cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Classification of the wildland–urban interface: A comparison of pixel- and object-based classifications using high-resolution aerial photography

Abstract The expansion of urban development into wildland areas can have significant consequences, including an increase in the risk of structural damage from wildfire. Land-use and land-cover maps can assist decision-makers in targeting and prioritizing risk mitigation activities, and remote sensing techniques provide effective and efficient methods to create such maps. However, some image processing approaches may be more appropriate than others in distinguishing land-use and land-cover categories, particularly when classifying high spatial resolution imagery for urbanizing environments. Here we explore the accuracy of pixel-based and object-based classification methods used for mapping in the wildland–urban interface (WUI) with free, readily available, high spatial resolution urban imagery, which is available in many places to municipal and local fire management agencies. Results indicate that an object-based classification approach provides a higher accuracy than a pixel-based classification approach when distinguishing between the selected land-use and land-cover categories. For example, an object-based approach resulted in a 41.73% greater accuracy for the built area category, which is of particular importance to WUI wildfire mitigation.
The stepwise approach to introductory programming projects with examples

This paper primarily discusses the problem of the initial projects to be used in introducing students to a programming language. Examples are given of projects used for time-shared BASIC. Because of the expense, CAI was not considered practical for use in the introductory courses, even though the TUTOR series of courses (to learn BASIC) was available.
Antiviral activity of tobacco leaf on encephalomyocarditis (EMC) virus infection.

SummaryA water-soluble and athanol-insoluble fraction of tobacco leaf of cigarettes has been found to have antiviral activity against EMC virus infection in mice and tissue cultures, and antilethal activity on LCM virus infection in mice. This activity was compared with poly I:C and tilorone as standard agents.The lower molecular portion of the tobacco extract inhibited the single cycle of EMC virus reproduction in KB cells even when it was added 2 hr after infection. It also inhibited the cytopathic effects of vesicular stomatitis, polio type 2, reo type 2, and vaccinia viruses, but not adeno type 12, in KB cells. The higher molecular portion showed no antiviral activity in KB cells, although it showed activity in mice against EMC infection.Although both the lower and higher molecular portions of tobacco extract protected mice from EMC paralysis after a single pre-treatment, neither induced serum interferon.
Haptics in virtual reality and multimedia

Imagine that you're chatting with a good friend who tells you about her new cashmere pullover, and that you're able to touch it and appreciate the soft sensation of the cashmere wool - remotely over the Web in your virtual chatroom! In this article, the authors present their work on haptic sensing of virtual textiles. This is work done in the context of the Haptex research project that aims at integrating the human sense of touch into multimodal user interfaces. Being able to support haptic perception in the user interface will be a great step toward next-generation immersive multimedia experiences
Analysis of imperative XML programs

The widespread adoption of XML has led to programming languages that support XML as a first class construct. In this paper, we present a method for analyzing and optimizing imperative XML processing programs. In particular, we present a program analysis, based on a flow-sensitive type system, for detecting both redundant computations and redundant traversals in such programs. The analysis handles imperative loops that traverse XML values explicitly and declarative queries over XML data in a uniform framework. We describe two optimizations that take advantage of our analysis: one merges queries that traverse the same set of XML nodes, and the other replaces an XPath expression by a previously computed result. We demonstrate performance improvements for selected XMark benchmark queries and XLinq sample queries.
Compression of binary sources with side information at the decoder using LDPC codes

We show how low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes can be used to compress close to the Slepian-Wolf limit for correlated binary sources. Focusing on the asymmetric case of compression of an equiprobable memoryless binary source with side information at the decoder, the approach is based on viewing the correlation as a channel and applying the syndrome concept. The encoding and decoding procedures are explained in detail. The performance achieved is seen to be better than recently published results using turbo codes and very close to the Slepian-Wolf limit.
Improved Privacy-Preserving Bayesian Network Parameter Learning on Vertically Partitioned Data

Privacy concerns often prevent different parties from sharing their data in order to carry out data mining applications on their joint data. Privacy-preserving data mining seeks to address this by enabling parties to jointly compute a data mining algorithm on distributed data without sharing their data. In this paper, we address a particular data mining problem, that of learning the parameters of Bayesian network on a vertically partitioned database. We provide a simple privacy-preserving protocol for learning the parameters of Bayesian network on vertically partitioned databases. In comparison to the previously known solution for this problem (Meng, Sivakumar, and Kargupta, 2004), our solution provides better performance, full privacy, and complete accuracy. In combination with our previous work on privacy-preserving learning of Bayesian network structure on vertically partitioned databases, this work provides a complete privacy-preserving protocol for learning Bayesian networks (both structure and parameters) on vertically partitioned data, with very little overhead beyond computing the structure alone.
Effects of age and sex on intra-group spacing behaviour in juvenile savannah baboons, Papio cynocephalus cynocephalus

