cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Regulation of ATP13A2 via PHD2-HIF1α Signaling Is Critical for Cellular Iron Homeostasis: Implications for Parkinson's Disease

We previously reported that pharmacological inhibition of a class of enzymes known as prolyl hydroxylase domain proteins (PHDs) has neuroprotective effects in various in vitro and in vivo models of Parkinson9s disease (PD). We hypothesized that this was due to inhibition of the PHD2 isoform, preventing it from hydroxylating the transcription factor hypoxia inducible factor 1 α (HIF1α), targeting it for eventual proteasomal degradation. HIF1α itself induces the transcription of various cellular stress genes, including several involved in iron metabolism. Although all three isoforms of PHD are expressed within vulnerable dopaminergic (DAergic) substantia nigra pars compacta neurons, only select downregulation of the PHD2 isoform was found to protect against in vivo neurodegenerative effects associated with the mitochondrial neurotoxin 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine. These findings were corroborated in induced pluripotent stem cell-derived neurons, providing validation in a pertinent human cell model. PHD2 inhibition was found to result in increased expression of ATP13A2, mutation of which is responsible for a rare juvenile form of PD known as Kufor-Rakeb syndrome. Knockdown of ATP13A2 expression within human DAergic cells was found to abrogate restoration of cellular iron homeostasis and neuronal cell viability elicited by inhibition of PHD2 under conditions of mitochondrial stress, likely via effects on lysosomal iron storage. These data suggest that regulation of ATP13A2 by the PHD2-HIF1α signaling pathway affects cellular iron homeostasis and DAergic neuronal survival. This constitutes a heretofore unrecognized process associated with loss of ATP13A2 function that could have wide-ranging implications for it as a therapeutic target for PD and other related conditions. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Reductions in PHD2 activity within dopaminergic neurons in vivo and in cultured human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived neurons protects against mitochondrial stress-induced neurotoxicity. Protective effects are dependent on downstream HIF-1α expression. Knockdown of ATP13A2, a gene linked to a rare juvenile form of Parkinson9s disease and recently identified as a novel HIF1α target, was found to abrogate maintenance of cellular iron homeostasis and neuronal viability elicited by PHD2 inhibition in vivo and in cultured dopaminergic cells under conditions of mitochondrial stress. Mechanistically, this was due to ATP13A29s role in maintaining lysosomal iron stores. This constitutes a novel mechanism by which alterations in ATP13A2 activity may be driving PD-related neuropathology.
Hepatitis-associated antigen: improved sensitivity in detection.

A simple method for improving the detection of the hepatitis-associated antigen (HAA) by concentrating the test serum is described. Sensitivity is improved approximately tenfold for the double diffusion technic, without incurring the difficulties associated with performing a complement-fixation test or requiring the equipment needed for electrodiffusion. The routine and concentrated technics were compared using serum specimens from patients with serum hepatitis, infectious hepatitis, and unresolved hepatitis, as well as sera from “normal” blood donors. Of the HAA positive patients with serum transaminase activity in excess of 1,000 units, 20% were positive by concentration only. In convalescence, when the SGPT activity had dropped below 100, it was unusual to identify HAA except by concentration.
Rejection of trace organic compounds by forward osmosis membranes: a literature review.

To meet surging water demands, water reuse is being sought as an alternative to traditional water resources. However, contamination of water resources by trace organic compounds (TOrCs), including pharmaceuticals, personal care products, disinfection byproducts, and industrial chemicals is of increasing concern. These compounds are not readily removed by conventional water treatment processes and require new treatment technologies to enable potable water reuse. Forward osmosis (FO) has been recognized in recent years as a robust process suitable for the treatment of highly impaired streams and a good barrier to TOrCs. To date, at least 14 studies have been published that investigated the rejection of various TOrCs by FO membranes under a variety of experimental conditions. In this paper, TOrC rejection by FO has been critically reviewed, evaluating the effects of membrane characteristics and orientation, experimental scale and duration, membrane fouling, feed solution chemistry, draw solution composition ...
Enhancing C–H Bond Activation of Methane via Temperature-Controlled, Catalyst–Plasma Interactions

Recent shale gas discoveries and advances in plasma chemistry provide the basis to exploit metal surface–plasma interactions to precisely control C–H bond activation on catalytic surfaces, leading to improved reaction efficiencies. Although the exact determination of plasma–catalyst interactions remains a topic of continuing research, this Letter provides evidence that plasma–catalyst interactions exist and can be used to significantly enhance the activation of C–H bonds at temperatures >630 K, probed by the catalytic dry reforming of methane with carbon dioxide using Ni/Al2O3. We systematically varied bulk temperature and plasma power to determine Ni–plasma interactions. In contrast to reactions at low temperatures ( 8 fold increase). Other competing contributors, such as gas-phase plasma reactions, charge confinement, and plasma-driven enhanced bulk gas temper...
Brinkmanship Politics in Congress: Overcoming Gridlock in Times of Polarized Parties

