cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Performance discrepancies on the Boston Naming Test in African-American and non-Hispanic White American young adults

The Boston Naming Test (BNT) is one of the most commonly used naming measures in neuropsychology. Although research in the older adult population has shown that African-American (AA) adults perform more poorly on the BNT than non-Hispanic White American (WA) adults, these findings have yet to be replicated in younger adults. The BNT and measures of word reading (WJ-Letter Word ID) and vocabulary (Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence Vocabulary) were administered to 50 WA and 33 AA young adults. Performance was age-normed based on published norms and transformed into z-scores. Despite being matched on age, gender, SES, and level of education, the AA group performed more poorly on the BNT (z = - 1.01(1.09)) than the WA group (z = - .28(.92)), t(104) = 3.44, p < .01, d = 0.73. AAs (18%) were more likely to perform in the impaired range than WAs (4%) when impairment cutoff was z-score≤ - 2. Healthy AA young adults are more likely to perform poorly on the BNT despite vocabulary and word reading being well within normal limits. Average BNT performance in both groups were at least one z-score lower than average vocabulary z-scores. Clinicians should interpret poor scores on the BNT with caution, and within the context of individual vocabulary or word reading performance.
On Hecke’s decomposition of the regular differentials on the modular curve of prime level

In this paper, we review Hecke’s decomposition of the regular differentials on the modular curve of prime level p under the action of the group $${{\mathrm{SL}}}_2(p)/\langle {\pm 1}\rangle $$ SL 2 ( p ) / ⟨ ± 1 ⟩ . We show that his distinguished subspace corresponds to a factor of the Jacobian which decomposes as a product of conjugate, isogenous elliptic curves with complex multiplication.
Weeds, nitrogen and yield: measuring the effectiveness of an organic cover cropped vegetable no-till system

Organic vegetable growers rely heavily on mechanical methods such as tillage and other forms of labor-intensive soil cultivation for weed management despite the negative effects to soil health associated with intensive soil disturbance. The use of cover crops and no-till (NT) vegetable production represents an alternative approach to weed control that can enhance rather than degrade soil health; however, there are challenges inherent with this practice and previous results in vegetable production have been mixed. Field experiments were conducted over 2 yr at the Clemson Student Organic Farm to examine the effects of tillage [NT versus conventional tillage (CT)] on weed development and management in organic tomato and summer squash production under different nitrogen (N) fertility regimes, and to assess soil N dynamics in both systems. Squash yields were similar between tillage treatments in both years. NT tomato yields were 43% greater than CT yields in 2014, whereas CT tomato yields were 46% greater than NT yields in 2015. Squash and tomato yields per unit of management labor (time) were significantly greater in NT compared with CT treatments for both years. There were no statistical differences in squash and tomato yields between N fertilization treatments in either year. Pre- and post-season soil N results were mixed. Pre-season soil N levels were significantly higher in NT tomato plots in 2014 but similar between tillage treatments in tomato plots in 2015 and in squash plots both years. Post-season soil N levels in tomato plots were similar between tillage treatments both years. Post-season soil N levels were significantly higher in NT squash plots in 2014 and in CT squash plots in 2015. Roller-crimped NT mulches provided adequate early-season weed suppression in both years and saved considerable weed management and seedbed preparation labor. Overall, the results demonstrated that organic NT is a viable method for reduced tillage summer vegetable production in the southeastern Piedmont region.
Dialogue-act-driven Conversation Model : An Experimental Study

The utility of additional semantic information for the task of next utterance selection in an automated dialogue system is the focus of study in this paper. In particular, we show that additional information available in the form of dialogue acts –when used along with context given in the form of dialogue history– improves the performance irrespective of the underlying model being generative or discriminative. In order to show the model agnostic behavior of dialogue acts, we experiment with several well-known models such as sequence-to-sequence encoder-decoder model, hierarchical encoder-decoder model, and Siamese-based models with and without hierarchy; and show that in all models, incorporating dialogue acts improves the performance by a significant margin. We, furthermore, propose a novel way of encoding dialogue act information, and use it along with hierarchical encoder to build a model that can use the sequential dialogue act information in a natural way. Our proposed model achieves an MRR of about 84.8% for the task of next utterance selection on a newly introduced Daily Dialogue dataset, and outperform the baseline models. We also provide a detailed analysis of results including key insights that explain the improvement in MRR because of dialog act information.
Developments in Structure-Based Turbulence Modeling

The role of turbulence models in engineering codes is to provide the turbulent (Reynolds) stresses for the mean momentum equations. The Reynolds stresses themselves are seldom of any other use and this motivates the desire to minimize computational resources devoted to their computation. Economy in predictive efforts has another side of course, and that is the ability to compute reliably as many diverse flow regimes as possible without the need to modify the model in the engineering code. The choice of the appropriate level of sophistication in turbulence modeling is then one of a balance between minimizing computational effort per specific application on one hand, and maximizing reliability of results while minimizing code modifications on the other.
Second-Order Linear Differential Equations Modulo Powers of p

None of the symbols concerning equation (2.4.5.1) will be used here. However, the notation of Chapter 5 will be of use.
CogCompTime: A Tool for Understanding Time in Natural Language.

