cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Le fonctionnement de l’écrit d’étudiants : aspects d’une cohérence textuelle

Les ecrits d’etudiants de premiere annee a l’universite (en France et aux Etats-Unis) sont analyses du point de vue de la coherence textuelle, en relation au « contexte textuel » de pro-duction (consigne, textes lus pour developper une reponse a la consigne). La coherence tex-tuelle est etudiee aux niveaux macro- (questions structurales), meso- (questions d’intertextualite telles les citations, les paraphrases, les lieux communs), et micro- (deixis, connecteurs). Les textes etudies montrent que les etudiants des deux contextes culturels com-posent des textes en utilisant des strategies de coherence diversifiees.
goSTAG: gene ontology subtrees to tag and annotate genes within a set.

Over-representation analysis (ORA) detects enrichment of genes within biological categories. Gene Ontology (GO) domains are commonly used for gene/gene-product annotation. When ORA is employed, often times there are hundreds of statistically significant GO terms per gene set. Comparing enriched categories between a large number of analyses and identifying the term within the GO hierarchy with the most connections is challenging. Furthermore, ascertaining biological themes representative of the samples can be highly subjective from the interpretation of the enriched categories. We developed goSTAG for utilizing GO Subtrees to Tag and Annotate Genes that are part of a set. Given gene lists from microarray, RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) or other genomic high-throughput technologies, goSTAG performs GO enrichment analysis and clusters the GO terms based on the p-values from the significance tests. GO subtrees are constructed for each cluster, and the term that has the most paths to the root within the subtree is used to tag and annotate the cluster as the biological theme. We tested goSTAG on a microarray gene expression data set of samples acquired from the bone marrow of rats exposed to cancer therapeutic drugs to determine whether the combination or the order of administration influenced bone marrow toxicity at the level of gene expression. Several clusters were labeled with GO biological processes (BPs) from the subtrees that are indicative of some of the prominent pathways modulated in bone marrow from animals treated with an oxaliplatin/topotecan combination. In particular, negative regulation of MAP kinase activity was the biological theme exclusively in the cluster associated with enrichment at 6 h after treatment with oxaliplatin followed by control. However, nucleoside triphosphate catabolic process was the GO BP labeled exclusively at 6 h after treatment with topotecan followed by control. goSTAG converts gene lists from genomic analyses into biological themes by enriching biological categories and constructing GO subtrees from over-represented terms in the clusters. The terms with the most paths to the root in the subtree are used to represent the biological themes. goSTAG is developed in R as a Bioconductor package and is available at https://bioconductor.org/packages/goSTAG
Emergence in sociology

From its nineteenth-century origins, sociology has been faced with a foundational question: In what sense do social phenomena exist? Sociologists study social groups, collective behavior, institutions, social structures, social networks, and social dynamics, and after all, such social phenomena are only composed of the people that are in them. Thus, social phenomena seem to have no ontological status; and if not, sociology can ultimately be reduced to facts about individuals. For this reason, the relationship between the individual and the collective is one of the most fundamental issues in sociological theory. This relationship was a central element in the theorizing of the nineteenth-century founders of sociology, including Weber, Durkheim, Simmel, and Marx, and was a central element, if implicit, in many twentieth-century sociological paradigms, including structural functionalism (Parsons [1937] 1949, 1951), exchange theory (Blau 1964; Homans 1958, 1961), and rational choice theory (Coleman 1990). In recent years, this relationship has become known as the “micro-macro link” (J. C. Alexander et al. 1987; Huber 1991; Knorr-Cetina and Cicourel 1981; Ritzer 2000). Many accounts of the micro-macro link have explicitly used emergence to argue that collective phenomena are collaboratively created by individuals, yet are not reducible to individual action (Archer 1995; Bhaskar 1979, 1982; Blau 1981; Edel 1959; Kontopoulos 1993; Mihata 1997; Parsons [1937] 1949; Porpora 1993; T. S. Smith 1997; Sztompka 1991; Whitmeyer 1994; Wisdom 1970).
Implementing Radiation Dose-Volume Liver Response in Biomechanical Deformable Image Registration.

