cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Experimental Investigation of Strain Rate Dependence of Nanocrystalline Pt Films

A new microscale uniaxial tension experimental method was developed to investigate the strain rate dependent mechanical behavior of freestanding metallic thin films for MEMS. The method allows for highly repeatable mechanical testing of thin films for over eight orders of magnitude of strain rate. Its repeatability stems from the direct and full-field displacement measurements obtained from optical images with at least 25 nm displacement resolution. The method is demonstrated with micron-scale, 400-nm thick, freestanding nanocrystalline Pt specimens, with 25 nm grain size. The experiments were conducted in situ under an optical microscope, equipped with a digital high-speed camera, in the nominal strain rate range 10−6–101 s−1. Full field displacements were computed by digital image correlation using a random speckle pattern generated onto the freestanding specimens. The elastic modulus of Pt, E = 182 ± 8 GPa, derived from uniaxial stress vs. strain curves, was independent of strain rate, while its Poisson’s ratio was v = 0.41 ± 0.01. Although the nanocrystalline Pt films had the elastic properties of bulk Pt, their inelastic property values were much higher than bulk and were rate-sensitive over the range of loading rates. For example, the elastic limit increased by more than 110% with increasing strain rate, and was 2–5 times higher than bulk Pt reaching 1.37 GPa at 101 s−1.
The future of software engineering: keynote

No matter what future we may envision, it relies on software that has not yet been written. Even now, software-intensive systems have woven themselves into the interstitial spaces of civilization, and we as individuals and as a species have slowly surrendered ourselves to computing. Looking back, we can identify several major and distinct styles whereby we have built such systems. We have come a long way, and even today, we certainly can name a number of best practices for software development that yield systems of quality. However, by no means can we stand still: the nature of the systems we build continues to change, and as they collectively weave themselves into our live, we must attend not only to the technical elements of software development, we must also attend to human needs. In this presentation we will look at the history of software engineering and offer some grand challenges for the future.
Computer-aided drug-discovery techniques that account for receptor flexibility

Protein flexibility plays a critical role in ligand binding to both orthosteric and allosteric sites. We here review some of the computer-aided drug-design techniques currently used to account for protein flexibility, ranging from methods that probe local receptor flexibility in the region of the protein immediately adjacent to the binding site, to those that account for general flexibility in all protein regions.
A hybrid method for the solution of the electromagnetic scattering by an inhomogeneously filled trough or slit in a thick conducting screen

A hybrid method that combines the method of moments (MOM) and the finite element method (FEM) is presented. The technique's power consists in the fact that the FEM matrix need only be filled and factored once. Subsequently, the aperture fields are then solved for when the cavity is perturbed by the equivalent aperture currents, and are matched to the exterior region. The exterior problem is then solved using the MOM. The MOM solution requires only the filling and factoring of a small dense matrix, providing a means to solve for the aperture currents for any number of incident fields. Numerical results for various problems are presented. >
Video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery for patent ductus arteriosus in low birth weight neonates and infants.

Background. Video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) has been assuming an expanded role in the management of cardiothoracic disease. As instrumentation and experience increase, VATS is being applied to treat smaller patients. We report our experience with 34 low birth weight infants undergoing VATS interruption of patent ductus arteriosus (PDA). Methods. VATS allows PDA interruption without the muscle cutting or rib spreading of a standard thoracotomy. Four small, 3-mm incisions are made along the line of a potential thoracotomy incision. Ports placed through these incisions admit endoscopic instruments, a camera, and a vascular clip applier. Results. Median age at surgery was 15.5 days (range: 1–44 days). Median weight at surgery was 930 g (range: 575-2500 g). Twenty patients weighed Median surgical time was 60 minutes (range: 31–171 minutes). Echocardiography documented elimination of ductal flow in all patients. Operative mortality was zero. Four patients (4/34 = 12%) required conversion to open thoracotomy: 1 because of difficult exposure, 1 because of pulmonary dysfunction and anasarca, 1 because of a large 1-cm duct, and 1 because of coagulopathy and poor pulmonary compliance. Two patients died before discharge: 1 patient (surgical weight: 605 g) died on postoperative day 2 because of intracranial hemorrhage, and 1 patient (surgical weight: 1725 g) died on postoperative day 88 because of multiple system organ failure. Follow-up has demonstrated no PDA murmur in any patient, but echocardiography revealed trace ductal flow in 2 patients. Conclusions. VATS offers a minimally traumatic, safe, and effective technique for PDA interruption in low birth weight neonates and infants.
Self Encoded Spread Spectrum Communication with FH-MFSK

Self-encoded spread spectrum (SESS) is a novel communication technique that derives its spreading code from the randomness of the source stream rather than using a more conventional pseudo-random noise (PN) code for frequency translation. This paper proposes a SESS method enabling a random source stream to fast frequency hop a carrier while maintaining acceptable error performance compared to a non-SESS system. It has been shown through simulation that a SESS based frequency hopped system remains stable and can serve as the foundation of a practical SESS-FH system in the presence of jammers.
The solution of viscous incompressible jet flows using non-staggered boundary fitted co-ordinate methods

