cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
FUS Regulates Activity of MicroRNA-Mediated Gene Silencing

MicroRNA-mediated gene silencing is a fundamental mechanism in the regulation of gene expression. It remains unclear how the efficiency of RNA silencing could be influenced by RNA-binding proteins associated with the microRNA-induced silencing complex (miRISC). Here we report that fused in sarcoma (FUS), an RNA-binding protein linked to neurodegenerative diseases including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), interacts with the core miRISC component AGO2 and is required for optimal microRNA-mediated gene silencing. FUS promotes gene silencing by binding to microRNA and mRNA targets, as illustrated by its action on miR-200c and its target ZEB1. A truncated mutant form of FUS that leads its carriers to an aggressive form of ALS, R495X, impairs microRNA-mediated gene silencing. The C. elegans homolog fust-1 also shares a conserved role in regulating the microRNA pathway. Collectively, our results suggest a role for FUS in regulating the activity of microRNA-mediated silencing.
Optimization of a Basin Network Using Hybridized Global Search Algorithms

AbstractOver the last few decades, groundwater resources in many regions have been depleted at a higher rate than the underlying aquifers have been replenished. This imbalance has led water managem...
Peripheral Vascular Stent Infection: Case Report and Review of Literature

We describe a case of an infected popliteal artery stent with septic emboli presenting 6 years after peripheral vascular intervention for intermittent claudication. Management included resection of the stent and popliteal artery and revascularization by femoral-popliteal bypass with autogenous vein. This case demonstrates that peripheral stent infections can develop years after intervention. We performed an English-language PubMed literature review of arterial peripheral vascular stent infections on using the search term, "Non-coronary stent or stent graft infection from 1966 to present." Written informed consent was obtained for publication.
A distributed cross-layer intrusion detection system for ad hoc networks

Most existing intrusion detection systems (Idss) for ad hoc networks are proposed for single layer detection. Although they may apply to other layers of network protocol stack, individual layers of data is still being analyzed separately. In addition, most have not been able to emphasize localization of attack source. In this paper, we propose an anomaly-based ids that utilizes cross-layer features to detect attacks, and localizes attack sources within onehop perimeter. Specifically, we suggest a compact feature set that incorporate intelligence from bothMac layer and network layer to profile normal behaviors of mobile nodes; we adapt a data mining anomaly detection technique from wired networks to ad hoc networks; and we develop a novel collaborative detection scheme that enables theIds to correlate local and global alerts. We validate our work through ns-2 simulation experiments. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our method.
Effect of insulin-induced hypoglycemia on protein metabolism in vivo.

The effects of insulin-induced hypoglycemia (IIH) on leucine kinetics (mumol.kg-1.min-1) and interorgan flow of amino acids (AA) were examined in 2 groups of 18-h fasted conscious dogs. Insulin was infused at 5 mU.kg-1.min-1 for 3 h. IIH (40 +/- 5 mg/dl) resulted in a drop in plasma leucine (114 +/- 10 to 64 +/- 9 microM) and leucine rate of appearance (Ra) (3.1 +/- 0.1 to 2.4 +/- 0.2) within 1 h but gradually increased (P less than 0.05) to 145 +/- 30 microM and 3.8 +/- 0.5 by 3 h. Leucine oxidative rate of disposal (Rd) increased from 0.44 +/- 0.08 to 1.02 +/- 0.35 (P less than 0.01), and nonoxidative Rd dropped initially but was near basal levels by 3 h. When euglycemia was maintained, there was sustained drop in plasma leucine from 122 +/- 12 to 42 +/- 6 mumol/l, leucine Ra from 3.1 +/- 0.4 to 1.8 +/- 0.2, oxidative Rd from 0.36 +/- 0.03 to 0.22 +/- 0.04, and nonoxidative Rd from 2.75 +/- 0.4 to 1.6 +/- 0.2 (all P less than 0.01). IIH was associated with a significant net release of leucine (and other AA) across the gut (0.04 +/- 0.05 to 1.86 +/- 0.30 mumol.kg-1.min-1; P less than 0.05). In the group with euglycemia there was no significant change in the gut balance of leucine. We conclude that IIH is associated with a proteolytic response and that the gut is the major contributor to this response.
Modelling socioeconomic influences on agroforestry adoption using a rule-based decision support system

This paper describes AGFADOPT, a rule-based decision-support system designed to model some of the social and economic factors that influence small farmer adoption of tree-based innovations. The system is designed to help technically trained personnel incorporate social and economic criteria into project planning and implementation. To create AGFADOPT, information obtained from the literature was used to develop a set of general rules that simulate farmer decision making regarding the adoption of two tree-based technologies: fruit tree orchards and contour hedgerows. These rules were combined in the expert system using a yes/no decision tree framework. Preliminary verification of the system prototype using data from the Dominican Republic and evaluation of the system by potential users suggest that it is logically consistent, reasonably accurate (83% for tree orchard; 68% for contour hedgerows) and potentially useful.
Some Remarks on the Hirota Bilinear Identity