Purpose Understanding anatomic and functional changes in the liver resulting from radiation therapy is fundamental to the improvement of normal tissue complication probability models needed to advance personalized medicine. The ability to link pretreatment and posttreatment imaging is often compromised by significant dose-dependent volumetric changes within the liver that are currently not accounted for in deformable image registration (DIR) techniques. This study investigated using delivered dose, in combination with other patient factors, to biomechanically model longitudinal changes in liver anatomy for follow-up care and re-treatment planning. Methods and Materials Population models describing the relationship between dose and hepatic volume response were produced using retrospective data from 33 patients treated with focal radiation therapy. A DIR technique was improved by implementing additional boundary conditions associated with the dose-volume response in series with a previously developed biomechanical DIR algorithm. Evaluation of this DIR technique was performed on computed tomography imaging from 7 patients by comparing the model-predicted volumetric change within the liver with the observed change, tracking vessel bifurcations within the liver through the deformation process, and then determining target registration error between the predicted and identified posttreatment bifurcation points. Results Evaluation of the proposed DIR technique showed that all lobes were volumetrically deformed to within the respective contour variability of each lobe. The average target registration error achieved was 7.3 mm (2.8 mm left-right and anterior-posterior and 5.1 mm superior-inferior), with the superior-inferior component within the average limiting slice thickness (6.0 mm). This represented a significant improvement ( P Conclusions This study demonstrates the feasibility of implementing dose-driven volumetric response in deformable registration, enabling improved accuracy of modeling liver anatomy changes, which could allow for improved dose accumulation, particularly for patients who require additional liver radiation therapy.
Economic and Societal Challenges Imposed by Seismic Risk on the Built Environment

AbstractEarthquakes kill approximately 20,000 persons per annum, with the peak annual loss rate in the last 120 years estimated at 280,000 humans. There are four broad categories of earthquake of i...
West Ham and the River Lea: A Social and Environmental History of London’s Industrialized Marshland, 1839–1914

The title of Jim Clifford’s book is well chosen. The river Lea gives West Ham its eastern boundary. From 1839 to 1914, the Lea was West Ham’s primary water source and a dumping ground for much of i...
Where will it go? How children and adults reason about force and motion

Abstract Even infants can recognize physically impossible patterns of motion, seem to expect correct trajectories, and as they develop motor skills, move as necessary to achieve a goal. Yet in adulthood, the majority of people perform poorly when asked to make explicit predictions about motion in the same problems, and are influenced by irrelevant surface features. To characterize the changes that occur during development and the nature of individual differences, we developed a new assessment of force and motion that is age appropriate for both 6-year-old children and adults. Participants at both ages were generally able to reason at above-chance levels about motion in one dimension, although adults showed superior performance. On problems involving motion in two dimensions, adult males did better than boys, but adult females were equivalent to girls. These data provide the basis for a reinvigorated investigation of the factors supporting the development of the ability to think about force and motion.
A promising security protocol for protecting near field communication devices from networking attacks

Near field communication (NFC) is vulnerable to numerous networking attacks such as tag manipulation. In this work, a security protocol for the NFC chip is introduced to protect the NFC devices and associated data from several attacks. In addition, the NFC data exchange format (NDEF) message is modified with a certificate record and the alert mechanism is improved to enhance security. The modified secure protocol in the NFC system checks the authenticity of the incoming NDEF messages sender (by checking the signature record) and validity of the message/data (by checking the certificate), then if appropriate, stores the incoming NDEF messages in the device's memory for further processing. Matrix laboratory (MATLAB) simulation results suggest that the proposed protocol offers better security by detecting certificate modification, message modification, etc. The proposed secure technique for NFC can be extended to enhance security in mobile IoT devices.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE MID-TERM EVALUATION OF THE AUSTRIAN NATIONAL STRATEGY FOR THE FRUIT AND VEGETABLES SECTOR

The Austrian national strategy for the fruit and vegetable sector provides a framework for the producer organisation’s sustainable operational programmes. One main objective of the national strategy is the bundling of production in order to improve the competitiveness of the fruits and vegetables producers. According to the agricultural census 2010, the share of production value of producer organisations in the fruit and vegetables sector, has constantly risen since 1999 and amounted to 53% in 2010. When analysing the number of projects and the expenditure of funds, it was found that a majority of financial resources was invested into the improvement of marketing activities / conditions and product quality. In order to justify ongoing public support in future, it will become necessary to stress the benefits of the operational programmes for the general public. This could be achieved, for example, by focusing on environmental measures. Already, integrated production has become the standard production method in the sector. Other environmental measures within the national strategy aimed at the reduction of resources in production (such as pesticides or energy). For these measures no improvements could be measured due to lacking monitoring data. For future evaluations, indicators need to be defined more clearly and precisely, in order to make the achievement of objectives measurable and visible.
The Effect of Size and Distribution of Second Phase Particles and Voids on Sintering

The equations for the kinetics of diffusion controlled coarsening were solved with no restrictions on the size or spacial distribution of the particles in the system. In the limit of very small volume fractions, approximately parts per million of second phase, the treatment reduces to that of Lifshitz-Wagner. As the volume fraction is increased there is a deviation from the predictions of Lifshitz-Wagner, this deviation can be more than an order of magnitude at moderate volume fractions and it may be either positive or negative. The deviation tends to be positive if particles of greatly different radii are near neighbors, and tends to be negative if particles of only slightly different radii are near neighbors. This treatment of diffusion controlled coarsening can be applied to give a better understanding of how voids coarsen during sintering. The treatment can also be used to better understand the coarsening of second phase particles in the sintering of two phase composites.
Simple, Fast And Highly Sensitive Detection Of Gram-Negative Bacteria By A Novel Electrical Biosensor