In eras of highly polarized parties, why does Congress sometimes find the will to strike compromises and act? Studies of gridlock and legislative productivity conclude that we should expect stalemate rather than action when Congress is in sharp disagreement. Nonetheless, in recent years with the parties considerably divided, action has been taken and new laws have been passed on major policy issues. This paper argues that instances of ‘brinkmanship politics’ in Congress can aid our understanding of why and how Congress acts despite policy disagreement. Specifically, by altering the consequences of inaction and focuses lawmakers on political and partisan incentives to act, brinkmanship can drive lawmakers to act. Analyses of a unique list of brinkmanship cases during the 110th-112th congresses (2007-2012), along with in-depth analysis of the 2007-08 legislative fight over reauthorizing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act provide support for this theory.
Magnetic Circular Dichroism and Density Functional Theory Studies of Iron(II)-Pincer Complexes: Insight into Electronic Structure and Bonding Effects of Pincer N-Heterocyclic Carbene Moieties

Iron complexes containing pincer ligands that incorporate N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) moieties are of significant interest in organometallic catalysis in order to generate more oxidatively robust complexes that may exhibit novel catalytic properties. In order to define the effect that introducing NHC moieties into pincer ligands has on electronic structure and bonding in iron(II)-pincer complexes, MCD and DFT studies of (iPrCDA)FeBr2, (iPrPDI)FeBr2, and (iPrCNC)FeBr2 were performed. These studies quantify the electronic structures and bonding interactions as a function of pincer ligand variation. They also demonstrate that the observed ligand fields (and, hence, spin states) directly correlate to the increased Fe–C bonding and pincer-donating abilities that result from introducing NHC moieties into the pincer ligand. However, the net donor abilities of the pincers and the strength of the Fe-pincer interaction do not directly correlate to the number of NHC moieties present, but instead are determined to b...
CSPAutoGen: Black-box Enforcement of Content Security Policy upon Real-world Websites

Content security policy (CSP) which has been standardized by W3C and adopted by all major commercial browsers-is one of the most promising approaches for defending against cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks. Although client-side adoption of CSP is successful, server-side adoption is far behind the client side: according to a large-scale survey, less than 0.002% of Alexa Top 1M websites enabled CSP. To facilitate the adoption of CSP, we propose CSPAutoGen to enable CSP in real-time, without server modifications, and being compatible with real-world websites. Specifically, CSPAutoGen trains so-called templates for each domain, generates CSPs based on the templates, rewrites incoming webpages on the fly to apply those generated CSPs, and then serves those rewritten webpages to client browsers. CSPAutoGen is designed to automatically enforce the most secure and strict version of CSP without enabling "unsafe-inline" and "unsafe-eval", i.e., CSPAutoGen can handle all the inline and dynamic scripts. We have implemented a prototype of CSPAutoGen, and our evaluation shows that CSPAutoGen can correctly render all the Alexa Top 50 websites. Moreover, we conduct extensive case studies on five popular websites, indicating that CSPAutoGen can preserve the behind-the-login functionalities, such as sending emails and posting comments. Our security analysis shows that CSPAutoGen is able to defend against all the tested real-world XSS attacks.
Sensitivity Improvement in 100 Gb/s-per-Wavelength Links Using Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers or Avalanche Photodiodes

Intra-data-center links are scaling to 100 Gb/s per wavelength using four-level pulse-amplitude modulation (4-PAM) and direct detection, but a restrictive link budget makes it difficult to support wavelength-division multiplexing or optical circuit switching. We investigate receiver sensitivity improvements achievable using semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) or avalanche photodiodes (APDs). We analyze and simulate the impact of modulator bandwidth limitations and chirp, fiber dispersion, transient SOA gain saturation, excess shot noise, and intersymbol interference caused by the APD. Using the 4-PAM and linear equalization, an SOA with 20-dB fiber-to-fiber gain and 6-dB noise figure can improve the receiver sensitivity up to 6 dB over a thermal noise-limited receiver, whereas an APD with $k_{{\rm{A}}}\,= \,0.18$ and responsivity $R\,= \,{\rm{0.74\,A/ W}}$ provides 4.5-dB sensitivity improvement over the same reference system. We further present a simple algorithm to optimize the intensity levels and decision thresholds for a generic non-Gaussian noise distribution, which can provide an additional sensitivity improvement of 12 dB. For SOAs, transient gain saturation effects cause negligible sensitivity penalties, but limit the receiver dynamic range to about 15 dB for the worst case of single-wavelength pre-amplification. For APDs, we show that the APD responsivity, impact ionization factor, low-gain bandwidth, and gain-bandwidth product are all critical parameters governing the system performance.
Loner links aware routing and scheduling in Wireless Mesh Networks

In wireless mesh networks (WMNs), TDMA based link schedulingcan allow multiple concurrent transmissions, resulting in throughput improvements. In this paper, we identify certain link characteristics which reduce achieved spatial reuse and increase schedule length. It is shown that certain links (called loners) based on their length and position, introduce inherent difficulty in scheduling them with other links in network. Effects of such links on scheduling reveals important limitations of any such scheduling algorithm and motivates need of joint routing, scheduling and power control. We then present joint routing, topology control and scheduling algorithm to alleviate effects of loner links. Simulation results confirm throughput improvement with shorter schedule length.
Hospital Risk of Data Breaches.