The Hirota bilinear identity (H) ∫C w(x, k)w*(y, k)dk = 0, as a residue calculation with C a circle at “∞”, is an important ingredient in soliton mathematics (cf. [ 1;2;3;4;5;7;10;13]). Along with the resulting Hirota equations this has deep geometrical meaning and we indicate below also the nature of its conceptual connection to completeness for wave functions (cf. [1;3;4; 10;13]). Given the recent geometrical development of scattering for KdV from the Grassmannian viewpoint in [9] it seems to be appropriate to discuss the nature of (H) in the context of [9] where the residue calculations do not make sense; the article should serve as a complement to [ 1;2;7;9;10;l3] and full details will appear in [4].
The Seventeen Wallpaper Groups

The ornamental groups of the plane are the rosette groups, the frieze groups, and the wallpaper groups. The rosette groups are the finite groups of isometries, which by Leonardo’s Theorem are the groups Cn and Dn. A frieze group is a group of isometries whose subgroup of translations is generated by one translation. Frieze groups were treated in Chapter 10. We now turn to the last of the ornamental groups of the plane by considering groups whose subgroup of translations is generated by two translations.
Destruction of Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Salmonella typhimurium in Lebanon bologna by interaction of fermentation pH, heating temperature, and time.

Fermented meats have caused food-borne illness due to enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli. Consumption of Lebanon bologna was epidemiologically associated wit a recent outbreak of salmonellosis. The present study was conducted to determine the effect of pH (after the fermentation step), final heating temperature, and time on destruction of E. coli O157:H7 and Salmonella typhimurium in Lebanon bologna. Raw Lebanon bologna mix was inoculate with either of the pathogens (ca.10(8) CFR/g and fermented for 12 h at 80 degrees F (26.7 degrees C) and then at 100 degrees F (37.8 degrees C) unit the pH reached wither 5.2 or 4.7. The mix was then heated to 110, 115, or 120 degrees F (43.3, 46.1, or 48.9 degrees C). The bologna was sampled at various times, decimally diluted, and plated on either McConkey sorbitol agar or XLD agar to enumerate E. coli O157:H7 and S. typhimurium, respectively. Fermentation alone reduced populations of both pathogens by 7 log units. Overall S. typhimurium cells were either equally or significantly less resistant (P < 0.01) than cells of E. coli O157:H7. Significantly interactions (P < 0.01) among the three factors for the destruction of E. coli O157:H7 were observed. A process-specific regression equation was developed to predict the destruction of E. coli O157:H7 in Lebanon bologna.
Power Delivery Network Modeling and Benchmarking for Emerging Heterogeneous Integration Technologies

In this article, a power delivery network (PDN) modeling framework for heterogeneous integration platforms is presented, which includes both IR-drop and transient analysis. The model is validated using IBM power grid benchmarks, and maximum relative errors are less than 7.3%. To evaluate interposer and bridge-chip-based integration platforms, we assume a field-programmable gate array (FPGA)-CPU 2.5-D integration platform, of which the FPGA consumes 45 W and the CPU consumes 75 W. The simulation results show that an interposer with dense power/ground grid and microbumps can suppress power supply noise (PSN) by a small margin with the requirement of high-density through-silicon vias (TSVs). For bridge-chip-based integration, under the assumption that the active dice above the bridge-chips are not connected to the package power/ground planes, some PDN challenges are evaluated. Using multiple bridge-chips and smaller overlap areas between the bridge-chips and the active dice, the worst-case PSN in bridge-chip-based integration is minimized. Next, we perform parametric studies for these 2.5-D integration platforms as a function of C4 bump pitch and metal layers. Lastly, we propose to use TSVs in the bridge-chip to reduce PSN. With nine bundled TSVs of $8~\mu \text{m}$ diameter, the IR-drop of bridge-chip-based integration technologies is only 1% higher than the standalone case.
A Survey of Academic Intensivists' Use of Neuromuscular Blockade in Subjects With ARDS

BACKGROUND: Our Cooling to Help Injured Lungs (CHILL) trial of therapeutic hypothermia in ARDS includes neuromuscular blockade (NMB) as an inclusion criterion to avoid shivering. NMB has been used to facilitate mechanical ventilation in ARDS and was shown to reduce mortality in the ACURASYS trial. To assess the feasibility of a multi-center CHILL trial, we conducted a survey of academic intensivists about their NMB use in patients with ARDS. METHODS: We distributed via email a 16-question survey about NMB use in patients with ARDS including frequency, indications, and dosing strategy. RESULTS: 212 (24.3%) of 871 respondents completed the survey: 94.7% were board-certified in internal medicine, 88% in pulmonary and critical care; 90.3% practiced in academic medical centers, with 87% working in medical ICUs; 96.6% of respondents who treat ARDS use NMB, and 39.7% use NMB in ≥ 50% of these patients. Of 4 listed indications for initiating NMB in ARDS, allowing adherence with lung-protective ventilator strategies and patient–ventilator synchrony were cited as the most important reasons, followed by the results of the ACURASYS trial and facilitating prone positioning. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that NMB is frequently used by academic intensivists to facilitate mechanical ventilation in patients with moderate to severe ARDS.
Cortical Excitability, Synaptic Plasticity, and Cognition in Benign Epilepsy With Centrotemporal Spikes: A Pilot TMS-EMG-EEG Study.