A new approach for the solution of the steady incompressible Navier-Stokes equations in a domain bounded in part by a free surface is presented. The procedure is based on the finite difference technique, with the non-staggered grid fractional step method used to solve the flow equations written in terms of primitive variables. The physical domain is transformed to a rectangle by means of a numerical mapping technique. In order to design an effective free solution scheme, we distinguish between flows dominated by surface tension and those dominated by inertia and viscosity. When the surface tension effect is insignificant we used the kinematic condition to update the surface; whereas, in the opposite case, we used the normal stress condition to obtain the free surface boundary
Evolutionary Thought in Management and Organization Theory at the Beginning of the New Millennium A Symposium on the State of the Art and Opportunities for Future Research

The beginning of a new millennium provides a welcome opportunity to take stock of the accomplishments, open questions, and most promising research avenues of evolutionary models in management and organization theory. Johann Peter Murmann has invited Howard Aldrich, Daniel Levinthal, and Sidney Winter to appraise the state of the art in evolutionary research and where scholarly efforts should go in the new millennium. The panel also clarified their positions by answering questions that Johann Peter Murmann solicited from the scholarly community in response to the panel's dialogue.
The nitrogen budget of a hybrid poplar plantation in Minnesota

The nitrogen (N) dynamics within short-rotation intensive-culture forest plantations are poorly understood. We developed a N budget for a 3-year-old hybrid poplar plantation under short-rotation intensive-culture management in northwestern Minnesota. Measured pools and fluxes of N included plant content, atmospheric input, litter fall, microbial biomass, mineralization, nitrification, and denitrification. Total aboveground tree biomass represented only 1.6% of the total N capital. Stable soil organic N was the largest pool, 5670 kg N•ha−1, and constituted 93% of all N within the site. Labile soil organic N and microbial N represented 5.6 and 1.6% of stable soil organic N, respectively. Nitrogen mineralization averaged 56 kg N•ha−1•year−1, and 66% of that production was oxidized to NO3−. Losses of N by denitrification and leaching were small compared with the magnitude of the other fluxes. Results suggest that a relatively high rate of plant uptake and production maintained NH4+ and NO3− pools at low level...
Breakdown lemiter studies for high power X-band microwaves

The design, fabrication and initial measurements and analysis of an X-band high power microwave (HPM) limiter are presented. The microwave discharge test chamber is an L-band rectangular waveguide with Lexan or Rexolite microwave windows. The chamber is illuminated by the output of an X-band waveguide pressed against the chamber window. The objective is to study conditions and configurations that enable rapid (< 50 ns) discharge formation above a pre-set power density threshold. A 25 kW X-band magnetron (9.38 GHz) with a 0. 8 |is pulse width is used to produce the breakdown. Incident, reflected and transmitted microwave powers and optical emission intensities are measured to observe the discharge breakdown and extinction rates near Paschen minimum pressures for Ar and Ar/Ne mixtures in the 10s of Torr range. Design modeling, preliminary experimental data and data analyses are presented.
Biomimetic learning, not learning biomimetics: A survey of developmental learning

Rather than try to learn skills directly, developmental learning seeks to create a general purpose system inspired by the human developmental process. The premise is that intelligent behavior can only be achieved through the course of experience, and attempts to circumvent this approach will lead to a plateau limiting performance. There are many facets of this approach and some of the common examples are categorization, sensorimotor control and social learning. These are relatively simple tasks for people, yet challenging for an autonomous robot. A survey of research in this recent field is presented. The concepts and the tools used are described so that other disciplines may have a understanding of this field and use the paradigm in their applications.
High-content screening: getting more from less

A parallel microfluidic cytometer combines low-pixel-count, one-dimensional images with parallel-channel flow cytometry for high-speed, high-throughput screening of cells.
Thermal-Shock Damage in SiC

Two silicon carbides with different fracture surface energies were subjected to increasingly severe thermal shock; the damage was monitored by changes in the specific damping capacity, elastic modulus, and fracture strength. The fracture strength followed predicted trends, but the strength losses did not correlate with the changes observed in damping and modulus. The differences in thermal-shock resistance of the materials were related to the fracture surface energy; the body with the higher fracture energy had superior resistance to thermal-shock damage.
Blood pressure, renin activity and heart rate changes during propranolol therapy of hypertension

To investigate the importance of plasma renin activity in determining the antihypertensive action of propranolol and of heart rate in guiding propranolol therapy, the effect of a graded oral dose of propranolol on blood pressure, plasma renin and heart rate was studied in 24 men with essential hypertension and differing initial levels of renin activity. Although plasma renin decreased substantially in patients with normal and high renin levels tasking a small dose of propranolol (40 mg/day), blood pressure was unchanged in the normal renin group, and a small decrease in systolic pressure alone was noted in those with high plasma levels of renin. Patients with low renin levels had no reduction in blood pressure with small doses of propranolol, but as a group they responded well to a dose of 320 mg/day. Standing heart rate decreased maximally at plasma propranolol concentrations greater than 25 ng/ml, and did not exceed 72 beats/min with plasma concentrations above that level. Overall, the observed responses for plasma renin and heart were more pronounced at lower plasma propranolol concentrations than those for blood pressure.
Dynamic programming solutions for decentralized state-feedback LQG problems with communication delays