Abstract Twenty juvenile members of known genealogies in two baboon groups were studied over a 16-month period to evaluate a number of predictions about juvenile spacing behaviour based on the natural history of savannah baboons. Young juveniles (1–2·5 years old) approached more frequently and spent more time in proximity to other group members than did old juveniles (3–5·5 years old). In particular, young juveniles associated more closely with their mothers, particular adult males (possible fathers) and age-peers than did old juveniles. Approaches of young juveniles towards unrelated, high-ranking adults were more likely to occur during feeding than were those of old juveniles. Also, following such an approach, young juveniles were more likely than old juveniles to begin feeding immediately. The overall rates of feeding of old juveniles were depressed when they were in proximity to unrelated, high-ranking adults, whereas the feeding rates of young juveniles were not. Juvenile males approached adult males more often than did juvenile females. Juvenile females approached unrelated adult females more often than did juvenile males. Sex differences also existed in juveniles' choices of unrelated adult female neighbours. Juvenile females associated most often with lactating females, whereas juvenile males associated primarily with cycling females. During group resting, juvenile females approached adult females from higher-ranking matrilines more often than they approached adult females from lower-ranking matrilines. Juvenile males did not exhibit this attraction. Also, among old juveniles, females associated closely with their mothers, whereas males did not. Taken together, the results support the hypotheses that juvenile baboons associate with group members in ways that (1) enhance the probability of surviving an early period of high mortality, (2) create opportunities for social learning of sex-typical behaviours/skills, and, for females, (3) facilitate acquisition of familial dominance status.
Accessing the Alexandria Digital Library from geographic information systems

We describe two experimental desktop library clients that offer improved access to geospatial data via the Alexandria Digital Library (ADL): ArcADL, an extension to ESRI's ArcView GIS, and vtADL, an extension to the Virtual Terrain Project's Enviro terrain visualization package. ArcADL provides a simplified user interface to ADL's powerful underlying distributed geospatial search technology. Both clients use the ADL Access Framework to access library data that is available in multiple formats and retrievable by multiple methods. Issues common to both clients and future scenarios are also considered.
Electrically stimulated aerosol filtration in packed beds

Since charged particles are quite mobile in an electric field, charge is often added to aerosol particles to facilitate capture; indeed, provision for such charging is an indispensable part of electrostatic precipitators. Nevertheless, calculations disclose that a very slight amount of charge may suffice when the distance the aerosol particle must travel to the collector surface is small, contrary to the usual situation. In the experiments described, here, a model aerosol containing 0.5 μm polystyrene particles passed through a radioactive charge neutralizer to deliberately reduce the charge as much as practicable and then through a packed bed under the influence of a fairly large external electric field. Filtration efficiencies approaching 100% were obtained owing to the influence of the field on small amounts of residual charge.
Asset Decommissioning Risk Metrics for Floating Structures in the Gulf of Mexico

Public companies in the United States are required to report standardized values of their proved reserves and asset retirement obligations on an annual basis. When compared, these two measures provide an aggregate indicator of corporate decommissioning risk but, because of their consolidated nature, cannot readily be decomposed at a more granular level. The purpose of this article is to introduce a decommissioning risk metric defined in terms of the ratio of the expected value of an asset's reserves to its expected cost of decommissioning. Asset decommissioning risk (ADR) is more difficult to compute than a consolidated corporate risk measure, but can be used to quantify the decommissioning risk of structures and to perform regional comparisons, and also provides market signals of future decommissioning activity. We formalize two risk metrics for decommissioning and apply the ADR metric to the deepwater Gulf of Mexico (GOM) floater inventory. Deepwater oil and gas structures are expensive to construct, and at the end of their useful life, will be expensive to decommission. The value of proved reserves for the 42 floating structures in the GOM circa January 2013 is estimated to range between $37 and $80 billion for future oil prices between 60 and 120 $/bbl, which is about 10 to 20 times greater than the estimated $4.3 billion to decommission the inventory. Eni's Allegheny and MC Offshore's Jolliet tension leg platforms have ADR metrics less than one and are approaching the end of their useful life. Application of the proposed metrics in the regulatory review of supplemental bonding requirements in the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf is suggested to complement the current suite of financial metrics employed.
Body electrical impedance measurements: body fat or body fluid?

An electrical impedance measuring scale (Tanita Model TBF-551) was used to make repeated estimations of the body fat of an adult male subject undergoing dietary changes that resulted in a 4.7 kg weight increase. The results showed that the body fat decreased approximately 3 kg with the weight gain. Over a period of five days of normal diet and activity the body fat change returned to the control condition. It appeared the weight gain was caused mainly by fluid changes not a body fat increase. The results suggest serious errors can occur in body fat estimates based on body impedance measurements, but use as a fluid change indicator may be possible.
Automatically Optimizing Utterance Classification Performance without Human in the Loop.