This analysis uses data from the Department of Health and Human Services to examine what type of hospitals face a higher risk of data breaches.
Cognitive Effects of ThinkRx Cognitive Rehabilitation Training for Eleven Soldiers with Brain Injury: A Retrospective Chart Review

BACKGROUND: Cognitive rehabilitation training is a promising technique for remediating the cognitive deficits associated with brain injury. Extant research is dominated by computer-based interventions with varied results. Results from clinician-delivered cognitive rehabilitation are notably lacking in the literature. OBJECTIVE: The current study examined the cognitive outcomes following ThinkRx, a clinician-delivered cognitive rehabilitation training program for soldiers recovering from traumatic brain injury (TBI) and acquired brain injury (ABI). METHODS: In a retrospective chart review, we examined cognitive outcomes of 11 cases who had completed an average of 80 hours of ThinkRx cognitive rehabilitation training delivered by clinicians and supplemented with digital training exercises. Outcome measures included scores from six cognitive skill batteries on the Woodcock Johnson - III Tests of Cognitive Abilities. RESULTS: Participants achieved gains in all cognitive skills tested and achieved statistically significant changes in long-term memory, processing speed, auditory processing, and fluid reasoning with very large effect sizes. Clinically significant changes in multiple cognitive skills were also noted across cases. CONCLUIONS: Results of the study suggest that ThinkRx clinician-delivered cognitive training supplemented with digital exercises may be a viable method for targeting the cognitive deficits associated with brain injury.
Effect of Laser Power and Scan Speed on Melt Pool Characteristics of Commercially Pure Titanium (CP-Ti)

Selective laser melting (SLM) is an additive manufacturing technique that creates complex parts by selectively melting metal powder layer-by-layer using a laser. In SLM, the process parameters decide the quality of the fabricated component. In this study, single beads of commercially pure titanium (CP-Ti) were melted on a substrate of the same material using an in-house built SLM machine. Multiple combinations of laser power and scan speed were used for single bead fabrication, while the laser beam diameter and powder layer thickness were kept constant. This experimental study investigated the influence of laser power, scan speed, and laser energy density on the melt pool formation, surface morphology, geometry (width and height), and hardness of solidified beads. In addition, the observed unfavorable effect such as inconsistency in melt pool width formation is discussed. The results show that the quality, geometry, and hardness of solidified melt pool are significantly affected by laser power, scanning speed, and laser energy density.
When to Censor

Loss to follow-up is an endemic feature of time-to-event analyses that precludes observation of the event of interest. To our knowledge, in typical cohort studies with encounters occurring at regular or irregular intervals, there is no consensus on how to handle person-time between participants' last study encounter and the point at which they meet a definition of loss to follow-up. We demonstrate, using simulation and an example, that when the event of interest is captured outside of a study encounter (e.g., in a registry), person-time should be censored when the study-defined criterion for loss to follow-up is met (e.g., 1 year after last encounter), rather than at the last study encounter. Conversely, when the event of interest must be measured within the context of a study encounter (e.g., a biomarker value), person-time should be censored at the last study encounter. An inappropriate censoring scheme has the potential to result in substantial bias that may not be easily corrected.
Attachment of Listeria monocytogenes on ready-to-eat meats

Five individual strains of Listeria monocytogenes and a mixed cocktail of all five were studied for attachment on frankfurters, ham, bologna, and roast beef relative to their cell surface characteristics. The ratio of strongly attached (sessile) L. monocytogenes cells compared with total (sessile and planktonic) attached cells on ready-to-eat meats was also determined. Because bacterial cell surfaces were characterized by net negative charge and hydrophobicity, electrostatic interaction chromatography and cationized ferritin methods were chosen to study net negative charge distribution on the bacterial cell surface, whereas hydrophobic interaction chromatography and contact angle measurement were used to examine the cell surface hydrophobicity. No differences (P > 0.05) were observed in cell surface charge or cell surface hydrophobicity among strains. Approximately 84 to 87% L. monocytogenes were found to attach strongly to ready-to-eat meats within 5 min. No differences (P > 0.05) were found among strain...
WISE program analysis: Evaluating the first 15 months of progress in a novel treatment diversion program for women.