This paper presents explicit solutions for a class of decentralized LQG problems in which players communicate their states with delays. A method for decomposing the Bellman equation into a hierarchy of independent subproblems is introduced. Using this decomposition, all of the gains for the optimal controller are computed from the solution of a single algebraic Riccati equation.
Applications of AFIS Fineness and Maturity Module and X-Ray Fluorescence Spectroscopy in Fiber Maturity Evaluation

Worldwide round-testing and calibration of the nep-counting and fiber-length mod ules of the Zellweger Uster advanced fiber information system (AFIS) are well advanced. Lack of appropriate quantitative calibration standards for fiber maturity has limited similar development of the prototypic AFIS fineness and maturity (F&M) module. A combination of calcium x-ray fluorescence Spectroscopy (Ca-XRF) and AFIS-F&M map ping of fiber quality from twenty-one days post anthesis (DPA) to boll opening (56 DPA) permits direct comparisons of AFIS-determined fiber physical maturity (as micronAFIS, circularity, and cross-sectional area) with fiber chronological maturity (as DPA) and physiochemical maturity (as Ca-XRF). The AFIS-F&M module is a powerful tool that makes possible quantitative comparisons of fiber maturity across time (during fiber development and in different crop years), across space (different boll and locule positions and different growing areas), within single bolls and locules, and between cotton vari...
A SLAM II simulation study of a simplified flow shop

Control of jobs being processed in a flow shop is important to management. Shop performance is affected by shop congestion, processing time variation, and the dispatching rule used to load the jobs. Most previous research has concentrated on the effects of varying these parameters in a job shop setting. A SLAM II net work model and simulation analysis of these parameter varia tions was applied in a two-work center flow shop. Performance of the flow shop was tested using combinations of 5 dispatching rules, 3 shop load levels, and 2 levels of processing time varia tion. Based on a series of performance measures, the shop using the shortest processing time dispatching rule in one work center and the due data based rule in the other compares favorably with the shop that used the shortest processing time rule in both work centers. Results indicate that shop congestion and process ing time variation affect the performance of the flow shop as well. Performances between the flow shop and job shop are com pared, ...
The Human Brain Processes Syntax in the Absence of Conscious Awareness

Syntax is the core computational component of language. A longstanding idea about syntactic processing is that it is generally not available to conscious access, operating autonomously and automatically. However, there is little direct neurocognitive evidence on this issue. By measuring event-related potentials while human observers performed a novel cross-modal distraction task, we demonstrated that syntactic violations that were not consciously detected nonetheless produced a characteristic early neural response pattern, and also significantly delayed reaction times to a concurrent task. This early neural response was distinct from later neural activity that was observed only to syntactic violations that were consciously detected. These findings provide direct evidence that the human brain reacts to violations of syntax even when these violations are not consciously detected, indicating that even highly complex computational processes such as syntactic processing can occur outside the narrow window of conscious awareness.
Reference Range of Platelet Delta Granules in the Pediatric Age Group: An Ultrastructural Study of Platelet Whole Mount Preparations from Healthy Volunteers.

Abstract Objective: We aimed to determine delta granule normal ranges for children and validate methodology for the appropriate diagnosis of delta granule deficiency (storage pool disease) by electron microscopy (EM), utilizing the whole mount technique. Methods: Specimens from 40 healthy volunteers (2 months through 21 years old, 21 females and 19 males) were tested. Results: DG/Plt (dense granules/platelet) ranged from 1.78 to 5.25. The 5th percentile is 1.96 DG/Plt with an overall mean of 3.07 DG/Plt (SE = 0.12). In comparison a previously published lower cut-off value, 3.68 DG/Plt, is significantly higher than the mean of our volunteers, P<0.0001. We found no DG/Plt variability based on race or gender and no significant variation by age subgroup. Conclusions: Pending wider studies, the value of 2DG/Plt is a more appropriate lower limit of normal. In the absence of wider studies (on healthy volunteers and patients), laboratories should consider establishing their own reference ranges. Key Words: childr...
Patent Eligibility of Programming Languages and Tools

While patent eligibility is a frequently discussed topic for computer programs in general, it is less often addressed for the instruments that are used for creating those programs — programming languages and tools. However, the patent eligibility analysis for programming languages and tools is particularly important because it determines whether standards for creating computer programs can be made proprietary under the patent laws subjecting them to the exclusive control of the patent holders. Therefore, it is the goal of this Article to provide a basic analysis for patent eligibility of programming languages and their implementations in programming tools.This Article presents an attempt to carefully refine the law of patent eligibility by applying the existing statutory framework and judicial precedents to the field of programming languages and tools. The analysis will be structured into five Parts. It will begin with a brief inquiry into the relationship between patent and copyright eligibility (Part I). Then the law of patent eligibility is surveyed (Part II) and applied to programming languages and tools (Part III). This application of the law is followed by an analysis of a possible First Amendment limitation (Part IV) and complemented by a final summary of the results (Part V).
Amine-Templated Anionic Metal-Organic Frameworks with the 4,4'-(Hexafluoroisopropylidene) Bis(benzoic acid) Ligand