This work presents a rapid, low-cost, highly sensitive and specific capacitive sensor for detection of Gram negative bacteria in a field setting. Recognition of Gramnegative bacteria is based on specific detection of lipopolysaccharides (LPS) by LPS-specific aptamer probe immobilized on electrode sensors. An inhomogeneous AC electric field is applied on sensor electrodes and induces positive dielectrophoresis that attracts LPS particles to the sensor electrodes for rapid detection. The same AC signal is also used to detect the binding reactions occurred on the sensor surface. The AC signal was optimized, and the binding between LPS and the specific aptamer was demonstrated. The detection limit reaches as low as 4.9 fg/mL for free LPS molecules and 53 #/mL of bacteria within a 30s’ response time, meeting the needs of onsite bacteria detection.
Large eddy simulation investigation of the canonical shock-turbulence interaction

High resolution large eddy simulations (LES) are performed to study the interaction of a stationary shock with fully developed turbulent flow. Turbulent statistics downstream of the interaction are provided for a range of weakly compressible upstream turbulent Mach numbers M_t = 0.03−0.18, shock Mach numbers M_s = 1.2−3.0 and Taylor-based Reynolds numbers Re_λ = 20−2500. The LES displays minimal Reynolds number effects once an inertial range has developed for Re_λ > 100. The inertial range scales of the turbulence are shown to quickly return to isotropy, and downstream of sufficiently strong shocks this process generates a net transfer of energy from transverse into streamwise velocity fluctuations. The streamwise shock displacements are shown to approximately follow a k^(−11/3) decay with wavenumber as predicted by linear analysis. In conjunction with other statistics this suggests that the instantaneous interaction of the shock with the upstream turbulence proceeds in an approximately linear manner, but nonlinear effects immediately downstream of the shock significantly modify the flow even at the lowest considered turbulent Mach numbers.
Upper Mantle Seismic Anisotropy as a Constraint for Mantle Flow and Continental Dynamics of the North American Plate

Abstract The alignment of intrinsically anisotropic olivine crystals under convection is typically invoked as the cause of the bulk of seismic anisotropy inferred from shear-wave splitting (SWS). This provides a means of constraining the interplay between continental dynamics and the deep mantle, in particular for densely instrumented regions such as North America after USArray. There, a comparison of “fast orientations” from SWS with absolute plate motions (APM) suggests that anisotropy is mainly controlled by plate motions. However, large regional misfits and the limited realism of the APM model motivate us to further explore SWS based anisotropy. If SWS is estimated from olivine alignment in mantle circulation instead, plate-driven flow alone produces anisotropy that has large misfits with SWS. The addition of large-scale mantle density anomalies and lateral viscosity variations significantly improves models. Although a strong continental craton is essential, varying its geometry does, however, not improve the plate-scale misfit. Moreover, models based on higher resolution tomography degrade the fit, indicating issues with the flow model assumptions and/or a missing contributions to anisotropy. We thus compute a “lithospheric complement” to achieve a best-fit, joint representation of asthenospheric and frozen-in lithospheric anisotropy. The complement shows coherent structure and regional correlation with independently imaged crustal and upper mantle anisotropy. Dense SWS measurements therefore provide information on depth-dependent anisotropy with implications for tectonics, but much remains to be understood about continental anisotropy and its origin.
X-point ion orbit physics in scrape-off layer and generation of a localized electrostatic potential perturbation around X-point

It has been well known that the logarithmically vanishing poloidal magnetic field strength Bθ near the magnetic X-point in a tokamak plasma yields the so-called ion X-loss or X-transport of ions when the ion temperature is high enough [Chang et al., Phys. Plasmas 9, 3884 (2002)], which has a notable impact on the physics just inside the magnetic separatrix surface, e.g., most prominently, to force a well-like structure in the global negative radial electric field and hence a pressure pedestal buildup. In this brief communication, we show that a similar effect exists in the scrape-off (SOL) layer near the X-point that can create a localized electrostatic potential structure around the X-point and have a significant impact on the near-SOL physics.
Optimization of Light Transmission through an Excitation-scan Hyperspectral Mirror Array System.

Hyperspectral imaging has numerous applications in a range of fields for target detection. While its original applications were in remote sensing, new uses include analyzing food quality, agriculture and medicine, Hyperspectral imaging has shown utility in fluorescence microscopy for detecting signatures from many fluorescent molecules, but acquisition speeds have been slow due to the need to acquire many spectral bands and the light losses associated with spectral filtering. Therefore, a novel confocal microscope, the 5- Dimensional Rapid Hyperspectral Imaging Platform (RHIP-5D) was designed and is undergoing testing to overcome acquisition speed and sensitivity limitations. The current design utilizes light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and a multifaceted mirror array to combine light sources into a liquid light guide. Initial tests demonstrated feasibility and we are now working on determining the ideal location of the liquid light guide, LEDs, lenses and mirror array to optimize optical transmission. A computational model was constructed using Monte Carlo optical ray tracing in TracePro software (Lambda Research Corp.). LED sources were simulated by importing irradiance properties from the manufacturers’ specifications. Optical properties of lenses were modeled using lens files available from the manufacturer. Analysis of the model includes geometry and parametric optimization, assessing lens power, mirror angles and location of optical elements. Initial results show an increase of transmission is possible by up to 20%. Future work will involve evaluating the position of the liquid light guide as well as analyzing lens configurations to further increase optical transmission.
Cavell as Mentor

