturbations of a linear problem in order to obtain a solution of a three-point problem. Both the noncritical case and the critical case are considered. In the first case, existence and uniqueness results are obtained, and in the second case we deal with local bifurcation problems when the nonlinearities are quadratic and cubic.
Revolutionizing Antiquity: The Shanghai Cultural Bureaucracy in the Cultural Revolution, 1966–1968*

This article examines the response of Shanghai's cultural bureaucracy during the Attack on the Four Olds, the Red Guard repudiation of old culture launched in the early years of China's Cultural Revolution (1966–76). It focuses on how local officials, acting in a space created by the Central Cultural Revolution Group and the Shanghai Revolutionary Committee, worked to control the damage wrought by the political campaign and justified their activities by adapting the rhetoric of revolution. Based on the archival documents of the Shanghai Bureau of Culture, this article traces the reinvention of the cultural bureaucracy and the subsequent shift in the language of preservation. It argues that during the Cultural Revolution, there was an institutionalized and ideologically legitimated movement to protect historic sites and cultural objects. Faced with the destruction of antiquity, Shanghai officials instead proposed its rectification, defending cultural relics in the name of revolution.
An automated, high-throughput experimental system for induced charge electrokinetics.

Recent experiments in induced charge electrokinetics (ICEK) have shown that the standard theory generally overpredicts experimentally observed velocities. Such discrepancies reduce the efficacy of practical ICEK devices, and highlight our incomplete understanding of electrokinetic phenomena. Here, we present an automated experimental system that allows for the rapid collection of ICEK data under a variety of conditions (∼1000 per day) to help develop and constrain new theories. We demonstrate this system by studying the ICEK slip flows over electrodes that have been controllably “contaminated” with a dielectric layer, either SiO2 or an alkanethiol self-assembled monolayer, of known thickness. We also develop a theory that accounts for the effects of the dielectric coatings surface chemistry that yields quantitative agreement with experiments over nearly a thousand distinct conditions in the SiO2 system and present an additional three thousand experiments of flows over alkanethiol monolayers. Our experimental system allows the direct interrogation of the physico-chemical effects that influence ICEK flows and for the optimization of these flows in lab-on-a-chip systems.
The Blood Chemistry of an Acute Trypanosome Infection.

The CO(2) capacity of the serum is markedly lowered early in infection with Trypanosoma equiperdum. The non-protein nitrogen and uric acid constituents of the blood are increased in the terminal stages. The kidneys also show terminal degenerative changes. The cholesterol remains unchanged throughout. Lecithin is markedly increased, most of the observations showing a 20 per cent to 50 per cent rise in this substance. Liver glycogen is lower than normal in the early stages and could not be demonstrated in the later stages of the infection. The blood sugar remains normal until a very late period in the disease.
Accelerating EM for Large Databases

The EM algorithm is a popular method for parameter estimation in a variety of problems involving missing data. However, the EM algorithm often requires significant computational resources and has been dismissed as impractical for large databases. We present two approaches that significantly reduce the computational cost of applying the EM algorithm to databases with a large number of cases, including databases with large dimensionality. Both approaches are based on partial E-steps for which we can use the results of Neal and Hinton (In Jordan, M. (Ed.), Learning in Graphical Models, pp. 355–371. The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers) to obtain the standard convergence guarantees of EM. The first approach is a version of the incremental EM algorithm, described in Neal and Hinton (1998), which cycles through data cases in blocks. The number of cases in each block dramatically effects the efficiency of the algorithm. We provide a method for selecting a near optimal block size. The second approach, which we call lazy EM, will, at scheduled iterations, evaluate the significance of each data case and then proceed for several iterations actively using only the significant cases. We demonstrate that both methods can significantly reduce computational costs through their application to high-dimensional real-world and synthetic mixture modeling problems for large databases.
A linear time implicit congruence sparsification technique for BEM capacitance extraction