Like other counties across the nation, Fulton County, GA, has seen a significant increase in the number of arrests of people with serious mental illness. While Fulton County has accountability courts, some defendants with mental illness are not able to take advantage of these options due to their mental illness rendering them incompetent to understand the expectations required by these courts. The WISE (Women's Initiative for Success with Early Intervention) pilot project created a pathway for incompetent women to be diverted out of jail and into mental health treatment that was faster than the traditional evaluation for competency to stand trial pathway. A total of 16 female misdemeanants with non-violent charges were referred to the program. All women in WISE received intensive case management services. Some women were sent to a psychiatric hospital for involuntary hospitalization, some were released back to the community, and some were sent to a state forensic hospital for competency restoration services. Compared with a similar group of female misdemeanants prior to inception of the pilot project, women in the WISE group spent significantly fewer days in jail (mean of 64.9 days versus 163.46 days). Thus, preliminary findings from the pilot project indicate that referral to the WISE program significantly reduced the burden of excess time in jail associated with having an untreated mental illness.
Computational X-ray Imaging using Document Scanners

We propose a computational imaging approach enabling document scanners to be used as frugal, high-resolution X-ray imagers. We modify the document scanner optics for X-ray sensitivity and design a post-processing algorithm to denoise images.
Implications of the 14C( alpha, gamma )18O reaction for nonstandard big bang nucleosynthesis

The thermonuclear burning rates for the {sup 14}C({alpha},{gamma}){sup 18}O radiative capture reaction are calculated at temperatures (0.3{lt}{ital T}{lt}10 GK) of relevance to the early universe. These rates are particularly important for estimating the formation of heavy elements in an inhomogeneous big bang nucleosynthesis, proposed by Applegate, Hogan, and Scherrer (that would suggest the quark-gluon to hadron phase transition is first order). We investigate the effect of a possible new broad ({Gamma}{approx}0.45 MeV) 1{sup {minus}} state, at approximately 9.0 MeV in {sup 18}O as would be deduced from the Yale-Michigan State University measurement of the beta-delayed alpha-particle emission of {sup 18}N and suggested by the Notre Dame-Caltech measurement of the nonresonant {sup 14}C({alpha},{gamma}){sup 18}O cross section. The gamma widths of the proposed broad state is estimated using the Alhassid, Gai, and Bertsch sum rule, and an experimental study is proposed.
Iterative weakening: optimal and near-optimal policies for the selection of search bias

Decisions made in setting up and running search programs bias the searches that they perform. Search bias refers to the definition of a search space and the definition of the program that navigates the space. This paper addresses the problem of using knowledge regarding the complexity of various syntactic search biases to form a policy for selecting bias. In particular, this paper shows that a simple policy, iterative weakening, is optimal or nearly optimal in cases where the biases can be ordered by computational complexity and certain relationships hold between the complexity of the various biases. The results are obtained by viewing bias selection as a (higher-level) search problem. Iterative weakening evaluates the states in order of increasing complexity. An offshoot of this work is the formation of a near-optimal policy for selecting both breadth and depth bounds for depth-first search with very large (possibly unbounded) breadth and depth.
Integrative Oncology in the United States: Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center programme as prototype

Over the last two decades, cancer treatment has become increasingly sophisticated, resulting in high cure rates. But these treatments also cause difficult-to-treat and often long-term side effects. Complementary therapies such as acupuncture, mind-body techniques, music therapy, fitness programmes and massage therapy are non-invasive, non-pharmacologic interventions that are used along with conventional treatment. These evidence-based therapies relieve symptoms and improve physical and emotional well-being. Strong clinical data indicate the value of complementary therapies in controlling symptoms associated with cancer and treatment. The author has developed one of the early integrative medicine programmes in the United States, at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York City. The faculty and staff of this 60-member department provide inpatient and outpatient care, conduct research in collaboration with senior oncologists throughout the institution and produce training programmes for oncology-related professionals. Another important feature of this department is its “AboutHerbs” Web site ( http://www.mskcc.org/aboutherbs ), which provides current, evidence-based information about herbs and dietary supplements used by cancer patients, as well as herb-drug interactions, at no cost. The MSKCC department continues to serve as a prototype for integrative oncology programmes in the United States and around the world.
Optimal Stopping Rules For Xn/n and Sn/n

This chapter discusses optimal stopping rules for X n /n and S n /n . It describes two cases: (i) z n = X n /n and (ii) z n = S n /n . The existence of optimal stopping rules for z n = X n /n is established by Chow–Dvoretzky.
Building A World That Works

She had a giant puffball, a fungus from the woods, fully ten inches in diameter, white with traces of brown, on a platter. She had opened the door of Hilltop House to our knock. It was midmorning, but she was in her nightgown, absorbed in admiration for her find, which she announced was on its way to The Cafe Budapest, her Boston restaurant. There was no question. Livia Hedda Rev-Kury had one of the world’s wonders on a platter, a product of the forested eight-acre tract we had just arranged to buy as the new campus of the Woods Hole Research Center. I could not but admire her knowledge that there are no poisonous puffballs and her confidence that this monster was at that early, meaty, edible stage, well before the spores that are the puffball’s real business had started to form. Spores make poor eating but a wonderful display as they emerge in an explosive cloud for a reproductive celebration that justifies the puffball name and spreads the fungus around the world. We admired the puffball, a saprophyte, slow growing, expanding toward the moment that is difficult to ignore when its millions of spores flood the world. It was an apt analogy as we set out in 1998 on a new phase in our mission of seeding the world with the new insights into the science of ecology and the political support for the massive transition from a fossil-fueled and failing world to a solar-powered and infinitely renewable world that can serve indefinitely as a human habitat.
Disjointness of Measure-Preserving Transformations, Minimal Self-Joinings and Category