Automatic extraction of temporal information is important for natural language understanding. It involves two basic tasks: (1) Understanding time expressions that are mentioned explicitly in text (e.g., February 27, 1998 or tomorrow), and (2) Understanding temporal information that is conveyed implicitly via relations. This paper introduces CogCompTime, a system that has these two important functionalities. It incorporates the most recent progress, achieves state-of-the-art performance, and is publicly available at http://cogcomp.org/page/publication_view/844.
Safety analysis for shallow controlled re-entries through reduced order modeling and inputs' statistics method

Abstract In recent years, the interest and demand for small satellites have grown exponentially. While in the past the end-of-life design for this type of spacecraft was often approximated or totally neglected, it has recently become increasingly important. Indeed, small spacecraft able to achieve advanced mission objectives are more frequently on the worldwide space agenda. They may contain components which might withstand the re-entry conditions and reach the ground. In addition, these spacecraft are usually limited to shallow re-entries which are more sensitive to atmospheric model uncertainties and thus have larger debris fields. The objective of this work is to provide a reliable and efficient statistical analysis to estimate the risk to aeronautic and maritime traffic as well as to ground based populations. A simple geometric safety assessment is proposed, based on the safety boxes concept introduced in the ESA Space Debris Mitigation Compliance Verification Guidelines. Correctly estimating the dimensions of a safety box and locating it over uninhabited regions, such as the oceans, guarantees a casualty risk below a prescribed value. Furthermore, by estimating the probability of debris landing outside the largest possible safety box within which there is a zero casualty risk, the maximum probability of control failure admissible for the mission can be estimated. This proposed safety analysis is achieved using two re-entry models of differing complexity. The high fidelity model includes both the aerodynamic and aerothermodynamic effects that occur during re-entry and is used to statistically characterize “high level’’ uncertain variables such as the ballistic coefficient and the demise altitude. The reduced order model is based on these high level variables and captures the spacecraft fragmentation behavior and its re-entry dynamics with significantly less computation time than the high fidelity model. Coupled with advanced statistical techniques designed to estimate very low probabilities such as the Inputs' Statistics Method, a reliable safety analysis can be conducted with a limited overall computational burden. The proposed safety analysis is applied to a fictitious 2U CubeSat mission that performs a controlled re-entry using the Drag De-orbit Device developed by the ADAMUS laboratory at the University of Florida.
The TNFRSF members CD27 and OX40 coordinately limit TH17 differentiation in regulatory T cells.

Regulatory T cells (T regs ) are closely related to T H 17 cells and use aspects of the T H 17-differentiation program for optimal immune regulation. In several chronic inflammatory human diseases, T regs express IL-17A, suggesting that dysregulation of T H 17-associated pathways in T regs may result in either loss of suppressive function and/or conversion into pathogenic cells. The pathways that regulate the T H 17 program in T regs are poorly understood. We have identified two TNF receptor superfamily (TNFRSF) members, CD27 and OX40, that are preferentially expressed by skin-resident T regs . Both CD27 and OX40 signaling suppressed the expression of T H 17-associated genes from T regs in a cell-intrinsic manner in vitro and in vivo. However, only OX40 played a nonredundant role in promoting T reg accumulation. T regs that lacked both CD27 and OX40 were defective in controlling skin inflammation and expressed high levels of IL-17A, as well as the master T H 17 transcription factor, RORγt. Last, we found that CD27 expression was inversely correlated with T reg IL-17 production in skin of patients with psoriasis and hidradenitis suppurativa. Together, our results suggest that TNFRSF members play both redundant and distinct roles in regulating T reg plasticity in tissues.
Percutaneous cholecystostomy-tube for high-risk patients with acute cholecystitis: current practice and implications for future research.