This paper presents an efficient methodology for generating sparsified potential coefficient matrices for three-dimensional capacitance extraction. Previous capacitance extraction algorithms based on boundary element method (BEM) formulate the potential coefficient matrix in terms of surface potentials and charges on those most delicate panels (leaf panels). By introducing the concept of basis charges, we discover that leaf panel charges compose the worst basis which leads to the densest linear system. Therefore, we propose a linear time basis panel selection algorithm to choose a new basis. It is provable that the n /spl times/ n potential coefficient matrix constructed in terms of the new basis contains O(n) non-zero entries and hence the sparse system can be solved much more efficiently by preconditioned Krylov subspace iterative methods. Experimental results demonstrate the superior runtime and memory consumption over previous approaches while achieving similar accuracy.
Myths about gravity and tides

Popular misconceptions and outright myths about gravity and tides are illustrated by examples recently found in magazines and newspapers, and then discussed.
Fast Buffer Memory with Deterministic Packet Departures

High-performance routers need to store temporarily a large number of packets in response to congestion. DRAM is typically used to implement the needed packet buffers, but DRAM devices are too slow to match the bandwidth requirements. To bridge the bandwidth gap, a number of hybrid SRAM/DRAM packet buffer architectures have been proposed (S. Iyer and N. Mckeown, 2002) (S. Kumar et al., 2005). These packet buffer architectures assume a very general model where the buffer consists of many logically separated FIFO queues that may be accessed in random order. For example, virtual output queues (VOQs) are used in crossbar routers, where each VOQ corresponds to a logical queue corresponding to a particular output. Depending on the scheduling algorithm used, the access pattern to these logical queues may indeed be at random. However, for a number of router architectures, this worst-case random access assumption is unnecessary since packet departure times are deterministic. One architecture is the switch-memory-switch router architecture (A. Prakash et al., 2002) (S. Iyer et al., 2002) that efficiently mimics an output queueing switch. Another architecture is the load-balanced router architecture (C.S. Chang et al., 2002) (I. Keslassy et al., 2003) that has interesting scalability properties. In these architectures, for best-effort routing, the departure times of packets can be deterministically calculated before inserting packets into packet buffers. In this paper, we describe a novel packet buffer architecture based on interleaved memories that takes advantage of the known packet departure times to achieve simplicity and determinism. The number of interleaved DRAM banks required to implement the proposed packet buffer architecture is independent of the number of logical queues, yet the proposed architecture can achieve the performance of an SRAM implementation
Changes in ErbB2 (her-2/neu), ErbB3, and ErbB4 during growth, differentiation, and apoptosis of normal rat mammary epithelial cells.

SUMMARY Studies were undertaken to examine the natural role of ErbB2, ErbB3, and ErbB4 during the development of normal rat mammary epithelial cells (MECs) in vivo and in vitro. Immunohistochemical analysis demonstrated that mammary gland terminal end buds expressed abundant ErbB2 and ErbB4 but limited ErbB3 in pubescent rats, whereas luminal epithelial cells in nulliparous rats expressed ErbB2, ErbB3, and/or ErbB4. During pregnancy, ductal epithelial cells and stromal cells expressed abundant ErbB3 but limited ErbB2. Although ErbB2 and ErbB3 were downregulated throughout lactation, both receptors were re-expressed during involution. In contrast, ErbB4 was downregulated throughout pregnancy, lactation, and involution. Immunoblotting and immunoprecipitation studies confirmed the developmental expression of ErbB2 and ErbB3 in the mammary gland and the co-localization of distinct ErbB receptors in the mammary gland of nulliparous rats. In agreement with our in vivo findings, primary culture studies demonstrated that ErbB2 and ErbB3 were expressed in functionally immature, terminally differentiated and apoptotic MECs, and downregulated in functionally differentiated MECs. ErbB receptor signaling was required for epithelial cell growth, functional differentiation, and morphogenesis of immature MECs, and the survival of terminally differentiated MECs. Finally, ErbB4 expression did not interfere with functional differentiation and apoptosis of normal MECs.
Frequency-domain analysis of biomolecular sequences