I was a Grad student in English at Harvard in the mid-90s, but physically there for just three years, anxious to move to Brooklyn for a relationship as soon as I became ABD. In that brief but intense period of time, I tried to take as many courses offered by Stanley Cavell as possible. In my last year, I asked him to be a member of my dissertation committee. Looking back I’m still flooded with gratitude (and astonishment) by the fact that he said yes.
Trends and Directions in the Applications of Numerical Analysis

Publisher Summary This chapter examines the utilization of mixed and complementary energy-element formulations in existing large-scale computer programs for finite-element analysis and also reviews the expansion of finite-element analysis concerning structural mechanics along with a wide range of physical problems. The simplification of actual interdisciplinary behavior to independent representation has been a limit imposed historically by analysis capabilities. The removal of these limits is a major contribution of enlarged numerical analysis capabilities, matching that of the inroads made into nonlinear problems. The most desirable situation occurs when the analytical models for transient thermal analysis and structural analysis are in complete correspondence. Any disparity between these representations is a source of error that is amplified in the integration of the transients in time. Furthermore, uncoordinated thermal and elastic analyses are highly inefficient, requiring large costs in the transference of data from the thermal to the thermal stress analysis. Motivation for the extension of the finite-element method to a broader range of physical problems might come from increased computational efficiency, ability to cope with more complex forms of a given class of problem, and savings through a unified general-purpose computer program.
Memory Test: A History of U.S. Citizenship Education and Examination

Background/Context: While much has been written about the history of immigration and naturalization in the United States, few scholars have looked at the history of citizenship education and testing. The small body of literature on the subject has primarily focused on World War I-era Americanization efforts and, as such, has excluded later periods. Further, while it has looked at citizenship education programs, it has usually done so without con sidering the context of the high stakes exam that immigrants must pass in order to become citizens. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: Each year, tens of thousands of would-be American citizens set out to conquer the U.S. citizenship test. To do so, they must be prepared to answer 10 fact-oriented questions about American government, history, and geography selected by a naturalization examiner from a master list of 100. A score of six cor rect answers earns citizenship. Consequently, aspiring citizens memorize the number of Amendments to the Constitution, the branches of government, the names of three of the orig inal American colonies, and the location of the Statue of Liberty. Most immigrants pass. This article seeks to understand the roots of the memory test that currently serves as America’s gauge of fitness for citizenship. In looking back over 100 years of history, it seeks to explore how a once highly pluralistic approach to education and an anxiety-producing system of testing conducted by naturalization courts became what we know today. By asking how we got here, it also implicitly asks whether we want to maintain this status quo or seek out change. Research Design: In analyzing the history of U.S. citizenship education and examination in the 20th and early 21st centuries, this study utilizes three primary groupings of sources. First, it incorporates the voices of leaders at the naturalization agency—the organization that administers the citizenship test—through personal communications, annual reports, and other agency publications. Second, it draws on primary sources from outside of the nat uralization agency, including descriptions of state naturalization efforts, reports on the pur
Francisella novicida Two-Component System Response Regulator BfpR Modulates iglC Gene Expression, Antimicrobial Peptide Resistance, and Biofilm Production.

Response regulators are a critical part of the two-component system of gene expression regulation in bacteria, transferring a signal from a sensor kinase into DNA binding activity resulting in alteration of gene expression. In this study, we investigated a previously uncharacterized response regulator in Francisella novicida, FTN_1452 that we have named BfpR (Biofilm-regulating Francisella protein Regulator, FTN_1452). In contrast to another Francisella response regulator, QseB/PmrA, BfpR appears to be a negative regulator of biofilm production, and also a positive regulator of antimicrobial peptide resistance in this bacterium. The protein was crystallized and X-ray crystallography studies produced a 1.8 A structure of the BfpR N-terminal receiver domain revealing interesting insight into its potential interaction with the sensor kinase. Structural analysis of BfpR places it in the OmpR/PhoP family of bacterial response regulators along with WalR and ResD. Proteomic and transcriptomic analyses suggest that BfpR overexpression affects expression of the critical Francisella virulence factor iglC, as well as other proteins in the bacterium. We demonstrate that mutation of bfpR is associated with an antimicrobial peptide resistance phenotype, a phenotype also associated with other response regulators, for the human cathelicidin peptide LL-37 and a sheep antimicrobial peptide SMAP-29. F. novicida with mutated bfpR replicated better than WT in intracellular infection assays in human-derived macrophages suggesting that the down-regulation of iglC expression in bfpR mutant may enable this intracellular replication to occur. Response regulators have been shown to play important roles in the regulation of bacterial biofilm production. We demonstrate that F. novicida biofilm formation was highly increased in the bfpR mutant, corresponding to altered glycogen synthesis. Waxworm infection experiments suggest a role of BfpR as a negative modulator of iglC expression with de-repression by Mg2+. In this study, we find that the response regulator BfpR may be a negative regulator of biofilm formation, and a positive regulator of antimicrobial peptide resistance in F. novicida.
Adaptive virtual referencing for the extraction of extracellularly recorded action potentials in noisy environments.