While cholecystectomy (CCY) is the standard of care for gallstone-related acute cholecystitis, percutaneous cholecystostomy-tube (CCYT-tube) is an alternative option in patients with significant comorbid conditions. We sought to identify immediate and longitudinal hospital outcomes of patients who underwent CCYT-tube placement and determine predictors of CCYT-tube placement and eventual CCY on a national level in the US. We identified all adults (age ≥ 18 years) with a primary diagnosis of acute calculous cholecystitis from January to November 2013 in the Nationwide Readmissions Database (NRD). The NRD allows longitudinal follow-up of a patient for one calendar year. Outcomes of patients undergoing CCY and CCYT-tube were compared. Separate univariable and multivariable regression analyses were performed to identify predictors of CCYT-tube placement and failure to undergo subsequent CCY. A total of 181,262 patients had an index hospitalization with acute cholecystitis where 178,095 (98.3%) patients underwent only CCY and 3167 (1.7%) patients were managed with CCYT-tubes. Among patients with CCYT-tube, 1196 (37.8%) underwent eventual CCY in 2013, while 1971 (62.2%) did not. One in five patients with CCYT-tube were readmitted within 30 days of hospital discharge. Multivariable analysis demonstrated that increasing age, male gender, coronary artery disease, cirrhosis, atrial fibrillation, diastolic congestive heart failure, and sepsis were associated with CCYT-tube placement. Longitudinal follow-up revealed that older age (OR 1.16, 95% CI 1.09–1.23), Elixhauser comorbidity score 3–4 (OR 1.94, 95% CI 1.03–3.63), cirrhosis (OR 3.28, 95% CI 1.59–6.79), and diastolic congestive heart failure (OR 2.47, 95% CI 1.33–4.60) were associated with failure to undergo subsequent CCY. In this national survey, nearly two in three patients who receive CCYT-tube for acute cholecystitis do not get CCY during longitudinal data capture within the same calendar year. Future research needs to target novel options for drainage of the gallbladder in high-risk patient populations.
Lane-by-Lane Analysis Framework for Conducting Highway Capacity Analyses at Freeway Segments:

The Highway Capacity Manual (HCM) methodology for freeway systems yields average speed values for each segment and does not consider lane-by-lane flow and operational conditions. However, flows are...
Inadequacy of the extrapolation-length method for modeling the interface of a ferroelectric-graphene heterostructure

To study a ferroelectric–graphene heterostructure, we employ Ginzburg–Landau–Devonshire theory in conjunction with Kretschmer and Binder's extrapolation-length method for modeling interface lattice relaxation. We rigorously justify a selection of model parameters that we use to predict the properties of a system consisting of the ferroelectric lithium niobate (LiNbO3) (0001) sandwiched between graphene monolayers. By comparing our results to those from first-principles density-functional theory calculations performed by Baeumer et al. [Nat. Commun. 6, 6136 (2015)] for the equivalent system, we demonstrate the inadequacy of the extrapolation-length method for modeling this system. We discuss the relevance of our work to predicting electrical gating.
Theoretical Study of Methane Storage in Cu 24 ( m ‑BDC) 24

Calculations on the Cu24(m-BDC)24 (m-BDC = 1,3-benzenedicarboxylate) polyoxometalate (POM) cage with 0, 12, 24, and 40 methane molecules inside were made using the M06 exchange/correlation functional. During filling of the cage with 40 CH4 molecules, the 12 strongest binding CH4 molecules are those to the coordination unsaturated sites (CUS) to the inwardly directed Cu(+2) centers via agostic interactions. The next 12 CH4 molecules are less tightly bound followed by the next 16 CH4 molecules with average binding energies of 8.27, 7.88, and 7.36 kcal/mol per CH4, respectively. A section of the Cu24(m-BDC)24 cage was taken with the formula Cu4(m-BDC)(BC)6 (BC = benezenecarboxylate) in order to estimate zero-point, thermal, and entropy corrections of the larger cage. Estimating free energies at 1 bar, the Cu24(m-BDC)24 POM is predicted to lose 16, 12, and 12 CH4 molecules at 67, 123, and 171 °C, respectively. The 40CH4@Cu24(m-BDC)24 cage, which is isostructural to the main cavity of HKUST-1 with 40 CH4 molecules inside, is predicted to have a loading of 224 cm3(STP) cm-3 at 1 bar.
Peak Area Detection Network for Directly Learning Phase Regions from Raw X-ray Diffraction Patterns

X-ray diffraction (XRD) is a well-known technique used by scientists and engineers to determine the atomic-scale structures as a basis for understanding the composition-structure-property relationship of materials. The current approach for the analysis of XRD data is a multi-stage process requiring several intensive computations such as integration along 2θ for conversion to 1D patterns (intensity-2θ), background removal by polynomial fitting, and indexing against a large database of reference peaks. It impacts the decisions about the subsequent experiments of the materials under investigation and delays the overall process. In this paper, we focus on eliminating such multi-stage XRD analysis by directly learning the phase regions from the raw (2D) XRD image. We introduce a peak area detection network (PADNet) that directly learns to predict the phase regions using the raw XRD patterns without any need for explicit preprocessing and background removal. PADNet contains specially designed large symmetrical convolutional filters at the first layer to capture the peaks and automatically remove the background by computing the difference in intensity counts across different symmetries. We evaluate PADNet using two sets of XRD patterns collected from SLAC and Bruker D-8 for the Sn-Ti-Zn-O composition space; each set contains 177 experimental XRD patterns with their phase regions. We find that PADNet can successfully classify the XRD patterns independent of the presence of background noise and perform better than the current approach of extrapolating phase region labels based on 1D XRD patterns.
Inovações na Política Cultural e no Desenvolvimento na América Latina