Three new compounds with anionic metal–organic frameworks [M3(hfbba)4]2–, M = Mn2+ or Co2+, hfbba = 4,4′-(hexafluoroisopropylidene)bis(benzoic acid), have been synthesized by solvothermal technique...
Brushing Your Teeth Can Be Fun: And Lots of Other Good Ideas for How to Grow Up Healthy, Strong, and Smart

Munro Leaf New York: Universe Publishing, a Division of Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 2008. 55 pp., illustrated $14.95 hardcover ISBN 978-0-7893-1594-6 This book was originally published in 1943 as Health Can Be Fun by Munro Leaf (1905–76), an author famous for children’s books,
Retention of metals in agricultural soils after amending with MSW and MSW-biosolids compost

The goal of this study was to measure the As, Cu, Fe, Pb and Zn contents of soils amended with municipal solid waste (MSW) and MSW-biosolids compost and to determine the long-term transport of these metals to lower soil horizons. Lead, Cu, Cd and Zn contents in the composts were 3–20 times more concentrated in the compost compared to the soil at the Calverton, NY, U.S.A. farm. As a result, Pb, Cd, Cu and Zn were elevated in the upper 5 cm soil layer following compost application and the metal enrichment was proportional to the amount of compost applied (21–62 Mg ha-1). In addition, Pb, As and Cu contents of the non-compost amended Calverton soils were enriched above the tillage depth (20–25 cm). Cu, Pb and As enrichment was attributed to the historical use of sodium arsenite, lead arsenate and copper sulfate insecticides and fungicides. Results of the metal analyses of soil cores collected 16 and 52 months following compost application showed that Cu, Zn and Pb remained confined to the upper 5 cm soil layer. The low water extractable fraction of these metals in MSW and MSW-biosolids compost was a major factor limiting the transport of these metals to lower soil horizons. In contrast, Cd leaching from the upper 0–5 and 5–10 cm soil layers was continuous over the 52 month study period and was attributed primarily to the presence of soluble Cd in phosphate fertilizer initially applied to the Calverton farm soil.
Idempotent conjugacy in monoids

We continue the study of the local structure of monoids in which \(\mathscr {J}\)-related idempotents are conjugate. For a regular \(\mathscr {J}\)-class J, its Graham blocks of idempotents are determined in terms of the associated parabolic subgroups, and then necessary and sufficient conditions are found for J to be generated by its idempotents. We further introduce a generalization to include the full transformation semigroup. The local monoids and the Graham blocks are again determined.
Competitors or Teammates: How Proper Names Influence Each Other

Research has documented that proper names are more difficult to learn and remember than other types of words. Various causes of this difficulty have been proposed to better understand how proper na...
A look towards the future in the handling of space science mission geometry

Abstract The “SPICE” system 1 has been widely used since the days of the Magellan mission to Venus as the method for scientists and engineers to access a variety of space mission geometry such as positions, velocities, directions, orientations, sizes and shapes, and field-of-view projections (Acton, 1996) . While originally focused on supporting NASA’s planetary missions, the use of SPICE has slowly grown to include most worldwide planetary missions, and it has also been finding application in heliophysics and other space science disciplines. This paper peeks under the covers to see what new capabilities are being developed or planned at SPICE headquarters to better support the future of space science. The SPICE system is implemented and maintained by NASA’s Navigation and Ancillary Information Facility (NAIF) located at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California ( http://naif.jpl.nasa.gov ).
A fast overcurrent protection scheme for GaN GITs

A fast overcurrent protection scheme was developed for GaN gate injection transistors (GITs), harnessing the relationship between the externally measured vgs and id in steady-state operation. This relationship has been characterized in both static and dynamic testing over a wide range of operating conditions, and a circuit has been constructed to implement this control scheme. The circuit uses analog components to integrate the protection feature into a commercially available GIT gate driver. The scheme was experimentally verified in a double pulse test setup for experimental verification, and its total fault response time was recorded at less than 70 ns, with 400 V dc bus and a 30 A threshold. Compared with conventional desaturation protection, which detects faults based on drain voltage rather than gate voltage, the proposed scheme offers benefits in terms of speed, temperature invariance, flexibility in threshold selection, and minimal impact on the GIT's normal switching behavior.
Navigating Microaggressions, Overt Discrimination, and Institutional Oppression: Transgender and Gender Nonconforming People and the Criminal Justice System

The purpose of this chapter is to uncover how transgender and gender nonconforming (TGNC) people perceive and experience the criminal justice (CJ) system. The chapter focuses primarily on the types of discrimination and bias TGNC encounter and how those experiences impact their perceptions and interactions with different sectors of the CJ system. Over the past ten years, multiple scholars have described the various microaggressions faced by LGBTQ people, as well as the negative impact of these microaggressions on LGBTQ people’s mental health. Findings from this qualitative study (N = 11) affirm that TGNC people are highly marginalized and are systemically discriminated against. Results point to the need for transgender-affirmative competency training programs for police officers and other liaisons of the legal system.
Eteplirsen treatment for Duchenne muscular dystrophy: Exon skipping and dystrophin production.