OBJECTIVE Removal of common mode noise and artifacts from extracellularly measured action potentials, herein referred to as spikes, recorded with multi-electrode arrays (MEAs) which included severe noise and artifacts generated by an ultrahigh field (UHF) 16.4 Tesla magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner. APPROACH An adaptive virtual referencing (AVR) algorithm is used to remove artifacts and thus enable extraction of neural spike signals from extracellular recordings in anesthetized rat brains. A 16-channel MEA with 150-micron inter-site spacing is used, and a virtual reference is created by spatially averaging the 16 signal channels which results in a reference signal without extracellular spiking activity while preserving common mode noise and artifacts. This virtual reference signal is then used as the input to an adaptive FIR filter which optimally scales and time-shifts the reference to each specific electrode site to remove the artifacts and noise. MAIN RESULTS By removing artifacts and reducing noise, the neural spikes at each electrode site can be well extracted, even from data originally recorded with a high noise floor due to electromagnetic interference and artifacts generated by a 16.4T MRI scanner. The AVR method enables many more spikes to be detected than would otherwise be possible. Further, the filtered spike waveforms can be well separated from each other using PCA feature extraction and semi-supervised k-means clustering. While data in a 16.4T MRI scanner contains significantly more noise and artifacts, the developed AVR method enables similar data quality to be extracted as recorded on benchtop experiments outside the MRI scanner. SIGNIFICANCE AVR of extracellular spike signals recorded with MEAs has not been previously reported and fills a technical need by enabling low-noise extracellular spike extraction in noisy and challenging environments such as UHF MRI that will enable further study of neuro-vascular coupling at UHF.
Angiographic investigation of orbital vascular variations in the rabbit and implications for endovascular intra-arterial chemotherapy models.

Background The New Zealand White rabbit (NZWR) is the first small-animal experimental model of intra-arterial chemotherapy (IAC) for retinoblastoma treatment. The NZWR has dual ophthalmic arteries (OA): the external OA (EOA) arises from the external carotid artery and the internal OA (IOA) from the internal carotid artery. We describe the technique that we have refined for OA catheterization in rabbits, and describe the angioanatomical variations in the OA supply to the NZWR eye and implications for IAC delivery, which were identified as part of a larger project exploring IAC effects in a rabbit retinoblastoma model. Methods We developed techniques to perform angiography of the external and internal carotid arteries and superselective angiography of the EOA and IOA in NZWR using transfemoral access and a microwire/microcatheter system. EOA and IOA supply to the eye was determined angiographically and recorded before selective OA catheterization and angiography. Results 114 rabbits underwent carotid angiographic evaluation and OA catheterization (161 total eyes evaluated, 112 right, 49 left). Most eyes had a single dominant arterial supply; either IOA or EOA. EOA was dominant in 73% (118/161), and IOA was dominant in 17% (27/161). Co-dominant supply was seen in 10% (16/161). Of the rabbits with bilateral OA catheterization, 25/47 (53%) had bilateral dominant EOA. Conclusion Successful catheterization of the OA in the NZWR can be readily accomplished with nuanced technique. The external OA is the dominant arterial supply in the majority of NZWR eyes. These findings allow for successful reproduction of OA catheterization studies of IAC for retinoblastoma in NZWR.
Investigating Elastic Anisotropy of 4H-SiC Using Ultra-High Q Bulk Acoustic Wave Resonators

Hexagonal 4H-silicon carbide (4H-SiC) is a transversely isotropic substrate garnering interest for precision MEMS devices such as resonant gyroscopes. This paper investigates the elastic anisotropy of 4H-SiC by utilizing capacitive bulk acoustic wave (BAW) resonators with ultra-high mechanical quality factors ( $Q$ ) enabled by phononic crystals. We directly measure the value of $C_{66}$ using Lame mode resonators for the first time and numerically fit the values of $C_{11}$ and $C_{12}$ using BAW elliptical modes in center-supported solid disk resonators. We compare (0 0 0 1) 4H-SiC to (1 1 1) Si, another in-plane isotropic material and validate (0 0 0 1) 4H-SiC’s superior robustness to fabrication and design variations. Measurement of in-plane BAW elliptical modes in multiple disk resonators with as-born frequency splits as low as 3 ppm reveal (0 0 0 1) 4H-SiC’s transverse isotropy across process corners. Lame mode resonators display a temperature coefficient of frequency (TCF) three times lower compared to its Si counterpart. Finally, this paper provides a modified set of elastic constants for 4H-SiC with a view towards monocrystalline SiC MEMS devices. [2020-0254]
Wavelength-division-multiplexing-based electronic-photonic integrated circuits for high-performance data processing and transportation