In the coarse topology on the group of measure-preserving transformations of a Lebesgue probability space, the class of transformations disjoint from a given ergodic transformation is a dense Gδ. The class of transformations T such that the family {Ti: i ϵ ℤ} is disjoint is also a dense Gδ. As a corollary there exists an uncountable family {Tα: α ϵ A} of weakly-mixing transformations such that the family \( \{ {\text{T}}_{\text{a}}^{\text{i}}:\alpha \in {\text{A,i}} \in {\Bbb Z} - \{ 0\} \} \) is disjoint.
Pros and cons of relativistic interstellar flight

Abstract Two technological problems must be solved before daring to interstellar flight: fuel and propulsion. The highest energy-density ‘fuel’ is antimatter in its solid or liquid state and this fuel is likely to be our primary choice for multi-ton relativistic rockets. High-energy ion thrusters powered by annihilation reactors promise superior performance in comparison with direct propulsion by annihilation products. However the power generator onboard can significantly enlarge the rocket dry mass thus limiting the achievable speed. Two physical factors that stand against our dream of the stars are thermodynamics and radiation hazard. Heat-disposing radiator also increases the rocket dry mass. Interstellar gas turns into oncoming flux of hard ionizing radiation at a relativistic speed of the rocket while the oncoming relativistic interstellar dust grains cause mechanical damage. Economy and psychology will play a decisive role in voting for or against the manned interstellar flights.
Cellular Recognition: Mechanisms and Consequences of Homotypic and Heterotypic Adhesions

It is widely accepted that cell surface macromolecules must mediate recognition phenomena that allow like cells within a tissue to adhere to one another (homotypic adhesion) as well as to cells of other types (heterotypic adhesion). These macromolecular interactions occur by multistep processes that are important in the formation and maintenance of tissues both in the adult organism and during embryonic development. Moreover, we now know that specific cell-cell interactions regulate many physiological processes. Contact inhibition of growth is a well-documented example of negative growth regulation induced by homotypic cellular adhesions. Cellular motility may also be regulated in a negative sense as observed in the phenomenon of contact inhibition of motion. And highly specific intercellular adhesions can induce the syntheses of enzymes and proteins responsible for the expression of tissue-specific traits.
Where is the love? A double-blind, randomized study of the effects of intranasal oxytocin on stress regulation and aggression.

Abstract Previous studies reveal that oxytocin (OT) encourages prosocial behavior in humans; however, animal studies and recent work in humans suggest that OT may also play a role in aggressive behavior and feelings. The present study investigated these competing predictions in the context of a competitive task among 85 healthy human participants (males and females). Using a randomized double-blind design, participants were assigned to an experimental (intranasal OT) or control (intranasal placebo) group. Hostility (Aggression Questionnaire) was measured at home (T1) and in the lab after intranasal administration (T2). Behavioral aggression was assessed post-intranasal administration. There was a significant difference between the OT and the placebo group on hostility scores (p = 0.03) and a significant time by group interaction for behavioral aggression (p
Evidence for the critical role of transmembrane helices 1 and 7 in substrate transport by human P-glycoprotein (ABCB1).

P-glycoprotein (P-gp) is an ABC transporter that exports many amphipathic or hydrophobic compounds, including chemically and functionally dissimilar anticancer drugs, from cells. To understand the role of transmembrane helices (TMH) 1 and 7 in drug-binding and transport, we selected six residues from both TMH1 (V53, I59, I60, L65, M68 and F72) and TMH7 (V713, I719, I720, Q725, F728 and F732); and substituted them with alanine by gene synthesis to generate a variant termed “TMH1,7 mutant P-gp”. The expression and function of TMH1,7 mutant P-gp with twelve mutations was characterized using the BacMam baculovirus-HeLa cell expression system. The expression and conformation of TMH1,7 mutant P-gp was not altered by the introduction of the twelve mutations, as confirmed by using the human P-gp-specific antibodies UIC2, MRK16 and 4E3. We tested 25 fluorescently-labeled substrates and found that only three substrates, NBD-cyclosporine A, Rhod-2-AM and X-Rhod-1-AM were transported by the TMH1,7 mutant. The basal ATPase activity of TMH1,7 mutant P-gp was lower (40–50%) compared to wild-type (WT) P-gp, despite similar level of expression. Although most of the substrates modulate ATPase activity of P-gp, the activity of TMH1,7 mutant transporter was not significantly modulated by any of the tested substrates. Docking of selected substrates in homology models showed comparable docking scores for the TMH1,7 mutant and WT P-gp, although the binding conformations were different. Both the ATPase assay and in silico docking analyses suggest that the interactions with residues in the drug-binding pocket are altered as a consequence of the mutations. We demonstrate that it is possible to generate a variant of P-gp with a loss of broad substrate specificity and propose that TMH1 and TMH7 play a critical role in the drug efflux function of this multidrug transporter.
Integration of an electrical engineering capstone course with social justice and global studies