Objective To describe the quantification of novel dystrophin production in patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) after long-term treatment with eteplirsen. Methods Clinical study 202 was an observational, open-label extension of the randomized, controlled study 201 assessing the safety and efficacy of eteplirsen in patients with DMD with a confirmed mutation in the DMD gene amenable to correction by skipping of exon 51. Patients received once-weekly IV doses of eteplirsen 30 or 50 mg/kg. Upper extremity muscle biopsy samples were collected at combined study week 180, blinded, and assessed for dystrophin-related content by Western blot, Bioquant software measurement of dystrophin-associated immunofluorescence intensity, and percent dystrophin-positive fibers (PDPF). Results were contrasted with matched untreated biopsies from patients with DMD. Reverse transcription PCR followed by Sanger sequencing of newly formed slice junctions was used to confirm the mechanism of action of eteplirsen. Results Reverse transcription PCR analysis and sequencing of the newly formed splice junction confirmed that 100% of treated patients displayed the expected skipped exon 51 sequence. In treated patients vs untreated controls, Western blot analysis of dystrophin content demonstrated an 11.6-fold increase (p = 0.007), and PDPF analysis demonstrated a 7.4-fold increase (p Conclusion Taken together, the 4 assays, each based on unique evaluation mechanisms, provided evidence of eteplirsen muscle cell penetration, exon skipping, and induction of novel dystrophin expression. Classification of evidence This study provides Class II evidence of the muscle cell penetration, exon skipping, and induction of novel dystrophin expression by eteplirsen, as confirmed by 4 assays.
The Party Paradox: a Comment Nicolas van de Walle (Cornell) February 20, 2018

This article analyzes several stylized facts and implications concerning intra-party violence developed in the other articles of this special issue on intra-party violence in African electoral syst...
Analysis of the Broadening of Powder Pattern Peaks Using Variance, Integral Breadth, and Fourier Coefficients of the Line Profile

The broadening of powder pattern peaks has been studied by three methods—Fourier analysis, integral breadth measurements, and variance of the line profiles. The results obtained from the variances are compared with those obtained from the integral breadths and Fourier coefficients.
Japanese Pitch Conversion for Voice Morphing Based on Differential Modeling

Abstract In this paper, we convert the pitch contours predicted by a TTSsystem that models a source speaker to resemble the pitch con-toursofatargetspeaker. Whenthespeakingstylesofthespeak-ers are very different, complex conversions such as adding ordeletingpitchpeaksmayberequired. Ourmethoddoesthecon-versions by modeling the direct pitch features and differentialpitch features at the same time based on linguistic features. Thedifferential pitch features are calculated from matched pairs ofsource and target pitch values. We show experimental results inwhich the target speaker’s characteristics are successfully mod-eledbasedonaverylimitedtrainingcorpus. TheproposedpitchconversionmethodstretchesthepossibilitiesofTTScustomiza-tion for various speaking styles. Index Terms : pitch conversion, voice conversion, voice mor-phing, speech synthesis, differential modeling. 1. Introduction Voice conversion changes the characteristics of the voice of anSPS (SPeaker Source) to those of an SPT (SPeaker Target) forvarious applications. One important application is to build cus-tomized text-to-speech (TTS) systems for different companies,soaTTSsystemwitheachcompany’sfavoritevoicecanbecre-ated quickly and inexpensively by modifying the speech corpusof some original speaker.Spectra and prosody are the two major characteristics ofvoice. For spectral conversion, recent work such as [1, 2]has achieved signiﬁcant improvements in the naturalness andsimilarity of the voices converted using only a limited amountof training data. However, not much research has been doneinto prosody conversion. Most spectral conversion researchuses simple linear transformations for the prosody. It is truethat the detailed prosody difference is sometimes difﬁcult forlisteners to distinguish [3], especially when the speakers aremonotonously reading for TTS corpus recording. However, togenerate TTS voices with a lively colloquial speaking style, re-production of the detailed prosody characteristics is important.Our objective is to reproduce the SPT’s speaking style ofpitch contours based on limited training data. We assume 100sentences as training data is a reasonable amount to require forthe SPT’s speech corpus. A speech corpus with that size caneasily be recorded in a thirty-minute recording session. We donot assume the existence of a parallel corpus, which can be adifﬁcult condition to satisfy. We focus on the pitch changesaround the syllable level, because the important pitch changesin Japanese are mainly at the syllable level.Figure 1 illustrates examples of pitch contour pairs that theproposed pitch conversion method can handle. They are (a)asymmetrical slope changes, (b) adding or deleting peaks, and(c) adding or deleting phrase-ﬁnal rises.
Biochemical and Molecular Characterization of Ethylene Forming Enzyme from Avocado