This Conference Presentation, “Wavelength-division-multiplexing-based electronic-photonic integrated circuits for high-performance data processing and transportation,” was recorded for the Photonics West 2021 Digital Forum.
Adaptive Sport Athlete

There are many considerations to account for when evaluating the adaptive sport athlete for participation in the multitude of athletic endeavors one may pursue. In many ways, this athletic population demands a much more comprehensive and informed evaluation, for the safety of the athlete, the safety of other athletes in competition, and to ensure a fair and balanced playing field for competition. Critical to adaptive athletic populations is a detailed knowledge of the classification systems used to ensure equitable competition among different athletic populations, equipment considerations, and the pre-participation physical examination as it pertains to specific medical issues confronted by this exceptional athletic population, and sport-specific considerations before, during, and after competition.
Postweaning Isolation Alters the Responses of Auditory Neurons to Serotonergic Modulation.

Juvenile social experience, such as social isolation, has profound effects on communicative behavior, including signal production and reception. In the current study, we explored responsiveness to the neuromodulator serotonin as a potential mechanistic link between early life social isolation and auditory processing. The serotonergic system is sensitive to social isolation in many brain regions including the inferior colliculus (IC), an auditory midbrain nucleus. We investigated the effects of social experience on serotonergic responsiveness by measuring cFos, an immediate early gene product, in the IC of female mice. Serotonin was manipulated pharmacologically by administering fenfluramine, pCPA, or saline to mice that had undergone an extreme dichotomy in social experience after weaning: being housed in social groups versus individually. These mice were exposed to a 60-minute recording of vocalizations from an opposite-sex interaction and perfused. Using immunohistochemistry, we measured the density of cFos-positive (cFos+) nuclei in the major subdivisions of the IC. Housing condition, drug treatment, and IC subregion all had a significant effect on cFos+ density. The central IC showed the highest density of cFos+ cells and also the most pronounced effects of housing condition and drug treatment. In the central IC, cFos+ density was higher following fenfluramine treatment than saline, and lower following pCPA treatment than fenfluramine. Individually housed mice showed a higher cFos+ density than socially housed mice in both of the pharmacological treatment groups, but not in the saline group. Drug treatment but not housing condition had strong effects on the behaviors of grooming, digging, rearing, and movement. Once the effects of drug condition were controlled, there were no across-individual correlations between cFos+ densities and behaviors. These findings suggest that the responses of auditory neurons to neuromodulation by serotonin is influenced by early life experience.
I-80 Closures: An Autonomous Machine Learning Approach

Road closures due to adverse and severe weather continue to affect Wyoming due to hazardous driving conditions and temporarily suspending interstate commerce. The mountain ranges and elevation in Wyoming makes generating accurate predictions challenging, both from a meteorological and machine learning stand point. In a continuation of prior research, we investigate the 80 km stretch of Interstate-80 between Laramie and Cheyenne using autonomous machine learning to create an improved model that yields a 10% increase in closure prediction accuracy. We explore both serial and parallel implementations run on a supercomputer. We apply auto-sklearn, a popular and well documented autonomous machine learning toolkit, to generate a model utilizing ensemble learning. In the previous study, we applied a linear support vector machine with ensemble learning. We will compare our new found results to previous results.
From generalist to specialist: a qualitative study of the perceptions of infertility patients

Abstract Few studies explore in-depth accounts of women’s and men’s experiences with, and transitions between, obstetrician/gynaecologists (OB/GYNs) and reproductive endocrinologists during infertility diagnostic and treatment processes. This study examined this subject matter with data from qualitative, in-depth, semi-structured interviews. Between April 2007 and March 2008, the first author interviewed 20 women and eight men from a large midwestern metropolitan area in the USA who had used, or were in the process of using, any fertility treatment in the 5 years preceding the interview. Six couples and 16 individuals were interviewed, resulting in narratives of 22 distinct infertility journeys. The main complaints made by respondents about OB/GYNs were that they were insufficiently concerned with providing timely treatment and that they paid insufficient attention to male partners. Women felt that their concerns were taken more seriously by reproductive endocrinologists, but complained of insensitivity, depersonalization and misinformation, and were suspicious of a profit orientation.
Molecular Mechanisms of Mutations

Most hereditary information of cells apparently is carried by DNA. In growing or adult cells, most DNA resides in chromosomes inside the cell nucleus, whereas a smaller fraction (0.1–10%, depending on organism and cell type) is found in plastids (mitochondria, chloroplasts, etc.). In egg cells, up to 90% of DNA can be contained in extrachromosomal material (mitochondria). The amount of chromosomal DNA per cell is usually constant, but it differs greatly for different organisms (see Table 1). Whereas some viruses contain only 5600 nucleotide pairs of DNA, bacteria contain about 5 × 106 and human cells about 6 × 109 nucleotide pairs.
Mass spectrometry as an aid in the detection and identification of piperidyl benzilates and related glycolates.