Motivation: Frequency-domain analysis of biomolecular sequences is hindered by their representation as strings of characters. If numerical values are assigned to each of these characters, then the resulting numerical sequences are readily amenable to digital signal processing. Results: We introduce new computational and visual tools for biomolecular sequences analysis. In particular, we provide an optimization procedure improving upon traditional Fourier analysis performance in distinguishing coding from noncoding regions in DNA sequences. We also show that the phase of a properly defined Fourier transform is a powerful predictor of the reading frame of protein coding regions. Resulting color maps help in visually identifying not only the existence of protein coding areas for both DNA strands, but also the coding direction and the reading frame for each of the exons. Furthermore, we demonstrate that color spectrograms can visually provide, in the form of local ‘texture’, significant information about biomolecular sequences, thus facilitating understanding of local nature, structure and function. Availability: All software for techniques described in this paper is available from the author upon request.
Scattering of a surface wave from a curvature discontinuity on a convex impedance surface

An asymptotic "boundary-layer" set of quasimodes is constructed for the representation of fields in the vicinity of a convex reactive surface, whose formal structure is the same as that of the exact modes for the corresponding straight surface. These quasimodes are then used to solve for the scattering of a surface wave at a curvature discontinuity in a reactive surface. The present approach is a generalization of the perspective of the geometrical theory of surface waves, and is compared and contrasted with others presently available in the literature. Finally, the scattering at the discontinuity is compared with the power continuously radiated by the surface wave in traveling around the bend, providing some insight for design of curved surface waveguide structures.
A truncated CFTR protein rescues endogenous ΔF508-CFTR and corrects chloride transport in mice

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is most frequently associated with deletion of phenylalanine at position 508 (ΔF508) in the CF transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) protein. The ΔF508-CFTR mutant protein exhibits a folding defect that affects its processing and impairs chloride-channel function. This study aimed to determine whether CFTR fragments approximately half the size of wild-type CFTR and complementary to the portion of CFTR bearing the mutation can specifically rescue the processing of endogenous ΔF508-CFTR in vivo. cDNA encoding CFTR fragments were delivered to human airway epithelial cells and mice harboring endogenous ΔF508-CFTR. Delivery of small CFTR fragments, which do not act as chloride channels by themselves, rescue ΔF508-CFTR. Therefore, we can speculate that the presence of the CFTR fragment, which does not harbor a mutation, might facilitate intermolecular interactions. The rescue of CFTR was evident by the restoration of chloride transport in human CFBE41o- bronchial epithelial cells expre...
Transformation of the offshore benthic community in Lake Michigan: recent shift from the native amphipod Diporeia spp. to the invasive mussel Dreissena rostriformis bugensis

SUMMARY 1. The native amphipod Diporeia spp. was once the dominant benthic organism in Lake Michigan and served as an important pathway of energy flow from lower to upper trophic levels. Lake-wide surveys were conducted in 1994 ⁄1995, 2000 and 2005, and abundances of Diporeia and the invasive bivalves Dreissena polymorpha (zebra mussel) and Dreissena rostriformis bugensis (quagga mussel) were assessed. In addition, more frequent surveys were conducted in the southern region of the lake between 1980 and 2007 to augment trend interpretation. 2. Between 1994 ⁄1995 and 2005, lake-wide density of Diporeia declined from 5365 to 329 m )2 , and biomass (dry weight, DW) declined from 3.9 to 0.4 g DW m )2 . The percentage of all sites with no Diporeia increased over time: 1.1% in 1994 ⁄1995, 21.7% in 2000 and 66.9% in 2005. On the other hand, total dreissenid density increased from 173 to 8816 m )2 , and total biomass increased from 0.4 to 28.6 g DW m )2 . Over this 10-year time period, D. r. bugensis displaced D. polymorpha as the dominant dreissenid, comprising 97.7% of the total population in 2005. In 2007, Diporeia was rarely found at depths shallower than 90 m and continued to decline at greater depths, whereas densities of D. r. bugensis continued to increase at depths greater than 50 m. 3. The decline in Diporeia occurred progressively from shallow to deep regions, and was temporally coincident with the expansion of D. polymorpha in nearshore waters followed by the expansion of D. r. bugensis in offshore waters. In addition, Diporeia density was negatively related to dreissenid density within and across depth intervals; the latter result indicated that dreissenids in shallow waters remotely influenced Diporeia in deep waters. 4. With the loss of Diporeia and increase in D. r. bugensis, the benthic community has become a major energy sink rather that a pathway to upper trophic levels. With this replacement of dominant taxa, we estimate that the relative benthic energy pool increased from 17 to 109 kcal m )2 between 1994 ⁄1995 and 2005, and to 342 kcal m )2
Chambered Microarrays: Relevance to Genomic Data