Este ensaio analisa duas tendencias principais nas recomendacoes das politicas culturais na America Latina: 1) a contribuicao economica das artes, do patrimonio e especialmente das industrias culturais e criativas; 2) direitos culturais, com foco na inclusao, acesso, empoderamento e desenvolvimento integral / bem-estar dos cidadaos. As duas tendencias, que fazem parte das politicas de desenvolvimento cultural, nao sao facilmente integradas a uma politica abrangente, pois seguem diferentes logicas e estrategias de gestao. Nao obstante, ambas as tendencias, que emergiram no auge do neoliberalismo (decada de 1990), continuam a fornecer as principais justificativas para o financiamento cultural, embora a atual crise economica tenha levado a cortes orcamentarios. Apos uma revisao das politicas de desenvolvimento cultural, este ensaio examina estrategias inovadoras para compensar os recursos escassos, incluindo aqueles que procuram unir ambas as tendencias. Os casos examinados abaixo correspondem a discussoes de politicas culturais em foruns latino-americanos com centenas de formuladores de politicas e analistas nos ultimos vinte anos.
Professional Ethics in Obstetrics and Gynecology

A comprehensive, accessible approach to the everyday ethical challenges faced in obstetric and gynecological practice. Offering practical guidance for practitioners at all levels, the text also provides a sustained exploration of professional ethics in the intersection of obstetrics and gynecology with psychiatry. Drawing on their award-winning teaching, the authors start each chapter with goals, objectives, topics, and a list of key concepts, which are defined in a separate section. Chapters cover a multitude of topics, from pregnancy and the quest for the 'perfect' baby to end-of-life care - all underpinned by the need for professionally responsible research, advocacy, and health policy. Professional Ethics in Obstetrics and Gynecology is an indispensable resource for both trainee and practicing obstetricians and gynecologists. A chapter devoted solely to pedagogy in professional ethics in obstetrics and gynecology supports the readers' learning and those with or without formal training in ethics to teach students, residents, and colleagues.
Generativity: Making Law a More Open Institutional 'Ecosystem' for Productive Innovation

Generativity provides a measure of the degree to which a system is open to innovation not necessarily contemplated or understood when the system was created or emerged. In economic analysis, generativity can be distinguished from efficiency as sometimes conflicting goals related to the factors leading to prosperity and growth. The property of generativity in our legal institutions is an important one for increasing the rate of productive innovation, and our laws should be designed with this principle in mind. Generativity does come with potential dangers. Protecting against those dangers, as well as fostering other social goals, will require balancing the institutional factors which promote generativity against those that mitigate risk of harm or that promote social cohesion. Exploring some of the considerations that might weigh in that balancing exercise can inform the debates that swirl around questions of regulation and freedom in our economic life.
Feasibility study on using shunted piezoelectrics to reduce aeroelastic response

Several analytical and experimental studies clearly demonstrate that piezoelectric materials can be used as actuators to actively control vibratory response, including aeroelastic response. However, two important issues in using piezoelectrics as actuators for active control are: 1) the potentially large amount of power required to operate the actuators, and 2) the complexities involved with active control. Active or passive damping augmentation using shunted piezoelectrics may provide a viable alternative. This approach requires only simple electrical circuitry and very little or no electrical power. The current study examines the feasibility of using shunted piezoelectrics to reduce aeroelastic response using a typical-section representation of a wing and piezoelectrics shunted with a parallel resistor and inductor. The aeroelastic analysis shows that shunted piezoelectrics can effectively reduce aeroelastic response below flutter and may provide a simple, low-power method of subcritical aeroelastic control.© (1999) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
How the thermal environment shapes the structure of termite mounds.

A computational model has been developed to predict the role of environment in the forms and functions of termite mounds. The proposed model considers the most relevant forces involved in the heat ...
ASSESSMENT OF THE INTEGRATION OF AUTOMATED OFFICE BLOOD PRESSURE MONITORING IN AN AMBULATORY CARDIOLOGY CLINIC

Automated office blood pressure monitoring (AOBP) has been introduced as an alternative to traditional clinic blood pressure (CBP) measures. Evidence and practice guidelines support AOBP use based on improved prediction of end-organ damage and white coat effect versus CBPs. This evaluation was a
6 – SUPPORT GROUPS

Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on groups that emphasize the provision of emotional and other types of support, e.g., instrumental. It describes key process variables hypothesized to contribute to the effectiveness of a support group (SG). Key process variables for SGs with a wide variety of content foci are presented along with a discussion of outcomes related to these variables. The chapter discusses how SGs fit into the larger picture of treatment plan development. It focuses on how providers might integrate SG into the stepped care model of treatment planning. It concludes with a general discussion of further research endeavors that may help facilitate the integration of SG into comprehensive treatment plans, and current efforts of disseminating and implementing SGs into practice. SGs vary widely in terms of the specific problems they are designed to address, e.g., provide support to persons with severe mental illness or physical health problems such as HIV/AIDS. Despite these apparent differences in content, the processes thought to contribute to the effectiveness of SGs are presumed to be similar aside from the particular content focus of the group. SGs have the broad primary focus of providing a group context in which individuals with a common condition or who share a set of similar life circumstances can receive and share emotional support. The purpose of providing emotional support in the group context is to help members minimize the impact of affective distress and normalize emotional experiences, i.e., to send the message “there are others who share your experiences.”
CDL: Classified Distributed Learning for Detecting Security Attacks in Containerized Applications