In 1958, Abood and co-workers [1] synthesized a series of compounds with the general structure indicated by Compound I (Fig. 1), using the piperidine ring of atropine and replacing the tropic acid side chain with substituted glycolic acids. In recent years, considerable attention has been given to this series of compounds because of their potent anticholinergic and central nervous system (CNS) activity [2–6]. In man, they exhibit powerful, psychotomimetic, and antidepressant symptoms, and, in doses of 1 to 25 mg, produce long-lasting hallucinogenic effects similar in action to lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). These compounds are also quite toxic and in larger doses can lead to death through respiratory failure.
Association of Azospirillum with Grass Roots

The association between grass roots and Azospirillum brasilense Sp 7 was investigated by the Fahraeus slide technique, using nitrogen-free medium. Young inoculated roots of pearl millet and guinea grass produced more mucilaginous sheath (mucigel), root hairs, and lateral roots than did uninoculated sterile controls. The bacteria were found within the mucigel that accumulated on the root cap and along the root axes. Adherent bacteria were associated with granular material on root hairs and fibrillar material on undifferentiated epidermal cells. Significantly fewer numbers of azospirilla attached to millet root hairs when the roots were grown in culture medium supplemented with 5 mM potassium nitrate. Under these growth conditions, bacterial attachment to undifferentiated epidermal cells was unaffected. Aseptically collected root exudate from pearl millet contained substances which bound to azospirilla and promoted their adsorption to the root hairs. This activity was associated with nondialyzable and proteasesensitive substances in root exudate. Millet root hairs adsorbed azospirilla in significantly higher numbers than cells of Rhizobium, Pseudomonas, Azotobacter, Klebsiella, or Escherichia. Pectolytic activities, including pectin transeliminase and endopolygalacturonase, were detected in pure cultures of A. brasilense when this species was grown in a medium containing pectin. These studies describe colonization of grass root surfaces by A. brasilense and provide a possible explanation for the limited colonization of intercellular spaces of the outer root cortex.
Hospitalists and 'officists' preparing for the future of general internal medicine.

In the last few years, increasing attention has been paid to the concept of the hospitalist, a physician whose practice is limited to hospitalized patients.1, 2 Some of the advantages and disadvantages of the hospitalist system, for patients, providers, hospitals, and purely outpatient physicians (“officists,” to keep the rather awkward terminology consistent), are listed in Table 1. As an internist who, for the last 30 years, has prided himself on his ability to manage patients chronically in any setting, I am particularly concerned about the lower right-hand corner of Table 1—the potential disadvantages of the hospitalist system to an officist. These include such obvious problems as reduced academic stimulation, technical skills, and income, and such intangibles as loss of patient “bonding,” professional “edge,” collegiality, and self-esteem. Trained in a hospital, identified in many patients’ minds with a particular hospital, fortified by the conviction that I can manage the majority of acute medical problems in the hospital, would I revert to the status of that nebulous “LMD” of my housestaff days if removed from one? Would I still be an internist?
`Go with the winners' Generators with Applications to Molecular Modeling

A generation problem is the problem of generating an element of a (usually exponentially large) set under a given distribution. We develop a method for the design of generation algorithms which is based on the ‘go with the winners’ algorithm of Aldous and Vazirani [AV94]. We apply the scheme to two concrete problems from computational chemistry: the generation of models of amorphous solids and of certain kinds of polymers.
Treatment of drug-induced seizures

Seizures are a common complication of drug intoxication, and up to 9% of status epilepticus cases are caused by a drug or poison. While the specific drugs associated with drug-induced seizures may vary by geography and change over time, common reported causes include antidepressants, stimulants and antihistamines. Seizures occur generally as a result of inadequate inhibitory influences (e.g., gamma aminobutyric acid, GABA) or excessive excitatory stimulation (e.g. glutamate) although many other neurotransmitters play a role. Most drug-induced seizures are self-limited. However, status epilepticus occurs in up to 10% of cases. Prolonged or recurrent seizures can lead to serious complications and require vigorous supportive care and anticonvulsant drugs. Benzodiazepines are generally accepted as the first line anticonvulsant therapy for drug-induced seizures. If benzodiazepines fail to halt seizures promptly, second line drugs include barbiturates and propofol. If isoniazid poisoning is a possibility, pyridoxine is given. Continuous infusion of one or more anticonvulsants may be required in refractory status epilepticus. There is no role for phenytoin in the treatment of drug-induced seizures. The potential role of ketamine and levetiracetam is promising but not established.
Cognitive behavioral treatment of agoraphobia