The Utterance Classification (UC) method has become a developer’s choice over traditional Context Free Grammars (CFGs) for voice menus in telephony applications. This data driven method achieves higher accuracy and has great potential to utilize a huge amount of labeled training data. But, having a human manually label the training data can be expensive. This paper provides a robust recipe for training a UC system using inexpensive acoustic data with limited transcriptions or semantic labels. It also describes two new algorithms that use caller confirmation, which naturally occurred within a dialog, to generate pseudo semantic labels. Experimental results show that, after having sufficient labeled data to achieve a reasonable accuracy, both of our algorithms can use unlabeled data to achieve the same performance as a system trained with labeled data, while completely eliminating the need for human supervision. Index Terms: Call Routing, Statistical grammars, Spoken language understanding (SLU), Utterance Classification (UC)
CTK: configurable object abstractions for multiprocessors

The Configuration Toolkit (CTK) is a library for constructing configurable object based abstractions that are part of multiprocessor programs or operating systems. The library is unique in its exploration of runtime configuration for attaining performance improvements: 1) its programming model facilitates the expression and implementation of program configuration; and 2) its efficient runtime support enables performance improvements by the configuration of program components during their execution. Program configuration is attained without compromising the encapsulation or the reuse of software abstractions. CTK programs are configured using attributes associated with object classes, object instances, state variables, operations, and object invocations. At runtime, such attributes are interpreted by policy classes, which may be varied separately from the abstractions with which they are associated. Using policies and attributes, an object's runtime behavior may be varied by: 1) changing its performance or reliability while preserving the implementation of its functional behavior, or 2) changing the implementation of its internal computational strategy. CTK's multiprocessor implementation is layered on a Cthreads-compatible programming library, which results in its portability to a wide variety of uni- and multiprocessor machines, including a Kendall Square KSR-2 Supercomputer, SGI machines, various SUN workstations, and as a native kernel on the GP1000 BBN Butterfly multiprocessor. The platforms evaluated in the paper are the KSR and SGI machines.
Robust Adaptive 3-D Segmentation of Vessel Laminae From Fluorescence Confocal Microscope Images and Parallel GPU Implementation

This paper presents robust 3-D algorithms to segment vasculature that is imaged by labeling laminae, rather than the lumenal volume. The signal is weak, sparse, noisy, nonuniform, low-contrast, and exhibits gaps and spectral artifacts, so adaptive thresholding and Hessian filtering based methods are not effective. The structure deviates from a tubular geometry, so tracing algorithms are not effective. We propose a four step approach. The first step detects candidate voxels using a robust hypothesis test based on a model that assumes Poisson noise and locally planar geometry. The second step performs an adaptive region growth to extract weakly labeled and fine vessels while rejecting spectral artifacts. To enable interactive visualization and estimation of features such as statistical confidence, local curvature, local thickness, and local normal, we perform the third step. In the third step, we construct an accurate mesh representation using marching tetrahedra, volume-preserving smoothing, and adaptive decimation algorithms. To enable topological analysis and efficient validation, we describe a method to estimate vessel centerlines using a ray casting and vote accumulation algorithm which forms the final step of our algorithm. Our algorithm lends itself to parallel processing, and yielded an 8× speedup on a graphics processor (GPU). On synthetic data, our meshes had average error per face (EPF) values of (0.1-1.6) voxels per mesh face for peak signal-to-noise ratios from (110-28 dB). Separately, the error from decimating the mesh to less than 1% of its original size, the EPF was less than 1 voxel/face. When validated on real datasets, the average recall and precision values were found to be 94.66% and 94.84%, respectively.
The PIC cystogram: a novel approach to identify "occult" vesicoureteral reflux in children with febrile urinary tract infections.

ABSTRACTPurpose: When the standard cystogram does not show vesicoureteral reflux in children who have experienced febrile urinary tract infections (UTIs), clinical management is controversial. We postulated that vesicoureteral reflux accounts for such UTIs but is “occult.” We tested this hypothesis by using a novel method, PIC cystography (Positioning the Instillation of Contrast at the ureteral orifice) at the time of cystoscopy.Materials and Methods: We performed PIC cystography with instillation of contrast medium at the ureteral orifice consecutively and prospectively in 57 children who underwent cystoscopy between November 1999 and February 2002 to evaluate febrile UTIs in 40 patients, dysfunctional voiding in 14 and hydronephrosis in 3. The control group (27 patients, 54 renal units) was used to assess the accuracy of PIC by comparing the results against those with the standard cystogram in children who did not have febrile infection and did not demonstrate vesicoureteral reflux (15 patients, 30 ren...
The Tea Party, Sarah Palin, and the 2010 Congressional Elections: The Aftermath of the Election of Barack Obama