Containers have been widely adopted in production computing environments for its efficiency and low overhead of isolation. However, recent studies have shown that containerized applications are prone to various security attacks. Moreover, containerized applications are often highly dynamic and short-lived, which further exacerbates the problem. In this paper, we present CDL, a classified distributed learning framework to achieve efficient security attack detection for containerized applications. CDL integrates online application classification and anomaly detection to overcome the challenge of lacking sufficient training data for dynamic short-lived containers while considering diversified normal behaviors in different applications. We have implemented a prototype of CDL and evaluated it over 33 real world vulnerability attacks in 24 commonly used server applications. Our experimental results show that CDL can reduce the false positive rate from over 12% to 0.24% compared to traditional anomaly detection schemes without aggregating training data. By introducing application classification into container behavior learning, CDL can improve the detection rate from catching 20 attacks to 31 attacks before those attacks succeed. CDL is light-weight, which can complete application classification and anomaly detection for each data sample within a few milliseconds.
Social support and diabetes distress among adults with type 2 diabetes covered by Alabama Medicaid.

Aims Diabetes distress affects approximately 36% of adults with diabetes and is associated with worse diabetes self-management and poor glycaemic control. We characterized participants' diabetes distress and studied the relationship between social support and diabetes distress. Methods In this cross-sectional study, we surveyed a population-based sample of adults with type 2 diabetes covered by Alabama Medicaid. We used the Diabetes Distress Scale assessing emotional burden, physician-related, regimen-related and interpersonal distress. We assessed participants' level of diabetes-specific social support and satisfaction with this support, categorized as low or moderate-high. We performed multivariable logistic regression of diabetes distress by level of and satisfaction with social support, adjusting for demographics, disease severity, self-efficacy and depressive symptoms. Results In all, 1147 individuals participated; 73% were women, 41% White, 58% Black and 3% Hispanic. Low level of or satisfaction with social support was reported by 11% of participants; 7% of participants had severe diabetes distress. Participants with low satisfaction with social support were statistically significantly more likely to have severe diabetes distress than those with moderate-high satisfaction, adjusted odds ratio 2.43 (95% CI 1.30, 4.54). Conclusions Interventions addressing diabetes distress in adults with type 2 diabetes may benefit from a focus on improving diabetes-specific social support.
AGING PROCESS OPTIMIZATION FOR A HIGH STRENGTH AND TOUGHNESS OF FV520B MARTENSITIC STEEL

Low carbon martensitic precipitation hardening stainless steels are widely utilized in many engineering applications due to their high strength with reasonable toughness,ductility and corrosion resistance.However,those properties and their combinations are not always satisfactory to their users.For further improvement of the mechanical properties of these types of steels,a fundamental understanding of the detailed microstructural features with various aging conditions is necessary. Therefore,the effects of aging temperature,aging time and cooling rate on the microstructure and mechanical properties of a martensitic precipitation hardening stainless steel FV520B were investigated by OM,SEM,TEM and XRD methods.The results show that the steel aged at 630℃for a short time and then furnace cooled,in which a typical lath martensitic with the proper amounts of reverse austenite and fined dispersed precipitates was observed,has a good combination of high strength and high toughness.It could be an optimized aging process for FV520B steel.
Perceptual Fading of a Stabilized Cortical Image: Replication in the Undergraduate Classroom.

Abstract Prolonged exposure to a stimulus causes desensitization of cortical neurons and results in perceptual changes. One example of this phenomenon is contrast adaptation, in which perceived differences between light and dark regions of a stimulus decrease. Blakemore, Muncey, and Ridley reported evidence for the “perceptual fading of a stabilized cortical image” in a 1971 Nature paper. Our goal was to replicate their second experiment, in which adaptation was measured across many contrasts, and develop an active learning exercise for undergraduate students. The experiment was coded using an open-source python package and psychophysical data were collected from two observers. On each trial, a sinusoidally modulated luminance grating appeared above fixation, and the task of the observer was to adjust the contrast of a grating below fixation until the two appeared identical. Between trials in the adaptation condition, a high contrast grating was presented in the top location; no such grating appeared between trials in the control condition. Contrast matches showed a clear reduction during the adaptation condition, thus demonstrating perceptual fading and a successful replication of Blakemore et al. (1971). We then simplified the approach and modified the code to create a single, seamless experience for use in the classroom. With instructions and theoretical background provided in a one-page handout, students can perform the experiment on themselves and view their results in an automatically generated figure. This exercise, a primary example of active learning, will help students gain a first-hand understanding of the perceptual effects of adaptation.
Stratigraphic and sedimentologic investigation of collapse features in the Mount Baldy Dune in the Indiana Dunes National Park