Abstract Severe and chronic agoraphobics with panic attacks (DSM-III) were randomly assigned to one of three cognitive behavioral treatments: Cognitive Therapy plus Graduated Exposure, Progressive Deep Muscle Relaxation Training plus Graduated Exposure vs Graduated Exposure alone. Treatment consisted of 16 sessions conducted by experienced protocol therapists. All subjects received 90 min of graduated in vivo exposure each session and an extensive rationale, emphasizing self-directed exposure and programmed practice in addition to their primary treatment. Subjects also received cognitive therapy, relaxation training or programmed practice. An assessment battery consisting of clinical ratings of severity, phobia, anxiety, depression, panic and tripartite monitoring of behavioral, cognitive and psychophysiological response systems was administered at pre-, mid- and post-treatment. Analyses revealed statistically significant differences across treatments, tripartite response systems and assessment phases. The multi-modal treatments exhibited enhanced performance on self-report, phobic anxiety/avoidance, physiological, cognitive, and behavioral measures as compared to exposure alone. Conceptual and applied issues of these findings are discussed with regard to both future research and integration of cognitive behavioral strategies in the treatment of agoraphobia and related anxiety disorders.
Optimal scheduling of shifts and breaks using employees having limited time‐availability

Observes that managers of service operations frequently resort to using employees who are available for work only at limited times when labour supplies are tight or when they desire (or require) the scheduling flexibility offered by employees willing to work part‐time. Presents a triply‐implicit integer programming model for the optimal scheduling of shifts and breaks using employees who are each available for work only during an individually specified portion of the operating day. Compares the ease of solving the model, and four others, over two sets of test problems representing a range of conditions existing in service organizations. Concludes that the new model more compactly represents problems, particularly those with high flexibility, facilitating its solution to optimality.
Intensive Home-Based and Wellness Services to Native American Families Living on Reservations: A Model:

For decades, providing services to Native American families residing on reservations has presented challenges to the social work profession. Historically, and in some locations currently, the federal government has been the primary family service provider. Non-Indian workers in key programs and administrative positions often staff these federal services. Often service delivery by non-Native workers is organized, administered, and delivered in a culturally insensitive manner. There has recently been an increase in American Indians that provide services for their own and neighboring Indian communities, but the issue of effective service delivery remains. This paper suggests a model of intensive home-based treatment and wellness services to Native American families living on reservations. The model acknowledges the importance of culturally competent leadership and workers, focuses on the prevention of placing of adults, elders, and children off the reservation, and maintaining balance in the family by emphas...
A method for analysis of linear dynamic systems driven by stationary non-Gaussian noise with applications to turbulence-induced random vibration

Abstract A method is developed for approximating the properties of the state of a linear dynamic system driven by a broad class of non-Gaussian noise, namely, by polynomials of filtered Gaussian processes. The method involves four steps. First, the mean and correlation functions of the state of the system are calculated from those of the input noise. Second, higher order moments of the state are calculated based on Ito’s formula for continuous semimartingales. It is shown that equations governing these moments are closed, so that moment of any order of the state can be calculated exactly. Third, a conceptually simple technique, which resembles the Galerkin method for solving differential equations, is proposed for constructing approximations for the marginal distribution of the state from its moments. Fourth, translation models are calibrated to representations of the marginal distributions of the state as well as its second moment properties. The resulting models can then be utilized to estimate properties of the state, such as the mean rate at which the state exits a safe set. The implementation of the proposed method is demonstrated by numerous examples, including the turbulence-induced random vibration of a flexible plate.
Phase Relations and Thermal Expansion in the System HfO2-TiO2

The system HfO/sub 2/-TiO/sub 2/ was investigated in the 0 to 60 mol percent TiO/sub 2/ region using x-ray diffraction analysis, differential thermal analysis, melting-point studies, and dilatometry. For samples quenched from 1500 and 1250/sup 0/C, single-phase HfTiO/sub 4/ is present from approximately 36 to 53 percent TiO/sub 2/, with HfO/sub 2/ coexisting as a second phase below 36 percent TiO/sub 2/ and TiO/sub 2/ coexisting as a second phase above 53 percent TiO/sub 2/. Room-temperature lattice parameters of the hafnium titanate phase decreased linearly with composition for samples quenched from 1500/sup 0/C and furnace-cooled from 1600/sup 0/C. High-temperature lattice parameter studies confirmed the expansion anisotropy of the hafnium titanate phase in the single-phase region. Linear thermal-expansion measurements revealed very low coefficients (less than 1 x 10/sup -6///sup 0/C) for compositions in the 30 to 40 percent TiO/sub 2/ range and relatively high coefficients (approximately 4 x 10/sup -6///sup 0/C) for the 25, 45, 50, and 60 mol percent TiO/sub 2/ compositions. The low expansion was attributed to microcracking. 5 fig.