Objective Sarah Palin and the Tea Party played active roles in endorsing candidates for the U.S. House in 2010; we explore whether they followed different strategies. Palin proved more careful in backing candidates while the decentralized Tea Party movement often became involved in hopeless causes. Method We analyze the endorsements made by Palin and the Tea Party in contests involving House seats held by Democrats going into the 2010 elections. Results We show that Palin and the Tea Party had different endorsement approaches. Conclusions Palin's endorsements seem to have been guided by more strategic considerations than those from the Tea Party. The Tea Party concentrated more on trying to defeat incumbents and especially incumbents who had supported the Obama legislative package with the stimulus bill being a lightning rod for Tea Partiers. Palin proved far more selective in making endorsements and concentrated more on backing challengers likely to unseat Democrats. Although she endorsed less than half as many races as the Tea Party, she backed almost as many winners.
Finding bugs efficiently with a SAT solver

We present an approach for checking code against rich specifications, based on existing work that consists of encoding the program in a relational logic and using a constraint solver to find specification violations. We improve the efficiency of this approach with a new encoding of the program that effectively slices it at the logical level with respect to the specification. We also present new encodings for integer values and arrays, enabling the verification of realistic fragments of code that manipulate both. Our technique can handle integers of much larger ranges than previously possible, and permits large sparse arrays to be handled efficiently.We present a soundness proof for our slicing algorithm and a general condition under which relational formulae may be sliced. We implemented our technique and evaluated it by checking data structure invariants of several classes taken from the Java Collections Framework. We also checked for violations of Java's equality contract in a variety of open-source programs, and found several bugs.
Cost-Volume-Profit Analysis for a Multi-Product Company: Micro Approach

Cost-volume-profit (CVP) analysis is one of the most common-and-important chapters in an introductory managerial accounting course. While a CVP analysis for a single-product company is relatively easier to be illustrated, the CVP analysis for a multi-product company necessarily takes extra steps to illustrate. For the case of a multi-product company having a sales mix ratio among their products, this study developed a micro approach to the handling of decimals, if appearing, when the company finds their break-even point and target profit point. This study exemplifies how the developed approach gets to closer answers to a break-even point and a target profit point than an existing approach.
MINIMIZING COSOLVENT REQUIREMENTS FOR MICROEMULSION FORMED WITH BINARY SURFACTANT MIXTURES

ABSTRACT The role of alcohols in microemulsion formation is primarily two-fold. They function as cosolvents by modifying surfactant partitioning between the aqueous and oleic phases and they function as cosurfactants stabilizing microemulsion to the exclusion of unbounaed structures such as liquid crystals, gels or precipitates. Given the freedom of choice among surfactants and their mixtures, the former role of the alcohol can easily be obviated. However, the latter requirement is more fundamental and not so easily removed. This study provides guidance in the purposeful construction of mixtures of synthetic surfactants which can minimize or eliminate alcohol requirements, depending on temperature and salinity. The approach Involves mixing straight tailed (high solubilization parameter) species with mid-chain branched (low cosolvent requirement) species in a spectrum of mole ratios and identifying the minimum alcohol concentration for stable microemulsion. A number of acceptable systems were found.
Evolutionary maximum entropy spectral analysis

We extend maximum entropy (ME) spectral analysis to non-stationary signals using the theory of the Wold-Cramer evolutionary spectrum. The evolutionary maximum entropy (EME) problem reduces to the fitting of a time-varying autoregressive model to the Fourier coefficients of the evolutionary spectrum. The model parameters are efficiently found by means of the Levinson algorithm. In the non-stationary case it is not the autocorrelation function that provides the appropriate data for the EME analysis, but rather the Fourier coefficients of the evolutionary spectrum. An estimator of these coefficients is proposed. By means of examples we show the EME estimator provides higher frequency resolution and better sidelobe behavior than existing estimators of the evolutionary spectrum. >
Finite element modeling of a MMIC transmitter module for thermal/structural design optimization

The complex mechanical design of a MMIC (microwave/millimeter wave monolithic integrated circuit) transmitter module and successful integration of it into a higher assembly required that a comprehensive mechanical analytical approach be adopted. This was accomplished by designing and constructing an integrated thermal/structural finite element model of the module and the assembly. The thermal model consisted of a 3200-element primary model with a supplemental model of the output FET region, containing another 5000 elements. A structural version of the primary thermal model performed the structural analyses. A key feature of the model construction and use was the internal coupling of the primary and supplemental thermal models and the structural models, eliminating manual interfacing and approximations which should improve accuracy and speed. >
Group Prenatal Care Outcomes in a Military Population: A Retrospective Cohort Study