The obvious utility of microarray technology is its incredibly high feature density. An entire genome can be assayed in a single experiment. However, this same strength creates difficulties. First, what does one do with the transcription data of a gene whose function(s) are unknown? Second, in most applications, hundreds—not hundreds of thousands—of genes are regulated. Why collect replicate data on thousands of genes not involved in the problem at hand? In one sense, a high-density microarray is a fishing expedition that identifies the important players. Subsequently, efforts may be focused on the complete, albeit smaller set of regulated elements.
An on-line information system for management

Information for management and specifically Management Information Systems (MIS) have been discussed with increasing frequency over the past few years either by those who have theorized about what an information system for management should consist of or by those who are convinced that MIS from a practical or realistic viewpoint is a myth.
Process variation characterization of chip-level multiprocessors

Within-die variation in leakage power consumption is substantial and increasing for chip-level multiprocessors (CMPs) and multiprocessor systems-on-chip. Dealing with this problem via conservative assumptions is sub-optimal. Instead, operating systems may adapt task assignment and power management decisions to the variable characteristics of cores, improving system-wide power consumption and performance. Researchers have proposed such adaptation techniques. However, they rely on knowledge of CMP process variation (PV) maps. These maps are not provided by processor vendors, providing them would impose additional cost during the testing process, and static maps would not permit adaptation to aging effects. Further progress on developing and validating PV aware control techniques for CMPs requires access to PV maps for real processors. We present an online technique to extract the PV maps of CMPs. Potentially automatic temperature measurements with built-in on-die sensors during the execution of characterization workloads are used to determine variation in leakage power consumption. The proposed technique is applied to real CMPs, and the resulting PV maps are used within a PV aware task assignment and scheduling algorithm.
Validation framework of the finite element modeling of liver tissue

In this work, we aim at validating some soft tissue deformation models using high resolution Micro Computed Tomography (Micro-CT) and medium resolution Cone-Beam CT (CBCT) images. These imaging techniques play a key role in detecting the tissue deformation details in the contact region between the tissue and the surgical tool (probe) even for small force loads, and provide good capabilities for creating accurate 3D models of tissues. Surgical simulations rely on accurate representation of the mechanical response of soft tissues subjected to surgical manipulations. Several finite element (F.E.) models have been suggested to characterize soft tissues. However, validating these models for specific tissues still remains a challenge. For our validation, ex vivo lamb liver is chosen to validate the linear elastic model (LEM), the linear viscoelastic model (LVEM), and the neo-Hooke hyperelastic model (NHM). We found that the LEM is more applicable to lamb liver than the LVEM for small force loads (<40g) and that the NHM is closer to reality than the LVEM for this same range of force loads.
Personality Attributions Based on Speech Samples of Children with Repaired Cleft Palates

Abstract Objective: This study examined whether or not assumptions made about personality characteristics based on speech samples differed for children with repaired cleft palates (CP) versus unaffected children. Design: Audiotapes of speech samples were presented in random order to blind raters. Patients/Participants: The subjects were 20 children (10 females, 10 males) with repaired CP and 16 control (i.e., unaffected) children (8 females, 8 males). All children were 8 to 12 years of age, Caucasian, living in the St. Louis area, and lower-middle to upper-middle class. The raters were 20 (13 females, 7 males) 6th grade Caucasian students who attend a private school in the area. Setting: Raters heard tapes in a group setting, but with individual headphones, in their school's cafeteria. Main Outcome Measure: Each speech sample was rated (7-point Likert scale) by each student rater on a variety of personality characteristics based on the “Big Five” personality factors. Results: A factor analysis of the item...
Warning Decision Making: The Relative Roles of Conceptual Models, Technology, Strategy, and Forecaster Expertise on 3 May 1999