Purpose Children with benign epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes have rare seizures emerging from the motor cortex, which they outgrow in adolescence, and additionally may have language deficits of unclear etiology. We piloted the use of transcranial magnetic stimulation paired with EMG and EEG (TMS-EMG, TMS-EEG) to test the hypotheses that net cortical excitability decreases with age and that use-dependent plasticity predicts learning. Methods We assessed language and motor learning in 14 right-handed children with benign epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes. We quantified two TMS metrics of left motor cortex excitability: the resting motor threshold (measure of neuronal membrane excitability) and amplitude of the N100-evoked potential (an EEG measure of GABAergic tone). To test plasticity, we applied 1 Hz repetitive TMS to the motor cortex to induce long-term depression-like changes in EMG- and EEG-evoked potentials. Results Children with benign epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes tolerate TMS; no seizures were provoked. Resting motor threshold decreases with age but is elevated above maximal stimulator output for half the group. N100 amplitude decreases with age after controlling for resting motor threshold. Motor cortex plasticity correlates significantly with language learning and at a trend level with motor learning. Conclusions Transcranial magnetic stimulation is safe and feasible for children with benign epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes, and TMS-EEG provides more reliable outcome measures than TMS-EMG in this group because many children have unmeasurably high resting motor thresholds. Net cortical excitability decreases with age, and motor cortex plasticity predicts not only motor learning but also language learning, suggesting a mechanism by which motor cortex seizures may interact with language development.
Cast's Response to Environmental Issues

The Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST) is owned and directed by 28 scientific societies, each in the food and agricultural area. Through the coordinated efforts of the societies, major task force reports are written on key national issues. These reports are distributed to federal and sometimes state policymakers. Environmental issues have been a major theme of CAST reports throughout the organization's 17-year history.
The Early Days of Peer-to-Peer Lending: Why People Borrowed and Did They Repay

Since 2005, individual lenders have lent over $209 million in over 35,000 loans using Prosper.com, the largest peer-to-peer lending marketplace operating in the United States. Prosper loans have gone to individuals wanting to consolidate credit card debt, pay off medical bills, buy a car, and even finance their education. The number of loan listings by would-be borrowers shows the demand for these types of unsecured, fully amortized loans over a fixed period of a few years, and so far there has been a steady supply from individual lenders. This study focuses on loans that were obtained during 2006 – before the recession – and which became fully due in 2009. Prosper has made their entire loan database available to the public. This rich dataset includes information on borrowers’ financials (e.g., credit scores, past bankruptcies, number of credit lines open); the borrowers’ self-reported descriptions of why they wanted the loan and their ability to repay; information about how individual loans are bid down by competing lenders; and monthly repayment information, including delinquencies. The first part of the paper describes the peer-to-peer lending marketplace and the borrowers who were successful in obtaining loans during the period studied, as well as the reasons given by those borrowers for wanting a loan. The second part describes how lenders used the credit information provided by Prosper and the descriptive information provided by the borrowers to determine risk, and how lenders apportioned the risk (interest rate) accordingly. At the end of the day, only 60% of the Prosper loans in the time period studied were paid in full: most were charged-off and entered collections, and a few borrowers filed for bankruptcy. The third part of the paper is in its early stages. I am attempting to develop a model to predict the likelihood of bankruptcy based on past credit data provided by Prosper to the lenders as well as on the description that the borrowers gave when they requested a loan. The idea is to test the hypothesis that the reasons why borrowers gave for wanting a loan are predictive of whether they will enter enough financial distress to file for bankruptcy. For example, one assumption in this hypothesis is that borrowers who wanted a loan to consolidate credit card debt will default less frequently than similarly situated borrowers who wanted a loan for a different reason, as they now have just one fully amortized loan to pay off. These borrowers received a lower interest rate than similarly situated borrowers, suggesting that lenders agreed with this assumption.
Mechanics of a multilayer epithelium instruct tumour architecture and function

Loss of normal tissue architecture is a hallmark of oncogenic transformation1. In developing organisms, tissues architectures are sculpted by mechanical forces during morphogenesis2. However, the origins and consequences of tissue architecture during tumorigenesis remain elusive. In skin, premalignant basal cell carcinomas form 'buds', while invasive squamous cell carcinomas initiate as 'folds'. Here, using computational modelling, genetic manipulations and biophysical measurements, we identify the biophysical underpinnings and biological consequences of these tumour architectures. Cell proliferation and actomyosin contractility dominate tissue architectures in monolayer, but not multilayer, epithelia. In stratified epidermis, meanwhile, softening and enhanced remodelling of the basement membrane promote tumour budding, while stiffening of the basement membrane promotes folding. Additional key forces stem from the stratification and differentiation of progenitor cells. Tumour-specific suprabasal stiffness gradients are generated as oncogenic lesions progress towards malignancy, which we computationally predict will alter extensile tensions on the tumour basement membrane. The pathophysiologic ramifications of this prediction are profound. Genetically decreasing the stiffness of basement membranes increases membrane tensions in silico and potentiates the progression of invasive squamous cell carcinomas in vivo. Our findings suggest that mechanical forces-exerted from above and below progenitors of multilayered epithelia-function to shape premalignant tumour architectures and influence tumour progression.
Microstructured poly(ether-ether-ketone)-hydroxyapatite composites for bone replacements:

Utilizing a novel processing method of PEEK foam that produces hierarchical mesoporosity, we explore the use of hydroxyapatite (HA)/PEEK composites for mimicking the structure of human bone. The ef...
Reciprocating compressor valve condition monitoring using image-based pattern recognition

This work presents the development of a vibration-based condition monitoring method for early detection and classification of valve wear within industrial reciprocating compressors through the combined use of time-frequency analysis with image-based pattern recognition techniques. A common valve related fault condition is valve seat wear that is caused by repeated impact and accentuated by chatter. Seeded faults consistent with valve seat wear are introduced on the crankside discharge valves of a Dresser-Rand ESH-1 industrial compressor. A variety of operational data including vibration, cylinder pressure, and crank shaft position are collected and processed using a time-frequency domain approach. The resulting diagrams are processed as images with features extracted using 1st and 2nd order image statistics. A Bayesian classification strategy is employed with accuracy rates greater than 90% achieved using two and three-dimensional features spaces.
Elucidating the Role of Hydroxide Electrolyte on Anion-Exchange-Membrane Water Electrolyzer Performance

Author(s): Liu, J; Kang, Z; Li, D; Pak, M; Alia, SM; Fujimoto, C; Bender, G; Kim, YS; Weber, AZ | Abstract: Many solid-state devices, especially those requiring anion conduction, often add a supporting electrolyte to enable efficient operation. The prototypical case is that of anion-exchange-membrane water electrolyzers (AEMWEs), where addition of an alkali metal solution improves performance. However, the specific mechanism of this performance improvement is currently unknown. This work investigates the functionality of the alkali metal solution in AEMWEs using experiments and mathematical models. The results show that additional hydroxide plays a key role not only in ohmic resistance of the membrane and catalyst layer but also in the reaction kinetics. The modeling suggests that the added liquid electrolyte creates an additional electrochemical interface with the electrocatalyst that provides ion-transport pathways and distributes product gas bubbles; the total effective electrochemical active surface area in the cell with 1 M KOH is 5 times higher than that of the cell with DI water. In the cell with 1 M KOH, more than 80% of the reaction current is associate with the liquid electrolyte. These results indicate the importance of high pH of electrolyte and catalyst/electrolyte interface in AEMWEs. The understanding of the functionality of the alkali metal solution presented in this study should help guide the design and optimization of AEMWEs.
The Technology of Negotiation

Here, the author follows up on his Email and Text negotiating chapters, both of which discuss technology which by now have become quite generic. This chapter is different: Ebner here describes representative examples of a burgeoning class of proprietary programs, which individually address one or another situation or problem a negotiator may have. Together, they form an expanding array of electronic helpers—and merely hint at what may be available not far into the future. It is increasingly evident, as a result, that keeping up with the field is no longer simply a matter of reading; learning new programs as they come along is virtually guaranteed to become more and more essential.
How much can you learn in one year? How content, pedagogical resources, and learner’s age influence beliefs about knowledge acquisition

Abstract Three studies examined the intuitions of 290 children (ages 5–11) and 126 adults about knowledge acquisition in different content domains (mechanistic, psychological and skill knowledge) over one year. In experiment 1, even young children (5–7) adjusted their estimates of knowledge acquisition as a function of content domain, pedagogical support, and age of learner. All ages believed more could be learned from an expert than by trial and error experimentation; and that an older learner (21) would surpass a younger one (9). Children were more optimistic about how much knowledge could be acquired; and unlike adults, viewed psychological understanding as easiest to master. In experiment 2, young children’s optimism was maintained for learners their same age (5–7), but not for toddlers. In experiment 3, all ages showed self-enhancement effects. Although generally optimistic about knowledge acquisition, young children draw important distinctions between content domains, learning contexts, and ages of learners.
Watch Where You’re Going! Gaze and Head Orientation as Predictors for Social Robot Navigation

Mobile robots deployed in human-populated environments must be able to safely and comfortably navigate in close proximity to people. Head orientation and gaze are both mechanisms which help people to interpret where other people intend to walk, which in turn enables them to coordinate their movement. Head orientation has previously been leveraged to develop classifiers which are able to predict the goal of a person’s walking motion. Gaze is believed to generally precede head orientation, with a person quickly moving their eyes to a target and then following it with a turn of their head. This study leverages state-of-the-art virtual reality technology to place participants into a simulated environment in which their gaze and motion can be observed. The results of this study indicate that position, velocity, head orientation, and gaze can all be used as predictive features of the goal of a person’s walking motion. The results also indicate that gaze both precedes head orientation and can be used to predict the goal of a person’s walking motion at a higher level of accuracy earlier in their walking trajectory. These findings can be leveraged in the design of social navigation systems for mobile robots.
Chapter 20. Arachidonate Lipoxygenase