ABSTRACT Objective: To evaluate pregnancy outcomes in Centering Pregnancy patients. Methods: This was an IRB-approved retrospective cohort study from November 2009 to January 2013 involving 202 Centering Pregnancy patients and 202 Certified Nurse Midwife patients. The primary outcome was mean gestational age at time of delivery. Secondary outcomes included cesarean and operative vaginal delivery rate, triage visit frequency, Neonatal Intensive Care Unit admission rate, 1 and 5 minute APGAR scores, birth weight, breastfeeding rate at discharge and 6 weeks postpartum, third and fourth degree laceration rate, weight gain in pregnancy, and excessive weight gain rate. Results: There was no statistically significant difference in any obstetric outcome including preterm delivery rate. Centering Pregnancy patients were more likely to be active duty (52.0 vs. 35.6%, p = 0.001), younger (24.8 vs. 26.3 years old, p < 0.001), and nulliparous (75.2 vs. 56.9%, p < 0.001). There was a statistically significant increase ...
Fossils at a Glance

Fossils at a Glance. 2004. Clare Milsom and Sue Rigby. Blackwell Publishing, 155 p., ISBN 0-6320-6047-6. I am always searching for the next great introductory-level paleontology book, particularly a reasonably priced one. It is also a plus to find a book that presents aspects of both the theoretical and the factual, as doing so means I may not have to require several books for my course. Given that I teach at a small state university, and many of my students work to pay for their education, cost is definitely a factor when I consider texts. When I was asked to review the softcover Fossils at a Glance —which retails at about $30.00, a real bargain compared to the price of other paperback paleontology texts currently available—I was very much hoping I had struck gold. The “good news” first: I like several aspects of the book. It does include material on vertebrates, plants, microfossils, and trace fossils, as well as the usual invertebrate taxa. The illustrations are nicely drawn. Each chapter begins with a bulleted list of major points to be covered and ends with a glossary. And each page is self-contained, although this format does occasionally create what feels like an artificially abrupt termination of the topic at page's end. That is pretty much it for the “good news” part of this review. Once I began to examine the text more closely, I encountered one error or problem after another. I admit …
HAPPINESS—AND UNHAPPINESS—AS LEGALLY SIGNIFICANT CATEGORIES IN JEWISH LAW

This essay seeks to place happiness and sadness as values in their proper place in the Jewish legal tradition—as secondary concerns that are properly invoked and considered in cases where Jewish law is indefinite and unclear. This article provides a number of illustrative examples where such is done, and it then seeks to place happiness and its related values in their proper place in Jewish law as compared to other second-tier principles.
Large Form Factor Hybrid LGA Interconnects; Recent Applications and Technical Learning

Recent high-end server design trends have continued to challenge electronic packaging engineers to design and integrate larger form factor land grid array (LGA) attached modules within their assemblies. These trends have included the application of larger, denser, organic packaged modules whose electrical performance and postencapsulation physical characteristics have been enabled by both the continued development of hybrid LGA connectors as well as new module actuation hardware designs. In this paper, we'll discuss these recent trends, including the specific technical attributes and challenges that need to be addressed to ensure a repeatable and reliable assembly design is developed. Initially, overviews of the latest connector and module design trends, including styles and physical sizes and their implications to the module's bottom surface metallurgy (BSM) flatness requirements, etc. are provided. Pursuant to this, recent system integration trending is reviewed; including both the module quantity per s...
The Static Structure and Dynamics of Cadmium Sulfide Nanoparticles within Poly(styrene‐block‐isoprene) Diblock Copolymer Melts

The static structure and dynamic behavior of cadmium sulfide nanoparticles suspended in block copolymer matrix are investigated using transmission electron microscopy, small-angle X-ray scattering, and X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy. The transmission electron microscopy study shows that cadmium sulfide nanoparticles are preferentially segregated within the polyisoprene domain of a poly(styrene-block-isoprene) diblock copolymer. For the dynamics study, X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy captures the relaxation process of cadmium sulfide nanoparticles. The measured characteristic relaxation time reveals that the observed dynamics are hyperdiffusive. The characteristic velocity and corresponding activation energy, which are hallmarks of a hyperdiffusive system, are determined from the relationship between the characteristic relaxation time and the wavevector.
Comment on Lockwood

Michael Lockwood has, with his usual elegance and fluency, laid out a careful and accessible overview of Everett's ideas and some of the ways in which they have been developed, not least by himself. Although there are important areas of disagreement between us, there are a number of essential things on which we agree. The criticisms that follow, then, may give a misleading impression of the debt that I for one owe to Lockwood's writings. The areas of disagreement are important, however; one concerns the overall aspect of the account, focusing as it does on mentality and the nature of consciousness. The other concerns probability, and in particular the hypothesis, originally formulated by Deutsch, that for each component of the state there exists a continuous infinity of physically identical worlds, or, as understood by Lockwood, of identical minds. The same hypothesis, arrived at by slightly different reasoning, is made by Albert and Loewer. In my view Everett's views can be consistently developed without either of these features; mentality per se has no more fundamental a role here than in classic physics, and the infinite multiplicities can be dispensed with. In what follows I will focus on the former claim. I have argued for the latter elsewhere:1 here I will only say that once Albert's and Loewer's
The brain-to-pancreatic islet neuronal map reveals differential glucose regulation from distinct hypothalamic regions