Abstract Mount Baldy dune is one of the largest active eolian dunes along the southern shore of Lake Michigan and a famous tourist attraction within the Indiana Dunes National Park. It is an anthropogenically disturbed landform where restoration efforts include native beach-grass plantings and restricted foot traffic. In July 2013, a 6-year-old boy was buried more than 3 m below the dune stoss surface after falling into a hole, or “collapse feature.” While previous work indicated that holes formed through the decay of buried oak trees (Quercus spp.), neither the origin of this hole in relation to the dune’s stratigraphy nor its significance as a potential geological hazard were understood. Groundpenetrating radar, sediment cores, and radiocarbon and optically stimulated luminescence dates were collected to define sedimentary packages and facies, and interpret the dune’s depositional history. The data show that an alongshore migrating coastal dune field stabilized ∼3000 ya atop backbarrier lagoonal deposits. Modern Mount Baldy evolved as sands were mobilized and transported onshore over the relict dune field, triggered by ongoing downdrift coastal erosion related to the development of the Michigan City Harbor. The internal architecture of the dune reveals how the topography of the forested landscape, now buried beneath the modern dune form, contributes to variations in the thickness of the upper dune package, controlling the relation of buried and decayed trees to the surface of the stoss slope. The data on sand thicknesses, were used with maps and aerial photographs to create a geohazard map of the dune.
Metabolic Profiles in Ovine Carotid Arteries with Developmental Maturation and Long- Term Hypoxia

Background Long-term hypoxia (LTH) is an important stressor related to health and disease during development. At different time points from fetus to adult, we are exposed to hypoxic stress because of placental insufficiency, high-altitude residence, smoking, chronic anemia, pulmonary, and heart disorders, as well as cancers. Intrauterine hypoxia can lead to fetal growth restriction and long-term sequelae such as cognitive impairments, hypertension, cardiovascular disorders, diabetes, and schizophrenia. Similarly, prolonged hypoxic exposure during adult life can lead to acute mountain sickness, chronic fatigue, chronic headache, cognitive impairment, acute cerebral and/or pulmonary edema, and death. Aim LTH also can lead to alteration in metabolites such as fumarate, 2-oxoglutarate, malate, and lactate, which are linked to epigenetic regulation of gene expression. Importantly, during the intrauterine life, a fetus is under a relative hypoxic environment, as compared to newborn or adult. Thus, the changes in gene expression with development from fetus to newborn to adult may be as a consequence of underlying changes in the metabolic profile because of the hypoxic environment along with developmental maturation. To examine this possibility, we examined the metabolic profile in carotid arteries from near-term fetus, newborn, and adult sheep in both normoxic and long-term hypoxic acclimatized groups. Results Our results demonstrate that LTH differentially regulated glucose metabolism, mitochondrial metabolism, nicotinamide cofactor metabolism, oxidative stress and antioxidants, membrane lipid hydrolysis, and free fatty acid metabolism, each of which may play a role in genetic-epigenetic regulation.
In Pursuit of Paternal Significance: Fathers' Influence on their Daughters' and Sons' Sexual Behaviors and Beliefs

IN PURSUIT OF PATERNAL SIGNIFICANCE: FATHERS’ INFLUENCE ON THEIR DAUGHTERS’ AND SONS’ SEXUAL BEHAVIORS AND BELIEFS By Rachel S. Everley, M.S. A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at Virginia Commonwealth University. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2008 Major Director: Sarah Jane Brubaker, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs, Department of Sociology The United States has the highest teen pregnancy and adolescent STD rates of any industrialized nation. Numerous factors are involved in adolescent sexual decisionmaking and the social-ecological framework suggests that there are multiple levels of influence on adolescent development, including familial. Utilizing survey data from the Virginia Abstinence Education Initiative (VAEI), this project specifically explores paternal influences on adolescent sexual behavior and beliefs by examining paternal residence in the home, perceived paternal figure sexual beliefs, and father-child relationship factors. Results indicate that paternal figures influence their daughters’ and sons’ sexual behaviors as well as beliefs. Differences in paternal figure influence across
Control Policies for Scheduling of Semiconductor Manufacturing Plants

Two important goals in scheduling semiconductor manufacturing plants are to minimize the mean and variance of the manufacturing cycle time. The manufacturing cycle time is the time taken by a job to traverse through the manufacturing system and become a finished product. In addition to the obvious economic and competetive adavantages, reducing the cycle time is also beneficial in minimizing the time that a wafer is exposed to contamination during the manufacturing process, thus providing higher yield. On the other hand, a small variance of the cycle time allows tighter production planning, and more consistent on-time deliveries of the end product. To meet these two goals, good input release policies and job scheduling policies have to be determined. The former determines job release control at the system input, while the latter allows proper job sequencing at each processing station. In a recent paper, Wein [3] has reported on the comparative performance of a number of release and scheduling policies on a simulated research and development fabrication line. In this paper, besides the policies studied by Wein, we propose two new scheduling policies, the Least Slack (LS) and the Least Optimized Slack (LOS) policies, and report on their performance in a discrete event simulation. Our preliminary results appear to demonstrate that the LOS scheduling policy can reduce both the mean and standard deviation of cycle times by perhaps significant amounts, especially under heavy traffic.
What is the Practical Importance of Default Rules Under Delaware LLC and LP Law