Publisher Summary Lipoxygenases are enzymes that catalyze the hydroperoxidation of polyunsaturated fatty acids, esters, alcohols, and others containing a cis-cis-1,4-pentadiene system; the products contain 1-hydroperoxy-2,4-trans, cispentadiene fragments. The enzymes belong to the class known as dioxygenases that characteristically incorporate two atoms of molecular oxygen into a substrate. It was found in 1974 that Guinea pig lung and spleen homogenates produced at least ten times as much 12-hydroxyeicosatetraenoic acid (HETE) when incubated with AA as did homogenates of kidney, stomach, liver, heart, and whole blood. The term arachidonate lipoxygenase was coined shortly hereafter when the enzyme isolated from platelets of various mammals displayed higher conversion rates for AA than for a variety of other fatty acids containing the cis-cis-1,4-pentadiene fragment. Dihydroxyeicosatetraenoic acids (di-HETEs) were isolated after the incubation of suspensions of rabbit peritoneal polymorphonuclear leucocytes (PMNL) with AA and the unstable (leukotriene A 4 ) was proposed as the reactive intermediate. In addition to human platelets, guinea pig lung and spleen homogenates, rabbit PMNL, human neutrophil, and rat RBL-1 cells, other tissues have been reported to display lipoxygenase activity against a variety of substrates. Researchers examined a large list of flavonoids for the inhibition of lipoxygenase from soybean, from rat lung, and spleen and for the inhibition of PG synthetase from rat renal medulla. A comparison of 27 and 1,5-dihydroxynaphthalene, using plant and rat lipoxygenases, shows almost identical inhibition properties, adding evidence that most soybean lipoxygenase inhibitors inhibit animal lipoxygenase as well.
Metformin limits the adipocyte tumor-promoting effect on ovarian cancer

// Calvin Tebbe 1 , Jasdeep Chhina 1 , Sajad A. Dar 1 , Kalli Sarigiannis 1 , Shailendra Giri 2 , Adnan R. Munkarah 1 , and Ramandeep Rattan 1 1 Division of Gynecology Oncology, Department of Women’s Health, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Henry Ford Hospital, Detroit, MI 48202, USA. 2 Department of Neurology, Henry Ford Hospital, Detroit, MI, USA. Correspondence: Ramandeep Rattan, email: // Keywords : ovarian cancer, 3T3L1 adipocytes, metformin, AMPK, ID8 cells, adipogenesis Received : March 6, 2014 Accepted : May 26, 2014 Published : May 26, 2014 Abstract Omental adipocytes promote ovarian cancer by secretion of adipokines, cytokines and growth factors, and acting as fuel depots. We investigated if metformin modulates the ovarian cancer promoting effects of adipocytes. Effect of conditioned media obtained from differentiated mouse 3T3L1 preadipoctes on the proliferation and migration of a mouse ovarian surface epithelium cancer cell line (ID8) was estimated. Conditioned media from differentiated adipocytes increased the proliferation and migration of ID8 cells, which was attenuated by metformin. Metformin inhibited adipogenesis by inhibition of key adipogenesis regulating transcription factors (CEBPα, CEBPs, and SREBP1), and induced AMPK. A targeted Cancer Pathway Finder RT-PCR (real-time polymerase chain reaction) based gene array revealed 20 up-regulated and 2 down-regulated genes in ID8 cells exposed to adipocyte conditioned media, which were altered by metformin. Adipocyte conditioned media also induced bio-energetic changes in the ID8 cells by pushing them into a highly metabolically active state; these effects were reversed by metformin. Collectively, metformin treatment inhibited the adipocyte mediated ovarian cancer cell proliferation, migration, expression of cancer associated genes and bio-energetic changes. Suggesting, that metformin could be a therapeutic option for ovarian cancer at an early stage, as it not only targets ovarian cancer, but also modulates the environmental milieu.
Iterative decoding of SC-CPM with an M*-BCJR equalizer

Serially concatenated continuous phase modulation (SC-CPM) systems combine the benefits of a constant envelope signal, excellent spectral properties, and good performance with iterative demodulation/decoding. When used over frequency-selective fading channels with long delay spreads, however, a large number of states in the joint CPM-channel trellis makes the trellis-based demodulation/equalization prohibitively complex. In this paper, we overcome this problem by employing a new reduced-complexity soft-input soft-output (SISO) algorithm, the M*-BCJR algorithm. The performance/complexity tradeoffs involved in the system design are investigated and the M*-BCJR system is compared to the BCJR and reduced state BCJR systems by means of simulations.
A Study of Reinforcement Learning in the Continuous Case by the Means of Viscosity Solutions