A four course package (six units total) consisting of two general education (GE) classes and two electrical engineering capstone classes that are taught in a highly integrated manner, that not only meets university GE requirements, but also meets the new ABET criteria in which the need to address a societal need is embedded with design criteria. The prompts for the new integrated GE/capstone Assessment results are also presented, along with methods to increase student motivation for studying GE.
Solution of Highly Curvilinear Gravity Flow

Application of the proposed method to flow over a vertical sharp-crested weir yields profiles and discharge coefficients for head-to-weir-height ratios in the range of 0.1
Predicting Early Emergence of Childhood Obesity in Underserved Preschoolers.

Objective To determine the magnitude of risk of factors that contribute to the emergence of childhood obesity among low-income minority children. Study design We conducted a prospective cohort analysis of parent−child pairs with children aged 3-5 years who were nonobese (n = 605 pairs) who participated in a 3-year randomized controlled trial of a healthy lifestyle behavioral intervention. After baseline, height and weight were measured 5 times over 3 years to calculate body mass index (BMI) percentiles and classify children as normal, overweight, or obese. Multivariable logistic regression was used to estimate the odds of obesity after 36 months. Predictors included age, sex, birth weight, gestational age, months of breastfeeding, ethnicity, baseline child BMI, energy intake, physical activity, food security, parent baseline BMI, and parental depression. Results Among this predominantly low-income minority population, 66% (398/605) of children were normal weight at baseline and 34% (n = 207/605) were overweight. Among normal weight children at baseline, 24% (85/359) were obese after 36 months; among overweight children at baseline, 55% (n = 103/186) were obese after 36 months. Age at enrollment (OR 2.11, 95% CI 1.64-2.72), child baseline BMI (OR 3.37, 95% CI 2.51-4.54), and parent baseline BMI (OR for a 6-unit change 1.36, 95% CI 1.09-1.70) were significantly associated with the odds of becoming obese for children. Conclusions The combination of child age, parent BMI, and child overweight as predictors of child obesity suggest a paradigm of family-centered obesity prevention beginning in early childhood, emphasizing the relevance of child overweight as a phenotype highly predictive of child obesity. Trial registration Clinicaltrials.gov : NCT01316653 .
Comparison of fluoroscopic techniques for assessment of femoral rotational alignment.

Objectives Anatomic rotational reduction of diaphyseal femur fractures is essential in restoring limb mechanics. Errors in reproducing anteroposterior (AP) or lateral knee reference radiographs of the contralateral limb could result in inaccuracies during rotational reduction. The objective of this study was to examine whether fluoroscopic rotational variation can be observed with the same degree of precision with AP and lateral distal femur projections. Methods AP and lateral radiographs were obtained from intact knees of 7 cadaveric specimens using fluoroscopy. The lateral condylar width and coronal femoral width from the AP images and the posterior condylar offset and sagittal femoral width from the lateral images were measured by 3 reviewers. Interclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) among the 3 reviewers were calculated. The mean data from all reviewers were plotted against angle of rotation, and the slope (M) and regression of the line were then determined. Results ICCs were 0.997 (lateral) and 0.994 (AP), demonstrating excellent interobserver agreement. The mean (±SD) M value for lateral images was 0.016 ± 0.001 and for AP images was 0.009 ± 0.001 (P < .0001). The higher lateral M value represents a more appreciable difference in size of the measured segment for the same rotational change. Conclusions The observed rotational change was 1.76 times greater on lateral images compared to AP images; thus, the lateral images may be more precise as a reference for rotation. The routine use of lateral knee radiographs to guide intraoperative rotational alignment of the femur may therefore be justified.
Meaning in Life and Its Relationship With Physical, Mental, and Cognitive Functioning: A Study of 1,042 Community-Dwelling Adults Across the Lifespan.

OBJECTIVE To examine the relationship of presence and search for meaning in life with age, physical and mental well-being, and cognitive functioning across the adult lifespan. METHODS Cross-sectional data from 1,042 adults in the Successful AGing Evaluation (SAGE)-a multicohort study of adult community-dwelling residents of San Diego County, California-were analyzed. Presence of meaning ("Presence") and search for meaning in life ("Search") were assessed with the Meaning in Life Questionnaire. Physical and mental well-being were measured using the Short Form 36 Health Survey (SF-36). Telephone Interview for Cognitive Status-modified was employed to screen for overall cognitive function. Study data were collected from January 2013 to June 2014. RESULTS Presence of meaning exhibited an inverted U-shaped relationship whereas Search showed a U-shaped relationship with age (with Presence peaking and Search reaching the lowest point around age 60). Statistical modeling using generalized estimating equations revealed that physical well-being (SF-36 physical composite score) correlated negatively with age (P < .001) and positively with Presence (P < .001), and there was an age group x Presence interaction (P = .018), such that the relationship was stronger in subjects over age 60. Mental well-being correlated positively with age (P < .001) and Presence (P < .001) and negatively with Search (P = .002). Cognitive function correlated inversely with age (P < .001) and with Search (P < .001). Significant covariates of Presence and Search had small effect sizes, except for a medium effect size for satisfaction with life and Presence in adults over age 60 (P < .001). CONCLUSIONS Presence and search for meaning in life are important for health and well-being, though the relationships differ in adults younger and older than 60 years. Better understanding of the longitudinal relationships of meaning of life with well-being is warranted to design interventions to increase meaning of life and improve health and functioning.
The Negotiation Process