In his article “Freedom of Contract and Default Contractual Duties in Delaware Limited Partnerships and Limited Liability Companies,” the Chief Justice of the Delaware Supreme Court, Myron Steele, makes the provocative assertion that fiduciary duties should not apply, even as a default, under Delaware alternative entity law. With this assertion, the Chief Justice has renewed the debate over fiduciary duties, albeit in a new context. Rather than debating whether fiduciary duties should be subject to contractual limitations, distinguished academics and practitioners now debate whether fiduciary duties should even apply as a legal default under unincorporated alternative entity law. In this essay, however, I argue that this new debate, although interesting as a theoretical matter, has limited practical importance. Sophisticated parties can and will contract to avoid undesirable default rules. And LLCs and LPs with passive investors have contractually created an almost de facto rule eliminating fiduciary duties. Thus, even if one believes Chief Justice Steele’s thesis is problematic, the problem it creates affects only a small portion of Delaware’s alternative entity universe.
An advanced configuration management tool set

A description is given of the US Federal Aviation Administration's Advanced Automation System (AAS), a phased-implementation, multilayer program aimed at modernizing and extending air-traffic-control automation. The authors present the design of an integrated tool set and associated unified database which address the needs of this project. They discuss their solutions to the prominent AAS configuration-management control issues. >
A High Efficiency DC Bus Regulator / RPC for Spacecraft Applications

DC bus voltage regulation may be required in future high powered spacecraft due to the length of the busses or because they are not generated at precise voltage levels. In these cases the regulation range is often only a few percent increase or decrease, but conventional DC voltage regulators switch all the power passing through them, and this level of power switched determines the size and losses in the regulator. A recently developed concept uses a low power DC‐DC converter in series with the bus to raise or lower the bus voltage over a small range. This partial power processing technique combines the small size and power losses of the low power converter with the ability to regulate, (over a small range) a high power bus. The Series Connected Buck Boost Regulator (SCBBR) described herein provides bus regulation with an efficiency of 98%. The circuit also provides bus switching and overcurrent limiting functions of a Remote Power Controller (RPC). This paper describes the circuit design and performance of a breadboard SCBBR configured as a bus voltage regulator providing +/− 40% voltage regulation range, bus switching, and overload limiting.
R&D Capitalization and Reputation‐Driven Real Earnings Management (Partially Retracted)

ABSTRACT: Prior research finds that mandatory expensing induces underinvestment in research and development (R&D). The current study investigates whether capitalization can also create R&D investment problems. Abandoning a capitalized project requires asset impairment, a negative reporting effect that could damage managers' reputations. In an experiment utilizing M.B.A. student participants, I find that managers responsible for initiating an R&D project are more likely to overinvest when R&D is capitalized. I show that high self‐monitors (those most likely to alter their behaviors to convey a positive image) are most likely to overinvest, suggesting that reputation concerns contribute to this behavior. A follow‐up survey reveals that, when R&D is capitalized, experienced executives anticipate overinvestment and expect project abandonment to have a stronger negative impact on the responsible manager's reputation and future prospects at their firm. The results suggest that managers are held responsible for ...
An in situ perfused guinea-pig eye model for blood-ocular transport studies : application to amino acids

A technique for in situ vascular eye perfusion (VEP) in the guinea-pig has been developed for measurements of the blood-ocular transport kinetics of substrates under controlled conditions of arterial inflow. The blood-aqueous and blood-vitreous barriers remained intact to the vascular space marker [3H]dextran (MW 70 kDa) with the perfusion pressure maintained between 80 and 100 mmHg. Several 3H-, 14C- or 35S-labeled amino acids, and 3H- or 14C-labeled sucrose (extracellular space marker) were used to validate the VEP model for transport kinetic studies. Multiple time-point graphic analysis was used to estimate the compartmental unidirectional blood-ocular transport constants, K(in), within the 20 min period of the VEP experiment. Blood-to-aqueous humor K(in) values for [3H]serine, [14C]N-methyl-alpha-aminoisobutyric acid (MeAIB) and [3H] or ]14C]sucrose were 3.57 +/- 0.38, 1.21 +/- 0.13 and 1.13 +/- 0.17 microliters min-1 g-1, respectively. The respective blood-to-lens K(in) values for labeled serine, MeAIB and sucrose were 1.71 +/- 0.19, 0.09 +/- 0.03 and 0.03 +/- 0.002 microliters min-1 g-1. The uptake of newly secreted amino acids from the aqueous humor in the lens followed the order: [35S]methionine greater than [3H]serine greater than or equal to [35S]cysteine greater than or equal to [3H]alanine greater than [14C]cycloleucine greater than or equal to [14C]MeAIB greater than or equal to [3H] or [14C]sucrose. The data indicate lack of a rapid blood-to-lens uptake of two model amino acids defining the A and L amino acid carriers.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Detection of QTLs associated with shoot wilting and root ammonium uptake under chilling temperatures in an interspecific backcross population from Lycopersicon esculentum ×L. hirsutum