The brain influences glucose homeostasis, partly by supplemental control over insulin and glucagon secretion. Without this central regulation, diabetes and its complications can ensue. Yet, the neuronal network linking to pancreatic islets has never been fully mapped. Here, we refine this map using pseudorabies virus (PRV) retrograde tracing, indicating that the pancreatic islets are innervated by efferent circuits that emanate from the hypothalamus. We found that the hypothalamic arcuate nucleus (ARC), ventromedial nucleus (VMN), and lateral hypothalamic area (LHA) significantly overlap PRV and the physiological glucose-sensing enzyme glucokinase. Then, experimentally lowering glucose sensing, specifically in the ARC, resulted in glucose intolerance due to deficient insulin secretion and no significant effect in the VMN, but in the LHA it resulted in a lowering of the glucose threshold that improved glucose tolerance and/or improved insulin sensitivity, with an exaggerated counter-regulatory response for glucagon secretion. No significant effect on insulin sensitivity or metabolic homeostasis was noted. Thus, these data reveal novel direct neuronal effects on pancreatic islets and also render a functional validation of the brain-to-islet neuronal map. They also demonstrate that distinct regions of the hypothalamus differentially control insulin and glucagon secretion, potentially in partnership to help maintain glucose homeostasis and guard against hypoglycemia.
Analysis of genotypes of hantavirus isolates in Hangzhou

Objective:To study the genotypes of hantavirus carrying Rodent in Hangzhou.Methods:Four hantavirus strains,which were positive by antigen immunofluorescence assay,were analyzed by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction(RT-PCR),nucleotide sequence and cell culture.Results:Two cell lesions sequence revealed that the segment M belongs to seoul virus.The homology of segment M was above 85% between this seoul virus and other seoul virus,and was 70% between this seoul virus and Hantaan virus.Genotype of two hantavirus strains was S3 sub-type of seoul virus,whose homology with BjHD01(DQ133505)was 99%.Conclusion:S3 sub-type of seoul virus is probably the main Genotypes of hantavirus strains in Hangzhou.
83 RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW OF CHEMOTHERAPY RESPONSE IN LARGE CELL NEUROENDOCRINE CARCINOMA OF THE LUNG.

Purpose The objective of our study was to assess chemotherapy treatment with regards to radiographic or clinical response along with survival in patients with large cell neuroendocrine carcinoma of the lung. Methods Eleven patients were identified, and the type of chemotherapy, best response, and overall survival were assessed in each patient. Results One patient with stage IB disease underwent surgical lobectomy, relapsed 23.1 months later, and obtained stable disease with paclitaxel and carboplatin with an overall survival of 31.7 months. One with stage IIA disease recurred 57 months following surgical lobectomy and received no response to etoposide and carboplatin with an overall survival of 76 months. Two patients with stage III disease were identified, and one with stage IIIA disease achieved a partial response and overall survival of 7.7 months with etoposide and carboplatin. The other patient with stage IIIB disease experienced stable disease with paclitaxel and carboplatin with an overall survival of 12.8 months. The remaining seven patients had stage IV disease at the time of diagnosis. Four of these patients received etoposide and platinum chemotherapy, with one patient experiencing stable disease and an overall survival of 18 months. One patient had no response to etoposide and platinum, with an overall survival of 0.5 months from the time of diagnosis. The remaining two patients who received etoposide and platinum achieved a partial response and complete response with overall survivals of 10.3 months and 36.4 months, respectively. Three patients wit stage IV disease received paclitaxel and platinum, with one patient experiencing stable disease with an overall survival of 14.1 months. The other two patients who received paclitaxel and platinum achieved no response with overall survivals of 7.2 months and 7.6 months. Conclusions The response of large cell neuroendocrine carcinoma of the lung to chemotherapy is poor regardless of the treatment strategy when employing classic small cell lung cancer or non-small cell lung cancer regimens. Optimal therapy for early-stage disease in this review was resection, but both cases eventually recurred.
Building a Business Case for Compressed Natural Gas in Fleet Applications

Natural gas is a clean-burning, abundant, and domestically produced source of energy. Compressed natural gas (CNG) has recently garnered interest as a transportation fuel because of these attributes and because of its cost savings and price stability compared to conventional petroleum fuels. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) developed the Vehicle Infrastructure and Cash-Flow Evaluation (VICE) model to help businesses and fleets evaluate the financial soundness of CNG vehicle and CNG fueling infrastructure projects.
Time to move on.