Ethylene-forming enzyme (EFE) catalyzes the final step in biosynthesis of the phytohormone ethylene in higher plants, the oxidation of 1-aminocyclopropane-l-carboxylic acid (ACC). EFE extracted from avocado fruit was partially purified and shown to be a soluble, Fe(II) ascorbate-dependent enzyme. A ripening-related cDNA from avocado, pAVOe3, shows sequence similarity to several Fe(II) and ascorbate-dependent oxidases including EFE from tomato. The AVOe3 antigen was shown to be a soluble protein suggesting its identity with the EFE enzyme. The AVOe3 protein was overexpressed in E. coli with the recovery of EFE activity from the cell extracts. Using residue-specific chemical modification, a histidine critical for catalytic activity was detected. This is likely to be one of three histidine residues highly conserved among sequence-related Fe(II) ascorbate-dependent oxidases.
A document-based framework for internet application control

This paper motivates and details a document-based framework for manipulating the components that comprise distributed Internet applications. In the framework, XML documents are used to describe both server-side functionality and the mapping between a client's applications and the servers it accesses. Our system model contrasts with explicitly context-aware application designs, where location information must be explicitly manipulated by the application to affect change; instead, a middleware layer is interposed between client applications and services so that invocations between the two can be transparently remapped. This approach is useful for a subset of application domains, including our example domain of "remote control" of local resources (e.g., lights, stereo components, etc.). We illustrate how the framework allows for 1) remapping of a portion of an existing user interface to a new service, 2) viewing of arbitrary subsets and combinations of the available functionality, and 3) mixing dynamically-generated user interfaces with existing user interfaces. The use of a document-based framework in addition to a conventional object-oriented programming language provides a number of key features. One of the most useful is that it exposes the mappings between programs/UIs and the objects to which they refer, thereby providing a standard location for manipulation of this indirection.
Measuring and Forecasting Global Health Expenditures

Section I of this chapter briefly reviews the literature on medical spending, which suggests that health expenditures began small but steadily increased throughout history (from 1 percent to 4 percent of GDP), then began to increase rapidly among wealthier developed countries after 1950. Section II examines temporal and spatial dimensions of measurement, which suggest that the evolution of global health expenditures may be best observed by tracking health expenditures as a share of GDP over decades. Nominal and real per capita amounts are subject to distortions created by lags and currency valuation. Months and years are too short a span, while persons, households and provinces are too small. Section III covers growth in the components of health expenditures (population, income, inflation, excess due to technology and other factors). A model of national health expenditure decisions over time is presented and used to explain empirical findings of varying distributed lag responses to macroeconomic growth and development. Section IV considers the methods and accuracy of national health expenditure forecasting. Section V addresses some problems of variable identification, with specific applications to population aging and the aggregate fiscal burden of care for the elderly. Section VI discusses the sustainability of current trends and the boundaries between long-term care, retirement and medical expenditures. It concludes by proposing that rising longevity and medical costs are best viewed as aspects of a process of economic and human development transforming the 20th and 21st centuries, rather than as isolated phenomena. The six sections each conclude with a discussion of policy implications, even the most technical sections regarding measurement, aggregation and lags, where the policy implications may not be immediately apparent. While nominal policies are publicly stated, it is often these “technical details” regarding boundary definition, timing and measurement that show how policy actually operates, that shape public opinion, and that drive future financial decisions.
An Early Look at the UML Profile for Schedulability, Performance, and Time for Engineering Large Scale Airborne C2ISR Platforms

Abstract : This paper discusses an investigation into the utility of the Object Management Group's UML Profile for Schedulability, Performance, and Time (RT-UML Profile) for engineering a next generation of network centric, large-scale Command, Control, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C2ISR) aircraft. This activity applied the Profile in analysis of a multi-aircraft scenario, loosely based on DARPA's AMSTE research program. In this configuration, two aircraft, each with sensing capability, collaborate in real-time to develop precision targeting information for ground targets which is sent directly to in-flight munitions. This collaboration presents stressing, real-time requirements on a number of distributed, physically distinct platforms. The "RT-UML Profile" was used in conjunction with two commercial tools to perform analysis of the timing needs. Results of this activity indicate (1) the Profile assists engineers in developing better insight into temporal properties; (2) the Profile fits well within the DoD development processes; (3) use of sequence diagrams scales well for defining system load; and (4) the Profile should more directly support threads that span software processes and physical resources.
Modern stellar spectroscopy caveats

Multiple codes are available to derive atmospheric parameters and individual chemical abundances from high-resolution spectra of AFGKM stars. Almost all spectroscopists have their own preferences regarding which code and method to use. But the intrinsic differences between codes and methods lead to complex systematics that depend on multiple variables such as the selected spectral regions and the radiative transfer code used. I expand iSpec, a popular open-source spectroscopic tool, to support the most well-known radiative transfer codes and assess their similarities and biases when using multiple set-ups based on the equivalent-width method and the synthetic spectral-fitting technique (interpolating from a pre-computed grid of spectra or synthesizing with interpolated model atmospheres). This work shows that systematic differences on atmospheric parameters and abundances between most of the codes can be reduced when using the same method and executing a careful spectral feature selection. However, it may not be possible to ignore the remaining differences, depending on the particular case and the required precision. Regarding methods, equivalent-width-based and spectrum-fitting analyses exhibit large differences that are caused by their intrinsic differences, which is significant given the popularity of these two methods. The results help to identify the key caveats of modern spectroscopy that all scientists should be aware of before trusting their own results or being tempted to combine atmospheric parameters and abundances from the literature.
Congress and the Problem of Legislative Discretion, 1790-1870