The genetic basis for shoot wilting and root ammonium uptake under chilling temperatures was examined in an interspecific backcross (BC1) population derived from Lycopersicon esculentum Mill. cv T5 and wild Lycopersicon hirsutum f. typicum accession LA1778. The chilling sensitivity of shoot wilting and ammonium uptake was evaluated in four replicated cuttings from each of 196 BC1 plants. Wilting was evaluated at two different times: 2 hours (wilting 2 h) and 6 hours (wilting 6 h recovery) after root exposure to 4°C. The BC1 plants were genotyped with 89 polymorphic RFLP markers, and composite interval mapping was used to detect quantitative trait loci (QTLs). Three QTLs, one each on chromosomes 5, 6 and 9, were detected for wilting 2 h. The presence of a L. hirsutum (H) allele at the QTL on chromosomes 5 and 9 decreased wilting, while the H allele at the QTL on chromosome 6 increased wilting. To analyze plant recovery from wilting at 6 h, subsets of the BC1 population were selected, based on phenotype and genotype, because not all plants wilted at 2 h. The phenotype subset (wilting 6 h-PS) included plants that wilted to a greater degree at 2 h, and the genotype subsets included plants carrying specific allelic compositions at the QTL for wilting 2 h on chromosomes 5 (wilting 6 h-GS-ch5), 6 (wilting 6 h-GS-ch6), and 9 (wilting 6 h-GS-ch9). On chromosome 6, a QTL was located that was associated with three subsets (wilting 6 h-PS, wilting 6 h-GS-ch5 and wilting 6 h-GS-ch9), while on chromosome 7 a QTL was detected with two subsets (wilting 6 h-PS and wilting 6 h-GS-ch5). Three additional QTLs were detected within a single subset: chromosome 1 (wilting 6 h-GS-ch6), chromosome 11 (wilting 6 h-GS-ch5) and chromosome 12 (wilting 6 h-GS-ch9). The presence of the H allele at the QTL on chromosomes 7 and 12 had a positive effect, enhancing recovery from wilting, while the H allele at the other QTL had a negative effect. Three traits were used to evaluate the chilling sensitivity of root ammonium uptake: ammonium uptake before a chilling episode, ammonium uptake after the chilling episode, and the relative inhibition of uptake (difference in uptake rates before and after chilling divided by the rate before chilling). One QTL was detected on chromosome 3 for the rate before chilling and one on chromosome 6 for the relative inhibition of ammonium uptake. Our results demonstrate that shoot wilting and ammonium uptake under chilling are controlled by multiple QTLs.
Solution of Integer Linear Programming Problems by Direct Search

An approximate but fairly rapid method for solving integer linear programming problems is presented, which utilizes, in part, some of the philosophy of “direct search” methods. The method is divided into phases which can be applied in order and has the desirable characteristic that a best feasible solution is always available. Numerical results are presented for a number of test problems. Some possible extensions and improvements are also presented.
Stem Cells in Bone Grafting: Trinity Allograft with Stem Cells and Collagen/Beta-Tricalcium Phosphate with Concentrated Bone Marrow Aspirate

The orthopedic foot and ankle surgeon needs bone grafts in the clinical situation of fracture healing and in bone-fusion procedures. This article briefly outlines thought processes and techniques for 2 recent options for the surgeon. The Trinity product is a unique combination of allograft bone and allograft stem cells. The beta-tricalcium phosphate and collagen materials provide an excellent scaffold for bone growth; when combined with concentrated bone marrow aspirate, they also offer osteoconductive and osteoinductive as well as osteogenerative sources for new bone formation.
T-small cell disorders.

A minority (less than 2%) of all lymphoproliferative disorders are derived from small T cells. These include T-cell prolymphocytic leukemia, T-cell granular lymphocytic leukemia, and mycosis fungoides/Sezary syndrome. With the possible exception of early-stage, skin-localized mycosis fungoides, all are considered incurable, although palliation can be achieved with radiation therapy, chemotherapy, biologic therapy, and combinations of these modalities. Of these disorders, mycosis fungoides is the most common; it follows an indolent, though gradually progressive, course that spans years. The T-cell prolymphocytic leukemias, in contrast, are generally refractory to treatment, with a median survival of typically less than 1 year. Although effective therapy remains elusive in most cases, the development of nucleosides as a class of chemotherapeutic agents and biologics, including interferon, monoclonal antibodies, and vitamin A derivatives, offers new hope for at least more effective palliation of these progressive lymphoproliferative disorders. However, rapid improvement in the treatment of these disorders remains hampered by the rarity of these individual entities. More rapid progress in treatment depends on national and international cooperation to accrue patients for definitive trials of sufficient size to evaluate new treatment options quickly.