LIKE HISTORY, nursing repeats itself. Many of the issues and concerns with which we struggle today have been with us in some form or another for more than 100 years. I recently reviewed the history of nursing to look at particular decisions that continue to affect the profession. I also surveyed contemporary nurses to obtain their views on how we are doing as a profession in the areas of education, practice and policy. After more than 30 years in the profession, my suspicions were confirmed that there remain issues without resolution. One of the most important themes is that we have become increasingly separated from one another. This disunity began early in the 20th century, when nurses from the middle and upper classes took it upon themselves to dictate the terms of the profession. This was met with discontent from working class nurses, who could neither afford fancy training schools nor afford not to work. The chasm has grown wider as we have, inadvertently perhaps, conveyed the message to students and nurses that one must obtain a graduate education and move away from the bedside as soon as possible. While it would be ideal for all nurses to have an entry-level graduate education, this message should not imply that staying at the bedside is less valued than being a manager or academic. Another theme that continues is our determination to teach students to think critically and to have a broad liberal education. Our early nurse training schools emphasised the importance of critical thinking and a well rounded education. Rigour was a major concern and remains so today.
Abstract 2520: IRS-1/LC3 nuclear structures and glioblastoma drug resistance

Drug resistance and frequent tumor relapses are the major obstacles in glioblastoma therapy, and recurrent tumors are practically incurable. We previously reported that insulin receptor substrate 1 (IRS-1), which is a typical signaling molecule for insulin and insulin-like growth factor 1 receptors, can translocate to nucleus, and that nuclear IRS-1 (nIRS-1) was found in different tumor cells, including glioblastomas. To unravel its function, we employed glioblastoma cell culture, animal models, and clinical samples. Using confocal imaging, molecular cloning, subcellular fractionation, mass spectrometry, gene expression analysis, and different approaches to verify protein-protein interactions, we demonstrate for the first time that nIRS-1 can form complex nuclear structures in a restricted number of cancer cells in glioblastoma biopsies and in intracranial glioblastoma xenografts. We also demonstrated the formation of highly organized ring-like structures in several cell lines, following ectopic expression of IRS-1 cloned in frame with nuclear localization signal (NLS-IRS-1). In these nuclear structures IRS-1 localizes at the periphery, and the core of the structure harbors a key autophagy protein, LC3; however, other autophagy proteins or biological membranes were not detected. In living cells expressing NLS-IRS-1-GFP fusion protein, IRS-1/LC3 structures are highly dynamic. They rapidly exchange IRS-1 molecules with nucleoplasm and interact with other nuclear complexes including BMI1-positive Polycomb bodies, PML bodies and Cajal bodies. Importantly, clones and mixed populations of cells expressing the NLS-IRS-1 and capable of forming the IRS-1/LC3 ring-like structures undergo extensive remodeling of gene expression, which suggests a transition to stem-like phenotype and associated resistance to several different anticancer drugs, including temozolomide. This is the first demonstration of IRS-1/LC3 nuclear complexes, which are highly dynamic and may play a role in epigenetic remodeling of glioblastoma cells towards stemness. Further studies are required to determine detailed molecular composition and to explain how these new nuclear structures function. Citation Format: Adam Lassak, Dorota Wyczechowska, Anna Wilk, Adriana Zapata, Mathew Dean, Luis DelValle, Jann N. Sarkaria, Augusto Ochoas, Francesca Peruzzi, Krzysztof Reiss. IRS-1/LC3 nuclear structures and glioblastoma drug resistance. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr 2520.
A rodent model of social rejection

Rats help conspecifics by releasing them from a restrainer only when they have previous social experience with the strain of the restrained rat. When rats have been cross-fostered with rats of a different strain than their own since birth and have never interacted with rats of their own strain, they do not help rats of their own strain when tested as adults. Here we interrogated whether a cross-fostered rat expressed his lack of motivation to help through any behaviors beyond not-helping. Accordingly, a cross-fostered rat was placed in an arena with a trapped rat and the door to the centrally located restrainer was taped shut. We found that cross-fostered rats moved more slowly and approached the trapped rat less than did control, regularly-raised rats tested under the same conditions. We then asked whether the behavior of the cross-fostered rats influenced the trapped rat. After being restrained with cross-fostered rats, trapped rats showed a decrease in exploratory behavior in an open field test compared to trapped rats who were raised normally. The same decrease in movement was observed after subject rats were allowed to freely interact with cross-fostered rats. These results suggest that rats that do not help demonstrate their disinterest to a trapped rat and that trapped rats exposed to apathetic rats show behavior suggestive of an increase in anxiety. In sum, the paradigm introduced here could serve as a rodent model for social rejection.
Axial vector Z ′ and anomaly cancellation

Whilst the prospect of new Z′ gauge bosons with only axial couplings to the Standard Model (SM) fermions is widely discussed, examples of anomaly-free renormalisable models are lacking in the literature. We look to remedy this by constructing several motivated examples. Specifically, we consider axial vectors which couple universally to all SM fermions, as well as those which are generation-specific, leptophilic, and leptophobic. Anomaly cancellation typically requires the presence of new coloured and charged chiral fermions, and we argue that in a large class of models masses of these new states are expected to be comparable to that of the axial vector. Finally, an axial vector mediator could provide a portal between SM and hidden sector states, and we also consider the possibility that the axial vector couples to dark matter. If the dark matter relic density is set due to freeze-out via the axial vector, this strongly constrains the parameter space.
Effectiveness of continuous glucose monitoring in children, adolescents, and young adults with poorly controlled type 1 diabetes.