This article explores the six formal stages of the negotiation process to demonstrate to readers how structured bargaining encounters are. During the Preparation Stage, negotiators have to acquire critical information and determine: (1) their bottom lines; (2) their goals; and (3) their opening offers. During the Preliminary Stage, they should work to establish rapport with opponents and to create positive negotiating environments that will be more conducive to cooperative bargaining. During the Information Stage, negotiators must ask open-ended questions designed to discover what items are available for division - value creation. During the Distributive Stage, the participants vie for the items that are on the table - value claiming. During the Closing Stage, the parties seek to solidify the terms of their agreement without giving up more than they need to. During the final Cooperative Stage, the participants should work to maximize their joint returns to be certain they have achieved mutually efficient agreements.
Streaming Temporal Graphs: Subgraph Matching

We investigate solutions to subgraph matching within a temporal stream of data. We present a high-level language for describing temporal subgraphs of interest, the Streaming Analytics Language (SAL). SAL programs are translated into C++ code that is run in parallel on a cluster. We call this implementation of SAL the Streaming Analytics Machine (SAM). SAL programs are succinct, requiring about 20 times fewer lines of code than using the SAM library directly, or writing an implementation using Apache Flink. To benchmark SAM we calculate finding temporal triangles within streaming netflow data. Also, we compare SAM to an implementation written for Flink. We find that SAM is able to scale to 128 nodes or 2560 cores, while Apache Flink has max throughput with 32 nodes and degrades thereafter. Apache Flink has an advantage when triangles are rare, with max aggregate throughput for Flink at 32 nodes greater than the max achievable rate of SAM. In our experiments, when triangle occurrence was faster than five per second per node, SAM performed better. Both frameworks may miss results due to latencies in network communication. SAM consistently reported an average of 93.7% of expected results while Flink decreases from 83.7% to 52.1% as we increase to the maximum size of the cluster. Overall, SAM can obtain rates of 91.8 billion netflows per day.
Politics in the Marketplace: work, gender and citizenship in revolutionary France

One of the most famous images from the time of the French Revolution depicts the October Days, when thousands of Parisian women marched from Paris to Versailles to present the king with their griev...
Plasma synthesis of carbon-iron magnetic nanoparticles and immobilization of doxorubicin for targeted drug delivery

A novel dense-medium plasma technology (submerged arc discharge) was used to synthesize carbon/iron-based magnetic nanoparticles (CMNP) from benzene or acetonitrile at room temperature and atmospheric pressure. Scanning electron microscopy shows that the nanoparticles are spherical and 40–50 nm in diameter. Results from x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and other analytical techniques demonstrated that the CMNP consist of iron/iron oxide clusters that are evenly dispersed in a carbon-based host-structure. After synthesis, CMNP samples were activated in three steps: argon plasma treatment, in-situ reactions with ethylene diamine, and substrate activation by glutaric dialdehyde. Free doxorubicin (DOX) molecules were then immobilized onto the activated CMNP surfaces to form CMNP-DOX conjugates. The loading efficiency of doxorubicin was determined. In vitro anti-proliferative activity of CMNP-DOX conjugates was confirmed in tumor-cell cytotoxicity assays. It is therefore suggested that CMNP may be used as a magnetic carrier for targeted drug-delivery applications.
Hardcore Predicates for a Diffie-Hellman Problem over Finite Fields.

A long-standing open problem in cryptography is proving the existence of (deterministic) hard-core predicates for the Diffie-Hellman problem defined over finite fields. In this paper, we make progress on this problem by defining a very natural variation of the Diffie-Hellman problem over Fp2 and proving the unpredictability of every single bit of one of the coordinates of the secret DH value. To achieve our result, we modify an idea presented at CRYPTO’01 by Boneh and Shparlinski [4] originally developed to prove that the LSB of the elliptic curve Diffie-Hellman problem is hard. We extend this idea in two novel ways: 1. We generalize it to the case of finite fields Fp2 ; 2. We prove that any bit, not just the LSB, is hard using the list decoding techniques of Akavia et al. [1] (FOCS’03) as generalized at CRYPTO’12 by Duc and Jetchev [6]. In the process, we prove several other interesting results: • Our result also hold for a larger class of predicates, called segment predicates in [1]; • We extend the result of Boneh and Shparlinski to prove that every bit (and every segment predicate) of the elliptic curve Diffie-Hellman problem is hard-core; • We define the notion of partial one-way function over finite fields Fp2 and prove that every bit (and every segment predicate) of one of the input coordinates for these functions is hard-core.
Differentiation of sexual behaviour in pigs.