This paper proposes a study of Reinforcement Learning (RL) for continuous state-space and time control problems, based on the theoretical framework of viscosity solutions (VSs). We use the method of dynamic programming (DP) which introduces the value function (VF), expectation of the best future cumulative reinforcement. In the continuous case, the value function satisfies a non-linear first (or second) order (depending on the deterministic or stochastic aspect of the process) differential equation called the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equation. It is well known that there exists an infinity of generalized solutions (differentiable almost everywhere) to this equation, other than the VF. We show that gradient-descent methods may converge to one of these generalized solutions, thus failing to find the optimal control. In order to solve the HJB equation, we use the powerful framework of viscosity solutions and state that there exists a unique viscosity solution to the HJB equation, which is the value function. Then, we use another main result of VSs (their stability when passing to the limit) to prove the convergence of numerical approximations schemes based on finite difference (FD) and finite element (FE) methods. These methods discretize, at some resolution, the HJB equation into a DP equation of a Markov Decision Process (MDP), which can be solved by DP methods (thanks to a “strong” contraction property) if all the initial data (the state dynamics and the reinforcement function) were perfectly known. However, in the RL approach, as we consider a system in interaction with some a priori (at least partially) unknown environment, which learns “from experience”, the initial data are not perfectly known but have to be approximated during learning. The main contribution of this work is to derive a general convergence theorem for RL algorithms when one uses only “approximations” (in a sense of satisfying some “weak” contraction property) of the initial data. This result can be used for model-based or model-free RL algorithms, with off-line or on-line updating methods, for deterministic or stochastic state dynamics (though this latter case is not described here), and based on FE or FD discretization methods. It is illustrated with several RL algorithms and one numerical simulation for the “Car on the Hill” problem.
Path-connected Group Extensions

Let N be a normal subgroup of a path-connected topological group (G, ). In this paper, the authors consider the existence of path-connectedness in refined topologies in order to address the property of maximal path-connectedness in topological groups. In particular, refinements on and refinements on the quotient topology on G/N are studied. The preservation of path-connectedness in extending topologies and translation topologies is also considered.
Legal Help-Seeking Experiences of Former Intimate-Stalking Victims

Few researchers have explored the experiences of stalking victims in the legal system. Data for this study were gathered through extensive interviews with 187 women who were stalked by former intimate partners. Content analyses of interview transcripts revealed that most victims initially attempted to handle the situation themselves, but the majority ultimately sought assistance from the legal system. Logistic regression analyses examined predictors of legal help seeking. Predictors of seeking any type of legal help, filing for a protection from abuse order or temporary restraining order, and/or seeking police assistance included age (i.e., older women were more likely to seek help), race (i.e., White women were most likely to seek assistance), the presence of threats of violence, violent acts by the stalker, and length of stalking. Likert-type scale ratings by victims of the police, prosecutors’, and judges’ handling of their cases revealed greatest satisfaction with judges, followed by prosecutors. Suggestions for ways in which the system can better respond to the needs of stalking victims are made. Policy recommendations include greater criminal justice responsiveness to victims of stalking and more coordinated efforts between the police and courts.
An integer programming and decomposition approach to general chance-constrained mathematical programs

We present a new approach for exactly solving general chance constrained mathematical programs having discrete distributions. Such problems have been notoriously difficult to solve due to nonconvexity of the feasible region, and currently available methods are only able to find provably good solutions in certain very special cases. Our approach uses both decomposition, to enable processing subproblems corresponding to one possible outcome at a time, and integer programming techniques, to combine the results of these subproblems to yield strong valid inequalities. Computational results on a chance-constrained two-stage problem arising in call center staffing indicate the approach works significantly better than both an existing mixed-integer programming formulation and a simple decomposition approach that does not use strong valid inequalities. Thus, the strength of this approach results from the successful merger of stochastic programming decomposition techniques with integer programming techniques for finding strong valid inequalities.
Decreased insulin-dependent glucose transport by chronic ethanol feeding is associated with dysregulation of the Cbl/TC10 pathway in rat adipocytes

Heavy alcohol consumption is an independent risk factor for type 2 diabetes. Although the exact mechanism by which alcohol contributes to the increased risk is unknown, impaired glucose disposal is...
Coronary Artery Surgery without Global Ischemia

A simple technique for local occlusion of the coronary artery without aortic cross-clamping during the distal anastomosis has been developed. The use of this internal coronary artery occluder, which we developed, represents another step forward in myocardial protection during coronary bypass procedures.
Dialect acquisition among Puerto Rican bilinguals