Objective The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) on glycemic control in children, adolescents, and young adults ages 7–21 years with poorly controlled diabetes HbA1c 9.0% or more (74 mmol/mol IFCC). Materials and Methods The primary outcome was improvement in HbA1c. The secondary outcome included self-reported hypoglycemia. This 12-week study used a prospective, one-group, pre- and posttest pre-experimental design with a convenience sample. The study used the Medtronic Guardian CGM with Enlite Sensor. Results and Conclusions Thirty-three subjects enrolled in the study. The mean age of the participants was 15.57 years, range was 11–20 years, 47.6% were male, and 52.4% were female. Twenty-one (63.6%) completed the final study visit. There was a clinically and statistically significant reduction of 1.46 (SD = 1.6711) (p = .001) in HbA1c at 12 weeks. Fifteen of the 21 participants (71.4%) had an HbA1c reduction of greater than 0.5%. The CGM monitor was worn a mean of 4.262 days a week. None of the subjects reported significant hypoglycemia while wearing the monitor. CGM was effective in improving glycemic control in this population with poorly controlled diabetes.
Basic Considerations for Equipment Design

Meteorological instruments have been made for almost 400 years. In that time the complications introduced by increasing demands on the instrument maker have about kept pace with the ability of technology to cope with them. The elapsed time from original concept to finished instrument has not greatly changed.
Where does (sign) language begin

Goldin-Meadow & Brentari (G-M&B) outline several criteria for delineating the boundaries between (discrete) signs and (continuous) gestures. However, the complex links between linguistics forms and their phonetic realizations defy such heuristics. A systematic exploration of language structure by mouth and by hand may help get us closer to answering the important challenge outlined in this target article.
Global Solution Strategies for the Network-Constrained Unit Commitment Problem With AC Transmission Constraints

We propose a novel global solution algorithm for the network-constrained unit commitment problem that incorporates a nonlinear alternating current (ac) model of the transmission network, which is a nonconvex mixed-integer nonlinear programming problem. Our algorithm is based on the multi-tree global optimization methodology, which iterates between a mixed-integer lower-bounding problem and a nonlinear upper-bounding problem. We exploit the mathematical structure of the unit commitment problem with ac power flow constraints and leverage second-order cone relaxations, piecewise outer approximations, and optimization-based bounds tightening to provide a globally optimal solution at convergence. Numerical results on four benchmark problems illustrate the effectiveness of our algorithm, both in terms of convergence rate and solution quality.
Revealing the X/O impedance mismatch: changing lead into gold

We take the term X/O impedance mismatch to describe the difficulty of the OO paradigm to accommodate XML processing by means of recasting it to typed OO programming. In particular, given XML types (say, XML schemas), it is notoriously difficult to map them automatically to object types (say, object models) that (i) reasonably compare to native object types typically devised by OO developers; (ii) fully preserve the intent of the original XML types; (iii) fully support round-tripping of arbitrary, valid XML data; and (iv) provide a general and convenient programming model for XML data hosted by objects. We reveal the X/O impedance mismatch in particular detail. That is, we survey the relevant differences between XML and objects in terms of their data models and their type systems. In this process, we systematically record and assess X-to-O mapping options. Our illustrations employ XSD (1.0) as the XML-schema language of choice and C# (1.0-3.0) as the bound of OO language expressiveness.
Rapid Learning-Based and Geologically Consistent History Matching

Various types of data become available at different stages of a reservoir’s life. The production data are integrated into the flow simulation models through a process referred to as history matching. The history-matching process is iterative, and it usually involves a large number of simulation runs. Hence, this process requires significant computational time. In most history-matching methods, the initial geological assumptions in the reservoir model are destroyed or significantly altered in the process. Furthermore, they do not account for the information obtained during the previous trials, and lack learning from the previous failures. In this paper, we introduce a new methodology that maintains the geological realism. The candidate realizations are selected through a learning-based history-matching (LHM) algorithm by which all the previously successful patterns are preserved and used to assist the construction of the next realizations. The various pieces of matching regions are assembled together to make a pool of the successful candidates. Such regions are then utilized for making an auxiliary dataset in a multiscale framework by which the next model is generated. To prevent from trapping in local minima, ideas from the genetic algorithm is adapted. The LHM algorithm can be applied to both categorical and continuous distributions. The LHM provides a conditional map by which the new production data are immediately incorporated into the existing reservoir models. We apply the LHM algorithm to various 2D and 3D examples with very complex binary and continuous properties. The algorithm is shown to produce history-matched models with significantly smaller CPU times.