Behaviour in pigs is sexually dimorphic as early as 1 month of age; mounting of penmates is observed more frequently for males than for females. This mounting reaches its highest frequency during the 2nd month of life and then declines to a low frequency in prepubertal pigs. During the prepubertal period (3-5 months of age), bipotentiality of sexual behaviour is apparent in boars because they will not only mount oestrous females but they are also receptive to mounts by older, mature boars. If males are castrated during neonatal development (first 2 months of life) and treated acutely with oestrogen during adulthood, they display sexual behaviour that is characteristic of females; i.e. show a selective preference to remain near mature boars in a choice test, are receptive to mounts by mature boars, and have a short latency to receptivity after contact with a mature boar. Males that are castrated at 6 months of age or later, or males that are castrated neonatally and treated chronically with oestrogen or testosterone during the prepubertal period, display significantly less female behaviour after acute oestrogen treatment than do males castrated neonatally. Additionally, exposure of females to elevated testosterone during early fetal development results in no detectable changes in oestrous behaviour as adults. These observations support the hypothesis that defeminization of sexual behaviour in boars occurs as a result of elevated testicular steroids during pubertal development. The limited data available on masculine sexual behaviour in pigs indicate an activational role for gonadal steroids with little evidence for true masculinization per se. After prolonged testosterone treatment of mature females or males that are castrated before puberty, considerable courtship and mounting behaviours are exhibited by these individuals when placed with oestrous females. Studies have not evaluated differential sensitivity of such animals to dosage or duration of testosterone treatment. Differentiation of sexual behaviour in boars therefore involves primarily a loss of sensitivity to display female-typical behaviours. Presently, pigs differ from other mammals that have been investigated because sexual differentiation of reproductive behaviour occurs during pubertal development and not during gestation.
Shape Identification Technique for a 2-D Elliptic System by Boundary Integral Equation Method

Abstract This paper is concerned with the identification of the geometrical structure of the boundary shape for a two-dimensional boundary value problem. The output least square identification method is considered for estimating partially unknown boundary shapes. A numerical parameter estimation technique using the spline collocation method is proposed.
Preliminary analysis of the structural and inflow data from the LIST turbine

The Long-term Inflow and Structural Test (LIST) program is collecting long-term, continuous inflow and structural response data to characterize the extreme loads on wind turbines. A heavily instrumented Micon 65/13M turbine with SERI 8m blades is being used as the primary test turbine for this test series. This turbine is located in Bushland, TX, a test site that exposes the turbine to a wind regime that is representativ e of a Great Plains commercial site. The turbine and its inflow are being characterized with 60 measurements: 34 to characterize the inflow, 19 to characterize structural response, and 7 to characterize the timevarying state of the turbine. In a companion paper, Sutherland, Jones and Neal1 give a detailed description of the turbine, the site and the instrumentation. In this paper, a preliminary analysis of the structural and inflow data is presented. Particular attention is paid to the determination of the various structural loads on the turbine. Long-term fatigue spectra are also presented.
Mergers and product quality: Evidence from the airline industry

Abstract Retrospective studies of horizontal mergers have focused on their price effects, leaving the important question of how mergers affect product quality largely unanswered. This paper empirically investigates this issue for two recent airline mergers. Consistent with the theory that mergers facilitate coordination but diminish competitive pressure for quality improvement, we find that each merger is associated with a quality decrease (increase) in markets where the merging firms had (had no) pre-merger competition with each other, and the quality change can have a U-shaped relationship with pre-merger competition intensity. Consumer gains/losses associated with quality changes, which we monetize, are substantial.
Microdebrider-assisted supraglottoplasty for laryngomalacia.

ObjectivesWe describe our series in the surgical treatment of laryngomalacia using a microdebrider.MethodsWe performed a retrospective review of patients who underwent microdebrider-assisted suprag...
Crowd Sourcing Indoor Maps with Mobile Sensors

The paper describes algorithms required to enable the crowd sourcing of indoor building maps, i.e., where GPS is not available. Nevertheless to enable crowd sourcing we use the 3-axis accelerometers and the 3-axis magnetometers available in many smart phones and the piezometer in a Nike running shoe. Volunteers carry the sensors while walking around in buildings, and use some application on their smart phone to send the data to a mapping server. We present the algorithms to obtain walking trajectories from the data by dead reckoning, and to estimate indoor maps with multiple walking trajectories.
Social Interaction and Urban Location Decisions

This paper examines how household social interaction affects housing and location demand in urban settings. The extended Alonso-Muth urban household model shows that the effects on density and location hinge upon the demand relationship between social activities and housing consumption. Stronger tastes for social activities outside the home lead to lower housing demand and decrease demanded distance from the CBD. Stronger tastes for socializing at home have the opposite effects on housing and location demands. The empirical analysis of interaction survey data yields results consistent with the theoretical framework.