Phonological studies are particularly useful in this respect: phonological systems are highly structured, and phonological variables are often less subject to conscious correction than are variables which are more overtly recognized. Phonological variables also yield a large body of data from a relatively small amount of speech. In this paper I will demonstrate that detailed phonetic studies are one of the best ways of studying social life, by presenting a case where phonetic variation reveals certain aspects of speakers' value systems. Current research on dialect acquisition and language change suggests that a child's speech patterns are affected more by peer-group interaction than by parental influence. Studies of English in Philadelphia areas into which families have moved from different dialect regions (Labov I972; Payne I976) have shown that although complex phonological rules are not internalized successfully by out-of-state children, low-level phonetic rules are acquired in striking percentages. (The term 'phonetic variable' here refers to a simple vowel shift in the Philadelphia dialect, while 'phonological variables' also involve change in the structure of word-class assignment.) In a study focusing on four phonetic variables and one phonological variable specific to the Philadelphia dialect,2 Payne demonstrated that the pattern, or 'pronunciation' of every phonetic variable but one had been completely acquired by at least 50% of the out-of-state children in her study, and that very few had failed to acquire the patterns at all. The objective of the present study is to investigate the nature of dialect acquisition by children with a different language background: bilingual Puerto Rican speakers of English. The work reported here originated as a group effort with Barbara Freed, Susan Lindheim, and Laurel Tanner. Four schools with
Impact of a power plant on a subtropical estuarine environment

Abstract The development of electricity generating stations around Biscayne Bay, Florida, has resulted in a considerable discharge of cooling water into this subtropical sea. The impact of this on the biology of the area has been studied for the last four years by a team of scientists; this report summarizes their general conclusions.
Alabama Baptists: Southern Baptists in the Heart of Dixie

Alabama Baptists provides the definitive history of the dominant religious group within the state of Alabama from the first decade of the 19th century to the present.
Oral electrolyte overload to cleanse the colon for colonoscopy

The colons of inpatients and outpatients in our hospital were cleansed in 2 to 3 hours by a fluid and electrolyte overload method whereby the patients rapidly drank 2.5 to 3.5 liters of an isotonic solution. Better results were obtained, both for colonoscopy and radiography, by the overload method when compared with a standard preparatory regimen. There were no significant changes in blood pressure, pulse rates, or serum electrolytes (patients at known cardiovascular risk were excluded from the study). Major complications were not encountered. Eighty percent of patients preferred the overload method to the standard regimen.
THE CANONICAL INVERSE PROBLEM

Abstract The following inverse problem is studied: What is the incident distribution on a half-space given the outgoing distribution? The solution is seen to be readily available by classical Caseology (plus a little analytic continuation).
Agenda Control in Congress: Evidence from Cutpoint Estimates and Ideal Point Uncertainty

than 6 percent of cutpoints fall in the region the negative agenda model predicts nocutpoints. Our results based on ideal point uncertainty largely corroborate the results basedon cutpoints.Our results are at variance, however, with two important implications of Cox andMcCubbins (2005) negative agenda theory. First, we ﬂnd that negative agenda controlis not unconditional. Instead, negative agenda control appears to strengthen over time,particularly after the committee reforms of the mid-1970s. Second, our results indicatethat negative agenda control is negatively related to the size of the majority party interval.These ﬂndings both suggest that the mechanisms behind negative agenda control are notfully understood.This paper proceeds as follows. First, we discuss the three models and our empiricalstrategy. Second, we detail the statistical techniques employed. Third, we present resultsfrom a series of simulations that demonstrate the validity of our general approach. Fourth,we report results when our method is applied to House roll call votes in the 86th to the108th Congresses. Our conclusions follow.3
Structural Analysis, Selection, and Ontogeny of the Shark New Antigen Receptor (IgNAR): Identification of a New Locus Preferentially Expressed in Early Development

The new antigen receptor (IgNAR) family has been detected in all elasmobranch species so far studied and has several intriguing structural and functional features. IgNAR protein, found in both transmembrane and secretory forms, is a dimer of heavy chains with no associated light chains, with each chain of the dimer having a single free and flexible V region. Four rearrangement events (among 1V, 3D, and 1J germline genes) generate an expressed NAR V gene, resulting in long and diverse CDR3 regions that contain cysteine residues. IgNAR mutation frequency is very high and "selected" mutations are found only in genes encoding the secreted form, suggesting that the primary repertoire is entirely CDR3-based. Here we further analyzed the two IgNAR types, "type 1" having one cysteine in CDR3 and "type 2" with an even number (two or four) of CDR3 cysteines, and discovered that placement of the disulfide bridges in the IgNAR V domain differentially influences the selection of mutations in CDR1 and CDR2. Ontogenetic analyses showed that IgNAR sequences from young animals were infrequently mutated, consistent with the paradigm that the shark immune system must become mature before high levels of mutation accompanied with selection can occur. Nevertheless, also in agreement with the idea that the IgNAR repertoire is entirely CDR3-based, but unlike studies in most other vertebrates, N-region diversity is present in expressed IgNAR clones at birth. During the investigation of this early IgNAR repertoire we serendipitously detected a third type of IgNAR gene that is expressed in all neonatal tissues; later in life its expression is perpetuated only in the epigonal organ, a tissue recently shown to be a (the?) primary lymphoid tissue in elasmobranchs. This "type 3" IgNAR gene still undergoes three rearrangement events (two D regions are "germline-joined"), yet CDR3 sequences were exactly of the same length and very similar sequence, suggesting that "type 3" CDR3s are selected early in ontogeny, perhaps by a self-ligand.
Local ancillarity in the presence of a nuisance parameter