Histories of the nineteenth-century United States often describe a stark divide between law and politics, with law as the agent of the propertied few and politics as the weapon of the masses. As representatives of America’s growing electorate fought to reapportion wealth, these accounts go, lawyers and judges waged a counteroffensive through the courts, using the rule of law to strike down statutes and stave off redistributive change. This dissertation challenges that narrative by examining the legislative logic of Congress during the first century of its existence: a logic, it argues, that increasingly relied on notions that we typically associate with private law, such as precedent, principle, and doctrines of vested rights. Members of Congress turned to these concepts not for the reasons that modern-day political scientists attribute to legislative actors, such as electoral considerations and political pressure (or at least, not only for such reasons), but rather out of a deeply-rooted anxiety about the exercise of their own power and an uncertainty as to what, in America’s decades-old experiment in representative democracy made legislation legitimate. Focusing on two case studies – one examining Congress’s response to the Great New York Fire of 1835 and the other investigating the legislative theory of the radical Republican senator Charles Sumner – this dissertation uses techniques and sources typically identified with the law side of the law/politics divide to make a novel claim: that Congress’s increasing reliance on the ideas and practices of ‘private’ law led its members gradually to limit their own discretion, constricting their ability to legislate for the public good in the process.
A photoreactive analog of allopregnanolone enables identification of steroid-binding sites in a nicotinic acetylcholine receptor

Many neuroactive steroids potently and allosterically modulate pentameric ligand-gated ion channels, including GABAA receptors (GABAAR) and nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs). Allopregnanolone and its synthetic analog alphaxalone are GABAAR-positive allosteric modulators (PAMs), whereas alphaxalone and most neuroactive steroids are nAChR inhibitors. In this report, we used 11β-(p-azidotetrafluorobenzoyloxy)allopregnanolone (F4N3Bzoxy-AP), a general anesthetic and photoreactive allopregnanolone analog that is a potent GABAAR PAM, to characterize steroid-binding sites in the Torpedo α2βγδ nAChR in its native membrane environment. We found that F4N3Bzoxy-AP (IC50 = 31 μm) is 7-fold more potent than alphaxalone in inhibiting binding of the channel blocker [3H]tenocyclidine to nAChRs in the desensitized state. At 300 μm, neither steroid inhibited binding of [3H]tetracaine, a closed-state selective channel blocker, or of [3H]acetylcholine. Photolabeling identified three distinct [3H]F4N3Bzoxy-AP-binding sites in the nAChR transmembrane domain: 1) in the ion channel, identified by photolabeling in the M2 helices of βVal-261 and δVal-269 (position M2-13'); 2) at the interface between the αM1 and αM4 helices, identified by photolabeling in αM1 (αCys-222/αLeu-223); and 3) at the lipid-protein interface involving γTrp-453 (M4), a residue photolabeled by small lipophilic probes and promegestone, a steroid nAChR antagonist. Photolabeling in the ion channel and αM1 was higher in the nAChR-desensitized state than in the resting state and inhibitable by promegestone. These results directly indicate a steroid-binding site in the nAChR ion channel and identify additional steroid-binding sites also occupied by other lipophilic nAChR antagonists.
High-Order Lax-Friedrichs WENO Fast Sweeping Methods for the SN Neutron Transport Equation

AbstractFast sweeping methods are efficient iterative techniques originally developed to solve the steady-state Hamilton-Jacobi equations and later used for the hyperbolic conservation laws. For th...
Economics Behind the Subprime Crisis

This chapter explains from primarily an IO perspective, event by event, and Player by Player, the causes of the subprime meltdown.
A Commutator Formula for Subnormal Tuples of Operators

Let \({\mathbb{S}=(S_1,\ldots,S_k)}\) be a pure subnormal k-tuple of operators with minimal normal extension \({\mathbb{N}}\) and defect space \({\mathcal{M}}\). Let \({\Lambda_j=(S_j^*|_\mathcal{M})^*}\). We prove $$[f(\mathbb{S}^*)h(\mathbb{S}),S_j]|_\mathcal{M}= \frac{1}{2\pi i}\int_{sp(\mathbb{N})}f(\bar{u})h(u)(u_j-\Lambda_j)e(du),$$ where \({e(\cdot)=P_\mathcal{M}E(\cdot)|_\mathcal{M}}\), \({E(\cdot)}\) is the spectral measure of \({\mathbb{N}}\), \({P_\mathcal{M}}\) is the projection to \({\mathcal{M}}\), f is any analytic function on \({\times_{j=1}^k\sigma(S_j^*)}\) and h is any analytic function on \({\times_{j=1}^k\sigma(S_j)}\). If \({ \mathrm{dim}\mathcal{M} < \infty}\), then this commutator equals to $$\frac{1}{2\pi i}\int_{A}\mu_j(u_j)df(\bar{u})\wedge dh(u),$$ where \({A=\{(\bar{u}_1,\ldots,\bar{u}_k):u=(u_1,\ldots,u_k) \, \mathrm{is \, in \, the \, joint \, point \, spectrum \, of} \, \mathbb{S}^*\}}\), and \({\mu_j(\cdot)}\) is the mosaic of S j .
Accelerating Deep Neural Networks in Processing-in-Memory Platforms: Analog or Digital Approach?