Abstract This paper examines concepts related to warning decision making for the 3 May 1999 tornado outbreak in central Oklahoma. Sixty-six tornadoes occurred during this outbreak, with 58 occurring in the Norman, Oklahoma, National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office (WFO) area of responsibility. Verification statistics for the event revealed the WFO issued 48 tornado warnings, with a median lead time of 23 min, a false-alarm rate of 0.29, and a probability of detection of 0.89. WFO Norman meteorologists utilized a warning decision-making methodology that relied upon 1) scientifically based conceptual models of storm types and their environments, 2) Doppler radar data, 3) ground-truth observations, 4) technology, 5) strategy, and 6) human expertise. This methodology was compared with the ability of radar algorithms [e.g., Weather Surveillance Radar-1988 Doppler (WSR-88D) Mesocyclone (MA) and Tornado Detection Algorithms (TDA)] to identify tornado threat. Although the steady-state nature of the isolat...
Giving the Audience What It Wants

Media policy recently has moved dramatically toward deregulation. Probably the strongest and most persistent claim made in defense of this move is that the media should give the public what it wants. This anti-paternalistic goal is often (wrongly) asserted to be implicit in the first amendment and, in any event, to be good policy. And giving the public what it wants would be a result, it is continually asserted, of deregulation and greater reliance on markets. This article challenges that thesis, making three arguments. First, monopolistic competition, the economic model that best describes most media competition, can be systematically expected, at least assuming inadequate price discrimination, to drive out some media entities that are valued by the public (produce media products that the public would want if offered). Moreover, sometimes successful firms will produce less value than the entities that they eliminate would have produced - that is, competition undermines economic efficiency. Second, "what an audience wants" only makes sense economically if described in terms of some resource constraint. The normal constraint is that the purchasers (audiences or audiences plus advertisers) should pay the full cost of media products. Media products, however, routinely produce major positive and/or negative externalities. Consequently, under the standard of giving the audience what it wants, the result is too much "bad" (negative externality creating) media products and not enough "good" content. Third, the normal economic reliance on market measures - preferences expressed in purchases and based on the existing distribution of wealth - may be especially inappropriate as measures of value (or of what the audience wants) for some sorts of media products. Once developed, this critique has overt policy implications. Governmental media policies, which began in the eighteenth century but which recently have been subject to dismantling, can generally be expected to provide the audience what it wants better than the unregulated markets. In fact, the primary problem with the old regime was inadequate scope of government intervention in the media realm.
Development and Maintenance of Fuzzy Models in Financial Applications

Our goal is to illustrate the typical life cycle of a fuzzy knowledge-based model, starting from its development, testing, optimization, and deployment, and ending with the maintenance of its knowledge base. We illustrate this process within the context of an underwriting insurance application. First we define some key concepts of soft computing models and discuss some design tradeoffs that must be addressed. Then we focus on the design and implementation of a fuzzy rule-based classifier (FRC). We establish a standard reference dataset (SRD), consisting of 3,000 insurance applications with their corresponding decisions. The SRD exemplifies the results achieved by an ideal, optimal classifier, and represents the target for our design. We apply evolutionary algorithms to perform an off-line optimization of the design parameters of the classifier, modifying its behavior to approximate this target. The SRD is also used as a reference for testing and performing a five-fold cross-validation of the classifiers. Finally, we focus on the monitoring and maintenance of the FRC. We describe a fusion architecture that supports an off-line quality assurance process of the on-line FRC. The fusion module takes the outputs of multiple classifiers, determines their degree of consensus, and compares their overall agreement with the decision made by the FRC. From this analysis, we can identify the most suitable cases to update the SRD, to audit, or to be reviewed by senior underwriters.