SUMMARY Approximate ancillarity in the presence of a nuisance parameter is considered. A theory of approximate S-ancillarity, based on the concept of local ancillarity introduced by Cox (1980), is developed. First- and second-order local S-ancillarity are considered in detail and these results are applied to several examples. These examples indicate that, although first-order local S-ancillarity is a weak condition, second-order local S-ancillarity is too strong a requirement for general use. Hence, a second aspect of the paper is a study of the properties of an approximately ancillary statistic that are desirable for inference in the presence of a nuisance parameter; this leads to a weaker definition of local ancillarity in the presence of a nuisance parameter that is satisfied in many cases.
Membrane microviscosity regulates endothelial cell motility

Endothelial cell (EC) movement is an initiating and rate-limiting event in the neogenesis and repair of blood vessels. Here, we explore the hypothesis that microviscosity of the plasma membrane (PM) is a key physiological regulator of cell movement. Aortic ECs treated with membrane-active agents, such as α-tocopherol, cholesterol and lysophospholipids, exhibited a biphasic dependency on membrane microviscosity, in which moderate increases enhanced EC migration, but increases beyond a threshold markedly inhibited migration. Surprisingly, angiogenic growth factors, that is, basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), also increased membrane microviscosity, as measured in live cells by fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP). The localization of Rac to the PM was modified in cells treated with membrane-active agents or growth factors, suggesting a molecular mechanism for how membrane microviscosity influences cell movement. Our data show that angiogenic growth factors, as well as certain lipophilic molecules, regulate cell motility through alterations in membrane properties and the consequent relocalization of critical signalling molecules to membranes.
Modulo scheduling without overlapped lifetimes

This paper describes complementary software- and hardware-based approaches for handling overlapping register lifetimes that occur in modulo scheduled loops. Modulo scheduling takes the N-instructions in a loop body and constructs an M-stage software pipeline. The length of each stage in the software pipeline is the Initiation Interval (II), which is the rate at which new loop iterations are started. An overlapped lifetime has a live range longer than the II, and as a consequence, the current iteration writes a new value to a register before a previous loop iteration has fin-ished using the old value. Hardware and software solutions for dealing with overlapped lifetimes have been proposed by re-searchers and also implemented in commercial products. These solutions include rotating register files, register queues, modulo variable expansion, and post-scheduling live range splitting. Each of these approaches has drawbacks for embedded systems such as an increase in silicon area, power consumption, and code size.Our approach, which is an improvement to the current solutions, prevents overlapped lifetimes through a combination of hardware and software techniques. The hardware element of our approach implements a register assignment latency that allows multiple in-flight writes to be pending to the same register. The software element of our approach uses dependence analysis and a constrained modulo scheduling algorithm to prevent overlapped lifetimes. We describe how to use these hardware and software techniques during modulo scheduling. Finally, we present the results of using our approach to compile embedded application code and present results in terms of modulo schedule quality and application performance.
Sweep in a Transonic Fan Rotor: Part 1 — 3D Geometry Package

A geometry package was developed which uses six Bezier surfaces to describe an axial compressor blade. The blade is defined by 32 control points and two parameters, which determine the leading and trailing edge extensions. The package was used to represent a reference transonic fan rotor to within machining tolerances, and then to introduce forward and backward sweep holding blade-element design parameters fixed. Blade lean and point geometry manipulations were also demonstrated. All geometries produced by the package are machinable without approximation. The Bezier-surface representation was chosen in order to minimize the number of control points required to specify the blade shape and eventually enable aero-structural-manufacturing optimization.Copyright © 1998 by ASME
Hyperspectral anomaly detection beyond RX

The basic multivariate anomaly detector ("the RX algorithm") of Kelly and Reed remains little altered after nearly 30 years and performs reasonably well with hyperspectral imagery. However, better performance can be achieved in spectral applications by recognizing a deficiency in the hypothesis test that generates RX. The problem is commonly associated with the improved performance that results from deleting several high-variance clutter dimensions before applying RX, a procedure not envisioned in the original algorithm. There is, moreover, a better way to enhance detection than simply deleting the offending subspace. Instead of invoking the "additive target" model, one can exploit expected differences in spectral variability between target and background signals in the clutter dimensions. Several methods are discussed for achieving detection gain using this principle. Two of these are based on modifications to the RX hypothesis test. One results in Joint Subspace Detection, the other in an algorithm with a similar form but which does not postulate a clutter subspace. Each of these modifies the RX algorithm to incorporate clutter-dependent weights, including "anti-RX" terms in the clutter subspace. A newer approach is also described, which effects a nonlinear suppression of false alarms that are detected by an RX-type algorithm, employed as a preprocessor. Both techniques rely ultimately on the incorporation of simple spectral phenomenology into the detection process.