Nowadays, research topics on AI accelerator designs have attracted great interest, where accelerating Deep Neural Network (DNN) using Processing-in-Memory (PIM) platforms is an actively-explored direction with great potential. PIM platforms, which simultaneously aims to address power- and memory-wall bottlenecks, have shown orders of performance enhancement in comparison to the conventional computing platforms with Von-Neumann architecture. As one direction of accelerating DNN in PIM, resistive memory array (aka. crossbar) has drawn great research interest owing to its analog current-mode weighted summation operation which intrinsically matches the dominant Multiplication-and-Accumulation (MAC) operation in DNN, making it one of the most promising candidates. An alternative direction for PIM-based DNN acceleration is through bulk bit-wise logic operations directly performed on the content in digital memories. Thanks to the high fault-tolerant characteristic of DNN, the latest algorithmic progression successfully quantized DNN parameters to low bit-width representations, while maintaining competitive accuracy levels. Such DNN quantization techniques essentially convert MAC operation to much simpler addition/subtraction or comparison operations, which can be performed by bulk bit-wise logic operations in a highly parallel fashion. In this paper, we build a comprehensive evaluation framework to quantitatively compare and analyze aforementioned PIM based analog and digital approaches for DNN acceleration.
Mucosal Immunity and the FOXO1 Transcription Factors

FOXO1 transcription factors affect a number of cell types that are important in the host response. Cell types whose functions are modulated by FOXO1 include keratinocytes in the skin and mucosal dermis, neutrophils and macrophages, dendritic cells, Tregs and B-cells. FOXO1 is activated by bacterial or cytokine stimulation. Its translocation to the nucleus and binding to promoter regions of genes that have FOXO response elements is stimulated by the MAP kinase pathway and inhibited by the PI3 kinase/AKT pathway. Downstream gene targets of FOXO1 include pro-inflammatory signaling molecules (TLR2, TLR4, IL-1β, and TNF-α), wound healing factors (TGF-β, VEGF, and CTGF) adhesion molecules (integrins-β1, -β3, -β6, αvβ3, CD11b, CD18, and ICAM-1), chemokine receptors (CCR7 and CXCR2), B cell regulators (APRIL and BLYS), T-regulatory modulators (Foxp3 and CTLA-4), antioxidants (GPX-2 and cytoglobin), and DNA repair enzymes (GADD45α). Each of the above cell types are found in oral mucosa and modulated by bacteria or an inflammatory microenvironment. FOXO1 contributes to the regulation of these cells, which collectively maintain and repair the epithelial barrier, formation and activation of Tregs that are needed to resolve inflammation, mobilization, infiltration, and activation of anti-bacterial defenses in neutrophils, and the homing of dendritic cells to lymph nodes to induce T-cell and B-cell responses. The goal of the manuscript is to review how the transcription factor, FOXO1, contributes to the activation and regulation of key leukocytes needed to maintain homeostasis and respond to bacterial challenge in oral mucosal tissues. Examples are given with an emphasis on lineage specific deletion of Foxo1 to explore the impact of FOXO1 on cell behavior, inflammation and susceptibility to infection.
Translational Scoring of Candidate Treatments for Alzheimer's Disease: A Systematic Approach.

Background There are many failures in treatment development for Alzheimer's disease (AD). Some of these failures are the result of development programs that lacked critical information about candidate drugs as these were advanced from one phase of development to the next. Translational scoring (TS) has been proposed as a means of increasing the rigor with which treatment development programs are executed. Previously, these approaches were not specific to AD or to the phase of drug development. Detailed information on the characteristics needed to advance a candidate agent from one phase to the next is the basis for success in subsequent phases. Summary The TS approach is presented with a score range of 0-25 for agents entering phases 1, 2, and 3 of development and those that have completed phase 3 and are being considered for regulatory review. Each phase has 5 essential categories scored from 0-5 indicating the completeness of the data available when the agent is being considered for promotion to the next phase. Lower scores suggest that the development program should be reexamined for missing information while higher scores increase the confidence that the agent has the potential to succeed in the next phase. Scoring guidelines are provided and examples of scores for drugs in recent development programs are provided to illustrate the principles of TS. Key Messages: Successful development of drugs for AD treatment requires disciplined informed decision-making at each phase of development. TS is a methodology for more rigorous drug development to help ensure that inadequately characterized drugs are not advanced and that the development platform at each phase is optimal to support success at the next phase.